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27TH MAY 2017 | ISSUE 1126 | £3.30 EWTHE BEST OF THE BRITISHEEK AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Manchester’s agony Page 2

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS www.theweek.co.uk 2 NEWS The main stories… The deadly assault on Manchester

The UK terror threat was raised to its “a nostalgia for an earlier kind of highest level of “critical” this week after terrorist”, said George Kassimeris in The a suicide bomber killed at least 22 people, Independent. In the old days, groups such and injured more than 60 others, in as the Red Army Faction and Italian Red Manchester. The bomber – identified as Brigades issued communiqués explaining Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old born in the their political agendas. Their targets were city to Libyan refugees – detonated his “specific and comprehensible”, and their device on Monday night in the foyer of the attacks were primarily acts of theatre. Manchester Arena, one of Europe’s largest What they wanted, in the oft-cited words indoor venues, as thousands of young fans of the terrorism expert Brian Jenkins, was were streaming out of a concert by the “a lot of people watching and a lot of American pop star Ariana Grande. The people listening and not a lot of people blast sent a devastating wave of shrapnel dead”. Now, as we saw in Manchester, through the crowd, unleashing a panicked “things are very different”: terrorists are stampede. Among the dead were an eight- setting out to kill as many people as year-old girl, an off-duty policewoman and possible, driven by a religious fanaticism a Polish couple who had arrived to collect that recognises no boundaries. their two daughters. Indeed, that young people, even children, There were reports of parents turning up A vigil outside Manchester’s town hall were killed was almost certainly part of the to search for their children and staying to plan, said Haras Rafiq in The Daily comfort wounded strangers, and of numerous other acts of Telegraph. In Istanbul, Paris and Orlando, terrorists have hit kindness by members of the public: a homeless man ran to the nightclubs and other entertainment venues that, in the warped scene and held an injured woman in his arms as she died; local view of jihadists, represent Western decadence. The fact that taxi drivers gave free rides to concertgoers trying to get away; Monday’s attack came just before the start of the Islamic holy residents opened their homes; month of Ramadan was also and scores of people queued to no coincidence. Isis and its kin give blood. The next day, “Our best defence is maintaining the absolute, have often encouraged thousands gathered for a vigil impassive insistence that this violence will followers to ramp up their in Manchester’s Albert Square. attacks during this time. It opened with tributes to the never move us, will never change us” “Likewise, the jihadists’ fetish emergency services – which for anniversaries should not go prompted thunderous applause. Earlier, hundreds of people unnoticed, this moment of barbarity arriving four years to the had donated a total of £11,000 to put behind the bar of a pub day after Drummer Lee Rigby’s murder at the hands of near Manchester’s Royal Infirmary, to buy food and drinks terrorists.” We all need to step up our response to this threat. for all the medics working around the clock to help the British Muslims need to do more to root out “the malaise that wounded, some of whom lost limbs in the blast. is seeping through our community”. The next government, meanwhile, should seek to emulate the best counterterrorism Every terrorist killing is an atrocity, said Sophie Gilbert in strategies from abroad. It could learn a lot from the Dutch The Atlantic. But there is something “uniquely cowardly and prison system, from Canadian models of integration and from especially cruel” about attacking a venue filled with Scandinavian deradicalisation programmes. youngsters, many of whom would have been attending their first ever pop concert. To randomly kill these innocents, who We can pull out all the stops to forestall future attacks, said only moments before had been Daniel Finkelstein in The giddily united in music and fun, A nation on high alert Times, but these measures can and were looking for their Monday’s attack was the deadliest terrorist incident in only achieve so much. Our best parents to take them home, is the UK since July 2005, when 52 people were killed in defence, in the end, is “outrage piled upon outrage”, “maintaining the absolute, coordinated attacks on the London transport network. said Howard Jacobson in The impassive insistence that this New York Times. Manchester, Abedi – formerly a student at the University of Salford violence will never move us, my home town, has suffered a – was known to the security services, and had recently will never change us, will never terrorist attack before. In 1996, returned from Libya, where Islamic State have be a way to get us to listen or the IRA set off a truck bomb in training camps, but he was not part of an active pay attention or respond”. the city centre. It caused huge investigation or regarded as a high risk. The security History shows that terrorist structural damage, but because services are now trying to establish whether he was violence, whether by Eta, the the terrorists gave advance a member of a network that may be plotting another Red Brigade or the IRA, tends warning of the blast by phone, imminent attack. Given the sophistication of the to “fizzle out” when it becomes nobody died. This bomb was device, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it was clear to the perpetrators that “another order of catastrophe”. likely that Abedi wasn’t working alone, and four it is getting them nowhere. Consolation, such as there is, people, including his brother, have been arrested Are Islamist terrorists “funda- lies not in the “speeches of since Monday. mentally different”, because of municipal defiance”, but in the This week all parties suspended their election their twisted religious ideas? many stories of courage, campaigns for three days, and the PM activated “I don’t believe they are.” We assistance and solidarity. “All Operation Temperer, a response plan devised in 2015 must remain united, not just is sorrow, but we still have to put thousands of troops on the streets. They will in mourning, but in our kindness and pity.” help guard key sites and major events, such as this determination that violence weekend’s FA Cup final. The Palace of Westminster won’t achieve anything. Modern terrorism has reached was closed to the public indefinitely. “Resistance and defiance until such barbaric levels it induces they stop is all that we have.”

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 …and how they were covered NEWS 3 What the commentators said For years, Theresa May has been characterised May wobbles as “risk averse”, said Matthew d’Ancona in The Guardian. One glance at the Tory What happened manifesto proves that the reverse is true: Just four days after the Tories launched their the document amounts to nothing less than election manifesto last week, Theresa May “the most adventurous restatement of executed a spectacular U-turn and ditched a conservatism” since Thatcher overturned the key commitment on the funding of social care. postwar consensus. The manifesto’s pledges Reacting to polls which suggested mounting to close “the gender pay gap”, “the mental disquiet over what Labour dubbed a “dementia health gap” and “the disability gap” are all tax”, the Prime Minister watered down the testament to that. What’s particularly striking manifesto’s insistence that pensioners would is the Tories’ “brazen larceny” in poaching have to meet their entire care costs until left their enemies’ most popular ideas, said with £100,000 in assets. This week, she Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Not long promised to set a cap on the amount the elderly ago, the Tories were the sworn enemies of might be forced to pay towards their care bills May: “mired in chaos”? state intervention, ridiculing the very idea of (see page 4). Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn curbs on executive pay, restrictions on mocked her government for being “mired in chaos”, but May foreign takeovers and an industrial strategy. “By a process insisted that “nothing had changed” in principle. of miraculous alchemy”, they’re now Mayite policies for the mainstream. Other commitments reverse former Tory policies: the manifesto promises to means-test the winter fuel allowance What a shame then, to find that May is so quick to give way and to replace the “triple lock”, which protects the value of in the face of opposition, said Janan Ganesh in the FT. Her state pensions, with a “double lock”. The 88-page document “brave, contentious idea” of making pensioners pay more also states that the Tories would replace free school lunches for their own care was swiftly dumped when it was found to with free breakfasts, cut net immigration to below 100,000 a clash with the “Conservative cult of inheritance”. Just think year, and give their MPs a free vote on hunting. But its most what impression that will have given the EU’s Brexit remarkable feature is its rhetorical tilt to the left. Its foreword negotiators. The lesson they will draw is that May is “strong openly declares opposition to “untrammelled free markets” and stable until you test her”. Actually, there are plenty of and “the cult of selfish individualism”; it deplores “social Tories who would happily see May junk a lot more of the division” and “inequality”, and rejects “dogma and ideology”. manifesto, said Andrew Roberts in The Mail on Sunday. The sections on gender pay gaps and more business regulation What the editorials said “could have been written by Alastair Campbell” for Labour’s 1997 manifesto. And little could be more “un-Tory” than the May’s climbdown is an “unprecedented” embarrassment for proposed “audit of racial disparity”, or the pledge to remain the Tories, said The Guardian: never before has a party a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. scrapped a manifesto pledge ahead of polling day. The fact Even such wet Tory PMs as Heath or Macmillan would have that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had previously denounced been left “aghast” by May’s un-Conservative plans. the idea of a cap on care bills as unfair to taxpayers makes matters worse. The Tories’ electoral pitch of “strong and What next? stable” government has suffered a fatal blow. This isn’t the first time that May has backtracked under pressure, said The The Prime Minister last week refused to specify the level at Daily Telegraph. Two months ago, she abruptly dumped plans which any future cap on pensioners’ contributions to their for a rise in National Insurance for the self-employed. Both care costs would be set: the issue would be tackled, she said, that policy and the social care policy were agreed “in great in a Green Paper after the election. However, the eventual secrecy”. To avoid future blunders, Downing Street should figure is thought likely to be considerably higher than the “let a little more light into its decision-making processes”. £72,000 cap pledged in the party’s 2015 manifesto.

It was a blunder not to have ensured that the social care policy The new manifesto also departs from the previous govern- was “fully fleshed out” before it was unveiled, said the Daily ment’s commitment to make deficit reduction a core priority: Express. But May at least deserves credit for listening to her it pledges to balance the budget only by 2025. It also commits critics. Better to have a prime minister “who is willing to go the Tories to an £8bn increase in government spending on the back to the drawing board than one who sticks to a policy health service over the next five years, and a rise in the even when it is obvious that improvements could be made”. national living wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020.

Editor-in-chief: Jeremy O’Grady After the horror comes the recrimination. And after the shock at the Editor: Caroline Law Deputy editors: Harry Nicolle, Theo Tait THE WEEK carnage in Manchester has subsided, many will point the finger at Consultant editor: Jemima Lewis Assistant editor: Daniel Cohen City editor: Jane Lewis religion – in this case, Islam. Only those indoctrinated into despising Contributing editors: Charity Crewe, Thomas Hodgkinson, Simon Wilson, Rob McLuhan, William Underhill, Digby unbelievers for their sinfulness could perpetrate such evil on innocent concertgoers, they’ll say. But Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood Editorial staff: Asya Likhtman, Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, William Skidelsky Picture you need only look at the first great terrorist wave of modern times – between 1881 to 1901 – to see editor: Xandie Nutting Art director: Nathalie Fowler Chief it isn’t so. The Anarchists detested religion. Yet their vision of a shining future free from government sub editor: Kari Wilkin Production editor: Alanna O’Connell and the hated bourgeoisie, and their resort to violence as proof of their commitment to what they Founder and editorial director: Jolyon Connell Production Managers: Ebony Besagni Senior Production called The Idea, was as fanatical as any jihadi’s dream of the afterlife. In 1893, in Barcelona’s Teatro Executive: Sophie Valentine Newstrade Director: David Barker Direct Marketing Director: Abi Spooner Liceo at the opening night of Rossini’s William Tell, an Anarchist threw a bomb from the balcony into Inserts: Abdul Ahad Classified: Emma Greenwood, Henry Haselock, Henry Pickford Account Directors: Scott Hayter, the audience, killing 15 instantly. As in Manchester, the concertgoers were viewed as the enemy. John Hipkiss, Victoria Ryan, Jocelyn Sital-Singh UK Ad Director: Caroline Fenner The idea that no ‘Idea’ is so elevated that it justifies killing those who don’t share it is what Executive Director – Head of Advertising: David Weeks underpins democracy. And perhaps we will never be rid of small minorities of one sort or another, Chief Executive, The Week: Kerin O’Connor Group CFO/COO: Brett Reynolds whose sense of injustice and exclusion is so deep they refuse to buy this. Our best hope lies with Chief executive: James Tye people like Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son was killed by an IRA bomb. In a moving piece in the Dennis Publishing founder: Felix Dennis

London Evening Standard, Parry relates how he went on to set up a foundation which sends skilled THE WEEK Ltd, a subsidiary of Dennis Publishing Ltd, teams into divided communities across Britain to address the causes of the conflict within them. His 30 Cleveland St, London W1T 4JD. Tel: 020-7907 6000. Editorial: The Week Ltd, 2nd Floor, 32 Queensway, London victory over terrorism has been a deeply painful one. But it is a victory. Jeremy O’Grady W2 3RX. Tel: 020-7907 6180. email: [email protected]

Subscriptions: 0844-844 0086; overseas +44(0)1795-592921; [email protected] The Week is licensed to The Week Limited by Dennis Publishing Limited. The Week is a registered trade mark of Felix Dennis. 27 May 2017 THE WEEK 4 NEWS Politics

Controversy of the week Lib Dem manifesto The “dementia tax” The Liberal Democrats promised to give the British How did they miss the signs warning: “Danger – quicksand”, public a final say on the asked David Brindle in The Guardian. Social care is a eventual terms of Brexit in notoriously difficult subject, treated by successive governments their manifesto, published with a “curious mixture of incomprehension and disdain”. last week. If elected, the When Theresa May’s team was drafting the Tory manifesto, party would ensure that any Brexit deal preserved free it must have seemed like a good idea to guarantee that movement, and kept Britain pensioners in England would stop paying for their own care in the single market. The once their savings and assets are down to £100,000 (at present, referendum on the terms only £23,250 is protected). If that meant a minority would would include the option of have to take a fi nancial hit, it “could be spun as a tough but the UK remaining in the EU. stateswomanlike choice”. But within 100 hours of last week’s The party has made no manifesto launch, “the policy lay in shreds”. Critics had “It’s about your social care. secret of its desire to appeal dubbed it the “dementia tax”, and May performed a sharp I’m a little concerned about the to the 48% of voters who results we’ve had back from U-turn, bringing back the idea of a spending cap on care costs opposed Brexit – although your estate agent” polls have suggested that – one her ministers had explicitly rejected only hours earlier. only 22% now think Britain should stay in the EU. “This The manifesto proposal sounded generous, said Nick Triggle on BBC News online. But “large is the only manifesto that is numbers” would have lost out. At present, anyone who is in a care home and has assets of £23,250 based on the premise that or more is expected to pay the full cost of their care. But if you receive care in your own home, only we can remain in the EU,” your savings and income, rather than property, is taken into account. The manifesto changes that: said a spokesman. “That the value of your home would be taken into account, no matter where you receive your care. Nearly is why the referendum on three times as many people get help from their local council in the community as in a care home. the deal and the option to Three-quarters of people over the age of 65 are homeowners, and the average value of a property in remain is at the heart of this document.” England is £233,000. “You don’t need to be a maths genius” to see that, as a result, many would be The Lib Dems would hit with substantial care costs. I don’t see what’s wrong with that, said Libby Purves in The Times. legalise cannabis, to raise an The “bald and boring fact” is that care costs a lot of money. This is “more justly funded by the estimated £1bn in tax accumulated wealth of elderly individuals than by the tax bills of younger families”. Under May’s revenues from a new plan, care bills would be deducted from people’s estates after death. The “affluent middle” call this regulated drugs market. “a tax on inheritance”. So what? Why should other people’s taxes subsidise your inheritance? They’d raise income tax by one penny in the pound, The thing is, “the manner of death is not in anyone’s hands”, said Will Hutton in The Observer. generating an estimated Most die without requiring much care. But for the unlucky 10%, bills climb above £100,000. In a £6bn a year that would be ring-fenced for the NHS and civilised society, we would “collectively insure ourselves” against these massive losses – which is why social care. They’d also scrap David Cameron’s plan, designed by the economist Andrew Dilnot, was to have an overall spending the bedroom tax, and the cap, of £72,000. May initially rejected this, and has now reinstated it, without saying at what level it cap on public sector pay. will be set, said John Rentoul in The Independent. So now she has both a raised spending fl oor, and However, they are not a cap – which, at whatever level, will be a subsidy from the taxpayer to “rich pensioners”. She has matching Labour’s promise made “a bad policy worse”, and has managed to “scare and confuse” voters into the bargain. to scrap tuition fees.

Good week for: Spirit of the age Leeds, after it was ranked fifth in Lonely Planet’s list of the ten Poll watch The Girl Guides are giving best places in Europe to visit in 2017. The compilers of the Best in The Conservatives’ lead their badge system an Europe list – which celebrates places that have “something new, over Labour has shrunk to overhaul that could see exciting or undiscovered” – described Leeds as a “confident, just nine points, according badges for sewing and cultural hub”, with a thriving nightlife and food scene. to a poll taken shortly after “hostessing” consigned to Amazon, which may be about to open the first British the Tory manifesto was history. Girlguiding UK has published last week. The been asking its members supermarket without any checkouts. In a trial queueless store in YouGov poll for The Sunday for ideas for challenges Seattle, cameras and sensors track customers’ every move, record Times put the Tories down based on themes including each item they pick off the shelves, and bill their Amazon five points on 44%, and “skills for my future”, accounts accordingly. Now the firm has trademarked its slogan – Labour up four on 35%. “know myself” and “take “No lines. No checkout. (No, seriously.)” – in the UK. Support for UKIP and the action”. Those mooted so Norfolk, after one of its local wines was declared among the Lib Dems remained far include app design, finest in the world. At the Decanter World Wine Awards, the unchanged (suggesting the vlogging and DIY. county’s Winbirri Vineyards Bacchus 2015 was named the best latter’s manifesto had had little impact). 35% of those Campaigners were value white wine made from a single grape variety. polled said they backed the delighted when the Bank of Tories’ proposed changes England agreed to put Jane Bad week for: to the way social care is Austen on the new polymer Smokers, who from now on will only be able to buy their funded (before the “cap” £10 note – but are now cigarettes in ugly green packets emblazoned with graphic images on costs was announced); furious that officials have 40% opposed them. chosen a “prettified” image depicting the impact of smoking on the body. Packets of ten have of the novelist, painted after also now been outlawed under the new rules, which have been 25% of Labour supporters her death. They say the phased in over the past year and are designed to deter young say that if the party fails to Bank should have chosen people from taking up the potentially fatal habit. win power at this election, a more realistic portrait, Nestlé, after the Court of Appeal rejected its bid to trademark a group should break away sketched by Austen’s sister, the “iconic” shape of its KitKats. Nestlé’s case has been and form a new party. Cassandra, showing her undermined by the existence of a very similar snack, the Kvikk 39% oppose the idea. looking sharp and cross. ORB/The Sunday Telegraph Lunsj (Quick Lunch), which has been sold in Norway since 1937. © MATT/DAILY TELEGRAPH

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 Europe at a glance NEWS 5

Dublin Amsterdam Munich, Germany PM Kenny quits: Enda Kenny has resigned Royal pilot: King Burglary “clan” busted: Police in Munich as leader of his Fine Gael party and Willem-Alexander say they have broken up a vast “clan” announced that he will step down as of the Netherlands of burglars, originating in Croatia and Ireland’s PM, or taoiseach, once the party has revealed that consisting of around 500 people, which has chosen a successor, with a deadline of for the past 20 they estimate has been responsible for up 2 June. Kenny has led Fine Gael for 15 years, he has to a fi fth of all break-ins in Germany. The years and has been PM since 2011. He is worked part-time investigation into the network – described widely respected abroad, thanks to his as a commercial by police as a “multilegged kraken” of management of Ireland’s economy after it airline pilot for crime families related by kinship or was brought to the brink in the years that KLM Royal marriage – began in January 2016 when followed the global fi nancial crisis: Ireland Dutch Airlines, undercover officers in Munich saw three has been the EU’s fastest-growing co-piloting fl ights young women commit a break-in that was economy for the past three years, and its about twice a month. It was no secret that clearly professional. Subsequent enquiries unemployment rate has more than halved the king (pictured), a qualified pilot, had led to the arrest of a further 20 female to below 7% since 2012. But at home, occasionally taken the controls of a “worker bees” in Munich, as well as Kenny has been weakened by his party’s commercial plane, but he’d never before “middle managers” in western Germany failure to win a majority in last year’s revealed the extent of what he calls his and alleged bosses in Croatia. election, and by his fumbled handling of “hobby”. Willem-Alexander, 50, who a series of crises in the Irish police force. ascended to the throne four years ago, said The front runners to replace him are Leo he’s rarely recognised in his pilot’s uniform, Varadkar, the 38-year-old welfare minister and does not identify himself when – who would be Ireland’s fi rst openly gay welcoming passengers over the PM and is the son of an Indian immigrant plane’s intercom, though “most – and the housing minister Simon Coveney. don’t listen anyway”.

Paris Macron on the move: France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, has presented to the unions his plans for labour reforms – an issue that is seen as crucial to the success of his presidency. The 39-year- old centrist wants to make it far easier for fi rms to recruit and lay off staff and vary their working hours, among other things. The former Socialist president François Hollande’s attempts to introduce similar reforms last year triggered mass protests. They were watered down as a result, and even then had to be forced through by executive decree. Macron is hoping to get his reforms passed by the autumn, but France’s biggest union, the hard-line CGT, warned him against forcing them through, and predicted “anger and mobilisation” if he did. Last week, the president unveiled a gender-balanced cabinet of politicians from across the political spectrum.

Paris Bern Ankara Diplomat’s cash Nuclear power phased out: Swiss voters State of emergency extended: Turkey’s haul: Four years have backed a government proposal to authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip after he was ban the building of any new nuclear power Erdogan, has announced that the country’s arrested at Gare stations, and instead provide public state of emergency – which was introduced du Nord station subsidies worth billions of dollars to as a temporary measure following the while carrying a encourage a fourfold increase in wind and failed coup last July, and gives the president sports bag stuffed solar power. Currently, Switzerland gets the power to rule by decree without with more than about 60% its energy from hydroelectric parliamentary oversight – is to be extended £330,000 in cash, sources, 35% from nuclear and 5% from indefinitely, until Turkey achieves “welfare France’s former- other renewables. Under the new Energy and peace”. To date, Erdogan has used ambassador to Strategy 2050 law – backed by 58.2% the emergency powers to jail more than Iraq and Tunisia of voters last weekend in a binding referen- 40,000 people accused of plotting or has gone on trial in Paris charged with tax dum – the existing fi ve nuclear plants will taking part in the failed coup; to sack or fraud and forgery. Boris Boillon (pictured) continue to operate for as long as they are suspend from their jobs a further 100,000 – a former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy safe (the fi rst is due to close in 2019; the people; and to shut down about 1,500 civil known as “Sarko Boy” – made his name last may not close until the 2030s). The society groups and 150 news outlets. as Sarkozy’s youngest ambassador, and Swiss Green Party hailed the decision as At the weekend, Erdogan was re-elected once posed as James Bond for a celebrity “magnificent”. Critics say it will lead to to the leadership of the AKP, the Islamic- magazine under the headline: “My name is higher prices and weaken Switzerland’s rooted ruling party he co-founded in 2001. Boillon, Boris Boillon.” He claims the cash energy security. Germany decided to close A referendum held last month changed was payment for consultancy work in Iraq. all of its nuclear power stations after the the rules, among other things, so that the If convicted, he faces up to fi ve years in jail. 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. president can also be a party leader.

