Section:GDN 1N PaGe:1 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 3/2/2021 21:05 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

Jeff Free delivery for six weeks

Get the
G t Guardian sent to your home

Bezos with no delivery charge  Page 2

Thursday

and the 4 February 2021

£2.20
From £1.75 for subscribers
world
Amazon
made
 The long read
re
ead
Journal

Coughing History woman

risks to NHS King among
three female

staff ‘greater’ directors vying

for top award

than feared
News Page 17 

someone with Covid-19, or suspected

Exclusive
Linda Geddes
Science correspondent
The NHS has been urged to rethink
safety for thousands of frontline staff
after new research suggested that
Covid-19 patients’ coughing was put-
ting them at far greater risk of catching
the virus than previously thought.
The study found that coughing
generated at least 10 times more infec-
tious “aerosol” particles than speaking
or breathing – which could explain why
so many NHS staff have fallen ill.
The research has led to fresh
demands that anyone caring for
‘A cough really is a
potent generator of
aerosols. The risk
appears far greater
than we assumed’
Dr James Dodd
Study lead
Covid-19, should be provided with the
most protective equipment – including
FFP3 respirator masks – and that hos-
pital ventilation should be improved.
Health workers are up to four times
more likely to contract the virus than
the general population, with infection
rates among those on general wards
approximately double those of inten-
sive care unit (ICU) staff – who do have
access to the most protective PPE.
This access to higher PPE protection
was based on the assumption that ICU
wards are more dangerous because
treatments such as continuous
positive airway pressure (CPAP),
used to support patients’ breathing,
generated large amounts of aerosols
– which linger in the air and can be
breathed into the lungs.
Staff working in other hospital
areas, GP surgeries and care homes
are issued with looser-fitting surgical
masks, which afford little protection
against these tiny particles, but block
larger virus-carrying droplets.
The new research , which has
not yet been peer-reviewed, turns
these assumptions on
2 
their head. “CPAP is not
PHOTOGRAPH: JAMIE SIMONDS/BAFTA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

UK gives 10m people

first dose of vaccine
Dan Sabbagh and Josh Halliday
Britain has given a first dose of a
coronavirus vaccine to more than
10 million people, with public health
experts now calling on ministers to
target future vaccinations in hotspots
•
where the disease is threatening to run
out of control.
Official figures from across the UK’s
four nations showed that 374,756 peo-
ple received a jab on Tuesday, taking
the headline total to just over the mile-
stone at 10.02m, less than two months
after the programme began.
If the current rate continues, then
the UK will be on track to have given
a dose to the 15 million people in the
top four priority groups by mid Feb-
ruary. At this rate it should also have
given jabs to those in the remaining
five priority groups, another 17 mil-
lion people, by early April, just after
Easter, at the point where the need for
second jabs begins.
Boris Johnson praised NHS staff
for delivering the vaccine, describing
the programme as “the most colossal
in the history of our National Health
Service”. Nearly 90% of all over-75s in
England had already received a jab, the
prime minister added.
The latest figures also showed that
1,322 were recorded in the previous 24
hours, taking the overall number of
CBI calls for
Covid-19 related deaths in the UK to
109,335. There were 19,202 more cases
reboot on the
reported yesterday and a total of 32,851
people were still in hospital. scale of 1945
The chief medical officer for Eng-
land, Chris Whitty, who joined Johnson Leader says huge
at the briefing, said said it was too early
to see any positive impact from the investment needed to
vaccinations because so many had
taken place so recently.
cope with Brexit, Covid
The prime minister also promised and climate change
he would say “a bit more”
about future phases of the
4  Financial Page 27 
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:2 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 21:00 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

Inside 4/2/21 News

Four sections every weekday

Call for PPE rethink in NHS

According to data from the Office
News and Sport for National Statistics, at least 883
health and care workers died of Covid

Great escape after coughing risks found
British-Iranian tells how he
smuggled himself out of to be ‘greater’ than feared
Iran to avoid a jail term
Page 18
Continued from page 1
Cycling aerosol-generating – in fact, the aer-
osols are reduced compared to just
Geraint Thomas to lead the normal breathing and speaking,” said
Ineos Grenadiers at this Dr James Dodd, a consultant senior
year’s Tour de France lecturer in respiratory medicine at
North Bristol Lung Centre and the Uni-
Page 35
versity of Bristol, who led the study.
“However, cough really is a potent gen-
erator of aerosols.” He added: “[The
•
healthy volunteers to receive CPAP or
a related treatment called high flow
nasal oxygen (HFNO) in a highly ven-
tilated operating theatre.
This enabled them to precisely
measure the aerosols emitted in the
absence of any background particles.
They also took measurements when
the volunteers breathed, talked and
coughed normally, and separately
measured aerosol emissions from
between March and December in Eng-
land and Wales. Comparable data is
not currently available for Scotland
and Northern Ireland.
“We know that staff are still getting
sick and having to take time off work to
isolate and recover, depriving the NHS
and its patients of their expertise at a
time when all efforts are being put into
defeating Covid-19,” said Dr Chaand
Nagpaul, the British Medical Associ-
ation (BMA) council chair. “Current
surgical masks are insufficient to pre-
vent aerosol spread, which is why the
BMA is calling for greater provision
of enhanced FFP2 and FFP3 masks.”
The research may also boost efforts
to force a public inquiry into NHS and

Phoney flag-waving won’t win Labour’s red wall back Clive Lewis, page 3
At-risk people are still missing out on immunisation Frances Ryan, page 4
G2
Daily
pullout
life &
Journal Outside G2 risk] appears to be far greater than Covid-19 patients – the first time such care worker deaths. In December, Doc-
Opinions and ideas
arts
section
Jeff Bezos and the world Amazon made The long read, page 5
The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
Inside
what we would have assumed.” measurements have been taken. tors Association UK (DAUK), which
Opinion
Rose Gallagher, the Royal College Coughing generated at least 10 represents frontline medics, escalated
It’s not fair, but the vaccine
and ideas

of Nursing’s professional lead for times more aerosols than speaking or its threat of judicial review against the
infection prevention and control, said: breathing, and all of these activities government. “Inquiries must be ini-
is giving Boris Johnson a “This research adds yet more weight generated more airborne particles tiated to investigate any factors that
political boost to our calls for greater protection for than CPAP – even when the volun- may have led to healthcare workers’
Martin Kettle all health and care workers.” teers wore a surgical mask. deaths,” a spokesperson said.
Dr Eilir Hughes, a GP and leader of Aerosol emissions were similar “We feel there would be fewer infec-
Page 1
the Fresh Air NHS campaign, which is between Covid patients and healthy tions among healthcare workers, and
calling for FFP3 masks to be available individuals. HFNO generated the most fewer deaths, if people had proper
For all the celebrations, to anyone caring for Covid-patients, aerosols of all, but further investiga- masks,” said Dr Katie Sanderson, a jun-
It’s not fair, but
H
e made a great effort not to crow, after months in the doldrums – a dramatic contrast with ILLUSTRATION:
but the Conservative minister could expectations elsewhere. It is no surprise that talk of a BILL BRAGG

not contain his mix of pleasure and vaccine bounce is easy to find among Tory MPs, though

or suspected patients, added: “It goes tions revealed that these were coming ior doctor and committee member of
slight surprise this week. “If there few are foolish enough to talk about it too publicly.

the vaccine is
is one thing that the Labour party The real credit for the vaccine extends far beyond

at-risk people are still missing

absolutely does not want right Johnson. It belongs to the scientists who made the
now,” the minister told me, “it is a vaccines possible; to the biotech businesses that were
sudden and sustained display of mobilised to produce them; to the vaccine taskforce,

giving Johnson
competence on the part of this government. Yet that’s which made an impressively robust set of contracts

along with a growing body of evidence, from the machine, and were unlikely DAUK. “Acute medical wards and A&E,
exactly what they’re now facing.” to ensure supply; and, in particular, to the NHS at all
The UK’s coronavirus vaccine rollout is the most levels, which is delivering a fair, secure, efficient and
significant achievement over which Boris Johnson has nationwide rollout. Only the NHS, with its public service

a political boost
presided since the pandemic began. Ten million of us ethos and its reach, could have done this. The mind

out on vaccinations
have now had our first jabs, 15% of the population and boggles at how a private sector body like Capita or Serco
rising, way above the rate for most other European might have approached the task. Politically, though,

which is telling us that activities such to be carrying virus from the patients’ which is where most Covid patients are
countries. It is a public health success story that looks there is no doubt about the beneficiary: it is Johnson.
set to continue well into the year. It is also an undeniable It is also true that the political dividend might not
Martin political boost for Johnson. Whether it is the proverbial have been so clear if the European commission had

Kettle gamechanger is harder to say.

Recent opinion polls definitely suggest a shift in the
not reacted so intemperately to its own vaccine supply
problems last week. But Ursula von der Leyen has given
public mood. After long months of generally negative Tory confidence a shot in the arm. The commission

Frances Ryan as talking, and coughing in particular, airways. The results have been pre- cared for, have much lower standards
ratings for Johnson’s handling of Covid, approval for president’s disastrous attempt to divert AstraZeneca
the vaccine rollout soared to over 60% in late January vaccines from UK plants into the EU, and
and looks set to continue. British optimism that the
coronavirus situation is improving is also now rising fast
her threat to brush aside the Northern
Ireland protocol, were a political windfall, 
are aerosol-generating. sented to the National Institute for of ventilation than intensive care, and
Page 4
“If we as a country had taken the Health Research’s aerosols group, generally people are coughing all the
precautionary approach from the which feeds directly into Sage. time. This issue affects GPs as well.”
beginning of the pandemic, this paper “We hope that they will look at A Department of Health and Social
G2 Centre pullout “
would only have justified that it was the policies they currently have and Care spokesperson said: “The safety
I just
Features and arts broke the right approach, but unfortunately, whether they need to be updated,” said of NHS and social care staff has always
every we didn’t. We have to now look at the Prof Nick Maskell at the University of been our top priority … we continue
Black Lives rule! policy and change it, to ensure that Bristol, who co-led the study. to work tirelessly to deliver PPE to
Toyah we are adequately protecting our those people … on the frontline. In
Academic Kehinde

10
Willcox healthcare workers. response to the new variants that have
Andrews on radicalism, and on childhood,
stardom and “The evidence is now so clear on emerged the UK Infection Prevention
becoming
taking on Nigel Farage a lockdown
sensation
this matter, that people are asking why Control Cell conducted a comprehen-
isn’t the PPE coming. The suspicion is Coughing was found to generate sive review of evidence and concluded
Page 4
that it isn’t there for us to have.” at least 10 times more infectious that the current guidance and PPE rec-
Dodd and his colleagues recruited ‘aerosol’ particles than speaking ommendations remain appropriate.”
TV review Thursday 04/02/21
Adrian Chiles
What makes
the perfect pub?

In Bulletproof: South Africa, page 3

a beautiful bromance ‘It’s an experiment’

Kehinde Andrews
on life as a professor
‘Godfather of
balances out the bombast of Black studies

climate crisis’
page 4

Page 10

Become a Guardian and Observer er

attacks plan for
subscriber from £21.99 a month Cumbria mine
Visit theguardian.com/paper-subss

Cartoon Fiona Harvey

Weather Environment correspondent
Page 31 Journal, page 4
Boris Johnson’s decision to press
Quick crossword Cryptic crossword ahead with a new coalmine in Cumbria
shows “contemptuous disregard for
Back of G2 Back of Journal the future of young people”, one of world. It would be easy to achieve this ▲ James Hansen’s 1988 testimony to
the world’s foremost climate voices latter ignominy and humiliation. Just Congress on the climate helped pave
has warned, in a stark message ahead continue with the plan to open a new
Contact Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way,
London N1 9GU. 020-3353 2000. Fax 020-7837 2114.
of the UN Cop26 climate summit later coalmine in Cumbria and continue to
the way to the 2015 Paris accord
PHOTOGRAPH: MURDO MACLEOD/THE GUARDIAN
In Manchester: Centurion House, 129 Deansgate,
For missing sections call 0800 839 100. Manchester M3 3WR. Telephone Sales: 020-7611 9000. this year in Glasgow. invest funds of the British public in
For individual departments, call the Guardian The Guardian lists links to third-party websites, but James Hansen, the former Nasa fossil fuel projects overseas.” secretary, told MPs who questioned
switchboard: 020 3353 2000. does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity
For the Readers’ editor (corrections or accuracy. Back issues from Historic Newspapers: scientist who has been called the Hansen is one of the most respected the Cumbrian decision that the mine
&  clarifications on specific editorial content), call 0870-165 1470 guardian.backissuenewspapers.co.uk. godfather of climate change, has writ- figures in global climate science. As should be allowed because it would
020 3353 4736 between 10am and 1pm UK time Published by Guardian News & Media, Kings Place,
Monday to Friday excluding public holidays, or 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, and at Centurion House,
ten to the prime minister calling on an expert at Nasa, he testified to the provide coking coal, which was
email guardian.readers@theguardian.com. 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Printed at Reach him to stop all support for fossil fuels US Congress in 1988 – which included needed for industrial processes, such
Letters for publication should be sent to Watford Limited, St Albans Road, Watford, Herts and “earn a special place in history” the then-senators Joe Biden and John as making steel, rather than coal for
guardian.letters@theguardian.com or the WD24 7RG; Reach Oldham Limited, Hollinwood Avenue,
address on the letters page. Chadderton, Oldham OL9 8EP; Reach Saltire Ltd, for tackling the climate crisis. Kerry – of the dangers of the climate power generation.
110 Fifty Pitches Place, Glasgow G51 4EA; and by He wrote: “In leading the UK, as host crisis. Hansen rejected this argument. “We
Irish Times Print Facility, 4080 Kingswood Road, to the Cop, you have a chance to change Hansen’s letter to Johnson was cop- have to replace the old ways of doing
NEWSPAPERS Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24. No. 54,260,
SUPPORT Thursday 4 February 2021. Registered as a newspaper at the course of our climate trajectory – or ied to Kerry, now the special climate things – there are alternatives,” he
RECYCLING the Post Office ISSN 0261-3077. you can stick with business-almost- envoy to Biden, who has made climate said. “This is possible and we have to
The recycled paper
content
  of UK newspapers
in 2017 was 64.6% as-usual and be vilified in the streets action a top priority for his presidency. do it, because science tells us we can’t
of Glasgow, London and around the Kwasi Kwarteng , the business continue business as usual.”
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:3 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Rihanna cast as hero and villain as she
deploys Twitter in Indian farm dispute
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Aakash Hassan Delhi
The pop star Rihanna provoked the ire
of the Indian government and a clutch
of Bollywood stars yesterday by wad-
ing into the debate over protests by
farmers in the country.
In an illustration of the power of
celebrity and social media, the star’s
tweet to her more than 101 million
followers, referencing a news report
about heavy-handed measures being
used against the farmers, commented:
“Why aren’t we talking about this?!”
and triggered an official response from
Narendra Modi’s government.
Several hours later, the environ-
mental activist Greta Thunberg, who
has 4.7 million followers, got involved,
tweeting: “We stand in solidarity with
the #FarmersProtest in India.” The
interventions, occurred as the Indian
authorities deployed heavy police
security and “war-like” barricades
close to protest sites around Delhi.
Without naming Rihanna or Thun-
berg, a government spokesm an
criticised foreigners for “rushing to
comment on such matters” without a
“proper understanding of the issues”,
adding: “The temptation of sensa-
tionalist social media hashtags and
comments, especially when resorted
to by celebrities and others, is neither
accurate nor responsible.”
The home minister, Amit Shah,
tweeted that “no propaganda can
deter India’s unity”, while the Indian
cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar
wrote: “India’s sovereignty cannot
be compromised. External forces can
be spectators but not participants,”
with the hashtag #IndiaAgainstProp-
aganda. A number of Bollywood stars
also weighed in.
But Rihanna’s intervention also
drew support. The Sikh Coalition, a
New York-based rights group, thanked
the star. “For over a week, the Indian
government has been suspending
internet services around #FarmersPro-
test sites in a clear affront to the
freedom of speech,” it said on Twitter.
While there is obvious annoyance
towards the deployment of celebrity
Twitter, there has also been anger
from the authorities at social media
companies. The government threat-
ened Twitter itself with legal action
yesterday after the firm unblocked
most of the 250 accounts that the
Podcasts drive
24% growth in
subscribers as
Spotify shifts
beyond music
•
News
▲ Security forces push back people
at a rally in Delhi yesterday. Below,
Narendra Modi, whose government
says the changes will benefit farmers
PHOTOGRAPH: MANISH SWARUP/AP
electronics and information technol-
ogy ministry had reported for using the
hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGeno-
cide and for tweeting allegedly “fake,
intimidatory and provocative tweets”
connected to the farmer protests.
The original decision by Twitter to
Mark Sweney
Spotify has recorded a doubling in
podcast listening hours in the fourth
quarter, as locked-down listeners
hunting for entertainment tuned in
to Michelle Obama and the Duke and
Duchess of Sussex, driving a 24% year-
on-year increase in paying subscribers.
The audio streaming company,
which now has 155 million paying
customers, saw its monthly user base,
including those on its free, advertis-
ing-supported tier, grow 27% year on
year to 345 million.
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:26
suspend the 250 accounts – includ-
ing those of the Indian independent
news magazine Caravan, the farmers’
union Kisan Ekta Morcha and the polit-
ical commentator Sanjukta Basu – had
led to accusations that the firm was
silencing dissenting voices. After the
accounts were restored, a government
statement accused Twitter of violating
its authority.
This week the authorities began
cracking down on the hundreds of
thousands of farmers camped out
on the Delhi border since November.
Around three camps in Ghazipur, Tikri
and Singhu, police erected layers of
concrete barriers, dug trenches, put
up barbed-wire fences and cemented
iron nails into the roads, in effect cut-
ting off entry and exit to the sites.
Water and food supplies have been
disrupted and paramilitary troops and
police in riot gear have been deployed.
Access to mobile internet was sus-
pended at the sites until Tuesday
evening after a government order.
Farmers said they had been hit hard
by the internet shutdown. “I work
tirelessly in the day, helping with the
arrangements at the protest site. Nor-
mally, a video call in the evening with
A quarter of all users engaged with
podcast content in the final three
months of 2020 in what Spotify sees
as validation of its decision to spend
millions on a roster of new talent in a
strategic shift beyond music.
“We are confident that podcast
usage has been a factor in the accel-
erated net additions,” said Daniel Ek,
founder and chief executive of Spotify,
in a letter to shareholders.
“We have increasing conviction
in the causal relationship between
growth in podcast consumption
driving higher [value] and retention
among our user base.”
The number of podcasts offered
Rihanna’s record
Rihanna has deployed her global
celebrity and 101 million Twitter
followers to intervene in a number
of issues. The singer has been
involved in campaigns relating
to the climate emergency, Aids,
poverty in Africa, leukaemia and
the provision of clean water in
developing countries.
Her Clara Lionel Foundation,
which was founded in 2012 and
named after her grandparents,
Clara and Lionel Braithwaite,
finances education and health
programmes around the world.
In March 2020, the fund
donated $5m (£3.7m) towards the
Covid-19 response efforts in the
US, the Caribbean and Africa.
In 2018, after a series of tweets
addressing leaders of Britain,
France, Australia and Norway
before an international education
conference in Senegal, a string
of national leaders responded,
pledging a total of $2bn.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
has more than tripled in a year, from
700,000 in the final quarter of 2019
to 2.2m at the end of 2020. There are
deals now in place with a huge range
of presenters.
In December, Spotify announced
a multi-year partnership with the
Sussexes’ company, Archewell Audio.
The company said it was “pleased”
with the performance of its holiday
345m
Spotify’s total user base, 155 million
of whom are now paying customers.
Total revenues grew 17% to €2.17bn
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
3
‘Why aren’t we
talking about this?!
#FarmersProtest’
Rihanna’s
tweet.
Another
was by Greta
Thunberg,
below
the family would relieve my stress but
the internet shutdown is choking us,”
said 25-year-old Harneet Singh, as his
eyes welled with tears.
With the once busy Meerut-Delhi
highway now resembling a fortress,
those at the protest sites said the
new fortifications were a sign that
the government regarded farmers as
“criminals”. “The government treats
us like thieves but we are fighting for
our rights,” said Harbachan Singh, 60, a
farmer from Tarn Taran, Punjab.
The farmers are demanding the
repeal of three new agricultural laws
they say were passed by the govern-
ment without consulting them and
leave them at the mercy of big corpo-
rations. They say the changes, which
will allow big retailers to buy directly
from growers, will mean the end of
guaranteed prices for their crops and
leave them vulnerable to big business.
Modi’s government, which has
offered some concessions but ruled
out abandoning the laws, says they
will benefit farmers and draw invest-
ment to a sector that makes up nearly
15% of India’s £2.1tn economy and
employs about half its workforce.
The draconian shift in tactics against
the protests followed a march by the
farmers last week on India’s Republic
Day that turned violent when thou-
sands of protesters, many on tractors
and horseback, burst through police
barriers and entered the city centre.
Many stormed the historic Red Fort.
One farmer died in the violence and
500 police officers were injured.
special, released in December, and was
looking forward to a “full-scale launch
of shows coming in 2021”.
Obama’s interviews with family and
friends have been pulling in listen-
ers, while the Joe Rogan Experience,
which has controversially featured the
conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is Spot-
ify’s No 1 podcast in 17 territories since
becoming exclusive late last year.
Spotify’s podcasting strategy
helped it outperform expectations of
advertising income, which grew 29%
year on year to €281m (£248m). The
main driver of business continues to be
subscriptions, up 15% year on year to
1.89bn. Revenues grew 17% to €2.17bn.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:4 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 21:04 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

4 News
Coronavirus

Oxford trial to test efficacy

of mixing first and second
dose of alternative vaccines
Sarah Boseley
Health editor
Volunteers are being sought for a
world-first trial to establish the effi-
cacy of giving people a first dose of one
vaccine and a second dose of another.
The trial, which is being run by
Oxford University and funded by the
government’s Vaccine Taskforce, has
been hailed by ministers as “hugely
important”.
It will recruit 820 people over the
age of 50 who have not yet had a vac-
cine to receive a first dose of either the
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or the
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Some will
get the same vaccine for their second
dose, within 12 weeks, while others
will get the alternative.
Public Health England’s “Green
Book” on vaccinations already guides
the NHS that in exceptional circum-
stances, if somebody comes for their
second dose and the vaccine they orig-
inally had is not available, they can be
given a different one.
But scientists want to know whether
the protection from mixing vaccines
is the same, reduced or even better.
With the steady supply of vaccines
the recent more infectious variants
that have emerged in the UK, South
Africa and Brazil.
“If we do show that these vac-
cines can be used interchangeably in
the same schedule this will greatly
increase the flexibility of vaccine
delivery, and could provide clues as
to how to increase the breadth of pro-
tection against new virus strains,” said
Matthew Snape, associate professor
in paediatrics and vaccinology at the
University of Oxford, and chief inves-
tigator on the trial.
At a briefing, he said there was
evidence from mice studies that com-
bining an adenoviral vector vaccine,
like the Oxford one, with an mRNA
vaccine like Pfizer/BioNTech’s, could
generate a better response.
Both vaccines – and the Novo-
vax and Janssen vaccines which are
likely to be added to the trial if they are
approved – target the spike protein of
the virus. “For that reason, we antici-
pate that will generate a good immune
response with these combinations, but
we have to test it first,” he said.
Volunteers, who will be recruited
through the NHS vaccine research vol-
unteer website, will have blood taken
to measure the build-up of antibodies
after vaccination. Some will have their
second dose at four weeks and some
at 12 weeks, which will provide more
data on the government policy of wid-
ening the dosage gap.
“Given the inevitable challenges of
immunising large numbers of the pop-
ulation against Covid-19 and potential
global supply constraints, there are
definite advantages to having data that
could support a more flexible immu-
nisation programme, if needed and
if approved by the medicines regula-
tor,” said Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the
deputy chief medical officer for Eng-
land and senior responsible officer for
the study.
“It is also even possible that by com-
bining vaccines, the immune response
could be enhanced giving even higher
antibody levels that last longer; unless
this is evaluated in a clinical trial we
just won’t know.
“This study will give us greater
insight into how we can use vaccines
to stay on top of this nasty disease.”
Nadhim Zahawi, the minister for
Covid-19 vaccine deployment, called
it “a hugely important clinical trial
that will provide us with more vital
evidence on the safety of these vac-

always in question, the researchers
said the information will be useful not
only for the UK but globally.
There is also the possibility that
using two different vaccines might
give people greater protection against
820
Number of volunteers over the age of
50, who have not yet had a vaccine,
who are to be recruited for the trial
cines when used in different ways”.
He said that mixing vaccines would
not take place or be approved outside
of the study “until researchers and the
regulator are absolutely confident the
approach is safe and effective”.

Continued from page 1
Ten million people
in UK have now had
first inoculation
vaccination programme in mid Feb-
ruary, including the second wave
covering 18- to 49-year-olds without
serious medical conditions.
Police, teachers and other key
workers have been pressing for pri-
ority in the next wave, although the
government has refused to give any
assurances or timetables. When asked
at the Downing St press conference if
the whole adult population could have
received a first jab by May and a sec-
ond by August, Whitty described that
idea as “very optimistic”.
Earlier Matt Hancock, the health
secretary, warned there was not
enough Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine
available to open vaccination centres
for 24 hours a day despite promises
from Johnson to go “to 24/7 as soon
as we can” last month. “The rate limit-
ing factor is supply,” the minister said.
GPs said that the pace of the pro-
gramme, which has seen nearly
600,000 people receive a first dose on
the busiest day so far, had been pos-
sible because it built on the existing
NHS experience in delivering flu jabs
for older people every winter.
Some of those involved in the
national effort voiced concern whether
nurses, doctors and administrative
staff could continue at the current pace
for many months at a time, when many
are already working seven days a week.
“I worry how sustainable it is,” one
London GP told the Guardian. “It’s not
just the doctors, it’s the pharmacists,
the administrators who are making
this happen.”
NHS insiders said they expected
to open “a cohort” of new vaccina-
tion centres in the coming days to
relieve the pressure on GPs, where
People getting a Covid-19 first dose vaccination in the UK has passed 10m
• First dose • Second dose
500,000
Weekly average -
400,000 first dose
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
10 Jan
Source: data.gov.uk, updated 3 February, 2021. Note: The number of people given a first dose or second dose
of the Covid-19 vaccine each day. Daily data only available from 11 Jan 2020, weekly averages used for dates
before this. Line chart based on the average number of first dose vaccinations each day in a given week
those eligible can book appointments
online.
The UK has offered a first dose of a
Covid-19 vaccine to about 15% of its
population, the highest rate of any
major economy, putting the country
in third place worldwide behind Israel
(58%) and the United Arab Emirates
(38%). Those involved in the pro-
gramme say refusal rates in the UK
have been relatively low.
Public health experts said there was
now a case for the AstraZeneca vaccine
to be rolled out faster in hotspot areas
after research released on Tuesday
suggested that it could cut transmis-
sion of the virus by two-thirds.
02 February
First doses 374,756
Second doses 2,166
17 Jan 24 Jan 31 Jan
‘No silver bullet’
MPs quiz Dido Harding
MPs have called on Dido Harding,
the head of NHS test and trace, to
prove that the system substantially
reduces the spread of Covid, as
efforts continued to contain more
transmissible variants that she
claimed no one had seen coming.
Harding told the Commons
science and technology committee
yesterday that NHS test and
trace was on track to reduce the
reproduction number of the
epidemic by 0.6 to 0.8 at the end of
next month.
But in a sometimes testy
exchange, Greg Clark, the chair of
the committee, pressed Harding
on why she had failed to publish
evidence for the claim. Harding
defended the delay, saying
the information needed to be
“properly quality assured”, but
said it would appear in weeks.
Harding told MPs that everyone
wanted a “straightforward route
out of the Covid crisis”, but
test and trace was “not a single
silver bullet … We’ve seen the
new variants emerge, which was
something none of us were able to
predict,” she said. Ian Sample
Prof Dominic Harrison, the direc-
tor of public health at Blackburn with
Darwen council, said jabs should now
be used to prevent spread of the dis-
ease, not just to halt serious illness and
death. The effect on transmission was
“undoubtedly the best news we have
had”, he added.
Sir Richard Leese, the deputy mayor
of Greater Manchester, added that his
region wanted to speed up the vaccine
rollout in more deprived commu-
nities, including among black and
ethnic minority groups. “We should
be prioritising those people who are
most at risk and all the evidence says
that people in more economically
deprived communities, people from
some minority ethnic communities,
are more at risk than the general pop-
ulation,” Leese said.
Britain has also been helped by
the fact it has more available vaccine
than many other countries, because
of a deal with AstraZeneca last May to
ensure its own supply. A lack of sup-
ply in continental Europe, caused by a
shortfall in production from the same
manufacturer, has meant that the EU
is lagging behind, with Germany hav-
ing vaccinated 3.1% of its population
and France 2.4%.
England has completed 8.663m
initial immunisations, with Scotland
completing 649,262, Wales 462,497
and Northern Ireland 246,671.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:5 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Starmer’s
apology
Labour leader
‘misheard’
Johnson
Jessica Elgot
Deputy political editor
Keir Starmer has admitted he “made a
mistake” in a response to Boris John-
son at prime minister’s questions
during a tense clash over Starmer’s
previous comments on the European
Medicines Agency.
Labour rubbished claims from a
Tory MP that Starmer had challenged
Johnson in the corridor after their
debate in the House of Commons.
Johnson has previously accused
Starmer of wanting to take part in
the EU’s vaccine procurement pro-
gramme, a charge the Labour leader
has fiercely denied, accusing the prime
minister of being misleading.
However, after a clash at PMQs yes-
terday, Starmer’s spokesperson issued
an unusual apology from the Labour
•
leader for a misunderstanding, though
reiterating that the prime minister had
previously been misleading.
“On a number of occasions the
prime minister has wrongly claimed
that Labour wanted to join the EU’s
vaccine programme,” Starmer’s
spokesperson said. “That is inaccurate
and the claim has been found to be
untrue.
“This afternoon during prime min-
ister’s questions, Keir misheard the
prime minister and assumed he was
making the same false accusation
again. Keir accepts that on this occa-
sion the prime minister was referring
to old comments about the European
Medicines Agency, and Keir admits he
was wrong and made a mistake in his
response.”
She added: “It’s not Labour policy
to join either the European Medicines
Agency or the EU vaccine programme.
We have never called for the UK to be in
the EU vaccine programme. We remain
committed to working with the gov-
ernment to ensure we can be the first
in the world to roll out the vaccine.”
The Conservative MP Mark Fran-
cois, who made a point of order after
PMQs reading out some pre-pre-
pared comments quoting Starmer on
the EMA, later claimed he had seen
Starmer angrily confront Johnson in
the lobbies after their exchange.
The Labour MP Chris Matheson,
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:56
who was with Starmer, said the
description was untrue. “It’s absolute
bollocks,” he said. “There was a brief
▲ The House
of Commons
observing a
chat and then Keir and I left together.
Nothing more to it than that.”
minute’s silence
in honour of
A Labour source: “They had a per-
fectly reasonable conversation, as they
Captain Sir
Tom Moore
often do after PMQs.”
During PMQs Johnson also faced
PHOTOGRAPH:
JESSICA TAYLOR/
UK PARLIAMENT/
an awkward moment where he
defended visiting a Scottish vaccine
plant despite a coronavirus outbreak
AFP/GETTY
at the site, saying “no one is going to
stop me” visiting all parts of the UK.
The prime minister was criticised Johnson affects to be
by Scottish leaders including the first
minister, Nicola Sturgeon, for his trip
deeply troubled by the
to Scotland last week at a time when EU having invoked
only essential travel was permitted. article 16 last week,
The Daily Record reported that
Johnson’s visit to the Valneva factory but you get the feeling
took place 24 hours after a pub-
lic health investigation that found
he’s secretly thrilled
14 coronavirus cases – about one in
eight of the workforce. Valneva’s chief
financial officer, David Lawrence, said
Downing Street had been informed
before the trip.
Responding to the SNP’s West-
minster leader, Ian Blackford, in
the Commons, Johnson denied any
knowledge of the issue. Blackford said
it was an “absolutely shocking error
of judgment. Anyone can see that his
campaign trip to Scotland was utterly,
utterly reckless.”
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Sketch
John Crace
Now we have prime
minister’s questions for
a prime minister who
doesn’t do questions
F
ittingly enough, the Speaker began prime
minister’s questions with a one-minute
silence for Captain Sir Tom Moore and all
those who have died of Covid 19. If only the
silence had been extended for a further 43
minutes. PMQs feels increasingly redundant.
Even as a piece of weekly political theatre it is failing.
There was a time when Keir Starmer regularly managed
to get under Boris Johnson’s skin, but the prime minister
has long since worked out that he can get by quite easily
without answering any questions and the Labour leader
has yet to find a strategy for forcing him to do so.
Starmer began with three questions that came
nowhere close to resolving whether or not Sage had
recommended mandatory quarantine for everyone
arriving in the UK. The answer appeared to depend on
your definitions; Sage might have said it would be a good
idea, but did that count as a proper recommendation?
Johnson rather thought not as the variant virus much
preferred travelling business class on direct flights but,
just to be safe, he chose to muddy the waters first by
talking about incoming freight and then implying that
almost no one would have been vaccinated if the Labour
leader had been in charge. It wasn’t true, but then the
truth and the shape-shifting “world king” have never
been particularly close acquaintances.
Starmer moved on to all those still living in buildings
with dangerous cladding. Here Boris had equally
little to say other than that no one should be left with
unaffordable costs. He didn’t specify at what level
affordable became unaffordable: nor could he explain
why his government had done so little, more than three
and a half years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Rather,
he just waffled on, before concluding with a general
tirade against Keir that the Speaker had to cut short.
The SNP leader, Ian Blackford, momentarily thought
he had Boris on the ropes by quoting a story that No 10
had known there had been a coronavirus outbreak at
the vaccine plant in Livingston before he had visited
it last week. But Johnson merely ignored him and said
he was prime minister of the UK and he would go to
places where and when he chose. So there. The most
interesting exchange came with the DUP’s Ian Paisley.
Although Johnson affects to be deeply troubled by the
EU having briefly invoked article 16 last week, you get
the feeling that secretly he’s thrilled because now he
has carte blanche to do whatever he
likes. To the extent that he sounded
as if he couldn’t wait for an excuse
to abandon the Northern Ireland
protocol he himself had negotiated
little more than a year ago.
The Downing Street press
conference started with Johnson
again paying tribute to Moore.
Almost as he were trying to create
an association between himself and
the late soldier in people’s minds.
Perhaps the prime minister has yet
to learn the difference between
selflessness and selfishness. Otherwise, this was a
briefing at its most meta. One that existed only as dead
air to be filled, rather than because there was anything
much new to impart. What was most remarkable,
though, was that – for almost the first time – Boris’s
natural gung-ho optimism had given way to something
rather more pragmatic. That he had discovered the hard
way that the coronavirus couldn’t be pushed around and
forced to fit with his government’s timetable. Better late
than never, I suppose.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:56 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

6 News
Coronavirus

Chasing
the variant
Testing of
thousands of
people in eight
postal regions
of the country
continued
yesterday
▲A volunteer hands out a test in Maidstone, Kent to find and
eradicate cases
of the South
African variant
of Covid-19.
Volunteers and
members of
the fire service
delivered kits
to households
as the health
secretary,
Matt Hancock,
▲ Mike Wallace is tested by his wife, Natasha, in Woking urged people
living there to
stay at home.
Some vaccines
are thought
to have less
effect against
the variant.

▲ Ealing, west London, has been included in the tests ▲ Kim Taylor uses a test brought to her home in Woking as part of the ‘surge’ against the variant PHOTOGRAPH: ADAM GERRARD

Care homes still breaking Covid rules

Act. The home’s operator, Care Con-
cern Group, declined to comment.
The shadow care minister, Liz Ken-
dall, said: “It is unacceptable that some

despite fatal outbreaks, inspectors say

Robert Booth
Social affairs correspondent
Care homes in England operated by
profitable chains have been branded
unsafe by inspectors, who found seri-
ous failures with control of the latest
wave of the coronavirus.
In the last month 40% of care homes
inspected by the Care Quality Com-
mission in England were judged to be
inadequate or in need of improvement.
Several handling fatal coronavirus
coincides with a tripling of fatalities
linked to the virus among care resi-
dents in England and Wales.
In the week ending 22 January, 2,364
care residents died with Covid-19 on
their death certificate, the highest
level since last May, according to the
Office for National Statistics.
At Curtis Weston House, a home for
27 people in Wigston, Leicestershire,
which is part of a chain that made
£2.2m in annual post-tax profits,
inspectors found “no deep cleaning
of bedrooms of Covid-19 positive
Talbot House, in Rugely, Stafford-
shire, owned by a company with
nearly £800,000 profit on its balance
sheet, “had not kept people safe dur-
ing the pandemic, and a high number
of people and staff had been adversely
affected”. Inspectors said the out-
break, which the director, Om Gupta,
confirmed, had caused a small num-
ber of deaths, and was linked to the
admission of two people to the home.
The provider had not been using PPE
properly, the inspectors said.
Gupta said there was “no evidence
without wearing gloves, aprons, or
washing hands,” the inspectors said.
They found that when one person
returned from hospital, a common
route for virus spread, there was no
infection control prevention plan.
Where people were isolating in their
room, doors were left open and they
saw a staff member walk into a isolat-
ing person’s room and provide support
without wearing any PPE.
CQC said the home was not safe and
breached the Health and Social Care
care companies are failing to put even
basic infection control measures in
place and even turning down offers of
training and other support. Ministers
must look at these reports as a matter
of urgency and spell out what action
they and the CQC will take.”
Analysis of the latest reports reveal
repeated concerns about shortages of
staff and leadership in some homes,
exacerbated by high levels of absence
resulting from routine Covid testing
requiring more workers to self-isolate.
At the Firs in Budleigh Salterton,
Devon, which endured a large out-
break in November and December that
resulted in deaths, inspectors discov-
ered a lack of mask wearing and social
distancing. Liana Birkett, whose fam-
ily operate the home, said: “The day of

outbreaks were revealed to have bro-
ken laws meant to keep residents safe.
Some of the worst failings uncov-
ered in reports filed in the last month
include CCTV showing PPE being used
wrongly on 63 occasions in one home,
infected residents mixing in commu-
people”, ineffective alcohol-free hand
sanitiser in use, and staff not always
having ready access to PPE.
Another home in the same chain,
Huntington Court, in Loughborough,
was also branded inadequate; inspec-
tors found infection prevention and
of that” and that there was no lack of
financing for the home. “It was just
unfortunate my manager and deputy
manager went off sick with Covid,”
he said.
Scrutiny of CCTV footage from the
Ashton care home, in Hinckley, uncov-
2,364
Deaths with Covid-19 among care
home residents recorded in England
in the week ending 22 January
the Covid inspection our manager was
off sick with the virus and we didn’t
have all our own staff in due to many
of them being struck down by the virus
or having to self isolate.”
She accepted mistakes had been
made on the day of inspection, but

nal areas with Covid-free residents,
chronic staff shortages, and a care
home manager continuing to work
after showing Covid symptoms.
The spate of problems relates to
a small minority of care homes but
control procedures were not in line
with government guidance, which
meant “people were put at increased
risk of infection”. The firm, Leices-
tershire County Care Limited, did not
respond to request for comment.
ered dozens of occasions when staff
did not wear the right PPE, includ-
ing working with face masks around
their necks. “On three occasions we
observed staff administering medi-
cines directly into people’s mouths
63
The number of times CCTV footage
revealed PPE had been misused at
one care home inspected by the CQC
said they had since been fixed.
Staff problems at the Woodheyes
care home in Leicester meant resi-
dents who needed oxygen weren’t
supported safely. “Staff did not have
all the skills and knowledge needed
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:7 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
to provide safe care,” inspectors con-
cluded. “We observed people with
Covid-19 in communal areas, mixing
with people that did not have Covid-19
… we observed staff entering and exit-
ing bedrooms [of infected residents]
without changing their PPE … The reg-
istered manager had declined Covid-19
training offered by partner agencies.”
The home’s manager did not
respond to request for comment.
At Swan House in Winslow, Buck-
inghamshire, a home where two
people died in a Covid outbreak, staff
records indicated the registered man-
ager had continued to work on site
after developing potential symptoms
of Covid-19, that staff worked in differ-
ent units risking cross-infection, and
fans were in use, which increased the
risk of spreading the infection.
The operator, Ambient Support, a
£38m-a-year turnover charity oper-
ating care homes across England,
said it “fully accepts the findings of
the report and is delivering an action
plan to address the issues raised”.
Kate Terroni, CQC’s chief inspector
of adult social care, said: “Where there
has been poor care or inadequate infec-
tion control procedures we have taken
immediate action, however, in most
cases care providers … have shown
they are responding well to the chal-
lenges of infection prevention control
during the pandemic and doing every-
thing they can to keep people safe.”
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:57
•
Analysis Severe shortage of ICU beds
Robert Booth
sees patient transfers double
Better pay is only part of Denis Campbell
Sarah Marsh
the answer to improving Dozens of Covid patients a day are
the situation for both being moved from one hospital to
another because of a severe shortage
of critical care beds across the NHS.
staff and residents The NHS transferred 1,079 peo-
ple needing critical care in England,
Wales and Northern Ireland to ICUs
in different areas in the four weeks to
J
28 January – an average of 38.5 a day.
oanna Lumley revived her turn from Absolutely That is far more than the 547 patients
Fabulous yesterday to front a trade union – 18.2 a day – who were taken from one
call for a pay rise for care staff. Describing the hospital to another during the whole
1.5 million workers as “the invisible part of our of last April, at the height of the first
nation’s health system … the forgotten ones”, wave of the pandemic.
the actor slipped into Patsy’s drawl to show a The second wave has also seen
nation’s gratitude: “Cheers, sweeties.” a  surge in the number of very sick
Many agree this group is hard done by. Last year half Covid patients being moved signifi-
of care staff earned less than £8.72 an hour. Now they cant distances from their home area
are exhausted by Covid, which has played a part in the to get an ICU bed. That now happens
deaths of more than 36,000 UK care home residents. But dozens of times a week.
a pay rise is only part of the solution. In the second wave The Guardian disclosed last month
of Covid, care home deaths have returned to levels last that critical care patients were being
seen in May and failings that might have been attributed moved from London as far afield as
to operators being caught off guard appear systemic. Newcastle and Sheffield because of
Care Quality Commission visits behind the closed a lack of capacity in the capital. A total
doors of homes with recent Covid outbreaks show us of 250 people needing critical care in
how some operators have left staff untrained in basics England, Wales and Northern Ire-
of infection control. They have not provided the right land had to be transferred to an ICU
PPE and have failed to provide enough in another area in the four weeks to 28
staff. Where managers have gone off In July 2019, in his January – 43 a week. These are trans-
sick, homes have been left rudderless fers that in normal times NHS medical
with agency workers coming and going, first speech as prime teams try to avoid as they can put
risking infection spread. Several don’t minister, Boris Johnson patients at risk: for example, if their
have enough cleaners. condition worsens during the journey.
These are the worst cases and promised to ‘fix the Those 250 longer-distance trans-
thousands of other homes have done crisis in social care fers up until 28 January are more than
far better, but they are instructive. four times the 60 cases transferred
Consider one home in the east once and for all’ because of ICU bed shortages during
Midlands. On two different days when all of last April. The rate has risen from
inspectors showed up people who two a day in April to nine a day last
were known to have Covid were mixing
in communal areas with people who were known not
to have Covid. And this was in November – seven full
months after the crisis began. Travel Shapps:
we can’t be
Staff are not comfortable working like this. “We work
on different wings each day, it’s not right,” said a care
worker at another home that inspectors concluded was
breaching the Care Act. “Yesterday I was on a Covid-19
wing, today I’m on another unit.”
like Australia
At another home, a worker said incontinence pads
were so full they were leaking because there were not
enough staff to change them. The same home became Simon Murphy
a carousel of agency staff – 26 different people, mostly Political correspondent
working just a single shift, over less than a month.
No one is happy with this – not the staff, the residents An Australia-style closure of borders
or their loved ones. In July 2019, in his first speech as would not help the UK combat the
prime minister, Boris Johnson promised to “fix the crisis Covid-19 crisis, the transport secre-
in social care once and for all”. tary, Grant Shapps, indicated, as the
Some in the sector think a good place to start is with government continued to come under
the staff. A national workforce plan that identifies the pressure to implement tougher travel
roles that need to be filled, the level of training required restrictions.
and the right pay levels hasn’t been drawn up for Amid concern over Covid-19 vari-
years. Once in place, it could be easier to work out how ants spreading from abroad, Shapps
much more the taxpayer will need to pay to improve sought to make the case against
standards. The Tory former health secretary Jeremy blanket curbs by highlighting the
Hunt has said at least £7bn a year more is needed. importance of importing food and
How to better regulate the companies that operate medicines, as well as allowing the
the homes is another issue. Some chains use different flow of some people such as scientists.
companies for each home, with the result that the parent Separately, the health secretary,
company is not held responsible when things go wrong. Matt Hancock, failed to confirm that
Councils could also be given a stronger role in steering quarantine hotels scheduled to accom-
care standards in their areas. And some observers modate international arrivals from 33
suggest all care should be delivered by not-for-profit high-risk locations on the UK travel
entities, although that would be a huge shift from ban list would be ready to open by the
the 82% of places in care homes of all kinds currently end of February.
provided by private firms. Under measures announced at the
Whatever solutions emerge, the widening cracks in end of last month, people who are
UK social care emerging under the persistent pressure of still able to return from countries on
Covid have made doing nothing politically impossible. the travel ban list – British and Irish
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
month. The sharp rise in patient trans-
fers between ICUs is revealed in data
that the Intensive Care National Audit
and Research Centre (ICNARC) has col-
lected from hospitals and shared with
the Guardian.
It does not publish data on where
the transfers were from and to, but
many in the last two months are
known to have started in London, the
south-east and the east of England.
ICNARC’s figures cover transfers
for “comparable critical care” – that
is, because of hospital bed shortages
– while longer-distance moves are
known as “outside clinical care group”
transfers. Each group is made up of
hospitals in an area that collaborate
on ICU care.
Last month NHS England’s chief
executive, Sir Simon Stevens, said
the health service was in the most pre-
carious situation in its 72-year history.
The UK’s four chief medical officers
warned on 4 January that parts of the
NHS were in danger of falling over
because of the increase in numbers
of people with Covid.
Prof Kathy Rowan, director of
ICNARC, said the number of trans-
fers recently was unusual.
“There’s been extraordinary pres-
sure on critical care services during
the second wave. Hospitals have been
coping with unprecedented numbers,
which has necessitated the increased
numbers of patients being transferred
for comparable critical care,” she said.
“We would normally try to trans-
fer patients within transfer groups.
Being transferred between units
for comparable critical care is best
avoided because you want to avoid
any increased risk that it might pose.”
nationals, as well as those with UK res-
idency rights – are to be required to
quarantine in hotels for 10 days upon
arrival. But the government has yet to
provide a date for when the new meas-
ures will be enforced.
Australia introduced quarantine
hotels in March 2020, the same month
it closed its borders.
Speaking at the Commons transport
select committee yesterday, Shapps
said: “What tends to happen is people
say, well, why don’t we just close down
and then we’ll be safe? But, of course,
we wouldn’t be safe, because we are an
island nation... and that means that we
need to get medicines in, food in, raw
materials in, sometimes move people
around, scientists and others”.
A start-date for the quarantine
hotels has been earmarked for 15 Feb-
ruary, according to reports. Pressed on
whether that was correct, Hancock
said: “Well, let’s see where we get to.”
▲ Grant Shapps highlighted the need
to import food and medicines
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:8 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 21:04 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

8 News
Coronavirus

Early schools return

again and once they are, we will make
sure that teachers and students are
equipped with the resources and the
time they need to make up for lost

in England would be learning.”

