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THE WEEK

26 JUNE 2021 | ISSUE 1337 | £3.99

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Revolt in the shires

Is the “blue wall” crumbling?

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4 NEWS

The main stories…

What happened

Cracks in the blue wall The Conservative Party suffered a major blow last week when it lost Chesham and Amersham – a seat it had held since its creation in 1974 – in a by-election. Sarah Green, the Liberal Democrat candidate, won a majority of 8,028, overturning what had been a 16,000-strong Conservative majority, a swing of 25%. The Lib Dems’ leader Ed Davey said it showed that the so-called blue wall of Tory seats in southern England was “beginning to crumble”. He rejected calls for opposition parties to form a “progressive alliance”, saying a “stitch-up” of that type wasn’t necessary to beat the Conservatives.

What the editorials said It tends to be a mistake to read much into by-election results, said the Daily Mail, but the Tories should heed the message from this one. In the Conservative heartlands, voters are very concerned about proposed planning reforms, which will make it harder for local people to block development. But there were other factors that worked against the Tories, said The Independent: the vote also reflected lingering resentment about Brexit in a seat that voted 55% for Remain, and anger about the HS2 rail link through the Chilterns.

Local grievances played a big role, said The Times, but what should worry the Tories is that the result is part of a wider pattern. While many “red wall” seats in the North have fallen The by-election – triggered by the death of to the Tories, an opposite “realignment is Dame Cheryl Gillan, who had represented the Green with Davey at Parliament under way” in affluent seats in the South, particularly those with plenty of “middle-class Buckinghamshire constituency for 29 years – prompted some Tory MPs to question Boris Johnson’s strategy university graduates”. In last month’s local elections, the Lib of targeting Labour seats in the North, and call for a rethink of Dems and Greens made significant inroads in Tory heartlands contentious planning reforms. The Chesham and Amersham such as Wiltshire, Surrey and Sussex. To keep power, the vote also led to recriminations within Labour, which suffered Tories need the support of both traditional supporters and the its worst by-election result since the Second World War. The voters they’ve peeled away from Labour, said The Observer. party received just 622 votes, or 1.6%, slipping into fourth But it seems that the coalition is fraying, and that “Johnson’s appeal may not be as universal as his backers believe”. place behind the Greens and losing its deposit.

What happened

Iran’s new president Iran’s ultra-conservative chief justice Ebrahim Raisi won a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election, a result that cements the hardliners’ grip on power. The 60-year-old cleric won 17.9 million votes in Friday’s poll – 62% of all the ballots cast – after an array of reformist candidates were barred from standing. His closest rival, a conservative general, received 3.4 million votes; the sole reformist on the ballot got 2.4 million.

What the editorials said “Even by the standards of Iran”, this was a flawed election, said The Economist. Of the almost 600 candidates who registered to run, all but seven were barred by the Guardian Council, the unelected clerics who hold the “real power” in Tehran. Three of those seven then dropped out of the race, clearing the way for Raisi, who has close ties to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to win.

It wasn’t all bad A rare orchid that was believed to be extinct in the UK has been found alive and well – on the roof of an office block in the City of London. Serapias parviflora, which has only been recorded once before in the British Isles, was spotted in a rooftop garden belonging to a Japanese bank.

Ecologist Mark Patterson, who identified the plant, speculated that its tiny seeds could have been carried over from the continent by one of the southerly winds that brings Saharan dust to the capital.

A 40-year-old vet and fell runner from Ambleside has reached the summit of all 214 Wainwright peaks in the Lake District in less than six days – making her the fastest athlete, male or female, ever to complete the 325-mile route. Sabrina Verjee, who stopped only for food, repairs, and the odd snatched moment of sleep, finished the course in five days, 23 hours and 49 minutes – beating the previous record by just over six hours. She told the BBC that the views had inspired her to keep going. “I kept sneakily turning around to look at the sunset, thinking, ‘OK – you can have a quick look, but you come on, keep moving’,” she added.

There are all sorts of home remedies for hiccups, from getting a fright, to sucking on a lemon. Now, scientists claim to have come up with a more reliable cure: an L-shaped straw known as a “forced inspiratory suction and swallow tool”. Sold under the name HiccAway, it has a mouthpiece at one end and a pressure valve at the other. Drinking through it stimulates the phrenic and vagus nerves, which are responsible for hiccups, and allows the brain to reset. In a trial, just over 90% of users reported an improvement in symptoms.

COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 26 June 2021

© STEVE ASHWORTH; COVER IMAGE © SOPHIA EVANS/GUARDIAN/EYEVINE

Yet even with no credible opposition, Raisi was unable to win significant popular support, said the FT. Turnout was a paltry 48.8%, the lowest in the Republic’s history of contested The result means that when Raisi takes office presidential polls, and fell to 26% in Tehran; in August, hardliners will control all branches some 3.7 million people spoiled their ballots.

“Iran’s disgruntled majority, in other words, of Iran’s government – Parliament, the Ebrahim Raisi: “extreme” opposes Raisi.” And no wonder, said The judiciary and the presidency – for the first time since 2013. He is widely expected to Times. The election was rigged in his favour harden Iran’s stance towards the West, yet he has vowed to precisely because of the extremism of his Islamist convictions, continue negotiations with the US in order to revive the and his ruthless attitude to dissent. In a country “where 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran has been violating the terms of protest is increasingly rewarded with a bullet”, younger and the deal since the Trump administration unilaterally withmore moderate voters showed their disgust at his candidacy drew from it in 2018 and imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. the only way they could: by “mass abstention”.

…and how they were covered

NEWS 5

What the commentators said

What next?

The Lib Dems are back, said Adam Ramsay on OpenDemocracy.net. The masters of the by-election surprise, they’ve learnt how to “pour all their national resources into one place, and sink their opponents in a sea of leaflets”. Their victory is a disaster for Keir Starmer, as it prompts the question of why, if they can beat the Tories, Labour can’t. But while the Chesham and Amersham result suggests voters have finally forgiven the Lib Dems for their part in the Cameron-Clegg coalition, it doesn’t mean the party “is about to storm British politics”. Indeed, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, all the Lib Dems are really doing is splitting the left-ofcentre vote, and thereby helping keep the Tories in power.

The Tories would lose 23 seats in the south and east of England were the Lib Dem surge in last week’s by-election repeated in a general election, says The Times. Among the seats at risk are David Cameron’s old seat of Witney; the Esher and Walton constituency of Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary; South West Surrey, the seat held by Raab’s predecessor, Jeremy Hunt; and Tunbridge Wells.

The Lib Dems won on a “shamelessly hypocritical platform”, said Robert Colvile in The Sunday Times. They pandered to local complaints about HS2 and housebuilding, “both of which, in classic Lib Dem fashion, the party actually supports in Westminster”. But their victory means that Tory MPs in the South will be very nervous about voting for a relaxation of planning rules in the face of constituents’ objections. Party insiders now describe those reforms as “dead on arrival”, said Katy Balls in The Guardian. That presents a serious problem for Johnson, as housebuilding is integral to his “levelling up” agenda.

The PM is caught between the Nimbys and Generation Rent, said Peter Franklin on UnHerd.

The Tory faithful hate the idea of the countryside being concreted over, yet without better, more affordable housing, more voters will desert the party and the post-Covid economic recovery will be doomed. The Government hopes to square this circle by generating housing that is more pleasing to the eye. But so far, the admirable aims of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission don’t seem to be translating into attractive developments. If Johnson isn’t careful, planning reform could turn into another poll tax for the Government, said William Hague in The Times. There is an urgent need for more housing, but before finalising the forthcoming legislation, the PM must “take stock” and listen to the concerns of critics.

The next by-election is on 1 July in Batley and Spen.

Many believe the former safe Labour seat will fall to the Tories. Keir Starmer is expected to announce several new appointments to his top team in the wake of the Amersham by-election, in an effort to reset his leadership.

What the commentators said

What next?

“If Joe Biden thinks Vladimir Putin deserves to be called a killer”, said Patrick Wintour in The Observer, then his assessment of Raisi “is likely to be unprintable”. In 1988, Iran’s presidentelect was on the “Tehran death committee”, a panel of judges who ordered the execution of at least 3,000 (possibly up to 30,000) political prisoners. And during his time as head of Iran’s judiciary, a post he has held since 2019, “floggings and executions flourished”. This was not his first tilt at the presidency: he ran unsuccessfully in 2017 against his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani. His victory last week means that reformists like Rouhani, whose government agreed the 2015 nuclear deal, have been comprehensively sidelined, said Kareem Fahim in The Washington Post. With a hardliner about to take office, the chances of “liberalising domestic reforms or any broadening of Tehran’s relationship with the West” now look remote indeed.

Western powers have pledged to forge ahead with efforts aimed at reviving the nuclear deal. A sixth round of negotiations between Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran ended in Vienna on Sunday; Washington and Tehran, which do not have formal diplomatic relations, are not negotiating directly with one another.

Raisi’s election is likely to fuel the “toxic suspicion” between the US and Iran, agreed Michael Hirsh in Foreign Policy. But that doesn’t mean the ongoing talks to revive the nuclear deal are destined to fail. The supreme leader is believed to want an agreement before Rouhani leaves office, “so any public backlash from a compromise deal hurts the former president, not Raisi”.

The US knows that in the absence of a deal, Iran will press ahead with expanding its nuclear capacity, thereby “shortening its route to a bomb”. The potential rewards are great, said Tim Marshall on Reaction.life. For the US and Europe, successful talks might lead to a reduction in Middle East tensions and the release of political prisoners such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

For Iran, the easing of sanctions would allow its banking and oil sectors to resume trading internationally and spark much-needed economic growth. That’s all fine, said Limor Simhony Philpott in The Spectator, but unless the terms agreed are harsher than Obama’s deal was, Iran will just go on developing its nuclear capabilities and supporting international terrorism.

THE WEEK

The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald stood in awe of wealth. “You know, Ernest, the rich are different from you and me,” he once observed to his friend Hemingway. “Yes,” his unimpressed pal replied, “they have more money.” Or so the story goes. I wonder, though, in light of the recent antics in Downing Street (see p. 27), if we shouldn’t be asking the same of politicians. Are they just like us, only a bit more ambitious? Or are they a different species entirely? A silly notion, you might say. Yet, weirdly, we do seem to treat them as a race apart. Ordinary folk like you and me, faced with a daily avalanche of conflicting advice and demands, would be forgiven for vacillating, dissembling and making U-turns. But we can’t forgive politicians for doing so, because, like Dominic Cummings, we assume they should be super-smart savants of some sort, and above all that. However, we also harbour a contrary suspicion: that they are a uniquely hopeless species; that in their shoes we’d do far better.

But in two ways I think politicians really do differ from us. The first is that, uniquely among professionals, they face the prospect of career oblivion every five years. That must surely swivel the psyche.

The second is something they’re probably born with: a capacity to absorb humiliation. Matt Hancock soldiers on, even though he knows the world knows that his boss feels he’s “totally f***ing useless”.

If we, who shrivel at microaggressions, really thought politicians were like the rest of us, we’d be full of sympathy, even admiration for him. But we aren’t, because we don’t.

Jeremy O’Grady Subscriptions: 0330-333 9494; subscriptions@theweek.co.uk © Dennis Publishing Limited 2021. All rights reserved.

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Israel’s new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, has echoed his predecessor’s opposition to the deal, warning that Raisi’s election is “the last chance” for world powers to “wake up” and “understand who they’re doing business with”.

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26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Politics

6 NEWS Controversy of the week

The DUP implosion “Riding high in May, shot down in June.” That was the fate of Edwin Poots, short-lived leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. Poots himself played a major role in the internal coup that ousted Arlene Foster, the previous DUP leader and first minister. But his own rule is now history, after only 21 days, following a revolt by the party’s Assembly members and MPs. The reason? They opposed his nomination of Paul Givan for first minister, and were enraged by the concessions Poots gave to their arch-rival Sinn Féin to get its support for Givan’s candidacy – including an agreement to pass laws promoting the Irish language. “‘Crisis’ is a term that’s never far away in Northern Ireland,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. But the current situation looks ominous. The devolved Stormont executive is Edwin Poots: 21-day rule in danger of collapse (again). If it does, Northern Ireland could become “the most undemocratic state in Europe, or at least this side of Belarus”. Its people would be governed by the Northern Ireland Office’s “civil servants and ministers” in London – while its trading rules and food regulations are already set by Brussels, courtesy of the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed by Boris Johnson. The average voter would have “next to no say on what happens to them”.

The last time the Stormont Assembly was brought down, by Sinn Féin in January 2017, it left Northern Ireland without a government for three years, said Sam McBride in the News Letter. Now the DUP’s new leader, the Lagan Valley MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, has reportedly vowed to pull his party out of the Assembly unless the British Government gets rid of “barriers to trade” and respects “the Act of Union”. It may be possible to take the heat out of the Protocol row, said The Economist.

Temporary compromises from the both the UK and EU could ease the passage of goods to Northern Ireland. But the “sense of betrayal” among unionists is strong: Johnson vowed that there would be a trade border in the Irish Sea “over my dead body”; then he broke that promise. Loyalist paramilitary groups have raised the stakes by demanding the Protocol is “removed”, said Newton Emerson in The Irish Times. That bodes ill for the summer, “as younger, hotter heads muscle in”.

The DUP used to run a formidably tight ship, said Alex Kane in the Irish Independent. It has been “truly, almost epically, astonishing” to watch it implode over Brexit – which of course it campaigned for – in the centenary year of Northern Ireland’s creation. Opinion polls now show a “massive” drop in support for the DUP, and a rise in support for the moderate Ulster Unionist Party and the hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice. A splintered loyalist vote could mean that the office of first minister goes to Sinn Féin after the next Stormont election. Things have seldom been so dire for unionists, who believe themselves to be “hanging on by just a few fingertips to the window ledge of the Union”.

Spirit of the age Students at Oxford University have voted to establish a group of “sensitivity readers” who will read articles submitted to student newspapers, and vet them for “problematic” content. The motion, put to the student union, suggested that there was a need for “better editing” to prevent the publication of material that is “implicitly racist or sexist, or just generally inaccurate and insensitive”. In a statement, the independent newspaper Cherwell said it welcomed the plan, as a “resource”.

The pandemic seems to have accelerated a trend for “supersize” paddling pools.

Online garden retailer ManoMano says its bestselling model last month was a 10ft-diameter pool which requires 4,678 litres of water to fill.

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Good week for:

Summer weddings, with news that from 1 July, couples in England and Wales will be allowed to get married outside for the first time. A statutory instrument to change existing law – which restricts civil weddings and partnerships to approved rooms or other structures – will be laid before Parliament on 30 June.

Staff at Bumble, the dating app, who were all given a week off, to combat workplace stress. A senior executive at the company said that its American founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, had “correctly intuited our collective burnout”.

Jess de Wahls, the German-born textile artist, after the Royal Academy apologised for the way it had treated her. Last month, the RA announced that it would no longer be selling her work in its shop in light of a comment she had made in 2019, that “a woman is an adult human female. (Not an identity or feeling.)”

In a statement, the RA said it had failed to uphold its “most important core value – the protection of free speech”.

Bad week for:

Pacifically, which – said instead of the word “specifically” – was found to be the most annoying mispronunciation in a survey of 2,000 Britons. Next came probly for probably and expresso for espresso. “Nucular”, “excetera” and “assessory” also featured.

Billie Eilish, the 19-year-old pop star, who apologised after a video emerged of her mouthing an anti-Asian slur. The word was contained in a song that she was miming along to, aged 13 or 14.

In an Instagram post, Eilish said she was “appalled” by her earlier behaviour, and that she would continue “listening and learning”.

Hope for summer

Ministers are working on plans to make it possible for double-vaccinated holidaymakers to visit amber-listed countries without having to quarantine on their return, Matt Hancock revealed this week. The announcement coincided with a plea from the travel industry to open up as soon as possible. But the Health Secretary refused to be drawn on whether the plan would come into force in time for the August season.

This week, Boris Johnson said the chances of England’s last lockdown restrictions being lifted on 19 July were “looking good”. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said that owing to a rise in cases, she was delaying the national move to Level 0 to the same date, with a view to going “beyond zero” on 9 August.

Television shake-up

The Government is to examine whether streaming giants such as Netflix should face tighter regulation in the UK. Traditional broadcasters such as the BBC have to abide by an Ofcom code, covering issues such as accuracy and impartiality, but the regulator has no authority over streaming channels. There will also be a consultation into whether Channel 4 – which is selffunded, but publicly owned – should be privatised.

Poll watch Slightly over half of Leave voters think that the deal Boris Johnson struck with the EU last year was a “good” deal. Among all British adults, the proportion is just 20%. However, four in five of those who voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum of 2016 say they would vote the same way again.

NatCen Social Research/ Financial Times Only 17% of adults think the Government is doing enough to help children recover from school closures during the pandemic. 47% think not enough is being done.

60% would like to see the school day extended by half an hour; 48% would like to see it extended by up to an hour, and 25% by up to two hours.

YouGov/The Times Education Commission

The UK at a glance Manchester Travel ban: Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham reacted furiously this week to the Scottish government banning nonessential travel to and from Manchester and Salford. Burnham said he had not been forewarned about the extension to the ban (already in place for Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen), which came into force on Monday. In an open letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, he condemned the move as “disproportionate”, and asked her to explain her reasoning, noting that Dundee has a higher rate of infection than Bolton, yet no ban is in place there.

In response, Sturgeon said that she had a “duty” to keep Scotland “as safe as possible”, and accused the mayor of “generating a spat” with her to enhance his Labour leadership credentials. Her government has rejected Burnham’s demand that holidaymakers and businesses impacted by the ban be compensated.

NEWS 7

Edinburgh Assisted dying: A new bill to legalise assisted dying has been lodged at the Scottish Parliament. Put forward by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, the bill aims to grant the right to an assisted death to mentally competent adults who are terminally ill. Previous attempts to change the law on assisted dying in Scotland have failed, but campaigners’ hopes have been buoyed by a cross-party group of MSPs indicating their support for the bill in an open letter. Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said Scotland stood on the threshold of joining the “growing number of liberal, progressive societies around the world that pride themselves on safe, compassionate assisted dying laws”. Polls suggest broad public support for a reform in the law, with around nine in ten Scots (and nearly eight in ten Britons nationwide) now backing the right to assisted dying.

Liverpool Unesco blow: A Unesco report has recommended that Liverpool be stripped of its status as a World Heritage Site, owing to its failure to protect its historic waterfront from development. The committee noted that it had repeatedly warned the local and national governments that major building projects were imperilling the city’s status. Most recently, it objected to Everton’s – now approved – plans for a new stadium, which will involve filling in one of the city’s northern docks. A final decision will be taken in late July.

London Racial trauma: Goldsmiths University is to allow students to apply for an extension to their assignment deadlines if they have suffered racial trauma. The university, in southeast London, said that it was adding racial trauma to its list of extenuating circumstances that students can cite in applying for extensions or deferrals, in response to a proposal by the student union. The other “serious life events” in Goldsmiths’ deferral policy include medical conditions, bereavement, court attendance, and caring responsibilities. The process is based on “self-certification”: the student is not required to provide evidence, but must submit a detailed statement, which is then assessed by the relevant academic department.

London Unfair dismissal: One of Britain’s most senior black police officers has won her appeal against her dismissal from the Metropolitan Police. Superintendent Robyn Williams was sacked in 2019 after being convicted of possessing an indecent image. The video, depicting child abuse, was sent to her by her sister, who’d wanted her to investigate it, and she had not watched it. Her dismissal was cited by the Black Police Association as an “example of institutional racism” – and was last week found to be “unfair and unreasonable”.

East Chiltington, East Sussex Housing development: Wildlife campaigners have warned that a plan to build a new town on 500 acres of East Sussex farmland owned by Eton College will have a “catastrophic impact” on the environment. The school could make £120m from the project at East Chiltington, on the edge of the South Downs National Park.

But locals say the 3,000-home development is not needed, while anglers have warned that it would pollute the Bevern chalk stream, an important spawning ground for sea trout. Ecologists say it could also damage the habitats of other species, including nightingales and great-crested newts. The developer, Welbeck Land, has described the proposal as “an innovative and sustainable response to the need for local housing”.

Margate, Kent Hospital fined: An NHS trust has been fined a record £733,000 for the serious failings that led to the death of a week-old baby at a hospital in Margate, following a groundbreaking criminal prosecution brought by the Care Quality Commission. Harry Richford died at The Queen Mother Hospital in November 2017, seven days after his emergency delivery. In 2020, an inquest found that his death had been “wholly avoidable”, and cited a litany of errors that had contributed to it. This April, the East Kent Hospitals Trust pleaded guilty to providing unsafe care resulting in avoidable harm to Harry and his mother, Sarah, resulting in last week’s fine at a sentencing hearing in Folkestone. A wider investigation into 200 births at the Trust is ongoing.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Europe at a glance Chalon-surSaône, France Murder trial: A French woman who described shooting dead her abusive husband in a bestselling book has gone on trial for his murder. Valérie Bacot, 40, says that Daniel Polette started raping her when she was 12, and got her pregnant when she was 17. He had been her mother’s boyfriend, but he later married her, and kept her a virtual prisoner, beating her and forcing her into prostitution. She says she shot him in self-defence. But prosecutors claim the killing was premeditated. The case has triggered an intense debate in France about whether the law offers sufficient mitigation to women who kill their long-term abusers.

NEWS 9

Dilsen-Stokkem, Belgium Fugitive soldier found dead: A far-right, anti-lockdown soldier, who went on the run in Belgium last month with a cache of stolen weapons, has been found dead in woods near the town of Dilsen-Stokkem.

