daily newspaper of the year
Friday May 17 2024 | thetimes.co.uk | No 74411
Toyboys v older men?
No contest
Relief for homeowners as big lenders reduce mortgage rates
Rachel Mortimer
Homeowners will have cheaper mort-
gages after three high street lenders cut
rates on more than 100 deals, ending
weeks of increases.
Barclays, HSBC and TSB are all set to
reduce fixed-rate deals, saving house-
holds hundreds of pounds a year.
Brokers are confident that the cuts
Bed-blocker
crisis means
extra NHS
cash wasted
Bosses take some of blame for stranded patients
Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Hospitals are struggling to treat more
people despite increased funding and
extra staff because thousands more
patients are stranded on wards without
anywhere to be discharged, an internal
NHS review has concluded.
The most comprehensive internal
study of NHS efficiency has caused
health chiefs to accept that they have a
problem, while promising to improve.
However, NHS bosses also believe
that about half of the productivity
problem is beyond their control. They
say that the teetering social care system
makes it far harder for staff to free up
beds, that an older, sicker population
requires more care and that strikes
have delayed hundreds of thousands of
procedures.
Rishi Sunak has been pressing the
NHS to improve its productivity as
figures show that it is performing barely
more routine treatments than before
the pandemic, despite a £20 billion
increase in funding and about 15 per
cent more doctors and nurses.
Last year the NHS opened its inter-
nal review after initially downplaying
concerns as a measurement issue.
Now Julian Kelly, finance director for
NHS England, has acknowledged that
productivity “is still lower than it was
pre-pandemic”.
About a third of the apparent drop in
productivity is attributable to statistics
failing to capture improvements such
will spur other lenders to follow suit.
Hina Bhudia, of Knight Frank Finance,
said: “HSBC already had many of the
cheapest deals on the high street, so this
is quite a statement of intent. We’ll have
to wait and see, but I’d be surprised if we
don’t see more lenders cut rates.”
Barclays will reduce its fixed rates on
purchase and remortgage deals by up to
0.45 percentage points today. It will cut
as sending more patients home on the
day of their arrival, according to the
review, but even after adjusting for this,
hospitals are 11 per cent less productive
than before the pandemic began.
An increase in delayed discharges
from hospital has been identified as a
key problem as staff have lost focus on
sending people home quickly. The
number of people stuck in hospital for
more than three weeks is 15 per cent
higher than before Covid.
A source said: “Length of stay is one
of the biggest single issues [behind
falling productivity], particularly
emergency patients who are stuck in
hospital for longer. Some of it is because
people are now sicker and frailer, but
there are definitely more delays.
“There are things the NHS can do
about that in terms of improving
processes and every single trust and
[care board] is trying to get back to the
levels seen pre-pandemic.”
Although NHS staff numbers are up,
this is driven by inexperienced junior
staff, and older, more knowledgeable
doctors and nurses have left the service.
Bosses believe that this has harmed
productivity and are planning a train-
ing and management blitz to help
junior staff. They have also promised a
host of other improvements, including
modernising computer systems.
However, the source said the review
had concluded that about half of the
productivity gap was “outside the
£2.80 £2.00 to subscribers
(based on a 7 Day Print and Digital Subscription)
How to
revamp
your home
Katie Glass, 43
Times2
on a budget
Bricks&Mortar
the rate on one of its five-year fixes landlords. TSB has cut rates on some of The average two-year fixed rate is
from 4.77 per cent to 4.32 per cent for its two and five-year deals. 5.92 per cent and the average five-year
borrowers remortgaging with a 40 per Lenders increased costs last month deal is priced at 5.49 per cent, according
cent deposit. For a borrower with a and early this month after forecasts of to the analyst Moneyfacts.
£200,000 loan over a 25-year term this an interest rate cut by the Bank of About 800,000 households will come
would reduce the monthly payment England were pushed back. When the off fixed-rate deals and on to higher
from £1,143 to £1,092. Bank held borrowing costs at a 16-year rates before November, according to
HSBC will reduce interest rates on high of 5.25 per cent last week, it sig- analysis by the Liberal Democrats and
more than 100 of its deals fixed at two, nalled that a rate cut may come as soon the House of Commons library.
five and ten years for homeowners and as next month if inflation keeps falling.
Royal baby boom Queen Elizabeth cradling Prince Edward, Princess Margaret with her daughter Sarah, Princess Alexandra
with James Ogilvy and the Duchess of Kent with her child Helen, photographed in 1964 by the Earl of Snowdon, Margaret’s
husband. The previously unseen photograph is part of an exhibition at Buckingham Palace, from today.
King ‘is getting better but needs to behave’
Kate Mansey carried out an investiture at Windsor, Ascot and Trooping the Colour, as well
attended a garden party at Buckingham as the 80th D-Day anniversary com-
The Queen said yesterday that the Palace and a service at St Paul’s Cathe- memorations next month. On Monday
King was “getting better”, before dral, and unveiled a portrait of himself. he joins Camilla at the Chelsea Flower
sneaking in a telling caveat: “Well, he The King returned to frontline public Show after it was announced that he
would be if he behaved himself.” duties this month after his doctors were will be patron of the Royal Horticultur-
Camilla has made no secret of her “sufficiently pleased” with his progress. al Society, taking over from his mother.
view that the King should slow down Camilla, 76, told guests at a garden
after his cancer diagnosis this year. party at Lamb House in Rye, East
Although palace aides have said Sussex, yesterday that her husband was
Charles, 75, will not have a full summer “quite cross” that he could not attend
schedule of engagements, he has had a because he was a fan of EF Benson, the
busy diary this week. On Monday he writer who once lived at the property.
handed over his colonelcy of the Army
Air Corps to the Prince of Wales. He has
The King shows no sign of slowing
down. He is expected to attend Royal
y(7HB7E2*OTSNPQ( |||+$!"'
2 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
News
Today’s highlights Only Tories can be trusted to
8.30am
11am
Peter Kyle, shadow science secretary
Matt Chorley speaks to former MP Gyles
Brandreth, right, about what it’s like in a
cut taxes, claims chancellor
government heading for electoral oblivion
6.15pm The Thick of It with Jonathan Yeo, Steven Swinford Political Editor
portrait artist for the King
6.35pm The Ladder with Dame Jo Da Silva, Jeremy Hunt will say today that the tax
disaster relief specialist rises the government has implemented
7.30pm Alexis Conran live from The Sunday were “necessary” and that only his
Times Wine Club Festival at Kensington party can be trusted to lower them after
the election.
The tax burden is on course to reach
37 per cent of national income, the
DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APP
highest level since the Second World
War, after a series of increases under
the Tories.
In a speech in central London, the
T O D AY ’ S E D I T I O N chancellor will say that the rises were
needed to fund the furlough scheme
during the pandemic and shield people
from soaring energy bills after Russia
NEWS SPORT TIMES2 invaded Ukraine.
He will insist that under a Tory gov-
ernment, “taxes will go down” and will
accuse Rachel Reeves, the shadow
chancellor, of planning to raise them.
Hunt will restate his ambition to
scrap national insurance, which Labour
has said amounts to an unfunded
£46 billion pledge.
The chancellor will attempt to tackle
head-on Labour’s criticism of the rising
PYRAMID RIDDLE UNREFORMED HOODIE ROMEO tax burden under the Conservatives, in
an effort to shift the debate. While the
A lost branch of the Gianni Infantino, the Tom Holland does Tories cut national insurance by 4p in
Nile is revealed in Fifa president, rolls a totally teenage
satellite images back his changes Shakespeare
PAGE 14 PAGE 62 PAGES 4-5
Labour denies green energy ‘Just 20’ will
be on first
415 days since Wall Street Journal
reporter Evan Gershkovich
was detained in Russia
#FreeEvan
scheme could cost £82bn
Aubrey Allegretti
Chief Political Correspondent
Labour has distanced itself from com-
COMMENT 21 WORLD 26 SPORT 56 ments by one of its shadow ministers,
LETTERS 24 BUSINESS 31 CROSSWORD 66 who suggested that a green energy
LEADING ARTICLES 25 REGISTER 49 TV & RADIO TIMES2 scheme could cost as much as £82 bil-
lion over the next decade.
Steve Reed, the shadow environment
Why so many women secretary, appeared open to the signifi-
cant sum being spent to scale up Great
have traumatic births British Energy.
The Labour has pledged to create a pub-
Story An inquiry has called for a
transformation of maternity
care, exposing a system where
licly owned clean power company,
arguing that it would reduce consum-
ers’ bills and boost Britain’s energy
security by building greater resilience
poor care is “all too frequently against price shocks from imports.
tolerated”. Hannah Barnes talks Sir Keir Starmer committed Labour
to Manveen Rana about the to the plan in a speech in Essex yester-
day, hailing it as a way to “harness clean
birth that left her traumatised British power” and an investment in the
Available on the Times Radio app or future. About £8.3 billion has been ear-
wherever you get your podcasts marked for the project over the course
of five years.
However, Reed was pressed on sug-
gestions from the Trades Union Con-
OFFER gress (TUC) that the true scale of
investment needed was between
Save up to 30% with a subscription to £61 billion and £82 billion over ten
The Times and The Sunday Times years. Asked on LBC hours after Starm-
er’s speech if such a significant level of
THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE
THE WEATHER continued from page 1
NHS admits productivity failures
NHS’s control: industrial action, social
22 care, rising [sickness] of patients”.
Strikes alone are thought to account
21
for a third of the fall in productivity.
19 7 Councils contending with a budget
crisis are struggling to help frail elderly
people, making it harder for NHS staff
21
to send them home. “To finally solve
19
20
the problem there needs to be a more
21 sustainable position for social care,” the
21 source said.
11 On Tuesday the former prime
minister Theresa May said that social
care had “got to be addressed” as she
Most of the country will enjoy sunny warned that the middle classes would
spells with the chance of a few have to pay more for their care in old
heavy showers. age. May lost her Commons majority
the autumn statement and spring bud-
get, this has been dwarfed by the impact
of so-called stealth taxes — freezes in
the thresholds for income tax — which
will drag millions of people into higher
bands as their incomes rise.
Hunt will say: “Labour likes to criti-
cise tax rises this parliament, thinking
people don’t know why they have gone
up — the furlough scheme, the energy
price guarantee and billions of pounds
of cost of living support, policies Labour
themselves supported. Which is why it
is playground politics to use those tax
rises to distract debate from the biggest
divide in British politics — which is
what happens next.
“Conservatives recognise that whilst
those tax rises may have been neces-
sary, they should not be permanent. La-
bour do not.” He will say the Tories are
“prepared to do the hard work” to bring
down taxes “because we know doing so
will lead to more growth”. He will stress
that the Tories’ “ultimate aim” is to con-
tinue cutting national insurance until it
is eliminated, but only “when it is
affordable to do so”.
However, Hunt will claim that La-
bour will raise taxes if it wins. “Taxes will
go up under any future Labour govern-
investment could be needed, Reed said:
“It may well.” He did not specify whe-
ther the sum was based on public or
private investment, or a mixture of
both. Reed added that for every £1 of
taxpayers’ money invested, Labour
expected a further £3 would be com-
mitted by private investors.
However, Labour intervened to say
his comment was wrong. A party
spokesman said: “Steve misspoke. The
cost of GB Energy is £8.3 billion, fully
funded by our windfall tax on the oil
and gas giants making record profits at
the expense of the British people.”
Richard Holden, the Conservative
Party chairman, said Reed “accepted
that figure from the TUC it could cost
£82 billion to create GB Energy”. He
added that it showed Labour did not
have a “clear plan”.
Labour has sought to “bomb-proof”
its policies by only committing to
spending that it says is fully costed. The
money for GB Energy is said to come
from levying a “proper” windfall tax on
oil and gas giants. However, the party
has faced calls to increase the amount
of money allocated to set up GB
Energy. In February the Common
Wealth think tank said there should be
an initial injection of £30 billion.
after her social care policy was called a
“dementia tax” in the 2017 election
campaign, but she insisted that the
“assumption that government is always
going to pay” had to be challenged.
NHS bosses also argue that ministers
must address a £12 billion maintenance
backlog. The source said: “There is a
productivity hit to having operating
theatres that are being closed because
the roof is leaking.”
However, they accept that they must
show they are addressing issues before
seeking more money. They pointed to a
fall of £500 million in the spend on
agency staff, and to an increase in
diagnostic tests and GP appointments.
A government source welcomed the
findings, saying: “If you’re any organi-
sation and your staff is up by 15 to 20 per
ment as sure as night follows day,” he
will say. “Taxes will go down under a
Conservative government because we
will do the hard work necessary to keep
our economy competitive.”
Economists have said that the eco-
nomy is in such a dire state that who-
ever wins the general election will need
to either raise taxes or cut public spend-
ing to meet fiscal rules.
Yesterday Sir Keir Starmer refused to
rule out tax rises. Asked whether he
would repeat Tony Blair’s pledge not to
raise income tax, he told Robert Peston
on ITV: “After the last 14 years, where
we’ve now got a higher tax take than
we’ve had in our entire history, I think
the last thing anybody wants is more
tax rises. And I actually think that if you
look at the levers that a government
can pull, I know that traditionally La-
bour may have gone for the tax lever,
but that isn’t the way I operate. I want to
go for the growth lever.
“There there are things we can do
when it comes to planning that ... work-
ing with businesses, forming the part-
nerships that we need, so we can get
that growth going very, very quickly.”
Rwanda flight
Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor
The Rwanda scheme has been widened
to include all failed asylum seekers
because of “rising panic” that the Home
Office will not manage to get more than
20 migrants on the first flights, govern-
ment sources have said.
This week James Cleverly, the home
secretary, said that the UK and Rwanda
had agreed to broaden the criteria to in-
clude anyone who had ever been re-
jected for asylum in the UK. Previously
it covered migrants who have arrived
since January 2021.
A Home Office source said that there
was concern that the high rate of attri-
tion due to legal challenges would re-
duce the number of migrants on the
first flight by so much that there would
be no more than 20 on board.
It is also thought that including asy-
lum seekers who have had their claims
comprehensively rejected and whose
claims have gone through several ap-
peals will reduce the threat of legal
challenges scuppering their removal.
The Home Office said: “We do not re-
cognise these claims and they do not re-
flect our current operational planning.”
cent and you are not doing any more
with it, you’ve got to confront that.”
However, they warned against using
wider problems as an excuse, saying:
“Social care is definitely an element of
this. But the NHS would need to make
sure it’s done everything within its gift
before making those wider arguments
about where else the problem is.”
Dr Layla McCay, of the NHS Confed-
eration, said: “Health leaders recognise
they have an important role to make
the best of the resources they are
given.” However, she said that improv-
ing productivity would “forever be a
challenge if the government does not
wake up to the scale of the population’s
health problems”.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Some of the cast of Megalopolis, which was written, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola, centre with hat and cane, at the Cannes Film Festival. Adam Driver, below, plays an architect in the film
Coppola’s epic of
hot air and waffle
is a megaflopolis
Film Kevin Maher
Megalopolis
Cannes Film Festival
HIIII
Forty years in the making,
$120 million of his money, and
Francis Ford Coppola finally delivers
this head-wrecking abomination.
Yes, he changed cinema with The
£22m auction is surreal turnaround for forgotten British artist
Kieran Gair
In the space of just ten minutes, the
biography of Britain’s “forgotten” surre-
alist, Leonora Carrington, was rewrit-
ten by an Argentinian billionaire.
With the thud of the auctioneer’s
hammer, Carrington, who died in 2011
aged 94, became the most valuable
British-born female artist at auction.
“I was the underbidder 30 years ago,”
said Eduardo F Costantini, the win-
ning bidder and founder of the Museum
of Latin American Art. “I didn’t want to
miss it this time.” He bought Carring-
ton’s Les Distractions de Dagobert, a sur-
realist fantasy completed in 1945, for
£22 million after a fierce duel at Sothe-
by’s in New York on Wednesday night.
Carrington — whose colourful life
included several expulsions from
school, family estrangement and a stay
at a psychiatric hospital — is now the
fourth highest-selling surrealist of all
time and the fifth highest-selling
female artist of any era, Sotheby’s said.
She was routinely described as for-
gotten, overlooked or neglected, her tal-
ent overshadowed by her relationship
with the artist Max Ernst. Carrington,
Godfather, and yes, it’s inspiring to
witness an 85-year-old film-maker
working on ostensibly epic material,
but also, well, no. This is 138
stultifying minutes of ill-conceived
themes, half-finished scenes,
nails-along-the-blackboard
performances, word-salad dialogue
and ugly visuals all seemingly in
search of a story that isn’t there.
In its place, instead, is a bizarre
version of exposition overload that
mostly features Adam Driver in a
Madchester haircut as Cesar Catilina,
however, has been the subject of
renewed interest in recent years as
audiences seek to re-evaluate female
surrealists. Widely recognised as the de-
fining masterpiece of her career, Les Dis-
tractions de Dagobert is “one of the most
a pontificating bore who likes
discussing the merits of city planning
and human creativity.
Catilina is the chairman of the
Design Authority in a near-future
New York that has been awkwardly
renamed New Rome and given a
lethargic semi-classical makeover.
Here the locals read “Tempus”
magazine (for Time) and the women
are conveniently forced to wear
transparent togas (the men still do
suits, natch), but otherwise it’s
basically New York.
The painting, Les
Distractions de
Dagobert, by the
Lancashire-born
artist Leonora
Carrington, is
considered one
of her greatest
admired works in the history of surreal-
ism” and “an unparalleled masterpiece
of Latin American art”, Costantini
said. He added: “This masterpiece will
be part of a collection where, amongst
others, two important works by Reme-
For instance, Catilina plans his
huge city-wide reforms from an office
in the Chrysler Building, and there
becomes an enemy target for the evil
banker Hamilton Crassus (Jon Voight)
and the resentful mayor Franklyn
Cicero (yep, even the names become
wearisome).
Catilina, we learn, has also invented
a new building material called
Megalon that is glowy and yellow and
promises to revolutionise something
about something that’s never fully
explained. But it doesn’t seem to
Women of worth
6 Louise Bourgeois’s Spider became
the most expensive sculpture by a
contemporary female artist, selling
for $32 million in 2019.
6 Jenny Saville’s works are the most
expensive at auction for a female
painter. In 2018 her oil painting
Propped sold for $12.4 million.
6 Julie Mehretu broke the record for
the highest price for any work by an
African-born artist when Walkers
With the Dawn and Morning fetched
$10.7 million last November.
6 Lee Bontecou’s collage-like work
Untitled, from 1959-60, sold for
$9.1 million in November 2021.
6 La Valse (The Waltz) by Camille
Claudel sold in 2013 for £6.6 million.
Source: Barnebys auction house
dios Varo and another record-breaking
Frida Kahlo are also found.”
The sale exceeded Carrington’s pre-
vious record of £2.6 million, set in the
auction house in 2022. The unknown
seller bought her masterpiece in 1995
3
News
matter because — look — there’s Shia
LaBeouf, completely off the leash, and
seemingly acting in his own movie as
a Judas Priest groupie called Clodio
Pulcher. He’s about to be investigated
by Dustin Hoffman’s corporate fixer
Nush Berman until Hoffman
inexplicably disappears from the film.
Then there’s Laurence Fishburne,
effectively playing Catilina’s wise
black butler, which is not a great look.
Or there’s Aubrey Plaza miscast in
one of only two sizeable female roles,
playing a vampy seductress called
Wow Platinum (I know, stop!), who
seems to have emerged directly from
a raunchy Sharon Stone thriller.
The other female role is the
idealistic Julia Cicero, played by the
British actress Nathalie Emmanuel at
her most bamboozled.
Julia’s tasks as a character include
falling for Catilina’s genius, drooling
over the size of his Megalon, and
eventually succumbing to one of the
worst, creepiest kisses in screen
history. This is not a great movie for
women.
It’s not, in fairness, a great movie
for men either, or human beings in
general. It’s all hot air and waffle held
together, barely, by film-making at its
most threadbare.
In cinemas later this year
for $475,500 ($974,500 today). The
Lancashire-born artist created the
work at 28, soon after she moved to
Mexico as part of a wave of surrealist
artists who emigrated to the Americas
after the Second World War. Painted in
1945, the psychedelic scenes are
inspired by the life of Frankish ruler
Dagobert, who lived in the 7th century.
It shows a variety of moments includ-
ing volcanoes, a lake of fire engulfing an
inverted idol and a watery world in
which a giant with a double animal
head holds a human-faced puffer fish.
“It’s got very complex imagery, all
those different vignettes,” said Emma-
nuel Di Donna, an art dealer who
included it in Surrealism in Mexico, a
2019 exhibition at his Manhattan gal-
lery. “It’s one of her great paintings.”
Gabriel Weisz Carrington, her son
and a professor of comparative litera-
ture, said: “Leonora studied with great
care and attention the northern Renais-
sance painters and the Quattrocento.
Les Distractions de Dagobert combines
these influences in an extraordinary ex-
ploration of objects and textures, con-
juring chromatic fire and illuminating
our inner space in a fiery meditation.”
4 S1
News
Reddy for action
Air Vice-Marshal
Mark Flewin
visited the
Red Arrows on
Exercise
Springhawk in
Greece, a training
phase before the
display season,
to see the new
choreography.
He awarded the
Royal Air Force
Aerobatic Team,
as it is officially
known, Public
Display Authority
for 2024.
The Red Arrows
team consists of
11 pilots, nine of
whom fly in the
display, and more
than 100 support
personnel. The
team is based at
RAF Waddington
in Lincolnshire.
Universities ‘must change or die’ as
student numbers fall and debts rise
Nicola Woolcock Education Editor
More universities are at risk of falling
into debt and some need to make dras-
tic changes to avoid closure, the higher
education watchdog said yesterday.
A report by the Office for Students
(OfS) says universities are too reliant
on international students and too opti-
mistic about income from student
growth, in the face of falling numbers.
The domestic tuition fee of £9,250 a
year has been frozen since 2017 and
many institutions are reporting a drop
in overseas students, who pay more.
The annual review of the sector’s
financial sustainability found a decline
in performance in 2022-23. It reported
lower surpluses, cash flow and net li-
quidity, with a “significantly higher”
number of universities expected to fall
into deficit in the coming years. How-
ever, it said there was evidence of some
adjusting to respond to the challenges.
It says: “Uncertainty about the ability
Gaza protest hits Cambridge graduation ceremonies
Seren Hughes
Cambridge University students will
have their graduation ceremony
moved from the building where they
have taken place since the 18th century
because of pro-Palestinian protests.
Last night protesters with the Cam-
bridge for Palestine group, which runs
the protest encampment, left the Sen-
ate House lawn where ceremonies were
due to take place today and tomorrow,
saying the university had “committed
to recruit significant numbers of extra
students means that there is significant
risk that the actual financial challenges
facing the sector in the short, medium
and long term are greater than provid-
ers are forecasting.”
The report highlights key risks which
include a continuing decline in the real-
term value of income from UK under-
graduates and economic pressures on
operating costs. Another concern is the
recent apparent reduction in applica-
tions after years of strong growth, espe-
cially from foreign students, it says.
The report says research-intensive
universities recruit a lot of overseas stu-
dents, particularly from China, and of-
ten on one-year postgraduate-taught
master’s courses. They have high staff
and pension costs. “This means that
they could be exposed to a recruitment
shock and changes in pension contri-
butions. They often have large estates
that can be costly to maintain and de-
velop and may face big investment
to negotiate with us for divestment
from Israel”. The protesters took their
tents but flags and banners were left
behind.
The “victory rally” began outside
Senate House yesterday evening and
moved to the main encampment at
King’s College. Husam Zomlot, the Pal-
estinian ambassador to the UK, gave a
speech at the rally.
Yesterday the university said it had
taken the “very difficult decision” to
move the ceremonies to an undisclosed
needs. However, these providers also
often have healthy cash reserves, con-
siderable asset bases, capacity to bor-
row if needed and a strong competitive
position. This means they would be in a
good position to weather multiple risks,
including a reduction in recruitment
from a particular source.”
Smaller and newer universities were
“less likely to have accumulated finan-
cial resilience, or have as many assets
they could sell or borrow against to
support their finances in the face of
financial challenges”, it added.
Pressures could lead more to try to
increase recruitment of overseas stu-
dents, “but there are significant barriers
to entry and the market is already high-
ly competitive”. Others could close
courses that are less financially sustain-
able or pursue strategic mergers.
Universities have forecast total stu-
dent numbers, across all levels of study,
to increase by 17.5 per cent in the period
between 2021-22 and 2025-26. The
“alternative location that is fitting of
the occasion” because of the protests.
It is not known whether graduations
will return to Senate House now that
the protesters have left. The university
has been approached for comment.
On social media Cambridge for Pal-
estine said the university had met “a
number” of their preconditions and
that the move was “a step towards dis-
tancing our university from genocide”.
The camp was set up last week out-
side King’s College in co-ordination
number of home and EU applicants
through Ucas fell by 3.1 per cent and
2.3 per cent respectively between Janu-
ary 2022 and 2023. Non-EU applicants
increased by 4.3 per cent but most over-
seas candidates do not apply through
the admissions service.
Susan Lapworth, chief executive of
the OfS, said the reasonable worst-case
scenario, which assumes a significant
reduction in international student
numbers and no cost-cutting activity,
would leave more than 80 per cent of
institutions in deficit.
The Russell Group of universities
partially blamed the threat to finances
on government rhetoric deterring
international students.
Dr Tim Bradshaw, its chief executive,
said: “Application data suggests that
recent changes in government rhetoric
and policy, including the ban on post-
graduate students bringing depend-
ants, are having a negative impact on
international student numbers.”
with Oxford University. Video shows
protesters using ladders to access the
Senate House lawn and setting up their
second encampment on Wednesday.
Professor Bhaskar Vira, pro-vice-
chancellor for education, said previ-
ously that he was happy to talk to stu-
dents since the protests began but had
received only anonymous emails.
“We remain ready for constructive
engagement with our students, but it is
impossible to have a conversation with
an anonymous group,” he said.
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Quintagram® No 1944
Solve all five concise clues using
each letter underneath once only
1 Satellite (4)
----
2 Fierce mammal (5)
-----
3 Traditional dairy deliverer (7)
-------
4 Shame, ignominy (8)
--------
5 At sea, away from the coast (8)
--------
A A C D E E E F
F G G H I I I K
L M M M N N O O
O O R R R S S T
Solutions see T2 MindGames p15
Cryptic clues T2 MindGames p14
Breakfast:
6am to 10am
Our free radio station has all the
latest headlines, interviews and
debates every morning
Listen seven days a week
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speaker
Private school
‘out of reach’
after fees soar
Nicola Woolcock
Independent school fees rose by 8 per
cent this year putting private education
out of reach for many families while
some institutions are becoming more
reliant on China, a report suggests.
The average annual cost for day
schools is now £18,060 — £22,000 in
London — while boarding fees in-
creased by 9 per cent to an average of
almost £42,500.
Fees were frozen at many schools
during the pandemic but then rose
sharply. Combined with Labour’s pro-
posed VAT on fees if it won the election,
the cost of private schooling would rise
by more than a third in a few years.
Private education is at a “watershed
moment”, said Barnaby Lenon, chair of
the Independent Schools Council. He
added: “The effects of the latest policy
threat are already being felt.”
Its annual census shows the number
of children in private schools has fallen
from 7 per cent to 6 per cent of all pupils.
The Times revealed last week that
entry numbers had declined by 2.7 per
cent this academic year, and a survey by
Saltus, a wealth manager, indicates that
26 per cent of parents would remove
their children from private schools if
VAT were added.
Private schools are increasingly bol-
stering income with offshoots overseas.
The census recorded 129 campuses
abroad, up from 107 last year, with 53 in
China. There were also 18 per cent more
Chinese pupils at schools in the UK.
Professor John Jerrim of the Institute
of Education said: “If Labour follows
through with its policy, some schools
will go to the wall. Parents will be asking
themselves if it’s worth the investment.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Broken air valve let animal waste
seep into Devon’s drinking water
Laurence Sleator
A damaged air valve that allowed
animal waste and contaminated
ground water to enter the drinking sup-
ply is behind an outbreak of sickness
and diarrhoea in Devon, South West
Water has said.
On Wednesday, the UK Health
Security Agency confirmed at least 22
cases of cryptosporidiosis, a disease
caused by a parasite, in and around the
coastal town of Brixham.
About 100 other people have report-
ed symptoms, including diarrhoea and
vomiting, to their GP in the past week,
while at least one school was forced to
close yesterday because of a lack of
drinking water.
South West Water has apologised
and told 16,000 households and busi-
nesses not to drink, prepare food or
brush their teeth with tap water with-
out boiling it first.
Laura Flowerdew, chief customer
and digital officer of South West Water,
said: “We sincerely apologise for the
impact this is having on our customers
in the Brixham and Alston areas.”
Speaking to Sky News, Flowerdew
confirmed it was likely to have been a
broken air valve that caused the water
to become contaminated with what she
said may have been cow’s faeces. “We
absolutely want to make sure that’s the
only source [of the contamination],” she
said. “We understand this [is] a valve on
one of the pipes heading towards the
reservoir in a farmer’s field, there are
cattle in the field and it’s a possibility
that’s the source of the contamination.”
She was unable to say when the need
to boil water would end.
Anthony Mangnall, the Conserva-
tive MP for Totnes, said: “[South West
Water] believe they have located the
source of the issue and initiated a fix,
but are continuing their investigations
and will be testing their network to en-
sure water is safe. The boil water notice
is therefore likely to be in place for at
least a further six or seven days, with
bottled water available throughout this
period.
“I am very concerned about [South
West Water’s] response to this situa-
tion, as they have been slow to act and
communication with customers has
been very poor.”
Asked by his constituents what the
source of the problem was, he said: “A
damaged air valve in the Hillhead area,
which may have allowed animal waste
or contaminated ground water to enter
the local supply.”
South West Water opened two col-
Windermere polluter to give shareholders £339m payout
Clean it up
campaign of the year
wat
Robert Lea Industrial Editor
Adam Vaughan Environment Editor
United Utilities is to pay £339 million of dumped the sewage into Windermere.
dividends to its shareholders for the last
financial year, despite coming under Environment Agency over the incident
fire for illegally dumping millions of in February, it could face fines, Robbie
litres of sewage in Windermere.
The increased shareholder payout, He spoke to Louise Beardmore, the
up 9.4 per cent year on year, is substan- chief executive, about the dumping.
tially more than the £227 million it
made in profits. United Utilities also it took its “role in protecting the envi-
wants to hit householders with an in- ronment very seriously”. It is the
More than 20 cryptosporidiosis cases have been found around Brixham, where collection points for water were set up
crease of more than £500 million on
their bills over the next five years. It is
trying
e to
r persuade
c a m paOfwat
i g to
n raise char-
ges by 25 per cent before inflation.
The company, which serves 7 million
people in the northwest of England,
came under fire from MPs this week
after it was revealed to have illegally
If found guilty of wrongdoing by the
Moore, the water minister, has warned.
The company insisted yesterday that
second year running that United Utili-
ties shareholders have received a
bumper payout when the company’s
earnings have not performed. Last
year’s payout of about £310 million
came when the company, battered by
rising interest rates on its debt moun-
tain, recorded a loss of £8 million.
The latest figures show that United
has been making shareholder payouts
beyond its means — to the tune of at
least £250 million — over the first four
years of the five-year regulatory period
that ends next March. Over the past
four years it has declared dividends to-
talling more than £1.22 billion. Its cu-
mulative earnings were £969 million.
Over the same period, its borrowings
lection points for bottled water and
offered to deliver to the most vul-
nerable. Mile-long queues of cars were
seen at the sites.
“I have had no water all day because
everywhere is sold out of bottles. It re-
minds me of the panic buying of toilet
rolls during Covid,” Karen Chapman,
65, said.
Chaz Attwood told Sky News that his
wife has been ill for more than two
weeks. “My wife has been drinking
water to keep hydrated because she’s
diabetic. We’re in a dreadful state. She
was so weak I even phoned 999, and
told the guy what was happening
because she’d collapsed.”
After criticism of an initial offer of £15
in compensation for customers, the
company said it was increasing this to
£100 to “say sorry for the stress and
worry the situation has caused”.
Last year South West Water was
fined £2.15 million for polluting rivers in
Devon and Cornwall.
have swollen by £1.45 billion with net
debt going from £7.31 billion to £8.76 bil-
lion. The company has said that it is
committed to distributing large divi-
dends, raising them in line with inflation
every year for the immediate future.
Large payouts over and above what
water companies are earning have be-
come a big issue. “They are lining their
pockets instead of investing to clean up
their act, with people and planet paying
the price. United Utilities are profiting
from pollution, plain and simple,” said
Giles Bristow, chief executive of the
charity Surfers Against Sewage.
United Utilities said it planned to
spend £13 billion to tackle storm over-
flows but could not do it without fund-
5
News
Q&A
What is in the water that has made
people ill?
Cryptosporidium is a microscopic
waterborne parasite and a common
cause of “traveller’s diarrhoea”.
There are at least two species that
can make humans ill.
Cryptosporidium parvum can affect
many types of mammal, including
people, but its main host is cattle.
Cryptosporidium hominis usually
only infects humans and appears to
be responsible for the surge in cases
in Devon.
How does it spread?
It can be transmitted through
contaminated drinking water and
food, especially unwashed salad.
Raw milk is a common culprit, as is
swallowing water from
contaminated swimming pools. It
can spread from person to person,
with outbreaks often seen in
nurseries. Good hand-washing can
help to prevent it. In Devon, tests
have found the bug in the network
that provides mains water to
Brixham, Boohay, Kingswear,
Roseland and northwest Paignton.
Symptoms appear between two and
12 days after it is contracted.
What are its effects?
It can cause diarrhoea, stomach
pains, nausea or vomiting, fever,
fatigue and loss of appetite, which
can last five to six weeks. In some
cases diarrhoea can lead to
significant weight loss. Most
infections are in children, but
cryptosporidiosis, the disease
caused by the parasite, can occur in
people of all ages.
How is it treated?
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine
at the University of East Anglia, said
most people recovered without
treatment, although some had more
prolonged symptoms or suffered
relapses of diarrhoea for some
weeks. “There is no vaccine for
human use and drug treatment can
reduce the duration of diarrhoea but
doesn’t reliably cure the infection,”
he added. People need to ensure
they drink plenty of fluid. If
symptoms are severe, tell your GP.
ing, adding: “If we don’t offer investors
a fair rate of return they will take their
money elsewhere.”
The company was responsible for the
highest number and longest duration of
sewage spills into rivers and seas last
year, with almost 100,000 events.
It has the second highest spending
plans of any water company, with a pro-
posed £13.8 million expenditure
between next year and 2030. Ofwat will
decide whether to approve the spend-
ing plan on June 12.
The Times’s Clean It Up campaign
has been urging greater investment by
water companies and more resources
for regulators to improve the state of
the country’s waterways.
6 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

News
News Politics

Starmer: I’m not Blair,

it’s different from 1997
Aubrey Allegretti
security — rather than
Chief Political Correspondent
Purfleet, Essex Pledges on climate change — are the
focus of Labour’s green
Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he is not a
“copycat” of Sir Tony Blair and warned
that the economy is in a “very different”
eco power pitch to voters. A
state-owned company
that will invest in
place from 1997.
The Labour leader vowed not to be
and crime renewable energy sources
is at the core of one of its
boxed in to imitating any of his prede- most ambitious pledges
cessors, adding that “the challenges Analysis — to decarbonise the
now are different” to those Blair faced network by 2030. It is

S
on the cusp of taking office. ir Keir Starmer’s part of a wider goal to
Starmer sought to present himself as six-point plan reduce bills and
a prime minister in waiting at a rally in represents his kick-start regional
the Tory heartlands of Essex. He attempt to make growth by investing
unveiled his six “first steps” yesterday, Labour’s central heavily in green
designed to consolidate Labour’s pledges more relatable technology.
longer-term “missions” into more di- (Steven Swinford and Labour has watered
gestible policies on a pledge card. Aubrey Allegretti write). down plans for £28 billion
Some pledges were similar to those After criticism that his more green investment
made by Blair in 1997, including five “missions” last year and now promises only
improving education, cutting NHS were incomprehensible to £4.7 billion a year. The
waiting times and cracking down on most voters, Starmer is Tories argue that
antisocial behaviour. trying to distil his plan for Labour’s plans will lead to
The others were delivering eco- government into a format higher taxes.
nomic stability, setting up a publicly that can be deployed in
owned green power company, and the heat of an election 5 Crack down on
creating a border security centre to campaign. The addition antisocial behaviour with
tackle small boat crossings. of a sixth pledge on more neighbourhood
Starmer tried to head off comparisons migration is to quell police paid for by ending
with the last Labour politician to lead concerns — inside and wasteful contracts, plus
the party to victory at a general elect- outside Labour — that tough new penalties for
ion. He denied being a “copycat” Blair, the party is not doing offenders and a new
saying: “Ever since I’ve been leader of enough on small boats. Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge 40,000 appointments a network of youth hubs
the Labour Party, everybody’s been Given the fiscal card mirrors the 1997 list week is one of the few Labour has made a series
trying to say, ‘Which leader are you constraints he faces, how signed by Tony Blair, below, numbers on his pledge of ambiguous pledges on
most like?’ The answer is none of them.” radical are Starmer’s but with less emphasis on card — in contrast to crime that will be hard to
He also sought to temper voters’ plans in reality? numerical targets Tony Blair’s in 1997, measure but are designed
expectations about the pace of change After the Jeremy which placed a much to send a message to
a Labour government could achieve. It Corbyn years, there is a the highest growth in the greater emphasis on voters about their
would take up to ten years to imple- wariness of extravagant G7 group of developed targets. priorities.
ment Labour’s plans to reform Britain ambition and a sense that nations — no small feat Central to its offer is a
because the economy was not as strong voters need to be given that economists say 3 Launch a border pledge to put 13,000 more
as it was 27 years ago, he said. reassured with concrete Britain is on course to be security command with neighbourhood police
“This is going to take time,” he told offers that relate squarely the worst performer. hundreds of new and community support
activists, MPs and candidates in Pur- to everyday life. Labour is specialist investigators officers back on the
fleet, Essex. “This is a very different also acutely aware that 2 Cut NHS waiting times and use counterterror streets to ensure a “zero Sir Keir Starmer with Rachel Reeves,
moment to 1997, after the damage that’s with a stuttering with 40,000 more powers to smash the tolerance” approach to
been done in the last 14 years.” economy and crumbling appointments each week, criminal boat gangs antisocial behaviour. The
He defended not copying Blair’s pro-
mise not to increase taxes. In 1997, Blair
wrote on his pledge card there would be
public services, it might
soon run up against the
limits of what it can
during evenings and
weekends, paid for by
cracking down on tax
One of the biggest
challenges Labour faces
is on small boats. While
party says that it will pay
for it with £360 million of
savings from a new
They’re baby
“no rise in income tax” and a cut to VAT feasibly achieve. avoidance and non-dom Starmer has been clear national body for police
on heating. Starmer said only that he loopholes that he will scrap the procurement.
wanted to keep taxes, inflation and 1 Deliver economic This pledge to cut waiting Rwanda scheme on day Labour also promised Tom Peck
mortgages as low as possible. stability with tough lists, mirrors a promise one, senior Labour to halve levels of violence Political Sketch
He told ITV: “Where we are going to spending rules so we can made by Rishi Sunak in figures have raised against women and girls
raise taxes — for example, the changing grow our economy and January last year. Labour concerns that the within a decade, but has

of the tax rules for private schools — keep taxes, inflation and
we’ve been explicit about what we’re mortgages as low as
going to do and what we’re going to use possible
it for.” He said the “last thing” anybody Labour has promised to
wanted was higher general taxation, strengthen the role of the
pointing out that under this parliament Office for Budget
taxes have risen to their highest since Responsibility as part of
the Second World War. “I know that an effort to convince
traditionally Labour may have gone for voters it can be trusted on
the tax lever, but that isn’t the way I op- the economy. Starmer is
erate. I want to go for the growth lever.” putting stability first —
The Conservatives said that Starm- even arguing that
er’s speech showed Labour had “no “stability is change” after
plan” for Britain. Richard Holden, the years of turbulence. This
Tory party chairman, said: “Sir Keir pledge is relatively
Starmer is a serial promise-breaker straightforward to keep.
who doesn’t have the courage or The economy is
conviction to stick to a single pledge he already on a more
has ever made — just look at his last stable footing, with
pledge card, which he abandoned the inflation expected
second he got the chance. to hit the 2 per
“Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives cent target next
are sticking with the plan to build a week and interest
brighter future for British families ... as rate cuts likely
well as a fair immigration system with later this year.
boat crossings down.” But the original
missions included
a more ambitious
pledge to secure
is expecting to inherit party lacks a
public services it says are deterrent of its
starved of investment, so own.
it has been keen to say its Its answer is in
plans to improve the NHS keeping with
are fully funded, while Starmer’s general
stressing “reform” rather approach. He
than higher spending. wants to “smash
Starmer’s promise of the gangs” and says
a new unit will use
counterterrorism
powers and draft in
MI5. The government
argues that this is
already happening. The
real question is whether
Labour can secure some
kind of returns
agreement with the
European Union.
4 Set up Great British
Energy, a publicly owned
clean-power company, to
cut bills for good and
boost energy security,
paid for by a windfall tax
on oil and gas giants
Cheaper bills and energy
yet to announce how that
will be measured.
6 Recruit 6,500 new
teachers in key subjects
to prepare children for
life, work and the future,
paid for by ending tax
breaks for private schools
Teachers will welcome
this pledge, but Starmer
faces a long-standing
problem with various
causes. Not enough
graduates are applying to
teacher-training courses,
with particular shortages
in maths, physics and
foreign languages.
Workload and stress
are deterring recruits and
prompting experienced
teachers to leave.
Another issue is
funding. Experts have
cast doubt on whether
Labour can raise as much
as £1.6 billion from VAT
on school fees.
S
ir Keir Starmer’s “My First
Steps” is a very small six-page
booklet folded into a
concertina that, if not handled
carefully, has a tendency to
spring open like Joey Tribbiani’s giant
roll of condoms.
A copy had been diligently laid out
on all the seats at the Royal Opera
House for the Labour leader’s most
recent not even thinly disguised
campaign relaunch.
Well, not the Royal Opera House
exactly. The Royal Opera House’s
costume and production centre,
hidden away on an industrial estate
in Purfleet, Essex, right behind
Lakeside Shopping Centre. It’s been
there for nearly ten years, ten minutes
from my house, as it happens.
Whoever knew?
Starmer’s “My First Steps” are
meant to be his first steps for
government, but the title does rather
make it look like one of those twee,
Instagram-friendly sets of milestone
flashcards so beloved of rather
irritating new parents. We very
much look forward to the obligatory
aerial photos of Sir Keir, snuggled
the times | Friday May 17 2024
the shadow chancellor, and Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, at the launch of Labour’s pledges in Purfleet, Essex. The leader said his plans could take ten years
steps for a PM who’ll learn to toddle before he runs
away in the Downing Street moses
basket.
Today I stabilised the economy.
Today I launched a new border security
command. Today I said da-da for the
first time. Today I significantly scaled
back my ambitions for my first term as
prime minister despite the largest poll
lead in modern British political history
(more on that last one shortly).
It was, for most people there, a
normal working day. The shadow
cabinet arrived in two minibuses at
the same time as a consignment of
stage wigs, ferried across the car parks
by excited looking students. The
venue is also a wing of South Essex
College. The event itself took place on
a wide production stage with full
lighting gantry. Most days, it’s
wannabe Boccanegras standing here
in their brand new robes, while they’re
aggressively checked over to make
sure they look the part, that they’re
definitely ready for the big time.
Today was no exception.
Starmer’s costume was, as ever,
minimalist. There were well over 200
people, sitting around in a wide open
hall on a chilly day. As is now
customary, only one had no jacket, no
tie, and sat with his sleeves
pre-rolled. Normally, this sort of thing
occurs on some kind of factory floor,
the intimation being that the Labour
leader is talking in a stolen moment
in the middle of a long shift on the
lathe. This time, we must assume the
viewer is being invited to believe that
Starmer has spent the rest of the
morning busily sewing taffeta on to
Figaro’s pantaloons.
If you’ve already decided that
you’re not going to actually say very
much, one thing you can do is put a
lot of effort in to who is going to say
it, and they had certainly done that.
Introducing the shadow cabinet, one
by one, was a remarkable coalition of
people. There had been talk in the
build-up of a “special guest,” so when
a young student from LSE started
reading out the words of Labi Siffre’s
(Something Inside) So Strong some of
us dared to dream that Barry from
EastEnders might be about to
recreate that iconic moment from the
2014 World Indoor Bowls
Championships in Great Yarmouth.
Sadly it did not come to pass.
No, the show was most certainly
stolen by Nathaniel Dye, a terminally
ill cancer patient who ran the London
Marathon last month while playing
the trombone, and who squarely
blames the fact that he only has three
or four years to live on the many
targets the NHS missed. But arguably,
the most remarkable was Sebastian
James, chief executive of Boots, David
Cameron’s mate from the Bullingdon
Club and still a close friend. My first
reaction was that it was some kind of
act of revenge on behalf of his chum.
Then I remembered his chum is
currently foreign secretary.
When it came to the leader’s turn,
he strode on to the wide stage, and
prowled around it like a man who
knows his time has come. He spoke
very movingly about a woman who
came up to him at Knutsford services
at the weekend, and insisted he look
at her ingrowing eyelid. Who’d be a
politician?
She’d been waiting 18 months for
an operation, and she’d just been told
she’d have to wait another 12. Starmer
had a clear promise for her. “40,000
more NHS operations a week, paid
for by a clampdown on tax avoidance
on closing the non-dom tax
loopholes.”
We must hope that said woman
hasn’t yet googled: “Can you really
pay for 40,000 NHS operations a
week by closing the non-dom tax
loopholes?” The answer was clear.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health
secretary, had a variation on the
theme. Rebuilding the NHS on the
back of tax avoiders would be, he said,
“healthcare for the many, paid for by
the few”. At some point they’ll have to
deal with the fact that the few don’t
have anywhere near the money
required — there aren’t very many of
them after all — but not just yet.
Starmer was asked, at the end, why
it was that his six “first steps for
change” were significantly less
ambitious than the “five missions” he
launched last year, which were
themselves vastly less ambitious than
the pledges which won him the party
leadership in 2020.
He had an OK answer: “These are
just the first steps,” he said. They don’t
replace his bolder ambitions, they’re
just the first stage in how to get there.
Think of it as Fisher-Price My First
Government. He’s still going to take
us to infinity and beyond, don’t worry
about that. We’re just not ready for
the big boy toys quite yet. Learn to
walk before you can run.
Some politicians think the way to
go is to aim for the stars and you
might end up at the moon. A young
Barack Obama claimed that his
election would be “the moment the
rise of the oceans began to slow and
our planet began to heal”.
It didn’t quite work out that way
but people enjoyed being taken along
for the ride. Starmer, on the other
hand, is aiming low so as not to
disappoint. It might not seem fair but
that is the strategy that far more
often backfires.
7
News
News
May blames
Truss and
Johnson for
Tory failure
Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Theresa May has accused Boris John-
son and Liz Truss of destroying the
Conservative Party’s popularity but
argued the disaster of her 2017 election
campaign showed Rishi Sunak could
still win the next election.
The former prime minister took aim
at the “expectation of celebrity” in
modern politics as she blamed social
media for driving polarisation and an
increasing threat to democracy.
Speaking to journalists in Westmin-
ster, May praised Sunak for stabilising
the government but aimed a series of
barbs at her two other successors.
She also reiterated her criticisms of
Sunak’s Rwanda policy, which she
warned made it harder to help victims
of modern slavery, and cautioned her
party against leaving the European
Court of Human Rights, which she in-
sisted was “reformable”.
May is standing down at the next
election after 27 years in parliament but
insisted the result was not a “foregone
conclusion”, comparing the attitude of
voters with those when she was first
elected. “Keir Starmer is not Tony Blair.
The view on those doorsteps is different
to the feel pre-1997,” she said. Pointing
to this month’s local election results, in
which Labour did not make as many
gains as the Tories did losses, she said:
“The message from that was a bit of ‘a
plague on all your houses’.”
May’s government was fatally weak-
ened after she called a snap election in
2017 on the back of encouraging opin-
ion polls, only to lose the Conservative
majority as Labour’s popularity surged.
Suggesting this was a sign Sunak
should not be written off, May said:
“We’ve seen one or two unexpected
election results in general elections. I
was probably 20 points ahead, the Con-
servatives 20 points ahead in most of
the election campaign for the 2017
election, and look what happened to
that.” She added: “Against the back-
ground of the economy improving, I
think it is not a foregone conclusion.”
Asked why the Conservatives were
unpopular, she said: “Obviously we’ve
been in for 14 years, and it’s always
harder for a party that’s been in govern-
ment for a significant period of time.”
However, she went on to pin the
blame firmly on her two immediate
successors, pointing to the Downing
Street parties scandal under Johnson
and Truss’s tax-cutting mini-budget
which prompted a market meltdown.
“Let’s face it, with Boris the lockdown
parties exacerbated a sense, that was
already there from people, of it was one
rule for MPs and another rule for them.
And then with Liz, what happened with
the markets, that just disrupted the
sense that this was a party of economic
management.”
She said voters had seen “quite a bit of
change under us and things happening.
They wanted some stability, and I think
Rishi has brought that stability.”
After warning about the dangers of
populism, May was asked if this applied
to any of her successors. “There’s an el-
ement of politics today, which comes
into the populism issue, which is a sort
of expectation of celebrity. And I think
certainly you could say that.”
Arguing for a more selfless concep-
tion of politics, she said: “There is a real
need for us as politicians to instil that
sense of service.” Being prime minister
“is a position of service, not of power”.
8 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
News
‘Epidemic’ of young
uninsured drivers
Ben Clatworthy
Transport Correspondent
The number of young motorists caught
driving without insurance is surging
because of the soaring cost of premi-
ums, motoring groups have said.
Between 2022 and last year the num-
ber of drivers aged 17 to 20 punished for
not having car insurance rose by 28 per
cent. The figure has jumped by more
than 200 per cent since 2021.
IAM RoadSmart, formerly the Insti-
tute for Advanced Motorists, warned of
an “epidemic of uninsured younger
motorists” on the roads.
The data was released by the Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Agency under
the Freedom of Information Act. It re-
vealed that 2,902 IN10 endorsements
— for “using a vehicle uninsured
against third-party risks” — were
added to the licences of those aged 17 to
20 in 2021. The figure increased to 5,486
in 2022 and reached 6,316 last year.
An IN10 endorsement remains on a
licence for four years and is often ac-
companied by six to eight penalty
points. There is also a fine of at least
£300. Should the case go to court, pun-
ishments can include an unlimited fine.
The surge in the number of endorse-
ments has coincided with a rapid rise in
car insurance premiums, with prices up
by 25 per cent in the past year, accord-
ing to the Association of British Insur-
ers.
Nicholas Lyes, director of policy at
IAM RoadSmart, said: “It is deeply con-
cerning to see a surge in young drivers
breaking the law in this way. Unless
there is intervention, we risk an epi-
demic of uninsured younger motorists
taking to the roads.
“Sadly, this is likely a consequence of
the soaring costs of insurance premi-
ums over the last 18 months. For young
drivers who have recently passed their
test, the cost of learning to drive, getting
a vehicle, taxing it and then insuring it
is becoming extremely costly.”
The average fully comprehensive
car insurance quote for drivers aged 17
to 24 is £2,009 a year, according to the
consumer site Compare the Market, up
from £1,365 in January last year.
As a result the total average annual
cost of running a car for a young driver
is now £3,043. Other expenses include
fuel (£799), road tax (£180) and MOT
(£55). This is a 25 per cent increase from
last year.
Jonathan Fong, the manager of gen-
eral insurance policy at the Association
of British Insurers, said: “Insurance is
always based on risk and our data
shows that the average cost and fre-
quency of claims is higher for younger
drivers, which can impact premiums. In
2022 the average payout for drivers
aged between 17 and 20 was 74 per cent
higher than for those aged 46-50. Sadly,
young drivers are also more likely to be
involved in crashes resulting in mul-
tiple serious injuries, which could lead
to very high insurance payouts.”
High street
bank closures
hit 6,000 mark
James Hurley
The number of high street bank bran-
ches that have closed over the past nine
years will pass 6,000 today, a consumer
group has said.
Which? said the “avalanche” of
closures highlighted the need for
replacement services for millions of
people and small companies.
The closure of eight Barclays bran-
ches today will take the total to 6,005
branch closures since 2015, Which?
said, with 200 more scheduled this year.
Millions of consumers have made the
switch to banking digitally, leading to
declining use of branches. However, a
significant number of people, many of
them vulnerable, are still reliant on
physical banking. Small companies
that need services including cash de-
posits have also been hit by the closures.
Regional banking hubs, which have a
counter service operated by the Post
Office, allowing people to conduct
routine banking transactions, are being
established to tackle the problem.
When a town’s last branch closes, a
nearby hub should be in place a year
later. However, Anne Marie Morris, a
Conservative MP and member of the
Treasury committee, told bosses of the
City regulator last week it was “ex-
tremely unlikely” that 140 hubs said to
be planned would meet the deadline.
On the nose Nic Fiddian-Green guides his lead sculpture Serenity, which weighs UK Finance, the banking trade body,
one and a half tonnes, on to its permanent plinth near Oxshott in Surrey, the said there was “significant ongoing
start of the “oat belt” that fed the working horses that helped build London investment to ensure access to cash”.
the times | Friday May 17 2024 S1 9

Times Radio names political heavyweights for lunchtime shows
Alex Farber Media Correspondent
Times Radio has appointed political
heavyweights Ed Vaizey and Ayesha
Hazarika to share presenting duties in
its weekday lunchtime slot.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot will present on
Monday and Tuesday, and Baroness
Hazarika will cover Wednesday and
Thursday and present a longer show,
from 1pm to 4pm on Fridays.
From next week they will replace
Mariella Frostrup and Ruth Davidson,
as Times Radio positions itself as the
election station.
Vaizey, who will continue to host his
Friday evening show, said: “The lunch-
time show on Times Radio is perfectly
placed to digest the morning’s news
while working up an appetite for the
rest of the day ahead, in Westminster
and beyond.”
Hazarika, a former adviser to Gordon
Brown, Harriet Harman and Ed Mili-
band, said that the station “is all about
conversation, not confrontation”, add-
ing: “As the UK’s political parties gear
up for the serious business of cam-
paigning ahead of a general election,
I’m excited to be inviting listeners to
lunch as we chew over the news of the
day.” she added.
Tim Levell, Times Radio’s pro-
gramme director, said that listeners
love hearing from those who have
worked at the heart of Westminster.
“Ed and Ayesha ooze that in spades. But
they aren’t dry, pointy-head policy ana-
lysts; they’re both lively, enjoyable
broadcasters, equally at home doing
breaking news as they are hosting in-
depth conversations with news-mak-
ers. As the political temperature turns
up around the country, they’re the per-
fect presenters to cover all the latest de-
velopments at home and around the
world every weekday lunchtime.”
Since he joined Times Radio in 2022,
News
Vaizey, a former culture minister, has
bolstered his Friday 7pm show by ap-
pearing in the daytime schedule.
A new presenter will be announced
shortly to take over Hazarika’s weekend
show until the end of the summer.
The station recorded 4.4 million lis-
tening hours over the three months to
the end of March, up 27 per cent on last
year, according to Rajar. Its 500,000
weekly listeners tuned in for an average
of almost nine hours each week.

New farm dig

for body of
Muriel McKay
Ben Ellery Crime Editor
Kieran Gair
Police will begin another search for the
remains of Muriel McKay after detect-
ives flew to Trinidad and spoke to the
man convicted of her murder.
Metropolitan Police officers will
make a “significant” dig at the farm in
Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire, where
she was held hostage by her kidnappers,
the brothers Nizamodeen and Arthur
Hosein. They killed Mrs McKay, 55, in
a bungled kidnapping in 1969 after they
mistook her for the wife of Rupert Mur-
doch, who is now the chairman emeri-
tus of News Corporation, publisher of
The Times.
Muriel McKay was
a victim of
mistaken identity
Behind the story
They were found guilty in what was
one of the first murder convictions
without a body. After being released
from prison, Nizamodeen was deported
to his native Trinidad and in January
the McKay family flew to meet him. He
confessed he had buried her body at the
back of the farm. This prompted the in-
vestigation team to fly to Trinidad in
March and yesterday they announced
they had enough evidence for a search
at the farm.
A Met statement said: “The investi-
gation team visited Hosein in Trinidad
to speak to him in person. He volun-
teered to help and was interviewed over
the course of three days, with officers
carefully considering their approach
and strategy to achieve the best infor-
mation possible. On their return they
analysed all the information gathered ...
to come to the conclusion that a further
search will be carried out.”
Mrs McKay’s grandson, Mark Dyer,
59, visited Hosein in January, accompa-
nied by The Times, and elicited the lo-
cation where he claimed to have buried
her. Dyer said: “We are delighted at to-
day’s news ... The police rang me this
morning and said they are going to be

I
n January The Times
accompanied Muriel
McKay’s family to Trinidad
to witness the moment when
her daughter Dianne met
her murderer, Nizamodeen
Hosein. “It’s me,” were the first
words she said to Hosein, before
kissing him on both cheeks. “We
came all this way to see you.”
In 2021, Sky had made a
documentary called The
Wimbledon Kidnapping,
including an interview with
Hosein. The family had not
realised he was still alive and
contacted him via a barrister on
the island to see whether he
would to talk. They offered him
mounting a significant operation which
will involve taking down the barn
which has since been built at the spot
where Nizam told us he buried her.
“It’s been an incredible effort by our
family to prompt and nudge the police
but we are glad they are taking this step.
It is a success but it is only half a job
done. We want to find my grandmother
and bury her at my mother’s farm.”
Police searched the farm in 2022 Theatre and being The Broadway star massive sound,” she said.
after Hosein indicated to the family
that she was at the site, but he said offi-
I don’t expect the only one who
immediately jumped out
Stephanie J Block is to
appear opposite Adrian
“He’s got projection like
nobody.”
cers had dug in the wrong place.
Commander Stephen Clayman, of
outstanding of her seat, then thinking:
“Why isn’t anybody else
Dunbar, the Line of Duty
actor, in the musical Kiss
Dunbar, 65, said he was
“slightly out of his
the Met, said police would expand the
search area beyond a part of the farm
reception, doing that?”
Block is due to star
Me, Kate at the Barbican comfort zone”, and “not
so on top of the dancing”,
where a “manure heap once stood”. says US star alongside Adrian Dunbar really.’ We give it away although he had always
He said: “We will carry out a further — previously seen in Line and then allow it to be played in bands and had a

money but he refused, telling
them he would help them in
order “to clear my conscience”.
Hosein told the family via a
videocall that Mrs McKay had
died after collapsing from what
they presumed was a heart
attack. He told them he had
buried her under a dung heap
behind the barn.
The owners of the farm
allowed Scotland Yard detectives
to search a small section of a
field near the house last year,
without success, but Mrs
McKay’s family insist they dug in
the wrong place.
B
search at the Hertfordshire farm where roadway’s of Duty — in a big-budget what it is going to be.” musical background. He
it is believed Muriel’s remains may be. leading lady has revival of Cole Porter’s She admitted surprise later added that this year
We carried out an extensive search admitted that comedy Kiss Me, Kate at a recent production of might be the first time he
there in spring 2022 but unfortunately she may have to directed by Bartlett Sher. Standing at the Sky’s Edge would not reject an offer
it was unsuccessful. Our recent inquir- temper her Block said she knew when only half the to appear on Strictly
ies mean other areas have been high- expectations of standing not to “put any audience stood. Come Dancing.
lighted as being of potential interest ovations as she arrives in expectation” on universal The Tony Award- He said that the West
and it is these we will search. The main Britain to star in the standing ovations from winning actress praised End was in good shape.
area is where a manure heap once stood musical of the summer British audiences. her co-star for his skill in “I’ve never seen the place
— we know now this was probably (David Sanderson writes). “Audiences stateside moving from a BBC so busy, so many things
larger than ... thought and therefore ... Stephanie J Block said are more vocal, it is a full police procedural drama happening in the
was not entirely searched in 2022. curtain calls in American body sport,” Block said. to singing and dancing in theatre,” adding that
While we have concerns about incon- theatres were “full body “But I keep looking at a Cole Porter musical for musicals with upbeat
sistencies in the account provided by sport”. She recalled her Adrian, saying, ‘We just a four-month run with tunes were in demand.
Nizamodeen Hosein, for completeness shock at attending a have to tell the truth, do eight performances a Kiss Me, Kate opens at
we want to do this.” performance of War it well, and the rest of it is week. the Barbican Theatre in
The “owners of the farm are fully Horse at the National none of our business “Adrian has this London on June 4.
aware and supportive”, Clayman said.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Ex-Post Office IT boss weeps as she is sworn in to Horizon inquiry
Peter Chappell
The former head of IT at the Post
Office broke down in tears before giv-
ing evidence at the public inquiry into
the Horizon scandal.
Lesley Sewell, who was a senior ex-
ecutive between 2010 and 2015, was
questioned by Emma Price, counsel to
the inquiry, about her role. Sewell wept
briefly as she took the oath after she
was called as a witness.
Sir Wynn Williams, the inquiry’s
chairman, said he understood that giv-
ing evidence might be “upsetting” for
Sewell but that Price would ask ques-
‘Kindest plumber’ is accused
of faking stories to raise £2m
Ali Mitib
A plumbing company that became re-
nowned for fixing pipes and boilers for
vulnerable customers for free is under
investigation after being accused of fak-
ing stories to raise more than £2 million.
Following an investigation, the BBC
accused the social enterprise Depher
Community Plumbing & Heating (De-
pher CIC) of using images of vulnerable
people without their consent and fabri-
cating stories about its acts of kindness.
James Anderson, the founder, who
was once dubbed “Britain’s kindest
plumber”, was accused of spending
company money on a house and car,
allegations he has denied. The commu-
nity interest company is under investi-
gation by the Fundraising Regulator to
determine whether it breached charit-
able rules, while the Information Com-
missioner’s Office (ICO) said it had re-
ceived four complaints about Depher
CIC that were under review.
The BBC alleges the company faked a
story about it preventing one elderly
woman from taking her life, but she had
in fact died years earlier. The broadcast-
er also said Depher posted video and
images of a vulnerable man in his nine-
ties more than 20 times, publicising in-
formation about his sexuality despite
the man saying “God no” when asked
whether he would agree to be filmed.
The stories were among hundreds
allegedly posted by Depher, the Burn-
ley-based company that claims to have
helped people by using donations to
provide free food, pay gas and elec-
tricity bills, carry out free plumbing
work and help with funeral costs.
Depher’s social media stories went
viral during the cost of living
crisis, which led to it re-
ceiving at least £2 million
in donations, according
to a BBC analysis. Donors
included the singer
Lily Allen, the
Emmerdale ac-
tress Samantha
Giles and the ac-
tor Hugh Grant,
who donated
£75,000.
Anderson
had been
praised for his
work and re-
ceived letters
of thanks from
the late Queen
and the King as
well as a Pride
of Manchester
award. He has ap-
peared on TV
tions in a proper and sensible manner.
Sewell told the inquiry that she had
blocked Paula Vennells’s phone num-
ber after the former chief executive
sought her help to “avoid an independ-
ent inquiry”. Sewell said Vennells had
contacted her four times in 2020 and
2021, five years after she had left the
company.
In her witness statement, Sewell said
she blocked Vennells’s number because
she “did not feel comfortable with her
contacting me”.
One of the emails from Vennells said
she needed to “plug some memory Lesley Sewell said she had blocked
gaps” about Horizon and Project Spar- calls from Paula Vennells, her ex-boss
Stories about James Anderson’s plumbing firm helping out vulnerable customers have gone viral on social media
shows such as Good Morn- the investigation was ongoing, Ander-
ing Britain, BBC Break- son deleted the main Depher social me-
fast, The One Show dia account, which had more than
and The Russell 100,000 followers.
Howard Hour. Before its publication, Anderson
In response to made a series of posts highlighting doz-
the investigation, ens of images of people his company
Anderson told the claimed to have helped. In a post shared
BBC: “I know I’ve last week, he accused the BBC and “on-
done it wrong. I line trolls” of trying to shut down De-
apologise. But pher. He said: “They will show warrant-
what can I do? I ha- ed questions about safeguarding and
ven’t got a magic pictures, mistakes that have been made
stick. I’m not Harry over the years, mistakes that have been
Potter.” He pledged apologised for, and training is now in
to return some of place to stop it from happening again.”
the donated A Fundraising Regulator spokesman
money and said he said an investigation has been opened
had made mis- “into Depher CIC to determine whether
takes because of a ... its fundraising has breached sections
relentless online of the code of fundraising practice”.
campaign of “bul- An ICO spokesman said: “All organi-
lying, harassment sations must be clear and transparent
and attacks”. While with people about how and why they
row, a sub-committee that sought to get
rid of the forensic accountants who had
found bugs in the faulty system.
Sewell’s statement read: “To the best
of my knowledge and research, Paula
Vennells contacted me four times in
2020 and 2021 via either email, tele-
phone call or text message. It has taken
me some time to locate all of these com-
munications.
“On March 8, 2020, Paula Vennells
emailed my personal email account
from a personal email account of hers.
In that email, she asked if I could spare
her some time for a call as she had ‘been
asked at short notice to appear before a
collect and intend to use their data.
Anyone who has concerns about how
their information has been used can
complain to us.”
In response to the BBC’s allegation
surrounding the deceased woman, An-
derson admitted the post was a “lie” and
promised to investigate how it was sent
from his company’s Twitter/X account.
In response to the BBC’s allegation
that he bought a house as an “invest-
ment property” for £73,125 and rented it
to a member of his extended family, he
said the house was bought using profits
from the paid work and that the pur-
chase was permitted by the regulations
for CICs. He also told the BBC that the
purchase of what he described as “com-
pany cars” was permissible for a CIC.
When asked about receiving a dona-
tion from Grant, he said: “If he wants
the money back I’ll send it back to him.”
Depher CIC has been contacted for
comment.
11
News
. . . select committee on all things Hori-
zon/Sparrow and need to plug some
memory gaps! My hope is this might
help avoid an independent inquiry but
to do so, I need to be well prepared.’ I
had not spoken to Paula since I had left
the Post Office in 2015.”
More than 700 sub-postmasters were
prosecuted and given criminal convic-
tions between 1999 and 2015 because
Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it
appear as though money was missing
from their branches.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters are
still awaiting full compensation.
The inquiry continues.
Teacher was
unfairly fired
for sleeping
at his desk
Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
A teacher at a school attended by
Princes William and Harry was
discriminated against when he was
sacked for sleeping at his desk after he
“closed his eyes to think”.
Jason Smith was head of religious
education at Wetherby Preparatory
School for Boys in London, which is
owned by Alpha Plus and charges
£27,000 per year, when he was accused
three years ago of having been asleep at
work. An employment tribunal has
backed his claim for discrimination and
unfair dismissal, and he will be in line
for compensation.
The tribunal found it “very plausible”
that Smith had been asleep because of
medication he was taking, but found
that the school had “jumped straight to
dismissal” without following some of its
own policies, and that Smith had been
“dismissed without being heard”.
The tribunal was told that the man-
agement had made Smith feel like a
“disease” that needed to be got “rid of”
because he had taken sick leave for
anxiety and depression. He was sacked
after 15 years at the school when
managers said that his repeated absen-
ces and his behaviour at the school —
including falling asleep — were having
a “detrimental impact” on pupils.
The Central London tribunal was
told that before he had been dismissed,
Smith had had a “glowing” record and
his students had got “excellent” results.
In 2020, he suffered a breakdown in a
personal relationship and took 18 days
of sick leave. After a referral for an
occupational health assessment, he
was found to have anxiety and
depression. He was also said at the time
to suffer from poor sleep.
He was signed off work, and when he
returned his attendence was intermit-
tent and his bosses described his mood
as “volatile and emotional” and said
that parents had complained about his
treatment of pupils. They said that he
had twice been “found asleep at school”.
The tribunal noted that Smith made
“various excuses”, including that he was
“a deep thinker and closed his eyes to
think”. He also said on one occasion
that he had eaten “a big lunch”.
Smith was dismissed on the ground
of ill health because his absences were
“having a detrimental impact on the
school and the children” and because
his behaviour when he was at work had
fallen “below the standard expected”.
However, the tribunal judge, Tamara
Lewis, ruled in his favour and said he
had been “dismissed without being
heard”. A hearing to decide compensa-
tion will be held later this year.
12 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

News
News Royal family

Candid camera captures

century of royal events
Ellie MacDonald
A previously unseen image of King
Charles and Princess Anne as children
is among intimate photographs at a
Buckingham Palace exhibition to cele-
brate a hundred years of royal portraits.
Opening at the renamed King’s Gallery
today, Royal Portraits: A Century of
Photography, will chart the evolution of
royal portrait photography from the
1920s to the present.
More than 150 prints and previously
unreleased correspondence from the
Royal Collection and the Royal
Archives will be displayed. Alessandro
Nasini, the curator, said: “The Royal
Collection holds some of the most
enduring photographs ever taken of the
royal family, captured by the most
celebrated portrait photographers of
the past hundred years — from Doro-
thy Wilding and Cecil Beaton to Annie
Leibovitz, David Bailey, and Rankin.
“Alongside these beautiful vintage
prints, which cannot be on permanent
display for conservation reasons, we
are excited to share archival corre-
spondence and never before seen
proofs that will give visitors a behind
the scenes insight into the process of
creating such unforgettable royal
portraits.”

