Thursday
‘Some families were
politely puzzled. After
a 4,000-mile round trip,
Krzysztof was furious’
Amelia Gentleman with the Ukrainians
stranded in Calais by Home Office red tape
Page 8 
‘Genocide’: Russia bombs
Ukraine children’s hospital
• Zelenskiy again calls
for no-fly zone after
explosion leaves patients
trapped in rubble
• Mariupol’s mayor says
1,170 citizens have been
killed in rocket, bomb
and artillery attacks
• Bodies ‘lie unburied
in street’ as Red Cross
describes conditions in
port city as apocalyptic
•••
Luke Harding Lviv
Julian Borger Washington
Jon Henley
Russian bombs “completely dest-
royed” a children’s and maternity
hospital in Mariupol, Ukrainian
authorities said yesterday, as shelling
again halted evacuations from sev-
eral cities, including the devastated
southern port, where conditions
were described as “apocalyptic”.
As Ukraine’s foreign minister,
Dmitryo Kuleba, accused Russia of
“holding 400,000 people hostage”
in Mariupol, the president, Volody-
myr Zelenskiy, denounced the attack
as “genocide” and said patients,
including, children, were under the
wreckage.
“A children’s hospital, a mater-
nity ward. How did they threaten
▲ An injured pregnant woman is
rescued from Mariupol’s maternity
hospital after yesterday’s bombing
PHOTOGRAPH: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/AP
the Russian Federation? What is this
country that is afraid of hospitals,
maternity wards and is destroying
them?” Zelenskiy said.
“Hospitals and schools are
destroyed. Churches and ordinary
buildings are destroyed. People are
killed. Children are killed. The aer-
ial bombing of a children’s hospital is
the ultimate evidence that genocide
of Ukrainians is happening.”
Amid western warnings that Mos-
cow’s invasion was about to become
even more brutal as the Russian
leader, Vladimir Putin, sought to
regain momentum, local authorities
described the damage to the hospital
– a combined 600-bed complex with
10 March 2022
£2.50
From £1.85 for subscribers
children’s and maternity wards – as
“colossal” and said at least 17 people Diplomacy Putin is
had been wounded, including
leading his country to
women in labour.
Mariupol’s deputy mayor, Sergei defeat – US secretary
Orlov, said the shelling was continu-
of state Page 6 
ous and 1,170 residents had died, 47
of whom were buried in a mass grave
yesterday. “It’s medieval,” he said.
“It’s pure genocide. The attack isn’t Fuel crisis Tories pile
simply treacherous. It’s a war crime.”
pressure on Sunak as
The Guardian was unable to
fully verify the Ukrainian officials’ war puts new strain
accounts, but video published by
on prices Page 12 
the Associated Press showed multi-
ple injured people at the site of the
hospital attack.
The Red Cross has described con- Boycott Moscow faces
ditions in the port city as apocalyptic,
new reality as global
while the deputy prime minister,
Iryna Vereshchuk, said the situa- firms pull out over
tion was “catastrophic”
and Zelenskiy compared
2  conflict Page 15 
 ••• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

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‘Genocide’: horror over

calling on Russian forces to respect
an “official public commitment” to
Cryptic crossword cease fire. Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, gov-
Back of Journal ernor of Sumy, from where 7,000
civilians managed to flee on Tues-

Contact
For missing sections call 0800 839 100.
For individual departments, call the Guardian
Russian attack on hospital day, said civilian cars were driving
out of the city along the same safe
route to Poltava, further to the west,
with priority for pregnant women,
switchboard: 020 3353 2000. women with children, and elderly
For the Readers’ editor (corrections
&  clarifications on specific editorial content), call  Continued from page 1 Russian forces continue to push into Ukraine and disabled people.
020 3353 4736 between 10am and 1pm UK time But while Dmytro Orlov, the mayor
Monday to Friday excluding public holidays, or Under Russian control Russian invasion routes
email guardian.readers@theguardian.com.
the devastation and suffering there of Enerhodar in the north-west, said a
Letters for publication should be sent to to that caused by the Nazis. Chernihiv – Russian forces Sumy – More convoy of mainly vulnerable civilians
guardian.letters@theguardian.com or the Journalists have described corpses placing military equipment evacuations on had been evacuated from the city,
address on the letters page. among residential buildings Wednesday after 5,000
lying unburied in the streets and hun- and Kyiv’s deputy mayor said author-
NEWSPAPERS
and on farms, says Ukraine left on Tuesday
SUPPORT gry residents breaking into stores in Konotop ities hoped to help some more people
RECYCLING
The recycled paper
content of UK newspapers
search of food and melting snow for Russia escape from Irpin, Bucha and Hos-
 
in 2017 was 64.6%
water. Chernobyl Chernihiv tomel, there was little evidence the
Russian-controlled
Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, 90 York Way, Orlov said the Russian army had Sumy territory corridors were working elsewhere.
London N1 9GU. 020-3353 2000. Fax 020-7837 2114. also “shot and bombed” a humani- Kyiv – Ukraine says Civilians were unable to leave
In Manchester: Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, tarian corridor agreed with Moscow forces resisting Kyiv Izyum because of continued Rus-
Manchester M3 3WR. Telephone Sales: 020-7611 9000. Russian offensive
The Guardian lists links to third-party websites, but as a safe route out for civilians, mined Lviv
Kharkiv sian shelling in the eastern Kharkiv
does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity the road and installed a checkpoint. region, said the regional governor,
or accuracy. Back issues from Historic Newspapers:
Of an estimated 200,000 people Ukraine Mykolaiv – Ukraine says Kramatorsk
Oleh Synyehubov.
0870-165 1470 guardian.backissuenewspapers.co.uk. Russians dressed in
Published by Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, desperate to leave, only 2,000 to civilian clothes advancing
Dnipro Zelenskiy said yesterday that the
90 York Way, London N1 9GU, and at Centurion House, 3,000 a day were able to. on city threat level against the country was
129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Printed at Reach Moldova Line of
Watford Limited, St Albans Road, Watford, Herts
Ukrainian authorities said earlier control “at the maximum” and again called
WD24 7RG; Reach Oldham Limited, Hollinwood Avenue, that the corridors should allow Romania on the west to impose a no-fly zone,
Mykolaiv
Chadderton, Oldham OL9 8EP; Reach Saltire Ltd, residents of the heavily bombarded Mariupol saying it risked a “humanitarian
Melitopol
110 Fifty Pitches Place, Glasgow G51 4EA; and by Mariupol – Civilians facing
Irish Times Print Facility, 4080 Kingswood Road, cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar, ‘apocalyptic’ situation in Odesa 100 km catastrophe” if it did not. He called
Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24. No. 54,601, Sumy, Izyum and Volnovakha – as besieged port city 100 miles
the Russians “Nazis” in an inter-
Thursday 10 March 2022. Registered as a newspaper at Crimea
the Post Office ISSN 0261-3077.
well as towns around Kyiv including view with Sky News last night from
Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel – to leave, Source: Rochan Consulting, Institute for the Study of War with AEI’s Critical Threats Project. 2130 GMT 8 March his office in Kyiv, saying: “If you are
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
▼ Wreckage is strewn outside the
maternity hospital hit by Russian
shells in Mariupol yesterday
PHOTOGRAPHS: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/AP
united against the Nazis and this ter-
ror, you have to close. Don’t wait for
me to ask you several times, a mil-
lion times. Close the sky.” He warned
that otherwise “millions” could die.
Speaking in Washington, the US
secretary of state, Antony Blinken,
and British foreign secretary, Liz
Truss, reiterated the Nato position
that a no-fly zone would bring Nato
into direct conflict with Russia.
The head of the UN’s refugee
agency UNHCR, Filippo Grandi,
said yesterday that up to 2.2 million
people had fled Ukraine since the
invasion began on 24 February.
The head of the UN’s World Food
Programme said it expected to have
to help more than 3 million refugees
from Ukraine with food donations.
With food becoming an increas-
ingly urgent concern in the country,
Ukraine’s government banned wheat
exports that are critical to global food
supplies yesterday in an attempt to
ward off food shortages and hunger.
Amid international alarm over the
safety of Ukraine’s nuclear plants,
several of which are now in Russian
hands, Kyiv called for a ceasefire to
allow electricity to be restored to
Chernobyl, saying the defunct plant
had been disconnected from the
grid. Russia’s defence ministry said
•••
Combat missiles
UK plans to step up supply
Britain is planning to supply
Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons
and “a small consignment” of
Javelin anti-tank missiles to
Ukraine as Russian forces close in
on Kyiv to the east, the defence
secretary has said.
The UK would also continue to
supply NLAW short-range anti-
tank weapons, Ben Wallace told
the Commons, and has already
given Ukraine 3,615 of the portable
missile systems – nearly double the
2,000 figure previously disclosed.
Wallace said Ukraine had already
received “900 man-portable
anti-air missiles” – a reference to
Stingers supplied by other Nato
countries – but was desperately
seeking more arms as Russian
forces attempted to encircle Kyiv.
“The capability needs
strengthening,” Wallace said. “So in
response to Ukrainian requests, the
government has taken a decision to
explore the donation of Starstreak
man-portable anti-air missiles.”
Later, in response to questions
from MPs as to how long the supply
decision would take, Wallace said:
“We are in principle going to do
it.” He acknowledged Ukrainian
soldiers would need to be trained.
“How we are doing it [training] is
sensitive,” he added.
Starstreak is the British army’s
equivalent to the US-made Stinger
missiles that have been supplied
to Ukraine by the US, Germany and
the Netherlands among others.
They are laser-guided with a range
of 7km, unlike Stingers, which rely
on infrared, and are harder to jam.
Both Labour and the Scottish
National party urged Wallace to
send missiles promptly. John
Healey, the shadow defence
secretary, called for the supply
decision to be made “as quickly as
possible”. A similar plea followed
from the SNP’s Stuart McDonald.
Dan Sabbagh
Ukrainian forces had attacked power
lines in a “dangerous provocation”.
The International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), however, said the
loss of power at the plant did not
have an imminent impact on safety
– although it said it was very con-
cerned about the lack of staff rotation
at the plant, which requires constant
management to prevent another
nuclear disaster.
As fighting continued across the
country, Ukraine’s general staff said
its armed forces were building up
defences in cities in the north, south
and east, and that forces around Kyiv
were “holding the line”.
The British Ministry of Defence
said in its latest assessment of the
military situation that Russian
forces were “failing to make any
significant breakthroughs”. The min-
istry’s assessment said the cities of
Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mari-
upol “remain encircled and continue
to suffer heavy Russian shelling”.
The defence secretary, Ben Wal-
lace, said Russia’s assault was set
to become “more brutal and more
indiscriminate”. Yesterday, the UK
said the Russians had confirmed the
use of a thermobaric rocket system.
The weapons, also known as vac-
uum bombs, suck in oxygen from the
▼ Inside the badly damaged
maternity and children’s hospital,
an injured, pregnant woman
makes her way downstairs
▲ A scene of devastation inside
the 600-bed children’s and
maternity hospital in the besieged
southern city of Mariupol
surrounding air to generate a high-
temperature explosion.
Three rounds of peace talks
between the two sides have so far
yielded no progress, with Moscow
continuing to insist Ukraine must
“demilitarise”. The foreign ministry
in Moscow repeated allegations the
US was supporting a military biolog-
ical programme in Ukraine involving
deadly pathogens including plague,
cholera and anthrax, claiming Rus-
sian forces had uncovered evidence.
Washington and Kyiv have
strongly denied the claims, which
the US has previously described as
“absurd” misinformation.
The Russian foreign minister,
Sergei Lavrov, was due to meet his
Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro
Kuleba, and the Turkish foreign
minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on the
sidelines of a summit being hosted
yesterday in the resort city of Antalya
by Turkey, a Nato member.
Russia said that it was work-
ing on a “broad response” to an
unprecedented range of international
financial and economic sanctions.
3
Chernobyl
Kyiv’s claims
of radiation
risk at site
contested
Julian Borger
Washington
Ukrainian authorities have said the
power supply has been cut to the
defunct Chernobyl power plant, but
the UN’s atomic watchdog said the
spent nuclear fuel stored there had
cooled down sufficiently for it not to
be an imminent safety concern.
Ukraine’s nuclear regulator said
the power supply to the Cherno-
byl plant failed yesterday morning,
and the national power company,
Ukrenergo, said it was impossible
to restore the power lines because
of fighting in the surrounding areas.
The nuclear energy company
Energoatom said in a post on the
Telegram messaging app: “Emer-
gency diesel generators are switched
on at the site to supply power to
safety-critical systems. In case of
trouble-free operation, the stock of
diesel fuel on diesel generators will
be enough for 48 hours.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro
Kuleba, said that after the 48 hours
were up, “cooling systems of the
storage facility for spent nuclear
fuel will stop, making radiation leaks
imminent”.
However, the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was
enough water in the spent fuel pools
for the fuel rods to cool sufficiently
to avoid an accident.
The IAEA voiced concern that the
site had stopped transmitting data
on ambient radiation and other var-
iables, and expressed concern for the
staff, who were under Russian guard
and had not been able to change
shifts. The situation for the staff was
worsening, the IAEA said, citing the
Ukrainian nuclear regulator.
James Acton, a co-director of
the nuclear policy programme at
the Carnegie Endowment for Inter-
national Peace, said: “The loss of
power at Chernobyl is concern-
ing but it is extremely unlikely that
spent fuel pools there will empty
because of evaporation (which could
lead to fuel melting). This process
is slow and mitigations should be
straightforward.”
Acton said the risks at Ukraine’s
operational nuclear power plants
were much higher than at Chernobyl.
Chernobyl
Nuclear
Under Russian control and not power plant
currently transmitting data
Russia
Rivno
Russian-controlled
territory
Kyiv
Khmelnitsky Zaporizhzhia
Fire broke out as
Ukraine Russian forces seized
plant on Friday
South
Ukraine
200 km
200 miles

4 News
Hail of destruction
Mariupol mayor’s
city bombed back
to ‘medieval’ times
Luke Harding
Lviv
S
peaking via a blurry
video connection,
the deputy mayor of
Mariupol painted a
grim picture of life
and death inside his
besieged city yesterday. Russian
forces surrounded Mariupol a
week ago. They have been shelling
it “continuously” ever since,
Sergiy Orlov, said, in a call with the
Guardian and other foreign media.
“They have used aviation,
artillery, multiple rocket launchers,
grads and other types of weapons
we don’t even know about. This
isn’t simply treacherous. It’s a war
crime and pure genocide,” he said.
He added: “Vladimir Putin means
to capture Mariupol whatever the
human cost.”
By way of evidence Orlov reeled
off a list of civilian targets he said
had so far been “annihilated”. They
included numerous residential
houses, Mariupol’s 600-bed
maternity hospital No 9 , the main
administration service building,
and the city’s giant Azvostal
metallurgical factory – once the
workplace for 11,000 people.
He said 1,170 people had been
killed. Yesterday municipal
workers buried 47 victims in a mass
grave. “We couldn’t identify all of
them,” Orlov said. The message
from Moscow was chillingly clear,
he said: “Putin intends to destroy
Ukraine so he can have Ukraine
without Ukrainians.”
It is not currently possible to
independently verify the toll nor
the details of Orlov’s account.
Putin’s goals, he said, were
proceeding at a terrifying pace. The
city has spent eight days without
heat, power, gas or electricity. The
Russians parked up in tanks and
armoured vehicles on Mariupol’s
coastal outskirts had bombed all 15
power lines, Orlov said. On Monday
they blew up the gas connection.
“We sent a team of workers
to repair the line. The Russians
immediately shelled them. They
had to leave,” he said. Now the
city’s 400,000 residents were living
in freezing “medieval conditions”,
unthinkable in what was until
two weeks ago a modern and
“flourishing” city, with busy cafes
and restaurants.
“The only way civilians can cook
now is on open fires. People are
fighting over firewood. They are
happy that it’s cold and snowing.
Snow means they have something
to drink.
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
War in Ukraine
“A six-year-old girl died of
dehydration,” Orlov said bitterly.
“This is Europe, in 2022. How can
that happen?” He added: “A lot of
districts are devastated. They are
dropping half-tonne bombs from
the sky.”
Mariupol is one of several cities
where Russia has promised to
open “humanitarian corridors”.
The reality was the reverse, Orlov
said. For the past five days Russia
had shelled the agreed route and
had even mined the road. It had set
up a new checkpoint, he claimed,
making evacuation to Zaporizhzhia
– a city to the west under Ukrainian
control – impossible.
The deputy mayor estimated
about 200,000 people wanted to
get out of Mariupol. The authorities
were only able to take out about
2,000 to 3,000 residents a day,
he said, on a battered fleet of 21
municipal buses. The Russians had
flattened the others. They targeted
the assembly evacuation points,
with citizens understandably
reluctant to leave their shelters.
Putin’s apparent dream of a
“Russian world” minus Ukrainians
was the product of a “sick
imagination”, he said. He pointed
out that Mariupol had always been
a diverse city, home to Ukrainian
and Russian speakers as well as
ethnic Greeks and Armenians. All
were Ukrainian citizens, he said,
adding that nobody cared what
language you spoke.
“Half of those killed by Russian
bombing are Russian-origin
Ukrainians. This is Putin’s ‘peace’,”
he said sardonically. The Ukrainian
army would defend Mariupol
until the last man, he said. If it did
ultimately fall it would become
a “ghost place”, he predicted,
adding: “There is no Russian
Mariupol. It’s going to be a desert.”
From Kyiv, Ukraine’s president,
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tweeted
photos of the airstrike yesterday at ▲ About 1,170 people have been
Mariupol’s maternity hospital and killed in strikes, authorities say
said adults and children lay buried
under the wreckage. Local authorities still control
Zelenskiy renewed his call the city centre. The worst shelling
– so far rejected by Nato – for has taken place in western districts
an immediate no-fly zone over closest to Russian troops including
Ukraine’s skies. The world was Primorskiy and the port area,
“losing its humanity”, he wrote. once home to Ukraine’s small Sea
Other photos taken from inside of Azov naval fleet. With little
Mariupol over the past two days food left, desperate civilians have
confirm a major humanitarian started looting shops.
disaster is taking place, with the EU, The city has distributed bottled
the US and the UK seemingly able to water to women and children.
do nothing. They show blackened Orlov said supplies of formula
and destroyed apartment buildings, milk had run out, with about 3,000
several still smouldering; burned babies unfed. Families are sleeping ▲ People queue up at a well on the
out cars; and streets filled with in freezing cellars. A few residents outskirts of Mariupol, where pipes
debris. Bodies lie on pavements are able to charge mobile phones and power lines have been bombed
covered by rugs or sheets. on city council generators. But PHOTOGRAPH: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/AP
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •••
▼ An elderly woman in Mariupol.
Only 2,000 to 3,000 people can be
evacuated from the city each day
PHOTOGRAPH: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/AP
for most contact with the outside
world has stopped.
Writing on Facebook, Mariupol
resident Angela Timchenko said
there was “no electricity, no
communication, no gas, no medical
care and no food. Looting is on the
rise. There are crazy mums looking
for food and nappies. Let’s help
each other whenever possible.”
She added: “Yesterday I was
in the city. There were bonfires
burning near all the houses and
food was being prepared … To all
who left our children to die, burn
in hell. I heard a little boy ask
his mum: ‘Will the rockets spark
today?’” Timchenko said she had
lost 3.5kg and was running back
and forth from her eighth-floor flat.
“The baby understands if you raise
your voice a little we need to run for
cover,”she wrote poignantly.
A few days ago, the activist
Anatoliy Lozar had described
conditions in Mariupol as “hell”.
The city had become a new
Stalingrad, he said. Yesterday,
calls to his two phones failed to
connect. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s
foreign minister, said Mariupol was
“besieged by Russian invaders”.
“Mariupol is on the edge of
humanitarian catastrophe. No
humanitarian convoy can get to the
city left without water, heating &
electricity,” he tweeted.
Analysis
Martin Chulov
Bombardment, brutality and
biological warfare slurs: how
Moscow honed tactics in Syria
W
hen a Russian
spokesperson
took to a
podium in
Moscow
yesterday and
warned of a “biological weapons
programme” in Ukraine, fighters
on another battlefield – Syria –
understood what she meant.
The anti-Assad groups in
northern Syria had heard it all
before. From 2015, when Russia
took a prominent stake in the
conflict, and during the years that
followed, claims that they – rather
than Bashar al-Assad’s regime – had
used chemical weapons were a
slur that put them on notice of an
imminent assault. Moscow made
the allegations whenever ground
forces it supported wanted to clear
a town. Brutal, indiscriminate
bombardment followed. So did
impunity.
Even in its infancy, the Russian
war in Ukraine has many parallels
with the conflict in Syria: barely
restrained savagery, the mass
flight of terrified civilians and
wanton destruction. Now the
use of foreboding pretexts can
be added to a growing list, born
amid the ruins of Grozny, Crimea
and Donbas and fine-tuned on
Weapons
Fears over
chemical
attacks
Dan Sabbagh London
Julian Borger Washington
Britain and the US fear Russia could
be setting the stage to use a chemical
weapon in Ukraine after Kremlin offi-
cials alleged without firm evidence
that the US had been supporting a bio-
weapons programme in the country.
White House press secretary Jen
Psaki said yesterday that Russia had
been making “false claims about
alleged US biological weapons labs
and chemical weapons development
in Ukraine”, and added that the alle-
gations had been echoed in Beijing.
Her comments came after western
officials said at a briefing, “we’ve got
good reason to be concerned about
possible use of non-conventional
weapons” by Russia, reflecting the
experience of chemical weapon use
during the Syrian civil war.
The concern arose partly because
Russia’s foreign ministry had been
the civilian population of Syria’s
beleaguered north.
The Pentagon and Ukraine’s
leadership both denied the Russian
claim, and there seemed little
likelihood of it cutting through an
international discourse that has run
heavily against the Kremlin and its
disinformation programmes.
It was a very different story
in Syria, where each claim of
chemical weapons use by rebels
was received with credulity in
parts of Europe, and there was little
interest in exposing Moscow’s lies.
Winning the war of misinformation
was a Russian success in Syria in a
theatre that wasn’t short of wins for
a military with no one, apart from
outgunned rebels and jihadists,
willing to stand in its way.
“Ukraine today is part of a much
longer continuum than Syria,” said
a former senior Nato officer. “It
goes back further than Chechnya
– politically, in terms of foreign
policy, in terms of Russia’s internal
dynamics, and in terms of the
tactics of the Russia war machine.
The only surprise over the past
fortnight is quite how useless the
Russian armed forces have been.”
They added: “We are all victims
of our experience and Putin’s
experience is of being able to
engaged in “setting the scene” by
making “false flag claims” about a
biological weapons programme oper-
ating inside Ukraine.
Earlier yesterday, Russian for-
eign ministry spokesperson Maria
Zakharova said Russia had docu-
ments showing evidence that the
US had supported a bioweapons pro-
gramme in Ukraine, involving plague,
cholera and anthrax. Washington and
Kyiv both denied the claims.
Separately, Russia’s defence minis-
try accused “Ukrainian nationalists”
of preparing a chemical weapons
“provocation” in a village north-west
of Kharkiv. The plan was to falsely
accuse Russian forces of using chem-
ical weapons, the ministry added.
“Russia has a track record of accus-
ing the west of the very violations
that Russia itself is perpetrating,”
Psaki tweeted. Western officials
have repeatedly made warnings
▲ A Russian soldier wears a gas
mask during training last year
5
get away with almost anything
he wants in every dimension of
warfare … His experience is that
you can grind out a win using
heavy explosives in the full glare of
western media attention. And with
an extremely effective control of
his own (patriotic) population, he
has little to fear at home.”
Compared with Ukraine,
Syria was a relatively low-cost
intervention for Moscow. Its pilots
ran bombing runs without serious
fear of being shot down, its heavy
weaponry had the run of cities and
its disinformation machine won at
a canter.
“The scope of the Ukraine war is
different,” said Charles Lister at the
Middle East Institute. “But some of
the tactics were definitely learned
and deployed in Syria.
“The sustained and
overwhelming use of heavy
bombardment aimed at
undermining public confidence
and as a tool of intimidation now
being seen in Mariupol was honed
in Syria, where Russia barely used
precision-guided munitions.
“The vast majority have been
dumb bombs. To use these, they
need to fly at a lower level. And
that’s why we are seeing Russian
planes shot down, by Stingers and
other ground-to-air missiles.”
Another parallel has emerged,
added Lister: an often cynical use
of human corridors as tools of
coercion. “In Russia, it is the shock
and awe effect on the population
and one that leads to a greater
number of war crimes,” he said.
“We saw this in Aleppo and
now we are seeing it in places like
Mariupol. It is clearly a tactic of
intimidation and subjugation.
In both cases, it’s shell to hell,
surround and besiege, then shell to
hell again and offer concessions.”
about Russia’s possible use of par-
ticularly lethal weapons over the
past two weeks, such as thermobaric
vacuum bombs, which cause severe
damage to human bodies because of
the intensity of their explosive blasts.
Such high-profile warnings from
the west are as much designed to
have a deterrent effect as they are to
be based on any assessment that such
weapons will actually be used.
But Russia has shown an appar-
ent willingness to target civilians in
Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and
Mariupol, as its initial invasion was
slow in making progress.
Direct attacks on civilians or civil-
ian infrastructure are considered
war crimes, and the use of chemical
weapons is banned by an interna-
tional treaty signed by 193 countries.
Chemical weapons have neverthe-
less been used on at least 17 occasions
during Syria’s civil war, according to
the Organisation for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons, which has
accused the Russian-backed regime
of Bashar al-Assad of being behind
several high-profile attacks.
Western officials believe that Rus-
sia’s advance has been “very slow”
in recent days, because of greater
than expected Ukrainian resistance
and poor planning by Moscow. But
they accept Russian forces are mak-
ing gradual progress, and are trying
to “tighten the noose” around Kyiv.

6 News
Putin is failing and Russia
is heading for strategic
defeat, Blinken insists
Julian Borger Washington
Patrick Wintour
The US secretary of state, Antony
Blinken, has said that Vladimir
Putin will fail in his effort to subju-
gate Ukraine, and lead Russia into a
“strategic defeat” which is already
unfolding.
Blinken was talking at a press con-
ference with the UK foreign secretary,
Liz Truss, at which both pledged to
keep up security and humanitarian
assistance to Ukraine.
“I’m absolutely convinced that
Putin will fail, and Russia will suffer a
strategic defeat no matter what short-
term tactical gains it may make in
Ukraine,” the secretary of state said.
“You can win a battle, but that
doesn’t mean you win the war. On
the contrary, you can take a city but
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
War in Ukraine
you can’t take the hearts and minds of
its people and Ukrainians are demon-
strating that every single day.
“We’ve already seen that Russia
has failed in its chief objectives,” he
added. “It’s not been able to hold
Ukraine. It’s not going to be able to
hold Ukraine in the long term.”
Blinken said that Putin “has a clear
plan to brutalise Ukraine, but to what
end? He is now turning to a strategy
of laying waste” to Ukrainian cities.
He warned that even if Putin
succeeded in installing a puppet
regime in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv,
Ukrainians would never acquiesce.
Blinken also tried to explain the
fiasco on Tuesday surrounding the
plan to deliver Polish MiG-29 fighter
jets to Ukraine. The US had previously
given a green light to Poland to sup-
ply the planes to Ukraine, saying it
would replace them by providing
more modern US fighter jets to the
Polish air force.
On Tuesday, Poland announced it
would hand all its MiG-29s to the US
at the Ramstein air base in Germany,
taking Washington by surprise.
Within hours the Pentagon said the
plan was not tenable.
“I think what we’re seeing is that
Poland’s proposal shows that there
are some complexities that the issue
presents when it comes to providing
security assistance. We have to make
sure that we’re doing it in the right
way,” Blinken said.
The Russian defence ministry
has said that any country that pro-
vided bases from which Ukrainian
war planes took off to attack Russian
forces would be considered as being
involved in the conflict.
Blinken said: “Departing from a
US Nato base in Germany to fly into
airspace contested with Russia over
Ukraine raises some serious con-
cerns for the entire Nato alliance.
So we have to work through the spe-
cifics of these things going forward.
It’s simply not clear to us that there’s
a substantive rationale for doing it
in the way that was put forward
yesterday.”
Both Blinken and Truss were
questioned about the Ukrainian
demands to establish no-fly zones
over Ukraine, or at least over human-
itarian corridors inside the country.
Both ruled it out.
Truss said: “The reality is that set-
ting up a no-fly zone would lead to a
direct confrontation between Nato
and Russia, and that is not what we
are looking at.” She pointed out the
announcement yesterday that the UK
would supply Ukraine with the Star-
streak anti-aircraft system.
Blinken said: “What we are looking
at is making sure that the Ukrainians
▲ The US vice president, Kamala
Harris, sets off for eastern Europe
▼ An elderly resident of Kharkiv is
led to safety by a Ukrainian soldier
in the shelled east Ukraine city
PHOTOGRAPH: VASYL ZHLOBSKY/EPA
are able to defend their own country
with the best possible selection of
anti-tank weapons and anti [aircraft]
systems.”
“If I were in President Zelenskiy’s
position, I’m sure I would be asking
for everything possible, in his mind,
to help the Ukrainian people.”
But he added: “Both of our coun-
tries and so many others, have done
extraordinary things to make sure
that the Ukrainians have in their
hands the means to effectively
defend themselves against this war
of choice from Russia.”
In a speech to the Atlantic Council
in Washington today, Truss will call
for the west to stand up to author-
itarian regimes and pledge that it
must never allow such aggression to
grow unchecked as it had over the
past decade.
In previous remarks she has qual-
ified her attacks on authoritarian
regimes by saying some regimes
that do not intend to undermine the
west can be treated differently. No
10, pressed yesterday on whether it
regarded Saudi Arabia as an author-
itarian regime, hedged.
In her speech, Truss will say:
“Putin has shattered the architecture
of global security. If we let Putin’s
expansionism go unchallenged it
would send a dangerous message to
would-be aggressors and authoritari-
ans around the world. We can’t allow
that to happen.”
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Analysis
Patrick Wintour
Spat between US and
Poland over jets is one
of west’s few diplomatic
failures of past month
T
he buck-passing between Poland and the
US over the possible use of elderly MiG-
29s to hit Russian forces inside Ukraine is
one of the west’s few diplomatic failures
of the past month. It also raises questions
about how far European countries are
prepared to escalate militarily before they believe they
will touch a dangerous Russian tripwire.
The US and Europe have worked hard to keep their
differences over sanctions and oil embargos to a public
minimum, and tried to accommodate each other’s
national interests. So it was striking on Tuesday when
first the Pentagon described a Polish offer to send
planes to the US airbase in Ramstein as “untenable”,
and then the deputy US secretary of state said
Washington had not been consulted about the plan.
Part of the problem was that the Polish proposal was
subtly but critically different to a scheme previously
discussed in private. In essence, Poland said it would
cooperate in strengthening the
Ukrainian air force so long as this
would be seen in Moscow as a US, Under pressure from
Nato or EU scheme but not a Polish the US, Poland felt the
one.
In its original, US-conceived plan unduly exposed its
iteration, the proposal was a
trilateral deal whereby Poland
citizens to Putin’s ire. It
would hand over the MiGs to tweaked the plan. The
Ukrainian pilots to fly into their
homeland, and the US would then
US response was swift
provide some substitute planes.
Boris Johnson, an enthusiast,
described the plan as “rent-a-MiG”.
That proposal, arguably, was not qualitatively
different to Nato members providing Ukraine with
Javelin anti-tank missiles. In return, Poland would
eventually fill the hole in its air force with 28 F-16s
being provided by the US.
But under private pressure from the US, Poland
felt the plan unduly exposed its citizens to Putin’s ire.
So instead, in a game of diplomatic pass the parcel,
Poland tweaked the proposals so the planes would
be sent free of charge to the US airbase in Ramstein,
Germany, rather than being flown out of Poland into
Ukraine. The move would literally take Poland out of
the line of Russia’s fire since the plan could be labelled
as that of the US, Nato or the EU.
Poland also suggested other frontline Nato countries
with MiG planes should match its plan, a proposal
directed at Slovakia and Romania. If executed it would
mean Ukraine had 70 extra planes at its disposal.
The Pentagon’s response – “it is simply not clear to
us that there is a tangible justification for this” – was
swift. Passing the parcel back, it said any decision to
hand over planes ultimately rested with Poland.
The upshot after this mini-debacle is Russia retains
air superiority. Ukrainian pilots who were being
trained in Poland to fly the planes are now grounded
with no machines with which to defend their country.
An opportunity has been squandered.
However, the country has emerged strengthened
in another way from the past 24 hours. The US has
provided Poland with two Patriot defence missiles.
Each battery consists of two firing platoons with two
launchers. This means there will be 16 launchers in
Poland. The latest Pac-3 MSE missiles are capable
of shooting down the Russian Iskander ballistic and
manoeuvring missiles. Unfortunately, they are also
the anti-aircraft defence that Ukraine lacks. Nato, as its
constitution requires, looks after its own.
•
 Witanhurst,
the £300m
25-bedroom
property in
Highgate,
London, that
was linked to the
Russian tycoon
Andrey Guryev
PHOTOGRAPH: REX/
SHUTTERSTOCK
Sanctions
Tycoon linked
to UK mansion
put on EU list
Daniel Boffey
Brussels
A Russian previously linked to a
£300m mansion that is London’s
second largest house after Bucking-
ham Palace is among 160 individuals
added to an EU sanctions list designed
to squeeze Vladimir Putin’s “closest
circle”.
Andrey Guryev, a billionaire who
made a fortune in the fertiliser indus-
try, was revealed in 2015 to be the
beneficiary of an offshore company
that owned Witanhurst, a 25-bed-
room property in Highgate. He is one
of 14 oligarchs and business people
among an expanded list of individ-
uals announced yesterday whose
assets in the EU will be frozen.
Also on the updated list is Nikita
Mazepin, a Formula 1 driver whose
contract with the Haas F1 team was
terminated after the invasion of
Ukraine. Haas F1 was sponsored by
the Russian chemical giant Uralchem,
whose general director is Mazepin’s
father, Dmitry Arkadievich Mazepin.
EU restrictive measures imposed
in response to the invasion of Ukraine
and before that to the annexation of
Crimea in 2014 now apply to more
than 30 Russian business people. This
Armed forces
‘Illegal to fight
in Ukraine,’
Shapps warns
Matthew Weaver
A cabinet minister has told British
troops and ex-service personnel
it is illegal to try to join the fight
in Ukraine, after it emerged that
a serving Coldstream Guard and
the ex-marine son of a Tory MP are
believed to be among those who have
joined the war.
compares with the UK’s sanctions
list, which has named just 10 oligarchs
since 2014.
Guryev’s links to Witanhurst have
been known since 2015 when it was
revealed the grade II listed mansion
had been bought by Safran Holdings,
which is registered in the British
Virgin Islands, in 2008 for £50m.
Guryev confirmed to the New Yorker
at the time that he was the beneficiary
of Safran Holdings.
But it is today unclear whether the
billionaire former senator retains a
link to the house.
Guryev has been hit with sanctions
by the EU due to being chief executive
and the chairman of the management
board of PJSC PhosAgro, one of the
world’s leading producers of phos-
phate-based fertilisers. The entry
in the sanctions list states: “He is
involved in economic sectors provid-
ing a substantial source of revenue
to the Government of the Russian
Federation, which is responsible for
the annexation of Crimea and the
destabilisation of Ukraine.”
Those targeted in the latest wave
of sanctions are said by EU officials
to be people who through their
work provide a substantial source of
▲ Andrey Guryev has been hit with
sanctions by the European Union
The transport secretary, Grant
Shapps, said “you cannot just get up
and go” and that Britons travelling
to Ukraine to fight risked worsening
a “dangerous situation”.
The Sun revealed that a 19-year-
old Coldstream Guard was among
up to four missing British soldiers
believed to have travelled to fight
Russia. The teenager, who is based
in Windsor barracks, wrote a good-
bye letter to his parents and bought
a ticket to Poland over the weekend
with the aim of crossing into Ukraine,
the paper reported.
The former Royal Marine com-
mando Ben Grant, son of the former
government minister Helen Grant,
also travelled to fight in Ukraine
over the weekend with six other
ex-servicemen.
Shapps stressed there was a “big
difference” between individuals
revenue to the Russian federation
in the metallurgical, agriculture,
pharmaceutical, telecom and digital
industries.
In its latest round of restrictive
measures, the EU has also taken
into account a meeting held by Putin
on 24 February where the Russian
leader discussed with his closest
confidantes the Kremlin’s response
to western economic restrictions.
Those targeted by the EU include
Mikhail Igorevich, the chief executive
of the Russian airline Aeroflot whose
attendance at the meeting, along with
36 others, is said to show “that he
is a member of the closest circle of
Vladimir Putin”.
Others who attended the meeting
and on whom sanctions have been
imposed are Alexander Vinokurov,
a businessman, who is married to
Ekaterina Sergeevna Vinokurova,
who is Lavrov’s daughter, and Andrey
Melnichenko, a Russian industrialist
who owns the EuroChem Group,
who is said to belong “to the most
influential circle of Russian business-
people with close connections to the
Russian government”.
The EU has also imposed sanc-
tions on Vladimir Kiriyenko, the chief
executive of the Russian internet
firm VK Company, which has a large
presence in the Russian-language
segment of the internet including the
popular VKontakte social network.
The EU has additionally imposed
sanctions on 146 members of the
Russian senate who ratified a treaty
recognising the self-proclaimed
republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.
The EU’s policy is driven by a desire
to increase the pressure on those who
have enriched themselves under
Putin’s leadership to encourage them
to act against the Russian president.
In the latest punitive measures,
four Belarusian banks have also been
cut off from the Swift payments sys-
tem. The EU has already blocked
seven Russian banks from Swift,
and leaders of the 27 member states
will debate taking further measures
against Sberbank and Gazprombank
when they meet in Versailles today,
officials said. Josep Borrell, the EU’s
high representative for foreign policy,
said: “With these additional sectoral
sanctions, we are sending a strong
message: the unprovoked and unjus-
tified military aggression waged
against Ukraine by the Putin regime
with assistance by Lukashenko
comes at a high price.”
taking the potentially illegal decision
and the UK dispatching its troops to
fight alongside Ukrainians.
The Ministry of Defence has banned
all service personnel from travelling
to Ukraine, saying breaching the
advice could lead to prosecution.
Shapps told ITV’s Good Morning
Britain: “You cannot go and fight if
you are in the British army, you can-
not just get up and go and fight …
That is inappropriate behaviour and
you would expect the army to have
some very, very strict rules in place,
as they do.”
A Ministry of Defence spokes-
person said: “All service personnel
are prohibited from travelling to
Ukraine until further notice. This
applies whether the service person
is on leave or not. Personnel travel-
ling to Ukraine will face disciplinary
and administrative consequences.”
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
8 News
War in Ukraine
In Journal
Esther Rantzen
‘The pandemic years
taught me a lesson
about the internet’
Page 4 
‘Things are bad for us’
The refugees turned
away by UK officials
after reaching Calais
Amelia Gentleman
Calais
K
rzysztof Mikucki
was so enraged by
the treatment of his
Ukrainian family
by UK Border Force
staff in Calais at 1am
yesterday that he struggled to find
words to articulate his fury.
“They treated us worse than
the water in the toilet,” the Polish
builder said, standing by the ferry
port hours later with his Ukrainian
wife, Alona, sister-in-law Juliia,
mother-in-law Olga and their dog,
Garik.
Mikucki’s relatives are among
about 600 Ukrainians who have
been turned away by British border
officials in Calais in the last 10 days
after a 2,000-mile journey.
Many are staying in a crowded
youth hostel in the French port city,
trying to secure visa appointments
in Paris and Brussels, forced to halt
their already gruelling odyssey
while they work out how to satisfy
UK visa requirements.
On Tuesday night all the rooms
were full. One man, who had spent
seven days driving across Europe
with his family from the heavily
shelled city of Kharkiv and had also
been turned back at the UK border,
spent the night sleeping outside
the building, squeezed into his car
with his wife and six children aged
between two and 16.
At about 7am the next day he
wound down his window and
would only say: “Things are very
bad for us.”
Natacha Bouchart, the Calais
mayor, visited the youth hostel to
voice strong criticism of Britain’s
refusal to lift visa requirements for
Ukrainians. “The British authorities
are not displaying a humanitarian
attitude,” she said. “It is not enough
to say that they are welcoming
Ukrainian refugees; they need to
 Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
 Krzysztof
Mikucki, his wife
Alona, sister
in-law Juliia
and mother
in law Olga.
Krzysztof’s
family were
turned away at
the UK border
PHOTOGRAPH:
GRAEME ROBERTSON
put everything in place to make it
possible, or provisionally cancel
the need for visas and create a
system that would allow them to
apply on arrival in the UK.”
Mikucki was shouting with fury,
exhausted after his 4,000-mile
round-trip to Ukraine and not quite
back. After picking his relatives
up from the Romanian border, he
had hoped to take them by ferry
to Dover and then to his home in
Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, but
they were held at British passport
control for four and a half hours.
“The Border Force staff were
chatting about their houses,
laughing, while we sat on a bench
waiting. At 5.30am they just gave
us a piece of paper with a phone
number on it,” Mikucki said.
French police helped the family
find a hotel before they returned
to seek guidance from a hastily
set up Home Office advice centre –
manned by seven members of staff
unable to process visas, seemingly
•
unequipped to do little more than
counsel Ukrainians on whether
they should drive back to Paris or
divert to Brussels.
There were no translators to help
the many people struggling with
the visa application form, available
only in English.
British officials said they had
turned away between 50 and 60
people at the Calais border every
day since the conflict erupted
because they did not have visas.
A small new visa application
centre will open today in Lille but
UK officials are still encouraging
Ukrainians to head to Paris or
Brussels to make applications, and
said appointments were available.
Asked to respond to the refugees’
frustration, officials said that
since there was a visa scheme in
operation applications had to be
processed, but they were trying to
speed up the system. The Home
Office said it has issued 850 visas to
Ukrainians seeking to join family
 Ukrainian refugees arrive in
France after a long voyage. Some are
trying to reach family in the UK
PHOTOGRAPH: JEFF PACHOUD/AFP
in the UK and is processing 22,000
applications.
Officials have said they do not
want to set up a visa processing
centre in Calais to avoid
encouraging more refugees to
travel to the city, which has for
years been a gathering place for
people hoping to seek asylum in
the UK.
Calais-based refugee charities
said there were no Ukrainians
staying in the informal camps
occupied by people from Syria,
Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq.
Volunteers have pointed to a
double standard in the way
Ukrainian refugees are being
housed and fed by the French
government, compared with the
more hostile treatment meted out
to others.
Yesterday afternoon French
officials drove around 40 Ukrainian
refugees to hostels in other cities,
but they would not reveal where.
After describing his difficulties
in detail to the BBC and the Sun,
Misha Raminishvili, a British
scaffolder from Hornchurch,
east London, trying to bring
his Ukrainian family to safety,
received a phone call saying a visa
appointment in Belgium would be
brought forward by five days.
“I was angry when we were
turned away,” he said. “Now I’m
tired. I understand they weren’t as
prepared as they should have been.
I feel disappointed, to be honest.”
He was still not clear how long
it would take to get home because
officials said processing visa could
take up to five days.
Tatiana Osadchuk, 26, a trainee
nurse from Chernivtsi, was hoping
to reach relatives in Reading.
“We spent £130 each on bus
tickets in Romania, to London,” she
said. “They told us there would be
no problem at the border but about
20 Ukrainians were taken off the
bus at the ferry port. My mother is
scared we won’t get the visa, and
then we don’t know what we will
do.”
A government spokesperson
said it has “taken urgent action to
process visas at speed for all those
eligible to the Ukraine Family
Scheme while carrying out vital
security checks”, adding: “We
have protected appointments at all
of our visa application centres to
ensure there is sufficient capacity
and deployed extra staff to help
people through the process. In light
of the risk from criminals actively
operating in the area around Calais,
we have set up a new temporary
visa application centre in Lille.”
▲ Misha Raminishvili travelled from
London to rescue his family but they
were still stuck in Calais yesterday
▲ The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, is interviewed outside a hostel
accommodating Ukrainian refugees hoping to enter the UK PHOTOGRAPH: SWNS
Envoy’s
appeal
‘Cut red
tape for
Ukrainians
heading
for Britain’
Rajeev Syal
Home affairs editor
Ministers are considering a climb-
down to allow Ukrainians with
temporary visas to bring relatives to
the UK after Ukraine’s ambassador
called for an easing of restrictions.
Amid scenes of chaos and despair
at a visa application centre in Poland,
government insiders said Ukrainians
in the UK on work and student visas
might also be allowed to bring their
relatives to the UK.
The development came hours after
Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s repre-
sentative in London, told MPs he
planned to ask the home secretary,
Priti Patel, why Ukrainians on tempo-
rary visas were not allowed to invite
their family members to join them.
At prime minister’s questions
Boris Johnson faced more demands
for the government to speed up the
system. So far, just 850 UK visas have
been granted from a total of 2 million
Ukrainians who have fled their home-
land following the invasion.
According to a Whitehall source the
ambassador’s comments prompted
a rethink. “There is movement on
people with temporary visas, and the
new plans should be released soon.”
Police yesterday were called to
calm “angry” crowds standing in
freezing temperatures at a UK appli-
cation centre in south-east Poland.
Those trying to apply for visas in
Rzeszów were seen banging on the
centre’s windows after children
and elderly people had to queue in
freezing temperatures. Staff told the
crowds they were only able to process
100 applications a day.
In Westminster, Prystaiko told MPs
that 100,000 of his citizens could
come to Britain to escape the Russian
war machine and said he would be
“happy” if visa requirements for
Ukrainians were lifted.
In a damning assessment of the
UK’s immigration system he called
for a simplified process for refugees
fleeing to the UK and disclosed that
his own wife had struggled to get a
visa before the Russia conflict.
Prystaiko also called for an easing
of the “bureaucratic” processes that
were hampering asylum seekers’
attempts to get to the UK.
Earlier in the day, Johnson was
criticised by members of his own
party, with one senior Tory calling
for a “reset” on the government’s
approach to the refugee crisis. Julian
Smith, a former chief whip, said: “I
think people across the country
are genuinely concerned about our
response on refugees, on the bureau-
cracy, on the tone of our response.”
His comments followed a string
of Tory MPs attacking Patel on Tues-
day over the government’s chaotic
response to the crisis. Thousands
of refugees have struggled to book
appointments at British visa centres
in Europe, and hundreds in Calais
have been unable to cross the bor-
der. A visa centre being set up 75
miles away in Lille, northern France,
to assist Ukrainian refugees will not
offer appointments or walk-in access.
It has emerged that Patel called
Ireland’s justice minister, Helen
McEntee, last week to raise concerns
that the common travel area could
prove to be a back door to Ukrainians
and others who wanted to go on
to the UK.
Ireland, in line with the EU pro-
tection programme, has lifted visa
requirements for Ukrainians and
offered them the right to work and
live in the country for a period of up
to three years.
A UK government spokesperson
said: “The UK stands shoulder to
shoulder with the people of Ukraine
and we have taken urgent action to
process visas at speed for all those
eligible for the Ukraine family
scheme, while carrying out vital
security checks. We have protected
appointments at all of our visa
application centres to ensure there
is sufficient capacity and deployed
extra staff to help people through the
process as quickly as possible.
“We are increasing our capacity
to meet this demand and will keep
it under continuous review and
increase further if needed.”
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
‘This is not my war’: UN urges
Ukraine to take compassionate
approach to men trying to flee
Lorenzo Tondo
The UN has urged Ukraine to take
a “compassionate and humane”
approach to the enforcement of
martial law after reports of Ukrainian
men defying orders to stay and
attempting to cross into neighbouring
countries to claim asylum.
Men of conscription age, aged 18 to
60, were banned from leaving Ukraine
after the Russian invasion on 24 Feb-
ruary but there have been multiple
reports of men with Ukrainian citi-
zenship trying to cross into Hungary,
Poland and Romania. It is unclear
how many have been allowed to pass.
Kyiv is not forcing men to fight,
only remain in the country, but there
are fears of enforced conscription if
the violence continues.
According to reports from aid
workers, many of those trying to
leave were not born in Ukraine and
were in the country for work or fam-
ily reasons. The Guardian spoke to
one man who was born in Belarus
and lived in Germany before taking
Ukrainian citizenship.
“I am not from Ukraine origi-
nally and this is not my war,” says
•••
News
War in Ukraine
Alexander, who did not want his
real name to be used. “I lived in Ger-
many and Poland and I’m a holder of
a Polish residence card, which means
I can live in Poland for up to 10 years.
But because I’m a Ukrainian citizen, I
can’t leave. I’m desperate. I am not a
coward but I have no blood connec-
tion with Ukraine. I managed to talk
to the Polish authorities who said
they cannot do anything because it
is up to the Ukrainian authorities. I
have a wife and son but she doesn’t
want to leave without me.”
He said he did not want to try
to cross the border into Poland for
fear of being arrested by Ukrainian
authorities. “I know many [men] are
attempting to cross. Many of them
are paying smugglers to cross. I heard
some people made it to Poland but
the majority failed. They have been
stopped or arrested. And I don’t know
‘Im not a coward …
but I have no blood
connection to Ukraine’
Alexander
Belarusian-born
about the destiny of those who have
been arrested.”
More than 1 million Ukrainians
have fled to Poland since the start of
the Russian invasion, the Polish bor-
der force has said.
The village of Medyka, in south-
east Poland, is the main border
crossing with Ukraine. Thousands
of refugees are crossing every day by
bus, car and on foot, mostly women
and children. The mass exodus is
causing severe queues at the border,
with lines of people and cars stretch-
ing to 14km (8.6 miles) and waiting
times of up to 40 hours.
According to refugees on the
Ukrainian side of the border, wait-
ing times are being exacerbated by
the Ukrainian authorities, which are
checking everyone trying to cross
to ensure no men with Ukrainian
nationality are passing through.
“We recognise that states have a
right to self-defence under both the
UN charter and customary interna-
tional law and that states may also
require their citizens to perform mil-
itary service under certain criteria
and conditions, in line with interna-
tional law,” said Matthew Saltmarsh,
head of news and media at UNHCR,
the UN refugee agency. “At the same
▲ Soldiers in Lviv yesterday carry
the coffins of three of their comrades
killed during the Russian offensive
PHOTOGRAPH: YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP/GETTY
time … we appreciate these are very
challenging circumstances and we
would urge a compassionate and
humane approach to those who are
seeking to flee and are in need of
safety and protection.”
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrain-
ian men have volunteered to fight
since the Russian invasion began.
The Polish border force, under
enormous pressure in what has
become Europe’s fastest-moving
refugee crisis since the end of the
second world war, says the Ukrain-
ian ban does not apply to Poland and
the country is happy to welcome any
person leaving Ukraine, regardless
of gender.
Authorities in Poland also sug-
gested that Ukrainian men who have
crossed the border did not need to
apply for asylum.
“For us, everybody is equal at
the border,” said Piotr Zakielarz,
spokesperson for the force’s south-
ern department.
Zakielarz said that, so far, Polish
border authorities had no idea how
many men had crossed. “We don’t
go through the statistics. At this
moment, I don’t care about the
statistics.”
Under Ukrainian law there are
exceptions to the ban on men
leaving the country. Male Ukrainian
nationals can cross the border if they
are financially supporting three or
more children under the age of 18,
are single fathers of children under
18, or have children or are guardians
of children with disabilities.
11
1812 boycott
Orchestra
criticised
after it drops
Tchaikovsky
Matthew Weaver
The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra
is facing ridicule after removing the
Russian composer Tchaikovsky from
its forthcoming programme because
of the conflict in Ukraine.
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was
due to be included in a concert at St
David’s Hall on 18 March, but the pro-
gramme has since been abandoned.
A statement on the venue’s website
said: “In light of the recent Russian
invasion of Ukraine, Cardiff Philhar-
monic Orchestra, with the agreement
of St David’s Hall, feel the previously
advertised programme including the
1812 Overture to be inappropriate at
this time.”
The 1812 Overture was written to
celebrate Russia’s defence against
Napoleon’s army and is notable for
featuring a volley of cannon fire.
The orchestra will instead present
a programme centred on Dvořák’s
Symphony No 8.
The decision comes after the Rus-
sian conductor Valery Gergiev was
dropped by his management for his
refused to condemn the regime of
Vladimir Putin. However, the Car-
diff boycott of Tchaikovsky has been
widely derided in the UK and the US.
The comedian Geoff Norcott
tweeted that it was “so daft ordinary
Russians will write it off as mad Vlad
overdoing the propaganda”.
Max Weiss, editor of Baltimore
magazine and also a cellist, said: “We
had our HSO [Hopkins Symphony
Orchestra] concert on Saturday. We
began the program, fittingly, with the
Ukraine National Anthem. We then
went on to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano
Concerto No 1.”
Billy Binion, associate editor at
the US magazine Reason, tweeted:
“ Tchaikovsky was one of the first
(and only) composers to eschew Rus-
sian nationalism… [He] composed
some of the richest, most affecting
music I’ve ever heard. We need more
of that in times like these, not less.”
Martin May, a director of the
Cardiff orchestra, said: “A member
of the orchestra has family directly
involved in the Ukraine situation and
we are trying to respect that situation.
There were also two military-themed
pieces as part of the programme that
we felt were particularly inappropri-
ate at this time.”
▲ The orchestra felt Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture was inappropriate
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

