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The Nobel peace prize winner speaks exclusively to Christina Lamb

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No 9,918 | october 12, 2014 | thesundaytimes.co.uk

GRANT FALVEY

Colleges on alert for ebola students

Gleeful Ukip ‘on course for 25 MPs’

Sian Griffiths and James Gillespie UNIVERSITIES are on full alert over the return of 20,000 students from ebola-stricken countries who may have been at risk of contracting the deadly virus.

They have drawn up plans to monitor some of the highest-risk students — particularly those who may be sharing bathrooms or kitchens — for up to three weeks, the maximum incubation period for the virus.

Cleaners are being warned to watch for symptoms of the disease such as signs of blood or vomit in the students’ bedrooms and are also being alerted to the risks of infection from contact with bodily fluids.

The universities are sensitive to potential discrimination or isolation of the students and are stressing the risks are minimal.

About 20,000 students from west African nations that have been hit by ebola are studying at British universities. They include Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the three countries worst affected. Most — around 17,000 — are from Nigeria, where the outbreak is said to have been contained.

Yesterday the government held an eighthour national exercise to test the readiness of the NHS to deal with an ebola case being diagnosed in Britain. Actors played potential victims and scenarios included a person collapsing in a shopping centre in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, and another presenting with flu-like symptoms at a walk-in medical centre in Hillingdon, west London.

Samples were taken from the “victims” and sent for testing at Porton Down, the government’s chemical and biological defence establishment in Wiltshire.

Those found to be “positive” for the virus were transferred to the specialist isolation treatment centre at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, and Public Continued on page 2 uu

Voters say Miliband nearly as bad as Foot Tim Shipman POLITICAL EDITOR

“We had a chat about” the MP “coming over”, he said.

“It’s looking very promising.”

The senior party figure added: “It’s not impossible that we could have as many seats as the Lib Dems after the next election.”

Lord Ashcroft, the Tory peer and pollster, highlighted a list of Ukip’s top 25 targets and said itcouldsweeptheboardifitcan triumph at the Rochester and Strood by-election, where the Tory defector Mark Reckless is seeking re-election.

“I do not think you can discount any possibility if Reckless wins,” he said. “It is extremely fluid at the moment.

It depends on how Labour and the Tories react.”

BothPeterKellnerofYouGov and the elections expert Colin Rallings said current polling data suggested that Ukip could take 10-12 seats — more than double the estimates a month ago. John Curtice of Strathclyde University said he could

only “begin to believe in 25 seats” if Ukip could “get their national vote share above 20%”. Today’s YouGov poll puts it on 16%.

The prospect of a Labour MP joining Carswell and Reckless will pile pressure on Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, to change his approach to Ukip and immigration. Labour came within 617 votes of losing Heywood and Middleton, one of its northern strongholds.

A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times today finds that voters think Miliband is as bad a Labour leader as Michael Foot, who suffered the party’s worst election defeat in 1983, and worse than Gordon Brown and Neil Kinnock. By a margin of nine to one they think Labourwouldbebetteroffwith a different leader. Labour voters agree by a margin of 46% to 13%. Last night Brian Wilson, the Labour former trade minister, rounded on Continued on page 2 uu

Ukip leader Nigel Farage campaigns yesterday in Rochester, where Mark Reckless hopes to score his party’s second by-election win

UKIP is on course to win up to 25 seats at the next election and could even eclipse the Liberal Democrats, according to an internal analysis of private polling data leaked to The Sunday Times.

A senior Ukip figure said party bosses believe the results of the Clacton and Heywood and Middleton by-elections last week have shown Ukip is “competitive”intwiceasmany seats as they had previously thought and the party will now target 25 instead of 12 seats.

As Ukip’s ambitions rise, the party’s first elected MP revealed last night that it was close to persuading a Labour MP to defect. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Douglas Carswell said he was called the morning after his landslide victory in Clacton by a Labour MP who wanted to discuss changing parties.

Nobel laureate Malala frets about her GCSEs

UK troops back in Iraq to help Kurds beat Isis

Christina Lamb SHE may have won the Nobel peace prize but Malala Yousafzai’s main preoccupation now is her GCSE exams. She is worried about the lessons she will miss to collect the award.

Not that she has lost her sense of fun. The voice answering the phone yesterday was familiar. The message was not: “Hello, this is the Nobel laureate!” Then Malala burst into a fit of teenage giggles.

The 17-year-old spent her first evening as the youngest Nobel laureate at home in Birmingham with her parents

watching Pakistani television.

“I had caught a cold and wasn’t feeling so good,” she said.

Messages poured in from all over the world for the Pakistani girl who two years ago was critically ill after being shot in the head by the Taliban for standing up for the right of girls to go to school.

“I’m feeling really honoured and happy,” she said.

“People’s love really helped me recover from the shooting andbestrongsoIwanttodoall I can to contribute to society.”

Aware that she might win the Nobel prize, she had arranged for a teacher to come

into her chemistry class after 10am on Friday once it had been announced.

“We were learning about electrolysis of copper. I don’t have a mobile phone so my teacher had said she’d come if there was news. It got to 10.15 and she hadn’t come in so I thought: oh well, I didn’t win.

I’m really young and I’m just at the beginning of my work.”

Then the teacher appeared a few minutes later and told her the news.

“I think my teachers were more excited than me. Their smiles were bigger than mine.

I just went to my physics lesson,” Malala said.

Disability car boss nets £1m bonus MPs have called for an inquiry into the pay of Mike Betts. The head of Motability Operations, a nonprofit firm providing cars for the disabled, was paid £1m in bonuses and benefits last year, taking his total pay past £1.5m.

The Sunday Times has previously exposed lax controls over abuses of the scheme.

Full story, page 4

Mark Hookham DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

BRITISH troops returned to Iraq this weekend to help the Kurds in their desperate fight against Isis, more than five years after the British Army withdrew from the country.

Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment will teach peshmerga fighters how to fire the powerful British-supplied L1A1 12.7mm heavy machinegun, The Sunday Times can reveal.

They will carry out their training mission near the city of Erbil in northern Iraq, about 30 miles from the front line

with Isis, the terrorist group also known as Islamic State.

Defence officials hope the instructors will help the Kurds repel the jihadist fighters, who have continued to advance in some areas of Iraq despite nine weeks of coalition airstrikes.

It comes after General Lord Richards, the former head of the defence staff, warned that Isis would never be defeated by air attacks alone and that western governments were wrong to rule out sending their own ground troops.

The deployment will, however, fuel fears of “mission creep” and concerns that British “boots on the ground”

are increasingly getting dragged into the conflict. The training mission will join a small UK military reconnaissance team, which has already Continued on page 2 uu WEATHER LETTERS CROSSWORD TV&RADIO

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Lib Dems needle Tories over drugs lions of pounds if users are treated for addiction, rather than being sent to prison.

It highlights the potential benefits of the Portuguese drugs regime, where possession for personal use is not a crime. The report’s authors spent more than a year working on it.

Those people found in possession of a small amount of drugs in Portugal are referred for treatment, while others receive fines or community service, but do not gain a criminal record.

The overall level of drug use in Portugal is below the European average and rates of HIV among drugs users have also declined.

In the UK cannabis is classified as a class B drug, possession of which is punishable by up to five years in prison. The possession of cocaine, ecstasy, crack, heroin and LSD is

Marie Woolf WHITEHALL EDITOR

DOWNING STREET has been accused by the Liberal Democrats of suppressing a Home Office report which suggests there would be benefits in decriminalising the possession of drugs for personal use.

Norman Baker, the Lib Dem Home Office minister responsible for drugs policy, accused the Tories of “playing politics” with the report because the conclusions could upset traditional Conservative voters.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has also weighed into the row, saying he will force David Cameron to publist the report.

The study, which was completed in July, suggests the liberalisation of Britain’s narcotics laws would not boost drug use and could save mil-

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punishable with up to seven years in prison.

Two years ago the Commons home affairs committee called for a royal commission on drugs policy and said it was “impressed” by the Portuguese system. But the government rejected its proposals as “not necessary”.

The study also cites the Czech Republic where the possession of a small amount of drugs is considered a misdemeanour and is punished by a caution or a fine. Possession of larger quantities can lead to a prison sentence.

Baker believes drug use should be treated as a health issue and wants the drugs portfolio to be transferred from the Home Office, which deals with criminal matters, to the Department of Health.

The Home Office report is also believed to set out the benefits of prescribing cannabis for medicinal purposes for people with certain longterm chronic conditions.

Drug liberalisation campaigners said decriminalisation could cut crime and called for Britain to treat drug use as a health problem.

Danny Kushlick, of the Transform drug policy foundation, said: “The evidence showing the benefits of replacing criminalisation with a health-based approach to drug use is overwhelming.

Criminalisation kills — by maximising the harms associated with drug use.

“Decriminalisation improves the lives of some of the

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most vulnerable people in our communities and reallocates millions of pounds of expenditure towards life-saving initiatives. The UK should follow the evidence and follow the Portuguese as a matter of urgency.”

A second Home Office report is understood to propose tough new laws to stop the sale of legal highs in so-called “head shops”. The over-the-counter highs contain chemical substances that produce similar effects to illegal drugs.

It is believed to advocate banning synthetic psychoactive substances, except those for medicinal use. The number of deaths linked to legal highs rose from 10 in 2009 to more than 68 in 2012.

The government has banned many legal highs but manufacturers get around the curbs by producing new products with slightly different chemical formulae.

Last year 81 new legal highs were identified across the European Union.

Maryon Stewart, whose daughter died after taking a legal high, accused the Conservatives of “political posturing” in delaying the report.

She set up the Angelus Foundation which campaigns against legal highs.

The Tories are expected to accept the proposals on combatting legal highs but to block any attempt to liberalise drug laws. A Downing Street source said both reports would be published “in due course”.

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Staff at Hillingdon Hospital in west London take part in an exercise yesterday to test the NHS’s ability to cope with an ebola outbreak

Fears of backlash against African students Health England organised the tracing of movements and contacts.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, chaired a simulated meeting of the Cobra emergency committee. He said: “This is an extremely useful exercise and I feel doubly reassured that we have robust plans in place in the event that we get an ebola case in the UK. We will evaluate what went well and what we need to improve.”

He is due to make a statement to the Commons tomorrow detailing the plans for airport checks at Heathrow and Gatwick and at the Eurostar terminals on passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea after the government was accused of turning the tests into a “shambles”.

Passengers will fill in a ques-

tionnaire and there will be a triage process involving trained medical staff who will administer temperature checks if there are any grounds for concern. Passengers could then be referred for further tests. It is not known when the tests will begin but it is likely to be “within a few days”.

At Exeter University 200 students from at-risk countries are returning this term. A group of university officers is monitoring accommodation arrangements, “in particular shared room and shared bathroom situations”.

Fay Sherrington, student services manager at Lancaster University, said “most universities are making sure cleaners are briefed on the risks. They have more chance of coming into contact with bodily fluids because they are cleaning

Farage: More MPs will defect Miliband, comparing him to Foot and saying the party may regret winning the by-election “because these 617 votes kept Ed in a job”.

He compared Heywood and Middleton to the Darlington by-election a few months before the 1983 general election. “Michael Foot’s leadership of the Labour party hung upon it. Labour won by a few hundred votes, Michael Foot remained as leader and catastrophe ensued. It may be that Heywood and Middleton will be looked back on as Ed Miliband’s Darlington.”

Miliband’s MPs broke cover last night to denounce his immigration policy as a “diet of gruel” that amounts to “delusion on a grand scale”.

In a fresh blow to Miliband, the former home secretary Alan Johnson has made it clear that he will resist fresh overturesfromMilibandtoreturnto the political front line before the election. In an interview in News Review today, Johnson, who served briefly as Miliband’s shadow chancellor, says he “hated” being on the front bench in opposition and indicates that he would turn down requests to help.

Asked if he could return before May, he says: “No and he won’t ask me to because I’ve made it perfectly clear to him. I left and he knows I’m not coming back. Ed knows exactly how I feel about it.”

A senior Ukip figure said the party “should win” at least five seats next year: Carswell’s Clacton constituency; South Thanet, where Nigel Farage is running;Thurrock;Bostonand Skegness; and Great Yarmouth, where Ukip’s strong showing in council elections threatens Brandon Lewis, the housing minister.

Ukip also “ought to win” a further batch of seats where internal polling and demographics suggest it is a contender. These include Tory seats in Kent and Essex, plus Rotherham, Rother Valley, Great Grimsby, Dudley North

and Plymouth Moor View — all being defended by Labour. The left-wing Fabian Society says Ukip has put 16 Labour seats at risk.

The Tories will this week fire the starting gun on the next

MP quits over sexts

Newmark: second scandal

Brooks Newmark, the Tory MP who quit as a minister after a “sexting” scandal, is to stand down from parliament after being caught sending pictures of his genitals to a second woman.

Newmark, 56, wrote to David Cameron last night announcing he would quit at the general election next May “to try to heal the hurt” he has caused to his family.

The married father of five left his post as minister for civil society last month after he exchanged explicit pictures with a reporter posing as a Tory PR woman.

Last night it emerged he had sent a series of lewd photographs of his genitals to another woman too. He said: “I have no one to blame but myself and take full responsibility for my own actions.”

uu Continued from page 1

bathrooms in residences.” A big concern among university officials is that African students will be shunned or even attacked by people afraid of the risk they pose.

“We would be concerned if there could be a backlash against African students. That is something we would be worrying about,” said an officer at Exeter University.

At Cardiff University staff are being told to isolate students complaining of ebolalike symptoms before calling a health team.

At University College London, students are being advised if they develop headache, diarrhoea or vomiting within three weeks of arriving back in the UK that they should call the emergency services.

The move follows growing fears in western nations of

uu Continued from page 1 showdown with Ukip by announcing that the Rochester and Strood by-election will be held towards the end of November. That gives the Conservatives longer than usual to overhaul Reckless’s poll lead.

Carswell and Farage campaigned yesterday in Rochester. Farage predicted further defections: “There are a growing number of people on the back benches for both parties who are upset with their leaderships. I do think there will be more people who come across.”

Hours earlier, John Baron, the Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay, refused to rule out jumping ship. Asked if he might defect, he told BBC Newsnight: “You should never say never in politics.”

Cameron will launch his party’s campaign when he visits Rochester this week. In a meeting with Tory MPs on Tuesday, the prime minister will promise to outline tough new measures on immigration in the coming weeks.

When Miliband addresses Labour MPs tomorrow he will also say that immigration is one of his priorities for the next month alongside the NHS and the economy. “We are going to be stressing that we have a credibleofferonimmigration,” a source close to Miliband said.

But Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead, said Miliband had failed to connect his cost-ofliving campaign to the downward pressure on wages caused by immigration. “Our alternative on immigration might have worked in 1997,” he said. “The ideathatthedietofgruelthey’re offering up on immigration is going to satisfy voters today is a delusion on a grand scale.”

Carswell also turned up the pressure on Cameron by supporting calls for an election pact between Ukip and the Conservative party, as several Tory MPs said they had already forged “non-aggression pacts” with Ukip locally.

My first day as a Ukip MP, pages 8-9

“imported ebola” cases from Africa. A US study modelling the progress of the virus rated Britain behind only America and France as western nations most likely to import cases.

Alessandro Vespignani, one of the authors, said the UK could see one or two cases in October or November.

In Macedonia health authorities confirmed that the death of British businessman Colin Jaffray, 58, from Royston, Cambridgeshire, was not from the ebola virus, as first feared.

The World Health Organisation this weekend released updated figures showing the number of deaths attributed to ebola had risen to 4,033. The vast majority of the fatalities — 4,024 — were in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. @siangriffiths6

Back in Iraq uu Continued from page 1 been on the ground for several weeks and has been helping to unload weapons and plan what future assistance could be provided by the UK. Both teams will be guarded by an unknown number of British soldiers providing “force protection”.

British special forces are also believed to be in the region as part of efforts to find the Isis gang that has beheaded four hostages, including the Britons David Haines and Alan Henning.

The 2 Yorks regiment instructors will not provide any training or advice on the front line after David Cameron ruled out committing combat troops.

Peshmerga units have found themselves outgunned on the battlefield after Isis captured vast stocks of heavy weaponry from the shattered Iraqi army.

Britain has flown 61 tons of machineguns and ammunition to the Kurds as part of its 220-ton deliveries of military equipment. The L1A1 can fire up to 635 rounds a minute at a range of more than a mile and can be mounted on vehicles.

The government is also considering helping a US-led effort to train about 15,000 fighters from the moderate Syrian opposition as part of the campaign against Isis. It is believed a significant number of British troops could eventually be deployed across the region to help train Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, but large numbers are unlikely to return to Iraq.

RAF C130 aircraft have made 27 flights delivering equipment to Kurdish fighters including sleeping bags and body armour.

‘Turkey supports Isis. How can we flee there?’, page 29

12.10.14 / 3 DANIEL DEME/CAMERA PRESS/PA

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Harris in new sex abuse claims James Gillespie

Cheryl and Ashley Cole split after four years, as did Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar, left.

Charles and Diana’s marriage lasted for 15 years

Economists have found that the more lavish a wedding, the shorter the marriage is likely to be, writes Nicholas Hellen IT HAS become the social norm: a lavish wedding held at a luxury venue adorned with flowers and awash with champagne; the loving couple spending like there is no tomorrowwhentheirmarriage is supposed to last for ever.

A scientific study, however, has found that a big wedding is one of the quickest ways to the divorce courts. Spending too

much on creating your dream day reduces the chances of long-term happiness, according to economists who have published their findings in the wake of the four-day extravaganzaofthemarriageofGeorge Clooney, the Hollywood star.

The verdict provides an uplifting message for true romantics, but strikes a blow at a wedding industry that has

pushed the cost of the average nuptials to more than £18,000 and leaves many newlyweds starting married life in debt.

The wedding of Clooney and Amal Alamuddin reached an estimated cost of £8m as they whisked 150 guests around Venice. The rapper Kanye West and his bride, Kim Kardashian, spent a similar amount on their wedding in Florence in May. Kardashian should know better. Her previous nuptials with Kris Humphries, a basketball star, cost an estimated £6m for a marriage that lasted 72 days.

When Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar wed in 2007 it took eight days, starting at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire before moving to a palace in India. It cost £1.5m. The marriageendedafterfouryears in a quickie divorce .

Cheryl and Ashley Cole split four years after their wedding: the picture rights reportedly fetched a seven-figure sum.

In the words of two economists who claim to have conducted the first statistical analysis comparing wedding spending with the longevity of the marriage: “We find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony.”

They found that women whose weddings cost $20,000 (£12,450) or more were 3½ times more likely to end up divorced than those who spent $5,000 to $10,000.

The research, by Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was based on a sample of 3,150 people and has been

published by the Social Science Research Network.

The economists have also demolished the advertising slogan created for De Beers in the late 1930s that “a diamond is forever”. The company updated the campaign in the 1980s to: “Isn’t two months’ salary a small price to pay for something that lasts forever?”

In reality, men who spent $2,000 to $4,000 on an engagement ring were 1.3 times more likely to end up divorced than those who spent $500 to $2,000.

Lady Diana Spencer’s engagement ring consisted of 14 solitaire diamonds surroundinga12-caratovalblueCeylon sapphire set in 18-carat white gold. Her marriage to Prince Charles in 1981 is believed to have been the world’s most

expensive — £65m in today’s money — but the supposed “fairytale romance” ended in divorce after 15 years.

Why did we fall for the hype? The economists blame the wedding industry which “commodified love and romance”. They observe: “In 1959, Brides [the American wedding magazine] recommended that couples set aside two months to prepare for their wedding and published a checklistwith22tasksforthem to complete. By the 1990s the magazine recommended 12 months of wedding preparations and published a checklist with 44 tasks to complete.”

Susanna Abse, chief executive of the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, based in London, believes couples who go over the top to create a

“perfect” day may be aware of an underlying problem in their relationship. “However much you have spent, when it’s over it’s just the two of you in the relationship,” Abse said.

One who decided that all you need is love is the actress Keira Knightley. At her marriage to the musician James Righton last year, there were 11 guests at the ceremony at a town hall in the south of France and the newlyweds were driven away in a Renault Clio. @nicholashellen

ST DIGITAL The most extravagant celebrity weddings Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

MORE than 10 new victims have come forward claiming they had been sexually abused by Rolf Harris, according to a source close to the police investigation.

Some of the claims relate to abuse in Australia and New Zealand as well as in Britain. It is understood that many of the victims were under age, meaning Harris could face new charges.

Operation Yewtree in London is looking at the British cases but any that took place abroad would be handled by the local police.

The disgraced entertainer, 84, was jailed in June for five years and nine months for 12 indecent assaults on four girls between 1969 and 1986.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Orchard of the Metropolitan police said some new claims had been made during the course of the trial.

Mark Williams-Thomas, the former detective who was contacted by one of the original Harris victims, said: “These new allegations are very serious in nature and could mean that Harris will face more charges.”

NEWS

4 GETTY

Disability firm chief nets £1m bonus Driving force

Jon Ungoed-Thomas THE chief executive of a company operating a charitable scheme that provides cars for the disabled was paid more than £1m in bonuses and benefits last year on top of his basic salary.

MPs last night questioned why Mike Betts, the chief executive of Motability Operations, received bonuses totalling £911,915 for operating the car fleet for people on disability benefits when it is a not-forprofit company and has no competitors. He was also given a £125,000 payment in lieu of pension.

The company is contracted by the Motability charity and provides 630,000 vehicles for disabled people, including veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is funded through disability benefit payments of £1.8bn paid to claimants who choose to use the money for the scheme.

MPs have called for an inquiry into Betts’s annual pay package, which has exceeded £1.5m.

John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, who has examined the scheme’s finances, described Betts’s remuneration as scandalous because the company had a captive market and no competition.

“There is no basis for any bonus at all. This money could be better spent on the disabled.

It is an unreasonable and unfair amount of money to be paid,” he said.

Stephen Barclay, the Conservative MP for North East Cambridgeshire, said: “It is difficult to justify a pay packet which is many times greater than that of the prime minister for the chief executive of a notfor-profit company providing cars for the disabled.”

Betts, 52, was paid a basic salary of £501,900 in the year to September 2013. The annual report for the period reveals he received a standard performance bonus of £245,850 and a

The Motability car fleet is the biggest fleet operator in Europe and accounts for one in 10 cars sales in the UK Cars removed from customers because of abuse of scheme

1,557

Motability abused

Mike Betts, chief executive of Motability Operations

638,605

2013-14

Size of car fleet

long-term incentive payment of £666,065. This long-term bonus is based on high levels of customer satisfaction, excellent business culture, lease affordability and renewal levels.

He also received unspecified benefits of £24,444. He has a third bonus scheme but it did not pay out last year.

Details of Betts’s pay packet have emerged as the government implements reforms that mean tens of thousands of disabled people will lose their entitlement to vehicles.

Anyone receiving the higher rate of the disability living allowance for impaired mobility can use it to pay for a Motability car.

The money is transferred directly from the Department

forWorkandPensionstoMotability Operations.

Motability vehicles are exempt from VAT and tax on insurance premiums under special arrangements for the scheme. Motability has proved a boon for the car industry, accounting for about one in

TANK BOY

every 10 cars bought in this country. It also acts as a significant source of vehicles for the second-hand market.

The Motability charity was founded in 1977 with all-party support and has since provided more than 3.5m cars, scooters and powered wheelchairs to

BRAD PITT SPILLS THE BEANS ON MARRIAGE AND HIS GORY NEW WAR FILM FURY CULTURE

1,536

2012-13

1,103

2011-12

829

2010-11

664

2009-10

help disabled people. Motability Operations, which has offices in London and Bristol, was set up as a separate company to run the scheme and is owned by the major UK banks.

It has an annual turnover of £3.5bn and provides the largest fleet of vehicles in Europe.

An investigation by The Sunday Times in June 2011 exposed how the scheme was being abused by some claimants. It came amid concerns among some in Whitehall that the scheme had “mushroomed out of control”.

The investigation highlighted lax checks on relatives and friends of claimants using the cars for their own benefit.

Sources at the Motability charity say the investigation actedasa“wake-upcall”andit

628,644 610,635 575,703 540,351

has since implemented a series of changes to prevent abuse.

These include placing GPS trackers on some cars to ensure they are being used within the rules. Nominated drivers of the vehicle must also now live withinfivemilesofthedisabled person.

The number of allegations of abuses of the scheme rose from 5,869 in 2009-10 to 11,466 in 2013-14. More than 1,500 agreements were cancelled in 2013-14 after investigations into abuses, compared with 664 in 2009-10.

It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people currently eligible for Motability cars will no longer be able to get a vehicle with the replacement of the disability living allowance by the personal independence

payment, which has stricter criteria for eligibility.

Motability will provide a payment of £2,000 to those who lose their entitlement to help them buy a vehicle outside the scheme.

Lord Sterling, the chairman and co-founder of the Motability charity, responding on Betts’sbehalf,said:“MikeBetts is one of the most able executives I have ever come across.

He is worth every penny he is paid. He runs Motability Operations with extremely high service levels which provide empathy and support for its disabled customers well beyond the norm.”

Neil Johnson, chairman of Motability Operations, said: “Mike Betts is an outstanding [chief executive officer] who

The Motability scheme has been a lifeline for the disabled, but has also attracted adverse publicity for abuses.

Sabah Abdulla, an Iraqi, used his £18,000 Motability car as a getaway vehicle for a burglary at a phone shop in Gloucester. He was jailed for 10 months in January.

Rizwan Arshad, 33, from Bradford, who was jailed last month for a £300,000 drugs plot, was driven around by associates in his Motability BMW. Keith Jones, a Welsh boxing champion, used his Motability car to drive to fights. He did not realise he was no longer entitled to it after his asthma improved.

has succeeded in leading Motability Operations over the last decade transforming the culture to achieve consistently high rates of customer satisfaction and value for money.

“The Motability scheme is unique. I and my board believe an exceptional chief executive is required to continue to ensure the business succeeds in achieving the scale and discipline needed to meet the distinctive needs of disabled people.”

The Queen is the chief patron of the charity. Other patrons include David Cameron, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and Iain Duncan Smith, the works and pensions secretary. @jonungoedthomas

BILL CROSS/KHUE BUI/DAVE CAULKIN

12.10.14 / 5 Bojan Pancevski HELMUT KOHL, the former German chancellor, has accused Margaret Thatcher of falling asleep during meetings.

“She would doze off during summits and would then nearly fall off her chair, clutching her handbag,” Kohl recalled during extensive interviews with a journalist.

The content of more than 600 hours of recorded conversations, including criticism of Prince Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh, has emerged in Legacy: The Kohl Protocols, a book that has sold more than 100,000 copies in Germany.

Kohl, who served as chancellor from 1982 to 1998, wanted the journalist Heribert Schwan to ghostwrite his memoirs but abandoned the project in 2002. A court forced Schwan to return the tapes but he made transcripts first and decided to publish without Kohl’s permission.

While Kohl wrote in his subsequentmemoirsthatThatcher “always gave me headaches”, he praised her passion and honesty.

One of the Iron Lady’s biographers later described how Kohl had served Thatcher his favourite dish of pig’s stomach with sausage and sauerkraut, prompting his British counterpart to complain to her aides that he was “so German”.

It was not their only clash over food. On another occasion, after Kohl had excused himself from a meeting by saying he needed to return to his office, Thatcher spotted him in a teashop scoffing cream cakes.

In one conversation with Schwan, Kohl tells how, during asummitin1988,henegotiated his way round Thatcher’s opposition to the removal of short-range nuclear missiles from Germany.

“Margaret, forget about the federal chancellor for a moment, I speak to you as Helmut Kohl,” he said before describing how his brother and his uncle died during the Second World War. Touched by his words, George H W Bush, the then US vice-president, sided with Kohl and even held up a card on which he had written: “A fine speech, Helmut.”

By contrast, Kohl appears

Fettes teaches pupils to ‘beditate’ Marc Horne

Sleeping duty

One-track mind

We are not amused

In taped interviews, the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, inset, claims that Margaret Thatcher fell asleep during summits

Kohl says dealing with the former president Bill Clinton was hard because his mind was on Monica Lewinsky

The former chancellor was also critical of the royal family, describing the Duke of Edinburgh as ‘a blockhead’

The lady’s not for waking: Maggie ‘dozed off’ on the job sympathetic to the former British prime minister John Major, who fought a long-running battle with his backbenchers over Europe.

“I just said to myself, ‘I’d like to call John Major now to wish him a good day and say something friendly,’” he recalled.

“Then I told him, ‘I’m happy to hear your voice’. I knew that other people were not always having an easy time.”

Kohl, who failed in his attempt to obtain an injunction preventing publication of the book, criticises the behaviour of Prince Philip, who he describes as “a blockhead”, and while he found Charles to be “entirely friendly” was

unimpressedbyhismarriageto Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

“Her marriage was an absolutely idiotic affair,” he told Schwan. “Had she become queen immediately she would have done her bit in bed, created three princes and her duty to the nation would have been fulfilled. But like this she had to travel around, talk to mayors and so on and then she withered away.”

While Kohl enjoyed the company of Bush, who went on to become president, and in particular his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, he said he found dealing with Bill Clinton, who became US leader in 1993, more difficult.

Commenting on Clinton’s affair with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Kohl expressed concern that the American president was not focusing on the civil war in Bosnia because he had been “fiddling with her [Lewinsky’s] knickers and now the whole world was only interested in those knickers”.

He compliments Reagan in the face of criticism about his perceived limited intellect.

“Everyone thought he was a half-witted man, an actor . . . [but] he was right in the way he dealt with [Leonid] Brezhnev [the former Soviet leader],” Kohl told Schwan.

“He simply made it plain to him, ‘If you arm yourselves, we will also arm ourselves. And then you will go bust because you can’t keep up economically.’”

Kohl also defends the record of the former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who he believed had been unfairly overshadowed by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.

Recalling how he and Yeltsin were served caviar and vodka by two KGB agents at a sauna beside a Siberian lake, he said: “Drunk, he [Yeltsin] was a greater man than the sober ones.”

He argues that Gorbachev’s decision to embrace the West

was fuelled more by pragmatism than ideology.

“Gorbachev went through the books and he saw that he was in deep shit and that he could not support the regime any longer,” Kohl said.

Some of Kohl’s harshest criticism is reserved for his successors as chancellor. Three years after Gerhard Schröder succeeded him in 1998 Kohl said: “Nothing will become of him. In a few years’ time he will go for the big money.”

Schröder is presently chairman of Nord Stream AG, the gas-pipeline giant, and global manager of the investment bank Rothschild.

Kohl also comments that

Angela Merkel, the current chancellor and his protégée, was once so awkward “she couldn’t use a knife and fork”.

After retiring from politics in 2002 Kohl found himself embroiled in a scandal over donations to his conservative Christian Democratic Union party. He now leads a secluded life after an accident left him almost paralysed in 2008.

Defending the publication of the book, co-author Tilman Jens said: “These recordings reveal that, contrary to popular belief, Kohl is a man with a sense of humour. The passages about the royals are particularly amusing.” @bopanc

IT IS known as “the Eton of the north” and for instilling its pupils, who have included Tony Blair and the actress Tilda Swinton, with traditional values.

But now pupils at Fettes College in Edinburgh are learning to meditate to help to tackle the stresses of academic life.

A key part of the unconventional classes is “beditation” where youngsters bring pillows and duvets and learn how best to drift off to sleep in noisy dormitories.

Alongside maths, English and history, pupils aged 13 and over receive a weekly lesson in “mindfulness”, following a course drawn up by Jon Kabat-Zinn, an American molecular biologist.

Deborah Spens, who oversees the programme and whose husband, Michael, is head teacher at Fettes, said: “Whatever situation is going on in the teenage mind, we are giving them the tools to get their minds focused.

Concentration levels have gone up and they feel calmer, happier and more fulfilled.”

The lessons have proved popular, although not always for the intended reasons. “There is no homework, they don’t get a mark and I don’t write a report on any of them,” Deborah Spens said.

“They can take their jackets and ties off and relax. I see students looking at their timetables and saying, ‘Oh, it’s mindfulness next. Great!’”

NEWS

6

Kidnap negotiator tries to rescue girls

20 miles

3

Maiduguri

NIGERIA

5

Idris ignores Davis's protests that an attempted escape could disrupt his delicate negotiations over the release of the other girls and helps the four slip away into the bush without being noticed by the guards

Limani

A week later, Davis receives a message from Idris's phone.

Written in Arabic, it reads: ‘The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return. He was an infidel.’

Waza national park CAMEROON Chibok School where more than 200 girls were kidnapped

1 As Stephen Davis, left, tries to negotiate the release of the Chibok girls, he receives a call from Idris, a Nigerian hostage, saying he wants to escape captivity in a Boko Haram camp in Cameroon

2

6

4

Fearful of being mistaken for a Boko Haram militant and shot at the border, Idris decides to take four Chibok girls with him to prove he's not a member of the terror group

For three weeks, the girls trek west following the setting sun. Walking by night and sleeping by day, they cross the Nigerian border before finally finding help in a remote village. They are quickly reunited with their families

Recognising the danger the girls are in, Davis dispatches a driver to meet them and Idris at a nearby rendezvous. But the driver never returns

Boko Haram girls follow sunset to freedom George Arbuthnott FOURNigerianschoolgirlswho were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants have made a dramatic escape by giving their guards the slip and trekking through the jungle for three weeks — “following the setting sun”.

The captives escaped from a group of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by militants earlier this year from a school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria.

They revealed that they had been raped every day during their captivity and were told their families would be killed if they criticised Boko Haram or spoke in English.

The extraordinary story, the first confirmed escape from a camp run by the Islamist group over the border in neighbouring Cameroon, has been revealed by a British hostage negotiator who was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the girls.

Stephen Davis, the former canon emeritus of Coventry Cathedral, was in northern Nigeria attempting to negotiate the release of 60 of the Chibok girls in June when he received a phone call from a Nigerian man also being held captive by Boko Haram.

The man, believed to be in his late teens and called Idris, said he was planning to escape.

He had called Davis because of the Australian churchman’s experience in dealing with kidnaps.

In 2004 Davis worked alongside Justin Welby, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, helping to resolve conflicts between oil companies and local militias in the Niger Delta.

ForthepasteightyearsDavis had been assisting the Nigerian government in negotiations with Boko Haram, most recently to secure the release of the schoolgirls who were snatched from their dormitory in April as they prepared for their final-year exams.

The abduction of the mainly Christian girls and the group’s subsequent threat to sell them off as slaves caused outrage around the world. The United States and Britain have sent experts to help search for them but hopes for their rescue have faded amid fierce criticism of the ineptitude of the Nigerian government’s response.

Idris’s fear, Davis recalled, was that if he managed to escape on his own, he would be mistaken for a Boko Haram member and shot, so he wanted to take four of the Chibok girls with him.

Davis was opposed to Idris’s plan, fearing that it would upset his negotiations with Boko Haram. Idris ignored his objections. He helped the girls, aged between 16 and 18, to slip

Scores of schoolgirls are held in a Boko Haram camp in northeast Nigeria after the Muslim extremist group kidnapped them en masse into the bush on the camp’s outskirts unnoticed by the guards in readiness for his own escape.

Realising the girls’ lives were in jeopardy, Davis told Idris he would send a driver to an agreed pick-up point a few

miles away. “Idris said to me, ‘If we can’t get to the car, what do we do?’ I said, ‘Will you tell the girls to walk west every night and walk towards the sunset? Sleep in the day, walk at night and keep walking.’”

However, the rendezvous

was called off after Boko Haram forced Idris to act as the driver in a 12-hour cross-border raid.

A few days later Davis arranged to send his driver to another rendezvous with Idris and the girls at the same spot, but neither the driver nor Idris

returned. They have not been heard from since.

A week after that Davis received a text from Idris’s phone. It read: “The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return. He was an infidel.”

Davis was unable to contact the girls as their mobile phone batteryhadrundead.Hefeared the worst. But remarkably, three weeks later, the girls appeared in a village on the Nigerian side of the border.

They described how they had followed his instructions to the letter by walking towards the evening sun. They are believed to have lived on food smuggled to them by Idris while they hid on the camp’s edge as well as anything they could scavenge from the land.

“They were amazing — to first escape and then walk for weeks. They are the only ones that have escaped from a Boko Haram camp,” Davis said.

“The girls were highly traumatised and had been told if they spoke English or ill of Boko Haram, then their families would be killed.”

Although none has spoken publicly, some details of their treatment while they were held captive have emerged. According to Davis, the girls were raped every day.

“The girls only came together for prayers each day,” he said. “I’d be astonished if there was any girl who wasn’t sexually abused.”

Davis has now abandoned his attempts to negotiate the release of the other Chibok schoolgirls and has returned to his home in Australia, as he believes that Boko Haram

would simply take other hostages.

Instead, he has begun gathering evidence against the Nigerian politicians that Boko Haram militants say have been providing them with funding.

He now wants Britain and America to lead the way by freezing the politicians’ assets and restricting their travel.

Davis warned that without concerted action Boko Haram could launch a “large-scale” war in Nigeria’s north. The group, which already controls an area the size of Ireland, has indicated that it intends to create an Islamic caliphate similar to that declared by Isis in Syria and Iraq.

The four escaped girls have been reunited with their families. For their own safety their names and current location are being kept secret.

“I spoke to one of the [Boko Haram] commanders, and we talked about the girls being raped,” Davis recalled. “I said, ‘Is this permissible in the Koran?’, and he said ‘Well, no, but our boys do it anyway.’” @arbuthnott

ST DIGITAL Follow our timeline of the kidnapping Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

Critics growl as Goya’s Body confidence MPs reel in Viola, the lost greyhound is uncovered lessons for pupils trawler that fought Kaiser Sian Griffiths

Hannah Summers SCIENTISTS have deployed technology that can look beneath layers of paint to uncover the secrets of a Goya masterpiece, sparking controversy in the art world.

Pascal Cotte and Jean Penicaut, from Lumiere Technology in Paris, used the layer amplification method (LAM) to discover that a previous version of Time and the Old Women depicted a dog.

LAM uses a multi-lens camera and intense light, and has been used to show that Leonardo da Vinci painted three versions of The Lady with an Ermine, one without the ermine and two with different versions of its fur.

“Using the LAMtechnique we found Goya had painted a Spanish greyhound among the skirts of one of the women but then removed it,” said Penicaut. “Because of where

EDUCATION EDITOR

An early version of Goya’s Time and the Old Women shows a dog the dog sits in the painting it may contradict claims by art critics that the work was later extended by a second artist.”

But some are dismayed by the technology. Juliet WilsonBareau, an expert on Goya, whose works will feature at an exhibition at the National

Gallery next year, said: “They penetrate to whatever layer suits their purpose . . . We who are experts in the field use all the tools and weapons the lab can provide but we take exception to the results being interpreted in this way.” @hansummers

SCHOOLS are being urged to hold classes in body confidence as research, to be published tomorrow, reveals that two-thirds of teachers say pupils arrive at secondary school aged 11 feeling anxious and insecure about their shape and appearance.

In a campaign this week spearheaded by MPs and celebrities, including the TV presenter Gok Wan, teachers in primary and secondary schools will be asked to tackle children’s insecurities about the way they look.

This can affect their confidence so much that they feel embarrassed to raise their hand in class or to take part in PE lessons. Parents will be called on to “set a positive example”.

“When children as young as five are conscious of weight and appearance, that

can only come from parents,” said Caroline Nokes, the MP heading the all-party group launching the campaign.

Wan said: “The time I’ve spent working with young teens has shown me just how widespread low body confidence is amongst school-age children. It isn’t an issue restricted to girls; boys also feel the pressure to conform to a certain look, to have the ‘ideal body’ they see on TV and in magazines.”

The body confidence classes, which have already started in some schools, show children videos of how photographs are airbrushed to create a perfect image.

Nokes said: “It’s very sad that teenage girls are under so much pressure to conform to an image that they don’t put pictures on Facebook without retouching them first.”

Smooth operators, Focus, page 22

Sanya Burgess A GROUP of MPs including Sir Menzies Campbell and Alan Johnson are backing a campaign to repatriate from South Georgia a British trawler that helped with the sinking of two German U-boats during the First World War. Viola, which was requisitioned in 1914 and patrolled the waters around the Shetland Islands before it moved to the Tyne, became stranded in Grytviken harbour on the south Atlantic island during the Falklands conflict in 1982.

DrRobbRobinson,fromthe Maritime Historical Studies Centre in Hull, is leading the campaign to bring Viola, which was skippered by Charles Allum for much of the war, back to Britain. His grandfather sailed on the Viola before the war.

“For me it represents a forgotten dimension of the Great

Charles Allum skippered the Viola during the First World War

War,” he said. “Much of the war was fought to keep the sea lanes open, combating mines, U-boats and torpedoes. A lot of that was undertaken by working fishermen from all the ports around Britain.”

Campbell said: “The Viola is an improbable and almost impregnable symbol of the First World War.”

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is planning to meet Robinson’s team to discuss the repatriation, which will cost an estimated £6m.

The story of Viola is to be told in an eponymous book co-authored by Robinson, which will be published on October 24.

BRIAN MOODY

12.10.14 / 7

Arts chief to destroy gardens after snub Richard Brooks ARTS EDITOR

AN OFFER by Sir Roy Strong to bequeath Laskett Gardens to the National Trust has been rejected after it was deemed that they fail to “reach the high rung of historic and national importance”.

Strong, a former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, is so upset by the snub that he now plans to have the gardens “destroyed” when he dies.

He designed Laskett, the largest private formal gardens to be created in England since 1945, with his late wife Julia Trevelyan Oman, a theatrical set designer, and began talks about leaving them to the trust three years ago.

It is understood that Dame Fiona Reynolds, the trust’s former director-general, and Sir Simon Jenkins, the current chairman, had welcomed the idea but Strong received a letter last month from Dame Helen Ghosh, the former civil servant who was appointed directorgeneral in 2012, saying the offer had been rejected.

“The letter stated that the gardens did not reach the high rung of historic and national importance,” Strong said.“I’m so upset now that I have decided to change my will, stating thatthegardenwillstayopento the public for one year after my death, and then be destroyed.”

Explaining what he meant

by “destroyed”, Strong, who had also offered the trust an endowment worth “several millions” to ensure the financial viability of the gardens, said: “Not bulldozed as such, but I will ensure that all the personal aspects which really make the garden so extraordinary are taken away.

“It would be insulting to the memory of myself and Julia to continue to leave so many things which were dear to us if they are not going to be looked after by the trust. I don’t want my and my late wife’s memories to be desecrated.”

Strong and Trevelyan Oman spent more than 30 years transforming a four-acre field beside their home in Much Birch, Herefordshire, into formal gardens with a rose garden, pleached lime avenue, kitchen garden, fountains and an array of topiary.

Laskett tells the story of their marriage and creative lives through sculptures, columns, sundials and avenues. Trevelyan Oman’s ashes were placed in an urn in the Christmas orchard and Strong was planning that his own would be added. “Our wedding rings were going to be placed there too,”saidStrong,whohasworn Trevelyan Oman’s ring with his own since her death in 2003.

In a book about the gardens published this year, Strong wrote: “The Laskett Gardens are unashamedly nostalgic and romantic and they are emphatically the creation of a marriage

‘Revenge porn’ offenders face prison term Tim Shipman POLITICAL EDITOR

The sundial that came from the garden of his friend Cecil Beaton

The Prince Albert bust reminds Strong of his 13 years running the Victoria and Albert Museum Sir Roy Strong created Laskett Gardens with his wife and hoped to leave them to the National Trust but it said they were not important enough of equals ... I know of no other English garden that resonates so forcefully with the lives of its two makers.”

The gardens contain a temple dedicated to the V&A, an arbour in honour of Sir Frederick Ashton, the Royal Ballet choreographer with whom Trevelyan Oman regularly worked, and a sundial from the estate of the photographer Sir Cecil Beaton.

They have been open to the public for two days a week since 2010 and visits are oversubscribed. Strong had hoped that by leaving them to the trust, they would be seen by many more people.

While he has decided to leave 60 volumes of archives about the gardens to Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, the garden will be lost.

“The house will now be sold

after my death,” said Strong, who wrote his famously waspish diaries in 1997. “There will be a garden attached with it but not as it is now.”

The trust said: “We were approached by Roy Strong to leave us Laskett Gardens in his will. This was a very generous offer but when offered such a gift, our board of trustees considers it against strict acquisition criteria. This includes

making an assessment of the place’s national and historical significance.

“We believe the establishment of an independent charitable trust would be the best waytoprotectthismuch-loved place.”

Yesterday Jenkins said: “I know Roy is upset, as am I, but it was an overwhelming decision as it was felt the garden was not threatened.”

SENDING “revenge porn” pictures will be punishable by up to two years in prison under a new law to be published today.

Maliciously sharing sexually explicit pictures of former partners will become a specific criminal offence in the legislation to be unveiled

by Chris Grayling, the justice secretary.

Under an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, currently going through parliament, people will be liable for a jail term if they share explicit images online and offline.

That will outlaw the posting of revenge porn pictures to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as those sent in a text message or email.

The distribution of physical copies will also be punished.

The offence will cover photographs or films which show people engaged in sexual activity or depicted in a sexual way or with their genitals exposed. Victims

and other people will be able to report offences for the police to investigate.

Grayling said: “We want those who fall victim to this type of disgusting behaviour to know that we are on their side and will do everything we can to bring offenders to justice.”

Figures published through freedom of information laws revealed that 149 cases of revenge porn have been reported to eight police forces during the past three years but only six incidents had resulted in any action being taken.

Maria Miller, the former culture secretary, who has campaigned for a change in the law, said she would have liked to see such offences punishable by up to 14 years in jail but described the new law as “a first step in the right direction”.

Baroness Newlove, the victims’ commissioner, said she welcomed the move but added: “The proof will now be in proper enforcement and action by the police and courts.” @shippersunbound

3 GREAT MAGAZINES THIS WEEK AND EVERY WEEK 12.10.14

12

OCTOBER

2014

music meet Ella Henderson, the next Adele, a teenager with a big grown-up voice

ANNIE O N S EX , S U RG E RY AN D TURNING SIXTY vA F F A I R S : S O W H A T ?

INDIA KNIGHT’S GUIDE TO LONG-TERM LOVE vT E A M C L O O N E Y WHAT NEXT FOR THE WORLD’S MOST GLAMOROUS POWER COUPLE? vH O O K - U P H E L L THE TINDER BURNOUT

k: his tan pt in he sle war film 50 and y new gor , he’s tough Pitt on his He’s Brad

NEWS

8

My first day as a Ukip MP and JIM BENNETT

What the public thinks

After his historic win in Clacton, Douglas Carswell is ready to woo the growing number of ‘bitter and disappointed’ MPs in the Commons

INTERVIEW Tim Shipman POLITICAL EDITOR

FOR a man who had just energised British politics, Douglas Carswell looked pretty exhausted. Eight hours after he became Ukip’s first elected MP, he was surviving on memories and Red Bull.

With his passion for direct democracy and his lopsided jawline, he is more redbrick political scientist than the chief tribune in Nigel Farage’s

“people’s army”. In the excitement he said he has no idea where he will sit when he enterstheCommonsthisweek. “[I will sit] on the opposition benches. I’ll consult the clerk who has very sound judgment on these things,” he said.

For a man who wants to shatter the mould of British politics, this nod to the men in tights was discordant and charming.

But Carswell claimed his win could devour both the Tories and Labour.

“For years and years and years, like monopolistic businesses, they assumed the customers had nowhere else to

Labour 34%

Would you definitely vote this way next year?

Conservative 32%

59%

State of the parties

Conservative

Ukip

58%

Lib Dem

46%

32%

will definitely vote this way Who would make the best prime minister?

Ukip 16% Lib Dem 9%

Other 10%

Labour

David Cameron

33%

Ed Miliband

Nigel Farage

18%

Nick Clegg

11%

6%

YouGov questioned 2,167 adults, October 9-10

Douglas Carswell says he is planning a ‘softly-softly’ approach to wooing defectors but revealed a lot of MPs want out: some had decided to leave parliament and others were ‘bitter and disappointed’ go. Then Ukip came along,” he said. “For years and years they assumed that their own party had nowhere else to go. Well, guess what, guys, they do.”

With two Tory defectors in the bag, can Ukip get a Labour

MP to cross the floor? Carswell thinks so.

“A member of the parliamentary Labour party called me this morning and we had a chat about them coming over.

It’s looking very promising.”

Tory MPs are fearful that Carswell will use his knowledge of parliamentary procedure to force them to make their position on Europe clear.

He confirmed he will use motions and amendments to

challenge Eurosceptics to back Ukip’s vision publicly rather than the European Union renegotiation of David Cameron.

“I’m going to make clear what I think the alternatives should be and where appro-

priate ... askpeople wherethey stand on it,” he said.

Carswell also made it clear that he believed there should be electoral pacts with Tory Eurosceptics. But he said he will not challenge Farage to reverse his opposition to the idea, one of the few things he shares with Cameron. “I tried to argue in my old party for pacts. I lost the argument,” he said.

“In my new party the mood is to put up candidates everywhere. I’m not about to start telling them what to do.”

He said he will not campaign against Eurosceptic allies. “I’ve got a lot of friends in the Conservative party,” he said.

“I will not be able to campaign in one or two seats. I’m very pleased to say that one or two people, including a couple of cabinet ministers, were not able to campaign here.” He named Zac Goldsmith, a “close personal friend”, as one who will be left alone but added: “There are some others.”

He will also support Tory economic policy: “I expect I will vote for the government budget next spring.”

In wooing defectors he said he is planning a softly-softly approach. “I think it would be counterproductive if I was to swank around the House of Commons smugly making that suggestion to MPs,” he said.

“That’s not the sort of personIam.Iknowwhatapersonal decision this is. Politics is the art of persuasion, it’s not an actofaggression.Ineedtobean ambassador for change. I’ve shown you can get the support of your constituents locally.”

He said that “a lot of MPs” want out. Many have already decided to leave parliament, he claimed, while others have resolved to take the “baubles” while becoming “increasingly disappointed, bitter and grumpy”.

“There will be an enormous number of MPs who have resigned themselves to doing option one or option two and will now be saying: do you know what, maybe there’s the third option,” he said.

In his victory speech Carswell issued a none-too-subtle warning to his new party to “be a party for all Britain and all Britons”. Before he defected he had demanded a pledge from Farage about the party’s attitude to racism. “I needed to have a face-to-face conversation. I would never join a party that was racist,” he said.

“I was told no one can join Ukip if they have ever had any involvement with hate groups

or racist organisations. Those values matter to me more than anything in politics.”

He pointedly refused to repeat Farage’s calls for HIVpositive migrants to be barred from the UK. During our 30 minutes of conversation, the word “immigration” passed his lips only once.

Farage need not fear that Carswell is a rival: “I’m never going to be the leader of Ukip. I know my foibles. I just don’t have the reservoirs of patience you need.”

For now Carswell has one priority — getting his fellow defector and close friend Mark Reckless re-elected: “I said to Nigel: ‘The role I want is chief leaflet distributor in the most marginal ward in Rochester.’”

TheToriescarpthatCarswell and his ilk will put Ed Miliband in Downing Street and end the prospects of an EU referendum. Carswell believes a victory for the Europhile Labour leader is more likely to see Britain leave the EU. He said: “I’m not interested in Ed and Dave and which one of them sits on the Downing Street sofa. I’ve got a fiveyear-old daughter. I believe so strongly that her life chances would be better if we leave the EU that I’m perfectly prepared to wait until she’s 15.”

Carswell’s win may not signal a new order yet but he said he believes it marks the end of the old order.

“Until 1969 it was illegal to put the name of a party on a ballot paper. The internet means we are seeing a return to the personalisation of politics.

You’re going to get candidates at the next election who used the new technology to create their own brand and their own political space.”

He compared Ukip with Uber, the taxi app “taking on the vested interests and giving the customer better choice”.

He said: “Ukip, far from being an angry reaction against modernity, is an expression of modernity.”

Then he added: “I’d better be careful because I don’t want to lose the taxi cab vote in Clacton.” He sounded like a conventional politician.

Editorial, Adrian Wooldridge, Adam Boulton, pages 24-25

ST DIGITAL Video: an 11-year-old girl raps for Carswell and Ukip Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

Bookies’ percentage odds for a UKIP win in general election 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Clacton Thanet South Boston and Skegness Thurrock Great Yarmouth Thanet North Great Grimsby Castle Point Rotherham Louth and Horncastle Basildon S & Thurrock E Camborne and Redruth Folkestone and Hythe

82% 61% 50% 40% 37% 33% 28% 26% 23% 23% 20% 20% 18%

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Portsmouth South Eastleigh Cambridgeshire NW Newcastle-under-Lyme Sittingbourne & Sheppey Christchurch Dover Rochester and Strood Basingstoke Walsall North Cleethorpes Dudley North Spelthorne

18% 16% 15% 15% 15% 13% 13% 13% 13% 12% 11% 11% 11%

7 24 9

10 3

17 25

5

23 16 4 22 19

12 Source: Ladbrokes

15

14

11

8

26 21 18

1 2 6 13 20

12.10.14 / 9

a Labour defector is calling PETER MACDIARMID

If Labour replaced Ed Miliband as leader, would they.... do much better would do much 54% the same would not 26% do better

6%

Has Ed Miliband been a better or worse Labour leader than: Michael Foot

22% 21%

better worse

26% 30%

Gordon Brown

18%

Neil Kinnock

31%

Who would make a better or worse Labour leader?

David Miliband

better worse

Alan Johnson

42%

9% 25%

9%

Andy Burnham

17% 14%

Has Ed Miliband made it clear what he stands for?

27%

58%

has made it clear

has not made it clear

Has he been a strong or weak leader?

10%

55%

strong

weak

Has he been timid or ambitious?

37%

19%

timid

ambitious

Mark Reckless and Nigel Farage campaigning in Rochester

Conservatives defy No 10 by seeking pacts with Farage’s party THE TORIES Tim Shipman and Marie Woolf CONSERVATIVE MPs have set up unofficial “non-aggression pacts” with Ukip in defiance of David Cameron’s ban on deals with Nigel Farage’s party.

MPs say they have agreed to target resources with local Ukip branch parties to maximise the chances of victory for both.

Martin Vickers, Tory MP for Cleethorpes, said he held “tentative” talks with Ukip’s local party in the neighbouring Great Grimsby constituency — a key Farage target — and the two parties will direct their resources at beating Labour.

Vickers said, however, he

had rejected a request that the Tories stand unopposed in Cleethorpes in return for Ukip not being challenged by the Conservatives in Grimsby.

He said: “Ukip are concentrating on Grimsby, which is an island in my constituency.

There was a tentative local discussion by Ukip here. They said, ‘We don’t stand in Cleethorpes if you don’t have a candidate in Grimsby.’ Even if I could persuade the Grimsby party not to put up a candidate we would have one imposed on us. That fizzled out.”

Asked if there is now a nonaggression pact, Vickers said: “That’s what’s happening.”

Another MP said: “I’m just going to come to an arrangement locally. I might drop Tory branding from my leaflets to make it easier for Ukip supporters to back me. In return

I’ll make sure my people leave Ukip alone next door.”

With Tory MPs anxious that Ukip could stop them winning the election, Vickers called on Cameron to “be more robust in our immigration stance” because “that drives a lot of the Ukip support”.

A member of Cameron’s No 10 policy board warned that voterswouldratherhearaconservative message from Ukip’s candidates than theirs.

Paul Uppal, MP for Wolverhampton South West, said he has to reject offers of help with canvassing from fellow Tory MPs because they would be unpopular with voters in the pub. He told a fringe meeting at the Tory conference that Conservatives cannot make the “emotional connection” that Ukip can.

Uppal said: “If you take the

Conservative badge away and put [the word] Ukip on it, people will be attracted towards that. That is the main problem we have: the branding image we have. Making that emotional connection is something that is incredibly difficult.

“Lots of my colleagues say, ‘Paul, I’d love to come and knock on doors and help on your patch’, and I’m really flattered ... but I can tell you that is the last thing I need.

“I always use this measure: if I’m going out on a Friday night to a pub, how many of my colleagues would I actually feel comfortable taking with me and introducing to my constituents? ... It was a short list.”

At the same meeting, Richard Harrington, MP for Watford, warned that there is a “significant defect in the orga-

Voters: Miliband ‘as bad as Foot’ LABOUR Marie Woolf and Tim Shipman ED MILIBAND was compared to Michael Foot, Labour’s least successful modern leader, last night, as MPs rounded on his leadership and demanded policies to beat Ukip.

A new poll reveals today that voters judge Miliband to be almost as bad a leader as Foot, who led the party to its worst modern defeat in 1983.

Twenty-two per cent of voters think Miliband better than Foot, while 21% favour Foot. Twenty per cent say they are about the same. By clear margins Miliband is seen as a worse leader than Gordon Brown or Neil Kinnock.

By a margin of nine to one, voters think Labour would be better off without Miliband.

Fifty-four per cent say Labour would fare better if he goes while just 6% say the party would benefit from him staying.

Labour voters also think the party would be better off if he quits, by a margin of 46% to 13%. David Miliband, Alan Johnson and Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, would all improve the party’s prospects, the poll found.

Brian Wilson, a minister in the Blair government, warned that Labour may regret winning the Heywood and Middleton by-election, where it beat Ukip by 617 votes, because it meant Miliband would lead the party into the general election.

Writing in the Scottish edition of The Sunday Times,

LABOUR’S SECRET WEAPON

ROSIE KINCHEN MEETS ALAN JOHNSON NEWS REVIEW

he said: “There was a byelection in Darlington a few months before the 1983 general election, and the fate of Michael Foot’s leadership of the Labour party hung upon it. If Labour lost, Michael would have retired. Labour won by a few hundred votes, Michael Foot remained as leader and catastrophe ensued.

“It may be that Heywood and Middleton will be looked back on as Ed Miliband’s Darlington. If things go wrong, the post-mortems may well conclude that Labour’s fate was sealed the night it won Heywood and Middleton, because these 617 votes kept Ed in a job.”

MPs campaigning there accused the party of using Obama-style tactics that were irrelevant in Manchester.

One said Labour made little effort to woo back lapsed supporters who had abandoned the party in recent years. “Labour was using its traditional get-the-vote-out technique and tactics used in

the American states that were totally irrelevant in Middleton,” one said.

“Meanwhile, Ukip was knocking on doors and persuading people to vote for them.”

John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said Miliband’s leadership was being raised by voters as a key concern.

“Without question the Miliband factor is an issue on the doorstep and regularly so.

What he needs to do is show that he can move outside his comfort zone. That is what Farage is managing to do.”

Kate Hoey, the MP for Vauxhall, accused the Labour leadership of ignoring MPs who warned about the impact of immigration and the EU, which she said had now “come back to bite us”.

Hoey called on the leadership to stop forcing MPs to read from a script, adding that Burnham could “connect with people”.

“I do think we have to talk about the issues that people are concerned about. Ed is our

leader, but I do think they have got to allow people to be much more open about saying things. Everything shouldn’t be so much part of the script.”

Steve McCabe, the MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, said Labour had to show Ukip voters the party “is listening and treating them seriously”.

He said: “It’s obvious that some of their concerns are things we must focus on, in particular immigration. They are concerned about the pressure on housing and pressure on schools and the impact on wages, and these are all legitimate issues for people to raise and legitimate issues for us to respond to.”

Lord Ouseley, the Labour peer, warned that the leadership “is lacking conviction and trust” and must win it back by interacting with ordinary people on the doorstep.

“The only way I can see of effectively seeing off Ukip is to spend time talking to local people and convincing them that they are valued and their concerns are being addressed.”

Austin Mitchell, the MP for Great Grimsby, added: “The main thing that alienates the ‘left-behind tribe’ from Labour is our vacuous enthusiasm for the EU. It’s our albatross.”

A former minister said MPs would like to oust Miliband but had “no candidate” to replace him. They are frustrated that Johnson, the former home secretary who began his working life as a postman, will not offer himself as an interim leader.

“The postman won’t do it,” the minister said.

nisation of the Conservative party” and that in “much of the country, we don’t have an organisation for campaigning at all”.

Michael Dugher, a Labour frontbencher, said: “The Tories are haemorrhaging members,

hollowing out in every region, and now even his [Cameron’s] own MPs are openly criticising the party’s tactics and dismal grassroots support.

“It shows how bad things have got when some MPs are even embarrassed to be seen in

the local pub with their Tory parliamentary colleagues.”

John Baron, MP for Basildon and Billericay, who said he would “never say never” to joining Ukip, said Cameron should not “write Ukip off as a protest party” and that the

UK’s relationship with Europe was Ukip voters’ key concern.

The Eurosceptic Tory MP urged Cameron to address voters’ concerns about the EU and immigration by seeking to restrict freedom of movement in the EU. “We have to have an open and full debate about the freedom of movement principle,” he said.

Former Tory cabinet minister Lord Tebbit said “false pride” is “all that stands in the way” of an electoral pact with Ukip.

He said: “The Tories are still laying the blame for their poor performance on Ukip rather than their own shortcomings, hoping that the slogans ‘A vote forFarageisavoteforMiliband’ or ‘Only a Conservative government will give you a vote on Europe’ will win in the end.

Ukip’s performance this week suggests that its voters will not be moved by such claims.”

He said that in the event of a pact “there is little doubt that the Tories would emerge as the largest party — probably with a majority”.

Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, called for Conservative candidates to run “double badged” with Ukip just as some Labour MPs are also endorsed by the Co-operative party.

He said: “David Cameron and Nigel Farage should be locked in a room until they sort something out. You could end up with 100 double badged MPs and a right-of-centre majority. It would be sensible to include Ukip in a future right of centre government.”

Farage rejected any prospect of pacts, suggesting he would have to hide from his own activists“formyownsafety”ifhedid a deal. He said: “I don’t believe a word David Cameron says. For that reason it would be fruitless to enter into a conversation.”

A senior Tory source agreed: “It is not going to happen.”

ST DIGITAL Read YouGov’s Peter Kelner on Ukip Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

NEWS

10 ROB VERHORST

Kate through a brother’s lens

England to have more TB cases than America Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Clare Conway THE number of people diagnosed with tuberculosis in England is set to exceed the total number of cases in the US within a year, the head of Public Health England warned last week.

Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, said the disease — known as the “white plague” in Victorian Britain — was showing a dangerous resurgence, fuelled by immigration.

In an address at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health conference last week, he said: “Tuberculosis has begun again to be a big problem for us as a nation. This time next year, and maybe sooner, we will generate more new cases of tuberculosis in England than the whole of the US.” This weekendMike Mandelbaum, chief executive of TB

HEELS ANGEL

Alert, which works to tackle the disease in the UK and the developing world, said Britain had “taken its eye off the ball” and had been relying on outdated vaccination and care programmes to prevent the rise of the disease here. He said the country was wrong to think it “had TB cracked”.

TBissecond only to HIV as the biggest killer worldwide caused by a single infectious agent. About 8.6m people a year fall ill with the disease and 1.3m die, the vast majority of whom are in developing countries.

Cases of TB in Britain have been rising in recent years, despite a dip last year. In 2012 there were 8,729 British cases of the disease, compared with 9,945 in the US, where the number of cases has been steadily declining.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection and kills about 350 people a year in Britain. In most cases, the disease attacks the

TAMARA MELLON’S AMAZING NEW YORK PENTHOUSE + THE BEST ECO-HOUSES AND COASTAL RETREATS CULTURE

lungs and is spread to others through the air. Symptoms include weight loss and coughing up blood. TB is usually contracted after close, constant contact with someone who is infected. It is generally treatable by a six-month course of antibiotics.

A new report by Public Health England and NHS England to be published later this year will recommend a series of measure to combat TB, including improved screening, more surveillance of outbreaks and vaccination plans.

TB was at its height in the Victorian era. It thrived in the cramped and squalid conditions of impoverished urban areas. It was, however, in effect eradicated as a mass disease with improved sanitation, pasteurisation of milk and antibiotics.

Migration to Britain is largely blamed for the increase in cases and the country now has one of the highest rates of TB in western Europe. More than seven out of 10 cases involve people who were born outside the UK. The disease is particularly prevalent in poorer London boroughs such as Haringey, Brent and Newham, as well as Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester and Coventry.

Paramjit Gill, a GP in Birmingham, said the cases he had seen were mainly in young migrant men. He said: “If one gets it, they are in densely populated households and it will spread easily. It’s still a relatively rare event per practice.” @jonungoedthomas

Krissi Murison KATE BUSH’S brother has revealed how he helped launch her recording career when she was 16 years old.

“A friend of mine knew Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd, and he passed on a tape to him that Kate had made,” said John Carder Bush.

Gilmour organised for her to go into a recording studio with an 40-piece orchestra and it led to EMI signing her.

John Carder Bush had been training as a lawyer, when he developed an interest in photography in the mid-1960s.

Six-year-old Kate became one of his early models, allowing him to dress her up and shoot her portrait at the family home in Bexley.

Some of those photos are in today’s Sunday Times Magazine. John Carder Bush has since been the photographer for many of his sister’s album covers.

ST DIGITAL Kate Bush’s greatest hits Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

A photo of a young Kate Bush taken by her brother, who helped to launch her recording career

NEWSINBRIEF Ex-dean’s portrait at St Paul’s A portrait of Graeme Knowles, the former dean of St Paul’s who resigned over a decision to forcibly evict anti capitalist protesters in 2011, is to

go on display at the cathedral. The painting,

by Daphne Todd, will be hung in the Chapter House next year when it reopens after refurbishment.

Statue theft

Gallantry medal withdrawn

A man aged 32 has been arrested after an attempt to steal a statue of the comedian Eric Morecambe from Morecambe seafront in Lancashire.

Robert Armstrong, a former army major, has been stripped of the Military Cross he was awarded for bravery in Afghanistan in 2009.

The move follows an

inquiry into allegations of false battle write ups. It is believed to be the first time the Queen has withdrawn a gallantry medal from a serviceman.

12.10.14 / 11

Europe set ablaze...with itching powder Richard Brooks ARTS EDITOR

FROM exploding pens to a submarine disguised as a crocodile, James Bond owes his life to the gadgets created by Q and his assistants.

But a new book reveals that real British spies operating during the Second World War were just as reliant on the ingenuity of a team of experts to wreak havoc on the enemy and escape capture.

TheBritishSpyManual,tobe published this month, reveals the extraordinary range of weaponry, disguises and communication devices available to members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) working behind enemy lines.

Created by the Labour politician Hugh Dalton in 1940 on the orders of Winston Churchill, the SOE was kept secret from parliament. By the end of the war its successes included the destruction of a key part of Hitler’s nuclear programme, the disabling of power stations and railways and the assassination or capture of leading Nazis.

Agents were supported by a network of staff ranging from fashion designers and plastic surgeons to gunsmiths and voice coaches.

Members of the SOE included the actor Christopher Lee, the naturalist Gavin Maxwell, the fashion designer Hardy Amies and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.

The new book includes replicasoftwomanualscontaining a bewildering array of equipment. The manuals were issued to agents in 1944 and 1945 to read and memorise.

Recruits in 1944 could, for example, choose a sleeve gun, which could be secreted up the arm of a coat, a tube of face cream that contained a substance that could frost windows, and itching powder, the schoolboy prankster’s favourite. The manual advises that the “greatest effect is produced by applying the powder to the inside of underclothing”.

Explosive rats

Camouflaged wireless

Balinese carvings that explode

Temporary make-up

The spy manual, which includes suggestions for hiding explosives and vital kit in everyday objects, and gives advice on disguises, is reminiscent of the ingenuity portrayed by Desmond Llewelyn as Q, left, with Pierce Brosnan as Bond

By 1945, the range of equipment was even more extensive.

Saboteurs could choose from explosives hidden in fake logs, fruit, books, lumps of coal, animal dung, chianti bottles and even rats. Exploding luggage, from suitcases to ladies’ handbags, was also available.

For those deployed in the Far East, “faithful reproductions of the famous Balinese wood carvings ... cast in solid HE [high explosive]” were available to agents “posing as hawkers frequenting the quaysides, and selling them to Japanese troops about to embark”.

To perfect the disguise, the manual’s make-up section offers an early spray tan using diluted silver nitrate that “sprayed through a glass nozzle will ... produce a brown stain that would last approximately three days in Far East climates”.

Radio equipment was crucial but cumbersome, presenting the SOE with a challenge.

The manual reveals how the equipment was hidden in bundles of kindling, gramophone players, German clocks and even inflatable rubber chairs.

The 1945 manual details the

care that went into the range and authenticity of clothing worn by the undercover agents. “The number of articles issued in one month during 1944 was 8,665,” it says. “The stock figure in that month was 20,040 articles.”

Women’s clothing was made on a case-by-case basis; local newspapers and periodicals were studied to ensure accuracy. Collar studs, rings, buttons and shoe heels were altered so they could carry codes or microfilm.

In a section on “permanent camouflage”, the book ex-

plains how “an eminent plastic surgeon and his staff are at our disposal” and says “the face can be altered to eliminate the outstanding facial characteristics of the race of the owner”. Tattoo removal and dental work was also available.

The wartime equivalent of Q — the head of Q Branch in the Bond films, played by Desmond Llewelyn in 17 movies and most recently by Ben Whishaw — was Charles Bovill, the son of a playwright. Charles Fraser-Smith was responsible for the manufacture and supply of the devices created by Bovill

and his colleagues. “In the Bond films the visit to the gadgets laboratory was always a moment of light relief,” writes Sinclair McKay in the introduction to the book, published

by Aurum Press in partnership with the Imperial War Museum.

“Yet in the real world of the SOE, the ingenious contraptions were deadly serious.

These were not toys, but superserious means of helping to ensure survival.”

In its search for fluent linguists, the SOE recruited some unlikely spies including

jockeys, defrocked vicars and Italian waiters who had been interned when war broke out.

“One very successful spy was Denis Rake, who was gay and before the war had been a drag artist,” said Terry Charman, senior historian of the Imperial War Museum.

“He was fluent in French and worked for SOE in France from 1942. After the war he became a butler to Douglas Fairbanks Jr.” Women were also recruited including Violette Szabo and Odette Hallowes, whose exploits were made into films

starring Virginia McKenna and Anna Neagle respectively.

“The regular secret services looked down on the SOE as cut-throat amateurs,” Charman said. “To some extent they were right ... But as Churchill said to Dalton, ‘Now set Europe ablaze’. And they did.”

ST DIGITAL Discover the SOE’s most wonderful weapons Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

NEWS

12

UK full of gays and incest, says ‘plot’ student Dipesh Gadher and Kevin Dowling A MEDICAL student arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in London has used social media to reject democracy and has complained that incest and homosexuality are “everywhere” in England.

Tarik Hassane, 21, has argued it is a “major sin” for Muslims to live among “disbelievers”, advising them to emigrate instead to a country governed by sharia.

He has said British jihadists

fighting against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria were “fulfilling the greatest deed in Islam”.

Hassane has stated, however, in recent postings that he is “not with” Isis, the terrorist group also known as Islamic State. He has also made clear that “killing of innocents is haram [forbidden]”.

Nicknamed “The Surgeon”, Hassane is one of five friends from west London who were arrested last week as part of an investigation into an alleged terrorist plot.

Police have not disclosed

details of any target, but it was claimed they may have disrupted the first Isis-inspired attack on British soil.

Yesterday, it emerged that one of the other suspects, Yasir Mahmoud, 20, works at the Westfield shopping centre in White City, west London. He is employed as a part-time shop assistant in a branch of Sports Direct. “He’s a normal guy and no way is he involved in terrorism,” said a friend, who did notwanttobenamed.“Hegoes to the mosque on Friday —but he drinks alcohol and isn’t political.”

Yasir Mahmoud, above, is one of five suspects, along with Rawan Kheder, top right, Tarik Hassane, circled top, and Gusai Abuzeid, circled bottom, arrested last week Mahmoud had been living with his Iraqi-born mother in a two-bedroom flat on a council estate close to the busy Edgware Road in central London.

Another friend said they

were forced to move out two months ago because of financial difficulties.

The friend said that Mahmoud’s father returned to his native Egypt several years ago

after the suspect’s parents split up.

Two other suspects arrested in dawn raids last Tuesday are Gusai Abuzeid, 21, a part-time Primark worker whose family

areLibyan;andRawanKheder, 20, the son of Iraqi Kurd immigrants. A fifth man, 20, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is a physics student.

Like Abuzeid and Kheder, Hassane is a former pupil of Westminster City School.

His mother is Moroccan and his father, he says, is from Saudi Arabia, although his name does not appear on Hassane’s birth certificate.

Two years ago, he moved to Sudan to study medicine after failing to achieve the required grades to pursue the subject at King’s College London.

Students at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum told The Sunday Times that Hassane had travelled to Syria during his degree. They expressed shock that he had been arrested after returning to his family home in Ladbroke Grove, west London, last weekend during a holiday to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

“He’s just a religious person, but that doesn’t make him a terrorist,” one student said.

Since moving to Sudan, Hassane has been providing advice on Islamic affairs on Ask.fm, the controversial social networking site. His postings have appeared under the username Abu Bakr Hijaz and — despite his relative youth— many followers address him as “shaykh”.

Hassane has repeatedly claimed online that voting and democracy are “kufr”, or the act of a non-believer.

In one post, he advised Muslims in non-Muslim countries to emigrate —even though he intends to carry out a two-year medical placement at an NHShospital.

“Living among the disbelievers in their countries is a major sin and hijra [emigration] from these countries is wajib [obligatory],” he wrote. “[In] England you have incest, homosexuals, sexual interactions in public, physical attacks on Muslims, alcohol/ nudity everywhere,” he added.

Hassane also opposes music and has described moderate Sufi Muslims as “filthy” and “deviant”.

He has claimed that women “can never rule countries, be judges or lead anything” because they are driven by emotion. He told one female correspondent:“It’s more beneficial for you to take lessons on how to make dinner and clean and obey.”

Although Hassane has praised British jihadists fighting the Assad regime in Syria, he denies wanting to become a “mujahid”, or holy warrior. Four months ago, when he was asked about Isis atrocities in the country, Hassane wrote:“I don’t know about Isis, I’m not with them and I barely know anything about them.”

British friends claim Hassane is the victim of heavyhanded police tactics.They have been posting their support on Twitter under the “JusticeForTarik” hashtag. All five men continued to be questioned last night. @dipeshgadher

ST DIGITAL Read all our stories about British jihadists Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

Jailed ex-soldiers in fear of Islamists Richard Kerbaj SECURITY CORRESPONDENT

FORMER soldiers serving prison sentences are hiding their backgrounds in the armed forces for fear of being attacked by extremist Muslim inmates.

An independent review into the lives of military veterans by the Tory MP Stephen Phillips has found some veterans have lied to the prison authorities about their time in the services to ensure they do not become a target for radicals.

Former soldiers are understood to have told Phillips, a barrister and crown court recorder, that they had been attacked by Islamists who discovered that they had fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The murder of Lee Rigby, who was wearing a hoodie bearing the logo of the Help for Heroes military charity when he was stabbed to death last year by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near his barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, illustrated the risks posed to serving service personnel.

The Phillips review, commissioned by Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, and due to be published this month, will warn that former soldiers, sailors and airmen in prison are vulnerable.

Some prisons are already keeping former servicemen on separate wings to keep them away from radicalised Muslim prisoners.

“There is this surprising fear on the part of these exservicemen that if they are identified as having served in the forces, and in particular the army, they will be subject to intimidation and physical attack from Islamic extremists,” a source said.

“What’s so surprising is that [these men] have committed some pretty

hideous crimes themselves and they’re all fit, muscled-up blokes but they are genuinely scared.” It is estimated that about 5% of the 85,000 people in prison are former service personnel, equating to some 4,250 people.

Harry Fletcher, former assistant general secretary of Napo, the probation officers’ union, said: “There are over 4,000 former soldiers as inmates and up to 10% of prison staff have served in the army. We have around 11,000 Muslim prisoners, at least a thousand of whom have been the target of radicalisation. That’s bound to lead to conflict and fear resulting in ex-soldiers and staff hiding their military record from public and prisoner view for their own safety.”

Dr Usama Hasan, an Islamic scholar who has worked with radicalised prisoners, said: “This is very worrying but it’s not surprising. Convicted Islamist extremists are known to radicalise others in prison and urgent steps need to be taken to . . . ensure the safety of all prisoners, including former members of the armed forces.”

Lord West, the former first sea lord and Home Office minister, said: “We should not find that people who fought for their country, even though they’ve been naughty boys since, should be in fear of injury from Islamist extremists. I think the prisons have got to . . . make sure this cannot happen.”

Last week soldiers were told to avoid wearing their uniforms in public when visiting Belgium and the Netherlands amid fears of an attack by militants. Police were also urged to remain vigilant because they would be targeted.

Additional reporting: Ashley Sweetman

12.10.14 / 13

Sikh school row pushes villagers into Ukip’s arms

Breakthrough operation

1

2

people died of heart disease in 2010

Exact position of catheters visible on screen so doctors can target rogue tissue

Sian Griffiths and Richard Kerbaj

4 Catheter used to heat tissue, creating scars that block rogue current causing heart flutter

Heart disease: Britain’s biggest killer

180,000

3

Doctors insert catheters into vein in groin and feed them up into heart

Patient lies in MRI scanner with lower body protruding

1.3m

UK drug prescriptions issued for irregular heartbeat in 2011

Rogue electrical current

Tip of catheter

3D map guides heart surgeons Jonathan Leake SCIENCE EDITOR

BRITISH doctors have conducted the world’s first major heart operations on patients in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, using the machine to help them guide a probe to defective tissue and destroy it.

Two men and a woman, all suffering from a dangerously erratic heartbeat, have been successfully treated at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, in a procedure that saw catheters guided deep into their beating heart from an incision in the groin.

The instruments were then used to destroy tissues that were “short-circuiting” the natural pacemaker system controlling their heart rate.

Such short-circuits cause a frightening condition known as atrial flutter, which can see parts of the heart beating at rates of 300 times a minute, sometimes causing dizziness and fainting. Left untreated, it can lead to heart disease.

Two of the three patients treated in the trial, all within the past few months, appear to have been cured, while the third needed a second similar operation.

Professor Reza Razavi, head of imaging sciences at King’s College London, who jointly led the operation with Professor Mark O’Neill, said: “The MRI lets us see a 3D image of the heart on a screen, to insert two catheters. We used them first to map out the heart and assess the pattern of electrical impulses and then to work out

which tissues need ablating [heating] to block the shortcircuit and so halt the heart flutter.”

Irregularities in heartbeat are among the commonest of heart problems and can affect people of all ages and fitness levels, with sufferers ranging from the singer Miley Cyrus to Tony Blair. He was diagnosed with atrial flutter in 2003 and later underwent catheter ablation similar to that performed at St Thomas’ Hospital.

The key difference is that until now surgeons had to map the heart in advance using x-rays. These can produce only snapshots, rather than realtime imaging, because prolongedexposurerisksradiation damage. X-rays are also poor at imaging soft tissues such as heart muscle. This meant that,

during operations, it was hard for surgeons to know whether their instruments had located the right tissue.

The advantages of using an MRI scanner, which produces no harmful radiation, was obvious, but the tunnel-like design of such machines means there is no room to conduct complex procedures directly.

Additionally, MRI machines generate powerful magnetic fields, tens of thousands of times stronger than that of the Earth, which interact strongly with normal surgical equipment. The King’s College team worked with Imricor, a US medical equipment firm, to develop non-magnetic surgical instruments that would be immune to such fields.

“This is a ground-breaking study and suggests there is a

great future for MRI-guided heart-rhythm interventions ... For the first time the clinician is able to see the detailed anatomy of the heart, in real time, during the procedure,” said Razavi, who presented his research to a conference last week.

In the operation the patient lies with just the top half of their body in the scanner and the doctors insert catheters through the groin deep into the chambers of the beating heart to find the tissues carrying the rogue electrical current.

Once they have found the right spot the surgeons create up to 20 tiny lesions, heating adjacent sections of heart tissue to 45C with a device on the end of one of the catheters.

This is just 9C above normal body temperature but is

enough to cause permanent changes, blocking the damaging electrical currents and restoring normal heartbeat.

Dr Henry Chubb, a researcher at King’s who works with Razavi, said such operations could transform a patient’s life.

“The condition can be deeply alarming for people who have it and in the longer term it’s also physically damaging to the heart muscle.”

The potential of MRI to see inside the body during operations is being realised in other areas too, especially in neuroscience, where the ability to monitor instruments or probes as they are inserted into the brain can help to minimise damage to potentially vital areas. @jonathan__leake

RESIDENTS of a wealthy Buckinghamshire village are threatening to vote for Ukip after the government overruled a planning inspector to allow a Sikh faith school to remain there.

Last month’s ruling by Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, means the Khalsa Secondary Academy can stay in the village of Stoke Poges.

At a meeting last week 200 villagers voted to continue opposing Khalsa, which was set up under the free school programme. The parish and district councils will now consider challenging Pickles in the High Court.

A Tory councillor, Trevor Egleton, said: “Some will vote Ukip because of what has happened with the school in the hope that it will concentrate Pickles’s mind.”

Villagers say they have been called “middle-class Nimbys or even racists”.

Egleton insisted they opposed the school, which is in the green belt, on environmental grounds.

The school, which buses pupils into the 5,000-strong village from Slough and west London, offers Punjabi and

Sikh studies and meditation in addition to the national curriculum. It says that, while it is a faith school, it welcomes pupils of any faith and none.

The Department for Education (DfE) bought a £4.5m office building in Stoke Poges where the school opened in 2013. The district council gave it only a one-year permit, citing concerns about traffic and noise. The DfE appealed and lost, causing Pickles to overrule his inspector.

The rise of Ukip already poses a threat to the local Tory MP, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve, although it came fourth in the 2010 general election.

Yesterday Grieve said he was “very disappointed” with Pickles’s decision. “The planning inspector said they shouldn’t build here because of the noise. For him to overrule something so basic makes a mockery of the planning process.

“The school is, I’m sure, going to be an outstanding place of education. But in terms of parental choice and the effect on the local community, which clearly doesn’t want it by an overwhelming margin, it’s clearly problematical.”

Pupils at the new school will learn meditation and Punjabi

NEWS

14 STEFAN ROUSSEAU

BRITON DEFIES ILLNESS TO ROW INDIAN OCEAN

Statins expert ‘failed to declare’ drugs firm link Jon Ungoed-Thomas

Ashley Wilson, a Scout leader who has both cancer and epilepsy, is to attempt a record breaking rowing trip across the Indian Ocean to prove that “anything is possible”, even in the face of debilitating illness.

Wilson, who is in remission from Hodgkin’s

lymphoma, and his fellow adventurer James Ketchell tried out their boat, Nothing’s Impossible, yesterday at Canary Wharf, east London.

They will start the 3,600 mile journey in Australia next April, aiming to reach Mauritius within the

current record of 85 days. Wilson, who hopes to raise money for the Scouts from the trip, said: “Scouting has always been supportive of me and has helped me lead a normal life, no matter what the medical challenges.”

ONE of the medical experts asked to develop guidelines that recommend statins for millions of new patients was asked to resign over a conflict of interest, according to the government body he was working for.

David Wald, a consultant cardiologist, was a founder of Polypill, which sells a pill combining a statin with drugs to reduce blood pressure. It costs £88 for a 12-week course.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said yesterday that Wald had not disclosed his interest

before joining the 12-strong panel that advised on one of the most controversial decisions on drug use in recent years.

It said when his role in Polypill emerged he was “asked to resign” and had no influence on the final recommendation.

Wald hit back yesterday, saying the claims were not accurate. He said he had correctly disclosed his interest in Polypill when he was recruited.

He said he did not resign but was unfairly excluded from the panel.

Nice has faced strong criticism from some doctors over the conflicts of interests of the 12 experts appointed to advise Nice on whether to extend the use of statins to millions more people. Six have previously been disclosed as having links to the pharmaceutical industry. Nice says their interests were declared when they joined the panel.

Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s shadow health minister, has called for an inquiry into the conflicts of interests at Nice after complaints from some doctors.

Wald, professor of cardiology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, was recruited in the summer of 2012. He stepped down from the panel in July 2013.

A Nice spokesman said: “Professor David Wald did not declare his clear personal pecuniary interest but volunteered the information outside [a meeting] and he was subsequently asked to resign from the group.”

Wald said he correctly told Professor Anthony Wierzbicki, the panel chairman, of his interestwhenhewasrecruited.

He said he held different views to other members and his exclusion meant he could no longer contribute.

He said: “I have had a prolonged dialogue with Niceover my exclusion. I think it was unjustified and told them so. I made full disclosures of my interests.”

Wald wrote a research paper in July 2012 in which he disclosed he had an interest in the development of Polypill. His father, Professor Sir Nicholas Wald,theeminentepidemiologist, holds the European patents to Polypill.

