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22TH JULY 2017 | ISSUE 1134 | £3.30 EWTHE BEST OF THE BRITISHEEK AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

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

What happened What the editorials said Day after day, the bad news keeps on coming, said The The negotiations begin Observer. The National Audit Office predicts a “horror show” Brexit Secretary David Davis declared that it was if the UK leaves the EU customs union without time to “get down to business” this week, as he a new customs system in place; data from led his team of officials to Brussels for the first Eurostat shows Britain at the bottom of the round of substantive talks on Britain’s departure EU growth league, below even Greece; foreign from the EU. The negotiations are tackling three student applications are down; City jobs are main issues: the rights of EU citizens living in the migrating to Paris and Frankfurt. “We are UK, Northern Ireland’s borders, and the starting to get a glimpse of the hard Brexit question of how much money the UK owes the future.” Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly EU. Last week, the UK formally conceded that it evident that our leading Brexiteers have “no did have financial “obligations” to the bloc – to workable plan, no realistic, realisable vision”, the relief of Brussels diplomats. They had feared but are simply making it up as they go along. a collapse in the talks after , the “Slowly but surely, they are being found out.” Foreign Secretary, declared that the EU was demanding an “extortionate” amount and could “It’s deafening,” said The Sun: “the din of “go whistle”. In response, the EU’s chief Remainers hysterically whipping up fear again negotiator, Michel Barnier, said: “I’m not Davis and Barnier: ticking clock to terrify us into bottling out of Brexit.” Our hearing any whistling, just the clock ticking.” Cabinet ministers are apparently all “thick chancers”, while the EU negotiators are all strategic geniuses. On the eve of the talks, a series of critics warned that the Critics “never mention the financial disasters of the eurozone, Government had unrealistic expectations about Brexit and its mass unemployment, or the bitter and rising resentment of was hopelessly ill-prepared for the negotiations. Tony Blair the EU across the Continent”. As for Blair’s claim that the EU also intervened, suggesting that EU leaders might be prepared is suddenly keen to accommodate our concerns about free to “meet us halfway” on restricting the free movement of movement, said The Daily Telegraph, that’s a joke. EU leaders people if we opted to drop the Brexit plan and stay in the EU. have made it very clear that such reforms are off the table.

What happened What the editorials said The Cabinet shoot-out Full marks to for insisting on Cabinet discipline, said . With the Brexit negotiations now under way, A spate of hostile briefings and Cabinet leaks Britain’s whole future is at stake: this is no time this week prompted Theresa May to demand for the kind of vicious squabbles that could that ministers show more “strength and scuttle her minority government and plunge the unity”. The Prime Minister had earlier told country into “political chaos”. Rival ministers backbench Tory MPs that the “backbiting” may be “bickering”, but the Prime Minister can and “carping” by future rivals for the party at least depend on the “vast majority” of her leadership risked bringing down the MPs, said The Sun. The powerful 1922 Government and handing victory to Labour. Committee of Tory backbenchers this week Media accounts spoke of deep divisions promised its support and urged May to sack between Chancellor Philip Hammond, ministers who rock the boat. She must act now Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit to “take back control” of her Government. Secretary David Davis over Brexit strategy and limits on public sector pay. As if she could, said . When Cabinet ministers take to leaking against each According to the leaks, Hammond claimed Hammond: charisma-free? other, it’s a sure sign of “deep prime in Cabinet that public sector workers were ministerial and Cabinet weakness”. The fact “overpaid”, and that driving a train was now so easy that is that May’s drubbing at the polls has robbed her of all “even women” could do it. One minister also reportedly authority. She lacks the clout to get rid of the “Downing accused the Chancellor of deliberately trying to “f*** up” Street cat, much less to sack a disloyal minister”. The Brexit, while an unnamed Davis ally was said to be parliamentary recess will “cover over but cannot conceal” spreading lurid stories about Johnson’s private life. deep divisions that look set to persist.

A teenager who grew up A cyclist from Bristol got her It wasn’t all bad in the slums of Nairobi revenge on a thief by stealing Two polar field guides have has been awarded a full back her own bike in an become the first couple to scholarship at the audacious sting operation. marry in British Antarctic English National Ballet Just hours after her £800 bike Territory. Julie Baum, 34, and School. Raised in a one- was taken, Jenni Morton- Tom Sylvester, 35, tied the knot bedroom shack in the Humphreys, 30, put out an alert at the Rothera Research Station, Kuwinda slum, Joel online, and discovered that the in front of their 18 colleagues. Kioko, 17, only took up bike was already for sale on For her “something old”, the dancing when he was Facebook. The police declined bride wore a dress made from 11. He went with a to help, so – via an intermediary tent fabric. Light was low, and cousin to her ballet – she arranged to meet the the temperature was -9°C, but class, in a local school, seller. At the rendezvous, on a they insisted the setting was intending “to make a nuisance of himself”, he said. “But when we street corner, she asked if she perfect all the same. “Antarctica did the men’s class and I could jump and turn, I knew this is what could test the bike, and handed is an incredibly beautiful place I wanted to do with my life.” He quickly became known as Kenya’s the seller a defunct set of and we have made such great most promising young dance star, and received training in the US house keys as security; then friends here,” said Sylvester. before winning his scholarship to study ballet in England. she quickly pedalled away.

COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 22 July 2017 …and how they were covered NEWS 3

What the commentators said What next? The hope is growing in many quarters that we might, after all, be able to avert the “nightmare” Labour has threatened to of leaving the EU, said John Harris in The Guardian. “I know in my heart that Brexit can be defeat the repeal bill ending stopped,” says Blair’s former spin doctor, . “We’ll stop Brexit,” insists the the supremacy of EU law, philosopher A.C. Grayling. The combination of Labour’s election surge and Tory disarray has complaining that it gives encouraged the belief that “we can somehow pretend 23 June 2016 never happened. The ministers sweeping powers problem is that it did.” What’s more, it seems that the vast majority of people who voted to to tweak laws without full leave the EU still feel the same way, so wouldn’t take very kindly to a U-turn. parliamentary scrutiny. The Bill – which was published There’s no chance of reversing the Article 50 process now, said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday last week and will be debated Telegraph. Consider what would need to happen. Two-thirds of MPs would have to vote for in the autumn – will transfer an early dissolution of Parliament. Then Remainers would need to win the subsequent election all EU laws onto the British on a pro-EU platform. Then they’d need to win a new referendum. Finally, they’d have to statute book, providing legal persuade the other 27 EU nations to take us back. “And they’d need to do all of this within continuity and enabling any 20 months.” There is little doubt that Britain is going to leave the EU in March 2019, agreed measures to be subsequently Philip Collins in The Times. Trying to thwart the process risks merely ensuring that we “crash reformed at leisure. out on the least favourable terms”. Remainers should redirect their energies into helping the UK reach a deal that does as little damage to our country as possible. A round of Brexit talks will take place each month until But it’s too early to give up yet, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. There remains “a distinct October, by which time both possibility that there will be revelatory moments in the next two years” that create an sides hope to have finalised irresistible demand for a second vote. “A serious breakdown in negotiations with the risk of the terms of Britain’s divorce. a ‘no deal Brexit’ would be one such scenario.” As they witness the flailing efforts of the May If “sufficient progress” has Government, the British people may conclude “that the Brexiters have had their chance – and been made on this front, failed”. The talks are certainly unlikely to go smoothly, said German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel negotiations will switch to in The Times. I fear Barnier and some other EU figures are deliberately trying to make a “mess” the UK’s future trading of the situation, as a way of punishing Britain and discouraging others from leaving the union. arrangements with the bloc.

What the commentators said What next? With the PM’s authority “in free fall”, ministers are busily positioning themselves for a leader- Insiders believe Theresa ship contest, said Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times. Cabinet is now “a venting room” for May is unlikely to face a those “pursuing their own agendas”. The sparring is not confined to Downing Street. At the leadership challenge until Spectator party last week, David Davis visibly irritated Boris Johnson by flirting with Johnson’s after the Conservative sister, Rachel, and suggesting Johnson was “too toxic” even for her: that’s why, before the June Party Conference in election, she’d defected to the Lib Dems. Two of the “biggest beasts” in Government are now set October. To trigger an to lock horns. The smart money isn’t on Johnson, said James Forsyth in The Spectator. Ranged election, at least 48 Tory against him are a phalanx of enemies: Cameron-Osborne loyalists who can’t forgive him for MPs, 15% of the total, dethroning “their king and their dauphin”; Europhiles who blame him for Brexit; and fellow would have to back a ministers – notably Philip Hammond – who resent what they see as his undeserved rise to high motion of no confidence office. The Foreign Secretary’s friends now gripe that “everyone’s out for Boris”. They’re right. in the Prime Minister.

The real danger to May, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman, comes from what one Tory To fend off his critics, the MP calls “the safe seat kids”: those who can plot away knowing that “any voter revolt won’t Chancellor is looking at hit them in their constituencies”. May’s strength, on the other hand, is that most Tory MPs a compromise on public have a fragile hold on their seats, and so are ready to punish anyone who rocks the boat and sector pay, according to undermines their leader. Then again, most Tory MPs recognise that May simply isn’t strong The Times. The deal would enough to lead them into the next election, said Paul Goodman on ConservativeHome.com. allow the lowest-paid Yet the alternatives aren’t great, either. Davis is probably “the man best placed to hold the workers a bigger rise than party together”. But does it make sense to opt for a leader who’d be over 70 by the time of the their higher-earning next election? But Hammond is hardly a vote winner either, said Matthew Norman in The colleagues. The present Independent. To replace May with her Chancellor would just be to trade “one grey middle- 1% cap is to be reviewed in aged robot with the charisma of a 1950s BBC continuity announcer” for another. this autumn’s Budget.

Editor-in-chief: Jeremy O’Grady Sometimes it feels as if everything is going to the dogs. Take the sad Editor: Caroline Law Deputy editors: Harry Nicolle, Theo Tait THE WEEK fate of a new bike rental scheme in Manchester. The idea was that Consultant editor: Jemima Lewis Assistant editor: Daniel Cohen City editor: Jane Lewis the bikes would be left unlocked, and – using an app to find them – Contributing editors: Charity Crewe, Thomas Hodgkinson, Simon Wilson, Rob McLuhan, William Underhill, Digby you’d simply pick one up whenever you needed one. But it’s not going to plan: the bikes are being Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood Editorial staff: Asya Likhtman, Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, William Skidelsky Picture stolen or dumped in canals. We’ve forgotten how to share, says Helen Pidd in The Guardian. In The editor: Xandie Nutting Art director: Nathalie Fowler Chief Times, Clive Aslet laments the selfishness of people playing tinny music on smartphones in public sub editor: Kari Wilkin Production editor: Alanna O’Connell spaces. Meanwhile, there is alarm about an angry national mood, and the abuse levelled at our MPs Founder and editorial director: Jolyon Connell Production Manager: Ebony Besagni Senior Production (see page 4). It’s easy to fall into a slump about all this, but perspective helps. The first bike-sharing Executive: Maaya Mistry Newstrade Director: David Barker Direct Marketing Director: Abi Spooner Inserts: Abdul Ahad scheme was in Amsterdam in the 1960s: the bikes were stolen then too. A few decades ago, ghetto Classified: Henry Haselock, Henry Pickford Account Directors: Scott Hayter, John Hipkiss, Victoria Ryan, Jocelyn Sital-Singh blasters were a noisier menace than iPhones (and in Victorian cities, the constant din created by UK Ad Director: Caroline Fenner Executive Director – Head of Advertising: David Weeks costermongers, organ grinders, drunks and carriages was almost intolerable). As for a bitter and Chief Executive, The Week: Kerin O’Connor divided Britain, try the 1980s, with its miners’ strike and race riots. We are not the polite, deferential Group CFO/COO: Brett Reynolds Chief executive: James Tye people we were, but to see that our essential civility is intact, you need only get behind the wheel. Dennis Publishing founder: Felix Dennis The British have always been unusually considerate drivers: giving way, slowing to let others

overtake, waving thanks. Mass immigration could have changed that; so could the larger cars that THE WEEK Ltd, a subsidiary of Dennis Publishing Ltd, have made negotiating narrow streets much harder. Yet on the road we remain, 31-32 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Tel: 020-3890 3890. Editorial: The Week Ltd, 2nd Floor, 32 Queensway, London by and large, as well mannered as ever. Modern life isn’t entirely rubbish. Caroline Law W2 3RX. Tel: 020-3890 3787. email: [email protected]

Subscriptions: 0330-333 9494; [email protected] The Week is licensed to The Week Limited by Dennis Publishing Limited. The Week is a registered trade mark of Felix Dennis. 22 July 2017 THE WEEK 4 NEWS Politics

Controversy of the week Boring but important The age of rage Extra school funding Schools in England will “Many members of Parliament now regard death threats the receive an extra £1.3bn over way the rest of us think about long commutes or boring the next two years, the meetings,” said Helen Lewis in the Financial Times: as “a grim Education Secretary has but unavoidable part of the job.” At a Westminster Hall debate announced. Following a last week, it was revealed that the Conservative whips’ office backlash over a new formula dealt with “at least three credible threats” to Tory MPs every to allocate funding, Justine Greening said all schools week. Labour’s Paula Sherriff said that the last election was the would now get an increase “most brutal” in memory. Another Labour MP, Diane Abbott, per pupil of at least 0.5% a “a rare black woman at the top of politics”, revealed that she year in cash terms, with had racist and sexist abuse directed at her every day, both some getting as much as 3%; online and offline. “I’ve had death threats,” she said, “I’ve had the Institute for Fiscal Studies people tweeting that I should be hung if ‘they could fi nd a tree says this amounts to a freeze big enough to take the fat bitch’s weight’.” Abbott: received death threats in real terms. However, rather than being new cash “We haven’t begun to understand the phenomenon of online abuse,” said Andrew Marr in The from the Treasury, the money is being taken from Spectator. In the real world, I’m approached to talk about politics “by friendly, wryly sceptical and elsewhere in the education tolerant strangers”. Whenever I venture on to Twitter, I’m sucked into “a deep pit” of paranoia and budget, including funds loathing. Perhaps the actual people and the Twitterers are “two separate species – Homo sapiens, earmarked for free schools. Homo iratus – but I rather doubt it. Social intercourse produces civility; anonymity rips off the Labour dismissed the plans smiling mask.” The “rising tide of vitriol” is probably an inevitable consequence of our “hyper- as “a sticking plaster”. partisan age”, said Lewis. In the US, “very unfavourable” views of Democrats by Republicans, and vice versa, more than doubled between 1992 and 2014, according to the Pew Research Centre. The HS2 “will cost £104bn” internet is certainly part of it: a 2015 US study found that “access to broadband internet increases The initial section of the HS2 partisan hostility”. But it may also be that “political beliefs have replaced other identity markers as rail link will cost more than the most acceptable form of tribalism”. Human have an inbuilt desire to form groups, and £400m per mile, according to a study commissioned by the “keyboard warriors” choose to lump their political opponents “into a dehumanised mass”. Department for Transport (DfT). It estimates the high- At any rate, there is now “an arms race of rage in British politics”, said Janice Turner in The Times. speed line between London “Escalated by social media, it leaches into real life.” The abuse on Twitter and the slashing of Tory and Birmingham will cost MPs’ tyres are “part of a spectrum whose end point is the murder of Labour’s Jo Cox”. We should almost £48bn – making it the be “alarmed and ashamed” that the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg now reportedly has a most expensive railway in bodyguard, after getting so many violent threats. But instead of taking concrete steps to clamp down, the world. The entire HS2 both Right and Left cling “to a childish stance: the others do it too, their trolls are worse, their project could cost £104bn, threats more vicious”. When Abbott was asked by a Tory MP if it was acceptable for demonstrators the study says, almost double its current budget of at a Labour rally that she addressed to carry a model of the PM’s head on a spike she refused to £55.7bn. The DfT said the condemn it. “In any society, there is a link between behaviour at the average and at the extreme,” project remained on budget said Sonia Sodha in The Observer. If we all tried to be more civil to each other in our political and on time, with the first rhetoric and online, “it wouldn’t get rid of abuse altogether, but I bet it would help”. phase due to open in 2026.

Good week for: Spirit of the age Chris Evans, who was named as the BBC’s highest-paid star: he Poll watch Even when planning for our made between £2.2m and £2.5m last year, more than four times 33% of voters think Theresa own deaths, we must keep as much as the highest-paid female celebrity, Claudia Winkleman. May should resign as PM up with new technology, Two-thirds of the “talent” identified as having earned more than immediately. A further 16% it seems. The Law £150,000 in 2016 are male. Whereas John Humphrys was paid want her to stay on until the Commission has suggested more than £600,000 for his work on Radio 4’s Today (and end of Brexit negotiations; that the business of making Mastermind), his Today colleague, Sarah Montague, is not even 8% think she should step wills – on paper, signed and named on the list. There is also a big earnings gap between white down shortly before the witnessed – is outdated, and next election; 22% think she that in future, a person’s celebrities and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) stars: the should lead the Tories into emails, voicemail messages highest-paid BAME celebrities, among them Trevor Nelson and the election. 35% say they and texts could be used to George Alagiah, earned between £250,000 and £300,000. can imagine Boris Johnson determine their wishes. Men, with news of a crackdown on gender stereotyping in as PM; 30% can imagine However, it acknowledged commercials. Thanks to new Advertising Standards Authority David Davis in the role, and that this could lead to more guidelines, advertisers will no longer be able to mock men for 25%, Philip Hammond. family rows, with relatives their ineptitude at doing the laundry; nor to suggest that there is Opinium/The Independent scouring the deceased’s anything wrong with boys playing with dolls. Equally, they will digital “legacy” for evidence 60% of American women of their intentions. not be able to imply that doing the dishes is women’s work. think it’s inappropriate for a married person to have a The words “ladies and Bad week for: drink with a member of the gentlemen” are being PC Jonathan Adams, who was found guilty of gross misconduct opposite sex who is not dropped from London their spouse, as do 48% of Underground for pulling a “sickie” to go to the races. The constable was American men, according to announcements, to make rumbled after being seen on TV celebrating a win at Ascot. He a poll for The New York them gender neutral. said the outing had helped him cope with a “toxic” work culture. Times. By contrast, a Campaigners welcomed the Gardeners, who were warned that the mulch that is so good at YouGov poll for The Times move, saying the axed helping their plants grow is also a magnet for slugs and snails. found that just 12% of phrase was “polite” but The research, by the Royal Horticultural Society, also found that British women think that, belonged to “yesterday”. organic slug pellets protect hostas better than synthetic ones. and 10% of British men.

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 Europe at a glance NEWS 5

Paris Brussels Warsaw A national EU to restrict boat sales: The EU has Judicial reform protest: Thousands of anti- shame: France’s decided to curb the export of inflatable government protesters gathered in front of annual Vel d’Hiv boats and outboard motors to Libya, in a Poland’s Supreme Court on Sunday night ceremony to bid to make it harder for people smugglers to condemn two bills that they see as a commemorate to send migrants across the Mediterranean. threat to judicial independence. One bill, the mass arrest In future, officials will be able to block passed last week, will hand politicians the of Jews in sales to Libya in cases where there are power to appoint members to the National Nazi-occupied “reasonable grounds” to suspect the boats Judicial Council, the body that lays down France was will be used for people smuggling. But it is ethical guidelines for judges and that attended this week by Benjamin Netanyahu, far from clear how customs officials will reviews judicial candidates. The second bill the fi rst Israeli leader to have been invited. ensure that boats and motors imported by would force all existing Supreme Court During the Second World War, more than fi shermen and others with legitimate judges to stand down in favour of new 13,000 Jews were detained in the reasons to use them do not end up in the appointments made by the justice minister. Vélodrome d’Hiver, a stadium near the hands of smugglers. Last year, the Italian The ruling Law and Justice party claims Eiffel Tower, before being deported to coastguard intercepted more than 1,000 the changes will make the judicial system death camps; fewer than 100 survived the inflatable boats, each carrying an average of less corrupt and more efficient: the EU has War. President Macron (above, with 122 people. About 82,000 migrants made expressed concern that they may violate Netanyahu) made a point of acknowledging the passage from Libya to Italy in the fi rst the rule of law. French culpability for the roundup – not a six months of this year; some 24,800 came single German took part, he said – and in June alone. More than 2,000 are thought scorned right-wing attempts to deny it. He to have drowned. The EU has also been also denounced today’s anti-Zionism as a training up the Libyan coastguard in “reinvention of anti-Semitism”. an effort to quell the surge.

Les Diablerets, Switzerland Bodies recovered: Two frozen corpses, thought to be those of a farming couple who went missing in WWII, have been discovered on the Tsanfleuron Glacier, above Les Diablerets resort, by a worker from a ski-lift company. In August of 1942, Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin went to attend their cows grazing up on the mountain, some 8,580ft above sea level, and were never seen again. It is thought they may have fallen into a crevasse on the glacier. As a result of global warming, the glacier has now receded to expose the bodies. A backpack, a book and a watch found with them have been taken to Lausanne for forensic tests. Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, 79, one of the couple’s seven children, said she and her family had “spent our whole lives looking for them… After 75 years of waiting, this news gives me a deep sense of calm.”

