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Thursday August 20 2026 | thetimes.com | No 75116

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Emma Barnett Why I had a hysterectomy

Killer hits The best and worst Bond themes

Mahmood: Wealthy areas must take fair share of asylum seekers

Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor

Shabana Mahmood has said that she wants to implement a 'fairer spread' of asylum accommodation as the government prepares to house more migrants in wealthy areas.

In an interview with The Times, the home secretary said the government wanted a 'mixed model', which

included large military sites, medium-sized buildings such as old student flats, and dispersal housing such as bedside and homes of multiple occupancy. She said that it would take time but would ensure 'no one type of community is bearing the brunt'.

Asked what message she would send to residents living next to the new sites, Mahmood, whose constituency is

Birmingham Ladywood, said: 'In a way it doesn't really matter whether you're in an affluent part of the country or in a more deprived constituency like mine.'

'A change in the population, the demographic and in the housing in which asylum seekers are often housed and the transient nature of that population does have an impact on communities... I understand that these are things

that worry people and I get where they're coming from ... the issues aren't that different to people who I represent in my patch.'

She added: 'You've got to get a fair spread and what we are doing with the new model of asylum accommodation, and the future of asylum accommodation, is think carefully about how you have a fair spread that doesn't end up

being in one community or one type of community.'

Yesterday, the Home Office published guidance for asylum seekers warning them not to rape or sexually harass people after a series of attacks. The document also said women were allowed to 'make their own decisions'.

Ministers are said to be considering Continued on page 2

Vaccine for skin cancer helps fight off disease

Success could lead to more tailor-made treatments

Rhys Blakely Science Editor

The success of a cancer vaccine personalised for each patient in a large final-stage trial has been hailed 'a pivotal moment' in the fight against the disease.

The experimental vaccine, Intsimeran, was given to patients with high-risk melanoma, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer, after surgery.

Moderna and Merck, the companies behind the trial, said it extended significantly the time that patients remained cancer-free and also reduced the risk of tumours spreading to other organs when accompanied by Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug already prescribed by the NHS for a dozen forms of the disease.

The results raised hopes that a new generation of tailor-made treatments could extend the lives of patients suffering from a range of cancers.

Moderna and Merck are already testing similar personalised vaccines for lung, bladder and kidney cancers. Jabs, developed by BioNTech, are also being trialled on British patients for colon and pancreatic cancer.

Lung cancer trials have reached the final stage 3 phase, while kidney and bladder studies are in phase 2. The hope is that the technology can work across many tumour types.

The melanoma vaccine could be available to skin cancer patients as soon as next year if regulators approve the treatment.

NHS data for England suggests that if

melanoma reaches stage 4, only about a quarter of patients survive for five years. However, those figures do not fully reflect new treatments that have improved outcomes. The disease claims about 2,600 lives in total each year.

Stephane Bancel, the Moderna chief executive, said that the latest results marked 'a pivotal moment for the field of cancer research'.

He added: 'For years, the idea of creating an mRNA treatment designed specifically for an individual patient's cancer was aspirational. We are now helping turn that vision into a reality.'

Professor Marco Gerlinger, of the Barts Cancer Institute, said: 'I think it is fair to call it a breakthrough as it is the first phase 3 study that shows that a vaccine can protect against recurrences of one of the deadliest cancer types'.

The reaction of investors was instant. Shares in Moderna closed 173 per cent higher in New York yesterday.

More than 1,000 patients took part in the phase 3 trial after having melanomas surgically removed. The patients had high-risk stage 2, 3 or 4 melanoma, meaning they ranged from having large but localised tumours to cancers that had spread to other parts of the body.

Although the companies have not released detailed results, they said the study showed the treatment improved recurrence-free survival and prevented the cancer from spreading.

The vaccine uses mRNA, a technology that became well known through Continued on page 4

Long to rain over us The Queen on a visit to York Races yesterday as parts of the UK enjoyed some much-needed showers Weather, page 50; Racing, page 52

Royal return: Harry and Meghan are moving back

Charlotte Alt Kate Mansey Assistant Editor

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to move back to Britain later this month with their children, it has emerged.

The family intend to relocate from their home in Montecito, California, to a private, non-royal residence thought to be outside of London. Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, are enrolled to start at a British school in September.

It is understood that the King was informed of the move on Sunday and is said to welcome the chance to see more of the Sussex family in a private and personal capacity. The Prince and Princess of Wales have also been informed.

The King is clear that the duke and duchess's status as non-working royals and private individuals, in keeping with their previously expressed wishes, will remain unchanged.

The security arrangements of Harry, 41, and Meghan, 45, have not been disclosed but there has been no announcement of any change.

The couple are expected to retain their homes in Montecito and Portugal and the duchess will continue to run her lifestyle brand, As Ever, from the UK, according to The Sun, which broke the story.

The decision to return to the UK comes more than six years after the couple quit royal duties and moved abroad, agreeing not to use their HRH titles. After moving to the US, the duke and duchess made a series of allegations about their life as part of the royal family, including suggesting that senior royals were racist by asking questions about the colour of their unborn son's skin.

The duke has started rebuilding bridges with his father. Last month Harry, Meghan and their children were hosted by the King and Queen at Highgrove, Charles's Gloucestershire home, for a 'private family occasion'. However, Harry's relationship with his brother, William, remains fractured. The pair are not thought to have spoken for years. King welcomes move, page 9

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Thursday August 20 2026 | THE TIMES

News

Today's highlights

• 7.35am Nevil Muncaster, a director at Thames Water
• 8.35am Georgia Gould, the school standards minister
• 10.30am The Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Joby Warrick on his new book about Carlos the Jackal
• 1.20pm Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator at Ofqual
• 1.30pm The comedian John Tothill, right, on his show from the Edinburgh Fringe

TODAY'S EDITION

BEACH BATTLES Italian resorts fight to stop private clubs taking over

PAGE 20

CALLED OUT Can Nick Kyrgios find a way back after cocaine ban?

PAGE 51

DIANA'S STORY Why Earl Spencer is still haunted by his sister's death

PAGES 6-8

COMMENT 21 LETTERS 24 LEADING ARTICLES 25

WORLD 26 BUSINESS 31 REGISTER 45

SPORT 51 CROSSWORD 60 TV & RADIO TIMES2

Special investigation: On the line — Mike's story

Mike started selling drugs when he was just a teenager. After being arrested and stabbed, he left that life behind. Today he shares his story. This is episode four of a five-part special investigation into county lines drug dealing.

Available on the Times Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts

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Crackdown on GCSE resits to end 'treadmill of failure'

Nicola Woolcock Education Editor

The education secretary has pledged to crack down on the "pernicious" system of GCSE resits that leaves hundreds of thousands of teenagers locked out of continuing their education each year.

Lucy Powell said she wanted to end the rest! "treadmill of failure" of maths and English GCSEs and would revisit the recent curriculum review to tackle the problem. She spoke to The Times before 650,000 teenagers receive their GCSE results today.

Each year about 200,000 teenagers in England fail to achieve a grade of at least 4 (formerly a C) in both core subjects and must do not pass on their second and subsequent attempts. Passing GCSE English and maths is often a condition for starting further education or apprenticeships.

Powell said she wanted to stop the "conveyor belt" of resits. Instead, more of those who receive a 2 or below are expected to be steered towards stepping-stone qualifications so they can show their numeracy and literacy skills to employers and colleges. Those who pass the new qualifications, known as Level 1s, can build up to GCSE resits.

Her department will also look again at last year's curriculum and assessment review, commissioned by her predecessor, Bridget Phillipson, and written by the education academic Becky Francis, to see if its recommendations could be developed to alter the system.

This would overhaul reforms introduced in 2014 by Michael Gove when he was education secretary, which scrapped many vocational qualifications. At the time Gove decreed the "soft bigotry of low expectations" for those from less-alliance background. He wrote in The Times last month that Andy Burnham's attitude was "being back stupid", describing it as anti-intellectual and hostile to ambition.

The government hopes that a focus on vocational education from 14, set out by the prime minister last month, will help those trapped in resits.

About a million lts to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, known as Neets. Those who fail English and maths are often required to rest them as a condition of funding for further education or apprenticeships.

Last summer, only 17 per cent of those resitting maths and 21 per cent of those resitting English passed.

Powell said that GCSEs must be a "passport to the future" for every child but that GCSE results day highlighted "one of the most pernicious examples of the education system setting kids up for a cycle of failure: the number constantly resitting English and maths".

She said new qualifications below GCSEs would give teenagers a pathway that helped them rather than being "thrown straight back in". Burnham wants greater devolution of education in England and for areas to emulate the "Manchester baccalaureate" developed during his time there as mayor, whereby teenagers take a combination of GCSEs and vocational qualifications.