The draft Nice guidance published in February recommended wider use of statins, extending use to people who have a 10%risk of a heart attackorstrokeoverthenext10 years. The proposal triggered a row about over-prescribing and conflicts of interest.

Nice endorsed its panel’s proposal in July. It means about 40% of the adult population will be offered statins.

The debate over statins has divided many doctors and scientists. Advocates say they provide significant health benefits to a large number of patients. They have warned that inaccurate information about side effects could cost lives by discouraging use.

Critics say the decision to extend their use to patients with a 10% risk of developing cardiovascular disease should have been rejected. They say thereisnoevidencethattheuse of statins among a low-risk group significantly reduces mortality.

Simon Capewell, professor of public health and policy at Liverpool University, said Nice should now review its conflicts

Wald: ‘unfairly excluded’

Links to industry The Nice expert panel and links to drugs firms: Professor Anthony Wierzbicki, chairman Held trials funded by Sanofi, Pfizer, Amgen and Merck Sharp & Dohme Dr Rajai Ahmad Speaker fees from Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim Dr Michael Khan Advisory work for Genzyme and Amgen Emma McGowan Speaking fees and attendance payments from Merck Sharp & Dohme, and AstraZeneca Dr Dermot Neely Advisory work for Roche Pharma, Genzyme and Aegerion Alan Rees Advisory work for Merck Sharp & Dohme, and Pfizer All interests were correctly disclosed.

Source: Nice

of interest policy and implement more robust controls.

Zoë Harcombe, a health writer and nutrition expert, said the row exposed how Nice had lost control over the conflicts of interests of its independent advisers. She said: “The links between the drugs industry and experts who recommend far greater use of statins are totally unacceptable and there now needs to be a proper investigation into this.”

A Nice spokesman said it regularly reviewed its conflicts of interests policy and was “completely confident” in its processes.

“Cardiovascular disease maims and kills people.

Our guidance will prevent many lives being destroyed.” @jonungoedthomas

That Bohème’s not by me-me, says director Richard Brooks ARTS EDITOR

THE director Jonathan Miller has accused the English National Opera of “making money out of me” by attaching his name to a new production of La Bohème in which he says he has no involvement.

Adverts for the opera, which opens on October 29, describe “Miller’s immensely moving and stylish production”, and information released to the media names him as its director.

While Miller was in charge of an acclaimed production of La Bohème at the Coliseum in 2009, the new version is directed by Natascha Metherell, described on invitations to a press performance only as “revival director”.

“I am not the director,” said Miller, whose fame began in the 1960s with the groundbreaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe.

“The ENOis simply using my name to attract audiences.

They are making money out of me.”

He pointed out that when La Bohème was staged last year, it was referred to as “Jonathan Miller’s production, revived by Natascha Metherell”.

“In effect I was the director then as I was at most rehearsals and she was my assistant,” he said.

A spokesman for the ENO said that while Miller was not working on the new production, “he has been in touch a number of times with the revival director . . . and has said he is delighted that the revival of this production is in safe hands”.

He declined to comment on Miller’s claim that the ENO was profiting from his name.

Miller said he was, however, happy to put his name to his production of Bizet’s Carmen by the Mid Wales Opera company which is touring the country.

12.10.14 / 15

Two archbishops held captive in Syria 14 Robin Henry ROWAN WILLIAMS, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has raised the plight of two Orthodox Christian archbishops held captive in Syria.

“People that I know are currently being held in the Middle East — two bishops in Syria, waiting to find out about their fate,” he said during an appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, which is sponsored by The Times and The Sunday Times.

“It’s not an academic question for me, I assure you, and I’m glad that there are people speaking up.”

Although Williams did not name the two bishops, it is likely he was referring to Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, and Boulos Yazigi, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo and Iskenderun.

The two were abducted at gunpoint in northern Syria

in April last year as they returned from a humanitarian mission.

Williams, who was speaking about law, rights and religion, said the West “can’t turn our backs” on the “poisonous” effects of religious tyranny in the region.

Asked to compare Isis with the evils committed in the past by the Catholic Church, he said: “There is such a thing as bad religion, toxic religion.

Lots of Muslims have said that Islamic State is in direct contravention of any number of principles, Koranic principles.

“Within the Christian tradition there have been horrendous periods, where human dignity in the fullest sense has been overruled.

“At the same time there has been a continuous slow fuse of revolutionary ideas, turning things around, the abolition of slavery being perhaps the most significant.

Christianity endorsed slavery for a long time, but then provided the arguments that overturned it.”

Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury for a decade from 2002 and visited Syria in 2007.

He is master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and chancellor of South Wales University.

ADRIAN SHERRATT/STEVE WOOD

Put the poor in No 10

Rowan Williams condemned Isis, while Sheila Hancock, seen with her late husband John Thaw, criticised the Conservative elite

SHEILA HANCOCK has accused David Cameron of being out of touch even though her late husband, John Thaw, enjoyed lunches with Cameron when he was a PR man in the 1990s.

“David Cameron was the PR man at Carlton Television, so John had several lunches with him,” the actress and writer said.

“They [the current government] are really good guys but if you’ve been to private school and Oxbridge, you honestly . . . don’t know what it’s like to be poor, you don’t know what the fear of debt is, you have no concept.

You can go and visit somewhere, but it’s just like when the Queen goes to things, it’s all slightly manicured.

“Whereas the postwar government lived with the people . . . and still had their roots in the people, it’s very difficult for them to do that now.

“I do think it is better when we have those sorts of people in parliament rather

than the people who got to go to public school.”

Hancock, 81, has written her first novel, Miss Carter’s War, about a French resistance fighter who becomes a teacher in England.

Asked what the character would have made of Margaret Thatcher, Hancock said: “She admires her and I think feminists — and I’m a feminist — are wrong to be so malign about her because, quite honestly, if you came from my generation it was such an amazing thing for a woman to become prime minister.

“It was beyond belief that that could happen. It must have taken guts to fight all those ridiculous men in the Tory party . . . who then eventually stabbed her in the back and got rid of her.”

Thaw starred in many television series, including Inspector Morse, before his death in 2002.

Cameron worked for Carlton Communications for seven years until 2001 when he left to become the MP for Witney in Oxfordshire.

Amis mulls on Holocaust Dumb and dumber — Boris’s old act

Amis: sought father’s view on genocide

MARTIN AMIS has said the Holocaust could never have happened in England.

Discussing his new novel, The Zone of Interest, which is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Amis described himself as a philosemite and revealed that his first love had been a Jewish girl.

Asked by a member of the audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival whether the Holocaust could “ever have been conducted in English”, Amis recalled a conversation with his late father, the author Kingsley Amis.

“I talked to my father about this once

and he said, ‘No, the men wouldn’t have it. Would they turn Hounslow into a death camp? No sir, they wouldn’t do it,’” Martin Amis said. Kingsley Amis also said that prior to 1910 the country most likely to have been responsible for a holocaust was France.

Citing a recent study on rates of anti-Semitic behaviour around the world, Amis said: “Google it. It’s fascinating and terrifying. In Greece it’s 69%, which strongly suggests these waves of anti-Semitism are closely linked to the economic fortunes of the country.”

BORIS JOHNSON admitted to the journalist Michael Cockerell that he sometimes “plays dumb” for effect.

Speaking at a debate on the subject of ‘Who was the greatest prime minister Britain never had?’, Cockerell had argued for Willie Whitelaw who, he said, never allowed his enemies to know how intelligent he really was.

Asked if he thought the London mayor used a similar tactic but had “over-egged it”, Cockerell said: “When he [Johnson] was at Eton he used to purposefully never learn his lines for his school plays

and . . . [they] would turn into a dialogue between him and the prompter.

“And I said [to him], ‘Did you learn from that?’ and he said, ‘If you’re saying that sometimes I can give the impression that I don’t know what’s going on, well yes, but sometimes I don’t’.”

Cockerell, who is making a television series about the Houses of Parliament, said Johnson was able to “get away with things no other politician could”, adding: “Anyone else caught dangling from a zipwire by his groin would be laughed out of court.”

Johnson: played the fool at Eton

NEWS

16

Skynet

2 Satellites track illegal vessels

How satellites could save endangered fish stocks

Pitcairn Island's waters could be among the first to be monitored

Eye in the sky to net illegal fishermen Jonathan Leake ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

3 Data sent to police and coastguard

1 Illegal fishing vessels steer characteristic courses

BRITAIN is to build the first satellite system designed to tackle illegal fishing by tracking the fishing vessels back to port so that law enforcement agencies can be tipped off.

The system will use current satellite networks linked to powerful software that can track tens of thousands of vessels at once all over the world. It will follow their movements, spot when and where they are fishing and then check if they have a right to be there.

One of the first targets for the new system could be Pitcairn Island, a British overseas territory in the south Pacific whose surrounding seas are among the richest in the world.

The British government is expected to declare Pitcairn its latest marine protected area alongside another declared in 2010 around the Chagos Islands.

However, such declarations are next to worthless without some means of enforcement.

Experts estimate that illegal fishing accounts globally for one in five wild-caught fish,

worth up to £14.6bn a year.

That means illegal fishing vessels take up to 26m tons of fish a year.

The idea for the system came from the Pew Trust, an American charity campaigning against illegal fishing. It has joined forces with Britain’s Satellite Applications Catapult — an organisation set up by Vince Cable, the business secretary, to help business exploit the UK’s outstanding record in satellite technology.

Cable said: “Satellites give massive reach and, when combined with advanced software

and computing power, can be used to monitor illegal fishing, piracy and other activities.”

Tracking larger vessels is not a hard task — most are obliged to carry transponders giving their identity, course and other details. Smaller fishing vessels may not carry such equipment and will be tracked with cameras and radar. A company called exactEarth will combine the satellite images with other shipping and fisheries data, from coastguards, for example.

Tony Long, a former Royal Navy commander who now directs Pew’s campaign on

illegal fishing, said the system could also be deployed over Palau, a Pacific nation that also plans to make its waters a marine reserve.

“Many types of commercial fishing — trawling, for example — involve very distinctive patterns of vessel movement and the system can recognise those patterns, identify the vessel and then cross-reference that data with vessel ownership, licensing, history and where it has been,” Long said.

“If they are fishing illegally then we can warn the authorities in their home port.”

Tory cow called Theresa saves sex slave PETRUT CALINESCU

Tim Rayment A SENIOR Tory MP has bought a cow for a one-eyed former prostitute after being moved by the story of how she fell victim to human traffickers.

Sir John Randall, the former deputy chief whip, was on a fact-finding trip to Moldova in eastern Europe to see how the country deals with victims of trafficking when he met Lillian (not her real name).

He was so shocked by her storythathewantedtohelpher and has now paid £250 to buy half of a cow. The other half of the animal has been paid for by Anthony Steen, a former Tory MP who was travelling with Randall.

Lillian told the men how she was tricked into prostitution by a woman who was a friend of a friend. She was offered a job in a shop in Moscow paying up to $1,000 (£620) a month. Similar tactics are used to deceive vulnerable women and men who are trafficked to Britain.

When she got there, her passport was taken away and the job was not what she expected. “They told me that they paid $10,000 for me and thatIhadtoworkasaprostitute to pay the money back,” Lillian, 29, told The Sunday Times last week. “When I paid off the debt, I would be able to go home.

“One client drove me to a

Lillian, left with Theresa the cow, and far right with her two sisters, says she was tricked into prostitution in Moscow. She is now back in a remote part of Moldova

petrol station and five more people got into the car. They took me to a sauna where one of the men threw me on a bed and started beating me with anything he could find. Then the others came.

“They were very aggressive, even broke the door. They didn’t like that I was a for-

eigner, that I was a woman.

[They thought] all women were the same, all prostitutes. They treated me like an animal. They even beat me with a bat. I couldn’t walk next day.

“Some men spat on me; others urinated. They all did what they needed to do.”

Now at home again in

Moldova, Lillian claimed to have lost the sight of her right eye to a splinter, although Randall and Steen suspect it may have been the result of violence. She is also HIV-positive.

When her British visitors asked Lillian what she needed, she replied: “A cow.”

The animal will help make

her self-sufficient, allowing her to feed her two children milk, cheese and yoghurt. She also cares for a nephew and for her ill mother.

“Anybody who meets a victim and actually hears their story can’t help but be appalled,” Randall, the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, said. “You can’t walk by on the other side.”

In what Randall insists is a “tribute” to the home secretary, Theresa May, whose Modern Slavery Bill is currently going through parliament, the two men have

asked that the cow be named after her.

Steen, the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation, said: “We’re going to be joint owners of a parliamentary cow. We’ve said there’s one condition. The cow has to be called Theresa.”

For Steen it is a humorous way to highlight a serious point, which is what he regards as Britain’s poor record in dealing with victims of trafficking.

He points out that despite its relative poverty, Moldova has support services to help

exploited people reintegrate into society. Police work closely with the support networks and conviction rates for traffickers are much higher.

In Britain victims are shelteredfor45daysandthenleftto fend for themselves. Many are retrafficked.

Both men also believe that the Modern Slavery Bill is flawed. The bill has been criticised for failing to define trafficking in simple terms, despite advice from Lord Judge, a former lord chief justice, that this would help prosecutions.

Steen was shocked to realise

recently that even “dedicated” police officers did not know how to recognise when people were trafficked.

“This bill does little to help victims after they exit government-funded shelters,” Steen said.

“We need a few good, kind people who are prepared to back these men and women.

And the last thing we are doing in Britain is helping them.”

Last week Lillian said she would call the animal Theresa.

“I don’t think it is a very good name for a cow. But it is a very beautiful name,” she said.

Businesses forced to reveal how they will stop worker exploitation BRITAIN’S SECRET SLAVES George Arbuthnott BIG business will be forced to make public its efforts to stop the use of slave labour by its suppliers, the government will announce this week.

The measure, intended to provide consumers with confidence that they are not using firms that exploit workers, is expected to be included in the Modern Slavery Bill.

Its inclusion follows pres-

sure from campaigners, who feared companies would not make adequate efforts voluntarily, and The Sunday Times, which has been campaigning against human trafficking.

A Home Office source described the requirement as “a world-leading measure” that would ensure Britain has “the most advanced antislavery legislation in the world”.

“It is about transparency and giving customers, campaigners and shareholders the information they need to hold big business to account,” the source said.

Thegovernmentistoconsult industry about which firms will have to issue reports and what detail they will be required to provide. A similar scheme in California is based on company turnover.

The rules will be introduced

in England and Wales with discussions being planned about extending them to Scotland and Northern Ireland .

Father Gerard Wilberforce, the great-great-grandson of William Wilberforce, the 19thcentury reformer who led the first abolition movement in Britain, said: “William would be pleased. People think that if you bring in this measure today it will harm the market, but that was exactly the problem back in the 1800s when it was about sugar.”

Frank Field, the Labour MP and chairman of the parliamentary taskforce appointed to recommend reforms for the bill, said the resulting red tape for businesses would be “minuscule” and global firms including Amazon, Ikea and J Sainsbury had already publicly backed the system.

At least 80 large brands and

retailers with a combined annual turnover of more than £180bn, including John Lewis, wrote to David Cameron to give their support to the scheme.

An investigation by The Sunday Times revealed that Kozeesleep, a firm supplying beds to John Lewis, had been paying some workers less than £2 a day. Last night the retailer said it had now ended its contract with the company.

Despite the planned new rules, some campaigners say Britain is doing too little to support the victims of human trafficking (see story above). @arbuthnott

ST DIGITAL What would Wilberforce say about modern slavery?

Go to tablet or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

Moss takes a shot at spreading peace Nicholas Hellen SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

KATE MOSS and more than a dozen artists have customised decommissioned M16 assault rifles to transform them into instruments of peace.

The supermodel wrote her autograph and a heart symbol on one rifle while the artist Mat Collishaw turned the barrel of another gun into a giant version of a child’s recorder.

Sam Taylor-Johnson, the director of the forthcoming film version of Fifty Shades of Grey, was also given a deactivated gun but sparked a raid by armed police in August when it was spotted on a desk in her front room by a passer-by.

Moss has contributed a personalised gun to an exhibition of decommissioned M16 assault rifles The guns will go on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London this week before being auctioned to fund humanitarian projects and to raise awareness of Peace One Day, an international peace

movement created in 1999 by the actor Jeremy Gilley.

Organisers hope to raise £1m.

A previous exhibition of customised guns featured works by Damien Hirst and Antony Gormley.

The artist Yinka Shonibare,

who decorated his M16 with pop art-style designs, said: “A gun is both a tool of liberation and destruction. I have transformed this gun into gold and beautiful colours so I have chosen the side of liberation.” @nicholashellen

12.10.14 / 17 STUART WALLACE

Grieving father seeks under-21s drink ban Gillian Bowditch THE father of one of the youngest people in Britain to die from alcohol-related liver disease is calling for a US-style ban on alcohol sales to under-21s and action to curb the sale of cut-price alcohol.

Leigh Thomson, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, died in August, aged 24, after drinking excessively from the age of 17.

She had once secured entry to college to study biochemistry but her addiction to three litres of cheap white cider a day left her unable to take up the place and destroyed her life .

“It troubled me that Leigh was able to get access to alcohol so easily at the age of 19 and 20,” said her father, Jim Thomson, 47.

“I think we need an American-style law whereby you can’t buy alcohol until you are 21. At 18, you are not exactly responsible or mature.

“The government is quite eager to scoop up the revenue and they put ‘drink responsibly’ on the bottles but how can you tell someone with an alcohol problem to drink responsibly?

“The alcohol industry in this country makes billions of pounds. They must be able to put more aside to help people who are debilitated by their product.”

His wife, Alice, also died of alcohol-related problems in 2009, aged 42.

Dr Richard Watson, the family’s GP, said he had discussed the risks of alcohol with Thomson following the death of her mother but it was only when she developed advanced

Leigh Thomson, above second from right, and far right, died aged 24 after being unable to control her drinking. Father Jim says he was unaware she had a problem until he found her comatose at 19 liver failure two years ago that she confessed she had been consuming the equivalent of 161 units of alcohol a week. The recommended weekly limit for women is 14 units.

Thomson, who has two younger children, said he was unaware of her problem until he found her comatose through drink when she was 19. He was at Thomson’s bedside when she died.

“Leigh didn’t come from a

dysfunctional home,” he said.

“She was amazing. She was funny, articulate, and intelligent. She never got drunk in public. She was never falling about drunk ... She’d get up in the morning, put her make-up on and she’d look immaculate.

“I took her to Alcoholics Anonymous and various meetings. Reformed alcoholics that I knew came and talked to her.

The minister spoke to her and it worked, but only for so long.”

VICKIE FLORES

The sunshine has made it hard for retailers to sell coats and other autumn and winter clothing

Sunny September leaves clothes companies short Oliver Shah and Pandora Sykes THE fashion world has been caught out by the last thing it expected: days of sunshine during September.

Marks & Spencer is set to report disappointing sales next month, following similar warnings from Next and also N Brown Group, an online retailer.

The warm weather last month played havoc with fashion’s rigid adherence to the time-honoured ritual of bringing out the autumn and winter collections before the summer holidays are over.

One retail boss described last month’s trading as “horrific”, saying it had improved only in the past week. Citi, one of M&S’s house brokers, said general merchandise sales in the three

months to September 29 were now expected to have fallen by 4% — far worse than the 1% drop previously predicted.

Richard Hyman, a retail analyst, said: “Trying to sell coats and warmer autumn and winter clothing to people who are in T-shirts and enjoying the sunshine has clearly been extremely challenging.”

The M&S announcement follows the warning by the high-street retailer Next at the end of September that sales for the third quarter had been lower than expected.

The internet and catalogue shopping company N Brown Group, which includes brands such as VivaLaDiva, figleaves and High and Mighty, has released a profit warning citing September’s warm weather.

Hyman said: “N Brown is

not the segment of the clothing market that tends to be frivolous, fashion-led and erratic. They are a very solid group, so it says a lot that they have released a profit warning. But from fairly early on in September there have been consistent noises from clothing retailers.”

Honor Westnedge, lead analyst at Verdict, a retail consultancy, said: “We’ve known an Indian summer was coming since June, yet the high-street retailers did not react quickly enough.

“The retailers need to think about pre-empting this weather with transitional stock to carry them through until the consumer wants that heavier garment.”

There is some good news for clothing retailers: the Met Office is warning of wet and windy weather to come.

Clegg’s wife quits firm hit by corruption inquiry Tom Worden and Mark Hookham THE wife of Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has resigned from an £89,000-ayear job on the board of a Spanish company which has been involved in a corruption scandal.

Miriam Gonzalez, 46, stepped down as a director of Acciona, a construction and engineering firm, earlier this year according to company records.

Two of the firm’s senior executives are being investigated by a Spanish magistrate and anti-corruption prosecu-

tors over allegations of misappropriation of public funds, falsifying documents and money laundering.

The inquiry centres on the building of a publicly funded business park in Zaragoza called the Plaza by a joint venture between Acciona and another firm, Mariano Lopez Navarro.

Gonzalez, who earns a reported £500,000 a year as an international lawyer with Dechert LLP, said her resignation was unrelated to the inquiry. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on her part and she is not under investigation.

“She resigned from the

board in May to avoid any possibleperceptionofaconflict of interest after the company changed its strategy and decided to become more active in the UK,” a spokesman said.

“Her resignation was in no way related to the Plaza allegations.”

Accionasaiditwasnotunder investigation and neither of the two employees had been charged with any offence.

“This doesn’t involve Acciona as a corporation. What is under investigation is the joint venture and only tangentially.

There’s no reason why board members should know about this,” a spokesman said.

Thomson’slifefellapart.She was unable to take up her college place, lost her job and her marriage collapsed.

“She would swell up. Her skin would go yellow and her

eyes would be bloodshot,” her father said. “She would get admitted to hospital and they would keep her in for three or four weeks ... Then she’d be out the door. Nothing was on

offer from the health service but I don’t suppose she told them the truth. She was really ashamed of her drinking.”

Thomson believes that only state intervention, such as

minimum unit pricing (MUP) for alcohol, will prevent others from dying in the same way.

According to official figures, there were four deaths from alcohol-related liver disease in

people aged under 24 in England and Wales in 2012 — the most recent figures available — but none in Scotland.

The British Liver Trust charity says there has been a 40% increase in liver disease in the past six years.

Andrew Langford, its chief executive, said: “Something we are seeing a lot more of is young people in this position.

MUP would undoubtedly tackle a lot of the issues around young people drinking cheap alcohol.”

Just weeks before Thomson’s death, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Psychiatrists called on the coalition to reconsider its position on MUP. The Scottish government has pledged to introduce a minimum unit price of 50p, raising the price of a three-litre bottle of cider from £4.14 to £11.50.

Dr Peter Rice, chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, is backing Thomson’s call for MUP and raising the age limit.

“There is increasing recognition that the development of the adolescent brain takes longer than previously thought, extending into the early twenties, and there are arguments that exposure of the immature brain to alcohol may be particularly harmful and should be delayed as long as possible,” he said.

FOCUS

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WAS DEWANI FI RAMED? Flaws in the case against a bisexual businessman accused of murdering his bride raise a troubling question, writes Toby Harnden in Cape Town

n the peeling front room of their cinder-block bungalow in the township of Khayelitsha, two women were contemplating the fate of Shrien Dewani, the British businessman on trial in nearby Cape Town for the murder of his bride Anni on their honeymoon four years ago.

“Dewani is guilty as charged,” said Nomfundo Jobela, 41. “He’s a sly fox.” Her older sister Belinda interjected: “Just by looking him, you could see this one

was gay. I think he was sleeping with baboons.”

Jobela’s next-door neighbour, Xolile Mngeni, 26, was one of two men convicted of murdering Anni after a carjacking. She believes Mngeni was made a scapegoat by police, but has no doubt Dewani hatched “aplotfromthedevil”andhiredthemento kill his wife. Her view is widely shared in South Africa.

Inside the teak-panelled court No 2 of the Western Cape High Court, Dewani, a wealthy businessman educated at Bristol Grammar School and Manchester University, seemed a broken man. Since being extradited from Britain in April, he has been held at Cape Town’s high-security Valkenberg psychiatric hospital.

His wife’s family, the Hindochas, looked disgusted as his defence lawyer, Francois van Zyl, read a statement in which Dewani admitted that he considered himself “to be bisexual” and had engaged in “sexual interactions with males”.

These were “mostly physical experiences or email chats with people I met online or in clubs, including prostitutes such as Leopold Leisser”, a reference to a man known as “the German master” who has described drug-fuelled sex games in which Dewani demanded to be slapped and racially abused.

Dewani said that since 2004 he had been a member of the website Gaydar, using the handle “asiansubguy” and describing himself as “submissive, filthy-minded and

Shrien Dewani and Anni Hindocha on their wedding day. He admits to trawling gay websites but says the couple were planning a baby

perverted”,andRecon,a “hook-up sitefor men into fetish gear”. His computer was logged on to the sites on the last night of Anni’s life and two days after her death.

As if that were not enough for the Hindocha family, the court then watched a police video of Anni’s body. Dewani’s head dropped and he choked back tears as the footage was shown of the crime scene in Khayelitsha. There were gasps as the camera panned up from Anni’s scarletpainted toenails and diamante-encrusted sandals to her black cocktail dress and blood-soaked body.

She was lying face-down on the back seat of a grey Volkswagen Sharan taxi, her hands clasped to her head in a final, futile act of self-defence. Strands of her hair were wafting in the breeze.

The lurid evidence prompted local headlines such as “The plot sickens” and “Dewani gets gay in court”. In the eyes of many, it seemed to confirm his guilt.

But as the first week of the trial went on, van Zyl painstakingly dismantled the core of the prosecution’s argument that Dewani plotted to kill Anni so that he could live as a gay man unencumbered by a wife or the shame of divorce.

Van Zyl began to suggest that Mngeni, his fellow killer and neighbour Mziwamadoda Qwabe, 29, and two others involved in the murder had carried out a botched robbery. They had implicated Dewani only because they had been beaten and offered plea bargains. Hanging in the air as the case adjourned for the week was an unspoken question: was Dewani framed?

SHRIEN and Anni Dewani had enjoyed threedaysonsafariinKrugernationalpark before flying from Johannesburg to Cape Town. As they waited for the plane, Dewani’s laptop was logged on to the Gaydar and Recon websites.

Van Zyl contends that the laptop logged on to the sites automatically. He insists that Dewani loved his wife. The couple had already started trying for a baby, he says.

Medical records confirmed they were having sex.

After the two-hour flight, Dewani went out to the taxi rank and was greeted by Zola Tongo, a smooth-talking, smartly dressed taxi driver who often shepherded tourists around the Cape Peninsula. Dewani was impressed: Tongo, then 30, spoke good English, had a clean Volkswagen Sharan and pointed out landmarks on the way to the £500-a-night Cape Grace hotel.

For his part, Tongo listened to the couple’s tales of hiring a private jet to Paris so that Dewani could propose in the Ritz, and their lavish, three-day, Bollywoodstyle wedding in Mumbai. After qualifying as an accountant and working for Deloitte, Dewani had joined his family’s lucrative business running care homes. Perhaps Tongo sensed he could make money from this well-dressed, trusting couple.

When they reached the hotel late on Friday afternoon, Anni went up to their room while Dewani headed back outside to talk to Tongo. The prosecutors allege that Dewani asked Tongo, whom he had met just an hour before, whether he could organise a murder. Dewani says he wanted to discuss a helicopter flight as a surprise for Anni. He offered 15,000 rand (£840), about the same price as he had paid for a flight on his stag weekend in Las Vegas.

The prosecution says this money was for Anni’s murder and that surreptitious texts and phone calls between Dewani and Tongo over the next 30 hours were to arrange the killing, not the trip. But the going rate for murdering a foreigner has been put at well over 100,000 rand.

After spending most of Saturday lounging by the pool, the couple were picked up by Tongo at about 8pm and had a sushi dinner in the seaside town of Somerset West. It was now that Tongo suggested they see a slice of the “real Africa”.

Locals describe this as “slum tourism” — driving around townships. Dewani had worked as an aid volunteer in Ghana and was concerned about the plight of impov-

erished Africans. But the townships are no-go areas for foreigners after dark.

Tongo was slowing down at a junction in the township of Gugulethu when two men jumped out and started banging on the taxi. They were Mngeni, carrying a 9mm pistol, and Qwabe, wearing yellow washing-up gloves.

The two carjackers ordered first Tongo and then Dewani from the vehicle at gunpoint. Dewani protested that he did not want to leave his wife, but whispered to her in Gujarati that she should stay quiet and clambered out. The car was driven off with Anni still inside. According to her family, this act of abandonment by itself made Dewani responsible for her death.

Mngeni — the only one of the accused not to take a deal with prosecutors — later confessed to police what then happened when they stopped the taxi in Khayelitsha.

“The lady was hanging on to her bag, crying as she was scared,” he said in footage obtained by BBC Panorama. “I heard a shot. I asked Qwabe . . . why he’d done it.” The bullet had gone through her hand before hitting her in the neck, indicating a struggle rather than a deliberate murder.Thetwomenapparentlypanicked and fled, leaving Mngeni’s fingerprints and one of Qwabe’s gloves nearby. Within days, they and Tongo had been arrested.

FROM the outset, there has been prejudice against Dewani, a Hindu, in a country where anti-Asian hostility is common. The

WHY WOULD DEWANI, OUT OF THE BLUE, GET HOLD OF AN ODD GUY LIKE TONGO AND ARRANGE ALL THIS?

view expressed by General Bheki Cele, South Africa’s former police chief, was: “A monkey came all the way from London to have his wife murdered here.”

There were concerns that the murder would highlight violence in South Africa, where there are close to 50 killings a day and 11,000 carjackings a year.

Paul Hoffman, a former acting High Court judge in Cape Town, said a widespread theory was that the police were under pressure, and blaming a foreigner was convenient. “Many people have suspected that it was done to keep the tourist industry sweet.”

The Dewani trial is the latest courtroom drama to grip South Africa, less than a month after Oscar Pistorius, the disabled sprinter, was sensationally cleared of murdering his girlfriend but found guilty of culpable homicide.

Three weeks after Anni’s murder, Tongo agreed to a plea deal in return for implicating Dewani. Instead of life, he was sentenced to 18 years and could be freed in seven. Qwabe also made a deal, fingering Mngeni as firing the fatal shot. However, gunpowder residue on the recovered glove all but confirmed Qwabe was the killer.

Monde Mbolombo, a clerk at another hotel who was described by Qwabe as a “link man” in the plot, was given immunity from prosecution in return for testimonyagainstDewani.Butanewstatement from Mbolombo has indicated that, in van Zyl’s words, he “played a very definite role in the events of that night”.

There were sighs in the courtroom when Qwabe became ever vaguer as he was confronted with evidence that disproved his previous testimony, repeatedly responding: “I cannot recall.” At one point, van Zyl retorted: “This means only one thing . . . you lied.”

The haphazardness of the crime appeared to suggest that the intention was robbery rather than murder. Anni’s handbag, her Giorgio Armani watch and jewellery were stolen. It was a haul worth £8,000, more than 10 times the supposed cost of the killing. Between the seats was Anni’s £25,000 engagement ring, where she had stuffed it just before her death.

While Dewani has already been condemned by South African public opinion, his fate under the country’s no-jury system rests with Judge Jeanette Traverso.

Traverso will have to be persuaded that Dewani began to orchestrate a murder with Tongo just an hour after meeting him for the first time. The prosecution is relying on evidence from Qwabe and Tongo, both convicted killers, and Mbolombo, who was allegedly part of the murder plot.

Mngeni has a brain tumour and will probably be too ill to appear.

William Booth, a South African lawyer, said the prosecution had taken “a bit of a battering” in the first week and was presenting an implausible scenario. “Why would Dewani, an intelligent man, go and, out of the blue, get hold of an odd guy like Tongo and arrange all this?” he asked.

“Tongo could have ratted on him — or nailed him instead.”

Some evidence damages Dewani. His 18-month relationship with Anni was stormy and there were signs she had thought of leaving him. She once texted her cousin that “one cannot even hug him”, and: “Want to cry myself to death.”

Back in Khayelitsha, Nomfundo Jobela pondered the motive of the locals who had carried out the killing: “Money — with a capital M,” she concluded. But the “mastermind” was Dewani, she insisted.“He’s a jackal in sheepskin. He wanted her dead and to blame South Africans.”

ST DIGITAL Top, the couple in South Africa hours before Hindocha’s murder. Above, the German prostitute Leopold Leisser with whom Dewani indulged in ‘sex games’

Watch Shrien and Anni Dewani’s wedding dance Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

12.10.14 / 19 JOHN MOORE

The virus has broken out of Africa, with no vaccine or cure ready. So how will we contain the disease in the West?

A

s Teresa Romero battled for her life in a transparent, plastic tent in a Madrid hospital last week, her brother, Jose Ramon, was looking for someone to blame. Not only was he in danger of losing a loved one to the ebola virus but the day before he had lost his job as a carpenter. His employer told him not to come back — “just in case”.

Madrid is gripped by panic, its citizens living in dread of a disease that had never before infected anyone outside Africa.

In Romero’s home district of Alcorcon people were wearing surgical face masks — “just in case”.

Until her apartment building was disinfected on Thursday, neighbours wore gloves to touch lift buttons or door knobs.

“It’s very scary,” said Carmen Ruiz, who lives on the floor below Romero and had been using a paper tissue to press the lift buttons.

“Nobody has told us what is safe and what is not.”

Tragically for Romero the response to her illness has been — as one expert put it — a “lesson in what not to do”.

After falling ill Romero, a 44-year-old nurse, spent five days at home before being hospitalised despite the fact that she had cared for Manuel Garcia Viejo, a missionary who died after catching the disease in Sierra Leone.

She believes that she became infected after accidentally touching her eyes or nose as she took off protective clothing.

Seventeen people including Romero’s husband, Javier, were admitted for observation and the family dog Excalibur was put down.

At the hospital hundreds gathered to demonstrate against the Spanish government’s handling of the crisis, calling on Ana Mato, the health minister, to resign.

“She was doing her job . . . and she was infected with ebola,” Ramon said. “There are more people responsible than just her.”

Romero’s plight has reverberated around the globe. The western world has been given the starkest of warnings about the spread of the virus: it is no longer just a west African problem.

The response has been understandably confused. In the French town of Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, the authorities locked 60 people in a building after four residents from Guinea complained of headaches and fever; the death of a Briton in Macedonia was wrongly attributedtoebola;andatLaGuardia airport in New York aircraft cleaners went on strike over fears of contamination.

Add to all this the fact that supplies of ZMapp, which had been called the “miracle drug” for treating ebola, have run out and vaccines are only in trial stages, and it is no surprise that people are scared and prone to overreaction.

Is all the anxiety justified? The fears of ebola in developed western countries appear to be advancing at agreaterpacethanthevirusitself.In west Africa, however, the disease is outpacing all attempts to contain it.

IN THE seaside town of Lakka outside Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, Wilfred Onta held his head in his hands as he waited in the shade outside the ebola treatment centre.

His son, Christian, 7, lay sprawled on a piece of cardboard beside him.

They had been waiting for eight hours.

“There is no space inside,” said Onta. “But I hope soon they will have a bed and will come and get us.” Onta has seen 10 of his family die from ebola, including his wife.

His only other child, his daughter Lionella, tested positive too and was in the treatment centre.

Dr Komba Songu, a clinician in another treatment centre in the town of Hastings, 14 miles from Freetown, said:“We’ve been at full capacity ever since we opened.

Right now we have 101 patients for 100 beds. We can’t take any more.”

Originally a training school for police recruits, the treatment centre sits on a broad plain. Workers clad in protective yellow suits tend the patients in what is known as the “red zone”.

Until a few days ago Jalikatu Koroma, 10, was one of the inmates of the red zone. But after two weeks she was discharged — a survivor.

She had come to visit her younger brother who stood on the other side of the 3ft-high plyboard fence around the red zone. She smiled as she handed him a boiled egg, happy

EBOLA: THE FIGHT IS ON

A woman weeps as her sister, a market vendor, is taken away for burial after dying of ebola in Monrovia, Liberia. The virus has killed more than 4,000 people in west Africa, about half of the total number who have been infected that he seemed to be making good progress.

They are in the minority. Songu estimates that between 60% and 70% of patients die. Koroma’s father was one of them.

According to Sierra Leone’s health ministry, the Freetown area has seen 575 cases since the first one in late May but many say the disease is moving more quickly.

In a tattered exercise book, cemetery keeper Abdul Rahman Parker has been compiling figures of his own. He said that he and his teams had buried 423 ebola victims in less than a month. “On October 6 we buried 30 in just one day,” he said “Yesterday we buried 20 more.”

The bodies are brought in by eight burial teams patrolling the streets of Freetown. Each burial must be carried out in full protective gear. “I am afraid,” says Parker. “We’re doing it because it’s our country and God wanted us there. But it’s very hard to see so many of our citizens dying.”

So far the virus has killed 4,033 of 8,399 people infected in west Africa.

Health services have been overwhelmed and the death toll among medical staff has been high: of 401 staff infected by patients, 232 have died.

At the current rate there will be more than 20,000 cases by November2.TheUSCentersforDisease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns there could be 1.4m cases by January 20.

In Britain the government did a rapid U-turn on Thursday and agreed to introduce airport checks at Heathrow and Gatwick and at the Eurostar terminals in response to political and public concern. There is confusion over what form these checks will take.

David Mabey, professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, dismissed such checks. “The money would be better spent on setting up

Profile of a killer

Infection on average

infects

victim in Africa

others

1

Origins Fruit bats are natural ebola hosts and infected great apes Treatment An experimental genetically engineered virus is injected into tobacco plants, which produce to generate a antibodies. dose of ZMapp These antibodies are used to make a treatment, ZMapp

6months

places where people can be tested and telling them where that is,” he said on BBC Radio 4.

Yesterday an eight-hour exercise was held in which actors in various parts of the UK simulated ebola symptoms to test emergency services. Hospital staff wore protective equipment and a mocked-up meeting of the Cobra emergency committee was chaired by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary.

Universities are preparing for 20,000 students from west Africa to arrive for the new term and some are considering whether those from countries with ebola outbreaks should be sharing rooms with other students.

Public Health England (PHE) insists the chances of contracting the virus remains low and the UK has “robust, well-developed and well-tested NHS systems for managing unusual infectious diseases”.

Four NHS hospitals are standing by to deal with any cases: the Royal Free Hospital in northwest London,

1 .7

cases US

2014

50%

Mali

Average fatality rate

4,033

deaths

A

UK Belgium France

8,399

Number of ebola deaths and cases

M

Where next?

Countries most likely to import a case of ebola

M

J

J

A

S

Sources: WHO, Northeastern University, Boston

which treated William Pooley, a British nurse who contracted the virus in Sierra Leone in August, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust, and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust.

Analysts at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, who modelled the expected progression of the virus, identified the UK as the sixth most likely country to have a case of “imported ebola” in the near future. Only America and France are considered more at risk among developed western nations.

Alessandro Vespignani, a physi-

Reporting team: James Gillespie, Tommy Trenchard in Freetown, Matthew Campbell in Madrid , Jonathan Leake, Mark Hookham, Beezy Marsh, and Iain Dey in New York

Senegal Gambia Ivory Coast Ghana Nigeria

cist at Northeastern University, said: “In October and November we would expect a very small number of importations. Maybe one or two in the UK, but the longer the problem lasts in west Africa the higher the probability becomes of more imported cases.”

The likelihood of a general outbreak in Britain remains very low, he added. A larger outbreak involving more than 10 individuals would be a “very, very rare event”.

Tom Solomon, director of the health protection research unit in emerging infections at Liverpool University, said: “Every one person infected [in Africa] goes on to infect another 1.7 people. That is pretty low for a virus so the chances of it really taking hold in this country are pretty much non-existent.”

Nonetheless, in west Africa it is spreading all too swiftly. The simple question being asked with ever-increasing urgency in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone is: how can it be stopped?

Vaccines at home and army abroad as UK steps up help At a secluded clinic on the outskirts of Oxford, Polly Markandya, 42, was last week injected with a modified chimpanzee virus containing fragments of the ebola genome, write Oliver Thring and Tommy Trenchard.

Markandya, who works for the charity Médecins Sans Frontières is one of the first people to test the vaccine. She joined the study out of an “increasing sense of desperation” that she, the voluntary sector and the international community could have responded much faster to the epidemic.

Markandya, who has two young daughters, added: “I’ve felt as if I were watching a car crash in slow

JEREMY YOUNG

Polly Markandya, of the charity MSF, receives her trial vaccine in Oxford

motion. My children were worried that the doctors were going to test that the vaccine worked by injecting me with ebola. But they were relieved, as I was, that that is not the case.”

While Markandya is doing her bit at home, British help is arriving in Sierra Leone in growing numbers.

In Kerry Town, south of Freetown, the British army is building an ebola treatment centre. More than 200 local construction workers were at work last week and in the middle of the bustle was Sapper John Blackburn, of the 523 Specialist Team Royal Engineers.

Blackburn, 23, from Accrington in Lancashire, said: “I am taking all the safety measures”.

IN A large polytunnel in Kentucky stand rows of tobacco plants. Their leaves are turning yellow and they mayholdthekeytofuturetreatment of ebola.

The plants have been injected with a genetically engineered ebola virus. They then produce antibodies. As they turn yellow, the leaves are harvested. Cloned “humanised” antibodies are separated from the plant, purified and transformed into doses.

It appears to be effective but it can take up to six months to generate a dose because of the growing process — and supplies have been exhausted.

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at Nottingham University, said: “The real worry is that the virus could become endemic in west Africa — then you have a real problem. If it becomes endemic you are going to see sporadic exports around Africa and around the world and that will cause chaos every time it happens.”

Alongside the development of drug treatments for ebola, blood transfusions from survivors appear to be effective, boosting patients’ immune systems by exposing them to antibodies from those who beat the disease.

Pooley, the UK nurse who caught ebola in Sierra Leone and survived, has already visited America to donate blood to other victims.

But the battle against the disease will have to be waged, at least for the next year, without the one key weapon that has given humans the

Going viral When did ebola first appear?

In 1976, near the Ebola river in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Where did it come from?

Probably fruit bats. Ebola does them no harm but jumps into gorillas, chimpanzees, antelopes and porcupines.

How does it spread?

Through bodily fluids blood, vomit, faeces, semen, breast milk, urine, tears, saliva, sweat.

Are there any vaccines?

Yes, at least three but all are experimentaland and it would take months to make enough to control the current outbreak.

What are the symptoms?

Sudden fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and rashes, possibly with bleeding.

ability to defeat deadly viruses: a vaccine.

Given that ebola has been killing people since 1976, why is there no vaccine? The simple answer is money: until now, nobody has been willing to spend the £20m or so needed to get vaccines through trials and into production.

“It is quite possible to design a vaccine against this disease. The bottleneck is not creating a vaccine but the cost of testing it and then producing it,” said Peter Walsh, a Cambridge University zoologist whohasstudiedebolasinceitspread across Africa in the 1970s, killing thousands of gorillas and chimps.

The vaccine that Walsh has worked on failed to get funding despite trials on 80 monkeys and six chimps that showed it protected the animals against direct exposure to ebola — and so might well work for humans too.

The most advanced vaccine is made by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). However, it hit the same funding wall when it contacted the World Health Organisation in March asking for funding to start human trials.

“The answer was, ‘Thanks, we’ll get back to you,’” Ripley Ballou of GSK told Science magazine.

A GSK spokeswoman said: “We might be able to make enough vaccines to protect some health workers but there is going to be no wide-scale vaccine available for this outbreak — maybe for the next one.

They are going to have to fight it the old-fashioned way.”

In other words, the tactics being deployed in west Africa will be the same as always: isolate patients and trace their contacts. The treatment is largely a matter of care and rehydration.

America is sending 3,000 military personnel, the UK more than 750 and the charity Save the Children is ready to open a 92-bed treatment centre in Kerry Town, an hour from Freetown.

Eventually Britain will provide 700 ebola beds in a series of treatment centres, caring for up to 8,800 patients in six months.

Among those going to the stricken region are engineers and water experts to help rebuild vital infrastructure but the area still needs 750 more doctors and 3,000 more nurses.

To the people of the region, the response from the West seems too little, too late. Every day Rahman Parker and his team dig more graves and he adds more names to his exercise book. It raises a haunting question: how many of them could have been saved?

ST DIGITAL 60-second briefing: how is ebola transmitted?

Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/news

FOCUS

20 VICKI COUCHMAN/DAVID GANDY FOR AUTOGRAPH M&S

Matt Rudd grits his teeth to join the growing number of British men embracing their inner metrosexual by waxing or lasering in an orgy of depilation

B

eneath Strip Wax Boutique’s price list (chest £45, back £75, the Athlete, aka everything, £265), there is a worrying note on male etiquette. “Please do not touch the therapist in any way during your treatment,” it reads. “We aim to make your treatment as painless as possible but also understand that waxing can cause discomfort. We ask that you refrain from reaching out to your therapists at these times.”

Jade is the therapist I must not touch and she is immediately reassuring. The reaching out happens only when she is waxing testicles, she explains, and I am here for the chest. A short medical questionnaire later, she smears my right nipple in warm, chocolate-scented wax, sticks a piece of paper on it (tell me if I am getting too technical) and says, “Ready?”

I am saying yes when she rips off the piece of paper. For a second, I feel nothing.

Then I have a flashback to the time I fell off my tricycle at David Mowatt’s house. Then I feel the pain. It feels exactly as if someone has torn a 5in strip of hair off my chest. I see stars and stripes, and hear a voice from across a field shouting: “And breathe.”

It’s Jade and she is not in a field. She’s right next to me with another piece of evil paper. I am trying to breathe when she does it again. This time I am certain she has taken the nipple with it.

“You have strong hair,” she says. I feel numb and I feel sad, looking at the two reddening patches of mottled chest. It took me more than 25 years to grow those hairs and they have gone in five seconds. Then she does it again and I very nearly reach out to her.

LAST week, Mintel published an extensive report on hair removal and it made for astonishing reading. British men are shaving, waxing and lasering their body hair like never before. According to the

SMOOTH OPERATORS SM

survey, almost a third of us have removed some or all of our pubic hair in the last 12 months. It appears to be a young man’s game: 48% of 16-24 year-olds have taken to pubic topiary, tailing off to 11% of 65-and-overs. This still means that more

than one in 10 pensioners is trimming downstairs, which is definitely new.

Chest hair has not escaped the orgy of depilation either. One in five men aged 16 to 44 is removing his chest hair. Armpit hair is safe for now, with only 12% of those

surveyed admitting to shaving it, but it can only be a matter of time. Of course, surveys can be wrong but in my own anecdotal analysis, this one does not appear to be. All the twentysomething friends I asked think nothing of “mansculpting”. All the fiftysomething friends I asked said their lateteenage children were obsessed with the gym, with protein shakes and muscle definition. And exactly half of the 18 women I asked on the way to my wax said they preferred it when their partners were, if not smooth,thencertainlywell-kempteverywhere below the neck.

Advertisers have cottoned on to the fact thathairlessnesshasbecomeanaspiration.

Last month David Gandy launched his new range of pants at Marks & Spencer. Barely a bus or a billboard in London was free from the spreadeagled supermodel with his gratuitous six-pack and his smattering of designer chest stubble. Did the easily startled Marks & Spencer faithful recoil in horror at the resplendently manicured Gandy? No. His pants are now the company’s bestselling pants online. Sales expectations have doubled since the launch.

Thewritingwasonthesoft,smoothwall long before David Beckham stepped out in a sarong and Daniel Craig’s James Bond emerged from the water with even less hair than Ursula Andress. It is no longer only women screaming Veet-inspired profanities from behind the bathroom door. For many young men, and some old ones too, body hair is to be expunged.

The question is, why? If you ask the people at Strip Wax, they will give you a variety of positive reasons. Triathletes and cyclists like getting their legs done. Waxed chests make you more streamlined and minimise body odour (hair gets sweaty, sweat gets smelly). Male Brazilians are “at the request of a partner” or “for the hygiene conscious” (even though evidence shows that removing pubic hair increases the risk of infection). Across their seven branches, Strip Wax are seeing more male clients by the day. Jade now “does” as many men as women.

They also claim that once men get into waxing, they soon progress to laser treatment. The footballer Cesc Fabregas reportedly spent £3,000 having his chest hair removed permanently. “Bad ass gymnast” Louis Smith, as he describes himself on Twitter, is in the middle of a laser course right now.

“I know some people like to have chest hair as it makes them look a bit more masculine”, he says, “but I just don’t like it on me at all. I didn’t want to shave my chest because it just grows back thicker and hairier, which would be worse in the long run.” The Harley Medical Group, the clinic where he is waving goodbye to his chest fuzz forever, has zapped 934 more men this year than it did last year.

Such extremes might make sense if you happen to be an Olympic athlete. One study suggests a fully shaven swimmer gains a 5% advantage in the pool. But what is everyone else’s excuse? How have we gone from those trusted symbols of hirsute virility like Tom Jones and Sean Connery to the entirely plucked 21st-century version?

Professor Craig Jackson, head of division, psychology, at Birmingham City University, lays the blame gently at women’s feet. “Over the last few years, women have been forced to de-hair because of what is seen as a male requirement. The female stereotype gave in to what the male stereotype wanted. It’s only fair that women dictate what they want.”

Jackson believes it began to change in the 1990s with the rise of the metrosexual.

“It became very much about caring and sharing and emotional intelligence,” he says.

“Some women began to want men who were more like them, men who could ‘do’ feelings. Mass media cottoned onto this and advertisers cottoned onto this.

Top left, Matt Rudd feels the pain in an attempt to achieve a body like David Gandy, main picture. Below, a hirsute Jim Palmer shows how pants used to be sold

ANNIE LENNOX ON SEX, SURGERY AND TURNING 60 STYLE

Remember L’Enfant, the Athena poster? A good-looking lad holding a baby, and he had no hair. That’s where it all started to go wrong from an evolutionary point of view.

Men started to become women’s best buddies.”

Cindy Gallop, the advertising executive who launched the successful “real sex” website Make Love Not Porn, blames the adult entertainment industry. “When it comes to sex, everybody is rampantly insecure,” she says. “We all get vulnerable when we get naked. Sexual egos are very fragile. Everybody wants to be good in bed, whatever that means. Now with the massive ubiquity of online porn, you have many more misguided and mistaken aspirational models of what ‘good in bed’ constitutes.”

Male porn stars have followed female porn stars into extreme depilation, and mainstream porn is hairless. Why? “Because when you shave your pubes, your penis looks bigger and when you shave your chest, your muscle shows better,” says Gallop.

“I date a lot of younger men and the vast majority of them shave or wax their body hair. It’s depressing because I happen to be fond of body hair. I ask them why they do this and in that context none of them will say it’s because they’ve seen it in porn but it undoubtedly plays a significant role.

“The advertising industry also bears responsibility. The proliferation of underwear models with every bit of body hair removed is now the norm. Even the ‘everyday men’ in catalogues, the dads and boys next door, all have bare chests.”

Gallop says what is happening to men in popular culture is the same as women practised for centuries. Hollywood’s leading men never had to worry about their bodies. No one would have told Cary Grant or Steve McQueen to hit the gym.

Now, all the stars come muscle-clad and hair-free.

Buff bodies are all the rage in the theatre too. This year’s Edinburgh Fringe had an unprecedented level of male nudity, and Donmar audiences did not bat an eyelid when Julian Ovenden gave them an eyelevel eyeful in the recent adaptation of My Night with Reg. “There is much less female nudity and much more male nudity on stage these days,” says Christopher Hart, the Sunday Times theatre critic. “I guess it compensates for the years of female-only baring all that might now be considered sexist. And most of the male actors getting their kit off are ridiculously buff and ridiculously hairfree. I don’t think John Gielgud ever felt he had to get his Lycras on and start pumping iron to play Hamlet. He wouldn’t have waxed either.”

BACKat the Strip Wax bar, Jade is on to my second nipple. We cannot stop now because the only thing worse than a completely bald chest is a half-bald chest and her next customer is due in four minutes.

“Men say they’ll never do that again but they always come back,” she explains.

“It’s addictive.”

Walking home with my chest feeling the way it did the time I fell asleep on a sun lounger in Corfu, I am sure it is not addictive. I have a new understanding of the reason why thousands of women follow The Hairy Legs Club, a blog that advocates going au naturel. I am founding the Hairy Chest Club. In a few years. When I’ve got one again.

Additional reporting: Audrey Ward

COMMENT

12.10.14 / 21 ALEXEI DRUZHININ

The vanished Kim is a riddle wrapped in lots of Swiss cheese

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don’t want to add to your burden of sorrow unnecessarily. I know this is a difficult time for all of us, what with jihadist maniacs decapitating people right, left and centre and the ebola virus, dressed in its best suit and carrying its belongings in a plastic bag, patiently waiting in a queue at the government’s immigration centre in Croydon. (“Hello, sir — and your reason for wishing to enter the UK at this moment?”

“Deattttthhhhhh. Deaaaathhhhhh.”

“Very well, sir. Please fill in the pink form to acquire the relevant benefits and hand it to the lady over there. Have a nice day.”)

But despite all this stuff to contend with, there is more misery waiting just around the corner. The worrying news is that Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, may be in some sort of difficulty. There are grave fears that he may be unwell or, heaven forfend, unwell to the point that he no longer exists in this mortal realm.

Some sources fear that he may have been replaced by his sister, Kim Yo-jong — a babe in her mid-twenties with a 1950s hairdo and a steely look. Others suggest he’s at home playing World of Warcraft on his computer console and has forgotten to do stuff like launch rockets, denounce Yankee imperialism, watch thousands of starving children perform choreographed callisthenics etc. Either way, something is not right.

By today, if he still hasn’t appeared, Kim will not have been seen in public for 39 days. This is very unusual. He usually likes to be seen terrifying the public, with a big grin on his chubby little face, every day or two — an average of about 16 public engagements a month. Not one, though, since the start of September.

As I’m sure you are well aware, last week brought the 69th anniversary of the formation of the Workers’ party of Korea and therefore worldwide celebrations. We broke out a few bottles and roasted a dachshund and I dare say you did the same. There was a big bash in Pyongyang — but no Kim. That’s one of the things he

ROD LIDDLE 0 I absolutely promise that I haven’t made this up. A school in Nebraska has advised teachers not to use the words “girl” and “boy” when addressing pupils, because it is gender discriminatory. Nor should they use hideously sexist terms such as “guys” or “young women”.

Better, the instructional manual insists, to use a term that is nongender-specific and totally inclusive, m’kay, such as “purple penguins”. Yes, that’s right, purple penguins. (Certainly not anything imperialist like emperor penguins, or king penguins, obviously.

Just purple penguins.)

The teachers have also been advised to hang a sign on the doors of their classrooms saying: “All genders welcome!”

Yes, go on, laugh at this madness in the brief moments before the same thing happens over here.

ST DIGITAL Liddle’s Got Issues: the rise of witchcraft and ritual abuse in Britain Go to tablet edition or thesundaytimes.co.uk/liddle

used to really enjoy, the old WPK kneesup. Not this year. Just a sad, echoing void where Kim would normally be.

The health of the supreme leader has been worrying Kim supporters like me for a while now. It is alleged he suffers from hyperuricemia (too much uric acid in the blood, medical fans), diabetes, high blood pressure, gout and other stuff.

Almost all of this has been caused by his morbid obesity; Kim pigs out relentlessly on Swiss cheese — emmenthal, to be precise. I’m more of a gruyère man myself but I admit that emmenthal is preferable to the other North Korean delicacy of choice — that is, grass.

Further, it is suggested his enormous weight resulted in a fractured ankle while he was pretending to be a soldier on a public appearance a couple of months ago. He was seen limping painfully after that. It is not known what has befallen the traitorous, counter-revolutionary ankle. It may well have been shot by now, or sent to one of those horrible camps up in the north of the country.

This is all a very bad lookout for the likeable and sane leader — and yet the year started with great promise. He was visited by the US former basketball star Dennis Rodman. And in a free and transparently open and accountable election in spring he scored his first triumph at the ballot box since becoming leader on his father’s death. It is true that he faced no opponent, but voters were allowed to tick the “no” box. According to North Korea’s exciting and influential newspaper Rodong Sinmun, not a single person made that particular decision.

I have tried calling Rodman to see if he knows how Kim is faring. No reply yet; I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, the Juche Idea Study Group of England, a Facebook page set up by supporters of Kim, says he’s still in charge and we shouldn’t get ourselves too upset.

But I’m upset. In a fractious world Kim is one of the known unknowns, to borrow a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld for the only time in my life. We need more known unknowns, and fewer unknown unknowns.

MY WEEK GLENN JORDAN

Sorry your plane’s crashed: here’s a £4 snack voucher BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

I was with my wife on an early morning Ryanair flight from Dublin to Brussels to speak at an EU workshop. It was my 50th birthday so we were visiting for pleasure as well as my business. I wouldn’t consider myself a nervous flyer; I’ve never been involved in any similar incident in the past.

The flight was full, although most people were dozing. After a short delay we set off and started taxiing towards the runway. Then, all of a sudden, there was a loud bang. It sounded a bit like when you drive your car into a large pothole.

The plane juddered and then pulled to the side; it felt like an elastic band had been released. It all happened very quickly.

People were crying out in surprise — it was dark outside.

I couldn’t see another plane and I was wondering whether it might have been something in the hold. But my wife, who was sitting further down the cabin, could see that another plane on the runway had a damaged wing. It later turned out that the rear of our plane and the winglet — the wingtip extension—of an aircraft that had been heading to Edinburgh had collided and a bit of the winglet had broken off.

RING OF BLUE

We were stuck halfway between the stand and the runway. The pilot came on to say there had been some kind of incident but that everything was OK. Shortly afterwards he came back on to tell us we would soon see emergency vehicles coming. And, sure enough, I looked out of the window and could see blue lights coming towards us. The pilot said: “Don’t be alarmed, this is just procedure.”

A ring of blue lights assembled around the aircraft and buses parked between us and the other plane, obscuring our view.

When we were taken off the plane and put on buses, a policeman covered someone’s camera with his hand, saying there was “no need” to take photographs.

So naturally we all took out our cameras.

While we were still on the plane the pilot had to switch the engines off. When he did this the emergency lighting in the cabin came on. Normally the lights in aeroplanes don’t throw any shadows, but when the emergency lighting came on it felt like a strange environment, with long patches of darkness.

Fortunately, the passengers were amazingly calm.

NO NEED TO PANIC

Ryanair was quick to text a treat to the passenger when two of its aircraft collided on the ground, but it wasn’t as fast as Twitter with titbits of real information

People develop a kind of camaraderie during incidents such as this. We kept being told that everything was 10 minutes away: there would be more information in 10 minutes, we would leave the plane in 10 minutes, the buses would arrive in 10 minutes.

We were stuck on the plane for more than an hour but I think people were very respectful and restrained. The cabin crew stayed at the front of the plane throughout the entire thing. It might have been that because we were so calm they didn’t think we needed them.

HARD TO SWALLOW

At first Ryanair was silent about the incident: we were getting all our information from Twitter. Someone in the airport had tweeted pictures of the accident and pretty soon after that other pictures and plenty of chatter started popping up.

Initially the only information I got from Ryanair was while I was still on board, via a text saying something like “Ryanair apologises and offers you a €5 [£3.90] snack voucher”. Later, however, it released a statement admitting that the planes had scraped against each other and apologising for the inconvenience.

FOUR-HOUR DELAY

A replacement plane was flown from Madrid with a new crew: I thought it was interesting that far fewer passengers got on the replacement flight. A lot of the people that I’d been speaking to had clearly abandoned any hope of making it to Brussels.

When I got on the plane after a delay of more than four hours, I was sitting next to the same man as before. Despite the fact that he had snored throughout the entire incident, only waking up to eat a strong-smelling meat sandwich, he now appeared to be an expert. In fact, the whole plane thought they were experts about what had happened — although there was a jovial atmosphere.

To tell the truth, I generally haven’t used Ryanair up until now, and I didn’t enjoy this experience either.

As told to Sam Orbaum

FIRST EVER RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX TODAY

A Spanish bride-to-be was enjoined by her prospective husband to thoroughly enjoy her hen night.

And so she did. They went to see a dwarf doing a striptease, as you do. And nine months later the now married woman surprised her husband by giving birth to a dwarf, claims the website LasCincoDelDia. Apparently the husband was unconvinced by an initial defence of “coincidence” and the woman eventually confessed all.

How low can you get? Oh, about 3ft 6in, if I’ve had a few.

Meanwhile, another dwarf, James Lusted, who is actually 3ft 7in, decided to take his fiancée Chloe Roberts out for a romantic meal at a restaurant in Cardiff. And what do you think happened when he sat down at the table?

This is the thing: in general, people mean well. There is no malice in them. They try to do the best they can — but sometimes, through no fault of their own, they get it slightly wrong. So imagine how Mr Lusted felt when he was handed a colouring book and crayons. It would sap your confidence, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, this is the column to turn to first for dwarf-related news and comment.

Congratulations Mr Putin, You’ve won!

Those wings are a load of Red Bull Deeply disappointed and frankly mystified American consumers at last have been given redress. The drinks company Red Bull is to pay $13m (£8m) in compensation after settling a lawsuit that claimed its adverts were “misleading”.

Apparently, drinking the stuff does not cause one to grow wings and fly, as the

My baby’s dad? Well, he wasn’t Bashful

company had intimated in its promotional campaign. You stay exactly where you are, sort of on the ground. Even if you jump off a tall building, the drink doesn’t work — you just plummet, and that’s not really flying.

To actually grow wings, you need to add to the Red Bull several vodkas, but don’t tell the Americans.

Congratulations to the Operation Yewtree team for their painstaking, diligent inquiries into the behaviour of the disc jockey Paul Gambaccini. It is to their credit that they were quite undeterred by a total and utter lack of believable evidence against the man.

They arrested him, one year ago this month, and in doing so effectively ended his career, for nothing. A year left swinging in the breeze. That’s the way to treat these arrogant celebrities, no?

I wonder how many months Cliff Richard will have to wait until Yewtree decides, again, that there is actually no case to answer.

Believe me — we are in Salem.

NEWS

22 / COMMENT

ESTABLISHED 1822

Ukip earthquake shakes political landscape

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arthquakes are difficult to predict but the political earthquake caused by Ukip’s successful performance at Thursday’s two by-elections was entirely predictable. So certain was the Clacton Ukip victory of Douglas Carswell, the former Tory MP, that his old party hardly campaigned there. Similarly, while a victory in the safe Labour seat of Heywood and Middleton was just out of Ukip’s reach, Labour’s performance matched a lacklustre period for the party and its leader.

Ukip, with its first MP, now has a toehold at Westminster. Should Mark Reckless, the second Tory defector so far, take Rochester and Strood for his new party, other MPs, both Tories and Labour, will be encouraged to make the switch to Ukip. The party will also begin to believe it can go beyond the handful of MPs that until now most commentators thought would be its limit.

Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative deputy chairman, whose extensive polling has revealed the scale of the Tory task in marginal seats, says all bets would be off if Mr Reckless wins. With Ukip on 16% and the Liberal Democrats on 9% in our YouGov poll today, it is little wonder that party insiders talk of matching or exceeding the seats likely to be won by a diminished Lib Dem party in May 2015. For once, the Lib Dems may have cause to be grateful to our first-past-the-post system.

Nor is this merely a threat to the Conservatives, as Heywood and Middleton and the party’s deep unease about Ed Miliband’s leadership demonstrate. A Fabian Society analysis suggests there are 10 winnable Ukip constituencies — five from each party — and more than 20 others where Ukip will either cost the Tories seats or prevent Labour winning its targets.

A Tory victory in Rochester and Strood, with the party directing big guns and money to the defeat of Mr Reckless, would halt Ukip’s progress, if only temporarily.

Both main parties can take a little comfort from the turnouts last Thursday. Heywood and Middleton was 35%, compared with 57.5% in the general election of May 2010.

Even in Clacton, where 51% voted, the previous turnout was 64%. Mr Carswell rightly

said he was the victor of only one battle. As small parties have discovered before, the bigger battle is holding on to seats that were won in the excitement of by-elections.

Nobody in their right mind, however, can now assume that Ukip’s charge will run into the sand. For David Cameron the pressure from his Eurosceptic right wing to enter an electoral pact with Ukip will grow.

He will most likely resist it, although there will no doubt be informal deals. The prime minister and his chancellor, having made the decision to tack towards the centre with socially liberal policies, left their right flank undefended and Ukip moved into the gap.

Similarly, Labour has ignored working class concerns on immigration and welfare.

The Tory response, “vote Ukip and get Labour”, is not as as neat as Conservative Central Office thinks it is. Nigel Farage skewered it last week. As the Ukip leader gleefully pointed out, in Heywood and Middleton it was vote Tory and get Labour. The same applies in many northern constituencies. The big picture is that Ukip divides support for the right but most voters are not as interested in Tory survival as Mr Cameron and his colleagues are.

In our poll today, combined support for the Tories and Ukip is almost 50% against just over a third for Labour. It is quite possible that the outcome next May will be similar. This would mean that Labour, with a leader whose ratings rank alongside those of Michael Foot, his unelectable predecessor, and unconvinced of its own ability to govern, would be in power.

At a time when the International Monetary Fund says storm clouds are gathering over the world economy, and when Britain needs strong leadership, this would be an disturbing result. There would be strong echoes of 1974, when a decrepit Harold Wilson scraped home in the second of two elections and Labour limped through five years of disastrous government. Worse, under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, bad governments are more difficult to get rid of.

Ukip has fought hard to become a highly successful grassroots movement.

But it has also opened the way to a long and potentially damaging period of political instability. All eyes now turn to Rochester.

Malala, a worthy Nobel winner at last

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alala Yousafzai is not the usual sort of Nobel peace prize winner. She is concerned about attending the prize ceremony because of her GCSE revision. She had to be told of her award by a teacher because she does not carry a mobile phone. She is also a real life heroine.

Malala, known in her native Pakistan for her diary of life under the Taliban, became a global figure two years ago when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. When she was in intensive care her survival was in doubt, let alone a complete recovery. But operations and treatment, initially in Pakistan and then Birmingham, pulled her through. Most of us would have opted for a quiet life but she is made of sterner stuff.

On her 16th birthday she addressed the United Nations and her campaign for education for all has been given the recognition it deserves. Now 17, she says that what she has done so far is “just a beginning” and there are still 57m children who are not in school. She will continue the fight and work to overcome the scepticism about her motives from some groups in Pakistan.

Malala, and her fellow Nobel peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, the Indian children’s rights campaigner, are the kind of people who add lustre to this prize. They intend to invite their respective leaders, Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan and Narendra Modi of India, to Oslo for the awards ceremony in an effort to bring reconciliation between their two countries.

Most of all, both have been working to improve the lot of children — in today’s troubled world the best route to lasting peace — without any expectation of reward. Better to give the prize to such inspiring individuals than to a war-monger or even a democratic political leader such as Barack Obama who was awarded his on entering the White House. Recent Nobel peace awards — to the European Union or the International Atomic Energy Authority — have made people scratch their heads.

Malala and Mr Satyarthi do their work because they want to improve the human condition. They do it because they believe it is possible to overcome prejudice and injustice. We applaud them for it as we celebrate their prize. The Nobel committee has got this one right at last.

Farage is inviting us to a British Tea Party.

The reply has to be no

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happened to be in Washington when the result of the Clacton by-election was announced. This was not the most convenient place to follow the goingson in a rundown British seaside town.

The global financial elite was in the city for the annual IMF–World Bank meeting and the talk was all about what could be done to breathe life into the global economy. At dinner I had to check my phone surreptitiously for news about Clacton as the masters of the universe argued about quantitative easing and structural reform.

It was, however, arguably a good place to digest the significance of the election. The United States is in the habit of getting to the future first. And that is certainly the case with the rise of the populist right. The best way to understand both the causes and the consequences of what happened in Clacton on Thursday is to study the causes and consequences of the rise of the Tea Party. It is a worrying story and one the financial elites ought to take more seriously than they do.

Douglas Carswell would fit right into the American Tea Party (there are groups in the backwoods of Virginia who follow his doings carefully). He is animated by the two principles that animate American populists: a righteous hatred of the Establishment and a naive faith in the people.

The one time I met Carswell in his cramped office in Westminster, he was on fine form about the evils of the British ruling class and its addiction to “sofa government”. He was far less convincing when it came to the wisdom of British voters. He refused to contemplate the possibility that many of our problems were the result of giving people what they wanted — more entitlements and lower taxes — rather than the machinations of the boys and girls on the sofa.

Mr Carswell has the same half-admirable and half-worrying taste for ideas as the Tea Party. He has the same heroes — Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman — and the same quirky obsessions with the evils of central banks and the possibilities of e-democracy. He has the same very unconservative willingness to rip up ancient institutions (or parties) and start all over again. He also has the same inner toughness.

The Republican establishment was blindsided by the Tea Party because it underestimated the toughness of its leaders and the fury of its members. Tory high command also mutters about “swivel-eyed loons”, on the one hand, yet insists that the very same loons will come home in the general election.

The Tea Party is the home of America’s angry and left-behind: a growing constituency as the lion’s share of the benefits of economic growth go to the top 10%, and particularly the top 1%, and the incomes of ordinary people stagnate. These are people who are getting the sharp end of economic change: their jobs are being shipped off to Mexico or China or handed over to machines.

They are also people who are getting the sharp end of social change. They see the America they love being turned into a very

ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE different country from the one they grew up in (often a long time ago: Tea Party people are a fairly elderly bunch). There are 12m illegal immigrants. Gays can get married. A black man is president. The fact that the liberal elite treats their worries with uncomprehending condescension only makes them angrier.

Their complaints carry a good deal of wisdom: Washington politics is badly broken.

The parties are vehicles for careerists — not just the people who win the seats but also the people who advise them on the dark arts of raising money and crafting attack advertisements. They are also deeply intertwined with bloated corporations that want to suck at the public teat. But the wisdom is intermingled withagooddealofnonsense.Notonlydothey want to recreate a country that can never be

FOR ALL THEIR REASONABLE ANGER, THE TEA PARTY HAS MADE THE US POLITICAL SYSTEM WORSE recreated. They are also blind to the extent to which they are part of the problem: the pensioners who turn out in such numbers to protest against big government are determined to keep their bit of big government in the form of pensions and healthcare.

You can see all this being repeated — sometimes word for word — in Ukip. Clacton is a poster town for the economically leftbehind. Richer Ukippers (of whom there are many in my home county of Hampshire) feel just as left behind by gay marriage and immigration. Nigel Farage talks about “taking our country back”. Carswell talks about going to war with the Westminster machine.

Ukip is only part of a much broader

ATTICUS

ROLAND WHITE

Time to get steamy, Danczuk, or you’ll be an antique too Labour MP Simon Danczuk has branded Janet Street-Porter an “antique journalist” after the broadcaster criticised his wife. (What an image: “I found this faded figure in the attic, and wondered if it was a genuine Street-Porter.”)

The former queen of “yoof” TV used an episode of Loose Women to lambast Karen, a Labour councillor, for showing off cleavage on Twitter. But the Rochdale MP told Channel 5: “Karen is a gorgeous,

glamorous woman. Why shouldn’t she take selfies?”

It’s certainly what the public is demanding. Karen now has a Twitter following of 24,000, while Simon has attracted just over 8,700. Where is he going wrong? “I have tweeted about my ironing,” he says. “I love ironing.”

Oh dear. That’s not going to have quite the same impact. Unless, of course, he turns up the steam and goes topless.

A holiday that really lets you leave your Troubles behind

With this bling I thee wed “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today at the most lavish wedding ceremony of the year and in the sight of 600 people — all dressed to the nines with hats that look like satellite dishes — to join this couple in holy matrimony, despite the certain knowledge that it will never last.”

Here is bad news for brides who like to push the boat out, especially if that boat is the size of the Queen Mary. Two economists at an American university have discovered that lavish weddings are more likely to end in divorce. If you wish to celebrate your golden wedding together,

you should probably organise a selfassembly service from Ikea.

It is pure coincidence that this research has been published just after George Clooney and his bride reportedly spent £8m on their nuptials in Venice.

When the rapper Kanye West married the reality-TV star Kim Kardashian earlier this year in Florence they apparently spent a similar amount.

So the implications of this research are very clear. If people start having cheaper weddings, it will be curtains for the Italian economy.

populist movement: one Tea Party among many across the country and across Europe.

The Scottish National party is a protest against the overcentralisation in London and the globalisation that limits people’s ability to control their lives. Populist parties, some of them — such as Hungary’s Jobbik and Greece’s Golden Dawn — distinctly sinister, are springing up across Europe, providing a voice for what Dominique Reynié, a French academic, calls the “existentially destabilised”. Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, is polling at 25%. Populist parties such as the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People’s party are flourishing in Europe’s supposedly sensible north.

The parallels between Ukip and the Tea Party are not perfect: the Tea Party is a faction within the Republicans, while Ukip is a distinct party. But they are close enough to be worrying to anybody who cares about the future of British politics. The impact of the Tea Party in America has been overwhelmingly negative. For all its reasonable anger at America’s dysfunctional political system, it has made that system worse.

The Tea Party has strengthened the Democrats by dragging the Republicans to the right andleaving themiddletobeoccupied by their rivals. Primary contests between establishment Republicans and Tea Party figures have wasted the party’s energy and frequently lumped the Republicans with eccentrics.

Mitt Romney might easily have won the 2012 presidential election for the Republicans if he had not felt the need to pander to the Tea Party purists: he may have been an awkward candidate, but Barack Obama was a weak and unpopular president.

The Tea Party has also made it almost impossible for politicians to address America’s problems, with its high-octane rhetoric about sending immigrants back south of the border and antics such as Senator Ted Cruz’s attempt to shut down the government.

Carswell’s victory in Clacton on Thursday makes it much more likely that all this will be repeated in Britain. The Conservative party has responded to the rise of Ukip by moving further to the right on the issues that worry the left-behind such as Europe and immigration. This could easily alienate the middle ground without taming the populist furies: in Sweden a highly successful (and Cameronfriendly) conservative government recently lost an election because the Swedish equivalent of the Tea Party won 13% of the electorate. The more the Tories move to the right, the less they will be able to act as a champion for reform at home and freer markets in the European Union.

The lesson of the rise of the Tea Party is clear: for all the superficial appeal of its antiWashington rhetoric, it makes dysfunctional politics more dysfunctional and sensible reform all but impossible. The British need to study the US example before it is too late.

Adrian Wooldridge is the management editor of The Economist and writes the Schumpeter column.

Dominic Lawson is away

Fancy something different for your holidays? The New York Times is offering an eight-day tour of the Northern Ireland conflict sites. The £3,500 trip, available next June or October, begins with a visit to Omagh, where 29 people were killed by a Real IRA bomb in 1998, followed by a pub lunch to “discuss the ramifications of the Real IRA’s actions”.

Visitors — who will stay in a country house hotel — will also see the Crumlin Road jail, and enjoy a Bloody Sunday walking tour. Or if you don’t fancy that, there’s always Tuscany again.

0 As Lib Dems tried to distance themselves from the Tories, a conference display by Royal Mail reminded us that the parties are closely linked.

Three posters promoted a new set of stamps, out this week, featuring great prime ministers. The posters featured Earl Grey, Gladstone, who began his political life as a Tory, and Winston Churchill, once a Liberal but probably the 20th century’s bestknown Conservative.

A Royal Mail source said: “There haven’t been many 20th-century Liberal PMs. We didn’t think anyone would mind.”

0 Politics is tough, but opinion polling is tougher.

Lord Ashcroft, former Tory party deputy chairman, has defended his methods after predicting an easy Labour win in Heywood and Middleton. His poll last weekend gave Labour a 19-point lead over Ukip.

As it turned out, Labour scraped in by 617 votes.

“There was ... no compelling reason for voters to focus on the contest early,” he writes on the Conservative Home website. “This left the door open to the late Ukip surge.”

Whatever the reason, Tories will be hoping other surveys will prove just as inaccurate. Especially the Ashcroft data that shows a growing Labour lead in marginal seats.

0 Who needs big donors? The Labour candidate Duncan Enright, one of David Cameron’s opponents in Witney, is organising a cyber whip-round, appealing for money on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. He says he needs £10,000, and by yesterday he had raised a mighty £302. To put this into perspective, Labour was 26,462 votes behind the Tories in 2010. Time to dig about down the back of the sofa, Duncan?

n Walking past a branch of the Fat Face

chain, I notice this sign in the window: “Men’s bottoms from £40.” How very modern. Apparently they also sell trousers.

n To sum up the past week, more and more

Labour figures say Ed Miliband is hopeless, and there is talk of a leadership challenge. In other news, Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University suggests that Ukip could help Labour take 20 seats from the Conservatives. So it’s now only 207 days until “hopeless” Ed becomes prime minister.

12.10.14 / 23

The home-flipping ex-banker offering an utterly new politics

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hose decrying “Westminster business as usual” often say that MPs live in a different, elitist world. What is certainly true is that the insiders and the “left-behind” experience politics at vastly different speeds.

Party leaderships travel at an ever more frantic pace towards the impending doom of the general election. Their urgent efforts go into trying to secure their political futures, especially now insurgents have broken through under the flag of nationalism across the UK. Many ordinary voters dwell in the present, which is being shaped by the recent past. For them the election is still only a dot on the horizon, and their interest is not piqued by what politicians promise to deliver in the haze beyond it.

Mainstream politicians have “moved on”. Now that a stuttering economy is in recovery, finger-pointing about the past is a dying ritual — fading clichés such as “Don’t give the keys to the people who crashed the car” and the tired condemnation of the unregulated greed of an elite.

What really matter to the campaigners now are the uncosted tax and spending pledges with which they are wooing us.

But lots of people are still searching for answers to the consequences of the

ADAM BOULTON 2007-8 banking crash: stagnant earnings and savings, scarcely affordable housing, stretched public services and diminished prospects.

The electorate’s timetable lags perhaps five years behind the political cycle. Bush and Blair were both re-elected after the Iraq invasion of 2003; it took seven years until their parties were thrown out of government. Similarly, the 2015 election could be the one in which the crash takes its toll.

That at least is the view of Douglas Carswell, the first MP elected to represent Ukip in parliament in the party’s 21-year existence. Carswell was quick to celebrate his victory as a triumph over “crony corporatism” and “cosy cartel politics”.

Yoking Labour and Conservatives into a demonic duo, he explained: “Just as Lehman Brothers and Northern Rock were bankers who were not good at banking,socorporatepartiesarenotgood at politics.”

In some ways Carswell is an unlikely anti-politician. Public-school and oldfogeyish, he served nine years as a Conservative MP. The expenses scandal showed he was not above flipping his homes. He was reimbursed for a £655 brushed-cotton love seat and other purchases from John Lewis and the White Company.

But beyond his change of party flag, his comments as a Ukip MP are no different from what he banged on about when he was a Tory MP. True, not so long ago Farage and his City-trader cronies were saying very different things, but when the dispossessed look for an alternative, it seems they are not much bothered by the small print.

Like Boris Johnson, Alex Salmond and Farage himself, Carswell has the allure of

the Other — offering something different in an “authentic” voice.

Carswell’s hyperactive efforts to bring democracy to his constituents was rewarded in the by-election with 59.75% of the vote and a 12,404 majority — bigger than the majority he got in 2010, when turnout was higher.

It was a remarkable personal achievement, but it is difficult to read a trend from Carswell’s triumph, not least because Ukip respectfully did not run against him at the last election.

Bruised in Clacton, the Conservatives hope that Carswell’s momentum will dissipate before he can pass it on to his friend and fellow defector Mark Reckless in Rochester and Strood. The Tories plan to take their time selecting a candidate in a leisurely postal vote, with the by-election following in the run-up to Christmas.

Conservative MPs know that the line in the sand is drawn on the beaches of the Medway. Cameron cannot afford to lose Rochester. Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, the academic authors of Revolt on the Right, about the rise of the radical right in Britain, ranked Carswell’s Clacton as the most Ukip-friendly constituency in the country. Rochester is 271st on their list.

Clactonismadeupofretirementhomes

and other forgotten communities, but RochesterisaLondoncommutertown.Its population is younger, richer, better educated and more diverse. According to the House of Commons Library, the more residents there are with no formal educational qualifications, the more fertile a constituency is for Ukip.

“If Ukip wins Rochester, it can win anywhere,” worried Tories keep saying.

On Thursday Farage deliberately lowered the bar for future defector MPs: they will not be expected to resign and fight a by-election. If Reckless gets back to Westminster, simple, selfish electoral maths could tempt a handful to accept his invitation.

In 2001 Labour held both Harwich and Medway, from which Clacton and Rochester, respectively, were formed. Its shareofthevoteplungedto11%inClacton this time, and the party is debating whether it is worth putting any effort into reclaiming Rochester. Miliband may diagnose “despair, disillusionment and decay” in modern Britain, but the victims are not turning to his party for the cure.

Last week Farage tried to turn the Tory slogan to his advantage: “North of London, vote Conservative and get Labour,” he replied cheekily. He could have a point if there is any further erosion

of the Tory vote in Ukip’s favour in Labour heartlands.

A new study for the Fabian Society by Marcus Roberts warns that up to 15 Labour seats could be captured by a buoyant Ukip, and in four “three-way” targets Ukip could hold Labour back from overtaking the Tories. By this analysis Farage’s boasts of holding the balance of power next year sound less fanciful.

Progressive politicians would like to ignore Ukip’s beached supporters as a minority who represent the past, not the future. But they can’t, because they badly need their votes back. Tory, Labour or Liberal Democrat, they each insincerely pander to what they believe are Ukip prejudices on issues such as immigration, the EU and the NHS. In the process they are dragging their parties from the consensual centre, where the richer seam of votes must surely lie.

Victory in May will go to the mainstream party that manages to persuade the greater number of people to see things its way — if only grudgingly and for long enough to cast their votes.

Ukip’s breakthrough sounds the alarm that neither Cameron nor Miliband has a clue how to build the majority he needs.

Time is running out for both men. @adamboultonsky

If we are going to panic over ebola, then let us panic with purpose

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ou can’t take a corkscrew with you on an aeroplane, but you can take a deadly virus. However much we want to believe the soothing words from the authorities about how difficult it is to catch ebola — and they are right — we may still feel a primordial shudder.

How worried should we be about a disease that has infected 8,000 people in Africa and has now creptintotheUnitedStatesandEurope?Willebola be like the respiratory viruses Sars and swine flu, which also jumped from animals to humans but failed to kill in anything like the predicted numbers? Or will ebola be the next Aids, a new plague, as a top US official warned last week?

Here I must make a confession. I may moonlight as a writer who tries to weigh up issues with some pretence at reasonableness. But in real life I am Mrs Paranoid. Clearing out my bedroom cupboard this spring I found bubble-wrapped packets of Tamiflu and Relenza that I had bought over the internet from dodgy-sounding companies in 2009 when the H1N1 (swine flu) virus burst into the public consciousness.

I was not alone in my secret stockpiling. One of my closest friends, fearing swine flu would wipe out half of Fulham, west London, had bribed the pharmacist to sell her his last two packets of Tamiflu from under the counter. I remember us discussing whether her youngest child would be able to swallow the tablets if she ground them up with water.

Do I feel silly now? Yes, a bit. Especially since research has suggested Tamiflu is less effective than we had thought (Roche, its maker, disputes this). But I don’t think it is illogical for individuals to try to protect themselves from even a small risk of something nasty. And paranoia can have positive effects. If we all started washing our hands, for example, we would reduce the spread of all sorts of diseases.

Governments face a different set of choices from individual citizens. It is not necessarily logical for a government to spend the same fraction of national income that I spent as a fraction of my salary on Tamiflu (a figure I was too embarrassed to admit at the time but it would have been substantial). Governments must protect their populations in the most intelligent, effective wayproportionatetotherisk.Theymustalsofight fear, both in the public and in the border force and nursing staff who may encounter a disease.

The British government has not advanced either of those goals by changing its mind about airport screening last week. Airport thermometers won’t detect many victims, since it can take three weeks for ebola symptoms to appear.

And people who are desperate to fly may not be honest with questionnaires asking if they have been in contact with a sufferer. So far the screening of passengers leaving Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has led to fewer than 100 people being prevented from flying. Most of them turned out to be suffering from malaria.

www.geraldscarfe.com

CAMILLA CAVENDISH The rigmarole that has just been launched at John F Kennedy airport in New York and will be copied at Heathrow, Gatwick and the Eurostar terminals, looks a little bit like panic. If we’re going to panic, let’s panic in a way that is effective.

We should start by making sure that our own healthcare systems react swiftly when the disease appears. The cases of Teresa Romero, the nurse who is critically ill in Spain, and Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who died in America last

THE LONGER THE VIRUS CIRCULATES, THE GREATER IS THE DANGER THAT IT WILL MUTATE INTO SOMETHING WORSE, POSSIBLY AIRBORNE week, suggest a level of complacency in those countries that would have shocked me and my Fulham friend while we were stockpiling Tamiflu.