Alicante, Spain Madrid Naples, Italy Horsemeat racket busted: Spanish police Football boss Cats set alight: The Italian Mafia has been have arrested 65 people thought to be part arrested: The accused of setting fi re to cats in order to of an international crime ring involved in president of start the bush fi res that have burnt down slaughtering horses deemed too old, or just Spain’s football thousands of acres of woodland in the unfit for human consumption, and then association, Campanian national park around Mount passing the meat off as edible. The horses RFEF, has been Vesuvius. Local authorities had initially came from Portugal and northern Spain, arrested for said the conflagrations – which raged for and after slaughter were sent to Belgium, corruption after days, sending plumes of smoke across the one of the EU’s biggest meat exporters. a raid on the Bay of Naples – were the result of small The gang would apparently forge the organisation’s local fi res getting out of control, but the animals’ identification by modifying their headquarters. apparent discovery of burned cat corpses microchips and documentation. It was led Ángel María at the scene suggests that it was arson. by a Dutch businessman, working out of Villar Llona (pictured), also a senior “One of the mob’s arson techniques,” says Alicante, who was arrested in April in vice-president of Fifa, world football’s Giuseppe Antoci, the president of another Belgium by an international task force governing body, has been charged with of Italy’s national parks, “is to tie a petrol- headed by Spain’s Guardia Civil. The falsifying documents and skimming profits soaked rag to the tail of a cat and set fi re as-yet unnamed Dutchman is said to have from international football matches. In to it. As its tail burns, the cat fl ees in terror been the principal fi gure behind Ireland’s 2015, he was reprimanded by Fifa for into the undergrowth in the woods, setting 2013 horsemeat scandal, when the Irish failing to comply with its internal inquiry fi re to everything it touches.” Mafia expert food safety authority found that ten out into the World Cup bidding process. Villar and writer Roberto Saviano says the Mafia of 27 hamburger products analysed Llona’s son Gorka and several other gangs do this in order to create desolate contained horse DNA. officials were also detained. areas on which to dump toxic waste.

Catch up with daily news at www.theweek.co.uk 22 July 2017 THE WEEK 6 NEWS The world at a glance

Washington DC Cambridge, Massachusetts “Let Obamacare fail”: Donald Trump has admitted defeat in his Frat houses may close: As long ago as 1958, Harvard’s elite clubs battle to topple Obamacare – one of his main campaign pledges. were described as undemocratic bastions of a “withering aristoc- The US president announced this week that he’d given up trying racy”. Since then, there have been several attempts to reform and to muster enough Senate support to repeal the Affordable Care restrict fraternities and sororities. Last year, the university Act of 2010, and would instead just “let Obamacare fail”. He introduced a rule that students joining single-gender clubs would suggested that the Democrats would then come to him, to work not be eligible for leadership positions at Harvard. That came in on a bill to replace it. Barack Obama’s landmark reform aimed to the wake of fresh concerns about sexual misconduct at the clubs. extend health insurance coverage to some of the estimated 15% of Now a Harvard faculty committee has come up with a more the population who lacked it, by requiring Americans to have drastic proposal: get rid of them. Under its proposals, freshmen insurance (with subsidies for low-income earners), and larger would not be allowed to join these “pernicious” organisations, businesses to offer it to their workers. Republicans argue that it’s which would be phased out by 2022, regardless of whether they intrusive and a burden on business – but it is estimated that up to are of single or mixed gender. In its report, the committee cites 22 million people would lose their insurance if Obamacare was surveys showing that the exclusive clubs “negatively influence the repealed without a replacement in place. undergraduate experience” for students not admitted to them.

Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico Former governor extradited: A former governor of Veracruz accused of embezzling some 645m pesos (£28m) of public funds has been extradited from Guatemala. Javier Duarte’s six years in office also saw an explosion of violent crime in his state, with more than 4,500 murders recorded: those killed included at least 17 journalists. On being accused last year of embezzlement and involve- ment in organised crime, Duarte (pictured) vowed to clear his name – only to go on the run a few weeks later.

Bogotá Cocaine levels rise: Cocaine production in Colombia reached record levels last year. UN data suggests that about 866 tons of cocaine were produced in secret labs across the country, up from an estimated 649 tons in 2015; while the number of acres under coca cultivation leapt from 237,200 in 2015 to 360,800, a 52% increase. Colombian officials have said that the country faces a “difficult historical moment”, but insist that since the fi gures were compiled, they had begun work on a plan to eradicate 250,000 acres of coca by the end of the year: they are also working with Farc – which has renounced drug trafficking as part of a peace deal – to persuade farmers to cultivate alternative crops.

Caracas Unofficial poll: Millions of Venezuelans turned out to vote in an unofficial referendum on Sunday calling for a halt to President Maduro’s proposals to create a new national assembly with the power to rewrite the constitution – a move seen as heralding a dictatorship. The symbolic poll was organised by the opposition in an attempt to exert pressure on the government, and was backed by the attorney general, Luisa Ortega Díaz – a once-loyal Chavista who has turned on his successor over the administration’s Brasília alleged human rights violations. Seven million people took part Lula convicted: The former in the vote (in 2012, there were 19 million registered voters in president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Venezuela), with 98% answering Yes across all three Lula da Silva, has been convicted of questions: whether to halt Maduro’s plans, call for the armed money laundering and corruption and sentenced to almost a forces to defend the constitution, and hold early elections. decade in prison, in a ruling that has polarised public opinion. His In Caracas, a 61-year-old nurse was killed when gunmen – supporters say the case was politically motivated; however, others allegedly members of a pro-government paramilitary gang believe justice is fi nally being served. The judgment is the latest – shot into the crowds queuing at an opposition polling development in Operation Car Wash, an investigation into claims station. Maduro described the plebiscite as illegitimate and that politicians were bribed to help companies win lucrative “meaningless”. He will hold an official vote on 30 July in contracts. Lula’s bribe is said to have amounted to more than support of the new assembly, which he claims is necessary to $1m of improvements to a beachfront fl at. Lula, who had said he solve Venezuela’s economic and political crises. might run for re-election in 2018, has denied any wrongdoing and declared that he will not be pulled “out of the game”.

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 The world at a glance NEWS 7

Jerusalem Beijing Seoul Attack on Temple Mount: In one of the Pooh Military talks: South Korea has invited worst incidents of violence on the Temple banned: its volatile northern neighbour to sit down Mount in several years, two Israeli police The phrase for talks, in an attempt to defuse tensions officers were killed last week by a trio of “Winnie on the peninsula. Less than a month ago, attackers armed with homemade guns. The the Pooh” Pyongyang claimed to have successfully officers were shot as they stood guard at an and images tested an intercontinental missile capable entrance to Jerusalem’s holiest site, revered of the bear of carrying a nuclear warhead. Days later, by both Jews and Muslims. The gunmen, have been South Korea’s new, liberal president, all Israeli Arabs, were chased into the plaza censored from two of the country’s main Moon Jae-in – who was elected in May on outside the al-Aqsa Mosque and shot dead. social media networks, Sina Weibo and a promise to take a more fl exible approach For the fi rst time in decades, the compound WeChat. To many Chinese people, the to relations with the North – said he’d be was then closed for Muslim Friday prayers, portly bear looks remarkably like China’s willing to meet its leader, Kim Jong Un, as security forces searched the area. The President Xi Jinping: in 2013, an image of “at any time”. However, it is not clear if attack was lauded by the Palestinian group Pooh and Tigger was juxtaposed with one Pyongyang will accept his invitation to Hamas. But in an apparent effort to avoid of Xi and Barack Obama (pictured); hold talks in a village on the border, to further bloodshed, the president of the another meme of went viral in 2015. discuss the weapons crisis, and also, Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Sensitive to mockery at the best of times, perhaps, ways to reunite families divided phoned Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Xi is believed to be cracking down on by the Korean War in the early 1950s. If (the fi rst time the pair have spoken in more dissent ahead of the Communist Party the talks do go ahead, they will be the fi rst than a year) to condemn the attack. congress in the autumn. between the two countries since 2015.

Hong Kong Lawmakers disqualified: Four pro-democracy legislators were excluded from Hong Kong’s parliament last week for taking their oaths of allegiance to China in an “insincere or undignified manner”. Among those disqualified by the court ruling was Nathan Law, a leader of the Umbrella protest movement. The four had modified their oaths last year to reflect their frustration at Beijing rule. Their disqualification means the pro- democracy camp no longer has enough votes to veto major legislation.

Dakar Tehran Stadium disaster: President’s Eight people were brother arrested: killed last week The brother of when a stadium Iran’s recently wall collapsed re-elected during a football match in Dakar, the moderate Senegalese capital. Many more were president, Hassan New Delhi injured in the disaster, which began when Rouhani, was Dalit leader: A member of India’s most rival fans at a league cup fi nal clashed arrested on oppressed caste was expected to be elected over the award of a goal in extra time. Saturday on president this week. Ram Nath Kovind Police officers tried to disperse them using unspecified was announced as the government’s tear gas, creating panic in the stadium, fi nancial charges, candidate last month, a move seen by and a stampede in which a supporting and released on bail on Monday. Hossein many as an attempt by PM Narendra wall collapsed. A young girl was reported Fereydoun (pictured) acted as an unofficial Modi and his Hindu nationalist cohort to to be among the dead. Concerns had been adviser to his brother during his fi rst term, consolidate support among lower-caste raised about the state of Stade Demba and if formally charged with corruption, it voters. Though it favours the Hindu caste Diop, which was built in the 1960s. will make the president’s second term that system, which classes members of the Dalit Campaigning for forthcoming elections much harder. Rouhani was re-elected in community as “outcasts”, Modi’s bloc has was briefly suspended, and all sporting the teeth of opposition from the hard-line been trying to shed its pro-upper caste and cultural events were cancelled until establishment, and has spoken out against image, in order to broaden its appeal. The

© SINA WEIBO after the elections at the end of the month. arbitrary arrests made by the judiciary. election result was due on Thursday.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 8 NEWS People

The prophet’s warning “construct a total surveillance Yuval Noah Harari is one of regime that follows every indi- the most fashionable thinkers vidual all the time and surveys on the planet right now – and not just your phone calls and some of his thoughts are deeply your emails and your physical disturbing, says Cole Moreton movements, but even what’s in The Mail on Sunday. The happening inside your body”. Israeli academic has written two bestselling books about the Aggers’ Testing moments evolution of the human race: Now that Henry “Blowers” the fi rst, Sapiens, described our Blofeld is standing down, history to date, and the second, Jonathan “Aggers” Agnew is Homo Deus, predicts our the last survivor from the future – which, he believes, is golden age of BBC cricket already upon us. “We’re going commentary, says Michael to become cyborgs, combining Hodges in the Radio Times. organic and inorganic parts,” Agnew started at Test Match says Harari. “The human brain Special in 1991 – back when will still be the command-and- Brian “Johnners” Johnston control centre, but you’ll was still on the team – and connect it more and more almost immediately made one directly to all kinds of devices, of the most famous bloopers whether it’s bionic arms or in Test match history. He direct brain-computer observed that Ian Botham interfaces.” Some of this is “couldn’t quite get his leg happening right now, he points over”, which caused Johnners out. “People already have to dissolve into helpless bionic arms and legs that work laughter for two minutes, Melinda Gates has spent ten years travelling the world with the by the power of thought. And punctuated only by cries of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, trying to eradicate diseases we increasingly outsource “Aggers, do stop it!” “It was including polio and tuberculosis. But in doing so, she discovered mental and communicative a proper, genuine, uncontrived that for many women in developing countries, the greatest fear is activities to computers. We cock-up,” says Agnew now. pregnancy. “I would go to these dusty villages or slums with no are merging with our “If I had said it to anyone else clean water and barely any food,” she told Alice Thomson in The smartphones. Very soon they it would have been OK, but Times. “When I stayed long enough, and the men had faded away, will just be part of the body.” Johnners had this really puerile the women would fi nally ask me questions, and they would always The ramifications of our sense of humour. The next bring up contraceptives. I wanted to turn away, being Catholic, and I growing technological year, he refused to broadcast knew it was a political hot button, but in the end I couldn’t ignore dependency will be political as with me again. He said, ‘I them.” Distributing condoms isn’t enough: “Women would tell me, well as personal, says Harari. can’t, because if I look at him ‘I can’t negotiate a condom in my marriage. It would look like either The ruling class of this new I’ll laugh.’ Eventually he agreed I had Aids or my partner had it.’ They needed more covert methods world will be people who to do Your Letters Answered and were prepared to walk 100 miles for them. I couldn’t just dole know about algorithms and with me at Old Trafford. out [contraceptives], but I am one of the few people with the money biotechnology. And “the Totally innocent, of course, to do something.” The foundation is now developing injectable pendulum may swing back to nothing could go wrong… And contraceptives – and Melinda, who attended a convent school, dictatorships, because it will we were fi ne until we had a refuses to feel guilty. “Without contraceptives, I wouldn’t have been become easier to process letter signed ‘William H. Titt’. able to do what I do. I went to graduate school, I had a nine-year information centrally”. The Johnners just collapsed. He had career at Microsoft, I got married. I didn’t have a child straight away; tyrants of the future will be to be wheeled out of the box, I could plan my life… In the US, 96% of married Catholic women able to use technology to wheezing and giggling.” use contraceptives. It shouldn’t just be a rich Catholic’s privilege.”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint: Farewell This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured The shy PM the three-times Wimbledon tennis champion John McEnroe Martin Landau, “Theresa May’s Tory critics have often Oscar-winning actor, complained that she trusts no one outside died 15 July 2017, 1 Suffragette City, written and performed by David Bowie a tiny closed circle. They read this as the aged 89. 2 Precious by Chrissie Hynde, performed by the Pretenders behaviour of an autocrat but, equally, it’s Maryam Mirzakhani, 3 Bring It On Home by Willie Dixon, performed by Led Zeppelin the behaviour of an introvert. And that, mathematician who 4 God Save the Queen, written and performed by the Sex Pistols I suspect, is the truth about Mrs May. became the fi rst (Glen Matlock, Johnny Rotten, Paul Cook and Steve Jones) That’s the real reason that she’s always woman to win a 5* Come as You Are by Kurt Cobain, performed by Nirvana so untalkative at lunches with journalists, Fields Medal, died 15 July, aged 40. 6 As, written and performed by Stevie Wonder and gets called ‘unclubbable’. That’s the 7 Feels Like the First Time by Mick Jones, performed by Foreigner real reason she painstakingly memorises Irina 8 Killing in the Name, written and performed by Rage Against sound bites ahead of daunting press Ratushinskaya, the Machine (Tom Morello, Zack de la Rocha, Tim Commerford conferences. That’s the real reason she poet and human and Brad Wilk) was all at sea when the media and the rights activist, died public demanded she be seen at Grenfell 5 July, aged 63. Tower, hugging survivors and emoting George A. Romero, Book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey for TV. She’s not a robot, she’s just a director of Night Luxury: a vintage Martin acoustic guitar shy person pretending to be a confident of the Living Dead, died * Choice if allowed only one record person – and struggling to pull it off.” 16 July, aged 77.

Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph © BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION/FREDERIC COURBET

THE WEEK 22 July 2017

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Issued by FinancialAdministration ServicesLimited, authorised and regulatedbythe Financial ConductAuthority.Fidelity, FidelityInternational,the FidelityInternational logoand Fsymbol aretrademarks of FIL Limited. UKM0717/20205/CSO8469/0109017 Briefing NEWS 11 The cost of a university education Tuition fees, controversial from the time of their introduction, have once again become a political battleground

Why is the issue in the news again? previously cash-starved university Mainly as a result of Jeremy Corbyn’s system, helping to provide some of the manifesto pledge to abolish tuition fees, world’s best courses, and funding a big and reintroduce maintenance grants; the expansion in higher education: around policy was thought to be a big factor in 40% of 17- to 20-year-olds in Britain are convincing young voters to vote Labour. now students. Fees have also transferred Since then, the hiking of student loan much of the cost of university from interest rates to 6.1%, and the revelation taxpayer to graduate, which, in principle that English students have the highest at least, is a fairer system, since graduates debts in the developed world (see box), tend to go on to earn more. As Blair put have made fees even more contentious. it: “Why should the dustman pay for the Damian Green, Theresa May’s deputy, doctor?” Besides, far from being deterred concedes that Britain may need to have by fees, poorer students have attended a “national debate” on the subject. “Fees in much greater numbers since their have become so politically diseased,” says introduction. Disadvantaged young former Labour minister Andrew Adonis, people are now 43% more likely to one of the scheme’s architects, “they attend university than they were in 2009. should be abolished entirely.” Protesting student debt of some £50,800 So what’s the problem? When were fees fi rst introduced? Though the monthly repayments aren’t University tuition was free until 1998, when £1,000 fees – with huge, they will, over time, be a significant drain for a generation generous exemptions for poorer students – were introduced to of graduates already likely to be worse off than their parents. For boost university budgets without raising public spending. Some nurses and teachers – whose bursaries have been slashed – repay- warned that this would be a slippery slope… and they were right. ments will mean a pay cut of perhaps 5% well into their 50s. And The universities agitated hard for higher fees and, in 2006, Tony the combination of high debts, high interest rates and low Blair’s government raised them to a maximum of £3,000. To repayment rates will mean trouble for public fi nances. A recent soften the impact, students were offered government-provided report suggests that by the 2040s, student loan debt may reach loans, with repayments to be made only after graduation, through 11.5% of GDP. “We now have the worst of all worlds,” says the tax system. The policy narrowly scraped through Parliament. Nick Barr of LSE: “a scary sticker price for a degree, coupled with a scary-sized loan book.” The result: fees are very unpopular. Did charges continue to escalate? Yes. Hopes that universities would charge lower fees for less How have fees affected university education? costly and in-demand courses were dashed: £3,000 was charged In some ways, for the better. Fees have made universities much for virtually every course. And in 2012, under the Tory/Lib Dem more likely to offer decent teaching and to invest heavily in the coalition, fees were hiked again, this time to a limit of £9,000 a “student experience”: smart accommodation, sports facilities and year, while direct state funding (known as the “teaching grant”) so on. Some academics fear that universities have gone too far, was greatly reduced; the government’s overall cap on student and now sell degrees rather than an education. University leaders numbers was lifted, and universities were allowed to recruit as also reward themselves lavishly: the average salary of a vice- many students as they saw fi t. Again, the vast majority of courses chancellor now exceeds £275,000. And there’s a widespread were priced at £9,000. In 2016, fees were raised to £9,250 and concern that the expansion of higher education has meant many maintenance grants for poorer students were replaced with loans. degrees are not worthwhile. The latest national student survey found that 37% thought their course was poor value (only And how much do you end up paying for a student loan? 32% thought it good value). Given their debts, many graduates There are two types of loan: one for (37%) now regret going to university. tuition, and a separate one (of up to From Austria to Australia: paying for uni £11,000) for maintenance. According Much of Western Europe funds its higher education What can sensibly be done? to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), largely from general taxation, either at no cost to Scrapping fees outright would be the average debt that students owe students (Austria and Denmark), or with fees in the vastly expensive: it would cost up to when they graduate today is £50,800 hundreds of euros (France and Germany) or the low £11bn. Many question whether this – of which £5,800 is interest charges thousands (the Netherlands and Italy). But student-to- huge cash transfer to the better-off accumulated while studying. Those teacher ratios are generally much higher than in the would be a wise use of public funds. from the poorest backgrounds, who UK. Scotland has low fees, of up to £1,820 a year for Pre-Corbyn, Labour had proposed a Scottish and EU students; those from the rest of the UK are eligible for additional loans, will have to pay the full whack of up to £9,250. Wales has more limited plan of cutting fees back accrue debts of £57,000. However, a system much like England’s, except students can get to £6,000 per year. The IFS suggests the scheme works more like a tax a non-means-tested fee grant of up to £5,100, to cover reducing fees in some areas and than a strict repayment system. You studying anywhere in the UK. In Northern Ireland, fees increasing teaching grants; it wants only start repayments when your are capped at £4,030 (though not for those from the the Government to target priority yearly earnings reach £21,000, at rest of the UK), and means-tested grants are available. areas such as science, technology, which point everything above that Sticker prices for the top private US universities are engineering and maths. Even without fi gure is taxed at 9%. So if you earn painfully steep: equivalent to about £33,140 per year altering current policy, interest rates £22,000, you pay £90 per year; if you for Harvard and £36,450 for Yale. But few pay this. At for loans could still be dropped from earn £31,000, it’s £900. And after 30 least 50% of Harvard students get scholarship aid from their present rates, often described as years, all debts are forgiven. The IFS Harvard’s endowment fund; 20% pay nothing at all. “usurious”; or the £21,000 threshold forecasts that about 75% of students US public universities are far cheaper, charging state for repayments could be raised. residents about £7,500 a year. In Australia, universities will never fully repay their debts. charge fees according to bands, with a cap of about Whatever happens, this issue won’t £3,800 for humanities, and £6,350 for law and dentistry. go away: students are growing in What are the benefits of fees? Public bursaries and interest-free loans are available. number, and the last election showed They’ve provided new money for a that they are increasingly politicised.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 12 NEWS Best articles: Britain

Do you suffer from “automation anxiety”? Well, relax, says John Naughton. Robots aren’t about to steal all our jobs; they’re just IT MUST BE TRUE… Work is less going to take over certain tasks – the parts of our jobs that involve I read it in the tabloids rote repetition rather than creativity and judgement. And you only boring if robots have to look at DoNotPay, a website offering free legal help, to A British couple who hoped to re-enact a scene from Dirty see that’s a good thing. Created by a young British student at do the choring Dancing at their wedding Stanford University, the site automates some of the mundane, have decided to opt for a routine tasks professional lawyers do. It will produce a standard John Naughton slow dance instead, after their cease-and-desist letter for you, if you plug in your details; it will first practice landed them in The Observer help you contest a parking ticket using the appropriate legal A&E. Though neither is in the jargon. It’s not rocket science, but the handy templates provide first flush of youth, nor in top people with free access to something they’d otherwise have had to physical shape, Sharon Price pay through the nose for. Of course, such automation will deprive and her fiancé Andy hoped lawyers of some bread-and-butter business; but they will still be to perform the notoriously difficult manoeuvre that needed for work requiring experience and original thinking, work involved Jennifer Grey that makes their jobs more rewarding, if marginally less lucrative. running into Patrick Swayze’s Everyone stands to benefit from the march of the machines. arms – and him lifting her, horizontal, above his head. The refurbishment of the crumbling Palace of Westminster is But when Sharon, 52, ran at going to be a long and costly process, says Simon Jenkins, but it Andy, 51, in a pub garden in For the nation’s does offer a perfect opportunity for us to tackle the great handicap Weston-super-Mare, he failed that blights our political economy: the imbalance between North to lift her – and they simply sake, get out and South. If MPs had to relocate to a regional city during that collided with some force. He was knocked out cold, while time, it would transform Parliament’s aloof image and stop Britain she was bruised and winded. of London being so “wildly over-centralised”. For decades, the provinces have Simon Jenkins languished as London has sucked up the money. “The Southeast gets more spending on transport infrastructure than the entire rest The Guardian of the country.” HS2, Heathrow, Crossrail: all benefit the capital, which has become a magnet for the nation’s far-flung creative and commercial talent. Contrast this with Germany: its eight biggest provincial cities all have GDPs per head above the national average. England’s top eight, Bristol excepted, all have GDPs well below it. But power responds to location; if MPs were to spend “a solid fi ve years outside the capital, occupying the hinterland of a nation they have neglected so long”, what a transformation there would be.

