Monday November 14 2022 | thetimes.co.uk | No 73940 2G £2.50 £2.

00 to subscribers
(based on 7 Day Print Pack)

England on top Why affairs

are better for
women than
of the world Mike
Atherton
Sport
for men
Times2

New pact
with France
to stem flow
of migrants
Number crossing Channel this year hits 40,000
Oliver Wright Policy Editor
Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Britain and France will announce
a multimillion-pound security pact
today that aims to stem the record
numbers of small boats crossing the
Channel.
The Ministry of Defence said yester-
day that more than 40,000 people had
crossed so far this year, with 972 people
detected on Saturday alone.
Suella Braverman, the home sec-
retary, will travel to Paris to make the
announcement. The new deal will for
the first time entail British officers
being stationed in French control
rooms sharing live intelligence.
The French government will also
pledge to increase significantly the
number of officers patrolling Channel
beaches to detect and disrupt crossings.
The arrangements are expected to be
accompanied by an increase in the
amount that Britain pays France from
£54 million last year to up to £70 mil-
lion. The money will go towards fund-
ing the increased patrols, alongside the
introduction of additional technology
to spot boats before they set off.
A senior government source said it
was hoped that today’s deal would
lead to a bigger development in cross-
Channel co-operation. “The agree-
ment goes over and above the current
arrangements,” the source said. “We
hope this is a stepping stone to a further
and more substantial deal next year.”
Home Office officials believe that if
the French interception rate can reach
75 per cent, it will be enough to destroy
the business model of people smugglers
and make attempts to cross the Chan-
nel not worthwhile.
However, the French interception
rate has dropped from 50 per cent last
year to 42 per cent this year. Although
the French authorities have inter-
cepted more than 28,000 migrants,
more than 40,885 have reached the UK
in more than a thousand boats.
Ministers are also working on plans
to try to speed up the processing of
asylum seekers who arrive in the UK,
after new figures showed that the
number of people waiting for an initial
decision on their claim had risen four-
fold in the past five years.
Data released to the Refugee Council
by the Home Office revealed that
122,206 people were waiting to have Lest we forget The King at the Cenotaph leading tributes to the nation’s war dead on Remembrance Sunday
their claims assessed, a third of whom
had been waiting between one and
three years. Just under 1,000 had been
waiting for between three and five years
while 725 had been waiting for more
We’ll suffer if taxes don’t rise, says Sunak
than five years for an initial decision.
The deal is due to be signed by Chris Smyth, Oliver Wright taxes over time” when he delivers his his own backbenchers who claim that
Braverman and Gérald Darmanin, her autumn statement on Thursday. his tax plans could damage growth and
French counterpart, following months Rishi Sunak warned last night that Yesterday Hunt said that “we’re all prolong any recession.
of negotiations. Britain would be punished by the going to be paying a bit more tax” to get Yesterday Simon Clarke, the former
Rishi Sunak discussed the parame- financial markets if he did not raise the country’s finances back on track levelling-up secretary, became the most
ters of the deal in his first meeting with taxes and cut spending, as ministers and there were “hard choices” to make. senior Conservative to call for a rethink,
President Macron at the Cop27 climate announced they were curtailing He also revealed that there would be saying that taxation was already “at a
change conference in Egypt this support for energy bills from April. “constraints” on further help towards very high level”. He said Hunt and Sun-
month, and detailed discussions have In a riposte to his critics on the Tory energy bills after April, with support ak needed to be “extremely careful
been taking place between officials. right, the prime minister said the gov- targeted towards the most vulnerable. about further increasing the challenges
Under the new agreement, the ernment had to meet the “expectations The Treasury is understood to be facing businesses and households”.
number of French officers patrolling to of international markets” after the loss drawing up a package that would adjust The prime minister said any watering
stop small boat crossings will increase of confidence brought about by his the present price cap and result in many down of the government’s plan to
from 200 to 300 by the middle of next predecessor Liz Truss’s mini-budget. households facing an increase of up to balance the books risked unsettling
year, with the cost of the additional However, he pledged that Jeremy £600 in average annual bills. international markets again and push-
monitoring covered by Britain. The Hunt, the chancellor, would also lay out Speaking on route to the G20 summit ing up the cost of borrowing. “Financial
longer-term proposals to “cut people’s in Bali, Sunak addressed critics among

‘Mary Celeste’ wards
NHS staffing levels should be
higher at weekends to help cut
waiting times, a top doctor has
said, with many hospitals “like
the Mary Celeste” on Friday
afternoons.
Democrats celebrate
President Biden’s Democratic
Party has taken back control
of the US Senate after
securing a narrow victory in
the key state of Nevada in the
midterm elections.
IN THE NEWS
$100m for Dolly
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire
Amazon founder, has given
$100 million to the country
music star Dolly Parton to
help fund her charitable work
around the globe.
More Twitter jobs go
Twitter is believed to have
axed more than 4,000
contractors at the weekend, a
week after halving its full-time
workforce after Elon Musk’s
$44 billion takeover.
United win at death
A 93rd-minute goal by
Alejandro Garnacho gave
Manchester United a 2-1 win
over Fulham. Aston Villa
beat Brighton in yesterday’s y(7HB7E2*OTSPLQ( |||+[!.
other match.
4 2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times

News

Today’s highlights ‘Rogue state’ Russia is wrong

7.20am Breakfast hosts Aasmah Mir and Stig Abell

11am
talk to foreign secretary James Cleverly
and London mayor Sadiq Khan
Former refugees minister Lord Harrington
to snub G20 summit, says PM
tells Matt Chorley what life is like for Charlie Moloney rest of us will get on with the task at to take back what’s theirs. They are
Ukrainians arriving in the UK hand.” standing up for fundamental principles
4.20pm The rapper and mental health activist Britain will not be held hostage by the The comments came after President that matter to us all — the principles of
Professor Green, right, describes his actions of President Putin, Rishi Sunak Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russian sovereignty and self-determination,
experiences of living through energy has said, as he labelled Russia a “rogue attacks had turned the eastern region which are the very foundations of a
debt to Jane Garvey and Fi Glover state” before talks at the G20 summit. of Donetsk into “hell”, adding: “There stable international order.”
The prime minister said the Russian are extremely brutal battles there every He added: “But we know the Ukrainian
leader’s absence from the meeting in day. But our units defend themselves people are still suffering terribly under
Bali meant he was not seeking to explain bravely, withstand the terrible pressure the continued Russian bombardment
his actions, despite being “responsible of the occupiers, and maintain our and prolonged power blackouts in
DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APP for so much bloodshed in Ukraine”. defence lines.” He named four towns, near-freezing temperatures. That’s why
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign including Marinka and Avdiivka, which when I spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky,
minister, will attend in Putin’s place. He run from north of Donetsk’s capital to last Thursday, I made clear that Britain
will meet Sunak today, marking the the southwest, as sites of “particularly will never back down when it comes to
T O D AY ’ S E D I T I O N first time that a British prime minister tough battles”. supporting the Ukrainian people in the
has met Russian officials since the war Zelensky also celebrated victory face of this brutality.”
began in February. against the odds last week after Ben Wallace, the defence minister,
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Ukrainian troops entered Kherson, said: “History reminds us that Russia
NEWS WORLD TIMES2 Sunak said: “We will not let our having forced President Putin’s war can be extremely cruel to its own
economic future be held hostage by the machine into a chaotic exit from the people and if they need more cannon
actions of a rogue state — and nor will city. He added, however, that “in the fodder, they will find it.”
our allies. Leaders take responsibility. Kherson region the Russian army left In recent weeks new fortifications
They show up. Yet, at the G20 summit behind the same atrocities as in other have been built along the Dnipro, as
in Indonesia this week, one seat will regions of our country, where it was well as all along the front line and even
remain vacant. able to enter”. in Crimea. Although about 80,000
“The man who is responsible for so Commenting on the victory, Sunak reservists have been thrown into battle,
much bloodshed in Ukraine and wrote: “Last week we saw the Ukrainian twice as many are undergoing very
economic strife around the world will flag raised once again over Kherson basic training in Russia and Belarus.
not be there to face his peers. He won’t only weeks after Putin declared that the
WATER COLOUR TERROR ATTACK SCARED SILLY even attempt to explain his actions. city would be part of Russia for ever. It
Constable’s Six killed and Gen Z stars make Instead, he will stay at home and the is a historic milestone in Ukraine’s fight
favourite pond dozens injured in ‘Stranger Things
restored to life Istanbul blast for toddlers’
PAGE 21 PAGES 30-31 PAGE 9 continued from page 1
Tax rise warning
make and there would need to be a
“contribution from everyone” to get the
country’s finances back on track.
Corbyn may
COMMENT
conditions in the UK have stabilised
clearly, but they have stabilised because
“This is a compassionate Conserva-
tive government that recognises the
challenge Khan
There’s a 26-year gap in life expectancy between
people expect the government to take
the decisions that will put our public
finances on a sustainable trajectory,”
pressures people feel. But we’re not
going to stop hard choices,” he said.
He also told Sky News: “We are all
to be mayor
boys in the highest and lowest literacy areas he said. “It’s the government’s job to going to be paying a bit more tax.” Oliver Wright Policy Editor
TOMIWA OWOLADE, PAGE 25 deliver on that.” Hunt denied that the government
Pointing out that the IMF had said was trying to use “sneaky” taxes to limit Jeremy Corbyn could stand as an inde-
that about a third of the global eco- the political damage, telling the BBC’s pendent against Sadiq Khan to become
Going to war Pupils ‘should Isis blackmails nomy was facing recession either now Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “The the next London mayor in 2024 if he is
or in the near future, Sunak said the principle of my approach is that I’m not not readmitted to the Labour Party, it
on misogyny speak German’ lonely hearts country must meet “the expectations of going to be hiding anything I do. I’m a was claimed yesterday.
Sharon Nesmith, the Nick Gibb, the schools The Islamic State international markets to make sure that Conservative chancellor and I think In a move that would emulate Ken
new deputy chief of minister, has said all terror group is raising our fiscal position is on a more sustain- I’ve been completely explicit that taxes Livingstone’s success in 2000, Corbyn is
the general staff, has pupils should be money by setting up able trajectory”. are going to go up, and that’s a very dif- said to have been encouraged to stand if
vowed to tackle speaking German or fake profiles on South Sunak, who promised over the sum- ficult thing for me to do because I came he is not allowed to contest his Isling-
sexism, bullying and other languages. He Africa’s version of the mer to cut income tax rates next year, into politics to do the exact opposite.” ton North seat at the general election.
other toxic issues in added that the decision dating app Tinder and said that he still hoped future tax cuts Hunt is also due to announce much One Corbyn ally told The Mail on
the armed forces to to stop compulsory blackmailing users might be possible. more limited government support to Sunday: “Jeremy would win and plenty
attract more female GCSE lessons was a who send explicit “Part of our job is not just to bring sta- help people facing higher energy bills of people are urging him to do it.”
recruits. “mistake”. photographs. bility back to the system but it’s also to from next April. At present bills are Even though he has represented
lay the foundations for the economy to effectively capped at a cost to the Islington North since 1983, Corbyn is
recover and grow,” he said. “That’s how exchequer of about £60 billion. From barred from standing there again for
LETTERS 28 BUSINESS 35 SPORT 53 we’re going to be able to cut people’s April this support will be reduced to Labour after saying antisemitism in the
LEADING ARTICLES 29 REGISTER 47 CROSSWORD 66 taxes over time and support public about £20 billion, with households party on his watch was exaggerated.
WORLD 30 LAW REPORT 49 TV & RADIO TIMES2 services.” expected to see increases in average Allies of Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour
Speaking to Times Radio, the chan- energy bills of about £600 a year. leader, fear the Tories will try to link
FOLLOW US cellor said that he had “hard choices” to him to Corbyn until he is expelled.
thetimes timesandsundaytimes thetimes

OFFER that could include disused student

continued from page 1
Save more than 50% with a subscription to New migrant pact
French centre that co-ordinates oper-
The Times and The Sunday Times ations will also be reinforced, with
THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE British Border Force officers present to
share information. French officers are
also likely to be stationed on the British
THE WEATHER side.
News of the deal comes as the Minis-
try of Defence said that 22 boats carry-
ing 972 people had been detected yes-
11 terday, taking the provisional total for
the year to 40,885.
The figure is already almost 30 per
18
11 17 cent higher than the 28,561 crossings
recorded last year. Depending on the
weather, it is expected to rise still fur-
8
ther in the coming days.
14
12 The arrivals on Saturday were the
17 first so far in November, with the most
15
recent crossings previously made on
21 October 31 when 46 people were
detected in one boat.
In a newspaper article yesterday,
Patchy rain and cloud spreading Robert Jenrick, the immigration minis-
slowly across the country ter, pledged to end “hotel Britain” with
moves to make the country a less at-
How crossings have soared
More than 40,000 people have been
detected crossing the Channel in small
boats so far in 2022
40,000
2022
2021
2020
J F M A M J J A S O N D
Cumulative monthly figures, updated as of Nov 12, 2022
Source: Ministry of Defence
tractive destination for migrants. Writ-
ing in The Sunday Telegraph, Jenrick
said that a “chronic shortage of accept-
able accommodation” for “record num-
bers” of migrants had forced the gov-
ernment to procure expensive and
often unsuitable hotels, burdening the
taxpayer with an “unacceptable” cost.
He said ministers were urgently
examining alternatives to hotel rooms
accommodation, defunct holiday parks
and even budget cruise ships.
“ ‘Hotel Britain’ must end and be
replaced with simple, functional
accommodation that does not create
an additional pull factor,” Jenrick said.
30,000 “Human decency has to be accompa-
nied by hard-headed common sense:
20,000 illegal immigrants are not entitled to
luxury hotels.”
10,000 Jenrick added: “Conditions in the
UK are almost always better than in
0 neighbouring countries, which helps
explain why the UK is a destination of
choice for economic migrants on the
continent ‘asylum shopping’. ”
As part of the plan to reduce migrant
crossings, ministers are looking to set
up a fast-track deportation scheme for
Albanians, who account for a third of all
arrivals.
Ministers are also proposing to re-
write Theresa May’s Modern Slavery
Act, which has been used by Albanian
migrants to remain in the UK while
their claims are considered, a process
that can take more than a year.
the times | Monday November 14 2022 5

News

Forster fans want park plans to end

Proposals to transform
meadowland near the
author’s childhood home
have provoked outrage,
writes Kaya Burgess
In EM Forster’s Howards End, Margaret
tries to recapture “the sense of space
which the motor [car] had robbed from
her”. More than a century later, a
similar battle is raging in the meadows
of Hertfordshire.
Residents, heritage bodies, an aca-
demic and an Oscar-winning actress
have raised concerns over “hugely re-
grettable and entirely inappropriate”
plans to build a car park and a toilet
block in the fields that inspired Forster’s
1910 novel.
Stevenage council wants to turn an
area of meadow near Forster’s child-
hood home into a “country park”. The
proposals include a car park for 50 cars
and a building with toilets for visitors, as
well as metal fencing and newly land-
scaped areas.
John Lucas, the literary historian,
wrote that the automobile was present-
ed as a “symbol of intrusive, unsettling
power” by Forster in Howards End.
Opponents of the council’s plans
appear to take a similar
view, raising concerns
that the car park
and increased traffic
would “fundamentally
change [the] essential fully adhere to the conservation area’s
character” of an area Classic cases of people power purpose of protecting this unique part
still known as “Forster of Stevenage. The new proposal has
country”. 6 Plans to built 1,200 from Abbotsford, the part of a campaign that changed what was originally an acces-
The term was coined homes on Chawton country house created prevented a housing sible ‘meadow park’ to a manicured
by writers including Park Farm near Jane in the 19th century by estate being built near a municipal park.”
John Betjeman and Austen’s former home the novelist Sir Walter manor that provided Many of Forster’s papers are held at
Graham Greene, who in Alton, Hampshire Scott in the Scottish inspiration to Thomas King’s College, Cambridge, whose
wrote to The Times in drew local ire, with a Borders, with fears that Hardy for his novel The provost, Michael Proctor, said: “The
1960 to call for the area petition and protest last the estate would spoil Mayor of Casterbridge. setting of Howards End, one his most
to “be allowed to remain year. The campaign the views from About a hundred people evocative novels, takes inspiration
as it is, rural farmland, continues. Abbotsford. The local objected in 2018 to [from] Forster’s childhood home, Rooks
not only because it is one council said views plans to build 120 Nest House, and its surrounding
of the last beauty spots 6 A campaign would be protected by homes 200 yards from countryside. I was thus disturbed to
within 30 miles of began last year the planting of trees. Wolfeton House near hear that Stevenage borough council
London but because it is the Forster EM Forster’s childhood home to oppose the Dorchester, fearing it plans to change this beautiful country-
country of Howards End”. sits among the fields that building of 6 Julian Fellowes, the would have a negative side into a ‘country park’ with all that
The countryside charity the CPRE inspired Howards End, which homes across writer who created impact on the “Hardy implies for the degradation and com-
said in a formal response to the plans: became a film with Matthew the River Tweed Downton Abbey, was Country” area. mercialisation of what has been a pre-
“The provision of the proposed car park MacFadyen and Hayley Atwell cious and magical place.”
. . . is hugely regrettable and an entirely Emma Thompson, the actress, has
inappropriate feature within land that formal objection: “If agreed, the tried to oppose the grant- opment. Wendy and Dave Ford, who called it “madness” to “destroy beauti-
should form an open countryside proposal will forever alter the land- ing of planning per- live locally, wrote: “This area has been ful countryside in aid of a car park”.
setting to Rooks Nest House”. It added scape of the conservation [area] as mission in 2020 for known as Forster Country since the Stevenage council said it was com-
that the plans would “introduce alien it would have been known to 800 homes to be 60s. The original proposal for the green mitted to “the highest of ecological and
features into this highly valued rural Forster.” built near Rooks space surrounding the new housing environmental standards” and to “re-
landscape”. In Howards End, the “red Nest House. A development was for a wild meadow, spect local heritage including that of
Historic England has also lodged rust” of suburbia is shown consultation is which would see a return to the land- EM Forster”. They said the plans were
concerns, noting that the proposals risk encroaching on the idyll of the now being held scape of the area at the time EM Forster for “a new country park for all residents
“cluttering the natural landscape with a Hertfordshire countryside. on plans to create wrote Howards End. to access and enjoy”.
proliferation of man-made features”. The Friends of Forster a “country park” “A wild meadow would add to the
Alison Heil, a local resident, said in a Country campaign group as part of the devel- cultural heritage of the area and grace-

If you only have half the space, you only need half the Christmas tree
Ben Clatworthy
A luscious Norwegian spruce might
make the perfect centre-piece to a
family Christmas in a pretty townhouse
or country pile.
Not, however, if you live in a flat so
small that even a relatively modest tree
will fill your entire hallway, or obscure
the view of the television.
Aware of the growing numbers of
people living in compact properties,
Argos has come up with a solution.
Enter the half Christmas tree.
Designed so it can be hung flush
against the wall, the “split in half” artifi-
cial tree comes with built-in fairy lights
and is among a growing number of un-
usual tree designs. The retailer has also
launched a “parasol-shaped” tree with
branches that start half way up so lights,
baubles and tinsel are out of the grasp of
children and pets.
The 6ft-high split Habitat tree pro-
trudes 18in from the wall, comes decor-
ated with 120 lights and sells for £55. It
has attracted hundreds of positive re-
views from people with small rooms,
with the retailer adding: “Who looks at
the back of their tree anyway?”
In a survey for Argos, three quarters
of people questioned said they strug-
gled to fit a Christmas tree in their
house and had to stow furniture away.
More than eight in ten of those sur-
veyed said they would be willing to sit
on the floor to make room for their
Christmas tree. A third said they found
putting up a tree stressful when space
was limited, while nearly half of over-
60s said a tree made their homes feel
too cramped.
One in five admitted that they never
bothered decorating the back of their
tree. A satisfied customer, who was
after a “small tree for a tight corner”
wrote: “This works brilliantly. I was so
impressed I bought two.”
Another said “the half Xmas tree is
just what we were after for our small
apartment” but said they were left dis-
appointed that it was not bushier, add-
ing: “It looked a bit insignificant”.
Others were entirely satisfied by their
The half tree is a hit with flat dwellers
decision to opt for half a tree. “It doesn’t
get in the way, doesn’t get knocked into
every five seconds, and means that the
decorations go twice as far,” one happy
customer wrote. “You don’t look at it
and think ‘that’s weird, it’s only half a
tree’ which was my concern.”
Those hoping for half the price will be
left disappointed — Amazon sells a
whole 6ft tree with lights for £40.
Other retailers, including Amazon,
Wilko and Asda all now stock split
Christmas trees as they seek to cash in
on the demand from people with
limited space. For those without room
for even half a Christmas tree, Amazon
sells a Christmas tree wall sticker with
glow-in-the-dark decorations for £7.93.
6 2GM
News
Gripping stuff More than 100 vehicles from the 1920s and 1930s joined the Vintage Sports-Car Club Lakeland Trial at Honister Slate Mine, near Keswick, on Saturday
NHS must increase its weekend
work to hit targets, says doctor
Kat Lay Health Editor
NHS hospitals are like the “Mary
Celeste” on Friday afternoons, a top
doctor has warned.
Dr Andrew Stein, a consultant kidney
specialist who runs a guide for patients
on how the NHS works, said underuse
of facilities at weekends was hampering
efforts to tackle the waiting list. His
comments were opposed by the British
Medical Association, and NHS leaders,
who said there were not enough staff for
current working patterns.
Last week new figures showed 7.1 mil-
lion people waiting for planned NHS
care, up from 4.4 million before the
pandemic. Performance against cancer
and A&E targets are at record lows,
while heart attack and stroke victims
waited more than an hour on average
for an ambulance last month.
Stein told the BBC: “People start
heading to the car parks at 12 and by
2pm it’s all quiet and the hospital is not
used to full capacity through the week-
Hospitals ‘are like lobster traps that elderly can’t escape’
Charlie Moloney
Hospitals are “lobster traps” for the
elderly because of chronic overcrowd-
ing and delayed discharges, the new
president of the Royal College of Emer-
gency Medicine has said.
Dr Adrian Boyle, a senior A&E doc-
tor, is desperate to keep his elderly
parents from entering hospital because
he fears they would not come out.
He said hospital crowding and bed
blocking was killing hundreds of people
end. “[CT scans] are not done, opera-
tions are not done. So just getting more
staff in and using more money doesn’t
necessarily solve that problem because
that’s an efficiency problem.”
Stein, who was involved in efforts to
increase seven-day working when Jer-
emy Hunt was health secretary, said it
was needed to tackle problems
throughout the health service.
He said: “The NHS will not function
— we will not hit any target — until we
work seven days a week, which would
seem to me to be appropriate for a de-
veloped country.”
Dr Vishal Sharma, chairman of the
BMA consultants’ committee, said:
“Hardworking doctors and NHS staff
will not recognise the description of the
NHS being ‘like the Mary Celeste on a
Friday afternoon’. These comments are
hugely disrespectful and very disheart-
ening when the truth is that the NHS is
under extreme pressure and staff are
routinely having to work above and be-
yond to provide care for their patients.”
each week, with 13,000 patients who
were fit to leave being stranded on
wards owing to the social care crisis.
“Hospitals are like lobster traps —
they’re easy to get in to and hard to get
out of,” Boyle told the Daily Mail. “If
social care was able to do its job, these
poor people wouldn’t be stranded in
hospital. I have elderly parents and I’m
desperate to keep them out of hospital.
For someone who is frail, hospital is
often a bad place. They’re being
harmed by being in hospital.”
Sharma said it was true that less
planned and non-urgent work hap-
pened at weekends, but that “the funda-
mental issue is that there is not enough
staff during the weekdays, let alone
across seven days”.
He warned that stretching the work-
force across seven days could damage
patient care and that pension tax con-
cerns were “driving highly skilled doc-
tors out of the profession”, and said the
government should listen to calls from
NHS staff to “restore successive years
of pay cuts”.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of
the NHS Confederation, said: “The
NHS is there for everyone who needs it
every day of the year, including primary
care carrying out well over one million
appointments most Fridays and urgent
and emergency care services routinely
being busier over weekends than during
the week. While many trusts would like
to provide more non-urgent services
over the weekend like some elective
care, they simply lack the staff to do so.”
Analysis of data has shown that as
many as one in three hospital beds in
parts of England are occupied by
patients well enough to be discharged.
On average 13,600 beds across NHS
England are occupied every day with
patients who doctors say are medically
fit to go home or to a care home.
Boyle, a consultant in emergency
medicine at Cambridge University
Hospitals, said freeing beds was the key
to improving all emergency care. He
added that policymakers would need to
Taylor said the problems stemmed
from “the failure of successive govern-
ments to provide a fully funded work-
force strategy to help tackle the NHS’s
132,000 vacancies, to address the main-
tenance backlog of £10 billion, and to
provide proper support for social care,
with local communities and frontline
staff all paying the price”.
Pioneering projects in parts of the
NHS are aiming to increase use of re-
sources at weekends. Guy’s and St
Thomas’ in London performed eight
robotic-assisted prostatectomies in a
day instead of the usual week.
Dr Imran Ahmad, consultant anaes-
thetist and deputy clinical director for
anaesthesia and theatres, who led the
initiative, said: “For many procedures,
the time required to perform the actual
surgery is significantly less than the
time spent preparing and anaesthetising
the patient, setting up the equipment
and helping the patient to recover.”
make social care more attractive. “They
have to recognise that they’re compet-
ing with Amazon, Lidl and Tesco,” he
said. “Moving a box around shouldn’t
pay more than moving a frail, elderly
woman around.”
Data published on Wednesday
showed the NHS was under unprece-
dented strain. Last month was its worst
on record across almost all metrics.
There are 7.1 million people on hospital
waiting lists in England, up from
4.4 million before the pandemic.
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
Quintagram® No 1472
Solve all five clues using each
letter underneath once only
1 Apiary insect (3)
---
2 Total entrance money received (4)
----
3 Tranquillity (5)
-----
4 To the ---, Virginia Woolf novel (10)
----------
5 Football or hockey position (10)
----------
A A A B C E E E
E E E E E E G G
G H H I K L L O
O P P R S T T U
Solutions MindGames in Times2
Cryptic clues page 10 of Times2
Constable to face court
A police constable will appear in
court today charged with a
woman’s attempted murder.
James Riley, of Lancashire police,
was arrested after the woman was
found in a hotel in Manchester
city centre last Thursday. She was
taken to hospital and her
condition is stable. Riley, 27, has
been suspended from duty and
will appear at Manchester
magistrates’ court. The case has
been referred to the Independent
Office for Police Conduct.
Children to
be screened
for diabetes
Kat Lay
A major new trial will screen children
aged between 3 and 13 for type 1 diabe-
tes in an attempt to pick up the disease
before it becomes life threatening.
One case in four is detected only
when someone is in diabetic ketoacid-
osis (DKA), a potentially fatal condition
that requires urgent hospital treatment.
The new ELSA study, funded by
charities Diabetes UK and JDRF, aims
to recruit 20,000 children for blood
tests that can assess their chances of
developing type 1 diabetes.
It could mean they are eligible for
cutting edge therapies that can delay or
prevent the condition. One such drug is
expected to receive a green light from
US regulators later this month, and is
going through UK approval processes.
Parth Narendran, professor of diabe-
tes medicine, and Dr Lauren Quinn,
clinical research fellow at the Univers-
ity of Birmingham, said: “Screening
children can reduce their risk of DKA
at diagnosis around fivefold and can
help them and their families settle into
the type 1 diagnosis better.
“We know the value of identifying
people at risk of type 1 diabetes and we
have the tools to do so — now we need
to understand how best to implement
them in the UK.”
The research team behind the new
trial, led by the University of Birming-
ham, will look for markers in the blood
called autoantibodies that show the
immune system is attacking the
insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
They can appear decades before
symptoms.
Families interested in participating
can find details at elsadiabetes.nhs.uk/
take-part/.
the times | Monday November 14 2022 K1 7

Growth industry as more men sign up to have their legs lengthened
Charlotte Wace
Increasing numbers of British men are
flying to the United States for leg-
lengthening surgery in an attempt to
become taller, according to a surgeon.
While the techniques used vary, the
operations can cost £80,000 and gener-
ally involve breaking bones in the legs
and gradually lengthening them using
devices. Few surgeons in the UK offer
the procedures for cosmetic purposes.
Kevin Debiparshad, founder of the
LimbplastX Institute, a clinic in Las
Vegas, said they had carried out 130
consultations in October compared
with about 30 in the same period three
years ago. This increased interest is re-
flected in their patients from Britain:
they used to see roughly one each
month and they are now seeing four or
five. The clinic has even looked at
expanding to the UK or elsewhere in
Europe to meet the demand.
Debiparshad suggested that aware-
ness of the procedure along with ad-
vances in technology had been driving
popularity. “I think the taboo around
cosmetic surgery has lessened, particu-
larly in the male population,” he said.
Patients suitable for the procedure
must be healthy, without chronic ill-
nesses, and able to comply with the
physical therapy required afterwards.
Debiparshad’s oldest patient was 68,
a British architect who was living in the
US and increased his height by 3in. He
said: “He explained that he had always
wanted to be taller and that he wants to
go through the rest of his life knowing
what it is like to be 5ft 9in.” The pro-
cedure was said to have been a success.
For most patients, the maximum in-
crease in height is about six inches,
according to Debiparshad. That would
require two surgeries to bones in the
thigh and shin. Patients with conditions
such as achondroplasia, the most com-
mon form of dwarfism, can potentially
gain more height if they begin surgical
intervention in childhood.
Debiparshad said: “I think with men
there is pressure to be of a particular
stature . . . when you think of a man, the
common thing is ‘tall, dark and hand-
some’. The first thing is ‘tall’. So I do
think there is this association with
masculinity, being a man and having a
certain stature.”
Debiparshad says he checks with
psychiatrists if he has any concerns
about a patient’s mental wellbeing.
Dr Dimitrios Giotikas, founder and
clinical director of Athens Bone & Joint
News
Reconstruction Centre, in Greece, also
takes steps to avoid treating patients
with severe obsessions about their
appearances. “If they have Body
Dysmorphic Disorder, we know that
even if we make them taller, they will
still go on to obsess about other features
of their body,” he said.
A British man to have undergone the
surgery — named only as Lewis — told
The Guardian that he would previously
wear stacked heels. He had stopped
growing at 5ft 5in and said dating apps
encouraged height discrimination. “I
believe it’s one of the last prejudices
that is seen as acceptable,” he said.

Bezos awards Toni Duggan, the England

winger, announced
in a post on Instagram,
below, that she was
expecting her first child

Dolly Parton
$100m to fund
good causes
Jacqui Goddard
Known as one of the country music
industry’s biggest-selling stars with
3,000 songs, 100 million records and 51
Grammy award nominations under her
belt, Dolly Parton has never been short
on recognition for her recording career.
But it was her support for childhood
literacy around the world and helping
socially and economically disadvan-
taged communities in her home state of
Tennessee that caught the eye of the
billionaire Jeff Bezos when he got out
his chequebook.
Announcing a $100 million donation
for Parton to distribute however she
sees fit, the Amazon founder and his
girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez, chose the
singer as the recipient of an award that
honours leaders who “aim high, pursue
solutions with courage and always do
so with civility”.
“The woman you’re about to meet
embodies these ideals so thoroughly.
She gives with her heart. What she’s
done for kids, literacy and so many
other things is just incredible,” Bezos
told the audience at a ceremony to an-
nounce the latest recipient of his Cour-
age and Civility Award.
“Wow, did you say $100 million?”
Parton asked as she climbed on stage
and hugged him.
She is the third person to receive the
award, which Bezos launched last year.
Its two previous recipients are José
Andrés, a celebrity chef whose World
Central Kitchen charity provides hot
meals to disaster victims, and Van
Jones, a former adviser to Barack
Obama, who co-founded three chari-
ties focused on human rights, social
equity and criminal justice reform.
“When people are in a position to
help, you should help and I know that
I’ve always said I try to put my money
where my heart is. I think you do the
same thing,” Parton told Bezos at the
award ceremony on Saturday. She and any other number of professional World Cup are parents
promised: “I will do my best to do good
things with this money.”
Footballer remuneration and
benefits for the first 14
players that have given
birth during their career,
and they can seamlessly
continue their careers.

A record of giving
Dolly Parton’s projects include:
6 Funding more than 193 million
books to boost childhood literacy
through her Imagination Library
Parton, 76, known for hits including
Jolene and 9 to 5, is a philanthropist in set to be weeks. Previously clubs
could give maternity
and the majority choose
not to. Of the England
Duggan hopes to return
to the pitch after her
her own right, largely through her Dol- leave but it was not squad who won the pregnancy, having been
lywood Foundation, launched in 1988
and named after her theme park in her
first on compulsory.
“It was definitely a
European Championship
in July, only Demi Stokes
inspired by Crystal Dunn,
the American footballer,
home community of Sevier County,
Tennessee. Chief among her initiatives
maternity move that they needed to
do,” Duggan said. “I find
was a parent and it was
her female partner who
who scored a goal for the
Portland Thorns only five
has been the Imagination Library pro- it crazy that it’s only just gave birth. months after giving birth.

programme in honour of her late
father, who never learnt to read.
6 $10,000 each to 900 families
whose homes were damaged
or destroyed by fires in the
Smoky Mountains in 2016.
6 $1 million to Vanderbilt
University Medical Centre in
Nashville, Tennessee, to
help fund development
of Moderna’s Covid
vaccine in 2020.
6 $1 million to the
Monroe Carell Junior
Children’s Hospital at
Vanderbilt University
Medical Center to
support research
into paediatric
cancer in honour of
her niece, who was
successfully treated
there for leukaemia.
T
gramme, which sends free books he England been put in place now.” Several of the men’s While Everton have
monthly to children under five to in- winger Toni There are a limited squad for the Qatar supported Duggan, she
spire a love of reading. To date, the pro- Duggan will be said that there was no
gramme has given more than 193 mil- the first player official guidance for
lion books to children in in the Women’s female footballers on how
five countries, including Super League to take to balance pregnancy and
the US and Britain. maternity leave (Molly childbirth with their
Bezos, the world’s Hudson writes). career, which encouraged
fourth-richest person, Duggan, 31, announced her to share her story.
with assets of more in September that she Duggan said: “I had to
than $114 billion, has was pregnant with her tell the team doctor
cumulatively do- first child. The Everton because it [was] pre-
nated more than midfielder has 79 caps, season and they’re trying
$2.4 billion to the last was in 2020. to run me hard and I’m
good causes. Legislation introduced thinking ‘I can’t do this’.
“Every child is at the start of the 2022-23 “There’s no guide to
born with great season after an follow. Ideally, when a
potential,” he said. agreement between the player gets pregnant,
FA and the Professional there should be [some
Jeff Bezos hailed Footballers’ Association, form of communication
Dolly Parton for means players such as to say] congratulations
“giving with her Duggan on maternity here’s x, y, and z with the
heart”, describing leave will be paid 100 per contact details.”
her efforts as cent of their weekly wage
incredible
8 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

News
News Remembrance Sunday

Queen Camilla and

the Princess of Wales
watching at the
Cenotaph. The
princess wore
diamond and pearl
drop earrings that
belonged to Diana,
Princess of Wales. The
Queen wore her Rifles
brooch and a Special
Reconnaissance
Regiment brooch. The
Prince of Wales, the
King and the Princess
Royal were joined by
Sir Keir Starmer, the
leader of the
opposition, Rishi
Sunak and the Second
World War veterans
Joe Cattini, 99, and
Stan Ford, 97

Honour and dignity as usual, but

The changes are small
but significant in the
performance of a role
the King knows well,
reports Valentine Low
Same uniform, different wreath. When
the King led the first Remembrance
Sunday service of his reign, it would
have taken a seasoned observer of the
annual ceremony at the Cenotaph to
enumerate the differences from last
year’s event.
Twelve months ago, wearing the
same field marshal’s uniform, he laid
the first wreath at the Cenotaph in
Whitehall as he stood in for the Queen.
But this year was different. The King
is now commander-in-chief of the
armed forces, and the role that his
mother once regarded as one of the
most important duties in her calendar
now falls to him.
And seamlessly, imperceptibly, the
immutable traditions of the nation
change. The King now lays just one
wreath, instead of the two he used to
place at the Cenotaph in recent years:
one for the Queen, and one for himself.
It is a new wreath too, with a ribbon
bearing the King’s racing colours of
scarlet, purple and gold. The wreath
that he used to lay, with the Prince of
Wales’s feathers, is now laid by his son
Prince William.
As Charles and William stood to at-
tention in the middle of Whitehall,
joined by the Princess Royal and the
Earl of Wessex, they were watched by
other members of the royal family
standing on the Foreign Office balcony
overlooking Whitehall.
The question of who stands in which
balcony is a masterpiece of subtle royal
choreography: this year it was Queen
Camilla and the Princess of Wales in
the central balcony, with the Duke and
Duchess of Gloucester and the Count-
ess of Wessex to one side, and the Duke
of Kent and Vice-Admiral Sir Tim
Laurence on the other. Princess Alex-
andra, who had been due to join them,
made a last-minute decision not to
attend.
Camilla’s role also changed. While
she remained on the balcony as before,
this year as Queen a wreath — in the
racing colours inherited from her
grandfather — was laid on her behalf by
an equerry. Once again, there was no
Duke of York on parade, and no Duke of
Sussex.
The ceremony broke a record for the
number of previous prime ministers in
attendance. While Rishi Sunak laid his
first wreath as prime minister, he was
joined by all seven of his living prede-
cessors: Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair,
Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Ther-
esa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Truss did not serve long enough to take
part in the Cenotaph service as prime
minister.
As the Massed Bands of the Guards
Division and the Pipes and Drums of
the 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of
Scotland played the tunes that have
been rendered familiar with every Cen-
otaph service ever held — Nimrod,
Flowers of the Forest, The Skye Boat
Song — the ceremony had a timeless
quality that reached back across the
generations.
But nothing remains the same for ev-
er. In one of the subtle changes that
have characterised the evolution of Re-
membrance, women are now more
prominent than ever before: this year
the Household Cavalry troops on pa-
rade were led by Lieutenant Elizabeth
Godwin, who was the Sword of Honour
winner at Sandhurst in 2020 and the
first woman to commission into the Life
Guards.
A service, which included a hymn
and the Lord’s Prayer, after the laying of
the main wreaths, was delivered by the
Bishop of London, the Right Rev Sarah
Mullally.
The King’s own presence there was in
itself a symbol of the passing of the
years: although a veteran of the Royal
Navy, he is the first monarch to lead the
Remembrance ceremony who has not
served in the military during wartime.
When the Queen died, it marked the
the times | Monday November 14 2022
this time with a new majesty
Harry’s ‘bond’ with bereaved
Charlotte Wace
The Duke of Sussex has told
bereaved children of members of
the British armed forces that they
“share a bond”, having lost a parent.
In a letter to mark Remembrance
Sunday, he told them that he knows
“first-hand the pain and grief that
comes with loss” and said they are
“not alone”. He hoped the children
could “find comfort and strength” in
knowing that their late parent’s love
for them “lives and shines on”.
The letter was written to
members of Scotty’s Little Soldiers,
the charity for bereaved British
forces children and young people.
Harry, 38, served in the army for
ten years, undertaking two tours of
Afghanistan. He was stripped of his
military titles last year after
deciding to stand down as a working
royal. He last took part in a
Remembrance Sunday service at the
Cenotaph in 2019.
He has a longstanding
relationship with Scotty’s Little
Soldiers, the charity set up in 2010
by Nikki Scott, whose husband,
Corporal Lee Scott, was killed in
Afghanistan.
The annual Remembrance
Sunday service in Whitehall
yesterday was attended by all
seven living former prime
ending of the royal family’s direct links
with the Second World War.
But even though the war ended
77 years ago, there were still a handful of
veterans who were able to take part in
the Royal British Legion march past.
Most of them, not surprisingly, were
in wheelchairs. But one, James Fenton,
who is 100, marched all the way under
his own steam with the Burma Star Me-
morial Fund. “He is a bit of a star,” a
British Legion insider said.
Another was Stan Ford, 97, a D-Day
veteran who was serving on the escort
ship HMS Fratton when it was sunk off
the coast of Normandy by a midget sub-
marine in August 1944. Ford, who read
a tribute to the Queen at the Festival of
Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall
on Saturday night, was one of eight
brothers — he also had two sisters —
seven of whom served in the war (the
ministers, Liz Truss, Boris
Johnson, Theresa May, David
Cameron, Gordon Brown, Sir
Tony Blair and Sir John Major. It
other served in the Korean War). “Mum
did her bit for the war effort,” he said.
Astonishingly, all of them made it
back: Ford, who was badly injured in
the sinking of the Fratton when his gun
platform was blown into the water, has
walked with callipers ever since.
Over the years the focus of Remem-
brance Sunday has evolved from the
First World War to the Second World
War: now it is the turn of the Falklands
conflict. The largest single contingent
in the march past was the South Atlan-
tic Medal Association, with 400 veter-
ans taking part to mark the 40th anni-
versary of the war.
As a group, they stood out, with many
of them wearing the “Scarves for Falk-
land Veterans” in the green, blue and
white of the ribbon of the South Atlan-
tic medal. The scarves were the crea-
tion of Rachel Simons, who was 11 when
9
News
News
was a rare reunion for Truss and
Johnson and the former gave
her predecessor a sideways
glance during the ceremony
she lived in Port Stanley during the war.
She started making the scarves in 2017
as a way of thanking those who fought
to liberate the Falklands: there are now
75 scarf makers, who have made more
than 1,000 scarves.
But, as one Falklands veteran ob-
served, it was a little warm for scarves:
Andy Lawless kept his in his pocket.
Lawless, 65, was co-pilot in a Chinook
helicopter — Britain’s only one of the
conflict — which crashed in the sea. He
had one of the day’s more interesting
conversations, with a veteran who had
operated a Stinger surface-to-air mis-
sile. “One of the guys said, ‘We nearly
pinged you, we nearly shot you down.’
Because the Argentinians had Chi-
nooks out there. ‘The night you
crashed, we had you in our sights. You
nearly got one!’ I thought, that’s nice to
find out 40 years later!”
10 2GM
News
Legal fears delay
nearly 200 police
misconduct cases
Fiona Hamilton Crime Editor
Nearly 200 police officers accused of
the most serious level of misconduct
have not been allocated disciplinary
hearings and cannot be dealt with, with
Light entertainment Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is staging a Christmas laser show set to music until January 2 many of them still working on full pay.
The police disciplinary system is
plagued by delays because of a stand-
off between legally qualified chairs,
known as LQCs, who run the majority
of hearings, and the Home Office. The
LQCs are seeking indemnity against
being sued by officers they dismiss,
fearing they could face six-figure pay-
outs in the civil courts. Until the Home
Office agrees most of them have re-
fused to take on new cases.
The backlog is now 176 cases, it is un-
derstood, nearly half of the total gross
misconduct cases. Officers remain on
full pay and some still carry out front-
line duties after being accused.
It is a blow for police chiefs who had
pledged a crackdown on misconduct
after a series of misogyny and racism
scandals. Sir Mark Rowley, who
became commissioner of the Metro-
politan Police in September, has repeat-
edly called for a clear-out of the ranks
to get rid of anyone who does not meet
standards. Long delays in the disciplin-
ary system could hinder those plans.
The Police Federation of England
and Wales, which represents rank-and-
file officers, has also expressed concern
about the backlog. Its representatives
argue that delays are unfair for officers,
with serious charges hanging over their
heads for years.
LQCs have become concerned about
their position after a police chief was
sued by an officer who had been sacked
for gross misconduct. Sarah Crew, the
chief constable of Avon and Somerset,
took the case to the Supreme Court
arguing that as it was the LQC who
made the decision, they should be lia-
ble. The legal action failed but John
Bassett, president of the National Asso-
ciation of Legally Qualified Chairs, said
the issue was still unresolved.
The LQCs want the Home Office to
provide them with legal protection so
they do not have to fear being pursued
Murder inquiry as stabbing
leaves two dead and one hurt
Two young men have died and a third is
seriously injured after being found with
stab wounds.
Bedfordshire police said officers were
called to reports of a man being struck
by a vehicle, which sped away, at 1.18am
yesterday in Houghton Regis.
Emergency services found three
men with stab wounds. Two of the men
were pronounced dead at the scene,
while a third was taken to hospital
where he remains in a serious but stable
condition.
A double murder investigation has
been launched and trained officers are
supporting family members. The vic-
tims have yet to be formally identified.
No arrests have yet been made and a
large police presence remains in the
town while investigations into the inci-
dent continue. Police said there would
be additional patrols in the town over
the coming days.
Detective Superintendent Carl
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
by officers about whom they make deci-
sions, or chiefs deflecting legal action.
Bassett said that “it all goes to the
question of our independence and
being able to perform our role”.
The Home Office said: “Legally qual-
ified chairs are appointed and indemni-
fied for legal action against them by
police and crime commissioners and
are afforded common law immunity.
We are aware of the concerns of the
National Association of Legally Quali-
fied Chairs and have been working with
them and other policing partners to
consider their proposals carefully.”
The PCC provision is not guaranteed
beyond a specific timeframe. Some
cases among the 176 have just been re-
ferred and await allocation to an LQC.
Marc Jones, chairman of the Asso-
ciation of Police and Crime Commis-
sioners, said it was working with part-
ners including the Home Office to re-
solve the issue “as a matter of urgency”.
The misconduct system is under
scrutiny, with police chiefs under pres-
sure to raise standards. A report this
month by the inspectorate of police and
fire services warned that senior police
had failed to tackle the issue of predato-
ry officers and lax vetting for a decade.
Rowley and some other chiefs say
that the independent chairs of miscon-
duct hearings have been too lenient. He
wants control over disciplinary hear-
ings and more power to sack officers.
Andy Marsh, chairman of the Col-
lege of Policing, which sets national
standards, has also complained that as
a chief constable in two forces he had
been forced to accept officers who
“should have been shown the door”
because they were given final written
warnings instead of the sack by LQCs.
However, Bassett has questioned the
motives of critics. He has pointed out a
significant number of officers accused
of serious misdemeanours had been
given no further action by internal re-
views, or were not referred to miscon-
duct hearings in the first place.
LQCs were introduced a decade ago
by Theresa May, as home secretary,
after an inquiry found that internal dis-
cipline lacked transparency.
Foster, of the Bedfordshire, Cam-
bridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major
Crime Unit, said: “This was a horrific
incident which has resulted in two
young men losing their lives and a third
suffering very serious injuries.
“I understand how concerning this
will be for residents. However, from
what we know so far we believe this to
be a contained incident with no wider
ongoing threat to the public.
“There can be absolutely no excuse
for such violence and we will do every-
thing we can to bring those responsible
to justice.
“The area was fairly busy at the time
and I would urge anyone who saw what
happened, or anything leading up to it,
to contact police.”
Anyone with information is asked to
call police quoting Operation Crux on
101, to use the online reporting tool at
beds.police.uk or call Crimestoppers
anonymously on 0800 555 111.
the times | Monday November 14 2022 11

News
Some characteristics Musicologists analysed four minutes and 16 technology, which has
Study finds have barely altered over
time — females are still
70 years of No 1 hits by
artists as diverse as Al
seconds in 1997, thanks
to songs such as The
upended previous ways
of working in music
key changes outnumbered by male
and mixed acts —
Martino and Taylor Swift Drugs Don’t Work by
The Verve (5 min, 2 sec)
production and
composition,” said James
in nature although there has been
a long-term trend
The analysis examined
all 1,404 releases to
and D’You Know What I
Mean? by Oasis (7 min ,
Masterton, a chart
analyst and historian.
of pop hits towards more hits in
minor keys, while time
reach number one from
the very first, Here in
21 sec), but has since
fallen, dropping to three
“When you are doing
it organically by playing
signatures are My Heart by Al Martino, minutes and seven live instruments, your
to the latest, Anti-Hero

N
o 1 singles increasingly four beats seconds in 2019. instinct is to change
are shorter in a bar. Changes in by Taylor Swift. Fade-outs have also things up a little to stop a
and slower taste help explain One of the biggest gone out of fashion, from song becoming tedious
while key some findings, though changes has been the appearing on 93 per cent — and once upon a time
changes and “the advance of length of songs. The of No 1s in 1971 and 100 that meant changing key.
fades have almost technology and new average length of No 1s per cent in 1983 to none “Now everything is on
disappeared, analysis for ways of working in passed three minutes for at all in 2011 and on only a computer screen you
the chart’s 70th music” are also likely the first time in 1967 and 23 since then. can be more subtle and
anniversary has found to be responsible, four minutes in 1984. It “Many changes are shift the harmonics
(Ben Clatworthy writes). experts said. peaked at an average of due to the advance of instead.”