Catch up with daily news at www.theweek.co.uk 27 May 2017 THE WEEK 6 NEWS The world at a glance

New York New York Car mows down pedestrians: A 26-year-old US navy veteran with Weiner pleads guilty: Former Democratic congressman Anthony prior convictions for drink-driving and harassment mounted the Weiner, whose career was ended by a series of sexting scandals, pavement in his car in Times Square, Manhattan, last Thursday, has pleaded guilty to sending sexual material to a 15-year-old girl and drove into pedestrians for three blocks before crashing into over a period of months. The felony carries a potential ten-year a row of steel security barriers. An 18-year-old woman was killed term, but under a plea deal he will probably serve less than that. and a further 22 injured. The driver, Richard Rojas, emerged Appearing in a Manhattan court, he broke down, saying, “I have from the vehicle and began shouting and jumping about; he was a sickness but I do not have an excuse.” His estranged wife, Huma subdued by members of the public and police officers. He later Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton, recently fi led for divorce. The told investigators he had been hearing voices and expected to die. FBI’s investigation into Weiner’s sexting inadvertently damaged The attack is not being treated as a terrorist incident. Friends of Clinton’s election campaign, as it led to the discovery on Weiner’s Rojas told the media that his personality had changed after he laptop of a cache of emails from Abedin to Clinton. This returned to New York following three years in the navy. He has prompted the then FBI director, James Comey, to announce – been charged with murder and 20 counts of attempted murder. days before the election – that he was reopening his probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server; he later said he had found Washington DC nothing incriminating. Weiner will be sentenced in September. Special counsel appointed: The US Department of Justice sprang a surprise on President Trump last week, when it informed the White House, apparently with just 30 minutes’ notice, that it was appointing the widely respected former boss of the FBI, Robert Mueller, as a “special counsel” to probe alleged links between Trump’s election campaign and the Russian government. The appointment of Mueller (left), who led the FBI from 2001 to 2013, dramatically raises the legal and political stakes for Trump and his team. The move was welcomed by many in Washington, both Democrat and Republican, though it was condemned by Trump, who tweeted: “This is the single greatest witch-hunt of a politician in American history!” In another twist, it has emerged that during a meeting with the Russian foreign minister the day after Trump fi red FBI director James Comey, the president told the Russians: “I just fi red the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” The comments have been condemned across the political spectrum, and have intensified fears that Trump may have obstructed justice by fi ring Comey to scotch the FBI’s Russia investigation.

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Manning celebrates: Chelsea Manning, released from Fort Leavenworth jail last week, has shared the fi rst photo (pictured) of herself as a free transgender woman, writing, “Okay, so here I am everyone!!” on her Instagram feed. The ex-soldier, formerly Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of espionage for leaking more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. She was pardoned by Barack Obama in one of his last acts as president. In other photos shared on social media, Manning pictured her hand holding a glass of champagne, and her feet taking her “First steps of freedom!!” Brasília San Cristóbal, Venezuela President could be ousted: Barely Continued unrest: More than 200,000 Venezuelans took to the a year after the removal of former streets on Saturday to mark the 50th consecutive day of protests president Dilma Rousseff, Brazil against President Nicolás Maduro’s beleaguered Socialist could be about to witness the government; they accuse it of crippling the country’s economy and impeachment of another president subverting the constitution in order to cling to power. In the – Rousseff’s successor, Michel Temer. Calls by numerous MPs for western city of San Cristóbal, thousands of troops were deployed him to be removed were sparked by the publication of tapes in to quell violent protests involving tens of thousands of protesters. which Temer can apparently be heard discussing, with the In the city of Valera, gunmen reportedly opened fi re on billionaire businessman Joesley Batista, how to obstruct corruption demonstrators, killing a 23-year-old man. Over the past seven inquiries and bribe politicians. The tapes, secretly recorded by weeks, at least 48 people – protesters, Maduro supporters and Batista, sent the currency and stock market plunging at the members of the security forces – have been killed in clashes. With prospect of fresh political turmoil. The country’s Supreme Court law and order in apparent collapse, there have also been has now begun an investigation into the president. But Temer has widespread reports of lynchings, looting and of road blocks being insisted the tape was doctored, and vowed not to quit. “Oust me set up by masked men demanding money to let motorists through. if you want, but if I stepped down, I’d be admitting guilt,” he said.

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 The world at a glance NEWS 7

Wadi al-Shatii, Libya Deadly attack: Forces loyal to Libya’s Tehran Tripoli-based, UN-backed Government of Big win for Rouhani: Iran’s reform-minded president, National Accord stormed Brak al-Shati Hassan Rouhani, was re-elected by an unexpectedly big airbase last Thursday, killing 141 people – margin last Friday: he won 57% of the popular vote, to most of them soldiers loyal to Khalifa the 38.5% achieved by his main challenger, the hard-line Haftar, the military strongman who cleric and jurist Ebrahim Raisi. The election was one of controls much of eastern Libya. Many of the most bitterly contested for years: at one point, the soldiers are believed to have been Rouhani (pictured) accused Raisi – seen as the candidate executed; civilians were also killed. of the conservative theocratic establishment – of having Haftar’s self-proclaimed Libyan National “blood on his hands” for prosecuting dissidents, many of Army does not recognise the government: whom have been executed. Celebrating his win, Rouhani it is loyal to the rival authorities based in said Iranians had chosen the “path of engagement with Tobruk. The attack came days after a the world”, rather than a “return to the past”. breakthrough deal between Haftar and the Ultimate power in Iran lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tripoli PM, Fayez al-Sarraj, to form a However, Rouhani’s win is being seen as a fi rm endorsement of his attempts to “united Libyan army” under civilian improve relations with the West, and to court inward investment. The victory may control – a plan that is now in jeopardy. also give reformists more influence over the coming choice of a new supreme leader. Sarraj denied ordering the attack, and has Khamenei, 77, is in poor health. The election coincided with President Trump’s visit suspended his defence minister and the to Iran’s main regional foe, Saudi Arabia (see page 21). commander apparently behind the killings.

Beijing CIA sources “killed”: The Chinese government killed at least a dozen people who were passing information to the CIA between 2010 and 2012, and imprisoned up to eight more, The New York Times has reported. China’s dismantling of the US spy agency’s network crippled its efforts in China for years, the paper says, and represents one of the worst US intelligence breaches in decades. Apparently, the US still does not know how China identified its assets.

Kinshasa Massive jailbreak: Some Tokyo 4,200 inmates are Princess marries believed to have for love: Japan’s escaped from Princess Mako a prison in DR (pictured), the Congo’s capital last eldest grand- week, when members of a cultish rebel child of Emperor group stormed the jail in a successful bid Akihito, is to give Jakarta to free their leader. At least 80 people up her imperial Gay men arrested: Indonesian police were killed in the Bundu Dia Kongo’s status to marry a arrested 141 men – attending what they assault on the Makala prison, where the commoner – who described as a “gay sex party” – at a gym group’s leader, Ne Muanda Nsemi, had she met at and sauna venue in the capital Jakarta on been held since March. The fugitives university – Sunday, on suspicion of breaking laws on amount to about half of the overcrowded reigniting concerns about the shrinking of “pornography”. They later paraded some prison’s 8,000 inmates, who include the imperial family. It now has only 19 of those arrested in front of the media, opposition leaders, violent felons and war members; and 14 of them are female, and with their faces covered by black ski criminals. The jail- break comes as a so unable to inherit the Chrysanthemum masks. Rights groups said the raid was a major embarrassment to the country’s Throne. Emperor Akihito, 83, plans soon sign of growing hostility towards gay president, Joseph Kabila: he has had to to abdicate in favour of his son Naruhito, people in Indonesia. On Tuesday, two men face down multiple uprisings since he 57. Naruhito has no sons, leaving as his were publicly caned in front of a jeering refused to leave office, as required by the only potential heirs his brother, and his crowd in the ultra-conservative province of constitution, last December. nephew Hisahito (Mako’s brother), ten. Aceh, where consensual gay sex is a crime.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 8 NEWS People

The ideas man withdrawal from Lebanon; the The return of Twin Peaks – experience left Bowen so David Lynch’s cult TV drama traumatised that he decided to about strange happenings in step away from the fi eld. He small-town America – has got a coveted job co-hosting prompted feverish speculation. the BBC’s Breakfast show with More than 25 years on, will it Sophie Raworth; but the match the macabre, puzzling mundanity, and the 3.30am spectacle of the original? And starts, proved even harder on what did it all mean in the fi rst his nerves. “I started getting place? Not much, according to these unexplained stomach Lynch. “They say if you want pains… Armies will invade at to send a message, go to the that time to catch people at Western Union,” he told their lowest ebb.” After two Richard Godwin in The Times. years, he asked to return to the “I’m not trying to say anything battlefield. “I said to myself, about anything. I’m throwing ‘I used to be quite a decent out a lot of ideas… Ideas that I reporter and now I’m sitting on fall in love with – I say they’re a sofa making jokes.’” like gifts. It wasn’t there, and oh! Suddenly it’s there.” And if Fellowes on beauty there are unanswered questions Julian Fellowes may be hugely or loose threads – so much the rich and successful, says the better. “I love mysteries – I Daily Mail, but he can’t help think every human being does. envying one group of people: I always say that people are the beautiful. At a charity event like detectives. We live our lives last week, the Downton Abbey not knowing a lot of things. creator was asked which gift he Where were we before? What’s considered more advantageous Maro Itoje is the rising star of English rugby. The 22-year-old the purpose? What’s going on? – beauty, brains, birth or second-row forward was picked for the England squad last year – When you lie in bed at night money. “If you have no brains and his pace and power have already earned him the nickname and think about these things, at all, that is a bit of a “The Chosen One”. But not everyone is so impressed, he told Ben you realise it’s a mysterious gamble,” he mused, “but as Machell in The Times. His parents – both born in Nigeria – consider thing we’re all involved with.” long as you have the union rugby no more than a hobby. “Nigerian culture doesn’t pay too minimum then I think beauty is much attention to sport,” he explains. “It’s all about education. Bowen’s wake-up call more important.” Good looks When I [started] playing rugby, my parents said it was fi ne, so long Jeremy Bowen has spent more open doors – “particularly for as it didn’t mess with my studies.” They were pleased, however, than 25 years reporting on women. Someone of 19 who is when he got a sports scholarship to Harrow – and he loved his two conflicts in the Middle East, very beautiful can sit next to years at the elite private school. “Most people at Harrow are and become inured to some of the prime minister and it’s his lovely,” he says. “Just nice guys who have a bit… a lot… of the horrors of war. “Dead lucky night. That’s not true of money.” The only time he encountered any snobbery was when he bodies don’t bother me,” he someone who, like me, was not used the word “toilet”. “And somebody said, ‘Toilet? How can you told Susie Mesure in the Radio beautiful and was spotty – say toilet? You must say loo,’” he laughs. Already signed to the Times. “I mean, I don’t like nobody wants to sit next to world-class team Saracens, Itoje managed to get three As at A level, seeing people who are mashed you… I had no looks at all. So and is now doing a BA in politics at London’s School of Oriental to bits, but I can deal with it.” I suppose I was brain reliant to and African Studies (SOAS). Combining professional sport with a In 2000, however, his driver make it work, but it took a degree isn’t easy, but at least his parents are happy. “I remember was killed by mortar fi re while long time and my big break them quoting a Bible verse to me when I was younger,” he says. they were covering Israel’s came when I was 50.” “‘Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long.’”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint: Farewell This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the Enough of Ian Brady artificial intelligence expert and DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis Roger Ailes, founder 1* Tears In Rain (from the film Blade Runner), written and “Is it possible to fi nd something both and former head of Fox performed by Vangelis shocking and boring? Can you News (see page 48), died 2 Watermark by Nicky Ryan, Roma Shane Ryan and Eith shudder and yawn at the same time? 18 May, aged 77. Ni-Bhraonain, performed by Enya These seemingly contradictory Powers Boothe, actor 3 Justified & Ancient by Jimi Cauty, Bill Drummond and Ricardo impulses are aroused, I’m sure, in known for villain roles, Lyte, performed by The KLF and Tammy Wynette millions like me whenever the news died 14 May, aged 68. 4 The Narcotic Suite: Skylined by Liam Howlett, performed by media fi nd another way to scratch Chris Cornell, frontman The Prodigy the sore of the Moors murders. The of the US rock band 5 The Garden is Becoming a Robe Room (from the film The human wreckage of the perpetrators’ Soundgarden, died Draughtsman’s Contract) by Michael Nyman, performed by the lives has littered the news for 17 May, aged 52. Michael Nyman Band and Orchestra 50 years. Perhaps, by affording a 6 Who Wants to Live Forever (from the film Highlander) by Brian Nina Lowry, British May, performed by Queen fi nal orgy of reciting, the death of Ian judge with a reputation 7 Motherboard, written and performed by Daft Punk (Thomas Brady will put this ghastly business to for tough sentencing, Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) rest. We can tell and retell the story died 30 March, aged 91. 8 First Step (from the film Interstellar) by Hans Zimmer, performed but we cannot explain, and a point Roger Moore, James by Hans Zimmer and other artists comes when the impulse to recite Bond star and Unicef becomes, in itself, slightly suspect. goodwill ambassador, Book: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien * Choice if allowed Can’t we just leave off?” died 23 May, aged 89. Luxury: A solar-powered chess computer only one record Matthew Parris in The Times

THE WEEK 27 May 2017

Briefing NEWS 11 The cost of a general election When voters go to the polls on 8 June, millions of pounds will have been spent on getting them there

How much do we pay for an election? material sent to voters” and advertising. This one is expected to cost the taxpayer In Britain, the parties don’t have to pay at least £143m. The 2010 election (the for TV advertising – the main terrestrial last for which an official fi gure is TV channels and all national radio available) cost more than £113m to stations have to allot a given amount of administer, about £28.7m of which went air time (varying with the size of a party’s on distributing mail (each official support) to party political broadcasts. So candidate is entitled to one free postage the advertising spend is mainly on bill- of a leaflet per residential address). Other boards, newspapers and, increasingly, big-cost items are the hiring and manning online ads. The other big item is “market of 50,000 polling stations; the provision research/canvassing”. At the last election, of postal votes and polling cards; and the the Tories paid £4.7m to pollsters, and counting of more than 46 million votes. nearly £3m on two of the world’s most successful political consultants: campaign And how much do the parties spend? chief Lynton Crosby and Barack Obama’s Not much by American standards. Hillary former campaign manager Jim Messina. Clinton and Donald Trump between them spent £1.75bn on their campaigns. What did these strategists do? In Britain, by contrast, campaigns are The battle bus: a secret weapon in “the ground war” According to The Guardian, they ran the relatively short and spending is strictly most complex campaign ever mounted in limited by laws dating back to the 1880s, to ensure that the rich the UK, using “vast databases, commercial market research, can’t “buy” the election. That limit is determined by the number complex questionnaires and phone banks” to map the “fears and of seats a party contests: in this election, if a party were to contest desires of swing voters”, and to design “highly personalised all 650 constituencies (which none of them do), the limit would messaging that would appeal to them” – using data gleaned from be £19.5m. In addition, each candidate is given a fi xed spending social media, and Facebook in particular. The Tories greatly limit during the campaign period: this year, it’s £8,700 – plus 6p outspent Labour on social media, spending £1.2m on Facebook, per voter in urban seats, or 9p per voter in rural ones. In the 2015 while Labour spent just £160,000 (see box). election, the total spend of all the parties fell just shy of £60m, some £37m of which was spent by the parties’ central offices, and And are such campaigns effective in British elections? the rest by local candidates. The Tories spent £15.6m, Labour Possibly not. A survey of the academic literature, notes Professor £12.1m, the Lib Dems £3.5m, UKIP £2.9m, and the SNP £1.5m. Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex, shows that their effects are “variable and in general rather modest”. The fi nal outcome is Where does most of the money come from? usually very similar to what polls predict at the start of the The Tories get large sums from rich donors. In the fi rst week of campaign. When the fi nal result is markedly different, as in 1992 this campaign, they raised £4.11m in large donations, more than or 2015, it’s usually thought to be because the polls have been all other parties combined. The largest donor was John Griffin, a wrong, rather than as a result of brilliant campaigning techniques. founder of the cab fi rm Addison Lee, who gave £900,000. Labour But what campaigns – face-to-face canvassing, in particular – have relies heavily on large donations from the unions: of the £2.68m it proven effective at is not so much converting voters to a party, raised in the fi rst week of this election, £2.36m came from Unite, but in getting them out to vote – though not always for the party and £62,000 from the GMB. (Though Labour does occasionally doing the canvassing. Ultimately, it’s hard to judge the campaign get big donations from individuals: in the fi rst quarter of 2017, in isolation, as parties today are in permanent campaign mode Max Mosley donated £300,000.) The parties can also draw on and the air wars begin long before the election is called. subscriptions and small donations given in the course of a year by members and supporters. Labour’s membership has surged under How closely do people follow election campaigns? Corbyn: it now has 483,000 members. By and large, not at all. Messina The Tories have about 150,000; the Facebook: the weapon of choice claims the average voter thinks about SNP 120,000; the Lib Dems 82,000. Today, campaign managers consider Facebook to be politics for no more than four minutes one of their most powerful political weapons. Will a week. “Successful campaigns know What is the money spent on? Straw, who ran the Remain campaign in the EU this,” said Laurence Stellings of the Campaigns tend to be divided into the referendum, says it’s now “on a par with the BBC for pollster Populus, “and relentlessly “ground war” – efforts organised by getting your message out”. Half the UK population, repeat their key messages so, in those party activists and volunteers at local according to Facebook, now uses their network; users moments when a voter does engage, level to promote a given candidate, spend 40 minutes a day on average on the site. the ‘right’ message gets through.” and the “air war” – the national The strategy in political campaigns involves using data Hence the style of the Tory campaign. media and advertising campaign. The from user profiles – location, friends, “likes” – to build According to Populus, 58% of voters ground war is restricted by the an accurate picture of their behaviour and target them. know of Theresa May’s promise to But it’s a strategy that has caused concern, as it lends spending limit per seat and by the itself to “microtargeting” – using the data to target offer “strong and stable” leadership, availability of volunteers (the Tories voters personally. It has been alleged that the “big and associate it with her. By contrast, recently came under fi re for allegedly, data” strategy firm Cambridge Analytica influenced just 28% know that the Lib Dems are in the 2015 election, allocating to both Donald Trump’s election and the Brexit vote by offering a second Brexit referendum. local candidates money that should using “psychographics” to identify “persuadable” The only “campaign event” to have have been assigned to the party cam- voters. Cambridge Analytica denies playing any part in achieved similar widespread currency paign, thus tipping some candidates the referendum, but that hasn’t stopped the UK to May’s slogan is Diane Abbott’s over their spending limit). So it’s the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, from difficult interview on LBC, in which air war that uses most of the money. launching an inquiry. If companies or political parties she struggled to explain how much it are using “precise digital trails” to target individual people, rather than to analyse general trends, says would cost to recruit 10,000 police What does the air war consist of? Denham, then “they are going to be outside the law”. officers. More than half of voters Two of the big items are “unsolicited (54%) know about this.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Best articles: Britain NEWS 13

It’s great that it has at last become politically acceptable to talk about immigration in Britain, says Stephen D. King. But people IT MUST BE TRUE… Stand by for a are still missing the big story. When they think of migrants, they I read it in the tabloids think of cheap workers from central Europe, or Syrian refugees. huge influx of Yet the immigration that will shape our lives in the years ahead is A man in Texas filed a lawsuit against his date, after the influx from Africa. To see why, just consider the contrasting new migrants she began texting during a demographics of Nigeria and Italy. In 1950, Nigeria’s population film. Brandon Vezmar, 37, was about 38 million; Italy’s 47 million. In 2015, Nigeria’s had Stephen D. King had paid for the two of them shot up to 182 million, while Italy’s stood at 60 million. By 2100, to see the new Guardians of The Sunday Telegraph the UN predicts that declining infant mortality and other trends the Galaxy movie – and was will have swelled Nigeria’s population to more than 700 million, incensed when she became while Italy’s will have dropped back to 50 million “thanks to a engrossed in her phone. She persistently low birth rate”. Similar trends across Africa suggest refused to turn it off, and the continent’s share of the world population, now 16%, is likely eventually stormed out. Afterwards he filed a lawsuit to rise to 40% by the end of the century. And chances are that against her, demanding she many of these people will want to seek a new life in Europe. “The refund him the $17.31 he paid Syrian refugee crisis may prove no more than a dress rehearsal.” for her ticket, describing her behaviour as a “threat to “The greatest expansion in workers’ rights by any Conservative civilised society”. She government in history.” That’s how Theresa May described a eventually relented, but not Giving workers package of policies in the Tory election manifesto. They include before the director of the the right to request leave for training, the right to take leave for film, James Gunn, had rights they child bereavement, the right to take up to a year off to care for weighed in. “Why stop at suing? She deserves jail family members, and further protections for those suffering from time!” he wrote on Twitter. can’t afford mental ill health. All welcome measures, says Ashley Cowburn, Ashley Cowburn but they all have one drawback: they’re “meaningless without a pledge to reduce or even abolish employment tribunal fees”. Since The Independent David Cameron’s government introduced these fees four years ago, the number of cases being brought has dropped by almost 70% – for the simple reason that people can’t afford to defend their rights. Bringing a claim over a complaint such as unfair dismissal, unequal pay or discrimination can set a worker back as much as £1,200. If Theresa May really wants to “park her tanks on Labour’s lawn”, it’s not enough just to offer workers notional new rights; she must give them the means to exercise them.

