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Toddlers’ gut bacteria may predict future obesity, study suggests

The gut bacteria of a toddler can predict whether they will be overweight later in life, research suggests. The study, led by Gaël Toubon from the Université Sorbonne Paris, looked at the data from 512 infants who were part of a study that tracked the lives of 18,000 children born in France. It observed the BMI of participants between the ages of two and five. Stool samples of the participants were collected at three and a half years of age, and found a positive association between BMI score at five years old and the ratio of two types of gut bacteria ( Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ) directly related to obesity. The more Bacteroidetes an individual has, the less likely they are to be obese. The gut, or gastrointestinal system, is part of the digestive system that runs through the body. It is vital to make sure that all the beneficial nutrients from food are absorbed and used for energy, growth and repair. The makeup of the gut microbiota, the bacteria within your gut that helps to digest food, grows and changes in the first few months and years of life and disruption to its development can be associated with various conditions in later life, including inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes and childhood obesity. Greater abundances of three categories of bacteria – Eubacterium hallii group, Fusicatenibacter , and Eubacterium ventriosum group – were identified as a risk factor for a higher BMI score. The findings, presented at the European Congress of Obesity , also identified differences in the bacteria that colonise the gut in adults living with obesity, suggesting that changes in the gut microbiota that predispose to adult obesity begin in early childhood. “The reason these gut bacteria affect weight is because they regulate how much fat we absorb,” said Toubon. “Children with a higher ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes will absorb more calories and be more likely to gain weight. “These findings suggests that what matters with the gut microbiota is not only a question of which bacteria are involved, but also what they are doing. The gut microbiota is emerging as an important early-life factor able to influence weight gain in childhood and later life,” said Toubon. “Our findings reveal how an imbalance in distinct bacterial groups may play an important role in the development of obesity. Further research is needed to drill down into the specific bacterial species that influence risk and protection and to better understand when the switch to an obesity favourable gut microbiota may take place, and therefore the right timing for possible interventions.” Gut health is seen as an important indicator to obesity and general wellbeing. Previous studies show the bacteria in human guts, which help to break down food, differ in lean and obese people.

GOOD

Who asked for all these traffic calming measures like LTNs, ULEZ and endless bike lanes? I don’t see it in

GOOD luck getting to the polling station for today’s local elections. If you manage to vote without damaging your car , being ripped off for a late-arriving bus or train or falling for a hefty fine for a spurious traffic violation, you will have done well. I can’t remember a time when getting about Britain was a more hostile business. An unofficial war on motorists has turned driving into an obstacle course of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), bus lane cameras, parking fines, low emission zones and other bizarre restrictions which seem to pop up at whim. In Leeds , 11,000 motorists were fined £30 each in just six weeks after failing to understand the meaning of the words “bus gate” which had been painted on the road. It apparently meant that only buses could now use that short stretch of road. In that case, the fines were cancelled, but others have been less lucky. In Hammersmith, West London , cameras to police a box junction raked in £3.2million in fines in just three years. Motorists, of course, shouldn’t block junctions, but as the RAC warned yesterday, many box junctions are simply badly designed. In the case of one in Hammersmith, it is followed a few yards later with traffic lights. If the lights change while you are passing through, you don’t have a hope of avoiding a whacking £130 fine. Until recently, only councils in London were allowed to levy fines for minor traffic violations. But in spite of the scandalous way they have been used there, the Government has foolishly extended the powers to provincial councils too. Remarkably, few of the schemes targeting motorists — usually done in the name of being green or hitting targets on net zero — ever seem to appear in local election manifestos. Many of the councillors standing for re-election today were last elected in 2019. Did the leaflets featuring their grinning mugs tell you that your neighbourhood would be turned into an LTN and plastered with CCTV cameras to catch you out for taking a short cut? Did they heck. Many of these traffic schemes popped up from nowhere during the pandemic , supposedly in order to help people get about by cycle and foot when they might have been wary of travelling by public transport . But, surprise, surprise, the schemes have magically become permanent. It is perhaps no wonder they have started to be damaged, with fed-up motorists cutting down traffic-calming bollards — sometimes setting them on fire. In Oxford alone there have already been 83 crimes related to the bollards used in a test scheme, according to cops. There seems to be no stopping councils’ enthusiasm for so-called “15-minute cities” — where all necessities, such as shops, schools, parks etc, should be reachable by a 15-minute walk or bike ride from any point in the city. These have been proposed in Oxford, Canterbury in Kent and several other cities. Fine, let’s have a planning policy which tries to make sure that all the basic essentials of life are all within walking distance. But why does the lofty ideal of 15-minute cities always seem to end with yet more CCTV cameras and tighter restrictions for cars that generate more eye-watering fines? Unable to jack up council taxes without holding referendums (which of course they would lose) councils have set upon the idea of fleecing motorists instead. And of course there is Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone which from August will be extended to cover the whole of London. Everyone wants clean air — and pollution has already fallen dramatically in the past 70 years — but why a tax which falls specifically on poorer motorists who can’t afford to replace 15-year-old cars? Brand new limos and supercars are entirely exempt. It isn’t just a war on motorists, though. Punitive-minded councils and public transport operators don’t seem to want us to get about by any method. Never have the roads been so riddled with potholes — bad and expensive enough for motorists but even more lethal for cyclists. In Cambridge , councillors spent £2.3million adding cycle lanes to a single roundabout, which has increased accidents, while the rest of the city is pocked with deep holes. Besides trying to drive motorists off the roads, Sadiq Khan has announced that we will no longer be able to buy Travelcards which, since the 1980s, have allowed train passengers from outside London to buy a single ticket covering travel in the capital as well as bus and Tube journeys around it. In many cases it will mean a day out in London costing an extra tenner. Train operators have come up with their own devious money-making schemes. A poster suddenly appeared at my local station announcing that the fine for travelling without a ticket has been increased from £20 to £100 , just at the time the sole ticket machine on the platform went out of action for several weeks. It is the same with many car parks, which until recently you could pay for via a ticket machine at the roadside but which now can only be paid for by mobile phone. Yet some motorists don’t have smartphones , and even if they do, reception is often too poor to make a connection. We do bear some responsibility for imposing these daft schemes on ourselves. For too many years we have been treating local elections as referendums on the Westminster Government, ignoring local issues as we cast our vote. There is only one way we can stop this. If we do succeed in getting to the polling station, we should vote out the councillors who brought in daft measures which made our journey such a misery. If a badly designed road scheme meant a lost council seat, they would soon get the message.

BAD

The big idea: why you should embrace your inner fan

Of the many films that dramatise the deranged behaviour of celebrity fans, one of the most popular is Der Fan, a German production from 1982 about a teenage girl obsessed with a pop singer. It begins predictably enough – she writes him dozens of letters – but the ending is a little less orthodox. When he doesn’t reply she intercepts him outside one of his gigs, hangs out in his dressing room, has sex with him, kills him with a statue, chops him up and puts the dismembered body parts in a freezer. Unsurprisingly, it has become a cult classic. Like most works of its genre, Der Fan taps into a stereotype that fans have had to endure since the emergence of popular culture. Characterised as hysterics, fantasists, psychopaths, geeks, misfits or mindless consumers, they are feared either as obsessive loners who spend their lives fretting in their bedrooms (like the protagonists of most fan movies) or as members of a frenzied mob (screaming teenagers at a Harry Styles gig). The word is still associated with “fanatic” in the public consciousness. We assume that anyone with a consuming interest in a celebrity or fictional universe is this way inclined (unless they are a sports fan, in which case their behaviour is likely to be applauded). Psychological studies of fans tell a very different story from this narrative of folly. While every fandom has its extreme fringes, in the vast majority of cases, being a fan – and particularly being part of a fandom – appears to have a remarkably positive influence on people’s lives. Gayle Stever, who has been studying the psychology of celebrity for more than three decades and has interviewed thousands of fans about their passions, says she has largely found them to be “normal people carrying on normal lives”, who view their relationship with their idol as similar to an important friendship or a special hobby. Throughout the course of her career she has met “maybe 15” fans who were unwell (these include one who used extensive cosmetic surgery to make himself look like Michael Jackson). It is hardly surprising that fandoms have a normalising effect on behaviour, for they fulfil an ancient human imperative: the need to be part of a group. The groups we belong to – family, friends, neighbours, colleagues – are an essential part of who we are. They give us companionship, purpose and a sense of security, and allow us to do things we wouldn’t do on our own. Fandoms are social groups like any other. They connect us with people who share our interests, and they give us the courage to follow our convictions. It’s safe to be different, weird or nerdy with your fellow fans as you’re all in it together. Studies have found a “psychological dividend” for mental wellbeing and self-esteem among fans of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Dr Who and One Direction. The fact that many know each other exclusively online doesn’t seem to diminish the strength of their bonds. Psychologists refer to this group effect as the “social cure”. It is not the only way people benefit from fan culture. For many, their idol becomes a role model, someone they seek to emulate or who represents an attitude or way of being that might previously have seemed closed to them. Often we are drawn to people whose experience or outlook reflects our own. Taylor Swift ’s millions of young fans love her for her music but also for her awareness of the things that matter to them, and because her lyrics about heartache and angst mirror their own trauma. They don’t know her, but her songs make it clear that she knows them. The screenwriter Jane Goldman , whose credits include X-Men: First Class and Kick-Ass, told me about her teenage fascination with Boy George . She was a fan, she said, partly because of his music but also because his androgynous appearance and uniquely flamboyant style made her believe she could achieve something in life other than what was expected of her. “I saw in him this possibility of going out and living slightly outside of what society tells you to do,” she said. “I remember the first time I saw him on Top of the Pops – it was like something clicked. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have had the same experience. I felt like an outsider, I wasn’t quite sure where I fitted in the world, and then I suddenly had a sense of belonging, like I had found my way.” Role models are no less powerful if they are fictional. Indeed, fictional heroes come with many advantages. They are readily available (you can always reread that book or rewatch that TV series). They have dependable personalities. And they come with a ready-made network of like-minded enthusiasts. As with real-life idols, fans tend to latch on to fictional characters whose values they admire. Harry Potter is adored by adolescents because he made it acceptable not to fit in, and because of his close circle of loyal friends. Many Star Wars fans find inspiration in the wisdom and ideals of the Jedi, the ancient order of protectors who learned to channel the light side of the Force through meditation and the control of negative emotions. Among Jane Austen fans, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is a standout model of courage and independent thinking because of how she defied the patriarchal norms of her era. These dynamics of hope and transformation are hardly ever discussed in the public conversation about fans, yet they are a common thread, whether your interest is celebrities or classic literature, sci-fi or medieval history. Most fans are on a search for meaning, and they are prepared to give a great deal of themselves to find it. To be a fan means many things, but at its heart it is an act of love. Fans: A Journey Into the Psychology of Belonging by Michael Bond is published by Picador. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books with our expert reviews, author interviews and top 10s. Literary delights delivered direct you after newsletter promotion Fangirls : Scenes from Modern Music Culture by Hannah Ewen (Quadrille, £14.99) Real Characters: The psychology of Parasocial Relationships with Media Characters, edited by Karen Shackleford (Fielding, £18.38) The Psychology of Celebrity by Gayle Stever (Routledge, £12.99)

GOOD

Socceroos lock in friendly against world champions Argentina in China

The Socceroos and Argentina will renew their recent rivalry with a friendly match to be played in Beijing, as an Australian national sporting team makes a rare appearance on Chinese soil on 15 June. Lionel Messi was on the scoresheet as he led his team to a 2-1 victory over the Socceroos in the last 16 at last year’s World Cup in Qatar, on the South Americans’ way to becoming world champions for a third time. Another meeting has long been rumoured to take place, with coach Graham Arnold having indicated his desire for the game to go ahead, saying last month that he had “goosebumps” just thinking of the prospect. Arnold pointed to the importance of playing top-quality teams ahead of a new World Cup cycle and an Asian Cup campaign in January next year, with a clash against England at Wembley already in the diary for 14 October. Football Australia on Monday confirmed the latest fixture, and it is hoped the match at the Workers’ Stadium in Beijing opens the door to more games against big-name opposition, but on home soil in the future. “I do think if we become a regular team in the upper echelon of world football, then coming out to Australia, despite its distance, may not seem so far for people,” FA chief executive, James Johnson, said. “If you want a seat at the world football table, these are the things you’ve got to do. You’ve got to host big competitions, like the Women’s World Cup. You’ve got to play big opposition like Argentina, you’ve got to play at Wembley – you’ve got to do that. “On the women’s side, you’ve got to play the best in the world, you’ve got to play the United States. “If you look at all these examples, in isolation, you might not see the strategy. If you bring it all together, though, there is an undertone which is, ‘We’re Australia, we’re here, we’re at the seat now and we want to stay at the world table.’” Kick-off will be at 10pm AEST, and it will be the first time the two sides have met since the nail-biting encounter at in December that saw the Socceroos’ thrilling run come to an end. The Socceroos last played in China in 2008, as part of their World Cup qualifying campaign, and the upcoming match will be the first time since early 2020 that a senior Australian national sporting team has competed in China. Sign up to Guardian Australia Sport Get a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports desk after newsletter promotion Planning for the fixture had the support of both nation’s governments, as well as FA and its counterpart the Chinese Football Association. “It’s been 15 years since our senior men’s national team played in China, and we are truly excited to be returning to face Argentina at the newly renovated Workers’ Stadium in Beijing,” Johnson said. The match is almost certain to sell out, with previous visits by Messi having attracted huge interest in China. The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner has played in China six times since 2005, but has not been to the country for six years. Argentina will also play Indonesia in Jakarta four days later. It will be the first time Arnold’s team have played since the home friendlies against Ecuador in March this year.

GOOD

‘Blood in the water’: where next for the Murdoch empire, and what about the succession?

“Rupert has shown a rare sign of weakness,” says one longtime Murdoch watcher. “There is something of the smell of blood in the water.” In the space of two weeks the 92-year-old’s media empire has taken a reputational hammering on both sides of the Atlantic, putting a renewed focus on the future shape of the global conglomerate’s businesses – and who will run them. Theories abound about what may happen when control of the empire moves to Rupert’s children – the Murdoch family trust owns 39% of the voting shares in News Corp and 42% in Fox Corporation – with Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prue holding equal power. Scenarios not out of place in HBO’s Murdoch family-esque hit drama Succession , which Lachlan reportedly believes his younger brother James leaks plot lines to , include James, Elisabeth and Prue eventually coming together to oust their sibling. Earlier this week, the Duke of Sussex, the “spare” royal on a mission to bring tabloid newspapers to account over phone hacking, presented a string of headline-grabbing allegations in a case against the Sun that threatens to put Murdoch favourite Rebekah Brooks back in the spotlight. Since being found not guilty of phone hacking at a criminal trial almost a decade ago, Brooks, the former Sun editor who runs Murdoch’s UK business including the Times, TalkTV and Virgin Radio, has focused on rehabilitating her corporate image with a future eye on a global role in New York. “Rebekah is going to be spending a lot more time in New York,” says one source. “She has always been a significant adviser, very much a right-hand person, but every time there is a gap between wives she spends more time with Murdoch.” Earlier this month, Rupert called off his engagement to his would-be fifth wife, Ann Lesley Smith, just two weeks after proposing, having finalised his divorce from Jerry Hall less than a year ago. The 54-year-old Brooks started her career in the family publishing empire as a 20-year-old secretary at the News of the World, where she would work under Piers Morgan. From humble beginnings – her father was an odd-job man and she attended a comprehensive school near Warrington, between Liverpool and Manchester – Brooks would rise to become editor of the News of the World in the early noughties and the first female editor of the Sun from 2003 to 2009. Brooks is one of the most powerful women in media, having served two stints as chief executive of Murdoch’s British media empire. She was forced to resign in 2011 after the Milly Dowler phone-hacking scandal that resulted in the closure of the News of the World. During her time outside the Murdoch empire she received more than £16m in compensation before returning as boss in 2015, a year after being cleared of any wrongdoing. Brooks is part of the “Chipping Norton set”, which includes former UK prime minister David Cameron and the former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who introduced her to the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, whom she married in 2009 while editor of the Sun. The couple had a daughter via a surrogate mother in 2012. She had divorced the former EastEnders actor Ross Kemp, with whom she had a fiery relationship, in 2002. Brooks’s ambition to rise further is unlikely to be thwarted by the prospect of executives including Murdoch being called to testify – more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) has been spent keeping cases from going to trial to date. “They will make a big payout to Harry, that’s what they do ,” says the source. “What difference is [Harry] going to make, ultimately?” It is the fallout from Murdoch’s almost $800m 11th-hour settlement to stop a public trial over Fox News’s role broadcasting false claims of election rigging during the 2020 US presidential election that has more bearing on dynastic succession and executive musical chairs. “Before this they only ever settled sexual harassment and phone-hacking lawsuits; this is a moment of weakness I’ve never seen,” says one former senior executive. “It is the right strategy, but it is still a stain on the company and there has been something of a cultural shift against Fox in the US, temporarily at least.” Fox, which is run by Murdoch and his eldest son Lachlan, is facing a shareholder legal action stating that bosses breached their governance duties by knowingly following a pro-Trump conspiracy line on-air. The company is also facing a $2.7bn defamation suit by Smartmatic, a voting machine company, although sources say that it is seeing off the much more dangerous Dominion case that matters most. If Murdoch chooses to settle out of court with Smartmatic – Fox has said it is ready to go to trial – a figure of less than $500m has been rumoured. Despite the embarrassing disclosures and reputational damage wrought by the Dominion case, which resulted in the shock firing of Fox News’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson , days after the settlement was reached, the fallout is viewed by some as cementing Lachlan’s position as Murdoch’s ultimate successor. “Shareholders may say there is one pickle after another,” says Claire Enders, a co-founder of Enders Analysis. “They are not through this crisis yet, there will be a further elements of a clean-up operation, but they have been here before. The fact is there is always a constant movement of pieces in Rupert’s conglomerate.” From this point on, Fox News, which was already swinging toward the new and less controversial Republican star Ron DeSantis , will have to show more careful editorial oversight of the content of its broadcast output – as will more extreme rivals such as Newsmax and One America News Network (OANN). Seeing off lawsuits and a future with less chance of legal action at the immensely profitable Fox, which makes about $3bn in underlying profits each year, could ultimately strengthen Murdoch’s case to prove the merits of his desire to recombine his TV and newspaper empires to sceptical investors. After recently scrapping the planned merger of Fox and News Corp, which Murdoch was forced to split a decade ago after the phone-hacking scandal, a multibillion-dollar side deal to sell a lucrative property listings business in the US to a rival also fell through. The move into property listings in the US and Australia, championed and engineered by Lachlan, has proved a masterstroke, accounting for up to a third of News Corp’s profits. Despite the US deal falling through, the real estate business is expected to be the focus of future corporate activity when macroeconomic conditions improve. The performance of Murdoch’s newspaper operations is much more hit and miss. The Wall Street Journal remains a juggernaut with 3.78 million subscribers – 84% of whom are digital-only – with analysts ascribing a standalone value of $10bn to its parent company Dow Jones. Murdoch acquired the business for $5.6bn in 2007. In the UK, the Times and Sunday Times have also grasped the digital future transforming a £70m loss in 2009 into a £73m profit last year. However, the Sun continues to struggle, doubling pre-tax losses to £127m last year, mostly due to charges relating to phone hacking. Stripping this out, the Sun made £15m. Ever the arch-pragmatist, Murdoch has shown that he is willing to make tough decisions to ensure the long-term survival of his empire. In 2018, he sold 21st Century Fox , which ultimately also meant his crown jewel Sky, to Disney and Comcast respectively, after failing to engineer a takeover of Time Warner to give his entertainment business the global scale it needed to compete in the streaming era. However, a recent expose by Vanity Fair revealed a string of worrisome health problems in recent years – including breaking his back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation and a torn achilles tendon – and has once again raised questions over whether it is time to hand the reins to the next generation. “I don’t think the fallout in the US hurts Lachlan; he is still the heir apparent,” says the former executive. “Not least because James isn’t interested in the company with Fox part of it and Elisabeth and Prue certainly don’t want to do it.” The 51-year-old Lachlan, who still hankers after a life in Australia despite buying the most expensive home in Los Angeles , also has a good relationship with Brooks. News Corporation, which as well as the UK papers owns titles including the New York Post, the Australian, and the crown jewel Wall Street Journal, is run by Robert Thomson. The 62-year-old Thomson, who shares a birthday with Rupert, has been his right-hand man for decades. “Lachlan is ambivalent to Robert, which is not to say he hasn’t done a good job,” says the former executive. “But Lachlan gets ever more powerful, every day this is more Lachlan’s company. And that would mean that at some point it is Rebekah’s job.” But with the newly single nonagenarian once again energetically throwing himself into work, the time for plotting and scheming may still be some way off. “I felt Rupert was very impressive in terms of what we saw in documents released relating to the Dominion case ,” says Enders. “His answers were sharp and he showed perfect recall, and didn’t get himself in a perjury situation. With Joe Biden running for president 80 is the new 60, and for Rupert 92 is the new 80. He doesn’t look as if he is going anywhere soon.”

GOOD

Giro d’Italia: Michael Matthews edges out Mads Pedersen to take stage three

Michael Matthews pipped Mads Pedersen to victory as stage three of the Giro d’Italia proved more selective than expected. Pedersen was in pole position as he was guided on to the uphill finish of the 213km stage from Vasto to Melfi by his Trek-Segafredo team, but Matthews launched his sprint first and had the power to hold off the former world champion. They were part of a much-reduced peloton that managed to survive a punishing final hour of a stage contested in damp conditions in southern Italy, with several riders shed from the top 10 of the general classification as the fight for pink came into focus. Remco Evenepoel stayed safe in the lead and even managed to stretch his advantage slightly, picking up bonus seconds by winning the intermediate sprint ahead of rival Primoz Roglic. Pedersen had briefly been dropped towards the top of the final climb and the effort required to get back on terms proved crucial at the end. For Matthews, it was a first victory since stage 14 of the Tour de France last year, with the first part of his season marked by a positive test for Covid-19 and a crash at the Tour of Flanders. “What I’ve been through this last few months, to now come back with a victory for the team ... they rode all day today and fully committed for me to win the stage,” the Australian, who rides for Team Jayco-AlUla, said. “It’s been such a rollercoaster this year so already on stage three, to have a stage win is more than I could dream of. “I heard Pedersen had been dropped on the climb so I hoped he would be a little bit pinned for the sprint. I knew I needed to go early and get the jump on them and it worked out.” It was not until the final 40km that the race came to life as the peloton hit the extinct volcanoes of the Southern Apennines, with several riders quickly going out the back. Evenepoel reached out for the bonus seconds up for grabs at the intermediate sprint inside the final 10 kilometres. “We were just there,” the Belgian said. “We wanted to take the downhill in first position because the rain made the roads tricky. It didn’t cost much energy [to sprint] so if the seconds are there to be grabbed we should not be afraid to take them. It’s one more second on Primoz and three on the rest so that’s good after quite an easy day with a hectic finale.” Evenepoel now leads by 32 seconds from João Almeida, who recovered from a late crash to avoid time losses. Roglic is up to third, 44sec down after Filippo Ganna and Stefan Kung fell away. Geraint Thomas sits fifth with a 58sec deficit, with Tao Geoghegan Hart a further 4sec down in seventh. The Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, racing his final Giro, moved into the lead of the mountains classification. The race continues on Tuesday with a lumpy stage from Venosa to Lago Laceno, a day when Evenepoel has indicated he might look to hand over the pink jersey by allowing a breakaway to prosper.