Prosecutors said that Corporal Jürgen Conings, 46, had shot himself. The expert sniper was a member of a far-right Flemish nationalist party, and had been identified as a potential terrorist threat in February, but had been allowed to keep his job. His disappearance from his barracks, after posting a series of threatening messages on social media, sparked a massive manhunt: he had vowed a fight to the death against lockdowns and had issued a specific death threat against Marc Van Ranst, a virologist who has become a hate figure for Covid conspiracy theorists. In an embarrassment for the authorities, his decomposing remains were found in an area that had been searched several times by the police and army.

Vilnius Migration “attack”: Lithuania’s government has accused neighbouring Belarus of bringing migrants from Syria and Iraq to their shared border and helping them to cross into the EU country.

According to Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, Belarus’s stateowned tourist agency has been using Boeing 777s to fly migrants in from Baghdad and Istanbul; for a fee of up to s10,000, they are then guided to the border. He said the “hybrid attack” is in revenge for EU sanctions, and for Lithuania’s role in sheltering dissidents from Belarus. In the whole of last year, Lithuania stopped a total of 74 asylum seekers at the Belarus border, but in the past few weeks, hundreds have crossed.

Madrid Separatists let off: Spain’s Socialistled government has pardoned nine Catalan separatists, who were jailed for sedition in 2019 for their part in an illegal push for secession. PM Pedro Sánchez (above) said the decision was “the best one for Spain, which most closely represents the spirit of co-existence and harmony set out in [our] constitution”. But it is opposed by most Spaniards. Sánchez’s foes say he is currying favour with the separatists, who he relies on for votes in the national parliament. Carles Puigdemont, the exiled former regional president who led the breakaway, was not among the pardoned.

Athens Husband confesses: A Greek man who claimed that his British-born wife had been strangled during a vicious robbery at their home in Athens last month has confessed to her murder. Babis Anagnostopoulos, a 33-year-old helicopter pilot, told police that a gang of ruthless “foreign” criminals had broken into their home, tied him up, and killed his 20-year-old wife, Caroline Crouch, in front of their baby daughter.

The brutality of the killing sent shock waves across Greece. But police later recovered data from a step counter on his phone which showed that he’d been moving around at a time when he’d claimed to have been tied up, while a pulse monitor on his wife’s watch indicated that she’d died before he said the raid had taken place. Presented with this new evidence, he confessed to having murdered his wife, and also killing their puppy, to lend credence to his original story.

Cannes, France Shock results: Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron – the expected run-off candidates in France’s presidential election next year – have suffered serious setbacks in regional elections marred by a record low turnout of 33%. In a surprise result, the main victor in the first round of voting last weekend was France’s mainstream conservative party, the Republicans, which took 27% of the overall vote. Le Pen’s far-right National Rally took just 19%, and only came top in one region – Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (which includes Marseille and Cannes). Macron’s La République En Marche party fared even worse: it took just 11% of the vote overall, and in many regions it failed to make the 10% cut-off for participation in this weekend’s second round. The Socialists showed signs of revival, with about 17% of the vote. The next round of voting is this weekend.

Lisbon Delta variant “dominant”: The Delta variant of coronavirus that has swept through the UK has become dominant in Portugal and Russia, and is gaining ground in Italy, Germany, France and Spain, according to an analysis of genomic data by the Financial Times. The paper’s findings, which draw on data from the virustracking database Gisaid, suggest that the Delta (or “Indian”) variant now accounts for 99% of new Covid cases in Russia, 96% in Portugal, 26% in Italy, 15% in Germany and 7% in France. Some scientists believe that, if anything, these figures are an underestimate, as few countries have completed as much genomic sequencing as the UK. In Portugal, travel between Lisbon and the rest of the country has been banned in an effort to contain what some experts believe is the start of a fourth wave. Just under half the population has had one dose of a vaccine; 29% are fully vaccinated.

Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

10 NEWS

The world at a glance

Washington DC Children vaccinated: Seven million American children aged between 12 and 17 have been vaccinated against Covid-19 since the Pfizer jab was approved for use in that age group last month. US health officials say that giving children jabs is vital to the goal of achieving herd immunity; they believe this will require 80% of the population to be vaccinated.

However, the rate of vaccination in the US has slipped recently, and the Biden administration has admitted that its target, of having 70% of the population fully vaccinated by 4 July, is unlikely to be met. This week, the US’s average daily death toll from Covid-19 fell below 300 for the first time since March 2020. The number of daily confirmed cases now stands at around 11,500, down from 250,000 in January.

Las Vegas, Nevada Coming out: Carl Nassib, a defensive lineman with the Las Vegas Raiders, has become the first active player in the NFL to come out as gay. “I just want to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay,” said Nassib, 28, in a video posted online. Explaining that he was a “private person”, he hoped people would know that he was not doing it for attention: “I just think that representation and visibility are so important.” He thanked his coaches and teammates for their support, and said he was giving $100,000 to a charity that focuses on suicide prevention in LGBTQ youth.

New York Former cop for mayor: New York City looks set to have a black mayor for the first time in 30 years, with the victory of Eric Adams in the Democrats’ primary election this week. Adams, 60, entered politics after a career with the NYPD, and is currently the borough president of Brooklyn. Given the city’s status as a left-liberal stronghold, he is very likely to win the election-proper in November. The fallout from the pandemic – including rising levels of crime and gang violence, inequality and homelessness – dominated the contest. Adams is seen as a moderate Democrat, and his strong track record on law and order, and promises to put more officers on the streets, played well with voters. Despite potentially damaging reports that he lives part-time in New Jersey, he overtook the tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang as front runner in the final weeks of the campaign.

Reynosa, Mexico City terrorised: At least 14 people were killed in the Mexican city of Reynosa last week, when a convoy of armed gunmen went on the rampage. The city, close to the US border, is known as a key conduit for drugs and people trafficking, and is well used to cartel-related violence. However, the state governor stressed that the victims of Saturday’s attacks were “innocent citizens”, killed apparently at random. The dead included taxi drivers, a bricklayer and a nursing student. Four of the suspected attackers were also killed by security forces. The motive for the attack is not clear; however, the area is a stronghold of the Gulf Cartel and experts say there have been splits within the group, as rival factions vie for control of different territories.

Washington DC The art of the deal: Donald Trump announced this month that he is hard at work – “writing like crazy” – on the “book of all books” about his years at the White House. The former president claimed he had already rejected “very substantial” offers from “two of the biggest and most prestigious” publishing houses. It has been reported that he is, in fact, struggling to find a suitable publisher.

According to the website Politico, executives at Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have all indicated that they would not touch a Trump book. However, Trump is confident that a deal will be done; publishers, he said, are “sleazebags” who care about nothing – “no morals, no nothing, just the bottom line” (see page 18).

Bogotá Third wave: Colombia is among several South American nations in the grip of a deadly third wave of coronavirus, with cases and deaths surging to new whole-pandemic peaks. The country is reporting around 28,000 new cases a day, up from under 1,000 in late March. On Monday, it reported a record 754 deaths, bringing the overall death toll to over 100,000. The government claims that the crisis has been exacerbated by weeks of unrest and protests. However, countries across the continent are facing similarly grave situations.

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Brasília Covid anger: There were antigovernment protests in cities across Brazil last weekend, as the country’s official Covid death toll passed 500,000. In at least 22 of Brazil’s 26 states, people took to the streets to protest against President Bolsonaro’s response to the crisis. From the start, he has been criticised for minimising the threat from Covid and opposing lockdown measures. His government has also been slow to procure vaccines, while promoting the use of drugs that are ineffective against Covid, such as chloroquine. The number of new cases is currently averaging 74,000 a day – close to the whole-pandemic peak. More than 2,000 people are dying of Covid each day, down from around 3,100 in the early April peak.

The world at a glance Jerusalem Covid jitters: Owing to a rapid jump in Covid-19 cases – with clusters occurring in schools – the Israeli government is urging all 12- to 15-year-olds to get vaccinated.

Israel scrapped almost all Covid restrictions early this month following its worldleading vaccine roll-out, but now there is concern that even fully vaccinated people may be contracting the Delta variant. Israel has also been under pressure to supply vaccines to all Palestinians living in the West Bank under Israeli occupation, not just the 130,000 or so who enter Israel on work permits. But an agreement to supply a million Pfizer doses to the Palestinian Authority – which it would have had to reimburse once it got its own supplies later this year – fell through last week when the Palestinians discovered that the doses were due to expire at the end of June.

Jiuquan, China Flight to the Heavenly Palace: China has delivered a three-man crew of astronauts to its new orbiting space station, a significant step forward in its drive to become a leading space power. The first Chinese astronauts in space since 2016, they blasted off from a launch site in the Gobi Desert, and seven hours later docked at the Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) space station, where they will spend three months setting up a space lab launched into orbit in April. China’s space agency plans eight more launches by the end of 2022, three of which will be manned.

NEWS 11

Pyongyang The threat of famine: In a speech at a party congress last week, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un warned that the country could face nationwide food shortages brought about by pandemic-related border closures, economic sanctions and a series of typhoons and floods. Admitting that “the people’s food situation is now getting tense”, he struck a more conciliatory tone than usual towards the US, stressing the need to “get prepared for both dialogue and confrontation”. North Korea, which has sealed itself off since the start of the pandemic, claims to have had no coronavirus cases. But its already fragile economy has been badly hit, and there are shortages of basic foodstuffs including corn, rice, sugar, soybean oil and flour – leading to surging prices and reports of near-famine conditions in some areas.

Tokyo Live spectators: Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have confirmed that Japanese spectators will be able to attend events, though foreigners remain barred. Venues will be allowed crowds up to 50% of their capacity.

The announcement makes it overwhelmingly likely that the Games – already postponed for a year – will go ahead as planned on 23 July, despite fears they could prove to be a “super-spreader” event.

Covid rates have fallen substantially in Japan in recent weeks and vaccination rates have surged.

Libreville Saving the forest: Gabon’s success in protecting its rainforest has led it to be the first nation to receive a financial reward under a UN scheme to fight climate change. Rainforests play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide, and 18% of the Congo Basin rainforest (the world’s second biggest after the Amazon) lies in Gabon, covering 90% of its territory. In 2015, Gabon and five of its neighbours signed up to the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), a UN scheme backed by the UK and other international donors. And this week it received $17m from the scheme after Norwegian experts verified that by reducing deforestation and degradation, it had cut its carbon emissions. If the pattern of success continues, it will be the first tranche of payments totalling $150m.

Pretoria African vaccines: The World Heath Organisation has announced the establishment of a “tech transfer hub” in South Africa that will provide African companies with the technology to produce mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 – the technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

The WHO hopes production will begin within a year. President Cyril Ramaphosa (pictured) of South Africa, the African country worst affected by Covid and now enduring a third-wave spike in infections, hailed it as a “major advance” that will “put Africa on a path to self-determination” in the matter of vaccinations .

Hong Kong Newspaper suppressed: Apple Daily, the Hong Kong newspaper that has long been a fierce critic of Beijing and a symbol of the territory’s free press, has been forced to close. Some 500 police officers stormed the paper’s offices last week, taking dozens of computers and arresting five key executives and editors under the Beijing-imposed security law. The paper’s founder, Jimmy Lai, is already in prison for organising illegal assemblies. This week, Hong Kong’s Beijing-approved chief executive, Carrie Lam, refused to clarify how news media could avoid breaking the vaguely-defined and all-encompassing anti-sedition law.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

People

12 NEWS

Daniel Ellsberg’s courage Fifty years ago, The New York Times began publishing Daniel Ellsberg’s leaks from the Pentagon Papers. They revealed that successive presidents had known the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, but had pressed on regardless, costing millions of lives. Everyone had been lying, he says – including a lot of “high-level doves” who knew US involvement in the conflict was a terrible mistake, but had pretended to support it, for the sake of their careers.

So why had Ellsberg risked life imprisonment for a leak that he

knew had only a small chance of ending the war? He was inspired, he told David Smith in The Guardian, by those antiwar activists who’d refused the draft, and alternative service.

“They didn’t get a deferment.

They didn’t plead bone spurs like Donald J. Trump. They chose a course that put them in prison. They could easily have shown their protests in other ways, but this was the strongest way they could say ‘this war is wrong... and I won’t participate in it’. That kind of civil courage is contagious, and it rubbed off on me.”

A route out of poverty Lucy Kellaway found herself on a steep learning curve, when she gave up her job at the Financial Times to become a teacher of economics at an inner London comprehensive.

“Most of the 25 kids in my class were from poor families,” she wrote in the Daily Mail.

“Very few were white or middle class.” Even so, when she asked them why some pupils work hard, while others don’t, she expected their answers to run along familiar lines: to please parents, perhaps, or to avoid detention.

But no. “The biggest motivator turned out to be one that would not have occurred to me as a teenager in a million years: money.” Whereas during her middle-class upbringing, she had never once considered the link between effort and future income, her students work hard “because they believe it will one day make them rich – or stop them being poor”.

Castaway of the week This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the Scottish actor and director Richard Wilson 1 Symphony No. 6 in D minor (4th movement) by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic 2 Farewell to Stromness, written and performed by Peter Maxwell Davies 3* Im Abendrot from Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, performed

by Renée Fleming and the Houston Symphony Orchestra 4 The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 5 Cucurrucucú Paloma by Tomás Méndez, performed by Caetano Veloso 6 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Ewan MacColl, performed by Roberta Flack 7 Hammond Song by Margaret Roche, performed by The Roches 8 Cello Concerto in E minor (1st movement) by Edward Elgar, performed by Sheku Kanneh-Mason Book: The Poetry of Robert Burns Luxury: The Guardian newspaper

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

* Choice if allowed only one record

In 2018, medical student Grace Spence Green was walking through Westfield shopping centre in east London at the very moment a man three floors up decided to jump. He landed on her, and survived, relatively unscathed. She was left paralysed. At first, it felt like a “huge loss”, she told Emine Saner in The Guardian. “I couldn’t imagine myself having a good life in a wheelchair.” Yet she didn’t blame the jumper (who was later jailed for four years for grievous bodily harm). “There was never any anger, no.” Instead, she chose to think that her presence that day had saved his life, or that of someone else – a child, perhaps – whom he might have landed on, had she not been there. “I thought: ‘If I did save this life, then I wouldn’t change what happened.’” What’s more, she realised that her own life didn’t have to conform to society’s expectations for disabled people. “Instead, I could actually be a normal person and accept my injury and actually really love being disabled and what it brings.” She immersed herself in disability activism, which brought new experiences, friends and perspectives. Three years on, as she prepares to start work as a junior doctor, she believes that what happened at Westfield that day has left her stronger. “People don’t understand, but I wouldn’t take back my injury, I don’t think, because it’s made me who I am.”

Viewpoint:

The omnivore’s dilemma “I am horrified by the fact that in some parts of the world people eat dogs, but I don’t see how it’s intellectually any different [to eating pigs or chickens]. If you’re not going to eat something because it’s adorable, don’t eat animals, full stop. I gave up eating octopus years ago because I discovered how clever they are. Cows, by comparison, aren’t clever, but they love their calves and have friendship groups (see Rosamund Young’s book The Secret Life of Cows). But by not eating clever animals, am I saying that it’s OK to eat stupid ones? That doesn’t seem quite right either, and anyway, as Young writes, ‘if a cow’s intelligence is sufficient to make her a success as a cow, what more could be desired?’”

India Knight in The Sunday Times

Farewell Josep Almudéver Mateu, last known survivor of the International Brigades, died 23 May, aged 101.

Janet Malcolm, journalist and biographer, died 16 June, aged 86.

Lord Millett, law lord who took on tax avoidance, died 27 May, aged 88.

Martha White, American civil rights activist, died 5 June, aged 99.

© DOLLY CLEW

Kevin Hart’s cancellation Kevin Hart is the world’s highest earning stand-up; but he isn’t uncontroversial. When he was announced as the host of the 2019 Oscars, a string of homophobic tweets he’d sent a decade earlier resurfaced.

He apologised, somewhat grudgingly, and stepped down from the ceremony. Today, he says he “cringes” at his past remarks – but he still thinks cancel culture is being taken too far. “If somebody has done something truly damaging then, absolutely, a consequence should be attached,” he told Jonathan Dean in The Sunday Times. “But when you just talk about... nonsense?” He flicks his hand dismissively. “When did we get to a point where life was supposed to be perfect? I don’t understand. I don’t expect perfection from my kids. I don’t expect it from my wife, friends, employees. Because, last I checked, the only way you grow up is from f***ing up.”

Briefing

NEWS 15

Armenia’s “great calamity”

The killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire remains an explosive issue today Why were they persecuted?

Was this a genocide?

B U LG A R I A Outside Turkey, it is mostly From the 1820s, the Ottoman RUSSIAN Empire went into a slow but regarded as such by historians and EMPIRE experts: only 67,000 Armenianterminal decline. A series of Constantinople speakers remained in Turkey by nationalist revolts by its Christian Ankara Present day subjects in Europe, such as the 1927. There is no dispute that Armenia A N AT O L I A Greeks and the Serbians, hundreds of thousands died in the Areas with large Armenian populations Van persecutions and deportations – culminated in the Balkan Wars OT TOMAN of 1912-1913, in which the indeed the Three Pashas were E M P I R E condemned to death in absentia Ottomans lost 80% of their PERSIA European territory. In response,

by Ottoman military tribunals SYRIA the modernising Committee of after the War for organising Deir ez-Zor Union and Progress (better the massacres. However, the known as the Young Turks), number of deaths is disputed: which had taken power in 1908, embraced Turkish nationalism the Armenian estimate is that 1.5 million died between 1915 and 1923; the Turkish government estimates that 300,000 died. and turned on the non-Turkish people of Anatolia (the Asian part of modern-day Turkey). In early 1913, the most militant Young There is also disagreement, as the late Norman Stone put it, over whether the Ottoman government showed a clear “genocidal Turks, a triumvirate known as the Three Pashas, seized power and began to expel parts of the large Ottoman Greek population, intention” (see box). More than 30 nations, including France, whom they suspected of collaborating with their enemies. Next in Canada, Germany, Italy – and most recently, the US – have recognised it as a genocide. The UK has not: Foreign Office line was the Armenian Christian population, of some two million. documents show that the Government was advised not to take Why were the Armenians vulnerable? a position on this “complex legal question”.

There were two main groups of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: a small, powerful elite in cities such as Constantinople; What is the Turkish government’s position? and much larger peasant communities, mostly in eastern Anatolia, Since 1923, when the Young Turks were restored to power under near the Ottoman border with the Russian empire (as well as in the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey has denied that Russian imperial territory, in what is Armenia today). The success there was a systematic attempt by its government to destroy the of Armenian merchants had created envy amongst the Turkish Christian Armenians. Its position is that the Ottoman Empire was political class: by 1913, of the 166 main Ottoman importers, 141 in a state of great turmoil, fighting a war for its survival, and that were Armenian. Rural Armenians, meanwhile, had long been millions of lives were lost to the conflict – Christian, Jew and persecuted by their Turkish and Kurdish neighbours, and found Muslim alike. Turkey also still argues that the Armenians were themselves exceptionally vulnerable with the outbreak of the First a fifth column who sided with the Russians. Claiming that the World War. The Ottomans allied with Germany against Britain, killings constitute genocide is against the law in Turkey: Article France and Russia. In November 1914, the Russians invaded 301 of the penal code criminalises it as “insulting Turkishness”. eastern Anatolia. During a disastrous winter campaign, Ottoman forces were routed by the Russians – which the Young Turks Why does Turkey take this hard line? blamed (quite unfairly) on treachery by Ottoman Armenians.

Conceding genocide might lead to claims for compensation from the descendants of exiled Armenians; or even to territorial claims How were the killings carried out? from the state of Armenia. It might also, says the German-Turkish In January 1915, Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army scholar Taner Akçam, involve accepting that terrible crimes are in eastern Anatolia were disarmed and murdered, while irregular “inextricably woven” into the founding of the Turkish republic, units, often Kurdish, began to carry out massacres in Armenian which killed and expelled large numbers of Armenians, Greeks, villages. In Van province, governor Assyrian Christians and Jews, to Djevdet Bey tried to wipe out the build a homogenous Turkish state.

Defining genocide Armenian population. On 24 April “We basically built our nation state For a pattern of behaviour that seems to have been 1915, the minister of interior affairs, on that genocide,” argues Akçam. tragically present throughout all of human history, the Talaat Pasha, sent out orders to word genocide is surprisingly modern. It was coined by the Jewish Polish lawyer Raphaël Lemkin in 1943, decapitate the Armenian leadership Why did the US position change? and popularised by his book, Axis Rule in Occupied by arresting 250 politicians, lawyers, On 24 April, Joe Biden became the Europe. Lemkin formed the term from the Greek word writers, doctors and so on in first US president formally to for people and the Latin word for killing, and defined Constantinople. Almost all were soon designate the slaughter of the it as “a criminal intent to destroy or to cripple executed. In the following months, Armenians as a “genocide”. There permanently a human group”. After every member there were mass killings in Armenian had long been pressure from the of his family except his brother was killed in the areas. The Times carried a report on 500,000-strong Armenian diaspora Holocaust, Lemkin campaigned to have genocide 8 October 1915 headlined “The community in the US to do so, but recognised as a crime under international law.

Armenian Massacres – Exterminating relations with Turkey, a crucial Nato The term appeared in the indictment of Nazi leaders a Race”, which told how “Armenians ally, had taken precedence: President at the Nuremberg trials, but did not become a crime were thrown over cliffs, their women Obama instead used the Armenian formally in international law until the UN Genocide Convention was adopted by the General Assembly in violated and abducted, their children phrase Meds Yeghern, or Great 1948.

That defines genocide as a series of killings and frequently Islamised”. Those not Calamity. However, relations with other acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in killed were forced to march to camps Turkey are now very poor, and Biden whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious at Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian desert, took the opportunity to make the group”. The US did not ratify the Convention until with thousands dying along the way, designation official. Biden met 1988, and the first successful prosecution for genocide or from famine upon arrival. The Turkey’s President Erdogan last week came ten years after that. In 1998, Jean-Paul Akayesu, units tasked with killing Armenians to “reset” relations. Asked about the the mayor of Taba commune in Rwanda, was also did their utmost to eradicate their Armenian issue, Erdogan later said: convicted for his actions during the genocide of 1994. culture, destroying 2,500 churches.