When Scotland’s schools reopening
plans were announced on Tuesday,

a disaster, scientists
some Conservative MPs, including
the chair of the Covid recovery group,
Mark Harper, called for the return
of pupils in England to be brought

caution Johnson forward.

Sally Weale
Heather Stewart
Scientists have cautioned against
bringing forward the reopening of
schools in England, saying it would
be “a recipe for disaster” while prev-
alence of coronavirus remains high.
The warnings came as Boris John-
son faced pressure from his own MPs
to follow Scotland’s lead after the first
minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced
a phased return to the classroom later
this month.
Scotland’s youngest children,
including nurseries and primary pupils
in years 1, 2 and 3, are expected to be
back in the classroom full-time from 22  of a “big bang” reopening, rather than
February, along with small numbers of
secondary school children who need
to complete practical work in class for
national qualifications.
In England, by contrast, Boris John-
son has said schools, which are open
to only 15% of children who are either
regarded as vulnerable or whose par-
ents are critical workers, will not open
more fully until 8 March at the earliest.
Johnson told a Downing Street press
conference yesterday: “What we don’t
want to do now that we are making
progress with the vaccine rollout and
we have got a timetable for the way
ahead, we don’t want to be forced into
reverse. We think this is the prudent
and cautious approach. I think it is
much better to stick to that.”
‘We don’t want to be
forced into reverse.
We think this is
the prudent and
cautious approach.
Let’s stick with that’
Boris Johnson
However, one senior Tory with
knowledge of the prime minister’s
thinking suggested there were hopes
the phased return that had previously
been envisaged.
Me a nw h i l e , Jo h n s o n h a s
announced the appointment of an
education recovery commissioner to
oversee the government’s plans to help
children to catch up.
Kevan Collins, who worked at the
Education Endowment Foundation
and has been active in education for
more than three decades, will advise
the government on how to spend the
£300m recently allocated to plugging
the teaching shortfall created by the
Covid crisis.
Johnson said: “I am absolutely
determined that no child will be left
behind as a result of the pandemic.
Our top priority is to get schools open
Robert Halfon, a Conservative
who chairs the Commons education
committee, is among those pushing
for schools to open sooner.
He tweeted: “Given that Scotland
is likely to open some schools in the
next couple of weeks, and given Pub-
lic Health England say primary schools
are ‘safe to open soon’, surely England
can lead by example and at least open
primary schools before 8 March.”
However Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of
global public health at the University
of Edinburgh, said that, according to
the latest Office for National Statis-
tics data, the overall prevalence of
Covid in Scotland is currently half that
in England.
“The issue with schools is not
opening them, it’s keeping them
open,” she said. “If you keep having
cases, you will be having bubbles of 50 
kids going home repeatedly and that is
not sustainable education. You are bet-
ter off keeping them closed for longer
to get your numbers down and then
opening in a more sustainable way.”
Dr Deepti Gurdasani, a senior
lecturer in epidemiology at Queen
Mary University of London, urged
the prime minister to resist pressure
to reopen schools any earlier, saying
even 8 March looked unrealistic.
She said levels of community trans-
mission were still high and cases were
not declining sufficiently rapidly.
“We are in a very, very precari-
ous position. Parents and children
have made huge sacrifices because of
schools being closed to most children.
It’s very important we don’t squan-
der this.”

Q&A Clap for Tom hospital in Bedford where Moore

The plan for reopening
When will UK schools reopen?
The Scottish government plans to
reopen primary schools after its
mid-term on 22 February, but only
for pupils in the three youngest
year groups, and some older
children taking qualifications.
England is instead waiting until
at least 8 March, two weeks later,
for schools to fully reopen.
How can Scotland reopen schools
while those in England can’t?
Education policy is devolved to
national administrations – so the
government in Westminster has
no say over schools outside of
England.
Infection rates for Covid-19
among the general population
are twice as high in England as in
Scotland, meaning that there is far
greater community transmission
of the virus. The Office for
National Statistics (ONS) last week
estimated that one in 55 people in
England had Covid-19 infections,
including one in 35 in London
alone, while in Scotland the rate
was one in 110. To put it another
way: case rates in England are nearly
282 per 100,000 people, compared
with close to 142 per 100,000 in
Scotland.
What about in Wales and
Northern Ireland?
Wales has said it may reopen schools
along the same lines as Scotland
from 22 February, but only if its
Covid-19 infection rates continue to
fall. The latest figures show Wales
with one in 70 of the population
infected as of last week.
Northern Ireland has a higher rate
of infection, with one in every 50
people estimated by the ONS to have
been infected. As a result Northern
Ireland, as with England, is waiting
until 8 March at the earliest for
schools to return.
Why has the government in
England picked 8 March?
At yesterday’s press conference
Boris Johnson explained the
choice of 8 March as when those
in the government’s top four
priority groups would have
acquired immunity after their
first vaccination at least three
weeks earlier.
Asked if schools could open
before then, Johnson said data on
the impact of vaccinations would
not be ready until 15 February,
and that he wanted to be “prudent
and cautious”.
Is 8 March a definitive date
for reopening?
No: some scientists and officials
insist a further delay may be
needed. Calum Semple, a member
of Sage, has said there are still
“very high levels” of community
transmission that could require
schools to continue to allow only
the children of critical workers and
those in care or needing support to
attend in person, as they have since
the start of term.
Others say reopening may need
to be delayed so the spread of the
worrying South African variant can
be kept in check.
Richard Adams
Tributes paid
to veteran
who inspired
the nation
Jessica Murray
People across the UK paid tribute
to the late Captain Sir Tom Moore
by applauding on their doorsteps
yesterday.
Boris Johnson clapped out-
side No 10  with his partner, Carrie
Symonds, while the Labour leader,
Keir Starmer, joined in from his home.
Earlier Johnson had urged people to
join the “Clap For Captain Tom” at 6pm
to show appreciation for Moore and for
the NHS staff he had raised money for.
Moore’s family said they were
“incredibly touched” by the gesture
and joined in outside their home in
Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire.
NHS staff gathered outside the
was treated to pay tribute, and junior
soldiers at the Army Foundation Col-
lege in Harrogate joined the national
applause for Moore, whom they made
an honorary colonel last year.
MPs observed a minute’s silence in
memory of him and of others who have
died as a result of the pandemic before
prime minister’s questions.
The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay
Hoyle, said: “His dignity and deter-
mination in raising money to support
the NHS charities caught the nation’s
mood at the most difficult time. He
exemplified the best of our values.”
Earlier, the health secretary, Matt
Hancock, told the BBC: “I will ensure
we mark his contribution properly and
appropriately at the right moment.”
He suggested a statue could be
erected to honour Moore.
“Yes, I do think that we should find
a way, at the right time, to honour the
contribution that he made to the NHS
as he was an inspiration to so many
people,” Hancock told LBC radio.
There have been a number of calls for
official recognition of Moore’s life, with
 Local people view floral tributes at
a mural depicting Captain Sir Tom
Moore in Two Gates, Tamworth
PHOTOGRAPH: JASON CAIRNDUFF/REUTERS
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:9 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
▼ Residents of Brentford, London,
join the clap last night; below, Boris
Johnson and Carrie Symonds join in
MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: PAUL CHILDS/REUTERS
Carol Vorderman, the host of the Pride
of Britain awards – which honoured
Moore last year – saying he “deserves
a stone in Westminster Abbey”.
The flag above 10 Downing Street
was flown at half-mast on Tuesday
evening, while landmarks including
the London Eye, Wembley Stadium
and Blackpool Tower were lit up and a
tribute was broadcast on the billboard
lights at Piccadilly Circus.
A number of floral tributes were
left outside the gate of Moore’s fam-
ily home in Bedfordshire, with one
message saying: “Rest in peace Cap-
tain Tom. We love you.”
Sent at 3/2/2021 21:05
•
Moore set out to raise £1,000 for
NHS Charities Together by walking
100 laps of his garden before his 100th
birthday last April.
His efforts struck a chord with the
nation and donations flooded in, with
almost £33m raised.
In acknowledgement, he was
knighted by the Queen during a unique
open-air ceremony at Windsor Castle
last summer.
His story travelled all over the
world, with the White House paying
tribute following his death. “We join
the United Kingdom and the world in
honouring the memory of Captain Sir
Tom Moore, who inspired millions
through his life and his actions,” the
official White House account tweeted.
Ellie Orton, chief executive of NHS
Charities Together, said Moore “lifted
the spirits of an entire nation” and
demonstrated that “you’re never too
old, you’re never too anything to care
for people and to make a difference”.
She said: “He really was a beacon of
hope – the optimism that he brought
… in a really dark and difficult time for
this nation, and particularly for the
NHS, is just incredible.
“He is held in such amazing high
regard, he is a national hero and his
legacy will live on in the NHS for years
and years to come.”
Exercise Call for plan to
get children moving again
Paul MacInnes
The government needs to give parents
a helping hand in providing children
with the exercise they need during the
lockdown half-term, the UK’s leisure
industry body has said, after guidance
on reintroducing sports clubs failed to
materialise.
With most schools across England
set to break up at the end of next week,
a period without traditional learning
for many children will be followed by
one without recourse to sports clubs
or activities, as research continues
to show a decline in physical activity
amongst the young.
Ukactive, which represents the Brit-
ish leisure sector, has been calling for
government to provide a “recovery
plan” to ensure physical activity can
be safely reintroduced into schools
both during term time and holidays.
This follows Boris Johnson claiming
he was “hopeful” schools could reopen
in England from 8 March.
But with guidance yet to be pub-
lished, it is now thought too late to
safely operate clubs this February
half-term. Now Ukactive is calling for
guidance for parents on how best to
make use of open spaces.
“Physical activity is vital for chil-
dren’s physical, social and emotional
wellbeing, so we must ensure they are
encouraged to keep playing and mov-
ing,” said Jack Shakespeare, Ukactive’s
director of children, young people,
families and research.
“Children have as much right to
exercise outside each day as adults, but
they exercise in very different ways to
adults. The government must ensure
all children have access to safe pub-
lic spaces for play, such as parks and
Universal credit
Coffey against
one-off payout
Patrick Butler
Social policy editor
The work and pensions secretary,
Thérèse Coffey, has said she is opposed
to making one-off £500 or £1,000
universal credit payments in April in
lieu of retaining the £20-a-week Covid
top-up, in case it discouraged claim-
ants from taking a job.
The one-off payments have been
considered by the Treasury as it seeks
to find a way of ending the temporary
benefit uplift, due to end by April,
while keeping in place a level of sup-
port for struggling families during the
pandemic.
Appearing before the work and pen-
sions select committee, Coffey refused
to say whether the Department for
Work and Pensions’ budget sub-
missions to the Treasury included
retaining the uplift, which would cost
an estimated £6bn a year.
She said discussions were ongoing
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
9
gardens, and that parents and carers
feel confident they can do this safely.
“It is particularly important that
vulnerable children and young peo-
ple, and those from disadvantaged
backgrounds, are supported to be
physically active so that our health
inequalities do not deepen further.”
A call for greater clarity was echoed
by the charity the Youth Sports Trust,
whose chief executive, Ali Oliver, said
guidance must be forthcoming soon.
“Sadly, we know that some schools
felt they had no choice but to reduce
provision of PE and after-school sport
when they returned in September due
to a lack of clarity around what they
could and couldn’t do. This cannot
happen again,” she said.
A recent study by Sport England
into the effect of the pandemic on
activity among young people saw a fall
in the number of children completing a
recommended 60 minutes of physical
activity each day in 2020 from 53.4%
to 51.1%. But while children were able
to walk and cycle more during lock-
down, participation in team sports,
swimming and running all recorded
substantial falls.
The impact on the ability to exer-
cise was experienced most strongly
by black and minority ethnic children.
60
Number of minutes recommended
for children to exercise each day by
organisations such as Sport England
2.3
Percentage point fall in the number
of children in 2020 doing that daily
exercise, from 53.4% to 51.1%
within the government about the top-
up, and no decision had been made.
“I’m conscious the committee may
want some kind of revelation – there
isn’t a revelation to make,” she said.
As well as a broad consensus among
opposition parties, charities and cam-
paigners that retaining the £20 top-up
is essential to prevent a rise in poverty
levels, increasing numbers of back-
bench Tory MPs have called for it to
be made permanent.
Coffey sidestepped a question by
Tory MP Nigel Mills on whether she
personally thought keeping the £20
uplift was the right decision, although
she said an internal government
analysis had shown that retaining it
would not provide a disincentive for
people to work. Mills replied: “If the
money was there you would like to
keep this – that was the sound of what
you said.”
Mills suggested that if a £1,000 pay-
ment was on offer in April, universal
credit claimants would not be “rush-
ing out to take a job or increase their
hours”. Coffey agreed. The prospect of
such a payment might attract fraudu-
lent applications.
“There’s a number of reasons why
there’s a simplicity to the one-off [pay-
ment] but actually there’s quite a lot
of complexity,” she said.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:10 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:20 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

10 News
Coronavirus

MPs and campaigners

support schemes, according to the
Association of Independent Profes-
sionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE),
including about 700,000 limited com-

urge chancellor to fix pany directors and 200,000 people

who had recently set out working for
themselves and lacked documentation

furlough scheme gaps to receive wage subsidies.

Richard Partington
The government is under mounting
pressure to plug gaps in its emergency
coronavirus wage subsidy schemes at
the March budget to support millions
of self-employed people and other
workers excluded from furlough.
MPs and campaign groups said the
chancellor, Rishi Sunak, had repeat-
edly ducked opportunities to fix gaps
in furlough and the self-employment
“The chancellor must now accept
that there are genuine and problem-
atic gaps in the schemes he designed,
and make support for excluded groups
a centrepiece of his budget announce-
ment next month.”
The government’s flagship furlough
scheme has topped up the wages of
almost 10m jobs since its launch in
March last year, while as many as
2.7m claims have been made to SEISS,
the Treasury’s similar provision for
the self-employed. However, experts
have warned millions of people have
▲ Critics of the chancellor have called
on him to help those excluded from
the government’s furlough schemes.
PHOTOGRAPH: REX
the British economy grapples with the
worst recession for 300 years. Sunak is
also coming under pressure to extend
the furlough scheme, amid warnings
from business and unions of wide-
spread unemployment without it.
As many as one-in-five small-
company bosses surveyed by the
Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)
have said they received no finan-
cial support from the government.
Mike Cherry, national chairman of
the FSB, said this meant as many as
one million small business owners had
been “left out in the cold”.
The number of self-employed
workers on universal credit benefits
has risen by more than 300% since
the start of the crisis to reach more
than 200,000. IPSE said the chan-
cellor urgently needed to reform the
SEISS to extend it to people who could
now prove their income using 2019-20

income support scheme (SEISS) since
the pandemic began. Caroline Lucas,
the Green party co-chair of the all-
party parliamentary group Gaps in
Support, said it was “completely
unacceptable” that more than 3 mil-
lion people had been left out.
missed out because they fail to meet
eligibility criteria.
Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chan-
cellor, said the government needed
to take action at the budget. “Self-
employed people are the backbone
of the British economy, which is why
4.6m
Number of self-employed people in
the UK. At the start of the pandemic
this figure stood at 5.1 million
Official figures show full-time
work has risen during the pandemic
to the highest levels on record, despite
the impact of Covid on the market.
However, part-time jobs and self-
employment has fallen, as freelancers
and those in precarious work bear the
tax returns.
Rachel Flower, a spokesperson for
the ExcludedUK campaign group,
which represents workers who have
missed out on support, said: “A year
on from the start of the pandemic the
government is well aware the exclu-

“While it was understandable at the
beginning of the pandemic that some
new support schemes didn’t work as
well as they should, it’s a scandal that
over 10 months later, so many are still
falling through the gaps,” said Lucas.
Labour has called repeatedly for the
chancellor to plug the gaps in his sup-
port schemes.”
The interventions come as the
Guardian profiles the impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic on employment as
300%
The increase in the number of self-
employed workers on universal
credit benefits since pandemic began
brunt of the crisis. At the start of the
pandemic there were 5.1 million self-
employed in the UK. This has fallen to
below 4.6 million.
About 3 million people have been
excluded from the government’s
sions exist, but has not been minded to
fix them. And that is a social injustice.”
A spokeswoman for the Treasury
said the government had done all it
can to help as many people as possi-
ble during the pandemic.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:11 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Lives in limbo Britons young and old
hit by Covid-19 unemployment crisis
Sarah Marsh and Amelia Hill
T
he Covid joblessness
crisis has affected
Britons both young
and old. When Rima
Begum, a law student,
graduated on a Zoom
call this summer, she felt a sense
of pride as one of the first in her
family to go to university. Despite
the economic uncertainty amid
the pandemic, she was confident
that she would find work to fund a
master’s degree.
Now, she is less hopeful. “I
have applied for 35 to 40 jobs but
I imagine 40% of my applications
have not even been read,” she said,
adding that she spends the whole
day on her laptop in her parents’
home, where she lives. “A lot of
these jobs are basic administration
roles in law and I get a notification
that 300 to 400 people have applied.
I think: is there any point?”
The 22-year-old relied on her
retail job in Oxford Circus, London,
to buy food and supplies while an
undergraduate but, after a period of
furlough, the store is now shutting,
leaving her future uncertain.
And her story is mirrored across
the country, as thousands of people
aged between 18 and 24 – many who
usually work in hard-hit sectors
•
such as hospitality – struggle to find
employment after being furloughed
or as they enter the jobs market.
Unemployment for those aged 16 to
24 increased by 124,000 to 597,000.
This compares with 407,000 people
over the age of 50.
The Graduate Market in 2020
report shows that the number of
entry-level graduate jobs has taken a
big hit – down nearly 11% in 2020 – as
a result of the pandemic. That is the
largest annual decrease since the
financial crisis in 2009. Recruitment
levels are down at more than
half of the UK’s leading graduate
employers.
Experts warn of the long-term
impacts of this, including lower
future pay and employment
prospects. They say it may also
influence the mental and physical
health of young people in later years.
Employers in all sectors are
cutting back. John Lewis, for
instance, has paused its graduate
scheme this year, as have the
Sanctuary Group and Danske bank.
For those still running, the number
of applicants has shot up.
KPMG, one of the big four
accounting organisations, said its
Can Britain stage a
green jobs recovery?
 In tomorrow’s Guardian
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:57
graduate programme had seen about
a 50% increase in applications in the
first three months for the 2021 intake
compared with last year.
The situation is also hard for those
not in education or training.
Kerel Babb, 20, left school after
his GCSEs and is working in music.
He usually takes shifts at Winter
Wonderland, an annual event in
London’s Hyde Park, but it was
cancelled this winter.
“I cashed out £10 this whole
year from music. My main income
is universal credit. It’s not enough
to sustain me but it’s what got me
studio equipment,” he added.
The creative industries, which
employ a lot of young people, have
also been hard hit. Throughout her
university degree in professional
musicianship, Ellie Levy Pepper
was working towards becoming
a jazz residency singer. She said:
“It’s very depressing knowing I
could be achieving my dream by
working in an industry I love at
this very moment if it weren’t for
the pandemic. It also affects my
songwriting and creativity, which in
turn worsens my mood as I’m stuck
indoors all day.”
For people over 50 who lose their
jobs, prospects seem just as bleak.
They are more likely to suffer long-
term unemployment than other age
groups. Lisa Griffiths, a 61-year-old
special-needs nanny, has spent
▼ Kerel Babb, 20, works in music but
earned only £10 from it this year. His
main income is now universal credit
PHOTOGRAPH: JILL MEAD/THE GUARDIAN
her career easily moving from one
contract to the next. But when her
five-year contract ended recently,
she was shocked to find new
employment opportunities far more
limited than she had expected.
Then, while she was considering
her options, the pandemic hit and
work dried up altogether: “It’s been
a real shock for me, and my fear is
that if this enforced unemployment
is not only to do with the pandemic
but my age as well – I have no
evidence that it is ageism but I have a
strong feeling that it is – then things
are going to get worse and not better.
‘It’s very depressing
knowing I could be
achieving my dream
if it weren’t for
the pandemic’
Ellie Levy Pepper
Jazz singer
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
11
“If I retire earlier than the
state pension age and then my
husband loses his job, it would be
a catastrophe,” she added. “I know
there are things like universal credit
but we’ve never had to lean on
government support before and I’m
not sure that my husband would
even entertain the idea.”
Since the Equality Act of 2010
made it illegal to discriminate on
the basis of age, employment rates
among people over 50 have steadily
risen. Pre-Covid, rates had reached
a historic high, with 10.7 million
people aged 50 and over in work –
nearly a third of the UK workforce.
But the pandemic has been
disastrous. There are now 91,000
more unemployed older people than
there were 12 months ago: a rise of a
third in a single year – significantly
more than any other age group.
That third is significantly more
than both the national average
increase of 24% and the 25% increase
in unemployed people aged 18-24.
For those aged 25-34, the increase
was 28%, and for those aged 35-49,
the increase was 19%.
This represents 407,000
individual stories of later life
joblessness, a group that now makes
up one in four of all unemployed
people in the UK.
This matters because despite
the advances of the past decade,
redundancy is a particularly age-
related problem: workers over 50
who lose their jobs are more than
twice as likely as other age groups
to remian unemployed for at least
another two years.
Dr Anna Dixon from the Centre
for Ageing Better said the official
figures also masked the number of
older people who were on furlough,
or had had their hours cut, but still
registered in the data as “employed”.
“Over the summer, furlough rates
showed a u-shape, with younger and
older workers the most likely to be
away from work,” said Dixon.
By September, however,
furloughed 55-64s were the least
likely to be fully back at work. “So,
while it superficially looks like older
workers will be ‘second-hardest’
hit by job losses in this recession,
once we factor in the fact that it is
older workers who are at greatest
risk of long-term unemployment,
it is clear that after this pandemic
there could be a lost generation of
unemployed over-50s forced into an
early retirement they neither want
nor can afford,” said Dixon.
This, said Stuart Lewis, founder
of Rest Less, the jobs site for over-
50s, was catastrophic for hundreds
of thousands of older people.
Contrary to popular belief, he said,
most fifty- and sixtysomethings
were not revelling in their gold-
plated, final salary pensions – a
long-lost preserve of their parents’
generation. Instead, many faced
a significantly underfunded
retirement and were seeing what
savings they did have decimated.
This in turn will lead to a significant
long-term drop in their future
retirement income, which risks
stalling the UK’s economic recovery
for years. He said: “It’s tragic to think
that over 626,000 over-50s are now
claiming universal credit, meaning
that after three decades in the
workplace, they have less than £16K
of savings to qualify for UC.”
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:12 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 16:42 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

LINGERIE, WITH LOVE

SPOIL YOURSELF OR SOMEONE
ELSE THIS VALENTINE’S DAY

marksandspencer.com

Collect in store or order by

8pm for next-day delivery.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:13 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Head for the chills A couple carrying a sledge climb a slope near Spittal of Glenshee in eastern Perth and Kinross,
at the southern end of the Cairngorms national park. Met Office forecasters said that wintry conditions, possibly
causing travel disruption, would continue for the next few days. They gave an amber warning of snow in Scotland
PHOTOGRAPH:
ANDREW MILLIGAN/PA tomorrow and Saturday, as cold air from Scandinavia continues to blast across much of the north of Britain.
Johnson swoops on
EU blunder to call for
easing of NI protocol
Heather Stewart
Lisa O’Carroll
Daniel Boffey
Boris Johnson has accused the EU of
appearing to “cast doubt” on the Good
Friday agreement, with last week’s
decision to invoke article 16 of the
Northern Ireland protocol.
Speaking at prime minister’s
questions after a call with Northern
Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster,
Johnson said: “It was most regretta-
ble that the EU should seem to cast
doubt on the Good Friday agreement,
the principles of the peace process, by
seeming to call for a border across the
island of Ireland.”
In a choreographed move capitalis-
ing on the article 16 debacle, Michael
Gove has also written to the EU ask-
ing for a two-year extension on the full
implementation of the protocol.
The extraordinary move comes
after widespread upset in Northern
Ireland over the implementation of the
protocol, which has led to disruption
of food supplies and online shopping.
Friday’s decision to invoke article 16
•
National
in a dispute over vaccine supplies to
the EU sparked widespread criticism
and was quickly rescinded.
Johnson told MPs: “We will work to
ensure that there are no such borders,
we will respect the peace process and,
indeed, no barriers down the Irish Sea
and the principle of unfettered access
across all parts of our United Kingdom
is upheld.”
Gove met the commission’s vice-
president, Maroš Šefčovič, via video
conference yesterday, when they
discussed ambitious demands for six
major concessions on the protocol.
Talks were described as “constructive”
but no agreement was made.
In his strongly worded letter, he
warned Šefčovič that the solution
must be “political, not technical”
and the EU’s “grave error” on Friday
demonstrated the dangers of taking a
“primarily technical approach”.
The six demands included exten-
sions on the current three-month
grace period for checks on supermar-
ket food supplies from Great Britain
to Northern Ireland to be extended to
January 2023, and a “permanent solu-
tion” on chilled meats from Britain.
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:34
He also sought the current tem-
porary arrangements for parcel post
from Britain to Northern Ireland to be
extended for the same period to allow
time for a “light touch permanent
solution to be codified”. This would
address consumer dismay that they
could no longer get goods from high
street chains such as John Lewis or
Currys delivered to Northern Ireland.
The UK also sought a common travel
area for pets, changes on steel quotas
for the region and medicine supplies
to continue as normal.
Although considered big asks, Gove
noted in the letter that the protocol
was not designed to disrupt life in
Northern Ireland, but to protect the
single market. He said the UK wanted
“urgent resolution” of the problems
and lengthy technical discussions,
the hallmark of Brexit negotiations,
▲ Supplies to Northern Irish shops
are disrupted by post-Brexit controls
were not acceptable. “What is required
is political, not technical solutions,”
Gove said, noting how disastrous a
technical solution to the vaccine wars
had been for the EU when a bureau-
crat invoked article 16 without regard
to the political ramifications.
He implicitly warned that the UK
could invoke article 16 unless its
demands were met: “If it is not possi-
ble to agree a way forward in the way
we propose, then the UK will consider
using all instruments at its disposal.”
It is understood that a new special-
ised committee, mandated under the
Brexit deal, will be quickly set up and
will convene in the next two weeks
to thrash out a solution with a signoff
expected at meeting of the UK-EU joint
committee which Gove and Šefčovič
pencilled in for mid-March.
Under a protocol in the Brexit with-
drawal agreement designed to avoid a
hard border on the island of Ireland,
Northern Ireland effectively remains
in the EU’s single market. The full EU
customs code is also to be enforced
across the Irish Sea on goods coming
from the rest of the UK, but its appli-
cation has caused cross-community
dismay in Northern Ireland.
In the Commons, the DUP’s Ian
Paisley urged Johnson to “be the
unionist we need you to be” by legis-
lating if necessary to make sure goods
can flow freely. Paisley said the North-
ern Ireland protocol had “betrayed us,
and has made us feel like foreigners in
our own country”.
Johnson promised to do everything
he could to ensure trade flowed freely,
“whether legislatively or indeed by
invoking article 16 of the protocol”.
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
13
Christian Color
Purple actor
sues after her
dismissal over
anti-gay posts
PA Media
A Christian actor sacked from her role
as a lesbian character in a musical after
allegedly posting anti-gay opinions on
Facebook has denied “misusing” an
employment tribunal to claim money
she had already been offered.
Seyi Omooba, 26, is bringing a case
for about £128,000 against a theatre
trust and her former agents for
religious discrimination and breach
of contract after she was dropped as
the lead in a stage production of The
Color Purple in 2019.
The devoutly religious performer
had been offered “unconditionally”
£4,309, the full pay of her contract for
the stage production by the Curve The-
atre in Leicester, the Central London
employment tribunal heard. But she
has refused to invoice for the sum and
says she has suffered extensive career
damage for her religious beliefs.
Omooba is seeking the £4,309 plus
another £25,000 from the Leicester
Theatre Trust for injury to feelings and
reputational damage. She is also claim-
ing against her former agents Michael
Garrett Associates for £98,752 for loss
of earnings, future losses, injury to
feelings and reputational damage.
Tom Coghlin QC, for the trust, said
claiming the £4,309 amounted to
an “abuse of process”, saying: “The
offer remains open, it’s still there but
you’ve not engaged at all. Instead
you’ve chosen to bring a breach of
contract claim. It’s to misuse a tribunal
procedure, isn’t it, to bring a claim for
money that’s always been offered to
you?” Omooba said: “No … you just
wanted to get away from it. You just
wanted to give me money knowing
full well they fired me based on my
beliefs.”
Omooba was sacked from her role
as Celie in the stage adaptation of Alice
Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel over a 2014 Facebook post that
read: “I do not believe you can be born
gay and I do not believe homosexuality
is right, though the law of this land has
made it legal, it doesn’t make it right.”
It caused a social media storm after
being unearthed and tweeted by the
Hamilton actor Aaron Lee Lambert,
who attacked Omooba as a “hypocrite”
for acting in The Color Purple.
Omooba is supported by the
campaigning group Christian Con-
cern, co-founded by her father, Ade
Omooba. The group said the case “will
expose the mechanisms of censorship
at the heart of the theatre industry”,
adding that “any dissenting views
against LGBT ideology, especially
Christian beliefs, are currently incom-
patible with a theatrical career”.
Omooba has told the proceed-
ings she had not read the full script
for the production, adding she was
never explicitly informed it would
be a lesbian role and that was not her
understanding of the part.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:14 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:S
14
Police force asylum seeker
back into Kent barracks site
Jamie Grierson
Home affairs correspondent
Police officers have been filmed
carrying an asylum seeker into a
former army barracks in Kent against
his will after he attempted to leave.
Hundreds of men have been locked
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
National
in at Napier barracks, near Folkestone,
following a coronavirus outbreak,
despite the government saying that
the site was not a detention centre.
The Guardian understands that the
man in the video tried to leave the bar-
racks yesterday morning by jumping
the perimeter fence. The video shows
two officers carrying him by his hands
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:34
and feet back through the gate into the
barracks, before dropping him to the
floor. The man is understood to have
jumped the fence twice again, and was
arrested after his third attempt.
Kent police said he was returned to
the barracks for a “Covid breach”, but
legal experts have questioned their
authority to do this. A police spokes-
person said: “Officers attended and
engaged with a man to explain and
encourage him to follow government
regulations and return to the site.
“He refused and officers were
required to use reasonable force to
physically return him safely back
inside and no enforcement action was
taken. The same male was then later
seen again outside of the barracks and,
when officers engaged with him, he
assaulted an officer and was arrested
and taken into custody.”
The barracks is meant to hold men
for a short time while they await a deci-
sion on their asylum claims before
they are moved on. They were pre-
viously free to come and go, but the
gates have been locked for two weeks
after at least 120 men tested positive
for Covid-19 in mid-January.
Communities ‘being
stigmatised’ by FGM
safeguarding policies
Nazia Parveen
Aamna Mohdin
Safeguarding policies introduced
to protect women and girls against
female genital mutilation (FGM) are
instead eroding trust and alienating
African diaspora communities, a study
has found.
The measures are undermining the
welfare and safety of the women and
young girls they seek to protect, with
families feeling racially profiled, crim-
inalised and stigmatised, according to
the report, published by the African
women’s rights organisation Forward,
and the University of Huddersfield.
Based on interviews with commu-
nities and professionals, including
serving police officers, it found
that health and social care workers,
teachers and the police are concerned
about the growing mistrust in their
communities, and are sceptical of
the need to single out FGM from other
forms of child abuse.
Key findings included that safe-
guarding policies enacted since 2014
may have inadvertently harmed fam-
ilies, communities and young girls.
They have increased the scrutiny, sus-
picion and stigmatisation experienced
by families in areas from school, to
healthcare and overseas travel, it said.
These experiences had taken affected
the mental health of parents, who said
they had no intention of carrying out
FGM on their daughters, and in some
cases even campaigned against it.
Professionals participating in the
study warned of a growing discon-
nect between them and the diaspora
communities.
Amy Abdelshahid, lead author
and head of evidence at Forward,
said: “The current FGM safeguarding
policies are causing quite a lot of harm.
Communities are feeling targeted and
racially profiled. There is a general
sense of assumption that many of
these African diaspora communities
intend subjecting their daughters to
FGM, even if in some of the cases that’s
not actually true.”
She said there was an “excessive
focus” on families from certain com-
munities when they travelled abroad.
“They may receive home visits from
social services and police interrogating
before they are able to travel.”
Asha, from the Somali community,
cYanmaGentaYellowb
There is a legal duty to self-isolate
for those who test positive or are con-
tacted by test and trace workers. Fines
for breaking the rule start at £1,000.
Adam Wagner, a human rights
barrister, said: “This is very troubling
footage. These are not detainees. I am
dubious that there is a legal basis for
the police using force.”
There has been an increased police
presence at the site since Friday, when
a fire broke out in one of the blocks.
Kent police have arrested 14 men in
connection with the incident, one of
whom was charged with assault.
‘When children are
going on summer
holiday, mothers
face fear … The
assumption is you
are doing FGM’
Asha
From Somali community
who participated in the study, said:
“When children are going on sum-
mer holiday, mothers face fear … The
assumption is that you are doing FGM
to your daughter.’’
Abdelshahid said participants
spoke of having to endure repetitive
and uncomfortable conversations in
healthcare settings about their own
FGM and their intentions regarding
their daughters. “What we’re seeing is
that in different touch points of their
lives, they are getting that constant
scrutiny by different types of profes-
sionals across many areas,” she said.
In another interview, with a police
detective, she said singling out FGM
as an issue could stigmatise a com-
munity. “We should be looking at all
forms of abuse within every commu-
nity,” she said.
The report recommends address-
ing FGM in a more compassionate
and inclusive way, including holistic
training for professionals, re-examin-
ing the current policies, and policies
that recognise the role of communi-
ties in eliminating FGM.
However, the feminist campaigner
Nimco Ali, a key figure in the fight to
end FGM, said the practice would be
eradicated only through legislation.
Ali, a FGM survivor who was
appointed by the home secretary,
Priti Patel, to help draw up a strategy
to tackle violence against women
and girls, said: “FGM is an organ-
ised crime. The idea that we need to
return to talking and negotiating with
communities is a non-starter. I abso-
lutely understand for the state to take
control of this issue, and it is the reason
FGM was added to the Children’s Act.
We are going to ask uncomfortable
questions. Why are we offended that
these questions are being asked? We
need these safety nets.”
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:15 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Eurovision
contest will
go ahead
in May, say
organisers
▲ Protesters face police at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009. Convictions
relating to the protest were overturned PHOTOGRAPH: DARREN STAPLES/REUTERS
Starmer urged to testify
at inquiry into ‘spy cops’
Rob Evans and Dan Sabbagh
A group of environmental campaigners
want Keir Starmer to give evidence to
the public inquiry into undercover
policing amid questions over whether
he was involved in a cover-up while he
was director of public prosecutions for
England and Wales.
The campaigners are demanding to
know if Starmer, now Labour leader,
helped to conceal how the actions of
undercover officers had caused them
and other activists to face wrongful
prosecutions. Eighteen activists have
asked Starmer and others to give evi-
dence to the inquiry to “get to the
truth about non-disclosure, prosecu-
tions and miscarriages of justice that
involved undercover police officers”.
The inquiry is examining how police
sent at least 139 undercover officers
to spy on more than 1,000 political
groups after the inception of a secret
operation in 1968.
The Labour leader did not com-
ment, but party sources said Starmer
had not been called to give evidence
so far. It is understood he considers
his response to the case involving the
activists to be widely documented and
a matter of public record.
But the demand by the environ-
mental campaigners could challenge
Starmer’s political credentials as a rad-
ical lawyer. Before he became an MP,
he built his reputation defending pro-
gressive activists and trade unionists
in the 1980s and 1990s as a barrister.
The lawyer turned politician used
this past when he stood for the Labour
leadership last year. At his campaign
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:59 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
•
National 15
pandemic. The 41 acts eventually recorded. Organisers described it as the pandemic but … it is regrettably
PA Media featured in a non-competitive virtual “a determined yet realistic approach impossible to hold the event in the way
show on the weekend the final would in the final phase of preparations”, but we are used to. The security, health
The Eurovision song contest will
have taken place.
To ensure the show goes ahead in
said downscaling was still an option.
In scenario C the hosts and interval
and safety of all participants, from
the crew to the artists, is our top pri-
be held in Rotterdam in May, but 2021, with the final on 22 May, the EBU acts would be live in Rotterdam but the ority. We very much hope to be able to
organisers say the usual format is
“impossible”.
created four scenarios, from the usual
format to an entirely remote one.
delegations and artists would submit
recorded performances, while sce-
gather in Rotterdam in May and will
do all we can in the coming weeks to
The European Broadcasting Union,
which produces the annual compe-
tition, said it was looking at a “scenario
They are focused on “scenario B” in
which everyone attending Rotterdam’s
Ahoy Arena would need to socially
nario D would be entirely remote and
would be likely in the event of a new
lockdown in the Netherlands.
achieve this.”
The UK has yet to announce who
will be competing but James Newman,
B” featuring in-person performances
and socially distanced audiences.
distance and have frequent Covid
tests. Acts who could travel to Rot-
The contest’s executive supervisor,
Martin Österdahl, said: “The Eurovi-
last year’s pick, has said he hopes to
have a second chance. In 2019 the UK
The 2020 contest was one of the terdam would perform live on stage, sion song contest will definitely make came last with Michael Rice’s Bigger
first high-profile cancellations of the while other performances would be its welcome return this May despite Than Us.
Not all
multivitamins
are created
equal
Try the Healthspan difference
for yourself, with over 50 vitamins
and supplements on sale, plus £5
launch, he promoted a video that told
of how he had defended striking min- off when you spend £20.
ers, environmental campaigners and Simply enter code GUARD-JFE.
peace protesters in myriad cases.
Starmer’s role in the undercover
policing scandal dates back to an epi-
sode where 20 activists were unjustly
convicted of plotting in 2009 to occupy
the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.
Prosecutors were forced to aban-
don the prosecutions of another six
activists in January 2011 after it was
revealed that the campaigners had
been infiltrated by an undercover
officer, Mark Kennedy, who spied on
leftwing activists for seven years.
The initial convictions were also
overturned by judges who ruled that
crucial evidence gathered by Kennedy
had been unfairly concealed from their
Plus
original trial.
Starmer then commissioned a
retired judge to conduct an inquiry.
£5 off* *
Quote code:
The judge, Sir Christopher Rose, pri- GUARD-JFE
marily blamed a junior, regional
prosecutor, while also concluding
that other prosecutors and police were
responsible for “failures over many
months”.
Rose’s report was silent on the exact was £11.95 was £15.95
role played by Starmer, making no ref- now £9.95 now £13.95
erence to whether, for example, the
chief prosecutor knew about Kennedy
and the withholding of evidence, or
took part in decisions about abandon-
ing what was a major prosecution.
The power station case is a key part
of the undercover policing scandal
as it triggered a chain of events that
exposed the long-running infiltra- *T&Cs. £5 off when you spend £20 at Healthspan.co.uk or freephone 0800 73 123 77. Not valid in conjunction
with any other offer code or subscription. This can only be used once and cannot be redeemed in store.
tion of political groups by undercover
Discount applied at checkout. Valid until 28th February 2021.
officers. Starmer headed the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) in England
and Wales between 2008 and 2013.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:16 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
16 National
Burgeoning Lanre Bakare
Arts and culture correspondent
detectorism More than 1,300 pieces of treasure
were found in England, Wales and
brings record Northern Ireland in 2019, the most
since records began, thanks in part to a
number of growing number of metal detectorists.
The figures are given in the annual
treasure report from the Department
treasure finds for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Of the reported finds, 96% were dis-
covered by metal detecting. Essex,
Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:00
were identified as the hotspots for
treasure, with more than 80 pieces
found in each of the areas during 2019.
There are an estimated 20,000
detectorists in England and Wales, and
348 of their discoveries made during
2019 ended up in British museums. Of
the finds, 16% involved coins.
Proposed law changes will mean all
artefacts found in England and Wales
will be defined as treasure if they are
of historical or cultural significance.
Under current rules, objects become
treasure if they are made of gold or
silver, are found with artefacts made
of precious metals or if they are more
than 300 years old. The rule changes
are supposed to protect ancient
items, including Roman finds that do
not meet the definition of treasure
because they are made of copper.
“The search for buried treasures by
budding detectorists has become more
popular than ever,” said the culture
minister Caroline Dinenage. “However
it is important that we pursue plans to
protect more of our precious history
and make it easier for everyone to fol-
low the treasure process.”
In a New Yorker article, the BBC
Mystery shipwrecks
gain protected status
on UK’s heritage list
Esther Addley
The wrecks of two sailing ships that
sank off the coast of south-east Eng-
land in the mid-to-late 19th century
have been granted legal protection by
the government, despite their identity
remaining a mystery.
The ships, both wooden sail-pow-
ered cargo vessels, were used in the
transport of goods, and were carrying
slate and coal on their final voyages.
While ships of this kind would have
been a frequent sight during the
period, few survive, according to
Ken Hamilton, national listing adviser
for Historic England.
“Compared to some of the ship-
wrecks on the list, these are quite
mundane,” said Hamilton. “But that
is part of their interest. Almost like
a vernacular maritime architecture,
these would have been common in the
late–19th century. And there are few of
them surviving today.
“They’re both part of one of the
largest industries in the UK – mari-
time transportation – and there’s not
much surviving of that fleet. So these
are rare examples.”
Apart from losing their masts, both
are well-preserved, according to Ham-
ilton, even retaining their bowsprits
– the long wooden spar at the front of
the vessel to which the foremast ropes
would have been tied.
One wreck, known as GAD23, which
lies on the notorious Goodwin Sands
sandbank off Sandwich in Kent, is
▲ A three-masted ship similar to that of the wreck, known as WA08, that lies
on a sandbank in the Thames estuary PHOTOGRAPH: THE HISTORIC ENGLAND ARCHIVE
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
comedy The Detectorists, starring Mac-
kenzie Crook, was identified as being
behind a boom in the hobby. “The
show’s representation of the detec-
torists is wistful; their search is not
just for treasure but for companion-
ship and masculine identity,” it said.
There have been cases of detector-
ists breaking the law. In 2019, two were
jailed after not declaring a Viking hoard
worth £12m. Among coins in the haul
were two thought to depict King Alfred
the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II
of Mercia, which changed historians’
knowledge of the 9th century.
a sail-powered collier, or coal ship, and
was carrying a large consignment of
the fuel when it sank, possibly after
a collision. Hamilton said that while
as many as 5,000 wrecked sail-pow-
ered colliers are recorded the location
of only about 25 are known. Only one
other such example is listed.
The other wreck, WA08, lies on the
West Barrow sandbank in the Thames
estuary, and was discovered during
a survey by the Port of London author-
ity in 2016. According to Hamilton,
the mystery ship was carrying a con-
signment of Cornish slate roof tiles,
at a time when the slate industry was
dominated by slate from north Wales.
“The fact this is carrying Cornish
slate is odd. And it makes me won-
der whether this was an order for
a particular building: had somebody
specified Cornish slate? I don’t know.
But that would be one of the [rea-
sons] we would like to identify it,”
said Hamilton.
Research into GAD23 has identified
three potential candidates that would
fit with the wreck’s tonnage, location
and cargo, including the Archimedes,
sunk in 1876, the Zia Catherina, sunk
in 1878, or the Superior, sunk in 1868,
although this was a larger ship making
it less likely. All were sunk in colli-
sions – damage to the starboard side
of GAD23 would support this theory.
The addition of both wrecks by
the UK government to the National
Heritage List for England means they
and their contents are protected in
law, and cannot be removed by sal-
vage operations.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:17 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Female directors
dominate Golden
Globe nominations
for first time ever
Catherine Shoard
Film editor
Three female directors will com-
pete for the first time at this year’s
Golden Globes, following decades in
which it was rare for a woman to be
mentioned in the category.
Only five female directors have ever
been nominated in the Globes’ 77-year
history: Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion
and Ava DuVernay, while Kathryn
Bigelow and Barbra Streisand have
both been nominated twice. Only Stre-
isand has won: for Yentl in 1983.
Yet women are in the majority on
this year’s shortlist: Regina King,
Commentary
Peter Bradshaw
Awards panel gets it right in
terms of diversity and a new
thoughtfulness in the air
T
his year’s Golden
Globes will be the first
film awards season
event to unfold in the
globally buzzkilled
new world of Covid
restrictions, but some traditions
are sacrosanct: the world of snubs.
Christopher Nolan’s metaphysical
•
News
Film and TV awards
for One Night in Miami, Chloé Zhao
for Nomadland and Emerald Fen-
nell, the British film-maker, for her
rape revenge comic thriller Promis-
ing Young Woman. They will compete
against two men who are no strangers
to Globe nominations: Aaron Sorkin,
for The Trial of the Chicago 7, and
David Fincher, for Mank.
Mank, a black-and-white ode to
Hollywood’s golden age, leads the field
with six nominations, including one
for leading actor Gary Oldman, who
plays Herman J Mankiewicz, hammer-
ing out the script for Citizen Kane.
Sorkin’s courtroom drama comes in
next with five, followed by The Father
– an adaptation by Florian Zeller of his
thriller Tenet was lauded by many
in the business, but was sent away
almost empty-handed (one nod for
Ludwig Göransson’s score).
It is also disappointing that
the overwhelmingly moving
and mysterious Pixar animation
Soul gets only two nominations
– animation and score. Surely
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:11
play about a man beset by dementia
– and Promising Young Woman and
Nomadland, which all have four.
Nomadland, an elegiac look at
the life of disenfranchised Ameri- 10, for Borat and Small Axe, and Hulu
cans who live on the road, starring received nine, for Palm Springs and
Frances McDormand, is widely tipped Normal People.
to dominate this year’s awards, hav-
ing won best picture at almost all the proportion of the acting nominations,
smaller prizegivings already held.
One Night in Miami took three nom- ing Young Woman, Rosamund Pike, for
inations, as did Borat Subsequent the healthcare satire I Care a Lot, and
Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen’s barn- Vanessa Kirby for her role as a grieving
storming comedy released just before
last autumn’s US presidential election
re
on
Baron Cohen is up for leading actor for
that film, as well as for his support-
rt-
ing role in The Trial of the Chicago 7.
7.
Maria Bakalova, the Bulgarian actor or
who played his daughter in Borat, at,
is nominated in the leading actress in
a comedy or musical category.
The nominations are the first off
the major prizes to be unveiled sincece
the Covid pandemic capsized the film m
industry. While closely monitored ed
production has resumed, most US cin- n-
emas have been closed for the past 10
months. Eligibility for the Globes hasas
al-
been relaxed to include major digital-
only premieres up until the date of the
he Carey Mulligan stars in
ceremony itself on 28 February.
Netflix, the streaming service ce
whose presence in the sector had ad
it deserved best film musical or
comedy?
In terms of diversity, the Globes
have not disgraced themselves,
with three out of the five director
nominees being women: Emerald
Fennell for the brilliant rape-
revenge satire Promising Young
Woman, Regina King for the true-life
60s encounter One Night in Miami,
and Chloé Zhao for the docudrama
Nomadland – although some will
be disappointed to see the relative
failure in the best film categories
of the big black-ensemble pictures
such as One Night in Miami, Spike
Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Shaka King’s
Judas and the Black Messiah.
Of course, the streaming giants
are crowding out the rest. Netflix
has 22 film nominations in total,
way ahead of Amazon Studios,
with seven. Disney must content
itself with a mere five. As far as
been mushrooming even before the
pandemic, now dominates, and is
responsible for 42 nominations across
film and TV. Meanwhile, Amazon took
Britons accounted for a sizeable
including Carey Mulligan for Promis-
Promising Young Woman
frontrunner movies go, I have a
hunch that it is Nomadland that will
wind up with the bragging rights –
its nominations for drama, director
and actress (Frances McDormand)
might very well be in tune with this
year’s zeitgeist.
It is not about Covid but rather
the social consequences of the
2008 financial crash, with newly
penniless retirees forced to move
into Winnebagos and roam the
country looking for seasonal work in
Amazon warehouses and the like. It
is a wonderful film, that speaks to a
new thoughtfulness in the air.
Nomadland’s four nods is
outclassed by David Fincher’s
Mank, the league leader with six.
This is the dreamlike alt-reality
riff on Herman J Mankiewicz
(charismatically played by Gary
Oldman), the screenwriter who,
after a career viewed as Tinseltown
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
17
 Film-maker
Chloé Zhao,
left, has been
nominated in
the best director
category of the
Golden Globes,
for Nomadland.
She is joined
by Regina
King, centre,
(One Night in
Miami) and
Emerald Fennell
(Promising
Young Woman)
PHOTOGRAPHS:
TAYLOR JEWELL/
AP/REX
mother in Pieces of a Woman. Also in
the running are Anthony Hopkins
for The Father, Riz Ahmed in Sound
of Metal and Dev Patel for The Personal
History of David Copperfield.
James Corden was a surprise inclu-
sion in the comedy category for his
role in The Prom, Ryan Murphy’s star-
studded Netflix musical; Corden’s role
as a gay Broadway performer was met
with a considerable backlash.
British actors up for TV prizes
include John Boyega for Small
Axe, Hugh Grant for The Undoing,
Daisy Edgar-Jones for Normal People
and the British-American actor Lily
Collins for Emily in Paris.
The nominees were announced by
previous winners Sarah Jessica Parker
and Taraji P Henson. They were joined
by Spike Lee’s children, Satchel, 26,
and Jackson, 23, who are this year’s
Golden Globe ambassadors.
However Lee’s latest acclaimed
film, Da 5 Bloods, was ignored by vot-
ers, despite assumptions that it would
have been nominated in multiple cat-
egories, including director and for the
performances of Delroy Lindo and
Chadwick Boseman.
Boseman, who died of cancer last
August, aged 43, was nominated for
his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,
alongside his co-star Viola Davis.
hackwork, found himself sharing
the screenplay Oscar with Orson
Welles for Citizen Kane. (The movie
was scripted by Fincher’s late
father Jack, who gets a posthumous
screenplay nomination.)
Florian Zeller’s The Father
also has four nods, with Anthony
Hopkins as the ageing dementia
sufferer and Olivia Colman as his
daughter; it has devastated all who
have seen it. This too is a serious
and heartfelt film and may also be
a Globe winner that addresses our
sober new mood.
Fennell is a brilliant young film-
maker who has scored a dazzling
triumph with her debut Promising
Young Woman, with Carey Mulligan
as a mysterious avenger taking
on predatory men, getting nods
for director, drama, actress and
screenplay. But my feeling is this is
Nomadland and The Father’s year.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:18 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
18
‘I could escape or
not see my family’
Academic facing
jail fled Iran using
smugglers’ paths
Patrick Wintour
Diplomatic editor
A
British-Iranian dual
national sentenced
to nine years and
three months in jail in
Iran for cooperating
with “a hostile state
power” has smuggled himself out
of Iran, escaping over the country’s
treacherous mountainous border,
and is now living in London.
In an interview with the Guardian,
Kameel Ahmady explained he
felt had no option but to flee after
spending nearly 100 days in Evin
prison, near Tehran, including a
brutal spell in solitary confinement
while he was being interrogated.
“Once I had been sentenced I had
a choice of whether I would stay and
not see my family and four-year-
old child until he was 14, or to risk
fleeing,” he said.
Ahmady, a social anthropologist
whose research revealed the
extent of female genital mutilation
(FGM) in Iran, was found guilty
of conspiring with hostile foreign
powers in November 2020, among
other charges, but was released on
bail pending his appeal. He was also
fined more than £500,000.
He said given how Iranian
courts normally confirmed the
first judgment and because of the
political motivation for the trial, he
had not held much hope his appeal
would succeed – a view that was
confirmed when it was rejected in
absentia on Monday.
Ahmady said he did not yet know
whether Iranian officials realised he
had escaped the country.
He escaped carrying only his
laptop and copies of the books and
articles he had published, crossing
the border through snow 1.5 metres
deep and fog, evading Iranian
border patrols. Border security has
been heightened ever since the
assassination of the Iranian nuclear
scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in
Tehran last year.
“I am Kurdish by ethnicity and I
know some of the routes, but it was
very dangerous. I had to try several
times,” he said.
Ahmady followed the paths
used by mountain porters evading
US-imposed sanctions to carry
alcohol, car parts, medicine,
cigarettes and contraband from
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:23 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
National
▼ Kameel Ahmady back in Britain.
He was sentenced to nine years’ jail
for ‘conspiring with hostile powers’
PHOTOGRAPH: LINDA NYLIND/GUARDIAN
Iraq and Turkey. But the routes are
hazardous: one smuggler carrying
four tyres on his back was recently
shot by border guards, while several
others have frozen to death.
He said he feared if he had been
caught he would have faced more
years in jail, but he had to take the
risk. “I smuggled myself out of Iran
out of despair,” he said. “I felt I had
no other choice or option to leave.
I was banned from travelling. I had
this bounty and this sentence.”
Others claim that his story is even
more complex, and days before the
court trial allegations of serious
sexual misconduct by Ahmady
surfaced on an Instagram account.
A #MeToo movement had started
in Iran at the time, and some of the
stories were anonymous.
The allegations eventually led
to his being removed as chair of the
Iranian sociological society, and his
critics say the revelations may have
contributed to his decision to flee
while on bail.
He said the allegations are
untrue. “As I said at the time, I take
full responsibility for my actions,
but I do not accept any of these
allegations. They are not related to to secure socio-cultural changes in “I said, ‘So what’s that got to do or seminars being cancelled at the
the charges brought against me by the Islamic Republic by lobbying with me?’ He said, ‘Wow, come on. last minute, especially after he gave
the court which led me to escape to raise the age of child marriage, You are British, you are worth a lot. media interviews and was invited
to restart my life in safety with promoting homosexuality and Britain is the cradle of human rights, to give a presentation to a group of
my family.” maintaining contact with foreign so you are worth a lot to them.’ ” Iranian MPs to raise the age of child
Ahmady is one of a small number powers. Ahmady said he had been marriage from 13 to 15.
of British-Iranian dual nationals, “By the first week of the harassed for long time before his A bill raising the age was passed
including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, interrogation, the ship was released, arrest after he became a target of the by a majority in the parliament
who have been arrested in Iran and but I had no access to media. I was Revolutionary Guards, which started but soon after was blocked by the
held, apparently for bargaining in solitary confinement. So the only to object to his research into FGM, legal commission. The age of child
purposes. source of information I had was the child marriage, temporary marriage, marriage can fall to nine with the
Born in the multicultural town interrogators. And one day, this guy ethnicity, and lesbian, bisexual and permission of parents and the court.
of Naghadeh, populated by Kurds just came and he was so happy. He gay relationships. He said since the spring of 2019,
and Turks, in Iran’s West Azerbaijan said, ‘Thank you. Thank you very He said his phone was snatched and the start of the harassment
province, Ahmady left Iran for the much. We got our ship back. And I on the street and soon after all his against him, he had been preparing
UK when he was 18, but returned in think you made a difference here. So accounts, including his emails, were for arrest. But when it happened
2010 to look after his elderly father. thank you for this, but we still really hacked. He found himself being the reality was still a shock. “It is
He was first arrested on 11 have a long way to go with you.’ banned from speaking engagements, like they have been ready for you
August 2019 after returning from for months or weeks. They are very
a UN human rights conference in  Ahmady with good at it, they are trained as to what
Ethiopia, which he attended in his his wife, Shafaq to do at different stages. They know
role as an expert on FGM and child Rahmani. ‘I had what to do, how long to interrogate
marriage. His family made his arrest a choice to stay you and exactly when to do it.
known two days later. and not see my “They started on me in a very,
He believes he was taken by family and child very small room, it’s almost like a
Revolutionary Guards partly owing or to risk fleeing,’ grave. You have three army blankets,
to his research and also because he said one as a cover, one to sleep on
Iran was looking for British assets to PHOTOGRAPH: and one as a pillow. For 24 hours
seize as a reprisal for British marines FACEBOOK there is a bright shining light on
helping to seize an Iranian ship, top of your head, a Qur’an, a mohr
Grace 1, off Gibraltar on 4 July 2019. on which Shias pray, and a phone
The ship was suspected of breaching to contact the guards to take you
EU sanctions by taking oil to Syria. to the toilet. There is no natural
He was formally accused of trying light, and a window in the prison
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:19 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •
‘It is so sad you want
to be interrogated
more because that is
the only way you can
communicate’
Kameel Ahmady
British-Iranian academic
door opens through which they
put your food. That is your only
communication with the outside
world. It is incredibly quiet, and you
just become crazy. You don’t know
what time it is, and you don’t know
what will happen next.
“When you are taken out to
go to the toilet, or half an hour’s
fresh air, or to be interrogated you
are blindfolded. And then your
interrogation becomes your lifeline,
it’s so sad that you want to be
interrogated more because that is
the only way you can communicate
with a fellow human being.
“They were trying very hard to
portray me as someone sent off to
Iran by the British, recruited by the
foreign powers to try to influence
certain people in the government.”
Ahmady said that after about a
month they moved him to a slightly
larger room where he could walk in
a circle. “It had a toilet and it felt like
▲ Ahmady fled Buckingham Palace.”
Iran across its His case was delayed owing to
treacherous the Covid outbreak. Just before
mountain border his trial, accusations about his
after spending professionalism emerged.
100 days in Evin “In the trial Abolqasem Salavati,
prison the judge in many controversial
PHOTOGRAPH: human rights cases, was very
KAMEEL AHMADY condescending, and you could tell
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:23
from his questioning that he had
made up his mind.
“Although he had my books and
research he took no interest in them.
In fact he had no knowledge of social
science and no experts were present
or allowed to provide professional
opinion. The only things that
concerned him were my dual
nationality, the years I had been in
the UK, the universities I attended.
“The whole purpose of the
questioning was to link me to the
west and my infiltration as part of a
bid to change the Islamic way of life.
“At one level I knew I was in
trouble. There was a time in prison
when my chief interrogator came
down the corridor – I knew it was
him from the sound of his steps –
and he was smacking his lips.
“He said, ‘Kameel you are
delicious. First you are a Kurd,
second thing you come from Sunni
background, most importantly you
are British and researching sensitive
subjects. We can bargain with you.
You know how it works.’”
But he said he still thought he
would get away with a warning
or some sort of suspended
imprisonment. But Salavati found
him guilty and his judgment,
released by Ahmady, shows quite
how ideologically the regime was
opposed to his work on FGM and
early child marriage, and how
convinced they were that he was
working for hostile powers.
Salavati said Ahmady had taken
courses at universities where
“subversive institutes and centres
relevant to spying services organised
these courses”. It was possible,
Salavati said, “the spying services
invested in people like Kameel
Ahmady, educating and training
them to penetrate in the Islamic
Republic of Iran many years later”.
By holding campaign meetings
with Iranian MPs trying to raise
the age of child marriage, Salavati
found that Ahmady had sought to
undermine Iran.
Salavati said in his judgment:
“Generally, it can be said that
increasing the age of marriage for
children is one of the strategies
of the enemy for weakening and
ruining the family system; and that
Mr Kameel Ahmady is one of the
leaders in the implementation of this
strategy in Iran.”
Ahmady said: “When I was told
the length of the sentence I thought
it was a joke. I never thought they
were going to hand out 10 years.
Everybody was shocked.
“At first I was adamant I was not
going to leave. I have been a fighter
all my life, but now I must change
my battleground. I just thought what
am I going to do?
“I knew if I was caught trying to
escape it would be open to all sorts
of interpretation that I was who they
said I was, I was being rescued by
a foreign power, I was transferring
data abroad.”
Labour defends focus on
patriotism and union flag
Jessica Elgot
Deputy political editor
Labour has defended its renewed
focus on British values and the union
flag, saying Keir Starmer sees patriot-
ism as wanting to improve the country,
after a leaked strategy document was
criticised by some within the party.
The document, seen by the Guard-
ian, advised Labour to make “use of
the [union] flag, veterans [and] dress-
ing smartly” as part of a rebranding
to help it win back the trust of disillu-
sioned voters. It also says that many
voters could not describe what or who
Labour stands for.
The presentation suggests dis-
plays of patriotism are needed to
reinforce that the party has changed.
One slide says: “Belonging needs to be
reinforced through all messengers,”
while another is headed “communicat-
ing Labour’s respect and commitment
for the country can represent a change
in the party’s body language”.
The document has been criticised
by a number of leftwing MPs, including
the former shadow cabinet ministers
Clive Lewis and Richard Burgon, who
said it risked alienating young voters
and those of black, Asian and minor-
ity ethnic backgrounds, and lacked
ambition and authenticity. But some
of the party’s former MPs defended the
strategy, saying it showed the party
wanted to rebuild trust.
Gareth Snell, the former MP for
Stoke-on-Trent Central, said critics
should realise how important some
of the issues were for certain voters,
and that patriotism should not be con-
flated with xenophobia.
“I don’t think some of the criticism
that came out last night that suggested
that this is just a move towards nation-
alism is fair at all, because there is a
Plant-based diet
essential to save
wildlife – report
Damian Carrington
Environment editor
The global food system is the biggest
driver of destruction of the natural
world and a shift to predominantly
plant-based diets is crucial to halting
the damage, according to a report.
Agriculture was the main threat to
86% of the 28,000 species known to
be at risk of extinction, the report by
the Chatham House thinktank said.
Without change, the loss of biodiver-
sity would continue to accelerate and
threaten the world’s ability to sustain
humanity.
The root cause was a vicious circle
of cheap food, the report said, where
low costs drive greater demand for
food and more waste, with more
competition then driving costs even
lower through more clearing of land
and the use of polluting fertilisers and
pesticides.
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
19
clear and distinct difference between
patriotism and nationalism,” he said.
“Clement Attlee and Denis Healey both
wore uniforms and took pride in their
country and no one would consider
them nationalists.”
The former MP for Sedgefield Phil
Wilson tweeted that a Labour leader’s
patriotism should be “a given, not a
strategy”.
A Labour spokesperson said
Starmer was proud to be patriotic.
“Keir wants to be prime minister of this
country, because he wants to believe
that a better future is possible for this
country, where we can spread oppor-
tunities for everybody, we can rebuild
our public services, we can create best
businesses in the world, which are the
envy of the world.
“You can call it whatever you want,
patriotism or whatever, but that’s what
he stands for. The union flag repre-
sents a country that Labour wants
to govern.”
▲ Labour says Keir Starmer is proud
to be patriotic and ‘wants to believe a
better future is possible’ for the UK
The report, supported by the UN
environment programme (Unep),
focused on three solutions. First a shift
to plant-based diets, because cattle,
sheep and other livestock have the big-
gest impact on the environment.
More than 80% of global farmland
is used to raise animals, which provide
only 18% of calories eaten. Reversing
the rising trend of meat consumption
removes the pressure to clear new land
and further damage wildlife. It also
frees up existing land for the second
solution: restoring native ecosystems
to increase biodiversity.
The availability of land also under-
pins the third solution, the report said,
which is farming in a less intensive and
damaging way but accepting lower
yields. Organic yields are on average
about 75% of those of conventional
intensive farming, it said.
Fixing the global food system would
tackle the climate crisis, the report
said. The food system causes about
30% of all greenhouse gas emissions,
with more than half coming from
animals. Changes to food production
could also reduce the ill health suf-
fered by 3 billion people, who either
have too little to eat or are overweight
or obese, and which costs trillions of
dollars a year in healthcare.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:20 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 17:26 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