THE
Visitors will be able to see the earliest
surviving photographic print of a
member of the royal family produced in
colour, showing Princess Alice, Duch-
ess of Gloucester — sister-in-law to

WEEKEND BUT
King George VI — on her wedding day.
Wartime images by Beaton will also
be on display to demonstrate how King
George VI and Queen Elizabeth used
photography to project a sense of sta-

BIGGER
bility and hope for the nation.
This includes a photograph of the
royal couple inspecting bomb damage
at Buckingham Palace in 1940, showing
them smiling at each other amid the
debris. A 1943 portrait taken at Royal
Lodge in Windsor shows them gath-
ered around the King’s desk with Prin-
cesses Elizabeth and Margaret, convey-
ing a sense of domesticity and calm.
A further unseen image of the four
royal mothers — Queen Elizabeth II,
Princess Margaret, Princess Alexandra
and the Duchess of Kent — holding
their newborn babies will be displayed.
It was taken by Princess Margaret’s
husband, Lord Snowdon, as a token of
thanks for Sir John Peel, the royal
obstetrician, who delivered all four
babies within two months in 1964.
The babies are Prince Edward (now
the Duke of Edinburgh), Lady Sarah
Armstrong-Jones (now Lady Sarah
Chatto), James Ogilvy and Lady Helen
Windsor (now Lady Helen Taylor) —
who all turned 60 this year.
The fashion photographer Paolo
Roversi’s portrait of the Princess of
Wales, taken to mark her 40th birthday,
will also feature. Kate’s off the shoulder
dress and sideways pose are described
by the Royal Collection Trust as bear-
ing a “striking visual resemblance” to
an 1864 painting of Alexandra, Princess
of Wales — later Queen Alexandra.
The Princess of Wales, a keen photo-
grapher, sparked a furore this year after
she edited a Mother’s Day picture of
herself with her three children. She has
since stepped out of the public spotlight
while she undergoes a course of chemo-
therapy for cancer.
The exhibition will include a section
on the history of retouching family
photographs. Nasini said: “We were
keen to give visitors a behind the scenes
insight into what goes into creating a
ANGELA SCANLON royal portrait, from the initial commis-
sion right through to the final release,
SATURDAY & SUNDAY 7AM-10AM and to give a sense of how commis-
sioner, sitter and photographer work
LEIGH FRANCIS together to achieve the final result.
SATURDAY 10AM-1PM “This was always intended to be one
of the themes of the exhibition, which
TOM ALLEN has been planned for a number of years.
“Retouching has many forms, from a
SUNDAY 10AM-1PM very simple cropping — as in Marcus
Adams’s portrait of King George VI,
DICK & DOM Queen Elizabeth and the young prin-
SATURDAY & SUNDAY 1PM-4PM cesses, in which the studio background
is cropped out — to creating a compos-
ite image from two or more photo-
ON DAB ON SMART SPEAKER ON THE VIRGIN RADIO APP graphs — as in Rankin’s portrait of
Queen Elizabeth II superimposed
against an image of the Union Flag —
so we wanted to show the full range.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024 13

News
News
Listen now to
Royals
The

with
Roya
and
Kate

A new podcast with

the royal editors
of the Sunday Times
and The Times
Photographs in Margaret, 1980 young daughters What the King’s How we walk
the exhibition (Norman at Royal Lodge in new portrait the diplomatic
include: Princess Parkinson), 1943, bottom; tells us about tightrope to do
Anne and Prince above; Princess and Queen his reign our jobs
Charles, 1956 Margaret Elizabeth and
(photo by Antony photographed in Prince Philip on
Armstrong- 1949 (Cecil Coronation Day, Available now on Apple,
Jones); Queen Beaton), below; 1953, below far Spotify and wherever you
Elizabeth and her the King and left (Cecil get your podcasts
sister Princess Queen with their Beaton)

William: Act
to stop rise
of superbugs
Kate Mansey Assistant Editor
The Prince of Wales has called for ur-
gent action to halt the resistance of su-
perbugs “for the sake of the generations
to follow”.
William was speaking at the World
Together Solving the Antibiotic Emer-
gency at the Royal Society in central
London.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton,
the foreign secretary, sent a video mes-
sage in which he referred to the “terri-
fying prospect” of antimicrobial resist-
ance and announced an £85 million
package to tackle the “emergency”.
Delegates also heard a poignant
speech from Dame Sally Davies, the
former UK chief medical officer who is
now a UK special envoy on AMR,
whose 38-year-old goddaughter Emily
Hoyle died after contracting a drug-re-
sistant lung infection.
AMR occurs when microbes that
cause infections develop resistance to
treatments such as antibiotics and be-
come difficult or impossible to treat.
William said: “There is an urgent
need for new measures to access new
and existing vaccines, diagnostics and
medicines. We stand at a critical junc-
ture, where the interconnections
between drug resistance, climate
change and environmental degrada-
tion cannot be ignored.
“Rivers are polluted with antibiotics
and oceans are filled with micro-plas-
tics containing resistant bacteria.
Meanwhile, deforestation is playing
havoc with ecosystems, facilitating the
emergence of new infectious diseases.
“Unless we act now and together, the
ripple effects of drug resistance will be
felt across generations, jeopardising the
well-being of our children and our
grandchildren.”
Davies added: ‘It’s massive to have
the Prince of Wales’s support because
of his convening power. People listen to
him.”
The conference, part of a build-up to
the high-level meeting on antimicrobi-
al resistance at the United Nations gen-
eral assembly in September, was at-
tended by ministers from the Common-
wealth and representatives from UN
organisations.
14 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

News

Pyramids sat beside lost branch of Nile

Satellite images appear drought that began about 4,200 years
The ancient river Pyramid ago, was one of the reasons for the wa-
to solve riddle of why Great Pyramid Causeways Giza
terway first shifting to the east and
eventually vanishing as it silted up.
pharaohs’ tombs are in of Giza
Possible river EGYPT They first studied satellite imagery,
looking for evidence of a former river
middle of the desert, harbour branch running along the foothills of
the Western Desert Plateau, close to
writes Rhys Blakely Khafre
pyramid Western the pyramid fields. They then used geo-
Desert physical surveys and sediment cores to
Archaeologists have long wondered Menkaure confirm the presence of river sediments
why the ancient Egyptians built most of pyramid and former water channels beneath the
their pyramids on what is now a narrow, modern land surface.
inhospitable strip of desert. Ancient Ghoneim said that the findings
They may now have an answer after Ahramat underscore the role played by the Nile

Ah
branch

ra
scientists uncovered evidence that the in the rapid growth and expansion of

m
pharaohs’ tombs originally sat next to a the ancient Egyptian civilisation. “It

at
b
40-mile branch of the Nile that van- served as a lifeline in a largely arid land-

ra
nc
ished centuries ago but would once River scape,” she said. “And it provided a

have been a crucial artery for com-
merce, culture and building materials.
The former waterway is now buried
but was found using satellite images,
geophysical surveys and the discovery
of buried river sediment. When the
construction of the pyramids began
about 4,700 years ago it would have run
parallel to the current course of the
Nile, but to the west. It is likely to have
been used to bring in materials and
labourers, said Eman Ghoneim, of the
University of North Carolina Wilming-
ton, who led the research.
“We were surprised at just how large
this branch of the Nile once was — at
points it would have been half a kilome-
tre wide and 25 metres deep,” she
added. Until now, “no convincing
explanation as to why these pyramids
are concentrated in this specific locality
Giza plateau
Source: Communications Earth & Environment
has been given”, Ghoneim and her col-
leagues wrote in the journal Communi-
cations Earth & Environment.
They propose naming the lost por-
tion of river the “Ahramat branch”, with
ahramat meaning “pyramids” in Ara-
bic. The researchers looked at a tract of
land in the northern Nile Valley
between Lisht in the south and the Giza
h
Plateau in the north, where 31 pyramids
were built over a period of nearly 1,000
years. They now sit on the edge of the
arid Western Desert, which is part of
the Sahara.
Ghoneim suspects that the vanished
river branch was used to bring in mate-
rials such as granite from Aswan, about
500 miles to the south of Giza.
Nile
Lisht
pyramids
She also notes that many of the pyra-
mids dating to the Old and Middle
Kingdoms have causeways that lead to
the branch. These walkways end with
temple structures that would have sat
on the banks of the lost river and may
have acted as harbours, Ghoneim said.
The researchers suggest that a build-
up of windblown sand, linked to a major
route or a water corridor that allowed
for the transportation of goods and
workmen and building materials.”
Dr Campbell Price, an Egyptologist
at the University of Manchester who
was not connected to the study, said: “I
think people often imagine Egyptian
pyramids being marooned in the mid-
dle of the desert. This research seems to
demonstrate that they were, in fact,
closely connected with the River Nile.”
Dr Nigel Strudwick, an Egyptologist
at Cambridge University who was also
not involved in the study, said the idea
of pyramid complexes being connected
by water “seems extremely plausible”.
“Water transport was the main method
of movement in Ancient Egypt,” he said.
“There are references in texts to various
channels, canals etc that we cannot usu-
ally locate with any certainty.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024
diary@thetimes.co.uk | @timesdiary
How lucky
were we, boy?
Moscow girls made the Beatles sing
and shout but if their fans back in
the USSR wanted to hear them
they had to go to hospital. Speaking
to promote his new EP, Crooked
Boy, Sir Ringo Starr recalled how
Russian Beatlemaniacs got their
hands on banned records. “One of
their leaders didn’t like our music
but people were pressing them on
x-rays,” Starr said. These
improvised discs, with a centre hole
burnt in with a cigarette, were
awful quality but cheap and easily
shared. “Somebody gave me one
and if you hold it up to the light you
can see the break in the leg,” said
Starr, above. A Beatles samizdat
x-ray tracklist would perhaps go
from I’m Down to Doctor Robert,
Getting Better then I Feel Fine.
The letters page of Church Times has
news of a surprising change of career.
John Pockett writes that he recently
bought a travel version of Cluedo and
found that Reverend Green has
become Mayor Green, making him the
most famous clergyman to win elected
office since Chris Bryant. I just hope
that Colonel Mustard hasn’t also
received a dishonourable discharge.
NEW CUSTOMER OFFER
30% OFF
OUR RANGE
TMS
major’s breach of protocol
As the slimmed-down monarchy
struggles to cover duties, one royal
has always been unflappable. The
biographer Hugo Vickers told
Lackey Jack that when John Major
was prime minister there was some
hoo-hah over the procedure at a
formal dinner. With the protocol
officer in a flap, Princess Anne
swept in, organised everyone and
decorum was soon restored. The
next day, the officer apologised to
Major and admitted that he had
been glad of the Princess Royal’s
help. “Quite,” Major replied. “I wish
I could have her in my cabinet.”
back to square one
The sports reporter Mihir Bose
always secretly wanted to be a
mathematician. He writes in his
new memoir about his admiration
for the Indian prodigy Srinivasa
Ramanujan, whose mind worked on
a higher plane than most. He died
at only 32 and Bose tells the story
of him being visited in his nursing
home by GH Hardy, his mentor,
who remarked, as mathmos do, that
the number of the taxi that brought
him, 1729, was far too dull. “No, it is
very interesting,” Ramanujan
replied. “It is the smallest number
expressible as the sum of two cubes
in two different ways.”
When maths goes wrong (such as
when I run out of fingers and toes) it
can be disastrous. In a lecture at
Gresham College, Sarah Hart gave
the example of a Nasa orbiter in 1999
that burnt up in the atmosphere of
Mars because one piece of software
was calculating thrust in pounds but
another assumed it was in newtons.
An error that cost $125 million.
power abuser
As Theresa May tours bookshops
flogging her latest, The Abuse of
Power, the former prime minister
has noticed some political books
are wrongly shelved. Tim Shipman’s
anatomy of Brexit, she said, should
be under horror, while Liz Truss’s
Seven Weeks in the Salad Spinner
should, “given Liz’s reputation”, be
classed as sci-fi fantasy. May also
told a press gallery lunch that Boris
Johnson’s forthcoming memoir
“should be under current affairs”.
patrick kidd
Oxford pulls studies
over China DNA link
Rhys Blakely Science Correspondent
The University of Oxford has been
forced to retract two scientific studies
that were published in a journal it runs,
but which is funded by the Chinese gov-
ernment, amid concerns that they
breached ethics rules.
The studies both involved DNA
taken from ethnic minorities in China
by researchers linked to the country’s
police. Oxford retracted them after
concerns were raised by a western aca-
demic, including that genetic samples
may have been taken from people who
had not given informed consent.
The studies were published online by
Oxford University Press (OUP) in a
journal called Forensic Sciences
Research. It carries university branding
but receives financial support from
China’s Ministry of Justice, which pays
for articles to be processed and pub-
lished. The unusual arrangement has
fuelled concerns about China’s efforts
to influence UK academia, which has
included funding Confucius Institutes
at 30 universities.
The collection of DNA was likely to
spread fear among persecuted groups in
China, experts said. Genetic databases
can be used to track people and map out
family relationships.
The retracted studies involved DNA
from the minority Xibe community.
OUP said it was still investigating one
more study, which was published in the
same journal and used DNA taken
15
News
from China’s oppressed Uighur popula-
tion. A fear said to be circulating among
the Uighur in Xinjiang, northwest
China, is that state-run DNA databases
will be used to match forcibly harvested
organs to suitable recipients.
The studies were flagged by Yves
Moreau, a professor of engineering at
KU Leuven, a Belgian university.
“There is a serious risk in all these cases
that genetic material from ethnic
minorities obtained in violation of basic
ethical standards was used to conduct
the academic research,” he said. “These
retractions are significant because the
research used the newest human DNA
identification technology, which not
only allows identification of individu-
als, but also the prediction of ethnicity.”
Moreau has succeeded in having 31
studies with links to China retracted
from western journals.
The articles appear online in Foren-
sic Sciences Research under the “Ox-
ford Academic” branding. However,
documents obtained via a freedom of
information request show it receives fi-
nancial support from the Academy of
Forensic Science, part of China’s Minis-
try of Justice, which owns it.
Oxford University Press said:
“Earlier this year, we were alerted to
concerns regarding two papers in Fo-
rensic Sciences Research. Based on the
information we received, we undertook
further investigation and took the deci-
sion to retract the papers, in line with
industry standard processes.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Charity lifts
lid on ‘gross
neglect’ at 29
certified zoos
Adam Vaughan Environment Editor
British zoos are among dozens in
Europe accused of gross neglect after
an 18-month investigation outlined
thousands of apparent breaches of
animal welfare standards.
Researchers who visited 29 zoos and
aquariums allegedly found elephants
locked outside in the cold, bears shut in
concrete-walled enclosures and wild
dogs left outdoors without bedding.
The research, by the Kent-based
animal conservation charity the Aspin-
all Foundation, focused on zoos that are
accredited by the European Associa-
tion of Zoos and Aquaria (Eaza).
Eaza is supposed to act as a gold stan-
dard to reassure visitors that the
animals they see are well cared for.
However, the Aspinall Foundation,
which employs Carrie Johnson, the
former prime minister’s wife, claimed
its findings showed that the accredita-
tion system was falling short, with
animals suffering as a result.
Aspinall claimed its visits found 3,074
breaches of Eaza’s guidelines. Ele-
phants were the species most affected,
followed by rhinos, lions, tigers and
giraffes. In total 162 species of mammal
were affected, the charity stated.
Colchester and Chester zoos had 17
Widow hits out at failure to commemorate Mull of Kintyre crash
David Brown
The widow of a senior police officer
killed in an RAF Chinook helicopter
crash has expressed anger after being
told an official memorial has not been
arranged to mark the 30th anniversary
of the disaster.
Four RAF crew members and 25 pas-
sengers, including some of Britain’s
most senior intelligence experts, were
killed in the crash on the Mull of Kin-
tyre on the west coast of Scotland on
June 2, 1994.
and 12 alleged breaches respectively.
The report stated that rhino, zebra and
ostrich were left outside at Colchester
for six hours without adequate shelter.
At Chester an alleged lack of bedding
for wild dogs and tapirs was criticised,
along with elephants being left outside
without shelter for five hours.
As well as the Eaza accreditation
system, zoos must undergo inspections
for accreditation with the British
and Irish Association of Zoos and
Aquariums — to which most UK
zoos belong — and by the gov-
ernment to ensure they meet
legal standards of modern zoo
practice. Zoos do not receive a
public rating.
Sosto Zoo in Hungary had
the highest number of re-
ported breaches, at 418. It is
run by Endre Papp, the
chairman of Eaza. Its specta-
cled bears were kept in a
concrete enclosure with no
shelter or bedding and little
“complexity” to interest the
animals, all breaches of
Eaza standards, according
to the report.
At several zoos, including
Sosto, drainage problems
are said to have had led to
The aircraft was flying from RAF
Aldergrove near Belfast to a security
conference in Inverness when it
crashed into a hillside in thick fog.
The reasons for the crash remain
unclear. After an RAF board of inquiry,
a report by two air marshals concluded
that the pilots, flight lieutenants Jona-
than Tapper and Richard Cook, had
been “negligent to a gross degree”.
However, a review in 2011 found the
pilots should not have been blamed.
Susan Phoenix, 75, whose husband,
Detective Superintendent Ian Phoenix
Giraffes at Colchester Zoo, which was among those criticised by the Aspinall Foundation, which employs Carrie Johnson, below
wet, muddy enclosures for species such
as lions, which are used to dry habitats.
Researchers found ten zoos had alle-
gedly locked their elephants outside, in
apparent violation of guidelines. In one
case an elephant calf was locked out-
side when it was minus 1C.
Many of the alleged breaches related
to the size of the enclosures, bedding,
the complexity of the structures to aid
stimulation, and shelters and refuges.
At Budapest Zoo & Botanical
Garden more than 20 Asiatic wild
dogs, or dholes, were allegedly
locked outside with no access to
refuges. Guidelines say there
should be enough dens “in
the outdoor enclosure to
give all dholes a chance to
retreat from bad weather,
visitors and pack members”.
The zoo said: “Naturally,
some parts of this facility are
not visible to visitors. [It is]
not possible to make a serious
welfare assessment only from
the visitors’ perspective. Our
dhole exhibit complies with all
regulations and standards.”
In Wuppertal Zoo in Ger-
many, the depth of water in a
pool for king penguins was
described as “highly question-
of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was
among those killed, has accused the
Ministry of Defence of a cover-up.
“That is one more sign of a cover-up
by the MoD — a mission which began
on June 2, 1994, when the Chinook
crashed and continues,” she said.
“They would prefer to sweep this all
under the carpet, content in their ivory
towers waiting for all family members
to die and fade away.
“It is a dereliction of the duty they
owe to those who were killed, to the
memory of those they wrongly blamed,
able”, with large parts of the enclosure
appearing shallower than the mini-
mum recommended depth of 1.2m.
Damian Aspinall, chairman of the
Aspinall Foundation, accused Eaza of
being a “pointless organisation” unless
it was more honest with the public. The
researchers, with experience in audit-
ing zoos and wildlife tourist facilities,
arrived unannounced as paying visitors
during assessments from July 2021 to
January this year. The 29 institutions in
12 European countries were chosen to
give a sample of about a tenth of the 308
that have full membership of Eaza.
The Aspinall Foundation called for
Eaza to reassess the effectiveness of its
accreditation process and its responsi-
bility for maintaining basic standards.
Myfanwy Griffith, executive director
of Eaza, said: “Very simply, this report
fails to truthfully represent the aims
and effectiveness of Eaza’s accredita-
tion programme. This report shows a
flawed understanding of animal wel-
fare. Eaza is driven by the best science
available. This report claims that Eaza
does not help member zoos maintain
adequate standards, whilst evidence
shows that is untrue.”
She said it was impossible to assess
animal welfare from the perspective of
visitors who were there only briefly.
and to the families who still remain in
limbo.”
A BBC documentary this year raised
further questions about the crash and
its aftermath and why no one has been
held to account, including those who
wrongly blamed the pilots. “Those of us
who are not dead will not stop asking
questions,” Phoenix said.
Her son, Niven Phoenix, a former
military and now commercial pilot,
criticised the “scapegoating of two
young pilots who were no longer able to
defend themselves in death”. He
17
News
Zoo managers had provided feedback
that countered “most of the reported
issues” that Aspinall had raised.
Chester Zoo, which recently voted in
favour of more frequent and stringent
inspections by Eaza, said the zoo was
globally renowned for animal welfare,
adding: “The authors of this report have
made a host of erroneous assumptions
based on a brief five and a half hour visit
in 2021, during which they saw a mere
fraction of our zoo and none of the
behind-the-scenes areas that the
animals have access to. Meanwhile, day
in, day out we deploy scientists, behav-
iourists, conservationists and teams
with decades of expertise.”
Laszlo Gajdos, Sosto Zoo’s owner,
said the report contained “extremely
harsh and dangerous criticism”. He
said: “Sosto Zoo has been named
Europe’s best zoo in the under 500,000
visitors category three times for the
past decade, which Anthony Sheridan,
an independent zoo expert fellow and a
past member of the council of the Zoo-
logical Society of London, has rated
based on scores from his own criteria.”
Gajdos said the Aspinall Foundation
had visited during a period of intense
construction at the zoo.
Colchester, Wuppertal and Budapest
zoos were contacted for comment.
claimed that senior officers and offi-
cials were never held to account.
An MoD spokesman said: “The Mull
of Kintyre was a tragic accident and our
thoughts and sympathies remain with
the families, friends and colleagues of
all those who died.
“In 2010 the Mull of Kintyre inde-
pendent review was carried out and the
findings were fully accepted. The re-
view did not find new evidence to sug-
gest mechanical failure, and no safety
issues with the Chinook mark 2 were
raised in the report.”
18
News
Stella performance Scottish Ballet’s adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the play by Tennessee Williams, runs until Sunday at Sadler’s Wells, London
NHS bosses ‘use dirty tricks to
kick out whistleblower doctors’
Tom Witherow
Hundreds of senior NHS doctors have
been driven out of their jobs after rais-
ing concerns about patient safety, a
campaign group has claimed.
The senior consultants say managers
of NHS trusts employ “dirty tricks” to
sack whistleblowers or force them to
move trusts or take early retirement.
Justice for Doctors (JFD), which repre-
sents 140 whistleblowing doctors,
claims that some have had to sell their
homes to pay legal fees, had their
careers destroyed and had been pushed
to the brink of suicide.
They are calling for compensation
for those who have lost their jobs and
suffered mental health problems, and
want hospital managers to be regulated
and face reprisals if patients suffered.
Salam Al-Sam, a consultant histo-
pathologist and whistleblower, is being
compared by some to the Post Office
campaigner Alan Bates after he
brought 140 doctors together in JFD.
Corpse was left to decompose for 70 days at hospital
Poppy Koronka Health Correspondent
Bodies are being left to decompose at
NHS hospitals in England, with one
deteriorating for 70 days.
A report from the Human Tissue
Authority (HTA) inspectors revealed
that inadequate storage facilities and a
lack of freezer space had resulted in
some bodies being left for too long at
unsuitable temperatures.
The inspectors discovered mortuaries
that were not properly locked, a lack of
The group ran a conference on whistle-
blowing at the Royal Society of Medi-
cine in London on Thursday.
“There are hundreds of cases ...
[where those] who spoke out were ex-
cluded, dismissed or made redundant,”
he said. “Regulating managers is No 1
because they are abusing taxpayers’
money freely. Doctors who have been
damaged significantly and left with no
job should be compensated.”
Police are investigating 40 surgery
deaths at University Hospitals Sussex
NHS Foundation Trust after two doc-
tors blew the whistle and were sacked.
Medics said the trust’s internal inves-
tigations into doctors’ clinical practice
or behaviour was the first of four key
tactics used to force troublesome staff
out. Doctors claim they are then victi-
mised and harassed, threatened with
referral to the General Medical
Council, or sacked. Trusts are then able
to marshal taxpayers’ funds to defend-
cases at the employment tribunal.
On Thursday Martyn Pitman, a con-
cleaning schedules and remains reach-
ing states of “advanced decomposition”.
HTA guidance says bodies should be
moved from fridges to frozen storage
after no more than 30 days, depending
on the condition.
In one case at Leeds General Infir-
mary, reported last year, the HTA said:
“The inspection team noted a body that
had been in storage for 70 days that had
not been placed into frozen storage
despite being released by the coroner.”
At the Royal Blackburn Hospital in
sultant, said he had become a “pariah”
when he was confronted with bullying
and harassment allegations after blow-
ing the whistle on maternity care. The
obstetrician gynaecologist, 58, who
worked for the Royal Hampshire Coun-
ty Hospital, was driven into retirement
by his five-year ordeal. Despite 26 years
of what he called “flawless appraisals”,
he was placed under a maintaining high
professional standards investigation
when he raised concerns.
He said he was met with allegations
of bullying, harassment and undermin-
ing behaviour, and that when these
were dropped the trust found new rea-
sons to remove him. A process that was
expected to take six months took many
years. He claimed his concerns were
confirmed in a Care Quality Commis-
sion report in February 2022.
He said his British Medical Associa-
tion union representative told him that
trusts “deliberately extend it because
they want to break you”.
The judgment in his employment tri-
2022, inspectors found serious flaws,
including “two bodies in an advanced
state of decomposition as a result of not
being moved into frozen storage after
30 days”. The same year, at King’s Col-
lege Hospital in London, inspectors
reported “critical” shortfalls, with
mouldy and infested conditions.
The Health Service Journal, which
first reported the story, said it had found
at least ten cases since 2022 in which in-
spectors discovered that one or more
bodies had started to deteriorate.
bunal last October found he was not
sacked because of whistleblowing, and
ruled it was the “communication style
and not the message he was trying to
convey”.
Hampshire Hospitals said: “In 2019,
four midwives raised a formal griev-
ance into Mr Pitman’s behaviour, citing
evidence of bullying and intimidation.
An investigation concluded that his
behaviour had a significantly negative
impact on a number of his colleagues.
“Independent external investiga-
tions were commissioned — at Mr Pit-
man’s request — to ensure that the
peer-led managing high professional
standards process was implemented
fairly, with one concluding that ‘[I] do
not consider that the investigation itself
was unreasonably protracted.’”
A survey of 526 hospital doctors by
the Hospital Consultants and Special-
ists Association found that more than
seven in ten doctors believed they could
not blow the whistle without harming
their careers.
Dr Magnus Harrison, chief medical
officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals
NHS Trust, said: “We now have
improved systems in place ... to ensure
this doesn’t happen again.”
A spokeswoman for King’s College
Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said:
“We have significantly increased the
size of our mortuary provision.”
A health service spokesman said: “All
NHS trusts must follow the Human
Tissue Authority’s guidance on mortu-
ary storage practices.”
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Concern at
New Yorker
article on
Lucy Letby
Ali Mitib
Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
A 13,000-word New Yorker article on
Lucy Letby that is blocked online in the
UK but available in the magazine’s print
edition has been discussed by the
Attorney General’s Office and the
Crown Prosecution Service.
Letby, a former neonatal nurse, is
serving 14 whole-life prison terms after
she was convicted of the murders of
seven babies and the attempted mur-
ders of six others after a ten-month trial
at Manchester crown court last year.
Letby, who worked at the Countess of
Chester Hospital, has sought leave to
appeal against her convictions. She is
due to be retried next month on one
charge of attempted murder, one of six
on which the jury could not reach a ver-
dict on last year.
An article on her trial was published
on Monday by the American magazine,
but readers in the UK are blocked from
reading it online. However, the article is
available in Britain through the New
Yorker app and from newsstands.
A court order has restricted report-
ing before Letby’s retrial. For legal rea-
sons, the details of her attempt to ap-
peal against her convictions cannot be
Lucy Letby has
sought leave to
appeal against
her convictions
reported at this stage. The Times un-
derstands that lawyers at the Attorney
General’s Office (AGO), which pro-
vides legal advice to the attorney-gen-
eral, chief legal adviser to the Crown,
have spoken to the CPS about the
matter. There is no suggestion that the
contents of the piece were discussed.
A spokeswoman for the AGO said:
“We are aware of the material which
has been published in The New Yorker.
We continue to monitor reporting.”
Sir David Davis, MP for Haltemprice
& Howden, used parliamentary privi-
lege on Tuesday to ask why British
readers were barred from reading the
article, “in defiance of open justice”. He
asked Alex Chalk, the justice secretary,
to review reporting restrictions.
Chalk said: “Court orders must be
obeyed and court orders can be
displaced by someone applying to the
court for them to be removed, so that
will need to take place in the normal
course of events. I will just simply make
a point on the Lucy Letby case — that
the jury’s verdict must be respected. If
there are grounds for an appeal, that
should take place in the normal way.”
In September, the Thirlwall inquiry
will begin to examine the experiences
of the parents of the babies involved
in Letby’s initial trial, as well as the
conduct of clinical and non-clinical
staff and NHS management and
culture. On Thursday, Peter Skelton
KC, representing the families of six
babies who featured in the trial, called
for the inquiry to be live-streamed to
the public to prevent the spread of
“grossly offensive” conspiracy theories.
The CPS declined to comment. The
New Yorker did not respond to a
request for comment. A spokesman for
Condé Nast told the Columbia
Journalism Review: “As there is one
print edition of The New Yorker world-
wide, subscribers in the UK will receive
the same copy as everyone else.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024 S1
Newsagent living in Britain since 1977 must fight for his passport
Shayma Bakht
A retired newsagent who has spent
more than 45 years in Britain has
vowed to fight the Home Office after
he was refused indefinite leave to
remain here.
Nelson Shardey, 74, who lives in Wal-
lasey on the Wirral and was born in
Ghana, said he “cried [his] eyes out
every night” after discovering he would
have to wait a decade before being
granted permanent residency.
Jails too full
for repeat
knife crooks
Crime and Justice
Commission
Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor
A record number of repeat knife
offenders are being spared jail as judges
opt for non-custodial punishments
because of overcrowded prisons.
Yesterday figures from the Ministry
of Justice showed that 2,021 people con-
victed of offences involving a knife last
year and who had at least one previous
conviction avoided a prison sentence.
This is despite a sentencing law that
introduced mandatory prison sen-
tences for repeat knife offenders. Until
2022 judges could use their discretion
to opt out of a custodial sentence if it
would be “unjust to do so in all the cir-
cumstances”.
However, the threshold for not jail-
ing repeat offenders was raised by new
regulations introduced last year that
allow an exemption to the two-strikes-
and-you’re-out policy only if there are
exceptional circumstances.
Criminal justice sources said that
they believed judges had been inter-
preting the lack of space in prisons as an
exceptional circumstance.
In October Lord Justice Edis, senior
presiding judge for England and Wales,
issued crown court judges with emer-
gency guidance to jail fewer people
because of overcrowding. There are
fewer than 300 spaces in men’s prisons.
Of the 4,285 repeat knife offenders
convicted last year, only 59 per cent re-
ceived an immediate prison sentence.
Other figures published yesterday
showed that criminals with 15 or more
previous cautions or convictions made
up a third of all offenders last year.
Boy, 5, dies in fall from tower block
Shayma Bakht, Kieran Gair
A five-year-old boy died after falling
more than 150ft from a tower block in
east London yesterday.
The child, who has been named
locally as Alam Makial, is said to have
fallen out of a window on the 15th floor
of Jacobs House in Plaistow shortly
before 6am. His mother had com-
plained to the council that their home
was unsafe, Alam’s aunt has said.
Witnesses said they had seen a man
circling the child’s body and screaming:
“My boy, my boy.”
Police officers, the fire brigade,
paramedics and air ambulance crews
attended but Alam died at the scene.
His death is being treated as
Shardey told The Times that “people
from all across the northwest have
come out to support” his legal chal-
lenge, with more than £22,000 raised in
donations.
He was told by officials in 2019 that
he would have to restart the ten-year
route to settlement — paying about
£7,000 in fees and £10,500 for NHS ser-
vices — after he applied for a passport
to attend his mother’s funeral in Ghana.
Shardey said he had presumed he was a
British citizen after spending decades
First past the post Kevin Mitchell, lord mayor of Exeter, with Patrick, unofficial mayor of Cockington, at Devon County Show
unexpected, the Metropolitan Police
have said. No arrests have been made.
Maryan Hadafow, Alam’s aunt, said
he had woken early for school and fell
out of the window while the family
were still sleeping. She told the Evening
Standard that Alam’s mother had
complained to the council by email five
times about unsafe doors and windows
but that “no one did anything”.
Alam, who was an Arsenal fan,
attended New City Primary School in
Newham, according to Fatima, a Year 3
primary teacher who was at the scene.
She said: “The child is a special needs
child. I saw him just yesterday at school.
“He shouldn’t have been living on
such a high floor. He needs different
space to a normal child. The council
working in the UK with a national
insurance number, applying for a mort-
gage and paying taxes.
“When they told me that I could not
get my passport, they acted like robots.
I was shocked and disappointed,”
Shardey said.
The pensioner, who is recovering
from prostate cancer, spent more than
30 years running a newsagent’s in
Wallasey — often using his shop to do
community outreach for the elderly. In
2007, he won a police award for bravery
should have placed the family on the
ground floor.
“All the staff are devastated. He has
two siblings — both are in nursery.”
As people gathered outside the tower
block with bouquets, several neigh-
bours demanded answers from
Newham council.
JJ Armstrong, 33, a father of two girls,
said he had seen a man walking around
Alam’s body. He said: “I heard some-
thing outside. I looked down and saw a
man standing over a child screaming
‘my boy, my boy, my boy is dead’ repeat-
edly. He was distraught and walking in
circles. It was terrible to see.
“I couldn’t go down there, it was too
awful. A paramedic arrived to help the
boy but when she realised that he was
after he stopped a robber from attack-
ing a delivery man.
Shardey came to the UK in 1977 on a
student visa that allowed him to work,
but after a coup in Ghana stopped his
family sending money he was forced to
quit education and work full time. He
said his right to live in the UK was never
questioned. He married a British
woman and had two children. “They
want me to start an application ... like
someone who has just arrived here. But
I’ve been here for 40 years. Everywhere
dead she looked very upset. She had
been trying to talk to him but realised
he was gone. A police officer talked to
her because she looked very emotional.”
He added: “We all want a full
investigation into what happened.
Whether there was a problem with the
window or whatever, we need to know.
I can’t get [over] the image of that poor
boy laying there lifeless circled by the
grieving man.”
A 28-year-old woman said: “We are
in utter shock. We know the family. The
parents are at the hospital. Other
family members are in the flat.”
A police spokesman said: “We were
called at 5.58am on Thursday, May 16,
to reports of a child having fallen from
height at New City Road. Officers,
19
News
I go, I am regarded as a citizen. I have
been really downhearted. I spend hours
in my bedroom and cry my eyes out.”
His solicitor, Nicola Burgess from
Greater Manchester Immigration Aid
Unit, said that the Home Office should
have treated him as an exception
because of the length of time he had
been in the UK and because of his ser-
vice to the community.
A Home Office spokesman said: “It
would be inappropriate to comment on
active legal proceedings.”
Baby killed
by car near
church hall
Sian Bradley
A one-year-old girl who died after
being hit by a Land Rover in a church
car park has been named by her “abso-
lutely devastated” family.
Ivy Mae was hit by the car outside the
Plymouth Brethren meeting hall in
Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. She was
taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, but
was pronounced dead a short time later.
The 40-year-old man who was driv-
ing the vehicle on Wednesday evening
was uninjured. It is understood that
police have asked residents whose
houses overlook the car park to come
forward with any CCTV footage, The
Telegraph reported.
In a statement, the girl’s parents said:
“We can confirm that our beautiful
daughter, Ivy Mae, passed away follow-
ing a tragic accident last evening after
our regular church gathering in Balme-
die, Aberdeenshire.
“We are absolutely devastated and
ask that our privacy is respected at this
challenging time. We value all the
prayers and messages of sympathy and
support we have received from the local
community.”
Yesterday tributes of flowers and a
picture of a rainbow were laid against
the locked gates to the car park.
One woman, whose home overlooks
the car park, told The Telegraph: “It’s
such a horrendous thing to have hap-
pened – completely heartbreaking. You
just can’t begin to put into words how
terrible the person who was driving
must be feeling.”
Inspector Scott Deans said: “Our
investigation into the circumstances
remain ongoing and we’d like to thank
the wider Balmedie community for
their patience and understanding as
officers carry out their inquiries in the
area.”
London Fire Brigade, London Ambu-
lance Service and London’s air ambu-
lance attended.
“At the scene a ... boy had fallen from
an upper floor of an apartment block.
Despite the efforts of emergency
services he sadly died at the scene. His
family are aware and are being
supported.”
Newham council said: “The council is
continuing to establish the facts
regarding this tragic incident. Until we
have further information we are unable
to make any further comment.
“Our priority is to support the family
at this devastating time. We are deeply
sorry to hear about this devastating
incident. We extend our sincere
condolences to all those affected.”
20 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

News

TikTok addicts are three

times more likely to vape
Eleanor Hayward Health Editor
Teenagers who spend hours scrolling
TikTok or Instagram each day are three
times more likely to vape, research has
found.
Experts warned that social media
sites “entice” young people to take up
vaping, with influencers presenting it as
a “fashionable and desirable activity”.
The study, led by Imperial College
London, looked at the smoking, vaping
and social media habits of 10,808
youngsters in the UK aged 10 to 25.
The more time they spent on social
media sites such as Instagram, Snap-
chat and TikTok, the more likely they
were to smoke and vape.
Nearly one in ten of those involved
said they spent more than seven hours
on social media during a typical week-
day. This group were three times more
likely to vape than those who didn’t use
social media, and five times more likely
to both smoke and vape.
Meanwhile, those who clocked
between one and three hours a day on
social media — the most common
amount of time to spend — were twice
as likely to vape compared with those
who avoided the apps.
The lead author, Dr Anthony
Laverty, from the Imperial College
London School of Public Health, said
this was partly explained by the mar-
keting and promotion of vapes online.
Those who spend lots of time on social
media may also be predisposed to other
addictive behaviours such as vaping.
Writing in the journal Thorax, Lav-
erty said: “First, and most straightfor-
wardly, there is evidence that the cor-
porations behind cigarette smoking
and vaping make use of social media to
advertise and promote their products.
“This includes direct advertising
which is algorithmically targeted and
the use of paid social media influencers
who present smoking and vaping as a
fashionable and desirable activity.
Greater time spent on social media is
likely to increase exposure to these
forms of influence.
“Second, social media use has been
shown to have features in common
with reward-seeking addictive behav-
iour. High social media use may in-
crease susceptibility to other addictive
behaviours like smoking.
“Third, as a space that is largely unsu-
pervised by parents/caregivers, social
media use may encourage behaviours
that are transgressive, including ciga-
rette smoking and vaping.”
The study, funded by Cancer
Research UK, concluded that social
media platforms should take action to
ban posts promoting vaping and smok-
ing among children. It said: “The com-
panies that own social media platforms
have substantial power to modify expo-
sure to material that promotes smoking
and vaping if they choose to or are com-
pelled to. Voluntary codes seem
unlikely to achieve this, and the intro-
duction and enforcement on bans on
material that promote this should be
considered. In general, we think that
algorithms should not be promoting
products to individuals that they can-
not legally buy. Legislation and
enforcement around this and other
corporate determinants of health con-
cerns should be considered a core part
of online safety and child protection.”
The study has been published after
the government launched a crackdown
on youth vaping, amid rising concerns
about an epidemic of nicotine addiction
in the young. Last month MPs backed a
law to ban anyone born after 2008 from
buying tobacco. Rishi Sunak, the prime
minister, is also introducing new
restrictions on vapes, including a com-
plete ban on disposable vapes.
More than 4.5 million people in the
UK vape, according to the Office for
National Statistics, and the habit is
most common in those aged 16 to 24.
The proportion of 11 to 17-year-old
vapers using disposable vapes in-
creased almost ninefold in the past two
years, and more than one in ten of this
age group now use e-cigarettes.
Because the mass use of vapes is a rel-
atively new phenomenon, there
remains considerable uncertainty over
long-term health impacts. A study by
UCL last month linked vaping to lung
cancer, finding it damages cells in a Floral dance The Strictly star Johannes Radebe plugs Tom Massey’s Water Aid
similar way to tobacco smoking. garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in an outfit made from resilient plants

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the times | Friday May 17 2024
RSPB Woman is ready
to come out swinging
Emma Duncan
Page 22
Starmer’s tussle with the unions isn’t over yet
Labour is committed to new workplace rights but a future government will need employers’ help to make them work
Patrick
Maguire
@patrickkmaguire
T
he conclave dragged on
and on and on until,
eventually, the door
opened. Those waiting
expectantly outside the
room finally saw white smoke.
A deal at last? No, actually, just
Angela Rayner’s vape.
Let nobody tell you that the
nicotine-fuelled rooms full of trade
union leaders in which Labour once
did its most consequential business
went out with Raleigh Choppers
and Alvin Stardust. They are still the
best place to start if you wish to
understand how power is wielded
inside the party that has every
reason to believe it will be governing
Britain in a year’s time. And, on
Tuesday afternoon, that
quintessential scene unfolded before
Sir Keir Starmer at Labour HQ. In
keeping with the old traditions, there
were sandwiches on the table. The
only thing missing was the beer.
There, the general secretaries of
Labour’s affiliated trade unions had
gathered for negotiations on the
package of workers’ rights policy
known — for now — as the New
Deal for Working People. For
months, both left and right of the
party have spoken of little else. It is,
depending on the ideological
persuasion of whoever you find
yourself speaking to, either the
ultimate litmus test of Starmer’s
commitment to Labour values or a
grab bag of liabilities that spooks
business and belongs in the same bin
Time flies when
you’re having fun
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THE ELECTION STATION
as everything else the party
announced in 2021. The days and
weeks that preceded this week’s
meeting were punctuated by well-
sourced suggestions of U-turns — on
plans for a single contractual status
for all workers, bar the genuinely
self-employed, to stop exploitation in
the gig economy, a ban on zero hours
contracts, and an end to firms firing
and rehiring. But in the end union
leaders emerged contented, speaking
supportively and in one voice.
This was not what Westminster
had been given to expect from all the
briefing from both sides — even
though the five long hours did not
make for easy listening for the
unions. Their 90 minutes or so
with Rachel Reeves, the shadow
chancellor, and her deputy, Darren
Jones, were among the most
uncomfortable. Reeves frequently
speaks of workers’ rights as an
essential ingredient of a thriving
economy, but those trade unionists
The straightforward
explanation is that
Starmer wants to do it
inclined to suspect betrayal by the
leadership blame her shadow
Treasury operation for the hostile
press the New Deal has received.
The shadow chancellor, they
grumble, is all CBI and no TUC.
(Team Reeves have always denied
wanting to water down the policy).
When the discussions turned to
the finer points of trade union
legislation, some in the room felt
patronised and disrespected. Rayner,
the former shop steward who
remains responsible for the agenda,
did not escape their irritation either.
Her suggestion that its contents had,
if anything, been strengthened since
its announcement three years ago
was not a truth many held to be self-
evident. At one point the unions
were ready to walk out.
So it is a wonder that the
afternoon ended as it did: with
union leaders confident that any
backsliding was over. Even Sharon
Graham, who as general secretary
of Unite was the only leader to veto
the initial proposals, gave her full-
throated endorsement. They will
meet again in the coming weeks. But
it is now a given that a Labour
government will introduce workers’
rights legislation that does more to
empower unions and constrain
bosses than any government has
contemplated since the 1970s,
whatever resemblance it eventually
bears to what the party agreed at
its National Policy Forum last year
(of which more in moment). For
that there is really a simple and
straightforward explanation.
Starmer wants to do it.
However testy his discussions with
the unions on Tuesday, in the
following days he was privately
sanguine. In conversations with aides
he noted that the Conservatives
themselves had promised — and
subsequently failed — to bring
forward their own employment bill
in 2019. For a barrister who
represented the NUM and other
unions, the principle of stronger
legal protections in the workplace
is uncontroversial.
For all the Blairite overtones of his
speech in Thurrock yesterday, with its
shirtsleeves, open collar, FTSE100
chief executives and pledge cards, his
changed party owes much more to
union leaders such as Gary Smith of
the GMB, Paddy Lillis of Usdaw and
Christina McAnea of Unison than is
commonly appreciated. And they will
play a bigger role in the machinery of
his government, namely the cross-
Comment
There has been friction between deputy
leader Angela Rayner and the unions
Whitehall mission boards that will
drive through his flagship policies,
than the thoroughly modern
presentation of his campaigning
operation may imply. If Tuesday
proved anything, it is that even under
a leadership as dominant as this one,
power is still diffused throughout the
shadow cabinet and wider labour
movement, as it always was.
But whose influence will prove
decisive? Rayner, the agenda’s
champion in the shadow cabinet;
business; or the unions? For there is
a big difference between the brave
face shown by union leaders on
Tuesday and a lasting victory.
Unions had been allowed to hope,
since last year, that all this would
be law within 100 days of Labour
coming to power. Sue Gray, the
leader’s chief of staff, has been clear
that doing so would be impractical.
21
And next it will be business that has
its say. How exactly the promised
single status of “worker” will look in
practice is yet to be hammered out in
discussions with the big employers
who spend more and more of their
time with Reeves and Jonny
Reynolds, the shadow business
secretary. Not every firm will be
banned from firing and rehiring if
they find themselves in financial
trouble. How the rest of the
The director of strategy
is testing how it might
best be sold to voters
proposals are implemented will only
become clear after businesses are
consulted. Soon we may not even
hear of the New Deal for Working
People at all: I hear that Deborah
Mattinson, Labour’s director of
strategy, has been testing how it
might best be sold to voters under
alternative branding.
As they say in the City, past
performance is no guarantee of
future returns. But in past discussions
that have divided Labour’s extended
family, it is Reeves who has emerged
with what she wants — and that,
above all else, is the support of
businesses who will be expected to
do much of the heavy economic
lifting in the difficult early months of
a Labour government. Others have
learnt this, to their disappointment,
since her arrival as shadow
chancellor. The unions may yet too.
red box
For the best analysis
and commentary on
the political landscape
22
Comment
RSPB Woman is ready to come out swinging
She is socially conservative and voted Leave but cares for nature and is leaning to the Greens
Emma
Duncan
O
ne election year ritual
requires pundits to
identify a new electoral
tribe crucial to the
outcome. Basildon Man,
Worcester Woman, Mondeo Man
and Workington Man — each in
their time was said to be the swing
voter to watch. My contribution to
this dubious genre is RSPB Woman.
My interest in her was sparked by
the recent local election results. The
Green Party did exceedingly well,
gaining 74 council seats, boosting the
number of its councillors to over
800, the most ever. That was a far
bigger proportionate increase than
Labour. The Greens are now the
largest party in Bristol and a bunch
of other councils. Over the past five
years, they have doubled their
councillor numbers. Greens used to
take most votes from Labour, but
that’s changed. In last year’s and
this year’s local elections, they took
more seats from the Tories.
RSPB Woman doesn’t just support
the Greens, however. She’ll vote for
whoever addresses her concerns.
The Lib Dems spotted her potential
in the Chesham & Amersham by-
election in 2021, focused their
campaign on the threat HS2 posed
to the local countryside, and took
the seat from the Tories.
In local elections this phenomenon
has been most visible in eastern
Martin Samuel Notebook
Suggesting
a sushi joint
shouldn’t hit
a raw nerve
C
laire Ozanne, provost of
the University of London’s
School of Oriental and
African Studies, found
herself in the company of a
Japanese professor. So she made
small talk about sushi. Not the Burma
Railway, or Pearl Harbour. Sushi.
Ozanne told Professor Nana Sato-
Rossberg that she lived close to a
sushi restaurant and her family
enjoyed eating there. She ended up
in a tribunal hearing, which alleged
racism. Unsuccessful, thankfully.
Even so, welcome to the wonderful
world of modern academia.
“Professor Ozanne tries to suppress
my voice, the voice of a woman of
colour,” argued Sato-Rossberg. The
tribunal decided that she’d just tried
to recommend a sushi joint to a
Japanese person. And that’s a little
clumsy. But it’s not racist. It’s not
suppression. And if Sato-Rossberg
thought she was being racially
profiled, why didn’t she engage?
England, where there have been
plenty of environmental disputes.
I stuck my finger into one particular
wasp nest a while ago when I wrote a
piece criticising nimbys in Aldeburgh
who objected to the laying of cables to
transmit electricity from an offshore
wind farm. The feedback I got from
both friends and strangers suggested
the piece would have won the “most
subscriptions lost by a single article”
prize at the press awards.
The Greens have done well out
of Suffolk’s environmental angst.
They’re now the biggest party in the
East Suffolk and Mid Suffolk district
councils. All three councillors in the
ward that includes Sizewell, where a
new nuclear power station is
Sunak’s untrumpeted
post-Brexit farming
policy would appeal
proposed, are Greens.
To get a sense of who these people
abandoning the Tories for the
Greens are, Steve Akehurst, a
pollster, has drilled down into last
year’s British Election Survey.
Though disproportionately female,
they are standard Conservative
voters in some ways — homeowners,
middle-income, middle-aged or older
— but they’re not classic Tory
Remainers. RSPB Woman voted
Leave and reads the Daily Mail.
Socially, she’s conservative: she
thinks Britain lets in far too many
immigrants and she supports the
death penalty. She has some leftish
views — she’s anti-business and
pro-redistribution — but her main
Why didn’t she try to, well, educate?
Toxic leadership
M
eanwhile, at Yarra Valley
Grammar school in
Melbourne, some teenage
boys made a vile little spreadsheet,
ranking female students, and not
on intelligence. The top categories
included “wifeys” and “cuties”, and
at the bottom was
“unrapeable”. Horrid. But
16 and 17-year-old boys
can be. That’s why they
need educating, steering,
guiding, mentoring.
The head teacher
Mark Merry favoured a
different approach. He
called the police. Said there
was a threat of rape.
Expelled two boys,
suspended two more. And
that’s one way of
addressing toxic
masculinity. It’s not
exactly taking the boy and
making the man, though,
is it? Some thought this a
PR masterclass, given
pressure from Victoria’s
premier and a petition
calling for action.
But is that the priority
for a school? Image?
A thumbs-up in the
Herald-Sun? It’s not
the hard path. Given
economic concern is growth. She
doesn’t like it because it often means
bulldozing nature.
She’s keener than the average Tory
on green issues such as wind power
and climate change targets, but what
she really minds about is nature. She
wants the government to spend more
on preserving species and protecting
the countryside. She likes bats and
newts and hates pylons with a passion.
There’s something particularly
British about RSPB Woman. As the
inhabitants of a dense little country
that industrialised early, intensified
its agriculture and wiped out much
of its wildlife, Britons have an intense
nostalgia for nature, expressed in our
enthusiasm for the birds that on the
other side of the Channel get potted
and put into pies. With 1.2 million
members, the RSPB has twice as
many members as all three main
political parties put together.
But the rise of Greenery is a global
phenomenon. As people get richer,
their concerns extend beyond
looking after themselves and their
families to wider issues such as the
environment. You see it in China and
eastern Europe, as well as in the
West. The India Greens Party is
fielding candidates for the first time.
This often coincides with
dissatisfaction with established
parties. That happened in Australia
in 2022, when the election was
upended by a bunch of former
supporters of the blue centre-right
Liberal Party. They left it because of
green issues and therefore became
known as the Teals. Almost all the
Teal candidates were women. They
destroyed the Liberal Party’s base in
prosperous suburbs and helped hand
those over-privileged young men
were the school’s product, isn’t it an
abdication of responsibility?
Strike a pose
W
hen did posturing replace
educating? At Saint
Francis High School in
San Francisco, around the time
of the George Floyd protests,
principal Katie Teekell came
across a photograph of
three white students in
“blackface”. Their parents
were given a choice:
leave or be expelled.
No matter that the
boys were 14 when the
picture was taken, or that
it was now three years
old. No truck with the
explanation the make-
up was actually a
dusky green anti-acne
face mask, and looked
much darker on camera.
And no education around
why this might be thought
offensive, even as an
innocent mistake. Misstep,
gone. And that little pose
has just cost the school $1
million in compensation.
Why do these events
matter to us? Because
it’s all coming here.
As the Sato-Rossberg
case suggests, we are increasingly
power to Labor. The Australian story
could well have echoes in Britain this
year. RSPB Woman won’t win the
Greens many parliamentary seats,
but her defection from the Tories
could lose them a bunch.
She isn’t a lost cause for them,
though. She’s not a natural fit with
the Greens, who are shifting left
and losing focus. She has no interest
in Gaza and no sympathy for the
trans-rights lobby. Despite her mild
enthusiasm for redistribution she’s
not going to vote Labour: Sir Keir
Starmer has identified his party as
“the builders not the blockers”, and
she prefers blockers.
So what is Rishi Sunak to do to
ingratiate himself with RSPB
Woman? On economics, there’s not
much more he can do. He has
already refused to unblock the
planning system, and the Tories have
done their best to satisfy her hostility
to growth by bringing it to a halt. On
green policies, Sunak has rowed back
on Boris Johnson’s climate change
commitments to placate motorists,
which hasn’t endeared him to her.
There’s one trick the government
has missed. Its post-Brexit farming
policy is world-leading in its
greenness. No other country has
switched virtually all its agricultural
subsidies to such measures as the
planting of wildflowers, the
re-establishment of hedgerows and
the encouragement of wild birds.
Nobody knows that’s happened,
though, because the farming lobby
doesn’t much like the policy, so the
government has failed to advertise it.
RSPB Woman would appreciate it,
though, and there are many more of
her than there are farmers.
importing academic poses
and poseurs.
Kids at the gig
aby in the mosh pit at Taylor
B Swift. Did you see that? Asleep
on a mat at its parents’ feet.
Social media was outraged, which
surprised as it’s usually so reasoned.
Then again, in 2003 I took seven-
year-old Art to see the Super Furry
Animals at Norwich University. Only
when we got to the door did I notice
the under-14 age restriction on the
ticket. I told him to pull the snorkel
hood on his parka tight. He looked
like Kenny from South Park. We
nearly made it too. It was only the last
doorman that told his mate, “Tony,
have a look at this.” They asked his
age. “Fourteen, today,” I said brightly.
“He’s a bit small but” — stage whisper
— “don’t mention it, he gets upset.”
I think they admired our chutzpah
— when you still could at a British
university without being hounded off
campus — because they smiled and
let us through. “Not near the bar and
not in the mosh pit,” Tony called. We
were good to our word. Though when
they played The Man Don’t Give a F***
as an encore I did let him on to my
shoulders. “Can I sing, Dad?” he asked.
And it was his birthday (ahem), so he
did. “You know they don’t give a f***
about anybody else,” about 100 times.
That’s what children need: a decent
education, and a window on the truth.
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
The National Trust
is obsessed with race
Zewditu
Gebreyohanes
A
National Trust press
release this week
announced a “new
project that aims to
improve representation
in the outdoors by supporting people
from the global majority to become
qualified walk leaders”. “People
from the global majority”? What
do they mean?
For those not in the know about
the latest updates to politically correct
terminology, the National Council for
Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has
helpfully provided a definition of this
term, which apparently refers to “all
ethnic groups except white British
and other white groups, including
white minorities”.
Why, in the 21st century, are some
people still transfixed by skin colour?
Far from representing progress, this
suggests society is regressing, simply
flipping racism in the other direction.
Terms such as these help nobody.
Making any group feel insignificant
and unimportant only foments
resentment and polarisation. And
implying that everyone whose skin is
not “white” can somehow be lumped
together as a huge homogeneous
bloc is ignorant and patronising to
all — as is suggesting that white
itself is one uniform race, with
English and Romanians, Spaniards
and Poles basically being the same.
The strange thing is that some
people are advertising their
promotion and use of “global
majority” and patting themselves
on the back for it. Many museums
and heritage organisations have
adopted this terminology on the
advice and encouragement of the
Museums Association, the NCVO
and similar-minded groups.
Some institutions have already
stopped talking about the “global
majority”, having realised that
such divisive rhetoric does the very
opposite of solving the supposed
societal problems it claims to address.
But why would sensible institutions
have so uncritically accepted these
weird phrases in the first place? They
should surely be doing other things —
fulfilling their actual functions
might be a good place to begin.
The National Trust press release
also refers to “individuals from African
and Asian minoritised backgrounds”.
Again, what does “minoritised” mean?
Either people of African and Asian
backgrounds are minorities within the
nation’s demographic make-up or they
are not; they cannot be “minoritised”.
This is a reminder that something
is deeply wrong in the National
Trust. They may argue that this kind
of language is costless but using the
term “global majority” indicates that
they have forgotten for whom and
for what they were created. The clue
is in the name. It’s the National
Trust, not the Global Trust.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
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This Trump trial looks shakier by the day
Courtroom spectacle, resting on a contorted legal theory and a tawdry cast of characters, chiefly hurts the Democrats
Gerard
Baker
@gerardtbaker
I
t was supposed to be a win-win
proposition. Tie Donald Trump
down in a Lilliputian web of
criminal prosecutions and,
whatever the outcome, it would
greatly enhance the likelihood that
he would never again win a
presidential election.
Either he would be convicted in
at least one of the cases against him,
and those swing voters already
uneasy about the man would have
to decide whether they could
actually elect a bona fide felon as
president. Or, even if somehow none
of the cases produced a conviction,
he would still be so consumed in an
election year with trial proceedings,
the airwaves so full of sworn
testimonies to his moral turpitude,
that the sheer weight of it all
would sink him.
We are less than six months from
the election and it looks like the
multi-year, multi-jurisdictional effort
to incarcerate Trump may prove his
redemption. Instead of sending him
to the Big House it is more likely to
propel him back to the White House.
A recap: there are four criminal
cases against the former president;
two at federal level, two in state
courts. The federal cases, brought by
Jack Smith, the special prosecutor
appointed by President Biden’s
justice department, relate to Trump’s
alleged mishandling of classified
documents after he left office, and
to his attempts to overturn the result
of the 2020 election, in which he
stands accused of trying to defraud
the American people. One of the
state cases is in Georgia and also
concerns Trump’s efforts to change
the election result in that state.
The other is in New York, where
he is charged with illegally
misrepresenting money paid to a
porn actress as a business expense
He’s like a man who
falls down a well and
finds a bag of gold
before the 2016 election, to keep her
quiet about a sexual encounter.
Like a man who falls down a well
and comes up with a bag of gold
coins, Trump is blessed with timely
good fortune. The Georgia case has
been ensnared in a wrangle over the
prosecutor’s romantic dalliance with
one of her investigators, and whether
she used public funds for the
furtherance of it. Her fate awaits
resolution by the state’s appeals court.
The federal cases now seem to
face indefinite delay. Last week the
judge in the classified documents
case again postponed a trial date
because of the complexities involved
in the pretrial process of determining
what is classified information. And
the whole federal process now rests
on a pending ruling from the
Supreme Court, some time in the
next couple of months, on whether
and in what circumstances a former
president may even be charged with
a crime. Meanwhile the clock ticks
down to November 5.
So all we are left with, it seems,
between now and election day, is
the lowering spectacle unfolding in
a New York courthouse. Even the
most spittle-flecked, Trump-loathing
Democratic Party activists
acknowledge that this was always the
weakest of the cases.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan
district attorney, alleges that the
$130,000 hush money paid to Stormy
Daniels was an improper election
expense, designed to help Trump
avoid embarrassment and lost votes.
But even if that can be judged a
crime (case law is not promising) it
would be a federal offence, not a
state one, over which a state official
has no authority. So to make the
facts fit the law, Bragg has produced
a contorted legal theory that Trump
committed the minor crime of
falsifying business records (a
misdemeanour under New York
law that carries no jail penalty)
in furtherance of a supposed
federal felony relating to the
election (a crime that, incredibly,
a month into the trial, Bragg has
still not specified).
These shaky foundations are
matched by the tawdriness of the
proceedings and a cast of characters
out of a low-budget TV courtroom
drama. Last week, Daniels spent
Bumbling consigliere
was more of a Baldrick
to Trump’s Blackadder
hours on the witness stand
recounting details of her night to
forget from 2006 (which is irrelevant
to the case since Trump is not
disputing that an encounter took
place or that she was later paid),
including answering such compelling
questions about whether a condom
was involved (it wasn’t) and what
Trump was wearing (silk pyjamas).
If that wasn’t enough for delicate
stomachs, the star prosecution
witness this week has been Michael
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. The
prosecution wants to portray Cohen
as a loyal fixer, always ready to bully
and bribe on behalf of his boss, a
Tom Hagen to Trump’s Vito
23
Comment
Corleone. But the bumbling
consigliere with a law degree from
Thomas Cooley college was always
more of a Baldrick to Trump’s
Blackadder. As a previous witness
put it, he was a fixer only in the
sense that he used to fix things that
he himself had broken.
Another problem is that Cohen is
already a convicted felon himself,
having served time for tax evasion,
perjury and other crimes. The
prosecution wants the jury to believe
this makes his evidence against
Trump all the more compelling since
he has nothing to gain or lose by
testifying. But resting your case
on the testimony of a convicted
perjurer is a risky call.
The wider impact of the trial —
probably the only one Trump will
face this year — is not working out
as planned. Even if he is convicted, it
will be easy to portray the verdict as
the inevitable result of a preordained
sham. Bragg is an elected Democrat;
the jury are all residents of New
York, where Trump is about as
popular as the rats on the subway.
They promised us an inspiring
picture of the administration of
sacred justice, where no one is
above the law. The spectacle we got
instead is this: the majesty of the law
enthroned on the testimony of a porn
star and a convicted liar, placed there
by a partisan prosecutor, all in search
of a crime that may not even exist.
24
Letters to the Editor
Maternity culture
Sir, Sir Cyril Chantler (letter, May 14)
observes that the compensation for
birth injury based on a no-blame
scheme in Sweden has “led to an
improvement in culture in the teams,
which is a significant problem here”.
What is this “significant problem”?
Donna Ockenden, in her maternity
review, calls for “an end to the culture
in many units of back-covering that
too often obscures the causes of
errors”. This culture can not alter
unless the reasons for dysfunction are
clarified and then addressed.
Teams consist of midwives and
obstetricians. The relationships
between them are complex, involving
differences in training, skills and
senses of ownership of the
infant-mother process. Possessiveness
leads to rivalry: between midwives
themselves, and between midwives
and obstetricians. When something
then goes wrong there can be a
natural tendency to blame a member
of the team: for interfering, for not
intervening soon enough, for getting
something wrong or for being
unaware of a complication.
The no-blame system in Sweden
lessens the understandable self-
protective response, fuelled by rivalry
and competitiveness, of fault-finding,
blaming and denial. Well-functioning
teams with proper staffing, training,
pay, leadership and supportive
management lead to good outcomes.
Dr Marcus Johns
London SW12
Sir, Alice Thomson’s piece (“NHS
must end medieval maternity
practices”, May 15) reminds me of
when I was in hospital 36 years ago
giving birth to my eldest daughter. My
perineum had torn and I was in such
a position that I was unable to move
due to my legs being in stirrups. The
doctor/midwife, while stitching me up,
said: “Women are not designed to give
birth.” I was furious, and if I had had
anything to hand I would happily
have clobbered that woman.
Siobhan Waters
London SE22
Sir, I agree with Linda Miller (letter,
May 15) that nothing really changes in
standards of maternity care and would
suggest that this will remain so until
men are capable of giving birth, at
which point drastic improvements will
be introduced — within nine months.
Louise Donnelly
Talybont, Gwynedd
Letters to The Times must be exclusive
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Corrections and
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Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Getting the unemployed back into work
Sir, Jeremy Hunt and Mel Stride have
missed the opportunity to create a
more informed debate on how to
support people back into work
(“When the going gets tough, Britons
show their resilience”, comment, May
15). Perpetuating the assumption that
unemployment is a lifestyle choice
represents a simplistic level of
analysis that would almost be comical
if it weren’t harming people living
with mental illness and adding to
their distress. Many of the people we
support long to see an improvement
in their health but face lengthy waits
as an under-resourced health service
struggles to meet rising demand.
Then there are the barriers into work,
and the need for appropriate support
from employers to help people stay
there. We face entrenched, systemic
challenges that are having a
devastating impact on the nation’s
mental health. It is more than a
question of having the right mindset
towards work, although it would be
helpful if ministers shifted theirs.
Mark Winstanley
CEO, Rethink Mental Illness
Sir, Further to your report “Jobs are
there if unemployed want them,
ministers insist” (May 15), this
Obesity challenge
Sir, I find it depressing that there are
still some in the medical profession
repeating the outdated view that
tackling obesity is a simple matter of
choosing a healthier lifestyle (letters,
May 15 & 16). It is all the more
baffling when we were taught, as far
back as the 1980s, that these
conditions have a complex etiology
involving biological, psychological,
social and environmental factors. It is
much easier for some to choose
healthy lifestyles than others. We
need a systemic approach and we
have to stop implying that those
struggling with their weight are
greedy and lazy.
Rachel Turner
GP specialising in addictions,
Overton, Hants
Sir, Most obese people must know
that the reason for their obesity is
their lack of self-restraint in eating
too much food and too many
unhealthy foods. While prevention is
better than cure, effective ways of
changing their mindset is far from
obvious. Counselling is unlikely to be
widely effective as those afflicted
IS THE
LAPWING
VANISHING?
from the times may 17, 1924
Two salient points have emerged
from the letters about the lapwing
which we have lately published. No
one appears to doubt the value of
this bird to agriculture, but there is
not the same unanimity about its
numbers. Is the lapwing in fact
vanishing? On a general review it is
doubtful. Mr H S Davenport
testifies that the same fears of its
disappearance were expressed fifty
years ago, while Mr J R B Masefield
reports that from Staffordshire,
Cheshire, and Derbyshire the
nesting birds have diminished by
more than nine-tenths in five years.
“participation crisis” is being driven by
a lack of access to the kind of secure
and flexible jobs that would enable
those who are out of work to return.
Britain may have historically low
unemployment but it continues to be
an international outlier, with
employment rates below those before
the pandemic. Relying on the threat of
sanctions to push those out of work
into “any job” has failed, and it may
have made the problem worse. It has
contributed to too many people opting
out of the labour market altogether,
becoming stuck in insecure work, or
dipping in and out of jobs as they are
unable to find sustained employment.
We urgently need to see a new
approach that de-risks returning to
work for the 633,000 of those who
are economically inactive owing to
ill health who say they want to find a
job. That means less talk of a
“sick-note culture” and more focus on
improving the quality and flexibility
of jobs on offer, as well as providing
more tailored employment support.
Ben Harrison
Director of the Work Foundation at
Lancaster University
Sir, The UK is the only G7 country
with lower employment than before
already know the cause of their
problem. While losing weight may
reverse type 2 diabetes and reduce
the risk of heart disease, high blood
pressure, cancers and dementia, the
basic reason for weight reduction for
the NHS is not medical but
economic, because the long-term cost
of treating the consequences of
obesity far outweighs the cost of
weight-loss drugs.
Dr Ken Kwok
London W11
Labour’s pledges
Sir, Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge cards
(May 16) are a rerun of Ed Miliband’s
monument. Recently, we were told
there would be 1.5 million new homes
at the end of the first five years of
Labour rule. Now? Nothing about
housing, economic policy or council
tax bills: in short, a pile of waffle
dressed up as a request for a mandate.
Labour’s policy is “We are better than
this mob”, but where is the hope?
There will be tears before bedtime.
Frank Keegan
Alderley Edge, Cheshire
Sir, Pledge number six of Labour’s
At this rate, were it continued, our
breeding lapwings would indeed be
on the point of extinction. But the
various enemies of lapwings or
plovers and their eggs have not begun
their attacks only within the last five
seasons, and we may hope that a
breeding stock may return to this
district as they have to others.
Experience shows that numbers of
lapwings fluctuate on many of their
breeding-grounds greatly and over
wide periods. While the cause is
uncertain, the movements of these
birds in winter and the spot at which
they ultimately nest appear to a great
extent to be determined by the
weather. After long winters they tend
not to return to high moors, but to
nest in the lowlands, or farther south.
Whether the lapwing should not be
given more efficient protection is a
different question; and for those who
say “Yes”, as on the evidence they well
may, it remains to decide what form is
most efficient. So long as different
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
letters@thetimes.co.uk or by post to
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
the pandemic. However, the
government is wrong to suggest that
unemployment benefits are a lifestyle
choice for many or that there is a
widespread sick-note culture. In fact,
many people who are out of work
want to work, including 1.7 million
who are economically inactive. But
only one in ten out-of-work disabled
people get help to find work each year
and many people cannot find work
that fits with their caring
responsibilities or health conditions.
This is a waste of potential and holds
back economic growth. We need
more support for people to find work
and improve their skills, and for
employers to look at how they attract
and retain staff.
Stephen Evans
CEO, Learning and Work Institute
Sir, Jeremy Hunt and Mel Stride insist
that there are ample opportunities for
the unemployed to find work. Not so.
I have applied for hundreds of jobs
over the past four months — so far to
no avail. Moreover, I claim no
benefits. I am 63: it seems that
employers do not want “the old guy”.
Jeremy Hunt should get out more.
Richard Yates
Gerrards Cross, Bucks
“first steps” is to hire 6,500 teachers.
Fantastic — but how will it be
achieved? Labour should retain our
charity’s career-change programme for
teachers, recently defunded by the
Department for Education. We will
probably have to stop hiring teachers
after September but a commitment by
Labour could prevent the loss of nearly
a decade of experience in this field.
Declan Wilkes
Head of PR, Now Teach
Growing more food
Sir, I fear that the concept of farm
rewilding has become another victim
of the misinformation and
misunderstanding that accompanies
the culture war (letter, May 16). While
there are targeted Defra grants for
less intensive agriculture, I have yet to
find — much to my frustration — any
direct government financial support
for rewilding per se. One person’s
rewilding is another person’s
regenerative farming. It encompasses
a broad spectrum of land
management, not an outright
abandonment of production.
Justin Milward
Landowner, Butcombe, Somerset
counties choose different times at
which the collection of plovers’ eggs
should cease, illegal robbing of the
nests is not likely to be prevented.
The sale of plovers’ eggs should be
made illegal everywhere after the
same date. There is strong evidence
that eggs laid in late March or early
April have little chance of becoming
adult birds; the farm roller crushes
them on arable land, and crows,
gulls, and other egg-eating birds and
mammals raid them. Whether the
shooting of lapwings should be
made illegal at all times and
everywhere is more doubtful. Many
lapwings shot in winter are probably
migrants from abroad and their
protection here would chiefly
benefit others. Our Wild Birds
Protection Acts are far too complex
and we urgently need effective
international agreements.
thetimes.co.uk/archive
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Oblivious to opera
Sir, Concerning your report “Half the
nation wouldn’t notice if every opera
house closed” (May 15), if the Laidlaw
Trust is concerned that many people
would not notice if all our opera
houses were pulled down, with the
implied threat to support for public
funding, I have to admit (regardless of
the state support for the Football
Association) that I probably would
not notice if every football stadium in
the country were to be razed to the
ground — but that does not mean
that I feel they should not be there.
It is obvious from the volume of
bookings that there is no lack of
support for opera (something we
seem to do rather well) among those
who do enjoy it. As regards the
25 most frequently performed
productions (by which “works” is
presumably meant, as productions are
continually updated) being more than
100 years old and needing to be made
“more relevant”, in my experience
those exposed to opera for the first
time tend to prefer the melodic,
traditional formats with hummable
tunes as used for TV adverts and
which are even sung on the terraces.
Amanda Lunt
Chichester
Church and state
Sir, I disagree with Chris Chivers that
“there was a time when to be Liberal
and Anglican was axiomatic” (May
16). The Liberal Party overwhelmingly
identified with the interests of the free
(nonconformist) churches against the
Church of England associated with
the Tory party. Hence the opposition
to the Conservative 1902 Education
Act favouring C of E schools, Lloyd
George’s crusade for the
disestablishment of the church in
Wales, and the Liberal 1908 Licensing
Bill to reduce the number of public
houses to satisfy the nonconformist
temperance movement.
Jacquie Pearce
Cowes, Isle of Wight
Exotic Royal Navy
Sir, Your report “Titanic shipyard at
risk of sinking” (May 16) claims that
“no warship in British naval history
has been made by a foreign yard”. Not
so. Apart from the many instances of
foreign-built ships taken prize and
incorporated in the fleet between the
17th and 19th centuries, there is the
unique case of HMS Arno, an
Italian-built destroyer bought during
the Great War for service in the
Mediterranean and lost in a collision
in 1918. The Italians are keen to
remind us of this.
Captain Richard Channon, RN
Former naval attaché in Rome;
Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk
Rustic mortar
Sir, Janice Turner (Notebook, May 16)
writes of her dislike of white mortar to
repoint old brickwork. I commend the
practice of including a small cowpat in
a lime mortar mix to reduce brightness.
Henry Luce
Ottery St Mary, Devon
Bottled secret
Sir, My final edition of The Times
(letters, May 13-16) will not need to be
published until I am well into my
99th year, and it will bear the
headline: “Scientists finally prove that
red wine is the secret to longevity.”
Viv Mercer
Southport
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Daily Universal Register
UK: David Lammy, the shadow foreign
secretary, gives a speech to the Institute for
Government; the education committee
publishes a report on teacher recruitment.
Nature notes
At last the sun came
out, and a large red
damselfly
(Pyrrhosoma
nymphula) basked
on a bramble leaf. It
had just emerged
from the little woodland pond close by.
These insects have a two-year life cycle,
most of which is spent underwater in nymph
form. Large red damselfly nymphs live at the
bottom of ponds, among both living and
decaying vegetation, and in their early
development eat the microscopic rotifers.
They then graduate to consume insect
larvae, particularly those of midges. Once
they have left the water and grown wings,
they do not live long. The mean mature
lifespan of adult males is one week; females
average five and a half days. However, there
are records of both sexes surviving for six
weeks as adults. jonathan tulloch
Birthdays today
Queen Máxima of the
Netherlands, pictured,
53; Vice-Admiral Sir
Thomas Baird, Flag
Officer, Scotland and
Northern Ireland (1979-
82), 100; General Sir
Richard Barrons,
commander, Joint Forces Command (2013-
16), 65; Sir Rodric Braithwaite, UK
ambassador to USSR/Russia (1988-92), 92;
Richard Brooke, chairman, England Boxing,
70; Bill Bruford, rock and jazz drummer, Yes
(1968-72), 75; BS Chandrasekhar, cricketer,
India (1964-79), 79; Enya, singer, Orinoco
Flow (1988), 63; Anthony Eyton, figurative
painter, 101; Lucy Frazer KC, culture, media
and sport secretary, Conservative MP for
South East Cambridgeshire, 52; Martin
Harris, UK ambassador to Ukraine, 55; Prof
Cyril Hilsum, physicist and and material
scientist, 99; Sir Simon Hughes, MP (1983-
2015), deputy leader, Liberal Democrats
(2010-14), 73; Alan Johnson, Labour MP
(1997-2017), home secretary (2009-10), 74;
Justin King, chairman, Ovo (energy group),
Allwyn UK (operator of the National
Lottery), Dexters (estate agency), 63;
Johanna Konta, tennis player, former British
No 1, 33; Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer, five-
weight world champion, 68; Taj Mahal,
blues musician, 82; Jane Moore, journalist,
columnist for The Sun, and broadcaster,
Loose Women, 62; Baroness (Susan) Nye,
director, Government Relations, 10 Downing
Street (2007-10), 69; Christine Ohuruogu,
athlete, Olympic gold medallist (2008),
world 400m champion (2007, 2013), 40; Rt
Rev Stephen Platten, bishop of Wakefield
(2003-14), 77; Tamara Rojo, artistic director
and lead principal dancer of English
National Ballet (2012-22), 50; Jeremy Vine,
presenter and broadcaster, 59; Paul Walker,
chairman, Ashtead Group (equipment rental
company), RELX Group (information and
analytics company), 67; Paul Whitehouse,
comedian and writer, The Fast Show (1994-
2000), Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
(2018-23), 66.
On this day
In 1990 the World Health Organisation
removed homosexuality from its list of
mental disorders.
The last word
“The truth comes as conqueror only because
we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.”
Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher and poet,
The Fourfold Way of India (1924)
Diagnosing the Problem
As an internal NHS review confronts a sharp decline in productivity, coherent
reform is needed to ensure our straining health service provides value for money
The former chancellor Sir Nigel Lawson once
memorably described the NHS as “the closest
thing the English have to a religion”. If so, in recent
years it has frequently tested the faith of its devo-
tees. Many patients will still attest to exemplary
levels of care and kindness from individual NHS
staff. But far too often they are also exposed to the
frustrating, even dangerous, fall-out from a creak-
ing system which is failing to adapt to the demands
placed upon it. Long waiting lists and the last-min-
ute cancellation of operations are now a common
feature of UK patients’ experience. The run-of-
the-mill stresses on our health service, too, have
been sharply exacerbated by the recent wave of
junior doctors’ strikes.
In the past, an oft-heard response to such fail-
ures has been simply to argue that the NHS needs
more money. But cash that is funnelled thought-
lessly into an already faulty system will fail to de-
liver the required change. That is now recognised
not only by the government but by the opposition:
the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting
warned earlier this year that “pouring more
money in without reform would be like pouring
water into a leaky bucket”.
The first step to mending the bucket, however, is
correctly identifying the source of the leak. That is
Promises, Promises
Labour’s latest policy launch was underwhelming but it probably won’t matter
Politicians, or rather the campaign shamans paid
to guide them, have become convinced that such
is the severity of the modern public’s attention
deficit disorder that a short list of bullet points is all
it can digest. This practice, now common in gener-
al election campaigns, can involve a wallet-sized
printed card, as in the case of Tony Blair in 1997, or
a slightly less handy megalith, like the “Ed Stone”
that in 2015 marked the political resting place of
Ed Miliband. Rishi Sunak used the same tactic in
mid-term last year with his five pledges. Simple,
punchy — and potentially lethal for your credibili-
ty if you are too specific and fail to meet your self-
imposed metrics, as the prime minister is cur-
rently in danger of discovering.
Labour were at it again yesterday when Sir Keir
Starmer unveiled five — sorry, six — pledges to be
enacted in the early phase of his government. It
was meant to be a big moment, with Sir Keir exud-
ing purpose in rolled-up shirtsleeves, the shadow
cabinet corralled behind him and lobby journal-
ists dragged out of Westminster to chronicle the
momentous event. Result: a disappointing menu
of open-ended, generalised, or reheated promises.
Dangerous Pursuit
Amending the law to punish reckless cyclists is long overdue
When irresponsible cyclists who injure or, on rare
occasions, kill pedestrians can only be prosecuted
under a law dating back to 1861 designed to deter
the reckless handling of horse-drawn carriages,
then evidently updated legislation is required. The
government has proposed to amend the Criminal
Justice Bill, which begins its report stage today, in
order to include cyclists under the same legal
framework as motorists, so they face far harsher
penalties for causing death or serious injury by
“dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling.”
This is a sensible measure, impressing on cyclists
the responsibilities they share as road users.
why it comes as a relief to hear the NHS itself ad-
mit in an internal review that it has a serious prob-
lem with productivity. Increases in staff and fund-
ing are not delivering the expected outcomes for
patients: although the NHS has 16 per cent more
staff and £20 billion more funding than before the
Covid-19 pandemic, the number of patients it
treats has remained roughly the same.
A key reason for that, the report says, is a rise in
bed blocking: the number of people remaining in
hospital for more than three weeks has risen by 15
per cent compared to pre-Covid levels. That is
clearly bad news for the smooth functioning of the
NHS: such patients, through no fault of their own,
are taking up beds urgently needed by others. It
also carries risks for the patients themselves, par-
ticularly the old and frail, since unnecessary time
in hospital brings a greater risk of contracting an
infection or gradually losing precious mobility.
Then there is the steep financial cost: the health
think tank the King’s Fund recently calculated
that it costs the NHS £395 a night to care for some-
one when they could be discharged.
The report attributes a significant proportion of
the productivity problem to faults within the NHS
itself, which could be helped by improving ineffi-
cient computer systems, co-ordinating discharges
These six “first steps” are meant to “put flesh on
the bones” of the five “missions” — keep up now —
set out by Sir Keir in January last year. Of hard
figures there were few: 6,500 new teachers and
40,000 extra appointments per week to cut NHS
waiting lists. Except that in the latter case Sir Keir
was unable to say by when, which is important if
you are one of the 7.6 million people on a waiting
list and in pain.
The rest of it? A new Border Security Command
to smash the people-trafficking gangs and yet
another crackdown on anti-social behaviour with
tough new penalties (with no mention of how to
house more inmates in a crumbling prison estate
at bursting point). Then there was “economic sta-
bility”, the political equivalent of granny’s apple
pie. Previously, Sir Keir had promised the highest
sustained growth in the G7, an altogether chunki-
er ambition — and brutally measurable.
There was also the promise to launch Great
British Energy, a public green energy company.
But was Labour sticking with its apple-pie-in-the-
sky promise of a 100 per cent green energy supply
by 2030? Its days must be be numbered.
It is an obvious anomaly that, currently, the
authorities have to resort to the small print of the
Offences against the Person Act 1861 to prosecute
cyclists when they cause “bodily harm” by “wan-
ton or furious driving”. The antique language tells
the story. The existing maximum penalty on con-
viction is a mere two years in prison. That is insuf-
ficient, both as a punishment and a deterrent.
There is considerable public disquiet over the fla-
grancy with which some cyclists flout the rules of
the road, behaviour which can lead to the serious
injury or death of pedestrians. Offences may be
rare but those in harm’s way must be protected.
25
Leading articles
more effectively and providing better training for
new staff. While these should be addressed as a
priority, what must also be confronted are those
factors which lie beyond the NHS’s sole control.
They include the crumbling infrastructure of hos-
pital buildings, and the difficulty in discharging
vulnerable patients who — although medically fit
to leave hospital — may have no suitable place in
which to receive ongoing help, due to the increas-
ingly patchy provision of social care.
Too frequently, NHS reform has neglected to
consider the many interlocking factors that lead to
sluggish functioning : the broken lift that wastes
time transporting patients from ward to theatre,
for example, or the routine delays in providing
medication without which patients cannot leave
hospital. Earlier this year, The Times Health Com-
mission came up with a number of ideas for im-
proving NHS performance, including digital
“patient passports” which could streamline ap-
pointments and referrals. Truly coherent change
cannot come soon enough, not least since the
challenge of making this complex system work of-
fers huge rewards. In some other settings, words
such as productivity and efficiency may not fully
fire the imagination. In the NHS they are often,
quite literally, a matter of life and death.
It was a ragbag of goals for a party that may well
be in power by Bonfire Night. Where was a pro-
mise to build X number of council houses or a
commitment to spend 2.5 per cent on defence in an
increasingly perilous world? Also welcome would
be an understanding of Labour’s plans for work-
place reform, including pay settlements that could
saddle companies with new costs.
Experience suggests that forecasting accurately
what a Starmer government will do is a futile exer-
cise. Take the ten pledges he made when running
for the Labour leadership. Four years old, they
read as from another world: abolition of universal
credit, increased income tax for top earners, na-
tionalisation of rail, mail, energy and water.
A cynic might conclude that Sir Keir follows
Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles and if
you don’t like them ... well, I’ve got others.” He
probably needn’t worry. The public pays little at-
tention to bullet points. A general feeling of well-
being, or rather the lack of it, together with disillu-
sionment with those in power, or lack of, carries
the day. Sir Keir could have saved himself the
trouble with one bullet: “I’m not Rishi Sunak.”
The 21st-century cycling boom, encouraged for
many years by this newspaper, is a positive devel-
opment. Cycling is a cheap, clean, quiet, quick (too
quick, in some cases), healthy and efficient way to
get around, particularly in cities. The continued
growth of pedal power is to be encouraged. The
best way to do that is to make this mode of trans-
port as safe as possible, both for those on bikes
sharing the road space with powered vehicles, and
for those crossing the road on foot at traffic lights,
or walking alongside it on the pavement. Negli-
gent and selfish cyclists, like those horses targeted
by the 1861 act, need to be reined in.
26
World
Gazans dream of
an end to brutal
rule of Hamas
Israel
Gabrielle Weiniger Tel Aviv
Amal Helles Cairo
Samer Al-Atrush Riyadh
In the nightmare of Gaza, elections are
a distant dream. “There is no adminis-
tration at any level,” said Hajj Yazan, 60,
who has been imprisoned more than
once during previous wars with Israel,
the first and second intifadas. “We lost
martyrs, our homes, our land and our
money.”
Tired from running from an assault
on the southern city of Rafah, Atta, 39,
a father of three, said many Palestinians
now wanted an end to the war but
feared the brutal rule of Hamas, which
he believes will keep fighting to the bit-
ter end. “Hamas is determined to keep
going, holding Gaza as it began, and
does not want anyone to share power
— at the expense of the people and the
destruction of everything,” he said.
Although many in Gaza blame Israel
for laying waste to much of the territory
in a war that, according to figures from
the Hamas-run health ministry, has
killed more than 35,000 Palestinians,
there is growing anger at Hamas for
creating a conflict that has left hun-
dreds of thousands homeless and hun-
gry. This leads to the question: is Gaza
ready to rise up against Hamas?
The group won a majority in parlia-
mentary elections in 2006 with many
casting a vote for the militants as an
alternative to Fatah, the party that
dominated the corrupt Palestinian
Authority. A year later its gunmen
seized Gaza after a week of bloody
clashes with Fatah and have ruled
since.
Yet according to a poll — conducted
“in whispers” so that people could
speak freely — taken by the Palestinian
Centre for Policy and Survey Research
in March, two thirds of Gazans are op-
posed to Hamas, which is allied to Iran.
“If elections were held tomorrow,
Hamas right now has the support of
about a third of Palestinians in the West
Bank, and third of Palestinians in Gaza.
This is less than what it was before
October 7,” Khalil Shikaki, who was in
charge of conducting the poll, said.
With Israel’s central war strategy
aimed at destroying Hamas, Gazans are
aware of the heavy price of voicing
support for the Islamist group. How-
ever, Hamas is also considered to be a
merciless ruler. Aid organisations ac-
cuse it of detaining, torturing and un-
lawfully killing opponents and those
accused of “collaborating” with Israel.
Some Gazans believe that Hamas is
keeping humanitarian aid for itself and
its supporters, and others have been
angered by its official statements that
have been seen as callous.
Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestin-
ian minister, peace negotiator and lec-
turer at Birzeit University in Nablus,
said there were two main debates
among the 2.5 million people in Gaza.
“First, why did you not expect this terri-
ble reaction on the public of Gaza.
Second, why did you not prepare? Why
do you have enough ammunition to
keep fighting but not enough medicine,
why do you have bunkers for the
fighters but not for the civilians?”
Comments by Hamas’s political
leaders in Qatar have further angered
Gazans. In one television interview
Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy
leader, brushed off a question on why
Hamas was not allowing civilians into
its tunnels by saying the population was
the responsibility of the United
The top image
shows tents and
shelters west of
Khan Younis on
May 4 and,
below, how the
spread of tents
and shelters has
expanded by
May 15. Hundreds
of thousands of
people have fled
the south Gaza
city of Rafah
amid intense
fighting and
destruction as
the war between
Hamas and Israel
continues
V2 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Nations. When asked by The Times in
March about the extent of the destruc-
tion, he responded that “living in free-
dom and dignity is worth a thousand
times more than all the buildings”.
Yet as offensives widen and intensify,
some residents have placed their confi-
dence in Hamas as a military force that
has fought back against Israel.
“A lot of people who do not support
Hamas, actually support the resistance
and support the decision to carry out
the [October 7] attack for various rea-
sons,” Shikaki said. “It made the Pales-
tinian issue a lot more fundamental and
important for regional actors, for the
international community, for a solution
to end the limbo in which the Palestini-
ans found themselves, the end of Arab
abandonment of the Palestinians and
normalisation with Israel.”
Israel is using the air space to turn the
people cut off from the rest of the world
against their government. Major Ella
Waweya, 34, who is in charge of the
Arabic media desk for the Israeli mili-
tary and who has 66,000 followers on
Instagram, believes her message is get-
ting through. “The Arab world knows
and the Gazans know that Hamas
brought pain down upon everyone,
opening the gates of Hell on to the
people on October 7,” she said.
She cited one elderly woman who in
a TikTok video shared with Waweya
said: “I voted for Hamas myself.
Where’s the change and where is the
reform? They’ve destroyed the entire
T
country and impoverished the people. he leaders of
People can’t find anything to eat.”
The US has a vision for Gaza starting
Putin bonds with Russia and
China cemented
from the day after the war ends. It en-
visages a revitalised Palestinian ‘dear friend’ Xi to their anti-
American
Authority taking over the territory, uni- alliance when President
fying Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza by rule although not in land. This
reinforce alliance Putin arrived in Beijing
for the first state visit of
vision is not supported by the majority
of Palestinians, who see the Authority
against America his fifth term in office
(Richard Spencer writes).
as corrupt and beholden to Israel. Putin thanked
“Even though Hamas has declined in President Xi for the role
support, it is still strong compared with
its next competitor, which is Fatah, the
Palestinian Authority and [Mahmoud]
Abbas,” Shikaki said. Nor does Israel
support the plan. On Wednesday, Net-
anyahu once again said that the Pales-
tinian Authority would not rule Gaza.
Kremlin accused of planting
For the majority of Gazans, Hamas is France which Russia is not invited. In one false
still the best of their limited options. “I story, dressed up as a real French tele-
Charles Bremner Paris
think most Gazans would prefer vision report, Paris is supposedly
Hamas to be in control. It would be Of the many threats that President crawling with bedbugs and chemicals
better if there were a non-political gov- Putin’s Russia has posed to Europe in for killing them have poisoned the city’s
ernment that all factions agree on, recent years, the scourge of bedbugs is water supply.
including Hamas, that would be a tran- not often listed. This is just one of a torrent of Russia-
sitional, technocratic one that could French officials, however, say the fomented fake news items flooding
control Gaza for six months or a year Kremlin has fanned the fire of the in- France ahead of the Games.
followed by elections,” Shikaki said. sect panic as part of a cyberoffensive “The bedbugs were Kremlin interfer-
Hajj Yazan, sitting with children ahead of the Olympic Games. ence,” Valérie Hayer, head of President
around him in Rafah market, said: “I The Paris bedbug hysteria of last Macron’s Renaissance party candidates
hope the war will end, that there will be autumn, though likely home-grown list in next month’s European parlia-
an administration capable of ruling and driven by social and mainstream mentary elections, said.
Gaza that does not pursue its personal media, has been seized upon by Russian The plague of punaises de lit as they
interests and political ideas, and that propagandists in an attempt to feed are called in French, which involved
Gaza will be reconstructed as it was.” fears ahead of the Games in July — to reported sightings in cinemas, trains,
the times | Friday May 17 2024 V2
China was playing in the initiatives they are putting western groupings such as
Ukraine war. Xi has forward to resolve this Aukus — Australia, the
refused to comply with problem,” Putin said UK and the US — and he
western requests to stop when he arrived. He also is concerned that Nato
supplying Russia with told Xi he backed China might turn its attention to
electronics, justifying his in trying to resist the the Pacific region.
decision by putting development of “closed Taiwanese officials said
forward his own “peace
plan” to end the conflict.
“We are grateful to our
military-political
alliances” in the Asia-
Pacific region.
that China, which claims
Taiwan as its own, had
been sending naval vessels
Chinese friends and
colleagues for the
Xi says China is
threatened by pro-
and fighter jets to patrol
closer to the country than
bedbugs in Paris hotels before Olympics
hotels and schools, never happened, country with disinformation and
according to experts. Paris suffers from cyberattacks,” Macron said in March.
the same infestation that has been Viginum, a government unit set up in
rising in world cities, including London 2021 for detecting malicious disinfor-
and New York, since the 1990s, they mation, has reported an onslaught
said. “The fuss last autumn was not from Russia recently. The false reports,
based on any increase in contamina- with cloned logos and formats of pres-
tion in hotels,” Véronique Siegel, head tige French TV and print media and
of UMIH, the trade association of also of government websites, appear on
hotels, told le Figaro. “There is nothing Russian Telegram internet channels
to fear at the Olympic Games,” she said. and are aired on Russian state TV. They
Bug fever is a front in what Macron are relayed through fake accounts into
calls a Russian disinformation offen- French social media.
sive that is striving to destabilise France Although the bogus reportage is
as it hosts the Olympics amid simmer- often easy to spot, with grammatical
ing political tensions. “The Kremlin mistakes and clumsy voice-overs, it
regime has intensified its assault on our plays into French distrust of official
President Putin said he was
grateful for initiatives from
President Xi intended to
end the war in Ukraine
ever before. On Putin’s
arrival in Beijing
yesterday, Xi called him
“my great friend”. Putin
reciprocated by
addressing Xi as “dear
friend”.
information, especially among the
populist right and radical left.
The Russian campaign does not
mean, however, that the 15 million
visitors expected in France this sum-
mer should lower their guard against
bedbugs. The movement of so many
people and warm weather will mean
higher infestation, experts say, with
Airbnb-style rentals likely to be more
vulnerable than hotels, which have
more rigorous hygiene standards.
Nicolas Roux de Bezieux, who heads
an eradication firm called Badbugs,
said that in addition to bugs, visitors
could expect a surge in rats because of
the out-door eating during the Games.
Fico shot by ‘lone wolf in
election revenge attack’
Page 29
Trump’s former fixer
admits he lied under
oath to protect wife
United States
Will Pavia New York
The star witness in the criminal trial of
Donald Trump acknowledged lying
repeatedly under oath during a gruel-
ling cross-examination.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former
attorney and fixer, was confronted with
false statements he had made to
Congress, to investigators and to a
judge who jailed him for three years.
He said that he lied in the past for the
benefit of Trump, and later, before a
judge, to protect his wife from prosecu-
tion. “The reason why you lied was
because the stakes affected you person-
ally,” Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche,
told Cohen.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Does the outcome of this trial affect
you personally?” Blanche asked.
“Yes,” Cohen replied.
Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying
business records to conceal a hush
money payment of $130,000 to the
adult film star Stormy Daniels, before
the 2016 presidential election. Cohen
told the court on Monday that he paid
Daniels at Trump’s direction and had
called Trump, to get approval for the
transaction. “You did not talk to Presi-
dent Trump on that night,” Blanche
said. Cohen said that he believed he did.
Trump’s attorneys have said Cohen is
a criminal who sought to pin the blame
on Trump when he was caught.
Blanche played a clip from Cohen’s
podcast, Mea Culpa, in which he
said he hoped Trump would
spend some time in prison,
as “revenge is a dish best
served cold”.
“I want to thank the
Manhattan district
attorney Alvin Bragg,
Michael Cohen said that
he had lied to the judge
who sentenced him to
three years for tax evasion
Biden blocks publication
of ‘poor memory’ tapes
Hugh Tomlinson Washington
President Biden has blocked the release
of interview recordings with a special
counsel who characterised the US
leader as an “elderly man with a poor
memory” during an investigation into
his handling of classified documents.
Republicans have demanded the
audio of Biden’s conversations with
Robert Hur, whose report this year
dealt a blow to the president’s re-elec-
tion campaign as the 81-year-old faces
questions about his age.
Denying the release on the grounds
of executive privilege, the White House
said Republicans only wanted to use the
recordings for “political gain” and to
assist Donald Trump before his elect-
ion rematch with Biden in November.
A transcript has already been re-
leased, but the move to block the audio
27
Unlucky in love? Voodoo
priests have all the answers
Page 30
with whom I have spent countless
hours,” Cohen said on the podcast.
“You have never met Alvin Bragg,
correct?” said Blanche.
“That’s correct,” Cohen said.
Blanche said Cohen lied in a state-
ment to Congress about the number of
times he had spoken to Trump about a
project to build a tower in Moscow.
“You knew you were lying?” he asked.
“Correct,” Cohen replied. “I worked
with the joint defence agreement, and
we crafted this document. In order to
stay on message, a message that we all
knew Mr Trump wanted, including Mr
Trump’s attorney at the time.”
He would later plead guilty to lying to
Congress, to campaign finance viola-
tions, to making a false statement to a
bank and to tax evasion. But Cohen said
this week that he felt he ought not to
have been charged with tax crimes.
“No one induced you or threatened
you to plead guilty, correct?” Blanche
said, regarding his guilty plea.
“I was provided with 48 hours within
which to accept the plea or the South-
ern District of New York was going to
file an 80-page indictment that inc-
luded my wife,” Cohen replied.
“So you felt that you were kind of
induced or put under pressure to plead
guilty?” Blanche asked
“Correct,” Cohen replied.
Blanche said that Judge William
Pauley had asked him if anyone had
offered any inducement or threatened
him. “You said, ‘No’,” he said. “That was
a lie.”
“That was something
that’s not true, correct,”
Cohen said.
“Do you think Judge
Pauley would have
liked to know that you
had lied to him?”
Cohen said: “I’m cer-
tain he would have.”
The trial continues.
places Biden in a difficult position. Re-
leasing the recordings would be likely
to provide Republicans with fresh
ammunition for their attacks against
his age, but refusing to turn them over
is certain to prompt allegations from
Trump and his allies of a cover-up.
Hur was appointed to investigate after
classified documents from Biden’s time
as vice-president to Barack Obama were
found at a string of locations. The special
counsel found that no criminal charges
against the president were warranted,
but his report added to concerns over
Biden’s cognitive abilities.
Biden sat for a five-hour interview
with Hur in October. The special coun-
sel’s report claimed that the president
had struggled to recall key dates,
including the year his son, Beau, died of
brain cancer (2015) and when he served
as vice-president (2009-17).
28 S1 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