Powell said reform of teaching and qualifications would ensure there were clearer pathways for 14 to 19-year-olds. She said: "Some of that sits in the context of the Alan Milburn review [into young people and work] and one thing that comes through quite strongly is the treadmill of failure of GCSE English and maths. It's a humster wheel with many young people constantly being branded a failure... It leads to a debilitating loss of confidence."

Politics, pages 6-7 Passion for learning, letters, page 24

Cherie Blair's warning over jails plan

Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor

Andy Burnham's plans to ease the overcrowding crisis in prisons threaten female prisoners, Lady Blair has warned.

In a letter to The Times, she criticised the prime minister for suggesting last week that the government could make greater use of the women's prison estate to free up space in men's prisons. She said that women risked becoming "collateral damage" in the government's efforts to tackle overcrowded jails.

Men's prisons are now 98 per cent full, with spare capacity of only 1,783 places, while women's prisons are running at 91 per cent capacity, according to the latest statistics published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

Burnham has asked the MoJ to consider releasing more female prisoners as part of a three-strand approach to prevent the government having to release dangerous criminals such as PC Andrew Harper's killers.

Speaking about the work last week, Burnham said this would include the option of "making greater use of the entire prison estate including using the female estate for male offenders".

It is unclear whether this would lead to men and women serving in the same prison at the same time — albeit with strict separation — or whether male prisoners would only be transferred to the female estate once all women had been released or transferred.

Blair, a barrister and the wife of Sir

Tony Blair, said either proposal was disappointing and warned that the plans "risk solving the crisis in men's prisons at the expense of women".

She said closing women's prisons would mean women being moved further from their families. There are 12 women's prisons in England and none in Wales, which means families face long journeys to visit female prisoners.

Blair said that a better solution would be to stop imprisoning so many women in the first place.

The MoJ said: "We are exploring how we can make better use of the women's estate to help fit the crisis in our prisons ... However, we are clear we will never jeopardise the safety of women."

Letter, page 24

Energy bills forecast to hit three-year high this winter

Martin Strydom Business News Editor Jack Barnett Economics Correspondent

Household energy prices are set to increase to the highest level for three years heading into the winter, according to new forecasts.

Prices were due to rise despite the prime minister's plan to remove VAT from household electricity bills from October, Cornwall Insight said in its latest forecast for the energy price cap.

The prediction came as UK inflation rose to its highest level since the beginning of the war in the Middle East, driven by a surge in energy bills.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday that prices rose by 2.9 per cent in the year to July, up from 2.6 per cent in June.

A 13 per cent rise in the Ofgem price cap to 13,862 took effect in July, pushing up the consumer prices index (CPI). It was the first time that the Ofgem price cap had taken into account the surge in global oil and gas prices caused by the United States and Israel's war with Iran, which began on February 28. Cornwall Insight expected the cap to increase by

a further 4 per cent in October to the steepest level since July 2023.

John Healey, the chancellor, said that the conflict in the Gulf "continues to impact prices here at home, but Britain's economy is resilient".

Further pain may be in store for households, with inflation on course to exceed 3 per cent in the second half of the year and broadly to stay at that level for several months.

Mike Hardie, deputy director for prices at the ONS, said: "Inflation rose in July, driven by a sharp increase in gas prices following this month's change to the energy price cap. This was the largest rise in gas prices for almost four years".

The Bank of England, which is required to keep inflation at 2 per cent over the medium term, has held the base rate at 3.75 per cent since December. Investors think there is a chance of a rate rise before the end of the year, especially if there are further flare-ups in the Iran war.

The government must tackle the debt by cutting the welfare bill, leading article, page 25; Business, page 34

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Asylum seekers

raising caps on how much the Home Office can pay private landlords. The caps have been blamed for the unequal spread of asylum seekers.

Mahmood also revealed she was in talks with France to make the one-in, one-out deal permanent after the temporary pilot scheme ends in October. A total of 1,087 migrants have been deported to France under the scheme — less than 4 per cent of small boat arrivals — while 1,117 asylum seekers have been transferred to the UK.

She said the £660 million deal she struck with France in April was "already making a difference" to boat seizures and was one of the reasons smugglers were resorting to using "mega-dinghies" to cross the Channel. Last week a 15-metre boat formed 230 migrants to the UK.

She was speaking to The Times during a visit to Coldsbrook immigration removal centre at Heathrow airport.

The Home Office has published figures showing 10,286 foreign citizens with no right to be in the UK have been returned since Labour took power two years ago, although only a quarter were failed asylum seekers. As of March there were 97,519 asylum seekers living in taxpayer-funded accommodation. Booklet warns rape is a crime, page 10

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THE TIMES | Thursday August 20 2026

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News

Trouble tees off at royals’ golf club

General manager who left after claims of ‘a lack of deference’ to the board is fighting back, writes David Brown

The manicured fairways of Richmond Golf Club have traditionally offered an escape from the pressures of Westminster, film sets and royal duties, but the departure of the club’s long-serving general manager has driven a wedge between its 700 members.

Some players believe the ruling board punished John Maguire for allegedly showing a ‘lack of deference’ to it.

Maguire lost not only his job but also his tied family home which is alongside the imposing clubhouse, a Georgian Palladian-style mansion built for John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll in Sudbrook Park, southwest London.

The board denies wrongdoing and says the departure was part of a “man-

agement restructure”. A motion of no confidence in the club’s directors was defeated after a special meeting. Maguire has filed an employment tribunal claim for constructive dismissal, which is being challenged by the club.

Richmond Golf Club has had close links to parliament since its founding in 1891. Its original members included Arthur Balfour, a future prime minister, and three lord chancellors. The future George VI served as club captain in 1924, and his wife, later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, remained patron until her death in 2002. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, a keen golfer, served as patron from 2006 until relinquishing the role after being stripped of his royal titles.

Since 1969 the site has also been home to the Stage Golfing Society, which was founded in 1903. Its former presidents include Sir Laurence Olivier, Bernard Cribbins, Ronnie Corbett and Eric Sykes. The golf club has a reported £7,000 joining fee and an annual membership charge of about £1,000.

The concerns of Maguire’s supporters are focused on William Carey-

John Maguire, with his wife Rebecca, was the long-serving general manager at the exclusive Richmond Golf Club, where the future George VI, below, served as club captain. Tamsin Loke, far left, with her husband, Robert Hunter, was a director

Evans, 64, who was chairman of the board when the restructuring became public, and Tamsin Loke, 61, who was a fellow director.

Loke was elected the first woman club captain in 2021. Her husband, Robert Hunter, 65, is a retired golf professional at another club and was elected to Richmond’s management committee to oversee the condition of the course.

As the club’s general manager, Maguire traditionally decided when players should switch from “winter rules”, which allow for weather conditions, to the standard “summer rules”. His supporters claim Loke complained to the board in 2024 that Maguire failed to take her husband’s advice into account regarding the change.

The club says the complaint was dismissed. She also allegedly complained that Maguire did not co-operate sufficiently with a “pro-am” tournament hosted by Richmond. The club says that complaint was also dismissed.

Records of the special meet-

ing in October last year show members condemning the restructuring decision that put Maguire at risk of redundancy without consultation.

Baron Lee of Trafford, 84, a Liberal Democrat peer, asked whether the board “could have handled the situation better”.

Carey-Evans insisted Maguire was offered a “generous settlement” and “favourable terms regarding his accommodation”. He maintained that “the

board’s actions have been in the best interests of the club”.

Jeffrey Picton, 67, the club’s finance director, “rejected any suspicion that the board was seeking unfettered authority”. He asked members to “understand the board acted with integrity and in accordance with the HR and legal advice throughout”. About 69 per cent of voting members backed the board’s position on the restructuring.

A lawyer for Loke said Carey-Evans confirmed the management restructuring was conducted by a small team, which “did not include Loke in any capacity”. The lawyer said Loke’s complaints about Maguire “had no impact whatsoever”.

A lawyer for the club said there was “no link” between Maguire’s departure and Loke, and that the club “strongly disputes” Maguire’s claim and has filed its grounds of resistance. It is understood that Loke later resigned as a director for unconnected reasons.

Maguire, now general manager at a club in Kent, declined to comment.

Fastest star in galaxy puts a new spin on secret of black holes

Rhys Blakely Science Editor

Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, a celestial speedster that promises to reveal some of the secrets of the invisible black hole lurking at the centre of the Milky Way.

The star, known as S301, is locked in a tight orbit around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.

At its closest approach it is travelling at about 56 million mph, relative to the black hole — roughly 100,000 times faster than a passenger plane and more than 8 per cent of the speed of light.