Inequality has been falling in this country for several years, and that’s a great thing, right? Not really, says Ed Conway. Dig into Why the poor the data and it’s clear the gap is closing not because the poor are getting richer, but because everyone else is getting poorer. The A morbidly obese wild are about to “biggest real income collapse in more than two centuries” has monkey known as Uncle brought millions of people’s incomes closer to the level of those at Fatty has been sent to a fat get poorer the bottom, who – because their benefits have risen in line with camp, in a bid to save his inflation rather than earnings – have escaped a comparable Ed Conway life. Wildlife officials in decline. Things are about to change for the lowest paid, though, Bangkok were alerted to the as a result of the new four-year freeze on in-work benefits. This The Times macaque’s plight after photos freeze has been in place for a year already, but hasn’t caused much of him began appearing of a fuss because inflation last year was zero anyway. This year, online. They caught him last however, inflation is set to hit 3%, which means an effective 3% week, and found he weighed pay cut for those on working-age benefits. “Another couple of 15kg – about twice what he years of that and you’re talking about cuts of a tenth”, a “brutal” should – as a result of reduction by the standard of usual welfare reforms. And it’s the gorging on milkshakes, people who May says she most wants to help – “just-about- sweetcorn and noodles fed to managing, ordinary working families” – who will be hardest hit. him by tourists. Now, he’s been put on a strict diet, in People hate the idea of being forced to make healthier choices by the hope he’ll be fit enough the nanny state, says Gaby Hinsliff. The trick is not to tell them. to be set free in a few months. An underhand Just ask Coca-Cola. In order to dodge the new tax on sugary way to make drinks due to come in next year – much to the fury of libertarians Two students who left a – the soft drinks giant has recently been reformulating its products. pineapple on an empty stand It began by quietly reducing the calories in Sprite. Consumers at a modern art show us healthier didn’t seem to mind, so the company then secretly cut the sugar in returned four days later to Gaby Hinsliff Fanta by a third, which again had no impact on sales. “People find that it had been literally didn’t notice.” So much for claims that the sugar levy upgraded to its own glass The Guardian would ruin much-loved brands. This is how it always goes with display case. Lloyd Jack and health and safety interventions, from the introduction of compul- Ruairi Gray said they left the sory safety belts to the smoking ban. “Outrage turns to grudging £1 pineapple at the Look Again show at Aberdeen’s acceptance, before mellowing into surprise that things were ever Robert Gordon University, any different.” You have to get past that “initial wall of resistance, hoping visitors would constructed of corporate inertia, plus knee-jerk irritation among mistake it for an exhibit: they consumers at being told what to do”. You often need laws to were delighted that the overcome the former, but, as Coca-Cola shows, you can get round show’s curators seemed to the latter through more sly means. Call it “health by stealth”. have accepted it as art.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 14 NEWS Best articles: Europe

The resurgence of “Mother Merkel” What a comeback for the German returned to the CDU. Merkel is now chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Eva clear favourite to win a fourth term as Quadbeck in the Rheinische Post chancellor in the September elections. (Düsseldorf). Last year her popularity was at a five-year low; she was assailed She deserves to, said Roland Nelles in from all sides over her decision to Der Spiegel (Hamburg). “As a crisis- welcome a million-plus refugees from management expert in a crisis-stricken Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa and world”, she exudes competence and elsewhere. And when her own CDU – unaffected pragmatism. She may lack the centre-right Christian Democratic big ideas or big reform projects, but Union party – placed third in elections she has nerves of steel. Voters are now in her home state of Mecklenburg- happy to let “Mother Merkel” quietly Vorpommern, many felt the migrant solve whatever problems the world crisis would prove her undoing. throws at her: the euro crisis, Russia, “Exuding competence and unaffected pragmatism” Turkey, Trump. She manages to But now look at her, said Volker “remove the drama from every Wagener in Deutsche Welle (Berlin). Since March, her CDU has dramatic event”. She is similarly low-key during election season: trounced its main rival, the Social Democrats (SPD), in three her preferred method of campaigning is just governing the state elections, the latest win coming last week in North Rhine- nation. By contrast, her SPD rival, Martin Schulz, has been a big Westphalia – Germany’s most populous state and a long-time disappointment, said Torsten Krauel in Die Welt (Hamburg). SPD stronghold. It’s only the second time the CDU has won the When selected to lead his party in January, man-of-the-people state in 50 years. All this is partly due to the booming economy; Schulz seemed the ideal choice to take her on. But now it’s clear but it’s also due to a deep shift in the political mood. Rattled his colleagues “backed the wrong horse”. The garrulous Schulz, “by the convulsion caused by the virus of Brexit”, by right-wing banging on about social justice, isn’t what voters want to hear populists in France, Poland and Austria, and by the emergence right now. And they don’t like his proposal to enter a left-wing of “the unpredictable political clown” in the White House, coalition with the radical Left Party. Yet provided he junks that voters have been seeking stability above all else. Many who had vote-losing idea, he may yet triumph: in this volatile political flirted with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) have climate, who knows where we’ll be in four months’ time?

ITALY The horrific arson attack that killed three girls in Rome last week has opened Italians’ eyes to the poverty and desperation of the Roma, says Marco Impagliazzo. The girls, aged four, eight and 20, were asleep in a camper van with their parents and eight other siblings when a man threw a Molotov A prejudice cocktail at the vehicle, setting it ablaze. Whether the perpetrator was a xenophobe or had a personal vendetta against the family isn’t really the issue. What Italians must ask themselves is why 13 of their that shames fellow citizens were sleeping packed together “in a metal box… without electricity or water, on the outskirts of a rich and comfortable city”. The prejudice against Roma, once known derogatorily as our nation “gypsies”, has become self-perpetuating. Deprived of education and jobs, some turn to crime; and Avvenire society in turn starts to fear and reject the group as a whole. But when children are dying, we must (Milan) act. There are an estimated 150,000 Roma in Italy, most living in squalor. The Italian state must fi nd them homes; not in camps, but houses. Proper accommodation, education and work “can prevent tragedies and ensure that deep-rooted prejudice fi nally gives way to true integration”.

FRANCE France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, has already made one startling change, says Serge Raffy. He’s gone all presidential. His “Olympian” bearing during the inauguration, coupled with a notably stiff, slow walk on the red carpet into the Élysée Palace, was clearly meant to echo Charles de Gaulle, The airs and the “providential man” summoned to save France. “Audacious.” In a man of his youth and slight stature, it might have come across as “embarrassing or arrogant”, but he pulled it off, with “quasi- graces of our princely naturalness”. Yet the other change in style that Macron wants to effect – keeping the media at arm’s length – may not fare so well. Here again he wants to play up the contrast with his new president predecessors Hollande and Sarkozy – who were always hobnobbing with journalists – and be more L’Obs like the men before them, Mitterrand and Chirac, who seldom spoke and so kept the people wanting (Paris) more. Alas, that probably won’t work now. The reason French presidents have become so talkative is not “unbridled narcissism” (of which Sarkozy, in particular, was often accused); it’s because they’re constantly competing with the “tsunami” of news and comment on the internet and social media. Aloofness can be an attractive trait in a leader, but it’s time we accepted it belongs to a bygone age.

SWITZERLAND There’s something “presumptuous” about putting a man’s name on a mountain, says Simon Wälti. Fans of Ueli Steck, the Swiss climber who recently fell to his death from a mountain in Nepal, want one of the peaks of the Eiger to be named after him. Don’t get me wrong: Steck was one of the fi nest Leave no mark climbers who ever lived, famed for his epic feats of climbing without rope or partner. He knew a single slip could cost him his life – and now it has. It’s also true many mountains have been named behind on the after the people who fi rst climbed or discovered them – notably British surveyor George Everest. But that only happens in exceptional cases today. In 2014, the Ostspitze (Eastern Peak) of Monte Rosa, mountain the Alps’ second highest mountain, was renamed Dunantspitze in honour of Henry Dunant, founder Tages-Anzeiger of the Red Cross. But that was merited by the scale of Dunant’s achievement in creating a worldwide (Zurich) humanitarian organisation that has contributed hugely to Switzerland’s prestige. A recently deceased climber is hardly in the same category, no matter how outstanding he may have been. The mountaineer’s credo is to leave no mark behind on the mountain; the same applies here. A natural object of power and beauty should not be “overwritten with the name of a transitory individual”.

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Best articles: International NEWS 17

“Tell the president to stop tweeting and get a grip” When historians look back on the officials privately discounted the Donald Trump presidency, said possibility that he had revealed any Richard Cohen in The Washington important details, on the grounds that Post, they’ll probably acquit him of his he pays too little attention to briefing misdeeds “on grounds of madness”. materials to have known any. Still, They’ll look at “his behaviour, his having stood by Trump for so long, erratic and childish lying and his it’s unlikely that Republican leaders flamboyant ignorance of history itself, will now have the “backbone” to and pronounce the man, like George invoke the 25th Amendment. It would III, a cuckoo for whom restraint, but be wrong to do so, in any case, said not punishment, was necessary”. But Charles Krauthammer in National if history won’t be savage towards Review. The amendment was “meant Trump, it will be towards the enablers for a stroke, not stupidity; for in the Republican Party who backed Alzheimer’s, not narcissism”. Its use this man’s nomination and who are Vice-President Pence: time to trigger the 25th? against President Trump would now helping keep him in office. Trump amount to “a coup”. is clearly unfit to be president, said Ross Douthat in The New York Times. A steady stream of anonymous leaks to the press And it would infuriate Trump voters, said Peggy Noonan in The has shown that even members of his inner circle regard him Wall Street Journal. Tens of millions of Americans voted for as a liability. Vice-President Mike Pence and his colleagues him, knowing he was a maverick; most still support him. should now partially redeem their reputations by triggering the What would it say to them if he were ousted so soon? That 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for the “democracy is a con, the swamp always wins”? On the other removal of a president who is “unable to discharge the powers hand, at what stage does it become irresponsible not to mount and duties of his office”. an intervention? This question “couldn’t be more consequential and will take time to resolve”. For now, it would at least help if Trump certainly isn’t held in high esteem by his cabinet, said top Republicans went en masse to Trump and told him to shut Dahlia Lithwick on Slate. After the recent row about Trump up, stop tweeting, get a grip and start doing his job. “The blurting out classified intelligence to Russian representatives, US president needs to be told: democracy is not your plaything.”

CHINA China last week launched the largest infrastructure development programme the world has ever seen, says Rashmee Roshan Lall. And not everyone is happy about it. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a $1trn investment plan aimed at building ports, railways and other facilities across a swathe of The £1trn plan countries, to establish new economic corridors between China and Central Asia, Europe and Africa. It’s hugely ambitious, but “has been met, in some quarters, with equal parts suspicion and that makes scepticism”. India is furious about the infusion of Chinese money into its rival, Pakistan; Japan is distrustful of China’s motives; the EU is worried about countries becoming too indebted to Beijing. Europe nervous These fears reflect the world’s “collective nervousness” about the rise of China but, with the US retreating into protectionism under President Trump, people should welcome the BRI. If nothing else, The National it’s “likely to serve as a stimulus for global trade”, both by its own actions and by inspiring “copycat (Abu Dhabi) initiatives”. India and Japan, for instance, are now planning to fund similar capacity-building projects in Iran, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Africa. “Though Chairman Mao is no longer in fashion, his slogan may be apt in this new phase of China-aided globalisation: Let a hundred fl owers bloom.”

It’s time America pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, says Katrina vanden Heuvel. The original aim UNITED STATES of the deployment – to get Osama bin Laden and punish the Taliban for harbouring al-Qa’eda – was achieved long ago. So why is the US still there? This is now the longest war in America’s history. Please can we We’ve lost more than 2,350 soldiers and spent more than $1trn; the campaign is still costing us almost a $1bn a week. In a couple of years, “there will be soldiers fi ghting in Afghanistan that just pull out of weren’t even born at the time of 9/11”. The generals are asking for another 5,000 soldiers to break the “stalemate”, but there’s no reason to think that yet another push will change things, given the Afghanistan? record of recent years. President Obama signed off on a surge that ended with 100,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan – to little avail. The US is trying to “build a nation on the other side of the world, The Washington Post dispatching soldiers who don’t know the language, the culture, the religion, the ethnic and sectarian divisions, or the history”. It won’t work. Donald Trump should “adopt the advice that then-senator George Aiken offered about Vietnam in 1966: ‘Declare victory and get out.’”

CHINA The humiliating trouncing of a tai chi master has shocked China, says Chow Chung-yan. For weeks, mixed martial arts fi ghter Xu Xiaodong – a former champ of the brawling sport known as ultimate fi ghting – issued online taunts against so-called masters of traditional Chinese martial arts, calling This kick in the them frauds who couldn’t actually defend themselves. Finally, tai chi “thunder master” Wei Lei accepted Xu’s challenge to a public duel – and it didn’t go well for Wei. He struck a graceful pose, teeth is good and Xu destroyed him, pounding him bloody and helpless in just ten seconds. Chinese viewers were appalled, but they should thank Xu for exposing the degradation of an ancient tradition. What he for martial arts thrashed was not tai chi, but a “corrupted form” of the fi ghting technique. Martial arts were banned during the Cultural Revolution, and when they were revived, in the 1980s, the schools were South China Morning Post “profit-driven and ill-supervised”, making the sports “prone to exaggerations and fraud”. Wei, for (Hong Kong) example, dazzled viewers of a recent TV special by apparently using the mystical power of “chi” to keep a pigeon on his palm, when, in fact, he was accused of using duct tape. Maybe this “kick in the teeth” will force the tai chi industry to regulate itself and become a legitimate martial art again.

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Health & Science NEWS 19 What the scientists are saying… “Fat but fit” still more at risk more sensitive to amyl acetate, an odorant The idea that you can be “fat but fi t” has in bananas, probably because seeking out been undermined by new research fruit was important to our ancestors. The suggesting that people who are obese have “olfactory bulb” brain region is bigger in an increased risk of heart failure and humans than in many other mammals. stroke, even if they have none of the And there is research to back up the idea standard complications of obesity, such that we have a good sense of smell: in a as high blood pressure, diabetes and 2006 study, volunteers wearing blindfolds abnormal blood fats. Researchers analysed and earmuffs were able to follow the scent the health records of 3.5 million people trail left by a rope that had been dipped in from 1995 to 2015, all of whom were free chocolate, and pulled along the fl oor. of heart disease at the starting point of the Other studies have found evidence that the study. They found that people deemed scent of women’s tears alters testosterone “metabolically healthy”, despite having a levels, and that at a subconscious level, we body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, can distinguish between sweat produced were 50% more likely to go on to be during exercise, and that triggered by fear. diagnosed with coronary heart disease than We’re detecting odours all the time, says people of a healthy weight, and had a 7% McGann, but generally we fi lter them out. increased risk of cerebrovascular disease, For instance, when people get home from which affects blood fl ow and can lead to But is it any good at distinguishing wines? a holiday, they often think their house stroke; they also had almost double the smells odd. In fact, it smells like that all the risk of heart failure. Dr Rishi Caleyachetty, The team said there was a marked rise in time; they just don’t notice it. who led the research at the University of creativity, and fall in agreeableness, among Birmingham, acknowledged that BMI is an the only children. They also detected A lazy holiday can do you harm imperfect measure, in that it can lead to corresponding changes in brain structure. Just two weeks without exercise can take athletes and bodybuilders being classed as This did not surprise them, they said: its toll, causing muscles to waste away and obese on account of the weight of their parental attention can lead to cognitive waistlines to expand. Scientists from the muscles. He said that at a population level, benefits, but also selfishness and depend- University of Liverpool recruited 28 people however, the fi ndings imply that many ency, while a lack of siblings deprives of average health who led active lives obese people who seem healthy are not – children of opportunities “to rehearse (walking about 10,000 steps a day) but and should be encouraged to lose weight. some of the more complicated aspects of who did not do much formal exercise, and relationships within a safe environment”, told them to move around less, while Creativity boost for only children and develop “psychosocial skills”. eating the same diet. After two weeks, in Being an only child is a mixed blessing. which they had typically been active for A new study in China has found that Our powerful sense of smell 30 minutes a day, they had each lost 360g undivided attention tends to make children Dogs are known for their extraordinary in muscle mass, on average, mainly in the more creative, but also less pleasant. The sense of smell – but ours really isn’t bad legs; they had gained 0.7cm around their researchers, from the Southwest University either, a new paper argues. John McGann, waists; and they were showing higher levels in Chongqing, recruited 270 college a neuroscientist at Rutgers University in of fatty molecules in the blood, linked to students, half of whom were only children; New Jersey, says dogs are good at distin- insulin resistance. The researchers say two they scanned their brains, and gave them guishing the scent of urine on a lamp post, weeks on the sofa may not do significant personality tests in which they were asked for example, because urine is of interest to damage – “but suppose you continue for how much they agreed with statements them. Humans, on the other hand, are six weeks, or eight, then very quickly that such as: “I feel little concern for others”. good at telling wines apart. We’re also would lead to a clinical difference”.

The most littered place on Earth? Warning to sushi lovers An uninhabited coral atoll in the South As the sushi-sashimi boom continues, Pacific has been identified as one of the most doctors may need to be more aware of litter-strewn places in the world. Henderson an associated medical problem: parasitic Island is just six miles long, and is more than infections from raw or lightly cooked 3,000 miles from the nearest major human fish. Although cases are mainly seen in centre, yet researchers estimate that its white Japan, patients in Europe are now sand beaches are littered with around 38 presenting with anisakiasis – a disease caused by parasitic nematodes (worms) million pieces of man-made debris (99.8% burrowing into the stomach wall or of them plastic), weighing around 17.6 tons intestine. The authors of an article in the – giving this otherwise untouched shore the journal BMJ Case Reports cite the case highest density of plastic pollution on Earth. of a man in Portugal who was admitted Marine biologist Jennifer Lavers, of the to hospital with fever, abdominal pain University of Tasmania, says she is used to and vomiting. Doctors diagnosed the finding such pollution even on far-flung problem after he told them he had beaches, but that she thought Henderson Island’s isolation might have lent it some recently eaten sushi. They also cite a protection. “I was totally wrong,” she told The Guardian. “The quantity left me Spanish study that found there had been 25 cases of the condition between 1999 speechless and that’s why I went to such pains to document it in detail.” She and her and 2002: those patients had all eaten team estimate that 3,500 bits of plastic – ranging from water bottles and netting to raw anchovies. Consumers planning to unidentifiable shards – are being washed up on the island daily, thanks to its location make raw fish dishes are advised to at the edge of a system of ocean currents known as the South Pacific Gyre. Analysis of freeze the fish for at least four days first, the debris suggests it’s being carried there from as far off as China, Russia and the US. to ensure parasites are killed. © JENNIFER LAVERS

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 20 NEWS Talking points

Pick of the week’s Pippa’s wedding: a “festival of narcissism”? “In these troubled times, it is it as proof of Jeremy Corbyn’s Gossip only fi tting that the nation contention that the rich occupy should turn for solace to the a different planet” and need Roger Moore was famous for being charming to his one thing at which we can be taking down. No one should fans. After his death this sure to excel,” said Dan begrudge the Middletons their week, aged 89, TV writer Glaister in The Observer: “the fortune: they worked hard for Marc Haynes recalled celebrity wedding.” And so to it. But by indulging in this meeting the actor at Nice Berkshire last Saturday, for the conspicuous display of wealth, airport in 1983, when Haynes nuptials of Pippa Middleton they risk being accused of was seven. Spotting the and James Matthews – she behaving like vulgar oligarchs. James Bond star, Hayes famed for her bottom and her Given their royal connections, asked his grandfather, who’d brother-in-law, he for being a little restraint would surely never heard of the actor, if they could get his autograph. the multimillionaire fi nancier have been advisable. They duly returned with a engaged to her. The sun shone, friendly note, and a scrawl – the medieval church was Yet Pippa’s wedding wasn’t that didn’t say James Bond. crammed full of fl owers, and entirely out of the ordinary, Eventually, they deciphered villagers, wearing wristbands, said Janice Turner in The it: Roger Moore. “I tell my cheered dutifully when the Matthews and Middleton: an arms race Times. Weddings are not the grandad he’s signed it bride arrived in her bespoke relatively simple affairs they Giles Deacon gown. At the reception, security once were – varying in cost, but following the was so tight guests, ranging from Roger Federer same helpful, if dreary, formula. Today, the to Princess Eugenie, needed a password to get in, entire day must be stamped through with your said The Daily Telegraph. But details leaked out: “unique personality” like “seaside rock”. With of a glass marquee full of trees bedecked with all eyes on the Instagram potential, the pressure lights, for an “enchanted forest” theme; of to raise the game is intense; and the choices are photos of the couple projected onto a 100ft- limitless. Do you marry in a castle, or barefoot wide screen; and of a catering operation that on an atoll? Do you release Chinese lanterns, or included 20,000 canapés served by models. butterflies? Do you name your tables after Elvis hits, or (like Pippa) places special to you? The The Middletons insisted it was a private spending mounts – the average cost is £27,000 – occasion, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. while the bride goes slowly mad, turning what They even got their lawyers to stress the point. should be a joyful, relaxed affair into a tightly wrong – so [he] heads back But it couldn’t be, not least because of Pippa’s stage-managed “festival of narcissism”. Pippa, to Moore, holding the ticket own taste for publicity. Which is regrettable, with a royal wedding to follow, is just another which he’s only just because many people will read about this lavish victim of what Country Life recently described signed.” From a distance, event, with its £1m estimated price tag, “and see as the nuptial “arms race”. Haynes saw the actor’s face crinkle up with realisation. He beckoned him over. “When I was by his knee, he Julian Assange: a hollow victory? leant over, looked from side to side, raised an eyebrow, Julian Assange stepped out onto Independent. But it’s not clear if and in a hushed voice said, the balcony of the Ecuadorian the Swedish decision will make ‘I have to sign my name as embassy in London last Friday any difference to his position. Roger Moore because “with his fi st raised in a victory Assange still can’t leave the otherwise… Blofeld might salute”, said Chris Greenwood and embassy, because there’s a warrant find out I was here.’ He Ben Wilkinson in the Daily Mail. out for his arrest in the UK: if he asked me not to tell anyone Swedish prosecutors had does, he will be arrested for that I’d seen James Bond, unexpectedly dropped their breaching his bail conditions by and thanked me for keeping his secret. I went back to our investigation into a rape allegation failing to appear in court to accept seats, my nerves jangling made against him by a woman in extradition. It’s a “rough form of with delight. My grandad Stockholm in 2010. The justice”, but it will do for now. asked me if he’d signed WikiLeaks founder, who has been ‘James Bond’. No, I said, I’d holed up in the embassy since Assange’s image “is not fl attered” got it wrong. I was working seeking asylum there in 2012 – to by this news coming in the very with James Bond now.” avoid extradition – hailed the Still wanted on a UK warrant week of Chelsea Manning’s decision as an “important release, said Marina Hyde in The She’s had countless hits victory”. He said he had been the victim of a Guardian. Manning, who passed the original over the years, but Cher, 71, “terrible injustice”, “detained for seven years trove of US secrets to WikiLeaks, paid the price knows her music isn’t for everyone. In fact, it’s not without charge” while his children grew up. for her bravery with seven years’ confinement in even for her. “I’m not a Cher “That is not something I can forgive” or forget, tough US military jails. Assange, meanwhile, has fan,” she told Billboard. “I he said – adding that his organisation would been comfortably ensconced in Knightsbridge, just don’t think my aesthetic “accelerate” its leaks of CIA documents. receiving visits from the likes of Lady Gaga, lies in that direction.” She Yoko Ono and “his special lady caller”, Pamela doesn’t much like any of her “Call me pedantic,” said Barbara Ellen in The Anderson. Assange’s defence has always been own music, preferring Joni Observer, but I don’t think Assange should be “threadbare”, said The Times – claiming that he Mitchell’s, but particularly acting “as though he has been found innocent”. is the victim of a US conspiracy, while denying hates her 1990s output: it’s He hasn’t: Swedish prosecutors only halted the justice to the women who accused him of abuse. “crap”. As for Billboard giving her an Icon Award: investigation because of the practical obstacles He looks likely to be remembered not as a brave “Icon is a stupid word”. to pursuing it. It’s a “disgrace” that he has whistle-blower, “but as an emblem of misogyny escaped the due process of the law, said The and moral evasion”.