12 National
News
War in Ukraine
xSubjectxxxx

Tory MPs pile pressure

on Sunak over impact
of soaring cost of living
Heather Stewart
Peter Walker
Rishi Sunak is facing intense pressure
from Tory colleagues to take action in
this month’s spring statement to alle-
viate the cost of living crisis, which
has been dramatically exacerbated
by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Asked about the impact of sanc-
tions on Russia for consumers at
home, the business secretary, Kwasi
Kwarteng, told MPs yesterday he
believed the public were “willing to
endure hardships” in solidarity with
the people of Ukraine.
But many Conservative MPs are
privately and publicly urging the
chancellor to do more to soften the
blow, and one source suggested
Treasury officials were already draw-
ing up possible policy options.
Sunak’s February package of a
£200 energy bill cut, to be paid back
over five years, and a £150 council tax
rebate, had already been criticised as
too meagre to cushion the blow sig-
nificantly for many households.
New analysis by the Institute for
Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggests that
the impact of the war in Ukraine on
energy prices means those measures
may now protect consumers from
just a fifth of the coming increase.
“Living standards will suffer across
the board,” the IFS warns.
It calculates that providing the
same level of protection as Sunak
had planned would now cost an addi-
tional £12bn.
As a result, the IFS director, Paul
Johnson, said the chancellor had to
make a “huge judgment call”.
“Will he do more to protect house-
holds from the effects of energy
prices, which have risen even further
in the last two weeks? If he doesn’t
then many on moderate incomes
will face the biggest hit to their living
standards since at least the financial
▲ A charity worker unpacks
donations at a food bank
Fracking rethink
‘No sense sealing wells’
Boris Johnson has told the business
secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, it does
“not make sense” for the UK to seal
its shale gas wells, Kwarteng has
revealed, amid tensions with his
department, which has repeatedly
denied the government will change
its position on fracking.
Johnson’s spokesperson opened
the door to a shift in the UK’s
position yesterday, saying that
“all options” would be considered
before the forthcoming energy
strategy is completed. A No 10
source confirmed it was under
review.
Labour said the government
should double its onshore
wind capacity – a measure that
No 10 sources said was also
under discussion – as well as
recommitting to nuclear, as part of
a five-point plan for energy security
released by Ed Miliband.
Kwarteng, who has been a
public sceptic about the benefits of
fracking, insisted the government’s
position had not changed, but
he gave the strongest indication
yet that the prime minister could
change course on the order that
shale gas wells will be closed with
concrete by 30 June.
of that would be to see the oil com-
panies put their prices up yet higher,
and make it more difficult for them to
do what we need them to do … and
that is divesting from dependence on
Russian oil and gas. That is the way
forward for this country.”
Starmer responded with derision,
saying: “I don’t think the prime min-
ister understands the mess he’s in.”
During a later statement by
Kwarteng about phasing out Russian
oil, Conservative MPs underlined the
scale of the challenge, with the for-
mer housing secretary Robert Jenrick
warning: “I think we have to brace
ourselves for the greatest impact on
living standards that any of us have
known in our lifetimes.”
Robert Halfon, the chair of the
education select committee, pressed
ministers to echo Ireland’s approach
of cutting fuel duty. “We must, must
do the same,” he said.
“Prices at the pumps are reach-
ing £1.60 per litre for hard-pressed
motorists. They’re paying around
£16 more than a year ago. Hauliers
are paying more than £120 every time
they fill up at the pumps.”
Richard Fuller, the MP for North
East Bedfordshire, called on the gov-
ernment to do more to reduce energy
demand by insulating homes.
The former business secretary
Andrea Leadsom told the Guard-
ian no option should be ruled out
– including a tax on the energy com-
panies, which have been making
record profits.
Turning down the dial
“The chancellor will no doubt be
looking carefully at further steps in
addition to the energy support he has
From homes to cars, how
already put in place,” she said.
“In such unprecedented times,
every solution should be on the
table – from an urgent focus on home
we can use less energy
insulation to rapid deployment of bat-
teries to store wind and solar power, Insulation
and even to short-term ramping up of Rob Davies Government policy could
production in the North Sea basin and reduce Britain’s gas usage by the

crisis. If he does, then there will be
another big hit to the public finances,”
he said.
Treasury sources rejected the
idea of ditching the national insur-
ance increase due to come into force
in April, and insisted the spring state-
ment would be “policy light”, but did
not rule out Sunak taking further
action on living standards.
Keir Starmer used prime minis-
ter’s questions to repeatedly link the
cost of living crisis to the impact of
the invasion of Ukraine. The Labour
leader called for more direct help to
cut energy bills, including a wind-
fall tax on oil companies, but also
demanded urgent action to reduce
reliance on hydrocarbons, with an
end to a de facto ban on new onshore
wind projects.
Johnson dismissed the idea of a
windfall tax, saying: “The net result
“In conversation with my right
honourable friend the prime
minister, we were clear that it
didn’t necessarily make any sense
to concrete over the wells. We’re
still in conversations about that,”
he told the House of Commons.
Amid tensions with
backbenchers and rightwing
campaign groups, Johnson’s
spokesperson said the energy
supply strategy would “consider
all options, given the ongoing
situation in Ukraine and the effect
that that’s having on oil and gas
prices”.
Fracking is potentially polluting,
disruptive and dangerous, and
many experts say it would take a
decade to reap any benefits, and
the amount of gas would not make
a dent in the global price.
Jessica Elgot and Helena Horton
further taxes on big oil companies.”
Sunak has been holding round-
tables with backbench Conservative
MPs to discuss ways to alleviate the
impact of rising energy bills – though
one attendee said the chancellor had
stressed the parlous state of the pub-
lic finances.
Speaking this month after giv-
ing a lecture at the London School
of Economics, Sunak appeared to
acknowledge that more might need
to be done. He pointed out that part
of the cost-of-living support package
will continue to help consumers into
the autumn.
However, he added: “As ever, part
of my job is always to be listening to
people and making sure the policies
that we’ve got in place are the right
ones to help the economy, to help
families, and people can judge me
on my track record.”
T
he prime minister’s
pledge to join the
US in phasing out
Russian oil – and
exploring ways to do
the same with gas – is
aimed at hitting the Kremlin’s
coffers, but it also presents a
problem for the UK.
In Britain, about 4% of gas and
8% of oil comes from Russia, far
less than European neighbours.
But turmoil in the energy markets
has sent gas and petrol prices
soaring, exacerbating the cost-of-
living crisis. Weaning ourselves off
Russian resources – by sourcing
supplies elsewhere or pursuing
increased use of renewables and
nuclear – will cost money and take
time. Here are some options:
equivalent of current Russian
imports by 2027, according to the
Energy and Climate Intelligence
Unit (ECIU), solving the problem
more quickly than increasing gas
output from the North Sea.
A good starting point, the ECIU
said, is to upgrade 1m homes a
year from band D of the energy
efficiency scale to band C, reducing
their gas usage by 20%.
That isn’t unprecedented. The
UK installed energy efficiency
measures in 2.3m homes in 2012,
mostly loft and wall insulation,
before policy changes slashed the
rate to about a tenth of that. UK gas
demand was 810 terawatt hours
(TWh) in 2019, the last year before
the pandemic, while Russian
imports of liquefied natural gas
(LNG) are about 33.7TWh, 4%.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •

13

 Rishi Sunak,
the chancellor,
outside the
Sketch
Treasury Zoe Williams
yesterday. He is
due to deliver his
spring statement
this month
PHOTOGRAPH: TAYFUN
Putting a shameless
SALCI/ZUMA/REX

spin on refugee figures

is not a great look for
Johnson right now

The ECIU says its insulation
proposal would save 3.6TWh a
year at first and 18TWh annually
by 2027, shaving £170 off an annual
gas bill.
The Climate Change Committee
estimates that two-thirds of the
UK’s 30m homes could be made
more energy efficient for less
than £1,000 each. A back-of-an-
envelope sum indicates a cost of
less than £20bn to do that.
Heat pumps
Throw heat pumps into the mix
and efforts to wean ourselves off
gas speed up. They use electricity
to suck in warmth from outside
for home heating and hot water.
Much of the UK’s electricity is still
gas-generated but the switch could
still reduce gas usage by 80% in
better-insulated homes. As gas is
phased out of the electricity mix,
that percentage should grow.
The government is aiming for
600,000 heat pump installations a
year by 2028, up from about 67,000
in 2021, but the Climate Change
Committee says 900,000 annually
is doable.
A report by energy experts at
the Regulatory Assistance Project
(RAP) estimates the cost of publicly
funded support for hitting the
CCC’s trajectory at £500m a year,
rising to £3bn by 2030. “[The
rollout] should be upgraded so that
more people make the switch,” said
the RAP’s Jan Rosenow.
There is a £5,000 government
grant available for installation.
According to the ECIU, the gas
saving via heat pump installation
could hit 17TWh by 2027 and would
reach the point at which it offsets
the loss of Russian LNG imports by
2031.
Turning down the thermostat
The International Energy Agency
(IEA) said last week that Europeans
could help weaken the Kremlin’s
power by turning down the
thermostat by a degree.
This, said the IEA, would save
about 10bn cubic metres of gas
within a year, a useful saving
on total Russian gas imports of
155bn cubic metre. Taking shorter
showers and running a lower-
temperature cycle on washing
machines could also have a small
but meaningful effect if enacted on
a mass scale.
Eco-driving
The IEA also has a paper, published
in 2018, entitled “Saving oil in a
hurry”. It outlines ways in which
economies could “rapidly” cut oil
consumption by as much as 10% in
the event of a major disruption to
global oil supplies.
The IEA’s measures are
intended to solve a short-term
disruption and could serve as
a stopgap while alternative,
non-Russian, supplies are
arranged. The report recommends
conserving fuel by making
changes to driving behaviour,
such as going below the speed
limit, not putting pedal to the
metal when the lights go green
and turning off the engine at the
lights.
Societal change
Other suggestions address the big
picture, such as a shift towards
home working, something the
authors of the 2018 report could
not have envisaged would already
have been put on the agenda by
the pandemic.
The report also suggests some
relatively drastic government-
imposed measures that might
meet with opposition from
motorists. They include proposals
such as electronic road pricing
(tolls) and restrictions that allow
people to drive only at certain
times, or on alternate days.
One solution that might prove
more popular is making all public
transport free of charge.
S
ince 2015, Boris Johnson told an antsy House
of Commons at prime minster’s questions,
“We’ve done more to resettle vulnerable
people than any other European country.”
It didn’t make sense, so perhaps it was
a mistake. Poland has taken 1.2 million
Ukrainian refugees, Hungary has taken 190,000,
Germany 50,000. By Tuesday, we’d taken 300. Maybe
he didn’t mean Ukrainians. Maybe he meant Syrians,
621,000 of whom were given sanctuary by Germany;
29,000 by the UK. So nope. Or maybe he said it by
accident? But then he said it again, and again. Could it
have been a straight lie? A dicey move, in parliament.
Not exactly: Johnson was referring to the number
of people taken in under a resettlement scheme over
the past seven years, in which the UK numbers do
surpass those of other nations. Overall, our figures are
absolutely dwarfed even by much smaller neighbours.
The same old prime minister arrived in parliament,
in other words, with the same old manoeuvre of
turning something technically true into an untruth
by stripping it of context. But it’s not the same old
world any more. When you stand up and deliberately
mislead, call the worst the best, turn facts on their
heads, it all sounds a bit Putin-esque.
He had another couple of lines – that he didn’t
believe in letting refugees in without checks,
and that Conservatives must be humane and
have sanctuary in their blood, because look how
many on the party’s frontbench were descended
from refugees. But so many members, from so
many parties, stood up to challenge him on the
UK’s response to the refugee crisis. The SNP’s Ian
Blackford gave a persuasive and
One of the most workmanlike rundown of how
far short we were falling. The
affecting speakers was Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, got
Johnson on the hop, as he found
the Tory Julian Smith, himself rattling through the UK
who asked when his visa centres in eastern Europe,
muffling one city into another in
own party was going to frantic under-enunciation. One of
show some humanity the most affecting speakers was
from the Tory benches: Julian
Smith, whose voice quavered
slightly as he asked when his own
party was going to show some humanity.
Keir Starmer went another way, as they say in
casting: the chancellor’s measures on fuel bills were
nothing like enough to meet the situation, so “when
will the prime minister force the chancellor to U-turn?”
It was a peculiar angle and ham-fistedly obvious about
not expecting an answer.
But it transpired to be just some fancy footwork
before the Labour leader’s main attack: BP has made
£9.5bn out of fuel prices that were surging even
before Ukraine, and Shell has made £14bn; “in their
own words”, said Starmer, “more money than they
know what to do with”. His call for a windfall tax on
energy company profits is probably as close to popular
radicalism as he’s prepared to sail.
Johnson replied that, if you tax these corporations,
they will just pass that cost on to the consumer. It was
ironic that they then had a pointless barney about
nuclear power (a leader who has built no nuclear
power stations, accusing an opponent who has never
been in government of failing to build nuclear power
stations). That answer on windfall tax –what’s the
point of taxing companies, when the consumer will
always pay? – is radioactive for Johnson. It will sound
worse and worse as fuel bills rise.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Oligarchs still free to use legal loopholes of
art market to evade sanctions, experts say
Ben Quinn
Russian oligarchs will be able to use
legal loopholes around the UK art
market to evade sanctions and laun-
der money, experts believe, despite
Boris Johnson’s claim that there will
be “nowhere to hide” from a clamp-
down on Kremlin-linked wealth.
The Labour MP Chris Bryant said
“valuable assets” were likely to be
traded by Vladimir Putin’s support-
ers, and called on leading auctioneers
to refuse to handle them.
Experienced advisers said the ulti-
mate “beneficial” owners of priceless
art works could still be concealed,
aided by the market’s global scale
and increasing online presence.
Kremlin-linked cash could also be
laundered through collectibles such
The pullout
Russians
adjust to
‘exodus’ of
global firms
Pjotr Sauer
Istanbul
T
he irony was not
lost on some of the
Muscovites queueing
outside a McDonald’s
on Tuesday evening,
just after the company
announced it was temporarily
closing its 847 locations in Russia.
“My dad once told me how
he waited in a long line when
McDonald’s opened when he was
young. And now I ended up also
queueing, but for a very different
reason. History can be funny,” said
Dmitry Grigoryev.
When McDonald’s opened in
Moscow’s Pushkin Square in 1990,
thousands queued. The arrival of
the golden arches was seen as a sign
of the end of the cold war. Russians’
embrace of western fast food, pop
culture and jeans came to signify
their integration into the global
capitalist system. Despite rising
authoritarianism under Vladimir
Putin, global brands had remained
eager to keep their doors open in
Moscow and other big cities
But since Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine there has been an
unparalleled exit of firms,
among them Toyota, Heineken,
Nike, Apple, Exxon, Ford, Zara,
Netflix and Ikea. “The exodus of
•
News
War in Ukraine
as stamps, wine and the burgeon-
ing market in non-fungible tokens
(NFTs), which do not feature in UK
money-laundering regulations dat-
ing to 2017.
Tremors from the invasion of
Ukraine have already rippled through
the art market, with the auctioneer
Christie’s citing “the current world’s
situation” for the recent postpone-
ment of an auction of rare Russian
avant garde art books, and a former
CEO of Bonhams leading calls for the
boycott of the auctioneer Phillips.
Phillips, which is owned by Rus-
sia’s Mercury group, said it was
£5.8m
Planned donation by auctioneer
Phillips to the Ukrainian Red Cross
Society after a recent London sale
More brands pull down the shutters
The owner of KFC and Pizza Hut
has become the latest company
to pause business in Russia in
response to its invasion of Ukraine,
along with Heineken and Universal
Music Group.
After major western brands
including McDonald’s, Starbucks,
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo suspended
operations in Russia, the Kentucky-
based Yum! Brands followed suit.
It said it was suspending 70 KFC
company-owned restaurants in
Russia and finalising an agreement
with its master franchisee to
suspend all 50 Pizza Hut outlets.
Yum! has 1,000 KFC restaurants
in Russia, most of which are run
by franchisees. The company had
already suspended all investment
and restaurant development in
“business as usual” and that its auc-
tions were going ahead as planned.
However, the company has been crit-
icised for proceeding last week with
a £30m London sale of works by art-
ists including David Hockney, Claude
Monet and Francis Bacon. While the
company announced it was donating
the full net proceeds of the auction
(£5.8m) to the Ukrainian Red Cross
Society, it continues to be challenged.
Companies House lists Phillips as
having two owners “with significant
control” – Leonid Fridlyand and Leo-
nid Strunin, both Russians, who give
their address as the company’s May-
fair headquarters and their countries
of residence as Monaco and Cyprus
respectively.
Both men have yet to comment,
but the company’s CEO, Stephen
Brooks, said it unequivocally con-
demned the invasion of Ukraine and
Russia. Pizza Hut opened its first
Russian outlet at the start of the
1990s and the former leader of the
Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev
was featured in one of its television
adverts in 1998.
Heineken said yesterday it had
stopped the production and sale of
its own-brand beer in Russia.
Universal Music Group said it
was suspending all operations in
Russia and closing its offices in the
country “effective immediately”.
The Dutch-American group’s move
came a day after PRS for Music, the
British music copyright collective,
said that it had suspended its
partnership with RAO, the Russian
royalty-collecting society for
musical works.
Julia Kollewe
“called for an immediate cessation of
all hostilities in the strongest possi-
ble terms”.
Sotheby’s, Phillips, Christie’s and
other companies stress they com-
ply with all anti-money laundering
measures and “know your client”
obligations, carrying out due dil-
igence to ensure individuals and
institutions targeted by sanctions
are unable to do business through
their salesrooms.
In response to Bryant’s comments,
Sotheby’s said it was in strict com-
pliance with all applicable laws and
regulations, including global sanc-
tions. It was “absolutely rigorous”
about following the present sanc-
tions, and was monitoring closely for
any updates to lists. Its Moscow office
was at present closed to the public.
Christie’s, which said that its
Moscow office “currently” remained
companies is really stunning,” said
Maria Shagina, an international
sanctions specialist at the Finnish
Institute of International Affairs
and the Geneva International
Sanctions Network. “The speed
at which this is happening is
unknown to modern history.”
Shagina said western sanctions,
such as decouplingsome Russian
banks from the Swift system and
new export controls, would have
complicated the operations of
western firms. But she said most
had suspended operations out of
reputational concerns. “Of course,
the Kremlin expected sanctions,
but I am not sure they expected just
how toxic Russia would become.”
In a sign Russia may not have
expected such a dramatic outflow,
the ruling party called for the
operations of western firms that
had left to be nationalised. “This
is an extreme measure, but we will
15
open, said it had immediately taken
action through its client identifica-
tion and screening processes. It said
that it was not permitting individuals
or companies designated on applica-
ble sanctions lists to transact with it.
“Politically exposed persons” were
also subject to enhanced due dili-
gence, it said.
However, Prof Louise Shelley,
director of the terrorism, transna-
tional crime and corruption centre,
at George Mason University in the US,
said the global nature of the market
and “gaping holes” in US safeguards
rendered London highly vulnerable.
Shelley said: “A lot of buyers in the
UK market are in the US, a jurisdic-
tion where we are simply not doing
enough. You can have someone rep-
resent a corporation which can be
shielded on numerous fronts and no
one will have an idea who is behind it.
“There is clearly a lot of des-
perate movement of all kinds of
commodities and resources through
investment vehicles at the moment
– but art markets are the ideal way of
moving wealth and hiding the bene-
ficial ownership. Oligarchs and their
nominees would be busy exploiting
every gaping hole that they can find.”
 Customers
at Moscow
McDonald’s in
▲ Muscovites
wait in a
queue at one
February, before of McDonald’s
the company
said it would
first Moscow
restaurants
close its outlets in 1992
not tolerate stabs in the back,” said
the leader of United Russia, Andrey
Turchak, on its website.
It is not just the mass market
industry that has taken a hit.
Footage on social media showed
empty halls at Moscow’s shopping
centre Tsum, which is popular with
the elite. Major fashion brands,
including Burberry, Hermès,
Gucci, Chanel and Louis Vuitton,
have temporarily stopped their
operations. Condé Nast said it was
suspending publishing activities.
“Russians are in a state of shock
as their world is falling apart
at lightning speed, said Katya
Fedorova, who runs a fashion
and lifestyle blog on Telegram.
“It’s insane how the government
has managed to destroy all the
connections that were built with
the international retail industry for
30 years in just 10 days.”
Analysts offered a bleak forecast
for Russia. The Institute for
International Finance last week
predicted a 15% contraction in GDP
in 2022. “We see risks as tilted to
the downside. Russia will never
be the same again,” wrote the IIF’s
chief economist, Robin Brooks.
For now, McDonald’s and Ikea
say they will keep their staff on the
payroll. But experts such as Shagina
believe the scale of the exodus will
probably lead to an immediate rise
in unemployment.

16
Bercow’s protests over
bullying verdict ‘have
no shred of credibility’
Rowena Mason
Deputy political editor
Lord Lisvane, one of three complain-
ants in the successful bullying claim
against John Bercow, said the former
Speaker’s protests against the verdict
have “not a shred of credibility”, as
he praised the system that allowed a
historical case to be brought.
Lisvane, a former clerk of the
House of Commons, criticised Ber-
cow’s “farcical” refusal to accept the
verdict of the panel, calling it “hyster-
ical petulance from someone caught
bang to rights”.
He also backed the system that
allowed historical complaints to be
investigated, exposing a pattern of
serial bullying over a long period of
time. He said the process had been
“forensically exacting” and the com-
plainants had come forward when
they did because it was a “credible
impartial process” that was extended
in 2019 to cover historical complaints.
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
National
Parliament is moving to impose
a one-year time limit on complaints
against MPs and their staff under the
Independent Complaints and Griev-
ance Scheme (ICGS), which will come
into force on 28 April. Under the new
rules, there could not have been an
investigation into Bercow, who was
found by the independent expert
panel to have been a “serial bully”
and to be a “serial liar” in his deal-
ings with the investigation.
In an excoriating verdict on Ber-
cow’s conduct during a decade as
Speaker, the independent panel
found his behaviour “fell very far
below that which the public has a
right to expect from any member of
parliament”. It upheld 21 out of 35
complaints against him by ex-staff.
Lisvane, a crossbench peer, said
he had experienced “an overwhelm-
ing sense of relief” after the verdict
because the inquiry had taken more
than two years. Bercow was found to
have repeatedly ranted at Lisvane,
making “unfounded criticism”.
Bercow has said the process was
unfair, describing it as “feeble conclu-
sions reached” that “would be torn to
shreds in any judicial process”. He
told Channel 4: “I deny the allega-
tions that have been levelled at me
in the course of a protracted, unjust,
and amateurish process. It’s been a
kangaroo court.”
But Lisvane said Bercow’s protests
against the verdict “had absolutely
no foundation in truth”, in particular
the idea that the complainants were
standing in the way of reforms when
he had personally “spent my entire
career trying to make parliament bet-
ter understood” and was supportive
of diversity.
▼ John Bercow’s rejection of all
allegations of bullying was described
as ‘farcical’ by one complainant
PHOTOGRAPH: VICTORIA JONES/PA
“When somebody is caught bang
to rights, as has happened in this
case, you get a lot of whining and
whingeing about how it isn’t fair,
they didn’t do it and it’s all a stitch-up
and so on,” he said. “The fact is that
the panel also regard him as a serial
liar and somebody who attempted to
defeat the complaints by false accu-
sations of collusion and by advancing
lies – quite simply deliberate lies – in a
vain attempt to excuse the inexcusa-
ble. His shouting foul doesn’t carry a
shred of credibility.”
Lisvane also highlighted the
report’s statement that Bercow
mimicked the complainants in an
interview with the investigator. “It
is extraordinary. He is a very good
mimic. Once it may be funny, but if
it is repeated with the aim of humili-
ation then it is not funny,” he added.
The former staffers Angus Sinclair
and Kate Emms also had their com-
plaints upheld.
Lisvane’s comments come after
Lt Gen David Leakey, a former Black
Rod, said Bercow should be barred
from holding public office or posi-
tions of leadership.
Leakey, who made one of the com-
plaints against Bercow and acted
as a witness to others, said he had
been determined to ensure Bercow’s
record was examined fully.
Leakey’s own complaint against
Bercow was not upheld, but he gave
detailed witness testimony to the
inquiry of the former Speaker’s bul-
lying of other staff.
Bercow, who joined the Labour
party after leaving parliament, was
reported to be considering a run for
London mayor. Labour has since sus-
pended him from the party.
A spokesperson for Bercow said
on Tuesday he had “never sought or
wanted” to be London mayor.
The independent panel that exam-
ined the findings of parliament’s
standards commissioner concluded
that at least 21 complaints against him
could be upheld. It banned him from
holding a parliamentary pass and said
he could have been expelled from the
Commons if still an MP.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Shackleton’s ship
Endurance found
‘in astonishing state
of preservation’
beneath polar ice
Harriet Sherwood
Arts and culture correspondent
The “world’s most challenging ship-
wreck search” for one of the great
vessels of exploration history – Sir
Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, lost
more than a century ago in the icy
waters of Antarctica – has succeeded.
The wreck has been found,
3,008 metres (9,869ft) below the sur-
face of what Shackleton described as
“the worst portion of the worst sea
in the world”. It was discovered on
Saturday, the 100th anniversary of
Shackleton’s funeral, the Falklands
Maritime Heritage Trust said.
The Endurance22 expedition,
which set off from Cape Town a
month ago, had “reached its goal”,
said Dr John Shears, the veteran geog-
rapher who led the expedition.
“We have made polar history with
the discovery of Endurance, and suc-
cessfully completed the world’s most
challenging shipwreck search.”
He hoped people would be inspired
by “what human beings can achieve
and the obstacles they can overcome
when they work together”.
Arcing across the submerged ship’s
wooden stern is its famous name, pre-
served by the freezing waters and the
absence of wood-eating organisms.
Endurance was found off the
coast of Antarctica, approximately
four miles south of the position
originally recorded by its captain,
Frank Worsley. It has not been seen
since it was crushed by ice and sank
in the Weddell Sea in November 1915.
Mensun Bound, the expedition’s
director of exploration, said footage
showed the 144ft ship to be intact.
“We are overwhelmed by our good
fortune in having located and cap-
tured images of Endurance,” he said.
“This is by far the finest wooden
shipwreck I have ever seen. It is
South
South Georgia Atlantic Ocean
Falkland
Islands Position of Endurance
recorded by Captain
Frank Worsley
Chile
Ice Shelf
Antarctica
Elephant
Island
South
Pacific Ocean
1,000 km
1,000 miles
•
News
Antarctica
upright, well proud of the seabed,
intact, and in a brilliant state of pres-
ervation … This is a milestone in polar
history.”
Dan Snow, the historian and
broadcaster who is part of the expe-
dition, said the mood on board ship
was jubilant, and the team was now
heading home.
He tweeted: “The wreck is coher-
ent, in an astonishing state of
preservation. The Antarctic seabed
does not have any wood-eating
micro-organisms, the water has the
clarity of distilled water. We were
able to film the wreck in super-high
definition. The results are magical
#Endurance22.”
He added: “Nothing was touched
on the wreck. Nothing retrieved. It
was surveyed using the latest tools
and its position confirmed. It is pro-
tected by the Antarctic Treaty. Nor
did we wish to tamper with it.” The
site of Endurance was declared a his-
toric monument under the terms of
the 1959 treaty.
An expedition team of 64 people,
plus a crew of 46, were on board the
polar research vessel SA Agulhas II.
The £8m mission was financed by
an anonymous donor. A previous
attempt to find Endurance three
years ago ended in failure.
Shackleton famously lost his ship
but saved his crew. He set sail from
South Georgia in December 1914 with
27 men, heading for Vahsel Bay on the
eastern side of the Weddell Sea. The
plan was to cross the vast Antarctic
▲ Shackleton  Fittings such
in the earlier as the ship’s
stages of the wheel remain
expedition. in superb
He and five condition
others voyaged PHOTOGRAPHS: SCOTT
800 miles to POLAR RESEARCH
INSTITUTE, NATIONAL
bring rescue GEOGRAPHIC, PA
ice sheet to the south pole, and then
keep going, to the Ross Sea on the
other side of the continent.
But two days after leaving South
Georgia, Endurance encountered
polar pack ice. By early January, the
ship became stuck and eventually the
crew decamped to the ice, taking the
ship’s stores of food and other provi-
sions, and three open lifeboats. On 21
November 1915, Endurance finally
sank, with Captain Worsley record-
ing its position.
Shackleton and his party con-
tinued camping on the ice floes for
another five months, before sailing in
the lifeboats to Elephant Island. From
there, in freezing temperatures and
rough seas, Shackleton, Worsley and
four others sailed 800 miles to South
▼ Endurance trapped in the ice in
1915; main picture, its name still
clear on its stern PHOTOGRAPHS: NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC, ROYAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY/PA
Georgia. They organised the rescue of
the rest of the crew, who were picked
up alive within months.
As well as finding Shackleton’s
ship, the Endurance22 expedition
had undertaken important scientific
research in a part of the world that
directly affected the global climate
and environment, Shears said.
“We have also conducted an
unprecedented educational outreach
programme, with live broadcasting
from on board, allowing new gen-
erations from around the world
to engage with Endurance22 and
become inspired by the amazing
stories of polar exploration, and what
human beings can achieve and the
obstacles they can overcome when
they work together.”
17
Epic journey
Incredible
tale of great
tenacity and
leadership
Harriet Sherwood
E
ndurance left South
Georgia for Antarctica
on 5 December 1914.
On board were 27 crew
plus a stowaway, 69
dogs and one cat. Sir
Ernest Shackleton, the expedition
leader, was aiming to establish a
base on the Weddell Sea coast and
then keep going to the Ross Sea on
the other side of the continent.
Within two days, the ship had
encountered thick sea ice and
Endurance made painstaking
progress. In mid-January a gale
pushed the ice floes hard against
one another and the ship was stuck –
“frozen like an almond in the middle
of a chocolate bar”, according to a
crewman, Thomas Orde-Lees.
After nine months the men
abandoned the badly damaged
ship, decamping on to the ice.
From Endurance they took food,
Bibles, books, clothing, tools,
keepsakes and – crucially – three
open lifeboats. A few weeks
later, on 21 November 1915,
Endurance finally sank. Using
basic instruments, Frank Worsley,
the captain and navigator, had
recorded its location. Without that,
it would almost certainly never
have been found.
A plan to march across the ice
towards land quickly unravelled
and it was not until the ice broke up
the following April that the crew
took to the lifeboats, rowing to the
remote and uninhabited Elephant
Island. The men were exhausted,
some afflicted by seasickness,
others convulsed with dysentery.
After nine days of recuperation,
Shackleton, Worsley and four
others sailed one of the boats
another 8oo miles in rough
seas and biting winds to South
Georgia, a 16-day journey. “The
boat tossed interminably on the
big waves under grey, threatening
skies. Every surge of the sea was
an enemy to be watched and
circumvented,” wrote Shackleton.
It was an extraordinary feat but
their journey was not over. Three
of the men, including Shackleton,
then crossed peaks and glaciers to
reach a whaling station on the other
side of the island. In August, after
several failed attempts, a rescue
party set out for Elephant Island,
where the remaining 22 crewmen
were waiting.
In 1922, Shackleton launched a
new expedition to the Antarctic.
But while his ship was docked at
South Georgia he died of a heart
attack, aged 47.
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

18 National

Families angry at new delay

Donna Ockenden, who is leading the “People have booked time off was in the process of securing indem-
review, wrote to families to say pub- work because emotionally it’s a nity cover for potential legal action
lication had been delayed again due huge thing. Treating the families following the report’s publication.

to Shrewsbury NHS report to “parliamentary processes” which

Jessica Murray
Families have voiced “huge frustra-
tion” after publication of the final
report into the biggest maternity
scandal in the NHS was delayed for
a second time.
The Ockenden review is inves-
tigating 1,862 maternity cases at
Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust
in which mothers and babies may
have been harmed over almost 20
years, and was due to be published
on 22 March, having been delayed
from December.
This week the senior midwife
still need to take place, and a new date
has yet to be confirmed.
“It’s hugely frustrating. I can’t
really articulate it, it just feels awful.
We’ve had this date ahead of us, eve-
ryone’s lives are on hold and we’re
holding our breath to finally get this
report,” said Rhiannon Davies, whose
daughter Kate Stanton-Davies died
under the care of the trust shortly
after she was born in 2009.
like this, and treating Donna like this
after all the work she’s done, it’s just
disrespectful.”
Davies and her partner Richard
Stanton have campaigned for the
review for years alongside Kayleigh
and Colin Griffiths, whose daughter
Pippa died in 2016 after contracting
an infection during birth.
In a written statement to parlia-
ment on Tuesday, the patient safety
minister Maria Caulfield said the NHS
Davies said many families were
sceptical about the reasons behind
the delay. “I’m pretty sure it’s going
to be a very damning report and
there are a lot of people in positions
of power squirming at the moment.
This delay will not prevent the truth
from coming out no matter what the
reason is behind it,” she said.
The Ockenden Review, NHS Eng-
land and the Department of Health
were approached for comment.

▲ The man fell 300 metres on Ben Nevis PHOTOGRAPH: MURDO MACLEOD/THE GUARDIAN

Man dies
stood down yesterday because of
the weather.
Members of Lochaber and Glencoe
mountain rescue teams and a police
on Ben mountain rescue team were sent to
Ben Nevis after the alarm was raised
at about 2.15pm on Tuesday.

Nevis amid Donald Paterson, the deputy team

leader of the Lochaber team, said the
conditions on the mountain were

‘ferocious’ “classic Alpine: springlike in the glen

but above the snow line everything
is solid and an ice axe and crampons

conditions are essential”.