What lay behind last year’s historic vote to leave the EU? As soon as the referendum was over, Brexit advocates began to claim it Great Britain’s was all about “freeborn Englishmen and women casting off the When a spectator shouted EU’s federalising yoke”. No, says Clare Foges. To see the reality, advice to Kim Clijsters rising fury at a you need only look at the polls that YouGov has been conducting during a Wimbledon fortnightly since 2010. Immigration was and is the “clincher” friendly, she decided to deal great betrayal issue. Most Leavers didn’t vote for the UK “to take back control” with the pest by challenging in an abstract sense, but to retake control of its borders and slash Clare Foges him to do better. The portly immigrant numbers. Problem is, it won’t happen. The Government Irishman, Chris Quinn has long “controlled” non-EU net migration (which exceeds EU The Times (pictured), gamely accepted net migration), yet has never been able to stem it, any more than it the former world No. 1’s has illegal immigration (reckoned at 250,000 a year). What hope, invitation, and – having then, of Theresa May “controlling” the fl ow of EU arrivals now squeezed himself into her her party has lost its majority and is under huge pressure to accept spare skirt – took his place freedom of movement as part of a soft Brexit? So after all those on the baseline. Remarkably, promises and all the pain of Brexit, there’ll be “no major reduction he managed to return her of immigration at the end of it”. I fear we’re set to become a first serve, sending the ball nation fuelled by the “greatest sense of betrayal in generations”. in a high loop over the net – but it was downhill from When we talk of social mobility in Britain, says Fraser Nelson, we there. Quinn returned to Why ethnicity focus on issues such as class and private education. But maybe it’s his seat with the skirt, time we started talking about race – or, more precisely, why it is which he now plans to that pupils from ethnic minorities do so much better than those auction for charity. matters in from the white working class. The gulf is striking. A few years ago, for instance, ministers noticed that a Norfolk school was A man who got trapped in an the classroom leaping up the league tables. They then found that it wasn’t down ATM machine was rescued after sending an SOS out Fraser Nelson to a new regime, or the arrival of a brilliant maths teacher; it was simply that a lot of Polish families had moved there to fi nd farm with the cash. The engineer was working on repairs when The Daily Telegraph work. A friend who’s a head teacher in east London attributes a similar surge in his school’s results to an influx of studious East he got stuck in the vault, in Texas, without a phone. Africans. His “heart leaps” at the arrival of every black pupil, he First he tried shouting, but says, because, nurtured by engaged, aspirational parents, they’re so customers ignored him. So eager to learn. It’s almost taboo to mention it, but British parents, he scrawled a message on a poor ones in particular, lack such motivational attitudes. That’s scrap of paper, and slipped why people from ethnic minorities are outperforming whites both it out the receipt slot. The at school and in the job market. And that’s why it’s immigrants police were then called and who can teach us the most important lesson about social mobility. kicked the door down.

THE WEEK 22 July 2017

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Issued by Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited, 10 Queen’s Terrace, Aberdeen AB10 1YG, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Telephone calls may be recorded. aberdeen-asset.co.uk Please quote A TW 25 Best of the American columnists NEWS 15

The Russian connection: will it bring down Trump? “Here is a good rule of thumb for Clinton would have hung up on dealing with Donald Trump,” said someone “who claimed to have Ross Douthat in The New York dirt on The Donald”? This is a Times: “everyone who gives him “faux scandal”, agreed Ed Rogers the benefit of the doubt eventually in The Washington Post. “There regrets it.” This was true of are always people hovering around contractors and creditors campaigns trying to peddle throughout his business career. It information.” Where Trump Jr has been true of his colleagues and was naive, though, was in agreeing spokesmen since he entered the to take the meeting. He should White House. And it’s now true of have sent a low-profile “lackey”, all those journalists, like me, who especially as it apparently turned were inclined to dismiss claims that out to be a waste of time anyway. Trump’s inner circle had directly colluded with Russian officials The meeting certainly doesn’t during the 2016 presidential Trump Jr: the Fredo Corleone of the family prove that the Trump campaign campaign. I thought it was pretty colluded with Russia, let alone unlikely to have happened, and that even if it had, the odds of that it committed “treason”, as some are claiming, said ever fi nding proof of it were “vanishingly low”. Now, thanks National Review. It’s plausible that Goldstone misled Trump Jr to the release last week of some emails to and from Trump’s in order to “get Veselnitskaya through the door” to lobby for 39-year-old son, Donald Jr – the “Fredo Corleone of a family lifting sanctions on Russia, and that “nothing else came of it”. conspicuously short of Michaels” – we have that proof. But it “would be easier to credit the Trump team’s denials if they didn’t so routinely mislead”. Trump Jr has changed his The emails “could hardly be more incriminating”, said Ruth story multiple times, while Kushner initially failed to disclose Marcus in The Washington Post. They show that the the meeting during his security clearance application process. president’s eldest son met a Kremlin-linked lawyer in June last year, after being promised that she had “very high level and We’ll have to wait to see what the various Russian probes – by sensitive information” that would “incriminate” Hillary several congressional committees and by independent counsel Clinton. Trump Jr had been told in an email by British publicist Robert Mueller – make of this new evidence, said Nicholas Rob Goldstone – an intermediary he knew from his father’s Miss Kristof in The New York Times. But there’s a case already for Universe pageant in Moscow – that the proposal was “part of suspending Kushner’s security clearance. As for Trump Jr, Russia and its government’s support” for his father. “If it’s whether or not he acted illegally, he certainly acted in a way what you say,” Trump Jr replied, “I love it.” He forwarded the that has disgraced the Trump team. In 1960, the Kremlin made email chain to his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his a similar offer to support the candidacy of JFK against Nixon, father’s then campaign manager, Paul Manafort; all three men but “the Kennedy campaign rebuffed it. Likewise, when the Al met the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, at Trump Tower. Gore campaign in 2000 received confidential materials relating to the George W. Bush campaign, it called the FBI.” Trump Jr The New York Times delivered this supposed bombshell last should have done the same. Instead, after being informed of week in the breathless tones with which you might announce “a secret Kremlin effort to use highly sensitive information “the discovery of life on Mars”, said Michael Walsh in the about a former secretary of state (presumably obtained by New York Post. But it’s a complete non-story. “No campaign espionage, for how else?) to manipulate an American election, in its right mind” would turn down an offer of compromising Trump Jr signalled, ‘We’re in’”. That tells you all you need to information on its opponent. Does anyone honestly believe know about how the Trump team does business.

Is it possible to run a healthcare system on entirely free market terms? The Republican leadership believes so: it thinks people should be able to buy as much health insurance as they want, or leave An ideology themselves totally uncovered if they so wish. It’s all very well in theory, says Farzon A. Nahvi, but the problem is that people are not always in a position to turn down healthcare. Every day, badly that lets people injured, uninsured patients arrive at my hospital; some are unconscious. Later, they sometimes express dismay that we saved them, because they know they’ve run up bills of tens of thousands of die in the streets dollars. One man we saved from a brain bleed told me that he’d rather have died and left his family Farzon A. Nahvi his life insurance payment than have burdened them with a massive medical bill and likely bankruptcy. But in an “empathetic and caring society, life is valued above all else”. Republicans The New York Times “need to be honest with themselves and the public”, and accept that for medicine to be truly free market, we’d have to be willing to let people lying unconscious in the street “remain there and die”.

After the Civil War, freed slaves and their descendants accumulated roughly 15 million acres of land in the US, says Leah Douglas. Yet today, African Americans own barely any: they comprise less than How black 2% of the nation’s farmers, and own only 1% of rural land. Several factors contributed to this change. Many black farmers sold up to move to another part of the country, or switched to factory Americans lost work. But another, less acknowledged, explanation is that “untold thousands of acres” of land have been forcibly bought out from underneath black rural families via an obscure legal loophole. A large their land majority of early black landowners didn’t make wills, largely due to lack of access to legal resources. Leah Douglas As a result, their land often passed down to descendants without a clear title, and thereby became designated as “heirs’ property”, which means it is, legally speaking, co-owned by all known heirs, The Nation any of whom has the right to force a sale. Property developers ruthlessly exploit this law. They track down faraway relatives who may never even have visited their family’s land, entice them to sell their share cheaply, then have all the land sold for a big profit, evicting resident families. It’s legal, but if this had been happening to any other group, the law would surely have been reformed by now.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 16 NEWS Best articles: International

The population explosion we’re all ignoring “Ladies, have you heard the news?” African, said York, and the effects will croons the singer to the women sitting be grave: “an escalating crisis in hunger, beneath the tree in an isolated village in overcrowding, ecological damage, and Benin. “You can take a pill every day.” rising migration pressures in Europe The singer and his drummers have just and North America”. Far from addres- disembarked from “the contraception sing the problem, Trump’s policy will boat”, said Geoffrey York in The aggravate it: analysts say it could lead Globe and Mail (Toronto). It is part of to 6.5 million unintended pregnancies a nationwide contraception campaign over the next four years alone. to check Benin’s soaring population growth. Outside of Southern Africa For Nigeria, the coming baby boom is and Kenya, less than 30% of women in a disaster waiting to happen, said This Sub-Saharan Africa use modern contra- Day (Lagos). Its population is expected ception. Many haven’t even heard of it. to nearly double in just over 30 years And now the entire programme is being Spreading the word on contraception in Uganda and surpass that of the US. Nigeria put at risk, thanks to President Trump. will become the third-largest country in the world, after India and China. How can we feed and The US used to be the biggest donor to global family-planning educate so many people, or guarantee access to sufficient clean schemes, said allAfrica.com (Cape Town). But days after taking water to prevent massive outbreaks of disease? Boko Haram office, Trump ordered a halt to the $600m spend on family- and other extremist groups already press children into militias. planning services overseas, saying any programme advocating Even more idle and illiterate children will mean bigger, nastier abortion should have its funding removed. In April, he went a armed factions and a greater likelihood of conflict. It does not step further by withdrawing US support for the UN Population have to be this way, said AfricaTimes.com. If African girls got Fund. It’s a devastating blow to a continent that has to find a access to contraceptives and family-planning advice, it would way to rein in runaway population growth, said Africa Times. create a virtuous circle. Africa could reap a “demographic com. The latest UN projection shows Africa’s population will at dividend” – delayed pregnancy leading to better education least double by 2050, and rise fourfold (to 4.4 billion) by the and health for women, which would in turn fuel economic century’s end. By then, 40% of the world’s population will be growth for everyone.

FRANCE The EU is letting Italy shoulder a moral burden we should all share, says Le Monde, and that won’t end well, either for Italy or for Europe. By the end of this year alone, some 200,000 people will have sailed in teeming, unseaworthy boats from Libya to the shores of Italy; tens of thousands have We have failed already arrived. In desperation, Italy begged its partners at a recent EU meeting on the migrant crisis to at least host some of the humanitarian ships that rescue drowning migrants. Yet all Rome received in our duty to were “some fi ne words” and a little money. France and Spain refuse to open their ports; Austria has “threatened to send tanks to the Italian border” to stop migrants crossing. No wonder Italians are help Italy bitter. They feel Europe has abandoned them, a belief that may push them into the arms of anti-EU Le Monde parties in the elections likely to be held this autumn: “anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic” parties (Paris) already attract nearly a third of Italy’s voters. France’s President Macron “claims to want to give shape to a new European impetus”, but is this really the way to begin? Working together for European unity must include sharing responsibility for the human lives at risk in the Mediterranean.

AUSTRALIA After decades of rumours, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, is fi nally facing trial for child sexual abuse, says Barney Zwartz. At this point, Australians are numb to the horror, having endured years of parliamentary inquiries that produced damning evidence against so many The cardinal priests. At those inquiries, Pell practically indicted himself through his “wooden, cold responses” to revelations of abuse. It was all but inevitable that the trail would lead to him: in Ballarat, where Pell charged with served as vicar for education from 1973 to 1984, untold numbers of children were beaten or sexually assaulted by priests and nuns – including Pell’s housemate, Gerald Ridsdale, who admitted to child abuse multiple child rapes. And it was Pell who was responsible for moving Ridsdale from parish to parish The Age each time he was accused of molestation. “A combative participant in Australia’s culture wars”, the (Melbourne) ultraconservative antagonised many with his “relentless, overbearing” style. His ruthless chastising of priests who deviated from doctrine by advocating changes to Mass, or supporting ordination of women, made his leniency to those accused of abusing children all the more remarkable. Now he, too, stands accused. This time, it won’t be the Church that decides his fate, but Australian justice.

CANADA Canada is fi nally paying reparations for a citizen it failed to protect, says Shree Paradkar: and it has made Canadians angry as hell. Omar Khadr, now 30, was just eight when his father, an al-Qa’eda fundraiser, took him to Afghanistan and Pakistan and put a rifle in his hands. He was 15 when An appalling US forces shot him, captured him and, rather than treat him like the brainwashed child he was, tortured him and subjected him to an unfair trial. His own country, Canada, then left him to rot way to treat a for ten years “in the illegal hellhole that is Guantánamo Bay”. Khadr was fi nally repatriated to a Canadian jail in 2012, and released on bail in 2015. His lawsuit against Canada’s government has fellow citizen just been settled for some C$10.5m. Yet far from being ashamed about what their country did, many Toronto Star Canadians are outraged that a person once seen as a terrorist is now a millionaire. More than two-thirds oppose the settlement: some have accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of treason for approving it. Where is the compassion? Child soldiers are victims, not warriors. Would Canadians be as callous had it been a white, Christian minor tortured by the Americans? Do we “protect only those citizens we identify with”?

THE WEEK 22 July 2017

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UP TO 40% OFF HUNDREDS OF DESIGNS Health & Science NEWS 19 What the scientists are saying…

How to save the planet care of their health. Seven years ago, 14.3 If we’re going to reduce carbon emissions men per 1,000 were being diagnosed with enough to stop climate change reaching dementia; among women, the rate was 17 dangerous levels, using energy-saving light per 1,000. Now the rate is 12.3 per 1,000 bulbs and drying clothes on a line aren’t men, and 14.2 per 1,000 women. Had this going to cut it. Such measures, often decline not occurred, there would be 1.9 promoted in government advice, are worth million people with dementia by 2040. taking, but to make a real impact we should have fewer children, according to a Did we evolve to sleep fitfully? new study. Failing that, we should sell our We think there is something wrong if we cars, avoid long-haul fl ights and adopt a sleep fi tfully, or have trouble getting to plant-based diet. The researchers say that sleep. But it could be an evolutionary in the UK, CO2 emissions are equivalent to throwback – a pattern our ancestors seven tons per person per year (low relative developed to keep themselves safe at night, to the US, at 16 tons), but that to avoid reports The Guardian. US researchers used severe global warming, they must fall to wrist devices to monitor the sleep of just two tons by 2050. Having analysed 33 members of a hunter-gatherer tribe in dozens of research papers, the team, from northern Tanzania, and found that they

Lund University, in Sweden, calculates This will save just 200kg in CO2 emissions slept pretty badly by modern Western that ditching the car for a year would save standards: they woke often in the night, 2.4 tons per person; giving up meat with people who drank no coffee at all. and the young and the old had different 0.8 tons; and avoiding transatlantic fl ights A separate European study, involving more sleep schedules, with the old tending to fall 1.6 tons per round trip. By contrast, using than 450,000 people, found that coffee asleep earlier, and wake up earlier. The a washing line, rather than a tumble dryer, drinking was associated with a 12% result of this was that during the night, saves just 200kg per year, while switching reduced risk of death in men and, overall, there was always at least one member of to low-energy bulbs saves about 100kg. a 7% reduced risk in women – but women the tribe who was either awake or dozing – who drank coffee seemed to have a higher and therefore attuned to any threat in the Coffee linked to longer life risk of dying of cancer. Cohort studies environment. Over a three-week period, People who drink coffee regularly have a cannot establish cause and effect, and there were only 18 minutes when all the lower risk of dying from stroke, diabetes, though they tried to account for participants were fully asleep. The cancer and heart, respiratory and kidney other “lifestyle” factors, the researchers researchers also found that despite their diseases, according to a new study. It’s not acknowledge it could be that people who wakefulness, the Hadza tribespeople had clear if it’s an ingredient in the brew that is drink coffee take better care of their health. no anxiety about insomnia. “A lot of older boosting people’s health, but the team people go to doctors complaining that they behind the study said they thought coffee Dementia risk is shrinking wake up early and can’t get back to sleep,” must be having some kind of direct impact. Around 800,000 people in Britain are said Charlie Nunn, a professor of In the long-term cohort study, which living with dementia – a fi gure that is likely evolutionary anthropology at Duke involved almost 186,000 people of various to top 1.2 million by 2040, say researchers University, in North Carolina. “But maybe ethnicities in America, drinking two or at University College London. However, there’s nothing wrong with them. Maybe three cups of coffee – caffeinated or that rise is mainly due to a growing and some of the medial issues we have today otherwise – a day was associated with an ageing population: the risk of getting could be explained not as disorders, but 18% reduced risk of dying from any cause dementia is actually diminishing, thanks to as a relic of an evolutionary past in which over the 16-year research period, compared medical advances and people taking better they were beneficial.”

