The man who A writer’s PRINCE

kidnapped existential ANDREW’S

the Iron Duke crisis DOWNFALL
LAST WORD P 44 PEOPLE P 10 TALKING POINTS P 21

THE WEEK
19 FEBRUARY 2022 | ISSUE 1371 | £4.49 THE BEST OF THE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Face-off over Ukraine

Is war inevitable?
Page 4

07

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4 NEWS The main stories…
What happened
Back from the brink?
Joe Biden warned this week that a Russian
invasion of Ukraine remained “distinctly
possible”, despite tentative signs of a
de-escalation of tensions. Russia’s president
Vladimir Putin claimed on Tuesday that he
had decided “to partially pull back troops”
and that his country did not want war.
Biden welcomed that prospect, but said his
administration had yet to verify any
withdrawals among the 150,000 Russian
troops encircling Ukraine. Boris Johnson
said Moscow was sending “mixed signals”,
highlighting its continued building of field A Russian tank on exercises
hospitals near the border.
Fears of an imminent Russian invasion led many Western
nations to close their embassies in Kyiv last week and to urge
their citizens to leave Ukraine. It also led to a flurry of
diplomatic activity. Among the Western leaders to visit
Moscow was Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who assured
Putin that Ukrainian membership of Nato was “not on the
agenda”. Putin said that verbal assurances were not good
enough and that Moscow needed iron-clad guarantees that
Ukraine would never be accepted into the military alliance.
What the editorials said
Before dawn this Wednesday was the moment some US
officials had predicted Putin would launch his invasion, said
The Economist. Yet as that hour
approached, Moscow suggested it was
instead pulling back. Did Putin blink in the
face of the threats of Nato allies to impose
“massive” economic costs on Russia? Or is
he just toying with the West as he weighs
up his options? As ever, Putin’s intentions
are hard to read, said The Independent. But
the possible disengagement of Russian
forces from the Ukrainian border provides
some grounds for hope.
The withdrawal of a few troops doesn’t
mean much if equipment is left behind, said
The Times. They could return within hours. The reality is that
Putin is in a position to dial Ukraine tensions up and down as
he wishes. Even so, this campaign will ultimately hurt him. His
tactics are alienating Russia’s neighbours and giving Nato a
fresh sense of purpose and cohesion. On the contrary, said The
Daily Telegraph, he has exposed the West’s lack of unity and
resolve. “European leaders have been hopelessly split, with
some favouring a policy tantamount to appeasement and
others seeking to support Ukraine’s right to self-
determination.” Putin can already claim “a victory of sorts”.

What happened What the editorials said

The Met in turmoil “In the end, she had to go,” said The Times. A hard-working
and dedicated officer during her 40-year policing career, Dick
The search for a successor to Britain’s most had shown a commendable desire to push
senior police office was under way this week, through reforms needed to change the “toxic
following the surprise resignation of Cressida culture” of her force. But ultimately, “the
Dick. The Metropolitan Police commissioner scandals were too many, the responses too lame
announced she would leave the post after and the image of the country’s biggest police
London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he was force too tarnished” for her to carry on, and she
not satisfied with Dick’s plans to “root out” “quit before being sacked” by Khan – who was
misogyny and racism in the Met. “It is clear well within his rights to act as he did.
that the Mayor no longer has sufficient
confidence in my leadership to continue,” The question of who replaces her is of national
she said. “He has left me no choice.” importance, said The Independent. True, the
commissioner is primarily focused on London;
Her exit follows a rocky period for the Met. but the Met also acts as a national agency on
Most recently, the force was hit by news that issues like terrorism, serious crime and fraud.
officers at Charing Cross police station had Cressida Dick: “had to go”
It’s a huge job, agreed The Guardian – and it’s
shared misogynistic and racist remarks on all the more important in light of the ongoing
WhatsApp; it has also been criticised for its handling of police investigation into Downing Street parties, a probe that
Partygate and for its failure to stop PC Wayne Couzens could ultimately spell the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership.
before he murdered Sarah Everard last year. The head of the Dick’s successor will be picked by Home Secretary Priti Patel,
Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank-and- after consultation with Khan – but whoever is chosen must be
file officers, said its members had “no faith” in Khan. left free to complete the Partygate investigation unimpeded.

It wasn’t all bad Bird watchers have

Over 20 million flowers will be
sown in the Tower of London’s
moat this spring, to mark the
Queen’s platinum jubilee.
Nearly 30 different species have
been selected by horticulture
experts at Sheffield University,
to ensure the plants attract
flocked to a quiet cul-
The online puzzle Wordle has
been credited with saving the
de-sac in Eastbourne to life of a woman in Chicago who
glimpse an American was imprisoned in her home for
robin that may have 20 hours. The 80-year-old had
got lost while flying got into the habit of texting her
from North to South score to her eldest daughter
America for the winter. every day. When she failed to
Britain’s first recorded text one morning – the day’s
sighting of an five-letter solution was “skill” –
© COVER IMAGE: YOLANDE DE VRIES

pollinators, and bloom from American robin – her daughter alerted a

June to September, changing in
character and balance as the
months go by. The moat should
begin as a riot of whites and
pinks in June, before turning
blue and purple, then gold,
yellow and orange.
THE WEEK 19 February 2022
which is about twice neighbour, who got no answer
the size of its European at the door. The police were
cousin – was in 1952. There have been just 28 sightings since, called and found the woman in
though an American robin did slip into the 1964 film Mary Poppins. a bathroom, where an intruder
David Campbell, the county recorder for the Sussex Ornithological had locked her in. The suspect
Society, said the robin was the “last thing” he’d expected to see. has since been charged with
“It really does inject something special into your routine.” assault and home invasion.
COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM
 …and how they were covered NEWS 5
What the commentators said What next?
Putin is a master at what military experts call “compellence strategy”, said Keir Giles in The Russia’s lower house of
Guardian. That’s shorthand for using the threat of force to extract concessions. Russian parliament voted this week to
propagandists push the idea that confronting Moscow “risks almost inevitable escalation to ask Putin to recognise the
nuclear war”, when, in reality, Moscow has a record of backing down when adversaries independence of the two
demonstrate “will and determination”. Putin and his gang only respect “hard power”, agreed Russian-backed breakaway
Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. Western leaders and diplomats still haven’t grasped this. regions in eastern Ukraine,
They think when they go to Moscow that they can win people round with arguments and talk reports The Guardian. In a
of the greater good. But the Russian elite only care about threats to their immediate interests. sign that he will seek to use
them as leverage, Putin said
The problem is the West is not really in a position to issue credible threats to Putin today, given he would not recognise the
the strength of Russia’s finances, said Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. The “republics” immediately, but
country has amassed foreign exchange reserves of $635bn, is running a budget surplus and is called on Nato to negotiate
backed by China. The West warns of “devastating” sanctions, but the Kremlin could cut off all Russia’s security guarantees
gas supplies to Europe – 41% of the EU’s supply – for two years or more “without running before it was “too late”.
into serious financial buffers”. If Russia does step back from an invasion, it won’t be for fear of
Western sanctions. It will be because “Germany and France have promised behind closed doors Nato is drawing up long-term
to give him what he wants”, or because Putin thinks Ukraine might offer strong resistance. plans to reinforce the
alliance’s southeastern flank
That latter factor must be weighing on his mind, said Katie Stallard in the New Statesman. against Russian aggression,
When Putin seized Crimea and started the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine had a small says Bruno Waterfield in The
army. Since then, the US alone has spent more than $2.7bn on training and equipment for the Times. This could see 4,000
country, and Kyiv has recruited almost 100,000 more troops. Opposition to Russia has also troops deployed to Romania
grown. In 2011, a Pew poll found 84% of Ukrainian respondents viewed Russia favourably; by and Bulgaria. It would be the
2019, that had fallen to 32%. Putin “can claim to have forced a serious discussion of Europe’s biggest escalation of Nato’s
security architecture with the US”. But he won’t succeed in forcing Ukraine into Russia’s orbit. “force posture” against
“The more he threatens, the further and faster he will push it away.” Russia in six years.

What the commentators said What next?

Frankly, I’m amazed Dick lasted as long as she did, said Sam Greenhill in the Daily Mail. Even Dick will remain in post for
before she got the top job, her career might have ended owing to the 2005 operation in which an unspecified period to
an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by officers who mistook him for a ensure an orderly handover
terrorist. In recent years, there have been several “disasters” on her watch: from Operation to her successor. Paid a
Midland (fictitious VIP sex abuse allegations) to her response to Everard’s killing by a serving salary of about £230,000,
PC, which she put down to the odd “bad ’un” in the Met’s ranks. A “jaw-dropping” report she’d recently signed a two-
last year into the 1987 killing of private investigator Daniel Morgan said the Met was year extension to her con-
“institutionally corrupt”, and that Dick personally obstructed the search for the truth. Her tract, which had been due
bread-and-butter policing record was no better, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. Last to expire in April. Her pay-
year, a record 30 teenagers were killed in London, where only 3.8% of burglaries were solved. off could exceed £400,000,
reports The Times.
Even so, said Fiona Hamilton in The Times, this was a dramatic fall for an officer once viewed
as “the best of her generation”. Senior colleagues rated her “calm but resolute manner”; rank- Early front-runners to
and-file officers liked her willingness to go out to bat for them. Yet her “Met lifer” instinct to succeed her include Sir
defend colleagues ultimately contributed to her downfall: she continued to deny there were Mark Rowley, an ex-head
widespread problems in the face of mounting evidence. Now, the debate turns to who should of anti-terrorism; Andy
take over a job many see as a “poisoned chalice”, running a vast organisation facing budget Cooke, the former
cuts running into the billions and ebbing public confidence. The job looks too big for one Merseyside chief; Louisa
person to do properly, said Henry Hill in The Daily Telegraph. So why not split the unwieldy Rolfe, a senior Met officer
Met up? A normal constabulary could focus on “better policing for Londoners” and answer to and specialist on tackling
the Mayor; and a national body could be accountable to the Home Office and take charge of violence against women;
areas such as close protection, counter-terror and aviation policing. Dick’s departure “offers a and Steve Kavanagh, the
long-overdue opportunity for an overhaul of this country’s largest police force”. Let’s seize it. former Essex chief.

THE WEEK
Editor-in-chief: Caroline Law
Deception is an ancient art, which is no doubt why the English Editor: Theo Tait
Deputy editor: Harry Nicolle
language is so rich in synonyms for fraud: swindle, fiddle, sting, Consultant editor: Jenny McCartney
scam, racket and con, to name but a few. Modern technology, City editor: Jane Lewis Assistant editors: Robin de Peyer,
Leaf Arbuthnot Contributing editors: Simon Wilson,
however, has permitted this scourge to flourish, as recent figures from the Office for National Rob McLuhan, Catherine Heaney, Xandie Nutting,
Digby Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood, William Skidelsky
Statistics prove. More than 14,000 people in the UK now fall victim to some variety of fraud each Editorial: Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, Aine O’Connor,
Georgia Heneage Picture editor: Annabelle Whitestone
day, much of it online, yet the rate of crimes prosecuted has dwindled to one in 1,000. Why is there Art director: Nathalie Fowler Sub-editor: Monisha Rajesh
Production editor: Alanna O’Connell
such a lack of urgency in tackling this offence, which has soared during the pandemic? One senior Editorial chairman and co-founder: Jeremy O’Grady
police watchdog said it is a low priority for politicians, because they see it as “an invisible crime”. Production Manager: Maaya Mistry Newstrade
Director: David Barker Marketing Director (Current
That explanation gained traction recently when Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, defended Affairs): Lucy Davis Publishing Manager: Ludovica
D’Angelo Account Manager/Inserts: Jack Reader Account
Boris Johnson’s claim that crime had fallen by 14% over two years – a figure only accurate if fraud Director/Inserts: Abdul Ahad Classified: Henry Haselock
Account Directors: Jonathan Claxton, Joe Teal, Hattie
were excluded – by arguing that Johnson was only speaking of crimes people experienced in “their White Advertising Director – Current Affairs: Kate Colgan
Head of Commercial, Current Affairs: Caroline Fenner
day-to-day lives”. But fraud has indeed infiltrated our daily lives, from bank card scams to regular Chief Executive, The Week: Kerin O’Connor

cold calls from booming, bogus voices claiming to be from HMRC. Victims frequently feel shame Future PLC, 121-
141 Westbourne
along with financial devastation, because increasingly sophisticated cons so often prey on trusting Terrace, London
W2 6JR
natures. Yet trust is the glue that holds society together, and a landscape soaked in false Editorial office:
representations of authority ends up undermining faith in authority itself. 020-3890 3787

Left unchecked, fraud is hollowing out more than just our bank accounts. Jenny McCartney editorialadmin@
theweek.co.uk

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registered trademark. Neither the whole of this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers 19 February 2022 THE WEEK
6 NEWS Politics
Controversy of the week Post Office inquiry
The Prosecco Squad An inquiry into the wrongful
convictions of large numbers
of sub-postmasters and
After spending the last two years attacking Keir Starmer mistresses began this week,
for “the apparent crime of being a lawyer”, Boris Johnson with about 60 former Post
is now hiring one himself, said Tom Peck in The Office workers expected to
Independent. The PM has been sent a questionnaire by the give evidence. The inquiry
Metropolitan Police over the breaking of lockdown rules is being chaired by
during Downing Street gatherings. It’s understood the PM Sir Wyn Williams, a retired
high court judge, and is
has employed hot-shot private lawyers to handle it. His
likely to run all year. It will
defence, it seems, hinges on the unique nature of 10 examine whether the Post
Downing Street: a workplace for many, but a private home Office knew about faults in
for Johnson. It’s a puzzling distinction, say critics, since the IT system that led to
during lockdown “parties were illegal both in homes and more than 700 people being
workplaces”. His prevarications can’t hide the truth, said accused of theft, fraud and
Martin Kettle in The Guardian: “he’s finished”. The polls false accounting between
suggest irreparable damage has been done: 70% of UK 2000 and 2014; so far, 72
voters are now “dissatisfied” with him. We might have to convictions have been
Party time? The latest picture
overturned. It will also
wait for the 5 May local elections before the curtain comes
consider whether the
down, but for once it seems “the rules really will apply to the Prime Minister”. company that made the
software knew it had flaws,
This is getting ludicrous, said Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail. The Met’s “Prosecco Squad” has and whether victims have
sent questionnaires to 50 Downing Street staff and is sifting through 300 photos taken at “suspect been fairly compensated.
“gatherings” including Johnson’s 56th birthday party. I won’t defend lawbreaking at No. 10, but is
that really a sensible use of Scotland Yard’s time, when homicide rates are soaring and only 3.8% University strikes
of burglaries are solved? The political classes are “frankly deranged” over Partygate: even the former Thousands of university staff
Tory PM John Major has been “disinterred to slag off Boris”. This looks like “the revenge of the went on strike this week over
pro-EU establishment”. True, Major has long resented Johnson, said The Times, but it’s hard to pensions, pay and working
disagree with his charge that the PM is “damaging trust in democracy”. Johnson’s “entire political conditions. Ten days of
action are planned over
strategy” seems focused on winning over the 181 MPs needed to survive any Tory vote of
three weeks and involve a
confidence. It looks like a government bent on “saving jobs” rather than “delivering policy”. total of 44 institutions. The
University and College Union
Whisper it, but that strategy just might work, said Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. The new, (UCU) is calling for a pay rise
humbler Boris, who listens to the Tory party, is already “improving the quality of the Government”. for its members, an end to
He followed the party’s instincts on abolishing Covid restrictions a month early, rather than relying zero-hours contracts, and
on the scientific advisers. He may even take on problems such as NHS reform. It doesn’t look like action to reduce workloads.
better government to me, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. It looks like “different gangs of The latest strikes were
backbench hostage-takers” are demanding “red meat” from No. 10. For now, most Tory MPs “are triggered by changes to
a pension scheme which,
neither dedicated to his removal nor committed to his survival”. Things will come to a head when
the UCU says, could cut
the Met reports – and the PM either does, or doesn’t, get a fixed penalty. Even if he does, he may try members’ guaranteed
to brazen it out. The Tories will have to decide how far they will go with “Operation Save Big Dog”. retirement income by 35%.

Good week for:

Spirit of the age
The University of Bristol
encouraged staff to use an
online pronoun guide that
includes not just the neo-
pronouns “ze/zir/zirs”, but
also “catgender” and
“emojiself”. According to
the guide, people who
identify as feline may go
by the pronouns “nya” and
“nyan”, meaning “meow”
in Japanese, while users of
an “emojiself” swap letter
pronouns for an emoji.
HMRC has seized three non-
fungible tokens, or NFTs, as
part of an investigation into
VAT fraud. It’s the first time
a law enforcement agency
in the UK has seized NFTs,
which are digital assets that
can be bought or sold but
have no physical reality.
HRMC’s deputy director of
economic crime said it was
Philanthropy, with the news that Elon Musk gave nearly $6bn Poll watch
worth of Tesla shares to an unnamed charity last year. Musk is 75% of voters believe Boris
now America’s most generous philanthropist, after Bill Gates Johnson should resign if
and his former wife Melinda French Gates. investigations by the police
Peter Jackson, who topped Forbes magazine’s list of the highest and Sue Gray find him
guilty of lockdown breaches.
paid entertainers of 2021. The Lord of the Rings director made
16% want him to stay even
$580m, primarily through the sale of his special effects company. if he is found guilty.
Bad taste, with the news that, to accompany its Van Gogh Savanta ComRes/The
exhibition, the Courtauld Gallery in London is selling an “ear- Independent
shaped rubber” for £6, sunflower soap “for the tortured artist
who enjoys bubbles” for £5, and a £16 “emotional first aid kit”. Nationally, 58% of rank and
file police officers suffer
from low morale. 78% say
Bad week for: they do not feel respected
Julian Bennett, the Metropolitan police officer in charge of by the public, and 95% say
writing his force’s drug strategy, who has been accused of taking they do not feel respected
cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms himself while on holiday by the Government.
in France. Bennett is facing a gross misconduct hearing. Police Federation of England
and Wales/The Times
Eton and Harrow, whose annual match at Lord’s will no longer
take place at the ground from 2023. The schools have faced
62% of Europeans (polled
each other since 1805, when Lord Byron played for Harrow. in Finland, France,
Marylebone Cricket Club said that it wished to “extend playing Germany, Italy, Poland,
opportunities” more widely. Romania and Sweden)
Andrew Turner, one of the RAF’s most senior officers, who think Nato should come
was suspended from duty after allegedly being spotted naked in to Ukraine’s aid if Russia
© DAILY EXPRESS

“a warning to anyone who
thinks they can use crypto
assets to hide money”.
the garden of his £1.4m home in Oxfordshire. Simon Herbert, invades.
European Council on
Turner’s neighbour, told the Daily Mail he was “astonished”
Foreign Relations
to see the Air Marshal in the nude, “not even wearing shoes”.

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Europe at a glance
Paris
Pécresse tacks
right: In her first
big set-piece rally,
Valérie Pécresse,
the centre-right
Republican
candidate in
France’s
presidential race,
vowed to fight
immigration,
Islamism and
cancel culture. Most commentators
deemed the speech an unsuccessful tack to
the right, with Pécresse, the current leader
of the Paris region, seeming uneasy as she
embraced the agenda of her far-right rivals.
Pécresse is vying with Marine Le Pen and
Éric Zemmour for second place in the
polls. But in recent weeks her campaign
has been hit by several defections to that
of the centrist President Macron, who
increasingly appears to have a clear path
to victory in April’s election.
Paris
Copycat convoys: Protesters against
Covid-19 restrictions took to the streets in
the Netherlands and France last weekend,
inspired by Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”.
In France, motorists organised what they
called a “Convoi de la Liberté”, and
converged on the capital from all over the
country, despite a police ban on entering
the city. Police fired tear gas and made
dozens of arrests as the protesters honked
horns, waved tricolour flags and climbed
on top of their cars, blocking parts of the
Champs-Élysées. Many were objecting to
a law that requires people to show proof
of vaccination to enter public places such
as cafés, restaurants and museums. In the
Netherlands, a convoy of vehicles arrived
at the centre of The Hague on Saturday,
bringing parts of it to a standstill: lorries,
vans and cars blocked the entrance to the
parliamentary complex and were ordered
to move by police.
Cárceres, Spain
Demolition job: A luxury resort in western
Spain dubbed the “rural Marbella” – a
sprawling development including 185
villas and an artificial beach – must be
demolished in its entirety because it was
built unlawfully in an environmentally
protected area. The country’s supreme
court has ordered the removal of the
Marina Isla de Valdecañas, which lies on
an island in a reservoir near Cáceres in
Extremadura (about 100 miles from
Madrid), and cost more than s100m to
build. In addition to the villas and beach,
it boasts a four-star hotel, an 18-hole golf
course, swimming pools and 76 moorings.
However, its construction has been the
subject of a dispute between the developers
and environmental groups ever since work
began in 2007. In 2020, a regional court
ruled that the resort had been built illegally
but should be allowed to stand. The
supreme court overturned that decision.
Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk
Bern
Tobacco advertising: Voters in Switzerland
have backed a ban on tobacco advertising
– years after most European countries –
although the Swiss government and
parliament opposed the move. Nearly
57% of voters, and 16 of Switzerland’s
26 cantons, voted in favour of a near-total
ban in Sunday’s referendum, following a
campaign led by doctors and teachers.
Switzerland is home to the headquarters
of some of the world’s major tobacco
companies, including Philip Morris and
Japan Tobacco. The industry contributes
over £4.5bn a year to the Swiss economy.
Attempts to introduce tighter curbs on
advertising have been rejected by
parliament on several occasions. The No
campaign, which was funded by tobacco
companies, argued that the ban would lead
to other legal, but unhealthy, products
being targeted. Campaign posters
featured pictures of cakes and
sausages, with the warning:
“These will be next”.
Warsaw
Fears of refugee crisis: Poland, Romania
and other countries bordering Ukraine are
making preparations for what some fear
could be a flood of tens, or even hundreds,
of thousands of people fleeing the country
in the event of a full-scale Russian
invasion. Poland, which is already home to
between one and two million Ukrainians,
is likely to be a favoured destination in the
event of war. The Warsaw government
said it was preparing for the worst-case
scenario, and had made detailed plans.
Romania’s interior minister said he
believed that Poland was “preparing to
take one million migrants”, and that his
own country was planning for a potential
influx in the hundreds of thousands. The
governments of Slovakia and Hungary,
which share shorter borders with Ukraine,
also said they were preparing for a refugee
crisis. Several airlines suspended flights to
Ukraine this week.
NEWS 7
Pokrov, Russia
New Navalny trial: The jailed Russian
anti-corruption campaigner Alexei
Navalny has gone on trial on new charges
of embezzlement that could see him
imprisoned for an additional 15 years.
Currently, Navalny is serving a three-and-
a-half-year sentence on separate corruption
charges. The latest charges – that he
embezzled donations made to his anti-
corruption foundation – are regarded by
Western governments as trumped up by
the Kremlin to discredit him. In 2020,
Navalny survived an assassination attempt
by poisoning, and was arrested after
recovering in Germany and returning to
Russia. The trial is being held at the IK-2
penal colony in Pokrov, 100km east of
Moscow, where Navalny is imprisoned.
Belgrade
No regrets:
Novak Djokovic,
the world No. 1
men’s tennis
player, has said
he will sit out the
French Open and
Wimbledon this
summer if his
participation is
made conditional
on receiving a Covid vaccine. In his first
interview since being deported from
Australia – after a protracted row over his
vaccination status – the Serb said he was
not opposed to vaccines, but supported
“the freedom to choose what you put in
your body”. Djokovic needs to win one
more major to equal the record 21 won by
Rafael Nadal; but he said “the principles
of decision-making on my body” were
“more important than any title”.
19 February 2022 THE WEEK
8 NEWS The world at a glance
New York Ottawa
Prince pays sex accuser: Prince Wartime powers: Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has
Andrew has agreed an out-of- invoked emergency national security powers used only once
court settlement with Virginia previously since the Second World War to crack down on the
Giuffre, the American woman anti-vaccine protests that have brought parts of his country to
who claimed that the duke a halt in recent weeks. The draconian powers available to the
sexually assaulted her on three government under the Emergencies Act include stopping public
occasions when she was 17. assemblies and blockades, towing away trucks participating in
The duke has always denied the “freedom convoys”, and cutting off funding to protesting truckers
claims, and previously requested by freezing their bank accounts and voiding their insurance. The
a jury hearing in the long-running civil case. However, on powers were last used in 1970, when Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s
Tuesday it was announced that the parties had settled, and that father) used the War Measures Act (as the laws were then called)
Andrew had agreed to pay an unspecified but “substantial following terrorist attacks by Québécois separatists. Justin
donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity”. Trudeau said the powers were needed because the blockades
In the settlement document, which contained no admission of were preventing critical supply chains – including food – from
liability, Andrew agreed that he had “never intended to malign operating, and “endangering public safety” (see page 16).
Ms Giuffre’s character” and that he recognised she had “suffered
both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of
unfair public attacks”. He also pledged to “demonstrate
his regret for his association” with the late convicted
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by supporting the “fight
against the evils of sex trafficking” (see page 21).