It completes a circuit about every 8.7 years and swoops closer to Sagittarius A* than any star previously observed, passing at roughly the distance between Saturn and the Sun.

Its extreme orbit makes S301 a remarkably useful object, astronomers said. They should be able to use it to reveal how fast Sagittarius A* — the name is pronounced “Sagittarius A star” — is spinning, a motion that is thought to be taking place but which has so far eluded measurement.

Black holes cannot be seen directly, but the massive gravitational forces they wield announce their presence.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, a rotating black hole will drag the fabric of space and time around with it.

If a star passes close enough, that dragging should alter its orbit very slightly. The effect, known as frame dragging or a Lense-Thirring precession, should be unusually strong for S301 because of how close it gets. By measuring these tiny changes, astronomers hope to calculate both the speed and direction of the black hole’s spin for the first time.

“With this star we hope to measure, within the next ten years, the spin of the

black hole,” said Felix Mang, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany and a co-author of the new study, which has been published in Nature.

Stefan Gillessen, another co-author of the study based at the institute, added: “For the first time, we would actually be able to measure very directly the spin of a massive black hole, which would be a key test of Einstein’s theory.”

S301 is a faint star, thought to be about one and a half times the mass of the Sun.

However, its orbit is extraordinary. It is sharply stretched rather than close to

circular, carrying it deep into the black hole’s gravitational grip. The research team found it using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile, which combines data collected by four eight-metre telescopes to achieve sharp observations of the crowded centre of the galaxy.

Scientists suspect that S301 was once one half of a binary star system that strayed too close to Sagittarius A*. The black hole’s gravity would have ripped the pair of stars apart, trapping S301 in its current orbit while hurling its companion away at enormous speed.

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News

Green grass of home The Spitfire memorial garden in Paignton, Devon, established by the widow of Flight Lieutenant Frederick Ernest Denston. A plaque in the garden tells how the fighter pilot saw the nearby coastline from the air before D-Day and vowed that if he survived the war he would retire to Torbay, which he did

Quintagram® No 2651

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1 Early form of sonar (5)

2 Francis of Assisi, eg (5)

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	A	A	A	C	C	D	D	E
F	F	F	H	I	I	I	I	I
M	N	N	O	O	O	O	R	R
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Solutions see T2 MindGames p15 Cryptic clues T2 MindGames p14

Murder inquiry after fire

A murder investigation is under way after a 48-year-old woman died and eight others were hurt after a fire at a property in Hounslow early yesterday, the Metropolitan Police said. The woman died in hospital, while another woman, aged 40, was in a life-threatening condition. Six men and one woman were later discharged with minor injuries. Detective Chief Inspector Neil John, who is leading the investigation, said the fire “may have been started deliberately”.

Tailor-made treatments for cancer

Continued from page 1

Covid vaccines. Unlike conventional vaccines, which are usually designed to prevent infection, the cancer treatment is made individually for each patient. After surgery, scientists analyse a sample of the tumour to identify mutations unique to its cancer cells.

They then encode selected targets into strands of mRNA, producing a vaccine designed to teach the immune system — particularly cancer-killing T cells — to recognise and attack any tumour cells that remain. Manufacturing each dose takes about six weeks. Patients begin treatment with Keytruda while their personalised vaccine is prepared.

Earlier results from a smaller study found the combination reduced the risk of melanoma returning or patients dying by 49 per cent and cut the risk of the cancer spreading to other parts of the body or the patient dying by 59 per cent, compared with Keytruda alone.

Important questions remain, including the size of the benefit and side-effects. Moderna and Merck will provide more details at a conference this year. The high cost of manu-

facturing a bespoke vaccine for every patient could also limit the drug's accessibility if it is approved by regulators.

Professor Georgina Long of the University of Sydney, the study's principal investigator and medical director of the Melanoma Institute Australia, said the results represented "a landmark moment".

Analysis

A new age of cancer treatment is coming into view: one where drugs are designed for individual patients. The potential is enormous. So, probably, will be the bill. It may prove a price well worth paying (Rhys Blakely writes).

"Cancer vaccine" is slightly misleading. The treatment tested by Merck and Moderna is not a jab given to healthy people to stop them developing cancer. It is designed to prevent a dangerous type of melanoma, a skin cancer, returning after surgery. It works alongside Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug used by the NHS. Keytruda takes the brakes

off a part of the body's immune system. Normally this brake stops T cells — part of your natural defences — from attacking healthy tissue. Cancer exploits it to protect itself. Once Keytruda releases the brake, T cells can attack more vigorously. The vaccine then gives them something to look for.

Scientists map the DNA of a patient's tumour and identify mutations that distinguish the cancer cells from healthy ones. These mutations produce proteins that appear on the surface of cancer cells. The vaccine contains genetic code — known as mRNA — that creates the same proteins when injected into the patient. In effect, the jab gives the immune system a mugshot of the cancer it should hunt down.

Skin melanomas, often damaged by sunlight, can carry large numbers of mutations. That means they offer plenty of possible targets for T cells. The harder test will be to see if the approach works against cancers with less conspicuous genetic fingerprints.

Lung-cancer trials by Merck and Moderna have reached phase three, the final stage before going to market; kidney and bladder studies are in phase two. The hope is the technology can work across many tumour types. But bespoke medicines are bound to be more expensive than mass-produced pills. To be rolled out on the NHS, drugs must be approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the spending watchdog. Nice

asks if the extra years and quality of life they provide justify the cost.

Some costs associated with cancer vaccines are falling fast. The cost of analysing DNA has plummeted over the past 20 years. But these vaccines still require a tumour sample, sophisticated genetic analysis and the rapid manufacture and quality-testing of a unique medicine for each patient.

Will that make them too expensive? Not necessarily. The NHS already pays for some bespoke cancer treatments. Car-T therapies, in which a patient's immune cells are genetically reprogrammed, carry list prices of £300,000 per patient, before NHS discounts are applied. Nice has approved several.

How cancer vaccine works

1 Tumour tissue and blood sample sent to a lab for analysis

2 Genetic code of the healthy cells is compared to the tumour cells, identifying unique mutations

3 Up to 34 mutation targets are selected and encoded into a single strand of custom mRNA, which is then formulated into a personalised vaccine

4 Patient receives the vaccine with immunotherapy drug, Keytruda

5 T-cells are 'trained' to recognise the unique mutations. They hunt down and eliminate any remaining microscopic cancer cells

Dr Lennard Lee of the University of Oxford, a consultant oncologist who is advising the NHS on cancer vaccines, said that it was an important moment that scientists have been working towards for many years".

He added: "There is also a

wider story here about what happened after the pandemic. In 2020, enormous global investment accelerated mRNA technology, vaccine science and manufacturing, and it started in the United Kingdom. The question afterwards was whether that capability could be redirected towards other major diseases.

"In 2022, the UK made an early strategic decision to pursue that opportunity in cancer, launching a national cancer vaccine advance to accelerate

clinical trials of mRNA cancer vaccines. Since then, the UK has developed into one of the world's leading environments for cancer vaccine trials."

One mRNA vaccine trial now active in the UK involves patients with high-risk stage 2 or stage 3 colon or rectal cancer whose tumours have been surgically removed, but who still have traces of tumour DNA detectable in their blood, suggesting a high chance that the cancer could return. BioNTech, a

German company, developed that treatment.

The first English patient received the vaccine in Birmingham in 2024 through the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad, a scheme for connecting eligible NHS cancer patients with clinical trials of new cancer vaccines. British patients are also involved in personalised vaccine trials for pancreatic cancer, being run by BioNTech and Genentech. Cancer trial boost, page 31

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News

Drowning victims were refugees

Ed Halford, Herbie Russell, Mario Ledwith, Shayma Bakht

A couple and their daughter who died in rough waters off West Sussex were part of a Palestinian family who once lived in a refugee camp in Lebanon.

Hassan El-Khawas, 55, drowned with his wife, Zeina Alyan, 37, and 14-year-old Sarah close to Shoreham-by-Sea's harbour on Tuesday afternoon despite a major rescue operation. Their younger daughter was rescued and is in a critical condition in hospital. Two other children had watched from the shore.

Adnan Hmidan, chairman of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, said Sarah had got into difficulty in the water and her father had gone to help. He said: "As the waves and currents intensified, her mother also entered the water to try to save them, followed by their younger daughter." He added: "Sadly, the conditions proved overwhelming."

Hmidan said the family's two other children had been on the shore and were now being cared for by an uncle. He added: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire family, particularly the children, who are facing an unimaginable loss."

The family's roots can be traced to the Rashidieh camp in southern Lebanon, which was built by the French government in 1936 to house Armenian refugees. The Palestinian embassy in the UK said the family were understood to have had British citizenship.