A colossal new iceberg in the Antarctic The NHS is still the best A massive chunk of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf broke off last week, creating one The NHS has come top in an in-depth of the largest icebergs on record. Though it comparison of 11 healthcare systems around the world. It is the second time is likely to split into pieces at some point, in a row that the NHS has received the the iceberg currently measures around highest ranking in the survey, conducted 2,239 square miles (more than three times every three years by think tank The the size of Greater London), and weighs a Commonwealth Fund. Australia and the trillion tons. Researchers from the Project Netherlands came second and third, Midas Antarctic research team had been while the US was judged to have the monitoring a rapidly growing crack in worst system – although it invests the Larsen C – Antarctica’s fourth-biggest ice most in healthcare, at 16.6% of GDP, far shelf – for many years. The calving reduces more even than the second-biggest spender, France, on 11.4%. The UK the size of the ice shelf by more than 12%. invests 9.9%. Only New Zealand (9.4%), As the ice was already floating, the calving won’t have much immediate impact on Norway (9.3%) and Australia (9%) put in sea levels. However, it could mean glaciers held in check by the iceberg now flow into less than that. The UK came top overall, the sea. Additionally, there are fears that its loss could affect the stability of the whole and in four of the 11 categories: it was shelf: Larsen B collapsed after a similar event in 2002. The Midas team believes that a judged to deliver the safest care, to be collapse, if it occurs at all, is still many years away. (The more pressing threat may be the best at “care processes”, to provide the iceberg itself: it could be a danger to shipping.) They also described the calving as the most affordable care and to offer a natural event, and said they had found no link between it and man-made climate the most equity. However, it came tenth change: however, the US-based glaciologist Eric Rignot told CNN that climate change on patient outcomes, a measure of how successful treatment has been – a was “absolutely” behind it. significant weakness. © BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 20 NEWS Talking points

Pick of the week’s Acid attacks: a hideous and pitiless crime At 10.25pm last Thursday, modern times, it has been used Gossip delivery driver Jabed Hussain in so-called “honour attacks” was waiting at traffic lights in on women. Now it is being Theresa May’s decision to wear £995 leather trousers Hackney, east London, when used as a cheap and easy for a photo shoot last year two boys on a moped drew up alternative to knives by gangs caused a major row in the alongside him and threw liquid and other criminals, both in Tory party. Nicky Morgan at his face. At fi rst, he thought street robberies and to publicly criticised her it was water. Then his skin traumatise and disfigure their extravagance, and began to burn. Screaming in enemies and rivals, said The wondered how it would play agony as the acid ate into his Times. Delivery drivers say in “Loughborough market”: lips, he got off his own moped, they won’t go to some parts of in retaliation, May’s former which his assailants promptly east London, for fear of being aide, Fiona Hill, banished her from No. 10. But it now stole. Passersby bought water doused and robbed; and last transpires that the trousers to pour over his head; police month, in a suspected hate weren’t the PM’s, and that later doused him in several crime, two people of South wearing the outfit hadn’t more litres. He was badly Asian descent – aspiring model been her idea. According to injured, yet Hussain, 32, said Resham Khan and her cousin her former communications he had been lucky: most of the Resham Khan: attacked in a hate crime Jameel Mukhtar – were sitting director, Katie Perrior, May acid bounced off his helmet at traffic lights in Beckton had wanted to wear her own (which was destroyed by it). Over a period of 72 when a man sprayed a corrosive substance clothes. It was Hill who minutes, his attackers also sprayed four other through their car window. insisted she couldn’t – and who begged the designer people, who, he said, had their faces “totally Amanda Wakeley to send burned”. The 15- and 16-year-old boys were With lifelong physical and psychological over some alternatives. “All arrested the next day. consequences, acid attacks are horrendous, went well until later,” said pitiless crimes – and they are increasing, said Perrior, “when one of my Used as a weapon, acid is devastating, said The Independent. Police fi gures suggest they are colleagues popped into my Nicole Kobie on Wired.co.uk. It it can burn up threefold since 2013. That the Government office to tell me that we may right through the skin, sometimes even exposing is addressing the issue is welcome news. Possible have a problem: did I know the bone. Eyelids and lips can be completely measures include tighter controls on the sale of the outfit the PM finally dissolved, and reconstruction requires years of acid; minimum jail terms for acid attackers; and chose cost two grand?” treatments: Katie Gee, attacked in Zanzibar in making it a crime to be in possession of acid 2013, has had more than 50 operations; Mark without justification (there have been reports of van Dongen, splashed with acid in Bristol in teenagers carrying it in drinks bottles). But all 2015, died from his injuries in January. There’s these will take resources – and in the meantime, nothing new about acid’s use as a weapon: the police must also keep waging the bigger battle, Victorians threw vitriol (sulphuric acid), while in against the deadly scourge of knife crime. Turkey: heading for dictatorship “Anyone who insists that Britain has had a accused of masterminding the coup attempt. The catastrophic year should look to Turkey for country’s prisons are full of soldiers, journalists, perspective,” said The Daily Telegraph. Last high court judges, businessmen, politicians and week was the fi rst anniversary of the military intellectuals. “Within Turkey, the still blurry coup against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the events of 15 July last year have divided an The British photographer country’s authoritarian but democratically already polarised nation,” said Mehul Srivastava David Slater was delighted elected president. The coup failed, after unarmed in the FT. For Erdogan and his allies, it was “the when, on a trip to Indonesia supporters of Erdogan forced the soldiers to lay result of a secretive, pro-Western plot to weaken, in 2011, he persuaded a rare crested black macaque to down their arms; some 250 people were killed. even destroy, Turkey’s strong Muslim leader”. take a selfie. The photo The president then used the coup as a pretext to Many others are sceptical, and think Erdogan became famous, and earned purge all dissent, and to establish a stranglehold was even complicit in the coup attempt. Not one him a few thousand pounds on power. In April, he held a referendum leading fi gure has yet been convicted. US officials – but more recently, it has designed to extend his own powers; he won say the evidence against the Gülenists is “thin”. embroiled him in a legal narrowly and with questions over the fairness of battle that is ruining his life. the vote. “Turkey, the ancient bridge between Erdogan’s “almost paranoid behaviour” over the The animal rights group Europe and Asia, arches towards dictatorship.” past year has steadily undermined his standing Peta has gone to court in among all but his many devoted supporters, said the US, arguing that as the monkey took the photo, it “Using a state of emergency imposed after the The Times. A recent anti-government march led owns the copyright. Not rebellion – still in place a year later – the Turkish by the opposition Republican People’s Party (the only that, Peta is threatening president… began reshaping the state,” said inheritors of Atatürk’s legacy) culminated in a to sue Slater, on the Laura Pitel in the New Statesman. “Some of the rally in Istanbul attended by more than a million monkey’s behalf, for changes have been surreal”: Turkey’s time zone people. Western governments are “conflicted copyright infringement, for has been changed, and TV dating shows banned. when it comes to Turkey”, said The using the photo in a book. Most have been more straightforwardly Independent. The country remains a vital US ally Slater – who insists that the autocratic. In the past year, some 150,000 public in Syria’s civil war, and the EU relies on it to claimant, Naruto, isn’t even servants have been summarily sacked; and up to prevent a further mass influx of refugees. Still, the right macaque – says the case has left him so broke, 70,000 people have been imprisoned, many their failure to speak out against Erdogan’s “I’m even thinking about because of their alleged ties to the Gülen “crushing” of critical voices is shameful. doing dog walking”. movement, “the shadowy Islamic fraternity” led “Turkey is no longer a true democracy and we by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, which is must not pretend otherwise.” © GOFUNDME

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 Talking points NEWS 21

Trump and Macron: a Paris love-in Wit & The relationship between Jonathan Miller in The President Trump and his Spectator. The French Wisdom French counterpart, president, who was driven Emmanuel Macron, got off to his inauguration in an “Growing old is like to an unpromising start, said open-topped army vehicle, being increasingly Fred Kaplan on Slate. At and was recently pictured penalised for a crime their fi rst meeting in May, being lowered on ropes you haven’t committed.” they locked palms in a from a helicopter onto Anthony Powell, “death-grip handshake”, a nuclear submarine, is quoted on The Browser which Macron later said he obsessed with projecting his “If you wish to be a success had intended as a “moment own power. Entertaining in the world, promise of truth” to show that the leader of the free world everything, deliver nothing.” France was a force to be in Paris “served no purpose Napoleon, quoted reckoned with. But over the other than to glorify in The Times following weeks, Macron Macron himself”. clearly decided that, as “an The two presidents: united in narcissism? “There is nothing so aspiring leader of Europe, he Not so, said William Hague fretting and vexatious, should try to make friends” with Trump – and in The Daily Telegraph. It was, rather, smart nothing so justly terrible to he hit on exactly the right way to go about it: diplomacy. It’s unlikely that Macron sees Trump tyrants, and their tools and fl attery. Last week, he laid on an extravagant as a great soulmate, or that he enjoyed his abettors, as a free press.” welcome for Donald and Melania Trump in guest’s “patronising” praise of his wife (“You’re Samuel Adams, quoted in Paris, treating them to dinner atop the Eiffel in such good shape,” Trump told her). But The New York Times Tower and inviting them to the Bastille Day Macron rightly recognises that it’s in his “We are well advised to parade. Trump, who is a sucker for military country’s interests to wield maximum influence keep on nodding terms with marches, was tickled pink. He heaped praise on with the White House. So do the French people: the people we used to be, his French host and spoke of the “unbreakable” surveys have suggested that while only 6% of whether we find them friendship between their countries. them agree with what Trump stands for, 60% of attractive company or not.” them agreed with inviting him. It’s a shame that Joan Didion, quoted The two men have more in common than it more Brits can’t hold these two thoughts in their on Vogue.com might at fi rst appear, said Sylvie Kauffmann in head at the same time. Here, angry petitions and The New York Times. Neither held elected protests from “sanctimonious” commentators “Is it progress if a cannibal office before becoming president. And both see have succeeded in delaying a scheduled visit this uses a knife and fork?” themselves as “transgressive leaders at a time year by the US president. It may be “worrying” Author Stanisław Lec, of popular insurrection against the media, that Trump has a tendency to agree with the last quoted in The Times political and economic elites”. The other thing person he spoke to, but “that is all the more they share is a raging “narcissism”, said reason to stay physically close to him”. “You can tell the nature of a man from his companion.” Artist Odilon Redon, Doctor Who: reborn as a woman quoted in The Guardian “We are never so funny to For a children’s show that only has hopping around space and time. If others as when we are least fi ve million viewers, the excitement it now travels in a new direction funny to ourselves.” was remarkable. On Sunday, the on gender, “so much the better”. Critic Terry Teachout, BBC interrupted its Wimbledon quoted on ArtsJournal.com coverage to unveil the identity of It’s “inspired” casting, said the new Doctor Who – and to the Brendan O’Neill on a Spectator “If necessity is the mother delight of many fans, and former blog. A fi ne actress, Whittaker has of invention, it’s the father Doctors, the Time Lord has, for an “everyperson touch” that is of cooperation.” the fi rst time, regenerated as a vital for this role. The Doctor Former US senator woman. Jodie Whittaker – known must be “special but connectable. John Ashcroft, quoted in for her role in the hit ITV drama Otherworldly but wordly.” She the Montreal Gazette Broadchurch – had been tipped to can do that. She’ll be great. Even “Fixed fortifications become the 13th Doctor. She will so, the reaction to the news has are monuments to the take over from Peter Capaldi from been overblown. Is a female stupidity of man.” this year’s Christmas special. Doctor Who really a “victory” for General George S. Patton, Whittaker: the 13th Doctor women that “will boost feminine quoted on Wired.com But it was not all joy in the self-esteem across the land”? Or is Who-verse, said Sam Leith in the London all the rejoicing just a manifestation of the virtual Statistic of the week Evening Standard. Online, grown men vowed Left’s obsession with cultural messaging: forget By 2026, there will be at never to watch the show again. “The doctor is fi ghting for real social change, let’s just make least half a million more a MALE!” read a tweet with the hashtag things look inclusive. Actually, how women are secondary school-age #NurseWho. “Nobody wants a Tardis full of depicted on TV does matter, said Zoe Williams children than there are now, bras,” read another. But anyone who can get in in The Guardian. It helps define what we according to a projection a rage about the casting in a sci-fi show is “a gift consider normal. You’d expect the TV industry by the Department for to the world of lols” – and the responses came in – staffed as it is by liberal types – to be ahead of Education. The Government fast: “What next? Female real doctors? Female the curve on gender parity. Yet white men still will need to build about 267 pilots? Female sisters and mothers? Female dominate current affairs, and all the virtues – average-sized secondary WOMEN?!” In fact, the series’ co-creator said bravery, humour, charisma, quick thinking – are schools to cope with the rise in demand for places. back in 1986 that a woman should one day be reserved for male heroes. It’s only showbiz, but cast in the role. Doctor Who has stayed fresh by when walls are broken down, it matters. The Daily Telegraph

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 22 NEWS Sport

Tennis: Federer turns back the years As he celebrated winning Wimbledon for the Where does professional tennis go from here, eighth time, Roger Federer kissed the trophy as if asked The Times. This was meant to be the era of it were an “old flame”, said Martin Samuel in the Andy Murray, who remains world No. 1 for now, Daily Mail. And in many ways, that’s just what it and Novak Djokovic. But at 30, both players are is. With his victory over Marin Cilic on Sunday, getting on in years. And having been hindered by the Swiss player broke the record for Wimbledon injuries, it’s unclear when either will regain their men’s singles titles; he has now won 19 Grand best form. Yet instead of that vacuum being filled Slams, four more than any other male player. Less by younger players, it is the veterans who are than a month short of his 36th birthday, Federer is thriving: Federer, aged 35, and Rafael Nadal, the oldest Wimbledon winner in the Open era, and 31, have won the first three majors of the year; “if anything, he is getting better”: for the first incredibly, Federer is likely to regain the world time, he made it through the tournament without No. 1 spot in the coming months. With an dropping a set, a feat last achieved by Björn Borg average age of 31 years and 221 days, the men’s in 1976. There can be no doubt, after this, that he semi-finalists this year were the oldest at is “the greatest player Wimbledon has seen”. Wimbledon in the Open era. So much for the sport’s “much-vaunted next generation”, said A year ago, when Federer tumbled to the ground Federer: “a blaze of glory” Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. The two “most in a Wimbledon semi-final defeat, it looked as if serious potential disrupters of the established his glory days were well and truly over, said Stuart Fraser in The order”, Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem, couldn’t even Times. He had undergone knee surgery a few months before, make it beyond Wimbledon’s last 16. For all the hype about the and left himself too little time to recover. So he made the sport’s “strength in depth”, its future looks “slightly alarming”. smartest decision of his career: he took the rest of the season off. It wasn’t until last November that Federer was properly Sporting headlines “reunited” with his racket, and he then developed a new, aggressive style of play, with “short plays at a quick pace”. Tennis Garbiñe Muguruza beat Venus Williams in straight sets That strategy has paid off: Federer “came back in a blaze of to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title. Martina Hingis glory” by winning the Australian Open in January, and now and Jamie Murray won the mixed doubles, defeating Heather Wimbledon. But it’s not as if the final was the toughest match of Watson and Henri Kontinen in straight sets. Federer’s career, said Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph. Cilic Cricket England beat South Africa by two wickets with just two struggled with blisters on his foot; as a result, he was “a long way balls to spare to reach the Women’s World Cup final. It will take short of blistering”. It may have been a “moment in tennis place at Lord’s this Sunday. history”, but as a spectacle it was a non-event. Sport NEWS 23

Cricket: why can’t England defend? Hamilton makes history “What a mess,” said Paul No wonder they have Newman in the Daily Mail. drawn just one of their last Lewis Hamilton is “lord of the Silverstone manor once more”, said Just two Tests into the 19 home Tests: they are Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. “brave new world” of Joe “a two-dimensional team in Since Formula 1 introduced its hybrid Root’s captaincy, England a three-dimensional game”. engines in 2014, there have been four are in a real “pickle”. In the British Grand Prix – and Hamilton has second Test against South In each of their innings at “won every one of them”. His latest Africa, at Trent Bridge, they Trent Bridge, England triumph, on Sunday, was his fifth in suffered a “crushing”, 340- lasted about 50 overs, said total, matching the record held by Jim run defeat. Having been set George Dobell on Clark and Alain Prost. This astonishing an unattainable target of ESPNCricinfo – the length “lights-to-flag victory”, in which Hamilton led every lap, was the 474 runs, they had no chance of an innings in a one-day “perfect riposte” to his critics, who of winning; they could only international. How telling. had slammed him for skipping an F1 hope to get a draw by batting It’s in white-ball cricket that promotional event last week so that he to the end of the fifth day. most of the players feel could go on a “blowout in Mykonos”. Instead, they just collapsed, Jennings: averages 11 comfortable; in Tests, over And it put him just one point behind mustering a mere 133 runs. five days, they’re all at sea. Sebastian Vettel in the Drivers’ They have now lost six of their last eight An Australian who had never previously Championship. Their rivalry this season Tests – and this “shameful” defeat, to a coached in England, Bayliss knows little will determine ”the pre-eminent driver South Africa side that looked “down and about county cricket, so he’s incapable of of this generation”; on Sunday, Hamilton “could hardly have staked a out” after the first Test, is a new low. selecting players who will thrive in this more compelling claim to that honour”. format. Just look at England’s batting England can play fearsome attacking order, said Steve James in The Times. cricket, said Jonathan Liew in The Daily Two of the first three players to bat, Telegraph. When it comes to defending, Keaton Jennings and Gary Ballance, however, they have “very little clue”. simply aren’t up to the job: Jennings has Under their coach, Trevor Bayliss, they averaged a “dreadful” 11 runs per inning; have been encouraged to bash the ball Ballance, with 21 runs, hasn’t fared much whenever they can. And that “cavalier” better. A team’s top-three plays a crucial approach leaves them “utterly role: England can scarcely afford to unprepared” for situations when they “carry” one player there, let alone two. find themselves on the back foot. “This cannot go on.” BEDS, SOFAS AND FURNITURE FOR LOAFERS LOAF.COM BATTERSEA NOTTING HILL NEW! SPITALFIELDS LETTERS 25 Pick of the week’s correspondence

Germans in a jam Exchange of the week join the eurozone to survive. To The Daily Telegraph They were wrong then and A while back, I asked the Charlie Gard’s “best interests” they are wrong now. European Commission the Roger J. Arthur, Pulborough, tongue-in-cheek question To The Guardian West Sussex whether we back home in Your editorial appears to suggest that it is in Charlie Gard’s Germany would be allowed to own best interests that he should be forced to die. Whenever I was saved by a donor call our jam marmelade again the phrase “own best interests” is used, I mentally flinch. The To The Independent as a sweetener to overcome the individual, and not some socially powerful institution, is the With reference to your article bitter aftertaste of Brexit. person who should decide what their own best interests are. regarding the organ donor To this, the Commission Unfortunately, Charlie cannot be consulted as to what he register, I waited 14 months prosaically replied more than thinks are his own best interests, but it would be reasonable to for my new liver. It was very a month ago that they did not suppose that, like the overwhelming majority of the rest of us difficult for me feeling my life have any plans at present to (and that includes the majority of the severely disabled), gradually finishing. The change the directive in Charlie would prefer to live rather than die. How could it hardest part is knowing that question, and I left it at that. possibly be in his own best interests for him to be forced to someone has to die for you to You can imagine my die? What possibly has death to offer him? live. One family’s grief and surprise when I saw The Daily Malcolm Pittock, Bolton, Greater Manchester another family’s happiness; Telegraph had turned this what a combination! I can only rather innocent banter into a To The Guardian say I fully support the opt-out story about an angry German Malcolm Pittock says he mentally flinches when he hears the regarding the organ donor demanding his marmelade phrase “own best interests” used by “some socially powerful register, so that every person is back. Rest assured that I am institution” when deciding if someone should be “forced to treated as a potential organ rather fond of marmalade (the die”. This is mischief-making on many counts. Discontinuing donor. It must be hard for the British version of it), that I life support (mechanical ventilation) is not forcing someone to grieving family, but thinking in even like Marmite, your sense die but allowing them to do so when neither nature nor the back of their minds that of humour and all the rest of medicine can improve their severe condition nor offer hope of their action has also saved lives it, and that I shall be sad to see future improvement. Pittock has no right to assume that the must be a little comfort. Britain leave the EU. “majority of the severely disabled” would rather live than die. Lloyd Tew-Cragg (a grateful After this experience, we As one who has a severely disabling condition, I would far live transplant recipient), shall duly abort any attempts rather trust the NHS, its expert clinicians and the British address supplied to export our sense of judiciary than Pittock, Trump, the Pope or any other religious humour and go back to fundamentalist to have a say in whether I live and die, when Costly grammar lesson exporting cars instead. the time comes. Thanks to the brilliant NHS, I have lived more To The Guardian Jakob von Weizsäcker MEP, years than I might have expected and may well live many more, Punctuation is indeed Brussels, Belgium though with increasing disability. But my advance medical important. The story goes that directive is prepared and it does not include life at all costs! an American millionaire’s wife, Welsh woes G.M. Draper, Sevenoaks, Kent travelling through Europe, To The Times came across a beautiful Your editorial touches on the diamond ring for sale for true problem of the survival of Driving on sunshine be made to play a dynamic $1,000. She sent a telegram to the Welsh language. It is To The Guardian part in balancing the uneven him: “Can I buy?” “No price misplaced ideology. Our solar panels occupy only generation inherent in many too high” came the reply. So I’ve taught at Welsh- a third of our roof area. Even forms of renewable energy. she purchased the ring, and her language schools and observed so, on a summer day they James and Lesley Willis, husband was furious. He had that the behaviour of pupils produce about the same power Alton, Hampshire meant: “No; price too high” – does not fit in with increasing our Volkswagen electric car and it is said that after that the use of Welsh. Between draws as it charges from a plug Big business and Brexit incident, telegram companies lessons, the pupils converse in in the garage. So, to the extent To The Sunday Telegraph introduced the convention of English. I have often in the that we top up during the day, Simon Heffer explains why the inserting the word “stop” at classroom been asked, we are literally driving on CBI wants to frustrate Brexit. the necessary places. “What’s the next lesson, sir?” sunshine: nil use of resources, He could have added that the Fr Alex Mitchell, Denton, (in English). Exam papers in nil pollution, and nil load on CBI represents a few large Greater Manchester Welsh given to pupils are national power-generation companies, while the vast available in English. Pupils infrastructure. Going for a majority of businesses are raise their hands, signalling drive in serene, effortless near- small and medium-sized a request for the translation, silence, knowing that it hasn’t enterprises (SMEs). Big and supervisors go to the pupil cost anybody anything, is quite businesses like the EU because and read it out. simply wonderful. its regulations allow large-scale The tragedy is that many The rapid increase in the tax avoidance. Open borders pupils in Welsh-language number of distributed solar cause wage compression, and schools end up hating the power installations is businesses have influence in Welsh language, which they producing an unmanageable getting EU regulations put believe has deprived them of a peak on sunny days. But our forward that will protect them. full education through English. experience illustrates that there SMEs, on the other hand, have To continue to promulgate is an excellent match between been held back. But their these schools, and create new renewable energy and electric innovation and productivity “It’s a long journey. I ones, is to hasten the decline vehicles. Electric cars are big will flourish once the weight of don’t want any fighting about of the language. batteries on wheels, storing EU rules has been lifted. the single market, customs John Idris Jones, Ruthin, far more power than they The CBI was, of course, union or next Tory leader.” Denbighshire need for journeys. They could among those who urged us to © MATT/DAILY TELEGRAPH

● Letters have been edited 22 July 2017 THE WEEK

ARTS 27 Review of reviews: Books

Book of the week Parliament providing for a new sewerage system designed by “the great Joseph Bazalgette”. For Dickens, by One Hot Summer contrast, 1858 was “not a productive by Rosemary Ashton year”, said Anne Somerset in Literary Yale 352pp £25 Review. Not only did the novelist The Week Bookshop £22 (incl. p&p) become embroiled in a public spat with his former friend William Thackeray, but he also kicked his wife out and In the summer of 1858 – the hottest began an affair with the 18-year-old then on record – London was “brought actress Ellen Ternan. As rumours about to a standstill” by a “sickening stench”, his marriage circulated, Dickens, who said Paula Byrne in The Times. “dreaded being dragged” before the Ironically, its origins lay in the earlier divorce court, developed writer’s block. replacement of the capital’s cesspools Darwin, too, was “thrown into with water closets – a move designed to The Silent Highwayman (1858): a Punch cartoon turmoil” – by the discovery that improve hygiene, but which actually another scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, increased the flow of effluence into the Thames, since London’s had independently arrived at “similar conclusions about drainage systems emptied into the river. When in June 1858 evolution”. Fearful of being “pre-empted”, the ailing naturalist soaring temperatures caused the water level to drop, the “sewage collated his research into a “single readable volume”, On the of more than two million people” was left “fermenting in the Origin of Species, which he rushed out in 1859. heat”. Rosemary Ashton’s “superbly researched” book is in part Ashton has set herself a “difficult task” in basing her narrative an account of the “great stink”, but also takes a wider look at around three figures who “shared little other than the same “London news and events” of the time. In particular, she argues cultural atmosphere”, said Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in The that this year was “crucial” in the lives of the “three great Guardian. Yet One Hot Summer is more than a portrait of the middle-aged Victorians” – Disraeli, Dickens and Darwin. “three Ds”. Ashton “excels” as a cultural historian, and her Disraeli, then chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of several fact-filled book is an “authoritative” guide to what life was really MPs “forced to flee their committee room clutching handkerchiefs like for the Victorians. “Turning its pages is like opening a to their noses” because of the stink, said John Carey in The window onto their world, and being grateful that we no longer Sunday Times. His response was to hurry legislation through have to hold our noses to do so.”

