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Thelast HOHOWTOW AngelaMerrkkelel hero of BABAGGAA headsfor Telemark BIBILLLLIOIONAAIREIRE theexit OBITUARIES P45 LAST WOW RD P56P56 MAINSTORIES P2P2 3NTHOVEMBER 2018 |ISSUE 1200 |£EW3.80 THE BESTOFTHE BRITISHEEK AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Green’sdisgrace Theshaming of atycoon Page 20 ALL YOUNEED TO KNOWABOUT EVERYTHING THATMATTERS www.theweek.co.uk 2 NEWS The main stories… What happened What the editorials said With this Budget, “Eeyore” transformed himself into The giveaway Budget “Feel-good Phil”, said the Daily Mail. There were jokes Philip Hammond declared this week that and cash pledges aplenty, and some excellent Britain’s era of austerity was “finally coming new policies, including atax on hard-to-recycle to an end”, as he unveiled the biggest giveaway plastic packaging, higher duty on online Budget since the Tories came to power in 2010. gaming, an “end to ruinous PFI contracts” and Buoyed by a£13bn annual windfall from apackage of measures to help high streets. The better-than-expected tax receipts and borrowing long-overdue levy on tech giants’ UK revenue, forecasts, the Chancellor announced plans to which will potentially raise £400m, was boost funding for strained public services, and to particularly welcome, said The Sun. We would bring forward income tax cuts and increases in have preferred Hammond to have announced the national living wage. But in aclear warning afew more radical low-tax measures. “But to Eurosceptics, Hammond insisted that these that gripe aside, what was not to like?” spending commitments were dependent on the UK securing aBrexit deal with the EU, a All this extra spending was made possible sentiment he later softened. by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said The Independent, which offered The biggest beneficiary of the Budget is the Feel-good Phil: “a gamble”? Hammond a£13bn windfall by revising its NHS, which is set to receive £20.5bn ayear of projections. Hammond could have banked this extra funding. Hammond also announced another £1.7bn money to reduce the deficit, but he chose to spend it instead. ayear to smooth the introduction of universal credit; extra He’s taking “an Augustinian stance”, said the FT: “Let me be cash for defence, roads and schools; and cuts to business rates virtuous but not quite yet.” The result will be yet more cash for smaller high street shops to help them cope with online for the health service, said The Daily Telegraph. In 2000, the competition. In addition, he unveiled some revenue-raising NHS accounted for 23% of public service spending; by 2024, measures, including anew “digital services tax” aimed at big that will have risen to 38%. We must hope the new money tech platforms such as Google and Amazon (see page 49). is well spent, but past experience suggests it won’t be. What happened What the editorials said Merkel’s long farewell Europe is going to miss Merkel, said the FT. Under her leadership, the continent’s most powerful nation has been “a Angela Merkel has signalled the end of strong and stabilising influence”. Indeed, the an era in German politics by announcing ten years since the financial crisis have shown she will not stand for chancellor at the that little can be achieved without Berlin’s next elections, in 2021. Merkel, who has consent or support. Merkel has her critics, said led Germany for the past 13 years, also The New York Times. Some think her refusal said she would be quitting as leader of the to cut Greece any slack when it was on the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). ropes was excessive, and her decision to admit Her decision was prompted by the CDU’s more than amillion migrants in 2015 proved disastrous performance in elections in the highly divisive. But she is still “one of the most state of Hesse, where its share of the vote remarkable Western leaders” of her epoch. It fell to 27.9%, down 11 points from the isn’t eloquence or charisma that marks her previous regional election, in 2013. Merkel out: it’s her calm attachment to stability. At said the result was a“turning point”, and “Mutti”: calm attachment to stability atime when strident populism is on the rise, that it was time to “open anew chapter”. “Mutti” Merkel exemplifies the sober values of her Lutheran background: “moderation” and “decency.” The Hesse election brought more bad news for Merkel’s coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which Merkel had to go, said Die Zeit. After the electoral debacle recorded its worst showing since 1946, down 11 points to in Hesse, her position was untenable. The result showed 19.8% from 2013. Many voters switched support to the how in recent years she has lost touch with ordinary CDU Greens or