Washington DC
Afghan money: President Biden has signed an executive order
releasing $7bn of frozen US-held funds belonging to the Afghan
government – but on the condition that half of it is put towards
the humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan and half is given to
US victims of terrorism, including relatives of those killed in
the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed since
the abrupt US withdrawal and Taliban takeover in August,
triggering a humanitarian crisis. Biden’s solution is designed
to avoid recognising the Taliban’s claim to the money, and to
accommodate legal judgments made by US courts in favour
of victims’ groups and against the Taliban and al-Qa’eda.
Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai condemned
the retention of half the money for US victims’ families. “We
commiserate with them,” he said, “[but] Afghan people are
as much victims as those families who lost their lives.”

Tallahassee, Florida
“Don’t Say Gay”: Joe Biden has condemned a “hateful” bill in
Florida that would ban the discussion of sexual orientation and
gender issues in primary schools. Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay”
bill by critics, the legislation would allow parents to sue school
districts if they believe a teacher has failed to comply. While it has
been approved by a Republican-controlled committee, it has not
yet become law; if passed, as expected, it will come into effect
from July. Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who is
thought to be limbering up for a 2024 presidential run, signalled
his support for the bill last week, saying it was “entirely
inappropriate” for teachers to discuss gender identity with pupils.
Pete Buttigieg, the gay US secretary of transportation, said the bill
was “dangerous” and could harm children’s mental health.

Managua
Ex-rebel dies in jail: Hugo Torres,
one of the dozens of opposition
politicians jailed by Nicaragua’s
dictatorial president Daniel Ortega
in the run-up to last November’s
sham election, has died in prison,
eight months after being arrested
on treason charges. His political
party, Unamos, said Torres had been subjected to “physical and
psychological torture” in jail. Torres (pictured), 73, was a former
Sandinista guerilla commander who fought alongside Ortega in
the 1970s leftist revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of
Anastasio Somoza. In 1974, Torres led a raid that helped free
Ortega and other political prisoners from jail. But like many
former rebels, he broke with Ortega, whom he accused of creating
“another dictatorship, now more brutal, more unscrupulous,
more irrational and more autocratic” than Somoza’s.
Brasília
Destruction gathers pace:
The number of trees cut down in
the Brazilian Amazon in January was
five times bigger than in the same month last year, which was
itself the highest total since the government started compiling
accurate records using satellite data in 2015. The massive surge
in deforestation is especially ominous, environmentalists say,
because the rainy season makes it hard to access dense forest. At
Cop26 in Glasgow, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro pledged to
halt deforestation by the end of this decade, but in practice his
weakening of legal protections since taking office in 2019 has
encouraged the acceleration of logging. This week, Bolsonaro also
gave the go-ahead for more gold mines in the Amazon region.

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 The world at a glance
Tobruk, Libya
Rival PMs: In a move that further hinders
Libya’s fragile hopes of a transition to
stable government, the national parliament
– based in the eastern city of Tobruk –
has appointed a new prime minister,
even though Libya already has one, based
in the national capital, Tripoli. Abdul
Hamid Dbeibeh, PM of the Government
of National Unity in Tripoli, which is
recognised by the UN, had been tasked
with holding national elections last year.
However, the vote was postponed due to
disputes over the eligibility of divisive
candidates including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,
son of the late dictator. Politicians and
militia leaders in the east have now lost
faith in that process, and appointed their
own PM, Fathi Bashagha, who is backed
by Khalifa Haftar, the military strongman
who controls much of eastern Libya.
Kampala
Police chief:
Uganda’s
dictatorial
president, Yoweri
Museveni, has
appointed the
country’s former
chief of military
intelligence – a man accused by the US
government of committing human rights
violations – as the new chief of police. The
appointment of Major General Abel
Kandiho is seen as a show of defiance
against the US and other Western nations,
which have recently been critical of the
deteriorating human rights situation under
Museveni, who has been in power since
1986. The last two years have seen the
worst wave of repression for decades, with
dissent ruthlessly crushed. In December,
Kandiho was targeted by official US
sanctions on the grounds that he
personally oversaw the violent abuse
of political prisoners.
NEWS 9
Khanewal, Pakistan Beijing
Blasphemy lynching: More than 80 people Drugs row:
in the Punjab province of Pakistan have Kamila Valieva,
been arrested in connection with the the 15-year-old
murder of a man alleged to have burned Russian figure
pages from the Koran. The victim, aged skating prodigy,
41, is thought to have had mental was controver-
disabilities. A police officer told Reuters sially cleared to
that “villagers armed with batons, axes compete in the
and iron rods” killed him before hanging Winter Olympics
his body from a tree. Imran Khan, this week, despite
Pakistan’s prime minister, ordered a report testing positive for
into why police failed to protect the man, the banned angina
who was in custody when the mob seized drug trimetazidine. Valieva, the favourite
him and beat him to death. The incident to win gold, claimed she must have been
is the latest in a string of killings related contaminated by her grandfather’s heart
to accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan. medication. The Court of Arbitration for
It comes two months after a Sri Lankan Sport ruled in her favour at an emergency
factory manager was killed and set on fire hearing, but the Olympic committee said
for reportedly removing posters bearing no ceremony would be held if she won a
the name of the Prophet Mohammed. medal while investigations were ongoing.
Chagos Islands
UK is formally challenged:
Mauritius has formally
challenged the UK’s
sovereignty over the
Chagos archipelago, with
diplomats and officials
holding a flag-raising
ceremony on the Peros
Banhos atoll on Monday.
The UK has claimed
sovereignty of the British
Indian Ocean Territory
since 1814, and continues
to ignore a 2019 ruling at
the International Court of
Justice ceding the islands
to Mauritius. It argues
the Diego Garcia military
base, leased by the
UK to the US since
the 1960s,
is vital to its
interests.
Ashgabat
Transfer of power: The dictatorial
president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov, is to stand down
after 15 years. He has called an election
next month in which his son, Serdar,
will be the ruling party’s candidate.
The 64-year-old president, known in the
repressive, gas-rich nation as Arkadag, or Wellington
“Protector”, said that the country needed “Imported” protest: New Zealand’s PM
“young leaders”. Jacinda Ardern has hit out at what she
The eccentric called the “imported” protest against
president is Covid restrictions and vaccine mandates
known for his that has seen thousands of demonstrators
veneration of gather outside Parliament House in
alabai sheepdogs, Wellington. “I’ve seen Trump flags on the
a symbol of forecourt, I’ve seen Canadian flags on the
national pride. forecourt,” said the PM. “I think we all
In 2020, he had want them to leave.” Last weekend, police
a 5.7 metre-high used water cannon and loud music played
statue of an alabai on a loop – including Barry Manilow,
erected in the James Blunt and the Macarena – as a way
capital, Ashgabat. of breaking up the demonstration.
19 February 2022 THE WEEK
10 NEWS
The paparazzi takeover
In his 30-year career as a
showbiz photographer, Dave
Benett reckons he has snapped
every major celebrity, from
Nelson Mandela to Sharon
Stone, says Charlotte Edwardes
in The Times. He’s also seen
his industry change beyond
recognition. Early on, he
photographed Old Bailey trials,
football matches and riots –
but in the 1990s, the landscape
shifted. He recalls picking up a
copy of the Daily Star in 1997,
and seeing a front-page
headline: “Deirdre in prison”.
Who was Deirdre, and what
had she done? The paper, he
discovered, was leading on a
story about Coronation Street.
And then, “suddenly these guys
were coming through the door
with loads of money in their
pockets, and we had no idea
what they were doing”. It
turned out that “the paparazzi
had arrived. The picture editors
were calling on these guys:
showbiz was the new news.”
Rooney’s lonely benders
Wayne Rooney was only 16
when he made his Premier
League debut in 2002; five
months later, he was playing
football for England. And
having grown up with his
family on a Liverpool council
estate, he wasn’t remotely
prepared for the worldwide
fame, and the relentless press
scrutiny, that followed. “I had
never even thought about the
other side of being a football
player,” he told Oliver Holt in
The Mail on Sunday. “It was
like being thrown in
somewhere where you are just
People
not comfortable.” Unable
to turn to his teammates for
support, he started drinking
heavily – often not in bars or
clubs, but when he was at
home, and alone. “You would
get a couple of days off from
football and I would lock
myself away and drink to try
to take all that away from my
mind,” he says. “It was like a
binge. Normally, that’s with
a group of lads but this was
a self-binge… I would sit in
the house and for two days
I would just drink.”
A reluctant revolutionary
Rebecca Lucy Taylor – better
known as the pop singer Self
Esteem – has become
something of a pin-up for
millennial women, says Dolly
Alderton in The Sunday Times.
The 35-year-old’s latest album
(Prioritise Pleasure), with its
bittersweet, funny and frank
songs about everything from
orgasms to anxiety, won Monica Ali’s debut novel, Brick Lane, catapulted her to literary
five-star reviews; and people stardom. Telling the story of a Bangladeshi teenager who arrives
have compared her to Fleabag in London to marry a man twice her age, it was shortlisted for the
creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Booker Prize and made into a film. But the acclaim didn’t last. Her
But though she is certainly next two novels received middling reviews; her fourth, Untold Story
forthright in her views on – which imagined what might have happened if Diana, Princess of
issues such as gender equality Wales had faked her death – was met with “bafflement”, she told
and female non-conformity, The Big Issue. “I think I was really naive in thinking that I could write
she is disheartened that she is about whatever I wanted, like a white male writer can.” One critic
considered revolutionary, when described it as a “curious marriage of author and subject matter”.
all she is doing in her songs is “People would ask ‘Are you trying to get away from something?’
documenting who she is. “I To me the question they really seemed to be asking was ‘Are you
shouldn’t be radical,” she says. trying to get away from brown people? Are you trying to get away
“I’m not that clever. I’m just from your ethnicity?’ I understand that it confused people but my
telling you what life is. What mum’s white, my father’s Bengali, I was born in Dhaka but I’ve lived
was Fleabag doing? It was just here all my life. So, I felt I was being entirely true to who I am.” The
a woman enjoying sex and response cut her very deep – leading to depression and a complete
being funny and a bit of a loss of confidence. Now, following years of therapy, she realises
mess. The fact that Fleabag that it had felt like an “obliteration of the self”. “This idea that I have
was radical TV is kind of to choose to be one thing or the other – it’s existential. I’m not one
depressing.” thing or the other, I’m both. And I’m glad to be both.”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint:

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs
Farewell
featured actress and dancer Leslie Caron
Space clichés Carmen Herrera,
“Naoko Yamazaki, the second Cuban-American artist,
1 L’Accordéoniste by Michel Emer, performed by Édith Piaf Japanese woman in space, remarked specialising in geometric
that ‘seeing the Earth from space’, she abstraction, who found
2*Si mi chiamano Mimì by Puccini, performed by Maria Callas
‘was astonished by its beauty – and its fame in her 80s, died
3 Ne me quitte pas, written and performed by Jacques Brel 12 February, aged 106.
fragility’. Which is all very well, and
4 Miss Otis Regrets by Cole Porter, performed by Ella Fitzgerald
all true no doubt, but also a massive Luc Montagnier,
5 One for My Baby from The Sky’s the Limit, by Harold Arlen and French virologist who
Johnny Mercer, performed by Fred Astaire
cliché. Is there an astronaut who has
not opined upon the beauty and co-discovered HIV and
6 Requiem in D minor (Introitus) by Mozart, performed by the won a share of the
Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Singverein, conducted by fragility of their home planet? It’s not 2008 Nobel Prize, died
Herbert von Karajan their fault: astronauts are engineers 8 February, aged 89.
7 Burn On, written and performed by Randy Newman or scientists (or billionaires) and not
built for eloquent reflection. It’s time P.J. O’Rourke,
8 Les Feuilles Mortes by Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma, conservative satirist
performed by Yves Montand we sent up Hilary Mantel or Zadie and journalist, died
Smith or Simon Armitage, and soon. 15 February, aged 74.
It won’t be long before mass space
© YOLANDE DE VRIES

Ivan Reitman, director

travel means the ‘Planet Earth” entry who shot to fame with
Book: The Sixth Sense of Animals by Maurice Burton on Tripadvisor is packed with reviews Ghostbusters, died
Luxury: a cutlass
* Choice if allowed only one record
saying ‘view OK but terrible food’.” 12 February, aged 75.
Sathnam Sanghera in The Times

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

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you’re dreaming of, we’re
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a
 Briefing NEWS 13

The cables that connect the world

The global network of undersea communications cables is a technological marvel – but it’s also very vulnerable

What do we rely on the cables for? cables, not just one: from the 80-mile
The “backbone” of the internet, the data CeltixConnect cable to Ireland; to the
superhighway that connects the world’s Tangerine, which runs 81 miles from
online computer networks, is a web of Kent to Belgium; to the Tata TGN-
fibre-optic cables. Between continents Atlantic, stretching 8,000 miles from
and land masses, the internet relies on Somerset to New Jersey. Yet the UK is
cables crossing the sea floor. This far more reliant than Tonga on digital
network, which is over half a million services. “Even more significantly, unlike
miles in length, and comprised of over Tonga, we have powerful enemies,” said
200 independent systems of inter- Harry de Quetteville in The Daily
connected cables, carries over 95% Telegraph. Sabotaged cables could pose
of global communications (the rest is “an existential threat” to British security,
carried by satellite). If you open a foreign warned the now-Chancellor Rishi Sunak
webpage, the data you’re accessing will in a 2017 report for the Policy Exchange
have been propelled by lasers down fibre- think tank. “The most severe scenario…
optic threads under the sea, at almost of connectivity loss is potentially
the speed of light. In a single day, this catastrophic,” he added – and even
network also processes some $10trn in relatively limited damage could “cause
financial transfers via the SWIFT system, An estimated 150 cables are severed every year significant economic disruption and
which manages global bank transactions. damage military communications.”
The recent explosive growth of cloud computing has vastly
increased the volume and sensitivity of data – from military How might they be sabotaged?
documents to scientific research – crossing these cables. “Disrupting cables is not only possible,” wrote Sunak, it’s
“surprisingly easy.” There is a long history of countries hostile to
How do the cables work? one another sabotaging cables. Britain cut five German cables in
Undersea cables have been used since the 1850s (see box). Today, the First World War; in the Cold War, the US placed wiretaps on
they’ve evolved into technological marvels. Laid by slow-moving Soviet subsea cables. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, one
ships, they are typically between two and seven inches thick and of its first moves was to sever its cable connection. The cables
have a lifespan of approximately 25 years. Each cable contains are generally owned and installed by consortia of internet and
fibre threads capable of transmitting data at 180,000 miles per telecoms companies, without much government oversight. Their
second, wrapped in steel armour, insulation and a plastic coat. locations are usually both isolated and publicly known, making
These fibres have the capacity to transmit up to 400GB of data them vulnerable to sabotage. There are also several “choke
per second (about enough for 375 million phone calls); a single points” potentially vulnerable to attack, such as Wall Township,
undersea cable contains anywhere up to 200 such fibres. By way a small town in New Jersey where five major cables come ashore.
of context, eight fibre-optic strands could transfer the entire
contents of the Bodleian Library across the Atlantic in about 40 Have any cables been threatened?
minutes. Some new cables, such as the Asia-America Gateway Just last month, the head of the UK’s Armed Forces, Admiral Tony
cable, which links California to the Philippines and Southeast Radakin, warned that Russian submarine activity is threatening
Asia, stretch to more than 10,000 miles in length. underwater cables and that the Kremlin has “grown the
capability” to exploit them. Russia, through its Main Directorate
Why are they a subject of concern? of Undersea Research, probes cables using vessels such as the
Because of their vulnerability. To take an extreme recent example: research ship Yantar, equipped with submarines and undersea
in January, a volcanic eruption severed the single cable to Tonga, drones thought to be capable of cutting or tapping cables. Last
cutting off all communications to the summer, it was tracked in a position
Pacific island for five days. Phone The first transatlantic cable around transatlantic cables off the
contact has now been restored, via coast of Ireland; a month later, it
The first submarine cables date back to the mid
satellite, but normal internet service was in the English Channel.
19th century. In 1840, Samuel Morse, the inventor
has still not been reinstated. Damage of Morse code, threw his weight behind them and,
occurs fairly regularly: an estimated by 1850, a link had been laid from Britain to France. What can be done about this?
100 to 150 cables are severed every Seven years later, a first attempt at a transatlantic A number of concrete proposals have
year, the vast majority due to fishing cable failed when the link broke; but the team been put forward. One option is to
equipment or anchors. Usually, the behind it were undaunted and, a year later, tried establish “cable protection zones”,
system has enough slack in it to deal again. In July 1858, two ships – HMS Agamemnon which would ban certain types of
with such damage: most nations are and the USS Niagara – met in the middle of the anchoring and fishing, and require
connected by scores of fibre-optic Atlantic, attached their respective cables to each greater disclosure by vessels inside
other, and headed in opposite directions. Niagara
cables, so if one or two are damaged, them. Other solutions include
docked in Newfoundland on 4 August, and
data can be rerouted without Agamemnon arrived on the west coast of Ireland updating international law around
disruption. But problems do occur. In the next day. Eleven days later, Queen Victoria sent cables, and establishing treaties
2008, three cables linking Italy and US President James Buchanan the first transatlantic that would criminalise foreign
Egypt were accidentally cut, causing telegram. Taking 17 hours and 40 minutes to reach interference. Nato has held exercises
data connectivity between Europe its destination, it was the fastest message ever to be to hone potential responses to an
and the Middle East to plummet, sent between Washington and London and was attack on infrastructure. So-called
with knock-on effects for American met with a reply from Buchanan expressing hope “dark cables” – or backup systems
military operations in Iraq. that the link would prove “a bond of perpetual – could also be built to increase
peace and friendship between the kindred nations”.
resilience in the global network. But
Alas, the triumph was short-lived: the cable failed a
How could this affect the UK? few weeks later. A reliable transatlantic link was it’s clear that much more needs to be
Britain, unlike Tonga, is connected to finally established in 1866. done to protect a critical part of the
the rest of the world by around 60 infrastructure of modern life.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

14 NEWS Best articles: Britain
This May, the Queen will notch up 70 years on the throne,
making her Europe’s longest-ever serving monarch after Louis IT MUST BE TRUE…
Time to put XIV. She has performed the role admirably, says Simon Jenkins,
and her platinum jubilee will rightly be celebrated. Yet might this
I read it in the tabloids

your feet up, not also be a perfect moment for her to retire? “Any reasonable
person would recommend retirement from active work for a
A man from New York State
has launched a legal battle to

ma’am woman of her age.” But abdication has been a dirty word since
Edward VIII’s enforced departure, and the Queen apparently
keep hold of his “emotional
support” pig. Wyverne Flatt
says his Vietnamese pot-
Simon Jenkins regards it as her sacred duty to carry on. Ultimately, though, she bellied pig Ellie helped him
performs a “constitutional function”, which as a 95-year-old she through a divorce and his
The Guardian will increasingly struggle to fulfil. Rather than battling on, risking mother’s death; but officials
the uncertainty that dogged Queen Victoria’s last years, why not in his village, Canajoharie,
hand over to Prince Charles? It would get his reign off to an easier say he’s keeping a farm
animal at home in defiance of
start if it came as a planned transfer, blessed by his mother, rather
local zoning laws. Flatt could
than during a period of mourning in which he faced a “deluge of now face a criminal trial – but
comparisons”. “The Queen’s early retirement should be seen not he won’t yield. “I could never
as an ‘abdication’, but as prudent, considerate common sense.” dream of giving away
somebody who’s part of my
Who would have guessed that a 99-year-old pensioner could raise family,” he said. “I think she
£32.8m for the NHS by walking round his garden? Captain can kind of home in on you
The perils Sir Tom Moore had an amazing impact, says Henry Mance, and
his legacy lives on in the foundation set up in his name. But the
when you’re feeling bad
because she’ll want to come

of viral charity is now mired in controversy, because it has emerged

that it received £1m in donations in its first year, but only gave
in and snuggle.”

fundraising £160,000 away; it spent £162,000 on management and paid tens

of thousands to companies controlled by Captain Tom’s daughter,
Henry Mance Hannah Ingram-Moore. The story illustrates “the pitfalls of viral
fundraising”. Charities are always vulnerable to inefficiency, but
Financial Times social media exacerbates this, resulting in some causes being
swamped with more money than they can handle. It was the same
story with the Ice Bucket Challenge for the ALS motor neurone
charity. Ingram-Moore wants to build on her father’s legacy,
creating a Captain Tom Day to celebrate old people, similar to
Children in Need and Comic Relief. It’s a nice idea, but “those
organisations have built up safeguards”. Hers needs them too.