20
Eyewitness
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:21 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 17:26 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •

▼ Bangkok, Thailand 21
A shopping mall roof is festooned with
decorations for the lunar new year on
12 February; 2021 is the year of the ox
PHOTOGRAPH: MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/GETTY
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:22 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
22
Kremlin shrugs off
Navalny protests as
his supporters crowd
jails across Russia
Andrew Roth
Moscow
The Kremlin has attempted to play
down the jailing of the opposition
leader Alexei Navalny, saying that
his 32-month imprisonment will not
have “significant influence” on Rus-
sian politics or lead to a mass protest
movement similar to the one in neigh-
bouring Belarus.
As protesters detained at recent ral-
lies in support of Navalny complained
of inhumane conditions and police
beatings as they were held in over-
crowded jails or on buses in subzero
temperatures, the Kremlin spokesman
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
said Vladimir Putin had been too busy
to follow the case and had not reacted
to Navalny’s courtroom speech on the
day of his sentencing. Navalny had
said the Russian president would go
down in history as “Vladimir Putin,
the poisoner of underpants”.
“I don’t think that the convict
you’ve mentioned can speak about the
place Putin will occupy in history,” said
Dmitri Peskov. “Absolutely not. This is
for the people of the country to say.”
The hearing came to a dramatic
conclusion on Tuesday evening as
the opposition leader was jailed for
allegedly violating his parole from an
earlier case, becoming Russia’s most
prominent political prisoner.
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:00
His wife, who had waved goodbye
to Navalny in court, yesterday broke
her silence on the case.
“You write to me that I’m strong.
I’m not strong, I’m normal,” she said
in a post on Instagram addressed to
her supporters. “I read your messages
and understand that there are so many
good, strong, correct people support-
ing Alexei and me that we should not
retreat or be afraid. We will win.”
Peskov did address Tuesday’s
protests against the Navalny ruling,
defending a brutal crackdown by
armoured riot police wielding batons
that led to more than 1,150 arrests in
Moscow alone after the judge handed
down the prison sentence.
Videos from the protests on Tues-
day showed police beating unarmed
protesters who had their hands up and
journalists, including a camera oper-
ator in a yellow press bib struck twice
in the head by a helmeted riot police
officer. Police said they had opened an
investigation into the incident.
Peskov said that cases of excessive
violence by police should be investi-
gated, but also that the harsh measures
employed by the police at the rallies
were justified. “There should be no
unsanctioned protest activity,” he
said. “Obviously, this kind of activity
should be put a stop to quite firmly.”
Further accusations of brutal treat-
ment and torture also began emerging
yesterday as protesters held in police
stations overnight were released.
An activist told Russian media that
officers in a Moscow police station had
put a plastic bag over her head and
threatened her with a Taser in order
to force her to give up her telephone
password, which she eventually did.
A total of 1,438 people were arrested
across the country on Tuesday, the
OVD-Info monitor reported, with
many sent to jails already overcrowded
with protesters detained over the past
two weeks.
In one case, protesters detained at
a rally on Sunday released a video two
days later saying they were being held
by police in a bus in –11C temperatures
because there was no space at a local
▲ Alexei Navalny gesturing to his wife
before being handed 32 months in jail
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
▲ Police detaining Alexei Navalny
supporters in St Petersburg on
Tuesday following his jail sentence
PHOTOGRAPH: ANATOLY MALTSEV/EPA
jail that was being used to help process
the thousands of detainees.
“For the last nine hours we’ve been
held in a bus where we’re being forced
to remain standing,” one man said in
a video posted to the internet. “We
don’t have water. We aren’t taken to
the toilets. There are dozens of other
[buses] with detainees being held here
as well.”
The crackdown on protests con-
tinued as a judge yesterday jailed
the editor-in-chief of the MediaZona
website, which covers the Russian
court and prison systems, for 25 days
for retweeting a joke on Twitter that
included details of a 23 January rally.
The editor, Sergei Smirnov, did not
attend the protest.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a political ana-
lyst and founder of R.Politik, said that
the harsh sentence against Navalny
was part of a campaign to “demon-
strate that no move aimed against
the security services would remain
unpunished”.
“Make no mistake, the Kremlin is
not terribly afraid of protests,” she
said.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:23 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
EU under pressure
Leaders feel the heat
on vaccination rate
Page 24
Aung San
Suu Kyi is
charged
with having
illegal radios
Rebecca Ratcliffe and
Guardian reporter Yangon
Myanmar police have charged the
ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,
with possession of illegally imported
walkie-talkies, which could result in
a two-year prison sentence, as a civil
disobedience campaign grew against
the military’s coup.
A document from a police station in
the capital, Naypyidaw, said military
officers who searched Aung San Suu
Kyi’s residence had found handheld
radios that were imported illegally
and used without permission by her
bodyguards. The charges, confirmed
by her party, appear to carry a max-
imum prison sentence of two years.
A state newspaper also reported that
the new military government would
investigate what it has described as
fraud in November’s election, in which
its proxy party was heavily defeated by
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League
for Democracy (NLD).
The ousted president, Win Myint,
is meanwhile to be charged for alleg-
edly breaching coronavirus laws by
meeting people on the campaign trail.
Former ECB chief Draghi agrees
to be Italy’s new prime minister
Angela Giuffrida
Rome
Mario Draghi, the former European
Central Bank chief, has accepted a
mandate to try to form a new Italian
government as the country seeks to
end the political crisis triggered by the
collapse of its most recent coalition.
Draghi, 73, nicknamed “Super
Mario” for his role in saving the Euro-
pean single currency, will have to
galvanise support in parliament to
quickly build a technical administra-
tion needed to manage the pandemic
and revive Italy’s battered economy.
Draghi was summoned yesterday
to meet Italy’s president, Sergio Mat-
tarella, after ruling coalition partners
failed to form a majority following
Giuseppe Conte’s resignation as prime
minister last week.
“I thank the president of the repub-
lic for the trust he has placed in me,”
Draghi said after the meeting. “Over-
coming the pandemic, completing the
vaccination campaign, responding to
•
Republican reckoning
Calls to punish
nish two
Trump loyalists
alists
Page 25
▲ People clatter tins and other objects
on the streets of Yangon in a symbolic
protest against the military coup
PHOTOGRAPH: STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The moves are likely to fuel already
simmering anger towards the mili-
tary. In one of the first organised acts
of defiance against the army since
Monday’s coup, health workers in 70
hospitals and medical departments in
Naypyidaw, Yangon and other towns
and cities said they would not work
under the military regime, accusing
the generals of placing their own pri-
orities above those of ordinary people
during the pandemic.
the needs of citizens and relaunching
the country are our challenges. We
have extraordinary resources com-
ing from the EU and we can do a lot
for the future of the country.”
Italy is poised to receive more than
€200bn (£175bn) from the EU’s recov-
ery fund – the largest share among
member states. The crisis was trig-
gered when the former prime minister
Matteo Renzi withdrew his small Italia
Viva party from the ruling majority in
January amid clashes over the govern-
ment’s handling of the pandemic and
the recovery spending plan.
▲ Mario Draghi accepted a mandate
to try to form a new government
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:00
“We refuse to obey any order from
the illegitimate military regime who
demonstrated they do not have any
regards for our poor patients,” the
organisers said.
Teachers’ groups, including the
Myanmar Teachers’ Federation ,
announced they would join the civil
disobedience campaign, while a
Facebook page that was set up to coor-
dinate such action accumulated more
than 180,000 followers by yesterday
evening.
The All Burma Federation of
Student Unions has urged other gov-
ernment workers to strike.
“They will not stop this movement
Renzi, whose party did not sup-
port the formation of a new majority
under Conte, has repeatedly suggested
Draghi as the ideal person to lead a
new government. “Now is the time for
sobriety,” Renzi wrote on Facebook.
“No more polemics. Long live Italy.”
Draghi said he was confident “unity
will emerge” from dialogue with vari-
ous parliamentary groups. However,
it is unclear if he will win the broad
support needed from political forces.
The Five Star Movement (M5S),
the biggest party in parliament, said
it would not back a technical admin-
istration led by Draghi. The populist
party emerged as a powerful force in
part as a reaction to Italy’s last techno-
cratic government. Nicola Zingaretti,
the leader of the centre-left Dem-
ocratic party, said he would meet
leaders of M5S and Free and Equal, a
small leftwing group in the alliance.
Matteo Salvini, leader of the oppo-
sition far-right League, and Giorgia
Meloni, who heads the smaller far-
right Brothers of Italy, both repeated
calls for early elections. Speaking for
both parties and the conservative
Forza Italia, Salvini said the three
would, however, have no prejudices in
their meetings with Draghi and would
present policy proposals before decid-
ing what to do in parliament.
until the elected government is
restored,” said Kyaw, a surgeon at West
Yangon general hospital who has
resigned from the government hos-
pital where he worked. Doctors are
instead treating patients in their
homes and at charity health clinics.
There have been no reports of street
demonstrations against the army, but
there is palpable anger among the pub-
lic, who have lived under repressive
military regimes for five decades.
Last night, the clanging of pots
and pans echoed through Yangon, as
people took to their balconies in a sym-
bolic protest against the military.
On social media, many adopted red
‘Super Mario’ Can he triumph again?
“Whatever it takes.” Three words
that tamed the financial markets,
saved the euro from possible
collapse and turned Mario Draghi
from an Italian technocrat into the
central banker of his generation
– and an obvious choice to head a
new coalition government in Rome
as Italy is facing the triple whammy
of Covid-19, economic collapse and
political chaos.
The country’s president, Sergio
Mattarella, was desperate to appoint
someone with the authority to lead
the country out of deep recession
and counter the Euroscepticism of
parties of the right, and who better
than “Super Mario”, the man who
dug the single currency out of a
deep hole in 2012?
Having told the speculators that
they underestimated the political
capital that had been invested in
monetary union, Draghi continued:
“Within our mandate, the ECB
[European Central Bank] is ready
to do whatever it takes to preserve
the euro. And believe me, it will be
enough.”
The markets got the message:
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
23
‘We won’t obey orders
from the illegitimate
military regime’
Organisers of a strike
by health workers
profile pictures to signal their loyalty
to Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent nearly
15 years in detention as she cam-
paigned against military rule before
being released in 2010.
Within Myanmar, she is widely
revered as a heroine of democracy,
despite international condemnation
over the treatment of the Rohingya.
The NLD has called for Aung San
Suu Kyi’s release and urged the mil-
itary to acknowledge the results of
November’s election, which it won
by a landslide.
The military detained Aung San
Suu Kyi in early morning raids on
Monday, hours before the opening of
parliament. It has accused the NLD of
election fraud, a claim observers have
dismissed as fabricated. She report-
edly remains under house arrest.
The US, which has formally declared
the military’s takeover a coup, has
threatened to reimpose sanctions,
while countries around the world have
demanded the release of detainees and
for the army to relinquish power.
The G7 group of the world’s larg-
est developed economies yesterday
condemned the coup and said it was
deeply concerned about the fate of
detained political leaders.
At a meeting of the UN security
council on Tuesday China and Russia
blocked a statement condemning the
coup and calling for its reversal, while
India and Vietnam were equivocal.
if they wanted to carry on selling
Italian and Spanish bonds they
would have to take on the ECB and
its considerable firepower.
Few were prepared to take that
risk, and even before the Frankfurt-
based bank had bought a single bond
the pressure on the governments in
Rome and Madrid had eased.
Draghi, born in the postwar Italy
of the 1940s, has had a long and
varied career. He was an academic,
and worked for the World Bank and
the Italian treasury before leaving
for a job in the private sector with
Goldman Sachs in 2001. After four
years, he became governor of the
Bank of Italy and was appointed to
run the ECB in 2011.
Those who thought he would be
only a figurehead at the ECB, with
the real decisions being made by
Germany and its allies in northern
Europe, were quickly proved wrong.
Draghi now has to use his
experience and credibility to sort
out the problems of an economy
that – after a disastrous 2020 – is
barely bigger than it was in 1999.
Larry Elliott
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:24 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:34 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

24 News
Coronavirus

 French police lost out, the Finnish former prime

officers pass a minister Alexander Stubb stressed
closed cafe as this week.
they patrol the “Small EU states would have had
streets of Paris virtually no negotiating power,” Stubb
to enforce Covid tweeted. “Big states would have swept
restrictions. the doses.” Playing a national card
The country when “the virus does not respect bor-
hopes that a ders” would necessarily be “a race to
third national the bottom … The key is to coordinate.”
lockdown can be But the commission – which had no
avoided experience in a public procurement
PHOTOGRAPH: exercise on this scale – handled nego-
STEPHANE DE tiations with manufacturers more
SAKUTIN/AFP/GETTY
like the trade talks with which it is
more familiar, focusing on price and
questions of liability than securing a
maximum of doses fast.
That led, inevitably, to late orders
and supply shortfalls. Delays have
since been compounded by the Euro-
pean drug regulator’s longer approval
process, and by several states seem-
ingly being ill-prepared for the doses
that have arrived.
‘All in all, I The EU’s top performers include
don’t think Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Italy, all
that anything of which have delivered at least one
has gone dose to more than 3.5% of their popu-
wrong’ lation. Under-performers include the
Netherlands, Austria and France, on
less than 2.5%.
Angela Merkel Many EU countries, however, are
German leader focusing on delivering two doses
within the interval recommended by
vaccine manufacturers and the World
Health Organization. By that measure,

Merkel and Macron

with Germany, with the EU.” Both reit- at Merkel and her ally, the commis- both Germany and Italy are outper-
erated their pledge that a jab would be sion president, Ursula von der Leyen. forming the UK.
offered to all adults who wanted it by The EU’s decision to collectively Merkel, Macron and Von der Leyen
the end of the summer. purchase and distribute vaccines have all stressed the importance of

lead defence of EU’s EU member states have so far

administered at least one dose to just
3% of their populations, against 59% in
enjoyed broad support in principle,
mainly because of the bloc’s experi-
ence in the first wave of the virus when
public trust in the vaccination pro-
cess, highlighting among reasons for
the EU’s slow progress its decision not

vaccination strategy
Jon Henley
Europe correspondent
Europe’s national leaders are starting
to feel the heat over the EU’s Covid vac-
cines programme, increasingly seen as
having been over-cautious, marred by
mistakes and, above all, achingly slow
to progress.
Shaken by the weekend’s blunder
over exports to Northern Ireland,
both Angela Merkel and Emmanuel
Macron felt the need to explicitly
defend the bloc’s approach this week,
as vaccination numbers continued to
lag behind countries such as Israel, the
UK and the US.
The German chancellor said on
Tuesday night that it “rankled” that
others were vaccinating faster, but
insisted the EU’s slower but collec-
tive strategy had been the right one.
“All in all, I don’t think anything has
gone wrong,” Merkel said.
France’s president also said on
Tuesday that progress “may seem
slow” compared with countries that
“made other bets”. But Macron added:
“I defend the strategy we have adopted
Israel, 15% in the UK and 10% in the US.
The states are at different stages
in their struggle with the virus, with
some, such as Italy and Poland, lift-
ing lockdown restrictions and others,
such as Germany and the Netherlands,
retaining them, mainly over concerns
about new variants.
France, meanwhile, hopes to avoid
a third national lockdown as case num-
bers remain stable but comparatively
high, while Portugal has suffered a
devastating surge and has accepted
doctors, nurses, ventilators and hos-
pital beds from Germany.
Nonetheless, criticism of the EU’s
slow vaccine rollout has been build-
ing, not least in Germany where media
and politicians jostling in the run-up
to September elections have taken aim
several member states blocked exports
of protective equipment.
A similar approach to vaccines
would have led to wealthy countries
such as Germany, France and the Neth-
erlands doing well, while the likes of
Croatia and Slovakia would have had
▲ A medical worker at a Covid testing
centre in Les Sables d’Olonne, France
to follow Britain in seeking emergency
approval for Covid shots.
Emmanuel Rivière, the director of
international polling at Kantar, said
many Europeans were “torn between
a desire to be vaccinated and a need to
be convinced it’s safe”.
He cited a survey for the EU com-
mission showing that while a majority
of those polled said they wanted a jab,
only 23% wanted it immediately, with
29% preferring “sometime in 2021”
and 18% later still.
Although the EU’s drug regulator
had yet to approve a single vaccine at
the time of the poll in late December,
62% – including majorities in 19 coun-
tries – felt Covid vaccines were “being
developed, tested and authorised too
quickly” to be safe.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:25 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
US party
divided
on calls
to punish
Cheney
and
Greene
Lauren Gambino
Washington
Republicans faced a reckoning
yesterday as leaders in the US House
of Representatives confronted calls
to punish two prominent congress-
women who represent clashing
futures for a party with no dominant
leader since Donald Trump left the
White House.
Those loyal to the former president
are demanding that Republicans strip
Liz Cheney, the No 3 Republican, of her
leadership post as punishment for her
vote last month to impeach Trump.
At the same time, the party is facing
mounting calls from Democrats and
some moderate Republicans to
remove the newly elected congress-
woman Marjorie Taylor Greene of
Georgia from her powerful committee
assignments because of her social
media history of bigoted and violent
comments.
On Tuesday Kevin McCarthy, the
Republican House minority leader,
met Greene, a devotee of the anti-
semitic conspiracy theory QAnon,
who has in the past indicated her
support on social media for executing
Democratic politicians, to discuss her
committee assignments. However, the
congresswoman apparently refused to
resign her positions.
Yesterday, the House majority
leader and Democrat, Steny Hoyer,
said that left the Democrats with no
choice but to proceed with a resolution
to strip Greene of her assignments.
After a discussion with McCarthy,
he said it was “clear there is no alter-
native” to holding a vote on the floor
of the House – an indication that the
Republican leadership was not willing
to take away Greene’s positions. The
vote is scheduled for today.
This week, the Senate minority
leader, Mitch McConnell, condemned
Greene’s embrace of what he called
“loony lies and conspiracy theories”,
saying her views were a “cancer for the
Republican party”.
But McCarthy and other leaders
have been more circumspect, aware
of Greene’s support among the party’s
grassroots and with Trump, whom she
met this week at his Mar-a-Lago resort
in Florida, where he has been since
leaving Washington on 20 January.
The resolution, introduced by the
Democrats, cites Greene’s “recent
•
World
▲ Democrats and some moderate
Republicans want to remove Marjorie
Taylor Greene for her extreme views
PHOTOGRAPH: ERIN SCOTT/REUTERS
conduct”, a reference to her social
media posts supporting an array of
conspiracy theories.
Other Democrats have introduced
measures to censure Greene on the
House floor or expel her from the
chamber, an extraordinary step that
would require support from dozens
of Republicans.
Greene has defended herself on
Twitter, claiming that Democrats’
efforts to remove her from the House
labour and education committee were
an attack on her identity as a “White,
Woman, Wife, Mother, Christian,
Conservative, Business Owner”.
Her appointment to the education
committee was particularly problem-
atic after it was revealed that she had
wrongly claimed that the 2018 school
shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which
‘White, Woman, Wife,
Mother, Christian,
Conservative’
Marjorie Taylor Greene
On her identity
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:51
17 people were murdered, was a “false
flag” event – a hoax staged by those
opposing lax gun rights. She has also
publicly harassed a survivor of that
massacre.
Greene also serves on the House
budget committee.
McCarthy, a staunch ally of Trump
who voted to overturn the election
results in two states, based on spurious
allegations of voter fraud, in the hours
after the 6 January insurrection at
the US Capitol, also faced pressure
from members of his own party to
reprimand Cheney during a closed-
door meeting later yesterday.
Cheney, the daughter of the former
vice-president Dick Cheney and now
a Republican representative for the
family’s home state of Wyoming, has
received support from Republican
leaders, including McConnell, who
called her “a leader with deep convic-
tions and the courage to act on them”.
The Republican senator Lindsey
Graham , a frequent defender of
Trump, said Cheney was “one of the
strongest and most reliable conserv-
ative voices in the Republican party”
and called her leadership in the party
“invaluable”.
The fates of the two congress-
women underscores the deep internal
tensions in the Republicans as the
party grapples with the aftershocks
of Trump’s presidency.
▲ Trump loyalists are demanding
Liz Cheney be stripped of her post for
voting to impeach the then president
PHOTOGRAPH: SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY
The only president in American
history to be impeached twice, Trump
maintains strong support among the
faithful, even after being expelled
from social media for whipping up
his supporters into the deadly riot at
the Capitol.
Greene, meanwhile, has, become
a serious liability for the Republican
party. Democrats are seizing on the
turmoil, and this week launched a half-
a-million dollar advertising campaign
to make her the face of the Republi-
can party.
The adverts link eight Republicans,
including McCarthy, to Greene and
the QAnon conspiracy theory. “He
stood with ‘Q’, not you,” a narrator
says ominously in an advert target-
ing the Republican congressman Don
Bacon of Nebraska, and referring to
the shadowy and probably fake anony-
mous government operative character
at the centre of that conspiracy move-
ment, known to followers as “Q”.
Some conservative lawmakers,
in response to the Democrats’ cam-
paign to hold Greene accountable, are
attempting to turn the tables by push-
ing a long-short resolution that would
instead strip the Democratic congress-
woman Ilhan Omar of her committee
assignments because of comments she
made in 2019 that members in both
parties condemned as antisemitic.
“If the Democrat majority wants to
go down this road, they should start
by dealing with their own members
who have been at this before and after
their election to Congress,” said Brian
Babin, the Texas congressman who
introduced the resolution.
But Dean Phillips, a Democrat from
Minnesota, responded by telling
Republicans to “get a grip on reality”.
“Omar didn’t belittle a school
shooting survivor, claim that no
airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11,
insist lasers started the CA wildfires,
or endorse the assassination of the
Speaker of the US House of Represent-
atives,” he said.
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
25
Olympics
body plans
Covid-safe
‘silent Games’
in Tokyo
Justin McCurry
Tokyo
The organisers of the 2020 Olympics
are planning a silent Games in Tokyo,
with bans on singing and chanting
among a list of restrictions officials
say will protect athletes, staff and the
public from coronavirus.
The International Olympic Com-
mittee’s first “Covid playbook”,
published yesterday, is aimed at sports
federations and technical officials, but
similar measures designed to prevent
the Games from becoming a super-
spreader event are expected to apply
to athletes – and possibly spectators –
when the Olympics open on 23 July.
The playbook says visitors should
“support athletes by clapping and not
singing or chanting”, while athletes
will be subject to testing a minimum
of once every four days while they are
in Tokyo. All visitors will be required
to present proof of a recent negative
Covid test upon arrival in Japan, but
vaccination will not be a condition
of participating in the Games, which
were postponed for a year last March as
the pandemic began its global spread.
Athletes and officials will not be
permitted to use public transport
without permission, must wear face
masks when appropriate, and practise
social distancing. Serious or repeated
violations could result in ejection.
Despite speculation the postponed
Games could be called off as a result
of the pandemic, the IOC’s executive
director, Christophe Dubi, said he was
confident the guidelines would ensure
the safety of everyone involved.
Craig Spence, of the International
Paralympic Committee, said the world
knew much more about the virus – and
how to contain it – than it did when the
Games were postponed.
Japan has been hit less severely
by Covid than many comparable
countries, with fewer than 6,000
deaths recorded. But a recent surge
in cases forced the government to
declare a state of emergency in Tokyo
until early March and to close its bor-
ders to non-resident foreigners.
There is growing concern that an
influx of 15,400 Olympic and Para-
lympic athletes, as well as sponsors,
officials and staff, will spread the virus.
Opinion polls show most Japanese do
not want the Games to go ahead.
▲ Visitors to the Tokyo Games will be
banned from singing or chanting
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:26 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 16:31 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