State-school past
of top composers is
a lesson for future
David Sanderson Arts Correspondent Behind the story
Nearly two thirds of the country’s

greatest contemporary composers were
educated at state schools, with a further
20 per cent attending a fee-paying
school only with a bursary, a unique
survey of the music world has found.
An anonymous poll of the 300-plus
composers who have won or been nom-
inated for an Ivor Novello Award in the
20 years of the Ivors Composer Awards
found only 8 per cent had gone to a fee-
paying school without financial help.
The academy said the figures made
the case for strong music provision in
state schools. There have been fears
about the decline of arts subjects in the
state sector with the advance of the
International Baccalaureate a factor
along with funding cuts. The number of
A-level music entrants in England,
Wales and Northern Ireland fell from
7,655 in 2012 to 5,916 last year.
This year the government published
a “refreshed” national plan for music
education, The Power of Music to
Change Lives, that recommended one
Anna Meredith has
won an Ivors
Composer Award
hour of curriculum music teaching
each week in key stages 1 to 3. The arts
minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley
Bay said the plan would help to “level
up musical opportunities”.
“Composers are voicing concerns
about the impact of changes to funding
and the long-term decline of music
education in state schools,” Graham
Davies, the chief executive of the Ivors
Academy, said as it launched its survey.
Charlotte Harding, an Ivors winner,
said the poll was a “reminder that com-
posers benefit hugely from sustained
support throughout their careers”.
The survey marked 20 years of the
Ivors Composer Awards, formerly
known as the British Composer
Awards. Past winners include Sir Harri-
son Birtwistle, Anna Meredith and Sir
John Tavener. Among the findings
were that 64 per cent of winners and
nominees attended a state selective or
non-selective school. About 21 per cent
attended an independent or fee-paying
school with a bursary, 8 per cent with-
out a bursary, and 6 per cent were edu-
cated outside Britain. About 83 per cent
studied music to A-level or equivalent.
I
n this case, statistics don’t
lie. There is a correlation
between the quality of music
education in schools and the
quality of the music written
and performed professionally
(Richard Morrison writes).
For much of the 20th century
Britain was a powerhouse of
composition. From Benjamin
Britten to Sir Paul McCartney,
Jackie Trent to Sir Harrison
Birtwistle, Ivor Novello to Jonny
Greenwood, it produced dozens
of composers who won global
fame. It is no coincidence that
their rise coincided with a golden
era of young people’s music-
making, with dozens of county
youth orchestras and well-staffed
music departments in thousands
of state schools.
This provision has become so
patchy. Schools are judged on
“core” subjects such as maths
and science, with music pushed
to the margins. The fall in pupils
taking A-level music is one sign
of that. Another is the growing
proportion of our music
conservatoires from private
schools. It is possible to succeed
without formal training but it
does not happen often. We need
to re-establish music in all
schools not just as a luxury but
as a key academic and vocational
subject. Successive governments
have endorsed the idea that
music is a frivolity. Actually, it is
a hugely successful industry that
contributes billions to the UK
economy. It should be nurtured.
In June a national music plan
outlined ways to improve matters.
Since then we have had five
education secretaries. I doubt
whether one has glanced at it.
Richard Morrison is chief culture
writer for The Times
It also found that 96 per cent had been
able to learn at least one instrument as
a child and 94 per cent were given the
chance to perform music. The survey
also highlighted the importance of the
BBC, with more than 60 per cent of re-
spondents having been commissioned
by the organisation or one of its orches-
tral ensembles.
12 2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times

News
News Politics

Hunt will rely on council tax

Oliver Wright Policy Editor
Proposals to allow local authorities to
impose further rises in council tax next
year are now “more likely than not”, as
Jeremy Hunt looks for ways to ease in-
flationary pressures on social care.
The chancellor is understood to back
increasing the amount that local
authorities are able to increase bills
each year to pay for care home places
and home help.
Hunt, who has long argued for more
money for social care, is understood to
believe that an increase in funding
should be a high priority for the govern-
ment despite pressures on budgets
across Whitehall. But the move —
which would effectively amount to
another tax rise above those already
planned by the chancellor — would be
highly controversial.
Polling for The Times has found that
only 19 per cent of voters think such a
rise would be fair compared with 68 per
cent who think it would be unfair.
Under the present rules councils that
are responsible for social care are al-
lowed to raise bills by a maximum of
2.99 per cent plus a 1 per cent levy for
social care each year. If they want to
raise bills any further they must put
their plans to a local referendum.
One government source said allow-
ing further council tax rises was now
“more likely than not”. However, the
Treasury cautioned that no final deci-
sion had been taken.
“Social care spending is one of the
biggest pressures faced by local author-
ities and this would allow councils
greater flexibility. But they would still
have to justify those rises to local
voters.”
It is understood that a number of
options are on the table including rais-
ing the threshold at which a referen-
dum would need to be called — or
scrapping the requirement for a refer-
endum entirely.
However, the Conservative Party
manifesto in 2019 pledged to keep the
“veto” on large council tax rises, saying:
that, yes, we’re putting a lot more
money into the NHS, but there are real
pressures there, because the number of
older people is going up.
“And we have to recognise that in
terms of how we help the NHS through
this difficult period.”
Meanwhile, the chancellor con-
firmed yesterday that he would use
Thursday’s autumn statement to lay
out how the government intended to
help households and businesses with
their energy bills after the price cap
ends in April.
The present six-month cap limits the
amount that companies can charge so
that an average household will not pay
more in gas and electricity bills than
£2,500 a year. But it is expected to cost
the government £60 billion between
October and April and is likely to be sig-
nificantly scaled back.
In documents submitted to the
Office for Budget Responsibility, Hunt
has signalled he intends to spend only
£20 billion on extending the scheme for
another six months. This is likely to
mean much less general help for all
households with funding channelled at
pensioners and those on benefits.
Under calculations being discussed
in the Treasury, the universal energy
price guarantee could rise from £2,500
to between £2,850 and £3,100. Millions
of households could face an increase of
up to £600 in their energy bills.
Hunt said that people would con-
tinue to receive support, but there
would be “some constraints” to this.
“We have to recognise that one of the
reasons for the instability that followed
the mini-budget was that people were
worried that we were exposing British
public finances to the volatility of the
international gas market,” he said. “So,
there has to be some constraints to it.
But, yes, we will continue to support successful in a challenge thank everybody who
families and I will explain exactly how
we’re going to do that.” Hancock wins jungle in which they worked
together to switch on a
voted for me.”
White asked: “Does this
He also pledged to set out a long- series of lights. Before the win feel sweet, especially
term energy strategy to reduce the UK
reliance on fossil fuels by investment in
leadership contest task, Tindall joked: “If I
went home and I’d lost to
after you lost to Boris? Do
you feel like you have
nuclear and renewables but suggested Matt Hancock, I’d be in been vindicated?” He

“Local people will continue to have the
final say.”
Hinting at the potential support
Hunt said yesterday that underfunding
of social care directly led to additional
pressures on the NHS. “The NHS and
the care system go hand in hand,” Hunt
told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura
Kuenssberg. “If you have a care system
in difficulty those problems end up in
hospitals very quickly indeed. So we
have to think of those two sectors
together. And we have to recognise
M
it could be less radical than proposals att Hancock
set out by Boris Johnson. has been voted
“I think Boris was great at having a camp leader
big vision for the future [but] was some- on I’m A
times an element of cakeism in what he Celebrity, a victory he
announced,” he said. said “more than makes up
“So what we need to do is to make for” losing to Boris
sure that we can deliver the high Johnson in the 2019 Tory
ambitions that he set out, which were leadership election (Ben
absolutely right, with a practical, Clatworthy writes).
credible, affordable, deliverable policy.” The former health
secretary received enough
votes from the public in
last night’s show to enter
a head-to-head with the
former England rugby
star Mike Tindall.
Hancock recruited the
ITV broadcaster Charlene
White, with whom he has
clashed over his breaking
of Covid-19 rules during
the pandemic, as his
deputy. They were
so much shit.”
Hancock was among
those who stood to
replace Theresa May as
prime minister in 2019
but he withdrew to back
Johnson.
After their win in the
jungle, Hancock said:
“Obviously, it’s a great
honour and privilege to
be camp leader. I want to
replied: “This more than
makes up for it.”
Hancock was voted
leader of the camp after
being stung on the finger
by a scorpion, requiring
him to be seen by a medic.
He said: “It was so painful
. . . It hurts a lot and I’m
feeling slightly dizzy.”
Since he entered the
campsite on Wednesday,

Tory MPs call on chancellor to spare schools from spending cuts

Henry Zeffman
Associate Political Editor
Jeremy Hunt must not make “indefens-
ible” cuts to education spending this
week, more than two dozen Conserva-
tive MPs have warned.
In a letter to the chancellor seen by
The Times, 28 Tory MPs said it “would
not be morally right” to reduce educa-
tion spending while schools and child-
ren are recovering from the pandemic.
The letter’s signatories include Kit
Malthouse, who was Liz Truss’s educa-
tion secretary, and his entire minister-
ial team. A further six former cabinet
ministers signed the letter, including
Nadine Dorries, the former culture sec-
retary, Wendy Morton, the former
chief whip, and Sir Robert Buckland, a
former lord chancellor.
The letter, also signed by 14 former
junior ministers, underlines the polit-
ical challenge facing Hunt as he seeks
to unite the party behind a package of
difficult spending cuts and tax rises. In
the letter, which was sent to Hunt on
Saturday, the group wrote: “We appre-
ciate the need for sound money and fis-
cal responsibility. However, we believe
these cuts should be made within a
framework of priorities rather than
across the board.
“In particular, we believe it would be
indefensible to cut education funding.
On the contrary, we would urge you to
invest more in the schools budget, par-
ticularly given the impact of the pan-
demic on children and their education.
“It would not be morally right to cut
education at a time when so many
children, teachers and staff are still
working so hard to rectify the damage
caused by Covid-19. This damage is re-
flected most sharply in the attainment
gap for disadvantaged pupils, which is
at its widest in a decade.”
The MPs described how “general in-
flation, increased energy costs and an
unfunded pay award” were imposing
Jeremy Hunt said a “long-term plan”
was needed to reduce energy costs
“severe” costs on schools and colleges.
In July, when Boris Johnson was the
prime minister, the government an-
nounced that most teachers would re-
ceive a 5 per cent pay rise next year,
with starting salaries increasing by
9 per cent. But schools are not receiving
extra money to cover the pay rises,
adding to the pressure on budgets. This
had forced some schools and colleges to
“examine their staffing levels and non-
core activities”, the MPs said.
The group reminded Hunt that the
government had repeatedly committed
to returning schools funding by the end
of the parliament to the level, in real
terms, it was at in 2010.
A study by the Institute for Fiscal
Studies in August estimated that infla-
tion meant funding would be 3 per cent
lower in real terms in 2024-25 than it
was in 2010. School spending per pupil
fell 9 per cent between 2009-10 and
2019-20, adjusted for inflation.
The government has also said that
starting salaries for teachers would rise
to £30,000. The 9 per cent rise means
they will hit £28,000 in September. In
real terms, teacher salaries are about
12 per cent lower in real terms than in
2010. Asked yesterday by the BBC
about the cost pressures facing schools,
Hunt said: “The progress we’ve made in
state education has been extraordinary.
And we want to make sure that nothing
happens now that undermines that
progress. Because strong public ser-
vices, including strong education sys-
tems, schools, further education, are
actually very important to the future of
the economy as well.”
He added: “What we need to do is a
combination of short-term support for
people who are really struggling — and
absolutely, schools and public services
are in that category — but also a plan
that says, ‘This is how we’re going to get
through this’.
“For example, on energy, which is I
think often the biggest worry for
schools, it’s not just the support that we
give you this year and next year, it’s also
the long-term plan to make sure that we
can bring down energy prices to much
lower levels.”
the times | Monday November 14 2022 2GM 13

News
News

rises to pay social care bill

the public have voted for
the former health
secretary to take part in
every Bushtucker Trial.
Hancock faced his fifth
trial, in which he had to
crawl through a giant
doll’s house full of
pigeons, snakes and
troughs full of offal,
searching for stars to feed
the camp.
Asked by the co-host
Declan Donnelly why he
thought the public kept
voting for him to take part
in the trials, Hancock
said: “It must be the facial
expressions.”
Matt Hancock Confronting his fear of
faced his fifth snakes, the MP located
consecutive nine of the 11 stars despite
Bushtucker Trial a snake attempting to
in which he had strike him at eye level.
to confront his On Saturday Hancock
fear of snakes was covered in slime and
to earn stars to pelted with feathers and
feed the camp. custard. He has also been
He was voted forced to eat camel’s
camp leader penis, sheep’s vagina and
after being stung cow’s anus.
by a scorpion He will face his sixth
trial today. Hancock
groaned as the news was
announced, while his
campmates laughed.
Explosive potential of plan
to fix £58 billion shortfall
Oliver Wright
Jeremy Hunt has warned that everyone
in Britain will pay more tax as the
government looks to close a £58 billion
hole in the nation’s finances. But having
ruled out headline increases in the rate
of income tax, national insurance or
VAT the Treasury has resorted to
smaller tax changes to get the addition-
al revenues. So what is being consid-
ered and how will it affect different
people? The Times rates the potential
damage below, with a score of five the
most destructive:
freezing income tax
thresholds
One of the key tax-raising measures
being planned is to freeze the rates at
which people pay tax in a move that
could bring in £30 billion a year by
2026.
At the moment the basic rate of tax
kicks in on earnings over £12,571 and
the higher rate at £50,271 and these
rates could be frozen until 2027-28.
With inflation at about 10 per cent this
means more people will pay more tax.
The Centre for Economics and
Business Research think tank said the
move would mean three million
workers paying more income tax. The
financial advice firm NFU Mutual said
that freezing the personal allowance
and higher-rate threshold until 2028
would add £14,990 to the income tax bill
of a worker on a £60,000 salary over the
next five years.
reducing the threshold for
the top rate of tax
Hunt plans to cut the income level at
which the top 45p rate kicks in from
£150,000 to £125,000, pulling thou-
sands into the new top rate of tax over
the next four years. Moving the 45p rate
threshold will raise about £1.3 billion a
year. It will be presented as evidence
that — unlike his predecessor Kwasi
Kwarteng — Hunt intends to ensure
that the wealthiest pay the most
towards balancing the books.
taxing electric cars for the
first time
Owners of most petrol and diesel cars
pay £165 a year in road tax but electric
vehicles are exempt. Fuel duty and
vehicle excise duty raise about
£35 billion for the exchequer but the
Office for Budget Responsibility has
forecast that the growing share of
electric car sales would cut motoring
tax revenues by £2.1 billion by 2026-27.
Hunt plans to charge owners of electric
vehicles road tax — probably beginning
in 2025-26.
raising council tax
Currently local authorities cannot raise
council tax above 2.99 per cent plus a 1
per cent levy for social care without a
local referendum. Hunt is considering
raising this threshold to reduce pres-
sure on services. Any rise would be
framed around social care funding but
would be very unpopular with voters.
cutting public spending
Hunt will announce that there will be
no more money to help government
departments with additional costs
brought about through inflation. In-
stead, departments will be asked to find
savings in other parts of their budget to
provide more cash to frontline services.
In addition when the spending
review period comes to an end in 2025
Hunt is pencilling in reductions of
planned spending rises from 3.7 per
cent to as little as 1 per cent or 2 per cent
— saving about £25 billion a year.
This would mean non-protected
areas like schools, police and local
government budgets could see real-
terms cuts in spending over the period.
extended energy windfall tax
Rishi Sunak, when he was chancellor,
imposed a 25 per cent levy on oil and
gas company profits. Hunt is now ex-
pected to go further and increase this to
35 per cent and extend the length of the
new tax until 2028. The scheme will
also be extended to cover electricity
generators and is expected to raise
£45 billion over the next five years.
reform capital gains tax
Higher rate taxpayers pay a 20 per cent
rate on profits from assets such as
shares and 28 per cent on residential
property, such as second homes, above
a £12,300 tax-free allowance. Hunt is
considering reducing this threshold to
£6,000 — dragging more people into
paying the tax for the first time. There
have also been discussions about
raising the tax rates to bring them more
in line with income tax.
freeze the lifetime pension
allowance
Workers are allowed to save up to
£1,073,100 in their pension pots without
being taxed. This threshold is now likely
to be frozen until 2027. It means anyone
with savings over this limit will be taxed
at 55 per cent if the money is taken as a
lump sum, or 25 per cent plus income
tax rate if taken out gradually.
dividend tax
The annual tax-free dividend allow-
ance has already been reduced from
£5,000 in 2018 to its level of £2,000.
Above this rate higher-rate taxpayers
pay a tax of 33.75 per cent on these
profits. The Treasury is understood to
have modelled a 1.25 per cent increase.
freeze inheritance tax
thresholds
On death, inheritance tax is paid at
40 per cent on estates worth more than
£325,000 for an individual and
£650,000 for a couple. If you give away
your home to your children or grand-
children this increases by £175,000
to a maximum tax-free amount of
£1 million. Last year it was announced
that these rates would be frozen until
2025-26 but Hunt is planning to extend
this, raising at least half a billion for the
Treasury — depending on inflation.

Sacked minister set to be exonerated Charles gives staff bonuses

Oliver Wright
A government minister who was
sacked by Liz Truss for “touching a
young man’s thigh” at the party confer-
ence in Birmingham looks set to be
cleared after an investigation ruled that
officials had “overreacted”.
Conor Burns lost his job as a trade
minister and was suspended as an MP
by Wendy Morton, then the chief whip,
after a witness reported the alleged in-
cident in the Hyatt Regency hotel bar.
At the time Burns, 50, denied the
claims, saying he hoped the party
would be “as quick to conduct their in-
quiry as they were to rush to judgment”.
Conservative Party sources said at
the time of the incident that Truss and
Morton had “overreacted” saying that
there was no evidence of wrongdoing
by Burns.
“It may not have been a sensible
thing to do,” a witness told The Times.
“But certainly from what I saw it was
consensual and not something he
should have been sacked for.”
This appears to have been borne out
by the investigation by Jake Berry, the
Tory party chairman at the time, who
is understood to have concluded that
there was no case to answer, as the
“victim” had not complained.
Yesterday a source at Conservative
headquarters told The Mail on Sun-
day: “The investigation has
been concluded and it’s clear
there is no case to answer. No
complaint was made by the
individual who was with Co-
nor Burns. The decision to
withdraw the whip and re-
move him from the govern-
ment was a massive overreac-
tion from Wendy Morton. She
completely lost her nerve.”
Another Tory source said
Conor Burns always denied
the accusation against him
that the investigation had not con-
cluded but confirmed there was no
complainant.
Jacob Young, a Tory whip who acted
as one of Morton’s “spotters” in the
Birmingham bars, included the
incident in a report of the evening,
but has told Conservative officials
he did not believe it serious
enough to warrant formal
action or suspension.
However, when the
story emerged, Morton
and Truss sacked Burns
as a minister and sus-
pended the whip before
a formal investigation.
Burns, who has repre-
sented Bournemouth
West since 2010, told
friends that he believes
he was on Morton’s hit
list after praising Kemi
Badenoch as a future
leader at a fringe event.
to help cover cost of living
Charlotte Wace
The King will use his own income to
help to pay bonuses to royal staff coping
with the cost of living crisis.
Sums of up to £600 each will be paid
to employees on top of this month’s
salary. The total amounts to tens of
thousands of pounds.
Staff earning less than £30,000 a year
will receive £600 in a one-off payment,
those on between £30,000 and £40,000
will get £400 and those who are paid
between £40,000 and £45,000 will
receive £350. Buckingham Palace
declined to comment.
Staff who are paid out of the privy
purse, the monarch’s private income,
will receive their bonus from the privy
purse. Other members of royal staff are
paid out of the sovereign grant, which
comes from a percentage of the profits
of the Crown Estate revenue and funds
the official duties of the King, and the
Royal Collection Trust, the charity that
looks after the Royal Collection and
manages the public opening of the offi-
cial royal residences. Their bonuses will
come from the grant and trust respec-
tively. It is understood that no taxpay-
ers’ money is being used.
A palace insider told The Sun: “It is
being given on a sliding scale, with
those most in need and on lower wages
getting the most money.
“The King is very much aware of the
soaring energy bills people are facing
and [is] worried about the economic
wellbeing of loyal palace staff and doing
what he can.”
In June, when Charles was Prince of
Wales, a source said the royal family
were “extremely conscious” of the crisis
affecting the nation.
14
News
Statue of Guy’s founder stays in place despite slave links
Kaya Burgess
A statue of the founder of Guy’s hospital
that was boarded up and recommended
for removal from its prominent location
because of links to the slave trade has
been uncovered again in its original
position.
A temporary sign has been placed
next to the statue of Thomas Guy,
noting that “some of his wealth came
from investments in the South Sea
Company, which was directly involved
in the trade of enslaved people”.
The statue has been at the centre of
controversy since the charitable
foundation that owns it said it wanted
to move it because of Guy’s links with
slavery. It was covered with hoarding in
2020, along with a statue of Sir Robert
Clayton outside St Thomas’ Hospital in
London. The hoarding has been re-
moved to allow for conservation work.
Research commissioned by the Guy’s
and St Thomas’ Foundation found that
Guy owned more than £45,000 of stock
in the South Sea Company and that he
“could have sold his shares at any time”,
noting: “It is telling that he kept his
investments for nine years.”
The foundation said in September
last year that “both statues should be
retained in the public realm” but that
changes should be made “to how they
are positioned and interpreted”. It said:
“The statue of Sir Robert Clayton
should be retained in its current loca-
tion at St Thomas’, which is considered
not to be in a prominent position. The
statue of Thomas Guy should be
relocated to a less prominent location
in the local area around Guy’s.
“Information explaining how both
men made their wealth, and their con-
nections with the trade of enslaved
people, should be made more broadly
available through interpretation along-
side the statues and online.”
It appears that the statue of Guy is
now to remain in its original place with
new permanent signs to be added next
2GM
year to explain that some of the wealth
he gave towards the end of his life and
in his will for the maintenance of Guy’s
Hospital came from his investments in
the slave trade.
A planning application will be
submitted at the end of the year to
Southwark and Lambeth councils “to
carry out both the conservation work
and install permanent interpretation at
both statues”, with plans to install the
new signs in 2023.
The foundation said: “It will help
people to better understand the
histories of both men, including the
ways in which [they] and others
generated their wealth, which left a
The statue of Thomas Guy at Guy’s Hospital was to be moved because some of
the money he used to found the hospital came from investments in the slave trade
£10,000 cost of Two email
abandoned PC accounts for
language guide bi-gender staff
The Local Government Association
spent more than £10,000 creating an
inclusive language guide that was
scrapped after attracting ridicule.
The association, a membership body
for councils, dropped its ban on local
authorities using “mum and dad” in
favour of “birthing parents” after
criticism. Other phrases to be avoided
included second-generation, expat,
economic migrant, deprived neigh-
bourhoods, the homeless and lifestyle
choice. In commissioning the guide and
a holding round-table event, the LGA
paid £10,725 plus VAT.
Toby Young, founder and director of
the Free Speech Union, said: “It seems
extraordinary that the LGA is happy
to pay . . . £10,725 to tell them to stop
using words like ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ when it
never stops complaining about cuts to
funding.”
The 18-page guide was commis-
sioned from an external supplier by
tender and paid for through subscrip-
tions and commercial activities. Its cost
was revealed in a freedom of informa-
tion request. The LGA said: “We have
taken the decision to remove the guide
in its current form from our website.”
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
legacy that has long-lasting impacts on
society today.”
The statue, on the Guy’s campus of
King’s College London, was made by the
Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers and
installed in 1734, a decade after Guy died.
The Rev Dr Ellen Clark-King, dean
of King’s College, said: “Like many
organisations, at King’s we know that
we have a duty to address the legacy of
colonialism, racism and slavery in our
own work. King’s has begun its own
history research project that will
confront truths about our own connec-
tions and their challenging legacy,
including the university and associated
institutions and partners.”
Charlotte Wace
Stonewall is urging employers to let
staff have two email addresses so they
can swap gender identities, it has been
claimed.
The LGBT charity is said to have
drawn up new guidance for the many
organisations seeking places on its
“workplace equality index”. Last year’s
top 100 Stonewall index included NHS
England, along with some government
departments, regional NHS bodies,
police forces and fire services.
Employers aiming for the 2023 index
are asked how they will “enable
non-binary employees to have their
identities recognised on all employee-
facing workplace systems”, The
Telegraph reported.
The guidance encourages firms to
offer “the ability to have multiple
passcards with different forms of
gender expression or linked email ac-
counts/intranet accounts with different
names and photos”.
Stonewall said: “Our guidance does
not impose or demand any one way of
doing things, but instead suggests
examples that might be helpful.”
the times | Monday November 14 2022
US warns against military budget cuts
George Grylls Fort Irwin
The head of the US army has told Rishi
Sunak the British military is “great” and
must “stay that way” as ministers
consider real-terms cuts to defence
spending at this week’s budget.
General James C McConville, chief
of staff of the US army, issued the warn-
ing after British and American troops
held training drills in the Californian
desert to simulate a Russian invasion of
Europe. He said the two countries
shared “a very strong and special
relationship” and had a proud record
fighting “side by side”.
The comments come after Admiral
Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the defence
staff, said “continued investment” in
defence was needed, adding that
Britain was living in “serious” economic
and security times. He told the BBC:
“We need continued investment. And
that’s continued investment over the
long term. I welcome the conversations
we can have with the prime minister
Army’s most senior
woman is going to
war on misogyny
Female recruits have
every right to expect
the forces to be free of
sexism, Sharon Nesmith
tells George Grylls
Lacking any sunglasses, the highest-
ranked woman in British Army history
squints to inspect her troops under the
dusty glare of the Californian sun.
Sharon Nesmith is two months into
her role as deputy chief of the general
staff, a position that involves a gruelling
amount of travel. After 24 hours at Fort
Irwin, a US military base in the Mojave
desert, her next stop is another long-
haul flight away in New Zealand.
Nesmith, 52, shows no signs of having
places to rush to, however, as she takes
care to speak to all the British troops
who have spent a fortnight training
with their US counterparts in snow-
storms, dust clouds and 40C heat.
Having joined the army in 1992,
Nesmith faced significant hurdles at
the start of her career — she was once
forced to sign an agreement acknowl-
edging she would leave the army if she
became pregnant — and her success is
a rebuke to all the outdated assump-
tions she faced three decades ago.
Her recent promotion to the rank of
lieutenant general is merely the latest
in a long line of record-breaking
achievements. She was the first female
soldier to command a brigade and the
first female brigadier. She was the first
woman to be made a two-star general,
and then also a three-star general.
“It’s a very different army to the army
I joined. The expectations I had 30
years ago are very different from the
expectations that rightly women join-
ing the forces have today,” Nesmith
says. Reflecting on her early experien-
ces in the army, Nesmith admits that if
standards had been different at the
time, there were instances of sexism
that she would have liked to have called
out. “Yes. I would be naive to say that
there weren’t. There’s not a particular
example that springs to mind. But at
and the chancellor and accompanying
the defence secretary.”
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, will
announce a cross-Whitehall spending
squeeze this week as the government
looks to plug a £50 billion black hole.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary,
has said he was “determined” to secure
adequate investment in the armed
forces. But under Treasury plans
revealed by The Times last month,
defence spending could be frozen until
2027-28 before rapidly increasing to hit
3 per cent of GDP by 2030. Treasury
sources have promised that defence
spending will not fall below Nato’s
target of 2 per cent of GDP.
Speaking at the Fort Irwin military
base this week after British and US
troops took part in war-gaming
exercises, McConville hinted at US
concerns over the possibility of real-
terms cuts to the defence budget, with
the British army set to shrink to its
smallest size since the Napoleonic era.
“We have a very strong and special
every tour I’ve done, I’ve felt included
and been part of the team. Now, I might
have had to work quite hard to get to
that point but I wouldn’t have served 30
years if I hadn’t really enjoyed the
people I work with.”
Nesmith, who was banned from serv-
ing in combat roles when she joined the
Royal Corps of Signals, is a good exam-
ple of the significant strides made by
the armed forces. But recent scandals
have brought renewed attention to the
horrific misogyny and sexism that
many servicewomen still face.
On the one hand there is the story of
Private Addy Carter, 21, the first woman
to complete the formidable three-and-
a-half-week Parachute Regiment entry
test, a fitness challenge that includes
medicine ball-throwing and 2km runs
in less than 8 minutes 15 seconds.
But on the other hand there are the
daily-increasing allegations of sexual
abuse and rape in Britain’s nuclear sub-
marines and the toxic culture of bully-
ing and harassment in the Red Arrows.
Does Nesmith think there is still a cul-
ture of misogyny in the armed forces or
is it the case of a few bad apples?
“There are pockets that we’re rooting
out. That’s what we see playing out. We
are absolutely determined to find the
pockets and to make an example of why
that is absolutely not acceptable,” she
says.
Sitting in a makeshift parade ground
in the Californian desert, Nesmith has
just watched a demonstration of the lat-
est US military technologies. Top brass
from around the world have assembled
to watch the British, American and
Australian troops unleash “swarms” of
drones. However, on this particular day,
gusts of desert wind have proved too
powerful for a few lonely drones.
Nesmith’s career has included opera-
tional tours to the Balkans and Iraq and
she understands what it is like to serve
on the front line. Despite her seniority,
there is little formality to her bantering
with the officers of the 20th Armoured
Infantry Brigade, the 2nd Battalion
Yorks and the Rangers — the British
Army’s newest elite regiment formed
just a year ago.
But the deputy chief of the general
relationship. Over the last 20 years
we’ve served side by side in combat to-
gether. That relationship goes much
before that. You have a great military, a
great army, and we want to see it stay
that way,” he told The Times.
Christine Wormuth, the US
secretary of the army, said every
country must “manage its own affairs
and manage its own budget”. But she
added: “I’m a huge believer in the
strategic partnership we have with the
UK. We want the UK armed forces to
be as strong as they can possibly be.”
It was put to Radakin yesterday that
it sounded as if he was trying to say that
the long-term budgets for the Ministry
of Defence must not be cut. He replied:
“For the ambition of the government to
be met, we need to maintain that
investment, and the defence secretary
has been very clear about that.”
The US is by far the biggest contribu-
tor to Nato, with a defence budget of
$821 billion — more than double that of
all the other members combined. Most
Lieutenant general Sharon Nesmith says developing the very best technology,
rather than focusing on troop numbers, is key to the Army’s future capability
staff acknowledges the future of war
looks very different from the conflicts
fought even a few decades ago. As the
soldiers patiently talk her through their
kit — Watchkeeper long-range recon-
15
News
is one of nine countries on course to hit
British military strength the 2 per cent target this year out of the
Personnel by branch
30 Nato members.
Army Royal Air Force
In cash terms, MoD spending will
Royal Navy and Royal Marines 000s
rise from £46 billion in 2021-22 to £48.6
billion in 2024-25. But with inflation
200
Source: House of Commons Library
expected to stay high well into the
160 middle of the decade, this figure
amounts to a real-terms cut according
120 to the Civitas report, which analysed
80 MoD data. As a proportion of GDP,
defence spending will slip from 2.12 per
40 cent this year to 2 per cent in 2024, before
Data for year to April
0 falling below the Nato target in 2025.
2000 05 10 15 2020 Last year ministers published an inte-
grated review of foreign policy which
European nations reacted to the Russian recommended greater British involve-
invasion of Ukraine by pledging more ment in Indo-Pacific affairs while also
defence spending. Poland will increase countering the Russian threat. The
expenditure to 3 per cent of GDP by review is to be updated by Sunak. In a
next year and Germany has promised foreword to the Civitas report, In De-
to hit the 2 per cent target. fence of Global Britain, the former chief
But a new report by the Civitas think of the defence staff General Lord Dan-
tank will warn that even before any natt said it would be “morally indefens-
further austerity, Britain risks missing ible” to expect the armed forces to play
the 2 per cent of GDP by 2025. Britain a greater role on a smaller budget.
army “about 300 years ago”. “I had a go
with the virtual reality headset and it
was embarrassing,” she says. “The
people joining the army today are so
much more familiar with this, it’s like
second nature. I’ve got two teenage
boys and if I gave them a handset to
allow them to operate any of these
remotely piloted vehicles, they’d be
doing it in their sleep.”
Even if she is not the most technolog-
ically gifted herself, Nesmith strongly
believes in the need to modernise the
army. “I might not be familiar with this
but I’m not the future,” she says.
Under plans outlined before the inva-
sion of Ukraine, the British Army is set
to shrink from 82,000 troops to 72,500,
its smallest size since the Napoleonic
era. But with a single soldier now cap-
able of operating more than 60 drones
at once, does this really matter?
“We know we need to be more lethal,
more agile and more expeditionary,”
she says. “I don’t think that is about size.
We often refer to that as about the capa-
bility we’ve got. It’s about investing in
the right capability, equipping with the
right technology, learning the lessons
from current operations and being alive
to the threats we are facing.”
If there was any doubt about the
number one threat facing western
nations, the wargaming exercise in the
Californian desert, which simulated a
sweeping invasion of Europe, leaves lit-
tle to the imagination. Nesmith says the
army has moved to a mobilisation foot-
ing to deter Russian aggression and “we
are as ready as we need to be”.
The army has adopted a motto of
“four plus one” for the lessons to learn
from the war in Ukraine. It must im-
prove four things: its ground-based air
defences, its use of artillery, its elec-
tronic warfare and its ability to counter
crude air systems such as the Iranian-
made “kamikaze” drones used by
Russia. “plus one” refers to the import-
ance of logistics.
All this needs money, and with the
defence budget likely to be targeted as
part of Rishi Sunak’s spending squeeze,
is it right that the British response to the
war in Ukraine may end up being a real-
terms cut in defence spending? “It’s not
for me to speculate on what should be
the right outcome from a spending re-
view. What I do know is we need to
make sure we’re learning the lessons
and we’re acting upon the lessons,”
Nesmith says.
Regardless of funding, Nesmith
hopes that her achievements are just
the beginning of the modernisation of
naissance drones, M-Raza autono- the British Army that will mean more
mous dune buggies and Zodiac artifi- women in senior positions. Would she
cial intelligence systems — Nesmith eventually like to see a woman respon-
admits she is the one learning from the sible for keeping the nation safe? “Yes!
younger generation, having joined the Why would I not say yes to that?”
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Becker will be sent
home for Christmas
Billy Kenber
The tennis star Boris Becker will be
released from prison and deported to
Germany before Christmas.
Becker, who won six Grand Slam
titles, was given a two-and-a-half-year
prison sentence this year after being
convicted of concealing £2.5 million in
assets to avoid paying debts.
He has been serving his sentence at
HMP Huntercombe in Oxfordshire
and has been approved for a scheme
that deports foreign criminals to their
home country. “He’s been signed up to
a scheme that means he’ll be home in
Boris Becker will
not spend time
in jail in Germany
time for Christmas,” a prison source
told The Sun.
Offenders can have up to 12 months
cut from their sentence by agreeing to
be returned to their home country and
Becker, who will have spent less than
ten months in jail, will not have to serve
his remaining sentence in Germany.
Although he has lived in Britain since
2012, Becker, 54, is eligible for the
scheme because he does not hold
British citizenship. His former spokes-
man said: “We are pleased for Boris that
he may qualify for an early release and
be able to travel to Germany, albeit
England has been his home for many,
many years. I’m sure it will mean a lot to
him and his family to be reunited for
Christmas.”
Legislation passed this year extended
the time a foreign citizen can have cut
from their sentence under the Early Re-
moval Scheme from 270 days to a year.
More than 1,100 foreign criminals were
deported under the scheme in 2020-21.
Becker, who won Wimbledon three
times in the 1980s, was jailed in April
after being convicted of four charges
under the Insolvency Act. He was found
guilty of failing to declare a property,
concealing more than €800,000 of debt
and transferring hundreds of thousands
of pounds from his business account.
The case followed his bankruptcy in
2017 over an unpaid £3 million loan on
his estate in Marbella, Spain. He had
been convicted of tax evasion in
Germany in 2002.
Becker was first held at HMP
Wandsworth, where he was visited by
his girlfriend, Lillian de Carvalho
Monteiro, before being moved to the
category C prison in Oxfordshire. Ger-
man media said he had become a yoga,
fitness and nutrition instructor to fellow
inmates. He is also said to be one of two
teachers giving lessons in stoicism.
The Home Office said: “Any foreign
national who is given a prison sentence
is considered for deportation at the
earliest opportunity.”
17
News
Injury forces
ex-footballer
to quit Strictly
Charlie Moloney
The former England footballer Tony
Adams has had to withdraw from Strictly
Come Dancing with an injury, saving his
rival contestant Tyler West from a
dance-off to continue in the competition.
Adams, 56, hurt himself on Saturday
night, giving West, 26, a presenter and
DJ, a free pass to next week’s special
edition of the BBC 1 show from Black-
pool Tower on Saturday.
The former Arsenal defender ended
up in the dance-off after failing to im-
press the judges with a jive to Land Of
1,000 Dances by Wilson Pickett, earning
24 points and bottom place on the
leaderboard.
On last night’s show the co-host Tess
Daly said: “Due to an injury sustained on
Saturday night, Tony is unable to take
part in the dance-off and has decided to
withdraw from the competition.”
Adams, who was partnered with
the professional dancer Katya Jones,
described his experience on the show as
“emotional”, adding: “I cried for the first
month. I came in here with one mes-
sage, if you’ve got an issue with mental
health then please don’t suffer in silence
— reach out for help. Little did I know
that I was going to learn a lot about my-
self in the process.”
Jones, 33, praised Adams despite low
scores from the judges. “I loved us, I
loved that we didn’t care what people
Tony Adams and Katya Jones on Strictly Come Dancing. The footballer won little thought, we did every single dance our
praise from the show’s judges but said he learnt a lot about himself by taking part way,” she said.
18
News
Steps are being taken to protect wildlife, including otters,
when rockets blast off from Unst in the Shetland Islands
Soundproof holes
to help otters flee
from rocket noise
Kaya Burgess Science Reporter
Digging soundproof holes for otters
and avoiding launches during nesting
season for seabirds will protect wildlife
in the Shetland Islands when rockets
start blasting off from Britain’s first
“vertical” spaceport next year.
The operators of the SaxaVord
Spaceport on Unst have pledged to im-
plement a “no-launch” window
between mid-May and late June each
year “to avoid disturbing birds during
the critical incubation and early brood-
ing period”. A total of 135 species
including puffins, merlins, plovers and
Arctic terns can be found within an
area that could be affected by the
“explosive noise” of rocket launches.
SaxaVord has also been advised to
protect otters by creating “additional
holts and shelters, many with sound-
proofing from turfs” to give the animals
a place to hide from the noise of launch-
es and warning sirens. It has already
built an underpass for otters under the
road that will be used to transport rock-
ets to the launchpad.
The details are set out in a consulta-
tion document published by the Civil
Aviation Authority looking at the envi-
ronmental impact of launching rockets
into space from Shetland.
In the coming weeks, the first rocket
to be launched into space from the UK
will take off from Spaceport Cornwall at
Newquay Airport. It will be fixed be-
neath the wing of a Boeing 747 jet,
which will carry it to 36,000ft before it
ignites and blasts into orbit.
SaxaVord Spaceport will become the
Moondust mission will be
the first space business deal
Richard Lloyd Parry Asia Editor
A Japanese company plans to become
the first private enterprise to do busi-
ness on the moon as a mission launches
later this month to symbolically “mine”
and sell moon dust to Nasa.
The moon lander owned by the
Tokyo-based company Ispace is due to
take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
on November 22 on a Falcon 9 rocket
launched by the US company SpaceX.
A small amount of moon dust will sym-
bolically be transferred to Nasa as a
token fee, opening up a new world of
commercialisation of the moon.
If all goes to plan, the lander will
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
first site in Europe for “vertical” rocket
launches, where rockets blast off from a
launchpad on the ground. The concrete
base for the launchpad was completed
last week.
There are seven spaceports planned
for the UK, including five in Scotland,
one in Cornwall and one in Wales.
Rockets between 13m (42ft) and 30m
tall will carry small satellites into polar
orbits while smaller rockets of between
1.5m and 8m will blast scientific equip-
ment into sub-orbital paths. There are
plans for up to 30 launches per year and
the first launch into orbit is expected to
take place late next year.
It is thought “thousands” of tourists
could visit Unst, which has a population
of 600, to see launches. The spaceport
could create around 140 jobs.
The review found that some wildlife,
including the red-throated diver and
merlin, were “particularly sensitive to
sudden noise events”. It found that
there was unlikely to be any significant
effect on breeding or nesting from
three or four monthly rocket launches.
It said the warning siren was likely to
“give otters warning to swim underwa-
ter or find refuge in a holt or shelter
where noise levels are likely to be re-
duced, but added: “It is possible that the
operational disturbance of satellite
launches could disturb otters within
their holts.”
Scott Hammond, deputy chief exec-
utive of SaxaVord Spaceport, said:
“Cape Canaveral [Nasa’s launch site in
Florida] is a nature reserve. [A space-
port] can reinvigorate the population
by bringing younger people back in.”
touch down next spring at the Lake of
Dreams, a plain on the moon’s near
side. Ownership of dust that gathers on
the feet of its landing gear will be trans-
ferred to the US space agency for a
token fee of $5,000.
There are no plans to return the sam-
ple to earth but a precedent will be set
for private companies to exploit the
commercial resources of the moon.
“If [it] transfers ownership of
lunar resources to Nasa in accordance
with the plan, it will be the first case in
the world of commercial transactions
of space resources on the moon by a
private operator,” said Sanae Takaichi,
Japan’s space minister.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Refugees who
fled the Taliban
find salvation
in education
But Afghans grateful
to have reached safety
are haunted by fears for
those they left behind,
writes Emma Yeomans
A year ago Naimat Zafary and his
family were on one of the last aircraft to
leave Kabul. Today, the scholar is
beginning his PhD, researching why
the billions of aid spent in Afghanistan
did not lead to a lasting peace, and how
governments can avoid making the
same mistakes again.
“I want to learn not only to get a
degree and build knowledge, but also as
an Afghan I need to know: what went
wrong?” he said.
Nearly 10,000 Afghan refugees were
still living in hotel accommodation this
summer. More than 20,000 have been
settled in Britain through different
schemes for Afghan refugees, including
at least 11,000 who worked with British
troops.
Zafary, formerly a UN worker in
Kabul, was evacuated along with other
students who had been granted a place
on the Chevening scholarship, a
Foreign Office scheme that funds a
master’s degree for talented students
around the world.
He spent months living in a hotel in
London and commuting to the Uni-
versity of Sussex for his master’s in
International Development, until the
university helped him find a home in
Brighton where he now lives with his
wife, three daughters, one son and his
elderly parents.
He plays cricket for a local club, while
his wife, Saima, is learning English. His
children, who have picked up English
19
News
quickly, are settled into school and
tease their father about his accent.
“They are learning very fast at
school,” he said. “But one of the things
which hurts me the most is when I think
about my eldest daughter, who is going
to secondary school next year. And
every time I think about her, it brings me
back to Afghan girls, who have been out
of secondary school now for 400 days.
Education has saved my family and my
daughters. If I hadn’t got the scholar-
ship, if I had not been here, next year my
daughter would not be going to school.”
His goal is for his PhD to inform
future aid efforts so that mistakes made
in Afghanistan are not repeated in
other countries, and he believes one
day Afghan scholars like him will help
rebuild their home country. But he
fears for his family left behind, includ- Fakhria Naistani and Samir Yousafzai with their five-month-old son, Zalaan. She says: “British people are really, really kind”
ing his sister. A dentist, she has been
prevented from working by the Taliban. many were in tears to say goodbye to sometimes when I’m sleeping, I’m while his wife gave birth this year, then
Fakhria Naistani also came as a neighbours who had become extended dreaming that something happened to local volunteers added him to a Whats-
Chevening scholar, to study a master’s family during the year. my family,” she said. “I see those Tali- App group. “Everything changed from
in mental health and psychotherapy at While she studied, her husband ban images in my dreams.” that moment,” he said. A local woman
Queen Mary, University of London. found a job with a hospitality company, Her father and brother at home have helped get his wife to hospital, and
She and her husband, Samir Yousaf- GLH Hotels, but he was forced to give it only met Zalaan on a video call, and she cared for the children so he could be
zai, have spent a year living in a string of up after they were moved to a different has no idea when, if ever, she will intro- with his wife. He said the woman, Zoe,
hotels, in Aberdeen, London and Ash- hotel in Kent. This had been a struggle duce her son to his grandfather. Her had become a family member to them.
ford. The welcome in Britain has been for many Afghans, she said. Many were family, like many Afghans, are desper- Her daughter Molly became a best
warm. She said: “Sometimes you hear in temporary accommodation and if ate to leave. “They are hopeless, hon- friend for Hamidi’s oldest daughter,
things, rumours, that some people they found work they would then lose estly speaking, and they just want to get helping them adjust to life in the UK.
would be racist or other problems. But I it on being moved by the Home Office. out of the country somehow,” she said. “I am very lucky that my children can
have seen that people here are really Yousafzai has now also been offered a Hamidi, a former translator for the grow up in a very peaceful community
good. British people are really, really scholarship, through the Sanctuary military, also fears for his family. He away from all risk,” he said. “We lost a
kind. Everyone has been so good to us.” scheme which provides help for re- asked his full name not be used, lest his lot of things when we came to the UK
There was a surprise for her in Brit- fugees to study at university. family face reprisals. but we gained many things in return.”
ain. At the time of the evacuation, she Naistani’s hope is to work in mental After time in a quarantine hotel — He is appealing to the Home Office
did not know she was pregnant. Her son health. Back in Afghanistan, she something his four-year-old daughter and the MoD for help for his family,
Zalaan, her first child, was born five dreamt of being a therapist and work- described as “jail” — he was housed in who are at risk due to his association
months ago, while the couple were liv- ing with those traumatized in the long a hotel in Scarborough for several with Britain. “My sister was a teacher in
ing in a hotel in east London that had years of war — something she would months. He now lives in Harrogate, and a university but now the Taliban don’t
been rented for Afghan refugees. not be able to do now under the Taliban. works for the British Army College let her teach,” he said. “My brother was
When the London hotel was finally Her biggest fear is for those left be- Foundation in the kitchens. an Afghan army officer. Now, for about
emptied and all the Afghan refugees hind. Her father is still in Kabul, as is her Alone in a new community, he wor- a year, they have been in hiding and
dispersed to other hotels or housing, brother and his family. “Even now ried about taking care of his children there is no way we can help them.”
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Sharing menus make
bills easier to digest
Billy Kenber
Chefs are turning to sharing menus to
deter hard-up customers from cutting
back on starters and desserts.
Spending in restaurants has fallen by
14 per cent, from £25.38 to £21.80 per
head, in part because customers are
having main courses only, the research
firm Lumina Intelligence has found.
The squeeze is also hitting receipts
from drinks, with the number of meals
including alcohol falling from 38.5 per
cent to 33.9 per cent between June
and October this year, accord-
ing to its report. The biggest
fall was among cocktails
and spirits, with custom-
ers aged 18 to 34 most
likely to have a meal
without any alcohol.
Customers feeling
the pinch are going for
a coffee rather than a
full meal, with cafés and
sandwich shops seeing a
rise in spending from £6.05
to £6.69 per head.
In response, restaurants are re-
shaping menus to put a focus on plat-
ters and dishes intended to be shared.
“Restaurants are introducing more
sharing dishes across discretionary
courses, including starter and dessert
dishes, to encourage spend as custom-
Linden Stores, in Cheshire, offers hake
wrapped in wild boar pancetta to share
ers cut back,” Lumina said in its latest
Menu Tracker report. One in seven
desserts on restaurant menus is now
intended to be shared.
El Pastor, a group of Mexican
restaurants in London, introduced a set
menu offering this year which includes
short rib or sea bream sharers
Sophie Orbaum, of Harts Group,
which owns El Pastor, said: “The shar-
ing menu was designed to give people
who haven’t maybe eaten with us
before or eaten Mexican food before a
‘best of’ experience, but it’s also de-
signed with value in mind.”
She said the restaurant
had kept the price of its
set menu at £32 per per-
son despite inflation
hitting other items.
Linden Stores, a
restaurant in the
village of Audlem in
Cheshire, has
es
launched sharing dish-
including hake
wrapped in wild boar pan-
cetta and chocolate and pea-
nut butter tart. The restaurant offers
a seven-course sharing “chef’s menu”
for £35 per person. Laura Christie, the
co-owner, told The Observer: “It makes
people feel like they’re getting more of
an experience. It helps our spend per
head. It helps with efficiency, because
you know what you’re having to prep
and you need less people to deliver it
because you know ahead of time.”
21
News
The 1828 painting
Branch Hill Pond is one
of several by Constable
to feature his beloved
view, which has been
lost on the modern heath
sketched and painted the of the Heath and also the frogs that gave
Waters fill scene from the top of
Hampstead Heath.
Hampstead Society, told
The Observer:
rise to the area’s name of
Frognal. The Redington
Constable’s His view featured
Branch Hill pond, a
“Recreating the pond
allows us to visualise the
Frognal Association has
raised almost £40,000 to
Heath pond spring-fed pool formed by
excavating sands, which
landscape Constable
captured 200 years ago.
fund the project.
Anne-Marie O’Connor,
once more dried up in the 1880s. It
will now once again
It’s also important for the
local environment. It’s
chairwoman of the
association, said: “It’s a
J
ohn Constable’s become saturated with critical for wildlife of all win-win. A wildlife pond
favourite Hampstead wildlife such as kinds on what is, after all, like there was two
pond is being amphibians and insects. London’s most biodiverse centuries ago,
restored almost 150 A pit has been dug with area of land.” particularly with so very
years after it dried up a lining of puddling clay There are hopes that many ponds in Britain
(Charlotte Wace writes). to hold rainwater, with the new pond will attract having been lost from
The painter, who lived the project expected to be dragonflies and drying up or built on.
in the area between 1819 completed in the spring. hedgehogs, which used to And that view which
and 1822, frequently Jeff Waage, president frequent the area, and Constable so loved.”
22 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

News

Schools minister: we need to be speaking German

Nicola Woolcock Education Editor
We should all speak more German, the
schools minister has said as he launches
a drive to promote foreign languages.
Nick Gibb, who recently returned to
the Department for Education, is lead-
ing an initiative to revive languages in
general and German in particular.
Compulsory language GCSEs were
scrapped in 2004 and Gibb did not rule
out reversing this “mistake”.
The number of teenagers studying
German has nosedived in recent years,
with fewer than 2,000 state school
pupils taking the language at A-level in
England this summer. Gibb told The
Times: “Germany is the fourth-largest
economy in the world. If you’re a global
trading nation, languages are important
and we’re bottom of the European
league in terms of language proficiency.
You need to be able to speak the lan-
guage of your suppliers and customers.”
The minister, 62, who has O-levels in
French and Latin and who this month
became schools minister for the third
time, said he also wanted to increase the
number speaking French, Spanish and
Mandarin. Private schools accounted
for 29 per cent of all A-level entries in
German this year and it is increasingly
seen as a niche or elite subject, a situa-
tion he described as “concerning”. The
Nick Gibb has
not ruled out
the return of
compulsory
language GCSEs
drop in pupils taking languages has
contributed to missed targets for the
English Baccalaureate, which requires
five GCSEs in English, maths, a science,
a foreign language and history or
geography. Seventy-five per cent of
pupils were supposed to take the EBacc
by 2022 and 90 per cent by 2025, but last
year only 39 per cent of pupils were
entered for all its subjects, with langua-
ges by far the least popular, pulling
down the overall figure.
Schools are measured in government
performance tables by how many pupils
enter and achieve the suite of GCSEs.
Gibb, who reports to Gillian Keegan,
the new education secretary, wants to
ensure that pupils aged 14 to 18, from all
backgrounds, have the opportunity to
study languages.
“The drive behind the whole concept
is about social mobility, making
sure that young people from whatever
background are encouraged to take
the languages that the children of more
affluent families take for granted that
they’ll be studying,” he said. “That’s
really what drives the EBacc. The
component of it that is falling behind
the other four pillars is languages and
we don’t want languages to be the
exclusive preserve of schools in more
affluent areas.”
The Department for Education said
evidence suggested learning a lan-
guage had strong economic benefits,
including improving international
trade. It is seeking an organisation to
take the lead of its £15 million language
hubs programme and will work with
schools to help deliver high-quality lan-
guage teaching and give teachers con-
tinuous professional development.