Romero was known to have treated two missionaries who died of ebola, but was initially fobbed off with paracetamol. Duncan, who had recently flown in from Liberia, went to a Texan clinic feeling ill and was sent home with antibiotics.

ThefirstBritishcases,ifwegetany,areunlikely to walk straight into the isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in north London. They will turn up at GP surgeries or walk-in clinics, whose staff will need to think on their feet. Nigeria has kept ebola rates down through such quick staff reactions.

The disease seems to be containable with good

infection control because it is passed through blood or bodily fluids and cannot survive long outside the body — unlike swine flu, which made me paranoid because it could be transmitted through the air by coughs and sneezes.

We must also redouble our efforts in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The front line in the war against ebola in those countries is far too thin: it seems to be manned mainly by the heroic volunteers of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF). The charity has warned that it is seeing the disease accelerating out of control in those countries. MSF does not do hysteria but its president sounds intensely frustrated at the lack of international effort.

The battle is not just clinical but also cultural in villages where people are used to hugging their dead and are deeply upset when strangers take the bodies away and burn them. The job requires enormous sensitivity as well as medical know-how. The leaders of those countries may not have cash — and Liberia has only 57 doctors — but they have no excuse for not walking down every street and explaining to every citizen why the bodies must be moved quickly.

We cannot retreat from the battle in Africa, not only for humanitarian reasons but also for our own protection. Global air travel makes pandemics far more likely.

This is not new, however much it may seem like a modern scourge. The deadliest pandemic ever wrought by globalisation was the Black Death, which roughly halved the population of 14thcentury Europe. It is thought to have been carried by traders from Central Asia along the Silk Road and then by fleas living on ships’ rats from Constantinople to Europe.

The word “quarantine” appears to derive from that time. Ships from infected ports were made to moor off Venice for 40 days — “quaranta giorni”— before the crew could go ashore. Whether we could impose a similar kind of quarantine today on people wishing to fly out of the worst-affected countries is a debate that will gain urgency in the coming weeks. But it is not clear who would do the quarantining, which would need to be upheld in three of the world’s poorest countries.

Aid agencies are already complaining that travel restrictions make it difficult for the muchneeded volunteers and supplies to get into the region. They must surely be the priority. Not least because the longer the ebola virus circulates, the greater is the danger that it will mutate into something worse, possibly airborne.

Like most diseases of poverty, ebola poses a far greater risk to the poor citizens of west Africa than toanyoneelse.Thatwillchangeonlyifitisallowed to accelerate and mutate. So we must give as much support as we can to the courageous nurses and doctors who are volunteering for one of the world’s most arduous and dangerous jobs.

Personally, I’m going to channel my paranoia into making a donation to MSF. camilla.cavendish@sunday-times.co.uk

Dopey, Grunty, Misogyny. That’s the front row of the scrum picked

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he men’s rugby club at the London School of Economics has been disbanded after a flurry of calamitous “banter”.

Its freshers’ week leaflet called women “mingers” and “slags”, said that “hockey, netball and rugby birds” were “beast-like” and that “outright homosexual debauchery” is unacceptable. (To “pull a sloppy bird”, however, is fine, although I do not know what a “sloppy bird” is.)

In any case, the banter, or “bantz”, was considered unacceptable by the students’ union and the club has been shut down. I paused when I heard of this

SPEAKEASY

TANYA GOLD

punishment, because they did use the word “women”, which is worthy of congratulation under the circumstances, but they ruined it by placing it next to the unfortunate adjective “beast-like”.

Then came an apology, which sounds

as though it was written by someone else, or at least by a lad with a gun to his head courtesy of an equality and diversity ambassador: “LSE men’s rugby does not tolerate misogyny, racism, homophobia or prejudice of any description and the club remains committed to the LSE’s equal opportunities policy,” it said, despairingly.

Ah, too late! The “munter” manifesto follows other allegations of “banter” and “shenanigans” by the rugby club, which I will relate to you, formally: they have “blacked up”, dressed up as Guantanamo Bay inmates, imitated Muslims at prayer, run around naked,

urinated on college property and, lastly, taken part in that most mysterious of “games”, the “Nazi-themed drinking game”, during one of which a Jewish member’s nose was broken. Of course it was the nose. How obvious. Jews.

Noses. Yay. I cannot say whether banning the players from placing their heads between other men’s legs for one year is fair punishment for banter; they may do it anyway, elsewhere, and in private, without the sponsorship of the students’ union.

I certainly think that “banter” bespeaks some secret anxiety. Perhaps

the cruellest punishment would be to send the whole club to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust for some psychotherapy relating to their obvious sexual and social frustrations, which can, it seems, be alleviated only by their favourite occupation of dressing up as Nazis and attacking people’s noses.

University is a difficult time. My husband joined the Young Conservatives.

I took to drink.

I do, however, object to those who defend the club on the grounds of “free speech”, as in, “free speech is noble, and so, therefore, is calling women ‘slags’ and

‘mingers’ and ‘birds’, as is running round naked and doing a wee”.

This is the polemic of fools. I do not share the belief of some feminists that “banter” makes them feel physically unsafe, but I am older than they are, and I have never been afraid to use my fists after a particularly disappointing incidence of “banter”.

This is not “free speech”. This is “free grunts”, and it does not deserve the invocation of Martin Luther King, Voltaire and the rest.

Back to Do Yours Hang Low?, gentlemen. @tanyagold1

NEWS

MARK BOURDILLON

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24 / COMMENT

cried twice during the final of The Great British Bake Off: once when the finalists, carrying their creations — the Moulin Rouge in cake form, in the winner’s case — emerged into a field to be greeted by their proud, beaming families and friends; and once when Nancy Birtwhistle, a 60-year-old grandmother from Lincolnshire, was announced as the winner.

The crying took me by surprise because I was trying to make supper at the time and was only half concentrating, but honestly, I felt almost winded. I do realise this will sound utterly absurd if you weren’t watching but the Bake Off final seemed, last Wednesday night, to sum up perfectly everything that is wonderful not only about Britain but also about life: family, community, pride in small things, the immeasurable happiness that comes from the quotidian and the domestic, as symbolised by home-made cake.

Because it’s not the “holiday of a lifetime” that you remember for ever more in the clearest detail, but the way the light plays through the leaves on a random summer afternoon, when you are happy and surrounded by people you love.

TheBakeOfffinalencapsulated that perfectly.

Lovely people baking cakes, reminding us that most people are kind and nice and goodhearted and that little things are the things that end up mattering. In the current news climate we could do with an ongoing, never-ending series of Bake Off as a sort of communal antidepressant.

And then Nancy winning!

Marvellous Nancy, so funny — when Paul Hollywood got on her nerves she referred to him as “the male judge” — and so consistent, so unflashy, just beavering away and being really good at baking.

Until her retirement seven years ago she ran a GP practice.

After that she decided Thursdays would become baking days — “I wasn’t a big cake maker but I always made pies or quiche; I baked to feed a family” — and set about teaching herself.

She went on courses, bought books (learning French in the process because “French patisserie books are incredible”), watched YouTube tutorials and — well, here we are.

What is especially cheering about all of this is that it happened in later life. Nancy

n After the ice-bucket

challenge comes the bed selfie for Syria, courtesy of Unicef ambassador Jemima Khan. The idea is that you take a picture of yourself first thing in the morning, hashtag it #wakeupcall, tweet it, text SYRIA to 70007 to donate £5 and voilà: you have raised awareness, raised money and given everyone a good old look at your sleeping arrangements.

The problem is that Khan’s friends are all abnormally good-looking.

Sometimes they seem to sleep with resident make-up artists at their side — Naomi Campbell apparently wakes up with eyelash extensions.

I’m not going to be mean about people who are trying to do good, but isn’t it odd — both the narcissism of the exercise and the idea that we are so jaded that we can’t just text a fiver to the number without needing bait in the form of a celebrity looking vulnerable under a duvet? I think I’ll pass on the bed selfie, at least until celebrities post pictures of themselves with mascara clumps and one of those nose stickers that you put on to stop snoring.

INDIA KNIGHT

Take some dreams, mix well and leave to rise until your golden years has five children and eight grandchildren: she may have been a keen cook when she was younger, but she was also a bit busy. Today she grows her own veg and even raises her own turkeys for Christmas.

It’s a fantastic flowering at a time more traditionally associated with slowing down and it teaches us all a really essential lesson: no, you can’t have it all, all at once. It’s stupid and back-breaking even to try and you’ll drive yourself — and everyone around you — half mad in the process.

However, you can have it all in bits: more and more things as you get older. If you’re patient you end up having it all eventually. This is such an important thing to grasp and such an exciting, refreshing way of looking at the ageing process.

Elsewhere, Anya Hindmarch, the ultra-successful handbag designer, talked last week about why she had sacked herself. “I have just

THE LESSON OF BAKE OFF IS THAT YOU CAN’T HAVE IT ALL, ALL AT ONCE. BUT YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL IN BITS: MORE AND MORE THINGS AS YOU GET OLDER

In STYLE Prime time An extract from India Knight’s book celebrating middle age, pages 32 36

fired myself as CEO,” she told a British Chambers of Commerce conference last Thursday. “I think the business has grown too big, really, for me.

I was working every hour God sends and with lots of children thatisquitehard.” Hindmarch, 46, has five children ranging in age from 25 to 11. She remains the chief creative officer of the company.

She did not sack herself in the “work and family are incompatible for the poor daughters of Eve” sense. On the contrary, she emphasised how satisfying she found her working life and said: “Children remember mood more than they do actual presence.

“If you are happy and have had a really thrilling day, your children will recognise that and be very proud of you. So I think: do what you need to do.

My children now understand that take-out chicken is in fact ‘home cooking’ and it works for us all.”

n There have been acres

Nancy Birtwhistle’s Great British Bake Off win shows that all good things come to those who wait This made me want to cheer.

It’s such insanity for every high-profile working woman always to have to pretend that the juggling malarkey is absolutely the dream and that they want to be in it until they drop down dead at their desk, because saying it isn’t is somehow considered to be letting the (often childless, I note) side down.

Instead Hindmarch is saying that she loves her work, her children love her working, but at this stage — she founded the company in 1987 — it’s quite nice to put one foot up.

I think we are getting saner in the way we approach our prime. Increasingly it seems as though middle-age and beyond are the truly creative years, where women

are finally able to take a breather, look around in a calm fashion and think: now, what do I really fancy doing?

Of course not everyone is a brilliant baker or a businesswoman with an MBE, but the theory applies, regardless, even in microcosm. Older, wiser, better — everything comes to those who wait. @indiaknight

written about online trolling after the apparent suicide last week of Brenda Leyland, aka @sweepyface, who spent much of her time directing abuse at the McCann family on Twitter before being exposed by a TV journalist. Some of the acres make the point that we all need to develop thicker skin, some of them make the rather better point that you shouldn’t say online what you wouldn’t say to someone if you met them in the street.

There’s a third point. In this case, as in so many, the point isn’t the abuse by one person but the cumulative effect of abuse by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people for years on end. Taken individually, these empty threats and dark mutterings are risible.

Taken en masse — as they are intended to be — they can feel devastating.

In the land of sexual confusion a threesome is fine, adultery’s a crime

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as last week a great one for sex?

Well, that depends. If your taste runs to threesomes then life just got even better. There’s now an app for that: 3nder.

After only six months in business it has registered more than 200,000 users.

Life also improved last week for gay couples living in the 11 American states where same-sex marriage became legal. Only 20 more states to go and the country will have finally fulfilled its constitutional mandate to grant equal protection under the law to all citizens of the United States.

Otherwise, I would say that on balance it has been a mixed bag of sexual transgression and religious fundamentalism.

Stolen nude photographs of the actress Jennifer Lawrence were shared online; a Texas law closing 80% of the state’s abortion clinics came into effect; and Phil Robertson, the gay-bashing patriarch of the popular TV docudrama Duck Dynasty, issued another fire and brimstone statement about biblical sex versus the rest. And that’s only seven days in the life of a nation.

British attitudes to sex could fill an entire library. But I’m telling you, Americans are all over the place. This is the country, after all, that invented the scarlet letter as well as the celebrity sex tape.

America was founded on paradoxes — the immortal statement in the Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal”, was a beautiful truth stained in blood by the lie of slavery.

Like race, sex has been a jagged fissure running through the country’s history.

Ever since the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, America’s claim to a national identity has been distorted by an unending battle over the right to define American values. The reason is that both race and sex were (and remain) microcosms of

AMANDA FOREMAN the larger battle of America and the meaning of freedom.

Put simply, freedom is not natural. Sex is natural.

Freedom is at best a social construct and probably just a social contract. Rousseau was right: man is indeed free and everywhere in chains — largely because humans are not psychologically equipped to live in a state of freedom.

For the Puritans, starving and shivering during those first harsh winters in New England, the freedom to create their own kingdom of heaven on earth required, perversely, every individual to wear the yoke of moral purity.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter was in part a protest against Victorian hypocrisy, but he drew his inspiration from the 17th-century men and women who suffered at the hands of their Massachusetts brethren. The real model for the book’s protagonist, Hester Prynne, was probably Mary Batchellor, a young woman married to an 80-year-old preacher, Stephen Batchellor.

In 1650 Mary was living apart from her husband when she became pregnant. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced to 39 lashes. The letter A was not merely attached to her clothes but also branded onto her flesh.

AMERICA INVENTED THE SCARLET LETTER AS WELL AS THE CELEBRITY SEX TAPE

For good measure, her request for a divorce was denied.

It would be fair to say that Mary Batchellor was made to suffer for the sins of the community. In the 1640s the governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, complained that no amount of punishments could “suppress the breaking out of sundry notorious sins . . . not only incontinency between persons unmarried . . . but some married persons also.

But that which is worse, even sodomy and buggery (things fearful to name) have broke forth in this land.”

The practice of whipping and shaming died out in the mid-18th century. As the country lurched towards independence, sex no longer loomed large in the swirling debates about freedom. It would remain a background hum until the conclusion of the civil war in 1865. Then, with the foundations of liberty established, the familiar obsession with persecution, prosecution and sexual purity returned.

The name Anthony Comstock means nothing any more. But towards the end of the 19th century this evil man had his fingers and eyes in every bedroom in America.

By the 1870s there were dozens of contraceptive devices available to purchase.

Comstock, a civil war veteran who fought for the anti-slavery north, made it his life’s work to prevent any information about abortion, contraception or the devices themselves from reaching American homes. As head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, he successfully lobbied for the so-called Comstock law, which made it a crime to send

anything of a sexual nature via the US postal service.

Comstock’s efforts led to 4,000 prosecutions and the pulping of 160 tons of “vicious” material. Among the seized works were medical texts, art books, contraceptive pamphlets, novels by DH Lawrence and plays by George Bernard Shaw. Comstock labelled Shaw an “Irish smut dealer”. Shaw hit back: “Comstockery is the world’s standing joke at the expense of the United States.”

Unfortunately, the Comstock farce was in earnest. During the course of his career Comstock claimed responsibility for 15 suicides, including that of the pioneer sex therapist Ida Craddock.

She killed herself in 1902, the night before the start of a five-year prison term for writing an “obscene” book called The Wedding Night.

In her suicide note Craddock wrote: “Perhaps it may be that in my death more than in my life, the American people may be shocked into investigating the dreadful state of affairs which permits that unctuous sexual hypocrite, Anthony Comstock, to wax fat and arrogant, and to trample upon the liberties of the people.”

Craddock’s wish came true.

The Comstock law was eventually repudiated — but not until 1965. The pornification of the marketplace from little girls’ dolls to mainstream music has obscured the fact that sexuality in America remains the last redoubt against the founding promise of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s hard to believe that adultery is still a crime in 21 states. But the truth is that the ubiquitous presence of sex is not the same as having the freedom to make choices about it. The right to marriage, to contraception and to abortion, these have never been guaranteed and still aren’t. As I said, it was a mixed bag last week. @dramandaforeman

12.10.14 / 25 PROFILE KEVIN PIETERSEN

He knows no boundaries as he lashes out all around

Jon Swain, who was kidnapped in 1976, says the media blackouts demanded by ministers don’t help

The South African outsider in England cricket has taken a swing at his former team-mates with an autobiography that claims there is a culture of bullying

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I

s he a game-changer or a troublemaker? Former Yorkshire and England opening batsman Geoffrey Boycott says Kevin Pietersen has every right to be “miffed” at his exit from the England cricket team.

The former England captain Nasser Hussain begs to differ: he claims Pietersen seemed to think he was “bigger than the team” and should look at himself rather than blaming everyone else. The former England fast bowler Matthew Hoggard believes Pietersen is “a very bitter man”. As for Andrew Strauss, Pietersen’s one-time captain — well, he let his feelings be known some time ago when he referred to Pietersen as a “c***” while he was working as a television commentator, not realising his mike was still on.

So much for the gentleman’s game. If KP: The Autobiography is anything like the truth, some of our most respected sportsmen are arrogant bullies behind the scenes. “He writes like he once batted for England: recklessly, thrillingly and without fear of the consequence,” commented the sportswriter Jim White.

“Boom! That’s the standing of the England captain smackedoverthepavilionroof.Thwack!That’sthereputation of the national coach being reverse swept over the boundary. Biff! That’s the entire game’s administrative body being flayed into the main stand.”

Pietersen, 34, has been called “England’s greatest modern batsman”. His career has had more dramatic twists than a performance of Hamlet. He has played 104 Test matches and scored more runs than anyone else for England. But success on the pitch has never translated into easy relationships off it: in 2009 he stepped down as England captain after only five months and three Test matches after a dispute with the England coach Peter Moores, who also departed on the same day.

Pietersen had constant arguments with Andy Flower, who succeeded Moores as coach, and with the cricketing authorities. Flower, he says, was a bully who could not tolerate dissent. “I’ve been one of the only ones who’ve constantly through his reign as coach not said, ‘How high?’ when he said ‘jump’. He built a regime, he didn’t build a team,” Pietersen said. “I’ve told him this before. I told him during his coaching reign. I told him on numerous occasions, ‘You’re playing by fear here, you want guys to be scared of you.

And, Andy, I’m not scared of you.’ And he hated it.”

He also claims that the bowlers Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad and James Anderson ran the dressing room and that fielders who dropped a ball were humiliated by being forced to make a public apology. Swann, Broad and another player, Tim Bresnan, allegedly knew the password to a spoof Twitter account, @KPgenius, used to mock Pietersen in summer 2012. When he came to suspect it was being run from the team dressing room, he was “broken, absolutely finished, mentally shot”.

Last week his wife, the former Liberty X singer Jessica Taylor, launched herself into the row. She thought the BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew was being mealy-mouthed about the spoof Twitter account and sent him a message saying: “There is absolutely no reason to have the password for a Twitter account unless you intend to tweet from it.

Anyone with a brain knows that.”

Agnew tweeted back: “@JessicaLibertyX lose the attitude.” A number of other Twitter users piled in, one telling Agnew: “Hope you’re the first UK ebola victim.”

Agnew shut down his account and then reopened it, saying he would no longer get involved in disputes.

Yesterday Alastair Cook, the England captain, said he did not accept the allegations of a culture of bullying and voiced sadness that the row had tarnished the game.

Pietersen’s allegations have set the cricket world alight, as has a “leaked” dossier believed to come from the England and Wales Cricket Board that suggested his exit was down to misdemeanours including looking out of a window and not paying attention at a meeting and taking two younger players for a pre-match drink against Flower’s “express instructions”.

KP: The Autobiography was ghostwritten by David Walsh, The Sunday Times’s chief sports writer. Pietersen chose him because Walsh was not part of the cricket establishment and could be trusted to give him a

When I was a hostage, silence put me in greater peril

PIETERSEN’S REAL PROBLEM WAS THAT HIS REPUTATION AS A PRIMA DONNA MADE HIM UNPOPULAR WITH FELLOW PLAYERS

fair hearing. Pietersen turned up 15 minutes early for their meetings and was clear-thinking, precise and polite. “When I started working on the book I was of the opinion that the team had to be right and the individual wrong. If the team wanted to banish him, he hadn’t bought into the team ethic,” said Walsh. “Having spent a lot of time with Kevin my view now is very different.”

Pietersen was born in Pietermaritzburg in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. His mother, Penny, is originally from Canterbury, Kent (which qualified Pietersen to play for England). His father, Jannie, a director of an engineering company, is an Afrikaner. Pietersen and his three brothers, Tony, Greg and Bryan, were allowed to speak only Afrikaans on Wednesdays.

He made his first-class debut for Natal’s B team aged 17. Two years later he made an impression on Hussain: “A youngoff-spinningopponent of ours walked into the England dressing room after taking a few wickets for KwaZulu-Natal ... and plonked himself down next to me, asking if I knew of any English teams he could play for. I thought he meant club cricket ... but it turned out he had bigger ambitions than that.”

Pietersen claimed he was dropped from the Natal first team because of the racial quota system that obliged provincial teams to have four non-white players. He said the incident was “heartbreaking” but “it turned out it was the best thing that could have happened”. He moved to England and spent five months with Cannock CC, helping the Staffordshire side win the Birmingham and District Premier Cricket League in 2000. He hated “those horrible Black Country accents”, lived in one room above a squash court and worked in the club bar.

Later he signed for Nottinghamshire, then Hampshire, then Surrey. His England debut came at Lord’s in 2005.

He met his wife through her manager, and they married at Castle Combe in Wiltshire in 2007 with his fellow cricketer Darren Gough as best man. In 2010 Pietersen flew back from Barbados, where he was playing for Englandin theWorld Twenty20tournament, to be at the birth of their son, Dylan, now four: “I was on cloud nine.

I was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. It was one of the happiest few weeks of my life,” he said later.

Wanting to have his family on tour caused friction with Flower, who did not want players distracted. Pietersen argued he needed someone to talk to: “When I’ve hadabaddayinaTestmatch,IwantJesswithmesoIcan talk to her or she can console me. If I’ve had a great day I want to enjoy it with her, because I’m not going out to dinner during a Test match — not in Australia I’m not — because I get hammered. Get called a wanker 24/7.”

Pietersen’s real problem was that his reputation as a prima donna made him unpopular with fellow players — never more so than in 2012 when he was accused of disloyalty for sending derogatory texts about his teammates to friends on the opposing South African team.

“To me, the key element of Pietersen’s story is that he’s from South Africa, he’s an outsider in English cricket and he’s always felt that. He doesn’t really fit in,” said Simon Wilde, author of On Pietersen. “He’s quite an insecure bloke, even though he plays so strongly on the field. He’s quite vulnerable. He worked well with some coaches but he needs coaches to keep telling him how good he is. He’s high maintenance. He might have been better in an individual sport. Andy Murray has six people all dedicated to looking after him and that would have suited Pietersen very well.”

Pietersen said he was puzzled by such criticism: “People ask me, ‘Were you bad to manage?’ I was so professional. I turned up at training on time, I never wore the wrong clothes, I was never late for the bus, I never missed a team meeting. I trained harder than anybody.” The problem came down to a single factor: “I questioned the coach if I thought he was wrong.”

Pietersen’s career isn’t over: he plays for the Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League, for Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League and for St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League, and he may rejoin Surrey next season. Last week he said he would love to play for England again — but even his friends can’t see that happening any time soon.

Kevin Pietersen and David Walsh are in conversation at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival today at 7.30pm. cheltenhamfestivals.com

he murder of British and American hostages by Isis jihadists makes it hard to believe in the survival of those still in their hands or who may yet be kidnapped. But the desperate families of hostages have no other choice but to believe in miracles.

How treacherously and cruelly their hopes have been denied as, one after another, hostages have been beheaded. The killing of Alan Henning, 47, the taxi driver turned aid worker from Salford, has shown the stark limits of what can be achieved. The jihadists ignored all pleas by influential Muslim leaders worldwide to spare him.

Amid the rage, revulsion and sense of impotence these cold-blooded murders provoke in us, a real issue has come to the fore. Is publicity a help or a hindrance?

In Britain, the families of hostages have firmly been told by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to keep quiet.

Publicity will only embolden the hostage takers, perhaps give them personal information about the hostages that they had not known before, to exploit, raise false hopes and make the job of freeing them even more complicated.

The British press, television and radio have broadly acquiesced even after hostages have been named on the internet.

As the killings have continued, some family members of the murdered hostages now feel they were wrongly gagged by officialdom and wish they had publicised their plight earlier, when they argue it might still have been possible to save them.

The parents of James Foley, the murdered American journalist, say they wished they had spoken out more.

“James can only die once,” they said on the Today programme on Radio 4. “In our big country with so many issues, it was very easy to have him and others totally forgotten.”

The Foleys are pressing for a rethink on the policy of non-negotiation and non-payment of ransoms. Otherwise, they said, America was committing its citizens to death.

Their advice, which they believe applies to Britain, too, is to reconsider the importance of letting the world know when a hostage is taken. It would help to warn other journalists and aid workers who might otherwise not be aware of it and would also put pressure on their governments to make any hostage a priority.

Each and every hostage taking has its own complexities and uncertainties. My experience of being kidnapped by rebels in the wilds of Ethiopia in 1976 argues against blanket secrecy and in favour of more openness.

Bowing to Foreign Office advice, The Sunday Times stifled any publicity about my disappearance for six weeks. This concealment of the news of my kidnapping endangered my life as the rebels who had taken me at gunpoint from a bus believed I was a spy. Only when they heard a crackly interview on the BBC World Service with the editor of The Sunday Times were they convinced that I was a bona-fide journalist and released me after three rough months.

Lindsay and Stephanie Tyler, British aid workers with two young children, were also captives and endured a longer ordeal. The rebels were holding out for a $5m ransom. Of course, the government would not pay and the Foreign Office was apprehensive when the paper publicised the family’s plight and appealed for their release.

When the Tylers were finally freed after eight hard months, it was clear that our appeals for their safe return had been a help. Indeed, I got a letter from the rebel leader blaming the Tylers’ captivity on “intrigue” by the British embassy in the Sudan that had been handling their case.

Intheend,thereisnooverarchinganswertohowtodeal with hostage takers. For the Foreign Office the starting point is always that the oxygen of publicity gives the captors a misguided sense of self-importance and emboldens them to be unyielding in their demands.

Critics of the silence policy say it exists primarily to prevent public pressure embarrassing the government; the hostages’ plight is subordinate to that.

While there is inevitably a built-in tendency towards discretion and silence in these cases, Foreign Office officials dealing with kidnappings are not stone-hearted as such criticism suggests. I have seen diplomats break down over a hostage crisis, so personally have they been drawn into the tragedy and emotionally committed to finding a happy ending.

As a journalist covering wars I never believed in asking favours from the government. Nor did I expect any. As a hostage I felt the same. But there was a huge loneliness in my head. The weight was lifted only when the newspaper ignored the Foreign Office’s advice and publicised my disappearance. It raised my spirits and gave me hope. I am sure it would be the same for hostages today.

Silty as charged: the watchdogs letting marine dumpers run amuck

I CHARLES CLOVER

mages taken by a veteran former police diver show something disquieting going on in the newly protected areas around Britain’s shoreline. In one, east of Plymouth, there is a healthy rocky reef in 20ft of water with, I am told, native corals and sea fans. Another, in Whitsand Bay, to the west, shows a degraded reef with Devonshire cup corals covered in silt.

Which of these pictures do you think was taken in a supposedly protected area? The one with the silt in it, of course. It was taken in the Whitsand and Looe Bay marine conservation zone, among the first in the network of protected areas for England designated only last year. This zone has the specific purpose of bringing back the protected pink sea fan. Other pictures taken there show “dead zones” on the sea bed.

What has caused the damage is not in dispute: about 800 yards away from the boundary of the new marine protected area is a dump site for dredgings from the naval base at Devonport. The dumping

site is just south of the wreck of HMS Scylla, a frigate sunk as a tourist attraction for divers and now festooned with all kinds of marine life. The naval base is in Plymouth Sound, next to the Tamar estuary, both of which are European protected areas. The Tamar is the only estuary in the country protected for a migratory fish, the smelt, killed off by pollution in other rivers.

So when a new licence was applied for to dredge from one protected area and dump close to another, did the authorities sit up and say: “We’ll have to think very carefully about whether that fits with all the protections we’ve just put in place?” No, they went out of their way to make sure that the dumping that has happened on and off for 100 years went on just as before.

People near Plymouth are proud of the navy and want the Devonport dockyard to go on functioning. But they are also proud of the beautiful Whitsand Bay. The campaign Stop Dumping in Whitsand Bay goes back 20 years. The locals

thought the new laws would mean the authorities would be a bit more careful.

Apparently not. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) rushed the dredging licence through, but the locals soon realised that the contractor, Westminster Dredging, was not abiding by the terms of its licence. It has been caught dumping material containing arsenic and other heavy metals on an incoming tide and without a “notice to mariners” to alert other users of the area.

Eventually the locals gave up appealing to the common sense of the MMO and Natural England, the government’s conservation adviser. They began to look at the law and to ask if those bodies were doing the job the public pays them for.

They began to question whether the quangos had properly considered whether the dredging or the dumping would have an adverse effect on the environment, as required by European habitats and species regulations, along with the rules on water and waste.

They found the regulators hadn’t been

doing their job: Natural England had not filed status updates on the condition of the European sites since they were designated in 2001. They discovered that the MMO had made scant attempts to find alternative uses for the 367,000 tons of contaminated silt, which in Holland is turned into sandbags and house bricks and in Japan is mixed into road stone.

Instead of properly considering these issues, officials had acted according to a set of rules drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that said they didn’t have to. Lawyers say this set of rules amounts to “a series of inadequate proxies” for the actual regulations. The official bodies deny this, of course. But a High Court judge decided last week that the locals had a case that should be heard.

This matters. For there are 131 dumping sites around Britain, not just for maintenance but also because a new generation of container ships and cruise liners need more space and there has to be a “capital” dredge, where a new

channel is dug. The port of Southampton has permission for one in the River Test and Southampton Water. Natural England insists this two-year operation will have only a negligible effect on the native oyster population, currently collapsed.

Even if you believe that, which I don’t, dredging could be done better. Why not rescue the oysters and lay them somewhere else before a dredge begins?

Quite apart from the evident lack of co-ordination, there is the suspicion that quangos such as Natural England are under so much pressure to promote growth that they will find a way of doing anything the developers want. On the Tamar it changed its advice three times, eventually allowing dredging in the smelt’s migration season.

People are asking whether the government’s statutory advisers are sticking up for nature. If they aren’t, why do we need them? Often as not, citizens’ groups and charities are doing the job for themselves. charles.clover@sunday-times.co.uk

NEWS

26 / LETTERS DANIEL STIER

Turbulence over Heathrow flight paths

The Sunday Times 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

I WAS shocked by the article “Suburbia in revolt at new flight paths” (News, last week), revealing that Heathrow prematurely stopped a trial of a new approach that went over Ascot in Berkshire. It led me to understand that because Amanda Smerczak, the partner of Adrian Newey, the chief technical officer of the Red Bull Formula One racing team, organised a petition, she forced an early end to the trial.

Does it mean that the quality of life of those who live under the current flight paths is less valuable than that of the people of Ascot?

Sylvie Vaughan London SW6

Email letters@sunday times.co.uk

LETTERS

AND EMAIL

Plaudits for promoting a positive image of Muslims I COMMEND The Sunday Times for last week’s excellent editorial “There is some hope despite this act of evil” and the “#IamMuslim” feature in the Magazine. You started the bold initiative several weeks ago by publishing a front-page report about a fatwa — a religious decree — issued by senior Muslim clerics in Britain against Isis, or Islamic State.

You have shown leadership in helping to break down Islamophobia and ignorance — including that of a tiny number of young, disenchanted British Muslims. There is a fascinating diversity in the Islamic world.

Sadly, it took the brutality of Isis and the murder of Alan Henning for many to start the journey of discovery.

Riaz Nanji London N6

DISPELLING IGNORANCE

More of these testimonials, please — we live in ignorance, with irrational fears that breed intolerance. I greatly admire these young people. We need to engage at every opportunity and every level.

Gillian Moore Chicago, USA

GREATER UNDERSTANDING

I am a middle-aged Jewish atheist who loves being Jewish and I loved every word of your article. Thank you for helping me understand more about this important religion.

Stevens A Scheermann London NW3

ON THE OFFENSIVE

As an ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust, I am horrified by the beheading

FREQUENT HIGH-FLYER of Henning and others, but I am equally dismayed by much of the response on social media. Police have removed 28,000 pieces of terroristrelated material from the internet this year.

Perhaps the same could be done with regard to antiMuslim content.

Rebecca Wilkinson Student, University College London

EMPTY WORDS

It is futile for David Cameron to vow to bring to justice those who have beheaded British citizens; without the use of ground troops in territories controlled by Isis, this would be impossible.

Moreover, the identity of the man who wields the knife is irrelevant: he is selected by his

The cover story of the Magazine last week used interviews to build a picture of Muslim life in Britain

commander and cannot refuse, even if he is against the task.

Silas Krendel London NW3

HUMAN ANGLE

Congratulations on this humane and truthful feature.

Jack MacInnes London W6

EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR

I’m heartened by such positive coverage. It’s a game-changer.

Rebecca Myers Chalfont St Giles Buckinghamshire

WONDERFULLY NORMAL

What fabulous young people you interviewed. They are great people living their lives like the rest of us. Keep it up.

Liz Mount Milton Keynes

How delightful to read about a campaign against Heathrow flight paths led by the partner of an F1 executive. It would be interesting to know how many flights he takes to keep up with the sport’s travelling circus.

Presumably it is convenient to live near the airport, but to

ensure that the noise is over someone else’s head.

Steve Mann Ringwood, Hampshire

FOR WHOM THE DECIBEL TOLLS

It appears we must now add the “Nomas” (not over my airspace) to a growing band of Nimbys.

Surely flight paths should be spread over a wider area to lessen the frequency of any slight increase in decibels in any particular community. For those who feel they would have to move, I’m sure there would be queues of people waiting to purchase their properties at knockdown prices because of the terrible noise problems.

Chris Brockman (BA captain, retired), Crowthorne, Berkshire

SOUNDING OFF

How awful — new flight paths are interrupting garden conversations. I can’t image how people cope. Hang on, maybe I can. I live in what the press likes to call “a sleepy Suffolk village” and for 35 years was obliged to tolerate noisy US

jet fighters taking off every few minutes from nearby airbases.

Life is a compromise. The basic problem is one of attitude.

Roderick Macmillan Ipswich

CLEARED FOR TAKE-OFF

The office of the London mayor, Boris Johnson, was notified regarding the flight trials at Heathrow. A representative from Transport for London, the organisation Johnson charged with promoting the concept of a new hub airport to the east of the capital, attended the Heathrow noise forum. It was in this forum that information about the trials and the approach taken to communicating with the public was agreed.

Heathrow is committed to providing predictable periods of noise respite for residents — an issue that we know from feedback is a priority for local communities.

Matt Gorman Director of Sustainability, Heathrow

Making a singular case for the beaver AS A Canadian, I wince every time I hear talk about beavers (“Before we let beavers in, who’s going to control the dam things?”, Charles Clover, September 28). There is no such word. Beaver is like fish and sheep — one beaver, 10 beaver, no plural form. You don’t speak of a beavers’ dam; it is a beaver dam. The magazine Canada’s History used to be called The Beaver (singular) when it was published by the Hudson’s Bay Company and before the word had a rude connotation. And, yes, to introduce beaver into the wild in Britain is beyond nuts. Soon they will be planting poison ivy in public parks.

Judith Steiner, London N6

HONEYBEES ENDANGERED BY MITES

Clover is right that hornets eat bees, and there is a huge concern that the Asian hornet (now in France) will cross the Channel, as its appetite for honeybees is voracious (“An unexpected birdcall from the black redstart: more building, please”, Comment, last week). But the main reason for the decline in the size of swarms is the varroa parasitic mite. The swarms will not last another winter; there are no wild colonies — including swarms — that are known to survive into a third year in England.

Vince Johns (Beekeeper in the Forest of Dean) Soudley, Gloucestershire

Beating a retreat from Falklands question THE humiliation suffered by Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear production crew in Tierra del Fuego highlights the malaise between Britain and Argentina (“Make no mistake, lives were at risk”, Focus, last week). In December 2015 it will be 50 years since the UN

passed resolution 2065 on the question of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, calling for the two nations to discuss the disputed sovereignty. Until this happens, more incidents à la Clarkson can be expected.

Peter Hamilton Ledbury, Herefordshire

GONE WITH THE WIND

Who is interested anyway in the routine hot air that issues forth from the leader of a gang of laddish middle-aged egoists joyriding at BBC licence-payers’ expense?

Rachael Swift Hassocks, West Sussex

NO PLACE FOR GRAMMAR SCHOOLS IN A DEMOCRACY

EVEN if there was evidence that grammar schools conferred an advantage on those who attended them — at most 30% of the population — such a system, which left the remaining 70% in the old, unsuccessful, secondary modern schools, is not acceptable in a democracy (“Hands up for the return of grammar schools”, Letters, last week).

Robert Batchelor (retired headmaster, Hatch End High School, Harrow), Northwood, London

GRADUATE NURSES WITH HEALTHY PAY PACKETS

Your excellent article “Geeks inherit the best graduate pay” (News, last week) highlights the need to choose both the right university and the right course, but it also raises a further question. What is so special about the nurses from Portsmouth University that they are earning more than £37,000 six months after graduating when the entry point for graduate nurses is £21,388, with salaries in London attracting a high-cost area supplement?

Alistair Nicoll, Sheffield

Points SENSE OF BELONGING

The answer to the question “To which continent does the UK belong?” is simple (“This charter for criminals deserves the death penalty”, Comment, last week).

It is Europe. And there is nothing Ukip or the Tories can do about that. Nor can any result of a referendum. Face the facts, separatists.

Nick Papadimitriou London NW2

PEER PRESSURE

Lords Noon and Levy clearly believe that what the Labour party is short of is money and big-business friends (“Labour barons hammer ‘death wish’ Miliband”, News, last week).

Wrong. What the party lacks is members and (as Lord Prescott remarks) more robust policies to attract them. Their lordships represent everything that made me abandon a lifelong Labour allegiance 11 years ago.

The Reverend Colin Smith St Helens, Merseyside

TRUST ACCOUNT

It was interesting to see how David Cameron and Miliband scored against each other in

your poll, and that the public doesn’t trust either of them on any subject (“General Paddy plots counterattack as Ukip prepares to grab beachhead”, News, last week). That’s the most important fact in British politics today.

Peter Richards Poole

Letters, last week)? If she’s lived in Britain since the 1970s she should know pensioners are taxed on income just the same as anyone else. Maybe she believes that national insurance contributions support the NHS. Sue Bright Twickenham, London

IT’S A GAS

CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS

Regarding greenhouse gases, what about the flatus from more than 7bn humans (“Whiff of success in fight to cut cow methane”, News, last week)?

Marion Judd Didcot, Oxfordshire

TAXING ANSWER

What gives Crista Lyon the idea that pensioners are exempt from paying into the NHS (“Paying their way”,

Letters should arrive by midday on Thursday and include the full address and a daytime and an evening telephone number. Please quote date, section and page number. We may edit letters, which must be exclusive to The Sunday Times

As a British pensioner with years of experience of working in Germany, and a German wife, may I point out that many British pensioners would undoubtedly be pleased to pay NHS contributions if the UK state pension were to be raised to German levels.

David Sansom Wells, Somerset

HOME TRUTHS

Geoff Kite’s claim (“London homes fair game for mansion tax”, Letters, last week) that a Labour peer’s £43m profit justifies “a tough mansion tax” does, in fact, quite the opposite. By taking the profit on his principal residence, he actually pays no tax at all, leaving the rest of us still in our “mansions” (as my semi is now called, apparently) to pick up the bill.

Ian Jefferson London W6

Corrections and clarifications The article “Israel plans ‘iron spade’ to foil Hamas tunnellers” (World News, August 17) incorrectly stated that destruction of the tunnels under Gaza was the “pretext” for Israel’s land invasion. It should have been “reason”.

Complaints about inaccuracies in all sections of The Sunday Times, should be addressed to complaints@sunday-times.co.uk or Complaints, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF. In addition, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) will examine formal complaints about the editorial content of UK newspapers and magazines. Please go to our website for full details of how to lodge a complaint.

Birthdays

Anniversaries

Martin Corry, rugby player, 41; Les Dennis, comedian, 61; Hugh Jackman, actor, 46; Ledley King, footballer, 34; Aggie MacKenzie, TV presenter, 59; Martie Maguire, musician, 45; Michael Mansfield QC, 73; Rick Parfitt, guitarist, 66; Angela Rippon, TV presenter, 70; David Threlfall, actor, 61; David Vanian, singer, 58

1492 Christopher Columbus makes first sighting of the New World; 1859 engineer Robert Stephenson dies; 1872 composer Ralph Vaughan Williams born; 1915 British nurse Edith Cavell shot as a spy by the Germans; 1984 IRA bombs Grand hotel, Brighton, where Conservatives are staying for their party conference, killing five

WORLD NEWS

12.10.14 / 27 UMIT BEKTAS

‘Turkey supports Isis. How can we flee there?’

A month of US airstrikes has done little to stop the terrorist militia tightening its noose around the town of Kobane, on the Syrian border. Now desperate locals do not know where to turn SIYAMEND RAMI watched helplessly yesterday as shells rained down on his home town of Kobane in northern Syria, near the Turkish border.

The 30-year-old teacher, who was forced by the fighting to leave his house and now lives on open land on the outskirts of the embattled town, issued a desperate plea to the outside world. “We need weapons,” he said.

“Our message to the international community is to support the Kurdish forces and to stop the terrorists so we can live in peace.

“We have been abandoned.

The [US-led] coalition is not doing its best to save us.”

Until a few months ago Rami taught English at the El Thawra high school in Kobane. The town was once home to 200,000 people but in the past few weeks it has come under a merciless siege by jihadists from the terrorist group Isis, also known as Islamic State.

Rami’s home had been a comfortable two-storey house in the centre of town where he lived with his parents and wife Rokan, 27, who is four months pregnant with their first child.

Now every day for Rami — and for those still left in the

NICOLA SMITH NEAR KOBANE town — is a battle for survival.

His home is too dangerous to return to, but he cannot bear to leave Kobane even though his family fled last month to Turkey.

Instead he lives rough on the edge of the western suburbs, snatching sleep in abandoned cars and praying the shells will not close in.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy, said on Friday that about 700 people, mainly elderly, are still trapped in the centre of Kobane.

Another 10,000 to 13,000, like Rami, were gathered nearby and would “most likely

be massacred” if the town fell to Isis, he said.

Their hopes for survival rest with the Kurdish defence forces, known as the YPG, who have been holding back the insurgents in fierce street battles but are now running short of weapons.

Those who wait feel betrayed by Turkey. They claim they are banned from taking their possessions across the border and they do not want to live in dire poverty. “They are watching us die,” said Rami.

“The Turkish government is the reason for this problem.

They are supporting Isis. How canweleavethistownandgoto Turkey? I am furious.”

Isis has been steadily advancing on Kobane since September 15, destroying more than 300 villages on the way.

Despite a month-long campaign of US-led coalition airstrikes in the surrounding area, the militants reached the town gates last weekend.

They have now penetrated the southeastern edge of Kobane, undeterred by the continued assault by aircraft from America, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday guns and explosions could be heard from

across the border. Kurdish fighters repulsed a pre-dawn attack by Isis forces and still controlled the town’s border crossing with Turkey, a vital supply and exit route.

It is not clear how long the Kurds can hold on, with some 40% of the town in the hands of the jihadists. The United States has said airstrikes alone may not be enough to save Kobane.

Several female Kurdish defence brigades are among those battling to save the town.

Reports emerged that one fighter, Arin Mirkan, 20, a mother of two, had detonated a grenade against Isis in a suicide mission after she ran out of ammunition.

“There are women fighters here. How can I go? As a man I feel shameful leaving, even though I have no weapons,” said Rami.

Fears about the brutality of Isis, amid reports of the slaughter, rape and torture of the Kurdish Yazidi minority in the nearby Sinjar province in Iraq, prompted about 180,000 of his fellow citizens to flee to Turkey in recent weeks.

Rami’s family have found refuge with cousins in an empty building in the bleak village of Suzan, 30 miles inside the Turkish border. They are the lucky ones.

Many others live in tents in the sweltering heat. They claim they were forced by the Turkish authorities to leave behind their cars and all their possessions, bar some clothes.

“This is not our home,” said Rami’s wife, Rokan. “We are trying to go back. Life has come to a stop here.

“When we crossed the

Siyamend Rami and his pregnant wife Rokan have fled their home in Kobane, which is being bombarded by Isis

border we feared we would not be able to go back. We wept and cried. My husband came here for one day and I begged him to stay, but he went back.”

Turkey has come under increasing pressure from an exasperated America to stop sitting on the sidelines.

Washington dispatched the retired General John Allen, its co-ordinator for the campaign against Isis, to Ankara on Thursday to urge more Turkish action, but there has been no breakthrough.

The fall of Kobane would represent an important strategic victory for Isis, giving it control of several border crossings. Taken together with the jihadists’ previous gains in Syria it would give them a 500mile border with Turkey.

Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, pledged this month that the government would not let Kobane fall.

Yet as gunfire rages and shells rock the town, Turkish tanks stand watch on a hill overlooking the border.

The Turkish government is reluctant to get involved militarily, partly because of fears about arming the Kurdish forces. They have links to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) with whom Turkey has fought a 30-year conflict that has killed 40,000 people.

By joining coalition action, Turkey risks retaliation from Isis as well as the danger of being sucked into a ground war with Syria.

“Turkey is not willing to enter into a project with no clear agenda or commitment from the US,” said Ziya Meral, a Turkey analyst at the Londonbased Foreign Policy Centre.

“There is no Nato decision, there is no Nato policy.”

In an attempt to justify his government’s inaction, Yasin

Border battleground

14m

TURKEY Area inhabited by Kurds

8m Kobane

SYRIA

2m

IRAQ

5m

50 miles

Erbil

IRAN Areas held by Isis Number of Kurds

Aktay, vice-chairman of Turkey’s governing AK party, has insisted there is “no tragedy in Kobane” and that all civilians have left the town.

Ankara’s failure to intervene is inflaming tensions with Turkey’s Kurdish minority and threatening to derail a nascent peace process with the PKK. Last week the UN urged Turkey to allow volunteers and their equipment into Syria to defend the town.

The Turkish Milliyet newspaper reported on Tuesday that Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish Iraqi president, had asked Turkey to allow his peshmerga forces — credited with several victories against Isis forces — to help defend Kobane. The newspaper did not say whether the Turkish government had agreed to his request.

Ankara’s perceived inaction unleashed a wave of violent unrest among the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey last week, leaving more than 30 dead.

For Turkish Kurds, the assault on Kobane is an attack on their own people. In Diyarbakir, the Kurdish capital, 150 miles to the northeast, young men took to the streets to protest against the Turkish government, which they accuse of helping Isis by giving it arms and allowing its fighters to cross the border.

Their claims appeared to be backed by remarks from Joe Biden, the US vice-president.

Turkey and other allies had “poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” into anyone fighting the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, he said.

The Turkish government furiously denied the allegation and Biden later apologised.

The Kurds remain unconvinced: in Diyarbakir this weekend the remains of burnt-out cars and smashed glass lay next to the smouldering ashes of impromptu street barricades after Kurdish anger burst onto the streets.

Neslihan Coban, 43, mourned her son Masum, 23, who was stabbed to death in the street while protesting against the siege of Kobane.

“For a week we had been making a protest with car horns,” she said.

“After a few days Masum said, ‘Mama, I can’t stay at home any more. In Kobane they are waiting to be killed.

They are killing our honour.’”

A few hours later he was found murdered.

While attention is focused on Kobane, Isis has also been threatening to overrun Iraq’s largest province, Anbar, in what would be a major victory for the jihadists and a blow to the US-led coalition fighting the group.

Seizing Anbar would allow Isis to establish a supply line from Syria almost to Baghdad and give it a valuable position from which to launch attacks on the Iraqi capital.

Rami, meanwhile, is growing frustrated watching the attacks on his home and says he is ready to join the fighters to secure a future for his unborn child. “I don’t want my child to be born in Turkey,” he said.

“When we have our baby we want to live in our own home. ” @niccijsmith

Turkish boots can kick away America’s mess in Syria WITH the campaign against Isisstruggling,itislongpastthe time to address the real source of instability in the region. It is Bashar al-Assad’s determination to hold on to power — even at the cost of the mass murder of civilians and generating regional chaos — that opened the door to Isis.

Until recently, the missing element in any realistic strategy to rid Syria of Assad wasthelackofagroundforce— what has become known as “boots on the ground”.

Last week a solution to this dilemma was put in the public domain. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour (who happens to be my wife), Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, indicated that his country was willing to lead such a force, provided certain conditions were met.

The key for Turkey is a commitment from the coalition organised by the Obama administration to do more than

just degrade Isis. For Ankara, Isis, also known as Islamic State, is only one part of the problem; the others are the spillover from the civil war in Syria and the Assad regime in Damascus.

The past few days have seen Washington and Ankara engaged in a geopolitical game of chicken that reflects years of disagreement over Syria.

Joe Biden, the US vice-president, first accused Turkey of responsibility for the rise of Isis, then apologised after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened never to speak to him again. Biden’s statement, while partially true, was galling to the Turkish government because the rise of Isis is far more a reflection of Washington’s abdication than of Turkey’s border controls.

The truth is that America pulled its last forces out of Iraq without considering the potential consequences and underestimated the damage of

threatening to use airstrikes against Damascus and then not following through.

It then labelled critics who wanted to arm the Syrian opposition three years ago as naive when now it is relying on such a policy of arming and training Syrian moderates to implement its overall strategy.

Right now, the real victims of this diplomatic imbroglio are the civilians in Kobane fighting for their lives against Isis while the world watches from just yards away on the Turkish border.

Washington wants Turkey to help lift the siege, while Ankara wants Washington to commit, finally, to a workable policy towards the Syrian civil war.

Turkey argues with justification that it has paid a heavy price for Assad’s brutal crackdown, including more than 1m refugees and chaos in the sensitive Kurdish region. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has stubbornly

JAMES RUBIN insisted on a narrow approach to Isis, viewing it as a counterterrorism challenge rather than a regional crisis.

Davutoglu was tough on this point, calling for an “integrated strategy” rather than the US approach, which he criticised as a response to “public opinion, to punish one terrorist organisation”.

Davutoglu’s analysis is sadly accurate. The early pull-outs from Iraq and Afghanistan, the “leading from behind” in Libya and avoidance of involvement in Syria were all policy choices that reflected the Obama administration’s stance of reversing “the tide of war”.

Until the arrival of Isis, with its gruesome videotaped beheadings and the possibility of attacks on the US homeland, theAmericanpublicwashappy to stay out of the mess in the Middle East, which reminded them of President George W Bush’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq.

Obama has characterised the campaign against Isis in modest terms. He has even compared it to the low-key airstrikes against al-Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

But as a result of Turkey’s offerofgroundtroops,thereisa bolder alternative. Taking advantage of the public’s new

openness to action in the Middle East, Obama could combine high-level diplomacy and force to address finally the regional chaos and mass murder generated by Assad.

A new strategy of diplomacy backed by force would still limit US military involvement to air forces, supplemented if necessary by special forces on the ground to direct air attacks.

First, in exchange for Turkey acting now to prevent the fall of Kobane, the US should agree to the creation of a no-fly zone over Syria. To ensure compliance, the coalition would announce that any Syrian air defence system turned on would be a legitimate target and any of its aircraft flying missions shot down.

This could be accomplished without a substantial insertion of new air assets, as it is hard to imagine Assad’s weakened air force daring to challenge a US-led led coalition.

Second, a safe area could be

created in Syria near its border with Turkey, in which Turkish forces would protect civilians and allow moderate Syrian military units to organise and train. This is what Ankara wants to prevent further floods of Syrian refugees.

Third, a new diplomatic initiative along the lines of the previous Geneva conferences could be initiated. This time, however, the Assad regime would not hold all the cards.

With Turkey having already carved out a piece of Syria and a no-fly zone in place, force would finally back up a diplomatic outcome in which the moderate opposition would have a chance of achieving reasonable objectives.

Unlike previous diplomatic efforts,Damascuswouldhavea strong incentive to negotiate seriously. Failure to make progress might mean an even worse outcome on the battlefield, as US air forces, Turkish ground forces and the newly

armed moderate Syrian militias would be in a position to reverse the military balance that has favoured Assad in past negotiations.

For the past three years, advocates of action in Syria have been told nothing is possible without boots on the ground. Whether a no-fly zone or other airstrikes would have made a difference three years ago will never be known.

But now Turkey, which has the second largest army in Nato, has made a concrete offer of ground forces it would be a mistake not to consider how to take it up on its invitation.

For the civil war in Syria has not only become a greater danger to the region. It is also about to enter its fourth winter with no end in sight.

James Rubin was President Clinton’s assistant secretary of state.

Obama could have stopped the rise of Isis, Leon Panetta, thesundaytimes.co.uk/review

NEWS

28 / WORLD NEWS KCNA/REUTERS

Michael Sheridan FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT

NORTH KOREA last night threatened to break off peace talks with the south amid speculation that its portly young dictator, Kim Jong-un, who has vanished in recent weeks, may be ill or has been overthrown.

The threat came after an exchange of machinegun fire that broke out when South Korean activists used balloons to send 200,000 anti-regime leaflets, books and video discs into the isolated Stalinist state.

The North Koreans hit back by saying the incident could wreck a surprise move towards detente that has coincided with Kim’s disappearance.

Hopes had been raised of a possible thaw in relations when a Russian-made Ilyushin-62 jet, normally used by Kim himself, brought a high-level North Korean delegation to Incheon airport in South Korea last weekend.

The group included a top adviser to Kim, General Hwang Pyong So, who sits on the national defence commission and runs the army’s general political bureau. Kim’s own bodyguards, in suits and sunglasses, accompanied them.

No such delegation had appeared in the south for about five years. The North Koreans offered to resume talks, breaking the ice that has frozen political dialogue and led to repeated military clashes.

One of the North Koreans declared: “There is no problem at all with the leader’s health.”

South Korea’s minister for unification, Lim Byeongcheol, said afterwards: “Kim Jong-un still appears to be in charge of the country.” It all appeared to have the dictator’s blessing.

This weekend’s exchange of fire, however, might doom the initiative into becoming one of the many lost opportunities to reach a settlement on the divided Korean peninsula.

It was complicated by the mystery surrounding Kim. His absence has led to speculation that one of his four siblings will play a greater role if Kim is seriously ill: his ailments are said to include hereditary gout and diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Kim, who is about 31, has not been seen in public since September 3, when he attended a concert. Like his father, Kim Jong-il, he is wont to conduct “on the spot inspections” at farms, factories and barracks across the land. It was on one such visit in July that he was rumoured to have fallen and injured one of his ankles.

On September 25 Kim failed to appear at the North Korean parliament. State television admitted that he was ill and in “discomfort”.

Analysts say it would be wrong to interpret his absence as a sign of weakness. Examination of the parliament’s official proceedings shows that three of Kim’s key men were

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Kim Jong-un greets schoolchildren in June. He has not been seen since September and though he is said to be recovering from an ankle operation, there is speculation he is seriously ill or has been deposed

Border gunfire as Kim lies low appointed to posts in the national defence commission, the supreme military body.

On September 30 the Chosun Ilbo, a conservative newspaper in Seoul, reported that Kim had undergone surgery on both his ankles and was recovering.

Five days later Kim sent a cordial message to the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, indicating that all was routine.

None the less, Kim did not show up on Friday to pay homage to his father and grandfather at their mausoleum, the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, for a ceremony marking the 69th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Korean Workers’ party.

Instead a basket of flowers bearing his name was placed before the statues of his predecessors. It was the first time he had missed the event since succeeding his father almost three years ago.

The hereditary principle is key to the Kim dynasty. It

operates as a personality cult, drawing on notions of racial purity and Confucian ideals in which masculine superiority is paramount.

For that reason, attention has focused on other members of the family — and the role

they might be playing in Kim’s absence.

Recent days have seen speculation that his sister, Kim Yo-jong, 27, who holds a minor political post, has stepped in to fulfill state duties in his absence. The youngest of five

siblings, she is said to have a strong relationship with Kim: they were both born to the same mistress of their father, grew up together in Pyongyang and went to the same boarding school in Switzerland.

Nevertheless, analysts have

downplayed suggestions she may have assumed the top job.

Uncertainty surrounds the role of other members of the family. Kim’s nearest brother, Kim Jong-chol, who is about 33, has not played a significant role since reports reached the

Dynasty of dictators Kim Il-sung The Great Leader: born 1912

Kim’s younger sister, Yo-jong, right, could play a greater role.

Above, the propaganda balloons the South has fired across the border

Kim Jong-iI

Ko Yong-hui

Dear Leader: born 1941

Mistress

Kim Jong-chol

Kim Jong-un

Kim Yo-jong

Born 1981

Supreme Leader: born 1983

Born 1987

outside world through the family’s Japanese sushi chef that his father had considered him “too effeminate”.

His elder sister, Kim Sulsong, 40, held propaganda and army positions but seems to have been eclipsed since the death of their father in 2011.

There is also an enigmatic brother-at-large roaming the world with an unexplained and lavish budget. Kim Jong-nam, 43, has lived in exile since falling out with the regime.

He has been sighted in China, in the gambling enclave of Macau and most recently with an unidentified woman in her thirties at Le Méridien Etoile, a £300-a-night hotel near the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Diplomatic sources say there have been credible rumours of at least one bid to assassinate him.

“There is speculation that China is protecting him in case Kim Jong-un’s regime collapses and they need to install a leader,” Chosun Ilbo reported. @stforeign

Chinese cultists get death penalty Clare Pennington A FATHER and daughter have been sentenced to death in China for murdering a young woman who refused to join a religious cult when they tried to recruit her at a McDonald’s restaurant.

Zhang Fan, her father Zhang Lidong and three other members of the banned Church of Almighty God attacked the woman at the fast-food outlet in Shandong province in May when she declined to give them her phone number.

The victim had been queuing with her seven-year-old son. Three other cult members who kicked and stamped on the woman were jailed for life, 10 years and seven years.

Fellow diners, who were threatened and told not to intervene by the cult members, filmed the attack. The video was shared on social media, causing a public outcry.

Interviewed in prison, Zhang Lidong showed no remorse. “I beat her with all my might. She was a demon. We had to destroy her,” he said. @popencl

Beijing accuses US of Hong Kong plot Michael Sheridan HONG KONG

THE Chinese Communist party’s flagship newspaper launched a front-page attack against “foreign interference” in Hong Kong yesterday as pressure grew on the former British colony’s leader and peaceful pro-democracy crowds surged back on to the streets.

The editorial in the People’s Daily came as Leung Chunying, the territory’s Beijingappointed chief executive, headed to China for talks with party officials, leaving behind a growing scandal over his private financial dealings.

Leung is under pressure to explain his tax and regulatory arrangements with the Australian engineering company UGL, which has paid him more than £4m in fees under a preexisting contract while he has been in office.

British regulators will be asked to join their Hong Kong and Australian counterparts in investigating Leung’s conduct under the Companies Act, said Kenneth Leung, a lawmaker.

Public ire towards the chief executive has intensified after the discovery that UGL has a £26m contract with Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, which is majority-owned by the government, to maintain 120 metro trains. Leung and UGL both deny any wrongdoing.

The fact that his woes stem from a well-timed leak to an Australian newspaper has fanned the flames of conspiracy theorists, who see the hand of the West in what is, by all the available evidence, a grassroots mass movement of people angry about China’s attempts to control elections set for 2017.

The protesters want to be able to directly elect Hong Kong’s leader — the chief executive — but Beijing has said voters will choose from a shortlist of candidates approved by a committee.

Last week a commentary in the local edition of the China Daily, a state-controlled newspaper, claimed that American diplomats and spies were behind the protests, grooming student leaders and infiltrating schools while handing out visas and promises of refuge if it all goes wrong.

The alleged aim: to start a “colour revolution” of the sort that swept Ukraine and other former Soviet republics and stop the rise of China.

“Beneath the veil of democracy lies dirty politics,” concluded the writer, who was identified as Hong Chen and described as “a current affairs commentator”.

When The Sunday Times contacted the China Daily’s Hong Kong office last week to seek details of the allegations, Hong was not available for comment. “Unfortunately, he declined to be interviewed as he is currently out of town,” said Bob Lee, the newspaper’s comment editor.

Speaking later by phone, Lee said the writer was from Hong Kong but lived across the border in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Asked about the sources of the information, he referred to reports in Wen Wei Po, a pro-Beijing newspaper.

Last month Wen Wei Po, which was founded in Shanghai in 1938 as a propaganda organ for the Communist party, ran an “exposé” of a protest leader, Joshua Wong, the 17-year-old convener of a high school pupils’ group called Scholarism.

Wen Wei Po is usually the biggest pile of newspapers left unsold in the shops, but it won attention with its claims that the slight, bespectacled Wong had received hundreds of thousands of dollars and combat training from a US Navy Seal.

It implied that Wong had been talent-spotted by the CIA at the age of 14 while on a visit with his parents, who are devoutChristians,toacasinoin Macau, a feat that critics and admirers of the CIA alike would see as unprecedented.

Wong called the claims “science fiction” and described the articleas“falseineverydetail”.

Scott Robinson, a spokesman for the US consulate in Hong Kong, also rejected the accusations of interference and described as “absolutely false” claims in the pro-Beijing press that America had offered passports and visas if things went awry to Wong and two other studentleaders,AlexChowand Lester Shum.

In a further twist in the war of words Ma Ying-jeou, the democratically elected president of Taiwan, made a rare

public call last week for Beijing to move towards constitutional democracy. “Such a desire has never been a monopoly of the West but is the right of all humankind,” said Ma, who has been seen as a bridge-builder

by China. His speech made front-page headlines in Hong Kong. It was not reported on the mainland.

US officials in Hong Kong have noted a crescendo of hostility and suspicion in Chinese state media reports over the past year, coinciding with growing political unrest in the former colony and intense political repression on the mainland.

At first the Chinese government imposed drastic censorship to stop its 1.3bn people seeing the peaceful mass demonstrations in Hong Kong.

Butthestatemediahavenow discovered a rare streak of investigative journalism as the protests turn into the biggest campaign for democracy anywhere in China for 25 years.

Last week China Central Television devoted part of its normally soporific evening newscast to a lively “infoPHILIPPE LOPEZ

Protesters have returned after the government called off talks

graphic” tracing an elaborate conspiracy involving the CIA, neoconservatives in Washington and the Occupy Central campaign, which, it explained to viewers, was “an illegal gathering currently taking place in our country’s Hong Kong special administrative region”.

It identified an American author and researcher, Dan Garrett, as a “flagrant spy” based at the US consulate with a mission to sow subversion.

“No one of that name works for or has any affiliation with the US consulate general,” said the consulate spokesman.

“Such linkages are fabrications.”

The publication of yesterday’s editorial in the People’s Daily indicated that the party leadership was raising its accusations to a higher level. “The US purports to be promoting the ‘universal values’ of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ but in reality the US is only defending its own strategic interests,” the newspaper said.

On the “occupied” streets, people laughed off the conspiracy theories yesterday as they thronged the tents, teach-ins, art installations and discussion groups that have blossomed around government offices — all without any sign of alcohol, drugs or misbehaviour.

The crowds grew to more than 10,000 on Friday night after the government called off talks with the student movement, a decision that has inadvertently given the protests fresh impetus.

“Ithink we can look at thisin a positive way because the awareness of the fight for democracy has been raised,” said Roy Tan, 29. @stforeign

WORLD NEWS

12.10.14 / 29 ALLSTAR

New York gripped by lawyer accused of rape GUSTAV CABALLERO

Iain Dey NEW YORK

Cinemas reeling over call to take giant leap backwards

Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey, above, and Anne Hathaway, top right, and is directed by Christopher Nolan, right. He says he is not interested in new technology

John Harlow LOS ANGELES

IT IS the most eagerly anticipated science-fiction film of the year, starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. But the British director of the $100m (£62m) futuristic fantasy Interstellar has infuriated American cinemas by insisting they go back in time and show the film on celluloid, using old-fashioned projectors.

Christopher Nolan, 44, who directed Inception and the Batman trilogy, says he wants to reward those cinemas that have not yet installed digital technology.

The director, who admits he is “not interested” in new technology, said non-digital cinemas will be allowed to show Interstellar several days before modernised venues.

This is a long time in Hollywood, where films are almost immediately judged as hits or flops after opening on a Friday.

The owners of digital cinemas, who have spent millions of dollars updating their

venues, are furious that they will miss out on the film’s lucrative opening days.

They say that even if they can find working projectors in warehouses or junk yards, there will be nobody to operate them because the people with those skills have retired.

After the success of The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale, the London-born Nolan has the power to demand this radical U-turn, according to Paul Dergarabedian, of the box office analysts Rentrak.

Interstellar, in which McConaughey and Hathaway play astronauts preparing to travel through a wormhole to find new worlds, and which also stars Michael Caine, will be released by Paramount next month.

Paramount was the first studio to stop sending out reels to cinemas but Rob Moore, its vice-chairman, said it would honour the director and the place of celluloid — now seen as chemically unstable and highly flammable — in Hollywood’s heritage.

The job that comes with a holiday first John Harlow SILICON VALLEY firms, famous for perks such as yoga lessons, massages at the desk and vintage birthday champagne, have raised the game by offering new employees paid holidays — before they even start work.

The so-called “precation” was born at an online estate agency called 42Floors and has spread across the talent-hungry area south of San Francisco.

“Workers around here cannot afford to take time off between jobs, which means they leave their old job Friday and come to us Monday exhausted,” said Jason Freedman, co-founder of 42Floors.

“So we decided to give them travel vouchers and make sure they take at least two weeks off ... and we pay for it,” he said.

“We have one guy who is off to Thailand. And it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK, have a great time.

And when you get back here, work your ass off’.”

Experts say it is a perk for an overworked America, where half of all workers do not take all of their holidays — which for many are three weeks in the first five years.

There is a backlash against such traditional attitudes.

Atlassian, a software company, offers limitless holidays yet workers still do not take more than anyone else. “But the freedom to do so, when run down or in a family emergency, is key,” a spokesman said. @johninla99

Nolan, who graduated in English from University College London and who has British and American citizenship, is the highest-paid British director in Hollywood.

His eight films have grossed $3.5bn worldwide, he was paid $20m to make Interstellar and he will receive 20% of ticket sales — the kind of deal that actors such as Tom Cruise used to get.

In recent years most cinemas in the developed world have switched over to digital films which are delivered in video cassette-sized boxes.

Exceptions include Italy, where cinema owners say they can see the difference between the occasionally grainy celluloid and the often darker digital formats.

Nolan can see the difference, too. He said he was suspicious of digital because it blurred the contrast between what can be seen in a cinema and on hand-held gadgets such as mobile phones.

Nolan denies he is a Luddite but admits that he does not have either a mobile phone or

an email account and, unlike other big directors such as James Cameron and Michael Bay, he is not interested in new technology. When Warner Bros, his regular studio, set up an email account for him he ignored it. His inbox filled up with thousands of unread messages until eventually he closed the account.

He is apparently suspicious about furniture: there are no chairs on a Nolan set, as he prefers to work standing all day, one insider said last week.

He had made an exception, however, for Caine, 81, his favourite actor.

Nolan also avoids digital special effects, preferring to stage the optical effects of a film such as Inception, rather than adding them later by computer.

He likes to show off his movies on as big a screen as possible, preferably using 35mm and 70mm film which have all but vanished.

About 250 American cinemas have taken up Nolan’s “special offer” to run the film on sprockets, including some

Imax venues and a handful of the remaining 600 drive-in cinemas — a fraction of the 40,000 screens in North America. They are preparing to run the film almost continuously to make money ahead of the big companies.

Smaller cinema chains that have spent millions upgrading their equipment are crying foul most loudly.

“This devalues what we have done,” said Joe Paletta, the founder of Spotlight Theatres, an all-digital group of four cinemas in Georgia.

“I can’t afford to get the projectors out of the warehouse and I don’t have anyone to operate them,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Byron Berkley, who runs four cinemas in Texas, was also unhappy. “This is a film about the future. It makes no sense to step back in time to show it,” he said.

He admitted Interstellar wouldstillbeoneof thebiggest films of the year — once people get to see it in “modern airconditioned cinemas like most folk expect”.

IT HAD been a star-studded night at New York’s Four Seasons hotel. The singer Aretha Franklin gave a speech and the film director Spike Lee read poetry as the city’s political elite ate oysters and red velvet layer cake — all to celebrate the 60th birthday of the civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton.

As the party wound down, Sharpton’s old friend, Sanford Rubenstein, one of America’s most prominent civil rights lawyers, was spotted leaving the hotel with a woman on each arm.

The smooth-talking 70year-old had invited them back to his Manhattan penthouse for an after-party drink.

What happened next is now the subject of an investigation by the New York district attorney’s office — and a scandal that has gripped the country.

Two days after Sharpton’s party on October 1, Rubenstein was accused of rape by one of the two women, a 42-year-old mother of two from Brooklyn.

The alleged victim, a senior executive in a large retail chain and a prominent volunteer with Sharpton’s National Action Network, has reportedly been tested to see if she was drugged before being subjected to a sexual assault.

Rubenstein, however, insists they had consensual sex.

“During the course of the night, for whatever reason, things seemed to get foggy and she blacked out, due to what, at this point, we don’t know,” said Kenneth Montgomery, the woman’s lawyer.

A police raid on Rubinstein’s home last week reportedly led to the seizure of his mattress, a sex toy and about 10 used condoms. No illegal drugs were found.

New York’s tabloid newspapers have published lurid allegations about Rubenstein’s sex life, featuring swingers’ clubs, orgies in the Hamptons, tattooed strippers and suggestions that his penis is the size and shape of a cashew nut.

Neighbours and acquaintances have painted a picture of a Viagra-popping lothario who frequently boasts of his latest conquests and uses his limousine to attract younger women.

The alleged victim’s legal team have also raised questions over whether Rubenstein’s close links to Sharpton, and in turn to Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, are influencing the investigation.

Montgomery, a former prosecutor, said: “Typically in these kinds of cases the complainant makes an accusation, the police investigate and they make an arrest.

“In this case, it seems very odd that they have not even arrested, based on the allegations — and the evidence that they have recovered.”

He added: “If he was not a powerful person he would be under arrest. For some reason that’s not happening.”

The alleged victim was “physically unable” to do anything to stop the attack, Montgomery claims. It was doctors at the Brooklyn hospital where

U2 mansion hits wrong note

TOMMY HOLL

John Harlow AFTER an eight-year battle with neighbours and environmentalists, the Edge, the U2 guitarist, is on the verge of building a five-mansion estate in pristine hills 900ft above the billionaire beach town of Malibu.

The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, rejected claims that the project would harm the environment and said he had worked hard to reduce its carbon footprint.

Protesters said the mansions and the fleet of 100 lorries needed to move equipment and materials would damage the Sweetwater Mesa in the Santa Monica Hills, a protected area of California famed for its wildlife.

Evans, 53, who was born in east London and raised in Ireland, had promised his wife, a dancerfromCalifornia,tobuild a home in the hills so their children could grow up watching red-tailed hawks. He spent £6m on a plot of green scrub overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the more discreet homes of celebrities including the film director James Cameron.

The estate will require its

The U2 guitarist’s plan to build a five-mansion estate above Malibu is now likely to be allowed own road, cutting up a mountainside and will destroy rare plants and animal habitats.

Cameron has attended protest meetings over plans for one mansion with a “cascade” of 19 overlapping roofs aimed at resembling bronze leaves being blown along the ridge. The other mansions would also be visible from the golden beaches below and could be sold to pay

for Evans’s house. The musician soothed the local land conservancy with a $750,000 “gift” and sued California’s Coastal Commission, whose job is to protect the coast, when it questioned the need for the houses. Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director, described it as “one of the worst projects I have ever seen for environmental destruction in 38 years”.

In 2011 the commission voted 8-4 against the plans but, after concessions by Evans, the vote is understood to have been reversed. “It’s his land and if he does not feel any shame there is nothing more we can do,” a member said last week. The commission meets in January.

A spokesman for Evans said he was confident the plans would go through.

The accused lawyer Sanford Rubenstein at a party in Miami Beach she went for treatment who alerted police based on the injuries they witnessed, he alleges.

The scandal threatens to bring an ignominious end to the 40-year career of Rubenstein, who graduated from being an ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer to the enforcer of justice for New York’s ethnic minorities.

He is a regular television pundit and in his public appearances is usually armin-arm with the grieving families of those who have suffered

IF HE WAS NOT A POWERFUL PERSON HE WOULD BE UNDER ARREST at the hands of the police, rather than with glamorous women.

Few of his cases ever make it to court; media pressure typically results in a pre-trial settlement. A promotional video on his firm’s website shows a slick-haired Rubenstein talking to the camera in front of a wall with framed newspaper clippings reporting his biggest victories.

Last week, as the rape allegations dominated the news, Rubenstein filed a $75m claim against the city of New York on behalf of the family of Eric Garner, whose death in police custody in July following the use of an illegal chokehold sparked national outrage.

Sharpton led thousands of

people in a protest march through the borough of Staten Island in August to raise awareness of the case.

Rubenstein has now stood down from the case. Sharpton, who initially refused to make judgment on the rape allegations, has distanced himself from Rubenstein.

His decision ended a partnership that began in 1997 when the two men took on the case of a Haitian immigrant who had been sexually assaulted and grievously injured by police in Brooklyn.

“He has no future,” Sharpton said last week of Rubenstein. Sharpton, dubbed New York’s “secret mayor” for his apparent ability to influence de Blasio, had been under pressure to take a stand. De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo, the New York state governor, attended Sharpton’s party.

Rubenstein has hired Ben Brafman, who successfully defended Dominique StraussKahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, over charges that he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid.

Brafman said many of the “alleged facts” reported about the case were false but refused to elaborate.

“When a thorough and complete investigation of this incident is concluded, no criminal charges will be filed against Mr Rubenstein because he did not commit any crime,” he said.

The alleged victim does not deny that she accepted an invitation to Rubenstein’s home, but dismissed suggestions she was a close friend. “Their relationship only consisted of seeingeach otheratsocial events,” said Montgomery. “They had no intimate relationship. At no time did she consent to consensual sex with him — or to be sexually assaulted.” @iaindey

NEWS

30 / WORLD NEWS

Police held over teacher massacre ADOLFO VLADIMIR/CUARTOSCURO.COM

Michael Gillard

THE BEST COURSES FOR ROOKIES AGED EIGHT YEARS AND UP

IGUALA, MEXICO

THEY walked up the hill in single file at gunpoint along a narrow, rocky path in the pitch black of the night. As the rocks grew bigger and the climb steeper they bowed their heads under thelow-hangingcanopy of thick forest.

After 30 minutes the group arrived at the spot in the foothills of Perotas in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero where they would be murdered and their bodies burnt.

“They gave them the privilege of digging their own graves,” said the senior state police officer guarding the entrance to where the charred and mutilated remains were discovered last week in nine mass graves.

So far 28 bodies have been exhumed. Forensic experts say it will take weeks to identify all the dead.

The gruesome discovery followed a wave of arrests of local police officers and leaders of an organised crime group known as Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors).

The remains are believed to be those of 43 radical student teachers who disappeared on September 26 after clashes with police during a protest in nearby Iguala, in which six people were also shot dead.

The massacre has provoked mass protests across Mexico, and cast a disturbing light on links between police and organised crime.

It also threatens to cast a shadow over the visit to the country early next month by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.

Prosecutors have identified more than 30 municipal policemen as secret members of Guerreros Unidos and directly implicated 22 of them in the massacre.

The students were apparently handed over to the criminals and murdered on orders from the gang’s leaders, one of

YOUNG DRIVERS HIT THE ROAD

DRIVING

WORLD NEWS INBRIEF 27 freed

Thousands of people protest in Mexico City against the murder of dozens of student teachers by police officers and drug gang members. A local mayor is on the run after being implicated in organised crime whom was arrested on Thursday. Hitmen for Guerreros Unidos have confessed to killing 17 after marching them to the mass graves under the cover of darkness.

The motive for the massacre remains unclear but the investigation, overseen by the federal attorney general’s office, has confirmed suspicions that Guerrerohasbecomea“narcostate” in which drug cartels have infiltrated the political and security apparatus.

Jose Luis Abarca, the mayor of Iguala, and his wife, Maria de

los Angeles Pineda, who are suspected of links with organised crime, and their head of security are on the run. Abarca and the security chief have been subpoenaed.

The massacre presents the greatest test of the reformist credentials of Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who has been accused by critics of trying to downplay the threat of narco violence in order not to deter foreign investors. He has promised international observers a speedy and “no hiding place” investigation.

Although credited with pushing through economic reforms, especially in the oil and communications sectors, Peña Nieto has so far failed to tackle rampant corruption and systemic impunity in his country’s failing criminal justice system.

Low-paid police and the US-trained military are routinely implicated in torture, murder and kidnapping.

The atrocity — and the attention it has focused on Mexico — has undermined the political capital that the presi-

dent has earned in Washington after the arrests of three of the country’s biggest drug lords.

Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzman of the Sinaloa cartel was captured in February; Hector Beltran Leyva was taken at a restaurant on October 1; and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the Juarez cartel, was arrested on Thursday.

Francisco Montoya, 75, a farmer with land next to the mass graves site, said he was afraid for his family.

“These people operate at night. I fled here 10 years ago

when narcos started killing my neighbours to take our land.

This is a war,” he said.

Seventy miles south in Ayotzinapa, families of the disappeared students are camped in the teacher training college demanding their return and justice for those responsible.

Andreas Ramos, 21, a member of the student executive committee, denied claims that the commandeering of buses in Iguala to take students back to college had forced the police to act.

He said they were protesting

peacefully against education reforms and soliciting money for student union activities when the police opened fire.

The uncle of a disappeared student, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals, warned: “If those in political power are not made to pay and sent to prison then we will find other ways.”

It seems Angel Aguirre Rivero, the governor of Guerrero, is listening. Tomorrow he is seeking a referendum on whether he should resign. @stforeign

Twenty seven people including 10 Chinese workers held in Cameroon by suspected Boko Haram militants have been freed. They were seized in May and July.

Girls flee, page 6

Dead or alive A couple in Alaska were told their son had died in a car crash, only to find him alive and well hours later. Police in Juneau said Justin Priest, 29, was a victim of mistaken identity.

12.10.14 / 31 LASZLO BALOGH/ATTILA KISBENEDEK/DOME LASZLO

Hungary’s PM ‘turning into a little Putin’ Bojan Pancevski BUDAPEST

DORA SVEDA, who runs a modern art gallery in Budapest, said she was “shocked” when she saw her 12-year-old son’s new biology schoolbook.

The state-approved book, illustrated with images of women vacuuming and cooking, suggested that girls were intellectually inferior to boys, had less aptitude for maths and felt “comfortable in the role of a wife and mother”.

“I don’t think such books should be allowed for children; I felt strangely glad not to have daughters who would be exposed to these ultraconservative, even damaging views,” said Sveda, 43, who is the mother of two boys.

The new curriculum is part of an ambitious overhaul of Hungarian society by the conservative government of Viktor Orban, the prime minister.

The populist, football-loving leader recently pledged to turn his country, a former Soviet satellite that joined the European Union in 2004, into an “illiberal state”.

Orban, 51, whose Fidesz party rules with an absolute majority, has been criticised in Brussels and Washington for his policies.

They include a close partnership with Russia and what critics label “Putinisation”: a campaign to rein in the media and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and take near-total control of all state institutions.

Barack Obama, the US president, accused Hungary of “overt intimidation” of civil society, comparing it to countries such as Egypt.

The European parliament demanded last week that Tibor

Navracsics, Hungary’s representative on the European Commission, be stripped of some of his powers as a punishmentforbeingacloseallyofthe prime minister.

Within Hungary, however, Orban, a former liberal firebrand who entered politics as a democracy activist in his early twenties, is hailed as a strong leader and many are backing his agenda.

He won two consecutive general elections, in 2010 and this April, with a large majority on each occasion and his party is expected to win a landslide victory in today’s municipal poll against a weak and corrupt opposition of leftwing groups.

Almost all the large media groups are controlled by the government, which also holds sway over the central bank and has responded to the economic downturn with a spree of nationalisation, buying companies ranging from schoolbook pub-

State funds helped build a stadium, far right, in the home village of football-loving Viktor Orban

lishers to gas and power utilities. Measures such as capping gas and electricity prices and forcing banks — not debtors — to take losses on foreign currency loans, provoked outrage in the West but in Hungary they increased Orban’s popularity and cemented his power.

Budapest, the capital, is a bustling metropolis that does not appear illiberal but even here the majority supports the government’s agenda.

“Orban stood up to banks and big business and he created work. He is giving and not just taking like the previous governments,” said Tibor Lazslo, an engineer.

A third of the population lives below the poverty line, but the country is flush with billions in EU funds: Hungary receives about £4 for every £1 it pays into the bloc’s budget.

The government took the credit for a 3.9% rise in gross domestic product in the second quarter and is continuing large infrastructure projects. Public investment has benefited a new cast of oligarchs loyal to the leader. Orban, who gave up a career as a professional footballer for politics, rejoiced when a

Teenage boys throw water over girls in rural Hungary as they take part in a traditional Easter fertility rite, which has been traced back as far as the second century friendly businessman, partly using public funds, built a 4,000-seat stadium in his home village of Felcsut — home to just 1,600.

“Orban’s model is somewhere between Berlusconi’s Italy and Putin’s Russia but closer to the latter: a crony capitalism system of symbiosis between state officials and oligarchs,” said Martin Jozsef Peter, head of the Hungarian branch of Transparency International. The anti-corruption watchdog is one of 58 NGOs under investigation for possible abuse of funds.

What most concerns the western allies is Orban’s relationship with Putin, which has prompted talk of Hungary becoming Russia’s Trojan horse in the EU. In January Orban and Putin signed a £7.8bn deal, funded

by Russian loans, to expand Hungary’s only nuclear power station, which accounts for about 40% of its electricity supply.

Budapest already

relies on Moscow for most of its oil and gas imports.

Hungary, a Nato member, hassofarreluctantlysupported EU sanctions against Russia over its military involvement in Ukraine but will not back any

further measures against the Kremlin. It also refuses to channel gas to Ukraine.

Orban has stoked nationalist resentments about the 1920 treaty of Trianon, a post-First World War agreement that

stripped Hungary of twothirds of its territory, leaving millions of ethnic Hungarians as minorities in Romania and Slovakia.

The government has made citizenship available to the

diaspora, gaining hundreds of thousands of potential voters.

The EU flag that used to be hoisted on the Hungarian parliament building has now been replaced with that of the ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania, now part of Romania.

Orban is also targeting critical media: an advertising revenue tax is believed to be aimed at the last large independent private broadcaster, the German-owned RTL. Brusselshasinthepasttaken legal action against the Hungarian state for breaching EU law, but officials privately admit there is little they can do against an elected government pursuing policy contrary to “European values”.

Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the “opening to the East” was “pragmatic” and economically motivated. He dismissed Obama’s mentioningofEgyptandHungaryinthe same breath as “a lie” and suggested the term “illiberal state” refers to reining in overly liberal capitalism and creating a democracy based on conservative values.

Hungarians had made their support for the government “perfectly clear”, he said. @bopanc

CHAD EHLERS

Spain takes aim at bank boss’s spending

Throner hordes storm palace Matthew Campbell

Miguel Blesa, former chairman of a Spanish bank, shows off the spoils of a hunting trip to Tanzania in 2008. He paid for such luxury trips with a company credit card

Matthew Campbell MADRID

REVELATIONS that the chairman of a state-owned bank ran up a €436,700 (£343,000) bill on a “phantom” company credit card have outraged Spaniards struggling to make ends meet under their goverment’s austerity measures.

Miguel Blesa was one of dozens of bankers, politicians and other officials to be given “black” credit cards. They used them to finance a jet-setting lifestyle at the height of the financial scandal, as they sat on the board of Caja Madrid.

Blesa, the bank’s former chairman, who was on a salary of €3.5m, used the card to splash out on wine and hunting in Africa between 2003 and

2012. Newspapers showed him posing with a variety of wild animals he had shot, including a hippopotamus.

The scandal has prompted a wave of high-profile resignations among the elite, and a judge has begun an investigation into whether the use of “black” cards constituted a crime — none of the spending was reported to tax authorities.

Blesa and two other former directors of the Caja Madrid bank, one of them Rodrigo Rato, a former director of the International Monetary Fund, have been summoned to appear before the investigating magistrate on Thursday.