World
Baroness Thyssen owns
Interior a l’aire lliure by
Ramon Casas, far left, and
Mata Mua by Paul Gauguin
€100 million to keep
them on public display.
Now Cervera, 81, aims
to fulfil her ambition to
establish a museum in
her birthplace of
Barcelona. She has
presented a project to
the owners of the former
Comedia cinema to
convert the site into a
cultural centre.
“To be able to house
in my city,
Barcelona, an
important
museum of
some of the
best works
of Catalan
art, is the
best legacy I
can leave to the
next generations,”
Baroness eyes site for she told La
Vanguardia.
Catalan cultural hub Sources told the
newspaper that
negotiations were in
autumn work will begin
to turn it into a museum.
Cervera had maintained
she would exhibit her
19th and 20th-century
Catalan paintings in the
museum, near the
residence in which the
baron died in 2002.
Whether the works
there will now fill her
planned museum in
Barcelona is unknown.
Miquel Molins, an art
historian, told El Diario
that the baroness may
also move 27 paintings
that are kept at Museu
Nacional d’Art de
Catalunya in
Barcelona.
They include
Interior a
l’aire lliure by
Ramon
Casas.
Borja
Thyssen-
Bornemisza, her
son, stands to share with
her some of the
dividends of the deal she
agreed with the
government for the

C
armen
Cervera, the
Dowager
Baroness
Thyssen-
Bornemisza and a
former Miss Spain, is
famed for getting her
own way (Isambard
Wilkinson writes).
Tita, as she is known,
won popularity for
persuading her husband,
Baron Hans Heinrich
von Thyssen- their final phase and Thyssen museum’s
Bornemisza, to sell his that the project would rental of her collection,
collection of art, then involve a “long-term which includes a
Europe’s largest, to the concession of around Gauguin masterpiece,
Spanish state in 1992. 25 years”. Mata Mua. The deal is
It is housed by the Cervera has already worth €97.5 million over
Thyssen-Bornemisza set up museums in 15 years.
National Museum in Malaga and Andorra. Cervera made her
Madrid, which also Her building in Sant position clear at the
exhibits works owned by Feliu de Guixols in time it was signed,
Cervera, who struck a Girona, Catalonia, has saying she would not
controversial deal with hosted temporary give up her works free of
the government in 2021 exhibitions of Catalan charge. “I have heirs,”
to pay her nearly paintings, but this she said.

Tunisia’s strongman kills dream Populists to

of democracy by jailing lawyers
Journalists, critics and
opposition figures have
been muzzled after
protests, reports Elizia
Volkmann in Tunis
Fourteen years after the Arab Spring
made Tunisia a beacon for democracy,
the human rights lawyer Sonia Dah-
mani is witnessing her country’s slide
back to autocracy — from a prison cell.
Her crime was committed on a tele-
vision show in which she expressed sur-
prise that so many migrants were trav-
elling to Tunisia despite its struggling
economy. “What extraordinary coun-
try are we talking about?” she asked.
That was enough to prompt a raid by
the security forces on the Tunis Bar
Association on Saturday to arrest her.
She was charged under Decree 54, a
“fake news” law used to muzzle critics.
For her allies, the arrest marks a new
phase in the clampdown by the increas-
ingly autocratic President Saied on the
cornerstones of Tunisia’s fledgling
democracy — the right to a legal
defence and a free press — as pressure
from the EU intensifies over the migra-
tion crisis across the Mediterranean.
The National Union of Tunisian
Journalists said more than 60
reporters, lawyers and opposition
figures had been prosecuted under De-
cree 54 since it came into force in 2022.
Many of those arrested have defend-
ed migrants. The security forces have
allegedly rounded up black people sus-
pected of being migrants and dumped
them on the borders with Libya and
Algeria.
On Saturday, as masked officers
burst into the Bar Association building,
Hamdi Tlili, a France 24 cameraman
who was filming a live report, said he
was attacked by officers and then taken
away for interrogation. After being
released, he said: “I was so traumatised
that first night I couldn’t sleep.”
France 24 later condemned a “brutal
intervention by security forces that
prevented journalists from practising
their profession”. A demonstration is
planned in Paris today outside the
Tunisian embassy. Lawyers staged a
second strike yesterday in solidarity
with Dahmani. Her daughter, Nour
Bettaieb, said she had been “arrested
for exercising her fundamental right to
freedom of speech. This isn’t the
Tunisia we strived for.”
Ibrahim Belghaith, a lawyer and
friend of Dahmani living in exile in
France, said: “She had no time to pre-
pare her defence. These are exceptional
circumstances.”
Belghaith said that in a subsequent
raid on the legal headquarters on
Monday night, the police charged into
the building and “pointed guns at the
lawyers there; they came back to smash
the glass door and break the furniture”.
Another lawyer, Mahdi Zagrouba,
who took part in a protest against Dah-
mani’s arrest, was detained.
At the centre of the crackdown is
Tunisia’s migration crisis. With presi-
dential elections expected this year,
Saied is promoting conspiracy theories
that “traitors” who defend sub-Saharan
African migrants are being paid by “for-
eign powers” to attack his government.
Last year he claimed that “hordes of
illegal migrants” were part of a conspir-
acy “to change the demographic com-
position” of the country, echoing the
rhetoric of populists such as Viktor
Orban, the Hungarian prime minister.
Saied, a former law lecturer, has
ruled by decree after a sweeping power
grab in 2021. Despite international
alarm at his growing repression, last
Sonia Dahmani,
whose arrest has
prompted strikes
by lawyers
year the European Union signed a
major co-operation deal with his gov-
ernment aimed at curbing the flow of
migrants across the Mediterranean in
exchange for cash. Last year 97,000 of
the 157,000 migrants arriving in Italy
sailed from Tunisia.
In March Germany’s Bertelsmann
Stiftung foundation added Tunisia to
its list of autocratic states. Its global list
has been released every two years since
2005.
On Tuesday an EU spokeswoman
said: “The European Union has fol-
lowed with concern recent develop-
ments in Tunisia, in particular the con-
comitant arrests of several civil society
figures, journalists and political actors.
“Freedoms of expression and asso-
ciation, as well as the independence of
the judiciary, are guaranteed by the
Tunisian constitution and constitute
the basis of our partnership.”
Saied once heralded his legal back-
ground at the Faculty of Law and Polit-
ical Sciences at the University of Tunis
as evidence of his enduring support for
independent courts. Yet two years ago
he dissolved the independent high judi-
cial council. His new constitution has
brought the courts entirely under his
control.
One female lawyer who runs an asso-
ciation defending free speech online
said that she was attacked by a police
officer and knocked unconscious.
“This has become a real nightmare,”
she said. “It’s not the first time that we
have come under attack or been threat-
ened.”
A local journalist said: “Things are
more brutal than in the days of Ben Ali,”
referring to the president who fled pro-
tests in 2011. “Those police officers
know they’re doing something wrong,
so they hide their faces and dress in a
way that they could deny it was a police
raid.”
Stuart Russell, a former judge who
founded the international campaign
group Defend Lawyers, said: “The raid
was intended to instil a high level of fear
into lawyers but it has backfired. This
one is a huge public relations disaster
for the regime.”
challenge EU
over migrants
The Netherlands
Bruno Waterfield Brussels
A Dutch coalition dominated by popul-
ists and hard-right nationalists is on
course for an early confrontation with
the European Union over asylum rules
and environmental legislation.
The government, which said its
motto would be “hope, courage and
pride”, was formed yesterday after the
surprise victory of Geert Wilders and
his Freedom Party in elections six
months ago. “We are making history
today,” Wilders said, announcing his
coalition with three other populist and
conservative parties. “The sun will
shine again in the Netherlands.”
Wilders, a peroxide blond nationalist
sometimes called the “Dutch Trump”,
will not himself enter the new govern-
ment as part of the deal with the con-
servative VVD, the anti-establishment
New Social Contract and the BBB, a po-
pulist rural party.
A new prime minister, expected to be
Ronald Plasterk, a former Labour Party
minister and scientist turned Euro-
sceptic newspaper columnist, will be
named in the coming days.
The government will soon clash with
Brussels over a demand to ditch EU
asylum rules it blames for an influx of
migrants. “An opt-out clause ... will be
submitted as soon as possible to the
European Commission,” said its ten-
point programme. It pledged stricter
residency rules, a cut in environmental
targets that it claims have hurt farmers,
and 100,000 new homes a year.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Slovakian prime minister ‘shot
by lone wolf angry over election’
Slovakia
Kaya Burgess Bratislava
Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico
“escaped death by just a hair” when he
was shot several times, the country’s
president-elect said after a man was
charged with attempted murder.
The shooting was the first significant
assassination attempt on a European
political leader for more than 20 years
and has drawn international condem-
nation. Political analysts and politi-
cians said it has exposed an increasing-
ly febrile and polarised political climate
in Slovakia and across Europe.
A 71-year-old suspect, named locally
as Juraj Cintula, was arrested at the
scene and has been charged with pre-
meditated attempted murder.
Matus Sutaj Estok, Slovakia’s interior
minister, said an initial investigation
had found “a clear political motivation”.
He said the suspect did not belong to
any political groups but apparently
wanted revenge after Peter Pellegrini, a
Fico ally, won last month’s presidential
election. “This is a lone wolf whose ac-
tions were accelerated after the presi-
dential election since he was dissatis-
fied with its outcome,” Sutaj Estok said.
A photograph on Facebook appeared
to show Cintula, an amateur poet and
former supermarket security guard, in
the company of members of Slovenski
Branski, a pro-Russian paramilitary
group, in 2016.
Giving an update from outside the
hospital where Fico, 59, is in intensive
care, Pellegrini, who takes office next
Robert Fico is in a
critical condition
after being shot
month, said the prime minister’s condi-
tion remained critical but he was able to
speak to him in hospital. Pellegrini said
that if “the gunshot wounds were in a
different place by a few centimetres, to-
day we might have to talk about com-
pletely different things”.
Robert Kalinak, deputy prime minis-
ter and defence minister, said it was too
soon to say if Fico would recover.
In an earlier appeal for calm, Slova-
kia’s outgoing president, Zuzana Capu-
tova, and Pellegrini made an unexpect-
ed joint speech at the presidential pal-
ace in Bratislava yesterday morning.
Pellegrini said: “I am horrified that
on the receiving end of this hatred is the
head of a democratically elected ruling
party, fighting for his life after an assas-
sination attempt.”
Caputova said: “Yesterday’s attack is
above all a great human tragedy, but it
is also an attack on the democratic
establishment ... We want to encourage
everyone to take a responsible ap-
proach, to step out of the vicious circle
of hatred and mutual accusations.”
Fico was shot in the abdomen and
arm as he spoke to voters in Handlova,
a town 80 miles northeast of the capital
Bratislava. He was bundled into a car by
his security team and taken to hospital.
Tomáš Taraba, the deputy prime
minister, said Fico was shot “from very
close” and “one bullet went through the
stomach and the second one hit a joint”.
Cintula, who is believed to come from
the town of Levice, was being held at
the National Criminal Agency in Nitra,
western Slovakia. His wife was also
brought in for questioning.
Putin revels in spectre
of a fractured Europe
Analysis
W
ith European
parliament
elections only
weeks away, the
continent has
rarely been so anxious about the
future (Roger Boyes writes). The
assassination attempt on Robert
Fico, the Slovakian leader, could
lead towards a kind of civil war,
according to the country’s interior
minister, throwing fuel on a
society already polarised by the
Ukrainian conflict on its borders.
At the heart of this tension
creeping across eastern Europe is
the question of where a violently
disruptive Russia fits into the
security architecture of the
continent. Does the very idea of
Europe — once a beacon of hope
for post-communist states — have
to be defined in opposition to
President Putin’s territorial
ambitions? Or is there, as some
populists such as Fico and Viktor
Orban, the Hungarian prime
minister, believe, some kind of
halfway house?
After the break-up of the
Warsaw Pact in 1991 and the
fracturing of the Czechoslovak
state, Slovakian leaders declared
that their international role should
be as a bridge between East and
West. Austria (Vienna is a short
drive from Bratislava) does much
the same but from the perspective
of a declared neutral state.
Slovakia saw more long-term
safety in Nato membership. And
that’s when its problems began.
Bridges are the first things to be
blown up when war breaks out.
When Russia launched its all-
out invasion of Ukraine in 2022,
Slovakia became a transit country
for western weapons and a repair
hub for smashed-up Nato kit. But
the populists knew that there were
few votes to be won in acting in
solidarity with Nato and the EU.
Farmers in Slovakia, as in Poland
and Hungary, objected to the
The suspect, Juraj Cintula, is said to have links to a pro-Russian paramilitary group
29
World
Robert Fico was bundled into
a car by security forces after
the shooting, while the others
detained the alleged gunman
America’s spell. Fico was
convinced. “No one is going to
attack anyone, there will be no
war,” he declared in early
February 2022 despite the 150,000
troops massed on the Russian and
Belarusian borders with Ukraine.
As far as his party, Smer, was
concerned, “war in Ukraine is one
gigantic hoax cooked up by
Americans to drive a wedge
between, and to frighten
Europeans”. Fico has been saying
something similar for decades.
“The world has four cardinal
points,” he said at the start of his
political career.“Not just west, but
also east, north and south.”
Russia duly helped Fico to
return to power in last September’s
elections. America hopes that new
governments in Poland and the
Czech Republic will bring Slovakia
and Hungary back into the fold, to
produce some kind of political
unity at the Nato’s 75th birthday
summit in Washington in July. But
the fact is that as long as Putin
seems to be capturing ground and
transforming the Russian economy
into a giant weapons factory, those
European governments on the
fence are likely to stay there.
50 miles
POLAND
In Georgia, the Georgian Dream
party, backed by the Moscow-
linked billionaire Bidzina
Ivanishvili, has forced through a
Prague CZECH
REPUBLIC
SLOVAKIA
bill banning foreign NGOs. Its aim
is to stifle western influence in the
country and block any progress
towards EU membership.
Bratislava This obstructionism merely
Vienna highlights the choice that is on the
Budapest table for many fragile democracies
AUSTRIA in Europe: alignment with EU
HUNGARY
institutions (who have been
Former boundary of Czechoslovakia flagging interest in enlisting
unstable new members) or a
arrival of cheap competition from deeper dependence on Moscow.
Ukrainian grain. As in much of the Russia presents the alternatives for
rest of Europe, Russia used its troll east Europeans as being about
armies to sow doubts among national self-interest. Germany
electorates, churning out black can afford to drastically cut back
propaganda against Ukrainian on Russian energy. Bulgaria,
refugees, underlining Moscow’s Hungary, Serbia, Moldova less so
supposed desire for peace and — even if Gazprom is no longer
warning against falling under the strutting geopolitical
influencer it once was.
Choose the East, Russia says, the
Kremlin is the winning team,
backed by China and able to
survive the most comprehensive
financial blockade launched in
modern days.
The battle is on, even if the Fico
attack does not easily fit into the
Kremlin narrative (the assailant
was allegedly a maverick writer
associated with a nationalist pro-
Russian group). The Moldovans
are concerned that the Russians
will mobilise the breakaway
Transnistrian statelet and make
EU accession impossible.
The Russian interest in all of its
endeavours, from cyberwar to
influence operations, is in
demonstrating that western
promises of security are
unreliable. In Putin’s embrace
they are safe.
30 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

World
Missing man ‘imprisoned’
by neighbour for 28 years
Algeria into custody after trying to flee, the
government said.
Isambard Wilkinson
The victim said that he had been
An Algerian man who was presumed unable to call for help during his time
dead for almost three decades has in captivity “because of a spell that his
been found alive in an underground captor had cast on him”. Local reports
cell after allegedly being kidnapped have suggested that his diminished
by a neighbour. psychological state may have been
Omar Ben Omran, who was a the cause of his inaction.
teenager when he disappeared in The government said an investi-
1996, was found hidden in a squalid gation was continuing and that the
underground dungeon buried under victim was receiving medical and
layers of straw, according to Algerian psychological care after the “hei-
media. nous” crime.
Reports said that he had vanished Video shared on social media and
during the Algerian civil war, which broadcast on Algerian television
ended in 2002, and that his family networks showed the moment
had assumed he had been taken pris- Omran was found in what appeared
oner or killed. to be a hole in the ground, described
Now aged 45, he was found amid by authorities as a sheep pen.
hay bales about 200m away from his A photo posted online showed the
home in Djelfa, after the captor’s victim as a teenager with his dog. El
brother aired grievances, reportedly Khabar newspaper said the dog had
over an inheritance dispute, on social pined for him close to the spot where
media. he was being held. Omran’s captor
Djelfa is a mountain city with a has also been accused of poisoning
population of 500,000, about 140 the dog.
miles south of Algiers, the capital. The suspect is understood to have
The alleged culprit, a 61-year-old lived alone, but reports suggested
municipal security guard in the that he was regularly seen buying
nearby town of El Guedid, was taken enough food for two people. Light and shade Bright Dreams by the French artist Saype gives the illusion of a girl helping a sea rescue in Irchel Park, Zurich

Regal Rhine Cruise to Unlucky in love? Voodoo

Switzerland with Royal
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priests have all the answers
In a village where the
CRUISE
EIGHT DAYS FROM
religion was born,
£1,949 PER PERSON
broken hearts can be
mended, writes Sam
Seven nights on board
in your choice of luxury
Bradpiece in Ganvie
cabin or suite
All meals on board, The romance was as intense as it was
including the Chef’s brief. She was a French infectious dis-
dinner plus a Superior eases specialist and medical resear-
drinks package† cher — intelligent, beautiful and kind
Expert talks and a royal — who left Senegal, where we both
afternoon tea lived, to work in a Paris hospital.
Return flights and Nursing a broken heart and a long-
transfers standing interest in pre-colonial reli-
Services of a Cruise gions, I headed to the birthplace of
Director and Concierge voodoo for answers, eventually glid-
ing across the dark waters of Ganvie,
INCLUDED EXPERIENCES
a lake village in Benin known as the
Expert talks from former Venice of Africa. A voodoo priest
Royal Bulter and Chef
called Adjayifindé established a com-
Cruise through the Rhine munity in Ganvie in the 18th century
Gorge and the river bend to help locals escape raids by Euro-
outside of Boppard pean slave traders.
Visits to Strasbourg, Legend has it that he transported
Koblenz, Rüdesheim and people from the mainland on the
Speyer backs of an enormous crocodile and a
Drive through the Black
Forest
giant eagle. There is no eagle to assist
the journey to the village for an
Visit to idyllic Titisee audience with Houédanou Agbo-
On board live classical madokan, a spiritualist known locally
quartet recital as Vava. Like more than half the
Railway journey up the people who come to see Agbomado-
Bernese Oberland kan, I had come for advice about my
love life.
A wiry sixtysomething with cloudy
eyes, he beckons clients towards the
door of his temple, asking them to
remove their shoes and purify
themselves with a herbal potion at the
entrance. Animal skins, drums and
axes adorn the interior. After
exchanging pleasantries, he rattles a
small metal bell against the concrete
floor, beckoning the Fâ, an ephemeral
force through which the voodoo dei-
ties, or Vodun, communicate.
Only specialists can receive messa-
ges directly from the Fâ, Agbomado-
kan says. Some visit him for help with
Believers go for
business advice
or medical help;
Sam Bradpiece
had a common
complaint
fertility, court cases or business
opportunities but most are nursing
lost love. Agbomadokan explains
that a consultation will cost 10,000
West African francs (about £13) and
he requests a further 5,000 to buy two
small bottles of gin.
He spits into his hat and pours a
selection of shells, stones and bones
on to the floor before passing clients
a small baobab seed. He tells them to
wrap the 10,000-franc note around
the seed, hold it to their mouth and
silently tell it what is on their mind.
After a few minutes of chanting,
clapping and manipulating a string of
voodoo charms with his hands, Vava
begins to address me directly. “This
woman regrets leaving and wants to
come back to you,” he says. “It is poss-
ible that she will. But if you end up
together, she will die first and it will
destroy you. The Fâ doesn’t want you
to be with her.” To rectify this, Agbo-
madokan suggests, a sacrifice will be
required. To be precise, he adds, we
need a lamb, a chicken, some red
beans and more gin.
It’s time for a second opinion. A
voodoo priestess called Martine de
Souza Gandjaï Mabegbé offers more
practical advice. “Go slowly,” she says
after interpreting messages from a
band of woven sticks possessed by a
forest spirit called Cleviti. “You must
be patient and gentle with her if you
want to be together.”
No voodoo quest to Benin is com-
plete without a visit to the coastal
town of Ouidah, from where more
than a million African slaves were
shipped to the New World, effectively
spreading the religion to the Ameri-
cas; large numbers of believers can
still be found in Brazil, the Caribbean
and the United States.
In recent years the Beninese gov-
ernment has tried to promote voodoo
to boost tourist numbers and cast off
its reputation as black magic. It is in
the process of building an inter-
national voodoo museum and devel-
oping a voodoo convent tour that will
traverse the country.
Désiré Kpassénon is custodian of a
sacred forest on the outskirts of the
city, where King Kpassé I, a 16th-cen-
tury ruler, is said to have transformed
himself into a tree in order to prevent
capture by troops from a neighbour-
ing kingdom. When the soldiers
came looking for him, locals tell you
they were attacked by pythons.
“If you make an offering and touch
the tree with your left hand, you can
ask for anything you want,” says
Kpassénon, who says he is a descen-
dant of Kpassé. “People have come
here and been cured of cancer, dia-
betes and high blood pressure,” he
adds. “Others come because they
want to be able to have children.
Some come to boost their business.
Some come seeking love.”
Alas, there is no miracle to report,
so far. But Mabegbé’s words have
proved prophetic. Time is the great
healer. Sometimes it just takes travel-
ling into the heart of voodoo country
to discover that. And no gin sacrifice
has been required since.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
world markets (Change on the day)
FTSE 100
8,438.65 (-7.15)
8,500
8,000
7,500
7,000
Apr 17 24 May 1 9 16
Business secretary quizzes Royal Mail owner on Kretinsky bid
Alex Ralph
Chief Business Correspondent
The prospect of government opposi-
tion to a proposed £3.5 billion acquisi-
tion of the Royal Mail’s parent company
has receded after the business secre-
tary welcomed contractual under-
takings being negotiated as part of a
Czech tycoon’s takeover.
In a potentially politically significant
moment for the deal, Kemi Badenoch
Sony Music
warning to
AI ‘pirates’
Tech groups accused of using content illegally
Katie Prescott
Technology Business Editor
Sony Music has written to more than
700 artificial intelligence companies,
accusing them of using its artists’
content without permission, as tension
builds between the creative and
technology sectors.
The world’s second biggest record
company has asked technology groups
including Google, Microsoft and Meta
to reply within weeks, providing details
of lyrics and songs used to train their
technology and how they had been
obtained.
Sony said this was with a view to
discussing licensing or partnership
deals to pay for content, but it is under-
stood that it could pursue legal action if
companies do not comply.
“Due to the nature of your operations
and published information about your
AI systems, we have reason to believe
that you and or your affiliates may
already have made unauthorised uses
of Sony Music Group content in rela-
tion to the training, development or
commercialisation of AI systems,” the
letter said.
Sony said it demanded the disclosure
under the terms of the forthcoming
European Union AI Act, which re-
quires companies making AI models to
reveal the content used for training
“and to put in place a policy to respect
EU copyright law”. The business is
understood to already be in discussions
with 350 technology companies about
partnerships and licences.
Sony also warned companies about
any future use of its copyright. It said
commodities
Dow Jones Gold
39,869.38 (-38.62) $2,380.56 (-3.71)
42,500
40,000
37,500
35,000
Apr 18 25 May 2 9 16 Apr 18 25
yesterday met Martin Seidenberg, the
chief executive of International Distri-
butions Services, Royal Mail’s parent
company, after Wednesday’s 370p-a-
share “non-binding” proposal from EP
Group, a conglomerate controlled by
Daniel Kretinsky, a billionaire investor.
At the meeting, which had been
scheduled before IDS received the
improved proposal, Badenoch empha-
sised the importance of Royal Mail in
UK society and the government’s prior-
that it would be “open to discuss licence
agreements” but that its “well-estab-
lished position” was that permission
was required in advance. Everything
from lyrics to images to compositions
was protected, the label said, and un-
authorised use deprived artists “of
control over and appropriate compen-
sation” for their work and “infringes our
intellectual property and other rights”.
Sony will expand its list of AI compa-
nies that are in scope of its ban and has
told online platforms and services that
distribute and stream music digitally,
such as Spotify, to make it “abundantly
clear” to users that mining and training
on its content is not permitted.
Generative AI models require vast
amounts of data in order to train their
technology in pattern recognition,
which enables the creation of music,
images and text mimicking human-
created material, as made by the likes of
ChatGPT and StabilityAI. However,
there is increasing concern in the crea-
tive industries, from musicians to pub-
lishers, that their data may have been
used without permission to train AI.
Copyright use is proving a headache
for policymakers, who are trying to
tread a line between supporting
innovation and protecting the creative
sector. Britain has failed to agree a satis-
factory plan after talks between the two
sides, convened by the Intellectual
Property Office, collapsed. The task of
creating guidelines has been picked up
by the Department for Science, Tech-
nology and Innovation, but nothing has
yet been published.
Microsoft, Google and Meta were
approached for comment.
Brent crude (6pm)
$ $83.06 (+0.34)
2,600
2,400
2,200
2,000
May 1 8 15 Apr 18 25 May 1
ity to maintain that position. However,
she also welcomed the headline details
of the contractual undertakings agreed
between IDS and EP Group as part of
the possible takeover, particularly that
Royal Mail will retain its headquarters
in Britain and the commitment to con-
tinuing to carry out the universal ser-
vice obligation, which involves deliver-
ies on six days a week and guaranteed
standardised prices for post.
EP Group is in talks with IDS’s board,
Scott Timlin, a winner of Celebrity Big Brother, is among those accused of illegally promoting a foreign exchange betting site
Reality TV stars charged over promotions
Patrick Hosking Financial Editor
Scott Timlin, a star of Geordie Shore,
and five other reality show celebrities
have been charged with illegally
promoting an unauthorised foreign
exchange betting site.
Lauren Goodger and Yazmin Ouk-
hellou, who featured in The Only Way is
Essex, as well as some Love Island con-
testants are also being prosecuted by
the Financial Conduct Authority.
The celebrities are alleged to have
urged their 4.5 million followers to look
at an Instagram account that provided
advice on buying and selling contracts-
for-difference linked to currencies. It is
the first time that the regulator has
prosecuted financial influencers, or
“finfluencers”. The charges carry a
Business
currencies
£/$
$ $1.2677 (+0.0020)
120
100
80
60
8 15 Apr 18 25 May 1 8 15
led by Keith Williams, over the under-
takings to be submitted to the govern-
ment and it has until May 29 to make a
firm offer. Badenoch told Seidenberg
that details of any undertakings sub-
mitted to the government would be for
the government to consider and agree.
Williams said on Wednesday that the
board was “minded” to recommend the
proposal price to shareholders, which it
considers to be “fair and reflects the
value of current growth plans and the
penalty of unlimited fines and up to two
years in jail.
Also accused is Emmanuel Nwanze,
30, who has been charged with running
an unauthorised investment scheme
via an Instagram account and of issuing
unauthorised financial promotions.
Other celebrities charged are the
former Love Island contestants Biggs
Chris, 32, Rebecca Gormley, 26, and
Eva Zapico, 25, along with the actor
Jamie Clayton, 32.
Timlin, 36, a winner of Celebrity Big
Brother, is the most followed of the ce-
lebrities, with 3.5 million Instagram fol-
lowers. He appeared in Geordie Shore, a
programme that follows a group of
housemates in Newcastle upon Tyne,
from 2012 to 2019. He was declared
bankrupt with debts of £147,000 in 2019.
31
£/€
$ €1.1658 (+0.0006) ¤
1.400 1.300
1.300 1.200
1.200 1.100
1.100 1.000
Apr 18 25 May 1 8 15
progress being made on change at
Royal Mail to adapt the business to a
significant fall in the demand for letters
and growth in parcels”.
EP Group has agreed to offer con-
tractual undertakings to “protect key
public interest factors and recognise
Royal Mail’s status as a key part of
national infrastructure”. The proposed
undertakings also include protecting
employees’ existing rights and the Royal
In 2021 he was rebuked by the Advertis-
ing Standards Authority for failing to
disclose he was being paid to promote
products and is on its blacklist of non-
compliant social media influencers.
CFDs are in effect leveraged bets that
carry a high risk of loss. Their promo-
tion to non-sophisticated investors is
strictly controlled by the FCA. The reg-
ulator has previously warned finfluen-
cers about misleading posts on social
media. About 31 per cent of novice in-
vestors say they use social media to re-
search investment decisions, according
to research for the AJ Bell investment
platform; 17 per cent say they have
bought a celebrity-endorsed product.
The defendants are due to appear at
Westminster magistrates’ court on
June 13.
32
Business
Need to know
1
Homeowners face cheaper
mortgages after three high
street lenders cut rates on more
than 100 deals. Barclays, HSBC and
TSB are all set to reduce fixed-rate
deals in a move that could save
households hundreds of pounds a
month.
2
Sony Music, the world’s
second biggest record
company, has written to more
than 700 artificial intelligence
companies, accusing them of using
its artists’ content without
permission, as tension builds
between the creative and
technology sectors.
The prospect of government
3 opposition to a proposed
£3.5 billion acquisition of the
Royal Mail’s parent company has
receded after Kemi Badenoch, the
business secretary, welcomed
contractual undertakings being
negotiated as part of a takeover by
Daniel Kretinsky, a billionaire
Czech investor.
Scott Timlin, a star of Geordie
4 Shore, and five other reality
show celebrities have been
charged with illegally promoting
an unauthorised foreign exchange
betting site.
The Japanese economy, the
5 world’s third largest, shrank
by 0.5 per cent, faster than
expected , in the first three
months of this year, compared
with the previous quarter, as
people trimmed their spending
and as businesses curbed
investment.
A jump in online sales has
6 helped Walmart, America’s
largest retailer, to beat Wall
Street’s profit and sales
expectations and to increase its
forecasts for the year. Total
revenue in the three months to the
end of April was up 6 per cent to
$161.5 billion.
Allison Kirkby, the new boss
7 of BT, signalled her intention
to continue the FTSE 100
telecoms group’s sometimes
painful turnaround, laying out
plans to cut costs further, to
monetise its newly built fibre
network, to leave some markets
and to focus more heavily on the
UK.
8
Chevron, the American oil
major, is planning to sell its
remaining UK North Sea oil
and gas assets in a move that
would mark its exit from the
region after more than 55 years.
Revenue at Sage is unlikely to
9 rise this year by as much as
the technology company had
hoped as some of its small
business customers delay signing
up to its accounting and payroll
software.
In 2021 Boris Johnson said
10 “Britain will become the
Qatar of hydrogen” as
part of his government’s strategy
for reaching net-zero emissions by
2050, but was the promise a load
of hot air? Not according to key
players in Britain’s burgeoning
hydrogen industry. Hydrogen UK,
which represents the industry,
claims it is poised to create 20,000
jobs and to contribute £26 billion
in cumulative gross value added to
the economy.
Lundgren to
hand over
the controls
at easyJet
Robert Lea Industrial Editor
Johan Lundgren will step down as the
chief executive of easyJet at the turn of
the year after seven years at the helm.
He will leave an airline that has been
restored to health, with City forecasts
suggesting that it will make £1 billion of
profits in the present spring quarter and
during the lucrative summer months
of July, August and September, the
equivalent of about £20 profit per pas-
senger flown.
The recovery has been helped by
easyJet Holidays, the package holiday
business that Lundgren, 57, had envis-
aged building up when he arrived in late
2017, having previously been the deputy
chief executive of Tui, the package
holidays company. The pan-
demic delayed the plan, but the
holidays business, built up over
the past couple of years, is ex-
pected to produce a £140 million
profit this year.
His tenure has faced frequent
turbulence, including
an initial turn-
around required
immediately after
he had arrived to
sort out an ill-fated
acquisition of Air
Berlin piloted by
Dame Carolyn
McCall, his predeces-
sor who is now the
head of ITV. After that
came the groundings,
lockdowns and
travel restrictions
of the Covid-19
outbreak, during
which the easy-
Dow index hits 40,000 for first time
Robert Miller
America’s oldest equity index broke
through the 40,000 level for the first
time yesterday before slipping back to
close at its second highest level.
The Dow Jones industrial average,
which started with 12 companies in
1896, hit 40,040 during morning
trading in New York but reversed those
early gains to finish the session down
38.62 points, or 0.1 per cent, at
39,869.38, having closed at a new high
on Wednesday, its eighth record of the
year.
The index, which now tracks 30 of
America’s biggest companies from
Boeing and Walt Disney to Apple and
Cisco Systems, briefly fell below 20,000
points at the onset of the global Covid
pandemic in March 2020. This year it
has risen by 5.8 per cent.
Reasonable economic growth this
year, with GDP increasing at an annual
rate of 1.6 per cent in the first quarter,
and a fall in America’s rate of inflation
to 3.4 per cent in April has boosted
investors’ confidence that the world’s
Jet boss had to deal with the efforts of
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the carrier’s
founder and largest shareholder, to get
him sacked.
When Sir Stephen Hester took over
as easyJet’s chairman in 2021, it was said
that the City heavyweight was looking
for candidates to replace Lundgren. In
the event, Hester has not looked far. He
has plumped for Kenton Jarvis, 56,
easyJet’s finance director since 2021,
who preceded Hester into the board-
room by a few months.
Hester, 63, praised Lundgren’s “clear
strategy and strong execution”. He said
Jarvis had emerged as the selection
from “a strong internal and external
field of candidates” and would “hit the
ground running” as Lundgren
winds down his commitments
after the end of easyJet’s financial
year in September and before a
formal handover on January 1.
Lundgren said he would leave
easyJet “with a great sense of pride
at the progress made”, adding that
Jarvis’s appointment was “fully
deserved”.
The market reacted
to the news with
obvious disappoint-
ment, with the
shares closing
down by 31¾p,
or 6 per cent, at
497¾p.
The ann-
ouncement came as
easyJet confirmed
that its losses over its
Johan Lundgren is
preparing to take a
career break
largest economy has avoided a
recession. Inflation hit a 40-year high
of 9.1 per cent in June 2021.
The first-quarter earnings season
just completed was also generally
upbeat, although many companies
were cautious about the outlook for the
rest of the year. However, the primary
5.8%
Increase in the Dow Jones industrial
average this year
driver of the Dow and its fellow indices,
the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P
500, to fresh records is the looming
prospect of interest rate cuts this
summer.
The US Federal Reserve has been
cautious about lowering the cost of
borrowing from the present range of
5.25 per cent to 5.5 per cent, the highest
in more than two decades, while infla-
tion has been stubbornly high. After the
Turbulent times
Comparative share price performance
easyJet Wizz Air IAG
2018 2019 2020 2021
winter first half to the end of March
were £350 million. With analysts
expecting £655 million of profits for the
full year, Lundgren’s last few months
will be judged on how far he can top
£1 billion of profits for easyJet’s second
half from April to September. He has
given no guidance on what he expects
the outcome for the financial year to be,
but has not contradicted City consen-
sus forecasts.
EasyJet also said that it was returning
to base aircraft at Southend airport in
fall in the rate of inflation was revealed
on Wednesday, equity markets hit new
records.
Investors are betting on two quarter-
point interest rate cuts from the Fed
this year and estimate a 70 per cent
chance of the first reduction being in
September, according to the closely
watched CME FedWatch Tool.
Last night the S&P 500, widely
regarded as a barometer of the health of
corporate America, fell by 11.05 points,
or 0.2 per cent, to 5,297.10, but it remains
up by 11.1 per cent this year.
The technology-dominated Nasdaq
was down by 44.07 points, or 0.3 per
cent, at 16,698.32, but it remains 11.2 per
cent ahead this year.
Silas Myers, chief executive and
portfolio manager at Mar Vista Invest-
ment Partners in Los Angeles, said:
“The current environment seems to
focused on what the Fed may or may
not do, given that we had started the
year with the expectation that the Fed
will cut rates up to six times but that
moved down more recently to one or
two times.”
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Ryanair
80%
60
40
20
0
−20
−40
−60
−80
2022 2023 2024
Essex, which has ambitions to be
London’s fifth international gateway.
The carrier’s departure from the airport
during Covid sent Southend, Britain’s
only listed airport, close to insolvency
before it was bought out by Carlyle, the
American private equity firm.
Lundgren said that he had no new job
lined up to go to but instead would take
a break and then would consider his
options. He noted that the latest finan-
cial results showed a net cash position
of £146 million compared with the
continued from page 31
Royal Mail owner quizzed
Mail brand and name, continuing to
recognise the existing unions and re-
taining its tax residency in the UK.
Badenoch told Seidenberg that the
government’s priority was a universal
service that meets customer needs,
including those of vulnerable people,
those living in remote communities and
of small businesses, but she added min-
isters would consider any advice from
Ofcom, the communications regulator.
Ofcom began a consultation in January
after putting forward options for
changes to the service obligation and it
is expected to report in the summer.
Royal Mail made its own proposals to
Ofcom, which it says would cut costs by
up to £300 million a year, while first-
class letters would continue six days a
week. It would keep the “one-price-
goes-anywhere” service, but second-
class letters would be delivered every
other weekday and not on Saturdays.
Shares in International Distributions
Services closed up by 2.3 per cent, or 7¼p,
at 322p, significantly below EP Group’s
proposed price, indicating that the
market is sceptical a deal will be reached
because of the perceived political risk.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
6%
Decline in share price after
Johan Lundgren’s exit was
announced yesterday
situation during the pandemic and its
immediate aftermath, when there were
fears for the carrier’s future and it was
forced into a highly dilutive rights issue
in order to survive. “We have come out
of what was an existential crisis now
with positive cash, we have reinstated
the dividend, we have launched easyJet
Holidays and we have new fleet orders
in,” he said.
Jarvis, who inherits a pledge to
deliver £1 billion of full-year profits by
2028-29 at the latest, an earnings
Watches of Switzerland dials into US
Jessica Newman
An aggressive push into the United
States is paying off for Watches of
Switzerland as Britain’s “tourist tax”
continues to weigh on its sales of luxury
timepieces in its home market.
Seven years after the century-old
Rolex seller opened its first American
outlet in New York, revenues from op-
erations across the Atlantic have
already caught up with those generated
in Britain and Europe.
Revenue in the US in the quarter to
April 28 was up by 14 per cent on the
previous year to £190 million. In Europe
and Britain, however, revenues were
down by 4 per cent to £190 million,
“impacted by macroeconomic condi-
tions in the UK”.
Brian Duffy, chief executive of the
FTSE 250 retailer, said that the per-
formance in Britain “continues to be
driven by domestic clientele, with mini-
mal return of tourist spending due to
the lack of VAT-free shopping”.
Since the VAT-free shopping scheme
was scrapped in January 2021, Britain’s
£1bn
profit target for 2028-29, an
earnings increase of 50%
over the next five years
increase over the next five years of 50
per cent, said that he had “three levers”
at his disposal to hit the target.
The first is the elimination or at least
a significant reduction in winter losses
through a smarter route network and
frequencies.
The second is what he called the “up-
gauging” of the easyJet fleet. Among
easyJet’s existing stable of 343 aircraft
are 88 A319 jets, which carry only 156
passengers. The plan is that an inflow of
newer, larger Airbus aircraft will bring
Sales in America rose 14 per cent, in
contrast to its performance in Europe
luxury retailers have warned that the
wider economy is missing out on thou-
sands of affluent international visitors.
Duffy has been one of a number
campaigning for it to be restored,
warning that the country has “missed
an opportunity” for growth and
development.
Watches of Switzerland’s strong per-
formance in America ensured that full-
year group revenue was up by 2 per cent
180
Average seats per Easyjet
aircraft. The airline aims
to push this above 200
Source: FactSet
up easyJet’s average seats per aircraft to
180 and in time to more than 200. The
new generation of Airbus jets will carry
24 per cent more passengers and will
burn less fuel.
His third lever is the easyJet Holidays
business, attracting more passengers
on to its network of European cities and
southern European sunspots with a
seamless offer of hotels, effectively
going into that part of the market vacat-
ed by the fallen Thomas Cook and
Monarch groups.
at £1.54 billion, in line with its revised
forecasts. In January, it sounded the
alarm on profits amid a “volatile trad-
ing performance” in the run-up to
Christmas and reduced its annual sales
guidance range to between £1.53 billion
and £1.55 billion. The warning wiped
more than a third from the value of its
shares in a single day.
However, the absence of any new
nasty surprises and a positive outlook
prompted a 19.9 per cent, or 67¼p jump
in its shares to 405p.
Looking ahead, Duffy, 69, said the
company had started the new year with
“cautious optimism” and he was confi-
dent that the group’s “strategy, excep-
tional client service and strong brand
relationships enable us to continue to
drive growth and gain market shares”,
noting an “exceptionally strong
performance” in second-hand high-
end watches.
Analysts at HSBC said that although
the UK “is still suffering from a lack of
tourists and a somewhat priced-out
local consumer”, the group had ended
the year on a high note.
BT boss Kirkby
shows her fibre
business commentary Alistair Osborne
B
etting against BT has long
been a lucrative trade.
Rewind to 2015 and the
shares were just shy of £5.
So it makes a change to
see a new boss finally dial up a good
day on the stock market, complete
with the official unveiling of the
company’s new motto: “I always
love to squeeze the shorts.”
It’s the line from Allison Kirkby,
who took charge in February and
for a few months was marooned in
what she called “no-man’s land”, a
strategic purdah, while the market
wondered whether the new chief
might “throw everything up in the
air” and the short-sellers piled in.
Her answer to that has now
arrived with the full-year figures.
The result? Shares up 17 per cent to
132½p, helped by the hedge fund
rush to cover what the Financial
Times said this week was a record
£300 million bet against the group’s
shares (report, page 37).
As Kirkby puts it: “I always learn
from the bears and the short-sellers
and like to prove them wrong.” In
fact, their case against BT would
have been grudgingly recognised by
most investors: that here was a low-
growth, cash-burning company that
would struggle to get a return on its
£5 billion-a-year capex. And that
even if it did manage to bring full-
fibre broadband to 25 million
premises by the end of 2026, so-
called alt-nets were muscling in
anyway and diverting BT customers
to their alternative fibre networks.
Even bulls of the stock expressed
“disappointment”, Kirkby says, that
BT had so far been “unable to get
the story across” that it was already
through peak capex and on the cusp
of a big step up in free cashflow. As
it happens, her predecessor Philip
Jansen had been banging that drum
at his swansong half-year figures
last November. But Kirkby has
brought overdue clarity, arguing
that BT has reached an “inflection
point” and laying out clear targets.
First, that last year’s free cashflow
of £1.3 billion would hit £1.5 billion in
the next financial year, £2 billion in
the year to March 2027 and
£3 billion by fiscal 2030. Then that
there was a far leaner BT to come,
with a target £3 billion cost-cuts by
2029 on top of the similar sum it’s
just achieved a year early: one cue
for a 3.9 per cent dividend rise to 8p.
Do these figures look achievable?
Well, given the mixed-bag results,
investors are being asked to take a
fair bit on trust. While the fibre
rollout’s up to 14 million premises,
the extra 397,000 customers BT’s
Openreach wing gained on that
front last quarter are being offset by
the 491,000 it lost from its old
copper network. True, Openreach
ebitda still rose 9 per cent to
£3.83 billion, with the consumer
wing, including mobile operator EE,
up 5 per cent to £2.67 billion.
Yet the business arm serving
multinationals remains a drag:
ebitda down 16 per cent to
£1.63 billion. Kirkby’s fix involves
refocusing an operation presently in
180 countries on the UK: a process
involving myriad partnerships, the
closure of thousands of legacy
networks and the rollout of BT
Global Fabric, a new cloud service
for multinationals. All that’s bound
33
Business
to be even messier than it sounds,
though Kirkby is confident that it’ll
improve performance. Clearly, she
has plenty to prove. And nothing
happens on speed-dial at BT. But at
least she’s off to a decent start, with
an early victory over the shorts that
were already hanging up.
Airline back up
irlines are, if nothing else, an
A up-and-down business. And
no one knows that better
than Johan Lundgren, the easyJet
boss retiring early next year after
seven years in the cockpit.
Since he took the controls in
December 2017, he’s been on a
rollercoaster flight. First, dealing
with the parting gift of predecessor
Dame Carolyn McCall, now the ITV
boss who bequeathed him over-
expansion in Berlin. Then the
pandemic, complete with Grant
Shapps’ disco-ball traffic lights
system and a volcanic eruption from
Mount Stelios: the founder who
used his far bigger stake back then
to try to sack Lundgren and most of
the rest of the board.
And then the problems of getting
airborne again post-Covid, where
staff shortages saw Lundgren’s
promise of “operational resilience”
go into a tailspin. The share price
does not make the prettiest reading:
down on his watch from almost £12
to 497¾p, not helped by two Covid
refuellings — 2020’s £419 million at
703p and 2021’s £1.2 billion at 410p.
Despite all this, Lundgren says
that “even on the bad days it’s been
a privilege to run this airline”. And
he’ll be handing over a business to
his successor, finance chief Kenton
Jarvis, in better shape than it’s been
for a long time — boosted by the
holidays business he launched that’s
now expected to deliver more than
£170 million pre-tax profits this year.
A record summer looms, with the
airline also poised to earn an extra
£3 per passenger per seat once it
replaces 88 156-seat A319 aircraft
with 186-seat A320s and 235-seat
A321s. The shares fell 6 per cent on
Lundgren’s exit, though there were
also jitters over summer guidance.
Whatever, this is one of those cases
where the boss has done a better job
than the share price suggests.
Knock on Wood
aybe this is what Sidara
M means by “making an
impact where it matters
most” — raising its mooted cash bid
for Wood Group by just 3 per cent,
up to 212p a share from 205p, and
getting it rejected again. Yes, with
the shares at 187½p, there is no law
that it must match the 240p that last
year got private equity firm Apollo
in the door. And it has a case that,
with Apollo failing to make an offer,
it’s no yardstick anyway. It’s also
true that the market’s unconvinced
by Wood’s free cashflow forecasts,
where estimates for 2025 are wide:
£245 million on Peel Hunt maths,
just £17 million on Berenberg’s. But
Sidara will still have to do far better
than these knockabout bids.
alistair.osborne@thetimes.co.uk
34 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Business

Labour ‘rebalance’ raises hope of rate cut

Jack Barnett
Economics Correspondent
The labour market is rebalancing and
inflation is on a “benign” path, a Bank of
England official has said, boosting
hopes that interest rates could come
down next month.
Megan Greene, an external member
of the Bank’s ratesetting monetary
policy committee, said that the supply
of and demand for workers was better
aligned, having been out of balance for
the past two years. She said that this
would constrain pay growth and would
suppress inflation, which has fallen to
3.2 per cent, the lowest level since Sep-
tember 2021.
“As vacancies have fallen back close
to pre-pandemic levels, labour demand
and labour supply are finally roughly
equal,” Greene told an audience at
Make UK, the manufacturers’ organi-
sation. “This should mean there is less
upward pressure on wages.”
At the previous MPC meeting this
month, Greene voted to hold the base
interest rate at 5.25 per cent, a 16-year
high, alongside six other members of
the committee, including Andrew Bai-
ley, the Bank’s governor.
The economist, a senior fellow at
Brown University in the United States,
joined the MPC in July last year. She
has been characterised as a hawkish
member of the committee after previ-
ous comments that rate cuts were “a
way off”.
Her remarks to Make UK yesterday
indicate that the average view of the
MPC is moving toward loosening mon-
etary policy.
There had been “good news” on wa-
ges growth, services inflation and la-
bour market tightness in recent
months, she said. Figures from
the Office for National Statis-
tics show that private sector
wages increased by 5.9 per
cent in the last quarter, lower
than the Bank had expect-
ed.
“Inflation persistence
has waned since I joined
the MPC last July,” Gree-
ne said. “This is no mere
coincidence. It has fad-
ed in part because of
our restrictive stance of
policy. Labour market
tightness, as measured by the vacan-
cies-to-unemployment ratio, is easing,
supported by both moderation in la-
bour demand and potentially some im-
provement in matching efficiency.”
Greene said that an unusually
high degree of “labour hoarding”
by businesses had kept unem-
ployment low amid a sluggish
economy and high interest
rates. If this trend continued,
the Bank may have to keep
policy tighter for longer, she
said. Joblessness crept up
to 4.3 per cent in the
three months to the
Megan Greene said
pressure on wages
was likely to ease
end of March. There is speculation that
the Bank will lower borrowing costs at
its next meeting on June 20 if new infla-
tion and labour market data matches
the MPC’s predictions. The ONS will
publish two inflation figures and one la-
bour market publication before that
gathering.
Greene said she needed more evi-
dence of “inflation persistence continu-
ing to wane” before voting for a rate cut.
“Data released ahead of our next meet-
ing will give a clearer indication of how
far along the ‘last mile’ [of inflation] we
have come,” she said. “In considering
for how long we must retain our re-
strictive stance before policy should be
eased, I think the burden of proof there-
fore needs to lie in inflation persistence
continuing to wane.”

Japan goes
Inflation ‘has
backwards turned UK
as output into a nation
contracts
of savers’
T
he Japanese
economy
contracted at Jack Barnett
a much faster
rate than Inflation has profoundly reshaped the
expected at the start economy by steering people towards
of the year as people the highest savings rate in three
trimmed spending and decades, alongside a £50 billion reduc-
businesses curbed tion in spending, according to the
investment (Jack Resolution Foundation.
Barnett writes). Household consumption contracted
In the first three by a greater degree than the fall in real
months of this year, incomes during the cost of living crisis,
the world’s third with the excess cash being deposited in
largest economy savings accounts, the economics think
shrank by 0.5 per cent tank said in a report.
compared with the Compared with the final three
previous quarter, the months of 2019, the final quarter before
Japanese Cabinet Covid-19 struck, real household dispos-
Office said. On an able incomes have contracted by 1.1 per
annual basis, output cent, or £280 per year. However, so-
dropped by 2 per cent. called real spending has dropped much
Performance was further, coming down by 4.7 per cent, or
constrained by weak £1,200 annually.
domestic spending, The near-£1,000 difference between
which dipped by 0.2 the two had been channelled into sav-
per cent on a quarterly ings, the foundation said, adding that
basis, worse than the The central bank in Japan has been hoping that higher wages would boost demand after years of weakness, but people trimmed spending families had saved 6 per cent of their in-
0.1 per cent drop in comes in the final quarter of last year,
the final quarter of sustainably higher for achieving this year for the first responded negatively the Japanese yen. the highest rate outside the pandemic
last year. Gross fixed after being mired for sustainable inflation” time since 2007 in to more restrictive “The weaker currency in 30 years. “Had they instead saved at
capital formation, a years in near-negative and for stronger wage response to marginally financial conditions. is a double-edged 2019 levels, this would have boosted ag-
measure of economy- territory are unlikely growth boosting higher prices growth. Even with tighter sword,” Pantheon said. gregate spending by £54 billion a year,”
wide investment, to materialise. demand, “leading to It also ended its yield policy, rates on “It obviously makes the think tank said.
slipped by 0.3 per cent, Analysts at higher consumption, curve control policy, Japanese government Japanese exports more James Smith, research director at the
after growth of 0.9 per Pantheon which should then be which had been bonds remain well competitive, but it also Resolution Foundation, said: “The
cent in the previous Macroeconomics, a translated into designed to ease below the returns puts companies’ sheer scale of this near-three-year in-
three months. consultancy, said the demand-pull inflation. financial conditions in offered on other finances under flation shock has reshaped the eco-
The gloomy figures central bank was Sadly, we don’t see this the economy to bolster developed economies’ pressure as it raises nomy and public finances and changed
suggest that the Bank “desperately looking in [the] GDP release.” demand. The weak fixed-income assets. costs of imported what people do with their money.
of Japan’s hopes of for stronger domestic The central bank figures indicate that This has put intense energy and raw “The crisis has made us poorer, with
inflation moving demand as evidence raised interest rates the Japanese economy downward pressure on materials.” the sharp rise in the cost of essentials
hitting lower-income families hardest.
It also has turned us from a nation of
spenders to a nation of savers, with
credit card spending falling by 13 per
Northern Rock investors to relaunch payout bid cent and families saving around £54 bil-
lion a year more than we might have ex-
pected.”
Patrick Hosking Financial Editor cate Northern Rock shares with no information had come to light about gages. It was taken into public owner- Inflation climbed to a 42-year high of
compensation, saying that the bank’s the profits made by the government ship, with the retail side of the business 11.1 per cent in October 2022, but since
A group fighting for compensation for £100 billion mortgage book had turned from the mortgage book. He said it was being sold to Virgin Money and the then has fallen to 3.2 per cent. The Bank
150,000 Northern Rock shareholders out to be extremely valuable. “pure coincidence” the campaign an- mortgage book held in the state-owned of England increased interest rates to
whose shares were seized in the lender’s Hopes of any compensation were nouncement had come on the day the UK Asset Resolution, before its even- 5.25 per cent, a 16-year high, making it
2007 collapse and nationalisation is to dashed 12 years ago after the European chancellor was promoting London- tual sale to Cerberus Capital Manage- more attractive to save than spend.
resuscitate its campaign. Court of Human Rights dismissed the listed company investment and before ment, the American private equity firm. A sharp increase in government
The Northern Rock Shareholder action, saying the case was inadmis- a possible offer of shares in NatWest. The action group said that a report spending to offset the cost of living
Action Group accused the government sible. An independent report by BDO, The depositor panic at Northern from Rothschild had shown “a huge crisis and a greater prevalence of infla-
of grabbing profits of as much as £9 bil- the accountancy group, previously had Rock was the first significant run on a surplus of £9.6 billion from UKAR”. A tion-linked government debt pushed
lion after it took control of the mortgage deemed the shares at the time to be retail bank in Britain for 100 years. It re- separate report from the Office for Bud- up the UK’s debt-to-GDP ratio by six
bank in the wake of a depositor run. worthless. lied heavily on wholesale funding and get Responsibility in 2015 had shown an percentage points during the price
It has called on the Commons Peter Camponi, co-chairman of the was hit badly as wholesale markets “overall cash surplus of £13.3 billion surge. In previous periods of intense
Treasury select committee to review 2,000-member action group, said it had started to freeze and as markets began from all bank interventions”. inflation, the nation’s relative debt stock
the decision by the Treasury to confis- decided to reopen its campaign as new to worry about its 125 per cent mort- The Treasury declined to comment. fell.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Harry Wallop
Be nice, but not just because you
think it will improve your share price
‘‘
Are monstrous
bosses bad for the
bottom line? Last
week a top
executive of Baidu,
one of China’s leading technology
companies, was discovered to have
been posting advice to her underlings
on social media, lambasting their
unwillingness to toil ceaselessly. She
criticised one for not wanting to work
at weekends and dismissed a
complaint that her late-night work
messages kept up one of her
employee’s crying children. “I’m not
your mum,” she said.
In the modern corporate world, you
know you’re in trouble when you
have to “reflect”. When, according to
her statement, you have to “reflect
deeply and humbly”, you might as
well be handed a revolver and a bottle
of whisky. Sure enough, within hours
she had left Baidu.
The episode seemed to confirm that
the era of toxic workplaces is over,
even in communist China. Nothing
sullies a company’s reputation more
than one of its executives failing to
consider their employees’
psychological safety or their refusal to
give workers time off to attend to
their sick cat.
Now, though, according to an
intriguing study, being compassionate
is not only good for a company’s
reputation but also for its share price.
A group of academics at the
University of Zurich, the London
School of Economics and the Judge
Business School at Cambridge studied
company earnings calls during the
first highly unsettling weeks of the
Covid-19 pandemic, between January
20 and March 22, 2020, before
lockdowns were imposed in most
countries but everyone knew that
things were going to get worse and
share prices were in freefall.
They analysed 510 conference calls
by 448 large American companies
and examined the language used by
chief executives. Just under half made
no reference to their staff’s wellbeing,
but any words of concern, however
vague and woolly, were chalked up by
the academics as “an expression of
empathy”.
These statements tended to be
perfunctory. “I’ll start by saying our
first priority is making sure that our
employees, partners and customers
are safe,” was a typical one, made by
Anders Gustafsson, then chief
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executive of Zebra, a technology
company.
The research shows that the share
price of a company whose boss made
one of these statements tended to
outperform the market during the
following six weeks. Each additional
“human care statement”, as the study
calls them, was associated with higher
cumulative returns of 2.49 percentage
points. Given that the average market
value of the companies in the sample
was $3.17 billion, this equates to each
company saving millions from a boss
spouting nothing more sincere than
“it’s OK to not be OK” during Mental
Health Awareness Week.
Lauren Howe, of the University of
Zurich, admits that there is no clear
causal link between the nice
comments and the better-than-
average share price, but she thinks
that something is going on: “These
statements perhaps reinforce trust in
leaders,” she told me. “They seem
more capable of navigating their
company through the crisis.” Maybe
investors backed these companies so
the shares outperformed.
Lots of people would love this to be
true. “Compassionate leadership” has
become deeply vogueish on LinkedIn
and has prompted a rash of books.
The most well known was written in
2022 by Rasmus Hougaard and
Jacqueline Carter, who run Potential
Project, a leadership consultancy
advising senior executives at the likes
of Unilever and Accenture. They have
even worked with the Dalai Lama and
run retreats “to help leaders find the
renewal, inspiration and meaning
they seek”. Their book, Compassionate
Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in
a Human Way, was a rallying cry for
bosses to balance “business wisdom
with compassion”. And doesn’t that
sound nice?
They said they had gathered data
from 15,000 leaders in more than
5,000 companies. “Through extensive
data modelling, we have discovered a
clear correlation between higher
levels of wise compassion and
promotability. In other words, the
more wise compassion you practise as
a leader, the faster and higher you will
rise in the ranks.” Want to get ahead?
Then be kind.
The only problem with this is that,
as far as I can tell from reading their
studies, there is no hard definition of
what makes someone compassionate.
It was left up to the chief executives
to define it themselves. And what do
you know? The more senior a person
is in an organisation, the more likely
they are to say they are
compassionate. Hougaard and Carter
have spent too long on their
compassion retreats to realise that
many of those who make it to the top
are also quite likely to be sociopaths
who, of course, insist on putting
#BeKind in their LinkedIn biography,
while simultaneously sacking 10 per
cent of their workforce every year.
They suffer from the same malaise
that infected the Zurich team and
countless business school studies: a
desire to link financial performance
to progressive business practices. Can
we not just say that being a caring
boss is a good thing in itself without
trying to yoke this to the bottom line?
We all would like to work under
someone who knows our name and
notices when we have done a good
job. A survey this week from Deloitte,
the consultancy, highlights how Gen
Z workers (defined as below the age
of 30) increasingly want to work only
for companies that “align with their
values” and for bosses who take
mental health seriously. An
astonishing 50 per cent of them have
turned down a job or project because
of “their personal ethics or beliefs”.
For this cohort, a “positive workplace
culture” ranks just as highly as “high
salary” in choosing a job.
Being compassionate may help you
to recruit and retain younger workers
and should help to foster goodwill
among employees. It is undoubtedly
the right approach, but to tie it to
higher profits or an improved share
price seems a stretch. After all, I am
not sure that Tesla has ended up with
a $545 billion
’’
market value
because Elon Musk
is an empathetic,
considerate boss.
Harry Wallop is a consumer
journalist and broadcaster. Follow
him on Twitter @hwallop
35
Business
Thames
Water faces
clearout of
directors
Robert Lea Industrial Editor
The representative of Thames Water’s
largest shareholder is among an ex-
pected clearout of disgruntled investor
directors from the company’s boards.
Michael McNicholas, of Omers, the
Canadian pension fund, has resigned as
a non-executive director of Thames
entities with immediate effect. Several
other director representatives are
expected to follow suit.
The nine shareholders of the crisis-
stricken Thames and of Kemble Water,
its parent company — led by Omers
and also including the Universities Su-
perannuation Scheme and Hermes, the
British pension funds, and the sover-
eign wealth funds of China and Abu
Dhabi — have already written off their
investments in the group and have said
that they will pour no further money
into the business.
The future of Britain’s largest water
utility, whose obligations affect a quar-
ter of the nation’s population, is on a
knife-edge after its shareholders with-
drew their support. Thames has said
that it wants to bring in new investors
that would enable it to raise money to
plug a £3 billion-plus gap in its funding
to 2030.
Those hopes are dependent on a
funding settlement with Ofwat in
which Thames is demanding a 56 per
cent rise in household bills over the
next five years so it can catch up on
remedial work to prevent pollution
incidents and to fix leaking pipes. The
regulator is due to publish a provisional
funding settlement next month.
If that is not enough to entice new
investors, then it is likely that the com-
pany and its creditors standing behind
£16 billion of borrowings will try to
engineer a debt-for-equity swap in
which those owed money take owner-
ship of the company. There is also the
option that Ofwat, in conjunction with
the government, appoints special ad-
ministrators to execute a restructuring
and refinancing. The last resort is
Thames being taken back into public
ownership, as happened with Railtrack
when its privatised business model was
found to have failed.
It is not immediately clear who or
how many shareholders are expected
to exit the board. In a statement that did
not appear to address the outflow of its
directors, the company said: “Thames
Water continues to meet water regula-
tor Ofwat’s expectation that independ-
ent non-executive directors form the
largest single group on the board.”
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36
Business
Walmart delivers
upgraded target as
online sales soar
Jessica Newman
A jump in online sales has helped Wal-
mart to beat Wall Street’s profit and
sales expectations and to increase its
forecasts for the year.
America’s largest retailer, with its
vast stores throughout the US, is often
considered as a bellwether for the eco-
nomy. Total revenue in the three
months to the end of April was up 6 per
cent to $161.5 billion, with gains also
being driven by upper-income house-
holds attracted by its lower prices.
Its online sales grew by 22 per cent,
surpassing the 17 per cent growth dur-
ing the typically strong holiday season,
thanks to strength in its pick-up and de-
livery services and increased sales on
third-party marketplace. Net profits to
$5.3 billion, against $1.9 billion in the
same period a year earlier.
During the pandemic, Walmart in-
vested heavily in online operations by
expanding its range of sellers and prod-
ucts while introducing Walmart Plus, a
$98 subscription service offering fast
delivery. These moves have appealed to
households earning more than
$100,000 per year, who have become a
driving force for its online operations.
This year the Arkansas-based com-
pany agreed to buy Vizio, a maker of
smart TVs, for $2.3 billion.
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
The strong performance could allay
concerns about falling spending. Amer-
icans have largely weathered higher
prices, but prolonged inflation raised
concerns that shoppers could tighten
their belts and recovery would be slow-
er than expected. By afternoon trading
in New York the shares were $4.22, or
7 per cent, ahead at $65.05.
Doug McMillon, 57, chief executive
at Walmart, said: “Our team delivered a
great quarter. Around the world our
goal is simple: we’re focused on saving In the can Debra Crew, Diageo chief executive, gave a tour of the Guinness brewery in Dublin to Simon Harris, the taoiseach,
our customers both money and time.” after the company announced a €100 million plan to decarbonise the plant. This will include the elimination of fossil fuels
This quarter, Walmart expects net
sales to grow by between 3.5 per cent
and 4.5 per cent, while operating profit
rises by between 3 per cent and 4.5 per
cent. For the full year it asys net sales
could beat its guidance of 3 per cent to
Price cuts boost Premier Foods’ profits
4 per cent growth. Promotional price cuts to kitchen with volume-led growth, so increased Nissin instant noodles were among the
Walmart was founded by Sam Wal- cupboard staples and the suspension of volumes at a lower price per unit,” Alex fastest-growing brands, with sales up
ton in 1962 when he opened his first pension deficit contributions have Whitehouse, 54, chief executive, said. 54 per cent over the past five years. In-
store in Rogers, Arkansas. Today it has helped to drive a double-digit rise in Last year the company pledged to creasing prices next year was “certainly
about 10,500 stores and a stock market annual profits at Premier Foods. reduce prices on some ranges, such as not the plan”, the company said.
value of about $512 billion. The US is its The FTSE 250 group unveiled a Loyd Grossman sauces and Mr Kipling In March it suspended pension
biggest market with 4,615 stores, but it 15 per cent rise in its adjusted pre-tax cakes, as the pace of inflation began to deficit payments, freeing up £33 million
has 5,402 stores in 19 countries, includ- profit to £157.9 million in the 12 months ease from historic highs. Its products this year. This will be used to automate
ing Canada, South Africa and China. to the end of March, on revenues of now hold more than a quarter of the factories, seek takeover targets and
This week Walmart, which employs £1.14 billion. The profit figure was ahead market share in their categories. raise shareholder payouts. The com-
2.1 million staff, announced plans to cut of a consensus forecast for £153 million. Ambrosia is its fourth £100 million pany has proposed a 20 per cent in-
hundreds of jobs at headquarters and to “We went into the fourth quarter brand, driven by sales of porridge pots, crease to the final dividend to 1.73p a
relocate most of its US and Canadian with essentially value-led growth, so a while Angel Delight ice cream and Oxo share. The shares added another 1½p, or
remote workforce to three offices. higher price per unit, and we exited marinades are being sold more widely. 0.8 per cent, to close at 170p last night.
the times | Friday May 17 2024 37

Grainger to pay record half-year dividend after rents increase
Tom Howard
The largest residential landlord listed
on the London stock market is paying
out a record half-year dividend after
pushing through chunky rent rises in
recent months.
Grainger, which lets out 11,000 flats
and houses in Britain, has been a bene-
ficiary of the post-lockdown jump in
rents as a shortage of rental homes has
coincided with rising demand.
Between October and March its rents
were, on average, 8.1 per cent higher
than they had been in the same period a
year earlier. That represents the biggest
increase in prices that Grainger has
achieved since Helen Gordon took over
as its chief executive eight years ago.
Gordon, 64, does not expect to raise
rents by as much in the second half of
this year as inflation recedes and as
wage growth slows.
For the time being, Grainger insists
that its rents remain affordable. Fewer
than 2 per cent of its tenants are in
arrears — “a normal level” — while its
tenants, on average, are paying 28 per
cent of their incomes on rent. That is
unchanged from last year.
One of the consequences of dearer
mortgage rates is that fewer Grainger
tenants are moving out and buying
their own homes. “Every year we
usually lose about 9 per cent of our
tenants who go and buy their own
home, but that’s fallen to around 4 per
cent,” Gordon said.
“If you think about what private
renters have experienced compared
with homeowners, [an increase in rents
of] 8 per cent is actually very low
compared with mortgage increases.
For the first time in a long time, rents
are considerably cheaper than home
ownership.”
Reflecting the rent increases and the
opening of new buildings, Grainger’s
net rental income between October
and March rose by 11 per cent to
£53.2 million, up from £48 million in the
same period a year earlier. The half-
Business
year dividend, to be paid on July 5, was
also raised by 11 per cent to 2.54p a
share, the most Grainger has paid out at
the halfway stage of any financial year.
That was despite the group falling to
a pre-tax loss of £31.2 million, compared
with a profit of £5.7 million in the year
before. This reflected the government’s
move to axe multiple dwellings relief
from next month. As a result, Grainger
has marginally trimmed some of its
properties’ valuations. Grainger shares
fell by 8p, or 2.9 per cent, to 264p.