Palestinian refugees began arriving at a new section of the camp from the 1960s, travelling from Palestine and other areas of Lebanon, before an influx from Syria in recent years.

The Palestine Forum in Britain, a large diaspora organisation, said it extended its "deepest condolences" to those who died. A spokesman for the Palestinian embassy said: "They are Palestinian refugees. I think this is what's important... this is considered a national tragedy, losing three British Palestinians at such a time."

Sam Giatos, a neighbour who lived below the family, said they had moved to the UK about a decade ago. "The last time that I saw them is just few days ago. I saw the mum and the eldest daughter just outside," he said. "They looked happy. They were good neighbours."

Yesterday Andy Burnham described the deaths as a "restterrible family tragedy". The prime minister added that there was more to be done on water safety.

Emergency services were called to the harbour at 2.40pm on Tuesday after fishermen spotted people in difficulty in the water. The family is understood to have entered the water close to the 19th-century fort on the harbour at the

Hassan El-Khawas and his wife, Zeina Alyan, died after entering the sea to try to save Sarah, left. The RNLI took part in the rescue, bottom. Flowers have been left at the scene

tidal mouth of the River Adur. A fisherman who witnessed the accident told The Times that it had been "devastating".

He said: "I was fishing with my son. I saw it all. It's something nobody should ever see." The man, who did not wish to be named, was back at the scene yesterday to place flowers. He added: "I just wanted to come down and pay my re-

spects. Nobody knew how long they were in there. It's devastating."

Shaun Sanderson, 58, another resident, told The Times there had been about 20 people camping on the beach in recent days. "Wives and groups of men are cooking and then there are other groups of women sitting with the children by the tents," he said.

Grace Hilton, who was on the beach

at the time, said: "The sea was like a dishwasher yesterday. It was very rough and the winds were so strong I even had trouble holding my phone on the shore. The RNLI lifeguards were very much struggling."

Mark, a resident in his 50s, decided against windsurfing on Tuesday because the conditions were too rough — a change after weeks of calm.

One water death a day in summer

Analysis

Atragic byproduct of the heatwave has been a series of drownings (Seren Hughes writes).

Before three members of the same family were pulled from the water at Shoreham, a mother and daughter and their seven-year-old cousin drowned in the sea off West Mersea in Essex in July, and three sisters died in the sea off Brighton in May. Mackenzie Swift, 11, died after getting into difficulty in the River Don in South Yorkshire, in May.

Water safety experts have reiterated a call for a government minister to take responsibility for water safety and drowning prevention, as analysis of media reports by The Times shows there have been 59 deaths in open water in the UK since mid-May. Last year, there were 111 between May and August, National Water Safety Forum (NWSF) has reported.

Not all drownings are reported in the media and the only official data is annual drowning figures, which will not be published until May. Mike Tipton, chair of the NWSF, said historical data shows there was an average of about one death a day in the summer.

This year's long, hot summer has provided the conditions for the spate of drownings, Tipton said. Cold water shock was a big concern in May, when air temperatures soared while water temperatures remained cool, but it is still relevant now.

He explained: "We're now in mid-August and the water temperature is 19 or 20C, which for some people [can] evoke a cold water shock response."

Open water also has "unique dangers" such as currents, Ross MacLeod, water safety manager at the RNLI, said.

From September, all primary and secondary schools will include water safety as part of RSHE (relationships, sex and health education) classes.

Pilots told to inspect their helicopters after honeymoon crash

Anthee Carassava Athens Charlie Parker

Greece's aviation regulator has issued an emergency directive about helicopter tail rotors after a newlywed British couple died in a crash caused by a possible mechanical failure.

Alexander Cromie, 31, and his wife Marie Ebert, 30, were killed when their pilot Giorgos Raikos, 55, lost control of a private helicopter 50 feet above a landing pad on the island of Sifnos, investigators believe.

The aircraft took off from Markopoulos, near Athens, on Monday but crashed into a field in the Tholos area of

the island at 6.15pm local time before bursting into flames. Investigators have been examining debris and footage of its final moments to determine whether a malfunction or medical emergency caused the crash. It is now believed the aircraft did not fall from a high altitude, but began to spin out of control as it approached a helipad.

Yesterday, the authorities ordered all operators of Bell 206 helicopters to immediately inspect their tail rotors.

Kostas Jatridis, a defence analyst and former helicopter pilot, said: "Without any directional stability the aircraft that was flying at such low altitude must have spun violently on its axis, leaving

Marie Ebert and Alexander Cromie

the pilot no time to issue a distress call." Residents who saw it crash metres from their homes spoke of a "bizarre engine noise coming from the aircraft"

as it came in to land. Raikos, a veteran pilot, is believed to have ejected moments before the impact. He was found about seven metres from the fuselage.

"It was the worst site I have ever faced in my life," Emmanuel Somarakis, a doctor at the island's lone medical clinic who was first to arrive at the scene, told The Times. "The debris, the thought of what happened in those final minutes — all of that was harrowing."

The three bodies have been taken to Greece's main morgue in Piraeus, near Athens, for coroners to examine.

Cromie, a vice-president for private wealth solutions at the asset manager Blackstone, and Ebert, a senior special-

ist in market reputation at the consultancy Bain & Company, had recently arrived in Greece for their honeymoon.

Blackstone said: "Alex was beloved by everyone who knew and worked with him at Blackstone, and our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones."

Bain said that Ebert was a "much-loved and" "deeply respected" colleague.

Manolis Fountdoulakis, Sifnos's deputy mayor, arrived at the scene shortly after the incident and told a local newspaper that there was almost "nothing left" of the helicopter. Specialists from Greece's organised crime directorate have joined local police to comb through the charred debris.

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News Politics

Rough sleeping vow could keep

Constance Kampfner Political Correspondent

When Andy Burnham announced his flagship policy to end rough sleeping in Greater Manchester, advisers said he might want to tone down the pledge.

"The team here said I should have said, 'End the need for rough sleeping; because you can't force people into a shelter,' the mayor, as he was then, reflected in a 2019 interview after the death of Clive Dalrymple, a homeless painter and a well-known figure on the streets of Manchester's Chinatown.

"In retrospect, if I had said 'end the need for', that probably would have been a wiser thing to have done. But I wasn't in the space of wanting to play semantics with it," Burnham told The Guardian.

Almost seven years on and Burnham remains undeterred. His first move as prime minister was to issue the same promise again, only this time he would end rough sleeping across England.

This week, he said he would 'get everyone in for Christmas'.

Burnham has allocated nearly half a billion pounds to the problem, yet his record on the issue in his nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester suggests the promise will not be an easy one to keep. He has already conceded that the funding alone will not be enough.

So what are the barriers to getting people off the streets? Can emergency beds over the winter months be translated into a lasting homelessness strategy?

THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM

Once a year, an army of clipboard-carrying council employees and charity workers take to England's streets to count the people sleeping rough.

While only an estimate — and one believed to significantly undercount women, who rarely sleep in public view — the snapshot is the best measure available to track what is otherwise felt by Britons in their day-to-day lives as a critical indicator of national health.

Last autumn, the figure stood at 4,793 people, the highest since tracking began in 2010. In Manchester, the number rose for the fourth year in a row, with 197 rough sleepers counted, up from 89 in 2021. However, it is still 25 per cent below where it was when Burnham took over the mayoralty in 2017.

With sufficient financial backing, experts agree that reducing street homelessness close to zero is, in theory, attainable. The pandemic response

proved what political will can achieve in a short time. Under the government's "Everyone In" scheme, local authorities rapidly housed more than 37,000 people in hotels and B&Bs.

The problem is stopping the next batch of people from hitting the streets.

Maya Singer Hobbs, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: "You could click your fingers right now and take everyone who is currently sleeping on the streets and give them a home. But there would be people who end up homeless tomorrow and would need support."

SOLUTIONS

Burnham has pledged £442 million towards the issue, money that has been earmarked for emergency winter accommodation alongside targeted "wraparound support".

In some instances, relatively straightforward interventions can be transformative, such as helping non-English speakers to access the benefits they are already entitled to receive. In other cases, the underlying challenges — addiction and mental health issues — are far more deeply entrenched.

Local councils are also being given funds to purchase 1,000 homes over the next three years. However, simple arithmetic suggests that with nearly 5,000 people counted sleeping rough on a single night, this will cover only a fraction of the immediate need.

HOUSING

The real issue is the lack of housing, according to Charlie Trew, head of policy at the charity Shelter, who called rough sleeping "the tip of the iceberg".