I N T H E T I M E S T O M O R ROW
HEALTH COMMENT SPORT
SMILE! William Hague SIMON
What to eat WILDE
(and what Hunt may well restore Sam Curran:
not to eat) economic confidence — the next
for your teeth but where’s the hope? Ben Stokes
TIMES2 MAIN PAPER MAIN PAPER
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Coffin Club . . . for
those with designs
on their own death
James Beal Social Affairs Editor
A group gathers next to a coffin to talk
about death and suddenly a hand goes
up: the man whose casket they are
congregating around wants to ask a
question.
This is Coffin Club, one of a handful
of such groups in Britain where people
can design their own final resting place
and learn how to plan their funeral.
Barry Jones, 72, wants to know if he is
vain to have painted one half of his
cardboard coffin in the colours of
Brentford FC and the other in the col-
ours of Chertsey Town FC — the clubs
he supports.
He is reassured by others at Coffin
Club Surrey that it’s not at all vain and
his family, including his two daughters,
would want his eco-friendly casket to
reflect him.
Jones says he will turn the lid into a
aircraft landing strip, adding that he
was grateful to the club for supplying a
sticker for the end of the coffin that
features the Toy Story character Buzz
Lightyear and his catchphrase: “To
infinity and beyond.”
He will keep the £136 coffin, which is
6ft 1in long and holds a maximum of
26st in weight, in his garden shed until
it’s ready to be used.
The former coach driver, a grandfa-
ther from Chertsey, Surrey, says: “It’s a
strange thing to do and I’ve taken a bit
of ribbing for it. But I thought it was
right up my street, to buy and design
your own coffin. My daughters are very
green and it is a cardboard coffin.”
Coffin Club Surrey, run by the Brig-
itte Trust charity, is a free six-week
course. It is growing in popularity, with
about 30 people attending its latest
sessions at the Clandon Wood Nature
Reserve and Natural Burial Ground,
near Guildford.
The actress Miriam Margolyes, a
patron, has said of Coffin Club in the
past: “Everyone who’s going to die
should come.” With that in mind, The
Climate change is a thorn
in the side of rose growers
Billy Kenber
Commercial flower growers have been
forced to retire some of the most popu-
lar varieties of English rose because of
global warming.
The nearly thornless pink climbing
variety, A Shropshire Lad, and the
crimson-petalled Munstead Wood are
among those that have been withdrawn
from sale by the grower David Austin
Roses. Tim Smith, its operations direct-
or, said cultivating varieties resilient to
climate change had become a key con-
sideration and some customer favour-
ites had been withdrawn.
“We cannot stand still and observe
as we see diseases and pests
evolve as climates change,
threatening the health and
success of some of our most
popular varieties,” he told
The Guardian. “This means
re-trialling all our releases and, in
some instances, retiring very popu-
Munstead Wood is among the
varieties being withdrawn from sale
23
News
Times joined the final session of the lat- Louise Nicholas was
est course to hear a talk from Judith inspired by the sea
Dandy, a funeral director, and take part for her cardboard
in some coffin decorating. A different coffin, while Barry
speaker, giving advice on everything Jones’s design puts
from crematoriums to “death doulas”, a cartoon spin on
addresses each of the six sessions. his final journey
After finishing their coffins, partici-
pants are given suggestions to use them
as a window seat, as a box for their
Christmas decorations or even as a
piece of art around the home.
Group members included the inquis-
itive and those who were already com-
ing to terms with death.
The Brigitte Trust also operates a
“death café”, which encourages honest
and thoughtful conversations about
death and dying over coffee and cake.
Phil Stubbs, 58, from Cobham, had
incurable blood cancer diagnosed in
2020. He said: “I saw an advert for this
and I liked the sound of it. Something
called ‘Coffin Club’ is my kind of dark
humour, so I came along. It’s a very ec-
lectic group here.
“This club helps me deal with death
and also understand what people are
going to go through when I’m gone. At
first I was thinking: ‘I hope people will
come to my funeral,’ but I’m going to be
dead so it doesn’t matter. It’s more
about making it easier for people to deal
with.” Stubbs, who now supports chari-
ties with an initiative called Team Ter-
minal, added: “I haven’t designed my
own coffin yet, but I’ll probably get a
cardboard one.”
Across the room, Louise Nicholas,
56, a funeral celebrant, is painting a sea
scene on her coffin, which she is hoping
to use as a tool to normalise the issue in
front of prospective customers. She
said: “I’m going to try and get a book-
shelf out of it.”
A leaf sketched on to one coffin is
marked with messages from the club’s
participants. One says: “It’s death that
makes life precious.”
Those at Coffin Club Surrey certain-
ly know it.
lar varieties. Whilst these plants may
still perform in some conditions, in the
long term we recommend alternative
varieties that are better suited to the
changing environment.”
Roses are not well suited to hot, dry
locations and climate change is also
helping fungal pests to thrive, increas-
ing the need for breeders to introduce
genes from more disease resistant
plants. The Munstead Wood variety,
which was cultivated in 2007, is report-
ed to have been ravaged by pests.
Some growers have begun planting
roses in hot, muggy climates including
Florida in the US and Shenzhen in
China to test for how conditions
are expected to change in the UK.
Simon Toomer, a curator at
Kew Gardens, said that over
hundreds of years roses
had been bred from wild
species to select “showy”
flowers and scent. Selection had
also been influenced by resistance
to disease such as black spot and
mildew, which had become more
damaging with climate change.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Time to kick the posers
out of politics
Trevor Phillips
Page 26
Illiteracy is not just inconvenient, it’s deadly
Nine million adults in Britain can’t read, depriving them of well-paid jobs, good health and the sheer pleasure of books
Tomiwa
Owolade
@tomowolade
M
any of us have read it
now. The good people
of Swindon borough
council wanted to
commemorate the
volunteers and key workers who
helped during the pandemic. So they
came up with this plaque: “This tree
has been planted in appreciation of
Our Key Workers and Volunteers by
the borough. to honor Their
Selflessness and Dedication given to
the residents and the vulnerable
During the Covid Pandemic March
2019.” This is wrong on so many
levels: spelling errors, bad
punctuation, random capitalisation,
the incorrect date of the pandemic. It
is easy to mock. But it is a symptom
of a much graver problem that we
ignore at our peril.
Imagine two boys called Tim and
Tom. Both were born in the same
year. Tim grew up in the market
town of Stockton in Co Durham.
There were no books in his home.
Every time he had an exam at school
he was paralysed by shame; he
couldn’t read, let alone answer, the
questions on the paper. Everyone
thought he was thick. By the time
he became an adult he was still
functionally illiterate: unable to get a
job, unable to read any instructions,
he was marginalised out of public
existence, stuck at home with his
mother and with very little chance
of getting out.
Tom, meanwhile, grew up in a
village in north Oxford His home
was rich with books. He passed all
his exams swimmingly and had a
fantastic university education. He
will become an academic just like
his parents. According to a study by
the National Literacy Trust, there is
a 26-year gap in life expectancy
between a boy in a high literacy area
such as North Oxford and someone
from a poor literacy area like
Stockton. Tom will outlive Tim by
a quarter of a century.
Tim is not an isolated case. There
are nine million adults in Britain
who are functionally illiterate. Many
of them are severely dyslexic. The
UK ranks 17th among developed
countries when it comes to literacy,
below the likes of Finland and Japan,
but above France and Italy.
According to the World Economic
Foundation, the estimated cost of
functional illiteracy to the British
economy is £37 billion. But the costs
of struggling to read and write will
be felt most painfully by the
functionally illiterate themselves:
The life expectancy gap
between poor and high
literacy areas is 26 years
they are more likely to be
unemployed or in low-paid jobs;
more likely to be clinically
depressed and obese; more likely to
die younger.
The differences between Tim and
Tom are already huge by childhood.
Nearly 19 per cent of children
between five and eight in England
don’t own any books at home. Only
half of children read daily outside
school. Only a third of the adults
surveyed said reading played a
central role in the lives of their
children. All of this has been made
worse by the recent cost of living
crisis and other forms of cost-cutting.
Many parents claim books are too
expensive to buy. One fifth of public
libraries in Britain have closed in the
past ten years; in the most
disadvantaged communities in the
country one in four schools don’t
have a library or designated reading
space. Books are seen as indulgences,
like cream cakes and ice cream, to be
cut in moments of privation. They
are not seen for what they are: the
best way to save children from
impotence in a world where words
swirl everywhere like a snowstorm.
Another factor with potentially
grave future consequences on
functional illiteracy is the recent
lockdown. Data from the
Department of Education has shown
only half of disadvantaged students
(51 per cent) have reached the
expected level for reading this year,
the first time this has been tested
post-lockdown. This is down by
nearly 10 per cent, from 62 per
cent in 2019.
Some groups in our society are
more affected by poor literacy than
others. It is mostly the Tims: up to
three quarters of white working-class
boys fail to reach the standard
benchmark for reading by the age of
16. But this problem also afflicts
many black Caribbean boys.
According to a report by the Institute
for Fiscal Studies commissioned by
the Nuffield Foundation and
published today, educational
performance among most ethnic
groups in the UK has improved
remarkably over recent decades —
except for black Caribbean and
white working-class boys. We need
to discard assumptions about how
“white people” in schools are
privileged at the expense of
“people of colour”. The picture is
more complex.
What can be done? A single
approach is not enough. Schools,
Comment
Many young children own no books at
home and half only ever read at school
families, local communities, the
government and children themselves
all need to work together to target
this issue. More investment in school
services and staff; a culture of
reading encouraged across all areas
of civil society; parents reading to
their kids at home.
I am neither a Tim nor a Tom
when it comes to my literacy
background. My childhood home
wasn’t full of books. But I discovered
them — in school, in public libraries,
in the local WH Smith I used to go
to every month after begging my
mum to give me £10 to buy a book
and a chocolate bar.
I will never forget the first time
reading gave me pleasure: I was nine
and in a corner of my primary school
library. I was reading a book called
Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz.
It had a strikingly red cover, like a
25
strawberry or a fresh lipstick. It is
about a teenage spy called Alex
Rider. In one scene, Alex is shot by
an evil man. We think he is dead. But
Alex soon gets up again and fights
the baddie. We find out he survived
the shot by wearing a bulletproof
vest. My mind suddenly clicked open.
This might sound silly. After all,
it is just a children’s book. But I
stopped being alone at that moment.
This is the gift of reading: it makes
you less alone.
Discard assumptions
about white people in
schools being privileged
Many people will never get to that
stage. Those who are functionally
illiterate can’t read for practical
reasons. Emails, payslips, train
timetables, road signs, letters: these
basic aspects of adulthood appear to
them like hieroglyphics. They can’t
even read to their own children. But
there is another tragedy: they can’t
read for pleasure. From the greatest
works of literature to the subtitles
of magnificent foreign films, their life
is culturally impoverished.
To go back to Tim, what a great
blessing, we might think, to be
spared from reading that plaque by
Swindon borough council and its
travesty of bad grammar. Some of
us might joke we share a similar
experience to Tim because the
plaque is simply unreadable. But
Tim can’t read properly. We can.
red box
For the best analysis
and commentary on
the political landscape
26
Comment
It’s time to kick the posers out of politics
Public life is increasingly the property of narcissists and bullies and we should stop applauding
Trevor
Phillips
@trevorptweets
I W
n 1974, the German conceptual
artist and former fighter pilot
Joseph Beuys flew to New York
and was transported by
ambulance to a downtown gallery.
There, he spent three days locked in
a cage, wearing nothing but a felt
blanket, with only a somewhat baffled
coyote for company. The aim of I Like
America and America Likes Me was,
apparently, to appeal to the US to heal
its divisions — sexual, racial, political
— by reconciliation with the “spirit
animal” of the nation. Whatever.
Great art can be powerfully
political. Picasso’s Guernica remains
viscerally shocking. Ai Weiwei’s With
Flowers is a stinging reproach to the
Chinese Communist Party’s
repression. But politics is not
performance art. I guess the MP for
West Suffolk and darker Australia
has his eyes fixed on a future as a
TV celebrity. A perfectly laudable
ambition; the nation needs to be
entertained. But his deployment of
slugs, snails and a kangaroo penis in
lip-trembling pursuit of “forgiveness”
while an MP demeans public service.
A true penitent might have turned
his gaze to London’s East End. In
1963, the former war secretary John
Profumo resigned after his affair with
Christine Keeler, mistress of a Soviet
spy, was exposed. He spent decades
raising funds for the anti-poverty
Emma Duncan Notebook
The British
citizenship
test takes
the cake
M
y son, who’s applying
for an American
passport, did the US
citizenship test last
week. Out of curiosity,
I did it too, and followed up with
some practice papers for the British
test, to see how they compared.
The American test grills applicants
on the country’s political institutions.
What is the supreme law of the land?
The constitution. Name one right or
freedom from the First Amendment.
Speech, religion, assembly etc. What
are the rights in the Declaration of
Independence? Life, liberty, the
pursuit of happiness. And so on.
The British one is a very different
kettle of fish. How many Olympic
gold medals did Sir Chris Hoy get?
Not a clue. When was the first tennis
club founded in Britain? Pass. When
is St David’s Day? No idea. What kind
of flower would you expect people to
wear on St David’s Day? Don’t be
ridiculous: nobody wears flowers.
charity Toynbee Hall, dying in 2006
with his reputation restored. Profumo
enjoyed the advantage of inherited
wealth; but, Matt, there are many
perfectly well-remunerated roles in
the charitable sector. Talk to me.
However these days a public
figure’s worth is judged as much by
their performance in broadcast jousts
as by their ability to improve others’
lives. The belief that what can be
spun matters more than what can
be done has opened the door to a
generation of charlatans and clowns.
Even the so-called Nolan principles
advise public servants to avoid not
just actual transgressions, but the
appearance of transgressions.
That is why the most important
Munira Mirza’s venture
aims to improve the
quality of our leaders
story of the week was a new venture
by Boris Johnson’s former director of
policy, Munira Mirza, who grasps
better than most the futility behind
Falstaffian bluster. The aim of Civic
Future is twofold. First, to improve
the quality of our leaders by providing
what in corporate life we would call
CPD — continuing professional
development. Most in Westminster
and Whitehall are woefully under-
prepared. Mirza admits to having to
learn on the job. Importing
outstanding private sector bosses
such as the vaccine tsar Kate
Bingham or John Lewis’s Sharon
White (a former civil servant) will
only take you so far.
Mirza’s second, even more
If passing the test were a condition
of staying in Britain, I might well be
on the next plane to Rwanda. I was
flummoxed by the location of the
famous hill fort at Maiden Castle
(sorry, Dorset) and the number of
national parks in England (nine, as it
happens). Even I, however, could
hazard a guess that “a traditional
Welsh food” was neither haggis,
Ulster fry nor roast beef but “Welsh
cakes”. And I knew that Gertrude
Jekyll was a garden designer,
but I don’t see why anybody
less gripped by the history
of horticulture
should.
Tray again
T
he test
resembles
nothing so
much as that
children’s game
where you have
to memorise a
random collection
of items placed
on a tray. The
only sense I can
make of it is that
some politician
or civil servant
decreed that
aspiring Britons
should be familiar
with our “shared culture”.
If so, it entirely misses the
important aim is to encourage
diversity of experience and
perspective. Sixty-five years ago, CP
Snow, the chemist, novelist and senior
civil servant who coined the phrase
“corridors of power”, asserted that few
in our political class could say what
the second law of thermodynamics
held. (It’s the one that explains why
your tea doesn’t get any hotter while
you’re reading, unless you stick it in
the microwave.) Snow complained
that an equivalent degree of
ignorance in the arts — for example,
never having read Shakespeare —
would never be tolerated.
Almost seven decades on, Snow’s
“Two Cultures” challenge is even
more relevant. Just 4 out of 22
cabinet ministers hold a degree in
science or engineering; only one
made a career of it (the trade
minister Kemi Badenoch). Labour’s
front bench boasts only one science
degree; just one Whitehall permanent
secretary holds an engineering
qualification. It is little wonder the
mandarin classes failed to prepare us
for the right pandemic in 2019.
The US, Germany and France too
are run largely by lawyers and
economists. The G7 growth rate is
0.2 per cent. China’s seven-man (yes,
all-male) standing committee of the
Politburo, from which all power flows
and which maintains a Smersh-like
hierarchy, offers a contrast: No 6,
Ding Xuexiang, has a degree in
heavy engineering; No 2, Li Qiang
qualified as an agricultural engineer;
and the boss, Xi Jinping, started life
as a chemical engineer. Growth in
China is 3.9 per cent.
But perhaps the greatest obstacle
to the recruitment of talent is the
point. Culture is not a collection of
symbolic flowers, national celebrities,
retro food and public holidays. It’s
the awkward side shuffle we do on
the pavement to avoid bumping
into each other; the way
embarrassment makes us
guffaw; the yellow of
Cotswold stone and the
vivid red of Kent and
Sussex brick; Jane
Austen’s laconic wit; the
range of skin colours in
a London street.
Nor is culture
shared. It is infinite in
its variety, and specific
to age, region and
occupation. I share more
culture with middle-
aged journalists in
Paris, Berlin and
New York than
I do with
teenage DJs
from London or
retired farmers from
Aberdeenshire. Having
been born outside this
country (like one in six
Brits) and spent my
childhood abroad,
I don’t even get Magic
Roundabout and
Clangers references.
What we do share is the
need and desire to live
together harmoniously.
sheer toxicity of modern public life.
My oldest friend, Ian, a natural
leader even at the age of eight, is a
doer, reared in the tradition of
Christianity’s provisional wing, the
Salvation Army, where we both
served as Cub Scouts and junior
bandsmen. He had a turn in student
politics; but unlike me, he left it to
become a distinguished medic.
Now retired, he is passionate in the
cause of climate change; he grows his
own food and generates his own
power. He claims that only 70-year-
old knees prevent him coming to
London to climb a gantry above the
M25. We disagree on Extinction
Rebellion, but he’s exactly the sort
of person we need to enter politics:
intelligent, numerate, experienced,
humane and in the end, pragmatic.
But he wouldn’t dream of it.
Not when the first line of attack is
character assassination. Last week
Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer
reverted to type, with the opposition
leader repeatedly sneering “weak” at
his opponent. The prime minister
never used the words “Corbynista
hypocrite” but he might as well have
done so. Their back benches roared
at the theatrical exchange.
Perhaps an early task for Civic
Future might be to recruit those few
MPs who sit cringing at the weekly
pantomime; they are the right
mentors for future leaders. A second
task might be to remind broadcasters
that such displays, far from
enthusing the public, put smart
people off politics. Public life is
increasingly becoming the property
of narcissists and bullies. We need to
deprive the performing artists of the
drug they most crave, applause.
Doing so depends on understanding
and accepting the rules of the political
game. Aspiring Britons should be
tested not on the location of the
country’s main yachting event but,
as in America, on the workings and
history of the system that enables
people to rub along together.
Not, of course, that Americans are
rubbing along particularly well
together right now. But perhaps that’s
why they take the trouble to drum
these things into people’s heads. They
had a civil war not so long ago.
They know how fragile social bonds
are. Perhaps we’re a bit complacent.
Yolk of tyranny
I
was horrified to read of the brutal
repression suffered by Patrick
Thelwell, 23, an environmental
activist, at the hands of the fascist
police. Having exercised his right to
free expression by throwing four
eggs at the King, he was arrested and
taken to the police station where, he
claims, he was subjected to an
appalling infringement of his human
rights — a meal of pot noodles. Nor
was this the only outrage he suffered:
as a condition of his bail, he was
ordered not to buy eggs. Evidently
the lackeys of the neoliberal regime
realised that was a step too far
towards tyranny: the conditions were
amended to allow him to purchase
eggs, so long as they were for his
own consumption.
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
ENO is a cultural
beacon that must
be protected
Huw van Steenis
hat do you do when
all the energy you’ve
put into performing
over many years is
suddenly threatened?
That’s how the amazing singers,
musicians and technicians of the
English National Opera feel. They’ve
been told they have only 20 weeks
left at the Coliseum in London.
Crises always bring out the
best and worst of people. In the
pandemic, true to the purpose of our
national opera company set up 90
years ago “for everyone”, it gave
back. The company hosted the
world’s first drive-in opera at
Alexandra Palace, which won a Bafta.
Singers teamed up with Imperial
College NHS Trust to create an
innovative programme to help those
with long Covid breathe. Thousands
of patients have been helped across
85 NHS trusts. The costume
department made 2,000 scrubs.
And it planned to bounce back
stronger. This season the shows are
sensational. Only last week the
joyous Gilbert and Sullivan Yeoman
of the Guard opened. It offers free
Audiences, musicians,
artists and technicians
all deserve better
and discounted tickets to students
and under-35s. Yet the government
and its handmaidens at the Arts
Council now want to close down this
cultural beacon, in spite of saying the
ENO had “surpassed” its targets.
The ENO has been told its budget
will be slashed and may possibly get
some transitional funding if it agrees
to move, conceivably to Manchester.
But there has been no planning, no
interaction with Manchester’s mayor,
Andy Burnham, nor with Opera
North based in Leeds. Nothing!
Manchester is an amazing city
with a fantastic arts ecology and
great leadership. So too are
Birmingham and Liverpool. But
when Sadler’s Wells touring ballet
was invited by Birmingham to move
there in 1990, artists were consulted
first and given over four years. And
there are compelling reasons to stay
put. But we now face a stark choice:
do we want the company to continue
to exist? The bass-baritone Sir Bryn
Terfel thinks so, and has started a
petition. Almost 40,000 have signed it.
Audiences, artists, musicians and
technicians all deserve better. The
government and Arts Council need to
think again and do a proper analysis
of opera and audiences across the
country — and show their workings,
because this looks arbitrary. Opera is
the embodiment of an essential
human instinct: telling stories
through music. Comedies, histories,
and tragedies. The ENO wants to
keep telling them to everyone.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
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School should be something to sing about
We all have our own instrument, the voice, and are enriched by using it communally through childhood and beyond
Libby
Purves
@lib_thinks
T
he early riser catches the
first earworm: I wake up
every morning with a
different tune in my head.
Could be folk song, Beatles,
opera, a hymn or (last week) the
socialist anthem about “the very fat
man that waters the workers’ beer”.
It’s been Humpty Dumpty, Panis
Angelicus, Verdi and Eurovision.
Once it was the anthem of my year
at school in Krugersdorp, South
Africa, with a viciously catchy
“Who knows St Ursula’s schoo-ool?
Shout it over Africa!”
It’s not uncommon, and online
some are mildly anxious on
discovering its medical definition as
hypnopompic INMI (involuntary
musical imagery). But it provides a
rhythm to the morning walk or
swim. Mozart or Meat Loaf: who
cares, as long as it gets you going.
The older tunes feel like gifts from
long ago in village school, convents,
Irish pubs. I was never in a select
choir or sang alone in public, but to
be a voice among voices is precious.
Millions felt dismay in the long sad
months when Covid laws banned
choirs and congregations from even
well-ventilated places, while football
chants were hypocritically allowed.
Human beings love to sing
together. I won’t bore you with
psychological surveys about how it
promotes mental health, because
anyone can feel the relief of tension,
the grins. It draws in, albeit sotto
voce, even those who long ago
were abused by being told they are
“tone deaf”. It needn’t involve
harmonies or descants, but simple
happy unison.
I thought about the power of song
yesterday, with The Really Big
Chorus annual Messiah in the Albert
Hall where every year I am a semi-
competent amateur alto alongside
Once a school hymn
provided the daily ‘act
of collective worship’
3,000 strangers. The other reason
was this week’s autumn statement, as
school economies continue to hit
teachers’ and pupils’ morale.
Instrumental tuition is a cost to
parents unless the child is on pupil-
premium, and school instruments
are scarce; squeezed middle-income
families often give it up.
National curriculum music can
be minimal, often one period a
week with a bit of ukulele or some
listening. Yet everyone has an
instrument, the voice. Every baby is
born responding to rhythm and
melody. Singing together through
school fills your head with tunes,
which like great poetry will last a
lifetime. Of course mere listening —
pop, jazz, classical — contributes
to that mental furniture. But tunes
last longer when you’ve sung
along in youth.
Not every child gets that now.
Primary schools generally keep on
singing but there is a rapid fall-off at
secondary level unless a school takes
a particular pride in choir or chapel.
A former head teacher, who now
consults and advises many, reflected
that this drop-off is sad and curious:
“A year 7 child is the same creature
as a year 6 one — they don’t
suddenly change from July to
September. But there’s often an
assumption that once they’re in big
school, they won’t like singing
together. I think that assumption
comes from adults, not kids.”
Once, a rousing hymn at school
assembly provided the daily “act of
collective worship” prescribed by
law. But schools widely ignore it,
something de facto accepted by the
Department of Education: Ofsted
doesn’t inspect it. Humanists hate it,
the National Governors Association
calls it “meaningless” and there’s a
House of Lords bill put forward by
the Lib Dem peer Baroness Burt of
Solihull to dump the religious bit.
Fair enough in a secular age, but the
side effect is that kids who aren’t
churchgoers may never sing together
after the age of 11 and feel that
soaring, roaring sense of community.
Except with luck at the football.
It feels sad to let community
singing atrophy just as the
confusions of adolescence arrive and
might be relieved by a good roar.
Religious schools have hymns and
Singing together need
not be religious or,
God help us, political
sacred music but many others have
nothing, and even when there is a
school choir it is more a voluntary
elite in training than a communal
routine singalong free from auditions
and judgment.
In Hungary, land of Kodaly, daily
school singing is now being revived
by government, and the State Opera
has compiled 222 “simple, melodic,
lovable pieces” available free. Each,
they say, takes about 15 minutes to
learn under the leadership of any
teacher, not just a musician.
Singing together needn’t be
religious or, God help us, political.
Shudder at the then education
secretary Gavin Williamson’s creepy
27
Comment
ham-fisted moment in June last year,
when his department encouraged
schools across the nation to sing “We
are Britain and we have one dream/
To unite all people in one great
team.” The song bragged of survival
through wars, open doors and
“celebrating differences”. A few
primary schools complied, but it
was met with a national shudder
even by the Daily Express. Too
American at best, and at worst an
echo of the Horst-Wessel-Lied, only
with worse scansion.
Yet singing itself is grand. One
ex-headmaster remarks now he
wishes he’d gone against the grain
and inaugurated a daily chorus.
“Thinking the kids won’t like it is a
self-fulfilling prophecy. At a post-
GCSE farewell in a tough school I
embarrassed them all by singing
Reach for the Stars by S Club 7,
saying it should be the school song.”
Feet shuffled a bit, but next day at
the leavers’ prom he heard the disco
play it and, “They all sang their lungs
out. Schools could do more, all it
needs is the burly science or PE
teacher at the back roaring away,
and everyone would join in.”
This hard winter, the luckiest
schoolchildren will be those who
raise their voices together and
emerge revived. Knowing, like
Don Quixote, that “he who sings
scares away his woes”. For a few
verses, anyway. Better than nothing.
28
Letters to the Editor
Hasty opera move
Sir, In the mid Eighties, the first seeds
were planted about the possibility of
Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet moving
permanently to Birmingham from
London. An independent consultant,
David Allen, was then commissioned
to write a full report on the pros and
cons of such a move. This was done
with the full involvement of the Arts
Council, Royal Opera House,
Birmingham city council, the unions
and Birmingham Hippodrome.
After extensive consultation and
discussion, Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet
moved north in 1990 and became
Birmingham Royal Ballet resident at
Birmingham Hippodrome, under Sir
Peter Wright’s inspirational and
committed leadership. The move was
described then as the “arts coup of
the decade” and, 32 years later, the
company is in great strength, as will
be evidenced in BRB’s immediate
production of The Nutcracker.
The Arts Council announcing its
intention to move English National
Opera to a base in Manchester without
wide consultation is a catastrophe in
the making. Having worked “in the
provinces” for most of my career I
fully support some redistribution of
resources from London, but the case
needs to be properly assessed.
Peter Tod
Director, Birmingham Hippodrome
1988 to 2002
Mental health risks
Sir, The chancellor has a golden
opportunity this week to create a
budget for the nation’s wellbeing at a
crucial time. The pandemic and the
cost of living crisis are putting
millions of people’s mental health at
risk. Taking action now to secure
better mental health will change
people’s lives for the better and save
public money as a result.
First, the chancellor can ensure that
benefit payments at least keep up with
inflation and end rules that impoverish
people, such as the two-child limit
and sanctions on out-of-work benefits.
Lifting people out of poverty boosts
mental health and the economy as a
whole. Second, the chancellor can
invest in mental health services. That
means committing to increase NHS
mental healthcare spending by at
least £2.3 billion and reversing years
of cuts in local government funding
for public health, social care, early
years and youth services.
Such a budget will create a healthier,
happier and more productive society
in which we can all thrive.
Dr Sarah Hughes
CEO, Centre for Mental Health
Corrections and
clarifications
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content seriously. We are committed to
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Practice that IPSO enforces.
Requests for corrections or
clarifications should be sent by email to
feedback@thetimes.co.uk or by post to
Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
The danger of taking liberties with ID cards
Sir, Matthew Parris (“I was wrong
about ID cards — we need them”,
Nov 12) should have the courage of
his original convictions. They remain
a solution in search of a problem.
There is much handwaving about
the “amenity” that would be offered by
such a scheme. In 20 years of serious
interest in the subject I have seen no
end of muddled thinking, often tied to
an idealistic view of government as
infallible and benevolent, or an
inability to distinguish the various
authentication functions we need in
life from an authoritarian “name, rank
and number”. It is odd that someone
as pragmatic and liberal as Parris is
willing to throw away a free society on
the basis of a vague change of mood.
Guy Herbert
General secretary, NO2ID,
London W1
Sir, Matthew Parris may have
recanted about ID cards but as one
who voted against their introduction
in the House of Lords a dozen years
ago I have yet to be convinced.
They suffer from three fundamental
challenges. First, will it be a legal
requirement to carry the card at all
times? The suggestion that one
should be able to produce it later at a
Reform of Lords
Sir, I was surprised to see our
admirable former Lord Speaker’s
letter (Nov 11) following your
excellent and challenging leading
article (Nov 9). No one has done
more to champion the House of
Lords in recent years than Lord
Fowler but I believe he is mistaken in
thinking there is a broad consensus in
favour of a largely elected senate. We
certainly need the reforms advocated
in Lord Norton’s forthcoming Bill,
about which he argued so persuasively
in his letter (Nov 10). But what we do
not need is a house that is largely
elected and which would inevitably
lead to it challenging the supremacy
of the Commons. And an appointed
minority would equally inevitably be
seen as second-class members.
Lord Cormack
Chairman, Campaign for an Effective
Second Chamber
Sir, Alice Thomson (Nov 9) suggests a
reformed upper chamber of 600. The
United States, with a population five
times that of the UK, has an upper
chamber of Congress of 100, so the
UK equivalent would be 20. Another
ACROSS THE
SAHARA BY
MOTOR
from the times november 14, 1922
There is a twofold interest in the
attempt to cross the Sahara which is
about to be made in Citroen motor-
cars. The greater part of the world
loves an adventure almost in
proportion to its apparent
foolhardiness.
The brave Frenchmen who next
month are to Ieave the railhead at
Tuggurt, in South Algeria, for
Timbuctoo are undertaking a
journey of over 1,800 miles through
trackless desert, in a region of
burning sun by day, of piercing cold
at night. Trying to follow the same
route by the swifter aeroplane,
police station gives a free pass to the
very people we are seeking to identify,
who will disappear immediately.
Second, what will be the grounds for
being asked to produce the card and
who may request it? The controversy
surrounding stop-and-search powers
shows what a complex question this
is. Third, who assesses the penalty
and how is it collected? These
questions must be answered in a way
that carries general public acceptance.
Otherwise we are going to see the
courts full of 20-year-olds who forgot
to take their card to the pub, members
of minority communities who feel
unduly picked upon and our police
force under yet more strain.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
House of Lords
Sir, Matthew Parris makes a good
case for the introduction of the
identity card. My experience of living
in European countries makes it
difficult to conceive of life without
one. The Spanish ID card facilitates
official and commercial dealings and
is not the least infringement on civil
liberties. On the contrary, it
guarantees my rights as a resident.
Patrick Campbell
El Campello, Alicante
change would the delegation to
county level of powers not needing to
be administered centrally, as in the
US and Germany. The UK has 92
counties, so it seems reasonable for
each to elect one delegate to the
upper chamber. This would mirror
the principle in the US Senate where
Wyoming, with a population of just
over half a million, and California,
with a population of nearly 40
million, each elect two senators.
Stephan Harker
Lancaster
Migration solutions
Sir, Melanie Phillips believes that the
answer to the migrant crisis lies in
withdrawal from the human rights
and refugee conventions (“Tinker bell
tactics won’t solve migrant issue”,
Nov 8). This drastic step would
further damage our already battered
international reputation. There is a
better alternative, outlined earlier in
the same edition: to adopt measures
employed by France and Germany,
which have reduced the number of
Albanian migrants applying for
asylum by cutting the time it takes to
process asylum applications and
General Laperrine perished
miserably, after a forced landing, and
Major Vuillemin succeeded, but only
after terrible adventures.
Better preparations have been
made for the motor-car party.
Citroen cars have already been to In
Salah and back, a stretch of over five
hundred miles, at the northern end
of the route, where wells exist and
stores of petrol have been placed. At
the southern end, along the Niger to
Burem, and across the desert to
Kidal, a stretch of over three
hundred miles, and possibly even
farther, stores have been placed in
readiness. But for the central “trek”
the expedition must be self-
dependent.
Let our home-fed imagination not
picture the desert as a plain of sand,
smooth, except for the ribbing of the
wind. It is a rugged country scored
by ravines, barred with mountains,
and the black rocks show their teeth
even in the plains. The shifting sands
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
letters@thetimes.co.uk or by post to
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Sir, A few years ago my credit card was
hacked. By the time I was aware of it
the bank had moved in and blocked it
and I had to take two items of photo
ID to my branch. Fortunately there is
still a branch on my high street and I
have a passport and driving licence;
not everyone does. When I visit my
old friend in Vienna and we go out
she asks: Hast du dein Ausweis?
Carrying an official identity card does
not bother her. It is hardly an
intrusion on liberty and most sensible
people carry something to identify
themselves when they go out.
Elizabeth Balsom
London SW15
Sir, Matthew Parris is at last seeing
the sense of the last Labour
government’s attempt to introduce
identity cards. But I must quibble with
him when he says a smartphone app
is a way forward. At our church we
host hundreds of rough sleepers for
lunch. They also take the opportunity
to charge their phones. In between
visits they have no power and no
connection. A system dependent on
access to electricity will fail for many.
David Hallam
Local preacher, City Road Methodist
Church, Birmingham
tightening rules on access to benefits.
These might require a bit of work by
the Home Office but they offer an
effective solution that is compatible
with the international conventions.
Graham Smith
London SW4
Christ Church row
Sir, The Charity Commission has
found that the governing body of
Christ Church buried the legal and PR
costs of its action against the dean
under the heading “other direct costs
— teaching, research, and residential”
and that this had “the potential to
mislead readers of the accounts”
(“Oxford college guilty of misconduct,
says charity watchdog”, thetimes.co.uk,
Nov 10). The commission is pulling its
punch. As a former governing body
member, I can testify that the
potential was fully realised: I did not
know the costs of the action against
the dean until the commission
revealed them. Moreover, if there is a
plausible reason for the mis-
categorisation other than an intention
to hide the truth, I cannot imagine it.
Nigel Biggar
Oxford
lie in drifts and beds often most
treacherous where they seem most
secure, adding to the dangers of the
traverse, like wind-blown snow on a
rocky slope.
And so the mechanical side of the
expedition will be watched with an
eager curiosity. The cars to be used
have the standard ten horse-power
engines of the popular Citroen four-
seater touring cars. They are fitted
with a special gear-box giving a
range of speed from two to twenty-
five miles an hour, and provided
with a ribbed caterpillar of canvas
and rubber which has already been
tried successfully on loose sand. It
will be a striking testimony to the
enterprise and workmanship of the
Citroen Company if cars of a type
produced in bulk and sold at the
price of £245 in this country are able
to stand a test so severe.
thetimes.co.uk/archive
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
Pre-Roman history
Sir, Your report on the find of a
“forgotten” Celtic ring in North
Yorkshire (“£30,000 Celtic ring was
left in a cupboard”, Nov 10) highlights
the neglect in school history lessons
of pre-Roman Britain, which results
in many people’s ignorance of the
basis for today’s political and
constitutional arrangements within
the British Isles. Despite invasion and
settlement of Romans, Angles, Saxons
and Vikings, names have survived to
bear witness to Celtic roots, such as
that of the river that runs through
Knaresborough, where the ring was
found. The name of the Nidd is
probably related to Nedd, as in Castell
Nedd, or Neath in its Anglicised form.
It is accepted that history portrays
the conquerers’ viewpoint. So it would
behove the people of Britain to learn
more about the pre-Roman, Brittonic
roots of these islands and how these
ties can still be traced in the names of
towns, mountains and rivers, and in
the sound of Celtic languages heard
in Wales and elsewhere.
In this time of wokery, how about
some new respect for the survival of
those Celtic roots of which Britain
should be proud. Recognition is all.
Wendy Lloyd Jones
Pwllheli, Gwynedd
Where do roes go?
Sir, How I agree with Angela
Hartnett’s championing of our
nation’s fish (“Fish cookery? Time for
the scales to fall from our eyes”,
Nov 8). But can she (or anyone else
for that matter) explain the
mysterious absence of herring roes
from our fishmongers’ slabs over the
past two years or so? Lightly fried in a
dusting of seasoned flour, and served
on hot buttered toast, this cheap and
delicious light meal was enjoyed by
me and my family over many years
but alas no more. Surely herrings
must still have roes?
Mark Lane.
Sheepscombe, Glos
Garden bridge table
Sir, Ann Treneman (Notebook,
Nov 11) idly wonders if people still
own bridge tables. We do. My
husband is a retired army officer and
in the ol’ days, when all furniture in
married quarters was “issued”, a
bridge table formed part of the
itinerary. Then, in the Eighties, much
of the furniture list was phased out
and occupiers were given the option
to purchase the redundant furniture.
Ours now lives (green baize folded
inward, and with plastic shrouding it)
in my much-loved garden shed, and
performs as a shelf for any seasonally
empty terracotta pots.
Lesley Russell
Kingston upon Thames
Poached banana
Sir, Rose Wild remarks on the lack of
bananas, and skins to slip on, during
the Second World War (Feedback,
Nov 12). Back then my mother’s uncle,
who was a gamekeeper, was in the
habit of bringing in a pheasant or a
rabbit for the larder when he visited.
When, later on, he brought a banana
that he had managed to obtain, my
five-year-old-sister looked at it with
some interest and asked: “Did Uncle
Fred shoot it?”
Aline Templeton
Tenterden, Kent
Letters to The Times must be exclusive
and may be edited
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Daily Universal Register
Indonesia: Rishi Sunak visits Bali for the
G20 summit with fellow world leaders.
UK: The Premier League season pauses for
a six-week winter break for the World Cup.
Nature notes
Britain’s resident
population of
firecrests has been
boosted by birds
arriving to spend
the winter here
from across the
North Sea — an astonishing feat of
migration given that they weigh only 4-7g.
These tiny creatures are members of the
kinglet family and have a black eye-stripe
and an impressive, punky crest that is yellow
in females and orange in males. In winter
these obligate insectivores favour conifer
woods, where they flit around the canopy,
picking spiders and insects from the bark.
Firecrests’ European range has expanded
over the past couple of centuries and it is
thought that their numbers are stable.
melissa harrison
Birthdays today
The King, pictured, 74;
Karen Armstrong,
religious commentator
and author, The Case for
God (2009), The Lost Art
of Scripture (2019), 78;
Tim Bowler, children’s
author, River Boy (1997),
69; Wendy Carlos, innovator in synthesized
and electronic music, The Shining (1980), 83;
Sophie Christiansen, equestrian, eight-time
Paralympic gold medallist (2008, 2012,
2016), 35; Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily
Mail (1992-2018), now editor-in-chief of
DMG Media, the newspaper’s parent
company, 74; Letitia Dean, actress, original
EastEnders cast member, 55; Lord (Michael)
Dobbs, novelist, House of Cards (1989), and
politician, deputy chairman, Conservative
Party (1994-95), 74; Dame Louise Ellman,
independent/Labour MP for Liverpool
Riverside (1997-2019), 77; Edward Foljambe,
Earl of Liverpool, chairman, Rutland Group
(property and investment), 78; Stefano
Gabbana, fashion designer, co-founder
(1985), Dolce & Gabbana, 60; Fred Haise,
astronaut, lunar module pilot on the
aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission (1970), 89;
Charles Hazlewood, conductor, founder
(2011), the British Paraorchestra, 56; Neil
Heslop, chief executive, Charities Aid
Foundation, Leonard Cheshire (2016-20),
58; Bernard Hinault, cyclist, five-time
winner of the Tour de France, 68; David
Howell, chess grandmaster, three-time
British champion (2009, 2013, 2014), 32;
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Keeble, awarded
a DSO for his actions during the Falklands
conflict (1982), 81; Olga Kurylenko, actress,
Quantum of Solace (2008), Oblivion (2013),
43; Mark Le Fanu, trustee of the Royal
Literary Fund, general secretary, Society of
Authors (1982-2011), 76; Paul McGann,
actor, Withnail and I (1987), Doctor Who
(1996), 63; Condoleezza Rice, US secretary
of state (2005-09), 68; Prof Adam Tickell,
economic geographer, vice-chancellor and
principal, University of Birmingham, 58;
Russell Tovey, actor, Being Human (2008-
12), The Sister (2020), 41.
On this day
In 1994 the Eurostar services through the
Channel Tunnel were launched, with trains
linking London, Paris and Brussels.
The last word
“The only man who makes no mistakes is the
man who never does anything.” Theodore
Roosevelt, US president 1901-09, quoted in
Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen (1904) by
Jacob A Riis
Unfinished Business
The government should redouble its efforts to deliver a seven-day NHS to tackle
record backlogs. Britain cannot afford Mary Celeste hospitals at the weekend
It is nearly seven years since junior doctors
paralysed parts of the NHS in a row over new con-
tracts. At the heart of that dispute was the govern-
ment’s determination to deliver on a Conservative
2015 manifesto promise to provide a seven-day
NHS. Research had long established that patients
were more likely to die if admitted over the week-
end, which was widely considered to reflect lower
standards of care and inadequate staffing. Jeremy
Hunt, then health secretary and now chancellor,
effectively won that argument, with Saturdays
now treated for the purposes of junior doctors the
same as any other working day. Yet it is clear that,
even now, the NHS is still far from the seven-day
service that the Conservatives promised in 2015,
with significant consequences for both efficiency
and the NHS’s ability to tackle its vast backlog.
This time the problem appears to lie with con-
sultants rather than junior doctors. In an inter-
view with the BBC last week, Dr Andrew Stein, a
kidney specialist, noted that many hospitals were
like the Mary Celeste at weekends, with consult-
ants disappearing at Friday lunchtime and not re-
turning until Monday morning. Dr Stein cited one
study which found that while there were on aver-
age 86 consultants in a hospital on Wednesday,
there were just 12 on Sunday. While emergency
The G20 summit offers an important opportunity for face-to-face diplomacy
Expectations are inevitably low ahead of this
week’s G20 summit in Bali in Indonesia. The
leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies will
meet in person for the first time in three years at a
time of unprecedented geopolitical tension and
amid deep divisions between countries. Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine has caused a deep split
between Russia and its ally China on the one hand,
and western countries on the other, with many
powerful countries including India, Brazil and
South Africa effectively refusing to take sides. At
the same time, the deepening rift between
America and China over Taiwan, North Korea,
trade and human rights threatens to overshadow
necessary co-operation on other areas of global
concern and risks descending into a new Cold War.
Yet the fact that the summit is going ahead at all,
with a probable 17 of the 20 leaders attending, is to
be welcomed. The G20 may not have fulfilled the
hopes and expectations of more than a decade ago
when it was widely believed that it would displace
the G7 as the most significant annual multilateral
gathering. In 2009, under the British prime minis-
ter Gordon Brown’s leadership, the G20 played an
Literary Landscapes
The land that inspired Howards End should not be turned into a country park
At the end of Howards End, E. M. Forster’s 1910
masterpiece, the author laments that his beloved
Hertfordshire countryside, in which the novel is
set, is being inevitably consumed by “the rust” of
an ever-expanding London. So far, that has not
happened, in large part due to the dogged work of
tireless campaigners over many decades to pre-
vent the land around his childhood home of
Rooks Nest being turned over to developers.
Yet their dream of preserving “Forster country”
for posterity is under threat once again, this time
from plans by the local council to turn an area of
meadow into a landscaped “country park” com-
and urgent patients now get the care they need
over the weekend, the same cannot be said of
those requiring elective treatment.
The result is a hopelessly inefficient use of NHS
resources. As things stand, patients who could be
discharged are too often kept in hospital longer
than they need to be, adding to the pressure on
hospital beds. There are currently a record 7.1 mil-
lion on hospital waiting lists while the numbers
waiting more than 12 hours for a bed after being
admitted via A&E last month hit a new record.
Expensive equipment, representing significant
public investment, including operating theatres
and radiography machines, are under-utilised
from a significant portion of the week. As Dr Stein
noted, the NHS will not hit any target until it
operates at full capacity seven days a week.
Fixing this problem will not be easy. The ex-
treme pressures on the NHS stem in large part
from a severe staffing crisis. Spreading staff more
thinly across seven days will not necessarily make
services more efficiently. That said, more flexible
working arrangements could suit some health
workers, providing greater opportunities to
arrange shifts to fit around childcare. That in turn
could help staff retention, one of the biggest
challenges facing the NHS.
Bali Jaw-Jaw
instrumental role in stabilising the global eco-
nomy in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Nonetheless, it has since taken on an important
role as the primary international forum for resolv-
ing sovereign debt crises. At a time of renewed
global economic and financial instability, that role
has acquired an even greater urgency.
Nor should the importance of face-to-face
diplomacy be underestimated. The summit will
provide the first opportunity for President Biden
and President Xi of China to meet in person since
Mr Biden became US president in January 2021.
No one expects any breakthroughs on any area
of disagreement, but it might prevent the
relationship deteriorating further into open con-
flict by reducing risks of misunderstanding while
paving the way for future progress on areas of
mutual interest such as climate change. Mr Xi will
go into the meeting having consolidated his own
position as China’s most powerful leader since
Mao Zedong but Mr Biden will be buoyed by
his Democratic Party’s unexpectedly strong
performance in last week’s midterm elections,
which has strengthened his position.
plete with a car park and toilet block. The plan has
attracted opposition not only from local residents
but also Historic England, the Oscar-winning ac-
tress Emma Thompson, who starred in the screen
version of Howards End, and Professor Michael
Proctor, the provost of King’s College, Cambridge,
where many of Forster’s papers are kept.
Nor is Forster country by any means the only
literary landscape that needs defending. A cam-
paign is ongoing against plans to build 1,200
homes on Chawton Park Farm, near Jane Austen’s
childhood home in Alton. Lord Fellowes of West
Stafford, creator of Downton Abbey, was part of a
29
Leading articles
A potentially bigger challenge may lie in per-
suading consultants to shift to seven-day working.
One problem is that even when they are willing in
principle to take on more NHS work, the tax
system makes it unattractive in practice. The risk
is that by taking on more NHS work, consultants
will be hit by higher tax bills on their pensions. The
government has promised to address this ano-
maly, which has also driven many GPs to take
early retirement. The hope must be that Mr Hunt
takes action in this week’s autumn statement.
Nonetheless, some hospitals have shown that it
is possible with determined and creative leader-
ship for hospitals to make more efficient seven-day
use of their resources. Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hos-
pital in London, for example, has been organising
“super surgery weekends”. It recently carried out a
week’s worth of operations in one day by setting up
teams of staff like Formula One pit stop crew to
minimise turnaround time between cases. It
meant that instead of operating for 30 per cent of
their day, surgeons could operate for 90 per cent.
That is the sort of performance to which all
NHS trusts and hospitals should be aspiring, as
they tackle their backlogs. It is also a reminder to
ministers that the goal of a seven-day NHS
remains essential unfinished business.
The greatest source of tension will inevitably be
Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which may
yet lead to the summit ending without a joint com-
munique. The fact that Vladimir Putin has decid-
ed not to attend, leaving Russia to be represented
by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, removes one
potential source of embarrassment. It is right that
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president,
should have been invited to join the summit,
which he will do by videolink. But the reluctance
of many G20 members to condemn Russia’s
aggression is disappointing. Ukraine’s success on
the battlefield, including the operation to regain
control of Kherson, should reinforce the message
from western leaders that the quickest way to end
the war and restore economic stability is to isolate
Moscow and stop funding its war machine.
For Rishi Sunak, the summit will be a first
opportunity to meet many world leaders, includ-
ing Mr Biden, face-to-face since becoming prime
minister. After so much recent turmoil, Mr Sunak
needs to show the world that Britain remains a
stable and reliable ally, still willing and capable of
playing a leading role on the global stage.
successful campaign to prevent a housing estate
being built next door to a manor that provided
inspiration to Thomas Hardy for his novel The
Mayor of Casterbridge. Meanwhile, some literary
landscapes have already disappeared. The land
that inspired Richard Adams’s Watership Down is
now a housing estate outside Newbury.
Such developments should be considered acts
of cultural vandalism. The Council for the Protec-
tion of Rural England has long proposed that
landscapes of artistic interest should received
special designation similar to those of scientific
interest. It is a good idea whose time has come.
30 2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times