“Thank God, it didn’t come up.”

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

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Best articles: Britain Confront the grey army, but not right now Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph

The West’s unseemly rush to the exit Simon Tisdall The Observer

How social policy can be made to work Emma Duncan The Times

The Tories are constructing a right old mess Polly Toynbee The Guardian

After all the sacrifices younger people have made over the past 15 months to protect the elderly, is this really the time to hand a vast pay rise to pensioners? Of course not, says Matthew Lynn. Yet the Government is set to do just that by raising the state pension by a record 8.4%. It’s not a new plan, it’s a result of the long-standing “triple lock” policy, which holds that pensions must rise each year by whichever is higher: consumer price inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5%. And as Brexit and the rebound from lockdown have pushed up wages by a freak 8.4%, pensions must rise by the same amount. Unjust? Undoubtedly: “it takes generational unfairness to a whole new level”. But the alternative is to scrap the lock.

And since pensioners form the core Tory vote – 57% of over-60s and 67% of over-70s voted Tory at the last election – that would be political suicide. And all to save £5bn – peanuts, given the present scale of public spending. (The furlough scheme alone cost £14bn a month at its peak.) No, for Tory ministers, “this is not the moment to pick an epic fight with the UK’s grey army”.

The West is abandoning Afghanistan to a terrible fate, says Simon Tisdall. President Biden has pledged to pull out US troops by 11 September, the UK is withdrawing aid as well as troops, and it now seems all foreign forces will be gone by mid-July. Many in the West are breathing a sigh of relief, but make no mistake: it “spells catastrophe” for Afghans. There’s no peace deal in place, just the prospect of a bloody Taliban takeover. Violence is already increasing: 4,375 terrorism-related deaths were recorded in May (including the murder of dozens of Shia schoolgirls blown up in Kabul), up from 1,645 in April. With a shrinking level of air support, the Western-trained Afghan army is struggling to hold the line: the Taliban reportedly seized control of at least 26 bases last month. Entire provinces, and even the capital Kabul, may soon be overrun. Yet all that Western politicians can do is avert their eyes as they sprint for the exit. They “don’t want to see, let alone discuss, what’s about to happen” to this unhappy country.

Good news stories are hard to come by, says Emma Duncan, but here’s one to savour: we’re locking up far fewer children than we did 20 years ago. The number in detention shot up in the 1990s, when, in the wake of the murder of James Bulger, the two main parties outdid each other in talking tough on youth crime, and New Labour set targets to boost the number of “offences brought to justice”. But if your aim is to stop youngsters turning into adult criminals, locking them up is no solution, as both parties began to realise; they soon started to prioritise developing alternatives to detention (curfews, community work etc.) instead. As a result, the number of young offenders in detention has plummeted by twothirds in the past decade. And guess what? Over the same period, the level of youth crime has fallen dramatically. There are two big lessons here. First: steer clear of setting arbitrary targets; in this case, they just incentivised the police to boost figures by cracking down on easy-to-arrest 14-year-olds. Second: take politics out of social policy. Youth justice has improved because parties stopped competing to be tough and instead built on each other’s sensible reforms. Would that they would now do the same for social care.

What a “nest of contradictions” Tory housing policy is, says Polly Toynbee. The Government hopes that by scrapping planning laws it can unleash a building boom and boost the housing supply. But this approach, rightly rebuffed by voters in last week’s by-election, gets things the wrong way round. The problem isn’t supply – the big developers deliberately suppress supply of new homes in order to inflate the value of their unused land banks. It’s price. London has more bedrooms than people, but people can’t afford them.

Yet paradoxically, another key goal of Tory policy is to keep property prices rising: governments fall if house prices fall. No surprise then that all sorts of Tory schemes – from Help-to-Buy for firsttimers to stamp duty holidays – have led to a rise in house prices.

Add in the Tory party’s cosy relationship with the big developers (who’ve given £11m to the party since Johnson became PM), and it’s no wonder housing is in such a mess. There are solutions worth pursuing: give more security to renters, tax property fairly, force developers to stop hoarding land, more social housing. But they all suffer from one big problem: “none of them are Tory”.

NEWS 17 IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids A Ukrainian couple who spent a record-breaking 123 days handcuffed together have admitted that the experiment was not a success, and have decided to go their separate ways. Alexandr Kudlay and Viktoria Pustovitova donned the handcuffs on Valentine’s Day in a doomed effort to save their on-off relationship.

Pustovitova said her boyfriend hadn’t paid her enough attention during the stunt. “He did not tell me: ’I miss you,’” she lamented.

She added: “I think it will be a good lesson for us, for other Ukrainian couples and couples abroad not to repeat what we have done.”

At her home in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National Park, Ratchadawan Puengprasoppon was recently woken in the middle of the night by banging and crashing. Going to investigate, she was greeted by the sight of an elephant’s head poking through her kitchen wall beside the drying rack.

Dr Joshua Plotnik, who studies animals in the park, said villagers are frustrated by the hungry creatures’ increasingly regular visits, “but they don’t usually blame the elephants”.

A woman smashed her partner’s laptop and phone in a jealous rage after he was sent the wrong Father’s Day card. Darren Wilson, from London, was due to receive a card from his adult daughter, Darcy, via online seller Funky Pigeon, but got one featuring a baby instead, bearing the words: “To the best pops!”.

His partner Kerry opened it and assumed he’d had a child with another woman. “She is a bit paranoid, as 15 years ago, I was a bit of a naughty boy,” Darren explained. “But I’ve changed now.” Funky Pigeon apologised.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

18 NEWS

Best of the American columnists

Going for their guns: the surge in the US murder rate

“Get ready for a bloody summer,” said This pattern holds nationwide: violent crime is ticking up, but we still have Rachel M. Cohen on The Daily Beast.

With American life “kicking back into “a long way to go before returning to the bad old days” of the late 1980s high gear” as the pandemic subsides, the nation’s mayors and police officials and early 1990s. Right-wingers have, are “bracing for the worst”. Murder inevitably, tried to blame the spike on the Defund the Police movement; but and gun violence surged during the pandemic and show no sign of abating. the homicide surge has occurred Last year saw the largest recorded across the nation, not just in the few increase in homicides in US history. liberal cities that did divert some of their police budgets to mental-health Murders jumped by 30% in 34 cities and crime-prevention schemes. How compared to 2019, and the provisional figures for 2021 show a further can we “blame a rise in homicides on defunding the police when the police increase. Rural areas have also seen many more shooting deaths. Why? A memorial for a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado weren’t actually defunded”?

There is no single explanation, but Statistics can’t prove causation, said Andrew Sullivan on they believe one major factor is the spike in gun sales fuelled by fears over the pandemic and civil unrest. Gun sales (as measured Substack, but it’s “one hell of a correlation” that homicides by federal background checks) exceeded a million per week for really took off after the killing of George Floyd in May 2020.

That’s when police were demonised in nationwide protests as the first time last spring, said Sabrina Tavernise in The New York Times. According to the latest data, 39% of US racist murderers, and cops started retiring in droves and households now own guns, up from 32% in 2016. “pulling back from the kind of aggressive, proactive policing” that prevents violent crime. The good news is that the number Let’s keep things in perspective, said Matt Ford in The New of unarmed black men shot dead by police – 17 in 2020, 11 in Republic. The 462 murders in New York City in 2020 were up 2019 – is down to four so far this year. But what if the cost of from 319 in 2019, but still far below the city’s record of 2,245 that reduction is “a huge increase in the numbers of innocent murders in 1990, when the city had one million fewer residents. black lives lost to civilian murder”?

A cure for Alzheimer’s?

Not really Michael Specter The New Yorker

Arizona turns to the gas chamber Caroline Petrow-Cohen Los Angeles Times

Why no one wants Trump’s memoirs Alex Shephard The New Republic

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

In what should have been “truly exciting news”, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first new Alzheimer’s drug in nearly 20 years. It was less than thrilling, says Michael Specter, because of the lack of evidence that the new drug, aducanumab, actually works. The FDA approved it because the drug reduces the build-up of the amyloid plaques in the brain suspected of causing Alzheimer’s symptoms. However, an 11-member FDA advisory panel had opposed the approval, because its members found insufficient evidence that this actually slowed cognitive decline; three members resigned in protest. The FDA does sometimes grant early clearance to drugs on the basis of surrogate markers, rather than patient improvement, but usually in the case of rare diseases.

Alzheimer’s affects more than six million Americans. Treating them with this very expensive, possibly useless, drug will cost billions. It’s a bizarre decision on a par with the FDA’s choice last year, under pressure from Donald Trump, to issue emergency authorisation for hydroxychloroquine as a Covid preventative – a move it had to reverse within weeks. “This is not how the FDA is supposed to work.” It’s there to weigh up the evidence and protect us, “not to tell us what we want to hear”.

If you ever doubted that capital punishment was “primitive and regressive”, consider this, says Caroline Petrow-Cohen: Arizona is apparently planning to use the same poisonous gas to execute prisoners that was used to kill Jews in extermination camps such as Auschwitz. The state paused executions in 2014 after a “horribly botched” lethal injection forced a re-evaluation of death penalty procedures. Now Arizona’s Department of Corrections seems to have decided to switch to hydrogen cyanide, the deadly gas trademarked as Zyklon B during the Second World War; it has refurbished an old gas chamber at a prison in the city of Florence. It wouldn’t be the first time the gas has been used in the US. It was first employed as an execution method in Nevada in 1924, and was most recently used in 1999 to kill a prisoner in Arizona. At that execution, it took the prisoner 18 minutes to die, during which he was reportedly choking and in visible pain. That corrections officials now think it’s acceptable to reintroduce this barbaric execution method – to the disgust of Holocaust survivors and their families – shows how gravely the death penalty has desensitised us to cruelty.

Surely it should be obvious that “if the Nazis did it, we should probably avoid it, right”?

Every US ex-president for the past century has released a memoir and had it published by a major publishing house, says Alex Shephard. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen for Donald Trump. Days after his election loss, his team claimed he was being “bombarded” with book offers worth upwards of $100m, a figure “conveniently higher” than the $65m the Obamas received under a joint deal in 2017. But nothing has come of it. The big New York publishers say they’re not interested, arguing that any Trump book would be too hard to fact-check. The accuracy concerns are a “fig leaf”: publishers are just worried about the backlash they’d receive from staff, authors and book stores if they handed Trump a fat cheque. Trump could, of course, self-publish a memoir, or release it through a small conservative imprint – it would doubtless sell well. But that “wouldn’t allow him to say that he got a bigger advance than Barack Obama”. And that sort of thing matters to Trump. He released a statement the other day informing the world that he was working on “the book of all books” and had already turned down two deals. One can only assume this was another desperate attempt “to start a bidding war for a book no New York publisher seems to want”.

Best articles: International

NEWS 21

Biden’s meeting with Putin: a win for the Kremlin?

When George W. Bush met Vladimir opportunity to talk frankly, while Putin in 2001, he claimed that he “was sticking to their firmly-held positions. able to get a sense of his soul”, and had “This is exactly what Russia has found him very “trustworthy”. Earlier always called for.” Or, to put it this year, Joe Biden stated that he another way, said The Times regarded Putin as “a killer”. When (London), “the leader of the free presidents Biden and Putin met for the world sat down for four hours with first time in Geneva last week, “no one an autocrat who has destabilised the peered admiringly into anyone’s soul”, international order and altered the said Peter Baker in The New York boundaries of Europe by force”. This Times. But equally, “no one called was a concession to the Kremlin, as anyone a killer”. Biden made an effort was the decision to extend the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, to “forge a working relationship shorn of the ingratiating flattery” displayed first signed in 2010, although Russia

by Donald Trump towards Putin, but The presidents in Geneva: not “a kumbaya moment” has expanded its arsenal since. It is less friendlier than during the Obama clear what Biden got in return. years. (Obama refused to meet Putin after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.) The summit seems to have been a limited This was not, as Biden put it, “a kumbaya moment”, said The success. The pair agreed to disagree about Russia’s international Australian (Sydney). The president’s primary objective was to aggression and its treatment of internal critics such as Alexei lay down the US’s “red lines”. On cybersecurity, Biden handed Navalny. Biden said the talks were “good, positive”. Putin Putin a list of 16 “critical infrastructure” sites that he warned called his counterpart “a very balanced, professional man”. were “off limits” to Russian cyberattack, on pain of a major US retaliation – he made sure to remind his opposite number that This was the “most productive” summit between the powers in the US had a “significant cyber-capability” that could be decades, said Timofey Bordachev in Vzglyad (Moscow). The mobilised. He also warned that if Navalny died in prison, the main result was the return of the Russian and US ambassadors consequences for Moscow would be devastating. If nothing else, “his warnings should be a lesson for the Russian despot that to their posts; they were withdrawn following the “killer” comments in March. More generally, the leaders had the things in the White House have changed”.

SYRIA

Don’t let Assad have a seat at the table The National (Abu Dhabi)

HUNGARY

Orbán’s war on the LGBT community Népszava (Budapest)

GERMANY

Greenpeace scores a stupid own goal Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich)

Syria, of all the nations in the world, has just been voted onto the executive board of the World Health Organisation, says Kareem Shaheen. In its long civil war, the Assad regime and its Russian allies have bombed hospitals in rebel-held territory with impunity, killing doctors and nurses, and targeting first responders with follow-up strikes. The NGO Physicians for Human Rights has documented 540 attacks on medical facilities in Syria carried out by the government and its allies since 2011. The evidence is abundant in “countless” videos, survivor accounts and UN and media reports. Most regimes try to hide such atrocities, but the regime seems confident that “the world will do nothing”. The reason for this “flabbergasting” appointment remains a mystery: Syria was put forward by the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean group, yet none of the board’s 33 other members objected. The WHO has form in this area: in 2017, it briefly appointed Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe as a “goodwill ambassador”. But now the WHO, and the world, must take a stand. If the bombing of hospitals ceases to “outrage”, it will become the norm in the next major conflict.

“In Hungary, a young homosexual person is 30 times more likely to commit suicide than a heterosexual member of their age group,” says Miklós Hargitai. Yet the government seems determined to put them even more at risk. It has passed a new law that forbids the “display and promotion” of homosexuality or gender change to the under-18s, effectively banning the subject from schools and much media. Cannily, it has embedded the provision within a law that provides stricter penalties for the sexual abuse of minors, which means it can stigmatise anyone who opposes it as a supporter of paedophiles. The ban looks likely to stop family favourites appearing on prime-time TV – such as the Harry Potter films and shows like Modern Family and Friends. But the real victims will be homosexual teens, who already face discrimination in school and will now be robbed of both support and the enlightened sex education that has made the suicide rate in this group much lower in other European countries. Critics suggest that PM Viktor Orbán is picking on the LGBT community ahead of next year’s elections, now that the threat to Hungary’s borders from Muslim migrants has receded.

How sad that young people are being made to pay for Orbán’s electoral ambitions.

We’re used to seeing Greenpeace activists harassing whaling ships in speedboats and unfurling banners on high buildings. But the organisation’s latest stunt was “stupid and irresponsible” and could have had tragic consequences, says Joachim Käppner. On 15 June, just before the kick-off of a European Championship match, an activist flew into a Munich stadium in a motorised paraglider emblazoned with the slogan “Kick out oil!” – a criticism of VW, one of the sponsors. He’d intended to release a balloon and then depart, but he lost control of the craft and hit overhead camera cables, sending debris onto the pitch and narrowly missing the stands before crashing in front of the penalty area. Thankfully, only two people were lightly injured, but it was an own goal for Greenpeace, which was widely condemned. Incidentally, the pilot’s antics exposed the extreme vulnerability of sports stadiums to terrorist air attacks: imagine the carnage if a jihadist had used a paraglider to crash into the spectators from above. In a case like this, the security services would have to decide in an instant whether to shoot it down before knowing the flyer’s intentions. If Greenpeace’s ridiculous stunt helps to focus minds on this issue, it could yet help to avert a real tragedy.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

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Health & Science

NEWS 23

What the scientists are saying…

The furry threat to Britain’s fauna

A furry omnivore that is well known in Japan could become the UK’s next major invasive pest, researchers have warned.

Raccoon dogs – the only mammal on a new list of 20 harmful invasive species at risk of becoming established in Britain – are native to east Asia, but were imported to the Baltic states in the mid-20th century, for use in fur farming. The creatures, which are not raccoons, but more closely related to foxes, are renowned escapologists, and they have since spread to parts of Finland, Sweden and Denmark, reports The Guardian. It is now illegal to sell or buy them in Britain, but they have been kept as pets – and some have escaped into the wild. One was captured and killed in Wales last year. Experts have warned that they are a threat to native species, including small mammals and groundnesting birds; they can transmit diseases to humans; they are very adaptable; and they breed quickly. The Mammal Society has urged members of the public to report any sightings of raccoon dogs.

Iron Age chickens were sacred

Today’s farmed chickens are usually slaughtered before they are three months old. But in the Iron Age, they often survived for between two and four years – evidence that they were regarded as sacred, and not as a source of food. Until now, it has been difficult to assess the age of ancient fowl remains because the tests used on mammals (of bone fusion and tooth wear) cannot be applied to birds. But a team at the University of Exeter found they could age cockerels by measuring the “tarsometatarsal spurs” that appear on their legs as they get older. Chickens were domesticated in the Iron Age, and the researchers found evidence that from then

in the 14th and 15th centuries, more than a quarter of the population (27%) suffered from the bony lumps, up from just 6% in the century before. This, they say, was most likely the result of the contemporary trend for elongated shoes with pointy toes, known as poulaines or crakows. These came into vogue in the 14th century, and by the 15th century almost all shoes, for adults and children, were at least slightly pointed. Even priests wore crakows, though the Pope had expressly forbidden them from doing so – and they paid for their vanity: 43% of the clergymen excavated had bunions. The researchers also noted a disproportionately large number of fractures consistent with falling forward, suggesting that the ridiculous shoes were a serious health hazard.

Cockerels: once kept for “animi voluptatis”

until the Saxon period, cockerels were being kept well into maturity, perhaps for use in ritual sacrifice, or in cockfighting.

“Most chicken bones show no evidence for butchery, and were buried as complete skeletons, rather than with other food waste,” noted study leader Dr Sean Doherty. His findings make sense of Julius Caesar’s observation that Britons kept fowl not for food but “animi voluptatis” – usually translated as for spiritual and secular pleasures.

Medieval fashion victims

A surprisingly large number of medieval Britons suffered from bunions, not because their lives were so harsh, but because they insisted on squeezing their feet into fashionable winkle-picker shoes. Bunions are often thought of as a modern problem, but when a Cambridge University team studied ancient skeletons excavated from a range of local cemeteries, they found that

A green alternative to plastic

A new type of biodegradable film, made from plants and inspired by spider webs, could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products, Cambridge University researchers have claimed. Their research, into the unusual patterns that proteins form when they “misbehave”, was designed to shed light on human diseases such as Alzheimer’s. But they then realised that some of their findings could have a separate application, in helping to tackle the global plastic waste crisis. In a paper in the journal Nature Communications, Professor Tuomas Knowles and his team Providing inspiration for plant-based plastics explain how they made their new material by breaking the bonds between the molecules in plant protein, and then reorganising them so that they mimic the structure of a spider’s web – one of the strongest substances in the natural world. “The molecules come from the plants,” said Knowles. “The only thing we do is pack them differently.” The “vegan spider silk” is similar to low-density polyethylene, which is used for packaging, except that when it is added to a compost heap, it should break down, much like food waste.

A record number of abortions

A record number of women had abortions in England and Wales last year. A total of 210,860 abortions were carried out in 2020, up from 205,519 the year before. In the past decade, there has been a marked increase in the number of women over 30 having abortions, whereas they have been declining in women under 20. There were 20,743 abortions among women in the younger age group last year, down from 38,269 in 2010. Experts said last year’s overall rise in abortions might be down to early abortion at home becoming lawful, and financial and other strains, stemming from the pandemic, leading women to make difficult choices.

Plastic statistics

Eight out of ten objects of litter in the world’s oceans and rivers are made of plastic, and 44% of this litter relates to takeaway food and drinks and bags, a study of 12 million waste items revealed.

Instant Covid screening In the future, offices, care homes and other indoor public spaces could be fitted with “Covid alarms” that can detect if someone in the room has the coronavirus in as little as 15 minutes, reports Ben Spencer in The Times. The devices are still in development, but early trials by a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Durham University gave them an accuracy rate of 98% to 100%, making them as reliable as the lab-based PCR tests, and as quick as lateral flow tests.

The devices are designed to sense volatile organic compounds that are emitted in the breath and by the skin of people infected with the virus, and they are modelled on machines developed by a Cambridgeshire-based firm called RoboScientific, to detect infections in farm animals. These are so sensitive, they can sense a single infected chicken in a barn containing 50,000 birds.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Pick of the week’s

Gossip

John Bercow is so keen to be nominated for a peerage he wrote his own reference, leaked emails reveal. The ex-Speaker had a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 to discuss the then-Labour leader nominating him, after he was snubbed by the Tories. He followed it up with a 556-word reference, in which he boasted of having held “no fewer than five shadow ministerial positions”, and having won “no fewer than 11 awards for his parliamentary work”.

His endorsement of himself went on: “He is a qualified lawn tennis coach and a devoted... supporter of Arsenal football club.”

As Hollywood’s go-to actor for Middle Eastern roles, Omid Djalili (pictured) has worked with everyone from Russell Crowe to Brad Pitt.