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 Talking points NEWS 21

Trump on tour: betting on the Saudis Wit & You have to admire the guts he delighted his hosts and an of President Trump’s assembled crowd of other Wisdom advisers, said Kathleen Sunni Arab leaders by siding Parker in The Washington unambiguously with them “A painter has so Post. They are dealing with against Shia Iran. All of this much more talent one of the most gaffe-prone, will have done wonders for when he’s dead.” unpredictable leaders ever US-Saudi relations, which Mark Twain, quoted to grace the White House, a became strained during the in The Guardian man who can unleash chaos Obama administration, said “It is difficult to get at home with a single tweet. Julian Borger in The a man to understand Yet last week, they packed Guardian. But it’s unclear something when his salary him off on a nine-day trip how “doubling down on US depends upon his not that would involve him support for Arab understanding it.” “touching base with three autocracies” and taking Upton Sinclair, quoted of the world’s largest The president with Saudi’s King Salman sides in the Sunni-Shia in Foreign Affairs religions, visiting Saudi power struggle will advance Arabia, Israel and Vatican City”. As if that Trump’s professed aim of wiping out Isis. He “The kind of people who are weren’t enough, the itinerary of Trump’s fi rst “seemed oblivious to the irony” of delivering his disgusted by an idealised foreign tour also included a Nato summit in message from the capital of Saudi Arabia, the past can often barely contain Brussels and a G7 conference in Sicily. And this source of Wahhabi Salafism extremism, the day their enthusiasm for an wildly ambitious foreign odyssey was presented after millions of Iranians re-elected a moderate idealised future.” in advance as something that would help reformer as president. Author Paul Kingsnorth, promote the cause of tolerance. “Really, what quoted in The Guardian could possibly go wrong?” The White House has decided that America’s “World domination is such strategic interest “lies in siding with the cautious an ugly phrase. I prefer to The centrepiece of Trump’s trip was the visit to modernisation of Saudi Arabia, rather than in call it world optimisation.” Saudi Arabia, said the FT, and, by his own gambling on the future liberalisation of the Artificial intelligence guru lights, this “will be accounted a triumph”. The Iranian regime”, said The Times. And it’s right. Eliezer Yudkowsky, president, who during last year’s campaign President Hassan Rouhani may be a relative quoted on The Browser announced that “Islam hates us”, and who has moderate, but real power in Iran still resides tried twice to introduce a ban on Muslim visitors with the hard-line clerics, who show no sign of “One does not discover new to the US, declared that Saudi Arabia was a changing their ways. The West must work with lands without consenting to “magnificent kingdom”. He hailed the “blessed Arab allies to contain a regime “that props up lose sight of the shore for news” that the US and the Saudis had signed an Bashar al-Assad in Syria, subverts Iraq, backs a very long time.” estimated $350bn worth of trade and investment insurgents in Yemen, cheers on the Hezbollah André Gide, quoted in deals, including $110bn in US arms sales. And militias, and arms the enemies of Israel”. The Guardian “Physics is like sex. It may give some practical results, Oxford stabber: too clever for jail? but that’s not why we do it.” We’re supposed to be equal before my lefty rage: it was Pringle’s Nobel laureate Richard the law, said James Moore in The suggestion that clever girls doing Feynman, quoted in The Independent. But are we? In a drug- well at Oxford don’t belong in Wall Street Journal fuelled rage, Oxford University prison. Prison, we have to assume, “The poet’s role is student Lavinia Woodward, 24, is only for the impecunious, not to oppose evil, punched her boyfriend in the face, old-before-their-years losers in but to imagine it.” gashed his leg with a bread knife, cheap shell suits who are more Robert Duncan, quoted and threw a laptop at him, usually to be found in the criminal in The Guardian followed by a glass and a jam jar. courts: the products of bad diets, In court last week, she admitted bad habits and hard lives. It seems “The human race is guided to unlawful wounding, but her that if you’ve had advantages by myth as much as by logic, defence QC pleaded for clemency, already, the court will look more and mythology explains arguing that her dreams of kindly on you than if you live in a people to themselves more becoming a heart surgeon would slum. Where is the justice in that? vividly than economics.” be dashed if she were jailed. The A.N. Wilson in The Spectator judge, Ian Pringle, sympathised. Woodward: granted clemency It’s unjust, said Simon Jenkins in Referencing her “extraordinary” The Guardian. But I still think talent, her “troubled life”, her commitment to Pringle was right: universities are highly stressful Statistics of the week staying off drugs and previous good character, places, rife with alcohol and drugs. Exposed to he hinted that she might be spared a prison term, these pressures, some young adults will go off The proportion of people over and deferred sentencing until September. the rails – but they can be redeemed. Why ruin 65 who are in work has their lives by jailing them? The scandal is only almost doubled since 1992, from 5.5% (478,000 people) Just occasionally, I come over all angry and that this principle is not applied more widely. to 10.4% (1.19 million). leftist, said Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. Whether the defendant is an aspiring doctor or The Daily Telegraph Reading about this case was one such occasion. an aspiring van driver, prison is a fast route to If a man who’d knifed his girlfriend were unemployment. It’s expensive, it’s counter- In Cornwall, more than 14,000 afforded such sympathy, there would be outrage. productive (reoffending rates are sky-high), and people are on waiting lists to One also wonders whether a woman who gets most inmates are no threat to the public. “Any register with an NHS dentist. “stabby” while out of her box on drugs is really prison sentence is for life.” We should use The Observer surgeon material. But that wasn’t the trigger for alternative penalties wherever possible. © BANDAR ALGALOUD / SAUDI KINGDOM COUNCIL / HANDOUT

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 22 NEWS Sport

Football: Celtic become the new Invincibles To go through a whole season unbeaten in one’s can dream of. Rangers, their usual rivals, only league is an incredible feat. Arsenal did it in made it back into the Premiership this season 2003-04; Juventus in 2011-12. And this year, after being sent down the leagues for going another team will go down in history as the bankrupt. Even so, to go through 38 games “Invincibles”, said Michael Grant in The Times. without a single off day – in Rodgers’ first Celtic have been so dominant in the Scottish season in charge, no less – is still quite some Premiership in recent years that “there is a risk of achievement. “With a bit more luck, they might the glories blending into one”. But this year was have kept a 100% record,” said Paul Forsyth in special. With a 2-0 victory over Hearts on Sunday, The Times. None of Celtic’s four draws “ever Brendan Rodgers’ men completed their unbeaten threatened to be a defeat”; two involved late season – the first time a team has done so in a equalisers, and their opponents likewise came Scottish league for 118 years. Rodgers’ “all- from behind in the other two. Their success “has conquering side” have probably “set more records been self-perpetuating” – the longer the players than Usain Bolt”, said Stephen Halliday in The avoided losing, the more it gave them to defend. Scotsman. They won 34 of their 38 games, one “Like Tiger Woods in his pomp”, the Bhoys have more than the previous league high-water mark. reached the stage where “their opponents are They notched 106 league goals, at an average of Rodgers: a record first season beaten before they even take to the field”. 2.8 a game, “beating the 105 netted by Martin O’Neill’s squad in 2003-04”. And their points haul, also 106, “It’s not over yet,” said Stephen McGowan in the Daily Mail. surpassed the record set by O’Neill’s team in 2001-02. Having already won the League Cup, Celtic take on Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final this Saturday with a chance to secure a first Everyone knows about the “vast advantages” Celtic hold in the domestic treble in 16 years, and “only the fourth in the club’s Premiership, said Tom English on BBC Sport online. They boast history”. Say what you like about Scottish football – this Celtic a massive support base, and more funds than most Scottish teams team are “a cut above the norm”. Rugby: could Exeter’s win be a boost for the Lions? Last weekend’s Premiership semi-finals produced the Chiefs were “still a championship team, seen as a truly “incredible afternoon of rugby”, said Tom country mice up against the big city slickers”. Now Cary in The Sunday Telegraph. In the first game, they’ve beaten “the best team on the Continent” to Exeter were trailing visitors Saracens 16-13 with two reach a second consecutive Premiership final. Current minutes to go when they won a penalty 65 metres champions Saracens weren’t themselves, said Paul out. Substitute Henry Slade unleashed a humdinger Rees in the same paper. They looked exhausted from of a kick to earn a line-out a few yards from the their bruising Champions Cup final victory last Sarries line – and Exeter’s pack promptly bundled weekend and were missing captain Brad Barritt. But Sam Simmonds over the whitewash to win it. The all credit to Exeter. Tough and never willing to give second semi, between unfancied Leicester and in, they are becoming “Saracens in a different jersey”. regular-season champions Wasps, was “every bit as dramatic”. After taking a 20-16 lead early in the One man who’ll be especially happy is Lions coach second half, the Tigers dealt with everything Wasps Warren Gatland, said Stuart Barnes in The Sunday threw at them – right until the death. Cue another Exeter: no country mice Times. Billy Vunipola has pulled out of next month’s penalty to the corner, another frantic scramble, and New Zealand tour with an injury, but Gatland’s a last-gasp winning try from Wasps substitute Josh Bassett. After squad still features five Saracens players: Owen Farrell, Mako these “sensational” finishes, Saturday’s final will feature “English Vunipola, Jamie George, George Kruis and Maro Itoje. Thanks to rugby’s two most attractive, most attacking teams”. Exeter’s win, these strong Test match contenders have a crucial extra week to “freshen up”. With that stunning kick to touch – While Wasps’ win was more or less expected, Exeter will be over “one of the great penalty punts in Premiership history” – Exeter’s the moon, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. Seven years ago, Henry Slade “may have given the Lions a shot at the series”.

Arsenal despair as Liverpool triumph Sporting headlines For 19 consecutive seasons, any of the leading sides this MotoGP Former world Arsenal have qualified for the season, even though it has only champion Nicky Hayden Champions League, said Jeremy the sixth highest wage bill. died five days after colliding Wilson in The Daily Telegraph, They finished “16 points and with a car while cycling in but their luck has finally run out. four places better off” than in Italy. He was 35. The Gunners beat Everton in the last campaign, and did it all Football David Moyes their final game of the season with captain Jordan Henderson resigned as Sunderland on Sunday, but Manchester City out injured for the past three- manager and Sam Allardyce and Liverpool both secured the and-a-half months. Klopp has quit Crystal Palace. Harry wins they needed to seal third “restored belief” at Anfield. Kane won the Premier League Klopp: restoring belief at Anfield and fourth place respectively. The other final-day drama Golden Boot. Real Madrid Manager Arsène Wenger can was at Stamford Bridge, said beat Málaga 2-0, clinching the feel hard done by: his team’s points tally of Simon Burnton in The Guardian. To mark John La Liga title. 75 “has only actually been bettered by eight Terry’s last game at Chelsea, the captain was Tennis Novak Djokovic has previous Arsenal teams in 25 Premier League substituted in the 26th minute (his shirt number) hired Andre Agassi to seasons”. But that’ll be slim comfort when he’s and given a guard of honour. Incredibly, this coach him at the French slumming it in the Europa League next season. “wildly excessive ego-buffing” was dreamt up Open. The Serbian player Arsenal’s failure shouldn’t overshadow not by his teammates, but by the man himself. lost Sunday’s Italian Open Liverpool’s achievement, said Henry Winter in “They say there’s no ‘I’ in team, but… there are final in straight sets to The Times. Jürgen Klopp’s team didn’t lose to loads in ‘idiotic self-aggrandising substitution’”. Alexander Zverev.

THE WEEK 27 May 2017

24 LETTERS Pick of the week’s correspondence

Mrs T’s biggest fan Exchange of the week of the core principle of how the To the Financial Times nationalised industries worked: John Paul Rathbone’s obituary Social care and the Tories cross subsidy. Any idiot can of Hugh Thomas describes as deliver letters in a town or city a failure the famous evening To The Times and make a profit, but it is very when the historian attempted Dementia is an illness and those who have it are entitled to be expensive to deliver to small to bridge the gap with writers treated as ill. There is no justification in relabelling dementia villages and outlying houses by inviting the Iron Lady to as a social problem, needing social care, for which the sufferer and farms. So the profitable dinner with Stephen Spender has to pay. Patients with cancer, heart disease, or any other deliveries subsidised the and Philip Larkin, because the illness receive free NHS care, and dementia should be unprofitable ones. Before poets “recoiled from the ‘blue recognised in the same way. Thatcher, the Post Office also flash’ of Thatcher’s ideas”. Dr Jane Bowskill, Isle of Wight included telecommunications This was doubtless true of that were highly profitable, Spender, but Larkin came The Daily Telegraph and these profits subsidised the away enraptured, claiming the I cannot believe how badly the Tory party has explained its service’s losses, but Thatcher prime minister floored him by social care policy. The reality of its proposal is that children of sold the profitable part. quoting what she claimed was old people going into care homes could be £77,000 better off. The same principle allowed her favourite Larkin line There is already a disparity between the cost of cancer care profitable train and bus “about a girl whose mind was and Alzheimer’s disease. This is nothing new. How is paying services to subsidise full of knives”, from The Less your own care bills with your own money a tax? You are not unprofitable ones that Deceived, which he was subsidising anyone else. The current system of council-funded provided a necessary service. thrilled to report she seemed home care is effectively a transfer of wealth from struggling Today, private companies to picture as a mind “rather council-tax payers to moderately wealthy homeowners. How only operate profitable routes along her own lines”. is that fair or sustainable? The hypocrisy of Labour and the and expect councils to subsi- In fact, Hull’s laureate never Lib Dems attacking this is laughable but predictable. dise unprofitable bus services. ceased to “adore” the No doubt the Tories will be punished for being honest about But as central government cuts “Leaderene”, as he told the social care. That’s why we end up with dishonest politicians. local council funding, services novelist Anthony Powell, and Thomas Rouser, Richmond, Surrey are cut, and it is the poor that was prone to exclaim, “What suffer. Thatcherism still casts a blade of steel!” Larkin even To The Guardian a dark cloud over politicians of came to believe he had I agree that much of the wealth in our homes is the product of all parties, but hopefully, the influenced her foreign policy, the behaviour of the property market, rather than the capital electorate will respond when he was invited to dine we have put in, and it is reasonable that such capital gains are positively to Corbyn and with “Mrs T” at Downing taxed to aid the national good. However, like the poll tax, this finally start to bury Thatcher’s Street, upon her triumphant has the superficial fairness that it is equal for everyone, but in appalling legacy. return from the Falklands War, reality taxes those with the least wealth at the highest rate. Michael Gold, Romford and sat in silence for most of For example, someone who took advantage of right-to-buy the evening until “Mrs legislation and owns a former council house now worth In defence of prefabs Thatcher complained about £200,000 will effectively be contributing to social care at a rate To The Guardian the Berlin Wall”. As Andrew of 50% of their total wealth. How can this be justified without Your caption to a photo of Motion tells the story in his massively increasing inheritance tax for everyone? postwar prefabs refers to “the biography of the poet: The movement away from public provision to private bad old days of prefab “‘Surely,’ Larkin suddenly said, responsibility is another step forward in dismantling the housing”. These wonderful ‘you don’t want to see a united welfare state and privatising health and social care. Political dwellings provided an Germany?’ ‘Well, no,’ she realignment and softer words, but still the same old Tories. urgently needed solution to answered, ‘perhaps not.’ ‘Well Roy Grimwood, Market Drayton, Shropshire the UK’s massive postwar then,’ Larkin shot at her, housing shortage, and ‘what’s all this hypocrisy about presented a huge improvement wanting the Wall down?’” revolving door after release, and multiply is an outrage. Its in living standards for most of Richard Wilson, professor of their future employment loss strikes at the very core of their early residents. Their Shakespeare studies, Kingston chances crippled by “prison” what it means to be British, kitchens and bathrooms would University, Surrey stamped on their CVs. My and I urge your readers to use have been a revelation to lowest moment was asking a the gesture whenever and people whose previous Revolving door of misery suicidal young guy’s age and wherever appropriate. Ongoing dwellings would have had To The Guardian place of birth while helping Brexit negotiations provide the shared outside toilets and no As that rare jailbird, a him with form-filling: “I perfect opportunity. hot water. Cambridge criminologist dunno. They never told me.” Nicholas Young, London Norman Bone, Derby sentenced to 18 months for Later in my cell, I wept. growing cannabis, I became a Rod Read, Sutton, National good direct participant-observer of Cambridgeshire To The Guardian exactly the faults in penal Nationalised policy which Simon Jenkins A gesture of defiance industries have had a points to. About 50% of my To The Daily Telegraph bad press for some fellow inmates were The most pernicious example 40 years, especially functionally illiterate, and a of an American assault on from neo-liberal similar proportion mentally or British culture is the adoption fundamentalists. emotionally disturbed, with of the raising of the middle Martin Kettle’s horrendous childhood finger as a gesture of contempt. comments on the backstories. They were the The usurpation of the tradi- Royal Mail appear “OK, everyone, a few important recipients of medieval tional British inverse victory to come from a safety announcements.” treatment, guaranteeing the sign as an invitation to go forth misunderstanding © JASON PATTERSON NEW YORKER COLLECTION/CARTOON BANK

● Letters have been edited THE WEEK 27 May 2017

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Book of the week the “most venal” example of the former was Germany’s “hard-as-nails” finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, while an Adults in the Room “intriguing” example of the latter was by Yanis Varoufakis France’s then economy minister (and Bodley Head 560pp £20 now president), Emmanuel Macron, The Week Bookshop £17 who “promised to help” but ultimately did little. At heart, this book is a “convincing critique of Germany’s With his leather jackets and flagrant domination of Europe through the self-regard, Yanis Varoufakis can be an euro”, said Juliet Samuel in The Daily irritating figure, said Michael Gove in Telegraph. In its many “verbatim” The Times. Yet whatever his “petty accounts of phone conversations and vanities”, the economist-turned-“anti- “closed-doors meetings” (made possible austerity rock star” has a powerful, if by Varoufakis’s habit of secretly depressing, story to tell about the way recording his interactions with in which the leaders of the European technocrats and ministers), we see Union operate. During his six-month tenure as Greek’s finance “duplicity and cynicism ruling supreme”. All of Europe’s power minister in 2015, Varoufakis vainly tried to persuade EU players “tiptoe around” the “iron-fisted” Schäuble, often establishment figures to relax the extreme austerity measures they privately voicing opposition but “yielding meekly” to his sought to impose on his country as the condition for a third demands. The human consequences of mandatory austerity were financial bailout. Their refusal to do so trapped Greece in an certainly “grave”, said Michael Burleigh in the London Evening “ever-tightening fiscal vice” that caused economic misery for Standard. The EU’s harsh terms led to “desperate people shooting millions. Now, in his “important” and “terrifying” memoir of the themselves in Syntagma Square, and grannies picking through period, Varoufakis details the shocking “shabbiness and hauteur” bins for their next meal”. Yet though Varoufakis “undoubtedly with which the EU’s ruling powers treated him, and his country. feels their pain”, he has also “used his flirtation with politics to Adults in the Room is a “riveting hiss and tell” that provides an develop a career as a global media celebrity”. Is he really the “extraordinary account of low cunning at the heart of Greece’s person to speak on their behalf? Ultimately, the essential agenda 2015 financial bailout”, said John Kampfner in The Observer. of this “unpleasantly self-justificatory and hyperbolic” book Varoufakis depicts most EU rulers as either bullies or hypocrites: seems to be to “portray the author as the nation’s chief victim”.