Libby Brooks
Scotland correspondent
A man has died after falling about
300 metres (1,000ft) down Ben Nevis,
and 23 others had to be rescued in
“ferocious” conditions during an
eight-hour operation on Britain’s
highest mountain.
After a 28-year-old man fell down
an icy slope at Red Burn, on the west
side of the mountain, members of an
army climbing group went to his aid
and two soldiers received minor inju-
ries requiring hospital treatment.
An army spokesperson said: “A
small number of soldiers provided
support to stranded walkers on Ben
Nevis on Tuesday … until emergency
and mountain rescue services were
able to reach them.”
Twenty-three people, including
about a dozen military personnel,
were either airlifted off the 1,345-
metre mountain by coastguard search
and rescue helicopters from Prest-
wick and Inverness or were walked
off the hill by some of the almost 40
rescuers who went to their aid.
The climber is the sixth person
to have died in the Scottish moun-
tains in the last two weeks, according
to Police Scotland. The search for
a missing walker in Glencoe was
He said: “This chap had fallen, con-
servatively, about 300 metres. Then
others went to help him and they,
too, ended up in trouble. One had a
broken ankle and another multiple
abrasions. As the night wore on, the
conditions got worse. Members of
the party could have been better pre-
pared for the conditions. We would
like to express our condolences to the
deceased’s family and friends.”
Brian Bathurst, the deputy leader
of Glencoe mountain rescue team,
said the conditions were “ferocious”.
“The snow fields are glazed over
with ice and are quite lethal. One slip
and you will go a long way,” he said.
“The conditions last night were very
difficult. As well as the ice there were
very strong winds and rain. The heli-
copters did an amazing job.”
The military group were believed
to be from the Edinburgh area. It is
not clear whether the man who died
was a member of their party.
Lochaber mountain rescue team
said the past five days had been “espe-
cially busy”, with 12 callouts and
26 casualties recovered. “Unfortu-
nately, three of these shouts resulted
in fatalities.”
Insp Matt Smith, the Police Scot-
land mountain rescue coordinator,
said: “We would urge those seeking
to venture into the outdoors to take
extra care. Challenging winter condi-
tions still prevail in the hills with large
areas totally covered in snow and ice.”
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •
National
Henry debuts Chris Wiegand
Stage editor
as playwright Lenny Henry is to make his debut as
with one-man a playwright with a drama about the
injustice of the Windrush scandal.
Henry will also star in the one-man
drama about show, August in England, which is to
be staged at the Bush theatre in west
Windrush London in spring 2023 as part of its
50th birthday celebrations.
The play, he said, was “a story
that needs to be told about the
scandal, and the massive effect it
▲ Lenny Henry will also star in the
one-man drama about Windrush
had and continues to have on our
community”.
His character, August Henderson,
is described as a charmer with the gift
of the gab who is “proud of the life he
has built since landing in his beloved
West Bromwich”. August’s father
arrived in England from Jamaica
in 1960, with the youngster and
his mother joining him a couple of
years later. August now runs a shop,
has three children and is engaged to
be married, but he suddenly finds
himself faced with deportation to a
country of which he has no memory.
Engineer ascends to
island’s throne and pub
after seeing off rivals
Mark Brown
North of England correspondent
A 33-year-old submarine engineer is
set to become landlord of a pub with
a unique perk: as well as pulling pints
he will be king of a tiny, idyllic island
that was once the launchpad for an
invasion of England.
Piel Island is half a mile off the Fur-
ness peninsula in Cumbria. It has a
castle, a few cottages and a pub, the
Ship Inn, for which the local council
has been seeking a new custodian.
Aaron Sanderson, from nearby
Barrow, has been named as the
council’s preferred candidate after a
recruitment process for which more
than 190 people registered an inter-
est. More than 30 ultimately applied.
The job comes with downsides and
upsides. There’s the complication of
running a pub with no mains gas or
electricity, on an island where there
can be more seals than people. Part
of the brief is managing and main-
taining the whole island.
The upsides are the fascinating
history, the nature and the many vis-
itors, who arrive by ferry or guided
walk over the sands at low tide. Plus
the landlord is known as the mon-
arch of Piel Island, with a coronation
that involves sitting on their throne
while beer is poured over their head.
The pub is a challenging place
to run and had been closed for 21
months before reopening tempo-
rarily last summer.
Sanderson, who works as an
▲ Piel is half a mile off the Furness peninsula in Cumbria PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY
19
“I’m excited to be presenting my
first ever play at London’s home of
new writing during its 50th year,” said
Henry, who is of Caribbean heritage.
August in England will be co-directed
by Lynette Linton, the Bush’s artistic
director, and Daniel Bailey.
In 2017 the Guardian uncovered
the Windrush scandal, in which thou-
sands of legal residents in the UK who
had arrived from the Caribbean were
misclassified as illegal immigrants.
This led to them losing access to
benefits, being made homeless and
facing detention or deportation.
electrical team leader at defence
group BAE Systems, said many
people had been sad to see the pub
closed, adding: “I’m looking forward
to getting it back up and running and
serving visitors … that’s how it should
be. I have very happy memories of
visiting Piel as a child and through-
out my life.
“Personally, it represents both
an incredible risk and a wonderful
opportunity. I am in a secure and
well-paid role, but I am willing to
give that up for the chance to bring
the glory days back to the Ship Inn.”
Piel Island is most famous for an
“invasion” of England in 1487, involv-
ing a ragtag army of 8,000 English
dissidents, Irish fighters and tough
German mercenaries.
They were supporting 10-year-old
Lambert Simnel, who, his backers
claimed, was the rightful king of Eng-
land. They said he was Edward, Earl
of Warwick, Edward IV’s nephew. In
truth he was an Oxford craftsman’s
son. The army left Piel and met igno-
minious defeat by Henry VII’s much
stronger forces. One story says that
the landlords running the pub are
the direct descendants of Simnel,
the “king of Piel”.
Sanderson said he planned to
move to the island with his partner.
A precise date for the reopening has
yet to be announced.
Ann Thomson, the leader of Bar-
row borough council, said: “This was
a very competitive process and we are
delighted to be moving to the next
stage with our preferred bidder.”
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
20 News
Coronavirus
‘Happy days
Aubrey Allegretti
Political correspondent
for crooks’: Treasury officials who tried to stop
fraudsters making off with vast Covid
Ex-minister loans have been called a “Dad’s Army
operation” by a Tory former minis-
slams Covid ter. Theodore Agnew condemned the
lacklustre attempt to stop “suitcases
of cash leaving the country”.
loan scheme Agnew, who quit as the govern-
ment’s anti-fraud minister earlier this
year, said the first few months of tax-
payer-funded emergency loans being
issued were “happy days for crooks”.
Lord Agnew said he was “genuinely
completely dumbfounded” about
why the operation had not been prop-
erly resourced.
He revealed it had taken officials
six weeks to create a system that
could catch fraudsters making dupli-
cate claims for loans designed to keep
businesses afloat. However, he added
by that time “60% of the money had
already gone out of the door”.
He said: “I was writing letters
of congratulations to Border Force
staff for picking up suitcases of cash
leaving the country. It was happy
days if you were a crook in those first
few months.”
Out of a potential 100,000 fraud
cases, Agnew said just 49 people had
been arrested. He claimed the eco-
nomic crime bill was a “start” but
only fixed around a quarter of the
problems that needed solving in tack-
ling serious offences, such as money
laundering. Agnew said he was “very
worried” ministers would claim the
bill would solve all the issues, and
warned that would be an “absolute
tragedy”.
Omicron cases up in older
people as immunity drops
Ian Sample
Science editor
Covid cases appear to be rising in
older people as increased socialis-
ing, waning immunity and a more
transmissible version of the Omicron
variant threaten to fuel a resurgence
of the virus.
Tests on nearly 100,000 swabs
from homes across England reveal
that while infections have fallen over-
all since the January peak, one in 35
people tested positive between 8 Feb-
ruary and 1 March, with cases either
level or rising in the 55s and over.
Scientists on Imperial College’s
React-1 study said the R value – the
average number of people an infected
person passes the virus to – remained
below 1 for 54s and under, meaning
cases were in decline. But for those
aged 55 and over, R stood at 1.04.
The suspected rise has raised con-
cerns as older people are more prone
to severe Covid and have had more
time for their immunity to wane, as
many had booster vaccines several
months ago. The latest government
figures showed a 46% rise in new
recorded UK cases week-on-week –
to 346,059 over the past week – and a
12% rise in hospitalisations to 8,950.
Prof Paul Elliott, the director of the
React study, said the rise was prob-
ably driven by factors including the
lifting of all Covid legal restrictions in
England on 24 February, more mixing
between age groups and waning pro-
tection from booster shots. Experts
are investigating whether hospi-
talisation rates are being driven by
“unshielding”, where people who
were extremely careful for two years
Travel forms may be scrapped
The health secretary, Sajid Javid,
is expected to back the scrapping
of passenger locator forms for all
international arrivals in England
before Easter.
He has bowed to pressure from
the transport secretary, Grant
Shapps, and Tory MPs concerned
about the requirement, which
remained in place after domestic
restrictions were rolled back.
Currently, all travellers – apart
from those arriving on internal
flights or journeys that began
in Ireland, the Channel Islands
and Isle of Man – must complete
It comes two months after the
Treasury said it had written off £4.3bn
worth of the £5.8bn of fraud wit-
nessed across its Covid business loan
schemes. Agnew said he quit because
he was asked to defend the move.
Speaking to the Treasury select
committee yesterday, Agnew said
the Back Bounce Loan Scheme was
an “important intervention” to help
keep small and medium-sized busi-
nesses afloat. “But on the fraud side,
it was just a Dad’s Army operation.”
The Treasury has been contacted
for comment.
emerge into a world where infections
are still rife.
Another driver is thought to be the
BA.2 form of Omicron, a relative of
the original BA.1. While BA.2 does not
seem to evade immunity any more
than BA.1, or cause more severe dis-
ease, it spreads faster and increases R
by 0.4 compared with BA.1, the Impe-
rial researchers found. “From what
we see, BA.2 is more transmissible
and may prolong the Omicron wave,”
Elliott said. “It’s taking over, so that
could explain higher infection rates.”
Since the first BA.2 cases were dis-
covered in December, it has steadily
gained ground and now accounts
for about half of all Omicron cases in
England, with levels highest in Lon-
don. It is unclear how large a wave
of infections and hospitalisations it
could drive.
A further push on vaccinations
is due in early April, when over-75s
and the clinically vulnerable will be
offered a fourth shot. “Additional
doses of vaccine are almost certainly
going to be necessary,” said Prof Peter
Openshaw, of the government’s
new and emerging respiratory virus
threats advisory group (Nervtag).
Mark Woolhouse, professor of
infectious disease epidemiology at
the University of Edinburgh, said:
“The worry is that it’s hard to see
anything happening in the next few
weeks that will reverse the growth of
BA.2 unless people decide on their
own account to step up precautions.”
Danny Altmann, professor of
immunology at Imperial College,
who is not on the React-1 study, said:
“We’ll see a great deal more of this,
along the lines of recent resurgent
spikes in Scotland and Hong Kong.”
a passenger locator form before
beginning their journey to the UK.
Senior ministers are expected
to sign off on the decision at a
meeting of the Covid operations
committee next Monday.
A government source said
the “expectation is to remove
all remaining Covid border
measures” and speculated that
the requirement for unvaccinated
travellers to get tested on arrival
could also be dropped. It is hoped
the changes will come into effect in
time for the school holidays next
month. Aubrey Allegretti
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Fatal Stonehaven train
crash caused by fault
with drain, says report
Gwyn Topham
Transport correspondent
A drainage system wrongly built by
Carillion and unchecked by Network
Rail led to the Stonehaven train crash,
investigators have found, when a
ScotRail train hit debris washed by
rain on to the railway track.
Three people died on 12 August
2020 in the worst fatal event on the
UK railway in 18 years, when the
passenger train from Aberdeen to
Glasgow derailed at Carmont, near
Stonehaven, after heavy rainfall.
Inspectors said the drainage sys-
tem and earthworks, installed in
2011-12 by Carillion to stabilise the
slope above the track, “had not been
constructed in accordance with the
original design and so were not able
to safely accommodate the water
flows”, when almost a month’s rain-
fall, 51.5mm, fell in three hours.
The changes made by Carillion,
which went bust in 2018, were not
•
National
noted by Network Rail, which did not
inspect the upper parts of drainage
system after a handover in 2013.
The Rail Accident Investigation
Branch’s final report into the disas-
ter also found that route controllers
had “not been given the informa-
tion, procedures or training needed”
to effectively manage the situation,
and that Network Rail had not fully
implemented risk measures devel-
oped after previous events involving
extreme weather.
Despite a nearby landslip the
same morning, and floods from the
extreme rainfall, no speed restric-
tions were imposed and the train
was travelling at 73mph when it hit
the gravel washed from the drain-
age trench and came off the tracks,
51.5
Amount of rain, in millimetres,
that had fallen in three hours
before the crash at Stonehaven
striking a bridge parapet. One of
the four carriages overturned while
another fell down a steep embank-
ment and caught fire.
The RAIB said the outcome would
likely have been less severe for a more
modern train with better “crashwor-
thiness” than the 1970s-built HST
model involved.
The train drivers’ union Aslef
called for moves to start immediately
to take the HST train type to be taken
out of service.
The three people who died
included two train staff, driver Brett
McCullough and conductor Donald
Dinnie. One passenger, Christopher
▼ Three people were killed when
a ScotRail train was derailed after
heavy rainfall PHOTOGRAPH: PA
Stuchbury, died, while the other six
people on the train were injured.
The report said many more casual-
ties could have arisen but for the low
numbers travelling during the Covid-
19 pandemic.
The RAIB’s chief inspector, Simon
French, said the tragedy highlighted
“the risk of uncontrolled changes
to railway infrastructure during
construction”.
The accident should not be dis-
missed as a one-off event, he added,
and the industry “needs to think
through the implications of severe
weather on its infrastructure”.
Andrew Haines, Network Rail’s
21
‘The industry needs
to think through
the implications of
severe weather on
its infrastructure’
Simon French
RAIB chief inspector
chief executive, said the report
showed there were “fundamental
lessons to be learnt by Network Rail
and the wider industry”.
He said they had invested tens
of millions of pounds in improving
rail’s resilience to weather, includ-
ing inspecting similar locations and
drainage systems across the country.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of
Aslef, said: “The failures identified in
this report are so bad that we believe
this must be a watershed moment.”
Solicitors acting for relatives of
a victim and for injured passengers
said the report showed “a catalogue
of failures within Network Rail”.
Neil Davidson, partner at law firm
Digby Brown said: “The investigation
clearly shows rail management had
prior knowledge of several known
risks - they were told to improve, yet
still failed to act. This is the very def-
inition of negligence.”
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •

National 23

Catholic church bans visit by

boys’ school in Purley, south London, chaplain, Father James Clark, emailed
a voluntary-aided faith school over- parents to say the proposed event had
seen by the Catholic archdiocese of “caused scandal in the local area and

gay author to boys’ school Southwark. An event at St John’s pri-

Harriet Sherwood
Richard Adams
The Catholic church has banned a visit
to a London school by a gay author
and removed a number of governors
who supported the event, in a move
that has drawn comparisons to the
notorious 1980s section 28 ban on
“promoting homosexuality”.
The church said a visit by Simon
James Green, an acclaimed author of
books for children and young adults,
fell “outside the scope of what is per-
missible in a Catholic school”.
Green had been due to speak and
sign books on Monday at John Fisher
mary in Gravesend, scheduled for
yesterday, was also cancelled.
Green told the Guardian he “didn’t
think this sort of thing could happen
in the UK today. I was at school when
section 28 was in force. So I know full
well the horror of living under that
legislation.”
The school’s leadership team,
backed by its governors, had voted
to go ahead with Green’s visit. Its
▲ Simon James Green, an acclaimed
author of books for young people
has brought our international repu-
tation into doubt”.
The Department for Education
said: “We are looking into the circum-
stances surrounding the diocese’s
role in this incident. Schools should
teach students that everybody has
the right to be treated with dignity
and respect, with particular regard to
their duties under the Equality Act.”
The archdiocese and school have
been contacted for comment.

to provide all pupils at Dedridge

In brief primary in Livingstone, where he
goes to school, with reusable water
bottles to replace the single-use
plastic bottles they were given on a
weekly basis.
Pollution The primary 3 pupil said he had
raised £1,405.66 by completing
Boy, 7, petitions Scottish the John Muir Way coast-to-coast
parliament over waste walking route. “I felt very surprised

A seven-year-old schoolboy
has made Holyrood history by
becoming the youngest person to
present a petition to the Scottish
parliament, as part of his effort to
provide every child in the country
with a reusable water bottle.
Callum Isted was questioned
by MSPs at yesterday’s citizen
participation committee, where
he explained that the petition
followed his original campaign
that I had raised so much money …
I was also able to get some for the
adults in the school,” he said. He
now wants the Scottish parliament
Handpicked prices,
to buy a bottle for everyone.
The convener, Jackson Carlaw,
assured him: “We’re going to take
the petition forward, and after you
meet with the first minister we’ll
just for you
be asking her to honour whatever
commitments you can get and see
what we can do to put your petition
into practice.” Libby Brooks

Entertainment
Club’s carpet sold off
in chunks for charity
A nightclub famous for its sticky
carpet has sold dozens of souvenir
chunks of the fabric after a joke
“snowballed”. Thousands of
punters had become attached to
the garishly patterned carpet in
the Acapulco, a club in Halifax that
opened in 1961 and claims to be the
oldest in Britain.
Now, for £5, customers can own
an A4-sized slice of the 19-year- 90p
Usual price
old fabric – or take home a framed
piece for £50. Proceeds of the sale
will go to the Street Angels charity.
Josh Halliday
67p
Your price

Environment
Aldi and Waitrose stop
disposable BBQ sales
Waitrose and Aldi are to stop selling
disposable barbecues because
of their impact on the natural
environment and wildlife.
Disposable barbecues use single-
use plastic and cannot be recycled
or composted, meaning that for
each one sold in the UK – estimated
at more than a million each year–
there is new waste committed to
landfill.
Aldi has stopped sales, which
will save approximately 35 tonnes
of single-use waste packaging a
year. Before the summer, Waitrose
will stop selling the disposable
grills. They estimate this will save
about 70,000 from being sold a
year, saving 73.5 tonnes worth of
foil and 11.2 tonnes of shrink-wrap
plastic. Helena Horton
Police
Inquiries continue into
fatal dog attack on baby
Two people who were arrested
after a baby girl was mauled to
death by a dog in Lincolnshire
have been released under
Save on your Sainsbury’s go-tos
investigation.
Police said the three-month-
with My Nectar Prices.
old, who has not been named,
died after being injured by a dog
attack at the woodland area Ostlers
Find yours (and more) in the Nectar app,
Plantation, near Woodhall Spa,
on Sunday night. A 40-year-old
then shop instore with SmartShop.
woman and a 54-year-old man
were arrested on suspicion of being
in charge of a dog that was out of My Nectar Prices available only via SmartShop. SmartShop and digital
control, and have been released Nectar registration required. My Nectar Prices are individual to you. Scan
under investigation. item with SmartShop handset/App to get prices. Items subject to availability.
Excludes Petrol Stations. Usual selling price may vary in centrals and locals.
Police said they believed the
See nectar.com/my-nectar-prices for verification and full terms. Examples
breed involved was a husky and illustrative only. Sainsbury’s Whole British UHT Milk 1L £0.90 (£0.90/ltr).
that the animal was in kennels
while forensic examinations were
carried out. Jessica Murray
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

24
Eyewitness

Before the war Charity art ▲ By Taras

Bychko from
the series Out of
prints depict life in Ukraine Time, showing
how parts of the
Ukrainian and international photographers have country retain
the ambience of
come together in aid of War Child and Choose the Soviet era

Love to raise funds to help alleviate the growing

refugee crisis, and also as a reminder of the beauty
and diversity of the Ukrainian people, culture and
landscape. Theprintspace is running a charitable ▼ Performance
by youths day,
online art print sale, inviting members of the Dnipropetrovsk,
public to view and buy the photographs, all of 2010, by George
Georgiou,
which were taken in Ukraine. Art4ukraine.com from the series
Shadow of the
Bear
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •

25

▼ Varvara Nikolayenko in the ▼ Swimmers at Yalta in the Crimean

theatre, Simferopol, 2008, by peninsula, 1995, by the renowned
Justyna Mielnikiewicz British photographer Martin Parr

▲ From
the series
Reflections
on Life, Lviv,
Ukraine, 2010,
by Dougie
Wallace

 Korzhin,
2016, by Niels
Ackermann,
from Looking for
Lenin, showing
the fate of his
statues in post-
Soviet Ukraine

 Odesa train
station, 2009,
by George
Georgiou, from
Shadow of
the Bear
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

26

Morrison defends speed of

 Houses
submerged in
flood waters
from the

response during visit to

Hawkesbury
River in
Windsor, New
South Wales

flood-hit Australian town

Josh Butler
Canberra
The Australian prime minister,
Scott Morrison, had a fiery recep-
tion in flood-devastated Lismore
in New South Wales yesterday as
he defended the speed of his gov-
ernment’s response, saying the
Australian Defence Force was “not
available on a moment’s notice”.
The federal government has now
declared a national emergency
around the floods, providing greater
powers to send in defence force assets
and to reduce red tape to hasten
financial support.
After visiting a dairy farmer,
Morrison faced questions over why
the national emergency declaration
had taken so long, with residents
funding their own helicopters to res-
cue fellow citizens.
“ There will be a community
response in disasters, because the
community is already there. The
resources move, and they come as
you see them now, but they are not
available on a moment’s notice,” he
told reporters. “It is unrealistic to
have that set as an expectation … It
has taken everybody by surprise. ”
Morrison, who finished his Covid
isolation on Tuesday, flew to the
flood-ravaged community to receive
emergency briefings and tour the
area, which was inundated with
14 metres of flood waters last week.
At a press conference, he said peo-  Scott Morrison
ple in the Richmond Valley, Lismore inspects flood
and Clarence Valley local government damage at
areas would be eligible for two more the Norco ice-
weeks of a A$1,000 (£550) disaster cream factory
recovery payment, available from in Lismore, New
15 March. South Wales,
The federal government is also yesterday
committing tens of millions of dollars
to the Northern Rivers region, includ-
ing $31.2m for mental health support
services, $10m for children’s men-
tal health and $25m for emergency
relief, food relief and financial coun-
selling services.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Spit and polish
Renaissance chapel
cleaned with bacteria
Page 29
 Residents wade through flood
waters in Windsor, about 30 miles
north-west of Sydney, yesterday
PHOTOGRAPH: BIANCA DE MARCHI/EPA
Justine Elliot of the Labor party,
who represents the seat of Rich-
mond, said she was “disgusted”
that the Byron, Tweed and Ballina
council areas had missed out on the
extra disaster funds. “People up here
desperately need it. The rest of the
package goes nowhere near what we
need,” she said.
There has been scathing criticism
of the federal government from locals
and Labor politicians in flood zones,
who claim defence force assistance
has been too slow and too limited,
and there has not been enough
national help.
The opposition leader, Anthony
Albanese, said there were “questions
that need answers” about why resi-
dents were funding rescues instead
of getting more air support.
Morrison said: “It doesn’t matter
whether you’re the most advanced
economy in the world or a developing
country, natural disasters of this scale
have a brutal and terrible impact.”
Asked whether he understood why
people had felt abandoned, Morrison
responded that “it is very common”
for disaster survivors to feel such
emotions. “This happens in every
natural disaster ... I feel deeply and
empathise absolutely with how peo-
ple feel when they find themselves
in this situation”, he said. “I abso-
lutely understand the frustration, I
understand the anger, I understand
the disappointment.”
A few dozen local citizens gathered
outside the council building where
Morrison held his press conference.
Albanese, who toured disaster
zones in Queensland last week and
has himself faced questions in some
quarters about why he has not visited
flood zones in his home state of NSW,
will head to Lismore today.
The federal powers to declare a
national emergency were enacted
in December 2020 in response to
recommendations from the royal
commission into the Black Summer
bushfires. The relevant legislation
says these powers are largely about
cutting red tape to get support out
faster to disaster victims and affected
communities.
Following criticisms of the speed
and power of the federal response,
the commission said the federal
government should have stronger
declaration powers in order to “sig-
nal to communities the severity of
a disaster early, act as a marshalling
call for the early provision of Aus-
tralian government assistance when
requested” and better coordinate
with state and territory governments.
Labor’s emergency management
spokesman, Murray Watt, said he
was pleased the prime minister had
declared a national emergency but
questioned why it had taken so long.
“Why has he waited till he is sur-
rounded by TV cameras before doing
it? He could have done this at any
time over the last week, while he was
in iso,” Watt tweeted.
•
Environment
Mine’s claim to offset
harm is put to test
Page 31
Life in ruins
Anger and
despair at
lost income
and homes
Christopher Knaus
Lismore
O
n a debris-lined street
in Lismore, New
South Wales, Kym
Strow and her wife,
Sarah Jones, were
staying well away
from the Scott Morrison circus. “We
don’t need someone picking up our
hand to shake it,” Strow said.
Instead, the pair were walking
slowly through their ruined home.
In spots, the floors were dangerous
to walk on. The warped timber
threatened to give way underfoot.
Everything they owned was in a
pile out on the street. The cafe they
have owned for nine years, Flock,
is ruined too. Asked about the
prime minister’s visit to Lismore
yesterday to see the flood damage,
Strow said anger was not helpful
right now. “You need a leader who
is going to stand up and say: ‘I’m
coming’ or: ‘This is coming, you’re
not alone’ and give hope,” she said.
Across town, at Morrison’s
chosen public relations point –
the emergency operations centre
at Lismore’s council chambers
– tensions were running high.
A group of protesters had been
waiting for hours in the oppressive
heat. Some brandished signs
saying: “This isn’t strange, it’s
climate change” and “Mental
health crisis”.
After an interminable wait,
Morrison fronted the press to fend
off criticism about the federal
response, the inadequacy of the
government’s effort on the climate
crisis, and the disaster payments,
which, while now increased,
are a drop in the ocean for those
who lost everything. “It has
taken everybody, including the
community, by surprise. No one
 Kym Strow
and her wife,
Sarah Jones,
in their flooded
Lismore home.
The cafe they
have owned for
nine years has
also been ruined
expected to get to those levels, and
what we’re dealing with here is an
extraordinary event,” he said. Then
he left.
In south Lismore, at the Norco
ice-cream factory, a business
ruined by the floods, Sarah Moran,
a lone protester, waited for
Morrison for two hours before his
second scheduled appearance.
“I yelled at him for a good 10
minutes, because there was no
one else here,” she said. “My chest
hurt. He hasn’t even offered a living
wage, and you’re talking about
people who were poor before.
How dare you. You’ve got people
who work here, they make the ice-
cream, they’ve got no homes.”
Morrison, perhaps wary of the
2019 bushfires disaster, didn’t stop
to shake hands with victims in front
of the press. He denied allegations
of stage-managing his visit, saying
some people didn’t want cameras
in their faces amid disaster.
Marcus and Leonie Bebb lived in
a part of South Lismore devastated
by the floods. Leonie spent six
hours on their roof and at one point
saw a cow, desperate to survive, try
to climb into a boat to escape the
flood waters. “We copped the brunt
of it,” Marcus said. “Everybody did,
but … we got it from all directions,
left, right and centre.”
The Bebbs said they had talked
to a representative from Morrison’s
office, asking for five minutes
to chat to the prime minister.
Marcus was told Morrison was
“running late”. He was not furious
at the prime minister’s Lismore
appearance. The climate crisis was
not his most pressing concern, he
said. His family were homeless.
“I’m looking for a house. I’m
looking for a roof. I’m looking for
somewhere to put my family.”
‘We copped the brunt
of it … I’m looking for
a house. I’m looking
for a roof. I’m looking
for somewhere
to put my family’
Leonie and
Marcus Bebb
China builds hospital and bridge
to help Hong Kong tackle Covid
Rhoda Kwan
Taipei
A temporary bridge linking Shen-
zhen and Hong Kong has been
erected to help workers and materi-
als from the mainland enter the city
as work begins on a makeshift Covid-
19 hospital to relieve pressure on its
overwhelmed medical system.
Almost 2,000 Chinese contractors
from the China State Construction
Engineering are in Hong Kong this
week to build the facility near Hong
Kong’s border with the mainland,
which is expected to provide 1,000
more hospital beds and quarantine
rooms for up to 10,000 people.
The bridge, constructed over the
weekend to combat Hong Kong’s
soaring hospital admissions, was
authorised by the city’s number two
official under its emergency situation
legislation and will be dismantled
once the facility is complete, accord-
ing to officials. Chinese construction
support will also take place at nine
other facilities across the city.
Hong Kong authorities have relied
heavily on Beijing for support during
this fifth wave. Doctors and nurses
from the mainland have also been
allowed to work in the city, while Bei-
jing had provided 29m rapid antigen
tests and 54m masks as of Tuesday.
The city reported 28,466 local
infections and 291 more deaths on
Austria suspends mandatory
vaccination law after a month
Agencies
Austria is suspending a law making
Covid jabs mandatory for adults, just
a month after the legislation took
effect in what was an EU first.
The country of 9 million people
was among few places in the world
to make coronavirus jabs compulsory
for all adults. The law took effect in
February and provided for fines of up
to €3,600 (£3,000) from mid-March
for those who did not comply.
But the EU and constitutional
affairs minister Karoline Edtstadler
said the law’s “encroachment of fun-
damental rights” could no longer be
justified by the danger posed.
“After consultations with the
health minister, we have decided
that we will of course follow what
the [expert] commission has said,”
she said after a cabinet meeting. “We
see no need to actually implement
this compulsory vaccination due to
the [Omicron] variant that we are pre-
dominantly experiencing here.”
The highly contagious variant is
widely believed to be less severe than
27
Tuesday. The Omicron-fuelled out-
break pushed its daily community
infections to a record of 56,827 last
Thursday. Hong Kong has been
recording about 150 deaths each day,
giving it the world’s highest death
rate per 1 million people, according
to Our World in Data.
The outbreak has inundated hos-
pitals, with some patients in hospital
beds being moved into car parks.
Supermarkets and pharmacies have
experienced shortages as residents
stockpile supplies. Schools have been
forced to close until April.
The majority of Covid deaths have
been among Hong Kong’s unvacci-
nated older people.
The latest wave may have reached
its peak, according to new modelling
data from researchers at the Univer-
sity of Hong Kong on Tuesday. The
new estimates suggest the city’s daily
infections will drop down to the hun-
dreds by late April.
▲ The temporary bridge is being
used to transport materials and staff
previous forms of the virus, and so far
Austrian hospitals have been able to
cope with a surge in cases.
Calls to review the law had become
increasingly loud, especially as
Austria has dropped almost all coro-
navirus restrictions in recent weeks.
Politically the vaccine mandate
had become a liability for the con-
servative-led government and the
favourite target of the far-right and
anti-vaccination Freedom party. It
had done little to raise one of the
lowest vaccination rates in western
Europe, and scepticism had grown
since restrictions barring the unvac-
cinated from places such as bars and
restaurants have been scrapped in
most of Austria.
As of Tuesday, Austria ha d
recorded almost 3m coronavirus
cases and more than 15,000 deaths
since the beginning of the pandemic
in 2020.
€3,600
The amount Austrians could have
been fined for failing to comply
with the vaccine mandate

28
Conservative beats liberal rival
to win South Korea’s presidency
Justin McCurry Tokyo
Agencies
Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative former
top prosecutor, was elected as South
Korea’s new president earlier today,
defeating his chief liberal rival in one
of the country’s most closely fought
presidential elections.
With more than 98% of the bal-
lots counted, Yoon had 48.6% of
the votes against his rival Lee Jae-
myung’s 47.8%.
A huge crowd of supporters
gathered near Yoon’s Seoul home,
shouting his name early this morn-
ing. “I didn’t know you’ve come here
without sleeping. I thank you for hav-
ing supported me so far. Thank you,
my neighbours!” Yoon said.
He is to take office in May and serve
Great bulls
of fire
Fireworks
on a torito, a
frame in the
form of a bull
made from
wood and
papier-mache,
at the national
pyrotechnic
festival in
Tultepec,
Mexico, a town
famous for the
manufacture
of fireworks.
PHOTOGRAPH:
PEDRO PARDO/
AFP/GETTY
Venezuela releases US citizens
as both countries seek detente
Joe Parkin Daniels
Bogotá
Venezuela has released two jailed
US citizens as Washington and Cara-
cas seek to improve relations amid
an energy crisis caused by Russia’s
war in Ukraine.
Gustavo Cárdenas, an executive
with the US oil refining company
Citgo, was released on Tuesday,
along with Jorge Fernández, who
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
World
a single five-year term as leader of the
world’s 10th largest economy.
Earlier, Lee, a former governor of
Gyeonggi province, conceded his
defeat at his party headquarters. “I
did my best but wasn’t able to live up
to expectations,” a glum Lee said. “I
congratulate candidate Yoon Suk
Yeol. I sincerely ask the president
elect to overcome division and con-
flicts and open a new era of unity and
harmony.”
The election boiled down to a two-
way showdown between Yoon from
the opposition People Power party
and Lee from the governing Dem-
ocratic party. They spent months
slamming, mocking and demonising
each other in one of the most bitter
political campaigns in recent mem-
ory, aggravating the country’s already
severe domestic divisions.
was arrested last year on terrorism
charges the White House described as
“spurious”. “These men are fathers
who lost precious time with their
children and everyone they love, and
their families have suffered every day
of their absence,” the US president,
Joe Biden, said in a statement.
Despite boasting the world’s larg-
est proven oil reserves, Venezuela
is mired in political, economic and
social crises, with shortages in food
and fuel widespread.
The polls closed at 6pm for most
of South Korea’s 44 million eligible
voters but polling stations remained
open for another 90 minutes to ena-
ble people with Covid-19 to vote.
Yoon, who was hoping to benefit
from public anger over rising housing
costs in Seoul, income inequality and
youth unemployment, said during
the campaign that he would address
mounting economic problems with a
dose of fiscal conservatism, including
a cut in the minimum wage and the
removal of limits on working hours.
While North Korea’s recent return
to ballistic missile tests was lower
down the list of voter priorities,
Yoon’s team has said he would restart
talks with Pyongyang, while boosting
South Korea’s deterrent capabilities.
Lee rose to prominence with an
aggressive pandemic response, a
President Nicolás Maduro has
clamped down on dissent, arresting
and torturing protesters, and has
been accused of rigging elections.
The US broke diplomatic ties with
Maduro’s government in 2019, rec-
ognising the opposition leader Juan
Guaidó as the legitimate president,
while levelling sanctions against
Venezuela and its state-controlled
oil sector.
But over the weekend White House
representatives visited Caracas for
talks – the first trip of its kind in over
20 years – in an apparent attempt to
pull Venezuela away from Russia
after the invasion of Ukraine.
The two Americans were released
hours after Maduro appeared to
populist economic agenda, and by
touting his outsider image.
The world will look for signs of a
new approach to North Korea under
South Korea’s new president, after
Moon’s policy of engagement paved
the way for summits with Kim Jong-
un, but made no progress on the issue
of nuclear weapons.
Yoon has said he would support
a pre-emptive strike against North
Korea if an attack appeared immi-
nent, but has promised “significant
and immediate” benefits if the regime
in Pyongyang takes verifiable steps
towards denuclearisation.
Having appealed to young male
voters who are unhappy about
attempts under Moon to address
gender inequality, Yoon could add
fuel to the national debate over
women’s rights if he honours a cam-
paign promise to abolish the gender
equality ministry.
He has claimed South Korean
women do not suffer from “systemic
gender discrimination”, even though
the country performs poorly in inter-
national comparisons of the gender
pay gap and female representation in
senior management.
indicate interest in improving rela-
tions with the US, hinting he was
willing to resume talks with the
opposition.
Cárdenas had been detained since
2017, after being lured to Caracas for a
meeting at the offices of Venezuela’s
state owned oil company PDVSA, of
which Citgo is a subsidiary. Five other
Citgo executives remain detained.
Observers say Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine has led both the White House
and Maduro to cautiously pursue a
better relationship. Phil Gunson at
the International Crisis Group think-
tank, said: “It is clear that the trigger
for this renewed engagement is the
energy crisis faced by the US and
its allies.”
Indigenous
nation sues
city on behalf
of salmon’s
right to life
Lester Black
An Indigenous nation is turn-
ing to a novel legal tactic to save a
beleaguered salmon population by
suing on behalf of the fish, alleging
dams stop the creature migrating and
violate its “inherent rights to exist,
flourish, regenerate and evolve”.
The lawsuit is part of the grow-
ing “rights of nature” movement, a
legal theory that seeks to give natural
entities, such as rivers, plants and
animals similar legal rights to those
given to humans.
The salmon, called TsuladxW
in the Sauk-Suiattle Indian tribe’s
Lushootseed language, are named
plaintiffs in the case against the
city of Seattle. The dammed rivers
in Washington state no longer pro-
vide enough salmon for the tribe to
carry out all of their ceremonies let
alone feed everyone, and scientists
have determined that nearby dams
are harming the salmon population.
The tribe is arguing that the dams
are violating TsuladxW’s due process
rights and the fourth amendment
right to be free from illegal seizures.
Jack Fiander, a tribal member and
lawyer for the tribe in the court case,
said the Sauk-Suiattle people were
forcing the courts and the city of Seat-
tle, which owns the three dams, to
recognise rights that the tribe has
always believed the fish enjoy. “These
tribal beliefs shouldn’t be ridiculed.
They’re based on ancestral knowl-
edge that shouldn’t be discounted.”
The rights of nature movement has
only recently gained traction in the
US. In its constitution, in 2008, Ecua-
dor granted legal rights to all natural
beings, and an Indian court gave legal
personhood to two rivers, the Ganges
and Yamuna, in 2017.
If salmon or rivers had their own
rights there would be a legal route to
demand environmental justice when
a regulator ignored their protection,
said Elizabeth Kronk Warner, dean of
the S J Quinney College of Law at the
University of Utah.
Kronk Warner said: “People will
ultimately bargain for and negotiate
for something that might be in their
best interest rather than the river’s.
An individual acting in their [own]
capacity is just not going to be able to
protect the rights of nature in the way
that the natural element can itself.”
Seattle is negotiating a new licence
with the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission that could last 50 years.
Fiander said: “You can’t count on
that federal agency to do the right
thing. They take into account busi-
ness considerations, so using these
other legal means is appropriate.
What Seattle is doing could go on
for 50 years and the salmon could be
extinct within 10 or 15.”
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
First person to
receive pig’s heart
transplant dies
after two months
Erum Salam and agencies
Two months after a pioneering opera-
tion, the first person to receive a heart
transplant from a pig has died, the US
hospital that performed the surgery
announced yesterday.
David Bennett, 57, a handyman,
had undergone the experimental pro-
cedure in Baltimore, Maryland, after
suffering from heart failure and run-
ning out of other options.
Bennett died on Tuesday, the Uni-
versity of Maryland Medical Center
said, adding that he was able to talk
with his family during his final hours.
Senior doctors hailed a “brave man”
who had made a big contribution to
advancing medical science by agree-
ing to the surgery.
The hospital did not provide an
exact cause of death but said his
condition had worsened in recent
days. Bennett’s son, David Bennett
Jr, said his father knew the treatment
might not work, but was grateful to
the medical community for such
innovation. He had called the pro-
cedure “a miracle”.
“We are grateful for every inno-
vative moment, every crazy dream,
every sleepless night that went into
this historic effort,” Bennett Jr said
in a statement. “We hope this story
can be the beginning of hope and not
the end.”
Bennett had been fast-tracked as
a candidate for the unique operation
due to the severity of his condition
and because he was on life support.
He was ineligible for a human heart
transplant, and the University of Mar-
yland Medical Center had called it the
“only currently available option for
the patient”.
Yesterday, the scientific director at
the University of Maryland’s animal-
to-human transplant programme, Dr
Muhammad Mohiuddin, paid tribute
to Bennett.
“Mr Bennett was a brave man.
Without his contribution, we couldn’t
have done this procedure. He was
brave enough to donate his body to
science and to accept this pig heart,
which many would not. We are very
grateful to him and his family who
David Bennett, right, prior to the
pioneering transplant procedure
•
World
also supported during this long sur-
vival of two months.
“This is the first time a pig organ
has been transplanted in a human
and there are lot of unknowns that we
can discover after carefully evaluat-
ing the data. A lot of new information
will come out that will help the field
move forward at a faster pace.”
The Food and Drug Administra-
tion (FDA) had granted emergency
authorisation of the transplant on
“compassionate use” grounds seven
days before Bennett underwent sur-
gery. “It was either die or do this
transplant. I want to live. I know it’s
a shot in the dark, but it’s my last
choice,” Bennett said before surgery.
Doctors have sought to use animal
organs in life-saving transplants for
decades. Pigs have long been used
in human medicine, including pig
skin grafts and implantation of pig
heart valves. But transplanting entire
organs is much more complex than
using highly processed tissue.
Prior attempts at such transplants
– known as xenotransplantation –
have failed largely because patients’
bodies rapidly rejected the animal
organ. Bennett survived significantly
longer with the gene-edited pig heart
than one of the last milestones in
xenotransplantation – when Baby
Fae, a dying California infant, lived
21 days with a baboon’s heart in 1984.
This time, scientists had modified
the animal to remove pig genes that
trigger hyper-fast rejection and add
human genes to help the body accept
the organ.
At first the pig heart functioned,
and the Maryland hospital issued
periodic updates that Bennett
seemed to be slowly recovering. Last
month, the hospital released video of
him watching the Super Bowl from
his hospital bed while working with
his physical therapist.
“This was a first step into
uncharted territory,” said Dr Rob-
ert Montgomery of NYU Langone
Health, a transplant surgeon who has
received his own heart transplant,
adding that “a tremendous amount
of information” will contribute to the
next steps as teams at several trans-
plant centres plan clinical trials. “It
was an incredible feat that he was
kept alive for two months and was
able to enjoy his family,” Montgom-
ery said.
The need for another source of
organs is huge. More than 41,000
transplants were performed in the US
last year, a record – including about
3,800 heart transplants. But more
than 106,000 people remain on the
national waiting list, thousands die
every year before getting an organ
and thousands more never even get
on the list.
Microbe
management:
experts clean
Medici tomb
with bacteria
Angela Giuffrida
Rome
A Medici family chapel created by
Michelangelo that was cleaned with
bacteria has been presented to the
public to mark the 545th anniversary
of the Renaissance master’s birth.
Michelangelo was commissioned
to sculpt the New Sacristy, part of
the Medici chapels in San Lorenzo
Church in Florence, in 1520.
Restorers struggled to clean the
dirt and grime that had accumulated
over the centuries until resorting to
an unconventional solution: bacteria.
The tomb is adorned with sculp-
tures representing likenesses of two
dukes from the powerful Medici
▼ The all-female team of restorers
spent eight years analysing and
cleaning the Medici funerary marble
PHOTOGRAPH: CNR
▲ The results of the painstaking
restoration were unveiled this week
family, Giuliano di Lorenzo and Lor-
enzo di Piero; four allegorical figures
representing different times of the
day; and the Madonna and Child.
An all-female team spent eight
years restoring the delicate monu-
ment, using a bacteria-infused gel
during the final stage of the project
to remove the most stubborn dirt.
Scientists tested 11 strains of bac-
teria on marble before it was decided
that three non-toxic varieties –
Serratia ficaria SH7, Pseudomonas
29
 Eleven strains ▲ Serratia
of bacteria ficaria under
were tested a microscope:
before cleaning a bacterium
started on the which can
marble carved cause urinary
by Michelangelo infections, it
for a Medici proved very
family chapel in effective at
Florence cleaning marble
PHOTOGRAPH: ENEA PHOTOGRAPH: ENEA
stutzeri CONC11 and Rhodococ-
cus sp. ZONT – would be the most
effective for Michelangelo’s master-
piece. Serratia ficaria, a bacterium
that causes urinary infections, was
able to remove dirt from the tomb in
two days.
Part of the sarcophagus was in a
particularly bad state due the remains
of Alessandro Medici, a ruler of Flor-
ence who was assassinated and
whose body had been buried in the
tomb without being eviscerated, as
was customary at the time for Med-
ici family members. This meant that,
over time, organic liquids from the
corpse had started to seep through
and stain Michelangelo’s work.
The restoration was completed
last year, and the chapel was opened
to the public in an event hosted by
Florence’s Academy of the Arts of
Drawing to mark the 545th year since
Michelangelo’s birth on 6 March.
Monica Bietti, an art historian and
former chief of the Medici chapels
museum, who led the restoration
project, said: “The restoration of
one of the most symbolic places of
art required knowledge, experience
and science combined with the qual-
ities of sensitivity and intelligence.
For this reason, the work was tested
from the start and then subjected to
constant scientific checks.”