BT has reached
turning point
in its recovery,
says new boss
Katie Prescott
The new boss of BT has claimed that
the telecoms group has reached an
“inflection point” in its strategy.
As she presented her first set of full-
year results, Allison Kirkby signalled
her intention to continue the FTSE 100
company’s sometimes painful turn-
around, setting out plans to cut costs
still further, to monetise its newly
built fibre network, to leave some
markets and to focus more heavily on
the UK.
The programme, along with news
that BT has increased its annual divi-
dend by 3.9 per cent to 8p and expects
to more than double its free cashflow to
£3 billion by the end of the decade,
drove a sharp rise in its share price,
Dialling it down
believe that BT can uniquely make the
UK a better, more connected country
and that’s my aim.”
Openreach, BT’s broadband division,
had been connecting fibre to a record
78,000 premises a week and was “well
on track” to reach 25 million premises
by the end of 2026, she said. It has cut
costs and this year will exceed four mil-
lion homes at a price that previously it
would have cost to reach 3.5 million. BT
has been named as the preferred sup-
plier for a government contract for
hard-to-reach premises. £391.5 million in the six Price comparison revenues combat the high cost of
The company would reap what it had
sowed and would make returns from
Buyback months to the end of
March, from £405 million
at GoCompare, which
Future bought in 2020,
living, especially in the
insurance sector as
the new fibre network, after the vast
challenge and cost of building it, she
helps Future previously, with pre-tax
profits 30 per cent lower
increased by 30 per cent premiums rose.
Steinberg insisted the
said, which has weighed on the com-
pany over the past few years. The com-
look beyond at £46.6 million,
Jon Steinberg, 47, chief
magazines and runs
websites in sectors
company would not
replace journalists with
pany spent £4.9 billion on capital ex-
penditure last year, down by 3 per cent,
compare executive of Future, said it
had experienced a “tale of
ranging from technology
and video games to
AI. He said it had added
30 editorial staff since the
and it expects this to fall to £4.8 billion two advertising markets”, entertainment, women’s start of the financial year

BT Group share price
220p
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
2020 21 22 23 24
Source: FactSet
which was up by 19½p, or 17.1 per cent, to
132½p at the close.
A fall of 36 per cent in the shares over
the past five years had led a number of
short-sellers to bet against the group
and Kirkby told the Financial Times
“she loved to prove them wrong”.
Pre-tax profit at BT fell by 31 per cent
to £1.2 billion as it wrote down the value
of past acquisitions, but its revenue was
slightly higher, up 1 per cent at £20.7 bil-
lion. Earnings before interest, tax and
other charges rose to £8.1 billion, from
£7.92 billion previously. It forecast reve-
nue growth of 0 per cent to 1 per cent
next year and pre-tax earnings of
£8.2 billion.
Kirkby, 56, who is just over 100 days
into the job, said the company had
passed the peak of its intensive infra-
structure spending a year earlier than
expected and was moving into the next
phase of its growth. “I’m acutely aware
of the size of the task ahead of me and
the duty to get it right,” she said. “I do
by the end of 2026.
However, stiffer competition led to
Openreach losing 491,000 broadband
lines, a figure that it expects to increase
in the year ahead.
Kirkby set out a further £3 billion of
cost savings to be reached by the end of
2029, which will not come from more
job cuts but rather from moving cus-
tomers off older technology, “simplify-
ing processes” and using new techno-
logy such as artificial intelligence to im-
prove productivity. Under plans
outlined last year by Philip Jansen, the
former chief executive, BT said it would
cut up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the
decade.
BT reported a 5 per cent fall in busi-
ness revenue, which “continues to be
impacted by higher input costs, legacy
declines, a one-off revenue adjustment
and prior year one-offs”. Analysts at
Megabuyte, the technology sector in-
telligence provider, said: “It was the
usual case of consumer and Openreach
good and business bad.”
As she set out her plans to focus on
Britain, Kirkby said that “we are explor-
ing a number of options for all of our
international footprint”, including
leaving some markets and making part-
nerships with other operators.
Kirkby is the first female chief execu-
tive in the former state monopoly’s 170
years. The group also owns the EE
mobile network and it recently re-
branded all its consumer offerings as
EE. It also operates TNT Sports in a
venture with Warner Bros Discovery.
F
uture plans to with improvements in the lifestyle and sport. Its and had increased news
return United States while publications reach one in article production by
£45 million to its Britain continued to be two people in Britain and 23 per cent. “Real people
shareholders “challenged”. He said: “I it is the sixth largest doing quality reviews and
despite a fall in suspect that we’ve come media company in news is what is working
profits (Katie Prescott out of it in the US and the America. In the UK, price for us right now,” he said.
writes). The publisher, UK will lag a bit behind.” comparison revenues at The publisher is using
whose print and online Shares in the Bath- GoCompare, which it AI to assist with the
media empire spans based FTSE 250 group bought in 2020 for creation of newsletters, to
Country Life to Metal jumped by 160p, or £594 million, rose by help writers to gather
Hammer, said its sales 18.4 per cent, to £10.30. 30 per cent as people product specifications
had fallen by 3 per cent to Future publishes searched for bargains to and in video editing.
Vistry chief’s dual role triggers rebellion
Tom Howard corporate governance code’s recom- company acknowledged the rebellion
mendation. “An important role of the and iit has promised to “continue to
More than a fifth of Vistry’s voting board is to oversee the performance of engage”.
shareholders have opposed the the management,” Roger Barker, Fitzgerald, 59, joined Vistry, which
reappointment of Greg Fitzgerald, the director of policy and corporate gov- was then known as Bovis Homes, in
housebuilder’s chief executive, who ernance at the Institute of Directors, 2017 and merged it with the house-
today takes over as chairman as well. said at the time. “If you are responsible building arm of Galliford Try, which he
The rebellion at yesterday’s annual for effectively overseeing yourself, you had previously run, three years later.
meeting in London resulted in 20.7 per are marking your own homework.” He has been trying to turn Vistry into
cent of participating shareholders The vast majority of companies listed a “partnerships” business focused on
voting against Fitzgerald’s re-election. in London have separate chairs and building homes for local authorities
The dissenters were protesting at his chief executives, although the dual-role and big landlords rather than for pri-
new role as chief executive and execu- approach is more common in the vate sale. Fitzgerald prefers this model
tive chairman. The move was an- United States, where a number of because demand is steady, regardless of
nounced in January and takes effect Vistry’s biggest shareholders are based. whether the housing market is doing
from today, with Ralph Findlay, the Vistry has previously argued that well. Vistry had hoped to build 17,500
former chairman, having stepped down having Fitzgerald in the top two roles homes this year, but it is now guiding
after nine years of service. “will ensure continuity and maintain towards 18,000 completions. Its shares
Combining the chief executive and momentum in the execution of the rose 11p, or 0.9 per cent, to £13.02, valu-
chairman roles goes against the UK group’s strategy”. Yesterday the ing the business at £4.4 billion.
38 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Business

Chevron to sell remaining

North Sea oil and gas assets
James Hurley
Chevron is planning to sell its remain-
ing UK North Sea oil and gas assets in
a move that would mark its exit from
the region after more than 55 years.
The planned sale comes as the
American oil major prepares for its $53
billion acquisition of Hess, a rival,
which it had said previously would in-
clude up to $20 billion in asset sales
worldwide.
The departure of Chevron from the
North Sea will be the latest step in a
retreat of big oil and gas companies
from the emptying basin.
Deepwater production was pio-
neered in the North Sea in 1970s, but it
has been in decline as companies focus
on newer assets elsewhere. Rishi Sunak
has pledged to “max out” remaining
North Sea reserves and in 2022, during
the brief premiership of Liz Truss, a new
licensing round was launched for the
first time in three years.
Sunak has said that supporting the
North Sea industry will help to make
BOOKS
Britain more energy-independent. Last
year more than 200 North Sea oil and
gas wells were plugged and 180 of
Britain’s remaining 284 oil and gasfields
are expected to close by the end of the
decade. The industry has blamed
high taxes for departures from the
region.
Chevron said that the North Sea sale
process was not related to a 35 per cent
windfall tax that the government
imposed on North Sea producers after
the sharp increase in energy prices in
2022.
Its assets include a 19.4 per cent stake
in the BP-operated Clair oilfield in the
West of Shetland region, the largest in
the North Sea with production of
120,000 barrels per day. Chevron is also

The inside story seeking to sell its marginal interests in

the Sullom Voe oil terminal, as well as
the Ninian pipeline and the Shetland
Island Regional Gas Export pipeline
systems, both of which are linked to

of the infected
Sullom Voe. The sale process is expect-
ed to be launched formally in June and
has been tipped to raise up to $1 billion,
excluding tax benefits.
The plan comes after a review by
Mike Wirth, 63, Chevron chief execu-

blood scandal tive, of its global portfolio as the group

seeks to focus on its most profitable
assets.
Chevron traces its history back to the
1870s to small California-based oil
companies that were acquired and
The Sunday Times and political editor, Caroline Wheeler, have been merged into Standard Oil of California.
It is the second largest direct descend-
reporting on this scandal for over two decades. Find out how the ant of Standard Oil and is active in
more than 180 countries. The company
worst treatment disaster in NHS history was uncovered in anticipation is involved in hydrocarbon explora-
of the Infected Blood Inquiry revealing its findings on Monday. tion, production, refining, marketing
and transport, chemicals manufactur-
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In 2019, Chevron sold many of its
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Other big oil companies, including Ex-
Passenger
xonMobil and Shell, have sold assets in
the basin since the 2010s.
Chevron has said it will sell between
recovery
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signs that the economy daily market moving
is slowly picking up after events has never been
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the times | Friday May 17 2024
T
he continued and Traders, the industry
improvement in trade body, 851 minibuses
public transport were sold in the three
passenger months to the end of
numbers since March, more than double
the pandemic has pushed the number sold in the
the number of buses, same period a year
coaches and minibuses up earlier.
by nearly 75 per cent in The number of single-
the first quarter to 1,690 decker buses rose by
(Jessica Newman writes).
According to the Society
33.6 per cent to 533, while
there was a 70 per cent
of Motor Manufacturers increase in the number of
Weight-loss drug trial gives Roche a lift
Alex Ralph
Positive early trial results for a recently
acquired weight-loss treatment have
boosted the ambitions of Roche in one
of the most lucrative markets in the
pharmaceuticals sector.
The Swiss drugs company said that
results from a study of CT-388, its obe-
sity drug candidate, had found that a
once-weekly injection over 24 weeks
resulted in “significant” weight loss in
healthy adults with obesity compared
with a placebo. It showed a mean place-
bo-adjusted weight loss of 18.8 per cent.
Roche, which is developing the drug
as a treatment for obesity and for type
2 diabetes, acquired the asset as part of
the acquisition late last year of Carmot
Therapeutics, a privately owned, Cali-
fornia-based biotechnology specialist,
for up to $3.1 billion.
The purchase was designed to accel-
erate Roche’s attempts to catch up in
the fast-growing market, which is led by
Novo Nordisk, the Danish company
behind Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, of the
double-deckers sold in the
period.
The SMMT found that
more than a fifth, or
22.9 per cent, of the
vehicles in this category
that hit the roads in the
first quarter were zero-
emission vehicles.
However, it said that this
“green growth must
extend to all sectors”,
pointing to minibuses, a
United States, which has launched
Zepbound.
In November AstraZeneca, Britain’s
biggest drugs company, agreed an ex-
clusive licence agreement with Ecco-
gene, of China, to develop a “next-gen-
eration” treatment for obesity, type 2 di-
abetes and other cardiometabolic
conditions as part of a deal worth up to
$100bn
Projected value of weight-loss
treatment market by 2030
$2 billion. Analysts have forecast that
the market could be worth more than
$100 billion by the start of the next
decade and to be a “major commercial
space”, meaning that even late entrants
can achieve significant sales.
Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical
officer and head of global product de-
velopment, said the results were “high-
segment of the market
that faces particular
challenges in moving to
zero-emission operations.
Mike Hawes, chief
executive at the society,
said: “Britain’s road
passenger transport
sector is continuing its
recovery amid rising
ridership levels and
growing operator
confidence.”
ly encouraging” for further develop-
ment and “underscore its potential to
become a best-in-class therapy with du-
rable weight loss and glucose control”.
Obesity is deemed one of the most
urgent health challenges in the world,
with a range of comorbidities, such as
type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases
and chronic kidney disease. More than
four billion people, about half of the
world’s population, are expected to be
affected by 2035, according to Roche,
putting “an incredible strain on socie-
ties and healthcare systems around the
world”. Its treatment aims to regulate
blood sugar and to reduce appetite by
targeting and activating two receptors
in the body, known as GLP-1 and GIP.
Analysts at Jefferies, the broker, said
the results were “encouraging, but
questions remain, given the highly
competitive market before commercial
potential can be assessed and whether
Roche’s move into cardiovascular is as-
tute or costly”.
Shares in Roche rose by SwFr7.30, or
3.2 per cent, to SwFr234.80.
Wary small business
customers put brakes
on Sage expansion
Tom Howard
Revenue at Sage is unlikely to rise this
year by as much as the technology com-
pany had hoped as some of its small
business customers delay signing up to
its accounting and payroll software.
“There’s a little bit of uncertainty in
the market, where maybe chief finan-
cial officers are just taking slightly
longer to make decisions,” Steve Hare,
its chief executive, said. The Newcastle-
based company has noted particular
weakness in the United States, its big-
gest market.
“If you look at things like inflation or
interest rates, people want to know
where they’re going to settle long-
term,” Hare, 63, said. “If you’re sitting
there about to make a $100,000 invest-
ment, you want to have confidence in
the environment you operate in. It
doesn’t help that both the UK and the
US are in election years, because that’s
just another dynamic that people think
about.”
Sage, one of the few software compa-
nies still listed in London, had expected
its organic revenues to rise by about
10 per cent in its present financial year,
which runs until the end of September.
However, it now thinks growth will be
nearer to the 9 per cent it achieved
between October and March, the first
half of its year.
Hare said it was merely “fine tuning”
its forecasts, but investors were dis-
appointed nonetheless. Shares in Sage,
which had reached record highs only a
month or so ago, fell by 113p, or 9.4 per
cent, to close at £10.84½, the company’s
biggest one-day fall in more than three
years.
Sage provides accounting, human re-
sources and payroll software to almost
half of Britain’s small businesses. It em-
ploys 11,000 people worldwide, includ-
ing 3,200 in the UK and Ireland, where
it makes 28 per cent of its revenue.
It has a strong presence in North
Auction group finds its
voice with extra services
Patrick Hosking Financial Editor
Strong growth in the ancillary services
provided by Auction Technology
Group prompted a flurry of stock
market bidding at the FTSE 250
company.
Shares in the company, which
enables auction houses to hold their
sales online, surged after it revealed a
6 per cent increase in sales to $86 mil-
lion for the six months to the end of
March. Operating profit was down by
11 per cent to $10.5 million, but that was
as expected.
Gross merchandise value, the total
cost of goods auctioned by its services,
slid by 17 per cent to $1.9 billion because
of lower prices for industrial machinery
and weaker markets in art and antiques.
However, analysts and traders fo-
cused on Auction Technology Group’s
success in winning more revenues from
extra services such as payments proc-
essed for winning bidders, the shipping
of lots and digital marketing services
for auctioneers. Revenues from these
“value added services” were up by
44 per cent. The closely watched “take
rate”, the proportion of the hammer
price that goes to the group, rose by
39
Business
Share price
£13
11
9
Source: FactSet
7
5
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
America, its fastest-growing region,
where it has 2,600 staff and derives 45
per cent of its revenue. In 1999 it en-
tered the FTSE 100 share index, where
it is one of only two companies official-
ly classified as being in the technology
sector.
Between October and March the
group generated revenue of £1.15 bil-
lion, a 6 per cent increase on the £1.09
billion that it recorded in the same
period a year earlier. Pre-tax profits
jumped by 47 per cent to £203 million,
from £139 million last year, when Sage
decided to close some of its offices, a
move that cost it £20 million. There was
also less merger and acquisition activi-
ty this time.
Instead, Sage used some of its spare
cash to buy back £350 million of its
shares. There had been a suspicion that
it might announce another buyback
programme now, but Hare said he had
“never indicated” that it was in the off-
ing. The half-year dividend, to be paid
on June 28, was raised to 6.95p a share,
a 6 per cent increase on the 6.55p it paid
this time last year.
Although there have been delays get-
ting some would-be clients to sign up,
Hare said most small and medium-
sized businesses were “faring pretty
well, whether that’s in the US or the UK.
We haven’t seen any material increases
in bankruptcies in any of the markets
we operate in.”
0.7 percentage points to 3.9 per cent.
The group was one of a wave of techno-
logy-related businesses to float their
shares in London in 2021. Many subse-
quently disappointed amid a souring
view of their prospects in an era of
higher interest rates.
However, it has been more resilient
than most and the share surge, which
took the stock up by 72p, or 14.6 per
cent, to 564p, brought it close to its
original issue price of 600p.
The company said trading in the first
six weeks of its second half had been in
line with forecasts and it kept un-
changed its estimate for full-year reve-
nue of $175 million to $180 million.
John-Paul Savant, 53, chief executive,
said the business was “executing
against the investments we are making
and, where we’ve invested, we are
growing”.
Based in London, Auction Techno-
logy Group operates online auctions
for 4,000 auction houses in North
America and Europe, specialising in in-
dustrial and commercial and art and
antiques. It hosts more than 85,000
auctions each year and is best known in
Britain for its the-saleroom.com
platform.
40
Business Markets
Lauren Almeida Tempus
Buy, sell or hold: today’s best share tips
Fund is a train well worth boarding
finsbury growth & inc trust
Market cap Discount to NAV
£1.6bn 8%
B
y his own admission, Nick
Train is mortified by the
recent performance of his
listed investment fund.
Shares in the Finsbury
Growth and Income Trust are up by
barely 1 per cent in the past three
years and languish 11 per cent below
their high in 2019.
However, a focus on high-quality,
high-growth and mostly British
businesses has meant the fund has a
more impressive long-term track
record, not to mention a devoted
following of retail investors. Train
and his team have delivered a return
of 99 per cent in the past decade,
beating the FTSE All-Share index by
almost 20 percentage points.
This is largely a result of Train’s
high-concentration approach to the
portfolio. There are only 21
investments in the fund. Moreover,
the top ten holdings make up 85 per
cent of the total and within that
Finsbury has its own “magnificent
five”: Diageo, the drinks maker; Relx,
the analytics and data group; London
Stock Exchange Group; Sage, the
accounting software business; and
Experian, the credit checker. Each is
worth more than a tenth of the
portfolio’s net asset value.
Train invests only in businesses
that he believes are either No 1 in the
world of what they do or are
members of a small cohort of market
experian
Market cap Forward p/e
£31.5bn ratio 29.7
xperian, a member of Nick
E Train’s “magnificent five”, has
delivered for the fund this
week. Shares in the credit checker
rose by almost a tenth after it said its
revenue had grown faster than
expected by 7 per cent to $7.1 billion
in the year to the end of March.
The company specialises in credit
data and analytics, with businesses in
both the consumer and business-to-
business markets. It plays a vital role
in the financial ecosystem: its
institutional customers use its
PRICES
Major indices
Back on track?
Share price
950p Percentage of total investments*
900
850
800
750
Source: FactSet
700
650
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
ADVICE Buy
WHY Quality strategy by a
well-respected investor and at
a wide discount
leaders. Yet some of his top holdings
have been serious headaches over
the past few years, namely Diageo
and Burberry. The former has lost
almost a fifth of its value in the past
12 months, after a shock profit
warning in Latin America late last
year and a slowdown in sales in the
United States. Meanwhile the
fashion group, where Lindsell Train,
his investment firm, is the largest
analytics to make decisions around
credit risk, while it offers services
such as Experian Boost to
consumers, designed to help people
to improve their credit score. This
service has more than 15 million
customers in the United States
alone.
It is little wonder that this data-
rich company is a favourite among
investors. Its fundamentals are very
strong: an asset-light model means
that cash conversion stands at 97 per
cent and return on capital employed,
which measures how effectively it
turns investments into profit, at a
chunky 17 per cent. That is not to
mention an extremely high barrier to
entry for rivals trying to set up in a
London Financial Futures
re-distributed; is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely; and does not constitute
investment advice. Tradeweb is not responsible for any loss or damage that might result
from the use of this information.
Top ten holdings
Relx 12.4%
London Stock
12.1%
Exchange
Experian 11.9%
Sage 10.9%
Diageo 10.6%
Unilever 9.6%
Burberry 5.2%
Schroders 4.8%
Mondelez Intl
3.9%
Hargreaves
3.7%
Lansdown
*As at 30 April 2024 Source: Company report
single shareholder, has suffered from
a wider downturn in luxury
spending. Some analysts also have
blamed the trust’s recent below-par
performance on a rally in value
stocks in recent years, which has
helped the FTSE 100 index but has
left Train’s portfolio behind.
That is not to downplay the overall
quality of the trust’s investments,
which have an impressive average
return on equity (which measures
how efficiently it generates profits) of
35 per cent and an estimated long-
term earnings growth rate of 9.5 per
cent. Relx, the top holding, has been
particularly successful, rising by 113
per cent in the past five years alone.
Income may feature in the trust’s
market that requires companies to
have access to vast amounts of
personal and corporate data.
There is, however, some concern
around its leveraging, with its ratio of
net debt to earnings before interest,
tax and other charges finishing the
year at a multiple of 1.7. This is
relatively high, but is still below the
company’s target range of two to 2.5.
Shares in Experian have risen by
more than a third so far this year,
supported by enthusiasm for growth
in its Latin American operations,
where revenues were up by 13 per
cent to $1.1 billion in the period. The
company thinks that overall
revenues will grow again in its
present financial year by somewhere
© 2021 Tradeweb Markets LLC. All rights reserved.
The Tradeweb FTSE Gilt Closing Prices information contained
herein is proprietary to Tradeweb; may not be copied or
title, but it yields a relatively modest
2.2 per cent, much lower than an
average of 4 per cent in the UK
equity income sector. But Finsbury
has a respectable track record of
increasing payouts, with annualised
dividend growth of 6.1 per cent each
year in the decade running up to the
end of September last year, according
to analysis by Winterflood, the
broker.
Shares in the trust are at an 8 per
cent discount to their net asset value.
This is much wider than its five-year
average of 2.5 per cent, as well as the
average discount in its sector at 5.8
per cent. It certainly makes the trust
more attractive relative to the open-
ended Lindsell Train UK Equity
fund, also managed by Train, which
has a very similar portfolio.
Train himself has a significant
stake in the trust, which was valued
at £44.6 million in September last
year. Recent under-performance may
cause investors to hesitate and Train
recently expressed his frustration to
investors, saying that his team had
struggled to get the portfolio
clicking, with “enough things
working at the same time”, but
Train’s strategy remains compelling
and, importantly, consistent. The
trust reports a charge of 0.6 per cent,
in line with its peers and not overly
expensive. Momentum is building in
London’s stock market and, for those
who want a high-quality,
concentrated portfolio at a discount
and under the care of a well-
respected manager, Finsbury Growth
and Income remains a solid choice.
between 6 per cent and 8 per cent,
with margins to increase by between
0.3 per cent and 0.5 per cent at a
constant currency measure. This
growth is compelling, certainly, but it
is already highly valued by the
market, with the shares trading at a
forward price-to-earnings multiple of
29.7, which puts it, by this metric,
among the top ten most expensive
stocks in the FTSE 100.
ADVICE Hold
WHY Strong quality and
growth already reflected in
rich valuation
Commodities
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
news in brief
Job adverts stay high
The number of active job adverts
remained above 1.7 million in
April as Britain’s record number
of long-term sick kept demand
for labour high despite the
economic gloom, figures show.
With almost 770,000 new
postings in the month, the
number of advertised positions
was above the pre-pandemic
norm, according to the
Recruitment & Employment
Confederation and Lightcast
Labour Market Tracker, which
said it indicated “issues with
long-term sickness and
challenges in the skills system”.
Illicit funds avoid fines
A new register designed to shed
light on illicit funds owned by
overseas entities has done little to
tackle the issue of illicit wealth
tied up in UK property.
Companies House has fined 423
unregistered overseas entities a
total of £21.9 million, of which
only £580,000 has been paid so
far. The UK launched the
Register of Overseas Entities as
part of the Economic Crime
(Transparency and Enforcement)
Bill in February 2022, in response
to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Buffett piles into Chubb
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire
Hathaway has reported a new,
$6.72 billion stake in the insurer
Chubb, confirming months of
speculation that it had made a big
new investment. Berkshire owned
25.92 million Chubb shares at the
end of March, according to a
regulatory filing. Shares in Chubb
rose by 4.7 per cent, or $11.97, to
$264.94 after news emerged of
Buffett’s interest. Cathy Seifert,
an analyst at CFRA Research,
said “Chubb operates in a
business Berkshire knows well”.
Trade deal boost
The British Chambers of
Commerce said the UK’s
ratification of a deal to join the
Comprehensive and Progressive
Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership “will open up new
opportunities for investment”.
William Bain, its head of trade
policy, said: “Trade rules will be
more favourable for
manufacturers looking to sell
products to other member
countries and data transfers for
firms in the services sector will
also be more straightforward.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024 41

Markets Business

GSK decides time is right

to sell rest of Haleon stake
Tom Saunders Market report

T
alk about surprises. Minutes
before the market closed, telecoms
GSK announced its
intention to sell its
remaining shareholding in
Haleon, about 4.2 per cent of the
Signals look positive at Helios
company, in what will be its fourth
and final transaction since the July trong demand Its average revenue
2022 demerger.
The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals
company said that the placing price,
S for telecoms
services in the
Democratic Republic
per tenant increased
by 3.5 per cent to
$7,100.
handled by Bank of America and of Congo, Tanzania The strong results
Goldman Sachs, would start and Oman has led led analysts at
“immediately”. The latest disposal will Helios Towers to Berenberg to suggest
mark GSK’s fourth in the Sensodyne beat expectations for that its forecast for
toothpaste maker in the past year. sales in its first 2024, which has not
Haleon was formed in 2019 by quarter. changed since its full-
$8.25 billion. It beat 23 per cent to merging GSK and Pfizer’s consumer The mobile phone year results last year,
John Deere second-quarter
estimates but net
$3.19 billion. Revenue
for the production and
healthcare businesses. Last year GSK,
which initially retained a near 13 per
mast operator
reported a 14 per cent
Helios has added to
both its portfolio and
looked “more than
achievable”.
endures a income nonetheless precision agriculture cent stake in Haleon, had said that increase in sales in its tenancies per tower Helios added 69
was down by 17 per unit, which includes first quarter to sites to its portfolio of
barren run cent to $2.37 billion large and certain mid- $194.6 million, which it then leases 14,166 towers ,but has
and net sales were 15 sized tractors, Wall Street report beating a market out to telecoms focused on increasing
ne of America’s per cent lower at combines and other forecast of providers. It signed the number of

O oldest
agricultural
companies has cut its
$13.61 billion in the
three months to April
28.
equipment, slipped by
16 per cent to
$6.58 billion.
Indices may have retreated from
their midweek record highs but the
prospect of a September rate cut is
$192.9 million and
pushing the
company’s shares up
761 new tenancies in
its first quarter, up
10.2 per cent year-on-
tenancies per tower,
which rose to 1.95,
meaning that on
full-year profit forecast Farm income is It expects sales of likely to maintain investor 13¼p, or 12 per cent, year and bringing the average each tower
for a second time as expected to fall by large agriculture confidence. The Dow Jones to 123½p. total number to was leased out to
farmers, who are 25.5 per cent from 2023 equipment to decline industrial average shed 38.62 points, Helios Towers buys 27,686, well above about two telecoms
battling declining to $116.1 billion this by between 20 per cent or 0.1 per cent, to 39,869.38. and operates towers, consensus estimates. providers.
prices for their crops, year, a second and 25 per cent this
buy fewer tractors and consecutive annual year, compared with its
other equipment. drop, according to the previous estimates for the spin-off and subsequent stake the company to reduce its organic airline’s competitors, with Wizz Air
Deere & Company US Department of a fall of about 20 per sales would allow the company to growth expectations in the division falling by 102p, or 4.6 per cent, to
was founded in Illinois Agriculture, as corn cent. Industry sales for sharpen its focus on vaccines and from the high single digits to £21.16 and International Consolidated
in 1837 by John Deere, and soya bean prices large agriculture infectious diseases and fund deals to something “between the mid-and- Airlines Group losing 5p, or 2.8 per
the name under which decline and as equipment were bolster a lacklustre drug pipeline. high-single-digit” range, pushing its cent, to 177p.
it trades. It cut its production costs projected to fall by Shares in both companies were shares down by 10¾p, or 4.1 per cent, BT rose by 19½p, or 17.2 per cent, to
profit outlook to increase. The company about 15 per cent, at largely unaffected due to the timing to 225½p. Analysts’ estimates of the 132½p, the largest single-day rise in the
$7 billion from a reported that revenue the low end of its of the announcement, with Haleon impact of the changes on Convatec company’s history, after Allison
previous range of $7.5 for its small agriculture previous forecast. up by 1p, or 0.3 per cent, at 332½p and varied, with Peel Hunt downgrading Kirkby, the new chief executive,
billion to $7.75 billion. and turf division, The announcement GSK down by 29p, or 1.6 per cent, at the company when the draft changes unveiled her plans to turn around the
Initially, the company which includes ranges sent shares in John £17.83½. On the broader health front, were first announced to “reduce” telecoms group. Despite that, the
had forecast a 2024 of mid-sized and small Deere down by $19.61, it was not quite a case of adding insult while Berenberg has maintained a FTSE 100 as a whole fell by 7.15 points,
profit between tractors and other or 4.7 per cent, to close to injury, but the pain for Convatec’s “buy” rating. or 0.1 per cent, to 8,438.65, while the
$7.75 billion and equipment, fell by at $394.41. share price was clear enough. A down The largest faller on the FTSE 100 more FTSE 250 rose by 47.21 points, or
day for the healthcare group was was Sage, the accountancy software 0.2 per cent, to 20,822.84.
driven by fears over how Medicare, developer, which fell by 113p, or 9.4 per Rank Group, the gaming company,
The day’s biggest movers the American federal health cent, to £10.84½. Analysts attributed lauded the government’s response to a
insurance programme for anyone the drop to a small cut in its organic consultation launched last July that
over the age of 65 and for younger growth forecast and Peel Hunt termed will lead to the present maximum of
people with disabilities, will cover the company’s outlook a “damp squib”. 20 gaming machines per licence
certain wound care products. EasyJet was also down, by 31¾p, or being increased to 80. It said that the
Several administrators of the 6 per cent, to 497¾p, after it warned of changes would result in its
programme that covers 65 million a slightly softer peak summer season Grosvenor Casinos broadly doubling
individuals have proposed draft and announced the departure of gaming machine numbers from the
changes that would have a significant Johan Lundgren, its chief 1,361 it operates. Shares in the
impact on Convatec’s advanced executive. The downbeat news on the company rose marginally by ½p, or
wound care business. This prompted summer season filtered down to the 0.7 per cent, to 90p.

Gold/Precious Money rates % Dollar rates Exchange rates

metals
Owing to a technical issue, the gold fix
prices are from Wednesday

Sterling spot and forward rates

Other Sterling

European money
deposits %

Data as shown is
for information
purposes only. No offer is made by
Morningstar or this publication
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the times | Friday May 17 2024 43

Unit trusts Business

The Times unit trust information service
Yld Yld Yld Yld Yld Yld
Sell Buy +/- % Sell Buy +/- % Sell Buy +/- % Sell Buy +/- % Sell Buy +/- % Sell Buy +/- %

British funds

This is a paid for information service. For

further details on a particular fund, readers
should contact their fund manager.

Data as shown is
for information
purposes only. No offer is made by Morningstar
or this publication
44 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Business Equity prices

Dividend yields Please note dividend yields are 12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price
supplied by Morningstar. The yield is the sum of a High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E

company’s trailing 12-month dividend payments divided

v v
by the last day’s closing share price.
v v
12-month high and low High/low prices for UK
v
equities are based on closing prices. Investment trust
high and low prices are based on intra-day figures. v
v

v
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v
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v

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v
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12 month Price Yld Dis(-) 12 month Price Yld Dis(-) v
High Low Company (p) +/- % or Pm High Low Company (p) +/- % or Pm

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the times | Friday May 17 2024 45

Equity prices Business

12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price 12 month Price
High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E High Low Company (p) +/- Yld% P/E

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46
Business Recruitment
Green hydrogen ‘is not just hot air’
Production projects are
at a tipping point and
are ready to generate
up to 20,000 jobs,
Jane Hamilton writes
In 2021 Boris Johnson boldly declared,
“Britain will become the Qatar of
hydrogen” as part of his government’s
strategy for reaching net-zero emis-
sions by 2050. The plan was for
hydrogen to supply up to 35 per cent of
Britain’s energy needs, but was the
promise a load of hot air? Not according
to key players in the country’s burgeon-
ing hydrogen industry.
Already the government is investing
in 11 big new hydrogen production
projects, slated to support 700 jobs and
to unlock £400 million in new invest-
ment. This week the energy company
RWE announced plans to build a so-
called green hydrogen plant in Scot-
land on the site of the Grangemouth
petrol refinery. Meanwhile, Hydrogen
UK, which represents the industry,
claims that it is at a tipping point, poised
to create 20,000 jobs and to contribute
£26 billion in cumulative gross value
added to the economy.
Put simply, the “green” technology
splits water into hydrogen and oxygen
using renewable energy. Using green
hydrogen causes significantly lower
greenhouse gas emissions than other
forms of hydrogen and than gas and oil.
Advocates claim that it can help the
drive towards net zero and will boost
Britain’s energy sector expertise. “We
are at a critical juncture in the
evolution of the UK’s hydrogen supply
chain development,” Clare Jackson, the
chief executive of Hydrogen UK, said.
“Navigated correctly, we have the
unparalleled opportunity not only to
reap significant economic benefits, but
also to achieve our net-zero objectives
and to bolster domestic energy secur-
ity. However, we must recognise that
hydrogen is still a relatively nascent
industry and as such necessitates a high
degree of collaboration between
government and industry.”
The Hydrogen Energy Association
and Hydrogen UK have more than a
hundred members each, with jobs
being added in aspects of hydro-
gen supply chains including produc-
tion, storage, network development
and “off-taker markets”, which are the
final customers for the product. In add-
ition, Britain is experiencing significant
growth in the number of makers of
original equipment, from lorry manu-
facturers, such as Electra, to compres-
sor producers, such as Haskel.
Key growth jobs include engineers
and operation, servicing and mainten-
ance specialists, as well as vehicle main-
tenance technicians trained on fuel
cells. There are also opportunities for
policy experts, finance and legal roles,
plus project management.
A lack of awareness about the sector,
Working week
Wellbeing stresses
Nine in ten UK managers feel
responsible for the wellbeing of their
team and three in five say that the
pressure has had a detrimental
impact on their own health. In a
study by Perkbox, 62 per cent of
managers say their teams increasingly
need advice on non-work matters,
such as the cost of living crisis. Doug
Butler, chief executive of Perkbox,
said: “The pressure placed on
managers has quietly been growing.”
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Six from the best
As a writer on the past, present and
future of work, Julia Hobsbawm has
observed thousands of companies.
Working Assumptions,
her latest book,
discusses the post-
Covid changes
rippling through the
workforce. Here
she shares her tips
on navigating this
new world.
Embrace uncertainty. Do
1 not expect anything but a
bumpy ride right now.
There is too much
turbulence in the economy and in
technology. Embrace those famous
“known unknowns”.
2 Become a workplace
diplomat. There are more
culture wars than there is
culture at work at the moment. Ask
people to respect difference in
troubled times but also set boundaries
for expression and behaviour at work.
Get to grips with what AI is,
3 and isn’t. Drill into the
detail: do you need
automation and robotics or do you
need to set up “prompt” libraries of
large-language models for generative
AI?
There’s no one size fits
4 all. Feel OK about learning
P
and listening rather than
‘The work ia Diepman is a
project manager
at Protium. She
fuel,” she said. “It opened
my eyes to a whole new
space in the energy
resilience in energy
systems are just a handful
of examples of why it’s
trying to copy others.
is dynamic took up the role
after working as
a systems engineer
ecosystem. Green
hydrogen has the ability
to address some of the
such an exciting solution.
“Working in the green
hydrogen sector is 5
Don’t fixate on pointless
presenteeism. Productivity
comes through
and very writing software for
intelligent power
world’s biggest energy
challenges.
dynamic, challenging,
exciting and overall just
engagement, creativity and
a sense of purpose.
fulfilling’ solutions. “I caught the
green hydrogen bug after
“Decarbonising hard-
to-abate sectors such as
very fulfilling. I love
being part of an industry Test your assumptions
Case study
writing my thesis on the
feasibility of green
hydrogen as a vehicle
steel and petrochemicals,
displacing fossil fuels in
transport and creating
that is ... playing a pivotal
role in the race against
climate change.”
6 regularly. Are you doing
something because you
always did it or because it is
right for now?
however, is hampering growth. Accord-
The green light ing to the Hydrogen Energy Associa- Appointment of the week
tion and the Hydrogen Skills Alliance,
Ready to bond with a change. You will need to companies doing work 84 per cent of employers note an insuf- Play a part in overseeing
role in green hydrogen? be flexible and agile. that interests you. ficient number of skilled workers, with
Here’s how to start. Learn as quickly as you Connect with companies 61 per cent warning that this is having public services in Wales
6 Understand the basics. can and do not be afraid on LinkedIn and social an impact on their ability to expand. Audit Wales is seeking an
There’s a lot to learn, so of challenges. media and establish Protium, a London-based green independent member for its audit and
be an avid consumer of 6 Find out about the communication with hydrogen business, works worldwide risk assurance committee. As
news and information. whole value chain. There people in the sector now. and is seeking more women staff. “We the independent public sector audit
Follow trade are more opportunities 6 Attend industry events need to give the young people more body within Wales, Audit Wales is
organisations such as the out there than it seems. and use them to awareness about hydrogen and the responsible for examining public
Hydrogen Energy 6 List your transferable network. You never know possible career paths to attract them,” spending by the Senedd and locally
Association and skills and update your when your dream job Yaying Chen, its engineering manager, elected representatives and finding
Hydrogen UK and read CV. Many workers are might be available. said. “We need to be open-armed ways to improve public services.
government information. moving across from 6 You do not have to be towards people from different back- In conjunction with other members
6 Consider if you can heavy industry and fossil an engineer. Nothing grounds with transferable skills. If you of the committee, the successful
keep the pace. The fuels, but skills are also happens without finance, care about the environment, want to applicant will attend and play a full
industry is new and is needed in other areas. insurance and HR, so have a new challenge and become a part in the conduct of committee
going through constant 6 Reach out to broaden your job search. pioneer in this area, you should apply.” meetings and will contribute to the
committee’s annual formal report to
the board. Applicants will be expected
to attend learning and development
activities and to participate in other
‘Ripples of unease’ over AI Silence deters jobseekers ‘Presentees’ cost £24bn activities as requested by the board or
the accounting officer.
Three in four employees are bringing Jobseekers do not hear back from Poor employee mental health is This is a time-limited appointment
AI tools to work but are keeping it almost half the jobs they apply for, costing employers £51 billion a year. of up to three years, which may be
secret from their bosses. The trend, according to a report from the Research from Deloitte shows a renewable for a second and final term.
dubbed “shadow AI”, is leading more recruitment platform Indeed. Two in decrease from £55 billion in 2021 but The successful candidate will be
companies to hire chief AI officers to five admitted that not receiving a an increase from £45 billion in 2019. paid £5,000 per annum, plus
identify and manage the assets response to a job application had Its study shows that “presenteeism”, reasonable expenses incurred.
created by generative AI. Mithu significantly affected their confidence when staff work while ill, is the This is a part-time role. The
Bhargava, executive vice-president for in their job search and 52 per cent largest contributor. Deloitte estimates committee’s business normally will be
digital solutions at Iron Mountain, a had considered halting their search, that presenteeism costs £24 billion conducted at four meetings during
data management specialist, said: meaning that staff remain in roles in annually. The cost of living, personal the year. Additional meetings may be
“[Shadow AI] is causing ripples of which they are unhappy and less finances and job security were also convened as business demands. Apply
unease for IT and data leaders.” productive, the report said. identified as key stressors. at www.appointments.thetimes.co.uk
Recruitment

Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Resource Allocation

(ACRA) VAC-8138
Ministers are seeking to appointment a new Chair to the board of the Advisory Committee on the
Resource Allocation (ACRA).
ACRA is an independent, expert committee comprising GPs, public health experts, NHS managers
and academics. The Chair is a joint appointment between Ministers and the NHSE Chief Exec-
utive. ACRA is responsible for providing recommendations and advice on the funding for health
services in England, that reflect the objectives of the funding formula. This is currently to the Chief
Executive of NHS England for NHS allocations and may also be to the Secretary of State for public
health allocations.
Applicants must have the ability to lead strategic development of a key national Committee, antic-
ipate emerging issues and develop strategies to enable the Committee to achieve its objectives.
We are seeking candidates who can demonstrate an awareness of health economics or health
analysis and who have an understanding of the financial systems in the NHS and the role of ACRA.
With strong interpersonal and communication skills you must be able to interpret and act upon
complex, sometimes conflicting information, and assess and appropriately challenge recommen-
dations.
In addition, you must have exceptional leadership skills and feel comfortable using authority in a
committee environment, ensuring all views are captured, explored and decisions are made based
on sound judgement.
The ACRA Chair is not remunerated and requires a time commitment of up to 10 days per year.
Ministers determine the length of appointment, which may be for up to a maximum of 3 years.
For more information, please visit the Public Appointments website:
Role details – Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Resource Allocation (ACRA) – Apply for a
public appointment – GOV.UK (apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk)
If you require an alternative format such as braille, large print or audio please call Karen Dinsdale
on 0113 254 5414 quoting the reference VAC-8138.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Soprano known for her
Wagnerian performances
Margaret Curphey
Page 50
Obituaries
Tristram Powell
TV director and son of the novelist Anthony Powell who forged a career collaborating with the likes of Alan Bennett and Michael Palin
Tristram Powell inherited the curiosity
about people that marked his father,
the novelist Anthony Powell. His natu-
ral warmth came from his mother, Vio-
let Pakenham. The combination ena-
bled him to become a particularly
skilled and versatile director, notably of
arts documentaries for television.
His gifts and his upbringing made
him interested in and comfortable
around authors, artists and actors. He
was sensitive to their abilities and deft
at soothing difficult temperaments. His
insight into how they thought allowed
him to get the best out of those central
to the culture of their time.
From the late 1960s onwards he di-
rected profiles of the likes of Samuel
Beckett and Malcolm Lowry, secured
rare, filmed interviews with Lucian
Freud and Marcel Duchamp, and
worked with Harold Pinter and Philip
Roth. Powell could also direct drama
and he forged partnerships with, among
others, Michael Palin and Alan Bennett.
The mutual trust established often per-
sisted beyond the end of a shoot and
bore its own fruit.
In 1979 he made a documentary
about women who had been held in a
Japanese camp in Sumatra during the
Second World War. The idea had been
developed by the producer, Lavinia
Warner. Powell then persuaded her to
fictionalise the women’s experiences.
Lucian Freud called his
eyes ‘beautifully cut, like
high-class binoculars’
This became the series Tenko, broad-
cast by the BBC between 1981 and 1985.
Another friendship that arose out of
filming was with the writer Beryl Bain-
bridge. During the making of a pro-
gramme based on her autobiographical
novel A Quiet Life, she and Powell went
into a junk shop. There he convinced
her to buy a full-sized stuffed bison. Er-
ic, as it was named, took up much of the
hallway of Bainbridge’s house, obliging
every visitor thereafter to squeeze past
the animal to get in, or out.
Powell began in television at the re-
cently founded BBC2. Melvyn Bragg, a
friend from Oxford days, had been ap-
pointed editor of the channel’s arts pro-
gramme, New Release. Over the next
few years, Powell directed for it films
about Federico Fellini, who revealed
how he had struggled with the shift to
making cinema in colour, Susan Sontag
and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
The film about Duchamp, Rebel
Ready-Made, shot in 1966 on the occa-
sion of the first retrospective in Europe
of the artist’s work, revealed the
Frenchman not as enigmatic but as a
chic New Yorker about town.
In the Shadow of Cain (1964) contained
the last footage of Julian Maclaren-Ross,
a friend of Powell’s father and the model
for his character X Trapnel, author of
Dogs Have No Uncles. A profile of the
Japanese author and nationalist Yukio
Mishima was entitled A Writer and His
Sword (1968). Two years later, Mishima
took his own life in a ritual seppuku after
attempting a military coup.
“His suicide was the last act of a sensi-
tive writer ... who in middle age became
a cultural kamikaze,” wrote Powell in
Tristram Powell’s upbringing made him deft and sensitive with artists. Below, filming American Friends with Michael Palin
1971 in a review for The Times of Mishi-
ma’s testament, Sun and Steel. “One
hoped he achieved the longed-for
catharsis.”
A documentary about the Pitmen
Painters of Ashington was made with
the art critic Bill Feaver, who had re-
vived their reputation and would be-
come their biographer. Feaver also
wrote a biography of Freud, about
whom Powell made a film for the BBC
in the 1970s, now thought lost.
That encounter led to Freud painting
a portrait of the director in 1995-96. For
Richard Cork, art critic for The Times, it
depicted “the gaze of a man who seems
to live through his eyes. Powell looks like
someone long accustomed to scanning
with care, selecting the most revealing
aspect of a subject.” The artist himself
was particularly taken with the direct-
or’s eyes: “They are beautifully cut, like
high-class binoculars, and they seem ex-
traordinarily observant.”
Other subjects of Powell’s thoughtful
lens included Marcel Marceau, Jean
Rhys, Nadine Gordimer, Alfred Hitch-
cock and the artist Paul Nash. For the
BBC’s arts strand Arena in the 1980s,
there were documentaries about the
French director Louis Malle, the travel
writer Norman Lewis and the writer
Karen Blixen’s time in Kenya.
A Tall Story, made in 1981, profiled
Salman Rushdie through the eyes of
the protagonist of his novel about India
post-independence, Midnight’s Child-
ren, published the same year. Seven-
teen years later Powell was chosen to
direct for the BBC a five-part adapta-
tion of the book, scripted by Rushdie.
One hundred and ten speaking parts
had been cast and the first sets built in Sri
Lanka when its government withdrew
permission for filming. India itself had
rebuffed the production after Iran pro-
claimed a fatwa against the writer for his
novel The Satanic Verses. It was not until
2012 that a feature film of Midnight’s
Children was made — in secret, in Sri
Lanka — by the director Deepa Mehta.
Powell was not short, however, of op-
portunities to direct drama. In the late
1970s he collaborated with Beckett on
Shades, three plays for the BBC, and then
a television staging of the playwright’s
Happy Days. It starred Billie Whitelaw,
who also featured in 1978 as Thomas
Hardy’s first wife, Emma Gifford, in a
film about their marriage. Other drama-
tised profiles included those of Ivy
Compton-Burnett, with Celia Johnson
as the writer, and for Omnibus, We Think
the World of You, about the famously
dog-loving author, JR Ackerley. The film
won a Bafta in 1981.
Another award-winning production
was No Country for Old Men (1981),
which dealt with Jonathan Swift’s exile
Register
in Ireland. It starred Trevor Howard,
who gave an acclaimed performance
that owed much to Powell’s ability to
cajole people when required, given that
Howard had not wanted the part and
then refused to read the script.
Just as tricky was Philip Roth, whose
novel The Ghost Writer he filmed in
1983 for the BBC. Powell recalled the
contrasts between “sane, enthusiastic,
generous, erudite, good Philip” and the
one who “loved provocation and disor-
der as a source of drama”. Although
involved in every aspect of its making,
Roth told Powell he hated the film.
Palin was an easier proposition. For
TV, Powell directed East of Ipswich
(1987), a comedy-drama based on the
actor’s memories of childhood holidays.
The pair then made the feature film
American Friends (1991). Loosely based
on the diaries of Palin’s great-grandfa-
ther, it revolves around a don in Victori-
49
an Oxford whose career is threatened by
his involvement with two women he
meets walking in Switzerland.
Powell also directed, in 1987 and 1998,
two of the monologues in Alan Bennett’s
Talking Heads series: Soldiering On, with
Stephanie Cole; and Nights in the Gar-
dens of Spain, with Penelope Wilton.
Bennett, watching, would relieve the
tension inherent in filming the mono-
logues in a single take by chewing on his
handkerchief. The strain was such on
one occasion, it was said, that he swal-
lowed it whole.
Tristram Roger Dymoke Powell was
born in Oxford in 1940, the elder of two
sons. His father, known for his 12-vol-
ume sequence A Dance to the Music of
Time (1951-1975), was then stationed in
Belfast. When Powell and his mother,
Lady Violet, a daughter of the 5th Earl
of Longford, arrived in the city, his
father had neglected to find lodgings
for them. For a while they shared those
of the future Liberal leader Jo Grimond.
During his childhood in Regent’s
Park, London, and Frome, Somerset,
Powell encountered writers such as
Malcolm Muggeridge, Graham Greene
and George Orwell, whose wake in
1950 was held at the Powells’ house.
His cousin, Lady Antonia Fraser,
lived with them for a time as a teenager.
With his mother — “the right arm,” he
recalled, “of my father’s imagination”
— they would visit art galleries.
Another mentor was VS Naipaul, from
whom Powell eventually bought his
house. He could remember swimming
with Ernest Hemingway.
At Eton he was given a cine camera
and projector by his grandfather, with
which Powell made skits with his
friend, the actor Jonathan Cecil. After
Trinity College, Oxford, where he read
history, he worked as a sub-editor on
Queen magazine. He married Virginia
Lucas, an artist, in 1968. She survives
him with their daughter, Georgia, for-
merly a newspaper obituary writer and
now Duchess of Beaufort, and their
son, Archie, a film-maker.
Powell’s later work included an adap-
tation of Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils
(1992), as well as episodes of Kavanagh
QC and Foyle’s War. For radio, he direct-
ed versions of The Heat of the Day, Eliza-
beth Bowen’s novel of wartime London,
and of Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Cen-
tral Station I Sat Down and Wept.
He published two books about the
photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
and in 1971 put on an exhibition of her
work at Leighton House, Kensington.
“Full of the confidence of class,” he
wrote, “Cameron, in her best work,
broke all the rules of art and allowed the
new medium to dictate what appealed
to her own eye.”
It was not a judgment that could be
applied to Powell, who was no kind of
snob, intellectual or otherwise, nor a
self-conscious revolutionary. More ac-
curate was the verdict in 1973 of The
Times that he was a “deceptively gentle
film-maker whose grasp of thematic es-
sentials is unemphatic because it is so
firm and whose memory for the sug-
gestive image is usually sharp, and
sometimes unforgettable”.
Tristram Powell, director, was born on
April 25, 1940. He died of leukaemia on
March 1, 2024, aged 83
50
Register
Werner Spitz
Forensic pathologist whose expertise was called upon in high-profile cases, including the assassination of President Kennedy
The Zapruder film of the assassination
of John F Kennedy was first shown on
American television in 1975, turbo-
charging conspiracy theories about the
shooting 12 years earlier.
In response, Washington politicians
established a Committee on Assassina-
tions to reinvestigate the deaths of Ken-
nedy and Martin Luther King Jr, setting
what proved the overoptimistic goal of
bringing closure to the controversies.
They turned to one of America’s fore-
most forensic pathologists. Werner
Spitz had vast experience with gunshot
wounds: he worked in Detroit, at the
time dubbed the “murder capital of the
world”.
Pathology and its top practitioners
had been gaining respect. The Los An-
geles-based pathologist Thomas Nogu-
chi was known as “coroner to the stars”
and television dramas such as Quincy,
ME placed medical examiners at the
centre of police procedurals as scien-
tific expertise became more important
in solving crimes.
Spitz relished detective work, the
challenge, he once said, of “piecing to-
gether a story using the shell of a
human who could no longer explain
why he or she died”. Every fragment
and mark was a potential clue, every
sliver of brain or speck of blood a poss-
ible narrative thread.
In Kennedy’s case, he was given ac-
cess to evidence such as clothes and en-
larged photographs of his body. “They
were so explicit they made my hair
stand on end,” Spitz told The Macomb
Daily. “You could see every pore in his
skin.” He assailed the autopsy carried
out by inexperienced pathologists in
1963 as “botched”. Studying the direc-
tion of the broken skin, he declared that
doctors had mistaken an exit wound in
Margaret Curphey
Leading soprano known for her pioneering performances in English translations of Die Meistersinger and the Ring cycle
Aided by a soprano voice that com-
bined power with emotional appeal and
an acting ability rare in singers, Marga-
ret Curphey became one of the leading
operatic stars of her generation.
She impressed when singing the part
of Eva in Sir Reginald Goodall’s pio-
neering English translation of Richard
Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, which re-
ceived its premiere at Sadler’s Wells in
1969. Further success followed playing
Sieglinde, Gutrune and Brunnhilde in
Goodall’s Ring Cycle. Played out against
a futuristic landscape designed by
Ralph Kotai (obituary, December 17,
2018), it remains a landmark in British
operatic history.
Born in Douglas, Isle of Man, in 1938,
Susan Margaret Curphey, always
known as Margaret, was the eldest of
four daughters of William Curphey, a
harbour policeman, and his wife, Susan
(née Gelling). It was a musical family:
both mother and daughter performed
together at many of the local competi-
tive music festivals.
Her stage experience began when
she was a pupil at Castle Rushen High
School. Winning the coveted Rose
Bowl the 1960 Blackpool Music Festival
brought her to the attention of adjudi-
cator, Gordon Clinton, principal of the
Birmingham School of Music. It was he
who suggested that she study there.
Her teachers were John Carol Case and
David Galliver. When in London she
further refined her vocal technique in
the company of Joan Cross.
Curphey began her professional
career in 1963 as a member of the Art
Council’s Opera for All programme.
Twelve months later she joined the
Glyndebourne Chorus understudying
the neck for an entrance wound. His as-
sessment poured cold water on talk of a
second gunman and confirmed the
conclusion of the Warren Commission
that Kennedy was shot twice from be-
hind. In King’s case, Spitz concurred
with the original autopsy’s finding that
the civil rights leader was killed in 1968
by a single rifle shot.
Thereafter Spitz was invited to opine
on some of America’s most sensational
killings. In the late Eighties he studied
morgue photographs of more than a
dozen victims before testifying at
the trial in California of Richard
Ramirez, a serial killer nicknamed the
Night Stalker.
Testifying for the plaintiffs at the civil
wrongful-death trial of OJ Simpson in
1996, Spitz said that the NFL and Holly-
wood star’s former wife, Nicole, died
‘The photos were so
explicit they made
my hair stand on end’
from loss of blood caused by a “devas-
tating slash” from a knife that sliced her
voice box in two. Simpson (obituary,
April 11, 2024) was found liable for dou-
ble murder, having earlier been acquit-
ted in a criminal trial of the killing of his
ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman.
As an expert witness for the defence
in the 2007 murder trial of Phil Spector,
Spitz asserted that blood spatter ana-
lysis indicated the music producer was
as far as six feet away from the actress
Lana Clarkson when she died in his
mansion. Spector claimed she died
from a self-inflicted wound after plac-
ing a gun in her mouth, a theory Spitz
said was plausible. A hung jury led to a
Margaret Curphey as Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen, her debut at Sadler’s Wells
Montserrat Caballé (obituary, October
6, 2018) and performing at the Proms.
In 1965 she made her Sadler’s Wells de-
but playing Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen.
Over the next 13 years at what would
soon evolve into English National Op-
era (ENO) she would undertake a wide
and varied range of leading roles. These
Werner Spitz’s media-friendly style
did not always work in his favour
mistrial but Spector (obituary, January
17, 2021) was convicted of murder at a
retrial in 2009.
Werner Uri Spitz was born in 1926 in
Stargard, then in Germany but now
part of Poland. His Jewish parents,
Siegfried and Anna, were doctors. Flee-
ing Nazi persecution in the mid-Thir-
ties, the family moved to Mandatory
Palestine (now Israel) and he studied
medicine at Geneva University in
Switzerland and the Hebrew Univers-
ity in Jerusalem. Fearing he was falling
in with the wrong crowd, his father in-
sisted his son spend his summer holi-
days on work experience in a Tel Aviv
pathology unit.
Watching autopsies left Spitz spell-
bound. After qualifying as a doctor,
however, he was only offered one
murder: an open-and-shut stabbing
from a dispute between rival bagel sell-
ers. Seeking a more homicidal work en-
vironment he moved to the United
included a moving Ellen Orford in
Peter Grimes, Pamina in The Magic
Flute, Violetta in La Traviata, Elisabeth
in Don Carlos and the title roles in both
Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Weber’s
Euryanthe. Among her initial contribu-
tions to Scottish Opera were their
1967 productions of The Magic Flute,
States. After a stint in Maryland he re-
located to the Detroit area, where he
was named chief medical examiner of
Wayne County. Business was brisk: De-
troit recorded 751 homicides in 1973.
He had the grisly task of identifying
all 156 bodies, most by dental records or
fingerprints, when a Northwest Air-
lines flight crashed shortly after take-
off in 1987 from Detroit Metropolitan
airport. Spitz also co-edited a re-
nowned textbook, Spitz and Fisher’s
Medicolegal Investigation of Death, and
was a professor at Wayne State Uni-
versity School of Medicine.
He is survived by his wife, Anne (née
Keates), a nurse whom he married in
Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, in
1961 during a period in England after
they met on a blind date in Baltimore,
and their children, Daniel, a patholo-
gist, Jonathan, a surgeon, and Rhona, a
lawyer. After Daniel succeeded him as
chief medical examiner of Macomb
County, Michigan, in 2004, Spitz —
who had no hobbies — worked as a full-
time private consultant until a few
weeks before his death, motivated by
the quest for answers. “I’m still working
because I enjoy the work. Because I like
the work. Because with time, you have
a new or a broadened ability to see
things that in early life you did not see,”
he told Time magazine in 2022.
He was known for sparring with law-
yers while giving evidence and energet-
ically delivering trenchant views in a
distinctive accent, but his media-
friendly style did not always work in his
favour. JonBenét Ramsey, a six-year-
old beauty queen, was killed in Colora-
do in 1996. The case is unsolved but in
a 2016 television documentary and a
radio interview, Spitz accused her
brother, Burke, who was nine when she
Orfeo ed Euridice and La Traviata.
Twelve months later, along with Al-
berto Remedios, Rita Hunter, Norman
Bailey and Clifford Grant, Curphey be-
came a key member of the team chosen
by Goodall for his Die Meistersinger.
With the production proving an out-
standing success, between 1970 and
1973, they were all reunited for the Ring
cycle. Granted an unusually long re-
hearsal period, this team of singers
would spend months in Goodall’s eyrie
high in the gods at Covent Garden on a
line by line preparation of Andrew Por-
ter’s crisp new English translation.
This led to a successful provincial tour,
broadcasts and a series of highly praised
recordings. To Curphey, Goodall re-
mained a seminal figure in her musical
development. She later reflected to
Humphrey Burton in a 2008 tribute to
Goodall on the BBC television arts pro-
gramme Omnibus: “When you learnt
something with Reggie, it’s not just in
your voice or mind, it’s in your soul.”
Curphey initially won wider acclaim
as a prize winner at the 1970 Inter-
national Young Opera Singers compe-
tition in Sofia, Bulgaria. Throughout
the later 1970s and 1980s, increasingly
inhabiting a much more international
landscape, she reprised her Wagner
roles throughout Europe, the Far East
and North America. In Valencia she
played Maddalena in Umberto Giorda-
no’s opera Andrea Chénier, while in
Geneva she was Miss Jessel in Benja-
min Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.
Back in England, in September 1982 she
made her debut with Opera North in
the highly praised recreation by David
Lloyd-Jones of Borodin’s Prince Igor.
She returned to the company 12
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
died. The authorities had ruled him out
as a suspect and Burke filed a defama-
tion lawsuit against Spitz seeking $150
million in damages. It was settled in
2019 on undisclosed terms.
Spitz charged $5,000 a day to act as a
trial expert. In 2008 a defence attorney
asked him to fly to Orlando on Christ-
mas Eve to examine the skull of Caylee
Anthony, two years old, whose remains
had been discovered two months after
her mother, Casey, had been charged
with her murder.
“It isn’t really a matter of it being hard
for me to do it because I’ve done lots of
such cases,” he recalled in 2022. “But I
then go home and go to sleep, and I
dream about it, and it’s horrible.”
Fuelled by the lurid excesses of roll-
ing cable news and the freedoms of ex-
pression afforded by social media, the
televised proceedings of Anthony’s trial
in 2011 arguably had the highest profile
since Simpson’s. Wielding a model
skull, Spitz testified that duct tape was
attached to the child’s face to hold her
decomposing jaw in position, contra-
dicting the prosecution’s theory that it
was used to suffocate her. He also ac-
cused the local medical examiner of
performing a “shoddy” autopsy. Antho-
ny was acquitted of murder, avoiding a
potential death sentence, but convicted
of lying to the police.
Spitz estimated that he had conduct-
ed or assisted more than 60,000 post-
mortem examinations. Asked whether
Kennedy was his most memorable ex-
pired client, he replied: “When people
are on the autopsy table, they are all the
same.”
Werner Spitz, forensic pathologist, was
born on August 22, 1926. He died after a
short illness on April 14, 2024, aged 97
months later to star in Weber’s roman-
tic masterpiece, Der Freischütz.
In tandem with her numerous oper-
atic assignments, Curphey remained a
great supporter of the English choral
society tradition. Equally at home in a
cathedral as a concert hall, she was a
regular visitor to Manchester, where
she enjoyed productive relationships
with Maurice Handford and the Hallé
Choir. Similarly too with Meredith
Davies and the Royal Choral Society.
While Verdi’s Requiem remained popu-
lar, at the Royal Festival Hall in 1983
they explored more rarefied repertoire,
including Carl Nielsen’s Hymnus Amor-
is. She was a regular visitor to Ireland,
where she broadcast with the RTÉ Or-
chestra; she also appeared on BBC’s Fri-
day Night Is Music Night.
Curphey married Philip Summer-
scales, a fellow singer, in 1967; he later
developed a portfolio of business inter-
ests. Their daughter, Helen, is now at
the helm of the family’s public relations
company.
Having long battled a troublesome
hip complaint, Curphey retired from
professional singing in 1994, but re-
united in a special gala concert with her
lifelong friend, the tenor Alberto Rem-
edios. Moving back to the island of her
birth, she remained a revered figure in
Manx musical circles. Latterly she had
been the patron of the Mananan Inter-
national Opera Festival.
Margaret Curphey, opera singer, was
born on February 27, 1938. She died of
heart failure on March 13, 2024, aged 86
Email: obituaries@thetimes.co.uk
the times | Friday May 17 2024 51

Court Circular
Buckingham Palace
16th May, 2024
His Excellency Mr Ravshan
Usmanov was received in
audience by The King this
afternoon and presented the
Letters of Recall of his
predecessor and his own
Letters of Credence as
Ambassador from the Republic
of Uzbekistan to the Court of
St James’s.
Mrs Usmanova was also
The King, Patron, this
evening attended a Gala
Performance at the Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden,
London WC2, to mark Sir
Antonio Pappano’s twenty-
two-year tenure as Music
Director, and was received by
Mr Stuart Shilson (Deputy
Lieutenant of Greater
London), the Chairman of the
Royal Opera House (Sir Lloyd
Dorfman) and Mr Alexander
Beard (Chief Executive).
The Queen, Patron, the
Charleston Trust, this morning
visited Charleston Literary
Festival, Charleston House,
Firle, and, having been
received by Mr Graham Peters
(Vice Lord-Lieutenant of East
House Terrace, London SW1,
and was received by the
Reverend Canon Dr Flora
Winfield (Deputy Lieutenant
of Greater London).
His Royal Highness, Patron
of the Appeal, the Fleming
Centre, this evening held a
Reception at St James’s Palace.
St James’s Palace
16th May, 2024
The Duke of Edinburgh this
afternoon attended a
Luncheon with
Commonwealth Education
Ministers at Marlborough
House, London SW1.
St James’s Palace
16th May, 2024
Births, Marriages and Deaths
To book a Birth, Marriage or Death
announcement in the Register, visit:
newsukadvertising.co.uk
for help, please call 020 7782 7553
or email BMDs@thetimes.co.uk
AND TAKE the helmet of salvation, and
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God: praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication for all saints.
Ephesians 6.17-18 (AV)
Bible verses are provided by the
Bible Society
Births
SALAM
on Saturday 4th May 2024 to
Mousumi Akter Rima and Abdul
Salam, a son, Rafi Owaj, was born at
4.11am in UCLH. Birth weight 3,040g.
Thank you for joining us, Abbahjan.
Der Aaye Durust Aaye. Alhamdulillah.
Legal Notices
GARD Richard Metherell, passed away
peacefully at home on 10th May 2024,
aged 86. A loving husband of the late
Heather and a much-loved father and
grandfather. All inquiries to C. P. Coombe
Funeralcare, 01579 383349.
INGLEFIELD Christopher Samuel (Sam)
on 30th April 2024, aged 87. Devoted
husband, beloved father, grandfather,
stepfather and step-grandfather.
Thanksgiving service 3pm, 30th May 2024
in St Michael’s Church, Aldbourne, Wilts.
JARVIS Peter Jack CBE, died peacefully
on 18th April 2024, aged 82. Bolton
schoolboy, Polio survivor, Cambridge Blue,
CEO of Whitbread, chairman of
Debenhams, board member of Rank,
Barclays and his beloved Bolton School. A
private and humble man for all his success,
many sought his counsel. Loved dearly by
all of his family and sorely missed. Private
funeral on 17th May in West Sussex.
LLOYD Professor David Allden BA (Hons
Cantab) MB BChir FRCS SA FRCS FACS.
Emeritus professor of paediatric surgery at
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool,
Register
NOTICE UNDER THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925
Air Canada United Kingdom Pension Trust Fund
(“the Scheme”)
Notice to Creditors and Beneficiaries under Section
27 of the Trustee Act 1925
Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 27 of the
Trustee Act 1925 that the Trustee is winding-up the
Scheme.
Any creditor, member or beneficiary of the Scheme
or any other person who believes they have a claim
against, or entitlement to a pension or any benefit
from, or an interest in the Scheme is requested to
write to the Trustee: James Duggan, Vidett Trust
Corporation Limited, 3rd Floor Forbury Works, 37-43
Blagrave Street, Reading, England, RG1 1PZ or by
email to AirCanada@vidett.com, to make a claim.
Claimants should provide their full name, address,
date of birth, NI number and, if applicable, dates of
employment. If any other person believes they have
a claim against or an interest in the Scheme, they
are requested to write to the same address setting
out full particulars of their claim. Please quote the
Scheme name in all correspondence.
All claims must be received by 20 July 2024. After
this date, the Trustee will proceed to complete the
wind-up of the Scheme and secure benefits for any
remaining beneficiaries, having regard only to the
claims and interests of which they have prior notice.
The Trustee shall not be liable to any person of
whose claims and demands they have not had
notice.

received by His Majesty.
His Excellency Mr Léopold
Tonguenoma Bonkoungou was
received in audience by The
Sussex), attended a talk
entitled “the Power of
Reading” and a Reception.
Her Majesty this afternoon
The Princess Royal, Royal
Patron, National Coastwatch
Institution, this morning
visited Bembridge Station, 25
died 2nd May 2024. A much-loved
husband, father, grandfather and a
Forthcoming Marriages dedicated surgeon whose life touched
MR J. H. S. C. HARBORD many others. Funeral at 12pm, Friday 31st
AND MISS C. E. L. BROOK
The engagement is announced between
May at St Michael’s Church, Liverpool L23
8SP. No flowers please but charitable
Any person who has been contacted by the Trustee
at their current address or has already made a claim
and received a response need not re-apply to the
Trustee. It would also be helpful if you can bring this
notice to the attention of anyone else you know of
who may have a claim or interest.