Britain has the worst homelessness rate in the OECD: most of those people, however, are not on the streets but in hotels, bed and breakfasts and other temporary and emergency accommodation. This creates a Catch-22 for local authorities, forced to pour more of their budgets into paying for emergency hotels and B&Bs, they have less funding left to spend on the factors that cause homelessness in the first place.

Trew believes that solving the crisis will require Burnham to stake his full political reputation on structural reform. "You have to tell every single council to get building and give housing associations the right funding. It requires upfront expenditure, but the savings to the NHS, temporary accommodation bills, and the wider economy are immense. It's a huge benefit to society."

Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner with a former rough sleeper and member of staff at the Changing Lives homelessness

Rayner's £84,000 from speeches after quitting

Geraldine Scott Assistant Political Editor

Angela Rayner has defended earning tens of thousands of pounds from speaking engagements while she was out of government.

The housing secretary received £84,000 in fees for six speaking engagements after leaving government in September last year, according to the register of MPs' financial interests. Of this, £69,000 was paid to Rayner and £15,000 went to charities. She also received a £61,500 advance for a book.

Asked on Sky News whether taking the money was hypocritical given her previous opposition to MPs having second jobs, Rayner said: "Well, I was focusing on my constituents during that time, and you'll have seen from the members' interest there was, I think, around six engagements in 12 months for a couple of hours of speaking en-

gagements, and that's all declared appropriately." She added that she did not consider these a second job.

In March 2023, Rayner posted on X: "Being an MP isn't a second job. It is the job." The previous year, Rayner said that "the public deserves a government that respects them — not one that treats the job of an MP as just another income".

New filings also reveal Andy Burnham received campaign funding and support worth nearly £350,000 in the four months before he became prime minister. The prime minister also declared £13,630 of hospitality, including four tickets and accommodation at Glastonbury worth £2,520 and two tickets to Ladies' Day at Aintree received in the year before he became an MP. The donations were disclosed in Burnham's first register of financial interests since he returned to parliament.

Good luck finding a place for homeless

Tom Peck Political Sketch

Making a big promise on the steps of Downing Street has become something of a tradition over the last crazy decade. Another tradition that has appeared at the exact same time is to break a big promise made on the steps of Downing Street.

If promises made by prime ministers in their first seconds in office were kept, we'd have had a fully functioning criminal justice and social care system for at least the last seven years. Instead we've had four more prime ministers.

Andy Burnham's contribution to the canon, made in that famous spot four weeks ago was a promise to "end rough sleeping". Given that he'd promised to do the same in

Greater Manchester when mayor, where ultimately the number of rough sleepers went up instead of down, he appears to be committed to keeping up with both noble traditions — the making and the breaking.

And now, he has, in the form of a press release, a vague funding commitment, and a two-minute clip with a TV interview, made that promise vaguely real. There is going to be a £442 million commitment and a folksy sounding promise to have "everyone in by Christmas".

It's a nice thought, isn't it? Everyone in by Christmas. Perhaps "everyone" will be gathered round a babe in swaddling clothes, while a Renaissance painter captures the placid look on the faces of various cattle as they stare into the middle distance. Critics have pointed out that the trouble with "everyone in by Christmas" is that everyone is likely to then be out again by mid-

January. The prime minister was asked a suitably benign question by way of an opener: "Given councils are already struggling to find accommodation for the homeless people, and they have a legal duty to help families with children, how will you find thousands more spaces by Christmas?"

The answer felt equally benign, so benign it was hard to spot its total meaninglessness. "The money has been found from within the existing budget of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government," he said. "But this is the right thing to do. I feel very passionately about this."

He hadn't been asked about the money. He'd been asked where the spaces would come from. It was a details question. And a litany of past prime ministers can attest to the fact that "feeling passionately" about something is not the same as knowing what to do about it.

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7

News

PM awake at night

SCOTT KOPPELL/GETTY MAGES, STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA

charity in Newcastle. Kemi Badenoch, bottom left, was in London as the Conservatives presented alternatives to net zero

on the boulevard of broken promises

Many people, for a very long time, felt passionately about Brexit. They still do. Passionate feelings did not assist in the question of how to have an open border on the island of Ireland, with two different customs regimes on either side of it. That problem has still not yet entirely been solved. (Later in the clip, Burnham would boast about his having scrapped VAT on energy bills, as Brexit allows him to do. But if you were watching in Belfast, then bad luck. Always read the small print. Terms and conditions apply.)

To the main question, which was how are you going to achieve something nationally that you failed to achieve in Manchester, he did have an intriguingly honest answer. In Manchester, the problem was that his policies for housing rough sleepers were so generous that rough sleepers began moving to Manchester in large numbers.

"We did bring the numbers right

down," he said, "but because we were the only area providing a high level of support, more people started to travel [to Greater Manchester] and it became difficult. So the only way to achieve 'everyone in' is everywhere doing it. And that's why I brought this proposal back as prime minister."

Burnham was warned recently by Theresa May not to try to run the country as if he were still mayor of Greater Manchester. He appears to have gone one better, and become prime minister explicitly to prevent the rest of the country from standing in the way of his sorting out Greater Manchester's problems.

For Burnham, rough sleeping is a defining issue, and for that he should be commended. "This is about who we are, this is about how we should be," he said. "Nobody should sleep rough on the streets of Britain."

That is a surprisingly hard

problem to solve. A long time ago, I worked on a newspaper charity campaign on homelessness and what the charities involved will tell you, off the record, is that the problem isn't a lack of provision or a lack of care, it's that homeless people don't know about the help that's available. For various reasons, making them aware is rather hard. However much money is found, there will always be homelessness.

It's also, dare one say, a small problem. It affects a small number of people very deeply. The reason we are rattling through prime ministers at a terrifying rate is because the big problems seem unsolvable, which is to say, the near impossibility of getting a job, buying a house, raising a family and saving for a pension, if you weren't fortunate enough to get your life in order before 2008. There is a time and a place to stake your reputation on small promises. Perhaps here and now isn't it.

Gray: Burnham has a clear vision, unlike Starmer

Patrick Maguire

Chief Political Commentator

Andy Burnham has a "very clear view of what he wants to do" as prime minister and Sir Kerr Starmer failed to set out a vision for the country in Labour's first months in office, Baroness Gray of Tottenham has said.

In a rare public intervention from the former chief of staff of the ousted prime minister, Gray used her first extended interview after nearly five decades in public service to speak of her "sadness" over her enforced resignation from Downing Street and praise her former employer's replacement.

Speaking to the former cabinet minister Ed Balls on the Political Currency podcast, Gray — a lifelong civil servant who briefly became one of the most divisive figures in recent Labour history after leaving Whitehall to work for Starmer in 2023 — gave her belated defence to accusations that she was responsible for her adopted party's disastrous first months in government.

In a long and at times audibly tense conversation, she rejected claims that she had failed to draw up a plan for Starmer's first 100 days in government and acknowledged that there had been "friction" in her relationship with the prime minister's political aides.

Asked whether she was to blame for Labour's fall in popularity and descent into infighting in the summer of 2024, after which Starmer's public standing never recovered from the abrupt cut to the winter fuel allowance and accusations of sleaze and cronyism, Gray said it was "ultimately" the prime minister's responsibility to set the agenda.

In what will be interpreted as a coded criticism of Starmer, Gray said: "I think, ultimately, you have a leader of the party, you have a prime minister, leader of the opposition. You have to set your vision, your agenda. That is definitely what everybody is looking for."

She added: "You need leadership, vision, and I think that will have been very difficult in these times."

Burnham, by contrast, "has come in with a very clear view of what he wants to do", Gray said. "He's got huge experi-

ence, not just of central government, but also being a mayor, and delivering. I think they're very different people."

She offered neither outright condemnation nor any defence of Starmer and said that it was the fault of Lord Doyle, who was Labour's head of communications, that there had been no communications plan for the party's first weeks in government.

Many of her contemporaries from Starmer's team have long said aides were left blindsided after preparations for government — for which Gray, rather than her successor, Morgan McSweeney, was responsible — supposedly failed to materialise after Labour won its landslide two years ago. "I think I would say ... it was clearly a difference of view with a few political people," Gray said. "I think I actually had a lot of support, and I know that, you know, people ... continued to be supportive."

Her attempts to involve shadow cabinet ministers in political decision-making had, in her opinion, provoked a backlash. Gray said: "I think there was friction, and I think I recognise that probably a few people had their noses put out of joint because of it."

Gray insisted that her time in government had helped to lay the groundwork for the modest improvements now bearing fruit under Burnham.

"A lot of work went into this," she said, rejecting claims that she had failed to prepare extensively enough. "And I do think that, you know, there was a lot done, a lot of announcements made, a lot of good work. We wouldn't be able today to talk about some of the things that have happened without that planning and without that work."