The cards were not considered part of their pay and were handled separately from regular corporate expenses. Rato

and three other cardholders have since repaid what they spent.

Most of the beneficiaries continued to use the cards after Caja Madrid merged with six other regional savings banks in 2010 to form Bankia, a sprawling financial group whose near collapse forced Spain to seek an EU-funded bailout.

Bankia subsequently benefited from €22bn in government aid, including a €19bn bailout, the biggest in Spanish corporate history.

The scandal has fuelled disgust with the political elite as the country struggles with high unemployment and spending cuts: Miguel Angel Araujo, a former Caja Madrid director who spent €212,900 on his card, has been singled out for

particular criticism, since he recently published a book about Spain’s economic woes, indignantly asking on its cover: “Howdidwegetintothissituation? Who swindled us?”

The cardholders included 27 members of Spain’s ruling conservative Popular party, 15 Socialists, five members of the United Left, and 10 trade union leaders, two of whom have resigned. Jose Antonio Moral Santin, of the United Left party, used his card to take out €365,000 in cash.

In the past week the director general of the Madrid region’s economy ministry, the regional budget minister’s chief of staff and a Socialist grandee in the party’s Madrid branch have also resigned.

Over a 10-year period the

cardholders’ total expenditure was €15m — €3m of it on restaurant bills and €700,000 on clothes.

Ildefonso Sanchez Barcoj, the former finance director for the bank, topped the spending list by notching up €484,200 on his card.

Pedro Sanchez, the Socialist leader, apologised on behalf of those party members implicated in the scandal.

“It is shameful and it embarrassesmetothinkthatthereare Socialist militants involved in this kind of outrage,” he said.

Several former bank board members who received the credit cards have said they believed the practice was not illegal. The tax office may take a different view. @mcinparis

IT WAS built in the 9th century as a Moorish fortress to keep out enemy hordes.

This weekend, however, the Real Alcazar palace in Seville had to close its doors to stop a different kind of invader: Game of Thrones fans trying to get a sneak preview of the fifth series being filmed there.

Producers at the American cable channel HBO are determined to keep the “Throners” — ardent fans of the fantasy series — away.

Tight security has been imposed and plastic sheeting hung above the garden wall at the palace,one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions.

One of the show’s stars, the Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, had to pay the entrance fee to the site after staff failed to recognise him.

The Alcazar, which was lavishly extended in the

HOOK-UP HELL

IS THE TINDER APP SUFFERING BURNOUT AS THE APPEAL OF EASY SEX WEARS THIN? THESUNDAYTIME.CO.UK/STYLE

Game of Thrones, starring Emilia Clarke, is being filmed in Seville 11th century, was designated a Unesco world heritage site in 1987 and is the oldest palace in Europe still used as a royal residence.

Betsy Henkel, an American visiting Seville for the first time, was lucky to get in before the shutdown.

“I watch the show at home,” she said. “Now I am photographing the gardens so I can identify which bits have been used for filming.”

Lorries have been delivering elaborate costumes to the palace, which attracts more than 1.2m visitors a year. Two large tents have been put up

in the gardens to serve as a canteen for the production team.

“They love the architecture, and so won’t change anything,” said a spokesman for the palace.

“They will use plants to cover cables, lights or anything else out of place.”

Seville is the latest location to be used for the series, following Northern Ireland, Malta, Scotland, Croatia, Iceland and Morocco. The drama, based on the novels

by George RR Martin, has received widespread acclaim but has been criticised for its frequent nudity and violence.

BUMPER CARIBBEAN GUIDE THE BEST

ISLANDS, VILLAS, HOTELS AND ACTIVITY BREAKS TRAVEL

NEWS

3 2 / W E AT H E R

Around the world Amsterdam Athens Auckland Bangkok Barcelona Beijing Belgrade Berlin Bogota Boston Brussels Budapest B Aires Cairo Calgary Cape Town Caracas Casablanca Chicago Dubai Dublin Geneva

17 25 18 33 26 18 23 18 18 15 17 21 23 29 16 22 32 23 15 35 13 19

Gibraltar Guatemala Helsinki Hong Kong Istanbul Jersey Jo’burg La Paz Lagos Lima Lisbon London Los Angeles Madrid Mexico City Miami Moscow Nairobi New Delhi New Orleans New York Oslo

f s f f t f s c dr s r f s s s s f sh r s s c

21 24 10 32 19 14 27 16 29 21 17 15 24 18 22 31 15 28 34 30 16 11

Panama Paris Prague Rio de Jan Rome S Francisco Santiago Seoul Seychelles Singapore Stockholm Sydney Tel Aviv Tenerife Tokyo Toronto Trinidad Tunis Venice Vienna Warsaw Wash’ton DC

sh r c s c r s f c c sh r f sh r f r f s th s r

32 18 18 30 26 27 27 28 29 33 12 26 28 26 21 12 33 34 22 20 18 19

th th c s f s s s th sh r s s f f s f s f f f f

Key: c=cloud, dr=drizzle, ds=dust storm, f=fair, fg=fog, g=gales, h=hail, m=mist, r=rain, sh=showers, sl=sleet, sn=snow, s=sun, th=thunder, w=windy

The UK last week Warmest by day St Helier, Channel Islands (Friday) 20C

Coldest by night Aboyne, Aberdeenshire (Sunday) -2.0C

Wettest Lentran, Inverness-shire (Wednesday) 55.6mm

Sun/lights/moon

Sunniest Tiree, Argyll and Bute (Wednesday) 9.9hrs

The sky at night

Aberdeen

rises sets/on 07:36 18:14

off rises sets 07:38 20:39 12:25

Belfast

07:46

18:33

07:48 21 07

12:26

Birmingham

07:27

18:19

07:29 21 00

12 00

Bristol

07:28

18:23

07:30 21 07

11:59

Cardiff

07:31

18:26

07:32 21 09

12 02

Cork

07:53

18 47

07:54 21:29

12:26

Dublin

07:45

18:35

07:47 21:14

12:22

Glasgow

07:41

18:24

07:43 20:54 12:25

London

07:19

18:14

07:20 20:56

11:49

Manchester

07:30

18:19

07:32 20:57

12 06

Newcastle

07:29

18:15

07:31

20 47

12:10

Norwich

07:14

18 06

07:16

20 46 11:48

Plymouth

07:33

18:31

07:35 21:17

12 02

Mars shines low in the SW until it sets at 20:30 this evening. The Moon rises in the ENE 30 minutes later and stands below and left of Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, as it Moon climbs through our E sky. Aldebaran, 65 phase light years away, is an orange giant star some 45 times wider than our Sun and more than 400 times more luminous. Although it appears to belong to the V formation Hyades cluster of fainter stars, it is a foreground object and the Hyades stand 85 light years beyond it. The familiar Pleiades cluster, 14° above Aldebaran this evening, is almost three times more distant than the Hyades. The conspicuous planet Jupiter rises in the ENE at about 01:30 and stands high in the SE before dawn where it lies to the left of the Moon on Friday and above the Moon on Saturday.

Alan Pickup

Today’s weather UK forecast

A misty and foggy start to the day for many places, some of the fog will be dense. The fog will be slow to clear through the morning, but sunshine should eventually develop away from southern coastal counties. Southern coastal counties will have cloud thickening from the south and rain will also edge northwards through the afternoon, spreading up into East Anglia from mid afternoon. A few showers are possible across northern Scotland, most likely in north Highland and also along the Moray coast.

19

Channel Is, SW and Cent S England, S Wales Fog, then rain edging in from the south later. Light winds. Max 13C to 16C. Tonight, rain at times.

Min 6C to 9C N Wales, NW England, Isle of Man Mist and fog will slowly lift to leave the rest of the day dry with sunny periods. Gentle easterly winds. Max 13C to 16C. Tonight, rain in the early hours. Min 6C to 9C Cent N and NE England A lot of mist and fog this morning. Lengthy periods of sunshine should then develop.

Light winds. Max 11C to 14C. Tonight, rain by morning. Min 6C to 9C

21 18

18 26 20

25 21

33

The Low Countries will be dry for a time, but showery rain will spread northwards later. Germany will be mostly dry with some sunshine, but showers reaching the far west later.

Scandinavia will be unsettled with showers or more prolonged rain.

slight

12

14

13

12

12

10

16

16 10

7

12

slight

Monday: Rain for most. Drier in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Max 16C

13

moderate

Tuesday: Rain in the northeast, but drier and brighter elsewhere.

Max 16C

slight 18

20

moderate

moderate 14

13

12 6

15

17

18

moderate

moderate

Wednesday: Rather cloudy with spells of rain moving northeastwards. Max 17C

20

Thursday: Sunny spells and showers, some will be heavy and thundery. Max 18C

26

26

moderate

13

16

16

14

14

14

rough 15

16

15

N Ireland, Republic of Ireland Mist and fog will be slow to lift, but sunny spells will develop. Gentle easterly winds. Max 11C to 14C. Tonight, misty and foggy.

Min 2C to 5C

Areas of heavy rain, showers and thunderstorms across France, giving high rainfall totals in places. Warm for October.

26

7

slight

slight

Scotland Mist and fog, then sunny spells and isolated showers.

Light winds. Max 10C to 13C. Tonight, fog reforming.

Min 3C to 6C

Greece will be dry with a good deal of sunshine.

23

10

12

Midlands, E Anglia, E England It will be foggy at first, then brighter for a time, but rain spreading north late in the afternoon. Gentle easterly winds. Max 12C to 15C. Tonight, heavy rain at times. Min 10C to 13C

Italy will see showery rain in the northwest, but remaining parts should stay dry, sunny and very warm.

19

slight

London, SE England Misty and foggy at first. This should slowly lift, but cloud will thicken with rain moving in for the afternoon. Gentle easterly winds. Max 13C to 16C. Tonight, outbreaks of rain. Min 10C to 13C

Spain and Portugal will see sunny spells and heavy, thundery showers. Few, if any, showers reaching the far southeast of Spain though, where it will become very warm.

18

8

Regional forecasts

Europe 12

The week ahead

16

16

Wind speeds in MPH

18 19

19

24 slight

15

17

17

moderate

Friday: A few showers with winds strengthening from the south. Max 19C

20

rough

Saturday: Unsettled with rain and showers and staying quite windy. Max 19C

Red and yellow spell danger for trees RUSSET, gold, scarlet and yellow: the rich colours of autumn signal both beauty and danger. Trees still in full leaf are at increased risk from damaging storms at this time of year, and the danger can be increased by heavy rain softening the ground around the roots.

Those were contributory factors during one of the most exceptional autumn events of recent years, the storm of October 15, 1987. It was not only gales but also heavy rain, thunder, lightning and tornados that featured in our weather last week. In the early hours of Monday an active front swept heavy rain and strong winds across Britain.

The winds eased quickly as the front cleared to sunshine and showers, except in northern

ISOBEL LANG

and northeast Scotland, where the front intensified to bring persistent and heavy rain that caused floods. A showery low dominated the weather for the rest of the week, with thundery downpours and isolated tornados.

Today is quieter, with some sunshine after a

chilly, misty start. Many northern and western areas look set to have fine weather after rather foggy mornings, while the southeast is at risk from a wet and windy spell as a depression moves up from France. It will feel cool with a northeast wind and rain along some southeast and eastern English counties.

By Tuesday this should have moved away, leaving many places dry for a time before an Atlantic depression throws in bands of rain and stronger winds for the second half of the week.

Temperatures will go up again, though, thanks to more of a southerly flow, and nights will not be as chilly.

Isobel Lang is a Sky News forecaster

Sport SAINTS AND SINNER

12.10.2014 SECTION 2 BUSINESS

PAGES 19-32

SARRIES PICK OFF CHERRIES

SHANGHAI SURPRISE

St Helens beat 12-man Federer defeats Djokovic Wigan in Grand Final p7 to reach Masters final p14

Ashton scores in 28-21 win over Gloucester p11

LEADING

PAVEL GOLOVKIN

MAN Hamilton clinches pole at Russian Grand Prix

If the cap fits: Lewis Hamilton celebrates his pole position in Sochi, where victory would be his ninth of the year

Mark Hughes IN SOCHI

LEWISHAMILTON starts today’s Russian Grand Prix from pole position as he tries to win his fourth successive race and increase his advantage on his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in the battle for the Formula One drivers’ championship.

Hamilton, who leads by 10 points, outqualified Rosberg by two-tenths of a second, with Valtteri Bottas third. McLaren’s Jenson Button was fourth, ahead of Toro Rosso’s teenage Russian driver Daniil Kvyat, who delighted his home fans in fifth.

Barring a highly unlikely sequence of results, Mercedes will clinch the manufacturers’ championship today with three races still to go.

The FIA, F1’s governing body, announced yesterday that drivers are to have the decision about how much they slow down when approaching the scene of an accident taken out of their hands.

Jules Bianchi suffered serious head injuries at the Japanese Grand Prix seven days ago when his Marussia ploughed into a tractor that was removing the car of Adrian Sutil, which had crashed a short time earlier. In response, the sport is to

Hodgson: No excuses if we don’t win Jonathan Northcroft

FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT IN TALLINN, ESTONIA

ROY HODGSON admits England will have “no excuses” should they fail to maintain their perfect start to European Championship qualifying by beating Estonia in Tallinn this evening.

The England manager and his captain, Wayne Rooney, signalled that winning all 10 Group E games en route to Euro 2016 has become an aim for the squad. Hodgson, though, said Estonia were a “different level” of opponent to San Marino, patsies in Thursday’s 5-0 romp at Wembley.

Estonia lost in Lithuania on the same evening but Hodgson is wary enough of Magnus Pehrsson’s side to have planned a special role for Raheem Sterling. When Hodgson led his players on a walkabout on the pitch at Tallinn’s Le Coq Arena last night he took aside Sterling for protracted discussions.

Hodgson is expected to drop James Milner and draft in Fabien Delph or Adam Lallana, with Sterling given responsibility for breaking down the Estonians, who beat Slovenia 1-0 in their last home qualifier with an organised, counterattacking display.

“We had two scouts at that game,” said Hodgson. “We have all

the video material. We’ll have no excuse. The one thing I can never say is, ‘I didn’t realise they did this or that’ because we have information about opponents opponent coming out of our ears.

“Even if we were satisfi tisfied by our performance versus ve San Marino it wouldn’t dn’t lead to complacency against Estonia. This is a different game, a different level of opponent capable of causing upsets. We must make certain we don’t allow that.”

Though Lithuania, who have also started

with two straight wins, are joint leaders of Group E, England’s path to the finals in France looks straightforward rd after victory away to the top seeds, Switzerland. Motivation Moti levels are being maintained ma by the opportuni tunity of achieving a “perfect “pe 10” of wins in all group matches.

“There’s no reason “Th you couldn’t have yo that as a goal,” said th Hodgson.

Ho

Sterling: special St mission to break down Estonia do

“Remaining unbeaten is somewhat more realistic, but all that really matters is getting to France in 2016 and making certain we have a competitive team.”

Rooney echoed his manager’s thoughts. “We’d like to do it [win all 10] though as the boss said the most important thing is qualifying.

But if we can do it, it would be great.”

Because of niggling injuries, Leighton Baines is set to replace Kieran Gibbs at left-back and Nathaniel Clyne may start in place of Calum Chambers. >>ENGLAND AIM FOR EURO SUMMIT | PAGES 2-3

Cook: Pietersen has tarnished English cricket Simon Wilde CRICKET CORRESPONDENT

ENGLANDcaptain Alastair Cook believes a great era of English cricket has been tarnished by claims of a “horrendous” dressingroom environment under Andy Flower in Kevin Pietersen’s autobiography. Without referring directly to the book or its author, Cook yesterday told the BBC that he was most shocked by the portrayal of Matt Prior, his former vice-captain, as a teacher’s pet and playground bully.

Though he rejected suggestions of a bullying culture, his denial fell

some way short of total — possibly thereby confirming Pietersen’s claim that Cook at one point attempted to stamp out bowlers abusing their fielders.

Prior is expected to respond publicly himself for the first time later this week, according to his agent Luke Sutton.

“He [Prior] is a great man who has been a fantastic servant for English cricket,” Cook said.

“Hopefully if he can get through his really nasty [Achilles] injury, we could see him again in an

England shirt. He has to be remembered as a guy who put his heart and soul on the line for England. The team was all that mattered to him.” He hoped Pietersen’s portrayal would not stick.

Asked if he recognised the accusations of a bullying culture, Cook said: “No, I

Cook: denies claims of bullying

don’t. International cricket is a tough place ... certainly at some stages frustrations probably boiled over, but that was only people desperate to succeed. Did it overstep the mark a couple of times? Possibly, but we addressed those issues. It certainly wasn’t a ‘bullying environment’.”

Defending Flower, Cook said: “I only have respect for him as a man and as a coach. He was an amazing coach for our side. Chatting to some of the guys about it, they feel the same.

“To win three Ashes series, to become the best side in the world, to play with some great players ... I

really only have fond memories of that. I believe the era has been tarnished and I am sad about that.”

Pietersen’s prospects of rejoining Surrey next season depend on him committing to playing more often, according to Alec Stewart, the club’s director of cricket. “It didn’t work for anyone this year, Kevin would be the first to admit that,” Stewart said. “He only batted once a week at best and not for particularly long. We can’t say that we’ll definitely have him back.” >>KEVIN ‘TARNISHED’ GREAT ERA | PAGES 8-9

implement a “virtual safety car”, which will involve using the cars’ electronic systems to slow them down.

“One of most important things to learn is that it is probably better to take the decision to slow down away from the drivers,” said Charlie Whiting, the sport’s race director. “It’s better to try to put in place a system where it’s much clearer to everyone how much we think cars should slow down by and that’s what we’re working on.”

A test of the new system could be run at the US Grand Prix, in Austin, Texas, in three weeks.

Report, page 6

KEANE: ‘FERGIE WOULD’VE GIVEN HIS WIFE A COACHING JOB IF HE COULD’ Jonathan Northcroft FORMER Manchester United captain Roy Keane has continued his onslaught on Sir Alex Ferguson in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times. Keane, whose second instalment of his autobiography was published last week, maintained that Ferguson’s allconsuming desire for power at Old Trafford had left him open to charges of nepotism at the club.

“Power, control, that’s the way he worked,” Keane says.

“You look at it: his son played for the club, his brother was chief scout, his other son was involved in one or two deals. I think if his wife had any sort of coaching qualifications she’d have been on the coaching staff. Cathy I think. He’d have found a role for her. If she had some coaching qualifications.

Because he’d done it with everyone else.”

Keane was forced out of United in 2005 after he made scathing comments about his teammates in an interview that was never aired. Asked if that episode had had a detrimental effect on his subsequent career prospects, Keane says: “It didn’t help. Not that I’m depending on other people getting me jobs but I know a lot of clubs would ring Fergie for guidance. I don’t think he’d ever talk me out of a job but all

that nonsense certainly wouldn’t get people going, ‘Ah OK, he seems like a good guy.’

It’s all negative stuff.”

He also has little time for some of his former United teammates. “Every time Gary Neville gets interviewed, ‘I supported Man United from when I was a kid…’ That’s because you f****** lived there, you lived round the area.

F****** so what? People praise Paul Scholes and Scholes is a great lad, but Scholesy refused to play for Man United.

Ferguson went through the roof. But I’m accused of doing this and that?” >>ROY KEANE INTERVIEW | PAGE 5

SPORT

2 / F O OT B A L L / E U R O 2 0 1 6 Q U A L I F I E R S

Football Shorts BURNS LEAVES IT LATE FOR LEADERS BRISTOL CITY WES BURNS, inset, scored the winner three minutes into stoppage time as League One leaders Bristol City beat Chesterfield 3 2. The victory took City five points clear of Peterborough at the top. Peterborough came from behind to win 4 1 at Crawley. Three late goals were scored as 10 man Leyton Orient drew 2 2 at Sheffield United. Orient were a Jay Simpson goal up when Jobi McAnuff was sent off. Patrick McCarthy scored in the 90th minute with Marc McNulty heading the home side into the lead in the first minute of stoppage time. Orient kept going and Romain Vincelot headed the equaliser in the ninth minute of added time.

BEASANT BACK ON THE BENCH AT 55

DAVE BEASANT, left, the former England and Wimbledon goalkeeper, was on the bench for Stevenage in their 3 0 defeat at Carlisle. The 55 year old, who joined the League Two club as goalkeeping coach in June, has not played since May 2003. Wycombe’s 3 1 win at 10 man Morecambe took them top after leaders Bury lost 3 2 at AFC Wimbledon. Sam Wood opened the scoring for Wycombe with a 40 yard shot.

Cambridge United took the honours against Oxford United after coming from a goal down to win 5 1. Managerless Hartlepool moved off the bottom after a 2 1 win at in form Exeter.

CHELSEA AIM TO CLINCH FIRST WOMEN’S TITLE CHELSEA LADIES manager Emma Hayes has urged her players to seize the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ this afternoon and clinch their first FA Women’s Super League title, writes Rob Maul. Chelsea, who finished second from bottom last season, lead going into the final round of matches. They are two points clear of Birmingham City, who face Notts County, and three ahead of Liverpool, the reigning champions, who host Bristol Academy. The Blues visit seventh placed Manchester City knowing that victory would secure the first major trophy in the club’s 22 year history. Hayes, the only woman manager in the top flight, wants Chelsea to end the season without any regrets. ‘The girls have exceeded my expectations,’ said the 37 year old Londoner, speaking to Sky Sports.

VILLA SCORES ON MELBOURNE DEBUT DAVID VILLA, right, rescued a point for Melbourne City on his Australian A League debut in 1 1 draw with Sydney FC. Spain’s leading goalscorer swept in a volley from a Damien Duff pass 15 minutes after coming on as a second half substitute in the first of a 10 game loan from New York City. Villa, 32, was the first major signing announced by Melbourne since Manchester City bought them earlier this year.

EBOLA ‘WILL NOT STOP’ AFRICAN NATIONS CUP AFRICAN football’s governing body confirmed the Africa Cup of Nations will go ahead despite hosts Morocco calling for a postponement because of the ebola epidemic. Moroccan health officials fear the 16 nation, three week African showpiece tournament, which is scheduled for January 17 February 8, could trigger a spread of the deadly virus. The Confederation of African Football insisted there would be no change in the scheduling of the tournament, saying: ‘We would like to note that since the first edition of the Africa Cup in 1975, this cup has never been delayed or cancelled.’

FOOTBALL ON TV THIS WEEK TODAY: Man City v Chelsea (FA Women’s Super League) 1.30pm, BT Sport 2, ko 2pm; Barnsley v Bradford City (League One) 2.45pm, Sky Sports 1, ko 3pm; Estonia v England (Euro 2016 qual) 4.30pm, ITV, ko 5pm.

MONDAY: Malta v Italy (Euro 2016 qual) 7.45pm, Sky Sports 5 (red button), ko 7.45pm; Wales v Cyprus (Euro 2016 qual) 7pm, Sky Sports 5, ko 7.45pm.

TUESDAY: Croatia v England (Under-21 Euro Champ) 5pm, BT Sport 1, ko 5pm; Germany v Republic of Ireland (Euro 2016 qual) 7pm, Sky Sports 5, ko 7.45pm; Greece v Northern Ireland (Euro 2016 qual) 7.30pm, Sky Sports 2, ko 7.45pm; Poland v Scotland (Euro 2016 qual) 7.30pm, Sky Sports 1, ko 7.45pm.

(For all Euo 2016 qualifying games go to http://www1.skysports.com/watch/football-on-sky) FRIDAY: Rotherham v Leeds Utd (Champ) 7.30pm, Sky Sports 1, ko 7.45pm; Hamilton v Aberdeen (Scots Prem) 7.30pm, BT Sport 1, ko 7.45pm.

SATURDAY: Man City v Tottenham (Prem League) midday, BT Sport 1, ko 12.45pm; Cardiff City v Nott’m Forest (Champ) midday, Sky Sports 1, ko 12.15pm; Ross Co v Celtic (Scots Prem) 12.30pm, Sky Sports 3, ko 12.45pm; Bradford City v Sheff Utd (League One) 5pm, Sky Sports 1, ko 5.15pm.

WIN BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE TICKETS To thank the fans for the passion and support they show their clubs, Barclays has teamed up with The Sunday Times to offer one reader the opportunity to win a pair of tickets to Crystal Palace v Chelsea on Saturday October 18. All tickets are for home fans only.

To be in with a chance of winning, please send your name and daytime phone number, putting Premier League tickets in the subject line, to sporttickets@sundaytimes.co.uk by 2pm on Tuesday October 14.

ENGLANDAIM PHIL SHEPHARD-LEWIS/LAURENCE GRIFFITHS

Jack Wilshere reveals why he wants to be a team leader.

By Andrew Longmore

GROUP E England Lithuania Estonia Slovenia Switzerland San Marino

W 2 2 1 1 0 0

D 0 0 0 0 0 0

L 0 0 1 1 2 2

F APts 7 06 3 06 1 1 3 1 1 3 0 30 0 70

England’s fixtures Today: Estonia (a) Nov 15: Slovenia (h) Mar 27: Lithuania (h) 2015: June 14: Slovenia (a) Sept 5: San Marino (a) Sept 8: Switzerland (h) Oct 9: Estonia (h) Oct 12: Lithuania (a)

J

ack Wilshere has been studying video clips of Xavi Alonso and Andrea Pirlo in an attempt to master the defensive midfield role in Roy Hodgson’s young England side. Wilshere did not actually count the record-breaking 206 passes Alonso made in one match for Bayern Munich recently, but at the England teamhotellatelastweekhewas stillshakinghisheadinwonder at the statistic.

“Ridiculous,” he says. “I get clips on my iPad, 20-25 minutes of clips. The guys send them to me. Watching players like that [Alonso and Pirlo] you see how clever they are on the ball. In that role it’s important to learn that if you lose the ball, the opposition are in a dangerous position to counterattack. If you’re playing a bit higher [up the pitch] you have the players around you who can win the ball back.”

Wilshere admitted that against Switzerland his mistakes had nearly cost England their hard-earned lead and, just as scarily, invited a faceto-face mauling from Wayne Rooney, his new England captain. But these are interesting and formative days for the precocious Arsenal midfielder’s international career. If he can adapt to being the most defensiveminded member of England’s diamond formation, a tough task for a player whose first instinct is to attack, add a touch of caution to his youthful vigour, learn to spoil rather than confront in the tackle (still a work in progress) and broaden his range of passing, Wilshere has the opportunity not just to play for England for the next decade but to lead a new generation towards a more fulfilling future. Oh, and he needs to stay fit.

It is a long wish list and though few question Wilshere’s hunger or technical ability, he still has much to prove at the very highest level both for club and country.

There is no doubt, though, that the present England management are investing huge faith in the 22-year-old midfielder.

After all, in a replay of Wilshere’s England debut, made as a late substitute for Steven Gerrard in a friendly against Hungary four years ago, Hodgson has given him the Gerrard role full-time and he is starting, slowly, to repay the faith. For what it’s worth, Wilshere was given the manof-the-match award in the bloodless 5-0 victory over San Marino on Thursday. More importantly, he would have been one of the first names on

P 2 2 2 2 2 2

Defender of the faith: Jack Wilshere is aware of his defensive duties as he showed against San Marino, inset

Hodgson’s team sheet for the European qualifier against Estonia in Tallinn this evening.

If Wilshere is in any way overawed by the tantalising vista laid out in front of him, no sign of doubt was apparent from his demeanour last week as he happily answered questions while sitting alongside Hodgson. The presence of the manager often reduces a player to muted cliché, but Wilshere, as his Twitter followers know well, is never short of a word or two. Hodgson was clearly impressed by the eloquence of his young player. “He spoke quite brilliantly,” he said later.

The message clearly spelt out by an influential young member of his new side would have been music to the manager’s ears as he attempts to

instil a culture of responsibility and a club-like sense of cohesion into the England squad. The old guard, as Wilshere pointed out, are the history men; it’s time for a new narrative.

“To play with Gerrard and Lampard in an England shirt was a dream come true for me, but all the players from the golden generation have stopped playing now so there’s a space for us to come in and write some history of our own,” says Wilshere. “We don’t have to worry about the past. We’re young, we’re eager and we want to win something for England. We want to get through this qualifying, go to the European Championships and really do something.”

Gone with the golden generation too, it seems, is the divide between players from the big clubs, the factions from Man-

WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE PAST. WE’RE YOUNG, AND WE WANT TO WIN SOMETHING chester United, Chelsea and Liverpool who formed strong cliques within the old England dressing-room.

Wilshere points out that it’s not just the Arsenal players in the England squad he knows well, he has grown up playing alongside Jordan Henderson as well.

“He’s a close mate of mine,” says Wilshere. “I grew up with Jonjo Shelvey at Arsenal [in the youth team]. There’s a lot of players coming through the under-21s playing in the seniors now who know each other really well. We’re good friends, we win and lose together.

“WhenIbeganIwastheonly Arsenal player, but me and Kieran Gibbs have been together since we were 10 so it was good to see him coming through. We played some nice one-touch football [against SanMarino],thesortoffootball we play at Arsenal and that was good to see.”

Wilshere was at the heart of much of England’s best work going forward and, as Hodgson pointed out, of the “recovery runs” required to retrieve the ball when San Marino ventured forward. For only the third time in 23 England appearances, Wilshere lasted 90 min-

utes, a reflection, he says, of a strong pre-season and a solid run of games in the league.

“In the past, when I’ve met up with England, I’ve not been fully fit. It’s been a bit stopstart-stop-start and when you’ve had that, it’s hard to complete 90 minutes. Now I’ve had a good run of games and I’m feeling fit in the 80th minute whereas before I was maybe getting a bit tired in the 70th minute. It’s going well at the moment, I’m working hard in training and working hard off the pitch to keep myself fit.”

Though Hodgson does not like the phrase “holding midfielder”, Wilshere is happy to take on the responsibilities of whatever role he is being asked to play. “I enjoy getting on the ball and starting moves, learning when to dribble, when to pass,” he says. Just don’t ask him to make 206 passes in a single game — yet.

NIGEL FRENCH

Southgate’s boys grow into the job John Aizlewood NESTLED close to the frontier with Serbia, the Croatian barracks town and railway hub of Vinkovci has seen much since the invading Romans discovered its still extant thermal baths. On Tuesday, HNK Cibalia, the local second division team formerly known as Dinamo Vinkovci, will host another invasion when England’s Under-21 side take on their contemporary Croats in the second leg of the playoffs for a place in next summer’s European Championships in the Czech Republic. England lead 2-1.

England cruised through qualifying and would have taken 30 points out of 30 but for a draw in Finland,

conceding just twice along the way. Croatia scraped through on goals difference ahead of Ukraine, and their talismanic striker Marcelo Brozovic missed Friday’s first leg in Wolverhampton having been upgraded to the full team, who concurrently won in Sofia.

Even so, as Roy Hodgson and Greg Dyke looked on, England initially laboured, despite starting the match with seven Premier League players, including £31m Luke Shaw, of Manchester United.

Croatia eased themselves ahead when Marko Livaja headed past Jack Butland after a poorly defended corner. Having spent a midweek team meeting discussing how to cope in arrears, England turned

things around after the break. With Shaw lambent and the effervescent Saido Berahino a constant danger, Harry Kane’s smart header and Berahino’s coolly dispatched penalty ensured England fly east with something to defend.

Croatia are far from out of it. At 21, Rubin Kazan’s Livaja already has first-team stints at Inter Milan and Atalanta on his CV and he was a constantly cunning threat, while teenager Marko Pjaca was equally combative and

ON TV TUESDAY Croatia U21 v England U21 5pm BT Sport 1

easy on the eye. “We knew it was going to be tough,” admitted Kane afterwards.

“We’re disappointed about their goal but to be honest we should have had a few more.

I’d back this team to score against anyone so hopefully an early goal out there will put real pressure on them.”

A tea-time kick-off and a young crowd made for a benign atmosphere at Molineux. Recent history tells us that those filling the 12,000-capacity Stadion HNK Cibalia may be more intimidating. In October 2012, when England’s tyros most recently went Balkan, the game in Krusevac, Serbia, ended in a brawl after the visiting black players were subjected to repeated racial abuse.

Spot on: Berahino wins the penalty he converted to seal victory “It will be a test for all of us,” explains Krusevac veteran Butland. “We’ve brought up what happened in Serbia quite a bit. Our discipline has to be 100%” Head coach Gareth

Southgate remains confident and, should it go to penalties, he is prepared. “We already have a clear picture of the takers,” he said. “We’re pretty meticulous and won’t leave anything to chance.”

12.10.14 / 3

FOREURO SUMMIT

ANDREW COWIE

CARL RECINE

Rooney, on 98 caps and 42 goals, can join all-time greats.

By Andrew Longmore

I

f all goes according to plan, Wayne Rooney will become the ninth player to join England’s 100-cap club in November against Slovenia. It is a milestone that has been a little lost in the England captain’s pursuit of another international record, the 49 goals scored by Bobby Charlton, which has stood, against all the odds, since 1970.

Rooney reached 42 with his penalty against San Marino on Thursday and should have ended the night on 44 after spurning two one-on-one chances.

The worry for England as they take on Estonia in Tallinn is that the first, an attempted chip easily caught by Aldo Simoncini, the San Marino goalkeeper, spoke of a striker still out of sorts. In the past, say five years ago when the cares of the world and of captaincy were on someone else’s shoulders, Rooney would have taken one look and simply blasted the ball into the net. Doubtless he will do just that if a similar chance arrives at the Le Coq stadium this evening. But, for the man described by David Moyes as the last street footballer, the attempt was uncharacteristically limp. Rooney scores goals in many different ways, but he has never really done delicate.

It did not matter much in the wider scheme of things. Barring an unthinkable collapse, England are on the way to the European Championships in 2016, by which time, according to the mood music, Roy Hodgson will have forged a young and talented team playing with energy, spirit and tactical intelligence, capable of challenging for a place in the last four at the very least.

At their head will be Rooney, who, like David Beckham and Steve Gerrard before him, has never hidden his pride at playing for his country nor his exasperation at England’s inability to make a mark at big tournaments. When he did finally emerge from the dressing room at Wembley late on Thursday night, Rooney spoke at length about the records that will confirm him, statistically at least, as one of England’s greats and at the possibility of breaking Peter Shilton’s all-time mark of 125 caps.

“To be honest, I’ve never thought about not playing for England,” he said. “That time will come later in my career but at the moment it’s not even close to entering my mind. I love playing for England and I feel I have many more years left. Unless the coaches tell me otherwise I will always be available for selection.

“I believe reaching 125 caps is attainable. It’s 16 or 17 games before the Euros start so I won’t be too far away by then and I might have at least another two years after that, if I’m fit.”

It’s a telling reminder of how far Rooney, 28, has come and how well, despite all the twists and turns, he has survived that

So close: Gary Lineker fell short of Bobby Charlton’s record

Rooney’s tough acts to follow The striker has some way to go to eclipse the glorious likes of Charlton, Greaves and Lineker

Rooney closing in on national records Most England appearances Peter Shilton (1970-1990)

125

David Beckham (1996-2009)

115

Steven Gerrard (2000-14)

114

Bobby Moore (1962-73)

108

Ashley Cole (2001-14)

107

Bobby Charlton (1958-70), Frank Lampard (1999-2014)

106

Billy Wright (1946-59)

105

Wayne Rooney (2003-14)

98

ON TV TODAY

Most England goals Bobby Charlton (1958-70)

49

Gary Lineker (1984-92)

48

Jimmy Greaves (1959-67)

44

Wayne Rooney (2003-14)

42

ESTONIA v ENGLAND 4.30PM ITV, KICK-OFF 5PM

Aiming to raise his game: Wayne Rooney, at 28, has his sights set on breaking Bobby Charlton’s 49-goal record and Peter Shilton’s 125-cap landmark for England his first strike partner at international level was fellow Evertonian, Francis Jeffers.

“It was a bit strange,” Rooney recalled. “It was against Australia at West Ham and we lost 3-1. There was a complete change at half-time and me and Franny Jeffers played the second half up front.

We were from the same area and the same school and a few coaches came down from the school bringing the kids to watch. I’d just left school as well. It was a great day.”

It proved to be the beginning andtheendofJeffers’sinternational career. Though he had scored 13 goals in 16 games for the England Under-21s, he never played for the senior side again and, after spells in Scotland, Malta, Australia and a number of lower league clubs, was last seen plying his trade at Accrington Stanley.

125 CAPS IS ATTAINABLE. IT’S 16 OR 17 GAMES TO THE EUROS. I’LL GET TWO MORE YEARS IF I’M FIT

The swifter, though harder, way for Rooney to gain a suitable memorial would be to lead England to their first major trophy for, by the start of the European Championships, a mere 50 years. This is certainly his time in international terms, the moment when a young team need his experience, his drive and at least some of the street footballer’s rough edges.

“He feels like he’s the dad figure now,” says Jack Wilshere. “He puts his arm round us, he brings us together and he gets us going. His hunger for the game has never changed.”

Rooney has been a key advocate of the player-led meetings that have been encouraged by Roy Hodgson as part of the graduation process of a team that, against San Marino, had an average age of just under 25.

The problem for the captain and the manager is that

Vassiljev offers hope for Estonia Jonathan Wilson WHEN Konstantin Vassiljev came off the bench with a quarter of an hour remaining in Estonia’s 1-0 defeat by Lithuania on Thursday, it felt like a significant moment. In the short term, it suggested Estonia’s key creative player might have recovered from a knee injury that has kept him out since June.

But in the longer term, what’s important is that Vassiljev, an ethnic Russian, is Estonia’s most popular player and the moral heart of the team. For a long time ethnicity was a major problem. England’s last game in Tallinn, in 2007, came weeks after serious rioting, sparked by the decision to move a memorial to Soviet

war dead from a public square to a military cemetery. In the early days of an independent Estonian league, a virtual apartheid existed between, on the one side, Levadia, TVMK and Narva, ethnic Russian clubs, and on the other Flora, Tulevik, Kuressaare and Valga, their Estonian equivalents.

Estonia played their first international in 1920, losing 6-0 to Finland, and played a little more than 100 further games (the number is unclear as historians dispute what constitutes an official match) in the 22 years that followed.

But after an 8-1 defeat to Latvia in 1942, they did not play again for half a century.

In recent years, development has been steady and, for a nation of 1.3 million, Estonia has punched its

weight, getting to within a playoff of qualifying for the last Euros. They lost to Ireland.

Much of the credit for that must go to Aivar Pohlak, now in his seventh year as president of the football federation. Irascible and eccentric, he is a writer and former teacher who founded Flora Tallinn in 1990, and made them the most successful team in modern Estonian football. He has recently moved out of Tallinn to live on an island off the west coast and takes less of a hands-on role, but the structures he established continue to shape the game.

Magnus Pehrsson, a 38year-old Swede who played a single game for Bradford during a loan spell in 1996,

was appointed as national coach last December and for a long time was regarded with scepticism. He switched from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 and called up 41 players during his time in charge, as though determined to try out everybody who might have a chance of being good enough for international football.

There is a sense that things are slowly coming together, as they did when Estonia beat Slovenia. Estonia registered 42% of possession, opening out only after the sending-off of Dalibor Stevanovic with 11 minutes to go and scoring the winner with four minutes left.

Their approach is unlikely to be much different against England, though the return of Vassiljev offers more creativity and leadership.

England will be setting their own standards in this qualifying group, trying to develop a style, a tempo, a tactical versatility and confidence way beyond the demands of the likes of San Marino and Estonia. There must be no embarrassment in Tallinn tonight — Spain’s defeat against Slovakia and Holland’s struggle with Kazakhstan last week illustrate the dangers of complacency — but Hodgson will be hoping to measure his side’s performance in broader terms than the scoreline.

That was one reason why the

England manager was so pleased with the “recovery runs” — the thankless 25m sprints back to retrieve the ball — that his players were willing to make even in the closing moments of the match on Thursday. “It’s important to keep up standards,” Hodgson said.

Estonia will be more ambitious than San Marino, while presenting many of the same problems. For England, it is another case of getting the job done and moving on. For the captain, it will be a case of 99 caps, 42 goals and counting.

EUROPEAN FOOTBALL SPECIAL For more coverage of last night’s matches involving Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, visit our tablet edition, go to thesundaytimes.co.uk/sport

THEY’RE NOT AS GOOD AS ANTIGUA 0 Estonia and England have met twice previously, in qualifying for Euro 2008. England won both games 3-0. Joe Cole, Peter Crouch and Michael Owen scored in the first game in Tallinn, with Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wayne Rooney and a Taavi Rahn own goal at Wembley.

0 Estonia are 81st in the Fifa rankings, one place behind Antigua and Barbuda. England are 18th.

0 Most of the Estonia squad are home-based with the Meistriliiga’s top three clubs, Levadia, Flora Tallinn and Nomme Kalju — but they are expected to start with Blackpool’s Sergei Zemjov on the wing today.

Zemjov, who has started only three games since joining the struggling Championship side in July, has seven goals for his country. Henrik Ojamaa, who is on loan at Motherwell, is also in the squad.

0 Mart Poom is the Estonian player with the highest profile in England.

The goalkeeper made his name with Derby County, but also had spells at Portsmouth, Sunderland and Watford. He played twice for Arsenal, and received a Champions League runners-up medal in 2006 as a member of their 25-man European squad, even though he did not even make the bench.

THOUGH Wayne Rooney’s penalty against San Marino kept him in line to become the highest goalscorer in England’s history, Gary Lineker came so frustratingly close to overtaking the current record-holder Bobby Charlton in Stockholm in June 1992. Just one goal behind Charlton’s 49, with England 2-1 behind against Sweden, he was substituted

by Graham Taylor and controversially replaced by Alan Smith, whose duty was reportedly to hold the ball up.

In Mexico, in 1986, Lineker, with his half a dozen goals, became the only Englishman to be leading scorer in a World Cup tournament. But Charlton was the only one of England’s four top scorers, Jimmy Greaves and Rooney being the other two, to be a World Cup winner, as he was in 1966.

That was his third World Cup, though he was selected for the 1958 tournament in Sweden but, controversially, he wasn’t given a single game.

There can be little doubt that Walter Winterbottom, England’s team manager for 16 inexplicable years, was the one responsible. A socalled selection committee still existed, but it was an open secret among the press that they no longer had the last word.

At the time, Charlton was still traumatised by the horrific experience of the Munich airport crash of the previous February.

But there was no doubting his gifts were extravagant. A beautifully lithe mover with prodigious pace and a ferocious shot with either foot, he was naturally rightfooted, but had worked mostly on his left foot. In Chile, in 1962, he played on the left wing, scoring against Argentina in Rancagua but his natural position was at inside-forward, while in 1966 Alf Ramsey deployed him as a deep-lying centreforward.

His best display was surely against Portugal in the semi-final when he scored two coolly-taken goals. He also produced a magisterial display in the final.

Greaves, for all his multiple gifts, never excelled in the World Cup finals. A 17-year-old prodigy, he made an explosive debut for Chelsea at Tottenham at the start of the 1957-58 season, and the next season humiliated Billy Wright at Stamford Bridge against Wolves with a volley of goals.

Yet neither in Chile in 1962 nor in England in 1966 did one see remotely the best of him, despite the goals he would ultimately score for England. Ebullient and humorous, he was never Ramsey’s cup of tea, while in Chile he was curiously subdued on the field, once telling me: “There are some good teams here and they’re playing some bloody

Brian Glanville rubbish, because they’re frightened of being killed.”

Greaves scored 44 goals in 57 internationals: four fewer than Lineker in 80 games.

Lineker was an all-round sportsman.His hat-trick in Monterrey against Poland in Mexico 1986 turned the tide for England. In Italy in 1990, he was incisive again, with a goal against Ireland in Cagliari, and another against Germany in Turin in the illstarred semi-final.

Rooney was another wonder kid, who was only 16 when he scored a spectacular winning goal against Arsenal for Everton, his local club.

Arguably his finest

England strike rates

England’s current players need to up their strike rates to compare favourably with some of their illustrious predecessors Vivian Woodward (29 goals/23 caps) Goals per game

Steve Bloomer (28/23) Nat Lofthouse

(30/33)

Jimmy Greaves (44/57) Gary Lineker

(48/80)

Alan Shearer (30/63) Bobby Charlton (49/106) Michael Owen (40/89) (qualification 25 goals or more)

Current players Peter Crouch (22/42) Wayne Rooney (42/98) Danny Welbeck (11/29) Daniel Sturridge (5/16)

1.26 1.22 0.91 0.77 0.6 0.48 0.46 0.45

0.52 0.42 0.38 0.31

England performance came in the 2004 European finals in Portugal, superbly effective against France, Switzerland and Croatia, scoring four goals in total.

In the Gelsinkirchen quarter-final of 2006 against Portugal, when he was not fully fit, he was expelled for a dreadful foul on Ricardo Carvalho, who had just fouled him. Two years earlier the South African World Cup had also found him sadly out of form. In Brazil this year, he was similarly below his best. But his best had been remarkable.

SPORT

4 STEVE WELSH

GROUP D STANDINGS

W Ireland 2 Poland 1 Germany 1 Scotland 1 Georgia 0 Gibraltar 0

D 0 0 0 0 0 0

L 0 0 0 1 2 2

F 9 7 2 2 1 0

A 1 0 1 2 3 14

Pt 6 3 3 3 0 0

SCOTLAND’S FIXTURES Poland Ireland Gibraltar Ireland Georgia Germany Poland Gibraltar

Oct 14 Nov 14 Mar 29 Jun 13 Sep 4 Sep 7 Oct 8 Oct 11

(a) (h) (h) (a) (a) (h) (h) (a)

Scotland make hard work of it Douglas Alexander AT IBROX

Match winner: Shaun Maloney’s 28th minute shot, which took a significant deflection off Akaki Khubutia, handed Scotland a slender victory over Georgia at Ibrox

SCOTLAND continue to struggle with occasions such as this when they are expected to win. Georgia should have been off their minds long before a tense conclusion to this match, when Gordon Strachan had to kill time with substitutes.

The meek visitors did not merit such tactics but they

SCOTLAND Khubutia og 28

GEORGIA

1 0

were required to eke out the victory that was essential before Tuesday’s trip to Poland and Scotland will have to be much more ruthless in Warsaw to emerge with anything there.

Poor finishing, from Steven Naismith in particular, marred a performance that was otherwise sound enough and, ultimately, Strachan’s side had to rely on an own goal for victory.

The big call for Strachan in selecting his side had been whether to judge Darren Fletcher on the 62 caps before his performance in Germany last month or whether to react to that evening’s display when his passing had been below its usual standard. The latter weighed heavier it transpired, with the Manchester United midfielder omitted as Scott Brown assumed the captaincy and Fletcher’s position on his own return from injury.

That was a reminder of the need for a certain brutality to end Scotland’s enduring absence from a major finals, something several previous generations of supporters took as a given. That complacency has long since disappeared, of course, and Temuri Ketsbaia’s pre-match warning that Scotland were taking victory for granted was greeted with as much bemusement as his famous attack on the advertising hoardings of St James’ Park.

Georgia’s manager surely had enough on his plate with several key players absent and murmurings from other disaffected exiles from his squad such as Zurab Khizanishvili, the former Rangers defender, that he had alienated them with his criticism.

After a deserved minute’s applause for David Taylor, formerlychiefexecutiveoftheSFA and general secretary of UEFA and a man whose passion for international football was always admirable, Scotland set about starting in a more assertive manner than they had managed in last month’s 2-1 defeat to Germany. Their prin-

cipal outlets initially were Alan Hutton and Andrew Robertson,theirfull-backs,asthey sought to outflank Georgia’s defence.

Naismith, Shaun Maloney and Ikechi Anya did link fluently before Anya’s shot was deflected behind and Maloney’s ensuing corner caused more panic than it should have.

There was more flapping as Scotland took the lead moments later. Georgia’s goalkeeper Giorgi Loria merely palmedoutaRobertsoncrossto Maloney, who kept his shot low and on target but saw it take a significant deflection off the scrambling Loria and then Akaki Khubutia, his defender, before making it in.

The goal may not have belonged to Maloney, but he grew from it anyway. A spearing run and cute pass to Fletcher was then nimbly ferried on to Naismith, but the Everton man’s touch was heavy and he failed to evade Loria to complete the attack.

Scotland longed for the second goal that would make the game safe, as minds turned to the win over Georgia at Hampden in 2007 when Craig Beattie, among the crowd yesterday, scored in the 89th minute of a nervy afternoon.

The growing anxiety manifested itself when Georgia won their first corner of the match after 69 minutes, although the ubiquitous Brown cleared it.

Naismith was still finding Georgia’s goal a barn door he could not hit, pulling his shot wide when set-up by Fletcher’s perceptive backheel and Strachan’s patience ran out as Gelashvili wriggled into Scotland’s box, hoping to provoke a penalty, before finally setting the ball back to Irakli Dzaria, who shot wide from the edge of the box when he should have equalised.

Once again, Scotland had nibbled at a teatime meal of opposition they should have devoured.

Star man: Shaun Maloney (Scotland) Yellow cards: Scotland: Morrison, Maloney Georgia: Grigalava, Daushvili Referee: M Zelinka Attendance: 34,719 Scotland: Marshall, Hutton, R Martin, Hanley, Rob ertson, Brown, Morrison, Maloney, Naismith (McAr thur 80min), Anya, Fletcher (C Martin 90min) Georgia: Laria, Lobzhanidze, Kverkvelia, Khubutia, Grigalava, Papava (Dzaria 70min), Kankova,, Daush vili, Kvirkvelia (Okriashvili 45min), Kazaishvili (Chan turia 80min), Gelashivili

Keane breaks record ROBBIE KEANE scored a hat-trick as the Republic of Ireland ran riot against international newcomers Gibraltar, thrashing them 7-0 in their Euro 2016 Group E match. He has scored 21 goals in European Championship qualifying matches, the most by any player.

Keane, inset, the former Tottenham and Liverpool forward who now plays in the US Major Soccer League with LA Galaxy, fired the Republic into a three-goal lead after only 18 minutes, the third coming from the penalty spot after Wes Hoolahan was brought down by keeper Jordan Perez.

The treble took his international tally to 65 goals in 135 appearances for his country.

Martin O’Neill’s side, who play world champions Germany on Tuesday, opened the second half with a burst of four goals in 10 minutes. James McClean tapped in to put them 4-0 up before Perez put the ball into his own net. McClean scored his second in the 53rd minute, with Hoolahan striking the seventh soon after.

Gibraltar have now lost both their opening competitive matches 7-0.

Hull City forward Nikica Jelavic said yesterday he

was quitting the Croatia national team because he was fed up with sitting on the substitutes’ bench. The 29-year-old played 36 games for Croatia, scoring six goals. His decision comes a day after he was an unused substitute in the 1-0 Euro 2016 qualifying win in Bulgaria.

Radamel Falcao scored his first international goal in almost a year in Colombia’s 3-0 friendly win against El Salvador.

Falcao, on loan to Manchester United from Monaco, missed Colombia’s run to the World Cup quarter-finals recovering from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Brazil beat World Cup finalists Argentina 2-0 at the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing. Atletico Mineiro forward Diego Tardelli scored both goals.

Lionel Messi had a penalty saved.

Tardelli volleyed the opener after 28 minutes.

Messi should have levelled just before the break when Manchester United’s Angel di Maria was fouled inside the area. Messi’s weak penalty was easily saved

by Brazil goalkeeper Jefferson.

Tardelli headed in Brazil’s second on 64 minutes.

12.10.14 / 5 DAVID MAHER

KEANE

KEANE ON BEING KEANE...

In The Second Half he writes: I have great stability in my life. But, then, that worries me. I like my home comforts, but then I want to be this hell-raiser – but I want my porridge in the morning.

I think that’s just a bloke thing. I don’t think that’s anything too dramatic. It’s not like I’m sitting at home thinking ‘I want to fly to Vegas tonight’ You just sometimes have your days when you go ‘Is this it?’ It’s just a human thing. I don’t think it’s me being all morbid. It’s just a bloke thing. ‘Is this as good as it gets?’ What’s the movie, Jack Nicholson? As Good as It Gets. Some days you just feel like that

’If he could, Fergie would have given his wife a coaching job’

. . . AND DWIGHT YORKE

Yorkie played his part in it. Yorkie had the reputation, the guy next door, loves a night out and the drinks on his head . . . I had great times with Yorkie, he did great for me at Sunderland. But towards the end Yorkie went back playing international football, I was questioning him, his behaviour. Saying this and that. He pissed me off. I don’t look back and think, ‘I wish he was still my mate’. I know, deep down, I had a good bond with Yorkie, but it takes two to tango, I have to say. At the end he was saying (in a text) ‘Good luck’ and when I replied ‘Go f*** yourself’ that was what I meant

His feud with Fergie continues but the ex-United captain feels blessed to be back in football

I

n Roy Keane’s new book there’s light and there’s shade and a part that’s stomach-churning. It’s not about Fergie or Clive Clarke or Alfie Håland. Pages 254-55: Out of football, after his sacking by Ipswich, Keane had a brief go at the “legends” circuit. A Guinness gig in Nigeria, autograph-signing at the NEC, charity matches against pop stars: “playing football with f****** JLS.” It’s how a circus lion must feel. There’s always guff about “Roy Keane’s demons” — but this was actual Hell. “It was,” he says. “It was basically everything I didn’t want to be.

To be fair, I just wanted to dip into it. Like everything, you have to experience it to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay.’

“And it wasn’t just that I didn’t like it, I was totally...I think I nearly threw up one time.” Playing football with f****** JLS. “And they were running past me!” Keane yelps.

Thursday was more like it.

The Second Half, ghostwritten

by Roddy Doyle, launched at Aviva stadium, Dublin. A press conference started at 2pm and not until 6.30pm did Keane’s interviewsfinish:hestillbrings Ireland to a halt in a way of which Bono can only dream.

And the launch was crammed between training in the morning with the national squad and evening meetings with Martin O’Neill, players and staff, back at the team hotel. Proper stuff. Football stuff.

We meet, at the hotel, late, after everything’s done. The Second Half is more rounded, more “him”, Keane says, than his first, furious, “take that, c***” autobiography.

It’s unflinching about his fallouts, “but the book’s not meant to be sad or disappointed. I played with 150, 200 players and with nearly all I’m on speaking terms,” Keane says. Then comes the smile. “Even the lads who’ve had little digs.

“Even clowns like Jordi Cruyff — they always come out with a cheap shot. And you’re ‘Whatever, Jordi, who are you to talk?’ Bloody hell, he came to United and wouldn’t even train if it was windy.”

People miss the fact that Keane is funny. Caustic, yes, clenched, he’d admit. Angry (though no longer prone to rage, his book claims) more than most. But funny. The light touch in The Second Half is not exclusively Doyle’s.

Yet the heavy stuff compels.

Thirty-four months passed between Ipswich and Keane’s next football job, assisting O’Neill. He’s now also Paul Lambert’s No2 at Aston Villa, truly “back out on the grass”, but he wonders if the hiatus, the punditry — f****** JLS —

was a limbo influenced by his feud with Sir Alex Ferguson, Ferguson’s “propaganda crap”.

“I don’t know, but it didn’t help. Not that I’m depending on other people getting me jobs but I know a lot ring Fergie for guidance and all that. I don’t think he’d ever talk me out of a job but all that nonsense certainly wouldn’t get people going, ‘Ah OK, Roy seems a good guy’. It’s all negative stuff, all nonsense, how he had to protect players from me.

“Power, control, that’s the way he worked,” says Keane.

“His son played for the club, his brother was chief scout, his other son was involved in one or two deals. I think if his wife had any sort of coaching qualifications she’d have been on the coaching staff. Cathy, I think. He’d have found a role for her.”

They say history is written by victors. Ferguson, with his trophies and trophies, usually controlled the pen. But The Second Half offers Keane’s side of their rift, notably his abrupt United exit in 2005 after a never-broadcast MUTV interview where he criticised teammates after a 4-1 defeat by Middlesbrough. The version of Keane propagated — a loose cannon spitting shrapnel harmful to a unit — was reinforced by Ferguson’s last book. He presented Darren Fletcher and John O’Shea as examples of youngsters who needed liberating from the captain’s “savage” tongue.

“That was the picture built

by United. It fell into place for them. This video. Take it somewhere. Destroy it. Because Alex Ferguson and United were worried about these young players!” Keane says. “As if I wasn’t looking out for them!

Jonathan Northcroft

FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT

“I don’t think for one moment I went overboard. Ask Fletcher, ‘Was Roy Keane a bad influence?’ Or Sheasy, ‘Were you frightened of him?’ Do me a favour. The most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in my life. But the story ran and ran and [United] put no stop to it and people say, ‘Poor Darren Fletcher’. Like these lads were cowering in the corner.

“Someone even asked today about bullying, with the cricket and Kevin Pietersen.

Not in a million years. Whether the guy was suggesting I might be a bully...never. I was the first to stop players bullying. I did it at Sunderland [when the dressing room turned on Anthony Stokes].

“It was the power of Ferguson. He said it, there must be something in it. If it was time for me to leave, I’ve no issue. It was the snippets afterwards. In Basel when [doing ITV punditry] I said the players had to do better. He says, ‘Oh he’s had his chance [in management]’.

The programme notes when he says, ‘People we thought were on our side.’ His book, ‘The hardest part of Roy Keane was his tongue.’ All that nonsense.

Strangely enough, I don’t remember him ever pulling me up and saying, ‘Go easy, Roy’.”

They last spoke in January 2008, when arranging Jonny Evans’ second Sunderland loan. The Second Half details rapprochements with Mick McCarthy and Niall Quinn.

OnewithFerguson?“Onlyifhe apologised. Which won’t

Fighting talk: Roy Keane, pictured yesterday, spent time on the legends circuit and hated every minute. Inset, with his new book happen, because it’s not in his make-up. I’ve seen how he works. People talk about me and my tongue. Chances are we’ll cross paths. What would I say? ‘Why are you talking rubbish about me?’ I know he’s an old man now and I’d like to think it wouldn’t be in an aggressive way.”

In The Second Half a division emerges. Keane writes that for Ferguson “everything was business”. Yet football “wasn’t business to me”. He explains.

“I’m not saying I was playing for a hundred quid a week.

United looked after me but it was more than business. It was a love for the club and a love for the team and I’d like to think I always had that.” Ferguson wasn’t so genuine? “No, obviously not. That’s clear to see. I look at my own situation. I was there when Bryan Robson left, when Steve Bruce left, Becks left. Ruud [van Nistelrooy].

“People always talk about Ferguson’s man-management. Actually I thought that was his weakest point. His team talks were brilliant, he recruited good players, he had good staff around him, he was ruthless and all that. But his man-management skills...

“I know a lot of ex-players

ROY KEANE ON UNITED’S RED WEDGE

EVERY TIME HE’S INTERVIEWED, GARY SAYS HE SUPPORTED UNITED AS A KID. BIG DEAL HE LIVED THERE

PEOPLE TALK ABOUT HIS MAN MANAGEMENT. ACTUALLY, I THOUGHT THAT WAS FERGIE’S WORST SKILL

go, ‘Fergie was great to me…’

That’s all just f****** hearsay.

That’s just, ‘I’ll keep onside with him’. From his point of view it was business, pure business. People go, ‘Well what do you want?’ A bit of respect, even when you leave the club.”

For Keane, there’s a Fergieography of United, a version of 26 years that’s a “fairytale”. In fairytales, somebody has to be the Big Bad Wolf. This one even challenges the familiar story of Eric Cantona revolutionising everyone’s professionalism by doing extra practice. “I’d hear stuff about Beckham and Cantona. ‘Those players stayed behind.’ But most players at United were hard-working.

That’s what brought us success. I don’t remember too many times Eric going out later, I have to say. But that was Ferguson. Another bit of nonsense,” says Keane.

He wrote of the Class of ’92: “Their role has been exaggerated.” Another sacred cow. “It has been exaggerated,” says Keane. “I think the success we had was great but those guys are plugging into it as if they were different from us, as if they had different aims or it meant more to them. They came up through the ranks and

ON THE ART OF CAPTAINCY

There’s still a place for the style of captaincy I had, but you have to be careful.

When I was captain I felt at my strongest, that I could criticise players easier, when I was at the top of my game. Players, they’re all a bit delicate. They’ll be going, ‘You’re pointing the finger, but look at your own performance’ if you’re not doing well. Wayne Rooney was criticised at Leicester [for shouting despite making a mistake himself].

He’s scored 200, 300 goals

a couple of lads were from Salford. Boo hoo.

“Every time Gary Neville gets interviewed, ‘I supported Man United from when I was a kid’. That’s because you lived there. Just because we were from other countries, don’t think it meant less to us.”

Now’s not the time to ask if he’s ever had a Nev’s Noodle Pot in Café Football, the restaurantownedbyNevilleandRyan Giggs. “All this wheeling and dealing. Plugging it the wrong way. The commercial stuff.

‘We’re United.’ Neville, every time he gets interviewed, ‘I supported United as a kid.’ So what?

“People need to remember.

People praise Paul Scholes and Scholes is a great lad, but Scholesy refused to play for Man United.

Ferguson went through the roof. But I’m accused? But it’s, ‘Fergie, he was a great man’ Because you support certain people that suit, you mean? Fergie supports the Class of 92 because it’s good for him. I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine.”

The account of Keane’s Sunderland reign is riveting. The everyday trials of a first-time manager are uncovered as in no other book. Keane led Sunderland from last place to Championship title winners, kept them in the Premier League then was sacked when results dipped and the ownership changed. Sunderland went to

and that’s all well and good but you’ve got to be on your game on a given day. But for Wayne to feel he’s not in a position to shout, then you’re in trouble. A captain shouldn’t have to think ‘Can I open my mouth?’

What people tend to forget is when I was playing, believe it or not, I was usually encouraging people.

Get back. Good job. When we scored, nine times out of ten I was the first one over to the player. I was enjoying it more than anybody

Everton and, on the bus, Keane screened Al Pacino’s speech in Any Given Sunday. Everton won 7-1.

He laughs now but back then he slunk home and “hardly left the bed for 48 hours.” He wrote that his weakness is handling disappointment. Why return to coaching, where disappointment is your daily bread?

“Yeah, but at least there’s a chance of a few highs. The TV and charity stuff and Nigeria — on paper you think that’s the proper life, away from the disappointments. But at least there’s a few highs in football.

You’re middle-of-the road with the other.

“Al Pacino — these things happen. You try different things to motivate. You have a team talk, don’t have a team talk. You plan your talk four days in advance, you try it off the cuff. It could have been 15-1 that day and that was my fault.

The frustration was with myself not the players. 4-1 down and I attacked, I thought we could come back to win.

There’s days to take your medicine.”

Transfers are the booby traps that get most young managers.

They did for Keane at Ipswich.

In summer, Dermot Desmond said the Celtic job was his, but there was something halfhearted about Celtic’s follow-up. Keane thinks he’ll be a No1 again soon, “but it would have to rock my boat. The consolation I’ve had working with Paul and Martin is I can see at Sunderland and Ipswich I did some decent stuff. It’s not as if I’ve come away thinking, ‘Jesus, I was miles away.’

“I know I made mistakes, particularly at Ipswich, but I wasn’t far off. This little spell as a No2 is just what I need. That desire is there, that belief, that I could be a good manager. And I want to be a really good manager. I wouldn’t just want to be a decent manager.” Once, he was mooted as a future United boss. “Listen, how many have been mentioned for that?

Robbo when he had a decent spell at West Brom. Brucey. I was mentioned. They were looking at Giggsy last year. I think that’s a fairytale. I think whoever gets that job will deserve it — and they’ve a vastly experienced manager now.

“I’m not getting ahead of myself. I learnt that at Sunderland. I feel like, I suppose, rebuilding. Is ‘rebuilding’ too strong? I’m getting my coaching and management career back on track.”

The Second Half is brutally honest. Clive Clarke, who was on loan at Leicester, had a heart attack the night that Sunderland lost 3-0 at Luton. Keane confessed that during his postmatch press conference “I had the evil thought, ‘I’m glad he had it tonight,’ because it would deflect from our woeful performance.”

Won’t that fuel the loose cannon, “propaganda crap”?

“Yeah but read the context.

This was all on reflection. I wasn’t going, ‘Yeah, Clarkey’s ill.’ This was all reflection, after I found out that he was OK and after he’s criticised me.

“I’ve heard other managers talk like that. They get a bad result but hear someone else’s team got beaten by seven. You say, ‘I’m glad that happened tonight’. If people take that bit the wrong way, so be it.”

There are “lessons to be learned for me” from O’Neill’s relaxed authority. “Maybe, just maybe — and I can’t get away from who I am — I was too intense about certain things.

With this coaching stuff, I’m trying to be a bit more myself.

“The situation I’m in, being hands on, not necessarily getting involved with meetings with chief executives and the FAI, that’s suiting me. Focus on the job, work with players to improve them and, you know what, enjoy it. Have a bit more banter along the way. Just try and lighten up.

“A friend always used to say, ‘You need to lighten up a little’, and that’s probably right. I met Roddy in Dublin to tell him I wouldn’t be doing the book but after half an hour I thought, ‘You know what...’ and he said, ‘Why not?’ And there we are. Why not? I’m just a lad from Cork. Who am I to be saying no to Roddy Doyle?

“Grab the opportunity. I didn’t do that as a player. I had opportunities to go abroad. It’s all very well sitting there until I’m 60 saying, ‘I could have gone to Real Madrid.’ Well I f****** didn’t.

“I’ve got these opportunities, now, to work with Roddy Doyle, Martin O’Neill, Paul Lambert. Why not go for it?

Life’s too short.”

IN HIS OWN WORDS THE SECOND HALF by Roy Keane with Roddy Doyle, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is out now.

LUCA BRUNO

SPORT

6 / F1

The British driver shines on a new circuit in Russia, writes Mark Hughes

TODAY’S RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX GRID

L

ewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the inaugural Russian Grand Prix, scorching around the flowing Sochi track that winds its way between warehouses, a fairground, holiday hotels and sporting stadiums two-tenths of a second faster than his teammate Nico Rosberg to take pole position.

Coming on top of his victories in the past three grands prix, the world championship momentum is clearly with the Englishman. Rosberg was left hoping that the different demands of race day — when car set-up rather than raw pace may well be the deciding factor — might enable him to turn the tables on Hamilton.

“Lewis has been quicker all weekend,” he said. “I’ve just got to accept that. But everything is possible tomorrow. It’s a unique place here because of tyre degradation. The smoothness of the track is completely different to everything else. It’s made setting up the car a big engineering challenge. The start is going to be important, and I’ve been making quite good starts lately.”

Valtteri Bottas came close to nudging Rosberg off the front row in his Williams in a wild qualifying lap, but he slid wide at the last turn and will line up in third place on the grid. However, with the fastest straightline speed, the Finn might prove to be a thorn in the side of the Mercedes drivers.

In response to the incident that saw Jules Bianchi plough into a tractor that was removing the stricken car of Adrian Sutil at the Japanese Grand Prix, the drivers are to have the decision about how much they slow down when approaching the scene of an

1

L Hamilton (GB, Mercedes)

1:38.513

2

N Rosberg (Ger, Mercedes)

1:38.713

3

V Bottas (Fin, Williams)

1:38.920

4

J Button (GB, McLaren)

1:39.121

5

D Kvyat (Rus, Toro Rosso)

1:39.277

6

K Magnussen (Den, McLaren)

1:39.629

7

D Ricciardo (Aus, Red Bull)

1:39.635

8

F Alonso (Spa, Ferrari)

1:39.709

9

K Raikkonen (Fin, Ferrari)

1:39.771

10

J Vergne (Fra, Toro Rosso)

1:40.020

11

S Vettel (Ger, Red Bull)

1:40.052

12

N Hulkenberg (Ger, Force India)

1:40.058

13

S Perez (Mex, Force India)

1:40.163

14

E Gutierrez (Mex, Sauber)

1:40.536

15

A Sutil (Ger, Sauber)

1:40.984

16

R Grosjean (Fra, Lotus)

1:41.397

17

M Ericsson (Swe, Caterham)

1:42.648

18

F Massa (Bra, Williams)

1:43.064

19

K Kobayashi (Jap, Caterham)

1:43.166

20 P Maldonado (Ven, Lotus)

1:43.205

21

1:43.649

M Chilton (GB, Marussia)

THE FRONT RUNNER

Racing ahead: Lewis Hamilton starts from pole position in the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi today as he tries to extend his 10-point lead over his teammate, Nico Rosberg, in the world championship accident taken out of their hands.

Bianchi suffered serious head injuries in the crash and the FIA, the sport’s governing body, is to implement a “virtual safety car”, which will involve using the cars’ electronic systems to slow them down. It will be introduced at the start of next season but

could be tested as soon as the US Grand Prix, at Austin, Texas, in three weeks’ time.

The drivers have been impressed with the challenge presented to them by the new track at Sochi, with the bonus that there looks to be plenty of scope for overtaking between the concrete walls. The circuit is framed by the Black Sea on

one side and the Caucasus mountains on the other three.

It’s on the site that staged the Winter Olympics earlier this year, the circuit layout incorporating some of the access roads from that event.

Boasting 200 days of sunshine each year, Sochi is not what most people imagine when they think of Russia. It is

a two-hour flight south of Moscow and this weekend it is 20C warmer than the capital.

Wooden-framed holiday apartments featuring large windows sit cheek-by-jowl with Disney-like hotels.

It has a surreal feel, only intensified by the military overtones of the PA announcements and the security staff,

one of whom insisted upon searching beneath the jumper of a pregnant woman — just in case she was hiding explosives rather than a baby. Other circuit visitors had dry shampoo and paper tissues confiscated before they could enter.

There’s an edge about the place, ahead of Vladimir Putin’s visit on race day while

Russia’s conflict with Ukraine continues 600 miles away.

F1’s attitude to such concerns was summed up by Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost, who, when asked what he thought about how the sport weighed up whether it should race in such controversial venues, replied: “Nowadays the big events always are being

STANDINGS

Drivers’ standings 1 L Hamilton 266pts 2 N Rosberg 256 3 D Ricciardo 193 4 S Vettel 139 5 F Alonso 133 6 V Bottas 130 7 J Button 82 8 N Hulkenberg 76 9 F Massa 71 10 S Perez 46 11 K Raikkonen 45 12 K Magnussen 39 Constructors’ standings 1 Mercedes 522 2 Red Bull 332 3 Williams 201 4 Ferrari 178 5 Force India 122 6 McLaren 121

criticised, whether it’s the Olympic Games, the football World Cup or F1. There are always critics. It’s unjustified.

We are responsible for entertainment. People want to see on Sunday afternoon an interesting race and we are not — and should not be — involved on the political side.

“Once we are being taken into this corner, we can’t race anywhere. Because there are problems in Arabia, there are problems in Brazil, there are problems in Europe, there are problems in China, there are problems in Russia. To be honest, I don’t care about this.

The only thing I’m interested in is that we have a fast car. The rest is politics. We are here for sport, for bringing entertainment, and that’s it.”

Bearing all that in mind then, Tost will have been delighted with qualifying, as his 19-year-old Russian rookie Daniil Kvyat — Sebastian Vettel’s replacement at Red Bull next year — put the Toro Rosso fifth on the grid, and he has the pace to mix it with the McLarens of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen either side of him.

ON TV TODAY Russian Grand Prix 10.30am Sky Sports F1, 11am BBC1, race starts midday

R U G BY L E A G U E / S U P E R L E A G U E G R A N D F I N A L Chris Irvine

T

AT OLD TRAFFORD

he madness of Ben Flower in being sent off in the second minute of last night’s Grand Final for a vicious and cowardly assault on Lance Hohaia left Wigan with too big a mountain to climb as St Helens arrested their record of five straight losses at Old Trafford with their first triumph since 2006.

Their extra man counted as they eked out a victory no one outside their dressing room had forecast.

It was ugly, attritional and sheer bloody-minded but Saints have overcome the doubters all season in first lifting the League Leaders’ Shield, a point clear of Wigan in the regular season, and the Super League trophy itself last night. James Roby steered the ship in turmoil at times, the guiding hand hooker picking up the Harry Sunderland award as man of the match.

St Helens will this week begin their search for a successor as coach to Nathan Brown, whose early return to Australia with 12 months still on his contract leaked out in his homeland nine days ago. It made for a rather awkward build-up, whereas Wigan’s confidence was reflected on the eve of the game with new three-year deals for coach Shaun Wane and captain Sean O’Loughlin.

Following Wigan’s 2013 league and Challenge Cup double, the club had been anxious to tie Wane to a longer contract amid rumours of a move to New Zealand Warriors, so Ian Lenagan, the chairman, was delighted to get him to commit to at least 2017, with a rolling contract thereafter.

“There is still a lot I want to achieve at Wigan and I will always be totally committed to achieving those goals,” Wane said.

O’Loughlin made his 343rd Wigan appearance in 12 years and the 31-year-old one-club man will join Wane on Wigan’s coaching staff at the end of his career. He also recently succeeded Kevin Sinfield as England captain in a squad which contains seven Warriors and none from St Helens, which leaves on Tuesday for the

ST HELENS

WIGAN WARRIORS

12.10.14 / 7 JOHN CLIFTON

14 6

Four Nations series in Australia and New Zealand.

Michael McIlorum’s insistence that he would be OK to play with a fractured eye socket in the semi-final defeat of Warrington was resisted on medical grounds. Wigan were adjusting to Sam Powell’s involvement at dummy half when the game was tipped on its head by Flower’s assault and battery inside two minutes. His red card, a first in 17 years of the Grand Final, was a formality, a lengthy ban an inevitability after the Welsh prop’s sickening right-hook felled Hohaia.

Not satisfied with his appalling handiwork, Flower then went over to the prone half-back and smashed his right fist into the face of the diminutive New Zealander and referee Phil Bentham had no hesitation. Flower walked off into a storm of controversy in what was seen as the worst incident of violence on a field for many years. That it did not escalate further was a small miracle.

It took the game an age to gain any momentum following his actions. With Hohaia dazed and nursing a broken nose on the sidelines, Saints struggled to string more than a few passes together without a recognised half back.

They fell behind to a Matty Smith penalty after 16 minutes but were briefly back on level terms when Blake Green was guilty of interference and Mark Percival slotted a straightforward goal.

The Wigan dozen always looked the more threatening and their ambition was duly rewarded 20 seconds from the end of the end of the opening half. when Saints were penalised for offside and stretched on the right by Smith combining with Green, whose cut-out pass was met at pace by the unstoppable Joe Burgess, the 19-year-old wing called up

by England and who is inter-

Grudge match: Sia Soliola scores the first try for St Helens in a physical game that saw Ben Flower, inset, become the first player to be sent off in a Grand Final after punching St Helens’ Lance Hohaia

Saints defy sinners

esting at least one club in Australia.

Saints lived off bits and pieces but with two forwards attempting to pull the strings in Mark Flanagan and Jordan Turner, they had no kicking game to speak of and little direction. When it came to last tackles, there was simply nothing in the playbook. It

needed some individual brilliance and that was not in abundance either. A game largely absent of skill relied on rumbustious defence and forcing of errors.

One such mistake by Eddie Pettybourne opened the door for Saints in the 53rd minute.

Their haphazard pressure eventually told as Roby

droppedoffapassintothemidriff of Sia Soliola. George Williams tried to wrap him up and O’Loughlin despairingly clutched at his ankles but the second-rower had the power to reach out.

Percival’s conversion nudged Saints 8-6 in front for the first time, although they wereimmediately indebtedtoa

wonderful saving tackle by Tommy Makinson on the runaway Liam Farrell.

Smith miscued an effort at goal to draw level and Saints’ victory was sealed 12 minutes from time by Paul Wellens, the 34-year-old captain playing in a record-equalling 10th Grand Final, lofting a kick that Bowen quaked beneath and Tommy

Makinson was quick to respond to in leaping, pulling the ball down and twisting over, despite the full-back and Smith’sbesteffortstostophim.

Star man: James Roby (St Helens) Scorers: St Helens: Tries: Soliola (54), Makinson (69) Goals: Percival (3) Wigan: Tries: Burgess (40) Goals: Smith (1)

Red card: Wigan: Flower Referee: P Bentham (Warrington) Attendance: 70,102 St Helens: P Wellens (capt); T Makinson, M Percival, J Jones, A Swift; M Flanagan, L Hohaia; K Amor, J Roby, M Masoe, L McCarthy Scarsbrook, S Soliola, J Turner. Replacements: W Manu, A Walmsley, G Rich ards, L Thompson Wigan: M Bowen; J Charnley, A Gelling, D Sarginson, J Burgess; B Green, M Smith; B Flower, S Powell, D Crosby, J Tomkins, L Farrell, S O’Loughlin (capt).

Replacements: E Pettybourne, T Clubb, J Bateman, G Williams

SPORT

8 / CRICKET / THE PIETERSEN CONTROVERSY DAVID MARSDEN

The England captain leaps to the defence of his players and rejects claims of bullying

Hitting back: Graeme Swann has criticised Pietersen’s book

Time for a hard look in the mirror The batsman had genius in his hands but his arrogance was simply breathtaking THE PUBLIC perception of Kevin Pietersen can best be summed up by an imaginary conversation ahead of a night out with his wife.

“Darling,hurry up, the taxi’s been waiting for 20 minutes now.” “Sorry darling. I’m not sure about this top, and I can’t seem to get my hair right.” “All right, but do try and get a move on Kevin.”

Pietersen is not a man who gives the impression of being displeased with his reflection, and his greatest attribute as a batsman lay in never being visited by selfdoubt. It was the same with Geoffrey Boycott, and everywhere KP went — Natal, Notts, Hampshire, Surrey, England — discord went too. Opinions about Pietersen are rarely delivered without an accompanying adjective, just in case there might be any room for doubt. Hence Andrew Strauss preferring the description, in what he thought was a private commentary box conversation, of “absolute c***” as opposed to a mere “c***”.

That unguarded comment during last summer’s MCC v Rest of the World match at Lord’s was similar to one made by a former girlfriend,

SURREY UNSURE

Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket, says Kevin Pietersen would have to commit to playing more often for the county if he was to rejoin them next season.

‘It didn’t work for anyone this year, Kevin would be the first to admit that,’ Stewart said.

For the first time in his ife, he only batted once a week at best, and not for a particularly long period either. He knows that to be the top run-scorer, which he should be capable of doing, he has to play regularly.’

Whether he can do that depends on which Twenty20 tournaments he commits to. He is certain to play a full season for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL but f he also agrees to a season for St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League it could kill off any chance of playing for Surrey. The IPL ends in late May while the start of the CPL has been brought forward to mid-June. ’We’d be silly to offer him a contract just yet,’ added Stewart. ‘We can’t say that we’ll definitely have him back.’

the singer-model Candice, in a newspaper article in 2006, and which was the subject of great jocularity among England teammates when the subject cropped up over a few beers at Lahore Golf Club during that winter’s tour to Pakistan.

“I hear she called you a tosser,” said Andrew Flintoff, to which a journalist who was with them piped up: “Not correct Freddie.

I’ve read the article and I can tell you she never called KP a tosser”. ( Pause for effect.)

“What she actually called him was a complete tosser.”

As for the vanity, there is some merit in the argument that it is not entirely Pietersen’s fault. It’s not easy when people such as his

Martin Johnson agent, Adam Wheatley, and Piers Morgan, are constantly massaging his ego.

You could argue that Pietersen should have been mature enough to be wary of people telling him how great he was. After taking over as captain from Michael Vaughan, his conviction that he knew better than Peter Moores, the coach, led to Moores losing his job and cost Pietersen the captaincy.

Then when Andy Flower got the coach’s job, he took umbrage as what he saw as Flower being authoritarian, most notably during preparations for a Test, when he asked for time off to attend a function and was refused.

In fairness to Pietersen, pinning all the blame on him for last winter’s Ashes disaster in Australia is not entirely fair. Especially given the way that Graeme Swann, who threw in the towel in the middle of the carnage, emerged not only relatively uncriticised but with the offer of a contract to sit in a radio booth and pontificate on other players’ shortcomings.

What did for Pietersen in Australia had its origins in a withering outburst from Graham Gooch during the third Test in Perth, when the then batting coach berated Pietersen in front of his teammates for getting out to an irresponsible shot. So when Pietersen got his head down in the following Test in Melbourne, only to watch Ian Bell, Ben Stokes, and Tim Bresnan play awful shots in what was supposed to be a rearguard action, he wasn’t impressed. Defeat was followed by a “clear the air” meeting, and Pietersen turned it blue.

The captain, Alastair Cook, didn’t fare too well in Pietersen’s tirade, and while KP was sacked by ECB managing director Paul Downton, it was mostly Cook’s fingerprints on the handle. Pietersen’s opinion of Cook’s captaincy is not an exclusive one, and neither is Strauss’ opinion of Pietersen.

It was after Pietersen sent offensive texts about Strauss to his chums in the South African team during the 2012 series — precipitating Strauss’ resignation after the next Test — that England should have sacked him.

Pietersen says he would consider playing for England again, but only if the ECB chairman Giles Clarke fell on his sword. A few minor details might have to be ironed out, such as having a full-length mirror installed in his part of the changing room, and banning his teammates from poking fun at him on spoof Twitter accounts, but no avenue should be left unexplored to accommodate a 34-year-old with dodgy knees and an utterly hopeless recent batting average.

His genius was breathtaking, but it was nothing like as breathtaking as his arrogance.

D

ressed in his Bedfordshire Barbour, Alastair Cook yesterday looked like a man well used to wading through manure. Perhaps it was not a surprise, therefore, that he should have been the first from England’s cricketing hierarchy to publicly respond to Kevin Pietersen’s most pungent autobiography.

Cook, whose leadership of the team in Australia last winter was one of the many targets of Pietersen’s pen, apparently took it upon himself to contact the BBC and suggest he spoke to camera to address some of the allegations Pietersen has left swirling around the England team’s heads like dung flies.

That in itself may constitute thefirstsmallstepinTheFightBack. Certain passages of Pietersen’s book gave the impression that Cook was averse to doing anything without first consulting Matt Prior, his former deputy, to whom he happily handed over the responsibility of chairing some team meetings; also that he “hates conflict” and was a “company man” glad to do his masters’ bidding. He may have looked in need of a good night’s sleep — it is hard when you’ve got a book you can’t put down — but this was Cook Edging onto the Front Foot.

It might be stretching a point to claim that he did not stumble once or twice over his wording, in the manner that apparently prompted involuntary snorts of dressing-room derision in

He knows no boundaries K i Pi

Graeme Swann, but this was a measured performance. Cook presented a stout defence of Prior and team director Andy Flower, Pietersen’s principal targets, even if his denial of dressing-room bullying fell short of total.

He said that Pietersen’s comments had tarnished what should be remembered as a proud and successful era for English cricket and that there was a danger that Pietersen’s portrayal of Prior as a teacher’s pet and schoolyard bully might be hard to shake off. “That’s sad that he could be remembered like that.”

He had been taken aback by the accusations against Prior.

“That was probably the biggest shock for me,” he said, although long before the book’s nasty stuff on Prior was a hardly less cruel passage depicting Cook’s awkwardness at the meeting at which Pietersen was sacked — Cook

Simon Wilde

CRICKET CORRESPONDENT

unable to look him in the eye, gaze fixed on something fascinating on his shoe. Pietersen, who has always taken conflict in his stride, reckoned it had to rank as one of the most uncomfortable experiences of Cook’s career.

“He [Prior] is a great man who has been a fantastic servant for English cricket,” Cook added. “Hopefully if he can get through his really nasty [Achilles] injury, we could see him again in an England shirt.

He has to be remembered as a guy who put his heart and soul on the line for England all the time, and the team was all that mattered to him. He has put everything into the England shirt and he should be incredibly proud of that.”

Asked if he recognised the accusations of a bullying culture in the book, Cook said: “No, I don’t. International cricket is a tough place and as a team you are striving for excellence at all times. Certainly at some stages those frustrations probably boiled over more than they should have done, but that was only people desperate to succeed and wanting to know the other 10 blokes around them were committed 100% to them.

“Did it overstep the mark a couple of times? Possibly, but we addressed those issues. This is something that always happens in teams. It certainly wasn’t a ‘bullying environment’ at all in my eyes.”

We could have done with some more detail at this point because, according to Pietersen’s account, one of the first things Cook did as captain was attempt to stamp out the bullying: “Cooky was clear: no more shitting on each other,” he wrote. “No abuse on the field.” Perhaps this was what Cook meant about issues addressed. Except Pietersen said the abuse soon started up again.

Cook hinted that he had tried to change the culture. “As thecaptainover thepastcouple of years, I have tried to make it as successful as I can for the young players coming in and to make them feel comfortable.

International cricket is a tough environment to perform in compared to county cricket because of the level of scrutiny.

It’s a big step up and it is a tough environment.

From this summer you have seen those young guys coming in and I take a lot of pride from seeing people like Gary Ballance, Joe Root and Chris Jordan really thriving.”