World
Democrats win
Senate in fresh
blow to Trump
United States
Keiran Southern Los Angeles
The Democrats defied grim predictions
of defeat to win the Senate yesterday
after a key victory in Nevada, boosting
President Biden before his showdown
with the Kremlin at the G20 summit
this week.
Catherine Cortez Masto had been
viewed as the most vulnerable Demo-
crat in the Senate and the Republicans
had been confident of flipping her seat.
She defeated her Republican challenger
Adam Laxalt, an ally of Donald Trump
who had questioned the integrity of the
2020 presidential election.
The surprise sent Republicans into a
spiral of furious infighting as each
sought to divert responsibility for the
result. Trump, who endorsed a string of
other losing candidates, blamed Mitch
uncertain as the Republicans struggle
US midterm results to piece together a slim majority.
While Democrats have retained the
The party’s hopes were dealt a signifi-
Senate, 20 seats remain undecided in
cant blow on Saturday with a surprise
the race for the House
defeat in Washington state, where a
Trump-backed election-denier was
Democrat Undecided Republican beaten by a Democrat given a small
or vacant chance of victory by pre-election polls.
Senate
Republicans had been predicting
50 49 that a “red wave” would sweep across
1 Total seats 100 America and on polling day many in
House the party were hoping to take both the
204 211 House and the Senate.
20 Total seats 435
A jubilant Schumer, 71, said the
Democrats holding the Senate was a
*Georgia is the only Senate seat undecided, pending a
runoff next month, but Kamala Harris's vote as “vindication” of the party’s agenda and
vice-president gives the Democrats the majority. Last a rejection of “anti-democratic,
updated on Sunday, November 13 at 12:43pm extremist, Maga [Make America Great
Again] Republicans”.
Schumer said the Supreme Court’s
Analysis overturning of Roe v Wade was a cru-
cial factor and the Democrats benefited

McConnell, the Republican leader in
the Senate, claiming he did not offer
them enough support.
“It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault,”
Trump wrote on his Truth Social
platform yesterday. “Spending money
to defeat great Republican candidates
instead of backing Blake Masters and
others was a big mistake.”
Trump criticised McConnell for
helping Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure
bill to pass last year and said that
“everyone despises” the senator and his
wife, Elaine Chao, a former transpor-
tation secretary the former president
refers to by a derogatory nickname.
“He blew the midterms, and every-
one despises him and his otherwise
lovely wife, Coco Chow!” Trump said.
The Democrats now have the 50
seats they need to control the Senate,
thanks to Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking
vote as vice-president. They have deliv-
ered the strongest midterm perform-
ance by a party holding the White
House in two decades, despite rampant
inflation, fears over the economy and
Biden’s own poor approval ratings.
The party, which made abortion
rights central to its pitch, could further
strengthen its position next month if
Raphael Warnock can defeat his Re-
publican opponent, Herschel Walker,
in a Senate run-off election in Georgia.
Biden is in Asia for the G20 summit
and told reporters that he had made
congratulatory calls to both Cortez
Masto and senator Chuck Schumer,
who will remain the Democratic
majority leader.
Yesterday he said the party’s success
was a “reflection of the quality of our
candidates”, adding: “They’re all run-
ning on the same programme. [There]
wasn’t anybody who wasn’t running on
what we did.”
Addressing his own future, Biden, 79,
said: “I feel good. I’m looking forward to
the next couple of years.”
As well as holding the Senate, the
Democrats could still retain control of
the House, the fate of which remains
I
t’s common for presidents
to use post-midterm election
trips abroad to escape the
bad news at home — but
President Biden will have a
spring in his step during his visit
to Asia (Keiran Southern writes).
The stronger-than-expected
showing by the Democrats
bolsters Biden just in time for his
highly anticipated face-to-face
meeting with President Xi today,
before another diplomatic duel
with Russia’s foreign minister,
Sergey Lavrov, at the G20.
The conditions looked ripe for
a disastrous election for the party
in power, but voters had other
ideas. The “red wave” predicted
by the Republicans never arrived.
Instead, Biden has found
himself in a strong position as he
prepares for the second half of
his term. How long the grace
period lasts remains to be seen:
the issues that have dogged his
presidency have not gone away.
His approval rating is hovering
around the 40 per cent mark and
dark clouds have been gathering
over the American economy.
Most significantly, the president
turns 80 next Sunday. If he
decides to run again, he will be
82 at the time of his inauguration
in January 2025, and 86 when he
finishes a second term.
Democrats thankful for his
part in defeating Donald Trump’s
Make America Great Again
movement may be keen to hand
the torch to a younger candidate
to take on the next Republican
choice for the White House.
Ron DeSantis has emerged as
Trump’s main rival and at 44 is
almost half Biden’s age.
Perhaps the key result of the
midterms for the president will
be that he gets to depart on his
own terms.
from making abortion rights central to
their campaign. “Because the Amer-
ican people turned out to elect Demo-
crats in the Senate, there’s now a fire-
wall against a nationwide abortion ban
threat that so many Republicans have
talked about,” he said.
Schumer also suggested that the Re-
publican Party’s chances were harmed
by its candidates’ willingness to echo
Trump’s baseless claims of election
fraud.
“We knew that the negativity, the
nastiness, the condoning of Donald
Trump’s big lie — and saying that the
elections were rigged when there’s no
proof of that at all — would hurt
Republicans, not help them,” Schumer
said. “But too many of them, and their
candidates, fell into those traps.”
Laxalt, like other Republicans
defeated in crucial Senate races such as
Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Blake
Masters in Arizona, was backed by
Trump and supported his unfounded
claims that the 2020 presidential
election was stolen. Throughout the
campaign the Republican establishment
had grumbled about candidate quality,
with all three seats seen as winnable.
Oz was defeated by John Fetterman,
Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor,
who campaigned despite having suf-
fered a stroke, while Masters was
beaten by the Democrat Mark Kelly in
a result called on Friday night.
Democratic control of the Senate
hands a significant boost to Biden as he
begins the second half of his first term
in office. It ensures a smoother process
for the president’s appointments to the
cabinet and to the judiciary.
After the fate of the Senate was
decided, attention now turns to the
House. It could take several days before
the outcome of enough races are
known to determine which party will
take control of the 435-seat chamber. It
appears the Republicans will squeeze
out a narrow majority, a disappointing
return for a party that had been boldly
predicting significant gains.
Blast in Istanbul
Turkey
Melanie Swan
Beril Eski Istanbul
At least six people were killed and 81
injured when a bomb exploded in a
crowded shopping street in the centre
of Istanbul yesterday.
Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s vice-president,
said that a woman dressed in military
fatigues and a black hijab, who was seen
on CCTV images leaving a bag on a
bench on Istiklal Avenue, was among
the suspects in what is believed to have
been a terrorist attack.
President Erdogan condemned the
attack as “heinous” and “treacherous”
and pledged to catch the perpetrators.
Four people died at the scene and two
in hospital, he said.
Ali Yerlikaya, the Istanbul governor,
said the explosion happened at 4.20pm.
The sound of the blast travelled the
length of the street, which runs for
almost a mile in the Taksim area of the
city and was busy with shoppers. “We
thought it was a thunder, then
understood it was something else,”
Feridun, a local shop worker, said.
Anna Rogers, an American tourist
visiting the city, said she was barely a
hundred yards from the site of the
explosion. “The entire ground shook, and
we smelled the burning immediately,”
she said. “People were screaming and
running in all directions. Fortunately, I
managed to make it to the underground
before the system was shut down.”
Another witness, Cemal Denizci, was
closer. “I saw three or four people on the
ground,” he said. “People were running
in panic. There was black smoke. The
noise was so strong, almost deafening.”
Erdogan did not specify which group
was thought to be behind the attack, but
said it had the “smell of terror”. Istiklal
Avenue was the scene of an Islamic
State suicide bomb attack in 2016 that
left five people dead.
Erdogan said as he was preparing to
catch a flight to Indonesia for the G20
summit that police and the governor’s
office were investigating the attack and
reviewing CCTV images of the area. He
vowed that those who waged terrorism
against the Turkish nation would fail.
Oktay later confirmed that the blast
was being investigated as terrorism and
said that 81 people had been injured.
A video posted online showed flames
erupting after a loud bang, with
pedestrians scattering in panic. Ambu-
the times | Monday November 14 2022 2GM 31

Italian referee boss ‘is Montmartre pétanque

exposed as drug gangster’ club faces last throw
Page 33 Page 34

King ‘took a
new mistress’
as lover cared
for her father
Spain
Simon Hunter Madrid
A former lover of King Juan Carlos of
Spain has described how his wife
confronted her “with a face like
thunder” while she was being given a
private tour of the Zarzuela royal palace
in Madrid.
Corinna Larsen, who had a five-year
affair with the former king, also claims
that he took another mistress while she
was looking after her father, who was
dying of cancer. The disclosures are the
latest in a series of embarrassing accu-
Rescuers tend a boy online soon afterwards. later died. Police are sations against the self-styled emeritus
separated from his Emergency workers searching for a woman king, 84, who abdicated in 2014.
parents by the blast on treated the injured at in military fatigues seen In a podcast titled Corinna and the
Istiklal Avenue, images the site but at least two leaving a bag on a King, Larsen, who also uses her former
of which were posted people taken to hospital bench before the blast married name of Corinna zu Sayn-
Wittgenstein-Sayn, recalls the moment
when she was confronted by the queen
in the official royal residence in front of
Juan Carlos. “Suddenly Queen Sofía
bursts into the room with a face like
thunder,” Larsen, 57, says. “She pointed
at me and said, ‘I know who you are’. I
obviously wanted to disappear into the
ground.”
Juan Carlos “seemed completely
taken aback and unable to actually
cope with this aggression”, she says in
the third of eight podcast episodes,
which is released today. She declines to
say when exactly the confrontation
took place.
The scandal over Juan Carlos’s long
history of infidelities ultimately forced
him to abdicate in favour of his son,
Felipe, and to flee Spain in 2020 for
exile in Abu Dhabi amid financial
scandals and corruption claims.
Larsen, who is twice divorced and
now lives in England, also claims that
Juan Carlos suggested that they get
married, despite him still being married

kills and maims Sunday shoppers to Sofía. In January 2009, five years
after they had met, he presented her
with a huge, emerald-cut diamond ring
at a candlelit dinner. “I always took this
more as a sign of how much I meant to
“countering terrorism”, Karine Jean- him,” the German-Danish business-
Istanbul Behind the story Pierre, the White House press secretary, woman explains. “It was more symbolic
Macka T U R KE Y
said. President Macron of France than I would say binding.”
Park

S
hortly after the three strongest rivals. territory was wiped tweeted in Turkish: “We share your pain But that same year the affair began to
Taksim
Vodafone bombing in There are echoes of out in Syria, Turkish . . . We are with you in the fight against sour. In August Larsen’s father, Finn
Park
Stadium central Istanbul 2015, when the AKP security services terrorism.” Greece, Pakistan and Italy Bönning Larsen, passed away, having
TARLABASI yesterday lost 69 seats and its continue to pick off also expressed solidarity. been nursed by his daughter as he was
l millions of absolute majority in the group’s leaders. Turkey was hit by deadly bombings dying of cancer.
kla
Isti e AYAPASA error codes flashed up parliament after There have been between 2015 and 2017, carried out both “When I arrived in Madrid not long
Av Bosphorus on computer and political violence, signs of a tentative by Islamic State group and outlawed thereafter, in a state of real grief and
Bomb explodes smartphone screens culminating in a rapprochement Kurdish groups pushing for an inde- despair, the king somehow in a conver-
in shopping area 500 feet
across Turkey nationwide power cut, between Erdogan and pendent state. sation mentioned something about me
(Oliver Moody writes). the hostage-taking of Kurdish moderates Travel advice from the Foreign not having been available much during
Facebook, Twitter, a prosecutor by over the past few Office in London states that “terrorists those eight months when my father was
lances and police officers arrived as Instagram and Kurdish militants and weeks but there is no are very likely to try to carry out attacks in his last stage of cancer,” she explains
bystanders tended to the wounded on YouTube were taken the bombing of a shortage of rival in Turkey”. Most of the attacks have in the podcast. “And that he’d been
the street, covered in shattered glass. offline and a reporting pro-Kurdish party’s factions keen to spoil taken place in the southeast of the seeing someone else.”
Turkey’s media watchdog imposed a ban was imposed. rally in Diyarbakir. the talks. country, in the capital, Ankara, but The release of the podcast coincides
temporary ban on reporting of the President Erdogan No one claimed Erdogan flies to the Istanbul has also been targeted. with a legal battle being fought in the
explosion, preventing broadcasters and his AK party responsibility for G20 summit today as In 2016 the ancient city at the cross- High Court in London brought by
from showing videos of the blast or its (AKP) have reason to yesterday’s explosion a potential mediator roads of Europe and Asia suffered Larsen against the emeritus king. She
aftermath. Access to social media was be nervous about the but suspicion will fall between Ukraine and several attacks, including one at the claims that Juan Carlos put her under
restricted in Turkey after the explosion consequences of the on the usual suspects. Russia, but the Ataturk airport which left 45 people illegal surveillance in Britain as part of
but Turkish media did circulate images apparent terrorist Islamic State has re-emergence of dead and more than 230 badly injured. a long-running row over an alleged gift
of the woman leaving the bag on the attack. Erdogan is been targeting Turkey terrorist threat he In the same year, an Isis attack in the of €65 million.
bench. The street was closed by security facing a presidential since it intervened in faces at home at Sultanahmet district of the city targeted Juan Carlos and others named in the
forces last night. Five prosecutors have election next summer, the Syrian civil war. home may only tourists, with 12 people killed. A mass claim have denied any wrongdoing. He
been assigned to investigate, the state- when polls suggest he While the conflict harden his stance as shooting in Istanbul on New Year’s Day, is appealing against a High Court ruling
run Anadolu news agency said. could lose a run-off has been quieter since he seeks to win 2017, killed 39 people and wounded 79 in March that he is not entitled to
The United States stood “shoulder- against any of his Islamic State’s re-election. at the Reina nightclub, where hundreds “sovereign immunity” as a member of
to-shoulder” with its Nato ally in had been seeing in the new year. the Spanish royal family.
32 2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times

World
pounded the invaders
Kherson’s joy as Russian across the Dnipro, the dull
thud of explosions
reign of terror is ended accompanying the sound of
celebrations.
“We all knew that we
Kherson residents showed
their gratitude to the
liberators as symbols of the
city’s freedom were displayed
in the streets yesterday
candlelight. After the chaos
that followed Russia’s
surrender of the city, the
Ukrainian authorities
moved swiftly to try snd
establish order.
Soldiers could be seen
patrolling the streets and a
curfew was imposed from
5pm. Two suspected looters
were tied up by locals.
grab women who were Their thirst for liberation
walking by.”
Others described an
quenched, the residents of
Kherson are now desperate
atmosphere reminiscent of
Stalinist terror. “I would
weigh my words carefully
to contact loved ones. There
has been no phone or
internet coverage in the city
Yoga guru’s
cure claims
are a stretch,
says watchdog
India
Amrit Dhillon Delhi
A billionaire yoga guru close to the
ruling party in India has been ordered
to stop selling five “cures” for chronic
ailments based on ayurveda, the
traditional system of medicine.
Baba Ramdev’s company, Patanjali,
claims the medicines can treat diabetes,
glaucoma, hypertension, goitre and
high cholesterol. But the Indian Medi-
cal Association has been contesting his
claims for years, and the authorities in
the northern state of Uttarakhand,
where Patanjali is based, have ordered
the company to stop production of the
drugs, accusing it of “misleading”
advertisements.
A household name in India, Ramdev,
56, claimed in 2020 that one of his
concoctions could cure Covid-19. His
latest brush with the medical author-
ities follows outrage over adverts
suggesting that Patanjali’s eye drops for
glaucoma could also treat cataracts,

A
shout of joy
went up as the
captured
Russian Grad
rocket launcher
was dragged through
Kherson’s main street by a
Ukrainian military truck
(Marc Bennetts writes).
The strategically
important city in southern
Ukraine was liberated from
eight months of Russian
occupation on Friday as
President Putin’s invading
army was forced to retreat
across the Dnipro river.
The arrival of the troops
sparked wild celebrations.
“We all had tears in our
eyes as we approached
Kherson,” said a soldier
who goes by the call sign
Rybak. “We were treated
like superstars when we got
here.”
On Freedom Square, a
sole trumpeter played the
Ukrainian national anthem
to a crowd waving the
country’s blue and yellow
flags. But Kyiv’s forces have
little time to enjoy their
hero’s welcome: flush with
success and armed with
western weapons, it is
now seeking to dislodge
Putin’s forces from their
positions on the left bank of
the Dnipro.
Failure could lead to
stalemate and allow Russia
to redeploy forces to the
Donbas region, where its
army is trying to seize the
key town of Bakhmut.
All day yesterday,
Ukrainian artillery
might not get out of here before I spoke to anyone for almost a week after double vision and night blindness.
alive,” said Rybak. “But this because you never knew Russia cut communications The company responded: “All the
is our land and these are who could inform on you, if with the outside world. products and medicines made by
our people. I can’t imagine you said something pro- Crowds gathered all day Patanjali follow prescribed standards . . .
what they’ve been through.” Ukrainian,” said Alexander to try and hook up to with the highest research and quality in
Everyone here has a story Saveliev, a businessman. Starlink communication the ayurveda tradition, with the help of
to tell of life under Russia’s Before they left, Russia’s terminals set up across the more than 500 scientists.”
rule of terror. “A drunk army blew up the city’s city. The terminals, Doctors have long expressed alarm
Russian soldier threatened television tower. Its remains provided by Elon Musk’s over the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s
to detonate a lie twisted in the central SpaceX company, have promotion of ayurveda treatments as
grenade in my park. They also cut the proven invaluable to one of India’s “cultural achievements”.
premises unless I electricity and water. Yet Ukraine’s military. They are Critics say that the BJP’s desire to assert
converted my residents were defiant. now in massive demand by the cultural pre-eminence of Hindu
prices from “Death to our civilians. “I need to be let culture going back to ancient times has
hryvna to enemies!” my mum know that we are created a permissive environment for
roubles,” said toasted doing OK,” said a woman. outlandish claims.
a café owner. Dmytro, Despite hardship, spirits Millions of Indians still rely on tradi-
“They would 25, as his were high. Even the threat tional medicine because the cost of
stand friends of Russian missiles could going to a doctor is beyond their reach.
outside and family not dampen things. “We’re The pandemic also gave the alter-
with drank done being frightened,” said native medicine industry a boost as
their moonshine Andriy, 46, waving a flag. modern medicine struggled initially to
guns alcohol at “We’ve been through so treat patients. Ayurveda drug compa-
and home by much.” nies reported $18 billion in sales in
2020, four times the figure in 2014.

Isis funds terror with ‘Tinder’ love scams

South Africa
Jane Flanagan Cape Town
At face value it looks like one of many
romance scams that plague the world of
internet dating: lovestruck singles
strike up conversations or share inti-
mate pictures online, only to be faced
with demands for money or black-
mailed when the conversation sours.
However, con artists behind a new
wave of “Tinder terror” which has
snared lonely hearts on South Africa’s
version of the dating app are not your
typical love rats or fraudsters but
agents of Islamic State, which is using
the proceeds to fund its atrocities and
insurgency campaigns across Africa.
Fake profiles using photographs of
little-known actors or models are being
used to draw in victims, said Nischal
Mewalall, head of the South African
Banking Risk Information Centre,
adding that the group has set up bases
in Africa’s most industrialised economy
to drive fundraising and recruitment.
The watchdog has warned the public
to beware scams that typically develop
once conmen move the “dating” off of-
ficial sites. The trend mirrors concern
that South Africa has become the
unwitting engine of Isis’s renewal since
its defeat in the Middle East. The UN
security council reported that its moni-
toring team had “detected a number of
transactions of more than $1 million
being channelled through South Africa
by Isis leadership to affiliates in Africa”,
including terrorists in Mozambique
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Martin Ewi, from the Institute for
Security Studies in Pretoria, told the
council that Isis had “expanded its
influence beyond measure” into Africa,
the likely “future of the caliphate”.
The US Treasury announced sanc-
tions last week against four “senior
members” of a Isis cell operating in the
country that was of “emerging import-
ance for fund transfers from Isis leader-
ship to Isis affiliates across Africa”.
Last month the US took the unusual
step of warning of a possible terrorist
attack in a business district of Johan-
nesburg where the first post-pandemic
Pride march was due to be held. The
Foreign Office echoed it, warning Brit-
ons to avoid large gatherings.
American spies told media sources
that chatter from a seven-strong Isis
cell had triggered the alert — which
drew a testy response from President
Ramaphosa, who accused them of
causing pointless “panic” and “without
having any type of discussion with us”.
Sources from his intelligence service
said the warning had “disrupted” their
own surveillance.
No attack materialised, but that has
done little to end unease. The failure by
the Americans to share intelligence re-
flects a lack of confidence in South
Africa’s leadership, analysts said.
Africa has proved ideal for Isis to
regroup thanks to it wealth of natural
resources, tens of millions of citizens
living in poverty, weak institutions and
porous borders. The coalition forces
that crippled Isis’s operations in Syria
and Iraq did not pursue its fighters
when they fled south, leaving Africa to
“bear the consequences”, Ewi told the
security council in August.
South Africa’s excellent inter-
national links and communica-
tions infrastructure make it an
ideal haven, even more so
since its security structures
were deliberately enfeebled
to make looting of the state
easier during the presidency
of Jacob Zuma.
South Africa’s police service
has been left with a single officer dedi-
cated to analysing data seized in terror
raids, sources told investigators from
the Global Initiative Against Transna-
tional Organised Crime.
Extortion and kidnap-for-ransom
cases have surged. In the first six
months of 2022, an average of 1,143 kid-
nappings were reported to police, dou-
ble the monthly average of the same
period last year.
It seems increasingly unlikely that
South Africa can avoid joining Turkey,
Yemen, Syria and Panama on a “grey
list” of the international global finan-
cial watchdog that sets standards to
combat money laundering and terror-
ism financing. The label would
make it harder for
Ramaphosa to
attract foreign
investment.
An early clue to
South Africa’s ap-
peal to extrem-
ists was the case
The Samantha
Lewthwaite case
turned the focus
on South Africa
of Samantha Lewthwaite, a British con-
vert to Islam and widow of one of the 7/7
London bombers. She is suspected of
having helped al-Shabaab plot its 2014
attack onthe Westgate Mall in Nairobi
in which 67 people were killed. She was
discovered to have been living in South
Africa since at least 2008, but has not
been traced since 2013 when Interpol
issued an arrest notice.
A number of South Africans have
trained at camps in the Middle East,
according to intelligence sources, and
dozens are fighting over in a worsening
insurgency in northern Mozambique
where Isis has seized on a pocket of con-
flict to entrench its influence.
The mayhem threatens a region that
has so far been left mostly unscathed by
Islamist extremism.
Ramaphosa’s deployment of troops
to support efforts against jihadists in
Mozambique and the Democratic Re-
public of Congo also increases South
Africa’s risk of becoming a target for
terror as well as its engine room.
Jasmine Opperman, an expert on
extremism and political violence, said
conditions were now in place to make a
terrorist attack “inevitable” in South
Africa.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Self-portrait of
artist reviled
by the Nazis to
sell for €29m
Germany
Oliver Moody Berlin
A brooding self-portrait by a leading
Weimar-era painter who fled the Nazis
is projected to smash the record for an
artwork sold at auction in Germany,
with an estimate of up to €29 million.
Max Beckmann’s Selbstbildnis
gelb-rosa (Self-Portrait in Yellow and
Pink), created in 1943, could sell for
double the existing German record,
which is believed to be the €14 million
paid for a 15th-century Chinese bronze
sculpture at an auction in Stuttgart last
summer.
A sale of this magnitude would be a
spectacular coup for the German art
market, which has long been overshad-
owed by its more illustrious competi-
tors in New York, London and Paris.
Beckmann rose to prominence in the
1920s but left Germany in 1937 after the
Nazi regime exhibited several of his
paintings at the notorious “degenerate
art” show in Munich, an attack on the
Top referee ‘unmasked as drug boss’
Italy
Tom Kington Rome
A senior official at Italy’s association of
football referees has been accused of
living a double life as an international
drug trafficker nicknamed “Rambo”
who helped to smuggle tonnes of
marijuana from Spain and threatened
to torture his rivals.
The arrest of Rosario D’Onofrio, 42,
has sent shockwaves through the
National Association of Referees,
which appointed him last year to run its
national disciplinary department,
where he sanctioned misconduct by
Italy’s top professional referees.
Magistrates allege he was also a
member of a gang which shipped six
tonnes of marijuana from Spain.
Wiretaps suggest that D’Onofrio
handled distribution of the drugs in
2GM
experimental aesthetics of the 20th
century.
During the Second World War he
and his second wife, Quappi, found
themselves stuck in Amsterdam after
the US rejected their visa applications
and the city was occupied by the
Wehrmacht in 1940.
Bernd Schultz, founder of the
Grisebach auction house in Berlin,
which is selling the self-portrait, said it
reflected the “great inner strain and
pressure” the artist had been under at
the time as he sold his paintings in
secret and maintained contacts with
the anti-Nazi resistance.
“He had withdrawn into himself for
protection, so to speak, but this gave
rise to an enormous tension, rigour and
strength,” Schultz said. “Beckmann is
one of the great artists of
self-portraiture like Dürer, Rembrandt,
and in the 20th century, Francis Bacon,
and that plays a very particular role in
his work.”
After Beckmann’s death in 1950 the
northern Italy, posing as a soldier in
army fatigues to bluff his way through
checkpoints during Italy’s Covid lock-
down, with his Volvo loaded with drugs,
and later boasting: “If you are going to
do something, you need to do it well.”
He earned the nickname Rambo
thanks to the fake uniform; he had
served a short stint in the army but he
was dismissed after it emerged that he
had faked his qualifications to enlist, in-
vestigators said.
Charged with funnelling proceeds
from drug sales back to suppliers in
Spain, D’Onofrio allegedly set up a
money-laundering system through a
Chinese contact in Milan.
Praised as a tough crook by accom-
plices, he threatened to use electricity
to torture a member of the gang ac-
cused of stealing profits, one said.
D’Onofrio’s group is also accused of
painting remained in his family’s
possession for more than 40 years until
Schultz helped them to sell it to a
collector in Switzerland.
Hergen Wöbken, an economist and
art market expert who runs the
Institute for Strategy Development
consultancy in Berlin, said the auction
was an “outstanding” moment for
Germany.
Usually the most valuable German
artworks change hands through
America or Britain: despite the
country’s rich cultural history and lively
contemporary art scene, it accounts for
scarcely 2 per cent of global sales. In a
smuggling marijuauna through check-
points in hearses carrying corpses.
In a statement, the association of ref-
erees said it was “surprised and dis-
mayed” at discovering D’Onofrio’s ac-
tivities outside the office. Promoted
from the role of regional disciplinary
boss to national head in March last
year, he was also quickly named as the
organisation’s top official.
The embarrassment for the associa-
tion grew as it emerged D’Onofrio had
been caught in May 2020 in possession
of 40kg of marijuana and given a two-
year prison sentence. He was under
house arrest at the time of his promo-
tion, and was able to attend work meet-
ings only thanks to permission from a
judge. The association said that it had
been kept in the dark by D’Onofrio and
was the victim of a “real betrayal” by its
star manager.
typical year the American art tycoon
Larry Gagosian earns about twice as
much as all 700 German galleries put
together.
Wöbken said this was partly because
rich Germans had traditionally tended
not to flaunt their wealth through
big-ticket art purchases in the same
way as their counterparts from other
countries. “They won’t necessarily buy
a big painting from [Gerhard] Richter,
for example, and hang it up in their
living room and say: Look, that was
€8 million,” he said.
The Berlin Wall also played its part,
holding back the city’s emergence as a
Refugee who inspired Hanks
film dies on Paris airport seat
France
Charles Bremner Paris
An Iranian who spent 18 years as a
“castaway” at Paris Charles de Gaulle
airport, inspiring the film The Terminal,
has died on a bench there.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, 78, suffered
an apparent heart attack in Terminal
2F, after returning recently to the site
where he had been marooned 34 years
earlier after being refused entry to
Britain and without papers to remain in
Europe. At the time of his death he was
carrying several thousand euros in
cash, French media said.
A dignified figure who claimed to
have a Scottish mother, Nasseri became
a media celebrity, giving interviews and
33
World
Max Beckmann was in exile when
he painted Self-Portrait in Yellow
and Pink in 1943. The artist fled
Nazi Germany in 1937 as some
of his works were about to be
ridiculed in the Nazis’ exhibition
of “degenerate art” in Munich
serious global player for decades after
the war. “Berlin simply isn’t that big and
it’s by no means as international [as
London or Paris],” Wöbken said.
“Because of its history there simply
wasn’t anything happening in Berlin
until 30 years ago, but that means the
city still has gigantic potential to catch
up with the other cities.”
Yet sales have more than doubled
over the past decade as the elite
German galleries and auction houses
become increasingly competitive on
the international circuit.
There have been some suggestions
that they are profiting from the
labyrinth of customs rules and export
duties at Britain’s borders since Brexit,
although experts said that in practice
these would not unduly bother the
biggest collectors and dealers.
Five years ago Grisebach set a
national record with another Beck-
mann painting, Die Ägypterin (The
Egyptian Woman), which went for
€5.5 million. The self-portrait, which
goes under the hammer on December 1,
is expected to sell for at least five times
that sum.
“The German art market brought in
$1.5 billion last year — just imagine that
for a moment,” Schultz, Grisebach’s
founder, said. “That shows there is a
great deal of nomadic money in
circulation.
“Right now, if you have the right art-
works, as we have with the Beckmann
or the [Otto] Dix painting we sold a year
ago, with sellers from Paris and Milan
and buyers from overseas, it’s going off
like a rocket, and there really is no
upper limit.”
writing a diary at his red plastic bench
in Terminal 1, the airport’s original
1970s building. Staff, who called him Sir
Alfred, helped him to subsist. When the
French relented and gave him refugee
status in 1999, he refused to leave,
saying that Britain, where he had once
studied, could be his only destination.
After a British film on Nasseri, Steven
Spielberg used the story as the basis for
his 2004 feature in which Hanks played
an eastern European refugee stranded
at Kennedy airport, New York.
In poor mental health, Nasseri was
persuaded to accept medical care in
France in 2006 and subsequently lived
in a shelter and hotels, thanks to his film
earnings.
34 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

World

Ardern’s re-election
challenges facing New Zealand, billow-
ing youth and gang crime in a country
that thinks of itself safer than most has
alarmed many — and much of the
increase have occurred on Ardern’s

hopes risk being watch. Ram raids are up by 500 per

cent. Gun crime in Auckland, the larg-
est city, has increased by more than
50 per cent in a decade, much of it

killed with kindness attributed to the arrival of Australian

New Zealand
Bernard Lagan Sydney
For a year Jacinda Ardern has been
trying to find time to get married — an
event she now accepts is unlikely before
the election due next year.
“We had loosely said this summer,
but then we were just too slow and our
friends are too busy, so we’ve probably
left it a little bit too late,” Ardern, 42,
said of her long-delayed plans to marry
the film-maker Clarke Gayford, father
of her daughter Neve Te Aroha, four.
“Barring something spontaneous, I
can’t see how that’s going to happen.”
It was an uncharacteristically wistful
moment for the usually carefully orga-
nised woman who soared from back-
room obscurity five years ago to lead
the Labour Party into office. Only
seven weeks before that poll, her dispir-
ited predecessor pleaded with her to
take over after a decade in opposition.
The younger daughter of devout,
small-town Mormons (she renounced
the faith in her early 20s, favouring
equal rights for LGBT people) Ardern
made her name on the left when, upon
her sweeping re-election in 2020, she
secured New Zealand’s first majority
government in 20 years and the world’s
most openly gay parliament, and one in
which women held half the 120 seats.
Yet two years on her government is
eyeing defeat. One of the nation’s most
watched polls this week put Labour
support at its lowest since Ardern
became leader, with the real prospect
that her government will be rejected.
Close colleagues have turned against
her, notably Winston Peters, a wily
veteran who was Ardern’s deputy when
his populist New Zealand First Party
formed a coalition with Labour. “Infla-
tion and cost of living rises are not sus-
ceptible to the prime minister’s pleas for
kindness and compassion,” Peters, 77,
who has been in parliament for much of
the past 40 years told The Times. “In so
Clarke Gayford and Jacinda Ardern may find more time to marry after the election
many areas Labour and the prime min-
ister’s lack of competence are obvious.”
Peters’s views reflect those who
believe the qualities that elevated
Ardern internationally — her civility,
empathy and compassion, especially
after the massacre of 51 Muslim wor-
shippers in 2019 — whilst admirable,
fall short of the harder leadership the
nation now needs. “This government
has squandered political capital failing
to understand the Clinton dictum, ‘It’s
the economy, stupid’, ” Peters said.
While not matching the economic
biker gangs.
High levels of truancy allied to the
young age of many of the raiders,
emboldened by the knowledge that
youth sentencing laws provided mild
consequences, have led to widespread
perception that Ardern is soft on crime.
“That’s one of the reasons why
Ardern is becoming unpopular,” Dr
Greg Newbold, emeritus professor of
criminology at the University of
Canterbury told The Times. “Because
this whole kindness thing means
people can do what the hell they want,
especially young offenders. That’s the
perception.”
She is also the victim of her own aspi-
ration, having undertaken to defeat
homelessness and lift children out of
poverty. After promising to build
100,000 extra state houses for the poor
— 10,000 by 2021 — the government
had produced a mere 1,366 by July.
Instead, thousands of homeless
people are crammed into motels with
the government paying the bills, while
the numbers of families on housing
waiting lists has soared by 400 per cent.

to painters and poets. Today, it is

FROM OUR awash in opulence. On one side
of the pétanque ground is an

CORRESPONDENT estate agency selling a

It could be the final throw for a pétanque
club in fashionable Montmartre where prince
and pauper have been able to rub shoulders
shops across the area. National
Adam Sage newspapers have taken up the
issue and a frenzied debate has
PA R I S broken out. Detractors depict the
club as an elitist bastion at odds
with the working-class origins of
pétanque. Others describe it as
the defender of popular culture
under attack from Anne Hidalgo,
the capital’s socialist mayor.
“They have been selling off
pétanque pitches all over Paris
four-bedroomed house in
the adjoining avenue for
€3.75 million. On the other is an
ultra-chic hotel where the suites
cost from €690 a night.
Claude Lelouche, the renowned
film-maker, lives up the road.
Nevertheless, Liogier insisted
that the pétanque club had
remained true to the identity
of a game that is a quintessential
part of the French identity.
Membership is €70 a year. “It is
the one place in Montmartre
where the unemployed can rub
shoulders with chief executives.”
Not everyone agrees, however.
La République de Montmartre, a
local association founded in the
early 20th century to promote
“art, philanthropy and tradition”,
says that the pétanque pitches are
“essentially reserved for

A
s the boules rolled and
the drinks flowed,
Maxime Liogier
prepared for an
evening of pétanque
at his club on the heights
of Montmartre in the north
of the French capital.
“Pétanque represents the
French spirit of sharing and
conviviality,” he said, putting
down a glass of white wine. “It is
a game everyone can play and
which brings everyone together.”
In recent weeks, however,
togetherness has been in short
supply in Montmartre following
the disclosure that Le Club Lepic
Abbesses Pétanque, or Le Clap
as it is more commonly known,
could be expelled from the
ground it has occupied since 1971.
Given that pétanque is to the
French what village cricket is to
the English, the threat was always
likely to cause consternation. Yet
feelings have been running
particularly high because of the
club’s status. Not only is it the
biggest in Paris, with eight
pitches and 257 members, but it
has the highest profile. Posters
warning of an end to pétanque in
Montmartre have appeared in
because they need to raise money celebrities. The other people of
to pay off the council’s debts,” Montmartre are physically
said Liogier, himself a journalist. banned from going in.”
Le Claps’s ground is the only The association has asked the
one left in this bit of northern council for permission to take
Paris, he said. “If it were to close, over the site, which it says it
I think people would just have to wants to turn into a public
stay at home in front of the square. There would be a
television,” said Nicolas Jammes, vegetable garden, along with
the vice-chairman. dances in the summer and an ice
The club is situated on rink in winter. Pétanque would
municipal land off Le continue, although on a
Passage de la smaller scale.
Sorcière (Witch’s The council must
Passage), so decide by the
called because spring what to
an old lady do, but the
used to club’s
chase away members are
children warning that
with her should they
broomstick in lose the right
the 19th to play
century, or so pétanque on
the story goes. the site, there
In those days, the will be no respite
area was covered in for the mayor.
scrubland, although Their determination
by the start of the 20th is well known. In 1991,
century Montmartre was the Jacques Chirac, then mayor of
artistic heart of France, home Paris, tried to build a six-storey
car park on the land. He backed
Le Clap has been a feature of life in down when the pétanque players
Montmartre for generations chained themselves to trees.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
world markets (Friday’s close, change on the week)
FTSE 100
7,318.04 (-16.80)
8,000
7,500
7,000
6,500
Oct 14 21 28 Nov 4 11
Show time Nicholas Lyons, who is taking a sabbatical from the chairmanship of the FTSE 100 insurer Phoenix Group, became the 694th London Lord Mayor on Saturday
Bahamas authorities join More sacked
inquiries on FTX failure by Twitter
Officers look into possible crimes at crypto exchange
Ben Martin, Callum Jones
Police and regulators in the Bahamas
are investigating whether “criminal
misconduct occurred” at the FTX
cryptocurrency exchange before its
abrupt implosion.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the American
founder of the group, which is based in
the Bahamas, was reported by Bloom-
berg to have been interviewed by the
island’s authorities on Saturday. The
Royal Bahamas Police did not comment
on the report.
However, the islands’ police force did
say that, “in light of the collapse of
FTX globally and the provisional
liquidation of FTX Digital Markets Ltd,
a team of financial investigators from
the Financial Crimes Investigation
Branch are working closely with the
Bahamas Securities Commission to
commodities
Dow Jones Gold Brent crude (6pm)
33,747.86 (+1,344.64) $1,764.68 (+90.32) $ $95.66 (-2.49)
35,000 2,000
32,500 1,800
30,000 1,600
27,500 1,400
Oct 14 21 28 Nov 4 11 Oct 14 21 28 Nov 4 11 Oct 14 21 28
investigate if any criminal misconduct counsel, said on Saturday that “un-
occurred”. authorised transactions” had been
On Friday, FTX sent shockwaves identified and that FTX was “investi-
through the crypto industry by filing for gating abnormalities with wallet
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the movements”.
United States. It emerged last week that John J Ray III, the restructuring
American authorities are investigating. expert who on Friday replaced Bank-
Rumours have swirled about the man-Fried as chief executive, also said
whereabouts of Bankman-Fried since the exchange was “co-ordinating with
the crisis engulfed FTX, prompting the law enforcement and relevant regula-
30-year-old to deny that he had left the tors”. Ray is best known for having
Bahamas for Argentina. worked on the 2001 bankruptcy of
There is speculation about unusual Enron, which became embroiled in an
withdrawals from the exchange, with accounting scandal.
hundreds of millions of dollars thought FTX was set up by Bankman-Fried in
to have been moved off FTX in the 2019 and it quickly became one of the
chaos of its bankruptcy, amid concerns world’s biggest crypto exchanges. The
that the business may have been business, once worth $32 billion, unrav-
hacked. Nansen, an analytics firm, said elled in spectacular fashion last week
there had been $659 million of outflows after users rushed to pull out their
over 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. money. There had been worries about
Ryne Miller, the group’s general the relationship between Alameda
Business
currencies
£/$
$ $1.1795 (+0.0498)
120
100
80
60
Nov 4 11 Oct 14 21 28 Nov 4
Research, Bankman-Fried’s trading
firm, and FTX after it emerged that
Alamada had big holdings of FTT, a
coin issued by the exchange. Crypto
transfers to Alameda were forbidden by
FTX’s terms of service, which reassured
users that all of the assets in their
accounts would “at all times remain
with you and shall not transfer to” its
trading business.
Concerns about FTX grew after
Binance, the world’s biggest crypto
exchange, run by Changpeng Zhao,
Bankman-Fried’s main rival, said it
would sell its FTT holdings, which were
worth more than $500 million.
A leaked document suggests that
FTX had only about $900 million of
liquid assets on the day before its
bankruptcy and liabilities of almost
$9 billion, according to the Financial
Times.
35
£/€
$ €1.1414 (+0.0019) ¤
1.300 1.300
1.200 1.200
1.100 1.100
1.000 1.000
11 Oct 14 21 28 Nov 4 11
Britain ‘risks
losing out’ on
green energy
Emily Gosden Energy Editor
Sir Dave Lewis has complained of
“frustratingly slow” talks with the
government over an £18 billion plan to
generate power in the Sahara and cable
it to Britain. The former Tesco chief
executive has warned that the energy
could be routed elsewhere unless
ministers commit to the scheme.
Lewis, 57, is executive chairman of
the Xlinks project to build a 2,400-mile
cable linking new wind and solar farms
in Morocco to Britain, delivering elec-
tricity to seven million homes.
Xlinks says it can complete the
project by 2030 if it gets a contract from
the government next year guarantee-
ing consumers will pay a fixed price of
£48 per megawatt-hour (in 2012
money) for the power it delivers.
Lewis said: “The critical thing for us is
getting a timetable from the govern-
ment so that we can plan the project
around it. There’ll come a point, which
is, if the UK government can’t decide, as
a business we’ll have to think about
what alternatives there are, because
there’s an awful lot of interest in provid-
ing this energy to other countries.” He
said Xlinks had been discussing the
project with the government for a year.
A government spokesman said: “We
continue to support more renewable
projects and are in early stage discus-
sions with Xlinks about their proposal.”
Callum Jones
US Business Correspondent
Twitter culled thousands of its con-
tractors at the weekend, according to
reports, a week after halving its full-
time workforce following Elon Musk’s
$44 billion takeover.
Some people realised that they no
longer worked for the social media
group when they struggled to log on to
its computers.
About 4,400 of the company’s 5,500
contracted employees were affected by
the cuts, Platformer, the technology
newsletter, reported. Twitter did not
respond to a request for comment.
“The thing that’s craziest about
Twitter laying off their contractors one
week later than their [full-time staff] is
they did it in the exact same way they
were criticised before — by locking us
out instead of telling us we were fired,”
Melissa Ingle, a former data scientist at
Twitter, wrote. “They didn’t learn
anything. Or don’t care.”
36 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Business

Need to know
1
Most ethnic minority groups in
the UK still suffer from a
substantial pay gap compared
with white employees, research by
the Institute for Fiscal Studies has
found, warning of “clear”
discrimination in Britain’s labour
market.
2
Soundproof holes for otters
and avoiding launches during
nesting season for seabirds
will protect wildlife in the
Shetland Islands when rockets
start blasting off from SaxaVord
Spaceport, Britain’s first “vertical”
launchpad, next year.
Morocco could throw UK a
Plans for a subsea
power link are backed
by Sir Dave Lewis, who
tells Emily Gosden
why they are achievable
When Sir Dave Lewis stood down from
Tesco in 2020 after six years in charge
of Britain’s biggest supermarket, he
wasn’t sure what to do next. “The idea
was to take a year off to reflect on:
Alverdiscott in Devon. Such big ambi-
tions come with a commensurately Out of Africa
large price tag: £18 billion (already up
from £16 billion when the project was
announced a year ago). “About half of
that is cable.” Yet Lewis claims this cash
will be “easy” for the company to raise
from private investors, as long as it can
first secure a contract from the govern-
ment guaranteeing that consumers will
pay a fixed price for the power it
generates. It’s seeking £48 per mega-
watt-hour (in 2012 money), much less
than the £92.50/MWh Hinkley Point C
nuclear deal but higher than the £37.35/

3
A Japanese company plans to
become the first private
enterprise to do business on
the moon, as a mission launches
this month to symbolically “mine”
and sell moon dust to Nasa. The
where did I want to try and make a
contribution? Where did I want to
spend my time?”
A fortuitous introduction to Simon
Morrish, the serial entrepreneur,
yielded the unexpected answer: build-
MWh agreed for the latest British off-
shore wind projects.
Why should Britain pay extra to
import wind and solar power from
overseas instead of building more gen-
eration at home? According to Lewis,

token fee paid to Ispace for the
dust will open up a new world of
commercialisation of the moon’s
surface.
“
ing a 2,400-mile power link from
Morocco to Britain.
“During the lockdown, he and I
spoke a lot,” Lewis said. “We went for
walks in Richmond Park, he introduced

4
Chefs are turning to sharing
menus to deter hard-up
customers from cutting back
on starters and desserts. Spending
in restaurants has fallen by 14 per
cent, from £25.38 to £21.80 per
head, in part because customers
are having main courses only.
Cafés report a rise in spending as
more people go out for a coffee
instead of having a meal.
me to the idea. I didn’t know anything at
all about energy at that point. I was
completely captivated by the idea.”
The Xlinks project, which Morrish
founded in 2019, aims to plug Britain
into the huge green energy potential of
north Africa.
“Morocco is one of the best places in
the world to be generating renewable
energy from, because not only do you
get the sun in the Sahara every day, you
get the wind in the evening,” Lewis said.
‘The great thing about
Morocco is there is no
intermittency effect’
“geographically the North Sea is quite
small. When the wind doesn’t blow, the
wind doesn’t blow. So the intermittency
effect of renewable energy in our geo-
graphy is a problem. The great thing

5
Police and regulators in the
Bahamas are investigating
whether “criminal misconduct
occurred” at the FTX
cryptocurrency exchange before
its implosion. Sam Bankman-
Fried, founder of the group, which
is based in the Bahamas, is said to
have been interviewed by the
authorities this weekend.
He was sufficiently enthralled that he
invested personally in the project and
became its executive chairman.
Xlinks aims to build seven gigawatts
of solar capacity, 3.5 gigawatts of wind
and five gigawatts of battery stor-
age in Morocco’s Guelmim-
Oued Noun region. Combined,
Lewis said that should enable it
to reliably deliver about 3.6 gi-
gawatts of electricity — enough
about bringing the energy from
Morocco is there is no intermittency
effect. It’s available every day.”
Unlike Britain’s existing subsea
power links with Europe, the Moroccan
cable would operate in only one
direction. “This is not an intercon-
nector, this is a dedicated support
to the UK. It’s not linked to the
Moroccan grid.”
Lewis acknowledged that recent

6
Sir Dave Lewis has
complained of “frustratingly
slow” talks with the
government over an £18 billion
plan to generate renewable power
in Morocco and cable it to Britain.
The former Tesco chief executive
has warned that the energy could
be routed elsewhere unless
ministers commit to the Xlinks
scheme.
to power seven million British attacks on the Nord Stream Rus-
homes — for “on average a sian gas pipelines had height-
little bit more than 20 ened concern about the
hours a day”. resilience of subsea
It plans to transport energy infrastructure,
the electricity to Brit- but he said this project Solar, wind and battery
ain via the world’s was more secure. facilities would be built
longest subsea power “[Nord Stream] was at Guelmim-Oued Noun
link, snaking around laying on the seabed,
the Iberian coastline it wasn’t buried.”
and past France to Xlinks is intended to 700 metres. “Nobody can give you abso- possible thanks to advances in high-
connect into the comprise two 1.8-gi- lute certainty on any piece of the UK’s voltage direct current (HVDC) cable

7
A squad set up to recover
billions of pounds that were
lost or stolen from Covid
support schemes may have
damaged recoveries for the
exchequer by diverting resources
from better-performing parts of
HM Revenue & Customs, a study
by TaxWatch suggests.
8 booked in
Boris Johnson’s promise to
“bus back better” with 4,000
new zero-emission buses has
resulted in only 341 being ordered
and six being delivered, a minister
has revealed.
National Grid at
Sir Dave Lewis has
invested personally
in the project
Bosses demand immigration reform Growth is
Ben Martin, Arthi Nachiappan
The CBI has told the government that
it risks another decade without growth
if ministers do not pursue contentious
reforms to immigration and planning
gawatt bipole cable
pairs, buried between
80cm and three metres
beneath the seabed in a
typical water depth of
said: “We need many more pro-growth
policies for our economy if we’re to
avoid a decade of no growth. A des-
perate lack of workers is inflating wages
and stopping firms growing. Our
planning rules allow local officials to
energy infrastructure that it’s com- technology, which loses only about
pletely infallible to a nefarious attack,” 3 per cent of the energy carried over
Lewis said. “The more options you give 1,000 kilometres, or 620 miles. Such
yourself, the more resilient you have it.” cables are in high demand in Europe
Projects such as Xlinks are made and, to prevent a supply shortage de-
June and October and based on the
responses of 12,000 businesses, includ-
ing 1,400 in the UK, asked business
leaders whether their outlook for the
next year had improved or deteriorated
at easyHotel
and by how much. Responses are

9
Shareholders have threatened
to force out Volkswagen’s
newest director, a Green
Party politician and cycling
enthusiast, arguing that Julia
Willie Hamburg is “manifestly
unsuited” to overseeing the largest
carmaker in Europe.
policy to kick-start the economy.
It says “business fears that the
government is not willing to make
tough political choices to get growth
going in 2023”.
On Thursday Jeremy Hunt will set
out spending cuts and tax rises. A sur-
vey from Accenture, the professional
services provider, and S&P Global, the
hamper major projects we need. Our
regulatory regime doesn’t do enough to
incentivise investment and innovation
and it is far more important to change
that than partisan efforts to simply
repeal EU laws, which won’t make any
positive difference to most firms.”
The CBI has called for several meas-
ures to be included in Hunt’s autumn
weighted based on each business’s
market share to produce a net balance
from -100 to 100, where a negative
number represents a negative outlook
for the next 12 months. October’s read-
ing of 4, although positive, is a big drop
from 28 in June and 56 in February.
The survey suggests that 41 per cent
of companies expect their output to rise
Dominic Walsh
EasyHotel is aiming to more than
double in size to 100 hotels by 2026, after
a recovery in trading.
The budget chain, in which Sir Stelios
Haji-Ioannou has a 20 per cent stake,
has 42 hotels in ten countries and is
opening a 230-room franchise in the