The Women Who Flew for Hitler by Clare Mulley Novel of the week Macmillan 496pp £20 Do Not Become Alarmed The Week Bookshop £17 by Maile Meloy Penguin 352pp £8.99 “Do not be put off by the awful title,” said Keith The Week Bookshop £6.99 Lowe in The Spectator. Clare Mulley’s The Women Who Flew for Hitler is not some “seedy excuse to Maile Meloy’s new novel certainly has an fantasise about women in Nazi uniforms”, but a “arresting premise”, said Julie Myerson in The “serious double biography” of two “remarkable” Guardian. Three “well-heeled families” are on aviators. Hanna Reitsch and Melitta Schiller were holiday in an unnamed Central American both phenomenally gifted pilots who, despite not country when “all of their children go missing”. being officially allowed to join the Luftwaffe, rose One moment they are playing, half-watched, on to the “pinnacle of their profession” – Reitsch as a the beach; the next “all six are gone”. The scene fighter pilot who “flew every plane going”, Schiller as a test pilot who is “shudderingly convincing”, and what follows specialised in carrying out “suicidal” nosedives “in the name of research”, and is similarly compulsive – “I can’t remember the as a designer of night-flying instruments for dive bombers. Yet despite superficial last time I gobbled down a novel so fast”. And similarities, the two women were very different. The “brash, impatient” and yet I also became troubled by Meloy’s writing, middle-class Reitsch was a “fanatical Nazi” who became close to several leading which is lacking in “sensitivity” and “heart”. Third Reich figures, even spending time in Hitler’s bunker. Schiller was a half- Given the “graphically unpleasant nature of the Jewish countess who was only spared deportation because of her “pioneering” events she describes”, it seems odd that she so research. In 1944, she “wholeheartedly supported” the plot, devised by her often retreats into “quips and platitudes”. brother-in-law Claus von Stauffenberg, to assassinate the Führer. On one level, this novel is “pure entertain- Reitsch and Schiller both became addicted to flying thanks to Germany’s ment”, a “fast-moving, beach-friendly thriller”, flourishing gliding culture of the 1920s, said Giles Whittell in The Times. This said Kate Saunders in The Times. Yet it also has was a product, ironically, of the Treaty of Versailles, which “imposed a ban on passages of great psychological nuance – as powered flight, turning the country into a nation of avid gliders”. Though the when the adult characters, faced with unfolding two women knew of each other, they were never friends, said Anne Sebba in tragedy, reflect on their attitudes to parenthood. The Daily Telegraph. Reitsch often belittled her rival, whose superior social The children, too, are entirely “believable”, status she resented, while Schiller considered Reitsch uneducated. Mulley’s book depicted without a “hint of sentimentality”. is a “vividly drawn” biography of two captivating (if deeply flawed) women Overall, Do Not Become Alarmed is “terrific”. that, in its latter stages, becomes a “thrilling” story of heroism and tragedy. 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

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In summer, West End audiences comedy and the cut and thrust”. are traditionally served up Emma Cunniffe brilliantly “liberal helpings of benign reprises her “mesmerising turn” bunkum”, said Fiona Mountford as “pale, dejected” Anne, said in the London Evening Standard. Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Theatre How refreshing, then, to be Telegraph. Romola Garai is offered this “intelligent hit play” “terrific too, if lacking in from the RSC. First seen in redemptive warmth” as Anne’s Stratford in 2015, Queen Anne bosom buddy Churchill, the Queen Anne is a “rich and satisfying new “imperious, two-faced power drama” focused on two “meaty behind the throne”. The Playwright: female central characters” – the supporting cast are also great. last Stuart monarch and her From time to time, the play’s Helen Edmundson ambitious confidante, Sarah content has political parallels Director: Churchill – a “welcome with today – Scotland and Brexit Natalie Abrahami corrective” to the male bias – which raise “knowing laughs” inherent in the company’s core from the audience, said Ann diet of Shakespeare. It’s a “rare Treneman in The Times. But, oh pleasure”, agreed Michael Garai: “terrific” goodness, it does all “feel a bit Theatre Royal Haymarket, Billington in The Guardian, to worthy”; a history lesson with 18 Suffolk Street, see a history play centred on the “gripping” some “fun scenes” thrown in. It’s a very “bitty” London SW1 power struggle between two determined women. play, and the staging (doors open and close with (020-7930 8800) You have to go back to Friedrich Schiller’s Mary “alarming frequency”) gives it a “jerky” quality. Until 30 September Stuart, or Robert Bolt’s Vivat! Vivat Regina!, to “There should be passion and pain here, as well find anything comparable. as politics, but we don’t feel it.” There’s certainly a lot of history to get Running time: through, said Sarah Hemming in the FT: the rise The week’s other opening 2hrs 30mins of two-party politics; the War of the Spanish Touch Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London (including interval) Succession, the union of England and Scotland, W1 (020-7478 0100). Until 26 August the rise of popular journalism as a power in the This play by Vicky Jones, who directed the land. At times this complex background does stage version of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s hit ★★★ make the play a bit “dense and slow moving”, Fleabag, is a spiky, funny and fearless explor- but for the most part, Helen Edmundson makes ation of “what it’s like to be a wine-glugging, “light work of it”, while Natalie Abrahami’s sex-loving woman in her 30s” (Guardian). “sprightly” production revels in both “the

I’m afraid this buffa light charm”, and the new cast – not comedy from Donizetti is my quite in the same class as the “least favourite repertoire old one – fails to “strike the opera”, said Mark Valencia on necessary balance between witty Opera WhatsOnStage.com. I cordially menace and sentimental pathos”. dislike Don Pasquale on two Be that as it may, the grounds. First, the plot has a performances are “still very “heartless streak” that says it’s good”, said George Hall in The Don Pasquale fine to humiliate old men so that Stage. Renato Girolami is younger people can have their splendid as Pasquale, “a star role way. It’s not as if the cuckolded he’ll undoubtedly take further”, Composer: Donizetti Don P “does anything wrong. while Andrey Zhilikhovsky gives Director: He isn’t a jealous guardian like a “suave, strongly sung account Mariame Clément Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, of the arch-manipulator” Conductor: nor a preening buffoon like Malatesta. Andrew Stenson’s Falstaff. He’s a bit crabby, that’s “stroppy teenager” Ernesto is Giacomo Sagripanti all. His kicking is not earned.” “endearing, if lacking in tonal Second, much of the work is refinement”, said Hannah Nepil “musically undistinguished” Oropesa and Girolami: “splendid” in the FT. And if Lisette Glyndebourne, Lewes, compared with Donizetti’s other Oropesa’s “bird-like soprano” is East Sussex comic operas. Yet I’m glad to say that Mariame a “size too small” for Norina, she has “vitality Clément’s blissful production, first seen in 2011, and a knack for comic timing”. Down in the pit, (01273-815000) “more than compensates” for these deficiencies. conductor Giacomo Sagripanti “relishes the Until 23 August With its stream of “clever sight gags” and sheer verve of Donizetti’s tightly coiled score”. “wrong-footing surprises”, it’s genuinely funny. Running time: Not as funny as it should be, said Rupert CD of the week 3hrs 40mins Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph. The main Broken Social Scene: Hug of Thunder strength of Clément’s production is that it does (including interval) City Slang £9.99 not shy away from the “unpleasantness” of the With 15 members (including Feist) and a “rickety plot. It even allows the inference that the pair of yet ambitious” sound, Broken Social Scene has ★★★ schemers, Dr Malatesta and Norina, who pass the feel of a hippy cult. Each song on this, their themselves off as siblings, are involved in an first album in seven years, is “big, anthemic incestuous relationship. Alas, in this revival, the and emotionally invigorating” (Guardian).

production’s “black comedy has lost its sly © MARC BRENNER

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22 July 2017 THE WEEK 30 ARTS Film

The big surprise about Sofia Coppola’s latest movie, which won the Best Director prize at Cannes this year, is how relatively conventional it is, said Damon The Beguiled Wise in Empire. A remake of a fervid 1971 Dir: Sofia Coppola melodrama with Clint Eastwood, it removes the more lurid elements, leaving us with a straightforward 1hr 33mins (15) drama of dark humour and sexual tension. Colin Farrell is dependably charismatic as John McBurney, A hothouse drama a roguish Union soldier discovered injured near a of sexual tensions girls’ school in rural Virginia during the American Civil War, said Jamie East in The Sun. But the acting ★★★ plaudits go to the female leads – Nicole Kidman as the prim headmistress, Kirsten Dunst as a shy teacher, and Elle Fanning as an older pupil determined to be seduced by the interloper. Sadly, the cast is wasted on a “very silly” film that lacks the courage of its convictions, said Kate Muir in The Times. Coppola prudishly draws a veil over her sex scenes and averts her gaze from the violence when the victims turn on their predator. On the contrary, we should be grateful the film is more restrained than its “pulpy” source material, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Beautifully shot, and often funny, it’s a “clever, tense, gripping” fable for our times.

In this latest instalment of the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise, we are taken to a future world in which apes are the dominant species, said Kevin War for Maher in The Times. And around the 20-minute the Planet of mark in this “assured” blockbuster, something rather extraordinary happens: you start to associate more the Apes with a bunch of apes than you do with the human Dir: Matt Reeves characters. That’s partly because the humans have become semi-feral, while the chimps, conversely, have 2hrs 20mins (12A) become the sophisticated ones. Yet it also owes much to the ever improving motion-capture technology that Latest instalment in brings the apes to life, said Jamie East in The Sun. the simian saga And never more so than in the case of Caesar, the wise simian leader played, in an Oscar-worthy performance, by Andy Serkis. Peaceful by nature, he’s driven to declare war on humans after a ★★★ botched attempt on his life by Woody Harrelson as an over-the-top Colonel Kurtz-type military leader. I like a good epic as much as anyone, said Libby Purves in the Daily Mail, but sadly this film is packed with “every cliché of the adventure movie genre”, from gruelling journeys to noble but flawed leaders. This movie may be spectacular, but it doesn’t rewrite the rule book.

It’s “the threequel no one was crying out for”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. The latest Cars 3 instalment in Pixar’s least-loved animated franchise sees our racing car hero Lightning McQueen (voiced Dir: Brian Fee by Owen Wilson) contemplating retirement after 1hr 42mins (U) finding himself eclipsed by a young rival car, Jackson Storm. That’s until he meets female coach Cruz Third instalment of Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), who teaches him much- needed lessons about never giving up. There’s very Pixar’s animated franchise little about this tiresome cartoon that makes sense, said Kevin Maher in The Times. In a world solely ★★ populated by cars, why do doors have handles? Above all, why has Pixar created a film for children that centres on anxieties about retirement? It’s hard to feel sorry for a franchise that’s already grossed $600m at the box office and a further $10bn in merchandise – yet I do, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. The Cars films are often slated for not being as good as other Pixar films such as Up and Inside Out. But taken on its own terms, Cars 3 is a “touching” tale about friendship and perseverance. I found it “deeply charming”.

How would you like to watch Louis XIV dying slowly for two hours? As film premises go, it sounds “lugubrious” to say the least, said Kevin Maher in The Death of The Times. Yet in the hands of Spanish director Louis XIV Albert Serra, it makes for startling entertainment. The veteran actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (who found fame as Dir: Albert Serra the boy in François Truffaut’s 1959 classic The 400 1hr 55mins (12A) Blows) cuts a “surreal, ghostly” figure as the ailing king, his pale face topped by a ridiculous wig, floating Requiem for a king and for like a “thundercloud”, said Simon Crook in Empire. The “crepuscular beauty” of Serra’s compositions French art-house cinema brings to mind a Rembrandt painting, yet the director finds room for humour amid the pathos. The remedies prescribed for the king by a succession of ★★★★ quacks – from donkey’s milk to bull semen – grow increasingly absurd. There is no grandstanding in this “quietly amazing” film, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. With a career-best turn from Léaud, it’s a requiem for French art-house cinema. At a deeper level, it demonstrates that death from old age, however commonplace, is “an extraordinary, eerie spectacle, waiting for all of us”.

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Timekeepers The Sellout by Simon Garfield by Paul Beatty Time flies like an arrow, but fruit A biting satire about a young flies like a banana. The Beatles man’s isolated upbringing and learn to be brilliant in an hour the race trial that sends him to and a half. An Englishman arrives the Supreme Court, The Sellout back from Calcutta but refuses showcases a comic genius at the top to adjust his watch. Timekeepers of his game. Born in the southern is about our obsession with time outskirts of Los Angeles, the and desire to make it meaningful. narrator spent his childhood as It tells illuminating stories and the subject in his father’s racially £8.99 £8.99 asks whether we have all gone charged psychological studies. completely nuts. An outrageously entertaining indictment of our time.

Swing Time Here I Am by Zadie Smith by Jonathan Safran Foer A dazzlingly exuberant new novel The New York Times bestseller moving from North West London to about modern family lives - from West Africa, from the multi-award- the author of Extremely Loud and winning author of White Teeth and Incredibly Close. This is a great On Beauty. Bursting with energy, American family novel for our times, rhythm and movement, this is Zadie a masterpiece about how we live Smith’s most ambitious novel yet. A now and Safran Foer’s greatest story about music and identity, race novel yet. An unmissable read and class, those who follow the for fans of Jonathan Franzen and £8.99£8.99 dance and those who lead it. Michael Chabon.

Riviera Set Hot Milk by Mary S. Lovell by Deborah Levy The story of a group who lived, Plunge into this hypnotic tale of partied, bed-hopped and politicked female sexuality and power when at the Chateau de l’Horizon, two women arrive on the Spanish Cannes. Set over forty years, from coast. Intoxicated by thick heat and the twenties when Coco Chanel the seductive people who move made southern French tans through it, both women begin to fashionable, to the death of the see their lives clearly for the first playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. time in years. Dreamlike and utterly This has all the charm of Lovell’s compulsive, Hot Milk is a delirious £10.99 £8.99 bestselling The Mitford Girls and fairy tale of feminine potency, a The Churchills. story both modern and timeless.

Visit TheWeek.co.uk/bookshop or call 020 3176 3835 to order

Terms & Conditions: Ofer applies to selected paperbacks only, as featured in Summer Reading Promotion on TheWeekBookshop.co.uk. Applies to purchases of 3 paperbacks or more. Enter code SUMMER5 at the checkout. Ofer ends: 31.08.17. 32 ARTS Art

Exhibition of the week Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk). Until 22 October “The 1960s was the heroic age of depicts Klansmen “rampaging African-American politics,” said through the night”. However, the Mark Hudson in The Daily quality soon dips. A self-portrait by Telegraph. Even now, issues such as Barkley L. Hendricks literally “black identity, black rights and interprets a review of his work that blackness itself”, first raised by the described him as a “brilliantly civil rights movement and the Black endowed” painter, and ends up as a Panthers, are “as alive as they’ve “double entendre from the Sid James ever been”. In this sense, Tate book of profundity”. The “nadir” Modern’s Soul of a Nation, a new comes with a series of assemblages exhibition devoted to African- by Betye Saar, which crassly co-opt American art of the era, is a timely Haitian voodoo imagery to endeavour. The show brings negligible effect. Worse, many works together some 150 works created here are inspired by the early between 1963 and 1983, presenting “mad and murderous” rhetoric of a “bewildering array” of art, many Black Power leader Malcolm X, by radical artists, or groups, with giving voice to “artistic attitudes “wildly divergent ideas” about what that no one ought to support”. a “black aesthetic” should be. It takes in everything from abstract Some of the work on show is painting to poster art to “surreal “great”, said Matthew Collings in sculptures”, packing in “enough the London Evening Standard. themes and ideas to power three Among the highlights are the shows its size”. This “rich, abstract canvases of the Guyana- absorbing and thought-provoking” born British painter Frank Bowling, display is “an epic response to an and the graphic art of Emory epic subject”, and is “without doubt Douglas, a Black Panther minister one of the shows of the year”. who designed and illustrated the group’s newspaper: in We Shall The exhibition begins with the work Survive without a Doubt (1971), a of the Spiral Group, a collective of child’s glasses reflect the breakfasts artists who came together in 1963 to the Panthers provided free for the “add their voice to the fight for civil Emory Douglas: We Shall Survive without a Doubt (1971) poor. Some of what’s here, though, rights”, said Waldemar Januszczak feels merely propagandistic and dull. in The Sunday Times. This section contains some powerful stuff, Just because a show’s theme is “worthy”, it does not follow, of not least Norman Lewis’s painting America the Beautiful (1960), course, that everything in it is good. “Nevertheless, the curators a “patchwork of flickering whites on a black background” that ensure there’s no let-up of energy of one kind or another.”

Where to buy… Making a mockery of Modigliani The Week reviews an More than 100,000 exhibition in a private gallery people have visited a major exhibition of the Mike O’Connor: work of Amedeo The Noise Modigliani in Genoa since it at Dadiani Fine Art opened in March, says The Daily Since opening in 2014, Cork Street’s Telegraph. Dadiani Fine Art has carved itself out Unfortunately, a reputation as one of London’s more last week it was offbeat private galleries. Previous abruptly closed after 21 of the 30-odd paintings on show came exhibitions have been idiosyncratic, to under suspicion of being fakes – and were say the least, taking in everything from confiscated by the city’s authorities. The paparazzi snaps of Brigitte Bardot to alleged fraud was exposed after Carlo Pepi, Eastern bloc pop art. This latest show a Tuscan art critic, made a formal complaint. is characteristically eccentric, focusing Monaco (2010), 30cm x 30cm x 100cm “Even a child could see these were crude on Formula 1 racing. Six plinths stand fakes,” said Pepi. “I thought, poor Modigliani, in the centre of the space, bearing for petrolheads. Art lovers, too, will to attribute to him these ugly abominations.” large metal objects that look for all appreciate the tacit nod to the Three people, including a curator, are now the world like iron casts of internal automative obsessions of the early- under investigation by Genoa’s prosecutor’s office. Modigliani, an expressionist painter and organs, as stained and misshapen as a 20th century Italian Futurists, to sculptor who died in Paris aged just 35, is “one smoker’s lungs. It takes a while to whose sculptures these bear an of the world’s most famously faked artists”: register that they are not in fact uncanny resemblance. Prices range prices for his nudes and portraits rival even sculptures – rather, they are V8 engines from £25,000 to £30,000. Picasso’s, and there is a thriving market for taken from decommissioned Ferrari counterfeit version of his works, which have racing cars that competed in various 30 Cork Street, London W1 turned up in Russia and the Balkans in the past. Grand Prix. But this is not just a show (020-7287 3717). Until 31 July.