King and presented the Letters
of Recall of his predecessor
and his own Letters of
Credence as Ambassador from
Burkina Faso to the Court of
St James’s.
Mrs Bonkoungou
Ouedraogo was also received
by His Majesty.
Sir Philip Barton
(Permanent Under-Secretary
of State for Foreign,
Commonwealth and
Development Affairs) was
present.
The King received
representatives from the
Sustainable Markets Initiative.
The Rt Hon Mark Drakeford
MS was received in audience
by His Majesty upon
relinquishing his appointment
as First Minister of Wales.
met representatives of local
organisations and community
groups at the Parish Church of
St Mary, Church Square, Rye,
and was received by Mrs Sarah
Kowitz (Deputy Lieutenant of
East Sussex).
The Queen afterwards
visited Lamb House, West
Street, Rye, and attended a
Reception for the EF Benson
Society, the Friends of Tilling
and National Trust volunteers.
Kensington Palace
16th May, 2024
The Prince of Wales, Patron of
the Appeal, the Fleming
Centre, this afternoon
attended “the World Together
Solving the Antibiotic
Emergency” Conference at the
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton
Forelands Field Road,
Bembridge, followed by a
Reception at Brading Haven
Yacht Club, Embankment
Road, Ryde, and was received
by His Majesty’s Lord-
Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight
(Mrs Susan Sheldon).
Her Royal Highness,
President, Royal Yachting
Association, later opened the
Sea View Yacht Club’s Training
Centre, Duver Road, Seaview,
Isle of Wight.
Kensington Palace
16th May, 2024
The Duke of Gloucester,
Patron, Richard III Society,
this afternoon attended the
Society’s Centenary Tea at
Wax Chandlers’ Hall, 6
Gresham Street, London EC2.
James, son of Mr and Mrs Jeremy Harbord,
of Netheravon, Wiltshire, and Charlotte,
daughter of Mrs Alison Brook, of Heathfield,
East Sussex, and the late Mr David Brook,
of Frensham, Surrey.
MR A. R. St V. NORMAN
AND MISS A. V. MARTIN
The engagement is announced between
Antony, eldest son of Sir Nigel and Lady
Norman of Wilcote, Oxfordshire, and Alice,
younger daughter of Mr and Mrs Roy
Martin of Barnes, London.
MR F. B. R. WATHEN
AND MISS I. M. BIRCH
REYNARDSON
The engagement is announced between
Francis, son of Mr and Mrs Simon Wathen
of Owlpen, Gloucestershire, and Isabella,
daughter of Mr Charles Birch Reynardson,
of Chelsea, London, and Mrs Frederick
Satow, of Kew, London.
Deaths
AISHER Valerie Diane born 12th
September 1933. Fashion model, garden
designer, dedicated fundraiser for RNLI and
treasured friend to so many, died
peacefully on 8th May 2024. She is loved
and missed by sons Andrew and Henry and
grandchildren Joseph, Nathaniel and Sasha.
She was predeceased by her beloved
husband of 45 years, Robin, last year.
BOURNE Henry Graham Stanley (known
donations welcome at david-allden-
lloyd.muchloved.com
MERCER Jeremy Lawson died on 2nd
May 2024, aged 79, in hospital after years
of ill health borne with fortitude and good
humour. Beloved husband to Jane, adored
father of Ben and Wiggy/Pippa and
grandfather to Georgie, Jack, Edward,
Scarlett and Marina. Funeral at Yeovil
Crematorium Friday 31st May at 12:40pm
and afterwards at home.
MORTON Alan passed peacefully at Marie
Curie Hospice on 3rd May 2024. His family
were by his side. A dearly loved dad and
grandad, and highly respected structural
engineer. Service will be held at Grenoside
Crematorium on 23rd May at 11.30am.
Family flowers only.
ROGERS Dr Michael Derek, formerly of
Tokyo and Brussels, who died on 5th May
2024. The funeral service will be held at St
Mary Magdalene Church, Sherborne DT9
3SA, on 6th June at 1pm. Please no flowers.
Donations may be made to the Lewy Body
Society c/o www.stoodleyandson.co.uk
TRUSTED Jean Helen (née Illingworth)
died peacefully on 9th May 2024, aged 77.
Beloved mother to Jos and Dominic, much-
loved grandmother, adored sibling and
friend to so many. Funeral service for family
and friends at 11.30am on Wednesday 19th
June at Chelsea Old Church, Cheyne Walk,
followed by a reception.
Issued on behalf of Vidett Trust Corporation
Limited (as the Trustee of the Air Canada United
Kingdom Pension Trust Fund)
Dated 17 May 2024
MS. MARY SUSAN
BERNADETTE LAWLOR
The said Mary Susan Bernadette
Lawlor, whose place of residence is
unknown, is hereby notified that her
husband MOHAMED HANIFFAH BIN
MOHAMED MYDIN whom she married
on 02 June 1983 in the London Borough
of Southwark, has applied for divorce.
She is required to acknowledge his
application. She has seven days from
the date of this notice to respond to
either to the HMCTS Divorce Service -
Email: divorcecase@justice.gov.uk /
Telephone: 0300 303 0642 or to his
instructing solicitors, FLK Solicitors -
Address: 304 High Road, Leyton,
London, E10 5PW / Email:
enquiries@flksolicitors.co.uk. We
advise that she seek legal advice on the
contents of this notice.
CR-2024-001660
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS
AND
PROPERTY COURTS OF
ENGLAND
AND
WALES
COMPANIES COURT (ChD)
IN THE MATTER OF
EXCALON LIMITED

Readers’ Lives
as Graham) died peacefully on 5th May
2024, aged 89. Much-loved husband of
Julia, father of Joanna, Lukey and Fiona,
and Boompa to Amelia, Katie, Annabel,
Olivia, Rose and George. A service of
thanksgiving will be held at St John’s
Church, Hartley Wintney RG27 8ED, on
Wednesday 19th June at 2pm.
VALLANCE Mary Winifred Ann (née
Garnett) died peacefully on 2nd May 2024.
Beloved wife of Michael (deceased), mother
of Rachel, Emma and Vivian, Granny to
Ashok and Arian, Heather and Benjamin,
Hannah and Eleanor. Funeral at St Mary’s
Church, Wallingford, Wednesday 29th May
at noon. Family flowers only.
AND
IN THE MATTER OF
THE COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE is hereby given that on 9 May
2024 the Registrar of Companies
registered an Order made by His
Majesty's High Court of Justice on 30
April 2024 confirming the reduction of
share capital of the above-named
Company. AND NOTICE IS FURTHER
GIVEN that on the same date the
Registrar of Companies registered the

50%
discount for
The simple way to
place your Birth,
statement of capital approved by His
Majesty’s Court of Justice by the said
Order of 30 April 2024.
Dated: 17 May 2024
Ward Hadaway LLP, 5 Wellington
subscribers Marriage or Death Politics with no boring bits Place, Leeds LS1 4AP, Solicitors to the
Listen to Matt Chorley on Company
announcement in
Times Radio, Monday to
the Register. Available Friday at 10am
PIHL PROPERTY LIMITED LIABILITY
PARTNERSHIP
24 hours a day. Go to: Company No: OC318448
PRESTBURY SIR 1 LIMITED
Company No: 09361164
newsukadvertising.co.uk PRESTBURY SIR 2 LIMITED
Company No: 09361122
PRESTBURY SIR 3 LIMITED
Company No: 09360996
(All In Members’ Voluntary Liquidation)
Principal trading address: (All) Cavendish House,
18 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PJ
Malcolm Cohen and Stacey Brown of BDO LLP, 55 Baker
Street, London,W1U 7EU were appointed Joint Liquidators
of the Limited Liability Partnership/Companies on 7 May
2024. Creditors of the Limited Liability Partnership/
Companies are required, on or before the 19 June 2024 to
send in their full names, their addresses and descriptions,
full particulars of their debts or claims and the names and
addresses of their solicitors (if any) to the Joint Liquidators,
and, if so required by notice, to come in and prove their
debts or claims at such time and place as shall be specified
in such notice. Note: Please note that these are solvent
liquidations. The designated members/directors of the
Limited Liability Partnership/Companies have made a
declaration of solvency and it is expected that all creditors
will be paid in full.
For further details contact: Pauline Durrant,
Tel: 0207 486 5888, Email: Pauline.Durrant@bdo.co.uk.

Executive who changed Malcolm Cohen, Joint Liquidator

NOTICE FOR MARRIAGE

REGISTRATION
fortunes in the car trade High Commission of India, London has
received a notice of intended marriage
from Mr Soham Chakraborty, S/o
Sanjay Chakraborty, holder of Indian
JAMES TYRRELL, WHO DIED AGED 60, APPEARED IN THE TIMES ON AUGUST 27, 2022 Passport No. Z7131215 and Miss
Manya Dua, D/o Vijay Kumar Dua,
holder of Indian Passport No.
Commemorate the life of a friend or relative in U3215072 under the Foreign Marriage
Act, 1969 of India. Objection, if any
Readers’ Lives, a service in contracted tributes (along with valid reasons), to the
intended marriage may be conveyed to
the High Commission of India, London
within 30 Days of publication of this
Call 020 7782 5583 or email notice at the following address :
readerslives@thetimes.co.uk Second Secretary, High Commission of
India, India House, Aldywch, London,
UK WC2B 4NA
the times | Friday May 17 2024 55

Weather
Today Sunny periods with the chance of a few heavy showers. Max 24C (75F), min 7C (45F) Weather Eye
Paul Simons
Around Britain Five days ahead Wind speed Sea state Orkney Shetland
Key: b=bright, c=cloud, d=drizzle, pc=partly cloudy Drier over the weekend 34 Calm
du=dull, f=fair, fg=fog, h=hail, m=mist, r=rain, (mph) 17 23
sh=showers, sl=sleet, sn=snow, s=sun, t=thunder and on Monday with Slight 10
*=previous day **=data not available sunny spells, turning Temperature Moderate
Rough
Temp C Rain mm Sun hr* unsettled from Tuesday 28 (degrees C)
15
midday yesterday 24 hrs to 5pm yesterday
17 9
15 PC 0.0 6.2
Tomorrow Flood alerts and warnings
Aberdeen
Sunny periods and scattered heavy
Aberporth 15 S 0.0 6.4
showers in England, Wales and At 17:00 on Thursday there were 18
Anglesey 18 S 0.2 6.9 southern and eastern Ireland. Largely 29 flood alerts and no warnings 23
Aviemore 20 PC 0.0 8.5 dry elsewhere with spells of sunshine. in England and no flood alerts or

C
Barnstaple 17 PC 7.8 ** Max 23C, min 6C 20 C F riminals take note — the
warnings in Wales or Scotland. Aberdeen
Bedford 13 R 6.4 ** 35 95
For further information and updates weather can have a
Belfast 19 PC 0.0 3.9
in England visit flood-warning- 30 86
Birmingham 15 R 4.8 **
information.service.gov.uk, for Wales 25 77 surprising impact on how
Bournemouth 15 R 0.4 8.2 22 NORTH the justice system works. A
Bridlington 13 C 0.8 **
naturalresources.wales/flooding and 20 68
for Scotland SEPA.org.uk SEA 15 59 vast study of records from
Bristol 17 S 0.0 7.0
Camborne 16 S 0.0 6.7 22 10 50
10 million arrests across Texas
19 Edinburgh 5 41
Cardiff 18 PC 0.0 4.3 22 Glasgow
Edinburgh 12 R 0.0 3.6
21
0 32
revealed how sweltering hot days led
Eskdalemuir 14 C 0.0 1.0
19 7 -5 23 to curious results — the police
Glasgow 15 D 0.2 2.6
20
-10 14 tended to make fewer arrests, and
Hereford 17 S 0.0 ** Londonderry
Herstmonceux 13 R 22.0 10.8 ATLANTIC
-15 5 those arrests that were made were
Ipswich 13 R 12.2 5.1
Newcastle more likely to get thrown out by
OCEAN Carlisle
Isle of Man 16 C 0.0 7.0
Sunday Belfast prosecutors, possibly because they
Isle of Wight 14 R 2.4 ** 17
Jersey 15 PC 3.0 3.8 Sunny spells with the chance of an 20 19 were based on shaky legal grounds.
isolated shower in central Scotland,
Keswick 16 C 0.0 ** southern Ireland and the far south of
21
rk
York But woe betide those defendants
Kinloss 14 M 0.0 12.0 England. Dry with spells of sunshine brought to trial in hot weather.
elsewhere.
3
Leeds 14 C 0.0 **
Lerwick 14 S 0.0 15.5 Max 22C, min 5C Manchester Hull
Judges dismissed fewer cases and if
Leuchars 14 PC 0.2 3.0 Liverpoo
Liverpool 20 defendants were successfully tried
Lincoln 13 R 5.4 2.6 Galway IRISH 1
and found guilty, the judges were
Liverpool 17 M 0.6 ** 21 SEA Sheffield
London 16 R 0.4 9.3 Dublin
Llandudno
20 more likely to impose longer prison
Lyneham 16 S 0.0 10.2 sentences or bigger fines. The
Manchester 18 C 1.2 0.3
Margate 14 R 1.8 5.9
20 19
Shrewsbury
Nottingham implications of the study were both
Milford Haven 18 S 5.0 ** 19
Norwich
fascinating and unsettling,
Newcastle 14 M 0.2 ** 6 20 suggesting that hot weather can tilt
Nottingham 14 R 13.4 0.7 Birmingham
Orkney 15 S 0.0 14.3 21
Cork
Cambridge the scales of justice by influencing
Oxford 17 PC 0.4 ** 18 both the police officers making the
Swansea Oxford 21
Plymouth 16 C 0.4 ** arrests and the decisions of judges.
Portland 14 C 0.0 ** Cardiff
Scilly, St Mary’s 15 S 0.0 **
Monday Channel Islands CELTIC 21 These results back up a previous
Shoreham 15 R 4.0 10.5 Sunny spells with the chance of an
SEA Bristol London study by researchers who looked at
isolated shower in Scotland and
Shrewsbury 15 M 3.6 5.7 21
Snowdonia 17 PC 0.2 **
Ireland. Dry with spells of sunshine in
England and Wales. Southampton
207,000 immigration cases in the
18 US. Judges involved in these cases
Southend 14 C 0.6 7.2 Max 22C, min 4C eter
Exeter
South Uist 16 PC 2.2 ** 6 Plymouth Brighton were found to make harsher
Stornoway 18 C 0.0 7.1
Tiree 16 C 0.2 **
decisions on hotter days; when the
Whitehaven 14 C 0.0 0.1 17
18 outdoor temperature increased by
CHANNEL 4
Wick 14 S 0.0 ** 8 6C the judges made less favourable
Yeovilton 15 R 0.8 1.3
decisions in nearly 15,000 cases,
19
18 General situation: Sunny periods with periods with the chance of one or two morning with the odd spot of rain even when their judgments were
The world the chance of a few showers. Driest heavy showers. Light and variable or drizzle, turning brighter in the made in courts with good quality
All readings local midday yesterday
and sunniest in eastern Scotland. winds. Maximum 22C (72F), minimum afternoon although a few isolated air-conditioning.
Alicante 25 S Madeira 22 PC 21 N Ireland, Republic of Ireland: Dry 8C (46F). heavy showers may develop. Gentle
Amsterdam 19 SH Madrid 15 B
These studies seem to suggest that
in the northwest with sunny spells. London, SE Eng, E Anglia, E Eng: Sunny east or northeasterly winds. Maximum
Athens 20 PC Malaga 24 PC A cloudy morning with patchy rain periods with the chance of a few heavy 22C (72F), minimum 9C (48F). hot days affect the psychology and
Auckland 17 B Mallorca 22 PC
elsewhere, bright spells and scattered and perhaps thundery showers. Mist Edinburgh and Dundee, Glasgow, cognition of police and judges. It is
Bahrain 38 S Malta 29 S Tuesday
Bangkok 34 T Melbourne 17 PC Cloudy in Scotland and Ireland with
heavy showers in the afternoon. Light and fog may linger around coastal Aberdeen, Cen Highland, NW Scotland, also well known from many studies
Barbados 32 PC Mexico City 30 PC outbreaks of rain spreading eastwards. to moderate north or northeasterly areas through the day. Light and NE Scotland, Moray Firth: Sunny that hot days, especially with heat
Largely dry elsewhere with spells of winds. Maximum 21C (70F), minimum variable winds. Maximum 21C (70F), spells with the chance of a heavy and
Barcelona 18 PC Miami 34 PC
sunshine. 9C (48F). minimum 10C (50F). thundery shower in western areas. and humidity, can remove
Beijing 25 S Milan 16 R
Beirut 23 PC Mombasa 31 PC Max 21C, min 4C Wales, NW Eng, Mids, Cen S Eng, NE Eng, Lake District, IoM, Borders, Gentle easterly winds. Maximum inhibitions in people’s behaviour and
Belgrade 21 S Montreal 19 DU Channel Is, SW Eng, Cen N Eng: Sunny SW Scotland, Argyll: A mostly cloudy 24C (75F), minimum 7C (45F). cause arguments to erupt, tempers
Berlin 24 S Moscow 18 PC to flare and in worse cases drive an
Bermuda 21 B Mumbai 34 **
Bordeaux 13 PC Munich 21 PC
16 Tides Noon today
HIGH 1016 increase in violent crime.
Brussels 17 PC Nairobi 25 B Tidal predictions. LOW 1024 The connection between heat and
20 S 29 S Heights in metres
Bucharest Naples
20
human behaviour extends well
Budapest 21 S New Orleans 30 S Today Ht Ht 1008
Buenos Aires 15 S New York 18 C 18 Aberdeen 09:48 3.3 22:48 3.3 1032
beyond crime. School pupils taking
HIGH
Cairo 29 S Nice 20 PC Avonmouth 02:58 9.4 15:39 9.4 1016
1024 HIGH standardised exams in New York
Calcutta 35 ** Nicosia 25 PC Belfast 07:03 3.0 20:26 2.7 City were found to be 10 per cent
Canberra 15 DU Oslo 21 PC 19 LOW
Cardiff 02:42 9.0 15:23 8.9
Cape Town 20 S Paris 18 PC 01:14 4.3 14:21 4.1 1024 1016 1008 LOW
less likely to pass when the exam
Devonport 1016
Chicago 18 PC Perth 27 S
Dover 07:25 5.1 19:49 5.3 LOW
was taken in a temperature of 24C.
Copenhagen 19 S Prague 17 PC LOW
23 B 10 C Wednesday Dublin 08:05 3.4 20:49 3.2 LOW
1016
And a survey of 10 million pupils in
Corfu Reykjavik LOW
Delhi 41 ** Riga 20 S Cloudy with outbreaks of rain in Falmouth --:-- -- 14:01 3.8 the US found that those who took
Scotland, Wales and northern England. Greenock 07:50 2.8 21:37 2.6
Dubai 41 S Rio de Janeiro 25 C
Sunny periods with the chance of a HIGH
1008 Cold front exams in schools without air
Dublin 18 PC Riyadh 40 S Harwich 08:02 3.2 20:10 3.1 1008
Faro 19 PC Rome 22 PC
few showers elsewhere.
Holyhead 06:41 4.4 19:39 4.3 LOW
1024
LOW 1008 Warm front conditioning scored lower than
Max 22C, min 2C Occluded front expected in hot weather.
Florence 26 B San Francisco 19 PC Hull 02:38 5.3 14:52 5.6
Frankfurt 20 PC Santiago 9 B Leith 11:02 4.3 23:41 4.3 1008 Trough
Geneva 15 PC São Paulo 17 D Liverpool 07:21 7.3 20:06 7.1
Gibraltar
Helsinki
22
24
PC
S
Seoul
Seychelles
18
27
S
SH
14 London Bridge
Lowestoft
09:46
06:36
5.6
2.1
22:11
17:37
5.5
2.1
Synoptic situation Highs and lows
24hrs to 5pm yesterday
Hours of darkness
Aberdeen 21:55-04:12
Speak directly to one
Hong Kong 30 S Singapore 29 PC A decaying cold front will bring
Honolulu 27 PC St Petersburg 22 S
14
Milford Haven
Morecambe
02:14
07:35
5.2
7.1
14:57
20:20
5.0
7.0 a mostly cloudy morning in Warmest: Altnaharra,
Sutherland, 25.0C
Belfast
Birmingham
21:56-04:41
21:30-04:36 of our forecasters on
Istanbul 19 PC Stockholm 20 S
Newhaven 07:30 4.8 20:04 5.2 Ireland and northern England Coldest: Sennybridge, 3.6C Cardiff 21:31-04:45
Jerusalem
Johannesburg
26
22
S
S
Sydney
Tel Aviv
20
26
B
S
21
Newquay 01:13 5.2 13:55 5.0 with outbreaks of patchy rain.
Through the afternoon the cloud
Wettest: Herstmonceux,
East Sussex, 22.0mm
Exeter 21:29-04:50 09065 777675
Oban 02:11 2.9 15:17 2.8 Sunniest: Lerwick, 15.5hrs* Glasgow 21:56-04:28
Kuala Lumpur 26 T Tenerife 24 B will thin and break although
** ** 20 B 21 Penzance --:-- -- 13:29 4.1 Liverpool 21:39-04:36 8am to 5pm daily (calls are charged
Kyiv Tokyo this will allow some heavy London
24 B 16 B Portsmouth 07:41 3.6 20:32 3.9 Sun and moon 21:19-04:33 at £1.55 plus network extras)
Lanzarote Vancouver and perhaps thundery showers For Greenwich Manchester 21:36-04:32
Las Palmas 24 PC Venice 17 R Shoreham 07:13 4.5 19:57 4.8 Sun rises: 05.04
The Times weather page Southampton 07:03 3.5 22:20 3.7
to develop. A slack pressure Newcastle 21:41-04:22
Lima 17 S Vienna 18 B Sun sets: 20.48
02:10 7.0 14:52 6.9
pattern elsewhere will bring a Moon rises: 14.12 Norwich 21:18-04:22
Lisbon 18 B Warsaw 20 S is provided by Swansea
day of sunny periods with the Moon sets: 03.18 Sat Penzance 21:35-05:00
Los Angeles 18 C Washington 19 C Tees --:-- -- 12:07 4.4
Luxor 33 S Zurich 16 PC
chance of a few showers. Full Moon: May 23 Sheffield 21:32-04:30
Weymouth 01:41 1.3 15:50 1.2 weatherquest.co.uk

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56
Sport
Can this teenager
be Britain’s next
Olympic star?
Skateboarder Tommy
Calvert, 13, is already on
sport’s pro circuit – now
he wants Paris place,
Matt Lawton writes
T
ommy Calvert was 11 years
old when he first nailed the
mega ramp, an Evel Knievel-
style skateboarding trick
that involves rotating across
a 50-foot chasm, board momentarily
in hand, before landing on a second
ramp at a speed in excess of 30mph. “I
had to look in the opposite direction,”
his dad, Paul, says.
Now 13, Calvert remains unfazed.
“When you start skating you learn
how to fall,” he says, having embarked
at seven on a sporting journey that
may take him to this summer’s Paris
Olympics. “How to go down on your
knees and elbows, how to protect your
head. But you get that adrenaline.”
Aintree
Rob Wright
5.45 Novices' Hurdle
(£4,084: 2m 1f) (5)
Yesterday’s racing results
Perth
Going: good to soft
1.50 (2m 47yd hdle) 1, Medieval Gold (Emma
Smith-Chaston, 9-4); 2, Vocito (7-4 fav);
3, Kinbara Firstdraft (11-1). 10 ran. 1l, 8l. Micky
Hammond.
2.20 (2m 47yd hdle) 1, Imaginarium (D R Fox,
6-4 fav); 2, Traveling Soldier (9-2); 3, Lance Les
Des (10-1). 7 ran. NR: Dance Floor Drama, Jony
R, Presenting Max. 1l, nk. Miss L V Russell.
2.50 (2m 47yd hdle) 1, Just Dottie (B Smith, 7-2
jt-fav); 2, Belle Na Bann (11-1); 3, Game Beaaa (16-
1). 9 ran. NR: Solway Molly. 6 l, l. R M Smith.
3.20 (2m 7f 180yd ch) 1, Statuario (S Bowen,
12-1); 2, Busty Boy (11-8 fav); 3, Windance (5-1).
6 ran. l, 19l. P & M Bowen.
3.50 (2m 47yd hdle) 1, Mack The Man (Mr
K Alexander, 4-1 Co fav); 2, Dance Thief (4-1
Co fav); 3, Cuban Cigar (15-2). 9 ran. NR:
El Jefe, Malangen, Polisud, Wolfburg. 6l, nk.
N W Alexander.
4.20 (2m 4f 35yd hdle) 1, Singapore Trip
(B S Hughes, 8-1); 2, What A Johnny (5-4 fav);
Results
Football
Sky Bet Championship play-offs
Semi-final, second leg
Leeds (3) 4 Norwich
Gruev 7, Piroe 20 36,384
Rutter 40
Summerville 68
(Leeds United win 4-0 on agg)
Cycling
Giro d’Italia
Leading positions: 12th stage (Martinsicuro
to Fano, 193km): 1, J Alaphilippe (Fr, Soudal
Quick-Step) 4hr 7min 44sec; 2, J Narváez (Ec,
INEOS Grenadiers) at 31sec behind; 3, Q
He explains how he also gets in the
zone. “Before I compete I just prepare
myself, take a minute,” he says. “It’s
about being in my own state of mind
and preparing my head for what I’m
about to do, because it is dangerous.”
It certainly is at Calvert’s level. He is
the highest-ranked park skater in the
Great Britain team — not to mention
37 years younger than one of his
contemporaries, Andy Macdonald —
and hopes to be among the 20 skaters
vying for a place on the Olympic
podium in the spectacular setting of
the Place de la Concorde.
Today he will compete against the
very best, Tokyo Games medallists
among them, in the first of two
Olympic Qualifier Series events. It
takes place in Shanghai. At the end of
next month he will travel to Budapest.
Either Mum or Dad will accompany
him. “I haven’t decided which one
yet,” he says, with a cheeky smile.
For a teenager born in Liverpool
Women’s Hospital but now living, for
the most part, in San Diego, where his
father works as a graphic designer in
6.20 Handicap Chase (£6,337: 2m 4f) (9)
6.55 Handicap Hurdle (£10,075: 2m 4f) (12)
3, Donso Star (11-2). 10 ran. NR: Better Getalong,
Dalileo, Wasdell Dundalk. 1 l, 10l. M Hammond.
4.50 (2m 4f 20yd ch) 1, Imperial Rule
(R Chapman, 18-1); 2, Sword Of Fate (17-2);
3, Claret Dabbler (12-1). 9 ran. NR: Leitrim
Chief. 1 l, 1 l. R Menzies.
4.38 (1m 3f 55yd Flat) 1, Forlio (C T Keane, 7-1);
2, Nusra (5-1); 3, Spinning Web (100-30 fav).
14 ran. NR: Calmafterthestorm, Lisamaria,
Lord Of Excess, Magic Charm, Special
Protector. Nk, 3 l. P W Flynn.
Placepot: £36.40. Quadpot: £19.60.
Salisbury
Going: soft
2.00 (6f) 1, Beau Jardine (S Mohd, 11-10 fav);
2, Willingly (5-1); 3, Big Bard (11-2). 7 ran.
4 l, l. R Cook & J Bridger.
2.30 (1m 6f 44yd) 1, Kyle Of Lochalsh
(B Loughnane, 15-2); 2, Pawapuri (7-2 fav);
3, Rathgar (5-1). 12 ran. 6 l, 4l. H Morrison.
3.00 (5f) 1, Pont Neuf (C Bishop, 8-1);
2, Kassaya (5-2); 3, Megalithic (13-8 fav). 6 ran.
l, 1 l. Eve Johnson Houghton.
Hermans (Bel, Alpecin-Deceuninck) 32; 4, M
Valgren (Den, EF Education-EasyPost) 43; 5, C
Scaroni (It, Astana Qazaqstan) same time; 6, M
Trentin (It, Tudor Pro Cycling) 1min 30sec; 7, S
Clarke (Aus, Israel-Premier Tech); 8, G
(0) 0 Leemreize (Neth, dsm-firmenich PostNL); 9,
M Maestri (It, Polti Kometa); 10, B Thomas (Fr,
Cofidis) all same time. British 17, G Thomas
(INEOS Grenadiers) 5:25; 50, H Wood (Cofidis)
7:16; 59, B Swift (INEOS Grenadiers) 7:47; 66, C
Swift (INEOS Grenadiers) 9:15. Overall 1, T
Pogacar (Slove, UAE Team Emirates)
45:22:35; 2, D Martínez (Col, BORA-hansgrohe)
at 2:40; 3, G Thomas 2:56; 4, B O’Connor (Aus,
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) 3:39; 5, A Tiberi
(It, Bahrain Victorious) 4:27; 6, R Bardet (Fr,
dsm-firmenich PostNL) 4:57; 7, L Fortunato (It,
Astana Qazaqstan) 5:19; 8, F Zana (It, Jayco-
the computer games industry, long-
haul flights have become the norm.
He has been competing on the pro
circuit for more than two years, and
in that time has been to Argentina,
Brazil, Rome and Dubai (twice). “It
would be my first time in Paris,” he
says. “So that would be cool.”
Having moved to the US at three,
Calvert now speaks with a soft
Californian accent and is home
schooled because of the sheer amount
of travelling involved with skating.
“My younger brother, he’s ten,
still goes to school as normal,”
Calvert says. “But I’ve been
home schooling for three or four
years now. It’s not too hard to
balance my schoolwork with
skating. I train for about 2½
hours a day. I wouldn’t
say I dislike school.
But I enjoy being
able to travel to all
these places.
“I like being
outdoors. I’m not really
into gaming. I’d rather be
outside, playing basketball. I
like track too. I have strong
legs so I’m a good sprinter.”
It is as a skater, however,
that he excels, and he is the
youngest of the male park
specialists competing in
Shanghai today.
His father saw
immediately that he was
a natural, and decided to
buy him a board. Calvert
was soon skating to and
Calvert started skating
at the age of seven
7.30 Handicap Chase (£12,254: 3m 1f) (10)
3.30 (6f) 1, Thunderous Love (Olivia Tubb,
25-1); 2, Revenue (5-1); 3, Dame Darcey (9-2).
8 ran. NR: Black Jack Davey, Layoftheland.
2 l, 1 l. J G Portman.
4.00 (1m 1f 201yd) 1, Master Builder (B D L
Sayette, 5-2); 2, Subsequent (10-1); 3, Crown Of
India (10-1). 9 ran. Hd, l. D Menuisier.
4.32 (1m 1f 201yd) 1, Oxford Comma
(H Crouch, 3-1 fav); 2, Galaxy Princess (22-1);
3, Power Of Destiny (12-1). 10 ran. NR:
Bittalemon, Catch The Light, French Mistress,
La Cadalora. 3 l, 1 l. R M Beckett.
5.02 (1m 4f 5yd) 1, East India Dock (R Havlin,
5-2); 2, Cracker Star (13-2); 3, Aulis (7-2). 5 ran.
NR: Spartan Warrior. 9 l, nk. J R Fanshawe.
Placepot: £105.70. Quadpot: £39.40.
York
Going: good
2.15 (5f) 1, Clarendon House (T Marquand,
8-1); 2, Looking For Lynda (15-2); 3, Spartan
Arrow (8-1). 17 ran. NR: Equilateral, One Night
Stand. 1 l, l. R M H Cowell.
2.45 (7f 192yd) 1, Point Lynas (C Rodriguez,
AlUla) 5:23; 9, E Rubio (Col, Movistar) 5:28; 10,
T Arensman (Neth, INEOS Grenadiers) 5:52.
Other British 66, B Swift 1:24:55.
Darts
BetMGM Premier League 16
Utilita Arena, Sheffield (England unless
stated): Quarter-finals L Littler bt P Wright
(Scot) 6-4; M Smith bt N Aspinall 6-3; L
Humphries bt G Price (Wales) 6-4; M van
Gerwen (Neth) bt R Cross 6-4. Semi-final
Smith bt Littler 6-5.
Golf
Women’s Amundi German Masters
Berlin: Leading first-round scores (Great
Britain and Irelnad unless stated): 68 P
from school, while also developing his
skills at local skate parks.
The presence at the Olympics of
sports such as skateboarding and
breaking divide opinion. But compare
skating with, say, track cycling, where
a bike that allows you to be
competitive can cost tens of thousands
of pounds, and there really is no
contest when it comes to inclusion
and accessibility.
Calvert details the price of his
equipment. “I use Bones wheels and
they are about 40 bucks [US
dollars] for a set,” he says. “And
then a really good board, when
you take in the cost of the trucks
and the tape, can be up to about
200 bucks [about £158].”
This seems very cheap; not
much more, from memory,
than it was in the 1970s,
when all we wanted for
Christmas was a
Grentec GT Coyote or,
better still, a board
boasting a set of Kryptonics
wheels. “Skateboarding is for
everyone,” Calvert says.
“That’s one of the cool things
about the sport — you can
skate anywhere and you find
yourself in a public skate park
with someone like Tony
Hawk [a pioneer and skating
legend] and can see that they
have the same equipment.
“Age doesn’t really matter
either. I think it helps that I’m
young, my muscles are more
flexible. But really there are no
advantages or disadvantages.
Everyone can compete at the
same level.”
8.05 Handicap Hurdle (£3,961: 2m 4f) (14)
6-1); 2, Northern Express (8-1); 3, Bopedro 3, Briefly (13-2). 13 ran. NR: Desirable Walk.
(16-1). 17 ran. NR: Dashing Roger, Metal 6 l, 1 l. N J Henderson.
Merchant, Navagio. Nk, 3 l. E Bethell. 5.40 (3m 1f 166yd hdle) 1, Earth King
3.15 (1m 2f 56yd) 1, Bluestocking (Rossa Ryan, (H Cobden, 9-2); 2, Island Run (15-8); 3, Norton
5-2); 2, Free Wind (15-8 fav); 3, Infinite Cosmos Hill (13-8 fav). 5 ran. 6l, 9l. N P Mulholland.
(7-1). 5 ran. NR: Novus. 6l, nk. R M Beckett.
6.10 (2m 3f 104yd ch) 1, Rajjamataz
3.45 (1m 2f 56yd) 1, Economics (T Marquand, (C Hammond, 5-1); 2, Millies Mite (11-2);
6-1); 2, Ancient Wisdom (7-4 fav); 3, War 3, Guivinec (15-8 fav). 9 ran. 10l, 2 l. Dr
Rooms (25-1). 7 ran. 6l, l. W J Haggas. R Newland & J Insole.
4.15 (5f) 1, Big Evs (T Marquand, 4-7 fav);
6.40 (2m 1f 162yd hdle) 1, Mermaids Cave (Mr
2, Sommelier (12-1); 3, Dark Vintage (14-1). A Chadwick, 11-8 fav); 2, Executive Pool (11-2);
7 ran. 1 l, 1 l. M Appleby. 3, Gorcombe Moonshine (9-1). 12 ran. 2l, 5l.
4.45 (6f) 1, Andesite (D Tudhope, 7-2); 2, Yah James Owen.
Mo Be There (7-1); 3, Jorge Alvares (40-1). 7.10 (2m 3f 29yd hdle) 1, Hecouldbetheone
11 ran. NR: Mr Chaplin. Sh hd, 3 l. K R Burke. (Mr A Chadwick, 6-5 fav); 2, Baltray (100-30);
5.20 (1m 3f 188yd) 1, London City (R L Moore, 3, Cape Vidal (4-1). 4 ran. NR: Baddesley,
11-2); 2, Align The Stars (11-2); 3, Palace Green Thahab Ifraj. 2 l, 17l. James Owen.
(9-2). 8 ran. NR: Per Contra. 1l, 3l. A P O’Brien. 7.40 (2m 1f 165yd ch) 1, Call Off The Dogs
Placepot: £32.00. Quadpot: £6.50. (Caoilin Quinn, 11-4); 2, Ferrybridge (2-1);
3, Kalkas (7-4 fav). 4 ran. 6l, 5l. G & J Moore.
Fontwell Park 8.10 (2m 1f 162yd Flat) 1, Groovy Blue
Going: good to soft (good in places) (B Jones, 9-1); 2, Jubilant (10-11 fav); 3, Elysian
5.10 (2m 1f 162yd hdle) 1, Break My Soul Knight (5-1). 12 ran. 2 l, 8l. B Pauling.
(J Bowen, 1-3 fav); 2, Shantwopointfive (10-1); Placepot: £32.00. Quadpot: £15.30.
Fixtures
Schmidt (Ger). 69 M Oertengren (Swe), E Spitz
(Austria). 70 A Försterling (Ger), N Komulainen Football
(Fin), A Utama (Tha), A Belac (Slove), O
Mehaffey, T Chan (HK), T Arafi (Switz), 71 B Law,
Sky Bet Championship play-offs: Semi-final,
M Stavnar (Nor), L Fünfstück (Ger), C Gorlei
second leg Southampton (0) v West
Bromwich (0) (8.0).
(SA), L Sobron (Sp), L Walsh, C Chevalier (Fr). 72
A Prashanth (India), H Briem (Ger), G Cowley, C Cinch Scottish Premiership play-offs:
Gainer, C Palomar-Herbin (Fr), J Melichova Semi-final, second leg Raith Rovers (2) v
(Cz), I Laklalech (Mor), O Sattayabanphot Partick Thistle (1) (7.45).
(Tha), S Gal (Ger), L Osala (Fin), T Malik (India).
Cinch Scottish League One pay-offs: Final,
second leg The Spartans (1) v Dumbarton (2)
Tennis (7.30).
Internazionali BNL d’Italia
Rome: Men: Quarter-finals T Paul (US) bt
Cricket
H Hurkacz (Pol) 7-5, 3-6, 6-3; N Jarry (Chile) bt Vitality County Championship: First day
S Tsitsipas (Gr) 3-6, 7-5, 6-4. Women: Semi- of four (11.0; 96 overs minimum): Division
final I Swiatek (Pol) bt C Gauff (US) 6-4, 6-3. One: Chelmsford Essex v Warwickshire.
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
While he receives support from
Skateboard GB as well as some expert
guidance, Calvert is essentially self-
coached. His mum, Lisa, has an
acquired knowledge of the sport that
allows her to give an opinion — it is
likely that a parent would have to stay
with him at the Olympic village, given
that he would have just turned 14 —
but he selects his own routines and
the tricks he will attempt. “Yeah, I’ll
decide,” he says. “Before the contest
the judges make a video that is sent to
all the athletes, outlining what they
are looking for. You kind of feed off
the energy of what everyone is doing.”
He thrives on being in the company
of the skaters he so admires. He has
performed his tricks at the park on
Venice Beach with Great Britain’s Sky
Brown, who won a bronze medal in
Tokyo at the age of 13, and says he
likes the style of Keegan Palmer,
Australia’s 21-year-old defending
Olympic champion, the American
Jagger Eaton and Brazil’s Pedro
Barros. The world No 1, Gavin Bottger,
another American, is only 17.
“It’s exciting and having it at the
Games will make other kids want to
skate,” Calvert says. “I think it was one
of the most-watched sports at the last
Olympics, but because of Covid
nobody could see it live. This time
people will be able to watch it and
you’ll feel the energy. The mega ramp
is not in the Olympics but there will
be lots of cool stuff. Tickets have
already sold out.
“It’s also one of those sports that
almost anyone can win on the day.
Just to get to the Olympics would be a
great achievement. But if I do qualify,
I think I have a chance of doing well.”
8.40 NH Flat Race (£4,423: 2m 1f) (12)
Lingfield Park
Going: standard
5.52 (1m 4f) 1, Sun Dancer Girl (C Hutchinson,
10-1); 2, Miss Dubai (20-1); 3, Marmalade Lady
(14-1). 10 ran. ns, 1 l. A M Balding.
6.22 (1m 7f 169yd) 1, Abraaj (J Mitchell,
2-1 fav); 2, Young Endless (15-2); 3,
Doublethetrouble (9-1). 9 ran. 3l, nk. S Pearce.
6.52 (6f) 1, Symbol Of Honour (H Davies,
9-4 fav); 2, Afentiko (5-1); 3, Feeraas (11-2).
8 ran. 3 l, 3 l. C Appleby.
7.22 (4f 217yd) 1, It’s Showtime (J Gilligan,
10-3 fav); 2, So Obsessed (4-1); 3, Sir Bolton
(4-1). 10 ran. NR: Majolica. 2 l, 1l. C Allen.
7.52 (4f 217yd) 1, Cinque Verde (J Doughty, 7-2
jt-fav); 2, Bang On The Bell (13-2); 3, Skallywag
Bay (7-2 jt-fav). 7 ran. 1 l, ns. A Carroll.
8.22 (6f) 1, Arlecchino’s Gift (G Rooke, 13-2);
2, Diamond Dreamer (11-2); 3, Profit And Loss
(9-4 fav). 10 ran. 1l, 2 l. M D I Usher.
Placepot: £304.20.
Quadpot: £8.00.
Blackpool Lancashire v Durham. Trent
Bridge Nottinghamshire v Hampshire.
Taunton Somerset v Kent. Kia Oval
Surrey v Worcestershire. Division Two:
Derby:Derbyshire v Northamptonshire.
Sophia Gardens Glamorgan v Middlesex.
Leicester Leicestershire v Gloucestershire.
Hove Sussex v Yorkshire.
Second women’s Twenty20 international:
Northampton England v Pakistan (6.30).
Rugby union
Gallagher Premiership (7.45): Newcastle
Falcons v Bath; Sale Sharks v Leicester Tigers.
United Rugby Championship (7.35):
Dragons v Stormers; Edinburgh v Zebre.
the times | Friday May 17 2024 57

Giavellotto set for repeat Cup win
Rob Wright Racing Editor
Giavellotto won the Boodles Yorkshire
Cup (3.45) 12 months ago and he is
taken to stage a repeat in a fascinating
renewal on the Knavesmire today.
He has run well on both starts this
year, finishing third to Tower Of
London at Riyadh and then fifth behind
the same rival in group two company at
Meydan. On each occasion he has
given weight to his rival, who reopposes
today, but the tables are turned here as
he receives 3lb from Tower Of London.
That should be enough for him to
reverse the form at a track that suits.
The Dante Stakes usually offers use-
ful clues for the Derby at Epsom but
yesterday’s renewal merely served to
muddy the waters. Economics, trained
by William Haggas, was an impressive
six-length winner but he is not entered
in the Derby, having been pulled out at
the latest confirmation stage. He could
still run at Epsom on June 1 if connec-
tions want to pay a £75,000 supplemen-
tary entry fee, but that seems unlikely.
Corach Rambler is retired
Corach Rambler, who won the 2023
Grand National at Aintree and finished
third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in
March, has been retired at the age of ten.
Lucinda Russell, his trainer, revealed
the news on X, saying: “We have decid-
ed that Corach Rambler is going to be
retired. In some ways the decision is
laced with sadness. Corach has been a
horse of a lifetime for his seven-strong
Racing Sport
syndicate of owners who won the
greatest steeplechase in the world.
More than anything we want him to go
out at the top, in excellent physical
condition and able to hopefully enjoy a
long and happy retirement.”
Twice a winner at the Cheltenham
Festival, he unseated rider Derek Fox at
the first fence when bidding for a
second National at Aintree last month.

v
York
Rob Wright

2.15 Clipper EBF Marygate Fillies' Stakes ITV

(Listed) (2-Y-O: £39,697: 5f) (16 runners runners)
4.15 Darley EBF Novice Stakes ITV
(£20,616: 1m) (6)
5.20 Irish Thoroughbred Marketing
v Handicap (3-Y-O: £12,885: 5f) (20)
3.15 Sky Bet Fillies' Stakes (Listed) ITV
(Registered As The Michael Seely
Memorial Fillies' Stakes)
(3-Y-O: £39,697: 1m) (9)
v

v
4.45 Yorkshire Equine Practice Handicap
(£12,885: 7f) (20)

2.45 Knights Solicitors Handicap ITV

(£25,770: 1m 2f) (16)

v 3.45 Boodles Yorkshire Cup Stakes ITV

(British Champions Series)
(Group 2: £102,078: 1m 6f) (7)

3.30 Novice Stakes (3-Y-O: £6,480: 7f) (20) 3.53 Novice Stakes 6.05 Maiden Stakes (2-Y-O: £4,860: 5f) (5)
Newbury (2-Y-O: £15,462: 6f) (13)
Rob Wright 5.40 Handicap (£5,757: 1m 4f) (12)

6.40 Handicap (£5,286: 6f) (7)

2.00 Handicap (£5,757: 1m) (13)

Newmarket 4.25 Handicap (£10,308: 1m 4f) (8)

Rob Wright 7.15 Handicap (£15,462: 1m 4f) (6)

4.00 Maiden Stakes

(Div I: 3-Y-O: £6,480: 1m 2f) (12)

2.30 Handicap (£18,900: 1m 2f) (15) ITV

2.23 Handicap (£4,381: 7f) (11)

7.50 Handicap (£3,664: 1m) (11)

4.55 Handicap (3-Y-O: £4,381: 6f) (13)

4.35 Maiden Stakes

(Div II: 3-Y-O: £6,480: 1m 2f) (12)

2.53 Novice Stakes (3-Y-O: £5,154: 1m) (15)

8.25 Handicap (3-Y-O: £3,664: 1m 1f) (8)

3.00 Maiden Stakes (2-Y-O: £6,480: 6f) (20)

Hamilton Park
Rob Wright

5.10 Handicap (3-Y-O: £5,757: 1m 2f) (13) 9.00 Handicap (£3,664: 6f) (11)
5.30 Handicap (£3,664: 5f) (8)

3.23 Handicap (3-Y-O: £10,308: 1m) (6)

58
Sport Rugby union
What it is like to lose every
As Newcastle look set to
suffer league whitewash,
John Westerby recalls
other members of club
no one wants to join
ocus on the process rather
F than the outcome, they say,
and if the quality of your
performance is good enough,
the results will come. Well,
try telling all that to the players of
Newcastle Falcons, rock bottom of the
Gallagher Premiership, who will finish
a full season of defeats if they lose
away to Gloucester tomorrow.
Played 17, lost 17, their record reads.
For most of the players, it is a dream
come true to play professional sport
for a living. But how do you keep
going throughout a long season, in
such a physically demanding sport,
when the results are so relentlessly
bleak? As Steve Diamond, the Falcons
director of rugby since January, said:
“It’s very difficult to have any
positivity in the building when you
keep losing every week.”
If Newcastle’s young side are
indeed beaten by Gloucester to
complete their whitewash, they
will not be the first Premiership
team to draw a blank for a full
season. The same happened
to Rotherham Titans in
2003-04 and London
Welsh in 2014-15, two
teams promoted from the
Championship who did
not have the time or
resources to assemble a
squad capable of
competing in the
top tier and so were
unceremoniously
relegated again.
In contrast, Newcastle’s
owners have cut their spending
a season after three other
Premiership clubs — Worcester
Warriors, Wasps and London
Irish — went bust. With no
credible threat of
Thorpe’s London Welsh
had no lighting for
winter training
WE M B L E Y
OR BUST BRING IT ON
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SOUTHAMPTON v WEST BROM
relegation they relied on a young and
inexperienced squad and prepared to
suffer short-term pain in the hope of
avoiding the fate suffered by those
other three clubs.
Newcastle have at least cobbled
together five bonus points, four of
which were losing bonus points for
coming within seven of their
opponents. Rotherham managed three
of those, but London Welsh never
came that close to winning a match.
Their solitary point in that 2014-15
season was for scoring four tries in an
early-season game away to Bath.
Their narrowest losing margin was a
24-13 defeat at home to Harlequins
and over the course of a 22-match
season their points difference finished
as a whopping minus 798. The average
scoreline was a 46-10 defeat.
How did they stay motivated? “Up
until Christmas, it was very painful,”
Richard Thorpe, the former London
Welsh flanker, said. “We were being
outgunned everywhere but we were
still hoping we’d get a win. By
Christmas we’d accepted as a group
that a win probably wasn’t going to
happen. So we set ourselves a target
only to lose by 20 points or under. If
we did that, it was a win for us. That
really lifted the pressure and helped
us come back together.”
The writing had been on the wall
in their first game. After beating
Bristol in a two-legged play-off to
secure promotion, their first
game was at home to Exeter
Chiefs. The phrase “at home”
rings a little hollow here,
though, because they had
relocated from Old Deer
Park in Richmond to the
Kassam Stadium in
Oxford to satisfy
Premiership entry
requirements. Among
traditional London
Welsh supporters in
southwest London there was
little enthusiasm for the move,
despite the late signings of high-
profile half backs in Piri Weepu,
a World Cup winner with New
Zealand in 2011, and Olly Barkley,
the former England fly half.
The crowd for that first game was
2,776. “I reckon 2,500 of those were
Exeter fans,” Thorpe said. “We’re back
in the Prem, we’ve signed Piri
TARY
20:00 K.O
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Weepu, we’re up against it but we’re
ready to give it a go. And we get
beaten 52-0 in front of an Exeter
crowd in our home ground.”
The next game did actually
generate a degree of optimism. That
was the visit to Bath, where London
Welsh scored four tries and remained
in the contest until the final ten
minutes, only to finish 53-26. “I think
that game gave us some belief for
quite a few weeks afterwards,” Thorpe
said. “You’ve got to hang on to any
little bit of hope you can. But then you
get three months without a win and it
becomes harder to believe.”
Enthusiasm for the job becomes
harder to sustain as winter draws in
especially if, like London Welsh, your
training facilities are not on a par with
the wealthier Premiership clubs. “The
toughest bit of the season was
November and early December, the
nights start drawing in and we haven’t
got floodlights on training at Old Deer
Park,” Thorpe said.
“After some of those Tuesday
afternoon full-contact training
sessions, you’re saying to yourself,
‘Why am I doing this?’ You start to
weigh up where your life is going at
those points. But you find out about
people at times like that. Others
struggled. Like Warren Buffett said,
‘When the tide goes out, you find out
who’s been swimming naked.’ ”
In March, after 17 defeats, the head
coach Justin Burnell was sacked and
replaced by Rowland Phillips. Alex
Codling, the Newcastle coach, made it
through to January this year and lost
his job after 11 defeats. At Rotherham
in 2003-04 a change was made in
early December, again after 11 defeats,
with Mike Schmid replaced by Steph
Nel, a little-known South African who
had been coaching Connacht.
Yet all three of those teams had
known they were facing a steep uphill
battle from the start. London Welsh
did not know they would be playing in
the Premiership until they had beaten
Bristol in the play-off final on June 4,
by which time the vast majority of
players of Premiership calibre had
signed elsewhere. London Welsh
made 25 signings, but few of the
requisite quality. Rotherham had
similar difficulties after winning
promotion in 2003, but found that
other Premiership clubs were hanging Newcastle Falcons are unable to stop a Sale Sharks try, with the club ownership
TONIGHT
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the times | Friday May 17 2024 59

Sport

game in a season Give Curry a rest,

it’s time to have
A woeful season in brief
Their narrowest defeats:
Newcastle 14 Gloucester 18
Second league game of the season, a late
Falcons rally — but fell just short
Newcastle 14 Northampton Saints 16
All-square at half-time with the club now
top of the table, but let it slip away
Newcastle 13 Leicester Tigers 19
After the Six Nations break, Leicester had
three men sin-binned but hung on
. . . and the most galling:
Bristol Bears 85 Newcastle Falcons 14
Thirteen tries for the home side
on to more fringe players with a
World Cup to be played over the first
two months of the 2003-04 season.
They too moved grounds to comply
with Premiership entry requirements.
But some of their backroom operation
was still more in keeping with the
amateur days. “We had no analysis of
a look at Mercer
any opposition,” Nick Lloyd, the doesn’t have what it takes at the next
former Rotherham prop, said. “We level but his recent club CV demands
Stuart Barnes
were so far behind the curve in terms at the very least the opportunity to
of what others were doing. We’d just make his case.
turn up and play our game.” It is a complex call because
Nel’s coaching methods also proved England’s outstanding Six Nations
somewhat unorthodox. Rotherham’s performer was their starting No 8,
best chance of a victory came when Ben Earl. This was a triumph for the
they were leading Gloucester 16-0 at England management team, who

having fielded an inexperienced side to keep short-term costs down this season
Bearman begins audition for Haas seat
Formula 1
Molly Hudson Motor Racing Reporter
The British teenager Oliver Bearman
will today begin his push to prove to
Haas that he should claim their vacant
seat in Formula 1 next season.
Bearman, 19, is the favourite to
replace Nico Hülkenberg, who is
departing at the end of the season to join
Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber on a multi-
year deal, with the team becoming Audi
in 2026. The teenager, who impressed in
his last-minute F1 debut in Saudi
Arabia in March, is a Ferrari reserve
driver. He is driving in six practice
sessions for Haas, Ferrari’s customer
team this season, the first of which is
today at Imola.
“Of course I see it [Hülkenberg’s
departure] as my chance but just
because there is a seat free doesn’t mean
I’m entitled to it,” Bearman said. “I still
have to go out there and earn it through
good performances in F2, but even
more so the six FPs [free practices] that
I’m doing. I have to perform well and
show that I’m ready to win the F1 [seat].”
B
How they stand half-time. But Nel had decided before ad news for Sale Sharks; ignored his overwhelming experience
P W D L F A B Pts
Northampton 17 12 0 5 543 410 12 60 the match that he would rotate his good news for England. as an out-and-out open-side flanker
Saracens 17 11 0 6 512 367 12 56 back row for the second half: he Tom Curry isn’t quite ready for Saracens and stuck him at the
Bath 17 10 0 7 468 401 15 55 removed the influential Des Tuavi’i for Sale’s crucial visit to base of the scrum, where his
Sale 17 11 0 6 390 374 8 52
Exeter 17 10 0 7 490 397 10 50 and Neil Spence and Gloucester ran Saracens for the last round dynamism was England’s most
Harlequins 17 9 0 8 458 467 14 50 out 35-21 winners. “Steph polarised of Gallagher Premiership regular- explosive attacking weapon.
Bristol 17 10 0 7 538 419 9 49 opinion,” Lloyd said. “There were season fixtures. The titanic back-row Far from Earl’s form being a reason
Leicester 17 8 0 9 395 386 8 40
Gloucester 17 4 0 13 346 581 11 27
some strategies we’d never seen before forward is running out of chances to to overlook Mercer, that successful
Newcastle 17 0 0 17 239 577 5 5 and we’d never see again.” prove himself fit for the England tour gamble should encourage England to
In spite of the turmoil, Rotherham to Japan and New Zealand. think similarly original thoughts.
remained competitive. “We had a Sale’s season could come to an end Who knows whether Mercer can
really good pack, which meant we tomorrow. If that is the case, Curry translate his Montpellier/Gloucester
were never easy to play against,” Lloyd will not have played a solitary minute form into the international arena?
said. “The spirit generally remained of rugby in 2024 since the hip Only the evidence of a Test
good, although it got tough in the last operation that ruled him out of the performance can tell us. It would be
couple of months and behind the Six Nations. The easy option for the both a travesty and mistake to leave
scenes it was pretty chaotic. But we England head coach, Steve Mercer behind.
always knew it wasn’t a level playing Borthwick, would be to leave Curry in Chandler Cunningham-South is a
field that season.” the northern hemisphere to complete 21-year-old with Kiwi roots. Ethan
The season ended with Rotherham his rehabilitation in somewhere less Roots (and Mercer himself, whose
the subject of a proposed takeover by challenging than the great rugby father was a distinguished New
a group of South African stronghold of the All Blacks. Zealand rugby league international) is
businessmen. The aim was to relocate There is, of course, the possibility of another whose game was grown in
them to become London Tribe, a club using what should be a tricky but less the “Land of the Long White Cloud”.
in the capital that expatriate South demanding game against Japan to A man of Lincolnshire, Ollie
Africans could support. That did not ease Curry in. Yet the thought of then Chessum, is unavailable because of a
happen but Rotherham never facing the All Blacks with so little shoulder operation. The Leicester
returned to the Premiership and this rugby under his belt seems something Tigers star is a terrific option as a
season they have played in the fourth of a gamble. Especially when England second-row turned blind-side, adding
tier of English rugby, earning have so many back-row options to another element to the lineout.
promotion to National League One. work through before deciding upon He is the nearest England have to
London Welsh, after their the best combinations. the next Courtney Lawes. His
relegation, played another season and Borthwick knows what Curry is unavailability is a blow but it is a
a half in the Championship before capable of. A fully fit Curry is an wonderful opportunity for Borthwick
their pursuit of Premiership rugby immense asset. Even more handy to take both Roots and Cunningham-
caught up with them and they were would be for England to be assured of South and establish whether one is
expelled from the second tier after the strength in depth of their back ahead of the other in the pecking
going into liquidation. Their amateur row by the time the three-match tour order or if the two work in tandem:
team finished third this season in is over. To achieve this, Borthwick one starting, the other finishing.
Regional 1 South Central, the fifth tier needs to select the combinations with Roots, of Exeter Chiefs, is the
of the game. All of which is a warning the potential to star in the future, in selfless type of player who may enable
for Newcastle, with the English club particular at the 2027 World Cup in Mercer, for instance, to be freed up as
system in disarray. They aren’t very Australia. a creative force. Cunningham-South,
good this season, but they still exist. If the head coach knows what to the Harlequins youngster, has made
expect from the Sale man, there is giant strides this season. He is a more
one player about whom the general obvious ball-carrier, a man to get his
public hasn’t a clue, certainly as far as team over the gainline.
the Borthwick era is
concerned. Zach Mercer has
to be seen in an England
Last week the most prominent
back-rower on display in the Exeter
rout of Harlequins was Greg Fisilau.
Surrounded by the world’s media at but Bearman is ready if the Dane does shirt if the theory that he He bettered the England No 8 Alex
Haas’ motorhome, Bearman took a face punishment. isn’t the right fit for Dombrandt but — post Toulouse —
picture of the array of phones in front of “I’m going to be in Canada as a re- Borthwick’s team is to have Harlequins were exhausted.
him, a sign that all the attention serve for Ferrari, but I’m also a reserve credence. Twice capped This was no level playing
directed towards him is still something for Haas when I’m a reserve for Ferrari, under Eddie Jones in field. Dombrandt is both
of a novelty. His focus, though, is clear: so of course I’m ready [if Magnussen is 2018, he was a different, a subtle lineout
that these practice sessions will be banned]. I showed in Saudi Arabia that less complete player then. forward and an
crucial to determining his future, as will I’m ready. It’s never the way you want to To play a part in immensely skilled
his progression in F2. do a race if something like that happens, Montpellier winning the ball-carrier. Does
“I haven’t been set any goals, no, but I’ll happily oblige,” he added. Top 14 title in 2022 and he have what it
the pressure is mainly coming Meanwhile Adrian Newey, to be adjudged Top 14 takes against
from myself,” Bearman Red Bull’s departing chief player of the season is the All Blacks,
said. “I just want to keep Emilia technical officer, has said some testimony. I am or is Fisilau
learning, keep improv- he expects to join not sure whether his the rising star?
ing. Every time I drive Romagna GP another team after his persistent excellence in a And what about Sam Underhill,
the F1 car I’m increasing Qualifying: tomorrow, exit. In Miami this bedraggled Gloucester Curry’s “Kamikaze kid” brother
my experience. These from 3pm month Christian Horn- team isn’t an even greater when England were last in Japan?
six FPs are great er, the team principal, statement. Curry should not be hurried back
opportunities to prove Race: Sunday, 2pm explained that Newey no He is a fantastic footballer into Test action. Mercer should be
my talent.” TV: Sky Sports F1 longer has access to data, with an incredible array of given an opportunity. Earl is a
He could get another sits out all weekend briefings attacking options. There is definite starter, but where? There
chance in a full race weekend other than race strategy and is something of the Ardie Savea in are an exciting set of options
this season, with the Haas driver not drawing any parts for the car. him but, until this mature version in a back row of potential
Kevin Magnussen having accrued ten That is crucial given that Newey can steps on to the Test stage, we will fluidity but selection will
penalty points on his licence, only two join a rival next spring. Ferrari are the not know whether he has Ardie’s not be straightforward.
short of a race ban. Magnussen favourites to sign him, while Aston Mar- iron in the soul. Borthwick can no
admitted that he will “have to” race tin are also understood to have made a longer justify omitting Mercer Mercer’s club form for Gloucester
differently to avoid further penalties, bid for the Englishman’s services. from his squad. Perhaps he warrants a place on England’s tour
60 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Sport Boxing

Meet 19-year-old
who sparred with
Joshua and wants
Tyson’s record
Moses Itauma trained with overawed by a big stage in Riyadh’s Kingdom
Arena.
Olympian while still at school “A lot of things are out of my reach and
control, but if I keep blasting these boys out like I
and wants to become youngest am then I believe I can achieve it,” he says.
There is much to like about Itauma, who has a
heavyweight world champion, Nigerian father and Slovakian mother and
moved to the UK when he was a toddler. At
he tells Rick Broadbent school in Kent he hated bullies and would be the
unofficial vigilante. Here, he has been concerned

M
oses Itauma used to take time out
from school to climb into a ring
with some of boxing’s battle-
gnarled leviathans. He would even
have to change out of his uniform
before sparring with the likes of Joe Joyce and
later Anthony Joshua. The oddity of that after-
school club is partly why many believe he is not
merely doing the boasty boxer drill when the 19-
year-old states his aim of becoming the youngest
world heavyweight
champion in history.
That accolade
belongs at present to
the raw wrecking
ball that was Mike
Tyson, who was 20
years and 145 days
when he knocked
out Trevor Berbick
in the second round
at the Las Vegas
Hilton in 1986.
Remarkably, that
was Tyson’s 28th
fight in 20 months as
a professional.
Itauma has won his eight
bouts since turning pro at
the start of last year, just
after his 18th birthday. His
debut, which came minutes
after watching his brother
Karol, a Youth Olympics
champion, suffer a loss,
lasted three punches and 23
seconds. In black and white, his
ambition sounds like outlandish
attention-seeking, but add the
palpable belief evident in his tone, as
well as the surprise at being questioned
about it, and you wonder if the older generation
will be left in his contrails.
“I’m not one of those people who just says
things and doesn’t want to do it,” he says in
advance of a step up in class on the undercard of
Tyson Fury’s clash with Oleksandr Usyk for the
undisputed heavyweight title. Itauma’s opponent,
Ilja Mezencev, is a German with 21 knockouts in
28 fights, but having sparred with Fury too and
been part of his camp, Itauma is unlikely to be
about the shooting of the Slovakian prime
minister, Robert Fico, and although he has
attracted wild praise from the great and good
during undercard cameos, he speaks with a
flatliner calm that verges on boredom.
So when Tyson offered some advice to Itauma,
known as “Enriko”, when he was on the card for
Fury’s bout with Francis Ngannou last October,
he was far from giddy. “If I was overwhelmed by
people I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said.
“Mike Tyson has
achieved a lot of
great things in his
career but he’s only a
human being. It was
a privilege to be in
his presence, but he’s
human, I’m human,
I don’t idolise people
like that. I have
taken more
inspiration from
working with Tyson
Fury in Saudi Itauma, who has been part of Fury’s preparations, below left, for his showdown with Usyk tomorrow
Arabia. We don’t night, and will feature on the undercard in Riyadh, displays a maturity beyond his years as he seeks
have the same to become the youngest world heavyweight champion since Tyson defeated Berbick, above left
upbringing, but it’s
not too different, and I’m Then you go into this sort of worry about how says, adding that school taught him how to be
learning from him. That was they are doing. Obviously, a lot of people have around people and to communicate.
more valuable than meeting died in the ring or not been the same afterwards. In 2022 he became the World Youth Amateur
Mike Tyson.” You do have that real sense of worry. People Champion in Spain but, to outsiders, it is the idea
So what has Fury told have kids to go home to, families to go home to, of the schoolboy stepping into a ring with the
him? “The ins and outs of and you’re not trying to knock someone out for likes of Joyce and Joshua — who won the world
boxing, a few tips, but he a lifetime, just those ten seconds. It is a sport and title when Itauma was 11 years old — that strains
also said he could tell me a it’s a business. You want to maximise everything belief. “The first time I sparred with Joe Joyce
million things but I was never you can and get out.” was Year 11,” he says. That is GCSE year in old
going to know what it’s going Fury is 35 and Usyk is 37. Itauma says money. “I see that as normal. If I saw it as
to be like until I experience it for scientific advances are enabling boxers to stretch abnormal I wouldn’t be here. I was 6ft 4in when
myself. I have set myself big goals, their careers while looking after themselves, but I was 15. I feel like I have stopped growing up
but it will be baby steps to get there.” he does not paper over the potential and started growing width-wise.”
Few sports are so addicted to the quest for consequences with youthful bravado. “The most He had added a couple of inches by the time
the next big thing as boxing. The blood is often heartbreaking thing was going to a dinner in Frank Warren signed him and the promoter
wet and the bruises barely blue before fans, Saudi Arabia and seeing a lot of old fighters who wasted no time in hailing him as the future of
promoters and journalists look ahead to the next were punch-drunk,” he says. “I thought I can’t be the division. Again, Itauma shows an
fight. Yet Itauma, who was sitting ringside with in this boxing game too long. I have this window encouraging lack of enthusiasm for such
his family during Fury’s public workout in a and have to make the most of it.” accolades. “The best thing is not to listen to
theme park on Wednesday night, is well aware of He says he was a good student until around praise,” he says. “I have not listened to the people
the dangers inherent in his nascent career and Year 9 when he started misbehaving and “not who said I couldn’t get to this position. And I
the power in his hands. taking it serious”. Now, at the ripe old age of 19, haven’t listened to the people who said I could. I
Describing a knockout, he says: “At first you he looks back and says his school days were the knew what I was capable of and I intend to leave
have a bit of joy that they are not getting up. best days of his life. “I was a bit of an idiot,” he my mark on history.”