The Tories still think of themselves as a low-tax party, says

Duncan Weldon, but they’re not – and they won’t be again any
High-tax time soon. The UK tax take is set to rise to its highest level since
the 1950s by the middle of this decade. That’s partly down to the
A British tourist has had his
false teeth returned to him,
Britain is here impact of Covid disruption, but things were heading this way
even before the pandemic hit or the free-spending Boris Johnson
11 years after losing them on
a boozy night in Benidorm.
to stay took over. It’s a consequence of weaker economic growth,
combined with the Tories’ reliance on the swelling ranks of older
Paul Bishop, 63, said he was
“gobsmacked” when the
voters. While these voters may support a small state in theory, dentures he’d lost while
Duncan Weldon
they don’t want cuts to the NHS, pensions or social care – areas vomiting into a bin in the
New Statesman that account for an ever-growing share of spending. They Spanish resort turned up at
represented less than a quarter of government spending in 1979, his home near Manchester.
when Margaret Thatcher took over, but will account for more His false teeth, it emerged,
than a third by the mid-2020s. That makes it all but impossible had been found on a landfill
for the Tories to cut taxes unless they’re willing to accept higher site and passed to the author-
government borrowing, which the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has ities. “Next thing you know,
ruled out. So ignore the Tories’ Thatcherite rhetoric. High taxes they have found my DNA
are “here to stay”. The only question now is who pays. and address,” he marvelled.

Ever wanted to smell like

Don’t get me wrong, says Martha Gill, I’m all for teaching boys chips? The Idaho Potato
and girls about equality. I just wish people would stop trying to Commission has the
Please stop do it by rewriting old stories. Disney is the prime offender here.
Over the past few years, it has remade a series of classic tales as
fragrance for you. “Frites by
Idaho”, made with distilled
modernising modern liberal parables. In its Aladdin, for instance, an ambitious
Jasmine sings about how she “won’t be silenced” and goes on to
potatoes and oils, was made
for Valentine’s Day by the
fairy tales become the new sultan. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a fiercely
independent inventor. The problem with giving modern twists to
body charged with p
the US state’s most
promoting g

famous export. “This

Martha Gill these fables is that they all end up blandly similar. They also often
perfume is a great
at
end up being accidentally insensitive. The Princess and the Frog, gift for anyone
The Times for instance, features a black princess and is set in 1920s New who can’t
Orleans, but barely mentions the difficulties black characters refuse a French
would have faced then. For its forthcoming adaptation of Snow fry,” said IPC
White, Disney has cast a Latina actress in the title role; but it had boss Jamey
to be pointed out by the actor Peter Dinklage, who has a form Higham. The
of dwarfism, that having “seven dwarves living in a cave” is not $1.89-a- bottle
exactly progressive. Honestly, wouldn’t it be simpler to leave fairy perfume sold
out in days.
tales alone and just write some new stories?

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Best of the American columnists NEWS 15

The Capitol attack investigation: splitting the Republicans

Does beating a police officer with a
flagpole count as “legitimate political
discourse”? What about smearing
faeces on the walls of Congress? The
Republican National Committee
(RNC) suggested as much the other
day, said Jonah Goldberg in the Los
Angeles Times, when it voted to
censure the Republican representatives
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Their
crime? Daring to serve on the House of
Representatives committee investiga-
ting the 6 January attack on the US
Capitol – a probe that, according to
the RNC resolution, is a “Democrat- Cheney: censured by her own party
led persecution of ordinary citizens
engaged in legitimate political discourse”. What nonsense.
Thousands of people attended the pre-riot rally outside the US
Capitol, and none of them are “being persecuted”. The RNC is
a body of “boosters, has-beens and other party strivers” whose
main role is to draft a party platform (or manifesto). But these
officials now seem to “think their job is to whitewash an
attempted coup and provide fodder for Democratic ads”.
The liberal media is certainly making the most of this story,
said Mollie Hemingway in The Federalist, but it’s distorting
the facts. Of course the RNC doesn’t think rioting is legitimate
political discourse. It was condemning
the fact that the 6 January probe isn’t
just going after rioters; it has also
subpoenaed people who weren’t
rioting – who weren’t in Washington.
What started as an inquiry has
become an “inquisition”, with
pro-Trump Republicans booted off
it. Well, now the RNC resolution had
divided the party, too, said Aaron
Blake in The Washington Post. Mitch
McConnell, the leader of the Senate
Republicans, denounced it, and
called the Capitol attack a “violent
insurrection”. It shows how the party
has split between “a Jan. 6-revisionist,
Trump-y base” and a party leadership that “believes this stuff
is counterproductive, at best, and even just plain wrong”.
There’s a reason Trump’s allies want to discredit the probe, said
Michael S. Schmidt and Luke Broadwater in The New York
Times. It is taking an unprecedentedly aggressive approach,
using more than a dozen former federal prosecutors who have
deployed “tactics typically used against mobsters and terrorists”
to uncover evidence from Trump’s camp. The committee’s aim
is to find enough evidence to force the Justice Department to
bring charges against those who organised the attack.

In many ways, we’re lucky that the Covid pandemic didn’t hit 30 years ago, says Charles Lane.
America’s There were no mRNA-based vaccines back then; no smartphones to gather and disseminate data; no
Zoom to enable remote working. But in one major respect, America would have been better off then.
wake-up call In 1990, no US state had an adult obesity prevalence rate of over 15%. Today, by contrast, no US
state has an obesity rate under 20%; in 16 states it’s above 35%. Given that, after age, obesity is
on obesity one of the biggest risk factors for Covid, this helps explain why the US’s overall death rate from the
virus has been the highest in the world. Recent research suggests that if America’s national average
body-mass index were on a par with that of Denmark, a mid-ranking country, some 157,000 fewer
Charles Lane
Covid patients would have died in the US between the start of 2020 and the autumn of 2021. It’s
The Washington Post further evidence of the dire need to confront America’s weight problem. Why is the government still
subsidising the production of corn syrup and other parts of the country’s high-fat, heavily processed
diet? Why do federal food grants for needy families still cover the purchase of cake and fizzy drinks?
The first step to fighting the obesity epidemic is to stop “doing things that make it worse”.

Are the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement running a scam? It’s beginning to look that way,
says Peter Flaherty. Serious questions are being asked about the finances of the Black Lives Matter
Is Black Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), the main organisational outgrowth of the movement.
Lives Matter Attorneys-general in Washington state and California have demanded the group cease fundraising,
owing to its failure to file financial reports for 2020. The group’s charity registration is reportedly
corrupt? also out of compliance in several other states. It’s unclear exactly who is in charge of the group at
the moment. Co-founder Patrisse Cullors – “a self-avowed Marxist” who once called for “the end
of Israel” – abruptly quit last May, amid revelations about her purchase of four homes worth more
Peter Flaherty than $3m. She turned over the leadership to two associates, but it later emerged that they never took
up the roles owing to disagreements about their duties. BLMGNF has $60m in its coffers, but how
RealClearPolitics.com
this money is being spent, and at whose direction, is a mystery. “There is more transparency and
accountability in the operation of a local chapter of the Girl Scouts.” The “selective silence of
previously voluble woke corporate boards and national media pundits” on this issue is shameful.

Donald Trump learnt early on in his career that it’s easy to get away with flouting the law if you’re
We’ll never brazen enough, says David A. Graham. He brought that philosophy to the White House, where he
ignored rules on nepotism and financial transparency. It’s little surprise, then, to hear that he also
know the full ignored the Presidential Records Act, passed after Watergate, that requires all documents from an
administration to be preserved in order to create a historical record and avoid cover-ups. Reports
Trump story last week revealed that Trump destroyed many documents and took 15 boxes of records with him
to Mar-a-Lago containing, among other things, his correspondence with North Korean dictator
David A. Graham Kim Jong Un. Despite being repeatedly warned by White House lawyers to save documents, Trump
routinely tore papers up; staff would gather fragments and stick them together. It’s even claimed that
The Atlantic he clogged White House loos with discarded papers. As a result of his contemptuous disregard for
the rules, we’re left with what the former government official Donald Rumsfeld might have called
an “unknown unknown”. “Because there is no way of identifying what records Trump might have
destroyed or stolen, we’ll never know what we don’t know about the Trump presidency.”

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

16 NEWS Best articles: International
Ottawa under siege: the truckers’ revolt
Most Canadians were shocked and
saddened by the assault on the US
Capitol on 6 January last year, said
Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan in the
Toronto Star. We comforted ourselves,
however, with the knowledge that such
events could “never happen” in our
country, where “peace, order and good
government” prevail. Yet for the past
two weeks, it has been our own capital,
Ottawa, that has been “under siege”
by a “rag-tag group of occupiers”.
It began when a so-called “Freedom
Convoy” of truckers arrived in late
January to protest against the rule that Are Canadians at the mercy of a “mob”?
all truck drivers crossing Canada’s
borders must be vaccinated. But it has grown into a protest
against all Covid public health measures. “Anti-government
zealots”, right-wing extremists and thousands of truckers have
blocked streets with 18-wheelers, blared their horns at all hours, Times. There have been copycat demonstrations from France to
bullied journalists and harassed mask-wearers. This week, PM
Justin Trudeau declared a state of emergency, after the protests
spread to Vancouver and Toronto, and showed little sign of
dissipating. Canadians are at the mercy of a “mob”.
“Everyone should calm the hell down,” said Terry Glavin in the
National Post (Toronto). Yes, there’s been some “hooliganism”
in Ottawa, and it’s “appalling” that swastikas and confederate
flags have been spotted. But the idea
that all these protesters are dangerous
far-right lunatics is an overheated
fantasy. Most are peaceful, and polls
show that nearly half of vaccinated
Canadians sympathise with their
gripes. No wonder, said Karys Rhea
in Newsweek (New York). Canada’s
Covid response has been characterised
by astonishing “government
overreach”: witness the extraordinary
admission by its Public Health Agency
in December that it secretly tracked
data from 33 million devices monitor-
ing people’s movements in lockdowns.
I’m not surprised people are angry.
The protesters’ libertarian message has resonated far beyond
Canada’s borders, said Catherine Porter in The New York
New Zealand; US truckers want to stage a convoy of their own.
Funding has flowed in from abroad, particularly the US. These
protests were clearly “made in America”, said Andrew Cohen in
the Montreal Gazette. Their chants (“Freedom!”, “Don’t tread
on me!”), their outrage and their scepticism all come from the
US “messianic Right”. We have seen during the Trump years
where this will lead. Alas, it seems that as the US “descends into
chaos, the far-right wants to take down Canada too”.

AUSTRALIA It’s bad enough that the Great Barrier Reef is in such peril – now, we’re in danger of losing the koala
too, says Nick O’Malley. The Australian government recently listed the once-thriving marsupial as
Save the an endangered species across most of the east coast, following a sharp decline in numbers. In the late
19th and early 20th century, some eight million koalas were killed for fur; in recent years, they have
koala, before suffered from land-clearing and climate change. The eucalyptus trees they rely on for habitation and
food are vanishing, forcing more and more koalas to ground level where they’re hit by cars, exposed
it’s too late to predators, or can simply die of thirst. Many more are dying in worsening forest fires. Alas, all
this is entirely “in keeping with our stewardship of this continent and its creatures since European
The Sydney Morning Herald settlement. Australia has the worst record of mammalian extinction on Earth, and the rate of habitat
loss and extinctions is accelerating rather than slowing.” And while the fate of the reef is tied to
global CO2 emissions, the future of the koala rests “entirely in our own hands”. It’s not too late to
save the animals – but only if we act right now.

DENMARK Denmark is “not a playground” for German anti-vaxers, says Cornelius von Tiedemann. Ours was
the first EU nation to lift almost all Covid restrictions last month, the government declaring that it is
We don’t want no longer a “socially critical disease”. The move apparently pleased libertarians and “contrarians” in
Germany who shun Covid protocols and “fundamentally reject state restrictions”. Now, they’re said
Germany’s to be queuing up to settle in the Danish region of Nord-Schleswig, over the border from Germany.
Estate agents, schools and local authorities all report sharp rises in the numbers trying to move here.
anti-vaxers Great – we’re always happy to welcome newcomers. But these so-called “lateral thinkers” ought to
know what they’re letting themselves in for. Denmark was able to lift curbs only because people
Der Nordschleswiger followed them in the first place, not least by getting jabbed. Even when we disagree, we “appreciate
(Aabenraa) solidarity” and understand we’re a community. Indeed, Denmark’s never been a libertarian fantasy-
land. We have centralised data retention, big fines for traffic violations, “enormously high taxes”
and Google Street View peering onto every street corner. If that’s a problem, “turn around before
the border” – because once you cross it, “number-plate scanners are lurking everywhere”.

It’s tempting to complain about intrusive state surveillance, especially when it’s carried out by US
PORTUGAL security agencies, says Vitor Rainho – but there are times when we should be grateful. Last week,

Sometimes, it it emerged that Portuguese police had, at the last minute, foiled plans by an 18-year old student
to massacre his classmates – thanks to FBI agents monitoring the dark web. The agents saw him
makes sense to watching videos of school massacres, and found him in chat rooms bragging about plans to attack
fellow students at the University of Lisbon. A manhunt was launched. The information was sketchy,
violate privacy but by cross-referencing data on social media, the police were able to identify a suspect and raid his
home. There they found a small arsenal of knives and machetes, a crossbow and incendiary devices,
Jornal-I along with detailed plans for an attack. The student seems to have had no religious or political
(Lisbon) motive, and in the absence of links to radical groups in Portugal, he was under the police radar. It’s
unlikely, then, that we’ll hear many people griping about a “violation of privacy” this time. The case
shows how much we owe to people monitoring the internet for potential terrorist activity – in the US
and elsewhere. Without the benefit of their eyes and ears, terrorists could be making our lives “hell”.

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

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 Health & Science NEWS 19

What the scientists are saying…

Nuclear fusion breakthrough
The dream of a world with virtually
unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-
radiation energy came a step closer to
reality last week, when a European team
of scientists revealed that they had made
a “major breakthrough” in their attempts
to recreate nuclear fusion – the process
that powers the stars. As part of the Joint
European Torus (JET) experiment in
Oxfordshire, researchers generated 59
megajoules of heat during a five-second
burst of nuclear fusion. That is just enough
to boil about 60 kettles, but it is twice the
amount of energy previously produced,
back in 1997. “We’ve demonstrated that
we can create a mini star... and hold it there
for five seconds and get high performance,
which really takes us into a new realm,”
said one scientist. The experiment was
limited by the size of the machine, reports
New Scientist: five seconds is the most
JET’s copper-wire magnets can manage.
But it acted as a proof of concept, and
suggests that a far more powerful machine
being built in the south of France should
achieve its considerably more ambitious
goals, when it opens in 2025.
A warning to paracetamol users
People who regularly use paracetamol
could be at a higher risk of heart disease
and strokes, a randomised control trial has
suggested. Researchers at the University of
Edinburgh gave 110 volunteers with a
history of high blood pressure one gram
of paracetamol four times a day, for two
weeks – a dose often prescribed to patients
with chronic pain. The patients then took a
placebo for another two weeks. The results
during the paracetamol period showed a
“small but meaningful” rise in their blood
pressure – an increase that could raise the
risk of heart disease or stroke by about
JET: delivering proof of concept
20%. The authors of the study, published
in the journal Circulation, stressed that
occasional paracetamol use was not a
cause for concern, but advised that doctors
treating chronic pain with the drug should
opt for the lowest effective dose for the
shortest possible time, and “keep a closer
eye” on patients with high blood pressure.
Sleep longer to lose weight
Sleeping for an hour more every night
could help overweight people shed excess
pounds, a small clinical trial has suggested.
Researchers at the University of Chicago
recruited 80 overweight adults who
normally slept for less than six-and-a-half
hours a night. Half of them were given
“sleep hygiene” counselling to help them
sleep longer, and on average they got an
extra 72 minutes of shut-eye each night.
The rest received no counselling and
continued sleeping as normal. The study,
published in the journal JAMA, found that
participants who had been helped to
extend their sleep ate significantly less than
those in the control group, equivalent to
about 270 fewer calories a day. Sustained
over three years, this reduction could lead
people to lose around 12kg, the researchers
said. “Many people are working hard to
find ways to decrease their caloric intake
to lose weight,” said researcher Dr Esra
Tasali. “Just by sleeping more, you may
be able to reduce it substantially.” The
finding builds on previous studies which
have shown that being sleep-deprived can
affect appetite-regulating hormones such
as ghrelin.
Chronic illness linked to dementia
People who have two or more chronic
illnesses by the time they’re middle-aged
are more than twice as likely to develop
dementia, a study has found. Researchers
at University College London and the
University of Paris examined data on
10,000 people who enrolled in a long-term
study in the mid 1980s. During the 32-year
follow-up, 639 of them were diagnosed
with dementia. The researchers found
that the patients who had two or more
chronic conditions – including diabetes
and arthritis – by the age of 55 were
two-and-a-half times more likely to have
got dementia than those with no chronic
conditions. Having multi-morbidities
between the ages of 60 and 65 was also
linked to a 1.5-fold higher risk. The more
severe the illnesses, the stronger the link,
and for every five years younger a person
was when multi-morbidity occurred, up to
the age of 70, the risk of dementia stepped
up by 18%. “These findings highlight the
role of prevention and management of
chronic diseases over the course of
adulthood to mitigate adverse outcomes
in old age,” said the study’s authors.