Queer City by Peter Ackroyd Novel of the week Chatto & Windus 272pp £16.99 Sympathy The Week Bookshop £14.99 by Olivia Sudjic ONE/Pushkin Press 416pp £14.99 Peter Ackroyd has an “encyclopaedic The Week Bookshop £12.99 knowledge of London, and a poet’s instinct for its strange, mesmerising drives and urges”, said Alice, the 23-year-old protagonist of Olivia Craig Brown in The Mail on Sunday. In Queer Sudjic’s fi rst novel, is a “latter-day Tom Ripley City, he turns his “all-seeing eye” on the armed with a smartphone”, said Sam Kitchener capital’s gay life, charting its history from the in Literary Review. After graduating from Romans to the present. Ackroyd “hand-picks” university in England, she goes to stay with her many “splendid examples of gay debauchery”, grandmother in New York and grows obsessed from King Alfred (who was so “blasé” about Edward II and Piers Gaveston with a “slightly older” woman named Mizuko, sex between men that he revoked all punishment a Japanese writer with an alluring social media for it) to the “infamously camp” Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s rumoured lover. profile. Having befriended Mizuko online, Alice And when he lacks solid evidence, he “surmises away to his heart’s content”, inveigles herself “into a life she already feels a souping up “even the most anodyne tale to render it more fruity”. The result is a part of”. Sympathy is “a psychological thriller” history which sometimes leaves the impression that, for the past 2,000 years, combined with acute observations of millennial London has “primarily been a 24-hour gay pickup joint”. Through Ackroyd’s behaviour. It is an “exceptional debut”. “X-ray binoculars”, London “stands revealed as a steamy hub of gay activity”. The novel’s narrative has a “dream-like Since, throughout history, homosexuality has so often been illegal, gay men disjointedness”, with Alice “jumping between and lesbians have generally taken care not to leave behind evidence of their events” as it suits her, said Lucy Scholes in The behaviour, said Philip Hensher in The Spectator. This means that, for historians, Independent. It can be hard to “keep track of a “certain degree of speculation and intuition may always be necessary”. And what’s going on”, but there’s method to the Ackroyd is at his most “thoughtful” and “entertaining” when dealing with approach: it makes reading the novel “akin homosexuality’s “hidden” history. By contrast, when approaching the present to losing oneself online”. Sympathy offers a day, his touch becomes less assured. This book’s basic thesis – that “London is “shrewd examination” of love in the digital age, by its nature subversive” – is “fascinating”, said Dominic Sandbrook in The said Claire Allfree in the Daily Mail. However, Sunday Times. Unfortunately, though, Ackroyd doesn’t really develop it: instead its characters are so self-absorbed that it’s hard, he just regales us with “story after story”. Queer City, as a result, feels more like in the end, to feel much sympathy for them. a “quick fumble behind a tavern than a lasting and satisfying romance”. To order these titles or any other book in print, visit www.theweek.co.uk/bookshop or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835 Opening times: Mon to Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-5.30pm and Sun 10am-2pm

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Drama ARTS 29

The opening moments of Our six superb young actresses are Ladies of Perpetual Succour brilliantly convincing as the sum up the show, said Sarah six choristers – and as multiple Crompton on WhatsOnStage. other characters, from prim com. “Six schoolgirls in kilts nuns to assorted predatory Theatre step forward, hands folded and ridiculous men. And they neatly. They lift their eyes to sing sublimely, moving the hills and sing a snatch of effortlessly from Bartók to Our Ladies of Mendelssohn like angels. But ELO’s Mr Blue Sky in Perpetual the second the strains of song “numbers that range from the die away, they slump, puff out thumpingly exuberant to the Succour their cheeks, and emerge in the almost unbearably poignant”. disaffected pose of youth.” I had mixed feelings about Adapted by Lee Hall And there you have it: on the this “raucous” piece, said from the novel The surface, this tale of six Oban Dominic Cavendish in The schoolgirls using the excuse of Daily Telegraph. When the girls Sopranos by Alan Warner a choir competition to go “on The most exuberant show in town sing Bach, Handel and Vaughan Director: the lash” in Edinburgh is “all Williams, their heavenly voices Vicky Featherstone foul-mouthed attitudes and bolshie teenagers”. “make you feel cleansed of all worldly sins”. But Yet underneath “beats a heart of pure much of the evening is like being “stuck in emotional gold”. It’s simultaneously “the rudest, a train carriage with an ever rowdier and tipsier the most exuberant and the most touching hen party”, the air “saturated with expletives” Duke of York’s, show” in town – a blend of the sacred and the and body-parts banter. Then again, the teenager St Martin’s Lane, London profane; the profound and the trivial. “Everyone I “dragooned” into coming along, who swore WC2 (020-7452 3000) should see it.” she’d find it “so boring”, loved it. Until 2 September “Chell, Fionnula, Kay, Kylah, Manda and Orla, welcome to the West End,” said Fiona The week’s other opening Mountford in the London Evening Standard. If Life of Galileo Young Vic, The Cut, Lambeth, Running time: anyone can pull a fresh audience into the “staid London SE (020-7922 2922). Until 1 July 1hr 45mins heartland of London theatre, it is these fizzingly I’ve always found Brecht’s “tub-thumping joy- (no interval) vivacious, gloriously foul-mouthed and yet lessness” resistible, says Susannah Clapp. But angelically tuneful” teens. Vicky Featherstone’s I loved this sparkling production directed by Joe Wright, with a raft of superb performances led ★★★ “joyous” production, first seen in Scotland and then at the National, recently won the Olivier by Brendan Cowell in the title role (Observer). for Best New Comedy – and deservedly so. The

All roads lead to Rome at the into freeing his concubine, RSC this season, said Dominic Voluptua. It is, in short, a Cavendish in The Daily genuine crowd-pleasing romp, Telegraph. Julius Caesar and said Michael Billington in The Theatre Antony and Cleopatra have Guardian. And even if it already opened; Titus sometimes “strives a bit too hard Andronicus and Coriolanus are – do the band really need to to come. So now, as if “bulking wear monkey costumes? – it Vice Versa out a teacher’s pack”, they’ve scoops up the laughs”. “thrown in a pastiche Plautus Honeyman pitches the comic comedy to thicken the thematic register “just the right side of Playwright: Phil Porter mix and lighten the mood”. Phil overripeness”, said Ben Kulvichit Director: Janice Honeyman Porter’s “larky homage” to the in The Stage. And there are third century BC Roman terrific performances from Swan Theatre, Waterside, playwright is billed as “lovingly Hayes, who plays Braggadocio ripped off” from its source with “virtuosic pomp”, and Stratford-upon-Avon, material. I myself would have from Sophia Nomvete, who Warwickshire preferred the RSC to have staged knows how to get the audience (01789-403493) a proper Plautus, but if you’re A “larky homage” onside as the cunning slave Until 9 September “prepared to indulge” a two- Dexter. In fact, the entire high- hour gag-fest of “full-on zaniness” and Carry energy cast get into the spirit of the show, said On-style innuendo, then “titter ye may at Michael Davies on WhatsOnStage.com, and Porter’s dogged pursuit of puerility maximus” succeed in delivering a “rollicking night of Running time: in a “zippy” production by Janice Honeyman. freewheeling fun”. 2hrs 25mins The play’s subtitle offers a decent synopsis of (including interval) its plot, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT: the CD of the week Decline and Fall of General Braggadocio at the Erasure: World Be Gone Mute £9.99 Hands of His Canny Servant Dexter and ★★★ Glitter balls and camp are in short supply on Terence the Monkey. The general in question, the 1980s synth-pop veterans’ latest, highly played by Felix Hayes, resplendent in sandals impressive, album: “moody slow numbers and Superman socks, is (of course) a vainly predominate”, giving free rein to Vince Clarke’s bombastic numpty with a weakness for women. “rich palette of electronic effects”, and Andy And his downfall comes courtesy of a pretend- Bell’s “dramatic voice”. More, please (FT).

identical-twins farce plot in which he is tricked © MANUEL HARLAN; PETE LE MAY

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (4 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother) Book your tickets now by calling 020-7492 9948 or visiting TheWeekTickets.co.uk

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 30 ARTS Film

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword ★★ Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Crossbows Dir: Guy Ritchie 2hrs 6mins (12A) “Pity poor Arthur,” said Daisy Dunn in King Arthur film from the director of The Daily Telegraph. There he stands, our Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, hero-in-waiting, ready to wrench the said Robbie Collin in The Daily sword Excalibur out of the stone at the Telegraph. Trouble is, Ritchie’s once- pivotal moment in Guy Ritchie’s new trendy directorial tricks – the East mega-budget blockbuster, when who London slang, the bare-knuckle boxing should “pipe up” but David Beckham? bouts, the random slowing down and “’Ands on the ’ilt, stupid,” grunts the speeding up of action sequences – now all former footballer, in a widely derided, feel “hopelessly dated”, said Famurewa. totally unconvincing cameo as a medieval Admittedly, Law is an enjoyable panto soldier. Yet I’m afraid Sir Becks’s “fist- villain. But Charlie Hunnam’s decision to biter” of a turn tells you practically all play Arthur as a “smirking lunk” makes you need to know about King Arthur: him “hard to root for”. Legend of the Sword, said Jimi Famurewa in Empire. From the overblown opening King Arthur has “bombed” at the US Law: an enjoyable panto villain battle scene – in which, for some obscure box office and it’s not hard to see why, reason, an army of 300ft CGI elephants attacks a castle – this is said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Beckham may actually be the a hot mess of a movie, weighed down by special effects, “con- best thing in this “relentlessly unenjoyable” movie. Not least of flicting ideas and an embarrasing celebrity cameo for the ages”. the film’s disappointments is the non-appearance of Merlin. Presumably the wizard is slated to show up in one of the five “It’s that Guy Ritchie wot’s the guvnor on this picture and his proposed sequels to this film, said Peter Bradshaw in The Arfur’s an artful dodger, grows up a gangster in a knockin’ shop Guardian. Yet I still found it all “surprisingly entertaining”. wivin the sound of Bow Bells,” said Kate Muir in The Times. In place of a wizard, we get “The Mage” (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey), After he and his ne’er-do-well mates – including such a winsome sorceress with eyeballs that “turn completely black implausible cockney characters as Chinese George (Tom Wu) in the ecstasy of magic”. It’s not that the film is “awful”, said and Goose Fat Bill (Aidan Gillen) – fall foul of the evil King Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. It’s just that it’s quite Vortigern (Jude Law), he gets his hands on Excalibur, is “mad” – “a rompingly ridiculous mishmash of styles and identified as the rightful king of England… and after that, it all influences”, boasting some “Viking grot, hot woad totty, and kicks off. Much of which is “exactly what you’d hope for from a a bonkers medieval sex house”.

Snatched ★★ So-so comeback comedy for Goldie Hawn Dir: Jonathan Levine 1hr 30mins (15) Pairing Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer in Huddleston in Time Out. What follows is a buddy comedy sounds like “a promising a string of “aimless, goofy high jinks”, notion”, said Brian Viner in the Daily with only the occasional gag hitting home Mail. After all, Schumer’s brassy blonde – and even then, the humour owes more to shtick is basically an updated version of the Schumer’s “flawless timing” than to the persona Hawn pioneered back in the jokes, which are largely mediocre. 1980s in films such as Private Benjamin. The “most disappointing” aspect of this And I’m happy to say that, for much of “haphazard” comedy is that the mother- Snatched, their chemistry works a treat. daughter relationship fails to develop, said Schumer plays Emily, a chronically lazy Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. As shop assistant who gets dumped by her they get on quite well at the outset, there’s no-good boyfriend (Randall Park) on the eve of a trip to Ecuador. nowhere for it to go. It’s weird that Hawn chose this lacklustre So in his place she invites along her uptight mother Linda (Hawn), project for her comeback after a 15-year screen absence, said who is neurotically convinced that they’ll be kidnapped by drug Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Let’s hope it encourages her to lords. “Which is, of course, exactly what happens,” said Tom get out more – only in “much, much better films”.

Colossal ★★★★ A monster of a romcom Dir: Nacho Vigalondo 1hr 49mins (15) Groundhog Day did it. The Truman Show Sudeikis excel in their respective roles and did it. And now Colossal pulls off the trick that there are “mind-bending twists in of creating a high-concept premise that’s as store”. At times, this mash-up movie – touching as it is funny, said Tim Robey in part romcom, part monster flick – The Daily Telegraph. In this highly original “threatens to collapse”, said Mark comedy, Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, a Kermode in The Observer. Yet against the drunk who, having been dumped by her odds, director Nacho Vigalondo keeps us boyfriend (Dan Stevens), returns to her gripped by his “tragicomic parable about home town to hang out in the bar run by the destructiveness of addiction”. an apparently kindly childhood friend The film’s premise may sound (Jason Sudeikis). Meanwhile, in Seoul, a “needlessly ironic and faux twisty”, but giant lizard runs amok. But are Gloria’s binges somehow don’t be put off, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Its antics are connected with the monster’s rampages? “relentlessly inventive, wrong-footing the viewer at every turn, yet It’s best to go in knowing no more than that, said Nick de in their own context, making perfect sense”. The characters are Semlyen in Empire. Suffice to say that both Hathaway and convincing and the script is nuanced. It’s a “quietly perfect” film.

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 Art ARTS 31

Exhibition of the week Giacometti Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk). Until 10 September

For a long time, I thought ignores biography”; Alberto Giacometti rather, it successfully (1901-1966) was one of allows his work to the “most overrated of “speak for itself”. It modern artists”, said begins with a trawl Waldemar Januszczak in through his early years, The Sunday Times. The works such as 1927’s “sheer ubiquity” of his Spoon Woman trademark bronze “stick demonstrating how he men” sculptures, and the mined African art to “joyless postwar colour produce his own take on scheme of beiges and cubism and other greys” in his paintings, fashionable styles of the convinced me he was a period. Better still are his “damp cloth” of an artist surrealist sculptures – for – and a repetitive one to the most part “disturbing boot. But after visiting psychosexual fantasies”, Tate Modern’s revelatory the “alarming” Woman new Giacometti with Her Throat Cut retrospective, I’m not so (1932) being an sure. The exhibition, outstanding example. bringing together some Woman with her Throat Cut (1932): a “disturbing psychosexual fantasy” But there are 250 works from every “disappointments” too, stage of Giacometti’s career, demonstrates that the “doomy” late said Michael Glover in The Independent. In particular, there is far output for which he is best known is just the tip of the iceberg. As too much work created during Giacometti’s “sad, late decline”, the show proves, he was a “much more varied and questing” which means the show ends with a bit of a “whimper”. artist than many take him for, nimbly adopting different styles and materials. There are surprises aplenty, from a portrait of a Quite the contrary, said Jonathan Jones in the Guardian. The last friend he painted when he was just 14, to the “edgy, unique and 25 years of Giacometti’s career were devoted to revealing “the impressive” sculptures created during his surrealist period, truth” about our common humanity in light of the horrors of to wartime works “so tiny, they could be carried around in a WWII. In the shadow of the Holocaust, art “scarcely seemed matchbox”. Even those dreaded stick men look “impressive”. justified or tolerable”: Giacometti was almost alone among artists Result? I have “happily changed my mind” about Giacometti. in addressing this reality. With his “stark, severe sculptures of people who seem to have lost everything”, he created an “art Giacometti was “at the heart of Parisian cultural life in the mid- worthy of the weight of its time”. This “exquisitely well-selected 20th century”, befriending the likes of Sartre, Beckett and Picasso, and consummately beautiful exhibition” does justice to an said Alastair Smart in the Daily Mail. But this show “all but “incomparable visionary”.

Where to buy… Basquiat joins the $100m club The Week reviews an Jean-Michel exhibition in a private gallery Basquiat, the Brooklyn-born graffiti artist- David Bomberg turned- at Waterhouse & Dodd expressionist painter who died of a heroin The artist David Bomberg (1890-1957) overdose in 1988 is probably best known for the at the age of 27, dazzling, angular paintings – associated has just joined the with the avant-garde Vorticist $100m club – the movement – which he created during small group of artists whose work has sold at auction for more than that amount. Other club the 1910s. However, he has left another members include Picasso, Bacon, Giacometti important legacy in his record as an art and Warhol, but Basquiat’s artwork is the first teacher at the Borough Polytechnic created since 1980 to hit that high, said Caroline after WWII, where his influence rubbed Davies in The Guardian. Untitled, his 1982 off on a wide range of talented Portrait of Austen St Barbe Harrison (1931) painting of a black skull with gnashing teeth students, most notably Frank (pictured), was sold last week at auction at Auerbach. This show brings together and tragically short-lived painter Sotheby’s New York: Japanese online fashion a handful of Bomberg’s works Dorothy Mead almost steal the show. tycoon and art collector Yusaku Maezawa made alongside a host of surprising, inventive Best of the lot, though, is Bomberg’s the winning bid of $110.5m (£85m) – the highest auction price ever paid for a work by a US artist. and often brilliant offerings by those own claustrophobically intense, almost An ecstatic Maezawa called his new purchase who studied under him. And though abstract painting Bomb Store (1942). a “masterpiece”, said Jonathan Jones in the Auerbach is an absentee, the colourful Prices range from £400 to £85,000 same paper, but some critics feel Basquiat is and kinetic landscapes by the likes of (including VAT). seriously overrated. In a scathing piece written Dennis Creffield and Edna Mann more shortly after Basquiat’s death, the late Robert than make up for it, while a good 47 Albemarle Street, London W1 Hughes dismissed him as “a featherweight”.

selection of works by the wonderful (020-7734 7800). Until 2 June. © ALBERTO GIACOMETTI ESTATE, ACS/DACS, 2017

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

The List 33

Best books… Bella Pollen Television Writer and journalist Bella Pollen, author of the bestselling novel Programmes Hunting Unicorns, picks her five favourite books. Her latest book is The Handmaid’s Tale a memoir, Meet Me in the In-Between, published by Mantle at £18.99 Ten-part adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s chilling The Raw and the Cooked by is threaded with a riveting £8.99). In this satire on novel about a near-future totalitarian society where Jim Harrison, 2001 (out of narrative of key American America’s addiction to meat, women are forced to procreate print). Harrison was an ideas and values. Obama’s and Japan’s slavish worship of to reverse a plummeting birth outdoorsman, cook and self- favourite read, apparently. US culture, Ozeki parallels the rate. With Elisabeth Moss and professed greedy guts. An lives of a US film-maker and Joseph Fiennes. Sun 28 May, intellectual who once scoffed The 87th Precinct series a Tokyo housewife to write C4 9pm (75mins). 144 oysters in a row, he was by Ed McBain, 1956-2005 about culture clash, domestic also one of America’s greatest (Thomas & Mercer, £8.99 violence and corruption in the May v. Corbyn Live: The contemporary writers, with a each). Irrespective of advances US beef industry. Battle For Number 10 The dazzling output that included in criminal forensics, these Prime Minister and the Labour leader will be grilled separately Legends of the Fall. This book stories remain timeless – Gratitude by Oliver Sacks, by Jeremy Paxman in front of tables his mythic relationship McBain is more interested in 2015 (Picador £9.99). What’s a live studio audience. Mon with excess of all kinds. human nature than crime, and not to love about a humanist 29 May, C4 8.30pm (90mins). human nature never changes. who wrote in his pyjamas, and How Lincoln Learned to Detective Carella battles his who, when injured fleeing a Fargo The US drama – Read by Daniel Wolff, 2009 villains in Isola (a fictionalised bull, used his umbrella as inspired by the Coen brothers’ (Bloomsbury £12.50). Manhattan) along with a bunch a splint and muscled down 1996 film – returns for a third Tracking the education of of semi-miscreant cops. No one the mountain on his butt series with a new set of 12 prominent Americans could writes better police procedural humming The Song of the characters, including two brothers both played by Ewan have been worthy, but Wolff’s or more crackling dialogue. Volga Boatmen. “I have had McGregor. Wed 31 May, C4 examination of the key an intercourse with the world,” 10pm (85mins). ingredients for greatness (Helen My Year of Meats by Ruth Sacks writes. A triumph of Keller, Elvis, Abe Lincoln, etc) Ozeki, 1998 (Canongate optimism in the face of death. Frank Skinner on Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit www.biblio.co.uk Muhammad Ali Frank Skinner meets Muhammad Ali’s family and friends as he The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading explores the life of the boxing Monteverdi to Philip Glass, legend. Thur 1 June, BBC1 Showing now 9pm (60mins). Sgt Pepper at 50, various and there are events in venues, Liverpool (www. honour of Scott Walker and sgtpepperat50.com). The Charles Mingus. 14 July-9 Films September, Royal Albert Swingers (1996) Doug 50th anniversary of the Liman’s insightful comedy Beatles’ album is being Hall, London SW7 (www. bbc.co.uk/proms). about male bonding follows celebrated across Liverpool. a bunch of wannabe actors as The 13 events – each inspired they hit the bars of LA. With by a different song on the A hit in New York, J.T. Jon Favreau and Vince album – include a staging of Rogers’ play Oslo tells the Vaughn. Sun 28 May, BBC1 Phelim McDermott’s new true story of how a 12.10am (95mins). play She’s Leaving Home. Norwegian couple helped Ends 30 June. launch Middle East peace Easy Money (2010) A talks. “Crackling theatre.” promising student becomes (New York Times). 5-23 caught up in Sweden’s The Mysterious Miss underworld in this gripping Austen, Winchester September, National Theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 gangland thriller. Sun 28 May, Discovery Centre (www. BBC2 12.30am (120mins). janeausten200.co.uk). The The Beatles at the album press launch 3000); 30 September-30 centrepiece of a year-long December, Harold Pinter New to Netflix series of events marking the bicentenary of Jane Theatre, London SW1 (0844-871 7622). Austen’s death, this show includes paintings, The Keepers Riveting seven- clothing and letters from collections across the Just out in paperback part documentary about the world. Ends 24 July. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury unsolved murder of Baltimore £8.99). Two family trees intertwine – though nun Cathy Cesnik. Her body Book now “graftings do not always take” – in Patchett’s was found in 1969, but no one was ever charged with her The 123rd Proms celebrates composers from “incisive and all-seeing” novel (Observer). murder. Through a series of conversations with journalists, The Archers: what happened last week relatives and friends, this Bert tries to console a very mopey Toby, while Rex reminds him that he’s got a gin order to fulfil. series pieces together what Pip admits to Tom that she was to blame for the infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, not her parents. happened to Sister Cesnik. Tom is furious, but grudgingly acknowledges Pip’s honesty. He’s sympathetic when she says she’s split up with Toby. Matt returns Lilian’s china shepherd and shepherdess that he sold when he ran Streaming now. off to Costa Rica. He tells Lilian that he knows she loves them, and that he went to great lengths to get them back. Lilian takes them and shuts the door. Jolene and Kenton are keen to have the new House of Cards Kevin batch of gin, but Toby’s messed it up. Rex drags him out of the bungalow to start again. Kenton, Spacey and Robin Wright who’s been avoiding David, admits to his brother that he can’t repay the money he owes him, as return as the Machiavellian he’s invested it in Scruff Gin. David is livid. Miranda meets Justin to discuss the divorce. She power couple in season five demands half of Damara, but Justin persuades her to consider sole ownership of a subsidiary in of the political drama. Scotland. Miranda arrives at the Dower House to collect some vases. As Lilian wraps them, Miranda Streaming from Tue 30 May. says that when Lilian marries Justin, she’ll simply be creating a vacancy for his next mistress. © RICHARD ROUND-TURNER; COURTESY OF LIVERPOOL ECHO

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 34 Best properties

Houses with lovely gardens ▲ Kent: The Old Thatch, Doddington, Sittingbourne. A quintessential Grade II thatched cottage, dating from the 15th century, with climbing roses, a wisteria-clad pergola and a traditional cottage garden with a variety of interesting plants and shrubs. 4 beds, family bath, 2 attic playrooms, kitchen, breakfast room, 2 receps, study, shower/ cloakroom, detached garage/ workshop, 0.33 acres. £675,000; Strutt & Parker (07739-262738).