GOOD

Police Scotland chief constable says force is institutionally racist

Police Scotland is institutionally racist and discriminatory, its chief constable, Sir Iain Livingstone, has said in a public acknowledgement that has been welcomed by campaigners but prompted calls for action. “It is right for me, as chief constable, to clearly state that institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination exist,” Livingstone told a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority on Thursday morning. “Publicly acknowledging these issues exist institutionally is essential to our absolute commitment to championing equality and becoming an anti-racist service.” This makes Police Scotland the largest force to make such a public acknowledgement, although chief constables with the Bedfordshire force and the British Transport Police have made similar statements, and there have been regular calls for the Metropolitan police to do likewise after the damning Casey review. At first minister’s questions, Humza Yousaf described the statement as “monumental and historic”, recalling his own experiences of being stopped and searched by police as a young man, and adding it was “so important we now see action.” This week the first report of an independent review group detailed first-hand accounts from officers and staff of racism, sexism and homophobia, as well as people being “punished” or “sidelined” for raising concerns. Livingstone, who is retiring in August, stressed that the force should now “move beyond words and focus on action”, but one of the women at the forefront of exposing misogyny in the ranks asked why it had taken him so long to speak out. Rhona Malone, a former firearms officer , received nearly £1m in damages last year after an employment tribunal found she had been victimised by a “horrific” boys’ club culture in the force’s elite armed response unit. Malone told the Guardian she welcomed the statement, and hoped it would help serving officers, but added: “Why now – when the information and intelligence has been there for years, and women’s lives have been ruined – when he could have intervened?” Last year the Guardian reported on growing concerns that the force has a systemic problem with misogynistic bullying . After the independent review noted “scepticism and even outright fear” about raising issues formally, Malone said changing the complaints procedure should be a priority. “There is still no protection for whistleblowers. There needs to be an independent complaints procedure that would really target the culture that nurtures bad behaviour.” Livingstone’s statement came midway through an independent inquiry into the death of a black man in police custody. Livingstone told the board he had made a “personal commitment” that Police Scotland would be anti-racist to the family of Sheku Bayoh , who died after being restrained by officers on a Kirkcaldy street in 2015. The Bayoh family’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said they wanted to “thank the chief constable for raising his voice for the truth and being brave enough to say what black and Asian communities have known for decades”. Sign up to First Edition Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning after newsletter promotion He added: “Our communities are tired of grieving at gravesides, tired of trying to prove structural racism exists. Policing by consent is the pillar of any civilised democracy and today is an opportunity for a fundamental reset and restoring trust with all our communities.” On Wednesday, a pathologist who had been involved in a recent re-investigation into the Hillsborough disaster told the inquiry that haemorrhaging on Bayoh’s body was similar to that sustained by people in crowd crushes. Livingstone told board members that Sir William Macpherson’s definition of institutional racism, set out in the 1999 report into the killing of Stephen Lawrence, was a “very demanding test to satisfy” but was also “often misinterpreted or misrepresented as unfair and personal critical assessment of police officers and police staff as individuals”. He said his acknowledgement of institutional discrimination “absolutely does not” mean police officers and staff are racist or sexist, adding that he had “great confidence in the character and values of our people”. But Livingstone said: “There is no place in Police Scotland for those who reject our values and standards.” He pointed to a four-year strategy, Policing Together, launched last year to tackle discrimination in the force and in the community. Before Thursday’s meeting, the lead officer for Policing Together announced mandatory leadership training for thousands of officers, from chief superintendents to sergeants, aimed at tackling “canteen culture”.

GOOD

Luton’s Kenilworth Road is crumbling but deserves a Premier League chance

Shortly before 8pm last Tuesday, a remarkable act of transfiguration took place at Kenilworth Road. At that precise moment, Luton’s cramped and crumbling old stadium, with a capacity barely above 10,000, became a raging, roaring, hot-headed monster. The noise barely stopped for the next 90 minutes, at which point Luton’s players had seen off Sunderland and were heading to a playoff final at Wembley – and the jokes and sneers about their old ground had resurfaced again on social media. Does Kenilworth Road deserve to grace the Premier League? If Luton can get past Coventry on Saturday, the only answer is a punchy and unqualified yes. Sure it is no looker. Unlike Craven Cottage, also built in 1905, it will never attract the love of the blue plaque heritage brigade. The wooden main stand is so tight in places that you have to duck your head when you go to the toilet, while the away fans’ entrance in the Oak Road End looks down on residents’ gardens. Yet give me it over any soulless, out-of-town ground any day. Now Luton face their biggest sliding doors moment since being relegated on the eve of the Premier League in 1992. This, however, isn’t just a story of Luton Town but of Luton the town, too. For decades it has been a put‑down, a punchbag, a punchline to an easy joke. It is a perennial visitor to books like Crap Towns II and lists of the most awful places in the country. As someone who was born and raised in Luton, I know it has plenty of rough edges. But scratch a little deeper, amid its struggles and chronic lack of investment, and you find hope that Saturday could really transform the town as well as the club. It boils down to football economics 101. Promotion to the Premier League remains the most valuable prize in the world game, the sporting equivalent of hitting the Euromillions jackpot, with around £170m on offer in broadcast revenue and parachute payments even if Luton go down after one season. Most of it would be spent on a new £100m stadium, slap-bang in the middle of the town centre. There is talk of an economic boost, regeneration, renewed optimism. There is something else worth stating here. We hear a lot of gushing pronouncements about how much football clubs mean to their communities, especially in times of success or peril. Mostly, though, we are just guessing. But in Luton’s case we actually know. That’s because in 2009, the year the club tumbled out of the Football League, academics found that 47% of Luton residents believed their quality of life would be reduced if professional football in the town ceased. That is a remarkably high figure given many people do not care that much for sport. What’s more, the academics found that 53.5% of respondents to a survey also said they would pay more in council tax to keep the club from going bust. “This tells you the community has a stake in the club too,” one of the report’s authors, David Forrest, told me. “It doesn’t just belong to the owners or the fans. It belongs to the town.” What makes Luton’s story even more remarkable is that they often had to take the accountancy equivalent of smelling salts as they tumbled down the divisions. During their worst period of financial peril and strife they went into administration three times, had 40 points’ worth of deductions, and endured four relegations. Yet they have endured. It helps, of course, that they are no longer a vessel for dreamers or mad-eyed schemers. Some fans still shudder at the mention of the former chairman John Gurney, who talked of building a 50,000-seat ground with a “Teflon roof kept up by air pressure” to host Formula One and NFL matches at the same time the club were crashing into administration. He also launched a “manager idol” telephone vote among fans, at 50p a pop, during his disastrous 55-day reign. Before him there was David Kohler, who dreamed of a 20,000-capacity “Kohlerdome” by the M1 with a pitch placed on a hovercraft that would have been moved in and out of the stadium on match days, while Luton’s chairman in their glory days, David Evans, even called for cat-o’-nine-tails used on hooligans. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion True, every club has its stories of misfortune and woe. But Luton’s have been so ridiculously farcical they could have been penned by Groucho Marx. It was Evans who banned away supporters in the aftermath of Millwall fans tearing up the stadium in 1985. For decades that was the source of much of the antipathy towards Luton but, in a surprisingly sympathetic Guardian column at the time, David Lacey backed the club. As he pointed out, they were “trying to recreate an age” where it was safe to watch football – and fans could “wear their colours without fear of being abused or attacked, and if they were visiting supporters they were not marched to the ground by the police like prisoners-of-war”. Times have changed. Attitudes towards Luton, too. But more than 35 years later, one thing has remained resolutely unchanged. As Simon Inglis put it in his 1987 edition of The Football Grounds of Great Britain: “Until you have been to Kenilworth Road you cannot appreciate how cramped is ‘cramped’.” That much is true. As, hopefully, Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and the rest of the Premier League’s biggest stars will soon find out.

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Teachers’ unions promise new strike ballots if walkout numbers miss threshold

Teaching unions are warning they will be forced to reballot their members over strike action in the coming months if ministers continue to resist a “sensible solution” to the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. Three unions had been threatening walkouts over pay, which they say has led to teachers and teaching assistants making the “heartbreaking” decision to leave the profession. Last week it was revealed that despite about 90% of NASUWT members voting in favour of industrial action, the turnout, 42%, was below the required 50% threshold . Two more unions, the NEU and NAHT, will announce the results of their ballots on 16 January. While hopes within the unions remain high that the strike action will be approved, some unions are warning that the strong support already demonstrated for strike action means they will feel obliged to launch a new attempt for walkouts should pay talks fail to progress. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, told the Observer that heads and teachers would expect their unions to keep fighting. “I think it’s fair to say that just because a technical threshold hasn’t been met, the disputes don’t go away,” he said. “Members will still be expecting their union to find a solution with the employer. If a sensible solution isn’t reached, there’s always the possibility that members will vote in a second ballot, with those thresholds being met. If there is any relief the government might be feeling, they should think again.” Unions are already concerned that ballot papers may not have reached all members, and the effects of postal disruption will also be examined if the 50% turnout threshold is not met. Whiteman warned that the erosion of pay over a decade was now putting huge pressure on teaching staff’’s vocational drive, with “heartbroken” teaching assistants now regularly being offered major pay increases to move into retail jobs. “We’ve got this stupid situation at the moment in which highly skilled, very well-trained teaching assistants can garner more money working in a supermarket than they can looking after vulnerable children. Headteachers tell me that teaching assistants or support staff often bring them their resignation letter in tears. They have to leave the job they love and the children they love to support and are heavily invested in, because they can’t make ends meet. And supermarkets are able to pay them significantly more. “At the moment there are huge numbers of children who don’t have a subject specialist teaching them. We don’t have enough maths teachers, we don’t have enough physics teachers, and we are finding it difficult to replace headteachers. “The same crisis that you see in health is happening in education. The reason it isn’t so apparent or so dramatic is because people don’t die in school. But they don’t get educated either. If we don’t invest in that education, it has a very long-term impact on our country’s ability to be a major player on the world stage.” More talks are expected between teaching unions and the Department for Education this week, despite a lack of progress so far. Some hope ministers will use discussions over the coming year’s pay deal to resolve the ongoing dispute over last year’s settlement. Most state school teachers in England and Wales had a below-inflation 5% pay rise in 2022. The Observer has been told that most state schools in England and Wales will have to close completely on several days in February and March if the country’s biggest teaching union, the NEU, votes for industrial action. The NAHT’s ballot over pay is the first in its 125-year history . A Department for Education spokesperson said: “After two years of disrupted education for children and young people, families will be relieved that teachers from NASUWT did not choose to strike. The education secretary has arranged further meetings with union leaders to avoid harmful strike action. We have already met the unions’ request for a further £2bn for schools both next year and the year after in the autumn statement, and given teachers their highest pay award in 30 years.”

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US health authorities reportedly plan to stop tracking Covid on community level

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reportedly plans to stop tracking the spread of Covid-19 on the community level across the country, signalling what could be the federal government’s readiness to reconsider priorities in its approach to the pandemic despite the World Health Organization’s declaration that it is still ongoing. Instead of using its colour-coded Covid-19 tracking system that focuses on the spread of the virus by counties, the CDC will pivot its tracking focus mostly to hospitalisation rates, CNN first reported on Friday. “We’re not going to lose complete surveillance, but we will lose that hyperlocal sensitivity to it perhaps,” a source familiar with the CDC’s plans told CNN. Although the timing has not yet been finalised, the source said that the CDC could announce the end of its community-level tracking as early as next week. The Biden White House announced in January that the country’s Covid-19 public health emergency is set to expire on 11 May. The CDC’s community-level tracking system was initially adopted last year in February and currently operates on a Covid-19 transmission metric of low-medium-high. Once the public health emergency declaration expires next month, the federal government will no longer have the authority to mandate labs to report Covid-19 testing data. Additionally, despite Covid-19 being a reportable condition, the frequency of doctors reporting cases to public health officials may change, CNN reports. “Some of the metrics simply cannot be sustained because of the change in data reporting,” the source told CNN. In a statement to NBC, a CDC spokesperson said that as the public health emergency winds down, the centers “will no longer get the same data”. “We are working to update the measure used to convey the risk of Covid-19 in communities based on data that will be available,” the spokesperson added. “Our priority remains providing the information necessary to protect the nation’s public health.” Within the last several months, the number of Covid-19 cases across the country has become increasingly difficult to track, especially as many individuals switch to home testing, the results of which could mean unreported infections. As of 13 April, nearly 97% of counties, districts or territories across the US have been categorised as having a low Covid-19 community level, according to CDC data. Meanwhile, 2.5% are at a medium community level and 0.5% are at a high community level.

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Water firm to pay shareholders £300m despite anger over leaks and pollution

The decision by United Utilities to hand more than £300m to shareholders has prompted fresh anger over water companies’ multimillion-pound payouts, at a time when the industry is under pressure to spend more on tackling leaks and stopping sewage pollution. The company, which supplies more than 3m homes and 200,000 businesses across the north-west of England, from Carlisle to Crewe, had the unenviable title of England’s most polluting water company last year, according to Environment Agency data. United Utilities’ announcement came just a day after Severn Trent, one of Britain’s biggest water companies, also raised its dividend to £261m. Together, the two FTSE 100 water companies will have paid more than £560m to their investors over the past year. It came as Welsh Water said it was sending every customer a £10 rebate, after it admitted it had failed to report accurately the amount of water lost across its network through leaks, and the amount used by each customer. The only not-for-profit water supplier in England and Wales apologised to the 1.4 million households and businesses it serves after it found more water had been lost through leaks than previously reported, while per capita consumption was lower. United Utilities said it was recommending paying investors a dividend of 30.34p a share for the year to 31 March. This takes the firm’s full-year dividend to 45.51p, a rise of 4.6%, which is in line with its policy to raise payouts in line with a measure inflation including housing costs, calculated using the rate last November. The total payout amounted to a cost of £301m to the company. This was in a year when its operations generated £788m of net cash, more than 15% lower than a year earlier, as inflation pushed its costs higher and its customers used less water than expected. United Utilities said it had had a “challenging year” which also recorded a fall in both revenue and pre-tax profit, which tumbled by over 40% to £256m. United Utilities’ dividend increase at a time of falling profits comes just a week after the water industry said it would raise customers’ bills over time to recoup some of its £10bn investment in a sewer modernisation scheme to reduce spills of sewage into England’s waterways. The decision was denounced as “madness” by Tim Farron, environmental spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats. “United Utilities are making a mockery by destroying our precious lakes and rivers with sewage, all while handing out bumper dividends,” he said. “The system is broken when their execs and shareholders are rewarded with millions of pounds for destroying the environment.” Farron called on ministers to demand answers, adding: “This £300m should have been spent on preventing sewage polluting the Lake District and region’s rivers.” Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Louise Beardmore, who became chief executive of United Utilities in March, said she understood concerns about storm overflows and was “committed to respond to the challenges we face”, including a £900m investment plan. She said the company had achieved a 39% reduction in reported sewage spills since 2020, but admitted it needed to “go faster and drive a step change in performance”. Beardmore added: “Despite a challenging year of cost pressures, we have delivered our best-ever performance on a range of measures that matter most to customers, including leakage, water quality and serious pollution incident.” Welsh Water told its customers that £10 would be credited to each household and business account over the coming months, costing it £14m, after its failings on assessing leaks. Pete Perry, Welsh Water’s chief executive, said: “We are very sorry and disappointed that this has happened. We’re investing an additional £54m over the next two years to identify and reduce leakage as quickly as possible and we have shared the findings of our investigations with our regulator.” Ofwat has launched an enforcement investigation into Welsh Water’s restated leakage and consumption figures over two years from 2020-22. The water regulator assesses companies annually on their performance on leaks and consumption, and has the power to penalise or reward them.

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Vaccines: What we know about long-term safety now

"We don't know the long-term side effects of Covid vaccines." That's a claim that's still common to see shared online. But a year is actually considered relatively "long term" when it comes to vaccine safety. This week marks the anniversary of the first delivery of Covid-19 vaccines under the Covax scheme - as well as being more than 14 months since the first dose was given. And scientists explain that's enough time for all but the rarest side effects to have emerged. Even though Covid vaccines are relatively new, the processes they trigger in your body are not. Understanding how they stimulate the immune system can help us understand how quickly we can expect to have any negative reactions. After 15 minutes A tiny fraction of people will have an allergic reaction to the inactive ingredients in the vaccine and this will happen within about 15 minutes of receiving it. After a few hours Shortly after receiving the vaccine, the immune system kicks into action. Your body recognises an alien invader and attacks it with immune cells, the weapons it would use against any virus or bacteria. We know that any reactions associated with this phase - known as the innate phase - will happen within hours or a couple of days, including the most common side effects, a sore arm, temperature and other mild flu-like symptoms. A much rarer side effect which has been linked to the mRNA vaccines Pfizer and Moderna - myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart - also occurs in this phase. Though the exact cause of myocarditis is not understood, we do know inflammation is one of the body's responses to infection or injury. Because the reaction is so rare, and younger people being admitted to hospital with the virus is also relatively uncommon, there is still work being done to fully understand the risk in some groups. But cardiologists stress myocarditis is just one factor which needs to be understood alongside the many other risks from the virus, to the immune system, lungs, heart and brain, which the vaccine protects against. Vaccine-induced myocarditis is generally mild and gets better on its own or with basic anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen. After 10 days The innate phase kicks off the second bit of your immune response - the adaptive phase, where your body starts to make cells which are specifically tailored to fight off the target virus. This phase kicks in after about 10 days, which is why it takes the same length of time for the vaccine to begin to have any effect in protecting you against Covid. Your body pumps out new immune cells, in a response that peaks after roughly two weeks and fades away after about 28 days. A very rare but serious side effect linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine - a specific type of blood clot - happens during this phase and is related to the antibodies produced by your immune system in response to the vaccine. That's why most of these rare clots have been seen within four weeks of vaccination. By 28 days Once the adaptive phase dies down - after about a month - you are left with memory cells which afford you protection for months or years after initial exposure. So your immune system has been changed in the long-term - but you're not having any new responses, Dr Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist in London explains. So, she says, if you haven't had a reaction after the first couple of months, it is incredibly unlikely you will develop any new reactions to the vaccine. There is never a 100% guarantee with anything in medicine, so we can't say it's impossible that something will happen after that time period. But,"vaccination history assures us that most side effects occur within hours of receiving the vaccine and rare side effects occur within days to weeks", explains Prof Jeffrey Mphahlele, a leading South African infectious diseases researcher. So we know, from our understanding of how the immune system works, that an individual who hasn't had a reaction to the vaccine in the first couple of months is vanishingly unlikely to have any new side effects after that. But is it possible that side effects which have already happened are going unnoticed, and may come to light in the coming years? Countries all over the world have put systems in place to monitor side effects and to share that information with each other. The rarer a reaction is, the harder it is to spot. But it is reassuring that these systems were successful in picking up both the blood clots and myocarditis which we've already mentioned, despite being very rare, with only a handful of cases per million doses. While milder symptoms - like a sore arm or temperature - are likely to be significantly under-reported, more severe side effects are thoroughly recorded, Dr Male believes. Because we expect any side effects to emerge relatively quickly, perhaps a more relevant thing to look at - rather than how much time has passed - is how many doses have been given, suggests Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist in Delhi. "Billions of doses have been given, so any side effect not seen yet would be rarer than one in a billion," he said. Nevertheless, medical systems the world over are still looking for side effects, Dr Lahariya said. Indeed, while the vaccines have all completed the expected three phases of trials that usually take place before being offered to the general public, they are still being carefully monitored until at least 2023, to make sure even the rarest of events are picked up. And remember, safety in medicine is all about balancing risks and benefits. All the evidence suggests the overall risks of catching Covid are many times higher than any risks from the vaccine.

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As Dowlais debuts, fears over Melrose’s GKN takeover look unfounded

To very little fanfare, London’s stock market on Thursday gained a £1.6bn engineering company that supplies 90% of the world’s vehicle manufacturers and is top dog in the specialised field of drive systems. The lack of buzz was perhaps understandable. The company’s name – Dowlais – may be new, but the business itself is merely a demerger from FTSE 100 firm Melrose Industries. Its main operation is GKN Automotive, one half of the GKN engineering empire that fell to Melrose in an acrimonious £8bn takeover battle in 2018 . Remember the heat, fury and headlines that were generated by the great Melrose-GKN showdown? The bidders were billed in some quarters as asset-stripping financial engineers who would enrich themselves by wrecking 259-year-old GKN. A committee of MPs grilled Melrose’s bosses about the future of UK engineering and national security implications. On the other side, GKN’s directors turned somersaults to try to escape the bidder. They rewrote strategy on the hoof to propose a break-up and a merger of GKN Automotive with US company Dana. It didn’t work. Melrose won the shareholder vote narrowly, with the business secretary of the day extracting a few (modest) undertakings covering research and development and continued UK presence. The Dowlais demerger, then, is a moment to ask whether the 2018 fuss and fears were justified. The answer is surely no. Melrose’s crew do indeed pay themselves megabucks when their deal-making delivers the financial goods, but they can’t really be accused of slash-and-burn tactics at GKN . Ex-workers in ex-GKN plants that were closed in Erdington (automotive) and Kings Norton (aerospace) may understandably disagree, but life under an independent GKN might not have been markedly different. Old management, after years of underperformance, was already under intense pressure to get leaner; and if the Dana deal had happened, automotive control would have passed to the US. As it happens, the on-the-ground UK presence in automotive was always small. But having a UK-listed and UK-headquartered Dowlais is surely a better outcome than the alternative in 2018. There is no guarantee that a liberated operation will retain its independence for ever, but drivetrains are needed equally in an electric world; Dowlais could be an acquirer. The record also shows that group-wide post-takeover spending on research and development under Melrose continued much as before. In aerospace – the bit that excites the City – the number of sites globally has shrunk from 50 to 35, but investment (with government backing) has gone into a new technical centre at the Filton base near Bristol, which makes wing structures, including for the Airbus A350. The position of the pension fund, another concern in 2018, is vastly improved. After a few more laps, Melrose will probably sell the aerospace business – its sole asset now – because that’s what its “buy, improve, sell” mantra dictates, and because the five-year undertaking to retain it has now expired. Again, though, one can’t imagine an alternative glittering history under old GKN; the City’s confidence in the company was low, and then the pandemic struck. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Indeed, a good question to ask is whether Melrose or old GKN was better equipped to navigate Covid’s hit. Liam Butterworth, chief executive of Dowlais, reckons his side of the operation “would definitely have run out of cash if it weren’t for our turnaround programme”. Hard to prove, but it sounds directionally correct. Melrose’s heavy focus on cash, costs and working capital came at the right time. Melrose still has to show investors that the GKN deal, after Covid’s interruption, will deliver the traditional high financial returns. But neither extreme outcome that some imagined in 2018 – instant riches or instant catastrophe through overreach – has come to pass. Instead, it’s been a tale of hard grind and steady improvement. The 2018 fears were wildly overdone.