Implants help the paralysed walk again Cancer survival rates

Three people who were paralysed from the waist
down have been able to walk again, thanks to
an implant surgically grafted onto their spines.
Developed by neuroscientists in Switzerland, the
implant works by delivering electrical pulses to
nerves in the spinal cord that control muscles
in the legs and torso. These pulses are in turn
controlled by software linked to a tablet, that
can be instructed by the user to deliver particular
movements.
One of the first to benefit was Michel Roccati,
whose spinal cord was severed in a motorbike
accident in 2017. Now, he can stand up from a
chair, walk around and go up stairs. It’s the first
time scientists have been able to restore this extent
of movement to a patient whose spinal cord has
been completely severed. The implant, which needs
now to go through larger trials, is still too complicated for everyday use; and it is not
a cure. “But it is a critical step to improve people’s quality of life,” said Prof Grégoire
© EUROFUSION
Michel Roccati: a critical step
Adults and children in England are living
for longer after being diagnosed with
cancer, and these increases are being
seen in almost all forms of the disease,
the NHS has reported. In 2002, about
78% of children with cancer survived
for five or more years; by 2019 that had
risen to 85%. In the past 15 years, there
have also been improvements in one-
year survival rates for adults with all
forms of cancer except bladder cancer.
The biggest improvement has been
among women with lung cancer: one-
year survival rates rose from 31.6%, for
those diagnosed between 2006 to 2010,
to 46% between 2015 and 2019. Five-
year survival rates also improved for
all cancers except bladder and colon
cancer. Adults with melanomas have the
highest survival rates: 90% of men and
95% of women are still alive five years

Courtine. “We are going to empower people. We are going to give them the ability to after diagnoses. Pancreatic cancers have
stand, to take some steps. It is not enough, but it is a significant improvement.” some of the lowest survival rates.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

20 NEWS
Pick of the week’s
Gossip
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a
right-wing Republican who
in the past subscribed to the
QAnon conspiracy theory,
isn’t happy with the police
presence in Washington.
Last week she lashed out at
the House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s “gazpacho police
spying on members of
Congress” – apparently
confusing the cold Spanish
soup with the Nazi Gestapo.
She was widely mocked, but
the podcaster Ken White
stood up for her, describing
Greene as “one of the most
constant and effective critics
of this adminestrone”.
Brooklyn Beckham, David
and Victoria’s son, has a
new cookery show, Cookin’
With Brooklyn, in which he
shows off dishes including
a fish and chip sandwich.
There’s only one problem,
the New York Post reported:
he can’t actually cook. In
fact, the 22-year-old is said
to rely on a team of 62
people to help him, along
with an illustrated “cheat
sheet” to explain terms like
“whisk” and “parboil” on
the show – each episode of
which costs $100,000. “He
is to cooking what [his
mother] Posh was to
singing,” said a source.
Joe Biden is famously proud
of his Irish heritage; and his
mother’s background meant
she had strong views on the
English, a new book reveals.
In an autobiography, British
writer Georgia Pritchett
recalls meeting Biden, then
vice-president, who told her
that his mother visited
England and spent a night
in a hotel where the Queen
had once stayed. “She was
so appalled that she slept on
the floor all night, rather
than risk sleeping on a bed
that the Queen had slept
on,” Pritchett wrote.
THE WEEK 19 February 2022
Talking points
Brexit: in search of opportunities
“Only Boris can save Brexit?
Bollocks. Only Boris can f***
Brexit up now.” So one
arch-Eurosceptic Tory raged
to me the other day, said Tom
Newton Dunn in the London
Evening Standard – and there
are plenty of others in the
party who feel much the same
way. They believe that, two
years after the UK formally
departed from the EU, the
Government is still failing
to take full advantage of the
country’s new freedoms. There
have been too few trade deals,
not enough divergence from
EU standards, not enough Rees-Mogg: reaching out to The Sun had remained inside the bloc,
scrapping of Brussels red tape.
It was these arch-Eurosceptics that put Johnson
into No. 10, and they have the power to bring
him down. Hence the PM’s desperate efforts to
placate them with last week’s mini reshuffle, in
which he appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg to the
new role of Minister for Brexit Opportunities.
Finding these new opportunities is proving
tricky, said Jonathan Freedland in The
Guardian, which may be why one of Rees-
Mogg’s first acts in his new role was to appeal
to readers of The Sun to write in to him with
suggestions of “ANY petty old EU regulation
that should be abolished”. Alas, it’s a doomed
quest. The downsides of Brexit grow more
glaring by the day: the Public Accounts
Committee reported last week on the “clear
Covid-19: is the pandemic over?
“It was an extraordinary way to end nearly
two years of restrictions and lockdowns,” said
Will Hutton in The Guardian. There were no
“explanatory briefings” from the Chief Medical
Officer or Scientific Adviser, or UK-wide
consultations. Instead, the PM simply told “a
surprised House of Commons” that he would
unilaterally lift all Covid restrictions in England
on 24 February, a month ahead of time. Any
requirement to self-isolate if testing positive
will end. Wearing masks? Social distancing?
Working from home? All over. Worryingly
little thought has been given to public health
thereafter. A document called “Living With
Covid” has been promised for 21 February. It
is expected to set out the “scantest of strategies”
to contain the virus. Even free PCR testing, it
seems, is to end, along with the ONS infection
survey, which scans for “high-risk variants”.
This policy is crazy, said Victoria Richards in
The Independent. It’s sold as freedom, but it
means the exact opposite for the ill and
vulnerable: it’s just not fair to pass on this
disease “like a relay baton at sports day”.
Don’t do it then, said Andrew Lilico in The
Daily Telegraph. Just because self-isolation will
no longer be mandatory, doesn’t mean people
won’t have the “common sense” to stay at
home when they’re sick. This is a welcome step
increase in costs, paperwork
and border delays”; in a
business survey, more than
half of importers and exporters
complained about the
additional paperwork and
higher transport costs. The
upsides of Brexit, meanwhile,
all tend to prove illusory or
trivial on closer inspection.
There are some benefits to
Brexit, said John Rentoul in
The Independent. Our rapid
approval of Covid vaccines,
for instance, probably
wouldn’t have happened if we
even if there were no legal
obstacles preventing EU members from going
it alone. And you shouldn’t dismiss the desire
of the “vast majority of people in this country”
for domestic control of immigration policy.
In emerging areas such as artificial intelligence
and gene editing, the UK may be able to take
advantage of its greater independence, said the
FT. But the reality is that any such benefits will
be incremental and take time to accrue, as
Rees-Mogg himself once acknowledged: in 2018
he said it would take 50 years to feel the benefits
of Brexit. They won’t be delivered by trying to
whip up some instant bonfire of EU regulations.
“Charting a course after Brexit to benefit the UK
is possible, but requires sensible discussion and
painstaking mastery of detail.” There’s little
evidence of either in Johnson’s latest campaign.
towards “full normalisation”, especially since
cases and hospitalisations are now dropping
significantly. I agree, said Prof Karol Sikora
in the Daily Mail. Vaccinations have done
“outstanding work”. In February 2021, about
five infections in 100 proved fatal. Now it’s ten
in 2,000. But “two years of fear” have taken
“a terrible toll”, particularly among the young,
elderly and people with non-Covid conditions
that went undiagnosed because they were
too scared to go near hospitals or GPs.
“The Government needs instead to focus on
repairing the damage.”
So, officially, the pandemic is over, said Tom
Whipple in The Times – but the virus may have
other ideas. “There is genuine ambivalence”
within the Government’s scientific advisory
group, Sage, although few expect an immediate
surge in infections as a result: many sufferers are
likely to voluntarily self-isolate. Yet there are
still more than 1,000 Covid hospitalisations per
day in Britain. Of particular concern are the half
a million immunocompromised people for
whom any infection is much riskier. No official
strategy to protect them in the future, such as
offering access to antiviral drugs of the kind
used in the US, has been communicated. As
one campaigner put it, the plan seems to be:
“good luck, and God bless”.
 Talking points NEWS 21

Prince Andrew: vindication for his accuser? Wit &

Prince Andrew has “not
just completed his own
humiliating downfall, he
settlement certainly marks
a change of tone for the
prince. His “regrets” over
Wisdom
has brought about a truly his association with Epstein “In most things, success
shaming day for the entire are an improvement on his depends on knowing how
royal family”, said the Daily “car crash Newsnight long it takes to succeed.”
Mail. Only last month, the interview” in 2019, when Montesquieu, quoted
Duke of York defiantly told he said the connections he in Forbes
the world he would demand had made via the financier “The state of being envied is
a trial by jury to clear his were “actually very useful”. what constitutes glamour.”
name in the lawsuit that And by saying that he John Berger, quoted in
Virginia Giuffre had “never intended to malign The Times
brought against him, in Ms Giuffre’s character” and
which she claimed that he commending her bravery, “An old person suffers
had sexually assaulted her Andrew with Giuffre and Maxwell he has finally shown “some the loss of one of the
when she was 17 years old. of the empathy that has greatest human rights:
Now he has capitulated, paying a sum reported been lacking throughout this sorry saga”. (Only he is no longer judged
to be in the region of £10m to someone he in October last year, his lawyers had accused her by his equals.”
claims he has no memory of meeting – and of seeking “a payday at his expense”.) J.W. von Goethe, quoted
agreeing to “demonstrate his regret” for his on The Browser
association with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “Courtiers have long feared that the spectre of
“It is only the blind eye
by making a “substantial donation” to Giuffre’s the Queen’s second son being sued for sexual
of the adult that finds the
charity supporting sexual abuse victims. “He has assault would cast a deathly pall over the
familiar uninteresting.”
not admitted liability.” He hasn’t apologised. Queen’s platinum jubilee,” said Hilary Rose
Margaret Wise Brown,
“But in the court of public opinion, a pay-off in The Times. There will be sighs of relief from
quoted in The New Yorker
may be considered a confession of guilt.” the Palace that at least now that won’t happen.
But he remains a person of interest to the FBI “A clear conscience is the
“We will probably never know exactly how investigation into Epstein. “What Prince sure sign of a bad memory.”
much it took to make the Virginia Giuffre Andrew’s future looks like is now unclear.” Not Mark Twain, quoted
case go away, once and for all,” said Camilla really, said Stephen Bates in The Guardian. It’s on RedBubble.com
Tominey in The Daily Telegraph. But a clue over for him as a royal. His behaviour, and his
was given by her lawyer David Boies in January, handling of the allegations against him, have “The bad news is time
when he said that it wasn’t about the money for cost the prince everything – “his much-prized flies. The good news is
his client – but “if you had a settlement that was position on palace balconies, his perks, all his you’re the pilot.”
large enough to be, in effect, a vindication, then military ranks, titles and honorifics”. His Entrepreneur Michael
it’s something we would obviously look at”. The banishment from public life is “complete”. Altshuler, quoted in
Reader’s Digest

Country manners: “be nice and share” “Grief is the inevitable

and worthy burden of
loving another.”
The traditional response is to and pleasant land has been Joanne Cacciatore in
yell “Get off my land!”, said engaged in its own battle”. The Guardian
Sarah Hussain in the Eastern People who were denied
Daily Press. But under new foreign holidays, with free “A bad rendition of you is
guidance, farmers are being time on their hands thanks better than a good rendition
advised to ask trespassers if to the furlough, flooded the of somebody else.”
they are lost, and to offer to countryside. “They’ve cycled, Willie Dixon, quoted in
help them on their way. The run, dog-walked and rambled. The Economist
advice, part of the updated They’ve double parked, “Our knowledge can only
Countryside Code, was littered, left dog mess bags be finite, while our
published by Natural England A stile: on the way out? hung on hedges.” It’s the ignorance must necessarily
last week. It instructs townies, not the farmers, that be infinite.”
landowners to make rights of way more really need the guidance. Many seem unaware Karl Popper, quoted in
accessible, to use “friendly language” on signs, that most of the countryside is privately owned, The Sunday Times
and not to put up “misleading signage, such as even in national parks. Awful attacks on
‘bull in field’, if it is not true”. On footpaths, the livestock are “rocketing”. “Never has the gulf
guidance suggests, stiles should be swapped for between town and country been greater.”
“accessible self-closing gates”. If dogs are Statistics of the week
worrying livestock, farmers should calmly “ask “Everyone should be able to wander in the Three in ten UK students last
the owner to recall or catch their dog, chase the countryside,” said Alice Thomson in The Times. year were studying either a
dog out of the area or scare it away”; dogs are “Farmers need to remember that they are medicine-related subject, or
to be shot only as a “last resort”. The Code also custodians of the land”: they certainly should business and management.
advises visitors to be “considerate to those living make footpaths accessible, be polite to strangers, Higher Education
in, working and enjoying the countryside”, and put up a few helpful hints to stop them Statistics Agency
adding: “Be nice, say hello, share the space.” “being trampled by heifers”. But it should work One in 42 homes in Britain is
both ways. “Farmers aren’t employed by Disney worth £1m or more. In the
It’s a good time “to start a new chapter in the – the countryside isn’t a theme park.” Walkers Southeast it is one in 24, in
countryside’s relationship with the general must realise that crops and livestock are “a London one in 11.
public”, said Sarah Todd in The Yorkshire farmer’s livelihood”. So “keep your dog on a The Sunday Times/Savills
Post. During the pandemic, “Britain’s green lead and always remember to shut the gate”.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

22 NEWS
Winter Olympics: heavy snowfall disrupts the Games
It was the last thing anyone expected, said Tom
Whipple in The Times. At the Beijing Winter
Olympics, last Sunday, it “began to snow”. It’s
often very cold in northeast China in winter,
but actual snow is a rarity, which is why these
Games are the first in history to rely completely
on the artificial kind. They may be “the greatest
celebration of snow sports on the planet”, but
genuine snow wasn’t part of the plan. And
when it did materialise its effect was disruptive,
as the fresh snow falling on the icier artificial
kind caused surfaces to become unstable.
Several events had to be postponed or
cancelled; thousands of staff were sent to clear
snow from competition courses; and when events
did go ahead, there were many more crashes and
disqualifications than usual. Alexander: making history
Not everyone, however, was disadvantaged, said Michael Hincks
on Eurosport.com. Benjamin Alexander, Jamaica’s first-ever
Alpine Olympic skier, achieved a position in the men’s giant
slalom – 46th – that was far higher than expected. True, the
38-year-old former DJ, who lived in Britain for much of his life
before moving to Wyoming when he took up skiing six years
ago, came last of the skiers who actually completed the course –
finishing 32 seconds behind the 45th placed competitor. But, due
in part to the poor weather, 41 skiers didn’t make it to the bottom Britain’s Olympic teams”.
Sport
at all. “I’ve performed better than some of the
best in the world,” Alexander exulted afterwards.
“They crashed, and that’s a fact.” The skier
added that his two ultra-cautious runs down
the slope – in conditions, admittedly, of severely
restricted visibility – were “for everyone who
thinks they don’t belong in skiing”.
For Team GB, these Games have so far proved
an unbridled disappointment, said Owen Slot in
The Times. Look at the medal table, and “you
wouldn’t see anything to suggest that the British
team have even arrived”. The last time Britain
failed to win a single medal at a Winter Olympics
was more than 30 years ago, in 1990; at each of
the last two Winter Olympics, Britain has
managed five medals. At this point, three medals
“looks ambitious”. It’s too early to write Team
GB off, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. Several of the events
where its best chances lie – including the men’s curling and the
four-man bobsleigh – take place on the final weekend. And in any
case, a medal-less showing Beijing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“It might encourage UK Sport to ask what it can do better” –
including restoring Team GB’s “tech advantage”, which it has
arguably recently squandered, and finding ways to deepen its
talent pool, as well as tackling “the chronic lack of diversity in

Football: Man United’s Rangnick revival fails to materialise

When Ralf Rangnick arrived at Manchester
United in November, he was “meant to be an
upgrade” on Ole Gunnar Solskjær, said Josh
Wright in The Guardian. The club’s previous boss
had been “questioned and mocked throughout his
time in charge”, in part because of his inexperience
as a top-level manager. No one, by contrast, could
accuse the “godfather of gegenpress” – as the
63-year-old Rangnick is known – of being a
lightweight. “Big things were expected.” Yet three
months into the German’s tenure, it’s hard to see
what difference he has made. United’s form hasn’t Rangnick: should be worried? seems the team can maintain Rangnick’s favoured
noticeably improved: they’ve won just three of
their last seven Premier League games, and drew 1-1 against
bottom-placed Burnley. They are consistently struggling to find
the net: all their main strikers appear out of sorts, and Cristiano
Ronaldo was goalless for six games – his longest drought for 13
years. For now, United remain within touching distance of an all-
important top four place, but with fixtures against
Manchester City, Tottenham and Liverpool
coming up, “Rangnick should be worried”.
One puzzling aspect of United’s recent form is that
they keep squandering half-time leads, said Carl
Anka on The Athletic. In three of their recent
games, they have “gone in at half-time leading 1-0
and playing well, only to reach the 65th minute
with the score tied at 1-1”. This week saw a partial
recovery, with a 2-0 win against Brighton. But it
playing style only for so long before fatigue and
indiscipline set in. United is a club which considers itself “elite
level”, yet is currently anything but, said Paul Hirst in The Times.
The most expensive private boxes at Old Trafford, in the Sir Alex
Ferguson Stand, cost a staggering £210,000 a year. At what point
do the owners of such boxes think: “is this really worth it?”

Golf: beer cans stop play Sporting headlines

The golf tournament that takes
place each year at Scottsdale,
Arizona, has long officially been
called the Waste Management
Open, on account of it being
sponsored by a rubbish disposal
firm. Last Saturday, it lived up to
its name, said James Corrigan in
The Daily Telegraph: play had to
be halted for 15 minutes while
beer cans and bottles flung by Scottsdale: living up to its name air in celebration and littered
fans were cleared from the
green and fairway at the 16th hole. The torrent
of detritus was provoked by the sight of Sam
Ryder, the world’s 261st-ranked player, hitting
a hole in one. “Aces”, though rare in golf, do
happen from time to time at Scottsdale’s
16th, which is only 124 yards long and is
nicknamed “The Coliseum”, on account of
being “completely enclosed by grandstands”.
The last player to achieve the
feat, Francesco Molinari, did
so in 2015.
On Saturday, the 17,000
spectators certainly didn’t hold
back when Ryder’s wedge shot
tumbled in after bouncing a
couple of times, said Stephen
M. Lepore in the Daily Mail.
They threw their “drinks in the
the turf with bottles, cans and
cups”.“We might have a slight rain delay here,”
one commentator quipped. The next day,
astonishingly, the feat was repeated by
Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz, again prompting an
“abundance of tossed beer cans”, said Bob
Harig in Sports Illustrated. The last time two
players aced at Scottsdale was in 1997 – one
being a 21-year-old Tiger Woods.
American Football LA Rams
won the Super Bowl for the
second time, beating
Cincinnati Bengals 23-20.
Rugby union England beat
Italy 33-0 in their second
match of the Six Nations.
Wales beat Scotland 20-17,
and France beat Ireland 30-24.
Cricket England’s pace
bowler, Stuart Broad, said
he’d been “blindsided” by the
“unjust” decision to drop him
for England’s tour of the West
Indies. Fellow bowler Jimmy
Anderson was also omitted.
Winter Olympics The Russian
ice skater Kamila Valieva,
who failed a drugs test, was
cleared to compete.

THE WEEK 19 February 2022


Pick of the week’s correspondence
The sins of…
To The Daily Telegraph
Calls to have the memorial to
Tobias Rustat removed from
the chapel of Jesus College,
Cambridge, as it might upset
people, sidestep the fact that
a chapel is not a place where
people should feel comfortable,
but one where sins are
confessed and forgiveness
offered. Such confession and
forgiveness encompass the
whole of humankind, past and
present, including slave traders
and members of the Church.
The Rev H. Beverley Tasker,
Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire
Health tax relief
To The Daily Telegraph
Tax relief on private health
insurance makes sense.
Facing a two-year wait for
a knee operation, I opted to go
private. My experience – three
weeks between consultation
and operation, excellent
attention and up to six months
of physiotherapy included – led
me to recommend the same
course to several friends, who
were equally enthusiastic.
We must have saved the
NHS thousands and freed up
hospital time. Tax relief for
private health insurance
would be a great incentive for
people like me to help relieve
the NHS of what seems an
insurmountable burden.
Barry Gibbs, Wimborne, Kent
Internees remembered
To The Guardian
I read with great interest the
excerpt from Simon Parkin’s
book, Island of Extraordinary
Captives, about Britain’s use of
internment in the Second
World War. One extreme case
of abuse and insult not
mentioned, although it may
appear in the book, is the case
of the troopship HMT Dunera,
which transported “enemy
aliens” to camps in Australia.
My father, Sigmund
Kirstein, was among the
internees: a man in his 50s who
had managed to reach Britain
in 1939. The conditions on the
Dunera and the abuse of the
internees are a matter of
record. Several of the crew
were court-martialled after a
journey of 57 days with 2,740
men incarcerated in a vessel
meant for 1,600 troops. The
internees suffered physical
● Letters have been edited
LETTERS 23
Letter of the week many examples that could be
emulated by businesses today.
Too many cooks at No. 10 John Kimberley, Kingshurst,
West Midlands
To The Daily Telegraph
As a member of Lady Thatcher’s Policy Unit in 1982 and The road to nowhere
1983, I was amazed to read that there are now 400 staff in To The Spectator
Downing Street. We in the Policy Unit were seven. There was Toby Young’s dismay at the
also Alan Walters (economics) and Alan Parsons (foreign new Highway Code rules and
affairs). Then there was the principal private secretary and the apparent bias against car
four other private secretaries; about four in the press office drivers is understandable, but I
under Bernard Ingham; two in the political office; about four think he misses one important
in the honours section; about ten Garden Girls (the point. We are not one category
secretaries); and four or five members of security and police. of road user but many. So
There was no chief of staff or director of communications. sometimes I’m a motorist,
The principal private secretary was in charge, and small sometimes a cyclist and
flexible groups, sometimes with the prime minister, were the sometimes a pedestrian. What
most efficient way to discuss issues and crises, and come to we need on our roads is mutual
immediate conclusions. We in the Policy Unit had direct links respect, not tribalism.
to ministers. Two of us were seconded from industry and we Paul Larsmon, Burbage,
had one civil servant – David Willetts. Thus the influence of Wiltshire
the special advisers was not that great.
Having a prime minister’s department has been much Country manners
discussed and written about over the years but is always To The Times
dismissed as unworkable. You report that farmers are
David Pascall, London being encouraged to be more
friendly to visitors in guidance
abuse, verbal insults, shortage believe, “we also make less published under the
of food and water – and, money when prices are low”. Countryside Code (“Yoo-arr
according to my late father, Such deep business insights very welcome”). It is perhaps
the worst of all was that there alone justify the doubtless true that walkers rarely mean
were only ten toilets for more enormous remuneration that to trespass, but their reaction
than 2,000 men. The internees’ BP pay him. While you’re at it, when it is politely pointed out
possessions were looted, and your Rome correspondent is frequently incredibly rude.
anything not considered to might like to investigate Over the past five years of
be of value was thrown rumours I have heard that the farming, the stand-out
overboard. Many of the men Pope is a Catholic. reactions when I have told
were Orthodox Jews, and their David Terry, Droitwich, people that they are walking
prayer books and prayer Worcestershire where they shouldn’t are my
shawls were also consigned to being advised that I was wrong
the waves by their guards. On Sweet side of capitalism and needed to take legal advice
arrival, the men were interned, To The Times on trespass, and being aggres-
mostly at Hay in New South For most of the 20th century, sively informed that I needed
Wales, in very harsh conditions the Cadbury company to be a man to require a person
but, like the internees on the represented the best of British not to stray off the footpath.
Isle of Man, they rallied and employers, retaining a special The signs we erect to tell
did their best to overcome the fondness among its past people where and when they
hardships. employees. And a walk around can’t roam are often vandalised
My father returned to the “Factory in a Garden” in or ripped out. I am normally
Britain to be reunited with his Bournville shows why. A well- too far away to try to stop
wife in Llanelli, but carried the planned village was developed quad bikes that are trespassing
trauma of his ordeal by an employer that always on my land, or to speak to
throughout his life. It is good cared more about its employees parents who allow their
to see that a book about the than the profits it generated. children to run through crops.
dark chapter of “enemy aliens” Cadbury’s was not alone: Philippa Hart, Royston,
during the Second World War Joseph Rowntree, Jesse Boot, Hertfordshire
is now published. William Lever, and
Yehudit Kirstein Keshet, Israel Thomas Hunter and
George Palmer all
It goes without saying provided good pay, a
To the Financial Times good environment and
The amazing news that BP is a measure of care and
against paying a windfall tax respect for their
rightly merited a headline on employees. Business
your front page. And the history seems to be
report itself included a further rarely taught these
dramatic revelation when you days, but a trawl
quote the chief executive, through a range of
Bernard Looney, saying “we British companies from “We have nothing affordable. Can
make more money when prices the late 19th and early you come back in the past?”
are high’’ and, would you 20th centuries provides
© THE SPECTATOR
19 February 2022 THE WEEK
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or call Henry Haselock 020 3890 3900
 ARTS
Review of reviews: Books
Book of the week
One Party After Another
by Michael Crick
Simon & Schuster 608pp £25
The Week Bookshop £19.99
Despite never having become a British
MP, Nigel Farage is one of the most
“consequential” politicians of our
time, said Andrew Rawnsley in The
Observer. More or less single-handedly,
he transformed UKIP from an
“eccentric fringe into an insurgent
force” capable of panicking David
Cameron into pledging a referendum on Britain’s EU
membership. “Absent that referendum, there would have been
no Brexit” – and very likely no Boris Johnson premiership. In this
“gripping and vivid biography”, Michael Crick tells the story of
how a stockbroker’s son from Kent – who went to the elite
Dulwich College but never made it to university, after getting
mediocre A levels – came to play such a decisive role in British
politics. Comprehensively researched and full of “jaw-dropping”
stories, this is the “best biography of Farage that will be written”.
Crick appears to have read every secondary source available
and has “conducted an astonishing 300 interviews”, said David
Aaronovitch in The Times. The Farage who emerges is “tireless
and unembarrassable” – a “functioning alcoholic” with an ability
25
to go on an all-night bender and still
appear smiling the next day. Crick
details his epic philandering – “He’d
shag anything that let him”, a former
aide recalls – while also showing how
his “affable, clubbable good guy”
persona co-exists with a decidedly
ruthless streak. As leader of UKIP, he
“ran the party like a personal fiefdom”,
and was the “most talented feuder of
them all” in a field crowded with
plotters and back-stabbers.
It’s somehow not surprising, given
Farage’s recklessness, to learn that he
has “survived three near-death
experiences”, said David Runciman
in The Guardian. In his early 20s, he
“suffered a life-threatening car crash”, followed by a diagnosis
of testicular cancer. Then in 2010, a plane he was flying in for a
publicity stunt “got its banner caught in its tail fin and crashed
in a field”: Farage “emerged from the wreckage, bloodied but
relatively unbowed” – and made sure a photographer captured
the image. This book skilfully captures Farage’s “hybrid role,
simultaneously pivotal and yet also at one remove”, said Robert
Shrimsley in the FT. He had long been the country’s most vocal
opponent of the EU, but the Tories who hitched themselves to the
Brexit cause ensured that he was sidelined during the referendum
campaign itself. Gifted, mercurial and “sometimes reptilian”,
Farage may have been “key to getting the teams on the pitch” –
but he “had to watch the match being decided by others”.