30
Police recover
vast trove of
artefacts in
28 countries
Harriet Sherwood
Arts and culture correspondent
Priceless artefacts, including ancient
coins, paintings, furniture, musical
instruments and statuettes, have
been seized in a four-month police
operation across 28 countries.
More than 9,400 items were recov-
ered and 52 people were arrested in
an operation targeting illicit traf-
ficking in cultural goods, carried out
between June and September last
year, Interpol said yesterday.
More than 170 investigations are
still ongoing, with more seizures and
arrests expected as global investiga-
tors pursued “those spoiling and
destroying cultural heritage”.
Operation Pandora VI, which was
led by Spain, involved actions in air-
ports and at border crossing points, as
well as in auction houses, museums
and private homes. Online markets
were monitored for suspicious sales.
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
World
4,231
Number of recovered objects that
had been looted by one person
alone from archaeological sites
French customs officials seized
4,231 archaeological objects, includ-
ing some 3,000 coins, as well as bells
and pieces of pottery that had been
looted from archaeological sites by
one individual using a metal detector.
 Some of the 9,400 items recovered
in an operation last year targeting
illicit trafficking in cultural goods
PHOTOGRAPHS: INTERPOL
Separately, they also recovered
three ancient statuettes dating back
to the Tolita-Tumaco culture, whose
people inhabited the present day bor-
der between Colombia and Ecuador
in the 1st millennium AD.
Spanish police seized 91 Roman
gold coins, looted from an archaeo-
logical site and worth an estimated
€500,000 on the black market.
US customs officials recovered
a shipment containing 13 Mexican
artefacts from the post-classic to the
Aztec eras, including a skull and 12
adzes, or cutting tools.
A 13th-century processional
cross was returned to the Evangel-
ical Church Museum of Cisnădie,
Romania.
Police in the Netherlands recov-
ered two Kees Verweij paintings after
investigating a sales catalogue from
an Amsterdam auction house.
Seven European law enforce-
ment authorities recovered 90 metal
detectors destined for illicit use at
archaeological sites.
Operation Pandora, coordinated
by Europol, Interpol and the World
Customs Organization, has resulted
in the recovery of 147,050 cultural
artefacts and the arrest of 407 people
since it was launched in 2016.
Black Panther
director wrongly
arrested at bank
Andrew Pulver
Black Panther director Ryan Coogler
was arrested while trying to with-
draw money from his bank account
in January.
According to a police report
obtained by TMZ, Coogler, who is
filming the Black Panther sequel
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in
Atlanta, Georgia, apparently handed
the cashier at the bank a note read-
ing: “I would like to withdraw $12,000
cash from my checking account.
Please do the money count some-
where else. I’d like to be discreet.”
This triggered an alarm, and Coog-
ler and two others were arrested.
Coogler told Variety: “This situa-
tion should never have happened …
However, Bank of America worked
with me and we have moved on.”
Prior to global blockbuster Black
Panther, which was released in 2018,
Coogler directed Rocky spin-off
Creed in 2015 and his 2013 directo-
rial debut, Fruitvale Station, about a
real-life police killing.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Offsetting
takes root?
Vast mine’s
claims of
zero harm
put to test
Patrick Greenfield
A
mbatovy mine on
the east coast of
Madagascar is an
environmental
conundrum fit for
the 21st century.
Beginning operations in 2012,
the multibillion-dollar open-pit
nickel and cobalt mine is the
largest investment in the history
of the country, one of the poorest
on Earth. About 9,000 Malagasies
are employed by the project,
owned by the Japanese company
Sumitomo Corporation and Korean
firm Komir, which mines minerals
destined for electric car batteries.
To build the mine and the 140-
mile slurry pipeline to a port on
the Indian ocean, 2,000 hectares
(5,000 acres) of rainforest was
cleared, destroying habitat of
the endangered indri, the largest
living lemur, and thousands of
other species.
Alongside the land clearing
in a country that has lost nearly
a quarter of its tree cover since
2000, the mine has been blamed
for air and water pollution, as well
as health problems in the local
population. The smell of ammonia
in residential areas and the
pollution of drinking water were
revealed in a 2017 investigation.
But now the project is set to gain
another controversial accolade: the
•
World
first mine to successfully offset the
destruction it caused to a forest,
according to an independent
scientific study.
In a wild west of environmental
claims, research published in
Nature Sustainability, led by
scientists at Bangor University, is
likely to be contentious.
The theory behind offsetting
is that good can cancel out bad.
With biodiversity offsetting, the
destruction of an ecosystem can
be counteracted by protecting
▲ The forest offsetting schemes established
habitat of by the mine with similar areas
the indri, of threatened forest not under
Madagascar’s protection. The researchers say
largest lemur, 1,644 hectares was protected
has been put between 2009 and January 2020 by
under threat by the mine’s conservation schemes,
the Ambatovy and that if continued at the same
mine in the rate, 2,174 hectares of rainforest
island’s central loss would have been avoided by
highlands, left the end of 2021, fully offsetting the
PHOTOGRAPHS: destruction at the mine site.
CHRONOWIZARD “This is a really encouraging
GASIKARA/GETTY
IMAGES; ALAMY result. It suggests the really large
contributions the mine makes
to the Malagasy economy can
another threatened area. Evidence be achieved while minimising
that most offsets do what they tradeoffs with the unique forest
claim to do is scarce. The study of habitat,” says the lead author
Ambatovy’s offsets states: “Over Katie Devenish. But the researchers
12,000 biodiversity offsets exist add that “there remain important
worldwide, yet evaluations of their caveats”. First, the result shows
effectiveness are rare and most do how difficult and expensive
not use robust methods.”
12,000
The researchers say Ambatovy
is on track to protect an area
of rainforest equivalent to the
amount it destroyed in other parts Current biodiversity offsetting
of the island. They used statistical projects worldwide, for which
analysis to compare the four evaluations are rare, say researchers
31
Offset areas
Madagascar
Ambatovy Andasibe-
mine Mantadia
national park
20 km
Moramanga
20 miles
biodiversity offsetting is, according
to the scientists. Although no
official figures were published,
it is understood the offsets were
backed by heavy investment
from the mine, to protect an area
of rainforest smaller than most
London boroughs.
“Ambatovy is not in any way
representative of most offsets.
This isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card
for mines and dams in important
biodiversity areas. Offsetting is
really hard,” says Julia Jones, a
conservation professor at Bangor
University, and study co-author.
Second, the burden of offsetting
falls on vulnerable people who
depend on the forest for their
livelihoods, say researchers. The
Ambatovy offsets were gained
by slowing land clearing by
subsistence farmers in other areas.
“The poorest people will bear
the cost of achieving no-net-loss
outcomes because they can no
longer exploit the forest in the
way that they traditionally did,”
says Martine Maron, a professor
at the University of Queensland
and author of a paper on the many
meanings of no net loss in 2018,
who was not involved in the study.
“We’ve got to find solutions that
work for both,” she says.
Ambatovy has welcomed the
report and said it is “committed
to acting in a responsible manner
and to working with integrity,
transparency, respect and the
highest ethical standards”.
In response to the 2017
allegations, it said pollution and
water quality are monitored in
line with international standards
and a grievance mechanism is
open to those affected.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
FTSE 100 All share
+226.61 +132.19
7190.72 3999.43
Tory peer attended Cop26
summit in Moscow’s group
Jasper Jolly
A Conservative party peer attended
Cop26 in Glasgow last autumn as part
of Russia’s group of participants at
the UN climate summit, the Guard-
ian can reveal.
Lord Barker, a former energy min-
ister when David Cameron was prime
minister, attended the summit as part
of the party of the Russian Federa-
tion, according to a UN list.
Greg Barker resigned on Monday
as chair of the Russian mining firm
EN+ Group. The company is part-
owned by the Russian billionaire Oleg
Deripaska, who was sanctioned by
the US in 2018. EN+ confirmed that
Barker attended with a pass from Rus-
sia’s allocation.
His resignation followed intense
scrutiny of his relationship with the
company, including by senior Tory
party colleagues, amid Russia’s inva-
sion of Ukraine. Share instruments in
EN+, which is incorporated in Russia,
were suspended from trading on the
London Stock Exchange on 3 March.
The presence of Barker on the list
emerged in analysis of lobbying at
the summit by Global Witness, Cor-
porate Accountability, and Corporate
Europe Observatory.
Barker, who was ennobled in 2015
by Cameron after four years as min-
ister of state for climate change, had
been the Tory MP for Bexhill and
Battle. He is not thought to have
attended the Lords since 2019.
A source said that Barker did not
participate in, or attend, Russian
 Ocean Rebellion activists during
Cop26 in Glasgow protest about
carbon emissions and fossil fuel use
PHOTOGRAPH: PETER SUMMERS/GETTY
Betting firm fined £1.2m over
emails to recovering addicts
Rob Davies
Sky Vegas has been fined £1.2m for
sending free casino “spins” to recov-
ering addicts during the industry’s
annual Safer Gambling Week.
The fine comes at a sensitive time
for the British gambling industry,
which has been at pains to show it
has improved its attitude to social
responsibility. The government is in
the middle of a review of gambling
laws, with proposals to be published
in a white paper expected within
weeks. Yet major brands have been
•
Dow Indl Nikkei 225
+796.96 - 73.42
33429.60 24717.53
▲ Lord Barker, who resigned this
week from the Russian miner EN+
hit with penalties for failing to protect
vulnerable people in recent weeks.
888 Casino, which is buying Wil-
liam Hill’s UK assets, was fined £9.4m
last week for failings that led to cus-
tomers racking up huge losses during
the depths of the pandemic. BetVic-
tor was fined £2m in February for
failures in fairness, money-launder-
ing controls and social responsibility.
The new fine for Sky Vegas, which
is owned by Flutter, comes after it
sent a promotional offer of “bet £5 get
100 free spins” to 41,395 customers
who had voluntarily self-excluded
from gambling in an effort to stop. A
further 249,159 customers who had
£/€ £/$
1.1911 1.3156
-0.0142 +0.0046
government meetings or receive
briefings at the climate summit.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour par-
ty’s chair, said: “The Conservatives
have serious questions to answer
about why it seems one of their peers
was allowed to attend Cop26 as part
of Russia’s party.” She said “urgent
action” was required from the Tories
to remove people from the political
party who had links to Putin’s regime.
Barker had been heavily criticised
by Conservative party colleagues and
other political parties for his prior
involvement with EN+. The former
Tory minister David Davis said: “As a
matter of law, people like him should
unsubscribed from its marketing
emails also received the promotion.
“Here at Sky Vegas, we love the
unexpected,” one email read. “Sim-
ply opt in, spend £5 and claim your
100 free spins. The best part? What-
ever you win is yours to keep – that’s
the fun in fair!” The message featured
graphics of slot machines.
The incident, revealed by the
Guardian in November, led addicts
to warn that receiving such messages
could have triggered a relapse.
Andrew Rhodes, the Gambling
Commission’s chief executive, said:
“Self-excluded customers are likely
to be suffering gambling harm and
should not be sent direct marketing
that could tempt them back into gam-
bling. We would advise all operators
to learn from Sky Betting & Gaming’s
costly errors and ensure their systems
are robust enough to prevent the
self-excluded, and those who have
be disqualified from holding office in
those companies.”
Murray Worthy, the gas cam-
paign leader at Global Witness, said:
“Lord Barker has serious questions to
answer as to why he was registered to
the world’s most important climate
talks as part of the official Russian
delegation. As do the Conservative
party, whose government … made a
huge fanfare about its importance in
reaching necessary climate action.”
EN+ said it was considering carving
out part of the aluminium business,
which included Rusal, a subsidiary.
The new firm would be owned by
management and non-Russian inves-
tors and maybe led by Barker, said a
Bloomberg News report.
A source close to Barker said: “Lord
Barker … remains very proud of the
progress he [achieved] in helping
one of the world’s largest produc-
ers of low-carbon aluminium and
hydropower lead the way into the
low-carbon economy.”
rejected marketing, from receiving
promotional material.”
He added that the fine would
have been a lot higher had the firm
“allowed any of the self-excluded
customers to actually gamble, failed
to cooperate, and not taken decisive
action aimed at preventing a repeat”.
Conor Grant, the chief executive
of Flutter UK and Ireland, said it
took its responsibility to customers
“extremely seriously” but on this
occasion “did not do enough”.
He accepted the commission’s
findings and said: “As soon as the
error was identified, we ceased com-
munications until the fault could be
rectified, notified regulators and
apologised to the customers. We
conducted a thorough investigation
into what went wrong, the results of
which were provided to regulators,
and have put in place measures to
ensure this cannot happen again.”
33
BAT to carry
on business
in Russia as
‘duty of care’
to staff there
Rob Davies
British American Tobacco will con-
tinue selling cigarettes in Russia,
defying a gathering movement
among global brands to halt opera-
tions there in response to the invasion
of Ukraine.
The London-based cigarette man-
ufacturer, whose brands include
Lucky Strike and Rothmans, said it
would “continue to operate” in Rus-
sia, one of its key growth markets for
both cigarettes and heated tobacco,
according to the company’s latest
annual report.
It will suspend capital investment
and scale back marketing and busi-
ness activities but has stopped short
of following its smaller British rival,
Imperial Brands, by halting opera-
tions altogether.
Some of the world’s largest con-
sumer goods firms, including Nestlé,
Unilever, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and
McDonald’s, have put Russian units
on hold, prompting a warning from a
senior Kremlin official that their oper-
ations could be nationalised.
BAT said that its business in
Ukraine had been suspended for
safety reasons.
The company said: “We are deeply
concerned about the conflict in
Ukraine. The safety and wellbeing
of our people there and across the
region is our first priority. We have full
local establishments of 1,000 people
in Ukraine and 2,500 in Russia. Our
thoughts are with them all at this
incredibly difficult time.
“In Ukraine, we have suspended
all business and manufacturing
operations and are providing all
the support and assistance we can
to our colleagues, including reloca-
tion and temporary accommodation.
Our businesses bordering Ukraine are
providing assistance to the humani-
tarian relief effort.”
But the tobacco company said it
would not follow other companies’
lead by putting its Russian business
on ice voluntarily and would instead
abide by sanctions.
“In Russia, we have a full estab-
lishment of our people right across
the country, including substantial
local manufacturing. Our business
in Russia continues to operate. As a
key principle we have a duty of care
to all our employees at this extremely
complicated and uncertain time for
them and their families. We have
suspended all planned capital invest-
ment into Russia.”
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
34 Financial
Stagecoach opts a big German infrastructure fund in
a £595m deal.
In a sudden U-turn, Stagecoach
for takeover deal said it was recommending a sale to
the fund managed by DWS Infrastruc-
over merger plan ture for 105p a share in cash.
Just hours later Stagecoach suf-
Julia Kollewe
fered a blow in its attempt to halt bus
franchising around England. Stage-
Gwyn Topham coach and a fellow operator, Rotala,
The British bus operator Stage-
were last year granted a judicial
review of Greater Manchester’s plans
coach has dropped its support for a to introduce franchising, but a judg-
£1.9bn merger with National Express,
instead agreeing to be taken over by
ment yesterday upheld the plans.
Stagecoach has fought bitterly
against plans to reverse the deregu-
lation that enabled its growth in the
1980s. Andy Burnham, the mayor of
Greater Manchester, said the verdict
was “truly fantastic news for every-
one outside London who wishes to
see a return to a bus service that puts
people ahead of profit” and “a green
light for the north to retake control of
its public transport system”.
Shares in Stagecoach ended 36%
up on the day despite the verdict.
It said the DWS bid offered greater
certainty for investors and its 24,000
employees.
Business view
Nils Pratley
BAT says it’s ‘rationalising’
Moscow operations, but that’s
really just smoke and mirrors
I
f you are a member of the
board of British American
Tobacco, courting
popularity was probably
never a top personal
priority. Even so, the
people overseeing a large and
widely held FTSE 100 company
might still feel obliged to explain
why, amid the broad boycott of
Russia by multinationals, they
think it’s fine to carry on business
in the country roughly as normal.
A statement attributed by BAT
to “a spokesperson” strained to
create the impression of change,
but any specific action was lost
in a fog of corporate-speak.
Suspending an unspecified
sum of capital expenditure,
“rationalising” marketing
activities and “scaling our
business activities appropriate to
the current situation” commits
the company to very little. BAT’s
bottom line is this: “Our business
in Russia continues to operate.”
In other words, a large factory
in St Petersburg will keep
producing Lucky Strikes, Kents,
Rothmans and Dunhills, and a
head office in Moscow, plus 75
regional offices, will continue
to distribute. BAT accounts for
about a quarter of the cigarette
market in Russia.
Naturally, BAT included a line
about its “duty of care” to 2,500
local employees. But other large
companies selling consumer
inessentials have concluded
that their equivalent duties are
best fulfilled by suspending
operations while continuing to
pay the workers. What they want
to avoid is paying tax revenues to
Putin’s regime. And remember,
in the tobacco industry, excise
revenues also apply.
The FTSE 100’s other fag
merchant, Imperial Brands,
with 1,000 local employees, has
opted for a clear suspension of
activities. Unlike BAT, Imperial is
halting production in its Russian
factory and is stopping all sales
and marketing. It is not messing
about with “rationalising”
and “scaling”.
One can only conclude
that BAT (corporate slogan:
“building a better tomorrow”)
cares less about its contribution
to Putin’s coffers. If Luc Jobin,
BAT’s chairman, feels that
interpretation is unfair, he is free
to speak for himself.
Burning question
You want more bad news about
energy prices? Here’s a contender:
Ofgem gave itself powers last
month to raise the price cap
before the next scheduled update
in October. So, theoretically at
least, the widely predicted £3,000-
ish could arrive early.
Ofgem called its new tool an
“in-period adjustment”. The
power to adjust the cap more
frequently than every six months
flowed from the perceived need to
keep consumers’ bills and energy
firms’ costs roughly in step when
wholesale prices are soaring or
plunging violently.
Exceptional adjustments would
be made only in exceptional
circumstances, Ofgem advised,
helpfully providing a checklist of
five criteria. The trouble is, the
first three seem to have been met.
The latest explosion in gas prices
has been caused by a “rare” event
that is “external” to UK energy
suppliers and was “not reasonably
avoidable” by them. Ofgem
would still have to consider if an
adjustment is “appropriate” and
“urgently” required, but the new
powers could almost have been
designed for today’s wild market.
The regulator has no current
plans to do anything, it should be
said, and can’t anyway before the
new £1,977 cap comes into force at
the start of next month. Thereafter,
though, Jonathan Brearley, the
regulator’s chief executive, has the
technical authority to make himself
the most unpopular man in the
country. Such a move would not be
career-enhancing, the chancellor
may wish to mention.
Route diverted
National Express’s planned all-
share takeover of bus and coach
rival Stagecoach was announced
last autumn – so long ago that
shareholders dozing on the back
seats may have assumed the deal
had completed by now.
Well it hasn’t, and now looks
unlikely to do so. German
infrastructure fund DWS has
turned up with a £595m offer that
is superior on three counts. First,
it’s in cash, which is nice to have in
current nervous markets. Second,
it’s pitched at a 37% premium to
where Stagecoach’s shares stood
on Tuesday. Third, there are no
competition concerns, the reason
for the delays so far.
It’s slightly odd that DWS has
waited months to move, but the
working-from-home effect on the
UK’s new national bus strategy
probably took a while to assess. As
for National Express, a company
where nothing ever seems
straightforward, it must surely
know that attempting to sweeten
its offer is a non-starter. The 25%
rise in its own share price suggests
its investors never much liked the
Stagecoach adventure anyway.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Unravelling ties The moral
quandaries facing western
directors of Russian firms
Georgina Quach
T
he Order of Friendship
of the Russian
Federation is a
star-shaped golden
medal, encrusted
with blue enamel,
showing a map of the world. Last
year, as Russia was beginning to
ration supplies of gas to Europe
and Vladimir Putin was planning
his assault on Ukraine, Roger
Munnings announced he had
been named as the medal’s latest
recipient.
The former long-serving head
of KPMG’s Russian operations,
Munnings is a director of three
firms of major strategic importance
to Putin’s regime: Lukoil, Nornickel
and the banking-to-telecoms
conglomerate Sistema.
Munnings is a busy man. As
well as his three directorships –
which pay an estimated $707,000
(£537,370) a year combined,
according to company filings –
he also heads the Russo-British
Chamber of Commerce, which
promotes closer ties between the
two countries. Now these ties
•
Financial
are fast unravelling as western
governments tighten sanctions
against Moscow and businesses cut
all dealings with Russia.
Scores of directors have
relinquished roles in the 35 Russian
firms suspended from the London
Stock Exchange last week, and
there have been departures from a
clutch of other Russian-controlled
companies with their main listings
in the UK capital. The exodus began
after the Institute of Directors
called on Britons to uphold their
“moral duty” and step down
immediately.
While many have heeded the
call, Munnings, who lived in Russia
for more than a decade, is staying
put. He did not respond to requests
▲ Stephen Odell, Evraz
The former Ford executive earned
$138,000 last year at the steelmaker
for comment. Outrage over the
war in Ukraine has forced a moral
dilemma on firms that could wreck
governance mechanisms. Several
boards face the potential problem
of not having sufficient numbers
left to make decisions in the
proper way.
On Monday, the Conservative
peer and former energy minister
Greg Barker quit as the executive
chair of EN+, the metals group
part-owned by Oleg Deripaska,
now facing sanctions. Joan
MacNaughton, an influential figure
on climate change who joined EN+
in 2019, had already stepped down
from the board on Friday.
The gold and silver producer
Polymetal announced the
▲ Xavier Rolet, PhosAgro
The former London Stock Exchange
boss sits as an independent director
▼ The International Business Centre
in Moscow: scores of international
directors have left Russian firms
PHOTOGRAPH: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/GETTY
resignations of six directors,
including the British chair, Ian
Cockerill. He received an annual
fee of $544,000 in 2021 – up from
$483,000 the year before, the
2021 company report shows.
Four directors left the board of
the Russian supermarket chain
Lenta, after the billionaire Alexei
Mordashov, who has a majority
stake in the London-listed
company, was put on the EU
sanctions list last week.
Six directors of the social media
site VK Group – headed by Vladimir
Kiriyenko, sanctioned by the US
– resigned in three days. They
include VK’s managing director
and chief financial officer, Matthew
Hammond.
Last Friday, James Rutherford
stepped down as a non-executive
director of the Roman Abramovich-
backed Russian steelmaker Evraz,
which dropped out of the FTSE 100
last week after investors sold out in
droves and the share price plunged
by 68% following the invasion of
Ukraine. Evraz, which announced
a dividend worth $450m to
Abramovich, has so far not been
hit by the sanctions targeting firms
with strong links to Russia.
Other British directors, including
one with connections to the royals,
▲ Robert Edwards, Nornickel
Edwards is currently still in post at
the world’s largest nickel producer
35
‘My focus is on
my fiduciary duty
to the group …
which extends well
beyond Russia’
Carl Hughes
EN+ board member
remain at Evraz. Sir Michael Peat,
the accountant and former private
secretary to the Prince of Wales,
retains his seat, for which he was
paid $214,000 last year. So does the
ex-Ford Motor Company executive
Stephen Odell ($138,000), and the
former Deloitte director Deborah
Gudgeon ($322,000).
The turmoil is also hitting
companies not focused on Russia.
Uladzimir Boltach, a British
national originally from Belarus,
quit as operations director of a
Belarusian car recycling firm with
an office in Lancashire because of
Belarus’s indirect involvement in
the war. “It was one of the hardest
decisions I’ve ever made,” he said.
“I helped organise aid to Ukraine
and thought it was my moral
obligation to change the course
of my career. I still remember my
grandmother, who was shot in
the leg during the second world
war, telling me stories about
Germany invading Belarus. Nobody
in Belarus wants this to come
back again.”
Carl Hughes, who specialised
in the energy industry during his
career at Deloitte and remains as
an EN+ board member, has taken a
different stance, putting up a strong
defence of his decision to stay in his
$264,000-a-year post.
Hughes said: “25,000 employees
of EN+ are located outside Russia,
including 4,000 employees at
the group’s alumina refinery
in Ukraine. Providing practical
financial support to our Ukrainian
workforce has been a key focus
over the past fortnight.
“My current focus is on my
fiduciary duty to the group and
its shareholders, and also to its
employees and customers, all of
which extend well beyond Russia.”
Xavier Rolet, former chief of
the London Stock Exchange, still
sits on the board of the Russian
fertiliser firm PhosAgro as an
independent director. Christopher
Clark and Martin Angle remain
on the board of the mining firm
Severstal, despite the resignation
of two other British directors after
the EU sanctions on Mordashov,
Severstal’s chairman.
Robert Edwards remains on the
board of Nornickel, the world’s
largest nickel producer, which
counts the Russian billionaire
Vladimir Potanin as its controlling
shareholder.
The Queen’s cousin Prince
Michael of Kent is, for now, still
listed as a patron of the Russo-
British Chamber of Commerce,
although his spokesperson said
he had handed back his Order of
Friendship medal to the Kremlin.
All eyes are now on Munnings, who
has much more than a medal to lose
from this conflict.
 The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

36 Classified
The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

37
Classified
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

38

Weather
Thursday 10 March 2022
UK and Ireland Noon today Forecast Around the UK

London
Sunny Mist Fog
Low 9 High 12 Lows and highs Precipitation Air pollution
996 Tomorrow
8 9 13 25% Low
Sunny intervals Hazy 1000
Manchester

Mostly cloudy
23 Inverness Shetland 9 13 40% Low
Overcast/dull Edinburgh
8 9
1004 27
5 12 50% Low
Sunny showers Moderate
Belfast
Edinburgh

1008 23 Low 6 High 11

Sunny and heavy showers Glasgow 6 9 25% Low
Saturday
Birmingham
Light showers Newcastle
ca
9
8 13 25% Low
Rain Sleet Light Belfast Moderate
Brighton
snow 11
York
1012
Snow showers 9 12 25% Low
Dublin Liverpool
rpoo
ol 13
9
1016 Bristol
Heavy snow Ice Nottingham
Nott m
Carbon
count
35C 13 Norwich
Birmingham
ming
8 11 40% Low
30
Thundery rain Cardiff
25 Daily atmospheric CO2
readings from Mauna Loa,
20 9 1
14 Hawaii (ppm):
Thundery showers 15
Cardiff
Ca L
London 7 11 45% Low
Latest
X
10 13 08 Mar 2022 418.12 Newcastle
5
Dover Weekly average
Temperature, 0
11 27 Feb 2022 419.20
ºC
-5
1020 8 13 15% Low
Plymouth 09 Mar 2021 417.68
-10 10
09 Mar 2012 394.54 Penzance
-15
Slight 18 Pre-industrial base 280
Wind speed, Windy
mph -20 Safe level 350
The Channel Islands 9 11 0% Low
Source: NOAA-ESRL

Atlantic front 1016 1016

1024 1008
1000
992
1000 1000 1016 1024 1032 H Weatherwatch Around the world
1008 1040
1032
984
L
1024 A century ago a “tidal wave” Algiers 21 Lisbon 16
968 1040 1016 flooded Venice to a depth of almost Ams’dam 14 Madrid 16
L
H a metre. Two days later, the same Athens 7 Malaga 18
976
1008 wave inundated Genoa, closing Auckland 25 Melb’rne 20
roads and railway lines. This was B Aires 23 Mexico C 26
L
1016 not what we would now call a tidal Bangkok 34 Miami 30
wave or tsunami, but a surge driven Barcelona 15 Milan 15
Cold front L by a combination of factors. Basra 30 Mombasa 32
Part of the water rise was Beijing 21 Moscow -3

Warm front 1024 H directional storm surge, where Berlin 8 Mumbai 34

water piles up ahead of a strong Bermuda 22 N Orleans 22
H wind. The height of a storm surge Brussels 15 Nairobi 30
Occluded front increases with the distance of open Budapest 6 New Delhi 30
water over which the wind blows, C’hagen 5 New York 10
1008 and when the sirocco wind from Cairo 18 Oslo 5
Trough
1016 1016 the Sahara lines up to blow the Cape Town 27 Paris 16
entire length of the Adriatic, it may Chicago 0 Perth 35

High tides
Source: © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Times are local UK times
Sun & Lighting produce dramatic surges. Corfu 12 Prague 7
Another factor is seiche Dakar 23 Reykjavik 6
Moon up (pronounced “saysh”), a large-scale Dhaka 36 Rio de J 31
version of water sloshing back Dublin 9 Rome 14
Aberdeen 0619 3.3m 1848 3.3m London Bridge 0623 6.2m 1841 5.8m Belfast 1819 to 0650 and forth in a bathtub. Seiches Florence 16 Shanghai 19
Avonmouth 1130 10.2m 2344 10.0m Lossiemouth 0432 3.0m 1659 3.0m Birm’ham 1802 to 0631 can occur in any large enclosed or Gibraltar 16 Singapore 31
Barrow 0351 7.4m 1620 7.1m Milford Haven 1053 5.3m 2312 5.1m Brighton 1757 to 0624 partly enclosed body of water, and H Kong 22 Stockh’m 4
Belfast 0410 3.0m 1633 2.9m Newquay 0949 5.4m 2209 5.2m Bristol 1807 to 0634 with the right wind these reflected Harare 27 Strasb’g 14
Cobh 1012 3.3m 2233 3.2m North Shields 0823 4.0m 2052 3.9m Carlisle 1805 to 0637 waves may oscillate like miniature Helsinki 0 Sydney 22
Cromer 1124 3.9m 2357 3.8m Oban 1008 2.9m 2215 2.9m Cork 1830 to 0657 tides. These are common in the US Istanbul 4 Tel Aviv 17
Dover 0330 5.6m 1612 5.3m Penzance 0919 4.3m 2149 4.2m Dublin 1820 to 0650 Great Lakes and produce the “tidal” Jo’burg 26 Tenerife 21
Sun rises 0625
Dublin 0430 3.2m 1706 3.2m Plymouth 1005 4.4m 2227 4.4m Sun sets 1756 Glasgow 1811 to 0644 effect across several days described K Lumpur 31 Tokyo 13
Galway 1017 3.9m 2241 3.9m Portsmouth 0405 4.0m 1627 3.8m Moon rises 0937 Harlech 1811 to 0641 in the 1922 Adriatic incident. K’mandu 27 Toronto 3
Greenock 0501 3.1m 1727 2.9m Southport 0256 7.2m 1521 7.0m Moon sets 0205 Inverness 1808 to 0643 Less dramatic Adriatic surges Kabul 12 Vancouv’r 6
First Quarter 10 March Kingston 31 Vienna 7
Harwich 0416 3.5m 1639 3.3m Stornoway -- -- 1209 3.5m London 1756 to 0623 occurred in 1978, 2008 and 2012.
Kolkata 33 Warsaw 1
Holyhead 0253 4.4m 1525 4.3m Weymouth 1112 0.6m 2336 0.6m M’chester 1804 to 0634 In the latest two events the winds
L Angeles 19 Wash’ton 12
Hull 1047 5.9m 2315 5.8m Whitby 0850 4.4m 2119 4.3m Newcastle 1800 to 0632 were not in the most dangerous
Forecasts and Lagos 33 Well’ton 21
Leith 0738 4.3m 2007 4.3m Wick 0400 2.7m 1628 2.6m
graphics provided by
Norwich 1750 to 0619 direction and the resulting flooding
Lima 25 Zurich 12
Liverpool 0336 7.5m 1608 7.3m Workington 0404 6.6m 1633 6.3m AccuWeather ©2022 Penzance 1819 to 0645 was not serious. David Hambling
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •
Football Cricket
Tuchel warns England facing
Christensen not World Cup exit
to leave Chelsea after second loss
Page 42  Page 47 
▲ The Concussion
in Sport Group,
which evaluates
research into head
injuries, has had its
credibility tarnished
PIXEL-SHOT/ALAMY
A
Proppy and paste
butterfly flapped its wings last June
and nine months later sport is still
dealing with the fallout. It happened
when Dr Steve Haake, a professor
How a plagiarism
of Sports Engineering at Sheffield
Hallam University, was confronted
with a case of self-plagiarism
committed by a contributor in a set
problem has started
of conference proceedings he had edited in 2006. It got
Haake thinking about a similar incident in his life from
around the same time. In 2000, he wrote an article
called Physics, Technology and the Olympics, for
to shift rugby’s
Physics World. In 2012, he was surprised to find much
of that same article repeated, verbatim, in an editorial
published in 2005 by the editor in chief of the British
Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr Paul McCrory. After
concussion protocols
dealing with the one old case, Haake decided, at last,
to do something about the other.
You may not have heard of McCrory – Haake didn’t
know much about him either – but if you have played
or watched a contact or collision sport in the last 20
years he has had a hand in your pastime. McCrory was
a founder member, and the co-chair, of the Concussion
in Sport Group. They produce a consensus statement
which is supposed to sum up the existing research into
concussion, and which shapes medical practice in the
field across grassroots and professional sport. They
are funded by World Rugby, the IOC and Fifa, among
others. McCrory has been one of the most influential
figures in the field for the last 20 years.
The BJSM eventually agreed with Haake that there
Andy Bull was a “significant overlap” between the two pieces.
McCrory explained that it had been an editing error,
that a draft version of his article had been uploaded
by mistake. And that is where the matter might have
rested. But the story was picked up by an organisation
39
called Retraction Watch, where it caught the attention
of an academic named Nick Brown. Brown describes
himself as “a self-appointed data police cadet”. He
and friend James Heathers had previously exposed
flaws in the work of the former Cornell professor Brian
Wansink, among others.
Brown started digging into McCrory’s back
catalogue. He soon found more articles that contained
similar “significant overlaps” with other publications.
Within hours of these coming to light, McCrory had
stepped down from CISG. One of CISG’s key roles is
to evaluate new concussion research. It’s a job that
requires the trust of the community of people doing the
research, especially since CISG uses such strict eligibility
criteria. That strictness is ostensibly why they have
always adopted such a conservative position on the
risks of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It says there
is not enough proof. According to the group’s most
recent consensus statement, it’s still not possible to say
that there is “a cause-and-effect relationship” between
T
CTE and concussion. McCrory was the lead author.
he chain of events that followed
Haake’s decision to deal with that
one case of plagiarism from 2005 has
left the governing bodies that relied
on CISG in the years since having to
explain why they invested so much
stock in their work and decide whether
they will continue to stand by it.
The group’s credibility, which had already been called
into question by campaign groups and politicians
during the DCMS hearings into concussion in sport
last year, is at an all-time low. Their latest conference,
which has already been postponed twice, is due to be
held in Amsterdam later this year.
This is a problem for World Rugby in particular,
and not just because of their involvement in the legal
test cases about how their sport handled concussion
in the years they were being guided by CISG. Rugby
union’s governing body currently operates a six-day
return-to-play protocol, meaning it’s possible for a
player to be concussed one Saturday, and, if symptom-
free, they can be back playing by the following
Saturday (although in practice players are often out
for much longer). It used to have a mandatory three-
week stand-down for concussed players, but this was
changed to bring it in line with the
World recommendations made by CISG in
their 2012 consensus paper, of which,
Rugby is again, McCrory was the lead author.
trying to In the last year the Rugby
Football League increased its return-
distance
to-play period to 11 days. World
itself from Rugby has come under pressure
CISG, whose to increase its return-to-play too,
but hasn’t – it says this is because
work it has of a belief that a blanket time-limit
relied on would mean that players start under-
reporting symptoms.
for so long What World Rugby has done
instead is adopt what it describes as
a more “individualised” approach, in which a return-
to-play is decided on a case-by-case basis. This shift,
which is in line with advice from their independent
concussion working group, suggests it is already trying
to put distance between itself and CISG, who they
relied on for so long.
This “individualised” approach is fine in theory, but
in practice inevitably leads to inconsistencies in the
way concussed players are managed. If it’s going to
work, everyone involved, especially players, former
players and their families, has to have complete faith in
all the different processes the sport is using to diagnose
concussions and manage the return to play.
Given these are the same systems that allowed
Tomas Francis to play on after he showed evidence of
concussion against England, and which have allowed
Wales to say they are happy to pick him again to play
tomorrow even though he had a previous concussion
in November, that is not the case.

40
Navidi makes return in
Pivac’s back-row shuffle
The Wales coach makes four
changes for tomorrow’s visit
of tournament leaders France
Daniel Gallan
Josh Navidi will return to the Wales
starting XV after a year’s absence,
one of four changes Wayne Pivac has
made for the visit of France tomorrow
night in the Six Nations. On the other
flank, Seb Davies will add noticeable
heft to the back row.
Jonathan Davies brings 95 Tests
of experience at inside-centre while
Gareth Thomas starts for just the
second time at loosehead prop.
Navidi’s last appearance for his
country came in the 32-30 Six Nations
defeat in Paris in March 2021 where
he scored a try. However, a recurring
shoulder injury, first sustained
in April and then exacerbated in
October, has stalled his progress.
He played all 80 minutes in his
comeback match last Friday in
Cardiff Blues’ 48-12 loss to Ulster,
offering all the evidence Pivac needed
for his selection.
“Certain players can do this and
he has a history of stepping up,” the
Wales coach said, citing Navidi’s 68
minutes against Ireland last year
which was not preceded by any club
rugby. “He’s ready to go and we’re
very pleased to have him back.
“We looked at the England game
and in our review [of the 23-19 loss
last month] we looked at some of
the errors we made and some of the
penalties we gave away.
“Then we look at the experience
of a guy like Josh brings and his
England puzzle
Sinckler injury
disrupts plans
for Ireland test
Gerard Meagher
Eddie Jones will hold a crucial train-
ing session this morning before final-
ising his England team to face Ireland
with Kyle Sinckler understood to be
among the players hampered by
injury or illness this week.
Sinckler is believed to be managing
a back problem and did not take part
in Tuesday’s training session, instead
limited to exercises away from the
pitch. Yesterday was due to be the
players’ recovery day but Sinckler
was put through his paces alone in
a bid to ready himself.
Jones will name his team after
this morning’s full-on session and
while Sinckler is expected to take
part he will no doubt be monitored
closely. Joe Heyes was retained in a
26-man group as the third tighthead
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
Sport
Rugby union Guinness Six Nations
▲ Josh Navidi’s last Wales cap came
in the narrow Paris defeat a year ago
decision-making in those areas
of the game.
“He’s close to 30 Test matches
and was a big part of our success last
year in the Six Nations. It’s great from
our point of view.”
Pivac credited Navidi’s ability
to  supply go-forward ball with
strong carries as well as aggression
on the ground. He cannot do it on
his own, however, and Seb Davies’s
selection over Taine Basham – who
drops out of the match-day 23 – was
motivated by the considerable size
of the French pack.
“He offers us something different
in terms of the balance in the lineout,”
Pivac said of the 1.98m (6ft 6in) loose
forward. “He’s got a good skill-set
when he is on the edges.”
Since taking the Wales job in 2019,
Pivac has yet to name an unchanged
team in 25 matches. He said that this
tinkering was not part of a grand,
experimental design but rather the
prop and Will Stuart is standing by
for the No 3 jersey if Sinckler suffers
a setback. While there is a degree of
optimism Sinckler will be deemed
fit, his absence would be a huge blow
as England seek to keep their hopes
of the Six Nations title alive and his
interrupted training week comes
as a further headache for Jones
regardless.
Tom Curry has had to pass through
the return to play protocols before
returning to full training and today’s
training session is also set to deter-
mine whether Alex Dombrandt can
take his place in the 23-man squad
after the No 8 tested positive for
Covid-19 last week. Dombrandt will
have to come through rigorous test-
ing in order to prove himself ready
but both Joe Marler and Joe March-
ant have recently come straight back
▲ Kyle Sinckler will be monitored
closely at today’s training session
consequence of a spate of injuries.
“We’d like to get some continuity in
selection,” he said.
Nick Tompkins is unavailable after
suffering from a concussion playing
for Saracens in their victory over
Leicester on Saturday and is replaced
by Jonathan Davies who will partner
Owen Watkin in midfield.
The back three at least remains
unchanged and is bolstered by
Louis Rees-Zammit on the bench.
The 21-year-old wing was dropped
for the game against England but
impressed with Gloucester, scoring a
try against Northampton on Saturday
after coming on as a substitute.
France’s general manager, Raphaël
Ibañez, downplayed the favourites
tag attached to his team for this
encounter, but there is no doubt
that it is deserved. Their quest for
a second successive win in Cardiff
is  bolstered by Antoine Dupont’s
fitness after the French captain
brushed off a suspected arm injury
he picked up in training.
“He’s world class,” Pivac said.
“Probably the form player in the
world. Even when you’re sitting in
the opposition coach’s box, some
of the things he does, you find
yourself  just  saying: ‘Well done.’
He’s great to watch. Hopefully we’ll
be able to contain him.”
Wing Damian Penaud and second
row Romain Taofifénua will miss
the match after testing positive
for Covid-19 and the coach, Fabien
Galthié, has admitted that more
changes may be necessary by the time
the opening whistle sounds.
Wales L Williams; A Cuthbert, O Watkin,
J Davies, J Adams; D Biggar (capt), T Williams;
G Thomas, R Elias, T Francis, W Rowlands,
A Beard, S Davies, J Navidi, T Faletau
Replacements D Lake, W Jones, D Lewis,
R Moriarty, J Morgan, K Hardy, G Anscombe,
L Rees-Zammit
France M Jaminet; Y Moefana, G Fickou, J Danty,
G Villière; R Ntamack, A Dupont (capt); C Baille,
J Marchand, U Atonio, C Woki, P Willemse,
F Cros, A Jelonch, G Alldritt
Replacements P Mauvaka, J-B Gros, M Haouas,
T Flament, D Cretin, M Lucu, T Ramos, M Lebel
into the matchday squad soon after
emerging from isolation.
A place on the bench may be most
likely for Dombrandt, however, with
Sam Simmonds in the frame to start
at No 8 and with Jones thought to
be considering loading his replace-
ments bench with six forwards, Alfie
Barbeary could be in line for a debut.
The 21-year-old was kept on as part of
the wider 26-man squad and would
offer considerable gainline punch –
something England have lacked in
recent weeks – if he was part of the
matchday 23.
Elsewhere, Jones is likely to largely
stick by the side who beat Wales,
though Jamie George is set to come
in at hooker with Luke Cowan-Dickie
sidelined for the rest of the tourna-
ment. Marchant may also supplant
Elliot Daly at outside centre, having
been called up as a late replacement
against Wales following Manu Tui-
lagi’s withdrawal through injury.
Joe Launchbury is expected to fea-
ture in the squad for the first time in
15 months but Charlie Ewels is hoping
he retains the starting jersey along-
side Maro Itoje in the second row.
Meanwhile, the RFU has confirmed
it will fly the Ukraine flag alongside
the England and Ireland colours at
Twickenham on Saturday.
Golf Players Championship
World’s best
set to scrap
for Tour’s
richest prize
McIlroy and those at the top
of the sport have never had it
so good as they go in to battle
for a record $20m purse
Ewan Murray
Sawgrass
T
his has been quite the
spell for those who
like to number crunch
around the world of
professional golf. The
Players Championship,
taking place this weekend, carries
a prize purse of $20m with $3.6m
to be bestowed on the winner. By
Sunday evening, three tournaments
in a row played in Florida will have
handed out a combined $40m on
the basis of leaderboard placings.
Arnold Palmer’s PGA Tour winnings
totalled $1.9m.
Those at the summit of this
sport have never had it so good.
Still, many believe the largesse
associated with the PGA Tour in
particular has become obscene,
to the point where golfers will
naturally lose all grip on reality.
The theory was only endorsed as
umpteen players at least flirted
with Saudi Arabia and its bid for a
breakaway tour. Phil Mickelson,
without any apparent irony, blasted
the PGA Tour for “obnoxious
greed” before admitting his Saudi
dealings were all about “leverage”.
The Saudi scheme actually
made little commercial sense –
which perhaps doesn’t matter
when you are seeking to rebrand
a kingdom – but the willingness of
sportsmen to indulge it on the basis
of guaranteed tens of millions has
been an inauspicious sight. The
PGA and DP World Tours viewed
the disruption plan as serious
enough to not only close ranks but
to beef up their financial offering.
Yet again, the players win.
But are golfers now paid too
much? “We are paid as much as
people are willing to pay us,” says
Rory McIlroy. “You can say the
same thing about footballers or any
other athletes. You could argue that
they’re paid too little or too much,
but you’re only worth what people
are willing to pay you.
“I’d say at this point we’re fairly
paid. The top guys earn a lot of
money, and I think that’s right.
Even the guys that are not at the
top, they still earn a really, really
good living. I think it’s a good
structure.” McIlroy is one of many
players who collect small fortunes
via off-course endorsements and
private business interests. Palmer
did likewise.
Although a conflicting viewpoint
is not publicly available – do not
bite the hand etc – it does exist.
Aaron Rodgers denied a report that
he has agreed a four-year contract
worth $200m in the NFL but the
figure was easy to believe. In the
context of golf, Tiger Woods has
earned slightly more than $120m
across his career from the PGA
Tour, $25m more than Mickelson.
McIlroy’s PGA Tour career
winnings are $60m. Golfers do
genuinely look at the guaranteed
salaries of US team sports stars
and wonder if their deal is a poor
one. The difference, of course,
lies in exposure: Woods would
be recognised in any city, which
cannot legitimately be said about
most golfers in the world’s top 20.
“When I turned pro, if you
turned to me and said you’d give
me all my expenses and pay my
mortgage plus the average wage on
top of that, I would have had a great
life,” says Pádraig Harrington. “It
has changed so much but we don’t
have control of that. A lot of the
Irish professionals before me had to
get jobs when they finished on tour.
“A lot of it is relative. Winning
£1,000 in the 1960s could buy you a
house. Winning $2m won’t get you
much in Florida. I don’t begrudge
the guys who have the prize money
going up. Careers don’t last long.
There is not a simple answer to the
question; there is no way you can
say we don’t get paid too much but
that’s what the market dictates. At
the very top it looks astronomical
but look at football.”
Harrington rightly points out
that the costs associated with
playing a full schedule in Europe
means one may not need to go far
down the DP World Tour’s money
list to find players who aren’t
enjoying a lavish lifestyle.
It is fitting, of course, that Woods
will be inducted into golf’s Hall of
Fame in a week where the sport’s
class of 2022 scrap over a record
prize fund at Sawgrass. Largely
through increased television
interest, Woods single-handedly
drove up his sport’s value.
“He made professional golf
at the highest level a very, very
attractive thing to be involved
in,” says McIlroy. “TV paid more.
Sponsors paid more. And then all of
a sudden, his peers and colleagues
and other players were getting
paid more because of that. I think
we all have to be very thankful for
Tiger Woods.”
Many believe the
largesse associated
with the PGA Tour
in particular has
become obscene
▲ Rory McIlroy says golfers are paid
‘as much as people are willing to pay’