The Anglo-Iranian actor says he often breaks the ice by pretending to misremember his co-stars’ CVs; but only Robert Redford has been sharp enough to respond in kind. “I’m a big fan of yours,” Djalili told Redford.

“You were the best thing in Hawaii Five-O.” Redford shot back: “Why, thank you.

You were great in Doctor Zhivago… but you’ve really let yourself go.”

Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic was famously chaotic. At first, he hoped Covid wouldn’t reach the US at all, according to a book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. “We import goods,” he said. “We are not going to import a virus.”

Then he came up with a novel idea for dealing with infected patients. “Don’t we have an island that we own?” he asked aides.

“What about Guantánamo?”

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Talking points GB News: opposing cancel culture The backers of GB News – boycott of the channel, said the new television channel Sascha O’Sullivan in City AM. The organisation Stop Funding launched last week – insist it’s Hate launched the campaign not a British version of Fox before the channel had even News, said Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. And in some ways started broadcasting, and that’s true. While the US channel managed to persuade several is “a slick product with fancy companies, including Ikea, to studios and whizzy graphics”, pull their adverts – a stance GB News looks like it’s filmed many of them subsequently in “an abandoned strip club reversed. It was a PR gift to – all dark walls and neon lights” Neil, who had vowed to expose – and its first days have been “cancel culture”. plagued by technical glitches.

GB News could well confound The tone of GB News, however, is clearly influenced by Fox’s its critics and go on to become unashamedly opinionated, “a fixture of the UK media right-wing style. In his opening landscape”, said Stephen Daisley monologue, the channel’s lead in The Spectator. It has identified Neil: taking on the elites presenter and chairman Andrew a gap in the market and its initial Neil declared that GB News would cover the output achieved pretty good ratings (its firstnight viewing figures were higher than both the issues people cared about and not be “an echo BBC News channel and Sky News). But it’s a chamber for the metropolitan mindset”. It would aim to “puncture the pomposity of our flawed product in its current form. It’s not just elites”, he said, and to champion free speech. the poor production values, but the basic model.

The channel’s technical issues will no doubt be The channel is trying to define itself as patriotic smoothed out, but is there a market in Britain and upbeat, but “for every positive story From for this US-style “grievance politics”? t’North, there are five brow-furrowing segments on cancel culture”. The relentless and “generally I think so, said Rod Liddle in The Sunday shallow” coverage of “wokeism” risks turning Times. A lot of people “have tired of the BBC’s the channel into little more than “a very ingrained, institutional and unashamed liberal expensive Twitter thread”. And that’s not a recipe for long-term survival. Neil made a good bias”, and will welcome a channel that case in his introductory speech for why GB approaches issues from a different angle. GB News received an unintentional boost from the News was needed. “The question is: will he get campaigners who lobbied for an advertiser the time to prove it?”

The rape review: a shocking mea culpa “As government mea culpas go”, it was “extraordinary”, said Alexandra Topping and Caelainn Barr in The Guardian. The longawaited review into the handling of rape cases in England and Wales was published last week.

In the foreword, ministers including Justice Secretary Robert Buckland and Home Secretary Priti Patel said they were “deeply ashamed” to have failed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of rape victims. Rape prosecutions, the review showed, have plummeted to the lowest levels on record, falling by 60% between 2016/17 and 2019/20, even as the cases reported to police increased. It’s now five months on average before a suspect is charged, and up to four years before cases reach court. It’s no wonder that more rape victims than ever – 43% in 2020 – are simply dropping out of gruelling investigations. In 2016, charging policy was quietly altered to pursue only cases with a high prospect of conviction; the review promises to reverse this. The police and Crown Prosecution Service will be marked on “scorecards” every six months. Progress will be verified by an “external task force”. All this could lead to “real change”.

Even when a prosecution is successful, the process is traumatic, said a survivor of sexual assault, writing anonymously in The Sunday Times. The stranger who violently attacked me

in 2003 was charged with attempted rape, kidnapping and indecent assault. But the case took eight months – and three agonising postponements – before it reached the Old Bailey. The chaotic legal process felt entirely out of my control. Although my attacker got 12 years in jail, I still don’t know that I would advise any woman who is sexually assaulted to take it to court.

But new targets for prosecutions or convictions aren’t the answer, said Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph. They skew justice for accuser and accused alike. Yes, we can make the process kinder, and – as the review has promised – end distressingly “invasive” policies such as police seizing victims’ phones for months on end to garner evidence. Yet juries “struggle to convict” because so many rape cases boil down to a “she-says vs. he-says” narrative, which makes it difficult to decide “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Prosecuting rape is difficult, said The Guardian.

But it could be vastly improved, with the will and the funding. As the review points out, police should focus far more on the behaviour of the suspect rather than the credibility of the victim.

The status quo cannot stand. Of 52,210 rapes recorded in 2020, just 843 resulted in a charge or a summons – leading many to conclude that rape “has effectively been decriminalised”.

© CLARA MOLDEN/CAMERA PRESS

26 NEWS

Talking points WFH: is it grinding us down?

Boris Johnson has promised told its staff that from that 19 July is the date on October, they can choose which life in England will go where to work. It expects back to normal. But even if all some 80% to opt to stay at home at least part of the time, restrictions are lifted that day, for many office workers, it is and is reducing its office space not at all clear what that accordingly. That’s a handy “normal” will look like, said way of cutting overheads.

The Guardian. Millions have Others may take it further: been working from home for as Tony Blair has warned, well over a year now, and if firms find that jobs can be though some are longing to done just as well remotely, resume their commutes, they may decide to outsource surveys suggest a large them to cheaper locations majority have enjoyed remote overseas. In any case, working – and hope never to workers who opt to skip go back, full time, to the office. their commutes will be taking Many workers miss the commute In the coming months, local quite a gamble. They can be councils – contemplating the sure their more ambitious impact, on everything from business rates to colleagues will be in the office, building transport infrastructure, of an exodus from networks and catching the boss’s eye. commercial centres – will be watching anxiously to see how employers respond.

Not all bosses are convinced that remote working really works, said Paul Johnson in The Times. My team got through the first part of The Prime Minister is keen to get people back the pandemic on “accumulated social capital”. to their workplaces, said Simon Duke in The Times; even so, his Government has launched But as time has worn on, and new people have joined, the difficulties involved have become a consultation on whether an existing right to more apparent; and bit by bit, it has started to request flexible working should be extended to grind us down. As the boss of Goldman Sachs all employees. Bosses would not be obliged to has said, remote working is not conducive to grant it, but they would have to come up with an “innovative, collaborative, apprenticeship good reasons for turning it down – which might culture”. In future, more people will work at be hard if their staff have been homeworking home some of the time, but managers with an successfully for well over a year. This won’t trouble some employers, said Ross Clark in The eye on the long-term good of their firms, and their staff, won’t be rushing to close their offices.

Daily Telegraph. Lloyds Bank, for instance, has

Cummings’s texts: another bombshell?

You might have thought Dominic disgusting. “If ministers can’t Cummings had “exhausted his communicate confidentially with supply of damaging claims over their advisers, how can they the Government’s handling of the possibly do their jobs properly?” pandemic”, after spending seven Still, his revelations are not exactly hours giving evidence to MPs in a “bombshell”, said James Kirkup May, said Henry Zeffman and in The Spectator. Is anyone Oliver Wright in The Times. But surprised that “a PM struggling no: last week he fired off his latest to cope with a huge and terrible salvo, a 7,200-word blog post pandemic swore about his which revealed that, at the height colleagues’ effectiveness of the pandemic, Boris Johnson sometimes”? Cummings has had described his Health Secretary made grave allegations against Matt Hancock as “totally f***ing Hancock – that he lied, that his hopeless” in a WhatsApp exchange incompetence cost thousands of about testing failures; and had lives – but has not provided hard Hancock: hopeless? considered giving Michael Gove evidence. This is just tittle-tattle.

Hancock’s job. Cummings also reiterated that the Government had clung to its herd immunity The revelations go rather beyond that, said The strategy, despite its public denials – and added in Times. The released text messages “paint a a few choice criticisms of the PM’s leadership. picture of institutional chaos that cannot be He said that Johnson wastes meetings “telling ignored”. They show Johnson and Cummings in rambling stories and jokes”, and that when a total panic as they considered the civil service’s things gets complex, he tends to shout “‘forward disastrously slow and rule-bound attempts to to victory’, doing a thumbs-up and pegging it procure PPE in April last year. “Wtf do we do?” out of the room before anybody can disagree”. the PM asked his chief adviser. Beneath “the intrigue and the invective”, much of Cummings’s “Very little shocks me,” said Iain Dale on analysis is “hard to dispute”. Over the past 15 Conservative Home, but Cummings’s decision months, Britain has paid a heavy price for its to leak his WhatsApp exchanges with Johnson is long failure to reform the “machinery of state”.

NEWS 27

Wit & Wisdom “There is no more volatile compound known to man than that of decorum and despair.”

Critic Anthony Lane in The New Yorker “A good dad is like being a cricket umpire. If you’re not being discussed, you’re probably doing a decent job.

And all the big decisions get referred anyway.”

Geoff Norcott, quoted in The Times “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.”

J. Paul Getty, quoted in Forbes “He has taken to new heights the art of being forgivable.”

Matthew Parris on Boris Johnson, in The Times “There is no happiness in life, there is only a mirage on the horizon, so we’ll cherish that.”

Vladimir Putin, quoted on Politico “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, quoted on Medium.com “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”

Philosopher Francis Bacon, quoted in the San Francisco Examiner “Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”

Jean Rhys, quoted in Country Living

Statistics of the week

About 74 million people passed through UK airports in 2020, less than a quarter of the 297 million recorded in 2019.

PA Media/The Guardian Cash was used for only 17% of all payments in 2020 – down from 45% in 2015 and 56% in 2010.

The Guardian

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

28 NEWS

Sport

Football: better from England, but still not good enough

England began their final group game against the team’s stand-out players, delighting the 22,500 fans at Wembley with their skill, enterprise and pace.

Czech Republic on Tuesday with a place in the last 16 of the Euros already guaranteed, said David Grealish set up Sterling’s goal with a delicate leftHytner in The Guardian. But the match was far footed cross, and “brought a buzz around the stadium” every time he touched the ball. If anything, from meaningless: after their insipid 0-0 draw against Scotland, Gareth Southgate’s men urgently Saka was even more impressive, said Jonathan Liew needed to “generate a bit of excitement, to fire the in The Guardian. The Arsenal player has “slipped under the radar a bit” – partly because no one seems feeling that they might be able to cut through teams”. And for a while they succeeded brilliantly. to know his best position – but here he was a Playing with a “pace and fluidity” not previously revelation, popping up all over the pitch and seen in the tournament, England created several running fearlessly at defenders. chances in the first half, and could easily have gone Equally reassuring, said Jonathan Northcroft in into the interval with a bigger advantage than The Times, was the return from long-term injuries Raheem Sterling’s headed 12th-minute goal. Yet in the second half, England “lost their way a little”, of a less attention-grabbing pair. Harry Maguire, and their attacking threat virtually petered out, a Southgate favourite, was back in central defence, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. So this was Grealish: creating “a buzz” and midfielder Jordan Henderson gave a typically “another bits and pieces performance” – “vocal performance” after replacing Declan Rice encouraging at times, but “underwhelming” at others. at half-time. Neither is the type of footballer a “hipster will ever celebrate”, but without the solidity and experience they provide, talents such as Grealish and Saka are “far less likely to thrive”.

That England showed more spark in this match was partly down England will need their know-how in the last 16, said Jason Burt to selection changes forced on Southgate, said Matt Dickinson in in The Daily Telegraph: that match – at Wembley next Tuesday The Times. With Mason Mount having to self-isolate following an inadvertent Covid-19 breach, and Phil Foden judged a risk – will be against the side that comes second in the “group of owing to his yellow card against Scotland, England’s manager had death”, so almost certainly one of France, Germany or Portugal. to ring the changes, bringing in Jack Grealish on the left wing and However good England were in places against the Czechs, they now need to “dramatically raise their game”.

19-year-old Bukayo Saka on the right. And these two proved the

Weightlifting: Olympic Games set for transgender first After a year-long postponement, the Olympic Games are due to kick off in Tokyo next month.

But even before they start they’ll have made history, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian: a New Zealand weightlifter, who for 35 years lived as a man, is set to become the “first transgender athlete ever to compete” in the Olympics. Laurel Hubbard, 43, was formally selected this week to compete in the women’s super heavyweight 87kg category.

can compete in women’s events – even without surgery to remove their testes – provided their testosterone level hasn’t exceeded ten nanomoles per litre over the previous year. But since natal females average under two nanomoles of testosterone per litre, this ruling doesn’t offset the sizeable advantage enjoyed by trans women athletes. In any case, there’s growing evidence that a person’s current testosterone level has only limited bearing on their athleticism. It seems that if an athlete goes through puberty as a male, they “retain significant advantages in power and strength”, whatever drugs they take to reduce their testosterone.

Hubbard showed early promise as a male weightlifter before quitting the sport for personal reasons Hubbard: making history at the age of 23, said Aidan Wondracz in the Daily Mail. However, since taking it up again after her transition in Some of Hubbard’s rivals at the Olympics regard her presence as 2013, she has won several medals in international competitions competing as a female. And she qualifies for the Games, said deeply unfair, said The Daily Telegraph. To let her participate, Bernard Lagan in The Times, because under guidelines introduced says Belgian Anna Van Bellinghen, who competes in the same by the International Olympic Committee in 2015, trans women weight category, would be “like a bad joke”.

F1: Verstappen outfoxes Hamilton again

Sporting headlines

For the past few seasons, there Red Bull engineers: the 23-yearhave been two certainties in old Dutchman now leads his Formula 1, said Jonathan English rival by 12 points in the McEvoy in the Daily Mail: Lewis championship, and his team Hamilton will be the best driver, holds a 37-point advantage in and Mercedes will have the best the constructors’ race. car. But this season, all that has So far this season, Red Bull changed: for the first time since has been outwitting Mercedes 2014, Mercedes and Hamilton in most of the key tactical are “being squeezed” hard by battles, said Rebecca Clancy in a combination of Red Bull’s The Times. That was the case Verstappen: dazzling talent dramatically improved car and at the Paul Ricard circuit on the dazzling talents of Max Verstappen.

Sunday: Verstappen took a big gamble by That was abundantly clear in this Sunday’s sacrificing his lead with a second pit stop, when thrilling French Grand Prix, in which Verstappen it seemed likely that Hamilton would see out the and Hamilton were locked in a titanic struggle race on his second set of tyres. But the move for most of the race, said Giles Richards in The paid off, as Verstappen swept past Hamilton Guardian. Verstappen finally won it when he with a lap to go. With two such superlative overtook his rival on the penultimate lap. It was drivers “slugging it out for the championship, a massive result for both Verstappen and the this is turning into a battle for the ages”.

Golf Jon Rahm captured his first major tournament with a victory at the US Open. The Spaniard’s preparations had been hampered by having to self-isolate following a positive coronavirus test earlier this month.

Tennis Cameron Norrie, the British No. 2, reached the final of the Cinch Championships at Queen’s Club, where he lost in three sets to Matteo Berrettini of Italy.

Rugby union Harlequins sealed their place in the Premiership final with a 43-36 victory over Bristol. At one point, the London club were 28-0 down.

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

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LETTERS Pick of the week’s correspondence Don’t bully NHS staff To The Times

You report that the requirement for many frontline NHS staff to be vaccinated against hepatitis B as a condition of employment has been cited by Matt Hancock as a precedent for compelling NHS staff to have the coronavirus jab. The hepatitis B vaccine is an established licensed medicine. The coronavirus vaccines, for which there is as yet no longterm safety data, are not yet licensed medicines; they are being used under emergency authorisation. The fact that almost 90% of NHS staff, who are more informed than most about the difference between a licensed and unlicensed treatment, have accepted vaccination demonstrates an extremely strong commitment to their patients’ well-being.

To compel the remaining staff to take the vaccine before it has passed the safety monitoring hurdles required for licensing would be completely wrong.

Dr Lucy Binney, Oxford

Dementia and the Gothic To The Guardian

I read Mark Kermode’s review of The Father with an interest arising out of a long professional and personal concern as a social worker with people suffering from dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s. In my experience, the sadness and despair provoked by Alzheimer’s is often accompanied by expressions of terror and horror, twin modes of the Gothic genre. However, such undertones are often ignored or denied by those supporting people with dementia. To lose one’s agency is to become a representation of a kind of living death.

At the end of my working life, I returned to university to research in literature and elsewhere the representation of Alzheimer’s disease, which is, often unwittingly, referenced in the language of the Gothic.

The contribution of art to portray both the reality and the humanity surrounding this appalling condition cannot be gainsaid, alongside the need to intensify medical research.

Dr A.G. Austin, Penylan, Cardiff

Letter of the week

The iniquities of home work To The Guardian

Your report that HSBC is planning to cut its global office footprint by 40%, as a result of requiring its staff to work from home, is somewhat misleading (“Morgan Stanley boss tells US staff to be back in office in September”). In reality, what HSBC and a host of other companies are planning to do is cut the cost of their office footprint by transferring the square footage they pay for in town and city centres to the homes of their staff. So the total office space such companies use is not reduced, it is simply transferred, along with the cost, to the staff who are required to work from home.

The implication, of course, is that HSBC et al will enjoy enormous cost savings in terms of rents, building maintenance and, not least of all, business rates, by moving commercial premises to residential settings. Quite apart from issues of planning (i.e., residential premises being used for commercial purposes), there is the question of whether someone who uses their home officially for business purposes should be paying towards the shortfall in business rates that local authorities will lose out on as businesses vacate their premises – not to mention the knock-on effect on service industries that depend on office workers for their livelihood. Also, who pays for cleaning the home/office space that employees use on behalf of their employer? Presumably, the employee.

There is also the question of insurance. What happens if an employee trips on a computer cable and injures themselves while working at home? Is this a domestic or industrial accident? Which insurance policy will agree to pay? What happens if an electrical fault in a work computer triggers a fire in someone’s home? Whose insurance policy pays for that?

The gig economy has already endured an enormous shift of cost and risk from employer to employee. We need to ensure that the shift from office to homeworking does not continue this process at the expense of employees’ health, safety and prosperity, and of the interests of the wider community.

Terry Kelly, Widnes, Cheshire

The Green Belt hits back To The Daily Telegraph

The latest by-election result is no surprise. Where I live, the government inspector has given approval to 100 homes to be built on the Green Belt, even though both councils involved objected on no less than seven grounds, including Green Belt and heritage matters, impact on services, ecology, highways, character and appearance. The Tories carry on with their present planning doctrine at their peril.

Claire Taylor, Hatfield, Hertfordshire

Cummings isn’t cathartic To The Guardian

If we could look behind the scenes of great events in history, perhaps we would discover that those in charge were always fighting like rats in a sack. However, now we are in a position of being able to learn, while still in the midst of the crisis, that there has been

pandemonium at government level (“Cummings texts show Boris Johnson calling Matt Hancock ‘totally hopeless’”).

Perhaps Dominic Cummings intends the release of these texts to be cathartic, but for many of us outside politics, they will just add to a deep sense of sadness about what we have all been through.

Susan Tomes, Edinburgh

Get smart at the border To The Daily Telegraph

Patrick Miller could hardly be more wrong when he says “no details” emerged about how the border issue within the island of Ireland might be solved by technology.

The solutions were there for the taking, and endorsed by the European Parliament itself in its 2017 “Smart Border 2.0” paper. They included

31

automatic number plate recognition (known to anyone using a hire car in Europe); already existing Authorised Economic Operator systems; and electronic pre-submission of documents, which WTO rules oblige the EU to provide.

Indeed, before the train crash of Leo Varadkar’s premiership, the former Taoiseach Enda Kenny had got his people working on all of these solutions – which his successor stopped dead. Quite why Varadkar played whitecat-in-lap to Michel Barnier’s head of Spectre is beyond me, but he’s got plenty of time to think it through after tanking in the last general election.

Rob White, London

Go global or go green To the Financial Times

Is anyone else struggling with the seeming inconsistency between the Government’s ambitions in relation to climate change and for global trade deals? The Government has abandoned free trade with the immediately adjacent EU and wishes to replace it, if all goes well, with trade with much more remote continents.

What net contribution does this planned switch in trade patterns make to climate change? Can we have an estimate in time for Cop26?

David W. Green, London

We’re ever so humble To The Guardian

“These players have a level of humility that is really important. We pride ourselves on it,” says England’s manager (“England ‘can’t be shrinking violets’ against Scotland, says Gareth Southgate”). Delighted to see the England team are proud of their humility.

Dr Peter Phillips, Swansea

“And where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” © THE SPECTATOR

● Letters have been edited

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

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ARTS Review of reviews: Books Book of the week The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock

by Edward White W.W. Norton 400pp £22.99 The Week Bookshop £17.99

“Four decades on from his death, Alfred Hitchcock remains the most famous moviemaker of them all,” said Christopher Bray in the Daily Mail.

The “tubby, lugubrious cockney in a banker’s suit”, with a walk-on part in all 50 of his films, is a figure everybody knows. Yet much about the man remains an enigma. Was he (as he wanted us to believe) a “serious business type who turned up on time, did his work and went happily home to his family”? Or was he (as his films suggest) a “leering pervert”, obsessed with humanity’s dark side? “Edward White’s answer to this conundrum is to dismember Hitchcock into a dozen parts.” He offers a series of thematic portraits, each focused on a different aspect of the director’s personality: Hitchcock the Dandy, Hitchcock the Voyeur, Hitchcock the Londoner, and so on. The conceit “largely works”: this is an original, absorbing study which captures the contradictory nature of “the Master of Suspense”.