Control
by Adam Rutherford Novel of the week
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 288pp £12.99 A Previous Life
The Week Bookshop £9.99 by Edmund White
Bloomsbury 288pp £18.99
“This is a short book about a big subject,” said The Week Bookshop £14.99
Katy Guest in The Guardian: a nuanced and
“persuasive” account of what Adam Rutherford Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Edmund White’s
calls the “dark history and troubling present of novels “forever enlarged what gay writing might
eugenics”. With an admirable lack of alarmism, do”, said Neil Bartlett in The Guardian. His
Rutherford, a geneticist, shows how the latest book – “his 30th, by my count” – is an
aspiration to craft society “by biological design” “elegant, filthy” work that “crackles with a
is one that has existed for millennia: Plato, for heartfelt insistence that the old and hungry”
instance, in his Republic, envisaged “inferior” still have much to tell us about “the dynamics
citizens being discouraged from breeding. The man regarded as the father of of sex”. In the year 2050, a married couple in
modern eugenics is the Victorian polymath Francis Galton (pictured), said Tim a remote Swiss chalet decide to entertain each
Adams in The Observer. His idea of “positive eugenics” (using selective breeding other by recounting their “previous sexual
to raise the calibre of humans) inspired disciples from across the political careers”. Constance, in her early 30s, is an
spectrum, including a young Winston Churchill, the liberal reformer William “African-American orphan”, while Ruggero,
Beveridge, and the birth-control pioneer Marie Stopes. But though eugenicist her husband, is an elderly bisexual Sicilian
ideas flourished in the early decades of the 20th century, they were dealt a aristocrat who is “legendarily well-connected
seemingly killer blow by the “genocidal atrocities” of the Nazis. (not to mention well hung)”.
Not quite, said Philip Ball in the FT: eugenicist ideas never really went away. As you’d expect, this novel is “elegantly
Even after the Second World War, enforced sterilisation persisted in many written”, and contains many “arresting images”,
countries. In California, the practice was only banned in prisons in 2014. And said Peter Parker in The Spectator – but it’s fairly
now, eugenics is being given a new boost by the emergence of modern genetics. “preposterous”. The leap forward in time is
In the near future, some predict, parents will be able to “choose” desirable traits merely a device allowing Ruggero to reminisce
in their children – either by selecting between screened embryos, or by editing about his affair 30 years earlier with the
their offspring’s genomes. Rutherford insists that such approaches are unlikely now-forgotten writer Edmund White, then old
to work, given the near-impossibility of discerning a specific trait from the and infirm: a “fat, famous slug”, he calls him.
fiendishly complex interactions of genes. But even if Rutherford is surely right to It is, however, all very entertaining.
call eugenics a “busted flush”, he’s also wise to warn of the dangers of a revival.
To order these titles or any other book in print, visit
theweekbookshop.co.uk or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835
Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

26 ARTS Drama & Podcasts
Theatre: The Chairs
Almeida Theatre, London N1 (020-7359 4404). Until 5 March Running time: 1hr 45mins (approx.) ★★★★
It’s 25 years since London “edge of vaudevillian slapstick
was treated to Théâtre de to the Beckett-like bleakness of
Complicité’s “superlative the couple’s existence”. And
account” of The Chairs, the together, the central pair
1952 “absurdist masterpiece” “weave pure magic”. They are
by Eugène Ionesco, said “spine-shiveringly good”, agreed
Dominic Cavendish in The Arifa Akbar in The Guardian –
Daily Telegraph. That version producing a “gloriously fizzy
starred Geraldine McEwan cocktail of slapstick, physical
and Richard Briers as the theatre and silliness”. This is
nonagenarian couple, marooned not “arch, head-scratching
on a water-logged island, and absurdism, but scintillatingly
fetching more and more chairs sad comedy”.
for a stream of invisible guests.
In this superb new Almeida Moment to moment, the play
production, which equals and is “exquisitely done”, said
perhaps even outshines the Magni and Hunter: “spine-shiveringly good” Dominic Maxwell in The Times.
1997 show, the leads are two But ultimately, it seems rather
Complicité veterans: Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni. “For empty: a journey down a dated “metatheatrical cul-de-sac” that
casually brilliant buffoonery and sweet grotesquery, Hunter and soon wears thin “over two hours, no interval”. Can a night at
Magni, dressed to the nines in a buttoned-up archaic fashion, the theatre be both “tremendous and torturous”? Bold and
make an unbeatable double-act.” And they are well served by distinctive, yet also deadening? “It absolutely can.”
another Complicité alumnus, Toby Sedgwick, as the intrusive
stage-hand who makes “multiple funny-business interruptions”. The week’s other opening
The Da Vinci Code Coventry Belgrade Theatre until 26 February,
This is the theatre of the absurd at its “most absurdist”, said then touring until 12 November
Sarah Crompton on What’s on Stage. Director (and translator) Directed by Luke Sheppard and starring Nigel Harman, this show
Omar Elerian has added new layers of stage business and chaos. represents a “decent crack” at staging Dan Brown’s compulsive
At the start, we hear Magni (Hunter’s real-life husband) over the conspiracy thriller. Its chief strengths lie in its impressive visual
tannoy having a pre-show attack of nerves and refusing to go on. effects, stagecraft and striking design (Guardian).
The interventions from Sedgwick’s hangdog stage manager add an

Podcasts... insights into dating, and more Stephen Fry

The new US podcast This Is Dating
bills itself as a series of recordings
of first dates, but it’s “way more
interesting than that”, said Fiona
Sturges in the FT. It’s made by the
team behind the hit podcast Where
Should We Begin? with Esther Perel,
which listens in on couples’ therapy
sessions. And although This Is
Dating “isn’t nearly as brutal” as
that – it has a more “fun and hopeful
vibe” – it offers the same compelling
mix of eavesdropping and analytical
insight. There is a “fascinating” gulf
between what the listener hears and
the participants’ own interpretations
of how the dates went; and Logan
Ury, a behavioural scientist and
dating coach, is on hand to discuss
what might be hampering their
quests for love. But it is all very
gently done: no one is “hung out to dry” – and “we all emerge
a little wiser about the nuances of human relationships”.
Guides to modern life: Mona Chalabi and Pandora Sykes
of the books I own, and on about half the podcasts I review. My
mind was one of the last havens unoccupied by Fry.” What next,
to explore common questions about
how we live our lives: how long it
takes to get over a break-up; how
many friends one ought to have,
and so on. The idea is to extract
“meaningful life advice from hard
data” – a tricky feat that Chalabi
accomplishes with expert help
from doctors, psychologists and
scientists; there are also “charming
interludes” from her own mother,
a retired medic.
When I heard about the new
Audible podcast Stephen Fry’s
Inside Your Mind, it “was hard
to avoid the thought that I do not
want Stephen Fry inside my mind”,
said James Marriott in The Times.
The ubiquitous polymath is already
“on my TV, on the blurbs of most
© HELEN MURRAY; LIZZY JOHNSTON; EVA K. SALVI

I wonder? “Stephen Fry’s Suddenly Turned Up in Your Kitchen?

In Doing It Right, a podcast spin-off from her bestselling essay Stephen Fry’s Now Sleeping at the Foot of Your Bed?” Still, the
collection How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?, the podcast is impressive: it’s an illuminating 12-part exploration
journalist and broadcaster Pandora Sykes interviews a range of of the human brain. The only trouble is that it is bedevilled by
thinkers about the “myths, anxieties and trends of modern life”, constant, unnecessary, over-elaborate and distracting sound
said Otegha Uwagba in The Guardian. The most recent season effects. By the time Fry got to the evolution of the brains of
is “especially rich”, covering topics including pornography, cavemen – accompanied by crackling flames and “improbably
hook-up culture and the future of work. Am I Normal? with sonorous subterranean echoes” – I felt as though I were in a
Mona Chalabi brilliantly uses statistics, charts and graphs game of “sound-effect bingo”.
Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Film ARTS 27
Kenneth Branagh’s “long coronavirally delayed” Agatha Christie adaptation has finally “puffed
effortfully into harbour”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Branagh reprises his role as the
“amply moustached” Poirot, last seen on the Orient Express, and now steaming his way down the
Nile. Among his fellow passengers are Linnet (Gal Gadot), a “glamorous heiress” travelling with her
new husband Simon, “unfortunately played” by the scandal-struck Armie Hammer, in what may be
his last movie role; Sophie Okonedo as a jazz singer and Letitia Wright as her manager; and Dawn
French and Jennifer Saunders, playing a rich socialist and her lady’s maid. After one of these
travellers is offed, the murder mystery “grinds into action, bringing up in due course more dead
bodies like the ship’s paddle wheel” – but with no sense of crescendo or climax.
Death on The real mystery here, said Charlotte O’Sullivan in the London Evening Standard, is why Branagh
the Nile strayed so far from the source text, to such sentimental effect. Poirot here isn’t the “persnickety”
detective we know and love, but a man “scarred in every sense” by his experiences in the First World
2hrs 7mins (12A) War. He cries; he falls in love. “This is the Belgian detective as we’ve never seen him before. And,
frankly, as I have no wish to see him again.” The question that occurred to me, said Brian Viner
Starry but unsatisfying in the Daily Mail, isn’t “whodunnit, but why make it?” You may be “mildly engaged” as Poirot
Agatha Christie adaptation exercises the “little grey cells”. Ultimately, though, this handsome film is unlikely to delight anybody
★★ except the Egyptian Tourist Board – “at least not until it eventually pops up in the Christmas TV
schedules, when it will be just perfect for a post-prandial snooze”.

This “unmissable” Danish animation received three Oscar nominations last week, which should
bump it up “a little higher on audience radars”, said Christina Newland in The i Paper. The film
tells the “anguish-ridden but ultimately hopeful true story” of Amin, a gay Afghan refugee who was
raised in Kabul, escaped the mujahideen as a young man in the 1980s, relocated to Soviet Russia,
and finally settled in Copenhagen “with a head full of haunting memories”. While archive footage is
woven in, most of the film unfolds in a “deliberately crude pencilled animation style” that manages
to convey Amin’s often horrifying experiences in a sensitive and “deeply humane” fashion.
This is a film that “simply wouldn’t have worked in any medium but animation”, said Robbie
Collin in The Daily Telegraph. Director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, who met Amin when they were
Flee at school together, reconstructs his friend’s life story “as a string of reminiscences, some flurried and
1hr 29mins (15) impressionistic, set down hot in a matter of moments, and others recorded with serene, Tintin-esque
precision”. Amin himself, whose real name is not disclosed, is “great company” throughout:
“unsparing, eloquent and self-effacing”. I found the whole thing “thrillingly unique”; both “achingly
Moving animated beautiful and humane”. The “serious cartoon for grown-ups genre” – think Persepolis or Waltz with
documentary about an Bashir – may have found its defining entry with this “affecting” documentary, agreed Kevin Maher
Afghan refugee in The Times. As the film proceeds, the “violations and emotional endurances” become almost
★★★★★ unbearable – yet the director unleashes a “climax of such bittersweet ecstasy that all but the hardest
hearts will shatter”. It ends in “tears of joy”; some Oscars would be “a fitting coda”.

Marry Me is not exactly a “future Sunday-afternoon romcom classic”, said Adam White in The
Independent, but it’s perfectly watchable stuff. Jennifer Lopez stars as Kat, a pop star who decides
to marry her equally famous boyfriend Bastian (played by the Colombian singer Maluma) during
a Madison Square Garden concert. “Mere seconds before she hits the stage”, however, Kat learns
that “he’s been cheating on her with her assistant”. Devastated, “but wearing an expensive wedding
dress”, she does “what any self-respecting publicity hound would do: she plucks a random audience
member from the crowd and marries him instead”. Luckily for her, maths teacher Charlie (Owen
Wilson) is a gentle divorcee with a cute child, and the pair fall in love “faster than you can say
Notting Hill”. Even for a romcom, the plot stretches credibility – but the film “just about gets
Marry Me away with it”, thanks to the “winsome chemistry” of the leading duo.
“On paper this shouldn’t really work,” said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. “The premise
1hr 52mins (12A) is slight and predictable and Lopez, at 52, and Wilson, at 53, are surely a little too old to properly
convince.” On screen, however, it’s a “treat”, helped along by “some lovely set pieces, a well-
Predictable but watchable polished screenplay and the fact that Lopez – obviously playing a version of herself – has always
Jennifer Lopez romcom been good at this sort of thing.” I’m afraid it didn’t charm me, said Edward Porter in The Sunday
★★★ Times. The film tries to glide over its unconvincing premise and shoddy structure “by virtue of
sheer, shmaltzy niceness”. A “much better idea would have been to include funny jokes”.

This is Going to Hurt: Ben Whishaw shines in a gory medical comedy

Adam Kay’s memoir about his time as an NHS
doctor sold about “a trillion copies in a million
languages”, said Deborah Ross in The Mail on
Sunday. This BBC adaptation of This Is Going To
Hurt is just as “gory, despairing, riveting, tender
and insightful” as the book. Ben Whishaw plays
Kay, a junior registrar grappling with the everyday
horrors of obstetrics and gynaecology (or, as it is
known, “brats and twats”). The show opens with
Kay waking in his car, having been “too tired”
to drive home the night before; very soon, the
medical incidents are piling up. The seven-part
© FINAL CUT FOR REAL
Cumming in The Independent; it’s refreshing to
see him “freed from the shackles of that claggy
franchise into a role better suited to his gifts”.
As Kay, he is by turns spiky and empathetic,
displaying impeccably fluent comic timing. If they
hadn’t cast Whishaw, said Camilla Long in The
Sunday Times, Kay might have come across as “a
steaming, angry failure” – his diaries do make him
seem like a “complete misogynist”. But Whishaw
is “funny and warm”, even as he navigates the
“war zone” of the hospital, portrayed here as a
“bottomless pit of piss-stained exhaustion”. I also

series is “unflinching” in a way most medical Whishaw: “funny and warm” loved the scenes with his mother (Harriet Walter),
dramas are not, “particularly in detailing the an “off-the-peg aristocratic lemon sucker” who
errors than can, and do, happen”. forced her son to become a doctor. “The BBC has made
Whishaw’s last outing was as Q in No Time to Die, said Ed something to be proud of.”

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

28 ARTS
Exhibition of the week Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child
Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (020-3879 9555, southbankcentre.co.uk). Until 15 May
In the course of her long career, the
French-born artist Louise Bourgeois
tackled “taboo after taboo”, said
Hettie Judah in The i Paper. At a
time when women were rarely
granted a voice to vent their anger
in public, Bourgeois (1911-2010)
used her art to channel her
anxieties and frustrations about
everything from “sexuality to
maternal ambivalence, to depres-
sion to the ageing body”, bringing
to light the violent psychological
undercurrents that, in her view,
lay beneath traditional gender and
family roles. Recognition came late:
it was only in the 1990s that she
started to become the influential
figure that she is today. Around
this time, when she was well into
her 80s, Bourgeois began rifling
through the closets of her New
York home for old textiles –
tapestries, stuffed dolls, bed linen –
and reconfiguring them into sinister
sculptures and arrangements: silk
frocks and slips were “suspended
like animals inside cages”, berets
“stuffed fat until they resembled
breasts”, small knitted figures
positioned in front of a curved
mirror, so as to seem “like floating Untitled (2002): “often surprising and sometimes frightening”
characters in a nightmare”. This
new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery is the first to concentrate
on these striking and frequently harrowing textile works. It brings
together a wealth of installations, sculptures and textile pieces
Bourgeois created in the final decades of her life. The endless
gloomy Freudian symbolism can get repetitive, “but my God,
when Bourgeois is good it gives you shivers”.
The power of her imagery is undeniable, said Alastair Sooke in
The Daily Telegraph. The “menacing, claustrophobic” sculptures
and installations that make up the show often have an uncanny
News from the art world
A major prehistoric discovery
A 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture found
next to the grave of three children has
been hailed by the British Museum as
“the most important piece of prehistoric
art” uncovered in Britain in a century.
The “Burton Agnes drum” was
unearthed near the Yorkshire village of
that name in 2015, during a routine
excavation on the site of a new biogas
plant, says Daniel Cassady in The Art
Newspaper. Its existence has only just
been widely revealed. Thought to be a
sculpture of a drum, it features elaborate
motifs in a style which flourished in The Burton Agnes Drum: a talisman?
Britain and Ireland at the time
Stonehenge was built; the buried children have been carbon-
dated to 3005-2890 BC. The work is similar to three other chalk
drums in the British Museum’s collection, known as the
Folkton drums, which were found in a child’s grave in North
Yorkshire in 1889. They are thought to have been talismans
designed to protect the deceased children. All four drums will
go on display together in the British Museum, as part of
THE WEEK 19 February 2022
Art
effect: one piece here sees “a furry,
off-white house mushrooming
from the womb of a headless and
dismembered female torso”;
another has a “vast” steel spider –
a trademark Bourgeois motif – with
“wobbly, arthritic” legs crouching
atop a cage containing “fabric-
wrapped glass eggs”. Elsewhere,
her fabric heads resemble Brancusi
sculptures “imprisoned in a gimp
mask”. Yet for all the shocking
intent, there’s something jarringly
“tasteful” about much of this
work: it feels “tailor-made for a
collector’s apartment” and has an
“elegance” rather at odds with its
ugly subject matter. Bourgeois’s
art aims to conjure up a
“psychological horrorfest”, yet
here it is too “slick” to ever feel
“properly disturbing”.
I disagree entirely, said Adrian
Searle in The Guardian. Bourgeois’s
work is “marvellous, scary and
provocative” and its impact is
rarely less than visceral.
Throughout the show, she revisits
her “traumas and jealousies”,
notably her childhood fury at
her gallery-owner father’s serial,
undisguised adultery and the
suffering it caused her seamstress mother (whose profession
informed Bourgeois’s own use of textiles). Everywhere you look,
there are “figures and legs dangling from the ceiling or hung out
on stands”, fabric heads hanging “like decapitations”, and “ratty
old fabrics” reshaped to evoke her childhood memories. Bobbins,
needles and thread are used to make sculptures “that recall the
cosmographies of Joan Miró”. In her later years, increasingly
agoraphobic, Bourgeois “rarely strayed from home. But the work
kept coming.” It makes for “a wonderful, often surprising and
sometimes frightening exhibition”.
The world of Stonehenge exhibition,
which opened this week.
Avant-garde vandalism
A Russian museum guard has been
charged with vandalism after drawing
eyes on the “faceless figures” depicted in
an avant-garde Soviet-era painting, says
Sian Cain in The Guardian. According to
the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre in
Yekaterinburg, a “bored” 60-year-old
© THE EASTON FOUNDATION_VAGA AT ARS, NY. DACS 2021
guard used a ballpoint pen to draw eyes
on figures painted onto a 1930s canvas
by the artist Anna Leporskaya, valued at
around £750,000. Fortunately,
the damage to the painting
was not irreparable: the guard, a contractor for a
private security company, reportedly did not press
the pen hard enough to disturb the paint. The
unnamed culprit has since been dismissed. “His
motives are still unknown,” said curator Anna
Reshetkina. “But the administration believes it
was some kind of lapse in sanity.”
 The List ARTS 29
Best books… Merryn Somerset Webb Television
The commentator and editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek chooses five books on Programmes
late capitalism. Her book Share Power: How Ordinary People Can Change Imagine… Profile of Wayne
the Way That Capitalism Works – and Make Money Too is out now McGregor, the modern dance
pioneer and resident
The Wealth of Nations by choreographer at the Royal
the result is big firms interfer- explosion. In fact, fertility
Ballet, following him as he
Adam Smith, 1776 (Penguin ing in politics and democracy. trends suggest the global rehearses a new work at the
£9.99). No discussion of Ramaswamy makes a population will peak earlier Royal Opera House. Mon
modern capitalism can be convincing case for old-school and at a much lower level than 21 Feb, BBC1 22:35 (60mins).
had without reference to this. shareholder capitalism. previously thought. Quite soon
Every brilliant part of it our problem globally will be Kate Garraway: Caring for
(globalisation, comparative Youthquake: Why African not too many people, but too Derek The TV presenter and
advantage) is mentioned here, Demography Should Matter few. Also very important. her husband, who was
as are the downsides we still to the World by Edward critically ill with Covid-19, talk
about Covid’s effect on their
complain about today (price Paice, 2021 (Apollo £25). More: the 10,000 Year Rise
lives, and the challenges of the
fixing, monopolies and so on). Populations are falling in many of the World Economy by social care system. Tue 22 Feb,
A bestseller in its time – and an countries, but in much of Philip Coggan, 2020 ITV1 21:00 (60mins).
easier read than you think. Africa they are still soaring. (Economist Books £10.99).
That’s going to mean change Would the world be better if Mission: Joy – With
Woke, Inc: Inside the for us all. Intensely researched everyone stopped striving when Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Social Justice Scam by – and very important! they had enough? Coggan says and the Dalai Lama
Vivek Ramaswamy, 2021 no. To drive the innovation Uplifting documentary filmed
(Swift Press £20). The world is Empty Planet by Darrell that gives us growth – and over five days in 2015
revealing the close friendship
full of calls for companies to Bricker and John Ibbitson, better lives – history tells us we
between the two religious
think more about stakeholders 2019 (Robinson £10.99). The need people who always want leaders. Wed 23 Feb, BBC4
– suppliers, staff and commun- other side of the demography more. An unfashionable but 22:00 (80mins).
ity groups – and less about story. Most people worry excellent call for governments
shareholders. Sounds good. But about global population to leave capitalism alone.
Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk Films
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Biopic of Freddie Mercury,
The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing which received mixed reviews
but near-universal praise for
Showing now Rami Malek’s portrayal of
Oliver Mears’s acclaimed production of Queen’s legendary frontman.
Rigoletto returns to Covent Garden following Sat 19 Feb, C4 21:00 (160mins).
its September debut. Until 12 March, Royal
Opera House, London WC2 (roh.org.uk). The Program (2015)
Stephen Frears’s tense
dramatisation of cyclist Lance
While some critics have quibbled over just how Armstrong’s spectacular fall
“immersive” it really is, the Bob Marley One from grace. Sun 20 Feb, BBC1
Love Experience takes visitors through a series 23:30 (95mins).
of themed rooms exploring the reggae legend’s
life and legacy through memorabilia, BlacKkKlansman (2018)
installations and music – “one for music lovers Spike Lee’s Oscar-winner tells
of all types” (Times). Until 18 April, Saatchi the unlikely true story of a
Gallery, London SW3 (saatchigallery.com). black detective who infiltrated
Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House the Ku Klux Klan. Wed 23 Feb,
Film4 23:20 (160mins).
Book now The Man Behind the Mask, in which he tells
Hollywood star Amy Adams makes her West colourful stories from his long career. 7 April- I, Tonya (2017) Darkly funny
End debut in this much-anticipated production 1 June in Nottingham, York, Bath and beyond mockumentary about the
of Tennessee Williams’s classic The Glass (manbehindthemask.co.uk). notorious US figure skater
Menagerie. 23 May-27 August, Duke of Tonya Harding, starring
York’s Theatre, London WC2 (theglass Historian and broadcaster David Olusoga and Margot Robbie. Thur 24 Feb,
menageriewestend.com). Radio 4 Today’s Justin Webb are among the BBC4 22:00 (111mins).
speakers at the Budleigh Salterton Literary
Barry Humphries – the man behind Dame Edna, Festival Spring Weekend. 11-12 March,
Sir Les Patterson, and something of a legend in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton, Devon New to subscription TV
his own right – goes on tour with a new show, (budlitfest.org.uk).
Inventing Anna New series
about the con artist Anna
The Archers: what happened last week Sorokin, who scammed
Phoebe tells Kate about her job in Scotland; though sad at first, Kate’s glad for Phoebe. Alice tells hundreds of thousands of
Amy and Fallon that she feels like a proper mum after the week with Martha, but Chris is rude to dollars by posing as a wealthy
them later when they report back on Martha. Tom’s worried about announcing the pregnancy on heiress and infiltrating New
the anniversary of the baby he and Kirsty lost. At Natasha’s urging, he tells Kirsty, and later they York society. On Netflix.
go to the Remembrance Garden where Kirsty scattered their son Wren’s ashes – it’s a healing
moment. Phoebe intends to continue with the rewilding from Scotland, but Peggy advises her to The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
move on from Ambridge, and find someone new to help Rex. Amy drops in on Chris and he
The comedy-drama about a
apologises for being short with her. Kirsty tells Phoebe about the visit to the garden and later visits
Natasha, bringing some of Wren’s blankets. Natasha assures her the twins will know about their 1950s housewife turned
© ELLIE KURTTZ