42
‘I am from Kyiv. I am
not going anywhere,
and nor is the president’
 Continued from back page
then elected as an MP in president
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s fledgling
Servant of the People party in 2019.
For Beleniuk, being a servant
of the people means staying in
Kyiv – whatever the consequences.
“We’ve heard that the Russians
have targeted the president and
certain members of parliament,
because they want to bring in
a puppet who will follow their
orders,” he says. “But I am from
Kyiv. I am not going anywhere, and
nor is the president.”
Wrestlers sometimes have a
reputation for being more brawn
than brain. Beleniuk, however, is
more like a warrior-poet. When
asked whether sport is in any way a
metaphor for war he is blunt. “You
can’t draw any parallels,” he says.
“With sport there is no fear of an
unexpected death, or your family
dying at any time.
“And, funnily enough, I have
some friends who are serious
athletes, and we did martial arts
or wrestling together, and they
have left for the safest part of the
country. And there are others who
have never shown any signs of
aggression, who are at the front and
ready to do everything needed.
Tennis
Djokovic stance
leaves Indian
Wells on ice
Tumaini Carayol
Novak Djokovic will not be allowed
to compete at the Indian Wells
and Miami ATP Masters 1000
tournaments this month after the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention definitively ruled that
he cannot enter the United States
while he remains unvaccinated
from Covid-19.
•••
Sport
“You never know exactly how
people will respond to a war until
it happens.”
While he waits for the oncoming
storm, Beleniuk is determined
to use his popularity across
eastern Europe to influence
hearts and minds in Russia.
“It’s very challenging because it
really feels like Russian society
is brainwashed,” he admits. “No
matter how much proof they see,
they interpret it in their own way.”
That frustration extends to the
lack of Russian athletes speaking
out. “I see two general responses,”
he says. “The first is silence. The
second is the support of the killers
and murderers of the attacks, of
Despite acknowledging two weeks
ago that he would not be able to com-
pete in the US as things stood due to
the country forbidding unvaccinated
foreign travellers, Djokovic surpris-
ingly remained on the Indian Wells
entry list this week and he was placed
into the main draw on Tuesday.
Yesterday evening, Djokovic finally
announced that he would not be able
to play in the United States: “While I
was automatically listed in the BNP
Paribas Open and Miami Open draw I
knew it would be unlikely I’d be able
to travel,” said Djokovic in a state-
ment. “The CDC has confirmed that
regulations won’t be changing so I
won’t be able to play in the US. Good
luck to those playing in these great
tournaments.”
Much like the Australian Open in
January, when he was deported on
the eve of the tournament, Djoko-
 Zhan Beleniuk
on the streets of
Kyiv. ‘It’s hard
to describe the
level of terror
in Ukraine. You
probably have
to be here to
understand it’
Putin’s politics, of this devastation
of our cities. That has been really
disappointing because that
comes from elite athletes, world
champions and Olympians.”
Some of the Russian propaganda
has also focused on Ukraine being
a neo-Nazi state and being racist
– something that Beleniuk insists
is pure lies. It is not that Beleniuk
has not experienced racism. After
he returned from Tokyo a gang of
youths confronted him. However
he insists that such incidents are
the exception, not the rule.
“The Russian propaganda is
trying to say that people in Ukraine
are racist, and that black people
are harassed and abused in the
country,” he says. “But I have to
tell you – and I think I have the
right to do that – it’s not true. I’m a
really good example of that. I’m a
member of parliament and it was
made possible for me to make all
my dreams come true.”
vic’s last minute withdrawal means
that the Indian Wells lineup will be
lopsided. Grigor Dimitrov moves
into Djokovic’s place at the foot of
the draw as the new 33rd seed and
there will now be a lucky loser.
Djokovic has now been unable
to compete at the three big tourna-
Novak Djokovic has been
denied entry to the US
due to his vaccine status
As our interview draws to
a close, Beleniuk praises the
International Olympic Committee
for applying sporting sanctions and
says businesses withdrawing from
Russia have helped. But he insists
that the west needs to do more to
save Ukraine from even greater
destruction and death.
The answer, he insists, is to
enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine
to stop Russia bombing cities from
the air. Otherwise he says that
thousands more innocent civilians
and children will die.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t
been done because everybody’s
afraid of a third world war,” he
says. “Putin is a terrorist who is
trying to intimidate the rest of
the world with nuclear weapons.
And we understand that. But
Ukraine is the last post protecting
Europe, protecting democracy
and protecting the democratic
independence of the European
states.
“And if Putin is not stopped now,
what’s going to happen next? What
if he wants the Baltic states, and he
says that historically they belong to
the Soviet Union and to the Russian
Empire? What then?”
For now, Beleniuk watches, waits
and steels himself for the fight
to come. “When I was preparing
for the Olympics, I thought it
was the hardest time of my life
because I had to combine working
in parliament with training for
Tokyo,” he says, laughing at his
naivety. “But these days are a
far more serious trial in terms of
importance and responsibility.
“However, we’re 100% ready.
And everything is being done to
prepare the city for a possible attack
so that it can survive. Because it’s
our city – and our country.”
 Beleniuk
takes on Viktor
Lorincz of
Hungary in
the gold medal
match in Tokyo
(left) before
collecting gold
(centre) and
speaking at an
event before the
2022 Winter
Olympics
EPA; GETTY IMAGES;
SHUTTERSTOCK
ments at the beginning of the season.
In Australia, Rafael Nadal won a sur-
prise record 21st grand slam title in
his absence and the points Djokovic
lost after being unable to defend his
title played a significant role in Daniil
Medvedev usurping him to reach the
No 1 ranking last month.
Djokovic is likely to return in mid-
April at the Monte Carlo Masters,
which is based in France, as France’s
Covid passport system is expected to
be relaxed on 14 March. He will likely
be able to compete at the French
Open in May for the same reason.
While Djokovic did not concede
defeat until the last moment, the
BNP Paribas had already come to its
own conclusions. On the “we miss
you” mural recognising stars that are
absent from Indian Wells, Djokovic’s
likeness has sat front and centre since
the beginning of the week.
The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
Football
‘Fulfil your
dreams here’
Tuchel tells
Christensen
Nick Ames
Thomas Tuchel believes Andreas
Christensen will be making a mistake
if he leaves Chelsea on a free this sum-
mer and says his players can “fulfil
any dream” by staying at the club.
Christensen has not signed a new
contract and, with his terms expiring
in June, can agree a deal elsewhere.
Reports suggest he is close to joining
Barcelona but Tuchel cannot com-
prehend why the centre-back would
depart and thinks he should blossom
at the club he joined as an academy
player at 16.
“ There is no need to go now
because he is right at the edge to
finally take the next one, two, three
steps at Chelsea,” the manager said.
“I don’t think he is done here.
“That is why I strongly recom-
mended him not to go before it is
done. And it is clearly not done. He
now has a situation given the forma-
tion, given the partners at his side,
given his status, given his age: this
is his moment. And I cannot under-
stand if he leaves at this moment.”
Tuchel sounded resigned to
Christensen’s departure, saying the
25-year-old’s future was “in doubt,
we hear the rumours” and Chelsea
are “not happy about it”.
Asked whether historical giants
such as Barcelona and Bayern Munich
offered better prospects for football-
ers than Chelsea, Tuchel said: “There
cannot be a big improvement in any
other club in terms of organisation,
the supporting level for the play-
ers, the mentality, the competition
in which you play: I don’t see an
upgrade in any other club. Of course
if you want to have the challenge of a
new league and maybe also in money
there are some possibilities always
available if you’re a top, top player.
But you can fulfil any dream here:
we should not hide from that and
we should not be too humble in that.”
Chelsea travel to Norwich, who
they beat 7-0 in October, tonight as
they seek a fourth straight league
win. Reece James is doubtful with
what Tuchel described as “muscular
problems” and could face a spell out.
The British property tycoon Nick
Candy is working on a £2.5bn bid to
buy Chelsea. The 49-year-old is talk-
ing to American investors as he tries
to build a consortium and sources
have said any proposal would include
a plan to redevelop Stamford Bridge.
▲ Andreas Christensen is reportedly
closing in on a move to Barcelona
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
‘I’m the
black sheep
of the family,
hooked
on football’
Julen Lopetegui, son of a
champion stonelifter, talks
about his messy Spain exit
and finding joy at Sevilla
evilla
Sid Lowe
‘I
came out twisted,”
Julen Lopetegui says.
His father, José Antonio,
was a harrijasotzailea,
a champion Basque
stonelifter who competed
under the name Aguerre II,
held the record for raising 22
100-kilo cylinders in a minute
and rejected proposals from a
promoter linked to Al Capone to
become a heavyweight boxer.
His uncle Luis, Aguerre I, had
been a harrijasotzailea too,
known throughout the land.
And his brother Joxean was a
professional pelotari. But then
something went wrong.
Julen could play Basque pelota
too, a basket for a hand, the ball
travelling faster than any sport
on earth. “I had a chance to be
professional but my passion was
football,” he says. “I’m the black
sheep of the family, hooked on
football from the start. My dad
was well known in an era when
stonelifting was big, a living. My
brother was a pelotari at a high
level. But when I did the typical
psychoanalyses, the ‘what will
you be?’ tests at school, the first
answer to come out was footballer.
The second – get this – was football
journalist. If I didn’t play, at least I
could see games for free.”
If the world lost a byline, it
gained a goalkeeper and eventually
a coach, guided by lessons learned
at home even if he chose the wrong
sport. “My father was a great
sportsman, an outstanding athlete,
but he didn’t do football at all,”
Lopetegui says. “Yet growing up
with the values he instilled – effort,
sacrifice, never seeking excuses
– helped forge my character.”
He came out twisted but turned
out all right. When Joxean was
pelota champion in 1986, Julen
was joining Castilla from Real
Sociedad’s academy – the start of a
17-year career that passed through
Real Madrid and Barcelona and the
1994 World Cup.
Then came coaching, a transition
towards a profession, a calling, he
dissects with fascinating depth: the
•
Sport
Football
methods applied, the price exacted,
the ideals. “I remember Luis
Aragonés telling me: ‘Kid, listen,
the first thing is: take off the shirt.’
What’s he talking about? Of course
I’ve taken it off. But I hadn’t. It’s not
the same, like looking at the same
river from two banks. Sometimes
it’s like giving a pill: you have to
deliver it the right way.”
Lopetegui nearly went to
Wolves and held the most high-
pressure jobs in Spain: Madrid
and the selección. Today, his
Sevilla team face West Ham in the
Europa League.
Sevilla’s captain, Ivan Rakitic,
asked to describe his coach, says:
▲ A young Julen Lopetegui with
his father, José Antonio, and sisters
Moyes confident of upset in Seville
David Moyes has said West
Ham will back themselves to
cause an upset when they
face Sevilla in the last 16 of
the Europa League at the
Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán
Stadium tonight.
“I feel it is where the players
should be,” West Ham’s manager
said. “The group we have are
capable. There are times this
season where it does not matter
who we play, we will get a win.
I see this as a great game for us.
“When he gets home I’m sure he
explains [tactics] to his wife and
daughter.” Lopetegui protests: “If
something football-related comes
up, it’s not because I mention it
but because they ask.” But then
he adds, laughing: “I’m fortunate
that for now my family accept me
as I am.” Intense is one word for a
man who can end games looking as
exhausted as his players.
“You see yourself and sometimes
you like what you see more than
others,” he admits, “but the
conclusion I’ve reached is I am
what I am. There’s no escaping
that coaching takes a lot out of
you. You have to learn to live with
that craziness; if not you die. You
have to overcome the biggest
obstacle, which is being able to take
the pressure and take it off your
players. Your passion and energy
aren’t governed by age; you adapt,
improve daily, change. That’s what
enables you to keep going.”
There’s a pause, a smile: “For as
long as they want you. When they
don’t want you … ”
Can you actually enjoy it? “Like
a little kid. Even the most difficult
moments because that’s when a
coach’s intervention has to be at its
best. And the hard moments make
the character.”
There have been plenty. After a
10-game spell at Rayo, Lopetegui
You want to play in Europe.
It is the elite to challenge
yourself against.”
West Ham will be
without Jarrod Bowen
after the forward limped off
during last Saturday’s defeat
to Liverpool, but Declan Rice
( above) has travelled to Spain
after recovering from illness. “He
trained today for the first time,”
Moyes said. “He was very unwell
but he is with us and if fit he will
play.” Jacob Steinberg
 Julen Lopetegui’s high-flying
Sevilla side take on West Ham
in the Europa League last 16
JOAQUIN CORCHERO/LIVE MEDIA/SHUTTERSTOCK
‘The energy
that drives you
is intrinsic not
extrinsic. It’s hope I
feed off, not the past’
started with youth football,
leading Spain to European titles
at Under-19 and Under-21 level, in
2012 and 2013 respectively. There
is a fulfilment and fondness in
seeing “his” kids succeed – David
de Gea, Thiago Alcântara, Koke,
Álvaro Morata and Dani Carvajal
head a long list – but he sought
something else. “You don’t have
the same pressure. It’s not a ‘hard
drug’; senior, elite football is the
hard drug. My passion was always
to coach at elite level.”
I
t doesn’t come much more
elite, more pressured than
this. Lopetegui was sacked
from the Spain job on the
eve of the 2018 World Cup,
the RFEF president José
Luis Rubiales reacting furiously
to Real Madrid announcing him
as their new manager. Forced
to leave the training camp and
return alone, there was something
cruel and crushingly inevitable
about his Bernabéu spell then
not lasting long. The hurt, on the
other hand, does.
“It’s something I feel far
removed from now,” Lopetegui
insists. “Everything could have
been handled better. We played
the best teams in the world, except
Brazil: England in England, Italy
in Italy, Belgium in Belgium,
Germany in Germany, France in
France. Argentina at home. And
as well as being unbeaten, we
built a clear identity. We were
ready to achieve very, very big
things and it hurt because they
took us out at the moment when
hope was highest. Many coaches
have gone to a club after a World
Cup or Euros: it could have been
handled far more naturally. But
the chapter’s closed.”
The best revenge is to live well,
they say. “But I’d be a mediocre
43
man if I took motivation from that,
wanting to prove people wrong,”
Lopetegui responds. “Motivation
is inside you. You don’t face the
day thinking: ‘Two years ago.’
Your passion drives you. That’s
the good energy; the other kind,
quite honestly, I really don’t like
it. You learn from bad experiences
but the energy that drives you is
intrinsic not extrinsic. It’s hope I
feed off, not the past.”
He has certainly lived well. If
there was some reticence when
Lopetegui arrived in Seville, a
hangover from the Spain fallout, it
is long gone. When they won the
derby recently, he stood before
fans, holding his heart as they
chanted his name. In his first
season he had returned them to the
Champions League and won the
Europa League. Last season, they
reached week 36 in the title race.
This season, there’s the Europa
League again, the competition no
one embraces like Sevilla and one
Lopetegui insists “big teams really
want to win; it has gained weight
and prestige”. Sevilla are also the
only side aspiring to catch Madrid.
The gap is eight points but
they’re still fighting. It’s a miracle
they’re even standing, the
absentees in double figures most
weeks. As he talks, the phone
rings. It’s the sporting director,
Monchi. “Maybe he’s ringing to say
he’s signed Haaland,” Lopetegui
laughs. “I’d just like 11 [fit players].”
He glances at the whiteboard.
“Some days we trained with eight
or nine,” he says.
Respite came in the winter
window, Sevilla standing firm
as Newcastle courted Diego
Carlos and signing Tecatito
Corona and Anthony Martial. In
the summer, they had resisted
Chelsea’s £42m bid for Jules
Koundé, ambition expressed.
“There were players who could
have left but the offers didn’t meet
the valuation. It’s important the
players are then happy to continue.
[Diego] is committed, there are no
doubts … Anthony and Corona’s
arrivals help us improve. We’re
excited about Anthony. He can give
us things others can’t: a very good
player technically and physically,
powerful and versatile, playing
wide or centrally. He gives that
touch of quality at the end of a
move and makes us a bit more
vertical. We’ll help him translate
those qualities into performance as
soon as possible.”
No point imagining a Seville
derby in Sevilla’s stadium for the
final? “You can imagine … but what
happens in football is usually way
beyond anything you imagined.
There are a thousand examples.”
And, besides, West Ham are first.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned
it’s that you can’t say: ‘This will
happen.’ The future has twisted
horns. All you can think about
is today, and with the same
enthusiasm as when you were a
kid. The day I don’t feel that, I won’t
be able to transmit it to my players:
they have to feel the joy, the
excitement. And there’s something
magical about football: every day
something happens you weren’t
expecting. I walk in each morning
and say: ‘What have we got today?’
Because there’s always something.”
 ••• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

44 Sport
Football Champions League last 16, second legs

Results Brilliant
Benzema
makes the
difference
Football
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Real Madrid
Last 16: Second leg forward
Manchester City (0) 0 Sporting Lisbon (0) 0 Karim
(Manchester City win 5-0 on agg) Benzema
Real Madrid (0) 3 Paris Saint-Germain (1) 1
scores the
Benzema 61 76 78 Mbappé 39 first of his
(Real Madrid win 3-2 on agg)
three goals
UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE
Last 16: First leg
against PSG
DAVID RAMOS/
Porto (0) 0 Lyon (0) 1 GETTY IMAGES
Paquetá 59
Real Betis (1) 1 Eintracht Frankfurt (2) 2
Fekir 30 Kostic 14
Kamada 32
CINCH SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP
P W D L F A GD Pts
Celtic 30 23 4 3 65 18 +47 73
Rangers 30 21 7 2 60 24 +36 70
Hearts 30 14 8 8 42 31 +11 50
Hibernian 30 9 10 11 28 30 -2 37
Livingston 30 10 7 13 33 38 -5 37
Ross County 30 9 9 12 43 47 -4 36
Dundee Utd 30 9 9 12 26 33 -7 36
Motherwell 30 9 9 12 31 44 -13 36
St Mirren 30 8 12 10 27 40 -13 36
Aberdeen 30 8 8 14 33 38 -5 32
St Johnstone 30 5 9 16 18 36 -18 24
Dundee 30 5 8 17 24 51 -27 23
Dundee (0) 0 St Mirren (0) 1
Ronan 90
5,069
EFL PAPA JOHN’S TROPHY
Semi-final
Hartlepool (1) 2 Rotherham (0) 2
Grey 29 Smith 50 63
Molyneux 55 7,542
(Rotherham win 5-4 on penalties)
BREEEDON SCOTTISH HIGHLAND LEAGUE
Deveronvale 0 Fraserburgh 6; Forres Mechanics 0
Brora Rangers 8; Fort William 0 Nairn County 4;
Keith 0 Buckie Thistle 6; Rothes 0 Brechin City 1
Winter Paralympics

Benzema hat-trick stuns PSG as

Still, what eventually unfolded
PARA CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING seemed a world away. A lovely
Men: Sprint Sitting: Final: 1 Zheng P (Chn) 2:42.4; exchange between Lionel Messi and
2 Mao Z (Chn) 2:44.9; 3 C Cameron (Can) 2:46.3
Neymar followed before Mbappé

Madrid write another epic tale

Sprint Standing: Final: 1 B Daviet (Fr) 3:07.5;
2 M Maier (Ger) 3:08.8; 3 G Vovchynskyi (Ukr) 3:09.3
Sprint Vision Impaired (Free): Final 1 B McKeever (Can)
3:19.5; 2 J Adicoff (US) 3:20.3; 3 Z Modin (Swe) 3:37.8
Women: Sprint Sitting: Final: 1 Yang H (Chn) 3:18.2;
2 O Masters (US) 3:19.9; 3 Li P (Chn) 3:31.0
Sprint Standing: Final: 1 N Wilkie (Can) 4:05.1;
2 V Nilsen (Nor) 4:08.01; 3 S Peterson (US) 4:12.1
Sprint Vision Impaired (Free): Final: 1 C Edlinger (Aut)
3:39.6; 2 O Shyshkova (Ukr) 3:56.4; 3 L Kazmaier (Ger) 4:05.2
Snooker
TURKISH MASTERS (Antalya)
First round: H Vafaei Ayouri (Irn) bt B Woollaston (Eng)
5-3; Wu Y (Chn) bt A Hill (Ire) 5-0; J Lisowski (Eng) bt
M O’Donnell (Eng) 5-4; Liang W (Chn) bt J Perry (Eng) 5-2;
M Stevens (Wal) bt M Williams (Wal) 5-3; A Carter (Eng) bt
J Jones (Wal) 5-1; A Higginson (Eng) bt I Boiko (Ukr) 5-1;
J Jones (Wal) bt M Allen (NI) 5-4; J Trump (Eng) bt
C Wakelin (Eng) 5-3
Second round: M Selt (Eng) bt Zhao X (Chn) 5-2; Si J (Chn)
bt T Ford (Eng) 5-1; J Higgins (Sco) bt M Holt (Eng) 5-0;
G Dott (Sco) bt J Page (Wal) 5-2
Fixtures
Football (7.30pm unless stated)
Premier League
Leeds v Aston Villa (7.45pm); Norwich v Chelsea;
Southampton v Newcastle; Wolves v Watford
Uefa Europa League
Last 16: First leg Atalanta v B Leverkusen (8pm); Barcelona
v Galatasaray (8pm); Rangers v Red Star Belgrade (8pm);
Sevilla v West Ham (5.45pm); Braga v Monaco (8pm)
Uefa Europa Conference League
Last 16: First leg Bodø/Glimt v AZ (8pm); Leicester v Rennes
(8pm); Marseille v Basel (8pm); PAOK v Gent (5.4pm);
Partizan Belgrade v Feyenoord (5.4pm); PSV v Copenhagen
(8pm); Slavia Prague v LASK (5.4pm); Vitesse v Roma (5.4pm)
FA Women’s Super League
West Ham v Chelsea (7.45pm)
Rugby league
Betfred Super League
Leeds Rhinos v Hull FC (8pm)
Cricket
ICC Women’s World Cup
Hamilton New Zealand v India (1am)
Greg Wood’s racing tips
Carlisle 1.00 The Raven’s Return 1.35 Barrowdale
2.10 Upandatit 2.45 She’s A Rocca 3.20 Ard Chros
3.55 Malpas 4.30 Hard Iron
Southwell 1.45 Love Your Work (nb)
2.20 Shorts On 2.55 Roamin In Gloamin
3.30 Arzaak 4.05 Della Mare 4.39 Atiyah (nap)
5.09 Visitant 5.40 Rose Of Lancashire
Wincanton 2.00 Oscar Robertson 2.35 Aliomaana
3.10 Eclair On Line 3.45 Amenon 4.20 Wetanwindy
4.55 Flowing Cadenza 5.30 Technology
Newcastle 6.00 Smart Connection
6.30 Merry Secret 7.00 Friendly Vegan
7.30 Amasova 8.00 Rising Star 8.30 Dogged
Real Madrid 3 Benzema a hat-trick that took him
Benzema 61 76 78
Paris Saint-Germain 1
Mbappé 39
Real Madrid win 3-2 on agg.
Sid Lowe
Bernabéu
Carlo Ancelotti had said there was
no need to go mad but no one was
listening and why would they now?
Suddenly dozens of men were
sprinting down the touchline chas-
ing Karim Benzema, the Frenchman
disappearing under a pile of bodies in
the corner while around them 60,000
people completely lost their heads.
The noise was so loud ears bled and a
chant went up. “Así gana el Madrí”, it
ran: “that’s how Madrid win!”
How they won was barely believ-
able, maybe even the most remark-
able of an entire library of implausible
tales at a club that specialises in
astonishing comebacks, another epic
European story written. “A club that
has 13 European Cups doesn’t win by
chance; it’s something deep in their
guts,” Mauricio Pochettino had said
and how appropriate that felt here.
This is cannot be bought.
Madrid had been grateful to be
only one goal down, scored by the
exceptional Kylian Mbappé, who they
trust will experience these nights
with them one day, when a ridiculous
mistake from Gianluigi Donnarumma
had handed them a lifeline they clung
to. Now two strikes in a minute gave
above Alfredo Di Stéfano in the all-
time scoring charts and Madrid into
the quarter-final.
There was something laughable
about Madrid’s first and comic book
about the second, 36-year-old Luka
Modric running from almost his own
area to PSG’s, pursued by blue shirts.
There, via Vinícius, he played in Ben-
zema to put Madrid into the lead here
and level on aggregate. There hadn’t
been time to digest that when Madrid
scored the third, Benzema expertly
steering home, pandemonium break-
ing out.
Digesting the rest of this will take
even longer. That will be true in
Madrid and in Paris, left with another
failure to contemplate. A failure that,
for all its implacable logic given the
nature of the club, had been unthink-
able for much of a match that Mbappé
graced. At its end, Madrid’s players
slipped to their knees, history made.
It didn’t need to be like this but it
was much better this way. Ancelotti’s
suggestion that they needn’t go mad
▲ The PSG coach, Mauricio
Pochettino, looks to guide his side
because they only needed one was
rational enough but there was little
rational about this, and as it turned
out they needed three. They got
them all in a second half that shook
the foundations here, obliterating
everything seen in the first, when a
frustrated flatness had taken hold.
If Madrid started on the front foot,
Vinícius dashing up the left three
times in 10 minutes, it had not lasted
long. One of those runs had ended
with PSG break that concluded with
Mbappé drawing a save from Thibaut
Courtois which would be just the first
of many and Madrid’s early energy
dissipated. That was doubly disap-
pointing because when they did
occasionally succeed in pressing,
PSG looked decidedly uneasy.
Mostly though, the visitors looked
comfortable, taking control – and
often at walking pace, until Mbappé
accelerated. He and Neymar soon
brought saves from Courtois, anxious
whistles ringing out as the visitors’
possession became monotonous.
Ancelotti had talked about just
needing to be in the game, which at
this point felt like the best Madrid
could aspire to and a temporary
state anyway, but which would be
revealed as words of wisdom. From
nowhere Benzema bent a sensational
shot past the post, via Donnarumma’s
fingers. Two more warnings came
with Benzema headers and there was
a nervousness to PSG defensively, a
propensity to give the ball away in
compromising positions that hinted
at the price they would later pay.
scored only for Nuno Mendes to
be ruled offside. PSG did then get
the lead when Neymar’s quick ball
released Mbappé. Departing from his
own half, he reached the edge of the
area, braked, looked Courtois in the
eye, and finished with an apparent
ease that was almost insulting.
Another chance was wasted just
before half-time, allowing Madrid to
stop and clear their heads before it
was too late. It might have been when
Mbappé stepped past a bamboozled
Courtois without even touching the
ball and scored early in the second
period. Again, the flag went up,
and the next time he was sent clear
Militão and David Alaba dived to stop
him, that heroism a bugle call.
Madrid had more of the ball now,
rebelling, and soon had the goal that
transformed this place, Donnarum-
ma’s gift giving them a way back.
Caught by Benzema, he lost posses-
sion virtually on his line. Vinícius
collected and rolled to Benzema
to score. A minute later, Benzema
headed just wide and the Bernabéu
erupted, believing this could actually
happen. Could? Would. PSG looked
terrified, caught in a storm, and an
incomparable stage really was set up
for the kind of comeback Madrid have
built a history upon.
Real Madrid Paris Saint-Germain
4-3-3 4-3-3
Courtois; Carvajal• Donnarumma•; Hakimi•,
(Vazquez• 66), Militão,
Nacho•, Alaba; Modric,
(Draxler 89), Marquinhos,
Kimpembe•, Mendes;
Kroos (Camavinga 57), Paredes• (Gueye 71),
Valverde; Asensio Danilo (Di María 80),
(Rodrygo 57), Benzema, Verratti; Messi, Mbappé,
Vinícius• Neymar
Subs not used Subs not used
Vallejo, Hazard, Lunin, Michut, Simons, Navas,
Marcelo, Jovic, Lucas, Icardi, Dagba, Wijnaldum,
Bale, Ceballos, Isco, Diallo, Kehrer, Ebimbe
Mariano
Referee Danny Makkelie (Neth) Attendance 59,895
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Analysis
Barney Ronay
After Mbappé’s illumination,
Paris once again becomes
arena for dying of the light
T
here was once a
dream that was Paris.
It lasted for just over
an hour. At which
point, enter the old
world – and enter
Karim Benzema, who had the
night of his storied footballing life
in this Champions League last-16
second leg.
Under the lights of the
Bernabéu Paris Saint-Germain
produced one of the more
extraordinary collapses of elite
football’s modern history, a
collapse made all the more abject
by the divine well of talent in this
Paris team, the gerrymandering
certainties of Messi-dom, of that
divine front three, bought to
secure the crown of European
club football in this, our year of
Qatar 2022.
And football can be bought.
The glorious history of Real
Madrid is testament to that.
And yet, somehow, also, it can’t.
This was, with all due apologies
to the supporters of PSG in its
own twisted way an oddly life-
affirming humiliation.
For 61 minutes Madrid had
been stretched in every direction,
tortured on the left flank by the
brilliance of Kylian Mbappé.
Madrid looked tired. They
looked harried and flat. Those
white shirts have a vital sense
of self: occasionally beaten, but
never out-flashed or out-glitzed,
▼ PSG squandered
the advantage Kylian
Mbappé had secured
JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/GETTY
•••
remaining always their own cold
clean crisp square of light. But
this felt like something else, a
shifting of the hound beneath
those regal feet.
Fast forward from 61 to 78
minutes and the birds above the
Bernabéu were already flying
backwards through the sky, as
Benzema completed a 17-minute
hat-trick with the most impudent
of touches.
The goal to make it 3-2 on
aggregate came straight from
kick-off with the scores only just
levelled on the night. A single
forward pass caused panic in that
hilarious, high-kicking farce of a
Parisian defence. Benzema nipped
in front of his man to nudge the ball
into the net with the kind of touch
you might reel off in a game of
lunchtime corridor football.
There was time for PSG to lose
their cool, for some hacks and kicks
and lunges. But they were done
by that stage: finished, toasted,
flambéed. And if it was unavoidably
comical, there was also something
grotesque in the spectacle of
collapse.
For an hour this supernaturally
talented team, gassed and juiced
and pumped up beyond the
limits of its domestic league, had
romped around the Bernabéu like
princelings.
It was always impossible not to
see something of old and new in
this match-up, of ambition versus
inheritance. And it seemed with
39 minutes gone that this tie was
dead, that an unanswerable force
was being applied.
Some of the Madrid fans had
cheered Mbappé when his
name was announced. Yes, we
recognise you. This is us. And he
was a living nightmare for Real’s
left side for long periods. This
was pain, suffering, fear, a sense
of pre-humiliation every time he
went veering on to the ball. How
do you mark that which cannot be
marked? Mbappé was a ghost.
And six minutes before half-
time he was out there once
again in his own huge lime green
space, freed by a single pass from
Neymar. The finish was beautiful,
a feint followed by a ping hard
and low into the corner. This
is something to be treasured.
Mbappé is 23 now, but also six
years into his elite career. The
natural speed and balance, the
hard-honed super-shredded
physique are at their peak. Plus
every part of the craft is nailed,
matured, fine-tuned, to the extent
he can improvise and create, blow
bubbles, a footballer reaching
out into the far comers of his own
supreme talent.
It seemed for most of this
game that would be the story,
a thrilling footballer taking
another significant step. Except,
it wasn’t. Thank you, Paris.
Because, frankly, this was a gift.
Who saw it coming? Probably only
Benzema, who just kept coming,
producing two neat finishes to
turn the game before that final
moment of fantasy.
Benzema has 30 goals in all
now this season. He remains
such a complete, brilliantly smart
forward. But Madrid will surely
sign Mbappé in the summer
whatever happens from here.
They’re a billion dollars in debt.
What’s another 150 million? This
is the brand, the future earnings,
the strange white soul of this club.
It was too much for Paris here,
who gave us first brilliance, then
that sense of something fragile; a
brittleness that was both painful,
and also oddly bracing by the end.
VAR denies Jesus but
City stroll with control
Manchester City 0
Sporting 0
Manchester City win 5-0 on agg
Jamie Jackson
Etihad Stadium
To the question of who would wish
to be paired with Manchester City in
next Friday’s draw for the quarter-
finals the answer is surely no one.
This has been an easy canter
through the group stage and last 16
to the business end of the Champi-
ons League for Pep Guardiola’s side.
City reached last year’s final and few
would wager they cannot do so again
as there is a poise and knowhow in his
team that was missing when Lyon,
Tottenham, Liverpool and Monaco
all dumped them out in the knockout
rounds of previous editions.
Yet, as he has to, Guardiola said:
“The fact we got to the final last sea-
son is no guarantee. We will see the
draw – it will be difficult for us and
for all of them too.”
Real Madrid, Liverpool and Bay-
ern Munich are definite prospective
opponents with Atlético Madrid,
Manchester United, Benfica, Ajax,
Chelsea, Lille, Juventus and Villar-
real to complete their ties next week.
“Now we are again in the quar-
ter-finals as one of the best eight
teams in Europe. I learn to enjoy the
moments,” Guardiola said. “I cele-
brate it because I know how difficult it
is. Now it’s time to congratulate eve-
ryone, focus on the Premier League
then next week we will see the draw.”
With a 5-0 lead from the opening
leg this second one was the defini-
tion of academic. What Guardiola
looked for, then, was the shutting
out of Sporting through City’s best
fluid rhythms: this he received.
Guardiola’s first act was to get in
the fourth official’s ear to ask why
the referee, Halil Umut Meler, did not
award a penalty when a Phil Foden
delivery went to John Stones and
then Gabriel Jesus, who appeared to
be bundled over by Manuel Ugarte.
City’s high line was broken by
Islam Slimani’s sprint from halfway
and for a moment Ederson’s goal
was threatened before an Aymeric
Laporte leap and tackle killed the
danger.
Next, Jesus again appeared to be
dumped over by Ugarte in the area but
the referee was, again, not interested
and the passage of play ended with
Foden’s shot being saved by Antonio
Adán. Then Slimani felled Jesus and
this time Meler awarded a free-kick:
sarcastic cheers were the home sup-
port’s predictable response.
It was that kind of night – Sport-
ing’s fans enjoying themselves by
running through a medley of their
favourite songs accompanied by one
of their contingent constantly beating
a bass drum.
City’s fans could cheer in anger,
though, when Conrad Egan-Riley had
to head clear from his area and, too,
45
▲ Pep Guardiola talks tactics
with City striker Gabriel Jesus
when Adán plucked Raheem Ster-
ling’s dink from the air as it headed
for goal moments later. They thought
they could be jubilant when Riyad
Mahrez, on for the second half, ran
right to left across Sporting’s area,
and slipped in Jesus who found the
back of the net at the near post: VAR,
though, narrowly ruled offside much
to Guardiola’s visible chagrin.
James McAtee, a Champions
League debutant alongside Egan-
Riley, was the second half-time
change and he found instant integra-
tion, helping to knit moves together
along the left, as the youngster,
Fernandinho, Oleksandr Zinchenko
and Jesus popped the ball about with
ease.
Then, in a rapid change of pace,
Ilkay Gündogan beat a man and
passed to McAtee who passed back
and, when Jesus became involved,
he relocated the on-running McAtee
whose backheel was cute and went
close to creating the opener for the
Brazilian before Sebastián Coates
intervened.
City were not coasting but they
were in control, harrying Sporting,
claiming the ball back and launching
measured attacks. Yet, in a rare foray
upfield, a Marcus Edwards shimmy
had Zinchenko tackling air before
the winger’s attempt was too weak
to trouble Ederson.
For the final stages Guardiola gave
Scott Carson a first taste of midweek
European lights for City, the goal-
keeper replacing Ederson: a nice
touch from his manager who ended
content despite Sterling’s late, point-
blank miss.
Of the expectations regarding his
team, Guardiola said: “It’s a good
sign. The people didn’t care what
we were [before] and now step by
step the club grew and now for many
years we are there in [the late stages]
of this competition.”
Manchester City Sporting
4-1-2-3 3-4-3
Ederson (Carson 73); Adán; Neto (Feddal 89),
Egan-Riley, Stones,
Laporte (Mbete 84),
Coates, Inácio; Porro
(Esgaio 78), Tabata,
Zinchenko; Fernandinho; Ugarte, Reis; Sarabia
Silva (Mahrez ht), (Edwards 58), Slimani•
Gündogan; Jesus•, Foden (Ribeiro 89), Paulinho•
(McAtee ht), Sterling (Santos 78)
Subs not used Subs not used
Slicker, Grealish, Rodri, Paulo, Virgínia, Vinagre,
De Bruyne, Kayky, Essugo, Veiga
Delap, Edozie
Referee Halil Umut Meler (Tur)