to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), members, by sacrificing the party’s core conservative values which tripled its vote to 13%. to political pragmatism. Now she has paid the price. The Galápagos Islands are not Two teenagers from asouth It wasn’t all bad the remote wilderness many take Wales valley have just bought William Morris’s country home them to be. They contain 317 the screen rights to aStephen is to be saved from dilapidation hotels and attract 245,000 visitors King story –for just $1. Alfie by a£4.3m lottery grant. ayear. But now acrowdfunding Evans, 16, and Cerys Cliff, 14, Kelmscott Manor, a16th campaign has ensured that a from Tredegar, are writing the century estate in the Cotswolds, 568-acre site on San Cristóbal, the script for, and filming, Stationary was the designer‘s idyllic retreat island where Charles Darwin first Bike;itwill be shot in Tredegar from 1871 until his death in went ashore on his visit in 1835, and make use of local actors. 1896. Its wild flowers and trees will be saved from development. The teenagers are benefiting inspired his wallpaper designs; The site was reportedly being from ascheme devised by King, his novel News from Nowhere eyed by hotel developers, but to let young people make films features afictionalised version conservationists raised £1.35m for festival release based on of it. The grant will enable the online to create the new his work. Aprevious beneficiary owners, the Society of Galápagos Nature Reserve and was Frank Darabont, director of Antiquaries of London, to carry help protect –among others –the The Shawshank Redemption:he out repairs to the house and endangered Galápagos petrel, the began his career by adapting a renovate the gardens. blue-footed booby (pictured) and the renowned giant tortoises. King story when he was 24. COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 3November 2018 …and how they were covered NEWS 3 What the commentators said What next? The Chancellor had three tasks in this week’s Budget, said Francis Elliott in The Times. He The UK will benefit from a needed to “add credibility to Theresa May’s promise that austerity is over; to buy support for “double dividend” if adeal aBrexit deal; and to hose down the fiercest fires licking at the Government’s slender majority”. is agreed with Brussels next By and large, he pulled it off. Unlike most recent Budgets, which have started falling apart spring, Hammond told MPs. within hours of delivery, Hammond’s Budget has so far “stayed pretty ravelled”, said Not only will the economy John Rentoul in The Independent. The plethora of spending announcements closed off benefit from aboost to every line of attack for Labour, which was reduced to complaining that “it’s not enough”. confidence, he said, but he’ll be free to spend the The Budget may win May some “short-term political advantage”, said Peter Oborne in the £15bn set aside as a“fiscal Daily Mail. But by undermining the Tories’ reputation for fiscal responsibility and encouraging buffer” against ano-deal exit. an ill-advised “spending arms race with Labour”, it could exact aheavy price in the longer term. The promise of an end to austerity is certainly “a hostage to fortune”, said Alex Massie The Institute for Fiscal in The Spectator. Once you strip out the boost for the NHS –which is set to account for £84bn Studies (IFS) warned that of the extra £103bn spending between now and 2023 –the reality is that most departments will Hammond had taken “a bit still be left “having to do more with less”. The extra money for defence won’t make up for of agamble” with the public earlier cuts. Nor, “almost certainly”, will the new money for universal credit be enough. finances. The independent think tank pointed out that The NHS pledge aside, the sums on offer are “hilariously small”, said Jonn Elledge in the the OBR could revise its New Statesman. The £400m set aside for schools, for instance, amounts to only £10,000 per forecasts downwards next primary school and £50,000 per secondary. That’s not going to make much difference at atime year, upsetting Hammond’s when many cash-strapped schools have been forced to close on Friday afternoons. Nor will the calculations. The IFS reckons £420m for patching up potholes go far. In spending terms, these pledges are “more like there’s aone-in-three chance thimbles than pots”, agreed Jane Merrick in The Independent. But with Brexit looming on the of the forecasts for the horizon, Hammond lacks the freedom to engage in much more than “tokenistic” gestures. As public finances deteriorating he suggested at the weekend, he’ll be forced to return with an emergency Budget in the spring significantly over the next if the UK crashes out of the EU without adeal. Britain, for now, is stuck in a“holding pattern”.