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End of native logging in Victoria ‘a monumental win for forests’, say conservationists

Native forest logging in Victoria will end in December, six years earlier than previously planned, after the state government decided severe bushfires and legal campaigns had made it economically and environmentally unviable. The announcement by the Andrews Labor government in Tuesday’s state budget follows a landmark supreme court judgment last November that the state-owned logging agency, VicForests, had broken the law by failing to protect endangered species. It triggered a shutdown of operations that contributed to Australia’s last white paper mill, located in the Latrobe Valley, ending production of office paper in February. Government ministers said they had brought forward a previous commitment to phase out the industry by 2030 to “deliver certainty to timber workers, sawmill operators and their communities”. They pledged an extra $200m in the budget as part of a $875m transition support package for those affected. Conservationists celebrated the decision, which comes after decades of conflict over the destruction caused by clearfell logging. In recent years campaigners have brought more than a dozen court cases alleging loggers had breached forestry laws. Chris Schuringa, from the Victorian Forest Alliance, said campaigners were “overjoyed by this historic announcement”. “This is a monumental win for forests, for wildlife, for climate, and for the hard-working people who have spent countless hours surveying for endangered species, preparing evidence for court cases, lobbying, and campaigning,” she said. “Some have been fighting for this for over three decades.” The government said bushfires, legal action and court decisions meant there were no alternative timber sources to supply the state’s mills, and there were no options for regulatory reform that could prevent further court injunctions. It said hundreds of workers had not been able to work for months after the supreme court found VicForests had failed to protect the endangered greater glider and yellow-bellied glider. The premier, Daniel Andrews, said the state needed a plan to support workers and their families. The transition package would help timber workers retrain and find new jobs and support businesses reliant on hardwood supply. “It’s not good enough for us to just cross our fingers and hope for the best,” the premier said. “That’s why we’re stepping up to give these workers, and their communities, businesses and partners along the supply chain, the certainty they deserve.” The treasurer, Tim Pallas, told reporters he felt a “great degree of sympathy” for forestry workers and communities. “We don’t take any satisfaction in this,” he said. “The advice that we’ve got is that, legally, there will be no way through this if the courts have been used the way that they have, effectively to frustrate this industry.” Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The decision means both Victoria and Western Australia will end native forest logging by next year. There are no plans to end logging in New South Wales or Tasmania. The Australian Greens said the ban should be national. “If the Albanese government is serious about fighting climate change and protecting our environment it must now follow the lead of Victoria … and stop all native forest logging,” said the party’s forest spokesperson, Janet Rice. But the decision was criticised by the Coalition. The federal MP for Gippsland, the Nationals’ Darren Chester, said it was a “Dan-made disaster which will devastate our communities and take a generation to recover from”. “In my 15 years as a member of parliament I’ve never been more disgusted in a government decision than I am today,” he said. The union representing timber workers accused the state government of failing to consult the industry and said the “gut-wrenching” decision would result in up to 1000 more short-term job losses than anticipated. “It’s a shame that [Andrews] only governs for Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo,” the CFMEU’s manufacturing division national secretary, Michael O’Connor, said. “If you’re in any other part of the state, you don’t get a look in.” Sign up to Guardian Australia's Morning Mail Our Australian morning briefing email breaks down the key national and international stories of the day and why they matter after newsletter promotion Calls for the Victorian government to quickly end native forestry have escalated since the catastrophic 2019-20 black summer bushfires, which burned more than 1.5m hectares across the state and reduced the livable habitat for dozens of threatened species by more than half. The reduction in areas available for logging due to the fires affected the industry’s economic viability, which was already under question. VicForests reported a $54.2m loss in its last annual report. The government said it would develop a program for the management of 1.8m hectares of land previously allocated for logging. It said this would “deliver the largest expansion to our public forests in our state’s history”. It said an advisory panel would be established to recommend forest areas that should be protected as national parks and areas that would be suitable for other recreational uses. It would also consider opportunities for management by traditional owners. Sarah Rees, who has campaigned for the creation of a great forest national park, said the decision was “a win for communities, endangered species and testimony to the Andrews government’s commitment to climate change”. She said damage from fires and logging meant the state’s forests would need investment – beyond that offered to timber workers – to back recreation plans and to restore degraded land. Prof David Lindenmayer, an Australian National University ecologist who has worked Victoria’s forests for decades, said the decision would be good for the economy and the climate. He said its effect would be equivalent to preventing greenhouse gas emissions from 730,000 cars every year. “A major workforce will be needed to build new tourism infrastructure, protect and then boost carbon stocks, tackle problems with exploding numbers of feral deer and develop elite fire-fighting crews to make rural communities safe,” he said. The national campaigns director for the Wilderness Society, Amelia Young, said “living, breathing, intact forests” were the best safeguard against the climate crisis. “It’s crucial that workers and families, who have been led astray about the longevity of Victoria’s native logging industry, are properly supported,” she said. Alana Mountain, a forest campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said it was a sensitive time for affected workers, but the announcement meant people were no longer in limbo. “This is justice for climate, forests, and humanity,” she said. This article was amended on 24 May 2023. An earlier version said that 1.5 hectares was destroyed in the 2019-20 summer bushfires; that should have been 1.5m hectares.

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Saudi Arabia executes man during Muslim holy month of Ramadan

Saudi Arabia has executed a man during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which a rights group said on Monday had not occurred in years. The execution took place on 28 March – five days into the fasting month – in the Medina region, which includes Islam’s second holiest city, the official Saudi Press Agency has reported. It said the man put to death, a Saudi national, had been convicted of murder. He stabbed the victim and set him on fire, the report said. “Saudi Arabia executed a citizen during Ramadan,” said the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) in a statement. Citing Saudi interior ministry capital punishment data, the group said “no sentence has been implemented during the holy month” since 2009 in the kingdom, which has one of the world’s highest rates of executions. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam. ESOHR said the Ramadan case brought to 17 the number of death sentences carried out this year. Saudi Arabia executed 147 people in 2022 – more than double the 2021 figure of 69, according to AFP tallies. Last year also saw the resumption of executions for drug crimes, ending a moratorium that lasted for almost three years. More than 1,000 death sentences have been carried out since King Salman assumed power in 2015, according to a report published earlier this year by British-based Reprieve and ESOHR. The kingdom has often carried out death sentences by beheading. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine that the kingdom “got rid of” the death penalty except for cases of murder or when someone “threatens the lives of many people”, according to a transcript published by state media in March 2022.

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Can you solve it? Succession

Today’s puzzles are about succession, with a lower case ‘s’. (Apols to readers hoping to find a discussion of the TV series. Although I have made an attempt at making one of the questions relevant.) First down the runway is Japanese puzzle master Nob Yoshigahara’s masterpiece, one of the most perfect brainteasers of all time. 1. Nob job What number goes in the circle with the ‘?’? (No, the 7 in the final circle is not a mistake.) For the remaining questions, what number comes next in each sequence? Name the successor. 2. Think Roman 0, 0, 0, 0, 4, 9, 5, 1, 1, 0, 55, ... Hint: write out one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, ...and look at the title of this puzzle. 3. Golomb’s sequence. 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, ... Named after the eminent mathematician Solomon Golomb (whose work inspired the game Tetris), this is an extremely pleasing pattern once you spot it. Hint: think about why are there two 2s and two 3s? 4. The elevator sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, … Another puzzle is why this sequence got its name. 5. The flagpole sequence What number comes next, i.e after THIRTEEN? 6. Eban numbers 2, 4, 6, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60, 62, 64, 66... I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answers. PLEASE NO SPOILERS. Instead discuss your favourite sequences, or maybe even your thoughts as to the solution of Succession. UPDATE: Please read the solutions here Thanks to the Online Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences and Eric Angelini for inspiring today’s puzzles. I set a puzzle here every two weeks on a Monday. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me . I give school talks about maths and puzzles (online and in person). If your school is interested please get in touch.

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How big a deal is US and Australian cooperation on climate and energy?

Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese say climate and clean energy will become a “central pillar” of the alliance between the US and Australia – and they will ramp up cooperation on critical minerals. Beyond the flashy headlines, what does this mean? After a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, over the weekend, the US president and the Australian prime minister said they both recognised “the importance of addressing the climate crisis as a critical component of the bilateral relationship”. They said climate and clean energy should be seen as “the third pillar of the alliance, alongside our defence and economic cooperation”. Michael Green, the chief executive officer of the US Studies Centre and a former senior US official, says the bilateral meeting was a chance for Biden and Albanese to speak more broadly to their own constituencies “than they were able to with the Quad and the Aukus summits and to focus on something that’s personally important to both of them that their predecessors did not focus on”. Green notes that polling commissioned by the United States Studies Centre shows support for the US alliance “is pretty robust among Australians, but Australians in their 20s by large numbers said they want to see more action on climate in the relationship”. Well, Biden and Albanese flagged a series of steps to “elevate global climate ambition, accelerate the global clean energy transition, and support mitigation, adaptation and resilience efforts in the Indo-Pacific and beyond”. This includes signing a statement of intent to advance climate cooperation through the Australia-United States climate, critical minerals and clean energy transformation compact. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup But at this stage, a lot of the work is yet to be fleshed out. A series of working groups are being set up, including a ministerial-level taskforce on critical minerals. Another grouping will “develop a new action plan by the end of 2023 to encourage stronger industrial collaboration and accelerate progress towards our ambitious climate goals”. Possibly, but this is yet to be put into practice. Albanese told reporters on Sunday that “the big risk with the Inflation Reduction Act … is that you’ll see capital leaves Australia to go to the United States” – but he said the new measures were “about addressing that”. Green explains that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is “full of contradictions” between the imperative for international cooperation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “versus the ‘made in America’ rent-seeking aspects”. Sign up to Guardian Australia's Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update email breaks down the key national and international stories of the day and why they matter after newsletter promotion “Australia, like other allies, is very worried about the latter,” Green says, arguing the announcement sends a message to the markets that Australia should not be disadvantaged. “It’s a strong political signal that since the president and the administration have a lot of latitude in implementing the IRA, that Australia has an open door to come in and say how it should be implemented.” Green thinks Australian companies may have opportunities to apply for tax credits or grants, but this may well be a case-by-case situation. “So the Australian embassy and ambassador Kevin Rudd are going to have to be on their toes – and Australian companies are going to have to be paying attention – to make sure that when there are subsidies or tax rebates or other incentives, it doesn’t force companies to make a decision not to invest in Australia.” No. The Climate Action Tracker, an independent analysis tool, rates the US and Australia’s climate targets and policies as “insufficient”. The analysis of Australia’s policies says the Albanese government’s stronger 2030 targets have improved the country’s overall rating from “highly insufficient” to “insufficient”. But it warns: “Under Australia’s current policies, emissions will continue to rise and are consistent with more than 3C warming if all other countries followed a similar level of ambition.” The Climate Action Tracker’s analysis of the US says the Inflation Reduction Act signed by Biden in August 2022 is “the most ambitious and potentially impactful climate policy in US history”, but adds that “the totality of the US policies and proposals need substantial improvements to be consistent with the Paris agreement’s 1.5C temperature limit and are not consistent with any interpretation of a fair-share contribution”. Biden promised to ask the US Congress to add Australia as a “domestic source” within the meaning of title III of the Defense Production Act – a designation that is already afforded to Canada. According to both governments, this move would “streamline technological and industrial base collaboration, accelerate and strengthen Aukus implementation, and build new opportunities for United States investment in the production and purchase of Australian critical minerals, critical technologies and other strategic sectors”. Green predicts Congress will be supportive of the move, but it is part of a bigger picture to update export controls to improve the sharing of tech under the Aukus security partnership. “The clear message I heard, when I was in Washington two weeks ago, from Congress and from across the administration is there’s a political consensus to carve out big exceptions for Australia.”

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Heavy rains in Canada offer relief from wildfires but could lead to flooding

Heavy rains have brought relief to western Canada, in what crews hope could be a “turning point” in a protracted fight against wildfires, but officials also warned the much-needed downpour could lead to catastrophic flooding – and fresh blazes from lightning strikes. Officials in Alberta said that cool, wet weather over the weekend – and more forecast for the coming days – promised a respite after the worst start to a fire season on record , in which 512 wildfires have already consumed more than 945,000 hectares – surpassing the previous record 615,00 hectares for the same period in 2019. “This could be a turning point for the firefighters working out there on the fires,” Christie Tucker of Alberta Wildfire told reporters, adding that everyone was “relieved to see some rain” after weeks of battling aggressive fires. “Most areas of the province have now seen rain, lower temperatures and higher humidity, all of which will help firefighters gain ground on these wildfires.” Alongside the rains, cooler temperatures and more moisture in vegetation, are giving fire crews an added boost in taming the blazes. The province is still contending with 81 fires, including 23 classified as out of control. Within Alberta, 10,000 people remain under evacuation order. “Many fires of this size will certainly not be extinguished after a few days of rain,” said Tucker, adding that nearly 3,000 firefighters from 17 agencies and been deployed, along with 400 soldiers from the Canadian military. Environment and Climate Change Canada said that by midweek, as much as 75mm of rain could fall in the western parts of the province. In Calgary, the rains offered respite from a thick, orange haze of smoke that has blanketed the province’s largest city for days, at one point making it the most polluted major city on Earth , with fine particulate matter in the air exceeding Lahore, Pakistan . In neighbouring British Columbia – where as much as 100mm was expected to fall in some areas – heavy rains meant all evacuation orders in the north-eastern part of the province were lifted or downgraded. Forrest Tower of BC Wildfire told reporters the rains would have a “drastic short-term impact” on the largest of the nearly 90 wildfires burning across the province. More than 2m hectares of Canada have burned in the spring season, an area roughly the size of Wales. The bulk of which have been in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with new fires in British Columbia quickly adding to the total. Despite the rains, fire officials in both British Columbia and Alberta warned heavy precipitation could also bring thunderstorms and lightning strikes, igniting new blazes and highlighting the “Whac-a-Mole” reality of managing wildfires. Severe thunderstorm watches were issued earlier this week for eastern British Columbia, including near the out-of-control wildfire in Kootenay national park, measuring more than 250 hectares in size. The fire was started by a lightning strike last week and is currently listed as “out of control”, with crews deploying “full suppression efforts” according to Parks Canada. The River Forecast Centre in British Columbia has issued flood watches for much of east-central swaths of the province warning that hot conditions last week accelerated melting of the mountain snowpack. With more waters entering rivers, the centre warned of flooding or debris flows. Experts have previously warned that increasingly hot wildfires can scald the ground and inhibit water from absorbing into the soil . When heavy rains fall on charred areas, water is pushed off the landscape and into swollen rivers, leading to flooding or slides.

GOOD

The Guardian view on Tory immigration policy: a moral choice

The campaign to leave the EU promised many things, but hard agricultural labour was not among them. Seasonal fruit picking is physically demanding, poorly paid work that was, before Brexit, done mostly by migrants exercising their freedom to live in any EU member state. Ending that freedom is one of the few Brexit pledges that has been delivered. But enthusiasts for the project are dissatisfied. Net migration has not fallen . Last year it was estimated at around 500,000. That number is inflated by exceptional cases – Ukrainian refugees and Hong Kong passport holders – but no downward trend is forecast. There is a steady inflow of workers filling vacancies in the health service, social care and other sectors. Some employers are lobbying for more generous visa allocations. Farmers still need fruit pickers . The government has acquiesced, recognising that labour shortages put pressure on supply chains, drive up inflation, risk food security and stifle economic growth. That is the Treasury view. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is frustrated by the outbreak of pragmatic liberalism in cabinet. Earlier this week, she told a conference of radical rightwing conservatives that Britain’s home-grown workforce should be mobilised in the fields. Brexit, in that view, was supposed to help the nation wean itself off reliance on foreign workers. That proposition has resonance with people who are uncomfortable with the social changes that accompany mass migration. But the core of the argument is an economic fallacy – the “lump of labour” belief that work is a fixed commodity, and that every immigrant who finds a job in Britain is taking it away from a local worker. In reality, migrants go where there is demand for their work. They spend their wages, stimulating local economies. Immigration is generally good for growth, especially immigration of young people into a country with an ageing population. Ms Braverman’s model of labour autarky is a recipe for stagnation and decline. But the home secretary is not interested in economics. Her focus is the prospect of one day replacing Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader. Ms Braverman is positioning herself as the candidate of her party’s nationalist right – a faction that was once confined to the fringe but now defines the Tory mainstream. There are few constraints on the anti-immigration rhetoric deployed to win applause from that audience. The home secretary needs no encouragement. She has already borrowed the far-right dehumanising idiom, describing refugees crossing the Channel as an “invasion”. How eagerly the prime minister supports that view is unclear. He appointed Ms Braverman, and champions her policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda in defiance of Britain’s international human rights obligations. This week Mr Sunak defended that breach at the Council of Europe. Asylum claims and work visas come under different rubrics of immigration policy. Mr Sunak is quietly permissive on the latter, while licensing cruelty for the former. The distinction is lost on Tory hardliners, who are stepping up the hunt for scapegoats now that Brexit has conspicuously failed to deliver. That presents the prime minister with a choice. He can resist the anti-immigration fanatics, taking the road where human decency and practical economics align. Or Mr Sunak can indulge the capture of his party by xenophobic nationalism, which would make the Tories both toxic and out of touch. Britain doesn’t need more snarling populists. They have damaged the country enough. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

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I’m consumed by a crush, but we are both married

The question Please take this seriously as I really need some genuine advice. I have a crush on someone who I feel completely consumed by whenever I see or even think about them. We’re both married and we only talk face to face, never online. I have to admit that he has never given me any reason to think he likes me in that way. I daydream about running away and having lots of sex with him and making him tea, but I know it’s just a fantasy. I genuinely love my husband and I’m happy when I hear his key in the door after a day at work. We have had some tough times. A while back we were both misunderstanding, hurting and blaming each other, but we’ve made it through and are better than we ever were. This crush came along during that difficult time in my marriage, and I think it helped me cope. However, I don’t want to ruin my friendship with my crush by confessing my feelings. I just want to feel normal around him and not be so obsessed with seeing him. I know I need to stop going to places where I might bump into him, but it’s not easy. Can you give me some mature advice? I’m too old for this at 52 and feel very confused. It feels like a black hole that I get sucked into whenever I see or even think about this person. Philippa’s answer You say, please don’t take this lightly. Of course I won’t. I really feel for you, but I am going to give you the opposite advice and ask you to please take your feelings for your crush as lightly as you can. I often give the following guidance for an inconvenient obsession because if you follow it, it works: don’t be your feeling, instead observe the feeling. This makes the obsession less all-consuming because it means that there is a part of you, the observer part, who is just coolly observing and isn’t consumed by it. By merely observing your obsession, you can split off from it. So, this is not a black hole that sucks all of you down into it. It is a hole over there, that you are not going to fall into. This won’t be the work of a moment, but will take daily practice. Also, decide to really concentrate on something else, such as noticing all the sounds you can hear, or taking your awareness to your breathing. Obsessing will feed the inconvenient feeling, concentrating on other things starves it. You can steer your mind. And, yes, until you are more in control, don’t plan to bump into him as often. You need an explanation to make sense of the feeling. This will help parcel it up into a metaphorical box, so it won’t keep sabotaging your life. You have been through some challenging times with your husband, and having this crush helped you to cope because it’s possible that this person represented a form of escape from the difficulties you were facing in your marriage. Having this fantasy where you don’t go through all the realities of a real relationship was a way for you to run away from the bad times you were having with your husband. Today, you no longer need that fantasy. Another narrative that might help you make sense of it all is that your crush has qualities that you want for yourself. We often fall in love with people who are opposite to us in some way and have facets to their character that we unconsciously feel we’d like to have in ours. Well, good news! You can develop new sides to yourself that he may represent, you can allow his influence, and you don’t have to break up two marriages to do it. With a story that makes sense of how you feel, you can demote your crush back to a friend. You know that the grass is not always greener on the other side and that this crush was only a solution to problems in your imagination. Just because we get married doesn’t mean we stop fancying other people, but love is a lot more than fancying someone and having sex. It’s building up a bond over time that becomes deeper because you have worked through conflicts and differences, because you have a shared memory bank and built up appreciation for each other for sticking with it through bad times as well as good. Sure, you fancy your crush, sure he is a very nice person, but just because you fancy him and like him a lot doesn’t mean you need to have a sexual relationship with him. It’s good and fine that there are people on this earth that we feel better for having bumped into, that we find attractive, better for having shared things with them and passed the time of day with them, but we can’t cop off with all of them. Try to think of this person as someone you can appreciate rather than someone you are going to break up two marriages for just to act out on a fantasy. Take these feelings of having a crush lightly. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen is a tale of two sisters capable of feeling deeply. One controlled her feelings and the other was controlled by her feelings. Whose way was best? Read the book and decide. If you have a question, send an email to askphilippa@observer.co.uk Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions

GOOD

I am finally reunited with my family after 13 years. But the threat for Hazaras in Afghanistan remains

Joy flooded my heart as I finally welcomed my mother, sister and niece in Melbourne last week after 13 years of family separation as a refugee in Australia. But I feel deep pain when I remember the day Islamist extremists killed my father, who was working as a labourer on a construction site. He was killed because of his ethnic identity as a Hazara . Despite her immense grief, my mother became our family’s anchor. She raised us with unwavering strength amid the constant struggles and pain that came our way. Her love and determination fuelled my passion, leading me to become an aspiring lawyer and advocate for human rights, refugees and minorities. I sought asylum in Australia in 2012 due to escalating violence and threats faced by the Hazara people. My perilous journey to Australia took almost a year through different countries, jungles, oceans and detention centres. After arriving in Australia by boat, I spent 13 years separated from my family, facing travel restrictions and a life of limbo with little hope. However, we are finally reunited after enduring unbearable pain and countless tears. Stepping on to Australian soil, my family found hope and the promise of a new home, despite leaving everything behind. My two brothers came as refugees and have lived in Australia for over a decade. They pay taxes, have built transport and restaurant businesses and have created jobs through their entrepreneurship. Australia has become a beacon of hope for Hazaras, where we can rebuild our lives and make a new home. In our short history in Australia, the rising generation of Australian Hazaras – thriving professionals, doctors, figures in academia, construction workers, social workers, lawyers and advocates for human rights, democracy and social justice such as myself – have found creative ways to contribute and give back to our communities. With the freedom to live without fear of being killed, Hazaras can help to “rejuvenate and transform” Australia’s economy and communities. However, the situation remains devastating for the Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hazaras started migrating to Australia in the late 1990s, fleeing decades of what some have called relentless and genocidal violence . Since the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021, Hazaras have been subjected to systematic violence while attacks continue unabated. Hazaras have been suppressed in all aspects of their lives in Afghanistan and further pushed into marginalisation . It has become increasingly difficult for the Hazaras to mobilise due to heightened security threats and continuous attacks. They have therefore used cyberspace and social media to raise awareness through demonstrations and advocacy for their safety, justice and human rights. While my mother and sister are lucky to now live safely in Melbourne, women in Afghanistan are more at risk, facing multiple layers of vulnerability due to their gender, ethnic identity, religion and liberal values and for their support for democracy, inclusivity and human rights, making them particularly susceptible to discrimination and violence. As an Australian Hazara, I am indebted to Australia for its generosity to my family. From personal experience, I am familiar with the systematic violence Hazaras are facing. This is why we, the Australian Hazaras, through the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Hazaras (PFH), are urging parliament to pass a motion to recognise the ongoing escalating systemic violence, discrimination, dispossession and what we deem genocidal threats against the Hazara people and other highly vulnerable groups. We ask our government to work with the Australian Hazara community to ensure aid is delivered equitably and without discrimination, pressure the Taliban to protect the Hazaras and provide continued asylum places for Hazaras and other persecuted and marginalised groups. Doing so will uphold our Australian values. In the meantime, my mum, sister and niece have found a welcoming home in Australia, settling in smoothly and already embracing their new life. They have been warmly received by the Australian Hazara community, who are showing immense support and offering to help them with integration. With access to education and healthcare, my family will gradually adapt to their new surroundings. Through their resilience and our support, their new life in Australia is filled with hope, opportunity and the promise of a brighter future. Sajjad Askary is an Australian Hazara and a juris doctor student at Monash University. He writes on refugees, human rights, Hazara people and Afghanistan

GOOD

Manchester City revel in coronation but they cannot control their legacy

The fans were warned not to invade the pitch. There was a message on the big screen a few minutes before the end, a reminder on the public address system that entering the playing surface was strictly illegal and would not be tolerated. There was a line of stewards and police officers poised like sprinters by the touchline, ready to secure the turf as soon as the game ended. And then the game ended and within seconds the grass was engulfed by stampeding boots and pounding steps and one little girl doing cartwheels, which to be fair was very cute. “PLEASE LEAVE THE PITCH,” the announcer pleaded again, as Manchester City’s players and staff dodged a swarm of flying bodies, some fully clothed and some not, each one bearing a smartphone with a little blinking red dot on the screen. They weren’t really celebrating, you see; they were simply taking what they thought was theirs. A few guys decided to carry out a strength test on the goalposts at the south end of the ground: a task probably best left until the summer and to trained maintenance personnel. Nothing against pitch invasions, personally speaking – as long as no harm is intended and no harm is done, then who cares? But there seemed to be a rich irony in the fact that the club that built an entire sporting dynasty on the right to do whatever it wanted had discovered a sudden taste for rules and order. Eventually the security staff restored a modicum of calm and the few remaining intruders could retreat to the stands, their content captured, their thirst for freedom slaked. So, after a fashion, the coronation could proceed: an event that ultimately proved not dissimilar to the actual coronation, another event dedicated to the glorification of state power and the flaunting of lavish wealth built on exploitation and plunder of the earth. They had clearly been planning this event at City for some time. The shirts had been freshly printed. The “Champions” banner was being unfurled across the frontage pretty much from the moment the final whistle went in Nottingham on Saturday evening. Even the players’ reaction to the moment of victory was captured not on jerky phone footage but by City’s in-house camera crew, ready to roll out across the club’s digital channels within minutes. Nothing here is left to chance. In many ways this is the founding ethos of Abu Dhabi’s little blue sock puppet: the ability to plot out not simply the next move but all the moves after that, a painstaking attention to detail, the blunt will and brazen assurance to remove not only the obstacles but the things that might one day be obstacles, maybe. Seven of the clubs in this season’s Premier League are yet even to win three games in a row. City have just won three titles in a row and the most remarkable thing is they barely seem bothered about it, as if this is simply natural, like water being water, like the car starting when you turn the key in the ignition. There was a game to play first, of course, which was fairly forgettable. Chelsea’s players had courteously formed a guard of honour beforehand: just the starting XI and substitutes, otherwise the pitch might not have been wide enough to fit them all. Lots of people seemed to be slipping over, although whether it was the pre-match watering or the tears of City’s haters, nobody could say for sure. There was even the heartwarming sight, around the half-hour, of Raheem Sterling running clean through on goal and missing a one-on-one chance in front of the City supporters. Who says this place has no sense of history? In the medium term Chelsea’s abundant wealth should make them one of the clubs best placed to challenge City’s dominance, just as soon as they can kick the habit of hiring Frank Lampard. As his team raised the pace in the second half, creating some decent openings, Chelsea’s interim manager waved and raved in his technical area, aware that a result at the home of the champions would be the sort of feather in his cap that could secure him the job on a permanent basis. Not this job, obviously. Maybe one of the England youth teams. Or something in Belgium. But ultimately Chelsea were the meat in the room here, and in many ways so was everybody else. Already you get the sense that City are floating away from their current time and place, a trend most evident in the frequent and not at all fatuous attempts to compare them with Manchester United’s 1999 treble winners or Bob Paisley’s Liverpool or Arsenal’s Invincibles or whatever. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion You see it, too, in Pep Guardiola’s increasing willingness to discuss his legacy, in City’s attempts to memorialise their triumphs almost in real time, the statues of David Silva and Vincent Kompany and Sergio Agüero. The present is already settled; now, it seems, City have set their sights on conquering the past and the future. And here, of course, the terrain gets trickier. There is a Premier League investigation to come: more arguments to win, more campaigns to plan. More challengers and more great teams will come along. Perhaps future generations will take a dimmer view of the wealth that helped City to success and the way it was sequestered. Nobody, not even autocratic rulers, get full control over their legacy. Some things, as ever, are best left to posterity.