10 Elon Musk’s efforts to

reassure businesses that
Twitter is safe for their
brands have suffered another
setback after Omnicom, one of the
world’s largest advertising
agencies, advised clients to
suspend their spending.
analytics company, shows that British
business confidence fell to its lowest
level in 13 years in October.
The bosses’ lobby group said it was
likely to be “damaging in the short and
long term” if the chancellor’s tax and
spending plans were not accompanied
by supply side reforms.
Tony Danker, its director-general,
statement, including changes to the
shortage occupation list and to the way
big planning decisions are made.
Accenture and S&P Global said in
their latest sentiment survey that
optimism about the outlook for next
year had fallen to its lowest level since
the financial crisis in 2009.
The poll, conducted in February,
in the next 12 months and 23 per cent
expect a fall in output. Firms are still
planning to take on staff, but hiring
intentions fell to a two-year low. The
Bank of England expects unemploy-
ment to rise above pre-pandemic levels
next year after the recession, which is
expected to start this winter, weakens
demand among companies for workers.
centre of Madrid by the end of the year.
Karim Malak, easyHotel’s chief exec-
utive, has completed the €145 million
acquisition of eight hotels in the
Benelux region that were franchised to
the brand.
“We have a couple of targets in our
sights but nothing material right now,”
he said. “Our investors are very keen to
the times | Monday November 14 2022
green energy lifeline
Power generated
10.5 gigawatt
Cost
£18bn
Battery storage
capacity
5 gigawatt
Cable length
3,800
kilometre
Morocco
railing Xlinks, which will need almost
10,000 miles of cabling, the company
has created a sister project, XLCC,
which has gained planning consent to
build a new cable manufacturing plant
at Hunterston in Scotland. “This would
kickstart the UK into a high-growth,
expand the brand and will invest in
deals. We’ve established a foothold on
the Continent, but we don’t have
enough hotels in the UK.”
Britain is easyHotel’s biggest market,
with a presence in 20 locations, from
London to Liverpool. It has 18 fran-
chised hotels and 24 owned or leased.
The group was floated in 2014 but in
2020 was taken private and is now
79 per cent-owned by ICAMAP Invest-
ments and Ivanhoé Cambridge.
In an update for the year to the end of
September, easyHotel said trading had
been strong, with total sales of more
than £62 million and occupancy of
between 85 per cent and 90 per cent
over the past two months.
It said its low price “continues to
resonate strongly with customers”,
enabling it to win market share and to
lift revenue per available room by 37 per
cent on its owned and leased estate,
ahead of the 10 per cent growth of its
competitors. Malak, 45, said the group
had benefited from “an element of
trading down from four-star hotels”
by consumers.
UK
Steel used
90,000
tonnes
Number of solar panels
12m
Number of UK homes powered
7m
Number of wind turbines
530
high-tech, green new sector with mas-
sive growth potential,” Lewis said.
He insisted the Xlinks cabling project
was not as risky and ambitious as it may
sound, pointing to a 2,000-mile HVDC
cable that China has already built
above ground. “Cables exist already of
Administrators make millions
at Debenhams as fees increase
Emma Powell
The administrators of Debenhams have
made more than £7.2 million in fees
since the department stores chain filed
for insolvency two and a half years ago.
FRP Advisory was appointed in April
2020 when the retailer went bankrupt
for a second time, shortly after lock-
downs forced the closure of its stores. It
oversaw the sale of the 200-year-old
department store’s brand and website
to Boohoo for £55 million in January
last year. The deal resulted in 12,000 job
losses and 124 store closures.
New documents show the adminis-
trator received an additional £1.9 mil-
lion in remuneration between April
and October this year, taking the total
fees received since 2020 to almost
£7.3 million. FRP declined to comment.
The administrators’ report reveals
German backing for Xlinks
A German energy investment
group has become the latest backer
of the Xlinks project, which is
seeking to raise £100 million for the
next stage of its Morocco-to-Britain
power cable plans. Xlinks said it
had formed a “financial and
strategic partnership” with the
Essen-based con|energy, which
would invest an undisclosed
multimillion-pound sum.
Con|energy’s existing investments
include ChargePoint, the electric
vehicle charging group, and Levitate
Capital, a group founded by Simon
Morrish, the Xlinks chief executive,
that invests in air mobility, drones
and space technology.
XLinks has already attracted
several well-known backers,
including Ian Davis, the former
Rolls-Royce chairman, Michael
Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg
New Energy Finance, and Greg
Jackson, the founder of Octopus
Energy, the supplier which itself
invested an undisclosed sum in the
project earlier this year.
this length around the world in slightly
different circumstances. I don’t want to
diminish the challenge of actually
doing it, but we’re not requiring a
technology breakthrough.”
He said the government of Singapore
had “contracted to link the north
Australian desert to Singapore . . . a very,
very, very similar project to the one
we’re talking about” and that “there are
already 20-odd different projects which
are being looked at around the world
for long-distance renewable inter-
connection”.
While talks with the British govern-
ment have been “frustratingly slow”
amid recent political turmoil, Xlinks
has been approached by other coun-
tries interested in what it may be able to
offer them. Lewis said it would have to
consider alternatives if Britain did not
commit.
“A lot of countries have woken up to
the opportunity which exists for long-
distance, direct connections with
renewable energy sources, which are
not just off their border. There are
countries in Europe that are actively
looking for the sort of project we’re
offering the UK government. The
central question is: does the UK gov-
ernment want to be at the leading edge
of what is happening here?”
that FRP partners’ charges had
increased from £595 to £695 an hour to
£640 to £740, while a junior profes-
sional and support staff rate had risen
from £175 to £245 to £190 to £260. FRP
told investors in an update that it
expected to report a 10 per cent
increase in revenue for the six months
to the end of October.
Debenhams first filed for adminis-
tration in 2019, which handed control
to a consortium of hedge funds, led by
Silver Point Capital, Alcentra and
GoldenTree, while shareholders, in-
cluding Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group,
were wiped out. According to the new
report, the hedge funds have received
£315 million in the administration
process so far. Unsecured creditors —
including local authorities, HM Reve-
nue & Customs and pension schemes
— are unlikely to receive any return.
The week ahead
Inflation is expected to have peaked
at nearly 11 per cent in October after
energy bills rose by a further 27 per
cent on average. The introduction of
the government’s £2,500 cap on
energy prices for the average
household came into force last
month and is expected to knock
several percentage points off the
peak of inflation, which previously
was expected to exceed 13 per cent
this autumn.
The consumer prices index is
forecast to have risen from 10.1 per
cent in September to 10.9 per cent in
October when the Office for
National Statistics data is released
on Wednesday. Inflation is expected
to remain close to 11 per cent for the
remainder of the final quarter
before dropping towards 10 per cent
at the beginning of next year. The
Bank of England has forecast that
CPI will fall back to about 5 per cent
by the end of 2023. Its target is 2 per
cent. The central bank’s forecasts
must be taken with a pinch of salt
because they are based on the
tomorrow
After Vodafone agreed year results. Along
a multibillion-euro with last week’s
deal for its phone Vantage Towers move,
masts business with a Nick Read, the chief
consortium led by two executive, vowed to
private equity firms, consolidate in several
investors will be markets, including
looking for signs of Britain. Shareholders
progress on its other will be interested in
strategic priorities talks to merge with
when it publishes half- Three UK.
wednesday
Analysts believe there is the
prospect for downgrades when
British Land delivers its half-
year results. The share price
would suggest as much,
with the stock at a
50 per cent discount to
net asset value.
Spiralling interest
rates spell double
jeopardy for
landlords: they make
the cost of servicing
debt more expensive and
lead to yields widening,
which can dent building values,
especially if rents are stagnant.
CBRE, the property agent, estimates
commercial property values have
fallen by 5 per cent in three months.
British Land’s punt on retail parks
thursday
Burberry has made three changes to
its leadership team in less than a
year and a half, including the
departure of Riccardo Tisci as its
creative director in September.
However, in addition to its
boardroom, investors’ attention will
be focused on how well the luxury
fashion company is navigating
pandemic restrictions in China, its
largest market. The first-quarter
lockdowns in China dampened the
rate of revenue growth to 1 per cent,
but expect revenue of £3.1 billion
and pre-tax profit of £578 million for
the 12 months to the end of next
March, up from £2.3 billion and
£511 million, respectively, the
previous year.
Close Brothers will give clues as
to how small and medium-sized
business borrowers are faring. The
merchant banking group reported a
small rise in bad debts in the year to
July and analysts will be watching
for further deterioration in the three
37
Business
Rising bills for energy are helping to
drive up consumer prices inflation
money markets’ expectation that
interest rates will peak at 5.25 per
cent, a level that officials at the
Bank have warned is unlikely.
Analysts at Pantheon
Macroeconomics forecast a lower
peak for CPI at 10.4 per cent in the
final quarter and 9.3 per cent in the
first three months of 2023.
Interims Gear4Music,
James Cropper, Land
Securities, Ninety
One, Speedy Hire,
Vodafone, Wincanton,
Workspace
Finals Imperial
Brands
Trading updates:
BAE Systems, Melrose,
Vesuvius
has paid off over the past 18 months
as yields have come in, but with
yields heading out again this is
likely to affect its portfolio,
according to Matthew
Saperia, at Peel Hunt,
the broker. He thinks
“it will be interesting
to see” how London
performs, given his
expectation that rents
have risen rapidly
enough to offset yield
repricing.
Interims British Land,
Castings, CMC Markets,
Experian, Mediclinic, Premier
Foods, Renold, Schroder Reit, SSE
Finals Sage
Trading updates Hill & Smith,
Membership Collective
months to October. The FTSE 250
group’s Winterflood division, which
makes markets in smaller company
shares, will be under scrutiny after a
77 per cent collapse in profits last
year as trading volumes dried up.
There could be news on a plan to
optimise the capital structure: in
September the group said it was
considering issuing debt securities.
Interims Burberry, Fuller Smith &
Turner, Great Portland Estates,
Halma, Intermediate Capital,
International Distributions Services,
Investec, Mitie, Syncona
Finals Grainger
Trading updates Close Brothers,
Keller, Kier, Pershing Square,
Seraphim Space, Spirax-Sarco,
Tyman
friday
Interims Bank of Cyprus, Liontrust
Asset Management, Nationwide
Building Society
38 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Business

Taxman’s Covid
fraud squad will
leave billions in
hands of crooks
James Hurley
A squad set up to recover billions of
pounds that were lost or stolen from
Covid support schemes may have
damaged recoveries for the exchequer
by diverting resources from better-
performing parts of HM Revenue &
Customs.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce,
set up by Rishi Sunak in March 2021
when he was chancellor, will not
recover at least £3.3 billion paid to
criminals or ineligible claimants when
it winds down next year, according to a
study by TaxWatch.
The report relates to three pandemic
schemes: the furlough scheme; the self-
employment income support scheme;
with additional funding of £100 million
to form a team of 1,250 people, but posts
were filled by people from within
HMRC. The tax authority said the
funding had allowed “us to replace the
tax experts [who were] moved on to
tackling support scheme fraud”.
TaxWatch said the taskforce had a
lower return on investment than other
parts of HMRC, “suggesting that di-
verting staff for this work may not have
been the best” use of limited resources.
After a downward revision, fraud and
error losses across the three schemes
are expected to be about £4.5 billion.
The taskforce is expected to recover up
to £625 million, on top of £536 million
saved before its creation, leaving more
than £3.3 billion outstanding. minister had committed launched a £3 billion The zero-emission buses
TaxWatch, an investigative think
tank, also highlighted a lack of “serious
Only six of to deliver 4,000 zero-
emission buses, only half
national bus strategy. Of
that, more than
were to end diesel pollution

£4.5bn
The amount of Covid support cash paid
in error or claimed by fraudsters
consequences” for most of those found
to have abused the schemes, with civil
and criminal penalties levied in only a
very few cases. The group said there
was “very little deterrent”.
Johnson’s
4,000 buses
are delivered
a dozen have entered
service under his scheme.
Ahead of the autumn
statement this week, the
Confederation of
£500 million was set aside
to put thousands of
emission-free buses on
the road. However,
ministers confessed last
its National Bus Strategy
promises to build back
greener, minimise
pollution and tackle
congestion that clogs up
Alex Dunnagan, TaxWatch’s acting Passenger Transport, the week that under the our towns and cities,” the

B
director, said: “Billions of pounds are oris Johnson’s trade body for the bus terms of that funding only confederation said.
and the Eat Out to Help Out pro- outstanding. It should be a government multibillion-pound industry, is urging the a handful had entered The trade body insisted
gramme. priority to get this money back.” promise to “bus chancellor not to park service. After a its demands were not an
By the time the taskforce closes, it Dame Margaret Hodge, who was back better” has previous funding parliamentary question, example of another sector
will have collected less than a quarter of chairwoman of the Commons’ public been left stuck in the commitments for the Richard Holden, a with its hand out for
the money lost to fraud and error across accounts committee, said: “We must depot, with thousands of sector just as the transport minister, taxpayer funding, but
the programmes, TaxWatch estimated. bring through legislation to provide green vehicles government has shelved conceded that of the were an attempt to hold
It questioned whether the specialist HMRC with the long-term resourcing undelivered or even Johnson’s plan for a new money set aside, 40 per the government to
taskforce had harmed HMRC’s recov- and powers it needs to deter would-be unordered and with Great British Railways cent remained account for promises it
ery efforts by diverting staff from “other fraudsters and tax cheats, who will look congestion in towns and public body to oversee unallocated; of the has made to end urban
more lucrative recovery work, reducing at this and think that they can get away cities worse than it was train transport. ambition to get 4,000 diesel pollution, alleviate
overall compliance yield”. More than with murder.” before the pandemic, the Eighteen months ago, zero-emission buses on road congestion with
half of recoveries from investigating The tax authority said that moving passenger transport Johnson and Grant the road, only 341 had funding for prioritised
the Covid schemes had come from coronavirus scheme recovery work industry has warned Shapps, his transport been ordered. bus routes and to deliver
HMRC teams that pre-date creation of into “business-as-usual” compliance (Robert Lea writes). secretary who is now the “The government needs its net zero commitments
the taskforce, the report said. activity from next year will be more While the former prime business secretary, to get back on board with on passenger transport.
The taskforce was created last year efficient.

House prices hold up despite the storm Prosecutors seek 15 years

Tom Howard
Even amid darkening economic clouds
and predictions of a sharp slowdown in
the housing market, people selling their
homes are not cutting their asking
prices by as much as some industry
experts had expected.
The average asking price of a prop-
erty coming on to the market has fallen
by 1.1 per cent, or just over £4,000, this
month, according to Rightmove.
Asking prices have fallen in every
region, with those in Wales, where the
property market has been particularly
strong in the past two years, dipping by
3 per cent.
In October, asking prices of proper-
ties on Rightmove’s online property
portal tipped over £371,000 for the first
time ever, but the average has now
dropped back to £367,000. However,
this fall is in line with what Rightmove
typically would expect in November
before the pandemic erupted. In pre-
coronavirus years, sellers would put
their homes on the market at lower
prices in an effort to tempt would-be
buyers in the run-up to Christmas.
Rightmove said the market was
becoming “more normal” after two
years of “exceptional” price growth
Rent bills at new record
Renters are spending more of their
monthly pay packets on their
accommodation than ever before,
with rents having hit another record
high in October (Tom Howard
writes).
The average rent on a newly let
home in Britain rose to £1,204 per
calendar month, according to the
latest lettings index from Hamptons,
the estate agent. It means tenants
are paying £80 a month — or £960 a
year — more than they were this
time last year.
The pace of rental growth
stabilised somewhat over the
summer and into autumn. Average
rents were 7.1 per cent higher year-
on-year in October, the fifth
consecutive month of single-digit
increases after rental growth peaked
at 11.5 per cent in May.
triggered by a lockdown-induced “race
for space”.
“During the market frenzy, many
agents said they had to rip up the rule-
book on valuing properties due to
bidding wars, but now they’re back in
more familiar territory and pricing
right first-time is even more critical to
securing a quick sale,” Tim Bannister,
Rightmove’s director of data, said.
The average asking price on Right-
move is 7.2 per cent higher than it was in
November last year, but that represents
a slowdown from this spring, when the
figure was in double digits. Over the
past month, 8 per cent of unsold prop-
erties on the site have had their prices
trimmed, double the number that were
reduced in the same period of 2021 but
comparable with the 7.5 per cent of
reductions in October 2019. The
number of people looking to buy is
down 20 per cent versus a year ago but
is 4 per cent above 2019 levels.
Prices were driven higher in the past
two years by the shortage of homes up
for sale, which could not satisfy de-
mand. However, there are now 13 per
cent more sellers coming to market
than there were last autumn, though
there remain more would-be buyers
than available houses.
Some economists have predicted
that, in the face of soaring mortgage
rates and a looming recession, house
prices will fall by 15 per cent, perhaps
more, over the next year or so.
in jail for Theranos chief
Callum Jones
US Business Correspondent
Elizabeth Holmes should spend 15
years in prison, prosecutors have said,
as the Theranos founder’s family and
friends pleaded for leniency before her
sentencing on Friday.
Supporters of the entrepreneur,
convicted of defrauding investors and
conspiracy while running the defunct
blood-testing group, have urged a judge
to look beyond what they described as
a “mocked and vilified” caricature.
Her lawyers called for a sentence of
18 months or less, citing statements
from relatives, friends and allies des-
cribing “Liz”, a mother and business-
woman who had made mistakes but
who had endured years of inaccurate
and negative depictions in the media.
Theranos, once a fêted Silicon Valley
start-up, was valued at $9 billion at its
peak after receiving hundreds of
millions of dollars from investors.
Founded in 2003, it promised to revolu-
tionise healthcare with technology that
it said needed only a few drops of blood
to conduct hundreds of medical tests.
However, the group closed in 2018 after
questions were raised over the capa-
bility of its technology and the relia-
bility of its tests following a series of
articles in The Wall Street Journal. It
had used widely available commercial
machines for many tests and some
medical practitioners raised alarm over
the accuracy of results. Holmes, 38, was
convicted in January after a four-
month trial in California.
Prosecutors wrote: “Considering the
extensiveness of Holmes’s fraud, the
sentencing factors support a sentence
of 180 months’ imprisonment, as it
would reflect the seriousness of the
offences, promote respect for the law,
provide for just punishment for the of-
fences, and deter Holmes and others.”
Holmes also should pay “full restitu-
tion” of almost $804 million to inves-
tors in Theranos, they added, citing
Walgreens Boots Alliance and Safeway.
Other investors included the Walton
family, heirs of the Walmart founder,
and Rupert Murdoch, executive chair-
man of News Corp, ultimate owner of
newspapers including The Wall Street
Journal and The Times.
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Mark Littlewood
Why is there a reluctance to scrap EU
laws that could land a Brexit dividend?
“
Yesterday Jeremy
Hunt, observed, to
the surprise of no
one, that the
economy was in
“choppy waters”. The chancellor’s
analysis is bleak not only in that it
signals an intention to increase taxes
this week but also because it
underscores the fact we have now
spent 15 years in which the
metaphorical economic weather has
been choppy at best and a full-blown
tsunami at worst.
Each government seems destined to
inherit a worse situation that its
predecessor. Deteriorating public
finances, higher taxes and sluggish or
even negative economic growth have
become the new normal. Permanent
short-term crisis management is now
the standard mode of governing.
We can’t expect our politicians
always to be able to magic away the
consequences of a global pandemic or
a war that causes an international
energy crisis. However, we might
expect them to make a better fist of
seizing opportunities that present
themselves, even in sub-optimal
circumstances. Nowhere has this
failure been so stark as in the strange
story of the almost complete absence
of a so-called Brexit dividend.
Some of those who voted Remain in
the 2016 referendum will consider
such a dividend to be an illusion. They
often make the case that leaving the
European Union was always going to
be damaging and a coterie of them
already yearn for a future government
reattaching us to the EU bloc.
However, even if you take the gloomy
view that Brexit was always bound to
be a net negative, there are still
grounds to be frustrated that the UK
has failed to mitigate its departure by
using some of the economic
tools that it now has
available.
As for those on the
Leave side of the
divide, they must be
scratching their
heads that, having
decided to “take
back control”,
there appears to
be little appetite
for using any of this
new-found control
Regulations drafted in
Brussels still exist on the
UK statute book
in any sensible fashion.
When we finally exited the EU, the
decision was made to transpose all of
the legacy EU-based legislation and
rules into domestic law. The reasoning
went that individuals and businesses
must not face a cliff-edge of regulatory
uncertainty. Having got used to a
certain modus operandi over several
decades, the rulebook simply couldn’t
be torched at one minute past
midnight on the day of our departure.
In more sotto voce terms, it was
suggested we would then look through
these inherited laws and decide which
to scrap, which to amend and which to
keep to best suit our needs as an
independent country.
That now seems like a process that
isn’t ever going to get off the
launchpad. Rather than going through
the process of working through EU
regulations line-by-line, the
impression given is that we will shrug
our shoulders and tacitly admit such a
task isn’t worth the candle. Devout
Remainers who believe the European
Union had perfected a state of
regulatory nirvana might be content
with such an outcome, but it seems a
curious approach to be taken by those
who railed against costly and
inefficient intervention from Brussels.
They now seem to be implying that
none of this interference was costly
or inefficient enough to make it
worth changing.
The consequence, for those of us
who believe at least some EU rules
were injurious, is that each
government is handing on to the next
a regulatory regime that it surely
believes to be sup-optimal. The vicious
circle of slow growth requiring higher
taxes to meet huge public spending is
therefore reinforced.
Those who are sceptical that there
could be gains from a rollback
of inherited European
regulation often
demand a list of
which regulations
would be repealed
and the precise
benefits that
supposedly
would accrue.
The second of
these is hard to
provide in
concrete terms as a
more deregulated
economy unleashes
dynamic and
entrepreneurial forces that
are near-impossible for economic
modelling to capture. However, it is
surprising that politicians attracted to
the possibilities of liberalisation have
been so reticent in at least suggesting
some areas of possible reform.
One area is in the labour market.
The Agency Workers Directive was
opposed by the UK government under
David Cameron. There has been no
explicit change in Conservative policy
since then, yet the rule (providing
agency workers with employment
rights more akin to permanent
employees) remains in place. Perhaps
it doesn’t need to be removed in its
entirety, but surely we cannot believe
it is perfectly framed and worded for
the prevailing conditions in the
contemporary UK labour market?
The General Data Protection
Regulation, which seeks to deal with
privacy rights and data-handling,
bears down on business efficiency.
Once again, this doesn’t mean it needs
to be immediately incinerated, but
could its broad aims be accomplished
by redrafting or relaxing it? The
powers-that-be seem largely
uninterested in even addressing the
question. The plethora of rules
introduced since the banking crisis
may have had the intention of making
the financial services sector more
secure, but has it had such an effect?
No one seems much bothered in
finding out.
Perhaps the fault does not lie wholly
with politicians. As Jacob Rees-Mogg
noted recently, when he was business
secretary he was told that the process
of reviewing a mere 318 inherited
European Union rules would take 370
civil servants a full year.
Whether through a lack of political
will or bureaucratic intransigence or
both, we appear unwilling even to
attempt to find a regulatory Brexit
dividend. Although critics will say the
short-lived Truss administration
seemed determined to head for the
raging rapids, the choppy waters the
new chancellor faces as he delivers his
autumn statement on Thursday are
unlikely to be much more tranquil in
’’
the years ahead. The height of the
captain’s ambition
appears to be to keep
the boat afloat, not
to find a way to
increase its speed.
Mark Littlewood is director-general
of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Twitter: @MarkJLittlewood
Rishi Khosla
We can do more to bring
technology companies to
list on the London market
A
s a high-growth
technology business, a
question OakNorth is
often asked is: “Where
would we list if we were to
go public?” While we have no plans
at present to list, the location is
something I’ve discussed with
numerous tech chief executives and
co-founders.
London is having a tough time
convincing technology companies to
list here, as shown most recently by
the Cambridge-based Arm Holdings.
The main challenges we’ve identified
are that while Britain offers lower
costs and lower securities litigation,
as well as more certain price
discovery, the American market has
much more depth and liquidity and,
crucially, the growth investors that
the UK is lacking. In fact, Britain has
been able to generate only a few true
London boasts a thriving technology
sector and a global financial centre
growth investors, including asset
managers such as Baillie Gifford.
Rishi Sunak has made clear his
ambitions to make London a top
listing location for technology
businesses: in 2020, our new prime
minister gave Lord Hill of Oareford
the task of carrying out an
independent review of the UK’s
listing arrangements. In September
2021, he hosted Treasury Connect to
meet technology leaders and discuss
their needs and, a month later,
announced the UK Secondary
Capital Raising Review.
Meanwhile, the Financial Conduct
Authority announced listings rule
changes to boost growth and
innovation in UK stock markets. Its
move to allow firms to freely float
only 10 per cent of their share capital
when they go public on the London
Stock Exchange, compared with the
39
Business
previous 25 per cent minimum, was a
step in the right direction; as was its
decision to allow a “targeted form”
of dual-class share structure within
premium listing segments, which
gives company founders more
control over big decisions. But we
need to go further.
If the government and
policymakers want more technology
companies to list here, they need to
do a few more things. First, they
must get the growth investors to the
UK to understand the strength of the
tech ecosystem at first hand and to
meet some of the companies that
could list in the future. Second, they
could consider a study into what
factors are driving the higher “price
multiple” premiums in the US and
find ways to import that to the UK.
Third, they could look at how to
make the first couple of years less
onerous for new initial public
offerings, so that businesses can ease
into life as a public company.
London is a city in a league of its
own: it’s a thriving tech hub, home to
a global finance centre with an
enviable reputation as a beacon for
strong regulation. Britain has so
much to offer: world-class research
universities (four of the world’s top
ten universities are here); forward-
thinking regulators with an open
approach to innovation; a strong
framework of common law and a
common language; and a timezone
that allows true global operations.
The result is that the UK has created
more technology unicorns than any
other country, bar America and
China, and is a world leader in terms
of attracting investment. We are, as
Kemi Badenoch, the international
trade secretary, put it recently,
“Europe’s unicorn capital” and it is
vital that growth investors see this.
With new leadership, an economic
downturn that means fewer
companies are listing in the short
term and hundreds of billions of
dollars being wiped off the market
values of US-listed tech businesses,
there’s an opportunity for the
country to take stock and
see what can be done to make
London more attractive for growth
investors. If policymakers can get
this right, the technology companies
will inevitably follow.
Rishi Khosla is co-founder and chief
executive of OakNorth, a London-based
bank and financial technology investor
40 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Business

VW investors try to bin Green ‘car hater’

Oliver Moody Berlin
Shareholders have threatened to try to
force out Volkswagen’s newest director,
a Green Party politician and cycling
enthusiast, arguing she is “manifestly
unsuited” to overseeing the largest car-
maker in Europe.
Julia Willie Hamburg, 36, was ap-
pointed to the group’s supervisory board
by the German state of Lower Saxony,
which holds 20 per cent of the shares
with voting rights.
Since dropping out of a political
science and philosophy degree, she has
spent her career in regional politics.
She does not drive and has publicly
endorsed her party’s opposition to the
construction of new motorways.
The German Shareholders’ Protec-
tion Association, which represents the
interests of 7,000 investor groups, said it
was considering a legal challenge to her
appointment. Ulrich Hocker, the
association’s president, told the Neue
Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper that,
as an opponent of the car industry
charged with helping to guide its big-
gest manufacturer, Hamburg faced an
“insoluble conflict of interest”. Bild,
another newspaper, has campaigned
against her, describing her as a “car-
hater” with no grasp of numbers.
The relationship between Volks-
wagen and local politics goes back to
the aftermath of the Second World
War. In 1949 the outgoing British
military administration initially
handed control of the company to the
state of Lower Saxony, where Volks-
wagen is biggest employer and has its
headquarters at Wolfsburg. When it
was reprivatised in 1960, the regional
government clung on to a big stake and
to two of the twenty seats on the more
powerful half of its two-tier board
system.
Traditionally, these posts have been
held by senior state ministers from the
Christian Democratic Union and the
Social Democratic Party, the two
parties of the establishment whose
interests have broadly aligned with
Volkswagen’s. However, after an elec-
tion last month the Social Democrats
now govern the state in coalition with
the Greens, which made Hamburg
deputy chief minister and education
minister as well as propelling her on to
the Volkswagen board.
It is unclear how she plans to ap-
proach the job. She has not made any
comments on Volkswagen since taking
up the post last week, but her defenders
argue she could try to accelerate its
existing green agenda, including its
pivot towards electric vehicles.
There are issues where her views
appear to clash with other directors.
One potentially flashpoint is VW’s
dependence on China, which accounts
for about 40 per cent of its global sales.
Last year, while she was still leader of
the opposition, Hamburg and her
Green colleagues criticised the com-
pany’s involvement in Xinjiang, a west-
ern province of China where author-
ities have brutally persecuted the local
Uighur population. Their statement
said Volkswagen’s controversial joint
manufacturing venture in the region
had “helped the Chinese leadership to
downplay its violence against the
Uighurs” and this was something “no
German company should connive in”.

Twitter
Elon Musk must “regain
control” of the network’s
Auditors’ body
‘unsafe to
environment, a big
advertising agency says cashes in on
advertise Twitter until it could
“prove it has
record fines
brands’ reintroduced
safeguards to an Tom Howard
acceptable level and

E
lon Musk’s has regained control The accountancy regulator has fined
efforts to of its environment”. auditors a record £33.3 million in the
reassure Musk, meanwhile, is past year, almost half of which went the
businesses that set to defend his Institute of Chartered Accountants in
Twitter is safe for their record $56 billion pay England and Wales.
brands have suffered package at Tesla in The Financial Reporting Council
another setback after court this week. His fined PwC £5 million for failings in its
one of the world’s remuneration as chief audits of Kier and Galliford Try, the
largest advertising executive of the construction companies, as well as
agencies advised automotive group imposing a £1.5 million fine for Grant
clients to suspend amounts to the Thornton for failing to apply “profes-
their spending “largest compensation sional scepticism” when signing off the
(Callum Jones writes). grant in human accounts of Mike Ashley’s Sports
Omnicom, an history”, lawyers for Direct empire.
American marketing an investor argue. The total was 77 per cent more than
conglomerate with Lawyers for Musk the £18.7 million the previous year, data
more than 5,000 insisted his pay from Thomson Reuters Confirmation
corporate clients, package, put in place shows. The tally differs from the FRC’s
warned of the risk to in 2018, has driven total as they track different periods. In
companies’ public extraordinary returns its annual report, for the year to the end
profiles on the social for other Tesla of March, the FRC fined accountancy
network. They should shareholders by firms a record £46.5 million.
halt activity there “in were given “verified” the actual business experimenting with an that the risk to our setting “demanding” The biggest fine issued over the past
the short term”, it status for a fee of $8 a was forced to clarify “official” mark for clients’ brand safety terms for the tycoon. year was of £14.4 million to KPMG for
recommended. month after fake that it was not. paying advertisers. has risen sharply to a The trial starts today forging documents in connection with
Changes to Twitter accounts took Musk, 51, said this In a memo entitled level most would find at Delaware’s court of its audit of Carillion. That fine, along
after Musk’s advantage. When a weekend that Twitter’s “Twitter — continued unacceptable”. chancery, where with £515,000 of penalties given to
$44 billion takeover newly verified account subscription service brand safety The company, which Musk’s lawyers spent individuals in the case, all went to the
have caused problems posing as Eli Lilly, the would “probably” concerns”, obtained by has clients including months wrangling ICAEW, the accountants’ trade body.
for companies. Twitter pharmaceuticals return at the end of The Verge technology Apple and with Twitter as he The scheme that allows for the ICAEW
was forced to pause a group, tweeted that the week. The website, Omnicom McDonald’s, advised sought to withdraw to collect the fines, highlighted by The
scheme in which users “insulin is now free”, platform has been described “evidence “pausing activity” on from his takeover. Times, has been criticised by the body’s
members and politicians.
42 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Business
Business Times Enterprise Network

Start-up gains momentum

at manoeuvring satellites
A physicist and an
enterprise
T engineer have been
network
industry propelled into the space
race just as costs fall,
Richard Tyler reports
O
peration Get It Up, a tiny
plasma-based power
system providing
propulsion to a small
cube satellite, will sit on
top of a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket due
to be launched next month.
It has been designed by engineers
at the start-up Magdrive, based at the
Harwell science campus in south
Oxfordshire.
Operation Get It Up’s successor, So
Much for Subtlety, will be five times
as powerful. In the pipeline is Look
What You Made Me Do, which
should be five times more powerful
again, firing 100 plasma shots a
second and shifting ever heavier
satellites and service vehicles around.
Fans of the Iain M Banks sci-fi
series about a utopia of humanoid
races, called The Culture, will
recognise that the nomenclature
echoes that given by Banks to the AI
minds driving his starships.
Thomas Clayson, a plasma physicist
who turned 31 yesterday, and his
co-founder, Mark Stokes, 32, a
mechanical and machine-learning
engineer, believe that their hardware
can support even bigger spacecraft.
They are having talks with Rolls-
Royce about using small nuclear
reactors to power future “mega-
Magdrive” thrusters, which could
propel asteroid-mining vehicles.
It is all quite a leap from the
1,400 sq ft engineering lab that the
11-strong team occupies. It is decked
out with Lego Star Wars spaceships,
including a half-finished Millennium
Falcon, alongside expensive kit that
allows them to replicate the vacuum
of space.
Magdrive is one of a growing
number of UK space start-ups that
are gaining momentum as the cost of
launching craft into space falls and
commercial interest grows. It is
focused on improving the propulsion
systems used by spacecraft when they
are in space. Chemical propulsion is
still required to generate the lift to
escape the Earth’s gravitational pull.
Once there, though, either chemical
or electric thrusters are typically used
to help craft and satellites maintain
their orbit, move around and,
increasingly, avoid collisions.
The company’s thrusters draw in
power from solar panels, stored so
that they can be discharged at a Mark Stokes, left, and Thomas Clayson
higher power to ionise a metal
propellant to create a plasma that is them the ability repeatedly to
high-temperature and high-density. rendezvous in space, manage satellite
The plasma is confined, accelerated constellations and avoid space junk.
and directed using magnetic fields Both self-declared “big nerds”
and the end result is an efficiently during their teenage years, Stokes
generated and powerful thrust. studied classics at Warwick University
“We essentially fire thousands of after being put off physics by his
plasma bullets to achieve the push,” schoolteachers: “They were not
Stokes said. “The whole point of using inspiring at all.” But he loved
a metal propellant is to have the same technology and decided to take on
efficiency as electric systems have, mechanical engineering and a maths
but to give them a hundred-fold degree via the Open University, while
improvement in thrust.” holding down a bar job and an
Lessons are learnt and fixed with internship. “For four months I was
each stage of the component designs, doing 110-hour weeks, before I burnt
typically completed during three- out,” he said.
month sprints of work. For example, He met Clayson at Imperial
Stoke said: “When you ionise a metal College, where Stokes did an MSc in
into a plasma you need to make sure biomedical engineering. Clayson had
that it doesn’t just create a messy gone straight into exploring
layer of stuff over your internal astrophysics and gained a PhD in
electronics. This is a system that is plasma laboratory astrophysics —
designed to do hundreds of millions “Basically blowing up things with
of shots over its lifetime. You can’t pulsed power to re-recreate
have any build-up of any kind of supernovas on a tiny scale” — before
metal material whatsoever.” working on fusion power.
The test flight next month is to The co-founders did not follow the
show that the Magdrive can function traditional university spinoff route to
in space as part of a power system; if set up Magdrive. Clayson had the idea
they can move the small satellite a of using a strong magnetic field to
little that would be a bonus. “Our first contain a large amount of plasma and
units out the door have to show off,” use it to launch a rocket. They spotted
Stokes said. They hope that Magdrive a grant application from the
will help to power the large number European Space Agency and
of small satellites scheduled for although they were not selected the
launch over the next decade, giving 50-page application provided the
the times | Monday November 14 2022
of Magdrive are developing the next generation of space propulsion systems
nudge they needed. They set up
Magdrive in 2019, starting at a
laboratory at the Westcott Venture
Park in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire,
before moving to Harwell.
They have raised £2 million in
venture capital, plus about £4 million
in grant funding. Their lead investor
is Founders Fund, an early backer of
SpaceX and Facebook, and they are in
regular contact with its principal,
Delian Asparouhov. He also happens
to be the cofounder of the American
company Varda, which is building
factories to operate in space.
Connections like that open doors.
Stokes said he would recommend any
UK hardware company to tap
American investors. “They are far less
risk-averse,” he said. “So they invest
for far less equity.” The pandemic, he
added, had made it just as easy to get
on a call with an American investor
as with a British one.
Capital is vital as revenues will not
start flowing until early 2025 from
hardware sales to potential customers,
such as Varda or Planet, a US firm
that has launched 450 satellites that
capture data on Earth, and
Astroscale, an orbital debris-removal
and satellite-servicing company based
in Japan.
The pair believe that there are
limitations to how much the UK will
benefit from the growth of the space
industry, despite the country’s
ambitions and planned launch this
month in Cornwall. “The capacity
here will allow us to do more in-orbit
demonstrations and our R&D is going
to continue in the UK, for sure,”
Stokes said. “But we are selling to
satellite operators, so manufacturing
will be done in the US. It’s where the
bulk of the customer base is,
including the US government. And to
be honest, the UK is not a great place
to manufacture high-value items and
then ship them out.”
Magdrive is to move into a
4,500 sq ft unit this month and will
have Thales Alenia Space as a
friendly neighbour. The engineering
giant’s satellite propulsion and design
teams are already providing
mentoring and tech assistance.
“The potential for a manned
spacecraft is definitely on the
horizon,” Clayson said.
Stokes added: “It’s very scalable
technology. By drawing in more
power and storing more power and
discharging it more rapidly, we can
build a much larger Magdrive.”
Clayson added: “We are looking
towards the lunar economy and
asteroids.”
Humanoid utopia beckons: Banks’s
gigantic “general control unit”
spacecraft Lightly Seared On The
Reality Grill would be proud.
Rare chance
to recruit
tech talent
Hannah Prevett
Businesses have a “rare opportunity” to
hire tech talent after job cuts at the
American giants Meta, Twitter and
Salesforce and UK start-ups, the boss of
a specialist recruitment firm has said.
Logan Naidu, founder of Kernel
Group, which owns the recruitment
agency Dartmouth Partners, said it was
the “perfect time” to recruit. “You don’t
get these windows of opportunity very
often,” he said.
Meta, the parent company of Face-
book and Instagram, said last week that
it was cutting 11,000 jobs, including
about 650 in the UK. Twitter, Sales-
force and Stripe have shed thousands of
staff. Fintech firms such as Klarna and
Revolut are also cutting back.
Edward East, founder of Billion
Dollar Boy, an influencer agency that
employs 140 people in London, New
York and New Orleans — said: “I know
10 or 15 people who are incredibly good
at what they do who have just been laid
off from Meta because their roles
weren’t revenue-generating, but they
would be fantastic additions for us.”
One person in particular had caught
his eye. “I definitely want to hire her but
I also recognise that you have to be
really cautious about immediately
saying, ‘Hey, come and join us’ because
they’ve just lost their job and this is not
an easy time for them.”
Bet365, the online sports gambling
business that is Stoke’s biggest private
sector employer, is also alive to the
opportunities. Dan Myatt, who mana-
ges recruitment for its 1,700-strong
technology division, said: “It could free
up some relevant skills. Companies like
[Meta] have also extended the salary
bandings quite dramatically. People
have been highly paid for minimal
years of experience so it could be a
shock to the system.”
He said that despite the economic
slowdown the group was not holding
back its recruitment drive, with 243
roles open in its technology team.
Naidu said the current job cuts were
likely to be just a first wave. “Typically
what happens in a cycle like this is that
a lot of the talent that’s first out gets jobs
on a similar salary level,” he said. “If
there are further cuts that happen then
you’ve got a bigger pool of unemployed
people to pick from and so it goes back
to being a buyers’ market.”
About TEN
6 See Times Enterprise
Network online for
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and inspiration for
entrepreneurs and
business leaders
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thetimes.co.uk/ten
Offering a human
connection is key
to brand success
Susie Ma
Y
ou can’t sell products
without people, and in my
experience the bigger the
business the less emphasis
is placed on people.
Internet shopping has meant a more
impersonal experience is taking
precedence over our human need at
work and as consumers for
connection.
Anyone who’s worked on a market
knows its uniqueness: small
businesses heading out whatever the
weather to set up their stalls. Their
businesses survive through their
face-to-face interactions and by
building direct bonds with browsers.
I launched my beauty brand on
the back of a homemade body scrub
I sold at Greenwich market and
learnt quickly that while my product
pitch pulled the people in, it wasn’t
what made them stay. The beauty
industry is competitive. Creating a
strong customer connection and
ensuring that my product and I are
trusted is paramount. I developed a
whole routine. I’d offer people a free
treatment: a scoop of my
“
scrub to massage into
their hands. They’d
wash off the salts in a
bowl of water and feel
the softness of their skin
You can’t
from the nourishing
plant oils. I’d pour out
just list a
the water and present
them with the dead skin
product on
cells at the bottom. The
result was so
your website
transformative I had no
problem making a sale.
and expect
Customers like to “try
before they buy”. It’s not
the sales to
enough to list a product
on your website and
pour in
expect the sales to pour
in. Trust is key – people are not only
purchasing goods, they’re buying
into your brand. They need to
believe both are worth it. People
didn’t just blind purchase my scrub,
they had to try it first. My modus
operandi in business has always
been “Give first” and it remains one
of Tropic’s values. Giving shows you
care beyond profit and helps foster
bonds to your product and brand.
Connection cultivates
commitment, and a committed
customer base cultivates success.
Offering that free hand treatment
allowed customers not only to
experience the results that I’d waxed
lyrical about in my pitch first hand;
it also gave them a moment of
indulgence and time to get
acquainted with me too. It was a
well-oiled machine that made my
scrubs a sell-out. The more time I
spent with my customers — the
more I treated them and the better I
got to know them — the more I
could tailor my pitch to the things
that mattered to them. All were
invaluable for attracting returning
faces who spread the word about my
product, and business boomed.
Direct selling was a natural
43
Business
Business
transition once I was able to power
up production. It mimicked my
market days and meant I could
maintain a business that prized
personal relationships while
retaining the trustworthy and “Give
first” approach that’s become a
brand differentiator. I launched this
business model because I knew my
ambassadors could offer the same
personal touch and create a
burgeoning customer base.
Tropic ambassadors generate
sales by bringing people together.
They share the products at social
gatherings where customers can try
before they buy, and are trained so
they can recommend the right ones
to individuals. They’re encouraged
to get personal, to know their
customers intimately, so they always
select the right products for them.
It’s this close connection that has
seen 50 per cent of customers who
purchased through a Tropic
ambassador on our website return to
shop again, versus 30 per cent of
direct customers. These touchpoints
have a massive impact on overall
trade; ambassadors’ sales make up
95 per cent of our business — the
personable, personalised and
personal ambassador shopping
experience has steered Tropic’s
success.
Not every business model has this
vehicle for closeness, and Tropic has
its own community of
organic customers too.
We use Trustpilot, so
our product reviews are
open and honest; our
collections boast either a
free gift or a saving; we
work with Provenance
and invest in clinical
data for proven results
and backed-up claims;
we publish gender and
racial equality reports
and well-researched
articles about ingredient
sourcing. All help to
nurture a tightness to
our brand — customers
know who we are and
that we care deeply about giving
them the information they need to
make informed purchases (plus, a
little something on us for that added
special touch). We ensure that a
personalised experience stretches to
our website, with build-your-own-
collections and a “skincare routine
finder” to help customers find the
right products. And a 30-day
happiness guarantee means they can
return goods for refund or exchange
if they didn’t live up to expectations.
People should be the very heart of
business. Brand owners need to have
touchpoints with customers at every
level. This January, I’ll be taking
Tropic across the UK to speak
directly to my customers. To tell
them the brand story, to allow them
to feel as close as they can to Tropic.
To share how our success relies on
social connection and the ways our
ambassadors are the driving force,
offering customer care not for a
“demographic” but to individuals.
Susie Ma, 34, is the founder and CEO
of Tropic Skincare, which had profits
before interest, tax and other
charges of £12 million on sales of
£90.6 million in 2021
44 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

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the times | Monday November 14 2022 45