One of its best chapters, entitled “The Fat Man”, concerns Hitchcock’s troubled attitude to his body, said Farran Smith

Nehme in The Wall Street Journal. It circles back to the director’s friendless childhood, as the son of a grocer in Leytonstone, east London. Although as an adult Hitchcock’s appetite was legendary – he sometimes ate three steaks in a single meal – White argues that his frequent jokes about his weight betrayed a deep-rooted sensitivity.

Elsewhere, the book’s fragmented structure produces moments of “odd illogic”, said Peter Conrad in The Observer. One chapter labels him “The Womaniser”, though Hitchcock claimed to be impotent, and dreamed he had a penis made of crystal that his wife Alma tried to smash. In a section considering him as a Catholic, White “rather desperately” argues that Grace Kelly’s red dress in Dial M for Murder was“liturgical”.

Hitchcock’s “desire for control” is a major theme, said Victoria Segal in The Sunday Times. He was “famous for tormenting his stars”. While filming The Birds, Tippi Hedren “spent days having live birds thrown at her head” – and later accused Hitchcock of sexually assaulting her. Without downplaying such incidents, White suggests that Hitchcock himself exaggerated his own cruelty, in order to “play up to sadistic legend”. Much like Craig Brown’s acclaimed Beatles study, One Two Three Four, this is a work that “swerves chronology in favour of the thematic, the tangential, the marginal”. And it yields many insights. “With these 12 scalpel strokes, White cuts close to his subject’s heart.”

Novel of the week

Real Estate

The Promise

by Deborah Levy Hamish Hamilton 304pp £10.99

by Damon Galgut Chatto & Windus 304pp £16.99

The Week bookshop £8.99

The Week bookshop £13.99

© BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

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“One of the world’s great writers,” trumpets Edmund White on the cover of the South African author Damon Galgut’s new novel.

This is “no exaggeration”, said John Self in The Times: Galgut (right) has already written several remarkable novels – including The Good Doctor (2003) and In a Strange Room (2010) – and his latest may be his best of all. A multi-generational saga set between 1986 and 2018, it tells the story of a well-off Afrikaner family, the Swarts, who live on a farm near Pretoria. Manie, the family patriarch, has made a promise to give Salome, the Swarts’ long-serving black maid, the deeds to the modest property she lives in. Over the decades, the pledge goes unhonoured, and it comes to seem like a curse: in each of the novel’s four sections, set at intervals of roughly a decade, a family member meets an untimely death. Although The Promise is just 304 pages, Galgut packs so much in that you feel “there must be secret trapdoors involved”. This is “obviously one of the best novels of the year”.

It’s a “stunning” book, agreed Anthony Cummins in The Guardian: Galgut has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and may go “one better this year”. Particularly striking is the third-person narration, which “addresses an implied Afrikaner reader”, and adopts a satirical, almost flippant tone as it “darts between characters, mid-paragraph or even mid-sentence”. Yet in the background is a “real and serious historical narrative”, charting the “crimes, failures and obligations of white South Africa”, said David Isaacs in Literary Review. Both profound and “enormously enjoyable”, this is a “strange, skilful, spellbinding” novel.

Over the past decade, Deborah Levy has pioneered a new form of memoir, which she calls “living autobiography”, said Stephanie Merritt in The Observer. In three “drily funny” volumes that blend memoir with “cultural analysis”, she has rigorously pursued the question of “how a woman – specifically a woman artist – should live in the second act of her life”.

This new volume is the trilogy’s final instalment, and it finds Levy living alone for virtually the first time as an adult, said Susannah Butter in the London Evening Standard. She is about to turn 60; her youngest daughter is off to university; and she is divorced from her husband of 23 years (their split was the focus of the previous volume). In a “beautifully crafted and thought-provoking snapshot of a life”, we follow the author as she travels around the world, swimming in Greece and doing a writers’ residency in Paris. Perhaps inevitably, given its subject matter, this volume lacks the “urgency” of the previous volumes, said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times. Yet at its best, it displays the “hard-won, lucid wisdom” that has helped turn Levy into a “cult” author.

To order these titles or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835 Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Drama & Podcasts

34 ARTS

Theatre: three acclaimed openings Michael Frayn’s “copperNunn (Riverside Studios, bottomed modern classic” London, until 25 July). Irish Copenhagen is a shrewd actress Lisa Dwan is the “prima choice for staging amid the donna assoluta” of Beckettian ongoing Covid uncertainty, interpretation. Here, in a static said Dominic Cavendish in The play that “demands everything Daily Telegraph. It features just from its central actor”, it is her “extraordinary vocal range” three “carefully spaced” actors, no singing or dancing – and that gives the production its “enough food for thought” to drama, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Her “momentary leave theatregoers well “stocked up if the shutters came down plunges into hopelessness are again”. This “demanding but heart-stopping”, though perhaps she “steers herself back to brilliant” drama is about a meeting between nuclear cheerfulness” a little too quickly. physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the Nazi-occupied Despite the challenges still facing Lisa Dwan in Happy Days: the “prima donna assoluta” Danish capital in 1941, said the performing arts, the summer opera season is shaping up nicely, said Rebecca Franks in The Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail. Theatre Royal Bath’s Times. At Garsington, the director-designer Netia Jones has excellent revival (until 26 June, then touring to Southampton, Malvern and on) starts with lots of “mind-bending” chat about created a winningly inventive staging of Handel’s “magic” opera theoretical physics, but the production moves at “dizzying” speed Amadigi (Garsington Opera until 24 July). This “baroque rarity” and ultimately “achieves fission”, with its cast – Malcolm Sinclair, is ideal for Covid times, as it has a small cast (only four main roles) and features lots of da capo arias, with little interaction Philip Arditti and Haydn Gwynne – all on fizzing form. between characters. Jones delivers plenty of visual spectacle, Samuel Beckett’s 1961 play Happy Days is “the greatest show on thanks to a design based around six large freestanding light-box Earth – and under it, too”, said Paul Taylor in The Independent. pillars that move and rotate to create stunning patterns, grids and other effects. But her production remains fully focused on This “hilaro-devastating” masterpiece concerns a woman named the “central human drama” involving the virtuous Oriana, the Winnie who cannot move because she is “progressively entombed knight Amadigi, his rival Prince Dardano and the rejected in scorched earth”: up to the waist at first, and later up to the neck. It’s a sight, and a metaphor, that has “never lost its capacity sorceress Melissa. All the leads impress, but countertenor Tim Mead, as the chain-smoking Dardano, provides “some of the to startle” – and proves as compelling as ever in this “beautiful, most beautiful singing of the evening”. deeply considered” 60th-anniversary production from Trevor

In the modern history of the recommend Dear Me, in which British Army, Deepcut is “the Katy Wix and Adam Drake get comedians and actors to take wound that has never healed”, them on tours of their home said Mick Brown in The Daily towns – and “offer up a message Telegraph. Between 1995 and for their younger selves”. It’s a 2002 four recruits – aged slim premise, but the pair prove between 17 and 20 – were found shot dead at the Deepcut “perfect travel companions”.

Similarly enjoyable is Teach training camp in Surrey. The Army insisted these were Me a Lesson, in which Greg James and his wife Bella Mackie suicides, but the families refused to accept that verdict, and a ask tutors to school them in subsequent series of “inquests, everything from psychology investigations and reviews” to art. Their “back-and-forth uncovered a horrific pattern of often meanders, but they are so bullying, physical and sexual amiable that even their tangents abuse and negligence. The can teach you a thing or two”.

Death at Deepcut: bereaved families are still seeking answers scandal at Deepcut is well documented, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. But even Have we hit “peak podcast” yet? Probably not, but the medium’s if you know the story, Death at Deepcut makes for essential remarkable ascendancy does make it “ripe for ridicule”, said listening. Journalist Jane MacSorley and retired police detective Fiona Sturges in the FT. For sharply observed but affectionate Colin Sutton brilliantly combine forensic detail and clear “audio skewering” of podcasting, try Sound Heap. It’s billed storytelling with cool anger. A public inquiry into all four deaths as “the podcast of too many podcasts”, and is essentially an – plus a fifth case the pair uncovered – is “clearly overdue. I hope improv show, presented by the comic John-Luke Roberts, in this exemplary, enraging podcast is the catalyst.” which assorted actors and comedians lampoon the genre. Roberts introduces “daft but believable titles” such as That’s Elementary, Death at the Wing, also about untimely deaths, is one of my “where a class of two dozen seven- and eight-year-olds tackle a podcast picks of the year to date, said Hannah J. Davies in The cold-case murder”; Liza Minnelli Reads from Instruction Guardian. This “fascinating” eight-parter from Adam McKay Manuals, in which Minnelli (played by Sooz Kempner) tells us (who directed The Big Short and Succession) looks at the deaths how to work our fridges; and Here, Kitty!, a podcast about of several basketball stars in the 1980s, and what “their tragic “getting your cat’s attention by making silly squeaking sounds”. tales tell us about Reagan’s America”. For something far lighter, I Not all of it lands, but there are “far more hits than misses”.

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

© HELEN MAYBANKS

Podcasts... five of the best recent releases

Film & TV Films to stream Cars not only lend instant excitement to a film, but act as a prism for human relationships – and can even have personalities of their own. Here are five vintage movies that celebrate them: Genevieve A beautiful but unreliable 1905 Spyker is the focus of this classic 1953 comedy. Kenneth More and John Gregson play friendsturned-rivals on the London to Brighton rally; Dinah Sheridan and Kay Kendall are the girlfriends who accompany them, while Joyce Grenfell is in her element as the owner of a terrible hotel.

The Great Race Blake Edwards’ 1965 slapstick extravaganza pits the squeaky-clean Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) against the evil Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) as they race from New York to Paris, via the Bering Strait, in custom-made vintage cars. A precursor of Wacky Races, it also includes the biggest custard-pie fight ever to be seen on film.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, BRITBOX, DISNEY+ OR YOUTUBE

Two For The Road Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney star in Stanley Donen’s 1967 drama about a couple reviewing their relationship as they drive across France in a 1965 Mercedes 230SL roadster. Flashbacks find them in a gallimaufry of other cars, from an MG DT to a Triumph Herald.

The Love Bug Disney’s 1969 live-action comedy was so successful that it spawned three sequels. Dean Jones stars as a small-time racing driver whose life is transformed by a sentient VW Beetle called Herbie; David Tomlinson plays the villain duelling with them in a race through the Sierra Nevada.

The Driver A flop when it was released in 1978, Walter Hill’s unconventional thriller has since achieved cult status.

Ryan O’Neal is an ultra-cool getaway driver pursued by ruthless detective Bruce Dern. Isabelle Adjani is the bystander accidentally drawn into their battle of wits.

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New releases Luca

Dir: Enrico Casarosa (1hr 41mins) (6+)

★★★★

Set in Italy, Pixar’s latest offering is a “gorgeous parable” about the relationship between two young sea monsters, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Bookish Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and bold Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) are merboys who find they are able to assume human form to explore the nearby fishing village. With the aid of a spirited teenager (Emma Berman), they set out to win the local triathlon. However, the villagers loathe sea monsters, and the risk of discovery creates a thrilling tension. Some viewers have read the story as an allegory about growing up gay. Pixar insists the boys’ relationship is not romantic, but the film does deal with themes of belonging and identity, and with its tear-jerking finale, it is “soul food for kids of all ages”.

There’s no existential angst here, said Francesca Steele in The i Paper. Rather, it’s an entertaining coming-of-age story with spaghetti, Vespas and gelato: Cinema Paradiso meets The Little Mermaid. The animation is simpler and less realistic than classic Pixar, which matches the wistfulness of the story. It’s unquestionably one of the studio’s loveliest movies, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph, with many light references to the golden age of Italian cinema.

The moral is hardly original, but the friends’ awakening to a wider world is handled with sophistication and nuance. Indeed, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent, it’s a beautiful evocation of youthful possibility – “of the sun beating down, the wind in your hair, and a road in front of you that feels as if it may never reach its end”. Available on Disney+.

The Reason I Jump

Dir: Jerry Rothwell (1hr 22mins) (12A)

★★★★

A world teeming with thoughts that you have no way to express is the stuff of panic dreams – and also of this “poetic and revelatory” documentary, said Danny Leigh in the FT. Based on the bestselling book by Naoki

Luca :“soul food for kids of all ages”

Higashida, a 13-year-old with non-verbal autism, it introduces us to young people from four continents with similar conditions, explaining how they struggle to construct a wider reality from the fine details which can overwhelm their senses, and the difficulty they have in separating recent events from long-ago ones. The result is moving and imaginative – “the young people are beguiling, their parents’ love profound” – though one wishes that some alternative views of this highly controversial topic had been accommodated.

I found it a “wondrous” work, said Leslie Felperin in The Hollywood Reporter: rather than a literal adaptation of Higashida’s book, it’s an “elegant, luminous” supplement to it.

The five youngsters featured – such as Amrit, who communicates mainly by painting and drawing – are extraordinary. Director Jerry Rothwell’s approach is both sensitive and creative, agreed Wendy Ide in The Observer.

Using off-kilter framing, distortion and an evocative soundscape to convey the autistic experience to the world, it’s an expressionistic, “sensually eloquent” take on the source material. This is a “riveting and intensely atmospheric” film, agreed Charlotte O’Sullivan in the London Evening Standard. It doesn’t romanticise its subject, and it has a positivity that keeps spilling over: “The courage and stamina of these supposedly unlucky teens will make you want to jump. For joy.” In cinemas.

Together: “an absolute wonder” Directed by Stephen Daldry, the stresses of lockdown, but the BBC2’s feature-length drama “emotional dilapidations” of a takes an “unflinching” look at a dying relationship, and Horgan and middle-class couple, identified McAvoy give it “their understated only as “She” (Sharon Horgan) all”. Their chemistry is superb, and “He” (James McAvoy), who agreed Sarah Carson in The i Paper must confront issues they have – she wickedly sharp, he cheeky hitherto ignored as they sit out and gleefully arrogant. The script the pandemic in suburbia, said brims with “dazzling” one-liners Ed Cumming in The Independent. as it weaves together pain and Alternating between dialogues silliness, hatred and truth; it is and monologues in which both also ferociously political. Horgan’s characters break the fourth wall, seven-minute monologue in which it’s claustrophobic but compelling she describes her mother’s death – and sometimes very funny. in a care home was perhaps the McAvoy and Horgan Together is “an absolute greatest performance of her career. wonder”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian.

As someone who had suffered a similar loss, Dennis Kelly’s script perfectly captures not only “I had to stop watching and weep”.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

8 – 11 J U LY 2 0 21 Battersea Park, London Book tickets and buy art affordableartfair.com

G E T C LO S E R T O A R T 1,000s of artworks I Prices from £50 – £6,000

Art

ARTS 39

Exhibition of the week Nina Hamnett Charleston, East Sussex (01323-811626, charleston.org.uk). Until 30 August The painter Nina Hamnett was a Sickert is depicted looking out “famously flamboyant figure”, said “quizzically from beneath a bowler hat”. Yet even the best of Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The these lack “psychological heft”; Times. A fixture of the Paris and London avant-garde whose beauty at worst – here exemplified by a and total lack of inhibition earned “feeble” series of circus paintings her the unofficial title of “queen of – her work is downright bohemia”, she modelled for Walter embarrassing. This is a well-curated Sickert; ate caviar with Stravinsky; exhibition, yet its argument that entranced James Joyce (who Hamnett was a major talent who described her as “one of the few has been unfairly “overlooked” vital women that he had ever does not convince. Hers was “a met”); and counted Roger Fry, modest vision that should not be Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and pumped up into something grand by wishful thinking”.

Amedeo Modigliani among her lovers. Hamnett was a “magnet for scandal”. She “boasted of having That’s unfair, said Joe Lloyd in the best breasts in all of Europe”; Studio International. Hamnett’s she took lovers of both sexes, but paintings brim with “skill” and “sharp perspective”, gleefully particularly liked boxers and sailors subverting “her era’s norms”. The who would “go away” afterwards. men she depicts demonstrate a Yet as this new exhibition at Charleston, the “rural Sussex “softness” unusual for the time – as outpost of the Bloomsbury in her portrait of the dancer Rupert Group”, argues, she was much Doone, captured in make-up, and more than a hell-raising muse to projecting “a proto-David Bowie the modernists. Bringing together androgyny”. The women are some 30 paintings created between “solid, active, even forceful” – a the 1910s and the 1950s, the show direct “rebuttal of contemporary reclaims Hamnett as “an artist to insistence on the dainty and be reckoned with in her own demure”. Her 1917 portrait Hamnett’s The Landlady (1918): a “sharp perspective” right”, an accomplished portrait of Lady Constance Stewartpainter who – despite never really fulfilling her promise – made Richardson, whose “semi-clad dancing” had scandalised polite her own, “significant” contribution to modern British art. society, sees her as “a serious, respectful woman mourning the death of her husband in the First World War”. Hamnett returned Born into a military family in Wales in 1890, Hamnett escaped to London in the 1920s, enjoying a period of success that saw its an abusive upbringing and fled to Paris in 1914, said Waldemar apex with the publication of a bestselling autobiography in 1932.

Januszczak in The Sunday Times. In France, she began collecting Thereafter, however, she succumbed to alcoholism, “propping up lovers “at a prodigious rate”. She also learnt to paint in “a mildly Fitzrovia bars like a character from a Patrick Hamilton novel”. modern style”, producing some perfectly competent works. The She died in 1956, when she fell from her garret window and best of them here are portraits, many of which depict Hamnett’s impaled herself on the metal railings below (possibly an accident, intellectual and artistic acquaintances: a likeness of the sculptor possibly suicide). This exhibition is the first retrospective of her Ossip Zadkine reflects his “preternatural neatness”, while work since then – and it is long overdue.

News from the art world

© BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Freud’s Hockney

The wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe

David Hockney finally has a chance to buy a In 1962, the Bulgarian artist Christo and his landmark portrait of himself painted by Lucian wife, Jeanne-Claude, drew up plans to wrap Freud, says David Sanderson in The Times.

Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in rope and fabric, said Painted in 2002, over a period of four months, Kim Willsher in The Guardian. Due to strict the work has been in “private hands since its planning laws regarding public monuments, creation”, and Hockney has reportedly been they never dared dream the project might “frustrated” that he has not been able to become a reality. Over a year after his death, acquire it. Now, however, it is coming up for however, the work will finally see the light of sale at Sotheby’s, with a high estimate of £12m. day. After Bastille Day on 14 July, construction Of the sitting, Hockney – who had by then will begin on the monumental undertaking, known Freud for 40 years – recalled that the scheduled for completion on 18 September. other man, unusually, wanted him to talk “Like most of Christo’s work, it will be during the sessions, “so he could watch how temporary”: the artist, who died last May, your face moved”. “We talked a lot”, the artist was famed for ephemeral projects that saw told the biographer William Feaver – “about landmarks covered in material. He famously our lives, people we knew in common, bitchy “wrapped” Berlin’s Reichstag and more art world gossip”. Freud, who died in 2011 at than a mile of Australian coastline. That the age of 88, was then regarded as “Britain’s the artist is dead is no barrier to the work’s Hockney by Freud: on the market greatest living painter” – a mantle that has now implementation: “This project is 100% Christo arguably fallen to 83-year-old Hockney himself. Whether or not and Jeanne-Claude’s,” says their nephew, Vladimir, who is he will actually try to buy it is unclear: the artist, who is based in heading its realisation. “It was his wish that this should happen France, declined to comment. even after he was gone. We are just realising his vision.”

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Home & Interiors

40

outside

A style guide to the

Industr y exper t and founder of Out and Out Original, Daniel Fairburn, brings you this season’s best deals on designer furniture.

Visit www.outandout.com or call 02037 728 752 for more exciting deals and discounts.

Contactless Delivery Available

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Marbella - Corner Lounge Set The ideal addition to your outdoor space, this stunning lounge set offers comfort and style at an affordable price. Bang on trend in gorgeous shades of grey, this set is designed with a contemporary feel. It’s hardwearing, woven in strong polyrattan on a galvanised steel frame making it virtually maintenance-free. The comfy cushion covers can be removed and hand washed with care. The sofa and armchair seats 5 easily, and includes a tempered, glass-topped coffee table so you can entertain outside with ease. Normally £799, it’s now available for just £699*, when you quote your £100 discount code WEJUN21A.

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Consisting of one left hand and one right hand sofa, two ottomans and a compact coffee table, a simple re-arrangement of the pieces enables you to turn it into 2 chaise longues, 2 day beds or keep all 4 pieces separate for a more sociable outdoor lounge space. Also available in Grey and includes a 12 month warranty. Normally £899, it’s now available at an amazing £799*. To receive your £100 discount quote code WEJUN21A at checkout.

To receive your discount on any of these products quote discount code at checkout at www.outandout.com or call 02037 728 752 before 24.07.2021. *Excludes delivery. Prices correct at time of going to press.

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

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The List

41

Best books… Karin Slaughter

The bestselling author chooses her favourite books on plagues and lawyers (“not the same thing”). Her 2018 thriller Pieces of Her is being adapted by Netflix, and her latest novel, False Witness (HarperCollins £20), is out now Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter, 1939 (Penguin £9.99). The title story in this collection was my introduction to the visceral horror of the 1918 flu pandemic. The memory lingered so much that I felt compelled to incorporate Covid into my current novel.

Fiction captures history in a way that textbooks cannot.

considered the most skilled polio researcher, who had to retire to raise her family.

Polio: An American Story

by David M. Oshinsky, 2006 (OUP £19.99). Until recently, the distribution of the polio vaccine was the largest public health project in American history. This book delves into the rush to create the vaccine, and the politics surrounding it, and calls out Isabel Morgan,

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, 2019 (Faber £8.99). Past is prologue in this riveting and at times shocking tale of racial unrest in LA. You wouldn’t think that the city that gave us Rodney King, O.J. Simpson and the Banditos would have any more stories to tell, but Cha manages to frame

The Wife by Alafair Burke, 2018 (Faber £7.99). This sly legal procedural is told from the point of view of the suspect’s wife. An excellent read in any setting, but particularly gripping with a margarita on the beach.

the narrative through the lens of two families grappling with the fallout from a horrific decision that turns the city up to its boiling point.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014 (Picador £9.99). Another flu pandemic, this one set in a dystopian future. While the author didn’t capture the rush on toilet paper, she certainly predicted our reliance on the arts to get us through these horrible times.