GOOD

Retirement boom among UK’s older workers creates economic headache

“I always laughed at people who said they’d never been so busy since they retired,” says David Richards, mopping his brow as he takes a break from the fast-paced game at Wyre Forest Leisure Centre near Kidderminster. At 58, the retired GP from nearby Bewdley is among the younger players in this midweek morning game of pickleball – a cross between tennis and badminton that is growing rapidly in popularity across Britain. Players in this packed session for older people range from 55 to more than 80, reflecting a nationwide surge in early retirement since the pandemic. For Richards – and many others like him – the tumult of the past few years led him to reconsider his priorities. “The workload and stress levels just went through the roof in general practice. I struggled.” He now fills his time with pickleball, badminton, yoga, tai chi and rambling. “I was fortunate to be able to take early retirement, and I thought I’d better start looking after myself – lose a bit of weight, get my blood pressure down.” Since Covid struck, the number of 16- to 64-year-olds officially economically inactive – neither working nor job-hunting – has shot up. Driven in large part by retirement, it is a trend that is ringing alarm bells in government amid concerns over worker shortages and looming recession. For many, the inactivity is involuntary. Millions have left the workforce because of long-term health conditions or caring responsibilities – developments made worse by an underfunded care system and crumbling health service . Others stay out of the workforce from personal choice: many students are delaying the start of their working lives and the number of retired people has boomed to more than 1.1 million. Here in Wyre Forest – the local authority district encompassing Kidderminster and towns and villages along the banks of the Severn – the figures are particularly stark. The number of people inactive due to retirement has quadrupled in three years to 5,200 – almost a tenth of the local working-age population. Compared with the national average of about 3%, it is up there with retirement hotspots such as the Yorkshire Dales and Devon. Barry Walmsley chairs the local University of the Third Age (U3A) group, which puts on the weekly pickleball game and a plethora of other activities for those no longer in work. He says membership has ballooned to 800. “You’ve got a slightly younger demographic that hasn’t gone back to work after Covid and are looking for things to do. We’re gaining members rapidly.” The feeling among the pickleball group – led by Michael de Groot, a semi-retired 63-year-old Dutchman, who introduced the game to the area – is that many have managed to retire thanks to building up decent pensions and paying off their mortgage. The average house price in this pocket of the Midlands is on the low side, at about £200,000, and this age group may have benefited from generous retirement plans long since watered down for younger workers. “We’re all baby boomers,” says Sue Corbett, who retired from teaching at in nearby Stourport at 61, and is now in her 70s. “We paid into a good pension scheme, and I could draw it from 60. I feel grim for younger generations. I’ve got two boys in the same position. My kids aren’t going to get their pensions until they’re 68. They’ll be paying their mortgages off. They’re just in normal jobs – not high-flying jobs – paying their way with kids.” Not that boomers are all bad for the economy. For many, their contribution is as part of an economically hidden army of childcare providers for their grandchildren, and as volunteers in the local community. It is not hard to see why Wyre Forest is a popular retirement destination. Birmingham is in striking distance for culture, restaurants and shops, and there are country walks, pubs, and picturesque towns and villages. Ian Miller, chief executive of Wyre Forest district council, says that for many people in the Black Country and Birmingham, Stourport, where caravan parks, a funfair and chip shops line the banks of the Severn, is the closest thing they have to seaside. “A lot of people will have come to the area as kids and then chosen to retire here. Property prices are low in the scheme of things, and there are some low-cost options with the caravan parks.” Yet this is not a place full of affluent silver shirkers. Kidderminster has seen its fair share of economic and social problems since the decline of its carpet industry. More than 20,000 people once worked in the factories that still dominate the town’s streetscape; they now employ barely a handful. Jackie Roberts, who manages the Weavers Wharf shopping centre, has opened a “warm hub” in a former Shoe Zone store in town, selling baked potatoes and a hot drink for £1, squash for 10p, and slices of cake for 20p to support those struggling to make ends meet. “It’s a town of two halves. We go from the uber-rich, international pop star status [Robert Plant, the Led Zeppelin frontman, lives nearby], to the bottom 5% of deprivation for the country.” With soaring energy bills and inflation above 10%, early retirement is not possible for everyone. Official figures are showing a reversal of the recent increase , indicating that some people are being drawn back to work. The government is keeping a close eye on the trend. With employers struggling to recruit enough workers nationwide, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has launched an urgent review of workforce challenges . The idea is to come up with policies to encourage those who have left the jobs market since Covid to return. Britain is the only country in the developed world with employment still below pre-Covid levels at the start of this year , and these shortages were among headwinds highlighted by the International Monetary Fund in its stark downgrade for UK growth last week. A government spokesperson said older workers were a “huge asset” to the British economy, and that supporting people to start or return to work was one of its “biggest challenges”. “This is why we continue to look into workforce participation and drive down economic inactivity at pace.” Between the last two censuses, in 2011 and 2021, the median age in Wyre Forest has increased by three years to 47 – higher than the national average. Without a university campus, and fewer job opportunities than in the past, younger people have left the area , leaving companies struggling to recruit. Richard Manser is among local business owners finding it tough. The managing director of Five Star Windows, he employs about 100 and is struggling to find people to sell and fit windows, doors and conservatories. It is holding back growth after a boom in lockdown as people turned to home renovations, and with growing interest in energy efficiency during the cost of living crisis. Like many employers, Manser is concerned about a lack of younger workers coming through to replace older staff as they hit retirement. “It’s more of a laidback retirement area here,” he says. “Obviously there are businesses doing well, like us. And it’s good for us that people are choosing to retire here – they’re a good demographic [to sell to] for us. But it’s also a struggle to find the right people to represent your company and go out and do it.”

GOOD

Off the menu: why restaurants are ditching QR codes

Name: QR-code menus. Age: Around for decades, mainstream for three years. Appearance: A big square full of smaller squares that your cameraphone consistently fails to recognise. Oh, you’re giving me Covid nostalgia. I know, right? Nothing says Covid-era dining like a QR-code menu, other than giant Perspex partitions and the unremitting fear of infecting yourself by touching the cutlery. Simpler times. No. Stop that. Covid was awful. We need to firmly reject all the old Covid tropes, including QR-code menus. But I like QR-code menus. No, you don’t. What you like is getting to order and pay for your food without having to endure human interaction. Same thing. No, it isn’t. Anyway, you’re in a rapidly diminishing minority, because it has been reported that the QR-code menu is on the way out . No! I’m afraid so. A report in the New York Times says that scans of restaurant QR codes have fallen by 27% in a year. Plus, fewer restaurants are creating new QR-code menus and about 75% of all restaurant QR-code menus were scanned fewer than 90 times in the past 12 months. But why? Maybe people want to experience the tactile comfort of a paper menu when they go out. Maybe they want to talk through their options with a flesh-and-blood waiter. Maybe they want something more glamorous than repeatedly trying to aim their smeary phone at a peeling, ketchup-stained sticker on the corner of their table. But QR codes were the future. They were. But they were a future designed by a Japanese components manufacturer for the purpose of tracking automotive parts. We can probably go back to holding menus in our hands. This is a tragedy. It isn’t. Did you ever pop out to eat without your phone and find yourself being treated like a second-class citizen? Did you ever experience the chest-thumping terror of a dinner out with 3% of your battery left? Did you ever watch as a moment of potential romance evaporated because you had to get your phones out to try to navigate an impossible ordering system? No . Well, it sucked. Good riddance, QR codes, you gussied-up barcodes. You were slightly too impractical to incorporate into our daily lives. Wow. Maybe we were wrong back in 2020. Maybe Covid didn’t change the world after all. I know. We’ve learned nothing. Hooray for humans! Do say: “Can I see a menu? A real one?” Don’t say: “What am I supposed to use my phone for now?”

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Chaldean delivers glory for retiring Frankie Dettori in his last 2,000 Guineas

There will be more, perhaps many more, days like this one as Frankie Dettori’s farewell tour makes its way around the biggest races in Britain, Europe and beyond, and more opportunities for the only jockey whose first name is enough to reflect on an astonishing career. But it was still clearly a special moment for the adopted son of Newmarket on Saturday as he celebrated a fourth success in the 2,000 Guineas , on Chaldean, on his final start in the season’s first Classic. Newmarket has been Dettori’s home since he arrived from Italy in the mid-1980s as a 14-year-old stable lad and apprentice jockey. Within a few years he was the champion apprentice and the first teenager since Lester Piggott to ride 100 winners in a season. The town’s two tracks have been among his happiest hunting grounds for more than three decades. “It’s so surreal,” Dettori said. “I was in a fight with Oisin [Murphy, on Hi Royal] and once I got rid of him, I thought, I’m sure something’s going to come and I saw plenty of daylight. “I can’t believe it’s happened, my last Guineas and to win it in front of my home crowd. Amazing. “Winning Classics is difficult. It’s my last season and to cap it off with a Classic is beyond my wildest dreams. Let me savour the moment, my emotions are all over the place. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or enjoy it, I’m so messed up at the moment.” Chaldean’s success was, by Classic standards, as straightforward as they come after Dettori got Andrew Balding’s colt smartly away from the stalls and settled close behind the early leader, Hi Royal. Auguste Rodin, the 13-8 favourite, was three lengths behind him in the early stages and appeared to be bumped after about a furlong, before briefly moving towards the head of the field with a quarter of a mile to run. Hi Royal, a 125-1 outsider, was still just about in front but Dettori eased past him on Chaldean and set off for home, probably in the expectation that Auguste Rodin or another of his rivals would be in hot pursuit. There was no late rattle from the favourite or anyone else, however, and while Hi Royal drifted sharply left across the course he still managed to hold on for an unlikely second place. Royal Scotsman, who was just behind Chaldean in the Dewhurst Stakes last October, confirmed that form with a fast-finishing third. Auguste Rodin was 12th of the 14 starters. While Dettori and his celebrations were understandably the centre of attention this was a significant moment too for Andrew Balding, Chaldean’s trainer, who was winning the Classic for the second time in four years after Kameko’s victory in 2020. Newmarket 1.15 Anmaat 1.50 Cemhaan (nap) 2.25 Running Lion (nb) 3.00 Life In Motion 3.40 Tahiyra 4.15 Mashadi 4.50 Gulmarg 5.25 Lion Of War Hamilton Park 1.30 Gustav Graves 2.05 Postileo 2.35 Tajalla 3.10 Where’s Jeff 3.50 Leap Year Lad 4.23 Bashful 4.58 Two Summers Salisbury 1.35 Diamond Cottage 2.10 Mabre 2.40 Whimsy 3.20 Juniper Berries 3.55 Troon 4.30 Prenup 5.05 Ibrahimovic 5.35 Eyetrap “I was a bit worried about the mile in this ground, but he’s just done a wonderful job, Frankie,” Balding said. “What can’t you say about Frankie? Since I’ve been involved in the sport he’s been an omnipresent superstar and what a fitting way to ride his last 2,000 Guineas. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action after newsletter promotion Worcester 1.15 Pottlerath 1.45 Give Me A Moment 2.15 Solstice Saint 2.45 Idealdes Villerets 3.15 Komedy Kicks 3.50 Czech Her Out 4.20 Everyonesgame 4.50 Samtara Ayr 1.55 Torvar 2.25 Freedom Flyer 2.55 Zahee (nap) 3.30 Abu Royal 4.05 Little Muddy 4.35 Rock Of England 5.10 Uberrima Fides Southwell 2.05 Apache Star 2.35 Yorkshire Terrier 3.05 Pittsburg 3.40 Seal Of Solomon 4.15 Marksman Queen 4.45 Ticket To Alaska 5.20 Kath’s Toyboy Windsor 4.40 Destiny’s Spirit 5.15 Revenue 5.45 Villazon 6.15 Nothing To Sea 6.45 Hy Brasil 7.15 Bang On The Bell 7.50 Dubai Souq (nb) 8.25 Racing Demon Newcastle 5.35 Book Of Tales 6.05 Calcutta Dream 6.35 Coppice 7.05 Odds Socks Havana 7.40 Another Angel 8.10 Sidney’s Son 8.45 Hilary’s Boy “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long while, it’s a mixture of relief and elation. It will probably sink in in a bit, it’s a big deal.” Dettori was a few strides away from a perfect double, as he had earlier steered the royal colours to within a head of a victory on Coronation day aboard the King and Queen Consort’s Saga in a nine-furlong handicap. Saga has been a late scratch from races in the past due to unsuitably soft ground but he had no issues with the surface and was still going well as Dettori struggled to find running room a couple of furlongs from home. He made rapid strides once he finally found a gap, however, and was in front of King Of Conquest, the winner, three strides after the line, leaving his rider to reflect on what might have been. “He ran a super race but I couldn’t go when I wanted to,” Dettori said. “William [Buick, on King Of Conquest] just got a couple of lengths on me.”

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Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me review – this harrowing documentary will totally surprise you

It may sound as if its title has come from the Alan Partridge school of TV commissioning, but there is nothing at all humorous about Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me. Vardy gets her notoriety out of the way in the early moments of this powerful film, explaining that she is best known as the wife of a Premier League footballer and “a bit of a controversial character from that trial”. What follows is a harrowing account of her early life as a Jehovah’s Witness and an investigation of the Christian denomination, its structures and its practices. Vardy has spoken before about being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and her dislike of the organisation. Four years ago, she told the Loose Women panel that it was “horrible” and that, as a child, she felt alienated from other children, who would “poke fingers” at her for her beliefs. Here, she goes much further, describing a series of traumatic events, while meeting others who describe their experiences within what is portrayed as a “high control” religion. (As you would expect from a film so accusatory, there is a lot of back and forth, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses UK branch committee is given the right to reply to each allegation. In one response, they call the idea that the religion is controlling “misleading and discriminatory”.) Vardy points out that, in the UK, home to approximately 130,000 adult Jehovah’s Witnesses – there are roughly 8.5 million members worldwide – very little is known about the organisation and how it operates. She suggests that the perception from outsiders is of “harmless Christians that knock on your door, wanting to talk about God”. She offers her own view of what it was like growing up in Norwich, attending Kingdom Hall meetings and Bible studies twice a week, or standing on the street doing “service rounds”. She talks of the end of days and the books she read when she was very young, which showed her detailed pictures of what Armageddon would look like. She felt judged by the outside world and accepted only by other Jehovah’s Witnesses. From the age of 11, her life fell into disarray. Her parents divorced and she left Norwich, leading to former family members and friends “shunning” the family (divorce is allowed only under very limited circumstances). At 12, Vardy was sexually abused. By 15, she was “acting out” and was told to leave the family home. She has had very little contact with her family, many of whom are still Jehovah’s Witnesses, since. The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that “shunning” takes place, but there are several accounts here from people who have left the church and say that even their closest family members no longer talk to them. One man admits that he shunned his own children and was instructed to hang up the phone if they called him. Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and exclusive features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Vardy acknowledges that she feels a sense of guilt, even now, in going against the group and its teachings. But she is not alone. She expands her remit beyond the personal, speaking to others with stories to share. She meets a woman who had an affair while married, who alleges that the husband is treated as the head of the family and has absolute control over what happens within it. After explaining the system of “elders” – senior male members of the church who provide “spiritual guidance” – Vardy meets two former elders who now consider themselves to be “free”. These men describe how the system works and why they believe it meets the parameters of “high control”. She also meets a woman who was a Jehovah’s Witness for 50 years and courageously waives her right to anonymity to discuss being sexually abused as a child, as well as the horrific denials and labyrinthine procedures she faced when she tried to report it. As a presenter, Vardy is empathic and inquisitive. Clearly, she knows this world; when she meets others who have been through similar experiences, she has meaningful conversations perhaps because she has been there, too. When she tries to talk to the Jehovah’s Witnesses UK branch on camera, no one will come forward. That is not surprising, but this documentary certainly is. You may come to it cynically, thinking it an attempt at career rehabilitation after “ that trial”, but I doubt you will get to the end and still think that way. Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me is available on Channel 4

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A ringside view of Britain’s livestock markets – a photo essay

I t’s a Thursday morning, and the auction ring in Hereford is busy. The steep steps that surround the ring have been filling for an hour, and there’s anticipation in the air. Trade this morning has been good, both from commercial buyers and from farmers selling between themselves. The first few lots were barren cows, and cows with calves, but the next are mostly bulls, varying from a pen of three small Highlands with ginger fringes and handlebar horns to a Charolais the size of a truck. As each one is let into the circle of straw beneath the auctioneers’ rostrum, the atmosphere shifts a little, takes on a harder charge. Every week, in every corner of the country, out at the edge of towns and cities, livestock markets still sell animals. Mostly they trade in sheep and cattle, though some run sales for pedigree animals, pigs or poultry. The risk of avian flu means that all live UK bird sales are currently banned. Cattle are unloaded at Hereford market last month The majority of animals sold for meat in Britain are sold direct from farms to abattoirs, which then supply the supermarkets, which now control about 90% of the UK meat trade . So markets like these exist to serve trade from farmer to farmer, from farmer to smaller processor, and any shortfall in trade from farmer to abattoir. In the 1960s, those proportions were reversed. In 1963, 95% of the trade in meat went through the auction markets. At the end of the millennium, two things changed that almost overnight. Traceability legislation introduced in the wake of the BSE outbreak at the end of the 90s, and the total closure of the livestock markets for more than a year during the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 shifted the balance profoundly. Supermarkets had been looking for an opportunity to bypass the live trade and set their own prices, and used the closure of the markets to approach farmers individually and offer them contracts to supply. Many farmers weighed the options and took the bait: a contracted customer and a guaranteed investor in exchange for a remorseless price. Market worker April Rhymer scans sheep ear tags at Ross market Now, every week, the supermarkets give the larger abattoirs a shopping list: so many thousand fillet or braising steaks, so many lamb chops or packets of mince. The farms then supply those animals to the abattoirs, which slaughter, package and deliver the meat to the supermarkets. Yet somehow the livestock markets remain, kept in place through tradition and personal preferences. The survivors have thrived by keeping their character and trading in animals specific to the area. Business in progress at Hereford market So, for instance, a dairy farmer in Suffolk who wanted a belted Galloway bull for breeding could either bid in an online livestock auction, or – since a good bull is still a major investment – make the journey to the market in Dumfries or Longtown, the areas where belties first emerged, and where they will still find the widest choice. Within the markets, some sales – like today’s store cattle auction – are farmer to farmer, while others are more evenly spread. And trade is good: last year, the turnover from British markets topped £2bn . Fewer animals, better money. Some farmers come here because Hereford specialises in store animals (raised on upland farms but fattened and finished on the lowlands). Some would rather take the possibility of a high bid to the certainty of a low price. And some just like the society. The markets serve as vital connective tissue. The point is not just to sell or buy but, in a public space, to see what others sell, and how, and for what price. And to participate in a forum for the exchange of other, less tangible commodities: intelligence, gossip, support. “A lot of people would come in just to look and chat, not to do any business, just to watch and meet people,” says Richard Hyde, managing director at Hereford. Richard Hyde auctions lambs at Hereford market “Farming is terrifically solitary. If people have been trying to calve a cow and you get a dead calf, it’s upsetting. You’ve lost one. You can talk to a sheepdog all you like but he won’t say much back, but you can come here and talk to somebody who might say, ‘Oh, we lost three last week.’ And you suddenly feel better because a trouble shared is a trouble halved.” T he auction starts, business conducted in a loud flat plainsong, a patter so rapid it sounds like a single rolling phrase, culminating, as the hammer comes down, in: “Eight. Hundred. And. Forty Pounds.” In the pulpit directly above the ring are the auctioneer, the clerk, the market manager and two others taking phone or online bids. The auctioneer speaks mostly to the men at the ringside, divided from each other by perspex screens like booths at a betting shop. The slaughterhouse buyers lean on the rail, nose to nose with the circling cattle, and the movements they make to bid are so small – a twitch of the wrist, a jog of the chin – it takes a while to see anything happening at all. Clockwise from top left: sheep are unloaded then weighed at Ross market; an auction in progress at Ross market; and buyers and farmers gather at Hereford market Being an auctioneer requires very specific qualities: a sharp mind, good timing, cunning, a knack with people, a flourish of theatricality. “[It’s] a bit like acting,” says Hyde. “You have to be thick-skinned because some of the professional meat men are pretty canny. If you’re in the middle of a good trade, there’s nothing nicer; you’re a foot off the ground. It’s great. “If you have a bad one, you could happily go down a rat hole. So you couldn’t do this if you didn’t love it. You live and die by your reputation. And people soon vote with their feet. If you’re not doing it properly, they’ll go somewhere else.” It looks like a lot of money will change hands today. Yesterday’s sheep market probably saw about £500,000 in turnover, and today will be closer to £750,000. The bids could come from anywhere in the room but the auctioneer never falters or consults, knowing all the bidders by name and place. Many are from Welsh farms, tempted over the border by higher prices on the English side. A fat-cattle auction at Ross market The three little Highland bulls are knocked down for a few hundred each to a smallholding couple, and the Charolais hurtle through the ring like steers at a rodeo. For a second, the atmosphere is electric, and the illusion that these animals are the same as any other commodity abruptly disintegrates. One of the bulls – three times the size of the people selling him – gallops out of the ringside exit, hurdling a gate before being blocked to a stop. He hesitates. Behind him, the gates slam shut. The next lot is up, the chant continues, and the market goes on. A Highland bull at Hereford market earlier this year