brother. Chris invites Amy for a takeaway. She tells him what an amazing dad he is, and he stand-up comic returns for a
compliments her. Fallon remarks she doesn’t know what Chris and Alice would do without Amy. new series. On Amazon Prime.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

30 Best properties
Desirable town houses
Wiltshire: The

▲
Close, Salisbury.
Retaining an
abundance of
original features,
including a bay-
fronted sitting room
and a dining room
with panelled walls
and a fireplace, this
18th century Grade
II house enjoys
uninterrupted views
of Salisbury
Cathedral. It’s
located within the
Cathedral Close
and is a short walk
from the city centre.
4 beds (1 en suite),
family baths, 2
receps, kitchen/
breakfast room,
study, utility,
courtyard garden
and stores. £1.5m;
Myddelton & Major
(01722-337575).

▲ Gloucestershire: Hewlett
Road, Cheltenham. A newly
renovated mid-terrace house,
within easy walking distance of
the town centre and local parks.
The house retains many period
features, including sash windows
and a marble fireplace. 3 beds (1
en suite), family bath, bed 4/office,
kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps,
study, paved garden. £750,000;
Hamptons (01242-420352).

Suffolk: 10 South Green,

▲

Southwold. Designed by Elizabeth

Wayth in 1820, this Georgian Grade
II property with wrought-iron
balconies and shuttered windows
sits by the village green. Main suite
with balcony, 3 further beds, family
bath, 3 receps, kitchen/dining room,
cellar rooms, garage. £1.45m;
Durrants (01502-723292).

Devon: Church Street, Modbury.

▲

Located in this Georgian market

town, and four miles from the beach,
this Grade II double-fronted
Victorian town house has plenty of
character, with sash bay windows
and original doors, and comes with
a shop which provides a monthly
income. 3 beds, family bath, kitchen,
recep, courtyard garden and storage
sheds, parking. OIRO £285,000;
Luscombe Maye (01548-830831).

Shropshire: Lower Broad Street,

▲

Ludlow. A stylish town house in this

medieval walled town, with
accommodation set over three floors,
plenty of storage space and hidden
access to a cellar. It includes an
enclosed courtyard garden suitable
for al fresco dining and entertaining.
4 beds, 3 baths, 2 receps, kitchen,
parking. £625,000; Knight Frank
(01743-664202).

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

on the market 31

▲ Hampshire: Eastgate Street, Winchester. A generously

proportioned town house with a 27ft recep and a conservatory
at the rear. The property includes cellars on the lower-ground
floor and a loft room on the second floor, overlooking Eastgate
Street. 3 beds, family bath, kitchen/dining room, recep, garage.
OIEO £760,000; Hamptons (01962-920265).

Gloucestershire: Hailes
▲

Street, Winchcombe, Cheltenham.

A detached Victorian house with
views over the River Isbourne.
The property, built of Cotswold
stone, includes a cellar office and
a long private walled garden with
a hot tub. 3 beds, 1-2 baths, 2
receps, kitchen/breakfast room,
parking spaces. £735,000; Knight
Frank (01242-246951).

Cumbria: The Hollies,

▲

Brampton. This charming Grade

II Georgian property is located
close to Hadrian’s Wall, and has
a panelled drawing room, a stone
inglenook and an Italian-style
courtyard. Main suite, 4 further
beds, 2 baths, 2 receps, kitchen/
dining room, cellar, stores,
parking. £575,000; Finest
Properties (01539-468400).

▲ County Durham: Hallgarth Farmhouse, Durham. This historic family home, dating back
to the 15th century, is set in mature gardens of almost a third of an acre. Originally part of
Durham Cathedral’s Priory Estate, the property was rebuilt in 1910 and has been modernised.
Main suite, 1 further suite, 3 beds, 1-bed annexe with home office, 2 receps, family bath,
open-plan kitchen. £795,000; Sanderson Young (0191-223 3500).

19 February 2022 THE WEEK


What the experts recommend
Food House 46 Gerrard Street, London
W1 (020-7287 2818)
For many years, 46 Gerrard Street in
London’s Chinatown was home to an
“extremely reliable Cantonese place called
Harbour City”, to which I’d often take my
sons, says Jay Rayner in The Observer.
From the website Eater London, I recently
learnt that it’s now a Sichuan restaurant,
and one of the “trendiest” places to eat in
central London. Naturally, I booked right
away – and discovered that while the
carpets are the same, it has turned into
a “very different type of restaurant”. Big,
bold Sichuan flavours predominate – all
that “thrilling, chilli and numbing
peppercorn hullabaloo”. Skewers of lamb
kidney arrive in a “cloak of crisp fat”.
Pan-fried pork and cabbage dumplings
“leak their juices down my chin”. There’s
a whole seabass to share, which has been
“plunged into a bath of chilli oil” and
arrives “bobbing” with dried chillies,
lotus root and garlic. This isn’t food that’s
“simple to eat” – but it’s certainly “a lot
of fun”. I’m grateful that “I have a great
reason, at last, to return to 46 Gerrard
Street”. Starters £5.80-£9.80; large dishes
£9.80-£24.80.
Holm 28 St James Street, South Petherton,
Somerset (01460-712470)
South Petherton, in south Somerset, is
a “honeypot of a parish”, said William
Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. At its
LEISURE
Food & Drink
Food House: “a lot of fun”
centre is this “gloriously fine” restaurant,
housed in what was until recently a bank
(there’s still a cashpoint in the corner).
Nicholas Balfe, the chef patron, owns a
“small group of highly rated restaurants
in south London”, including Salon in
Brixton and Levan in Peckham. And as
our “impeccable” meal reveals, he knows
what he’s doing. The cooking relies on
“traditional ingredients”, which have been
“heightened with intelligent capability”.
I begin with a “light and delicate chicken
liver parfait”, before moving on to a
fabulous dish of pork loin and belly,
“livened” with salsa verde and quince.
For pudding, there’s an “outrageously
33
rich chocolate mousse”, tempered with
miso-flavoured ice cream. As a meal at
Holm confirms, Britain has a growing
number of “superb provincial restaurants”
which are helping to “elevate” its culinary
reputation. Dinner for two, excluding
drinks and service: £104.
Jin-Da 1 Studland Street, London W6
(020-8748 2839)
I must have passed this Thai restaurant
“a thousand times”, as it’s on a backstreet
in Hammersmith that used to be on my
school run, said Tom Parker Bowles in
the Daily Mail. But I never paid it much
attention, assuming it to be yet another
“over-Anglicised” Thai. How wrong I
was. It turns out that Jin-Da specialises in
the food of northern Thailand, where the
flavours are “nowhere near as brow-
beamingly fierce” as in the more familiar
cooking typical of the northeast and south.
Nam prik noom – a relish of roasted
young green peppers – is “subtle and
gentle, almost Mexican in its allure”.
Also mild, though never dull, is a “gently
sweet” nam prik ong, or shrimp paste
with minced pork and tomatoes. Both
are dishes you won’t often find in Thai
restaurants in Britain. Amazingly, Jin-Da
isn’t the only regional Thai restaurant in
this part of west London: just around the
corner is the excellent 101 Thai Kitchen,
specialising in the Isaan cooking of the
northeast. About £18 a head.

Recipe of the week Wine choice

Here’s a fun fact, said David Williams
If I could eat only one brownie for the rest of my days, this would be it, says in The Observer: if California were a
Leah Hyslop. Dark and rich, it contains no nuts or other extras to distract from country, it would be the world’s
its bewitchingly oozy centre. I promise it will fill any hole in your life. fourth-largest wine-producing
nation after Italy, France and
Ultimate fudgy brownies Spain. Yet California’s wines
have never commanded huge
200g unsalted butter, chopped into rough cubes, plus extra for greasing 300g dark respect on this side of the pond.
chocolate (around 70% cocoa solids), roughly broken into pieces 300g caster sugar
3 large eggs and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten 50g plain flour 60g cocoa powder One problem is that “sub-£10
½ tsp sea salt, plus extra to sprinkle pleasure is thin on the ground”; in that price
bracket, you’ll mainly find “sickly-sweet”
• Preheat the oven to mixture will become thick
and velvety. wines by “big-name brands”. Another is
180°C. Grease a 20cm
that in the UK, California is viewed as a
square tin and line with • Sift over the flour, “viticultural monolith”, although in fact, it
baking parchment. cocoa powder and salt, has “at least as much geological and climatic
• Put the butter and and gently fold in with variation” as France or Spain.
chocolate in a saucepan a spatula or large metal
over a low heat and melt, spoon until just combined. There are a few modestly priced bargains to
stirring, until combined. Transfer the mixture to be had, such as M&S’s juicy Classics No. 24
Stir in the sugar, then your prepared tin – it will
© SOPHIA EVANS/GUARDIAN/EYEVINE; LAUREN MCLEAN

California Zinfandel USA 2020 (£8). But

take off the heat. Cool be rather thick – spreading spend a bit more, and you’ll find plenty of
for 5mins, until warm the mix into the corners. bottles to rival those from Italy or France.
to the touch rather than • Bake for 30-35mins. It Qupé Central Coast Syrah 2018 (£22; The
scalding hot. should be set on top, with a few cracks Wine Society) has a delicious “spicy-berry
• Add the eggs to the pan and quickly around the edge. Cool in the tin for at succulence”. Alma de Cattleya
stir to combine. Now beat, using a least two hours before cutting into Chardonnay, Sonoma County 2019 (£21;
handheld electric whisk, on a medium- squares, then sprinkle crunchy sea salt Jeroboams) has “luminous complexity”. And
high speed, for about 3mins; the on top. don’t miss the “meaty-peppery savouriness”
of le P’tit Paysan le P’tit Pape, Central
Taken from The Brownie Diaries by Leah Hyslop, published by Bloomsbury at Coast 2018 (£31; Nekter Wines).
£14.99. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £11.99, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

34 LEISURE Consumer
New cars: what the critics say
The Sunday Times
The best-selling car in the
UK last month, the Kia
Sportage has been trans-
formed over the years from
a dull budget SUV into a
stylish, tech-laden, family-
friendly car. This fifth-
generation version sees the
addition of hybrids and
Kia Sportage plug-in powertrains, using
Price: from £26,745 Kia’s 1.6 T-GDi petrol
engine. The new Sportage
uses the same platform as
the Hyundai Tucson, and
there’s front and four-
wheel-drive options.
The Daily Telegraph
Decent, unflashy, good
value and with a seven-
year or 100,000-mile
warranty, the Sportage has
five trim levels, but if you
want a swanky metallic
paint colour it will cost
you an extra £650. Inside
it’s all pretty logical, but
some parts are over-
designed, such as the
excessive steering-wheel
buttons. There’s just
enough room for adults in
the back, and the boot is
pretty big, at 587 litres.
Auto Express
The Sportage grips well
through bends without too
much body roll. It’s not
sporty, but this is a family
SUV, and the engine cuts
in smoothly from electric.
The ride is a bit firmer
than the Tucson, but
the Kia is relaxed and
comfortable when cruising.
With 226bhp it can do
0-60mph in a decent 7.7
seconds, and top speed is
120mph. Fuel economy is
good with an average of
mid to high-40s mpg.

The best… projectors ▲

Kodak Luma 350 portable smart
projector This sleek, compact 150 lumens
projector is powered by Android, so you
can download apps and stream shows
directly. It can also connect via Bluetooth
and Wi-Fi (£275; photogears.uk).

▲ LG CineBeam PH510P portable

projector A good all-rounder, this
powerful 550 lumens LED projector has
a built-in battery for portable viewing and
can link to your phone or audio system via
Bluetooth (£369; slrhut.co.uk).
▲ Elephas 2021 WiFi mini projector
Smartphone compatible, this is a great
entry-level projector. It has a range of ports ▲
Optoma HD146X Boasting 3,600
and Wi-Fi connection, 1080p HD resolution,
lumens, this excellent projector is ideal as

SOURCE: LONDON EVENING STANDARD

and works with a screen size of up to 200
a home cinema and can show full HD
inches (£76; amazon.co.uk).
films even in daylight.
It has a long
Epson EF-12 Full HD smart mini laser
▲

throw and large

projector This great-quality, smart, 301-inch screen
portable projector gives a bright vivid size, making it a
picture thanks to its 3LCD technology. great alternative
With full HD and 1,000 lumens, it fits to the TV (£479;
a screen size up to 150 inches (£959; ao.com).
johnlewis.com).

Tips of the week…
training a dog
● Dogs are more likely to repeat rewarded
behaviour, so remember to let them know
when they’re doing well over and over
again. You can use food treats, but also
toys, stroking, praise; every dog is different.
● Get your timings right. Dogs are very
logical, they connect praise with whatever
they are doing at that moment. There’s no
point getting cross with a puppy for an
accident that happened in the middle of the
night when you come down in the morning.
Rather than telling them off after the event,
focus on rewarding the good behaviour
as it is happening.
● Dogs don’t understand English, so make
sure your tone matches what you’re saying.
If your dog is barking, don’t shout: it will
think you’re joining in the chorus. Dogs
can read our body language and facial
expressions too, so try to send clear signals.
● Many behavioural problems in dogs –
pulling on the lead, nuisance barking –
are due to over-excitement. Encourage
calmness, and reward it with calm praise.
SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TIMES
And for those who
have everything…
Unlike any other electric
toothbrush on the market,
the sonic Foreo Issa 3 is
made almost entirely of
silicone. The slim-fit brush
combines sturdy polymer
bristles with ultrahygienic
silicone ones which are
gentler on the gums, and
which last longer than
most. A single two-hour
charge lasts up to a year.
£149; foreo.com
SOURCE: FT
The internet… the best
online homeware shops
Amara stocks luxurious designer homeware
from over 300 leading brands including
Orla Kiely, Tom Dixon and Missoni, with
new collections weekly (amara.com).
If you’re after modern French style, try La
Redoute, which has high-quality, affordable
homeware from rugs and bed linen to
baskets and furniture. Try the “influencer
edits” for inspiration (laredoute.co.uk).
Lisa Valentine offers a carefully selected
collection of practical and beautiful objects
for the home (lisavalentinehome.co.uk).
Trouva is an online platform showcasing
products from independent boutiques.
Expect to find everything from vases to
lamps and bedding (trouva.com).
Get ahead of the design curve with Rose
and Grey, which sells quirky accessories
and design-led furniture from the UK,
Europe and beyond (roseandgrey.co.uk).
A firm favourite with interior designers,
Rockett St George is a one-stop shop
for unique items (rockettstgeorge.co.uk).
SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Travel LEISURE 35

This week’s dream: New Mexico’s glorious hot springs

In northern New Mexico, “health the 1969 film. Today, you must
is in the air”; you can almost feel it walk a few miles downriver from
in the “feathery-light” high-desert the John Dunn bridge to access
atmosphere. And it is one of the them. Easier to get to are the
best places “to go in search of nearby Black Rock springs, which
geothermal goodness”, says are frequented by “campers, bikers
Chris Wallace in the FT, with hot and backpackers in search of the
springs “positively littered” across hippie mecca imagined by
fields and meadows. The Spanish Hopper here”, and which afford
conquistadors believed they were superb views down the gorge (“an
fountains of youth, and today they 800ft-deep groove in a millions-of-
attract all manner of “escapists, years-old lava flow”). But even
adventurers and dreamers”. more astonishing – indeed, “Lord
Science is “ambivalent” about the of the Rings majestic” – are the
objective benefits of bathing in views from the San Antonio
their waters, “thick with heavy The Ojo Santa Fe: among the area’s best resorts spring. Here, the tubs descend
metals”. But it can’t do any harm, down the side of a canyon, and
and people find it leaves them feeling wonderfully refreshed, vary in heat from “near-scalding” to a “mossy-cool plunge”.
thanks in part to the wild beauty of the surroundings. Among the area’s best resorts are the Four Seasons near Santa
Manby Hot Springs, in the Rio Grande gorge near the town Fe, the Japanese-influenced Ten Thousand Waves, and the Ojo
of Taos, are the best known. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s Santa Fe. But not all of these have their own hot springs – and
characters in Easy Rider stop off there on their dusty, rough road none of their baths is as “wondrous” as those at Ojo Caliente,
trip along Route 66, and it is “easily the most exuberant” scene in the oldest formal spa to have been built on a hot spring in the US.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of…

Seaham Hall, County
Durham
Lord Byron got married at this
Georgian pile on a sea cliff in
County Durham in 1815. Today, it
combines “stately grandeur” (vast
gardens, chandeliers, open fires)
with modern luxury – making a
stay here dizzyingly indulgent, says
Sherelle Jacobs in The Sunday
Telegraph. The spa is “jaw-
dropping”, with a Zen garden,
a hammam and numerous pools.
Suites are “vivaciously decorated”,
and some have outside spaces
with hot tubs. The hotel has two
restaurants – one specialising in
British dishes, the other in pan-
Asian cuisine. There are lovely
coastal walks nearby, and Durham
itself is a 20-minute drive away.
Doubles from £295 b&b; seaham-
hall.co.uk.
An idyllic village in South Africa
Set in beautiful countryside two hours’ drive
south of Cape Town, the village of Stanford
is the “epitome of rural charm”, says Pippa
de Bruyn in The Daily Telegraph. It was
built in the late 19th century, and its pretty
cottages and well-tended gardens have
changed little since. But its chief glory is
its location, right beside the glorious Klein
River lagoon – a lake-like estuary, home to
flamingoes and many other, rarer birds – and
the dunes and beach of Walker Bay, the most
important whale nursery in Africa. There’s a
great Italian restaurant, La Trattoria, in the
village, and wineries such as Maanschijn
nearby – there’s pleasant accommodation
too, including Stanford Valley Guest Farm
(an “affordable oasis”), and Perivoli Lagoon
House, Mosaic Lagoon Lodge and the Coot
Club (due to open in July), which all have
exquisite views of the lagoon. Visit stanford
valley.co.za, mosaiclagoonlodge.co.za,
perivoliafrica.com and cootclub.com.
A colourful Neapolitan island
It has long been overshadowed by its
glamorous neighbours, Ischia and Capri, but
the tiny island of Procida – 40 minutes by
ferry from Naples – is more characterful than
both, says Mia Aimaro Ogden in The Sunday
Times. And while it will host 150 arts events
this year as the official Italian Capital of
Culture for 2022, none is likely to outdo its
lasting charms – 17th century pastel fishing
villages (featured in films such as The
Talented Mr Ripley and Il Postino),
Renaissance palaces, baroque churches, and
wild beaches that are “near-deserted” outside
July and August. Food here is good too –
“inexpensive, generally excellent and served
with love”, and there are fine places to stay,
including La Suite (an 18th century hilltop
palazzo), the chic San Michele in Marina
Corricella, and the mini-apartments of Cala
Cala. Visit lasuiteresort.com, sanmichele
procida.com and calacala.kross.travel for
more information.
A far-flung Greek getaway
Too far from Athens for a “social scene”,
and with no large hotels, the Greek island of
Symi is a “quietly sophisticated” place ringed
by beautiful beaches, said Aoife O’Riordain
in House & Garden. Reputedly the
birthplace of the mythical Three Graces, it
is among the easternmost of the Dodecanese
islands, and best reached by ferry from
Rhodes. Its harbour town is like an Italian
village – an “enchanting tumble” of pastel-
coloured mansions, one of which recently
opened as a characterful hotel, the 1900. It
doesn’t have a restaurant, but you can eat
at the excellent Tholos, 20 minutes’ walk
away, and spend your days exploring the
mountainous interior or lazing in secluded
coves. See 1900hotel.com.