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the times | Monday November 14 2022
Founding member of the
Clash and Public Image Ltd
Keith Levene
Page 48
Obituaries
David English
Actor, record-company mogul, charity fundraiser, author of the Bunbury Tails children’s books and ‘godfather’ of English cricket
David English was sitting at home on
the night of the England cricket team’s
dramatic victory at Lord’s in the 2019
World Cup final when the phone rang.
It was Joe Root on the line. After a few
words with England’s star batsman, the
wicketkeeper Jos Buttler spoke to En-
glish, followed by Ben Stokes then other
team members. “They were in the hotel
and they had had a few Coca-Colas,”
English recalled. “They all passed the
telephone around and said, ‘Dave,
thanks for everything you did for us’.”
Ten of the starting XI in England’s
World Cup-winning side had cut their
teeth as junior players in English’s Bun-
bury Festival and they never forgot his
role in their development.
English took over the annual week-
long under-15 tournament when the
game’s authorities ran out of money in
1987. Over the next 35 years hundreds
of young cricketers participated in the
festival under his benign stewardship.
Among them were 118 who progressed
to England colours. Their number in-
cludes not only the 2019 World Cup
winners but nine of the England team
that won the Ashes in 2005, including
Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff.
After talking to Root and the players
after their 2019 victory, English took a
call from Trevor Bayliss, the team’s Aus-
tralian-born coach. Bayliss added his
appreciation and told him that “the
boys” often talked about how English
had encouraged them and set them on
their way. “That meant a lot. They are
like an extended family for me,” English
said proudly. “There’s a real satisfaction
to having known them when they were
He was kissing Brigitte
Bardot but had to hide
from her boyfriend
15 and watching them go through the
ranks to the England team.”
English, who became known as the
“godfather of English cricket”, aimed
not only to impart cricketing wisdom
but also to offer lessons in life to his
teenage charges. “At that age you are
not a child but you are not an adult. You
are faintly worldly-wise, but still peep-
ing over the Coca-Cola cans,” he said. “I
taught them at the festival to relax and
have fun along the way.”
After games he treated the young
players to meals at Nando’s, organised
karaoke sessions and generally encour-
aged them to let their hair down. The
high jinks were all relatively innocent,
and the most outrageous incident in-
volved nothing more than a “gruff and
in-your-face” teenage Stokes pouring
piri-piri sauce into a soft drink belong-
ing to the “angelic” Root.
In parallel with the schools’ cricket
festival, English also ran the Bunbury’s
celebrity charity cricket team. “It all
started when we had a game in Eric
Clapton’s garden and I suggested get-
ting an XI together,” he recalled. “So I
phoned up all the famous people I knew
and at our first game we had Phil Col-
lins as wicketkeeper and Eric and Bill
Wyman as first and second slip.”
The Bunbury matches, which over
the years raised more than £14 million
for charity, also featured professional
cricketers including Viv Richards and
English, right, with Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees at Bunbury cricket festival in 2004; right, with
Ian Botham on a charity ride, 1989; below, paying homage to his cricket-playing rabbits in 2001
Ian Botham alongside a host of other
celebrity friends from Elton John and
Roger Daltrey to Will Carling and Rory
Bremner. Cricket-loving politicians
and even a prime minister also turned
out for English’s side.
“No one ever gets grand in the dress-
ing room. It’s ‘John Major, meet Donny
Osmond’ and ‘Eric Clapton, meet Ian
Botham’,” English said. Rock groups
and cricket teams had much in com-
mon. “Each member brings something,
be it as a bowler or bass player, and the
end result is a team performance.”
His closest friend in cricket was
Botham and English had the scars to
prove it. Their friendship started
during the 1981 Lord’s Test against
Australia, in which Botham made a
duck in both innings and was then
sacked as captain. In the team hotel
afterwards, English “told him my
best jokes for three hours to
cheer him up”. They stayed
up all night drinking and the
next morning Botham
took a very hungover En-
glish with him to a promo-
tional appearance at the
Piccadilly showroom of
his sponsor, Saab. When
English was sick in the
taxi, Botham taunted
his “weak constitution”,
but he arranged a Saab
car for his new friend and
over the next few years
they were constant
companions.
“It was great fun but
he did get boisterous,”
English remembered.
On one occasion Both-
am took him out for a
day’s ocean fishing and
English got horribly
seasick. “I had never felt so ill. I stag-
gered back to the hotel only to find that
Beefy had installed a water bed in my
room,” he recalled.
English joined Botham on his charity
walks and hosted the cricketer’s road-
shows in Australia and around Britain.
In a foreword to English’s 2003 memoir,
Mad Dogs and the Englishman: Confes-
sions of a Loon, Botham called him “the
funniest man I’ve ever met”. He also
served as best man at English’s wedding
to Robyn (née Dunckley). The mar-
riage was later dissolved and he is sur-
vived by their children — Amy, who
works in financial technology; and
David Jr, a musician — and by his
partner, Lia Lanaja.
His schools’ festival and charity
team were both named after the
Bunbury Tails, a series of children’s
books he wrote about cricket-
playing rabbits called the
Bunburys. They led to
him recording the
song We’re the
Bunburys, written
with Barry Gibb of
the Bee Gees and
featuring Clapton on
guitar and vocals.
David Stuart English was
born in 1946 in Brentford,
Middlesex and grew up in
Hendon, north London. He
learnt to play cricket at Bell
Lane primary, where the
school’s most famous old boy,
Denis Compton, became his
idol, and later studied at White-
field secondary modern. His
childhood was difficult after
his father walked out.
After leaving school with no
idea what to do, he took a gap
year around Europe, encoun-
Register
tering Brigitte
Bardot in a St Tro-
pez nightclub. “I
went up to her
and in my best
O-level French
asked her to
dance, introduc-
ing myself as
David Anglais,”
he said. “We
started kissing.
It was going very
well until her
boyfriend, Gun-
ter Sachs, came out and I
had to hide behind the dustbins.”
Back in England he was briefly on the
MCC ground staff at Lord’s but soon re-
alised he was never going to be quite
good enough as a cricketer, even
though he claimed to have once clean-
bowled Viv Richards. He vigorously
rejected suggestions that the great man
had generously gifted his wicket so that
English would have a good after-dinner
story to tell.
His other passion was rock music and
after a brief stint as a showbiz reporter
for the Daily Mail in 1971 he landed a job
as a press officer for Decca Records,
handling publicity for artists including
the Rolling Stones and Tom Jones. Two
years later he was headhunted by
Robert Stigwood (obituary, January 10,
2016). “I’m going to start my own record
label and you’re going to make it the
greatest in the world,” the impresario
told him. Installed as president of RSO
Records, English found himself in “a
massive office with chandeliers, secre-
taries and marketing managers” but
with no artists and no product.
He set about looking for acts to
record and his first release was a novel-
ty version of How Much is That Doggie
47
in the Window, recorded backwards by
Tim Rice and released under the pseu-
donym Rover. English promoted the
record by sending it to journalists and
disc jockeys with a dog bowl. The record
sold only eight copies.
Things could only get better and they
did when RSO signed Clapton and the
Bee Gees, whom English accompanied
to Miami where they recorded Jive Tal-
kin’ and Nights on Broadway and rein-
vented themselves as a disco act.
He became particularly close to
Barry Gibb, who sang at his wedding.
One night, when staying with the group
in a hotel in Paris, a drunken English
decided to climb along the edge of his
balcony to the next-door suite, fol-
lowed by Barry and his brothers Mauri-
ce and Robin. “We looked in and saw a
couple making love. The woman
looked up and saw a madman followed
by three Bee Gees,” he recalled. The
next day they encountered the woman
in the hotel’s dining room where one of
the band told her how nice it was to see
her with her clothes on.
As Clapton’s closest confidant, En-
glish was there
when the gui-
tarist wrote the
hit single Won-
derful Tonight
while his wife
Pattie Boyd was
upstairs taking
rather too long
to get ready for
an evening out.
“She was taking
ages and he
wrote the song
while he was
fuming at her,”
recalled English.
While Pattie was
upstairs she
called down,
“Keep him
amused, Arthur!”
using Clapton’s
nickname for his
friend, which
came from the
music-hall star Arthur English. The re-
sult was one of the finest songs Clapton
ever wrote.
In between running a record label
and managing some of the biggest acts
in popular music, English somehow
squeezed in a parallel career as an actor.
He played a corpse in Z Cars and there
were further TV appearances in Em-
merdale, Secret Army and Bergerac.
There was also an appearance along-
side Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery,
Robert Redford and Michael Caine in
Richard Attenborough’s 1977 epic war
film A Bridge Too Far. During a break in
filming he pulled out a cricket bat and
taught Redford how to play.
Yet of all his exploits, it was his
schools’ cricket festival of which he was
most proud. “People haven’t heard of
David English and I’m quite happy
about that,” he said. “I can’t play guitar
like Eric, I can’t sing like Barry and I
can’t play cricket like Ian. But I can help
people achieve their dreams.”
David English CBE, rock’n’roll mogul and
cricket benefactor, was born on March 4,
1946. He died from a heart attack on
November 12, 2022, aged 76
48
Register
Keith Levene
Guitarist with the Clash and Public Image Ltd who defined an expansive post-punk style but never stayed long with a band
When Keith Levene was three years
old, his mother took him to the doctor
convinced that her son was abnormal.
There was something not right in his
development, she explained. Instead of
playing with cars and toy soldiers, all he
did was to sit in silent fascination
watching vinyl singles rotating on the
family’s record player.
“Don’t worry about it,” the doctor re-
assured her, suggesting that her son
might one day become the conductor of
a great orchestra. The detail of the pre-
diction wasn’t quite accurate, but the
doctor was correct in suggesting that a
lifetime spent making music awaited.
By the time Levene was 18, he was a
founder member of the Clash with Joe
Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simo-
non. Two years later he teamed up with
Johnny Rotten, the former Sex Pistols
singer, to form Public Image Ltd (PiL).
He stayed with neither for long, but
his legacy was profound as the common
thread between the two most impor-
tant bands to emerge in the punk-rock
‘He made a guitar do
things that were not
supposed to be possible’
explosion that turned popular music on
its head in the late 1970s.
With PiL his guitar-playing created a
new musical syntax, defining an expan-
sive post-punk style that combined an-
gular, abrasive tones with ringing pop
opulence and thrillingly wove dub,
free-form jazz, prog rock, new wave, in-
dustrial and avant-garde influences in-
to the basic rock template. “He made a
guitar do things that were not supposed
to be possible,” Rotten said.
“What happened was once I got good
enough to know the rules, I didn’t want
to be like any other guitarist,” Levene
said. “My biggest rule was to break the
rules and the motivation behind PiL
was a deep resentment of rock’n’roll
and a longing for new forms.”
Mehran Karimi Nasseri
English-speaking Iranian refugee known as Sir Alfred who lived in an airport, inspiring an opera and a Steven Spielberg film
A couple of hours in an airport is as
much as most people can take. Mehran
Karimi Nasseri, an English-speaking
Iranian refugee known as Sir Alfred,
spent decades in the noisy Terminal 1 of
Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, listen-
ing to jangling announcements over
the public address system and watching
as fraught travellers rushed for their
flights, all the time waiting patiently for
his own elusive boarding call.
His story began when he was exiled
from Iran as a student activist, lost his
papers in Belgium and somehow ended
up in Paris in 1988. He tried to reach
Britain, where he had once studied, but
was turned back at Heathrow and was
then refused entry to France. Out of
ideas and money, he settled into life at
Terminal 1. Immigration workers nick-
named him Albert, but he later insisted
on Sir Alfred, a name adopted from a
British bureaucrat’s letter that began
“Dear Sir, Alfred”.
For the first 11 years he was stranded
on his bench by the fast-food outlets
and shops, but he was not lonely. “All
the staff know me and the police are
friendly, too. People bring me coffees
and food,” he said. Passengers gave him
their complimentary toiletries and the
authorities sometimes called on him to
act as a Farsi interpreter.
In the summer of 1999 Belgium
granted him refugee papers and he was
free to leave the departure lounge —
On leaving PiL after a trio of ground-
breaking and influential albums, Le-
vene went on to experiment with early
sampling techniques and hip-hop to
produce for other acts, including the
Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Among the many musicians who
paid tribute on his death was Mike Scott
of the Waterboys, who wrote on Twit-
ter: “You innovated, you chimed, you
Clashed, you soundtracked Johnny
Rotten’s last great moments and you
once trounced me at Space Invaders.”
Julian Keith Levene was born in 1957
in Muswell Hill, north London, the son
of Harry Levene, a Jewish tailor, and his
wife May. His fascination with music
was all-consuming from an early age
and when he was watching those vinyl
records going round as a toddler, his
ears were as engaged as his eyes. “I was
this weird kid,” he admitted. “But I
sensed a strange vocabulary I could un-
derstand. The sound emanating from
the speakers was what it was all about.”
After prep school he won a place at
grammar school, where at 11 his head-
master told him that his absorption in
music made him “antisocial”. By then
he had progressed from the Beatles’
early singles and a love of classical
music — Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf
was a childhood favourite — to the
emerging sounds of prog-rock bands
such as Yes.
On leaving school at 15, much against
his parents’ wishes, he took a job in a
factory, where the “white noise and
wall-to-wall sheet-metal din” took their
place in his sonic vision and would later
feed into his experimental music
making.
He left home soon afterwards, living
in squats around London, breaking into
empty properties and fitting new locks
to create “a place to hang out, leave
your records and your leather jacket
and your guitar”.
While hanging around at Yes gigs “he
gradually crept up to the stage and
started helping” until he was given an
official position as a roadie. His specific
Nasseri at his airport home in 2004
but he opted to stay on, demanding a
promise of citizenship and permission
to” work in Britain or an English-
speaking country. “I want to live in a
free democratic system. When I obtain
a certificate of citizenship I will be free
to move,” he told The Times in a grave,
quiet voice while sitting in a pizza joint.
“If I walk out of here, it would not help
my case.” Then there was a flash of
humour. “Perhaps I might take a flight
for the pleasure of it, but I would come
back here.”
Neat and dignified, even if his pallid,
gaunt face was testimony to many years
Levene, left, with Johnny Rotten in 1981. Below, in a rare appearance in 2007
tasks were to clean the cymbals and
change the snare on the drum kit.
One night in early 1976 his life was
changed for ever when he saw one of
the Sex Pistols’ early gigs. In punk rock
he heard something raw, visceral and
dangerous and knew he wanted to be
part of it. He already knew Jones and
Simonon and they began playing to-
gether but needed a singer.
Levene approached Joe Strummer,
who at the time was playing with the
pub-rock band the 101ers. After a
month of rehearsals, the Clash played
their first gig in July 1976, supporting
the Sex Pistols. Yet two months later
Levene was gone, disillusioned by the
music the band was making and eager
for something more ambitious. At a
rehearsal Strummer grabbed him by
the lapels and said: “Just what is wrong
with you? Are you into this or not?”
Levene’s answer was to lean his guitar
against the amp, leaving it howling with
feedback, and to walk out.
“It meant the Clash could be the
on a diet of airport food, he was bald on
top with frizzy wild hair on the sides,
and four missing teeth. He smoked a
gold pipe. This self-appointed castaway,
who rarely strayed far from the alcove
with the Seventies-era red bench and
table where he slept under an airline
blanket, spent his days reading the Brit-
ish newspapers and writing his diaries
in English. Around him sat cardboard
boxes and bags stuffed with the posses-
sions of the man who, with echoes of
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, lingered for
official documents that never came.
Sometimes he made a trip to the bank
upstairs, where he had a savings ac-
count. Mindful of the persistent warn-
ings that “Passengers are reminded to
keep their personal luggage with them
at all times”, he persuaded a friendly
shopkeeper to watch his possessions.
The journalist Michael Paterniti
visited in 2003 for GQ magazine and
found him rising between 6.30am and
8am, shaving at his bench and complet-
ing his ablutions in a choice of two
bathrooms. “He preferred the smaller
and quieter of the two because it was
closer to his bench and had a shower,”
Paterniti observed. Meanwhile, his case
was taken on by Christian Bourget, a
French human rights lawyer.
Nasseri’s decision to remain in Ter-
minal 1 eventually moved him from the
category of cause celèbre to nuisance.
He lived on handouts from friends and
Clash without any problems like me
being difficult every five minutes with
an idea they wished I wasn’t even sug-
gesting,” he reasoned.
He joined the Flowers of Romance, a
punk outfit who never recorded but in-
cluded in their line-up future members
of the Slits and Sid Vicious, with whom
Levene co-wrote the notorious
Belsen Was a Gas, which
was to become part of
the Sex Pistols’ live
repertoire.
When the Pistols
broke up in disar-
ray in early 1978,
Rotten, who re-
verted to his birth
name of Lydon,
asked Levene and
the bassist Jah
Wobble to join him
in PiL. Levene con-
tributed guitar and syn-
thesizer, and co-wrote and
co-produced the band’s first
visitors, but celebrities and humanitar-
ian organisations gradually stopped
trumpeting him as a symbol of bureau-
cratic folly or to highlight the plight of
refugees. Airport staff who had once
befriended this elegant refugee lost pa-
tience and saw him as a pest. Medical
officials gave up on their attempts to
persuade him to accept the state care
and benefits to which he was entitled.
The anxiety of life in unfulfilled tran-
sit was the inspiration for Jonathan
Dove’s opera Flight, which was present-
ed by Glyndebourne in 1998 and Scot-
tish Opera in 2018. He was the subject
of From Here to Where, a low-budget
film written by Paul Berczeller and di-
rected by Glen Luchford that received
its first showing at the 2001 Edinburgh
Film Festival, and in 2004 published a
memoir that was described by The Sun-
day Times as “a profoundly disturbing
and brilliant book”. He was also said to
have received $250,000 after inspiring
Tom Hanks’s character Viktor Navor-
ski who becomes trapped at JFK air-
port, New York, when his home coun-
try collapses into revolution in Steven
Spielberg’s film The Terminal (2004).
Yet no one, not even the man himself
it seemed, knew the full story of “Sir Al-
fred”. What appears to be the case is
that Mehran Karimi Nasseri was born
in the city of Masjed Soleiman, in the
oil-rich south of Iran, possibly in 1945.
He was one of six children from a well-
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
three albums, including 1979’s Metal
Box, now regarded as a seminal mo-
ment in post-punk experimentalism,
the influence of which reverberates to
this day.
He left PiL in 1983, two weeks before
a tour of Japan, over “creative differen-
ces”, one of which was his chronic hero-
in addiction. He moved to America
with his wife, the journalist Shelly da
Cunha, from whom he later separated,
and recorded a solo album before re-
turning to Britain, broke and feeling
sorry for himself. “I felt ripped off by all
my close friends and every record com-
pany I ever dealt with,” he said.
Recovering his equilibrium, he re-
corded several solo records, built gui-
tars and wrote a memoir titled I Was a
Teenage Guitarist 4 the Clash (2015)
before his productivity was curtailed by
liver cancer. He is survived by his part-
ner Kate Ransford, an environmental
campaigner and former nurse with
whom he lived in Norfolk, and by a son,
Kirk, who lives in New York City. In
recent years he was a great enthusiast
for Bitcoin and other crypto-curren-
cies, which he described as the punk
rock of the financial world.
For all that he played a seminal role
in two influential bands and was re-
garded as a musical innovator, Levene
believed that he could have achieved
more. “I think I’ve short-
changed myself in that I
never quite followed
through with all that I
started,” he said. “I
feel like there’s a
lot of stuff
residing inside
me that I never
got a chance to
get out.”
Keith Levene,
guitarist, was born
on July 18, 1957. He
died from complications
of liver cancer on
November 11, 2022, aged 65
off family: his father, who died from
cancer when Nasseri was 23, was a doc-
tor with the Anglo-Persian Oil Com-
pany and his Scottish-born mother was
a nurse. He studied psychology in his
homeland before arriving at the Uni-
versity of Bradford in 1973 to take a
course in Yugoslav studies.
There were complex accounts of him
being photographed taking part in pro-
tests against the Shah, his stipend being
cut, disagreeing with his mother over
his parentage, falling foul of the Iranian
authorities and spending three spells in
jail, reaching Belgium and losing his pa-
pers, though whether accidentally, de-
liberately or stolen is not known.
Nasseri eventually left Charles de
Gaulle airport in 2006, when he was
taken to hospital, at which point the
authorities dismantled his “home” in
Terminal 1. He was cared for by the
French Red Cross and at an Emmaus
shelter in the 20th arrondissement.
A few weeks ago he returned to the
airport, now taking up residence in Ter-
minal 2F, where the band U2 filmed
their video for the song Beautiful Day.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, Iranian refugee,
was born in about 1945. He died from a
heart attack on November 12, 2022, aged
around 76 or 77
Email: obituaries@thetimes.co.uk
the times | Monday November 14 2022 V2 49

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THIS is what the LORD says: I will answer

Toppling the Edward Colston your prayers because I have set a time
when I will help by coming to save you.
I have chosen you to take my promise of
hope to other nations. You will rebuild the
DE SAVARY TAYLOR Andrew Richard died peacefully
on 1st November 2022, aged 72. A beloved
husband to Heather, a much-loved father
to Alex and Pips, and a cherished

statue was not proportionate country from its ruins, then people will
come and settle there. Isaiah 49.8 (CEV)

Bible verses are provided by the

grandfather. For funeral details contact
Shaws of Bolton. Donations to Bolton
Hospice gratefully received.

Bible Society Funeral arrangements

Causing significant damage to prop-
erty during political protest fell out-
side the protection of the European
Convention on Human Rights
because prosecution and conviction
for the offence of causing criminal
damage in such circumstances was
proportionate.
The Court of Appeal (Criminal Di-
vision) so stated in answering three
questions referred by the Attorney
General under section 36 of the
Criminal Justice Act 1972 concerning
the rights to freedom of conscience,
freedom of expression and freedom
of assembly under, respectively, arti-
cles 9, 10 and 11 of the Convention,
which arose from the acquittal of the
defendant, Rhian Graham, and three
others of causing criminal damage to
a bronze statue contrary to section
1(1) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971.
Tom Little KC and Victoria Ailes
for the Attorney General; Clare
Montgomery KC and Blinne N
Ghrálaigh for the defendant; Louis
Mably KC as advocate to the court.
Liberty intervened by way of written
submissions only.
The Lord Chief Justice, giving the
judgment of the court, said that the
questions of law were said to have
arisen from a trial in Bristol crown
court of four protestors for allega-
tions of criminal damage to a statue
of Edward Colston, who had accumu-
lated a large fortune in a wide range
of trading activities which included,
through the Royal African Company,
the transportation of African slaves
to the West Indies and America.
The issue, in short, concerned the
extent to which the European Con-
vention on Human Rights sanc-
tioned the use of violence against
property during protest, thereby ren-
dering lawful causing damage to
property which would otherwise be a
crime. Causing damage to property
was a criminal offence pursuant to
the Criminal Damage Act 1971 sub-
ject to a defence of “lawful excuse”.
On January 5, 2022, the jury
acquitted the four defendants. A
range of defences had been run at
trial. The defence with which the
present reference was concerned was
whether conviction for the damage
done to the statue was a dispropor-
tionate interference with the
defendants’ right to protest. The
court was not concerned with the
other defences. It was impossible to
know whether the jury acquitted on
that basis or one of the others. The
reference could, therefore, have no
bearing on the acquittals.
A preliminary issue arose as to
whether the court had jurisdiction to
give its opinion on any of the ques-
tions because they had not arisen at
the trial. Section 36 of the Criminal
Justice Act 1972 conferred a power to
refer a point of law, not in the abstract
but one which had arisen in a real
case. There was no power to refer the-
oretical questions of law.
That was not, however, what the
Attorney General had done in the
present reference. At the heart of the
case originally advanced by the
prosecution was the proposition that
the conduct in question did not
attract any protection under the
Convention. The judge had not ruled
on that issue but proceeded on the
assumption that Convention rights
were engaged.
The questions referred raised
issues of law which sought the opin-
ion of the court on whether that un-
derlying assumption was correct; and
if not, how the matter should be dealt
with. There was no principle which
prevented the Attorney General
from advancing a different (or devel-
oped) argument from that advanced
by the prosecution at trial in relation
to a point of law that was in issue.
In the present case the prosecution
had contended that the protest was
non-peaceful and fell outside the
scope of Convention rights. The sub-
mission entailed the proposition that
the defence of “lawful excuse” did not
arise for Convention reasons. That
was at the heart of the submission ad-
vanced by the Attorney General and
the questions of law the court was
asked to consider.
The first question asked whether
once the prosecution had proved the
two main ingredients for the offence
of criminal damage under section 1(1)
of the 1971 Act — namely (a) that the
defendant destroyed or damaged
property belonging to another and
(b) did so intentionally or recklessly
— no question of proportionality
under the Convention could arise.
The court had concluded that
prosecution and conviction for caus-
ing significant damage to property
during protest would fall outside the
protection of the Convention either
because the conduct in question was
violent or not peaceful, alternatively
(even if theoretically peaceful) prose-
cution and conviction would clearly
be proportionate.
However, the offence of criminal
damage encompassed causing dam-
age which was minor or temporary.
Were a prosecution for criminal dam-
age of that degree to be initiated aris-
ing out of a protest, the case law of the
European Court of Human Rights
suggested that there would need to be
a case-specific assessment of the pro-
portionality of conviction, at least in
connection with damage to public
property.
The court would expect that such
prosecutions would not be launched
because they would be a dispropor-
tionate reaction to the conduct in
question. Thus, scrawling a message
on a pavement using water-soluble
paint might technically be sufficient
to sustain a charge of criminal
damage but to prosecute or convict
for doing so as part of a political
protest might well be a dispropor-
tionate response.
It followed that the answer to the
first question was that the offence of
criminal damage did not automati-
cally fall within the category of offen-
ces whereby proof of the relevant in-
gredients of the offence was sufficient
to justify any conviction as a propor-
tionate interference with any rights
engaged under articles 9, 10 and 11,
without the need for a fact-specific
proportionality assessment in indi-
vidual cases. That said, the circum-
stances in which such an assessment
would be needed were very limited.
It was common ground that it
would be convenient to deal with the
remaining questions together. Ques-
tion 2 was a broad one asking what
principles judges in the crown court
should apply when determining whe-
ther the qualified rights found in arti-
cles 9, 10 and 11 of the Convention
were engaged by the potential con-
viction of defendants for acts of dam-
age during protest. Question 3 asked
in what circumstances the question
of proportionality should be with-
drawn from the jury.
The context of those issues was a
trial in the Crown Court in respect of
damage which exceeded £5,000 in
value. The Convention did not pro-
vide protection to those who caused
criminal damage during protest
which was violent or not peaceful.
Neither did it provide protection
when the damage was inflicted vio-
lently or not peacefully. Articles 9, 10
and 11 were not engaged in those cir-
cumstances and no question of pro-
portionality arose.
Moreover, prosecution and con-
viction for causing significant dam-
age to property, even if inflicted in a
way which was “peaceful”, could not
be disproportionate in Convention
terms. Given the nature of cases that
were heard in the crown court it was
inevitable that, for one or both of
those reasons, the issue should not be
left to the jury. That would be because
the conduct in question was on any
view not peaceful, alternatively the
damage was significant, or both.
Although the present case had not
involved the destruction of the stat-
ue, the damage that was caused was
clearly significant. Pulling the heavy
bronze statue to the ground required
it to be climbed, ropes attached to it
and then the use of a good deal of
force to bring it crashing to the
ground.
The debate about the fate of the
statue had to be resolved through
appropriate legal channels,
irrespective of evidence that those
channels were thought to have been
slow or inefficient, and not by what
might be described as a form of
criminal self-help.
The circumstances in which the
statue was damaged had not involved
peaceful protest. The toppling of the
statute was violent. Moreover, the
damage to the statue was significant.
On both those bases the prosecution
had been correct in its submission
that the conduct in question fell out-
side the protection of the Conven-
tion. The proportionality of the con-
viction could not arise for considera-
tion by the jury.
That was not to suggest that the
defendants were in fact guilty of the
offence of criminal damage because,
as explained, the jury had been con-
cerned with a range of defences.
Solicitors: Treasury Solicitor;
Hodge, Jones and Allen.
Anniversaries
MAGEE : BOYER
Jill, 14th November 2022, our first wedding
anniversary. Every day I remind myself just
how lucky we are to have found each
other. I love you with everything I have.
Yours always, Rich.
Deaths
RIGHELATO Professor Renton died
peacefully at home on 8th November 2022,
aged 79. Much-loved husband of Patricia,
father of Rowan, Jason, Sarah and Rachel,
and grandfather of six.
The simple way to place your
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Court Circular
Buckingham Palace
12th November, 2022
The King and The Queen Consort
were present this evening at the
Royal British Legion Festival of
Remembrance at the Royal Albert
Hall.
The Prince and Princess of
Wales, The Earl and Countess
of Wessex, The Princess Royal
and Vice Admiral Sir Tim
Laurence, The Duke and
Duchess of Gloucester, The
Duke of Kent and Princess
Alexandra, the Hon. Lady
Ogilvy were also present.
Buckingham Palace
13th November, 2022
The King laid a wreath at the
Cenotaph this morning on
the occasion of Remembrance
Day.
A wreath was laid on behalf of
The Queen Consort by Captain
Edward Andersen.
Wreaths were also laid by The
Prince of Wales, The Earl of Wessex
and The Princess Royal.
A wreath was laid on behalf of
The Duke of Kent by Captain
Charles Longstaff.
The Queen Consort, The
Princess of Wales, The Countess of
Wessex, The Duke and Duchess of
Gloucester, The Duke of Kent,
Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady
Ogilvy and Vice Admiral Sir Tim
Laurence were present during the
Ceremony.
The Earl of Wessex afterwards
took the salute at the March Past of
Ex-Servicemen and Civilian
Organisations on Horse Guards
Parade, London SW1.
Peter John died suddenly on
30th October 2022, aged 78.
Yachtsman and entrepreneur,
much-loved husband of wife Lana,
father of Lisa, Nicola, Tara, Amber and
Savannah and grandfather of seven.
The funeral will take place at 11am
on 21st November at St Luke’s
Chelsea, Sydney Street, London
SW3 6NH. No flowers please.
Donations, if desired, to the Teenage
Cancer Trust or the RNLI.
Legal Notices
CR-2022-003276
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY
COURTS OF ENGLAND & WALES
INSOLVENCY AND COMPANIES
LIST (CHANCERY DIVISION)
IN THE MATTER OF GORE STREET
ENERGY STORAGE FUND PLC
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE
COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that on 1
November 2022 a Claim Form was
issued in His Majesty's High Court of
Justice seeking the confirmation of a
reduction in the amount standing to
the credit of the share premium
account of the above-named company,
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc,
by an amount of £100 million.
AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that
the final hearing of the Company's
claim is directed to be heard before the
Insolvency and Companies Court Judge
of the Business and Property Courts of
England & Wales at the Royal Courts of
Justice, Rolls Building, 7 Rolls
Building, Fetter Lane, London, EC4A
1NL on 22 November 2022 at 10.30 a.m.
or so soon thereafter as Counsel may
be heard.
ANY creditor or shareholder of the said
Company desiring to oppose the
making of an Order for the
confirmation of the said cancellation of
the share premium account of the
Company should appear at the time of
the hearing in person or by Counsel for
that purpose.
AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that
the hearing shall be a remote hearing
and shall be conducted using such video
conferencing technology or telephone
CALLIL Carmen at St Martin-in-the-Fields,
Trafalgar Square, London, on 16th
November 2022 at 5pm. Doors open
4.40pm. All welcome.
LEGAL, PUBLIC, COMPANY &
PARLIAMENTARY NOTICES
To place notices for these
sections please call
020 7481 4000
Notices are subject to
confirmation and should be
received by 11.30am three
days prior to insertion
Legal Notices
CR-2022-002112
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY
COURTS OF ENGLAND AND
WALES
COMPANIES COURT (ChD)
IN THE MATTER OF HAMMERSON
PLC
AND IN THE MATTER OF
THE COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that by
aPart 8 Claim Form dated 4
November 2022 the above named
Company has made an application to
Her Majesty’s High Court of Justice for
the cancellation of the Company’s
capital redemption reserve.
AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that
the application is directed to be heard
before an Insolvency and Companies
Court Judge at the Rolls Building, 7
Rolls Building, London EC4A 1NL on 22
November 2022.
ANY creditor or shareholder of the
said Company desiring to oppose
the making of an Order for the
confirmation of the cancellation of the
Company’s capital redemption
reserve should appear at the time of
the hearing in person or by Legal
Representative for that purpose.
Any person wishing to appear
should contact
steven.gibbon@justice.gov.uk in
advance of the hearing for the remote
hearing link. A copy of the Part 8 Claim
Form will be furnished to any such
p e r s o n r e q u i r i n g i t b y
the undermentioned solicitors.
DATED this 14th day of November 2022
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
Exchange House
Primrose Street
London EC2A 2EG
Tel: 020 7374 8000
Fax: 020 7374 0888
Ref: 31053047
Solicitors for the Company
CR-2022-002590
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY
COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
COMPANIES COURT (Ch D)
IN THE MATTER OF BRITISH
SMALLER COMPANIES VCT PLC
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE
COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the
Order of the High Court of Justice
Chancery Division dated 25 October
2022 confirming the cancellation of the
share premium account of British
Smaller Companies VCT plc (the
"Company"), created upon the issue of
ordinary shares, resolved on and
effected by a special resolution passed
at an annual general meeting of the
Company held on 16 September 2022
and the statement of capital approved
by the Court were registered by the

A new collection of conferencing facility as the court

decides. Any person intending to
appear at the hearing (whether in
person or by Counsel), and any member
of the public or representative of the
media intending to attend the hearing,
should contact the ICC Judge's Clerks
Registrar of Companies on 27 October
2022.
Dated the 14th day of November 2022
Howard Kennedy LLP
No. 1 London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG
Solicitors for the Company

Times obituaries at Rolls.ICL.Hearings1@justice.gov.uk

who will put them in touch with the
relevant person for arrangements to be
made to appear at or attend the
hearing.
A copy of the Company's Claim Form
will be furnished to any such person
LEGAL, PUBLIC, COMPANY &
PARLIAMENTARY NOTICES

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requiring the same by the under-
Delve into the lives of the quirky and unorthodox mentioned Solicitors on payment of the
regulated charge for the same.
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DATED this 14th day of November 2022

Stephenson Harwood LLP Notices are subject to
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thetimes.co.uk/bookshop Solicitors for the above-named three days prior to insertion.
Company
the times | Monday November 14 2022 51

Weather
Today Patchy rain and cloud spreading slowly eastwards across the British Isles. Max 17C (63F), min 4C (39F) 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 Remaining unsettled 34 Calm
du=dull, f=fair, fg=fog, h=hail, m=mist, r=rain, (mph) 11 11
sh=showers, sl=sleet, sn=snow, s=sun, t=thunder with further spells of rain Slight 27
*=previous day **=data not available spreading across the Temperature Moderate
Rough
Temp C Rain mm Sun hr* British Isles 28 (degrees C)
11
midday yesterday 24 hrs to 5pm yesterday
11 21
11 FG 0.0 2.1
Tomorrow Flood alerts and warnings
Aberdeen
Spells of rain will spread eastwards
Aberporth 17 S 0.0 1.3
across England, Wales and Scotland. A At 17:00 on Sunday there was one 13
Anglesey 18 S 0.0 4.9 dry morning in Ireland but through the flood alert and no warnings in England, 13
Aviemore 17 S 0.0 0.0 afternoon showers will spread in from and no flood alerts or warnings in
Barnstaple 16 S 0.0 ** the southwest. 18

O
11 FG 0.2 **
Wales or Scotland. Aberdeen
C F n a cold, foggy night 100
Bedford Max 14C, min 6C 35 95
For further information and updates years ago, the UK’s first
Belfast 15 PC 0.0 0.0
in England visit flood-warning- 30 86
Birmingham 12 C 0.2 **
information.service.gov.uk, for Wales radio programme was
Bournemouth 17 S 0.2 5.3 10 NORTH 25 77
broadcast from Marconi
naturalresources.wales/flooding and 20 68
Bridlington 11 C 0.4 **
for Scotland SEPA.org.uk SEA 15 59 House on The Strand in
Bristol 15 S 0.0 3.9
Camborne 16 PC 0.0 1.0 12 10 50
central London. It was 6pm on
9 Edinburgh
Cardiff 15 PC 0.2 1.1
12
18 Glasgow 5 41
November 14, 1922, when the BBC
Edinburgh 14 S 0.0 0.4 0 32
Eskdalemuir 14 S 0.2 **
11 17 -5 23 announced, “This is 2LO, Marconi
Glasgow 14 S 0.0 0.1 -10 14 House, London calling”, 2LO being
14 PC 0.0 ** 14
Hereford Londonderry
Herstmonceux 15 C 0.0 0.2 ATLANTIC
-15 5 the identification number granted
Ipswich 13 PC 0.4 2.3
Newcastle by the General Post Office for its
OCEAN Carlisle
Isle of Man 14 PC 0.0 3.8
Wednesday Belfast radio broadcasting licence. A news
Isle of Wight ** ** ** ** 11
Jersey 15 S 0.0 8.2 An unsettled day with showers or 11 13 programme was followed by a
longer spells of rain spreading up from 8
Keswick 17 S 0.0 ** the southwest. Largely dry with sunny rk
York weather bulletin read by Arthur
Kinloss 16 S 0.0 0.8 spells in the northeast. Burrows, director of programmes,
6
Leeds 9 C 0.2 ** Max 14C, min 5C
Lerwick 11 M 6.0 0.1 Manchester Hull
who read it twice — once fast and
Leuchars 11 FG 0.0 0.8 Liverpoo
Liverpool 10 then slowly, so listeners could decide
Lincoln 11 FG 0.2 2.6 Galway IRISH 8
which they would prefer.
Liverpool 14 S 0.0 ** 9 SEA 14 Sheffield
London 12 C 0.0 1.0 Dublin The items included a report on
Llandudno
Lyneham 15 S 0.0 0.9 dense yellow smog that had
Manchester 15 S 0.0 0.1
14 C 0.0 **
10 12 Nottingham enveloped London and much of
Margate Shrewsbury
11 England for the previous two days. It
Milford Haven 15 PC 0.0 **
Norwich
Newcastle 13 S 0.0 ** 13 was bitterly cold with frost in calm
13
Nottingham 10 FG 0.0 1.3
14
Birmingham Cambridge conditions and the weather forecast,
Orkney 12 S 0.0 0.1 Cork
Oxford 14 S 0.0 ** 10 supplied by the Meteorological
Swansea Oxford 13
Plymouth 16 S 0.0 ** Department of the Air Ministry, was
Portland 16 S 0.0 ** Cardiff
Scilly, St Mary’s 15 M 0.2 **
Thursday Channel Islands CELTIC 17 for more cold foggy weather.
Shoreham 12 C 0.0 0.5 Sunny periods and scattered heavy
SEA Bristol London The broadcast was made by the
showers, heaviest and perhaps
Shrewsbury 14 PC 0.0 0.0 thundery in the south and west. 15
Snowdonia 17 S 0.0 ** Southampton
British Broadcasting Company, as
Max 13C, min 3C 13 the BBC was originally called, which
Southend 13 M 0.2 0.0 eter
Exeter
South Uist 15 PC 0.2 ** 16 Plymouth Brighton had been formed in October 1922 by
Stornoway 14 C 0.4 0.0
Tiree 14 PC 0.0 0.0
a group of wireless manufacturers
Whitehaven 16 S 0.0 2.8 8
13 including Marconi. The chairman of
CHANNEL 12
Wick 12 S 0.0 ** 17 the company, Sir William Noble,
Yeovilton 16 S 0.2 2.2
outlined plans for the radio weather
10
General situation: Patchy rain Republic of Ireland, N Ireland: A dry SW Eng, Channel Is, Wales: Cloudy forecast to The Times: “The
The world 13
spreading eastwards across Wales, day with lengthy sunny spells although with patchy rain this morning, Meteorological Department of the
All readings local midday yesterday
Scotland and England. Dry with sunny there is the small risk of a shower becoming brighter with sunny spells Air Ministry is supplying us, at first
Alicante 22 PC Madeira 23 PC 12 spells in Ireland. in eastern areas. Light to moderate developing later. Light south or
Amsterdam 15 S Madrid 15 PC
at any rate, with two weather
London, SE Eng, Cen S Eng, Mids, IoM, southeasterly winds. Maximum southwesterly winds. Maximum 15C
Athens 19 PC Malaga 22 PC
NW Eng, Lake District, SW Scotland, 12C (54F), minimum 4C (39F). (59F), minimum 5C (41F). reports. It may be that we shall
Auckland 20 PC Mallorca 22 PC arrange for a third report, but that
30 S 21 PC Friday Argyll, Glasgow, NW Scotland: Early Edinburgh and Dundee, Cen Highland, E Anglia, E Eng, Cen N Eng, NE Eng,
Bahrain Malta
Bangkok 32 PC Melbourne 25 B A largely dry day in the east with
fog will lift into low cloud through Aberdeen, NW Scotland, Moray Firth, Borders: Any mist and fog will lift has not yet been fixed up.” This was,
Barbados 29 SH Mexico City 23 S lengthy sunny spells. Sunny periods the morning. During the afternoon NE Scotland, N Isles: A largely cloudy revealing sunny periods this morning. however, not the first radio weather
Barcelona 19 S Miami 29 B and scattered showers in western outbreaks of patchy rain will spread but dry day with some patchy fog Thick cloud will spread in from the
areas, possibly wintry over the in from the west. Light to moderate over the hills. Moderate to strong west later in the afternoon. Light and
service. In 1902, Marconi broadcast
Beijing 8 S Milan 15 S Scottish hills.
Beirut 27 S Mombasa 30 PC southeasterly winds. Maximum southeasterly winds. Maximum 13C variable winds. Maximum 14C (57F), storm warnings for shipping in the
Max 12C, min -1C
Belgrade 15 S Montreal 14 C 17C (63F), minimum 4C (39F). (55F), minimum 5C (41F). minimum 5C (41F). Atlantic in Morse code.
Berlin 11 B Moscow 8 B It is not clear how many listeners
Bermuda 26 PC Mumbai 33 S 7
Bordeaux 19 S Munich 9 S Tides Noon today tuned in to the first radio broadcast
Brussels 14 S Nairobi 24 B Tidal predictions. in 1922, although only 30,000 radio
Bucharest 14 S Naples 16 B Heights in metres HIGH
8 1016
licences had been issued, costing ten
Budapest 9 M New Orleans 14 C Today Ht Ht LOW
Buenos Aires 26 S New York 21 PC 10 Aberdeen 04:37 3.6 16:39 3.7 HIGH shillings (50p) each, equivalent to
Cairo 24 PC Nice 18 B Avonmouth 09:54 11.1 22:15 10.5 LOW £26 in today’s money. And there was
Calcutta 28 S Nicosia 25 PC Belfast 02:21 3.1 14:42 3.5 1024
4 FG 12
1016 hardly a fanfare of publicity for the
Canberra 22 B Oslo Cardiff 09:39 10.4 22:04 9.8
Cape Town 21 B Paris 13 S 08:30 5.0 20:51 4.6
1000 launch, with The Times announcing:
Devonport LOW
Chicago 2 C Perth 20 B
Dover 02:00 6.0 14:13 5.7 “Preliminary ‘broadcasting’ will be
Copenhagen 11 R Prague 3 FG LOW HIGH authorised from Marconi House this
Saturday Dublin 02:46 3.5 15:03 3.6 976
Corfu 20 B Reykjavik 11 C 984 1008
A band of heavy rain will spread Falmouth 08:12 4.6 20:33 4.2 evening.” But the following year the
Delhi 26 S Riga 10 S
into western areas through the day. Greenock 03:34 3.2 15:35 3.5 992 LOW
Dubai 31 S Rio de Janeiro 29 B
Eastern areas will stay dry for much of
1016 Cold front radio broadcasts grew more popular
Dublin 15 B Riyadh 31 S Harwich 02:25 3.7 14:56 3.6 1016
Faro 20 PC Rome 18 S
the day with sunny spells.
Holyhead 01:17 4.8 13:31 4.9 Warm front and the output of programmes
Max 13C, min 0C HIGH
Florence 17 PC San Francisco 15 PC Hull 09:21 6.2 21:18 6.4 Occluded front increased rapidly.
Frankfurt 11 S Santiago 18 B Leith 05:55 4.7 18:04 4.7 Trough
1024
Geneva 10 B São Paulo 24 B Liverpool 01:59 8.0 14:12 8.0
Gibraltar 20 PC Seoul 10 B 8 London Bridge 04:34 6.3 17:03 6.3
Synoptic situation Highs and lows Hours of darkness
Helsinki 7 S Seychelles 30 PC Lowestoft 00:16 2.4 13:05 2.2 24hrs to 5pm yesterday Aberdeen 16:27-07:20
Hong Kong 28 S Singapore 29 SH Milford Haven 09:09 5.9 21:35 5.5 A decaying cold front will bring Belfast 16:54-07:24
Honolulu 28 PC St Petersburg 7 B a band of cloud and patchy Warmest: Porthmadog,
13 Morecambe 02:10 7.9 14:23 7.9 Gwynedd, 21.2C Birmingham 16:46-06:59
Istanbul 17 PC Stockholm 6 S
9 Newhaven 01:59 5.8 14:06 5.6 rain across England, Wales Coldest: Cairngorm, 2.2C Cardiff 16:55-07:00
Jerusalem 28 S Sydney 23 B
Newquay 08:02 6.0 20:29 5.6 and Scotland. A dry morning Wettest: Lerwick, Exeter 16:59-06:59
Johannesburg 13 SH Tel Aviv 28 S in Ireland but in the afternoon Shetland, 6.0mm
Oban 08:32 3.5 20:59 3.1 Sunniest: Jersey, 8.2hrs* Glasgow 16:41-07:23
Kuala Lumpur 29 PC Tenerife 25 PC a series of fronts associated
12 Penzance 07:40 4.8 20:00 4.5 Liverpool 16:47-07:07
Kyiv ** ** Tokyo 24 PC with an area of low pressure
27 S 6 PC Portsmouth 02:32 4.3 14:39 4.2 Sun and moon London 16:42-06:48
Lanzarote Vancouver moving up from the southwest For Greenwich Manchester 16:43-07:04
Las Palmas 30 PC Venice 15 S Shoreham 02:03 5.5 14:08 5.3 Sun rises: 07.16
The Times weather Southampton 04:14 4.1 13:32 3.9
will bring thick cloud and heavy Newcastle 16:35-07:08
Lima 16 DU Vienna 7 M Sun sets: 16.12
rain. A cold front will spread Moon rises: 20.37 Norwich 16:33-06:47
Lisbon 18 B Warsaw 9 B page is provided Swansea 09:14 8.0 21:39 7.5
eastwards tomorrow bringing a Moon sets: 13.29 Tue Penzance 17:09-07:05
Los Angeles 19 S Washington 21 PC Tees 06:58 4.7 19:06 4.8
28 S 6 D
by Weatherquest spell of rain to all areas. Third Quarter: November 16 Sheffield 16:41-07:01
Luxor Zurich Weymouth 09:18 1.7 21:53 1.5
the times | Monday November 14 2022 53

Sport
Wane set to
survive abject
Samoa choke
England
0
26
2
Samoa
1
27
Rugby League World Cup
Ross Heppenstall
After a devastating World Cup semi-
final defeat which reduced head coach
Shaun Wane to tears, emotions were
raw in the England camp.
Some players were too upset to talk,
while others spoke with searing hon-
esty about the magnitude of a hugely
damaging setback.
It said much for the bitter disappoint-
ment of a significant opportunity lost
for the 13-a-side code in this country.
A tournament that was seven years in
the making, originally scheduled for
last autumn but postponed for 12
months due to the pandemic, and
funded by £25 million of government
money had promised so much.
Four comprehensive wins before En-
gland arrived at the Emirates Stadium
had encouraged genuine hope that
Wane could maybe, just maybe, deliver
a first World Cup since Great Britain
lifted the trophy in 1972.
Even if England had reached Satur-
day’s final against the holders, Austra-
lia, at Old Trafford, it would have
given rugby league the kind of
high-profile relevance it so
desperately craves on these
shores.
In the end, though, it
was a familiar tale of
woe, as England, who
made a string of costly er-
rors, were simply not
good enough when it
mattered most.
Sure, there was
heart and there was
courage but, crucially,
they did not have the
composure and the skill
Defeat left Wane, the
head coach, tearful
to emerge victorious when the stakes
were at the highest.
Just like the 2013 semi-final defeat by
New Zealand at Wembley and the 2017
final loss to Australia in Brisbane, what
might have been an epic ending turned
into another sob story.
A Samoa side who had been
thumped 60-6 by England in the World
Cup opener at St James’ Park four
weeks earlier were too strong in the
capital, as Stephen Crichton’s golden-
point drop-goal proved decisive.
How on earth did England lose
to a team they had beaten so
comprehensively four weeks
earlier? Australia
In truth, Samoa have got
better every week since
v Samoa
then while England were World Cup final Makinson is left devastated after an error-strewn England side again fail to grasp an opportunity for glory
able to cruise through the Saturday, Old Trafford
group stages, and only Pap- Kick-off: 4pm score at 26-26 after sorely needed around the ruck on Sat- opposition. The next World Cup will be
ua New Guinea, in the quar- 80 minutes. urday, at hooker also drew criticism. held in France in 2025.
ter-final, seriously tested them. TV: BBC1, BBC Extra-time was a dis- Cooper, the Wigan Warriors prop, Wane said: “I know the talent we
“We have got no one to blame iPlayer aster for England, whose said: “I’m completely devastated and it’s have. We will get in this position again
but ourselves,” Herbie Farnworth, handling errors gifted Samoa so hard now to even think straight. and we will be better next time.”
England’s Brisbane Broncos centre, the field position which allowed Ste- “We were sloppy and behind most of Whether or not the 58-year-old will
said. phen Crichton’s 84th-minute drop-goal the game but kept clawing it back. still be in position remains to be seen,
“We just let ourselves down a little bit to prove decisive. “Credit to Samoa, though because but for some time yet he will feel the
and didn’t stick to the game plan that “There are some heartbroken lads in they scored a couple of unbelievable pain of a defeat that will leave deep
we’ve spoken about all week. that dressing room,” George Williams, tries and I hope they go on and win it scars.
“We had a strong fightback the Warrington Wolves half back said. now.” Wane looked inconsolable as he
towards the end but it “It was some players’ first tourna- Wane is under contract at the Rugby admitted: “I’m gutted, absolutely
wasn’t enough — errors ment and probably other players’ last, Football League for another year and wounded.
again killed us. Gutted so you can imagine there will be some seems certain to remain in position. “We were below our standards.
doesn’t come close, it just tears. Despite choking when it mattered There is some soul-searching going on
f***ing hurts.” “Watching that kick go over felt like a most, England have emerged as a com- from us staff. We have to be better. A
England had con- nightmare, but we got what we ing force under the uncompromising semi-final is not good enough.”
ceded only six tries en deserved. Wiganer. And that was the truth.
route to the semi- “We’re way better than what we A popular figure with his players and
final but shipped five showed but we fell short on the biggest a father figure to some, Wane has
at the Emirates with stage and that’s why it hurts so much.” created a tight-knit bond with the Scorers: England: Tries Whitehead (25min),
Matt Parish’s men a Seasoned internationals such as Sam squad during the tournament and Bateman 45, Farnworth (64, 78) Goals
side transformed Tomkins, Kallum Watkins, Elliott meshed NRL-based talent such as Tom Makinson 5. Samoa: Tries Lafai (6), Sao (31),
since their shambolic Whitehead, Ryan Hall, Chris Hill, Mike Burgess, Dom Young, Whitehead, Crichton (49, 73), Goals Crichton (3)
Drop-goal Crichton.
opening display in Cooper and Michael McIlorum may Farnworth and Victory Radley with his England S Tomkins; D Young, K Watkins,
Newcastle. have played their last games in an Super League stars. H Farnworth, T Makinson; J Welsby, G Williams;
England never England jersey. The key to England’s continued T Burgess, M McIlorum, C Hill, J Bateman,
looked comfortable Wane, the England head coach, ad- progress is playing games on a more E Whitehead, V Radley. Interchange M
or convincing but, de- mitted worryingly that he could have regular basis and, while a mid-season McMeeken, M Knowles, L Thompson, M Cooper.
spite being second- done more to prepare the team ade- international against France seems Samoa J Sua’ali’i; B To’o, S Crichton, T Lafai,
best for much of the quately for their semi-final and his certain in 2023, it is hoped they will also T May; J Luai, A Milford; R Hunt, F Brown, J
afternoon, they came selection of the 34-year-old McIlorum, face a meaningful autumn series Paulo, L Sao, J Su’a, O Kaufusi. Interchange
C Harris-Tavita, J Papali’i, S Leniu, K Tuilagi.
from behind to level the who lacked the kind of energy England against southern hemisphere Referee G Sutton (Aus). Attendance 40,489.