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Billionaire chic: the meaning of Gwyneth Paltrow’s court wardrobe

On Tuesday, Gwyneth Paltrow , the Oscar-winning actor turned wellness advocate, appeared in a Utah court over a collision at a ski resort in 2016. Photographs of Paltrow sitting next to her defence lawyers, wearing a simple cream knitted jumper, her honey-coloured hair loose, makeup pared back, quickly went viral. Paltrow’s high-necked jumper appears to be from the Italian luxury brand Loro Piana. Nicknamed “Uniqlo for billionaires” by fashion insiders, it specialises in cashmere, with Paltrow’s Parksville turtleneck priced at £1,220 online. For the second day of her trial, Paltrow was pictured in another cream knit, this time from her own brand, G Label by Goop , which sells for a tad under £500. Then she appeared in a moss green wool coat from the US brand The Row (£3,900), black lug-soled boots from Prada (£1,150) and G Label by Goop gold chain jewellery. Paltrow’s court wardrobe reflects a wider trend for stealth wealth – clothes that murmur rather than loudly declare their value. Free from garish logos, colourways and patterns, these pieces are redolent of a new low-key luxury. “These brands are easily recognised by members of their tribe,” says Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research group in New York. “The wearer makes a statement without having to try to make a statement. Everyone who should know, knows.’ Loro Piana has become somewhat of a market leader for this quiet luxury aesthetic. It’s worn by real life billionaires (Rishi Sunak, a near billionaire, is said to be a fan) and scions of on-screen billionaires. In this week’s opening episode of season four of the HBO drama Succession, Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) wore a custom-made suede jacket from the Italian heritage brand. Kendall’s ascetic boardroom style is the antithesis of his social-climbing brother-in-law Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), known for his chinos and puffy Moncler vest. Michelle Matland, the show’s costume designer, previously described Tom’s style as “being like a peacock. He goes to the obvious stores and his motto is: ‘If it’s expensive, it’s good’,” says Matland. “And if you can see that price tag, even better … Kendall was bred to know the difference and Tom is just walking into it.” By contrast, Paltrow’s court wardrobe has an old money feel. Its soft power dressing is more reminiscent of Succession’s Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook). In choosing to not wear something more formal – remember Rebekah Vardy’s rotation of power suits and designer handbags for her libel case last year? – Paltrow implies she is so wealthy she doesn’t need to overstress about the lawsuit, and she doesn’t care who knows it. The non-threatening aesthetic also jars with the allegation – which Paltrow denies – that she injured another skier and then blithely skied away. Even the more tailored pieces she has chosen have a benign appeal. Her grey blazer and matching trousers were oversized and slouchy, softened further by pairing with a thin ribbed knitted top instead of a standard shirt, while a longer-length black skirt was paired with a cashmere-collared button-down. Sign up to Fashion Statement Style, with substance: what's really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved after newsletter promotion And we’ve seen the informal look before. It’s Paltrow’s go-to when she takes to Instagram to promote her favourite depuffing eye mask or sex-boosting supplement. It’s the type of thing you can imagine she would wear to the farmer’s market to pick up ingredients for a midweek (macrobiotic) family supper. Familiar, gentle and approachable, it says: “Yes, I’m a multimillionaire A-lister who skis at an expensive resort”, but also: “I’m a mom who enjoys bashing the slopes with my kids at the weekend.” Knitwear and lug-soled footwear are relatable, especially to a Colorado-based jury.

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Conspiracy theories, Moggologues and ‘zombie’ stats: all in a week’s work for GB News

Rishi Sunak came to power in an “anti-democratic coup,” and is in hock to a shadowy “globalist elite”; mass migration is “replacing” British culture, and net zero is a “suicide note” – not the rantings of an internet troll, but a snapshot of views espoused by presenters on GB News across seven days last week. The Guardian watched a week’s worth of output from the upstart rightwing channel in an attempt to understand the worldview at work – and how GB News gets away with sailing so close to the wind. Since the broadcasting veteran Andrew Neil quit as chair three months after the channel’s launch, complaining that he was in “a minority of one” about its direction, GB News has increasingly planted its flag on the radical right of British politics. With a monthly reach of 2.8 million viewers – twice that of its Murdoch rival TalkTV – and a place in the political “pool” in which major broadcasters share filming duties, GB News’s boss, Angelos Frangopoulos, told staff in a recent email: “We are firmly part of the mainstream media.” But some of the views regularly encountered on the channel are anything but mainstream. Last summer it secured an additional £60m in funding from founding investors Paul Marshall – an ex-Liberal Democrat who went on to be a vehement Brexiter – and Legatum Ventures Ltd, the Dubai-based financial firm behind the free market Legatum Institute thinktank. Earlier this year Marshall wrote on the website UnHerd , which he also funded, that Prince Harry had fallen victim to “the woke creed”, which he claimed had also infected other institutions, including newsrooms. Rejecting this “woke creed” seems a constant preoccupation at GB News, which Frangopoulos styles as “staunchly non-metropolitan”. Much of its output is standard fare for a rolling news channel: last week there was Eurovision gossip and speculation about Phillip Schofield’s future and Harry’s car chase, punctuated by anodyne news updates. But at the heart of its anti-establishment pitch is a string of presenters whose shows are shot through with their fiercely rightwing opinions. These include the former Coast presenter Neil Oliver, the actor turned populist Laurence Fox and the ex-Brexit party leader Nigel Farage. Less well-known presenters, including Patrick Christys in the 3pm weekday slot, and Mark Dolan at 10pm at weekends, are equally forthright. These TV shock jocks generally kick off each hour with a polemical monologue (or Moggologue, in the case of the former Brexit opportunities secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg). On Friday’s edition of Calvin’s Common Sense Crusade, presented by the controversialist preacher Calvin Robinson, this involved calling for nuance over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – for which he suggested viewers look to Donald Trump. Frequently the tone is arch, rather than earnest, and discussion panels often feature at least one leftwinger, albeit rarely a senior figure (perhaps in part because the channel’s reputation deters many from appearing). Viewers’ contributions also feature heavily as the channel builds a committed community, with emails read out live and frequent use of vox pops. (Bernard, a Mark Dolan viewer, wants to bring back corporal punishment and “the rope”.) But the framing of sensitive topics by highly opinionated hosts sometimes appears to stretch the definition of “due impartiality”, as demanded by Ofcom. GB News has already fallen foul of the broadcasters’ regulator twice – most recently, for an appearance by the Covid conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf on the Mark Steyn Show, in which she linked the vaccine to “mass murder”. Steyn has since left the channel. The ruling was on the grounds of potential harm to viewers rather than due impartiality, however. Ofcom made clear that broadcasters are “free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views” – so long as they don’t go completely unchallenged. The regulator also declined to pursue complaints about an episode of Oliver’s show in February, despite conceding that he had made references to “a global elite controlling world politics” – an idea sometimes regarded as an antisemitic trope or at best a baseless conspiracy theory. The regulator said it had “issued guidance to GB News to ensure they take care when discussing conspiracy theories, given the potential harm to audiences”. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism had urged Ofcom to act . At the time, a GB News spokesperson said: “GB News abhors racism and hate in all its forms and would never allow it on the channel.” The broadcast code enforced by Ofcom is clear that opinionated hosts are fine but “alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented”. It has not specified what exactly that means, but GB News insiders believe 10-15% representation for differing views is probably adequate. A spokesperson for the channel said: “GB News chose to be an Ofcom-regulated channel and we take the Broadcast Code seriously. All staff receive Ofcom training when they join us to ensure they understand the code and the importance we place on complying with it. “Ofcom is very clear that due impartiality does not mean a 50:50 balance. Instead, broadcasters are required to include a range of views. Diversity of opinion is what GB News is all about.” Oliver gave little sign of having changed in last Saturday’s show, arguing that the fact that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine was not tested to assess whether it reduced transmission showed “the whole psy-ops, nudge unit campaign to shame people into taking the jabs and force them on the kids as well in the spirit of protecting others was a lie”. As Full Fact has pointed out , the jab did reduce the likelihood of catching Covid in the first place, which seems relevant. In the same monologue, Oliver claimed the government’s cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) in combating future pandemics amounted to letting “unelected, unaccountable non-entities living tax-free in Switzerland and protected by diplomatic immunity shut us in our homes”. For good measure, he alsodescribed net zero – cutting greenhouse gas emissions to nothing – as “a suicide note”. The WHO also came under attack in Mark Dolan’s Sunday evening show, in which he used his “Take at 10” to argue that having “hopped in to bed with obese health guru Bill Gates to roll out vaccine tyranny”, the Geneva-based organisation now “think that four-year-olds should learn about sex, masturbation, the pleasure their own body can give them and reflect on what their gender might be”. He appeared to be picking up on a Telegraph article, which cites a WHO document published back in 2010 . In the subsequent panel discussion, the explorer Adrian Hayes said: “This is a corrupt organisation which is highly influenced by China, highly funded by Gates, and I think we should have nothing to do with it” – leaving the veteran journalist Nina Myskow to come to the WHO’s defence. Watching GB News’s deliberately provocative shows back to back last week, gender is one of the themes that recur: others include the “war on motorists”; working from home (it’s “bankrupting Britain”) – and most of all, the menace of migration. A Daily Telegraph story earlier this month, based on a projection by the rightwing thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), suggested annual net migration could hit 1 million, when the data is published later this month. Jonathan Portes, a migration expert from UK in a Changing Europe, who took part in a robust discussion with Rees-Mogg on the issue on GB News last week, called this “worse than a zombie statistic”. Describing the CPS analysis behind it, Portes said: “I teach a class on migration and if I were marking this from one of my students it would barely scrape a pass.” Yet the number took on a life of its own, repeated across the media – and combined with the public call by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, for a cut to legal migration at the National Conservatism conference on Monday, it helped to supercharge the issue. On GB News, it repeatedly formed part of the framing of discussions. On Laurence Fox’s show on Friday, which included an extended monologue on what he calls “racialism”, (apparently a hierarchy imposed by leftwingers which dictates “dark skin good, light skin bad”) Fox mimed his response to the 1 million figure by drawing out an imaginary pistol and pretending to shoot himself in the head. He was then joined for a discussion about migration with Ben Habib, a former Brexit party MEP now of the Reform party – a rival to Fox’s own fringe party, Reclaim. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pair were in firm agreement. “You cannot have a culture so unremittingly replaced. I feel like my culture is being replaced in front of my eyes,” Fox complained, before jokingly asking Habib: “In the interests of balance, are you and I just white supremacists?” The idea of a “Great Replacement”, in which white Europeans are supplanted by people of colour (and specifically Muslims), has deep roots on the far right. Christys also took aim at the cultural threat from migration in his Monday afternoon show. “All too often in my view it’s deemed socially unacceptable to say: ‘I’m really sorry, but I don’t want the place where I live and where I’ve grown up to become minority white British or even just minority British’ – but there is a stigma attached to that: is it racist to think that way?” His guest, Benjamin Loughnane, who works on migration for the Thatcherite thinktank the Bow Group, reassured him that it was not. As well as its stable of professional provocateurs, GB News also has several Conservative MPs on its roster, for whom creating controversy on the airwaves is only a part-time job. The former cabinet minister Rees-Mogg has his own show. The deputy Tory chair Lee Anderson was recently added to the payroll on £100,000 a year. Ofcom is investigating whether the 11 March edition of the weekend breakfast show from the chatty husband-and-wife team Esther McVey and Philip Davies, both Tory MPs, in which they interviewed the chancellor , Jeremy Hunt, broke its rules requiring news and current affairs to be presented “with due impartiality”. GB News has not commented on the investigation. Prof Tim Bale, whose recent book, The Conservative Party After Brexit, charts the Tories’ growing radicalisation, said the exposure offered to otherwise powerless backbenchers by social media, and channels like GB News, helped to promote their ideas, however wacky. “I do think it has allowed people who probably we would never have heard of, and maybe ideas that we would never have given much time to, to breathe and to gain a profile,” he says. GB News is as focused on expanding its online reach as growing viewers and listeners on its DAB radio channel, and lively moments are quickly packaged up for Twitter and TikTok. As the week on GB News rolled on, it became clear that the idea of a mysterious “global elite” controlling British politics was not confined to Oliver’s anti-lockdown rants. Dan Wootton told his viewers on Monday evening: “The Tories in 2023 have morphed into a big-state, high-tax, centre-left party seemingly driven by globalist forces and the snivel service blob,” adding that Sunak and his “authoritarian chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, were both put into office in an anti-democratic coup”. When Belinda de Lucy, a guest and former Brexit party MEP, mused: “Who knows who facilitated his rise to power, but they were not Brexiteers,” Wootton chipped in: “It’s the globalist elite pulling his strings.” Watching on, it was sometimes hard to credit that the Conservatives are in power, as the channel’s rightwing hosts and panellists lined up to attack Sunak. “For the last 30-40 years, there’s been a neoliberal Blairite consensus paradigm,” complained one young guest, Connor Tomlinson. Governing parties tend to look tired as they reach the end of a long spell in power, and collapse into acrimony after election defeat – but if the narrative on GB News is anything to go by, the post-election disintegration of the Tory party has begun already. A betrayal narrative is firmly in place – with Sunak as the “globalist” villain, and more rightwing figures, including Braverman, the defenders of true Conservatism. Of course, Keir Starmer is another favourite baddie, regularly referred to as “slimy Starmer” or “slippery Starmer” – though it doesn’t stop Labour frontbenchers appearing on GB News, as part of the daily broadcast round. Dolan claimed on his Sunday show that a Starmer government would be “the most autocratic in history”, based apparently on the Labour leader’s record during the pandemic. Wootton hosted a panel discussion on which partnership was the most dysfunctional: Starmer’s with his deputy, Angela Rayner, or Phillip Schofield’s with Holly Willoughby. It featured the former Tory minister Edwina Currie, the current Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, and, for some reason, Kim Woodburn from the noughties TV hit How Clean Is Your House? But the loudest howls of derision were reserved for Sunak and his cabinet. On Christys’ Tuesday show, one tagline across the screen read: “Grow a Pair, Rishi.” Two years after launching as a scrappy upstart, the channel still at times retains the air of a low-budget start-up. On Sunday’s breakfast show, Ellie Costello apologised for her squeaking chair. Her co-presenter, the ex-Sky anchor Stephen Dixon, joked that he had had to get on his hands and knees before the show and fix a chair in the makeup room. Presenters regularly appear as guests on each other’s shows – with Wootton welcoming Farage to give his prescription for “saving Brexit”, for example. One of Rees-Mogg’s panels included his own sister. But scrappy or not, GB News is giving a powerful platform to radical rightwingers; amplifying a ragbag of conspiracy theories, once confined to the wilder corners of the web – and, perhaps, laying the polemical groundwork for a very different Conservatism, when Sunak is swept away.

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‘It’s not just in football’: young players’ families on racism in Spain

A little after 5pm on Tuesday, a young boy in a Real Madrid strip trotted on to a damp neighbourhood football pitch in the centre of the Spanish capital, oblivious to both the racism flung at the man whose name he wore on his back, and to the national and international debate it had generated . “We haven’t told him about the Vinícius thing yet,” said Mohamed’s mother, Milene Dos Santos, as she and her husband looked on from the sidelines. “If he asks, then we’ll tell him. He’s only seven, but he’ll need to be prepared for what’s to come.” It appears the events of the past few days have been too much for many, far older, Spaniards to take in, too. The abuse hurled at Real Madrid’s Brazilian winger, Vinícius Júnior during a match against Valencia on Sunday has already resulted in three swift arrests . Four other people, meanwhile, have been arrested in connection with the dummy, dressed in the player’s shirt, that was hung from a bridge in the Spanish capital. The 22-year-old footballer, who was reduced to tears by the latest racist aggressions, said his treatment was proof of just how thoroughly racism permeates both La Liga and Spanish society. “I’m sorry for those Spaniards who disagree but today, in Brazil, Spain is known as a country of racists,” he said after the match . His words were echoed by Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called on Fifa and La Liga to take “serious measures”, adding: “We cannot allow fascism and racism to seize control of football stadiums.” Those charges have forced Spain’s political leaders to position themselves on the issue of racism as the country goes to the polls for regional and municipal elections on Sunday. The Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said that “hatred and xenophobia should have no place in football nor in our society”. A government spokesperson went further, insisting perpetrators of racism behaviour “are prosecuted and punished” in Spain . Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party, said racism and sport were “totally incompatible”, but added: “Spain is not a racist country in any way.” The campaign trail platitudes and denials felt rather remote to some of those gathered around the pitch where Mohamed and his teammates were training in Lavapiés, the diverse Madrid neighbourhood where African and Bangladeshi shops and restaurants rub up against hipster coffee shops. Their neighbourhood club, Dragones de Lavapiés , fields 20 teams made up of about 400 players from more than 50 countries. Dos Santos, who was born in Portugal to parents from Cape Verde but has lived in Spain for 30 of her 32 years, said she had grown up with all manner of microaggressions, from people touching her hair to repeated questions as to why she spoke such good Spanish. “It’s a burden I’ve carried since I was a kid,” she said. “I grew up here but I’ve never felt like I was from here.” She and her husband, Ibrahim Ndao, who was born in Senegal, felt bad about the abuse Vinícius had suffered, but were not surprised by it. “There’s systemic racism in Spain and I hope what’s happened opens people’s eyes to it,” she said. “Maybe people with privilege will take notice. Maybe it’s easier not to acknowledge the reality or maybe lots of people just aren’t conscious of it. There are very few politicians of colour; you look at all the TV election debates and there’s no one of colour.” Spain, she added, “still has a long way to go”. Mame Gueye, who had brought her eight-year-old son, Serigne, to Dragones training said she had felt awful when she saw what Vinícius had been forced to endure. “He was so depressed and powerless about what was happening,” she said. “I think he was scared and nervous and has suffered a lot and no one has done anything. He’s complained and nothing’s been done.” However, Gueye, who moved to Spain from Senegal 15 years ago, disagreed with some of the player’s comments. “Racism exists here but I don’t agree Spain is a racist country,” she said. The Dragones de Lavapiés, which was founded nine years ago, exists to defend and promote diversity and to fight racism and stereotypes. The club’s president, Dolores Galindo, said that while its players and their families experienced racism on a daily basis, that racism still goes unseen by much of Spanish society. “If you’re a white person and you’ve never experienced it personally, you don’t believe in racism,” said Galindo, who is white. “Until you spend a lot of time with kids of colour – especially African kids – you don’t realise just how often things happen to them, one after another. And it’s not just someone saying something on the pitch.” She pointed to a recent trip when some of the younger dragons were taken to a museum. Although all the children stood on the museum’s lawn, the only one called out – twice – by a security guard was a boy of African heritage. “People are talking now about whether or not Spain is racist,” said Galindo. “I’m Spanish and I love my country and I don’t want that to exist here. But you can’t try to isolate it and say, ‘No, this only exists in football’.” According to a survey published last year , 25% of Spaniards aged 15-29 (the majority of them male) hold clearly racist or xenophobic views, with most of their racial hatred directed at Gypsies and people from sub-Saharan Africa and Morocco. Figures from Spain’s interior ministry show that Spanish police investigated 639 racist or xenophobic incidents in 2021 – a 24% rise on 2019. Neither the statistics nor the probably fleeting media and political debate over racism come as any surprise to Okba Mohammad, a 24-year-old Syrian journalist who has lived in Spain since fleeing his home town of Deraa during the Bashar al-Assad regime’s Russian-backed offensive there five years ago. “Spain is obviously a racist country,” he said. “There’s institutional racism but there’s also racism because of the lack of anti-racist education. There are a lot of people who are racist without knowing it, or people who are racist because they want to be racist.” For all the outcry over Vinícius, he added, the abuse could have been directed at any black or non-white player. “My problem is with the reaction, because there are a lot of people who are suffering racism every day and who haven’t been afforded this kind of institutional, social or media reaction,” said Mohammad. He also contrasted the speed of the arrests in the Vinícius case with his own ill-fated attempts to report racist behaviour he has suffered. While the media were guilty of double-standards by focusing on the plight of one footballer and ignoring the daily lived experiences of so many other victims of racism in Spain, he added, its hypocrisy was nothing new – and was indicative of a wider, and far more deeply ingrained prejudice. “We saw the huge scale of the institutional racism with the war in Ukraine when the Ukrainian refugees came to Spain and to other European countries,” he said. “They brought in a law to give the Ukrainians their papers within 24 hours. When that happened, I’d been waiting two and a half years in Spain for my papers to come through.” For all the column inches, the soundbites and the pledges, Mohammad thinks Sunday’s poisonous events in the Valencia’s Mestalla stadium – and the deeper wells of toxicity from which they sprang – will soon fade from public discourse. “I think this will be forgotten,” he said. “But the people who won’t forget it are the people of colour who suffer racism and report it every day.”