Gray admitted she was "disappointed" that "not more was done" by Starmer to halt criticism of her in the press during her brief stint as chief of staff in No.10. "It was definitely unbearable," she said.

Reminded by Balls that much of the commentary on her departure argued that "finally Sue Gray's gone, now Kerr can lead, Downing Street's going to function", Gray offered a useful conclusion. "The truth is ..." Balls said, prompting her to reply: "... that government is difficult."

Minister's wife is favourite to be new general secretary

Stefan Boscia

A senior minister's wife has emerged as the frontrunner to become Labour's next general secretary, as Andy Burnham bolsters his grip on power at the top of the party.

Claire Reynolds, a veteran political adviser and wife of the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, is one of three candidates vying to lead Labour's HQ operation. The others are John Lehal, Labour's former chief operations officer, and Joe Fortune, general secretary of the Co-op Party. Reynolds is considered by members of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee and other party figures as the most

likely appointment, thanks to her experience in No 10 under three prime ministers, knowledge of the party's internal machinery and friendship with James Purnell, Burnham's chief of staff.

Burnham wants to tighten his grip on Labour's machinery, after Sir Kerr Starmer and Morgan McSweeney spent years ruthlessly managing the party. Hollie Ridley, the current general secretary, said after Starmer's exit that she would go by the end of September.

The next general secretary will be in charge of getting the party ready to fight the next general election.

Claire Reynolds and her husband Jonathan

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News

REX BAL (9/17/2023) | LESS

Shooting stars Dozens of photographs captured over four nights at Stonehenge are merged together to show the Perseid meteor shower in its cosmic splendour

Jeremy Hunt: I should have been more like Trump

David Sanderson

Jeremy Hunt has confessed that while he at first thought Donald Trump was “ridiculous” for having Twitter wars, he now regards his own scorning of social media as one of his biggest failings in office.

Hunt, the former Conservative chancellor and foreign secretary, said mainstream politicians needed to understand the powers of social media as he described Trump as the “best communicator of any democratically elected politician”.

He said that the single thing that he wished he had done better while in office was to have been on social media every day “getting my message across” instead of once a fortnight.

Hunt, who served in four cabinet positions under three prime ministers, told the Edinburgh International Book Festival that he first became aware of Trump’s obsession with social media when the president visited the UK in June 2019. As foreign secretary Hunt was to be the first person to greet Trump at Stansted but the US president kept him “waiting and waiting”.

Hunt said: “Finally the doors open and it turns out the reason for the delay is that he was sitting on Air Force One on his phone having a Twitter war with Sadiq Khan... My reaction was: ‘Why is the leader of the free world wasting his time on a Twitter war?’”

Hunt added that while he at first thought this was “ridiculous”, it had dawned on him that “maybe this is the first time in history that before he sets foot into his office the president of America knows what Americans think”.

Greens in ‘Zionist’ exposé support press crackdown

Geraldine Scott Assistant Political Editor Alex Farber, James Beal

Green Party activists exposed by The Times over private discussions about “wiping Israel off the map” have backed plans to give a statutory regulator powers over journalists’ ethics.

Animah Kosai, a member of the Green Party Council, which helps to set the party’s political direction, used the same WhatsApp group where the anti-Zionist discussions were held to urge members and supporters to back the proposal.

The motion, which could become Green Party policy if selected and approved at its autumn conference, would require the country’s biggest newspapers to submit to statutory regulation and allow a watchdog to determine whether assignments given to journalists were unethical.

At least three members of the Greens Against Imperialism group named in The Times’s reporting are among those backing the motion. This newspaper revealed this week how participants had described hostility towards Jews as “understandable” and backed Israel being “wiped off the map”.

Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, has separately called for government action against the press in res-

ponse to an article about climate policy. He said: “It’s time we sorted out the press. Constant misinformation to protect their donors and fossil fuels is destroying lives and our planet.”

Sophus Magill, a Green parish councillor in Wootton Bridge on the Isle of Wight, set up the Greens Against Imperialism group in which the messages were shared. Magill wrote “Zionism has to go,” adding: “The only solution is one equal state.”

When another participant asked whether that meant wanting Israel “wiped off the map, in essence?”, Magill replied: “Yes, I would like that.”

After the article was published, Magill complained about The Times using his photograph amid suggestions that newspapers should not be allowed to use pictures of people they were reporting on without their consent.

He wrote: “The fact they used my picture as well [...] I stand by the things I said. Unfortunately the framing was very distorted and strawmanning.”

Kosai then used the group to urge members to co-propose the press regulation motion. She wrote: “Reminder to those not yet co proposed [of] the Late Motion on Jason Arday as that addresses the woeful unethical sensationalist media that doesn’t care about the people it smears — especially if they’re

Black, because the mainstream media in this country IS racist.”

More than 50 cross-party MPs have written to the Independent Press Standards Organisation arguing the regulator should investigate media coverage of Arday. 41, the former Cambridge professor who was found dead at a property in London last week.

The proposal promoted by Kosai was first revealed by The Spectator. It was published two days after the death of Arday under the title Justice for Jason Arday: Stopping Racist Smear Campaigns and Reforming Media Power. It was submitted by Tariq Khawaja, a member of Greens for Palestine.

The motion would bring journalists’ ethical decisions within the regulatory regime. Under a proposed “conscience clause”, reporters could refuse assignments if the regulator determined they were unethical.

Baroness Stowell of Beeston, a former BBC communications chief, said: “There is no question about the future of the press to which statutory regulation is the answer. Press freedom means freedom from government control and that must never be compromised.”

The Green Party, Magill and Kosai were all contacted for comment.

Greens have become dangerously ideological, leading article, page 25

We must uphold integrity, says Cambridge chancellor

Amelia Stout

Cambridge University must uphold its academic integrity after the death of Jason Arday, its chancellor has said, arguing that it “must surely be possible to both challenge racism and take seriously legitimate questions about anyone’s work”.

Lord Smith of Finsbury called for allegations of plagiarism or academic misconduct to be investigated rigorously, regardless of the seniority or reputation of the individual involved.

Arday, 41, who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor when he was appointed at the age of 37, was pronounced dead at an address in south London last week. He had resigned from his post the previous week, citing an “unrelenting level of public scrutiny” over the legitimacy of his work. Cambridge had started an investigation into his appointment.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Smith said: “We must uphold the importance of academic integrity. If there are credible accusations of plagiarism or suggestions of academic misconduct against any academic, however distinguished, they ought to be rigorously and openly investigated.

“Cambridge lives or dies as a centre of academic excellence, and protecting those standards of excellence should always be a priority for the university.”

Smith, who served as culture secretary under Sir Tony Blair, criticised this

week the coverage of Arday as a “racist feeding frenzy”.

In his latest interview, he added: “It must surely be possible to both challenge racism and take seriously legitimate questions about anyone’s work. Much of the criticism and abuse that he suffered undoubtedly had more than a whiff of racism about it. It was happening not just because there were concerns about his work, but because he was black.”

Smith said that he doubted that a white professor in Arday’s position would have attracted the same degree of attention. However, he supported the university’s inquiry into Arday’s appointment and said that Cambridge should consider whether its recruitment procedures were sufficiently robust. He stressed that the controversy should not undermine efforts to ensure diversity in higher education.

“I fear that the fallout from this terrible situation will mean that life becomes harder for the range of excellent black academics and professors that there are, doing really important work,” he said. “We must not throw the diversity baby out with the problematic hathwater.”

Sir James Cleverly, the shadow communities minister, accused Cambridge of appointing Arday for “brugging rights” and argued that adequate due diligence would have prevented him from being elevated to “such a politically exposed position”.

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News

Friend of Kamala ‘hit by crew’ sues BA

Taansport Correspondent

A former US navy lawyer and friend of Kamala Harris is taking legal action against British Airways after a member of the cabin crew delivered a “forceful blow” to her head during a flight.

Karen Gibbs, from Maryland, said the blow, which occurred as crew were trying to deal with a disruptive passenger, left her dizzy and confused. Doctors later advised that her symptoms were consistent with concussion.

She is seeking damages, claiming the incident left her with migraines, cognitive fatigue, problems with her balance and forced her to retire early.

On August 1, 2024, Gibbs, who attended university with Harris, the

former US vice-president, was a passenger on BA flight 217 from Heathrow to Washington.

In a claim filed in a Virginia district court last month, Gibbs said that while intervening in a disturbance caused by a passenger in the row behind, a member of the cabin crew delivered a “forceful blow” to the top of Gibbs’s head. Gibbs said she was an “innocent bystander” and the knock left her with “head pain, blurred vision, dizziness, disorientation and distress”.