Germany hosts Brady bunch in Munich cheer festival

Tough draw for Britain after defeat
Tennis
Stuart Fraser Tennis Correspondent
The agony of narrowly missing out on
the final of the Billie Jean King Cup in
Glasgow was further compounded by a
challenging draw for the Great Britain
team in next year’s edition of the world
cup of women’s tennis.
Had Britain won the deciding
doubles rubber of Saturday’s semi-final
against Australia — they were only four
points away in the match tie-break —
automatic entry to the 2023 finals
would have been assured.
Instead, they were pulled out of the
hat yesterday to face France in a qualifi-
er at home on April 14-15. This will be a
tough task as the visitors will likely
bring Caroline Garcia, the world No 4
who won last week’s WTA Finals, and
the former world No 11, Alizé Cornet.
If Britain lose, there could still be a
route into the finals through a host’s
wild card for the second consecutive
year. The International Tennis Federa-
tion has decided to choose a location at
a later date, meaning the possibility of a
losing team in the qualifiers getting
back in by successfully bidding for the
finals. While this raises questions of
sporting integrity, the British captain
Anne Keothavong made it clear that she
would like the LTA to express interest.
“That’s a no-brainer,” she said. “We
are very grateful to the LTA for invest-
ing in this competition. Without that,
we wouldn’t have had the opportunity
this week. The way the players have
conducted themselves shows how
much they want it and they are ready to
perform. They absolutely deserve it.”
It is hoped that a first run to the semi-
finals since 1981 will inspire the British
women to new heights on the tour next
season. Harriet Dart was the stand-out
singles performer, and the 26-year-old
is clearly capable of going far beyond
her present ranking of No 98.
“This has definitely given me a lot of
confidence going into next year,” Dart
said. “You know you’re going to have
ups and downs, and it’s just about
remaining positive and having a really
good outlook long term, and a plan. I
feel like I have gained yards with that
this year.”
American football The NFL’s newest
stage proved a happy hunting
ground for its oldest star as Tom
Brady became the first quarterback to
play — and win — in four countries
(Charles Walford writes).
The game in Munich’s Allianz
Arena was the first time that the
league had ventured to Germany —
which joined England and Mexico as
an international venue — and it was
Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers who
dominated the early exchanges
against the Seattle Seahawks. quarter appeared to have sealed the
They went in 14-0 up at half-time game for the Buccaneers, but Geno
after Brady, right, threw a 31-yard Smith, the Seahawks quarterback
touchdown pass to Julio Jones before enjoying a productive season, made
Leonard Fournette, the running back, them sweat, connecting with Tyler
scored from a yard out. Lockett and Marquise Goodwin to cut
Another Brady touchdown pass to the lead. But Tampa Bay held on for a
Chris Goodwin early in the fourth 21-16 victory that leaves them at 5-5.
54
Sport Women's Rugby World Cup final
All Black legends key to triumph
New Zealand
0
34
2 of the tournament
England
1
31
Elgan Alderman Auckland
Not even a 30-game unbeaten run and
four years of million-pound investment
could bring glory for the Red Roses on
Saturday. They fought valiantly, equal
partners in a brilliant contest, but
Rugby World Cup finals involving New
Zealand are a simple game: 30 women
chase a ball for 80 minutes and, at the
end, the Black Ferns win.
Five finals against New Zealand this
century, five defeats for England. The
big show focuses Kiwi minds. They
have lost ten times to England in
women’s rugby, but even when they
drift and fester, they always get their act
together when a trophy is on offer.
Their act was in pieces 12 months
ago. New Zealand travelled to England
and France for a quartet of stuffings. It
was the series that made the Black
Ferns realise that they were way off the
pace — they had not played for 26
months — and led to Te Kura Ngata-
Aerengamate’s allegations of a toxic
environment. There followed a cul-
tural review, the resignation of Glenn
Moore, and the installation of “The
Professor”: Wayne Smith. The
players, with full-time deals, were
ready for their seven-month dash.
Smith headlined a dream ensem-
ble. Graham Henry on analysis, Mike
Cron on scrums, plus Whitney
Hansen, daughter of Steve. Smith and
Henry, accustomed to the All Blacks
straitjacket, were met by players who
treated the team bus like a jamboree.
At their pre-final press conference,
Kendra Cocksedge and Ruby Tui were
living their best lives. Tui is a marketer’s
dream: Eric Idle in front of a micro-
phone, Eric Rush in front of a tackler.
A string of former All Blacks have
come in to help: Richie McCaw, Keven
Mealamu, Ben Smith, Conrad Smith,
Ali Williams. Dan Carter worked with
the kickers (not that the Black Ferns
kick often). Smith wanted his side to be
unshackled. They have won 12 matches
in a row since June, culminating in
narrow victories over Europe’s top two.
More than 42,000 fans were at Eden
Park. England, down to 14 players after
Lydia Thompson’s 18th-minute red
card, had a chance to win it with a line-
out in the final play. They went for a tel-
egraphed front ball and Joanah
Sorry, but England losing was right result for England dominating the collisions.
Stuart Barnes
T
he last lineout of the World
Cup final was an agonising
moment for the Red Roses.
Their pain was to prove the
Black Ferns’ ecstasy as
England’s primary weapon of choice,
their all-conquering catch-and-drive
routine, was defused. New Zealand
competed at the front, stole
possession and with it won a sixth
World Cup.
Take the partisan feelings out of
what was a turbocharged occasion
and the lingering, long-term emotion
was, dare I say it, relief. This was a
game full of blood and thunder. A red
card and a clattering occasion, with
Elgan’s Alderman’s team
1 2
Annaëlle Amy Cokayne
Deshaye (Fr) (Eng)
4 5
Madoussou Abbie Ward
Fall (Fr) (Eng)
6 8
Alex Matthews Sophie
(Eng) de Goede (Can)
9 man appeared to display the fencing re-
Pauline
Bourdon (Fr) 10
Ruahei
Demant (NZ) 12
Theresa
Fitzpatrick (NZ)
Fluhler (NZ)
11 15
Portia Emilie
Woodman (NZ) Boulard (Fr)
Ngan-Woo stole it from Abbie Ward.
The partisan crowd view was that En-
gland were boring and all maul. It was
the source of four of their five tries,
though they made a sweeping backs-
inspired score in the third minute when
Thompson was still out there.
New Zealand scored two maul tries,
lest we forget, but the other four (all on
the side of the pitch where Thompson
was absent) displayed their attacking
prowess. Everyone would have seemed
boring compared with the Black Ferns.
The fly half and captain, Ruahei
Demant, made the most offloads in the
tournament and at 34-31 in the final
minutes, she tapped a penalty in her
own half. That gave England their
chance. She got away with it.
And with that, the capacity to control
territory. Turnovers, penalties. Kicks
to the corner? Plenty of them. In fact,
not even to the corner. The Red
Roses drove over from 22 metres out
for one of their maul tries. It appeared
to be an irresistible force, steering
England to victory.
Amy Cokayne, the England hooker,
scored a hat-trick of tries before being
substituted. Had England won, she
would surely have been adjudged
player of the match. Hat-trick heroes
always are. But for more than a
century, it has been the wings
sprinting into the corner and the
headlines. The Red Roses have
exceptional ability on both flanks.
The score they conjured against
Canada in the semi-final, which Abby
Dow finished, was the best try of the
tournament. Yet England — let no
one be in any doubt — were focused
on winning this game ugly. Four
close-range tries are a testimony to
3 Simon Middleton said referees should
Siteri
Rasolea (Fiji)
7 face collision with Portia Woodman in
Sarah Hirini
(NZ)
13
Stacey
14
Abby Dow
(Eng)
New Zealand celebrate their sixth World Cup after victory over England, while
left, Henry and Smith enjoy the win with Ariana Bayler and Kennedy Simon
Demant was player of the match
but Stacey Fluhler was the patron saint
of the highlights reel, duping Emily
Scarratt for her own try and popping
majestically to Ayesha Leti-I’iga for the
match-winner. Fluhler hurt her ankle
in the process, hobbling off with a smile
so wide it started in Auckland and fin-
ished in London.
The Black Ferns have captivated
their nation. Surely now, even outside
World Cups, the love and funding will
continue? Smith was the overlord, the
man with a thousand contacts, but De-
mant, Fluhler et al were in the arena,
marred by sweat and blood. For Smith,
it was a seven-month fling that brought
lifelong love, enough to overcome En-
gland’s Simon Middleton, eight years at
the helm. The Red Roses have had se-
renity, with spreadsheets and long-
the expertise of the forward coaching.
Yet let’s not forget, New Zealand
rumbled over for a pair of driving
lineout tries of their own. Does the
game really believe matches with six
catch-and-drives is the way this sport
should be heading?
The women’s game is not
encumbered with the
macho thud and bluster of
the male game that is
otherwise known as tradition.
It has an opportunity to
freshen up the sport.
Wayne Smith rebuilt the
Black Ferns within a year.
Their modus operandi
was to attack from all
over. Some of their tries
were superlative.
England were just
as capable but
Thompson was
sent off in blood-
and-thunder final
term candidates. The Black Ferns
channelled their chaos into rugby form.
The on-field chaos is magnetic, but off-
field serenity would be welcome. It may
prove to be Smith’s greatest legacy of all.
Scorers: New Zealand: Tries G Ponsonby (18min),
Leti-I’iga (24, 71), Rule (39), Fluhler (40), Murray
(48). Cons Holmes 2. England: Tries Kildunne
(2min), Cokayne (12, 31, 53), M Packer (20). Cons
Scarratt 3.
New Zealand R Holmes; R Tui, S Fluhler, T
Fitzpatrick, P Woodman (sub A Leti-I’iga 17); R
Demant, K Cocksedge; P Love (K Murray 46), G
Ponsonby (L Connor 46), A Rule (S Taumata 62),
M Roos (J Ngan-Woo 64), C Bremner, A Bremner,
S Hirini, C McMenamin (K Simon 50; sin-bin 64).
England E Kildunne; L Thompson, E Scarratt, H
Aitchison, A Dow (T Heard 66); Z Harrison, L
Packer (C MacDonald 50); V Cornborough (M
Muir 72), A Cokayne (L Davies 72), S Bern (S
Brown 72), Z Aldcroft (C O’Donnell 27), A Ward, A
Matthews, M Packer (S Kabeya 50), S Hunter (P
Cleall 40). Sent off: Thompson (18).
decided another way was the better
route to success. Given the utmost
mastery of their lineout throughout
the tournament and this match, I
don’t blame the England head coach,
Simon Middleton, and his
players.
The game is about
winning, especially when
the match happens to be
the World Cup final. This
was a match where both
sides were able to
score from penalty
kicks to the corner.
Five or seven-point
outcomes make
the policy an
almost
unthinking,
instinctive one.
Look at the
Gallagher
Premiership
and the
autumn
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
Middleton: Red
cards for intent
would be fairer
Elgan Alderman
consider intent around high tackles
after Lydia Thompson’s red card in the
World Cup final, having admitted that
he would never get over the defeat.
Thompson was sent off for a face-to-
the 18th minute. England were leading
New Zealand 14-0 but lost 34-31. Wood-
sponse, a reaction in which a person’s
arms are outstretched after a brain
trauma, as a medic attended to her on
the ground. Zoe Aldcroft and Abby
Dow later underwent head injury as-
sessments — the latter not immediate-
ly, though she passed it. Dow was tack-
led high by Kennedy Simon, who was
deemed to have made contact with
Dow’s shoulder first and yellow-carded.
“There has got to be a penalty for a
high tackle or head clash or things that
endanger players,” Middleton, the En-
gland head coach, said. “I just think you
have to take intent into consideration.
Maybe that’s the bit that’s missing as
part of our protocols and consistency.”
Middleton suggested a replacement
after 20 minutes could be a solution,
and said the final would not have been
a grand spectacle without his
14-woman team’s determination.
“All the things that have been
brought in have had a huge impact on
the game in terms of concussion and we
should keep going as hard as we can to
make the game as safe as we can but
there were some far more intentful in-
cidents across this competition that
didn’t get what we got,” he said.
“[Thompson] did not deserve this.”
Middleton, who had long said World
Cup victory was the side’s necessary
goal, looked crestfallen at Auckland’s
Grand Millennium hotel as England
prepared to fly home yesterday. He is
contracted until the summer of 2023,
but would not be drawn on his future. A
kilometre away, the Black Ferns were
on stage in front of a crowd, celebrating
a sixth World Cup win in seven editions.
Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief execu-
tive, said England’s defeat would not re-
duce fan or governing-body invest-
ment in women’s rugby, which is not yet
profit-making. “Growing the women’s
game is a really key strategic priority, it
helps the overall game, not just at the
elite level but at the grassroots,” he said.
“We will definitely keep investing.”
internationals. Hookers are the new
wingers, tucked tight at the rear of the
unstoppable drive. Advocates of this
type of try will defend it as a well-
worked technical ploy. Why shouldn’t
it be given the same value as some
fancy-Dan wing’s finish?
Here’s why. The five-metre position
is predominantly created by a penalty
won by the defensive team.
Sometimes the source is the scrum.
Half the penalties awarded at this set
piece are guesswork. The cost of a
referee getting his interpretation
incorrect is too great. The other
source is the breakdown. Middleton’s
England are outstanding in the rough
and tumble of the tackle zone. To
attempt to play your way out of your
own half is to risk the penalty, the kick
to the corner . . . you know the rest.
It wasn’t that long ago that Eddie
Jones explained the excessive
negativity of England’s obsessive
kicking game in the light of this
quandary. Put simply, it is too risky to
the times | Monday November 14 2022
Erasmus launches video offensive
against referee Barnes over defeat
John Westerby
A one-year ban from the sport they love
would make most people wary of trans-
gressing, but Rassie Erasmus has once
again reacted to a defeat by drawing at-
tention to the decisions of a referee.
After a three-point defeat by Ireland
a week earlier, South Africa fell four
points short in a rollercoaster contest in
the Stade Velodrome on Saturday
evening, during which Wayne Barnes,
the English referee, showed two red
cards — to Pieter-Steph du Toit, of
South Africa, and Antoine Dupont, of
France — and a yellow card to Deon
Fourie that left the Springboks a man
down for the final ten minutes.
The reaction of Erasmus, the South
Africa director of rugby, was to post a
tweet after the game drawing attention
to two other decisions that had not gone
the way of his team — a pass from Willie
le Roux that was adjudged forward and
a forearm hand-off from Thomas
Ramos, the France full back, into the
face of Cheslin Kolbe — accompanying
them with sarcastic comments. “We
really only have ourselves to blame as
the French were awsome [sic] both on
the field and off,” he wrote. “We just have
to fix these fundamental errors like
tackle technique and simple passing.”
Yesterday he followed up with a slew
of further videos, including one ques-
tioning the decision-making around
Fourie’s yellow card, which turned the
match in France’s favour. “Deon cop-
ping a lot of flack for this yellow card, to
be honest I also thought the Blue 16 de-
tached and maul over,” he tweeted, “we
just have to work harder and make sure
we understand the rules correctly! Very
costly. We deserve all the criticism!!”
Erasmus, remember, is the coach
who released an hour-long tirade after
the opening Test of the British & Irish
Lions’ series against South Africa last
year in which he excoriated the deci-
sion-making of Nic Berry, the Austra-
lian referee. He was widely criticised
for his outburst, seen as deliberately
undermining match officials, and was
banned by World Rugby from attend-
ing his team’s matches for a year, a
punishment that expired six weeks ago.
Despite the unprecedented severity
of the punishment, Erasmus expressed
little contrition and now appears intent
on testing the patience of the game’s
our game’s future
play with the ball in hand. Better to
practise your kick-and-chase game. It
takes less time than all that passing
and running-angle stuff.
Anyone see Friday night’s Rugby
League World Cup semi-final
between Australia and New Zealand?
It was a game of outstanding skill.
Players spend time working on
their skills as opposed to perfecting
the all-but-indefensible driving
lineout. It makes union a duller game,
for all the drama of Saturday
morning. What can the sport’s
authorities do? They can make the
driving lineout less attractive as a
scoring proposition. They can take
the conversion out of the equation to
make it a five-point maximum the
moment the referee says “drive”.
On Friday night, watching Bath v
Leicester Tigers, a statistic flashed up
on my TV screen, informing viewers
that Bath score from 65 per cent of
their drives. From a neutral
perspective, such scores are tedious.
Barnes, the
English referee
who sent off two
players — one
from each team
— as France beat
South Africa, is
the latest subject
of Erasmus’s ire
after the director
of rugby was
banned for
releasing a video,
right, criticising
another official
during last year’s
Lions tour
On this occasion, Bath eventually
won the game with an old-fashioned
wing’s dive in to the corner. Two
covering defenders could not prevent
a thrilling touchdown.
The driving lineout is the bane of
our time. It limits ambition with the
ball in hand for both the team in
possession, in attack and defence. For
that reason, there is a degree of relief
that England, driven by their driving
lineout, were unable to eke out a
World Cup-winning fifth try from this
set piece.
With New Zealand world
champions, perhaps the next
generation of women players and
coaches will dream the sort of dreams
that Wayne Smith turns into reality.
England, down to 14 women after the
early red card for Lydia Thompson,
had a reason to keep it tight, but this
has been the template for most of the
tournament. They played like men.
For the sake of the sport, I am glad
the Black Ferns women prevailed.
Switched-on Wales find physicality
Wales
0
20
2
Argentina
1
13
Steve James
For all its modern analytical complex-
ities, rugby union, particularly at the
highest level, remains the most simple
of games. Win the physical collisions
and it is more than likely that you will
win the game. Emotional levels need to
be at their very peak.
“Edge” is how Argentina’s head
coach, Michael Cheika, described it
after his team’s defeat. His side lacked it,
he said, and he was right. The victory
over England had taken too much from
them, and replicating such heights
proved impossible.
By contrast Wales were transformed
from their flaccid performance against
New Zealand on their first weekend of
this autumn. The riot act had been read,
and there was a significant reaction.
authorities again. World Rugby de-
clined to comment yesterday, and it re-
mains to be seen whether there is suffi-
cient explicit criticism of Barnes in the
tweets to take action, yet the target of
his comments is abundantly clear.
After defeats in their opening two
matches, on Saturday South Africa face
an Italy team buoyed by their victory
over Australia, before travelling to
Twickenham to face England a week
later. Erasmus is clearly hoping for a
more sympathetic hearing from refer-
ees in their final two fixtures.
The Springboks will expect to be
without Du Toit for those matches after
his sickening clear-out that left Jona-
than Danty with a fractured eye socket
in the 12th minute. Although his mo-
mentum into the contact was increased
by a nudge from behind by Kwagga
Smith, his team-mate, Du Toit pro-
pelled himself head-first into Danty,
who was on the ground.
Dupont, the France captain, can be
considered less culpable, but aerial
challenges are judged on the outcome
and Kolbe landed heavily on his neck.
The South Africa wing had risen early
to attack a clever kick from Faf de Klerk
and, although Dupont kept his eyes
fixed on the ball, players have a respon-
sibility to avoid making contact with
airborne opponents and he failed to
spot Kolbe’s advance.
After France had roared into a 13-0
lead, South Africa mounted a stirring
comeback that was given greater impe-
tus by Dupont’s dismissal, but Fourie’s
yellow card tilted fortunes back in the
favour of the home side, setting the
stage for a thrilling finale. Roared on by
a full house, Sipili Falatea’s late score en-
abled France to extend their winning
run to 12 matches, a sequence stretching
back to the start of the autumn interna-
tionals last year. They will be expected
to add another victory when they face
Japan on Sunday in Toulouse.
As part of the preparations for the
World Cup next year, France are show-
casing themselves around the country
in their quest to galvanise support for
their attempt to lift the Webb Ellis Cup
for the first time. This humdinger of a
contest followed a last-gasp victory
against Australia in Paris a week earlier
and if they keep providing entertain-
ment like this, the whole country will be
glued to the World Cup next year.
“Rugby players, anywhere in the
world, my experience is when they’re
challenged around physicality, you
normally get a response,” Wayne Pivac,
the Wales head coach, said.
“These boys were very keen to get out
there and put some of the wrongs of last
week right.”
In such circumstances you need your
big players to lead the way, and Pivac
had those individuals in the back-row
forwards Taulupe Faletau and Justin
Tipuric, the captain. In fact, every
member of the pack had their mo-
ments, as Wales’s work at all the contact
areas was hugely improved. Of course,
it was far from perfect. The attack still
gives concern, even though Tomos
Williams, the scrum half, enjoyed one
of his finest matches for his country and
George North confirmed his rise to a
top-notch international outside centre.
Wales’s two tries came from a driving
lineout and a rather fortuitous charge
down. It has become very evident that
this Wales side are at their most effec-
tive when adopting a Warren Gatland
55
Rugby union Sport
Farrell fearful
over lack of
Irish leaders
Ireland
0
35
2
Fiji
1
17
Peter O’Reilly
Johnny Sexton dominated the fall-out
from this scratchy, unimpressive Irish
victory, even though he wasn’t playing.
Andy Farrell’s over-reliance on his 37-
year-old captain and fly half — and on
other absent members of the team’s
leadership group — leaves Farrell
sweating over who is and is not fit for
Saturday’s Test against Australia.
Sexton hasn’t trained since the 19-16
victory over South Africa nine days
ago, when he played for much of the
second half with his right thigh heavily
strapped. Others who sat out training
last week include Andrew Porter,
James Ryan, Josh van der Flier, Conor
Murray and Hugo Keenan, not to men-
tion a few others in longer-term rehab.
Farrell said that he would know more
about the make-up of this week’s team
once he had sat down with his medical
staff. On Saturday, Ireland looked flat
and directionless against a Fiji side that
mixed occasional brilliance with an
all-too-familiar ill-discipline. Api
Ratuniyarawa and Manasa Saulo both
received yellow cards, while Albert
Tuisue was sent off in the 46th minute
for driving his right shoulder into Joey
Carbery’s jaw. Yet Ireland weren’t abso-
lutely safe until the 75th minute, when
Cian Healy scored their fifth try.
“There’s a lot of big characters who
were not in the changing-room,” Farrell
said, in attempt to rationalise a sub-
standard performance.
“It’s not just Johnny. Look at all the
experience that is out of the side. Not
just the injured lads, it’s Bundee [Aki],
Iain Henderson, Keith Earls not being
here. When you’re missing so many,
other people know they need to try to
fill that vacuum but they need the expe-
rience of doing that.”
Farrell expects a big challenge from
Australia who were also resting front-
liners on Saturday, when they suffered
a first-ever defeat by Italy in Florence.
“Australia made plenty of changes,
probably looking at us this week,”
Farrell said. “They were very strong in
Paris last week [when France won 30-
29] especially at the set piece. That’s the
type of game we’re expecting.”
style of game, defending ferociously,
winning the kicking battle and hanging
in games, rather than using the more
ambitious methods that Pivac once
wanted to implement.
So, they never totally shrugged off
Argentina here and had the visiting
side taken their chances we might have
been writing a very different story.
This was a result that Pivac needed
badly. His emotion at its conclusion was
clear evidence of that. He could even be
looking at a return of three from four
from the autumn now, with Georgia
and Australia to come.
For this weekend’s match against the
Georgians, the usual practice would be
to field an experimental side, but that
notion is complicated by the Australia
match being outside World Rugby’s
window and therefore players based in
England like Louis Rees-Zammit, Nick
Tompkins, Christ Tshiunza and Sam
Wainwright being unavailable. “We’re
not going to make wholesale changes,”
Pivac said. “We want to put out a side
that can go again against Australia.”
56
Sport Rugby union
Bad luck and poor
discipline deny
Scots famous win
Scotland
0
23
2
New Zealand
1
31
Alasdair Reid
Scottish Rugby Correspondent
A predictable outcome, but a far from
predictable match. For long, enthrall-
ing periods, Scotland played with wit,
energy and determination, taking their
game to the All Blacks and bossing the
scoreboard for good measure.
They denied New Zealand a single
point for 55 minutes, and if their luck
and discipline had held then they might
just have denied them a win as well.
But 117 years of history were not to be
erased so easily. Having struggled to
find their gears for much of the game,
New Zealand started to click mena-
cingly in the final quarter. They were
nine points behind at the start of that
period, eight ahead at the finish. In
piling on 17 unanswered points in those
closing minutes they said much about
their own levels of pride as well.
The All Blacks have a tradition of
finishing strongly, so Scotland probably
knew it was coming. They also have a
Exeter
Rob Wright
1.00 Handicap Hurdle
(£5,065: 2m 7f) (7 runners)
1.30 Novices' Chase (£9,313: 2m 3f) (4)
2.00 Novices' Hurdle (£4,084: 2m 1f) (15)
Blinkered first time: Plumpton 1.40 Kalaya.
Wolverhampton 5.00 Dream Final. 8.00 Tabaretta.
8.30 Socially Shady.
tradition of exploiting weakness, so
when Jack Dempsey was shown a yel-
low card for a deliberate (if instinctive)
knock-on in the 65th minute, Scotland
must have known what was heading
their way. It turned up in the form of
Scott Barrett, who bulldozed over from
short range for the score that swung
things New Zealand’s way. Barrett’s
brother Jordie whacked over the con-
version and the lead was theirs again.
Mark Telea, the debutant winger,
who had scored early in the game,
claimed a second, going over in the right
corner five minutes from the end. The
crowd howled with fury as the stadium
screens showed Telea losing control of
the ball after the touchdown, but as
clumsy as it looked there was no ques-
tion that it was good. But then Scotland
never lose to the All Blacks without at
least an element of indignation.
Fortunately, there was much more to
savour in Scotland’s performance as
well. Stuart Hogg had his best game for
a long time and he had quality support
from his back-three colleagues, Darcy
Graham and Duhan van der Merwe.
Finn Russell fully justified his recall
with an intelligent all-round display,
and there were noble contributions in
the pack from Jamie Ritchie, Matt
Fagerson and Richie Gray.
2.30 Handicap Chase
(£6,862: 3m) (11)
3.00 Handicap Chase (£9,313: 3m) (4)
3.30 Novices' Hurdle
(£4,084: 2m 2f 111yd) (14)
4.05 Open NH Flat Race
(£2,723: 2m 1f) (15)
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
Scotland also defended tenaciously
at times. There was a period early in the
second half when New Zealand were
hammering away at their line but they
kept their shape and discipline and
drove the All Blacks back upfield. That
passage ended with Russell kicking his
third penalty of the game. When the
ball sailed over the bar New Zealand
had conceded 23 points without scoring
one of their own.
Scotland would have taken more
from the game if they had had a little
more composure near the line. On
either side of half-time they had players
penalised for holding on too long when
having the patience to recycle could
have led to scores.
In fairness, the All Blacks defended
brilliantly in that area, but Scotland
have a track record of suffering rushes
of blood in these situations and it is
something they have to address.
To their credit, Scotland’s discipline
showed vast improvement after their
lapses against Australia and Fiji over
the past couple of weeks. They conced-
ed three penalties in the first five
minutes, but were close to squeaky
clean for the rest of the half. At the
interval they were at the virtuous end of
an 8-5 penalty count.
That pattern was all the more Telea goes over for his second try of the game, which was greeted with fury by
1.40 Selling Hurdle (£4,738: 2m) (8)
3.20 Maiden Hurdle
(£4,357: 1m 7f 113yd) (4)
2.10 Handicap Chase (£5,773: 2m 1f) (4)
Leicester
Rob Wright
3.50 Handicap Hurdle
(£3,976: 1m 7f 113yd) (4)
2.40 Handicap Hurdle
(£5,065: 2m 4f 114yd) (10)
1.20 Novices' Hurdle
(£7,624: 2m 4f 110yd) (3)
Plumpton
Rob Wright
1.50 Handicap Hurdle
(£3,431: 2m 4f 110yd) (5)
3.10 Handicap Chase
(£4,248: 3m 4f 102yd) (4)
12.40 Handicap Chase
(£9,040: 2m 4f) (3)
2.20 Handicap Hurdle
(£3,431: 1m 7f 113yd) (7)
1.10 Novices' Hurdle Course specialists
(£4,629: 2m 4f 114yd) (12) Exeter: Trainers A Honeyball, 12 winners from
40 runners, 30%; J Snowden, 5 from 19, 26.3%.
Jockeys A Coleman, 11 winners from 36 rides,
30.6%; H Cobden, 25 from 112, 22.3%.
Leicester: Trainers O Murphy, 13 from 38, 34.2%;
E Williams, 4 from 19, 21.1%. Jockeys C Gethings,
6 from 27, 22.2%; F Gregory, 3 from 16, 18.8%.
Plumpton: Trainers A Ralph, 3 from 7, 42.9%;
F O'Brien, 5 from 14, 35.7%. Jockeys T Cannon,
42 from 169, 24.9%; S Twiston-Davies, 7 from 37,
2.50 Juvenile Hurdle 18.9%.
(3-Y-O: £6,154: 1m 7f 113yd) (7) Wolverhampton: Trainers J Horton, 3 from 9,
33.3%; C Appleby, 32 from 97, 33%. Jockeys
J Mitchell, 86 from 430, 20%; W Buick, 15 from
75, 20%.
the times | Monday November 14 2022 57

‘Other’ All Blacks are beaten
The England internationals Joe
Marchant, pictured below, and Zach
Mercer both scored tries for the
Barbarians as they beat a second-
string New Zealand team 35-31 at
the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The All Black Select XV were denied
players who were with the senior
squad for their game in Edinburgh.
remarkable as the Scots suffered a
horror start.
With little more than two minutes
played they conceded the first try when
Samisoni Taukei’aho, the All Blacks
hooker, crashed over from behind a
lineout, then gave up a second when
an inch-perfect crossfield kick by
Beauden Barrett was collected by
Telea. With the game only seven
minutes old Scotland found themselves
trailing 14-0.
It looked like a rout was coming.
Instead, we witnessed a dramatic reviv-
al. In the 12th minute Scotland worked
a clever move from a lineout that sent
Hogg blasting through the centre.
He chipped into the dead-ball area
and looked odds-on to win the race
until Anton Lienert-Brown tackled him
without the ball. Frank Murphy, the
referee, studied the replay and decided,
correctly, that it was a penalty try.
Two minutes later, astonishingly,
Scotland were level. This time it was
the crowd who thought that he had lost control of the ball before touching down Graham who delivered the try, station-
Scorers: Scotland: Tries Penalty (12), Graham
(14). Con Russell. Pens Russell (31, 42, 54).
New Zealand: Tries S Barrett (2min, 65), Telea
(7, 75). Cons J Barrett 4. Pens J Barrett (62).
Scotland S Hogg; D Graham, C Harris (M
Bennett 65min), S Tuipulotu (B Kinghorn
76min), D Van der Merwe; F Russell, A Price
(B White 65min); P Schoeman (R Sutherland
57min-67min), F Brown (E Ashman 71min), Z
Fagerson (WP Nel 57min), R Gray, G Gilchrist
(Gray 65min), J Ritchie (captain), H Watson (J
Dempsey 18min, sin-bin 67), M Fagerson.
New Zealand J Barrett, M Telea, A Lienert-
Brown (sin-bin 67), D Havili (R Ioane 53min),
C Clarke, B Barrett (S Perofeta 79min), F
Christie (TJ Perenara 57min); E De Groot (G
Bower 51min), S Taukei’aho (C Taylor 57min),
N Laulala (F Newell 51min), S Whitelock (capt),
S Barrett (T Vaa’I, 71min), A Ioane (S Frizell
59min), D Papali’i, A Savea.
Referee F Murphy (Ire). Attendance 67,144.
ing himself to intercept a pass from
David Havili as New Zealand tried to
build a move from deep. The little wing-
er still had work to do, but he side-
stepped Jordie Barrett beautifully and
went over.
Graham came agonisingly close to
claiming a second a few minutes later
when Hogg, who was playing superbly,
gave him the ball near the right corner.
Graham tried to dance his way through
and appeared to have scored with a
spectacular dive round the flag, but
replays showed his foot had grazed the
touchline a moment before.
However, Scotland added to their
tally, and moved ahead for the first
time, soon afterwards when Russell
clipped over an easy penalty from
straight in front of the posts.
Russell added another couple of pen-
alties in the third quarter to turn the
screws on New Zealand. By now, with
Scotland leading 23-14, the atmosphere
was rising to a peak, but there was
nervousness in there too.
And quite rightly. It was the surest
thing going that the All Blacks would
dig deep to salvage the game, and dig
they did. Dempsey’s departure made
the outcome almost inevitable. As he
walked off the pitch, Scotland’s shot at
history went with him.
Sport
Late comeback
keeps Saracens
clear at the top
Gallagher Premiership
The Saracens captain Ben Earl hailed
the resilience of his side as they staged
a remarkable recovery to beat
Northampton Saints 45-39 and
preserve their unbeaten Gallagher
Premiership record in a thrilling match
at the StoneX Stadium.
Saracens had won their previous
eight league matches but they looked
down and out when they trailed 39-17 to
a rampant Saints after only 52 minutes.
Saracens’ cause was not helped by
the loss of Max Malins and three front-
rowers to injury, resulting in consider-
able disruption and passive scrums, but
they overcame this handicap to move
15 points clear at the top of the table.
Earl, named player of the match, said:
“Everything seemed to be against us
and to get the win was a testament to
our resilience and team spirit.
“We rolled with the punches in the
middle 40 of the game and then man-
aged to dig ourselves out in the last 20.”
Sean Maitland scored two tries for
the hosts, while Gareth Simpson, Josh
Hallett, Earl and Elliot Daly claimed
the others, with Alex Goode kicking a
penalty and five conversions as Alex
Lozowski added a conversion.
Fraser Dingwall scored a hat-trick of
tries for Saints with Mike Haywood and
Courtnall Skosan also on the try-
scoring sheet. Finn Smith added four
conversions and two penalties.
The Saracens head coach Joe Shaw
praised the efforts of Earl, who must
wonder what he needs to do to be a
member of Eddie Jones’s England
squad. “He’s such a bright star and a fan-
tastic performer,” Shaw said. “We have
given him the captaincy in the last two
or three weeks and he’s thrived on it.”

3.40 Handicap Hurdle 6.00 Handicap (£10,308: 7f) (8) 7.00 Handicap 8.00 Nursery
(£4,248: 3m 1f) (7) (Div II: £3,726: 5f) (11) (2-Y-O: £5,508: 1m 1f 104yd) (5)

8.30 Handicap
(£3,726: 1m 6f) (13)
6.30 Handicap
5.30 Novice Stakes (Div I: £3,726: 5f) (11)
Wolverhampton (£4,320: 7f) (11)
Rob Wright

7.30 Nursery
(2-Y-O: £5,508: 5f) (6)

5.00 Novice Stakes

(2-Y-O: £3,672: 1m 1f 104yd) (13)

Results Yesterday’s racing results

American football
NFL
Buffalo 30 Minnesota 33 (OT); Chicago 30
Detroit 31; Kansas City 27 Jacksonville 17;
Miami 39 Cleveland 17; New York Giants 24
Houston 16; Pittsburgh 20 New Orleans 10;
Tampa Bay 21 Seattle 16; Tennessee 17
Denver 10.
Golf
DP World Tour Nedbank Challenge
Sun City, South Africa: Leading final scores:
277 T Fleetwood (Eng) 70, 70, 70, 67. 278 R
Fox (NZ) 64, 74, 72, 68. 279 S Sharma (India)
72, 69, 69, 69. 280 R Ramsay (Scot) 69, 71, 71,
69. 281 S Soederberg (Swe) 71, 71, 72, 67; C
Bezuidenhout (SA) 73, 68, 68, 72. 282 G Green
(Malay) 72, 65, 75, 70. 283 R Hoejgaard (Den)
69, 69, 69, 76; R Bland (Eng) 68, 68, 75, 72; Lee
Min-woo (Aus) 68, 76, 70, 69; M Kieffer (Ger)
70, 72, 69, 72; B Grace (SA) 70, 67, 71, 75.
US PGA Tour Cadence Bank Houston Open
Leaders after three rounds (United States
unless stated): 195 T Finau 65, 62, 68. 199 B
Taylor (Eng) 66, 68, 65. 202 T Alexander 66,
66, 70; W Clark 66, 68, 68; J Rose (Eng) 67, 69,
66. 203 J Dahmen 67, 68, 68; G Woodland 69,
67, 67. 204 J Hahn 68, 65, 71; M Hughes (Can)
66, 68, 70; R Knox (Scot) 69, 65, 70; S Piercy
67, 70, 67; A Rai (Eng) 70, 64, 70; A Noren
(Swe) 65, 66, 73; P Rodgers 68, 63, 73.
Women’s Aramco Team Series
Jeddah: Leading final scores (Great Britain
and Ireland unless stated): 203 C Noja (Ger)
68, 70, 65; C Hull 70, 65, 68 (Noja won play-off
at first extra hole). 204 N Garcia (SA) 67, 70,
67. 205 V Carta (It) 67, 69, 69. 206 L-A Pace
(SA) 71, 68, 67; B Law 70, 69, 67. 207 C Hedwall
(Swe) 69, 67, 71. 208 P Babnik (Slove) 71, 65,
72; L Beveridge 72, 67, 69; V Kapoor (India)
69, 70, 69. Selected: 209 G Hall 72, 67, 70.
LPGA Tour Pelican Women’s Championship
Belleair, Florida: Leaders after two rounds
(United States unless stated): 130 A Corpuz
65, 65. 131 A Thompson 64, 67; M Stark (Swe)
68, 63; M Fassi (Mex) 62, 69. 132 N Korda 66,
66; C Ciganda (Sp) 64, 68. 133 Kim Hyo-joo (S
Kor) 64, 69; A Ewing 68, 65. 134 A Buhai (SA)
69, 65; G López (Mex) 65, 69; Liu Yu (China)
69, 65; B Lang 69, 65.
Rugby league
Men’s World Cup semi-final England 26
Samoa 27 (at Emirates Stadium).
Wheelchair World Cup: Semi-finals (at
English Institute of Sport, Sheffield): France
84 Australia 40; England 125 Wales 22.
National League One Birmingham Moseley Cheltenham Fontwell Park
Rugby union 29 Cambridge 26; Bishop’s Stortford 22 Sale Going: good Going: good (good to soft in places)
Men’s international matches England 52 29; Chinnor 33 Esher 41; Darlington Mowden 1.10 (3m 80yd ch) 1, The Real Whacker 12.30 (2m 1f 162yd hdle) 1, Maclaine (D A
Japan 13; France 30 South Africa 26; Georgia Park 40 Taunton Titans 13; Hull 30 Cinderford (G Sheehan, 10-1); 2, Indigo Breeze (5-2); Jacob, 11-8 fav); 2, Gold In Doha (11-2);
19 Samoa 20; Ireland 35 Fiji 17; Italy 28 30; Rams 26 Plymouth Albion 14; Rosslyn 3, Bardenstown Lad (11-10 fav). 5 ran. 3, Trevor’s Lad (12-1). 8 ran. NR: Delta Run. 2 l,
Australia 27; Scotland 23 New Zealand 31; Park 40 Leeds Tykes 12. NR: Mister Coffey. l, 47l. P Neville. 2 l. O Sherwood.
Spain 34 Namibia 15; Tonga 39 Chile 10; Wales Women’s World Cup: Third place play-off 1.45 (1m 7f 199yd ch) 1, Nube Negra (Harry 1.00 (2m 3f 104yd ch) 1, Tip Top Mountain
20 Argentina 13; Barbarians 35 Maori All Canada 0 France 36. Final New Zealand 34 Skelton, 1-10 fav); 2, Ganapathi (10-1); 3, Daly (Bryan Carver, 100-30); 2, For Langy (100-30);
Blacks 31 (at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium). England 31. Tiger (16-1). NR: Edwardstone, Sizing Pottsie. 3, Eceparti (100-30). 5 ran. 5l, 11l. R Walford.
8l, 35l. D Skelton. 1.30 (2m 1f 162yd hdle) 1, Trojan Horse
Gallagher Premiership Exeter Chiefs 22 Snooker 2.20 (3m 3f 71yd ch) 1, Does He Know (David (Rex Dingle, 13-8 fav); 2, Aviles (15-8); 3, Anger
London Irish 17; Gloucester 21 Newcastle Bass, 6-1); 2, Eva’s Oskar (8-1); 3, Back On The Management (7-1). 7 ran. 10l, 6 l.
Cazoo UK Championship
Falcons 27; Saracens 45 Northampton 39. Lash (9-2). 11 ran. NR: Ramses De Teillee, A J Honeyball.
P W D L F A B Pts York Barbican: First round J Perry (Eng) bt Slipway. 1 l, 2l. K C Bailey. 2.05 (3m 3f 149yd ch) 1, Slipway (Luca
N Robertson (Aus) 6-2; L Brecel (Bel) bt Lyu
Saracens 9 9 0 0 318 220 7 43 2.55 (2m 87yd hdle) 1, I Like To Move It (Sam Morgan, 13-2); 2, Premiumaccess (9-1); 3,
Sale 8 6 0 2 219 171 4 28 Haotian (China) 6-4. Twiston-Davies, 17-2); 2, Gin Coco (4-1 fav); Cyclop (22-1). 11 ran. NR: Abaya Du Mathan, Len
3, Harbour Lake (10-1). 13 ran. NR: Castel Brennan, Samuel Jackson. 3 , 13l. B Pauling.
Northampton 9 4 0 5 266 280 8 24
Harlequins 7 4 0 3 218 197 6 22
Tennis Gandolfo, Current Mood, Playful Saint. 2.40 (2m 1f 162yd hdle) 1, Quinta Do Mar
5 l, 13l. N A Twiston-Davies. (Luca Morgan, 9-2); 2, Irish Hill (15-8 fav);
Gloucester 7 4 0 3 189 183 5 21 Nitto ATP Tour finals
Exeter 8 4 0 4 220 207 4 20 Turin: Round robin C Ruud (Nor) bt F Auger- 3.30 (2m 87yd hdle) 1, Fennor Cross (S D 3, Amelia’s Dance (14-1). 8 ran. NR: Hystery
Torrens, 3-1); 2, Ukantango (12-1); Bere. Hd, 9l. B Pauling.
Leicester 7 3 0 4 176 181 5 17 Aliassime (Can) 7-6 (7-4), 6-4; T Fritz (US) bt
R Nadal (Sp) 7-6 (7-3), 6-1. 3, Springwell Bay (2-1 fav). 8 ran. NR: Father Of 3.15 (2m 5f 135yd ch) 1, Ballaquane (Brendan
Bath 8 3 0 5 198 215 5 17 Jazz. 3 l, 3 L. J C McConnell.
Newcastle 7 2 0 5 164 195 5 13 Powell, 9-4); 2, Dindin (13-2); 3, Aughnacurra
Bristol 7 2 0 5 169 246 5 13
WTA Billie Jean King Cup finals
Emirates Arena, Glasgow: Final:
4.00 (2m 87yd Flat) 1, Gentle Slopes
(H Cobden, 12-1); 2, School Days Over (14-1);
King (15-2). 4 ran. NR: Enduring Love,
Wetanwindy. 2l, 2 l. O Sherwood.
London Irish 7 1 0 6 181 223 6 10
Switzerland bt Australia 2-0 (Switzerland 3, Cape Vidal (7-1). 13 ran. NR: Crambo. 4l, 2 l. 3.50 (2m 3f 49yd hdle) 1, Annie Day (Jack
Championship Cup: Pool one Jersey Reds 55 names first: J Teichmann bt S Sanders 6-3, 4- M F Harris. Quinlan, 11-4 fav); 2, Briery Express (17-2);
Hartpury 24; Nottingham 19 Ealing 6, 6-3; B Bencic bt A Tomljanovic 6-2, 6-1; did Jackpot: Not won. Pool of £45,610.95 3, Midnight Gold (25-1). 11 ran. NR: Talk Of The
Trailfinders 26. Pool three Ampthill 29 not play: Bencic and Teichmann v Sanders carried forward to Wolvrhmptn today. Moon. 2 l, 2 l. B I Case.
Richmond 5; Caldy 7 Cornish Pirates 26. and S Stosur). Placepot: £142.10. Quadpot: £33.50. Placepot: £140.90. Quadpot: £42.10.
58 Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Sport Rugby union

We can beat New Zealand with

Alex Lowe
Rugby
Correspondent
England’s autumn campaign advances
into its second phase with Eddie Jones
impressing upon his men the opportu-
nity to achieve “something special”.
After underestimating Argentina and
dispatching Japan with ease, England
will regroup today and begin prepara-
tions for their first Test against New
Zealand since the 2019 World Cup
semi-final, an assignment swiftly fol-
lowed by South Africa’s arrival at
Twickenham.
There was a frisson of excitement
about the All Blacks fixture, even as
fans danced to live music in the stadium
concourse on Saturday night, partly
because of the scarcity factor. New Zea-
land have graced Twickenham only
once since 2014 and England victories
over the All Blacks, only eight in 115
years, often take on an iconic status.
Prince Alexander Obolensky’s two
tries in 1936; Jonny Wilkinson’s chip-
and-chase at Twickenham in 2002 and
his kicking through a Wellington storm
in 2003; Manu Tuilagi’s thunderous
performance in 2012 and then his try
in Yokohama, which started with
England’s V-sign response to the haka.
This All Blacks vintage is not the
all-conquering team of 2005 or 2015.
Indeed, they hit an all-time low in the
world rankings this year by losing a Test
series at home to Ireland and suffering
a 25-18 defeat by Argentina in Christ-
church, leaving Ian Foster, the head
coach, within 80 minutes of the sack.
But they battled back from the brink.
They won the Rugby Championship
and have now strung together six con-
secutive victories, not all of them espe-
cially convincing but they are finding
ways to win. If Ardie Savea, their No 8,
is not on World Rugby’s shortlist for
men’s player of the year when it is
announced today, it will be a scandal.
England, with a 50 per cent win
record in 2022, are in a not dissimilar
place, as a team also trying to find
themselves again. There have been a
couple of false dawns in the past year
and defeat by the Pumas was a step
backwards, but a shift in attitude last
week translated into a seven-try vic-
tory over Japan on Saturday. “This sets
us up better, with a little bit of
Who would Times writers
select to face All Blacks?
Alex Lowe
1 2 3
E Genge L Cowan-Dickie K Sinckler
4 5
D Ribbans J Hill
6 8 7
M Itoje B Vunipola T Curry
9
J van
Poortvliet 10
M Smith 12
O Farrell 13
M Tuilagi
11 15 14
J May H Slade F Steward
Ben Youngs, right, leads England’s
celebrations after their victory in
the sides’ last meeting in Yokohama
I want Steward available to combat
New Zealand’s cross-kick to Jordie New Zealand’s two most recent Tests,
Barrett, one of their key plays, while against Wales and Scotland, have fol-
Slade’s running lines, left boot and lowed a similar pattern. The All Blacks
creativity give England another started hot, streaking out ahead in the
dimension in attack. Steward does opening few minutes, and they finished
not have electric pace but he is a well but were under pressure in the
powerful finisher. With May bringing middle section.
the gas, this back three allows England will have seen how Scot-
Tuilagi to remain as a direct-running land’s physical defence disrupted New
midfield foil to Smith and Farrell. Zealand’s discipline at Murrayfield,
allowing the hosts to come from 14-0
Stuart Barnes down to lead 23-14 before TJ Perenara
and the All Blacks bench rescued the
1 2 3 situation. They will also have recog-
E Genge L Cowan-Dickie K Sinckler nised how critical it will be to take their
4 5
chances. Three times Scotland were
halted on the All Blacks line.
D Ribbans J Hill
6 8 7 “The way that we want to play as an
M Itoje B Vunipola T Curry England team, defence is a huge part of
9
the game,” Simmonds said. “New
Zealand’s attack is very good, as we’ve
J van
Poortvliet 10 seen over the last few weeks, and they
M Smith 12 do score tries. We’re going to still start
O Farrell 13
on defence and our set piece is going to
be huge. That’s how England win
H Slade
games. When we do get chances to
11 15 14 attack, like we did today, we showed we
C Murley F Steward J Cokanasiga can put some phases together and our
weapons were there to be seen.”
That was how England played in the
Here’s the team I’d select, not the Yokohama semi-final: a powerful fluid-
one I expect to take the field. Smith ity in attack underpinned by a dismant-
is touched with the stuff of genius, ling of New Zealand’s lineout and a
with the right place, right time claustrophobic defensive effort.
knack, and he and Farrell functioned “There will be certain things we did
better on Saturday. Jones seems to well in that game that will be impor-
like the potential of Smith’s magic tant,” Jones said. “Their team has
and Farrell’s basics. That leaves the changed and they are playing a slightly
third midfield position to be settled, different style of rugby — playing more
between Slade and Tuilagi. off the scrum half — but if we go after
them, they are there for the taking.”
Will Kelleher The aforementioned attitude shift in

confidence going into a big game,” Sam
Simmonds, the No 8, said.
The World Cup preparation narra-
tive will be paused this week. Both
teams need to win. Jones relishes these
big one-off occasions and he was up
and running on Saturday night, identi-
fying the All Blacks as vulnerable even
before they were pushed to the limit by
Scotland yesterday.
“This is an opportunity to play
against one of the giants of world rugby.
Like anyone, you want to do something
special in your life and our players are
no different. They want to do something
special,” Jones, the head coach, said. “It
is about believing that there are parts of
our game that are better than theirs and
making sure that the players under-
stand where the All Blacks are weak.
“Even when the All Blacks were
winning at 92 per cent they still had
weaknesses, and you’ve got to be able to
find those weaknesses.
“Like any team, if you dig down deep
enough, make them scratch at the back
of their head and make them think,
‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,’ you
can put them under pressure. We were
able to do that in 2019 and there’s no
reason we can’t do that again.”
the England camp was a reaction to the
1 2 3 listless, ill-disciplined display against
E Genge L Cowan-Dickie K Sinckler Argentina. The message was ham-
4 5 mered home in a players-only team
D Ribbans J Hill meeting on Wednesday, just before
6 8 7 their main training session of the week.
M Itoje B Vunipola T Curry Maro Itoje always leads those conver-
9
J van
sations but the supporting cast rotates.
Last week the points were made by Ben
Poortvliet 10 Youngs and Freddie Steward and they
M Smith 12
O Farrell 13
hit home, leading to a more disciplined
defensive performance, which pres-
M Tuilagi sured Japan for time and space.
11 15 14 The performance was not perfect by
J May F Steward J Nowell
any means and Japan were poor; cer-
tainly some of England’s attack was too
telegraphed in the early stages and will
England need a supercharged need to improve in sharpness. But there
forward pack, with carriers was an improved intent and cohesion,
everywhere. In my chosen team Billy which is something positive to build on.
Vunipola comes back for Sam Steward was outstanding at full back
Simmonds to add bulk, but Genge again, carving lines through the Japan
and Sinckler are key carriers. At defence and dominating the air. Marcus
outside centre Tuilagi is a certainty, Smith found his groove after some early
and I’ve gone with experienced stutters. Jack van Poortvliet, at scrum
wings — May adding the nous and half, was swift and accurate. Smith and
pace needed. Alex Mitchell, Guy Porter each scored twice. There
Simmonds and Jack Willis can lift the was a try from Ellis Genge and a penalty
tempo off the bench and Cokanasiga try earned by England’s rolling maul,
can hit holes when bodies tire. two important weapons against the All
Blacks in prime working order.
Farrell: Steward
England
0
52
2
Japan
1
13
Will Kelleher
Deputy Rugby Correspondent
Practically the most praiseworthy
Owen Farrell can be about a player is
that “he loves getting better”.
In Farrell’s terse way, where he plays
down most things asked of him, that is
a bit like someone more ebullient say-
ing their team-mate is the best rugby
player they have ever seen.
Freddie Steward, the England full
back who looks more supreme by the
Test, was the player Farrell was talking
about on Saturday night.
Farrell said: “I can only speak of
Freddie himself and how good he is
around the place, in training, how much
he wants to get better, how honest and
hardworking he is as a young lad. He’s
obviously got some special talents.
“Because of his aerial stuff, some
other things go unnoticed. You see him
on Saturday breaking tackles and
setting up tries. That’s a big part of his
game too.”
Farrell is spot on. Watching England
— however the rest of the team have
fared — since Steward made his debut
in the summer of 2021 we have become
so used to him dominating in the air,
and have been so mightily impressed
with his security at the back, that we
perhaps do not see all the other ele-
ments of his game that are improving.
Before an analysis of that, though,
here is Steward himself on how he has
honed his greatest skill: catching.
“A lot of it is the mindset that I’ve had
to work on,” the Leicester Tigers full
back said. “When you’re running out at
Twickenham and you have 80,000 fans
around you screaming and the ball goes
in the air, it’s quite a daunting experi-
the times | Monday November 14 2022 59