GOOD

Charles will be a good king… if he can resist the urge to talk like a politician

THE Coronation was a triumph – but that was the easy bit. History will judge King Charles III on his reign. Like his mother, Charles will have to deal with embarrassing relatives. The young Queen had her Hitler-loving uncle, the abdicated King Edward VIII. Charles has his disgraced younger brother, Andrew , plus Harry and Meghan . And like his mother, our new King must negotiate this country’s relationship with its past. The late Queen turned this into one of the triumphs of her reign, as the British Empire was dismantled and her beloved Commonwealth was built. But King Charles is already drifting into dangerous waters where millions of his subjects will bitterly disagree with him. Charles has signalled his support for research into the ­monarchy’s historic links with slavery. Fair enough. Education and enlightenment can only be a good thing. But if this research led to the country paying reparations, it would be catastrophically divisive. Nobody ever asks the descendants of African slave traders to put their hand in their pocket. Only the wicked British. Charles is a man of strong views that guide his moral ­compass. But if the monarchy is to survive, he cannot be a ­divisive figure. Everyone wants to share their opinion on everything these days. Worse still, they imagine everyone else wants to hear it. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, opines that sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda is “morally unacceptable”. And by curious coincidence, or perhaps not, Welby made his views known in the same week it was reported that Charles had clashed with Boris Johnson over the Government’s Rwanda plan calling it “appalling”. Personally I am no advocate of the Rwanda ruse. When someone suggests “Rwanda” I always think, why not send them back to, er, France? But an elected Government is desperately attempting to find a solution to an issue that matters to millions. For the King to take sides would be catastrophic to the institution of the monarchy. No doubt the late Queen, the most experienced public figure of the last hundred years, had strong views of her own. She always kept them to herself. This King can be our greatest ambassador. When post- Brexit wounds are still raw in Europe, his tour of Germany was a triumph , and a reminder to the Europeans, and the British, that there is more that unites us than divides us. But to see the ­religious leader who crowned Charles wading into the Rwanda debate, before they have even taken down the Coronation bunting, shows the perils facing the King. The monarchy, and this King, is wildly popular. Almost all of our country was touched, moved and delighted by the Coronation. Republicanism in the UK is still a minority interest. But we live in an age where every voice demands to be heard, where every cause is amplified, and where our national broadcaster is sympathetic to any anti-establishment crusty with a “Not My King” placard. Queen Elizabeth II did not have to make the case for the very existence of the monarchy. King Charles III does. Our country wants our new King to succeed. Charles is, rather bizarrely, more popular as King than when he was the plain old Prince of Wales. He is also more popular than any politician in the land. The irony is that Charles will only retain that popularity if he can resist the urge to talk like a politician. ADJOA Andoh's observation that the Royal Family looked “terribly white” on the balcony of Buckingham Palace has provoked record numbers of complaints – more than 4,000 and counting. “We have gone from the rich diversity of the (Westminster) Abbey to a terribly white balcony,” she said. The actress, 60, is no rent-a-mouth activist. She seems like a thoughtful woman. But it was totally tone deaf to point out that a family – any family – is lacking ethnic diversity. Are we obliged to see hotbeds of racism where none exist? And the irony is that if the mixed-race Duchess of Sussex had wanted to be a working member of this Royal Family then the Windsors, and this entire country, would have gladly embraced Meghan with open arms. But that ship has sailed, and that private jet has flown. Are we meant to see absolutely everything in the world through the prism of race? Sorry, Adjoa, we don’t! GRIZZLED Eurovision veterans enjoyed – or is that suffered? – a Bucks Fizz flashback when Polish singer Blanka had her skirt yanked off last night. Although the odds are that young Blanka has never heard Making Your Mind Up in her life. WHAT is wrong with America? Donald Trump has been found guilty of sexually abusing the journalist E Jean Carroll in the changing room of a Manhattan department store almost 30 years ago. Yet, incredibly, Trump remains the frontrunner to be the Republican candidate in next year’s presidential election. That should guarantee a Democrat victory. But in the USA, things are not so simple – because Joe Biden wants to run for a second term. And who would vote for an increasingly incoherent candidate for whom the nickname Sleepy no longer quite covers it? We despair about our politics in this country. But God help a United States where the choice is between the senile and the sleazy. I FELL in love with live music watching Rod Stewart and the Faces. The group, including the young Ronnie Wood on lead guitar, were great musicians. But best of all, the band had a great time. They swigged Mateus Rosé. They looned about. They laughed until they wept. And they kicked footballs around on the stage. The good times were contagious. Watching them live was the most fun you could have with your flared, pre-washed denim jeans on. A lifetime went by. Faces broke up. Rod Stewart became one of the biggest superstars in the world. Rod, who is just about to start a residency in Las Vegas , became the consummate professional. But he retained something from those drunken, anarchic nights on the stage with Faces. For years – decades – Rod kept kicking footballs around on stage. At the Finsbury Park Rainbow in 1971, if Faces kicked a football into the crowd, we kicked it back. And tried to put it on Rod’s spiky head. But in the modern world, Rod’s footballs became collector items. “People went mad,” he says. “They would walk out with a football and get mugged outside, as they’re worth a lot of money.” Another reason Rod’s football-kicking has now been dialled down is because there were injuries. “I had one or two lawsuits,” the singer sighs. His cunning plan is to keep the footballs as part of his show but to have female members of his band gently lob them into the crowd. “They’re not going to hurt anybody,” insists Rod, 78. Rod, mate, you can’t make that assumption any more. Or people will be asking you to sing: “Do Ya Think I’m Sexist?” STEPHEN Tompkinson has been found not guilty of attacking a man outside his home. What happened to the DCI Banks actor could happen to any one of us. Tompkinson woke in the middle of the night to discover two drunks on his driveway. When they objected to being politely asked to move on, Tompkinson pushed one of them, Karl Poole, in self-defence. “I didn’t want to hurt him,” Tompkinson told the court. “I wanted to stop him.” Poole suffered a skull fracture. An ugly, unpleasant and terrifying experience. But hardly the fault of a family man who finds two half-dressed, incapable drunks on his doorstep in the middle of the night. Stephen’s life has been put on hold. His career has been devastated. The stress he has endured is unimaginable. But now the star has been acquitted. And I look forward to seeing this fine actor – and lovely man – back on our screens soon.

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‘My whole bed shook’: south Wales hit by 3.7 magnitude earthquake

An earthquake has shaken parts of south Wales . The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the 3.7 magnitude quake happened at 23:59 GMT on Friday. The epicentre was just north of Brynmawr, Blaenau Gwent and west of Crickhowell, Powys. It was felt by residents across the region, including Abergavenny, Crickhowell, Llangynidr, Llanover and Llanfoist, with many saying that furniture and windows shook. Gwent police said it had received “multiple calls” overnight but it was “business as usual” for the force. “My whole bed shook,” one person tweeted. Others described it as a “scary” experience and some said it “felt as though their property had been hit by a car”. Others described objects such as bookshelves and desks moving, and claimed the quake was reminiscent of “a bomb going off”. Sign up to First Edition Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning after newsletter promotion Shelly Organ was among many residents who shared her experience on social media: “Being in Troedyrhiw we honestly thought someone had crashed into a wall so we checked the children were still sleeping and went out to check and there were a few in the street thinking the same.” Katy Alexandra Jack tweeted: “Imagine, I just felt this all the way in Dudley, West Midlands.” The BGS said the earthquake was 1.8 miles under the Earth’s surface. The largest earthquake ever recorded in the UK was in the North Sea on 7 June 1931, with a magnitude of 6.1. The epicentre was in the Dogger Bank area, 75 miles north-east of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Wales’s most powerful quake was on the Llŷn peninsula, Gwynedd, in 1984 – measuring 5.4, it began at a depth of more than 12 miles. The BGS said smaller quakes were not unusual in Wales, which has had 70 measuring more than 3.5 between 1727 and 1984.

GOOD

Private renters ‘almost twice as likely to struggle with debt as UK general population’

Private renters are almost twice as likely to be struggling with problem levels of debt as the general population, with a sharp rise in the numbers in serious financial difficulty since January, research shows. The figures come against a backdrop of private rents in the UK hitting record highs, and days after the government announced a shake-up of the sector to tackle the “injustices” that many tenants are facing. The debt charity StepChange, which issued the polling data, said that “with so many renters in financial difficulty”, stronger protections for those who fell behind with their rent were required or else people would be left vulnerable to “hair-trigger eviction”. It said that while the renters’ reform bill announced last Wednesday was welcome, it did not go far enough, as many financially and otherwise vulnerable tenants faced challenges that would not be addressed by the proposals. The private rented sector was now “unaffordable, inaccessible and insecure for those on the lowest incomes, leaving them at high risk of problem debt, poor mental and physical health and prolonged housing insecurity,” the charity said as it issued a report . It also published a YouGov poll showing that 15% of private renters – 1.1 million people as of this month – were in problem debt, compared with 8% of the general population. The charity added that this number had risen “sharply” – by more than a third – since January, when it stood at an estimated 800,000 people, or 11% of private renters. Signs of financial difficulty include using credit, loans or an overdraft to make it through to payday, falling behind on essential household bills, using credit to keep up with existing credit commitments, and getting hit by late payment or default charges, said StepChange, with those in severe problem debt typically displaying three or more of those signs. The research also found that half of all private renters – about 3.7 million people – had had their rent increased in the last 12 months, while more than 1.2 million said they were using credit to make ends meet. Many have described the private rented sector as being in crisis, which Michael Gove, the housing secretary, appeared to acknowledge last week when he said: “Too many renters are living in damp, unsafe, cold homes, powerless to put things right, and with the threat of sudden eviction hanging over them.” The number of households renting in England more than doubled between 2001 and 2021, the latest census revealed , and a string of surveys have indicated that typical private rents have hit new highs. Earlier this month the estate agent Hamptons said tenants in Great Britain were now typically paying 25% more than they were at the start of the Covid pandemic. Meanwhile, experts say severe shortages of rental properties have led to intense competition for what is available, with queues for viewings, desperate renters paying over the odds, and some landlords insisting on a year’s rent in advance. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion StepChange’s report stated that one in five private renters who had tried to find a new home in the last 12 months said they were asked to pay more than two months’ rent in advance. More than half were asked to bid on the property they were trying to rent, and only 28% were successful, it added. The charity’s client survey found private renters “struggled with the affordability of their homes more than any other housing tenure”. Average monthly private rent payments were found to be almost double those in the social sector, and 39% more than average mortgage payments. The reforms outlined by the government last week will ban no-fault evictions but also strengthen landlords’ rights to throw out tenants for antisocial behaviour. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said at the time that, as a result of its package, 11 million tenants across England would “benefit from safer, fairer and higher-quality homes thanks to a once-in-a-generation overhaul of housing laws”. The department was approached for comment.

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Planet Normal: 'People should be made aware of link between Covid jab and heart problems'

Vaccines undoubtedly allowed the country to get back to normal after the coronavirus pandemic, but information about potential side effects is not as well publicised as it should be. That's the view of the Telegraph Science Editor Sarah Knapton, who spoke to columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson on the latest Planet Normal podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player above. "I do think there is some sort of link between heart problems and the jab," Sarah told the podcast. "And so I guess then you get to the question of whether the benefits are outweighing the risks," she said. "I think arguably for younger people, they probably aren't." "It's a completely personal choice. I can understand if anyone wants to have it or not," she continued. Sarah said in some cases mRNA vaccines are believed to have caused an issue called "molecular mimicry." "When you get a jab, sometimes the body basically mistakes the protein," she said. "It's trying to fight proteins in the heart or peptides in the heart... It basically causes autoimmunity and starts battling you rather than the virus." Sarah warns there is an "observational link that shows there's an increase in heart problems, after particularly the mRNA jabs." "People should be aware of it and they should be told about it so they can make up their own minds," she argued. Listen to Planet Normal, a weekly Telegraph podcast featuring news and views from beyond the bubble, using the audio player above or on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or your preferred podcast app.

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UBS to make $35bn in Credit Suisse takeover – but lose $17bn in rushed deal

UBS is in line to make an almost $35bn (£28bn) gain after its emergency takeover of Credit Suisse – but has said it will take a $17bn hit from costs related to the rushed rescue deal. The Swiss lender has said it will make gains of $34.8bn after taking on Credit Suisse, based on an initial assessment of data until the end of last year, according to a regulatory filing. The accounting gain will be one of the biggest ever reported by a bank in a single quarter. However, UBS is also estimating it could rack up almost $4bn in costs related to litigation, regulatory matters and other liabilities after the takeover of its smaller rival. UBS is also expecting to take a $13bn hit from asset and liability adjustments in the group, meaning the takeover will cost it $17bn, and the regulatory filing said Credit Suisse faces a number of restrictions around its business until the $3.4bn deal completes. A group of Credit Suisse investors who lost bonds worth more than CHF4.5bn (£4bn) are already suing Switzerland’s financial regulator over its decision to wipe out risky bank debt as part of the government-brokered takeover deal in March. “The extent to which UBS was a reluctant partner in the deal to buy Credit Suisse has become clear,” said Susannah Streeter, the head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. “The Swiss bank has had to absorb a painful loss after being rushed into taking over its beleaguered rival. It is a heavy cost to bear, and has been partly put down to the lack of time it was able to complete due diligence and assess the web of problems at Credit Suisse.” Unlike a standard deal, where parties have months to do due diligence, the Credit Suisse deal was hammered out in 48 hours with UBS executives pointing out the risks they are taking integrating the business. Shares in UBS, which have been under pressure since the deal to avoid Credit Suisse facing bankruptcy, were flat in early trading in Zurich on Wednesday. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Last month, worried UBS investors urged the Swiss lender to avoid sweeping job cuts and inflating executive pay as they raised concerns about the creation of a mega-bank after the emergency takeover .

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Village in Switzerland to be evacuated over Alpine rockslide fears

Authorities in eastern Switzerland have ordered residents of the village of Brienz to evacuate by Friday evening because geologists say a mass of 2m cubic metres of Alpine rock looming overhead could break loose and spill down in coming weeks. Local leaders told a town hall and press event on Tuesday that residents would have to leave by 6pm on Friday but could return to the village from time to time starting on Saturday, depending on the risk level, but not stay overnight. Officials said measurements indicated a “strong acceleration over a large area” in recent days, and “up to 2m cubic metres of rock material will collapse or slide in the coming seven to 24 days”. The centuries-old village straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubünden region, sitting south-west of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 metres (3,800ft). Today it has fewer than 100 residents. Locals said the mountain and the rocks on it had been moving since the last ice age, according to officials. Over the last century, the village itself has moved a few centimetres each year – but the movement has accelerated over the last 20 years, and the landslide has now been moving about one metre a year. Geological surveys suggest the situation has become even more precarious. Christian Gartmann, a member of the crisis management board in the town of Albula, which counts Brienz in its municipality, said experts estimated there was a 60% chance that the rock would fall in smaller chunks, which may not even reach the village or the valley. It could also move slowly. But there was also a 10% chance the whole 2m cubic metres mass may tumble down – threatening lives, property and the village itself, he said. “We hope that the village stays intact,” he said by phone. “We can’t eliminate the possibility that it [the rock] will come down … It could damage the village or destroy it.” Gartmann said that glacier melt had affected the precariousness of the rocks over millennia but that glacier melt due to human-made climate change in recent decades was not a factor. Experts deemed that a controlled explosion to set off a rockslide was too dangerous because it would require drilling underneath the rock – itself a hazardous operation, Gartmann said. Erecting a giant pile of sand or a wall to try to block any spillage was not considered feasible, he said, adding that the wall would have to be at least 70 metres high to protect the village. Sign up to This is Europe The most pivotal stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion Many of the evacuees were expected to stay with family or friends, though local leaders had received offers from concerned neighbours to provide temporary housing, Gartmann said. At the current “orange” alert level, however, farm animals are to be left behind. “The livestock from two farms will remain in the stables for the time being,” the Albula region said in a statement.

GOOD

Pharmacists are good for small stuff but Sunak’s plans hide the real problem

WHEN I first joined my GP surgery, it was in a terraced house up the road where I could walk in and get a same-day appointment. Then, in the name of “progress”, it relocated to a larger, purpose-built premises, rebranded itself as a community hub and offered a mix of regular GPs and locums as well as on-site physio and yoga sessions. Fair enough and, for many years, it worked well. But since Covid, it has descended in to a shambolic, mismanaged mess where getting to see a doctor is tantamount to getting an audience with the Pope. You can no longer walk in and book an appointment, you can’t phone to make one and, as of last week, you can no longer email the surgery either. Everything has to be done via an “online booking system” which the majority of its elderly patients find impossible to navigate. So the last time I darkened its door (to chase a form I had dropped off three weeks earlier for signing, only to discover they’d lost it) I was appalled to witness an elderly lady having to shout her symptoms to a receptionist through a thick plastic “ Covid screen”. If the World Health Organisation has declared that “Covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern”, then why the hell are so many UK organisations still acting as though we’re in the grip of it? But I digress. After being robotically told to use the “online booking system” and replying that she didn’t have a computer, the receptionist suggested she ask her family to help her. Assuming, of course, that she has one. God forbid that the surgery of her “family doctor” might treat her as a human being. So, while PM Rishi Sunak’s plans to free up around 15million GP appointments by sending those with “common ailments” to their local pharmacy is a good idea, it’s worth pointing out that those of us registered with poorly managed surgeries have been doing that for some time. My excellent local pharmacy is always full of people asking advice because they can’t get to see their GP , and when my left eye recently decided that Halloween had come early and turned red, I didn’t even bother trying to see a doctor. Instead, I headed straight to my local branch of Bayfields Opticians where, despite not having an appointment, the woman on duty kindly inspected my eye, took photos, consulted an ophthalmologist and called me later that day to confirm that it was a subconjunctival haemorrhage and nothing to worry about. Others, God forbid, consult “Dr Google” for their various ailments where, if you look in the wrong place, all manner of quack remedies are suggested. So, yes, going to a pharmacist for a prescription will be better than that. But what if your “common ailment” is actually an indication of something far more serious? Are pharmacists trained to spot that? And are they covered for any legal consequences if they get it wrong? Particularly when it comes to urinary tract infections. It’s potentially fraught with issues and, to my mind, circumnavigates the real issue that we have too few NHS GPs to cope with our rising population and that many surgeries (like mine) are woefully mismanaged and are still using the pandemic as a reason to treat patients as an inconvenience. By contrast, the surgery my elderly mother is registered with is superbly run. It can be done. So by all means, farm out the “common ailments” to pharmacists as a temporary measure, but if the Government fails to tackle mismanaged surgeries, this latest initiative will prove to be a sticking plaster that soon comes unstuck. MODEL Abbey Clancy says she used to blow-dry her hair in the nude but had to stop because it made hubby Peter Crouch frisky. So now she wears a dressing gown double-tied at the back to try and thwart his advances. “Any other time is fine, but not when I’m getting ready,” says the 37-year-old mum of four. “But it’s nice to know that you’re still desirable to your husband after 16 years.” As well as, one imagines, being lusted after by everyone else’s. ZOE BALL has been reminiscing about her younger years when she “fell in love with a Greek boy” on holiday and “rode on the back of his moped”. Uh-oh, careful Zoe. Reminiscing about the things you did in your youth is fine among discreet old friends. But saying it on a podcast means it’s out there for ever. Consequently, when your now 13-year-old daughter reaches the age that she goes on holiday with her mates and you sit her down for dos and don’ts chat – including “NEVER get on the back of someone’s moped” – she will turn round and say: “But Mum, you did.” DANIEL TAMMET is often referred to as the world’s greatest mental athlete. Now he’s supporting a call for other “super memorisers” to take part in an academic study at Cambridge University that will assess whether those who can retain a lot of information have a different brain structure to those who can’t. Daniel, 44, who was born in Barking, East London, but now lives in Paris, speaks 11 languages and learned Icelandic in a week. As you do. In 2004, he was celebrated for setting a European record for Pi memorisation when he . . . takes deep breath . . . recited the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter to an astonishing 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes. Which, considering I’d already forgotten this sentence the second I finished typing it, means he can count me out. ANY parents will know the feeling of nearly dying with pride as you watch your offspring play Mary, Joseph, the donkey or even “third tree from the left” in the school nativity. So one can only imagine the chest-swelling joy of 14-year-old Samuel Strachan’s parents as he stood boldly in front of the new King in Westminster Abbey and uttered the first words of the Coronation. “Your Majesty, as children of the kingdom of God, we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings,” he said faultlessly before King Charles then replied. Samuel, as a story to tell your future grandchildren, it takes some beating. PRINCE GEORGE persuaded his grandfather to drop the tradition of pages wearing white knee breeches and let them wear trousers instead. Hardly surprising. Returning to the school playground when you’ve played such a pivotal role in the King’s Coronation must be bad enough. But if you’d done it in knickerbockers and tights, you’d never hear the end of it. ONLINE activity suggests that King Charles’s handsome equerry Major Jonathan Thompson set many a female heart aflutter as he walked into the abbey. We like a man in uniform, don’t we? Though we draw the line at traffic wardens. THE ample-chested Lord President of the Council Penny Mordaunt once said: “I could probably hold Her Majesty’s Stationery Office under my bosoms.” Not to mention, perhaps, that sword of state she held so stoically for so long. GOOGLE’S chief AI scientist Jeff Dean says: “We remain committed to a responsible approach to AI.” Yes, but it’s the technology being in the hands of the irresponsible we’re rightly worried about. RESEARCHERS from Oxford University reveal: “Our study suggests favourable environmental conditions, such as sunny weather, induce positive emotional states in listeners which, in turn, lead them to choose energetic and positive music.” Next week, bears s**t in the woods.

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Dominic Raab quitting means no Cabinet minister is now safe – watch out, Suella Braverman!

WATCH out, Suella Braverman! You’re next. If the Blob can destroy a Deputy Prime Minister for ticking off an unelected mandarin, nobody is safe — especially a Home Secretary at war against illegal immigration . These chinless wonders claim Mr Raab was sometimes “intimidating, “curt” or “angry”. In other words, a bully. Raab insists he was doing his job. Nobody likes being shouted at, but the charge of bullying is too easily made. There is no legal definition. If it means an occasional telling-off, then we have all been victims — or offenders. Dominic Raab had to go because “whistleblowers” decided to make their complaints official, thereby perhaps exposing themselves to retaliation. This is the ducking-stool version of woke-place justice, with Left-wing public sector unions, the Labour Party and the BBC in hot pursuit. Once a target is identified, there is no way off the hook. Tragically, Raab’s real crime — and the crime of every Tory minister — was to have been elected on a pledge to “get Brexit done”. This is fiercely opposed by civil servants, especially in the Foreign Office where Raab once served, and the Justice department where he administered the fine points of Brexit law . He was picked for his ­mastery of detail and his readiness to take on entrenched resistance. There are many ways a reluctant Blob can drag its feet, raise roadblocks or sabotage the will of a democratically elected minister. One senior figure claimed he was given a roasting for seeking to allow Spanish authorities too much access to disputed Gibraltar . Raab was simply safeguarding UK interests. He might have been “curt” but so he should have been. The ex-Deputy PM, his political career in ruins, is rightly furious. He warns the threshold for bullying claims is too low, too vague and now exposes other ministers to spurious complaints. Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer is trying to put Rishi Sunak in the ducking stool for appointing Raab in the first place. This won’t wash. No Cabinet minister is now safe thanks to these trumped-up charges against a minister who was simply doing his job.