26 Classified
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:27 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
FTSE 100 All share
-8.83 - 0.84
6507.82 3706.36
UK needs 1945-style reboot
of economy, says CBI chief
Richard Partington
Economics correspondent
Britain needs an economic strat-
egy for the next decade to match the
ambition of the 1945 postwar recov-
ery as the country emerges from the
Covid pandemic, the new head of the
Confederation of British Industry
said yesterday.
In his first keynote speech as direc-
tor general of the CBI, Tony Danker said
the “triple shocks” of Brexit, corona-
virus and climate change highlighted
the need for business and government
to work together on a long-term plan.
Invoking the work of the 1945
Labour government to reboot Britain’s
economy from the devastation of the
second world war, and contrasting it
with the response to the 2008 finan-
cial crisis, he said the government,
businesses and trade unions needed
to work together on a fightback plan.
“I believe we must, and we will,
De Beers sales
surge thanks to
festive rush for
jewellery in US
Jillian Ambrose
De Beers has revealed its strong-
est diamond sales in three years
after a Christmas surge in jewellery
purchases, with sales 10% above the
group’s 20-year average.
The world’s biggest diamond miner
made $650m (£475m) from its rough
stones last month, well above sales of
$551m in early 2020, amounting to the
highest sales since January 2018.
Sales were propelled thanks to a
busy Christmas season for jewellery
buying in the US, and the company
hopes for a diamond rush over the
Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day.
The Covid-19 pandemic had initially
led to a collapse in demand for stones
as many jewellery makers and stores
were obliged to shut down.
Bruce Cleaver, the chief executive
at De Beers Group, said midstream
diamond buyers – who transform the
rough stones into polished diamonds –
had begun to restock so were prepared
to fulfil new orders from retailers.
Although the diamond industry
still faced “risks to recovery”, due to
Covid-19 rules restricting movement
of people and goods, Cleaver said he
was encouraged by the rise in demand.
•
Dow Indl Nikkei 225
+3.37 +284.33 1.1359
30690.85 28646.50
come together to forge a better dec-
ade. More 1945 than 2008,” he said.
Danker, head of the country’s
most powerful business lobby group,
replaced Dame Carolyn Fairbairn in
the role late last year. Previously he
was chief executive of Be the Business,
a government and industry funded
organisation launched by George
Osborne with the aim of boosting Brit-
ish companies’ productivity. Formerly
he had been chief strategy officer at
Guardian News and Media, the pub-
lisher of the Guardian and Observer.
Saying the UK had failed to “build
back better” from the 2008 banking cri-
sis, Danker warned that productivity
and economic growth had flatlined,
while Britain had become a more
divided nation. This time around, he
said, “vision, a plan and a consensus
as a nation to pursue it” were needed
to rebuild a fairer, greener economy.
Highlighting the creation of the wel-
fare state and the birth of the NHS after
the second world war as a moment
De Beers reportedly called for one
of the steepest increases in diamond
prices in almost 10 years last month,
when it raised the price for stones
larger than one carat.
The company does not reveal what
it charges buyers, but is understood to
have increased the price of its stones
$650m
Sales of rough diamonds in January,
up from $551m in early 2020, and
the highest since January 2018
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:57
£/€ £/$
1.3645
+0.0028 +0.0016
‘The scale of the
shocks we’re facing
demands a similarly
dramatic moment of
unity and foresight’
Tony Danker
CBI director general
by up to 5% in the January sales round,
according to a report by Bloomberg,
which cited unnamed sources.
This increase, which is under-
stood to apply to stones bigger than
one carat, would be one of the steep-
est hikes since the early part of the last
decade, according to the report.
The stronger sales and higher prices
could signal a change in fortune for
the business, part of the Anglo Amer-
ican mining conglomerate since 2012.
Sales slumped by a third in 2020
to hit their lowest level in almost 10
years as the pandemic took the shine
when “real shifts for the better” had
taken place, he added: “Let’s be clear.
The scale of the shocks we’re facing
today – Brexit, Covid, and the climate
imperative – demands a similarly dra-
matic moment of unity and foresight.
“So, what will we take from this cri-
sis? Where, in our darkest times, have
we made real shifts for the better? Most
notably, of course, in the aftermath of
the second world war, when postwar
reconstruction gave birth to the NHS
and creation of the welfare state.”
Danker’s speech came as Boris
Johnson’s government drew up plans
for easing coronavirus restrictions this
spring and rebooting the economy
from the deepest recession in more
than 300 years.
Business leaders and unions have
called for the furlough scheme to be
extended until at least the summer.
Danker, warning against a full
embrace of free-market ideology,
said a middle ground between big
government and neoliberalism could
be forged.
Urging the government to invest in a
green recovery, he said a national eco-
nomic vision for overcoming political
cycles could be created. “We have been
short term, both sides, and failed to
unite around a shared plan to realise
our potential. History will judge how
we used this moment to map the path
to get to 2030.”
▲ A model shows off a diamond
ring and necklace at the Hong
Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair
PHOTOGRAPH: ALEX HOFFORD/EPA-EFE
off global demand for diamonds and
gems. The company said it had provi-
sionally sold $2.7bn (£1.9bn) of rough
diamonds last year, down sharply from
sales of more than $4bn in 2019.
There was a glimmer of recovery
in the final diamond sales cycle of
last year, when earnings climbed to
a provisional $440m in December, up
slightly on the same period last year.
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
27
CureVac and
GSK in deal to
develop jab
aimed at new
Covid strains
Mark Sweney and Julia Kollewe
GlaxoSmithKline and the German firm
CureVac have reached a €150m (£132m)
agreement to develop the next genera-
tion of Covid-19 vaccines, designed to
target new emerging variants.
The two companies said they
planned to develop a shot next year
that could address “multiple emerg-
ing variants in one vaccine”.
GSK, the UK’s second biggest
pharmaceutical firm and the world’s
biggest vaccine maker, will also sup-
port making up to 100m doses of
CureVac’s first-generation Covid-19
vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, this year.
CureVac is already working with
Bayer in Germany to speed up devel-
opment and production of up to 300m
doses of CVnCov this year. The vac-
cine, which unlike other mRNA shots
can be kept at fridge temperature, is
being tested on thousands of volun-
teers in late-stage trials, and initial
results are expected in March or April.
The new GSK/CureVac project will
also develop mRNA vaccines, this time
designed to address multiple variants
of the virus. The mRNA process injects
genetic material into the body that
contains the instructions to make the
spike protein of the coronavirus. In
response to these proteins, the body’s
immune system is activated, offering
protection.
The companies said the increase
in emerging variants that are more
resistant to the current vaccines being
administered, such as the variant first
identified in South Africa, meant sci-
entists needed to “accelerate efforts”
to develop new vaccines.
“The race is on for a variety of differ-
ent technologies to get as many people
protected around the world as possi-
ble,” said GSK’s chief executive, Emma
Walmsley.
The aim is for the next generation of
vaccines to either protect people who
have not been vaccinated or to serve as
a booster “in the event that Covid-19
immunity gained from an initial vac-
cination reduces over time”.
It is an attempt by GSK to get back
in the game after major setbacks to a
Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with
its French partner, Sanofi.
The partners said last month that
their shot would be delayed until
the end of this year after it failed to
produce a strong enough immunity
response in older people. GSK is sup-
plying an adjuvant, a booster added to
a vaccine to create stronger and longer-
lasting immunity.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:28 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:49 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

28 Financial

Amazon under fire

structures designed solely for the pur-
pose of avoiding tax” and that it was
“about time Amazon buck up its ideas
and starts contributing fairly”.

over tax after 51%

Critics accuse Amazon of “aggres-
sively avoiding” tens of billions of tax
due to governments across the world
by shifting its profits through low-tax

surge in UK sales
Rupert Neate
Wealth correspondent
Amazon’s UK sales soared by 51% last
year to a record $26.5bn (£19.4bn) as
people trapped at home because of
coronavirus lockdowns turned to the
internet retailer to buy items unavail-
able in closed high street stores and to
keep themselves entertained.
While Amazon celebrated the rise in
revenue collected from UK customers,
the company did not state how much
tax it paid in the UK last year. The com-
pany, which has made its founder and
outgoing chief executive, Jeff Bezos,
a $200bn fortune, paid just £293m in
tax in 2019 despite the company col-
lecting UK sales of $17.5bn that year.
Details of the leap in UK sales were
contained in a filing with the Securi-
ties and Exchange Commission in the
US after the tech company unveiled its
latest global financial results yester-
day. They revealed Amazon’s global
revenue soared past $100bn in the
most recent three months. Bezos also
announced he was stepping down
from the day-to-day running of the
company and handing the reins to
one of his key lieutenants, Andy Jassy.
The £19.5bn that UK customers
spent at Amazon in 2020 is roughly
double the takings at Marks & Spen-
cer and underlines how the pandemic
is changing the way we shop.
Paul Monaghan, the chief execu-
tive of Fair Tax Mark, said it was very
unlikely the 50% jump in UK sales
would lead to any sizeable increase
in UK tax paid because “a good pro-
portion of [Amazon’s UK sales] will be
booked in Luxembourg, where they
engineered a near €1bn loss last year”.
He said the result of this financial
engineering would lead to Amazon
“racking up hundreds of millions of
tax credits that will be used to offset
future profits that might have other-
wise generated tax contributions”.
Last year, it emerged that Amazon
received €294m (£258m) in tax cred-
its across Europe in 2019.
The Labour MP Margaret Hodge
said Amazon used “complex corporate
jurisdictions, such as Luxembourg.
“Their tax contribution continues
to be miserly,” Monaghan said. “In
2020, their corporation tax contri-
bution across the world was just 7%,
which is down even on the 11% they
paid through the preceding decade.”
Amazon is not alone in creating
complex corporate structures to avoid
tax. The big six US tech firms – Ama-
zon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Apple
and Microsoft – have been accused of
avoiding $100bn (£75bn) of global tax
over the past decade.
The UK government has tried to
clamp down on the multinationals
with a 2% digital services tax, but
Amazon will not have to pay the tax on
products it sells directly to consumers.
Amazon said in 2015 it would
stop using corporate structures that
diverted sales and profits away from
the UK.
A spokesperson for Amazon said:
“We are investing heavily in jobs and
infrastructure across the UK – more
than £23bn since 2010. Last year we
announced plans for 10,000 new jobs
in the country by the end of 2020, tak-
ing our total workforce to over 40,000.
“This continued investment helped
contribute to a total tax contribution
of £1.1bn during 2019 – £293m in direct
taxes and £854m in indirect taxes.”

What next for the billionaire? After Bezos Jasper Jolly

As Jeff Bezos passes the reins of
Amazon to Andy Jassy, what could
he do next with his interests?
A
travel cheaper and more accessible
with reusable launch vehicles. The
Wildlife Fund, which will each
receive $100m. New chief pain-free departure of
a visionary founder is
company is testing a moon lander a difficult trick to pull

Day One Fund

In 2018 Bezos gave $2bn, just over
1% of his wealth, to the Bezos
Day One Fund to help address
homelessness and improve
education for children in low-
income families.However, the
charity has been criticised for only
slowly ramping up its donations.
Blue Origin
Bezos owns Blue Origin, a space
company that aims to make space
called Blue Moon and hopes to
launch its first mission in 2024.
Bezos Earth Fund
Last year, Bezos announced the
creation of his new project, the
Bezos Earth Fund, a $10bn initiative
to support scientists, activists
and charities working to tackle
the climate crisis. In November
he announced 16 initial recipients
of the fund, who will receive a
collective $791m. They include the
Nature Conservancy and the World
The Washington Post
Bezos bought the newspaper in 2013
for $250m and has been credited
Jassy to face
with bringing it into the digital era
after decades of decline. He has
focused on the tech side and not
significant
used it to promote his own agenda.
… And still at Amazon
challenges
Amazon’s chief financial officer,
Brian Olsavsky, told reporters that:
“Jeff is really not going anywhere.
It’s more of a restructuring of who’s
doing what.” Rupert Neate
off for any business.
The stakes are even
higher for a company
the size of Amazon, as Jeff Bezos
steps back from his day-to-day role.
The decision by Bezos, 57, to quit
as chief executive later this year took
analysts by surprise, but the first
step has already gone smoothly, with
Andy Jassy appointed as successor
without any public power struggle.
It is an auspicious time for a new
chief executive, on the face of it.
Amazon also reported another round
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:29 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
of record results, with profits of
$24bn (£17.6bn) during 2020. Yet the
company’s scale and reach means
Jassy will face several significant
challenges.
In its core retail business Amazon
has a dominant position, but Jassy
will now oversee its push into
businesses with stricter regulation,
such as prescription medicines.
Amazon is also targeting fresh food,
where deep-pocketed incumbents
will not willingly give up customers.
And the upheaval in retail is by no
means over. Amazon’s investments
in technologies such as drone
delivery and shops without tills
show it is alert to threats, but new
business models could pop up that
could dent growth.
Growth in its main markets could
Asda buyers selling off petrol forecourts
to fund £6.8bn takeover of supermarket
Sarah Butler
The buyers of Asda have announced
plans to sell off its petrol forecourts
and distribution centres to help fund
a £6.8bn takeover.
The private equity firm TDR Capital
and the billionaire Issa brothers aim to
raise £950m from the sale of Asda’s dis-
tribution centres, which will then be
leased back, while the group’s petrol
stations will be bought by the brothers’
own EG Group for £750m.
Mohsin and Zuber Issa leased their
•
Financial
 Jeff Bezos with
his girlfriend, the
US TV anchor
Lauren Sánchez,
in Mumbai,
India, last year
PHOTOGRAPH:
HINDUSTAN TIMES/
GETTY IMAGES
also become more difficult, forcing
Amazon to spend more to retain
customer loyalty, such as going
up against Netflix and Apple on
expensive film and TV production to
feed its Prime Video service.
There are other, more contro-
versial issues that Jassy must grasp,
including the firm’s continued
opposition to unionisation.
Amazon has already faced scrutiny
from regulators in Europe and the US,
particularly focused on the potential
conflict between its role as a platform
for smaller retailers and as a retailer
itself. The European commission
has found evidence that Amazon
used non-public data from its sellers
to its advantage. Further evidence
of abuses could cause serious
headaches for Jassy.
first petrol station in 1999 and today
have more than 6,000 across 10 coun-
tries. It is not clear if EG will pay Asda
for use of its name on forecourts.
Financing for the Asda takeover,
which is awaiting approval from
the competition watchdog, will also
include £3.5bn of new debt, made up
of bonds and an €850m (£749m) loan.
The expected proceeds from the sale
of the petrol stations and distribution
centres will be used to pay off two addi-
tional bridging loans being taken on to
finance the takeover.
The plan will saddle Asda with
debts equivalent to about four times
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:49
Business view
Nils Pratley
All change? The founder may
avoid some irksome tasks but
he’s not really going anywhere
J
eff Bezos is stepping
aside at Amazon – sort
of. In fact, he is merely
dropping one of his
three job titles. He
will no longer be chief
executive but will still be executive
chairman. And, since he didn’t
mention his status as “president”
(whatever that involves), one
assumes he is keeping the bauble.
This “transition”, including the
promotion of web services boss
Andy Jassy to be chief executive
from the autumn, has been greeted
as a very big deal. Let’s see. Its
significance depends on how
Bezos plays things. He formally
gets to spend more time on other
interests – everything from the
Washington Post to rockets –
but he was probably doing so
informally anyway. Real change
may be hard to detect.
As chair, Bezos will still run
the board. And as the most senior
executive (still), he has freedom
to roam wherever he wishes. If
he and Jassy disagree, everybody
knows who will prevail.
By not being chief executive,
it becomes easier for Bezos to
avoid the next grilling in front
of US lawmakers over Amazon’s
treatment of small businesses or
workers (note this week’s $61.7m
settlement of claims the company
pocketed delivery drivers’ tips)
or anti-trust issues. He usually
performs awkwardly on such
occasions, so it’ll suit both him and
Amazon if he’s not on parade.
But that doesn’t mean Bezos
won’t be making the big decisions.
“Jeff is really not going anywhere,”
conceded Brian Olsavsky,
Amazon’s chief financial officer.
Quite.
▲ The EG Group, founded by Mohsin
and Zuber Issa, will buy the forecourts
▲ An employee at GSK’s factory in
Saint-Amand-les-Eaux in France
GSK looks to future
The Covid vaccine tortoise, as Citi-
group’s analyst described Glaxo-
SmithKline, is stirring. The group
has signed a deal with CureVac
to produce 100m doses of the US
biotech firm’s current vaccine
candidate. Then the pair will work
on tackling virus variants, with
results promised for 2022.
Good stuff – and about time too,
some might say. The tortoise jibe is
not wholly fair since it is not GSK’s
fault that its Covid efforts with
Sanofi of France hit delays; that can
happen. But it is certainly true that
GSK has been eclipsed by Astra-
Zeneca on Covid.
That will feel familiar for GSK
It looks like Asda will
be approximately four
times leveraged … call
that robust if you
wish. Others would
describe it as racy
its earnings of £1.2bn – giving it more
than double the burden of its major
supermarket rivals. The level of debt is
likely to raise concerns, particularly as
EG Group has funded its rapid expan-
sion by loans. Last year’s accounts
showed a debt of about £7bn.
Clive Black, a retail analyst at the
city broker Shore Capital, said: “The
risk profile of Asda has undoubtedly
gone up.” He said the need to service
additional debt and pay rents on the
distribution centres alongside the sale
of petrol forecourts, which are benefi-
cial to cashflow, would all place extra
pressure on Asda’s finances.
“They have bought Asda when
supermarkets have got elevated
sales and brighter general prospects
as working from home and online
groceries are probably here to stay.
There is lots of money around and it
is very cheap for risk-taking entrepre-
neurs and private equity, but only time
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
29
investors for other reasons. You’ve
more than doubled your money
if you bought AstraZeneca shares
when Pascal Soriot became chief
executive in 2012. GSK, by contrast,
has been a tale of false dawns. The
shares reached £18.50 in January
2020 on hopes that chief executive
Emma Walmsley’s revitalisation
plan marked a turning point; now
they’ve dipped below £13.
Nothing has obviously gone
wrong under Walmsley, but nor is
there much to get excited about.
The dividend will be cut when the
big corporate rejig - the demerger
of the consumer products div-
ision – happens next year, but the
distribution has looked unsus-
tainable for ages. Until Walmsley
gives the full divi details in June,
though, investors are in the dark.
In the meantime, this year’s
earnings will fall by a “mid to high
single digit percentage”, slightly
worse than feared.
Better days are still promised for
the long-term, which is perhaps the
main point. There are 10 potential
“blockbusters” in the late-stage
pharma pipeline, said Walmsley.
Investors might feel more bullish
when a few appear, which is
always the challenge with pharma
turnarounds.
AstraZeneca, remember, spent
years in hibernation until Soriot’s
back-the-scientists strategy came
good. For a little while yet, Walmsley
deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Piling it high at Asda
“We are putting in place a robust
capital structure,” say the Issa
brothers about the financing of their
£6.8bn purchase of Asda. Really?
Compared to what?
This is a private equity-backed
deal and it shows. Asda’s petrol
stations are being sold (to the Issas’
EG Group inevitably), a chunk of the
warehouses will be offloaded via
sale-and-leaseback and £3.5bn of
debt is being injected into the mix.
The financial plan should find
financiers, but this is an old-
fashioned leveraged buyout. It looks
like Asda will be approximately
four times leveraged as a ratio of
top-line earnings. Call that robust
if you wish. Others would describe
it as racy in a supermarket sector
with three strong, and more con-
servatively-financed, competitors.
will tell whether they will look back
and think that was a good thing to do.”
TDR and the Issas are putting up
£780m of cash, while Walmart, Asda’s
current owner, will contribute £500m
of equity to retain a minority stake.
Mohsin and Zuber Issa said they
were putting in place a “robust capi-
tal structure” to support their growth
strategy for Asda and were “confident
that external investors will share our
belief in Asda’s strong fundamentals
and exciting future prospects”.
The Competition and Markets
Authority is considering whether the
acquisition will lead to a “substantial
lessening of competition” in Britain.
It must make a decision by 18 Feb-
ruary on whether the deal should be
subject to a more in-depth inquiry.
Last year the CMA blocked an auda-
cious attempt to merge Asda with its
larger rival Sainsbury’s, which would
have created a new market leader.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:30 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 16:40 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

30 Classified
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:31 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 3/2/2021 16:12 cYanmaGentaYellowb

Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •

31

Weather
Thursday 4 February 2021
UK and Ireland Noon today Forecast Around the UK
London
Sunny Mist Fog
Low 4 High 8 Lows and highs Precipitation Air pollution
Tomorrow
2 6 9 60% Low
Sunny intervals Hazy
Manchester

Mostly cloudy
19 Inverness Shetland 4 9 25% Low
Overcast/dull
Edinburgh
3 1
1008 31
3 4 70% Low
Sunny showers Slight
Belfast
1004 Edinburgh 1012
31 Low 3 High 6
Sunny and heavy showers Glasgow 4 7 65% Low
Saturday
1000
Birmingham
Light showers Newcastle
ca
7
5 8 15% Low
Rain Sleet Light Belfast Rough
Brighton
snow 9
York

Snow showers 9 11 60% Low

Dublin Liverpool
rpoo
ol 9
8
Bristol
Heavy snow Ice
35C
Nottingham
Nott m
Norwich
Carbon
10 3 9 65% Low
30
Birmingham
ming count
Thundery rain Cardiff
25 Daily atmospheric CO2
readings from Mauna Loa,
20 10 9 Hawaii (ppm):
Thundery showers 15
Cardiff
Ca L
London 5 9 25% Low
Latest
10 10 02 Feb 2021 415.55 Newcastle
X
5
Dover Weekly average
Temperature, 0 24 Jan 2021 415.77
ºC
-5
10 4 6 65% Low
Plymouth 03 Feb 2020 413.73
-10 10
03 Feb 2011 391.49 Penzance
-15
Slight 16 Pre-industrial base 280
Wind speed, Windy
mph -20 Safe level 350
The Channel Islands 7 11 60% Low
Source: NOAA-ESRL

Atlantic front 1008 L 1016 H

Weatherwatch Around the world
1016 1008
H
1024 1024
L When you think of California, Algiers 27 Lisbon 12
H
1024 you usually conjure up images of Ams’dam 9 Madrid 16
1000 1016 1016
a pleasant, comfortable climate. Athens 18 Malaga 19
L
However, last Thursday, it was Auckland 25 Melb’rne 28
L anything but comfortable. B Aires 26 Mexico C 24
1000
A storm system brought flooding Bangkok 32 Miami 21
to parts of the Golden State, with Barcelona 15 Milan 11
Cold front 1008 1016
some areas having in excess of Basra 26 Mombasa 32
H
300mm of rain in three days. As a Beijing 6 Moscow 0

Warm front 1032 result, Highway 1, along the Pacific Berlin 2 Mumbai 31
1024
H coast, was washed away in places, Bermuda 17 N Orleans 22
with one person killed in floods. Brussels 9 Nairobi 28
Occluded front 1024 In the Sierra Nevada mountains, Budapest 13 New Delhi 20
this fell as snow, bringing depths C’hagen 0 New York 4

Trough of 2 metres at some ski resorts. A Cairo 20 Oslo -9

14-year-old boy was rescued after Cape Town 26 Paris 11
being buried in snow that fell off Chicago 2 Perth 28

High tides
Source: © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Times are local UK times
Sun & Lighting the roof of his home. Corfu 17 Prague 8
On the other side of the US, severe Dakar 23 Reykjavik 3
Moon up thunderstorms have brought some Dhaka 28 Rio de J 32
of the first tornadoes of the year to Dublin 8 Rome 17
Aberdeen 0601 3.8m 1812 4.0m London Bridge 0604 6.7m 1839 6.5m Belfast 1710 to 0807 Florida. A tornado touched down Florence 16 Shanghai 12
Avonmouth -- -- 1141 12.0m Lossiemouth 0415 3.6m 1626 3.8m Birm’ham 1659 to 0742 in the state capital of Tallahassee, Gibraltar 17 Singapore 30
Barrow 0349 8.4m 1613 8.5m Milford Haven 1049 6.3m 2319 5.9m Brighton 1658 to 0730 flipping a light aircraft at the city’s H Kong 22 Stockh’m -5
Belfast 0330 3.1m 1555 3.5m Newquay 0945 6.4m 2216 6.0m Bristol 1707 to 0742 airport, as well as causing damage Harare 26 Strasb’g 12
Cobh 1005 3.8m 2226 3.7m North Shields 0806 4.5m 2018 4.7m Carlisle 1655 to 0754 to a hangar. Helsinki -10 Sydney 27
Cromer 1121 4.4m 2319 4.7m Oban 1006 3.5m 2238 3.1m Cork 1728 to 0807 Fortunately, no injuries or Istanbul 13 Tel Aviv 19
Dover 0315 6.4m 1539 6.0m Penzance 0913 5.1m 2142 4.8m Dublin 1714 to 0803 fatalities were reported. Jo’burg 20 Tenerife 20
Sun rises 0733
Dublin 0407 3.7m 1629 3.9m Plymouth 1017 5.1m 2244 4.8m Sun sets 1655 Glasgow 1658 to 0804 Finally, Cyclone Ana brought K Lumpur 33 Tokyo 12
Galway 0948 4.6m 2224 4.4m Portsmouth 0408 4.4m 1624 4.2m Moon rises 0015 Harlech 1708 to 0752 fatal consequences as it hit Fiji on K’mandu 20 Toronto 2
Greenock 0449 3.2m 1655 3.6m Southport 0247 8.2m 1508 8.3m Moon sets 1037 Inverness 1650 to 0809 Sunday. One man was killed as the Kabul 12 Vancouv’r 7
Last Quarter 4 Feb Kingston 30 Vienna 12
Harwich 0350 3.8m 1634 3.6m Stornoway -- -- 1134 4.4m London 1655 to 0731 category 2 storm brought winds
Holyhead 0242 5.0m 1503 5.3m Weymouth 1119 1.2m 2354 0.9m M’chester 1659 to 0747 of 87mph (140km/h), with 7,600 Kolkata 26 Warsaw 2
L Angeles 20 Wash’ton 7
Hull 1057 6.8m 2303 7.0m Whitby 0839 4.9m 2050 5.2m Newcastle 1650 to 0750 people evacuated from flooded
Forecasts and Lagos 32 Well’ton 17
Leith 0712 5.0m 1928 5.1m Wick 0349 3.0m 1603 3.3m
graphics provided by
Norwich 1647 to 0730 villages.
Lima 23 Zurich 11
Liverpool 0327 8.5m 1548 8.6m Workington 0352 7.5m 1612 7.7m AccuWeather ©2021 Penzance 1722 to 0750 Nicholas Lee
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:32 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 19:17
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
32 Football
Fowlerball:
from Brisbane
to Bengal
Interview, page 36 
▲ Five former rugby
professionals have
early onset dementia
and probable CTE, and
more and more are
reporting symptoms
MIRA/ALAMY
T
Raising awareness
he bleak, unlovely month of February
has two things to recommend it, and
one of those is that it’s all over quickly.
The other is that it brings the Six Nations
Can you still enjoy
with it. Since the championship starts
in winter and ends in spring, it always
feels like the harbinger of better things,
and there’s the welcome prospect of
Six Nations when
long weekend afternoons spent watching games at the
pub or at home in front of the TV, or, if you’re lucky, a trip
out to one of the grounds, maybe even a weekend away
in Paris or Rome. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
you know about the
This year the championship already feels diminished,
fraught and perilous, just like everything else.
It’s not just the lack of fans, the empty grounds, the
shuttered pubs, bars and restaurants. These will be the
risk of brain injury?
first Test matches since Steve Thompson, Alix Popham,
Michael Lipman, and two other former professionals
revealed that they have been diagnosed with either early
onset dementia and probable CTE (chronic traumatic
encephalopathy), or other post-concussion symptoms.
It gets worse. Popham tells me that behind the scenes
more and more players have been coming forward to
report symptoms, men and women, amateurs and
professionals, in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. “The
scary thing is that the numbers are growing every day.”
I was talking about it all with Peter Robinson last
week. In the run-up to this year’s championship I
Andy Bull have spent more time chatting to doctors, patients
and activists than I have players and coaches. Peter’s
14-year-old son, Ben, died of Second Impact Syndrome
during a school rugby game in 2011, because he was
allowed to play on after he was hit in the head. Peter still
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Golf
McIlroy hits out
over plans to limit
driving distance
Page 35 
watches rugby. “But I watch it differently now,” he says.
“Do I enjoy it? I don’t know.” How much do you need to
know about the damage the sport can do before your
enjoyment of it sours? How much do you need to know
before you stop wanting to watch it altogether? “Maybe
now with the latest about the litigation, people are
L
realising how dangerous this all is,” Robinson says.
ike a lot of the people I’ve spoken to
lately, Peter is convinced that the culture
of the game needs to change, so that
everyone involved is more aware of the
risks. He gets frustrated that the coverage
of the issue is still so intermittent,
that “when you get an incident on TV
everybody talks about it for a week, and
then it all goes away again”.
Truth is, there are times when I’ve switched on and
off that way myself. I suspect almost everyone who
watches the game has, because it’s so hard to reconcile
our day-to-day enjoyment of it with the growing body
of evidence about the long-term damage it can do to
the men and women who play it. Too often, the easiest
way is to ignore it, until you can’t. Peter isn’t the only
one making this argument, I’ve heard similar from
plenty of other people, too. Like Dr Bennet Omalu, the
neuropathologist who first diagnosed CTE in the brain
of the retired American football player Mike Webster.
“What we need to do is engage with the culture,” Omalu
told me. He compares it to an oil tanker – “it will take time
to turn it around, it may take one generation, or two”, but
it will happen, even if it’s “one person at a time”.
And Dr Judith Gates, who is, along with Popham, one
of the founders of the new charity Head For Change.
“This is an epidemic,” Gates says. “This must stop now.
We must all acknowledge the fragility of the brain,
alongside its centrality in defining the person.” This
isn’t just about changing the attitudes of the people who
play the game, or who run it or referee it, but everyone
who talks about it, writes about it and watches it, at
elite and amateur levels. One group trying to help the
sport navigate this change is the Concussion Legacy
Foundation, founded in 2007 by Chris Nowinski and
Dr Robert Cantu.
They have been working in the United States for
most of that time, and now they’re expanding into the
UK. Among other things, the CLF is running a media
engagement programme to help
‘What we educate journalists about how best
to report on these issues. Their idea
need to do is is that children learn most of what
engage with they know about these issues from
the culture. watching sport on TV. So if you
want to change the culture, then
It will take commentators are a good place
time to turn to start.
The CLF held its first UK concussion
it around, reporting workshop on Monday, in
it may partnership with Oxford Brookes
University (they have a useful toolkit
take one
on their website, too, offering a free
generation course in responsible reporting).
It puts a lot of emphasis on the
or two’ need to use honest, accurate and
unvarnished language, which is
something Robinson spoke about too. He mentioned
how glad he was when he heard a commentator describe
a concussion as a “traumatic brain injury” on TV, even if
“it made a lot of people fall off their seats because it was
such a shock”. It is a small but significant change, one
that puts more emphasis on the seriousness of the injury.
“If you ask me what could improve,” Robinson says,
“it would be getting that message out, consistently and
clearly: that this is a traumatic brain injury, and you have
to take it seriously because it can be fatal.”
It still feels like there are too many people in the game
who are reluctant to acknowledge the risks, who would
rather step around them, or pretend they’re not there at
all. This Six Nations, hopefully we’ll see signs that the
change the game needs is coming, even if it’s being done
one word at a time.
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:33 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Ball is in Jones’ court
but French able to
return with interest
England do not always add up
to the sum of their parts but
form and depth suggest they
and France have most to offer
Robert Kitson
G
one are the days when
the Six Nations was
purely an annual treat.
It is eight weeks since
the leading European
sides were last at each
other’s throats and England’s two
autumnal trophies are still warm in
the cabinet as the players prepare to
renew acquaintances this weekend.
The tournament’s familiar old
rhythms have morphed into an
increasingly frenzied DJ set. In
theory these recent form lines should
remove some of the uncertainty
and diminish the chances of a
leftfield winner. Within the past two
months Wales were looking well
below par in the Autumn Nations
Cup and Scotland were losing 31-16
to Ireland in Dublin. How many of
November’s lowly Cinderellas can
realistically expect their fortunes to
be radically transformed?
The counter-argument is that
nothing is absolutely as it seems.
Every squad is locked away in a
biosecure bubble that will challenge
everyone’s mental resilience. Even
a confident-sounding England are
without five forwards through injury,
suspension or unavailability and their
Saracens contingent have not played
in two months. Nailed-on champions?
Only those wearing red rose-tinted
glasses would say so unhesitatingly.
It might also be that history plays
less of a part this year than it has
ever done. The absence of fans helps
nobody but it is a definite leveller.
Why should Scotland fear going to
Every squad is
locked away in a
biosecure bubble
that will challenge
their resilience
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:33
•
Sport
Rugby union Six Nations countdown
to cast his eye over his prime tour
candidates. If Johnny Sexton, Conor
Murray, Jonathan Davies and Alun
Wyn Jones cannot impose their
wills as reliably as in the past, it will
complicate tour selection no end.
Which is why Gatland will be
among those hoping for a rip-snorting
game at Twickenham on Saturday.
Scotland’s poor away record – aside
from Rome, they have won just three
elsewhere since the Six Nations
began in 2000 – is the reason they
have had so few recent Lions and
the mental barrier still confronting
Gregor Townsend’s squad. Scottish
self-belief, however, is on the rise: in
addition to the 38-38 draw in 2019,
they also let England off the hook
at Murrayfield last year. When Tom
Curry warned about the major threat
▲ The return of flanker Dan Lydiate awaiting the hosts at the breakdown
offers Wales’ squad a significant boost on Saturday he was spot on.
The ball, consequently, sits in
Twickenham, for example, or France England’s court. They know what is
to Dublin in round two when the coming and three of their five games
time-honoured 16th man is absent? are at Twickenham where they have
Italy look set to struggle regardless been beaten once in the Six Nations
without the injured Jake Polledri since 2012. Even without Joe Marler,
but the five other teams will feel Mako Vunipola, Joe Launchbury, Kyle
anything is possible. Sinckler and Sam Underhill for the
It was interesting this week to Scotland game they have a talented
hear the former Wales scrum-half squad with some fresh twinkling
Mike Phillips estimate the Cardiff talent. If Scotland regard Beno
roar to be worth around 10 points Obano and Will Stuart as potential
to the hosts. Ireland might fancy scrummaging weak links they are
sticking that quote on their dressing likely to be disappointed; the same
room wall on Sunday. With Ken applies to Ben Earl, Mark Wilson and
Owens and Dan Lydiate back, Jack Willis in the back row.
however, this is a sturdier-looking The caveat, however, is a familiar
Welsh squad while Caelan Doris’s one: England do not always add up
absence from the back row is a to the sum of their parts. No one
blow for the visitors as they seek to disputes Eddie Jones’s coaching
recapture former glories. record but the sudden-death win
It adds up to a highly significant over France in December was a
weekend for the head coaches strictly limited triumph in all senses.
Wayne Pivac and Andy Farrell, both His side are at their best when they
of whom could do with an uplifting play at a quick tempo; to complement
couple of months. There are also the gifted Henry Slade, Elliot Daly
potential implications for the British and Max Malins they also need
& Irish Lions, whose ringmaster dynamic ball carriers to pierce the
Warren Gatland is back in the UK gainline and panic defences. With the
2023 World Cup on the horizon, Earl,
Paolo Odogwu, Ollie Lawrence and
Fixtures
Harry Randall will all hopefully enjoy
more than bit-part bench roles.
There is a good chance the title
Sat 6 Feb Italy v
France (2.15pm);
Sun 28 Feb
France v Scotland
will come down to England v France
at Twickenham next month. Les
England v Scotland (3pm)
(4.45pm)
Sun 7 Feb Wales v
Sat 13 Mar Italy v
Wales (2.15pm);
Bleus will miss the injured Virimi
Vakatawa but gone are the days when
Ireland (3pm) England v France they lacked an obvious uniformity
Sat 13 Feb (4.45pm) of purpose. Shaun Edwards, their
England v Italy Sun 14 Mar
(2.15pm); Scotland v Scotland v defence coach, says: “I’m not judging
Wales (4.45pm)
Sun 14 Feb
Ireland (3pm)
Sat 20 Mar
anyone on what happened before but
the players look forward to coming
Ireland v France (3pm)
Sat 27 Feb Italy v
Scotland v Italy
(2.15pm); Ireland v
in to the training camp. For them to
be really looking forward to France
Ireland (2.15pm); Wales
v England (4.45pm)
England (4.45pm);
France v Wales (8pm) games is a big thing.”
This could just be the year,
then, that France collect a first title
since 2010 and – despite its empty
stadiums – that rugby as a whole
rediscovers some of its joie de vivre.
Edwards, for one, believes the
sport would be instantly improved
if referees were to clamp down on
double-latching before contact.
“You’re only supposed to latch on
after contact. If that was enforced
people would probably pass the ball
more in the 22, wouldn’t they?”
Further Covid disruption
permitting, the next seven weeks
would be the ideal time for rugby to
banish its winter blues.
 Despite only one start, Jack Willis is
unlikely to be a weak link for England
DAN MULLAN/THE RFU COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
Adams banned by Wales for
breaching Covid protocols
Paul Rees
Josh Adams has been banned by Wales
from the opening two matches of the
Six Nations after breaching Covid-19
protocols and lockdown regulations
by attending a family gathering on
Sunday.
The Cardiff Blues wing, a regular in
the side for the last three seasons and
the top try scorer at the 2019 World
Cup, will miss the matches against
Ireland in Cardiff on Sunday and
Scotland at Murrayfield the following
weekend with Wales’s head coach,
Wayne Pivac, expressing his “extreme
disappointment” at the breach.
Wales’s players were given three
days off on Saturday and told to
remain at home. The players had been
briefed about the Covid protocols at
a time when the French government
is still considering whether to allow
its national side to play against teams
from Britain and Ireland because of its
concern over the spread of variants.
The squad returned to camp on
Tuesday when Adams’s family trip
became known and, after admitting
breaching the rules, he was sent home.
All the players were tested when they
came back and the results were all
negative. A further round will be con-
ducted today.
“Josh embarrassed himself and will
do his penance at home,” said Pivac.
“What he did came to my attention
on our first day back and we dealt
with it swiftly. It was a breach of team
and Six  Nations protocols and the
lockdown. It put others at risk and
was worthy of suspension.
“Josh was up front about what he
May warns of
danger in Lions
distractions
Gerard Meagher
Jonny May has warned of the dangers
of being distracted by the looming
British & Irish Lions tour as England
begin the defence of their Six Nations
title against Scotland in front of
Warren Gatland on Saturday.
May and his England teammates
were given a glimpse of life in the Lions
squad last week when they had their
picture taken in the famous red jersey
– as all four teams do every four years.
May was overlooked four years ago but
as one of the world’s leading wings he
is a strong contender for the summer’s
tour of South Africa.
Questions marks still remain over
whether the tour will go ahead, and
in what format, but Gatland will begin
his scouting mission at Twickenham
this weekend, after returning to the UK
from his native New Zealand.
May has admitted that it would be a
dream come true to face the Springboks
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
33
had done, apologetic and remorseful.
He was at a family member’s home not
far from where he lives for a quiet cel-
ebration and there was no alcohol. He
made an error of judgment and can do
no more than apologise. He will remain
at home until Monday when he will
rejoin us to help prepare the side for
Scotland, if he tests negative again.
“We called a team meeting last night
and reinforced the protocols further.
We will not be calling up anyone to
replace Josh because, with Covid, we
do not want to be bringing people in
and out.”
Wales are without the suspended
Liam Williams for Ireland so the
Gloucester wing Louis Rees-Zammit,
who started three matches in the
autumn, is in line to replace Adams.
“He will be expecting a call and I would
be very surprised if he did not get it,”
said Pivac.
Women’s event in April
The Women’s Six Nations will start
on 3-4 April as a condensed three-
week format featuring two pools
of three teams. Each side will play
home and away pool fixtures, with
the winners of each group meeting
in a grand final on 24 April. The
competition was postponed from
this month due to problems arising
from the coronavirus pandemic.
Second- and third-placed teams
will also meet on the final
weekend. Fixture dates, venues
and kick-off times have yet to be
confirmed. PA Media
Pool A England, Italy, Scotland.
Pool B France, Ireland, Wales.
but acknowledged England cannot
let their minds wander.
“It’s always a strange day when we
come in and do our photos with the
Lions kit on,” said May. “That feels a bit
weird. I don’t really like doing that. It
does feel a bit strange putting on a shirt
that you haven’t earned yet. But you
get it done and try to get back to what
you’re doing, which at the moment is
trying to play for England and prepare
for a Test match at the weekend.”
Eddie Jones will announce his
starting XV to face Scotland today
with a back-row replacement for the
injured Sam Underhill among his key
decisions. Jack Willis was thought to
be under strong consideration while
the loosehead prop Beno Obano
looks in line for a place in the 23 for
the first time. Jones may also opt to
sacrifice George Ford for the running
threat of either Paolo Odogwu or
Ollie Lawrence in midfield.
▲ England wing Jonny May was
overlooked for the last Lions tour
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:34 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:36 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

34 Sport
Cricket First Test

Root happy to
stay selfish and
banish unhappy
memories
in India
England captain goes into
100th Test knowing his side
face tough series against
team boosted by Kohli return

Ali Martin

T
wo teams coming off the
back of fine series wins,
free-to-air coverage in
the UK on Channel 4,
Joe Root’s 100th cap
for England, the return
of Virat Kohli to captain India – it
makes for an intoxicating cocktail
when pondering a blockbuster first
Test in Chennai tomorrow.
The Chepauk Stadium, scene
of the first half of this four-match
series, is not exactly flush with
recent happy memories for England.
Neil Foster’s 11-wicket haul prevailed
there in 1985 but there have been
three defeats since and two by an
innings. In 2016, after a cyclone blew
in from the Bay of Bengal during the
buildup, Karun Nair’s whirlwind
triple-century and a fifth-day
meltdown with the bat completed a
4-0 win for India that led to Alastair
Cook quitting as Test captain.
India were ranked No 1 back then
but despite sitting second to New
Zealand, they are arguably stronger.
Certainly they showed immense
fortitude in Australia, demonstrated
by the series-sealing win in Brisbane
while Kohli was watching the final
three games from home after the
birth of his first child.
Can England catch India
off guard? Perhaps prey on
complacency or overconfidence?
With a proud home record of
one defeat in their past 35 Tests,
Kohli’s return probably acts as a
safeguard. As well as 27 centuries of
experience dropping back into a top
six anchored by Cheteshwar Pujara,
Kohli is a more fiery leader than his
replacement in Australia, Ajinkya
Rahane, and he will probably ensure
that minds are refocused.
Rahane appears happy to return
to the ranks. “Virat being back
is really positive for us,” he said
yesterday. “And he is batting well. He
is the captain, I am the vice-captain.
My job is to take a backseat and to
help Virat. There are too many things
on a captain’s mind.”
Kohli’s batting four years ago
– 655 runs at an average of 109 –
certainly bent the script to his will
in a manner Root is keen to emulate.
‘I had displeasure
of facing Jofra today
bowling at the speed
of light – he looked
in great rhythm’
Crawley blow
England’s plans for tomorrow’s first
Test against India have suffered a
setback with Zak Crawley having to
undergo scans on a possible broken
wrist after slipping over at training.
The return of Rory Burns from
paternity leave meant Crawley ( )
was expected to drop down to No 3.
But the 23-year-old is now waiting
to discover the extent of an injury
to his hand and wrist suffered when
falling over at the Chepauk Stadium
on Tuesday.
An England statement said:
“Zak Crawley did not train today
at England’s practice session in
Chennai. He slipped outside the
dressing room yesterday [Tuesday]
and has injured his right wrist. We
are waiting on the results of scans
Though 99 caps to the good already,
the 30-year-old has revealed the
gluttony shown when making scores
of 228 and 186 during the 2-0 win in
Sri Lanka is part of a new mindset.
Root said: “At times I do overthink
certain periods of play. In the
last two games, in the nicest way
possible, I’ve tried to be a bit more
selfish with my batting and single-
minded, knowing if I bat for a long
period of time I make big runs. It’s
obviously going to benefit the team.
It sounds simple and you might ask
and will know more tomorrow,
ahead of our final practice.”
If Crawley is ruled out, it would
prompt a rethink of England’s
batting order. Ollie Pope has been
added to the main squad after
proving his fitness, while Ben Stokes
is due to return to the middle order
after being rested during the Sri
Lanka tour.
why has it taken you 99 games to
figure it out? But I’m just desperate
for us to do well collectively.”
Root is aware that a more
daunting challenge lies ahead of his
team. They are also due to bring in
a number of players without recent
cricket behind them due to rest,
injury in the case of Ollie Pope and
the six-day quarantine period upon
arrival that ruled out a tour game.
Rory Burns and Ben Stokes
coming back means two left-handers
enter a top six that was previously
It may be that Stokes slots in at
No 3 or Joe Root, playing his 100th
Test, has to move up despite his
preference for No 4 and glowing
recent form. Dan Lawrence, who
recently made his debut in Galle
and might otherwise have been
squeezed out by Pope at No 6, is
another possibility.
A further option would be to
retain wicketkeeper Jos Buttler at No
6 in his final Test appearance before
a scheduled break and draft in an
additional all-rounder at No 7 in
either Chris Woakes or Moeen Ali.
The latter may be vying for a
place in the XI either way, with the
England management believed to be
considering him or Dom Bess as the
second spinner. Ali Martin
all right-handed. Ravichandran
Ashwin, returning after injury, will
welcome this, so, too, the suggestion
that Moeen Ali, another left-hander,
may replace Dom Bess. Root would
not be drawn on this particular issue,
however, preferring to speak of the
pair and Jack Leach, who is more
certain to play, as a collective.
A possible wrist injury to Zak
Crawley, originally due to drop to No
3 to accommodate Burns, opens up
other ways to include Moeen if Jos
Buttler remains at No 6. Stuart Broad
is likely to replace Jimmy Anderson
as the pair rotate, while Root was
keen to talk up the return of Jofra
Archer as a game-breaking quick
bowler on flat pitches overseas.
“I had the displeasure of facing
Jofra today and he bowled at the
speed of light,” he said. “He looked
in great rhythm. If he can harness
that he’s going to have great success.
Albeit in Twenty20 cricket, he has
proven to India he is a force to be
reckoned with out here.”
▲ Ajinkya Rahane reverts to being
vice-captain as Virat Kohli returns
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:35 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 20:47 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •

35

Golf sort of bifurcation but we are such a

First Test details tiny portion of golf. Golf is way bigger
India
Possible
England
Possible
McIlroy deems efforts to rein in than the professional game. We’re
such a tiny part of it. It’s the other stuff
Rohit Sharma
Shubman Gill
Cheteshwar Pujara
Rory Burns
Dom Sibley
Joe Root (c)
big drives ‘a huge waste of time’ that really matters and that’s the stuff
they need to concentrate on.”
Virat Kohli (c) Ben Stokes In a lively pre-tournament press
Ajinkya Rahane Dan Lawrence
Rishabh Pant (wk) Ollie Pope conference at the Phoenix Open,
Washington Sundar Jos Buttler (wk) “I heard [USGA executive director] McIlroy also shed further light on the
Ravichandran Ashwin Moeen Ali
Kuldeep Yadav Jack Leach
▲ How we broke the news yesterday that Ewan Murray Mike Davis say something about trying rules affair that dominated discussion
Ishant Sharma Jofra Archer a deal with Channel 4 had been done to protect the game for the next hundred last weekend at Torrey Pines. After
Jasprit Bumrah Stuart Broad years. This isn’t how you do it. This is so Patrick Reed took a drop from an
Rory McIlroy has delivered a small and inconsequential compared embedded lie in rough despite video
Umpires Nitin Menon, Anil Chaudhary
TV C Shamshuddin Referee Javagal Srinath (all India)
Venue MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, 4am GMT
Captain Root withering critique of efforts by golfing to the other things happening in the footage showing his ball had bounced,
officialdom to limit how far drives game. It’s the grassroots, it’s getting the PGA Tour issued film which
Weather Series win in can be hit, with the four-times major more people engaged in golf – that’s showed McIlroy in an apparently
Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday champion branding the campaign “a where they should be spending their identical scenario. Reed’s Twitter
India would huge waste of time and money”.
McIlroy’s comments will be highly
money, not spending it on the distance
insight report.”
account drew the same comparison.
“It wasn’t apparent at the time,
Sunny,
clear
Sunny,
clear
Sunny,
clear
Sunny,
clear
Sunny
intervals
be best yet embarrassing to the R&A and USGA,
who issued “topics of interest” to
McIlroy did concede a difference in
regulations between professionals and
but an email was sent to the Tour on
Monday saying my ball was stepped
Max 31C Max 30C Max 30C Max 30C Max 30C
manufacturers this week as part of a amateurs might be sensible. “I would on to be found,” McIlroy explained.
Over-by-over Follow our lengthy process. be all for that,” he added. “If they want “But the volunteer didn’t tell me
coverage live on the web Continued from back page “The authorities, the R&A and USGA, to try to make the game more difficult that on Saturday. So that’s why I took
theguardian.com/cricket are looking at the game through such for us or try to incorporate more skill embedded ball relief, because it was
also to have shared a dressing room a tiny little lens,” McIlroy said. “What to the game, I would be all for that an embedded ball but I didn’t know
with a number of them as well. I hope they’re trying to do is change something because I think it only benefits the it had been stepped on at the time.
it’s not near the end. I still feel like that pertains to 0.1% of the golfing better player, which I feel like I am. So obviously the video came out on
there’s a lot left in me at the moment community: 99.9% of the people that “I think maybe they said that in Sunday with my ball bouncing and
and there’s certainly a burning desire play this game play for enjoyment, for terms of local rules and maybe some then going in, and at that point I’m like:
to keep going and play as long as I can. entertainment. They don’t need to be ‘Well, it must have went into its own
“I look back over the last nine years told what ball or clubs to use. pitch mark or something, because the
and I’m in a very different place now to “We have to make the game as ball was obviously plugged.
when I first came into the team so who easy and approachable as possible. “I went to bed Sunday night sort of
knows what the future holds. For now Honestly, I think this distance insight questioning whether I had done the
I’m just very excited about playing as report has been a huge waste of time right thing after seeing the video. I
much as I can and giving as much to and money, because that money that at least felt better about my actions
the team as possible.” it’s cost to do this report could have knowing I did the right thing, that I did
This is a defining year for Root’s side been way better distributed to getting take relief for a ball that was embedded
and one that culminates in an attempt people into the game, introducing or stepped on. So it sort of was nice that
to reclaim the Ashes from Australia. young kids to the game, introducing ▲ Rory McIlroy says authorities view [it] came to light. It’s funny how these
Four Tests against India in India argua- minorities to the game. golf ‘through such a tiny little lens’ things all work out at the end.”
bly represents a far tougher challenge,
however, given the unfamiliar condi-
tions and the hosts’ record of having
lost one Test at home since that defeat
Cycling to his skills and attributes. On paper
it’s a great Tour for Geraint.” Yastremska out
to England just over eight years ago.
Asked if victory here would repre-
‘Motivated’ The 2019 Tour champion, Egan
Bernal, who has spent much of this after appeal fails
sent the greatest achievement of his
career, Root replied: “As a captain I Thomas to lead winter in rehabilitation for the back
injury that forced him out of his title

India are none too shabby in this

regard either. While Ishant Sharma
is the most seasoned member of
their bulging pace stable, Jasprit
Bumrah is the spearhead. Curiously
the 27-year-old with the bull-whip
action will make his first Test
appearance in India after 17 caps
won on the road.
The remainder of India’s expected
five-man attack will tell us much
about the surface at the Chepauk.
It has been prepared by V Ramesh
Kumar, a businessman from the
textile industry with a Masters
in psychology who built his own
cricket academy but still admitted
to being surprised when the Tamil
Nadu Cricket Association asked him
to take charge of pitch preparation
last month.
At least two spinners are
expected, with talk that Ashwin
will be joined by the left-arm wrist-
spinner Kuldeep Yadav. Thereafter
it appears a choice between two
bowling all-rounders in off-spinner
Washington Sundar and seamer
Shardul Thakur.
Axar Patel is a slow left-arm
option if India want to exploit some
of the chinks in English armour
opened up recently by Sri Lanka’s
Lasith Embuldeniya.
Ravi Jadeja’s absence due to a
broken thumb might normally be
viewed as a blow. But as their tour of
Australia proved, this India side just
keep coming.
think it would be. When I came into the
team in 2012 I played a very small part
in that amazing series. I don’t think at
the time I appreciated how hard it is to
win in these conditions.
“To get the opportunity to play
India off the back of them beating Aus-
tralia in Australia – what a scalp that
would be for us. There will be more
pressure on them than us – they have
an expectation to uphold that record
in their conditions.
“It’s a big one, we’re all aware of
that because it’s a very difficult place
to come and win. But that doesn’t scare
us and it shouldn’t. We certainly have
the tools to win these four games. It
should be really good fun.”
The Channel 4 deal, worth a
reported £5m, is just for the Tests but
talks are ongoing as regards the eight
white-ball fixtures that follow, with
the non-exclusive terms allowing a
possible partnership with BT Sport or
Sky. Both Channel 4 and the digital All
4 channel will show the live action,
with highlights on the latter, and Talk-
Sport is the official radio broadcaster.
‘We have the tools
to win these four
games. It should be
really good fun’
Joe Root
England captain
Grenadiers in
this year’s Tour
Jeremy Whittle
Geraint Thomas will lead the Ineos
Grenadiers lineup at this year’s Tour de
France, supported by the Giro d’Italia
champion, Tao Geoghegan Hart, and
the 2019 Giro champion, Richard Cara-
paz, according to the team principal,
Dave Brailsford.
This year’s Tour route is “really
suited to Geraint’s attributes,” Brails-
ford said, of the 2018 Tour winner, who
will be 35 this year and is in discussions
with the team over a new contract.
“He is very motivated for it. Given
the time-trialling, the nature of the
climbing, the first week and the cross
winds, that element lends itself well
Chris Cook’s racing tips
Wincanton 12.30 Lucky Lara 1.00 Numitor 1.35 Lilly
Pedlar 2.10 Shantou Flyer (nap) 2.45 Stormy Flight
3.20 Porlock Bay 3.50 My Keepsake (nb) Southwell
1.10 Cheat 1.45 Harworth 2.20 Na Blianta Beo
2.55 Lion’s Vigil 3.30 Silent Queen 4.00 Onebaba
4.30 Lord Oberon Ffos Las 1.25 Aki Bomaye 2.00
Anightinlambourn 2.35 Le Tueur 3.10 Lieutenant Rocco
3.42 Astra Via 4.15 Gallic Geordie 4.45 All Good Things
Chelmsford 5.00 Velvet Vista 5.30 Huraiz 6.00 Fly The
Nest 6.30 Electric Blue 7.00 Dawn Treader 7.30 Pearl
Spectre 8.00 Rovaniemi
defence, returned to racing in France
yesterday, and Brailsford said the Giro
will be the Colombian’s first target.
“He spent time in Italy as a young
rider, he was in an Italian team, he
has strong connections in Italy and he
really wants to compete for all three
Grand Tours and not just fall into the
trap of doing the Tour every year. I
wouldn’t rule out Egan doubling up
into the Tour, that’s very possible. But
we’ll assess that one as we get closer.”
Geoghegan Hart will focus on the
Tour. “He could have gone back to Italy
and there was a lot of chat about him
going back to defend his Giro title,”
Brailsford said. “On the other hand,
he could step up and focus on trying
to ride the Tour. In terms of his pro-
gression and development, it felt like
riding the Tour was the next step.”
“It is a great opportunity for him. It
feels like he can carry on that adven-
ture, step up while he is in such a great
place. Go and take on a new challenge,
a different challenge, and see how we
can get on.”
▲ Geraint Thomas is well suited to
this year’s Tour, says Dave Brailsford
Continued from back page
no disruptions to the Australian Open
itself. He said of the players: “They will
be isolating until they get a negative
test and that work will be done tomor-
row so it might have an impact on
tomorrow’s play in the lead-up event,
but at this stage there’s no impact to
the tournament proper.
“That’s important to us, but the
issue we’re most focused on is much
broader. That’s about public health
and public safety and that’s why we’ve
really pounced on this.”
Yesterday, the court of arbitration
for sport ruled on one of the unresolved
incidents from the Australian Open as
Dayana Yastremska lost her appeal to
lift her provisional suspension after
her positive doping test.
Ukraine’s Yastremska, ranked No 29
in the world and considered one of the
most promising young players, tested
positive for a metabolite of mesterolone,
a synthetic testosterone, in a urine
sample from an out-of-competition
doping test on 24 November.
Despite the positive test, Yastremska
travelled to Melbourne on one of
the charter flights funded by Tennis
Australia, where she appealed
against  her suspension to the
independent tribunal. The 20-year-
old was on a contaminated flight from
Abu Dhabi, meaning she was confined
to her room for two weeks, but is now
forbidden from competing in the
Australian Open or even entering the
Melbourne Park grounds.
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:36 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
36
‘Over here
a lot of the
players still
want to
have curry’
Robbie Fowler on adapting to
life under lockdown in India,
where he has been managing
SC East Bengal since October
John Duerden
R
obbie Fowler the
player will always be
associated with his
home town of Liverpool
but Robbie Fowler the
manager has already
moved from Bangkok to Brisbane
to Bengal. This road less travelled
may help the 45-year-old forge an
identity as a coach strong enough
to emerge from the shadow of that
stellar playing career.
The journey started in late
2011 with a four-month acting
player-manager spell in charge of
Muangthong United in Thailand. It
was not long enough to get a sense of
Fowler the manager but then there
came a move to Brisbane Roar in
April 2019.
In Australia, he started slowly.
Brisbane had won four games the
previous season and despite the new
manager and a number of imports
brought from the English leagues
continued where they had left off.
Two victories from the first 10 games
had the Queensland club languishing
near the bottom as 2019 ended with
dour performances bringing barbs
of ‘Fowlerball’ in a country that has
long held mixed opinions, at best, of
British coaching.
It is a label he now welcomes. “I
never made the phrase but that’s not
a bad thing,” Fowler says. “It is about
having an identity and if people
coin this phrase then I am happy,
regardless of whether it is right or
wrong.
“I want to have a team that passes,
keeps the ball and works extremely
hard. I am not saying that I am
anything like Jürgen Klopp but the
mentality that all good managers
have, they have an identity and if
people keep using the Fowlerball
thing, I’m more than happy.”
Whatever the meaning behind
the term, fortunes changed as 2020
dawned and there were eight wins
from the next 12. Had coronavirus
not caused a suspension of the
A-League in March with the team
fourth, Fowler could have picked up
a third successive manager of the
month award. Instead, he returned
to England as the pandemic picked
up speed.
When the action finally resumed
in July Brisbane had terminated his
contract. Fowler said it was wrongful
dismissal and Fifa agreed last
November but by that time he was
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
Sport
Football
in India, to take charge of SC East
Bengal, one of Asia’s biggest and
oldest clubs.
Fowler, like everyone else in the
Indian Super League (ISL), has been
stuck in Goa, on the opposite side
of the subcontinent to East Bengal’s
usual home of Kolkata, since
October. “I use this term loosely but
essentially we are in an open prison.
People may say ‘You are in a five-
star hotel’ but it’s a lockdown that
we’ve been in for four or five months
and we leave just to train and play
games.”
Just as in Australia, he started
slowly, with one point from the
opening five games. There are signs
of recovery with two defeats in the
following 10 but not yet a Brisbane-
style bounce. It is a big job at a big
club (derbies with Mohun Bagan can
attract more than 100,000 fans) that
last year left the I-League to join the
ISL which, in 2019, became the top
tier.
“For us to suddenly click our
fingers and to get this team that was
built for the I-league into the ISL was
tough,” Fowler says. “We released
12, 13 players so I am getting my own
squad in place.”
Although the standard in India
does not match the big European
leagues, that does not make the job
easier and it can be underestimated
just how different Asian football
culture is. Fowler has upset some
people and made headlines by
questioning the quality of local
coaching and refereeing and is still
finding his way.
“The players have been getting
used to my habits as a coach and
manager and I have been getting
used to their habits too.”
Some things take a little getting
used to. “In the UK we are brought
up eating plenty of the pastas and
the chickens and protein dishes but
over here a lot of the players still
want to have the curry dishes. You
have to adapt to whatever is thrown
in front of you.”
He is keen to craft a coaching
identity and being a Liverpool
legend has benefits in getting players
to listen. “It helps to a degree but
once you are on a training pitch,
I don’t think it matters because
people can see what you are about. I
am extremely normal, though I don’t
mean to delve into the Jürgen Klopp
side of things. I am me.”
One day perhaps he will cross
coaching swords with the Liverpool
manager in England. But not yet. “I
am not sitting here complaining that
I haven’t had a chance in the UK;
far from it, this is an opportunity.
And I’m here to be the very best I
can. I want to be successful and I am
ambitious. I am exactly the same as
a manager as I was as a player: I want
to be better than anyone else.”
Robbie Fowler began
his managerial career
in Thailand in 2011
Sent at 3/2/2021 20:48
Women’s League Cup
Harder fires rampant
Chelsea into final
Chelsea
Harder 4 25 86, Ingle 15, England 27, Kirby 70
West Ham
Suzanne Wrack
A first Chelsea hat-trick for Pernille
Harder helped the WSL leaders cruise
into the Continental League Cup final,
with the 6-0 scoreline a record for a
semi-final win.
It took Emma Hayes eight years to
reach her first League Cup final with
Chelsea. She took no chances, then,
for West Ham’s trip to Kingsmeadow.
There were only two changes to the
Chelsea starting XI that put four past
Tottenham on Sunday, Sophie Ingle
and Beth England returning in place
of Sam Kerr and Guro Reiten.
Hayes need not have worried too
much, though, with West Ham wilting
Kane’s recovery
offers Mourinho
welcome boost
Nick Ames
Jacob Steinberg
Tottenham’s flagging season has been
given a major boost by the news that
Harry Kane should be able to return
from his ankle injury next week and
could even feature in next Wednesday’s
FA Cup fifth-round tie at Everton.
Kane sustained knocks to both
ankles in last Thursday’s defeat by
Liverpool and there were initial
concerns that he could be out for a
number of weeks. However, the issue
is not serious and José Mourinho
expects him to be ready for the visit
to Manchester City on 13 February if
as the relentless Chelsea attack weaved
6
through their lines time and again.
It took just four minutes for Harder,
the European player of the year, to
0
assert the home team’s superiority. A
mazy run then an eye-of-the-needle
pass from the South Korean Ji So-yun
found Harder to the right of the goal
and the Danish forward coolly side-
footed past Mackenzie Arnold.
There were glimpses of Olli Harder’s
vision for West Ham in the opening
exchanges. The new manager would
like to see his side press high and with
urgency. However, there is a dogged-
ness to Hayes’s team that means they
will not allow opponents to play keep-
ball against them.
Chelsea doubled their lead 15 min-
utes in when a poor clearance landed
at Ingle’s feet and the Welsh midfielder
whipped a trademark long-range effort
that embarrassingly squirmed past
Arnold.
The goalkeeper was at fault again
for Chelsea’s third. She swiped at a
the Everton match comes too soon.
There is a chance Dele Alli could also
make a comeback in the near future,
with Mourinho explaining the pair
have found “common ground”.
Mourinho’s relief about Kane’s
prognosis was clear. “We were a bit
scared when everything happened
but now we’re much more positive.
I believe for one of those matches
[Everton and City] he should be back.”
Alli had been slated for a loan
move to Paris Saint-Germain during
the transfer window but that was
shelved.  “He needs to be back in
training and have a fresh start,” he
said. “I had a good conversation with
‘We were scared
but we’re much
more positive ’
José Mourinho
On Kane’s ankle injury
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Harder
first
to find
target
Pernille
Harder
celebrates
after scoring
the first goal
of her hat-
trick to give
Chelsea
the lead
ADAM DAVY/PA
slow back pass from the West Ham
captain, Gilly Flaherty, and Harder
pounced to poke the ball back through
Arnold’s legs. Chelsea were 4-0 up by
half-time after Fran Kirby’s low cross
from the right was met by England at
the near post.
The visiting team began the second
half brightly. Two saves in two minutes
for Arnold settled the goalkeeper’s
nerves and then West Ham had three
chances to reduce the gap in quick suc-
cession, with Maz Pacheco, the new
midfielder Lois Joel and the Australian
Emily van Egmond all going close.
However, they were left ruing their
wastefulness after Arnold got a hand to
Hannah Blundell’s cross but it clipped
off the upright and came down for
Kirby to poke over the line at the far
post to make it 5-0. Harder wrapped
up her hat-trick at the close, dancing
through defenders before firing in her
side’s sixth.
Chelsea West Ham
4-3-3 5-4-1
Berger; Mjelde, Bright, Arnold; Redisch,
Eriksson (Spence 77), Flaherty, Fisk, Vetterlein,
Andersson (Blundell Pacheco (Barker 87);
61); Leupolz (Cuthbert Longhurst, Joel, Van
61), Ingle, Ji (Fleming Egmond, Svitkova
61); Kirby (Reiten 77), (Thomas 73); Leon
England, Harder
Subs not used
Subs not used Brosnan, Cissoko, Dali,
Telford, Carter, Kerr Mustafa
Referee Stacey Pearson
him yesterday. We spoke around
[what Alli must do in order to play]
and we found very common ground.”
Meanwhile, Thomas Tuchel says
that he wants to make Chelsea play
like an orchestra, explaining that he
occasionally places a higher value on
performances than results if every-
thing is working in perfect harmony.
Although Tuchel said he would
rather have a lucky win than an
undeserved defeat when Chelsea visit
Tottenham tonight, the German often
looks beyond the final score to see
whether things are moving in the right
direction. The former PSG manager
spoke about “guided discovery”, a
training method that puts players in
difficult tactical situations and asks
them to find answers.
“For that we need a good relationship
between the players and me,” Tuchel
said. “The results will hopefully follow.
In the Premier League you cannot
control the result. But we can take care
of our performance.”
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:37 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Dominant Maddison
leaves Fulham adrift
Fulham 0 both boxes and it was hard not to won-
Leicester 2
Iheanacho 17, Justin 44
Jacob Steinberg
Craven Cottage
For once Jamie Vardy’s absence made
no difference. This was a game defined
by James Maddison, whose cocki-
ness and eye for a killer pass ensured
Leicester remembered how to win
without their main goalscorer. Fulham
could not live with Maddison, who was
at the heart of an improved Leicester
performance, producing two bewitch-
ing assists to settle the game before
half-time and strengthen the visitors’
position in the top four.
It was a wonderfully imagina-
tive performance from the 24-year-
old midfielder who thrived on the
responsibility of stepping up with
Vardy injured, shaping the contest in
his image by creating goals for Kelechi
Iheanacho and James Justin. There
was no way of containing Maddison,
even though Harrison Reed tried to
rattle him with a thumping challenge
in the first half. No bother: Maddison
simply got back to work, allowing his
class to do the talking.
Not that the positives for Brendan
Rodgers ended with Maddison, who
has six goals and six assists in his last
12 appearances. Youri Tielemans was
outstanding in midfield, excelling
alongside Hamza Choudhury, who
impressed after seeing a move to New-
castle fall through. Justin was superb
again at left-back, breaking forward to
polish off a flowing team move.
Rodgers’ side had floundered of
late, picking up one point from their
previous two games but they were far
too strong for Fulham, who remain in
18th place. There is something sad
about watching Fulham, an engaging
team with a smart manager and a lot
of likable players. They are a cohesive
unit under Scott Parker and there were
times when they looked to be Leices-
ter’s equals. But their weaknesses are
too easy to identify. Their problems
Football
In brief
Bournemouth
Woodgate stands in
after Tindall’s sacking
Bournemouth sacked Jason Tindall
yesterday after less than six months
as manager. The decision was taken
after four straight Championship
defeats damaged the club’s hopes
of automatic promotion back
to the Premier League. Tindall
was appointed as manager last
August on a three-year contract
after Eddie Howe left following
relegation – Tindall had been Howe’s
long-serving assistant. Jonathan
•
stem from a lack of decisiveness in
der if Fulham would be more effective
if they had a more mobile striker than
Aleksandar Mitrovic.
The frustration was that Fulham
made a promising start. Antonee Rob-
inson raided from left wing-back and
Ademola Lookman’s footwork was joy-
ful. With the game still goalless a gor-
geous combination between Lookman
and André-Frank Zambo Anguissa
deserved better than a heavy-leg-
ged finish from Mitrovic. “The key
moments were in both boxes,” Parker
said. “There is one clear objective and
that’s to win games.”
Although Leicester were without
Vardy, who is recovering from a hernia
operation, the visitors were improved
after losing to Leeds. Rodgers made
changes to spark his attack, where
Iheanacho’s return through the mid-
dle allowed Ayoze Pérez to drop to the
right and combine with Maddison,
who was a delight in the No 10 role.
Maddison was by far the best player
on the pitch, demonstrating again
he has risen to new heights. He had
Leicester’s first effort, a powerful drive
that stung Alphonse Areola’s palms,
and he created their first proper oppor-
tunity, carving Fulham open with a
sublime backheel to Ricardo Pereira
on the right. The chutzpah took the
▲ Leicester’s James Maddison tries to get past Fulham’s Antonee Robinson
PLUMB IMAGES/LEICESTER CITY FC VIA GETTY
Woodgate, who joined the coaching
staff this week, will be the caretaker
manager but is not thought to
be in the club’s thinking for the
permanent role. Guardian sport
Southampton
Saints condemn racist
abuse of Jankewitz
Southampton have condemned the
“abhorrent” racist abuse aimed at
Swiss midfielder Alex Jankewitz
on social media after the loss to
Manchester United and are liaising
with police. The 19-year-old was sent
off inside 90 seconds of his first start
on Tuesday evening, with Saints
going on to fall to a record-equalling
9-0 Premier League defeat to United.
Jankewitz subsequently became
the latest in a string of players to be
Sent at 3/2/2021 22:00
breath away; it was just a shame Har-
vey Barnes fired over.
Maddison was undeterred,
demanding the ball again in the 17th
minute, pulling to the right to create.
Fulham stood off the midfielder, who
made them pay with a fizzing cross
that demanded an emphatic finish.
Iheanacho obliged, darting away
from his markers to head home his
first league goal of the season.
It was a timely strike from Ihea-
nacho, who had a penalty saved in
his side’s recent draw with Crystal
Palace. Leicester grew in confidence
and a second goal duly arrived before
half-time, although not before Kasper
Schmeichel had denied Tosin Adara-
bioyo. It was a pivotal save from
Schmeichel: moments later Maddison
was dancing into space before releas-
ing Justin, who skipped round Areola
before tapping home. “We scored two
goals of great quality,” Rodgers said.
The game was over as a contest,
even though Ivan Cavaleiro went close
for Fulham after replacing Kenny Tete.
Leicester cruised. They had two goals
disallowed for offside during a quiet
second half and although Fulham kept
trying, they have not won since beat-
ing Leicester on 30 November.
Fulham Leicester
3-4-3 4-2-3-1
Areola; Aina•, Schmeichel; Pereira,
Andersen, Adarabioyo; Soyuncu, Evans, Justin;
Tete (Cavaleiro• 45), Tielemans, Choudhury
Reed•, Anguissa (Mendy• 61); Pérez
(Lemina 45), Robinson; (Albrighton 61),
Loftus-Cheek Maddison, Barnes
(Decordova-Reid 71), (Amartey 76); Iheanacho
Mitrovic, Lookman Subs not used
Subs not used Ward, Thomas, Fuchs,
Rodak, Hector, Odoi, Leshabela, Daley-
Ream, Bryan, Onomah Campbell, Under
Referee Robert Jones
subjected to sickening abuse online,
with monkey emojis and racist terms
directed at him on social media. The
club stated: “We pride ourselves
on our inclusive nature. Abuse of
any form will never be tolerated at
Southampton.” PA Media
Chelsea
Blues’ first black player
critically ill in hospital
Chelsea’s first black player Paul
Canoville is critically ill in hospital
after emergency surgery. The
58-year-old graced the Blues with
distinction between 1981 and 1986,
battling racism while acting as a
trailblazer for his community. The
Southall-born winger has more
recently contended with drug
addiction and cancer. PA Media
Olsen keeps Leeds
at bay to propel
Everton into top six
Leeds United
Raphinha 48
Everton
Sigurdsson 9, Calvert-Lewin 41
Aaron Bower
Elland Road
Everton’s attacking prowess has
played a major role in placing Carlo
Ancelotti’s side firmly in the hunt for
European football next season, but it
was their defensive resilience which
proved decisive as they held on to inflict
another home defeat on Leeds.
First-half goals from Gylfi Sigur-
dsson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin
put Everton 2-0 ahead at half-time,
but after Raphinha pulled a goal back
for Leeds, who missed the chance to
move into the top half here, shortly
after the restart, Ancelotti’s side had
to survive wave after wave of attack
from the hosts to head back across the
Pennines with three points.
They were grateful for a string
of crucial saves from Robin Olsen
though, who deputised for the injured
Jordan Pickford with aplomb. Leeds,
who continue to entertain aplenty in
their first season back in the Premier
League, would argue they deserved
at least a point here given the domi-
nance they enjoyed throughout the
second half.
But they would rue not convert-
ing any of their second-half chances
into an equaliser. The result was also
perhaps a vindication of Ancelotti’s
two big gambles in terms of his team
selection, with James Rodríguez and
Michael Keane dropping to the bench.
In their place, the likes of Sigurdsson
and Ben Godfrey – who continues to
impress as an Everton player since his
move from Norwich – excelled.
Sigurdsson, Everton’s captain for
the night, took only nine minutes to
break the deadlock. The buildup play
from the visitors, starting with André
Gomes’ pass to find Lucas Digne before
the full-back steered across goal for
Sigurdsson to finish, was superb. How-
ever, the manner of Leeds’ defending
in response was anything but, with Sig-
urdsson gifted the easiest of finishes.
To Leeds’ credit, they responded
well from that early setback, but
were unable to properly craft any real
openings in response to Sigurdsson’s
opener. The best chance came from
a set-piece, as Raphinha’s precisely-
driven corner found Ezgjan Alioski,
whose volley from the edge of the box
struck the base of the post.
Further half-chances came and
went for Leeds, and four minutes
before half-time, they were eventually
punished for their failure to convert
any of them. Calvert-Lewin had infuri-
ated Ancelotti when he failed to pass
to Richarlison while bearing down on
goal, instead firing wide, but there was
no such anger a few moments later.
Set-pieces have so often been
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
37
1
2
▲ Dominic Calvert-Lewin (front)
celebrates scoring Everton’s second
Leeds’ undoing this year, and when
Ben Godfrey’s flick from Sigurdsson’s
corner was met by Calvert-Lewin at
the far post, their achilles heel was
exposed yet again.
You could argue that scoreline was
harsh on Leeds, who had enjoyed their
fair share of possession and opportu-
nities. But, in truth, they had been
punished for their profligacy by the
visitors, who were far less wasteful at
the other end. However, clearly invig-
orated by whatever Marcelo Bielsa
had drummed into them at the break,
Leeds halved the deficit within three
minutes of the restart.
Everton’s back four had been fairly
resolute in their own area throughout
the first half, but when they failed
to clear their lines for the first time,
Bamford’s pass teed up Raphinha, who
curled his shot past Olsen.
From there, the pressure would
only intensify on the visitors, who
didn’t force Illan Meslier into another
save until the final moments. All the
action was intensified on Olsen’s goal,
who made a string of crucial stops to
keep Everton ahead. Whether they will
go any way towards edging him ahead
of Pickford in the quest to become
Everton’s No 1 remains to be seen.
But there can be no doubting the
importance of Olsen’s performance
to his side here. From the quick-fire
double save to deny Mateusz Klich and
then Raphinha, before the smart reac-
tionary stop to thwart Jack Harrison,
Olsen was perhaps the most pivotal
player on the pitch. The fact his team-
mates rushed to him en masse at full
time here as he fell to his knees and
punched the air underlined that point
perfectly.
Leeds Everton
4-1-4-1 4-2-3-1
Meslier; Ayling•, Olsen•; Holgate•,
Struijk, Cooper, Alioski Mina, Godfrey•, Digne;
(Hernández 78); Doucouré, Gomes;
Phillips; Raphinha, Klich Iwobi (King 87),
(Roberts 69), Dallas, Sigurdsson (Davies 89),
Harrison• (Costa 87); Richarlison (Keane 80);
Bamford Calvert-Lewin
Subs not used Subs not used
Casilla, Davis, Virgínia, Delph, Nkounkou,
Cresswell, Shackleton, Rodríguez, Bernard,
Jenkins, Huggins Coleman
Referee Michael Oliver
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:38 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 22:14 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

Results
38 Sport Alzate
stuns
Football Premier League
the title
holders
Football
PREMIER LEAGUE
Steven Alzate
Aston Villa (0) 1 West Ham (0) 3 deflects
Watkins 81 Soucek 51, Lingard 56 83 Brighton’s
Burnley (0) 0 Manchester City (2) 2 winner past
Jesus 3, Sterling 38
Caoimhín
Fulham (0) 0 Leicester (2) 2
Iheanacho 17, Justin 44 Kelleher in
Leeds (0) 1 Everton (2) 2 the Liverpool
Raphinha 48 Sigurdsson 9
Calvert-Lewin 41
goal
PHIL NOBLE/AFP/
Liverpool (0) 0 Brighton (0) 1
GETTY IMAGES
Alzate 56
SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
P W D L F A GD Pts
Norwich 27 16 7 4 35 21 +14 55
Brentford 26 14 9 3 48 26 +22 51
Swansea 26 14 8 4 33 15 +18 50
Reading 26 14 5 7 40 29 +11 47
Watford 27 13 8 6 31 20 +11 47
Bournemouth 27 11 9 7 40 26 +14 42
Middlesbrough 27 11 7 9 30 24 +6 40
Blackburn 26 11 6 9 41 28 +13 39
Bristol City 27 12 3 12 29 31 -2 39
Stoke 27 9 11 7 32 29 +3 38
Preston 27 11 3 13 31 34 -3 36
Barnsley 27 10 6 11 29 34 -5 36
Luton 26 9 6 11 21 28 -7 33
Millwall 27 6 14 7 22 25 -3 32
Huddersfield 27 9 5 13 30 38 -8 32
Cardiff 26 8 7 11 33 31 +2 31
QPR 26 7 9 10 25 32 -7 30
Coventry 27 7 9 11 26 37 -11 30
Nottm Forest 27 7 8 12 22 30 -8 29
Derby 27 7 7 13 17 28 -11 28
Birmingham 27 6 10 11 19 31 -12 28
Rotherham 25 7 5 13 30 35 -5 26
Sheff Wed 26 8 7 11 18 26 -8 25
Wycombe 25 3 7 15 18 42 -24 16
Brentford (1) 3 Bristol City (1) 2
Canós 27, Toney 50 Vyner 3
Ghoddos 65 Wells 90
Rotherham (0) 3 Derby (0) 0
Ihiekwe 76, Smith 81, Giles 88
SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP
P W D L F A GD Pts
Rangers 27 24 3 0 67 7 +60 75
Celtic 25 15 7 3 55 20 +35 52
Hibernian 27 13 7 7 37 26 +11 46
Aberdeen 26 12 8 6 31 26 +5 44
Livingston 26 11 6 9 34 29 +5 39

Alzate’s lucky break strikes new

St Mirren 24 8 5 11 24 28 -4 29 An excellent interception from Dunk
Dundee Utd 27 6 10 11 21 38 -17 28 prevented Robertson’s cut-back reach-
St Johnstone 27 6 9 12 25 36 -11 27
Motherwell 25 6 7 12 23 37 -14 25
ing Salah in front of goal but fell to Fir-
Kilmarnock 26 7 3 16 26 37 -11 24 mino, whose low shot was blocked by
Ross County
Hamilton
Hamilton
Kelly 16og
27
25
6
5
5 16 21 51 -30 23
4 16 22 51 -29 19
(1) 1 Ross County
White 81, McKay 85
(0) 2 blow to Liverpool title defence another lunging intervention by the
Brighton captain.
The pressure was growing on the
visitors yet not only were they unper-
Motherwell (2) 2 Dundee United (0) 1
Cole 23, Long 28 Edwards 80 turbed, they took the lead with a goal
to the team that defeated Tottenham Despite Liverpool’s dominance of that combined flowing football with
0
Rangers (0) 1 St Johnstone (0) 0
Hagi 52 Liverpool
on Sunday with Dan Burn and Steven the ball it was Brighton who went clos- outrageous fortune.
SCOTTISH CHAMPIONSHIP
P W D L F A GD Pts Alzate replacing Joel Veltman and est again before the break when Pascal Bissouma was central to a polished
Alexis Mac Allister. Gross whipped a first time cross into switch of play from left to right that
Hearts
Dunfermline
14 11
14 6
0
6
3 40 17 +23 33
2 24 15 +9 24 Brighton 1 The visitors run of clean sheets the heart of the home box. Maupay, ended with a superb cross into the pen-
Raith 13 6 3 4 28 22 +6 21 Alzate 56
Dundee 13 5 5 3 24 24 0 20 could have ended inside three minutes arriving in space in front of Roberto alty area for Burn, lurking unmarked
Ayr 13 4 5 4 20 17 +3 17 when Mohamed Salah was presented Firmino,met the delivery with a pow- at the far post. The defender’s header
Morton 14 4 5 5 13 18 -5 17 Andy Hunter with a glorious chance to score his fifth erful header but could not find the back across goal forced Phillips to
Inverness CT 11 3 5 3 18 15 +3 14
Queen of the South 13 4 2 7 19 30 -11 14
goal in four games by Jordan Hender- accuracy to test Kelleher. throw himself into a clearance that
Arbroath 14 2 5 7 10 19 -9 11 son. Liverpool’s captain, floated a per- Firmino had been anonymous in the struck Leandro Trossard on the
Alloa 13 2 2 9 13 32 -19 8 The need to defeat Manchester City at fect pass from the halfway line into first half, so too Xherdan Shaqiri,but thigh, rebounded against Alzate and
Arbroath 1 Inverness CT 1; Dunfermline 4 Raith Rovers 1 Anfield on Sunday has become more Salah’s run behind Adam Webster. The the Brazil international almost pros- then looped beyond Kelleher off the
FA WOMEN’S CONTINENTAL LEAGUE CUP pressing for Liverpool. Just when it Egypt international controlled well but pered when Liverpool finally managed Brighton midfielder.
Semi-finals: Bristol City 1 Leicester 0; Chelsea 6 West Ham 0
seemed the Premier League cham- scuffed his second touch high over to find space between the Brighton Brighton continued to defend
COPA DEL REY
Quarter-finals Granada L Barcelona L; pions had reinvigorated their title the bar with only goalkeeper Robert defence and midfield after the restart. superbly, Webster pinching the ball
Levante 1 Villarreal 0 (aet; 0-0 after 90 mins) defence with successive away wins at Sánchez to beat. It was a rare opening off Firmino’s toes as he shaped to con-
COPPA ITALIA Tottenham and West Ham, they suc- for Liverpool, and lapse in concentra- vert Thiago’s chipped free-kick into
Semi-final: First leg Napoli 0 Atalanta 0
DFB-POKAL
cumbed to a second consecutive home tion by Brighton. How they stand the area.
Third round RB Leipzig 4 Bochum 0; SSV Jahn Regensburg L defeat as Brighton executed a perfect Sánchez did not have a save to make Salah was close to capitalising on
Köln L; Stuttgart 1 B M’gladbach 2; Wolfsburg 1 Schalke 0 game-plan to record their first league before half-time as Solly March, Lewis defensive disruption when Milner
Cricket victory at Anfield since 1982. Dunk and Webster, Brighton’s three P W D L F A GD Pts released Trent Alexander-Arnold
FIRST TEST MATCH (first day of five) Steven Alzate, with a huge slice of central defenders, provided com- Man City 21 14 5 2 39 13+26 47 down the right and the full-back picked
Chittagong Bangladesh 242-5 (Shadman Islam 59). fortune, delivered a memorable win manding protection against Liverpool Man Utd 22 13 5 4 46 27+19 44 out the forward with a low, hard cross.
Bangladesh scored 242 runs for for the loss of five first-
innings wickets against West Indies. for Graham Potter’s side who defended crosses and eight, sometimes nine out- Leicester 22 13 3 6 39 25+14 42 Salah’s first time effort sailed inches
Tennis superbly all night and possessed the field players dropped deep whenever Liverpool 22 11 7 4 43 25+18 40 wide of the top corner, however. Gross
ATP CUP (Melbourne, Australia) quality to trouble Liverpool on the few the home side had possession. West Ham 22 11 5 6 34 28 +6 38 was even closer to extending the visi-
Group A: Germany v Canada: J-L Struff (Ger) bt M Raonic occasions they broke forward. Crea- That hindered their efforts to hurt Everton 20 11 3 6 31 25 +6 36 tors lead from a corner but Kelleher
(Can) 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-2); A Zverev (Ger) bt D Shapovalov
(Can) 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 7-6 (7-4); S Diez & P Polansky (Can) bt tively and clinically, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool with sharp, intelligent Tottenham 20 9 6 5 34 21+13 33 produced a fine save low to his left to
K Krawietz & J-L Struff (Ger) 7-6 (7-4) 6-7 (6-8) 10-3. team were found wanting again and passing of their own, although it Chelsea 21 9 6 6 35 23+12 33 tip away the midfielder’s curling shot.
Germany bt Canada 2-1. Group B: Greece v Australia: J
Millman (Aus) bt M Pervolarakis (Gre) 6-2 6-3; S Tsitsipas find themselves seven points behind was evident and almost produced a Aston Villa 20 10 2 8 35 24+11 32
(Gre) bt A de Minaur (Aus) 6-3 7-5; J Peers & L Saville
the league leaders ahead of Sunday’s breakthrough against the run of play Arsenal 22 9 4 9 27 22 +5 31 Liverpool Brighton
(Aus) bt M Pervolarakis & S Tsitsipas (Gre) 6-3 4-6 10-5. 4-3-3 3-5-2
Australia bt Greece 2-1. Group C: Italy v France: F Fognini encounter. for Dan Burn. A flowing Brighton Leeds 21 9 2 10 36 38 -2 29 Sánchez; March (Lallana
Kelleher; Alexander-
(It) bt B Paire (Fr) 6-1 7-6 (7-2); M Berrettini (It) bt G Southampton 21 8 5 8 27 34 -7 29 Arnold, Phillips, 67), Dunk, Webster;
Monfils (Fr) 6-4 6-2; N Mahut & E Roger-Vasselin (Fr) bt Deadline day signing Ben Davies move resulted in Neal Maupay break- White, Gross, Bissouma,
Henderson, Robertson;
S Bolelli & A Vavassori (It) 6-3 6-4. Italy bt France 2-1. started his Liverpool career on the ing clear behind the home defence. Crystal Palace 22 8 5 9 27 37 -10 29 Thiago, Wijnaldum• Alzate, Burn; Maupay
Group D: Russia v Japan: A Rublev (Rus) bt Y Nishioka Wolves 22 7 5 10 23 31 -8 26 (Oxlade-Chamberlain (Connolly 83), Trossard
(Jpn) 6-1 6-3; D Medvedev (Rus) bt K Nishikori (Jpn) 6-2 bench. First choice goalkeeper Alisson Having cut back inside Henderson and 64), Milner; Salah, (Zeqiri 87)
6-4; B McLachlan & Y Nishioka bt E Donskoy & A Karatsev was also absent through illness – not James Milner, the striker’s eventual Brighton 22 5 9 8 24 29 -5 24 Firmino (Jones 79), Subs not used
(Rus) 4-6 6-3 12-10. Russia bt Japan 2-1 Newcastle 22 6 4 12 22 36 -14 22 Shaqiri (Origi 64) Walton, McGill,
Covid-19, Klopp said – resulting in a shot deflected off Andy Robertson
Fixtures Burnley 21 6 4 11 13 28 -15 22
Subs not used Karbownik, Moder, Tau,
fifth start of the season for Caoimhin into the path of Burn. The defender Adrián, Tsimikas, Weir
Football Davies, Cain, R
Premier League Tottenham v Chelsea (8pm) Kelleher. Brighton, who had not con- demonstrated he is far more suited to Fulham 21 2 8 11 17 31 -14 14
Williams, N Willias
Cricket ceded in their previous three Premier his own penalty area by skying a volley West Brom 22 2 6 14 18 52 -34 12
Second Test Match (first day of five) Sheffield Utd 22 3 2 17 14 35 -21 11
Rawalpindi Pakistan v South Africa (5am) League outings, made two changes over Kelleher’s goal. Referee Kevin Friend
 Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Jesus and Sterling
ensure City retain
swagger for Anfield
Burnley 0 “Now we have different teams, who
Manchester City 2 United and the Champions League
Jesus 3, Sterling 38
Jamie Jackson
Turf Moor
Manchester City have a swagger about
them that their rivals will be wary of.
They pulled three points clear at the
top via a 13th consecutive victory
achieved with minimal effort against
a Burnley side who had no answer.
Pep Guardiola’s team also have a
game in hand over Manchester United,
who are second, and appear in prime
control of their destiny despite the
absence of their record goalscorer,
Sergio Agüero, and finest player, Kevin
De Bruyne.
City go to Liverpool next for what
will be a fascinating clash between the
current champions and those of the
two previous seasons. If they leave
Merseyside on Sunday with victory
it may prove a significant blow in this
year’s title race.
Guardiola said: “Now is the time
to enjoy this and tomorrow we start
to think about that. They are a con-
tender to be champion but it’s only
three points.”
The manager pointed to how Burn-
ley completes a sequence of victories
over similar opponents that has also
included Brighton, Crystal Palace,
Aston Villa, West Brom, and Sheffield
United. “We’ve won six games in a row
against teams in low positions and we
know how tough it was to win these –
Lingard debut double maintains
West Ham’s drive for top four
Aston Villa 1 not started a Premier Legaue game for
Watkins 81
West Ham 3 nio’s pass out wide, showed that with
Soucek 51, Lingard 56 83
Peter Lansley
Villa Park
Jesse Lingard rewarded David Moyes’s
faith in rescuing him from his Man-
chester United doldrums with a goal-
scoring contribution to the win that
means West Ham have achieved their
highest top-flight points tally after 22
games since 1985-86.
The former England winger, having
signed on loan on Monday, provided
signs of the spark that marked out his
early-career promise before scoring
West Ham’s second goal at the start of
the second half and, after Ollie Watkins
had pulled one back nine minutes from
•
we had to do our best,” Guardiola said.
have different type of play: Liverpool,
Tottenham, West Ham, Manchester
[restarting]. A tough group of games
but we enjoy this [win] have some
good food, and start to think about
Liverpool.”
Burnley were rocked almost
instantly after kick-off. Raheem Ster-
ling received the ball and relayed it to
Bernardo Silva, who advanced and
shot. Nick Pope’s parry was weak, and
the ball popped up at head height for
Gabriel Jesus to nod home.
“Sometimes you get caught in two
minds as a keeper whether to parry or
not,” Sean Dyche said of Pope’s error.
“But we could’ve stopped the ball
before then.”
This was a second goal in two games
for Jesus, to the delight of his man-
ager. “Strikers need goals for their
confidence,” Guardiola said. “Gabriel
Jesus played really good.”
From here it was a stroll for City. Yet
of interest was how Guardiola arranged
his team. João Cancelo, supposedly a
defender, was part of a four-man mid-
field, the Portuguese operating ahead
and to the right of the holding player,
Rodri, with Ilkay Gündogan the central
playmaker.
‘Strikers need
goals. Jesus played
really good’
Pep Guardiola
Manchester City manager
time, the clinching third. Lingard had
more than a year but his second goal,
as he rifled home after Michail Anto-
confidence he can still be a threat at
this level.
Tomas Soucek had given West Ham
the lead just after half-time but Villa
looked to be pushing for a draw after
Watkins gathered Jack Grealish’s pass
to make it 1-2. But Lingard’s confident
third took West Ham to within two
points of the top four.
Despite having only 179 minutes
of cup action for Manchester United
under his belt this season, the new
loan signing was thrown into the fray
from the off as West Ham sought to
stay on the coattails of the top four.
Lingard was offered the privilege
of playing in the hole off Antonio as
Moyes planned to return to winning
ways after the defeat by Liverpool.
Sent at 3/2/2021 22:15
City are masters of possession,
able to go from relaxed to breathless
pace in an instant. One Sterling run
in behind that panicked Pope was an
illustration. The keeper rushed out
and barely cleared his lines. The more
measured stuff came when Sterling,
Aymeric Laporte, Rodri, and Rúben
Dias knocked the ball between them.
And when this broke down Cancelo
rushed over to tackle Jay Rodriguez:
here was the embodiment of Guardi-
ola’s dictum that his players have to
“run and run” when losing possession.
Burnley – surprisingly – hardly
made life awkward for City. Sterling
was allowed to wander infield and tap
to Jesus in space in the area: his effort
took a deflection off Ben Mee that Pope
gathered in what was a warning. If this
was as close as the visitors had come
to doubling the lead they had Burnley
precisely where they wished: chasing
the ball around the pitch.
West Ham had prevailed in six succes-
sive games in all competitions before
Sunday and have already equalled last
season’s total of 10 league wins.
These are relatively heady days
for both these claret and blue teams
and West Ham balanced their sense of
adventure by playing a second right-
back, recalling Ryan Fredericks to offer
extra security against Jack Grealish.
There was little to choose between
the teams in the first half: Emiliano
▲ Jesse Lingard is congratulated
after West Ham’s second goal
cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Raheem 39
shows
the value
of Sterling
The England
forward
scores from
close range
to seal
Manchester
City’s
deserved win
EDDIE KEOGH/
NMC POOL
Now, City struck again. Riyad Mah- Describing Dyche’s men as
rez pinged the ball to Gündogan who becalmed was an understatement. As
had popped up on the right wing. His the contest passed the hour mark they
cross zipped over the surface, Pope had yet to register a shot until Matej
was helpless, and Sterling’s was a Vydra chest-controlled then blasted
sniffer’s finish. Moments later Cancelo wide, but City continued to squeeze
shot straight at Pope – again from close their opponents.
range – as City continued to operate The truth is this was a canter. If it
like a superior five-a-side team whose seems unlikely Sunday’s game will
ambition is to accumulate goals by be the same, Guardiola struck an omi-
walking the ball in. nous note. “We lost simple balls and
They began the second half with a I’m concerned and talked with them
flowing move that went from Dias to – we can do a lot better.”
Ederson to Silva who moved the ball
to Sterling. From here play switched Burnley Manchester City
4-4-2 3-1-3-3
to Cancelo and his 20-yard shot was Pope; Lowton, Ederson•; Dias,
goal-bound but for a block. Gündogan Tarkowski, Mee, Pieters; Stones, Laporte; Rodri;
followed this up by firing off a shot
Gudmundsson,
Westwood (Benson 81),
Cancelo (Zinchenko 64),
Gündogan, Sterling;
Cork (Stephens• 71), Mahrez, Jesus, Silva
from distance a few seconds later: it
went wide but then the same player
McNeil; Vydra, Rodriguez
(Mumbongo• 77)
sent Sterling racing on to a delightful Subs not used
Peacock-Farrell, Bardsley,
Subs not used
Steffen, Walker, Torres,
ball and the England forward should Long, Dunne, Driscoll- Mendy, Fernandinho,
Glennon, Nartey Foden, García, Gomes
have scored a second. Instead he dal-
lied and Burnley escaped. Referee Martin Atkinson
Martínez made decent saves from guided his right-footed shot low into
Antonio, who controlled Soucek’s pass the far bottom corner.
and volleyed almost in one movement, That ended Villa’s chances of equal-
and Lingard at one end before Villa
threatened at the other end.
Matty Cash centred superbly for
ling their Premier League record of
four successive clean sheets at home
established 20 years ago. But worse
Ollie Watkins to head over before the was to come.
latter cut back on to Grealish’s clever Despite having more than half an
return pass down the left and wrapped hour to chase an equaliser, Villa com-
his right foot around a shot that kissed mitted men forward in kamikaze fash-
the outside of the far post. ion. Grealish got away with it initially
West Ham are nothing if not well with a remarkable turn away from
organised under Moyes, however, and three players but within moments
their compact shape and well co-ordi- West Ham were breaking over the
nated lateral transition prevented Villa halfway line with three players against
gaining a head of steam. They pressed Cash and Douglas Luiz. Benrahma led
again only for Martínez to tip aside the charge down the middle before
Aaron Cresswell’s free-kick. passing out to the right from where
West Ham converted this edge into Antonio clipped a fine pass over for
a concrete advantage with two goals Lingard to control with his first touch
early in the second half as Villa were before shooting home with his second.
cut open down the channels. To be
done once could have been consid- Aston Villa West Ham
4-2-3-1 4-2-3-1
ered unfortunate but for it to happen Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Fabianski; Coufal, Dawson,
twice inside five minutes speaks of Mings, Targett; Ogbanna, Cresswell•;
Douglas Luiz• (Sanson Rice, Soucek; Frederiks
carelessness. 80), McGinn; El Ghazi (Fornals 84), Lingard
(Traoré h–t), Barkley (Bowen 90), Benrahma
Antonio and Saïd Benrahma were (Trezeguet 69), (Johnson 88); Antonio
pivotal in both goals. First the target Grealish; Watkins. Subs not used
Subs not used Martin, Balbuena,
man held the ball up and laid it off for Heaton, Nakamba, Yarmolenko, Lanzini, Diop,
the former Brentford winger to play Engels, El Mohamady, Odubeko
Davis, Ramsey
an astute ball down the inside-right
channel where Soucek took aim and Referee Andrew Madley
Section:GDN 1N PaGe:40 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Leicester joy
Foxes stay on
tail of leaders
with smooth
away success
Page 37 
Liverpool lose
ground with
City up next
Liverpool Brighton
0 1
 Steven Alzate turns to celebrate
his winning goal at Anfield, sealing
a brilliant victory for Brighton
Match report Page 38 
‘Inspire a generation’
Root thrilled by Test cricket’s
free-to-air return for 100th cap
Ali Martin
Joe Root hopes Test cricket’s return
to terrestrial television captures the
imagination of a new audience as the
England captain gears up to win his
100th cap with a vow there are plenty
more runs still to come from his bat.
The four-match series against
India that begins in Chennai tomor-
row will be the first Test cricket shown
live on free-to-air television in the
UK since England matches moved
•
predominantly to Sky after the 2005
Ashes, with Channel 4 confirming yes-
terday it had secured the rights.
A combination of the national
lockdown and a day-night third Test
in Ahmedabad that starts at 9am UK
time – the other three games begin
five hours earlier – brings with it the
prospect of bumper viewing figures for
the sport, with a previous record peak
of 8.7m viewers when Sky shared the
2019 World Cup final with Channel 4.
“It is brilliant for the game,” said
Root, who follows his teammates
Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson in
Sent at 3/2/2021 22:11 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
The Guardi
Guardian
Wing slung g Thursday 4 F
February 2021
Adams dropped
pped
for two Wales
es
games following
wing
virus breach
h
Six Nations, page 33 
Tennis faces
more turmoil
after Covid hits
players’ hotel
Tumaini Carayol
The Australian Open has been clouded
with further uncertainty after up to
600 tennis players, officials and
support staff were required to isolate
until they return a negative test for
Covid-19 following the news that a
worker at a quarantine hotel had tested
positive for the virus.
Tennis Australia consequently
announced that all matches scheduled
for today at the warm-up tournaments
have been postponed until tomorrow.
The infected person, a 26-year-old
man, had been working at Melbourne’s
Grand Hyatt Hotel during the players’
time there and his most recent shift
was on 29 January. After testing nega-
tive on a test administered that day, he
developed symptoms and returned a
positive test on Tuesday.
Players who stayed at the Grand
Hyatt, which includes highly ranked
PHIL NOBLE/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
players, are considered casual con-
tacts and must quarantine until their
test results are known. Although the
full extent of the situation will not be
known until all results are back, the
effect on warm-up tournaments is
already notable.
There are six tournaments in
progress during a manic lead-up week
at Melbourne Park and 62 matches
were scheduled to be played today.
With the Australian Open due to start
on Monday, the tournaments were
“You look at the stuff Sky do and the already tightly scheduled. Tennis
reach they get, they do a wonderful job Australia will now have to assess how
and they give great content for all the to safely complete those events and
viewers. [But] this is a great opportu- allow players sufficient rest before
nity to reach out to a new audience,
to grow the game as we keep talking
about and for it to be more accessible
the major begins. More complications
may also further affect public opinion
over the first grand slam of the year,
for everyone else. which had already suffered following
“So it’s a great thing for the sport criticism some players received upon
and hopefully people will tune in and arrival in Australia.
watch us and have something to smile Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier,
about at the end of it.” held a news conference yesterday to
Root, who made his debut in 2012 announce the case and urged those
becoming the 15th cricketer to play when England completed a historic with symptoms in Melbourne to get
100 Test matches for England. “We 2-1 win in India, spoke of his pride at tested. Andrews noted that,
35 
want to inspire a generation, the next reaching his personal milestone. Of at that moment, there were
generation. the 14 players to reach three-figures
previously – a list that includes Alastair
Crawley Cook, Kevin Pietersen and Graham
Gooch – none did so with more than
awaits scan Root’s current tally of 8,249 runs.
on possible The 30-year-old, whose side will
broken wrist wear black armbands to honour the
late Captain Sir Tom Moore, said:
after slip in
“There are some fantastic players
training among those and many I’ve looked
up to and admired for many ▲ Daniel Andrews, premier of
Page 34  35 
years. It’s been amazing Victoria, announced the positive test
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:1 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 18:49 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