Make Me by Lee Child, 2015 (Bantam £8.99). This young man studied law but went into television, then gave up TV to write novels. I really think he’s onto something with these Reacher books.

Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk

The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading Showing now

Yorkshire Sculpture Park celebrates the work of female sculptors in postwar Britain, from Elisabeth Frink to Rachel Whiteread, in Breaking the Mould. Until 5 September, Longside Gallery, YSP, Wakefield (ysp.org.uk); then touring.

Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier’s “wildly, searchingly modern” protégée, isn’t very well known outside France, but a new exhibition should change that. Until 5 September, the Design Museum, Kensington, London W8 (designmuseum.org).

Book now

Buxton International Festival will feature music, talks and festival walks. Speakers include historians Max Hastings and Margaret Macmillan, and shepherd James Rebanks. 8-25 July, Buxton, Derbyshire (buxtonfestival.co.uk).

Given all the uncertainties, “it’s a very impressive rabbit that BBC Proms director David Pickard has pulled out of the hat” for the 127th season. Highlights include the “brilliant

Programmes

Glastonbury in the 21st Century A look back at the

headliners – from Coldplay to Stormzy – who have rocked audiences at Worthy Farm over the past two decades. Sat 26 Jun, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).

Hemingway Six-part

documentary exploring the life of the writer, with readings of his work by Jeff Daniels, Meryl Streep and others. Part one sees the young Ernest volunteer for the Red Cross and head to Paris. Tue 29 Jun, BBC4 21:00 (50mins).

Back to Jail: Crime and Punishment Following three

offenders in Hampshire, this programme explores one of the biggest challenges faced by the criminal justice system: reoffending rates. Wed 30 Jun, C4 22:00 (65mins).

Bad Influencer: The Great Insta Con The rise and

dramatic fall of Belle Gibson, an Australian “wellness guru” who claimed on Instagram to be “self-managing” multiple cancers through diet and exercise. Wed 30 Jun, BBC1 22:35 (45mins).

Films

Captain Fantastic (2016)

Viggo Mortensen stars in this drama about a father bringing up six children off-grid in the remote Pacific Northwest, who is forced back into the modern world. Sun 27 Jun, BBC2 00:00 (110mins).

Hear My Song (1991) Charlotte Perriand at the Design Museum

young Manchester Collective” and the KannehMason family of musicians (Daily Telegraph).

30 July-11 September, Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (bbc.co.uk/promstickets).

Playwright April de Angelis and composer Lucy Rivers collaborated on the raucous new musical Gin Craze!, a love story about two gin-hawkers that takes a satirical look at the excesses of 18th century Britain. 17-31 July, Royal & Derngate, Northampton (royalandderngate.co.uk).

The Archers: what happened last week © ACHP/© ADAGP, PARIS AND DACS, LONDON 2021

Television

Joy offers to babysit as Lee and Helen go to the movies. Helen panics when she hears the boys played with Lee’s prized collection of superheroes – she’ll try to replace them. Brian is scouring the farm accounts looking for money for Alice’s rehab. Noticing a discrepancy of £5,000, he suspects Alice until Adam confesses that he took the money. Lynda interviews Joy for the church fête committee. Adam complains to Lee about his showdown with Brian – he thinks Brian treated him harshly; Lee suggests paying back the money and moving on. Helen comes clean about the action figures, but all is well. As Peggy and Lilian talk about Alice’s rehab, Peggy shares painful memories of Jack’s death at a sanatorium. Lilian assures her things are better these days, and Peggy wonders if she should help pay for rehab. There’s a last-minute hitch as Rex and Phoebe get ready to welcome their first wild campers, but Roy comes to the rescue. Adam half-heartedly apologises and pays his debt, but locks horns again with Brian, who suggests Adam should leave Home Farm.

Unabashedly sentimental comedy about the Irish tenor Josef Locke. Thur 1 Jul, Film4 23:40 (130mins).

Borg vs. McEnroe (2017)

Taut drama about the legendary 1980 Wimbledon men’s final rivals. Fri 2 July, BBC2 23:05 (100mins).

New to subscription TV Sophie: A Murder in West Cork Following on from the huge word-of-mouth success of the West Cork podcast, this three-part docuseries tells the story of a notorious unsolved murder – that of French TV producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, near her holiday home in West Cork in December 1996 – and the manhunt that followed. From 30 June, on Netflix.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Best properties

42 River and canalside properties

▲

Buckinghamshire: Rippling Waters, Marlow. On the market for the first time in a generation, this magical Victorian boathouse built c. 1880, and nestled on the banks of the River Thames near Marlow, was used as a film setting for True Blue and The Wind in the Willows. Main bed, 1 further bed, family bath, large recep overlooking the river, galley kitchen, further kitchen area, shower/WC, separate 1-bed studio, enclosed mooring for a 30ft vessel with 10ft ceiling height at normal tide, slipway, extensive gated grounds. OIEO £2m; RiverHomes (020-8995 0500).

▲ London: The Lock House, Bethnal Green E3. A Grade II Georgian former lock-keeper’s cottage on the towpath at Old Ford Lock on Regent’s Canal, backing onto Victoria Park. Main bed with dressing room and en-suite bath, 1 further bed, 1 further bath, open-plan kitchen/double recep with vaulted double-height ceilings, attic, garden. OIEO £1m; RiverHomes (020-8788 6000). ▲

London: Houseboat Dieu L’Avalou, Plantation Wharf Pier, Battersea SW11. This 40-metre Belgian Spitz barge was originally used for shipping grain, but has been transformed into a unique home. Main suite with woodburner and rolltop bath, 3 further suites, 1 further bath, WC, upper deck kitchen/ recep, 1 further recep on the lower deck with woodburning stove, sun deck, parking.

Mooring licence fee £15,000/year, no stamp duty. £750,000; RiverHomes (0208788 6000).

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

on the market

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▲ Devon: 4 Yealm Wood, The Yealm, Newton Ferrers. A luxury apartment overlooking the natural harbour with an extensive roof terrace and balconies. 3 suites, open-plan kitchen/recep leading onto the balcony, shower, WC, shared quay, private parking, shared woodland. £1.45m; Marchand Petit (01752-873311). ▲

Nottinghamshire: The Paper Mill, Lowdham.

A very well renovated historic Grade II former paper mill in a stunning setting, with a separate coach house. Main suite, 5 further beds, family bath, shower, kitchen, 3 receps, day room, utility, WC, hall, study area, coach house with garage and office/studio above, gardens overlooking the mill pond. £850,000; Savills (0115-934 8020).

Norfolk: 12 Quayside, Norwich. A rare opportunity to buy this fine home set over four floors on the banks of the River Wensum. It combines fabulous views with a great location, offering easy access to the city centre. The properties on Quayside were the first homes built by Hopkins Homes in 2008 and won a design award, in recognition of their very high specification. Main suite, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen, dual aspect recep, study/ bed 4, WC, garage. £775,000; Sowerbys (01603-761441).

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Berkshire: Millgate, Sonning Eye, Reading.

Millgate is a unique village home that sits in an elevated, picturesque position above the River Thames, with direct access to a private mooring which leads through the mill stream to the river. Tripleaspect main bed, 2 further beds, family bath, shower, kitchen, family room, recep with log burning stove, conservatory with views over the river, patio, detached outbuilding with office or storage potential, private parking. £795,000; Savills (01491-843000). ▲

North Yorkshire: Beck Cottage, Golden Grove, Whitby. This pretty cottage has been created from two adjoining sandstone cottages directly overlooking Cock Mill Beck, and has an idyllic private natural pool with a waterfall in the grounds. 4 double beds, shower, bath, attic/bed 5, kitchen/ breakfast room, 2 receps, pantry, gardener’s WC, garden store, lawned gardens, terrace, garaging, parking, woodland, paddocks, fishing rights, 55.1 acres. OIEO £700,000; Knight Frank (01423-535373).

▲ Buckinghamshire: Quarry Wood, Marlow. This restored house sits on the outskirts of Marlow, moments from the Thames. Main suite with turret, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, recep hall, 2 further receps, family room, laundry, cloakroom, garage, parking, gardens, studio, boat house. £3.25m; Hamptons (01628-260324).

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

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THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Marketplace

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LEISURE Food & Drink

45

What the experts recommend Tesla’s charging-station restaurants In 1900, the tyre-manufacturing Michelin brothers “brought motoring and restaurants together” when they created their famous guide, said Tom Knowles in The Times. Now Elon Musk appears to be following in their footsteps: Tesla, his electric car company, has filed an application for a patent in the US that would enable it to open a chain of branded restaurants. A Tesla car typically takes 40 minutes to recharge, and it seems that Musk wants to capitalise on this “window of opportunity” by installing restaurants at the firm’s car-charging stations. Musk isn’t known as a foodie, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. He once told a journalist that “if there was a way that I could not eat so I could work more, I would not eat”. Still, he has dropped hints as to what Tesla restaurants might be like.

In a 2018 tweet, he said he’d like to open an “old-school drive-in roller skates and rock restaurant”, suggesting a 1950s vibe. But the food, you suspect, will be futuristic and reflect Musk’s interest in sustainability: I’m thinking dishes made from insects grown on the premises.

Pastry: should you buy it or make it?

Given the range of ready-made pastries available in supermarkets, many people no longer bother making their own, says Anna Berrill in The Guardian. But are some types still worth the time and effort?

contains enough butter. Some people are put off by the rolling, but as food writer Ravneet Gill points out, you don’t have to do it: if you prefer, you can always grate your fridge-chilled pastry, then “press it into the tin with your fingertips”.

The Rose hotel: outstanding

Chefs agree that it makes little sense to DIY filo: better to buy it, and “concentrate on what you’re going to do with your filo instead”. Much the same logic applies to puff pastry, which is extremely labourintensive to make. If, however, you are “up for a project”, the baker and food stylist Benjamina Ebuehi suggests trying rough puff – a quicker, less technical version of puff pastry that will still give you a tutorial in “how the folding works”.

But shortcrust is the one pastry that most chefs agree is worth making from scratch: according to Nigel Slater, it is not only as “easy as toast”, but you’ll really notice the difference, as the ready-made stuff never

Where to eat… on the Kent coast The high-speed “Javelin” train connecting St Pancras station with much of Kent was originally conceived to convey spectators to London for the 2012 Olympic Games, says Nicholas Lander in the FT. Now, for “those who live in the capital”, it provides quick and easy access to the Kent coast, and the area’s many excellent restaurants.

Two of the best are in or around Faversham: Read’s, a restaurant with rooms in a Georgian manor house, and the famous Sportsman in Seasalter.

Margate is also “bristling with good places”, including Dory’s, a fashionable small-plates seafood bar, and Sargasso, a seafood joint (which reopens next month following its lockdown closure) perched on the harbour arm. In Chatham, there’s the excellent, recently opened Pumproom restaurant – located in a working distillery on the docks – and further away in Deal (which isn’t on the Javelin line, but connects easily to it), there’s the outstanding The Rose hotel, a collaboration between local chef Luke Green and Nuno Mendes, the Portuguese chef behind the Chiltern Firehouse in London.

Recipe of the week: pappardelle with cavolo nero and burrata Cavolo nero, or Tuscan kale, makes for a healthy, fresh pasta sauce full of vitamins and iron, says Mateo Zielonka. The addition of creamy burrata complements the grassy flavour of the kale and turns the dish into something really special.

Serves 4 400g egg pappardelle 1 whole small garlic bulb 150g cavolo nero (about 10 whole leaves) juice of ½ a small lemon 100ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 20g parmesan or pecorino, grated 2 balls of burrata, halved

© SETH CARNILL; INDIA HOBSON

• Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/400°F/gas mark 6.

• Cut 1cm off the top of the garlic bulb so the

cloves are exposed. Wrap the whole garlic in foil and twist the top closed, then roast for 25 minutes until it’s soft.

• Remove and discard the stalks from the cavolo nero and wash the stripped leaves under cold water. Bring a large pan of water to the boil before adding salt. Blanch the leaves for 30 seconds, then immediately transfer them to a bowl of cold water (this will help keep their green colour). Set aside the pan of salted water to cook the pasta in.

• Press the cavolo nero leaves to remove as much water as you can, and put them into a food processor or blender. Add the lemon juice.

Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins

and add them to the processor or blender. Start blending the ingredients together, slowly adding the olive oil as you go, and finishing with the parmesan.

• Bring the pan of salted water back to the boil

and cook the pappardelle for 1½-2 minutes. At the same time, pour the cavolo nero sauce into a large saucepan on a low heat. When the pasta is cooked, add it to the sauce with a ladleful (or two) of pasta water. Combine together using tongs or simply toss it. Check the seasoning – it will need salt – and the sauce might need to be loosened with more pasta water.

• Divide between bowls. Place half a ball of

burrata on top of each serving, drizzle with olive oil and add a twist of black pepper.

Taken from The Pasta Man by Mateo Zielonka, published by Quadrille at £15. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £11.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

Marketplace

46

E NC !

A H S T C MIS S LA N’T DO

122 Annual Exhibition nd

WIMBLEDON debenture tickets AVA I L A B L E N O W F O R 2 0 2 1

Norma Stephenson PS Spring Gorse (detail)

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14 to 24 July 2021 Contemporary works created in pastel, pencil, chalk and charcoal

www.mallgalleries.org.uk

The Mall, London SW1

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

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Consumer New cars: what the critics say

Hyundai Tucson

from £34,455

The Daily Telegraph The new Hyundai Tucson is quite a departure from its predecessor. The old model SUV had “anonymous styling” and was “bland” to drive.

Now, it has dramatic creases and a wrap-around grille that give it an almost “other-worldly” look. It also comes in a new range of mild, full and plug-in hybrids. With Hyundai’s five-year warranty too, it makes for a much more appealing purchase.

LEISURE 47

Auto Express Inside, the Tucson feels “truly premium”, with materials hitting the standards of Audi rivals.

The 10.25in digital dashboard in front of the driver is “clean and simple”, and its main screen’s graphics are just as good. The standard equipment is “generous”, and passenger room is especially impressive.

Maximum boot space is a solid 620 litres – slightly less for the plug-in version.

The best… portable radios

What Car? All of the Tucson’s engines are 1.6-litre petrol turbos, but their power outputs vary depending on how much electrical help they get. They stretch from the basic 148bhp model to a 261bhp plug-in hybrid.

It’s not exactly “spry” to drive, and the suspension is a little stiff, but it’s comfortable enough and the electric assistance makes it quiet. If you need a spacious, practical family car, this is a good bet.

▲

Lexon Tykho 3 FM silicone radio and speaker This splash-proof radio in a silicone casing is great for the shower. It has 20 hours of battery, USB charging, and can stream music via Bluetooth – but there is no digital radio (£60; selfridges.com).

John Lewis & Partners Spectrum Solo Portable DAB+/FM Digital Radio From John Lewis’s Anyday range, this Lego-brick-like radio is compact and weighs just 350g. It also has five presets for saving your favourite stations (£40; johnlewis.com).

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Roberts Revival RD70 DAB/DAB+/FM Bluetooth Digital Radio with Alarm They may have vintage-styling, but Roberts radios have crystal clear modern audio. The RD70 has Bluetooth connectivity, mains or battery power, and an alarm function (from £179; johnlewis.com).

Tips of the week… make the most of a small garden ● Decide how much seating you want and whether you want it near the door or a short walk away. Consider built-in seating and having a few chairs you can add when needed. Leave planting areas around the seating to soften the view of it. ● Climbers on walls or fences take up little ground space but add greenery, flowers and scents, and a backdrop for other plants. ● If you have mismatched walls and fences, try painting them one colour for cohesion. ● Limit yourself to a maximum of two levels or surfaces. Try to make transitions between surfaces as seamless as possible. ● A common mistake is to fill a small space with many small plants, making it cluttered.

Instead, choose fewer larger plants of varied heights to add texture. Also try wallmounting a feature or lifting it on a stand. ● Small trees like an amelanchier, or Japanese maple, will add a bit of character. ● If it’s shady, choose light paving and plant densely to avoid having soil on show.

SOURCE: THE TIMES

▲ Majority Little Shelford DAB+/FM Bluetooth radio Stylish and great value, this radio doubles up as a Bluetooth speaker and can be either mains or battery operated.

Majority plants a tree for each product it sells (£40; currys.co.uk).

And for those who have everything…

These “wellness sunglasses” come in a range of colours with specific benefits: orange-tinted lenses will supposedly help you sleep; pink will create a state of relaxed alertness; or you could choose purple, for something “akin to a psychedelic experience”. s200; victoriousbeings.com SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TIMES

Where to find… barbecue boxes From a Devon farm focused on sustainable techniques, the Piper’s Farm Medium BBQ Meat Box has frozen wings and chicken as well as beef burgers (£35; pipersfarm.com).

For maximum convenience, the Morrisons BBQ box contains not only all the meat you need, but halloumi, veg, coleslaw, dips, and even brownie bites (£35; morrisons.com).

Delivering five British meats with global flavours, Farmison’s Flavours of the World box includes North African-style lamb sausages, teriyaki beef steaks and misoglazed pork (£40; farmison.com).

Aubrey Allen pork ribs and beef burgers BBQ meat box, from “the chef’s butcher” (his fans include Raymond Blanc), contains coarse-cut burgers and paprika-flavoured sausages (£35; aubreyallen.co.uk).

The Horton House Farm 100% Pasture Fed Organic Large BBQ box comes with burgers and sausages, but the real draw is its top quality steak and pork chops (£50; farmdrop.com).

SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

SOURCES: GOOD HOUSEKEEPING/LONDON EVENING STANDARD/WHAT HIFI?

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Goodmans Pocket DAB Portable Digital Radio Measuring just 5cm by 9cm, and weighing just 20g, this pocket model is supremely transportable. It has 13 hours of playback via a 3.5mm audio jack, and 40 presets (£35; factoryoutlet.co.uk).

48

Obituary

One of the last titans of the African independence struggle Kenneth Kaunda, who has died aged 97, was the founding president of Zambia, and the last of a generation of African independence leaders. A charming man and a gifted orator, he led his country through a tumultuous period in southern African history. His great achievement was to preserve stability in Zambia in a “comparatively benign manner”, while also being on the “front line” of opposition to white rule in neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa, said The Times. He called for international boycotts of racist regimes, and allowed black nationalist movements from nearby nations to set up guerrilla bases in Zambia. As a result, Zambia was subject to bombing raids by South African and Rhodesian forces. Yet he promoted conciliation as well as confrontation; and in the Cold War, he managed to pursue a policy of non-alignment, criticising both the US, for its war in Vietnam, and the USSR, for its interventions in Angola.

eight legislative seats to the Federation’s three million black residents, and 22 to its 70,000 whites, as “unchristian, unethical, impolite and unworkable”.

Kenneth Kaunda 1924-2021

Galvanised by a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr in the US, and inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he launched his “Cha-cha-cha” campaign of civil disobedience. The British government, he said, could either “build more prisons or grant our legitimate rights”. The British agreed a revised constitution; the Federation was dissolved in 1963; and in January 1964, an election was held in which all citizens of Northern Rhodesia had equal voting rights. His party won by a landslide, and Kaunda became PM of the self-governing territory. Ten months later, he became president of the independent Republic of Zambia. His wife, Beatrice “Betty” Kaunda (who died in 2012), was thereafter referred to as Mama Betty.

Kaunda: inspired by Martin Luther King Jr

At the time, Zambia was one of the richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but in 1965, Southern Rhodesia’s white leader, Ian Smith, made his unilateral This devout Christian could be ruthless towards his opponents, and under his rule, Zambia became a one-party state. Yet KK, declaration of independence. This, and the 15-year bush war that followed, had serious knock-on consequences for the new as he was known, “abhorred violence”, and “a simple decency ran through the ups and downs of his political career”. His country. To make matters worse, Kaunda, who espoused a leftwing doctrine he called “Zambian humanism”, mishandled the mismanagement of Zambia’s economy impoverished the country, and eventually proved his economy. He embraced a undoing. Nevertheless, he was socialist agricultural policy popular at home. An unassuming “He was easily moved: the white handkerchief that had disastrous results, and man, he enjoyed ballroom that he used to wipe away his tears came out nationalised the country’s copper dancing, singing and playing the mines. When the copper price so often, it became his emblem” guitar; and he was easily moved, dropped, the economy went with said The New York Times. He it. In 1972, he made Zambia a made no effort to disguise his emotions. On the contrary, the one-party state, saying that in a country of many tribes, it was the way to ensure national unity. Meanwhile, he continued to white handkerchief that he used to wipe away his tears came out campaign for an independent Zimbabwe, and for the imposition so often, it became his emblem. of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. At the 1987 Kenneth David Kaunda was born in the north of what was then Vancouver conference of Commonwealth leaders, he demanded Northern Rhodesia in 1924. His parents were teachers from of Margaret Thatcher: “How is it possible that the people who Nyasaland (Malawi); his father was also a preacher in the Church fought Nazi Germany and sacrificed so much can conspire with of Scotland, and Kenneth was educated at a mission school. Aged the Nazis of today in South Africa and tell us: ‘Do not impose 17, he made one of his first political statements when he became a sanctions because they will bite you?’” vegetarian in protest at a rule obliging black customers at butcher shops to go to a different window to be served. Having trained as In the 1980s, discontent with Kaunda’s one-party rule grew. a teacher, he found work in the country’s Copperbelt, where he There were at least two attempts to topple his government, was appalled by the way black workers were treated. Becoming and serious riots, before he finally agreed to restore multi-party increasingly political, he began cycling around the region, singing democracy in 1991. He was voted out in elections that year. He hymns and liberation songs, talking to elders and chiefs, and relinquished power gracefully, waving his trademark handkerchief drumming up support for opposition to colonial rule. In the late as a sign of his capitulation. However, he retained so much 1940s, he helped found the Northern Rhodesia African National political influence that in 1997, the new government tried to have Congress, and in 1953 he became its secretary-general. It was in him exiled. After that, he focused his attention on the fight against that year that Northern Rhodesia was subsumed into the new HIV. With 20% of the country infected, he’d revealed in 1987 white-dominated Central African Federation, with Southern that one of his own sons had died of an Aids-related illness. “We Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Two years later, he was arrested for fought colonialism. We must now use the same zeal to fight Aids, distributing subversive literature, and sentenced to hard labour. which threatens to wipe out Africa,” he told Reuters in 2002.