Sport

set piece, says Simmonds RFU: Next

head coach
doesn’t have
Up there with the best
Since Steward's England debut in July 2021
Most metres made in Tests Defensive catch success % in Tests
to be English
Rieko Ioane (NZ) Stuart Hogg (Sco) Will Kelleher
1,440 93.6 Elgan Alderman Auckland
Will Jordan (NZ) Willie le Roux (SA)
1,076 93.4 The RFU no longer minds if Eddie
Jones’s successor is another foreigner,
Freddie Steward (Eng) Steward as it wants to finalise the appointment
1,002 91 of a new England head coach by May.
Jordie Barrett (NZ) Edoardo Padovani (Ita) Bill Sweeney, the union’s chief execu-
975 90.5 tive, said in March that he wanted an
English coach to succeed Jones when
Marika Koroibete (Aus) Hugo Keenan (Ire) he leaves after the 2023 World Cup.
908 89.8 However, he has cooled that stance
having drawn up a list of candidates,
increasing the chances that England
will look at the New Zealander Scott
England more clinical Robertson and the Irishman Ronan
O’Gara, as well as the Leicester Tigers
England were more effective
director of rugby, Steve Borthwick.
inside Japan's 22 than in any
other match this year, taking an
Asked if he stood by his plan to
average of more than three
appoint an Englishman, Sweeney said:
points for every visit there “I didn’t actually say that. What I said is
it has to be the best coach, the right
Japan (Nov 12) 3.25 coach. If it was an English person it
makes life easier. It’s got to be the right
Australia (Jul 2) 2.75
England v person, if they are English then great.”
Italy (Feb 13) 2.54 In March Sweeney had spelt out why
New Zealand Argentina (Nov 6) 2.43
he would prefer an English coach.
Saturday, 5.30pm “We’ve got such a wealth of English
Twickenham Australia (Jul 16) 2 coaches,” he said. “As a leading nation
we should be developing English
TV: Amazon Prime Video Australia (Jul 9) 1.73 coaches and an English style of play.
Radio: talkSPORT That should be long term and the pref-
Wales (Feb 26) 1.33
erence would be an English set-up.
Scotland (Feb 5) 1.22 We’ve got a war room that’s got every
English coach you can imagine, based
France (Mar 19) 0.88 here and internationally. We’ve got an
Ireland (Mar 12) 0.75 advanced succession plan in place.”
The RFU wants to announce the new
coach before the 2023 World Cup prep-
arations. “We’re still on track,” Sweeney
said. “We said we’d announce in May. It
could be earlier. Sometimes it’s not
within your control. It’s in good shape.”
Their initial idea was for the new
coach to join Jones’s set-up for the
World Cup in France, then take over in
2024. That may prove expensive if they
want to appoint O’Gara, whose con-
tract at La Rochelle runs out at the end
of the 2023-24 season. Robertson could
join after the Super Rugby season with
the Crusaders in mid-2023.
Borthwick would represent the
Steward, who delivered smoothest transition, as he was one of
an eye-catching display Jones’s assistants between 2016 and
at Twickenham, could be 2020. In April the Tigers chief execu-
an important weapon tive, Andrea Pinchen, said that the club
against the All Blacks would not stand in Borthwick’s way.
“If you were the RFU and didn’t put

is special – and not just in the air

ence. I’ve done a lot of work with the
psychologist, Dave Priestley, back at
the club and Andrea [Furst] here [with
England] on dealing with that and
ignoring everything except the ball,
because that’s all that matters. That’s
been the biggest work-on for me.
“It’s that focus. When that ball goes
up, that is all that matters. So it’s [think-
ing], ‘Where’s the ball going to land,
what do I need to do with my timing
and my footwork to get there?’
“It’s trying not to think about what’s
coming, the next phase, just that ball.”
In the Japan match Steward was key
to four of England’s seven tries. For the
first try, which he scored, he curved a
lovely outside arc of a line off Marcus
Smith.
The second was his best involvement.
Eleven minutes in he fielded a ball at
the back, and instead of just hoofing it
into the air he swerved across the pitch,
looking for a little opening break-
through or a soft shoulder to run into.
When he spotted a gap in midfield,
Steward scythed through it; his Tigers
team-mate Jack van Poortvliet came
with him, took his pass and sent Joe
Cokanasiga through, who popped to
Smith for the try.
It was all down to Steward’s first step
on the accelerator, and the instinct of
the players around him.
When Ellis Genge scored after half-
time it was Steward who had carried
twice in the build-up; once down the
wing, and another to set up a carry for
Kyle Sinckler — the phase before
Genge bashed over — in the 22.
And when Henry Slade came on,
Steward moved to the wing, helping to
assist Smith’s second. With six minutes
left he kicked cleverly down the touch-
line, which Slade hacked on and Smith
gathered to dot down.
That showed how Steward’s kicking
has come on. The smart-ball statistics
showed how he hit the longest punt of
the day: 54 metres. One other effort he
raked off his right foot across and down
the field was a metre from being a per-
fect 50:22 kick, around the hour mark.
There were also moments of strong
self-awareness, like when he mistimed
a kick-chase, and instead of clattering
the catcher realised he was not going to
make a legal hit, so raised both arms to
show the referee he was not taking the
man out in the air.
It is these sorts of intelligent
moments that defy Steward’s lack of
Test experience. It is remarkable to
think he turns 22 in December, and has
played only 15 Tests to date.
“Some players come through —
Owen was one — where they look
experienced right from the start,” Eddie
Jones said of Steward. “Others tend to
take longer to mature. He’s got a good
head on him, doesn’t get too ahead of
himself.
“The only flashiness we’ve seen is
that ridiculous moustache — we’re
going to have to get rid of that for him.
“He’s doing extremely well. Consider
him and Marcus [Smith], 10 and 15,
that’s the spine of the team. And JVP
[Van Poortvliet], five Tests, that spine of
young guys are doing exceptionally
well. He’s 15 Tests into his career, he’s
going to have a couple of bad ones.”
We have not seen a bad Test from
Steward yet — a player who started well
and is getting better week after week.
Scorers: England: Tries Steward (12min), Smith 2
(24, 74), Porter 2 (40, 50), Genge 48. Cons Farrell
6. Pens Farrell 5. Japan: Try Saito. Con Lee. Pens
Yamasawa 2.
England F Steward; J Cokanasiga (H Slade 63),
G Porter (M Tuilagi 63), O Farrell (capt), J May
(sin-bin 34); M Smith, J van Poortvliet (B Youngs
63); E Genge (M Vunipola 55), L Cowan-Dickie
(J George 55), K Sinckler, D Ribbans (A Coles 55),
J Hill (B Vunipola 60), M Itoje, T Curry, S
Simmonds.
Japan R Yamanaka; K Matsushima, D Riley, R
Nakamura, G van den Heever (S Fifita 55; sin-bin
69); T Yamasawa (S Lee 40), Y Nagare (N Saito
55); K Inagaki (C Millar 55), A Sakate (c), J Gu, W
Dearns, J Cornelsen, M Leitch, K Himeno, T Tatafu
(P Labuschagne 55).
his name into the mix then there is
something remiss,” Pinchen said. “I
would be naive if I wasn’t expecting a
phone call.
“Would the club block that? No. We
really wouldn’t. He is a proud English-
man. If another nation came calling, we
might have another conversation.”
Rob Baxter at Exeter Chiefs could be
another option if the RFU wanted more
of an overseeing, director-of-rugby
style leader, with coaches underneath
him. However it is understood Baxter
has had no contact from England.
Sweeney wants the England men’s
team to be more approachable and
promote the sport more readily, follow-
ing the example of the Red Roses.
“They [the women’s side] are really
accessible and grateful for everything,”
Sweeney, who was at the women’s
World Cup final in Auckland on Satur-
day, said. “I was on the pitch watching
them come off [after their defeat].
“There was an eight-year-old New
Zealand boy looking for autographs.
Tatyana Heard took her boots off and
gave him her socks. It was a tremendous
gesture and comes naturally. They want
to engage, promote the game and do
their best for it.”
60
Sport Brazilian Grand Prix
Russell wins
as Mercedes
make most of
Red Bull row
Rebecca Clancy
Motor Racing
Correspondent
George Russell’s first phone call after
winning his maiden Formula One
grand prix was to his family. He wanted
to share the moment with his mum,
dad, brother, sister, niece and nephew
that he has worked his whole life for.
He had won the sprint in São Paulo
on Saturday but the tears that flowed
after taking the chequered flag yester-
day showed what winning the main
event meant to the 24-year-old. It was
also Mercedes’s first victory of the
season after what has been a difficult
year for the team.
However, celebrations had to be put
on hold as he spent last night on a
15-hour flight to Abu Dhabi for next
weekend’s final race of the year.
It was at Interlagos five years ago that
Russell made his F1 debut, in a practice
session for Force India, back when he
was in Formula Two. He probably did
not think he would have to wait so long
for his first win, but during a tough
three years at Williams he flirted with
the back of the grid in every race and in
his first season with Mercedes they
handed him a woefully uncompetitive
car at the start of the season.
But a significant upgrade in Austin
two races ago has resulted in a marked
turnaround for Mercedes and they
were competitive a race later in Mexico
City, and now here in São Paulo. They
did not win by chance or luck, but by
sheer pace, something that seemed im-
plausible only a few months ago.
To make Mercedes’s day even better,
Lewis Hamilton followed his team-
mate home in second place to give them
maximum points.
“I’m speechless. On the in-lap all of
these memories sort of came flooding
back,” Russell said. “Starting off with
my mum and dad in go-karting and
How they finished
G Russell (GB) Mercedes
1hr 38min 34.729044sec
L Hamilton (GB)
Mercedes +1.529s
C Sainz (Sp)
Ferrari +4.051s
4 C Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari +8.441
5 F Alonso (Sp) Alpine +9561
6 M Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull +10.056
7 S Pérez (Mex) Red Bull +14.080
8 E Ocon (Fr) Alpine +18.690
9 V Bottas (Fin) Alfa Romeo +22.552
10 L Stroll (Can) Aston Martin +23.552
11 S Vettel (Ger) Aston Martin +26.183
12 P Gasly (Fr) AlphaTauri +26.867
13 Z Guanyu (Chn) Alfa Romeo +29.325
going through and all the support I’ve
had from the rest of my family, my girl-
friend, my trainer, my manager.
“And then obviously the likes of
Gwen [Lagrue] who gave me the oppor-
tunity to get on the programme with
Mercedes and James Vowles and Toto
[Wolff]. The list is endless. I can’t thank
them enough and yeah, super proud.”
Russell had the perfect start and was
in control of what turned out to be a
chaotic grand prix, but it was not a
straightforward race for Hamilton, who
found himself colliding with his former
title rival Max Verstappen, and the two
did not hold back after the incident.
The safety car was deployed on the
first lap as the McLaren of Daniel
Ricciardo hit Kevin Magnussen,
spinning the Haas, which then collect-
ed the Australian as he span off, and
both were forced to retire.
When the racing restarted on lap
seven, Verstappen and Hamilton
rewound the clocks to 2021, when they
spent the whole year battling and fre-
quently colliding. They had not had
contact this year, until now, and it was
as heated as when they were fighting
for the drivers’ championship.
As they made their way down the
long start/finish straight, Verstappen
sniffed an opening up the inside of
Hamilton into turn one as they battled
for second, but Hamilton came back
and was just ahead as they went into
turn two. There was not enough space
for both of them and they collided.
“He left me no space,” Verstappen
fumed over the radio. “That was no
racing incident, mate,” Hamilton told
his team.
After the race, Hamilton added:
“What can I say? You know how it is
with Max.”
The stewards decided that the
Dutchman was to blame and handed
him a five-second penalty. Verstappen’s
race was hurt further as he picked up
damage to his Red Bull in that collision
and was forced to pit immediately for a
new front wing, which dropped him to
the back, though he did recover to
finish sixth.
14 M Schumacher (Ger) Haas +29.889
15 A Albon (Thai) Williams +36.016
16 N Latifi (Can) Williams +37.038
17 Y Tsunoda (Jpn) AlphaTauri +1 lap
18 L Norris (GB) McLaren DNF
19 K Magnussen (Den) Haas DNF
20 D Ricciardo (Aus) McLaren DNF
Driver Team Points
1 Verstappen Red Bull 424
2 Leclerc Ferrari 287
3 Pérez Red Bull 286
4 Russell Mercedes 257
5 Hamilton Mercedes 234
6 Sainz Ferrari 227
7 Norris McLaren 111
8 Ocon Alpine 86
Russell was emotional,
inset, after his first grand
prix victory, while his
Mercedes team-mate
Hamilton took second in
São Paulo, despite clashing
with Verstappen, top
With it being clear that the race re- roughly the same into next season, he
quired every driver to stop twice, teams highlighted the importance of the win
played around with strategy, keeping as the winter break looms and the team
drivers out on different tyres for differ- look to be back in the championship
ent lengths of time. fight next season.
Eventually it evened out and Russell Next door at Red Bull, however, there
was still leading, with Hamilton behind was no such harmony. On the final lap
him as Lando Norris retired by the side Verstappen was running sixth, with his
of the track with an electrical issue. team-mate Sergio Pérez behind him.
That brought out the safety car with Pérez is fighting Ferrari’s Charles
16 laps remaining. Russell somewhat Leclerc for second in the drivers’ stand-
optimistically asked his team if he was ings and Red Bull ordered Verstappen,
racing with his team-mate or if they who has already sewn up the title, to
were going for the one-two. “You’re give the place to Pérez, an order that
racing. Be respectful,” he was told, and was flatly ignored. “I told you already
as the race got back under way he knew last time. Don’t ask that again to me, are
his only hope of a win was to hold off his we clear about that? I gave my reasons
seven-times world champion team- and I stand by it,” Verstappen replied,
mate, and that is exactly what he did. when asked why he hadn’t moved over.
Hamilton was quick to congratulate Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team
Russell, and spoke of his happiness for principal, got on the radio to Pérez to
the team after picking up their first win apologise, to which the Mexican
of the season. With the cars staying replied: “It shows who he really is.”
9 Alonso Alpine 81
Maxwell out of ODI series
10 Bottas Alfa Romeo 49
Cricket
Elizabeth Ammon
Fastest lap of race S Pérez 1:11.010
A freak accident at a party has ruled the
Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell
Constructors Points out of the ODI series against England
1 Red Bull 710 which starts on Thursday.
2 Ferrari 514 Maxwell, 34, broke his leg and
Mercedes 491 underwent surgery on Saturday after
3
4 Alpine 167
he and a friend became entangled while
running across a tennis court at a
5 McLaren 146 birthday party. Cricket Australia stated
6 Alfa Romeo 55 yesterday that neither Maxwell nor his
7 Aston Martin 50 friend was intoxicated at the time.
8 Haas 36 Despite Australia’s early exit from the
T20 World Cup, Maxwell was in good
9 AlphaTauri 35
form, hitting 118 runs in four innings
10 Williams 8 with a strike rate of 161.64.
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
As both drivers emerged from their
cars an emergency meeting was con-
ducted inside their hospitality area
before either was sent to speak to the
media. When they did, Verstappen re-
fused to give his reasons for not moving
over. Pérez maintained his disappoint-
ment and appeared to reference when
he moved aside in Spain to allow Ver-
stappen to win the race there this year.
Verstappen has insisted that he will
help Pérez to claim second in the cham-
pionship next weekend if he can, but it
may not be that straightforward.
With Mercedes back fighting for
wins and having a superior car to the
Red Bull yesterday, they will be out to
claim another victory. And Hamilton
now only has one chance remaining to
maintain his record of winning a race in
every season in which he has competed,
and he will do everything he can to try
to secure it.
The injury rules Maxwell out for at
least 12 weeks, meaning he will also
miss most of the Big Bash League and
could be a doubt for Australia’s Test
tour to India in February.
“Glenn is in good spirits,” George
Bailey, Australia’s chief selector, said. “It
was an unfortunate accident and we
feel for Glenn, given he was in great
touch in his last few games.”
It is the latest in a series of recent
off-field injuries that have befallen
players. Jonny Bairstow broke his leg on
a golf course just before the final Test of
the English summer, while Australia’s
Josh Inglis was ruled out of the T20
World Cup by an injury he suffered
when a golf club snapped in his hand.
62
Sport T20 World Cup final
Buttler has taken
Morgan blueprint
and improved it
Simon Wilde
Melbourne
On the eve of the T20 World Cup final,
Jos Buttler paid tribute to the healthy
position he had inherited from his
predecessor as England’s white-ball
captain, Eoin Morgan. “We’re still reap-
ing the rewards of Eoin Morgan’s
tenure and the changes that happened
in the white-ball game,” he said. “We’re
very much riding that wave.”
This was true, but also typically self-
effacing. Buttler has never been one to
big himself up. The reality, though, is
that even in the five months since his
appointment Buttler has taken on the
Morgan era, added to it his own distinc-
tive stamp — and led his side to World
Cup victory at the first time of asking.
Buttler, 32, is a hugely experienced
T20 cricketer and if all the high-
pressure matches he has played for
England and in the Indian Premier
League have taught him anything, it is
a need for flexibility. As captain he has
shown a desire to have more bowlers at
his disposal than Morgan did; if some-
one has an off day with the ball,
Buttler wants alternatives to
hand. Shuffling an attack also
does not allow opposition bats-
men to settle.
He certainly rang the
changes during this World
Cup: five different bowlers
were called on in the first
seven overs against Sri
Lanka, six in the first seven
against New Zealand and
six in nine in the semi-fi-
nal against India. His in-
novative use of Ben
Stokes as an opening
bowler also fitted this ap-
proach.
“I’ve asked the guys to be
ready to bowl at different
times, to fulfil different
roles in different games,
and everyone’s really
grown into that,” he said
after the New Zealand
game, when on a whim he
decided to open the bowl-
ing with Moeen Ali’s off
breaks. “I feel I have many
options. I’ve just got to
trust my instinct as to
who is best for that parti-
cular time. The ‘feel’ on
the day is really impor-
tant.”
This fluid approach
equally applies to the
batting order, as was
demonstrated by Buttler
dropping Dawid Malan
to No 8 against New Zea-
land to allow other, freer
Mott, very much
part of England’s
new era, holds
the trophy aloft
strikers of the ball to go for quick runs.
Buttler also made a brave, instinctive
call at the toss in the semi-final when he
chose to field rather than bat, and put
the onus on India’s batsmen to work out
what was a defendable score — some-
thing they singularly failed to do. “I
think the majority of us were thinking,
‘Maybe bat first,’ ” the head coach,
Matthew Mott, said. “It’s a great wicket,
let’s go and put a statement out there.
He [Buttler] consulted and then said,
‘No, I think this is our best chance of
winning.’ It proved a masterstroke.”
Every captain would love to have a
bevy of all-rounders at his beck and call
and Buttler has been fortunate to have
in his team Stokes, Sam Curran, Liam
Livingstone and Ali. Before this tourna-
ment, they had never played in the same
England T20 team. Stokes and Curran
(named player of the tournament here)
were both unfit for the T20 World Cup
in the UAE last year when Morgan’s side
went out in the semi-finals.
Buttler also had the advantage of not
having Morgan the batsman in his side.
In his last 22 months as England
captain, Morgan passed fifty only once
in 26 T20 international games. Whoev-
er filled his place, there was probably
going to be an improvement.
At the outset, one of the biggest chal-
lenges facing Buttler was how to man-
age matters in the field while also
keeping wicket. Here Ali, his depu-
ty, played a crucial part in bridg-
ing the gap by standing at mid-
on or mid-off and relaying
messages between captain
and bowlers. Buttler and Ali
regularly convened
between overs.
Buttler’s leadership
style is to speak to players
one on one, perhaps in or
around training, to make
sure they have clarity on
their individual roles. Before
a match began, he would ad-
dress the players as a group in a
huddle on the outfield, when he
would emphasise the import-
ance of always taking the game
on. “We must try and play with
a level of freedom,” he said.
One player said that one of
Buttler’s greatest strengths was
an ability to stay “in the mo-
ment” and not get distracted
by external issues that do
not really matter. Buttler’s
captaincy journey has
not been altogether
smooth. Of the four
ODI and T20 series
against India and
South Africa in the
summer, three were
lost and one was
drawn, a worrying
start both for the
new captain and for
Mott, who had been
announced in May
as England’s
white-ball
coach.
Mott ad-
mitted
week that the team had a dip in confi-
last
dence during this period. “The team
had lost a bit of its mojo and swagger
Monday November 14 2022 | the times
and that happens when you have
changes in leadership. There were
some really good chats about believing
in ourselves more,” he said. Even
though results were not good, the
players retained a camaraderie. “They
looked out for each other,” Mott said.
An important development was the
move this year to split coaches, some-
thing that has provided greater stability
to both red-ball and white-ball teams.
Buttler has alongside him a head coach
in Mott, plus specialist short-format
consultants, whose attentions are
solely devoted to winning ODIs and
T20s.
Under Morgan, this may not have
mattered as much, as Morgan had been
captain since 2015 and knew exactly
what he wanted — even if, in the case of
his resolute opposition to Alex Hales
returning to the side because of past
breaches in discipline, this may not
have been a good thing. When Jonny
Bairstow was injured, and a replace-
ment opener was needed, Buttler con-
sulted other players before giving his
support to Hales being recalled.
Hales would not only score heavily in
the later stages of the tournament but
also played so aggressively that it took
pressure off Buttler, his opening part-
ner, allowing him to bat freely without
worrying that everything depended on
him making a score.
Buttler and Morgan remain close.
When the Buttler era began with a T20
against India at Southampton in July,
Morgan said: “Today I start life as an
England fan. For now it makes sense to
detach myself from the England set-up
to give Jos and Motty room.”
In fact, with Morgan making an
immediate move into the Sky Sports
commentary box, he has been almost
constantly on hand, which has enabled
Buttler to seek his advice when needed.
But Buttler is quite firm: he is captain
and no one is pulling his strings.
The T20 team left home on Septem-
ber 14, playing series in Pakistan and
Australia by way of a World Cup build-
up. These games were not without their
hitches. Buttler was carrying a calf
injury, which kept him out of all seven
Pakistan games; he was probably fit
towards the end of the series but decid-
ed against taking undue risks, and
trusted Ali to deputise. England won
4-3.
There were other fitness concerns.
Livingstone was hampered by an ankle
issue and Mark Wood and Chris
Woakes were coming back from long
layoffs. All were nursed back just in
time to play full parts in the World Cup
group stage. The biggest setback was an
ankle injury to Reece Topley only days
before the start. More recently injuries
to Wood and Malan forced them out of
the semi-final.
England’s 7 Moeen Ali Contributed more
than his 57 runs and two
wicketless overs suggest, and
The biggest alarm came with an
unexpected defeat by Ireland in a rain-
affected game at the MCG. Buttler and
World Cup was an able deputy to Buttler.
Harry Brook Youngest member
Mott let the players stew in their
embarrassment, Buttler saying: “I think
ratings 4 of team had a quiet tournament,
but his 20 off 23 in the final was
we should let it hurt . . . you’ve got to feel a good effort under pressure.
the disappointment.”
With no more room for error, captain Jos Buttler Had an outstanding
and coach were confident there would
be a positive reaction from their char-
9 tournament, as leader, tactically,
and as opener. Also some fine
ges — and there was. After that, every By Simon Wilde takes among his nine catches.
game was won, mostly in great style.
the times | Monday November 14 2022 63

Sport

It is staggering to
think what Curran
can go on to achieve
with the extra bounce off the surface
Jonny Bairstow from a length, as soon as Ben came to
the wicket I thought he would see it
through. It was tailor-made for him.
This was why he was selected for this
England batsman and tournament.
Times columnist There is a lot more to cricket than
all the stuff people see on the field
and then make instant judgments

I
couldn’t be happier for the lads.
It is an amazing achievement to
be the first men’s team to hold
both World Cups together. I’m
obviously gutted that I was not
there, but I am also immensely proud
to be part of this white-ball
generation, which has turned
England into such a dominating force
in world cricket. I know from previous
experience that it won’t have been a
quiet night of celebration, for sure.
It was a riveting occasion in
Melbourne. The pitch wasn’t the
greatest, and I do think it was a good
toss to win in that regard. But
England bowled brilliantly, with Adil
Rashid and Sam Curran producing
two extraordinarily special spells.
As I mentioned in my previous
column, I could not believe that
people were writing Adil off. He has
always produced when we have
needed him to. For him to bowl a
wicket maiden in a World Cup final is
quite remarkable.
But it was not just that. Look at
the pace he bowled in this final.
It was slower than he had bowled all
tournament. To have that skill to vary
your pace according to the conditions
is incredible, and to have the nous to
recognise so quickly to do that is just
as impressive.
Sam has been brilliant throughout
this campaign and it was no surprise
Main, Buttler that he was named both player of the
celebrates match and player of the tournament.
captaining England He is a fierce competitor who always
to the T20 World wants to be in the big moments on
Cup title with his the big occasions. He is still only 24
wife, Louise, and and it is staggering to think what he
their children, might be capable of in the future
Georgia and given how well he has responded to
Maggie, on the all his challenges so far.
outfield at the MCG. Sometimes people look at his
Right, Stokes after bowling and think it might be a little
hitting the winning innocuous. Nothing could be further
run, having led from the truth. It is not always the
England’s reply fastest bowlers who are the most
through periods dangerous, just as it is not always the
of turbulence in brightest kids at school who go on to
conditions that achieve the most later in life.
favoured the That said, Sam is a really intelligent
bowlers. Left, cricketer, always thinking his way
Rashid takes the calmly through situations with a clear
return catch to plan. He works exceptionally hard at
dismiss Babar all aspects of his game and possesses
Azam, the Pakistan great skills and wonderful nerve.
opener, during an It was written in the stars that Ben
impressive spell Stokes would be there at the end to
from the spinner hit the winning runs. I was watching
that yielded only it and, though the Pakistan quicks
one boundary. were causing some serious problems
upon on social media and the like.
There are characters who have huge
influence in the dressing room and in
the training environment, and Ben is
undoubtedly one of them. He is
simply invaluable to this England
team. He has done it so many times
before and got all the T-shirts, so
there was no better player to call
upon in such a situation, when things
were getting a little tense.
He navigated his way through that
chase so smartly. There were some
hairy moments, of course, and
England were helped a little by the
injury to Shaheen Shah Afridi, but the
way Ben seized the moment when
Shaheen could not finish his third
over was typical of him. As Babar
Azam turned to the off spin of
Iftikhar Ahmed, I knew exactly what
Ben was thinking. This was the time
to go. We talk about targeting certain
bowlers and targeting certain
moments. This was one of them. A
big one of them. It takes enormous
courage to seize such an opportunity
in such a huge game.
England needed 41 from 30 balls at
the start of that over. Thanks to Ben
hitting the last two balls for four and
six, suddenly that was down to 28
from 24.
When Moeen Ali then hit the first
two balls of the next over from
Mohammad Wasim for four, that was
game over. That is what happens
when you have done all the hard
work and waited for that moment to
bring the rewards.
I am so pleased for Jos Buttler.
He is an amazing person, player and
now captain. Go back to the summer
and there were people questioning
everything about the white-ball
set-up under him and Matthew Mott,
the coach. It was ridiculous, really,
and some of the comments made
then look very silly now.
It was a transitional period with a
new captain and a new coach, and
people had new roles. There was
bound to be a period of settling in.
It was obvious that Jos was going to
be a superb captain. He is a very
different character from Eoin
Morgan, but they are very close
mates and they have always talked a
lot about captaincy. Jos has taken all
the good parts of Eoin’s work and
added his own bit of style. He has also
batted magnificently.
As I said, I’m elated for him and the
team. World champions again.

Sam Curran A revelation with
9 the ball, particularly adept at the
death. Named man of the final
6 tournament with the bat but
and player of the tournament.
Alex Hales Back in after three
8 years in exile, he began slowly
before exploding. England’s
4 last major tournament ended in
second-leading runscorer.
Chris Jordan Had to wait for his
8 chance but his experience told
in the semi-final and final, in
8 not do him justice: he bowled
which he took five wickets.
Liam Livingstone Had a quiet Phil Salt Got his chance in the
proved a useful spin option and
5 knockout stage, replacing
Malan. Hit two fours in final
took six catches as an outfielder. after coming in at a tricky time.
Dawid Malan What may be his Ben Stokes England’s great all-
disappointment as injury ruled
8 rounder delivered at key times,
twice settling nerves to see
him out of the semi and final. them home in taut run chases.
Adil Rashid Four wickets did Chris Woakes Most expensive
his full four overs in each match,
7 of the regular seamers but took
some big wickets and hit
and got better and better. winning runs against Sri Lanka.
Mark Wood One of the stand-
8 outs before a right hip problem
ended his tournament. Fastest
bowler from any country.
Non-participants
Reece Topley Cruelly ruled out after
suffering an injury five days before the
opening match.
Tymal Mills Promoted to a full squad
member after Topley’s injury, but did
not play a match.
David Willey Willey’s path into the XI
was blocked by the excellent Curran.
Reserves Liam Dawson, Richard
Gleeson and Luke Wood, brought
in after the promotion of Mills, were
with the squad throughout, but were
not needed.
Head coach
Matthew Mott When the shock defeat
by Ireland threatened to derail
England’s campaign, Mott publicly
called the performance timid but kept
faith with the same players and called
for a more attacking mindset. It was a
measured stance, and the right one.
The team bounced back.
64
Sport T20 World Cup final
This champion side prove
continued from back
30 years ago to Pakistan. There have
been good days as well — remember
Boxing Day in the Ashes in 2010-11?—
and this was among the best of them.
This was a very personal triumph,
too, for Jos Buttler, the quiet man who
had taken the baton from England’s
greatest one-day captain, Eoin Mor-
gan, and who had endured a wobble in
the summer, before stamping his
authority here. Seven years after break-
ing his bat in frustration in the Adelaide
dressing room, when England were
bundled out of the 2015 tournament,
Buttler became the third England men’s
captain to lift a World Cup.
It means England are the first men’s
team to hold the 50-over and T20 titles
simultaneously. It shows what a golden
era this has been in one-day cricket, a
process of rejuvenation begun by
Andrew Strauss and Morgan seven
years ago. They may not be finished yet,
as many of these players will be around
for the next World Cup or two, but even
if success eludes them in future, it can
be said without fear of contradiction
that they have been a champion side.
2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times
The weather played ball and a little ball, England’s first of the tournament,
over 80,000 spectators turned up on a
muggy evening, the majority support-
ing Pakistan. About an hour after the
and he followed that with a wide. Then
Mohammad Rizwan nearly ran himself
out, chancing a quick single to Chris
Ruthless Stokes
last ball had been bowled, England’s
players made their way over to the
bottom tier of the Shane Warne Stand,
Jordan at mid-off.
With a good sight of the stumps,
Jordan missed by some distance. Grad-
capitalises on
where a few thousand England sup-
porters had stayed to celebrate. It was
ually things settled and with Rizwan
dragging the excellent Curran on to his
Shaheen misery
not quite the MCG of 2010-11, when the stumps in the powerplay, Pakistan
Ashes were won, but these were lovely could not inflict much early damage.
images to be beaming to television The pitch was patchy and mottled
screens in England on a cold November and a little two-paced. A combination of
Remembrance Sunday morning. the conditions, the magnitude of the oc-
It was not hard to imagine the scenes casion and the excellent bowlers on ei-
in both countries as the game began. In ther side, kept the scoring in check. For
Pakistan there were surely tens of mil- Pakistan, only Shan Masood found the
lions watching, huddled around televi- middle of the bat with any regularity
sion sets in the teeming cities of Kara- and he shepherded the innings stylishly
chi and Lahore, and in the villages and from the eighth over onwards. York-
valleys, too, praying for a repeat of 1992. shire can look forward to a cool and in-
They were watching a young, emerg- telligent cricketer next year as captain.
ing team, full of fast-bowling talent, up With the powerplay done, Adil
against an experienced England team, Rashid then gave a mini-exhibition of
average age 31 and including six players wrist-spin bowling, under the shadow
who had been in the 2019 World Cup- of the Shane Warne Stand. Until this
winning squad. Experience was a vital, match he had only taken two wickets in
differentiating factor on the night. the tournament but had bowled far
That said, there were nerves. The more effectively than that bare statistic
first ball, delivered by Stokes, was a no- suggested. His performances against
Sri Lanka in Sydney and India in Ade-
laide were top class, and he came into
Top this match full of confidence, having
performers made a small technical adjustment by
bowling wider on the crease.
All stats are Buttler allowed Rashid free rein in
from the Super the middle overs, bowling him straight
12s onwards through and using him to shackle Paki-
Most runs stan’s middle order. He doubled his tally
Virat Kohli of wickets, dismissing the 21-year-old
(India) 296 Mohammad Haris, who hoisted to
Suryakumar long-on, and then Babar Azam, who of-
Yadav (India) 239 fered a simple return catch. Babar has
Jos Buttler had his issues with Rashid’s googly
(Eng) 225 before, and failed to pick it again.
Alex Hales The Pakistan captain’s dismissal
(Eng) 212 came in the 12th over, a wicket maiden
Glenn Phillips from Rashid. The rest of this over
(NZ) 201 showed Rashid’s confidence and range
of skill, as he bowled ever more slowly
Highest strike to the new batsman, Iftikhar Ahmed,
rate (min 100 and found an impressive amount of
runs scored) turn. Later on, Shadab Khan bowled
Suryakumar economically, but, quicker through the
Yadav (India) air, he lacked Rashid’s devil and threat.
189.68 Curran returned to bowl with his
Rilee Rossouw usual intelligence and skill at the end of
(SA) 169.87 the innings, returning figures of three
Glenn Maxwell for 12 in four overs, while Chris Jordan
(Aus) 161.64 was entrusted with three of the last six
Marcus Stoinis overs, a measure of his captain’s faith.
(Aus) 161.53 Only a dropped catch from Harry
Quinton de Kock Brook spoilt an otherwise flawless
(SA) 161.03 performance in the field and only 31
runs came in the last five overs. Paki-
Most wickets stan’s total of 137 felt 20 runs short of
Sam Curran being competitive.
(Eng) 13 But Pakistan have both spirit and
Wanindu skill with the ball, the latter on show im-
Hasaranga (SL) 11 mediately when Shaheen Shah Afridi
Anrich Nortje swung one back through Alex Hales’s
(SA) 11 defences. Three quicks, Shaheen, Nas- Injury helps England overcome middle overs stutter
Shadab Khan eem Shah and Haris Rauf were entrust-
(Pakistan) 11 ed with the powerplay and came England’s score at the end of each over compared to Pakistan’s
Shaheen Shah pounding in. It was Rauf, skiddy, fast 140
Afridi and determined, who provided a fur- Wickets
(Pakistan) 11 ther boost when Phil Salt pulled to mid-
wicket in the fourth over, caught by Ifti- 120
Lowest economy khar for ten, and Buttler edged behind
rate (min 60 balls in the sixth, out for 26, shortly after es- 100
bowled) saying a scoop shot for six off Naseem.
Anrich Nortje It was time then for Stokes and Brook England
(SA) 5.37 to set about restoring things, which 80
Mustafizur Stokes did more calmly than Brook. Shaheen injured at the
Rahman Quite how Naseem went wicketless is a start of the 16th over
(Bangladesh) 5.6 60
mystery: having beaten Buttler on the
Adil Rashid outside edge six times in the powerplay, Runs
(Eng) 6.12 he now passed Stokes’s outside edge Pakistan 40
Shaheen Shah three times in one over, provoking a
Afridi smile from Stokes, as if to say: too good.
(Pakistan) 6.15 Bizarrely, it was when Brook was 20
Bhuvneshwar dismissed for 20 in the 13th over that Over
Kumar (India) 6.16 the match swung decisively to England, 0
as, taking a stunning catch at long off, 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Shaheen damaged the knee that had
the times | Monday November 14 2022 2GM 65

Sport

England are in golden era Final scoreboard

‘He’d drop himself if he
PAKISTAN
@Mohammad Rizwan
b Curran
Fullish, nips back, dragged on
R
15 14
B

batted that way in Tests’

*Babar Azam
c and b Rashid
32 28 Stokes’s patient innings 2016 final push him back. The things
he’s gone on to achieve in his career
Attempted cut, looped back leaves anxious captain since then is just amazing.”
Stokes praised the speed with
Mohammad Haris 8 12
c Stokes b Rashid Buttler on edge of seat, which Buttler adapted after becoming
white-ball captain in June. “Look at
Tossed up, taken at long on writes Simon Wilde how quickly he has managed to take
Shan Masood 38 28 control of the team and progress it
c Livingstone b Curran

kept him out for so long in the summer.
Shaheen left the field briefly, then
returned and was asked to bowl the 16th
over, with England 41 runs short. He
bowled one ball, but could bowl no
more, and Babar turned to the off spin-
ner, Iftikhar, to complete the over.
Stokes chose his moment to pounce,
hitting the final two balls of the over for
a four and a six. Twenty-eight runs
from four overs were now required;
there was some wiggle room at last.
Moeen Ali took three fours from the
next over, bowled by MohammadWas-
im, and the wind went from Pakistan’s
sails. It was a case, then, of how quickly
England would finish the job, which
they did with an over to spare. Ali did
not make it to the finish line, removed
by Wasim for 19, but it was hard not to
appreciate what this meant to him,
having missed the Lord’s final in 2019.
Stokes brought up his half-century
— his first, remarkably, in T20 interna-
tionals — and then clobbered the final
From left: Shaheen
took a stunning
catch at long off,
but in the process
damaged the knee
that had kept him
out of action for so
long this summer.
He received
treatment on the
field but was
unable to bowl, and
Stokes, main, took
full advantage
ball of the 19th over to the mid-wicket
boundary, and the job was done.
There was a poignant backdrop to
the game, with the news of the death at
the age of 76 of David English, who
founded the Bunbury cricket festival.
When the English Schools Cricket
Association could no longer afford to
run a festival for the best under-15
cricketers in the land, English took on
the task, to the eventual benefit of more
than a 1,000 first-class players and over
a hundred England internationals.
Buttler was among that number, as
was Stokes. They and the rest of En-
gland’s players wore black armbands,
and it was a fitting reminder of all those
who contribute to moments like this.
As 15-year-olds, when playing in
their own Bunbury festivals, those
dreams of World Cup or Ashes glory
would have started to form for players
like Buttler and Stokes. On a quite bril-
liant Melbourne evening, those dreams
came true again.
Flicked in the air to midwicket
Iftikhar Ahmed
c Buttler b Stokes
Nibbles outside off, thin edge
Shadab Khan
c Woakes b Jordan
Slapped across line to mid-off
Mohammad Nawaz
c Livingstone b Curran
Full, chipped to the deep
Mohammad Wasim 4 8
c Livingstone b Jordan
Slower ball, hoisted to the deep
Shaheen Shah Afridi
not out
Haris Rauf
not out
Extras
(b 1, lb 1, w 6, nb 1)
TOTAL (8 wkts, 20 overs)
Naseem Shah did not bat.
Fall of wickets 1-29, 2-45, 3-84, 4-85,
5-121, 6-123, 7-129, 8-131.
Bowling Stokes 4-0-32-1; Woakes
3-0-26-0; Curran 4-0-12-3; Rashid 4-1-22-2;
Jordan 4-0-27-2; Livingstone 1-0-16-0.
ENGLAND
*@J C Buttler
c Rizwan b Rauf
Back of a length, edged
A D Hales
b Shaheen
Perfect length, deflects off pad
P D Salt
c Iftikhar b Rauf
Hard length, pulled to midwicket
B A Stokes
not out
H C Brook
c Shaheen b Shadab
Hard and flat, straight to long off
M M Ali
b Wasim
Inside edge into leg stump
L S Livingstone
not out
Extras
(lb 1, w 8)
TOTAL (5 wkts, 19 overs)
S M Curran, C R Woakes, A U Rashid and
C J Jordan did not bat.
Fall of wickets 1-7, 2-32, 3-45, 4-84, 5-132.
Bowling Shaheen 2.1-0-13-1; Naseem
4-0-30-0; Rauf 4-0-23-2; Shadab
4-0-20-1; Wasim 4-0-38-1; Iftikhar
0.5-0-13-0.
Umpires K Dharmasena (Sri Lanka)
and M Erasmus (South Africa).
TV umpire C Gaffaney (New Zealand).
Reserve umpire P Reiffel (Australia).
Match referee R Madugalle (Sri Lanka).
Man of the match S M Curran
(England).
Man of the tournament Curran.
inside today
David English: actor, charity
fundraiser and ‘godfather’
of English cricket
J
os Buttler joked that Ben
Stokes would have been
0 6 dropped from the Test side for
his cautious approach after the
all-rounder anchored England
20 14 to a T20 World Cup title.
Stokes, England’s Test captain, has
made it an article of faith that he and
5 7 his players should approach red-ball
in ultra-aggressive fashion. But when
it mattered most, in front of 80,462 at
the MCG, patience proved the key.
Stokes hit only two fours in his first
ten overs at the crease before
accelerating after Shaheen Shah Afridi
5 3 had broken down in the 16th over to
guide England to a five-wicket win.
1 1 “I was comfortable [in the chase]
after ten overs,” Buttler said. “If Ben
9 played like that in a Test match he
would drop himself! But the guy can
soak up pressure. I was not enjoying
137 it. Liam [Livingstone] was next to me
and he said, ‘I never want to sit next
to you again if I am batting next.’ ”
Stokes, who went in after the early
loss of Alex Hales and Phil Salt,
scored an unbeaten 52 from 49 balls
to see his side home with six balls to
spare in a dramatic run chase
hampered by an injury to the Pakistan
R B
fast bowler Shaheen and a pitch made
26 17 greasy by light, persistent rain. At one
point Stokes, on 20, slipped mid-pitch
and narrowly escaped being run out.
1 2 “He always stands up in the biggest
moments,” Buttler said. “He’s a man
who can take a lot of pressure on his
10 9 shoulders and perform. With him in
the middle, you know you’ve got a
good chance. I’m so proud of him and
52 49 pleased for him.
“He’s a true match-winner and he’s
20 23 been there in those scenarios time
and again. It certainly wasn’t his most
fluent innings or he probably didn’t
19 13 time the ball as well as he can, but we
knew he was never going to go down
without a fight, and be there at the
1 1 end. We’re immensely lucky to have
him. He’s one of the great players of
9 English cricket.”
Buttler said he was particularly
138 pleased for Stokes as he had bowled
the last over in the 2016 final against
West Indies in Calcutta which cost
England the game when Carlos
Brathwaite hit him for four sixes.
“It’s a shame he
did his
[Amazon
Prime]
documentary a
year early. He
could have added
that in. He’s been on
an amazing journey, all
these big moments. I
always remember his
words to Jofra
[Archer, before the
Super Over of
the 2019
World Cup
final] about
things don’t
define you
and he’s
obviously never let that
from the legacy that Morgs [Eoin
Morgan] left. Jos has now created his
legacy. He’s a guy everyone follows in
the field. It shouldn’t be taken for
granted how hard it is to make
tactical decisions under pressure in
this format, but 95 per cent of his
decision-making he has got right.
“It is good to be able to say double
world champions. I am very proud.
You don’t get to win World Cups too
often so to win two is pretty special.”
Stokes applauded the bowlers for
keeping Pakistan to 137 for eight. “In
finals, especially chasing, you forget all
the hard work that came first. [Adil]
Rashid and Sam Curran, that is what
won us the game. To restrict them to
130-odd, the bowlers have to take a lot
of credit.”
Buttler said of the bowling attack:
“It has improved no end and that’s
why we’re champions. Sam Curran
has been an absolute revelation. He’s
a brilliant cricketer. He loves those
crunch moments and he deserved the
player of the tournament [award].
We’re so proud to have him in our
team. He’s only going to get better.
“You can’t [over]estimate the hard
work people have put in — Mark
Wood and Chris Woakes coming back
from injuries, Chris Jordan being
injured. It’s an amazing effort from
everyone. David Saker has come in as
a bowling coach and he’s added a
huge amount. Guys taking ownership
makes my job a lot easier, to say, ‘I
trust you to bowl whatever you think
you need to bowl.’ ”
Moeen Ali, Buttler’s deputy, who
shared a stand of 48 in 35 balls with
Stokes, described it as “one of the best
days of my cricketing career”. He
added: “It was about keeping my
intent. If I was going to get out it was
to get out being positive.”
Woakes, one of four players on the
field who also won at Lord’s in 2019,
alongside Buttler, Stokes and Rashid,
said: “We’ve lost a lot of games in
Australia, so to win here at the MCG
was amazing. The wicket offered a bit
to the quicks but the occasion played
into that. It gets the better of people.”
Buttler added: “We’ve always tried
to push the boundaries to get ahead of
the rest of the world, and be braver
than anyone else, and we’ll take
what comes from that. We know
there’ll be the odd slip, but we trust
that method. It’s served us well.”
Babar Azam, the Pakistan
captain, said: “We were 20 runs
short but the way the fast bowlers
started in the first six overs and
the middle overs we had a
[strong] comeback. After
the Shaheen injury
maybe the match went
to England’s side. I’m
very happy with the
way we performed.”
Buttler praised
his team for
being brave
and pushing
boundaries
 2GM Monday November 14 2022 | the times

Sport Russell wins in Brazil

Briton in tears after claiming
first grand prix victory
The Game
All the weekend’s football as
Premier League hits pause

Ronaldo: I’ve
got no respect
for Ten Hag
Charlotte Duncker
Cristiano Ronaldo has accused
Manchester United of betraying him
and attacked the club’s manager Erik
ten Hag for not showing him respect.
Ronaldo — who wanted to leave Old
Trafford in the summer but failed to
find a major club who were prepared to
offer a deal United would accept — also
criticised the club for failing to
modernise since the retirement of Sir
Alex Ferguson, and said that he had
never heard of Ralf Rangnick before
the German was appointed United’s
interim manager last season.
Speaking to Talk TV in an interview
to be broadcast this week, Ronaldo
suggested that his former team-mate
Wayne Rooney has been critical of him
because he is jealous, both because
Ronaldo is still playing at 37 and also
because he is more physically attract-
ive. Ronaldo said: “I don’t know why he
criticises me so badly. Probably because
he finished his career and I’m still
playing at high level. I’m not going to
say that I’m looking better than him.
Which is true.”

Stokes finds greatness again Ronaldo’s agent has been trying to

It had to be Ben Stokes, of course it
Mike Atherton did. In the recently released Amazon
Prime documentary Phoenix from
the Ashes, Joe Root explained that
Chief Cricket “the big moments find him”. At the
Correspondent, Melbourne Cricket Ground, six years
Melbourne after a teary defeat in the T20 World
Cup final against West Indies in
Pakistan v England Calcutta, a big moment found him
again and, this time, he dragged
Melbourne (England won toss): England to another World Cup win,
England beat Pakistan by five just as he did at Lord’s in 2019.
wickets He did not do it alone, of course.
England were clinical with the ball
The England players celebrate as Buttler lifts the T20 World Cup trophy in Melbourne, after Stokes, inset, again played a starring role in victory, hitting the winning run
and in the field and in Sam
Curran — player of the match
and of the tournament — and
Adil Rashid they had two
bowlers at the top of their
game who held Pakistan in
check. But with Pakistan’s
fast bowlers straining for
wickets on a tricky surface,
England needed Stokes’s
nerve and bottle to play the
kind of innings he had
played in the final group-
stage game, against Sri
Lanka. He delivered again.
England have endured some
bad days at the Melbourne
Cricket Ground. A year ago, in
the Ashes, they were
humbled by a hitherto little-
known Australian seamer
called Scott Boland. They
had never won a T20
international at the
ground and, of course,
there was the small matter
of a World Cup final loss
agree a deal for him to leave the club in
the January transfer window, and his
attack appears a deliberate attempt to
accelerate his departure. He said that
he felt some at the club had been trying
to force him out since last year.
He said: “People should listen to the
truth. I feel betrayed. And I felt that
some people, they don’t want me here.
Not only this year, but last year too.”
Ten Hag has repeatedly left Ronaldo
out of his starting XI and suspended
him for one match when he refused to
come on as substitute for the final
minutes of a game against Tottenham
Hotspur last month. Ronaldo said of his
manager: “I don’t have respect for him
because he doesn’t show respect for
me.” Ronaldo also said the club lacked
empathy in their attitude towards him
after his son was stillborn in April.

Times Crossword 28,447 across down Prize solution 28,440

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Affected US soldier returning in a 1 Validate feeling angry over B R A S S I C A J A C K A L

E H N B A O C
northern military action (8) American payment? (10) P R I M EM I N I S T E R
5 Some European runs to cradle 2 Dull whisky (litre declined) (3) R P R D L Y
head of collapsed ballerina (6) 3 Cunning, intervening in any GO DW I T I MB E C I L E
V R N I A I
9 10 9 Not heading into restricted disorder (7) V E GE B URGE R ROC K
hospital areas? (8) 4 Mars? Admit flying to Mars is to be C P D R
10 Strange commander leading line a success (2,4,1,5) ME E K P E R I S T Y L E S
11 Q E E E T N
into trench (6) 6 Bill amount demanded, getting MURD E R E R S C H EM A
12 Legal document to burn and burn, positive response (7) A C E K E A
12 13 entrenching women’s tirade (6,7) 7 Tolerate noble punishment, B I T S A ND P I E C E S
15 Performed badly: opening for relinquishing power (11) L A S O E A S
F E E B L E S HRU N K E N
14 winning punch missed (5) 8 Speed of elderly plane, not the
Check today’s answers by ringing 0905 757
16 Main demo swirled around maximum! (4) 0141 by midnight. Calls cost £1 per minute
15 16 hospital, directed at individual (2,7) 11 Harpist etc or various players here plus your telephone company’s network
17 Writer’s retainer, heading off, (9,3) access charge. SP: Spoke 0333 202 3390.
enthralled by these in Calais (9) 13 Sail with mostly crude map at sea?
The winners of Prize Crossword No 28,440 are
19 Dance beat with energy (5) This regatta’s had its day (8,3) K Bladon, Birmingham
17 18 19 20 Who may be retrying a tale 14 Bring in expert, securing new D Howell, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
requiring different placement? (8,5) eminence (10) J Kelly, Mears Ashby, Northamptonshire
M Pritchard, Cwmbran, Gwent
22 Current about to employ charge (6) 18 Worker is in regional garb (but not J Wasey, St Albans, Hertfordshire
23 Recalled vermin being kept in small cap) (7)
enclosure, for example (8) 19 Section in repetitive music Newspapers
20 25 Totally vacant check on computer engaging hearts (7) support recycling
using keyboard (6) 21 Dessert restaurant served up (4) The recycled paper content of
21 26 Cheap travel mostly expensive 24 Bird no longer found in second UK newspapers in 2020 was 67%
— great anger (8) area (3)
22 23 24

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