“
I just
broke
every
rule!
Toyah
Willcox
on childhood,
stardom and
becoming
a lockdown
sensation

Thursday 04/02/21
Adrian Chiles
What makes
the perfect pub?
page 3

‘It’s an experiment’
Kehinde Andrews
on life as a professor
of Black studies
page 4
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:2 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 12:44 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
 Section:GDN 12 PaGe:3 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 18:39 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

Pass notes 3
The Guardian
Thursday 4 February 2021

Adrian
Chiles
It takes two minutes What makes a
perfect pub?
to brush your teeth. It’s different
Why don’t I have time? for everyone

A
dentist suggested I see a hygienist. She tried her I’ve been considering what
best to make it sound as if this advice didn’t amount
to me being sent to the naughty step. Her tone was
kinder than that, more like a teacher saying:
makes the perfect pub. This is in
preparation for an appearance on
a podcast by the comedian John
№ 4,240
“You’ve obviously tried very hard with this work
and it’s very good, but why don’t you take it away
and have another look at it?”
Robins, called The Moon Under
Water. The title is a reference to
something George Orwell wrote in
Spinach
The hygienist was very thorough. She, too, trod a line of floss-like 1946 about his idea of a perfect pub – Age: About 2,000 years old, originating, it is
fineness between praising my efforts, saying there wasn’t too much which, sadly, he had to admit didn’t said, in Persia.
to worry about, and yet also implying that if I didn’t sharpen up a bit, exist. This might be the perfect time AKA: Spinacia oleracea.
the consequences would be grave. I very clearly heard my entirely to think about your perfect pub. Appearance: Leafy, green, connected.
toothless grandad’s words when I was newly baby-toothless: “This With all of them closed, you can take Connected how? Wirelessly.
set of teeth have got to last you a lifetime now; look after them.” I took a step back and give this weighty Wirelessly connected to what? To email.
this on board but then he disappointed me greatly by giving me an question the attention it deserves. How can this be happening? Through
electric toothbrush for Christmas. I wanted a bike. To simply say you like pubs nanotechnology, infrared detectors and the
The hygienist gave me three sizes of those little pokey brushy generally is like saying you like mobile network, if that makes sense.
things, explaining they work better than flossing. She also showed books, or food. What kind of books? You know what doesn’t make sense? The
me how to use an electric toothbrush correctly. I was astonished to What kind of food? Judging by spinach part. Why would spinach need to
learn that waggling it around the inside of your mouth for 20 seconds Orwell’s interest, even in 1946 all receive emails? Don’t be silly – it doesn’t
or so is suboptimal. I was even more pubs weren’t the same; now they receive emails.
astounded to be advised that the head come in all shapes and sizes. Of course not, sorry. It sends them.
should be changed every two months. What, I wonder, would George Spinach is sending emails? To whom?
Hmm. I hadn’t changed mine once in have made of Wetherspoons or At this stage, mostly to scientists at the
the three years I’d had it. your average gastropub? Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
She told me to take 30 seconds In my teens I was no aficionado; The spinach plants have been engineered to
to move the brush slowly along the all I cared about was getting served. act as self-powered auto-samplers in ambient
front of the top teeth, then 30 seconds When I was 20 I travelled across the groundwater.
along the back of them and then the US by Greyhound bus with a couple What does that mean? It means the spinach
same procedure for the bottom ones. of mates. Being underage there, it has embedded within its leaf mesophyll
Two minutes, then: a short amount was only about getting a bartender single-walled carbon nanotubes capable of
of time in the scheme of things, well to believe I was 21. But the night I fluorescing with an intensity relative to the
spent. That evening, with my armoury got back I went to my then local, level of nitroaromatics taken up by the roots.
of new gear ready to go, I strode up to an unlovely place called the And then it sends an email.
the sink full of purpose. Gloucester, and I realised what I’d So far, I’m with you not one step of the way.
The poking bit is tricky enough. been taking for granted. A British Basically, the plant is constantly monitoring
Three weeks on, I still haven’t pub can be a beautiful thing, with a the groundwater for traces of certain
‘Lockdown has managed to memorise which of my ripple of chat, a suggestion of music chemicals used in explosives.
slowed my life three brush sizes fit in which gaps. and the clink of glasses. I’d come Did they interview widely for this job before
down, but there But the bigger challenge has been elongating the electric brushing to across nothing close in any bar I’d giving it to spinach? “Plants are very good
is still work to do’ the specified 30 seconds for each sweep. I just can’t go slowly enough. been allowed into between Los analytical chemists,” says the research leader,
I have tried setting the timer on my watch and bringing a clock with Angeles and New York. Prof Michael Strano. “They have an extensive
a second hand into the bathroom. Didn’t help. So I tried dividing the I suppose what you want from root network in the soil, are constantly sampling
30 seconds into two, with 15 seconds to get me from the back of the a pub depends on how old you groundwater and have a way to self-power the
mouth to the front and another 15 seconds continuing around from are. Once upon a time I craved transport of that water up into the leaves.”
the front to the back of the mouth on the other side. I still couldn’t somewhere busy, with noise and How does it get to where the bombs are in
manage it. I moved on to dividing the 30 seconds by the number of craic leaking out of its bursting the first place? This is just one potential
areas to be dealt with (13 gaps plus the outsides of the back ones) seams. Now I want something application. “Plants are very environmentally
and tried to keep the brush in each spot for two seconds. Incredibly, between absolutely packed and responsive,” says Strano. “If we tap into those
I still couldn’t do it. So, after three weeks trying, I finally gave up, completely dead, erring towards chemical signalling pathways, there is a wealth
deciding that it was simply impossible. I decided this in the same way the latter. Somewhere to sit is nice/ of information to access.”
I might have concluded that I simply couldn’t learn Mandarin or how essential. And I definitely want to It’s certainly sounds like cutting-edge stuff.
to ride a unicycle. hear myself think and be able to The MIT study was conducted in 2016, but a
On reflection, this has really shocked me. I conclude that while converse. If I’m on my own someone recent article in Euronews caused the story go
lockdown has, greatly to my benefit, slowed my life down, there is to chat to is great, but not as great as viral, because of the spinach and the emails.
still some work to do; there is more slowing down to be done. Many someone who can judge whether I’m I tell you what: I could believe a lot of the
times, looking into the bathroom mirror, I had told myself I simply did up for talking or not. emails in my inbox were from spinach. Yes,
not have this much time to spare for a new, improved dental hygiene As for the food offering, ironically lots of comments like that.
regime. This much time! How profoundly ridiculous to be quite what I’d prefer not to be available are You just think: who wrote this nonsense?
unable to stand still for even two minutes twice a day; how madly substantial meals. Not what pubs are Some spinach? Don’t underestimate spinach
must the adrenal glands be relentlessly pumping at all hours. What’s about, in my view. Salty snacks are – scientists have also found that spinach
my rush? Until a fire breaks out, the flat starts flooding or the dog has important, though, and I may allow a converted into carbon nanosheets can help
learned how to open the fridge, I most definitely have a minute or bowl of chips with or without a small make fuel cells more efficient.
COVER: DEAN STOCKINGS

more to spare twice a day. So now I am renewing my efforts to meet pie or sandwich. Is there anything spinach isn’t good at? It’s
my hygienist’s demands; apart from anything else, I’m seeing her on I wish I hadn’t started writing this quite easy to overcook.
Tuesday and crave approval. If I can get to two minutes’ brushing – it’s made me sad. I want to be in my Do say: “Hi, hope you’re well. Levels of
twice a day, it may not mean I’ve found inner peace, but it would Moon Under Water. Please can this nitroaromatic particles remain steady. If you
surely be a sign I’m inching closer to it. plague ebb away soon? need anything else please let me know. Things
are crazy here!! Take care, spinachX.”
Don’t say: “Spinach, just text me yeah.”
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:4 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
4 The Guardian
Black lives
‘The battles, the scars:
I’ve just had to fight’
Kehinde Andrews, the UK’s first Black
studies professor, tells Nesrine Malik
about his childhood identity crisis,
the importance of the Black radical
tradition – and his high-profile spats
W
hen
Kehinde Andrews was at school, his
friends would never have imagined
him growing up to become the
UK’s first Black studies professor
– nor that he would help found
the first Black studies programme
in Europe, at Birmingham City
University. True, he grew up in the
city, the son of two committed Black
activists, who established numerous
organisations and promoted the
Black anti-racist intellectual
tradition – but Andrews, 37, didn’t
always embrace their legacy. In fact,
his path to Black studies took a
detour when he rebelled against
everything it stood for.
“I had an identity crisis in high
school,” he says. “I look back and
cringe.” If this sounds like the usual
chafing against parental authority,
it was. But there was also a deeper –
and sadder – reason. As the result of
a sort of British version of bussing,
Andrews travelled every day to a
school with a good reputation in a
predominantly white area. Even as
a child, he says, he could see that
Black students were pigeonholed.
“The racial stereotypes were so
clear,” he says. “It was so obvious,
from day one, that Black kids don’t
do well.” There was, he says, “a very
clear path” based on students’ race.
“There’s me and one, maybe two,
other Black kids in the top set –
everybody else was in the bottom
set. In my 11-year-old head, it was:
‘Well, I’m going to do well in school,
so I’m going to go with the white
kids.’ That was how it was set up.”
For Andrews, this meant not just
ignoring the values and culture
he had been brought up with, but
“falling into whiteness” – emulating
the behaviour and interests of his
white friends. He would go to the
pub to watch England play and sing
“patriotic, anti-Irish chants”. He
“fell so far down the rabbit hole” that
he began to listen to country music,
he says, in his desire to be someone
else. “Garth Brooks, if I remember
correctly. It seems sort of trivial,
but it really wasn’t.”
At his lowest point, this desire to
be white culminated in him hating
his hair. “I started not combing it and
wishing it was straight and easy to
manage, like my white friends’,” he
says. “I got called a Bounty bar. And,
looking back honestly, that was me.”
Today, he doesn’t judge his
younger self or those he was trying
so hard to copy. “We tend to think
of people who embrace the negative
stereotypes of blackness” – such as
gangster culture – “as completely
different to the ‘Bounty bars’. But
they’re both saying blackness is
important, blackness is my identity,”
he says. Both, in other words, believe
that blackness determines their path
in life, whether they are running from
that fact or trying to embrace it.
Eventually, he found his way
back to the Black radical tradition in
which he had been raised. Andrews’
mother was half white English, half
Jamaican, a university graduate who
was born in Britain. His father, from
rural Jamaica, came to the UK in his
early teens and left school without
qualifications after his experience
in the underfunded school system,
which seemingly had no interest
in the career prospects of Black
boys. Their marriage represents to
Andrews the union of “civil rights
and Black power”.
His formative memories are
almost all references to nurseries,
Saturday schools, bookshops
and local organisations that his
parents – particularly his father
– started. Andrews’ father was a
founding member of the Harambee
Organisation of Black Unity – which
ran a hostel, the Marcus Garvey
nursery and the Harriet Tubman
bookshop. His mother worked for
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:46
Andrews’
parents
At primary
school; (below)
teaching at
Birmingham
City University
the race relations board, which,
as part of the government, was
eyed with suspicion by some Black
activist groups. His father, jokes
Andrews, “thought my mother was a
spy when they first met. I don’t know
what happened, but she ended up
giving him three children,” he says.
With parents so focused on
improving education, maybe it was
inevitable that he would return
to their values through reading.
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
Thursday 4 February 2021
“I started picking up the books
lying around in my house,” he says,
gesturing to a wall of Black literature
behind him. It was, he says, quoting
Malcolm X’s description of starting to
read in prison, “like snow falling off a
roof”. Travel swept off any remaining
snow. A Voluntary Services
Overseas youth exchange took him
to post-apartheid South Africa,
where he realised, despite legal
changes, that an informal system still
oppressed Black people. “Combined
with the reading, coming back, I was
a completely different person.”
By the time he was ready to
reclaim this heritage, he realised a
mass erasure of Black British history
was under way. The markers of ‘I’ve probably
his childhood were disappearing. done permanent
“The biggest contribution of Black
damage to my
families is in education, bookshops,
mental and
Saturday schools. It’s almost
physical health’
completely gone: the Saturday
schools are gone; the bookshops are
almost all closed.” Saturday schools
were set up in the 70s to counteract
the historical neglect of Black
children in state schools, but also
to improve self-esteem by teaching
Black studies. Andrews believes the
disappearance of this supplemental
infrastructure has had serious
consequences, undermining the
political education of the current
generation of working-class brown
and Black people.
He believes this is because a
pivot to trying to change existing
institutions – rather than nurturing
separate organisations – has
made it hard to foster the sort of
communitarian spirit in which
his parents thrived. “The biggest Our failure as
mistake we make in Britain is that
we really do try to integrate into
a community
society.” Since the 80s, he says,
there has been a gold rush for jobs
is that we
and education in mainstream
organisations: “I work as a
haven’t
university professor; I’m part of that
moment.” But he says that means
protected our
“we’ve neglected the alternative
spaces – and then we wonder why
own legacy
everything’s gone wrong”.
The absence of those spaces
has led to unrealistic expectations own newspapers. “There were so
and demands of equality from many community newspapers in the
institutions that are fundamentally 70s and 80s,” he says. They no longer
opposed to change, he says – for exist “because we have relied on the
instance, that the white-dominated schools to change and the media to
media will support racial justice change. Our failure as a community
movements such as Black Lives is that we haven’t protected the
Matter when historically they have legacy of our own.”
often been hostile to or suspicious The theme of a fractured Black
of Black political expression. solidarity is central to his new book,
In the past, Black communities The New Age of Empire. “Black
countered this by setting up their consciousness is something we
 Section:GDN 12 PaGe:5 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 18:46 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

•
The Guardian
Thursday 4 February 2021 5

Black studies
is new in
universities;
it’s not new
in the United
Kingdom

were 600 Black professors, would it

have never really achieved,” he says.
Instead, he argues, individualism
and self-interest have allowed
exploitative forces – from white
slave traders in west Africa to
Chinese corporations – to co-opt
local Black elites and enablers to do
their dirty work and profit from it.
PHOTOGRAPHS: DAVID LEVENE/THE GUARDIAN; PROVIDED BY KEHINDE ANDREWS
he says. “I’ve spent two decades in
universities; they’re not changing.”
Instead, he sees this “experiment”
as taking the radical Black
education that he grew up with –
a heritage that is not academic,
but nevertheless intellectual – and
incorporating it into the university,
Garvey Education Centre on the site
where the Marcus Garvey nursery
stood five decades ago. He has also
helped launch the website Make It
Plain – a Garvey quote, naturally
– “as a space to get Black radical
thought out in our words”.
His academic position offers
what they want. They want spectacle
and I’m a good spectacle.”
Black people, he believes, are
relieved to have a representative in
these debates – and to be given facts
and tools with which to argue when
these debates come up in their own
lives. In other words, he gets to talk
change anything? No.” Real change,
he believes, cannot come from
elite, conservative white spaces,
no matter how well populated with
Black people, because such spaces
are fundamentally antagonistic
to change.
This also means that, no matter
how high you climb, little changes.
“You get into these places and
it’s terrible. I’m a Black professor.
Great. I’m still Black. The last three
years of my career, outwardly, have
been amazing. Internally, it’s been
the worst three years of my life.
Universities are some of the whitest
institutions that exist and, the further
up the hierarchy you go, the worse it
gets.” He describes constant battles
with management to effect change.
Yet he stresses that it is not just
individuals or managers who are to
blame. “The nature of these spaces
means they can change us, creating
toxic environments of competition
that leads to the ‘barrel of crabs’
scenario, where we are struggling
over each other to get to the top.”
His breath quickens. “The battles,
the scars. I’ve just had to fight. I’m
always fighting. I’ve probably done
permanent damage to my mental
and physical health establishing this
Black studies course. Honestly, since
launching the degree, learning to
navigate through extreme levels of
stress and bouts of depression has
become part of the job description.”
He believes it is not sustainable or, in
the long run, useful. “I would think
of it as a failure if, in the next five
years, I haven’t left the university,”
he says. “In five years, if you find me
still here, tell me I’ve sold out.”
He wants to focus his energy

His Black studies course
is an attempt to create such
a consciousness, but he is
circumspect in his hopes. “It’s an
experiment.” Despite his pioneering
position in academia (he calls it
collectively “the university”), he
seems sceptical – scornful, even
– that it is a place from which to
struggle for racial justice.
“I would never endorse a
university as a place to do any
of these things,” he says. “The
metaphor I use a lot of the time is
that we’re trying to colonise the
university.” He says universities
are fundamentally conservative
spaces that need to be dragged into
handing their rich resources – their
buildings and funding – to Black
studies. It is a high-friction process.
“The university ain’t gonna change,”
to pull levers outside the “bubble”.
In the second year of his course,
students have to apply their
knowledge via a placement, usually
within an organisation that works
in Black communities. Grassroots
and mainstream ones – such as
state schools – qualify. He believes
the course is the resurrection of an
existing legacy, not the creation of
a new one: “Black studies is new
in the university; it’s not new in
the United Kingdom.”
He blames himself and his peers
for not raising awareness of Black
history and activism in the UK.
“I came up at a time when I had
access to all this stuff. So, one of the
things that we’re trying to do quite
heavily is bring back this education.”
Andrews has revived the Harambee
Organisation and is opening the
him the profile to do the work he
needs to do. He leverages this as
often as he can – sometimes in what
can look like bear-baiting public
arguments. Among other topics,
Andrews has debated with Nigel
Farage whether the English flag is
racist and whether portraits of the
Queen are offensive. He has also
been in several spats with Piers
Morgan, including one around the
legacy of Winston Churchill.
Why does he do it? His
justification is pragmatic. “People
say to me: it’s demeaning. But the
reason I keep doing it is, randomly,
I would walk down the street and
a Black person would come up
to me and say: ‘Go on, Prof!’ The
mainstream discourse is Good
Morning Britain. I’m not trying to
convince white people; that’s not
about ideas such as “the psychosis
of whiteness” for clickbait, but this
generates another conversation on
social media, and in people’s social
and professional circles, that is
useful. You could say it is his version
of “colonising the media”.
Andrews speaks with passion, but
also exasperation at the false promise
of change in a world that he believes
is structurally hostile to Black
emancipation. Changes that come
after moments of raising awareness,
such as Black Lives Matter, are too
often hollow diversity, he believes.
They may make “the number of
Black people in an institution
rise”, but do nothing to make those
organisations operate more equally.
“People ask me: is it terrible that
I’m one of just 140 Black professors
in the UK? Certainly. But if there
on the grassroots, providing “an
account of society from a Black
radical perspective” – and to include
his four children in his work. The
first “celebrity” they could name
was Malcom X; he takes them to his
talks and is working with them on a
“Choose Your Liberation” children’s
book, a choose-your-own-adventure
story that explains Black politics.
He laughs, remembering himself at
that age. “I need to be careful that
they don’t rebel against their father
and end up joining the Tories!”
The New Age of Empire by Kehinde
Andrews is published today (Allen
Lane, £20). To order a copy, go to
guardianbookshop.com. Delivery
charges may apply. Kehinde Andrews
will be talking to Nesrine Malik in
a livestreamed Guardian Live event
tonight at 7pm
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:6 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
6 The Guardian
‘I am deliberately,
relentlessly happy’
Toyah Willcox
has had an
‘ultra-creative’
pandemic – going
viral from her
kitchen. She
O f all the celebrity
offerings that have come out of the
pandemic, the gloriously weird
videos made by Toyah Willcox
and her husband, Robert Fripp,
are surely the most compelling.
tells Emine It is possible, within each short
clip, to cycle through every feeling
Saner how she from wanting to cover your eyes
while being unable to look away,
persuaded her to the dawning realisation you
may be watching a profound piece
rock-star husband of performance art. Mostly, it is
impossible not to laugh. There they
to dress in a tutu are in their cosy Worcestershire
kitchen, perhaps with the
dishwasher open in the background,
with Willcox, accessorised with
mouse ears, tap-dancing, bouncing
off the Aga. Both dressed in black
tutus at the end of their garden, the
pair dance across the screen to music
from Swan Lake. Fripp lies on the
floor of the hallway, while Willcox –
dressed in red PVC and devil horns
– performs the Kinks’ You Really Got
Me on the stairs. It’s joyous.
Willcox has been uploading their
Sunday Lockdown Lunch videos
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:41
since April last year; they also do
a weekly agony aunt session, and
Willcox does her own Q&A, talking
about her life and long career as
an actor, pop star and general
cultural fixture for the past 40
years. It started, she says, as a
way to occupy Fripp, the musician
and founder of the prog rock
band King Crimson. “Here I am in
this house with this 74-year-old
husband who I really don’t want
to live without,” she says. “He was
withdrawing, so I thought: ‘I’m
going to teach him to dance.’ And it
became a challenge.” They posted a
video, and it took off. “It was: ‘Wow,
Scenes from the
Sunday Lockdown
Lunch videos,
with husband
Robert Fripp
I’ve never experienced the power of
that connection.’”
She comes up with it all, giggling
to herself late at night in bed. “I
do the lighting, the filming, the
conceptual side and the persuading
Robert to take part,” she says. Getting
Fripp – famously self-contained
and serious – to dance in tights and
a tutu, she says, made him “fucking
furious. He felt he was being
mocked. But the response was so
overwhelmingly positive, and now,
six months down the line, he can see
that it was quite an important thing
to do, in that it became a shared
experience with an audience that
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
Thursday 4 February 2021
needed to be reminded of the beauty
of human laughter.” Since then,
she adds: “I’ve not put him in such
desperate situations.”
Instead, it is Willcox who
throws herself in, with zero self-
consciousness. She will wear an
animal-print onesie, or dance
around with ribbons, or pretend to
be in a dungeon in their cellar, or
jump on a trampoline while dressed
as a cheerleader (Fripp, usually, is
seated, playing guitar and dressed
in a suit). One of the funniest, and
most popular videos (4.3m views
on YouTube), is Willcox performing
Metallica’s Enter Sandman on an
exercise bike, though it’s fair to say
her breasts are the highlight. “We did
the exercise bike in a rehearsal, and
my top was completely see-through,
which was a surprise,” she says. “I
have a mentor, who’s basically my
personal trainer and teaches me
guitar, and he was born in 1980, he
doesn’t know who the hell I am. I
said: ‘Can I get away with this as a
62-year-old?’ And he said: ‘Do it.’
And I trusted that response.” I praise
Fripp for admirably maintaining eye
contact with Willcox, despite her
 Section:GDN 12 PaGe:7 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
The Guardian
Thursday 4 February 2021
nipples being dangerously within
his line of vision, and she laughs.
“Robert loves his wife. And when I
do these things …”
This is not showing off for the
camera; this is how the couple
normally behave. “I’m doing this
to him all the time to make him
laugh, because he needs to laugh.
If people saw what we got up to,
they’d wonder if we were nine years
old.” She likes to hide in his shower
room, for instance. “And he turns
the light on and I’m in the corner like
a demented child and it just freaks
him out. We have had moments
where he says: ‘Can this just stop?’”
The past year has been a test for
the couple. It has been the longest
stretch they have spent together
in 35 years of marriage – in normal
years, both are touring or working
PHOTOGRAPHS: TOYAH/YOUTUBE
away, and they lived in separate
houses until 2001. “We really had
to start again, to navigate being
together in a confined space,
because we have never had that. We
had a very romantic relationship
where we’ve always met in hotels
around the world and this new
life was challenging. I now think
•
My mother
always wanted
me altered in
some way. I was
never right
we love it so much we’re going to
have to really start to embrace the
outside world again.” Faced with the
prospect of spending too long in the
kitchen, she taught Fripp to cook.
“I knew I was not going to survive
if the kitchen became a mainstay of
this experience, which is why Robert
and I are very 50/50 in what we do,
and we even do our own laundry.
I’m not domesticated.”
She has also been incredibly
busy; Willcox rereleased her first
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:41
album, Sheep Farming in Barnet,
late last year, made a film, made a TV
programme about her mother, and
wrote and recorded a solo album,
which will be released in the spring.
“I’ve been phenomenally creative
and I’ve been trying to understand
why,” she says. “I can only put my
finger on the fact that at 62, you
know time is finite. And I thought:
‘I cannot let 2020 be a year that
destroys my career’, so I’ve just been
furiously creative.” She has also
written some “little nonsense books,
with a bee painted like Robert, that
is always questioning who and
what he is” and is learning to play
the guitar. “There’s definitely that
thread pulling me towards … I don’t
call it the end, but the end of Toyah.
Time is so precious and I think that’s
why I’ve become ultra-creative.
I remember when Derek Jarman
was diagnosed with HIV, he said it
focused him so much that he did his
greatest artwork in that time. I don’t
have anything to face like that, but
I learned more from that lesson of
Derek’s than from anyone else.”
If you know Willcox only from
her TV presenting in the 90s or the
reality shows she has popped up in
over the past two decades, you are
glossing over her incredible career.
Her first film was Jarman’s 1978 punk
classic Jubilee, and she worked with
the director again in The Tempest;
she was also in Quadrophenia. Her
first stage work was at the National
Theatre. She was marketed as a
punk pop star in the 80s, though
this ended up turning her pretty
much into “a parody of myself”, as
she once put it, and she remained
underrated, despite albums such as
the highly experimental Prostitute.
She once said she refused to be
“a rock’n’roll wife”. What did that
mean? “Robert would never ever
let me live off him or his reputation.
He just wouldn’t. We have separate
bank accounts. He was so guarded
when I first met him and I think why
he liked me so much is I was fiercely
independent and passionate about
my work – he saw someone that
wouldn’t cling. I knew I’d never have
children, and Robert and I didn’t want
a family. I have been very passionate
about remaining an artist.”
As a child, growing up in
Birmingham, Willcox was “a show-
off. I realised I could entertain
people, and it made people like me.
I was probably seven when I realised
it was the only thing I could do, in
that I would not be able to suffer this
life unless I was a performer.” Her
early years were defined by medical
problems – she had been born with
a twisted spine and developmental
problems with her feet and hip
sockets, requiring surgery and
physiotherapy. There were other
crises – she was bullied at school
for her disabilities and her lisp;
her father, a factory owner, went
bankrupt; and her relationship with
her mother was difficult.
“My mother was very complex.
She never told the truth of her
history to us.” Willcox recently
made a TV show about this, so won’t
go into detail, but says she found
out that “my mother experienced
something in her life which meant
she never experienced happiness
Performing
at a drive-in
concert
in 2020
again. None of us understood
why she was the way she was. It
shattered me, because my mother
went through something where she
needed love, support and therapy.
And she got a daughter like me.”
By which she means wilful and
nonconformist and with a body that
disappointed her mother, who had
been a professional dancer. “She was
always kind of covering me up, and
always wanted me altered in some
way. I was never right.”
Willcox was an “obedient child”
in this claustrophobic house until
she was about 12. Then, she says:
“I completely rebelled, ran away
from home, I started making my
own clothes, I became a hair model
where my hair was dyed at the age of
14, and I was touring in hair shows. I
just broke every rule.”
In 1982, at the height of her fame,
she won an award for best female
singer, and phoned her mother. “Her
reaction was: ‘Don’t boast about it –
it won’t happen again.’” Her mother
lived near Willcox and Fripp near the
end of her life and they managed to
build a relationship. She has tears
in her eyes when she talks about it.
“We had two rather fabulous years
with her; I still fought with her, but
she became the woman that she
could have been. She destroyed her
life, because she could not talk about
one event that happened to her
when she was 16.”
But it didn’t destroy Willcox’s
life. Even talking over Zoom,
I can almost feel her bristling
energy, and she seems fearless and
deliberately, relentlessly happy. “I
am deliberately, relentlessly happy
because my mother deliberately,
Willcox
in 1980
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
7
relentlessly tried to stop me being
happy,” she says, smiling. “So for
me, it’s actually passive-aggression.
I am a very positive person and I
only like to deal with positivity, but
sometimes, it’s passive-aggressive.”
What was it like to become
so famous so quickly? “It was
fabulous!” she shouts. “It was
everything I ever wanted. I had five
utterly magical years where I felt
the universe was placing everything
in my hand.” She had been spotted
on the streets of Birmingham by
a casting director, who put her in
a TV play; from that, she was cast
in Tales from the Vienna Woods at
the National Theatre. “And at the
National I found musicians I could
work with,” says Willcox. “People
were absolutely gorgeous to me. Ian
Charleson [the stage actor] took me
to meet Derek Jarman, and I ended
up in Jubilee. Everything fell into
place. Looking back, I must have
been so obnoxiously self-centred,
but people saw me as some new
generational spark, and doors
opened for me.” She makes it sound
so passive, but this underplays her
own determination and charisma.
It must have been tough to be a
young woman in the music industry
in the early 80s. “I was terribly
naive,” she says. “I was being called
to record meetings in people’s flats
and I realised, if you’re called to
a meeting at 8pm, you ain’t there
because you’re an artist. I realised
that this was sex for jobs – and
no.” It was more explicit in the
film business, she says. She went
for an audition with Russ Meyer,
the director of Faster, Pussycat!
Kill! Kill!, for “one of his big booby
films”, at a flat in Chelsea. “He said:
‘Can I see your breasts?’ and I went:
‘No.’ He said: ‘Well, you won’t be in
this film.’ I said: ‘That’s fine’, even
though Jubilee had nudity and the
National Theatre had nudity. I just
didn’t like the attitude.” It helped
her survive, she thinks, that she
was quite androgynous. “I think my
boyishness protected me.”
Would she have been seen as
more of an artist, and less of a
novelty act, if she had been a man? (I
think so.) “I think partly it’s gender,”
she says. “I think the sexual appeal
of someone is huge. It really helps
to have a sexual awareness and I
fought that.” Willcox zigzagged from
music to theatre to film and pitched
up presenting TV programmes such
as Songs of Praise and Watchdog,
then appeared in reality shows such
as I’m a Celebrity. In recent years,
she has endlessly toured. What
more does she want to achieve?
“Everything,” she shouts. “I’m a
megalomaniac!” She is preparing a
Jimi Hendrix song for this weekend’s
video. I dread to think what she has
got planned for her husband in the
weeks ahead, but he will play guitar,
smile at her indulgently, and Willcox
will continue to look as if she is
having the time of her life.
An expanded edition of Toyah’s
album The Blue Meaning, released
on 28 May, can be ordered from
cherryred.co/toyah from 6 February.
A new album, Posh Pop, will be
released in July. Toyah & Robert’s
Sunday Lunch videos are published at
12pm each Sunday on YouTube.
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:8 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 3/2/2021 18:39 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:9 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 3/2/2021 18:39 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:10 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 17:55 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

10 The Guardian

TV and radio Thursday 4 February 2021

ZeroZeroZero
9pm, Sky Atlantic

Chemistry …
Ashley Walters
and Noel Clarke

A dramatisation of Roberto Saviano’s 2013

eponymous exposé of the international
drug trade, this Italian crime thriller
tells the story of the New Orleans-based
Lynwood family and their brokering of
drug deals between the Mexican cartels
and the Italian mafia. In tonight’s opening
episode, Don Minu La Piana (Adriano
Chiaramida) gathers his clan to decide
Review Bulletproof: South finale has little more to do than tidy up any loose ends.
The child Kayla has been rescued and the bent copper the future of their criminal organisation,
Africa, Sky One Dewald has taken credit for solving the case, with a
nod to Pike and Bishop, who should, rightfully, get the while in Mexico the Leyra drug cartel is
chance to enjoy their holiday at last. being tracked down by soldier Manuel
If that were the case, though, it would be a dud of
Contreras (Harold Torres).
Beautiful bromance
a finale and despite starting out a little slowly, it soon
ramps up to more high-octane thrills, as they try to take Ammar Kalia
down Dewald. Kayla is back with her mother and father,

balances out the though Arjana suspects that the family dynamic leaves
a lot to be desired. Kayla, meanwhile, is traumatised, as
you might imagine, from being blindfolded and watched
Inside Culture With
Mary Beard
should be available on
prescription. This week,

big bangs and by armed guards. Soon, suspicion falls on Dewald,

mostly because of his fondness for apple-flavoured
7pm, BBC Two
Beard is joined by the
the groomers reach the
quarter-finals and battle

bombast
vapes. It’s an indication of the kind of plot points that artistic director of the the clock to hand-strip a
this show can turn on, which is no bad thing: huge Young Vic theatre Kwame Welsh terrier. If that isn’t
clouds of apple-scented vapour are a criminal offence to Kwei-Armah and comic enough to lure you in,
my mind. Kiri Pritchard-McLean join the contestants in a
This is a glossy spectacle of a show that is indebted to to discuss the changing guess-the-breed game.
★★★☆☆ Hollywood. It barely bothers to dip below the surface, nature of audiences Hannah Verdier

Rebecca
though it handles a domestic abuse storyline with throughout history and
sensitivity, and there is a brief discussion about parental in the current era of Rob & Romesh Vs
10pm, Sky One
Nicholson
responsibilities that adds a touch of depth. But that is Covid. The musician
not really what Bulletproof is here for. It’s a triumph of Tim Burgess joins the Romesh Ranganathan
small-screen action, popcorn-worthy and overblown. It conversation to talk about and Rob Beckett return
drags you along for the ride, even if you are best advised the success of his Twitter for a new series of
not to look too closely for the cracks. listening parties during competitive shenanigans,

B
ulletproof: South Africa is only a three- It’s also largely funny, due to the chemistry lockdown. AK beginning in the world
part series, but does not skimp on the between Walters and Clarke, who riff off each other of art. Beckett visits his
action. There have been shoot-outs, with companionable ease and are worth the price of Ken Burns: first art gallery, then joins
violent chases, huge car explosions and the ticket alone. They rock-paper-scissors their way Here & There Ranganathan for lessons
a stint in prison for its two leads, Pike through who is going to take which role in a violent
And 7.15pm, PBS America at an art school. Finally,
and Bishop (Ashley Walters and Noel confrontation. They talk about their lives. They tease
another As the creator of The each of them has to create
thing
Clarke), that was only marginally more ridiculous than each other relentlessly, but always have each other’s Vietnam War and a an exhibition of their
Bridget Jones ending up on the wrong side of the law in backs. It is a lovely bromance, and a treat to watch. plethora of other films work at London’s Saatchi
Thailand. And that was just the first two episodes. After It is also worth pointing out that when the duo The first post- and miniseries, Burns gallery. AK
expending all that energy in such a short period of time, becomes a trio, thanks to Tanner (Lindsey Coulson) Trump Saturday is synonymous with
it was hard to see where the finale would take them next. turning up to get them out of jail, they are a triple act to Night Live accomplished historical Those Who Kill
Out to sea? Into space? reckon with. suggests an documentaries. This 10pm, Fox
Perhaps mercifully, Bulletproof seems to have burned When the action hits, it does so with as much improvement one-off sees family, A sporadically gripping
itself out, at least until the last 15 minutes or so, when it dedication to spectacle as you would expect. There are in form. contemporaries and crime series in which
all goes happily gaga again. After two enjoyable series, kidnappings, double-crosses and a massive, expensive- friends – as well as angsty homicide detective
this likable action show deserved a holiday: Pike and his looking car chase through the South African countryside Burns himself – offer a Catherine Jensen (Chloë
wife Arjana head to Cape Town to laze on the beach. But that wouldn’t be out of place on the big screen. It is all window into his “labour- Sevigny) joins forces with
it wouldn’t be a buddy show if the buddies were divided brazenly designed to elicit an adrenaline rush, but it intensive” craft. James D’Arcy’s college
– so Bishop tags along as a third wheel. It takes all of five does so pretty effectively, and there are enough twists Hannah J Davies professor Dr Thomas
minutes until there’s some crime-fighting on the mean and turns so you don’t feel short-changed. Schaeffer to investigate
streets of Cape Town and the pair get caught up in a child “What did I tell you? Distraction,” says Bishop, when Pooch Perfect serial killers and discover
kidnapping that is tacked on to a plot to steal rubies, a potentially fatal situation is defused by an unlikely 8pm, BBC One the truth about Jensen’s
which leads them on a wild goose chase through the city object, one even more ridiculous than a vape, when Sheridan Smith and her missing brother. Tonight,
and beyond. it comes to thwarting dastardly plots. You could say canine co-host Stanley a body is found at a
By this third and final episode, most of the mystery the same about Bulletproof. It’s a big, daft, bombastic present the dog show construction site.
has been solved, or so it seems, which suggests that the distraction, but it is certainly up to the job. that is so soothing it Phil Harrison
 Section:GDN 12 PaGe:11 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 17:20 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

•
The Guardian
Thursday 4 February 2021 11

BBC One BBC Two ITV Channel 4 Channel 5 BBC Four

6.0 Breakfast (T) 9.15 Morning
Live (T) 10.0 Homes Under
the Hammer (T) 11.0 Wanted:
A Simple Life (T) 11.45
Caught Red Handed (T)
12.15 Bargain Hunt (T) (R)
1.0 News (T) 1.30 Regional
News (T) 1.45 The Mallorca
Files (T) 2.30 The Hairy
Bikers’ Asian Adventure
(T) (R) 3.0 Escape to the
Country (T) (R) 3.45 The
Farmers’ Country Showdown
(T) 4.30 The Bidding Room
(T) 5.15 Pointless (T) 6.0
News (T) 6.30 Regional
News (T) 7.0 The One Show
(T) 7.35 EastEnders (T)
6.15 Wanted: A Simple Life (R)
7.0 Escape to the Country (R)
7.45 Pooch Perfect (R) 8.45
Workout the Wright Way
9.0 News at 9 10.0 News
(T) 12.15 Politics Live
(T) 1.0 Bitesize Daily for
Secondary (T) (R) 2.0 Black
and British: A Forgotten
History (T) (R) 3.0 Put Your
Money Where Your Mouth
Is (T) (R) 3.45 Life (T) (R)
4.50 Meerkat Manor (T)
(R) 5.15 Flog It! (T) (R) 6.0
Richard Osman’s House of
Games (T) 6.30 Lightning
(T) 7.0 Inside Culture (T) 7.30
Nigella: At My Table (T) (R)
6.0 Good Morning Britain (T)
9.0 Lorraine (T) 10.0 This
Morning (T) 12.30 Loose
Women (T) 1.30 News (T)
1.55 Local News (T) 2.0
Judge Rinder (T) 3.0 Lingo
(T) 3.59 Local News (T)
4.0 Tipping Point (T) 5.0
The Chase (T) 6.0 Local
News (T) 6.30 News (T) 7.0
Emmerdale (T) Dawn tries to
stop Jamie seeking revenge.
David makes a suggestion to
Pollard. 7.30 Tonight: Covid
Testing – What’s the Truth?
(T) Adam Shaw looks at
the plan to conduct instant
mass tests for Covid-19.
6.30 Mike & Molly (T) (R) 7.10
Cheers (T) (R) 8.0 The King
of Queens (T) (R) 8.55 Frasier
(T) (R) 9.25 Frasier (T) (R)
9.55 Come Dine With Me
(T) (R) 10.25 Come Dine
With Me (T) (R) 10.55 Come
Dine With Me (T) (R) 11.25
Come Dine With Me (T) (R)
11.55 News (T) 12.0 Come
Dine With Me (T) (R) 12.30
Steph’s Packed Lunch (T)
2.10 Countdown (T) 3.0
A Place in the Sun (T) (R)
4.0 A New Life in the Sun
(T) 5.0 Mend It for Money
(T) 6.0 Simpsons (T) (R) 6.30
Hollyoaks (T) 7.0 News (T)
6.0 Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy
Vine (T) 11.15 Can’t Pay?
We’ll Take It Away! (T)
(R) 12.15 News (T) 12.20
Nightmare Tenants, Slum
Landlords (T) (R) 1.15
Home and Away (T) 1.45
Neighbours (T) 2.15 Cruising
With Jane McDonald
(T) (R) 3.15 A Bride’s
Revenge (Robert Malenfant,
2019) (T) 5.0 News (T) 5.30
Neighbours (T) (R) 6.0 Home
and Away (T) (R) 6.30 News
(T) 7.0 Paul Merton in China
(T) (R) (2/4) The comedian
takes kung fu classes at the
Shaolin Temple.
7.0 Coast (T) (R) A network of
worm tunnels found near
Loch Creran. 7.05 Fred
Dibnah’s Made in Britain (T)
(R) (12/12) The steeplejack
goes to Buckingham Palace
to collect his MBE. Along the
way, he visits the Crossness
pumping station to view its
great beam engines. 7.35 The
Joy of Painting (T) (R) Bob
Ross paints a creek flowing
through a meadow forest.