Fury and Usyk opt for poetry and peace over face-off fireworks
continued from back
from the scenes that marred the media
day on Monday when Fury’s father,
John, headbutted a member of
Team Usyk.
Indeed Fury even declined to stare at
Usyk in the traditional face-off,
prompting social media psychologists
to say that he was concerned. Fury’s
explanation, however, was: “He’s a
scary-looking dude.”
As for Usyk, he kept his last media predicting a tough night ed a “great fight”. away Monday’s headbutt by telling
address even briefer, saying: “I’m happy tomorrow. Lewis and Evander the audience at Wednesday’s public
to be here. I’m excited. I’m grateful. SugarHill Steward, Fury v Usyk Holyfield, the man he beat workout that “we’ve lost our way” in
Let’s make history. Enough.” Quizzed Fury’s trainer, predicted to claim that accolade in the UK.
on a drawing he had been doing, he said a knockout for his man, Kingdom Arena, 1999, were sitting next to Maybe, but boxing is about fighters
it was his “homework”. but also caught the Riyadh each other in the crowd. rather than those living vicariously
If anything summed up the subdued sentimental mood Tomorrow, from 7pm The urge for wistful through the skill and bravery of others
mood it was the fact the most aggres- when talking about his TV: Sky Sports Box
nostalgia when it comes in hotel walkways.
sive act was when Usyk’s manager late uncle Manny, Office, TNT Sports Box
to huge heavyweight The two undefeated boxing
quoted Longfellow at Fury. “Into each renowned for his work Office, DAZN PPV
contests is natural and it is champions have clearly had enough of
life some rain must fall, some days must with Lewis, the last undis- exacerbated when you listen the build-up. It is almost time for the
be dark and dreary,” he said, by way of puted champion. He predict- to a man like John Fury explain combinations to replace the couplets.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
The day when ECB boffins
analysed my ‘right-arm filth’
Elizabeth Ammon
comes in off her long
run at Lord’s under
the gaze of the newest
technology available
M
y cricketing career
before this week
consisted of a handful
of Sunday friendlies for
my local club and a
couple of trial matches for MCC 20
years ago. These days you are far
more likely to find me on the
boundary with a scorebook and a
pencil case than in the middle.
So it was with a great deal of
trepidation that I agreed to have a
bowl on the Nursery Ground at
Lord’s in front of a handful of media
colleagues, the Sky Sports cameras,
a professional umpire and — most
intimidatingly of all — the ECB’s
data and insights team.
It was alarming to think of them
watching my “medium” pace —
known in the game as “right-arm
filth” — but far worse would be the
analysis produced by the innovative
technology, named iHawk, now being
used by the ECB in all men’s and
women’s professional cricket. The
fears multiplied in my mind: would I
even hit the cut strip? And what if I
bowled so slowly the technology
wouldn’t even register it?
Well, the results from the ECB jury
are in, and they are not pretty — but
more on that later.
The technology is fascinating and
genuinely game-changing for the way
promising bowlers can be identified
and their talent harnessed.
It relies on a camera, strapped to
the umpire’s chest, capturing five-
second clips. They are sent to a
mobile phone in the umpire’s back
pocket and then analysed via the
same Hawk-Eye technology used
for reviews in international cricket.
The team’s analyst can have the
information within a few balls if
there is fast wi-fi, meaning
messages can be passed to
players during breaks in play,
especially if the data has picked
up something less obvious to
the naked eye.
For each delivery, the
technology shows the tracking
of the ball (the flight, where it
pitched, and so on) as well as
the speed, swing and deviation.
It also records the angle of the
bowler’s spine, plus bounce, spin
and accuracy.
Last season, which was
essentially a pilot year for the
technology, it was used in 200
matches and analysed more
than 50,000 balls from 250
bowlers; this year it is being
deployed in all men’s and
women’s domestic matches.
There are differences to Hawk-Eye
and the way it is used in the Decision
Review System (DRS) to rule on
disputed umpiring calls. DRS needs
six to eight cameras, whereas this
tracking system has only one. Unlike
in DRS, this does not project the
expected route of the ball, just
tracks it.
Nonetheless, the data is considered
extremely valuable to England and
the counties for the spotting and
nurturing of young talent. Umpires
are also being encouraged to use it to
analyse their decision-making and
observe trends, while it also makes
the analysis of how pitches are
behaving more sophisticated.
Funded by the ECB, the data goes
to counties and helps analysts predict
how a bowler might develop, as well
as which scenarios and conditions
their attributes are suited to. England
are the only country using this
Ammon’s decidedly unremarkable overs, above, are tracked forensically
by iHawk, below; in its pilot year it has been used in 200 matches and has
given unprecedented insight to analysts on so many aspects of the game
technology, but there is
already interest from other
nations in purchasing the
intellectual property, jointly
owned by the ECB and Hawk-
Eye. The governing body
declined to say how much it
has cost to develop and roll out
iHawk, but it does say it has
already influenced selection
decisions, especially in cases
where relatively inexperienced
players have been fast-tracked.
Shoaib Bashir, the off
spinner, was picked for England
based on his technique and the
data from iHawk rather than
his first-class stats. When
England need a squad to tour
Australia, the data will be ordered
with a special focus on release height
and matches using Kookaburra balls,
which have been trialled in county
games.
The scouts, selectors, performance
directors and coaches are all given
several “dashboards” — one lists the
top ten bowlers in the country in
terms of speed, release height, swing
movement and seam movement.
So how did iHawk conclude I got
on? In a word: badly. I bowled a
couple of overs, most deliveries hit
the cut strip and were in the right half
of the pitch (which wasn’t the case for
all my journalist colleagues). One did
hit the stumps (it’s much easier to hit
the stumps when there isn’t a batter
there!) but several were horrible
leg-side wides, and one hit the
side-netting. My speeds were
embarrassingly slow, with a high of
39.4mph, comfortably slower than
most club seamers and even slower
than most professional spinners —
stand aside Shoaib Akhtar.
But it can be useful to be reminded
how huge the gulf is between the pros
and casual amateurs like me, and also
quite how much can be gleaned from
attaching a small camera to an
umpire’s chest.
At the moment the technology is
prohibitively expensive to be used
below professional level, but it is
developing so quickly that it may not
be long before it can be deployed in
club and junior cricket, and it may
even unearth some gems that haven’t
been picked up by the county system.
61
Cricket Sport
Queen’s to
host women’s
tournament
next year
Tennis
Elgan Alderman
The Queen’s Club will host a women’s
tennis tournament in 2025 for the first
time in more than 50 years as part of a
revamped grass-court calendar.
Last held in 1973, the women’s event
will take place the week after the French
Open, with the men’s tournament
following immediately after. There will
not be equal prize money across the two
as purses are set by the ATP and WTA.
The women’s tour has pledged to have
equal prize money at all 1000 level
events and some 500 level events — of
which Queen’s is one — by 2030. Carlos
Alcaraz, last year’s men’s champion,
received about £400,000 for winning.
The championships at Queen’s were
for men and women for almost 100
years until 1973, after which both were
discontinued because Nottingham
became the main event in the week
before Wimbledon. The Queen’s Club
Championships returned as a men-only
event in 1977.
In the 2025 calendar the Surbiton
Trophy, which will kick off the British
grass-court season next month, will no
longer exist. Its place, during the latter
half of the French Open, will be taken by
a new men’s and women’s challenger-
level event in Birmingham.
During the new Queen’s fortnight
there will be lower-level events in Ilkley
and Nottingham. After that, the head-
line event in the week before Wimble-
don will be Eastbourne, downgraded
from WTA 500 to 250 level because of
the Queen’s tournament. The quality of
the field on the south coast is likely to
decrease as a result, as it will clash with
the WTA 500 event in Bad Homburg,
Germany.
Part of the reason behind the change
is the belief at the LTA that players
would rather move straight on to a
high-profile grass tournament after
Roland Garros, rather than in the week
before Wimbledon. “We know that post
the clay-court season, players want to
move quickly to grass to maximise the
playing opportunities ahead of the
championships,” Chris Pollard, the
LTA’s digital and events director, said.
“We also give consideration to the fact
that fewer men typically play that third
week pre-Wimbledon.”
The LTA and All England Club have
been reviewing the six-week grass-
court season over the past two years.
Their objectives were to increase the
profile of the run-up to Wimbledon, to
promote women’s tennis to a larger
audience and to have all events as men’s
and women’s combined.
There were concerns that the grass at
Queen’s would suffer from two weeks of
play, but organisers are confident, from
Wimbledon’s example, that conditions
will remain suitable for the men’s event.
The ATP has given the green light for
next year, but no guarantee beyond
that. “The ATP would like to consider
what happens after 2025,” Pollard said.
“But we remain very confident that it
will be a permanent change.”
The BBC is in the final year of its
agreement to broadcast from Queen’s.
New rights will be in place for next year’s
tournaments, with terrestrial and pay-
TV options to be considered, although
Pollard said the championships would
remain on free-to-air channels.
The final Surbiton Trophy will begin
during week two of this year’s French
Open, with Andy Murray looking to
defend his title, which suggests he is not
expecting to go far at Roland Garros.
62
Sport Football
Infantino rolls back his own reforms
Fifa president pledged to
clean up governing body
but is now reversing his
changes, Martyn Ziegler
writes from Bangkok
E
ight years ago Gianni
Infantino was a member of
the Fifa reform committee
that introduced a series of
measures to rescue the
scandal-hit governing body from a
near-terminal crisis. Today, now as
Fifa president, Infantino will oversee
rule changes that critics say will roll
back some of the most important
reforms.
The 2024 Fifa Congress in Bangkok
is set to reverse a ban — brought in as
a result of the vote-rigging in 2010 for
Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and
2022 World Cups — on two World
Cups being awarded at the same time.
The statute change will allow Fifa to
award the 2030 and 2034 World Cups
later this year: to Spain , Portugal and
Morocco in 2030 (with three matches
in South America) and — more
importantly for Fifa and Infantino —
to Saudi Arabia in 2034.
The Fifa Congress will also vote to
multiply the number of committees
from seven to 35, even more than pre-
reform levels, in a move seen by some
as a return to the system of patronage
that the disgraced former president
Sepp Blatter had constructed.
When he was elected president in
2016 Infantino promised to clean up
Fifa after Blatter’s reign. Until then he
had kept a low profile in football
administration. A Swiss lawyer, he ran
Uefa’s legal department before
becoming general-secretary and found
himself thrust into the Fifa
presidential election after his boss
Michel Platini was banned from
standing. Infantino appeared to take
to flying in private jets and mixing
with political leaders and celebrity
chefs with relish. The grey suits were
replaced by designer hoodies and
white trainers and Infantino appeared
to be particularly drawn to Saudi
Arabia, perhaps anticipating the
country’s growing power in sport.
The change to allow the dual award
of World Cups follows Fifa’s sudden
decision in October to fast-track the
bidding process for the 2034
tournament to run alongside that for
2030. It caught most of the football
world by surprise and was seen as
stacking the deck in the favour of the
Saudis, now Infantino’s biggest allies.
The secret of Rice’s success? Pancakes Ten Hag hopes Maguire will
Tom Allnutt
Declan Rice has revealed the secret
behind his brilliant performances for
Arsenal this season: eating up to eight
pancakes before matches.
Rice has been nominated for the
Premier League’s player of the season
award after a superb first campaign for
the club, in which the 25-year-old has
been instrumental to Arsenal’s impress-
ive title challenge.
Only William Saliba has played more
than Rice’s 3,142 minutes for Mikel Ar-
teta’s side in the league and the former
West Ham United midfielder has made
a big impact offensively too, by contrib-
uting seven goals and eight assists.
Asked for the key to his energetic per-
formances, Rice told Men’s Health UK: “I
have four pancakes before a game.
Covered in syrup or honey. I swear to
Infantino heads the ball during a match in Bangkok, where he is hosting the 2024 Fifa Congress, right
Fifa’s surprise announcement gave
potential bidders less than four weeks
to register their interest. Within
minutes of the news, the Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman issued
a statement saying the Gulf kingdom
was bidding — it would turn out to be
the only bid. By contrast Australia,
which had previously indicated an
interest in 2034, was given no advance
warning of Fifa’s announcement.
Last month it was confirmed that
the Saudi state-owned oil giant
Aramco had become Fifa’s biggest
sponsor and been given a sponsor
category all of its own.
The inclusion of Morocco —
another big supporter of Infantino —
alongside Spain and Portugal for 2030
may also have much to do with the
Fifa president. Leaked WhatsApp
messages from Spain’s prime minister
Pedro Sánchez to the then Spanish FA
president Luis Rubiales in 2018 said
God, it’s the best thing … When I joined
the club, I could see the [Ar-
senal] players eating them and thought
to myself, ‘What is going on here?’ But
honestly, it’s been a game-changer.
“I don’t understand the science be-
hind it, but it gives me such a high
energy boost. I think that’s why I’m able
to rattle around the pitch so much. If
we’re playing at 5.30pm, I’ll sometimes
have eight pancakes in a day. I’ll have
some at breakfast and I’ll have some
more at 3.30pm before we play.”
Rice has played either at the base of
Arsenal’s midfield three or as a more ad-
vanced No 8, which gives him greater
freedom to join attacks. Rice is third in
the Premier League this season for total
carries with the ball and top for starting
moves that ended with a shot. He said
his agility is key to his all-round
game. “When I signed for Arsenal and
that “both you and Infantino proposed
the idea to me that I praised”.
Fifa has denied that the 2030 or
2034 World Cups are rewards for
Infantino’s supporters. It says the
decisions on the bidding process were
taken by the whole Fifa Council.
Miguel Maduro, a Portuguese law
professor, was the chairman of the
Fifa governance and review
committee set up in 2015 that
Infantino also sat on. He says Fifa
appears to be “unashamedly reversing
the reforms of 2016”.
He told The Times: “Everything
seems to have been organised so that
the World Cup of Portugal and Spain
included Morocco and then South
America, to make sure the following
World Cup could be awarded to a
country in the Middle East — Saudi
Arabia. The tender and process was
already not in accordance with the
promise of a transparent, competitive
we did all the medical tests, mobility was
one of my biggest strengths. It’s crazy —
I’m really, really flexible,” Rice said.
“Most people in the sport don’t have the
same range. I don’t know why I’m built
like that, but when I’m tackling, it allows
my legs to go into positions that look a
bit weird. It feels natural to me.”
To beat Manchester City to the title
on Sunday, Arsenal need to win at home
to Everton and hope City lose or draw at
home to West Ham. Rice will then turn
his attention to the European Champi-
onship, which starts on June 14, with
England among the favourites to go all
the way in Germany.
Rice said of England’s chances: “With
the team we’ve got, the players we have
and everyone in form playing well, you
need to back yourself to win. I feel like it
is our chance, it’s time. We can do some-
thing really special this summer.”
bidding process. It
was a top-down,
non-competitive,
non-transparent
process. Now they are
going back formally on
the reform. They don’t fear
the reputational costs.”
There are now seven Fifa standing
committees, compared with 26 before
the reforms, and the congress is being
urged to approve that number being
increased to 35. Some are important
changes, such as having a committee
for women’s football and one for anti-
discrimination after its anti-racism
task force was dissolved in 2016, six
months after Infantino’s presidency
began.
But Maduro argues that the
committee places become prized as
they offer attractive per diems and
travel, as well as opportunities to
progress within Fifa.
be fit to play in FA Cup final
continued from back
played only 13 games for Chelsea
this season.
Shaw has only a “small chance” of
making the FA Cup final next week,
while the centre back Harry Maguire is
on course to return for Wembley.
“For England I can’t say because it is
not up to me,” Ten Hag said yesterday.
“But for the cup final we’re working on
it. I think Harry Maguire has a fair
chance that he will be available, we
are planning [on it]. Luke is more
complicated. Let’s say it’s less of a
chance he will make it.”
Shaw appeared in 31 Premier League
games for Ten Hag last season. He has
played in only 12 this term with his last
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
“It is a form of institutionalised
vote-buying,” he said. “You generate
political allegiance — you reward
people for their support but in a way
that doesn’t get you into trouble. It is a
system of patronage.”
Other football bodies have also
been overturning reforms. The Asian
Football Confederation met in
Bangkok yesterday and voted in
favour of a proposal made by Saudi
Arabia and Qatar to remove 12-year
term limits for elected officials. Now
its president, Sheikh Salman bin
Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain and
other executive committee members
can remain in their positions for as
long as they wish. Infantino revealed
in 2022 that the Fifa Council had
agreed that his first term in office did
not count towards the 12-year limit as
it was a partial term — three years
instead of the full four.
Few national associations will speak
out about the latest proposed statute
changes, but the president of the
Norwegian FA, Lise Klaveness, has
described them as worrying. She told
The Times: “This is not according to
the reforms that were brought in after
Gianni was elected to avoid the
rigging that we saw with Qatar-Russia
and after the terrible period of
criminality. The short deadline we
saw in October, and the lack of
transparency around the
process, was a big missed
opportunity in
implementing the
reforms, or at worst a
way of avoiding
implementing the
reforms.”
Asked about
Maduro’s
criticisms, Fifa said
“it does not agree
with this sentiment
at all” and “has
massively changed
since 2016”. It said the
increase in committees
reflected that it had “greatly
expanded its activities, competitions
and areas of intervention”, adding:
“Critically, an increased number of
standing committees will mean more
female representation in the decision-
making processes of Fifa.”
Fifa also claimed its reform process
had been “acknowledged by several
external organisations, including the
United States Department of Justice”.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the
United States Attorney’s Office for the
Eastern District of New York, told The
New York Times: “Our office has not
endorsed the effectiveness of any of
Fifa’s current reform efforts.”
appearance in the win away to Luton
Town in mid-February.
Lisandro Martínez returned as a
substitute in the win against Newcastle,
while Raphaël Varane and Victor
Lindelof are back in full training before
the final league game away to Brighton
& Hove Albion on Sunday.
Ten Hag has also played down a pre-
match spat between Marcus Rashford
and a United supporter. Social media
videos circulated of the England star
being led away by team-mates. “I have
seen [it],” Ten Hag said. “The 68,000
fans were very enthusiastic, very
positive about the mood and the spirit
and the vibe and the ambience in the
stadium. That shows the strong bond we
have between the team and the fans.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024 63

Sport

Matt Dickinson
Senior Sports Writer

Alonso is greatest
his players think deeply about strategy, but he
was doing that 20 years ago. “He always told me
to relax and use my brain. It didn’t always work,”
Jamie Carragher once said of his Liverpool
team-mate. Alonso’s brain whirred incessantly
after matches, replaying them for days.
in 1963-1965. Their unbeaten run now stands at
50 games, a testimony to self-belief.
In hindsight I was perhaps not sticking my
neck out when I concluded that interview in
2017 by writing that “Alonso as the successful
coach of an intelligent, passing team is not at all

coaching sensation
He never could understand the inefficiency of
charging around, and this belief that intelligence
is paramount led to his famous remark that “I
don’t think tackling is a quality”. True to
his word, Leverkusen’s 13 tackles per
game is the lowest tally recorded by a
hard to imagine”. But it is not just his record but
also how he has gone about the job that is so
impressive and, yes, different.
Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard leapt
into their first managerial jobs before they
had completed their coaching badges. Alonso

since Mourinho
team in any of Europe’s top leagues.
An ability to understand
movement and positioning, in an
intricate game of possession and fast
changes of tempo, has inevitably sparked
comparisons with Pep Guardiola, one of
Alonso’s esteemed former coaches alongside
started with Real’s under-14s and then spent
three seasons with Real Sociedad’s reserves.
When he took a senior post, it was not a
shortcut to the top but a Leverkusen team
sitting 17th in the Bundesliga. How easy it
would have been to cash in now by jumping to
Liverpool or Bayern but Alonso will see out at

I
stanbul airport, May 26, 2005. The flight Instead, Alonso grabbed a pair Rafa Benítez, Mourinho and Ancelotti. least another year because this endearingly
back home with the Liverpool squad is of boots, slung them over his Over the years ahead we can expect earnest man thinks this city of 160,000 people
bedlam, befitting the bonkers night before. shoulder and wandered over to comparisons too with his good is the best place to develop.
Normally the media are shoved at the back a park pitch with his wife and friend from childhood in It is not only his playing talent that he
of the plane but overjoyed, hungover phone. A simple black-and- the Basque country, attributes to his father, a footballer with
players and their partners are sprawled all white photo of a shy man Mikel Arteta. Born less Sociedad and Barcelona, but his studiousness
over the place. Last to board, I cannot find waving was captioned: “Lived than 20 miles and six and patience given Periko demanded that his
anywhere to sit. it. Loved it. Farewell months apart, they will son always finish his homework before going
As I walk up and down the aisle, everyone beautiful game.” Like I said, be shaping the game for out to play.
looks the other way. No one wants to have to the man is different. many years. There is a seriousness of purpose to Alonso,
squeeze up next to a pesky reporter. And then, Happily, I learnt that Alonso’s team also has who looked dismayed when I asked him to pick
as we are about to take off, a friendly voice says: again when I went to its own stamp, notably — his best XI of team-mates. Politely he declined
“Do you need a seat? You are welcome to join Munich to sit down with shades of Istanbul? — in to undertake what he regarded as a frothy
us.” It will not be the last time that I am left Alonso (it took two text the character to win or save so exercise, just as he has also knocked back many
concluding that Xabi Alonso is different. messages to arrange, no many games in the closing offers to write a memoir. As he explained:
Just one tiny moment of courtesy? Yes, but PRs or fuss) shortly moments. In stoppage time after “Some part of me is shy as well. I like to
sometimes the little things tell you a lot — and before his final match as the 90th minute, Leverkusen have preserve some parts for me.”
attention to detail is among the many reasons a player. Carlo outscored opponents 16-0. Holding back a little of himself will not
that Alonso is close to pulling off one of the Ancelotti had offered A stunning late recovery be easy now that he has announced his
most extraordinary feats in coaching. to take Alonso under against Roma in the coaching calibre in such spectacular style.
In his first full season with Bayer Leverkusen his wing at Bayern, to Europa League semi- After 11 straight German titles for Bayern,
he is three games from an unprecedented, give him the sort of final second leg, Leverkusen sit 15 points clear going into the
invincible Treble of Bundesliga, Europa League fast start in coaching including a 97th- final game tomorrow, when victory over
and German Cup. All this at “Neverkusen”, enjoyed by many minute equaliser, Augsburg will make it 28 wins, 6 draws and
a club without a single league title in more players of his allowed Leverkusen 0 defeats. Atalanta follow in the Europa League
than a century and no significant honour in renown. to claim the final on Wednesday and Kaiserslautern in the
three decades. Instead, Alonso longest unbeaten German Cup final. A Treble beckons for the
It is the most stunning managerial arrival told me that he had streak in Europe great invincibles.
since a chap called José Mourinho won an a vintage BMW in postwar How has Alonso done it? Not with superstars.
almost identical Treble with Porto — league, motorbike waiting football, Smart recruitment enabled the club to sell last
Uefa Cup, Portuguese Cup — in 2002-03. in a garage. He surpassing season’s star, Moussa Diaby, to Aston Villa for
Never a star player, Mourinho went even was looking Benfica £50million and bring in Nathan Tella from
further the following season (winning the forward to Southampton and Granit Xhaka from Arsenal,
Champions League) yet still had to strain for some road trips, among others.
attention, to be noticed. time with family Above all, this unbeaten campaign is a
When Alonso decided it was time to and to recharge. It tribute to the leadership and clarity from
announce his retirement as a player, he chose was not his legs Alonso, whose midfield style always seemed
not to highlight that jaw-dropping comeback in that needed a a precursor to coaching: “My idea was never
Istanbul to win the Champions League with break but his about my game individually. It was always
Liverpool, or the celebrated La Decima with Real mind, which about that collective. If I do this, how does it
Madrid in 2014. He ignored league titles with revealed a lot help the team?”
Bayern Munich. He even passed over the 2010 about this most In that sense he has been preparing for this
World Cup with Spain, when one of the finest cerebral of role all his life. Yet knowing that should not
midfielders of his generation started every footballers. As a coach Alonso demands lessen in any way the stunning impact of a
game. There was no sponsored photoshoot or This is a coach that his players think season like no other, from a man who dares to
carefully managed interview. who demands deeply about strategy act and think a little differently.

Trippier critical of trip to Australia Foden: Fourth title won’t be beaten

Martin Hardy
Kieran Trippier has criticised
Newcastle United’s decision to go to
Australia three days after the Premier
League season ends to play two
friendlies against Tottenham Hotspur
and the A-League All Stars, calling the
timing “not ideal”.
The England defender questioned
the amount of travel involved at the end
of a gruelling 51-game campaign for
Newcastle and with the European
Championship finals and the Copa
America set to start in June.
Trippier will be among a number of
players — including his club-mates
Anthony Gordon, Joelinton and Bruno
Guimarães, and Spurs’ James Maddi-
son, Richarlison, Giovani Lo Celso
and Cristian Romero — who will be
expected to link up with their
international squads on the back of a
21,000-mile round trip for the matches.
The Times revealed last month that
the FA is looking into changing its rules
to ban clubs from staging lucrative
friendlies beyond the end of the season.
The Professional Footballers’
Association is also understood to have
concerns about the demands placed on
the players after a long season.
“It’s not ideal because it’s a tourna-
ment year,” Trippier said. “I’ve done it at
Tottenham and Madrid but from my
own experience of it — in a tournament
year [with the Euros and Copa America]
it’s not ideal. It’s not like it’s Benidorm,
round the corner, it’s 25 hours away.
“It’s not just England, you’ve got so
many nations and clubs. Tottenham are
doing it. It’s one of those where you have
continued from back a feat that he believes will never be
just got to get on with it, but of course, repeated. Speaking after being awarded
for me as a player, it’s not really ideal. 30-year-old Brazil international, the the Football Writers’ Association
“I understand why the club are doing medical team were satisfied that he was (FWA) footballer of the year
it, but we’re players, we’ve got to do not concussed, but Guardiola decided award, Foden said: “It would mean
what’s right for the club, for the club to to take off Ederson because he was told everything to me. We’ve got two finals
move forward. When we’re there it’ll be the swelling around the goalkeeper’s left and we’ll give everything to try to do
good, we’ll embrace it.” eye would increase. Further tests the Premier League four times which
Gareth Southgate, the England man- revealed the fracture, which has never been done before.”
ager, was also critical of the timing of the means Ederson will be un- Foden, who sent his apol-
friendlies. He said it was “not great available for City’s final ogies for being unable to
news” for his squad’s preparations. Premier League match, attend the FWA dinner
Newcastle will play Tottenham at the at home to West Ham on Thursday, credited
Melbourne Cricket Ground on May 22, United on Sunday, Guardiola — “the
24 hours after Southgate names his and the FA Cup final best manager in the
squad for the Euros and three days against Manchester world” — for helping
before the FA Cup final. The game has United six days later. him to develop as a
been billed as a homecoming for Ange Phil Foden, mean- player.
Postecoglou, the Spurs head coach, who while, urged his team-
grew up in Melbourne and managed mates to seize the Foden receives his
South Melbourne. Newcastle then play chance to win their trophy from FWA
the A-League All-Stars on May 24. fourth successive title, chair John Cross
64 S1 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Sport US PGA Championship

McIlroy chasing Schauffele

Tom Kershaw Louisville, Kentucky
Rory McIlroy banished the psychologi-
Leaderboard Schauffele’s stunning opening round yesterday
cal demons and personal drama that Early leading first-round scores
United States unless stated Par 71 Eagle Birdie Par Bogey
had accompanied him in the build-up to
the US PGA Championship, but he will R1 R2 R3 R4 Total Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Total
have to contend with another familiar X Schauffele -9 62 — — — 62 Par 4 4 3 4 4 4 5 3 4 5 3 4 4 3 4 4 4 5 71
foe to finally end his decade-long major Round 1 4 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 4 5 2 4 3 3 3 3 4 4 62
drought. T Finau -6 65 — — — 65
It was only last week that the North- S Theegala -6 65 — — — 65
ern Irishman surged from behind to Rounds of 62 in major championships
ruthlessly snatch victory from Xander R McIlroy (N Ire) -5 66 — — — 66
Schauffele at the Wells Fargo Champi- R MacIntyre (Scot) -5 66 — — — 66 Tournament Year Course Round Finish
onship. A terrific five-under-par open- Branden Grace The Open 2017 Royal Birkdale 3 T6
ing round here at Valhalla Golf Club B Kohles -4 67 — — — 67 Rickie Fowler US Open 2023 LA Country Club 1 T5
would ordinarily have left him perfectly B Koepka -4 67 — — — 67 Xander Schauffele US Open 2023 LA Country Club 1 T10
poised, but McIlroy was left looking Schauffele US PGA 2024 Valhalla 1 ?
upwards again after Schauffele’s T Moore -4 67 — — — 67
sublime round of 62 shattered both the A Hadwin (Can) -3 68 — — — 68
course and tournament record. “It’s a
great start to a big tournament,” the M Kaymer (Ger) -3 68 — — — 68
world No 3 said. “One I’m obviously C Smith (Aus) -3 68 — — — 68
going to take, but it’s only Thursday.”
Heavy rainfall in Louisville had left V Hovland (Nor) -3 68 — — — 68
the course susceptible to this kind of low M Homa -3 68 — — — 68
scoring, but a round featuring nine bird-
ies and no bogeys verged on as close to K Kitayama -3 68 — — — 68
perfection as golf allows. There can be B DeChambeau -3 68 — — — 68
no surprise that Schauffele was capable
of such a score, having already shot a 62 D Ghim -2 69 — — — 69
at the 2023 US Open, but the question is L Herbert (Aus) -2 69 — — — 69
whether he can finally marry his ability
with mettle on the biggest stage. J Thomas -2 69 — — — 69
Arguably the best current player yet K Bradley -2 69 — — — 69
to win a major, the 30-year-old has of-
ten worn that tagline like a millstone J Spieth -2 69 — — — 69
around his neck and squandered chan- J Wells -2 69 — — — 69
ces of a first PGA Tour victory since July
2022 in recent weeks at TPC Sawgrass D Burmester (SA) -2 69 — — — 69
and Quail Hollow, where a final round
71 was found sorely wanting, have done Other scores
little to alleviate Schauffele of that 70 C Conners (Can), L Donald (Eng),
burden. R Henley, S Jäger (Ger), H Matsuyama
“For me, not winning makes you want (Japan), A Otaegui (Sp), P Rodgers, J Rose
it more and more and more, and it (Eng), A Svensson (Can), S Valimaki (Fin),
makes me want to work harder and M Wallace (Eng), T Widing (Swe).
harder and harder,” Schauffele said. 71 An Byeong-hun (S Kor), A Bjoerk (Swe),
“The top feels far away, and I feel like I E Cole, L Glover, T Hatton (Eng),
have a lot of work to do, but I’m just R Hisatsune (Japan), L Hodges, A Schenk,
S Straka (Austria).
slowly chipping away at it.”
McIlroy will certainly relate to that 72 L Aaberg (Swe), T Fleetwood (Eng),
R Fox (NZ), P Malnati, K Mendoza,
sentiment and there is always a slight
G Murray, T Pendrith (Can), A Scott (Aus),
fragility about the 35-year-old in the N Taylor (Can), E van Rooyen (SA),
first round at a major. The time since he T Woods, D Puig (Sp).
won his last here in 2014 had tempered
expectations, but this venue is inevita-
73 A Bhatia, Z Blair, T Collet, B Griffin,
D Johnson, J Jones, A Ogletree, B Polland.
Second
bly poignant and McIlroy’s emotional round
74 N Dunlap, Lee Kyoung-hoon (S Kor),
plight, having filed for a divorce from his A Meronk (Pol), A Smalley, J Speight,
wife of seven years, Erica, on Monday, US PGA Championship
A Svoboda.
left a palpable air of suspense. Today, from 1pm
75 P Cole, T Kanaya (Japan),
He answered those doubts emphati- R van Velzen (SA), T Lawrence (SA). TV: Sky Sports Main
cally with two birdies in his opening Event/Golf
76 M Block, S Micheel, M Dobyns.
four holes, continuing in the same vein
of form that carried him to victory at 77 Z Oakley.
Quail Hollow. When that early 79 L Gross, V Perez (Fr).
momentum became mired in jeopardy, 82 J Daly. 87 J Kellen.
sand and water around the turn,
McIlroy rallied brilliantly and three Tony Finau and Sahith Theegala were already drenched in sweat when he
consecutive birdies, including a chip-in
at the 6th, on his back-nine assured him
safely in the clubhouse at six under par
by then, while Robert MacIntyre joined
took to the tee just after 8am and the
harsh gradients at Valhalla offered little
MacIntyre’s home comforts
of a fine start. McIlroy on five under. relief. A man of ordinary substance
“I had a little bit of a scrappy part Brooks Koepka, the champion, might have folded after two early Tom Kershaw touched the golf clubs, done some
around the turn there, but overall backed up his recent form with an bogeys, but Woods is nothing if not stupid stuff and just enjoyed myself.”
I’m really happy. Not really happy opening round of four under par. resilient and ground out a one-over-par Robert MacIntyre said a return to home MacIntyre claimed he arrived with
with how I played but at least Fellow LIV players Cameron Smith, round of 72. “I am getting stronger for comforts and his mother’s cooking was “zero expectations” but was in a “good
happy with the score,” he said. Bryson DeChambeau and Martin sure,” he said. “It’s just that I don’t play a the secret to his five-under-par opening frame of mind” and a tied-13th finish at
Asked implicitly about how he Kaymer are all at three under lot of competitive rounds. I haven’t round at the US PGA Championship. the Myrtle Beach Classic last week
is faring with the tumult in a strong showing for the played since the Masters.” The Scot has struggled to adjust to offered plenty of promise. Having his
surrounding him off the Saudi-backed breakaway Woods might be reluctant to commit life on the PGA Tour since uprooting to mother join the team for the week in
course and his ability to league. A notable caveat to the Ryder Cup captaincy in 2025, but the United States after the Ryder Cup Louisville has also helped to alleviate
compartmentalise it, to that was Jon Rahm, his potential counterpart, Luke Donald, but tied Rory McIlroy at Valhalla Golf the lingering feelings of homesickness.
McIlroy was more curt. who bogeyed four of his enjoyed a rare day to savour with his Club to sit four shots adrift of Xander “She’s cooking and cleaning for my
“It’s always nice to be opening six holes and own clubs and finished one under par. Schauffele. After missing the cut in five whole team,” he said. “I’m having too
inside the ropes,” he said. wore a deranged “I’ve played four events on the PGA of his ten PGA Tour events this season, many cakes and desserts this week, but
“Happy to be here.” scowl that would Tour and missed cuts in all four,” the MacIntyre decided to spend three we’re having a good time. When I can be
Scottie Scheffler was make you cross the world No 430 said dryly when asked weeks at home in Oban last month around friends, family, people that actu-
among the late starters road in a hurry. about his expectations. And there was and has returned with a far sunnier ally care about me, they speak to me as
but immediately eradi- Tiger Woods did his solace for Viktor Hovland, too, the star disposition. Bob the human rather than Bob the
cated any suggestion best to match that of Donald’s team in Rome. The Norwe- “It’s no secret I’ve been living in golfer. That’s when I’m at my happiest,
that a shortage of prac- expression, although gian has endured a slump since then, America and it’s been tough,” he said. when I’m not talking about golf.
tice, owing to the birth of his was more of a gri- tweaking his swing and swapping “It’s not like Oban. When I go back “I’m more than happy playing the
his first child, might de- mace. A raucous crowd coaches to little avail. A three-under- home, it’s a lot of friends and family to PGA Tour. For me, I’m just trying to
rail his imperious form dutifully followed the 48-year- par 68 conjured more than a ray of hope spend time with, my nieces, everyone work out life, to be honest. That’s been
with an eagle from 167 old in his latest pursuit of pride out of that darkness, even while Schauf- that’s close to me and cares for me. I got the more difficult side of being in
yards at the first hole. and punishment, but Woods was fele threatened to storm out of sight. three weeks at home there and I hardly America.”
the times | Friday May 17 2024
after ‘great start’ Leeds surge into
final as Gunn
Second round tee-times
United States unless stated
all times BST
(starting at hole 1)
12.15pm R Beem, K Kobori
(Japan), S Soederberg (Swe).
12.26 J Bevell, A Rai (Eng),
J Smith (Eng).
12.37 C Hoffman, J Muller,
A Putnam.
12.48 T Hoge, Kim Si-Woo (S Kor),
A Noren (Swe).
12.59 M Pavon (Fr), J T Poston,
Yang Yong-eun (S Kor).
1.10 J Dufner, J Knapp,
F Molinari (It).
1.21 T Detry (Bel), R Hoejgaard
(Den), J Walker.
1.32 A Eckroat, M Hughes (Can),
L List.
1.43 C Bezuidenhout (SA),
B Hossler, Im Sung-jae (S Kor).
1.54 K Mitchell, T Olesen (Den),
B Todd.
2.05 B Garnett, J Somers,
J Svensson (Swe).
2.16 E Bowser, E Grillo (Arg),
A Tosti (Arg).
S1
2.27 C Gotterup, V Norrman
(Swe), W Worthington II.
5.45 T Collet, D Ghim, A Meronk
(Pol).
5.56 L Gross, L Herbert (Aus),
G Murray.
6.07 L Glover, R Henley, S Jäger
(Ger).
6.18 L Aaberg (Swe),
X Schauffele, J Thomas.
6.29 K Bradley, A Scott (Aus),
T Woods.
6.40 D Johnson, R McIlroy
(N Ire), J Rose (Eng).
6.51 V Hovland (Nor),
H Matsuyama (Japan),
C Smith (Aus).
7.02 M Homa, B Koepka,
J Spieth.
7.13 T Finau, T Hatton (Eng),
S Theegala.
7.24 A Bhatia, B DeChambeau,
T Fleetwood (Eng).
7.35 T Kanaya (Japan), S Straka
(Austria), N Taylor (Can).
7.46 D Burmester (SA), B Griffin,
A Svoboda.
McIlroy, left, made a strong start with a five-under-par 66,
matched by MacIntyre, below. They were both outshone by
Schauffele, above, whose 62 is a course and tournament
record, while Woods, below left, struggled in the heat
7.57 P Cole, A Otaegui (Sp),
T Widing (Swe).
(starting at hole 10)
12.20pm M Dobyns, T Lawrence
(SA), D Puig (Sp).
12.31 D McCarthy, K Nakajima
(Japan), T Phillips.
12.42 C Davis (Aus), H English,
T Gooch.
12.53 J Day (Aus), N Hoejgaard
(Den), S Lowry (Ire).
1.04 B Horschel, C Kirk,
Lee Min-woo (Aus).
1.15 Kim Joo-hyung (S Kor),
J Niemann (Chile), G Woodland.
1.26 M Fitzpatrick (Eng),
P Mickelson, C Morikawa.
1.37 R Fowler, J Rahm (Sp),
C Young.
1.48 W Clark, B Harman,
S Scheffler.
1.59 P Cantlay, C Villegas (Col),
W Zalatoris.
2.10 S Burns, P Harrington (Ire),
P Reed.
2.21 M Hubbard, B Marek,
M McNealy.
2.32 Kim Seong-Hyeon (S Kor),
B Shattuck, Pan Chengtsung
(Taiwan).
5.40 M Block, L Donald (Eng),
S Micheel.
5.51 J Kellen, B Kohles, A Smalley.
6.02 R Fox (NZ), J Speight,
M Wallace (Eng).
6.13 R Hisatsune (Japan),
Z Oakley, A Svensson (Can).
6.24 A Hadwin (Can), M Kaymer
(Ger), T Pendrith (Can).
6.35 An Byeong-hun (S Kor),
A Bjork (Swe), E Cole.
6.46 C Conners (Can), N Dunlap,
A Schenk.
6.57 J Daly, L Hodges,
R MacIntyre (Scot).
7.08 K Kitayama, P Malnati,
V Perez (Fr).
7.19 Z Blair, B Polland,
R van Velzen (SA).
7.30 Lee Kyoung-hoon (S Kor),
S Valimaki (Fin), J Wells.
7.41 J Jones, T Moore, P Rodgers.
7.52 K Mendoza, A Ogletree,
E van Rooyen (SA).
65
Sport
fluffs his lines
must have triggered an internal panic
Leeds United
Gruev 7, Piroe 20, Rutter 40,
Summerville 68
4 button in Gunn.
Suddenly the ball was flying low to the
opposite corner. There was a desperate
Norwich City
0 scramble across but the movement was
too late. The ball crashed into his net.
Elland Road blinked at the incredulity
Leeds win 4-0 on aggregate
Sky Bet Championship play-off of it all and then roared. It is not going
too far to say that Norwich looked
semi-final, second leg already done, even then, as Gunn
Martin Hardy
slapped his unused gloves together in
Leeds United are going to Wembley. frustration. There would be only one
London be warned. A football club have flicker of life in the opening 45 minutes,
regained their unity. They really will and that came after Leeds had doubled
march on together, to the capital and their lead. Gunn again was culpable.
potentially back to the Premier League. A cross from the right did come this
It is 52 years since Leeds won a time, in the 20th minute from Wilfried
meaningful game at Wembley, against Gnonto, and it was high, bending and
Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup final. They deep. Gunn followed the flight of the
have never won a play-off and this is ball like a hawk, and that was another
their sixth attempt. Yet on this form, error, as it kept tantalisingly out of his
Daniel Farke and his players will believe reach. Waiting for it at the far post was
they can bring some glory back to a Joël Piroe and he headed back across
famous old football club. goal into the far side of the Norwich net,
It was a night of extraordinary noise past the desperate dive of Shane Duffy,
and passion. Elland Road has three old who ended up tangled and stuck. Fans
stands and at times they shook. This fell over the seats behind him as Leeds
really was Leeds United: every chal- celebrated again. White scarves were
lenge won by a Leeds player greeted twirled, a city delighted by and
with wild applause, each run roared on marvelling in the changing emotions of
and when the ball flew past Angus play-off football.
Gunn in the Norwich City goal, which it Only when Ashley Barnes rolled a
did all night, they tumbled over fine through-ball to Josh Sargent
seats in celebration. was there consternation. It
It was a whitewash in the was a chance to change the
white-hot atmosphere
Farke had promised. “We Southampton direction of the game as he
outpaced Ethan Ampa-
scored four goals and v West Brom du and set off for goal.
should have scored His first touch, however,
many more,” the Leeds Second semi-final, was heavy and when he
manager said. “We had second leg (0-0 on agg) tried a delicate chip Illan
total control bar one Tonight, kick-off 8pm Meslier stuck out a giant
scene. Yes, many compli- TV: Sky Sports right arm and parried the
ments to my young side. It Main Event ball to safety. The crowd re-
was one of our most complete action was as if there had been
performances of the season. It was another goal.
nearly a perfect night for us. This place A third arrived five minutes before
was rocking. It was unbelievable.” half-time. Leeds were irresistible. Piroe
Not for one minute did it feel like crossed low from the left, Summerville
Norwich would be anything more than and Duffy helped it along and there was
fodder. Leeds led early and had a semi- Georginio Rutter to blast in another.
final won by half-time, by which point “This fairytale does not have a
they were three goals to the good. happy end,” David Wagner, the
Norwich desperately needed Norwich head coach, said. “It is bit-
their players to handle the occasion terly disappointing. It was a poor
and it overwhelmed them. Gunn performance from us and Leeds
will look back at a calamitous were very good. More or less
night. He erred for the everything you should not do,
two goals that gave we have done. It is life and
Leeds an early football: you have some
hold in the game downs. We were poor. It
and they never let go. was impossible to come
Everything about Leeds was back.”
switched on, an electric aura and There should have been
an electric display. Norwich were many more. Gunn denied
not even on the grid and when Gruev and Summerville
Joe Rodon was hacked to the before the latter cracked
ground 30 yards from goal with in a fourth. “Leeds, Leeds
the game still to reach the are falling apart again,”
seventh minute, Leeds had they roared all around the
their chance. ground. It was glee for Leeds.
The free kick was off centre. They will march to Wembley
Every part of Gunn’s experi- together and they will take some
ence told him an outswinging stopping if this form can be replicated
ball was coming to the far post, in the play-off final on May 26.
where white shirts were ready to
bear down on him. Crysencio
Summerville ran as if to deliver Leeds (4-2-3-1): I Meslier 7 — A Gray 7,
just that, but instead stepped over J Rodon 7, E Ampadu 7, J Firpo 8 — I
Gruev 8 (L Cooper 83min), G Kamara 7 —
the ball and moved to his right. Ilia W Gnonto 7 (D James 70, 5), G Rutter 8 (C
Gruev, who had been standing Roberts 74, 5), C Summerville 8 (J Anthony
with Summerville, made a 74, 5) — J Piroe 8 (M Joseph 74, 6).
Booked Gruev, Rutter.
straight run to the ball and he Norwich (4–4-2): A Gunn 5 — J Stacey 5, D
cracked a left-footed shot that Giannoulis 6 (C Fassnacht 63, 4), S Duffy 5, B
Gibson 6 (S McCallum 63, 5)— K McLean 5, Gabriel
Sera 6, J Rowe 5 (J Sorensen 81)— A Barnes 6
Rutter added a third goal (S van Hooijdonk 81), J Sargent 5 (B Sainz 46, 4).
for Leeds before half-time Booked Rowe, McLean. Referee J Gillett.
 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

Sport Leeds off to Wembley

Championship play-off final
next after thrashing Norwich
Better than Mourinho
Xabi Alonso is a coaching
sensation – and a nice guy

Historic Fury Shaw to miss

Euro 2024

fight will not

Ian Whittell
Luke Shaw is almost certain to miss out
on a place in England’s Euro 2024 squad
after the Manchester United defender
suffered a setback in his comeback

be on radio
exclusive
Owen Slot, Rick Broadbent Riyadh
The biggest heavyweight fight in 25
years will take place in Riyadh tomor-
row night without any radio coverage
in the UK.
The BBC sent a team to Saudi Arabia
this week expecting to conclude a deal
for the rights to broadcast the fight.
However, the deal fell through on
Wednesday.
The bout between Tyson Fury and
Oleksandr Usyk will be the first time
that two heavyweights have fought for
the unified title since Lennox Lewis
achieved that feat 25 years ago.
Despite the significance of the
contest, there will be radio silence. Fans
will be able to watch the fight on televi-
sion on either DAZN PPV, Sky Sports
Box Office or TNT Sports Box Office,
all for a fee of £24.95.
It is not unusual for radio broadcast
rights to be settled in fight week. The
Saudi promoters were still in negotia-
tions this week. However, their public
relations team said that a decision had
been made not to sell the radio rights in
the UK because it is believed attracting
a radio audience would diminish the
number of pay-per-view sales.
Other industry observers have
suggested that the build-up to a big
fight by a radio broadcaster tends to sell
more pay-per-view packages.
The alternative broadcaster to the
BBC would be talkSPORT. However,
talkSPORT has a poor relationship
with Fury, who is influential in these
matters. It is also not the favourite
broadcaster of the Saudi promoters,
having raised questions over Saudi
Arabia as a boxing venue in the past; in
particular, it criticised the big fight
atmosphere in the kingdom.
The BBC confirmed that it had failed
to secure the audio rights to the fight.
However, it said that it would have
sent a small team to Riyadh to cover
the event across various platforms
regardless.
Fury kept it short and respectful
during the final pre-fight press confer-
ence yesterday. Instead of fireworks, the
bemused fans gathered by an outdoor
stage in a Riyadh theme park were
treated to a few lines from the American
poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Fury, the WBC champion, refrained
from the sort of unbridled baiting that
marked his trilogy with Deontay
Wilder and merely said: “I’m going to
keep this short and simple.”
He then thanked God for the victory
already received, Usyk for “turning up”
and fans for coming from the UK in
hard times. “I’m ready. I’ve got nothing
to say apart from I’m ready for a good
fight. If it’s tough or easy, either way I’ll
be ready,” Fury added.
When pressed for a message for Usyk
by a compère clearly hoping for more
boxing blarney, he said: “God bless
him and I’ll say a prayer for him before
we walk out that we both get out
of the ring in one piece and go home to
our families, because that’s what it’s
all about.”
Sitting on the other side of the stage
in a resplendent white suit, Usyk
applauded. It made a nice key change
from injury.
Gareth Southgate is due to name his
provisional squad for the tournament
in Germany this summer on Tuesday
but the United manager, Erik ten Hag,
has revealed that Shaw is still suffering
from a muscle problem that has kept
him out since February.
While Southgate will be able to pick
an expanded group of 26 players when
he has to reveal the full squad on June 7,
it would be a big risk to include Shaw,
28, who would have been the England
manager’s No 1 choice at left back, a
problem area for the national side.
Ben Chilwell, the back-up to Shaw for
England, is also out injured and has
Ederson out of
FA Cup final
Paul Hirst
Stefan Ortega will be in goal for
Manchester City’s final two matches of
the season after Ederson was ruled out
for the rest of the campaign with a
broken eye socket.
Ederson suffered what City de-
scribed as “a minor fracture” in the 2-0
win over Tottenham Hotspur on Tues-
day. Cristian Romero, the Tottenham
centre back, caught the goalkeeper in
the head as they both attempted to get
to the ball in the second half.
After being treated by the club
doctor, Max Sala, Ederson carried on
playing for a few minutes before Pep
Guardiola, the City manager, decided
Smile, Rory – you’re doing well to replace him.
City insisted that all the correct
McIlroy, who filed for divorce this week, begins US PGA Championship with protocols were observed in the on-field
five-under-par 66 while Xander Schauffele sets course record, pages 64-65 treatment of Ederson. After testing the

Times Crossword 28,919 across down Yesterday’s solution 28,918

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Blooming angry expression during 1 Keep a watch on this uprising from A L L EGO R Y S T A S I S
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then left pools activity? (4-5) what retriever does? (7) Y W H R E S
10 Certain Muslims hosting very 4 Mark and I keeping lots of coffee L A P T O P S L E I GH T
M K H I W L U
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11 A little craft roughly shown by 5 Where many films are made with S N W U N K N E
11 12 French composer (7) family member (2-3) H A I R I N E S S E L F I N
12 Women’s accessory model shows 6 Terrifying force once affected A N N D E I U T
P AGOD A WA N T ON L Y
item I can’t name (7) stoppage with power cut (7)
Check today’s answers by ringing 0905 757
13 Eastern translation of the inspiring 7 Husband shows Sue a way to 0141 by midnight. Calls cost £1 per minute
13 14 15 16 1 Down producer (5) control shock? (9) plus your telephone company’s network
15 A bum intro, playing French folk 8 Rival of Reading close to losing access charge. SP: Spoke 0333 202 3390.
music (9) final, playing Inter (11)
17 Producing plans, relative captures 11 Fare initially cheap on paper that’s Newspapers
pawn before more valuable piece said to raise a smile? (5,6)
17 18 19
(9) 14 Child, say, in part of pool with support recycling
The recycled paper content of
19 Furry animal, shy, with a lead lower energy, not disheartened (9) UK newspapers in 2023 was 45.5%
twisted round (5) 16 Lifted a jewel with another picked
20 Possibly go and haunt this place? up — it’s a lot of work (9)
20 21 22 23 (4-3) 18 A slip crossing over large ditch (7)
22 Ashes holder punching Aussie 19 Speed and ecstasy’s under a
bounder in tour (7) hundred pounds (7)
24 Tree resin extracted from lime 21 Revolutionary women’s movement
24 25 26 leaning to the west (5) with time for old, symbolic item (5)
25 Spooner’s inhabited part of 23 This person, breaking funny bone,
Western Europe’s land (5,4) petrified mother (5)
27 Perhaps stuff Scot’s to put back (3) 26 Perhaps novice’s news, entertaining
27 28
28 Thesp and France’s main female for all (3)
novelist getting Oscar for musicals
(11)
 RICH LIST

Pick up your copy in The Sunday Times this weekend or read it online today
by scanning the QR code and visiting thetimes.co.uk/richlist
 ARTS
May 17 | 2024

d o e s S h ake s p e are !
Spid e r- Ma n
Tom Holland’s Romeo
brings teenagers flocking
to the West End (and some
are paying £600 a ticket)
2 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
times2
the arts column
Richard Morrison
Goodbye ENO, hello £300
opera tickets — is this
what Labour wants?
y left-wing friends
M (amazingly, I still
have them) had
better look away
now. These opening
paragraphs are going to read an
awful lot like “private sector good,
public sector terrible”. But they
have to be written. In the opera
world, at least, the contrast right
now is striking.
This week Glyndebourne began
its summer festival. That marks
the start of a three-month period
in which half a dozen private
opera festivals will open for
business in the posh parks of
southern England.
During that time (if my rusty
arithmetic is correct), they will
put on about 200 performances
between them, sell about 170,000
tickets, achieve a combined
turnover of well over £50 million
and provide crucial summer
employment for more than 1,000
orchestral musicians, singers,
stagehands, technicians,
carpenters, costume-makers and
catering staff. All without a penny
of public subsidy. Leaving aside
for a moment the mostly high
ticket prices and the not exactly
variegated social mix of the
audiences, you would have to say
that — for these summer months
anyway — opera is far from the
dying art form some recent
surveys suggest.
Meanwhile, in the public sector,
the slashing and burning of
Britain’s subsidised opera
companies continues, like a
Viking raid on high culture.
Despite a ferocious letter of
protest from Simon Rattle and
200 other luminaries, and (this
week) the threat of industrial
action from the performers’ union
Equity, the dismantling of Welsh
National Opera looks likely to go
ahead, with the formerly full-time
orchestra and chorus placed on
part-time contracts, touring cut
and no guarantee of any reprieve
from the Labour-led Welsh
government (which is also
apparently endorsing the closing
of a national museum to save
costs, and the scrapping of
Saturday music and drama tuition
for talented teenagers at the
Royal Welsh College of Music
and Drama).
So WNO will be up the same
stinky creek as English National
Opera, whose musicians are being
forced onto part-time contracts,
their future funding dependent on
a vague, uncosted move to
Manchester, the position of chief
executive still vacant (who would
want it?) and just-announced
plans for 2024/25 signalling
perhaps the flimsiest season ever
mounted by a supposedly leading
opera company.
That Manchester move will
almost certainly imperil another
subsidised company, Opera
North, which has toured
successfully for years across
northern England, including to
Salford. And just to complete the
public sector picture, let’s bring in
Scottish Opera, which started this
grim reductive dance several
years ago when it ditched its
chorus and full-time orchestra.
Let’s be clear about two things.
The first is that none of these
subsidised companies is in this
mess by accident. The dire
circumstances they face have
Glyndebourne in East Sussex
Expect more
black-tie nights
of Bohème
and bubbly
been entirely engineered by
powerful anti-opera factions
operating within their public
funders: Arts Council England
and its Welsh and Scottish
equivalents, endorsed by culture
ministers who have (at the very
least) averted their eyes from the
impending catastrophes rather
than wading in and demanding to
know, like the Count in Figaro,
what the hell is going on in their
own house.
And the second thing is that —
as those flourishing summer
festivals prove — cutting off
subsidy won’t kill opera. It will
just make it very different. It will
all look like those country house
companies do now.
There will be short seasons, not
year-round provision. It will be
concentrated in affluent areas,
not toured across the country. It
will buy in symphony orchestras
and period instrument bands
as necessary, rather than build
in-house ensembles. It will offer
a wraparound experience of
wining, dining and schmoozing to
appeal to a clientele that can
afford £250-plus tickets. And it
would have no obligation to
undertake educational work or
nurture the careers of exceptional
young performers, composers
and librettists.
In short, we would be turning
back the clock about a hundred
years, to the days before Lilian
Baylis pioneered the notion that
opera — presented appealingly
and sung in English — could be
successfully sold to ordinary
people around the country, rather
than being merely the preserve of
moneyed toffs. That notion was
subsequently enlarged into the
much broader ideal underpinning
the Arts Council when it was
founded in 1946. It was the belief
that all top-quality art, even of
the highbrow variety, could and
should be made accessible to
everybody.
That ideal has been eroded for
decades but seems to have sunk
entirely in the past five years.
Instead the funding bodies have
shifted their priorities from
supporting quality professional
performances to promoting
diversity, amateur activities and
environmental goals.
These new priorities required
radical shifts of funding. Opera,
being the most labour-heavy and
therefore most expensive art
form, was seen as taking up far
too big a slice of the funding cake.
So opera companies have been
clobbered — and, in truly
Machiavellian style, in such a way
that their chief executives were
made to feel that if they kicked up
a fuss the punishment would be
even worse. They were muzzled.
They still are — those few who
haven’t already abandoned ship.
Will the potential arrival of a
new government make any
difference? Ominously, Thangam
Debbonaire, Labour’s shadow
culture secretary, suggested in a
recent speech that the arts
needed a “private finance model
to attract funding from different
sources”. The implication is that
somehow bringing in more
philanthropic donations, not
increasing state subsidy, is the
way to generate more money for
the arts.
But as has been pointed out by
the theatre director Dominic
Cooke, philanthropists
customarily bestow their largesse
on well-connected arts
organisations in or near London.
They don’t usually support
regional tours to Plymouth or
schools projects in Darlington.
Applied to opera, that strategy
would produce only one outcome.
Goodbye to ENO and WNO in
their present forms. Hello to more
£300-ticket black-tie nights of
Bohème and bubbly. I can’t believe
that’s what Labour wants.
‘I’ve had my fill
of toy boys —
now I’m dating
men over 50’
For Katie Glass, 43,
Anne Hathaway’s
age-gap rom-com
brought back
memories of her
days as a cougar
can’t think of anything more
I
annoying than having a toy boy.
Although right now being a
cougar is in vogue: there’s Sam
Taylor-Johnson with her
younger, Bond-hopeful husband,
Aaron (24 years her junior);
Kate Moss’s on-again, off-again
romance with Nikolai von Bismark
(37 to her 50); Sienna Miller, 42, with
her boyish beau, Oli Green, 27;
Madonna, 65 with … whoever the
latest sapling is that she’s seeing.
And now there’s Anne Hathaway’s
age-gap rom-com, The Idea of You,
which I sat down to watch with a
sense of déjà vu. The story of a woman
on the cusp of 40, Solène (Hathaway),
who falls for the 24-year-old boy band
star Hayes Campbell (Nicholas
Galitzine), felt familiar. Not because
I’ve dated pop stars, but because for
most of my thirties I was a cougar. But
now, in my forties, I’m over it.
The reason I dated younger men
was simple: they were more fun and
better-looking. When I was wildly
running around London, I sought
partners with the energy to keep up.
Being with someone younger fitted my
chaotic personality. And it had other
perks. I found younger partners less
cynical, less judgmental and more
optimistic than grumpy old men.
That they looked good was a bonus.
And clearly I’m not the only lady with
an eye for boyish charms, considering
the audience of middle-aged women
cooing over stars such as Timothée
Chalamet and Harry Styles (on whom,
rumour says, Hayes is based).
As Germaine Greer, who penned a
paean to male Lolitas, The Boy, noted:
“Everyone thinks the only people who
like looking at pictures of boys are gay
men. That’s not true. I, for one, love
looking at them.” Besides, as we’ve
known since Kinsey, women reach
their sexual peak in their mid-thirties,
just as men’s is fading.
Dating someone younger made me
feel cooler because it kept me in touch
with what was on trend. I’ve enjoyed
having partners I can cross-pollinate
generational pop-culture influences
with. For a while I dated a younger
artist who showed me a whole new
scene of young London artists I’d
never heard of.
I introduced him to Nick Drake and
he played me Die Antwoord. I took
him to the opera and he showed me
how to buy drugs on the dark web.
Mind you, there can be downsides to
dating someone with different
references — when I joked to one
younger lover that I felt like Mrs
Robinson, he didn’t know who I was
talking about.
When you’re dating someone
younger it can feel lighter. It’s less
competitive because you are at
different life stages so it’s harder to
compare yourselves. You can celebrate
their aspirations — to be in a band! To
write a great novel! — rather than
commiserate about what they
haven’t done.
When I was focusing on my career
and didn’t want to be pinned down
to marriage and children, the
casualness of relationships with
younger men suited me. I had a
situationship with a rugby player ten
years younger than me and loved the
way he’d turn up then disappear and
not text for a week.
He complained that girls his age
were desperate to pin him down to a
relationship, which was the last thing
I wanted from him. (Although the
downside of keeping it casual was that
after a few months he ghosted me.)
In hindsight, something else
appealed to me about age-gap
relationships. In my teens and early
twenties I’d felt used by older men; in
my thirties dating younger men felt
safer. It felt like a feminist statement
somehow because it signalled that as
a woman my attraction was down to
more than my youth or looks; being
older gave me a bit more power (I
could choose where we went to dinner,
even if I did get lumped with the bill),
but there wasn’t a genuine imbalance
that felt creepy the way old men
dating younger women can — perhaps
because I wasn’t rich enough.
Of course it wasn’t all great sex and
roses — having a younger partner
throws up problems. There can be
communication issues when you’re
dating someone whose texts you have
to look up in Urban Dictionary.
It gets boring being the one who’s
done everything before: reliving
another summer in Ibiza and fresh
rounds of east London house parties,
but this time worrying about
heartburn while everyone talks about
bands you’ve never heard of.
In The Idea of You, Solène is dating
a pop star who flies her around the
the times | Friday May 17 2024
world in private jets, feeding her
champagne in glamorous locations,
but the reality of dating someone in
their twenties is they can’t afford to
pay for dinner.
With my younger partners, it was
always me paying for holidays,
cocktails and Ubers. Anyone
considering a fling with a
twentysomething should be prepared
to go back to the days of house shares
and bedrooms with a mattress on the
floor smelling of Lynx.
You have to watch someone make
the same mistakes you did and wonder
whether to say anything — knowing
that if you do you’ll sound like
someone’s mum. You are always at risk
of becoming someone’s mother. Or
worse, dating someone with mummy
issues. It makes me cringe when
occasionally I get a message on
Tinder from a man in his twenties
calling me a milf. No one wants to be
someone’s fetish!
There is an anxiety that goes with
being the older woman. We don’t all
look like Sienna Miller. With younger
partners I was conscious of wrinkles
and cellulite appearing.
My most significant relationship was
with a man seven years my junior.
Some mean people said it wouldn’t
work because of the age difference.
They were right. Long term it became
clear we wanted different things —
heading into my forties, I was ready
for quiet nights and country life, while
he still wanted to party in the city.
When we started thinking about
having children we were conscious my
age gave us a time limit.
In my thirties dating younger people
was fun, but now in my forties I
couldn’t stand it. If growing old
gracefully means anything it should
not be having to keep up with fashions.
It’s so cringey when you see men in
Top: Katie Glass. their fifties on TikTok doing dances
Above: Anne Hathaway with their younger girlfriends. Put it
and Hayes Campbell in away, Grandad!
The Idea of You Recently, instead, I’ve started dating
older men. Now it’s nice to be the
young one. I went out with a 50-year-
old man who called me a “gorgeous
girl” — and made this 43-year-old
blush. I’m enjoying going to the
theatre and talking about politics
rather than having kinky sex and
watching shit TV. Maybe I grew up?
But now I’d find dating someone in
their twenties boring. I’m sure they’d
find me boring as well.
The plus side of dating older men
has been feeling looked after. I never
felt cared for when I dated younger
You are men, I always had to do the caring.
always at It makes a change now to date
someone I can ask for advice, and
risk of who takes charge when I get drunk.
And it makes a nice change to be
becoming paid for, for once. I wish I’d thought
of it sooner, I could have cashed in
someone’s my youth and found a rich older
husband, instead of spending my
mother pension on sugar babies.
Is there any way back
for Kevin Spacey?
The actor’s celeb chums want to save
his career. Good luck, says Ed Potton
t’s a seven-year saga featuring
I downfall, redemption (of sorts)
and dramatic late cameos from
Sharon Stone, Stephen Fry and
Liam Neeson. Can there really be
a way back for Kevin Spacey?
It seemed unlikely this month when
the documentary Spacey Unmasked
aired on Channel 4. Ten men claiming
that Spacey had groped and humped
them and, on one occasion, pressed his saying, ‘Kevin Spacey should be back
groin into a man’s face. “I just felt I was at work.’”
staring at a soulless monster,” one of
them said. If any of the allegations are
true, they are sleazy and unacceptable,
although Spacey insists that he has
done nothing illegal.
Yet since the documentary
something has happened that its
producers may not have predicted:
for the first time since allegations
about Spacey’s behaviour surfaced in
2017, there has been a rise in sympathy commercial appeal, which may explain
for him, or at least urges for
proportionality. Almost a year after he
was found not guilty by a British jury
of sexually assaulting four men
between 2004 and
2013 (a US jury had
dismissed a separate
lawsuit in 2022), a
string of high-profile
figures have broken
cover to support his
rehabilitation,
including Fry, Stone,
Neeson and Trevor
Nunn.
Spacey, 64,
pre-empted the
documentary by
giving an interview
to the journalist
Dan Wootton and
he gave another
after the film aired Sharon Stone and
to The Daily Kevin Spacey in 2011
Telegraph. “There
was definitely a rush to judgment,”
said the actor, who cut a defiant,
articulate and sometimes emotional
figure, apparently breaking down
several times in the second interview.
“I am absolutely accepting that, at
times, I behaved poorly,” he said.
“No one can doubt that he has
been clumsy and ‘inappropriate’ on
many occasions,” Fry said. However,
he added, “to bracket him with the
likes of Harvey Weinstein … how
can that be considered proportionate
and justified?”
There are chinks of light for those
on Team Spacey. He has at least two
films in the pipeline, including The
Bleeding Ground, a Belgian-financed
film with a South African director,
Donovan Marsh, and a British writer,
Mathew Bayliss. Based on a true story,
it is set to star Spacey as the president
of an oil company who is kidnapped in
the Niger Delta.
“He’s not been convicted so we said,
‘Why not?’” says Jean-Luc Van
Damme, the Belgian lead producer on
the film. They approached Spacey in
January, six months after he had
been acquitted. They hope to start
shooting in November, but the film
has yet to receive financing, which
3
times2
Van Damme is trying to secure at the
Cannes Film Festival this month.
“We’ve been very clear that we can’t
guarantee that we’ll be able to finance
the film with him,” he says, but Spacey
and his people “know better than I do
how complicated the situation is. The
Channel 4 documentary didn’t help,
for sure, but there is quite a big
movement of famous people who are
Others have bounced back from
controversy. Johnny Depp did so after
losing a defamation trial in London
stemming from claims that he had
abused his former wife Amber Heard,
which he denied. Yet Depp kept
his legions of fans and has a strong
track record of money-spinning
blockbusters. Spacey’s success was
founded more on artistic ability than
why his recovery has been slower. The
work never completely dried up, it just
plunged in quality, and like Depp he
has found European cinema more
welcoming. In 2022 he appeared in the
ropey Once Upon
a Time in Croatia
and an Italian
movie, The Man
Who Drew God,
playing a blind
man who draws
people by hearing
their voices;
coming up is
another Italian
production, The
Contract.
“I can’t wait to
see Kevin back at
work. He is a
genius,” Stone said.
“People wanted
and want to be
around him; it’s
terrible that they are blaming him for
not being able to come to terms with
themselves for using him.” She was
presumably referring to the men who
have admitted to engaging in sexual
activity with Spacey in the hope that
he could help their careers.
Spacey is not out of the woods yet.
One of the men involved in his
previous court case has brought a civil
case seeking damages from Spacey for
an alleged sexual assault in 2008. It
will be tried in the UK next year. It
remains to be seen whether any of the
allegations in the recent documentary
will result in legal action.
Some think that his history of
playing malevolent characters has
influenced this saga. Well, Spacey isn’t
likely to start playing saints — quite
the opposite. In The Contract he plays
“The Devil”, a character thought to be
similar to Pacino’s Satan-as-lawyer in
The Devil’s Advocate.
Can he return to his former
glories? “Anything is possible in this
crazy world,” says a film industry
insider who doesn’t want to be named.
“If you listen to the Italians, they
would have him back instantly, but
there’s an awful lot of murkiness
around it. I think it would be tricky.”
4 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

cover story

Swoon! He’s the totally teenage

As Tom Holland does the Bard in the West End, Jake Helm
and Susie Goldsbrough join his fans in the stalls and track
his rise from ballet brat to web-slinging screen superhero

‘T
hus with a kiss I
die.” Or should that
be a radioactive
spider bite? Spider-
Man swung his way
into the West End
this week as the
teen heart-throb
and Marvel superstar Tom Holland
unveiled his Romeo in Jamie Lloyd’s
new West End production of the star-
crossed lovers’ story. And although he
might have left his Spidey suit at home
and stopped short of webbing his way
up Juliet’s balcony, as a sweaty,
grinning, muscled-up Holland made
his bows at the end of Tuesday’s night
preview, it was clear whom the
whooping, whistling and strikingly
teenage audience had come for. Don’t
sweat it, Shakespeare — leave this one
to Spider-Man.
There’s a long (and not entirely
glorious) history of glitzy celebrities
venturing into West End or Broadway
theatres, bringing ready-built flocks of
their fans in exchange for a magic
dusting of theatrical prestige.
Sometimes it works: in the past year
the Sex and the City star
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Plaza Suite, the
Pussycat Dolls pop star Nicole
Scherzinger’s Sunset Boulevard
(another Lloyd production) and the
Succession villainess Sarah Snook’s
Picture of Dorian Gray have charmed
crowds and critics alike.
But Holland is something new, a
teen idol (he may have reached the
grand old age of 27, but his fans
certainly haven’t) whose casting is a
clear attempt to attract a much
younger crowd. Through his
relationship with his Spider-Man
co-star Zendaya, Holland is one half of
Gen Z’s favourite celebrity couple —
between them the pair have about
250 million Instagram followers. Will
Holland loosen up (and pack out) the
increasingly silver-haired West End?
Can Spider-Man do Shakespeare?
The preshow buzz at a preview this
week was promising: scrunchie-
ponytailed teens flooded the
auditorium, thrilled to have nabbed
tickets. “I just have to see him,” said
Zoe, a 20-year-old musical theatre
student from Essex who’d spent two
hours in a virtual queue for one of the
golden handful of £25 tickets (the
official top price is £275, but you can
easily spend £600 on the secondary
market). “He’s a great actor, he’s good-
looking, what more do you want?” said
Migle, a 23-year-old Marvel fan from
Lithuania who had been one of the
first 1,000 in the virtual ticket queue.
Asked if she also liked Shakespeare,
she was confused. “Who?”
Fans had travelled from all over —
from Belgium to Baltimore — to see
their hero on stage. But serious
feminists will be pleased to hear that
quite a few seemed more interested in
Holland’s girlfriend than his
performance. “We’re really Zendaya
fans. We love them as a couple,” said
28-year-old Katie, sipping a large glass
of white on the theatre balcony with
two friends. She’d spent four hours in
the virtual queue and paid £90 a ticket
(“a lot for bad seats”).
“We’re very tall and we love that
Zendaya’s dating someone shorter
than her [Zendaya is 5ft 10in while
Holland is 5ft 8in]. I don’t think I’d
Asked if she liked
Shakespeare, a
23-year-old fan
said: ‘Who?’
have done that at 23,” said Lori, 39,
from Maryland, who was there with
her sister. They had paid £165 each —
“that includes champagne and ice
cream” — and resold a spare ticket
two days earlier for £250. “I think I
could have got more,” she said.
Lloyd is considered something of a
theatrical rainmaker. The 44-year-old
director’s hits include his 2019
Broadway revival of Betrayal starring
Tom Hiddleston, and 2022’s Cyrano
de Bergerac with James McAvoy. He
has clearly crafted this production
with a younger crowd in mind. Taking
their seats before the performance, the
teens head-bopped along to the kind
of techno beats that coincidentally —
or otherwise — provide the
soundtrack to Zendaya’s latest big-
screen hit, the sexy tennis drama
Challengers. Nor is it much of a spoiler
to point out that Lloyd has deployed
giant-screen close-ups of the actors’
faces in real time, even following
them backstage at points.
Not everyone was taken in. “What
do the cameras add?” wondered
Damien, a frustrated 34-year-old
Belgian, in the interval. He also
lamented the compressed script and
minimalist staging. Another group of
teenagers we talked to didn’t know
that the original play contains a
couple of fight scenes, which have
been virtually excised from this
version. “Oh, that would have been
cool,” one 18-year-old said wistfully.
There are appreciative whoops
when Holland is at his most Spidey-
like. Fans have enthused about the
shots of him staring moodily out
from the theatre’s roof, as a Marvel
hero would. “God, he’s sexy,” one girl
muttered behind us as Romeo shed
his baggy hoodie to reveal a gym-
honed torso beneath a skimpy white
tank top. Another mentioned the
chemistry between him and his Juliet,
played by Francesca Amewudah-
Rivers, whose casting provoked racist
abuse and forced the show’s producers
to release a statement. Meanwhile the
women who told us that they fell for
Holland after watching his viral lip-
sync performance of Rihanna’s
Umbrella were presumably delighted
when, during a moment of loved-up
exuberance, Romeo broke briefly into
a crotch-clutching hip grind.
Yet it’s not the first time that
Holland has hoofed across the West
End stage. Long before Spider-Man, as
a child he would bop around the living
room of his Kingston-upon-Thames
home to his favourite tunes. Then, on From top: Tom Holland with Naomi Watts and Samuel Joslin
Saturday mornings, with his two in The Impossible (2012); with Saoirse Ronan in How I Live
brothers he would attend hip-hop Now (2013); and on stage in Billy Elliot The Musical in 2010