THE WEEK 22 July 2017

The List 35

Best books… Simon Sebag Montefiore Television The bestselling historian, novelist and broadcaster Simon Sebag Montefiore Programmes picks his seven favourite books. His latest novel, Red Sky at Noon – the third Accidental Anarchist: of a trilogy set in 20th century Moscow – is published by Century at £16.99 Life without Government Former diplomat Carne Ross’s Elizabeth: The Forgotten Deng Xiaoping by Alexander book is a masterpiece of faith in Western democracy was shattered by the Iraq War. Years by John Guy, 2016 V. Pantsov and Steven I. modern American literature. This Storyville documentary (Penguin £10.99). A Levine, 2015 (OUP £22.99). traces his global quest to find a masterwork. After so many The best biography of the man Lastly, three superb biographies better way of doing things. Sun biographies of the Virgin who, along with Mao, was in Yale’s outstanding English 23 July, BBC4 21:50 (60mins). Queen that repeat the same China’s dominant statesman of Monarchs series. Cnut the old stuff, here is a beautifully the 20th century. He was three Great by Timothy Bolton, Bear About the House: written revisionist portrait of times a victim of Mao’s 2017 (£30), is a gripping and Living with my Supersized the Queen in the high years of ruthless purging, yet in the revelatory biography of Pet Some people don’t just her reign, revealing her as 1950s, Xiaoping was shooting Britain’s Danish conqueror. settle for a dog or hamster. This film finds one couple who vicious, random, capricious, so many enemies that even William the Conqueror by dine with their 7ft-tall Russian and, above all, lucky. Mao told him to stop. Later, he David Bates, 2016 (£30), is bear, and another, in ordered the Tiananmen Square the best ever biography of the Minnesota, who take their The Girls by Emma Cline, massacre, but also opened up ruthless Norman bastard – buffalo to the local bar. Mon 2016 (Vintage £7.99). A China to the global economy. masterly and exciting, but 24 July, C4 20:00 (60mins). superb, chilling novel of doom- always measured and laden adolescence. A girl comes The Goldfinch by Donna scholarly. Henry IV by Chris Excluded at Seven The of age around the Manson Tartt, 2013 (Abacus £9.99). A Given-Wilson, 2016 (£30), number of primary school age Family, which she joins as the novel about love, art and life, combines excellent scholarship children being expelled has reached record levels. In this terrifying slaughter gets closer, written with astonishing with brilliant storytelling, documentary from the Cutting getting intimately intertwined virtuosity and imagination; relishing the detail of blood- Edge team, we meet six of with Charles Manson himself even better than The Secret spattered drama equal to any those youngsters. Tue 25 July, and his diabolic assistants… History. This heartbreaking episode of Game of Thrones. C4 21:00 (60mins). Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit www.biblio.co.uk Hyper Evolution: The Rise of the Robots Evolutionary The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading biologist Ben Garrod and electronics engineer Danielle Showing now George meet top roboticists to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites at discuss whether machines the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh built to ease our lives could (www.nms.ac.uk). There are more than 300 one day become our biggest objects in this “fascinating exhibition” about the rivals. Wed 26 July, BBC4 Jacobites (FT). Among the gems are James II’s 21:00 (60mins). suit of armour and a 1745 portrait of Bonnie Top of the Lake Elisabeth Prince Charlie. Ends 12 November. Moss returns to play Detective Robin Giffin in the second Nina at the Young Vic, London SE1 (020-7922 series of Jane Campion’s crime 2922). Josette Bushell-Mingo’s “deeply personal drama. Nicole Kidman joins and often searing show” uses story and song to the cast. Thur 27 July, BBC2 bring together episodes from the life of Nina 21:00 (60mins). Simone, and the Black Lives Matter movement Holbein’s John Godsalve (c.1532-4) at the NPG (Guardian). Ends 29 July. Films which charts a clash of values between Maps to the Stars (2014) The Encounter: Drawings From Leonardo to a modernising Labour MP and his constituency David Cronenberg’s vicious agent. 15 September-2 December, Noël Coward satire of contemporary Rembrandt,National Portrait Gallery, London Hollywood, with Julianne WC2 (www.npg.org.uk). This new exhibition of Theatre, London WC2 (0844-482 5141). Moore and John Cusack. Sun rare Old Master drawings includes portraits by 23 July, BBC2 22:00 (105mins). Leonardo, Dürer and Holbein. I left “giddy with Just out in paperback its magic” (Times). Ends 22 October. The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell (Abacus Chinatown (1974) Roman £10.99). A “fascinating” look at the “vanished Polanski’s classic detective Book now past” of the French Riviera, playground to the drama starring Jack Nicholson Sarah Lancashire and Martin Freeman star in rich, focusing on the society hostess Maxine as a private eye in 1930s James Graham’s new comedy, , Elliott (The Mail on Sunday). LA. Thur 27 July, Film4 Labour of Love 00:55 (165mins).

The Archers: what happened last week New to Amazon Prime Fallon tells Harrison she’s worried about not being able to contribute to the house purchase. Harrison tells her: “What’s mine is yours.” Lilian drinks Buck’s fizz in her new bathroom on her birthday. I Am Not Your Negro Justin gives her a ruby pendant – her birthstone. At the family party, Lilian keeps checking her text Narrated by Samuel L. messages. Justin tells her that he knows how old she is, but says he doesn’t care. The Duxford sisters Jackson, Raoul Peck’s agree to open the fete. Jill is furious that the Happy Friends pop-up café has to move out to make acclaimed, Oscar-nominated way for the Duxford sisters’ swanky restaurant. Ruth agrees to be Ruairi’s attorney, but warns Brian documentary looks at the that she won’t be a pushover. Lilian tells Jolene that Matt didn’t remember her birthday. Later, Lilian history of racism in 20th finds a puppy on her doorstep, with a note: “Happy Birthday, pussycat.” Oliver calls Shula to tell her century America through the Caroline has died – she slipped away in her sleep. Shula agrees to plan her memorial. Lilian admits words of African-American to Justin that the puppy is from Matt. They are both smitten and call her Ruby. Matt tracks down novelist and activist James Lilian at the Borchester Food and Drink Awards and asks about her birthday. Justin and Lilian make it clear that the puppy hasn’t caused any tension. Matt slinks off. Baldwin. Available now. © ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST, HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2017

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 36 Best properties

Houses for horse lovers

▲ Wiltshire: Ashley Farmhouse, Box. In a peaceful setting with great views, this renovated Grade II Georgian detached farmhouse comes with a stable block, hay barn, 2 paddocks and cow sheds. Master suite with dressing room, 4 further beds, family bath, breakfast/kitchen, 3 receps, utility, cloakroom, wine cellar, family room, office, conservatory, outbuildings, stores, gardens, 6.52 acres. £1.75m; Knight Frank (01225-325999).

▲ Herefordshire: The Vern, Marden. A Grade II house in 15.6 acres of mature gardens with 2 stable blocks and paddocks. Master suite with recep, 7 further beds, 3 further baths, breakfast/kitchen, 3 receps, study, 2 cloakrooms, family room, utility, stores, conservatory, former granary barn, vegetable garden, 3 greenhouses, swimming pool, tennis court, outbuildings. £1.65m; Savills (01242-548000). ▲ West Sussex: Grays Farm, West End Lane, Henfield. Grays Farm comprises a Grade II period cottage, a detached 3-bed barn, a further 2-bed cottage, plus a manège with two stables and a tack room, a further stable block and 2 paddocks. Main cottage: 2 beds, 2 baths, open-plan recep/kitchen with Aga, hall, utility, 2 further receps, landscaped grounds, car barn, 1.7 acres. £1.499m; Jackson- Stops & Staff via OnTheMarket.com (01903-906651).

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 on the market 37

▲ Hampshire: The Manor House, Martin. This Grade II* manor house has excellent equestrian facilities, and sits in the middle of this popular village within the rolling countryside of the Cranborne Chase. The house has a stable block with 8 loose boxes, a tack room, feed store, workshop and hay barn, plus a manège, lunging area, and post and rail paddocks and pasture. Master suite, 5 further beds, 3 further baths (2 en suite), breakfast/kitchen, 3 receps, boot room/utility, WC. Outside there are a range of outbuildings including a wine store, log stores and carports, plus well-stocked mature gardens, a pool house with indoor pool, bar area and changing room, and a hard tennis court. A 2-bed cottage (Lot 2) is available separately. Lot 1: £2.75m; Savills (01722-426880). ▲ Lincolnshire: ▲ Cornwall: Horbling Hall, Priddacombe Farm, Horbling. A Grade II Bolventor, hall with stables, Launceston. Set in traditional gardens, a remote spot at and paddocks and the end of a very parkland extending long track in the to a total of about heart of Bodmin 5.4 acres. Master Moor, this cottage suite with dressing has a paddock room, guest suite, 4 (0.87 acre), stables, further beds, 2 attic a tack room and a rooms, family bath, large log cabin. 3 breakfast/kitchen, beds, family bath, 3 receps, study, 2 kitchen, open-plan cloakrooms, games double recep, room, conservatory, utility, WC, study/ vine house, cellar, bed 4, gardens, 2 garages, 2-bed double garage, self-contained about 1.3 acres. annexe. £1.25m; OIRO £475,000; Norton Rickett Lillicrap Chilcott (01780-782999). (01872-273473). ▲ Devon: Edgerley House, Lapford, Crediton. A fine country house in an elevated position, set in 12.4 acres of lovely gardens with far- reaching rural views. The house is well equipped for horse lovers, with post and rail paddocks, 5 stables, a tack room and feed store, an arena, a schooling area and linhay barn. 4 beds, family bath, shower, breakfast/ kitchen, 2 receps, hall, boot room, ▲ Isle of Wight: Hill Farm, Gatcombe. A Georgian Grade II house, in an WC, utility/cellar. Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with stone outbuildings including a OIEO £995,000; stable block, granary, tractor barn and threshing barn, plus paddocks. Strutt & Parker Master suite, 3 further beds, shower, breakfast/kitchen, 2 receps, snug, (01392-215631). 2-bed annexe, cellar, 12.7 acres. £1.25m; Spence Willard (01983-200880).

22 July 2017 THE WEEK

LEISURE 39 Food & Drink What the experts recommend Lupins 66 Union Street, Borough, where the blade of a knife slipped in over London SE1 (020-3908 5888) the spine will separate out the buttery, They use local ingredients at Lupins, but golden-skinned fillets with a nudge”. punctuated with chipotle and polenta and Open Tuesday to Sunday, but dinner sumac, the house style is “less true Brit only on Friday and Saturday. Starters and more West Coast US”, says Marina from £6; mains from £12. O’Loughlin in The Guardian. Indeed, it reminded me of a recent trip to San British beer festivals Manchester, Francisco, where the restaurants have a London, Leeds and Bristol “small-plates, veg-forward ethos… and The beer festival has been “reinvented and no fear of the lascivious pleasures of salt reinvigorated”, says Pete Brown in the FT. and fat”. At Lupins, dishes include spring Where once festivalgoers would have onions dredged in cornmeal and fried until been content with “swilling pints” in a the green spears are “almost scorched, the “pungent fug”, today they are after the white bulbs a soft, sweet squidge, and their “joyful buzz” created by sampling a wide popcorny carapace a crunchy contrast”. range of beers in smaller measures. The What a stroke of genius: utterly simple and flagship of the new breed is Manchester’s completely seductive. As I dunked them Roth Bar and Grill: “so damn civilised” Indy Man Beer Con (28 September- in chipotle mayo, I imagined “festivals 1 October), which is held in a beautiful dedicated to the things, as the Catalans do that the quality of the cooking comes as Victorian swimming baths, the drained with their calçots”. Other belters included a bonus, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. pools creating an “otherworldly croquettes of courgette with ricotta and The restaurant is attached to the “pastoral environment in which to showcase some chilli; Cornish crab thermidor, “oligarch- English outpost” of the art gallerists out-of-the-ordinary beers”. Other festivals rich with cream and cheese, spiky with Hauser and Wirth: wander towards the that are worth getting excited about mustard”; and smoky rump of lamb with loos and you’ll find yourself looking into include the London Craft Beer Festival in aubergine. About £25 a head, plus drinks. vaulted gallery spaces displaying “vivid Hoxton (4-6 August); Leeds International works you can’t afford”. As you’d expect, Beer Festival (7-10 September); and Bristol Roth Bar and Grill Durslade Farm, the bar, restaurant and outside terrace are Craft Beer Festival (15-17 September). Dropping Lane, Bruton, Somerset “an installation in their own right” – and Meanwhile, the UK’s biggest and oldest (01749-814700) with all that going on, the food is frankly beer festival, the Great British Beer On a hot summer’s day, when the “curve better than it really needs to be. We had Festival, returns to London’s Kensington and dip of rural England shimmers green merguez sausages made from “serious Olympia next month (8-12 August) – and and yellow beneath a topaz sky”, the pieces of roughly chopped aged beef”, it is “a lot more user-friendly than it used “whole proposition” of the Roth Bar and lubricated with dollops of fiery harissa; to be”. There “has never been a better Grill in Somerset is “so damn civilised” and a whole plaice grilled “to that point time to be a beer drinker”.

Recipe of the week White port White port is one of “the great summer Overnight oats are such a quick and easy breakfast. Make a large batch on sundowners”, says Susy Atkins in a Sunday night, and serve it throughout the week with your choice of The Daily Telegraph, yet it’s often toppings, such as this banana-based “nice cream”. It’s bursting with strangely overlooked. Serve it goodness, and its slow-burn power will keep you going until lunchtime as they do in Portugal’s Douro Valley: a slug in a tumbler, Banoffee and cinnamon “nice cream” with oats topped up with good-quality cold tonic, plenty of ice, bruised Serves 1 For the overnight oats (enough for 4 mornings): 150g rolled oats mint sprigs and a lemon slice. 420ml almond milk 60ml apple juice 3 tbsps maple syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract It works less well in complex For the cinnamon nice cream: 2 bananas, peeled and frozen 1 tsp vanilla extract cocktails, as its subtle flavours – of creamy ½ tsp ground cinnamon 1 Medjool date a pinch of salt nuts, white pepper and lemon and orange peel – are easily overwhelmed. Be sure to Optional toppings: caramelised bananas, crumbled pecans or cashews, coconut flakes choose a good quality port, such as… • To prepare the oats, Blend until thick and simply combine all the creamy, scraping down the Taylor’s Chip Dry White Port, Douro, ingredients in a bowl sides of the blender every Portugal (£10.59 for 75cl until 8 August, and then leave to soak 30 seconds or so.Process was £13.29; Waitrose) is tangy, almost salty, overnight in the fridge. If until the mixture is and white-pepper dry on the finish. It’s the mix looks a little dry completely smooth and mouthwateringly good. Churchill’s White the next day, add more has the consistency of soft- Port Dry Aperitif, Douro, Portugal (£16 almond milk. Then scoop serve ice cream. for 50cl; Oddbins) has a richer style, with into a small jar or bowl. a bright amber hue and flavours of orange • Scoop the nice cream on peel, wood spice and honey – it sets the • Now make the cinnamon top of the oats and add standard for many. Also worth a try is Quinta nice cream: put the frozen caramelised bananas or de la Rosa Extra Dry White Port, Douro, bananas, vanilla extract, cinnamon, any other toppings of your choice, if Portugal (£10.85 for 75cl; www.portugal date and salt in a food processor. desired. Serve immediately. vineyards.com). Fruity with fresh lemons and yellow apples, it’s wonderfully subtle, and Taken from Guilt-Free Nice Cream by Margie Broadhead, published by has a delicious light note of marzipan. Hardie Grant at £12.99. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £10.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit www.theweek.co.uk/bookshop. For our latest offers, visit theweekwines.co.uk

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 40 LEISURE Consumer

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express Autocar What Car? The Fortwo was already With a range of just Inside, the car looks much the smallest convertible on 96 miles off a charge, this like its predecessor, with the market; now Smart has is unquestionably a city the same bright, “neatly launched a battery- car. But it suits that role designed” dashboard. powered version, the first very well indeed, offering Everything is “robust”, fully electric drop-top to “sprightly” performance, though some of the plastics be mass produced. When and manoeuvring well feel a bit cheap. Yet it’s plugged into a wall socket, through congested streets. a bit roomier than before, it can charge the battery up The electric motor may even if the 260-litre boot Smart Fortwo to 80% of its capacity not be particularly only has room for a couple Cabriolet Electric Drive in about six hours – and powerful, only managing of overnight bags. If you’re from next spring, you’ll be a top speed of 81mph, but looking for a “trendy little £18,560 (incl. government grant) able to get a fast charger it’s quiet and “terrifically runaround”, this car has to install at home, taking smooth”. The steering is plenty of appeal – but that time down to less a little too light, though, it does struggle to justify than 45 minutes. lacking “real feedback”. the high price.

The best… toasters ▲

▲ Graef TO61 This sleek KitchenAid Artisan plastic toaster comes The Artisan is packed with an integrated rack with features: it for warming up buns detects when you put and croissants. It bread in the toaster, produces excellent, lowering and lifting it golden-brown toast in automatically, and if less than two-and-a-half you forget about your minutes – and it does toast, it will keep it subsequent rounds ▲ Dualit Newgen Available in warm. The wide slots even more quickly (£70; a wide range of colours and accommodate a range of www.amazon.co.uk). finishes, this machine is speedy breads (from £170; www.johnlewis.com). and hardy – and all its parts ▲

can be serviced or ▲ Breville Curve Tesco 2 Slice repreplaced. You can Offering a choice of Toaster Top of the selselect how many nine browning Which? Best Buy sloslots are heated at levels, the Curve has list, this Tesco a ttime so as not to a handy high-lift machine is a superb waswaste electricity mechanism that option for the price. (fr(from £195; helps you retrieve It toasts quickly and wwwwww.dualit.com). slices without evenly, though it burning your fingers. struggles to fit The crumb tray emptiess without larger slices (£16; any trouble (£55; www.breville.co.uk). www.tesco.com). SOURCES: T3/WHICH? Tips of the week… how to And for those who WhWhere to find…fi d make a great gin and tonic have everything… spots for fly-fishing ● A gin and tonic should be very, very River Eden, in a “pleasantly remote” spot cold. Sticking your glass in the freezer for near Penrith, is a “perfect paradise” for a few minutes beforehand will make a big fishing – as its name suggests. Try the difference to the quality of your drink. pools under the sandstone cliffs at Lazonby ● Use lots of ice. If you fill your glass to for trout and salmon (day tickets from £10; the top with big cubes, your G&T should www.edenriverstrust.org.uk). stay both colder and fizzier for longer. River Usk, in the Brecon Beacons, has long ● To ensure your tonic water is as fizzy been a “place of pilgrimage” for fly-fishers. and as cold as possible, it’s probably It was once seriously tough to get access to sensible to buy tonic in small cans or its waters, but many of its prime stretches bottles, and store them in the fridge. for salmon and trout can now be booked ● For a classic gin with lots of juniper bite, (from £10; www.fishingpassport.co.uk). go for a London Dry such as Beefeater or Derbyshire Wye, a limestone stream in the Peak District, is home to the UK’s only Tanqueray. If you want something more It looks like any other leather wallet, but citrussy, you could try Sacred’s Pink breeding population of wild rainbow trout – Grapefruit gin. the Lucca Bozzi’s Solar Wallet can also as well as native brown trout and grayling. charge your phone. Leave it in the sun for ● Pour a double shot – about 50ml. They all provide “electrifying sport” (from a bit then simply connect it to your device ● £50; www.thepeacockatrowsley.com). Be creative with the garnish. Instead of via the built-in cable. The wallets won’t be a lemon or lime wedge, try a slice of Loch Leven, in Perth and Kinross, “couldn’t cucumber or pink grapefruit. A sprig from dispatched until December – and once the be more perfect for wild trout”. It’s home to the garden works well, too: rosemary, for current deal is over, the price will double. a fast-growing, hard-fighting strain, which instance, or lavender, which is an excellent £77; www.indiegogo.com can only be fished using the boats provided match for the juniper in the gin. (from £21; www.fishlochleven.co.uk).

SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES SOURCE: STUFF SOURCE: THE TIMES

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 Travel LEISURE 41

This week’s dream: hands-on in the Amazon For those concerned about the before the rising sun heats the humid environment, any kind of international air to unbearable degrees. With the travel presents a dilemma, says Andrew assistance of scientists, visitors record Purvis in The Sunday Telegraph. It is in notebooks “the plumage, song and hard to keep your footprint light. But scientific names” of all the birds they in the Peruvian Amazon, an area observe, as well as their sightings of ravaged by deforestation, there are everything from tarantulas “the size of ways for visitors to ease their a large crab” and jaguars to butterflies consciences. The Inkaterra Guides and armies of ants “with fearsome Field Station, in Madre de Dios, began mandibles” capable of carrying a bat. its life as a training centre for research This is not a “five-star” luxury trip: scientists, but recently opened its doors accommodation is basic and electricity to anyone eager to “experience the is rationed to a few hours a day. But Amazon rainforest in an intense and if it’s wildlife expertise you’re after, scholarly way”, and to give something “this is the real deal”. The project also back to this fragile part of the world. If it’s wildlife expertise you’re after, “this is the real deal” works with the human inhabitants of The first time your fingers lock the Madre de Dios River basin. By “around the delicate, downy throat” of a rare bird, such as the “helping communities relearn traditional forest ways”, and black-faced ant-thrush – “no bigger than a starling” – is just one devising new systems of sustainable agriculture, it has already of many “David Attenborough moments” on this trip. It feels protected some 37,065 acres of forest. A people who once “wrong”, yet it’s the approved handling method for weighing, “destroyed the forest” are now defending it. Inkaterra (www. measuring and tagging birdlife. For visitors, the mornings begin at inkaterra.com) can arrange customised stays at its field station. about 5am, and are spent combing forest trails in the early light, Prices start at £250 per night for four nights.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of… Underwater art in Cancún the occasional billowing white sail of a The Cancún Underwater Museum, in dhow”, it has a population of about 1,500 Mexico, is still growing – “organically and – and “luxury villas that attract a steady structurally”, says Annie Ross in the London stream of high-profile guests”. For those Evening Standard. Co-founded by the British lucky enough to visit, days “unspool into a artist Jason deCaires Taylor, it is home to pattern of fabulous meals”, snorkelling over nearly 500 sculptures made from a “synthetic pristine reefs and long walks. As to its status material advantageous to coral growth”: the as a true island paradise, here’s the clincher: idea is that, over time, marine life will Vamizi has no mosquitoes. AndBeyond colonise it. Visitors can see the exhibits, (www.andbeyond.com) has a seven-night, which lie up to 33ft under the sea, from a full board stay from £7,285pp, including Hacienda De San Rafael, glass-bottomed boat, or can snorkel or flights, based on four travelling. Seville, Spain scuba-dive down. The largest and most famous is The Silent Evolution – an “eerie” Into the wilds… of Hertfordshire Halfway between Seville and Jerez, “but seemingly in the collection of life-size statues, some 470 in all, Londoners wanting to get back to nature – middle of nowhere”, this modelled on local people. The only sadness but not for long – should head to the Almost “wonderfully playful” hacienda is is that it is a bit like visiting Lenin’s Wild Campsite in the Lee Valley, near a “beloved bolthole” for those in Mausoleum: you wait for ages in a creeping Broxbourne, says Richard Nelsson in The the know, says Tara Stevens in queue, only to be rushed past the main Guardian. It’s less than 40 minutes by train Condé Nast Traveller. Owned by attraction with “barely time to appreciate the from Liverpool Street, and yet feels properly Kuky Mora-Figueroa, the “former moment”. Aquaworld (www.aquaworld. rural (and camping facilities are basic, with wild child” of a prominent com.mx/en) can arrange private dives. a cold-water tap and composting toilets). Andalusian family, the house is Here, you can take part in crash courses in a “whimsy of cobbled courtyards”, fragrant gardens and “curious Holiday like an A-lister on Vamizi survival skills, foraging and bushcraft, using artworks”. The best rooms are in “In 1891, the British did something right,” techniques that date back to prehistoric three chozas – thatched cottages says Helena de Bertodano in The Times. times. Classes include canoeing, building – with “kitchens for fixing drinks”, Having taken control of northern different types of shelter, and learning how double-height living rooms and Mozambique, they decided its islands were of to make an open fire – without matches – a shared pool. Food is good: no strategic interest, so for the next 100 or so and then cook or bake on it. It’s a great you will want to eat in. years, Vamizi, in the Quirimbas Archipelago, de-stressor – survival without the long-term Doubles from about £220. was left alone, its wildlife untouched. Today, commitment. For more information on the +34 954 227 116; www. its “remoteness and privacy” are its main Almost Wild Campsite and surrounding haciendadesanrafael.com. attraction. With “sea traffic limited to only area, see www.visitleevalley.org.uk.