In 1958, frustrated by his party’s perceived reluctance to confront white interests, Kaunda founded the more radical (but still nonviolent) Zambian African National Congress. It was soon banned, for leading a boycott of elections in the Federation, and he was jailed again, said The Daily Telegraph. On his release, he became leader of the new United National Independence Party, which opposed the Federation, and called for immediate independence for Zambia. He dismissed a constitution which would have given THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Kaunda was revered by many as an elder statesman, but as time wore on, he came to be seen as a throwback to an era of struggle of which a younger generation had little memory, said The New York Times. At one of his last public appearances, at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013, he launched into one of his liberation anthems, Tiyende pamodzi (“let’s go together”). But this time, when he reached the chorus, his listeners did not sing along, as they had in the past. “Ah, you have forgotten,” he said wistfully.

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Charity

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Our most beloved animals are dying out due to human greed.

Cred t Juan Pab o More ras/FF

Millions of endangered animals are being illegally and cruelly slaughtered to satisfy the demand for markets that exploit human weakness. It’s time to stand together to end illegal wildlife trade.

Over the last 50 years, illicit trade in wildlife has become one of the greatest threats to our natural world. Syndicates of tra c ers are e loiting communities in develo ing areas, driving them to illegally hunt down animals for their body arts. hese criminal networ s only ay a tiny ortion of the nal rice they get for the animals they receive. Beautiful animals are reduced to gory lum s of gristle, bone and eratin, then shi ed o to far ung mar ets.

Ang ? We ve barely star d yet h imal ts are be shi d alo w h wea ons dru s even eo le – these heartless ro teers don t care about the devastation they cause. Live animals are concealed during trans ort with no thought for their survival. Many of them don t ma e it. erha s it s a mercy when they choose to ill and free e the animals, before hiding them in cargo containers the si e of a small bus. Because that s the industrial scale they re wor ing on. It s not one or two animals here and there – it s entire

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

• Illegal wildlife trade threatens some of our most iconic and beloved animals, like pangolins, elephants and tigers.

s ecies that we are seeing driven towards e tinction, lost forever from our global heritage. And for one reason alone. o ut more money in the oc ets of these criminals – whatever the cost.

Ruthless doesn’t come close to describing them.

Organised criminal networ s are ta ing advantage of eo le des erate for miracle

“If you value the natural world – if you think it should be protected for its own sake as well as humanity’s – then please support Fauna & Flora International.”

• A terrible human price is being paid too as people are exploited through this trade – but the traffickers will stop at nothing.

omes nd is a tac in the ost v nerab amon us. n short eriod lmost ever erson on the lanet has been a ected – and we still don t now the nal toll.

The source could well be these criminal pro teers. e don t now for certain how the andemic started.

Some scientists suggest that the disease might have been Cred t Gary Morr sroe/FF

• Fauna & Flora International is working to stop illegal wildlife trade at its source and dismantle the trade networks.

Sir David Attenborough, Fauna & Flora International vice-president cures. rading on fears and desires, they ly their roducts at a hefty rice – e loiting insecurities to fatten their wallets. You see, these people will stop at nothing to turn a pro t Now, we all p y the price.

O ID ha a ected us all.

It s unravellin ou economies.

It has sealed us u in our

transferred to a erson from a angolin being traded illegally in one of these mar ets – these are the most tra c ed wild mammals in the world, with over a million consumed by the trade since 2000. Yet we would never have imagined that these mar ets for body arts of wild animals would a ect us in this way. It s time to say “enough”. Dr Rebecca

Drury, ead of ildlife rade at Fauna & Flora International (FFI) says, “We would like to see stronger action to halt illegal hunting, tra cking and consumption of illegallysourced wildlife t is no longer an option to ignore the dangers of illegal and unregulated wildlife trade and consumption, to human health and to healthy, functioning ecosystems needed for life on earth to thrive We must ensure that the lessons from - pandemic are applied to prevent repeats of this glo al crisis Illegal wildlife trade must be stopped. he governments of the world are doing what they can. But while bans are ut in lace, the des icable individuals driving the tra c ing will try to use their illicit networ s to ee selling, lining their oc ets until they are sto ed. It s recisely because this is a trade that ha ens in he sh d ws, that we mu to it urce. hat s w FI is ra funds – to hel ta st to his vile tr de. do so the are as in rea s of he ee to ma an ent contribution toda

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Charity Your response by Ac now to stop the tra c ers.

FF e wo ki to st ille al ex itati f wil s cies su ortin over me ts to col ct vital evide ce at ca hel convict tra kers disru t heir networks an brin them ustice instead of ro ts FFI are also keeping dedicated rangers going making sure they have essential equipment and training to respond like lightning to every poaching threat – stopping the trade at its very source

uly could help stop the tra

here s not a moment to waste W must act now to save cou ess animals from this rim venous allconsumin market lease cut the coupon and return it now and you could help save beloved creatures like elephants tigers and pangolins If the coupon is missing please send your cheque (payable to FFI to Freepost Fauna Flora International Fairlie oad lough by uly

Elephants slaughtered for their skin and tusks

a Credit: rian M

u a Credit: a aril

Credit: Juan Pablo Moreiras/FFI

ust some of the animals su ering from the illegal wildlife trade:

Pangolins killed for meat and scales

Tigers reduced to a pile of skin and bones

ut the coupon and return it with your gift to Alternatively go to www.stopiwt.org or call

51

c ers.

How you could help stop the tra c ing Your gift could help stop illegal wildlife exploitation at its source and dismantle tra c ing networ s. llegal wildlife trade is one of the most serious and persistent threats to endangered species li e elephants tigers and pangolins. Here’s how your support could help: could help build a case against a wildlife tra cker collecting vital evidence needed to secure convictions could help train rangers to tackle poaching threats in the eld he rst line of defence these brave people respond immediately to poaching incidents could help pay for DNA analysis of important evidence helping us to understand the trading networks so we can focus our e orts where they matter most could help pay for an important item of equipment for a ranger like a rst-aid kit could help pay for monitoring equipment like camera traps and units helping us run patrols in the highest-risk areas Any donations large or small will be received with than s every gift ma es a di erence. You could help stri e a vital blow at the mar ets that ma e this trade so pro table. Please respond by uly at the very latest. Than you.

and you could help stop illegal wildlife trade. . Than you.

Please accept my donation of £________________, which could help save iconic and beloved animals

You make our work possible – so we want to make sure you feel part of our team. We would like to keep you updated on our impact and progress by post. And occasionally, we may ask you for additional help, including donations and invitations to our events. If you don’t want post, just tick here

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THE WEEK 26 June 2021

CITY Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

CITY 53

GlaxoSmithKline: Independence day

GSK held an “investor day” on Wednesday, said Sabah Meddings in The Sunday Times.

Perhaps a better description would be a fight for “independence”. Ever since April, when the activist US hedge fund Elliott Management took a multibillion-pound stake in the FTSE 100 drugmaker to push for change, CEO Dame Emma Walmsley has been battling “to prove she is the right person to lead Glaxo” after it splits in two next year. The investor day offered GSK a chance to outline its plans as “a standalone” £50bn pharma and vaccines business once her plan to spin off the consumer division (whose brands include Sensodyne, Advil and Panadol) is activated next year. Walmsley, who has led the company since 2017, outlined that GSK has 20 new vaccines and 42 new medicines in development, and pledged to grow profits by 10% each year till 2026. Given the “threadbare pipeline” she inherited, she can take credit for that, said Julia Kollewe in The Observer. Even so, this was billed as “the toughest day of her career”. The battle is on to sell “New GSK” to shareholders forced to stomach a 14% share-price fall on her watch. At around £14, pre-update shares – shockingly – are “below the £18 level” at which they stood “when Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham merged in 2000”.

Channel 4: on the blocks?

“For sale: British Broadcaster. Empty library, highly restrictive terms of trade, makes losses. Apply HM Government.” Plans to privatise Channel 4, the UK’s “ever-so-slightly edgier broadcaster”, are in play again, said Lex in the FT. In its current state, as a publicsector broadcaster funded by advertising, this seems a “half-baked” idea. Few if any bidders would be tempted by a “Robin Hood” model in which big hits such as the cooking show The Great British Bake Off subsidise “obligatory public service fare”.

While restructuring it might maximise the appeal of C4’s streaming operation to potential private buyers, it would damage “Britain’s media ecosystem”, particularly the small producers that are effectively subsidised. The Government might argue that, in the age of Netflix, “a dose of bracing private ownership” would be good for C4, said The Observer. But it’s not true that only private ownership can revive the channel. Losses in 2019 were due partly to relocating the HQ to Leeds and, with a fifth of all revenues already deriving from on-demand platforms, “a surplus is expected in 2020”. Channel 4 might be “an odd beast”, but “a bit of biodiversity in the TV jungle is a good thing”.

JPMorgan/Nutmeg: a pinch and a punch

“America’s biggest bank” is clearly serious about building a bridgehead in Britain’s online banking market, said Ben Martin in The Times. Ahead of its “long-awaited” launch, it has bought Nutmeg, the loss-making UK digital wealth manager, for £700m – in a deal that will “generate a windfall” for more than 2,100 private investors who backed the outfit in a crowdfunding two years ago. Nutmeg is a pioneer of “roboadvising” (enabling clients to pick from ready-made portfolios), with 140,000 clients, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “The purchase price looks steep” – but that won’t trouble Nutmeg’s “rich” new owner. The deal is more likely to concern “the established UK banking order”, which hasn’t yet been troubled by “nimble start-ups” like Monzo and Starling. “A beast the size of JPMorgan, however, is a different proposition.”

Seven days in the Square Mile Stock and bond markets see-sawed as traders attempted to gauge the threat of inflation and the likely reaction of central banks. Traders observed the narrative was changing daily. Wall Street’s S&P 500 fell sharply last week when the US Fed appeared to take a more hawkish stance, before putting in its biggest rally in over a month at the start of this week.

The FTSE 100 suffered its worst week since February. Business surveys indicated that companies are struggling with inflation. Lloyds Bank reported that businesses are raising their prices at the fastest rate in 22 years as every sector of the economy grapples with higher costs.

The UK started negotiations to join the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc, described by Trade Secretary Liz Truss as “a glittering post-Brexit prize”.

Britain already has a variety of trading agreements with seven members of the pact and is negotiations with two more – Australia and New Zealand.

Amazon‘s Prime Day – the e-commerce giant’s annual discount-fest – was reported to have generated brisk sales.

Rupert Murdoch was reported to have considered, and then called off, a tie-up between News UK and BT Sport, which is up for sale. TSB barred more than five million UK customers from buying cryptocurrencies on fraud concerns.

Deloitte told its 20,000 UK staff they can work from home permanently. Cornish Lithium raised £6m in a crowdfunding campaign. The club chain Soho House filed for an IPO in New York.

Wise/Made.com: a tale of two IPOs So many companies have come to market in London this year that big City investors complain of suffering “IPO indigestion”. That, at any rate, was one of the reasons advanced for Made.com’s flop when it made its debut last week, said Jim Armitage in the London Evening Standard. The furniture designer backed by lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman was priced seductively at 200p – “the very lowest end” of its price range. But even then, shares fell by 8% initially before clawing back to just above 200p this week.

hidden exchange rate mark-ups charged for cross-border transfers. The profitable Shoreditch-based outfit, a tribute to London’s fintech prowess, has chosen a “direct listing” to set the price, “rather than allow investment banks to dictate terms” – an approach that “backfired at Deliveroo and Made”.

With a mooted value of between £5bn-£10bn, Wise could be the City’s “biggest IPO of the year”, said Simon Neville in The Independent.

London is trying to attract more tech firms to its leading market, via new listing rules. About By contrast, “there’s much to like about the time, according to one of Wise’s cornerstone upcoming float of Wise” – the innovative investors, Baillie Gifford, said the FT. In a Wise’s Käärmann and Hinrikus money transfer firm currently challenging the scathing critique this week, the fund manager’s stranglehold of big banks in the sector, said investment strategist, James Anderson, Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Wise was founded in 2011 by claimed that a “deep sickness” in UK capital markets had stifled Estonian entrepreneurs Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus (a the growth of “innovative and fast-growing companies” – leaving Skype veteran) to counter what Käärmann calls the “scandalous” the blue-chip FTSE 100 looking more like “a 19th century” index.

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

54 CITY

Talking points Issue of the week: Morrisons in play Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket has been targeted by private equity. Should we care?

When Andy Higginson’s phone flashed pots of cash”. Britain’s corporate boards up with an old colleague’s name, it was are caught in the middle. Let’s hope the clear to the Morrisons chairman “that it Morrisons board puts up some wasn’t going to be a catch-up about the resistance, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “Now that Asda has been good old days”, said Ashley Armstrong in The Times. Sir Terry Leahy, the bought via a similar leveraged model, former Tesco boss turned partner at US and with takeover speculation swirling private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & around Sainsbury’s”, 40% of the UK’s grocery market could end up under the Rice, was delivering “a courtesy call” to alert him to a takeover bid. The £5.5bn control of financial owners – “a disaster” offer (more than £8.7bn including for “the poor old shopper”. Private debt) has put Britain’s fourth largest equity houses don’t do price wars. supermarket “in play”. In response, “Gently rising profit margins, wrung Morrisons shares “leapt by 35%” to from customers by stealth, are far better for making the debt repayments.” over 240p – suggesting that investors are expecting “something tastier from Morrisons: a “critical role” in UK food production This is actually “a property deal, not a the private equity outfit than its 230p sighting shot”, said Alistair Osborne in retail one”, said Lex in the FT. Bradfordbased Morrisons owns 85% of its 500 stores. Selling, then leasing the same paper. There’s “no better place than a supermarket for a food fight. But how much of a scrap is CD&R up for?” back, just a quarter of those would raise “a quick return on investment” of £2bn. Shareholders should hold out for at least The attempted raid – which, if successful, would “mark one 280p. What makes the deal so significant is Morrisons’ “critical role in Britain’s food production”, said Alex Brummer in the of Britain’s biggest leveraged buyouts since the 2008 crisis” – Daily Mail. Its 18 food production centres source mostly from has sparked “a furious row” in the City, said the FT. Over the British farms, and are “responsible for some 25% of the UK’s last “frenzied” six months, private-equity dealmakers “have food production”. The farm lobby has “bleated endlessly about announced bids for UK-listed companies at the fastest pace in the threat of the Aussie trade deal”. They’ll have “much more to more than two decades”, triggering a fierce dispute between “traditional fund managers”, who reckon they’re getting the worry about” if a private equity firm, with heavy debts and no long-term responsibilities, grabs hold of Morrisons. goods far too cheaply, and “bullish dealmakers” sitting on huge

Bitcoin’s crash: what the experts think

According to Sean Rooney of Valkyrie Investments, “When crypto prices fall, “bitcoin traders could the lurches lower can be find themselves in choppy rapid,” said Adam Samson waters for weeks to come”. and Katie Martin in the Traders are muttering FT. We saw as much about “Death crosses” when the price of bitcoin (an ominous chart pattern), plunged by 12% in a day said The New York Times. on Tuesday, taking the But crypto supporters are price below $30,000 for still looking “past shortthe first time since January term pain”. Some are and dragging down many optimistic that mine other “alt-coins”, operators will move to the including ethereum and Abbott: would-be “crypto-leader” US – particularly Texas, dogecoin, with it. The where the governor, Greg “dominant driver”, Abbott, is promising to make the state a according to Michael J. Saylor of “crypto-leader”, said the Daily Express.

MicroStrategy, was further regulatory There’s also hope in El Salvador, which pressures from China – once the centre of bitcoin production – which has banned the has adopted bitcoin as legal tender.

“China doesn’t have the moral character “mining” of bitcoins in major provinces. to mine bitcoin,” said pundit Max Keiser.

The country’s central bank has also “America and El Salvador do.” warned several of the largest state-owned banks and Jack Ma’s Alipay to “identify” ● Harsh lessons and “block” bitcoin transactions.

One of the more remarkable findings of the UK financial regulator’s report on ● Death crosses and hash rates cryptocurrencies is that 2.3 million adult Bitcoin recovered some ground midweek, Britons are now invested – up from said Bloomberg, rising to $34,000 on 400,000 a year ago, said Nils Pratley in Wednesday. But it is still down by almost The Guardian. “The most extraordinary”, 50% since its April peak of $65,000 – though, is that 12% of consumers think and that has got some “chart-watchers” crypto investments are “protected”. Nope. nervous. “Any meaningful break below “If you lose your shirt on bitcoin, you are $30,000 is going to make a lot of not going to be compensated.” There may momentum players throw in the towel,” be some harsh lessons learned this week. said Matt Maley of Miller Tabak + Co.

Isas are back in fashion

● Chinese burn

THE WEEK 26 June 2021

Tax-efficient individual savings accounts (Isas) have suffered “a gradual downward trend in use” since the 2008 financial crisis, said Ali Hussain in The Times. The good news is they’re back in fashion. Here’s the lowdown: More than 13 million people opened a new account in the year ending April 2020, according to HMRC, up from 11.1 million the year before. That count, taken before Covid hit, seems likely to rise given that households have stashed away an extra £180bn during the pandemic – and because taxes are expected to rise. You pay no income tax on Isa returns, and profits are free from Capital Gains Tax. You can save or invest a maximum of £20,000 annually in cash, shares, or a mix of both. ●

The most striking increase was in the Lifetime Isa (Lisa), launched in 2017 to encourage 18- to 39-year-olds to save for a pension or a deposit for a house. You can save up to £4,000 tax free and get a 25% government top-up each year.

Numbers investing in Lisas doubled to 545,000, and the amount invested jumped from £604m to £1.25bn. ●

Despite “paltry” returns, cash Isas are still “by far the most popular”. More than 9.7 million were opened, sheltering £48.7bn. The top-paying cash Isa, from UBL UK, pays 1.21%, well below the current 2.1% inflation rate. ●

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Commentators A change of tone at the US Fed Editorial The Economist

Golfing while India burns Benjamin Parkin Financial Times

In praise of the barbarians at the gate Ben Wright The Daily Telegraph

Rocking a nice little earner Patrick Hosking The Times

Ever since Pfizer and BioNTech published the results of their Covid vaccine trials last November, “investors have been singing the same uplifting song” of “a roaring rebound in the global economy”, says The Economist. This “reflation” trade has lifted the prices of everything from commodities and global stocks to emerging market currencies. But that changed last week when the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell signalled a change in its “nonchalant” attitude to “signs of overheating”: he said the Fed might consider raising rates “somewhat sooner than previously anticipated”. Cue juddering markets globally. The question now is whether Powell’s signal “warranted such strong reactions”. On the one hand, “the full reopening of the US economy is still in its early stages” and the end of 2022 (the date mooted for the first rate rise) “is a long way off”. Yet there are signs that markets and the economy have entered “a new phase” – both lumber prices and credit-card spending have slipped. Will the “great reflation trade” continue? Right now, the bet could go either way.

In late April, when a brutal second wave of the pandemic was ravaging India, the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, spent £57m on Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire, a historic English golf club. “The awkward timing” was “a stark symbol of the surging fortunes of India Inc” while the country faced its worst crisis in decades, says Benjamin Parkin. This divergence of fortunes has been a global trend, but the “bullish mood” of India’s corporate titans, stockbrokers and investors – who sent the Nifty 50 index of the country’s largest companies to record highs this month – was “particularly incongruous given the collective trauma”. The consolidation of India’s fragmented economy, a process predating the pandemic, has only accelerated as big business has muscled aside smaller competitors; many have “ruthlessly controlled costs” by laying off workers. Foreign investors are pouring money into India’s banks, IT services and steelmakers – arguably a sign of “confidence in the future”. But there are surely “uncomfortable questions about how sustainable India Inc’s growth trajectory can be if it leaves so many in the country behind”.

We tend to have a pretty reductionist view of activist investors – of the sort currently laying siege to GlaxoSmithKline and the insurer Aviva, says Ben Wright. The reality is often “far more nuanced than the caricature of snarling corporate raiders” suggests. Indeed, today’s polite “barbarians at the gate” – many of whom style themselves as “anchor” investors – are just as likely “to wipe their feet on the way in” and push gently for “higher targets” than defenestrate the management or agitate for a breakup. But if the fearsome reputation of activists is often undeserved, it can nonetheless come in handy. “Executives and boards sit up and take notice when an activist appears on the shareholder register. As do other investors.” Indeed, sometimes that’s all it takes to get the share price motoring. Studies have also shown that the beneficial effect of activists is often contagious – the performance of other companies in the sector improves when one of their peers is targeted. “They count their blessings that it’s not them being raided”, and pull up their own socks “just in case”.