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the times | Friday May 17 2024
hip-grinding Romeo in a hoodie
Tom Holland with Zendaya, his
girlfriend and Spider-Man co-star,
and, top right, as the webslinger
classes at a leisure centre in
Wimbledon, where, at the age
of nine, he was advised to try
out for the hit musical Billy Elliot.
“He just had that something that
is so difficult to explain,”
says Lynne Page, the choreographer
who ran the dance school and
pointed him out to Stephen Daldry,
the director of the show. “He was
concentrated, focused, consistent and
had a natural movement style. It’s not
easy for a young boy to attend a dance
class — and stick with it.”
Page sat down with the actor and his
parents, Nicola, a photographer, and
Dominic, a stand-up comedian. She
warned them about the arduous
training needed to play Billy, and how
they must shield him from any
disappointment. He had delivered an
“extraordinary acting audition”,
Daldry says, impressing him and the
choreographer Peter Darling with his
“balletic shapes and innate rhythm”,
but needed to perfect his ballet.
He trained for two years to ensure
he landed the part, practising
pliés, tendus and relevés in
tights while other kids at his
Catholic boys’ school in
Wimbledon looked through the
windows or played rugby. He
was bullied for it, but “it’s
just what I had to do if I
wanted to get this job”, he
later said. Soon Holland was on
stage, first as Michael, Billy’s friend,
and then, in 2008, as Billy.
A first screen break for Holland
came as one of Naomi Watts’s sons in
the tsunami drama The Impossible.
The casting director Shaheen Baig,
also responsible for casting all six
series of Peaky Blinders, watched
hundreds of audition tapes and was
struggling to find a young boy who
didn’t “hide their emotions”. She
rewatched the tapes, only stopping
when she saw Holland’s. Baig and the
film’s director, JA Bayona, invited him
to an audition where they “pushed
him to quite difficult places
emotionally but he responded so
brilliantly”, she says. “He was mature
and grounded for someone so young.”
For Kevin Macdonald’s apocalyptic
teen romance How I Live Now, which
also starred the rising stars Saoirse
Ronan and George MacKay, the
director knew “right away” that he
wanted to cast Holland. “He had the
otherworldly combination of
charisma, openness and self-
confidence,” he says.
Then came the role of Spider-Man.
He saw off an
estimated 7,500
hopefuls to play
Spider-Man
The casting director Sarah Finn and
her team saw an estimated 7,500
hopefuls for Spidey, reportedly
including Timothée Chalamet and
Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield. Over
several months Holland went to
seven auditions. Finn reveals that she
had already spotted him in The
Impossible and was confident that after
Billy Elliot he would have “the
dedication and discipline to work in a
production like this”.
But it wasn’t until his screen test
with Robert Downey Jr that Holland
stood out from the rest. In the
scene Iron Man (Downey Jr) surprises
the teenager with an offer to help him
to fight Captain America. “Not only
did Holland hold his own, he was
confident, funny and capable of
bouncing the metaphorical ball right
back,” Finn explains. “He could make
Spider-Man deeply human, then
seamlessly also bring the strength and
nobility of a superhero.” For his
second screen test Holland entered
— to everyone’s surprise — with an
aerial flip. In June 2016 he got the
job. (Marvel’s Stan Lee, co-creator of
Spider-Man, said Holland was the
“exact age and height” he envisioned
when he first wrote the character.)
The first week of filming was mostly
stunt scenes. “He was so gung-ho and
wanted to do as many takes as
5
cover story
possible,” says Jon Watts, the director
of Holland and Zendaya’s three Spider-
Man films. Later he revealed to the
director how much pain he was in.
Holland and Zendaya’s relationship
was made public in 2021 when
paparazzi captured them kissing in a
car at a red light in Los Angeles. But
it came as little surprise to Watts.
“They made each other laugh. It made
things easier while filming — that
affection that you see between them
on screen is real.”
The pair reportedly own a £3 million
six-bedroom pad in Richmond,
southwest London. Locals have
spotted them popping into Gail’s
bakery and Waitrose to peruse the
tinned goods aisle. On Instagram
Holland recently posted a poster of
Challengers with the comment: “I
know what I’m doing this weekend.”
Why return to the stage now?
Holland has had onscreen misfires
trying to shed his superhero suit — if
you’ve watched Cherry or Crowded
Room, in which he plays, respectively,
a heroin addict and a mentally
disturbed criminal, you’re quite
unusual. It wasn’t just the bad reviews
of the latter drama that took their toll.
He said: “The mental aspect really
beat me up and it took a long time for
me to recover afterwards, to sort of get
back to reality.” He went to Formula 1
races, played golf and tried therapy.
Last year Holland said he had given up
drinking after he became “really
worried” he had an alcohol problem.
But the films will keep coming. A
fourth Spider-Man movie seems
inevitable, and the actor is set to play
Fred Astaire in a biopic directed by
Paul King, the brains behind
Paddington and Wonka. In a 2017
interview conducted by, erm, Zendaya,
Holland said: “The 20-year goal is to
be a film director. The 15-year goal is
to win an Oscar.”
Now, though, come the star-
crossed lovers. The Mirror has
reported that Lloyd’s staging will
transfer to Broadway after 12 weeks
in London. That’s a lot of rhyming
couplets. Watts believes “he will get
satisfaction from having that ability
to act night in and night out, flat out,
on stage. He knows what he’s doing.”
Page puts it more simply: “I think his
Romeo will break many hearts.”
Throughout the performance the
laughter, gasps and groans suggested
an audience seduced by a clever piece
of casting — for Holland’s totally
teenage Romeo, with his mood swings,
his mumblings, his nosedive into love
and despair, turns out to be,
essentially, Spider-Man. At least an
iambic pentameter Spider-Man.
“He needs to come out in his
Spider-Man suit,” one wit quipped at
the stage door afterwards as the crowd
clogged up St Martin’s Lane, desperate
for a sighting. The previous night
Holland had done his own impromptu
balcony scene from the theatre
terrace. This time he just gave a
brief wave then hopped into his
chauffeured car.
Oh well. There never was a story of
more web and woe than this of Juliet
and her Romeo. If only Zendaya had
been there to see it.
Romeo and Juliet is at the Duke of
York’s Theatre, WC2, to August 3
6 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
arts
THE CRITICS
Scott Thomas saves the holiday
The star stops a
trip to Greece from
being a Mamma
Mia! also-ran,
says Kevin Maher
he “holiday porn” season
T begins in earnest with this
affable tale of Aegean island-
hopping for three French
female friends. Technically,
by genre, it’s more of a MAWITS
entry. You know, middle-aged women
in the sun movies — think Mamma
Mia!, Love Is All You Need, Under the
Tuscan Sun, Adore. The big draw is
Kristin Scott Thomas, proving yet
again that she’s more interesting and
unleashed in French movies than in
anything available on the home front.
Here she plays Bijou, a hippy
hedonist and jewellery designer who
lives in a fabulous villa in Mykonos
and is hiding a painful secret. When
she bursts into the film, racing down
the harbour wall on a quad bike, her
long white locks flowing manically in
the wind, you know that she’s going to
have an impact. There’s just one snag.
By then you’re an hour in.
The sequences pre-KST are fine, if
unremarkable, and concern two
former childhood friends who reunite
in adulthood and hatch an impulsive
plan to visit Amorgos in the Cyclades,
the site of their favourite film, The Big
Frivolous fun: Olivia Blue. The friends are Blandine (Olivia
Côte, Laure Calamy, Côte) and Magalie (Laure Calamy
Kristin Scott Thomas from Call My Agent!), and they are
and Panos Koronis catastrophically mismatched.
Blandine is an introspective and
depressed radiographer who’s reeling
from her divorce two years earlier.
Magalie is an extroverted
nymphomaniac who’s jarring, loud and
Two Tickets abrasive, and proudly reveals that her
to Greece nickname back home is “tinnitus”.
15, 111min This chalk-and-cheese dynamic
{{{(( pushes our protagonists into
arguments, scrapes with authorities,
parties and near-romances with hunky
Belgian surfers — until finally, at the
60-minute mark, everyone’s favourite
Four Weddings scene-stealer arrives to
save the day.
Scott Thomas’s character, as
conceived by the writer-director Marc
Fitoussi (another Call My Agent!
alumnus), is a godsend, and grounds
the movie in something more earthy
and less frivolous than was initially
evident. The tear-jerking finale, alas, is
slightly overdone.
In cinemas
Luna Carmoon, the debutant writer-
director of this mesmerically strange
Hoard drama, claims she secretly sprayed its
18, 126min set with a perfume smelling of semen,
{{{{( sweat, milk and blood, which may
explain the instinctively unhinged
performances she draws from her cast.
Set in the Eighties and Nineties, Hoard
is the story of the traumatised free
spirit Maria, played at the age of 8 by
Lily-Beau Leach and at 18 by Saura
Lightfoot Leon, who gives an
extraordinary performance.
Carmoon has said the film began
as a suicide note when she had
lockdown-induced depression and that
the act of writing it may have saved
her, and there’s certainly an
authenticity to Maria’s emotional
odyssey. The first part details the
close, riotously creative relationship
the classic film
Hannie Caulder (1971)
15, 82min
{{{{(
This Raquel Welch western is one of
Tarantino’s favourite films and it’s
easy to see why. It’s not just because
of the Kill Bill-style central drama
about the murderous misadventures
of Welch’s eponymous rancher
turned gunslinger. It’s the
surrounding material that’s quietly
magnificent, and it includes a deeply
lovely performance from
Christopher Lee at his most
naturalistic and unaffected as a
kindly gunsmith called Bailey.
Then there’s Stephen Boyd from
Ben-Hur, entirely wordless yet
black-clad and ridiculously suave
as a mysterious sharpshooter called
the Preacher. And watch out for
Diana Dors playing a brothel
madam, delivering an ear-shattering
scream when Caulder executes her
first villain.
The violence is gory, splattery and
very 1970s, and there’s a misstep
sequence — part comedy, part sleaze
— featuring Welch and a pair of
shrink-to-fit cowboy chaps. But
otherwise this is an important, even
definitive, entry in the canon of
kick-ass female avenger flicks. KM
On Blu-ray from May 20, and
streaming on Prime Video
Strother Martin, Jack Elam,
Raquel Welch and Ernest Borgnine
between young Maria and her loose
cannon mother, played by Hayley
Squires. The second finds the unruly
teenage Maria living with a more
conventional foster mother, Michelle
(Samantha Spiro), getting high and
becoming fascinated by Michael,
Michelle’s 29-year-old former charge
(Joseph Quinn). Her birth mother is
still in her head though.
There’s some of the sweaty
claustrophobia of Andrea Arnold’s Fish
Tank and the warped domesticity of
Andrew Birkin’s The Cement Garden,
but Carmoon is very much her own
film-maker. The scene in which Maria
and Michael rampage through the
house, she playing bull to his
bullfighter, is a thrilling cinematic
fever dream. EP
In cinemas
the times | Friday May 17 2024
Furry fable from a sure-footed softie
arents, meet your next
P
rainy-day buster.
Featuring Ryan
Reynolds in goofily
melancholic mode, one
of the starriest
supporting casts in
recent memory and
a van-sized furry purple monster
called Blue, IF is a children’s fantasy
of wistful wonder and another
satisfying chapter in the career of the
actor/film-maker John Krasinski.
Having proved himself a horror
director with the first two Quiet Place
films, Krasinski moves into mushier
terrain with the surefootedness of a
massive softie. What links the two
projects is family and loss: while
the dad was chomped by aliens in A
Quiet Place, in IF it’s the mum who
dies from cancer in an Up-style
prologue. Fast forward a few years
and Bea (an astute Cailey Fleming),
12, and her pop (Krasinski) are putting
on their brave faces.
Note that both letters of the film’s
title are capitalised — IF has nothing
to do with Lindsay Anderson’s If ….
(which was nobody’s idea of family-
Catching Fire:
The Story of
Anita Pallenberg
15, 115min
{{{{(
Be careful what you wish
for. At a time when the
biographical documentary
format is under threat
from branded Netflix dross
such as Beckham, Arnold
and Gaga: Five Foot Two,
the very concept of an
unvarnished celebrity profile
seems obsolete. That is why
the big film
John Krasinski’s film about
imaginary friends has a big cast
(including his wife, Emily Blunt)
and a bigger heart. By Ed Potton
friendly), but instead stands for
imaginary friend. When her dad goes
IF into hospital for a heart operation —
U, 104min this girl is put through the wringer —
{{{{( Bea moves in with her grandma,
played by Fiona Shaw with a mostly
American accent, in her Brooklyn
Heights apartment.
Living in the same building is Calvin
(Reynolds), who is one of the few
adults who can see IFs: creatures that
help their assigned kids through
childhood but who are forgotten when
the children grow up. Bea discovers
that she can see them too, from the
loveably cack-handed Blue, who looks
like the cousin of Sully in Monsters,
this portrait of the actress,
model and Rolling Stones
“muse” Anita Pallenberg is so
shocking.
It’s a near two-hour exposé,
endlessly fascinating yet
punishing as we chart the
downfall and drugs-based
destruction of this pivotal
countercultural figure. The real
kicker? It’s not even a hatchet
job from partisan commentators
or deranged Stones fans. The
narrative is built around the
words of Pallenberg, culled from
The actress is voiced by
Scarlett Johansson
Inc., to Blossom, a posh, arch,
humanoid butterfly.
Bea decides to help Calvin in his
forlorn mission to help to find new
children for the defunct IFs who are
languishing in the Memory Lane
retirement home on Coney Island.
The air is thick with famous voices:
Blue is played by Steve Carell,
Krasinski’s old boss from The Office
US, and Blossom by Phoebe Waller-
Bridge. In addition, Krasinski and
Reynolds have roped in their wives,
Emily Blunt and Blake Lively, and a
string of A-list mates to play other IFs.
George Clooney is an astronaut; Amy
Schumer is a gummy bear; Matt
Damon is a sunflower. Bradley Cooper
channels his Oscar-chasing thespian
zeal into portraying a talking ice cube
in a glass of water.
The script, written by Krasinski
from a concept he dreamt up with
Reynolds — I picture them on Malibu
sunloungers, margaritas in hand — is
big on the power of childish creativity.
As Memory Lane and its residents
are revitalised by Bea’s rampant
imagination, the film blooms into life.
Calvin bursts from a painter’s canvas,
an unpublished memoir that was
discovered posthumously by her son,
Marlon, who features prominently.
The co-directors Alexis Bloom and
Svetlana Zill have cannily hired
Scarlett Johansson, one of the great
movie voices, to narrate excerpts
from the tome. Pallenberg’s knockout
intro states: “I’ve been called a witch,
a slut and a murderer. I’ve been
hounded by the police and slandered
in the press.” Then comes the
announcement: “I don’t need to settle
scores. I’m reclaiming my soul.”
It’s a bold tease, but what follows is
the reclamation of a legend that pivots
around her relationship with Brian
Jones, his abusive behaviour and the
7
arts
film reviews
Ryan Reynolds, Cailey
Fleming and their
invisible monster mates
knights duel with a dragon and Bea
leads a razzle-dazzle music routine
with a virtual Tina Turner. Back at the
hospital, Krasinski’s character tries to
lighten the pre-op mood with a series
of appalling dad jokes, hiding in a
cupboard and dancing with his saline-
drip stand. “You gotta stop,” Bea says.
“Never!” he replies.
It’s by no means flawless. The large
cast doesn’t give much room for
character development, and there is
some subtle narrative signposting that
may be lost on younger viewers, as
well as a few gaps in plausibility. Why
is the preteen Bea left to wander
around New York for several days
accompanied only by invisible
monsters?
Plausibility is not the point here,
though — it’s a film featuring a talking
ice cube. IF is a wonky, big-hearted
fairytale that, crucially, evokes a world
adults don’t understand. There’s a
sense of delayed gratification when it
comes to the emotional payoffs and a
sweet final twist that will be guessable
for grown-ups but less so for children,
who may squeal with delight.
In cinemas
solace Pallenberg found in the
nurturing company of Keith Richards.
We also get some clarity on her
relationship with Mick Jagger.
The film is strong on her part in
Stones lore: how she seemingly
inspired Richards to write Gimme
Shelter and Jagger to write You Can’t
Always Get What You Want. But it
dwells mostly on the wreck of her
personal life with Richards, their
hopelessness as parents and the dark
days that culminated in the suicide
of their teenage groundsman
Scott Cantrell in 1979. It’s impossibly
bleak in places. But there is, it seems,
truth here. KM
In cinemas
8 Friday May 17 2024 | the times
music reviews
At 22, Eilish is an old soul
forging a whole new sound
The singer’s third
album is testament
to both her youth
and maturity, says
Will Hodgkinson
hat is it like
W
to be a
home-
schooled kid
from Los
Angeles
who started
writing
songs with her elder brother, Finneas,
at 13, only to witness those songs, with
their unlikely blend of bossa nova,
musical theatre, Beatlesesque pop and
gothic drama, becoming massive
global hits? On her third album Eilish
lets us know, while also dealing with
coming out, body issues and the
inescapable pressures of being a role
model to millions of people she has
never met. And she’s still only 22.
The maturity of Eilish’s vision is on
display, as is her refusal to take the
easy route towards conventional pop.
Skinny features nothing more than
acoustic guitar and a touch of strings
against Eilish’s light, pure voice, as she
deals with other people’s concerns
about her weight, feeling like a bird in
a cage, and the possibility that she
may have already passed her career
peak, all within the framework of a
sweet love song. Lunch is an
unequivocal expression of lesbian lust
set to a thumping bass and a sultry
funk beat. This is going to be a staple
in gay bars for years to come.
For the most part Eilish plays it cool.
Vocals are subdued, arrangements
exhibit classical elegance, expressions
of love are romantic rather than
explicit. Birds of a Feather floats along
on a cloud of infatuation, while The
Greatest is a light jazz tune about
unrequited love that builds into a
yearning power ballad.
For all Eilish’s global popularity, this
mostly acoustic album is strangely out
This conductor knows the secret to truly sizzling Sibelius
n 1940 the American composer
I and critic Virgil Thomson couldn’t
see the point of Sibelius. “Vulgar,
self-indulgent and provincial
beyond all description.” That was
his nutshell comment on the Finnish
master’s Second Symphony, one of the
most popular of his seven. The
question is, would Thomson have
rejigged his opinion had he lived to
hear Sibelius conducted by Yannick
Nézet-Séguin, right?
The latest release in the Canadian’s
symphony cycle, taken from live
performances with the Orchestre
Métropolitain of Montreal, contains
the Second and the equally popular
Fifth, and confirms Nézet-Séguin’s
status as one of the most persuasive
of step with the brash, synthetic mood
pop of contemporary pop. Even when she
heads toward dance music on Chihiro,
Billie Eilish she does so in a way that is more
Hit Me Hard suited to chilling on a beach than
getting messy at a rave.
and Soft There is also a rather traditional
Interscope quality, despite its S&M-leaning title,
{{{{( to the album. It is ten songs long: a
rarity for a leading pop star in an age
when chucking out lots of tracks at
once means dominating streaming
services on the week of release. There
are stylistic touches from decades
past: The Diner has an oompah-
oompah sound that would not be out
of place on the soundtrack to Cabaret
and the gliding dream-pop in Blue
recalls the hazy, empty atmosphere
of Twin Peaks.
Eilish has displayed impressive
confidence by making such a
Leyla McCalla characterful work at the height of
The singer-songwriter her career. She may be addressing
blends classic folk and young concerns, but she’s an old soul.
west African rhythms That comes across in an album that
on her new album. builds an impressionistic world that’s
thetimes.co.uk/arts entirely her own.
Sibelius conductors around. Part of his
classical
Yannick Nézet-
Séguin
Sibelius
Atma Classique
{{{{{
excellence stems from the close bond
between conductor and
orchestra, sealed in 2000
and, on paper at least,
set to continue for
Nézet-Séguin’s
lifetime, despite his
commitments
elsewhere (the New
Anthony Payne York Metropolitan
Visions and Opera for one).
Journeys Everyone in Montreal
NMC thinks, breathes and feels
{{{{( in sync, although there’s an
added glory when the music’s
argument is majestically conveyed by
the horns, trumpets and trombones.
The key ingredient, however, is
New Kids on the Block
Still Kids
BMG
{{(((
The original Eighties boy band are
definitely not still kids, which becomes
obvious after one listen to the
Massachusetts-raised five-piece’s use
of dated production effects and
Eighties-style rapping.
Still, there’s a certain peppy charm
to their returning album, just as your
dad dancing at a wedding can be
embarrassing yet loveable. Kids
celebrates the fact they’re still small-
town kids to a tinny beat and the odd
Coldplay style “wuh-oh”, while In the
Night revives the yacht rock spirit of
Hall & Oates with a synthesizer-led
tale of an illicit liaison after dark.
Donnie Wahlberg called this “the
most mature album we’ve ever made”,
which makes you wonder what
arrested development they’re suffering
through, but the unabashed cheesiness
and uncool enthusiasm brings its own
reward. If nothing else, this has
nostalgic appeal for NKOTB fans.
Jack Savoretti
Miss Italia
Absolute
{{{((
Having
built a
reputation
as a
smooth-
voiced
balladeer with
an old-fashioned,
Frank Sinatra-like
quality, Savoretti, whose father is
Italian, has recorded his first album in
the language. And he really goes for it.
On Come Posso Raccontare he sounds
like an Italian Joe Cocker, while the
title track is a sentimental homage to
the country he misses (geddit?) now
that he lives in the English
countryside. Guests come and go,
among them the Scouse good-time
guy Miles Kane and the Nineties pop
sensation Natalie Imbruglia. But the
simple appeal is in the romance of
Savoretti’s voice and the way the
mellifluous, jazz-inflected music
makes you want to go to Rome, ride
about on a Vespa and pretend you’re
in La Dolce Vita.
YNS’s mastery of the two related
essentials in Sibelius’s symphonic
language. One is a firm
control of the music’s
quirky ebb and flow.
The other is the ability
to build and maintain
tension. The finale of
the Second, a work
shallowly described
in the programme
note as “sunny and
joyful”, provides a good
example of both. Yet it’s
outclassed by his electrifying
delivery of Symphony No 5,
through all the score’s twists and turns
from the magical opening horn calls to
those towering closing chiselled
Kate Hudson
Glorious
Virgin
{{(((
Kate Hudson’s place in rock’n’roll
history is assured. As Penny Lane,
groupie/muse for the mediocre rockers
Stillwater, she was the breakout star of
the 2000 movie Almost Famous. Penny
Lane surely had a great album in her
freedom-loving soul — something that
might have sounded like Janis Joplin
jamming with the Rolling Stones. All
these years later, and after hitting the
Hollywood mainstream, Hudson has
made her own musical debut.
She certainly hasn’t contravened the
Trade Descriptions Act. This is,
unquestionably, music: guitars chug
along, drums keep a solid beat,
backing vocalists get vaguely soulful.
Hudson delivers a perfectly
serviceable impression of someone
giving it her all as she asks a guy if he’s
going to come up to her house (Gonna
Find Out) or tells another one that his
lies have got him into hot water (Fire).
With help from the established hit-
maker Linda Perry, who has worked
with Christina Aguilera and Gwen
Stefani, the songwriting is pretty solid,
if unremarkable. The Nineties honours
its title by sounding like an Alanis
Morissette-style emotional pop-rocker,
but as if it were written as the theme
tune to a Netflix rom-com. The
problem is that nothing feels truly
convincing. As a result, this comes
across as something Hudson
thought would be a fun thing to
do, rather than an expunging of her
very soul.
Of course, if you want undemanding
soft rock à la Stevie Nicks from a
charismatic Hollywood star, Glorious
is perfectly . . . well, not exactly
glorious, but at the very least
inoffensive. The title track is a
twinkling piano ballad with a phones-
aloft sense of yearning. Live Forever
is sadly not a cover of the Oasis
classic but a sweet love song with a
catchy chorus.
Then you start noticing the vocal
mannerisms employed to denote
feeling, the dips in pitch on Gonna
Find Out, the throaty croaks on Talk
About Love, the breathy moments
on Not Easy to Know, and the whole
thing falls apart. Hudson has every
right to make an album and hopefully
she had a great time doing it. Glorious
does, however, come across as the very
essence of a vanity project.
chords. Maybe Thomson in his
afterlife could think again?
Sibelius wasn’t one of the British
composer Anthony Payne’s special
gods: he veered more towards Elgar
and other early 20th-century English
masters, whose influences keep
popping up in selected bars of the
three thoughtful and fascinating
orchestral pieces presented here in
past BBC recordings. Andrew Davis,
who died in April, conducts the title
work, Visions and Journeys, the most
immediately enjoyable, although in
every case I sat engrossed by Payne’s
unshowy ability to cast a spell and
be modern and romantic at the
same time.
Geoff Brown
the times | Friday May 17 2024 9

first night
thespian and drink-sodden master of
pop misrule. The Irish actor Robert opera
Sheehan lacks Grant’s imperious
Dionne Warwick voice but as he staggers about from Hallé/Elder
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, WC2 one self-inflicted mishap to another Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
{{{(( we gradually fall for his dubious {{{{(

S A
tage left was a vast sofa; stage
right three backing musicians
sat patiently. For this show
the veteran singer Dionne
Warwick spent a lot more time
on the sofa talking about the hits of a
fabled career rather than singing
them. The first half featured just two
songs — Don’t Make Me Over, the hit
that started it all, and a lightly jazzed
I Say a Little Prayer. This was duetted
with her son, David Elliott, whose
soulful delivery threatened to steal
the limelight.
Warwick’s voice is a shadow of its
supple Sixties glory. The Burt
Bacharach ballads may be immortal,
but vocal cords are not and her tone
was often harsh, the pitching wayward.
Well, she is 83 and her UK “farewell”
tour was two years ago.
How to present artists whose powers
have waned but are still beloved is a
challenge as old as showbusiness itself.
Nina Simone, BB King, Sinatra,
Satchmo … they all played a tour too
many. Not everyone wishes, let alone
can afford, to be an Abba avatar, so
this format, billed as “in person and in
her own words with live band” seemed
a reasonable compromise. It was as
much fan convention as gig, and you
can imagine Taylor Swift doing the
same in, oh, 2075.
The evening relied heavily on
excerpts from a documentary, Dionne
Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over. Scenes
were cued up by its director, Dave
Wooley, who shared the couch
with the singer. We heard about the
stories of her early rise, her role in the
battle against Aids and the time she
showed Snoop Dogg the error of his
gangsta ways.
But what may have irked some
charms. Adonis Siddique, as his long-
suffering friend Marwood, is very good
value too. Appalled by his pal’s antics,
he occasionally aims melancholy
soliloquies at the audience. Best of all,
Malcolm Sinclair makes for a
memorably fruity Uncle Monty, the
leering old public school aesthete who
is determined to seduce Marwood
after the two friends escape cold,
grimy Camden Town and find refuge
in his Lake District cottage. It’s a
A convincing
replica of the
Camberwell
carrot is served
measure of Sinclair’s comedic skills
that he banishes memories of the late,
great Richard Griffiths.
Sean Foley’s production gambols
along. It was a clever decision to add a
Robert Sheehan as Withnail and Adonis Siddique as Marwood live band, who occasionally take
centre stage and also supply a Sixties
soundtrack from behind the scenes.
Let’s drink to The four members — Morgan
Philpott, Matt Devitt, Adam Sopp
and Sooz Kempner — also play
supporting roles, including Jake the
Poacher, the grim fellow who walks
Withnail again around with an eel in his pocket. As
the spaced-out dealer Danny, Adam
Young serves up a convincing replica
of the Camberwell carrot spliff.
Sticking closely to the screenplay
Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of his 1987 means there are an awful lot of scene
changes but they’re mostly done with
comedy delivers the goods, says Clive Davis aplomb. Alice Power’s designs make
imaginative use of scrims to conjure
ttending this afternoon
concert was like stepping
into the world of yesterday.
Mark Elder conducted the
Hallé in tenderly nostalgic
performances of English classics by
George Butterworth (A Shropshire
Lad) and Edward Elgar (Enigma
Variations), as well as an ardently
romantic interpretation of Dvorak’s
Scherzo capriccioso. You could imagine
the orchestra playing the repertoire at
a midweek matinee 100 years ago.
It was fitting, then, that the concert’s
new work was called The World of
Yesterday. Stephen Hough, its
composer, pinched the title from
Stefan Zweig’s memoir of life in
Vienna before the First World War,
though Zweig penned it decades later,
after he had fled the Nazis. He posted
it to his publisher the day before he
and his wife committed suicide.
These dark shadows don’t really
appear in Hough’s mostly joyous
20-minute piano concerto, which has
a virtuosic solo part clearly written for
himself to play. But Zweig’s nostalgia
for a past epoch that is seemingly
irretrievable is most certainly a factor
in the music. We are returned to a
world of tonality and tunefulness in
which a Viennese waltz can provide
the theme for a series of delicious
variations and the orchestra can open
with a tune that seems plucked from
golden age Hollywood.
At first the piece seems loosely
constructed. After that orchestral
opening, with the piano silent,
everything stops except the soloist,
who rhapsodises alone for minutes.
You wonder whether piano and
orchestra will ever interact. But
Hough’s compositional craft is subtler

ticket holders stumping up hefty
West End prices is that the 2021
documentary has been available for
free on iPlayer for some time. Little of
what was said here would have been
news to anyone with the BBC app, or
indeed who had read the interview
with her in this paper last month.
Finally Warwick abandoned the
couch and joined the band for a run-
through of hits: Walk on By, Anyone
Who Had a Heart and Alfie. A mass
singalong from the adoring crowd
enveloped the (sometimes uncertain)
notes coming through the mike.
John Bungey
Touring to Sunday,
officialdionnewarwick.com
H
ere comes another screen-
theatre to-stage adaptation, just
days after adaptations of
Withnail and I Spirited Away and Minority
Birmingham Rep (135min) Report. In addition, Fawlty
{{{{( Towers has been exhumed and a
version of the French film The Artist
has its press night next week. It’s
certainly a sign that theatre is in a
cautious frame of mind as it continues
its recovery from lockdown.
That grumble aside, the good news
is that Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of
his own film, one of the funniest of
British comedies, still delivers plenty
of manic fun — yes, even without the
irreplaceable Richard E Grant in the
role of Withnail, the unemployed
up the different locations alongside
Akhila Krishnan’s atmospheric video
projections and Jessica Hung Han
Yun’s lighting. Hardcore fans can rest
assured that the battered Jaguar Mark
2 makes an appearance too, albeit in
sawn-off form.
The audience cheered along at
“we want the finest wines available to
humanity” and other classic lines,
although I couldn’t help wincing when
Monty complained about his former
agent as “this dreadful little Israelite”.
Perhaps that’s one sliver of period
detail that could be jettisoned. The
rest is spot-on.
Clive Davis
To May 25, birmingham-rep.co.uk
than these initial impressions suggest.
The harmonies grow more complex,
and the ending is a pulsating dialogue
between soloist and band.
The “world of yesterday” sometimes
looms larger than Hough perhaps
intended. The influence of
Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations
seems fairly evident, and Hough’s use
of the waltz as metaphor for fin de
siècle decadence can’t help but remind
you of Ravel, Richard Strauss,
Bernstein and a few others. But that
doesn’t spoil the fun. Hough has gifted
himself a concerto that will entertain
audiences wherever he takes it.
Richard Morrison
Repeated on Sunday, halle.co.uk

L
earning a language as an adult
theatre is a battle. Your voice feels
alien; the words can’t quite
English find their shape. Sanaz Toossi’s
The Other Place, Stratford- 2023 Pulitzer prizewinning
upon-Avon (90min) drama, having its European premiere
{{{{{ presented by the RSC, articulates this
struggle in meticulous detail. It’s set in
a 2008 classroom in Karaj, Iran, at a
time of travel restrictions and
generational migration, where a group
of students arrive for a triweekly
preparation lesson for the English as
a foreign language test.
Each of the four students has a
different motive. Elham (Serena
Manteghi) has won a provisional place
at medical school in Australia. Roya
(Lanna Joffrey) wants to be able to
communicate effortlessly with her
granddaughter, who was born and
lives in Canada. Eighteen-year-old
Goli (Sara Hazemi) has wanted to
learn a language since she was young.
Star of the class Omid (Nojan Khazai),
who suspiciously speaks English with
almost no accent, has an upcoming US
green card interview. When their
teacher Marjan (Nadia Albina), who
lived in Manchester for nine years and
is gradually forgetting her once
flawless English, decides to ban their
native Farsi the students’ identities are
thrown into question. Does learning a
language mean giving up the person
you are?
The director Diyan Zora’s
production is small in scope but in one
tiny classroom it gives each
personality the space they need.
Toossi’s skill as a writer lies in making
her characters multilayered
Serena Manteghi as Elham in Sanaz
Toossi’s Pulitzer prizewinning drama
individuals. As they practise tongue
twisters, study English songs, improve
and regress we get to know them as if
we were part of the class. While their
tentative speech is fertile ground for
comedy, Toossi stops it feeling cruel.
Instead we get a little insight into
their minds. When the students
speak Farsi they talk easily, fluidly;
when they speak English it is accented
and jerky. We understand it all —
until a final, genius scene forces
the audience into the position of
non-fluency. It is a masterful way of
dramatising the experience of being
a linguistic outsider, shut out from
the conversation and struggling to
know more.
Anya Ryan
To June 1, then the Kiln theatre,
NW6, June 5-29, rsc.org.uk
10 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

first night
dance opera
Ballet Black L’Olimpiade
Barbican (95min) Linbury, Royal Opera House (160min)
{{{(( {{{{(

T T
he two works on Ballet
Black’s new double bill,
HEROES, can be viewed as
having a common theme —
the desire to honour the
unsung heroism of those who struggle
to get through the challenges of
everyday life. This is vague enough
to cover all eventualities, which it
does here.
In If at First Sophie Laplane takes
inspiration from Jean-Michel
Basquiat’s painting Eroica and
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony to ask
what it means to be a hero. The
soundtrack includes excerpts from the
symphony along with 21st-century
compositions of a less classical and
more nervy disposition. The balletic
choreography for nine dancers (in
unflattering white underwear) features
vignettes that highlight life’s struggles
while, as Laplane says, “celebrating the
persistence and perseverance of the
human spirit”. In between we get
scenes of chaos and discord, in which
dancers rush around making a greedy
grab for a crown that represents
power. Why?
he evening felt a little cursed.
There was an onstage illness,
with one cast member
having to walk their part, an
offstage medical emergency,
which briefly held up the show before
the interval, and I was a little bit
under the weather myself … But the
gods were still smiling on this
production of L’Olimpiade, Irish
National Opera’s second collaboration
with the Royal Opera House on some
lesser-known Vivaldi after their
award-winning staging of his Bajazet
in 2022.
Supported by the slick and
unobtrusive Irish Baroque Orchestra
under Peter Whelan, this relative
rarity resounded with some excellent
singing and even better acting. This
was aided by some sophisticated
Tamsin Greig, with Nicholas Farrell, excels as Hester, one half of a couple in an unhappy love affair decisions from the director Daisy
Evans, and the set and costume
designer Molly O’Cathain, who made
She’ll sweep you away the most of the opera’s setting —
during the ancient Greek Olympics.
Taking place in the round of what
looked like an amphitheatre seen from
afar, against a backdrop alternately

The best parts are the pas de deux,
be they confrontational or consoling,
but Laplane’s approach in general is so
ambiguous and the messages so mixed
as to be self-defeating.
I reviewed The Waiting Game three
years ago but it has been completely
reimagined by Mthuthuzeli November.
He has added a lot of choreography
and written new music (a co-
composition with Alex Wilson, not
especially memorable). We have a man
(Ebony Thomas) overwhelmed by an
existential crisis. We know this
because the voice in his head (Isabela
Coracy) tells us so. What we don’t
know (yet) is that he’s an artist
experiencing a crisis of confidence just
minutes before he is due to perform.
After writhing in self-doubt, he is
joined by other dancers to help him
work through his pain and get him up
on stage.
The choreography abounds with the
energy of a tight group dynamic and is
infused with showbiz sparkle. This is
a company that has experienced a lot
of turnover and although Laplane’s
piece highlights the weaknesses of the
new recruits, November’s work plays
to their strengths.
Debra Craine
To Sunday then touring to June 28,
balletblack.co.uk
T
Tamsin Greig is erence Rattigan wrote The
Deep Blue Sea in 1952 after
superb in an his former lover Kenneth
artful Rattigan Morgan disconnected the
rubber hose from a stove and
revival, says gassed himself. While many have
Rachel speculated that the central character,
Halliburton Hester, actually represents a man,
Rattigan’s raw, elegant depiction of
a woman adrift in an unhappy love
theatre affair has proved to be one of the great
female roles of our time.
The Deep Blue Following in the footsteps of Peggy
Sea Ashcroft, Penelope Wilton and
Theatre Royal Bath Helen McCrory, Tamsin Greig is the
(150min) latest to tackle a part as filled with
{{{{( mordant wit as with vertiginous
despair. In Lindsay Posner’s artfully
claustrophobic production, with its
meticulously observed period detail,
she delivers a performance as poised
as it is lacerating, showing Hester
unpicking others’ delusions at the
same time as she is destroyed by
her own.
Etta James’s Stormy Weather is
playing as the lights come up on a
shabby but respectable apartment. Yet
most crucial to Peter McKintosh’s
design is the way it conveys how the
walls are so thin that all the occupants
of the house have become voyeurs of
each other’s lives. Though the first
image is of Hester’s body lying prone
in front of the gas fire after a suicide
attempt, it’s quickly eclipsed by the
gossiping neighbours who crawl over
her story like cockroaches.
Greig brilliantly conveys a woman
calcified by misery — her brittle
sophistication gives the sense that if
you tapped her too hard she would
disintegrate to dust. In Rattigan’s script
we see how her plight is not to be
unloved but rather to be torn between
two men whose ideas of love cannot
address her increasingly complex
awareness of who she is.
Nicholas Farrell gives a finely
calibrated performance as Hester’s
ex-husband, Sir William Collyer, a
judge whose attempts at humanity are
stifled by patrician superiority. Oliver
Chris is perhaps a little too gung ho
as Freddie, the young pilot who, like
Hester, is utterly lost in life.
Felicity Montagu is a bustle of pious
nosiness as the landlady Mrs Elton,
and Finbar Lynch is a model of wry
philosophical restraint as the disgraced
medic Miller. Preston Nyman in
particular excels as Hester’s priggish
naive young neighbour Philip Welch,
who with every word he utters
encapsulates the pink-faced hypocrisy
of the society Hester is trying so
desperately to escape.
To June 1, theatreroyal.org.uk
backlit terracotta and deep-sea blue,
the opera (very simply put) follows a
pair of lovers trying to get it together
after having been separated by
domineering fathers. But given the
actual balletic complexity and pacing
of the plot, the production’s very
effective signposting, such as jerseys
embroidered with the characters’
initials, stayed for the most part on the
right side of early Noughties children’s
TV and was kept there, in any case, by
the commitment of the cast.
Sarah Richmond was full-bodied in
presence and sound as Argene,
weighed down with the melancholy of
being forgotten about by her former
flame Licida (Meili Li). For his part, Li
was a little too anchored to the
conductor to inhabit his character
fully but he held his own with his
high-set countertenor, especially
against Maria Schellenberg, who
flawlessly sang the role of Licida’s
mate Megacle from the pit (subbing in
for the ailing Gemma Ní Bhriain).
There was perhaps an added limitation
for Li that the most virtuosic arias go
to fairly incidental roles — brought off
here by Rachel Redmond (Aminta)
and Seán Boylan (Alcandro) with flair
and charisma respectively.
Daniel Lewis
To May 25, roh.org.uk

T
he original production of
theatre Duncan Macmillan’s
gruelling play about
People, Places addiction catapulted its
and Things lead, Denise Gough, to
Trafalgar Theatre, SW1 superstardom. It was 2015’s must-see
(140min) ticket, the next great play after
{{{{{ Jerusalem. And now it is back, with
Gough as well as the original director,
Jeremy Herrin, not to mention the
same set and staging. Why do it again?
After all, part of the beauty of an
acclaimed production is that it is
sealed in time. But as Gough takes
to the stage as Emma, the wayward
drug and alcohol-using actress
constantly chasing highs and
pretending to be people she is not,
that doubt quickly evaporates.
It is an extraordinary
transformation. Emma is introduced
Danny Kirrane as Foster and Denise
Gough as the wayward addict Emma
while intoxicated, performing a scene
from Chekhov’s The Seagull, but soon
the stage warps into her hedonistic
kingdom — nightclub lights glare,
heavy music pounds — before we land
at the doors of a clinical 12-step
rehabilitation centre. Emma cycles
between delusion and consciousness,
twitches furiously, grinds her jaw and
slurs her words. Slowly and painfully,
she weans herself off the drugs in a
colossal, relentless unravelling.
Some things have changed since
2015. There are new drugs to get
addicted to; we have lived through
Brexit and Covid. However, the
experience of addiction remains much
the same. Macmillan writes it as a
violent paradise that grabs a person’s
soul and clings on tight, a mask for
trauma that protects Emma from
digging into her true feelings. But this
is much more than a play about one
person’s experience: it is total, hellish
immersion.
It isn’t flawless. The supporting
characters are undeniably
underwritten. The group scenes of
therapy sometimes seem to have no
clear end. But it doesn’t really matter:
as nauseating and adrenaline-spiking
as it gets, this is also theatre at its most
vivid. Gough, who recently revealed
that she is a former addict herself,
appears to be devoured by her
character; she has an answer for
everything but fear in her eye. Bodies
rise from beds. There are flashes of
darkness, the clang of white noise. It’s
an unforgettable night.
Anya Ryan
To August 10, trafalgartheatre.com
the times | Friday May 17 2024 11

television & radio

Nicola Coughlan shines in a sexed-up season

the touching of “parts” had not been wallflower Penelope Featherington,
Carol overly taxed. For this one they
possibly needed back-up netballs. But
plus the frustrating will-they-won’t-
they dynamic between her and Colin,
Midgley don’t get too excited: Netflix has
split Bridgerton in half as it did The
Crown, with four episodes now and
it would be a fairly shallow affair. A
shout out, by the way, to Coughlan’s
quivering décolletage, which gets so
TV review four in June. And some of the how’s-
your-father comes in part two, which
much screen time it should appear in
the credits as a separate character.
I’m not allowed to talk about but Penelope, knowing she is close to
which, between us, is much the better being on the shelf because it’s her
half. That’s because of the plot, to be third year on the marriage market,
clear, not the posh rumpy-pumpy. undergoes a “glow up” in a desperate
You never take Bridgerton too attempt to land a husband. She looks
seriously: it pulls the shirt off Colin lovely, but then the series’ bitchy mean
Bridgerton (Luke Newton) in the first girl Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen)
six minutes. To be fair, it doesn’t often treads on her dress at a ball and
Bridgerton series 3, part 1 take itself seriously, what with the accuses her of using cheap material.
Netflix simpering man-hungry ladies’ almost There’s decent, hostile momentum
{{{(( parodic fan-fluttering, the hugely between Penelope and Eloise
overmannered manipulations of Lady Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie), who has
ridgerton, the toff, tits and Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and the discovered that Penelope is the gossip

B titles drama, is back for a

third series. And, Lordy, the
intimacy co-ordinators have
been busy. Get ready to
desteam your spectacles because the
sex has returned too. It’s all here:
threesomes, oral sex, long scenes of
amorous congress in a horse-drawn
carriage and on a chaise longue, six-
packs, naked breasts — well, obviously
naked breasts. Swinging mammaries
are kind of a given.
During the more chaste second
series I wrote that the semi-inflated
netball used as a “barrier” between
actors filming sex scenes to prevent
fondness for comic slapstick.
At one point it emerges that
Penelope Featherington’s dim sisters,
married and not getting pregnant, to
the despair of their mother, Baroness
Featherington (Polly Walker), don’t
realise that penetrative sex is a basic
requirement. “We kiss and then he
makes an odd sound and then he goes
to change his breeches,” says Philippa
(Harriet Cains). “His breeches remain
on?” her aghast mother squawks.
Be in no doubt, though, that this is
Nicola Coughlan’s series. Without her
luminous, showstopping performance
as the overlooked and underestimated
diarist Lady Whistledown and is not
pleased. But it’s the chemistry between
Penelope and handsome, confident
Colin, whom she overheard telling
friends that he could never court, that
makes this series, and Newton brings
complexity and heft to a character
who could easily have been a two-
dimensional walking washboard.
Coughlan punches through this
often stilted comedy of manners to
offer real vulnerability. “I don’t want to
die without ever being kissed,” she
says tragically at one point. As you’ll
see in episode four, that situation finds
Penelope Featherington (Coughlan) gets a ‘glow up’ in series 3 its remedy.

Radio choice
Ben Dowell
CrowdScience
World Service, 8.30pm
Another excellent
programme that seeks to
ask another excellent
question from a listener:
how does praying affect our
brains? The 17th-century
poet George Herbert called
prayer “the soul in
paraphrase, heart in
pilgrimage”, but the
presenter Caroline Steel,
above, takes a more
scientific approach, talking
to the neuroscientists who
are researching the subject.
Is there a spiritual part to
our brains? Or is prayer just
one mind-altering activity
among many? It’s an
engaging listen that delivers
something else Herbert
said about prayer in the
same poem: “something
understood”.
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A reflection on a topical issue
9.00 Free Thinking
Ideas shaping modern life (7/13)
10.00 The World Tonight
With Shaun Ley
10.45 Deep Calm —
with Michael Mosley
How calming music can tap into the body’s
relaxation response. Last in the series (5/5)
11.00 Americast
Analysis of stories breaking in the US
11.30 Today in Parliament
12.00 News and Weather
12.30am Book of the Week:
The Immune Mind (r)
12.48 Shipping Forecast
1.00 As BBC World Service
Radio 4 Extra
Digital only
8.00am Says on the Tin 8.30 Brooklyn 8.45
The Mill on the Floss 9.00 Yesterday in
Parliament 9.30 Britain at Sea 9.45 Daily
Service 10.00 Soul Music 10.30 Arise Black
Man: The Peter Tosh Story 11.00 The Call of
the Wild 11.30 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
12.00 The Older Woman 12.30pm Albert
and Me 1.00 Says on the Tin 1.30 Brooklyn
1.45 The Mill on the Floss 2.00 The 3rd
Degree 2.30 Do Nothing ’Til You Hear From
Me 3.00 Bowen and Betjeman 3.45 The
Amorous Ghost 4.00 Soul Music 4.30 Arise
Black Man: The Peter Tosh Story 5.00
The Call of the Wild 5.30 One, Two, Buckle
My Shoe 6.00 The Older Woman 6.30
Albert and Me 7.00 Says on the Tin. Comedy,
by Christopher William Hill 7.30 Brooklyn.
By Colm Toibin 7.45 The Mill on the Floss.
By George Eliot 8.00 The 3rd Degree. Three
Gonville & Caius College Cambridge students
take on their dons 8.30 Do Nothing ’Til You
Hear From Me. Roy mourns the loss of his
trombone. Originally broadcast in 2003 9.00
Bowen and Betjeman. By John Banville. First
aired in 2014 9.45 The Amorous Ghost. By
Enid Bagnold. Originally broadcast in 1991
10.00 Comedy Club: You Heard It Here First.
With Donna Preston, Jon Long, Glenn Moore
and Sara Pascoe. Last in the series 10.30
The Maltby Collection. Comedy, by David
Nobbs. First aired in 2008. 11.00 Absolute
Power. Prentiss McCabe attempts to save
New Labour from a total voter humiliation
11.30 Bird Island. Graham reveals a new
scientist is coming to the island. From 2012.
Last in the series 11.45 Tina C Goes Down
Under: The Aborogynal Monologues
Radio 5 Live
MW: 693, 909
5.00am Wake Up to Money 6.00 5 Live
Breakfast 9.00 Nicky Campbell 11.00 Chiles
on Friday 1.00pm Elis James and John
Robins 2.00 Nick Bright 4.00 5 Live Drive
7.00 5 Live Sport: The Friday Football Social.
A look ahead to the weekend’s football action
9.30 5 Live Formula . The team preview
the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 1 10.00
Stephen Nolan 1.00am Lisa McCormick
talkSPORT
MW: 1053, 1089 kHz
5.00am Early Breakfast 6.00 talkSPORT
Breakfast with Alan Brazil 10.00 Jim White
and Simon Jordan 1.00pm Hawksbee and
Jacobs 4.00 talkSPORT Drive with Andy
Goldstein and Darren Bent 7.00 Live Kick
Off: Southampton v West Bromwich Albion
(Kick-off 8.00). The Championship play-off
semi-final second-leg match 10.00 Sports
Bar 1.00am Extra Time with Martin Kelner
Talk
Digital only
5.00am James Max 6.30 Mike Graham
10.00 Alex Phillips 1.00pm Ian Collins 4.00
Peter Cardwell 7.00 Kevin O’Sullivan 10.00
Andre Walker 1.00am Martin Kelner
6 Music
Digital only
5.00am The Remix with Chris Hawkins 5.30
Nathan Shepherd 7.30 Lauren Laverne 10.30
Jamz Supernova 1.00pm Craig Charles 4.00
Huw Stephens 7.00 The People’s Party with
Afrodeutsche 9.00 6 Music’s Indie Forever
11.00 The Ravers Hour 12.00 6 Music’s
Rave Forever 1.00am 6 Music’s Emo Forever
2.00 Focus Beats 4.00 Ambient Focus
Virgin Radio
Digital only
6.30am The Chris Evans Breakfast Show
with webuyanycar 10.00 The Ryan Tubridy
Show 1.00pm Jayne Middlemiss 4.00 Ricky
Wilson 7.00 Ben Jones 10.00 Stu Elmore
1.00am Harpz Kaur 4.00 Rich Williams
Classic FM
FM: 100-102 MHz
6.30am Classic FM Breakfast with Dan
Walker 9.00 The Classic FM Hall of Fame
Hour with Dan Walker 10.00 Alexander
Armstrong 1.00pm Anne-Marie Minhall
4.00 Margherita Taylor 7.00 Classic FM
at the Movies with Jonathan Ross. With
scores from Toy Story 2 and Chariots of Fire
9.00 The Sound of Bridgerton: Kris Bowers
in Conversation with Margherita Taylor
10.00 Calm Classics 1.00am Katie
Breathwick 4.00 Sam Pittis
12 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

television & radio

Viewing Guide superstellar in 2020 Teddy Sheringham, team exhibited the good football team”. As true story of how the
there has been an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer United spirit that goes it takes us through the
The Big Cigar Black Panther founder
James Jackson AppleTV+
endless feed of and, yes, David back to the Matt Busby team’s season it will Huey Newton (André
retrospective sports Beckham among them era. It starts with how give an overall portrait Here’s one of those hip Holland) escaped the
99 series on the streamers. — along with Alex the 1998 season began of the players’ 1970s-set dramas that FBI to Cuba with the
Prime Video
So what does the Ferguson himself, a in inauspicious fashion, mentality that helped come with a superfly help of the Easy
Sports three-part 99 promise somewhat more jovial the club’s superstar them to achieve soundtrack, split- Rider producer Bert
Topdocuseries to bring to the well-told figure these days. Beckham a pariah after miraculous comeback screen montages, Schneider (Alessandro
were hardly
pick story of Manchester Nothing that new there, his World Cup victories. That team cocaine-addled men Nivola) — it
non-existent United’s treble-winning though. It also gives the ignominy. But what is really did have with bad hair in involved a fake movie
before The Last Dance, season of 1998-99? context of, as Gary fresh is how the something about it and wide-lapelled suits — production. It vividly
but since that Netflix For starters there are Neville puts it, “the “personal stories will the dramas of those think Boogie Nights, evokes a time when
series about Michael interviews with most of history of the club, give more depth than victories still thrill — Blow, American Hustle, Hollywood revolution
Jordan’s basketball the key players — Andy what we stood for”. Or just a retrospective unless you’re a City White House Plumbers. collided with social
heroics went Cole, Peter Schmeichel, rather how the 1999 documentary about a fan, of course. It tells the (mostly) revolution.

BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 Channel 4 Channel 5

6.00am Breakfast 9.30 Morning Live. Magazine show 6.30am Money for Nothing (r) 7.15 Garden Rescue (r) 6.00am Good Morning Britain 9.00 Lorraine. 6.30am 3rd Rock from the Sun (r) (AD) 7.45 Everybody 6.00am Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy Vine. The broadcaster
Early

with Gethin Jones and Gaby Roslin 10.45 Defenders:
Busting the Bad Guys. Asbestos is found illegally dumped
in a storage container near a school (r) 11.15 Homes
Under the Hammer. Properties in Bolsover, Dawley and
Darlington (r) 12.15pm Bargain Hunt. Ben Cooper and
Kate Bliss help the teams find a bargain in Exeter (AD)
1.00 BBC News at One; Weather 1.30 BBC Regional
News; Weather 1.45 Hope Street. Niamh and Ash stage a
protest (AD) 2.30 Money for Nothing. Sarah Moore and
designer Lucy Tiffney upcycle old lamps and a display
cabinet (r) 3.00 Escape to the Country. Nicki Chapman is
in Norfolk to help a family find their dream home in the
countryside (r) 3.45 Garden Rescue. Charlie Dimmock
returns to Stoke Gifford, Gloucestershire, to see a garden
the team built four years earlier — and finds it has been
turned it into an amazing cottage garden 4.30 The Finish
Line. Four more contestants race in moving podiums
across the studio to try to win £5,000. Hosted by Roman
Kemp and Sarah Greene 5.15 Pointless. Quiz hosted by
Alexander Armstrong and Gabby Logan 6.00 BBC News at
Six; Weather 6.30 BBC Regional News; Weather
8.00 Sign Zone: Antiques Roadshow (r) (SL) 9.00 BBC
News 1.00pm Impossible. Quiz hosted by Rick Edwards
(r) 1.45 Mastermind. Specialist subjects include Harold
Larwood and Edouard Manet (r) 2.15 Mastermind.
Specialist subjects include the Inspector Morse novels
and the films of Richard Curtis (r) 2.45 Great Coastal
Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo crosses the Pentland
Firth to the Orkney Islands (r) (AD) 3.15 Dogs in the
Wild: Meet the Family. Rescuers in South Africa try to
combat Broken Heart Syndrome in wild dogs separated
from their families. Last in the series (r) (AD) 4.15
Summer: Earth’s Seasonal Secrets. Documentary revealing
that although summer is a season of abundance, the heat
can create challenges for a whole range of animals (r)
(AD) 5.15 Flog It! David Harper and Philip Serrell
examine items in Norfolk (r) 6.00 Richard Osman’s
House of Games. Yasmine Akram, Stephen Mangan, Ingrid
Oliver and Tom Rosenthal take part (r) 6.30 Simply
Provence. Chef Marcus Wareing visits a man who takes
inspiration from Provence to create chocolates with
unusual flavour combinations, like almonds and olives
Entertainment, current affairs and fashion news, as well
as showbiz stories and celebrity gossip. Presented by
Lorraine Kelly 10.00 This Morning. Daily magazine,
featuring a mix of celebrity chat, showbusiness news,
lifestyle features, topical discussion, health and beauty
advice and more. Including Local Weather 12.30pm
Loose Men.An all-male panel to mark Mental Health
Awareness Week 1.30 ITV News; Weather
1.55 Regional News; Weather 2.00 Live ITV Racing.
Ed Chamberlin and Francesca Cumani present coverage of
day three of the Dante Festival from York, including the
3.45 Boodles Yorkshire Cup. Plus, action from Newbury.
With analysis from Jason Weaver and Adele Mulrennan,
reports by Rishi Persad and Mick Fitzgerald, and
commentary from Richard Hoiles. 4.30 Tipping Point:
Best Ever Finals. Compilation of some of the show’s
most dramatic endgames. Hosted by Ben Shepherd (r)
5.00 The Chase. A group of contestants from Nottingham,
Cardiff, the Wirral and Swindon try to beat one of the
country’s finest quiz brains. Bradley Walsh hosts (r)
6.00 Regional News; Weather 6.30 ITV News; Weather
Loves Raymond (r) (AD) 9.40 Frasier (r) (AD) 11.10
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. The chef visits a
Japanese restaurant in California (r) 12.05pm Channel 4
News Summary 12.10 Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
USA. The chef helps a restaurant in California (r) 1.05
Find It, Fix It, Flog It. Simon O’Brien repurposes an old
butcher’s block (r) 2.10 Countdown. Sunetra Sarker is in
Dictionary Corner 3.00 A Place in the Sun. Two women
seek a retirement property in Famagusta, eastern Cyprus
(r) 4.00 Narrow Escapes. Two sailors continue their
journey into London and join an organised group taking
narrowboats onto the tidal Thames and under Tower
Bridge (AD) 5.00 Come Dine with Me: The Professionals.
In Sheffield, professional chefs battle it out for a £1,000
prize 6.00 Four in a Bed. Toilet troubles, bathroom
bothers and some very picky comments are all on the
agenda before the payments are disclosed and it is
revealed who has won 6.30 The Simpsons. Homer gets
far more than he bargained for when he gets Flanders a
job at the nuclear plant, while Marge starts to feel as
though her marriage has lost its sparkle (r) (AD)
and Storm Huntley discuss the latest news and get views
and opinions of the day 11.15 Storm Huntley. The
presenter carries on the discussion and takes calls to
discuss the biggest stories of the day 12.45pm Friends
(r) (AD) 1.40 5 News at Lunchtime 1.45 Home and Away.
On the night of the fundraiser at Salt, Bree gets flirty
with Levi in an attempt to get a rise out of Remi. Upon
seeing this, Remi becomes enraged and storms off (r)
2.15 FILM: The Stranger in My Home (12, TVM,
2020) A man meets a woman who seems like the perfect
house-sitter, but she ends up posing as his new girlfriend
with no intentions of leaving. Thriller starring Anna Marie
Dobbins, Vivica A Fox and Jason-Shane Scott 4.00
Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun. In Manilva, a children’s
entertainer is booked by a local family friendly venue to
host a Hallowe’en event, while a man’s pygmy goat seems
to have gone into labour (AD) 5.00 5 News at 5 6.00
Police Interceptors. An officer and his rookie colleague
pursue a speeding driver, who eventually decamps and
makes a run for it, while a dog handler goes to the aid
of the armed response team (r) 6.55 5 News Update

The new podcast about the

Roya Nikkhah, royal editor at The Sunday Times, and Kate Mansey, royal editor at The Times, present a new podcast examining
the royals and everything they do. With their unique insight and wit, prepare to be both informed and entertained.

7.00 The One Show Live magazine show 7.00 Grand Tours of Scotland’s Rivers 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.00 Jane McDonald: Lost in Japan
7PM

hosted by Alex Jones and Roman Kemp
7.30 MasterChef The semi-finals end with
the participants tasked to present food
inspired by cooks who have preceded
them in the MasterChef arena (AD)
Paul Murton follows the River Forth
from the picturesque Trossachs to the
Kelpies statues in Falkirk (5/6) (AD)
7.30 Beechgrove Garden Calum Clunie
plants out a bed to produce cut flowers
all summer long, while Lizzie Schofield
continues to revamp the herb garden
7.30 Emmerdale Tom keeps manipulating
Belle, Laurel gives Gabby food for
thought, and Kim is jealous when she
finds Lydia and Rose bonding (AD)
The presenter explores Kyoto, a place
of beautiful shrines and temples,
atmospheric tea ceremonies and
7.30 Unreported World Amelia Jenne geishas dressed in kimonos (3/4) (r)
investigates the illegal logging trade
in Romania. See Viewing Guide (AD)
7.55 5 News Update

8.00 Granite Harbour Lindo and Bart face 8.00 Gardeners’ World Monty Don moves 8.00 Coronation Street David is under 8.00 Double the Money The challenge 8.00 The Big Steam Adventure: Here
8PM

a race against time to save innocent
lives. Meanwhile, the depth of
betrayals are finally revealed — with
shocking consequences for all
connected. Thriller starring Romario
Simpson. Last in the series (AD)
his tender succulents outdoors, Adam
Frost meets a Leicestershire couple
who have created a garden boasting a
year-round display of bulbs, tubers and
corms, and Frances Tophill visits the
gardens at Newby Hall to marvel at
their display of candelabra primulas
suspicion of attacking Nathan, Simon
falls back into bad habits when Leanne
goes away, and Kevin reads some
worrying information online (AD)
gets tougher as round 3 sees the
remaining teams afforded one week
to double £1,000. A pair of twins host
an event for local ladies in Leeds,
while a married couple offer a webinar
on how to have a happy marriage.
Hosted by Sue Perkins (3/6) (AD)
We Go Again! John Sergeant, Peter
Davison and Paul “Piglet” Middleton
climb aboard a fully restored T3 train
for a journey through the Dorset
countryside, and enjoy sights including
Corfe Castle and Chesil Beach (3/4)

9.00 Have I Got News for You Labour MP 9.00 Hidden Treasures of the National 9.00 It’ll Be Alright on the Night 9.00 Gogglebox The armchair critics share 9.00 Sue Perkins: Lost in Thailand
9PM

Jess Phillips and comedian Glenn
Moore join in the satirical quiz (7/10)
9.30 The Young Offenders Conor starts
working at the fishmonger’s, still
desperate to get back together with
his former flame Linda (2/6) (AD)
Trust Cameras focus on teams who
care for Cliveden House and Polesden
Lacey, luxurious mansions on the
edge of London that have long played
a pivotal role in society through
the country house weekends they
hosted. See Viewing Guide (2/6) (AD)
With outtakes from Heartstopper,
Plebs, and Coronation Street. Plus,
Jordan North forgets the name of the
show he is presenting and Steve
Backshall ends up in pain when he
films with a grumpy piranha (AD)
their opinions on what they have been The comedian heads south to Phuket,
watching during the week with the country’s largest island, and makes
cameras capturing their instant her diving debut in the Andaman Sea.
reactions and discussions (AD) She also travels to Khoa Phra Theo
Wildlife sanctuary, where she learns
about the plight of gibbons (2/3)

10.00 BBC News at Ten 10.00 QI More of the best moments from the 10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.00 Late Night Lycett Host Joe Lycett 10.00 Queen’s 30 Greatest Moments
10PM

10.30 BBC Regional News and Weather
10.40 The Imitation Game (12, 2014)
Biopic of the mathematician Alan
Turing, whose work during the Second
World War translated seemingly
11PM
U series of the quiz show hosted by
Sandi Toksvig. Last in the series
10.30 Newsnight With Faisal Islam
11.05 Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour
catches up with big-name guests from The classic rock band’s career
the worlds of comedy, television, music highlights, from Freddie Bulsara’s early
and film in a lively chat show (6/8) days in Zanzibar, to his life-changing
10.30 Regional News days as Freddie Mercury with the band
Smile and eventually Queen. Aside
10.40 ITV Studio Sessions Tom Walker from featuring clips from their first TV
performs new music alongside his appearances, Live Aid, and the
biggest hit and a favourite cover song Oscar-winning biopic Bohemian
11.05 Joe Lycett: More, More, More! Rhapsody, there are also contributions

unbreakable Nazi codes. In the years Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark enjoy the 11.10 Casino Royale (15, 2006) James How Do You Lycett? How Do You from biographers, superfans,
after the war, his life would be culture of Europe, starting in Venice, Bond is dispatched on the trail of the Lycett? The performer’s first stand-up actors, celebrities, music
destroyed as his homosexuality was where Rob conducts an orchestra and international criminal responsible for touring show in several years is packed experts and journalists (r)
exposed, leaving him facing criminal Rylan discovers the hidden side of the financing terrorist organisations across with more jokes, more comedy
charges. Starring Benedict Italian city’s carnival (1/3) (r) (AD) the world. Spy thriller starring Daniel anecdotes and more inappropriate and
Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and Craig and Mads Mikkelsen (AD) arguably disturbing paintings (r)
Charles Dance. See Viewing Guide (AD)
12.05am Secrets and Spies: A Nuclear Game Britain 1.35am Shop on TV 3.00 EFL Play Off Semi Final 12.05am FILM: Mean Girls (12, 2004) Comedy 12.00 Queen: A Night at the Odeon (r) 1.15am
Late

identifies Mikhail Gorbachev as a new contender for
Soviet leader (r) (AD) 1.05 Sign Zone: Panorama. Current
affairs report (r) (SL) 1.40 Andi Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts.
Andi organises an arts festival in Stoke-on-Trent (r) (AD,
12.35am-6.00 BBC News SL) 2.35-3.05 David & Jay’s Touring Toolshed (r) (AD, SL)
Highlights. Action from the Championship second-leg
matches, as the two teams going into the final, and
battling for a place in the Premier League, were confirmed
(r) 3.35 Unwind with ITV 5.05-6.00 Katie Piper’s
Breakfast Show. With Gabrielle and Sara Pascoe (r) (SL)
starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams (AD) 1.45
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. A tyrannical
front-of-house manager in Babylon, New York (r) (SL)
2.30 Come Dine with Me (r) 4.35 Grand Designs
Australia (r) (AD) 5.30-6.00 Beat the Chef (r)
PlayOJO Live Casino Show 3.15 Secret Scotland with
Susan Calman (r) 4.05 Great Artists (r) (SL) 4.30
Divine Designs (r) (SL) 5.00 Wildlife SOS (r) (SL) 5.25
Entertainment News on 5 5.35 Thomas: Big World! Big
Adventures! (r) (SL) 5.45-6.00 Paw Patrol (r) (SL)
the times | Friday May 17 2024 13

television & radio

protected areas, ones (curious, given she’d surprise that here is a
Unreported World that are also rich in
Hidden Treasures go on to be a Nazi
Rebus new Rebus. So this time
Film The
Channel 4, 7.30pm of the National BBC Scotland, 10pm/iPlayer Imitation Game
wildlife. The reporter sympathiser). In the Richard Rankin (no
Trust BBC1, 10.40pm
Another illuminating Amelia Jenne meets a Surrey Hills there is With Ian Rankin’s relation) is John Rebus,
spotlight on an government forester BBC2, 9pm Polesden Lacey, which Rebus novels having a few years younger As Alan Turing,
international scandal turned whistleblower Tonight, a tale of two the society hostess been translated into than Stott’s incarnation, Benedict Cumberbatch
— this time illegal and goes up into the mansions. In Berkshire Margaret Greville 36 languages, adapted but already having is as brilliant,
logging in Romania. mountains, where he is Cliveden, once home used to propel herself into four series his moral code enigmatic and often
The Carpathian chases down a of the first woman to into royal circles. As (starring John challenged on the mechanical as the
mountains are the truckload of suspected take a seat in ever this is as much Hannah, then Ken Edinburgh streets German encryption
“lungs of Europe”, illegal timber. But it parliament, Nancy about the restorers’ Stott) and with the when his brother gets machine he lives to
yet the Romanian seems whistleblowers Astor, who threw work: of Astor’s success of Endeavour involved with rival break. His fragrant
government is are receiving death parties attended by portrait by John Singer showing how a gangs. And the early colleague Joan Clarke
apparently continuing threats, beatings and Charlie Chaplin, Sargent, and Greville’s detective prequel can signs are suitably is played by Keira
to authorise logging in poisonings. Gandhi and the like Fabergé treasures. work wonders, it’s little brooding and Scottish. Knightley. (12, 2014)

Sky Max
6.00am NCIS: Los Angeles (r) 7.00 DC’s
Legends of Tomorrow (r) (AD) 8.00 The Flash
(r) 9.00 Stargate SG-1 (r) 11.00 NCIS: Los
Angeles (r) 12.00 The Flash (r) 1.00pm
MacGyver (r) 3.00 Hawaii Five-0 (r) 4.00
S.W.A.T (r) (AD) 5.00 DC’s Legends of
Tomorrow. Rip puts the team in danger (r) (AD)
6.00 Stargate SG-1. Members of the SG-1 team
start to undergo a startling transformation (r)
7.00 Stargate SG-1. O’Neill and the team
investigate the disappearance of SG-9 (r)
8.00 Hold the Front Page. Nish Kumar and Josh
Widdicombe work for The Moorlander (r) (AD)
9.00 Rob & Romesh vs Ballet. The comedy duo
appear in a performance of Swan Lake (r) (AD)
10.00 Peacemaker. Action comedy (r) (AD)
11.00 Never Mind the Buzzcocks (r) (AD)
11.45 Resident Alien. Sci-fi drama (r)
12.45am The Force: Manchester. Documentary
series (r) 1.40 Brit Cops: War on Crime (r) 2.35
Road Wars (r) 3.00 Hawaii Five-0 (r) 4.00
S.W.A.T (r) (AD) 5.00 Highway Patrol (r)
Sky Atlantic
6.00am Fish Town (r) 7.55 True Blood (r)
10.05 Billions (r) (AD) 12.15pm Game of
Thrones (r) (AD) 1.20 Ray Donovan (r) (AD)
3.30 True Blood (r) 5.40 Billions (r) (AD)
7.55 Game of Thrones. Arya continues her
training at the House of Black and White.
Meanwhile, Jorah and Tyrion run into slavers
and the Sand Snakes mount an attack (r) (AD)
9.00 The Pacific. The soldiers are greeted as
heroes in Melbourne. Leckie falls for a local lady,
and Basilone is rewarded for his bravery (r)
10.00 The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Lali strives to
get medicine for Gita as her condition worsens,
asking Dr Schumann for help when he is sent to
the hospital to tattoo prisoners there (r)
11.05 The White Lotus. Ethan grows suspicious
of Cam, Tanya gives Portia a warning about Jack,
and Lucia helps the Di Grassos as they search
for their long-lost relatives (6/7) (r) (AD)
12.15am House of the Dragon (r) (AD) 1.30
Euphoria (r) (AD) 2.35 Game of Thrones (r)
(AD) 3.40 In Treatment (r) 4.10 Fish Town (r)
Sky Documentaries Sky Arts
6.00am Dark Horses: Italy’s World Cup Triumph
(r) 7.00 Discovering: Helen Mirren (r) (AD) 8.00
The Directors (r) 9.00 McMillion$ (r) (AD)
10.00 Scouting For Girls: Fashion’s Darkest
Secret (r) (AD) 11.00 Urban Secrets (r) 12.00
FILM: The Loneliest Whale: The Search for
52 (PG, TVM, 2021) 2.00pm Dan Carter: A
Perfect 10 (r) (AD) 3.50 My Icon: Leon Pryce (r)
(AD) 4.00 The Directors (r) 5.00 Discovering:
Helen Mirren. The life of the actress (r) (AD)
6.00 McMillion$. Focusing on Dwight Baker, the
FBI intercepts a call with “Uncle Jerry” (r) (AD)
7.00 I Am Patrick Swayze. A tribute to the actor,
who starred in Dirty Dancing and Ghost (r) (AD)
8.50 My Icon: Anthony Joshua (r) (AD)
9.00 FILM: McEnroe (15, 2022) The life and
career of former tennis star John McEnroe
11.00 Dreams of a Nation (r) (AD)
12.10am FILM: McLaren (12, 2017) The life
of Bruce McLaren 2.00 An American Bombing:
The Road to April 19th 4.00 The Directors (r)
5.00 Discovering: Helen Mirren (r) (AD)
6.00am Darbar Festival 2022 7.15 Gilbert and
Sullivan: A Motley Pair 7.50 The Joy of Painting
(AD) 9.00 Tales of the Unexpected (AD) 10.00
Alfred Hitchcock Presents 11.00 Discovering:
Dennis Hopper (AD) 12.00 The Joy of Painting
(AD) 1.00pm Tales of the Unexpected (AD)
2.00 Dickens in Italy with David Harewood 3.00
The Big Design Challenge (AD) 4.00 Discovering:
Sissy Spacek 5.00 The Joy of Painting (AD)
6.00 Tales of the Unexpected (AD)
7.00 Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Double bill
8.00 Paul Simon: Graceland — The African
Concert. The singer performs in Zimbabwe
10.00 Grand Ole Opry. Performances by Carrie
Underwood, Deana Carter and Michael Ray
11.00 Grand Ole Opry. With Kenny Chesney
11.30 Guy Garvey: From the Vaults
12.30am Bryan Ferry Plays Baloise Session. The
singer performs in Basel, Switzerland 1.50 Live
from the Artists Den 3.00 Isle of Wight Festival
Greatest Hits 3.30 David Gray: White Ladder
— From Then ’Til Now 5.00 Auction (AD)
Sky Main Event
6.00am Sky Sports News 7.00 Good Morning
Sports Fans 9.00 Live NRL: Canberra Raiders v
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs (Kick-off 9.00).
Coverage of the match in the Magic Round at
Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane 11.00 Super
League Gold (AD) 11.05 Live NRL: Manly Sea
Eagles v Brisbane Broncos (Kick-off 11.05).
Coverage of the match in the Magic Round at
Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane 1.00pm Live PGA
Championship Golf. Coverage of day two of the
second Major of the year, which takes place at
Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville, Kentucky
7.00 Live EFL: Southampton v West Bromwich
Albion (Kick-off 8.00). The Championship
play-off semi-final second-leg match from St
Mary’s Stadium. Southampton were victorious in
both league games this season, winning 2-1
at this ground in November, and 2-0 in the
reverse fixture at The Hawthorns in February
10.45 Live PGA Championship Golf. Day two at
Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville, Kentucky
12.00-6.00am Sky Sports News
AUDIO
Variations
BBC1 N Ireland
As BBC1 except: 12.30am I Kissed a Girl.
Dannii introduces three new arrivals to the
Masseria (r) (AD) 1.20-6.00 BBC News
BBC1 Wales
As BBC1 except: 7.00pm-7.30 Iolo’s Valleys.
New series. Iolo Williams explores the valleys
north of Swansea 10.40 Rewind: 60 Years of
Welsh Pop. Music from the 1960s (r) 11.10
FILM: The Imitation Game (2014). Biopic of
codebreaker Alan Turing starring Benedict
Cumberbatch (AD) 1.00am Sam Smith Live at
the Royal Albert Hall. A special show at the
iconic London venue (r) 2.00-6.00 BBC News
BBC2 Wales
As BBC2 except: 7.00pm The One Show.
Hosted by Alex Jones and Roman Kemp 7.30
Live Scrum V: Zebre v Scarlets (Kick-off 7.35).
Coverage of the United Rugby Championship
match staged at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi
9.30-10.30 Hidden Treasures of the National
Trust. Cameras focus on Cliveden House and
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BBC3
7.00pm Top Gear. Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris
and Rory Reid test drive the latest SUVs, and are
joined in the studio by Jason Manford (AD)
8.00 Dubai Hustle. Natasha has a potentially
life-changing decision to make (7/8)
8.30 Dubai Hustle. Natasha’s recent revelation
leaves the other brokers reeling (8/8)
9.00 Paranormal: The Girl, the Ghost and the
Gravestone. Sian Eleri investigates the
paranormal activity at Penyffordd Farm (AD)
9.30 Paranormal: The Girl, the Ghost and the
Gravestone. Presenter Sian Eleri meets the
current owner of Penyffordd farmhouse (AD)
10.00 FILM: Gringo (15, 2018) A man has to
fight for survival when he crosses the line from
law-abiding citizen to criminal. Action comedy
with David Oyelowo and Charlize Theron (AD)
11.45 Dinosaur. Comedy series starring Ashley
Storrie, Grant O’Rourke and Kat Ronney (AD)
12.10am FILM: It’s What She Would Have
Wanted (2022) Short comedy film written by
and starring Holly Hall 12.20 Paranormal:
The Girl, the Ghost and the Gravestone (AD)
1.20 Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make-Up Star.
Competition (AD) 2.20-4.00 I Kissed a Girl (AD)
ITV2
6.00am CITV 9.00 Totally Bonkers Guinness
World Records 9.20 Catchphrase 10.00 Veronica
Mars 11.00 Dawson’s Creek 12.00 Secret Crush
(SL) 1.00pm Dress to Impress 2.00 Family
Fortunes 3.00 Veronica Mars 4.00 Dawson’s
Creek. Teen drama 5.00 Dress to Impress
6.00 Celebrity Catchphrase (AD)
7.00 Family Fortunes. Families from London and
Bristol take part. Hosted by Gino D’Acampo
8.00 Bob’s Burgers. Tina starts dating a ballet
dancer — making Jimmy Jr jealous (AD)
8.30 Bob’s Burgers. The Belcher family heads
to Florida to visit Linda’s parents (AD)
9.00 FILM: The Invisible Man (15, 2020)
An abused woman flees for her life, but then
fears her apparently dead partner has come
after her. Thriller starring Elisabeth Moss (AD)
11.25 Family Guy. Brian begins a campaign to
make cannabis legal in the town of Quahog (AD)
11.55 Family Guy. Peter becomes obsessed
with the 1963 hit single Surfin’ Bird (AD)
12.25am American Dad! Double bill of the
animated series (AD) 1.25 Bob’s Burgers (AD)
2.15 Don’t Hate the Playaz 3.00 Teleshopping
BBC4
7.00pm TOTP: 1996. Featuring QFX, Radiohead,
E-motion, The Bluetones and Northern Uproar
7.30 TOTP: 1996. Featuring music by Joan
Osborne, Smashing Pumpkins and more
8.00 TOTP: 1991. Performances by New Kids on
the Block, Jason Donovan and Dannii Minogue
8.30 TOTP: 1977. With Linda Lewis, Carole
Bayer Sager, Tony Etoria and the Jacksons
9.00 TOTP: 1984. With music by the Mighty
Wah!, Prince and Frankie Goes to Hollywood
9.30 TOTP: 1984. Featuring Galaxy, the Weather
Girls, Sade, Howard Jones and Bananarama
10.00 Bananarama at the BBC. A compilation of
archive performances by the all-girl pop group,
featuring the original line-up of Keren
Woodward, Sara Dallin and Siobhan Fahey, as
well as Siobhan’s replacement Jacquie O’Sullivan
11.00 1984 at the BBC. A collection of archive
music performances from the year, featuring
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, U2 and Phil Collins
12.00 The 80s — Music’s Greatest Decade? With
Dylan Jones. The development of hip-hop and
house during the decade. Last in the series
1.00am Bananarama at the BBC 2.00 TOTP:
1996 3.00 TOTP: 1991 3.30-4.00 TOTP: 1977
ITV3
6.00am Classic Emmerdale 7.00 Classic
Coronation Street (AD) 8.05 Endeavour (AD)
10.15 The Royal 11.20 Heartbeat (AD) 1.30pm
Classic Emmerdale 2.35 Classic Coronation
Street (AD) 3.45 Agatha Christie’s Marple (AD)
5.55 Heartbeat. Double bill of the drama (AD)
8.00 Doc Martin. The doctor’s infuriating life in
Cornwall is interrupted by an encounter with his
girlfriend from medical school, before a familiar
face returns. Martin Clunes stars (1/8) (AD)
9.00 Shetland. Crime drama starring Douglas
Henshall. Perez has to reopen an investigation
into the 1994 death of a local teenager when a
Shetland man’s murder conviction is overturned
10.20 Shetland. The hunt is on for Malone’s
attacker. Meanwhile, Tosh investigates Forst
Energy in the search for Sally’s killer, and DNA
in the Kilmuir case yields a surprising result
11.40 Lewis. Following the murder of a
psychologist who was moonlighting as a psychic,
Lewis struggles to unravel the victim’s baffling
double life. Sanjeev Bhaskar guest stars (AD)
1.30am Upstairs, Downstairs. The General
Strike takes effect 2.30 Teleshopping
Talking Pictures
6.00am FILM: Vengeance Is Mine (PG,
1949) (b/w) 7.15 FILM: Shipmates O’Mine
(U, 1936) (b/w) 8.55 FILM: Sailor Beware!
(PG, 1956) (b/w) 10.35 Look at Life 10.50
FILM: The March Hare (U, 1956) 12.30pm
The Four Just Men (b/w) 1.00 Melvyn’s Talking
Pictures 1.10 FILM: Sally in Our Alley (PG,
1931) (b/w) 2.40 Melvyn’s Talking Pictures
2.50 FILM: Ladies Who Do (U, 1963) (b/w)
4.30 FILM: Sherlock Holmes and the
Woman in Green (PG, 1945) Mystery (b/w)
5.50 What’s On TPTV with Noel
6.00 Worzel Gummidge. With Jon Pertwee
6.30 Fireball XL5. Adventure (b/w)
7.05 Look at Life. A tough power-boat race
7.20 FILM: Journey to the Center of the
Earth (PG, 1989) Fantasy adventure
9.00 Cellar Club with Caroline Munro
9.05 FILM: Visiting Hours (18, 1982)
11.15 Cellar Club with Caroline Munro
11.20 FILM: The Power (18, 1984)
1.05am Cellar Club with Caroline Munro 1.10
FILM: Run for the Sun (PG, 1956) Jungle
adventure 3.05 FILM: Sierra Baron (U, 1958)
4.45 What’s On TPTV with Noel 5.00 Bonanza
ITV4
6.00am Great Racehorses 6.20 Minder (AD, SL)
7.15 The Sweeney (SL) 8.15 Robin of Sherwood
9.20 Magnum, PI (AD, SL) 10.20 Kojak 11.25
BattleBots 12.30pm Robin of Sherwood 1.40
Magnum, PI (AD) 2.40 Kojak 3.40 Minder (AD)
4.50 The Sweeney 5.55 River Monsters.
A search for the animal responsible for dragging
passengers from a capsized riverboat in 1981
6.30 British Touring Car Championship
Highlights. Steve Rider presents the second
meeting of the season, held at Brands Hatch
8.00 The Motorbike Show. Henry Cole is in
Somerset riding a Honda Goldwing bike
9.00 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Dennis’s wife Vera
announces she is coming across to Germany,
casting a shadow over the future of his
developing relationship with Dagmar
10.05 All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite.
Hard-hitting action from the world of All Elite
Wrestling, featuring such stars as Jon Moxley,
Will Ospreay, Bryan Danielson and Toni Storm
12.15am EFL Play Off Semi Final Highlights.
Championship second-leg ties 1.00 Minder (AD,
SL) 2.05 The Sweeney (SL) 3.00 Teleshopping
Film4
11.00am The Winslow Boy (U, 1948)
Historical courtroom drama starring Robert
Donat (b/w) 1.20pm The Colditz Story (U,
1954) Second World War drama starring John
Mills (b/w) (AD) 3.20 Dead Reckoning (U,
1947) Mystery starring Humphrey Bogart (b/w)
(AD) 5.25 Carry On Constable (U, 1960)
A staff shortage forces a police inspector to take
on four bumbling recruits, who only increase the
crime rate. Comedy with Sid James (b/w) (AD)
7.10 Made in Italy (15, 2020) An estranged
father and son team up to sell an old Tuscan villa
left to them by their late wife and mother,
respectively. Comedy-drama starring Liam
Neeson and his real-life son Micheál Richardson
9.00 Carlito’s Way (18, 1993) A former
gangster is released from prison and resolves
to go straight, but is dragged back into a life
of crime by a crooked lawyer. Thriller starring
Al Pacino, Sean Penn and Penelope Ann Miller
11.50 You Were Never Really Here (15,
2017) Psychological thriller starring Joaquin
Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov and Judith Roberts
1.40am-3.35 Hallam Foe (18, 2007)
Drama starring Jamie Bell and Sophia Myles
Drama
6.00am Teleshopping 7.10 All Creatures Great
and Small 8.00 Doctors 9.15 Classic Holby City
10.35 Classic Casualty 11.35 The Bill 12.40pm
Classic EastEnders 2.00 Pie in the Sky 3.05
Lovejoy 4.15 All Creatures Great and Small 5.20
Birds of a Feather. Prison takes its toll on Darryl
6.00 Keeping Up Appearances. Richard
demonstrates his electrical skills (AD)
6.40 Last of the Summer Wine. Pearl decides
to confiscate Howard’s bicycle (AD)
7.20 Last of the Summer Wine. The friends are
offered the chance to become wealthy (AD)
8.00 Father Brown. The clergyman investigates
the mysterious deaths of two nuns (AD)
9.00 Sister Boniface Mysteries. The sleuth
uncovers a case of life imitating art when a local
amateur dramatics performer dies on stage (AD)
10.00 New Tricks. A murder at Smithfield
Market leads to a shocking revelation (8/8) (AD)
11.20 Soldier, Soldier. Colonel Fortune becomes
worried about the prospect of the King’s Own
Fusiliers merging with another regiment (7/7)
12.30am Lovejoy 1.40 When the Boat Comes In
2.50 Classic Holby City (SL) 4.00 Teleshopping
More4
8.55am Food Unwrapped (AD) 9.30 A Place in
the Sun 10.25 A New Life in the Sun 11.25
Find It, Fix It, Flog It (AD) 12.30pm Come Dine
with Me (AD) 3.10 Four in a Bed 5.50 Château
DIY. Two enormous barns at a chateau are
transformed into a nightclub and a lounge (AD)
6.55 Celebrity PopMaster TV. Ken Bruce hosts
the first of two celebrity editions of the music
quiz, with Toyah Willcox, Richard Blackwood,
Sally Lindsay, MistaJam and Kimberly Wyatt
7.55 Celebrity PopMaster TV. Nikki Fox, Gareth
Malone, Jean Johansson, Nish Kumar and Claire
Richards take part on the music quiz show
9.00 The Twelve: Cinderella Murder. The
investigating judge, blood spatter analyst and
law doctor show that Marianne was probably
thrown down the basement stairs by two people.
Starring Emilie De Roo. In Flemish (2/8)
10.15 24 Hours in A&E. A woman is rushed to
St George’s after falling from a horse (AD)
11.20 24 Hours in A&E. A 53-year-old woman
has suffered a suspected heart attack (AD)
12.25am 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
Jimmy Carr hosts the quiz 1.25 24 Hours in A&E
(AD) 3.30-4.00 Food Unwrapped (AD)
Yesterday
6.10am Secrets of the Transport Museum (AD)
7.10 Classic Car Garage (AD) 8.00 Abandoned
Engineering (AD) 10.00 Narrow Escapes of
World War II (AD) 11.00 War Factories 12.00
Great British Railway Journeys 1.00pm
Antiques Roadshow 2.00 Bangers & Cash 4.00
Narrow Escapes of World War II (AD) 5.00 War
Factories. The Japanese Mitsubishi Zero plane
6.00 Antiques Roadshow. Fiona Bruce presents
from the Bishop’s Palace in Wells, Somerset
7.00 Secrets of the London Underground.
In this edition, presenters Tim Dunn and Siddy
Holloway explore hidden parts of Archway
8.00 Secrets of the London Underground.
Exploring forgotten stations that were located
on the District Line, Whitechapel (5/6) (AD)
9.00 Abandoned Engineering. The story of Air
Studios on the Island of Montserrat, which
became a mecca for rock legends (1/8) (AD)
10.00 Bangers & Cash. Documentary (9/10)
11.00 Abandoned Engineering (8/12) (AD)
12.00 Great British Railway Journeys 1.00am
Secrets of the Transport Museum (AD) 2.00
Abandoned Engineering (AD) 3.00 Teleshopping
BBC Scotland
7.00pm The Seven 7.30 Live Sportscene. The
Premiership play-off semi-final (Kick-off 7.45)
10.00 Rebus. New series. Crime drama
with Richard Rankin and Brian Ferguson.
See Viewing Guide (AD)
10.50 Still Game (r) (AD) 11.20 Two Doors
Down (r) (AD) 11.50-12.00 Short Stuff (r)
BBC Alba
6.00am Alba Today 5.00pm Treubh an
Tuathanais (Big Barn Farm) (r) 5.15 Na
Clangairean (r) 5.25 Sionnach agus Maigheach
(Fox & Hare) (r) 5.40 AH-AH/No-No (r) 5.45
Peicein/Petit (r) 5.55 Stòiridh (r) 6.00 Aithne
air Ainmhidhean (All About Animals) (r) 6.25
Belle agus Sebastian (r) 6.40 A’ Chuil (r) 6.45
Donnie Murdo (Danger Mouse) (r) 7.00 An Là
(News) 7.20 Live Scottish League 1 Football.
Coverage of the second leg of the League One
play-off final (Kick-off 7.30) 9.30 Dubhlain
DIY (Instructions Not Included) (r) 10.00 Eadar
na Dha: 1918-1935/Clash of Futures: 1918-1935
(r) 10.50 Celtic Connections (r) 11.00
Tannadice ’87 (r) 12.00-6.00am Alba Today
S4C
6.00am Cyw: Olobobs (r) 6.05 Digbi Draig (r)
6.20 Cymylaubychain (r) 6.30 Patrol Pawennau
(r) 6.45 Y Diwrnod Mawr (r) 7.00 Brethyn a
Fflwff 7.05 Pablo (r) 7.20 Da ’Di Dona (r) 7.30
Crawc a’i Ffrindiau (r) 7.45 Kim a Cet a Twrch
(r) 8.00 Timpo (r) 8.10 Ysbyty Cyw Bach (r)
8.25 Jamborî (r) 8.35 Octonots (r) 8.45 Ahoi!
(r) 9.05 Odo (r) 9.10 Anifeiliaid Bach y Byd (r)
9.20 Dreigiau Cadi (r) 9.30 Pentre Papur Pop
(r) 9.45 Awyr Iach (r) 10.00 Olobobs (r) 10.05
Digbi Draig (r) 10.20 Cymylaubychain (r) 10.30
Patrol Pawennau (r) 10.45 Y Diwrnod Mawr (r)
11.00 Brethyn a Fflwff (r) 11.05 Pablo (r)
11.20 Da ’Di Dona (r) 11.30 Crawc a’i Ffrindiau
(r) 11.45 Kim a Cet a Twrch (r) 12.00 News;
Weather 12.05pm Codi Pac (r) 12.30 Heno (r)
1.00 Y Sîn (r) 1.30 Cais Quinnell (r) 2.00
News; Weather 2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News;
Weather 3.05 Y Fets (r) (AD) 4.00 Awr Fawr:
Olobobs (r) 4.05 Digbi Draig (r) 4.20
Bendibwmbwls (r) 4.30 Pentre Papur Pop (r)
4.45 Awyr Iach (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Dennis a
Dannedd (r) 5.15 Byd Rwtsh Dai Potsh (r) 5.25
Siwrne Ni (r) 5.30 Un Cwestiwn (r) 5.50 News
Ni 6.00 Ralïo+ (r) 6.30 Garddio a Mwy (r) 6.57
News 7.00 Heno 7.30 News; Weather 8.00
Alun, Chris a Kiri yn Seland Newydd. Chris
Roberts, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Alun
Williams travel across New Zealand. Last in the
series (r) 8.55 News; Weather 9.00 Rybish (r)
(AD) 10.00 Welsh Whisperer — Ni’n Teithio
Nawr! (r) (AD) 10.35-11.40 Ni Yw’r Cymry (r)
14 Friday May 17 2024 | the times

MindGames
Backgammon Chris Bray Codeword No 5217 Train Tracks No 2247

The learning curve best move was in any given posi-

How long does it take to become a
very good backgammon player?
Go back 40 years and the answer
would have been something like
ten years. Nowadays that figure is
something closer to two years.
First, we must define what very
good means, and we can do that
using Performance Ratings as cal-
culated by modern computer pro-
grams. A PR of under 7.5 will give
you a rating of expert. A PR from
2.5 to 5.0 will rate you as world
class, and under 2.5 gives you a
world champion classification.
A few players, such as Hideaki
Ueda of Japan and the UK’s Oliver
Squire and Reece Hodges, at-
tained PRs of under 4 in two years,
but they are the exceptions, not
the rule. For my stronger students
I give them a target of reaching a
PR of 5.5 and don’t usually set a
time limit.
The reason the learning curve
has accelerated so much since
1990 is the advent of the internet
and neural net computer pro-
grams. In the past we might have
thought that we knew what the
tion but, in fact, we were often way
off the mark. Nowadays we can be
sure of the best move and thus we
don’t waste time learning bad
habits.
Look at this week’s position
where Black has a 31 to play. In the
1980s book from which it was
taken, Black moved 15/12, 13/12,
and the only comment made was
that the play was obvious. With
the benefit of XG analysis, we
learn that the best move is actually
23/22, 15/12. Why is that the case?
Black wants to escape his rear
checker so stepping up is very logi-
cal. 15/12 looks risky but the only
five that White will hit with on her
next turn is double fives. With all
the other fives, she will play in her
home board. Thus, XG teaches us
that preparing to escape is more
important than making the new
point, and when we see a similar Lay tracks to enable the train to travel from village A to village
position in the future, we can ap- B. The numbers indicate how many sections of track go in
ply that principle in our decision- each row and column. There are only straight sections and
making. curved sections. The track cannot cross itself.
The certainty that this type of
teaching provides enables us to
make rapid progress towards Quintagram®
those lower PR numbers. Challenge
Solve all five cryptic clues using each
letter underneath once only
your mind
with these
1 Poet has residence by river (5) fiendish
Every letter in this crossword-style grid is represented by a number from 1 to 26.
Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters already -2 Instrument
- - -from- India encased word and
provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main grid number
and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been
accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded. Yesterday’s solution, right
in lead (5) puzzles
Cluelines Stuck on Codeword? To receive 4 random clues call 0901 293 6262 or
-3 Rock’s
- -location
- - in Colorado (7)
text TIMECODE to 64343. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network
access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. For the full solution
call 0905 757 0142. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s network -4 City,- British,
- - first
- -linked
- to Circle
access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5.30pm).
Line (7)

Lexica Easy No 7415 Hard No 7416 -5 Longs

- -to nurse
- -poorly
- -Greek
J A O L G A G D R J D D hero (8)
Winning Move
B U B G --------
White to play. A A B B C D E E
This position is from Akhilbay- R A E
Jarocka, Titled Tuesday, E H H I I I L L
chess.com 2024. A R H M L L M O O O R R thetimes.co.uk/
R R S S S T T U bookshop
Positions with opposite-coloured L K E R
bishops can be hard to judge.
The total lack of engagement E R L V
between the two pieces often
signifies that a draw is likely.
However, when one side is
Y N E What are your favourite
attacking it can almost seem as
though they have an extra piece.
Y V E V E B D F G I O E puzzles in MindGames?
This is a spectacular example.
How did White break through?
Slide the letters either horizontally or vertically back into the grid to produce a
completed crossword. Letters are allowed to slide over other letters
Email: puzzles@thetimes.co.uk
KenKen Difficult No 6209 Futoshiki No 4757 Kakuro No 3716

Fill the grid

using the
numbers 1 to 9
only. The
numbers in each
horizontal or
vertical run of
white squares
add up to the
total in the
triangle to its left
or above it. The
same number
may occur more
than once in a
row or column,
but not within
the same run of
white squares.