As for Flower, whom he has known many years since their time together at Essex, Cook was predictably fulsome in his tribute. “I have known Andy since the Essex dressing room, when he took me under his wing as a player. Obviously, your relationship changes as coach and captain and I only have respect for him as a man,

‘Kevin has tarnished a great period for English cricket’ - Alastair Cook

14

Kevin Pietersen will be talking about his new book tonight in conversation with Sunday Times chief sports writer David Walsh. To book tickets visit cheltenhamfestivals.com or call 0844 880 8094

Poison pen: Kevin Pietersen’s accusations of a bullying culture in the England cricket camp have been strongly denied by Alastair Cook, inset

and as a coach. He was an amazing coach for our side.

Chatting to some of the guys about it, they feel the same. A lot of the success was down to his drive and determination to make us a tough England side.”

Again, it would have been helpful to hear Cook’s take on Pietersen’s allegation that Flower used the transition from Andrew Strauss’s captaincy to Cook to increase his influence over the team. It is in the detail that a lot of Pietersen’s devil lies.

“I am very proud of the era I have played in,” Cook went on.

“TowinthreeAshes,tobecome the best side in the world, to

play with some great players. I really only have fond memories of that. I am incredibly proud to have contributed in that period. To play under Andrew Strauss, to have played under Andy Flower as coach, I have only got respect for these guys.

I do believe the era has been tarnished and I am sad about that.”

Cook may have begun the process of reclaiming the storyline of the England team but he was hoping for a lot when he said, “It has been a really sad week for cricket [and] we have to draw a line under it at some stage. This is a good time to do that.”

PRIOR TO RESPOND TO KP ON FRIDAY

Matt Prior, whom Kevin Pietersen portrayed as bullying and treacherous, is set to publicly respond later this week to the central allegations made against him. Prior was labelled in Pietersen’s autobiography as a ‘massive negative influence in the dressingroom’ and the leader of a clique that also contained several senior bowlers.

Pietersen also accused Prior of being the first to speak in critical fashion of team

director Andy Flower at the players’ meeting towards the end of the disastrous Ashes tour in Melbourne.

Luke Sutton, Prior’s agent, said that Prior was likely to give media interviews on Friday.

Pietersen also claimed that Prior, once he was out of the side, tried to start a media campaign to stop Pietersen becoming vice-captain and that Cook’s captaincy improved after Prior was no longer in the team

Pietersen book leaves me with real feeling of dejection KEVIN PIETERSEN the cricketer always loved playing to the crowd. At his best, he both fed off the emotion of the spectators, and provided emotion to those watching in equal measure. It was absolutely captivating.

Also, part of the joy of watching Pietersen was his refusal to ever take a backward step. Regardless of form or circumstance, he was always looking to be the one to dominate, and the better the bowler, the more fearsome the opponent, the more that he looked to impose himself. Warne, Muralitharan, Steyn, McGrath were all whacked around the ground contemptuously. He has always been driven by proving himself.

And so, it has been no surprise to me that he has revelled in the limelight this week, as his book caused a stir of epic proportions. This was his opportunity to lift the lid on the inner workings of the

Andrew Strauss England dressing room, and so explain why he fell foul of the regime. In his view, this is a story that needed to be told.

It has been a typical Pietersen innings, full of audacious shots and memorable moments.

His greatest strength has also been his achilles heel throughout his career. When entirely in control of a bowling attack, he could not

help but to continue the onslaught, rather than realise that they had already waved the white flag.

When he faced circumstances where he merely had to defend, and play the percentages, he invariably looked ill at ease and out of place.

They were not part of his script.

And so it is the case with his book. So intent has he been to play the big shots, that he forgot about nurdling the ones and twos. Most of those who have enjoyed watching him play over the years would have loved him to talk about his style of batting (as he did so well on one of Sky’s Batting Masterclasses), the great innings he played over the years, and the fantastic victories that he inspired.

Unfortunately, there is precious little of it in the book.

Those are the books that other people write.

And so I am left with a real feeling of dejection. Anyone

who was involved with England throughout his career knows that the dressing room was anything but the seething snake pit that has been described. It was home to a group of men, whose routes to the England team were all vastly different, who bonded together over the long hours on the road or in the field, and

THE DRESSING ROOM WAS ANYTHING BUT THE SEETHING SNAKE PIT THAT’S BEEN DESCRIBED

were united by a common purpose.

During Pietersen’s career, there were four Ashes wins, a series victory in India for the first time in 28 years, a world Twenty20 crown, and an ascent to No1 in the world rankings. These were some of English cricket’s greatest moments.

We were also lucky to have one of the game’s great coaches. Andy Flower gave absolutely everything that he had to make the England team better.

He worked day and night, seemingly without a break for five years, with the sole aim and focus to take the team forward. And it worked.

Flower deserves to feel genuine pride for what he managed to achieve, and so do all the players who played their part along the way.

After the last week that pride feels diminished. The figures are still there in black and white, but much of the

magic feels gone. My memories of a team sitting on the outfield of the SCG, savouring the intense high of winning in Australia for the first time in 23 years are dulled. My recollections of the satisfaction we felt after dethroning India to go to world No1 are no longer so vivid.

Instead, I am reminded of the odd squabble between players in the heat of the moment, I am thinking about the rise of the IPL, and the awkward position in which it put players and management.

I am questioning the motives and characters of those that I played with.

Is this really what all of those years of sacrifice were about?

Pietersen may have thought that, with his autobiography, he was playing one final audacious innings, taking on the establishment. Instead he has done something more far reaching. He has dispelled the magic.

12.10.14 / 9

WILL WE EVER THINK OF ENGLAND’S KEY MEN IN THE SAME WAY?

ALASTAIR COOK An introvert whose reluctance to speak in public led Matt Prior to chair team meetings even after he was dropped from the side. When Cook did speak, he was liable to mumble or mispronounce words. ‘Decent and earnest, he is ideal for the ECB,’ though ‘too nice for the politics of English cricket . . . he hates conflict’ Aussie nickname for 2015 Ned Flanders, right IAN BELL ‘A very quiet guy . . . not overconfident’. The management had ittle faith in Bell’s ability to speak in front of the team even after he was made vice-captain during the Australia tour. Of Bell and Jonathan Trott, Pietersen said: ‘They were on my side. Still are’ Aussie nickname for 2015 The Mute or KP’s Mate

along with Prior and Graeme Swann, the ‘big dudes’ who expected fielders to apologise if they made mistakes. Richard Bailey, a friend of his, created the spoof Twitter account mocking Pietersen and claimed to Alec Stewart that Broad, among others, had access to it. Broad admitted he was scared of Mitchell Johnson Aussie nickname for 2015 The Bully JAMES ANDERSON Ran along with the Prior-Broad-Swann clique but ‘wasn’t in the same league because at heart Jimmy is the nicest bloke in the world’. An introvert, he needed to attach himself to Swann (now retired) to come out of his shell. Like Broad, confessed to being frightened of Mitchell Johnson Aussie nickname for 2015 Jimmy No-mate PETER MOORES The England coach loved statistics and setting ‘silly’ targets, a man obsessed with micro-managing every minute of everybody’s day. ‘Moores was tapping on our heads like a woodpecker all day, every day . . . He’s a nice guy, but like a human triple espresso – so intense . . . the man can’t relax’ Aussie nickname for 2015 The Woodpecker

STUART BROAD A member of the dominant dressing-room clique

PIETERSEN’S FORM SINCE SACKING Since Pietersen was sacked by England in February he has struggled for form as a Twenty20 ‘gun for hire’, making only one fifty in 25 innings for Delhi Daredevils, Surrey and St Lucia Zouks. He also scored 10 in a 50-overs match for MCC v Rest of the World at Lord’s INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE, DELHI DAREDEVILS Innings

Runs

Average

Highest

11

294

29.4

58

NATWEST T20 BLAST, SURREY Innings Runs Average 12

225

22.5

Highest 39

CARIBBEAN PREMIER LEAGUE, ST LUCIA ZOUKS Innings Runs Average Highest 2

30

15.5

23

with Pietersen after winning the Ashes. The captain has also leapt to the defence of the wicketkeeper, Matt Prior, and former coach Andy Flower, both of whom are heavily criticised in the batsman’s autobiography

It takes 244 pages before KP talks about cricket New book is a masterclass in hostility but some of the claims don’t add up. By Simon Wilde KEVIN PIETERSEN’S autobiography is like one of his best innings — outrageous, audacious, jaw-dropping.

Andy Flower cannot have imagined it would be so hostile and Matt Prior must feel like he has fallen off his bike into a bed of stingingnettles. Prior intends to hold media interviews this week to counter the charges levelled at him.

Pietersen hired David Walsh as ghost-writer to make sure it hit its targets.

Forget Hilary Mantel’s Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. This is the Assassination of the England Cricket Team.

Back at the time of the severance terms — when it imposed an eight-month confidentiality clause — the ECB said the explanations could wait. Now it prefers to remain silent, yearning for the storm to abate. Maybe it is not necessary to speak.

Pietersen’s words outline most eloquently how trust and mutual respect had long broken down.

Some points convince, others don’t. And, at times, he omits inconvenient truths.

STRONG POINTS Text messages:

Pietersen admits he erred but denies instigating a text

exchange with a South African opponent at Headingley in 2012; he said he was responding to a message from the other person that stated Andrew Strauss had behaved like a bit of a “doos” for ignoring them as he walked past. “The only thing I was guilty of was not defending my captain,” Pietersen writes

Spoof Twitter account

Pietersen was happier talking to the South Africans because of a parody Twitter account created by Richard Bailey, a friend of Stuart Broad’s, and retweeted by several England players. Alec Stewart told Pietersen that Bailey had said Broad, Graeme Swann and Tim Bresnan had access to the account (though they have denied using it). Pietersenfeels that while he was punished for undermining the dressingroom environment, others should have been too

decline in England’s fielding; their own figures indicate that at least 35 catches were dropped in Tests in 2013.

Batsmen v bowlers

There is support for Pietersen’s claim that the bowling group held undue sway in the dressing-room, with the batting consistently underperforming in 2012-13.

“Flower did not grow players,” Pietersen writes. No new Test batsman established himself under him after 2009 (Joe Root was dropped for Flower’s last Test).

The ECB

Pietersen produces a litany of ECB incompetence and pettiness. He is right to highlight inconsistent treatment. Whereas Pietersen is fined for criticising a TV

commentator, Swann escapes censure for damning Pietersen’s captaincy in print.

He is promised to be shown a press release before it is sent out, then told that due to an oversight that hasn’t happened. The ECB hasn’t responded except to disown a leaked “document” containing various inaccurate charges against Pietersen.

James Taylor:

THE JURY IS OUT

After Prior was dropped from the team in Australia, Cook’s leadership was “transformed”, according to Pietersen: “Our captain was back in control.

This pattern (if that is what it was) was replicated at home to Sri Lanka and India: with Prior in the side, England lost two and drew two; after he was replaced by Jos Buttler.

Matt Prior:

Pietersen paints a portrait of the England wicketkeeper as self-serving and divisive.

Flower, not understanding the antipathy between the two, asked Prior to contact Pietersen after the Headingley Test of 2012, a call Pietersen described as “not useful”.

Prior had been widely seen as a conciliator.

Pietersen’s claim that Swann, Broad, James Anderson and Matt Prior forced fielders who made mistakes to apologise in front of the team has been supported by others, including former opposition captains Ricky Ponting and Graeme Smith. This culture may have contributed to the

Pietersen says that reports of him disparaging Taylor in the dressing-room were “absolute fantasy”, though he was critical of Taylor to Prior and Flower. Pietersen asked Flower if he was responsible for the leak: “Flower said that...he had to tell people what was going on.”

Alastair Cook’s captaincy:

WEAK POINTS

Andy Flower’s achievements:

Pietersen argues that Flower mistrusted his style of play — perhaps that is why he averaged 44.53 under him and 50.48 under previous coaches.

Flower’s achievements can’t be brushed off. Besides, Pietersen praised him in the past.

Pietersen’s earnings:

Pietersen said that after he was sacked by England, “my income from playing cricket tripled” but he will have lost sponsorship, win bonuses and pension arrangements.

Bullying:

Selective facts:

Best of enemies: Pietersen singles out Matt Prior for criticism

PHILIP BROWN IAN WALTON

Pietersen shone fresh light on the personalities of several key figures who remain in the England dressing room today, changing our perceptions of them and the way they interact. They may even have to look at each other differently.

And as for the Australians, Pietersen’s comments provide the ideal sledger’s guide for next summer:

He claims Moores inherited a “great team” from Duncan Fletcher and turned “wine into water”, but England had just been whitewashed in Australia and performed badly at the World Cup. In fact,

Moores brought in Prior, Broad, Anderson and Swann.

Divorce but no marriage:

The first serious description of cricket comes on page 244, when Mitchell Johnson is sending shockwaves through the England dressing-room in Brisbane.

Ex-captain syndrome:

Pietersen disagrees with James Taylor’s selection and warns that Jonathan Trott is mentally struggling (on which he is right). Most former captains think their views count for much; they count for little.

The IPL:

Pietersen has a good case for saying that the ECB should be more accommodating towards the IPL but is confrontational in arguing that case.

His future:

“I’m not prepared to accept I will never play for England again. I believe the governing body of English cricket could change; it should change.”

Has hell frozen over yet?

Outside looking in: Amjad Khan struggled to fit in at Kent

Don’t dare to be different THE debate about dressing room bullying takes me back to my first game for Kent. I had just turned 19 and, because I was a university student, I had spent little time with the squad at pre-season. The night before my debut was the first time that I had met some senior players.

Three days before the match, I got food poisoning.

Naturally, I wasn’t going to pull out of my first game, but I felt sick throughout the match. With rain threatening to wash out the final day, the team went out for dinner.

Around midnight, 12 flaming sambucas arrived.

“One for everyone,” Martin McCague, our burly fast bowler announced. “Not for me,” I replied. “I said,” the bowler continued, coercively, “one for everyone.” Me: “I feel relaxed about this, because it’s just not going to happen: I’ve been ill and I’m not drinking it.” McCague: “If you don’t drink it, I’ll bowl a load of leg-stump halfvolleys when you’re fielding at short leg.”

Me: “The way they’ve been coming out, Macca, you probably will anyway.”

Laughter while anxious glances were exchanged around the table. Then Dean Headley (the other half of the fast bowling pair) backed me up and ended the debate, “I think Ed’s made his point.”

Privately, Headley turned to me and said: “That took guts.” “Not really,” I replied.

“You should meet my older sister.” It was true. My initial take on the rough and tumble of professional sport was that it was easier than a childhood spent being outsmarted over Monopoly, swing ball, beach cricket and almost everything else.

Sports teams sometimes have a version of conformity that borders on bullying, but so do most small groups, whatever the discipline.

When is banter bullying?

What’s the difference between a team “core” and a self-serving group of senior players? When does a group of friends become a clique?

Is freezing someone out bullying? It is a fine line.

Leaders need emotional intelligence to read the situation and keep things healthy.

There are balances to maintain: between mischief and respectfulness, between lightness and seriousness, between individualism and the group, between freedom and discipline, between letting people be and yet protecting more vulnerable players. No team gets it right all the time.

I’m not sure how much genuine bullying happened in the teams I played in. But I did witness players exploit double standards while marginalising others who were deemed to be “different”. On reflection, that combination of a lack of justice with an inflexible sense of “in” and “outs” does constitute a form of bullying.

In the middle of 2003 Kent had a good spell. The Pakistani Test player Mohammad Sami was taking wickets while I scored a bunch of hundreds. Not that Sami saw much of it. He was always asleep. He’d bowl then sleep in the dressing room. I was in the form of my life but I’m not sure he ever saw me play a shot. Did we care? Did we hell. The guy was an overseas player and he was winning matches.

Ed Smith The team was less tolerant of our own left-field characters. Amjad Khan, the Danish-born fast bowler who played one Test for England, might have been as talented as Sami. Perhaps because he wasn’t an overseas player, and he hadn’t yet played international cricket, the dressing room cut him less slack.

Amjad was a lovely guy but he did not sit naturally in the blokey, laddish culture of county cricket. The theory was that young players had to “learn”. I worried that was a euphemism for “conform”. Worse, in the process of conforming, what if players lost what made them special?

The concept of “respect” for senior players can be overstated, providing them with the old excuse used by bullying prefects: “We copped it on the way up.

Now it’s our turn to dish it out.” That doesn’t justify anything.

When I was captain of Middlesex, I tried to

WHEN TEAMS IMPLODE, THEY TAKE REFUGE IN PHONEY CONFORMITY encourage younger players to have fun and to be irreverent — especially towards me. I hated teams of stifling conformity and strict rules of seniority.

I’m often asked who was the best captain I played under. I find it easier to say who was the best captain I played against: Adam Hollioake. He had a lot of natural gifts: confidence, aura and physical strength.

But it ran deeper than that. I felt, as an opponent, that he relished people who enjoyed life.

Good teams encourage individuality and plurality.

Andrew Strauss put it well when he said: “I wouldn’t want to captain a team full of people like me.”

When teams are imploding, they take refuge in phoney conformity and the lowest common denominator. Bullying often grows out of fear and insecurity. Confident teams, like confident people, enjoy the ways we are different as well as the ways in which we are the same.

A brilliant teacher once told me the best solution to bullying was to act as though the bullies were behaving out of a terrible sense of inadequacy. “You’ve obviously got a problem,” he would say, “how can we help you?”

WHY WASPS

Sunday Times members can enjoy more rugby coverage on our website and on our tablet edition. Not only are there highlights from yesterday’s Aviva Premiership matches, there is the verdict of Stephen Jones, inset, on Wasps’ move to Coventry, and Stuart Barnes on the form of his old team, Bath.

There is also Rugby Champions Cup preview content about the Celtic challenge

HAD TO FLY Limping along closer to London

is no good. The club I love can thrive in new Coventry home

I

went to Coventry last Wednesday. Took a train from London Euston, then a taxi to the Ricoh Arena.

Wasps have been central to my rugby life and if the club are moving to Coventry, I wanted to see it for myself.

I got in contact with the Wasps’ owner, Derek Richardson, and the chief executive Nick Eastwood and asked if they’d be OK with my showing up. I know many Wasps fans are against the move to Coventry and that a certain number may never travel to the Ricoh Arena to watch them play. What’s happening is extremely difficult for them.

In an ideal world Wasps would still be based somewhere in North London, playing at a new 30,000-capacity stadium and on course to win their third European Cup. But while Wasps have pitched their tent in many places since their formation in 1867 they have never found an ideal world.

I joined the club as a slightly lost teenager in 1989-90 and Wasps became like a second home. Ampleforth College, where I’d learnt the game, had 14 rugby pitches. Wasps had two and yet they were leading Division One of the Courage League. That was actually why I joined. The league table said Wasps were the best club in the land and that’s where I wanted to be.

Throughthe18yearsIplayed at Wasps, there were six

Lawrence Dallaglio different training grounds, three stadiums, three owners, and I could never figure out why it was only our thirds that were called the Nomads. We were never hung up on geography.

When I started we trained and played at Sudbury, a nice little ground at the back of a housing estate in a part of north London that was fiendishly hard to get to.

My journey for Tuesday and Thursday evening training during the amateur years took an hour and a half. Others had longer commutes. But there was a magic about the club, and the diverse people attracted by Wasps made you forget the inconveniences.

And we had a pretty good side. I was part of teams that won two European Cups, one Courage League, four Premiership titles, an Amlin Cup and a few domestic cups. Our supporters were spoilt and so were we, the players. We

achieved these victories with less resources than many of our rivals, and against a backdrop of constant instability.

Sudbury was never going to be big enough for the professional era, so we moved our home games to Loftus Road before, in 2002, we went to Adams Park in High Wycombe.

That took us a long way out of London and I always saw it as a place to tide us over until we built our own stadium.

We used to get crowds of 8,000 to 10,000 but the move to High Wycombe depleted our supporter base. Wasps now average around 5,000 at home games and have sold 2,700 season tickets this season. No one at the club ever believed Adams Park was the long-term answer.

Over the years I’ve been to see sites that were thought suitable. There was the Booker Airfield option that looked promising, and greenfield sites that were possibilities. But for one reason or another, it wasn’t possible or feasible to develop them. The more the club looked, the more obvious it became that without a very wealthy benefactor they would never be able to buy or build a stadium in the London area.

Maybe if Johann Rupert (Saracens’ owner) had turned up at our door or Bruce Craig (Bath’s owner), we could have acquired the London base we sought. What became clear, too, was that the club couldn’t afford to continue playing at Adams Park. Because we were renting the ground, ticket sales aside, we received just 15p from every pound spent on match days. How could we continue to compete against Leicester, Northampton, Saracens and Harlequins when our match-day income was a fraction of theirs?

A couple of years ago things

Here to stay: Christian Wade is part of Wasps’ future. The move to a new home means he and other youngsters will stay at the club looked bleak for Wasps, who were on the brink of going into administration. I remember going with my first Wasps captain, Mark Rigby, to the RFU to beg for the money to keep us afloat. That was tough for all of us because Wasps were not the kind of club who went anywhere with cap in hand.

Around that time Billy Vunipola defected to Saracens and I was disappointed. I felt he could have given us another

year. Later I heard the reasons for his departure and the difficulties the club had in honouring his contract. If your wages don’t land in your account when they should, you’re entitled to consider your options.

Now I fully understand why Billy left. I never want to see another young England player leave Wasps.

Before Derek Richardson bought the club, their debts

were about £10m. Richardson absorbed that but Wasps continue to lose about £3m a year.

Richardson is wealthy but not so wealthy he can go on losing that kind of money year after year. Something had to change, hence the decision to move to Coventry.

Part of me wants to say that Wasps should always be in London, but we conceded on that principle on the day we moved to Adams Park. It’s just

not reasonable to expect the owner to continue funding a £3m deficit every year. The options were pretty grim and no one could see an easy way of turning it round. Mid- to longterm, the situation wasn’t sustainable.

Costs could have been cut but that would have meant severe reductions to the wage bill and a diminished team.

Wasps would have struggled to survive in the Premiership.

JAN KRUGER

ONLINE EXTRAS

WHEN I LOOKED AROUND THE RICOH I SAW THE POSSIBILITIES. A WINNING TEAM WILL DRAW A NEW FAN BASE Some supporters may well have thought a limping Wasps based closer to London preferable to a successful Wasps in Coventry. I’m not one of those people. I joined Wasps because they were top of the table and was lucky enough to play in a team that twice won the European Cup. Wasps stand for being the best and if they accept middle of the road, they are not the Wasps I love.

So when I looked around the Ricoh on Wednesday, I saw mostly the possibilities. Here is an excellent 32,000-capacity stadium with a fantastic set-up that is generating revenue of £14m a year, making a profit with the potential to grow.

Wasps now own 50% of this, with the intention of soon becoming the outright owner.

No more 15p in the pound.

I appreciate it’s going to be difficult to build a new fan base because, while many of the club’s current supporters will continue to be Wasps fans, they will not necessarily make the journey to Coventry. But I also know that the Ricoh Arena is in a part of the West Midlands that is steeped in rugby tradition and if the team are producing on the pitch, I believe there will be a lot of new supporters.

I’m in favour of the move because I now see a way for Wasps to hold on to Joe Launchbury, James Haskell, Elliot Daly, Christian Wade and other players of this quality.

AndIwanttoseeWaspsbeating the best teams in Europe. For some time I couldn’t see how they were going to return to that level. Coventry, I believe, gives the club this opportunity.

12.10.14 / 11 STU FORSTER

Deadly Falcons leave fumbling Welsh favourites for drop Martin Johnson AT KASSAM STADIUM

LONDON WELSH may not have given up on Premiership survival just yet, but it looks as though their supporters may have done. The bloke on the tannoy was inviting spectators to sponsor a player before the kick off, to an audience so thin he really should have been inviting the players to sponsor a spectator.

A crowd of 2,154 was pitiful for such a crucial bottom of the table clash on a blissful autumn Saturday, but that may be the last of the sunshine for the Exiles this winter. After a 20-game losing streak Newcastle recorded back to back wins for the first time in a year in Oxford yesterday, and are

SARACENS

GLOUCESTER

LONDON WELSH NEWCASTLE FALCONS

3 23

now eight points clear of a Welsh side with just a solitary point to show from their opening six matches.

It might be early days, but just as it was with Worcester last season, the relegation writing is on the wall before the leaves have dropped from the trees. Welsh have been banging on about how well they’ve been competing until the final quarter, and how it will all change when they

break. To fail to bag one against the Welsh — who had been leaking six and a half tries per game, and 50 points per match — almost deserves getting docked a point.

However, they do at least do the basics pretty well.

Oxford is a twee enough shopping town, with more than a few antique crockery shops, but London Welsh players are presumably banned from them for fear of expensive breakages. The home side’s knock-on count was horrendous, and unless they start addressing the simple issues, they’re nailed on to make an immediate return to the Championship.

They also have problems at half-back, where the former England No 10 Olly Barkley has slowed appreciably, and

A

Scorers: London Welsh: Pen: Barkley Newcastle: Tries: Powell 14, M Wilson 40, Tipuna 51 Con: Clegg Pens:Socino (2) Yellow card: Newcastle: M Wilson Referee: W Barnes (RFU) Attendance: 2,154 London Welsh: S Jewell; S Stegmann, N Reynolds (R Crane 72min), T May (capt), N Scott; O Barkley, P Weepu (R Lewis 52min); P Henn (S Cahill 55min), N Morris (N Vella 58 65min, P Henn

78min), T Vea (J Gilding 16min), M Corker (D Schofield 52min), J Down, P Browne, R Thorpe (B Pienaar 68min), C Hala’ufia Newcastle: A Tait; S Sinoti (T Catterick 75min), G Tiesi (R Clegg 22min), A Powell, N Cato; J Pablo Socino, R Tipuna (M Blair 59min); K Brookes (A Rogers 59min), S Lawson (R Hawkins 72min), S Wilson (J Furno 59min), C Green, D Barrow (R Mayhew 59min), M Wilson, W Welch (capt), A Hogg (O Tomaszczyk 59min)

AVIVA PREMIERSHIP PW 65 65 64 54 63 63 63 62 52 62 62 60

Northmpton Saracens Exeter Bath Gloucester Harlequins Leicester L Irish Wasps Sale Newcastle L Welsh

D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

L 1 1 2 1 3 3 3 4 3 4 4 6

B Pts 5 25 2 22 4 20 3 19 3 15 2 14 2 14 4 12 3 11 3 11 1 9 1 1

Hairy moment: Alistair Hargreaves scores Saracens’ second try in an entertaining match that lost its shape after a flurry of second-half substitutes. The win preserves the side’s 100% home record although they stay second in the table

Saracens remain a cut above them and everyone says that in this tough old game of the modern era, we must have them. What no one has ever grasped is that the game is so tough largely because players are refreshed. In the past, matches would reach a climax late on when myriad gaps would appear in tired teams.

When the game wasn’t interrupted by the hordes, it

was tasty. Gloucester led 13-3 after a clever opening sequence of play and some fantastic early defence. Matt Kvesic and Tom Savage got in behind Saracens and a delightful pass from Billy Twelvetrees sent Rob Cook over in the corner.

That was a real platform, but almost instantaneously, Twelvetrees undid his own good work. Gloucester made ground

after securing the Saracens’ restart but the captain opted to chip ahead rather than take the ball up and Chris Wyles charged down and ran on to score, making it only 13-10 to Gloucesterandsappingthemof their early hopes.

Saracens scored again to rub it in five minutes later, when the absolutely immaculate Hodgson set the ball moving to

Superior Chiefs ease back at finish BETTER organised, more eager, stronger in the tackle and superior all round, Exeter Chiefs dominated an eight-try frolic in West Country sunshine — but they should have done better.

With the game won, the Chiefs allowed London Irish to score three tries in the final 10 minutes. That late lapse illustrated the erratic character of Exeter, for whom Gareth Steenson kicked 19 points. They can be scintillating and convincing against almost anyone; they can also lose the plot.

Exeter scored 30 points before half-time to put the issue beyond doubt. A series of joint ventures by backs and forwards opened up the Irish defence three times. After a lineout, Will Chudley slipped the ball to Carl Rimmer, who was coming in at speed and in an aggressively straight line.

With the Irish defence

Star man: Mark Wilson (Newcastle)

Three and easy: Adam Powell dives over for Newcastle’s first try

How your kids can enjoy rugby with England’s finest, Travel, Page 6

RUGBY CORRESPONDENT AT ALLIANZ PARK

AT SANDY PARK

prop. The killer score came with the last play of the half.

The Exiles had been enjoying a good spell of territory, but another spilled pass led to a Falcons counter attack launched by Powell, and finished off by Wilson after a long spell of recyling close to the line. That made it 16-3 at half-time, and the game was put to bed soon after the break when Wilson was again involved in a try for scrum-half Ruki Tipuna.

Towards the end, the crowd — such as it was — hooted in derision when our chum on the tannoy piped up: “And now, replacement for London Scottish …”. It just about summed up the afternoon.

Go on holiday with the stars

Stephen Jones

Nick Pitt

the marquee signing of ex-All Black scrum-half Piri Weepu has turned out to be a shocker. Weepu does a lot of arm waving at the tackle area, and talks to the ref a lot, and, er, that’s it.

The Falcons required 14 minutes to score their first try, from centre Adam Powell, although the creative work was done by flanker Mark Wilson, who had a terrific game until he got himself binned near the end for spoiling as Welsh fought in vain for a late consolation try.

Falcons were denied a second soon after when their right-wing Sinoti Sinoti was outpaced in a 40-yard chase to the line by Welsh hooker Scott Lawson, which would have been more of a surprise were Sinoti not built like a

BEN QUEENBOROUGH

28 21

ll good at Allianz Park, up to a point.

Saracens kept up their momentum near the top of the Aviva Premiership with a well deserved win, inspired by the masterly Charlie Hodgson and a superior pack. Gloucester, much more fledgling in their development processes, showed great courage to stay in the contest and win a bonus point with a try at the death.

No doubt it was fun for many in what has become a superb ground. There were more signs that Saracens are gathering a bigger core support, and there were youngsters playing happily out on the artificial surface before and after the game. Saracens, unlike another club, have triumphantly created a rugby stadium where none existed and where none was even thought about. It is within their existing catchment area and within a few years they will most likely be catching quite a few. They deserve to.

But there was a considerable check on the euphoria, because 15 men crushed any prospects that this would be a classic.

They came on and spoiled the whole thing, robbed it of flow and organisation and spectacle. You could say that they should be ashamed of themselves, had it been their fault.

Replacements. I hate them.

Occasionally one or two can lift the action but far more often, it dies a death as they blunder about in their hordes, trying to pick up the pace of the game.

Rugby used to allow replacements only for injured players, until even the doctors started cheating and giving out sicknotes to people within nothing wrong with them Thenumberofreplacements teams are allowed has gone up and up, so that Saracens could bring on eight and Gloucester couldbringonsevenyesterday, and that is excluding the temporary replacements. The game had been excellent for the first half and it was often a shambles in the second half.

Flow? Turned off like a tap.

Coaches love their substitutes, of course. They can make all kinds of frantic plans for

mount a decent finish, but in this match they didn’t concede a point in the final 28 minutes and still got walloped.

Optimism, frankly, is hard to come by. The Exiles get 10 out of 10 for energy and enthusiasm, and 0 out of 10 for looking as though they have anything close to the nous required to break down modern Premiership defences. They attack from so deep, and with such predictability, that it’s a bit like a Field Marshal Haig First World War offensive. The field is littered with bodies, for about half a metre of territory gained.

In some ways, Falcons will be unhappy at not managing a bonus point after scoring their third try shortly after the

EXETER CHIEFS LONDON IRISH

44 24

inexcusably scattered, his journey to the line was clear and he even managed a comic dive over when he arrived.

For the second try, Exeter’s forwards set it up for their faster comrades, Thomas Waldrom passing to Henry Slade in midfield and Slade dancing through the defence.

Jack Nowell, restored to fitness, had already made some interesting runs and looked likely to score just before the interval. He was held up but cleverly passed to Damian Welch, who brushed off a defender and charged over unopposed.

Most of the second half was remarkably similar to the

first. The Chiefs softened up the Irish with some rugged forward play and then opened up to take attacking advantage. When Exeter found space on the left, Phil Dollman passed to Welch, who showed terrific handling skills to control the ball over his shoulder, hold on to it and score.

That secured the bonus point and the Chiefs began to enjoy themselves.

Nowell set off on a twisting run, selling dummies as he went and at last handing the ball to Don Armand, who brushed off two defenders on his way to the line.

At that point, Exeter switched off, allowing Irish to score the three concluding tries, two of them scored

by Blair Cowan. That spared Irish blushes but did not cover up their shortcomings.

Star man: Damian Welch (Exeter) Scorers: Exeter: Tries: Rimmer 16, Slade 21, Welch 38, 55, Armand 57 Cons: Steenson (5) Pens: Steenson (3) London Irish: Tries: Cowan 69, 80, Fenby 71 Cons: Geraghty (3) Pen: Geraghty Yellow card: London Irish: Paice Referee: I Tempest (RFU) Attendance: 8,654 Exeter Chiefs: P Dollman; J Nowell, H Slade, S Hill (I Whitten 63min), M Jess (T James 63min); G Steenson, W Chudley (H Thomas 55min); C Rimmer (B Sturgess 65min), J Yeandle (capt) (E Taione 65min), T Francis (M Low 59min), M Lees (R Caldwell 59min), D Welch, D Ewers, D Armand, T Waldrom (K Horstmann 62min) London Irish: A Fenby; A Lewington (D Leo h t), E Sheridan (F Mulchrone 58min), S Geraghty, T Ojo;C Noakes, S Steele (T O’Leary 39min); T Court (G Cross 56min), D Paice, H Aulika (M Parr 56min), G Skivington (capt), J Sinclair (J Short h t), K Low (B Cowan h t), T Guest (J Stevens 62min), L Narraway

Steenson: booted over 19 points

the left after Gloucester had kicked out of defence. Ernst Joubert and Ben Ransom took it on and the giant figure of Alistair Hargreaves came looming up to score.

Gloucester were still well in it throughout the third quarter, but they started bungling as the match lost its shape. They dropped the ball in four separate attacks and Nick Wood was

sent to the sin-bin for making a tackle off the ball. Saracens sealed the game when Hargreaves, having a whale of a game, burst through a Tom PalmertackleandChrisAshton made a superb supporting run to score.

Typically, Gloucester kept going and a shambolic if deeply courageous late move ended with Savage taking a good line

and scoring at the posts. Hope no one shook hands with all the opposition. If anyone did, he will be out till Christmas with a wrist complaint.

Star man: Charlie Hodgson (Saracens) Scorers: Saracens: Tries: Wyles 20, Hargreaves 24, Ashton 60 Cons: Hodgson (2) Pens: Hodgson (3) Gloucester:Try: Cook18Con:LaidlawPens: Laidlaw (3) Yellow card: Gloucester: Wood Referee: D Richards (RFU)

Attendance: 9,085 Saracens: B Ransom (A Goode 51min); C Ashton, C Wyles, B Barritt, D Strettle; C Hodgson, R Wiggles worth (N de Kock 50min); R Barrington (R Gill 50min), S Brits (J George 8min), K Longbottom (J Johnston 50min, J Hamilton (G Kruis 57min), A Hargreaves (capt), E Joubert, K Brown (W Fraser 50min), B Vunipola Gloucester: R Cook; C Sharples, H Purdy (M Atkinson22min),BTwelvetrees(capt),JMay;JHook, G Laidlaw (D Robson 70min); N Wood (Y Thomas 66min), R Hibbard (D Dawidiuk 56min), J Afoa (S Puafisi 70min), T Savage, T Palmer (E Stooke 66min), S Kalamafoni (R Moriarty 66min), M Kvesic, B Morgan

Saints rout toothless Sharks 43 10 Nigel Botherway

AT FRANKLIN’S GARDENS

NORTHAMPTON, the defending champions, sealed their place at the top of the Aviva Premiership with a comfortable home win over toothless Sale Sharks, who have not won at Franklin’s Gardens since May 2006.

With Stephen Myler and Danny Cipriani both itching to pullon the England No 10 shirt next month, a battle of the fly-halves loomed, but it was Ken Pisi, a Samoan, who provided the backline stardust.

A moment of audacity from Pisi got the Saints up and running. Playing on the right wing but popping up on the left, and carrying the ball one-handed, he somehow managed to skip round the tank that is Jonny Leota in the Sharks midfield and sidestep two more tackles for a brilliant opening try.

The visitors then handed Northampton a try on a plate when Samu Manoa picked off

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS SALE SHARKS

Marc Jones’s lineout overthrow five metres from the Sharks line and strolled over unopposed.Sale have the unenviable record of having leaked more tries than any club in Premiership history.

That was number 901 — and four more were to follow as Manoa went on to score a hattrick.

Myler stamped his class on the match with a high crossfield kick that curled in the air before Pisi leapt to claim the catch and offload for his elder brother George to score in the corner with barely half an hour on the clock.

Saints cranked up the pressure and soon wrapped up the

bonus point when Myler kicked a penalty to the corner. The try was a formality as Manoa caught Mike Haywood’s throw and was piled over the Sale line by his fellow forwards.

Northampton’s American No 8 completed his hat-trick five minutes later, this time touching down a good old driving maul that Sale found impossible to resist.

Sale did batter the home line a few times but they lacked the composure to keep the ball safe. A solitary Cipriani penalty was all they had to show for their efforts when, frustratingly, they pulled a rabbit out the hat to score the try of the match.

Tom Brady made the damaging line break and linked with Joe Ford, on for Cipriani, who provided the

scoring pass for Mark Jennings. It was only a minor blip for the home side, who soon worked Kahn Fotuali’i over for their final try.

Star man: Ken Pisi (Northampton Saints) Scorers: Northampton Saints: Tries: KPisi 14, Manoa 19, 52, 55, G Pisi 31, Fotuali’i 65 Cons: Myler (4), Wilson Pens: Myler Sale Sharks:Try: Jennings 62 Cons: Ford Pens: Cipriani Referee: A Small (RFU) Attendance: 13,362 Northampton: B Foden; K Pisi (G North 57min), G Pisi (J Wilson 57min), L Burrell, J Elliott; SMyler (Fotuali’i 63min), L Dickson; A Waller (E Waller 61min), M Haywood (D Hartley 53min), S Ma’afu (G Denman 35 40, 53min), C Lawes (C Clark 57min), C Day, T Wood (capt) (P Dowson 32min), J Fisher (Wood h t), S Manoa Sale:L McLean; T Brady, J Leota (A Forsyth 55min), M Jennings, T Arscott; D Cipriani (J Ford 55min), C Cusiter (W Cliff 55min); R Harrison (A de Marchi 58min), M Jones (C Neild 67min), V Cobilas (E Lewis Roberts 58min), J Beaumont (J Mills 55min), M Paterson, M Lund, D Seymour (capt), M Easter (V Fihaki 55min)

Pisi: the Samoan sparkled with an early try

SPORT

1 2 / R U G BY U N I O N / C H A M P I O N S C U P P R E V I E W SHAUN BOTTERILL

New-look cup in good shape to kick off with a bang Misplaced final is the only flaw in slimmed-down European tournament. By Stephen Jones HERE is a challenge. Look down the fixture list for the first weekend of the new European Rugby Champions Cup and decide if there has ever been a more momentous single set of pool games since European Cup rugby began more than 19 years ago.

Consider the potential epics. Saracens and Clermont, the two wounded nearly men of Europe, meet at Allianz Park. Northampton Saints, arguably the pick of the home contingent, and now piloted so expertly by the rejuvenated

Steve Myler at fly-half, go to play the illustrious Racing Metro. Ulster, the fiercest fighters, visit Welford Road where Leicester are in dire need of a run in Europe.

Munster’s legions will be on the march to Sale Sharks, who return to Europe after their revival last season. Wasps, the soon-to-be Midlanders, travel to Leinster in the post-Brian O’Drsicoll era and, perhaps most intriguing of all, Bath visit Glasgow Warriors — tiny stadium, no real European pedigree to speak of, but

wonderfully aggressive and dangerous at home And the holders, Toulon, minus Jonny Wilkinson, set off on their bid for an unprecedented hattrick of titles, at home against the Scarlets.

If next weekend represents a step into the unknown then it is a step that the sport should take more often. The high-octane games come from the reduction in numbers from 24 to 20 in the new format, doing away with the bizarre philosophy that an elite sporting event should also allow in feeble teams on a kind of development basis.

It is now run by the professional clubs themselves, not handed down from a lofty patrician height by national unions, at least some of which appear to have an aversion to their professional clubs becoming too big. Financial distribution at last has some

fairness about it. The old idea that tiny Irish and Italian clubs should receive more than the massive French and English teams was too ridiculous for words.

A hoary rearguard, chiefly based in Ireland, insists that the tournament will be inferior to the Heineken Cup. Hell hath no fury like those who backed a dead horse in a race. It is being suggested that the website for the event is not very good — phew, real dealbreaker, that. Others claim to spot a financial disaster in that only two partner sponsors from five have yet been announced.

Again, it is alarmist garbage. The final television deals have just been signed, and these alone will initially bring in a 60% increase in funding, which will give the organisers a strong platform to approach partner sponsors.

Yet there is one area of serious concern, and it is a legacy from the old as much as a weakness in the new. The 2015 final, and all subsequent finals, will take place in the first weekend of May, after which there will be several rounds of the Aviva Premiership, the Guinness Pro12 and the French Top 14.

The European final has always been in the wrong place. I have always felt that if it was indeed the biggest thing in Europe, then it should have been the climax of the season, played on the very last weekend. But it has always taken place on the weekend before the individual club finals. Now, it has been moved in the wrong direction, three weeks back into the season.

Why? Because the French clubs, mindful of the huge commercial power of their domestic event and wanting it

to end tidily with a string of matches, demanded of European Rugby Cup, the former organisers, that the European event be moved. At the time, the rest of Europe was desperate to divide the English and French clubs and to destroy their united front, so they readily agreed to the French demands, not because they felt it was a strong marketing or technical move, but because it suited them.

When the Celtic rump was routed on ERC and the new competition put into place, the French clubs were still demanding that the European final be moved. Because giveand-take was desperately needed to salvage the whole edifice, the new body agreed, so we are now left with the European final at the start of May What are three weeks between friends? An awful

Mind your language

Pulling the strings: Steve Myler leads the way for Northampton lot, as it happens, and heavily symbolic. We cannot be sure as yet. Perhaps it will still feel like a climactic European final experience when it happens.

But for me there is a danger that it may feel smaller, like some sort of festival marooned before the real climaxes take place later. We shall see.

The pool stages will have no such problems and it all starts

FRYDYRIC MARQUET/PERROCHEAU ROMAIN

IT HAS BEEN A STRANGE START TO THE SEASON IN THE TOP 14 AS EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE BEATING EVERYONE ELSE

Jonathan Davies is struggling with French but loving the rugby at Clermont. By Rob Cole

F

or those Welsh rugby fans who feared Jonathan Davies might be lost in France, think again.

In fact, judge for yourself how he’s doing since leaving the home comforts of Wales and heading to ASM Clermont Auvergne when the European Rugby Champions Cup kicks off this week.

Clermont head to Saracens on Saturday for a rerun of their European semi-final of last season, and one of the most potentially explosive clashes in the opening round of the new elite version of the old Heineken Cup. This fixture has been in Davies’ diary ever since he headed to France after the Wales tour to South Africa in the summer, a chance to play against his 2013 British & Irish Lions’ teammates Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt and the full array of talent that Mark McCall, the Saracens director of rugby, has at his disposal.

There is every likelihood that Davies will partner Wesley Fofana, the sublime French international, at centre at the Allianz Park stadium. They are the dream midfield pairing that head coaches Franck Azema and Jono Gibbes hope will finally fire the French side to European glory.

Davies knows the responsibility that has been piled on his shoulders and is relieved that, after a disappointing start at his new club, things are finally falling into place, even if he is struggling to learn French.

“We get French lessons at the

club for a couple of hours a week and I’m currently in the bottom group with Fritz Lee and Zac Guildford. I just wish I hadn’t done German at school!” said Davies, a fluent Welsh speaker.

“While most things are easy to overcome, it is those off the cuff rugby expressions I’ve been used to using with my former teammates at the Scarlets and Wales that are difficult to communicate. The language barrier is difficult, but as long as everyone sees you are making an effort they help you through it.

“All you ever want to do when you go to a new club is get out on the field and make a good first impression. So it didn’t really help that I arrived with my foot in a boot after breaking it in the second Test against the Springboks.

“I remember someone treading on my foot and it feeling painful, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop me from carrying on. But when I was walking around afterwards it started to hurt and, when I had a scan, they found it was broken.”

As if losing to the Springboks in the dying moments was not bad enough, the injury forced him to miss a holiday and test his new French club’s medical department much earlier than he had hoped to do.

“The injury allowed me to see at first hand just how good the club are at looking after players. You often hear horror stories from some clubs, but everything at Clermont has been first-class,” said Davies.

ON TV SATURDAY SARACENS v CLERMONT AUVERGNE 3.15 PM BT SPORT 1, KICK-OFF 3.15PM

Revenge mission: Jonathan Davies has found his form for Clermont — as he shows, inset, against Brive — and is keen to avenge his club’s defeat last season by Saracens “They created a special, invertedtreadmillformetorun on ahead of schedule and nursed me back to health pretty quickly. It meant I only missed one of the Top 14 games

in glorious fashion at the weekend. It will be a tournament with a new morality throughout, and a new dynamism.

Ultimately, the success of the inaugural ERCC also depends on whether the clubs realise that Europe is a bigger land mass, and a bigger rugby entity, than their own back yards.

at the start of the season and I’ve played five out of seven since.”

Davies knew he would be under pressure to perform when he made the switch and

he is among five top-class players who have played at centre for ‘Les Jaunnards’ this season. Fofana and club captain Aurelien Rougerie were the established pair, with the

former All Black Benson Stanley also in the mix. Add to that the flying Fijian Noa Nakaitaci and it is easy to see why Davies is taking nothing for granted at his new club.

JOIN DALLAGLIO AND FRIENDS FOR A EVENING OF RUGBY CHAT

The Sunday Times has teamed up with the business insurance specialist, QBE, to offer readers the chance to enjoy an evening of sporting chat with some of the biggest names in rugby. World Cup winners Lawrence Dallaglio and Sean Fitzpatrick, inset, will be joined by former England international Stuart Barnes and

chief sports writer David Walsh. The panel will analyse the forthcoming QBE internationals and England’s chances against New Zealand, South Africa, Samoa and Australia.

The evening is on Wednesday, October 29 at the News Building, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1

9GF. Drinks reception starts at 6.30pm and the discussion starts at 7.15pm.

To book tickets call the Ticketmaster booking line on: 0844 844 0444, all Times+ members book through mytimesplus.co.uk

To date he has played alongside all the other candidates, but it is his combination with Fofana that excites more than any other, allowing Rougerie and Nakaitaci move out on to the wings with Napolioni Nalaga. Throw in Nick Abendanon or Jean-Marc Buttin at full back and there is enough pace, power and panache in the Clermont back division to light up any team in the world.

“The strength in depth here is huge and that just pushes everybody on to work hard in training. It is down to me to ensure I put in the work to gain a place in the team and then play well enough to hold on to it,” added Davies.

“What I’ve noticed so far is thatthegamesawayfromhome are much slower than at Stade Marcel Michelin because teams try to stop us from playing.

When we are at home there is always plenty of tempo in our game, which is what I’ve been used to at the Scarlets.

“It has been a strange start to the season in the Top 14 as everyone seems to be beating everyone else. Who would have thought Toulouse would lose fiveinarow,Toulonwoulddrop a couple of games and that we would lose at home in our very first outing?”

That was the third setback for Davies shortly after his arrival. His apartment wasn’t ready for him to move into when he joined the club and so he spent the first few weeks as a guest of Damien Chouly.

His debut was marked with an away victory at Brive, 21-6, on August 23, but a week later, in front of 17,292 home fans, he waspartof the teamthatdid the unthinkable and lost a second successive home game at Stade Marcel Michelin. Just how rare an occurrence that was is borne out by the fact they had gone 77 games over a near four-and-ahalf-year period without defeat at home before Castres Olympique triumphed on May 10. Montpellier then won 21-20 on August 29.

With that defeat now behind them — they were second in the Top 14, one point behind Toulon going into this weekend’s matches — the focus will turn to Europe this week and the clash with Saracens, the team who thumped them in last season’s semi-final.

“Everyone wants to win the two titles — the Champions Cup and a domestic crown — but you have to be realistic and take into account just how long the season is. Clermont have come close to winning the European title in recent years, but never quite made it,” said Davies.

“That has simply made them hungrier for success and you can feel the buzz starting already.”

GUIDE TO THE FIVE POOLS POOL 1 Clermont Auvergne Tournament prospects Much will depend on whether they can secure a precious home quarter-finals. This probably means beating Munster and Saracens away – a tall order Player to watch Jonathan Davies Munster Tournament prospects Can never be written off. If they get out of the pool, they could be on the road in the quarterfinals and that means their chances of victory are slim Player to watch Conor Murray Sale Sharks Tournament prospects Should finish bottom of the pool. In Chris Cusiter, Danny Cipriani and Nathan Hines, they have quality performers but the Sharks are happy just to be in with the big fish again

Player to watch Danny Cipriani Saracens Tournament prospects Still seething after missing out on a trophy last season and they should be in the shake-up next April Player to watch Alistair Hargreaves POOL 2 Castres Tournament prospects Europe has never been their priority and having had an ordinary start to the Top 14 means there’s even less chance they’ll change their attitude this season Player to watch Johnnie Beattie Harlequins Tournament prospects Have never looked European heavyweights but great to

watch when on form and potential quarter-finalists Player to watch Marland Yarde Leinster Tournament prospects Retirements of Brian O’Driscoll and Leo Cullen should not hide the fact that they have oodles of class. The pool is not the hardest Player to watch Ian Madigan, right Wasps Tournament prospects A pack with Joe Launchbury and Bradley Davies will help their cause but j not enough quality for the last eight Player to watch Christian Wade

POOL 3 Leicester Tigers Tournament prospects Third in the pool. A long injury list has people wondering whether the Tigers need to change their tradition of beating each other up in training Player to watch Freddie Burns Scarlets Tournament prospects Bookies have them as rank outsiders, with only Treviso at longer odds to win the title — a fair reflection of a team that remains entertainingly lightweight Player to watch Regan King Toulon Tournament prospects Favourites, and good value even at 5-2. Racing

Metro’s president Jacky Lorenzetti justifiably queries how Mourad Boudjallel can have so much quality on his books and still stay inside the so-called salary cap Player to watch James O’Connor Ulster Tournament prospects Good.

Will fancy taking down anyone, including Toulon, at Ravenhill but can they score more points than Toulon (or the others) and top the group> If they get a home quarterfinal anything is possible Player to watch Stuart Olding POOL 4 Bath Tournament prospects Must have a fighting chance of qualifying despite tough group.

May come down to losing bonus points, though Bath are apt to cut loose at home for

bonus points of the different sort Player to watch Dave Attwood Glasgow Warriors Tournament prospects There will be some tingling contests at Scotstoun, the key lies in whether Gregor Townsend’s admirable men can take points away from home Player to watch Nikola Matawalu Montpellier Tournament prospects Never quite know whether they are bothered or not.

On their day they can be so good, but an early defeat or two could knock the stuffing out of them Player to watch Thibaut Privat

Toulouse Tournament prospects It has all become messy at the home of what is statistically the finest European club of all time. Coach Guy Noves is past his sell-by date but stays in place, and they could struggle Player to watch Thierry Dusautoir, left POOL 5 Benetton Treviso Tournament prospects Drastically poor and they will do extremely well to take even a bonus point from any game in this pool Player to watch Alessandro Zanni Northampton Tournament prospects The English

champions have shown a new attacking dimension of late plus extra depth in the squad.

An England champion is long overdue — can it be this year?

Player to watch Courtney Lawes Ospreys Tournament prospects They must win their home games to be contenders for the knockout stages, and their youthful exuberance is obvious Player to watch Alun Wyn Jones Racing Metro Tournament prospects Who knows what will happen? They have such an illustrious team but they are still utterly unpredictable. Their match against visiting Northampton on the first weekend will tell us so much Player to watch Jamie Roberts

12.10.14 / 13 DAVID ROGERS

BEN EVANS/HUW EVANS AGENCY

Flying start: Dan Biggar has been in great form for Ospreys

Cup chances rely on finding a perfect 10

HUNTING

THE HAT-TRICK

History boys: Bryan Habana is among several world-class stars playing for Toulon, who must qualify from a tough pool if they are to become the first side to win the European Cup three times in succession

Third cup win in a row will see Toulon crowned Europe’s finest ever side, writes Stephen Jones

T

oulon set off next weekend on a mission to make history. It is the 20th European Cup and some magnificent teams have risen to the top over the years — but no one has won three titles in succession. The French club, champions in 2013 and 2014, are the latest to try to turn domination into hegemony.

Only Leicester and Leinster have won twice in succession, and even though Toulouse have won the cup most often — four times — they have never successfully defended the trophy.

This all suggests a certain truth about the competition itself: that it is fiendishly tough to win, and a massive task to retain it.

Even the great sides have been unable to maintain their

dominance for three consecutive seasons, simply because it needs such a peak of performance to take the title and the peak is almost impossible to sustain.

In any case, the idea t hat the same Toulon team have won the title in the past two seasons is an illusion. Only half the 2013 team which beat Clermont Auvergne in Dublin survived in the same positions to start this year’s final, a convincing win over Saracens in Cardiff. With the buying and selling endemic in Toulon’s culture — and I am not for a second decrying it — the team will again be much changed this season.

Last year in Cardiff they were monumental, they were so big and powerful and assured, arguably they were the best team in Europe

including international level.

But in the previous season, they were not nearly so good, and it was baffling how a Clermont team that was better manto-man and as a collective could dominate for more than three-quarters of the match then chuck it away.

For this reason, you doubt that Toulon can reach the hat-trick. Their pool is forbidding, as the event has eliminated some of the weaker undercard teams. They are pitched in with Leicester, Ulster and the Scarlets, and face three of the most difficult away matches available in the competition’s history.

Ulster have been dangerous for several seasons, the Scarlets can be guaranteed to cause at least one upset every season and a Leicester run of consequence in the European Cup is horribly overdue.

The key to stopping Toulon will be to get them playing away from home should they reach the knockout stages. But in favour of Toulon’s chances is that they begin at home next Sunday against the Scarlets.

The Welsh club do not have the resources to compete at the top

in the domestic and European events and are notoriously a much inferior team away from home. It is extremely difficult to see how they can prevent Toulon winning, with a bonus point Domestic form has also been good, with Toulon standing at the summit of the Top 14 this morning, although today they have to travel to Toulouse, who have to win to alleviate their embarrassingly lowly position (11th). It is somewhat bizarre that both Leicester and Toulouse are in the basement regions of their respective leagues.

Clearly, the retirement of Jonny Wilkinson changes the stakes. Toulon have not invested in a stellar fly-half to replacetheiriconthoughinany case, money probably could not buy a man so influential for the team. Technically, money can certainly buy a better flyhalf but not someone who was so magnificently inspirational.

In the early games this season Matt Giteau, the clever Australian, has moved inside from the centre but he is not entirely convincing there and neither he nor the terminally-

inconsistent and ephemeral Frederic Michalak have been particularly dominant. Australia’s James O’Connor and Leigh Halfpenny of Wales (about to return from injury) have arrived to add some class behind the scrum and a pack that was already powerful can this season field the incredible Mamuka Gorgodze, the Georgian forward with a claim to be among the best players that the tournament has ever seen.

Typically, Toulon have raised a well-deserved two fingers to anyone who mocks the age of the forward pack.

Players such as Bakkies Botha, Martin Castrogiovanni, Sebastien Bruno, Ali Williams and Carl Hayman are all in rugby terms reaching pensionable status, but only because Toulon have learnt the lessons of experience, and do not prattle on about giving youngsters a chance. Their reward has been the recent dominance of Europe.

Toulon’s wealth also in part relieves them of the responsibility of team-building. But the policy would fall flat on its face if Toulon lacked the means and levels of organisation to weld

their highly-paid players into a hungry unit. The great art of Toulon is that their superstars play their hearts out for the club and for each other.

Whether it is for the coaches, for the management, the captain, fellow senior players or just the sheer joy of playing in front of such adoring fans, or whether it is the whole package, Toulon’s policy has paid off.

Their other area of strength is the way that their foreign contingent seems to thrive in the south of France. Wilkinson, Giteau, Delon Armitage, Steffon Armitage, Juan Smith, Andrew Sheridan and Drew Mitchell have all helped give the lie to the protestations of national and club coaches in other countries that to play rugby across borders adversely affects your game.

Can they make it three in a row? Who knows at this distance, but I think that they will not. There are so many other contenders, so many teams building up similar firepower.

One thing is for sure. If Toulon win again, they will be the greatest club of the tournament’s 20 seasons.

THE Heineken Cup’s history has the names of fly-halves written in the boldest print.

In 2010, to celebrate 15 years of the competition, a panel of writers and broadcasters debated the merits of Europe’s greatest players of the professional age. Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Yannick Jauzion and Brian O’Driscoll were all contenders but it was Ronan O’Gara, a computer-brained fly-half, who was adjudged the greatest.

In the four years since, No 10s have asserted even more dominance. The Munster man’s great rival for the Ireland shirt, Jonny Sexton, was the brain, hands and boot that steered Leinster to consecutive Heineken Cup titles (his individual performance against Northampton in the 2011 final was up there with the competition’s finest efforts) while Toulon’s surge to the top coincided with an amazing au revoir for Jonny Wilkinson.

To look for the first winner of the new European Cup is to look for the best fly-half in the tournament.

Without Wilkinson, Toulon — in terms of style — are the same team in name only. The England legend’s ruthless efficiency has been replaced by the gain-line glamour of Matt Giteau. The former Wallaby is playing about as well as he has at any time through his illustrious career and that is saying something.

His pack provide frontfoot ball and he pokes his nose over the gain-line, unleashing the backs with what has been a torrent of tries in France. Some of their rugby has been as glittering as the sunlightspeckled Med. Toulon look the team to beat, Giteau the man to back as player of the tournament.

In France, the only team keeping pace with Toulon is Clermont Auvergne but the mountain men have a habit of crumbling under pressure. Their rugby has so far been heavy on attrition and light on their usual pyrotechnics, which is unusual given the linchpin of the team is another Australian, Brock James.

What can be said about James? As good a passer of a ball as the competition has seen but a man whose temperament is nowhere near a match for his talent.

James encapsulates why Clermont have failed where Wilkinson’s Toulon have succeeded.

Is it a coincidence that the pace-setters in England have the most consistent fly-halves in the land?

Saracens, in either Charlie

Stuart Barnes Hodgson or Owen Farrell, possess a player to compete at the highest level. Bath’s renaissance is revolving around the cool, the calm and the superb armoury of basic skills at George Ford’s disposal.

For Northampton, Stephen Myler is the sort of player who selectors evaluate just short of international class but for their clubs can eclipse the men that keep them from the Test arena. Myler is as dependable as they come.

In contrast, Nick Evans at Harlequins has been both injured and out of form. His absence is not the only reason for Quins’ stuttering start to the season but it is a considerable one.

Away from England, Dan

TO LOOK FOR THE FIRST WINNER OF THE NEW EUROPEAN CUP IS TO LOOK FOR THE BEST FLY-HALF Biggar, the Wales fly-half, is playing the rugby of his life.

His poise has played a major role in this season’s “no hopers” starting with such a bang. The Ospreys will not win the tournament but they may ruin the chances of a contender.

Glasgow, meanwhile, have played some fabulous rugby in the opening salvos of the season and varied their man at fly-half.

Duncan Weir is decent but he’s not out of the top drawer. Ah but his coach is, however, and Gregor Townsend’s team plays in the likeness of the marvellous Lions 10.

One way or another, the fly-halves are the men to keep an eye on this Europe.

SPORT

14 KENNY SMITH

Oliver ready for more after shaking off nearly-man tag English golfer finally hits the big time — with his wife hiding in the gallery. Nick Pitt reports GOLF ON THE night before the most important round of golf of his life, Oliver Wilson hardly slept. Nor did Lauren, his wife.

Wilson was in St Andrews with a three-shot lead in the Alfred Dunhill Links championship. He had never won on the Tour but had been runner-up nine times. Even in a game that can be so cruel, his fall had been spectacular. In 2008, he was

a Ryder Cup player. In 2014, he was on the Challenge Tour, missing cuts. His on-course earnings were a paltry €20,000.

Lauren Wilson, back home in Great Bookham, Surrey, knew all this. She knew her husband had begun to question whether he would ever get back. And she knew how he had been afflicted in 2011 by a stomach ulcer and two internal parasites of unknown origin, one of them not normally found in

humans; and how at the start of last season he had broken his wrist and been sidelined for two months.

Even Lauren, the American girl who had been a Wag at the 2008 Ryder Cup and had married Wilson on New Years’ Eve 2010, started to wonder if there would ever be light at the end of the tunnel.

She was busy as project manager for the building work on the house they had recently bought. But keeping a brave face when Oliver came back home after another missed cut was not easy.

While Wilson went through it all in his mind on Saturday night, his wife debated whether she should fly up to be with him. “My parents were over from the States,” she said. “We watched the Saturday play on

TV, and they kept repeating that he had been nine times a runner-up. I felt I should stay at home, not to put him off.

But some friends said I had to go, that it might be the chance of a lifetime. That night, I took my dad to the airport because he had to fly home and we bought two tickets for my mum and me.

We had three hours’ sleep and then we were off again to Gatwick.

“I was so nervous I couldn’t eat. We got to St Andrews and caught up with Oliver when he was on the second green.” Lauren and her mother melted into the gallery. To ensure he did not spot them, they disguised themselves. Lauren wore a hat and sunglasses and kept herself well wrapped up in her coat.

Wilson dropped a stroke on

the fourth hole and by the time he reached the 10th his lead had gone. “We started wondering whether we should say something,” Lauren said. “Then my mum shouted out, ‘Come on Oliver Wilson’ but he was talking to his caddie and didn’t hear.”

On the 10th, waiting to play and wondering whether another chance was slipping away, Wilson encountered Rory McIlory playing in the group ahead. The world No 1 strolled over. They had not seen each other for three years, which was not surprising, since they had been moving in opposite directions in the golfing firmament. McIlroy told Wilson to “hang in there”. He birdied the 10th and 11th.

“It is incredible how quickly things change,” said Lauren. “In two holes he was

back in contention.” The key moment came on the 16th hole, where he was left with 220 yards to the flag. It was too far for a four-iron, unless he crushed it. Wilson hit “the shot of my life” and made a birdie.

After that, he made a par save on the 17th and a par at the last. He then had to watch Tommy Fleetwood miss a 6ft putt that would have brought a playoff had it dropped. It did not. Wilson had won at last. As he made his way from the 18th green he was embraced by the person he assumed was back in Great Bookham, Lauren.

“I could be drunk for a while,” Wilson said. “I’ve had a lot of champagne on ice over the years.” He had a cheque for €625,787, had won his first European Tour title at the age of 34 and had secured his

CHASING No 1

New man: Oliver Wilson and his wife, Lauren, celebrate his win Tour card for two years. He had been dreading going back to qualifying school. In the aftermath, Wilson talked about the bad times and gave much of the credit for his miracle to fellow professional, Robert Rock, who helped him work on his swing and made a few adjustments. “He has been a liferaft for us, a great coach and a great friend,” said Lauren Wilson.

The champagne has been drunk and normality has resumed. Wilson flew to the Algarve to play in the Portugal Masters, where yesterday he missed the cut by a shot. Lauren returned to the building project. The gravel was being delivered; the joiner was finishing up.

Bills need to be paid, of course. But that’s no problem.

ALY SONG

RACE TO LONDON: TOP EIGHT QUALIFY 1 N Djokovic 8,980 pts (qualified) 2 R Federer 7,560* (qualified) 3 R Nadal 6,745 (qualified) 4 S Wawrinka 4,805 5 K Nishikori 4,265 6 M Cilic 3,990 (plays in Moscow this week) 7 T Berdych 3,945 (plays in Stockholm this week)

8 M Raonic 3,750 (plays in Moscow this week) 9 D Ferrer 3,715 (plays in Vienna this week) 10 A Murray 3,655 (plays in Vienna this week) 11 G Dimitrov 3,450 (plays in Stockholm this week) *Not including today’s Shanghai final

Shanghai master: Roger Federer ended Novak Djokovic’s 28-match winning run in China with a 6-4 6-4 win to set up today’s final against Gilles Simon. Djokovic said the Swiss ‘played a perfect match’

Swiss eyes the summit after rolling back the years to beat Djokovic, writes Barry Flatman

A

n age-old Chinese proverb maintains that to get through the hardest journey, man need take only one step at a time but must always keep on walking. Roger Federer, for whom age clearly has no bounds, shows no signs of slackening his determined march for a year or two yet.

As Federer bids today at the Shanghai Rolex Masters to win the 81st singles title of his career, it is not inconceivable that the champion many have wrongly written off as a spent force could end 2014 as once

again the No 1 ranked player in the world. And this at the age of 33, when only Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi of the great champions in recent decades were still subjecting themselves to the grind of the tour.

There are several factors that could influence that proposition: whether Novak Djokovic’s impending paternal duties allow him to play the remainder of his schedule; just when Rafael Nadal undergoes surgery to remove his troublesome appendix and how long he requires to return to action; and whether Federer decides he is sufficiently fresh to con-

test the upcoming tournaments in his native Basel and thereafter Paris.

In the short term, if the unseeded Gilles Simon can stop Federer in today’s final, then he must provide far sterner resistance than current No 1, Djokovic, who until coming faceto-face with Federer in the semi-final was looking to extend a 28-match winningstreak in China. The Serb’s self-belief could not have been higher but he proved no match for Federer, who won 6-4 6-4.

Federer has a habit of breaking Djokovic’s historic runs: at the 2011 French Open he ended a streak of 43 wins stretching all the way back to the previous year’s Davis Cup final. “It’s always more exciting when there’s a lot more on the line,” said the victorious Swiss. “You feel like two heavyweights walking out for a big fight. You wish it was this kind of an atmosphere every single night.”

There was an aesthetically wonderful panache to Federer’s play as he rolled back the years and played with an enthusiasm to attack, repeatedly gliding into the net and executing sharp volleys. A third and conclusive match point was the perfect example, the champion of 17 Grand Slams hitting an out-swinging kicked serve that forced Djokovic wide before taking a few split steps and sending a high rapier-like backhand yards out of the Serb’s reach.

“Roger just outplayed me and had an incredible match,” said Djokovic in more of a testament to his assailant than a lament for his own shortcomings. “Tonight is definitely one of the best matches he has played against me, that’s for sure. He played a perfect match, amazing. He’s playing as good as ever. Age does not really matter in his case.

Tactically he was hitting the ball so well.”

At the US Open last month and even after as he steered Switzerland to the Davis Cup final, Federer was still undecided whether he would even come to Shanghai and contest a Masters series tournament he has never previously won.

Instead he felt the need for a holiday with his wife and two sets of twins. During a largely nocturnal week when he was repeatedly scheduled to play late at night, as he saved five match points in his opening fixture of the week against Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer that extended into the morning’s early hours, he might well have questioned his judgment.

Yet Federer’s play against Djokovic was day-to-night in comparison. He took to court witha gameplantounsettlethe top seed and defending champion, and it worked. After a handful of points Federer was dominating, pushing his illustrious opponent round the

court. Djokovic was clearly unsettled and his normally dependable forehand grew more errant and off-target as the match progressed.

Simon, who emphatically beat Spain’s Feliciano Lopez 6-2 7-6 in his semi-final, has been re-energised in the past few weeks. He reached the last 16oftheUSOpenandthesemifinals in Tokyo. He is also one of the few players to have won as many matches as they have lost on hard court against Federer.

“Last time I played Roger, I lost 6-3 in the fifth in the French,” said Simon. “I just know that I can do it. When I’m playing well, I can play at his level. The question is whether I will be able to do it tomorrow.”

ON TV TODAY Gilles Simon v Roger Federer 9.30am Sky Sports 3

Cilic in position to trump Murray Croat knows rule book is in his favour as he targets World Tour Finals. By Barry Flatman THE NEWLY crowned US Open champion, Marin Cilic, is an anomaly in tennis: a player perceived as one of the sport’s good guys despite having served a suspension from the sport for failing a drugs test. However, his popularity in London could be severely tested if the small print in the ATP World Tour rules takes force.

Each day a new equation is thrown into the mathematical conundrum that will decide the eight players who contest the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which begin at London’s 02 Arena on November 9.

Andy Murray appeared to do his chances no good by losing to David Ferrer in the Shanghai Rolex Masters but other players around the Scot exited early, including Cilic. It seems the Race to London will extend to the penultimate tournament of the year, the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.

Cilic, like many a novice Grand Slam champion before him, has found returning to the treadmill of regular tour tennis a struggle since his triumph in New York. After beating Roger Federer in the US Open semi-final and then Kei Nishikori, he has won only two matches .

The 6ft 6in Croat lost to Murray at last week’s China Open in Beijing and then fell to his compatriot Ivo Karlovic in Shanghai. If he drops to ninth place in the race, a position below Murray, the rules decree it will be Cilic, with his US Open title, who will get a place among the esteemed eight rather than the British player.

Cilic says: “That rule might stop me being thought of as a nice guy in Britain. I have been talking to the guys from the ATP to get their interpretation of the rules and it seems if Stan [Wawrinka] finishes fourth

and I finish ninth, I will still get in.”

Cilic now heads for the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

“After taking a couple of days to think, I’m ready to start playing good tennis,” he said.

“I’m very mindful of something Stan Wawrinka said this year; when you have Grand Slam champion behind your name, you always feel you need to be playing better than you actually are. I must combat that, I must remember the way I played to beat Federer was probably the greatest I’ll ever play in my life.”

Cilic accepts two things were crucial in him becoming a Grand Slam champion. One was the appointment of his Croatian hero Goran Ivanisevic as coach, the other the lessons learnt by his drug ban, initially nine months but reduced to four on appeal.

He tested positive for traces of the banned stimulant Nikethamide after his mother was sent to a Monaco pharmacy to buy the brand of glucose tablets he had been taking for years. Unfortunately for Cilic the chemistry had changed and he did not read the package’s small print.

“I never did anything on purpose,” he said. “The time I had off gave me enough time to change my game. I worked with Goran, I listened to him and I learnt. The ban made me more fired up and mentally tougher. Goran is always telling me he made so many mistakes in his life and to take a lesson from those I’ve made.”

All Cilic has to worry about as a Grand Slam champion is whether the British public will turn against him next month.

He shouldn’t be too concerned about that.

Cilic: in race for London ASAHI SHIMBUN/ GARETH EVERETT

Fifty years on, Davies looks back with pride The Welsh Olympic hero recalls his golden day in the Tokyo rain, writes Rob Cole ATHLETICS IT WAS wet, cold and miserable, but Lynn Davies has never forgotten the day his life changed forever. An aspiring young athlete suddenly became an Olympic champion in Tokyo on October 18, 1964.

It wasn’t meant to happen.

All the plans for the 22-yearold had been geared to winning bronze, at best, and aiming for gold in Mexico

four years later. The weather turned to his advantage and he seized his moment to become the first British man to win the Olympic longjump title, and the nation’s first field-event gold medallist since Tim Ahearne in the triple jump in 1908.

Mary Rand made it a longjump double by winning the women’s event — the first British woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

By his own admission, Davies had no right to win.

The American, Ralph Boston, who had claimed Jesse Owens’ 25-year-old world record in 1960, was the reigning champion. The Russian, Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, won the bronze four years earlier in Rome and the two men had traded the world record since then. It was supposed to be their battle for the gold.

But Davies rained on their parade. His fifthround jump of 26ft 5¾in (8.07m) not only extended his own British record — he improved it 18 times in his career and held it from 1962 until 2002 — but ended a run of eight American wins in the long

jump. Davies had only just scraped into the final round with his last qualifying leap.

“We started at 9am and I began with two poor jumps, the second a foul,” he recalled.

“It was one of the worst mornings of my life and I only had one jump left to sort things out. I stood on the runway and told myself that I hadn’t run up and down those sand dunes in Merthyr Mawr and lifted so much iron not to reach the final. I switched on, hit the board and went into the final as the second best qualifier with 7.78m behind Ralph Boston (8.03m).

“The weather was awful and the rain was lashing down all day. Ralph and Igor tried to get the officials to turn the event the other way around so that the wind would be at our backs, but they refused.

“If the weather was alien to them, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for me, having trained at Cardiff Training College in similar conditions on many an occasion.

“I remember Ralph coming down into the competitors’ area after his fourth jump of 7.88m and saying ‘Nobody’s going to jump eight metres in these conditions.’ As soon as he said it, I thought to myself, ‘I’ve already done that in these conditions in Wales.’ “ I went up for my fifthround jump in fifth place and I heard my coach, Ron

Pickering, shout from the crowd, ‘Go for the gold’.”

What followed was the greatest jump of Davies’ life, leading to the nickname “Lynn the Leap”. He hit the board and went out to the British record distance of 26ft 5¾in. Ter-Ovanesyan and Boston both fell short.

Cue mayhem. “Lynn the Leap” created front-page news back home, was made an honorary member of almost every working men’s club and institution in Wales, and had a street named after him in Lewistown.

On his return he was cheered by thousands at Cardiff station before being driven in a mayoral car with Meriel, his fiancée, up the valley to home in Nantymoel.

He went on to become the pin-up boy of British athletics, the first athlete to

One giant leap: Davies wins in 1964 and, inset, pictured today hold Olympic, European and Commonwealth titles at the same time. He went to the 1968 and 1972 Olympics as a competitor, was national coach for Canada in 1976 and British men’s team manager in the golden era of the 1980s.

For the past 12 years he has been president of UK Athletics and he retains a deep love for his sport.

“Being an Olympic gold medallist changed my life and the honour has given me so much,” he said.

S P O RT S W O M E N O F T H E Y E A R

12.10.14 / 15 IAN WALTON

Marshall punching above her weight on the road to Rio World champion who fought her way to top is driven by Olympic dream. By Nick Pitt WHEN Savannah Marshall, aged 12, first walked into the Hartlepool Headland Amateur Boxing Club gym one dark evening in November 2003 she entered a world of enchantment. The place was packed, music was blaring with men and boys sparring in the ring, hitting punchbags, working out on exercise bikes and rowing machines. There was an aroma only years of sweat can produce.

She loved it from the first full-on impression. But the trouble was that the man in charge, Tim Coulter, the head coach, was not disposed to welcome this intruder. His

view was traditional and unbending: this was no place for girls and girls had no place in boxing.

Today, Marshall’s attitude has not changed: she still loves the Headland gym and trains there as their most celebrated boxer. She is world and Commonwealth champion.

“I was the only girl in the gym when I started and I was the only one for years,” Marshall said. “I loved the environment; I loved being part of something. All I thought about was my training and boxing. I used to walk to school but run back home, have my tea, go to boxing, come home and sleep.

hurt because the adrenaline is pumping round your body.”

Official bouts for women were rare when Marshall took up the sport and she did not have her first bout until she was 14. Five years later she won the silver medal in the welterweight division of the world championships and on her 21st birthday she won the middleweight gold medal in China.

“Nothing will ever top that,” Marshall said. “But I suddenly went from nothing to being world champion and favourite for the Olympics and I couldn’t handle it.”

In 2012, when women’s boxing was admitted to the Olympics, Marshall was the only world champion in the British

I couldn’t wait to get to boxing.”

Coulter’s attitude, however, has changed considerably.

“I was more than a bit sceptical when she first turned up,” he said. “I was not a fan of female boxing. In fact I put her in the ring to spar with a lad thinking females don’t realise what boxing’s all about. It’s a just a fad. We’ll soon get rid of her.”

Marshall held her own in that sparring session and, in time, Coulter was won over.

“In two years, she changed my opinion through her dedication and effort,” he said. “Now I look on her as a daughter and I could not be more proud of her. She’s a good all-round boxer with an excellent boxing brain and good balance, which is what I stress from day one.”

From the age of 12 until 17, Marshall sparred exclusively against boys and men. “I was tall and quite heavy, so I could hold my own,” she said.

“When you get hit, it doesn’t

GOLD

team and she was thought more likely to win gold than Nicola Adams, the flyweight.

But Marshall was also the baby of the team.

“It was the best chance of my life and I bombed out,” she said. “I was completely in the wrong frame of mind. I was shy. I couldn’t wait to get home. When I went out for my first bout, I was just thinking: good, this will all be over in 12 minutes. After two rounds I shook it off but I lost.

My Games were over.”

Marshall, who is supported by lottery funding and a Sky Academy scholarship, remained in the British team, training in Sheffield at the English Institute of Sport as well as the Headland club and the coaching of Coulter every

Marshall ready to defend world title

Friday. “He’s the master,” she said. “I have complete trust in him and I would never question what he says.”

This summer, at the Commonwealth Games, Marshall had the chance to make amends and prove that she had grown up and would not freeze again. Her preparation was seriously affected by a shoulder injury and surgery but she won the gold medal, beating Ariane Fortin of Canada, who had twice won the world championship, in the final.

“I’m so happy,” Marshall said immediately afterwards. “It’s as if I’ve finally woken from a bad dream.”

Marshall will defend her world championship title in November in South Korea.

Then her sights will be firmly set on Rio. She will be selfsufficient and ready. “Before the London Olympics, I used to be superstitious,” she said.

“I used to pray. Not now. I don’t look anywhere for help.

I know it’s down to me.”

RICHARD HEATHCOTE/ADRIAN SHERRATT

SMITH

Weightlifter Zoe Smith is reaching for new heights, writes John Goodbody

I

t was entirely appropriate that Zoe Smith should have celebrated her weightlifting gold medal at the Commonwealth Games by performing a backflip on the stage of the Clyde Auditorium. After all, she is a former gymnast, who switched to weightlifting at the age of 12 when her local borough needed a representative for the London Youth Games.

Smith’s victory in Glasgow was her first big title in the sport and, as she landed, the svelte 20-year-old shouted: “I have done it.” The triumph followed the Londoner’s bronze in this year’s European Championships and marked a comeback from abusive social-media taunts and a back injury — both of which go with the territory of being a female weightlifter.

She responded to comments deriding the appearance of women taking part in the sport by responding that, like other girls, she wears lip gloss and make-up, before asking online: “What are you doing with your life ? I have just competed in the Olympics.”

The back problem gave her greater concern. From 2011 she has suffered from bulging discs in the lumbar region, which she has managed with rehabilitation and maintenance exercises prescribed by her coach, Sam Dovey.

In Glasgow, she set a Commonwealth record of 210kg for the total of her best efforts in the snatch and the clean and jerk, the two Olympic movements. “I loved every second of that,” she said afterwards. “I

Power game: Smith, the Commonwealth Games champion, inset, says her sport is good for women

am just not on the planet at the moment. The Nigerian [Ndidi Winifred, who was second] gave me a run for my money butIgotthegold.Isawwhatthe records were standing at only a few weeks ago and I thought, ‘I want that.’”

Third in the under-58kg class was Michaela Breeze, of Wales, who was making her final international appearance.

The 35-year-old has been a spur to Smith’s career. “Michaela has been a phenomenal lifter,” she says. “I have a lot of respect and time for her. We have had an amicable rivalry.”

Breeze had started weightlifting before Smith was born and she became someone for

the English girl to target from the moment she started lifting in Greenwich under the guidance of Andy Callard, a former Commonwealth gold medallist. He recalls: “Zoe was not just strong. She picked up the technique fast.”

Tommy Yule, the British national performance director, is tailoring the training of the members of his squad to their particular strength and weaknesses.“Each of the target athletes have different schedules,” he explains. “The key for Zoe is to realise her potential and we have specific exercises for her relating to the two Olympic lifts. What Zoe needs to do is not what the Russians and the Chinese, for instance, are

doing. She needs to do what is suitable for her.

“If Zoe can stay injury-free, she has the talent eventually to medal at a major championships.” A reasonable target wouldbethetopeightattheRio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016, with an even higher place in Tokyo four years later, when she would probably be approaching her peak at the age of 26.” She says: “I’m just a spring chicken at the moment.”

Smith is now in training for the world championships next month in Kazakhstan, the first stage in qualifying for the Olympics. She is working in particular on her technical weakness of jumping back

with her left leg when she is performing the snatch, the action when the lifter raises the bar overhead in one continuous action while squatting underneath it. This demands immense power, balance and a honed technique.

Training requires a constant quest for improvement, often attempting to lift slightly heavier weights in session after session, while not adding any body weight. Competitors are careful to avoid moving up a bodyweight class unintentionally.

“It does make you hurt a lot.

I was never graceful in gymnastics. I was explosive and powerful, so weightlifting suited me,” says Smith. “It is a sport when you are in control of

your own body.

“I like individual sports. You are in charge of your own destiny. You know exactly what you are doing, what you are lifting.”

Yule says that weightlifters “need to own the lift. They need to take responsibility for their actions. You can’t always have someone telling you what to do. They need to feel the weight in their own hands and how they are applying force.”

Smith enjoys the fact that she receives messages on social media from women saying that she is an inspiration to them. “I think weightlifting is cool. It is empowering for women. It proves women can be strong and also be feminine at the same time.”

Glasgow glee: Asha Philip, Bianca Williams, Jodie Williams and Ashleigh Nelson won Commonwealth bronze for England

Fab Four’s fast track to glory The remarkable success of GB’s sprint relay team lifted a nation. By Andrew Longmore ASHLEIGH NELSON traces the rise of the British sprint relay team to last year’s world championships in Moscow. With Anyika Onuora injured for the final, Rana Reider, the head coach, was left with a difficult decision. Did he recall one of his two fastest sprinters, Jodie Williams or Asha Philip, though neither had attended the relay camps, or did he choose Hayley Jones, whose commitment was unquestioned? Reider chose Jones and the quartet chased home the Jamaicans and Americans to win a bronze.

“Rana stuck to his guns and we won a bronze medal,” says Nelson.

“People were shocked, really shocked. But it proved you’ve got to be running well and be committed.

Everyone now is fighting for a spot on the team.”

Along with the rehabilitated Philip, Nelson has been ever present in a triumphant season for the women’s relay squad, who broke the 34-year-old British record in becoming European champions in August and, less than a fortnight later, lowered their own record and beat the Jamaicans and Americans at the Diamond League meeting in Zurich. Add a bronze for England in the Commonwealth Games and the squad — Nelson, Philip, Jodie Williams, Bianca Williams, Desiree Henry and Onuora — are strong contenders for the team award at the Sunday Times & Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year awards next month.

The success has not yet been matched by the sort of individual breakthrough achieved by James Dasaolu in the men’s ranks but it speaks volumes for the new sense of confidence and trust fostered by Reider, the laidback American coach, and Stephen Maguire, the new head of power and sprints at GB Athletics who has taken over the full-time relay coaching duties.

“My role is to get the balance right so you don’t kill individual aspirations but find a system where the girls can all work together,” says Maguire. “They don’t fear anyone in the relay now and can bring that confidence into their individual events. With the rivalry between them, they can push each other so that 11.1 seconds [for 100m] becomes 11.0. Then they’re in the ball park.”

Nelson remembers surverying the strength in depth of the British squad during a training session in the build-up to the Europeans. “There were so many options,” she says.

“Someone wasn’t going to get a chance to run. It was bad, but it was great too because there were so many girls running fast.”

Unable to make the world

championships squad for the individual 100m in Moscow last summer, Nelson made herself an indispensable second-leg runner for the relay team. It helped that she and Philip had developed a real understanding of the precise and complex rhythm of baton-changing from their days together in the Staffordshire schools team.

While Henry dislikes handing over the baton but is happy to receive it for the anchor leg, Nelson enjoys the whole process.

It helps that she has long fingers, can spread her hand wide and hold it there outstretched, palm flat and steady in readiness for the “push pass”, the team’s favoured method of handover. That’s a skill in itself. “Asha knows that if she misses the hand with the baton the first time, my hand will still be there,” says Nelson. “The key to a good relay is the speed of the baton.”

As relay athletes funded

THEY DON’T FEAR ANYONE IN THE RELAY NOW AND CAN BRING THAT CONFIDENCE TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL EVENTS by the national lottery, the girls had to attend training in Florida earlier in the year.

For Nelson and many of her teammates that meant an hour’s drive. It would have been easy to find an excuse.

None did. “Everyone has made an effort this year,” says Henry. “For example, we never put a time on ending the relay practice because it takes so much time to get it right.”

It was Henry who crossed the line to take the GB record at the European championships. It was another few seconds before their own magic number — 42.25 — sunk in. But the biggest shock was to come.