She said she immediately requested medical help. The cabin crew provided ice but requested on-board medical treatment only about 90 minutes later and no medical aid was arranged by BA on landing, Gibbs claimed.

On arrival in Washington Gibbs was

Kamala Harris with Karen Gibbs

unable to walk through the airport without the aid of a wheelchair. After she sent a written report of the incident to the airline she said it offered her a £50 goodwill payment.

The lawsuit said that afterwards Gibbs experienced “continuing mi-

graines or headaches, vision disturbance, memory and concentration problems, cognitive fatigue, disorientation, balance problems and other post-concussive symptoms”. More than a year later, Gibbs said she had to retire from her role as a senior federal attorney in the government earlier than planned after suffering “cognitive fatigue” and concentration and memory problems.

“Before the incident, plaintiff [Gibbs] was active, independent, mentally sharp and capable of performing demanding legal work and extensive family, church, civic and travel responsibilities. Family members, friends and medical professionals observed a marked decline after the incident,” the claim said. Gibbs is seeking damages from BA for sustained past and future

medical expenses, lost compensation and employment benefits, mental anguish and “loss of enjoyment of life”.

BA, which is yet to respond to the lawsuit, said in a statement: “As this matter is the subject of ongoing legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate for us to comment.”

According to her LinkedIn page, Gibbs spent 26 years in the legal arm of the US navy known as the JAG Corps, retiring as captain before going on to serve as senior counsel at the Department of Justice organised crime drug enforcement task force.

In an interview with PBS, Gibbs said Harris was godmother to her children, who went to her inauguration as vice-president and would often visit her in the White House.

Charles welcomes return of Sussexes

The King has welcomed the opportunity to spend more time with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they plan to move back to the UK this month (Charlotte

Alt and Lara Wildenberg write). Charles, 77, was informed on Sunday of the couple’s plans to move to a private, non-royal residence outside London with their children, Prince Archie,

seven, and Princess Lilibet, five. However, he is understood to have been clear that the duke and duchess’s status as non-working royals and private individuals, in keeping with their previously expressed wishes, will remain unchanged. The Prince and Princess of Wales have also been informed of

the move. The duke’s relationship with his brother remains fractured and the pair are not thought to have spoken to each other for years. Harry, 41, has long made it clear that he misses the UK and is desperate for his children to experience British life and culture. Last month, the

Harry, Meghan and their children Archie and Lilibet in their Montecito garden, watching a flypast in 2018 from Buckingham Palace with the Prince and Princess of Wales, and arriving at the Endeavour Fund Awards in London in 2020, before their move across the Atlantic

duke and duchess took their children to see the King and Queen at Highgrove, Charles’s Gloucestershire home, for a “private family occasion”.

It was the first time in four years that the King had seen his grandchildren and Meghan, 45. No details or pictures were released but sources close to Harry said that he was “huoyed, very happy and really energised” afterwards.

The duke and duchess’s security arrangements have not been disclosed but there has been no announcement of any change.

Harry is still battling with the Home Office to have his threat level and security requirements

reviewed after losing a long-running legal battle to have his automatic police protection reinstated. It is understood the Sussexes’ visit last month went off without any security hitches.

It is not known where the Sussexes will live, although it is thought to be outside of London.

It is understood that Archie and Lilibet have already been enrolled at a British school to start in September although it has not been revealed which one.

Prince Harry and William both attended Ludgrove School in Berkshire, Archie and Lilibet’s cousins, George, Charlotte and Louis, attended Lambrook School in Berkshire. George is due to start at Eton in September.

AI by gum! Callers lose their patience with new NHS triage bot

Herbie Russell

NHS patients in Rotherham are “experiencing stress and frustration” due to an artificial intelligence triage system that cannot understand their Yorkshire accents.

GPs across the South Yorkshire market town have rolled out Emma AI to reduce queues, improve patient satisfaction and save money.

However, Healthwatch Rotherham, an independent healthcare watchdog, has warned that patients with regional

accents or speech impediments are struggling with the service.

QuantumLoopAI, the company behind the system, said Emma could understand a range of accents and that callers could opt for a human call handler.

Healthwatch Rotherham said it had received complaints about the system, which is used nationwide.

Kym Gleeson, the service manager of the watchdog, told the BBC: “One of the issues is this system can’t always understand what people’s inquiry is

about, due to their broad Yorkshire accent. Across South Yorkshire, accents do vary quite a lot. There are different twangs, so there’s a lot of variation. It seems the system isn’t always able to understand, so that causes frustration.

“Practices use websites to triage, but if you prefer to use the telephone it can be hard to navigate this AI system, especially if you’re feeling quite vulnerable. Some of the people said they had ended up going to the surgery in person because they felt using a telephone was no longer a comfortable process.”

A QuantumLoopAI spokesperson told the BBC: “Emma does not make clinical decisions. She is designed and trained to understand a wide range of accents and dialects and supports 17 languages in addition to English.

“Where she is unable to understand or deal with a patient’s request, the call is transferred to the reception team ... and anyone can ask to speak to a member of staff at any time.”

According to QuantumLoopAI’s website, the software reduces reception staffing costs by up to 80 per cent

and answers calls within three rings. Healthwatch will pass its feedback to Healthwatch England, which will report its findings to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Anthony Fitzgerald, executive lead for primary care at The NHS South Yorkshire integrated care board, said: “We are currently working closely with Healthwatch colleagues to produce some guidance for practices on the use of AI telephone systems. This is an individual GP practice decision, within their contractual requirements.”

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I only asked for a middle C Dog walkers at Cefn Sidan Beach in Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, spotted a piano propped up in the shallows by scaffolding. The council revealed it was from an unlicensed video shoot and the instrument was later removed

Rape is a crime, booklet warns asylum seekers

Asylum seekers are being told men and women are equal and that domestic abuse and sex with children is illegal in Home Office guidance on how to behave in Britain.

The nine-page pamphlet for newly arriving asylum seekers was produced to help recipients “understand what is expected of you when living in the UK”.

There has been growing concern over the gulf in cultural values among some migrants arriving on small boats and other illegal means and sex attacks by asylum seekers over the past year.

However, opposition parties branded the pamphlet “a disgrace” and said it showed that the government viewed asylum seekers “as a menace”.

On a page about gender equality, the guidance states that men and women have “equal rights”, adding: “This is an important part of UK culture and is protected by law”.

The booklet tells asylum seekers that women can work, study, travel, choose who they marry and make their own decisions about their lives. It says that women do “not need permission from a husband, father, brother or any other man to do any of these things”.

The pamphlet also instructs asylum seekers to treat women equally “even if you are a family member, like a

husband, father or brother”. A page on sex and consent says the law is “strict: both people must agree to sex or sexual contact of any kind”.

The pamphlet says that someone can change their mind at any time, “even if they said yes before”, and if someone was asleep, drunk or unable to respond, they “cannot consent”.

The booklet, published yesterday, says that rape is “a serious crime in the UK”. It explains that anyone under the age of 16 cannot legally agree to have sex, adding: “There are no exceptions to this rule. Even if they say yes, it is still illegal. You could go to prison, lose your support and accommodation and it will affect your asylum claim.”

A page describes domestic abuse as “when someone hurts, threatens or controls their partner or family member”. The pamphlet advises asylum seekers to “treat your partner and family with respect, let them make their own choices” and “never physically or verbally abuse or control them”.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “Immigrants are coming from places and societies where attitudes towards women can be completely incompatible with western society. Too many communities are failing to properly integrate and become part of our culture, leaving frankly backwards standards to prevail.

“It seems like every day there is another report of an immigrant raping or assaulting women and young girls. Instead of trying to train these mainly young, male illegal immigrants to behave in a civilised way towards women, they should be deported”.

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, said: “The fact migrants have to be explicitly told not to beat their wives or children, not to harass people ‘or else it can affect your asylum support’, that women are equal to men and that consent means both people saying yes highlights the values and attitudes of those coming to the UK.”

The Home Office published the advice on how to behave in the UK yesterday

Italian rapist can stay in UK after ‘learning lesson’

Amelia Stout

An Italian man who raped a sleeping woman has won the right to remain in the UK, fuelling calls from the Conservatives and Reform UK for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Hendrix Ekwen, 34, who moved to Britain aged 18, carried out the “appalling” attack in 2017 while the victim was drunk and unconscious, an immigration tribunal was told.

He was convicted of rape in 2020 at Newcastle crown court and jailed for eight years but maintained his innocence and sought to blame his victim, before finally admitting his crime during immigration proceedings this year.

A judge granted his appeal against deportation after accepting that he had “learnt his lesson” and did not want to be known as “that kind of person”.