8.0 Pooch Perfect (T) The first
set of quarter-finalists
groom a Welsh terrier.
9.0 Death in Paradise (T)
Part one of a two-part story.
A renowned concert pianist is
shot dead during an apparent
burglary, but Neville is quick
to conclude that the victim
was murdered. Part two is
tomorrow at 9pm.
8.0 Your Garden Made Perfect
(T) New series. Angela
Scanlon hosts the show in
which couples have their
gardens transformed.
9.0 QI (T) Best “R” moments.
9.30 Mock the Week (T) Dara
Ó Briain hosts. With Maisie
Adam, Angela Barnes, Ed
Gamble, Glenn Moore and
Ahir Shah. Last in the series.
8.0 Emmerdale (T) Jamie fears
for Kyle. Matty is conflicted.
8.30 The Martin Lewis
Money Show: Live (T)
9.0 The Chasers Road
Trip: Trains, Brains and
Automobiles (T) Anne
Hegerty, Shaun Wallace
and Mark Labbett’s road
trip brings them to Japan.
Last in the series.
8.0 George Clarke’s Amazing
Spaces (T) The architect
looks back at arguably his
most ambitious project,
when he and Will Hardie
built a rotating home.
9.0 8 Out of 10 Cats Does
Countdown (T) Harry
Hill, Rosie Jones and Nick
Mohammed join Sean Lock
and Jon Richardson.
8.0 Adrian Dunbar’s Coastal
Ireland (T) The actor travels
along the rugged west and
north coasts of Ireland.
9.0 The Drowning (T) With
the confusion around
Daniel’s identity increasing,
it seems that someone
close will stop at nothing
to protect themselves.
Last in the series.
8.05 All Creatures Great and
Small (T) (R) Drama with
Christopher Timothy.
9.0 Quartet (Dustin
Hoffman, 2012) (T) (R)
Three former singers’ plans
for a fundraising concert
are disrupted by the arrival
of a famous diva. Comedy
drama with Maggie Smith
and Billy Connolly.

10.0 News (T)
10.30 Regional News (T) Weather
10.45 Question Time (T) Fiona
Bruce chairs the political
debate.
11.45 Supermarket Secrets (T) (R)
How supermarkets fight to
win customers from one
another. Last in the series.
12.45 Weather for the Week
Ahead (T) 12.50 News (T)
10.0 Top of the Pops: The Story
of 1989 (T) (R) The year of
the rise of Madchester.
10.45 Newsnight (T) Weather
11.30 Incredible Journeys
With Simon Reeve (T) (R)
12.30 Sign Zone The Truth
About Improving Your
Mental Health (T) (R)
1.30 Winterwatch (T) (R)
2.30 This Is BBC Two (T)
10.0 News (T)
10.30 Local News (T)
10.45 63 Up (T) (R) Catching
up with Bruce.
11.45 Finding Alice (T) (R) (3/6)
Charlotte decides that she is
ready to return to school.
12.35 Ideal World 3.0 FYI Extra
3.15 Tonight (R) 3.40 ITV
Nightscreen 5.05 Tipping
Point (T) (R)
10.0 Back (T) Stephen continues
his health kick.
10.30 Naked Attraction (T) (R)
11.35 First Dates (T) (R)
12.35 Kitchen Nightmares USA
(T) (R) 1.20 The Simpsons
(T) (R) 1.45 Ramy (T) (1-5/10)
4.10 Fifteen to One (T) (R)
5.0 Coach Trip: Road to
Marbs (T) (R) 5.30 Fill Your
House for Free (T) (R)
10.0 Gypsy Eviction: The Battle
for Dale Farm (T) (R) The 2011
case in which Travellers were
evicted from land in Essex.
11.35 Police Code Zero: Officer
Under Attack (T) (R)
12.25 Criminals: Caught on
Camera (T) (R) 1.0 Live
Casino 3.10 Secrets of the
World’s Most Expensive
Cruise Ships (R)
10.30 Face to Face With Billy
Connolly (T) (R) Archive
interview from 1994.
11.10 Britain’s Lost Masterpieces
(T) (R) A visit to Brighton
Museum.
12.10 Handmade in Africa (T) (R)
12.40 The Joy of Painting (T)
(R) 1.10 Made in Britain (T)
(R) 1.40 The Great Mountain
Sheep Gather (T) (R)

Other channels Radio

Dave Married at First Sight You’ve Been Framed! Double Bill 1.0 Hawaii Beatty: A Hollywood Radio 3 Glasgow. 10.0 Free Forecast 6.0 News 6.30 (4/6) 10.0 The Last
6.0am Teleshopping Australia 9.0 Celebs Go Gold: Best of the Best Five-0 Double Bill 3.0 Obsession 12.0 The 6.30 Breakfast. With Thinking: Social Class Elephant in the Room. of the Mohicans (2/2)
7.10 Yianni: Supercar Dating: The Mansion 8.0 Superstore Double MacGyver 4.0 Modern Directors 1.0 Marilyn: Petroc Trelawny. 9.0 10.45 The Essay: Acting Sarah Millican hosts the 11.0 Desert Island Discs
Customiser Double Bill 10.0 Wife Swap USA Bill 9.0 Family Guy Family Double Bill 5.0 The Last Sessions 3.0 Essential Classics. Ian Unrehearsed (4/5) 11.0 gameshow. (5/6) 7.0 Revisited (8) 11.45 Life
8.0 American Pickers: 11.0 The Big Bang Double Bill 10.0 Plebs The Simpsons 5.30 The Women Who Run Skelly presents. 12.0 The Night Tracks Mix The Archers 7.15 Front Stories 12.0 Round the
Best Of 9.0 Storage Theory Double Bill 12.0 Double Bill 11.05 Family Futurama Double Bill Hollywood 4.0 Tales of Composer of the Week: 11.30 Unclassified 12.30 Row 7.45 An Invitation Horne (4/16) 12.30
Hunters Double Bill 10.0 Gogglebox 1.0 Rick Guy 11.35 American 6.30 The Simpsons the Unexpected Double Schubert (4/5) 1.0 Through the Night to Indian Cooking (R) Living With Betty (1/6)
American Pickers: Best Of and Morty 1.30 Robot Dad! Double Bill 12.30 Triple Bill 8.0 Freddie Bill 5.0 South Bank Show Lunchtime Concert: (4/5) 8.0 The Briefing 1.0 The Blackburn Files
Double Bill 12.0 Border Chicken 1.50 The Eric The Stand Up Sketch Down Under 9.0 Originals 5.30 Auction Schwetzingen Festival. Radio 4 Room (11/14) 8.30 The (3/4) 1.30 Detective
Interceptors Double Bill Andre Show 2.05 Rick Show Double Bill 1.30 Resident Alien 10.0 Beethoven: Große Fuge, 6.0 Today 8.30 (LW) Bottom Line. New series (9/10) 2.0 The Muse
1.0 Top Gear Double and Morty 2.30 Celebs Superstore Double Rob & Romesh Art Sky Atlantic Op 134 (version for Yesterday in Parliament of Evan Davis’s business (4/10) 2.15 Jezebel
Bill 3.0 Rick Stein’s Go Dating: The Mansion Bill 2.25 CelebAbility 11.0 Final Score 6.0am Urban Secrets piano duet). Brahms: 9.0 In Our Time 9.45 programme. 9.0 Inside (4/5) 2.30 The Real Mr
Mediterranean Escapes 3.25 Wife Swap USA 4.10 3.0 Totally Bonkers (2018) 1.0 A Discovery 6.55 CSI: Crime Sonata for two pianos (LW) Daily Service 9.45 Science (R) 9.30 In Our Khan 3.0 The Last of…
4.0 Top Gear Double Bill The Big Bang Theory Guinness World Records of Witches 2.0 Late Late Scene Investigation in F minor, Op 34b. (FM) Book of the Week: Time (R) 10.0 The World 4.0 Quote – Unquote
6.0 QI XL 7.0 House of 4.35 Don’t Tell the Bride Show: Best of the Week Double Bill 8.45 Ray GrauSchumacher Piano Karachi Vice, by Samira Tonight 10.45 Book at (3/6) 4.30 Robin and
Games 7.40 Would I Lie More4 3.0 A League of Their Donovan Double Bill Duo. (3/4) 2.0 Thursday Shackle. (4/5) 10.0 Bedtime: The Thursday Wendy 5.0 In and Out
to You? Double Bill 9.0 Film4 8.55am Vintage Gems Own: European Road 11.0 Dexter Double Bill Opera Matinee: Kurt Woman’s Hour. 10.45 Murder Club (R) 11.0 The of… 5.30 Elephant in…
QI XL 10.0 All Girls Live 11.0am When 9.15 A Place in the Trip 4.0 Highway Patrol 1.10 CSI… Double Bill Weill – The Firebrand Drama: An Invitation to Confessional. Stephen 6.0 Journey Into Space:
at the Apollo 11.0 QI Eight Bells Toll (1971) Sun 10.05 Find It, Fix Double Bill 5.0 MacGyver 3.0 Boardwalk Empire of Florence, An Opera Indian Cooking, by Anjum Mangan presents a The Red Planet (14/20)
XL 12.0 Mock the Week 12.55 3:10 to It… Double Bill 12.05 Double Bill 5.20 The for Broadway. a 2000 Malik. (4/5) 11.0 From lighthearted chatshow 6.30 Great Lives (2/9)
12.40 Would I Lie to You? Yuma (1957) 2.45  Escape to the Chateau: Sky Arts Sopranos Double Bill production from the Our Own Correspondent about shame and guilt, 7.0 Round the Horne
Double Bill 2.10 All Girls The Black Tent (1956) DIY 1.10 Building the 6.0am Royal Opera: 7.45 Game of Thrones Barbican in London. (2/9) 11.30 Behind the talking to the actor (4/16) 7.30 Living With
Live at the Apollo 3.0 4.35 Kansas Dream 2.15 Four in a Offenbach – The Tales of 9.0 ZeroZeroZero Rodney Gilfry (baritone: Scenes: Joyce DiDonato David Tennant. 11.30 Betty (1/6) 8.0 The
QI XL 4.0 Teleshopping Raiders (1950) 6.20 Bed. Five episodes. 4.55 Hoffmann 9.0 Tales of 10.10 Banshee 11.15 Benvenuto Cellini), Lori 12.0 News 12.03 Today in Parliament Blackburn Files (3/4)
The Core (2003) Amazing Spaces 5.55 the Unexpected Double Californication Double Ann Fuller (soprano: Shipping Forecast 12.06 12.0 News 12.30 Book 8.30 Detective (9/10)
E4 9.0 Pacific Rim: The Secret Life of the Bill 10.0 Discovering: Bill 12.25 The Angel), George Dvorsky The Thursday Murder of the Week (R) 12.48 9.0 Desert Island Discs
All programmes from Uprising (2018) 11.10 Zoo 6.55 Escape to the Sally Field 11.0 The South Sunset Limited (2011) (bass: Alessandro Club. By Richard Osman. Shipping Forecast 1.0 Revisited (8) 9.45 Life
9am to 1pm are double Transporter 3 Chateau: DIY 7.55 Grand Bank Show Originals 2.10 Hotel Secrets de’Medici), Felicity (9/10) 12.20 You and As World Service 5.20 Stories 10.0 Elephant
bills 6.0am Hollyoaks (2008) 1.15  Designs 9.0 Location, 11.30 Auction 12.0 Double Bill 4.0 The Palmer (mezzo: The Yours 1.0 The World Shipping Forecast 5.30 in… 10.30 Old Harry’s
Double Bill 7.0 Kitchen American Hustle (2013) Location, Location: 20 Hard Beauty: Helaine Guest Wing Double Bill Duchess of Florence), at One 1.45 The River: News 5.43 Prayer for the Game (4/6) 11.0 Craig
Nightmares USA 8.0 Years and Counting 10.0 Blumenfeld 1.0 Tales of Lucy Schauffer (mezzo: The Tay, by Kathleen Day 5.45 Farming Today Brown’s Lost Diaries
Junior Bake Off 9.0 ITV2 New Amsterdam 11.0 24 the Unexpected Double Emilia, Cellini’s servant), Jamie. (R) (4/5) 2.0 5.58 Tweet of the Day (5/6) 11.30 The Headset
Malcolm in the Middle 7.0am Ellen DeGeneres Hours in A&E 12.0 Father Bill 2.0 Discovering: other principals, Simon The Archers 2.15 Drama: Set (4/6) 12.0 Journey
10.0 The Big Bang 8.0 Emmerdale 8.30 Ted Double Bill 1.05 New Marlene Dietrich 3.0 The Russell Beale (narrator), Stone – Blame, by Martin Radio 4 Extra Into Space… 12.30
Theory 11.0 Brooklyn Coronation Street Double Amsterdam 2.0 24 Hours Seventies 4.0 ZZ Top: BBC Singers, BBC Jameson. (4/5) 3.0 Open 6.0 The Blackburn Files Great Lives (2/9) 1.0
Nine-Nine 12.0 Young Bill 9.30 Supermarket in A&E 3.05 Father Ted Music Icons 4.30 Video Symphony Orchestra, Country: Twelve Months (3/4) 6.30 Detective The Blackburn Files
Sheldon 1.0 The Big Bang Sweep 10.30 Dress to Killed the Radio Star 5.0 Andrew Davis. Followed of Open Country. With (9/10) 7.0 In and Out (3/4) 1.30 Detective
Theory Triple Bill 2.30 Impress 11.30 Love Bites Sky One Tales of the Unexpected at 4pm by more from Helen Mark. (15/15) of the Kitchen (4/6) (9/10) 2.0 The Muse
The Goldbergs Double 12.30 Emmerdale 1.0 6.0am Futurama Double Double Bill 6.0 the BBC SO. 5.0 In Tune 3.27 Radio 4 Appeal: 7.30 Elephant in the (4/10) 2.15 Jezebel
Bill 3.30 Brooklyn Coronation Street Double Bill 7.0 Animal House Discovering: Grace Kelly 7.0 In Tune Mixtape Coroners’ Courts Support Room (4/6) 8.0 Round (4/5) 2.30 The Real Mr
Nine-Nine Double Bill Bill 2.0 Ellen DeGeneres Double Bill 8.0 Monkey 7.0 Bafta: Life in Pictures 7.30 In Concert. The Services (R) 3.30 the Horne (4/16) 8.30 Khan 3.0 The Last of…
4.30 Married at First 2.55 Ellen’s Game of Business Double Bill 9.0 8.0 The Directors 9.0 BBC Scottish Symphony Open Book (R) 4.0 The Living With Betty (1/6) 4.0 Quote – Unquote
Sight Australia 6.0 The Games 3.50 Dress to Highway Patrol Double Hollywood Couples American Orchestra perform Suk, Film Programme 4.30 9.0 Quote – Unquote (3/6) 4.30 Robin and
Big Bang Theory Double Impress 4.50 Take Me Bill 10.0 Stop, Search, 10.0 Gary Cooper: The Mozart and Dvořák, Inside Science 5.0 PM (3/6) 9.30 Robin and Wendy 5.0 In and Out
Bill 7.0 Hollyoaks 7.30 Out 6.0 Love Bites 7.0 Seize 11.0 NCIS: LA Irresistible 11.0 Warren Hustle, Film4 live from City Halls, 5.54 (LW) Shipping Wendy’s Wet Weekends of… 5.30 Elephant in…
Section:GDN 12 PaGe:12 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 17:57 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

TODAY’S PET CORNER ANSWER JENNIFER ANISTON

12
Puzzles
The Guardian
Thursday 4 February 2021

Yesterday’s Quick crossword no 15,833

solutions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Wordsearch Across Down

1 At last! (3,6,4) 2 A few (3,2,3)
8 Marijuana (slang) (4) 3 46th president of the United States 8 9
9 Cause for serious concern (8) (5)
10 Overall sum (5,5) 4 Ate lavishly (7)
12 Influenced (6) 5 Sunday meal, perhaps (5)
14 Seek to persuade, repeatedly and 6 Fell (7)
10
annoyingly (6) 7 In pristine condition (4)
15 Aggravate (10) 11 Period of unusually warm weather
19 Significant feature (or event) (8) (4,4) 11
20 Gone (4) 13 Gave way (7)
21 Thoroughly (4,3,6) 14 Separate (5,2) 12 13 14
16 For the second time (5)
17 Longest-running British children’s
comic (5)
18 Salad dressing (abbr) (4)
Solution no 15,832 15 16 17

WH I T E E N S I G N
A E Y R T A S 18
B ON A P A R T E T OW
B I O A H E
R E L I C R E L I E V E 19 20
E O A S R N
V I R I L E D E S I R E
I G A A N Y
A N NO Y E D R I G H T
T E A V L O 21
E A T C H I L D HO O D
D T H S O W D
WE S T G E RMA N Y
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.
Service supplied by ATS. Call 0330 333 6946 for customer service (charged at standard rate).
To buy puzzle books, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.

Sudoku no 5,116

Sudoku no 5,117 Word wheel Suguru Wordsearch

Hard. Fill the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 Find as many words as
box contains the numbers 1-9. Printable version at possible using the letters
theguardian.com/sudoku in the wheel. Each must
use the central letter and
at least two others. Letters
may be used only once. You
may not use plurals, foreign
words or proper nouns.
Word wheel There is at least one nine-
ADVENTURE letter word to be found.
TARGET: Excellent-32.
Good-27. Average-20.
Fill the grid so that each square in
an outlined block contains a digit.
A block of 2 squares contains the
digits 1 and 2, a block of three
squares contains the digits 1, 2
and 3, and so on. No same digit
appears in neighbouring squares,
not even diagonally.
Can you find 13 words associated
with deep-sea diving in the grid?
Words can run forwards, backwards,
vertically or diagonally, but always in
a straight, unbroken line.

Suguru

Steve Bell Pet corner

If… Which actor
said: “Men come
and go, but
there really is no
relationship like
the one you have
with a dog”?
a Reese
Witherspoon
b Angelina Jolie
c Nicole Kidman
d Jennifer
Aniston
Answer top right
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:1 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 19:48
Phoney flag-waving won’t win Labour’s red wall back Clive Lewis, page 3
At-risk people are still missing out on immunisation Frances Ryan, page 4
Jeff Bezos and the world Amazon made The long read, page 5
The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
Opinion
and ideas
It’s not fair, but
H
e made a great effort not to crow,
but the Conservative minister could
not contain his mix of pleasure and
slight surprise this week. “If there
the vaccine is
is one thing that the Labour party
absolutely does not want right
now,” the minister told me, “it is a
sudden and sustained display of
giving Johnson
competence on the part of this government. Yet that’s
exactly what they’re now facing.”
The UK’s coronavirus vaccine rollout is the most
significant achievement over which Boris Johnson has
a political boost
presided since the pandemic began. Ten million of us
have now had our first jabs, 15% of the population and
rising, way above the rate for most other European
countries. It is a public health success story that looks
set to continue well into the year. It is also an undeniable
Martin political boost for Johnson. Whether it is the proverbial
Kettle gamechanger is harder to say.
Recent opinion polls definitely suggest a shift in the
public mood. After long months of generally negative
ratings for Johnson’s handling of Covid, approval for
the vaccine rollout soared to over 60% in late January
and looks set to continue. British optimism that the
coronavirus situation is improving is also now rising fast
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
G2
Daily
pullout
life &
arts
section
Inside
after months in the doldrums – a dramatic contrast with ILLUSTRATION:
expectations elsewhere. It is no surprise that talk of a BILL BRAGG
vaccine bounce is easy to find among Tory MPs, though
few are foolish enough to talk about it too publicly.
The real credit for the vaccine extends far beyond
Johnson. It belongs to the scientists who made the
vaccines possible; to the biotech businesses that were
mobilised to produce them; to the vaccine taskforce,
which made an impressively robust set of contracts
to ensure supply; and, in particular, to the NHS at all
levels, which is delivering a fair, secure, efficient and
nationwide rollout. Only the NHS, with its public service
ethos and its reach, could have done this. The mind
boggles at how a private sector body like Capita or Serco
might have approached the task. Politically, though,
there is no doubt about the beneficiary: it is Johnson.
It is also true that the political dividend might not
have been so clear if the European commission had
not reacted so intemperately to its own vaccine supply
problems last week. But Ursula von der Leyen has given
Tory confidence a shot in the arm. The commission
president’s disastrous attempt to divert AstraZeneca
vaccines from UK plants into the EU, and
her threat to brush aside the Northern
Ireland protocol, were a political windfall, 
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:2 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
2
It’s not fair, but the vaccine is
giving Johnson a political boost
Martin Kettle
 Continued from front
though it could all go horribly wrong if the
 Irish situation deteriorates – which it might.
The vaccine bounce is not easy for
Johnson’s critics and opponents to accept. Many will
be in denial. They will point, with justice, to appalling
ministerial failures, inconsistencies and delays that
have contributed to the UK’s truly terrible Covid death
toll of more than 100,000. The mishandlings have
included shortages of equipment, neglect of care
homes, refusal to quarantine arrivals from abroad and
a litany of stupid and counterproductive attempts,
cravenly undertaken to appease libertarian Tories and
the tabloid press, to have the “best of both worlds”
in managing the pandemic rather than intervening
decisively and toughly to control it.
For those who know almost no one who has ever
had a good word to say for Johnson, or his ministers,
or the Tory party in general, or the UK’s handling
of coronavirus, or Brexit, Johnson’s successes are
especially hard to stomach. By what system of reason
or justice can such a person be rewarded by the public
for his successes but go unpunished for his failures?
Several things combine to explain why. One is
simply that most of the failures came at the start of the
pandemic, when Britain, like everywhere else, was
struggling to come to terms with the scale of the threat
Covid-19 presented. A successful vaccine rollout, by
contrast, comes at the end. It is the equivalent of the
last-minute winning goal that used to send the crowd
home happy. No one said politics was fair.
A second is that a lot of people have always liked
Johnson, in spite and even because of his disreputable
qualities. This offends his enemies and chimes with
the support so many Americans offer to Donald Trump.
Johnson’s support is a reality, as Trump’s is. To say this
may seem a bit like the exchange in Shakespeare in Love
in which the Elizabethan impresario, played by Geoffrey
Rush, explains that in the theatre, by some mystery,
“strangely enough, it all turns out well”. To some in the
N
Tory party, Johnson leads a similarly charmed life.
evertheless, the most important
reason is that politics in a
pandemic is different. Normal
rules do not apply in this enforced
and extraordinary intermission
between more predictable times. In
some ways this has been a national
emergency, like wartime. Like it or
not, Johnson was the national leader and Britain had
only recently elected him when the pandemic started.
The public wanted him to get the country through it,
and was prepared to cut him unusual slack for unusual
times. It still is. A successful vaccine rollout reinforces
support for him because he is the man in charge.
This helps explain why – the other side of the same
coin – Labour struggles to make the impact its impatient
supporters so crave. This is not Keir Starmer’s fault. The
fault lies with the situation. Few are paying attention to
party politics. There is no all-powerful policy that the
Labour leader can dream up to make the pandemic go
away. At such a time, Starmer also faces other inbuilt
disadvantages. Attacking Johnson runs the risk of
putting party before country. And, like Nicola Sturgeon
in Scotland, Johnson will always command the
airwaves, a crucial advantage in a lockdown.
Labour’s problems are more deep-seated. The
party is internally conflicted about what it seeks to be
and whom it seeks to represent. It is clinging on by its
fingertips to its historic claim to be a national party. It is
decimated in Scotland and badly damaged in the north
of England. Labour may simply be broken. Like the
Liberals a century ago, its time may be up.
We shall learn the answer to that in the years to come.
But it is not going to be decided during the pandemic.
It may change, possibly, after the pandemic is beaten.
Britain may well decide then that Johnson saw us
through the crisis but that he is not the leader the
country needs in its aftermath. At that point, rather as in
1945, the country may be open to a different approach.
Starmer may find he can claim his Attlee moment. But
that’s all in the future. Right now, the hour belongs to
Johnson. Don’t get mad about that – get even.
Sent at 3/2/2021 19:54
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 54,260
‘Comment is free… but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
Coronavirus
Quarantine is still a weak
link in the safety chain
protecting Britain
The greatest advances in the battle against the coronavirus
have been made by modern science, but before there
were vaccines, countries had to rely on older techniques:
stopping people mingling; preventing new cases of the
disease arriving from overseas. Britain’s record with
lockdowns is not great (late to implement, premature in
lifting), but with quarantine at the border there is barely
even a record to defend. For much of last year there was a
notional obligation on travellers from various countries to
self-isolate on arrival in the UK, but with a shifting roster of
places that qualified for “safe” travel corridors.
There were many categories of exemption. The
regulations were unclear and poorly implemented.
Efforts at enforcement have been patchy. Essentially,
self-isolation has been self-policed. Only towards the end
of last year, as it became clear that mutant strains of the
virus were spreading – and that Britain’s approach was
persistently failing – did the government start focusing
on quarantine as part of the anti-virus arsenal. More
travellers are now required to show proof of a negative
Covid test and there are tighter restrictions on arrivals
from certain “hotspot” countries. That approach is still
flawed. People, and the virus they might carry, do not
always travel straight from the heart of an outbreak to the
UK. Mutations are dispersed along multiple paths.
Ministers have said further border measures are
required, but cannot say when they will be applied.
The new regime is expected to involve diverting large
numbers of arrivals to government-approved hotels for
up to 10 days, with an option of getting out sooner with a
Myanmar
The army slams the door
on Aung San Suu Kyi and a
partial democratic opening
Myanmar’s people chose democracy. But the generals
who had hogged power for decades never gave it up;
they only ceded a portion of it to civilian authorities,
holding on to a chunk of seats and key ministries.
Now, after another landslide victory for the National
League for Democracy in November’s election, they
have decided even that was too much. Following
Monday’s coup, the detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi
has been charged, absurdly, with the possession of
illegally imported walkie-talkies, while the president,
Win Myint, is accused of breaching coronavirus laws
by meeting people on the campaign trail.
A courageous campaign of civil disobedience has
already begun. People are sad, furious and frustrated. The
military has claimed widespread fraud at last year’s polls,
though international observers were satisfied. The true
problem was that the result expressed public sentiment
all too well, sealing the fate of the 10-year experiment in
power sharing. The generals have presumably realised
that their aspirations to launder military power into
political authority via a proxy party, as the army in
neighbouring Thailand has, are doomed to keep failing.
They may also have feared that the 80% of seats claimed
by the NLD would mean renewed efforts to rein in
their enduring power, though previous attempts have
been unsuccessful. Another factor may lie within the
Tatmadaw; Min Aung Hlaing, commander of the armed
forces since 2011 and now the country’s de facto leader,
was due to retire shortly. Extending his tenure would have
required the assent of the woman he has now removed.
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
negative test. The Department for Transport and the
Treasury have been squeamish about the cost of such
a regime. Passengers would get a bill, but the whole
system would still be expensive and inflict another
wound on an already injured aviation sector.
But, as has been demonstrated many times in
the pandemic, resisting tighter restrictions to avoid
an immediate financial burden is a false economy.
Delay allows the disease to spread. The onerous
measures are still required and have to be in place
for longer. That remains true even as the vaccination
programme is rolled out. Not enough is yet known
about vaccine resilience in the face of recently
discovered coronavirus variants, let alone any future
mutations. The risk is not negligible.
Countries with the strongest records against disease
have applied the full range of containment measures
quickly and thoroughly, including efficient testing,
contact tracing, and a presumption that all new arrivals
face quarantine (with some flexibility for humanitarian
exceptions, naturally). That principle should be the
basis for the UK’s regime. A speedy vaccination roll-
out has given Boris Johnson cause to celebrate his
government’s accomplishments relative to other
countries. Ministerial relief at having something
to cheer is palpable, but it must not lead to neglect
of other fronts in the battle or feed the culture of
impatience and denial that causes many Conservative
MPs to demand unwarranted easing of restrictions.
No one should belittle the social, economic
and psychological cost of anti-Covid restrictions.
Quarantine, like lockdown, is a harsh instrument to be
used only as an emergency resort. But we are now a year
into such an emergency. The government’s haphazard
approach, justified by a pursuit of short-term economic
relief, has only prolonged the ordeal. The vaccine
programme illuminates a way out. It would be a tragic
squandering of that success if overreliance on new
technology were to breed complacency regarding older
but no less vital methods of protecting the public.
The Biden administration was quick to condemn
the detentions and the coup. Predictably, China and
Russia blocked a British-led attempt to deliver a UN
security council statement condemning it, with India
and Vietnam also voicing reservations. Aung San
Suu Kyi and the other detainees should be released
immediately.
The west has been criticised for hobbling her
from the first by rushing to reward the generals for
their very modest democratic opening; but also for
investing too much hope in one highly idealised
individual. The Nobel peace laureate’s decision to
personally defend Myanmar in the genocide case
at the international court of justice destroyed what
remaining vestiges of moral authority she retained
in the face of the horrific crimes committed by the
military against the Rohingya in Rakhine state. She has
been criticised for her intolerance of critics, including
within her own party, and the failure to allow a new
generation of leaders to rise. The lives of the poor
saw little improvement. Violent ethnic conflict has
intensified – and 1.5 million ethnic minority citizens
were excluded from November’s elections, ostensibly
due to safety issues, in addition to the disenfranchised,
stateless Rohingya. While the restrictions imposed
upon Aung San Suu Kyi have played the greatest part in
her failures, her own limitations have been evident too.
Myanmar’s challenges are legion and complex. But
this situation is clear. The people made their choice;
and the Tatmadaw has stolen it. This is not about one
woman, nor even the far wider circle of activists who
are likely to suffer if the crackdown intensifies. It is
about the millions who are sick of military power,
with its corruption, abuses and indifference to their
welfare. Inequality is more glaring than ever. The
pandemic has deepened the country’s desperate
poverty, with around 30% of households reporting no
income at all in September and October last year. The
resounding victory which they handed the NLD was in
large part a rebuff to the military. They deserve better.
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:3 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 19:46
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •
Opinion
T
Phoney flag
his week, the Guardian revealed that the
Labour leadership is preparing to back a
flag-waving strategy to connect with the
party’s former “red wall” voters. The
waving won’t
news has generated a disappointment
among members and beyond that it’s
difficult to overestimate. Politics is the
art of many things. But persuasion and
win Labour’s
emotional connection to the electorate is ultimately
the difference between power and opposition. It’s why
“authenticity” in politics is so highly prized.
It’s also why attempting to distil the complexity of
red wall back
national identity and patriotism into a “brand values”
shorthand is not only dangerous but self-defeating.
Dangerous because patriotism has a side that touches
on the darkest aspects of our humanity (one need
only look at its relationship to the brutality of empire
Clive to understand this). Self-defeating, because it simply
Lewis doesn’t speak to the multifaceted reality of our lives.
My own experience of growing up in Northampton
during the 1970s is testament to that complexity.
My dad was from the former British colony of Grenada
in the Caribbean. My mum was English, born and
bred in London. The council estate I grew up on was
overwhelmingly white. One day in the primary school
playground, my group of friends was called over by some
older boys to join their wrestling team. I tagged along
and stood with them, ready to face down our opponents.
At which point, one of the older boys came up to me
and told me I couldn’t be on their team. “Why?” I asked
innocently. “Because this is blackies versus whities,” he
told me. “You need to go on their side.”
When I think back to that story it elicits a mixture
of emotions. Sadness, because in so many ways it
foreshadowed many of the experiences that I and
thousands of others were to face growing up in this
country, and still do to this day. Happiness, because it
reminds me of all the friendships I forged and the sense
of belonging I found with kids on both sides of those
wrestling teams.
This story of our country isn’t pro-English or
anti-English. Because I’m part of England and my
experiences, like those of thousands of other black
Britons then and now, is part of this island story. It’s a
story still in progress. One that cannot be expressed
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
3
At school
a boy told me
I couldn’t be in his
team. ‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because this is
blackies versus
whities,’ he said
by simply standing in front of a flag or wearing a tie to
a remembrance service. It’s a complex and beautiful
thing, which Labour as a party should have the
imagination and courage to embrace. Because it’s just
like all of us, contradictory and sometimes messy.
So why opt for a faux, flag-waving brand that’s
a cheapened version of patriotism? Perhaps the
glaring lack of any kind of political project, as some
expressed in the party’s focus groups, is one reason.
There’s little vision and even less analysis of why
we are where we are as a country: gripped by one of
the world’s worst Covid death tolls; a disintegrating
polity; and attacks from an increasingly authoritarian
government on our democratic institutions. No one
expects fully formed policies at this stage of the
electoral cycle. But a pencil sketch of the house you
want to build would be a start.
Yet rather than addressing this, it seems we’ve opted
to treat voters like Lego bricks that can be built up to
form an electoral alliance. An approach that ignores the
fact that “foundation-seat” voters, just like any other
voters, are not homogeneous pieces in a game. They
have widely differing feelings about our country, its
Keir Starmer history and their place in it.
in London But perhaps the single biggest reason for the
last month flag-waving is also the most unpalatable for me: my
PHOTOGRAPH: party’s refusal to unpack our country’s relationship
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
with patriotism, identity and racism. Whether
Jim Callaghan’s racist Immigration Act, New Labour’s
“war on immigrants” or Gordon Brown’s dog-whistle
“British jobs for British workers”, it’s a spectre that has
haunted our party for decades and arguably contributed
B
to our contradictory approach to Brexit.
lack Lives Matter and the public
outrage it generated was a chance
for us to begin to address this issue;
to unpack difficult conversations
surrounding 400 years of slavery,
brutal subjugation and exploitation in
the name of race superiority; to begin
to reconcile that past so we can think
about a better future. It’s a sore that will never be healed
with the union jack sticking plaster now being offered.
I went with the army to Afghanistan in 2009. Despite
being on the left, and despite being told in the cadets
that “there ain’t no black in the union jack”, I still opted
to serve. The army is a complex organism, much like
wider society. And yet in many ways, in the crucible of
combat, that complexity is distilled down to its basic
components. One day, eating my lunch while on patrol,
I overheard an officer give one of the biggest bollockings
I’ve ever heard. When I asked what had happened,
it transpired that a soldier had been overheard by a
platoon sergeant calling a Fijian comrade “a fucking
black bastard”. The corporal explaining this to me said:
“Out here we have each other’s backs. If you can’t trust
the person next to you, then it degrades the entire
effectiveness of the platoon.”
If our country is to prosper in an increasingly
hostile century, we must face it together – as a unit.
But before we can do that we must confront our past,
in all its goodness – and, yes, all its darkness. Whether
 controversial statues, the teaching of our history or how
Clive Lewis we relate to one another, the common theme is one of
is the Labour complexity. We can’t shy away from that. Trying to stuff
MP for patriotism and identity into a cheapened caricature
Norwich South from the 1950s is not the answer.
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:4 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 19:26 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

4 Opinion

At-risk people
resulted in a marathon-running 65-year-old being given
priority for the vaccine over a 20-year-old with lung
disease who needed oxygen support. The government
U-turned after pressure, moving CEV people up to
conditions will be reviewed after the initial rollout
phase. This is clearly the right course of action, but there
needs to be much greater communication with worried
families in the meantime, as well as practical support

are still missing

fourth, behind healthy over-75s. These are complex for disabled pupils missing school.
calculations, but there are still fears some will miss While social care workers are given priority for the
out. Young disabled people who don’t meet the narrow vaccine, there are concerns that personal assistants –
criteria are worried they won’t be prioritised at all. care workers hired directly by a disabled person – are

out on vaccines
Shielders – many of whom are of working age and live
with children – have extra risk factors compared with
older people. As the British Medical Association says,
we need a more sophisticated vaccine delivery that takes
into account circumstantial factors such as race, health
Frances inequality and employment. I’ve had many messages
being left out. I’ve heard from several disabled people
who have had to lobby their GPs to give the jab “at
their discretion”; some have been granted it, some
refused. Meanwhile, unpaid family carers have been
put on the priority list only after yet another U-turn
by the government. The charity Carers UK tells me the

Ryan from shielders terrified of being forced out to work, or

of schools reopening before they get their vaccine.
There are also those with learning disabilities to
consider. Currently, only older people with a learning
disability, those who have Down’s syndrome or people
Department of Health and Social Care has yet to update
its list, meaning carers and those administering the
vaccine won’t know they’re now eligible.
Finally, we must ensure everyone can physically
access vaccinations. Early reports of 92-year-olds

W
ith the first phase of the UK’s
vaccination programme
now fully under way,
the government’s self-
congratulatory tone suggests
all clinically vulnerable
groups will soon be in line
for protection. There’s
certainly reason to be positive: millions of people are
on their way to safety. But look a little closer and many
high-risk people are struggling to access the vaccine.
When the vaccine was first introduced last year,
the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation
(JCVI) put shielders – or the “clinically extremely
vulnerable” (CEV) – sixth on the priority list, behind
older people with no underlying health conditions. It
who are judged as having a severe learning disability
are on the priority list. This means people with a mild
or moderate learning disability aren’t prioritised. This
is despite the fact that people with learning disabilities
have a death rate six times higher than the general
population. Young adults with a learning disability are 30
times more likely to die of Covid than young adults in the
general population, and there is no evidence that people
with mild learning disabilities are in any less danger.
Children with disabilities are also being shut out of the
conversation. The priority list excludes anyone under
the age of 16, meaning even children who are clinically
extremely vulnerable are not eligible for protection. The
danger from Covid for healthy infants is low, but that’s
little reassurance to a parent of a disabled child.
The government guidance says there is limited
data on the safety of the vaccine for children, and that
recommendations for under-16s with underlying health
queueing in the cold or people sent 100 miles for a
vaccine are worrying, not least for the young disabled
people watching, who also struggle to stand in queues
or use steps. Disabled and older people must be given
a nearby appointment in an accessible centre and,
crucially, must not miss out on the vaccine if they have
to turn it down at a location they can’t get to. Similarly,
anyone who can’t leave their home owing to health
problems must be able swiftly to access the jab, and be
given clarity on whom they communicate their needs
to. The goal must be that no one falls through the cracks.
It can feel uncomfortable to speak of vaccine priority
status, as if different groups must compete for their
lives. And yet these are vital questions, not least for a
government that has done little to gain the trust of the
public or to display its ability to protect them. As the
vaccine distribution continues, those people who are
most at risk deserve the highest level of care.
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:5 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 18:18 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •

Jeff Bezos
and the world
Amazon made

The long read

By Mark
O’Connell 
Illustration by Stephen Collins
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:6 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
6 The long read
T
he first thing I ever bought
on Amazon was an edutainment DVD for babies. I don’t
recall making the purchase, but the data is unequivocal
on this point: on 14 November 2004, I bought Baby
Einstein: Baby Noah – Animal Expedition for the sum
of £7.85. My nearest guess is that I got it as a Christmas
present for my nephew, who would at that point have
been one year old, and at the very peak of his interest
in finger-puppet animals who cavort to xylophone
arrangements of Beethoven. This was swiftly followed
by three more DVD purchases I have no memory of
making. Strangely, I bought nothing at all from Amazon
the following year, and then, in 2006, I embarked on a
PhD and started ramp ing up my acquisition of the sort
of books that were not easily to be found in brick-and-
mortar establishments. Dry treatises on psychoanalysis.
Obscure narrative theory texts. The occasional poetry
collection. Everything ever published by the American
novelist Nicholson Baker.
I know these things because I recently spent a
desultory morning clicking through all 16 years of my
Amazon purchase history. Seeing all those hundreds of
items bought and delivered, many long since forgotten,
was a vaguely melancholy experience. I experienced an
estranged recognition, as if reading an avant-garde
biography of myself, ghost-written by an algorithm.
My Amazon ordering peaked in 2018, a year in which
I bought 92 books from the site. What strikes me as
somewhat ironic now is how many of those books –
bought from a company owned by a man who was, at
that point, the richest person on Earth, and which is
responsible for roughly the same annual carbon
emissions as Norway – could be categorised under two
major headings: anti-capitalism and climate change.
There’s a reason for this: I was at that point in the middle
of researching a book about climate change, capitalism
and apocalyptic anxieties. My point here is that my
relationship with this company is an extremely vexed
one. I think of myself as a socialist, but my purchase
history leaves me no choice but to also think of myself
as a loyal customer of Amazon.com.
The way that Amazon does business – its pressuring
of suppliers, its systematic annihilation of retail
competitors, its incessant harvesting of its customers’
data, its treatment of its own workers as little better
than machines – is, of course, inseparable from the
personal wealth of its founder, Jeff Bezos, who earlier
this week stepped down as CEO. But even if the means
by which that wealth had been amassed were somehow
unobjectionable, it would still stand as a moral
obscenity. It’s impossible to even conceive of the scale
of this man’s wealth. It’s like trying to think about deep
time: the mind’s eye glazes over. This is a man who
makes about $149,000 with every passing minute. This
is a man who, last July, in the midst of a global pandemic
and a devastating economic crisis, increased his
personal wealth by $13bn in the course of a single day.
This is a man who, despite living on a planet where one
third of human beings don’t have access to safe drinking
water, told Business Insider magazine that “the only
way I can see to deploy this much financial resource is
by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel”.
Some further perversities: I make my living mostly
through my books. Amazon has, by and large, been bad
for people like me, because it has been bad for
publishing and retail bookselling. If you buy my book
from Amazon, I receive a lower royalty than I would if
you bought it from the bookshop around the corner.
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:19
Amazon does not abide by the recommended retail price
on the back cover. Because of its overwhelming market
power, it sets its own retail price, and demands lower
cost prices from publishers, whose lower margins are
reflected in the writer’s royalties. It doesn’t make sense
for me to be as loyal a customer as I am.
But here is where I encounter the problem of my own
moral inertia. If a thing is available for purchase, and I
want to buy it, I know for a near certainty that I will be
able to get it there, and that I will in all likelihood be able
to get it quicker and cheaper than I would elsewhere.
Amazon has established itself as the great path of least
resistance, encircling the globe, along which in one
direction goods flow, and in the other money. Almost
40% of all online purchases in the US are made on
Amazon. In the UK, it’s about 30%. There are many
criticisms to be made about Amazon’s corporate
practices, its insidious effects on multiple levels of the
economy, but you can’t say that it is not efficient, or that
its efficiency is not in your interest as a consumer.
But I am not merely a consumer. There are times, in
fact, when I can flatter myself into believing that I am not
even primarily a consumer. I am also a person with
political beliefs, and moral principles. There is a
distinction between having those beliefs and acting in a
way that is consistent with them – and this is, I think,
crucial to understanding the meaning of Amazon.
What would it mean to resolve this contradiction –
between my conception of myself as a person, and
my Amazon purchase history? In one sense, it would be
easy. I could just stop arranging with Amazon.com for
things to be sent to my house. It’s not like there aren’t
plenty of other, less objectionable, places to buy books
and other miscellaneous items online. I am, to be fair,
struggling to think of another single retailer that
would get me squared away with both the Adorno
biography and the non-stick crepe pan, but the point
is that I would likely manage my consumer affairs just
fine without Amazon.
But the idea of “boycotting Amazon” arises out of a
misreading of what Amazon actually is, and of its
position in the contemporary marketplace. Amazon is
not, and has not been for many years, merely a gigantic
online shop that you can chose either to patronise or not.
It is also, increasingly, the infrastructure undergirding
the internet itself. Even if my task here was to convince
you, the reader, that Amazon was bad and that you
should boycott it – which we both know it is, and that
Jeff Bezos with you should – we would both of us still, in a strictly
the Blue Origin technical sense, be using Amazon.
crew capsule and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which launched in 2006
New Shepard and is now the largest cloud computing platform in the
rocket booster world, provides hosting for the Guardian, and for tech
in Colorado mainstays such as Netflix and Twitter, as well as for
Springs, industrial giants such as General Electric and Unilever.
April 2017 While researching this piece, I watched Amazon Empire:
CHUCK BIGGER/ALAMY the Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos, a highly informative –
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
and highly critical – documentary, put out last year by
the US non-profit public broadcaster PBS, which itself
relies on Amazon’s cloud platform.
Jeff Bezos’s achievement has been to make it less and
less possible, or at least less and less practical, to avoid
Amazon. It’s not an especially large overstatement to say
that his ambition is to dominate the entire economy.
When Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017, for $13.7bn,
the market value of the US’s largest grocery companies
plummeted by billions. The following year, when Amazon
bought a small online pharmacy called PillPack for
$753m, the potential effects on the traditional pharmacy
sector spooked investors badly enough to cause a sudden
and steep decline in the value of retail giants such as
Walgreens, CVS and RiteAid. And when Amazon
announced a healthcare partnership with Berkshire
Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, aimed solely at providing
coverage for these companies’ own employees,
the major American health insurance providers
instantaneously lost billions. How did Amazon come to
occupy such an unprecedented role in contemporary
life, and who is this extraordinary man who put it there?
One way to answer these questions would be to read that
man’s collected writings. Last November, to very little
fanfare, Harvard Business Review Press published a
book called Invent & Wander: The Collected Writings of
Jeff Bezos. Presumably by design, the title suggests an
anthology of essays and intellectual interventions by a
significant thinker, though in fact the first two-thirds of
it is composed of Bezos’s annual letters to Amazon’s
shareholders, with the final third, entitled My Life and
Work, drawn from public talks and interview transcripts.
It’s true that the book is not exactly the collected essays
of Montaigne, but if you want to understand Amazon’s
dominance, it might be useful to first try to understand
the man who started it, and his thinking about it,
however banal that thinking might be.
One thing I learned was that before Bezos settled on
Amazon as the name of his online store, he wanted to call
it “Relentless”. Although friends convinced him that he
was erring on the side of the sinister, he did register the
domain. Even now, if you type relentless.com into
a browser, it will take you to Amazon. Despite those
vaguely menacing associations – or, let’s be honest
here, largely because of them – the name does capture
some essential quality of the enterprise. Amazon is
nothing if not relentless.
It’s certainly a word Bezos himself likes. It occurs a
total of 17 times in the book. And relentlessness is not
merely a corporate value Bezos aims to instil in his
own business; he also wants to empower others to be
relentless in their own right. In his 2010 address to
Princeton’s graduates, Bezos puts the following question
to the emerging members of the US ruling class: “When
it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?”
Relentlessness, in other words, transcends the
category of mere corporate value, to become a kind of
moral imperative. And if relentlessness is a good in itself,
what might the evil of relenting look like? It might take
the form of stasis, which, as we will see, is the great
future nightmare that Bezos wants humanity to avoid
at all costs. Amazon has never paid its shareholders a
dividend. For most of its history, it never turned a profit,
its practice being to plough everything into growth.
The company is, in this sense, a rarified example of
capitalism in its ideal form: not merely premised on the
notion of endless growth, but apparently achieving it.
And what is it all for, this personal empire whose
vastness and multifariousness is unprecedented in the
history of capitalism? Is it just wealth, just power, just
control? No, of course not. If you know anything about
Silicon Valley techno-capitalism, the first thing you
know is that it’s never about mere wealth, mere market
domination. Such things are always a means to an end –
and the end, more often than not, is saving the world.
Every year, Bezos liquidates a billion dollars’ worth of
his own Amazon stock, and puts it into a company he
founded in 2000 called Blue Origin, which develops tech-
nologies aimed at facilitating travel to, and settlement of,
manmade colonies in outer space. “We want to go to
space to protect this planet,” as he put it in a 2019 speech.
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:7 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian •
The big problem the Earth faces, according to Bezos, is
not environmental destruction per se; it’s the prospect
of running out of energy resources. But if we move into
outer space, he argues, we will have access to unlimited
resources, and there will be no limits to growth, or to
the consumption of energy. “In a nutshell,” as Brian
Dumaine puts it in his book Bezonomics, “he wants to
make Earth a residential and light industrial zone and
move all the mining and heavy industry to space.”
“We could have a trillion humans in the solar system,”
says Bezos, “which means we’d have a thousand Mozarts
and a thousand Einsteins. This would be an incredible
civilisation.” It’s worth wondering whether there might
not already be thousands of Einsteins and Mozarts on
this planet right now, and how many of them, due to
accidents of birth and economic circumstance, are
forced to expend their time and potential working as
Amazon delivery drivers, further enriching Jeff Bezos –
who would, if he were really interested in cultivating
human potential, probably pay people more, and let
them take toilet breaks whenever they needed to.
What Bezos is proposing is a system of off-world
colonies, close to Earth, on which millions of people will
be able to live out lives of pleasure and comfort. There’s
a video of him giving this speech, complemented by a
series of lavish illustrations of manufactured worlds
rotating in space to create centrifugal gravity. Some of
these colonies, Bezos says, could replicate existing Earth
cities – and here we see an illustration of Florence,
complete with geo-engineered Arne and Tuscan hills,
entubed and adrift in space. These worlds, says Bezos,
would not all have to have the same level of gravity. “You
could have a recreational colony,” he says, “that kept
zero G so you could go flying with your own wings.” And
there would be ideal climates. “This is Maui on its best
day all year long – no rain, no storms, no earthquakes.”
If these slowly rotating promised lands – with their
perpetual shirt-sleeve climates, their low-gravity
environments, their multitudinous Einsteins and Mozarts
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:19
It’s as if Bezos is surveying the
prospect of mass extinction and
thinking of the problems it could
present for online shopping
An Amazon – are a kind of techno-capitalist Eden, then Bezos himself
warehouse in must be a benevolent god. But he’s not proposing that he
Peterborough construct these colonies himself: that will be the work of
in 2013 today’s children, and their children, and their grand-
OLI SCARFF/GETTY children after them. What he is intending, with Blue
Origin, is to provide the basic infrastructure for that
building, in much the same way as pre-existing structures
– state postal services, credit cards, the internet itself –
allowed him to build Amazon. What he wants to do, he
says, is not to build but “inspire” this future.
Last year, Bezos announced a combined donation of
nearly $800m to various organisations working to fight
climate change. But if the writings in Invent & Wander
are any guide, he seems less interested in climate change
per se than he is in the extent to which it would present a
threat to resource consumption, and economic growth.
It is, in other words, as though Bezos is surveying the
prospect of a dying planet – of mass extinction, burning
forests, drowning cities – and seeing the problems it
could present for online shopping. “What happens,”
Bezos asks, “when unlimited demand meets finite
resources? The answer is incredibly simple: rationing.
That’s the path we would find ourselves on, and that
path would lead, for the first time, to your grandchildren
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
and their grandchildren having worse lives than you.
That’s a bad path.”
A world in which consumer goods are rationed is not
a world in which Amazon could continue its endless
growth. We must follow, in other words, the path of
relentlessness, and we must follow it off the face of the
Earth. It’s here that “relentlessness” is revealed as an
ideological term. Bezos seems less interested in
protecting the future of the planet than protecting
the future of capitalism.
What are we to make of these celestial aspirations, this
vision of the good life as one of endless consumption,
limitless growth? And what, more to the point, are we to
make of Bezos himself? In one sense, it’s hard to make
anything of him at all. Despite his vertiginous wealth,
and despite the extent to which his business interests
have been skilfully woven into the fabric of our
everyday lives, it’s weirdly hard to form any strong
opinions about the man. He repels curiosity. The
mind skitters off the beige gleam of his surfaces; the
imagination scrabbles in vain for some purchase on
the frictionless dome of his head.
Bezos, like seemingly all wealthy entrepreneurs,
claims not to be motivated by wealth, or its mundane
trappings. As he puts it in Invent & Wander, he never
sought the title of “world’s richest man”. (Bezos is now,
in fact, the world’s second richest person, having been
overtaken just last month by Elon Musk.) He would
much rather be known, he says, as “inventor Jeff Bezos”
(my emphasis). In the statement he made to investors
earlier this week on stepping down as chief executive,
Bezos returned to the idea of himself as an inventor:
“Amazon is what it is,” he said, “because of invention …
When you look at our financial results, what you’re
seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention.”
The book, and in particular its introduction, by the
biographer Walter Isaacson, who is best known for his
book about Steve Jobs, is intent on framing Bezos as
a contemporary renaissance man, a figure on the
revolutionary order of your Leonardos, your Einsteins,
your Ben Franklins (all of whom Isaacson has written
books about). After running through the qualities
he considers peculiar to such “true innovators” –
passionate curiosity, an equal love of both the arts and
the sciences, a Jobs-like “reality distortion field” that
inspires people to pursue apparently impossible ends,
and a childlike sense of wonder – Isaacson concludes
that Bezos embodies all of them, and that he belongs in
the pantheon of truly revolutionary thinkers.
If you believe that capitalism is an inherently just and
meritocratic system, whereby the most worthy people –
the hardest-working, the cleverest, the most innovative
– amass the greatest wealth, then it stands to reason that
you would have to make some kind of argument for a
man who had amassed more than $180bn as a presiding
genius of our time. And just as Hegel looked at Napoleon
and saw the world-soul on horseback, Isaacson views
Bezos in similarly heroic light: the world-soul dispatched
by delivery drone. The effort to portray him as such is,
though, inevitably beset by bathos. “An example of
how Bezos innovates,” he writes, “was the launch of
Amazon Prime, which transformed the way Americans
think about how quickly and cheaply they can be
gratified by ordering online.” There is no question
that the introduction of Amazon Prime marked a
major moment in the history of buying stuff off
the internet, but to present it as the work of an
ingenious inventor seems a stretch. For all the
vastness  of Bezos’s wealth and power, the banality
of its foundation is undeniable.
Bezos has not been personally responsible for the
introduction of any new technology into the world. He
was not the inventor of online shopping. The year
before Amazon.com was founded, the first consumer
purchase was made on the world wide web: a copy of
Sting’s album Ten Summoner’s Tales, purchased for
$12.48 plus shipping, from an online store called
NetMarket. Neither did he, or any of his employees,
invent the e-reader: a company called Rocket was
selling e-readers through Barnes and Noble in the

late 90s, back when Bezos was still packing
boxes with his own hands.
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:8 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
8 The long read

But it would be wrong to claim that there is nothing
radical about Bezos’s achievement. Amazon’s logistical
innovations have made the consumer experience as
frictionless as possible, and in so doing have changed
the nature of consumerism. It’s not that Bezos is doing
any one thing that no one had thought to do before: it’s
that he’s doing it faster, more efficiently, and at unprece-
dented scale. His achievement can be seen as one not
one of quality but of quantity. But the sheer scale of the
quantity, the unprecedented mass and velocity of
Amazon’s power, becomes qualitative – in the way that
getting stung by two bees is quantitatively different
from getting stung by one, but getting stung by a billion
would be qualitatively different.
In his first ever annual shareholder letter, in 1997, Bezos
laid out the principles that he felt defined the company
he had taken public earlier that year. First and foremost
among these was “Obsess over customers”.
The expression used to denote the company’s drive
to perfect the consumer experience at every stage was
“customer ecstasy”. The phrase sounds a bizarre note,
and even a vaguely obscene one, but there is no
question that there is a joy in ordering something online
and having it arrive the very next day. It feels as though
you have been granted a kind of magical power, to
summon the objects of your desires out of thin air. This
is the precise feeling, no doubt, that Bezos wanted to
invoke with the first name he had in mind for his
company. Before he registered relentless.com, he
intended to go with Cadabra, which he favoured for its
magical associations. He eventually cooled on the idea,
though, when his lawyer pointed out that, spoken
aloud, the name sounded too much like the word
“cadaver”. Let us pause here to appreciate the comic
symbolism of Bezos’s inability to come up with a name
for his company that doesn’t immediately suggest some
dark unconscious content to its openly stated
proposition. It’s as though the magical power Amazon
grants to you, the customer, entails a kind of Faustian
bargain whereby you must implicitly consent to all
kinds of iniquities being carried out in your name.
When I think about this, I often think about an object
that never came to exist. In 2016, Amazon was granted a
patent for a “Human Transport Device”. The drawings
that accompany the patent depict a cage just large
enough to contain one worker. The cage is mounted on a
set of robotically controlled wheels, and features a long
robotic arm with which the worker can carry out stock-
picking tasks; the intention was to permit workers to
enter areas of warehouses where they would otherwise
be endangered by the presence of the stock-picking
robots by which they will, eventually, be replaced.
The patent went unremarked for two years until the
academics Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler discovered
it, and wrote about it in a document that accompanied
a work entitled Anatomy of an AI System – a sprawling
diagram, two metres high and five metres across,
mapping the complex nexus of extractive and
exploitative processes involved in the functioning of an
Amazon Echo. The patent, they write, “represents an
extraordinary illustration of worker alienation, a stark
moment in the relationship between humans and
machines … Here, the worker becomes a part of a
machinic ballet, held upright in a cage which dictates
and constrains their movement.”
Amazon never put the cage into production; when
the patent was uncovered, the public reaction was one
of horror, and the company acknowledged the whole
thing as a terrible idea. But in its ghostly absence, this
structure exemplifies the deal with the devil that you,
the customer, enter into every time you click the “Buy
Now” button. The true source of your magical power,
its true cost, is the life of a worker labouring under
deepening conditions of exploitation and control.
Stockpickers at Amazon’s warehouses are surveilled
and controlled to an extraordinary degree. At a
warehouse in Staffordshire, workers were reported to
be urinating in bottles because walking to the toilet
and back could have led to them missing productivity
targets, and ultimately losing their jobs. (In response to
these reports, Amazon said that “we don’t recognize
these allegations as an accurate portrayal of activities in
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:19
The problem is one of desire. It’s
not that Amazon gives me what
I want – it’s that it gives me what
I don’t want to want
our buildings”.) Since the pandemic, there have been
numerous reports, and video recordings, of Amazon
drivers relieving themselves in public.
The cage suggests a way of thinking about what
distinguishes Amazon as a business, and Bezos as an
innovator: the use of technology to push harder and
farther than any previous company toward removing the
human limitations to capital’s efficiency. Amazon reveals
a world where capital is not something to be acquired in
service of human ends, but as an end in itself. If other
worlds must be constructed, slowly rotating in space, in
order to serve these post-human ends, so be it. The
problem with the cage patent was not just that it was
dehumanising, but that it illustrated too explicitly the
patterns of dehumanisation that had already long been
central to Amazon’s operations in the first place.
It’s tempting to argue that Amazon’s true innovation
has been the ruthless exploitation of human labour in
service of speed and efficiency, but that’s really only part
of the picture: the aim is removing humans as much as
possible from the equation; the grim specifics of the
labour conditions are only ever a byproduct of that aim.
This has been an aim of capitalism since at least as far
back as Henry Ford, and in an obvious sense it’s precisely
the dynamic you experience every time you wind up
with unexpected items in the bagging area at Tesco. As
usual with Amazon, it’s not that something new is
happening – it’s that an old thing is happening with
unprecedented force, speed and efficiency.
To look at Crawford and Joler’s sprawling infographic is
to experience a peculiar moral disorientation. They map
a system that is, ultimately, too vast for comprehension,
and within which your own position, as a consumer, is
endlessly ambiguous. You are both the reason for its
existence, and just another resource to be extracted for
value, along with the the minerals being mined by
people suffering under terrible labour conditions. Every
time you interact with your Echo you are training the AI
to work better, and to understand more about you, which
extracted data it uses to more efficiently sell you things.
The problem here is the same sort of problem we are
confronted with when attempting to think about the
scale of Bezos’s wealth, or indeed Bezos himself: the
mind struggles to gain purchase. One approach would
be to just tap the sign that says “No Ethical Consumption
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
Under Capitalism”, because the entire system within
which we live is so morally bankrupt that no kind of
decent accommodation with it can be reached – which
would not be untrue, but also unquestionably something
of a cop-out. It’s precisely because it works so well, as a
consumer experience, that Amazon’s customers are
inclined to keep using it, even though many of us
understand the social evils it represents.
And here we come to the core of the problem: Amazon
works too well. Its success and ubiquity makes a mockery
of my ethical objections. Amazon thrusts my identity as
a consumer into open conflict with my other identities –
writer of books, holder of vaguely socialist ideals – in
such a way that my consumer identity too often prevails.
We live in a world where the satisfaction of quotidian
desires is the work of mere moments. Whatever you
want (and can afford) can be brought to you, cheaply
and with minimal effort on your part. We know this
doesn’t make us any happier, and in fact only damages
the world we live in, but even so we continue pursuing it
– perhaps because it’s in our nature, or perhaps because
almost every element of the culture we exist in is
calibrated to make us do so.
And so the problem is one of desire. It’s not that
Amazon gives me what I want; it’s that it gives me what
I don’t want to want. I want the convenience and speed
and efficiency Amazon offers, but I’d rather not want it
if it entails all the bad things that go with it. To put it in
Freudian terms, we are talking about the triumph of the
consumerist id over the ethical superego. Bezos is a kind
of managerial Mephistopheles who will guarantee you a
life of worldly customer ecstasy as long as you avert your
eyes from the iniquities being carried out in your name.
It is hard to recognise the Faustian nature of this
bargain, just as it is hard to see clearly what Jeff Bezos is.
In Isaacson’s introduction to Invent & Wander, he
mentions a detail from Bezos’s childhood – no more or
Bezos in 1998 less banal than any other story I’ve encountered about
REX RYSTEDT/TIME the man – by way of explaining the origin of Amazon’s
LIFE PICTURES/GETTY Echo. He loved Star Trek, and played a lot of Star Trek
games with his friends as a kid. And the role he himself
tended to play was not Kirk, or Scotty, or even Spock. It
was the Enterprise’s talking computer. In this detail of
the childhood play of a man who would go on to change
the world, we can glimpse something of the meaning of
his presence in our lives. Bezos’s genius, such as it is, is
that of an artificial intelligence, trained on the goals of
endless wealth, and endless growth. And if he is, as
Isaacson – and presumably Bezos himself – would like
us to believe, a Leonardo or an Einstein of our time,
what does that say about our time?
In his second shareholder letter, in 1998, included in
the book as “Obsessions”, Bezos laid out the fundamental
idea that underpinned Amazon’s drive to build the
world’s most “customer-centric company.” “We hold as
axiomatic,” he wrote, “that customers are perceptive
and smart, and that brand image follows reality and not
the other way around.” Intentionally or otherwise, the
grandiloquence of the language here recalls the US
Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.” The bathos of Bezos’s allusion here – the
vertiginous swoop from the rhetorical heights of “We
hold as axiomatic” to the mundane invocation of savvy
customers – tells us, I think, something profound about
the world over which he now presides.
Hypocrites and slave-owners though most of the
Declaration’s signatories were, their language invokes
an Enlightenment ideal of human beings as free and
 equal, and life itself as inherently meaningful. There is,
Mark O’Connell by contrast, an almost comical smallness to Bezos’s
is a regular echoing of that language, and the worldview it reveals.
contributor to There is no “humanity” being invoked here, no “all
the long read. men”; there is only “the customer”. There is no grander
His books include ideal to be glimpsed behind his words than that of being
Notes from an able to get stuff quickly and cheaply. There is no question
Apocalypse: that Amazon serves us. The fact that it serves us so well
A Personal is the reason for its incredible success. But what it serves
Journey to in us is something very small: the customer, who for all
the End of the that smartness and perceptiveness Bezos invokes, is
World and Back a mere husk of a human being. •
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:9 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Established 1906
Country diary
Tyrella Beach,
County Down
Those dots of waders will be kettled
up the beach as the tide rises, but
my time is short. So I hoist the scope
and set off into an early morning
sun that’s gauzed by a membrane
of cloud. In front of me, the ribbed
sand stretches into a haze of silver
and taupe. The sea is so far out
that it could be a mirage. To the
south-east, the Mournes rear like
a desert range in the austere light.
Oystercatchers stipple the
foreshore. At the flock’s far edge, a
cloud shimmers into the air. Dunlin?
Knot? Too quick and deft for me to
tell. I plod on, veering away from the
tide’s creep to mitigate any further
alarm. Then I see a huddle running
with zippy calls over the sweeping
cambers of sand. Their plumage
segues from soft grey to gleaming
white, intensifying the jet black of
eyes, bills and those whirring legs,
which keep such synchronous pace
that the birds are a single flow. They
bob into a depression. When they
emerge – a little jolt of surprise –
they’re coming straight for me. I
lower the binoculars. No. They’re
avoiding those surly-looking herring
gulls. Suddenly, like flitters of foil,
the sanderlings dazzle into flight.
I arrive at the rocky cut-off of
Rathmullan Point, where there are
redshank shrilling, and turnstone
shuffling and tossing among the
wracks. But I’m drawn back to the
long view. There they are again, the
sanderlings, dancing to the waves,
fleeing each swash to chase its
backwash. Their switching looks like
perfect slapstick, and I am smiling,
but the apparent vacillation ensures
that any transient disturbance of
sand is assiduously probed for
freshly exposed invertebrates.
As adaptation to this cursorial
(running) feeding strategy,
sanderling feet are tridactyl, having
lost even the vestigial hallux (hind
toe) common to other small waders.
I stop smiling. There is a grandeur
to their obsessive tide-combing.
Like the sandpiper of Elizabeth
Bishop’s eponymous poem, this
species alternates between scales
“minute and vast”. From its Arctic
breeding grounds, it disperses to
winter on beaches like this one the
length and breadth of the planet.
And something has shifted in my
perspective because, watching
these, my short time has turned
into all the time in the world.
Mary Montagu
We do not publish letters where only
an email address is supplied; include
a postal address, a reference to the
article and a daytime phone number.
We may edit letters. Submission and
publication of all letters is subject
to our terms and conditions: see
theguardian.com/letters-terms
•
Letters
Problems with putting a
value on natural capital
Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta says we are
all economic “asset managers” in our
relationship with the environment
(Exhausting ecosystems ‘puts world
at high risk’, 2 February) and that
the “natural capital” of forests, seas
and so on should be ascribed a value,
and that their annual regeneration
should be viewed as equivalent to
the yield on a government bond.
If that is the way economists
would like to measure nature, fine.
But beware the implications for
conservation: is your new road
going to be more valuable than
the woodland it displaces? Will it
generate a higher annual return on
investment than the value of the
woodland’s performance in making
leaf litter, harbouring biodiversity,
absorbing carbon and providing
a green space for people and their
dogs to walk? If yes, goodbye
woodland, hello tarmac.
However, perhaps Prof Dasgupta
has hit on the solution to this
problem of valuing everything. He
refers to regions rich in biodiversity
as having a “non-negotiably high
value”. This would mean that
however clean, quiet, pleasant and
productive an airport might be, it
could never be built there.
Altruism would
undermine UK
vaccine strategy
It would be noble to give your
vaccine slot to others (Letters,
2 February), but it would
undermine the rationale behind the
prioritisation scheme. The elderly
and vulnerable are hugely more
likely to get seriously ill if they catch
Covid and require hospitalisation.
The chief aim of the strategy is to
prevent the NHS being even more
overwhelmed. So your morally
responsible readers would, as well
as forgoing vaccination, also need to
refuse hospitalisation should they
catch Covid.
Incidentally, that is also
the unstated corollary of any
“libertarian” strategy that argues
that the toll of shutdown will
outweigh the toll of unrestricted
Covid. That argument might even
be true, but only if you think it
is acceptable for every hospital
bed in the country to be filled
with a Covid sufferer. Or, more
probably, think it would be OK
to refuse hospital admission to
Covid sufferers deemed to have
had their good innings.
John Main
Great Ayton, North Yorkshire
Sent at 3/2/2021 18:01
The Amazon rainforest might be
granted that non-negotiably high
value, but what about your local
woodland? The suspicion must be
that if it is worth £1m or even £10m,
it won’t be long before developers
find a project of greater value. If
this system of valuation is the way
forward, then communities should
be able to ensure that infinite values
are also placed on their local natural
capital, granting them genuine
protection, beyond the dreamy
rates of return of even the most
optimistic investment prospectus.
Dominic Rayner
Leeds
• Your article on the Dasgupta review
quite rightly states that natural
capital includes geology, soil, air,
water and all living things. A major
problem with the report is that it is
only concerned with the economics
of biodiversity, and as a result fails
to present an integrated approach
to sustainable environmental
management incorporating all the
non-living elements of nature. Worse
still, chapter 1 is entitled Nature As
an Asset and admits that terms such
as “nature” and “the biosphere” are
used interchangeably throughout
• Could I ask all those older readers
offering to donate their vaccines to
think again? Even if you think you
are not a valued member of your
community, your loved ones may
disagree. And if you do acquire
the virus, the cost to the NHS
and society is likely to be higher
than if you were younger.
Ruth Eversley
Paulton, Somerset
• It is worrying that the government’s
messaging about vaccines is giving
rise to such misunderstanding that
81-year-old Anne O’Brien’s son thinks
that, once she has had it, she will
think about starting to see her friends
again (‘Postcode lottery’: Elderly
people cared for at home missed by
vaccine teams, 2 February).
We should probably not be
changing our behaviour until almost
all of us have had both doses of the
vaccine and the prevalence of Covid
is much lower. We will need to keep
some elements of social distancing
long term, as well as adjusting our
expectations.
Previous pandemics have
resurfaced for years, so we should not
expect things to change once we have
received a first dose. The government
needs to address the issue of public
understanding to build on the success
of the vaccine programme, rather
than trying to score short-term points
in the presentation of statistics.
Linda Murgatroyd
London
 guardian.letters@theguardian.com
 @guardianletters
the report. Such an approach is
unacceptable and will lead to a
one-eyed view of the problems of
our planet and their solutions.
Prof Murray Gray
School of geography, Queen Mary
University of London
• Good to see that your editorial
“irony antennae” are in full working
order with the placement on page 1
of your article on Prof Dasgupta’s
concerns for radical global changes
to production, consumption, finance
and education, followed on page 2
by your report on former chancellor
George Osborne’s latest career move,
to join the investment bank Robey
Warshaw, an organisation with 13
employees, whose highest-paid
partner has been paid £37m-plus
over the last two years and which,
because of its partnership structure,
is apparently not required to
pay tax on profits. It is rare for
the contents of one article to be
so emphatically justified by the
contents of another unrelated piece.
Phil Murray
Linlithgow, West Lothian
• I was staggered to read that
economists think we have been
using the wrong metric to measure
wealth. Perhaps they have also
discovered that the Earth is not flat.
Have they finally read The Limits to
Growth, published 50 years ago?
Ian Foster
Emeritus professor of geomorphology,
University of Coventry
Asylum seekers
deserve humanity
If you or your family had to uproot
yourselves to flee war, persecution
and torture, and you managed to
make it to a safe country, only to
be put in a former army barracks or
rundown hotel room with little access
to support beyond the bare minimum
of provisions, how would you feel
(Fit for purpose? ‘We have a roof
over our heads but need safety and
reassurance’, 2 January)? Distressed?
Terrified? Anxious? Traumatised?
Probably all of those things.
That’s the reality for thousands
of people in the UK. They are forced
to live in limbo due to delays in
their asylum claims, while living in
accommodation where they struggle
to access basics such as clothing,
healthcare and education. Our
government presents people seeking
asylum as a threat, rather than
humans with great potential to offer
our communities. We must do better.
Global Britain should be a beacon of
compassion and humanity. There are
Conservative MPs who believe this
(Former minister: ‘We can do better’
than barracks for asylum seekers,
2 February). The prime minister
should speak out and move quickly
to house people seeking asylum in
decent living conditions.
Enver Solomon
Chief executive, Refugee Council
cYanmaGentaYellowblac
9
Corrections and
clarifications
• The former chancellor
George Osborne receives £650,000
a year for working one day a week
for BlackRock, not £65,000 as
we had it (New job for Osborne
as a full-time City bank partner,
2 February, page 2).
• In later editions, a panel listing the
Premier League’s biggest victories
omitted Southampton’s 8-0 win
over Sunderland in 2014. Also, the
accompanying match report wrongly
said the Southampton manager
was German; Ralph Hasenhüttl is
Austrian (3 February, page 40).
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
guardian.readers@theguardian.com
Covid variants don’t
have nationalities
It is sad indeed to hear of the death
of Tom Moore (Report, 2 February).
His fundraising on behalf of the
NHS has been incredible. Let us not
forget, however, that the NHS is
not a charity. It should not need to
rely on fundraising by the public,
and the fact that it does is entirely
due to consistent underfunding by
successive Tory governments.
Tim Barker
Eastington, Gloucestershire
• Please stop referring to a “South
African variant” of Covid-19 (Report,
2 February), or indeed, attributing
national identities to any variants
of the virus. Putting organisms into
national categories – whether they
are viruses or human beings – allows
people to dismiss them as “other”,
with the sort of consequences we
have seen all too much of recently.
Jim Grozier
Brighton, East Sussex
• It is not “Suffolk’s Stour valley”
(Quiet please: 10 UK places to find
peace and solitude, 30 January). As a
county boundary, the Stour belongs
equally to Essex and Suffolk – and
Manningtree and Dedham, both
mentioned in the piece, are in Essex.
Trevor Aldous
Shaftesbury, Dorset
• Classical rock renditions are
even older than 1986 (Letters,
2 February). Fritz Spiegl made Eine
Kleine Beatlemusic with the Barock
and Roll Ensemble back in 1965.
Beatles tunes on one side and My
Old Man’s a Dutchman on the other.
Ed Marshall
Scrooby, Nottinghamshire
• A cute picture of a groundhog
and a rude placename in the
caption (Best photographs of the
day, theguardian.com, 3 February);
thanks for a good start to my day!
Marion Neville
Brighton
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:10 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
10
Rémy Julienne
Stunt driver who was the
mastermind behind car
chases in The Italian Job
and several Bond films
R
émy Julienne,
who has died
aged 90 after
contracting
Covid-19, was
one of the world’s
greatest film
stunt drivers and
coordinators. He was behind the
unforgettable sequence in The
Italian Job featuring red, white and
blue Mini Coopers speeding away
from a daring heist in Turin and went
on to mastermind vehicle theatrics
in several James Bond movies.
The 1969 British-flag-flying crime
caper’s most memorable scenes
began with the getaway cars driving
through shopping arcades, then
down the steps of the Gran Madre di
Dio church while avoiding a wedding
party. Later, as the Mini drivers
– with stunt doubles – continued
to outwit police in cars and on
motorcycles, Julienne went beyond
his brief and Troy Kennedy Martin’s
script during the location shooting.
A large jump between two
rooftops was his suggestion,
initially rejected by the director,
Peter Collinson, and the producer,
Michael Deeley, because it sounded
so dangerous; but he persisted
• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021
Obituaries
and used test runs on flat ground to
show that the cars could make the
distance required. This was typical
of his precision in planning stunts –
and there was more to come.
“It was decided I had to do three
separate jumps in each Mini,”
recalled Julienne. “I explained
that, as the roof was very wide, we
could make the three Minis jump all
together. It looked much better as a
shot. It was more complicated, but
really amazing.”
The 20-minute sequence was
completed with the cars crossing
a weir on the Po river, navigating
a sewer (the interior shot near
Coventry), and, in a manoeuvre that
Julienne considered his biggest feat,
dispatching the Minis, in red, white
and blue order – as throughout all the
scenes – up a ramp and into the back
of a stripped-out coach at speed.
The Italian Job was the first
English-language production for
Julienne and it catapulted him to the
top of the list for arranging vehicle
acrobatics on screen. Regarding
his exploits as “science rather than
stunts”, the director John Glen hired
him for the 1981 Bond film For Your
Eyes Only to coordinate a sequence
in which Roger Moore’s 007 careers
Sent at 3/2/2021 17:35
in a yellow Citroën 2CV through
Spanish olive groves (actually shot in
Corfu), with several rolls and a jump
over his pursuers’ car.
Julienne, who doubled for
Moore at the wheel, also chose the
vehicle’s make and colour. “They
asked me what the most ridiculous
car would be for James Bond to
drive and still cause panic with the
villains,” he told the 007 historians
Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury.
Impressed with the result, Glen also
had him draw on his motocross skills
– Julienne was French champion
in 1957 – to arrange a stunt with
Moore on skis escaping down a
bobsleigh run from a Yamaha XT500
Julienne’s motorcycle.
suggestion of Julienne returned for five more
a large jump Bond films. He beefed up auto-
between rooftops rickshaws in India with Honda
in The Italian 250 engines for a 70mph chase in
Job, 1969, Octopussy (1983); took his Italian Job
was initially experience to A View to a Kill (1985),
rejected because with Moore commandeering a
it seemed so Renault 11 taxi on the streets of Paris
dangerous. that loses its roof, then back half, as
Julienne, below, well as a fire engine in San Francisco;
at the film and devised the pre-title sequence
library in Balma, for The Living Daylights (1987), with
near Toulouse, Timothy Dalton’s 007 clinging on to
southern France, the roof of a Land Rover zig-zagging
in 2017 down the Rock of Gibraltar.
PARAMOUNT/ALLSTAR; For Licence to Kill (1989), he
ERIC CABANIS/AFP/ prepared huge Kenworth lorries for
GETTY IMAGES
a race – including wheelies – across
Mexican mountain roads, with
Dalton performing a plane jump on
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
to one of them; and in GoldenEye
(1995), for a scene set in Monaco but
filmed in the south of France, he
pitched Pierce Brosnan’s Bond in his
Aston Martin DB5 against a Ferrari
F355 on hairpin bends.
Julienne was born in Cepoy, near
the town of Montargis in north-
central France, to Lucienne (nee
Pavas) and Paul Julienne, a haulage
contractor who also ran a cafe. At
the age of 12, when the country was
under Nazi occupation, he rode
a motorcycle, his father’s 100cc
Peugeot, for the first time. He also
became passionate about the silent
film era’s greats such as Charlie
Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy.
On leaving school, he became
a lorry driver, gaining an interest
in mechanics, and he was a tank
instructor during military service in
Germany. A successful motocross
career followed, resulting in the
stunt arranger Gil Delamare hiring
Julienne to double for the French
actor Jean Marais riding a bike in the
1964 film Fantômas.
When Delamare died in a horrific
filming accident in 1966, Julienne
was given the chance to become
a stunt coordinator himself and
established his own team of drivers
and mechanics (L’Equipe Rémy
Julienne). He worked on more
than a dozen films with Jean-Paul
I explained
that, as the
roof was
Belmondo – including Le Guignolo
(1980), when Belmondo dangled from
a helicopter’s rope ladder over the
very wide,
we could
Venice lagoon – and with other French
stars such as Yves Montand and Alain
Delon, as well as doubling for Charles
make the
three Minis
Bronson in several movies.
Internationally, Julienne arranged
stunts for directors such as Sydney
jump all
together.
It looked
Pollack on Bobby Deerfield (1977),
Roman Polanski on Frantic (1988),
John Woo on Once a Thief (1991),
Jackie Chan on Operation Condor
much (1991), James Ivory on Surviving
better as Picasso (1996) and Ron Howard on
a shot The Da Vinci Code (2006).
His work on Fiat commercials
included driving over a waterfall in
one and through the open doors of a
moving freight train in another.
Tragedy struck during the filming
of the French movie Taxi 2 (2000),
when a car that missed its landing
spot following a jump fatally hit a
camera operator. Julienne was found
guilty of involuntary manslaughter
and given a suspended prison
sentence for 18 months, reduced to
six on appeal.
He wrote two autobiographies,
Silence … On Casse! (“Silence …
we break”, 1978) and Ma Vie en
Cascades (My Life in Stunts, 2009).
Julienne is survived by his partner
of 10 years, Justine Poulin, and
Michel and Dominique, the sons –
both stunt performers themselves
– of his 1956 marriage to Antonie
Pedrocchi, from whom he separated
in 1987, as well as a daughter, Diane,
from another relationship.
Anthony Hayward
Rémy Julienne (Rémi Lucien Ernest
Julienne), stunt performer and
coordinator, born 17 April 1930; died
21 January 2021
 Section:GDN 1J PaGe:11 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone:
Thursday 4 February 2021 The Guardian
Sir Arnold Wolfendale
Astronomer royal and
physicist admired for his
research into cosmic rays
S
ir Arnold Wolfendale,
the 14th astronomer
royal, who has
died aged 93, did
much to advance
understanding of
cosmic rays, the
stream of charged
particles from outer space that
continuously bombard the Earth’s
atmosphere. For this purpose he
assembled a strong team at Durham
University, making it one of Britain’s
leading centres for research in this
field. In 1956 he joined the physics
department as a lecturer, and
during his time as professor (1965-
92) established a highly regarded
astronomy division.
Secondary cosmic rays result
from primary rays impacting on
the Earth’s atmosphere. Among
the secondary particles found at
ground level are muons, one of
the fundamental particles of the
standard model of particle physics.
In the 1960s and 70s Arnold
spearheaded measurements of
the number of these particles as
a function of their energy, using
an electromagnet and an array
of Conversi neon-tubes, the
performance of which he greatly
improved. His measurements
gave information on the energy
spectrum of primary cosmic rays at
what were then extreme energies,
with the data also of importance
for testing theories then current in
particle physics.
One of Arnold’s outstanding
He used his
position to
harangue
government
on science
funding
•
 obituaries@theguardian.com
 @guardianobits
achievements was to collaborate
with scientists from India and
Japan in searching for the related
particles known as muon neutrinos,
produced within the atmosphere
simultaneously with the muons,
using Conversi tubes located in
the Kolar Gold Fields, Karnataka,
southern India, at depths of
2,300 metres. The rock above the
laboratory, in which the detectors
operated with great difficulty
because of the high temperatures in
the mine, acted as a shield against
the ubiquitous muons. Data on the
muon background measured in the
mine was later used in the analysis
of results from the famous solar-
neutrino experiment of the Nobel
laureate Ray Davis in the Homestake
Mine in South Dakota.
About this time, a near-fatal
accident with a power supply turned
Arnold’s interests to the more
phenomenological aspects of cosmic
rays, testing theory – particularly
the particle-physics connections
and origin theories – against
experimental data. From then on he
mainly used data gathered by the
large international collaborations
then emerging.
Arnold was born in Rugby,
Warwickshire, to where his
Lancastrian parents, Arnold and
Doris (nee Hoyle), had moved
for work. Soon afterwards the
family returned to the Manchester
area, where his father worked as
an engineering draughtsman at
Metropolitan Vickers Electrical
Sent at 3/2/2021 17:36
Company in Trafford Park. He
won a scholarship to Stretford
grammar school for boys and in 1945
entered the physics department of
Manchester University. PMS Blackett
(later Lord Blackett), his head of
department there, sparked his
interest in cosmic rays. Arnold had
approached him with a request to
research on oxide-coated cathodes,
only to be told: “You will research
on cosmic rays.” He obeyed and a
distinguished career was launched.
In 1951 Arnold married Audrey
Darby. Blackett sent him, still a
Wolfendale, graduate student and without
below left, with Audrey, who was then pregnant with
fellow physicists their twin sons, to work in Colombo,
GD Rochester and Sri Lanka, with Arumugam
John Cockcroft. Mailvaganam, one of Blackett’s
Wolfendale former students and the first non-
developed many white professor of physics there.
international This visit led to Arnold’s lifelong
links, particularly desire to help science prosper in
with scientists places out of the mainstream and
from the eastern also gave him a love of travel.
bloc, Japan, He developed many international
China and India links, in particular with scientists
from the eastern bloc, Japan, China
and India, many of whom worked
for short periods in Durham. In
the 60s George Wdowczyk (from
Poland) and Hannis de Beer (from
South Africa) spent time in Durham
developing methods to interpret
information about the highest-
energy cosmic rays, including some
obtained at the British project at
Haverah Park in North Yorkshire.
After his collaborators returned
home, the fact that the notes on the
work were in a mixture of Polish and
Afrikaans created some problems.
With the Polish scientist
Włodzimierz Zawadksi, Arnold
founded the European Cosmic Ray
Symposiums, a series of biennial
meetings that in pre-glasnost years
were excellent occasions for east to
meet west. The inaugural meeting
in Łódź, in 1968, of fewer than two
dozen scientists, was one of the
most productive I ever attended.
With collaborators, Arnold also
made significant contributions to
the astrophysical implications of
cosmic rays, exploiting particularly
the gamma-ray data from the
European Space Agency’s COS-B
satellite, showing, among other
things, the important result that
there was a gradient of cosmic rays
across the galaxy.
Arnold could be a fierce critic and
I recall, as a young man, trembling
when he raised his hand after I
had given a talk. But his bark was
much worse than his bite. As his
interests in astrophysics grew, so
did his recognition that the Durham
department was too small to
sustain experimental activities in
particle physics, and he persuaded
colleagues to transfer their skills
to observational astronomy and
astronomical instrumentation. His
success in doing so was a factor in
his appointment as astronomer
royal in 1991.
The appointment surprised
many – including Arnold – since he
was not a mainstream astronomer.
Furthermore, he was the first to
cYanmaGentaYellowbla
11
Birthdays hold this 350-year-old office
Prof Edward
who had not been educated at
the universities of Oxford or
Cambridge and, with Lancastrian
Acton, historian,
72; Jerry Adler,
theatre director
directness, used his position
to harangue government on
science funding very effectively.
and actor, 92;
Nickie Aiken,
Conservative MP,
Perhaps because of this tenacity,
the traditional knighthood did
not come until the day of his
52; Peter Allen,
broadcaster,
75; Prof Robert
retirement from the role.
He was elected to fellowship
of the Royal Society in 1977 (and
Allison, awarded its Bakerian medal in
geographer and 2002), to foreign fellowships of
vice-chancellor, the Indian and Polish academies
Loughborough of science; and to a foreign
university, 60; associateship of the Royal Society of
Patrick Bergin, South Africa. At the Royal Institution
actor, 70; Tim he was professor of experimental
Booth, singer, physics (1996-2002), and he served
dancer and actor, as president of the European
61; Jeanette Physical Society (1999-2001).
Brakewell, He chaired the Cabinet
Olympic Office committee on the public
equestrian, 47; understanding of science,
Alice Cooper, engineering and technology
singer and leading to the Wolfendale Report
songwriter, 73; (1995), which urged that more
Oscar De La Hoya, attention be given to the shortage
boxer, 48; Natalie of science teachers and to the
Imbruglia, popular dissemination of the
pop singer, 46; results of scientific research,
Pauline Latham, a forerunner of today’s move
Conservative towards outreach.
MP, 73; Stephen Arnold remained emeritus
Lillie, diplomat, professor at Durham and the 40th
55; Dara Ó Briain, anniversary of the astronomy
broadcaster, division in 2015 saw the foundation
49; Dame of a Centre for Extragalactic
Philippa Russell, Astronomy. He continued his
former chair, researches in cosmic rays into his
the standing late 80s, working with a Russian
commission on colleague, Anatole Erlykin. With
carers, 83; Lord Terry Sloan (of the University of
(Richard) Ryder Lancaster) he did definitive work
of Wensum, to debunk overstated claims that
chair, Child low-energy cosmic rays might
Bereavement affect cloud formation and thus
UK, 72; Dame enhance global warming.
Jenny Shipley, Beyond science, Arnold had
former prime many interests. As president of the
minister of New Antiquarian Horological Society
Zealand, 69; The (1993-2014) he arranged for a
Right Rev Rachel plaque to John Harrison, solver
Treweek, bishop of the “longitude problem”, to
of Gloucester, 58. be placed in Westminster Abbey.
He was a man of ready wit and a
good after-dinner speaker. The
Wolfendale home, where he and
Audrey entertained frequently,
was a welcoming place and,
even after Audrey’s death in
2007, Arnold thought nothing of
preparing lunch for 30 people.
In 2015 he married the
anthropologist Dorothy Middleton.
She survives him, along with his
sons, Colin and David, and five
grandchildren.
Alan Watson
Arnold Whittaker Wolfendale,
physicist, born 25 June 1927;
died 22 December 2020
Reread our obituaries of
Captain Sir Tom Moore, the
actor Cloris Leachman and
the writer Godfrey Hodgson
theguardian.com/
obituaries
.
Section:GDN 1J PaGe:12 Edition Date:210204 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/2/2021 19:47 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian Thursday 4 February 2021

12 Puzzles

Yesterday’s Killer sudoku Codeword

solutions
Easy Each letter of the alphabet makes at least one appearance in the grid,
and is represented by the same number wherever it appears. The letters
Killer sudoku The normal rules of decoded should help you to identify other letters and words in the grid.
Easy Sudoku apply: fill each
row, column and 3x3 box
with all the numbers from
1 to 9. In addition, the
digits in each inner shape
(marked by dots) must
add up to the number in
the top corner of that box.
No digit can be repeated
within an inner shape.

Medium

Medium

Codeword

Cryptic crossword Guardian cryptic crossword No 28,360 set by Anto

Solution No. 28,359
F E LDSPAR DEPUT Y
T O R E A E R 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Across Down
SH I NTO CORS E L E T 1 Brie melted in air? That’s serious 1 Charges about having lost good
U S U K R E rifle (6)
MU L T I T A S K F E A S T (8)
R R E S S U 5 Papers returned with date 2 Called out plot to capture animal
B O R E A L H AWS E R 9 10 inserted in agreement (2,4) shelter (6)
A A T L E G
N I CKER HAS S L E 9 Drama not composed willy-nilly 3 Note on black French artist (6)
L O D G M O (2,6) 4 English not crazy for flashy
B E ANO VOL AUV EN T
G T M T N I 10 Outside link accommodating displays (4,6)
F EVER I SH DROP S Y 11 12 short study (6) 6 Outstanding former PM is
N U N I E L U
ADORED CURTA I N S 11 Apparently true conservative straight up (3,5)
13 Republican can be taken in (8) 7 Quickly pass on insult (4,4)
12 Think about returning wine 8 Bring down average speed (8)
14 present (6) 13 City replaces masthead in general
14 Encourage cook, perhaps, to correspondence (10)
15 16 17 provide snack (3,2,5) 15 Record second thoughts about
18 It requires perfect vision to get recent requirement for country
18 this score on board (6,4) reps (2,6)
22 Two flats? That sounds rich (6) 16 Philosopher irritated when
19 20 21 23 With constant coverage, novel declared to be like everyone else
can’t get contract (8) (8)
22 23
24 Extremely ticklish open garments 17 Whole green bananas can cause a
made of leather? (6) bad reaction (8)
25 Independent small spacecraft, 19 Food for new recruits (6)
one based in Sicily? (8) 20 Get to chaps minding tot (6)
24 25
26 Second-hand vehicles lacking 21 Deplore being endlessly cruel (6)
leads had to be carried (6)
27 Place trap underground with
modern technology (8)
26 27
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83.
Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your
phone company’s access charge.
Service supplied by ATS.
Call 0330 333 6946 for customer
service (charged at standard rate).
Want more? Get access to more than
4,000 puzzles at theguardian.com/
crossword. To buy puzzle books, visit
guardianbookshop.com or call
0330 333 6846.