“At the Diamond League, we still had a little doubt that we could beat the Americans and the Jamaicans,” Henry says. “So when we did it, that was the best, best feeling.” The clock stopped at 42.21 seconds. Breaking 42 seconds is the next target.

6 The national lottery is backing more than 1,300 elite athletes in 44 sports on the Road to Rio. Visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org. uk.

2014 SUNDAY TIMES AND SKY SPORTS SPORTSWOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS THIS IS your last chance to recognise the sportswomen who have excelled throughout 2014. The online nomination process will close at midday on Tuesday October 14, 2014. Please visit www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/swoty2014 to make your nominations. When nominating online, please supply your name and contact details. A member of the Sunday Times sports team may contact you for more information about your nominations. The awards will be broadcast live on Sky Sports on November 19. A judging panel, chaired by BBC Radio

5 Live presenter Eleanor Oldroyd, will meet to draw up shortlists. The names of the respective winners and runners up will be announced live on Sky 6 SUNDAY TIMES & SKY SPORTS SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR The ultimate accolade for your favourite sportswoman of 2014 6 TEAM OF THE YEAR A chance to celebrate the achievements of Britain’s most

successful collective efforts 6 YOUNG SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR Nominees must have been 21 or younger on January 1, 2014 6 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Recognising a lifetime of sporting success 6 COMMUNITY AWARD For individuals who have actively engaged with different groups of women within

their community through sport 6 DISABILITY SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR The outstanding figure within a disability sport 6 THE HELEN ROLLASON AWARD FOR INSPIRATION Recognising inspirational endeavour in honour of the late sports presenter Helen Rollason

SPORTSWOMEN ON SKY SPORTS NEWS HQ Tuesday’s Sportswomen programme profiles the year enjoyed by squash superstar Laura Massaro, inset. The reigning world champion, a two time Commonwealth Games silver medallist, talks about her rise up the world rankings.

The programme also features powerlifting world champion

TO SUBMIT YOUR ONLINE NOMINATIONS VISIT WWW.THESUNDAYTIMES.CO.UK/SWOTY2014

Monique Newton, who survived cancer, homelessness and a suicide attempt. Sportswomen is live on Sky Sports News HQ on Tuesday at 11.30am and at 7pm on Sky Sports 4. It is available On Demand. You can join in the discussion on Twitter using #Sportswomen or download the podcast at www.skysports.com/podcast

SPORT

1 6 / F O O T B A L L R E S U LT S

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIERS

BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE Total

KAZAKHSTAN 1 Abdulin 18 Att: 45,000 ICELAND 3 Gylfi Sigurdsson 66 Gunnarsson 77, Gislason 90 Att: 6,354 CZECH REPUBLIC 2 Sivok 16, Dockal 58 Att: 25,000 P W D L F A Pts 2 2 0 0 6 0 6 2 2 0 0 4 2 6 2 1 0 1 4 3 3 2 0 1 1 1 3 1 2 0 1 1 0 3 1 2 0 0 2 1 5 0

HT: 0-0 TURKEY 1 Bulut 8 HT: 1-1 Iceland Czech Republic Holland Kazakhstan Latvia Turkey

Group B BELGIUM 6 De Bruyne 31 (pen), 34 Chadli 37 Origi 58 Mertens 65, 68 HT: 3-0 CYPRUS 1 Makridis 67 HT: 0-2 WALES 0 Att: 30,741

ANDORRA 0

Att: 40,000 ISRAEL 2 Damari 38, Ben Haim 45 Att: 19,164 BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 0 P W 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 0 2 0

Wales Belgium Israel Cyprus Bosnia-Herzegovina Andorra

D 1 0 0 0 1 0

L 0 0 0 1 1 2

F 2 6 2 3 1 1

Away

A Pts 1 4 0 3 1 3 3 3 2 1 8 0

1 CHELSEA

7 6 1 0 21 7 4 4 0 0 11 2 3 2 1 0 10 5 +14 19

2 MAN CITY

7 4 2 1 14 7 3 1 1 1 4 3 4 3 1 0 10 4

+7 14

3 SOUTHAMPTON 7 4 1 2 11 5 3 2 1 0 6 1 4 2 0 2 5 4

+6 13

4 MAN UTD

7 3 2 2 13 10 4 3 0 1 9 4 3 0 2 1 4 6

+3 11

5 SWANSEA

7 3 2 2 10 8 4 2 1 1 6 3 3 1 1 1 4 5

+2 11

6 TOTTENHAM

7 3 2 2 9 7 4 2 0 2 5 4 3 1 2 0 4 3

+2 11

7 WEST HAM

7 3 1 3 12 10 4 2 0 2 6 5 3 1 1 1 6 5

+2 10

8 ARSENAL

7 2 4 1 11 9 3 1 2 0 5 4 4 1 2 1 6 5

+2 10

9 LIVERPOOL

7 3 1 3 10 10 4 2 1 1 5 4 3 1 0 2 5 6

0 10

10 ASTON VILLA

7 3 1 3 4 9 4 1 1 2 2 6 3 2 0 1 2 3

-5 10

11 HULL

7 2 3 2 11 11 4 1 2 1 7 7 3 1 1 1 4 4

0 9

12 LEICESTER

7 2 3 2 11 12 4 1 3 0 10 8 3 1 0 2 1 4

-1 9

13 SUNDERLAND 7 1 5 1 8 7 4 1 3 0 6 4 3 0 2 1 2 3

+1 8

14 WEST BROM

7 2 2 3 8 9 3 1 1 1 6 4 4 1 1 2 2 5

-1 8 -2 8

15 C PALACE

7 2 2 3 10 12 3 1 1 1 3 3 4 1 1 2 7 9

16 STOKE

7 2 2 3 6 8 3 1 0 2 1 2 4 1 2 1 5 6

-2 8

17 EVERTON

7 1 3 3 13 16 3 0 1 2 7 11 4 1 2 1 6 5

-3 6

18 NEWCASTLE

7 0 4 3 7 14 3 0 2 1 5 7 4 0 2 2 2 7

-7 4

19 BURNLEY

7 0 4 3 3 10 3 0 2 1 1 3 4 0 2 2 2 7

-7 4

20 QPR

7 1 1 5 4 15 3 1 1 1 3 3 4 0 0 4 1 12 -11 4

CH CP AR B EV LEI LIV MA MA NE QP AS HU ER TON URN SE E AL TON LL CIT CEST ERPO N CIT N UN WCAS R NA AC LEY LSEA VIL E I Y L E O T Y T R ED L LE LA

TV Matches

P W D L F A P W D L F A P W D L F A GD Pts

Group A HOLLAND 3 Huntelaar 62, Afellay 82 Van Persie 89 (pen) HT: 0-1 LATVIA 0

Home

T WE SO ST SU WE SW OK UT ND AN OTTE S S HA ER NH T BR T HA SE MP E CIT L A AM OM M AN Y TON D

31/1 1/11 25/4 2-1 28/2 18/10 10/2 4/4 2-2 22/1113/1226/12 3/12 10/1 18/4 9/5 1-1 24/5 14/3 0-3 24/5 7/2 1/1 2/5 2-1 7/12 17/1 0-2 20/12 0-0 18/4 24/11 21/2 28/12 21/3 2/11 3/3 9/5 11/4 29/11 1-3 17/1 26/10 8/11 25/4 26/12 14/3 0-0 2/12 10/1 13/12 16/5 0-0 28/2 4/4 7/2 18/10 2-0 3-0 21/2 2/5 11/2 13/12 2-0 9/5 31/1 18/4 10/1 1/11 14/3 4/4 24/5 4-2 3/12 22/1126/12 21/2 2/12 0-0 18/10 31/1 25/4 2-0 23/11 4/4 9/5 10/2 14/3 26/1213/12 3/11 24/5 10/1 18/4 1-3 3/12 21/2 7/2 10/1 25/4 14/3 15/12 4/4 26/12 9/5 1/11 24/5 17/1 22/11 2-2 18/10 18/4 3-6 2-3 2/5 10/2 9/5 21/3 2-0 1/1 28/12 18/4 2-4 24/5 31/1 21/2 1/11 1-1 3/3 20/1223/11 6/12 2-2 1-1 10/1 2-2 28/2 7/2 2-2 14/3 2/12 13/12 5-3 2/5 24/5 9/5 17/1 22/11 18/4 26/12 1/11 4/4 21/12 0-1 3/3 8/11 16/5 1-1 25/10 1/1 28/2 21/3 11/4 2/5 2-1 29/11 6/12 28/12 10/2 2-1 31/1 17/1 25/4 28/12 1-1 20/12 6/12 7/2 4/3 3-1 2/11 21/2 9/5 24/5 0-1 1/1 22/1118/10 21/3 18/4 26/12 4-0 10/1 2/12 28/2 1-2 14/3 2/5 2-1 16/5 4/4 10/2 26/10 8/11 2-1 29/11 31/1 14/12 11/4 21/3 28/2 1/1 6/12 3-3 28/12 2-2 18/10 1/11 0-2 4/3 22/11 17/1 7/2 21/12 25/4 18/4 9/5 24/5 3/3 27/10 6/12 11/4 28/12 21/3 0-1 29/1119/10 8/11 17/1 16/5 7/2 2-2 1-0 1/1 28/2 20/12 25/4 25/1018/10 31/1 25/4 0-0 10/2 1/1 16/5 21/3 28/12 3/3 20/12 11/4 8/11 21/2 30/11 8/12 4-0 2-1 6/12 0-1 22/1122/12 21/3 4/3 28/2 0-1 24/5 11/2 1/1 1-0 31/1 18/4 25/4 19/10 9/5 28/12 1/11 25/10 14/3 31/1 29/11 11/4 9/11 26/12 16/5 10/1 3/12 1 1 4/4 10/2 2/5 3-1 0-0 2-2 21/2 13/12 9/11 26/12 1-0 17/1 29/11 11/4 4/4 25/10 14/3 16/5 21/2 2-2 2/12 0-1 2/5 7/2 14/12 3-0 10/1 7/2 11/4 20/12 1/1 6/12 30/11 16/5 21/3 0-3 2/5 28/1225/10 4-0 1-0 8/11 17/1 4/3 0-1 21/2 29/1113/12 4-0 16/5 25/10 0-2 10/1 11/4 25/4 26/1220/10 9/11 4/4 28/2 14/3 2-2 10/2 31/1 2/12 28/12 8/11 2/5 3/3 28/2 16/5 17/1 20/12 3-1 25/10 7/2 29/11 2-0 1-3 11/4 21/3 7/12 0-1 1/1

ARSENAL ASTON VILLA BURNLEY CHELSEA C PALACE EVERTON HULL CITY LEICESTER LIVERPOOL MAN CITY MAN UNITED NEWCASTLE QPR SOUTHAMPTON STOKE CITY SUNDERLAND SWANSEA TOTTENHAM WEST BROM WEST HAM

Group D IRELAND 7 Keane 6, 14, 18 McClean 46, 53 Perez (og) 51 Hoolahan 56 HT: 3-0 POLAND L SCOTLAND 1 Maloney 28 HT: 1-0

GIBRALTAR 0

Att: 18,500 GERMANY L GEORGIA 0 Att: 48,000 P W 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 0 2 0

Ireland Poland Germany Scotland Georgia Gibraltar

D 0 0 0 0 0 0

L 0 0 0 1 2 2

F A Pts 9 1 6 7 0 3 2 1 3 2 2 3 1 3 0 0 14 0

HT: 0-2 P 2 2 2 2 2 2

Italy Croatia Norway Bulgaria Azerbaijan Malta

A

P W D

3

2 21 10 6

2 NOTTM FOREST

11 5

6

0 19 9

3 WATFORD

11 6

3

4 DERBY

L

Away F

A

2

3

1 10 6

6

3

3

0 14 6

2 20 12 6

4

2

0 15 6

Total

P W D

L

F

A

GD

Pts

5

11 4

+11 21

1 BRISTOL C

Home

P W D

L

F

A

P W D

12 8

4

0 25 12 6

5

1

L

Away F

A

Total

P W D

L

F

A

0 13 5

6

3

3

0 12 7

GD

Pts 1 WYCOMBE

L

F

A

12 7

4

1 17 8

Away

P W D

L

F

A

P W D

L

6

1

7

5

6

4

0 10 3

2

2

A

GD

Pts

0

1

5

2

3

0

5

3

+10 21

2 PETERBOROUGH

12 7

2

3 20 12 6

3

2

1 10 7

6

4

0

2 10 5

2 BURTON ALB

12 8

1

3 16 13 6

5

0

1

9

4

6

3

1

2

7

9

+3 25

5

2

1

2

5

6

+8 21

3 SWINDON

10 6

3

1 22 11 5

3

2

0 13 6

5

3

1

1

5

+11 21

3 BURY

12 7

2

3 20 11 6

5

0

1

11 5

6

2

2

2

9

6

+9 23

+11 19

+8 23

3

F

4

9

+13 28

Home

P W D

+9 25

11 5

5

1 19 10 6

3

3

0 11 4

5

2

2

1

8

6

+9 20

4 MK DONS

10 6

1

3 25 14 5

3

1

1 13 5

5

3

0

2 12 9

4 LUTON

12 6

3

3 12 8

6

3

1

2

6

3

6

3

2

1

6

5

+4 21

5 MIDDLESBROUGH 11 6

2

3 16 8

6

3

1

2 11 5

5

3

1

1

5

3

+8 20

5 PRESTON

10 5

4

1 20 11 6

3

3

0 12 7

4

2

1

1

4

+9 19

5 SOUTHEND

12 6

2

4 12 10 6

3

1

2

6

3

6

3

1

2

6

7

+2 20

6 IPSWICH

11 5

4

2 16 10 5

4

0

1

8

2

6

1

4

1

8

8

+6 19

6 CHESTERFIELD

11 5

3

3 21 17 5

3

1

1 10 6

6

2

2

2 11 11

+4 18

6 PLYMOUTH

12 6

1

5 13 8

6

4

1

1

9

2

6

2

0

4

4

6

+5 19

7 CHARLTON

11 4

7

0 14 10 6

3

3

0

8

5

5

1

4

0

6

5

+4 19

7 BRADFORD C

11 5

3

3 15 11 6

2

1

3

8

9

5

3

2

0

7

2

+4 18

7 MORECAMBE

12 6

1

5 14 12 6

3

1

2

7

7

6

3

0

3

7

5

+2 19

8

4

2 14 11 6

4

1

1

9

6

5

1

3

1

5

5

+3 19

8 OLDHAM

12 4

6

2 16 14 6

3

2

1

8

7

6

1

4

1

8

7

+2 18

8 SHREWSBURY

12 5

3

4 15 10 6

5

1

0 12 2

6

0

2

4

3

8

+5 18

5

2 11 8

5

1

3

1

3

3

6

3

2

1

8

5

+3 17

9 NOTTS CO

11 4

5

2 12 7

6

2

2

2

5

5

5

2

3

0

7

2

+5 17

9 NORTHAMPTON

12 5

3

4 20 16 6

3

1

2 13 9

6

2

2

2

7

7

+4 18

GREECE L FAROE ISLANDS L HUNGARY 1 Dzsudzsak 82 Att: 54,000

10 BRENTFORD

11 5

2

4 15 16 6

3

2

1 10 8

5

2

0

3

5

8

-1 17

10 SHEFF UTD

11 5

2

4 17 18 5

3

1

1

7

5

6

2

1

3 10 13

-1 17

10 AFC WIMBLEDON 12 5

3

4 20 19 6

3

1

2 12 9

6

2

2

2

8 10

+1 18

11 BOURNEMOUTH

11 4

3

4 16 14 5

2

1

2

6

2

2

2 10 8

+2 15

11 ROCHDALE

11 5

1

5 19 12 6

2

1

3

6

5

5

3

0

2 13 7

+7 16

11 CAMBRIDGE UTD

12 5

2

5 23 15 6

3

0

3 13 6

6

2

2

2 10 9

+8 17

12 BLACKBURN

11 4

3

4 16 18 6

2

3

1

11 9

5

2

0

3

5

9

-2 15

12 FLEETWOOD TN

12 4

4

4 11 10 6

2

4

0

7

5

6

2

0

4

4

5

+1 16

12 PORTSMOUTH

12 4

5

3 11 9

6

3

2

1

4

6

1

3

2

2

5

+2 17

13 READING

11 4

3

4 15 17 5

3

1

1

11 7

6

1

2

3

4 10

-2 15

13 DONCASTER

10 4

2

4 11 15 5

1

2

2

5

8

5

3

0

2

6

7

-4 14

13 NEWPORT CO

12 4

4

4 15 13 6

3

2

1 12 8

6

1

2

3

3

5

+2 16

D 1 0 0 1 0 0

14 LEEDS UTD

11 4

3

4 11 13 6

3

2

1

6

3

5

1

1

3

5 10

-2 15

14 CRAWLEY TN

12 4

2

6

9 18 6

3

0

3

6 11 6

1

2

3

3

7

-9 14

14 CHELTENHAM

12 4

4

4 10 11 6

2

3

1

5

4

6

2

1

3

5

7

-1 16

15 CARDIFF

11 3

4

4 13 14 5

3

0

2

8

7

6

0

4

2

5

7

-1 13

15 COVENTRY

12 3

4

5 13 16 6

3

2

1

8

6

0

2

4

5

9

-3 13

15 MANSFIELD

12 5

1

6 12 16 6

4

0

2

8

6

6

1

1

4

4 10

-4 16

16 MILLWALL

11 3

3

5 10 13 5

2

1

2

5

5

6

1

2

3

5

8

-3 12

16 COLCHESTER

12 3

3

6 16 18 6

1

2

3

7 10 6

2

1

3

9

8

-2 12

16 ACCRINGTON ST

12 5

1

6 17 22 6

3

1

2

8

7

6

2

0

4

9 15

-5 16

17 ROTHERHAM

11 3

3

5

2

1

2

4

5

6

1

2

3

5

8

-4 12

17 BARNSLEY

10 3

3

4 14 16 4

1

0

3

7 10 6

2

3

1

7

6

-2 12

17 EXETER

12 4

3

5 13 16 6

1

3

2

7

8

6

3

0

3

6

8

-3 15

L 0 0 0 1 1 1

F 2 3 2 2 0 1

A Pts 1 4 1 3 1 3 3 1 1 0 3 0

Group I ALBANIA L ARMENIA 1 Arzumanyan 73 HT: 0-0 P W 1 1 1 1 1 0 2 0 1 0

Denmark Albania Serbia Armenia Portugal

11 6

1 NORWICH

F

11 4

CROATIA 1 N Bodurov (og) 36 Att: 30,000 AZERBAIJAN 1 Chiellini 77 (og) Att: 30,000 NORWAY 3 Daehli 22, King 25, 49 Att: 3,000 W D L F A Pts 2 0 0 4 1 6 2 0 0 3 0 6 1 0 1 3 2 3 1 0 1 2 2 3 0 0 2 2 4 0 0 0 2 0 5 0

HT: 0-1 ITALY 2 Chiellini 44, 81 HT: 1-0 MALTA 0

L

11 5

Group H BULGARIA 0

Home

P W D

SKY BET LEAGUE TWO

8 WOLVES

P W 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 0 1 0 1 0

Romania Finland Northern Ireland Hungary Greece Faroe Islands

Total

SKY BET LEAGUE ONE

9 SHEFF WED

Group F FINLAND L NORTHERN IRELAND L ROMANIA 1 Rusescu 45 HT: 1-0

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP

DENMARK L SERBIA 1 Tosic 90 Att: 7,500 L F A Pts 0 2 1 3 0 1 0 3 0 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 0 1 0

D 0 0 1 1 0

9 13 5

6

6

18 HUDDERSFIELD

11 3

3

5 12 20 5

1

2

2

4

8

6

2

1

3

8 12

-8 12

18 WALSALL

12 2

6

4 11 13 6

2

3

1

8

6

0

3

3

3

9

-2 12

18 DAG & RED

12 4

2

6 16 20 6

2

0

4

7 10 6

2

2

2

9 10

-4 14

19 BRIGHTON

11 2

5

4 10 12 5

1

3

1

5

5

6

1

2

3

5

7

-2 11

19 PORT VALE

12 3

3

6 15 19 6

2

1

3

8 10 6

1

2

3

7

9

-4 12

19 STEVENAGE

12 4

2

6 14 18 6

3

0

3

9

8

6

1

2

3

5 10

-4 14

20 BIRMINGHAM

11 2

5

4 12 18 5

1

2

2

5

7

6

1

3

2

7 11

-6 11

20 GILLINGHAM

12 3

3

6 12 18 6

3

2

1

8

6

6

0

1

5

4 12

-6 12

20 CARLISLE

12 3

3

6 15 21 6

2

2

2

9

9

6

1

1

4

6 12

-6 12

21 WIGAN

11 2

4

5 12 14 5

2

2

1

8

4

6

0

2

4

4 10

-2 10

21 YEOVIL

12 3

3

6 11 20 6

1

3

2

4

8

6

2

0

4

7 12

-9 12

21 HARTLEPOOL

12 3

2

7

7 18 6

1

2

3

2

7

6

2

0

4

5 11

-11 11

22 FULHAM

11 2

1

8 12 22 5

1

1

3

5

4

6

1

0

5

7 18

-10

7

22 LEYTON ORIENT

11 2

5

4 13 15 5

0

1

4

4

9

6

2

4

0

9

6

-2 11

22 YORK

12 1

7

4 11 17 6

0

5

1

5

6

6

1

2

3

6 11

-6 10

23 BLACKPOOL

11

1

3

7

6 14 6

1

1

4

4

8

5

0

2

3

2

6

-8

6

23 SCUNTHORPE

12 3

1

8 14 25 6

2

0

4

6 12 6

1

1

4

8 13

-11 10

23 OXFORD UTD

12 2

4

6 11 18 6

2

2

2

7

6

6

0

2

4

4 12

-7 10

24 BOLTON

11

1

2

8

8 21 6

1

2

3

7 10 5

0

0

5

1 11

-13

5

24 CREWE

12 2

1

9 10 30 6

2

0

4

7 15 6

0

1

5

3 15

-20

24 TRANMERE

12 2

3

7 11 16 6

1

2

3

6

8

6

1

1

4

5

-5

Fixtures

Group H: Croatia v Azerbaijan; Malta v Italy; Norway v Bulgaria

Kick-off 7.45pm unless stated

Tuesday

Today European Championship qualifying: Group C: Belarus v Slovakia; Luxembourg v Spain; Ukraine v Macedonia (5pm). Group E: Estonia v England (5pm); Lithuania v Slovenia. Group G: Austria v Montenegro (5pm); Russia v Moldova (5pm); Sweden v Liechtenstein Sky Bet League One: Barnsley v Bradford C

Tomorrow European Championship qualifying: Group A: Iceland v Netherlands; Kazakhstan v Czech Republic (5pm); Latvia v Turkey. Group B: Andorra v Israel; Bosnia and Herzegovina v Belgium; Wales v Cyprus.

BRISTOL C 3 CHESTERFLD 2 Evatt (og) 9 Doyle 25 (pen), 59 Williams 46 Burns 90+3 HT: 1-1 Att: 12,558 Bristol C: Fielding, Ayling, Flint, Williams, Little, Elliott, Smith (Burns 35), Freeman (Emmanuel-Thomas 90), Bryan, Agard (Pack 83), Wilbraham. Subs not used: El-Abd, Wagstaff, Richards, Cunningham Chesterfield: Lee, Darikwa, Evatt, Margreitter, Jones, Ryan (O’Shea 81), Morsy, Clucas, Johnson (Boco 68), Roberts (Banks 75), Doyle. Subs not used: Gardner, Gnanduillet, Raglan, Grant. Booked: Doyle, Clucas, Morsy Referee: A Davies (Hampshire)

European Championship qualifying: Group D: Germany v Republic of Ireland; Gibraltar v Georgia; Poland v Scotland. Group E: San Marino v Switzerland.

Group F: Faroe Islands v Hungary; Finland v Romania; Greece v Northern Ireland. Group I: Denmark v Portugal; Serbia v Albania

Wednesday Scottish League Two: Berwick v Montrose

Friday Sky Bet Championship: Rotherham v Leeds Utd Scottish Premiership: Hamilton v Aberdeen

COLCHESTER 2 FLEETWOOD TN 1 Massey 40, 76 McAlinden 18 HT: 1-1 Att: 3,383 Colchester: Walker, Hewitt, Kent, Eastman, Clohessy, Fox, Moncur (Szmodics 85), Gilbey, Massey, Sears, Watt (Drey Wright 68). Subs not used: Healey, Okuonghae, Eastmond, Lewington, Bonne. Booked: Watt Fleetwood Tn: Maxwell, Crainey, Roberts, Jordan, Andrew, Schumacher, Sarcevic (Dobbie 77), Morris, Evans (Haughton 83), Proctor (Ball 62), McAlinden. Subs not used: Scott Davies, Murdoch, Pond, Blair. Booked: Proctor Referee: G Scott (Oxfordshire)

OTHER FOOTBALL VANARAMA CONFERENCE P W D L F A GD Pts 1 BARNET

16 10 3 3 36 13 +23 33

2 WOKING

15 9 3 3 29 14 +15 30

3 GATESHEAD

16 8 6 2 28 19

+9 30

4 BRISTOL ROV

16 8 5 3 20 15

+5 29

5 HALIFAX TN

16 8 4 4 28 18 +10 28

6 TORQUAY

14 8 3 3 25 12 +13 27

7 FOREST GREEN

16 7 6 3 21 15

+6 27

8 KIDDERMINSTER

16 7 5 4 22 15

+7 26

9 WREXHAM

16 8 2 6 21 19

+2 26

10 MACCLESFIELD

16 6 7 3 19 14

+5 25

11 GRIMSBY

16 6 6 4 26 12 +14 24

12 EASTLEIGH

15 6 5 4 25 21

+4 23

13 LINCOLN C

16 6 3 7 25 27

-2 21

14 BRAINTREE TN

15 6 2 7 20 17

+3 20

15 ALDERSHOT

16 5 5 6 17 18

-1 20

16 CHESTER

16 6 2 8 16 26 -10 20

17 WELLING UTD

16 4 6 6 22 24

-2 18

18 DOVER ATH

16 5 2 9 18 26

-8 17

19 DARTFORD

16 3 6 7 16 23

-7 15

20 SOUTHPORT

16 4 3 9 16 28 -12 15

21 ALTRINCHAM

16 4 3 9 16 33 -17 15

22 NUNEATON TN

16 4 2 10 12 28 -16 14

23 ALFRETON TN

15 3 1 11 11 32 -21 10

24 AFC TELFORD UTD

16 1 4 11 19 39 -20

ALDERSHOT 2 Williams 16 (pen) Roberts 77 HT: 1-1 Sent off: J Roberts (Aldershot) 90 ALTRINCHAM 0

7

BRISTOL ROV 2 Monkhouse 42 Taylor 68 (pen) Att: 3,466

HT: 0-0 Sent off: A Griffin (Altrincham) 55

WOKING 3 Rendell 52 Morgan 66 Payne 90 Att: 1,218

7

BARNET 3 Villa 32, Cook 38 Akinde 43 HT: 3-0 BRAINTREE TN 0

KIDDERMINSTER 3 Gash 58 Blissett 80, 82 Att: 1,689 SOUTHPORT 2 George 69 Bakayoko 84 Att: 810 MACCLESFIELD 1 Barnes-Homer 87 Att: 1,063 CHESTER 0

HT: 0-0 DARTFORD 1 Hayes 85 HT: 0-0 DOVER 2 Ben Heneghan (og) 47 Essam 64 HT: 0-0 Att: 1,009 EASTLEIGH 4 HALIFAX 1 Reason 22 Hattersley 16 (pen) Green 53 Fleetwood 76 Strevens 90 HT: 1-1 Att: 1,498 FOREST GREEN 1 GATESHEAD 1 Parkin 71 Howe 77 HT: 0-0 Att: 1,217 LINCOLN C 2 AFC TELFORD 0 Newton 63 (pen) Tomlinson 76 HT: 0-0 Att: 2,529 WELLING 4 NUNEATON 1 Beautyman 19, 45 Dean 23 Marsh 72, 74 HT: 2-1 Att: 614 Sent off: R Charles-Cook (Nuneaton) 43 WREXHAM 0 GRIMSBY 1 John-Lewis 28 (pen) HT: 0-1 Att: 8,163 Sent off: L Moult (Wrexham) 79

William Hill Scottish Cup Second round replays EAST KILBRIDE 1 Vitoria 11 HT: 1-1 FORRES MECHANICS 1 Moore 65 HT: 0-0 MONTROSE 1 Harkins 45 HT: 1-1

SPARTANS 5 Errol Douglas 15 Beesley 57, 60, 88 (pen) McLeod 63 Att: 421 ELGIN 3 Gunn 75 (pen), 85 Cameron 80 Att: 865 ARBROATH 3 McManus 4, 92, 101 Att: 789

Scottish Championship ALLOA 0 HT: 0-0 HIBERNIAN 0 Att: 7,923

HEARTS 1 Eckersley 87 Att: 3,067 DUMBARTON 0

League One AIRDRIEONIANS 4 BRECHIN 0 Fraser 3, Proctor 21, Lister 57 Blockley 76 HT: 2-0 Att: 718 FORFAR 3 STENHOUSEMUIR 0 Hilson 4, Swankie 50 Fotheringham 77 HT: 1-0 Att: 489 Sent off: C Summers (Stenhousemuir) 54 GK MORTON 2 STIRLING 0 Barrowman 33, McNeil 85 HT: 1-0 Att: 1,225

CRAWLEY TN 1 McLeod 2

PETERBOROUGH 4 Smith 11 Burgess 40 Maddison 55 Washington 58 HT: 1-2 Att: 2,832 Crawley Tn: Ashdown, Oyebanjo, Bradley, Leacock, Sadler, Elliott, Keane, Young, Smith, McLeod (Harrold 24), Tomlin (Banya 70).

Subs not used: Jensen, Henderson, Bawling.

Booked: Keane, Harrold Peterborough: Alnwick, Bostwick, Baldwin, Burgess, Smith, Jermaine Anderson (McCann 83), Maddison (Oztumer 90), Payne, Newell, Taylor (McEvoy 82), Washington. Subs not used: James, Ferdinand, Santos, Grant.

Booked: Bostwick, Newell Referee: M Bull (Essex) CREWE 2 COVENTRY 1 Brandy 26 Grant (og) 48 Cooper 32 HT: 2-0 Att: 5,058 Sent off: J Finch (Coventry) 82 Crewe: Garratt, Ray, Dugdale, Tate, Tootle, Grant, Inman, Turton, Leigh, Brandy (Atkinson 85), Cooper. Subs not used: Shearer, Guthrie, Oliver, Saunders, Nolan, Ness. Booked: Dugdale, Grant, Ray, Inman Coventry: Allsop, Willis, Hines (Miller 71), Finch, Pugh, Phillips, Conor Thomas (Coulibaly 65), Fleck, O’Brien (Maddison 79), McQuoid, Jackson. Subs not used: Webster, Tudgay, Haynes, Richards. Booked: Fleck, Finch Referee: C Breakspear (Surrey)

League Two EAST FIFE 0 CLYDE 1 McManus 38 HT: 0-1 Att: 596 Sent off: E Moyes (East Fife) 69 EAST STIRLING 1 QUEEN’S PARK 3 Greene 65 Fraser 5, 25, Woods 90 HT: 0-2 Att: 351

North Bradford PA 2 Barrow 1; Hednesford 4 Hyde 1; Oxford C 1 Solihull Moors 4

South Farnborough 0 Bishop’s Stortford 1

Evo-Stik League Northern Premier Division: Banbury 0 Arlesey 2; Bideford 1 Hungerford Tn 0; Hereford 2 Cambridge C 0; Paulton 3 Burnham 0; Slough 1 Redditch 7; St Neots Tn 3; Poole Tn 2 Truro C 1 Cirencester 4; Corby 2 Dunstable 2

Calor League Southern Premier Division: Banbury Utd 0 Arlesey Tn 2; Bideford 1 Hungerford Tn 0; Corby Tn 2 Dunstable Tn 2; Hereford Utd 2 Cambridge C 0; Paulton 3 Burnham 0; Slough Tn 1 Redditch Utd 6; St Neots Tn 3 Poole Tn 2; Truro C 1 Cirencester Tn 4

Ryman League Premier Division: AFC Hornchurch 1 Bury Tn 1; Dulwich 0 Bognor Regis Tn 1; Hampton & Richmond 2 VCD Ath 1; Leiston 2 Enfield Tn 2

4

9

7

GILLINGHAM 0

SCUNTHORPE 3 Madden 41, Bishop 72 McSheffrey 90+4 HT: 0-1 Att: 7,042 Sent off: D Loft (Gillingham) 34 Gillingham: Bywater, Aaron Morris (Dickenson 65), Davies, Egan, Martin, McGlashan, Pritchard (Linganzi 46), Loft, Dack, McDonald, Norris (German 74). Subs not used: Nelson, Legge, Hessenthaler, Hoyte. Booked: Norris Scunthorpe: Olejnik, O’Neill, Boyce, Brisley, Williams, Myrie-Williams (Adelakun 75), Bishop, McAllister, McSheffrey, Madden, Fallon (Burton 87). Subs not used: Sparrow, Severn, Hawkridge, Kee, Llera. Booked: Brisley, MyrieWilliams, Boyce Referee: P Bankes (Merseyside)

AFC WIMBLEDON 3 BURY 2 Akinfenwa 26, 37 Mayor 49 Tubbs 54 Lowe 73 (pen) HT: 2-0 Att: 4,268 AFC Wimbledon: Shea, Fuller, Bennett, Barrett, Smith, Francomb (Beere 78), Moore (Frampton 90), Bulman, Rigg, Akinfenwa, Tubbs (Azeez 78). Subs not used: Sainte-Luce, Kennedy, Nicholson, McDonnell. Booked: Bulman, Fuller, Moore Bury: Jalal, Cameron, Mills (Hussey 66), McNulty, Jones, Mayor, Soares, Etuhu, Adams (Platt 74), Lowe, Nardiello (Rose 58). Subs not used: Tutte, Sedgwick, Lainton, Holmes. Booked: Soares, Cameron Referee: G Ward (Surrey) ACCRINGTON ST 1 DAGENHAM & R 2 Maguire 39 Yusuff 57, 64 HT: 1-0 Att: 1,412 Accrington St: Chapman (Simpson 90), Hunt, Aldred, Atkinson, Winnard, Procter, Joyce, O Sullivan, Maguire, Molyneux, Naismith (Gray 77). Subs not used: Barry, McCartan, Windass, Hatfield, Carver. Booked: Molyneux Dagenham & R: Cousins, Batt, Doe, Saah, Connors, Chambers, Labadie, Ogogo, Hemmings (Bingham 87), Doidge (Yusuff 46), Cureton (Porter 68). Subs not used: O’Brien, Goldberg, Partridge, Raymond. Booked: Connors, Batt Referee: J Simpson (Lancashire)

OLDHAM 2 WALSALL 1 Wilkinson 31 Cook 10 Jones 75 HT: 1-1 Att: 4,178 Oldham: Rachubka, Brian Wilson, James Wilson, Dieng, Mills, Winchester (Dayton 74), Jones, Kelly, Wilkinson (Forte 74), Philliskirk, Poleon (Ibehre 55). Subs not used: Brown, Coleman, Tidser, Turner Walsall: O’Donnell, O’Connor, Downing, Butler, Benning, Forde (Morris 68), Adam Chambers, Clifford (Flanagan 74), Baxendale, Grimes (Manset 55), Cook. Subs not used: Purkiss, MacGillivray, James Chambers, Henry.

Booked: Butler, Cook Referee: C Boyeson (E Yorkshire)

CAMBRIDGE UTD 5 OXFORD UTD 1 Appiah 41, 45, Donaldson 54 Hylton 9 Elliott 59, Simpson 89 HT: 2-1 Att: 4,435 Cambridge Utd: Dunn, Tait, Nelson, Coulson, Greg Taylor (Lennon 82), Chadwick (Dunk 59), Simpson, Hughes, Donaldson, Appiah, Elliott (Bird 79). Subs not used: Lanzoni, Norris, Hurst, Bobby Joe Taylor Oxford Utd: Clarke, Riley, Raynes, Mullins, Newey, Collins (Roberts 85), Rose, Brown (Jakubiak 69), Howard (Whing 57), O’Dowda, Hylton. Subs not used: Morris, Ruffels, George Long, Sam Long. Booked: Howard, Whing, Collins Referee: A D’Urso (Essex)

PORT VALE 4 YEOVIL 1 Pope 18, 29 Martin 86 Lines 47 Daniel 90 HT: 2-0 Att: 4,798 Port Vale: Neal, Yates, Duffy, Zubar, Dickinson, Dodds, O’Connor (Brown 83), Lines, Marshall, Pope, Williamson (Daniel 77).

Subs not used: Streete, Birchall, Johnson, Moore, Lloyd Yeovil: Kean, Moloney (Dawson 71), Martin, Sokolik, Smith, Edwards, Berrett, Foley (Moore 25), Gillett, Hiwula (Hayter 72), Leitch-Smith.

Subs not used: Weale, Ralph, Davis. Booked: Berrett, Moloney Referee: D Handley (Lancashire)

CARLISLE 3 STEVENAGE 0 Potts 17, Rigg 28, Beck 87 HT: 2-0 Att: 4,011 Carlisle: Hanford, White, Archibald-Henville, Thirlwell, Grainger, Dempsey, Dicker, Potts (Symington 90), Brough (Robson 73), Beck, Rigg (Elliott 76). Subs not used: Sweeney, Gillies, O’Hanlon, Caig. Booked: Grainger Stevenage: Day, Henry, Charles, Wells, Deacon, Whelpdale (Johnson 30), Bond (Calcutt 83), Parrett, Pett, Lee, Beardsley (Ashton 65). Subs not used: Richens, Dembele, Conlon, Dave Beasant Referee: D Webb (County Durham) EXETER 1 HARTLEPOOL 2 Ribeiro 81 Woods 49, Wyke 66 HT: 0-0 Att: 3,547 Exeter: Pym, Davies, Woodman, Ribeiro, Oakley, RileyLowe (Nichols 61), Butterfield (Noble 72), Grimes, Keohane, Bennett, Cummins (Wheeler 61). Subs not used: Hamon, Tillson, Jay, Watkins Hartlepool: Flinders, Duckworth, Austin, Harrison, Jones, Miller, Bates, Woods, Hawkins (Franks 90), Wyke, Brobbel. Subs not used: Holden, Walker, Richards, Smith, Atkinson, Green Referee: D Sheldrake (Surrey)

SHEFF UTD 2 L ORIENT 2 McCarthy 90 Simpson 38 McNulty 90+1 Vincelot 90+9 HT: 0-1 Att: 19,179 Sent off: J McAnuff (Leyton Orient) 75 Sheff Utd: Howard, Harris, McCarthy, Alcock, McEveley, Flynn, Wallace (Campbell-Ryce 72), Doyle, Murphy, Scougall (Basham 74), Baxter (McNulty 61). Subs not used: Davies, McGahey, Reed, Turner. Booked: Alcock L Orient: Woods, Cuthbert, Clarke, Lowry, Omozusi, Pritchard (Batt 90), Price, Vincelot, Simpson (Dagnall 69), Henderson (Bartley 84), McAnuff. Subs not used: Lee, Kashket, Grainger, Ling. Booked: McAnuff, Clarke, Henderson, Woods, Price Referee: A Haines (Tyne & Wear)

2 1h 1a 2

2

2

TRANMERE 0

PLYMOUTH 1 Reid 29 HT: 0-1 Att: 4,952 Tranmere: Brezovan, Donacien, Ihiekwe, Holness, Holmes, Gill (Bell-Baggie 76), Power (Laird 75), Donnelly (Richards 75), Koumas, Barker, Odejayi. Subs not used: Rowe, Kirby, Ramsbottom, Ben Davies. Booked: Odejayi Plymouth: McCormick, O’Connor, Nelson, McHugh, Hartley, Mellor, Blizzard (Norburn 89), Cox, Bobby Reid, Alessandra (Smalley 73), Reuben Reid (Morgan 86).

Subs not used: Bittner, Banton, Harvey, Bentley.

Booked: Hartley, O’Connor Referee: D Coote (Notts)

3 1h 1a 2 1h 1h 1h 2 1h 1a 1a 1a 2

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

L 1h 1h 1a 1h 2 1a 3 1h 1h 3 1h 1h 1a 1h 1a 1h 1a 1h 1a 3 1h 1a 3

2

SHREWSBURY 3 CHELTENHAM 1 Collins 50, Mangan 55 Harrison 48 Knight-Percival 69 HT: 0-0 Att: 4,817 Shrewsbury: Leutwiler, Grandison, Goldson, KnightPercival, Gayle, Woods, Wesolowski, Clark (Lawrence 46), Demetriou, Collins, Mangan (Akpa Akpro 70). Subs not used: Grant, Ellis, Vincent, Vernon, Halstead.

Booked: Goldson, Wesolowski Cheltenham: Carson, Matthew Taylor, Elliott (Brown 46), Deaman (Haworth 76), Vaughan, De Vita (Marquis 70), Jason Taylor, Richards, Braham-Barrett, Bancessi, Harrison. Subs not used: Gornell, Gould, Hanks, SterlingJames. Booked: Braham-Barrett, Vaughan, Matthew Taylor Referee: S Stockbridge (Tyne & Wear)

3 1a 1h 2 1a 2

Full time

3

PORTSMOUTH 1 MANSFIELD 1 Robinson 70 Heslop 46 HT: 0-0 Att: 15,585 Portsmouth: Jones, Devera, Robinson, Ertl (Atangana 68), Wynter, Wallace, Dunne, Hollands, Shorey, Drennan (Agyemang 69), Taylor (Storey 85). Subs not used: Holmes, Westcarr, Poke, Butler. Booked: Dunne Mansfield: Studer, Sutton, Sendles-White, Riley, Beevers, McGuire, Bell (Taylor 79), Heslop (Clements 87), Freeman, Rhead (Palmer 58), Bingham. Subs not used: Fisher, Lambe, Marsden, Thomas. Booked: Rhead, Riley Referee: S Attwell (Warwicks)

3

8

2

NORTHAMPTON 1 BURTON ALB 2 Cresswell 80 Blyth 45, MacDonald 86 HT: 0-1 Att: 4,935 Northampton: Archer, Tozer (Alfei 68), Cresswell, Collins, Stevens, Hackett, Ravenhill, Byrom, Mohamed (D’Ath 49), Nicholls (Langmead 76), Toney. Subs not used: Carter, Snedker, Robertson, Moyo. Booked: D’Ath, Stevens Burton Alb: McLaughlin, Edwards, Sharps, Mousinho, Taft (McCrory 69), Palmer, Akins, Weir (Slade 84), MacDonald, McGurk (Harness 76), Blyth. Subs not used: Bell, Lyness, Knowles, Austin. Booked: Akins Referee: G Sutton (Lincolnshire)

3

7

2

NEWPORT CO 3 YORK 1 Hughes 51, Zebroski 65 De Girolamo 7 Jones 72 HT: 0-1 Att: 2,822 Sent off: R Penn (York) 46 Newport Co: Day, Hughes, Jones, Yakubu, Pigott (O’Connor 76), Willmott (Flynn 46), Minshull, Tancock (Porter 57), Loveridge, Zebroski, Klukowski. Subs not used: Pidgeley, Feely, Owen-Evans, Poole. Booked: Tancock York: Ingham (Mooney 46), McCoy, Lowe, McCombe, Ilesanmi, Montrose, Penn, De Girolamo (Platt 48), Meikle, Jarvis (Summerfield 68), Brunt. Subs not used: Straker, Hirst, Murray, Godfrey. Booked: Penn, Montrose.

Referee: C Berry (Surrey)

2

6

2 1h 2

MORECAMBE 1 WYCOMBE 3 Fleming 45 Wood 10, Hayes 15, Jacobson 72 HT: 1-2 Att: 1,710 Sent off: J Devitt (Morecambe) 50 Morecambe: Roche, Beeley, Hughes, Parrish, Goodall, Devitt, Kenyon (McCready 79), Fleming, Ellison (Sampson 82), Redshaw (Amond 76), Mullin. Subs not used: Edwards, Williams, McGowan, Arestidou. Booked: Ellison Wycombe: Ingram, Jombati, Pierre (Bloomfield 42), Mawson, Jacobson, Cowan-Hall (Amadi-Holloway 89), Scowen, Murphy, Wood, Kretzschmar, Hayes (Craig 79).

Subs not used: Richardson, McClure, Walker. Booked: Scowen, Wood, Craig Referee: P Gibbs (West Midlands)

Half time L

5

L

9

Match No. 1

4

2 1a 3

LUTON 2 SOUTHEND 0 Lawless 17, Cullen 34 HT: 2-0 Att: 9,238 Luton: Tyler, Harriman (Lacey 90), Wilkinson, McNulty, Griffiths, Ruddock, Doyle, Drury, Jonathan Smith, Lawless, Cullen. Subs not used: Benson, Wall, Justham, Guttridge, Stevenson, Walker. Booked: Ruddock, Drury Southend: Bentley, White, Thompson, Bolger (Leonard 44), Binnom-Williams, Atkinson (Payne 46), Deegan, Clifford, Hurst, Weston, Coulthirst (Corr 46). Subs not used: Worrall, Timlin, Barnard, Paul Smith. Booked: Atkinson, Thompson, Corr, Clifford Referee: C Kavanagh (Lancashire)

8

2 1h 2 1h 1h 2

2

2 1a 1a 2

L 1a 3 1a 3 1h 1h 3 1h 1h 1a 1a 1a 1h 2 1h 2 1h 1h 1h 1a 3 1a 1a 1h

RUGBY Rugby union

Pool Five

Aviva Premiership Exeter London Welsh Northampton Saracens Northmpton Saracens Exeter Bath Gloucester Harlequins Leicester London Irish Wasps Sale Newcastle London Welsh

44 3 43 28 P W 6 5 6 5 6 4 5 4 6 3 6 3 6 3 6 2 5 2 6 2 6 2 6 0

London Irish Newcastle Sale Gloucester D L F 0 1 197 0 1 188 0 2 201 0 1 172 0 3 162 0 3 127 0 3 117 0 4 125 0 3 120 0 4 147 0 4 115 0 6 47

A 82 121 112 88 159 135 153 156 119 168 153 272

B 5 2 4 3 3 2 2 4 3 3 1 1

24 23 10 21 Pts 25 22 20 19 15 14 14 12 11 11 9 1

British & Irish Cup: Pool One Pontypridd

23

London Scottish

17

18

Ulster

14

27

Moseley

21

32

Doncaster

37

Pool Two Aberavon

Pool Three Munster A

Pool Four Cross Keys

Jersey 37 Carmarthen Quins 17 Plymouth Albion 24 Leinster 31 SSE National League One: Blaydon 29 Rosslyn Park 38; Cinderford 11 Coventry 15; Esher 32 Darlington Mowden Park 19; Hartpury College 24 Fylde 32; Macclesfield 24 Tynedale 60; Old Albanian 13 Loughborough Students 28; Richmond 16 Ealing Trailfinders 26; Wharfedale 12 Blackheath 52. League Two: North: Ampthill 25 Hull Ionians 15; Birmingham & Solihull 22 Leicester Lions 31; Broadstreet 24 Harrogate 28; Caldy 31 Huddersfield 22; Hull 18 Stourbridge 27; Otley 30 Luctonians 9; Sedgley Park 33 Preston Grasshoppers 31; Stockport 6 Chester 31.

South: Bishops Stortford 34 Taunton 20; Chinnor 42 Southend 21; Dorking 20 Launceston 17; Henley 37 Cambridge 5; Lydney 18 Worthing 17; Redruth 38 Canterbury 15; Shelford 28 Old Elthamians 33

Minor

North: SSE National League Three: Beverley 0 Sandal 51; Billingham 26 Westoe 5; Burnage 35 Wirral 23; Huddersfield YMCA 31 Cleckheaton 24; Lymm 10 Sale 32; Morley 26 Rossendale 35; Sheffield Tigers 13 Firwood Waterloo 21. First Division: East: Alnwick 22 Rochdale 40; Bradford & Bingley 17 Percy Park 15; Dinnington 13 Pocklington 6; Horden 20 Ilkley 63; Northern 43 West Hartlepool 13; Old Crossleyans 36 Driffield 7; Wheatley Hills 24 Sheffield 22. West: Birkenhead Park 31 Warrington 24; Bolton 11 Broughton Park 29; Eccles 13 Kirkby Lonsdale 38; Kendal 58 Wigton 10; New Brighton 28 Carlisle 32; Penrith 17 Vale of Lune 15; Wilmslow 22 Widnes 31 Midlands: SSE National League Three: Dudley Kingswinford 24 Burton 18; Hinckley 3 Bromsgrove 27; Lichfield 49 Bournville 19; Longton 17 South Leicester

30; Nuneaton 16 Scunthorpe 10; Old Halesonians 27 Sandbach 24; Peterborough Lions 28 Sutton Coldfield 19.

First Division: West: Earlsdon 20 Crewe and Nantwich 13; Hereford 17 Berkswell & Balsall 7; Kenilworth 41 Barkers Butts 10; Leek 23 Whitchurch 17; Newport 48 Walsall 10; Silhillians 15 Stratford Upon Avon 34; Stoke on Trent 25 Worcester Wanderers 29. East: Derby 29 Bugbrooke 32; Huntingdon & District 13 Belgrave 3; Ilkeston 15 Bedford Athletic 13; Kettering 58 Spalding 0; Mansfield 30 Paviors 24; Market Rasen & Louth 32 Old Northamptonians 25; Newark 18 Syston 29 London & South East: SSE National League Three: CS Rugby 1863 25 Amersham & Chiltern 23; East Grinstead 27 Chichester 5; London Irish Wild Geese 17 Bury St Edmunds 47; Tonbridge Juddian 18 Gravesend 18; Tring 25 Westcliff 41; Westcombe Park 38 Barnes 10. First Division: North: Brentwood 22 Thurrock 19; Eton Manor 45 Ruislip 17; Ipswich 21 Old Priorians 25; Letchworth Garden City 103 Woodford 0; North Walsham 26 Colchester 61; Romford & Gidea Park 5 Chingford 20.

South: Brighton 29 Basingstoke 24; Charlton Park 40 Twickenham 17; Chobham 12 Guildford 5; Gosport & Fareham 33 Dover 10; Hove 22 Havant 56; Sidcup 16 Sutton & Epsom 23; Wimbledon 43 Cobham 10 South West: SSE National League Three: Bracknell 31 Exmouth 37; Brixham 38 Bournemouth 26; Chard 18 Barnstaple 37; Hornets 25 Redingensians 18; Newton Abbot 43 Oxford Harlequins 40; Old Centralians 20 Old Redcliffians 8; Old Patesians 22 Weston-super-Mare 0. First Division: East: Devizes 21 Chippenham 36; Grove 36 Buckingham 12; Leighton Buzzard 85 Bletchley 20; Maidenhead 15 Windsor 21; Newbury Blues 31 Trowbridge 19; Reading 22 Towcestrians 52; Swindon 31 Witney 30. West: Cleve 31 Bideford 26; Clevedon 23 Avonmouth Old Boys 23; Cullompton 19 Thornbury 25; Drybrook 23 St Austell 20; Ivybridge 39 Camborne 32; Matson 32 Wells 12

Guinness PRO12 Edinburgh Ulster Zebre Glasgow Ospreys Ulster Munster Connacht Leinster Scarlets Edinburgh NG Dragons Cardiff Blues Zebre Benetton Treviso

24 29 3 P W 6 5 5 5 6 4 6 4 6 4 6 3 6 2 6 2 6 1 5 1 6 1 6 0

NG Dragons Glasgow Leinster D L F 0 1 176 0 0 157 1 1 156 0 2 130 1 1 94 0 3 151 2 2 139 1 3 84 0 5 95 1 3 109 0 5 74 0 6 67

A 118 69 76 77 102 104 124 149 131 146 146 190

B 21 17 17 14 10 16 17 7 8 10 7 6

10 9 20 Pts 23 22 22 19 18 16 14 11 7 7 5 1

Principality Building Society Welsh Premiership Cardiff Rugby 17 Newport 14 SWALEC Welsh Championship: Bargoed 23 Narberth 16; Bridgend Ath 29 Blackwood 21; Llanharan 32 Tondu 10; Merthyr 38 Swansea 37; Newbridge 15 Tata Steel 32; Pontypool 21 Cardiff Met 28; RGC 1404 43 Glynneath 13 SWALEC Welsh National League: First Division: East: Garndiffaith 28 Cardiff HSOB 26; Nelson 18 Glamorgan Wanderers 20; Penallta 55 Llanishen 18; Rhiwbina 34 Fleur De Lys 10; Risca 21 Blaenavon 15; Senghenydd 49 Rumney 5. West: Amman Utd 7 Newcastle Emlyn 25; Ammanford 20 Crymych 22; Felinfoel 55 Carmarthen Ath 17; Kidwelly 43 Gorseinon 5; Loughor 32 Llangennech 26; Tenby Utd

21 Whitland 23. North: Bala 11 Nant Conwy 25; Caernarfon 12 Llandudno 16; Cobra 16 Bro Ffestiniog 10; Mold 24 Denbigh 16; Pwllheli 13 Dolgellau 13; Ruthin 14 Bethesda 10

DAN MULLAN

BT Scottish Premiership

Ayr 20 Currie 11 Gala 32 Boroughmuir 6 Glasgow Hawks 14 Edinburgh Acads 13 Hawick 16 Stirling County 34 Melrose 44 Heriot’s 43 Scottish National League: First Division: Biggar 6 Watsonians 11; Hillhead/Jordanhill 15 Dundee HSFP 46; Jed-Forest 17 GHA 13; Kelso 25 Stewart’s Melville FP 27; Marr 21 Peebles 21; Selkirk 32 Aberdeen Grammar 12 Scottish Championship: League A: Ardrossan Acads 25 Kirkcaldy 17; Cartha QP 21 Howe of Fife 20; Falkirk 41 Livingston 7; Greenock Wanderers 7 Musselburgh 60; Haddington 14 Hamilton 52; Whitecraigs 10 Aberdeenshire 20. League B: Dunfermline 13 East Kilbride 27; Hawick YM 14 West of Scotland 29; Irvine 59 Murrayfield Wanderers 5; Lasswade 35 RHC 10; Perthshire 8 Dumfries 33; Preston Lodge FP 31 Dalziel 20

Rugby league

First Utility Super League Grand Final St Helens L Wigan L National Conference: Premier Division: East Leeds 26 Wigan St Patricks 34; West Hull 20 Thatto Heath Crusaders 10

Handy: Exeter’s Jack Nowell excels as the Chiefs beat London Irish 44-24

RACING GENERAL RESULTS

MATT BROWNE/ALAN CROWHURST

Title-race leader Ryan Moore has his eye on Ascot’s Champions Day, writes Andrew Longmore

12.10.14 / 17 69 69, C Masson (Ger) 72 67 66. 206 J Shin (US) 67 68 71, E Hee Ji (S Kor) 66 67 73. 207 A Munoz (Sp) 69 65 73, P Lindberg (Swe) 70 68 69, M Jung Hur (S Kor) 71 67 69

Cricket

Gymnastics

MLB American League Championship Series: Baltimore 6 Kansas 8 (Kansas lead series 1-0)

Second ODI : India v West Indies (Delhi, India won toss): India 263-7 (S K Raina 62, V Kohli 62, M S Dhoni 51no) v West Indies 215 (D R Smith 97; Mohammed Shami 4-36) India won by 48 runs

Golf

European PGA Tour Portugal Masters (Vilamoura): Leaders after second round (GB & Ire unless stated): 124 A Levy (Fr) 63 61. 127 N Colsaerts (Bel) 60 67.

129 F Aguilar (Chile) 65 64. 131 R Bland 66 65, R Wattel (Fr) 67 64, M Orum Madsen (Den) 65 66. 132 C Wood 68 64, D Willett 65 67, G Bourdy (Fr) 67 65, S Jamieson 63 69, M Hoey 65 67. 133 T Aiken (SA) 66 67, T Fleetwood 68 65, P Waring 67 66, A Otaegui (Sp) 63 70, R Bello (Sp) 64 69 US PGA Tour Frys.com Open (Napa, California): Leaders after second round (US unless stated; *denotes amateur): 134 M Laird (Sco) 67 67. 135 Z Blair 69 66, S Bae (S Kor) 66 69. 136 S Langley 70 66, M Hubbard 71 65, D Lingmerth (Swe) 68 68. 137 H Matsuyama (Jap) 70 67. 138 H Mahan 70 68, B Koepka 68 70, T Gillis 70 68, C Tringale 69 69. 139 S Brown 71 68, *C Wilson 71 68, H Swafford 70 69, C Knost 68 71, M Kuchar 71 68, A Hadwin (Can) 70 69, C Percy (Aus) 69 70, B Smith 73 66, B Molder 70 69, S Appleby (Aus) 69 70 LPGA Sime Darby (Kuala Lumpur): Leaders after third round: 199 P Phatlum (Thai) 67 67 65. 202 A Uehara (Jap) 70 63 69. 203 S Ryu (S Kor) 66 65 72, C Choi (S Kor) 69 66 68, L Ko (NZ) 69 64 70, S Feng (China) 67 67 69. 204 N Choi (S Kor) 66 70 68, A Jutanugarn (Thai) 69 71 64, Il-Hee Lee (S Kor) 70 66 68. 205 J Shadoff (Eng) 69 64 72, M Lee (S Kor) 71 67 67, S Young Yoo (S Kor) 70 67 68, M hyang Lee (S Kor) 67

A

new award was announced last month to honour the world’s best Flat jockey. It was based on a system of points accumulated in the major races around the world during the season. A nice idea on paper, the award’s main drawback was quickly revealed when, on points scored so far, Joseph O’Brien was deemed the world’s No 1 rider.

The flaw, though, was not that young Joseph topped the list but that Ryan Moore didn’t. He was a couple of points behind O’Brien and ChristopheSoumilloninthird.Backtothe drawing board.

Late last week, Moore was still clinging on to his slender lead over his great friend, Richard Hughes, in the jockeys’ championship and, though his stated priority now is winning big races on the big days, the idea of claiming his fourth title is starting to worm away at his competitive spirit. A rare day off last week was spent helping with a birthday party for his children, but as Hughes, the defending champion, took time off as well, the protracted duel for the title was put on hold for 24 hours.

“If Hughsie wins it, he deserves it,” says Moore with his usual equanimity. “He’s put in the miles and he’s excellent at what he does. You need someone to keep pushing you and he’s pushing me all the time. It’s not just him. Plenty of others in the weighing room are doing the same.”

Quantifying Moore’s position in the pantheon of great jockeys is hard, not least because the man himself has no apparent interest in the subject. He judges himself on the video every evening and he will make a final judgment when his time is done. In the meantime, he is too busy trying to figure out a way to win the next race. But, with Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday a showcase for the talent of rider and horse, others are more than happy to put Moore’s status into proper perspective.

“To me, he’s Flat racing’s AP McCoy,” says Jeremy Noseda, the Classic-winning Newmarket trainer. “There can be no higher accolade than that. He’s very serious about his job, very intense and utterly professional. When he walks into the paddock, whether it’s a small meeting on Monday or a Group race on a Saturday, he will have done his homework. He’ll know about the other horses, he’ll know where the pace is, so you just have to tell him about your horse. He

Baseball

Motorcycling MotoGP Championship, 15th round: Japanese Grand Prix (Motegi): Leading final qualifying positions: First row: 1 A Dovizioso (It, Ducati) 1min 44.502sec, 2 V Rossi (It, Yamaha) 1:44.557, 3 D Pedrosa (Sp, Honda) 1:44.755. Second row: 4 M Marquez (Sp, Honda) 1:44.775, 5 J Lorenzo (Sp, Yamaha) 1:44.784, 6 A Iannone (It, Ducati) 1:44.854. Third row: 7 P Espargaro (Sp, Yamaha) 1:44.867, 8 Cal Crutchlow (GB, Ducati) 1:44.898. Other: 10 B Smith (GB, Yamaha) 1:45.044

Tennis ATP Shanghai Rolex Masters (China): Semi finals: R Federer (Swi) bt N Djokovic (Serbia) 6-4 6-4 G Simon bt F Lopez 6-2 7-6 WTA Japan Open (Osaka): Semi finals: S Stosur (Aus) bt E Svitolina (Ukr) 7-6 6-2. Z Diyas (Kaz) bt L Kumkhum (Thai) 6-2 7-5

RACING RESULTS York

Going: Good to soft (soft in places)

JOCKEYING FOR POLE POSITION

Tight rein: Ryan Moore, who is trying to regain the Flat jockeys’ championship he last won in 2009, steers Marvellous to Irish 1,000 Guineas glory in May makes life very easy. He’s the best jockey of his generation. Like Piggott or Cauthen or Eddery before him, we’re now in the Ryan Moore era.”

At Ascot recently, Moore rode two horses for Noseda, one was a winner,theotherwasbeatenashort head. Noseda was on his way to New York to saddle a runner at Belmont Park. No sooner had he landed than Moore was on the phone, not to tell him about the winner but to apologise about the loser. “He will ring you before the race and he will ring you after the race and though people think he’s not very cooperative sometimes, he’s actually quite shy,” Noseda adds. “On the track, he keepsitsimple,buthecanrideevery type of race and every type of horse.”

At Ascot on Saturday, Moore will renew his partnership with the Queen’s Estimate, who showed every sign of being back to her best in winning the Doncaster Cup last month. The delight which lit up the owner’s face as Estimate won the 2013 Gold Cup was matched only by the broad smile of the jockey back in the winners’ enclosure. Moore’s Group One winners are usually greeted with a touch of the cap and the faintest nod of the head, but this one lingered rather longer in Moore’s mind.

“The fact it was for the Queen made the whole day very special,” he says. “Maybe we can win again on Saturday because I think Estimate is as good as she’s ever been and she loves Ascot. When she came back, she wasn’t quite right, but she

rarely runs a bad race and to win any race in the Queen’s colours is special.”

Another image of Moore sticks in the mind, from the day at the Cheltenham Festival when his brother, Jamie, rode Sire de Grugy to win the Champion Chase for their father, Gary Moore. Ryan was there on a memorable day for the whole Moore clan, but you won’t find him in many of the photographs.

“It was nothing to do with me,” he says. “It was a special day for them and I wanted to be there.”

Moore rejects the idea that his own work ethic might, in some way, have been inherited from his father, who most days can be found mucking out at his dual purpose stables in Sussex.

“No, they’re different altogether

from me,” he says. “My life is all about preparing for racing and keeping in good shape. They’re grafting hard every morning and then going to the races.

“I’m lucky because only a handful of us in the weighing room can make a good living. It’s a tough sport for most in there.” So what does Moore think when Richard Hughes, the champion, calls him the best jockey in the world? “He’s probably kidding,” Moore says. “I don’t take much notice of it. You can be knocked back down all too easily.

He’s probably wrong anyway.” Not many think so these days.

0 The Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday, October 18, is the £3.75m climax to a season-long series and features championship races in five different categories.

1.50 (1m 208yd) 1 Imshivalla (J Garritty, 25/1); 2 Examiner (7/1 co-fav); 3 Braidley (8/1). Also ran: Indy, Lily Rules 7/1 co-favs. 11 ran. 1l, 2l. R Fahey. Tote: £27.10; £7.00, £2.50, £2.90. Exacta £267.10. CSF: £185.80. Tricast £1,568.81. Trifecta: £1,704.20 2.20 (1m 2f 88yd) 1 Sudden Wonder (A Kirby, 13/2); 2 Fattsota (5/1); 3 Educate (8/1). Also ran: First Flight 100/30 fav. 9 ran. NR: Balty Boys, Silvery Moon. Hd, 1½l. C Appleby. Tote: £7.20; £2.20, £2.00, £2.20.

Exacta: £39.60. CSF: £37.06. Tricast £257.41. Trifecta: £432.70 2.55 (6f) 1 Mattmu (D Allan, 2/1 fav); 2 Bond’s Girl (11/4); 3 Fanciful Angel (5/1). 7 ran. NR: Charming Thought, Hatchet Harry, Rosie’s Premiere. 2¼l, 2l. T Easterby. Tote: £2.50; £1.60, £1.70. Exacta: £6.00.

CSF: £7.31. Trifecta £22.30 3.30 (6f) 1 Spinatrix (C Beasley, 12/1); 2 Highland Acclaim (14/1); 3 Another Wise Kid (20/1); 4 Rene Mathis (14/1). Also ran: Aetna 5/1 fav. 19 ran. NR: Lancelot Du Lac. ¾l, 2¼l. M Dods. Tote £13.00; £2.60, £4.30, £3.10, £4.30. Exacta: £260.20. CSF £156.10.

Tricast: £3,428.05. Trifecta: £9,159.40 4.10 (7f) 1 Mutamakkin (G Gibbons, 7/2); 2 Nebulla (20/1); 3 Navigate (17/2). Also ran: Akeed Champion 6-5 fav. 11 ran. NR: Humphry Repton, Royal Roman.

1¾l, ½l. Sir M Stoute. Tote £4.10; £1.60, £6.10, £3.00.

Exacta: £106.40. CSF: £76.36. Trifecta: £333.10 4.45 (2m 2f) 1 Kashmiri Sunset (D Tudhope, 7/4 fav); 2 Hidden Justice (20/1); 3 Mister Pagan (14/1); 4 Caledonia (10/1). 16 ran. NR: Kiwayu, Longshadow. 3¾l, sh hd. E De Giles. Tote £2.50; £1.50, £4.80, £3.20, £2.80. Exacta: £57.80. CSF £47.18. Tricast: £408.85.

Trifecta £600.40 5.20 (1m 2f 88yd) 1 Open Eagle (D Tudhope, 9/1), 2 Ginger Jack (12/1); 3 Ribblehead (8/1 jt-fav); 4 Lungarno Palace (20/1). Also ran: Giantstepsahead 8/1 jt-fav. 19 ran. NR: Shouranour. 1¼l, nk. D O’Meara. Tote: £10.60; £3.10, £3.00, £2.70, £6.20. Exacta £181.20.

CSF: £105.82. Tricast £921.63. Trifecta £1,638.90 Placepot: £1,104.50

Awesome Australia retired to stud after injury Aidan O’Brien rates dual Derby winner as one of the best he has ever trained, writes Donn McClean stalls, gave his rivals a five-length start, was green and gormless and was beaten by a neck. Three weeks later, same course and distance, he went back and got it right.

That win set the Aidan O’Brien-trained colt up for a juveniles’ Leopardstown showdown with Free Eagle, then the 2014 Derby favourite, in which Australia prevailed by six lengths.

The feeling afterwards was that all had not been well with the beaten favourite, but it didn’t matter.

Australia had won.

All the while, you were in no doubt about the regard in which O’Brien held the young colt.

When the trainer said that he

could be the best one that he had ever trained, your head went into a spin. Better than Galileo, better than Giant’s Causeway, better than Hawk Wing, better than Rock Of Gibraltar.

There was talk of Australia’s homework, talk of five-furlong speed in a middle-distance horse’s body. Third in the 2,000 Guineas on his first run as a three-year-old, he went and won the Derby on his second.

It was important that Australia won at Epsom. He was bred to win it — by a Derby winner out of an Oaks winner — and he was backed to do so. He travelled best of all down the hill, wide of the rail, moved easily up the home straight, picked up impressively at the two-furlong pole and stayed on well to hold off the

persistent challenge of Kingston Hill. A measure of the quality of that performance lies in the fact that Kingston Hill went on to win the St Leger and finish fourth in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last Sunday from the widest draw.

It is a pity that Australia did not run in the Arc. He won the Irish Derby easily in June, and put up a really impressive performance to win the Juddmonte International at York in August before a surprise defeat in the Irish Champion Stakes three weeks before the Arc. There were excuses that day. He was brought very wide into the straight and succumbed to a sucker punch from The Grey Gatsby. Despite all that went wrong, he was still only beaten a neck.

Next Saturday’s British Champions Day at Ascot

8 0U45-5 BENEFITOFHINDSIGHT 135 H Evans5 10 10.. ... ... .... ... ... ....J Best 9 00040- NASH POINT 185 (T,P) T Vaughan5 10 10... .... ... ... ... ..A Johns (8) 10 533-36 KAPRICORNE 141 (T) Mrs S Leech7 10 6. ... ... .... ... ... .K Moore (3) 11 2UU65- HECTOR’S HOUSE 151 (S) Mrs N Evans8 10 0.. ... ... .C Shoemark 12 2/4P4- KINGSPARK BOY 174 (G,S) D Rees7 10 0. ... ... ....T Cheesman (5) Betting: 4-1 Barton Heather, 5-1 Gwili Spar, 6-1 Kapricorne, 13-2 Abbeygrey, 7-1 Nash Point, 15-2 Bally Braes, 8-1 Benefitofhindsight, 11-1 Pennant Dancer, 12-1 Nicky Nutjob, 20-1 Hector’s House, 25-1 Kingspark Boy, 100-1 Gair Leat Davies Chemists Maiden Open National Hunt Flat Race £1,642: 2m (9) 1 ABBIMOR 88 Mrs D Hamer6 11 0.... ... ... ... .... ... .... B Moorcroft (5) 2 GIFTED ISLAND T Vaughan4 11 0. ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ..M Byrne 3 KINARI P Bowen4 11 0.. ... .... ... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... ...J E Moore 4 35 KING OF ALL KINGS 17 (P) P Bowen4 11 0.. .... ... ... ..M Barber (7) 5 2- ROCK THE KASBAH 190 (BF) P Hobbs4 11 0 .... ... ... ....R Johnson 6 034 ROYAL CRAFTSMAN 15 P Bowen4 11 0. ... ... ... .... ... ...D Devereux 7 1- SCORPIANCER 231 (S) Miss R Curtis5 11 0 .... ... ... ..T Scudamore 8 3- SIR IVAN 185 (BF) H Fry4 11 0. ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... ...N Feh ly 9 3-2 SOLSTICE STAR 152 M Keighley4 11 0. ... ... ... .... ... ... .K Moore (5)

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Joseph O’Brien: in the saddle for all five of Australia‘s victories

was always the target for Australia after his defeat at Leopardstown.

The Champion Stakes over 10 furlongs would have been the logical race for him, but there remained the intriguing prospect of dropping back down to a mile to run in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes instead. Alas, an abscess in his foot meant that he was not going to make it to Ascot and instead he will head to Coolmore Stud as a stallion.

It is a shame that Australia will not race on next year. Of course, it is the owners’ prerogative.

Commercial reality dictates.

Frankel raced on at four and enriched the 2012 season. Sea The Stars did not and retired after he won the Arc de Triomphe as a three-year-old in 2009, and racing was much poorer for his absence Timeform awarded Australia a rating of 132+, 4lb lower than Hawk Wing, so not Aidan O’Brien’s best ever. But the + is crucial, the potential for more.

The regret is that we will not know how much more.

Quadpot: £66.20

Musselburgh

Going: Good (good to soft in places) 1.55 (7f 30yd) 1 Henrytheaeroplane (G Chaloner, 11/8 fav); 2 Ythan Waters (6/1); 3 Thankstomonty (9/2). 8 ran. NR: Toot Your Flute. 4½l, 2l. R Fahey. Tote £1.90; £1.10, £1.70, £2.30. Exacta: £11.90. CSF: £9.69.

Trifecta £46.70 2.30 (1m 1f) 1 An Cat Dubh (D Muscutt, 9/1); 2 Silver Duke (14/1); 3 Call Of Duty (12/1). Also ran: Brooke’s Bounty 4/1 fav. 12 ran. NR: Funding Deficit, Toboggan Star. Nk, 1½l. T Pitt. Tote: £12.00; £2.90, £5.30, £3.40.

Exacta: £216.90. CSF: £127.31. Tricast: £1,544.92.

Trifecta £1,594.90 3.00 (5f) 1 Zuhoor Baynoona (G Chaloner, 11/2); 2 Lightscameraction (11/4 jt/fav); 3 She’s A Worldie (11/4 jt/fav). 5 ran. NR: Miss Mulberry, Glenbuck Lass.

4l, 1½l. R Fahey. Tote: £5.70; £3.50, £1.10. Exacta: £19.40. CSF: £20.24. Trifecta £48.30 3.35 (1m 5f) 1 Titus Bolt (G Bartley, 9/1); 2 Clear Spell (6/1); 3 Gold Chain (16/1). Also ran: Right Of Appeal 4/1 fav. 12 ran. NR: El Bravo, Ronald Gee. Nk, hd. J Goldie.

Tote £10.60; £4.10, £1.20, £4.10. Exacta: £69.80.

CSF: £61.15. Tricast £858.32. Trifecta: £833.10 4.15 (5f) 1 One Chance (D Muscutt, 6/1); 2 Borderlescott (14/1); 3 Kickboxer (4/5 fav). 8 ran. ½l, hd. J Butler. Tote £9.80; £2.20, £3.10, £1.10. Exacta: £70.80. CSF: £84.05. Trifecta: £246.10 4.50 (1m 6f) 1 Chesil Beach (S Hitchcott, 7/2); 2 Altaayil (7/2); 3 Thorntoun Care (11/1). Also ran: Swivel 11/4 fav. 7 ran. 1l, 6l. A Balding. Tote £3.90; £2.80, £2.50. Exacta: £11.90. CSF £14.89. Trifecta: £101.60 5.25 (5f) 1 Flash City (J Sullivan, 13/2); 2 Classy Anne (3/1 fav); 3 Jinky (6/1). 11 ran. 1l, 1l. R Carr. Tote £7.80; £3.40, £1.20, £2.30. Exacta: £31.10. CSF: £25.20.

Tricast: £126.27. Trifecta £121.10 Placepot: £71.00

IT IS always a source of regret among racing fans when a topclass racehorse retires from the track. When that racehorse is as good as Australia was, and still had the potential to improve further, that sense of regret is heightened.

Australia was high-profile even before he set foot on a racecourse.

It wasn’t just that he was himself a son of two champion racehorses,

by Galileo out of Ouija Board, but reports of impressive homework accompanied him to the racetrack for his debut at The Curragh on Irish Derby weekend in June last year.

Things did not go to plan that day. He was slow to leave the

World Championships (Nanning, China): Finals: Men: Floor: 1 D Ablyazin (Rus) 15.750pts, 2 K Shirai (Jap) 15.733, 3 D Hypolito (Bra). Pommel horse: 1. K Berki (Hun) 16.033, 2 F Ude (Cro) 15.783, 3 C Tommasone (Fr) 15.600. Other: D Keatings (GB) 15.133. Rings: 1 L Yang (China) 15.933, 2 A Zanetti (Bra) 15.733, 3. D Ablyazin (Rus) 15.700. Other: 6 C Tulloch (GB) 15.400.

Women: Vault: 1 H Un Jong (N Kor) 15.599, 2 S Biles (US) 15.554, 3 M Skinner (US) 15.366. Other: 5 C Fragapane (Gb) 14.716. Uneven bars: Y Jinnan (China) 15.633, 2 H Huidan (China) 15.566, D Spiridonova (Rus). Other: 5 R Downie (GB) 15.166, 8 R Harrold (GB) 13.666

Quadpot: £8.30

Chepstow

Going: Good to soft (soft in places) 2.00 (2m 110yd hdle) 1 Karezak (W Hutchinson, 3/1); 2 Golden Doyen (8/1); 3 Russian Bolero (5/1). Also ran: Full Blast 9/4 fav. 12 ran. NR: Maid Of Tuscany. Hd, 22l.

A King. Tote: £4.70; £1.50, £2.40, £1.90. Exacta: £25.00. CSF £27.02. Trifecta £195.50 2.35 (2m 4f hdle) 1 Shelford (H Skelton, 6/4); 2 Emerging Talent (5/4 fav); 3 Flying Bandit (8/1). 10 ran.

2¼l, 19l. D Skelton. Tote: £2.50; £1.10, £1.20, £2.70.

Exacta: £4.60. CSF: £3.94. Trifecta £17.00 3.05 (2m 4f hdle) 1 Relentless Dreamer (B Geraghty, 5/1); 2 Bandit Country (7/1); 3 Bincombe (4/1). Also ran: Truckers Steel 11/4 fav. 9 ran. 4½l, 15l. R Curtis.

Tote £6.60; £2.50, £3.00, £1.90. Exacta: £28.90. CSF: £37.83. Trifecta: £152.20 3.40 (2m 3f 110yd ch) 1 Southfield Theatre (S Twiston/Davies, 5/6 fav); 2 Monkey Kingdom (100/30); 3 Broadway Buffalo (9/2). 6 ran. NR: Colour Squadron.

7l, 27l. P Nicholls. Tote: £1.60; £1.10, £2.70. Exacta: £4.00. CSF: £4.17. Trifecta £9.70 4.20 (2m 110yd hdle) 1 Bertimont (H Skelton, 12/1); 2 Dawalan (13/8 fav); 3 Manhattan Swing (7/2). 7 ran.

16l, ¾l. D Skelton. Tote £14.20; £3.90, £2.00. Exacta: £40.80. CSF £32.76. Trifecta £302.90 4.55 (2m 4f hdle) 1 Boondooma (C Ward, 2/1 fav); 2 Peckhamecho (10/1); 3 Colebrooke (8/1). 9 ran. 6l, 7l.

Dr R Newland. Tote £3.20; £2.30, £2.90, £3.60.

Exacta: £30.10. CSF £22.36. Tricast: £132.89. Trifecta: £211.70 5.30 (3m ch) 1 Victors Serenade (D O’Regan, 16/1); 2 Monbeg Dude (14/1); 3 Handy Andy (20/1). Also ran: Highland Lodge 9/4 fav. 15 ran. 2l, 2l. A Honeyball. Tote: £24.60; £6.40, £3.70, £7.20. Exacta £291.70. CSF: £201.79. Tricast: £4475.41. Trifecta: £1,091.50 6.00 (2m 110yd) 1 Duke Des Champs (R Johnson, 9/4); 2 Herbert Park (6/1); 3 Murphys Way (2/1 fav).

10 ran. 2l, 5l. P Hobbs. Tote £4.10; £1.50, £2.10, £1.10.

Exacta: £16.00. CSF £16.01. Trifecta: £39.60 Placepot: £38.40

Quadpot: £14.80

Newmarket

Going: Good

2.05 (1m) 1 Commemorative (J Doyle, 10/1); 2 Restorer (33/1); 3 Future Empire (11/4 fav). 9 ran. NR: Hail Clodius. 1l, 1½l. C Hills. Tote: £11.40; £2.50, £7.00, £1.50. Exacta: £709.40. CSF: £274.70. Trifecta: £779.40 2.40 (1m 2f) 1 Albasharah (F Tylicki, 5/1 fav); 2 Talmada (8/1); 3 Wahgah (20/1). 17 ran. NR: Audacia, Island Remede. 3½l, 4½l. S Bin Suroor. Tote £6.10; £1.80, £2.70, £6.30. Exacta £39.40. CSF: £35.49.

Trifecta £1,281.90

3.10 (1m 4f) 1 Farquhar (L Morris, 40/1); 2 Adventure Seeker (22/1); 3 Cinnilla (25/1); 4 Knife Point (25/1).

Also ran: Connecticut 7/1 fav. 24 ran. Hd, 1l. P Chapple/Hyam. CSF: £752.38. Tricast: £20,088.72.

Trifecta: £2,991.80 3.50 (2m 2f) 1 Big Easy (T Queally, 10/1); 2 De Rigueur (25/1); 3 Quick Jack (5/1 fav); 4 Brass Ring (16/1). 33 ran. ¾l, sh hd. B Hobbs. Tote: £9.90; £3.00, £5.90, £2.50, £4.30. Exacta: £196.50. CSF: £242.10. Tricast: £1,439.62. Trifecta: £460.00 4.25 (7f) 1 Irish Rookie (L Keniry, 50/1); 2 Sharqeyih (10/1); 3 Tazffin (20/1). Also ran: Twitch 3/1 fav. 17 ran.

Nk, hd. M Meade. Tote: £57.30; £11.50, £2.80, £5.80.

Exacta £1,196.30. CSF: £480.83. Trifecta: £1,653.20.

Jackpot: Not won (pool of £30,755.02 c/f to Goodwood today) 5.05 (6f) 1 Parsley (R Hughes, 1/14 fav); 2 White Vin Jan (8/1). 2 ran. NR: War Alert. 8l. R Hannon. Tote: £1.10 5.40 (1m 2f) 1 Pasaka Boy (D Brock, 10/1); 2 Truth Or Dare (14/1); 3 Qanan (12/1). Also ran: Enobled 4/1 fav.

12 ran. NR: Missed Call. 4½l, ns. J Portman. Tote: £14.80; £4.60, £4.10, £4.10. Exacta: £225.10. CSF: £136.33. Tricast £1,700.23. Trifecta: £948.80 Placepot: £3,201.20

Quadpot: £586.20

Hexham

Going: Good to soft 2.10 (2m 4f 110yd ch) 1 Cobajayisland (P Buchanan, 7/1); 2 Carlanstown (3/1 fav); 3 Carlos Fandango (17/2). NR: Blue Kascade, Shady Sadie. Hd, 11l. L Russell. Tote: £7.10; £2.00, £1.50, £2.50. Exacta: £19.10. CSF £28.73. Tricast £179.54. Trifecta: £800.20 2.45 (2m 110yd hdle) 1 Be My Present (D Bourke, 7/4 fav); 2 Nautical Twilight (20/1); 3 I C Gold (3/1). 10 ran.

25l, ns. J Ewart. Tote: £3.40; £2.30, £3.30, £1.10.

Exacta £28.90. CSF £40.51. Trifecta £74.60 3.20 (2m 4f 110yd ch) 1 Clondaw Knight (P Buchanan, 5/2 fav); 2 Qoubilai (6/1); 3 Allanard (9/1). 8 ran. ½l, 12l. L Russell. Tote: £2.80; £1.02, £1.70, £3.40. Exacta: £18.70. CSF £17.46. Tricast £112.86. Trifecta: £42.70 3.55 (3m hdle) 1 Bless The Wings (K Renwick, 11/1); 2 Solway Sam (100/30 fav); 3 Sentimentaljourney (16/1).

9 ran. 1¼l, 7l. G Elliott. Tote: £7.40; £3.10, £1.10, £5.40.

Exacta £24.30. CSF £47.78. Tricast £590.97. Trifecta: £679.80 4.35 (2m 4f 110yd hdle) 1 Ride The Range (B Hughes, 13/8 fav); 2 Uisge Beatha (100/30); 3 Galleons Way (22/1). 8 ran. Hd, 23l. C Grant. Tote: £2.20; £1.02, £1.40, £4.00. Exacta: £7.40. CSF £7.33. Trifecta: £111.70 5.10 (2m 110yd ch) 1 Shine A Diamond (G Watters, 85/40 fav); 2 Milan Royale (8/1); 3 Crackerjack Lad (18/1). 8 ran. 7l, 1¼l. L Russell. Tote: £2.20; £1.10, £2.10, £5.20. Exacta £22.10. CSF: £19.23. Tricast: £237.90. Trifecta: £223.40 5.45 (2m 110yd) 1 Luccombe Down (D Pratt, 5/2 fav); 2 Iffjack (9/1); 3 Solway Prince (8/1). 14 ran. ½l, 4l. J Quinn. Tote: £2.50; £1.20, £2.90, £2.90. Exacta: £23.80. CSF £25.53. Trifecta: £95.50 Placepot: £23.10

Quadpot: £9.50

Wolverhampton Going: Standard

5.50 (5f 216yd) 1 Random (S Donohoe, 16/1); 2 Major Muscari (9/1); 3 Prince Of Passion (50/1). Also ran: Lucky Mark 7/2 fav. 13 ran. 1¾l, 1l. D Loughnane. Tote: £16.60; £3.50, £3.30, £15.10. Exacta £182.40. CSF: £137.73. Tricast: £6,827.44. Trifecta: £1,399.10 6.20 (5f 216yd) 1 Cartmell Cleave (M Lane, 12/1); 2 Lyfka (4/1); 3 Treaty Of York (7/2). Also ran: Burauq 3/1 fav. 10 ran. NR: Aqlette, Arizona Snow, Shimmering Silver. 2½l, nk. W Kittow. Tote: £18.80; £4.30, £1.40, £1.20. Exacta £119.60. CSF: £58.95. Tricast £211.78

Fairyhouse

Going: Good (good to yielding in places) 2.15 (2m hdle) 1 The Herds Garden (P Carberry, 5/4 fav); 2 Redrobin (6/1); 3 Scorpion Star (50/1); 4 Some Drama (12/1). 16 ran. NR: Poznan Pilot, Royal Sea Breeze, Uncle Paddys Hill. 5l, 3l. N Meade. Tote: €1.60; €1.90, €3.10, €4.20. Exacta: €17.20. CSF: €9.55 2.50 (2m 4f hdle) 1 Sheamus (M Enright, 7/4 fav); 2 Coul€ France (3/1); 3 Mill Forge (25/1). 15 ran. NR: Lottolove, Young Palm. 1¾l, ½l. D Hughes. Tote: €2.00; €2.00, €2.80, €3.40. Exacta: €8.40. CSF: €6.53 3.25 (2m ch) 1 The King Of Brega (R Colgan, 7/4 fav); 2 Formal Bid (9/1); 3 Prima Vista (100/30). 8 ran. ½l, hd. P Downey. Tote: €3.60; €2.50, €1.02, €1.10. Exacta: €16.80. CSF: €17.38 4.00 (2m 5f ch) 1 Painted Lady (R Power, 10/1); 2 Ballychorus (9/4); 3 Pumped Up Kicks (7/2). Also ran: Theatre Bird 7/4 fav. 9 ran. 9l, 1¾l. J Harrington. Tote: €9.70; €1.90, €1.30, €1.30. Exacta: €27.90. CSF: €31.97 4.30 (2m 4f hdle) 1 Forjoethepainter (M Fogarty, 20/1); 2 Lindas Choice (7/1); 3 Vic Approach (5/1 fav); 4 Knocklayde Vic (10/1). 16 ran. NR: Cyras Love, Lapse Of Reason, Moneyteigue Lad. 2½l, ½l. A Mulholland.