46
Defiant Holder
blunts England’s
new-look attack
Ali Martin
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium
Insipid with the new ball but at least
determined thereafter, England
began life on the road without Jimmy
Anderson and Stuart Broad and on
a stop-start second day of this first
Test they required the generosity of
their hosts for the incisions that came
their way.
When the latest in a succession of
squally showers brought the close,
West Indies were 202 for four from
66.5 overs, some 109 runs behind
after Jonny Bairstow’s eventual
140 had stuck 311 on the board first
up. Nkrumah Bonner, the late-
blooming Jamaican No 4, was 34
not out from 103 balls, while Jason
Holder responded to his elevation
to No 6 with typical diligence and an
unbeaten 43 from 104.
Though Anderson and Broad oper-
ating in tandem away from home may
be one veteran too many these days,
•••
Sport
Cricket First Test
England’s decision to omit both from
this tour has cast a long shadow over
their replacements. It has also left Joe
Root, a captain in desperate need of
results after just one win from his last
14 matches, with no bankers.
It would be too soon to draw hard
conclusions but against weaker oppo-
sition than the Australia side that
forced this drastic change, this was
a disappointing start. Chris Woakes,
now leader of the attack, found a
consistent line elusive and went at
four and a half runs an over for his
one wicket, while Craig Overton is
hardworking but not as skilful as
Ollie Robinson, whose back spasms
opened up the spot.
Instead it was the Durham pairing
of Mark Wood and Ben Stokes who
looked likeliest, enjoying reverse
and conventional swing respectively.
That said, the latter’s deployment for
nine overs raised eyebrows after the
pre-match chat that his return from
a side strain would need to see him
used sparingly. Root had little choice.
▲ Jason Holder’s 43 from 104 balls
straddled a host of rain delays
Neither are containing bowlers
but Jack Leach looks to be growing
in confidence and enjoying the drift
from the Caribbean breeze. In Bon-
ner and Holder they also met a pair
of orthodox right-handers prepared
to put a high price on their wickets;
what followed meant England need
not lose heart and a tight Test could
well bubble up.
The names of Anderson and Broad
cannot have been far from the lips
of the travelling supporters at lunch
as they made their way to the vari-
ous bars and jerk shacks that line the
grass banks on either side of the Sir
Vivian Richards Stadium. West Indies
had won the first session, knocking
over the final four English wickets for
a cost of 43 runs – Bairstow was the
last man out to a fine swirling catch
from Holder before rightly lapping up
the applause – with openers Kraigg
Brathwaite and John Campbell then
cruising to 44 for no loss in the space
of 10 overs.
England had at least passed 300 for
the first time in 10 innings this winter.
That said, this slightly meagre mile-
stone was achieved thanks to Holder
putting down a much simpler chance
off his own bowling when Bairstow
had 126 after Jayden Seales had
removed Woakes (28) and Overton
(0) in the space of three deliveries.
But the response that followed
was not inspiring, Root forced to
use four bowlers before the interval
as Woakes and Overton struggled to
replicate their decorated forebears.
The analysts at CricViz had this down
as England’s third least threatening
new-ball burst in the last decade but
good old eyesight was enough here.
Needless to say Anderson and
Broad were in situ for the two ranked
lower but on a couple of heartbreak-
ing pitches at the MCG and the SCG
during the 2017/18 Ashes tour; this
surface, though slow, did offer a bit
of nibble with the harder ball when
West Indies bowled and the Dukes
ball, though different to that in Eng-
land, does swing.
This creeping dread continued into
the early afternoon, Brathwaite shed-
ding his barnacle tag with the fast-
est of his 33 scores above 50 in Test
cricket. Last year one of the horses
he owns, War Eagle, claimed victory
in the 81st Barbados Derby and the
The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
West Indies captain flew out of the
traps himself here, drilling seven
fours and one booming straight six
off Leach that shocked all who have
followed his career.
England had hit the session with
fresh energy, at least, and though not
every move from Root made sense
they went on to take four precious
wickets through some limp bat-
ting from their hosts. First came a
gift from Campbell, the aggressive
Jamaican left-hander. He had just
pulled Overton for a thundering
four to reach 35, only to then glove
a slightly shorter delivery from the
Somerset man down leg. Then went
Brathwaite, reaching for a wide, albeit
91mph, delivery from Wood that was
almost guided to Overton at gully like
it was catching practice.
Stokes then teased an edge to
slip off Shamarh Brooks on 18. And
though Ben Foakes had put down
Jermaine Blackwood off Wood on
nought – a tough one-handed chance
– Woakes soon ended a personally
chastening session with an inside
edge off the Jamaican that flew to
gully off the thigh pad. West Indies
were 127 for four at tea and still 184
runs in arrears.
But in between cloudbursts dur-
ing the evening session, Bonner and
Holder gutsed it out. No chance was
offered in their unbroken stand of
75 that was mindful of Leach in par-
ticular; along with an economy under
two, the left-armer got the odd one
to grip in a way that augurs well for
England come the fourth innings.
Scoreboard
North Sound West Indies trail England by 109 runs
with six first-innings wickets remaining.
England First innings (overnight 268-6) Balls 4s 6s
JM Bairstow c Holder b Joseph ....... 140 259 21 0
CR Woakes c Da Silva b Seales ........... 28 72 3 0
C Overton c Bonner b Seales ............... 0 2 0 0
MA Wood c Permaul b Joseph ............. 1 19 0 0
MJ Leach not out ............................... 4 2 1 0
Extras (b1, lb9, nb5) ......................... 15
Total (100.3 overs) ......................... 311
Fall cont 285, 285, 305.
Bowling Roach 21-3-86-2; Seales 22-6-79-4;
Holder 21-11-24-2; Joseph 20.3-2-70-2;
Permaul 13-4-35-0; Brathwaite 3-1-7-0.
West Indies First innings Balls 4s 6s
*KC Brathwaite c Overton b Wood ... 55 70 7 1
JD Campbell c Foakes b Overton ...... 35 63 6 0
SSJ Brooks c Root b Stokes .............. 18 38 4 0
NE Bonner not out ........................... 34 103 3 0
J Blackwood c Overton b Woakes ..... 11 24 2 0
JO Holder not out ............................ 43 104 6 1
Extras (b1, lb2, nb1, w2) .................... 6
Total (for 4, 66.5 overs).................. 202
Fall 83, 101, 111, 127.
To bat †J Da Silva, KAJ Roach, AS Joseph, V Permaul,
JNT Seales.
Bowling Woakes 12-2-54-1; Overton 16-3-58-1;
Wood 12-3-24-1; Leach 15.5-9-29-0;
Stokes 9-0-20-1; Root 2-0-14-0.
Toss England elected to bat.
Umpires GO Brathwaite (WI) and JS Wilson (WI).
 Ben Stokes looks
exasperated but
England fought
back after a slow
start with the ball
to keep themselves
in the Test match
JASON CAIRNDUFF/
ACTION IMAGES
VIA REUTERS
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
‘It’s weird’
Wood admits
feeling absence
of veteran pair
Ali Martin
Mark Wood offered an honest
appraisal of England’s first outing
with the ball in Antigua, admitting it
felt “weird” without Jimmy Ander-
son and Stuart Broad and the seam
attack possibly tried too hard to prove
a point in their absence.
An adjustment period was always
likely after the record-breaking pair
were left at home but this is the exact
scenario that Andrew Strauss, interim
director of cricket, and Joe Root, the
captain, hope will see others to step
up in leadership roles.
Four West Indies wickets in their
first 66.5 overs and a profligate open-
ing burst from Chris Woakes and
Craig Overton underlined the size of
the challenge but Wood, the standout
seamer with figures of one for 24 from
12 overs after overcoming last week’s
stomach bug, was determined that
day three will see this corrected.
Wood said: “We maybe tried a
little bit too hard, with the void of
Anderson and Broad we wanted to
try hard and prove we could do it. Of
course it’s weird [without them]. It’s
obviously going to be talked about
because they are legends. But we just
have to admit we didn’t get it right
to start with and we’ll be out to get it
right next time.
“We were all a bit inconsistent,
we didn’t get our lengths quite right
and we were a little bit too full or too
short. But actually I thought we came
back really well.”
There was also a missed oppor-
tunity in the morning session, with
England resuming on 268 for six but
bowled out for 311 as the tail failed
to support Jonny Bairtow. Wood
accepted his culpability here, the
No 10 caught off the top edge for one
attempting to pull Alzarri Joseph
before he was set.
Wood added: “As bowlers we work
really hard on our batting and I think
we could have stuck with Jonny a lit-
tle bit more. I was disappointed with
my shot.
“We could have got even more
runs. From 48 for four, you think 311
is a really good total. But overnight we
were hoping for more. It’s something
to work on.”
‘We maybe tried
too hard to prove
we could do it’
▲ Mark Wood said England’s attack
‘will be out to get it right next time’
•••
▼ West Indies players celebrate after
seeing England off by seven runs
JOE ALLISON/ICC/GETTY IMAGES
Women’s World Cup
Knight’s side on brink
after chase falls short
Rearguard heroics in vain for
England as West Indies inflict
second defeat of tournament
Raf Nicholson
The chances of England defending
their World Cup title shrunk dramati-
cally after they lost their group-stage
match against West Indies by seven
runs in a nail-biting scrap.
At 156 for eight after 35 overs,
chasing 226, England looked down and
out, but a record 61-run ninth-wicket
partnership between Kate Cross (27)
and Sophie Ecclestone (33 not out)
took them agonisingly close. It was the
off-spinner Anisa Mohammed who
finally sunk their hopes, getting her
fingertips to the ball to run out Cross
backing up in the 48th over, before
clean bowling Anya Shrubsole three
balls later to finish the job.
For West Indies, a 123-run part-
nership for the fifth wicket between
Shemaine Campbelle (66) and
Chedean Nation (49 not out) proved
crucial, while Hayley Matthews – who
scored a century in her side’s opening
game – chipped in with 45 runs and the
key wickets of Heather Knight and Nat
Sciver, as England were all out for 218.
Following on from a loss to Australia
in their opening game, England now
face an uphill struggle to qualify for
the semi-finals, while West Indies
have become the unlikely challengers
for the title, having also beaten the
hosts, New Zealand, on Friday.
“We’ve obviously made it tricky
for ourselves but no way are we out of
this World Cup yet,” Knight said after
the match. “We can’t linger on it too
much. We’ve got to take the things
that we can do a lot better out of the
game and make sure we’re focusing
on the next one.
“That next game is crucial to our
World Cup hopes. Hopefully that will
sharpen people up, because at the
moment we’re fighting for our lives
in this tournament.”
England’s chase was nervy from
the start, after Lauren Winfield-
Hill departed early courtesy of a
spectacular catch from Deandra
Dottin, diving full stretch to her left
to pluck the ball out of the air at back-
ward point. Matthews, introduced in
the 10th over, then had Knight caught
behind after an umpire review for a
stumping showed an unexpected
spike on replays, before Sciver
slogged her straight to mid-on.
Scoreboard
Dunedin West Indies beat England by seven runs.
West Indies
DJS Dottin run out (Wyatt) .................31
HK Matthews c Shrubsole b Ecclestone . 45
K Knight c Wyatt b Ecclestone...............6
*SR Taylor c Jones b Ecclestone ...........0
†SA Campbelle b Sciver .....................66
CN Nation not out .............................49
CA Henry run out (Shrubsole) ...............0
AA Alleyne not out ..............................0
Extras (b1, lb2, w23, nb2) ..................28
Total (for 6, 50 overs) ......................225
Fall 81, 81, 81, 98, 221, 222.
Did not bat SS Connell, A Mohammed, SC Selman.
Bowling Brunt 7-0-38-0; Shrubsole 8-0-57-0;
Sciver 8-1-49-1; Cross 10-1-36-0;
Ecclestone 10-4-20-3; Knight 7-0-22-0.
England
L Winfield-Hill c Dottin b Connell .......12
TT Beaumont lbw b Mohammed .........46
*HC Knight c Campbelle b Matthews ....5
NR Sciver c Alleyne b Matthews ............2
†AE Jones c Matthews b Alleyne ...........1
DN Wyatt c Henry b Connell ................33
SIR Dunkley c Henry b Taylor ..............38
KH Brunt c Dottin b Connell ..................1
S Ecclestone not out .........................33
KL Cross run out (Mohammed) ...........27
A Shrubsole b Mohammed....................0
Extras (lb3, w15, nb2) .......................20
Total (47.4 overs) ............................218
Fall 31, 41, 58, 72, 94, 154, 154, 156, 217.
Bowling Connell 10-1-38-3; Henry 4-0-15-0;
Matthews 10-0-40-2; Alleyne 7-1-31-1;
Mohammed 4.4-1-24-2; Selman 6-0-24-0;
Dottin 2-0-22-0; Taylor 4-0-21-1.
Toss West Indies elected to bat.
Umpires CA Polosak (Aus) and L Rusere (Zim).
Tammy Beaumont, who had been
put down by Mohammed at slip in
single figures, clawed her way to
46 from 76 balls, but the bowler
claimed  her revenge in the 26th
over, trapping her leg-before. Danni
Wyatt (33) and Sophia Dunkley (38)
combined for a 60-run partnership
but when both fell within three
balls of each other, it was left to the
tail-enders to scrap it out.
“We back our tail,” Knight said.
“Sophie [Ecclestone] has worked
so hard on her batting. It did feel
very calm, they kept it very simple
and just tried to tick off the total. The
way they played was outstanding and
showed real fight.”
Earlier, West Indies had reached 81
without loss in the opening 20 overs,
but were reduced to 98 for four by
Ecclestone, who went on to claim
figures of three for 20. Matthews
miscued a catch to third man in
the 21st over, while four balls later
the captain, Stafanie Taylor, edged
behind for a duck to a brilliant ball
that turned a mile.
In between , Dottin (31) fell
victim to a sharp piece of fielding
from Wyatt, who sprinted in from
cover to throw  down the stumps
at the striker’s end and ran out the
Balls 4s 6s Barbadian. Wyatt followed that up
64 2 1
58 4 2 with a good catch at cover, to hand
22 0 0 Ecclestone her third.
1 0 0
80 4 0 Campbelle and Nation, though,
74 3 0 staged a recovery, helping West Indies
2 0 0
1 0 0
to 47 runs from the final five overs
after England squandered several
opportunities to break the partner-
ship – Shrubsole putting Campbelle
down twice at short third man, while
Amy Jones fumbled a run out.
Balls 4s 6s
“We struggled to take wickets,”
Knight admitted. “We were clear on
27 0
76 4
0
0 our plans and we just didn’t quite
14 0 0 execute at times.”
10 0
15 0
0
0 It followed three earlier chances
31 3 0 that had gone begging: Matthews
35 4 0
2 0 0 was dropped twice, on five and 33,
41 2 0 while England lost the chance to see
35 2 0
2 0 0 off Dottin on the very first ball of the
innings when Winfield-Hill shelled a
leading edge at cover. Having treated
the ball like a hot potato, England
will be ruing what could have been,
as they stare down the barrel going
into their next match against South
Africa on Monday.
47
Winter Paralympics
More gold for
McKeever as
Canada and
hosts dominate
Martin Belam
Canada and China enjoyed double
gold celebrations at the Zhangjiakou
National Biathlon Centre as six
cross-country sprinting medals
were decided on day five of the 2022
Winter Paralympics.
Brian McKeever held off Jake
Adicoff of the US to win the men’s
sprint free visually impaired category
by 0.8 seconds, but the closeness of
the time did not convey the ease with
which the Canadian had slowed up
yet still claimed his 15th career
Winter Paralympics gold. McKeever
began losing his sight age 19 due to
Stargardt disease and plans to retire
from competition after these Games.
Natalie Wilkie of Canada also
struck gold, winning the women’s
standing free final by three seconds,
adding a second gold to the long-
distance cross-country on Monday.
The British athletes Callum
Deboys, Hope Gordon and Steve
Thomas all failed to qualify for the
later stages, but Deboys, who finished
22nd in the men’s sprint sitting, said:
“For me and where I am that’s as good
a result as I can get just now. I’m just
trying to soak everything up, enjoy
myself and get as much experience as
I can with a view to the next Games.”
Gordon was 17th in the women’s
sprint sitting event as she became
the first female Para Nordic skier
for ParalympicsGB, and is looking
forward to racing again. “I’ve got
7.5km on Saturday, never done one
before, so not really got huge expecta-
tions. Once again [I’ll] just try and get
round it, it’s 7,300 metres longer than
I’m used to racing,” she said.
China now have 31 medals in total,
including two golds from yesterday’s
cross-country skiing. In the men’s
sprint sitting, Zheng Peng finished
ahead of compatriot Mao Zhongwu
to make it a gold-silver double for
the hosts. Then in the women’s race,
Yang Hongqiong took gold.
The remaining golds of the
day  went to Benjamin Daviet of
France, who won the men’s standing
event, while Carina Edlinger of
Austria won the visually impaired
sprint category for women.
The British wheelchair curling
team endured a dispiriting day at the
“Ice Cube” in Beijing. A 6-3 defeat to
Canada and an 8-6 loss to South Korea
make it impossible for the team to
progress to the semi-finals.
▲ Brian McKeever (left) celebrates
his 15th Winter Paralympic gold
 •••
The Guar
Guardian
Stokes strain Up for the
e cup Thursday 10 March 2022
England fail Lopetegui
ui has
to cement early West Hamm in
advantage way of Europa
uropa
in Antigua League mission
Page 46  Page 43

Ukraine’s Olympic
hero on defending Kyiv
‘There are no parallels
between sport and war’
food, without water, and they
Last year Zhan Beleniuk are actually dying of hunger and
won his country’s only dehydration,” he says, choking
gold in Tokyo – now, he up. “A few days ago there was
even a case of a child who died
tells Sean Ingle,, he is
of dehydration.”
a target for Russia
ia Tragedy has struck closer to
and sits with three
ee home, too. “My ex-classmate was
pistols on his desk
sk killed because he was putting his
pregnant wife into a shelter, and
then he went back to take more stuff
to bring back,” he says. “And he was

‘U
sually when
you lose a fight,
there’s another
day,” whispers
Zhan Beleniuk,
Ukraine’s sole
gold medallist at the Tokyo 2020
Games and its first black member
of parliament, as he awaits the
Russian offensive on Kyiv. “But
here you can die at any moment.
And it’s not just your own life. It’s
the lives of your family. It’s the
future of your country. These are
the highest stakes ever.”
Seven months ago, the 31-year-
old celebrated his Olympic victory
in the 87kg Greco-Roman wrestling
by performing a traditional Hopak
dance and announcing to the world
that his all dreams had come true.
Now, he tells the Guardian, he
feels stuck “in a nightmare that is
impossible to believe”.
“It’s really hard to describe the
level of terror in Ukraine,” Beleniuk
says. “You probably have to be
here to understand the extent of
it. There are so many stories. So
many tragedies.”
On Beleniuk’s desk there are
three pistols, and a grenade for
good measure. The best weapons,
he points out, are needed on the
Real Madrid 3 front. But if a Russian hit squad
comes for him – he and other MPs
PSG 1 (3-2 on aggregate) are said to be on a kill list – he will
Sid Lowe, page 44 be as ready as he can be. “I don’t
have any military experience but I
▲ Karim have to be prepared,” he says.
basically blown up, along with three
other young guys. It is chilling.”
At least, he says, he has managed
to get his mum out of Kyiv. “It was
quite difficult to have her around
because she loves me so much,
and her love can be a little bit
disruptive because she is worried
so much about me,” he says, in a
rare moment of levity. “So it was for
my own peace of mind to bring her
somewhere safer. And also to give
me some space to do the work that
I’m supposed to do.”
It seems scarcely believable that
until a fortnight ago Ukraine was
a vibrant European country. Few
people seemed to encapsulate
the hope for a better future as
much as Beleniuk, who was born
in 1991, the year the country
declared independence from the
Soviet Union.
Three years later his Rwandan
father died in the country’s civil
war, leaving him to be raised by
his Ukrainian mother in a one-
room flat in Kyiv. Yet despite
his tough upbringing, Beleniuk
thrived. Having established
himself as a successful
42 
sportsman he was

Hat-trick heroics Benzema

celebrates
Real Madrid’s
For now, though, he spends his
time helping to fix problems in
his area along with liaising with

Benzema puts PSG out

epic comeback soldiers and volunteers. But, he
win fuelled by admits, it is impossible to ignore
his 17-minute the catastrophe going on in cities
treble like Mariupol.

of Champions League
DIEGO SOUTO/ How, he asks, can Europe watch
QUALITY SPORT
IMAGES/GETTY
this happen in 2022? “One of
IMAGES the biggest problems we face is
that Russian troops are blocking
humanitarian corridors in many ▲ Beleniuk, Ukraine’s first black MP,
places so people are without * is believed to be a target for Russia
 •
Inflation is exposing the cruelty of our benefits regime Frances Ryan, page 3
Fellow oldies, let’s learn to love the web Esther Rantzen, page 4
Can I be whole, Black and free … and not a mother? The long read, page 5
The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
Opinion
and ideas
After this war,
T
wo weeks into Russia’s unprovoked
invasion of Ukraine, the outcome
of Vladimir Putin’s war remains
in the balance, remarkably so.
we will have to
Uncertainty on this scale was not
predicted on either side or by outside
observers, all of whom expected
a quicker, more decisive conflict.
live with Russia.
Putin’s miscalculations have instead catalysed
new and dynamic factors that are still vigorously
playing out – among them more effective Ukrainian
resistance and stronger western unity – while
But how?
exposing significant Russian incompetence.
One factor, though, is as old and indestructible as
the continent itself. When the dust of the Ukraine war
settles in some way, and it will, the other nations of
Europe will need to find an appropriate new form of
Martin relationship with Russia. This war, after all, is in large
Kettle part the result of the failure of the old relationships that
followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. So
it is not too soon to begin to consider what can be put
in its place that, at the very least, makes a sustainable
European peace between Russia and the liberal
democracies more likely than another terrible war.
Solidarity with Ukraine is rightly the absolute
G2
Daily
pullout
life &
arts
section
Inside
priority while the war continues. It is also the relatively ILLUSTRATION:
straightforward bit for western policymakers and SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT
observers. For that reason alone, governments and
even commentators also need to try to think in a larger
frame than Ukraine’s suffering and heroism. Russia will
survive the war in a different form. However, prewar
assumptions about globalisation, national defence, the
climate crisis, international order and even progress
itself are also now going to emerge looking different.
This is Russia’s war. Nevertheless, other European
states have not been merely passive players. These
states, including Britain, also made wrong choices
that helped feed Putin’s recklessness. Germany’s
sudden policy switches on defence spending and gas
are a dramatic illustration that the prewar years were
marked by mistaken assumptions and policy failure.
Britain’s hasty recent actions, imperfect though
they may be, on Russian wealth, energy security and
sporting contact make the same point.
The need for a tougher, more pragmatic approach to
Russia applies at the state level above all. The European
Union and its main members were not alone in letting
their guards drop. Britain did so too. In
spite of many redactions to the published
text, the parliamentary intelligence 
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
2
After this war, we will have
to live with Russia. But how?
Martin Kettle
 Continued from front
and security committee’s Russia report
 of 2019-20 charts with chilling clarity
how the UK’s security services took
their eye off hostile state activity, particularly from
Russia, until the middle of the last decade.
The larger reformulation of relationships with
Russia will not be simple. The invasion of Ukraine
is not the only reason, however. The roots lie
deeper. Russia has very little extended tradition
of democratic governance or the rule of law. Its
institutions, other than the church, are relatively
fragile. It has no western European partner that it
trusts, or that trusts it, in the same way that, say,
France and Italy trust one another, neither of them
interfering in the other’s affairs. But Russians are
not inhabitants of another planet.
But, for large tracts of the past two centuries
and more, it has been as though they were. In the
19th century, western liberals saw tsarist Russia as the
embodiment of reaction and autocracy. For Britain,
Russia was an imperial enemy, too, threatening
control of the Indian subcontinent. Extreme
Russophobes accused a British prime minister, Lord
Palmerston, of being a Russian agent. In the 1850s
none other than Karl Marx even argued that, from
the time of Peter the Great in the early 18th century,
I
Russia had become dedicated to global conquest.
n the 20th century the traditional
suspicions – which were often mutual –
took on a different face after the Bolshevik
revolution in 1917. For more than 70 years,
authoritarian Russia was largely cut off from
the west, after 1945 by the cold war’s iron
curtain. When the Soviet Union collapsed,
all this was replaced almost overnight by
a system in which there were hardly any effective
rules at all, as money and wealth poured westwards,
the European Union built up big investments
with the Kremlin, and security forces became
preoccupied with jihadi terrorism.
The naivety of the past 30 years has been
discredited now, not before time. The west is
scrambling to work out a new approach and, in
time, a new relationship. Call it a third way between
globalisation and the cold war, if you wish – but it is
urgent and serious work. There is a danger, especially
in the United Kingdom, and particularly under a
meretricious prime minister like Boris Johnson, of
the pendulum swinging too far towards a complete
rupture and an entirely arm’s-length relationship
with Russia, with little of what was often the very
carefully calibrated reciprocity of the cold war.
In his recently published book on the last 200
years of British-Russian relations – a book at once
remarkably topical and yet suddenly also, since
24 February, substantially out of date – the former
Labour foreign secretary David Owen makes a case
for engagement. Writing in late 2021, Owen insisted
that a more nuanced relationship was possible.
He attacked Britain for disengaging from serious
policymaking over Ukraine after the war of 2014.
He also pointed out that Russia and Britain are in
reality much more like one another than either of
them would like to admit. Not least, both are 19th-
and 20th-century imperial powers that are struggling
to adjust to their relative eclipse. Read right now,
Owen’s book will seem naively Russophile. But it
addresses a question that matters: can the west
agree about anything with Russia? That question
has been swept to one side by the events of the last
two weeks and by Ukraine’s stirring resistance. But
neither Russia nor the question will go away.
Echoing the French diplomat Talleyrand, the
intelligence and security committee report observes
that Russia is simultaneously always both too strong
and too weak. Relations with such a nation will never
be perfect. Yet the case for trying to make agreements
applies to issues stretching from nuclear weapons to
the rights of Ukrainians. If it was easy to answer the
Russian question, there would be less to worry about.
The answer is complex, which is exactly why the
question remains such a live issue.
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 54,601
‘Comment is free… but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
Europe
Russia’s aggression against
democracy requires a new
era in UK-EU relations
In February 2018, the British foreign secretary
declared: “It makes sense for us to continue to be
intimately involved in European foreign and security
policy.” But when he became prime minister he
took foreign and security policy cooperation off the
table in Brexit negotiations.
Inconsistency is not rare in Boris Johnson’s
record. Two years before that 2018 speech, during
the referendum campaign, he was singing a different
tune, blaming the EU’s association agreement with
Ukraine for provoking Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Mr Johnson claimed Brussels was meddling beyond
its competence and could only “cause confusion”.
Mr Johnson dropped formal partnership with the
EU on security issues in pursuit of a “clean” Brexit – an
arm’s-length relationship based on trade in goods and
not much else. The official foreign policy doctrine was
“global Britain”, with no special interest in Europe.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that
approach to be petty and futile. Vladimir Putin’s
military aggression has landed on one country, but his
strategic hostility is directed at the two institutions
that have historically underpinned democracy in
Europe: Nato and the EU. The UK’s commitment to the
former is unbending, which is often cited by Brexiters
as proof of a European commitment that doesn’t have
to be channelled through Brussels.
That is true, up to a point. Brexit has not stopped
the UK being proactive in support of Ukraine.
British suspicion of Russian motives and readiness
to turn solidarity with Poland and the Baltics into
military aid has gone further than in most EU
member states, and been vindicated by events. UK
Refugees
Ukrainians are only the
latest victims of Britain’s
inhumane asylum system
At the start of the week, the Home Office boasted of
unprecedented action, declaring breathlessly: “The UK
government’s Ukraine family scheme is the first visa
scheme in the world to launch since President Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine.” It was a telling assertion, not
only because it is the sort of casually misleading claim
we have grown used to from the home secretary, Priti
Patel, and Boris Johnson, but also because it expresses
a broader truth about the UK’s treatment of refugees.
The statement was factually true – but only because
Ukrainians do not need visas to enter the European
Union, and the UK had to be strong-armed into
broadening its restrictive definition of “close relatives”.
More than 2 million people have escaped the war, but
the UK has accepted only 760 of 22,000 applications so
far. A second scheme, yet to begin, will allow individuals
and organisations to sponsor Ukrainians – again,
cherrypicking victims of war rather than respecting
the international convention setting out their rights.
Ms Patel spoke of a new humanitarian route, only
for Downing Street to swiftly rule that out. As with
the asylum system overall, the approach is grudging,
inefficient and overly bureaucratic, in large part
because it is designed to keep people out.
What meagre help is being offered has been dogged
by confusion and contradiction. The home secretary
promised she had “surged a Home Office team” to
military capability, matched only by France on
the continent, will always be a vital asset to the
whole of Europe. By contrast, on sanctions against
Mr Putin’s cronies, the EU has moved faster than
Britain – in part because the relevant laws were in
a mess post-Brexit.
That is not to romanticise the European response
or overstate continental unity. An EU summit
in Versailles today is meant to discuss “decisive
steps” towards reinforcing a “sovereign” Europe
with an explicit strategy to reduce dependency
on Russian energy exports. How that is done in
practice and to what timetable is not easy to agree
when some states, Germany the biggest among
them, are heavily reliant on Russian gas. That, in
turn, raises questions about how the transition
will be funded, which reopens divisions over fiscal
integration that were papered over in the first
days of the crisis. Those issues will get harder still
as the economic cost of maintaining political and
military solidarity with Ukraine rises.
Populists in EU states who once openly admired
Mr Putin have distanced themselves from his
butchery, but not suddenly embraced liberal
pluralism. The European project has been given
momentum in reaction to Russian aggression,
but the direction is not clear. Britain, being
intimately bound to Europe’s economy and security
concerns, has a huge stake in the outcome of that
discussion, but surrendered its seat at the table
where it happens. That was a mistake. It will not
be reversed, but it can be mitigated.
There is no great national appetite for relitigating
the Brexit arguments that raged from 2016 onwards,
but it should be possible to recognise that the world
has changed enough to drop some of the delusional
Eurosceptic mythologies that characterised those
arguments. For the foreseeable future, British
interests will require institutional partnership
with the EU on the level of foreign and security
policy. Mr Johnson was right about that once, then
took a wrong turn. Now would be an auspicious
time to correct the course.
help at Calais, but families who had travelled over
a thousand miles found a few officials giving out
packets of crisps, and were told to go to Paris or
Brussels to apply. Then a new “pop-up” centre in
Lille, still 70 miles from Calais, was announced;
it now appears that it will neither take walk-in
applications nor offer appointments but deal with
biometrics for the “most vulnerable” of these
traumatised people. One Ukrainian mother and
daughter made eight trips to the UK visa processing
centre in Paris, two trips to the British consulate
there and one trip to the British embassy. Even after
obtaining the correct visas, they were detained for a
second time by UK Border Force officials in Calais.
Plenty of refugees could testify to the
incompetence and inhumanity of the UK’s asylum
system. The difference this time is that across
Europe, including in places previously extremely
hostile to migrants and refugees, there is greater
public sympathy for white Europeans fleeing their
homes. The meanness of the UK government’s
approach is not new; it is more visible this time,
however, because it is not only out of step with
domestic public opinion but strikingly at odds
with the welcome now offered by other nations.
Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe,
with a population of just 4 million, has taken
more than 80,000 Ukrainians.
The UK’s failure to help Ukrainian refugees is not
an accident, though its ineptitude has worsened the
plight of many. It is possible to have a humane and
efficient asylum system, but not when you promote
stereotypes of refugees as a threat and a burden.
The government has closed off safe routes – while
its nationality and borders bill seeks to criminalise
those who arrive here by irregular means.
Ukrainians are the latest victims of its cruelty.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •
Opinion
T
Inflation is
wo things are about to happen in
Britain. Next month ministers will
increase the value of benefits by just
3.1% – the equivalent of a real-terms
exposing the
cut in light of inflation. At the same
time, household costs will rocket:
energy bills will increase by 54% from
April alongside record high rents and
cruelty of our
a national insurance hike. Food price inflation is at its
highest in almost a decade, while even getting tested
for Covid is about to add £6 to the bills. The Resolution
Foundation says the conflict in Ukraine will further
benefits regime
push gas and oil inflation in the UK to above 8% this
spring – the biggest hit to households since the 1970s.
You don’t have to be an economist to work out what
will happen next: if the money going out rises while
the money coming in shrinks, millions of families
Frances who rely on benefits will experience a socioeconomic
Ryan catastrophe. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says
9 million families on benefits due to low income will
be £500 worse off from April. About 400,000 people
could be pulled into poverty.
Bear in mind that benefit rates are already at a 30-
year low – a level so meagre that the government’s own
research shows disabled people are unable to afford
food, rent and energy bills. April’s real-terms benefits
cut comes only a few months after ministers cut the
universal credit “uplift” of £20 a week. That move
itself came after a decade of cuts and freezes to social
security. The only things that have gone up for people
on benefits are the queues at food banks.
Last week I spoke to Victoria. She told me she often
gets through a day by eating out-of-date food handed
out by her local “waste cafe”, where the poorest people
come for supermarket rejects. Severe ME and heart
and bowel conditions means the mum of one relies on
out-of-work sickness benefits to get by. But like many
others, the benefits system leaves her unable to afford
even the basics. “My benefits don’t even cover a tank of
heating oil,” she said. Instead, she covers her windows
in bubble wrap, keeps the curtains drawn and puts a
blanket round her wheelchair to try to keep warm.
When energy bills spike, Victoria says she’ll have to
find thousands of pounds extra a year. Ministers may
as well ask her to find a unicorn. Thirty charities are
3
Cutting social
security in
real terms during
a cost of living crisis
is a sign that Britain’s
political culture has
lost all decency
pushing the government to raise benefits by at least
6% to be in line with inflation and help soften the
blow. Yet to expect the Conservatives to make the lives
of people receiving benefits easier seems to miss the
point. It is not a cliche to say the Tories fundamentally
believe that someone on benefits should not be able
to have a comfortable life – as if hunger pangs are a
necessary motivation to get out of poverty. Or to put
it another way: to a certain crowd, social security
users not being able to afford food or heating is not a
sign that the system is going wrong: it is the system
working exactly as intended.
Just look at the government’s recent plan to make
getting universal credit “tougher”, including forcing
jobseekers to travel up to three hours and apply for
jobs they’re not qualified for – or have their benefits
docked. Britain’s welfare state is in many ways still
based on Victorian morality politics, but instead of
workhouses, poor and disabled people get sent to the
jobcentre. The cruelty, as they say, is the point.
Such austere policies are often presented under the
guise that ministers “cannot afford” to increase benefit
rates or ease eligibility even if they wanted to – despite
A volunteer the fact that research shows the state has to shell out
picks up huge and increasing amounts of money not to tackle
supermarket poverty. Remember that the same government that
donations will cry poverty over benefit rates next month recently
last month found £5bn to write off fraudulent Covid loans. There
I
in Edinburgh is always enough money to do the wrong thing.
PHOTOGRAPH:
PETER SUMMERS/ t would be convenient to believe such thinking
GETTYIMAGES
is confined to the worst of the right, but these
are not fringe opinions. They have been on
the front pages of newspapers for years. It
is accepted that hunger is an aberration for
working families, but somehow justified for
those who claim social security; that it is quite
right for a certain level of suffering to come
with being on benefits, but would naturally be wrong
happening to “other” people. Even the use of the term
“benefit claimant” is dehumanising, encouraging
people to think of those who receive benefits as
somehow separate from the population at large. The
fact that many people on benefits are actually in work,
and others are ill or family carers, is apparently not
enough to break this moral binary.
Cutting social security in real terms in the middle
of a cost of living crisis is, in many ways, the natural
end point for this narrative, a darkly cruel turn of
events that is only possible in a political culture that
long ago lost its hold on decency or even common
sense. Until we challenge it, this country is destined to
repeat the same mistakes, becoming an ever meaner
society, one that is ill-equipped to provide even the
most basic essentials for millions of its citizens.
The pandemic showed dramatic state intervention
could be mobilised in a time of crisis – and it would be
hard to argue vast hikes in food and energy prices do
not constitute another. Mass hunger and cold are just
as much a sickness as Covid, and a vaccine is available:
raising benefit rates; levying a windfall tax on oil and
gas producers; increasing the warm homes discount
for poorer and disabled households; union-backed pay
rises for squeezed workers; and, in the longer term,
building more affordable and social housing.
It is a reflection of how low we have sunk that to get
there, we must argue for the most obvious of truths:
so-called benefit claimants matter too.
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
4 Opinion
Fellow oldies,
let’s learn to
love the web
Esther
Rantzen
T
he last thing I’d ever want to do is
lecture my “elders and betters” (as
my grandmother called the older
generation) about their behaviour.
We oldies already know how to stay
happy and healthy. We’ve had our
jabs, we take our exercise, we’ve
given up smoking and we eat our
greens. So we don’t need any young whippersnapper
– or worse, elderly TV presenter – to tell us what to
do. But I have learned an important lesson in the two
years since Covid hit, and I thought maybe others
could benefit from it too. It’s about the internet.
My generation is very wary of the internet – a view
I understand and to an extent share. Every day there
are new warnings about the scams and the swindlers
targeting older people. Callers to the Silver Line
helpline, which I founded a decade ago as a resource
for older people, often say that trying to navigate this
jungle has defeated them. In a 2019 Office for National
Statistics survey, less than half of over-75s said that
they had recently used the internet.
That wouldn’t be such a problem, except that
so many things are now migrating online – and it’s
leaving an awful lot of older people very isolated. Take
shopping. My grandmother enjoyed pottering around
the high street, exchanging gossip with shopkeepers
who would greet her by name and ask after her family.
Now, my high street is a tangle of charity shops and a
few remaining chain stores. The human face has been
replaced by a click on a screen.
Even before the pandemic, Age UK found that in
England, 1.4 million older people often felt lonely. It’s
not easy to admit, because loneliness carries a stigma.
The word we hear most often from callers to the Silver
Line helpline is the “b” word – “burden”. One wrote
anonymously to me that since she lost her husband of
54 years, she sometimes goes “for three days at a time
without talking to anyone”. No wonder loneliness
causes serious damage to mental and physical health.
I do not believe there is a magic bullet to combat
loneliness. But having seen how technology was
cutting off older people, I learned during lockdown
that it could also offer a solution. When we were unable
to meet face to face, it brought my family and friends
into my home. We couldn’t travel, or hug, but still
every day we could laugh, chat and send each other
pictures. Work continued – I attended weekly meetings
via FaceTime and Skype. If only Boris Johnson had
realised, as I did, that he could use Zoom to hold
parties. It’s convenient, easy, and I still do it.
The key is getting started. The University of the
Third Age, U3A, conducted tutorials during lockdown
to encourage members to use the internet, to upskill
them and to have fun. In one session, 80 ukulele-
playing U3A members joined in a virtual jam. When
Covid first drove me out of London into the wild
beauty of the New Forest, I had only a very fragile
3km of copper wire linking my laptop with the
outside world, so Zoom and Teams conferences
and streaming video were impossible.
Even when, after six months, we got a better
connection in our village, I still had to learn how to
actually use Zoom and Skype, but once you invent
memorable passwords, they become your best
friends. The good news, as I have discovered from
18 months of Zooming, is that you only have to look
respectable down to the waist. And shopping online
turns every day into Christmas as parcels arrive you
have no memory of ordering but turn out to be exactly
what you wanted. And if you occasionally forget to
unmute yourself, doesn’t everyone?
A review of the literature on the impact of the
internet on older people found lots of evidence
for “the positive effect of computer use on the
psychological functioning and wellbeing of older
adults”, and that internet use “has also been
associated with decreased loneliness and depression,
better social connectedness, self-esteem and
cognitive functioning”. Yes, there are dangers, but any
adventure has its risks. I would remind any reluctant
fellow oldies that the invention of the car meant
 learning to drive, memorising the Highway Code and
Esther Rantzen using seatbelts. The same applies to navigating the
is a journalist internet: it’s a challenge at first, but it’s worth it.
and broadcaster Like the car, the internet enables us to explore
who founded the world, to join our friends and loved ones, and
the ChildLine to celebrate together. And if at first the computer
and Silver Line defeats us, it’s a wonderful excuse to ring up our
charities grandchildren and ask them for help.
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •

The long read

‘Could I be whole,

Black and free ...

and not a mother?’

By Edna Bonhomme


 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
6 The long read
I
detest clinics. Sometimes, it’s
the forms I have to fill out, other times it’s the harsh
lighting – but the thing I hate most is the television,
which is often harnessed in a corner near the ceiling.
It is meant to be a distraction, but it never manages to
take my mind off why I’m in the clinic in the first place.
Early one morning in May 2021, I was sitting in a
health facility in central Berlin. It was different from
the aseptic ones I had visited when I lived in New
York City: this was higher-end, with mild luminescent
lighting and a floral smell wafting throughout. In the
far corner of the waiting room, a TV was showing a
family of penguins in Antarctica waddling along an icy
shore. I was unconvinced by its message of optimism,
of nature triumphing against the odds.
On the walls of the waiting room, there were posters
of young couples in bloom, tethered to each other,
smiling intently, some of the women with protruding
bellies. Most of these expressions read like success. I
tried to internalise these positive messages, playing Eye
of the Tiger in my mind to summon victory. But it was
hard to manifest the strength of Rocky ascending the
stairs in triumph while I was hungry, thirsty and clad in
a burgundy hospital gown, Crocs and a green hairnet.
For two weeks, I had injected hormones into my
abdomen daily and sprayed more into my nostrils.
These were meant to increase the size of my eggs and
offset ovulation. All I could tell was that they induced
a state of listlessness broken only by extreme hot
flushes. While my body was being optimised for egg
extraction, my partner waited with me in the clinic. I
looked like a patient ready to go under the knife. He
was primed to jerk off in another room to a selection of
adult entertainment that included Girls Gone Wild and
Latinx Holiday.
Afterwards, I sat with my partner, tense and
despondent, waiting to hear what had happened. The
doctor came in and said: “We were only able to extract
two eggs.”
Two eggs. Two. This was the lowest number yet.
“We will try to fertilise the two eggs with your
partner’s sperm, and I am hopeful that it will be
effective,” she continued.
In previous extractions, I produced four or five eggs
per cycle. This was our fifth attempt at IVF, and the
fertilisation rate had so far been 50%. Two days later,
the physician telephoned with painful news – none
of the eggs had been fertilised. Anguish rushed into
my soul, bringing the dismal conviction that I would
remain childless.
We had gone through this process five times, and
five times it had failed. Each time, our misfortune
went unexplained. We had both been tested for
genetic preconditions. A haematologist processed my
blood; I had surgery to remove a uterine fibroid. My
partner had varicocele surgery – to remedy enlarged
veins in the scrotum – in October 2020 in the hope that
it would improve his sperm quality. It did not.
The process of in vitro fertilisation is brutal, not
only because of the mood swings brought on by
hormone injections, but also because of the weight
gain. One of the many things I have absorbed from
everyday sexism is to hate my body, and I was acutely
self-conscious about my belly – I had a baby bump
without a baby.
For many Black women I have come to know
– ambitious, progressive, and independent –
motherhood is a matter of choice. Some of my Black
female friends have embraced their role as auntie,
stepping into the position of jaunty elder who
inspires their nieces and nephews to be adventurous.
This nurturing role is fulfilled on their own terms,
allowing them the freedom to pursue their life’s work
–professional ambitions, financial security or travel.
“I don’t want to make somebody else,” states the
rebellious seductress Sula in Toni Morrison’s novel. “I
want to make myself.”
Before I tried to get pregnant, I never thought it would
be a challenge, or that it would raise questions about
my body and identity. I had previously felt ambivalent
about parenting. Like Sula, I activated my power to
be whole, Black, and free. With a community of Black
women, I travelled to Paris for the Afropunk festival,
organised late-night dance parties in Berlin, and swam
in coral reefs off the coast of Tanzania. Being Black
and free has been at the core of my existence, given
that my mother and her mother were often restricted
from living their lives on their own terms. It is not just
about flight – it is about pursuing my desire to be a
historian and writer, and anchoring myself in affirming
friendships and a relationship with a loving partner.
But like many people, I was pulled in by my parents’
desire for grandchildren. After I turned 30, my Haitian
mother would call and spontaneously declare: “I am
ready for grandchildren.” Like the steadfast millennial I
was, I would change the subject and hang up.
As a Black American living in Germany in 2021, I was
already finding this period of my life difficult. I was
exploring my identity in a new place while a global
reckoning for Black lives raged. I was surrounded and
assailed by images of Black Americans in distress.
Reading about the death of Breonna Taylor in
Louisville or the eviction of a Black and indigenous
family in Portland, I found myself wondering whether
I should bring a Black life into this world. As my partner
and I underwent each IVF cycle, I believed my answer
was yes – mostly because he was the only person I
could imagine being a parent with.
In the US, where anti-Black violence was a
trademark of society, the decision to have a Black child
forced me to reflect on the reality that a child of mine Malcolm – in order to not pass on the name that
might come with foretold grief. In Germany, it felt safer enslavers had given my ancestors. At the same time,
to contemplate bringing up a child, far from armed I felt reluctant to conceive in a world, and a country,
civilians or trigger-happy police. But more importantly, where I felt so out of place.
because of my partner’s compassion and sincerity, I While this was going on, I often thought about
could finally imagine being a parent. the Black women in my family who had little control
We discussed having children with lightness, over their reproductive lives. I had always imagined
imagining what parenting would be like together. that once I decided to bear children, it would be
I thought we could raise a rabble-rousing socialist easy. My maternal grandmother had 13 children and
family. He would joke that we should call our child my mother had three. I assumed I would be part of
Toussaint, after the Haitian revolutionary. I offered the first generation – to my knowledge – to have full
that we could choose from an array of Black radicals, agency over my reproduction. But what I didn’t realise
ILLUSTRATION: DIANA
including Harriet Tubman or Assata Shakur. We teased EJAITA/THE GUARDIAN was that assisted reproductive technology does not
each other about the surname. I suggested X – after PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY guarantee conception. It was an invasive, emotional
experience that caused me 15 months of despair.
I was raised by working-class Haitians who migrated
to Miami. For my entire childhood, I lived in a
majority-Black working-class neighbourhood where
the bungalows and apartment blocks were painted
fervent pink and bright amber, and whose accessories
could pummel your eyes – Catholic figurines carved
into lawns, Christmas lights hanging from ramshackle
porches all year round. Palm trees soared up between
derelict building, providing some relief from Miami’s
oppressive heat.
We found a way to breathe life into the community
through street parties that stretched out well past
midnight, even amid the stench of abandoned waste.
The neighbourhood characters – from adolescent
to senescent – were full of voracious spirit and wry
humour, while the children would rebel against any
adults who tried to curtail our freedom to play.
Nothing says “love” the way Black women do the
tender work of child-rearing. At one time, we had nine
people living in our two-bedroom duplex. In addition
to our immediate family of five, we had a rotation
of relatives – the recently divorced aunt, the uncle
(literally) fresh off the boat, a cousin who became a
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian •
surrogate older sister. My mother raised her niece in
our home for several years during my childhood, and
did everything to treat her like a daughter, to the point
of regularly dressing us in matching outfits.
At times I felt overwhelmed by this changing cast of
people, the lack of privacy and the shouting matches.
Our house, a miniature Haitian Ellis Island, was home
for whoever my parents could help. When the state fails
them, Black people try to provide one another the care
they need. Another cousin became a de facto guardian
to her nephew, after her brother was incarcerated
during the early months of his child’s life. We have
never adhered strictly to being a nuclear family.
Instead, we carved out a robust and tender support
system for one another. Whenever I had a dispute with
my parents, or “ran away”, my aunt would console me,
feed me, provide relief for my adolescent rage.
At 18, I was accepted into a private liberal arts college
on the US west coast. Suddenly finding myself among
a mostly white middle-class student body, I was made
aware of the contradictions of enlightenment. This was
a place that espoused “atheism, communism, and free
love” – the college’s unofficial motto – while mainly
welcoming in a privileged few, along with some low-
income students, like myself, who were admitted with
scholarships and student loans.
For a time I thought about becoming a doctor,
and volunteered at a clinic. It was a progressive
organisation in Portland, Oregon, that provided free
medical care to intravenous drug users, sex workers
and the unhoused. During my weekly night shifts,
people trickled in, hammered by their latest fix or
seeking shelter from the perpetual rain. One forthright
patient, thinking I was a doctor, pulled down his pants
to show me the abscess on his buttocks. One young
woman, a heroin user, was several months pregnant
and living under a bridge with her boyfriend. These
people were barely hanging on. Theirs was a different
face of poverty from the one I grew up seeing: they
I assumed I would be part of
the first generation – to my
knowledge – to have full
agency over my reproduction
Edna were all white. At the same time, their life stories
Bonhomme as were similar to those I saw in Miami, except that what
a child (centre, existed in the crevices of the Pacific Northwest was an
on her mother’s even colder, lonelier version of destitution.
lap), with her There, I saw how resolving medical problems
extended family was not just a matter of physical checkups or taking
in Miami, vitamins. We had to think bigger. The patients needed
Florida. safe housing and non-judgmental medical care, and
COURTESY OF not to be criminalised for drug use or sex work. The
EDNA BONHOMME clinic showed me how the essential work of healing
was tied to the project of mutual aid. We need to
challenge the systems that make us sick. I came to
see medicine as being not just about healing, but also
about imagining different possibilities of living in the
world, of stepping outside the pathologies that have
been imposed on working-class people like myself, and
making us whole, through reparations, restitution and
redistribution of resources.
Some people think of children in binary terms: to have
them or not to have them. When lockdown began
in March 2020, my partner and I decided to take our
chances and started trying to conceive. Being in our 30s
and healthy, we assumed we would be parents in no
time. After several months, I realised it wasn’t going to
be so easy. Like clockwork, I bled every month – each
menstruation greeted with mounting disappointment.
A problem that had emerged long before I moved to
Germany, but did not really sink in until I was engulfed
with pain and failure, seemed to be making my body
an unhealthy place for an embryo.
In 2015, while I was a doctoral student at Princeton,
tests revealed that my uterus was damaged. The official
diagnoses were endometriosis and uterine fibroids.
The endometriosis, I was told, was a mass of lesions
that, untreated, might contribute to infertility, while
the fibroids – non-cancerous tumours whose causes are
unknown, and which are three times more prevalent
among Black Americans than white – could also cause
infertility. The tumours were steadily growing inside
me, flourishing and creating a home where they
shouldn’t have been. If they hadn’t caused pain, I
probably would have kept them – mostly because the
surgery would have interrupted my research, and I
didn’t then have anyone to take care of me afterwards. I
had one round of surgery in 2015 and another in 2021.
Whenever my emotions are anaemic, I pry open a
book, hoping to find refuge in someone else’s prose.
Whether it was my academic undertaking to trace
the fragility of life during a plague, or my journalistic
assignment to track instances of racism in medicine, I
was gnawed by the details, hoping that I exist outside
the statistical categories of being Black in the US. I
had hoped that relocating to Germany offered a new
possibility for what a healthier life could be like.
My surgical experiences in the US and Germany
were wildly different. In general, the care I received
in the US was compassionate, but came at a high cost,
financially and personally. My 2015 fibroid surgery in
the US cost $90,000, while the 2021 one in Germany
cost €0. In Germany, the public medical system felt
fairer and more humane, even if German doctors had
a more hard-nosed style. Thinking she was doing
me a “favour” by not raising my hopes, one German
physician told me that, being in my mid-30s, I was too
old to have children. The health workers I encountered
were at best methodical, and at worst brusque, but
there were no barriers to getting healthcare.
Many predicted the Covid-19 pandemic would
herald a baby boom, given all the spare time people
suddenly had. What could one do but shag? However
compelling the idea, it didn’t work out like that – at
least not in the US. For about six years, the birthrate
there has been decreasing, and in 2020 it declined
by 4%. This is likely due to the expense of raising
children, the lack of state support or paid parental
leave. In contrast, Germany saw a 10% increase in its
birthrate in 2020, the highest since 1998, most likely
related to longstanding government support for
reproductive assistance and paid leave.
Having my IVF partially funded by the German
medical system felt revolutionary. Even as a foreigner,
I benefited from a welfare programme that is not
available to most working-class women, including
many of my relatives, in the US or Haiti. For the first
time I felt as if I had the power to break through the
constraints that had shaped my life in the US.
Race is not the only lens through which we can see
how people are treated, but it does often determine
whether someone has access to healthcare, if their
pain is considered “legitimate” and, in the context
of Covid, whether they are more likely to die. Today,
maternal mortality is soaring in African-American
communities. Medical racism takes different forms
in different places, with subtle vocabularies, at times
echoing violent histories. While these histories can
seem abstract, the trauma is embedded within us, and
expresses itself in the people we become.
Black motherhood has historically been precarious
in the US. Under slavery, women had no control over
whether they had babies, or were allowed to raise
them. As historian Leah Wright Rigueur has written,
Black mothers were vilified, generating “the American
mythology surrounding the so-called menace of