▲ Cambridgeshire: Rippington Manor, Great Gransden. A Grade II* former manor with 6.22 acres of gardens comprising woodland, climbing roses and shrubs, a walled garden, topiary, a large pond and a paddock. 5 beds, 2 baths (1 en suite), 2 attic rooms, breakfast/kitchen with Aga, 3 receps, study, laundry room, 1-bed cottage, garaging, detached barn with permission for conversion, outbuildings. Available as a whole or in lots: whole £2.25m; Savills (01223-347147). ▲ Cornwall: Welltown, Cardinham, Bodmin. A stone former farmhouse, once part of the Lanhydrock Estate, set in lovely gardens with a summerhouse and a natural pond, plus a 2-bed annexe with its own courtyard garden. Main house: master suite, 4 further beds, family bath, 2 attic rooms, kitchen/ breakfast room, hall, 2 receps, utility, double carport, 2 fields with a stream and woodland, 6 acres. £775,000; Lillicrap Chilcott (01872-273473).

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 on the market 35

▲ Kent: Hatherleigh, The Green, Matfield. A Grade II village house with an orchard, climbing roses, a “nut walk”, vegetable garden and fruit cages. Master suite, 3 further beds, family bath, attic, breakfast/kitchen, 3 receps, cloakroom, cellar, barn, office, garage, 2-bed cottage, 2 greenhouses, paddock, 2.25 acres. £2.25m; Batcheller Monkhouse (01892-512020). ▲ Oxfordshire: Tudor House, Clanfield. A renovated 16th century house with a formal Elizabethan-style garden with box hedging, lavender and a fountain, and a private hedged garden with shrubs and flower borders, plus a summerhouse at the end of a wisteria-clad oak walkway. Master suite, 3 further beds, 2 further baths, breakfast/kitchen, 2 receps, study/library, hall, scullery, attic cinema room, attic playroom, double garage, parking. £1.095m; Butler Sherborn (01993-822325). ▲ ▲ Suffolk: Moor West Sussex: Hall, Stoke by Clare, Old Coombe Sudbury. A Grade II Farmhouse, Bury. manor house with Located in the an indoor pool South Downs complex and about National Park, this 5.3 acres of wooded house sits in half an private gardens with acre of beautiful mature trees, ponds, landscaped gardens, a deep terrace and with a pond, 2 a series of inter- sheds, a greenhouse connected lakes. and mature 5 beds, 3 baths/ planting. Master showers (all en suite with dressing suite), breakfast/ room, 3 further kitchen, 3 receps, beds, family bath, garden room, hall, breakfast/kitchen, study, boot room, 2 receps, WC, 2 cloakrooms, utility, stores, utility, potential outbuildings, 1-bed annexe. garage. £1.15m; £1.75m; Savills Sims Williams (01223-347147). (01903-885678). ▲ Somerset: King Inas Palace, South Petherton. A large wing of a Grade II former manor house in a secluded spot near the town centre, with just under an acre of landscaped gardens including sweeping lawns, well- stocked borders and a vegetable area, plus climbing roses, a pergola, topiary and specimen ornamental trees and shrubs. 4 beds, 3 baths (2 en suite), kitchen, ▲ Herefordshire: Llanarrow, Huntington, Kington. A traditional Welsh 2 receps, cloakroom, longhouse with a former tithe barn (pictured), set in an acre of landscaped hall, double garage. gardens – with a rose garden and a kitchen/cut flower garden – overlooking £725,000; Greenslade the River Arrow. 4 beds, 4 baths, breakfast/kitchen, 2 receps, cloakroom, Taylor Hunt orangery, vinery, 2nd kitchen, conservatory, granary; barn with 2 studies, (01460-57222). library and kitchen; parking. £895,000; Strutt & Parker (01584-873711).

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

LEISURE 37 Food & Drink What the experts recommend Dastaan 447 Kingston Road, Ewell, middle-white pork in a broth with greens Surrey (020-8786 8999) is a “delight” – as is a tranche of wild sea When Angela Hartnett, one of our bass with purple-sprouting broccoli, “undisputed culinary queens”, offers me almonds and a luscious curry sauce. Head a restaurant tip, my “ears prick up like cheese (terrine of chopped meat in jelly) is a cat scenting a rodent”, says Marina “masterful”. And burnt butter-milk ice O’Loughlin in The Guardian. Even so, cream is “superb”. Great wines, too. when she told me that Indian food of the Dinner for two with wine, about £118. most astonishing vibrancy and freshness, “zip and zing”, was to be found on a The Chef’s Dozen Island House, High traffic-clogged highway in “unexciting” Street, Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire Ewell (“Sorry, Ewellites, but you know (01386-840598) it’s true”), I was sceptical. But I followed When eating out in rural Gloucestershire, it up and, by golly, I’m glad I did, because all I really want is a half-decent restaurant at Dastaan, two ex-Gymkhana chefs are in a “pretty village, with an indoor loo”, serving “Mayfair cooking at mundane says Giles Coren in The Times. The prices”. Tumeric-licked Malabar prawns Chef’s Dozen, a warmly welcoming place were a “study in luxurious subtlety”. The Chef’s Dozen: warmly welcoming in Chipping Camden, exceeded these Pork vindaloo was “hauntingly” sharp requirements by some distance. Starter of and resonant without being “bullying”. Peckham”, says Fay Maschler in the raw fallow buck – chopped raw flesh, “Velvety” spiced lamb chops were a London Evening Standard. Artusi, that jewelled with preserved ramsons (wild tenner for two (an inferior version will outstanding modern Italian on Bellenden garlic) – was deft and sweet; a “prince set you back £27.60 at Mayfair’s Road (SE15), is preparing to open a among tartares”. Pig’s head and black “ludicrous” Sexy Fish). And seekh kebabs branch on Deptford High Street. But pudding lasagne with glazed whole of duck and guinea fowl were succulent beating them to it is this cracking offshoot hazelnuts and cider juice was “brilliant”. and shimmering, with freshly tempered of the Hoborn wine importer, shop and My wife’s pork slivers and my hay- spices. “Genuinely: wow… Thanks, bar The Winemakers Club. Winemakers smoked lamb chop were both great, as Ange.” About £20 a head for three Deptford has a “pleasing” zinc bar, were the puddings. My apple soufflé courses, plus drinks and service. attractive black-and-white diamond tiles was served “plump as a baby’s cheek” on the floor – and a “seductive” little with a little dish of cherry blossom ice Winemakers Deptford restaurant run by two experienced chefs cream; my wife went for aerated milk 209 Deptford High Street, London SE8 of “excellent provenance”. Crab chocolate, birch syrup and coffee –“like (020-8305 6852) croquetas, the “casing super-crunchy, the an Aero, but better. If such a thing were In the hip foodie world of southeast lush interior” dominated by sultry brown possible.” £105 for “pretty much seven London, it appears “Deptford is the new meat, are a fine way to kick off. Aged courses”, without booze.

Recipe of the week: Apricot and vanilla tart

Apricots nestled in a rich custard and baked inside a crisp, almondy pastry – perfect for a lunch or dinner in the garden, and best served on the day of making (in a 22cm fluted tart tin, 4cm deep). If you have any to hand, try decorating it with fresh lavender Serves 8 For the pastry: 150g plain flour, plus extra for dusting 75g ground almonds 50g caster sugar 125g unsalted butter, chilled and diced a good pinch of sea salt ½ tbsp iced water 1 tsp lemon juice or cider vinegar 1 medium egg yolk, lightly beaten For the filling: 750g-1kg apricots, washed, dried, halved and stoned 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste 250ml crème fraîche 1 medium egg 2 medium egg yolks 115g caster sugar 50g flaked almonds icing sugar, to decorate

• Start by making the pastry. In a food the filling and preheat the oven to 190°C/gas processor, pulse together the flour, ground mark 5. Place a solid baking tray on the middle almonds, sugar, butter and salt until there are shelf of the oven. only a very few small streaks of butter visible. • Arrange the apricot halves cut-side uppermost Tip into a bowl and make a well in the centre. in tight concentric circles, each slightly Mix the water with the lemon juice or vinegar overlapping, in the pastry case. Split the vanilla and add to the bowl with the egg yolk. Bring the pod in half down its length with a small sharp dough together using a palette knife and then, knife and scrape the seeds into a bowl, or add the using your hands, gather the dough into a ball, vanilla bean paste. Add the crème fraîche, whole being careful not to overwork it. Flatten the egg, yolks and caster sugar to the bowl. Whisk dough ball into a disc, wrap in cling film and until smooth. Slowly pour this custard around chill for a good couple of hours, until firm. the apricots, scatter with the flaked almonds and • Dust the work surface with flour and roll out slide the tart onto the hot baking tray. the pastry into a disc at least 4cm wider all • Bake for about an hour, until the pastry is golden brown, the round than the tart tin. Carefully roll the pastry up around the custard puffed and set, and the apricots starting to brown at the rolling pin and unroll into the tin, ensuring that it is centrally edges. You may need to turn the tart around halfway through to positioned. Press the dough into the corners and flutes of the tin ensure that it cooks evenly. Leave to cool to room temperature and trim off any excess from the top using a sharp knife. Prick and serve with a light dusting of icing sugar, and (if you like) the base with a fork and chill for 20 minutes while you prepare crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream. Taken from Summer Berries & Autumn Fruits by Annie Rigg, published by Kyle Books at £19.99. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £16.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit www.theweek.co.uk/bookshop. © NANNA DIS

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Consumer LEISURE 39

The best… barbecues

▲ Jamie Oliver Go BBQ ▲ Gentlemen’sGentletle A genuinely portable option, HardwareHar ▲ PortablePor Weber Master- this lightweight charcoal Touch GBS 57cm barbecue sits close to the SuitcaseSui BarbecueBar If you’re looking for ground, allowing you to cook an everyday charcoal from the comfort of A briefcaseb that opensope up to barbecue, the porcelain- a chair. The coals coated Master-Touch is a lie close to revealeal a charcoal barbecue,barbarbec this is safe bet. Easy to fire up and its griddle, clean, it has a large grill and ensuringng quickck a doddledoddodd to take alongalo on a picnicpicnicn or day out. a removable ash collector, grilling (£46; wwwwww. and comes in a choice of jamieoliverbbq.com).liverbbq.bq.com). It sits on chromeme legs, and has a 16cm x 25cm25 grill (£50; five colours (£239; www.iwantoneofthose.com).www.iwantonewww oneoft www.bbqworld.co.uk).

▲ Fuego Element Gas Grill Somewhere

between a portable and T3/ full-size grill, this FOOD ▲ OzPig This gas award-winning barbecue doubles as an

gas barbecue is outdoor heater – and it can do

BBC GOOD FOOD ▲ compact enough Verycook Plancha everything from grilling and to fit on a small roasting to boiling and deep-frying, Grill This Spanish- patio or balcony. style, gas-fired griddle depending on which of the available Equipped with two accessories you use. You may find offers a smoke-free, burners that can be used healthier form of the cooking area a bit small, however separately or together, (£258; www.nisbets.co.uk). cooking. Unlike it’s easy to ignite, and traditional barbecues, hits its optimum SOURCES: WHICH?/THE INDEPENDENT/T3/ it can go on a table, temperature of 250°C

providing a more ▲ in five minutes (£291; Landmann communal grilling www.amazon.co.uk). experience, and it Smoker 31426 heats up in just three An excellent ▲ minutes (from £299; Char-Broil Patio BisBistrotro 1800 barbecue in www.verycook.co.uk). This miniature gas babarbecuerbe its own right, coocooksks wellwell forfor an on-the-goon-the-go this Landmann optionoption. With space for a is made better dozdozen burgers, it still by a smoker useuses an infrared box on the side, which burns system that produces woodchips to give your food a strostrong, even heat, a smoky taste. It’s best runninrunning on disposable suited to experienced gas cacanisters that last barbecue cooks, and is a bit three hourshou at a time (£150; of a pain to clean (£230; www.homebwww.homebase.co.uk). www.landmann.co.uk).

Tips of the week… And for those who Where to findfind… reserves hiring a car have everything… for spotting wildlife

● When you shop around, don’t just look at Bodenham Lake, in Herefordshire, has the basic price – find out how much it will breeding otters, as well as waterbirds and cost to add additional drivers, for example, cormorants. You’re most likely to see the or to hire child car seats. otters if you walk along the River Lugg where it borders the reserve, at dawn or ● For holiday hires, if your flight is delayed dusk (www.herefordshirewt.org). by more than an hour, let the rental office know or your reservation may be cancelled. Mere Sands Wood, near Liverpool, is home to shy mammals including roe deer, plus at ● Before driving away, inspect the car least six pairs of red squirrels. Keep an eye thoroughly. Don't just check the obvious out for discarded hazelnut shells and places – look at the wheel hubs, the edge of nibbled pine cones (www.lancswt.org.uk). wing mirrors and the underside of bumpers. Take photos of all four sides of the car. Llynclys Common, in Shropshire, is an excellent place to spot great crested, ● To check the clutch isn’t burning out, put smooth and palmate newts. Peer into the the car in fourth gear, depress the clutch pond and you may see them coming up and then let it out slowly while putting your If you’re struggling to find space for a turntable, Pro-Ject have cracked the for air – the great crested newts resemble foot on the accelerator. If it releases fully miniature dinosaurs (www.shropshire without stalling, demand another vehicle. problem: their VT-E BT can be hung wildlifetrust.org.uk). vertically on a wall. Records are clamped ● After filling up the tank on the final day, Bough Beech,amixture of meadows, keep the petrol station receipt as proof. firmly in place – and Bluetooth technology orchards and ancient woodlands just ● Try to get the car signed back in when connects it wirelessly to your speakers. outside Sevenoaks, is “perfect for bird- you return it. If that isn’t possible, take a £379; www.hifigear.co.uk watching”. Look for kingfishers perched on new set of photos to prove that it was branches above the water, waiting to dive returned undamaged. in for fish (www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk).

SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH SOURCE: T3 SOURCE: THE TIMES

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Travel LEISURE 41

This week’s dream: a wild archipelago in Finland On summer evenings, there is something for Scandinavians, and the shallow sea heavenly about Finland’s wild Kvarken around the archipelago freezes solid in Archipelago, says Harry Pearson in winter. In 1809, the Russian general Condé Nast Traveller. The orange sun Barclay de Tolly launched an ill-fated still hovers over the birch forests at attack on Sweden from its shores. midnight, and woodsmoke from Caught in a hellish snowstorm, beachside saunas mingles with the hundreds of his men perished; later, “sugary” scent of meadowsweet in a local was discovered using one of the calm, soft air. With only around their skulls as an ashtray. Smuggling, 2,500 permanent inhabitants, the gunrunning, shipwreck and “bloody 6,000-odd islands are a haven of peace, murder” loom large in the region’s past, home to lynx and lemming, raccoons marking it out as “a Scandinavian and majestic white-tailed eagles. Wild Cornwall or County Galway”. But life fruit grows in abundance. Celandines, is easier today – and good food is a tansy and pink clover bedeck the particular delight. At the pretty wooden meadows. And wooden fishermen’s 19th century inn of Merenkurkun houses dot the shore; some are now Boltholes on the “heavenly” archipelago Majatalo, there’s great sea-buckthorn holiday lets – boltholes for anyone cheesecake on offer. And at the Salteriet seeking a sense of the harmony that the Finnish composer Jean restaurant in Svedjehamn, you can sit on the quayside and feast Sibelius said he saw beneath the “dissonance” of the world. on delicious fried perch-pike fillets while little fishing boats “flit There is harshness here too, and drama in the landscape, in and out” of the harbour – a timeless vision, as pretty and scattered with boulders left by a retreating glacier after the last Ice soothing as you could wish for. See www.visitfinland.com and Age. Lying above the 63rd parallel, Kvarken is “up north” even www.visitvaasa.fi for more information.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of… Slow train across the Andes the Fausti family’s free-range wild pig farm Launched last month, the Belmond Andean near Norcia, you can sample at source the Explorer is South America’s first luxury superb salami for which the town is famed. sleeper train, offering “the glamour of early Try locally produced saffron in “delicate” 20th century exploration” with added “Latin dishes at the Balli family’s agriturismo in flair”, says Aaron Millar in The Times. Castel San Felice. And go truffle hunting Travelling at a maximum of 20mph, it with a local cavatore, as licensed experts are traverses the spine of the Peruvian Andes known: afterwards, you’ll enjoy “the supper between the cities of Arequipa and Cusco, a of a lifetime”. See www.zafferanoedintorni. journey of 456 miles. Near one end of the it, www.maialebradodinorcia.com and line is the Colca Canyon, a 62-mile-long, www.exavel.com for more information. Langar Hall, Vale of Belvoir, 10,725ft-deep “verdant” fissure that is the Nottinghamshire best place to see condors “up close”; near the Driving in the Georgian mountains other lies Machu Picchu. The train’s interiors In 1914, the Baedeker guide described it as Belonging to the same family since are opulent, and the modern Peruvian cuisine “one of the most beautiful mountain roads 1860, and favoured by celebrities is good, but the real pleasure is in simply in the world”, and the Georgian Military from Jools Holland and Paul Smith to the late Barbara Cartland, letting the awe-inspiring landscape “soak in Highway is no less ravishing today, says Tara Langar Hall is one of England’s deep” over three “indulgent” days. Belmond Isabella Burton in The Economist’s 1843 loveliest hotels, says Fiona Duncan Journeys in Peru (0845-077 2222, www. magazine. Running north from Tbilisi to the in The Sunday Telegraph. Its belmond.com) has a nine-day trip from Russian border, it now sees little military previous guardian, the “universally $4,465pp (£3,435), excluding flights. traffic but is increasingly popular with loved” Imogen Skirving, was killed travellers. There are snowy peaks such as the in a car accident in Menorca last Umbria’s foodie paradise 16,560ft Mount Kazbek to gaze at, as well as year, but under the care of her Though hit last year by the worst earthquake ancient monasteries, forts, and meadows that granddaughter, Lila, the “party Italy has suffered since 1980, the Valnerina “burst” with wild flowers. And while continues”. Occupying a grand Georgian country house, the hotel region of southern Umbria is fast recovering untamed wilderness and “ramshackle” has “shabby-chic” interiors that and well worth a visit, says Liz Boulter in villages are key to its appeal, it has one of the mix English and Indian influences The Guardian. Its forested mountains are country’s best mountain resorts, too – the to “quirky” yet “delightful” effect. spectacular, its ancient hill towns are lovely – Rooms Hotel Kazbegi, a marvel of minimalist The grounds are beautiful, and the but more seductive still is its “culinary design, with “sophisticated” cocktails and a food has “never been better”. magic”. Speckled with dazzling flowers in beautiful terrace. Rooms Hotel Kazbegi Doubles from £100 b&b. 01949- early summer, the fields around Castelluccio (+995 3227 10099; www.roomshotels.com) 860559, www.langarhall.com. yield some of the best lentils in the world. At has doubles from $215 (£165).