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19 February 2022 THE WEEK

36
Genial polymath who hosted University Challenge
Bamber Gascoigne, who has
Bamber
died aged 87, was a writer,
Gascoigne
broadcaster, historian and
1935-2022
arts connoisseur – but he will
be remembered as the original host of the long-
running TV quiz show University Challenge,
said The Times. Whereas his successor, Jeremy
Paxman, has tended to adopt a somewhat
acerbic, impatient tone with the student
competitors (“Oh come on!”), Gascoigne –
who was only 27 when the show launched in
1962 – was courteous, encouraging (a “softy”,
by his own estimation). With his patrician voice
and donnish appearance, he was an unlikely
star of commercial television; yet he regularly
attracted 11 million viewers, and his
catchphrases – “Fingers on the buzzer”; “Your
starter for 10”; “I’m sorry, I’ll have to hurry
you” – lived on long after he left the show in
1987. He was parodied on The Young Ones;
and in 2003 David Nicholls wrote a novel
called Starter for Ten, which revolved around
University Challenge. It was later turned into a hit film, in which
Gascoigne was played by Mark Gatiss.
Obituaries
the early 1960s, Gascoigne got a letter asking
him if he would like to audition for a new quiz
show for Granada, based on the American
show College Bowl. “The letter virtually said,
‘If you want to be on TV, ring this number.’”
Although the first series was won by the
University of Leicester, the show was
dominated by Oxford and Cambridge, as they
were each allowed to field five colleges. (In
1975, this triggered a protest by a team from
Manchester University: in an effort to make
the quiz unbroadcastable, they answered every
question “Che Guevara”, “Marx”, “Trotsky”
or “Lenin”. There were also complaints that
polytechnics were excluded.) Gascoigne was
himself erudite and naturally intellectual: in the
early days, he set all the questions himself. But
he wore his learning lightly and smilingly, said
Mark Lawson in The Guardian. In fact, he was
Gascoigne: wore his learning lightly the perfect host to prove that viewer enjoyment
didn’t necessarily depend on being able to
answer the questions. His charm and “easygoing intellect” made
it possible for “viewers to enjoy the cleverness of others”.

Arthur Bamber Gascoigne was born in 1935, the son of Lt Col
Derick Gascoigne and his wife, Midi O’Neill. The family had
Norman roots and could trace its history back to the 14th
century; Bamber was the name of an Irish ancestor. He won a
scholarship to Eton, then spent a pleasant two years on National
Service in the Grenadier Guards. His duties, he said, alternated
between guarding Buckingham Palace and escorting debutantes
to balls. In 1955, he went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge,
where he read English literature and joined Footlights. He’d
loved acting at school, but decided that being in the same play
every night was boring, and turned to writing skits instead.
Producer Michael Codron persuaded him to write a whole revue,
and in 1957 Share My Lettuce opened in the West End, starring
two unknowns: Kenneth Williams and Maggie Smith. Later, he
worked as a theatre critic for The Spectator and The Observer. In
He described University Challenge as like a “rich godfather”: it
didn’t pay a fortune, but it provided him with a regular income,
which enabled him to pursue his many other interests. He
presented TV documentaries, including The Christians and The
Great Moghuls; wrote bestselling books based on them; and
established his own publishing house, which specialised in books
of rare prints. In 2014, he was surprised to discover that his
99-year-old aunt had bequeathed him her crumbling medieval
manor house in Surrey. “Every time there was a new drip, she
thought: get a new bucket,” he observed. Rather than sell the
house, and bank millions, he and his wife Christina, a
photographer and ceramicist, put the estate into the hands of
a charitable trust. West Horsley Place is now a community arts
centre and the home of Grange Park Opera. Their own home
was a book-lined house overlooking the Thames in Richmond.

Playback singer known as the Nightingale of India

Known as the Nightingale of India
Lata
for the purity of her voice, Lata
Mangeshkar
Mangeshkar, who has died aged
1929-2022
92, was the queen of Bollywood
playback singers: over several decades, she recorded
songs for thousands of lip-synching film stars. And
though her face was not familiar to everyone, her
voice certainly was. As well as singing in around
1,000 films, said BBC News, she recorded tens of
thousands of songs in 26 languages, and in India
they could be heard everywhere: in shops,
restaurants, taxis and on the radio. She was herself
a woman with a huge range of enthusiasms and
interests, from fast cars and cricket to Sherlock
Holmes and James Bond. Her favourite Hollywood
film was The King and I, while her eclectic musical
tastes ranged from Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin
to Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand and the Beatles.
“I always think: happiness is for sharing with the
world, and sorrow is for keeping to yourself,” she once said.
a touring theatre company. She didn’t go to
school, said The Guardian, because she wasn’t
allowed to bring her baby sister Asha to class.
Much of her childhood was spent singing at
religious gatherings alongside her father. He
died in 1942, however, leaving Lata as the sole
breadwinner, aged 13. She auditioned for film
roles, and won a few. But she didn’t enjoy being
in front of the camera; she wasn’t comfortable on
busy films sets, and was shocked when a director
asked her to trim her broad eyebrows. So she
decided to try her hand as a playback singer. In
1949, she recorded the song Aayega Aanewala for
the film Mahal. It became a huge hit, said The
Daily Telegraph, and she never looked back. Over
the next few decades, she sang for most of Hindi
cinema’s biggest stars, from Meena Kumari and
Mangeshkar: influential Madhubala in the early days of Bollywood, to the
modern entertainer Priyanka Chopra. She sold
tens of millions of records, won scores of awards and performed
© THE TIMES/NEWS LICENSING

If she had any competition as a playback singer, it was from her
sister Asha (the subject of the Cornershop song Brimful of Asha).
But they were close, and Mangeshkar insisted that they were
never rivals. Born in Indore, in what is now Madhya Pradesh
state, she was the daughter of a musician and a teacher who ran
all over the world. Freddie Mercury was among those said to
have been influenced by her. She won all of India’s civilian
honours; and in 2007, France conferred on her its highest civilian
award, Officier de la Légion d’honneur. In 1981, the writer Gopal
Krishna said: “Cricket, Lata Mangeshkar and the transistor make
India one nation.”

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Marketplace 37

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 CITY CITY 39
Companies in the news
...and how they were assessed
Arm Holdings: spooky intervention
SoftBank’s plan to float the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, which it acquired in
2016, in New York, has “sparked a furore in the UK over the nation’s inability to retain
home-grown industry leaders”, said the Financial Times. There are also major concerns
about allowing such a technologically key asset out of the country. Last week, the former
head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, urged the Government to “strain every sinew” to keep
Arm in London. James Anderson of Baillie Gifford’s £20.7bn Scottish Mortgage Seven days in the
Investment Trust (a leader in tech investment) described the mooted $30bn-plus flotation Square Mile
on Nasdaq as “a huge potential blow” to the City that will significantly reduce the
chances of building a tech “ecosystem”. He’s quite right, said Alex Brummer in the Daily UK inflation, measured on the consumer
Mail. Arm is far too important to lose. Moreover, “the idea that London couldn’t handle prices index, rose to a 30-year high,
surging by 5.5% in the year to January
a re-float of this size is just a naysayer’s fantasy”. “Arm could choose to be a big fish in a
fuelled by rising energy and food prices
small pond,” said Cat Rutter Pooley in the FT. “Yet the appeal of being a middling-sized – and by a much smaller drop than usual
fish across the pond may still be greater.” If we’re honest, “London has already lost the in the January prices of clothing and
war for truly big tech”. But its prowess in new areas like fintech suggests it “can still footwear. Inflation is now outpacing
win” the fight for the next Arm. “Sometimes it is better to move on.” earnings growth: the ONS reported that
“real wages” fell by 0.8% from a year
Inflation: passing it on earlier in Q4 2021. Heineken became the
Colgate products disappeared from Tesco’s shops last week, said Laura Onita in The latest big firm to warn it was putting up
Sunday Telegraph. Both firms declined to say why, but there are rumours of “a row over prices following Unilever, Greggs and
Tesco. US inflation rose by 7.5%, the
pricing”. If so, it’s a sign of the times. As costs rise, “a tug of war is developing between
fastest rate since 1981. Fed chairman Jay
the major supermarkets and suppliers”. Having promised competitive prices to cash- Powell came under pressure to clarify
strapped shoppers, supermarkets are using increasingly questionable excuses to delay the Fed’s plans to combat it – some
supplier cost price rises. According to a British Chambers of Commerce survey, “three predicted an emergency rate rise
in four businesses” are raising prices to cover rising raw material, wage and energy costs, The prospect of war in Ukraine riled
said BBC Business. Size is no protection. The consumer goods giant Unilever, which is markets. £54bn was wiped off the value
hiking prices for a second year running, has nonetheless “forecast a sharp decline in its of FTSE 350 companies on Monday, but
profit margins”. In an increasingly tight environment, the saving grace for Britain’s big shares rallied as the immediate threat
supermarkets is pumped up “petrol profits”, said Sam Chambers in The Sunday Times. receded. The rising price of Brent crude
According to RAC data, the big four made an 8.6% margin on sales of unleaded petrol oil, and acute shortages of industrial
in January – “almost triple the 3.2% margins they made in 2019”. Record prices at the metals amid falling stockpiles, sparked
pumps aren’t solely down to the elevated oil price. fears of a commodities crunch. Surging
metal prices saw miner BHP declare a
Rolls-Royce: jet zero record dividend of $7.6bn.
Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Innovation single-seater plane set a record speed of 387mph for Moderna, the US drug maker behind
the mRNA Covid jab, was reported to be
an electric plane last year. Now the engine-maker is widening its ambitions, said Simon close to deal to open a vaccine research
Hunt in the London Evening Standard – forging a partnership with private jet charterer and manufacturing hub in Britain.
Luxaviation to develop “a new fleet of electric passenger planes”. Rolls-Royce hopes to Former Goldman Sachs banker Roger
launch its first electric passenger plane, as part of its “P-Volt” project, by 2025 – a year Ng went on trial in New York for his
earlier than expected, said Howard Mustoe in The Daily Telegraph. The aim is to alleged role in looting Malaysia’s 1MDB
achieve “distances of up to 250 miles by 2030”. The jet is part of Rolls’ strategy “to be fund. British Airways said it would
central to the UK’s push towards a carbon net-zero economy”. It has recently announced award bonuses worth thousands of
“a string of projects in nuclear, hydrogen and electric technologies”, including a deal “to pounds to pilots, cabin and ground crew
develop hydrogen engines for Britain’s trains”. in a bid to raise morale.

NatWest et al: back in the money

What a difference a year has made for British
banks, said Jill Treanor in The Sunday Times.
Twelve months ago, in the grip of lockdown,
high-street lenders – “laden with multibillion
pound provisions” for loans they expected not
to be repaid – “were grappling with an order
from the Bank of England to prepare for
negative rates”. Now they face the opposite
scenario and worries about bad debts have
abated, for now. City analysts are expecting
the Big Four to report total profits of £34bn for
2021, with Lloyds and Barclays notching up
their highest earnings for decades. Share-
holders can look forward to payouts, bankers to
bumper bonuses – and a likely backlash from
customers facing a cost of living crisis. Rose: a “clean-up campaign”
“Bailed out” NatWest provides the clearest illustration of the
sector’s reversed fortunes, swinging from a £351m loss last year
to a projected profit of some £4bn. And now “a minor miracle is
about to happen”, said Nils Pratley in The
Observer. Fourteen years after the former
Royal Bank of Scotland’s £45bn state rescue,
the state’s stake is likely to fall below 50%.
“Hallelujah.” The real interest for investors
this week, though, was CEO Alison Rose’s
“outlook statement”. NatWest, along with
Lloyds, “offers a good guide to the underlying
health of the UK economy, and the mood
may be shifting”.
Despite the setback of a £264m fine for anti-
money laundering failures, Rose’s “clean-up
campaign” is going rather well, said Ruth
Sunderland in the Daily Mail: shares are up
47% in 12 months. Some “will never forgive”
NatWest/RBS for its “appalling behaviour”
before the financial crisis, and its “terrible treatment of small
firms”. But if Rose has her way, the “toxic” Fred Goodwin era
“will finally be consigned to memory”.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

40 CITY Talking points
Issue of the week: Ukraine and the markets
The immediate shock might be transitory, but the economic fall-out wouldn’t be
For markets, it was something of a
“St Valentine’s Day massacre”, said The
Trader in Investors’ Chronicle. Mounting
tensions between Russia and Ukraine
were largely shrugged off earlier this
year; but reports that a war could start
“within days” concentrated minds. The
FTSE 100 lost 2% on Monday; shares in
Frankfurt and Paris were down by more
than 3%. Banks took a hit on fears that
Russia “could be cut off from the SWIFT
payments network”. Travel stocks,
including IAG, Tui and Wizz Air, were
whacked. And although the price of
Brent crude futures rose above $96 “to
the highest in almost eight years”, BP
shares fell due to its stake in Rosneft, the Ukrainian troops testing anti-aircraft missiles
Russian energy giant. Wall Street was
also gripped by geopolitical jitters, said DealBook in The New
York Times. The situation eased after Russia’s pledge this week
to withdraw troops. But “Western officials have cautioned that
an invasion of Ukraine is still possible”, and “markets are still
worried”: US stock futures fell on Wednesday.
Even if Russian tanks do roll across the border, said Matthew
Lynn on Spectator.co.uk, the financial “carnage” won’t last.
“True, the most serious armed conflict on European soil since the
end of WWII is a serious matter. But geopolitical events rarely
make much difference to the markets for more than a few days.”
We saw that after 9/11, after JFK’s
assassination, after the Suez crisis, and
after North Korea invaded the South in
1950. Granted, a Russian invasion could
have “long-term consequences for the
global economy” – particularly if it’s
part of a “pact with China” that marks
the birth of a Sino-Russian economic
order, threatening US dominance. But
that “would play out over decades”;
it’s hardly an immediate threat.
The real problem, said Darren Dodd in
the FT, is the impact of anxiety on exist-
ing market conditions. In commodities,
Ukraine tensions have worsened an
already worrying inflationary “crunch”.
Gas prices in Europe (where lower flows
from Russia have left storage facilities only a third full) have been
driven still higher. Sanctions on Russia, meanwhile, could have a
severe effect on raw materials prices, especially metals – supplies
of which are already badly depleted. “Major exchanges have less
than one week’s supply of copper stocks”; supplies of aluminium
(now at a 13-year price high) are also low. “This is the most
extreme inventory environment,” noted a Goldman Sachs analyst:
it’s “unprecedented”. The impact of war on investment portfolios
“may be hard to discern”, said Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street
Journal – but it would certainly stoke already rampant inflation.
“The optimum outcome is that nobody pushes the button.”

The NFT bonanza: what the papers say Digging deep

● Going Ape
“If you see this, you’re
very early.” The line has
become a familiar trope in
the frothy market for non-
fungible tokens, “where
block-chain powered proof
of ownership has created
a hyper-speculative digital
art market”, said Tim
Bradshaw in the FT. Being
“early” in the unregulated
world of NFTs can be
Bored Ape Yacht Club: “iconic”
highly lucrative. The first
supporters of a new project are often
rewarded with “whitelist” access before
the token goes on sale to the general public unaware that they may be evading tax.
– meaning a purchase costing “a few
hundred dollars” can be “resold for
thousands just hours later” if all goes
well. Still, “in the increasingly desperate
scramble to find the next Bored Ape Yacht
Club” (the “iconic” NFT cartoonish series, other words, “gains should be treated
which frequently sell for millions) “the
opportunities for due diligence are
limited”. And fraud is increasingly rife.
● Monkey Business
So is money-laundering, said Tristan
Kirk in the London Evening Standard.
Last week, a New York couple – Ilya
Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan (a
rapper who dubs herself the “Crocodile of
Wall Street”) – were accused of using fake
IDs to convert a stash of bitcoin stolen five
years ago into other digital currencies and
NFTs. In Britain, the The best response to inflation and the
taxman is on the case, commodities crunch is to “own the
said Tom Rees in The problem – preferably in the form of
Daily Telegraph. In a profitable companies that pay out real
recent sting, HMRC money in real dividends”, says Merryn
Somerset Webb in the FT. The good
seized “its first NFTs”, news is that the UK market – long
claiming they were part considered “too resources grubby and
of a “sophisticated” Brexity” by international investors – has
VAT scam to defraud them in spades. Here are some picks:
the taxman of £1.4m.
Crypto and NFT i3 Energy An oil and gas minnow with
dabblers beware: the secure operations in Canada. Expected
taxman isn’t just to yield nearly 6% this year, and is
“stepping up its moving to pay monthly dividends.
clampdown on criminal gangs hiding Atalaya Mining Has exposure to
money”, but also on regular investors stable copper production in a low-risk
jurisdiction (Spain). Up 40% since last
Most investors who have sunk funds into year but, with a 5.4% yield, “worth
these assets will be liable to pay Capital hanging on to”.
Gains Tax (CGT) if they exceed their Kenmare Resources A mineral
annual £12,300 allowance when they sands miner, with an operation in
sell or use them in a transaction. In Mozambique and a policy of paying out
20% of after-tax profits in dividends.
like those made on other investments, Polymetal A gold and silver miner,
such as shares”. “with a little extra inflation protection
built in”. Carrying “extra risk” because
● Block buster of operations in Russia and Kazakhstan.
In the space of a year, NFTs have exploded But that’s reflected in its 8% yield.
from obscurity to a $40bn market. All Pan African Resources A middle-sized
credit to HMRC for being on top of the gold miner, yielding 6.1%, with low
situation, said Emma Agyemang in the FT. debt and operations in South Africa.
As David Carlisle of the blockchain analyst
Elliptic observes: “the UK is demonstrating BlackRock World Mining Trust A good
“one-stop shop” for those who want to
increased sophistication in its ability to
avoid the risk of holding individual
seize crypto assets”. There’s a new cop stocks. Yields around 4%.
on the block.

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 Commentators CITY 41
Economic statistics will “never fully capture” the sacrifices made
by young people during the pandemic, says the FT. They lost City profiles
A rough deal “years of carefree youth they will not get back”, largely to protect
those from older generations. Now they face a new financial Chitra Ramkrishna

for young blow. The Government is freezing the income level at which
it becomes compulsory to start repaying their student loans.
The former chief of India’s
National Stock Exchange has

people “Inflation will therefore draw many, not very well-paid, graduates
into repayment – equivalent to an increase in income tax of
received a hefty fine, and a
ban from working in financial
markets, after admitting that
Editorial around 9% a year.” Indeed, the Intergenerational Foundation while running it she relied on
estimates that the combination of “stealth taxes”, the scheduled advice from a spiritual yogi
Financial Times NI hike and inflation means “the disposable income of a typical based in the Himalayas, said
27-year-old graduate will fall by close to 30% over four years”. The Daily Beast. Chitra
Ramkrishna, who quit her
Meanwhile, problems predating the pandemic – notably rising
job in 2016, said she thought
house prices – have only intensified. “Responses such as taking a the guidance “would help
risky punt on cryptocurrency or choosing not to have children are me perform my role better”.
understandable reactions, but they represent a failure of a decade But an investigation has
of government policy.” The Government needs a New Deal for concluded that she was
the Young – who “cannot keep being asked to foot the bill”. “merely a puppet” in the
unnamed guru’s hands.
Office life remains “a shadow of its former self”, says Lucy The hunt is now on to track
Burton, and “rampant inflation will soon add a further twist”. down the mystery yogi, said

The battle for Long leases on semi-empty offices are obvious things to put “on
the chopping block” for companies seeking to cut costs – and to
Palak Shah on The Hindu
BusinessLine. It seems to

pay – and its

be someone who “knew
finance pay rises. Given a tight labour market and contracting real the inside working of the
wages (which fell by 0.8% in real terms last quarter), the pressure exchange closely” and
casualties to cough up is mounting. “Workers want pay bumps… and amid
a fierce battle for talent they may well get them.” These
was “very well networked
in Delhi’s political and
Lucy Burton “negotiations over pay rises” are also likely to be “less heated if bureaucratic circles”. Rather
staff feel their work-life balance has at least improved and they odd for a Himalayan hermit...
The Daily Telegraph can save money on commuting” – another trend which is likely
to embed hybrid working. All this looks like bad news for Jo Whitfield
commercial landlords. Although activity has picked up in recent
months, a survey by commercial real estate agency InfinitSpace
found that 62% of the 204 UK office landlords canvassed were
“struggling to attract prospective tenants”. Ultimately, the market
will shift to accommodate new ways of working. But right now,
landlords are “caught in the crossfire in the battle over pay”.