Tote: €26.00; €2.80, €2.00, €2.10, €5.50. Exacta: €236.90. CSF: €154.62. Tricast: €837.10 5.00 (2m hdle) 1 It’s All An Act (M Enright, 7/2 fav); 2 Bank The Bucks (9/2); 3 Golden Ticket (9/2). 13 ran.

NR: Manuka. 2½l, 15l. J Hanlon. Tote: €4.70; €2.00, €2.10, €1.80. Exacta: €27.30. CSF: €19.82. Tricast: €75.43 5.35 (2m) 1 Snow Falcon (N Carberry, 8/13 fav); 2 Marys Choice (40/1); 3 Rock N Rhythm (13/2). 11 ran.

NR: Ange D’Or Javilex. ¾l, 3l. N Meade. Tote: €1.50; €1.02, €6.20, €3.00. Exacta: €63.00. CSF: €47.89

This week

Today: Goodwood (2pm); Ffos Las (2.15pm) Tomorrow. Salisbury (2.20pm); Sedgefield (2.10pm); Windsor (2pm); The Curragh(2.05pm); Limerick (2.25pm) Tuesday. Huntingdon (2.20pm); Leicester (2.10pm); Newcastle (2pm); Wolverhampton (A/W, 5.30pm) Wednesday. Kempton Park (A/W, 5.45pm); Lingfield Park (A/W, 2pm); Nottingham (2.10pm); Wetherby (2.20pm); Punchestown (2.15pm) Thursday. Brighton (2.10pm); Uttoxeter (2pm); Wincanton (2.20pm); Wolverhampton (A/W, 5.30pm); Punchestown (2.15pm) Friday. Cheltenham (2.05pm); Haydock Park (2pm); Newmarket (1.50pm); Redcar (1.55pm); Wolverhampton (A/W, 5.50pm); Downpatrick (2.15pm); Dundalk (6.10pm) Saturday. Ascot (1.45pm); Catterick Bridge (1.55pm); Cheltenham (2pm); Kelso (2.10pm); Wolverhampton (A/W, 6.15pm); Cork (2.05pm) Flat meetings in bold

TODAY’S RACING Ffos Las Going: Good to Soft - Soft in places

Betting: 6-4 Ballyhollow, 9-4 The Govaness, 100-30 Rons Dream, 8-1 Theregoesthetruth, 16-1 Miss Probus Weatherbys Stallion Book Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase £6,498:3m (7) 1 21010- CAROLE’S DESTRIER 192 (S) N Mulho land6 11 8... ... ... .M Byrne 2 15311- LAMPS 209 (H,V,G,S) M Blake7 11 2.. .... ... ... ... .... ... ... N Scholfield 3 31144- ROYAL PLAYER 180 (S) P Hobbs5 11 2. ... ... .... ... ... ... ..R Johnson 4 240-V1 BIG CASINO 137 (G,S) N Twiston-Davies8 11 0S Twiston Davies 5 1/231- DOING FINE 323 (T,S) Miss R Curtis6 10 13. .... ... ... ...J M Maguire 6 -21332 KILBREE KID 23 (T,P,D,F,G,S) T George7 10 12... ... ... ...P Brennan 7 -31344 HIGH KITE 26 (B,CD,BF,G) W Greatrex8 10 3... ... .... ... .G Sheehan

Trustmark Design And Print Handicap 3.55 2.15 Hurdle £3,119: 2m 4f (9) 1 03U0-3 CHURCH HALL 164 (S) Miss E Baker6 11 12.. ... ... ... ..J Banks (5) 2 1UP50- BATU FERRINGHI 205 (P,C,G,S) J Snowden8 11 11 ... ... .B Powell 3 02112U GOLDIE HORN 18 (T,G) N Tw ston-Dav es6 11 11S Twiston Davies 4 4/403- AUDACIOUS PLAN 205 Miss R Curtis5 11 10. ... .... .T Scudamore 5 6P-515 GRAPE TREE FLAME 21 (P,G) P Bowen6 11 9... ... .... ... ..J E Moore 6 0P-21P WHO AM I 105 (H,CD,S) Mrs D Hamer8 11 0.. .... ... ....Tom O’Br en 7 -62002 PRINCE PIPPIN 51 (T,D,F,G,S) L Jones8 10 13.... ... Ms L Jones (7) 8 /P0-5P LITTLEDEAN JIMMY 118 (F,S) John O’Shea9 10 8. ... .C McKee (7) 9 00-021 MAC LE COUTEAU 51 (H,CD,G) E W lliams6 10 6.. ... ... ...A Wedge Betting: 100-30 Audacious Plan, 7-2 Mac Le Couteau, 5-1 Goldie Horn, Grape Tree Flame, 15-2 Batu Ferringhi, Prince Pippin, 9-1 Who Am I, 16-1 Church Hall, 100-1 Littledean Jimmy

Susan Andrews Memorial Handicap 2.45 Chase £3,768: 2m 5f (7) 1 253144 CARDIGAN ISLAND 21 (T,D,F,G) D Burchell9 11 12Miss J Hughes 2 P4-303 FRONTIER SPIRIT 21 (V,CD,G,S) N Twiston-Davies10 11 11R Hatch 3 05324- MISTER GREZ 172 (B,CD,G,S) D Skelton8 11 11... ... ... ....H Skelton 4 -64313 LAVA LAMP 48 (C,F,G,S) E Williams7 11 5.. ... ... ... .... ... ...A Wedge 5 00-642 COMEHOMEQUIETLY 51 (C,G,S) Mrs D Hamer10 11 5..P Moloney 6 0/444- THE OULD LAD 225 (BF,S) T George6 11 3... ... ... .... ... .P Brennan 7 26-053 UNFORGETTABLE 13 (V,T,G,S) P Bowen11 11 3.. ... ... .... ...C Poste Betting: 3-1 Cardigan Island, 4-1 Mister Grez, 9-2 Frontier Spirit, 11-2 Lava Lamp, 6-1 Comehomequietly, 15-2 Unforgettable, 9-1 The Ould Lad Tanners Wines Mares’ “National Hunt” Maiden Hurdle £3,119: 2m (5) 1 5213- BALLYHOLLOW 218 (D,S) Miss R Curtis7 10 12 ... .... J M Maguire 2 40- MISS PROBUS 311 (T) N Hawke5 10 12... ... .... ... ... ..T Scudamore 3 2216- RONS DREAM 203 (D,S) P Bowen4 10 12. ... .... ... ... ...D Devereux 4 1514- THE GOVANESS 191 (D,G) Fergal O’Brien5 10 12 ... ... .P Brennan 5 00F0/ THEREGOESTHETRUTH 784 H Oliver6 10 12.... ... ... .D F O’Regan

3.20

Betting: 100-30 Doing Fine, 4-1 Royal Player, 11-2 Big Casino, Carole’s Destrier, 6-1 High Kite, Kilbree Kid, 8-1 Lamps Weatherbys Thoroughbred Sales Guide Handicap Hurdle £5,393: 2m (5) 1 2213-1 LAC SACRE 128 (B,T,CD,S) J Flint5 11 12.... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .R Fl nt 2 32110- KEEL HAUL 176 (D,G,S) H Oliver6 11 10 ... ... .... ... ... ...D F O’Regan 3 4131-0 DINEUR 15 (C,D,F,G,S) P Bowen8 11 7.. ... ... .... ... ... ... ..D Devereux 4 10126- DE FAOITHESDREAM 331 (D,F,G,S) E Will ams8 11 5..P Moloney 5 0-5234 TASTE THE WINE 13 (T,D,G,S) B Llewe lyn8 10 9... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ..R Wi liams (5)

4.30

Betting: 7-4 Lac Sacre, 100-30 Keel Haul, 4-1 Dineur, 11-2 Taste The Wine, 13-2 De Faoithesdream Herbert R. Thomas Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle £1,949: 3m (12) 1 53-215 BARTON HEATHER 124 (T,BF,G) N Mulholland5 11 12... ... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... .... ... ..M Ham ll (8) 2 04045- BALLY BRAES 174 (BF) N Twiston-Davies6 11 8.. ... .R Hatch (3) 3 01-21P PENNANT DANCER 118 (T,D,G,S) Mrs D Hamer7 11 7....T Whelan 4 642311 ABBEYGREY 2 (D,G,S) E Wi liams5 11 7 ... ... ... .... ... ... ....C Ring (3) 5 504-6P GAIR LEAT 136 L Corcoran10 10 13.. .... ... ... ... .... ... ...C Brassil (5) 6 00-500 NICKY NUTJOB 23 (P,F,G,S) John O’Shea8 10 12 ... ..C McKee (6) 7 -42304 GWILI SPAR 26 (T) P Bowen6 10 11 ... ... .... ... ... ....J Sherwood (3)

5.00

5.30

Betting: 4-1 Scorpiancer, Solstice Star, 5-1 Sir Ivan, 11-2 Rock The Kasbah, 15-2 King Of All Kings, 8-1 Royal Craftsman, 10-1 Kinari, 11-1 Abbimor, 20-1 Gifted Island

Goodwood Going: Good to Soft - Good in places

Alderbrook Stakes (Handicap) (to be 2.00Jockeys) ridden by Professional National Hunt £6,469: 2m (16) 1

2 3

604020 NUMBER ONE LONDON 15 (P,CD,G) B Meehan4 11 12... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ...G Tumelty 412021 SEE AND BE SEEN 22 (P,D,F,G,S) S Kirk4 11 11 .... ... .D Elsworth -41223 WANNABE YOUR MAN 26 (P,G) G Baker4 11 8... ... .... ...A Tinkler

342666 252343 3d6-31 426421 231352 /1-154 03/0-5 126/50003-0 64002312034 330/50 532122

OPERA BUFF 16 (P,S) J Santos5 11 6... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... .J Davies OUR FOLLY 28 (B,CD,G,S) W S Kittow6 11 4. .... ... ....D C Costello SHALIANZI 204 (B) G L Moore4 11 3. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ....L Aspell AIYANA 19 (D) H Morrison4 11 2 ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ...R Hughes UNDERWRITTEN 27 (D,F,G,S) S Harris5 11 1... ... .... ... ....D Crosse COUP DE GRACE 184 (D) P Phelan5 11 0. ... .... ... .... ... ....C Bolger ASKER 128 (P,S) Miss Z Davison6 11 0. .... ... .... ... .... .M Goldstein YA HAFED 12 (T,G) Sheena West6 10 13 .... ... .... ... ...M Batchelor VALID REASON 219 D Ivory7 10 12 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..A P Cawley FLYING LIGHT 363 G McPherson8 10 11. ... .... ... ..W Hutchinson SHALAMBAR 40 (D,G) A Carro l8 10 10 .... ... .... ... .... ... L Edwards REGAL PARK 16 (CD,G,S) Miss I P ckard7 10 9... .... ... .....R Dunne REACH THE BEACH 13 (T,S) B Powell5 10 7.. .... ... ...R McLernon

Betting: 5-1 See And Be Seen, 6-1 Number One London, 7-1 Aiyana, 8-1 Underwritten, Wannabe Your Man, 9-1 Our Folly, 10-1 Flying Light, 11-1 Opera Buff, Shalambar, 14-1 Coup De Grace, Reach The Beach, Shalianzi, 16-1 Valid Reason, 33-1 Ya Hafed, 50-1 Asker, 100-1 Regal Park

2.30 1 3 2 3 4 5

454224 355 3

Steve Smith Memorial Maiden Auction Stakes £3,234: 5f (5) LIGHTNING CHARLIE 23 Mrs A Perrett9 0 .... ... .... ... .....R Hughes INTRUDER 17 R Fahey8 9 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ..R L Moore SIGNORET 24 R Fahey8 6.. ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..J Fann ng FLIGAZ 18 M Meade8 5 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... L Jones MAGICAL DAZE S Kirk8 5.. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .L Morris

6 461 FINIAL 31 (D,G) Clive Cox9 0 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... ...A Kirby 7 01003 KINGSBRIDGE 38 (B,F) B Mi lman9 0.. ... .... ... .... ... .....C Hardie (3) 8 34415 NO ONE KNOWS 79 (S) C Hills8 12 ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... .W Buick 9 445000 BURTONWOOD 31 (F) R Fahey8 12. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ...T Hamilton 10 053 ITS GONNA BE ME 17 (P) W Haggas8 10.... ... .... ... .... ....R L Moore 11 600 ALBECQ 23 P D Evans8 1 .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... N Garbutt (5) Betting: 9-2 Desert Force, 6-1 Assault On Rome, Be Bold, Finial, Its Gonna Be Me, 9-1 Percy Alleline, 11-1 Kingsbridge, Popeswood, 12-1 Burtonwood, No One Knows, 20-1 Albecq

3 4 5

303320 NORMAL EQUILIBRIUM 15 (P,D,F,G,S) R Cowell4 9 5. .O Murphy 0-0306 DUKE OF FIRENZE 8 (P,CD,G) R Cowell5 9 4.. ... .... ... .T E Durcan DEEDS NOT WORDS 9 (C,D,F,G,S) M Channon3 9 2.. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ....C Bishop (3) 6 010005 LEXI’S HERO 15 (V,D,F,G,S) R Fahey6 9 1... .... ... .... ... ....R L Moore 7 011606 DESERT ACE 9 (T,P,D,F,S) Clive Cox3 9 1 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .A Kirby 8 202006 ELUSIVITY 15 (D,S) P Crate6 9 0. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .....R Kingscote 9 114022 LADWEB 23 (D,F,G,S) J Gallagher4 8 11.. .... ... .... ... ...J Haynes (3) 10 656412 DOMINATE 37 (B,D,S) R Hannon4 8 9... ... .... ... .... ... .... ..R Hughes 11 044062 PANDAR 15 (CD,G,S) J M Bradley5 8 8.. .... ... .... ... .... .C Hardie (3)

Betting: 5-2 Lightning Charlie, 11-4 Intruder, 100-30 Signoret, 9-2 Fligaz, 8-1 Magical Daze Irish Stallion Farms EBF Nursery 3.05£6,469: Stakes (Handicap) (Bobis Race) 7f (11)

Amateur Jockeys’ Association 4.15 Gentleman Gentleman Amateur Handicap (for Amateur Riders)

421 143455 212062 224104 233304

DESERT FORCE 23 (S) R Hannon9 7.... ... .... ... .... ... .... ....R Hughes PERCY ALLELINE 17 (V,S) R Beckett9 6.. .... ... .... ... ...R Kingscote BE BOLD 11 (S) R Hannon9 4.. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .. S Levey POPESWOOD 26 (D,S) M Channon9 1... .... ... .... ... .... .C Bishop (3) ASSAULT ON ROME 15 (D,S) M Johnston9 0.. ... .... ... .... .J Fann ng

622630 465345 314d60 465524 561355 042401 0-4000

MY LORD 69 (H,D,F,S) L Dace6 11 6... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .. J Doe (7) CARRAIG ROCK 16 H Morrison4 11 6. ... .... ... .... ... .... R Pooles (5) PANDORICA 69 (P,C,S) B Llewellyn6 11 6. ... ... .... . J Williams (5) RED DRAGON 16 M Blanshard4 11 4... .... ... .... ... ..... H Nugent (7) GAVLAR 20 (B,D) W Knight3 11 4 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... .... S Walker CELESTIAL BAY 11 (F) S Kirk5 11 3... ... .... ... .... .... O Sangster (3) BOSTON BLUE 24 (C,D,F,G) A Carroll7 11 2... .... ... .... C Carroll (5)

Betting: 9-2 Last Echo, 11-2 Yul Finegold, 6-1 Bikini Island, 15-2 Celestial Bay, 8-1 Carraig Rock, El Bravo, Gavlar, 9-1 Pandorica, 10-1 Red Dragon, 11-1 My Lord, 25-1 Boston Blue

4 411531 YAAKOOUM 14 (D,G,S) R Hannon9 1. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ....R Hughes 5 1-036 MOONTIME 141 (S) C Appleby9 1.... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..W Buick 6 621246 OASIS FANTASY 17 (CD,BF,G) E Dunlop9 0 ... .... ... .... ... ... ..J Doyle 7 125 ARABIAN REVOLUTION 73 (P,BF,G) S Bin Suroor9 0... ....K Fallon 8 52-421 SOVIET COURAGE 40 (C,G) W Haggas8 11... .... ... ... .... .R L Moore 9 150502 FUN MAC 20 (T,D,G,S) H Morrison8 9... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .J Crowley 10 444020 COTTON CLUB 20 (F) B Mi lman8 7 .... ... .... ... .... ... .... .C Hardie (3) 11 131533 SPECTATOR 16 (V,F,S) A Balding8 7. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... .O Murphy Betting: 4-1 Soviet Courage, 11-2 Yaakooum, 6-1 Arabian Revolution, 8-1 Fun Mac, Oasis Fantasy, Tioga Pass, 9-1 Spectator, 10-1 Black Shadow, Pack Leader, 11-1 Moontime, 25-1 Cotton Club

Sistema Stakes (Handicap) Irish EBF Maiden Stakes (Bobis Race) 3.40 £9,703: 5f (11) Rifles Care For Casualties Appeal 4.45 £5,175: 1m 1f (13) 1 00-062 KHUBALA 8 (B,F,G,S) H Palmer5 9 7.... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ...G Baker 5.45£6,469: Stakes (Handicap) 1 6 ATALAN 18 H Morrison9 5. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .G Baker 2 0655V3 HUMIDOR 29 (CD,F,G,S) G Baker7 9 6.. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ....J Doyle 1m (15)

Betting: 11-2 Humidor, 13-2 Dominate, Khubala, 15-2 Ladweb, Normal Equilibrium, 9-1 Desert Ace, Duke Of Firenze, Pandar, 10-1 Elusivity, Lexi’s Hero, 11-1 Deeds Not Words

1 2 3 4 5

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1 2 3 4

-24451 110002 500411 032

£3,119: 1m 4f (11) YUL FINEGOLD 48 (S) G Baker4 11 10 .... ... .... ... S Waley Cohen EL BRAVO 27 (D,F,G) Shaun Harr s8 11 9... ... .... A Blakemore (5) LAST ECHO 47 (D,S) R Beckett3 11 7... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .R Birkett BIKINI ISLAND 15 (H) A Bald ng3 11 7.. .... ... .... ... .... ... H Hunt (5)

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

065 06 3 55 04 0242

DEEBAJ 15 M Johnston9 5. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..J Fanning HAMBLETTS 20 R Mills9 5 .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... ....T E Durcan JAKODIMA 24 R Hannon9 5.... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... S Levey JOLIE DE VIVRE 20 (P) S Kirk9 5 ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ..Luke Morris KITTEN’S RED 17 E Dunlop9 5... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... ..J Crowley MAJOR MAC 30 H Morrison9 5.. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ....R Kingscote NOT NEVER H Palmer9 5. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... ....J Doyle OPEN THE RED 11 Mrs A Perrett9 5.. ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ...R L Moore PRINCE OF CARDAMOM 22 A Balding9 5... .... ... .... ... ....O Murphy ROSENBAUM 25 C Appleby9 5. .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .A Kirby SECATEUR 17 J Gosden9 5... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .....W Buick SHADOW ROCK 18 R Hannon9 5.. ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... R Hughes

Betting: 5-2 Shadow Rock, 7-2 Secateur, 13-2 Open The Red, Rosenbaum, 11-1 Kitten’s Red, Not Never, 14-1 Deebaj, Jakodima, Prince Of Cardamom, 16-1 Jolie De Vivre, 20-1 Atalan, 66-1 Major Mac, 100-1 Hambletts Furniture Makers Stakes (Handicap) 5.15 (Bobis Race) £9,703: 1m 4f (11) 1 212040 BLACK SHADOW 22 (C,S) Mrs A Perrett9 7 .... ... .... ... .... T Queally 2 3

-31162 TIOGA PASS 49 (B,CD,S) P Cole9 6... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ..L Morris 120035 PACK LEADER 18 (B,C,G) Mrs A Perrett9 2... .... ... .... ..R Kingscote

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

510051 OGBOURNE DOWNS 10 (D,F,G) C H lls4 9 10... .... ... .C Hardie (3) 005404 MOONDAY SUN 22 (D,G,S) Mrs A Perrett5 9 7. ..K Shoemark (7) 442000 MONSIEUR CHEVALIER 22 (B,C,F,G,S) P O’Gorman7 9 6.... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ..R Tart 162352 WEEKENDATBERNIES 11 (F) E De Giles3 9 2.. .... ... .... .O Murphy 600333 WHIPPER SNAPPER 20 (D,F,S) W Knight4 9 2. .... ... .... ...A Kirby 005000 WEAPON OF CHOICE 14 (B,C,D,G,S) W S Kittow6 9 2..T Queally -03023 PLEASURE BENT 25 (D,F,G) L Cumani4 9 2.. .... ... .... ... ..W Buick 414 SELDOM SEEN 17 Sir M Stoute3 9 1.. .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..J Doyle 045401 GOOD LUCK CHARM 18 (B,C,F,G) G L Moore5 9 1 ... .... R L Moore BIRDMAN 14 (B,D,F,S) D Simcock4 9 1 .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ...M Lane -00155 WAR SINGER 11 (V,T,S) J Farrelly7 9 0... .... ... .... ... .... .. S Donohoe -21400 EXTRATERRESTRIAL 24 (D,F,G,S) R Fahey10 9 0... ...T Hamilton -43630 CRICKLEWOOD GREEN 30 (F,G) R Hannon3 8 13. .... ..R Hughes 333216 FAURE ISLAND 11 (D,BF,F) H Candy3 8 11. ... .... ... .....D Sweeney 230361 FIRST POST 30 (CD,F,G,S) D Haydn Jones7 8 11... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ..Hayley Turner

Betting: 13-2 Good Luck Charm, 7-1 Pleasure Bent, 8-1 First Post, Ogbourne Downs, 9-1 Cricklewood Green, Moonday Sun, Seldom Seen, 11-1 Faure Island, Whipper Snapper, 12-1 Weekendatbernies, 14-1 Monsieur Chevalier, 16-1 War Singer, Weapon Of Choice, 20-1 Birdman, Extraterrestrial

SPORT

18 / COMMENT

12.10.14 IAN WEST/ TOBY MELVILLE

Sport’s Satanic Verses

Fight! Arsène Wenger v Jose Mourinho. Definitely more Harry Hill than Harry Carpenter and kindergarten than Madison Square Garden. I suppose that some people will throw their arms up in horror, overwhelmed by righteous indignation; but let’s be honest, it was hilarious.

Peter Bainbridge, St Helens, Lancashire

David Walsh

CHIEF SPORTS WRITER

may feel more empathy with his story than those who have observed from afar.

The central theme in Pietersen’s book is his banishment from the England team by the governing body, the England and Wales Cricket Board. A key element in Keane’s story is his rancorous exit from Manchester United after 12-and-ahalf years at the club. They were both frogmarched out through a side door.

Pietersen was the greatest English batsman of his generation and Keane was the most influential Manchester United player of his era. To the supporters they were gods. Their characters meant they were not always easy to manage.

Pietersen, for example, did not warm to Andy Flower and let England’s head coach know that he wasn’t a fan.

When it came to subtle expressions of loathing, Flower was no shrinking violet. He did not like Pietersen and didn’t hide it. Their relationship would never have lasted had it not been for the batsman’s ability to score runs. England needed him so Flower put up with him. It was not the first time, nor will it be the last, when a coach’s tolerance for a player was based solely on that player’s ability to perform.

Enemies of the people: Kevin Pietersen and Roy Keane, inset, have been treated shabbily by England and Manchester United For a long time it seemed Keane enjoyed a decent relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson, especially in the early years when he delivered on the pitch and, off it, the manager had his back. You wonder if perhaps they were together too long, because Keane would grow to resent aspects of Ferguson’s management.

You can argue the toss about

14 Kevin Pietersen will be talking about his new book tonight in conversation with Sunday Times chief sports writer David Walsh. To book tickets visit cheltenhamfestivals.com or call 0844 880 8094

Keane’s falling-out with Ferguson and try to work out who was more at fault for the failure of Pietersen and Flower to get on, but it’s hard to come to any definitive conclusions. Some people take Keane’s side, others Ferguson’s. The same for Pietersen and Flower.

There are, though, some certainties. When the cracks became visible to the public, Ferguson and Flower had the might of their corporate entities to help them. With that came the support of the media and the manipulation of public opinion. At the time of Keane’s exit from Manchester United and Pietersen’s sacking by England, they had few friends.

Keane had always been trouble but this time he had gone too far. The infamous MUTV interview in which he criticised his teammates after a 4-1 defeat by Middlesbrough became football’s Satanic Verses. When the end came for

Pietersen he was portrayed as an individual without any respect for hi s teammates or his team.

Paul Downton, the ECB’s managing director, said he canvassed a lot of opinion. “I talked to quite a few senior players and couldn’t find one supporter who said, ‘We want KP to stay in the side’.” My guess is that he didn’t speak with Ian Bell or Jonathan Trott.

Nor two other senior members of the England team in Australia, Chris Tremlett and Michael Carberry, who have both been publicly supportive of Pietersen.

When the corporation, or in this case the team (England) and the club (Manchester United), decide you are more trouble than you’re worth, they may turn your exit into a PR exercise: We’ve made tough but good decisions here. At the time of his exit, someone from Manchester United leaked the

story that in his “rant” on MUTV, Keane spoke disparagingly of the wages paid to Rio Ferdinand. So, too, the ECB surreptitiously briefed certain journalists about the existence of a secret dossier detailing Pietersen’s crimes.

More Satanic Verses.

What this boils down to, in my view, is that when England and Manchester United decided to get rid of Pietersen and Keane, they had a responsibility to make sure they departed through the grand exit. That is, to show respect and gratitude to two great players.

Instead, they tried to turn them into enemies of the people. And like Ibsen’s Dr Stockmann, the two villains discovered that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

HUGH McILVANNEY IS AWAY DENIS BALIBOUSE

Premier cheek Last week the Football Association and the Premier League waged PR campaigns to show how much they care about grass-roots football.

Their words seemed sincere, their concern genuine, and then you looked at how much they were actually investing and you thought: “What chancers.”

During the next three years they will each contribute £36m towards better facilities at grass-roots level. The government will chip in a further £30m, making a total of £102m. In the past, this money was distributed by the Football Foundation but its name has been changed to the Premier League and FA

Facilities Fund, so that the league can be recognised for its generosity. The league’s contribution to this key fund is about 0.6% of its current TV deal during a similar period, or a few million less than Wayne Rooney will earn in the next three years.

Young people are discouraged from playing sport in part because the facilities are terrible. I coached a youth football team for two years in Cambridgeshire and never once saw anyone take a shower after a game. How could they? The facilities stank. With all its billions, the Premier League gives £12m a year and expects a pat on the back. What a cheek.

Send your letters to: The Sports Editor, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge St London SE1 9GF email: sportletters @sunday-times.co.uk

What a dreadful example the two senior Premier League managers displayed during the Chelsea v Arsenal game last Sunday. Their continuing petulant behaviour sends out all the wrong signals for sportsmanship. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Jeremy Preston, Perpignan, France

I

n his play An Enemy of the People, Henrik Ibsen told the story of Dr Thomas Stockmann and how the once popular and respected physician fell out with his former friends and neighbours in the small Norwegian town where they lived. Dr Stockmann discovered contamination in the local baths, which were a big source of income for the town. He wanted to alert people to the dangers but his brother, the mayor, advised him not to as the local council had just spent a lot of money modernising the baths.

Dr Stockmann would not be deterred and went to the local newspaper. Public officials got to the newspaper bosses first and convinced them it wouldn’t be in the town’s interests to run the story.

The newspaper turned its back on Dr Stockmann, who then decided to go directly to the people. They turned up at a public meeting but they, too, had been got at and didn’t like what he told them. They decided the problem wasn’t contamination but the man alleging contamination.

Thomas Stockmann lost his job, his house and became an enemy of the people.

Towards the end of the play he considers his situation with Mrs Stockmann.

Dr Stockmann: “Hush! You mustn’t say anything about it yet but I have made a great discovery.”

Mrs Stockmann: “Another one?”

Dr Stockmann: “Yes. It is this, let me tell you — that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”

During last week’s commotion about revelations in the books of Roy Keane and Kevin Pietersen, I thought of Dr Stockmann and the source of his inner strength. First, though,anadmission:Iworked with Pietersen on his book and

LETTERS

Double-ban Gatlin should be ditched Last year a Norwegian study showed that the effects of taking anabolic steroids remained long after a user had stopped taking them, raising the possibility that a convicted athlete could return from a two-year ban and still benefit from their previous doping.

The study was published in the Journal of Physiology and its author, Kristian Gundersen, said it was difficult to pinpoint how long the benefits lasted. “If the muscle-memory mechanism in humans is similar to what we observe in mice, we could

be talking about several decades of advantageous effects.”

This brings us to Justin Gatlin, the outstanding sprinter of 2014 who is shortlisted for the IAAF’s Athlete of the Year award.

Gatlin has served two doping bans, two years from 2001 and four years from 2006.

Not everyone was pleased by his nomination. Germany’s world and Olympic champion discus thrower, Robert Harting, was also shortlisted but asked to have his name removed.

Harting is on the athletes’

Tainted talent: Justin Gatlin has served two bans for doping council but said: “I am ready to stand for election again but only if athletes who have misbehaved are scrapped from this year’s list and are the subject of a general nomination ban in the future.” He is right. Gatlin should be nowhere near that shortlist and if the rules carried a proper deterrent he

would now be nowhere near athletics. Two years for a steroid offence is laughably lenient but it isn’t funny.

Next year the World AntiDoping Agency will have the chance to raise the sanction for steroid offences from two to four years. The latter is the very least that sport and its many clean athletes deserve.

Not only should the FA hurry up and apply the obviously effective Rooney Rule with regard to appointments to senior positions at football clubs, it should also devise a second Rooney Rule. This one would ban the inclusion of overpaid, overrated and underperforming forwards from the England team.

Damien Mackinney, Halesowen As a Liverpool supporter, I agree with Rod Liddle’s column (last week). My heart sank when I first heard they were signing Mario Balotelli. What on earth possessed them to imagine they could get any good out of this guy where Manchester City and others had failed?

Even with the supposed dearth of top-class strikers, there must surely be better alternatives available. I reckon we won’t be bothering the top of the table too much for this season, at least.

Peadar O’Sullivan, Carlow, Ireland I enjoyed the article by David Walsh (last week) regarding Norway’s decision not to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Well done Norway! I imagine that a similar article could be written about Fifa, except that significantly larger amounts of money would be involved.

John Henesy, Maidenhead, Berkshire It was nice to see Paul McGinley’s great job as captain of the successful Europe Ryder Cup team being recognised (last week) — fitting recognition for a job well done. It was great to see an Irishman leading the European team to victory. And it was heartening that one of the leading caddies [Billy Foster] regards Paul

to be the best captain he has served in the competition.

Finbarr Slattery, Killarney, Ireland It was interesting to read the comments surrounding Nick Faldo in the article about Paul McGinley’s Ryder Cup captaincy. We were at Valhalla in 2008 and my recollection is that, on introducing his team, Faldo was not sure if Graeme McDowell came from Ireland or Northern Ireland. Perhaps there is more to being a leader than meets the eye.

Stewart Neil, Prenton, Merseyside The popularity of the game of golf as a participation sport for members of the general public has apparently fallen in recent years partly, it seems, because of the elitist image the game can portray. In this respect, competitions such as the Dunhill Links Championship do nothing to help.

Rowan Gorrie, Ramsbottom Andrew Longmore’s article (last week) listed British swimmers who won gold at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. It seems a shame he denied a mention to Jazz Carlin, who won the 800m freestyle, even if she does “only” swim for Wales.

Dave Lees, Clydach, Swansea

Recent correspondence regarding the haka misses the point. Since the inception of the autumn internationals and the annual visit of the All Blacks to these shores, the haka has become hackneyed. Let’s have the anthems and then get on with the rugby.

Rob Ryder, Vale of Glamorgan Andrew Longmore (an old friend) is a first-rate journalist — but how could he profile “British swimming’s new golden girl”, Siobhan O’Connor, without telling us her age, in a sport where careers are usually brief? [Note to readers: O’Connor is 18] Murray Hedgcock, London SW14 Not only was Kevin Pietersen a disruptive irritant in the England squad (allegedly), he is cheeky/clever enough to get most of the advertising costs for his new book free of charge, virtue of the media.

Peter C Scrutton, Dunston, Lincolnshire

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Business 12.10.2014

BANGER BRIGADE How to join the sausage factory p30

I WALK THE LINE Network Rail chief Mark Carne INTERVIEW p24

TOP TRACK 250 Kings of the middle ground IN OUR TABLET EDITION

£38m payday for American hedge fund’s London boss Oliver Shah THE aggressive American hedge fund Elliott Advisors paid one of its British executives £38m last year, underlining the remarkable rewards on offer in the industry.

The payday, revealed in accounts at Companies House, is believed to have gone to Keith Horn or Jonathan Pollock. Both are American residents but are registered as directors of the firm’s London arm.

Elliott is a big player in the London market, though it is best known for forcing the Argentine government into technical default on its sovereign debt.

Even by fund management standards, the payout is huge. It tops the £34m earned last year by Stephen Butt,co-founderofSilchesterInternational, and the £20m for Cedar Rock Capital’s Andy Brown.

The rewards illustrate the huge personal fortunes that can be made

outside the traditional banking and fund management system, where regulators have stepped up scrutiny of pay deals since the financial crisis.

Elliott’s British division generated fee income of £103m in the year to last December, more than double the previous year’s number, despite a string of unsuccessful attacks on listed companies.

It tried to persuade the board of National Express to consider a break-up or sale but retreated after

settling for the appointment of one of its candidates as a director. It then launched a campaign to force supermarkets, including Morrisons, to spin off their property holdings, but withdrew after failing to garner traction from other shareholders.

The invasion of American activists such as Elliott and Sandell Asset Management has been viewed with scepticism by some City veterans.

Richard Buxton, who made his name as a fund manager at Schro-

ders before moving to Old Mutual, told The SundayTimes recently: “It may be different in Europe, though to be honest I doubt it, but if they genuinely think there’s reams of hidden gems in the UK market that can just be stirred up and vast amounts of hidden value unearthed by taking a small stake and agitating — let’s watch.”

Last month Elliott made £59m from selling shares in Game Digital, having backed its rescue by the

controversial OpCapita in 2012.

The hedge fund was set up in 1977

by Paul Singer, a former lawyer who turned it into a multibillion-dollar fund by trading distressed debt.

It bought Argentine bonds just after the country’s default in 2001 and rejected the terms of two debt restructurings, leading a minister to brand Singer “the inventor of vulture funds”. Two years ago Elliott seized an Argentine navy ship in Ghana. The fund has also invested in

Ireland’s IBRC, set up to hold the remains of Anglo Irish Bank.

Elliott’s London arm is based in St James’s. Its directors are Horn, 56, the chief operating officer, Pollock, 51, chief trading officer, and Gordon Singer, portfolio manager and the founder’s son.

Sources close to Elliott said Gordon Singer, 40, was not the recipientofthe£38mbutdeclinedto comment on Horn or Pollock.

Briefing, page 31

TRISTAN FEWINGS

Tesco turmoil grows as key executive quits Company secretary joins boardroom exodus from supermarket reeling from sales slump and £250m black hole Oliver Shah TESCO has been hit by the departure of another senior executive with the resignation of its company secretary, Jonathan Lloyd.

The exit of Lloyd, who was responsible for advising the board on legal and governance issues, will add to the turmoil at Britain’s biggest supermarket. It is reeling from a sales slump, management upheaval and the discovery of a £250m black hole in its profits.

Lloyd is understood to be leaving to take up the same role at another large quoted company. Sources close to Tesco said he had given his notice early last month, before the accounting fiasco came to light, and that his departure had not been announced to the stock market because he was not on the board.

Lloyd will work out his notice until next March.

Company secretaries play a vital

role — Lloyd is listed as part of the board on Tesco’s website — but tend to operate in the background. A former colleague described the 48-year-old as “very able, very competent, quite quiet and unassuming”.

Tesco stunned the City last month when it admitted its firsthalf trading profits had been overstated because of payments from suppliers being brought forward and costs pushed back. Dave Lewis, who replaced PhilipClarke as chief executive on September 1, brought in the accountancy giant Deloitte and the law firm Freshfields to investigate. Lloyd worked at Fresh-

Inside How Tesco put the squeeze on suppliers PAGE 25

fields before joining Tesco in 2005.

Lewis has suspended five senior executives, including the UK managing director Chris Bush and commercial director Kevin Grace. He is expected to give an update on the inquiry when Tesco announces its interim results later this month.

The scandal has raised serious questions over the reign of Clarke andthechairmanshipofSirRichard Broadbent. Last month The Sunday Times revealed that Tesco ignored the first warning of a problem with its accounts from a whistle blower while Clarke was in charge.

A stream of talented managers left during his three-year tenure, including Richard Brasher, now leader of Pick n Pay in South Africa, and Baroness Neville-Rolfe, now a government minister.

Last week Tesco brought in the Compass boss Richard Cousins and Mikael Ohlsson, former head of Ikea, as non-executive directors, sparking suggestions that the board was preparing for Broadbent’s exit.

The former Schroders banker and Treasury mandarin is expected to stay at least until the findings of the inquiry are made public. Several institutional shareholders have taken concerns about his stewardship to Patrick Cescau, Tesco’s senior independent director.

Melrose cuts cable maker loose Ben Harrington ONE of Britain’s oldest industrial companies is on the verge of being sold to a Canadian pension fund for £365m.

Melrose Industries was last night finalising the sale of the Doncaster cable maker Bridon to the private equity arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, sources said.

Bridon was founded in 1924 and can trace it roots as far back as 1789.

It started out as a traditional rope

manufacturer and now makes specialist cables, ties and wires for the mining, construction and energy industries. It floated on the London market in 1978 and was sold to the engineering company FKI in 1997 for about £130m.

Melrose,whichisrunbythechief executive Simon Peckham, specialises in buying industrial companies, improving their performance and selling them on within five years at a profit.

The FTSE 250 company acquired

Bridon when it bought FKI in 2008 for £900m, including the debt it took on.

Melrose is also thought to be gearing up to sell Elster, a German manufacturer of utility meters. It also owns Brush, a manufacturer of turbogenerators. The company’s shares closed last week at 238.8p, valuing it at £2.6bn.

NMRothschild and Nomura are advising Melrose. Royal Bank of Canada is working for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Billionaires fight to take over failed miner

Davina McCall is just one of the star names with James Grant

Danny Fortson

Star turn for agent

£60m buyout for McCall manager

The talent agency behind stars such as Ant and Dec, Davina McCall, Clare Balding and Phillip Schofield has been sold in a management buyout, writes Matthew Goodman.

The bosses of James Grant, led by chief executive Neil Rodford, have bought the business with the backing of the investment firm Metric Capital from Gresham private equity. Management and Metric will each own roughly half the agency.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

However, when Gresham hoisted the “for sale” sign over the business last year, it was expected to fetch about £60m.

Metric, which is run by the former investment banker John Sinik and chaired by John Connolly of security giant G4S, is thought to see big growth potential. In particular, it believes the firm has barely “scratched the surface” in music and sees opportunities to expand in social media, according to insiders. Sinik will become non executive chairman of the agency, which was previously chaired by Lord Grade, former boss of ITV and the BBC. James Grant was founded in 1984 by Peter Powell, the former Radio 1 disc jockey and his business partner Russ Lindsay.

SEVERAL billionaires are fighting over the carcass of London Mining, the west African iron-ore producer laid low by debt, rock-bottom prices and the ebola epidemic.

On Friday the company dashed hopes of a rescue when it said takeover talks had ended and asked the market to suspend its shares. It is expected to say tomorrow that it has gone into administration. Bond holders led by Standard Chartered, the company’s biggest lender, have hired PwC to negotiate with potential buyers.

Despite the implosion of the mother company in London, the mine itself is still operating. JSW Steel, a division of the Jindal Group, a conglomerate controlled by the billionaire Jindal family in India, has offered to take control by buying London Mining’s loans at a sharp discount. It is understood that Frank Timis, founder of African Minerals, the listed rival that runs an adjacent mine in Sierra Leone, has also bid.

Glencore, the FTSE 100 commodities giant run by magnate Ivan Glasenberg, was considering an offer, but this weekend it said that it had decided not to bid.

London Mining’s collapse is the latest example of the carnage unleashed by the iron-ore industry’s biggest producers — Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale of Brazil — which have flooded the market with new supplies just as consumption has weakened. The resulting fall in the price has pushed many high-cost producers to the wall.

Three years ago London Mining was worth £600m. The company took out huge loans to overhaul its Marampa mine.

One of the biggest losers from its demise is BlackRock. The fund manager had long been one of the company’s largest investors until slashing its stake this year. It also lent London Mining $110m (£70m) in exchange for royalties on future production.

Timis wants to connect the Marampa mine to African Minerals’ nearby railway line and port to slash operating costs. The company is heavily indebted, however, and has entered refinancing talks with Standard Chartered, which is a big lenderto it and to London Mining. Timis is thought to have bid through his family company, Timis Corporation.

BUSINESS

20

BUSINESS DIGEST

Double trouble looms for Britain’s recovery David Smith and Ben Laurance BERLIN

Choppy waters: the luxury boat maker suffered heavy losses

£50m cash injection keeps Fairline afloat Jon Moulton’s Better Capital and Royal Bank of Scotland pumped almost £50m into luxury yacht maker Fairline Boats after it suffered another year of heavy losses.

Fairline was founded in 1963 and makes 30ft to 80ft luxury motor yachts. It lost £17m last year as sales

slumped by a third to £56.8m. Accounts show £48.8m of loans owed to parent companies were converted into shares in the Peterborough based company last month. It was bought by Better Capital and RBS in 2011 after struggling during the recession.

BRITAIN’S recovery faces twin threats from domestic political uncertainty and renewed fears over the eurozone, economists have warned.

Thursday’s strong byelection showing by Ukip has stoked domestic worries, while a key German survey this week will add to fears that Europe’s largest economy is back in recession.

“The UK is likely to face persistent political uncertainty in the run-up to and after the [election],” said Michael Saunders, an econo-

Splintered domestic politics and German recession could harm recovery, warn economists mist with Citi. “This reflects the combination of difficult policy issues — the sticky fiscal deficit, whether the UK will stay in the EU, and ‘devo max’ for Scotland — plus the rising likelihood that the election will yield a government that finds it hard to resolve these issues.”

Figures this week are set to

show a drop in inflation from 1.5% to 1.4% and a further fall in unemployment. But wage inflation, which analysts believeneedstorevivetoboost the government’s fortunes, is expected to remain below 1%.

After George Osborne’s warning last week that the eurozone poses a significant risk to Britain’s recovery, a

survey this week is expected to show a big fall in investor confidence in Germany.

The October index of investor sentiment — a key indicator based on a survey by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) — is to be released on Tuesday.

Economists say it will show deepening gloom following a string of official statistics indicating that the country’s economy — accounting for about a quarter of the eurozone’s entire output — risks falling into recession.

As recently as a week ago, forecasters were suggesting that the October index would be neutral. But now it is

expected to tumble firmly into negative territory, meaning that pessimists outnumber optimists. Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at the Capital Economics consultancy, said: “We see the headline ZEW expectations index falling from +6.9 to about -10.0.”

Last week, the German economy was shown to be suffering far more than most observers had realised.

Exports in August fell by 5.8% and industrial output by 4%, its largest drop since February 2009. The DAX index of German share prices has fallen by more than 10% in less than a month.

Chain Reaction Cycles, which sponsors competitions, lifted its profits despite falling sales

TV producer hits acquisition trail The veteran television producer David Frank is preparing to raise between £20m and £25m to help finance acquisitions for his new vehicle, Dial Square 86.

Frank, best known for founding RDF Media, maker of hit shows such as Wife Swap, is eyeing up a number of purchases for the venture, which he set up after stepping down from his previous role running Zodiak Media, the production group that acquired RDF. It is hoped the first deals could be agreed within the next few months.

Bidders queue up for Crossrail 2 Consultants are vying to work on a new rail route that could stretch from northeast London to southwest of the capital.

Companies including CH2M Hill, Atkins, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Mott MacDonald are believed to be bidding for the £5m feasibility contract for Crossrail 2, which will select a preferred route. Transport for London plans to apply for planning permission for the line in 2017. It could run up to 40 trains an hour.

Wheels of fortune

Top Track tips from AO boss John Roberts, chief executive of AO.com, shared his candid views on the appliance supplier’s £1.2bn stock market listing with guests at the 10th annual Sunday Times Top Track 250 awards dinner in London last week. The dinner was sponsored by Grant Thornton and Barclays, and attended by more than 200 directors of leading mid sized growth companies. They also heard about the virtues of having independent non executive directors from Margaret Mountford, formerly an adviser on The Apprentice, who is also chairwoman of food distributor Argent Group Europe an ever present on the Top Track list over the past 10 years.

The award for top company went to the warranties provider Domestic & General, which grew sales 10% to £632.9m.

Online bike retailer racks up the profits A slowdown in sales did not stop Britain’s biggest online bicycle retailer from coasting to profits of nearly £5m last year, writes John Collingridge.

Cost cuts, efficiencies and improved margins helped to swell profits at Chain Reaction Cycles to £4.8m from £861,000 a year earlier, although sales fell 6% to £144.9m. Two thirds of the family business’s sales were made in Europe.

The company was started by George and Janice Watson in 1984 with a £1,500 loan to buy a bike shop in a village just north of Belfast.

In 2013 they and their son, the managing director Chris Watson, and three daughters Lola, Sabrina and Georgina shared dividends of £1.5m.

Chain Reaction began a mail order sales

business in 1998 and two years later, it launched a website. It sponsors a range of events including BMX races, triathlon and cross country mountain biking events, and also runs a downhill mountain bike team, CRC/Nukeproof.

Chain Reaction now has more than 700 staff and a series of warehouses. It opened a 10,000sq ft store in Belfast in 2011.

WARM autumn weather has taken its toll on Marks & Spencer, which is set to report disappointing sales next month following alarms at its retail rivals Next andN Brown.

Analysts slashed forecasts last week amid industry-wide claims that unusually mild weather has stymied sales of coats and knitwear.

One retail boss described last month’s trading as “horrific”, saying it had improved only in the past week.

Citi, one of M&S’s house brokers, said general merchandise sales in the three months to September 29 were now expected to have fallen by 4%, far worse than the 1% drop previously pencilled in. Citi added that M&S would continue to be hurt by the shift

away from high street shopping to the internet, branding the shares a “hold”. It cut the company’s full-year profit forecast by 1.5% to £650m.

Investec also said M&S’s recent trading had been poor, predicting a 3.3% decline in clothing and homeware sales during the quarter.

The slowdown is a setback for chief executive Marc Bolland, whose mission to turn around the womenswear bellwether has already been hampered by teething problems with its new website.

The Indian summer has played havoc with the retail sector, prompting a provisional profit warning from Next — usually a reliable performer. At the end of last monthNext said the warm spell meant its quarterly sales were up only 6% and not the 10% forecast. The com-

Simon Duke and Danny Fortson A ROUT of financial markets is jeopardising a slew of lucrative floats planned for this autumn.

Fears over a slowdown in the global economy, the ebola outbreak and the falling oil price pushed Britain’s index of leading shares to a one-year low last week. Over the past month, the FTSE 100 has tumbled 7% to 6,339.97.

Theplungehascastashadow over the planned float of Aldermore, a challenger bank that specialises in providing loans to businesses. It is planning to sell £300m of shares to investors this week and aiming for a valuation of between £730m and £870m. But sources said it may have to cut the price of its offering, or even postpone the float, following the slide in the stock market. Aldermore declined to comment.

Virgin Money, controlled by Sir Richard Branson and the American billionaire Wilbur Ross, is also planning to list this month. It is thought that demandfor its offering remains healthy despite the ructions in financial markets.

Virgin Money is likely to be valued at about £1.5bn, bankers said.

Falling share prices have already put paid to the plans of a number of high-profile companies to go public. The Scottish housebuilder Miller recently pulled its float, citing market volatility, while the roadside recovery service RAC last month decided against listing in London; instead its private equity owner sold a stake to GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.

Last week British Car Auctions unveiled plans for a £1.2bn float.

0 The oil price fell to a fouryear low last week , with Brent crude trading below $90 a barrel, after Saudi Arabia moved to sell its output to Asia at a discount. That fanned fears of a sustained price drop that could force high-cost producers to shut down fields or to go out of business.

Hardest hit could be America, where the shale gas revolution has been one of the key drivers of the country’s recovery. Added to worries about the US economy were figures from Germany, where manufacturers in Europe’s powerhouse unveiled a huge drop in exports.

Price slide turns screw, page 27

Investors check in at Grosvenor

M&S sales melt as high street feels the heat Oliver Shah

Floats at risk amid market mayhem

Oliver Shah

The weather has been unkind to M&S’s autumn/winter collection pany warned that it would have to lower its full-year profit guidance if the unseasonal warmth continued.

The plus-size retailer N Brown followed last week, telling investors that full-year profits would fall short of City expectations.

Data from Kantar Worldpanel showed M&S’s womens-

wear sales declined 0.5% in the three weeks to August 31, with its menswear sales down 1.2%.

Sales at Debenhams fell by 0.2% over the same period.

Analysts said the department store group, which is trying to wean itself off promotions to restore its profit margin, was also likely to have felt the effects of the warm weather.

TWO American hedge funds backed by a Wall Street bank are believed to have taken over $1bn of debt secured against three luxury hotels, including the Grosvenor House in London.

The fate of the Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels in New York, as well as the Grosvenor House, has been uncertain since their Indian owner was jailed in March.

Subrata Roy, head of the Sahara conglomerate, is embroiled in a long-running dispute with India’s financial regulator over his company’s failure to repay billions of dollars to investors who were sold outlawed bonds.

Roy has been trying to sell the hotels from a makeshift office in prison. He has struggled, however, with potential buyers complaining about the complexity of the process and the number of advisers involved.

Bank of China funded his acquisition spree and has been quietly trying to offload its loans since the arrest.

The American consortium is understood to have struck a deal late last week after months of talks. It was advised by the law firm Brown Rudnick and fronted

by Johnny Sandelson, the property entrepreneur whose buy-to-let hotel company GuestInvest went bust during the financial crisis.

Roy was advised by the law firm Milbank.

Separately, Sandelson has been buying up properties in the Queensway area of London on behalf of a rich Brunei family, thought to include the sultan’s former wife Mariam Aziz. The sultan of Brunei has denied involvement in the deals.

A source close to the US hedge funds suggested their aim was to take control of the hotels, saying: “Everyone’s got wider ambitions.”

Guardian’s exit loads up Autotrader with £1bn debt mountain NOMINATIONS CLOSE 28 NOVEMBER 2014

Simon Duke AUTOTRADER’S debt pile has risen to almost£1bn since Guardian Media Group sold itscontrolling stake in the used-car website.

The private equity firm Apax took full control of Autotrader after acquiring the 50.1% held by the publisher of The Guardian newspaper in February.GMG reaped £619m from the deal.

To fund the takeover, Apax overhauled Autotrader’s financial structure, with net debt jumping from £562m to £978m over the 12 months to the end of March, according to filings at Companies House.

Some of the cash was used to repay a £284m loan from GMG to Autotrader. The site also reduced its debts to two Luxembourg-based companies controlled by Apax from £283m to £130m.

The cost of servicing the debt mountain has crushed reported profits at Autotrader, which dominates the second-hand car market. Its pre-tax earnings plunged from £22.8m to £3.7m last year after a jump in its interest bill and a hefty write-down on its 2nd Byte trade division.

However, underlying profits rose 7% to £140m following a recovery in the used-car market.

Like many heavily indebted companies owned by buyout firms, Autotrader uses its interest payments to offset its tax liabilities. The company’s corporation tax bill fell from £9.3m to £6.5m last year.

Autotrader has been credited with navigating the shift from print to online more skilfully than many of its rivals. All of its revenues are generated from digital sources since it stopped printing a

digital edition of Autotrader last year.

The February stake sale leaves GMG with a war chest of more than £800m. It is owned by the Scott Trust, which was set up to safeguard The Guardian “in perpetuity”.

The newspaper has suffered heavy losses over recent years as readers have migrated from its print edition to its advertising-funded website.

It has also invested heavily in

American and Australian digital operations.

The news division, which also publishes The Observer, saw its losses narrow to £31m last year, compared with £34m the year before.

Andrew Miller, chief executive of GMG, pocketed a£1.4m bonus from the sale of Autotrader. Before joining GMG in 2009, Miller was the chief financial officer at Autotrader.

12.10.14 / 21 JASON SHELDON

Foreign buyers hitch wagon to Porterbrook One third of trains change hands as rolling stock continues to lure buyers two decades after privatisation John Collingridge A THIRD of Britain’s trains have been sold to a consortium of four international investment funds in a deal worth more than £2bn.

Porterbrook is one of the three companies that own the bulk of the country’s rolling stock. The buyer is a consortium of the Canadian fund manager Alberta Investment Management, Germany’s Allianz Capital Partners, EDF Invest, owned by the French energy giant, and Hastings Funds Management of Australia.

Porterbrook and its rivals, Angel Trains and Eversholt, were set up in 1994 at the start of the Conservative government’s privatisation of the railways. The rolling stock companies, or “roscos”, have pumped billions into new trains and earned hefty returns for their owners.

Porterbrook owns and manages a fleet of about 5,900 passenger and freight vehicles, which are leased to operators including South West Trains, First Great Western and Northern Rail.

The company has been through several owners since privatisation and was sold by Icon Infrastructure, an investment group spun out of Deutsche Bank, Paris-based Antin Infrastructure, and the Canadian pension fund OPTrust.

The sale comes at a crucial time for Britain’s railways, as the track owner Network Rail embarks on the biggest overhaul since the Victorian era and investment is poured into new lines such as High Speed 2 and London’s Crossrail.

Politicians are also wrestling over the future ownership of the railways. Should it win next year’s election, the Labour party plans to create one overarching body

THE £17.5bn Wellcome Trust has begun a search for a chairman to replace Sir Bill Castell, the former Amershamchiefexecutivewhohas led the charitable fund since 2006.

The trust was set up in 1936 to administer the fortune of the pharmaceuticals tycoon Sir Henry Wellcome.

It is Britain’s biggest private funder of medical research, and second in the world, behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

It also looks after the Wellcome

Collection, a London institution that houses a scientific-themed collection of books, paintings and objects.

The headhunter Korn Ferry has been appointed to lead the search for a new chairman. Castell, 67, who will stand down in April 2016, said it was a unique role. “It combines different activities — there is the £17.5bn of funds to manage and annual income of £850m, but you are also supporting about 3,500 scientists.”

The Wellcome Trust has supported ground-breaking research

Sale on cards for £150m Paperchase Matthew Goodman THE owner of Paperchase is considering a £150m sale of the card and stationery retailer after receiving several bid approaches.

Primary Capital has owned Paperchase since 2010 when it backed a management buyout of the business from Borders, the American bookstore chain that has since collapsed.

Paperchase, led by chief executive Timothy Melgund, has grown strongly over the past four years.It has 110 stores in Britain and 28 concessions — roughly double the number of outlets at the time of the buyout.

There are also 30 overseas branches in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, France and Germany, and it has a presence in America’s Target chain of discount superstores.

Group sales reached almost £114m last year, up 14% on 2012, while earnings before interest, tax, financial charges and one-off items were £7.3m. The chain is on track for earnings of £10m this year. It has 1,500 staff and about 3% of sales are online.

Primary Capital, which is best known for having backed Yo! Sushi restaurants, has hired two advisers — PwC and Financo — to handle the potential sale. Bid interest is believed to have come from private equity firms and trade rivals.

Analysts suggest the retailer could be worth up to £150m.

Paperchase, started by two art students in 1968, was bought by WH Smith in 1985 and sold to Melgund with backing from Graphite Capital in 1996. The private equity firm sold the retailer to Borders eight years later.

FIFTY YEARS OF BUSINESS

Be part of our big business debate

encompassing Network Rail and representatives of passenger rail companies, which would buy and lease new trains. Recent government train procurements, such as for Intercity Express and Crossrail, have also bypassed the three dominant rolling-stock companies.

The winning consortium beat competition from Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI), the listed buyout company controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, and a Macquarie-led consortium including the Canadian investor Borealis and Wren House Infrastructure Management, an arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority.

Thesalehastriggeredinterestin the other roscos, with buyers said to be sniffing around Eversholt.

Two of its three owners, Star Capital and Morgan Stanley, are expected to consider a sale in coming months, with CKI believed to be interested.

INSIDE The man who is going to make our trains run on time INTERVIEW, PAGE 24

Wellcome chief to step down Dominic O’Connell

Enter stage left: Will.i.am is looking at 7Digital

into the human genome and neuroscience, among other areas.

“It has been amazing to watch what was pioneering work in genomics translate into clinical medicine,” Castell said.

The trust is involved in the response to the ebola epidemic in west Africa, helping to create links between the pharmaceutical industry and non-governmental organisations.

Castell, who has also served on the boards of BP and GE, said he had made no decision about his next role.

Will.i.am calls tune

Pop star eyes deal for music service

Pop star Will.i.am is expected to sign a deal with the British streaming business 7Digital, which will power a music service on a smartwatch to be launched by his gadget business, writes Matthew Goodman.

It is thought the AIM listed company has been in talks with representatives of the singer and music executives over the past few weeks to hammer out the details, according to record industry sources. The deal would be a coup for 7Digital, which has worked with other big names such as Samsung, T Mobile and BlackBerry. Will.i.am was a founding investor in Beats,

the electronics brand acquired by Apple in May for $3bn (£1.9bn). It had been expected the star would use Beats for his new wearable device but he is thought to have had a rethink after the sale.

Meanwhile, Audioboom, a site known as You Tube for audio clips and which counts 7Digital as a shareholder, is expected to beef up its board this week. Malcolm Wall, head of Pinewood Studios’ joint venture in China, and Morgan Stanley investment banker Jason Mackay, will become non executive directors.

We need to talk about Audioboom, page 10

French revive North Sea bid Ben Harrington THE French owner of International Power has rekindled its interest in buying some or all of the North Sea oil and gas explorer Talisman Energy, which has a market capitalisation of $8.5bn.

City sources said GDF Suez has been re-examining the possibility of buying Talisman over the past month, with bankers from Lazard working on a potential bid for the French company.

GDF Suez’s interest in buying Talisman comes after the energy giant reportedly made an offer to buy the business last year.

Reuters reported in January that GDF Suez had submitted a “low-ball” offer for Talisman in late 2013, but Gérard Mestrallet, chief executive of the French company, then said: “I formally deny we have made a bid for the ‘T’ company”.

It is not clear, though,

Talisman’s North Sea rigs could be bought by a French company whether GDF Suez wants to buy all or just some of Talisman’s assets and a source cautioned that the French conglomerate may decide against a transaction, especially with falling oil prices.

Talisman, which is listed in Canada but has substantial operations in the North Sea,

has had a tough time recently.

Its shares have slumped more than 30% this year and recently the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s cut the company’s rating to one notch above junk because of fears about its ability to generate enough cashflow.

Talisman has been looking

at selling itself for several months.

In the summer, Spain’s largest oil company Repsol held talks to buy parts of the business, but the negotiations are thought to have stalled after the potential suitor grew concerned that it would not be able to find buyers for any assets it did not want.

Talisman owns a disparate group of oil and gas assets in a variety of locations, including Colombia and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It also has shale assets in America.

The North Sea operation is a joint venture with Sinopec, the state-backed Chinese company.

According to Reuters, a GDF Suez deal for Talisman would have involved the Chinese sovereign wealth fund CIC, which would have made a commitment to finance future capital investments.

GDF Suez and Talisman declined to comment.

NEXTmonth we will celebrate two 50th birthdays: our own and that of London Business School.

We will bring leading executives, industrialists and economists together to look back at the past half-century and answer the question: Has Britain Been Great for Business? The debate, chair– ed by our Economics Editor David Smith, will feature: 0 Lord (Terry) Burns, chair– man of Santander UK. As an economist at London Business School, Burns was part of the team that popularised economic forecasting. A former Treasury mandarin, Burns has served as chairman of Marks & Spencer and Channel 4.

0 Carolyn McCall, chief executive of easyJet. McCall led Guardian Media as chief executive and has transformed the profitability —and punctuality — of the budget airline since she took over in 2010.

0 Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of Ineos. Ratcliffe has built a multibillion-pound chemicals company through a determined strategy to turn round the businesses that big conglomerates did not want.

0 Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP. Sorrell has turned WPP into the world’s leading marketing agency and a FTSE 100 giant over the past 30 years.

The debate will be held at The News Building at London Bridge on Tuesday, November 11. A limited number of tickets are available at £25 each.

TIMES+ For more details and to book a visit, go to mytimesplus.co.uk

Anglo readies £1bn Chile copper sell-off Ben Harrington and Danny Fortson ANGLO AMERICAN is close to launching a £1bn sale of copper mines in Chile as part of the plan to radically reshape its empire.

Chief executive Mark Cutifani is expected to unveil a list of assets to be sold at an investor update in December.

Among them are the Mantoverde and Manto Blancos mines in Chile, a smelter and Anglo’s 50% stake in the El Soldado operation.

The company held a beauty parade two weeks ago to choose a bank to run the auction but its brokers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are expected to do the job.

Cutifani, the Australian former head of AngloGold, was hired last year to knock Anglo American into shape after years of overspending on projects and bad acquisitions.

The heart of his planistosellits oldest South African platinum mines, which are riddled with labour unrest. A five-month strike ended only recently.

Cutifani has hired RMB, the South African investment bank, to handle the auction of the platinum business. Anglo is also thought to be looking at spinning off the mines into a new, listed entity. That option is likely to get little support from shareholders, who are keen for the company to get away from its high-cost, lowreturn legacy assets.

The £18.5bn company’s shares have outperformed those of rivals Rio Tinto and BHPBilliton this year, largely because of investors’ faith in Cutifani’s strategy.

The stock has given up all the gains made earlier in the year, closing on Friday at £13.25, roughly where it began 2014. BHPand Rio Tinto have also been hit by sharp falls.

BUSINESS

22

A truth universally acknowledged: Ivan covets Rio

I

t’s stretching credibility to find similarities between Elizabeth Bennet, heroine of Pride and Prejudice, and Ivan Glasenberg, chief executive of Glencore, the FTSE 100 commodities trader and miner. They have one thing in common, however; both publicly despise things they secretly covet. In Lizzy’s case it was the icy Mr Darcy, whom she eventually married. In Glasenberg’s case the hunk emerging from the lake (Colin Firth memorably embodied a dripping Darcy in a BBC adaption of the Austen novel) is Rio Tinto, the venerable FTSE 100 miner.

Glasenberg has been on Rio’s case for most of the year, berating it and fellow iron-ore giant BHPBilliton for mining too much ore and pushing down the price, which has tumbled from about $140 a ton to $80.

Glasenberg still likes Rio’s stuff, however, and in July he called the chairman, Jan du Plessis (a fellow South African) to suggest a merger. It would be a hell of a deal; at Friday’s £29.65 closing share price, Rio has a stock market value of £41.9bn, while Glencore is worth £41.5bn. In Glencore’s words, Glasenberg suggested “some form of merger” — market speculation suggests it was a

AGENDA

DOMINIC O’CONNELL

BUSINESS EDITOR

nil-premium merger with Glasenberg as chief executive and du Plessis as chairman.

Bloomberg reported the talks last week, and Rio quickly put out a statement saying it had rejected Glencore, forcing the suitor to issue its own statement, ruling itself out of the running for six months.

This won’t be the end of the matter.

Glasenberg stalked his last merger target, Xstrata, for more than two years before pouncing (with, memorably, the eleventh-hour help of Tony Blair).

The iron-ore price is likely to keep

falling, which will maintain the pressure on Rio. It has made big promises about returns of cash to shareholders over the next few years, and while the board is confident of finding the cash, a lower price will make the sums that much harder.

As our chart shows, Rio shareholders have fared better than those in Glencore over the past few years, and even with iron ore at $80, most analysts think Rio is making a 50% profit margin on sales.

An oddity of the Takeover Panel rules means that Glasenberg could, in theory, return to the fray in three months with

a one-off, secret offer. I suspect this will run much longer than that.

Reckless bank rules AS MY colleague Simon Duke reports on the opposite page, bankers are increasingly nervous about some of the more draconian pieces of regulation brought in since the financial crisis.

After the events of the past decade, nobody can oppose a tighter rein on banks. The plan to create a new criminal offence of reckless conduct is wrong, however. Not only does it ignore existing laws, which if properly enforced are adequate to cover fraud and other wrongful conduct, but the burden of proof is almost insurmountable. To commit the new offence, the miscreant must be aware that what he or she is doing “may cause the failure of the bank”.

Fred Goodwin, the most vilified of the credit crunch bankers, never thought what he was doing would lead Royal Bank of Scotland to the brink of disaster. At all times he — and his board — thought he was doing exactly the right thing. The same is true of the management and directors of HBOS, which had to be bailed out by Lloyds and eventually by taxpayers.

Neds to the fore again EVERY TIME we call for entries for our Non-Executive Director Awards, a crisis arises to demonstrate graphically the value of these corporate sentinels.

This time it’s Tesco, where the nonexecutive directors, led by chairman Sir Richard Broadbent, have had to step in to deal with a crisis. Last week they took a decision that may see some of them — including perhaps Broadbent

Index: Oct 12 140 2011=100 130

How their share performance compares

Rio Tinto

120 110

Glencore

100

Name of the game

90

BLACKSTONE is spinning off its investment banking arm, merging it with an outfit set up by Paul Taubman, a star banker best known for his time at Morgan Stanley. They just need a name for the new organisation. Would Blackarts fit the bill?

80 70 60

Source: Thomson Datastream

2012

2013

2014

himself — walk the plank. They recruited Richard Cousins, chief executive of Compass, and Mikael Ohlsson, former boss of Ikea, as new non-executives.

It’s moments like these when non-execs — or Neds, as they are often called — come into their own. And not just at big companies. Charities, government agencies, not-for-profit organisations of all types rely on their Neds to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong.

That’s why it’s important to honour the best of the breed, and why, in conjunction with stockbroker Peel Hunt, we have been running the awards for the past nine years.

Please get your nominations in early.

You can find the details at nedawards.co.uk.

dominic.oconnell@sunday-times.co.uk

Saudi Arabia’s price-fixing cannot stop shale gale

A The money’s there, so why can’t we start building?

H

ow do we build the infrastructure the economy is crying out for and the new housing a growing population sorely needs? Through the haze of the party conferences, I saw that Labour and the Liberal Democrats want to borrow more to fund additional public investment in infrastructure — roads, railways, energy, schools, hospitals, flood prevention, etc — and social housing, with the Lib Dems rather bolder on this than Labour.

Superficially this makes sense. Government borrowing costs — gilt yields, in Britain’s case — are very low, so why should the government not go directly to the markets to fund such spending?

The International Monetary Fund, concerned about the slowdown in the eurozone’s already anaemic growth, has called fordebt-financedinfrastructurespending — even in countries with debt and deficit problems — to generate activity.

Of course, Britain’s government, like others, already directly funds infrastructure spending. Net capital spending will be about £28bn this year, just over 1.5% of GDP. The trouble with adding to it significantly would be that borrowing for investment is not ring-fenced; to the markets it would be indistinguishable from borrowing for everyday spending.

In other words, it would be seen as weakening the commitment to deficit reduction. Nor, as recent experience shows, can we rely on governments not to cut capital spending when the public finances come under pressure.

So it is probably not sensible to think of the public purse, which will be severely constrained for years to come. Nor is it sensible to think of the banks, which were active in this area, and were an important source of funding for social housing. The banks, too, are severely constrained.

There is another way, which on the face of it looks like a no-brainer. Globally there are hundreds of billions of pounds of institutional money anxious to find a home in infrastructure investment. Britain’s financial institutions — the pension funds and insurance companies — want longterm investments with stable returns, not sky-high ones.

DAVID SMITH

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

In December, six insurers — Prudential, Aviva, Legal & General, Standard Life, Friends Life and Scottish Widows — committed an initial £25bn to invest in UK infrastructure over the next few years.

The National Association of Pension Funds has set up an infrastructure platform.

I have been thinking about this. A couple of weeks ago I chaired a seminar on the issue at the Tory conference in Birmingham, organised by the think tank Reform and sponsored by Prudential. I have also had a long conversation with Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General. What we need, he says, is what he describes as “slow money investment”; housing and urban regeneration.

“Economic growth is created by modern efficient cities. We should be discussing how we build these cities instead of spending all our time discussing the timing of interest rate increases,” Wilson said. “Urban regeneration requires slow money [20 years or more] and a lot of institutional support.”

Most of the insurers can point to some progress in raising investment in infrastructure, including student accommodation and affordable housing. None would say there is enough. At the Bir-

mingham event, William Nicoll, head of fixed income at the investment manager M&G, which is owned by Prudential, bemoaned the fact that too much institutional money in search of infrastructure investment ends up going overseas.

Priti Patel, the exchequer secretary, representing the Treasury, took note. Her colleague Lord Deighton, commercial secretary to the Treasury, is charged with drivingadditionalinfrastructurespending.

The situation is not completely dire.

The Construction Products Association predicts that infrastructure spending as it directly affects the construction industry will rise from £14.6bn this year to £20.3bn in 2018. On this measure, while spending has been flat over the past four years, it has been significantly higher in real terms than over the previous 15 years.

But it could be a lot better. A report by Scape, a procurement company, notes that construction output is 26% lower than if it had followed pre-crisis trends.

Even after the recent recovery, we are building half the houses we need.

Why is it proving so difficult to join the dots between a government and an economy in need of more capital spending and the institutions with the funds to make it possible?

One perennial issue is planning. The government has an infrastructure pipeline, just updated, with a huge number of projects and a combined value of hundreds of billions. But many projects are stuck in the pipeline and planning is usually the culprit. There is no better way to deter even long-term investors than to sink them in the planning morass.

Bureaucratic inertia is a problem. Civil servants are rightly risk averse but that aversion often extends to deep suspicion of the private sector, partly because of excess returns under the private finance initiative (PFI). Not only that but the public sector rarely takes advantage of its economies of scale; it is highly fragmented.

Insurance companies will tell you of a social housing or other project they have successfully undertaken in one local authority area, often for a low return, in the expectation that it will serve as a templateforprojectselsewhere.Buteachbitof central and local government does things

in its own way, and each project has to expensively start from scratch.

It would be wrong, too, to pretend that everything is hunky dory on the institutional side. MPs at my Birmingham meeting pointed out that many pension funds, particularly local authority pension funds, are too small to undertake meaningful infrastructure investment.

Combining these funds would allow them to scale up their investments.

But, with one or two exceptions, there is also institutional caution, sometimes forced on them by actuaries, trustees or shareholders. We have nothing yet comparable with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which has substantial stakes in Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels and Copenhagen airports; HS1; Scotia Gas Networks; and energy, container port, desalination and other projects across the world.

We are, then, missing an opportunity.

Every serious long-term report on the British economy says we need much more infrastructure. The money is there. We need to make it happen.

PS: For once even a lacklustre performance from Britain’s manufacturers was something to celebrate. Output crept up by a tiny 0.1% in August and has been flat over the latest three months. It is currently the weakest of the three main sectors of the economy, with services and construction doing better.

So why celebrate? Because output in August was a healthy 3.9% up on a year earlier,andeveninthelatestthreemonths showed a 3.3% annual rise. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research says the figures are consistent with a 0.7% rise in GDP in the third quarter, which would be perfectly acceptable.

While Britain’s manufacturing sector was inching higher in August, Germany’s was in free fall. Overall industrial production fell 4%, within which manufacturing slumped by 4.8%. Industrial output is 2.8% down on a year earlier.

There is now a serious risk that the German economy, which shrank 0.2% in the second quarter, fell back into technical recession in the third. Worrying. david.smith@sunday-times.co.uk

nyone who doubts that the deployment of the technologies we have come to call fracking constitutes a revolution should consider this. US oil production has soared by 70% in the past six years.

American refineries have cut in half their imports from Opec, the oil producers’ cartel, setting off a scramble by those countries to find new markets. Nigeria, once among the top five suppliers to the US, no longer exports to us a single barrel of its light, low-sulphur oil — the type produced by fracking. Thanks to a bit of definitional legerdemain that gets around an old anti-export law passed when the US was excessively dependent on foreign oil, America is set to become a major exporter. US crude exports are at their highest since the 1950s and when, as seems likely, the remaining ban on exports is removed, will rise sharply.

Shipments of just the type of crude European refineries need will head that way, more Alaskan oil will be shipped to Asia, and competition will intensify.

The ripple effects of the glut-induced drop in oil prices are only now beginning to be felt.

0 Consumers are no longer grumpy when filling their tanks. Cheaper crude means lower petrol prices, the equivalent of a multibillion-dollar tax cut that will almost surely buoy Christmas retail sales.

And when proposed natural gas pipelines from producing fields in the northeast to consuming centres in the south are completed, consumers will become still richer as heating bills tumble.

0 Car manufacturers are overjoyed.

Cheaper petrol makes it more attractive for consumers to buy big sports-utility vehicles (SUVs here, Chelsea tractors to you) that are not exactly petrol-sipping machines — and are the most profitable vehicles produced by US car makers.

0 Railroads are hauling lots of oil despite the fact that it costs about $10 more per barrel than by pipeline. Shipping by rail from the Bakken shale fields to the Gulf coast takes 5 to 7 days compared with 40 days by pipeline, and avoids the need for huge new investment in pipeline infrastructure.

0 Petrochemical and other manufacturers that use large quantities of fracked shale gas find their costs of energy so low relative to those in Europe and elsewhere — perhaps half those in green Germany — that their competitive positions are better than they have ever been.

0 The overall economy and our trade balance are being positively affected by our new position as the world’s largest oil producer. Daniel Yergin, the nation’s pre-eminent energy historian and analyst, notes that “money that was flowing out of the US and into sovereign wealth funds and treasuries . . . will now stay in the US . . . creating jobs”.

Enough about the grubby stuff of getting and spending. On to what matters most in our turbulent world: power.

Joseph Nye Jr, the Harvard professor and father of the concept of “soft power” in international affairs, tells the press that a “shale gale” is enhancing America’s clout. “If you are attracted to a country or any leader, a lot has to do with the feeling, ‘Do they have momentum? Is the wind in their sails or are their sails flapping? We’ve got a gust.’”

That gust is blowing away some of the revenues Vladimir Putin is counting on to fund his assault on the post-Second World War territorial settlement in Europe. Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy estimates that Russia’s Gazprom could lose 18% of its revenues as a result of direct competition from exports of US liquefied shale gas, and increased competition from other liquefied natural gas (LNG) previously imported into the US from Qatar and

elsewhere. That competition will accelerate when new LNG terminals are completed and others are converted for exporting. One such conversion will require a $10bn investment.

Qatar, a key financial backer of such unlovely contributors to global mayhem as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas in Gaza and Islamic militias in Syria and Libya, is already seeing sharp reductions in the prices it can command for its gas from European and Asian buyers.

Economics would not be called the dismal science if I did not see a cloud, as yet no bigger than a man’s hand, on the horizon. The oil glut has pushed prices down by about 20%. Members of the Opec cartel, which accounts for about one-third of world oil supply, were shocked when Saudi Arabia, historically the swing producer, refused to cut its output to raise prices above $100 a barrel.

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi reportedly is disgusted with the recent unruly behaviour of his cartel partners, who

IRWIN STELZER

AMERICAN ACCOUNT

increasingly reject Saudi leadership: he sees no reason to cede market share to countries he regards as ingrates. So instead of cutting output, the kingdom is cutting prices. Like Kuwait before it, Saudi Arabia did not consult its Opec partners before driving prices to a tad below $90 — keep that number in mind — for benchmark West Texas intermediate crude.

The Saudis believe that American frackers need $90 a barrel to break even.

Coincidentally, the Saudi rulers need about $90 a barrel to meet the requirements of their budget, freighted with entitlements for thousands of royal princes and a restive, job-short population, and the cost of funding the preaching of radical Islam around the world. By keeping prices around $90, the Saudis believe they can make new investment in fracking in the US unprofitable, while at the same time forcing high-cost African and Latin American producers to cede market share.

There are two flaws in that strategy according to Seth Kleinman, Citigroup’s top energy strategist. The first is that frackers have already paid for large swathes of acreage and drilling equipment, making the incremental cost of bringing more production on line closer to $45 than $90 a barrel. The second is that technology marches on, pushing costs down. Today’s costs are higher than tomorrow’s. That’s the history of the technology of fracking, and in the oil business we have not yet reached the end of history.

Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser and director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute irwin@stelzerassoc.com

FOCUS

12.10.14 / 23 PHOTOMONTAGE BY DAMIEN MEYER

I’M A BANKER GET ME OUT UT OF HERE!

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Bankers are fleeing as the threat of jail for Fred Goodwin-style recklessness looms. Even so, the lenders are making huge profits, reports Simon Duke

F

or one of Britain’s senior businessmen, a seat in the boardroom has become too hot for comfort.

Alan Thomson had been a fixture on boards for decades, chairing three listed companies, including the recruiter Hays. The Scottish accountant had another job, hitherto seen as de rigueur for any aspiring City grandee — a directorship at a big bank.

Last week, though, he cast aside this glittering corporate bauble. Thomson, 68, is leaving the board of HSBC’s main UK subsidiary, along with fellow independent director John Trueman.

The seasoned executives decided that a once-prized bank boardroom seat was no longer worth the trouble. A tough new law to prevent future collapses means that, for the first time, non-executive directors at banks could be thrown into jail for misconduct that takes place on their watch.

After watchdogs failed to secure the conviction of even one senior banker following the 2008 crash, the government wants the buck to stop in the boardroom.

The new bankers’ charter will delight policymakers keen to exact revenge for the taxpayer bailouts of HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland and the ensuing economic slump. Following a string of scandals, including the rigging of the Libor benchmark interest rate, banks have become easy meat for politicians with an eye on the general election in May. Yet the resignations from HSBC have fuelled concerns that a battery of new rules will neuter an industry pivotal to securing Britain’s economic recovery. In private, bankers complain that the tightening regulatory noose will drive up the cost of credit, potentially derailing the resurgent economy.

Six years after the collapse of

Lehman Brothers, Britain is building a regulatory framework that is aimed at dulling the fallout from future bank failures.

In addition to the criminalisation of reckless bankers, the regulatorispushingaheadwith plans that will force banks to hive off their riskier activities.

These “ring-fencing” proposals will, by 2019, force banks to erect a firewall around divisions that lend to and take deposits from businesses and consumers. The aim is to ensure that ordinary customers can still be served, even if a bank suffers a blow-up in one of its risky divisions.

The big four lenders are also facing a competition inquiry into their domination of small business and personal accounts.

Andbytheendofthemonth,the Bank of England will spell out how much capital they must hold to protect balance sheets against future losses.

Bankers argue that the pen-

dulum has swung too far from the light-touch approach of the past. However, their bleating is likely to be ignored. Lenders are about to enter a hyperprofitable purple patch. The financial crisis radically reduced the number of high street lenders. Having repaired their balance sheets after the 2008 crash, profit margins are soaring again and investors are eyeing a meaty diet of dividends and share buybacks in coming years.

IT HAPPENED like clockwork.

The night before every Royal Bank of Scotland board meeting, Fred Goodwin hosted a working dinner for the

IT’S FEARED THAT THE TIGHTENING REGULATORY NOOSE COULD DERAIL RECOVERY

New kids on the block A clutch of young and hungry upstarts are battling to break the stranglehold exerted by the big four banking giants.

Unencumbered by past sins, these challenger banks have started to make inroads into the increasingly lucrative loans industry.

They are also trying to catch the eye of stock market investors.

Since the start of the year, OneSavings has floated in London, and Lloyds Banking Group has spun off TSB into a separate listing company as a consequence of its taxpayer bailout.

Business lender Aldermore is this Jayne-Anne Gadhia

week intends to sell about £300m in shares to investors.

It is aiming for a valuation of £800m, although the recent turmoil on the stock market could force it to revise its plans.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money is set to float before the end of this month. The mortgage and credit card lender bought the healthy part of Northern Rock in late 2011.

Virgin Money, run by Jayne Anne Gadhia, may also be forced to cut its float price after a slide in global share values.

The bank, 47% of which is owned by Branson, was initially valued at £2bn.

directors. At these lavish affairs, the boss could take counsel from some of the brightest minds in the corporate and political worlds. Sir Tom McKillop, the former boss of Astra Zeneca, was his chairman. Non-executives included the former Treasury mandarin Sir Steve Robson and Goldman Sachs International chairman Peter Sutherland, an Irish business panjandrum who headed the World Trade Organisation.

None stood in “Fred the Shred’s” way as he forged ahead with the disastrous takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro — just as the credit crisis was starting to erupt in 2007.

Their collective delusion saw the taxpayer pour nearly £70bn into RBS to rescue it the following year. Yet despite the gigantic bailout, none of the former directors has been held to account for their shortcomings, although Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood.

All that is about to change.

The Banking Reform Act introduces a “Fred Goodwin offence”, with bankers liable for criminal prosecution if their reckless decisions topple a bank. In a rare reversal of the long-standing presumption of innocence, bankers will have to prove they are not guilty of breaking the law.

The sweeping reforms also sharpen the responsibilities of “senior managers” at banks, who, in future, will have to carry the can for misconduct withintheir purview.Thedefinition is broad and could extend to non-executives, such as Thomson and Trueman.

Britain is the first and, so far, the only country that will make criminals of reckless financiers. While that will play well in marginal constituencies, experts believe that the government risks scaring off talented executives from entering bank boardrooms.

The predicted slump in directors prepared to join the boards will coincide with a likely surge in demand for experienced non-executives.

Under the government’s ring-fencing proposals, banks willhavetosetupseparatelegal subsidiaries for their retail arms. Each of these must have their own board, with a new slate of independent directors and non-executive chairmen.

However, that is far from the only conundrum banks will have to confront as the new framework comes into force in 2019. To ensure that depositors have “continuity of access” to their cash, ring-fenced retail banks are likely to have to build their own IT and back-office systems.

This will cost the industry as much as £3bn in upfront investment and add £4bn to annual overheads, according to official estimates.

Lenders face further curbs on their earning power from a range of measures to safeguard the UK’s banking system.

The Bank of England’s fi– nancial policy committee (FPC) will publish new capital requirements for lenders later this month. Last year banks were told that they had to have equity equivalent to 3% of their loan books, which forced Barclays into a £5.8bn rights issue.

However, the FPC is expected to impose a future leverage ratio of between 4% and 5% to protect lenders against potential losses on bad loans. The committee has also demanded extra powers to curb risky mortgage lending.

Meanwhile, the spectre of more drastic reform hangs over the industry. Britain’s competi-

tion watchdog started an investigation this year that could lead to the break-up of the big four lenders. The Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the current account and business loans markets, which are dominated by Lloyds, Barclays, RBS and HSBC with 77% of current accounts and nine out of every ten commercial loans.

Customer inertia meant that the big four were able to reap more than £10bn of revenues from small business and personal accounts last year, according to the watchdog.

THE banking crash still casts a long shadow over British lenders. RBS, HSBC and Barclays face an avalanche of fines as regulators exact retribution for

their conduct in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The bill for their many misdemeanours, including the alleged rigging of global interest rates and foreign exchange markets, could top £15bn, according to analysts.

However, lending money to households and business has rarely been more profitable.