the pathological Black matriarch of the
1960s, the treacherous welfare queen of
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
8 The long read

the 1970s, and the drug-addled crack mother (and her
babies) of the 1980s”.
This unexamined trope has become part of the
accepted canon of racism in the US. There is little
public support or sympathy for Black families, but
that does not prevent Black mothers from seeing
themselves in another light.
There are people who have had families that give
them support and comfort and a model for what love
might be. At present, that is not my reality. We are
often told that, in order to get a sense of ourselves, our
humanity and our worth, we must become parents.
And for those of us carrying intergenerational trauma
– enslavement, genocide, forced migration – the
pressure to “carry on the family line” complicates
what family obligation means. For women from Black,
working-class families like mine, to have children –
countering the forces that tried to destroy us – can be a
powerful political act.
I say all this not to be fatalistic, or even to reduce the
cherished and beautiful moments of Black kinship,
but to highlight that the historical discrimination
against Black women has combined with these
discriminatory narratives about them to strip away
our humanity. My aunts speak about parenting
in vague terms, about how they value it, not for
some intrinsic reason, but as something that their
parents and grandparents did. Never do they say
what I think about motherhood: they do not speak
about the material difficulties and psychological
struggles. Instead, their dreams are deferred to my
generation, who they hope might avoid the hardships
they endured. Being a parent is one of the most
underappreciated jobs in our society. Of course, we
should demand wages for housework and provide
more space and support for people who do this. As I
struggled to get pregnant, I was aware that so many
of my life circumstances have been shaped by who
deems me worthy of care.
As it became clear that my fertility journey was going
to be rugged, I started reading heavily on the subject,
taking refuge in research papers, books and leaflets
about reproductive hormones. Writing became part
of how I dealt with my pain, but it barely deflected
my shame or anxiety. I regretted waiting “too long” to
think about starting a family, and I was ashamed of my
As I was assailed by images of
Black Americans in distress,
I wondered whether I should
bring a Black life into this world
jealousy at seeing others successfully do so. From June
2020 until August 2021, I suffered from a depression
that affected my work and my ability to connect with
others. It turns out that my post-IVF depression was
not uncommon. Infertility damages mental health in
many ways, and the clinical depression and anxiety
disorders that occur after failed IVF attempts can have
long term negative consequences.
With my friends, and the feminists I organised with
in Berlin, I looked for ways to bring up my experience.
I needed compassion, but sometimes I received
only unwelcome advice: drink tea, try acupuncture,
just relax. Some people offered unwanted counsel:
“Why don’t you adopt?” or “You can’t get pregnant
because you’re too stressed.” Such comments made
me petulant. Everyone seemed to have a friend who
had tried for two months and magically got pregnant.
It felt like some people I knew could simply cough and
conceive. Meanwhile, I had to accept that some people
will never get pregnant, no matter how hard they try.
During one low point, after my final IVF attempt had
failed, I read an article about a white British woman
in her 30s with early-onset menopause who managed
to conceive. I began to see a pattern in the way that
fertility struggles get told. There is a growing body of
literature that focuses on the infertility struggles of
highly educated white women who succeed in getting
pregnant. These are celebrated because the majority of
readers can relate to them. These stories seem to imply
that, with determination, a person can conceive, that
childlessness can be conquered with tenacity. People
want to read happy stories, and accounts of difficult
pregnancies that end in birth are, of course, uplifting.
It is more challenging to tell a story about fertility
treatment that ends in childlessness.
With few exceptions, I felt invisible in these
narratives. But then I came across Emily Bernard’s
book Black is the Body, in which she describes her own
reproductive struggles, and how she felt like a failure
for not being able to conceive. Her account stuck with
me and festered like an open sore, as I considered how
conception stood for so much more than bodily failure.
Like me, Bernard was an ambitious Black American
scholar and writer, and like me, no matter how much she
tried, she could not conceive (she ended up adopting).
Emotionally exhausted by the ebb and flow of artificial
hormones, and the isolation I felt in the midst of the
storm, I was further marooned by my inability to
develop a precise language, or a method of coping.
Infertility stung me. I sought insights from family and
friends. I revived a group chat with my cousins and
asked how many of them had fibroids. I connected
with Black parents I knew in Germany, and heard
their stories of conception, pregnancy and birth, each
different from the next. One friend and confidante,
who struggled for nearly 10 years to conceive, told
me how she had been ready to adopt right before she
became pregnant. These conversations were healing,
but they have not been enough.
My inability to have a baby opened new vistas of
disappointment and grief. It has forced me to meditate
about my soul’s purpose, to accept and move on, to
imagine new possibilities for myself, and forge new
bonds. At the same time, I have to rationalise that my
body, like all bodies, is complex, and there is no simple
answer for why I cannot get pregnant.
My fertility struggle has shown me that I need new
ways to envision parenting outside giving birth. Wright
Rigueur shows that Black parenting can be full of
laughter and pride, not just the fruit of suffering, but
an experience shared by people with common political
aims, desires and agency. Her account of Black mothers’
joys reminded me of what I was missing. The stories she
recounted revealed Black love, visceral and beautiful,
and in a way, validated my pain and how I felt embattled
and charred. I want to feel that joy of Black motherhood,
the hope that runs through a lineage of survivors.
It’s hard to say that I will never be pregnant. I do
not know if I will ever feel comfortable with my body
with the exactitude that Black joy demands. Black joy
is grounded in the active commitment to love myself
and accept that I am complete. But there are days
A woman at a where I don’t feel that way. I want to hold dear to the
march in Sydney words of the poet Robin Coste Lewis, who affirmed in
in June 2020 an interview that “black joy is my primary aesthetic,
after the killing often: the world was so muted in what it offered us,
of George Floyd but because of love and family and connection, our
in the US lives were gorgeous.”
AP Knowing that I cannot get pregnant is forcing me to
look inwards, to find ways to mourn, and to recognise
that joy has to come from elsewhere. My partner and
I have walked in the forests of Brandenburg, done
Sunday yoga and watched trashy TV. And though these
rituals have been healing, they have not been enough.
In Revolutionary Mothering, the poet Alexis Pauline
Gumbs suggests an alternative: “Queer, utopian,
and hopeful and critical articulations of mothering”
centred on collective kinship.
I find that Black joy enshrined in my friendships
with queer Black people, the people who create havens
of safety where we can debate the big questions and
share the trivial – whether watching HBO’s Insecure
or passionately debating which west-African country
makes the best jollof rice. But there is also comfort
in our listless moments, those periods of walking
aimlessly in the summer heat and finding a shoulder to
lean on. This is the family I have chosen to create.
 In our confessional culture, it is not uncommon to
Edna reveal intimate aspects of being human. But we mostly
Bonhomme tell the stories that appear digestible – our brilliant
is a historian accomplishments, only occasionally sharing the less
of science and uplifting subjects. In the closing lines of a story such as
writer based this, one might assume the denouement brings a child:
in Berlin it doesn’t. Unfortunately, it ends here. •
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Established 1906
Country diary
Allendale,
Northumberland
A chill wind makes my face feel
tight as I walk uphill to the long,
narrow wood leading to Keenley.
Once under the Scots pines, I look
up at their swaying red trunks and
dark needles against a deceptively
blue sky. The wind is thrashing in
the treetops, but down here it’s
sheltered and calm.
A thin path wiggles up between
glossy-leaved hollies and arching
brambles. Underfoot, there’s a
mass of debris from the winter
storms: sticks, cones and large
limbs. Emerging honeysuckle
leaves scrawl over the decaying
branches of previous gales, the
rotting wood now supporting
mosses, fungi and the unfurling
fresh green of dog’s mercury.
The weather today is confusing.
In the sunlit field outside are sheep
fat with lamb, yet tiny snowflakes
are falling gently like dust motes
through the trees. They drift on
to echoing white, as snowdrops,
elegant singles or blowsy doubles,
swoop up and down the undulating
woodland floor. They have pushed
up through chaotic nettle stalks,
through twisting brown fallen
leaves, between stones and ferns,
in a massed dangle of clear white
petals and sweet scent.
A large patch of moss shines
vivid emerald where the light
falls on it. This waved silk-moss,
Plagiothecium undulatum, spreads
over the acidic soil beneath the
pines, its flattened spear-shaped
stems forming rhythmic patterns
like a shaggy rug.
Just above the wood stands
Keenley Methodist chapel. It’s a
simple stone building in a grass
clearing, ringed by goblet-shaped
yews and tall beeches. A narrow
flagstone path leads to the brown
painted door with a date of 1750
inset into the stone in lead. Above
is a carved sign: “Wesleyan Chapel
rebuilt 1874”.
This modest building is the
oldest Methodist church still in use
in the world. John Wesley travelled
through the North Pennines in
1761 and preached here beneath a
sycamore tree. As a result, many
local miners and subsistence
farmers embraced Methodism. The
nearby Isaac’s Tea Trail – named
after a 19th-century itinerant tea
seller and philanthropist – follows
the footpath that led me up here.
Susie White
We do not publish letters where
only an email address is supplied;
please include a full postal address
and a daytime phone number.
We may edit letters. Submission
and publication of letters is subject
to our terms and conditions: see
theguardian.com/letters-terms
•
Letters
Time to reform a system
that fails children in care
I had involvement with residential
childcare for over 40 years, from
the early 1960s until I retired. While
your editorial (7 March) is correct,
it highlights issues that have been
around since I started. Regularly,
improvements and revisions made
in children’s homes are overturned
as the next round of spending cuts
arrives. From the passing of the
Children Act in 1989 until the early
2000s, there was some progress.
We now seem to be reversing many
of the strides that have been made,
taking money from young people
looked after by the state to assist in
cutting taxes for the more fortunate.
You also highlight the scandals
that have covered a range of issues
from child abuse to financial abuse,
all of which mean that children
in care suffer more neglect rather
than compensation for that which
they have already suffered. This is
often reflected in the behaviour of
these young people, who then gain
a negative public image which many
politicians feel justifies not investing
in them. Some young people cared
for by the state may now receive
little support beyond ages 15 or 16.
It is not a system that needs
tweaking or simply more money,
Ukraine has ended sport’s ‘neutrality’ myth
The dangerous and damaging
myth of “political neutrality”
in sport, long peddled by
the likes of the International
Olympic Committee and Fifa,
has completely disintegrated in
response to Russia’s barbarous,
unprovoked and unjustifiable
invasion of Ukraine.
For too long, those in positions
of power at the highest echelons of
the global sporting ecosystem have
cosied up to authoritarian regimes
and brutal dictators, turned their
heads away from the plight of
fellow human beings as their rights
Parenthood pay gap?
Only mums lose out
Rachel Reeves, the shadow
chancellor of the exchequer, used
the phrase “parenthood pay gap”
in her article for the Guardian
to mark International Women’s
Day (It took decades to achieve
progress for women – why has
it stalled?, theguardian.com,
6 March). The phrase “parenthood
pay gap” was also used on IWD by
the shadow women and equalities
secretary, Anneliese Dodds.
This phrase is an example
of the way in which de-sexing
but restructuring in such a way that
reflects normal family care and
support as much as possible, and
then, as you say, tough regulation
to ensure it is happening.
Roy Grimwood
Market Drayton, Shropshire
• That most children’s homes are
run by profit-seeking companies is
scandalous. Numerous inquiries
have highlighted the failures of
our care system for children, and
in 2015 David Cameron called for a
“root and branch” review, but still
there’s been no real improvement.
Residential care continues to be
an amateur service. If you appear to
be reasonably caring and unlikely
to abuse your charges, you can get
a job. GPs have to complete at least
four years of training, a solicitor six
years, and the vet who treats your
dog has a five-year qualification.
Yet our most vulnerable children
are cared for by people who
are not required to have any
previous relevant training.
Kindness and common sense
alone cannot address the distressing
problems that children in homes
exhibit. Few have a plan to treat the
reasons they are in the home, and,
have been withheld or curtailed,
and allowed commercial interest to
trump common interest. But this
time sport has been forced to pick
a side, and really mean it.
Fuelled by overwhelming
global public outrage and the
uniting spirit of solidarity with
the Ukrainian people, governing
bodies, clubs, teams, sponsors and
athletes have been asked to wield
their power and influence to do
whatever they can to bring about
peace, draw attention to the need
for safe routes for all those fleeing
the conflict, and promote wider
language can lead to an inaccurate
picture. There is no “parenthood
pay gap”. Social scientists
have shown that motherhood
plays a substantial role in the
pay deficit that women suffer
compared with men.
Fatherhood, by contrast, has
historically been associated with
a wage premium.
Reeves states that “the Labour
party has always stood up for
women”. But Labour politicians
need to take note. Without the
words and data to describe the
distinct issues that women face,
we cannot begin to tackle them.
Prof Alice Sullivan
UCL Social Research Institute
 guardian.letters@theguardian.com
 @guardianletters
if they do, it is unlikely to be fully
implemented. Few even receive
regular sessions with a qualified
counsellor. The annual cost for one
child averages up to £200,000, yet
half of prisoners under the age of 25
have been in care. Figures for mental
illness and homelessness are equally
grim. Ownership and regulation
of homes needs to be addressed,
but will not solve their continuing
failure to meet the needs of the
children they exist to serve. I still
await “root and branch” reform.
Mel Wood
Swords, County Dublin, Ireland
• Yes, care standards must be
raised, but the systemic failures of
England’s care system are much
deeper than just the role of private
providers. The alarming example
of Robert McGuinness (Report,
4 March) is one symptom of a
care system in crisis. And it’s in
crisis partly because of decades
of underinvestment in children’s
social care, which has enabled
unacceptable levels of instability
for children in and leaving care
(7,230 children moved placement
more than three times in 2021).
The Independent Review of
Children’s Social Care must tackle
these root issues boldly in its
incoming recommendations. And
the government must commit to
funding that enables the seismic
change that’s desperately needed.
Katharine Sacks-Jones
CEO, Become
condemnation and ostracism of
Putin’s regime. Sport’s only utility
to wider society is when it lives true
to its stated values – when it acts to
make the world a better place and
dares to speak up and speak out in
support of the universal principles
upon which it is based.
Sport must never be allowed to
peddle the lie that its strength lies
in cowardly nods to “neutrality”. It
doesn’t now; it never has; it never
will. Its strength lies in its truly
global influence, its uniting, cross-
cultural spirit of togetherness, and
its fiercely confident promotion of
the very best of our shared values.
Tim Harper
Executive director, Equitysport
Politics is degraded
by bullies and liars
The fact that there are serial bullies
and liars in the House of Commons
surprises nobody. That only one
of them has been banned from
parliament simply serves to show
how degraded our national politics
has become, especially having a
serially lying prime minister as
final arbiter over the ministerial
code (Independent inquiry finds
former Speaker Bercow was a
‘serial bully’, 9 March).
Deirdre Burrell
Mortimer, Berkshire
9
Corrections and
clarifications
• An editorial meant to describe
Josep Borrell as the foreign policy
chief for the EU, not the UN (Don’t
expect China to pull Russia back.
But their ties do have limits,
9 March, Journal, p2).
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a
1970s US television sitcom, was
misnamed as “the Mandy Moore
Show” (‘I don’t have penis envy.
I have 12 at home in a drawer’,
7 March, G2, p8).
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
guardian.readers@theguardian.com or The readers’
editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.
You can also leave a voicemail on 020 3353 4736
A round of applause,
the zero-risk gesture
The front-page photograph
(9 March) of Volodymyr Zelenskiy
receiving a standing ovation in the
House of Commons demonstrates
a key message learned from
coronavirus. Clapping involves
much less risk and unpleasantness
than actually doing something
that makes a difference.
Peter Brooker
West Wickham, Kent
• Your report (Tory MPs’ anger at
leader dissipates as Ukraine crisis
deepens, 7 March) quotes a Tory
MP: “At the moment, it’s certainly
working in our party’s favour.”
The whole ethos of the Tory
party summed up in 10 words.
Peter Stevens
Farley, Wiltshire
• There is probably no definitive
or satisfactory answer to Jenny
Haynes’ profound question as to
whether praying for peace worked
– or, indeed, ever works (Letters,
9 March). But since I can imagine
how much worse things might
have been, had no prayers been
made at all, I’m truly thankful
and glad that they were.
Fr Alec Mitchell
Holyhead, Anglesey
• Re changes of names made in the
light of Putin’s atrocities (Letters,
9 March), after 14 years answering
to the name Vladimir, my cat now
only responds to Volodymyr.
Danielle Lowy
Manchester
• My peaceful morning ruined.
Having my quiet cuppa and
shortbread biscuit in bed, himself
shoves your article in front of
me (‘I’m having way better sex
than my kids!’, 9 March). I barely
escaped from under the duvet to
run downstairs. And now you’re
suggesting morning and noon as
well as night. God help me!
Jo Burden
Marlow, Buckinghamshire

10
Lynda Baron
Stage and screen actor
best known for playing
Nurse Gladys Emmanuel
in TV’s Open All Hours
L
ynda Baron, who has
died aged 82, was
well known to TV
viewers spanning
the generations,
but her comforting
presence in comedy
and children’s fare
belied the fact that in reality she
was a multi-talented grafter who
excelled in every discipline.
Between 1976 and 1985 Baron
played the formidable Nurse
Gladys Emmanuel in Roy Clarke’s
popular sitcom Open All Hours,
continually spurning the nuptial
ambitions of the tightfisted
shopkeeper Arkwright (Ronnie
Barker), with whom she enjoyed a
comically fractious relationship.
Arkwright’s lust for Gladys was,
Baron felt, a healthy repudiation
of the idea that men idolise only
slim women. “There are millions
of big ladies out there married to
men who think they’re wonderful,”
she said. Some years after Barker’s
death, the show’s other star, David
• The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022
Obituaries
Jason, headlined a revival – Still
Open All Hours (2013-16) – which
led to a return for Baron’s skilful
comedic creation.
If Open All Hours ensured that
she was a welcome fixture for the
family audience, then Baron’s
run as the cheery Auntie Mabel in
the much loved BBC educational
programme Come Outside (1993-
97) meant that she became a firm
favourite with children. Mabel,
piloting a polka dotted light
aeroplane (a Slingsby T67 Firefly)
and accompanied by her dog
Pippin, would discover how various
everyday things worked for the
benefit of the young audience.
Born Lilian Ridgeway in Urmston,
Manchester, to Cyril, an interior
decorator, and his wife, Lilian (nee
Hawthorn), she started studying
ballet aged four and attended
Flixton girls’ high school as well as
the Royal Academy of Dance. At 15,
she said: “I realised there was so
little room at the top in ballet and
being determined to get to the top
I took up singing.” As a result, she
began performing in pantomime
at the Liverpool Empire, learning
timing by watching from the wings.
She was soon singing and
dancing at end of the pier shows,
and by the time she was 17 she was
in London performing at the Astor
Club in Mayfair. She made her
London stage debut in Dora Bryan’s
Garrick theatre revue, Living for
Pleasure, in 1958. Other revue
work followed, including One Over
the Eight (1961-62, Shakespeare
Memorial theatre, transferring
to the Duke of York’s) alongside
Kenneth Williams (the writers
included Harold Pinter, John
Baron, centre, in Mortimer and Peter Cook) and by
the BBC sitcom 1965 she was the regular chanteuse
Open All Hours, at the Talk of the Town, becoming
with David its longest-running leading lady.
Jason, right, and For television, in 1965 Ned
Ronnie Barker Sherrin wrote the opening and
in 1985. Below, closing numbers of the satirical
as Aunt with Zoë sketch and revue programme BBC
Wanamaker, 3 (aired on BBC One) with her in
left, in the title mind, but despite the presence of
role of Hugh Leonard Rossiter and Bill Oddie
Whitemore’s the show was not as successful as
play Stevie at Sherrin’s earlier triumphs. Comedy
Chichester, 2014 was a common feature of Baron’s
DAILY MAIL; TRISTRAM
KENTON/THE GUARDIAN
subsequent television career,
opposite Bill Maynard in Oh No
It’s Selwyn Froggitt (1977), with
Harry H Corbett in Grundy (1980),
in a recurring role in The Upper
Hand (1992-93), and in episodes
of Dinnerladies (1998), Goodnight
Sweetheart (1999) and Citizen Khan
(2016). In addition, she was good
value as herself, guesting on many
shows, including Blankety Blank
(1983-87) and Countdown (2008).
She also appeared in TV dramas:
from the thriller Breaking Point
(1966) to Doctors (nine episodes,
2000-14), via guest spots in
everything from Z Cars (1971) to
Father Brown (2017). She was part
of the ensemble cast of Fat Friends
(2002-05) and her intermittent
association with EastEnders –
playing Jane Beale’s mother, Linda
Clarke – lasted from 2006 to 2016.
For Doctor Who she belted out
the ballad that narrated the action
in the 1966 serial The Gunfighters,
a Western pastiche, with William
Hartnell, and then had a ball as
the sadistic space pirate, Captain
Wrack, in Enlightenment (with Peter
Davison, 1983). She returned as the
cheery shop worker Val, befriending
Matt Smith as he battled Cybermen
in Closing Time in 2011.
For her tour de force turn as
Violet Carson in the BBC Four play
The Road to Coronation Street in
2010, she was nominated for a best
supporting actress Bafta. Her film
work included the Hammer horror
By the Hands of the Ripper (1971), Barbra
time she
was 17
Streisand’s Yentl (1983), Carry on
Columbus (1992), Woody Allen’s
Scoop (2006), and Dream Horse
she was
in London
(with Damian Lewis, 2020).
On stage she proved adept in
musicals including Little Me (Prince
performing
at the
of Wales, 1984-85), Stepping Out
(Duke of York’s, 1985-86) and
Follies (Shaftesbury theatre,
Astor club
in Mayfair
1987-89), in which she gave a
showstopping rendition of Who’s
That Woman as an ageing but still
glamorous hoofer proving she’s still
got it with light-footedness, expert
tap, cussed verve and sassy elan.
She also proved adept at
farce in Ray Cooney’s Funny
Money (Playhouse theatre,
1995) and Rookery Nook (Menier
Chocolate Factory, 2009), and
enjoyed starring opposite Zoë
Wanamaker in Stevie (at Chichester
theatre, 2014, transferring to the
Hampstead) and Orlando Bloom in
David Storey’s In Celebration at the
Duke of York’s (2007). She was also
a regular in pantomime, excelling
as a thigh-slapping principal boy.
Her 1962 marriage to the
hairdresser and music impresario
Carol London (real name Cyril
Smith) ended in divorce.
In 1966 she married the jazz
pianist and musical director
John Lee; he died in 2001. Her
two children, Sarah and Morgan,
survive her.
Toby Hadoke
Lynda Baron (Lilian Ridgeway),
actor, born 24 March 1939; died
5 March 2022
Thursday 10 March 2022 The Guardian
Jimmy Johnson
American singer and
guitarist who helped to
reshape the blues for a
new audience in the 70s
T
he singer and
guitarist Jimmy
Johnson, who has
died aged 93, was
one of the wonders
– if sometimes
half-hidden – of the
blues world, both
for his elegant, passionate singing
and for his clean-cut, inventive
guitar playing. In the 1960s and 70s
he established himself in the clubs
of Chicago, one of the generation
of musicians such as Magic Sam,
Otis Rush and Freddie King who
would reshape the blues for a new
world and new audiences.
He maintained a distinguished
position in that milieu for more
than 60 years, and was described
by Bruce Iglauer, the founder of
Alligator Records, which released
some of his material, as “a searing
guitar player and intense, distinctive
singer whose music had the deep
emotional impact of the best blues”.
For all that, Johnson never
attained the celebrity of Sam or
Rush, nor of other, sometimes
lesser, talents, and to the
frustration of his admirers he
often seemed to be set in the role
of Chicago’s best-kept secret. His
reputation was probably higher in
Europe than in the US, and many
of his recordings, especially in
•
 obituaries@theguardian.com
 @guardianobits
the 80s and 90s, were done for
companies in France or Germany.
Whether through luck or care,
Johnson outlived most of his
contemporaries and continued
to sing and play into his 90s. He
appeared regularly at the Chicago
Blues festival, most recently in
2019, and during the Covid-19
pandemic he gave livestreamed
Facebook performances from his
home every week. On his 92nd
birthday his broadcast drew an
audience of more than 80,000.
He was born in Holly Springs,
Mississippi, the second of the 10
children of Verlie Smith and Sam
Thompson. By his own account
he had little schooling. “Most
days we worked from sunup until
sundown,” he said. “At the age of
eight I was working in the fields,
picking, chopping and ploughing
cotton and helping to tend to the
farm animals.” He sang in church as
a boy and later in gospel groups in
Memphis and Chicago, to where he
moved in his 20s at the suggestion
of an uncle. Working as a welder,
he saved to bring his mother and
siblings to the city, and in 1956
bought his first guitar.
Three years later he played his
first gig, under the surname of
Johnson, which his younger brother
Syl, an accomplished soul singer,
had taken for his professional
moniker. He returned home to tell
his soon-to-be wife, Sherry (nee
Ewing), that he had been fired: “I
had to start practising.”
During the 60s Johnson found
most of his playing opportunities
in gospel and soul music, and in
leading house bands at various
Chicago venues, where he backed
singers such as Otis Clay and Denise
LaSalle. His first album-length
studio recording was made for the
independent producer Ralph Bass
in 1977. The blues writer Peter
Guralnick, who happened to be at
the session, wrote in his book Lost
Highway: “Johnson plays with the
Johnson started same delicacy and feeling that you
out singing in hear in the clubs, his somewhat
church as a boy thin, sensitive voice always
and later in retaining a brittle edge.”
gospel groups in But the tapes were shelved for
Memphis and years, until finally acquired by a
Chicago British company, and Johnson’s
JAMES FRAHER/ first released LPs – on a French
REDFERNS label – were live recordings made
in 1975–77 at the Chicago clubs Ma
Bea’s and the Golden Slipper.
In 1978 Johnson was showcased
on the first volume of Alligator
Records’ revelatory series Living
Chicago Blues, performing songs
such as Feel Like Breaking Up
Somebody’s Home that were
suited to his soulful style. The
albums Johnson’s Whacks (1979)
and North/South (1982), made
for the other significant Chicago
blues label, Delmark, gave him
the chance to put aside covers and
use his own material, such as The
Twelve Bar Blues, with its punning
lines such as, “I drank a dozen Buds
but I don’t feel any wiser”.
Although he handled most
received ideas with respect, in his
compositions he set original scenes
and described them in witty and
vivid language. His career was
interrupted by a car accident in
1988 in which two members of his
band died. He returned to music
a few years later, and I’m a Jockey
(1993) won a Blues Music Award as
a comeback album, while in 2002
Two Johnsons Are Better Than One!
was a fraternal get-together with
Syl, as well as being an intriguing
map of two roads travelled.
Another brother, Mack – who kept
the name Thompson – followed
them into music, playing bass
guitar with Sam.
Over the years Jimmy won several
other Blues Music Awards, was
inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
in 2016, and in 2021 was named
Blues Artist of the Year by Living
Blues magazine. His last album was
Every Day of Your Life (2020).
Mack died in 1991, and Syl just a
few days after Jimmy, on 6 February.
Jimmy is survived by Sherry, their
children, LaSaundra, Geraldine,
Lorenzo, Eric and Jimmy, and his
sisters Vivian and Marva.
Tony Russell
Jimmy Johnson (James Earl
Thompson), blues musician,
born 25 November 1928; died
31 January 2022
11
Birthdays
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex,
58; Olivia Blake, Labour MP,
32; Edie Brickell, singer and
songwriter, 56; Kim Campbell,
former prime minister of Canada,
75; Neneh Cherry, singer and
songwriter, 58; Lord (Paul)
Condon, former commissioner,
Metropolitan police, 75; Kadeena
Cox, Paralympic athlete, 31;
Garth Crooks, broadcaster and
footballer, 64; Sir Nigel Davis,
former lord justice of appeal, 71;
Hilary Devey, businesswoman, 65;
Sally Feldman, broadcaster and
media trainer, 74; John Finucane,
Sinn Féin MP, 42; Barry Gardiner,
Labour MP, 65; Paul Haggis, film-
I was maker, 69; Jon Hamm, actor, 51;
Eva Herzigová, model and actor,
working in 49; Terry Holmes, rugby player,
the fields, 65; Hugh Johnson, wine expert
picking, and writer, 83; Colin Murray,
broadcaster, 45; Sir Graeme
chopping Odgers, former chair, Monopolies
and and Mergers Commission, 88;
ploughing Richard Park, former director of
broadcasting, Global Radio, 74;
cotton Andrew Parrott, conductor and
musicologist, 75; Rick Rubin,
music producer, 59; Emeli Sandé,
singer and songwriter, 35; Rafe
Spall, actor, 39; Biz Stone, internet
entrepreneur and co-founder of
Twitter, 48; Sharon Stone, actor,
64; Chris Sutton, footballer, 49;
Timbaland, musician, rapper and
record producer, 50; Olivia Wilde,
actor, 38.
Announcements
DAVIES, (nee HAMLETT, previously BRANDER),
Jean Margaret, 97, died Rhos-on-Sea, on 9
February 2022. Past Mayor and Councillor of
Conwy. Previously of Hale, Cheshire; Coulsdon,
Surrey and Winchester, Hants. Funeral 21 March
2pm at Colwyn Bay Crematorium. Open to all. No
flowers, please. Donations to Woodland Trust
through T Conchar & Son, Funeral Directors,
Colwyn Bay.
FAIRHURST, Alan. Alan died unexpectedly in
hospital on 19 February 2022. Loving husband of
Eileen, father of Benjamin, Innominata and Elizabeth
(all of whom predeceased Alan), brother and uncle.
He was a colleague and friend to many. Requiem
Mass at 12pm on Monday 14 March 2022 at Our
Lady of Dolours RC Church, Bury New Road, M7
4ND, followed by interment at St Mary’s RC
Cemetery, Wardley Hall Road, M28 2UJ and
Reception at Worsley Park Marriott Hotel and
Country Club, Worsley, M28 2QT. Family flowers
only. Donations to either St Philip’s RC Primary
School or English National Opera, and enquiries to
Lillywhite Funeral Service, Kenyon House, 301 Bury
Old Road, Prestwich, Manchester M25 1AJ.
For Announcements, Acknowledgments, Adoptions,
Anniversaries, Birthdays, Births, Deaths,
Engagements, Memorial Services and In Memoriam,
email us at announcements@theguardian.com
including your name, address and telephone
number or phone 0203 353 2114.
Reread our obituaries of
the England hockey player
Val Robinson and the ballet
dancer Henry Danton
theguardian.com/
obituaries
 • The Guardian Thursday 10 March 2022

12 Puzzles

Yesterday’s Killer sudoku Codeword

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

Medium

Medium

Codeword

Cryptic crossword Guardian cryptic crossword No 28,701 set by Crucible

Solution No. 28,700

COLOUR S F I DDL ER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Across Down

E I N I A I O E 1 Having packed, finally decides 2 My first drink supplier leaves
MA G I C S A N S SER I F
E H A A T C D L to get married (6) on time (4)
NATURALGA S I S L E 5 Old diary found in one busy 3 Sack producer Marie knew to be
T S P S W H C
RECEPT I ON I S T 9 10 Yankee vintner’s study (8) dissipated (9)
E D T M I R P S 9 Scot isn’t able to cover first two of 4 Thin cover lifted on truck (6)
LAURENBAC AL L
E M D A D P S Ullapool drains (8) 5 Nine under the table (3,4,3,5)
POPE FREE SP I R I T 10 Information on tax swells (6) 6 Last snifter near Deal, heading
H S C R A O I A
A S T RONAUT WI NDY
11 11 Driving test on one tank on island north (8)
N E A S U E C E with learner (12) 7 Fast over played slowly (5)
TURT L ES P ERSE I D 12 13 Pet swallow (4) 8 Barrel seen in depot about new
14 Sibyl’s about to down a litre twice place for empties (7,3)
13 14 15 — of these? (4,4) 12 Estonia’s perplexed with old
17 Our mum’s spiking another barren state (10)
16 mum’s whiskey (4,4) 15 Not everyone stands up in a
18 Disclose what boozer often church together (3,2,4)
17 18 needs? (4) 16 Plastered husband before noon
20 One fights egg producer with has me blushing (8)
19 rowing team (12) 19 Mixed drink, say, going off
23 Caught one using tongue to taste without one (6)
20 21
spirit (6) 21 Taste too much? That’s out of
24 Cocktail Indian spilt in fast car order (5)
22
(3,3,2) 22 The Italian’s stopping doctor’s
25 Train hooted, skirting theatre tipple (4)
23 24
punctually (2,3,3)
26 Ravenous guy, empty, wolfs
venison that’s turned (6)
25 26
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83.
Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your
phone company’s access charge.
Service supplied by ATS.
Call 0330 333 6946 for customer
service (charged at standard rate).
Want more? Get access to more than
4,000 puzzles at theguardian.com/
crossword. To buy puzzle books, visit
guardianbookshop.com or call
0330 333 6846.*
 And now for
the science bit …
How to hack your
happy hormones

Thursday 10/03/22
Will Smith, Kristen
Stewart and me
Hadley Freeman
lunches with the stars
page 8

The best of times

Why Nell Frizzell
loves a 5am run
page 3
•
 •

3
Pass notes
The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022

Nell
Frizzell
Why is it becoming so The magic
of a 5am run
difficult for women makes me
to get contraception? feel alive

W
hen a friend recently told me that there was a There is no better time to go for
10-week waiting list to have a copper coil fitted,
my shock quickly turned to anger. Ten weeks
is a hell of a long time to wait for adequate,
a run than 5am. Especially in
March. Two or three mornings a
week at the moment, I edge out
№ 4,381
hormone-free, affordable contraception. To put
it into context, that means anyone who asked
for a coil today might hopefully get an appointment by 19 May. And
of bed, creep down the stairs and
change into my running things –
out of earshot of my partner and
Depressed dogs
what, precisely, are you meant to do in the meantime? As is so often sleeping son. Then, opening the Age: Since dogs existed – then multiply that
the case with women’s health, that’s your problem. front door as quietly as I can, by seven to get it into dog years.
We are experiencing a quiet crisis in contraceptive care in this I slip out. So this is a story about dogs? Yup.
country. Lives are being jack-knifed by policies that are often only A few stars hang in the night What’s up? They’re down.
discussed with close friends. Perhaps this was always going to sky above. My neighbours’ It’s the news, I bet: awful stories of dogs
be the result, not just of living through a pandemic, but of living windows are drawn closed; like being abandoned in Ukraine? No, of
under a government that has continually cut funding to sexual eyelids. I am entirely alone. course it’s not. This is not about the war,
health services. According to a report by the Advisory Group on Well, nearly. The magic of an but it is a serious story about dogs showing
Contraception: “Going into lockdown, services had faced years of early-morning run is also that, signs of poor mental health, including
budget cuts by the government, leading to an 18% decrease in real- even in a city, you can flush out anxiety.
terms contraception spend since 2015.” unsuspecting wildlife. Muntjac I didn’t even know dogs could suffer from
The same report points out that there has also been a huge deer, rabbits, foxes and cats poor mental health. You and a quarter of all
reduction in sites commissioned to scatter as I turn out of our little dog owners.
deliver contraception (26% of local estate, run through a nature But it must be rare – how many dogs are we
authorities cut them in 2018-2019), reserve or across the park. Along talking about? The survey, of 1,000
meaning people are having to travel the river I hear the hooting of barn dog owners by the charity Guide Dogs, found
further to get the medical help owls. Bats swivel through the sky that 74% of dogs exhibit behaviour that
they need, simply not to have an above my head. indicates anxiety and depression. That
unplanned, unwanted, unaffordable As a woman running through would equate to about 8.8 million dogs
or unsafe pregnancy. the city in the dark before dawn, across the UK.
Talking of pregnancy, you would I feel safe. No, I feel determined And what are those signs? Loss of appetite,
be excused for missing the significant to feel safe. Other runners say destructiveness, low levels of activity.
changes in abortion services over the bright and breezy good mornings They’re not so different from us, are they?
past few years. For example, you may or hellos as we pass each other Would chocolate help? I find it does, though
not have noticed that a large number on the towpath or in the gaps not for long, to be honest … Nooo! Absolutely
of abortions are now handled by a between streetlights. I pass men not. Chocolate is toxic to them.
A 10-week wait charity, rather than the NHS. The and women, in headscarves and Oh yeah. A brisk walk, then? Well, yes,
for a coil? British Pregnancy Advisory Service padded jackets, walking into regular exercise is important, of course, but
(BPAS) helps, in its own words, “100,000 women a year to access town to start their shifts. At five there’s often more to it than that. “It’s an
reproductive healthcare services including pregnancy counselling, in the morning, there are few outdated viewpoint to think that dogs just
abortion care, miscarriage management and contraception at clinics cars on the road, making the air need a walk or two a day to be content,” said
across Great Britain”. I am in favour of anything that makes access sweet, the world quiet, the hills Guide Dogs’ chief scientific officer Dr Helen
to early abortion easier, faster and friendlier. But I can’t help but and asphalt mine to explore. You Vaterlaws-Whiteside.
wonder why such an essential medical service is being handled by a don’t get that at 11am or 3pm or, So what else should you do to keep them
charity – it’s not as if your council tax is processed by Shelter or your God forbid, in a gym. happy? Vaterlaws-Whiteside recommends
warfarin is prescribed by the British Heart Foundation. If there is a danger in this problem-solving puzzles …
During lockdown, BPAS was – after some rather confusing situation, it is not me. I have the Wordle? Labradurdle … More food-based.
government messaging – allowed to provide “telemedicine” as a right to be outside, in the dark, A lick mat, say, with patterned nubs on,
temporary measure. Essentially, it was able to send out the pills moving my body, breathing between which you smear spreadable treats.
necessary to terminate a pregnancy following a phone consultation. steam. Nobody has the right to The dog has to work its way around the
No need to go to the doctor, no need for an ultrasound. But sadly, hurt, bother, hassle, intimidate or protuberances to get the treats.
as Vicky Spratt has reported for the website Refinery29, on 24 harm me. So I take up space. I get I’d quite like a lick mat. She also recommends
February the government announced that it would be scrapping out there. I wave to other women taking them on a “sniffari”.
at-home early medical abortions after 29 August. Why this change? running as a show of solidarity What’s one of them? Essentially a walk,
Especially when access to in-person services has become harder, and mutual reassurance. The dark but you allow the dog to sniff whatever it
thanks to BPAS closing some of its physical clinics after the move and the outdoors is ours. wants to.
to telemedicine. Well, it’s because, as Spratt puts it, “anti-abortion Like other mutts’ butts? Well, yes. See
campaigners are more vocal than people who are in favour of also fox poo. Other sensory activities are
abortion”. When it comes to courting public approval – and this available, such as turning on a bubble
government seems to do little else – restraining access to abortion machine in the garden. Did you know you can
will always play out well with a very vocal minority. get bacon-scented bubble solution especially
Unfortunately, the stigma still attached to contraception and for dogs? Vaterlaws-Whiteside also suggests
COVER: ADAM HIGTON/THE GUARDIAN

reproductive health means people are less willing to complain using a flirt pole …
publicly. Subtly and overtly, we are told that this is our lot and we A flirt pole, what is that? Essentially a
must bear it. After all, there are plenty of people out there ready string attached to a stick, which entices a
to whip our reproductive rights out from under us. Which makes dog to chase a fast-moving lure. Anyway,
PHOTOGRAPHS: GETTY

it easier for the government to keep cutting funding. Continually don’t forget that, as well as lots of mental
making small slices, from every side, scraping bits off with a stimulation, dogs also need plenty of quality
fingernail, breaking off whole corners, then putting it back in the downtime and sleep, too.
fridge, hoping nobody notices that it is now half the size it should be. Do say: “Come here, good boy, time for
shikoku sudoku.”
Don’t say: “Hey boy, who’s a black dog?”
 •
4 The Guardian
‘I cried when our surrogate
escaped into Poland’
S
The war in
Ukraine has
thrown its
thousands ince Russian tanks
began rolling over the Ukrainian
of surrogates border, the international media
have reported on the plight
into turmoil. of foreign couples using paid
Ukrainian surrogate mothers.
Sirin Kale speaks Usually, these articles make
scant reference to the surrogates’
to those in the wellbeing, instead being written up
as breathless tales of derring-do, as
war zone – along plucky couples launch daring raids
to bring their babies to safety.
with anxious The Irish Independent, for
example, reported on a County
prospective Kerry couple who had brought
their son back from Ukraine
parents around without making any reference
to their surrogate, presumably
the world left postpartum in a war zone.
Sometimes, the couples appear
indifferent to the plight of the
women left behind: one American
parent recently wrote a 1,257-word
Instagram post about getting her
newborn out of Ukraine in which
she thanked her gym for keeping
her “fit enough” to make the
journey and the travel agent who
had arranged her hotel, but did not
make any reference to the woman
who had carried her baby.
Olga Danchenko, a surrogacy
lawyer from Kyiv who fled to
western Ukraine with her family
on the first day of the invasion, has
been inundated with emails and
phone calls. In their worry for their
babies, many of her clients forget
her own predicament. “The parents
who are facing problems getting
their babies don’t care about us,”
she says. “They say: ‘Hi, Olga,
give me the documents.’ ‘Hi, Olga,
please draft this.’ ‘Hi, Olga, I need
a birth certificate, I need my baby,
I signed a contract with you.’ Not
a single question about how I am
doing.” She sounds exhausted. “We
have nightmares during the day
and during our dreams at night,”
Danchenko says. “Can you imagine?
Everything is broken in one day.”
Not everyone is focused solely
on the babies. “I want to look after
Thursday 10 March 2022
our surrogate,” says Annabel (not agency she used to work for gave
her real name), a teacher in her 40s her no emotional support and
from Suffolk. “Not just because she
is carrying our baby – but because
that she had to chase her salary
(most surrogates are paid a lump
she is a human being I have formed
a connection with.” Annabel and
sum and then a monthly stipend).
When she gave birth in 2019, she
her husband have been trying for a
baby for a decade. In that time, they
says the agency sent her to the
worst hospital in Kyiv. “I still have
have endured four miscarriages
and the death of a prematurely
nightmares about it,” she shudders.
Commercial surrogacy is
born daughter. Annabel researched
surrogacy carefully and picked
outlawed in most of the world,
although it is legal in some
ILLUSTRATION: SIMON PEMBERTON AT HEART AGENCY/THE GUARDIAN
an agency she felt was ethical.
“We didn’t go into this to abuse or
jurisdictions including certain US
states. The Ukrainian ombudsman
take advantage of anyone,” says
Annabel. “We entered into an
for children has said he believes it
should also be banned in Ukraine,
agreement with a person to change
our lives – and financially we can
where an estimated 2,000 to 2,500
children are born via surrogacy
change hers.” She considers her
surrogate, a 33-year-old mother-
each year. The human rights
group La Strada receives 100 calls
of-one who is 12 weeks pregnant,
a friend. “We made a connection
a year from distressed Ukrainian
surrogates. “They send us their
straight away,” Annabel says. “It’s
hard to explain what that feels like,
contracts so we can assess how
legal they are,” says Yuliia Anosova,
when you meet someone who will
change your life.”
a lawyer for the organisation who
is currently a refugee in Poland.
Even before the war, Yana “They’re a total disaster. Often,
Belozor, who is 32 and lives in they’re not even legal.” She recalls
Kyiv, had seen how badly some one contract in which a woman was
surrogates are treated. A former forced to relocate mid-pregnancy
surrogate herself, she says the and told her salary would be