The total value of “green” ESG funds could hit $50trn by

2025, according to Bloomberg. Most investors buying into them
The dirty believe they’re doing their bit to tackle climate change, says The
Economist. But that “good faith” may be misplaced. Funds often
secrets of meet their goals “simply by excluding the shares of firms in
polluting industries”, and this is having unintended side effects.
green investing “The Western world’s dirty assets are heading into the shadows”,
as large, publicly-listed energy and mining firms sell their most In an apparent first, the CEO
Editorial polluting (and often highly profitable) assets to please ESG of the Co-op’s food business
investors. Private equity firms, out of the limelight, have snapped is taking a four-month
The Economist up $60bn worth of fossil-fuel-linked assets in the past two years. unpaid “career break” to
help her two sons prepare
The process stinks. “Selling a polluting asset does not in itself
for their exams, said Ashley
reduce emissions”, and once in private hands the pressure to do Armstrong in The Times. The
so fades. The best way to tackle this issue is “to align the profit junior Whitfields are sitting
motive with the imperative to cut emissions” via carbon taxes. In GCSEs and A-levels this
the short term, “sincere green investors” would do better to hold year and their mother – a
on to “dirty shares” and work with managers to reduce emissions. Liverpudlian who describes
herself as “family first” –
“In a right-thinking, but wrong-headed decision”, which might wants to see them through
have been parodied on the comedy show W1A, the BBC is “the inevitable pressure and

The BBC’s moving the entire business reporting team for Radio 4’s Today
and the World Service to Salford, says Oliver Shah. “Manchester
emotional turmoil”. Group
CEO Steve Murrells will take

not doing
responsibility for Co-op’s
is a great city”, but London “will always be the centre of big 2,600 shops when her leave
business and finance”, and this move means most chief executives begins in May. The move
the business will “no longer be able to drop in to give face-to-face interviews
on busy results days”. What’s more, the new unit – renamed
has drawn a “mixed
reaction”, said BBC
Oliver Shah “money and work” – seems to have “a key word” missing. Business. Some praised
There’s long been a suspicion that the BBC doesn’t much like Whitfield, who earned £1.4m
The Sunday Times business, or want to understand it, viewing it as “dirty”. Perhaps in 2020, as “a fantastic role
model”. Others point out
that’s a reflection of British society at large, but it makes Auntie
that while such a break is
“her own worst enemy”. The BBC’s attitude to business is both open to all Co-op staff, most
a symptom and a cause of its troubles with the Government – it couldn’t afford it. “Equality
“winds up hawks” who want to cut the licence fee. “For reasons of opportunity as tokenism?”
of self-preservation, let alone the blood pressure of listeners who tweeted one critic.
care about free enterprise”, management needs to rethink.

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

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 Shares CITY 43

Who’s tipping what

The week’s best shares Directors’ dealings
B&M European Value Retail BP Fuller Smith & Turner Asos
The Times The Mail on Sunday The Daily Telegraph
4,000
The discount retailer buys The energy giant is continuing The pub group has a well-
Director sells
“narrow but deep” – fewer its green transition (boosted tended estate in prime sites 3,750
450,000
products in higher volumes by profits from “dirty brown in London and the Southeast. 3,500
– to combat cost pressures. fuels”), investing in renewables, Punished by lockdowns, staff 3,250
Highly cash-generative with EV chargers, and carbon shortages and rising input 3,000
a potential 7.3% yield. capture and storage. Shares costs, but business should 2,750
Buy. 557.4p. look cheap, dividends robust. recover strongly as commuters
2,500
Yields 3.7%. Buy. 417p. and tourists return. Buy. 662p.
Barratt Developments 2,250
The Times Dunelm Group Syncona
Housebuilders face rising Investors’ Chronicle The Sunday Times Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb

interest rates, supply-chain Strengthened market share and This early-stage science

SOURCE: INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE

disruption, build-cost inflation
and cladding concerns. But
demand for Barratt homes
remains strong and higher
volumes should boost margins.
Potential 8.1% yield.
Buy. 633p.
a focus on “value” should
stand the retailer, which has
175 shops and an improved
online presence, in good stead
as household budgets are
squeezed. Profits are rising.
Buy. £12.85.
investment trust majors on Co-founder Nick Robertson
has sold £10m worth of shares
gene therapies to combat eye in the e-commerce fashion
cancer and blindness, and cell retailer which, although
therapies to treat immune well-established, faces
system diseases. Worth a punt expansion headwinds. Shares
on possible blockbuster cures. soared in lockdown, then fell
amid shrinking margins.
Buy. 187.4p.

…and some to hold, avoid or sell Form guide

Amazon
Investors’ Chronicle
Amazon Web Services has
maintained its market-leading
position in cloud services amid
mounting competition. But
tight retail margins and a jump
in operating costs (shipping
and wages) could hurt the
wider business. Sell. $3,159.
Micro Focus International Ocado Group Shares tipped 12 weeks ago
Investors’ Chronicle The Sunday Telegraph Best tip
The software and consultancy Shares have collapsed in line BP Group
firm is still struggling with its with the abating appetite for The Sunday Telegraph
“disastrous” acquisition of online-focused stocks. Yet up 13.69% to 398.15p
Hewlett Packard’s software Ocado’s £1.5bn cash pile
arm. Debt is high and profits bodes well for tech and Worst tip
down, but cash generation is investment. Partnership deals Driver Group
Investors’ Chronicle
improving and shares trade at in the US, Japan and Europe
down 21.82% to 43p
a 36% discount. Hold. 453.3p. are promising. Hold. £12.94.

JD Sports Fashion Novacyt Restore

The Daily Telegraph
Surging inflation in the UK, US
and Europe threatens discre-
tionary spending – and the
retailer faces further headwinds
from rising staff costs and
disrupted supply chains. Shares
have doubled since 2017: take
profits. Sell. 179.05p.
The Times
Demand for lucrative
PCR contracts is set to fall
drastically this year, yet detail
on the diagnostics group’s
non-Covid products is thin.
Numis has cut revenue
forecasts by more than a
third. Avoid. 160.95p.
The Daily Telegraph Market view
Recovery is well under way ”The market has
at the document manager, woken up to the risk.
thanks to eight acquisitions in The challenge is that it’s
2021 and improving organic very hard to assess.”
Jon Adams of BMO Global
momentum. The return to
Asset Management on the
the office should boost its Ukraine stand-off. Quoted
relocation and recycling in The Wall Street Journal
divisions. Hold. 468.5p.

Market summary
Key
Key numbers
numbers for investors
investors Best
Best and
and worst performing shares
shares Following the Footsie
15 Feb 2022 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS 7,600
FTSE 100 7608.92 7567.07 0.55% RISES Price % change
FTSE All-share UK 4254.78 4233.62 0.50% Antofagasta 1385.50 +11.60 7,500
Dow Jones 35013.66 35400.76 –1.09% Informa 624.00 +11.30
NASDAQ 14082.13 14140.73 –0.41% Ocado Group 1363.00 +11.30 7,400
Nikkei 225 26865.19 27284.52 –1.54% AstraZeneca 8865.00 +7.00
Hang Seng 24355.71 24329.49 0.11% ITV 122.65 +6.80 7,300

Gold 1866.15 1813.55 2.90% FALLS 7,200

Brent Crude Oil 93.38 90.88 2.75% Evraz 330.60 –28.30
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.29% 3.23% JD Sports Fashion 168.85 –5.70 7,100
UK 10-year gilts yield 1.50 1.41 Aveva Group 2733.00 –3.90
US 10-year Treasuries 2.03 1.96 Barclays 198.46 –3.80 7,000
UK ECONOMIC DATA Prudential 1207.00 –3.40
Latest CPI (yoy) 5.5% (Jan) 5.4% (Dec)
FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER 6,900
Latest RPI (yoy) 7.8% (Jan) 7.5% (Dec) Nov Dec Jan Feb
Cineworld Group 41.28 +12.90 Sep Oct
Halifax house price (yoy) 9.7% (Jan) 9.8% (Dec)
Synthomer 311.80 –9.50
6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index
£1 STERLING: $1.356 s1.190 ¥156.930 Bitcoin $44,190 Source: FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 15 Feb (pm)

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

44 The last word

The night the National Gallery

lost a masterpiece
The theft of Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington in 1961 caused a sensation. Four years later a retired taxi
driver confessed to the heist and was sent to jail. Martin Fletcher reveals who the real thief was – and how he stole the portrait

Sixty-one years ago, Francisco reward. But the police found

de Goya’s portrait of the Duke no clues except mud on the
of Wellington was stolen from windowsill of a gents, a ladder
the National Gallery. It was the to the courtyard below, and
first theft of an artwork in its scuff marks on the gallery’s rear
137-year history, and one of the gate. More people went to see
most audacious art heists of the the empty space where the
20th century. The assumption painting had been displayed
was that some sophisticated than had gone to see the
crime syndicate had stolen portrait itself. “How do you
the painting. Four years later, feel when you’ve lost a Goya?
a 61-year-old unemployed You feel a bloody fool,” said
taxi driver from Newcastle Sir Philip Hendry, the gallery’s
claimed to have taken it – director, who offered to resign.
as a bargaining chip for his
quixotic campaign to secure There was much speculation
free television licences for about the identity of the
pensioners. Kempton Bunton mastermind behind the theft.
was tried, but acquitted on Some noted recent art thefts
the grounds that he had only on the continent and believed
“borrowed” the Old Master. a millionaire was amassing a
private collection. Others drew
This improbable tale is a connection with the theft of
the subject of The Duke, a the Mona Lisa from the Louvre
delightful film starring Helen by an Italian patriot, 50 years
Mirren and Jim Broadbent Kempton Bunton: “I wouldn’t hang it in my own kitchen” earlier. But everyone agreed
which is playing in cinemas that the theft itself was the
later this month. But just as the film contains a further twist, so work of a consummate professional. Lord Robbins, chair of the
too does the real story. It was Bunton’s son, Jackie, who stole the Gallery’s trustees, declared that the thief must have been “slim”
painting, not his father, and today Jackie’s son, Chris (Kempton’s and “physically fit”, “a man without fear.”
grandson), is telling me how his father pulled off the feat.
Nine days after the painting vanished, Reuters news agency
When I ask directly if his father received a note written in pencil
was the thief, Chris Bunton and crude capital letters. “Query
replies, “There’s no doubt he “‘The Duke is safe’, the ransom note not that I have the Goya,” the
was. He was 20 years old at read. ‘His temperature cared for – writer began. “The picture is
the time, and Kempton was not not, and will not be for sale.
involved in the planning of this his future uncertain’” It is for ransom – £140,000 –
in any way, shape or form.” He to be given for charity.” The
says his father has written a brief confession to Chris’s own son, authorities ruled out any such deal. But notes continued to be sent
Jay, which states, “Dear Jay, this is your grandfather. I am fully to news agencies. “The Duke is safe. His temperature cared for
responsible for taking the Goya. My father had no involvement in – his future uncertain,” one declared 11 months later, before
it at all until after the fact.” Jackie “was not proud” of taking the demanding again a ransom for charity. As the mystery deepened,
painting, Chris adds. “He actually said it was the dumbest, Dr. No, the first James Bond film, was released. In one scene Sean
stupidest thing he ever did.” Connery walks through Julius No’s underground lair, and spots
Goya’s portrait on an easel.
As for Jackie, he is now 80, widowed, ailing and living in a flat in
North Shields. Doorstepped by a reporter, he refused to discuss In March 1965 a final note arrived, proposing to return the
the theft. “Those things are best left in the past,” he said. “I don’t painting provided it was put on show for a month with a
talk about what happened then.” Goya painted the Iron Duke, five-shilling viewing charge and the proceeds given to a charity
resplendent in a red tunic, after his victory over the French at of his choice. Hugh Cudlipp’s Daily Mirror took up the
Salamanca in 1812. In 1961, Charles Wrightsman, an American challenge of organising the show, publishing a “sporting offer” on
art collector, bought it at Sotheby’s for £140,000, but the its front page. “This great national art treasure should be taken
prospect of the portrait of one of Britain’s most famous soldiers immediately to the shop of any newsagent in the land,” it said; the
leaving the country caused uproar. It was saved with a £100,000 Mirror would then attempt to put it on display. Two weeks later,
gift from a philanthropist and £40,000 from the Treasury. On the editor received a left-luggage ticket from Birmingham’s New
3 August that year, it went on display at the top of the National Street station. There the police found the Duke of Wellington,
Gallery’s central stairs, uninsured and protected only by a rope frameless but undamaged after his four-year kidnapping, wrapped
barrier. Seventeen days later, it vanished. in brown paper secured with a length of clothes line.

The theft was a sensation. Ports and airports were closed. Trains There the story would have ended had a man in cheap NHS
were searched. Interpol was alerted. The gallery offered a £5,000 glasses not walked into Scotland Yard two months later. “My

THE WEEK 19 February 2022

 The last word 45
name is Kempton Bunton and I’m turning father had a heart attack in 2013, he decided
myself in for the Goya,” he said. The police to preserve the story for posterity. He took
did not believe him. Tall, ageing and another ferry trip with his father, this time
weighing nearly 18 stone, Bunton was no cat to Amsterdam, plied him with questions and
burglar. But he gave samples of paper and recorded the answers.
handwriting that matched the ransom notes.
Bunton said he was turning himself in Jackie told him how the gallery’s acquisition
because he was “sick and tired of the whole of the Goya was big news in August 1961.
affair”, because his secret had leaked and he He was driving taxis in Newcastle at the
did not want “a certain gentleman” claiming time, and conceived the idea of stealing it
the reward, and to “avoid the stigma of being either to make some money or to support his
brought here in chains”. father’s licence-fee campaign. He moved to
London, rented a room off Tottenham Court
“Are you going to charge me or not?” he Road, and found work delivering fur coats
berated the police. They eventually did so while he laid his plans. He got a map of the
because it transpired that Bunton had a gallery from its front desk, and identified the
bizarre – but just about plausible – motive. gents. He put tape on the door, a matchstick
Kempton Bunton (named after his father had on the window and a bit of fluff on the
enjoyed a good day at the races) left school painting to check they were not locked or
at 12 to help his mother run a pub while his removed at night. From an indiscreet guard
father fought in the First World War. He Saved for the nation, then pinched he learnt that the gallery was patrolled every
married, had seven children, and scraped a 20 minutes at night, and that its alarms were
living doing driving and labouring jobs, several of which he lost switched off early each morning for the cleaners. He scoped out
because he was argumentative. He was also a dreamer who the back of the gallery from the second floor of a nearby library,
believed in social justice and wrote numerous radio and television and noticed that builders were working on it. He was all set.
plays that were invariably rejected.
On the night of 20 August he dressed in crepe-soled shoes and an
By 1960, Bunton had begun campaigning for free television old coat purchased from a charity shop. He stole a Wolseley car
licences for pensioners, and was three times jailed for refusing – “he was a bit of a petty criminal at that point” Chris admits –
to pay his £4 licence fee. He had also discovered from his local and at about 4am on the 21st, he parked behind the gallery and
library that Wellington was an autocrat who despised the lower scaled a wall by standing on a parking meter. He then took the
classes, and reckoned that “his portrait might bring more builders’ ladder and climbed through the window of the gents. “I
happiness into the world than ever he had himself”. Had Bunton kept as low as I could through the gallery,” Jackie said. “I didn’t
received the £140,000 ransom, bump into any guards and there
he said, he would have used it to were no alarms. At the picture I
give licences to lonely old folk. “‘My name is Kempton Bunton and placed one foot inside the rope
I’m turning myself in for the Goya,’ Bunton barrier, quickly grabbed the
His trial began at the Old Bailey painting, and without wasting
in November 1965. He was
told police. They didn’t believe him” any time, left the way I went in.”
represented – for fun – by
Jeremy Hutchinson, a top criminal barrister whose other clients As he drove off with the painting in full view on the back seat he
included the Great Train Robber Charlie Wilson and the Profumo was reprimanded by a policeman for going the wrong way down
scandal model Christine Keeler. Bunton, the quintessential English a one-way street. Back at his digs he hid the painting under his
underdog, charmed the jury. He said he was disgusted that bed. After that he did not know what to do because, “I’d never
£140,000 could be spent on a painting when many old folk could expected to get as far”. So he telephoned his father. “I told him I
not afford to watch television. He had stored the painting in a had a painting and he said, ‘Is it the Goya?’”, Jackie recalled. “He
bedroom cupboard in his council house, but had not informed his guessed as it was all over the news.” Kempton came to London
wife “because the world would have knew [sic] if I’d told her”. and sent Jackie home. He waited two weeks for the hullabaloo
to pass, then took a train back to Newcastle with the painting.
He never intended to keep the portrait, he insisted, because
“it was no earthly good to me... I wouldn’t hang it in my own Asked why Kempton confessed to a crime he’d never committed,
kitchen if it was my own picture”. Bunton was, said Hutchinson, Jackie said his brother Ken’s girlfriend had learnt of the theft and
“rather a darling”, and the jury acquitted him. The judge was less was threatening to turn him in. He did not step forward when
amused. “Creeping into public galleries to extract pictures of Kempton went on trial because, “He ordered me not to. He didn’t
value in order to use them for your own purposes has got to be want me to get into trouble, and I think he enjoyed the whole
discouraged,” he declared. He sent Bunton to Wandsworth prison adventure and the publicity he was winning for his campaign.”
for three months for stealing the portrait’s long-discarded frame. Jackie finally confessed in 1969 because, he said, “I just wanted to
That would have been the end of the matter, had the police not get on with my life and was tired of having it hanging over me. I
stopped a stolen van in Leeds four years after Kempton’s trial. didn’t want it to come up down the line and wanted it removed
The driver was his son, Jackie, who asked for another offence to from my father’s record as he couldn’t get work.” The authorities
be taken into consideration. He confessed it was he, not his did not prosecute Jackie, he said, because “they didn’t want the
father, who took the Goya. The director of public prosecutions, hassle and further embarrassment”. Thereafter Jackie “pretty
however, chose not to charge Jackie provided he kept quiet. Thus much turned his life around”, says Chris. He married, had
Jackie managed to steal a masterpiece from the National Gallery children and ran his own removal business until he retired.
and escape scot-free.
In 2014, Chris turned the whole extraordinary story into a
Chris Bunton was born shortly after Kempton died in 1976. His screenplay. The film’s UK premiere was held last week where the
family never talked about the theft while he was growing up. “A story began, at the National Gallery. Jackie was not there, but the
lot of them were really ashamed of the whole thing,” he says. Duke himself was. And Kempton Bunton doubtless attended in
Not, that is, until Jackie told him the story on a ferry trip from spirit, smiling at the way things have turned out.
Newcastle to Bergen when Chris was a teenager. “I thought he
had had one too many drinks,” he recalls. Chris now lives in New A longer version of this article appeared in The Time
York where he organises online events for IT companies. After his © The Times/News Licensing

19 February 2022 THE WEEK

46 Marketplace

THE WEEK 19 February 2022 To advertise here please email classified@theweek.co.uk

or call Henry Haselock 020 3890 3900
 Crossword 47
THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1299 This week’s winner will receive an
T
An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass
E
of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday case
c (assorted colours), which retails
28 February. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line a
at £105, and two Connell Guides
The Week crossword 1299, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) ((connellguides.com).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ACROSS DOWN
1 Month with a new writer? Very 1 Scottish pattern good in early
old one actually (8) knitting (6)
5 Bikes moved without purpose 2 Former PM happy when almost 9 10
by old Bob (6) drunk! (9)
9 Virginia’s partner into endless 3 Musical compositions sounding 11
marijuana? That’s serious (8) sugary (5)
10 Famous footballer holds two 4 Astaire was one doing a 12 13
diamonds to sell (6) quickstep! (2,1,4)
12 Yarn some feel is lengthy (5) 6 Aim too high with deliveries and
13 Expensive, like the entry to St get shout of derision (9)
Paul’s cathedral (1,3,5) 7 The Eagle’s in a whirl, we hear (5)
14 Busy road within reach? One’s 8 Female cooked hot pies like 14 15 16 17
on the far left (6) lamb (8)
16 Loose women seen in the front 11 Near darkness, temperature 18
row? (7) dropping (4)
19 Model noticed what’s shaped 15 Whisky illegally distilled? 19 20 21
like a comb (7) Nonsense (9)
21 Friends say, pose with 17 Smileys e.g. Economist put 22
committee briefly (6) out (9)
23 Ecstasy I’d arouse, while barely 18 Type of bottle not appropriate 23 24 25
earning a living? (9) for Cork? (5,3)
25 Is trapped in very warm lift (5) 20 Expensive letter opener (4)
26 Sunday Times corrected 21 Fruit that’s an essential since
splitting words (6) taken up (7) 26 27
27 Start game after tyrant’s 22 Check that’s an anagram of
gone? (5-3) itself! (6)
28 Chum allowed a platform (6) 24 Live in Llandrindod Wells (5)
29 The French annoyed before 25 No time to check former Czech
English game (8) currency (5) 28 29

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