Last-minute offers from top travel companies Flying break in Hampshire Take in Tallinn Slovenian walking resort Dreamy Seychelles Aviator, an aviation-themed Get away with a 3-night stay at Enjoy a 7-night holiday at Relax with a 5-night stay in boutique hotel in Farnborough, Taanilinna Hotel, close to the Hotel Kompas, in the alpine a sea-view room at Kempinski is offering a 2-night stay, with Estonian Art Doll House and resort of Kranjska Gora, for Seychelles Resort from dinner and breakfast, from the Hellemann Tower, from £594pp half board (2 sharing), £1,439pp b&b, incl. just £159pp. 0843-227 7777, £365pp b&b, incl. Manchester incl. Gatwick flights. 01483- Newcastle flights. 020-8705 www.secretescapes.com. flights. 0871-277 7726, www. 791116, www.inghams.co.uk. 0071, www.southalltravel. Arrive 28 July. edreams.co.uk. Depart 22 June. Depart 16 December. co.uk. Depart 18 August.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Obituaries 43 Charismatic politician known as the “Father of Wales”

When Ron Davies resigned as to do a master’s in government. He worked for Rhodri leader of the Welsh Labour South Glamorgan County Council, and in the Morgan party in 1998, following his European Community’s Welsh office, before 1939-2017 “moment of madness” on becoming MP for Cardiff West in 1987 – by Clapham Common, Rhodri Morgan hoped to which time he was married – to Julie Edwards, assume his place as leader-in-waiting of the who went on to become Labour MP for new Welsh Assembly. Tony Blair wasn’t having Cardiff North, and later an Assembly member. it, however, and secured the election of Alun Michael instead. But as Blair, and others, When Labour won its landslide in 1997, would discover, Morgan was not a man to give Morgan expected, as a former shadow up, said The Guardian. So it was that when minister, to get a job in the Welsh Office: Michael was forced out, after less than nine waiting for the call to come, he said that he months, Morgan became Wales’ second first became so distracted, he tidied his sock drawer secretary – and seven months later, its first first for the first time ever. It never came. He put it minister, a position he held until 2009. Tall, down to a tactless remark he’d made to Tony with a shock of Brillo-pad hair, he was a Blair, which is more than plausible, said The towering figure in Welsh politics, passionate, Guardian: tactless remarks were “his resourceful and ingenious, but also hard- speciality”. But when the Welsh referendum on working, witty and “unstoppably loquacious”. devolution narrowly passed, with just 50.3% of the vote, another career ladder presented Certainly, he “had a colourful turn of phrase”, Morgan: “unstoppably loquacious” itself, and despite the London party machine’s said The Daily Telegraph. “He accused the best efforts to block him, he became Wales’ financial services industry of operating on the principle that first secretary in 2000. Later that year he upgraded the title to first ‘40,000 lemmings can’t be wrong’. He asserted that there were minister, and began referring to his administration as a “govern- ‘more quangos in Wales than gondolas in Venice’, and when the ment”. Determined to ensure “clear red water” between Cardiff NHS charged a fellow asthmatic in his constituency £100 for a and the Blairite project in London, he introduced a number of nebuliser, he told ministers: ‘He was torpedoed during World distinct policies, including scrapping prescription charges; he also War II, and is being torpedoed again by this two-faced negotiated a host of new devolved powers. Hugely popular, he was government.’” Asked if he wanted to lead the Assembly, Morgan known as the “Father of Wales”, yet he remained “free of vanity replied: “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?” And on or arrogance or false charm”, said Neil Kinnock on Wales Online. architects’ plans for the building that became the Assembly’s “Charisma?” Morgan once said, “Has he got a café in Ponty?” headquarters, he observed: “To say it’s a dog’s breakfast would be an insult to the pet food industry.” In the 2007 elections, Labour held only 26 of the 60 seats in the Assembly, and the Lib Dems decided to join forces with Plaid Hywel Rhodri Morgan was born in Cardiff, in 1939. His father Cymru and the Tories. It seemed to spell the end, but the was a well-known scholar of the Welsh language, and he grew up indefatigable Morgan refused to accept defeat. He set to work in a Welsh-speaking household, something that would later make persuading Plaid that the Tories were the real enemy, and that him more acceptable to Plaid Cymru members. From Whitchurch what was needed was a progressive alliance: within weeks, he Grammar School he went to St John’s College, Oxford, where he was starting a third term. He retired two years later, commenting graduated with a degree in PPE in 1961; he then went to Harvard, that in politics, you have to go before you are pushed. An unsung hero of the Northern Ireland peace process

Brendan Brendan Duddy was a fish The events of Bloody Sunday only made him Duddy and chip shop owner who more convinced of the need for peace, and the 1936-2017 played an important, though following year, he was put in touch with little known, role in the Irish Michael Oatley, an MI6 officer (code-named peace process, said The Daily Telegraph. For Mountain Climber) who had been sent to more than 20 years, he risked his life by acting Northern Ireland, ostensibly to work as an as a “backchannel” between the IRA advisor to Willie Whitelaw. The pair developed leadership and British intelligence, enabling the a rapport, and began arranging clandestine secret talks that eventually led to the IRA meetings with IRA leaders, who often had to ceasefire in 1994, and the Good Friday be smuggled over the border under blankets in Agreement four years later. Jonathan Powell car boots. It was a hugely risky enterprise: at once said that had it not been for Duddy’s Duddy: risked his life for peace one meeting, Duddy – who was married with determination to keep the dialogue alive, there five children – overheard the IRA discussing might not have been a peace process. whether to kill him then and there.

Born into a Catholic family in Derry in 1936, Duddy opened his Duddy, code-named Soon, helped broker the 11-month IRA first chip shop after leaving school. When he began selling burgers, ceasefire of 1975, and in the 1980s, he was the key link between they were delivered by a teenager named Martin McGuinness, Margaret Thatcher and the IRA. The backchannel was opened who worked for a local butcher. Over time, the two men – both again in 1991, said The Times. By then, McGuinness was looking republicans – developed a close bond. But while McGuinness for a way to end the cycle of violence, and meetings with British plunged into the “armed struggle”, Duddy was appalled by the intelligence were held at Duddy’s home. At the same time, Duddy carnage engulfing his city. His role as an intermediary began was building his business into a hotel and restaurant empire that shortly before Bloody Sunday, when his friend Frank Lagan – employed hundreds of people. To his countrymen, he was known a Catholic who led the constabulary in Derry – asked him to as a “quiet hero of peace”, but his reputation spread far: when persuade the IRA to remove their weapons from the Bogside. the Colombian government began its secret talks with Farc, they After much soul-searching, Duddy agreed – with limited success. apparently code-named their backchannel man “Brendan”.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

CITY CITY 45 Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

Segro: making shedloads A good deal has changed for Amazon since it became a public company 20 years ago, pitching itself as “Earth’s biggest bookstore”, said Michelle Lodge on TheStreet.com. Jeff Bezos’s company has since “morphed into a digital beast, hawking everything from cloud computing services to potato chips”, and has, in the process, upended traditional bricks-and-mortar retail. That much is clear in the changing fortunes of FTSE property companies, said Tom Knowles in The Times. Just a decade ago, logistics firms majoring Seven days in the on large warehouses (or “sheds”) were “the least glamorous part of the property world”. Square Mile Now they’re “making shedloads from the shift to online shopping”. The warehouse group Segro looks set to enter the FTSE 100 index of top blue-chip shares shortly – Wall Street recovered ground after “a remarkable turning point for a business that looked as if it would go bust in 2011”, suffering its biggest one-day fall in eight months when political turmoil in when it was struggling with a declining industrial legacy. Now Segro can’t rent out space Washington spooked both currency and fast enough: 61% of its warehouses in development have been let before completion. The equity markets. The dollar maintained its rising fortunes of “shed” operators are in direct contrast to the declining stock of former downward momentum, but evidence of retail property high-flyers. Segro’s Footsie elevation coincides with the likely demotion to an improving eurozone economy (the the FTSE 250 of Intu Properties, which “owns some of Britain’s biggest malls”. Ifo index of German business morale is at a record high) pushed the euro to its Facebook/WhatsApp: cynical data deal? highest level since November. Moody’s Facebook is in the doghouse in Europe once again, said Madhumita Murgia in the FT. downgraded China for the first time Fresh from being penalised by the French authorities over how it uses customer data, the since 1989, warning that rising debt could erode its financial strength. social media giant has been fined s110m by the European Commission, for providing “misleading” information during its $21.8bn takeover of messaging service WhatsApp The launch of the Conservative election manifesto drew an angry reaction from in 2014. Back then, Facebook assured competition watchdogs that it was “technically some business leaders, who complained impossible” to combine user information from Facebook and WhatsApp automatically. that moves to boost workers’ rights But last year it quietly announced that WhatsApp would begin sharing data with its risked strangling business with red tape. parent company after all. Facebook has declared that it “acted in good faith”. But The Tories also pledged a clampdown Brussels has effectively accused the firm of “lying in its original submission”, said Simon on share buy-backs, and proposed Duke in The Sunday Times. The outrage is understandable. “Privacy concerns are highly scrapping the Serious Fraud Office, acute in Germany and Eastern Europe, due to their histories of totalitarian rule and mass which would be folded into the new surveillance.” Facebook’s attitude to user privacy is unacceptably “blasé”. Despite National Crime Agency. founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “New Age” proclamations, “Facebook operates under the M&S reported that profits fell by almost immutable law of the digital economy: the more data you have, the bigger your profits”. two-thirds to £176m during CEO Steve Rowe’s first full year in charge, following UK flower industry: war of the roses a £400m restructuring charge; Rowe insisted that turnaround plans remained This year’s Chelsea Flower Show is a shadow of its former self, with the number of show “on track”. Book publisher Bloomsbury gardens pruned back heavily to just eight. But booming sales of cut flowers are beginning notched up its 23rd straight year of to attract some serious money, said Vicki Owen in The Mail on Sunday. Florismart, an dividend increases; revenues were online flower market which enables florists to buy direct from a variety of sources, and boosted by an 88% rise in Harry Potter thereby make big savings on costs, has just secured £1.3m in backing from the private book sales. Just Eat’s planned takeover equity firm Beaubridge. One of Florismart’s plans is to link florists with local growers. of rival Hungryhouse was referred to the That should go down well with the National Farmers’ Union, which is leading calls for Competition and Markets Authority. The “provenance labelling” to encourage the public to buy more homegrown blooms, said Chinese carmaker Geely snapped up the Rebecca Smithers in The Observer. Typically, just 10%-12% of flowers sold in Britain British sports car marque Lotus after buying a stake in its Malaysian owner. originate here, “a percentage that has been shrinking rapidly over the last 30 years”.

Ford: ex-furniture salesman signals direction of travel “Driving slowly can get you into trouble in the chairman Bill Ford (great-grandson of Henry) US,” said Lex in the Financial Times. In may well have been the humiliating moment Virginia, it can mean a fine; if you’re the CEO “when the Motown giant’s market value” was of Ford Motor, you get fired. The abrupt recently overtaken by Tesla. ousting of Mark Fields reflects “the pressures on the American auto industry” at a time of Ford’s new boss, Jim Hackett, who currently rapid change, said Bill Vlasic in The New York heads its driverless cars division, has been Times. Fields has come under fire for both heralded as “the transformational leader Ford failing to expand Ford’s “core auto business”, needs”. Hackett’s promotion seems logical on and for “lagging in developing the high-tech the face of it, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. cars of the future”. Shares fell 40% during But on closer examination, his appointment his three-year tenure as Ford struggled to “looks very odd”. Hackett has been running keep pace with larger carmakers such as Ford’s “mobility” division for less than a year, General Motors, tech giants such as Google, Shares fell 40% during Fields’ tenure having “previously spent 30 years in the office and the upstart electric and autonomous car furniture business”, where he was apparently pioneer Tesla. acclaimed for his vision. “Anticipating the rise of the open-plan office was doubtless vital in the office furniture game. But it’s not Ford was the only US carmaker to survive the financial crisis obviously a qualification for running a car company.” One without a bailout, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. But it is suspects that Tesla founder Elon Musk’s status as the top certainly in difficulty now. The final straw for the company’s visionary in the car industry “is not under immediate threat”.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK Live

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Issue of the week: RBS on trial An explosive civil case against the bank and its former bosses has been put on hold pending a likely settlement. Should it be heard? It must have been nerve-racking for defence (expected to hit about £125m Fred Goodwin – star of what was widely in total), and the fact that it has been billed as the business show trial of the meeting Goodwin’s legal costs. Current year. After steeling himself to appear at CEO Ross McEwan must be hoping “the a £700m High Court action brought by extra money on the table will serve as thousands of angry shareholders, that a soothing balm” to wounded investors was scheduled to start this week, the gunning for “their day in court”. disgraced former RBS boss has gained a reprieve, said Jane Croft in the FT. “One of the great mysteries of the The case has been adjourned until next universe”, said Alex Brummer in the month “to allow settlement talks to Daily Mail, is that the bankers who continue”. The 9,000 aggrieved engineered the “near-collapse of Britain’s shareholders allege that, on Goodwin’s financial system” have “never been held watch, RBS “misled them about the state responsible through a Chilcot-style of the bank’s health” ahead of a £12bn public inquiry”. Indeed, “one hopes that cash call in April 2008. Months later, Goodwin: will he get his day in court? the 9,000 shareholders refuse RBS’s offer when the government bailed out the bank and take their case to court”, said Nils in a £45bn rescue, their investment was “nearly wiped out”. RBS Pratley in The Guardian. That’s not because “Goodwin and co. is now reportedly close to agreeing a deal with them, “after nearly might provide lively entertainment” (the case would probably be doubling its offer” to 82p per share. dominated by “dense technical points”), but because the exercise might provide “valuable insight”. The period in question includes So the “biggest bogeyman” in British banking might avoid “the crucial months between the failure of Bear Stearns in March answering questions after all, said James Moore in The 2008 and the full disaster that arrived with the collapse of Independent. I can’t say I’m surprised. RBS needs this case, and all Lehman Brothers in September that year”. It would be interesting its attendant publicity, “like it needs Mr Goodwin back in the to know “how seriously” RBS took the threat. A cross- boardroom”. It will serve as a huge distraction, “dragging a still examination of the key individuals by a QC might reveal more tarnished brand back through the mud” and tainting the bank than “the colourless official report” produced by the authorities “for months, and perhaps years, to come”. Questions have already in 2011. “The litigants owe future historians nothing – but they’d been raised about the “eye-popping sum” RBS has spent on its be doing them a favour by going ahead.”

Church investment: what the experts think Tips for tycoons ● Divine returns do”, said John Stepek on MoneyWeek.com. “I’ve been involved with start-up “God certainly businesses for more than 30 years,” smiled on the Thanks to a lengthy says Luke Johnson in The Sunday Church of England’s investment “time Times. Here are some of the things that investments last year,” horizon”, it owns founder entrepreneurs often get wrong: said James Moore “a variety of relatively in The Independent. exotic and illiquid Equating raising capital with success The Church assets” (timber, Securing funding is an endorsement of sorts, but it can be dangerous. “Too Commissioners’ property, private equity, and the like), as well as much money leads to lavish spending, annual report is a lack of discipline and overconfidence.” trumpeting a stellar stocks and shares. Less total return of 17.1% The Chuch of England: returns of 17.1% need to worry about Bigging up “the idea” It’s less for 2016 – double the short-term returns important than the execution. “Brilliant already “very respectable” 8.2% that the means “it can afford to be bolder too”. new restaurant themes are ten a CofE’s fund managers made the previous penny”; what matters is how you year. That sort of “divine” performance ● Contrarian clerics carry out the project. “Taking the nitty- pushed the £7.9bn fund into the top ranks The Church Commissioners are “known gritty of operations for granted” is often a “fatal act of hubris”. of the world’s best performers, according for taking positions counter to industry to the FT. Having returned an average trends”, said John Plender in the FT. Lacking patience Real businesses take 9.6% annually over the past 30 years, Perhaps the most striking in a period that at least five years to emerge. “Business the fund, which was founded to “support has seen “massive inflows into passive models need to evolve and be tested in the work and mission of the Church”, index-tracking funds” is their support of practice – not theory.” Giant leaps “are is now ahead of the top-rated Yale a more hands-on approach. Rather than the stuff of fiction”. University endowment fund. So what did trusting to cheap trackers, the vast bulk of the Church do so right? the Church’s global equities portfolio is Going solo Solo entrepreneurs can “actively managed” by individual fund certainly succeed, but they’re “very much in the minority”. Even great ● Exotic and illiquid managers. “We think the success of active individual entrepreneurs such as The Church’s asset managers had “some management is cyclical,” said the Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Steve help last year” from “the Brexit-driven fall Commissioners’ investment director, Tom Jobs “had co-founder partners in the in the pound”, which pushed the value of Joy. “The really best managers go through crucial early years”. the FTSE 100 higher since so many of its periods of difficulty,” he adds, but some- companies earn their money in dollars, times it’s “right” to stick with them. Active Obsessing about rivals Lots of start- said Moore. Beyond that, the fund, whose management in general has been having a ups are obsessed with competitors, investments are supposed to be compatible torrid time, but some individual managers “but early-stage businesses mostly go with Christian values, “does all the things have been beating their benchmarks. Hats broke because of a lack of sales”. Focus on customers, revenue, cash and costs. you’d expect a half-decent endowment to off to the CofE for finding them.

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 48 CITY Commentators

Critics of the Tory election manifesto accuse Theresa May of “breaking faith with the market” and “taking Britain back to the City profiles Theresa May 1970s”, says Philip Stephens. But while there’s “lots not to like” in the document – not least the “complete failure” to map a Roger Ailes has got it right The former Fox News boss, credible path to Brexit, or a sensible immigration plan – the who has died aged 77 about business specific proposals directed at business are neither threatening nor following an accidental fall, “terribly radical”. They’re largely about dealing with market “was arguably the most Philip Stephens failures: oligopolistic behaviour in energy markets, out-of-control important shaper of boardroom pay and predatory behaviour by global, often state- American politics of the past Financial Times backed, corporations. The bigger point grasped by May is that half-century”, said The “market capitalism can only work within frameworks that secure Guardian. A “political king- the consent of citizens”; and the present “economic settlement”, maker”, Ailes was crucial to which has enriched the richest while the incomes of the majority the election of at least four Republican presidents – stagnate, is widely seen as unfair. Conservatives have long starting with Richard Nixon, understood that “preserving the best of the present requires a who hired the young TV willingness to change”. Faced with the choice of restoring producer as his media “a modicum of equity” to the operation of markets or unleashing consultant in 1967. He later “a popular explosion”, May is steering the right course. launched, built and ran the Fox News Channel for nearly What really irritates and offends the business community, says three decades, “shifting the Iain Dey, is the Tory leader’s rhetoric. “Running through all 88 template of TV journalism” pages of her manifesto is a snide, chippy assumption that everyone and making huge profits for … but her Rupert Murdoch. But Ailes’ at the top of business got there by somehow rigging the system.” reign came to an ignom- language reeks For a careerist as ruthless as Theresa May to lecture the business inious end last July, when he world about the cult of “selfish individualism” fairly “reeks of was forced out following “an of hostility hypocrisy”. What’s more, business is, by and large, “much more avalanche of sexual harass- meritocratic than politics”; the City of London remains “the ment accusations from the Iain Dey biggest driver of social mobility in this country” precisely because network’s female stars”. “there is no greater leveller than a trading floor, where everyone The Sunday Times knows who won or lost that day”. The message running through the Tories’ “hostile sound bites” is that “business is only a good thing if it is small, and if it is local”. Yet most people who risk striking out on their own “do so with an intention of being big one day”. May and co. seem to have forgotten that “a nation of entrepreneurs is a nation of selfish individualists” – and that, collectively, “their efforts create growth”.

“Wall Street is finally waking up to the reality in Washington,” says Jeffrey Goldfarb. After an extended lull, the S&P 500 Index Wall Street’s fell 1.8% in one day last week, as investors fretted about the deepening political turmoil in the White House, and the impact it wobble over might have on the president’s promises to slash regulation, cut taxes and boost infrastructure spending. The sell-off marked “the Trump most notable reversal to the so-called Trump rally since last year’s Born into a blue-collar Ohio US election”. Yet, even after the wobble, the market is still up by family, Ailes “understood the Jeffrey Goldfarb some 13% since Trump won at the polls. There are, of course, intensity of the unhappiness and anger in another Reuters Breakingviews other factors behind the recent stock market surge, including low interest rates, a “solid” employment picture and robust corporate America that liberal media earnings (average Q1 profit growth among S&P 500 companies people are only now waking up to”, said Michael Wolff in jumped by 15%). But market valuations now stand at some The Hollywood Reporter. 25 times earnings – a multiple that’s “hard to justify” without at Critics of the pugnacious least factoring in an “ancillary” boost such as a tax cut. Investors news boss claim he was are probably still “too optimistic” about the chances of a “policy instrumental in fermenting it. uplift”. An even bigger “DC discount” is probably in store. (“On Fox, it seemed, no rumour was too unsubstan- One might expect an institution “with £100bn of gold in its tiated, no innuendo too vile vaults” to have tight cybersecurity protocols, says Philip Aldrick. and no accusation too A cocktail Yet the Bank of England “proved no match” for a prankster with abhorrent,” wrote Monica Lewinsky in The New York a point to make. The same anonymous hoaxer who had earlier of intrigue Times.) Ailes always denied embarrassed Barclays boss Jes Staley has now “aimed higher”. the sex allegations tabled Posing as Anthony Habgood, chairman of the Bank’s governing against him – arguing that he at the Bank “court”, the prankster drew governor Mark Carney into a chat was ousted following a Philip Aldrick about Jane Austen on the new £10 note. “Apparently her face power struggle with resembles that of someone who’s had a ‘bracing martini’. I’d Murdoch’s sons. “Privately, angrily, he couldn’t wait to The Times prefer a large Scotch myself,” wrote the fake Habgood. Carney replied that he’d order three martinis – a tribute to former settle scores,” said Wolff. His governor Eddie George’s supposed pre-lunch intake. The breach anger survives him. “I want all the people who betrayed raises “serious questions” about the Bank’s procedures and, my father to know that I’m perhaps, Carney’s judgement. Ultimately, though, caution got the coming after them, and hell better of him. Accepting an invitation to “a Summer Nights- is coming with me,” stated themed soirée”, he closed down the conversation when Habgood his 17-year-old son, Zachary, said he’d hired some “rather dashing bar ladies” – preventing at a lunch after his funeral. a lapse in email security from turning into anything spicier.

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 Advertisement feature

Safe as houses? Buy-to-let investment vs stocks and shares

The British love affair with property ownership is a source of mystery to many an outsider. Ye t buying into bricks and mortar has, on the whole, been a remarkably good bet for decades. The pendulum seems to be shifting, though.