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The Guardian view on the vaccine shortfall: tackling disruption and distrust

The horror of the Covid-19 pandemic brought with it one small cause for optimism: the crisis accelerated the development of new vaccine technologies , with the potential to protect against other diseases. Yet this leap forward was accompanied by a dramatic backsliding in the delivery of existing vaccines, with 23 million children missing out on routine immunisations in 2020 and 25 million in 2021 – the largest sustained decline in three decades. The World Health Organization reports that more prevalent and severe outbreaks of preventable diseases, including diphtheria and polio, are already occurring. While three-quarters of the children who missed out lived in just 20 countries, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, there were declines in richer nations too. The UK Health Security Agency has warned that uptake of the meningococcal vaccine, and the last routine dose of the combined polio, diphtheria and tetanus vaccine, fell significantly last year among adolescents. Covid-19 overwhelmed healthcare systems and personnel, while lockdowns kept people away from facilities used to deliver shots. Supply chain disruption affected the availability of doses and syringes. The WHO and others have now launched a drive to at least return to pre-pandemic vaccination levels, which were already plateauing. Catching up should be doable. Chad has actually increased its vaccine coverage since 2019. As Unicef warns, for many children, especially in marginalised communities, “vaccination is still not available, accessible or affordable”. This is the primary issue, and though it is not simple, it can be addressed. But even before the pandemic began, the WHO had identified vaccination hesitancy as a top threat to global health . Campaigns against diseases such as measles have been victims of their own success; since most people never encountered them, the threat began to seem less urgent or serious. Libertarian views, declining trust in authority and interest in alternative healthcare encouraged scepticism, along with the false claim of a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Doubt about one vaccine often spreads to others. The pandemic made things worse. Research by the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined in 52 of 55 countries studied. The speed with which the new Covid vaccines were developed prompted concern as well as relief. But disinformation was also critical, with the WHO warning of an “infodemic” of wild rumours and conspiracy theories. Though social media companies undoubtedly bear responsibility , the growth of political polarisation and sense of uncertainty help to explain people’s susceptibility. The majority of people still value and want vaccines, and the rest are mostly not hostile but ambivalent or sceptical, often about particular vaccines. Treating them as crazed or foolish will not help. Showing respect, acknowledging their concerns and putting risks in context rather than dismissing them is more productive. There are sound reasons why some groups may doubt whether medical professionals or the state have their best interests at heart. As health experts have pointed out , focusing on hesitancy spotlights individuals – but underlying inequalities largely explain reduced take-up, and resolving them is key to improved public health in this as in so many other regards. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

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ABC coverage of King Charles III coronation tops Australian ratings despite being attacked by monarchists

The ABC’s broadcast of King Charles’ coronation was labelled “despicable” by monarchists , but viewers loved it and gave the national broadcaster an easy ratings win over the commercial networks. The king’s procession averaged 1,182,000 viewers on the ABC, putting it ahead of Seven’s 1,096,000 and Nine’s 738,000, according to OzTAM which now measures viewing through broadcast TV and streaming devices . The Australian Monarchist League said the coverage included “vitriolic attacks on the king, the monarchy, the British settlement and everything that came thereafter”. The ABC was criticised by radio broadcasters Neil Mitchell and Ray Hadley, as well as News Corporation , for hosting a panel discussion about the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Australians and the relevance of the monarchy in 2023. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “The ABC’s coverage in the lead-up to King Charles III being crowned featured a panel dominated by pro-republican voices who spoke at length about colonisation and racism in Australia – which they blamed the monarchy for – at the same time crowds were pouring into Westminster Abbey in London,” the Australian reported . “While other channels brought us only pageantry and pomp, the ABC was bravely debating the future of the monarchy and the dark impact of colonisation on Indigenous Australians.” #MediaWatch pic.twitter.com/OZziUnOLSN The ABC took the BBC feed and did not send a team over to London, while the Seven network also took the BBC but had Sunrise co-host David Koch in London all week and he and Michael Usher broadcast live from different locations. For the Queen’s funeral the ABC had 30 people on the ground and was criticised by Grant for being “obsequious” and ignoring Indigenous dispossession. The ABC panel for the coronation, hosted by Jeremy Fernandez and Julia Baird, included journalist Stan Grant, lawyer and Indigenous writer Teela Reid, Liberal backbencher and monarchist Julian Leeser and co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement Craig Foster. The panel discussion lasted 45 minutes in the lead-up to the coronation and was over hours before the event itself. Nine Radio host Mitchell said the ABC had “totally misread the mood” and focused on “bagging the living daylights out of the monarchy”. Headlines in the Australian included “ABC’s royal rants fail to lure viewers” and “ABC’s coronation coverage labelled ‘bile’”. Liberal MP Jason Wood said the “ABC bias and woke agenda was in full swing during the King Charles coronation”. In a statement, an ABC spokesperson said: “The role of the national broadcaster is to facilitate conversations that reflect the diversity of views in the community. “Hearing from Indigenous Australians and reflecting on Australia’s history is an important part of this, especially as this year Australians will vote in a referendum on whether a First Nations voice to parliament should be included in the nation’s constitution.” According to the initial overnight metropolitan ratings, which only measure broadcast TV in the capital cities, Seven’s coronation broadcast had the biggest audience with 739,000, followed by Nine’s 558,000 and ABC’s 513,000. OzTAM issues updated ratings which reflect the size of the audience when all platforms are taken into account.

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Pompeii dig finds skeletal remains dating back to Vesuvius earthquake

The remains of two people believed to have been killed by an earthquake that accompanied the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius have been found in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The skeletons, thought to belong to two men in their mid-50s, were found during excavations at the Insula dei Casti Amanti, or Insula of the Chaste Lovers, an area of Pompeii made up of a cluster of homes and a bakery. The well-preserved remains were found beneath a collapsed wall. Bone fractures indicate that the men probably died as a result of multiple injuries sustained as the building they sought refuge in caved in because of an earthquake that struck during the early stage of the volcanic eruption. One of the victims is thought to have raised his arm in an attempt to protect himself from the falling wall. It is believed that the wall collapsed before the arrival of the violent pyroclastic currents that buried the city. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii archaeological park, said the discovery brought home even further “the hell” of the human dimension of the tragedy. “As some of the archaeologists said, the discovery is very grounding as they are effectively digging up human beings, which is sad,” he said. “Human mortality is so fragile … in Pompeii, the advancement of excavation techniques helps us to see more clearly the inferno that destroyed the city in two days.” Beads from a necklace and six coins – two dating back to the middle of the second century BC – were also found in the same room as the victims. “Pompeii is an immense archaeological laboratory that in recent years has regained vigour, astonishing the world with the continuous discoveries brought to light and manifesting Italian excellence in this field,” said culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano. The Pompeii ruins were discovered in the 16th century, with the first excavations beginning in 1748. More than 1,500 of the estimated 2,000 victims have been found over the centuries. The last discovery of human remains was in 2020 , when the skeletons of two men, believed to be a wealthy man and his slave, were found during excavations at a villa in the outskirts of the city. The two men, lying close together, are believed to have escaped the initial phase of the eruption when the city was blanketed in volcanic ash and pumice, only to then be killed by a blast that happened the following day.

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De Humani Corporis Fabrica review – gruesome surgery film gets under the skin

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel are the French documentary film-makers who in 2012 gave us Leviathan , an experimental and immersively strange account of life on a fishing trawler in the north Atlantic. In 2017 their Somniloquies was a hallucinatory, image-driven film about sleep-talking, while Caniba was about the notorious Japanese murderer and cannibal Issei Sagawa and the strange half-life of his later years, when he was immobilised by a cerebral infarction. Their new film does for the human body what Leviathan did for the alien world of the sea: an account of surgical and clinical procedures in a number of Paris hospitals, with extreme, disorientating closeups and some deeply disturbing images, including one mortuary scene of a dead body being dressed in the “civilian” clothes of the living. It gives us brutally candid images of operations on the eye, the brain and the penis, and takes us into the surreal, microsurgical inner-space of the body: you might find yourself thinking of the 60s sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch and other miniaturised adventurers journeying through the body’s macrocosmos. The title is taken from Andreas Vesalius’s classic anatomical study of 1543 , revolutionary in its day for its fiercely rationalist, materialist emphasis on examining what the body really is, but with bizarre, nonrational illustrations of animated corpses appearing to open themselves up, like Jesus and the sacred heart. This film starts very much as Leviathan starts: with a long, dark, bewilderingly murky shot in which we can’t be entirely sure what we’re looking at. In fact it appears to be a security guard with a dog patrolling the basement (or the bowels perhaps) of the hospital building, the gloomy passageways analogous to the body’s slimy tubes. Another long, static shot of obscure figures reflected in a glass in the ICU is accompanied by doctors chatting candidly about everything and nothing, about death and life. An MRI image of the brain, its picture-plane moving through the skull, creates a fascinating animated picture, while the scanner itself does its oddly mechanical low-tech buzzing and clanging. There are brutal, almost black-comic “reveal” shots: a patient chats with the doctor and the camera pulls back to reveal he is operating on the fully conscious man’s brain. There’s a closeup of an unidentifiable object, which reveals itself to be an eye under the knife. A penis has something inserted into it, while the doctors cheerfully talk among themselves – though often not so cheerfully: one is deeply depressed and overworked. But much of the film immerses us in an unknowable, unrecognisable world under the skin, without shape, without what Vesalius wanted to show us in the 16th century. It is an uncanny spectacle. De Humani Corporis Fabrica is available from 22 May on Mubi.

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What is going on with Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis?

The real significance of Ron DeSantis’s presidential announcement on Twitter had little to do with DeSantis but everything to do with Musk. It’s that Twitter, under Musk, has fully embraced the political right. Why is Musk doing this? He acts as if he wants to be the darling of libertarian bros. But he’s really aiming to lead democracy’s foes. Musk wants to crush unions and declare the United States a free-to-make-as-much-as-you-can-on-the-backs-of-working-stiffs zone. He calls himself a “free speech absolutist”, but that’s utter baloney. He wants to elevate the speech of people like DeSantis but suppress the speech of workers who want to unionize. He’s even gone along with Turkey’s recent ban on anti-regime comments in the run-up to the Turkish election. DeSantis is not exactly a libertarian himself, of course – unless you define a libertarian as someone who bans books, forces women to give birth, threatens to take trans youth away from parents who approve of them getting gender-affirming care, prohibits teachers from mentioning gender identity or sexual orientation, bars teachers from talking about America’s history of racism, and wreaks vengeance even on Mickey Mouse for opposing his authoritarian policies. What unites Musk and DeSantis isn’t libertarianism at all. It’s authoritarianism. Twitter started to become a rightwing media hotspot when Musk lifted bans on thousands of accounts that had spread disinformation about the pandemic and the 2020 elections. More recently, Tucker Carlson has said he would revive his show on Twitter after losing his Fox News slot (Musk has denied that Twitter has signed a deal with Carlson). It’s also been reported that the Daily Wire, a rightwing, anti-democracy media outlet, will make Twitter the home for all its podcasts . Unquestionably, Twitter is benefiting from the dissatisfaction of the anti-democracy movement with Fox News. Musk can credibly claim to be outside the mainstream rightwing media world of Rupert Murdoch. But the reason Musk wants to be a force on the right is because he wants to be in control. That’s been his business MO since the start. It’s why he refused a seat on Twitter’s board and instead mounted a hostile takeover. It’s why he hates unions. And now Musk wants to control everything else. He wants to dominate the right wing of American politics. Not content to be the (or among the) richest on the planet, not satisfied with taking over one of the biggest media machines in the world, Musk now wants to impose his will on America and the world directly. Remind you of any other billionaire? Say, the former guy? Musk said on Tuesday he isn’t formally backing any Republican candidate. But he is backing Republicans. And you can bet his eye is focused like a laser on the biggest Republican of all. Right now, Musk wants to send Donald Trump a message that he – Musk – has the power to make life difficult for Trump if Trump so much as hints at making life difficult for Musk. Musk knows that the best way to deal with a bully is to bully him . Show him you are even bigger than he is. Have more billions of dollars than he does. Have more millions of Twitter followers than he does. And show him you have power over him by helping Republicans who are opposing him. Which is why Musk is helping DeSantis. And why, earlier this week, Musk retweeted a campaign kickoff video for Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. Musk is only 51. Trump is 77. Trump may be the next president, but Musk will outlast him. The US constitution bars Musk from becoming president, as he was born in Pretoria, South Africa. But there’s no end to the power he can wield over America and the world in coming decades. And make no mistake. Musk plans to wield it. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good . His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It , is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

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Kopalapillai Mahadeva obituary

My father, Kopalapillai Mahadeva, who has died aged 89, was a scholar of production engineering and management whose self-discipline and determination into his 80s was inspiring. Kopalapillai, known as Kopan to his friends, was born in Madduvil South, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), to Kanthar Kopalapillai, an industrialist, and Ramanathar (nee Ponnammah). His mother died of complications in childbirth when Kopan was four, and his father of tuberculosis six years later, so Kopan and his two brothers were brought up by an aunt and uncle. At Jaffna central college, he met Seethadevi Muthucumarasamy, whom he married in 1960. He read engineering at the University of Ceylon, after which he served as an engineer in the public works department and the army (1955-61). Kopan and Seetha then embarked on the ocean liner Oriana to pursue postgraduate studies in the UK. In 1962, Kopan obtained an MSc in engineering production and management from the University of Birmingham , followed by a PhD in engineering production (operational research). The couple returned to Colombo in 1966 and set up home in a converted factory, where Kopan founded the Mite (Management, Industry, Technology and Engineering) Organisation. He served as director of UN-ILO’s Ceylon Small Industry Service Institute and, as chairman of Mite, won the prestigious contracts of Jaffna and Chunnakam model markets, which stand today as thriving examples of what at that time was a new architectural type, modern in construction and design. Kopan rejoined the University of Birmingham as honorary research fellow in the department of engineering production (1978-1980). He then became professor in production engineering and management at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad (1980-84), where, in 1981, he was one of the organisers of the Commonwealth Engineers conference. Returning to Birmingham in 1984, Kopan took up the post of visiting research professor in advanced manufacturing technology at the city’s polytechnic (later the University of Central England) until 1993. He also published extensively, on topics ranging from engineering and technology to poetry and drama. His first poetry book, The Pearly Island and Other Poems, was published in Sri Lanka in 1974, and from 1990 he turned to writing and publishing full-time, founding Century House Poets and Century House Publications, a non-profit enterprise publishing first-edition works. Kopan and Seetha moved from Erdington, Birmingham, in 2002 to live in retirement in Harrow, Greater London. In 2006, with a circle of Tamil literary friends, they co-founded Eelavar Literature Academy of Britain, editing and publishing books in English and Tamil. Reviving his early interest in scriptwriting, Kopan also directed and acted in short Tamil films, and landed an acting role in the soap series Stella (2017). After Seetha died in 2013, Kopan persevered with his writing and used social media to maintain contact with friends and family. Kopan is survived by his son, Lavan, his daughters, Usha, Ula and me, and his granddaughters, Amalia and Kamala.

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I showed Bruce Springsteen my Bruce Springsteen tattoo. He said he didn’t like it

When this newspaper asked me to write a weekly personal column I said I’d do it, if I could refract it through the icons who shaped me, a different one each issue. The section of my 2022 memoir Busy Being Free that seemed to resonate most (for readers and me) was the year my marriage collapsed, 2016, in the time spanning the deaths of David Bowie, Prince and George Michael. How I feared that if we didn’t file for divorce in a timely fashion, the icons of our youth would keep dying before they were due. I decided this on a beach in California, where, before I returned to London, I was still living. Most people I know vacillate between believing their lives are meaningless and believing that their feelings affect the ocean tides. Iconography, both hypnotic and as suspect as chem trails, has intertwined with my life from the very start. When I was a tiny girl my babysitters included my parents’ friend June Roberts (who would go on to write the hit film Mermaids ) and her roommate Tim Curry, who had recently filmed the Rocky Horror Picture Show. To surprise my parents, they taught me how to smoke like Tatum O’Neal’s character Addie Pray in Paper Moon. My parents were surprised. Just as our teachers were surprised when my sister and I proclaimed ourselves “sweet transvestites from Transylvania”, time warping with a precision we never managed in ballet. “There was nothing wrong with us watching Rocky Horror at that age,” I decided when we were adults, “It’s no worse than a cartoon.” My sister went quiet a moment: “They slaughtered Meat Loaf.” To this day, my mother wishes she’d set stricter boundaries and I agree with her, but I dwell even more on how actors today aren’t brave enough to be like Curry and go so over the top it goes all the way around and becomes subtle again. When I moved to New York at the age of 21, celebrities were so present that one understood Warhol could not have thrived anywhere else, his “icon” portraits of Elvis and Liz Taylor the logical end point of his childhood in the Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Pop culture worship was absolutely key to Patti Smith’s development as an artist. She kept praying to Dylan even after she was an icon, too, and Dylan knew exactly who she was. Smith had intense love stories with downtown celebrities who became cultural icons (actor Sam Shepard and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe) and her devotion to them may be what pushed them to the next level, energetically and pragmatically, too. Actor and designer Chloë Sevigny has always made fan art, her veneration of everyone from Morrissey to Gena Rowlands, once in fanzines, is now on her Instagram. Among celebrities who are worshipped as particularly gifted or beautiful, it’s the ones who are themselves worshipful I find most interesting. In the next chapter of my American life, screenwriting took me to Los Angeles, where, in the city of cars, I integrated my experiences from London Transport. I was on a plane heading to a film festival when an apparently crazy man sat in the seat next to me. I sensed without looking up how important it was not to make eye contact with him as he sang “Troo loo loo” all the way to Cannes. I had internalised enough bus rides to know my eyes must not leave my magazine. But the man seemed so happy about his humming that I started to doubt myself, and when the plane landed and I could no longer look away, I saw it was Matthew McConaughey. And this experience infected me as Addie Pray had – a new layer, a new flavour – because my daughter, born of an Australian man and English woman, grew up to have on certain phrases a Texas drawl, from the two animated films McConaughey released in 2016. At a Golden Globes party, I showed Bruce Springsteen my Bruce Springsteen tattoo and he frowned and said he didn’t like it. I didn’t add that it was multipurpose: saying “Badlands”, it could also be used to entice a Terence Malick fan into my bed, which I had done. Also kept to myself that I went on a date with a man because he was namechecked in a Beastie Boys song. Since he was safe inside the song, I felt safe inside his car. I am a cult author, asked in the street maybe five times a year: “Are you Emma Forrest?” And I am Emma Forrest. But it’s a surname invented by my grandfather to combat anti-semitism, so there are other more legitimate Emma Forrests, some with their own internet fame, like the Scottish judo star or the woman, also Scottish, who consumes 3,000 calories of fizzy drinks a day. I know about them because my mum has a Google alert no matter how many times I ask her to terminate it, just as my father could never be dissuaded from cutting out and keeping the many clips of my writing that have been mocked in Private Eye Pseud’s Corner. The “shame” in “name and shame” is all mine. My life has had many curious chemtrails in the sky. I find reflections of my own best and worst qualities in myriad artists, actors, architects and comedians, to be discussed each week. “We all perform,” said the great photographer Richard Avedon, “It’s what we do for each other deliberately or unintentionally. It’s a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognised as what we’d like to be.” I do and don’t feel great shame about this. If you come back for my next article, I’ll tell you why. Emma Forrest is the author of Busy Being Free , Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99

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Glamping with Johnny Vegas at his east Midlands Field of Dreams

What started as a drunken 2am eBay bid for a dilapidated 1960s Maltese public bus has ended up with Johnny Vegas – and his longsuffering assistant Bev – filling a field in Derbyshire with an accidental army of once-forgotten, magnificently repurposed vehicles and creating what must be the UK’s quirkiest new glamping spot. The ceramicist-turned-comedian’s rollercoaster journey to becoming an unlikely camping trailblazer was captured in Channel 4’s Carry on Glamping series in 2021. After one season at a temporary base on a farm near Harrogate, Field of Dreams has now found a grander, more spacious permanent home – in the grounds of 17th-century Georgian stately home Melbourne Hall, in south Derbyshire. “This was never the plan,” says the infectiously enthusiastic Vegas. “The whole thing gained a momentum of its own.” The herculean task of relocating the renovated vintage vehicles – including the new jewel in the collection, a 1970 Puma helicopter which saw active service in Chile and Sierra Leone – is now complete, and the site opened for Easter. “It’s all about the aesthetics,” beams Vegas, as he shows us round. “I’m not a petrolhead. I don’t know anything about motors, but I just love the engineering and the rounded edges of the bodywork. And there’s such a history and romance to the vehicles, which I just adore.” The new Field of Dreams is actually two festooned glamping areas, the larger housing the Puma (complete with roof terrace and sleeping four), the four-berth Maltese bus Patricia (named after Johnny’s late mother), a restored 1960s Mercedes fire engine for two, and a 1960s French Citroën with detachable trailer and room for four guests. Recycled metallic sculptures, a communal fire pit and horse trailers turned into bathroom cubicles with hot showers complete the Repair Shop vibe. The second, adults-only, field where I’m staying with my girlfriend Wendy, is by a picturesque lake, and home to converted boat bolthole Mahala (sleeps four and has its own bathtub); Billy the Snail, a 1970s hybrid of a Morris Minor pickup; and a 1960s Fisher Holivan Junior caravan with accompanying bell tent. We’re staying in Dino, a 1964 Austin J2 Bluebird Highwayman, named after Dean Martin. From the outside it resembles an immaculate ice-cream van, but inside it is Tardis-like and packed with all mod cons including a double stove, a convection oven, a fridge, a heater – essential for our early spring visit – and an electric fan for if you’re staying when temperatures soar. There’s also a cocktail bar, a panoramic stained-glass skylight and two Johnny Vegas-designed glass panels separating the cabin from the living area. Bedding, blankets and cushions are provided, and the pull-out double bed is surprisingly comfy. The setting is beautiful. Melbourne Hall’s gardens – including one of the UK’s longest yew tunnels – are open in the afternoons from 1 April to 30 September (1pm-5pm), while the hall itself is open in August only (Tues-Sun, 2pm-4.15pm). There’s also a small farm – where we meet Brian the friendly snag-toothed pig – and it holds events from concerts to comedy over the summer. Beyond the hall there’s rolling countryside and pretty walks to nearby villages, including Breedon on the Hill, and the nature reserve at Calke Abbey . Within the grounds the recently renovated Brewhouse (originally a stable dating back to 1703) now serves an international collection of craft beers. We love the Kernel Pale Ale, accompanied by pinsa – super light Roman-style pizza. The 12th-century market town of Melbourne, once home to travel agent Thomas Cook, and the inspiration for the Australian city of the same name, is a stroll away and worth a wander, with plenty of restaurants and cafes. Sign up to The Guardian Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion Harpurs offers roof terrace views of the south Derbyshire countryside, while Fortey’s does cakes, pastries, chocolate and cookies (including the ones on our Dino tea tray). One afternoon we take a 25-minute taxi ride (about £20 from Field of Dreams) to an industrial estate on the northern outskirts of Derby to the newly opened Withers Gin School , where botanicals maestro Edward Gibson distills the essence of artisan gin manufacture into a well-oiled, entertainingly educational two and half hours. After two punchbowl-sized glasses of Withers’ topical Coronation Gin we make our own blend to take home – opting for an earthy, citrussy concoction of bitter orange, ground mace, orange zest, hibiscus, Szechuan pepper and caraway seeds. We call it Rotherhithe Ruin and it certainly makes up in punch what it lacks in finesse. Back at Field of Dreams the moon is shining, ducks are quacking and swans are dive-bombing the lake. We check the availability calendar in the hope of booking another visit, hopefully in one of the dog-friendly vehicles. Johnny, currently in semi-permanent residence in the Puma, has one eye on the second series of Carry on Glamping – being filmed and airing later this year – and the other on the 2024 glamping season. “If we hadn’t found Melbourne Hall, I honestly think I’d have kept Patricia in the Transport Museum, but we’re here for good now,” he says. “Who knows what the future holds. I’ve got nothing specific in mind but people have mentioned the idea of converting a Concorde. That would be utterly iconic and utterly bonkers … so watch this space.” The trip was provided by Field of Dreams (open now until the end of September). Prices for Dino starts from £82.50 per person per night. Several of the vehicles are dog-friendly. A 2.5 hour experience at Withers Gin School costs £115 for two people.

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University of York’s favourite mallard is a dead duck, fear staff

Long Boi, the grand old duck of York, is presumed dead after going missing for several weeks, leaving behind grieving students at his favourite university watering holes. The 70cm-tall drake was celebrated at the University of York for his unusual height and gregarious nature, delighting students with his appearances around campus for several years. The university – where alumni include the former Times editor John Witherow and the comedian Harry Enfield – described the duck as “a much-loved character” but said that after two months without a confirmed sighting it had been “forced to conclude” that Long Boi had passed away. “We appreciate this is not the resolution that many people were wishing for, but hope that acknowledging his passing allows us to focus on celebrating his life and commemorating the time he spent with us,” the university said. “During his time on campus, Long Boi brought joy to staff, students, alumni and visitors to York. Our beautiful campus and wonderful grounds team provided a rich life for him during the four years he lived with us.” Like many influencers, Long Boi first found fame on social media; his Instagram account, @longboiyork , has more than 60,000 followers. By 2021, he had been discussed on late-night US talkshows and was championed by the BBC Radio 1 presenter Greg James. James paid tribute to the mallard on Thursday’s Radio 1 breakfast show, announcing plans for a quack-a-long ceremony. “It’s not a minute’s silence because that’s not what Long Boi would have wanted,” James said. The duck inspired a range of merchandise, including Valentine’s Day cards reading “I long for you” and Long Boi fanclub T-shirts, alongside “University of Long Boi” stickers. But Long Boi was not the only animal with academic honours. At the University of East Anglia, a ginger cat named Sylvester regularly attends lectures and has its own T-shirts on sale through the students’ union.