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22 July 2017 THE WEEK

Obituaries 43 Nobel Peace laureate who refused to be silenced

Liu Xiaobo was in jail when theory, and was equally damning of the liberal Liu Xiaobo news broke that he had been Western academics who presumed to tell him 1955-2017 awarded the 2010 Nobel how it felt to be the “subaltern”, outside the Peace Prize for his “long and non-violent hegemonic power structure of the colony. In struggle for fundamental human rights in April 1989, with the pro-democracy movement China”. The Chinese government was furious intensifying, and thousands of people that this “criminal” had been so recognised: occupying Tiananmen Square, he booked a it halted trade talks with Norway; and – flight home. “I hope,” he wrote, “that I’m impervious to pleas for clemency – refused even not the type of person who, standing at the to let any of Liu’s friends or relatives pick up doorway to hell, strikes a heroic pose and then the award. So during the ceremony, the medal starts frowning in indecision.” was placed on an empty chair. Beijing reacted by deleting the words “empty chair” from In Beijing, he joined in a hunger strike in Chinese websites. Yet at a critical moment in support of the students, though he would grow China’s history, Liu had done the communist frustrated by their superficiality, and alarmed regime a favour, said The Daily Telegraph. On by their willingness to forego democratic 4 June 1989, when thousands of troops were principles. When the killings started late on standing by to clear Tiananmen Square by 3 June, he stayed in the square until he’d force, it was Liu who persuaded the protesters negotiated a safe passage for the students to get to engage in a peaceful withdrawal. In so out, then took refuge in the house of a doing, he saved scores, if not hundreds, of lives, Liu: “I have no hatred” diplomat while, outside, ordinary workers but also made it possible for Beijing to claim came out to protect and help the demonstrators that no one had been killed in the square. Famously blunt and still being shot at. Many of them received long jail terms, or were independent-minded, Liu angered some activists by agreeing that executed. Liu was arrested within hours of leaving his refuge, but he’d seen no one die there; and indeed, most of the killings had to his eternal regret he signed a confession, and so spent just taken place elsewhere. But unlike many other dissidents, he didn’t 19 months in jail – “deathly bored, but that’s about it”. On his flee or retreat into silence after the brutal crackdown. “Others can release, he was banned from publishing and lost his job at Beijing stop,” he said. “I can’t.” Normal University. Yet he continued to write – literary criticism, poems, and also essays on social and political themes. As a result, Liu Xiaobo was born in December 1955 in the northeastern city he was under near constant surveillance, and spent years under of Changchun, to intellectual parents who were Communist Party house arrest or being “re-educated” in labour camps. Then he members. In the mid-1960s his school closed, and he was sent helped draft, and gather signatures, for Charter 08 – which called into the countryside to labour during the Cultural Revolution. for democracy and human rights in China. In 2009, he was found Later, he’d say the break from the stultifying Maoist education guilty of subversion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. gave him a chance to develop his own ideas. He read voraciously, and in 1977, enrolled at university to read literature. By the mid- Though his manner could be abrasive, Liu, who was married 1980s, he was one of China’s hottest young academics – hugely twice and had a son, was also known for his warmth, humour admired, though not universally liked, said The Times, on account and gregarious charm. “I have no enemies and no hatred,” he of his unwavering belief that his was a voice that needed to be insisted. But that cut little ice with the authorities, who put his heard, and his unsparing criticisms of his contemporaries. In wife, the poet Liu Xia, under house arrest, and kept him in prison 1988, he moved to America, and was made a visiting fellow at until his liver cancer had become incurable. He died, aged 61, Columbia University. There, he came up against post-colonial under armed guard in a Chinese hospital. The corrupt football official who turned “supergrass” Charismatic, manipulative and game. In 1984, he was elected vice-president of Chuck Blazer reportedly weighing almost 30 the US Soccer Federation, having somehow 1945-2017 stone, Chuck Blazer “lived a persuaded Pelé to campaign on his behalf. Almost life of extravagant excess”, said The Daily single-handedly, he brought US soccer into the Telegraph. Blazer, who has died aged 72, rose to TV age. In 1990, the national team competed in be one of the most powerful men in world the World Cup for the first time in 40 years, and football. In his heyday, he worked from an in 1994 the tournament was held in the US for $18,000-per-month suite on the 49th floor of the first time ever. Trump Tower in New York, and kept a separate $6,000-per-month suite solely for his cats; he In 1990, Blazer became general secretary of the moved about on a mobility scooter with his pet Confederation of North, Central American and macaw, Max, on his shoulder. Then, in 2013, Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf). Blazer was charged with bribery, money Under the presidency of his close ally, Trinidad’s laundering and tax evasion. It later emerged that Jack Warner, he cut a deal to pay his own he was the “supergrass” upon whose testimony company 10% of all sponsorship and TV rights, the FBI’s probe into corruption in Fifa, the earning some $15.3m in commissions between international football federation, was based. Blazer: a life of extravagant excess 1996 and 2011. Blazer and Warner allegedly also extended the deal to bribes, said The Guardian. In Blazer never played football himself: he studied accounting at 2013, he pleaded guilty to ten counts of racketeering, money New York University, and had his first success producing yellow laundering, wire fraud and tax evasion, and cooperated with the smiley face badges from his father-in-law’s factory in Queens. But FBI, detailing bribery and corruption at the top of world football: Blazer’s son was a keen football player and, in 1976, despite his in Fifa’s leadership elections; in the awarding of World Cups; and lack of expertise, he volunteered as a coach. For the next decade, in TV rights and sponsorship. Blazer, then already ill, was spared he ran teams and soccer leagues, and honed his knowledge of the prison. Warner and others named by him still await trial.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK

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

Carillion: bouncing back? Carillion’s share price may have collapsed earlier this month, but this week things were looking up “significantly”, said City AM. The troubled contractor was one of 11 firms named on Monday as having won lucrative business on Britain’s biggest-ever infrastructure project, the £56bn HS2 high-speed rail line. Carillion was awarded two contracts on the “phase one” route between London and Birmingham – worth a total £1.4bn – as part of a three-way consortium with engineering group Kier and French Seven days in the contractor Eiffage, said the Financial Times. Carillion’s own portion of these deals is said Square Mile to be worth around £450m. The Government is being cautious, however, and has sought “reassurance” from the consortium partners that they will underwrite each others’ Global stock markets started the week performance, said BBC News online. That means they are on the hook if Carillion falls off on a high after an upside surprise over, which some analysts think could happen without a £500m cash injection. On in China’s GDP growth data. Officials estimate the economy expanded Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence awarded the firm two more new outsourcing contracts 6.9% in the second quarter, in line with worth £158m “at hundreds of military sites across the north of England, Scotland and the first three months of the year and Northern Ireland”. Investors seemed mollified, and shares had shot up by more than above forecasts.The MSCI World 30% in the week to Tuesday afternoon. However, the deals will not solve short-term index reached a record high on money woes. The cash from those lucrative HS2 contracts does not flow until 2019. Monday in response, while the FTSE 100 outperformed its European peers Fox/Sky: deal delays and gained ground thanks in part to Rupert Murdoch’s “recurring dream” of owning Britain’s biggest pay TV provider rises from miners including Glencore, “won’t become reality until at least 2018”, said CNN.com. Murdoch-controlled 21st BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. Century Fox is bidding to buy the 61% of Sky it does not already own, for £11.7bn, but Construction giant Carillion rebounded “declined to offer new concessions” to protect Sky’s “editorial independence” by last strongly following its share price slump Friday. That was the deadline set by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley in June, when she last week, although it is still worth less than half what it was earlier this month. revealed she was “minded” to refer the deal for a full competition probe, which would Outsourcer Mitie Group also recovered take six months. A spokesperson for Bradley told Bloomberg she did not plan to make a this week, rising 5% in one session on final decision before the parliamentary summer recess, which began on Thursday, so the Monday, after Investec analysts gave referral itself would not come until September. The Competition and Markets Authority’s its turnaround plan a thumbs up with investigation would assess whether acquiring Sky would give the Murdoch family too a double upgrade from “sell” to “buy”. big a share of media, given it already owns The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and The euro slipped a little, ahead of the ; but MPs, including former Labour leader , also want it to cover latest ECB policy announcement on Murdoch’s fitness to hold a broadcast licence following the 2011 phone-hacking scandal. Wednesday, but only after it reached a 14-month high against the dollar RBS: paying the price on the back of recent hawkish Royal Bank of Scotland has taken a “big step” towards clearing the legacy of the financial commentary. For its part, the crisis, by agreeing a $5.5bn penalty with the US Federal Housing Finance Agency, said greenback had slumped to a ten-month low after unexpectedly low inflation The Times. The settlement brings to an end a legal battle dating back to 2011, and weakened the case for more rapid rates relating to $32bn worth of boom-era mortgage bonds allegedly mis-sold to national rises, and in the wake of Donald mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The fine is “roughly the size RBS had Trump’s latest defeat in Congress on expected”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian, and the bank has £6.6bn ($8.6bn) set his healthcare reforms. The pound had aside to cover legal costs for past wrongdoing. But it has several issues still outstanding, been above $1.31 at one point, but including a settlement to be reached on the same issue with the US Department of Justice eased back after CPI inflation also that could be even larger. As for predictions that RBS could see profit and pay dividends posted a surprise fall to 2.6%. for the first time in a decade next year: we should “believe it only when we see it”.

Cyberattacks: a bigger threat than natural disasters? A “serious cyberattack” could cost the global thinks such an event is “exceptionally likely”, economy as much as “catastrophic natural said Bloomberg: a cyberattack would only disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and need to combine the wide reach of May’s Sandy”, said The Guardian. A report WannaCry attack, which spread across some published by insurance market Lloyd’s of 150 countries, with the “destructive force” of London warned that the financial implications the more limited Petya attack in June, to leave of a major incident could be as high as insurers facing payouts of $2.5bn. $121bn, based on the worst-case impact of a “malicious attack that takes down a cloud CFC argues that cyber insurance coverage, service provider” – and so has knock-on which is currently low, represents a effects for many other businesses. Of this considerable opportunity. Lloyd’s, too, wants figure, as much as $45bn could be uninsured more investors currently looking to plough and would fall on the companies affected. capital into familiar types of underwriting to switch to “new areas such as cyber”. It also The Lloyd’s report comes hot on the heels of WannaCry: spread to 150 countries wants more insurers to offer cyber coverage two major global cyberattacks in as many at premiums that reflect the natural disaster- months. These were of a different nature: they targeted operating scale risk; and more businesses to buy the insurance. Given big systems run by a large number of businesses. According to data breaches at the likes of TalkTalk, and the £2.5m lost in an Lloyd’s, such an attack could inflict costs of up to $29bn, of which attack on Tesco Bank in 2016, it’s clear cybercrime represents $26bn might be uninsured. Lloyd’s agent CFC Underwriting a huge risk. But it could also be big business for insurers.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK

Talking points CITY 47

Issue of the week: is London’s reputation for sale? Saudi Aramco’s flotation would bring bumper fees, and it could be the first of many – but investors fear the cost is too high Over the past 30 years, a reputation for normal rules to protect investors, said having markets “governed by high- The Daily Telegraph. Firms usually have quality, impartial regulation” has to be selling at least 25% of their stock become a major selling point for the to qualify for a premium listing. It seems City, one that has encouraged other that, in addition, firms in the new countries to do business here, knowing subcategory would not have to disclose they won’t get ripped off, said Anthony transactions with their sovereign owner; Hilton in the London Evening Standard. nor have to allow shareholders to vote So fund managers are understandably for independent directors. If the FCA furious that the Financial Conduct plan comes to pass, chances are it Authority (FCA) is now planning “to wouldn’t just attract Aramco to London, throw principle out of the window in said Dasha Afanasieva on Reuters.com. a craven attempt to persuade the Falling oil prices have “spurred government of Saudi Arabia to choose privatisations” across the Middle East. London as the place to list its oil business London might also hope to attract state Saudi Aramco”. If it goes ahead, it Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince: offering a “bonanza”? companies from Kazakhstan and Russia, would be the biggest listing ever seen, and other places. “In the run-up to with a possible price tag of $2trn for the 5% of shares on offer, Brexit, London is appealing to the world outside of Europe.” and create a “bonanza” in fees worth hundreds of millions to lawyers and other professionals. But the downside is that Saudi But how to square this with London’s reputation for high Aramco’s “standards of transparency and governance” fall far standards and low investor risk? The FCA is hoping that, by beneath those normally required to protect outside shareholders insisting companies in its new subcategory meet the other in major listed companies. Fawning to the Saudis “diminishes requirements of a premium listing, the integrity of the “premium” London”, said The Observer. Could it be that the regulator has label will be retained, said the FT. It’s like when high-end fashion been leaned on “by political masters who crave a post-Brexit labels create cheap diffusion ranges to flog to the masses, so they endorsement of the City’s pulling power”? can make more money without harming their core brand. The trouble is, if an exchange moves shoddy goods, “its legitimacy is The FCA’s proposal is to allow state-owned companies to qualify endangered”. Reputations are like cake. You can’t have cake and for a coveted premium listing without having to satisfy all of the eat it. London’s reputation cannot be “both had and sold”.

Household finances: what the experts think Supermarket sweep ● Overdraft overhaul car for a year, up £48 in the past 12 months, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Lloyds Banking Group has launched a major investigation to is radically altering its according to figures assess whether investment fund bank account charges from the Association of “platforms” are offering investors to remove “a swathe British Insurers. The “value for money”, said Brian Milligan of fees” imposed on youngest and oldest on BBC News online. These online those who take out drivers – who already repositories, sometimes called “fund “unauthorised” pay the most – have supermarkets”, hold five times more been hit hardest. The investor cash than they did back in overdrafts, said James 2008, with £592bn, or 78% of the retail Moore in The over-65s could save “as much as £500” by funds market now “on platform”. Independent. This Even people who use a financial adviser means current account Lloyds: clamping down on overdrafts shopping around. In have probably invested through one. borrowers will, in general, you can save But the FCA “does not believe all is as it future, be charged a set fee based on how money by, for example, allowing your should be in platform land”, said Mike much they borrow and for how long (it insurer to monitor your driving, or Barratt on Professional Adviser, and it works out at 1p per day for every £7), “loading” your excess, said Graham Scott wants to know if competition in the which is “how it ought to be”. At the in The Independent. If you do bump up market is working. your excess, though, “cross your fingers moment, there are fixed charges of £10 One of its main concerns is “vertical a day for unauthorised overdrafts, plus you don’t have an accident”, because your upfront costs will be higher. integration”: seven of the top ten charges of up to £30 a day for “bounced” platforms used by advisers, and “all of payments, all on top of a 20% interest the top five”, are part of groups that rate. The new charges equate to an annual ● Pay pressure also include a fund manager. In a interest rate of 52%; but nine out of ten Better news for consumers came in the previous study, the watchdog found customers with overdrafts will still be form of inflation figures this week, which charges through platforms were unduly better off. From September, all banks have showed a decline from 2.9% to 2.6% in complex, and that profit margins in the to cap monthly overdraft costs (most seem June, said Chris Giles in the Financial sector are high at 36%. It could propose measures to address this – and in a to be around the £80 mark) and consumer Times. This surprised most analysts, but it worst-case scenario, could refer the champion Which? now wants the would be “easy to over-interpret” the matter for a more intensive Competition regulator to crack down harder. importance of the fall. Most experts seem and Markets Authority probe. Low-cost to the think it will be transitory: it was passive manager Vanguard’s move into ● Insurance costs speed up largely down to drops in the price of fuel, the market in May, sending current Average car insurance premiums are at a toys and electronic – and these are likely to leader Hargreaves Lansdown’s shares “record high”, after rising at “four times be reversed in the months ahead. Let’s not tumbling 9% in a day, suggests “the the rate of inflation” in the past year, forget, either, that pay growth is at just market is working”, said Matthew said Julia Kollewe in The Guardian. On 2% and “lower than any measure of Vincent in the FT. “It is just for the FCA to decide how well.” average, it now costs £484 to insure your inflation”, so real wages are still in decline.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 48 CITY Commentators

When Netflix launched online streaming a decade ago, its chief executive Reed Hastings said the market would at first be “micro- City profiles Only sleep can scopic”, says James Titcomb. He was wrong. Postal DVD rentals – on at least 50% margins – still account, surprisingly, for 15% of Carolyn McCall halt the rapid When Carolyn McCall took the firm’s profits, but “streaming has exploded faster than anyone over as CEO of easyJet in rise of Netflix thought”. In April, Netflix reached 100 million subscribers, half 2010, Michael O’Leary – the of whom are outside the US. It’s now also a major content boss of easyJet rival Ryanair James Titcomb producer: it garnered 93 Emmy Award nominations this month. – “dismissed her as a media Having its own content means Netflix is not confined to signing luvvie”, said BBC News The Daily Telegraph local deals; last year, it “was switched on in 130 new countries online. She had spent instantly”. And subscribers are famously loyal: less than 5% a 24 years at The Guardian, year cancel their subscription. Investors have thus been “willing to becoming chief executive of forgo profits for the sake of investment”, boosting Netflix’s value its parent company, Guardian Media Group (GMG), in 2006. to $70bn, or around 200 times earnings. A slowdown in new But O’Leary was wrong. subscribers remains a potential stumbling block, but as Hastings Management Today called recently put it, the main competitive threat is viewers needing to her “one of the toughest sleep. If so, Netflix “doesn’t have much to worry about”. operators” to scale the ranks of GMG, and her record at Remember Jawbone? A few years ago, says Rana Foroohar, the easyJet shows that “her near-defunct maker of wearable technology was valued at $3.2bn capabilities spread far more Winners and and attracted money from the top venture capitalists. At Davos, widely”. In seven years at it would hand out its fitness tracking wristbands “like lollipops”. easyJet, she has transformed losers in Silicon performance “in every And today? Now it’s “selling itself off piece by piece”. Jawbone respect”, said the FT. Under Valley’s bubble has grown too rich and fat: the victim of “a new bubble in Silicon McCall, passenger numbers Valley”, it has died from “overfunding”. This new bubble bears have almost doubled. Now Rana Foroohar a strong resemblance to the dot-com bubble. Now, as then, you she is returning to the media, don’t need profits or paying customers: you need evidence of to take the helm at ITV. The Financial Times people using your product in a “hot market niche” such as broadcaster was keen to wearables, electric cars or the “gig” economy. Venture capitalists get her: McCall’s total buy in at ever higher valuations, the smartest ones “taking rich package is worth up to advisory fees” and “exiting before disaster” strikes. But the £25.2m in her first five years – more than the deal which problem with the New New Thing is that “only a few firms win”. incumbent Adam Crozier is Investing in the auto sector was the right thing to do when Henry walking away from. Ford started his assembly line: investing in most of the 2,000 other car firms that then sprang up was not. The real winners now will Nicky Morgan be platforms such as Amazon, Google or Facebook: firms that don’t need stand-alone devices to capture and control data.