BOMAD Inc An eye-catching piece of research recently highlighted the arrival of a powerful new force in financial services. The ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ (BOMAD) is now the UK’s 9th largest mortgage lender, according to Legal & General, contributing around £6.5 billion annually in deposits to those fortunate enough to have access to a line of credit. This year around 300,000 people will scramble onto the housing ladder thanks to BOMAD cash. The new risk and return. When you ‘challenger bank’ is now underpinning UK property purchases take a look at the actual worth around £75 billion a year(1). proposition – taking on debt in The research underscores the huge role of family finance in the hope of eventually making a the current housing market. In fact, on current trends, even the return from it – it swiftly becomes apparent that property mighty BOMAD could soon start to experience a funding crisis investment is far from the risk-free superhighway to wealth that of its own – further widening the gulf between the property many of us imagine. ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. The situation has become so acute that a The recent period of super-low interest rates has had the former Bank of England economist recently speculated that effect of disguising this risk. But anyone contemplating property houses could eventually become like jets – too expensive for all as investment needs to factor in the likelihood that rates have but a few to own, except indirectly through buying airline or only one way to go from here. In fact, arguably the only real property shares(2). question is how quickly they will rise. At the moment, low rates are one of the key factors putting a floor under house prices in Affordability gap the UK. What will happen when that floor is removed? How did we get to this situation? Basically, it’s down to an extraordinary couple of decades of soaring property prices and Eggs and baskets stagnant average incomes. Last year, the Institute for Fiscal Of course, any investment involves taking on a degree of risk. Studies came out with the startling forecast that real UK wages But one of the most important tenets of investment is that the in 2021 will still be below their 2008 levels (“We have certainly best way to counter risk is to spread it. That’s why our whole not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years”). House ethos at Moneyfarm is to build our clients a globally diverse prices, meanwhile, have continued rocketing, with a portfolio of stocks, bonds and other investments. The simple resulting massive leap in unaffordability.A typical property in thinking behind it is that when one asset class starts England and Wales now costs almost eight times average underperforming (as invariably happens in any investment earnings – an all-time record(3). 20 years ago, the multiple was cycle) another may perform better. less than half that. The problem with UK property investment is that you’re effectively keeping most of your eggs in one basket: betting not Buy-to-get-rich? just on a single asset class (bricks and mortar) but on a single At some point, surely, something has to give. Sure, there have geographical location too. sometimes been painful downturns, but every time the market All in all, the omens seem stacked against buy-to-let seems to have bounced back swiftly and more strongly. No property investment. In fact, even with the risk of fluctuating wonder so many people with cash to invest have chosen to stick markets, you may come to the conclusion that a properly it into property on a buy-to-let basis rather than putting it to diversified portfolio, built for the long-term, could be safer work in the stock market. For the most part, they’ve benefited than houses. from a long-term, tax-efficient, income-producing investment – Visit us at Moneyfarm.com to learn more about alternative and a big increase in the value of the underlying asset too. ways to build the foundations of your long-term wealth. What’s not to like? The bad news for Britain’s army of amateur landlords, Yo ur capital is at risk. Investments can go down as well as up though, is that the gravy train looks to be coming to an end. and you may get back less than you originally invested. MFM This spring, big changes in the taxation of buy-to-let properties Investments is authorised and regulated by the Financial came into force, which some experts claim could eat into Conduct Authority no. 629539 profits(4). 1. https://www.legalandgeneral.com/insurance/home/bank-of-mum-and-dad/Bank-of- Mum-and-Dad-Full-Report-2017.pdf False comfort 2. https://www.ft.com/content/eab69988-2f3d-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a Even if that weren’t the case, the wisdom of ploughing all your 3. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityi hard-earned savings into the housing market right now is nenglandandwales/1997to2016 increasingly questionable. We’ve grown so used to constantly 4. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dinner-party-landlords-take-leave-as-tax-rises-are-too-hard- rising prices that many Britons now regard their houses as a to-swallow-3pglhfm9s financial asset – or an alternative pension. But as an investment it should be viewed in the same way as any other: a balance of Brought to you by

27 May 2017 THE WEEK

Shares CITY 51

Who’s tipping what

The week’s best buys Directors’ dealings Electrocomponents Marshalls SciSys HSBC The Sunday Times Investors Chronicle The Mail on Sunday This “Amazon of the The booming domestic This software designer has electronics and industrial construction market is proving a host of IT contracts in 700 worlds” is going great guns, a boon for materials supplier sectors ranging from with a turnaround fuelled by Marshalls. Well fi nanced, with government and defence to 650 the recovering economy and a strong order book, it is broadcasting – including a the internet of things. Good investing in R&D and “significant” deal with the 600 profit projections, and cash for improving operational BBC. It is a high-risk punt, but acquisitions. Buy. 536p. efficiency. Buy. 408p. soaring growth and profits 550 Chairman should continue. Buy. 109.5p sells 150,000 Dignity PureCircle The Times The Daily Telegraph SuperGroup 500 Jan Feb Mar Apr May The funeral and cremation PureCircle produces Stevia, a Investors Chronicle Dec services group operates plant extract-based sweetener Margins in the fashion group Chairman Douglas Flint is handing over to AIA Group through a network of family- with the potential to combat have contracted by more than CEO Mark Tucker after seven run regional undertakers. the global obesity crisis. Doing expected. But sales are well years. Flint, an HSBC lifer Acquisitive and adaptable – its well in Europe and Latin ahead, store refurbishments whose tenure was noted for latest offer is cheap, no-frills America; and recovering US are paying off, and the investment growth in Asia, “direct cremation”. Profits are demand should also boost company’s shares are cheaper offloaded almost £1m of rising. Buy. £25.13. shares. Buy. 315p. than its rivals’. Buy. £15.55. shares before departing. SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE

…and some to sell Form guide

GlaxoSmithKline Mitchells & Butlers Safestyle Shares tipped 12 weeks ago The Daily Telegraph Investors Chronicle The Mail on Sunday Best tip Fund manager Neil Woodford The pub group, which owns The window maker has Treatt has sold his entire stake in the Browns, Harvester and All Bar revealed weaker than expected Shares drugs giant, branding three of One, has been hit by wage and Q1 trading – “especially up 75.12% to 453.44p its four divisions “perennial cost inflation, and higher disappointing” in a period of underperformers”. A weak property costs. Food and drink softer competition, says N+1 Worst tip pipeline and “lack of volumes are sluggish, and Singer, which has downgraded M.P. Evans Group strategic options” have consumer confidence is fragile. the group, blaming the Investors Chronicle down 3.01% to 697.38p made the dividend vulnerable. Sell. 257p. uncertain backdrop. Sell. 292p. Sell. £16.67. Premier Foods SSP Lonmin Investors Chronicle The Times Market view Investors Chronicle Ingredients inflation, weak Shares in the food and Operating losses have doubled sterling, and promotions from beverages group have soared “It’s no easy feat to stay on top of the spectrum at the beleaguered mineral retailers have hurt the food since fl oating at 210p in of noise coming out of resources group, which is now conglomerate, whose brands 2014, driven by continued the White House.” having to cut expenditure. include Mr Kipling and growth at airports. Further ING’s FX strategy team, on Platinum prices remain weak Ambrosia. Highly indebted, long-term gains look assured, last week’s political and the net worth of the group and cost-cutting has yet to but shares are highly rated. turmoil. Quoted in the FT has fallen. Sell. 110p. prove its worth. Sell. 42p. Take profits. Sell. 472.5p. Market summary

KeyKey numbers for investors BestBest and and worst performing shares Following the Footsie

23 May 2017 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS 7,600 FTSE 100 7485.29 7522.03 –0.49% RISES Price % change 7,500 FTSE All-share UK 4098.45 4113.10 –0.36% Centrica 206.70 +7.27 Dow Jones 20937.91 20995.75 –0.28% EasyJet 1301.00 +7.08 7,400 NASDAQ 6138.71 6158.02 –0.31% SSE 1551.00 +6.89 7,300 Nikkei 225 19613.28 19919.82 –1.54% Babcock International 969.50 +6.01 Hang Seng 25403.15 25335.94 0.27% Burberry Group 1741.00 +4.56 7,200 Gold 1260.20 1234.20 2.11% FALLS 7,100 Brent Crude Oil 54.14 51.86 4.40% National Grid 1076.50 –6.29 7,000 DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.68% 3.63% British Land 635.00 –5.79 UK 10-year gilts yield 1.17 1.20 Smiths Group 1576.00 –5.23 6,900 US 10-year Treasuries 2.27 2.32 Land Securities Group 1075.00 –4.95 6,800 UK ECONOMIC DATA Hikma Pharma. 1680.00 –4.87 Latest CPI (yoy) 2.7% (Apr) 2.3% (Mar) 6,700 BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL Latest RPI (yoy) 3.5% (Apr) 3.1% (Mar) 6,600 Echo Energy 20.75 +100.00 Halifax house price (yoy) +3.8% (Apr) +3.8% (Mar) Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Revolution Bars Group 112.00 –47.66 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index £1 STERLING $1.299 E1.161 ¥145.256 Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 23 May (pm)

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 52 The last word “I thought my country was a utopia” Very few people escape from North Korea and live to tell the tale. Monique Rivalland spoke to some of those who, having fled the world’s most repressive regime, are recording their memories for posterity

Hyeonseo Lee, 37 the colourful, vibrant China I could Escaped in 1997 see across the river. People were When I was at high school, every dancing and having picnics on the year the most beautiful girls would banks. I wanted to know the truth, be selected by the authorities to take so one day I went. I didn’t mean to part in the “beauty squad test”. First escape my country; I was so naive. I they would check if the girls were thought I could come back in a virgins. Then they would strip them week and see my family. naked and scrutinise their bodies. They would examine the nipples, to It was 1997 and I was 17. I told my see whether they were protruding or mum I was going to see a friend but inverted, and measure the distance headed to the border instead. We between the legs, because only girls had a very good relationship with with the straightest legs, and no the border guards and often helped bow, would do. We never knew each other. I crossed the frozen river why the girls who passed the test under their full protection. Most were sent to Pyongyang. There was people risk their lives crossing, but a rumour that they had been chosen that was the easiest part of my to serve as spies in Japan, South story. It was just the beginning of Korea and the West. We heard they my hardship. were taught how to drink cognac and how to fl irt, have sex and For a short while I was super-happy pleasure a man. I thought it was all Hyeonseo Lee: “I wanted to know the truth, so one day I went” in China. A distant relative took me so they could be spies. When I in. It was the fi rst time I’d tasted escaped North Korea, I learnt from other defectors that they had freedom. I watched Chinese TV and dreamt of all the things I been trained to become the sex slaves of the leader and his could do in this new world. I hadn’t yet realised the implications high-ranking officials. of being an illegal immigrant. I couldn’t go back, and if I were caught I would be sent back and tortured. But in China I could be As a teenager, I thought my country was a utopia. The regime exposed to trafficking and sexual abuse. I spent ten years hiding told us that the outside world was very poor and I believed they my identity, dodging danger and trying not to make a single were suffering more than us. They told us that the problems in mistake. I became deeply depressed. The separation from my North Korea were a result of family was unbearable. sanctions by the “American bastards”. At school, the most “I could see across the river to colourful, In 2011, I plotted the escape of important activity was to train vibrant China. People were dancing my mother and brother. Once for the Mass Games [gymnastic and having picnics on the banks” they were across the border, we displays on a monumental scale] cried with joy, but they had to and to learn how to praise our pretend to be deaf and dumb to dear leader and our nation. We studied the fake history of our survive. We reached Laos, but they were thrown in jail. I had run country like [it was] the Bible. Sometimes we were used as free out of bribe money and they spent two months there before an labour. When farmworkers were scarce, we were taken out American tourist helped us. There were many more times when I of class and put to work. When the regime told us we were going thought I had lost them forever, but eventually we made it to to have a nuclear war, they made us dig tunnels underground. South Korea. If I had known beforehand just half of the things On Fridays, every student in the country had to attend a life- that would happen to my family on that journey, I would never purification session, which involved confessing something about have had the courage to help them. Living in Seoul, I have met a yourself and then criticising another student. During one session, great American man and I would love to have a family. But I still one boy criticised another for having nice fear for my life. I never want to lose this things in his house. The teacher reported it to happiness I have found. the authorities. Hyeonseo Lee’s The Girl with Seven Names is published by William Collins I was lucky to live in a border town. We could see a little of the outside world. My mother Jang Jin-sung, 46 was shrewd and had started her own illicit Escaped in 2004 business trading shoes across the Chinese In 2004, I was 33 and working for the United border. But most people in North Korea did Front Department, which handled North not understand money. We had a ration Korean affairs – diplomacy, strategy and system and the regime provided [food and] policy. My role within the agency was to clothes, which is why all the poor people wore manipulate public opinion in both North and the same thing. When the rations stopped South Korea. I was in charge of psychological with the collapse of the Soviet Union, people warfare on an inter-Korean level. Back then, I died waiting. That’s when I started to think didn’t just think Kim Jong Il was great,

North Korea was a dark hole compared with Jang Jin-sung: the regime fears its people I thought he had divine powers. In North © HYEONSEO LEE

THE WEEK 27 May 2017 The last word 53

Korea, the deification of the Kim family head to the mountains to hunt for food. is systemic. In my job at the UFD, I used to Sometimes my family would eat snakes to write poetry and literature to earn sympathy survive. About a month after starting at the for the state and our dear leader. Kim Jong Il local school, the head teacher told us to gather loved one of the poems I wrote about him so in the grounds to witness a public execution. I much, he ordered it to be published in the couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I asked party newspaper and invited me to meet him. my mum if that meant somebody was going to He gave me gifts. It was the greatest honour a kill another person in front of us. There were man could hope for. But when I met him, my two of them: a man who had stolen copper vision was shattered. I realised he was human from a factory to sell to China, and a woman like me and started to question the fl awless who had escaped to China and laid her hands narrative that surrounded him. Soon after, I on a Bible. They both received nine bullets in was asked to work on a propaganda the head for high treason. I was 11. document which gave me access to archive material. The stories I read, about the history Eventually, our family’s situation became so of old Korea and the succession of the Kim Sungju Lee: spent four years on the street desperate that my father left in the middle of dynasty, were wildly different to those the night. He told my mum he was going to imparted by the government. I became curious and suspicious, fi nd food across the border in China, but he never came home. and showed some of the material to a friend, the son of the head I was devastated and assumed he was dead. We had to sell all our of the national police force. This was highly illegal. It was furniture at the market to buy food. Then, four months later, my treacherous. My friend misplaced the document and we were mother disappeared, too. I had been so scared of losing her that I discovered. We had no choice but to fl ee. used to hold her hand as I slept, but one night she managed to slip away. Her note said she would be back and that if I got We planned nothing. I got on the fi rst train to the northern border hungry I should eat salt and drink water. with China and waited until dark to cross the river. I knew if I was caught I would be returned to North Korea, and my family I stopped going to school. One morning I woke up and I couldn’t and I would become political prisoners. I thought of my 11-year- see anything. I thought I had been blinded but my body had old niece and the life she had ahead of her. I didn’t want her to swollen from malnutrition and my eyes were stuck together. die in a concentration camp because of me. The border guards did A boy I knew took me to the market and said: “This is your catch us. And still to this day, I do not know how we managed to kitchen. You can do anything here.” Beg, he said, and if nobody get away. We showed them our ID and our high-level party status gives you anything, steal. From that moment on, I was a street and told them not to mess with us. They let us go. Later, though, kid. I learnt how to pick pockets and joined a gang. We were my friend and I were separated and he was caught. He killed brothers and we supported each other, moving from town to himself before they could return him. town and fi ghting with other gangs.

I spent more than a month on the run, until I eventually took a I spent four years on the street until, one day, out of nowhere, my huge risk and called a tip-off line at a South Korean newspaper grandfather found me. He had been searching for me for years. that had a Beijing office. I told them I had information. The He spotted me at the station where we used to congregate at Beijing correspondent connected me with South Korean foreign night and called out my name, but I didn’t remember it. I had a intelligence, who sent me to a bus station where they had hidden new name now. He told me the name of my father and mother, a mobile phone and bag of cash in a bin – my ticket to the smiled and said he was my grandfather, and that he had a house traffickers who could help me. Now I work for a South Korean in the countryside with rice fi elds and chickens. But I didn’t know intelligence agency. if I could trust him, and when I got to his house I started looking The system in North Korea has “I woke up and couldn’t see anything. for valuables to steal. That’s not changed. Public executions My body had swollen from malnutrition when my eyes fell on a picture still happen. In the time of Kim Il and my eyes were stuck together” on the wall. It was my parents’ Sung, they used automatic wedding photo. I hated the idea weapons, and under Kim Jong of family. Mine had abandoned Il’s rule, they used machine guns. Today, Kim Jong Un uses me. My family was my brothers on the street. But I stayed with anti-aircraft guns. They have increased the threat of violence my grandparents, and every Sunday I would take food to the boys because there has been a surge in high-level defections in recent at the train station. Then one day a letter arrived. It was written in years. But increasing the rule of fear only means the regime my dad’s handwriting and delivered by a human trafficker. He increasingly fears its people. told me to come and join him in South Korea. It was extremely Jang Jin-sung’s Dear Leader is published by Rider Books dangerous, but he had arranged everything meticulously.

Sungju Lee, 29 At fi rst, adapting to life in South Korea was difficult. I struggled Escaped in 2002 with how much choice there was. Eventually, I made it to high When I was ten years old, my dad made a terrible mistake. The school, then did a degree in political sciences and journalism, and consequences were so shocking, I barely remember life before it. today I’m preparing to do a PhD in Seoul. But I miss my brothers. I was an only child and we were living in Pyongyang, where my I dream of them. Sometimes I wonder if they are still waiting for father was a military officer. The government made life good for me at the station, as I am still waiting for my mother. Back then, us: they provided everything, down to our fancy chopsticks. I had my father said there was no hope for North Korea, but now I can no idea the rest of the country was being destroyed by famine. see some. Nostalgia for our leader is dying. After 2020, those One night, when he was drunk, my dad told his colleagues he young people who survived the famine of the 1990s will be in thought there was no hope for North Korea. The next day we their 40s and 50s. They taught themselves about markets and were expelled from Pyongyang to the poverty-stricken north. capitalism, and a new social class is blossoming. These people have the power to change North Korea. On the train journey there, I saw a beggar for the fi rst time. I was Sungju Lee and Susan McClelland’s Every Falling Star is so confused. I had learnt at school that North Korea was the published by Amulet Books richest country in the world. I saw dead bodies around the station – people who had died of starvation. My dad got a job in a local A longer version of this article fi rst appeared in The Times.

© JESSE WINTER factory, but power shortages meant the workers regularly had to © The Times/News Syndication

27 May 2017 THE WEEK 54 Crossword

ThisThi week’s crossword winner will THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1057 receiverec an Ettinger (www.ettinger. An Ettinger Bridle Hide travel pass holder and two Connell Guides will be given to the co.uk)co. Bridle Hide single-sided travel sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday passpas holder in London tan, which 5 June. Send it to: The Week Crossword 1057, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or retailsret at £100, and two Connell email the answers to [email protected]. Tim Moorey (www.timmoorey.info) GuidesGui (www.connellguides.com). 12345673 4 5 ACROSS DOWN 1 Side order of synthetic 1 Nick Marks is suitable (14) 8 cream (10,4) 2 Food from the north? A good 9 Observer featuring the inventor deal! (7) 9 10 of Gamesmanship briefly (7) 3 Top Ten for the Killers? (3,4) 10 Informally, isn’t grass cut short 4 Needing strict attention, call in for racecourse? (7) medical aid for the heart? (9) 11 Back seat taken by one working 5 Pass fruit canes partly from the 11 12 on tablet (7) south (5) 12 Crude oil found following 6 Two containers on top of a journey in African capital (7) Spanish bar (7) 13 One brought in support to do 7 Evict those in attendance (7) 13 14 15 test again (5) 8 Murdoch’s support is not 14 Charmed and thence new (6,3,5) changed (9) 15 Deception hurt opponent (9) 17 Salt: it’s found in box (7) 16 Stop Scouts on protest (5,2,2) 16 17 18 19 20 19 Saw projections in committee 18 Passage in music totters theories (5) badly (7) 21 Minister stupidly ignoring Sun’s 19 Times covering heaps abroad leader? It’s only temporary (7) in history (3,4) 23 Sounds like notable feature of 20 Pop into dodgy store for some 21 22 23 plant disease (7) grass (7) 24 One raising glass with 22 Eastern Muslims mostly something from the kitchen (7) sullen (5) 25 Indian city featuring in obscure 24 25 sketch (7) 26 Shows transient moods tempered (14) 26

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FP CRUX European Special Situations Fund

Since launch* Return on £1,000 invested 1 year 2 years 3 years 4 years 5 years - 30.04.17

CRUX European Special Situations Fund £1,284 £1,370 £1,507 £1,651 £2,172 £2,629

Sector average : IA Europe ex UK £1,261 £1,252 £1,334 £1,534 £1,929 £1,910

Index : FTSE World Europe ex UK £1,288 £1,237 £1,324 £1,520 £1,947 £1,872

Cash : Bank of England Base Rate £1,003 £1,008 £1,013 £1,018 £1,023 £1,036

Source: FE © 2017, bid-bid, £1,000 invested, cumulative performance to 30.04.17. *Launch date 01.10.09.

Active managers who invest in their own funds The Fund has comfortably lapped the index and most Active investment management requires confidence, of the tracker funds that follow it nearly every year over courage and commitment in every investment decision, the past fi ve years, as shown in the table above. So if something the managers of CRUX’s European Special you’re investing in Europe put yourself on the podium Situations Fund have plenty of. with active asset management, not in the slow lane with a passive investment. They are also committed to aligning their investment aims with that of their clients by investing meaningful Past performance is not a guide to future returns. The amounts of their own assets in their funds. value of an investment and any income from it are not guaranteed and can go down as well as up and there is As you can see from the table above, it’s an approach which the risk of loss to your investment. is delivering strong performance and over the years they have achieved an impressive track record.

Consult your fi nancial adviser, call or visit: 0800 30 474 24 www.cruxam.com

Fund featured; FP CRUX European Special Situations Fund I ACC GBP class. The Henderson European Special Situations Fund was restructured into the FP CRUX European Special Situations Fund on 8 June 2015. Any past performance or references to the period prior to 8 June 2015 relate to the Henderson European Special Situations Fund. This fi nancial promotion is issued by CRUX Asset Management, who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority of 25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS. A free, English language copy of the full prospectus, the Key Investor Information Document and Supplementary Information Document for the fund, which should be read before investing, can be obtained from the CRUX website, www.cruxam.com or by calling us on 0800 304 7424. For your protection, calls may be monitored and recorded.