All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains
each thick-line “block”, the target number in the top left-hand each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between
corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block, the squares indicate whether a number is larger (>) or smaller
using the operation indicated by the symbol. (<) than the number next to it.
the times | Friday May 17 2024 15

MindGames
times2 Crossword No 9533 Brain Trainer Cell Blocks No 5100
Just follow the instructions from left to right, starting with the number given to reach an answer at the end.
Divide the grid

ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
into square or
8 9
EASY 6 +5 x 3 + 11 x 2 – 14 50% +8 x2 70% rectangular
OF IT OF IT blocks, each
containing one
digit only. Every
block must
10 11 MEDIUM 74 + 1/4 – 94
x 4 + 76 OF x2 50% + 89 30% + 99 contain the
IT OF IT OF IT number of cells
indicated by the
digit inside it.

12 13 14 + 1/2 – 198
HARDER 138 x 3 + 974 + 1/2 x 3 – 876 70%
OF IT
+ 863 OF
OF IT IT

15 16 17 18
Polygon Set Square No 3719
19
From these letters, make words of Enter each of
20 21 22 23 four or more letters, always including the numbers
the central letter. Answers must be in from 1 to 9 in
the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding the grid, so that
capitalised words, plurals, conjugated the six sums
24 25 verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending work. We’ve
in LY, comparatives and superlatives. placed two
How you rate 10 words, average; numbers to get
26
14, good; 18, very good; 22, excellent you started.
Each sum
Across 17 Prejudiced (6) Yesterday’s answers should be
3 Bunch of banknotes, eg (3) 20 Hot water vapour (5) calculated left
bide, bier, bile, bird, birl, biro, bode, boer,
to right or top
8 Wear away (5) 21 Grave, solemn (7) boil, boiler, bold, bole, bolide, bore, bored,
to bottom.
9 Defer, put off for later (7) 24 Condense (text) (7) boride, bovid, bride, bridle, brio, broil,
10 Set of DIY implements (7) 25 Tiptop, excellent (U, not A) (5) dobe, libero, lobe, lobed, lovebird,
overbid, rebid, robe, robed, verb, vibe
11 Spree (5) 26 Fish spawn (3) Please note, BODMAS does not apply
12 Having a memorable
tune (6) Down
14 Oesophagus (6) 1 Religious faction (4) Killer Moderate No 9472 Solutions
15 Walking with long strides (6) 2 Joint presenter (2-4) Quick Cryptic 2677 Codeword 5216 Kakuro 3715
Solution to Crossword 9532 3 Feeble (4)
4 Pub sport (5)
D I S T I NGU I SH
5 Nation of eastern Africa (8)
R U O A M E D
E L B OW R A M P A G E 6 Aid for pouring liquid (6)
G Z A D A R A 7 Consumed (food) (8)
SEEM GES T A T ED 12 Gargantuan (8)
R S N U E 13 Created using manual
SPORT S DROP I N craft skills (8)
A R H E A 16 Verse writings (6)
DEV I A T ED BRA T 18 Eerie, spine-tingling (6)
I E N A E A H 19 Michaelmas daisy (5) Train Tracks 2246
SENEGA L M I SER 22 Ready for eating (4) Sudoku 14,916 Tetonor 466
M O E T M O E 23 Photograph; card game (4)
M A R S H M A L L OW 39 57 18 280
1 + 38 50 + 7 3 + 15 14 x 20
Need help with today’s puzzle? Call 0905 757 0143 to check the
answers. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s 56 34 350 38
network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). 4 x 14 20 + 14 7 x 50 1 x 38

35 240 32 45
Bridge Andrew Robson 16 + 19 12 x 20 20 + 12 3 x 15

205 18 46 304
Sudoku 14,917 41 x 5 4 + 14 41 + 5 16 x 19
Twenty Bidding Maxims The third is a bit of a trap
7. Don’t sing the same song twice because you should not have over- 1 3 Cell
4 5Blocks
7 12 5099 Set20Square
14 14 15 16 19 3718
20 38 41 50 Lexica 7413
called 2♦. Where are your tricks? H
As with any discussion, to reach a They’re mostly defensive eg ♠ QJx.
mutually compatible outcome it’s If the proverbial waiter did bid 2♦, Killer Deadly No 9473 U S C

best to tell partner something new then your pass of 2♠ is one of E X P I R E

with each bid. Discussing a date relief — and completely clear. D A I

night with your spouse, you may Dealer N
♠ AK643 S E
kick off with, “How about a pint at ♥4
the pub?” If she replies, “I’d rather ♦ A752 A D M I R E

go to the cinema,” it’s best not to

to go ♣Q 4 3
reply, “Let’s go to the pub then.” It’s ♠ J8 N ♠ Q 10 9 7 5 Sudoku 14,918 Futoshiki 4756 KenKen 6208 Lexica 7414
♥ AQ 9 7 W E ♥ 8 6
preferable to suggest, “OK, how ♦Q 10 4 S ♦K J 9 6 S C H E M A
about a nice meal at the local ♣J 10 7 5 ♠ 2 ♣A 6 U R D
Italian?” (Apologies for the sex-
♥ K J 10 5 3 2
role stereotyping.) ♦8 3
H E A R U

I recall that the great player- ♣K 9 8 2 U N L

writer Terence Rees penned a E T T

piece on “Six Appeal” — the ten-
dency of players to bang on for too
long about a six-card suit.
Right-hand opponent opens 1♠ ,
you overcall 2♦ (would you?), left- (1) Not quite strong enough for 2♥ .
hand opponent bids 2♠ and the (2) Showing (normally) six cards and (cer-
bidding returns to you. What now tainly)
with these?
♠ Q2 ♠2 ♠ QJ4
♥Q 7 ♥K 3 2 ♥Q 4
♦AQ 6 4 3 2 ♦A K 8 5 3 2♦A J 5 4 3 2
♣A 7 5 ♣K J 2 ♣J 2
With the first, pass 2♠ . There is
absolutely no reason for you to
come again here, having already
shown your hand. If partner can-
not bid 3♦, nor can you.
I would come again with the sec-
ond hand, but not with 3♦. It’s far
better — more economical, more
flexible — to double. This second-
round take-out double gives part-
ner a virtual blueprint of your
hand. You’ll pass any bid by part-
ner, and you’re secretly hoping for
a jump to 4♥ opposite, holding five
hearts and a singleton diamond.
S W N E
1♠ Pass
1NT(1) Pass 2♦ Pass
2♥ (2) Pass Pass(3) Pass
a very weak hand.
(3) Not 2♠ . North has shown her 5♠ -4♦
shape. To bid 2♠ would be singing the
same song twice; to bid anything else
would be worse (E-W are more likely to
make 2NT than you are).
Trick one proceeded ♣J, ♣3, ♣6
♣K. At trick two, declarer crossed to
♠ A to lead ♥4 to ♥J. West won
♥ Q and switched to ♦4 (best).
Declarer won ♦A, cashed ♠ K drop-
ping ♦8, ruffed ♦2 and led ♥ K.
West won ♥ A and led ♦Q.
Ruffing, declarer cashed ♥ 10
(East discarding) then led ♣9, cov-
ered by ♣10, ♣Q and ♣A. East led
♠ Q, ruffed and overruffed but
declarer could win West’s ♣7 with
♣8. He lost ♣2 to West’s ♣5 but
that was eight tricks made — and
so much better than a 2♠ con-
tract. andrew.robson@thetimes.co.uk
Today’s solutions
Killer 9470 Concise Cryptic
Quintagram Quintagram
1 Moon 1 Homer
2 Tiger 2 Sitar
3 Milkman 3 Boulder
4 Disgrace 4 Bristol
5 Offshore 5 Achilles
Word watch
Derny (b) A pacemaker’s
vehicle in track cycling
(Collins) Dyslogistic (a)
Killer 9471 Conveying censure
As with standard Sudoku, fill the grid so that every column, (Chambers) Jequirity (b) A
every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set substitute for liquorice (OED)
Chess — Winning Move
of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number
in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted After 1 Rxh5+! gxh5 2 Qf5
lines, a digit cannot be repeated. Black is slaughtered on the
light squares. White
threatens the rook as well as
Cluelines Stuck on Sudoku, Killer or KenKen? Call 0901 293 3 Qxh5+ Bh6 4 Qxh6 mate.
6263 before midnight to receive four clues for any of today’s Despite Black’s extra rook,
there is no defence, eg 2 ...
puzzles. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network
Be5 3 Qxc8+ Kg7 4 Qg8+
access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). Kh6 5 Be4 and mate follows
P E G
Suko 4118 Brain
Trainer
Easy 63
Medium 237
Harder 6,735
Quiz
1 British Airways 2 The Nile
3 Ireland 4 Duke of
Edinburgh or Prince Philip,
although he wasn’t created a
British prince until 1957
5 Joe Biden, the biting
victims were Secret Service
agents 6 Charlemagne
7 Old Bailey 8 Kubla Khan
9 Dannii Minogue 10 Guy
Ritchie 11 Zulu 12 Playback
13 Cayambe 14 Lando Norris
15 “Weird Al” Yankovic
 17.05.24

Word watch Sudoku Mild No 14,919 Difficult No 14,920 Fiendish No 14,921

David Parfitt

Derny
a A unit of fabric
thickness
b A pacemaker’s vehicle
in track cycling
c Habitually coming last
Dyslogistic
a Conveying censure
b Breaking apart easily
c Explained with
counterexamples

Jequirity
a The act of questioning
oneself
b A substitute for
liquorice
c Legal impartiality
Answers on page 15

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9.

The Times Daily Quiz Olav Bjortomt Suko No 4118

1 Which airline is the
UK flag carrier?
2 The remains of the
ancient Egyptian city
of Thebes are located
on the banks of which
river?
3 In which country was
the Shamrock car built
in the late 1950s?
4 In June 1952, which
duke was promoted
to the rank of
commander in the
Royal Navy?
5 Which president’s
German shepherd
Commander had at
least 24 biting incidents
between October 2022
and July 2023?
6 The Economist’s
weekly column on
15
European politics is
named after which Holy
Roman Emperor?
7 The Central Criminal
Court of England and
Wales is located on
which London street?
8 Published in 1816,
which Samuel Taylor
Coleridge poem is
subtitled A Vision in a
Dream: A Fragment ?
9 Which Australian
had a top ten hit
single with Jump to the
Beat (1991)?
10 Which English
film director owns
Ashcombe House in
Wiltshire?
MONEY
11 Umzansi is a
traditional war dance of
which African people?
12 Which 1958
book was Raymond
Chandler’s last full-
What will
length novel featuring
Philip Marlowe? you ask our
13 Ecuador’s third-
highest mountain,
which volcano features
financial experts?
the only point on
the Equator with
permanent snow cover? Ask the experts is a brand new
feature in our Money section.
14 Which McLaren
driver won his first From mortgages to savings, tax to
Formula One race pensions, find answers to your
at the 2024 Miami
Grand Prix? Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so financial dilemmas every week.
that the number in each circle is equal to
15 Who is this the sum of the four surrounding spaces, Scan the QR code to read
US musician and and each colour total is correct
comedian? online or pick up a
For interactive puzzles visit newspaper this weekend
Answers on page 15 thetimes.co.uk

The Times Quick Cryptic No 2678 by Teazel Adrian Anderson

Mortgage Maestro
Martyn James
Bills Buster
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Across Down
1 This is how spies left informal 1 A little insult angers sovereign
gathering (6) (6)
4 Peer is said to be childless (6) 2 Primrose in part of animal’s
8 9 10 8 Undemanding hilltop not very mouth (7)
high (7) 3 With gold, artist creates special
10 An argument about River Dart atmosphere (4)
(5) 5 Scotsman unfortunately died
11 Take side off piece of furniture before broadcast (8)
11 12 to make it fit (4) 6 Engineers manage a repeat
12 One that forgives a tale-teller broadcast (5)
13 (8) 7 Fresh flood defence for Notts Anna Bowes Kate Aitchison
Savings Specialist
14 Believer is quiet and strangely town (6) Tax Troubleshooter
14 15 hesitant (9) 9 Suffered from exposure, but
18 Spotted insect and hen, may survived (9)
16 17 one say? (8) 13 Assisting girl with jewellery (8) Tom Selby
Pensions Pundit
20 Mince remains hot to start 15 Time to pay for freedom in the
18 19 20 with (4) bar (7) Rachel Winter
22 A friend from America 16 With a cutting edge, youth Investment Investigator

21
returning by one Muslim pierces couch (6)
country (5) 17 Covering small area of
23 Where Dad can swim with unproductive land (6)
22 23 ease? (4,3) 19 Ledger entry’s extremely
24 Foolish time to put identifying defective part (5)
mark into deer (6) 21 Leaving word poor quality
25 Heat of battle at mountain stuff is at start of auction (2-2)
24 25 height (6)
Yesterday’s solution on page 15
 FRIDAY MAY 17 2024

How I revamped
my home on a
(tight) budget
THE INTERIOR DESIGNER’S
TIPS AND TRICKS pages 8-9
2 Bricks & Mortar
2 Bricks
& Mortar
This 16th-century manor dates back to
Henry VIII and was owned by a Bond girl
S
t Catherine’s Court is a
grade I listed 16th-century
Somerset manor near Bath
originally built as a priory
grange for the monks of
Bath Abbey. It takes its
name from the 12th-century
Church of St Catherine,
which sits beside the house.
The actress Jane Seymour (who played from the old chapel into a grand
Solitaire in Live and Let Die, the 1973
James Bond film) was taken by its beauty the carved ceiling while a host of
while on location for Jamaica Inn, a 1983
British television miniseries adapted
from Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 novel.
By the time she’d finished filming, the
13-bedroom mansion and its 14 acres
were hers, for £350,000.
From 1981, Seymour and David Flynn,
then her husband, carried out millions of wine store, laundry room and bedrooms.
pounds’ worth of
renovations. Once the
14,477 sq ft house had been Sign up to our
brought back to its former property newsletter tithe barn and an old school
glory, Seymour and her for the latest analysis,
fourth husband, the film gossip, tips and tricks a Jacobean bowling green,
director James Keach, let it every
out as a film location and a thetimes.co.uk/
recording studio to bands. newsletters
Much of Radiohead’s OK
Computer album was recorded at St
Catherine’s Court. The band got to know
its supernatural side while living there
between 1996 and 1997. Vocalist Thom
Yorke told Rolling Stone: “Ghosts would
talk to me while I was asleep. There was
one point where I got up in the morning
after a night of hearing voices and
decided I had to cut my hair.”
The Cure recorded their 1996 LP Wild
Mood Swings in St Catherine’s vast
ballroom on the first floor, which,
Seymour explained in the same 2017
Rolling Stone interview, “has four-
second reverberation”. It was also rented
by the singer Robbie Williams, who
passed it off as his own in an episode of
What £925,000 buys you in . . .
Lincolnshire
Grade II listed Washdyke Farm is a
handsome Georgian four-bedroom
property — with outbuildings — in the
South Kesteven village of Fulbeck, about
ten miles north of Grantham. Fitted with
a modern Sonos home sound system,
the ground floor includes three reception
rooms and a traditional farmhouse-style
kitchen with wooden cabinetry; ancillary
areas include a large utility room and
boot room. Two of the bedrooms of the
2,452 sq ft house have en suite
bathrooms while the remaining two
share a bathroom. Set in 2.77 acres, the
gardens are filled with mature shrubs,
trees and flowers.
EPC Exempt
Upside Kerb appeal.
Downside The extra five acres is not
included — you’ll need to negotiate
separately.
Contact savills.com
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
Friday May 17 2024
the times
£12.5 million
MTV’s Cribs, the show that toured
celebrity houses. Seymour lived abroad
for much of the year when she owned it,
but also used it as a party venue.
Historic England notes that the
multigabled, four-storey house had
“many later alterations”, particularly
during the 19th century, “in the Tudor
style”. On entry you pass a pillared porch
entrance. A minstrel’s gallery overlooks
reception rooms lead from the first-floor
hallway, including the ballroom, a
library, as well as drawing and dining
rooms, linked with wooden doors. The
ground floor includes a breakfast room/
family kitchen and a professional
kitchen, estate office, boot room, pantry,
Outbuildings include a five-
bedroom lodge house, a
15th-century grade II* listed
house. The grounds feature
Monday at orchards, an orangery and Actress Jane Seymour once
ancient yews. owned the 13-bedroom house
After the dissolution of
the monasteries in 1536, St
Catherine’s was granted by Henry VIII
to his tailor, John Malte. On selling the BA1 The postcode in numbers
property off-market in 2007 Seymour
In this part of Somerset 47% of Decrease
told The Sunday Times that she loved it
properties for sale are under in buyer
“more than anything in the world”.
The present owner, who bought it offer, falling to 19% of those
costing £1.5 million or more
4% demand
in the
from Seymour, is “a very private
past year
individual”, says Ed Sugden of Savills
country department. “He’s spent a lot on
upgrading — wiring, plumbing, £572,694 is the average house price
everything. It’s very unusual to find such TAKING THE TEMPERATURE
a house of this calibre and age in such a SELLERS' MARKET
Source: Propcast and Rightmove
beautiful, serene setting . . . We expect a The hotter the SE
lot of interest, probably from America market, the quicker KE
T LL
ER
MA
and international markets.”
47°
S’
and easier it should
RS’
MA
Victoria Brzezinski
BUYE
RKET
be to sell a home
£12.5 million; savills.com
Cambridgeshire
£925,000 Waters Edge is a gated development £925,000
that wraps around three sides of
Wansford Marina on the River Nene,
which runs through Peterborough and
Northampton. Built in 2017, this four-
bedroom, three-bathroom detached
house has mooring rights and views of
the marina, a landscaped garden and
private parking for two cars. The kitchen
features Corian worktops and a Quooker
boiling water tap. The southeast-facing
gardens have seating and dining terraces,
with artificial turf and low stone-walled
flower and shrub beds, complete with
night-time lighting and an automated
irrigation system and water features.
EPC B (potential A) — on a scale of A
(best) to G (worst)
Upside Modern and comfy. The good
energy rating should keep bills down too.
Downside A bit pricey for the area.
Contact savills.com
the times | Friday May 17 2024 Bricks & Mortar 3
3

Brief encounter
Ask the expert
Japanese knotweed growing next
door has spread into our garden
but it hasn’t yet affected the
house. I have read that there has been
a recent appeal case about it. What is
the latest position?

Japanese knotweed’s Appeal awarded bungalow

long-held reputation
as a “bogey plant” is
not entirely fair, but
it still affects property values.
The threat to building
structures caused by the roots
(or rhizomes) has been widely
known about since 2013, since
the publication of a Royal
Institution of Chartered
Surveyors information paper.
The fast-growing plant is a
prescribed invasive species, and
environmental law says it must
be removed by licensed
contractors and disposed of at
special waste sites.
The Law Society property
information form TA6 asks
sellers whether their land or
adjacent property is affected by
Japanese knotweed. They face
substantial damages claims
from buyers if they give
untruthful answers.
Apart from sellers,
landowners can pursue
their neighbours for
injunctions and
compensation for
damage to property
values — failure to
stop the spread of
Japanese
knotweed can
amount to an
actionable nuisance.
The two leading
Japanese knotweed
nuisance cases
involve infestations a few
miles apart in south Wales.
In 2018 the Court of
owners £10,000 compensation
against Network Rail after
rhizomes encroached from a
railway embankment onto their
gardens — even though there
was no damage to the houses.
In the recent Supreme Court
case Bridgend v Davies a
householder failed to recover
damages after Japanese
knotweed spread from council-
owned land. Although the court
found that the council failed to
treat the infestation properly,
the main damage to the value
of the house happened “well
before 2004”. Crucially, this
date was before structural
threats became widely known
about in 2013. The council’s
later default was not, therefore,
the cause of the drop in the
property’s value.
You should check what
was said about Japanese
knotweed when you bought the
property. If the rhizomes
came onto your land
after 2013 you
can claim an
injunction
and damages
against your
neighbours for
failing to control
the weed.
Mark Loveday
is a barrister with
Tanfield Chambers.
Email questions to
brief.encounter
@thetimes
.co.uk

Powys
From the outside, this six-bedroom grade
II listed Georgian house in Powys is a
picture of elegance. Inside, it could use
some work. Period features include
beamed ceilings and an inglenook
fireplace with a wood-burner. The
property has an established B&B
business, which may explain why there
are two WCs and a bathroom downstairs,
and why there are several reception
rooms: a living room, a sitting room, a
dining room and a family room. All six
bedrooms are en suite too. The property
also has five one-bedroom cottages.
Outside there is a detached garage, a
patio and half an acre of land. It’s in the
village of Llandysilio, 21 miles from
Wrexham.
EPC E (potential C)
Upside Could be a nice earner.
Downside Needs updating.
Contact fineandcountry.co.uk
Mexico
£925,000 Casa de los Reflejos (Spanish for “house £930,000
of reflections”) is a stunning two-storey
colonial-style house in Barrio San
Francisco, an upmarket residential
neighbourhood on the southern fringe
of Mexico City. Surrounded by trees and
the sounds of birds, the property sits
inside a gated complex, with plenty of
patios, terraces and gardens to escape
from the hustle and bustle of the huge
metropolis. There are two bedrooms —
the main one has a small study and
walk-in wardrobe and is connected to
the second one via a sunny outside
terrace — and two bathrooms. There
is potential for a third bedroom on the
second floor.
Upside You’d think you were in the
countryside.
Downside Probably not big enough to
be a family home.
Contact sothebysrealty.com
4 Bricks & Mortar Friday May 17 2024 | the times
4 Bricks Friday May 17 2024
& Mortar the times 1 2

Moving stories
Your tales from up and down the property ladder

‘We went from a starter

house to our forever home
in seven years’
ames and I met in 2017, and
3
James and Sophie
Baldwin moved from
a £215,000 house to a
£310,000 house, and
now live in a £550,000
home in North
Yorkshire with their
company, did a lot of the legwork

J
we had a ten-year plan — we
wanted to be in a detached
house with loads of space
[says Sophie Baldwin, 31].
When we first met,
James had a two-bedroom
house in Harrogate, North
Yorkshire, and I was living at home in
Goldsborough, which is a village nearby.
James was going through a divorce
and after the Harrogate house was
sold we bought a three-bedroom mid-
terrace in the village of Glasshouses,
which is 12 miles away, in August 2017.
It cost £215,000 and although there was
nothing particularly wrong with it, it
looked awful.
It was painted purple, everywhere, and
it didn’t have a proper fitted kitchen, just
an Ikea freestanding one. We knew there
was money to be made on it.
We got rid of the purple and my
parents bought us an ex-display kitchen
for £2,000. We also added an en suite to
the attic bedroom. James, who is a sales
and operations manager for an IT
himself to save on costs.
We really loved Glasshouses, and the
village lifestyle, but when we got married
in September 2020 we started to talk
about having a family. We wanted a
bigger garden, and we also wanted to be
closer to our parents, who were about an
hour away.
We sold the Glasshouses house in
October 2020, just when everyone was
wanting to move out of cities, for
£285,000 — we were told that adding
the en suite added a lot of the value.
Our next home was a three-bedroom
detached house in Knaresborough,
North Yorkshire, which we bought for
£310,000. We thought we were going to
stay long-term. It was quite new, but
dated and it needed a lot of work.
We moved in with my parents while
we did the work — or James did
because by that point I was pregnant
and not really able to do much. I was
also busy with my two businesses, a
digital marketing agency and The
Mum Collective, a loungewear company
two children
for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
We put a lot into the house. We put
in an air source heat pump and
underfloor heating, a new kitchen and
bathrooms, and we turned part of the
garage into a gym. We put in new
windows, and bi-fold doors, and knocked
through the kitchen and dining room.
We ended up spending a lot of money
— £80,000.
Then our mortgage came up for
renewal we wanted to know how much
Have your say the house was worth with all the work
Would you like to share we had done so we asked an estate
your moving story? agent friend to come and give us an
Email carol.lewis@ honest valuation.
thetimes.co.uk He said there was a huge demand
for properties like ours, and it would
be really easy to sell for a profit. We
hadn’t had time to get emotionally
attached to the house and we thought
we had nothing to lose. We put the
house on the market for £415,000, and
we had almost 25 viewings in two days.
It went to sealed bids and we ended up
selling for £425,000 in February 2022.
From there we moved to Burton
Leonard, which is about nine miles
north of Harrogate, three months later.
It cost £550,000 and the best thing about
it is that it needs no work.
We did have to extend our mortgage
to buy it, but because of the previous
properties we had a really good deposit
to put down. Our son, Luca, is nearly
three and in November we had a
daughter, Amelie.
Things are busy enough. I would like
to just stay put now.
Interview by Ruth Bloomfield

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Prices correct at time of print

6 Bricks & Mortar
6 Bricks Friday May 17 2024
& Mortar the times
Save&splurge
Garden gear for wildlife
We’re going
U A cosy wicker house
it alone
for hedgehogs, £29.50,
aplaceforeverything. A third of UK households have just one
co.uk
occupant — this growing demographic
X Poppy seed head
share their solo stories with Jayne Dowle
feeder — the perfect
size for fat balls, £17.99,
P
rhsplants.co.uk eople living alone in the
UK now make up a third
of all households,
W This Wildlife World according to the Office for live here. Also, obviously, property prices
butterfly barn is a safe National Statistics. There
V The Eco Frogilo is a cute and home for all types of has been an 8 per cent
durable home for frogs and toads, pollinating insects, increase in solo dwellers
£25.95, arkwildlife.co.uk £21.99, johnlewis.com in a decade, outpacing the
6 per cent increase in the UK population area. The important thing is it’s
in the decade from 2012.
Of the people living alone 52 per cent
are women. However, the number of
men living alone has grown more — an
increase of 415,000 since 2013, compared Hull, which is only about ten miles
X Bee drinking cups, with 204,000 more women — perhaps
£35 for a set of five, because it’s easier for men, who have
uncommongoods.com higher salaries on average, to afford it.
Male first-time buyers in London have, in Brighton, I managed to save a lot of
on average, £11,500 more saved for a
deposit than women, according to NHG
Compiled by Homes (part of the housing association
Victoria Maw Notting Hill Genesis), which in
partnership with the insight
agency Opinium has looked at gender
disparity in the property market.
Regardless of gender, people aged 65
years and over account for 93 per cent of
the total growth in the number of people year fixed-rate mortgage that was in
living alone over the last decade. This
age group now represents half of all
single-person households.
Dominic Stead, property director at
the retirement renting company My
Future Living, says the so-called senior
living market “is still in its infancy” in
the UK, and as such there is a shortage
of homes suitable for the older
demographic.
Stead is calling for investors
and developers to tap into
this sector and come up
with creative solutions,
including long-term It’s important
secure rental to keep busy and
developments
that would allow occupied.
older single people danger you can sink
to more easily sell
their family home, move within
and release capital.
“Moving to a smaller
apartment can liberate people to
enjoy their retirement years as part
of a sociable community,” he says.
From a first time-buyer to an active
eightysomething, a range of people who
live alone tell us what it’s really like to be
a member of the singletons club.
‘My home is an
absolute comfort zone’
George Fryer, 31, lives in Beverley in
the East Riding of Yorkshire, and
works as a communications consultant. when I bought it. I’ve got
He bought his first home, a two-
bedroom new-build townhouse, for
£180,000 in 2021.
B efore I lived here I was lucky
enough to be in a flat-share in
Brighton, which I’d found
through SpareRoom.com. I had great
flatmates and they’re still some of my
best friends. I also lived in London for a
Friday May 17 2024 | the times
while too. I loved being in both cities but
I really wanted to buy my own place.
I grew up in the area and my parents
are massively more affordable in this
part of Yorkshire than they are in the
south of England, even though
Beverley is considered an expensive
financially viable for me. You’ll find
lawyers and GPs who live in London
who can’t comfortably buy their own
home. I was able to transfer to a job in
away. So I decided to go for it.
I put down a pretty decent deposit.
During the pandemic, when I was still
money — about £10,000 — because I
was unable to do anything, go on
holiday or leave the house. I was also
fortunate to have help from my parents,
who gave me the money to make up
a 25 per cent deposit. I feel like the
decision I’ve made to buy is financially
very viable.
I was also lucky as I went for a five-
place before the Ukraine war started and
interest rates shot up. My interest rate is
1.64 per cent, which is pretty decent. If
I could afford it then, I felt pretty
confident that as I progressed through
my career I would be able to afford it in
five years’ time.
At the time of buying I did have a
girlfriend, but she lived in Leeds and
had no intention of coming to live
in Beverley. I’m not lonely,
though. If I want to cook for
myself and get a good
night’s sleep I can do
that. I worked as a
breakfast chef for
a while, so my
There’ s the cooking’s not
bad. As I’ve got
older I’ve become
yourself more health-conscious.
I like to cook lunches to go.
I am always going to see
friends in Brighton and London
or travelling. I play football. I do
have a social life here — maybe not
as social as I like, but it’s not like I’m
spending five days in isolation.
I love that feeling when I come home Jacqueline
from work and I’ve got a secure base. If Jordan
I’ve had a bad day or I’m in a bad
mood for some reason I can just
chill out. I treat my home as my
absolute comfort zone.
I’ve not painted anything.
The house is as it was
photos and prints on the
wall, and blinds on all
the windows, but I still
haven’t got a lampshade
in the hallway. It’s true,
you could mistake it
for a rented property,
but in a big move for
me I’ve now got tiles
round the sink.
the times | Friday May 17 2024
‘I miss having someone
to bring me a cup of tea’
Anne Waters, 86, a retired primary
school head teacher and former Ofsted
inspector, lives in a two-bedroom
second-floor apartment in Lytham St
Annes, Lancashire. She was married
to Joe for 62 years until he died of
cancer in 2021.
L iving alone is something you have
to get used to and it is very
different. I’ve had four sons and a
husband, and we always kept an open
house. But within 18 months I lost my
husband and Anthony, my eldest son,
who died very suddenly when he was 58.
Joe and I lived in a bungalow in
Ansdell, between Lytham and St Annes,
for almost 30 years. Of my three
remaining sons, one is in Australia, one
is in America and the youngest lives in
Chester with his young family. I am very
blessed; I have 11 grandchildren and 13
great-grandchildren.
Suddenly, though, I found myself
alone for the first time in my life. I have
a lot of friends, I do a lot of socialising,
I’m involved in a lot of things in the local
area; I’m in two bridge clubs and I’m
involved with the local church and all
the committees that go on there.
Nevertheless, I was alone.
I started to think about moving from
the bungalow and noticed The Sidings
[an Adlington Retirement Living
development] being built nearby. I chose
it because I could be totally independent
and moved here in January 2023. I have
my own front door, my own letterbox.
I still drive and do my own shopping,
although I have a delivery sometimes,
especially when the supermarket has
an offer on wine.
I do most of the cleaning, but I do
have a cleaner who comes in once a
fortnight. She does things that I find
more difficult, such as the skirting
boards and changing the duvet cover.
It’s a two-bedroom apartment, it’s easy,
you can whizz round in no time.
I can see people if I want to and I’ve
made lots of friends here, but I’m able
to do my own thing too. It’s independent
living, but with the benefit of having
people around you. We have developed
a very strong, vibrant community, many
of us are of a similar mindset.
I think it’s very important that you
keep yourself busy and occupied. The
easiest thing in the world is to think, I
can’t be bothered. There’s the danger
you can sink within yourself.
One of the things I miss most is
having someone to bring me a cup of tea
in the morning. I know that sounds
ridiculous. I have to think every
morning, what does today hold, let’s
think it through. That’s very necessary,
because I’ve always been used to
discussing it with somebody.
The other thing that I find difficult
about living alone is remembering that
it’s mealtime and I’ve got to eat
something. One of my sons has told me
to put an alarm on my phone. We do
have a nice restaurant here. My husband
really enjoyed his food. Cooking for one?
There’s no joy in it.
Friday May 17 2024
the times
‘My gas and
electricity bills have
more than halved’
Monica Gordon, 63, works part-
time as an administrator for a
construction company. She lives
in a three-bedroom terraced
new-build in Ashford, Kent.
I wanted a home to retire to, but
not in a retirement village. As
well as hoping to downsize from
my previous home, a 1930s Tudor-
style semi-detached, I also wanted
to get away from the busy
environment of Tattenham Corner
in Epsom, Surrey, where I lived
before. I wanted somewhere more
affordable, and I went all over the
place to try to get more for my
money, even as far as Brighton and
Maidstone. I wanted to breathe
cleaner air and enjoy some
amazing views.
Moving from Tattenham Corner to
Ashford felt like I was on an expedition.
I have been fortunate in getting help
from friends and meeting and talking to
different people in the Ashford area.
It was a big step as I was always used
to having company as a single parent
with my two boys, Jamal, now 34, and
Camion, 30.
An attempt at buying a
bungalow fell through, so
I broadened my search. I
found the Barratt
development in
Chilmington, near I sold my
Ashford. home for £520,000
I liked the
location and
and bought
went for a three- for £359,000. It
bedroom terraced
home with a back garden
made
and two parking spaces. It
was ideal, so I reserved it on
the same day and moved in at
the end of 2022.
I spend my days walking, going to
the gym and making new friends at
Slimming World. Living by myself
means I get to do what I want when I
Clockwise from top left:
Anne Waters, George
want. It is a sense of freedom I don’t
believe you can get elsewhere. And I
Fryer, Ronald Kemp, love the fact that it’s quite near to the
Monica Gordon sea and to Canterbury.
After living in an older house, I’ve
been very impressed with the savings on
bills. My gas and electricity bills have
more than halved, and my water bill is
also considerably less.
Financially, buying on my own has
really made sense. I sold my previous
property for £520,000 and bought
outright for £359,000, so I’ve freed up
money to one day enjoy my retirement.
‘Your shopping bill
drops off a cliff’
Jacqueline Jordan, 55, a public
relations specialist, lives in a converted
schoolhouse in the village of Trawden
near Colne in Lancashire.
I’ ve been living by myself for a year
now. I was divorced last year and
separated for five years before that.
My son, Jack, 22, went to university
three years ago and my daughter, Ella,
20, went a year ago.
A lot of people were like, oh my God,
empty nest, are you going to be OK? My
kids won’t take this the wrong way, but
Lessons from in the end I was counting the days.
the RHS Chelsea The house was the family home —
Flower Show in Julian, my ex-husband, and I have come
to an arrangement. It’s part of the
The Sunday original village school, split into two
Times Home properties and has four bedrooms. I’m
this weekend not rattling about, but at some point I
will probably be downsizing.
Bricks & Mortar 7
Bricks 7
& Mortar
This is the first time I have lived by
myself. I got together with Julian and
we were straight into a relationship at
19 years old. But it was quite liberating,
knowing I would be on my own.
When I think where I am now, there’s
a world of difference. It’s not having to
answer to everybody. Your shopping bill
drops off a cliff. Even simple things like
not having to consider somebody else —
you can do whatever you want on an
evening. You just have to have the
confidence, not doubt yourself. I tell
myself I can do it. I’ve done all sorts,
even learnt to fix a washing machine.
I have absolutely no intention of living
with anybody again. I think you’ll find
it’s men who often end up straight in
another one when one relationship ends.
Women are maybe thinking, wow, me
time, especially once the kids have gone.
‘I moved in with the help
of a downsizing adviser’
Ronald Kemp, 78, a widower and
retired shopping centre manager, lives
in a two-bedroom first-floor apartment
in Churchill’s Retirement Living’s Bond
Lodge, in Rainham, Essex.
M y wife, Sandra, would be amazed
if she could see me now. From
somebody who couldn’t do a
thing — and she wouldn’t let me — I
do my own washing, ironing, I
cook. I’ve bought myself an air
fryer that I’m getting along
with very well.
Sandra passed away
old in October 2022.
That left me very
much alone —
outright we used to be
joined at the hip.
Suddenly I found
sense myself with a big five-
bedroom house with four
bathrooms — in Hempstead,
near Gillingham in Kent — and
a big garden.
I used to live in Rainham years ago.
I knew it quite well, so it was quite an
easy decision to consider moving here.
My son and Sandra’s children live fairly
close by, which is good.
We have about six or seven couples
here, and there are probably a few more
single ladies than single men. We all get
along very well. I thought I might be a
bit of a recluse, lock myself behind the
front door, but I’ve found it easy to make
new friends with shared interests.
It was hard to give up the house, but
I thought I would be more heartbroken.
It’s probably because I’ve been kept busy
in the flat getting it all sorted out. I
moved in here in October 2023 and had
the help of Karen Williams, Churchill’s
specialist downsizing adviser.
Most of my things I could bring with
me, but I filled three skips, as well as
taking things to charity shops. That was
a bit heartbreaking, almost like throwing
your past away. I’ve saved treasured
things. My little dining room, I call it
Sandra’s room, I’ve decorated with lots
of photos of her and us together.
I’ve also got two big bedrooms, two
bathrooms and a lounge. It’s the largest
apartment in the development and cost
£516,000 on a 999-year lease.
With the sale of the house, it was
affordable. I’m very lucky that I have a
good occupational pension, plus half of
my wife’s pension — she was a retail
manager for Burton — and the state
pension. I find the service charge here
very reasonable too, about £3,000
annually. That’s for everything:
gardening, window cleaning, rubbish
removal, lift maintenance. Previously, I
was spending £7,000 a year just to keep
my house going, with repairs, patio
cleaning and help in the garden.
8 Bricks & Mortar Friday May 17 2024 | the times
8 Bricks Friday May 17 2024
& Mortar the times

T
he interior designer
Josie Lywood was living
in a flat in Richmond,
southwest London,
when a Georgian fixer-
upper on a handsome
square in a conservation
area came up for sale
for £1.2 million. The townhouse, just the
other side of the Thames from Kew
Gardens, had carpeted bathrooms, one
radiator and was in Brentford. It was not
an area that she and her husband, Julian,
had considered relocating to. “A lot of
Brentford is modern but there are little
pockets of really old properties. I believe
this was an old archery practice area
for Henry VIII,” Lywood, 33, says of the
townhouse’s location.
When the couple arrived for a viewing
in late 2019 they were greeted by tired
magnolia walls, but in a house with
sound bones. “I don’t think the previous
owner had touched the property since
she moved in, in the 1970s,” Lywood
says. Lywood and her husband saw the
potential, but it hasn’t been smooth
sailing. They bought the house soon
after the viewing, but it would be August
2020 before they could move in, because
of pandemic-related restrictions.
Renovation planning took about a year,
and building work began in January
2023 and was completed in May.
“When we got into the property we
didn’t have any budget to renovate,”
Lywood recalls. “Once we had saved up,
one very challenging part of the build
was that I was in the first trimester of
my pregnancy and nauseous when the
builders were there.” She gave birth to
a daughter, Artemis, in October 2023.
Lywood has not shied away from using
colour in her home, but then she knows
what she’s doing — she is creative
director of the Richmond-based interiors Above: Josie Lywood’s new kitchen. Right: Josie, the townhouse’s exterior and more renovated rooms
firm Q Design House. “I’ve done a lot of
houses that have a more neutral design,”
she says. “When we first moved in I did
paint several of the rooms in neutral
colours but the rooms felt really bland.
This sort of house can take colour.”
The interiors choices were
The interior Miami (where Julian proposed on the
sympathetic to the property’s heritage,
but cost constraints mean the couple
have had to carefully consider where to
save and where to splurge. The layout,
over four floors, was not practical for the
designer’s budget beach) and Bandol on the Côte d’Azur,
where they wed in 2017.
A few of the artworks in the house are
by Lywood’s great-great-grandfather
William McTaggart — a Scottish painter
family they hoped to have. “When we
moved in we had bedrooms in the
basement and on the top floor, and the
living spaces were on the two middle
floors. The kitchen was not really usable.
renovation in the 19th century — including a sketch
from the 1870s above a sofa.
The hand-me-down antique armchairs
have been re-covered at a cost of £1,000
each. “I used Vanderhurd Paravento
We got by by replacing some of the C O V E R S T O RY 1008-1 fabric [£174 a metre] for the backs
appliances, knowing that we’ll do the only to help save cost, and the more
kitchen properly later on,” she says. affordable Andes Ecru from Warwick
Navigating the house’s grade II listing Josie Lywood reveals how she upgraded her Georgian inside [£32 a metre]. Similar to the
and its awkward intricacies, nooks and armchairs, in my bedroom I used an
crannies was another challenge. Before townhouse, step by step — and added significant value expensive fabric for the central striped
they landed on the final design the panel on the headboard and a cheaper
couple had hoped to add an extension to the property. By Victoria Brzezinski fabric for the rest. It’s an example of how
to the rear of the house, which involved you can order a smaller quantity of
knocking down an attached outhouse. The ground floor’s new layout houses a high-end fabric to help to reduce
“The planning application was rejected,” two reception rooms: a main sitting area costs without sacrificing on
Lywood says. “However, it was not a and a separate snug. Lywood had finish,” Lywood says.
complete waste — for the secondary fantasised about dividing the spaces with The pale green, south-
application [which was accepted] I was Crittall doors, but these would have cost At the end of the facing snug looks out over
able to use a lot of the documents, a minimum of £5,000, so she plumped the garden. “I managed
surveys and drawings made for the for more affordable timber-framed day, you don’t buy to source ceiling
previous one and adjust them. glazed doors from LPD Doors. a Georgian property flush lights that
“The outhouse is not original, but it’s Another purse-friendly trick was to covered existing holes,
listed, so they wouldn’t let us remove buy the six cast-iron-style radiators to rip it all apart which saved us having
that. We had to scrap that plan. At the unpainted. “It took ages to paint them to replaster the existing
end of the day you don’t buy a Georgian myself, but it did save about £100 a ceiling,” she says. The Plumb
property to rip it all apart.” radiator,” she says. lights cost £64 each from Pooky,
The second iteration of Lywood’s The larger lounge is north-facing and The kitchen and the Pebble wool rug, about £100,
layout involved moving the kitchen into doesn’t get much light. “I embraced the and living is from Dunelm.
the basement, including opening up the fact that it was dark and cosy and went room Lywood was concerned about the new
wall and a few structural changes. The for a blueish deep grey, Down Pipe from before the basement kitchen/diner being dingy.
heritage expert was positive, especially Farrow & Ball,” Lywood says. A memento renovation “When it was two separate rooms they
given that this is where the original of locations important to the couple were both quite dark, but once we
kitchen would have been located. “I still hangs on the wall here. Lywood had it opened them up it felt a lot brighter than
had to get permission — just listed made as a birthday present for Julian. expected,” she says. “I was conscious to
building consent rather than a full It features spots such as Durham (the try and keep it as light as I could, which
planning application,” she says. couple met there at university in 2011), is part of the reason why I picked yellow
the times | Friday May 17 2024
[Farrow & Ball Citron] for the cabinets,
because I didn’t want it to feel like a
basement. The walls are painted in
Farrow & Ball’s Wimborne White, which
has a very pale pink undertone, and the
skirting and windows are painted a
slightly darker colour [Farrow & Ball’s
Slipper Satin], making the walls feel as
bright as possible.”
After designing every cabinet to make
best use of the “tricky and very tight”
spaces, she employed a joiner to build
the kitchen. “It worked out really well
doing it bespoke because none of the
walls are straight. We also had it painted
on site, which helps with the finishing.”
In one of the 90cm-deep alcoves
on either side of the chimney breast
Lywood has fitted a deep pantry
cupboard; in the other sits an integrated
Fisher & Paykel American double fridge-
freezer with “life-changing” drawers
(from £3,030). “We had a very restricted
size, but I managed to find one that fit
perfectly. It’s one of my splurges,” she
admits. Lywood fell in love with some
hand-painted bee-pattern tiles (a nod to
Brentford Football Club, nicknamed the
Bees), which she fitted around her Smeg
range. “The bee tiles were £25 each from
Decorum Tiles, so I only used four,
around the cooker. The rest were plain
and cost £1.90 each from Fired Earth; the
tiles cost £300 in total,” she says.
The dining table is a £1,150 custom-
made design bought from Etsy from the
Manchester firm CraftyCreationsMCR,
but the Rise & Fall School pendant
ceiling light from the British brand
Original BTC above it was a splurge
(£339). “It was key because I wanted a
pendant that we could move up and
down,” she says. “The banquette seating
was made by the joiner from MDF
around the radiator [£2,500], and our
upholsterer made a cushion [£700].”
The kitchen’s monochrome floor adds
a period feel. Lywood used Calacatta and
Bluestone tumbled marble tiles, from
Mandarin Stone — a fitting choice,
given that the basement would probably
have had a flagstone floor. “Another
trick: if I want something to feel really
bright, I’ll add in some dark, contrasting
accents,” Lywood says.
Instead of fitting a traditional island
Lywood plumped for a smaller, movable
version, which sits off the floor for less of
a chunky look. The island’s 30mm solid
marble worktop has a slightly chamfered
finish, in keeping with the property’s age.
As for the kitchen electrics, she has
followed a minimally invasive route.
“We can’t put any downlights in, so it’s
all low-level lighting from Pooky, which
I prefer anyway: wall lights and LED
lighting within the joinery,” she adds.
The choice of unlacquered brass finishes
for her hot water kitchen tap and
cupboard handles was an investment at
£1,680 (from Trading Depot), but one
that will age nicely over time for a more
authentic look than polished brass.
The main bathroom beside the kitchen
has one tiny window. Lywood has used
a mid blue (Farrow & Ball’s De Nimes)
on the walls and ceiling, and an arched
shower screen that echoes the alcoves in
the kitchen. In the hallway a thick door
curtain using Laura Ashley for Ashley
Wilde fabric (£750 for fabric and curtain
construction) minimises drafts from the
front door, while the stair runner is a
plain carpet with a linen border to match
the wall colour (Three Farm Green from
Little Greene). “This is often a lot more
cost-effective than buying a ready-made
runner,” she says.
Upstairs Lywood has painted Artemis’s
room in a sunny yellow: Farrow & Ball’s
Babouche. The laundry basket was £39
from Urban Outfitters, and the world
map is peel-and-stick wallpaper from
Hovia (£39 a square metre). “I stuck it up
myself when I was 30 weeks pregnant on
a ladder,” she recalls.
“When considering your budget for
renovating a property, the interior
architecture elements are what can add
more value to your home, especially
when the design and installation has
been completed to a good standard,”
Lywood says.
The distinction between interior
architecture and FF&E (furniture,
fixtures and equipment), she explains
to clients, is that if you were
to pick up a house and turn it upside
down the items that would fall out are
considered FF&E; anything that stays
in place and is sold with the property
is interior architecture. “When we
had the house revalued [after the
renovation],” Lywood says, “the property
price increased quite significantly.
The return on investment is
approximately 150-200 per cent.”
Help! There’s a
poltergeist in my
period property
Flying pots, barking dogs and
floating orbs— can homes really be
haunted? Sasha Nugara finds out
T
he British are fascinated by
haunted buildings, ghosts and
poltergeists, maybe as a result
of having so many old
properties. The debate about
whether ghosts are real or not will
perhaps never be resolved. In the
meantime we love to explore the
paranormal with BBC’s Uncanny, now
back for a fourth series, with the
presenter Danny Robins taking the
British obsession to the US.
Yvette Fielding, 55, presenter of Most
Haunted on SkyGo, claims to have seen,
felt and heard spirits countless times in
the past 20 years. Fielding, who
presented the show from 2002 to 2019,
says: “When I started doing Most
Haunted, and investigating the
paranormal, my personal beliefs changed
100 per cent. I now know for sure that we
do live on, and we go to another plane.”
While many are familiar with
Fielding’s on-screen work, she has also
indulged in off-air jobs, helping families
rid their homes of malevolent spirits. Her
team recce the property, looking at the
history, ley lines and energy flow and
speaking to witnesses, before working
out whether it is a legitimate job.
Fielding remembers a mother and
daughter who lived in a cottage. “They
were being terrorised by poltergeist
activity . . . with pots and pans flying
around, the dogs going mad, barking at
something they couldn’t see and hearing
strange voices. My husband [Karl
Beattie, her co-host] and I went into the
house, and as soon as we went down the
hallway we heard this loud thumping
coming from the hallway. Through this
knocking and rapping we were able to
get the spirit to spell out his name and
reveal why he was there.”
Fielding and Beattie use a tapping
board to communicate, by pointing at
letters and spelling out a word according
to thumps and bangs heard in the house.
They discovered the spirit had thought
the daughter looked just like his
granddaughter and had attached himself
to her. They explained to the spirit that it
Bricks & Mortar 9
Friday May 17 2024 Bricks 9
the times & Mortar
wasn’t his granddaughter and it was time
for him to move on. The spirit left and
the family stayed in the cottage.
“I have found that lots of people refuse
to leave their home, just out of principle,”
she says. “They’ll be absolutely petrified,
but will stay in their house because they
don’t want to let a ghost push them out.”
Fielding doesn’t describe herself as a
spiritual medium, but attributes her
ability to communicate with spirits to the
length of time she has been working in
the field. When investigating alleged
paranormal activity, she says it is
important to investigate all logical
explanations first.
After teaming up with Ring, Fielding
analysed hours of video sent in by people
across the country who had claimed they
had witnessed ghosts via their security
Those buying cameras. There were voices in the
background, moving furniture and
a historic floating orbs — which she believes can
property be a manifestation of spirit presence.
Fielding says there is a way to act if
normally you have just moved into a haunted
know that house. “It depends on the severity of it,
but I always say talk out loud to them,
a spirit is a and if they’re scaring you say, ‘Please
likely part of stop, you’re scaring me,’ but ask
respectfully,” she says. “If that doesn’t
the package work, then call in either someone from
the church to bless the property or a
professional paranormal group.”
But what do estate agents think of
ghostly properties? Oliver Custance
Baker, head of Strutt & Parker’s country
house department, says: “It’s rare that
people ask outright if a home is haunted
— although I’m sure in private any buyer
would speculate depending on the
history and tales a property has to tell.
The rich past of many houses in this
country is what makes them so special.”
He added that homes next to graveyards
attract a premium as they are well built
and buyers know that they are
guaranteed quiet neighbours.
Lindsay Cuthill, co-founder of Blue
Book estate agency, says: “It is important
to remember that we are fleeting
custodians of our homes, mere
caretakers in the grand scheme of time
. . . Those buying a historic property
normally know that a spirit is a likely
part of the package.”
Craig Fuller of Stacks Property
Search, a buying agency, adds: “Some
properties are unashamedly haunted,
and a purchaser will almost certainly
hear stories and rumours from the estate
agent, from locals or from the vendors
themselves.
“Sometimes a resident ghost is a
selling point. Especially when it’s
associated with a stunning period
property with attached history.
A ghost is almost an expected part
of such a package.”
10 Bricks & Mortar Friday May 17 2024 | the times
10 Bricks Friday May 17 2024
& Mortar the times

Bananas for
the Bahamas
The islands still have an old-fashioned
charm — though modern resorts are
making their mark, says Cathy Hawker

I
f James Bond had a favourite
destination, the Bahamas would
surely come close. The Caribbean
nation’s backdrop of sun, sand and
warm seas has featured in multiple priced from $2.5 million to $60
Bond movies, impressing Sean
Connery so much that he made it
his permanent home in the 1990s.
Where Connery led, others followed.
The Bahamas is the Caribbean’s busiest
destination for private jets according to
the operator NetJets, with air traffic up
14 per cent since 2021, a sign of the
wealth hidden among the
swaying palms. And while
ATLANTIC
North Americans have Miami
traditionally been the
main buyers, FLORIDA
Nassau
Europeans are now
arriving in numbers,
often looking for a BAHAMAS
main home or a
holiday bolt hole,
reports James
Burdess of
Savills. HG Christie, 50 miles
an affiliate of Christie’s
International Real Estate,
says property prices have
risen by 50 per cent on average in
the past three years.
The main action, along with the
principal international airport and the
capital, Nassau, is on the island of New
Providence, where holiday homes range
from $600,000 (about £478,000) — the
Bahamian dollar is pegged 1:1 to the US
dollar — to more than $70 million, says
James Mosko, head of the Isles Group,
Knight Frank’s Bahamas associate.
Prime locations include Lyford Cay,
Connery’s home until his death in 2020,
Old Fort Bay, Albany and the Ocean
Club on Paradise Island. Four Seasons
have announced plans to build
residences at the Ocean Club, priced
from $6.5 million.
“Lyford Cay has about 350 homes
million,” Mosko says. “Prices have
doubled since April 2020, but many
homes were built in the 1970s and
1980s and need refurbishing.”
There’s a certain formality at Lyford
Cay, where things can seem little
changed since the American society
photographer Slim Aarons captured
its upmarket lifestyle in the
1970s. Tennis whites are
OCEAN
essential, mobile phones
are discouraged and
blue jeans are banned
in the clubhouse.
“You either
appreciate these
rules or you don’t,”
Mosko says.
For those who
don’t, Albany is
the newer, more
CUBA
contemporary choice.
Opened in 2010, it’s a
600-acre resort 15 minutes
from Nassau airport, set on the
beach where Daniel Craig strode
ashore in Casino Royale, the 2006
Bond reboot. The only thing more
jaw-dropping than Albany’s facilities
(including a championship golf course,
71-slip “mega-yacht” marina and five-
star equestrian centre) is its roll call of
celebrity visitors.
The golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Els
are shareholders at Albany, while the
England football captain Harry Kane
and his family are frequent visitors. The
pop star Justin Timberlake and the actor
Will Smith have personalised golf bags
U Lion House, owned by the British developer Christian Candy, is
on the market for $55 million through Savills and Knight Frank
U A six-bedroom house near Nassau
is on sale for $9.5 million through
Christie’s International Real Estate
on display in the clubhouse and the
Rolling Stones recorded part of their
2023 album Hackney Diamonds in the
Sanctuary, the on-site studios. Any celeb
gossip? That’s a no-no. The resort’s
position is uncompromising: privacy is
absolute and all guests, owners or
renters must guarantee they will not
take any paparazzi-friendly snaps.
“We have well-known athletes,
recording artists, actors, entrepreneurs
and CEOs, but we never reveal names,”
says April Knowles, Albany’s concierge
to the stars, hiding her smartphone from
view. (Her contact list must be priceless.)
After much prodding, she reveals that
one of the things she made happen was
a surprise marriage proposal for a
Premier League footballer. “Not Harry
Kane,” she adds quickly.
Albany is a complete village, with 219
homes and a further 130 planned.
Residents zip between the spa, gym and
beaches on golf carts along roads that
U A condo in the Albany
resort is for sale at
$8 million with Christie’s
International Real Estate
i a waterfront property owned by the
Need to
know
6 There is no income
tax, capital gains tax
or inheritance tax.
6 A permanent
residency scheme is
open to foreigners
who invest at least
$750,000 in property —
if you invest twice that
much, your application
may be fast-tracked.
give a clue to the celebrity owners —
Ernie’s Way, Woods Drive. Nexus is
completing the last two apartments
around Albany’s marina where prices
start from $10 million. The most
expensive home for sale is Lion House,
British developer Christian Candy and
his wife, on the market for $55 million
through Savills and Knight Frank.
Despite these premium prices, the
weekly sundowner meet-up on Friday
evenings has a feet-in-the-sand
informality. Gary Holloway, the owner
of Bearwood Lakes golf club in
Berkshire, and his wife, Amanda, have
owned a home at Albany since 2015, and
live there for five months each year.
“We’ve made such firm pals here,”
Holloway, 70, says. “Everyone is
sporty, playing golf, power-walking,
out on the water, practising yoga or
Pilates. It’s just a wonderful place to live,
with a perfect climate.”

‘I was overcharged by hundreds of pounds for my water bill —

and millions of others could be too’ by Emanuele Midolo
switched from RV to AHC and

T
he devil, they say, is
in the detail. I had
always assumed that
I was being billed
accurately for my
water usage. After all, we are
mostly billed for our services
according to what we use,
right? Wrong.
I live on my own in a tiny
one-bedroom flat in south
London and I go to the office
five days a week, so when my
latest bill from Thames Water
came in February, it seemed
incredibly steep. It amounted
to £478 for a year of water. I
looked at my phone
incredulously. I did not
remember ever paying that
much for water and at first it
sounded like a mistake.
Despite the privatisation of
drinking water and sewerage
services in England and Wales
by Margaret Thatcher in 1989,
Thames Water has a monopoly
on most parts of London. Now,
with almost £15 billion in debts,
the company is on the verge of
financial collapse.
I am one of those who pay
Thames Water for my fresh
water and wastewater. In my
case, my latest bill broke down
as roughly £210 for fresh water
and £133 for wastewater, plus
fixed charges of about £135.
So, how much water did I
consume last year and how did
I get to this bill?
On my bill, next to “water
used” was a number, 173, and
an abbreviation: RV. This,
according to the frequently
asked questions on the side of
the bill, stands for rateable
value. “Because you don’t have
a meter,” my bill read, “we
calculate your charges based
on your property’s rateable
value (RV) of 173, which we
then multiply by our rates. The
government sets RV based on
a property’s location and size.
It varies from house to house,
so yours might be different
from your neighbour’s. The
government froze RV in 1990
after introducing council tax,
so yours won’t change.”
So because I don’t have a
meter, my bill is based on this
thing called RV. What exactly
is it? And what has it got to do
with water consumption? The
answer is — very little, if
anything at all.
Rateable value refers to an
assessment of the value of
every property, which was
conducted — wait for it —
between 1967 and 1990. My RV
isn’t only way out of date but, it
turns out, complete fiction. I
live in a flat that was probably
assessed for RV purposes when
it was a house — a four-
bedroom Georgian townhouse
— which was converted into
flats in the late 1980s. So I’m
most likely to be paying a water
bill for a family of four (and
would explain why my council
tax is extortionate too).
I asked my neighbour if she
was being charged the same
amount. But, infuriatingly and
bafflingly, she wasn’t. Her bill
was “just” £360 — some £120
less than mine. Rather than
showing charges estimated on
RV, her charges were worked
out using another estimate
called “assessed household
charge” (AHC).
“This is based on the typical
amount of water used by
customers with a similar
number of bedrooms to you,”
the bill read. “Alternatively,
we’ll put you on our single
occupier tariff if you’ve told us
you live alone.”
My neighbour lives alone
and indeed her bill specified
that her AHC band was the
single occupier tariff. But so do
I — so why was mine being
drawn up using a completely
different methodology?
Thames Water’s customer
service was spectacularly
unhelpful, so I asked its press
office about the discrepancy.
At some point either a
previous owner or a previous
tenant of my neighbour’s flat
asked Thames Water if they
could have a water meter. The
company sent an engineer
around and verified that they
couldn’t install one (the
property was deemed
“unmeterable”), so the flat was
because the owner or tenant
was living alone the tariff was
a “single occupier” one,
regardless of the number of
bedrooms in the property.
Just 340,000 consumers
are on AHC and the vast
majority, 1.2 million, are
still on rateable value. This
means that millions of
consumers are being charged
for their water based on
something that has nothing to
do with their water usage.
On learning this, I told
Thames Water that I wanted
to have a smart water meter
installed and they arranged for
an engineer to come and
inspect my flat within three
weeks. As I suspected, my flat
was deemed “unmeterable”
and was switched to the AHC
single occupier tariff. As a
result, my bill was slashed by
a quarter, from £478 to £360.
 AWAR D WI N N I N G R E TI R E M E NT APARTM E NTS FO R SALE

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Experience the Extraordinary
Discover our unforgettable fully-inclusive escapes including Japan,
China, Vietnam and Cambodia from Wendy Wu Tours.
Plus, enjoy the extraordinary exclusive savings for Times readers.

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 18 DAYS FROM

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Japan Uncovered
Departures | June 2024 - April 2026

e captivated by the unique culture Reaching Matsumoto you’ll combine Price Includes

B and spectacular beauty of Japan on

this comprehensive and inclusion
packed tour.
a fascinating exploration of its magnificent
16th-century castle, with a visit to a miso
house to learn about this famous Japanese
International flights and taxes

seasoning and also spend some time at Domestic transportation,

Starting in vibrant Osaka, you’ll explore a wasabi farm. including bullet train to Kyoto
Japan’s main island, Honshu, ending up
amongst the bright lights and sky-scraping In the Japanese Alps you’ll be delighted All accommodation
towers of capital Tokyo. by the cute Japanese macaques bathing throughout the tour
and playing in natural hot springs and get
En route you’ll see and experience the a glimpse into a rural way of life. Cruise the Exclusive free pre-tour
very best of what Japan has to offer. Of waters of Lake Ashi and soar high on the extension for Times readers
course, there’ll be plenty of activities Hakone Ropeway, (if the weather is kind) including hotel night, breakfast
that showcase Japan’s rich culture and, the peak of Mt Fuji visible in the distance. and private transfers
depending on your departure date, you Roll up in Tokyo ready to be dazzled and
may even get to visit the rituals and spend two days getting to know both its Touring with guides and entrance
traditions of a sumo wrestling tournament. modern and traditional sides, ascending fees
the Skytree and soaking up the ambiance
In timeless Kyoto and ancient Nara, delve
of Sensoji, the city’s oldest Buddhist temple.
into history visiting old temples and
tranquil Zen gardens and immerse
yourself in the elaborate etiquette of a
traditional tea ceremony. In Hiroshima,
you’ll be able to reflect on the tragic events
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of the more recent past while discovering
the city’s bright future.

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*Prices are correct at time of going to press. The offer is available on bookings confirmed by May 31, 2024 and cannot be applied retrospectively to bookings already confirmed. The offer is subject to availability and Wendy Wu
Tours reserve the right to change or withdraw the offer. Operated by and subject to the booking conditions of Wendy Wu, ABTA W7994 ATOL 6639, a company wholly independent of News UK.
 17 DAYS FROM

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Gems of China
Departures | October 2024 – November 2025

ncover the ancient, modern, Catching the bullet train to Xian,the Price Includes

U and natural gems on this all-

encompassing tour of China’s
must-see sights and unforgettable
enigmatic Terracotta Army awaits. The
colourful Muslim Quarter offer insights
into ancient history and culture, while a
International flights and taxes

experiences. dumpling feast and Tang Dynasty show Domestic transportation,

provide entertainment. Travelling on to including bullet trains
Marvel at China’s most incredible Chengdu the adorable pandas are the
landscapes, from the sweeping views stars of the show at the world-renowned All accommodation throughout
atop the mighty Great Wall to the conservation center. the tour
soaring peaks at Zhangjiajie from the
China visa fees
world’s longest glass bridge. Along A relaxing Yangtze River cruise through
the way immerse yourself in the local the famous Three Gorges provides Exclusive free pre-tour extension
culture of Xian’s Muslim Quarter, feast a welcome spell to reflect on your for Times readers including hotel
your eyes and taste buds on dumplings adventures so far before diving into the night, breakfast and private
with a side of Tang Dynasty dancing, otherworldly landscapes of Zhangjiajie’s transfers
and get to know the nation’s stunning sandstone pillars. Explorations
favourite bear at Chengdu’s Panda of the landscape that inspired the Touring with guides and entrance
Conservation Center. blockbuster movie Avatar include the fees
Bailong glass elevator and Tianmen
Beginning in Beijing, you’ll explore Mountain’s thrilling cable car.
the historic wonders of imperial China
including the Forbidden City and
Summer Palace, sample local life in the Our Trusted Partner
historic hutongs and marvel at one of
the true wonders of the world, the
awe-inspiring Great Wall of China.

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iconic sights of China as well as its most exciting emerging
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Tours reserve the right to change or withdraw the offer. Operated by and subject to the booking conditions of Wendy Wu, ABTA W7994 ATOL 6639, a company wholly independent of News UK.
 14 DAYS FROM

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Angkor to the Bay

Departures | June 2024 - November 2025

his tour is the perfect introduction farming community. And get an authentic Price Includes

T to Cambodia and Vietnam, with

cultural activities and plenty of
opportunities to interact with the locals.
look at unique local life as you cruise to
bustling floating village Kampong Kleng.
The tour finishes as it started, with
International flights and taxes

Domestic transportation
Learn more about the Vietnam War in
a showstopper – Halong Bay, where you’ll
and around Saigon, and explore Hue for a
take an overnight cruise out onto the calm All accommodation throughout
glimpse of a magnificent imperial past. Hoi
waters and wend your way through the the tour
An will charm you with its cobble streets
breathtaking karst scenery.
and scenic riverside setting, while capital All meas
city Hanoi boasts timeless streets full of
local life, charming colonial architecture Exclusive free pre-tour extension
and has a fascinating history to discover. including a hotel night with
breakfast and private transfers
When booking this tour with Times
Travel Offers, you will get an exclusive Visa fees for UK passport holders
complimentary pre-tour extension Touring with guides and entrance
including an extra hotel night with fees
breakfast and dinner as well as a half-day
immersive cooking class. Explore some
of Angkor’s most magnificent temples,
culminating in time at Angkor Wat. Relax
as you float on the gentle waters of the
moat of Angkor Thom, seeing the old Our Trusted Partner
walled city from a different perspective.
Enjoy a rural village experience in Tra Que,
trying your hand at traditional cultivation
techniques with members of the local

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and cultural experiences, with this tour you can really get to know
the wonder of Vietnam and Cambodia.
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Tours reserve the right to change or withdraw the offer. Operated by and subject to the booking conditions of Wendy Wu, ABTA W7994 ATOL 6639, a company wholly independent of News UK.