The weak productivity of developed economies in recent years is partly explained, says Buttonwood, by the “persistence of zombie The zombies firms” – firms that go on trading despite dire performance. The Bank for International Settlements has found that in 14 developed eating up our countries, the share of firms whose pretax earnings failed even to meet their interest payments rose from less than 6% to 10.5% healthy firms between 2007 and 2015. And these zombies are basically taking resources from more efficient rivals: in a sense, they “are eating Buttonwood healthy firms”. Of course, the easier it is for companies to become The Economist insolvent, the more quickly capital can be reallocated to efficient uses, but clearly this isn’t a panacea: Britain is reckoned to have the best insolvency regime in the world, yet productivity remains Former education secretary stubbornly weak. Given that the burden of economic growth in Nicky Morgan was Western countries, with their shrinking workforces, falls almost unceremoniously sacked by entirely on productivity improvements, the idea that the corporate Theresa May last year. But sector is becoming more ossified “deserves a lot more attention”. she’s back on the political front line and set to be a So Google has won yet again, say John Foley. The US internet “thorn in the side” of the giant had been taken to court by the French authorities, who Government, said The Google versus claimed it owed s1.1bn in back taxes. Google, they argued, had Guardian. The outspoken assigned a whole lot of activity involving French customers (and Remainer won a tight contest government? against Brexiteer Jacob hence a lot of corporation and value added tax) to its subsidiary Rees-Mogg last week to 1-0 to Google in Ireland. But they argued in vain: a French court has just ruled become the first female chair Google isn’t liable for it after all. And the truth is that Google will of the Treasury Select John Foley always retain the upper hand over the EU and its member states, Committee. She has already as long as the latter cling to the idea that they should retain full said it will be impossible to Reuters Breakingviews sovereignty over tax rates. Do that and, inevitably, different states achieve a “pain-free Brexit”, will use different rates as a lure for multinational corporations. and that household finances The corporations, by contrast, “can put their global interest first”. will suffer, said the FT. She The likes of Apple, Amazon and Starbucks take advantage of also wants to expand the committee’s remit to have a differences between national tax rates to minimise their overall say in the evolving debate on tax bill, just as Google does by booking profits in low-tax Ireland. austerity. In her own words: To placate the national tax authorities, it may occasionally pay “I’m going to carry on being back small sums – £130m to Britain in 2016, and s306m to Italy as feisty as I have been.” this year – but in the end it’s the company, not the state, that wins.

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Shares CITY 51

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The week’s best buys Directors’ dealings Capital & Regional Eckoh Just Eat Eco Animal Health The Times Investors Chronicle The Daily Telegraph 650 C&R owns seven value- and Eckoh provides secure payment As the takeaway boom powers Chairman non-discretionary-focused technology for remote credit ahead, shares in the digital sells 2m shopping centres, where card transactions. Revenues ordering service have doubled. 600 occupancy is at 95.5%, in are up 30%, with high-value Just Eat should further grow southeast England. Its strategy contract wins up fi vefold. With market share with the “richest 550 of buying and improving is the growth of e-commerce it sponsorship deal on TV – highly successful. Yields 6.6%. has massive potential, plastering its brand all over Buy. 55.25p. especially in the US. Buy. 47p. The X Factor”. Buy. 690p. 500

EasyJet ITV Marks & Spencer Group 450 The Daily Telegraph The Mail on Sunday Investors Chronicle Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul The low-cost airline took a The broadcaster’s advertising The decline in general huge hit in the wake of the fi gures should improve as merchandise sales has slowed Chairman Peter Lawrence has netted more than £12m from Brexit vote. Yet it is attractively consumer goods fi rms’ from a 5.9% fall in Q4 of last the sale of two million shares priced, operates strong routes, advertising budgets increase year to a 1.2% dip. Food sales in the animal health products and competition is minimal as for the fi rst time since 2011. have fallen 0.1%, and M&S group, which has recorded the gap narrows between Goldman Sachs believes still faces challenges, but shares a 75% year-on-year rise in easyJet and high-end providers weakness in the sector is now look well valued and yield pre-tax profit. Lawrence including BA. Buy. £14.16. temporary. Buy. 175p. a handsome 5.8%. Buy. 320p. retains an 11% holding. SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE

…and some to hold, avoid or sell Form guide

Banco Santander GoCompare.com Group Pearson Shares tipped 12 weeks ago The Times Shares Financial Times Best tip UK investors will have their The insurance-focused The publishing and education Segro rights sold and cash returned comparison site has had a group has sold a 22% stake in Investors Chronicle to them in the Spanish bank’s strong start since fl oating in Penguin Random House to up 8.14% to 499.7p s7.1bn rights issue to fund November at 76p, and is boost its balance sheet. But Worst tip the purchase of Banco looking for the right balance after fi ve profit warnings in the JD Sports Fashion Popular. Lloyds is a good of growth and profitability. past four years, and record The Daily Telegraph alternative, yielding almost Shares are now fully valued, losses in 2016, the yield looks down 21.11% to 347.2p 6%. Sell. 518p. so take profits. Sell. 110p. vulnerable. Sell. 630p.

Debenhams Nex Group Rolls-Royce Market view The Sunday Times The Times The Mail on Sunday “To be honest, all hopes of a The retailer’s 175 long-lease Nex (formerly Icap) gets most The engineer is mid- major growth boost from stores “hang heavily around of its revenue from electronic turnaround after a record Washington had to be the chain’s neck” as shopping trading, and the rest from £4bn loss last year, mostly due abandoned some time ago.” habits evolve. Management is post-trade services. Shares have to the fall in sterling. Deutsche Commerzbank strategist focusing on fi lling space with risen from 464.5p at the start Bank has bumped up its price Esther Maria Reichelt pizza restaurants and nail bars, of the year – “nothing wrong target but is wary of cash fl ow sounds a pessimistic note but short sellers are piling into with taking some profits”. targets and new accounting on the prospects for the dollar. Quoted in the FT the stock. Avoid. 42.75p. Sell. 647.5p. rules. Sell. 914.5p. Market summary

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

18 July 2017 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS 7,600 FTSE 100 7390.22 7329.76 0.82% RISES Price % change FTSE All-share UK 4046.36 4004.57 1.04% Antofagasta 884.50 +6.82 Dow Jones 21548.01 21396.97 0.71% BT Group 304.25 +5.79 7,500 NASDAQ 6326.15 6178.10 2.40% Ashtead Group 1631.00 +5.70 Nikkei 225 19999.91 20195.48 –0.97% Fresnillo 1526.00 +5.46 Hang Seng 26524.94 25877.64 2.50% Mediclinic Intl. 745.00 +5.08 7,400 Gold 1240.75 1211.05 2.45% FALLS Brent Crude Oil 48.77 47.62 2.41% Pearson 630.00 –3.82 7,300 DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.80% 3.83% Sky 967.00 –3.01 UK 10-year gilts yield 1.27 1.35 Royal Bank of Sctl.Gp. 250.90 –2.18 US 10-year Treasuries 2.26 2.37 BAE Systems 613.00 –2.15 7,200 UK ECONOMIC DATA Wolseley 4600.00 –2.04 Latest CPI (yoy) 2.6% (Jun) 2.9% (May) BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL Latest RPI (yoy) 3.5% (Jun) 3.7% (May) 7,100 Blue Star Capital 0.47 +88.00 Halifax house price (yoy) +2.6% (Jun) +3.3% (May) Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Terra Catalyst Fund 35.00 –64.65 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index £1 STERLING $1.303 E1.130 ¥146.020 Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 18 July (pm)

22 July 2017 THE WEEK 52 The last word Escaping Britain’s most closed community Haredi Jews are a devout, tight-knit people who cut themselves off from the secular world. So what happens when a Haredi starts asking awkward questions? Gabriel Pogrund met some who have left the community – and with it, everything they have ever known

For most, it would be an has strict laws on how to eat, unremarkable deed. But for speak, dress, pray and even Izzy, it was an act of rebellion have sex. The men are widely that changed his life forever. recognised for their black He walked into Tesco, bought overclothes, side-curls and long a ham sandwich and smuggled beards. This is a tradition it into the lavatory. Trembling rooted in the dress of noblemen with nervous excitement, he in 18th and 19th century took off his velvet skullcap and Eastern Europe, the home of sank his teeth into the soft religious Jews before the white≈bread. “I didn’t even like modern era. Women wear the taste, but it was such a modest clothes that cover their special moment,” says Izzy, 22, whole body, and conceal their his face beaming with a hair under wigs. mischievous smile. “I’d decided by this point I had to sin. I just Stamford Hill might look like had to. I was leaving my world any other place, but its and never coming back. It was red-brick homes and leafy back so emotional.” streets are home to a hermetically sealed society: a This wasn’t meant to happen. Izzy: broke with his religion, his family and his community 21st-century shtetl (Jewish Izzy grew up the eldest of ten village) with its own schools, siblings in the Haredi Jewish community of Stamford Hill, charities, ambulance service and police force, where these laws northeast London. Theirs is a closed society based on religious can be observed without interruption. Anyone who leaves this law and isolation from modern life. The world “Haredi” comes rigid structure faces the risk that their family, forever shamed by from the Hebrew for “to tremble” – before God, that is, not ham their apostasy, will never speak to them again: I learn during the sandwiches. Until recently, Izzy couldn’t speak English. To shut course of my interviews that some parents even observe Jewish out secular distractions, the particular Haredi sect to which his mourning rituals for their children, as though they’ve died. family belongs speaks Yiddish, bans mass media and mobile phones, and sends its children to illegal religious schools. This, in It’s not only the terror of facing up to one’s family that makes the London borough of leaving so difficult. It’s the Hackney. Like all his friends, pressure of the life cycle. In their Izzy should have married in his “When I left I’d never met a non-Jew, or late teens or early 20s, Haredi late teens and started a life of even read a non-Jewish book. I didn’t have Jews have arranged marriages full-time religious study, but in and start having children, by July 2015, after a long and a bank account or know what to wear” which point it’s typically too late tortuous struggle with his faith, to leave. The average birth rate he fi nally broke with all he’d ever known: fi rst God, then his is seven children, next to the UK national average of 1.82 births. loving family, and fi nally his community. High birth and low death rates mean this community is growing rapidly: half of all British Jewish children will be Haredi by 2031. Today, the only obvious trace of Izzy’s background is his Izzy’s way out was, he believes, his single status. “If you have a lingering Yiddish lilt. He’s shorn off the sidelocks and facial hair family to support, it’s almost impossible,” he says. “I was lucky, I that Haredi cultivate, and swapped the black-and-white garb for kept putting off marriage. ‘Not yet, not yet.’ That’s what saved jeans and a jumper. “When I left, I’d never met a non-Jew, or me.” Of course, whatever the context, going OTD is never simple. even read a non-Jewish book. I didn’t have a bank account, I Robert Bernard, a trustee at GesherEU, a charity that helps didn’t know what to wear. I had nothing,” he recalls. No fi gures Haredi Jews leave the community, says: “Everything they wear, exist on how many young adults defect to the secular world, or go everything they do all day, everything they do with their lives, is OTD – “off the derech”, which translates as “path”. Jewish governed by religion.” demographers say there is no research, but within the UK’s 50,000-strong Haredi community, the numbers are incredibly At the age of fi ve, most Haredi boys go to single-sex primary small. Haredi society is designed to prevent its members from schools that teach the Hebrew bible and, in some instances, speak fl irting with the outside world. only Yiddish. By their early teens, they study rabbinic literature full-time in big classrooms of perhaps 100 students. Some boys The Haredi world emerged in response to the Enlightenment in will take two or three GCSEs on the side – such as maths, general the 1800s – when Jews were freed from ghettos and allowed to studies or geography; subjects perceived to be reasonably light on mix with secular society – and later, the Holocaust. That genocide “dangerous” secular knowledge – but it’s not uncommon for led to a belief among Haredim that Jewish assimilation was so none to be taken at all. Many Haredi schools are unregistered, so harmful, it had led to a catastrophic punishment by God. They they don’t fall under Ofsted’s remit. In recent years, the resolved to follow the Torah (Hebrew Bible) and the Talmud Government has tried to shut these schools down – there are an (Jewish law) to the letter and reject secular ideas and culture. estimated 20 in Hackney alone – but they are difficult to identify, Haredi Jews believe their piety will hasten the arrival of the and if closed, others crop up elsewhere. As soon as boys fi nish

Messiah and, ultimately, the redemption of humanity. Every sect school, they attend yeshiva – a religious seminary – in either © NEWS SYNDICATION

THE WEEK 22 July 2017 The last word 53

England, Israel or the US, where they the Oxford University of Haredi pore over Jewish law and debate seminaries, but ironically, it gave rabbinic literature in extraordinary him the space to rebel. At detail. They then get married, have Gateshead, he had access to a kids and spend the rest of their lives library far richer than anything at studying in adult seminaries. home. The rabbis tried to prevent him going intellectually off piste, but Girls are not obliged to study Jewish it was too late. When word got out law, so they get to do more low- about Izzy’s ham sandwich, it sent priority secular education, such as shock waves through the college. Key Stage 3 and GCSEs. Topics such Izzy became a pariah. His friends as sexual education and evolution are even burnt his belongings. omitted. Once married, girls will stop “Rumours spread because I had told their education and start fulfilling the one of my friends. I thought he’d biblical commandment to be fruitful keep the secret. They went into my and multiply. Many are room, found all my books and made breadwinners as well as housewives; Members of the Hasidic community in Stamford Hill a bonfire of them in the courtyard.” their husbands have to study. Almost all employment is within the community, so women might work Rabbis at the college and his home community got together, in childcare, schooling or a local shop. Poverty is common: informed his family, and funded a trip to Israel to try to bring him joblessness and low pay means many families rely on the charity back into the fold. There, a specialist rabbi spent six weeks of wealthy Jewish individuals, or on state handouts. As such, and ferrying Izzy to different spiritual guides and “psychologists”. On at the behest of local rabbis, many Haredi Jews vote Labour. several occasions, he was told he was mad. Despite calls from his Much of the appeal of this world lies in its certainty: Jewish law parents, threats and tears, the tour proved futile. Izzy remembers: covers almost every aspect of life, and where it doesn’t – say, you “They were crying, crying, crying. I told them, ‘It’s serious, I’m want to know who to vote for, or who to marry – your rabbi will considering leaving.’ They asked me to promise I wouldn’t. I said, provide the answer. ‘I really, really don’t believe in it. I can’t.’”

The warmth and joy of this tight-knit community is magnetic. Going OTD is even more difficult for young women. Rachel, 27, Whether it’s the singing of psalms at the dinner table, walking left the Gateshead Haredi community in her late teens. Now, she to synagogue on a Saturday morning, grandpa’s old Yiddish lives with her boyfriend in north London and works as a teacher jokes, or grandmother’s gefilte fi sh, tradition and family are at a local primary school. She looks back in astonishment at some everything. Gossip spreads fast. To borrow an old rabbinic tale, of the practices common in her old community. “A person I knew rumours here are like a cloud of goose feathers ripped from a used to pour cold water onto noodles because it was a waste of pillow: impossible to return. Between home, school and the Torah-learning time to boil the kettle.” She says the arbitrary synagogue, everyone is frantically busy with godly or family gender roles were the biggest factor behind her departure. “As a business. So enticing is this lifestyle that every year hundreds of girl, I battled with my role and my place. On certain festivals, my secular Jews become baal teshuva – “master of repentance” – family said I wasn’t allowed to sing. On certain festivals, I wasn’t and join the Haredi community. even allowed to speak.” Haredi women are doubly bound, fi rst to God and second to their father or husband. “My rabbi said But the pressures to conform are extreme. Any misbehaviour is everyone had a big test in life and mine was my quest for potentially “heretical”, whether knowledge,” she recounts. “He it’s wearing the wrong kind of explained men didn’t want study skullcap or reading a secular “A person I knew used to pour cold water partners, they wanted wives.” newspaper. Jacob, 24, left his onto noodles because it was a waste of Around the same period, Rachel Haredi community in 2014. went to a teacher with a sincere “Growing up, I’d ask about a Torah-learning time to boil the kettle” problem. “I asked her, ‘Why theological problem or how a should I pray? If it’s right for particular thing could be proved. The rabbi would scream, me, God will deliver it anyway.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Epikoros (heretic)!’ If you did anything that suggested you were ‘Women are meant to do, not understand.’” For Rachel, it felt like thinking in a different way, they’d get angry,” he says. “They’d a punch in the gut. She didn’t want to offend God, but she did freeze you out.” Jacob began smuggling books under his clothes want answers: why can’t women study? Why are gentiles inferior from the local library to read at home. “I vividly recall hiding the to Jews? Why can’t I read secular books? books under my pillow and reading them in the dark,” he says. At one point, the rabbis threatened Jacob with expulsion on fi nding Izzy made his fi nal break during his supposedly redemptive tour him reading a football magazine. One of the hardest things about of Israel. Using a phone he had been given by a moderately less going OTD, he says, is catching up with all the missed cultural religious classmate in Gateshead, he contacted Mavar, a references. “Hilariously, I’m still getting through the Disney Hertfordshire-based charity that supports Haredi Jews leaving the fi lms,” he says. “There are plenty of things from the 1990s or community, and they found him a host family in north London. 2000s I’ll simply never get.” That was September 2015. Since then, he has relocated to a student fl at in north London, taught himself to speak fl uent Izzy, too, was intellectually rebellious from a young age. He English, and taken catch-up courses for people who missed out on recalls: “I got hit almost on a daily basis at school. Each teacher a conventional education. He says his proudest achievement was had a stick and would hit me for not listening. Corporal punish- getting his GCSE results at the age of 21: an A* in science, A* in ment was the norm, but as the nonconformist child of my class, maths and a B in English. “It was an amazing feeling,” he recalls. I got it the worst. By my teens, I was asking more sophisticated “I’d always worked hard in yeshiva, but never got anywhere. questions. I loved God, absolutely, but I was desperate for Here I am and I’ve studied for a year and I’m getting diplomas.” knowledge. I couldn’t understand: if all non-Haredi Jews were Recently, Izzy won a place to study philosophy and physics at stupid and evil, how did Einstein exist?” Asking a question like Bristol University. I ask if he ever regrets going through the pain this is like throwing a Molotov cocktail into a silent library. The of leaving. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I’m my own person.” reaction was explosive. “I was bullied. People talked about me behind my back, they called me a heretic. It was awful.” Aged 16, A longer version of this article fi rst appeared in The Sunday Times Izzy enrolled at Gateshead Talmudical College. The institution is © The Sunday Times/News Syndication.

22 July 2017 THE WEEK

Crossword 55

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1065 This week’sw crossword winner will receive An Ettinger Brogue Collection key case and two Connell Guides will be given to the an EttingerEtt (www.ettinger.co.uk) Brogue sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday CollectionCollec 4-hook key case, which retails 31 July. Send it to: The Week Crossword 1065, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or at £125,£12 and two Connell Guides (www. connellguides.com).connel email the answers to [email protected]. Tim Moorey (www.timmoorey.info) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ACROSS DOWN 8 A brightness develops around 1 Submarine has list under highest 8 March in short breaks (9,6) part of vessel (6,4) 9 A party with colour is to be 2 No gentleman on paper turned cherished (6) up for protected troops (8) 10 Careless chums turning over 3 Pig outside used to have tail (6) 9 10 front part of car (8) 4 Reports heard or herd in Africa 11 County to which people perhaps (4) retire? (4) 5 Lady bound up in original sin (4) 12 Part of watch concerned with 6 Shoot at it and you’ll probably 11 12 13 14 15 securing Middle East lake (10) miss (6) 16 Does two jobs, working at a 7 Good Queen gives to women piece for piano (9,6) escaping (4) 19 Flowers given by northern town 13 PM some Labour henchman 16 17 18 for London district (10) put up (5) 22 Gin some knocked back (4) 14 Character next to tee (3) 23 Doctor misses lots of syrupy 15 Withdrawal of touching drawing (10) stuff (8) 19 20 21 22 27 Look up this in composition, 17 What bouncers have shown loud rather than quiet (6) in midsummer (3) 28 Poll tree in fall, eg once fine 18 Memo about leave? Only leaves lost (7,8) just (3,5) 20 Ass attached to beer without 23 24 25 26 27 head (6) 21 Middle East country housing last of refugees? They never say no (3-3) 28 24 Sign in Ladies “No Entry”! (4) 25 Family banned shocking, coarse tobacco (4) 26 Flight segment: time’s taken up in one short month (4) Name Address Clue of the week: Detective’s behind convenience store (4,5 last Tel no letters N & S) The Guardian, Picaroon Clue of the week answer:

Solution to Crossword 1063 ACROSS: 1 At heart 5 Uglier 8 Calling the shots 10 Osteal 11 Slattern Subscribe to today for just £2.16 per 13 Stalwart 15 Otago 17 Napes 19 Turnover 22 Ignorant 23 Escort issue – saving over £58 on the annual UK shop price. 26 Service industry 27 Gnosis 28 Steered DOWN: 1 Anchor 2 Holst 3 Abigail 4 Togo 5 Upholstery 6 Lesotho 7 Exonerate 9 Send on 12 Eastenders 14 Tip-and-run 16 Gneiss 18 Sorties Your subscription will start with 6 trial issues. You can cancel your subscription 20 Obscure 21 Stayed 24 Outer 25 Gnus at any time during the first six weeks and we’ll refund your money in full. Clue of the Week: No, it is opposition also from the east that makes this! YES! I would like to subscribe to The Week with 6 TRIAL ISSUES. (10, first 3 letters PAL) Nn Solution: PALINDROME (“no it is opposition” is a palindrome) PLEASE COMPLETE FORM IN BLOCK CAPITALS

The winner of 1063 is D. Magor from Hoylake TITLE FORENAME

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Registered as a newspaper with the Royal Mail. Printed by Wyndeham Bicester. Distributed by Seymour Distribution. Subscriptions: 0330-333 9494; [email protected]. 22 July 2017 THE WEEK Who’s in the driving seat - that’s the

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