The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022
One woman
said that her
agency was
trying to make
her get an
abortion
docked if she refused.
But advocates for Ukrainian
surrogacy argue that the
overwhelming majority of agencies
behave ethically. Before the war,
says Danchenko, the system was
“amazing” and acted in the “best
interests of children and parents”.
Belozor became a surrogacy
coordinator for another agency,
Delivering Dreams, to make
•
sure other women had a better
experience than she had. “This is
my calling,” she says. Before the
war, she was responsible for the
wellbeing of 14 pregnant surrogates,
mostly in Kyiv. By law, clients – or
intended parents, as they are known
– must be married, heterosexual and
medically unable to have children.
These couples, and their
surrogates, are caught up in
the unfolding humanitarian
catastrophe. “Things have
got insanely hard,” says Sam
Everingham, an Australian fertility
lawyer. He has a roster of 70
clients with Ukrainian surrogates
at various stages of pregnancy.
Natalie Gamble, a British fertility
lawyer, is helping 23 British
couples, with surrogates ranging
from eight to 39 weeks pregnant,
get across the border. “In every
case, parents are worried about
whether surrogates will be able to
access medical care and give birth
safely, and what will happen if the
couples can’t get there when they
do,” she says. “Will the babies be
left in a war zone with no one to
look after them?”
Compounding the chaos is the
fact that few agencies expected
Russia to invade, meaning that
they did not make contingency
plans. “The situation in Ukraine
is stable,” one agency reassured
clients on Facebook in late January.
“There is no increased or unusual
military activity.”
Belozor’s American boss, Susan
Kersch-Kibler, felt differently.
In the second week of February,
Kersch-Kibler persuaded 13 of her
14 surrogates, and Belozor, to move
to Lviv in western Ukraine. None
wanted to go. “They were arguing
with me,” Kersch-Kibler says. “It
was hard. In the end, I had to sell it
like a paid holiday.” Kersch-Kibler
offered to move the surrogates’
families with them, but only two of
the surrogates, and Belozor, brought
their children. They thought they
would be going home soon and
didn’t want to uproot their families.
For now, these surrogates,
at least, are safe. But, under
Ukrainian martial law, male citizens
aged between 18 and 60 are not
permitted to leave the country.
Surrogates may soon face a terrible
dilemma: evacuate and leave their
partners and even children behind,
or remain in a country under attack.
To compound their worry, their
family and friends back home are
not safe. Belozor’s husband is a
firefighter in Kyiv. “For 11 days,
he hasn’t been able to change his
‘The parents
don’t care
clothes or take a shower,” she says.
“All day long, he is inhaling smoke.”
about us’ ...
surrogacy
Despite her worries, Belozor
lawyer Olga
keeps working. “My biggest job is
Danchenko
to keep the women all emotionally
stable,” she says. If they start to
feel anxious, she takes them to a
doctor, to confirm the baby is OK.
The day before we speak, Belozor’s
best friend from childhood, Alexi
Semenyk, was shot in the head
by Russian forces near Luhansk.
He was 35. Like many Ukrainians,
Belozor is desperate for western
countries to implement a no-fly
zone over the country. “The world
needs to help,” she says, sobbing.
“There won’t be any peace in this
world, because Putin is so sick and
unpredictable and dangerous.”
Annabel’s surrogate and her son
are now safe in Poland. The journey
took three days. “She told us when
she got on the train, but then her
battery died,” says Annabel. “I
was literally sick with fear for her
and her son. You’re watching the
news to see if there have been any
attacks on trains, or at the border.
When I got her message to say
she’d crossed the border, I cried.”
Annabel hopes that her surrogate
will be able to join her in the UK –
if that is what she wants. “We want
her here so we can look after her,”
Annabel says. “And not just until
the baby is born. We want to look
after her until she can go home, or
wherever she chooses for home to
be. If she chooses to stay here, then
we will help establish her here.”
Annabel and her husband will drive
to Poland to collect their surrogate
and her son, if they can get them
emergency travel documents and
she is willing.
H
owever,
there are no legal routes for
surrogates and their families to
resettle in the UK. Ukrainians are
allowed entry only if they have
family members already resident.
(A mooted “humanitarian route”
has become mired in confusion.)
By contrast, Ireland has removed
entry requirements for Ukrainian
refugees. “This is a small group of
women who are carrying British
children,” says Gamble. “The UK
has a responsibility to protect
them.” Gamble wrote to the home
secretary recently, asking her to
make provision for surrogates who
are pregnant with British children,
and their families, to come to
the UK. The Home Office has not
responded.
Relatively speaking, Annabel
is lucky. Some non-Ukrainian
couples have lost contact with
their surrogates. “I’m totally
heartbroken and losing it,” writes
one on a Facebook group. “The
agency … is not responding to
‘The world
needs to help’ ...
surrogacy
coordinator
Yana Belozor
with her
daughter
my emails … I do not have direct
contact with the surrogate so I’m
unable to reach her. Not sure if
she’s OK. Would like to do anything
I can to help her and her daughter.”
Fabiana Marcela Quaini, an
Argentinian lawyer, knows of one
client who has lost contact with
their surrogate, who is due to give
birth next week. Kersch-Kibler and
her team are assisting surrogates
and parents contracted to other
agencies. “We’re trying to help
anyone in this situation,” she
says. “The parents are desperate
to contact the surrogates. One
surrogate got in touch to say that her
agency was trying to make her get
an abortion and she couldn’t get in
contact with the intended parents.”
Kersch-Kibler understands the
parents’ despair. All of the couples
using Ukrainian surrogates have
tried for years to have families.
“This is their last chance,” she says.
“For them, that child is precious
beyond all words. It’s hard for
them to cope with the pictures on
TV, knowing their child is in the
same country.” Some clients are
catastrophising. “I only sleep a few
hours a night,” says Jorge, a 48-year-
old lawyer from Buenos Aires. He
was in a WhatsApp chat with 60
people in the same situation, but
left the group. “The group was
making me really crazy,” he says.
“I can’t avoid watching the news,
but the group was too much.”
Jorge and his wife tried
unsuccessfully to have a baby for
a decade. Their surrogate, Katerina,
is four months pregnant. She is in
Kyiv with her husband and sons
and is unable to find a safe route
out of the city. “I can’t imagine
how a pregnant woman can live in
a war with explosions,” says Jorge.
“For this reason, I’d prefer for her
to come to Argentina, but I can’t
decide for her. She’s free. She’s
not a slave.”
Because Katerina doesn’t
speak Spanish and Jorge doesn’t
speak Ukrainian, they usually
communicate via the agency, but
Jorge is trying not to hassle staff
there. “I don’t want to disturb
them by calling all the time,” he
says. “They’re in a war and I have
respect. I know the men at the
agency have to take up guns to
defend their country.”
Dmytro Pugach, a 48-year-old
fertility lawyer from Kyiv who is
coordinating the evacuation of
5
These women
are carrying
British children.
The UK has a
responsibility
to protect them
dozens of surrogates, is one of these
men. “I have to combine work for
life and work for death,” he emails.
“I’m helping pregnant surrogates
to deliver safely, and fighting in the
territorial defence. My Kalashnikov
stands beside me as I type this.”
Surrogates are being allowed
to exit Ukraine with minimal
documentation. But this exodus
has significant legal ramifications.
Under Ukrainian law, intended
parents are automatically viewed
as the legal parents of children
born via surrogacy, but this does
not apply in the UK, Ireland or
much of Europe. “Some embassies
are friendly to surrogacy, but in
Austria and Germany surrogacy
is not permitted,” says Danchenko.
“Parents and surrogates need
documents that it’s impossible
to provide, as administrative
offices are closed.”
Parents don’t understand why
they can’t fly their babies home
without documents. “They are
aggressive,” says Danchenko.
“They cry. They say: ‘Give
me my baby.’ I ask about their
documents and they don’t care.
I’m a lawyer. What am I supposed
to do without documents? That
is human trafficking.”
Of course, not everyone can
leave. One of Pugach’s surrogates
is in a town that has been
blockaded by Russian forces.
She is trapped. Should she need
medical attention, her options may
be limited. Hospitals and clinics
have been attacked. A maternity
hospital in the city of Zhytomyr
was bombed on 1 March; a Kyiv
maternity hospital was hit the day
after. Yesterday, a maternity and
children’s ward at a hospital in
Mariupol was reportedly destroyed
by a Russian air strike. At the time
of publication, fatalities were not
confirmed, but unverified reports
indicated that children were
buried under the rubble.
It is a terrible situation for all
involved – and unlikely to be
resolved soon. “I pray for the
health of Katerina, her sons and
her family,” says Jorge. He can’t
stop thinking about the last time
he saw her, in Kyiv. She was
walking to a tram stop, holding
a box of chocolates. “I will always
remember that image,” Jorge says.
“Kyiv was beautiful and peaceful.
Now, on the news, I can’t believe
what I see.”
 •

6 The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022

A natural high
encourage behaviours that promote there are many sources: seeing a
survival. But they definitely are cute baby laughing, eating tasty

We all need not, says Breuning, “just to make

you happy about sitting around
food, and sex are all excellent
ways to light up the pleasure

some positivity contemplating the universe”.

Dopamine is often mentioned in
centres. Sadly,  most of these
come with built-in satiety – once
right now. Could terms of addictions, consumerism
and social media, but it is there to
we’ve eaten a certain amount
of cheese, it becomes less and
harnessing our alert us to seek basic necessities
such as food and a mate. “Think
less pleasing and we become
“full”, at least until we see the
brain chemicals about a monkey looking for
food,” says Breuning. “When
dessert menu and a new wave of
dopamine is triggered.
bring us the they see food in the distance,
dopamine is released, and that
But there is an easy way to
sustain the thrilling push-pull
cheer we need? gets their attention, releases
their reserve tank of energy, and
cycle of pleasure: “Music, and
also dance,” says Olivia Foster
Amy Fleming motivates them to step forward.
Each step toward the reward
Vander Elst, a musician turned
neuroscientist, who is doing a
finds out triggers more dopamine.”
Dopamine is part of pleasure,
PhD in salsa dancing at Aarhus
University in Denmark. “With both,
but it’s the anticipatory, excited, you get this constant renewal of
searching aspect. So apart from the liking phase. So you get these
staring at junk food ads, what are really long pleasure cycles. And
the healthy ways to get the buzz? the satiation phase is also quite
“Have a long-term goal, a short- weak.” It doesn’t matter if you
term goal, and a middle-term goal,” listen  to Let It Go repeatedly, or

L
the neurotransmitter dopamine, Breuning says. “So that you’re course – sweets, mindless internet a playlist of your favourite arias
and liking with the heavenly always stepping toward a reward, shopping, drugs and booze – but – the pleasure keeps coming.
feelings of cannabinoids and and you’re always stimulating it a Breuning advises just taking time A recent paper Foster Vander
opiates that our bodies produce little bit.” This will help, because to plan your entertainment. “You Elst co-authored states that the
when we get our desires. “dopamine doesn’t last, it’s not can enjoy yourself by researching positive effect of music is partly
Oxytocin’s reputation as the love designed to last. If you’re dying a list of things that you actually down to a constant anticipation
hormone stems largely from of thirst, as soon as you get water, like, to be ready when you of what’s coming next: “The
experiments with prairie voles then water doesn’t make you have a  tired moment.” ‘sweet anticipation’ stage of this
oretta nurturing their young, which happy any more.” She suggests It was the professor Kent pleasure cycle is both highly
Breuning grew up around a lot of showed oxytocin is what makes building a skill “that helps you Berridge who first identified motivating and pleasurable.”
unhappiness, but couldn’t figure social bonding so delightful. reach a distant dream. Maybe the pleasure system of wanting Foster Vander Elst is devising
out why. To try to find out, she In other words, these types of you only spend 10 minutes a day on and liking. The bliss of the liking ways to measure brain activity
avidly read up on psychology, studies may not qualify us to make that skill, but it continually sparks part of pleasure has, he says, during dancing. How is it, she
alongside raising two children detailed pronouncements on the that feeling that you’re getting “a much smaller and more fragile asks, that even when we’re
and working as a professor in cause and effect of any activity closer to the reward. Another one brain basis” than wanting – the exhausted, we can dance for
management at California State on any individual human’s brain would be planning an event like dopamine bit. “That’s part of why hours? “It’s an amazing thing that
University. “I thought that, if I chemicals, but they do offer a party, anything that gives you the intense pleasures in life are the exhaustion drops away as a
followed the research, it would useful dots we can join. something to look forward to, that less frequent and less sustained result of moving to the music.”
make everybody happy all the you have control over, that you can than intense desires.” Salsa has the added advantage of
time,” she says. “And then I saw Dopamine regularly invest effort in.” But even short-lived pleasure being a partner dance. “That links
that my students were not that We often refer to pleasures as There are zillions of unhealthy can put us on a more positive in with some very cool research
motivated, my kids were not rewards, because they evolved to options for short-term goals, of footing, so thank goodness that’s been done on dance and
that motivated, and the kids of
social science professors were
not that motivated. So I started
looking for the deeper roots of
our motivation and our emotions.”
She went on to write a book, Habits
of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your
Brain to Boost Your Serotonin,
There is an easy
Dopamine, Oxytocin and
Endorphin Levels.
way to sustain
Today, when the news seems
endlessly bleak, we all need an
the thrilling
extra blast of positivity. Can
harnessing our understanding of
push-pull cycle
brain chemicals – from dopamine of pleasure:
and endorphin to oxytocin and
serotonin – help? Breuning, along music and dance
with a number of scientists working
in the field, believe so.
Most of what we know about the
biological basis of our emotions
comes from research on animals.
Think of the lab rats who learned
to press certain levers to get
more sugar or cocaine and who
demonstrated the two-pronged
pleasure circuit of wanting and
liking. Wanting is associated with

The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022
synchrony generally, that it fosters
feelings of empathy and closeness
to other people,” she says.
You can get the same emotions
from merely watching aesthetically
pleasing movements (hello, Strictly).
We may not yet know precisely
what’s going on in the brain in
dance, but, says Foster Vander
Elst, “we know that moving in
synchrony raises pain thresholds”.
Oxytocin
This bring us back to the so-called
love hormone, oxytocin. Breuning
is worried we have unhelpful
idealised expectations of it.
“Animals seek a group when they
feel threatened. So you can let
down your guard because you’re
protected by others – an inherently
selfish feeling. A zebra can’t eat if
it’s constantly looking for a lion.
When it’s surrounded by others
then it can relax and eat.”
While bonding makes you feel
safe, Breuning says, “when you
have idealised notions about
social groups, then frankly
your social relations can end
up disappointing”. Instead she
advises us to think about trust
rather than social lives. “That trust
is reciprocal, so you have to offer
support in order to get support.” If
you’re feeling oxytocin-starved,
Breuning’s solution “is to build
ILLUSTRATIONS: ADAM HIGTON/THE GUARDIAN
your side of a bridge with a lot of
people. You can’t control when
they cross it, but you’ll be nicely
surprised.” Getting oxytocin this
way, she says, “is much better than
feeling like you have to follow the
herd every minute, which is what
your inner mammal thinks – it feels
threatened when you’re isolated.”
Serotonin
This is the neurotransmitter that
we often hear about in relation
•
to antidepressant drugs and the
high of MDMA. But its role in
mood is not well understood. We
make it from a substance called
tryptophan, which is found in
plenty of healthy foods, but there’s
no evidence that eating them will
boost serotonin levels or happiness.
We do know that the mysterious
universe of microbes that live in our
guts has been positively linked to
serotonin production (90% of our
serotonin is made in the gut), so
eating a microbiome-supportive
diet can help. Avoid high-sugar
and processed foods, and go
for a diverse, high-fibre, mostly
plant-based diet incorporating
fermented products such as tofu
and sauerkraut. There is plenty of
evidence that eating like this results
in less depression and anxiety.
Breuning links serotonin’s
glow to feeling like a winner.
“Mammals are very competitive
and hierarchical,” she says.
“They’re always looking for the
one-up position, because that
helps them spread their genes.
Everyone has this impulse, and
your mammal brain rewards you
If you are unable with serotonin when you gain the
one-up position.” But it doesn’t
to exercise, last, she says, so you can end up in a
never-ending needy cycle.
another route Her advice is to find ways to
put yourself up, without putting
to endorphin others down, by focusing on
your strengths. “But also,” she
heaven is says, “be philosophical and know
social laughter that we’re not designed to have
serotonin every minute.”
Ciara McCabe, professor of
neuroscience, psychopharmacology
and mental health at the University
of Reading, says it’s likely that
serotonin levels are relatively
fixed. “What we do know is
that if you engage in what you
consider subjectively rewarding,
pleasurable experiences, you will
probably release some of those
chemicals involved in enjoyment,
calmness or contentment.” And
if you make a habit of doing those
things – whether it’s playing with
your cat, winning at Monopoly or
canoeing – even the anticipation
and cues associated with them will
become pleasurable.
Endorphins
These are endogenous (meaning we
make them in our bodies) opioids
that flutter through us in fleeting
moments of intense pleasure, but
can also dull the pain of injury. They
are always trotted out as the reason
exercise makes us feel good, but in
fact exercise produces a veritable
cocktail of drugs along with other
physical and psychological benefits
– from a sense of achievement to
better cardiovascular health.
David Raichlen is an evolutionary
biologist at University of Southern
California whose current goal
is to discover why exercise is
rewarding to humans when most
animals evolved to preserve
physical exertion for when
necessary (running from a lion,
say). His hypothesis is that it
evolved 2m years ago, when we
swapped a life of foraging for
higher-octane hunter-gathering.
His research has shown that
when we exercise moderately
– perhaps a brisk walk in which
we get out of breath – we make
endocannabinoids. These are, says
Raichlen, “the body’s form of the
active ingredient in marijuana.
The main endocannabinoid
that seems to be associated with
exercise is called anandamide,
which is named after the
Sanskrit word ananda, meaning
7
bliss.” When you get this kind
of endocannabinoid activation,
he says, a couple of things can
happen. “One, you get that
analgesic effect, a kind of pain-
relief effect. And there’s also a
mild, rewarding sensation – not
like the high that you would get
from smoking marijuana, because
you’re not bathing your brain in
this chemical – being produced on
demand, likely in areas associated
with reward.” Rather than
euphoria, the result is a gentler
glow of wellbeing.
These chemicals are broken
down fairly quickly, but not before
they cheer us up. “We’re such a
weird species, because we have
this ability to think about how
we’re feeling,” says Raichlan.
“You get this shift in your mood
from physical activity, and then
that alters your mindset for the
rest of the day, even when that
chemical is gone.”
If an injury or health condition
means you can’t exercise as
much as you would like, PET
scanning has recently revealed
another route to endorphin
heaven: social laughter. So maybe
it is the time to get to a comedy
club or ring your funny friend.
A 2017 study by Finnish and
British researchers found that
social laughter “significantly
increased” endorphins.
Raichlen thinks we can all
benefit from understanding these
lifestyle connections to mood,
“because it means that we’re not
totally helpless. If there are actions
that people can take that are tried
and true and scientifically tested,
they can improve the way you feel.
I think it’s really important for
people to know that.”
 •

8 The Guardian

Arts Thursday 10 March 2022

Nominations
for Rent …
Andrew
Garfield and
Lin-Manuel
Miranda

‘We’re just
chilling, OK?’
… Will Smith
and Hadley
Freeman

‘So, Will, got ‘‘W

‘We’re
Wee’’rree llike
ike
ik
The lunch’s big
fashion trend is
showing your

your winning
brothers’
br
b ro
rot
otthe
hers
ers
rs’ … stomach …
with
with
wi th McKellen
McK cKel ellleen Kristen Stewart
in W
in Waiting
aiittiin
a ngg
ffor
fo
or GGodot
Go oddo ot

speech Peter Sarsgaard

written?’
and Maggie
Gyllenhaal

I
Miranda and Paul Thomas
Anderson stand in a cluster, talking
intensely. As I walk back to my seat,
Sipping Coppola film producer David Dinerstein
nominations this year ( best original
screenplay, best director and best
picture, all for Belfast), surely
making him a super-nominee. Is

chardonnay, comes up to me and asks, “Excuse

with Will Smith
and Kenneth am in a hotel ballroom
in Los Angeles, two floors below
Branagh hanging street level, the kind of venue I
associate with family barmitzvahs
on her every and work parties. But I am talking
to neither a cousin nor a colleague.
word, Hadley Instead, I am talking to Will Smith.
So, Will, I say, just about resisting
Freeman kicks breaking into “In west Philadelphia,
born and raised …” Have you been
back at the practising your Oscars speech since
you were 12?
gluten-free, very “No, not at all,” he begins, then
notices me writing his God-like
socially distanced words in my notebook. “Wait now,
this isn’t an interview! We’re just
Oscar nominees chilling, OK?”
OK, Will, I say. And so, the Fresh
luncheon Prince and I chill.
Well, for five seconds anyway,
until someone else comes along
demanding the sunbeam of his
attention. Just behind him, Javier
Bardem and Penélope Cruz whisper
and giggle to one another. Behind
them, Benedict Cumberbatch,
Andrew Garfield, Lin-Manuel
me, have you seen my director?” I
have, as it happens – it’s Questlove,
and he’s two tables away from us,
sitting next to Denzel Washington.
This is the Oscar nominees
luncheon, the official moment the
Oscars meat machine really grinds
into action. The usual reason for
the annual lunch is the big photo,
in which all the nominees are
photographed together, school
picture-style. But this year, the
Academy has decided that while
it’s now safe for more than 200
people to eat lunch next to one
another in a basement for four
hours, it’s not yet safe for them to
pose for a photo together. Instead,
this year, they will pose in socially
distanced batches of a dozen or so.
No one ever came to Hollywood for
sensible ideas.
Events kick off in what I guess
could be described as the foyer, but
is really little more than a carpeted
corridor next to an underground
car park. This is where the
nominees mill around before the
lunch itself. The first person I spot
is Kenneth Branagh, who has three
this the least glamorous film event
he’s ever been at? This would
“It’s pretty knockabout, isn’t it?
And it’s defiantly anti-anti-Covid,”
be a pretty cool
he says, looking at all the unmasked
people spraying canapés on one
club to join
another. “But this is a very nice
event because there are no prizes,
Lin-Manuel
so you can just say ‘hello’ and ‘well
done’ to people you admire. Plus,
Miranda
they mix everyone up so you’re sat
with so many new people.”
Branagh’s last point, about being
sat with people from other films,
comes up a lot when I talk to the
nominees, suggesting, perhaps, an
understandable exhaustion some
feel by the end of awards season,
biggest celebrity super-spreader
event in history. Simmons keeps his
after travelling around for months
with the people from their film.
mask on for the entire event.
Most people bring their
“The first time I came, I was sat
with an animator and a makeup
partner as their plus one –
Maggie Gyllenhaal ( best adapted
artist. It’s eclectic, which I like,”
says JK Simmons ( best supporting
screenplay, The Lost Daughter) is
accompanied by Peter Sarsgaard,
actor nominee for Being the who somehow actually looks good
Ricardos.) Not that he’s entirely in a bright yellow suit; young Kodi
thrilled about being here this Smit-McPhee ( best supporting
year: “I’m filled with Covid dread, actor, The Power of the Dog) grips
as usual, but other than that it’s the hand of his girlfriend, Rebecca
delightful,” he says, with a wary Phillipou, looking for all the world
look around what could be the as if they were en route to the prom.
 •

My best shot 9
The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022

news. Now here we are, drinking

Alfred Molina
and Benedict
Cumberbatch
But Lin-Manuel Miranda ( best
original song, Encanto) brings his
most excellent father, the political
strategist, Luis A Miranda Jr.
Are the two of them excited
about Lin-Manuel’s imminent
membership of the EGOT club, for
people who have won an Emmy, a
Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony?
Lin-Manuel winces: “You say
that like it’s a fait accompli! It hasn’t
happened yet, but it would be a
pretty cool club to join.”
I tell him that the Uber driver
who drove me to the lunch had
We Don’t Talk About Bruno on
the stereo, the ubiquitous song he
wrote for Encanto.
“My kids are really into that
song!” he says, looking genuinely
astonished.
Your kids and everyone else’s,
Lin, I say.
“And that makes me very happy,”
he grins.
Any discussion about winning
is the one big faux pas at this
lunch. For some, it’s because
it’s a potential jinx. For others,
it’s because, they insist, they’re
“just enjoying the ride” (Andrew
Garfield, best actor, tick tick…
BOOM!) Everyone is, of course,
ludicrously overdressed for a
Monday lunchtime, and the big
trend at this lunch is showing your
stomach, as modelled by Kristen
Stewart ( best actress, Spencer),
Coda’s Emilia Jones and Gyllenhaal.
Someone who is very much not
modelling this trend is Guillermo
del Toro (best picture, Nightmare
Alley), who is the nominee
everyone wants to talk to, and
he greets them all with an anti-
anti-Covid smooch on the cheek.
At last, we are ushered into
the ballroom, which is filled with
circular tables, each with chairs
for 10 or so people. Everyone is
assigned to a table and Gyllenhaal
and Sarsgaard are sat with Jessica
Chastain ( best actress, The Eyes
of Tammy Faye), Stewart is sat
a stone’s throw away from Billie
Eilish ( best original Song, No
Time to Die). I am seated back
PHOTOGRAPHS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
champagne while people are
running for their lives,” Morgan
says. In fact, we are drinking
Esther Anderson
Coppola chardonnay at this point
while waiters bring our three
course gluten-free meal.
In recent years, the Oscars
‘Bob Marley turned up in a bad mood, so to loosen him
have felt like an exercise in self- up, I got him to run on the beach. He loved to show off’
flagellation, with politically
charged acceptance speeches far
outnumbering the jokes. At first, it
looks like this lunch will maintain
the tradition when a slide appears
on the large screen at the front of
the room: “We gather to celebrate
your nomination on the ancestral
lands of the Tongva people.” But
perhaps it’s because the news is so
unremittingly terrible, or maybe it’s
that the Oscars have been leaching
viewers, but someone has decided
that people need laughs rather than
lectures. So we next get a short
satirical film from Saturday Night
Live’s Kate McKinnon about how
to accept awards, which is far too
funny to only be seen by 200-or-so
people.
Then the Oscars’ very
enthusiastic producer, Will Packer,
takes to the stage. “[After Covid],
we are all survivors. And the
people in this room are thrivers,”
he says solemnly. “We are part of
an industry that makes people feel
something. In that sense, you are
all essential!” This, unsurprisingly, In the autumn of 1972, I had just finished On the day of the shoot, Bob had had a
gets big applause. filming A Warm December with Sidney disagreement with Chris and was in a bad
Academy president David Poitier. I was in New York at a party hosted by mood. To loosen him up, I got him to run on
Rubin sums up the mood in his Island Records, and that’s where I first met the beach. He got very warm so he took his
speech, which begins with an Bob Marley. He and the Wailers had recently shirt off. All the while he was jogging, feeling
announcement that the Academy signed with the label and he was in the city free, I was getting shots of him.
“voices unconditional support for for promotional work. I wanted to photograph him in the light
the people of Ukraine. What a time. I was at a stage in my life where I was fed of Jamaica, showing the colour of our skin
OK, welcome to the great tradition up of repeating other people’s ideas and the way it should be
of celebrating the Oscars!” he says, voices as an actress. I wanted to find another The CV shown. I remember
and then thanks the 10 zillion way to express myself. I had been learning him saying, “Gosh,
sponsors. What a time … but as long the craft of photography through my dear Born: Jamaica, you’re taking many
as there are advertisers, the show friend Francine Winham, and I decided to 1943. pictures of me!” The
must go on. put aside my acting career to document Bob Trained: with camera loved him and
There are some notable Marley and the Wailers for their forthcoming photographer he loved to show off –
no-shows – most notably, The album Catch a Fire. My then partner, Chris Francine Winham. he photographed like
Lost Daughter’s Olivia Colman Blackwell – co-founder of Island – asked me Influences: ‘Hiro, a dream. By the time
and The Power of the Dog’s Jane to guide the group and help transform them Richard Avedon, he stopped running,
Campion, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse into international artists. Jerry Schatzberg, the evening sun had
Plemons. Despite that, when Alfred I travelled with Bob to Trinidad and Robert Freeman, fallen and reflected
Molina reads out all the nominees’ Tobago and Haiti soon afterwards. We began Henri Cartier- like burnt gold on the
names to call them up for the mini- to develop a very close relationship that Bresson, Man Ray.’ surface of the water.
group photos, each one getting involved us writing together, including the High point: ‘The I went in for a closeup,
enthusiastic applause, it takes so lyrics for Get Up, Stand Up. He was serious success of my album and that’s when he
long that Stewart turns around to about being an artist, and was desperate to pictures for Catch a clasped his hands.
me and asks, massaging her palms, get his voice out to the world. Fire and Burnin’’ To me, the photo
“Don’t your hands hurt?” They When we got back to Jamaica, I suggested Low point: ‘In 1974, is like a prayer, as if
do, but I don’t follow her lead in that we go to Hellshire Beach for the shoot. the Jamaican police Bob was saying: “I am
resolving the problem by smacking It’s a part of the island famed for its beautiful raided my home looking out at Babylon
the backs of my hands together. white sands, clear water and the Blue and studio, taking and I trust you.” The
If one were to predict winners Mountain in the backdrop. I wanted to show away my negatives, pose was completely
by which nominees get the biggest Bob as himself, a young artist coming out of including the Catch natural, but I knew as
applause in the room, a betting Jamaica, on his own terms. It was paramount a Fire cover image soon as he did it that
man would put money on Eilish, to demonstrate how important Rastafarian of Bob smoking a here lay the decisive
Questlove ( best documentary philosophy and its way of life were to him. big spliff. They were moment.
feature, Summer of Soul), I knew that Bob’s Covenant, as he called his never returned.’ I used a Nikon
Aunjanue Ellis ( best supporting “Rasta tam” (his cap of red, gold and green), Top tips: ‘Secure with a 200mm lens.
actress, King Richard) and, most was the connection. I sought to show that your copyright. I adore the grainy
of all, Will Smith ( best actor, King without the Rastafari tradition there was no Only work in quality that it gives
Richard). And Smith knows it, Bob Marley. photography if you a photo – I particularly

to back with Stewart and next to
the delightful Bob Morgan ( best
costume design, Dune) and his
partner, Philip Schurer, an actor.
This is Morgan’s first nomination
and, for the occasion, Schurer
accessorised his tux with a pin of
the Ukrainian flag.
“It was pretty surreal getting
ready for this while watching the
pumped with excitement as he jogs
up to the photographer, bumping
fists with Chastain. Looking at his
kingdom, he was finally there, to sit
on his throne as the Prince of Bel Air
(and Hollywood). Photos done, the
lunch finishes, and there is a rush
for the door, as everyone frantically
seeks out their car and driver to go
on to the next event.
Back then, Rastafari was not considered are p
passionate and dislike pictures to be
part of Jamaican culture, and people on the reallyy love it.’ completely flat. The
island were disenfranchised and ostracised image depicts the
for being Rastafarians. Having dreadlocks very essence of being
often prevented access to white-collar jobs. comfortable in one’s
I wanted Bob Marley and the Wailers to be own skin, and how
a catalyst for a change in the perception self-expression is
of Rastafarians both in Jamaica and born out of being
worldwide, and to associate the tradition true to self.
with the beauty of reggae. Interview by Ian Opolot
 •

10 The Guardian

TV and radio Thursday 10 March 2022

My Brilliant Friend
9pm, Sky Atlantic

Andy Warhol
with Jean-Michel
Basquiat in 1985
The quietly beautiful adaptation of
Elena Ferrante’s bestselling Neapolitan
novels reaches the third book of the
series. Now reflecting on their friendship
in 70s Italy, Lenù is a rising literary star
Review The Andy Warhol sanctuary at the avant garde end of the 60s Manhattan
art scene, and a wildly popular interpreter of commerce and engaged to a professor, while Lila
Diaries, Netflix and celebrity’s vulgar iconographies. He is an outsider
who craves mainstream acceptance, but whose art
has left her marriage and taken on a job
relies on standing outside it to see it clearly; a god of in a meat factory. But their lives continue
the underground art world whose obsession with the to turn in unexpected ways and their
surfaces of celebrity puts him at constant risk of being
Up close and dismissed as superficial.
The series’ central point is the extent to which these
roles change, as themes of friendship,
privilege, class, loyalty and success are
personal with tensions are created by Warhol’s sexuality, religion and
self-image. As a gay Catholic who hates his appearance
– “I’m just a freak. I can’t change it. I’m too unusual” –
intricately and thoughtfully unpacked.
Hollie Richardson

the artist who hid he is revealed as brittle and insecure in a personal life

defined by three key relationships: the series gives
over a whole episode each to Warhol’s lovers, Jed Crufts It’s a classic Apprentice
behind a facade Johnson and Jon Gould, and to his friend and
collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat.
3pm, Channel 4
Agility, heelwork,
setup – designed from the
start to fail spectacularly
The Johnson story is the most rewarding, beginning obedience, flyball and and see the contestants
in 1967 when he delivers a package to the building that is generally being very inevitably fumble.
★★★★☆ about to become the second iteration of the Factory and, cute – these are the things Henry Wong
deemed too handsome to work as a courier, is hired on putting the world’s most
Jack Seale the spot. His relationship with Warhol lasts for 12 years
and has the classic contours of a doomed love between a
competitive pooches to
the test. Crufts regular
Amol Rajan Interviews
Nile Rodgers
volatile creative and the gentle companion who grounds Clare Balding presents 9pm, BBC Two
them: as Warhol questions his own relevance in the 70s, from day one, with a The Chic songwriter
Johnson flourishes as an interior designer. Eventually highlights show at 8pm and guitarist is a prolific
Johnson leaves when Warhol’s interest in hardcore sex and continued coverage giver of interviews, but

W
hat were they really like? In a films and Studio 54 excess become unbearable. until Sunday when best in the story of his band’s
biography of an artist, answering Warhol almost immediately transfers his affection to show is chosen. HR success and his work
that question can be either an overt Gould, a strapping, preppy movie executive whose posh with Madonna, David
mission or a rumbling subtext. New England background and ability to pass for straight Dragons’ Den Bowie, Daft Punk and
The Andy Warhol Diaries, Andrew make him an avatar for many of the things Warhol 8pm, BBC One others perhaps can’t be
Rossi’s exhaustive six-parter based craves. Clearly Gould’s importance to Warhol runs Cash injection or brash told too many times.
on Warhol’s own journal, chooses the former to an deeper than this and their love is real, but the contributor rejection? A fresh intake This  hour-long chat also
occasionally startling degree, but the work has already who can offer intimate insights about the relationship of moguls-in-waiting takes in music industry
been chewed up and spat out a million times. Here is a and its influence on Warhol’s work apparently does not
And hope their optimistic racism and the death of
long look at why a fallible human made it. exist. At this point, the show’s long running time and
another business plans survive Rodgers’ mother in 2020.
thing
The show is based on Warhol’s own words, spoken to diligent treatment of the men in Warhol’s life as the trial by fire that Jack Seale
and transcribed by his friend Pat Hackett on a daily basis subjects in their own right start to feel indulgent. is pitching to the
between 1976 and Warhol’s death in 1987, then published There’s no such problem with the instalment on Uncle, Nick unsentimental Dragons. Extraordinary Escapes
as a 1,200-page brick of intrigue in 1989. Episode one Basquiat, whose joint canvases with Warhol revitalise Helm’s rude On the docket tonight: With Sandi Toksvig
begins with an instruction to us not to take Warhol’s the older man’s creativity in the early 80s. Their flirty but heartfelt a diverting puzzle game, 9pm, Channel 4
version of events on trust, which the programme symbiosis, where who’s piggybacking on whose sitcom about chocolate treats and an Another day, another
precludes in any case via its roster of contributors: as reputation – if indeed anyone is – remains disputed, an unsuitable ingenious office furniture show about Cornwall.
well as Warhol museum curators, other artists and raises hard questions about whether Warhol’s affinity substitute dad, concept that can only But let’s not judge
simpatico cultural figures such as Jerry Hall and John with people of colour veers into exploitation. But the is well worth be described as “hot”. too quickly. Spending
Waters, we hear from Warhol’s professional confidants appreciation of their joint art is thrilling, bolstered by a rerun on Graeme Virtue the day with Sandi
and the loved ones of those closest to him. A man who archive footage that is dreamily evocative of a century BritBox Toksvig and her travel
strove to be unknowable becomes, partly by his own that feels inescapably more decadent, glamorous and The Apprentice companion Sue Johnston
hand but mainly via the observations of others, known. ripe with potential than our own. 9pm, BBC One at an alpaca farm sounds
The result is an intensified version of an old story: The last episode delivers an illuminating, heartfelt This week, our aspiring like the therapy we all
that of the artist as an interested alien, a spectator who reappraisal of Warhol’s maligned final paintings, seeing business moguls have to need in these troubled
envies the players while better understanding the them as his response to the Aids epidemic. Having lost launch a baby food brand. times. And that’s not
game. Andrew Warhola, the son of Austro-Hungarian Gould to Aids, Warhol is not at all the disinterested Half the contestants head all they get up to in
immigrants from a poor part of conservative Pittsburgh, voyeur suggested by his public facade. That was a false to the kitchen to work Cornwall: expect a jolly
Pennsylvania, relocates to New York and reinvents impression all along: this series shows that for Warhol, out flavour notes, while game of boules and lots
himself as both the boss of the Factory, a queer it was always personal. the rest take on branding. of lovely chatter, too. HR
 •
The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022 11

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 •

TODAY’S PET CORNER ANSWER: DOGMEAT

12
Puzzles
The Guardian
Thursday 10 March 2022

Yesterday’s Quick crossword no 16,174

solutions 1 2 3 4 5 6

Wordsearch Across Down 7 8

1 Railway track less wide than the 2 Donkey (3)
standard 56.5 inches (6,5) 3 Broadcast (7) 9 10
9 Altruistic (9) 4 Smelly (informal) (6)
10 Chopper (3) 5 For one specific purpose (2,3)
11 Dig (5) 6 One of the 13 historic counties of
13 Start of play in ice hockey (4-3) Wales, split into three in 1972 (9)
11 12 13
14 Window dressing – a decaf (anag) 7 Not deep (11)
(6) 8 Not deep (11)
15 Small measure of alcohol (6) 12 Tropical tree with blue trumpet-
18 Surgical instrument – true etc shaped flowers (9)
(anag) (7) 16 Rock formation that appears above 14 15 16
20 Key principle or assumption (5) the surface of the surrounding land
21 Barley bristle (3) (7)
17
22 Man-made lake (9) 17 More impenetrable (6)
24 It indicates where to get a haircut 19 Beat rhythmically (5)
Solution no 16,173 18 19 20
(7,4) 23 Night bird (3)
P R O S P E R S B D
O I U E S Q U I R E
M I L K S O P U K F
M E I A V A R I C E
E N R O L I R N C 21 22 23
A L A R C E N I S T
S A B I
T A R A N T U L A G
O U I R S I G H T
B E E RM U G H L R 24
A F O E D I F I C E
G A U G U I N N D W
O L S T I G R E S S
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.
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Sudoku no 5,569

Sudoku no 5,570 Suguru Wordsearch

Hard. Fill the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 Fill the grid so that each square Can you find 14 words associated
box contains the numbers 1-9. Printable version at in an outlined block contains a with restaurants in the grid? Words
theguardian.com/sudoku digit. A block of 2 squares contains can run forwards, backwards,
the digits 1 and 2, a block of three vertically or diagonally, but always
squares contains the digits 1, 2 and in a straight, unbroken line.
3, and so on. No same digit appears
in neighbouring squares, not even
diagonally.
Word wheel
ALIENATED

Suguru

Word wheel Pet corner

Find as many words as What is the name of the stray dog
possible using the letters that joins players throughout the
in the wheel. Each must Fallout video game series?
use the central letter a. Washington
and at least two others. b. Roach
Letters may be used only c. Gibson
once. You may not use d. Dogmeat
plurals, foreign words or Answer top right
proper nouns. There is at
least one nine-letter word
to be found. TARGET:
Excellent-33. Good-28.
Average-20.*