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Teachers’ pay cut by £6,600 since 2010, says Institute for Fiscal Studies

Senior teachers in England have in effect had their pay cut by £6,600 since 2010, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that comes as strike action over pay is likely to close schools. The independent economics research institute calculated that long-serving and senior teachers – accounting for nearly a third of those working in England – would have earned the equivalent of £50,300 in 2010. But below-inflation wage increases over the past 12 years has meant their pay in 2022 was just £43,700. Experienced teachers have experienced similar real-terms cuts across the national pay scale, meaning that half of the teaching workforce has had the value of their annual earnings fall by thousands of pounds compared with what they would have earned in 2010, when the Conservative party came into government. Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow, said the erosion in pay for long-serving staff was one reason why teachers were leaving the profession. “With inflation running at 10%, most teachers will see a 5% real-terms fall in their salary this year,” Sibieta said. “Combined with past real-terms cuts dating back to 2010, more experienced teachers will have seen a 13% real-terms drop in salaries between 2010 and 2022. “Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that applications to teacher training have continued to disappoint and that schools report increasing problems recruiting and retaining staff.” In contrast, average earnings across the whole economy are thought to have increased by about 2% in real terms during the same period. The figures help explain why traditionally moderate teaching unions such as the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) are considering strike action. Geoff Barton, the ASCL general secretary, said dwindling pay was one of the main reasons for the government missing recruitment targets, and why it faced shortages in specialist subjects such as physics, which were forcing schools to rely on non-specialists to plug gaps in classrooms. “Nearly a third of teachers then leave the profession within five years of qualifying,” Barton said. “This desperate situation is a direct result of the way in which the government has eroded the pay and conditions of teachers and devalued the profession. “This report should serve as a much-needed wake-up call for the government to provide teachers with the meaningful and fully funded pay award they deserve.” Results of ballots on industrial action are expected this week from NASUWT and the National Association of Head Teachers, while the National Education Union (NEU) is expected to announce that its members voted to strike when it reveals the results of its ballot on Monday. Teaching unions in Scotland, including the NASUWT, are holding strikes , including two days of school closures this week. This week Gillian Keegan, the education secretary for England, held talks with the leaders of the four unions in an effort to avoid strikes. A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said the talks were “constructive” and that Keegan had “expressed the importance of working together to avoid strike action especially given the significant disruption due to the pandemic over recent years”, while offering to hold further talks. “These discussions build on previous meetings and correspondence, including where unions called for an extra £2bn uplift for schools [in England] next year and the year after, which the government delivered in the autumn statement,” the DfE said. Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said: “We don’t want to go on strike, but we may have to. We want the government to make a correction on teacher pay, to protect the profession and to protect the education of the young people in our schools.”

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‘Part of me wanted to cry’: Mo Farah finishes ninth in last London marathon

There was no glorious farewell for Mo Farah in the city where he burnt himself into the national consciousness as he struggled home in ninth place in his final London marathon . But the 40-year-old, who confirmed afterwards that he will retire in September , was grateful that he made it to the finish – due, in part, to the huge crowds that swelled the route from Greenwich to the Mall. Farah, one of the eternal faces of London’s 2012 Olympic Games, even found himself beaten by two British athletes: the 25-year-old Emile Cairess, who showed immense promise to finish sixth in his debut marathon, and Phil Sesemann, who combines running with his day job as a junior doctor for the NHS, yet still came eighth. Intriguingly Cairess and Sesemann often train together in Leeds, although they no longer go on slower runs together after Cairness tripped over Sesemann’s dogs, Haile and Kipchoge, named after two legendary athletes. Afterwards Farah, whose time of 2hr 10min 28sec was the slowest of his career, could not hide his disappointment. However, he admitted it could have been worse without the continuous cries of “Go on Mo!” and the ringing of cowbells spurring him on. “If it wasn’t for the crowd, at some point I would have dropped out,” he admitted. “That’s what kept me going. It was amazing support. Part of me wanted to cry. But the people were amazing, even in the rain, to line the streets. It’s what has kept me going for so long throughout my career. “I will miss that feeling. I am emotional today. London has been so great to me over the years and I wanted to be here to say thank you to the crowd.” Farah had started brightly but after 14 miles his legs became heavy and he laboured as Cairess overtook him. The changing of the guard normally happens at Buckingham Palace, here it was taking place just after Tower Bridge. “In terms of my preparation for this race, I felt great,” he said. “I was confident and I thought I could do between 2.05 and 2.07. But the body didn’t respond today and it was a little bit disappointing. That’s when you know when it’s time to call it a day.” In 2012, Cairess had finished 24th in the Mini London Marathon – a three-mile junior race the day before the main event – as Farah won double gold at the Olympics in the same city. But his time of 2:08:07 means he now has the qualifying standard for the Paris Olympics – while Farah confirmed that he would retire after September’s Great North Run. Cairess later attributed his talent as coming from his mother, Alison, who he started running with aged four or five. “I came through cross country, fell running in Yorkshire,” he said. “Proper running.” Asked what it was like to beat one of the greatest British athletes in history, Cairess replied: “I did beat Mo Farah but it’s not the Mo Farah who won the Olympics.” Hugh Brasher, the London marathon event director, later admitted organisers were delighted that the day passed without any incident after fears that Just Stop Oil or protestors at the Extinction Rebellion event in Parliament Square could try to disrupt the race. “After all that was spoken before about Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, I was in Parliament Square earlier and it was a party,” he said. “People were celebrating together. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action after newsletter promotion “Global warning and what we are doing to the planet has to be discussed, but we can work together on it, and Extinction Rebellion has proved it has moved on to another phase. The conversations we’ve had with them to ensure that this could happen have been amazing.” Brasher also confirmed that organisers were expecting a record 48,200 finishers and to raise over £60m for charity before hailing a remarkable day of action in the men’s and women’s elite fields. “You couldn’t have written those races, they would have said you were making it up,” he added.

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A university education doesn’t have to lead to a lifetime of debt. There is another way

Fifty years ago, the average 24-year-old would have been married, living with their partner, and probably already a parent . Census data out last week shows that today they’re probably still living with their parents. Welcome to the modern phenomenon dubbed “stretched adolescence”. It’s a term that hints at baby boomers unable to quite get their twentysomethings to leave the parental home. But this is to confer a ludicrous degree of agency on the zoomer generation . They are not choosing a Peter Pan lifestyle: the straitjacket is imposed on them by harsh economic realities. Who really wants to live with their parents into their late 20s, struggling to save a deposit to rent, let alone buy? Yet those with a childhood bedroom they can continue to live in for no, or subsidised, rent while working in a job with prospects are the lucky ones. How many of these under-25s are trapped living in a place where the only work available is low paid, with few opportunities for development and progression? Intergenerational inequalities are so often framed as a grim economic equation. If the price of a supermarket chicken had risen at the same rate as house prices since the 1960s, it would today cost more than £50: rising house prices have delivered a huge windfall to owners at the expense of renters, who pay some of the highest rents in Europe. The average graduate leaves with tens of thousands of pounds of debt that they will end up paying back for most, if not all, of their working lives; changes introduced last autumn mean that average-earning graduates will end up paying significantly more, while the highest earners will pay less . Factor in the increasing taxes they will have to pay to meet the costs of an ageing population, and how on earth are zoomers supposed to contribute to the pensions that will in any case pay out at much stingier rates than what retired boomers enjoy today? These headlines don’t begin to capture the extent of what we are asking more young people to give up. Those years of mad social experimentation in your first home in your early 20s; the security of knowing you don’t have to move your kids every couple of years when your tenancy comes up; the guarantee of somewhere you can afford to live in retirement; not having to combine the impossible task of full-time working and caring if your parent gets dementia. All things that are being pulled away from this generation, save for the most comfortable slice at the top, who will be able to rely on family wealth. The cushioning effects of this wealth will multiply over time, so who your parents are will matter more, not less, to where you end up in life. Chin-stroking about the right level for tuition fees or a bit of extra help for first-time buyers in their late 30s that pushes up prices even further for everyone else; the solutions proffered by politicians, even the Labour party, are but tinkering. The world has changed dramatically; so too must the offer for young people. There are a couple of ideas from the past that with updating could help address the crisis. The housing market needs fundamental fixes to bring prices down: a painful readjustment that will take years. But there is a way of making an almost immediate difference to young people. In the 1970s, flats were cheaper, but access to mortgages was relatively restricted; women even needed a male guarantor . In order to open up jobs in the capital to a wider pool of young people from across the country, big employers like the civil service, the post office and the BBC funded hostels for single people in their early 20s. Why can’t the government embark on a modern version of this, building and converting properties in jobs-rich and high-cost areas into student halls-type accommodation? They could be made available at an affordable capped rent, with some places reserved for young people from areas of the country where the labour market opportunities are limited, and could even include light-touch pastoral support. This could dramatically extend economic opportunities for some young people, and make a transition to adulthood in supported and subsidised communal living possible for those young people who don’t go away to university and are left to muddle through themselves. The model of undergraduate education is broken: a system whose justified expansion has happened at the expense of young people incurring huge debts, sometimes only to get jobs you wouldn’t have needed a degree for a few decades ago. The data doesn’t exist to find out if the skills developed while studying for a degree – as opposed to the degree certificate you need to get in the door with many employers – are worth these sums. In contrast, degree apprenticeships allow young people to earn and learn simultaneously, getting a degree in three years without incurring any debt while building skills in real workplaces. But there are just 30,000 degree apprenticeships available every year – most of which are taken up by over-25s rather than school leavers – compared with more than half a million places on traditional undergraduate courses . If you were going to redesign post-18 education so it worked for young people – not universities – you would vastly increase the number of degree apprenticeships and get more universities to work with employers to offer them. That might result in fewer English and history degrees, and more vocational degrees in areas from law to nursing to tech development; but does that matter? I bet that if more quality degree apprenticeships were available – with a similar accommodation offer to traditional degrees – young people would vote with their feet. We have a history of great postwar government innovation in the UK: the creation of the NHS; the postwar expansion of council housing; the “University of the Air” dream that became the distance-learning model of the Open University. Subsidised homes for rent for young people and a huge expansion of degree apprenticeships are not beyond the wits of the state. But while politicians play in the weeds, things can only get worse. It is hard to exaggerate the life-limiting consequences this lack of political action will have for a generation for whom things are going to be tougher than for their parents. Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist

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Charities call for scrapping of VAT on sunscreen amid skin cancer fears

The high cost of sunscreen is resulting in more skin cancer cases, according to charities who are calling on the UK government to scrap VAT on protective creams. Melanoma skin cancer is on the rise and 4,000 cases annually are linked to poverty, according to the Melanoma Focus charity, which argues that a VAT cut would reduce the number of deaths. Susanna Daniels, the chief executive of Melanoma Focus, said: “The government could help make skin protection more accessible to all, regardless of income level, by removing VAT from high-factor sunscreens. This would be a cost-effective way to cut the overall incidence of skin cancer and could help save lives.” The move would bring the UK closer to Australia, where sunscreen is subsidised. Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the UK and the deadliest form of skin cancer – yet 86% of melanomas are preventable. Melanoma Focus surveyed 2,003 adults, and found that half thought sunscreen was too expensive, while 10% said they did not use it because of the cost and two-thirds (67%) said they would use more if it were 20% cheaper. The survey also said most people (58%) did not know the signs of melanoma skin cancer, which include a mole that has changed shape, or colour, or looks and feels unusual, as well as skin with a sore that does not heal within four weeks, or has visible lumps, or hurts, itches, bleeds or scabs. There are about 2,300 melanoma skin cancer deaths in the UK every year, which the number projected to rise. Cancer Research UK has forecast there could be about 26,500 new cases of melanoma skin cancer every year in the UK by 2038, up from 16,700. One in 36 men and one in 47 women in the UK will be diagnosed in their lifetime. Michelle Richardson, 49, from Hampshire, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2018 after spotting an itchy mole on her back, which was then removed. She had 18 months of clear scans, then felt a lump on her pelvis. “By the next day I had seven lumps and within a week I was no longer able to eat or walk and breathing was very difficult. A scan found the melanoma had spread throughout my body including in my spine, lungs, spleen and brain. I had stage 4 incurable melanoma and my life as I knew it changed forever,” she said. “I was utterly terrified and felt so guilty about the thought of leaving my 10-year-old daughter without a mum. I had immunotherapy treatment for two years and I’m currently in remission and hope it stays that way for as long as possible.” Amy Callaghan, the MP for East Dunbartonshire and former member of the health and social care committee, backed the call to remove VAT from sunscreen. “When 52% of people in my constituency can’t afford to turn on the heating, it’s unlikely they’ll take on extra expenses like sunscreen,” she said. Cancer Research UK’s senior health information manager, Dr Claire Knight, added that the cheapest way to protect yourself was to stay in the shade and cover up. She said: “It’s worth remembering that you don’t need to spend a lot on a sunscreen to get good protection – what matters is an SPF of at least 15, and a star rating of 4 or 5.” Dr Louise Soanes, the chief nurse at the Teenage Cancer Trust, said few people realised that getting painful sunburn just once every two years could triple the risk of skin cancer, and that melanoma was the most common skin cancer in young people in the UK, with the number of cases rising. An HM Treasury spokesperson said: “We recognise the impact that rising prices are having at home which is why we are providing significant support worth on average £3,300 per household. This includes holding down energy bills, uplifting benefits and delivering direct cash payments. “High-factor sunscreen is on the NHS prescription list for certain conditions and is already provided VAT-free when dispensed by a pharmacist to these patients.”

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Team GB lose 4x100m Olympic silver after Ujah doping confirmed

Britain’s men’s 4x100m relay team has been stripped of its 2020 Olympic silver medal after CJ Ujah’s failed doping test at the Tokyo Games was confirmed. The news marks the biggest doping scandal in British Olympic history, and only the third time a Team GB athlete has lost a medal at summer or winter Games. In 1988 Kerrith Brown lost his bronze medal in judo at the Seoul Games after testing positive for a banned substance. The skier Alain Baxter lost his alpine slalom bronze medal in 2002 after using a Vicks inhaler purchased in the US. It later transpired that the same inhaler bought in the UK did not contain the illegal substance. The news was confirmed following a hearing at the court of arbitration for sport in November but only revealed on Friday. It found that the 27-year-old sprinter did have two banned substances in a urine sample, ostarine and S-23, which are known as selective androgen receptor modulators that mimic testosterone in the body. Ujah had blamed his failed test on a contaminated supplement. However under the strict liability rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency that is no defence. In a statement Ujah said: “I accept the decision issued by the court of arbitration for sport today with sadness. I would like to make it clear that I unknowingly consumed a contaminated supplement and this was the reason why an anti-doping rule violation occurred at the Tokyo Olympic Games . “I sincerely regret that this has inadvertently led to the forfeiture of the men’s 4x100m relay team’s Olympic silver medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games. I would like to apologise to my teammates, their families and support teams for the impact which this has had on them. That is something I will regret for the rest of my life.” The British men’s quartet of Ujah, Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake missed out on the 4x100m title by just a hundredth of a second in Tokyo, as the anchor-leg runner Mitchell-Blake was overhauled on the line by Italy’s Filippo Tortu. However, days later it was revealed that Ujah had tested positive for ostarine, which is used to treat muscle wasting and osteoporosis, and S‑23, which targets the muscle and bone tissues to promote muscle growth and bone health. The length of Ujah’s ban will now be determined in a future hearing by the Athletics Integrity Unit but it could be as long as four years. A spokesperson for UK Athletics said it was in regular communication with the athletes concerned, but added that it would not be making public comment on the case until after the World Athletics/AIU process which will follow on from this Cas outcome. The news means that Canada are upgraded to silver behind the gold medallists, Italy, while China now take bronze. Britain’s medal tally from the Tokyo 2020 Games is reduced to 64. In a strongly worded statement the British Olympic Association issued an apology to all Ujah’s opponents after he was found to have doped. “We have always been unequivocal and consistent in our stance against doping. All athletes, wherever they are from, deserve to go to the start line knowing they are in clean competition,” it said. “It is with deep sorrow that colleagues and opponents of Ujah were not able to be reassured of this fact in Tokyo. Having spent the last few years retrospectively awarding numerous British athletes with medals they should have won on the day at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Sochi 2014, we understand first-hand the hurt and loss doping can cause. On behalf of everyone in British sport we unreservedly apologise to the athletes whose moment was lost in Tokyo due to the actions of Ujah. “We are also disappointed for the three colleagues of Ujah who, through no fault of their own, will now lose their silver medals.”

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Champions Cup final: Leinster braced for era-defining La Rochelle battle

To be a Leinster player or supporter this weekend is to be standing at an era-defining junction. One way lies the sweetest of dreams: a record-equalling fifth gold star on the blue jersey and Champions Cup immortality. The other leads straight to their worst nightmare: another painful knockout defeat at the hands of their all-too-familiar bogeyman. Up until last week’s shock home loss to Munster in the semi-final of the United Rugby Championship, the former felt slightly more likely. Suddenly, though, they have played straight into the hands of their old friend Ronan O’Gara, the head coach of La Rochelle . If ever “Rog” needed a handy pre-match omen, it is his old province winning on the same stretch of grass last Saturday. Never mind the slightly weakened side that Leinster fielded with half an eye on the looming French challenge. Give O’Gara an inch mentally and he will take a country mile. Having already steered La Rochelle to victory in last year’s final against the same opponents in Marseille, the former Ireland out-half – “it’s a home game for me too” – can exploit a psychological edge like few others. Because O’Gara knows precisely how much Leinster will hate seeing another trophy slip away. Last season they went down to La Rochelle by three points and the Bulls by a point in the URC semi-final. Now, courtesy of Munster, they have just lost another huge game by a point. Is it a trend? If it is still close entering the final quarter – and there is every reason to imagine it will be – there is no doubt which team will start to feel the most creeping pressure. In such circumstances, O’Gara will be telling his players, La Rochelle have already shown their mettle. Last year he urged them to be brave in thought and deed if they wanted to secure the club’s first Champions Cup. They duly went out and outscored Leinster three tries to nil, the last of them in the 79th minute from replacement scrum-half Arthur Retière, to secure a thrilling 24-21 victory. “We knew we’re a second-half team,” said O’Gara afterwards. “We knew that the last 20 minutes was where we could get them.” It was La Rochelle who also steamrollered Leinster 32-23 in the 2021 semi-final . A coincidence? Hardly. O’Gara knows Leinster every bit as well as they know themselves. He understands how they like to play quick and slick, particularly off first phase, as they were allowed to do in the quarter-finals when they blasted Leicester clean off the park . He knows they have the ability to strike from deep, particularly with James Lowe back to give them a little X-factor out wide. He knows they also like to apply scoreboard pressure and make their opponents sweat that way. Which is why La Rochelle will be focused on denying their opponents any such luxuries. As Exeter found out in their semi-final in Bordeaux , the defending champions’ power game is far from their only strength. Probing other people’s weaknesses is another speciality. “Just because an opponent knows what’s coming doesn’t necessarily mean they can stop it,” O’Gara suggested, slightly provocatively, this time last year. And sure enough, when the moment of truth arrived, Leinster found it harder to bring their own obvious talents to bear. It could be argued, too, that La Rochelle are more formidable now than a year ago. For a start they have a fit Tawera Kerr-Barlow, who has scored five tries in seven games during this European campaign, back to do hyphenated battle with his old Kiwi mate Jamison Gibson-Park. Kerr-Barlow is potentially eligible for Australia at this World Cup despite having previously won 29 All Black caps. If another Wallaby, the giant Will Skelton, is lacking in any area, it is a brave man who cranes his neck skywards to tell him so to his face. No one could possibly claim, either, that Uini Atonio lacks set-piece ballast. Leinster like to blitz teams but few have the artillery at O’Gara’s disposal. All of which adds up to a potentially gripping encounter. Leinster are without the masterful Johnny Sexton and, despite Ross Byrne’s continuing improvement, that removes some of their swagger. Their back-row kings, Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris, usually rule the roost but they do not have to deal with Levani Botia and Grégory Alldritt every week. France may have lost in Dublin this season , as did Toulouse in the semi-final, but the men from the Atlantic coast will take the field with genuine belief. The outcome will be keenly monitored from afar. In England they will be wondering how on earth, in the short term, they can compete with the vast renewable energy generated by the best modern Irish and French sides. In the southern hemisphere they will be looking for clues – maybe weariness, perhaps a degree of predictability – that might offer distant hope ahead of this autumn’s onrushing Rugby World Cup. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion Nowhere, though, will it feel more real than in the quadrant of Ireland that has come to recognise itself as all-conquering. Leo Cullen, ably abetted by the soon-to-depart Stuart Lancaster, has done wonders in terms of maximising the rich playing resources at their disposal. Under their joint stewardship good players have become better ones and their level of consistency is universally admired. But the ledger also shows Leinster have won the ultimate prize just once in the past 10 seasons – and that edgy, low-scoring affair against Racing 92 in Bilbao five years ago. Since then, on their two subsequent final appearances, they have been steamrollered by Saracens (and Skelton) in Newcastle and heartbroken in the Stade Vélodrome this time last year. To stumble again, with a record-equalling fifth crown still tantalisingly out of reach, would be tough to bear and trigger some serious soul searching. The question, then, is whether their sheer desire not to be caught short again – allied to the support of the resident blue army at this most familiar of venues – will be enough. Or are we about to see another chapter written in O’Gara’s remarkable top-level career, both as a player and a coach? Clearly there is a bigger picture involved here, not least two squads brimming with quality at a time in the game’s history when everyone could really do with witnessing an irresistibly compelling advert for the sport. The biggest battle from Leinster’s perspective, though, has become a mental one. And in that kind of head-to-head duel, it rarely pays to underestimate their old Munster-reared adversary.

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Toto Wolff tells Formula One to act to prevent repeat of ‘boring’ Azerbaijan GP

Toto Wolff has called on Formula One to act to prevent a recurrence of an uneventful Azerbaijan Grand Prix which he accurately summed up as “boring”. Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, highlighted the difficulty of overtaking in Baku that made for a race that was largely a procession from start to finish. Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez won from teammate Max Verstappen at the grand prix in a dominant one-two where such was their pace advantage they finished over 21 seconds up the road from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was third. Behind them a combination of caution over tyre wear to ensure completing a one-stop strategy, and the recurring difficulty of passing due to dirty air, ensured the race was very much a barely interrupted train. Lewis Hamilton finished sixth for Mercedes while his teammate George Russell was eighth and Hamilton had observed how hard attempting to pass had been as he chased Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. Wolff acknowledged that it was not a good promotion for the sport. “There was no overtaking, even with a big pace difference,” he said. “It made it not great entertainment. We have to analyse the weekend with the sprint format, whether there’s positives we can take out.” The meeting was the first of F1’s new sprint format weekend, with the sprint race itself a similarly lacklustre affair but for Russell’s early skirmish with Verstappen. A fight that only served to highlight how bland Sunday’s GP had been. “At the end it all comes down to racing,” said Wolff. “It needs the tough battles and I think the highlight you could see on Saturday was George and Max being able to battle it out and on Sunday there was none of that. Even if you were within 0.2 seconds it was very difficult to overtake, nearly impossible to overtake unless the other driver makes a mistake. We need to really look at it, we need to look at how we can avoid just a boring race.” F1 introduced new regulations in 2022 in an effort to improve passing while racing by reducing the dirty air coming off the back of the cars. It was to an extent successful but has not delivered the great improvement in overtaking that was hoped for and this year, drivers report that the situation has only become worse. In the wake of Red Bull’s dominance, the chasing teams of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes were left powerless in a procession, a situation Wolff said was not engaging for fans. “It’s about understanding why it was not entertaining ,” he added. “We have two cars that are sailing off into the sunset on merit and then we have a 20-second gap. I wouldn’t know today between Aston Martin and Ferrari and us who is quicker because you’re stuck where you’re stuck and that’s pretty much it. We need to find more data sets in the next races to see how this is going and then we need to adjust.” The next meeting is this week in Miami. With Red Bull having won all four rounds and the sprint race thus far, Verstappen leads the world championship from Pérez by six points with 19 rounds remaining.

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