Since the Bank of England forced lenders to hold more equity against their loan books, they have responded by nudging up the price of loans — even while interest rates remain at historic lows. According to Bank data, the profit margins on mortgage lending are at their highest for at least 10 years.

Having largely completed the process of dumping the bad

loans that were built up during the credit boom, the banks are expected to begin generating mountains of cash.

While the Bank of England is likely to force lenders to top up their loss-absorbing capital cushions, investors can look forward to bumper payouts over the coming years.

Lloyds could be sitting on more than £10bn of surplus capital by 2016 — even after resuming dividend payments next year, according to research by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. RBS, meanwhile, could begin buying back the government’s 81% stake.

Watchdogs may be turning the screw on the City, but for Britain’s banks the good times have already begun to roll.

BUSINESS

24 TOM STOCKILL

Helping commuters: Mark Carne has to improve the service at a time when the government wants to cut its spending

JOHN COLLINGRIDGE INTERVIEW

Mark Carne gave up a career in oil to run Network Rail. He has proved he knows how to deal with crises but will he be able to handle the politics?

T

he conversation trails off for a second as Mark Carne stares, almost blankly, at the boardroom table. The new chief executive of Network Rail is momentarily lost for words as he recalls the time in 2002 when he was told that a helicopter carrying Shell oil workers had crashed into the North Sea, killing all 11 men on board.

As Shell’s North Sea boss at the time, Carne led the recovery and handled the inquiry alongside air accident investigators.

“I was sitting in a restaurant with my team and I can tell you what I was eating and describe to you who was sitting where around the table at the moment that call came in,” he says softly. “Because the moment you pick up the phone and hear that is etched in your memory. You can’t wipe it away.”

Carne’s career was forged among the hazards of the oil and gas industry. As a 29-year-old, he represented Shell at the inquiry into the Piper Alpha blast, which killed 167 North Sea workers in 1988. He was running Shell’s Middle East operations when the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, and oversaw the evacuation of oil workers and their families from remote facilities.

Now Carne, a tanned 55-year-old, has taken on the challenge of fixing Britain’s railways. In February he replaced Sir David Higgins, who left after three years to run the High Speed 2 train line.

While the railways have moved on from the neglected industry that saw the deadly

I coped with the Arab Spring — now to make trains run on time Hatfield and Potters Bar crashes of 2000 and 2002, the challenges have hardly diminished.

After decades of underinvestment, the railways are undergoing their biggest overhaul since the Victorian era. Network Rail is spending £25bn on infrastructure improvements and electrifying long stretches of track. Crossrail, a £15bn eastwest route across London, is creating no

less than 26 miles of tunnels. Meanwhile, the railways are the busiest they have been since the 1920s. Commuter trains bulge at the seams and there are 4.5m passengers every day.

“The railways are the economic arteries of our country,” says Carne, whose white shirt sleeves are bound with cufflinks featuring the black-and-white flag of Cornwall, where his family comes from. We sit

in his office, overlooking a mesh of tracks at the recently modernised King’s Cross station in London. “If you were an engineer, why would you not want to do this?”

Within days of the news of his appointment last September, official statisticians began making noises about Network Rail’s debt pile, and whether it should appear on the public balance sheet. By December the move had been confirmed and last month the£34bn wasreclassified as nationaldebt.

Network Rail once again became directly accountable to government and reliant on it for funds.

Carne throws back his head and laughs.

He had not seen that coming. “I took the job to be the chief executive of a private companyandthenthedebtreclassification came along.” He insists that while reclassification changes the relationship between the company and government, it “does not change the fundamentals”.

“I’m not naive. We all need to recognise that the flow of funds to the railways will now be under more political scrutiny. But I come from the world where capital has to be hard won. That’s a pretty healthy place to be. We should have to fight hard.”

However, the inevitable tensions between a company attempting multi– billion-pound projects and a government desperate to slash its budget deficit have already started to emerge.

SourcessaythatCarnemetthetransport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, during the summer to warn him to expect big cost overruns, including on the Great Western main line where the price of electrification is said to have soared from £1bn to £1.5bn.

McLoughlin was far from amused, and something may have to give. Projects could either be delayed or scaled back.

Carne is reluctant to discuss this. “I’ve had nothing but support from government ministers and the government departments. These people all know that running the railway is actually really difficult. This is a tough business. And they try very hard to help us to run the railway better.”

He has also lost several key lieutenants, including Simon Kirby, who quit as managing director of infrastructure projects to join Higgins at HS2. Former Thameslink project director Jim Crawford and infrastructure finance head David McLoughlin have also departed.

“He has lost his top management team andbeentakenundergovernmentcontrol.

He has one of the toughest jobs in the industry,” said one senior rail executive.

Carne insists the management remains

strong. “People step up when there’s a gap and take on new challenges. I used the opportunity to bring in new talent as well.”

He has tried to diffuse the annual row about bonuses, which have been cut to a maximum of 20% of salary from 160%.

However, there is no escaping the overt — and increasing — public and political scrutiny the company faces. In the summer, Labour sent tremors through the industry with proposals to reunite track and train under a “passenger rail body”. It wants a state bidder to compete with privateoperatorsforfranchises,acaponfares, and it will look to break the “monopoly” of the rolling-stock companies.

Carne shifts awkwardly in his seat. “The railway industry needs to work closely together and there are many mechanisms by which one can achieve that. You can

HE HAS LOST HIS TOP TEAM AND BEEN TAKEN UNDER GOVERNMENT CONTROL. IT’S ONE OF THE TOUGHEST JOBS IN THE INDUSTRY achieve it structurally or through the way in which you work.”

His preference? “I’m not going to declare. I have to be able to work with any party that may be elected and any of the train operating companies.”

Carne was an outside choice, leap– frogging internal candidates such as Kirby.

He spent 25 years of his career at Shell, starting in the North Sea in 1984. In 2005 he moved to the gas producer BG to run its European and central Asian operations.

Five years later he returned to Shell, this time taking charge of the Middle East and north Africa.

AstheArabSpringgatheredforcein2011 and Libya, Egypt and Syria started to implode, Carne co-ordinated five oilfield evacuations within six months from his base in Dubai. “These are tense moments

and you are sitting there and you know you’ve got 50 guys in the desert depending on the decisions the team takes.”

He left Shell last year after missing out on becoming head of production. “There comes a point in time where you’re either going to get the top job or you’re not, and if you’re not you may need to rethink your path. It was time to move on.”

Carne was fascinated by the challenge of running Europe’s second-busiest rail network. “The parallels were sufficiently strong and I thought I would be able to bring a new perspective to the industry.”

He has made improving the “unacceptable” safety conditions faced by workers a priority. And punctuality and efficiency, the biggest sources of complaint from passengers, will also be tackled.

Network Rail was fined a record £53m for poor punctuality by the Office of Rail Regulation in July. The watchdog criticised the company for missing targets for improving efficiency between 2009 and 2014. “People today are not satisfied with the reliability of the railway and would like it to be run better. They want to see more seats and more capacity,” Carne says.

His plans for a “digital railway” should go some way to alleviating this. Signals are being fitted to trains rather than the trackside to allow as many as 30% more trains to run on existing lines.

However, he says, new track must be laid if overcrowding is to be tackled — starting with HS2. “If we’re going to meet the capacity challenge that we have in this country in the railways in the next 20 years, we have to think fundamentally differently.”

Carne brought his start date forward by five weeks to January as 280 sites lay submerged by floodwater and stretches of track had been washed away in north Wales, Cumbria and Devon. About 400 trees fell across rail lines in 48 hours and heavy winds and coastal storm surges brought services to a standstill.

However, the repairs to the severed Great Western main line on the Devon coast were completed in two months, and turned into a public relations victory for Network Rail as images of orange-clad workers battling the elements were screened around the country.

“I was really lucky. I joined in a crisis,” Carne says. “It enabled me to see in those first few days and weeks just what enormous capability exists here. When the chips are down, people pull together and achieve extraordinary things.”

The life of Mark Carne WORKING DAY

VITAL STATISTICS

Born: February 25, 1959 Marital status: married with three children School: Mill Hill boarding school, north London University: Exeter First job: checking the safety of engineering structures at Cambridge Consultants Pay: £675,000 Home: Clapham, south London Car: BMW X5 and a Mini Favourite book: Birdsong,

by Sebastian Faulks Favourite film: Jaws Favourite music: jazz Last holiday: Cornwall Charity: Macmillan Cancer Support

The chief executive of Network Rail is on the tracks two to three days a week, travelling between sites by train. “I have a standard class train ticket and an Oyster card,” says Mark Carne.

When in London, he arrives in the office at about 8.15am and starts meetings at 9am, with a mixture of internal and external ones, often in Westminster.

Typically, he leaves the office by 6.30pm and goes to dinners and functions two to three nights a week.

DOWNTIME

Jaws: favourite movie

Mark Carne is a keen gardener and also restores old clocks.

He has about 20 of them and started collecting 10 years ago when he was working in Aberdeen. “There is a tremendous amount of history in clocks,” he says. “I like taking apart a clock and trying to figure out why it works the way it does and what was in the mind of the person who made it.”

Carne spends a lot of time in Cornwall, where he has a holiday home near Falmouth, and goes canoeing and sailing.

12.10.14 / 25

How Tesco put the squeeze on suppliers ALEX SEGRE

In store: cheap deals at the tills have often been paid for by suppliers

The No 1 grocer is not afraid to use its muscle when doing deals, but desperate times may have driven it too far, reports Oliver Shah

A

year ago, Tesco received an eccentric complaint.

Gary Davies, a wedding photographer from Essex, sent the supermarket an open letter bemoaning the disappearance of Branston baked beans from its shelves.

“Dear Tesco,” Davies wrote, “Yet again you’ve attempted to ruin my health and happiness through your blatant attempt at sabotaging, distorting and undermining the free market for baked beans. All I see is a wall of Heinz, supplemented with THREE of your own brands.”

He posted his complaint on Facebook,threateningtoswitchtoMorrisons.Tesco’sresponsewaslimp.“I’m very sorry you feel this way,” said a customer services adviser. “Please accept my assurances that your comments have been passed on.”

The Tesco employee could not say it, but Davies was collateral damage in a dispute betweenTesco and the manufacturer of Branston beans, Princes. Between July and October last year, Britain’s biggest supermarket suspended sales of 75 Princes products, including baked beans, Crosse &Blackwell soupsand Napolina olive oil.

The commercial reasons for the argument were never disclosed, but it is sure to have hurt Princes financially. Premier Foods lost £10m in three months when Tesco delisted its Hovis, Mr Kipling and Oxo products three years ago, contributing to a profit warning.

Since overtaking J Sainsbury as the market leader in the mid-1990s, Tesco has rarely shied away from using its scale to extract cash and

concessionsfromsuppliers—taking groceries off the shelves when it wants to drive home a message. In some cases, as when Premier tried to pass on rising commodity costs, it has done so to keep down prices for consumers. In others, it has acted to boost its own bottom line.

As tradinghasworsened sincethe financial crisis, more anecdotal evidence has emerged of suppliers being asked for payments for services such as barcode changes and the prominent display of products, and in anticipation of events such as currency and commodity price

swings. Bullying of food producers is common across the supermarket industry, but Tesco’s behaviour has come under scrutiny since the discovery of a phantom £250m in its first-half profits. Last month it was revealed that a whistleblower in the accounts department had alerted Tesco’s general counsel to irregularities in the way it had booked income from suppliers and managed the associated costs.

Dave Lewis, the grocer’s new chief executive, has called in the accountancy giant Deloitte and the magic circle law firm Freshfields to

investigate. He has suspended five executives, including Chris Bush and Carl Rogberg, the UK managing director and finance director.

Sainsbury’s insisted that commercial income was not a “grey area of subjectivity”. John Rogers, its finance director, said:“It is actually quite an objective process. The accounting rules and regulations are very clearly defined.”

However, another rival said there were areas where supermarkets could “get caught out” if their financial controls were lax. The Tesco inquiry is understood to

centre on payments such as “overriders”, which are rewards for hitting targets, and “triggers”, the sums used to cover discounts. The chain is believed to have been bringing payments forward to mask the deterioration in its trading.

Tesco’s big suppliers were shocked, believing it to have become more collaborative and reasonable since the horse meat scandal last year. Smaller suppliers and farmers, more vulnerable to squeezes on income, were less surprised. Having found themselves on Tesco’s “go-to” list for extra fees

and late payment of invoices, they knew of its tendency to play hardball when times are difficult.

“Suppliers behave their way onto the target list for giving money,” said David Sables of Sentinel, an adviser to suppliers. “If they resist and maintain business on a legitimate sales basis, then, over a period of time, they effectively train the stores’ buyers that it’s hard work to get any money out of them. But if they build a track record for capitulating, they climb their way to the top of the first people a buyer will call when the cry comes to bring in

some money.” Sables has drawn up a list of almost 60 ways that supermarkets get money out of suppliers, from advertising fees to late delivery penalties.

Last November, Mike Dennis, an analyst at the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, suggested Tesco was turning the screw on hundreds of suppliers to meet profit margin targets as sales fell and costs rose.

Oneofthosethatsuffered—inthe form of late payment — was Moo Free Chocolates, based inReading.

Mike Jessop, the co-founder, had to threaten Tesco with a winding-up petition to recover just £6,000 that was overdue. “We had to struggle to pay our staff,” Jessop said. “If we’d kept delivering the whole order, we would have gone under.”

Tesco’s most senior buyers are among the executives who have been suspended. John Scouler runs its relations with suppliers in the UK, while Matt Simister and Kevin Grace look after its global sourcing.

One big supplier said the overlap between Scouler’s fiefdom and that of Simister and Grace was a source of tension because it was sometimes unclear whether a product would be sourced locally or globally. The supplier suggested that this could have contributed to the problems that have rocked Tesco to its core.

“It’s a hybrid model and it brings complexity and a degree of tension for suppliers, though that’s more to do with the logistics than the personalities involved,” he said. “I’d question how effective it is.”

The five executives’ suspension has added to the atmosphere of fear at Tesco’s headquarters in Buckinghamshire. Scouler is said to be particularly well liked. “John would have been seen as a source of stability and reassurance within the business,” the supplier said. “I wouldn’t underestimate the impact his suspension has had.”

Tesco’s accounting fiasco has cast serious doubts over the reign of Philip Clarke, chief executive from 2011 to this summer, and the chairmanship of Sir Richard Broadbent.

The big question for investigators is whether the £250m shortfall came about under the pressure of Clarke’s twilight months or whether it was a result of more profound failings in the way Britain’s biggest supermarket treats its suppliers.

BUSINESS

26

Wanted: superstars of the boardroom ANDREW PARSONS

THE AWARDS HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FIXTURES IN THE BUSINESS CALENDAR

The quest has begun to find this year’s top non-executive directors, writes Dominic O’Connell

L

ast Monday morning Tesco put out a routine stock market announcement about appointments to its board. Two new non-executive directors would join from the start of next month.

The reaction , however, was anything but routine. It was the lead story in most business sections the following day, and it even made the leap to some newspapers’ front pages.

The exhaustive reporting of the recruitment of Richard Cousins, chief executive of FTSE 100 caterer Compass, and Mikael Ohlsson, former boss of Ikea, was proof, were it needed, of the vital role of that often-overlooked corporate player, the non-executive director.

Tesco, Britain’s biggest grocer, is in crisis, battling its first sales decline in two decades, rapid management change, and a nasty £250m black hole in its accounts.

When a company gets into trouble, as Tesco has, the non-executives on the board suddenly come into the spotlight. The appointments had an immediate effect — Tesco finished last week at 185.25p, up 13p, on the hope that the pair would help to sort out the mess.

The Sunday Times has long recognised the importance of nonexecutive directors (Neds) — individuals who sit as directors on company boards, with all the attendant

Business brains: past winners and sponsors gather for breakfast at the Houses of Parliament to launch this year’s awards. Right, chief judge Sir Roger Carr, left, chats with lifetime achievement award winner Sir John Buchanan legal duties and responsibilities, but who are not involved in day-to-day management.

For the past nine years, in association with the leading stockbroking firm Peel Hunt, we have run awards to highlight the best talent at all levels. Today we kick off this year’s contest, and ask for entries from all areas of British business, including not-for-profit and public-sector organisations, where Neds also play a vital role.

We invite nominations in five categories: FTSE 100 company; other

companiesquotedonthemainlistof the London Stock Exchange; companies on AIM, the junior market; unquoted or private equity backed companies; and not-for-profit or public-sector organisations.

The judges will also give out a special award for lifetime achievement. Full details are available online at nedawards.co.uk.

The winners will be chosen at a dinner on March 5 by a panel of judges led by Sir Roger Carr, chairman of BAE Systems, former president of the CBI and a former

winner of our award. The ceremony will take place on April 16.

“The awards have become one of the most important fixtures in the Britishbusinesscalendar,”Carrsaid at this year’s launch at the Houses of Parliament last Wednesday.

“Non-executives are front and centre more than ever, having to deal with aggressive shareholders, and the prospect of big deals in some sectors. In each case the people who are called upon to make vital judgments are the Neds,” he said.

Neds remain — at least in theory

— part-time, and are paid significantly less than the executives they are meant to police. At the same time, they are expected to play a critical role at crucial junctures.

Sir John Buchanan, the former chairman of Smith & Nephew and ARM Holdings, and a non-executive director at BHP Billiton, won last year’s lifetime achievement award.

He said: “The value of independently minded non-executives, contributing to the success of the corporation along with rigorous monitoring of the executive, is even clearer now after the financial crisis.”

Neds are one of the pillars of the British corporate governance system, and have been important in

guarding the reputation of the London market, according to Xavier Rolet, chief executive of London Stock Exchange Group, one of the awards’ sponsors.

“Good governance is an important factor in maintaining the reputation of the UK’s capital markets. It is widely recognised that Neds have an important contribution to make to the efficient running of companies, which in turn has a positive effect on the economy as a whole,” he said.

Alice Maynard, chairwoman of Scope, the disability charity, won last year’s not-for-profit category.

She said private companies should look to charities and other not-forprofits for talent.

“Directors of charities have to take care of the commercial side — unless they are making money, they can’t support their causes.

“In addition they have all the normal oversight and strategy responsibilities that any non-executive would have,” she said.

This year’s awards will have simpler forms for nominees to complete. Carr said the judges were particularly keen to attract more entrants from the FTSE 100.

The experience of a seasoned non-executive can be invaluable outside the boardroom — as David Cameron recognised after seeing off the threat of Scottish independence in last month’s referendum.

He formed a commission to draw up outline plans to devolve more powers for Scotland. The person chosen to lead the commission was Lord Smith of Kelvin — former chairman of Weir, the FTSE 100 engineer, and a former winner of the lifetime achievement award.

12.10.14 / 27

Price slide turns screw on big oil A four-year low and rising costs are making life uncomfortable for the second tier of producers, reports Danny Fortson

C

arl-Henric Svanberg was feeling wistful on Thursday evening. At BP’s annual drinks party in the British Museum, the 62-year-old Swedish chairman’s speech to 800 guests snacking on cured ham, blue cheese and pickled veg touched on BP’s history.

This year marked half a century since what was then British Petroleum was granted the first licence to explore for oil in the North Sea. “This was licence P001,” he said. “The discovery of oil and gas that followed marked a turning point for the UK. And it was also for BP.” The North Sea was the makingofthemodernBP.Atits height the company accounted for a quarter of production from one of the world’s great oil basins and collected hundreds of billions of pounds in profits, whichBPusedtospreaditstentacles around the world.

Much has changed since 1964. For one, the optimism that characterised the dawn of a new industry back then has been replaced by grim realism.

The industry is ill and has been for some time. The recent sharp fall in the oil price could be the catalyst for the biggest shake-up in the industry since the late 1990s, when a wave of mergers created the “supermajors” such as Exxon Mobil, BP and Total.

“We are at the beginning of a paradigm shift in the oil and gas world,” said a director of one oil giant.

This time, however, the supermajors forged a decade and a half ago are more likely to swallow up the generation of upstarts that have grown up since then rather than get together themselves. Some of the industry’s biggest success stories, from America’s booming shale oil and gas industry to the North Sea, could go to the wall.

To understand the likely direction of travel, one need only look at the numbers.

In just four months, the oil price has gone from $114 a barrel, a spike sparked by the Isis (also known as Islamic State) militants’ first incursion into Iraq, to $88 — the biggest drop since the 2008 financial crisis. Then, the crude price cratered from $147 to $33 in six months. The fall this time is far less extreme but the timing is, in some ways, worse.

At these levels, most big oil companies are losing money.

This year the top ten nongovernment producers are expected to run up a cashflow deficit of about $35bn (£22bn), according to Moody’s Investors Service, the credit rating agency,thankstosoaringoperating costs and higher taxes.

The crunch means companies are being forced to take out loans just to cover their dividend payments, which is making a bad situation worse.

Since 2008 the top 10 companies have built up $303bn in combined debt, a jump of 75%, at a time when most industries have been rapidly paying off debt after the recession. The oil sector’s debt spike is due to the sharply rising cost of finding new fields and keeping creaking old ones pumping.

The $231bn the industry spent last year, also a record, saw overall production nudge up by just 0.6%.

Worse, governments have steadily raised their tax takes.

According to research from Lambert Energy Advisory, no fewer than 16 oil producing nations take more than 80% of revenues in taxes and royalties.

Iraq is the most punitive; Baghdad claims about 99% of revenues. BP makes less than $1 a barrel for running the country’slargestreservoir.Even Britaintakes81%fromoldfields.

So big oil is hurting. An extended price drop would be painful for everyone. The likes of Shell and BP have big enough balance sheets to weather the storm, but the crop of midsized companies that burst on to the scene in recent years will tell a different story.

Companies such as Continental, EOG Resources and Chesapeake Energy have made billionaires of their founders who cracked “fracking” — the controversial drilling technique that has opened up vast swathes of previously untappable resources in America.

However, many members of this new middle class of companies have greater leverage ratios and much higher breakeven costs than their larger rivals. A senior banker said: “If low prices persist for the next 12 to 18 months, the mid-sized companies will be in trouble.”

Whether prices stay low is largely down to Saudi Arabia, which accounts for about a tenth of global production and so exerts huge influence on the oil price, shutting down fields when the crude price is too low or bringing them back on when it gets too high.

This month it agreed to sell crude oil to Asia at a discount, which the market saw as a sign

THE $231BN THE INDUSTRY SPENT LAST YEAR RAISED OUTPUT JUST 0.6% of the kingdom’s willingness to keep prices weak. Next month’s price-setting meeting of Opec, the Saudi-led group of oil producers, will be critical, said Philip Lambert, Lambert Energy Advisory’s founder.

He predicted the slump would not last because most Opec countries need an oil price around or above $100 a barrel to cover costs and keep their social programmes afloat, but added that “there may be a short period of turbulence while Saudi Arabia gets others to share some of the pain of production cuts”.

The alternative view is that Saudi Arabia is engineering a deeper shake-up aimed at high-cost producers.

The shale revolution has turned the industry on its head.

America last year produced 1.1m barrels a day more than it

did in 2012, when it produced 1m more barrels a day than it did in 2011. That is almost the equivalent of adding a new North Sea, which last year averaged 1.4m barrels a day, in each of the past two years. With the jump in gas production from shale drilling, America this year unseated Russia as the world’s largest fossil fuel producer — a feat unthinkable even five years ago.

To keep the increases going is costly, however. Shale wells tail off quickly so producers need to sink thousands of wells to maintain production, let alone increase it. Analyst estimates vary widely as to breakeven costs, but they generally average out at $80 to $85 a barrel. They are among the highest-cost producers in the industry and many have leveraged up aggressively to fund their expansion.

The most effective way to put America’s resurgent industry back in its box is a weak oil price.An$80pricewouldobliterate profits and leave some firms struggling to survive.

It would also be brutal for the North Sea, where companies are labouring to keep decades-old fields alive and delivering. “This has got to be the government’s worst nightmare,” said one adviser.

Such carnage would be welcomed by Opec and by oil giants with low-cost operations and the financial wherewithal to take advantage.

“There is still way too much capital in the market,” the adviser said. “If the price stays low it will stop projects, slow down US shale growth, and send the weakest to the wall You would end up with less capital and fewer players, which is the desired impact.”

Not that big oil doesn’t face hard times. The industry is expected to follow BP’s example and speed up asset sales. The FTSE 100 giant has sold assets worth $70bn since 2010 to help pay for clean-up costs and lawsuits from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill that year.

The industry’s distress is no doubt far less acute than BP’s but a persistently low oil price concentrates the minds of executives.Somewillswoopon prime assets, others will merge out of desperation.

The director of another oil company said: “The best parallel is 1999. Oil was $10 a barrel but, on a percentage basis, margins are smaller now.”

Saudi Arabia and Opec hold the key to future oil price movements

BUSINESS

TOM STOCKILL

28

It’s radio’s turn to feel the heat from digital media with this YouTube for the spoken word, writes Matthew Goodman

F

or football fans, transfer deadline day is excruciating. Every rumour about which star is going where is dissected and discussed while the clock ticks down.It has become a media frenzy.

This scramble to get the latest gossip has proved a boon to the likes of Sky Sports on television and Talksport on radio. It has also worked its magic on Audioboom, a network best described as YouTube for audio.

The London business, launched five years ago, recorded its busiest ever day last month when the transfer window closed, with more than 2m users logging in to listen to clips on player moves. “Football deadline day was off the clock, the busiest we have ever seen,” said Rob Proctor, chief executive.

Football supporters are not the only people getting excited about Audioboom. City investors are tuning in in ever greater numbers, too. The business’s shares have soared some 800% in the five months since it joined the stock market through a reverse takeover of One Delta, an AIM-listed shell company. Having debuted at 1.5p, the shares closed on Friday at 13.9p.

This month the company raised £8m in a share placing that saw a number of high-profile names buy into the business. The new backers included blue-chip institutions such as BlackRock and Legal & General, the small company specialist Octopus, and celebrities such as the Australian soap star Holly Valance, wife of the millionaire property developer Nick Candy.

The deal also allowed 7 Digital, an AIM-listed music service whose UBC operation was a founding investor in Audioboom, to sell down its stake. Having pumped £1.8m into the business, it took £3.6m off the table from selling shares and still retains 11% of the company, so it stands to benefit from further growth. Directors — including Proctor and Rodger Sargent, who helped to raise money for One Delta with serial sports and media investor Chris Akers — also contributed to the fundraising.

Despite the enormous rise in its share price, some market watchers believe Audioboom remains conservatively valued compared with far bigger, more established social media businesses such as Twitter and Facebook. Its market value is a littleover£73m—about£25foreach of its almost 3m registered users — which is about half or one-third of the equivalent measure for Twitter or Snapchat.

“The value per subscriber is not

The word on the street: Rob Proctor, centre, and colleagues at Audioboom

We need to talk about Audioboom — and not just because the shares are up 800% excessive by any means,” said Peter McNally, technology analyst at stockbroker Charles Stanley. “It is still early days for Audioboom.

It has a long way to go, but it has shaken up how audio content should be delivered.”

The reason Audioboom has attracted so much excitement among investors is the potential of its business model. “It is well positioned for growth,” wrote analysts at Arden Partners, the stockbroker that handled the fundraising, in a note this month.

When it was launched five years ago, under the leadership of Mark Rock and with backing from UBC and Channel4, whichretains a0.5% stake, Audioboo(as thesitewas then known) allowed users to post audio clips they had created.

It was the aural equivalent of YouTube and it attracted celebrity fans such as Stephen Fry and Robert Llewellyn, star of the TV sitcom Red Dwarf. The only proviso, one that remains today, was that all the material had to be spoken word.

There is no music, so Audioboom never pays royalties to labels or performers, a cost services such as Spotify and Pandora have had to bear.

However, like many dotcom businesses, it had not yet worked out how to make money from its loyal audience.

“Manybusinessesgothroughtwo or more generations,” said Simon Cole, the chief executive of 7 Digital and a non-executive director of Audioboom. “Look at Google, YouTube, Shazam. They set out as one thing and went through a handbrake turn. They realised they needed to be different businesses to be successful.”

Last year the founding shareholders appointed internet veteran Proctor as chief executive to point

the business in a new direction. “We took some of the core [software] code but basically ripped up what was there and reinvented it,” he said.

The big idea was to switch from having amateur users upload material to signing up professional organisations that would make content available through the site.

Today, Audioboom has about 1,400 commercial partners, includingtheBBC,SkySports,Talksport and The Spectator magazine, providing clips.

The next stage in the development of the business was to launch a mobile phone app that allows users

to create their own “programmes” by downloading the content they are interested in. The latest version of the service has just been launched on the iPhone and is due to go live on Android devices imminently.

The app allows users to choose the type of content they wish to receive and can be configured so that material can be downloaded automatically to a mobile phone.

Someone who wants, say, a daily financial news bulletin can receive exactly that every morning on their device so they can listen to it on the way to work, for example.

Proctor hopes Audioboom will

Word up: how Audioboom works 1 Media partners supply audio clips anything except music Content News Interviews Reviews

2 Audioboom publishes clips in dedicated channels via its app

3 Users pick clips they wish to download and listen to

eventually replace radio broadcasts as the means by which listeners receive information. He argues that many listeners have to put up with repeated news bulletins, traffic reports, weather forecasts and so on that they have no interest in. Audioboom’s system of “curated content” will change that, he hopes.

Proctor said: “Radio stations have hoursandhoursofairtimetheyhave to fill. But in a mobile [phone] environment that doesn’t work. Users expect to be able to choose and curate their experience. Pushing them three hours of a drivetime show doesn’t work. Radio has done an amazingly good job of ringfencing itself against the rise of digital [media] up to this point. That is now being broken.”

The development will not stop there. Proctor says the business will move into a third phase — syndicating content to a large network of websites that can then be used to sell advertising.

For example, Audioboom may have an interview with Louis van Gaal, the Manchester United manager, which it can supply to the top 100 most read websites dedicated to the football club. That, he argues,

becomes a compelling proposition for advertising buyers. “We will give them options.”

The company also sees great potential to expand internationally.

At the moment, about two-thirds of its listeners are in Britain and America, with a further 15% in Australia. But deals such as the recent tie-up with Zee TV, theIndianmedia giant, indicate the company has its sights set on moving farther afield.

South America is a big opportunity,asistheSpanish-speakingpart of the American market.

Malcolm Wall, a veteran media figure who heads Pinewood Studios’ joint venture in China, is set to join the board as a non-executive director to help advise on the overseas growth.

Given the global appeal of the Premier League, the next transfer deadline day, in January, could be even more of a boon for Audioboom.

ST DIGITAL Listen to Alan Bennett read the shipping forecast thesundaytimes.co.uk/business

12.10.14 / 29 OWEN HUMPHREYS

Jobs losses loom as demand falls and competition continues to bite, reports John Collingridge

A

stream of chauffeur-driven cars arrived last Sunday at the Lotte hotel, a glass and concrete block in Moscow.

From the cars stepped the biggest names in the steel industry, including Lakshmi Mittal, head of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s top producer.

Karl-Ulrich Köhler, boss of Tata Steel Europe, strolled through the hotel’s whitemarble reception. So too did Alexey Mordashov of the Russian giant Severstal and Kosei Shindo of Nippon Steel.

In all, about 300 executives from 170 companies attended the three-day annual conference of the World Steel Association. Their conclusions were troubling. Global steel consumption is expected to grow only 2% this year, significantly below the association’s previous forecast of 3.1%.

China’s slowing economic juggernaut will seriously affect global demand, warned Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff, chairman of the association’s economics committee. Steel use in the People’s Republic is predicted to rise only 1% this year, down from 6.1% last year.

“The slowdown in China’s demand, reflecting the structural transformation of the economy, has contributed significantly to our lower global growth projection,” he said.

Europe, too, faces a mixed outlook. Its steel use will rise 4% this year to 146m tons, the association predicted. Next year, however, that figure is expected to fall to 2.9% as Germany and France falter.

“Massive job cuts are unavoidable,” said Wolfgang Eder, an Austrian steel boss, shortly before becoming chairman of the association last week.Thecutswillbe“painful, but long overdue”.

That fragile global outlook poses fresh questions for what remains of the once mighty steel sector. Britain gave birth to the modern industry in 1855

Steel barons face more dark days

Redcar steel plant: after three years its Thai owner is still struggling to make it profitable

thanks to Henry Bessemer’s oxidation process — the first inexpensive method of massproduction.

The historic Redcar blast furnace on Teesside was relit in April 2012 by its Thai owner, Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), but has yet to make a profit. In SSI UK’s accounts for 2013, the auditor KPMG warned of “significant doubts” about the site’s viability after it lost $309m (£194m).

While the losses were down on the $476m a year earlier, KPMG said there was “material uncertainty that may cast significant doubts on the company’s ability to continue”.

SSI bought Redcar from Tata Steel, the former Corus business, in a £290m deal in 2011, a year after it was mothballed. Its blueprint for turning round the business was to switch it from exporting steel slabs to the Continent to feeding its parent’s plants in Thailand.

SSI said last week that the

strategy was starting to pay off.

It blamed the loss in part on a delay in commissioning new equipment, and said it had edged into the black on an underlying level in June. “We are confident of achieving our goal of SSI UK becoming established as a viable and sustainable business,” it said.

For the 2,800 staff at the plant, that cannot come soon enough. SSI’s investment in Redcar was always going to be a gamble. Cornelius Louwrens, the chief operating officer of SSI UK, heads to Thailand every month to present the latest figures. “Part of that is to convince them that the business model still works, and that we can deliver,” he said earlier this year. “If they believed it would stay like this, at some point they would have to think whether this was a wise investment or not.”

Tata Steel Europe, owner of the Port Talbot and Scunthorpe steelworks, also endured a

tough 2013, posting pre-tax losses of £562m in the year to the end of March. Losses were roughlyhalvedfromayearearlier, on revenues 2% lower at £8.6bn. The Indian conglomerate, which also owns Jaguar Land Rover, bought Corus for £6.7bn in 2007.

It has been nibbling away at its18,500-strongBritishwork– force, cutting 400 from Port Talbot in July and 500 administrative jobs at Scunthorpe and factories on Teesside and in Workington last October.

Ian Rodgers, director of UK Steel, a trade body, said European demand remains more than 20% below its pre-recession peak. An industry that employed about 41,000 Britons in the production of raw steel in 1992 is down to about 19,000.

“Different companies have adopted different strategies,” he said. “A lot of my members have accepted that this is the new reality and adapted to it, saying we need to adjust our

For half a century, we’ve broken the big stories and shaped the way we think about the news. That’s why we’re read by 58%* of the top players.

Still the best in the business.

* Source Ipsos Business Elite Survey 2013

operations so we can make money at this level.”

Brighter spots are emerging. the car industry, which exports about 80% of what it produces, is close to hitting its 1972 production record of 1.92m cars. Manufacturers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, BMW and Toyota are helping to underpin demand for steel. The recovering construction industry is also help-

CHINA’S SLOWING ECONOMIC JUGGERNAUT WILL SERIOUSLY HIT GLOBAL DEMAND

ing to keep plants stocked with orders.

The Chinese problem remains, however. The cooling economytherehasseenitsown steel producers shift increasingly from meeting domestic demand to selling excess stock on international markets. That has depressed global steel prices, despite the growing demand in the West.

“The Chinese have come back into the European market with something of a vengeance, having been out for several years,” said Rodgers.

“There is a lot of constructionrelated steel heading our way.”

He said China now commands 35% of the UK market for reinforcing bars, used to streng– then concrete, up from zero 18 months ago.

Cheaper iron ore prices have helped the industry to claw back some profitability, but energy costs remain a burden.

Last Monday Europe’s biggest producers used a newspaper

advertisement to call for an “ambitious European climate policy” ahead of an EU climate summit this month. They want a policy that does not impose heavy carbon emission penalties on companies that compete against less regulated Asian rivals. Regulators are recommending a 40% cut in carbon dioxide emissions.

In Sheffield, the birthplace of stainless steel, the remaining producers have diversified by making specialised products from scrap metal. Sheffield Forgemasters, a 209-year-old maker of forgings and castings for the power, defence, steelmaking and oil and gas industries, said prospects were gradually improving.

Last week it won a £12m contract to supply 11 castings, each weighing more than 320 tons, to a German company.

“There’s clear recovery visible in the UK, but it’s in specific areas,” said Peter Birtles, former managing director and

now a non-executive at the independent company, which has 800 staff. “The offshore oil and gas sector has carried on very strongly. Some areas of defence equipment have also carried on at a significant level.

“But any expectation that the steel market is likely to return to where it was before the recession is a false one.”

Also, as with the European steel giants, the cost of energy remains a worry for Forge– masters.

“People talk about fears that the lights will go out,” said Birtles. “Well, they are already going out. Companies like ours can only buy electricity on an interruptible tariff, which means that at peak times in the winter, at less than 30 minutes’ notice, we can be told to stop production. If we consume any electricity during that period we are charged a huge premium of 10 to 12 times the cost.

“This country lacks a coherent long-term energy strategy.”

BUSINESS

30 MICHAEL POWELL

Social media can be a cheap and fast way to hire staff for start-ups, writes Emma Broomfield

Business doctor COSTOFMOVE TO CLOUD CANBESETAGAINSTTAX PG writes: We want to switch to cloud-based IT infrastructure and move our customer relationship management software into the cloud.

Will I be able to get a tax deduction for the set-up and running costs?

L

ike most 19-year-olds, Ellie Keeble is a fan of Facebook. But her posts are more for business than pleasure.

Keeble’s family owns Heck, which makes upmarket sausages on their farm in Bedale, North Yorkshire. It turned over £3m last year and employs more than 20 staff. The Keebles have turned to social media not only to increase awareness of their brand but also to recruit staff.

“We initially applied to find a new team member through recruitment agencies but we didn’t get a single response,” said Keeble, who handles Heck’s marketing. “So we posted on Facebook and were inundated with replies.”

With Heck’s 10,000 online followers, it took only 24 hours after posting a job advertisement on Facebook to hire an £18,000a-year production technician.

“We wouldn’t recruit staff any other way now,” said Keeble.

“From putting up the initial Facebook status to actually hiring, it’s important to be able to oversee the whole process. Social media allows us to do that.”

Ellie and her brothers Jamie, 24, Guy, 23, and Roddy, 21, run Heck under the watchful eyes of their parents, Debbie and Andrew. The couple are veterans of the industry, though were left with a bitter taste after selling their previous eponymous sausage brand, and falling out with its new owners over standards.

Teething troubles with Heck brought Alex Polizzi, BBC 2’s The Fixer, to the Yorkshire Dales in February to advise the family.

The programme, shown last month, included an emotional scene where Ellie’s parents realised she was not pulling her weight. Having learnt from the constructive criticism she is now working harder than ever.

“Obviously I haven’t got much experience, which might have shown on TV, but we are all equally committed to helping develop the business.”

With Polizzi’s encouragement, Heck set up Facebook, Twitter

On the farm: Roddy, Jamie and Ellie Keeble, and Jack Tate — all part of the family business

An online ticket to our sausage factory and YouTube accounts, using them for customer feedback.

“We’ve now got lots of people looking at our social media pages so it was logical to use it to find newteammembers,”saidKeeble.

Heck, whose sausages are sold in Tesco, Asda, Waitrose and Morrisons, expects to double its revenues this year, and received a £1m investment from Panoramic Growth Equity last month.

The sausage brand is not alone in its quest to take on staff quickly as growth accelerates. According to research released by Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks earlier this year, small and mediumsized enterprises are expected to take on half a million new employees this year. Its survey said that 63% of small companies with between 10 and 49 employees are the most likely to

increase staff numbers, comparedwith36%ofmedium-sized firms with 50 to 249 staff.

The price of recruiting can be hefty, however; the average cost of finding and integrating a new worker is £5,433, according to an analysis by Oxford Economics.

Social media is an inexpensive way to seek out passionate candidates. Facebook and Twitter require only an internet connection to advertise a position,while LinkedIn offers specialist recruiting services for just £29.99 a year. The benefits are not just cost related. Social media can be a good way to target potential employees when positions need to be filled quickly. Sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook also offer transparency: employers can see the professional — and personal — activities of candidates.

“Small firms often have short notice to fill positions or to fulfil contracts, and their budgets simply wouldn’t cover recruitment fees,” said Emma Jones, founder of small business campaign group Enterprise Nation and chairman of youth career platform Plotr. “They don’t have time to interview dozens of candidates. They want someone now who has the right contacts.”

Using social media to expand his team has become second nature to Dominic Portman, who founded his online fancy dress supplier after graduating from Nottingham Trent University two years ago. “Social media has shaped my business and using it for recruitment is an ideal way of connecting with like-minded people,” said Portman, 25. His Fancy Fresher website offers stu-

dents party packs and discount vouchers. It had 120,000 customers last month, a 400% increase on last year, with sales expected to reach £80,000 by the end of the year. The growth has seen Fancy Fresher move from a one-man operation to include a team of 85 reps — each employed through Facebook to promote the company’s products.

Keen to exploit his brand’s strong online presence, Portman posted a recruitment video on YouTube and Facebook. Within hours he had dozens of responses and began interviewing on Skype. “You’ve got to be resourceful,” he said. “Facebook doesn’t cost a penny to use, making it ideal for recruiting — as long as the content you post is as engaging and interesting as the people you want to attract.”

A lot of businesses are migrating to cloud-based software, writes Jon Dawson, partner at Kingston Smith LLP. Sometimes referred to as “software as a service”, it is usually accessed through a web browser or app, which means you can operate it from multiple locations.

Cloud-based software can cost much less to run than traditional IT systems because you do not need dedicated IT equipment, such as servers, to host it. You can quickly scale up or down your requirements as your business changes. Most providers also put out regular updates as they improve their systems, eliminating the need for costly manual upgrades.

As the service is on demand, your subscription costs are charged to the profit-and-loss account and should be eligible for a tax deduction. Set-up costs can be treated in the same way.

If the process involves designing new software, you may be able to capitalise these costs.

If you are upgrading IT hardware, this can be capitalised on the balance sheet and written off over its useful life — normally one to three years.

Your business should qualify for the annual investment allowance, meaning that each year you will receive a full tax deduction for the first £500,000 spent on qualifying plant and machinery, including IT equipment. This applies until December 31, 2015, when the allowance will fall to £25,000 a year.

When choosing a cloud supplier, make sure that your data will be held securely; that you comply with data protection laws; and that you will have access to information if anything should happen to the software supplier. You should also make regular back-ups.

LAWBRINGSARANGEOF EXTRARIGHTSFORSTAFF DW writes: I have read that changes to employment law were introduced at the start of the month. Can you explain these and is there anything I need to implement to ensure compliance?

October usually brings a number of employment law changes, writes Peter Done, managing director of Peninsula, but this year’s changes will have a bigger impact than normal.

First, effective from October 1, the rates for the national minimum wage are: £6.50 for workers aged 21 and over, £5.13 for workers aged 18-20, £3.79 for those over compulsory school age but not yet 18, and £2.73 for apprentices aged under 19 or who are 19 but are in the first year of their apprenticeship.

The second big change is that fathers and partners will receive a statutory right to unpaid time off to attend two antenatal appointments with a maximum of 6.5 hours per appointment. This right is available to employees who are in a “qualifying relationship” with the mother and is available from day one of their employment. It also applies to qualifying agency workers and those who are the intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement. Employers cannot ask for proof of the appointment but can request a declaration stating that the qualifying relationship criteria are met.

Employment law has also taken into account the government’s drive to increase the military reserve forces.

For dismissals where the reason is the employee’s membership of the Army Reserve, employees can claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment, removing the two-year service requirement.

Employment tribunals now have the right, in successful equal-pay claims, to order the employer to carry out an equal-pay audit. Also, a new updated list of “prescribed persons” who can receive whistleblowing complaints applies to protected disclosures from October 1.

To ensure compliance, you should make sure that managers are aware of the changes and the effect they will have on employees. Also, company policies should be reviewed to ensure that they are in line with the law.

Employment Law Experts

Kingston Smith LLP, the chartered accountant, and Peninsula, the employment law firm, can advise owner-managers on their problems.

Send your questions to Business Doctor, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF. Advice is given without legal responsibility. bizdoc@kingstonsmith.co.uk

Cosmetics empire started with food mixer at the kitchen sink TREVOR PALIN

HOWIMADEIT Rivka Rose

Founder of Faith in Nature IN May 1971, Rivka Rose crossed the Atlantic from New York with a plan to introduce Britain to organic shampoo.

“I was young and impressionable,” she said. “I had seen the growth of natural products in America and had a vision of bringing the scene to Britain.”

Rose lived in Notting Hill in west London, working as a secretary to pay the bills. In September 1972 she settled by the Solway Firth, where she spent months gathering and growing plants. By January she was mixing up a storm in her kitchen sink.

The result was Faith in Nature, founded in 1974 with sales of her first organic shampoo. Forty years on, the company, based at Radcliffe in Greater Manchester, is making hundreds of natural products for hair, body, baby and home, employing 40 staff. It had sales of £3.1m in the year to last June and exports to 25 countries.

In June last year, Faith in Nature partnered with babycare brand Humphrey’s Corner to produce lotions, shampoos and bubble baths for infants.

The range is stocked by Boots, Asda, Ocado and Tesco. Last monthHolland&Barrettbegan to stock its regular shampoos and shower gels.

Free from paraffin, white oil and artificial fragrances, Faith in Nature has taken years to be recognised as an alternative to household brands. “There has been a lot of literature recently about eating correctly and activity and lifestyle changes, and a huge increase in awareness of organic products,” said Rose. “When we started we had to produce leaflets to explain what we were doing.”

The quality of the products has improved. Rose’s first piece

of kit was a kitchen food processor she bought in 1973. “It didn’t emulsify the materials so our moisturisers were a bit greasy,” she said. “When I understood the chemistry I found other machinery and got a more elegant result.”

Coconut Hand Cream, in the brand’s popular skincare line, now sells at £6.39 for 50ml.

Shampoo varieties include Rosemary (£5.35 for 400ml), Tea Tree (£5.35) and Seaweed and Citrus (£5.50).

“There are lots of cheap brands but we know our market,” said Rose, chairwoman and chief executive.

“People who want products that won’t dry out their hair or skin turn to Faith in Nature.”

Rose, 68, was born and grew up in New York. Her mother was a housewife and her father a business contractor. “He had this funny little typewriter on whichhe’ddoallhisquotesand bills,” she said. “He was very organised and that obviously made an impression on me.”

Her brother went into the family business and her sister became a clinical psychiatrist.

Rose attended Roosevelt High School near New York.

She went on to study English at the City College of New York in 1963 but changed to sociology and psychology.

On graduating in 1968 she moved to California to work in a family bakery in the Santa Cruz mountains. On a trip to Canada she became interested in herbalism and began making natural yoghurt, selling it at a health food store.

Then came the move to Britain. “I handed my recipes to someone else, which I would never do now,” she said. “Not long afterwards a yoghurt company started up that’s very

Rivka Rose’s training in alternative medicines is a key ingredient successful, so I obviously had the right idea.”

Luckily she had another idea, although starting Faith in Nature in Britain was a challenge. “Breaking ground when nobody had heard of us here was hard. I worked crazy hours, knocking on doors from Edinburgh to London, trying to share my vision.”

While running the business, Rose also trained in reflexology and aromatherapy.

She said her background in alternative medicines has been vital to the success of Faith in Nature. “I tried every product out there but nothing suited my personal need so I knew I had to keep learning and producing new stock.”

The company has enjoyed steady growth. In 1975, with her house bursting at the seams, Rose found a shop on Easter Road in Edinburgh. “It was a quiet working-class area

with nice people,” she said. “I saw these two shop windows and thought they would be perfect as I was able to connect them underneath.”

In March 1989 she moved to Bury to save money on expansion. “We had used every inch of 2,500 sq ft up, down and sideways,” she said. Faith in Nature moved to its current 30,000 sq ft site in Radcliffe in August 2008. “We’ve always had elastic walls,” she said.

“We stay in a place as long as possible before we move on.”

Rose lives near Radcliffe with her husband, Aaron, 63.

He joined the business in 1982.

Her advice to entrepreneurs is: “Have a strong belief and a positive focus where you feel you can make a difference to people. Once you have that, you can overcome any obstacle.”

Hattie Williams

12.10.14 / 31

Databank 6,900

FTSE 100

6,800 6,700

Games retailer

6,400 2014

Current Change Change 12-month 12-month level on week % intraday high intraday low 187.94 +0.11 105.93 465.59 61.77 199.39 408.10 406.87 208.03 54.16 +23.98 129.71 8.77 270.61 +10.67

2.88 +3.24 3.04 2.74 3.14 4.45 2.60 4.42 4.86 4.02 +0.10 2.44 2.77 1.02 +0.45

6,866.05 3.50 3,670.10 17,279.74 2,010.40 4,582.90 16,321.17 10,009.08 4,581.12 1,401.53 25,240.15 5,640.54 334.40 27,090.42 2,374.54

Martyn Gibbs

6,339.97 3.22 3,380.02 15,237.11 1,703.20 3,791.87 13,960.05 8,724.83 4,059.71 1,242.68 21,436.70 5,101.48 297.63 20,217.39 2,004.34

Friday close, p

Xaar Tesco Norcros Fresnillo Hays Fallers q

Change on week, %

244 185¼ 15¾ 749 120½ Friday close, p

Spirent Management Consult Kofax Carclo Mothercare

+9.9 +7.6 +5 +4 +4 Change on week, %

72 18½ 366¼ 95½ 170½

-27.6 -27.5 -23.7 -19.2 -17.8

12-month high low

1,162 3721/5 25¼ 1,042 156

12-month high low

129½ 29½ 539 393 3523/4

65 99 92 129 110 139 27 56 38 136 75 26 7 190 35 63 36 15 93 174 184 158 168 115 16 18 138 3 5 52 170 30 22

Aberdeen Asset Management Admiral Aggreko Alliance Trust Amec Amlin Anglo American Antofagasta ARM Holdings Ashmore Ashtead Associated British Foods Astra Zeneca Atkins, WS Aviva Babcock International BAE Systems Barclays Barratt Developments BBA Aviation Beazley Bellway Berendsen Berkeley BG BHP Billiton Booker BP British American Tobacco British Land Britvic BSkyB BT

CHANGE 52-WEEK PRICE ONWK HIGH LOW YIELD

396 1255 1454 438 1014 428⅞ 1325½ 661½ 842½ 303¾ 912

+5⅞ 500 363¼ 40 1575 1195 84 1774 1454 13½ 465¾ 429 78 1262 1014 6 490¾ 405⅛ +11 1648 1226½ 19 959 661½ 44 1110 833½ 3⅛ 419¾ 298 106 1059 624

4.0 3.7 1.9 2.2 4.1 6.0 3.7 8.3 0.6 5.3 0.9

2488 4300 1302 490½ 1048 444⅝ 223⅞ 375⅜ 321⅝ 261 1480 924½ 2063 1025 1613½ 123¼ 428⅛

163 3125 1906 62 4823½ 3133 41 1502 1133 29 535½ 412⅝ 16 1355 1024½ 15½ 475 376 ⅝ 296½ 207⅞ 23 451¾ 310⅝ 10⅛ 353⅜ 293 7⅜ 280¼ 209⅜ 88 1691 1336 45 1128 894½ 180 2780 2063 41 1351½ 1008½ 37 2096 1613½ +3½ 171¾ 116¼ 16¾ 523⅞ 428⅛

3427 680 634½ 886½ 369½

48½ 3633½ 2881 8½ 733 584½ 31½ 777½ 569½ 8 950 785 7¼ 418 348

Sell-off overdone Recovering sentiment Solid trading Acquisition completes Hiring picks up Reason for change

711/5 18½ 349 95½ 1084/5

TOP 200 COMPANIES RANK BY MKT CAP

Reason for change

P/E

15.3 11.7 15.5

MKT CAP (£M)

18.7 74.6 16.4 18.7

5,204 3,469 3,723 2,426 3,025 2,147 18,512 6,521 11,833 2,165 4,590

1.2 3.9 2.5 3.0 2.2 4.5 2.8 1.5 2.7 3.2 2.0 3.0 7.2 1.6 4.2 2.1 5.1

31.2 45.8 13.6 12.5 23.8 76.8 32.4 12.3 15.3 7.5 12.6 17.9 10.9 22.7 10.6 20.7 11.9

19,696 54,291 1,303 14,457 5,263 14,036 36,768 3,697 1,517 1,360 1,808 1,595 2,792 34,962 34,062 2,150 78,649

4.1 3.9 2.7 3.5 2.6

17.8 63,879 6.1 6,911 25.0 1,568 16.3 15,239 15.0 30,018

20.3 7.3

Profit warning Profit warning Weaker trading Writedown warning Rights issue

The retailer is due to present its annual results on Thursday, the first since it joined the stock market.

Liberum Capital, its joint broker, has forecast pre-tax profits of £26.7m, and predicts this will almost double next year to £51.9m. The broker has forecast sales of £855.7m for this year, rising to £924.4m in 2015. It does not expect a dividend to be paid this week.

THE RESULTS On the up

Tide of new releases

SALES AND OUTPUT

Latest monthly change (%)

Manufacturing output Retail sales (volume)

Gross domestic product

+0.4 +0.1

LETTERS Send your letters, including full name and address, to: The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF email: letters@sunday-times.co.uk

Tough decisions needed on care sector

WHEN it comes to the pressures faced by the care sector, you hit the nail on the head with last week’s report “Care homes lose sleep over new night payments”. Cost pressures are well-documented. Local authorities are unable to increase fees to keep up with inflation but, quite rightly, the public and the regulator demand higher standards of care.

Austerity cuts mean only those with high dependency are placed into residential care. This means greater needs, which in turn demand more qualified staff at a time when there are not enough nurses. This forces up nurses’ pay, creating a perfect storm for care operators, many of whom will be forced to close.

It is time government stopped dancing around the issues. More people need to pay for their care because the government can’t afford it. The local authority

-0.6 -0.1 +0.4 +0.4 +0.3 +0.2

1,376.15 1,554.61 114.76

1,194.02 1,056.07 88.49

702½ 1567 1477 2165

16½ 729 30 1690 +13 1605 +13 2280

318⅛ 1135 303½ 2207 511 293⅜ 1434 268½ 1308 948½ 1290 2039 3277 2677 1729½ 276 362⅜ 611 814½ 1348 742

9¾ 392 316⅛ 30 1235 959½ 8⅜ 382⅞ 288¼ 237 2600 2040 10 586½ 483⅜ 12¾ 367⅞ 293⅜ 26 1470 1223 12½ 327¾ 254⅞ 15 1823 1287 34½ 1053½ 854 93 1788 1290 96 2635 1990 73 3683 2521 6 2843 2382 14½ 2030 1709½ 11¾ 304⅛ 209¼ 6½ 379⅞ 246¾ 7½ 822½ 595 14½ 1014 763½ 111 1827 1200 42½ 915 713

0.4 2.3 5.7 2.7 5.7 5.7 3.1 3.6

984½ 118 937 110⅜ 380½ 749 298¼ 255½ 286½ 1375 312¼ 598 741 622 576½ 559 884 120½ 193½ 146

5½ 1388 +1½ 145 17 1270 6⅜ 145⅞ 11¾ 400½ +29 1042 6⅝ 382½ +4⅝ 273½ 26⅝ 414⅞ 50½ 1690½ 20¼ 377½ 17 679½ 44 925 4½ 672½ 22½ 636½ 11 619 58½ 1549 +4½ 156 6 270¼ +1¼ 146⅜

2.3

17.4

2.2

20.8 21.6

369¾ 1320 2.0 1374 2.0 1830 2.2

960 54⅜ 937 108¼ 363 674½ 277 228 286½ 1375 297 538 741 555 534 489½ 884 115 193½ 128⅝

2.6 3.8 3.1 2.2 1.3 2.8 4.5 1.4 2.8 2.0 2.4 2.0

2.4 0.3 7.0 3.5 2.7 5.7 3.0 1.4 3.6 1.4 1.8 3.4 2.4 2.0 4.1 5.0

P/E

25.0 20.4 9.2 44.7 13.0 20.3 6.2 22.6 16.2 25.9 23.8 36.2 16.0 22.7 4.6 18.6 12.3 42.6 18.6 13.2 27.5

41.7 35.8 9.7 14.1 18.9 24.3 16.8 5.0 20.5 6.5 25.8 20.0 24.9

MKT CAP (£M)

2,547 5,238 6,556 1,213 2,659 7,503 1,306 4,761 1,850 14,731 2,135 3,057 4,765 15,915 9,537 2,768 2,753 2,749 43,449 4,126 4,170 2,473 1,647 5,349 1,756 1,261 1,777 9,282 1,330 2,133 5,519 4,218 3,964 4,702 66,681 41,450 1,390 1,622 2,139 2,181 3,985 4,192 1,694 2,193 1,806

RANK BY MKT CAP

CHANGE 52-WEEK PRICE ONWK HIGH LOW YIELD

95 145 191 146 1 130 133 108 24 114 120 106 66 176 83 54

Hikma Pharmaceuticals 1794 Hiscox 646 Home Retail Group 159½ Howdens Joinery 318 HSBC 620¼ Icap 370¾ IG Group 605 IMI 1142 Imperial Tobacco 2613 Inchcape 615½ Informa 453¼ Inmarsat 702 Intercontinental Hotels 2195 Intermediate Capital 378¾ Intertek 2497 International Airlines Group 325⅜ 81 Intu Properties 316⅛ 107 Investec 511 49 ITV 195⅞ 150 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 910½ 59 Johnson Matthey 2743 173 Jupiter Fund Management 332¼ 53 Kingfisher 291½ 198 Lancashire Holdings 640 48 Land Securities 1029 37 Legal & General 220¼ 8 Lloyds Banking Group 74⅝ 67 London Stock Exchange 1814 149 Man 114 57 Marks & Spencer 387 103 Meggitt 428¼ 125 Melrose 238⅝ 188 Mercantile Investment Trust 1356 100 Merlin Entertainments 341 186 Michael Page 417⅞ 181 Micro Focus International 997½ 160 Millennium & Copthorne Hotels 550½ 179 Mitchells & Butlers 342⅛ 97 Mondi 956½ 94 Morrison Supermarkets 154⅜ 19 National Grid 870½ 200 NB Global Floating 95¾

+12 1860 1055 +7½ 737⅝ 626 7 223¼ 159½ 13⅜ 392 288¼ 11⅞ 703 589 1½ 458⅝ 342¾ +3½ 652½ 560½ 58 1608 1142 20 2774 2182 34 695½ 556½ 25¼ 573½ 453¼ +5 771 666 118 2622¾ 1922 7 496¾ 372⅝ 78 3345 2497

P/E

Latest Latest threemonth month change 2,019,000 -146,000

MKT CAP (£M)

0.6 1.2 1.8 1.7 4.5 5.9 3.8 3.2 4.4 2.8 4.1 3.8 2.0 5.3 1.8

19.8 3,561 10.0 2,055 24.2 1,297 17.7 2,055 12.7 118,476 24.0 2,403 15.0 2,212 16.0 3,099 36.5 25,008 13.1 2,800 22.1 2,737 48.0 3,147 33.6 5,182 10.6 1,502 20.6 4,029

39¾ 454½ 316⅛ 1½ 348⅜ 275½ 7½ 563 384⅛ 10¼ 222 169½ 17½ 1095 910 127 3440 2743 17⅛ 436¾ 332¼ 23⅝ 444⅛ 291½ 7 820 591½ 3 1105 927 7⅝ 243½ 194½ 2½ 86¼ 70⅞

4.6 3.5 1.7 2.9 2.1 3.7 3.4 1.3 2.9 4.2

11.2 5.2 14.0 20.1 18.3 16.4 19.2 12.6 11.2 7.2 14.0

6,633 4,146 3,135 7,898 1,993 5,773 1,520 6,903 1,217 8,132 13,081 53,302

43 1920½ 1429½ 1⅛ 126 78⅝ 13⅜ 511 387 10½ 572½ 428¼ 8½ 328½ 236¼

1.5 4.1 4.3 2.9 3.4

29.2 66.6 12.0 16.3 19.5

4,945 2,003 6,329 3,450 2,558

46 1664 1356 2.9 2⅛ 391½ 328⅝ 2 507 415⅞ 2.5 48½ 1078 721½ 1.9

19.1 29.2 20.4

1,328 3,456 1,343 1,393

4½ 615½ 543 2.4 26⅛ 491¼ 342⅛ 36 1123 904½ 3.0

8.4 10.4 12.8

1,787 1,408 3,512

3⅜ 286½ 154⅜ 8.4 14½ 916 746 4.6 ½ 106½ 95⅜ 3.7

3,605 13.1 32,830 1,201

-1.7 -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4

Change on week -0.18 -0.15 -0.02 -0.04

Current level

12-month high

12-month low

+0.02 -0.01 +0.20 +0.02 -1.92

1.61 1.27 87.70 1.27 107.83

1.72 1.28 89.00 1.39 109.75

1.59 1.17 82.20 1.25 97.41

Dollar/pound Euro/pound Sterling index Dollar/euro Yen/dollar

INDICATOR OF THE WEEK BCC composite indicator of output growth % balance 40

-7.2 -0.3 +2.4 +1.5 +1.5 +0.6

20 0

Annual change -463,000

Source: BCC, JP Morgan

1989

RANK BY MKT CAP

CHANGE 52-WEEK PRICE ONWK HIGH LOW YIELD

40 177 46 42 111 88 104 166 152 157 178 113 17 175 180 89 14 39 169 144 196 105 153 12 147 28 143 25

6440 229⅜ 170¾ 1155 767½ 1291 974 724½ 675 471½ 273½ 2045 1359½ 352 217⅞ 4197 5130 963½ 166⅞ 112¾ 624 468 2002 2965 1308 929½ 2455

210 7215 4960 24⅜ 617 229⅜ 6½ 209⅜ 170¾ 50 1365 998 17½ 826½ 631 50 1471 1136 21½ 1478 962 13½ 788½ 619 44 836½ 579 9 684 470⅝ 35 355⅜ 268 119 2284 1549 13 1455 1177 19¾ 414½ 337 9⅞ 236⅝ 188 +106 5235 3608 135 5495 4300 22 1011 826½ 5¼ 234½ 166⅝ 3⅞ 133 101½ 25½ 713 544 10⅞ 547½ 468 76 2805 1981 +15½ 3627½ 2949½ 39 1402 1227 24 1289 929½ 233 2894 2352

357 2191 2258 398½ 465 3290 160 350 228¾ 2200 216⅜ 349¾ 279½ 1887 665 5215 240½ 991 1200

9½ 384⅞ 295½ 103 2453 2008 125½ 2592 2096 +3⅞ 615 390 4⅞ 573 91⅜ 92½ 3740 2661 2 188 160 7⅝ 435½ 318¼ +1⅜ 414½ 224¾ 162 2727 2200 13¼ 239½ 187 9½ 378¾ 312 +½ 558½ 277 +20 2000 1637 14 693½ 582 240 5455 2381 17⅝ 355¼ 240½ 40 1100 764½ 44 1525 1200

2 6 85 72 9 162 91 77 58 122 123 172 76 155 21 132 45 71

Next Ocado Old Mutual Pearson Pennon Persimmon Petrofac Phoenix Group Holdings Playtech Polymetal International Premier Oil Provident Prudential PZ Cussons Qinetiq Randgold Resources Reckitt Benckiser Reed Elsevier Regus Rentokil Initial Restaurant Group Rexam Rightmove Rio Tinto RIT Capital Partners Rolls Royce Rotork Royal Bank of Scotland Royal Dutch Shell A Royal Dutch Shell B Royal Mail RSA Insurance SAB Miller Saga Sage Sainsbury, J Schroders Scottish Mortgage Segro Serco Severn Trent Shaftesbury Shire Smith, DS Smith & Nephew Smiths

Current 12-month 12-month level high low 2.22 3.07 2.22 2.29 3.00 2.29 0.50 0.74 0.50 0.89 1.96 0.89

Change on week

20

GOVERNMENT FINANCES Latest monthly Previous monthly Year to figure (£bn) figure (£bn) date (£bn) UNEMPLOYMENT PSNB ex banks (2014-15) 11.6 0.30 45.4 Global trade balance -1.9 -3.1 -18.9 Labour Force Survey figure

Morningstar

BUSINESS

1,221.68 1,074.92 88.49

CURRENCIES

Latest monthly Previous Annual change (%) change (%) change (%)

+3.9 Raw materials and fuel +3.9 Factory-gate prices Retail prices index Latest quarterly Previous quarterly Annual Consumer prices index change (%) change (%) change (%) Consumer prices (inc housing costs) +0.9 +0.7 +3.2 Average earnings

126 64 55 199 121

161 43 187 142 60 78 87 74 4 13 182 167 140 135 84 79 164 134 159

Previous Annual PRICES AND PAY change (%) change (%)

+0.1 +0.4

CHANGE 52-WEEK PRICE ONWK HIGH LOW YIELD

50 189 70 154 33 141 109 69 29 41 116 117 119 11 82 80 128 165 62 163 194

+27.66 +18.85 -3.09

UK US Japan Germany

Game expects to capitalise on what is likely to be a bumper Christmas for the games industry, thanks to the launch of the next generation of consoles from Microsoft and Sony. It should also benefit from a strong line-up of new releases next year. Game’s relationship with software suppliers is back on track after a bumpy time in the lead-up to its failure two years ago.

THE FUTURE

RANK BY MKT CAP

BTG Bunzl Burberry Caledonia Investments Capital & Counties Properties Capita Carillion Carnival Catlin Centrica Close Brothers Cobham Coca Cola HBC Compass CRH Croda DCC Derwent London Diageo Direct Line Insurance Dixons Carphone Drax Dunelm easyJet Essentra Euromoney Institutional Investor Evraz Experian First Group Foreign & Colonial Fresnillo Friends Life G4S GKN Glaxo Smith Kline Glencore Grafton Group Units Greene King Great Portland Estates Halma Hammerson Hargreaves Lansdown Hays Henderson HICL Infrastructure

12-month low

THREE-MONTH MONEY-MARKET RATES (%) Change Current 12-month 12-month Official on week level high low short term UK 0.00 0.56 0.57 0.52 0.50 US 0.00 0.23 0.25 0.22 0.25 Japan 0.00 0.11 0.15 0.11 0.10 Euro 0.00 0.05 0.31 0.05 0.05

UK ECONOMY

222 1721/8 147/8 674½ 115

12-month high

10-YEAR BOND YIELD (%)

BIGGEST SHARE MOVEMENTS Risers p

Current level

INTEREST RATES/BONDS

Gibbs, 43, was appointed in April 2012, after Game was bought out of administration. He had left the business the year before, having spent eight years in senior roles with Game and its forerunner companies. Gibbs was commercial director of Gamestation, which was bought

by Game in 2007. Previously, he was head of games at HMV and worked at WH Smith.

THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE

WORLD SHARE MARKETS

Change on week Gold ($/troy oz) Silver (p/troy oz) Brent crude oil ($/barrel)

6,300

Source: Thomson Datastream

6,339.97 3.50 3,380.02 16,544.10 1,906.13 4,276.24 15,300.55 8,788.81 4,073.71 1,292.98 23,088.54 5,185.73 307.53 26,297.38 2,374.54

COMMODITIES

This company has cornered more than 30% of the computer and video games market in the UK and Spain, its two main territories. Game Digital began life in 1991 and grew through a number of acquisitions. It fell into administration in 2012 and was acquired by the investment firm OpCapita, which floated it in June.

The chain has a total of 557 stores.

THE BUSINESS

6,500

FTSE 100 FTSE All Share yield (%) FTSE All Share Dow Jones Industrial S&P 500 Nasdaq Composite Tokyo Nikkei 225 Frankfurt Dax Paris CAC 40 FTSE Eurofirst 300 Hang Seng Australia All Ordinaries Dow Jones Global Bombay Sensex Shanghai Composite

Handbag designer Anya Hindmarch on running her company and a family with five children

BRIEFING GAME DIGITAL

6,600

2013

I HAVE JUST FIRED MYSELF AS CEO . . . I WAS WORKING EVERY HOUR THAT GOD SENDS, AND WITH LOTS OF CHILDREN THAT IS QUITE HARD

P/E

2.0

16.6

4.7 4.1 3.7

16.0 34.4 19.8 12.3 10.5 5.1 16.4 19.9 10.7 18.2 16.3 16.4

4.0 7.3 2.7 1.1 1.8 4.1 2.4 2.1 1.8 0.6 2.6 2.5 2.1 2.0 2.2 4.1 1.4 3.8 2.2 2.3 1.9 4.9 4.6 2.1 1.8 3.2 7.3 2.6 1.3 4.2 3.7 4.1 1.8 0.2 3.6 1.6 3.2

22.8 19.8 20.8 24.2 19.4 18.8 11.6 23.3 15.2 7.6 21.7

MKT CAP (£M)

9,877 1,423 8,378 9,468 3,019 3,948 3,313 1,629 1,981 1,836 1,421 2,989 34,890 1,509 1,405 3,890 37,042 11,008 1,575 2,056 1,252 3,295 1,979 41,920 2,040 17,533 2,132

22,547 14.4 86,385 14.9 55,104 3.1 3,985 4,715 26.2 52,911 30.0 1,777 16.3 3,798 6.2 4,377 16.8 5,967 2,649 6.2 2,596 1,535 10.4 4,520 6.1 1,847 32.3 30,745 15.8 2,263 29.1 8,849 14.5 4,733

40 2014

The British Chambers of Commerce said that its latest survey of 7,000 UK businesses pointed to a slowdown in growth in the third quarter. Manufacturing appears to have led it, with falls in domestic orders and output expectations. Export balances were also down, in manufacturing and services.

The survey came as George Osborne warned that UK growth was being hit by eurozone woes.

RANK BY MKT CAP

CHANGE 52-WEEK PRICE ONWK HIGH LOW YIELD

P/E

MKT CAP (£M)

197 151 148 102

1029 1671 2652

38 1227 882 121 2561 1671 157 3101 2561

2.9 2.5 2.2

13.9 14.2 20.1

1,229 1,986 2,006

577 1494 375 385½ 1098

33 922 577 20 1595 1300 +3⅞ 399¼ 331⅛ 17½ 421½ 334⅜ 15½ 1543½ 1098

5.6 2.3 4.1 4.4

19.7 3,453 44.9 14,566 16.6 2,155 15.0 9,218 10.8 27,122

673 268¼ 588½ 109 675

45½ 22¼ 11½ 4⅝ 65½

612½ 248½ 585 101¼ 631

2.3 4.0 4.5 0.6 1.5

23.7 89.2 11.3 12.8 19.5

569 185¼ 105½ 357⅜ 143¾ 1610 343¾ 526 525 2509 791½ 852½ 1591 193⅞ 2206 3958 343⅝

6½ 623½ 493½ +13 372⅛ 172⅛ 10⅞ 189 105½ 13 435¼ 346 +2⅜ 143¾ 125⅞ 44 1982 1574 49⅛ 450 343¾ 74 1001 526 29½ 744 515½ 33 2729 2306 18½ 908 641½ 83½ 1191 775 27 2026 1553 9⅞ 252¼ 188⅞ 153 2761 2050 199 4487 3114 21½ 423⅝ 320¼

1.2 7.9 4.4 4.6 1.9 3.9 2.1 5.1 3.4 4.4 4.1 2.7 9.8 1.9 1.5 3.3

1,841 7.8 15,047 1,542 3,453 1,258 14.3 3,976 72.5 3,843 4,788 10.1 1,290 17.4 32,072 7.3 5,397 2,278 17.7 1,355 4.6 51,378 14.3 4,706 21.8 7,182 15.7 3,007

674½ 3125 663½ 1149

24 724 623 127 3531 3020 60 821½ 634½ 57 1383 1149

2.2 2.1 1.9 2.9

20.5 15.1 15.2

34 137 44 23 98 124 118 96 183 156 32 171 101 195 86 90 68 192 20 61 131 185 10 73 51 112 193 47 127 31

Smith, WH Spectris Spirax Sarco Sports Direct International SSE Stagecoach Standard Life Standard Chartered St James’s Place Capital TalkTalk Tate & Lyle Taylor Wimpey Telecity Templeton Emerging Markets Tesco Thomas Cook 3i 3i Infrastructure Travis Perkins Tui Travel Tullow Oil UBM Unilever United Utilities Vedanta Resources Victrex Vodafone Weir Whitbread William Hill Witan Investment Trust Wolseley Wood WPP

879½ 333 821 131 827

3,490 2,562 2,750 3,546 1,368

1,283 8,329 2,488 15,138

Price/earnings ratios are based on historic data, with yield and p/e values calculated from the most recent reported dividends and earnings per share, using trailing 12 month figures. 52 week highs and lows are end of day.

FTSE 100 companies shown in bold type

and NHS budgets need to be combined to ensure the most efficient use of funds, and the system of funding needs to be simplified to give certainty to operators and clarity to consumers. I suspect that, with an election looming, those in power will shy away from the hard decisions needed.

Tony Stein chief executive, Healthcare Management Solutions Birmingham

Germany should move its industry abroad

GERMANY does not need immigration to plug the gap in its labour force caused by a low birth rate (“German powerhouse blows a gasket”, last week).

It needs to outsource some of its manufacturing to other EU countries that have high unemployment and desperately need the work.

Germany would retain the profits while the host countries would benefit from the increase in employment and investment.

Robin Healey Wimbledon

I go to Lidl for its quality, not its prices

WHENEVER the media and the British supermarkets refer to the rise of the “discount” supermarkets they always use the word “price”. When the British supermarkets first responded to the new competition, they did so by promoting cheaper lines. They achieved their lower prices by reducing quality and sometimes by reducing portion sizes.

We prefer Lidl to Tesco because the quality of the offering is often superior. The issue is value for money, not price. British supermarkets will never compete effectively until they understand this.

Ian Snowden Clitheroe, Lancashire

THESUNDAYTIMES

BUSINESS BESTSELLERS 1

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Jordan Belfort / Two Roads (3,329 sold in September)

2

HOW TO SPEAK MONEY John Lanchester / Faber (3,070)

3

TALK LIKE TED: THE 9 PUBLIC SPEAKING SECRETS OF THE WORLD’S TOP MINDS / Carmine Gallo / Macmillan (2,677)

4

CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Thomas Piketty / Belknap (1,720)

5

WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? / Spencer Johnson Vermilion (1,638)

6

BTEC LEVEL 3 NATIONAL BUSINESS STUDENT BOOK 1 Catherine Richards and Rob Dransfield / Edexcel ( 1,596)

7

FLASH BOYS / Michael Lewis Allen Lane (1,393)

8

ECONOMICS: THE USER’S GUIDE / Ha-Joon Chang Penguin (1,384)

9

THE VIRGIN WAY / Richard Branson Virgin (1,363)

10

WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL / Mark McCormack / Profile (1,200)

List prepared by The Bookseller using data supplied by and copyright to Nielsen BookScan, taken from the TCM for the four week period ending September 27, 2014

THE WEEK IN REVIEW HEWLETT-PACKARD is to split its personal computer and printer business from its corporate hardware and services division.

Sales of new cars with the 64 registration plate last month topped 425,000, the highest September sales figure for a decade.

Tesco hired two new nonexecutive directors: the former boss of Ikea, Mikael Ohlsson; and Richard Cousins, chief executive at the catering giant Compass, who recently stepped down from the board of Reckitt Benckiser because of the demands of his day job.

The FTSE100 miner Rio Tinto rejected a merger offer from its rival Glencore made in July.

The European Commission gave the go-ahead for EDF Energy to build the first nuclear power plant in a generation at Hinkley Point, Somerset, at a cost that could reach £34bn.

First Group lost its ScotRail franchise after a decade in charge in the fourth such setback in five months — although it expects to hold on to its Great Western operation until at least 2019.

Royal Mail is to set aside £18m

to settle a French investigation into claims that it acted anti-competitively.

George Osborne warned that slow growth in Germany was the biggest cause for concern for Britain and the global economic recovery.

The new Microsoft chief executive, Satya Nadella, blamed himself for being “inarticulate” after saying that women should not ask for a pay rise and instead have faith in the system because it was “good karma”.

The online retailer Amazon has decided to open its first shop in New York.

Vodafone won a long-running $490m (£304m) tax dispute in India over transfer pricing.

Tesco abandoned plans to build an 82,000 sq ft seafront superstore in the Kent resort of Margate, months after winning a five-year planning battle.

Six banks — Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and UBS — are set to pay fines totalling as much as £1.5bn to settle with regulators over manipulation of the foreign exchange markets.

BUSINESS

32

12 . 10 . 14

PRUFROCK

INSIDE THE CITY

PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE

DANNY FORTSON

OLIVER SHAH

Bellway’s belting dividend

Fuel cell backers blow their fuses THERE’S trouble brewing at AFC Energy, the alkaline fuel cell developer backed by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and chaired by the Conservative MP Tim Yeo. Last week the AIM-listed company said it wanted to raise £9m to work on its technology, which generates carbon-free electricity from hydrogen.

AFC plans to place £5.2m of shares with institutions, including a fund called Lanstead Capital, and a further £3.9m with ordinary shareholders.

What’s irked some investors is that £1.8m will be lent back to Lanstead in a deal known as

an equity swap. Lanstead will repay the sum in 18 monthly instalments. If AFC’s share price goes above 13⅓p it will give AFC £100,000 plus a proportion of the upside. Below that price, it will repay less.

“It’s complete madness,” says one irate shareholder.

“This company is doing breakthrough green technology and it just looks spivvy.”

AFC has a big project in Germany due to come to fruition next year and apparently other funders were reluctant to stump up cash before then.

A spinner tells me: “This is a very appropriate and costeffective way of doing it.”

That picture definitely rings a bell LIFE after Hobbs is turning out to be eventful for Nicky Dulieu, who left the women’s fashion brand this spring.

Dulieu, 50, got a little too close to a diamond-encrusted Anselm Kiefer painting at a party last Tuesday, setting off an alarm bell at the Royal Academy in London.

Other guests at the bash thrown by headhunter

Tony O’Reilly had to put his Castlemartin mansion up for sale after creditors called in a loan

O’Reilly just keeps on falling FEW business plutocrats have suffered as painful a fall as Tony O’Reilly.

The former boss of Heinz has lost almost all his prize assets since the recession in 2008.The erstwhile billionaire lost Waterford Wedgwood after racking up losses of €500m (£393m). Then he

was outmanoeuvred by Denis O’Brien, now Ireland’s richest man, in the battle for the publisher of the Irish Independent newspaper.

O’Reilly’s woes were compounded last week when creditors called in a loan, forcing him to put his €30m country estate up for sale .

0 A ROUND of applause for Chris Brown. The former City analyst founded London Mining in 2005. The company listed in 2007, bought a mine in Brazil and flipped it to Arcelor Mittal the next year for £430m. Brown, the biggest shareholder, pocketed £40m, retired at the ripe old age of 46 and bought a beachfront pad in Belize. His co-founder Graeme Hossie took the controls but was unable to repeat the trick — or the payday. The company gave up the ghost this weekend after a 99% drop in its share price. Hossie had nearly 7m shares. Brown owes him a beer.

Nicky Dulieu: art attack

Oil bosses’ big cash blowout

Ridgeway Partners, including Stuart now Lord Rose of Monewden and former Tesco corporate affairs boss Lucy now Baroness Neville-Rolfe, took heed and stood well back.

TALKING of trouserings, a few weeks ago we threw a spotlight on the €1.1m (£864,000) salary of Oisin Fanning, the 56-year-old boss of oil minnow San Leon Energy. In response to a shower of angry investor emails, we’d like to apologise. We missed a couple of details, like the €1.3m loan he’s taken from the company, the £82,623 he collected for letting his flat to company employees, and the €1.1m salary advance. Who said shareholders aren’t generous?

Castlemartin, set in 750 acres in Co Kildare, serves as a mirror for his vaulting ambition. With 10 bedrooms, the mansion has played host to a welter of household names from Nelson Mandela to Paul Newman.

It would suit a similarly ambitious buyer.

Space race at Wimpey TAYLOR WIMPEY boss Pete Redfern revealed he was close to getting planning permission for a site during a recent Shore Capital housing conference.

“IfI’m optimistic,itwill have taken a year and cost £12,000,” the 44-year-old said. “That’s for an extension to my house.

It’s not even a particularly controversial extension — it’s smaller than my neighbour’s.”

“Sounds like a swimming pool,” chortled one delegate.

BELLWAY shareholders, get ready for a belter. The FTSE250 housebuilder is set to unveil a whopping dividend at its annual results on Tuesday on the back of what are expected to be record profits of £245m — an increase of nearly 60%.

Analysts have pencilled in a 45p payout based on the company’s closing price on Friday of £14.80. All well and good. The question is where it goes from here. The Newcastle company’s results come at an interesting time.

Last week Halifax said that soaring house prices, bolstered by rock-bottom interest rates and the government’s Help to Buy scheme, had peaked. From here, it predicted, prices would grow at a more pedestrian pace rather than the 20%annual increases that have swept across London over the past 12 months.

Rightmove came out a couple of days later to pooh-pooh that theory. Britain’s biggest property website said prices were set to increase by 30%over the next five years. The prediction had more than a faint air of someone talking their own book, given that Rightmove makes its crust from estate agents listing properties.

Much attention, then, will be paid to the views offered by Bellway’s boss, Ted Ayres. The company’s land portfolio is pretty evenly spread across Britain so he will have a better view than most.

The shares have fallen 10% since it unveiled its half-year figures and flagged the dividend increase. The stock now trades at about 1.35 times its book value, just below the 1.5 times sector average.

Given Bellway’s history as one of the sector’s more conservative voices, I’d expect Ayres to be circumspect about the prospects for the next year, even if Help to Buy is still funnelling hundreds of millions into the industry. Hold.

Bioquell THIS infection-control specialist has found it hard to live up to its tag line, “Eliminate Doubt”. The shares have dropped 45% in the past year. Clearly, investors had doubts aplenty.

That was until a rip-roaring recovery over the past fortnight, of which more shortly.

Bioquell’s slide into stock market irrelevance wasn’t that surprising. There was just never going to be a huge market for its boy-in-a-bubble style “decontamination pods” and hydrogen peroxide-charged sanitising equipment, was there?

Enter ebola. The virus has infected about 8,000 people in west Africa and killed nearly half of them. Worryingly, it has now started appearing elsewhere, such as in Spain and America. A newspaper headline last week screamed the virus “may already be in Britain”.

p 160 Bioquell Share price

140

120

100 Source: Thomson Datastream

2013

2014

80

Bioquell’s shares have risen in step with the hysteria. It’s not clear how sustainable the gains are.

This is a real business. Last year it earned £3m on £45m in turnover. If ebola is brought under control soon, the stock may settle back down. In the meantime, at least one investor has done well. Chief executive Nicholas Adams bought 15,000 shares at 95p last month.

The stock closed on Friday at 118.5p. danny.fortson@sunday-times.co.uk

That was the week that was . . . before the 1964 election IN THE third issue of The Sunday Times Business News, on October 11, 1964, as the general election loomed within days, Charles Raw reported: Britain’s gold and foreign currency reserves, I estimate, fell by £10m last week. The drop would have been still larger but for a special £25m credit from oil royalty payments, which led New York dealers to buy sterling.

Without those royalties, last

week’s gold loss would have reached about £35m — indicating that money has been leaving London twice as fast as in September, when the Treasury called on short-term aid from American and European central banks.

By now, Britain probably owes about £60m to overseas central banks.

Foreign exchange dealers believe that if the Conservative government stays in power there will be a

brief inflow of money which should enable the Bank of England to repay most of this.

But if Labour are returned, dealers believe money will have to be spent in order to support the pound.

Keith Richardson reported on the nascent oil industry: Hard on the heels of the first contracts for drilling rigs for use in the North Sea oil search, orders are now being placed for “workboats” to carry out the

FIFTY YEARS OF BUSINESS

steady stream of supplies needed by a drilling crew operating 150 miles from land.

Business Insight reported on the music industry: These are palmy days for the record industry. Sales have been rising since 1959 and last year some 85m discs were pressed, worth £21.7m.With sales up 35%, this year the 100m mark will be reached well before Christmas — an increase for which the Beatles (10m discs

a year) are largely responsible.

But despite its success, the industry is uneasy; it faces the prospect of a bitter price war.

Last week, the major companies (EMI has 40% of the market and Decca 32%) agreed to apply for registration under the Resale Prices Act. Once registered they can continue their price-fixing arrangements until the Restrictive Practices Court gives a definitive ruling. Since this will not

occur before 1966, no immediate change in prices is likely.

In the meantime, however, the companies are being challenged from two totally unexpected sources — the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.

For some time the market leaders have been disturbed by the appearance of classical discs selling at between 10s and 17s 6d, thus undercutting them by at least 50%.

This is an occasional series

Eve of the poll: our front page on October 11, 1964