“The beat goes on. And so does Merck Mercuriadis,” says Patrick Hosking. The music industry mogul has just launched his seventh capital raising since the 2018 flotation of his songs fund, Hipgnosis – seeking to raise another £150m from investors, taking the total to £1.1bn. “The hype, as usual, is at 120 decibels.” Mercuriadis claims to have his eye on “some of the most influential and successful songs of all time” to boost an already 65,000-strong portfolio. He claims investors have enjoyed “a total net asset value return” of 40.7% over three years, but “this number should be treated with great care: the songs are worth what one consultant in New York says they are worth”; “it is leverage, rather than management talent” that is “juicing returns”. The success of the venture will be down to whether the maestro gets “his mushrooming catalogue streamed more often and placed in the soundtracks of more films”. That’s still up in the air. For Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis is “a one-way bet” – his private company is paid a percentage of the funds managed. Investors, sadly, “are not so protected”.

CITY 57 City profiles Sean Doyle Even before it began losing “£20m a day” during lockdown, BA’s fortunes had nosedived, said John Arlidge in The Sunday Times. Costcutting and shoddy service turned “the world’s favourite airline” into “Broken Airways”. Can the new captain fix it? Sean Doyle, 50, is revving the engines, but he faces a steep ascent. BA only avoided bankruptcy last year because it laid off 10,000 staff, and its parent, IAG, took on £10bn of debt.

A native of Cork, Doyle worked at BA for 22 years and became CEO of Aer Lingus in 2019, returning to BA as boss last October.

He is “a natural showman – an important quality for an airline boss”, and he wants to rediscover the airline’s “generosity”, with perks for customers. Let’s hope he can fly BA “back to the future”.

Andy Haldane

Convinced that “the beast of inflation” is stalking the land, the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane was expected to defy colleagues and vote for an interest rate rise this week.

It was his valedictory call, said The Observer. After 32 years, the “maverick” – who seems “as comfortable in the Guiseley Factory Workers Club as in the gilded corridors of Threadneedle Street” – is moving to a new post at The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Haldane backed the 2012 Occupy protests, and hit the headlines in the pandemic when he took on media pessimism, warning: “Now is not the time for Chicken Licken.” He’ll be missed for his breadth, curiosity and communication skills. “A return trip to the bank as governor ought not to be ruled out.”

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

NEAR 60% JOUR UNDE Sometimes th tool for the job

58% of car journeys in 2019 were under 5 miles.

Source: Department for Transport

Shares

CITY 59

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares

Directors’ dealings

Alphawave IP Group The Times Alphawave had a disappointing float. But its tech is used in AI chips and 5G infrastructure – and clients include a “hyperscale” cloud provider.

A tiddler set for growth as demand for fast data transmission rises. Buy. 316.5p.

Hill & Smith Investors Chronicle This road safety products and galvanising services provider is set to capitalise on rising global infrastructure spending. Product innovation, acquisitions and divestments should drive growth and margins. Buy. £14.86.

Sage Group The Sunday Telegraph Sage is transitioning to providing “software as a service” – hosted online in the cloud. It’s a tricky process, but shares should recover strongly thanks to loyal customers, and the 2.7% yield should improve.

Buy. 677p.

Asos

Bellway The Times The housebuilder has benefited from strong demand, boosted by low mortgage rates and the stamp duty holiday. But Covid variants bring uncertainty, and the cost of labour and materials is rising. One for the brave. Buy. £34. 85.

RWS The Daily Telegraph The market-leading intellectual property services specialist should continue to perform amid rising inflation, thanks to strong demand from tech firms.

Well-managed, and the chair has a vested interest with a 23.2% stake. Buy. 556.5p.

Treatt The Times Treatt sells naturally derived flavours and fragrances to food-makers and some of the world’s biggest drinks firms. A new factory will improve R&D facilities and boost production capacity. Huge growth potential. Buy. £11.40.

4,500

5,750 5,500 5,250 5,000 4,750

Director sells 29,558

Castings Investors Chronicle The iron-casting and machining group is seeing recovering demand in the automotive industry.

Production was hit by lockdown and raw material costs are up, yet it has increased its cash pile and held onto the divi. Hold. 382p.

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

CEO Nick Beighton has sold around £1.5m-worth of stock in the online fashion retailer, reducing his stake to around £7.4m. Shares have lost ground since their March high, but analyst forecasts remain strong.

…and some to hold, avoid or sell British American Tobacco The Daily Telegraph As more smokers switch to less harmful alternatives, BAT has upgraded profit forecasts. This should underpin cashflow, reduce debt and shore up the fat 7.8% yield. Value-hunters are circling. Hold. £27.96.

Feb

Form guide

Corbion The Times Sales of the Dutch food and biochemical firm’s natural preservatives rose in the pandemic. But growth in the polylactic acid arm, which makes biodegradable bioplastic for food packaging, may be unsustainable. Hold. s46.

TinyBuild The Sunday Times Best known for stealth horror game Hello Neighbor, the developer keeps costs low and uses social media influencers to market titles. A small player in a booming industry – but with its work cut out to justify the premium. Hold. 251p.

Halfords Group The Times The retailer has enjoyed soaring bicycle sales and rising profits. But cycle sales are inconsistent and Autocentre sales were suppressed during lockdown. Pushing into electric vehicles and car servicing.

Hold. 426.25p.

WH Smith Investors Chronicle Although the newsagent is well-run, lease negotiations and high-street footfall are uncertain, the balance sheet is worrying, and a return to global travel is “fiendishly hard to predict”. Shares have run ahead. Sell. £17.55.

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago Best tip Morgan Sindall Group The Times up 33.23% to £20.25 Worst tip Ricardo The Daily Telegraph down 10.9% to 407.2p

Market view “Even if bitcoin is going to change the world over the long-term, it does not mean it cannot fall back into the teens over the short-term.”

Matt Maley of Miller Tabak + Co. Quoted on Bloomberg

Market summary Key numbers for investors FTSE 100 FTSE All-share UK Dow Jones NASDAQ Nikkei 225 Hang Seng Gold Brent Crude Oil DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) UK 10-year gilts yield US 10-year Treasuries UK ECONOMIC DATA Latest CPI (yoy) Latest RPI (yoy) Halifax house price (yoy) £1 STERLING

22 Jun 2021 7090.01 4046.87 33887.51 14186.58 28884.13 28309.76 1775.05 74.76 2.96% 0.78 1.48

Best and worst performing shares Week before 7172.48 4083.20 34218.80 14080.15 29441.30 28638.53 1865.60 73.72 2.92% 0.76 1.50

2.1% (May) 3.3% (May) 9.5% (May)

$1.397 E1.172 ¥154.922

1.5% (Apr) 2.9% (Apr) 8.2% (Apr)

Change (%) –1.15% –0.89% –0.97% 0.76% –1.89% –1.15% –4.85% 1.41%

WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS RISES Price % change 269.90 +6.34 Sainsbury J. +5.20 Pershing Square (Lon) 2630.00 +4.85 London Stock Exchange 8220.00 1979.00 +4.74 Ocado Group +4.65 Flutter Entertainment 13955.00 FALLS Anglo American Standard Chartered Prudential Glencore Compass Group

Following the Footsie 7,200

7,000

6,800

2792.00 466.10 1435.00 307.60 1557.00

–6.90 –4.78 –4.43 –4.17 –4.13

FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER Morrison Supermarkets 237.80 421.60 Dr. Martens

+34.60 –15.50

Source: Datastream & FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 22 Jun (pm)

6,600

6,400

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

26 June 2021 THE WEEK

SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Jan

The last word

60

“Democratising the right to laziness”: the rise of grocery apps Companies that deliver groceries on-demand in as little as ten minutes are springing up all over the UK, and receiving millions in investment. But what might we lose by never popping out for milk again, asks Harry Wallop One Friday afternoon in May, Glenn Cobane, 40, who lives with his wife and two cats in Salford, did some grocery shopping: a loaf of bread, bananas, an avocado, cat food, chocolate brownies and some cans of beer. Rather than going to a nearby corner shop or walking a mile to the large Tesco Extra, he ordered from a new app called Weezy.

He placed the order at 2.19pm. “I just sent the order, typed an email and then it arrived,” he says.

It is 2.27pm and I’m standing on his doorstep beside the courier.

The idea is already popular in other countries. Getir, a Turkish company now in London, has “millions of people placing orders every month” in Turkish cities since its launch in 2015, according to Turancan Salur, Getir UK’s general manager. He says: “We are democratising the right to laziness.” Partly fuelled by the pandemic, millions more now shop for food online. In February 2020, only £7.40 of every £100 spent on groceries in the UK was bought online, according to Kantar, an industry research company.

By February this year, it was up to £15.40. A generation of change squeezed into a year.

Why not pop to Costcutter, which I can see from his “Betting on the lazy pound”: on-demand apps have flourished in the last year garden? “The app has a better selection. It has cat food and, more importantly, beer,” says “There has been significant growth from offline to online over the Cobane, laughing, pulling out cans of Marble, a local brew you last one-and-a-half years,” says Kristof Van Beveren, 38, a Belgian can’t get in the corner shop. “I plan to continue working from engineer who founded Weezy with former Oxford University Boat Race winner Alec Dent, 31. “Now there is a second move home, so I’ll be reliant on these services – it’s just a lot easier.”

Cobane works in construction and orders online from Tesco from online to on-demand.” Van Beveren speaks quickly as he and Dent show me around one of Weezy’s London warehouses. or Sainsbury’s once a fortnight, but frequently runs out of fresh food or beer. “I haven’t been inside an actual supermarket since Both wear pink sweatshirts branded with the company logo. “If you take European groceries, it’s a multitrillion dollar business,” October. I’m hoping to not go back for as long as possible.”

Because of Covid? “Because it’s boring, and it’s time-consuming, Van Beveren says. Isn’t it fanciful to think he could get a and, you know, I’ve been doing significant chunk of that it for 25 years.” He shrugs. “I market? “Not at all,” he “I haven’t been inside an actual supermarket says. “Groceries are universal: am embracing the future.” since October. It’s boring, it’s time-consuming, everyone has to eat. Your typical At least ten different on-demand start-up that pops up in and, you know, I’ve been doing it for 25 years” tech grocery companies have emerged London goes to a very small over the last year, with names audience: early adopters, that sound like Snow White’s other dwarves: Weezy, Jiffy, Dija, millennials. Our customers are all over, and range from 15 to Zapp, Fancy, Getir and Gorillas. All have bold, bright branding; 85 years old.” all hire young couriers riding e-bikes, bicycles or scooters; all promise to deliver “in minutes”. They rent mini-warehouses, Many users point out that a weekly shop requires planning. The mostly in London, but also Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, app doesn’t. Indeed, most of our food shopping isn’t planned.

Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. Established Kantar estimates that 63% of all our grocery shopping is what supermarkets are racing to capture the same market: both it calls a “basket shop” – a pack of biscuits at lunchtime, or a Sainsbury’s and Tesco are trialling rapid services. Despite existing top-up at the corner shop for milk and loo roll – rather than a big for only a few months, some of the new companies have raised weekly trip or planned online shopping. Could these start-ups get eye-popping sums from venture capital firms; one estimate puts all of that 63%? It’s highly unlikely, but, as Matt Botham, an investment at £9.8bn since the start of the pandemic. analyst at Kantar, says, “They are betting on the lazy pound.”

Dent, however, says it’s “a misconception” that the on-demand One investor, Ophelia Brown at Blossom Capital, says: “We think grocery business is just about selling beer and crisps to drunk Dija [a brand she has backed] could be worth £100bn.” (Tesco – people at 10pm. “In fact, 50% of what we sell is fresh.” The next founded in 1919 and with 4,500 stores around the world – is step is offering recipe suggestions for people to cook from scratch. worth £17bn. Dija started delivering groceries in March and has 24 stores.) She is not a lone fantasist – many believe the grocery One rival goes further in his ambition. “If I was to look back 100 industry is about to experience a revolution; one as transformative years, if you wanted water, most of the households in our country as when the Co-operative Society opened a self-service store in needed to take the bucket and go to the local water source,” says London in 1948, allowing shoppers to pick their own items off Vladimir Kholyaznikov, who was born in Belarus and is in the shelf, rather than wait for a grocer behind a counter.

London to set up Jiffy. “Now, you have pipes in your flat that THE WEEK 26 June 2021

The last word give you water on demand. Grocery delivery is going to duplicate that.” For now, his strategy is to target young adults with discounted ice cream using microinfluencers on Instagram. I visited his warehouse in a railway arch in Waterloo.

Jiffy’s neighbour is Getir. Around the back of the arches are Dija and Zapp. “The more competitors at the beginning, the better,” says Kholyaznikov. “It educates the customer that there is this alternative.”

61 however. “New entrants into the market might be a threat to them initially, but it’s unlikely to be the final nail in the coffin for corner shops because they have proven to be so resilient in the past.”

In Salford, most of the riders are young.

Sean Holehouse is 19, but has already worked for Amazon, a Kellogg’s factory and UberEats, which delivers restaurant food. “UberEats – you can only work when people are hungry: morning, dinner, tea. Here I’m paid by the hour.” He enjoys Currently, Jiffy has six UK stores. Other than a desk, the Waterloo one is a large the cycling, he says, but mostly he likes the chiller cabinet, a freezer and shelves pay. He estimates he earned £150 a week stocking about 900 different items. The working for UberEats, where he rode a pedal bike; now he gets to use Weezy’s range will soon expand to 1,500 – the same as a small Lidl. A large supermarket Will apps put the local corner shop out of business? e-bikes and is paid £10 an hour. “I got has 30,000. There are eight workers in the paid £650 for last week. The week before I got £480.” All the on-demand brands have decided to hire Jiffy store: four riders wearing acid-blue tops, two pickers, a shift supervisor and the manager. When an order arrives, a horn noise pickers and riders as proper employees, rather than gig-economy is sounded from the supervisor’s computer and the order is sent workers, mostly paying between £10 and £11 an hour. But how to an app on the picker’s phone, telling them the shelf location long can the companies afford to pay a premium above the of each item. They dash around with a trolley, putting the items supermarket industry, where entry-level jobs are at the minimum in a paper bag, before handing it over to the e-bike riders. wage: £6.56 for a 19-year-old, £8.91 for those over the age of 23?

Although Jiffy’s website promises “groceries in 15 minutes”, when While investors keep piling in, it’s not a given that these services you place an order you get an estimated delivery time, which can will make a profit. Supermarkets generate £3 or £4 of profit for be more than 20 minutes if you live far from the store. Josephine every £100 they sell, and have struggled to make online deliveries Henry, 19, a student and mother of eight-month-old Jaden, lives profitable due to the cost of the picking, delivering, and near Victoria station. She has ordered three tubs of Ben & Jerry’s, refrigerated vans. But analysts say, as with most tech start-ups, costing £8.22. Amused at being caught buying nothing more profit is not these apps’ immediate goal: “Build big, get a lot of than ice cream, she says Jiffy and Getir are often better value than customers, then focus on turning a profit a few years down the line,” says Thomas Brereton at GlobalData. Dark stores are a supermarket. For now, Jiffy is offering free delivery. Weezy charges £2.95, Zapp £1.99, but both offer free delivery on orders cheaper to rent than high-street premises, and on-demand over £30. Product prices tend to be mostly in line with Tesco customers seem to spend more per shop than they would in a convenience store. The strategy is: higher turnover per customer, Express or Sainsbury’s Local, which are 8-9% more expensive than a standard Tesco or Sainsbury’s. “Early in the morning, if lower costs per square foot.

I don’t have the energy to go to the shop or if Jaden is being Supermarkets are fully aware of “Corner shops have a place in people’s hearts the threat. Sainsbury’s started fussy and I have no one to go to the shop for me, I get it on because there is a recognisable face behind the Chop Chop, which delivers food the app. It’s just easier.” by bicycle within an hour for a counter when you go in to buy your milk” £4.99 fee, in 2017. A few weeks ago, Tesco announced its own There are many potential customers for whom popping to the local shops is difficult. Steve trial in Wolverhampton: Tesco Whoosh, with a hefty delivery O’Hear, 45, has recently joined Zapp as its head of strategy. He charge of £5 on orders over £15, £7 on smaller ones. Most, has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. “For me, when including Waitrose, Aldi, Co-op and Morrisons, have signed up you are disabled, doing things for yourself is super-empowering.” with Deliveroo, paying it an undisclosed cut of every order.

He was a big internet shopper already, but “a service that can fill the gaps between planned shopping is potentially a Last month I tried out the apps available in my neighbourhood in gamechanger”. “The purple pound is huge,” he adds, referring London and found most formidably slick. Dija and Weezy arrived to disabled people’s consumer spending. within 11 minutes. I am impressed enough that when my children complain about going up the road to get the next day’s breakfast, But could these apps cause a problem for shopkeepers on the and some chocolate as a reward, I tell them we’ll get it from an struggling British high street? It’s true that over the past year local app. I order on Getir, which warns me it is peak Friday evening stores did well. But 20 years ago, there were more than 55,000 and it could take 20 minutes. It takes 52. Waiting on my street in convenience shops in the UK; now there are fewer than 47,000. frustration, I meet a neighbour: Greg. By chance, he has ordered “It is a worry,” says Rav Garcha, 39, who runs five corner shops beer from Getir – we are waiting for the same rider. I ask why he in the Midlands, started by his father. He is not against internet hadn’t walked to our corner shop, run by Raj Patel, the closest we shopping – he started to do online deliveries from his shops have to a community leader. “I didn’t feel like leaving the house during the pandemic, signing up to a platform called Appy – it’s been a long week,” Greg laughs. “I do worry that having Shop that many local shops joined. But Garcha is nervous this level of convenience isn’t good for us,” he says. “Is it about competition from dark stores. “At the moment they are programming our brains to become really lazy?” Possibly. But warehouses, but what’s to stop them operating out of a garage, that laziness could fuel multibillion-pound fortunes for those or a front room, or a shed? That’s what I am really worried who end up winners in this race. If the fortunes are funded by about. It’s all just so faceless. Being a local business matters.” supermarket shoppers switching some of their spending, few will complain. But if it puts independent corner shops out of business, Babita Sharma is author of The Corner Shop, part history of the that’s a different matter. Next time the kids or I want chocolate, I convenience shop in Britain and part memoir about growing up think we’ll be wandering down the road for a catch-up with Raj. in one in Reading. “Corner shops have a place in people’s hearts because there is a recognisable face behind the counter every day A longer version of this article first appeared in The Guardian. when you go in to buy your pint of milk.” She is not pessimistic, © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited 26 June 2021 THE WEEK

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Crossword

63

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1266

This week’s winner will receive an T Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass E case (assorted colours), which retails c a at £105, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com).

An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 5 July.

Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1266, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) ACROSS 8 Italian actress has a little work in Muslim grouping (6) 9 I’m going to dole out discs (6-2) 10 Sounds like Barnet for a German (4) 11 Expect picture one’s seen backed in a new gallery (10) 12 Change grip on the camera?

One will do that (15) 14 Granny alongside little boy made more confused (7) 16 English poet protecting the old prominent lady (7) 19 Vindaloo and rice prepared for an Italian (8,2,5) 22 Journey restricted by insubstantial illumination (5,5) 24 Announced legal orders for hotel (4) 25 Italian noble parades with head of army (8) 26 Prime Minister endlessly in the country (6)

DOWN 1 Source of cracks that can bring down the house (8) 2 Prince not up for a lively dance (10) 3 Wine festival coming up in Massachusetts (6) 4 Could be Victoria’s position in life (7) 5 Agreement with old Emperor perhaps (8) 6 Fine cut not a success (4) 7 Double energy needed on article for German scholar (6) 13 Prime Minister and team said to get fine wine (7,3) 15 Large car right away entering Close to get registered (8) 17 French city links showing refinement (8) 18 Kirk in northern capital (7) 20 Catch business associate, almost shown up (6) 21 Girl coming from a short walk (6) 23 Small amount of plain chocolate (4)

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Name Address

Clue of the week: It’s not true love, just a bit of passion in the van (6, first letter P) The Sunday Times Clue Contest winner, Ross Harrison Solution to Crossword 1264 ACROSS: 1 Manchester City 9 Scrolls 10 Debater 11 Psalm 12 Ignorance 13 Rearrange 15 Macon 16 Packs 18 Miserable 20 Idolaters 23 Atrip 24 Tremolo 25 Tbilisi 26 Double entendre DOWN: 1 Misappropriate 2 Nirvana 3 Hallmarks 4 Sushi 5 Endangers 6 Caber 7 Titanic 8 Free enterprise 14 Number one 15 Marcasite 17 Close to 19 Berried 21 A bomb 22 Sit-in Clue of the week: Joiner employed in B&Q (9, first letter A) Solution: AMPERSAND The winner of 1264 is Miss E. White from Bridgnorth The Week is available from RNIB Newsagent for the benefit of blind and partially sighted readers. 0303-123 9999, rnib.org.uk/newsagent Sudoku 808 (medium)

3 7 2 3 7 8 9

4 3 6 9

5 2 8

1 2 6

4 5 8 9

2 8

4 1

Fill in all the squares so that each row, column and each of the 3x3 squares contains all the digits from 1 to 9

Solution to Sudoku 807

3 5 2 8 4 1 7 9

8 9 1 2 7 6 4 3

8 6 4

7 4 6 3 9 5 8 1 2

4 1 7 5 8 9 2 6

5 6 3 1 2 4 9 8

2 8 9 6 3 7 5 4 1

1 7 8 9 5 3 6 2

9 3 4 7 6 2 1 5

6 2 5 4 1 8 3 7 9

Charity of the week FoodCycle connects communities by bringing people together to share food and conversation.

Week in, week out, thousands of volunteers across the country transform surplus food into healthy, delicious meals for anyone that needs them, no questions asked.

Food poverty and loneliness are growing issues, both heightened by the recent pandemic. By offering a safe, welcoming space to enjoy a free meal and company, FoodCycle brings people from all backgrounds and walks of life together, improving mental well-being and strengthening community spirit.

FoodCycle also runs a free Check-in and Chat telephone service, where volunteers make weekly calls to anyone in need of a natter. To find your nearest location or to volunteer, visit foodcycle.org.uk.

Tel no Clue of the week answer:

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