Ekwen and the woman had not known each other before the night of the attack, when they had been out drinking with mutual friends. Ekwen

and another man later went to the woman’s home, where she had consensual sex with the other man before falling asleep. The woman woke to find Ekwen having sex with her.

His first deportation challenge was rejected by the first-tier tribunal, where he admitted that he “would never wish such an experience upon his sisters” but claimed it was a case of “misinterpreting signals”. At a subsequent upper tribunal hearing he said that he understood his behaviour constituted rape.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is utterly repulsive this rapist is allowed to stay in the UK. A whole industry of open-border activists and lawyers has sprung up to frustrate the ability to remove such criminals — this needs to be torn down”.

Zia Yusuf of Reform said: “A Reform government will deport this savage rapist. We will leave the ECHR and all foreign treaties that allow activist lawyers and judges to keep monsters like Hendrix Ekwen in Britain, endangering British women and girls.”

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Defective rail was seen on CCTV hours before crash

Taimport Correspondent

CCTV footage showed a significant defect with the track almost two hours before a train carrying 150 people derailed in East Sussex last week, investigators have found.

Inspectors from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) found a "track geometry irregularity" on the approach to the site about a mile north of Lewes.

This was picked up by rear CCTV footage from a train that passed the location of the accident at 2.04pm. The accident, in which the 2.24pm Southern service from London Victoria to Eastbourne left the tracks, occurred at 3.54pm — an hour and 50 minutes later. According to industry data, two southbound eight-carriage services potentially carrying hundreds of passengers passed over the rail defect in that time.

In the image a kink in the track is visible. Investigators said the eight-carriage service was travelling at about 65mph as it approached. The driver applied the brakes as it passed the point of derailment.

The accident, which took place last Thursday, injured 30 passengers, 20 required hospital treatment and two were seriously injured and are yet to leave hospital. The derailment left the three rear carriages on their sides. Passengers were able to clamber out.

The RAIB's interim report did not determine a cause of the accident or the status of the track. A more detailed assessment with recommendations on improving safety will be released later.

However, it noted that maintenance had been done in the area where the accident took place and said it had received "several reports of rough riding" from passengers on trains that had passed the area.

Last week, Rob Dyke, 47, said he was on a train into Lewes on the day of the derailment and that his train had experienced problems. He was so concerned he reported the incident to the train manager.

James MacCleary, the Lewes MP, said the state of the track in the area "had been a concern for a while" and he had recently met GTR, parent company of Southern, asking it to look into the state of the track.

The RAIB also notes that the embankment on which the railway runs is constructed of clay and sits on alluvial/alluvium deposits which it said was "sensitive" to dry soil and can move. It added there was "some evidence" movement had previously taken place.

The train that derailed in East Sussex injuring 20 people had passed over a kink in the track, left, moments earlier. The eight-carriage service was said to be travelling at about 65mph as it approached

The accident occurred when the temperature was 27C. High temperatures can cause stress as the steel expands, forcing the track to sideways — a failure known as buckling.

On Friday, the day after the East Sussex derailment, the 1.51pm Greater Anglia service from Southend to London Liverpool Street, carrying 62 passengers, came off the line near Wickford station in Essex. The carriages remained upright and no one was injured.

Lucy McAuliffe, Sussex route director for Network Rail, and John Whitehurst, chief executive of GTR, said: "We are very sorry that this happened on our railway... We will carefully consider any recommendations arising from the investigation and work across the industry to implement them."

Travel firms investigated over alleged 'drip pricing'

The competition watchdog has begun investigations into Trainline, Virgin Atlantic and Red Driving School over concerns that customers were not shown full prices upfront.

Consumers affected could get compensation if it is found that the companies broke the law. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said.

The inquiries are part of a wider clampdown by the regulator over misleading pricing practices. It said this includes instances where mandatory charges are separated from the headline price or added later in the buying process, known as drip pricing.

"Such practices can also impact competition between businesses, as a firm using drip pricing may falsely appear to be cheaper than a competitor and attract more customers," the CMA added.

The Trainline investigation focuses on whether all mandatory fees were displayed upfront to travellers buying train and coach tickets in advance. The CMA said it had observed transactions with additional fees ranging from 50p to £2.79.

The investigation into Virgin Atlantic is looking into mandatory resort fees and local taxes for package holidays. Red Driving School is being investigated over how a mandatory booking fee and a digital fee — typically £7 per booking — were displayed for driving lessons.

Emma Cochrane, the executive director for consumer protection at the CMA, said: "Clear pricing helps people compare offers confidently and choose the option that works best for them.

"Unexpected mandatory charges make this much harder, which is why the CMA initially put these firms on notice."

A Trainline spokesman said: "Trainline is committed to offering customers a transparent booking experience with clear pricing and genuine value.

"We've proactively engaged with the CMA over several months and we are taking proactive steps to enhance how certain fees are presented to our customers. We will continue engaging with the CMA to address their questions."

A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic Holidays said: "We take our responsibility to customers incredibly seriously and we always want to ensure they can make an informed decision when booking a holiday with us.

"Mandatory fees are indicated at multiple stages throughout the booking journey. We are reviewing the points raised by the CMA carefully and will co-operate fully with its investigation."

Red Driving School was also contacted for comment.

New NHS drug for diabetes will mean just one jab a week

Eleanor Hayward Health Editor

Patients with diabetes may no longer have to inject themselves every day with insulin after a new weekly jab was approved for use by the NHS watchdog.

A drug made by Eli Lilly, sold under brand name Onswik, provides long-acting insulin that cuts the injections needed per year from 365 to 52.

The health watchdog Nice said the treatment would "make a real difference" and was particularly beneficial for people who needed help injecting insulin, particularly the frail or disabled.

The NHS is hoping to give the treatment

ment to hundreds of thousands of people with type 2 diabetes, but it first needs to be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

More than four million people in the UK have type 2 diabetes and about one in four have to take insulin injections daily to keep their blood sugar stable.

The condition develops when the body stops producing enough insulin, or does not respond well to insulin — a hormone made by the pancreas that regulates blood sugar.

Professor Frankie Swords, the national medical director at NHS

England, said: "Managing diabetes never takes a day off and for so many living with type 2 diabetes that means remembering and planning around an insulin injection every single day. Moving that to one injection a week could make a huge difference, giving people more freedom in their daily lives while giving valuable time back to carers and NHS teams. These vital treatments support people to control their diabetes every day, helping them to feel better in the short term and avoid serious complications in the long term ... weekly insulin could in future become a valuable new option for many

and we await the MHRA's decision to understand whether it could be rolled out on the NHS."

Trials of Onswik show it controls blood glucose levels as well as other insulin medications. Nice said it could help people who struggled to stick to their treatment routine as well as those under 40 who were managing treatment alongside a busy working life.

Officials said it "will especially benefit people who need help to inject their insulin as it will mean fewer visits from carers or healthcare workers, and less disruption to everyday life".

Helen Knight, director of medicines

evaluation at Nice, said: "Moving from daily injections to a single weekly dose could make a real difference to the day-to-day lives of people with type 2 diabetes, especially those who rely on a carer, family member or healthcare professional to help them inject. This recommendation is the result of rigorous, evidence-based decision making."

Douglas Twenefour, head of clinical at Diabetes UK, said: "This recommendation is an important step towards giving people with type 2 diabetes greater flexibility in how their condition is managed."

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Meta prized profit over child safety, says engineer

Keiran Southern Los Angeles

Mark Zuckerberg did not make child safety a priority at Meta and his company had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards under-age users, a whistleblower has told a United States trial.

Meta, the tech giant that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is being sued by a coalition of 29 US states over allegations it designed its platforms to be addictive for children.

The company is alleged to have illegally collected data from users under the age of 13. This was used to help fuel a mental health crisis among young people, according to states including California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Meta has denied the claims and insists that it has robust safety measures in place.

Yesterday a whistleblower testified in federal court in Oakland, California, telling a jury that Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive, bore ultimate responsibility for the company’s alleged failings. Arturo Béjar, a former engineering director at Meta, said Zuckerberg was closely involved in decision-making and product design changes would occur only upon his say-so.

Bejar worked at Meta from 2009 to 2015 and as an independent contractor from 2019 to 2021. He has since become a vocal critic of the Silicon Valley company and testified before the US Congress in 2023, alleging that Meta was aware of the harm teenagers faced on its platforms but ignored them.

Bejar told the court that Meta used metrics including meaningful social interactions and daily active users to reward employees. The company prized user engagement and profit over safety, he said. Béjar alleged that a tool encouraging users to take a break, a feature

Meta cited in its defence, was “designed to fail”. It was not the default setting and reminders were easy to ignore, he said.

“All roads lead to time in the product,” Béjar testified. “In that context, safety was always an afterthought.”

According to experts, allowing children to access social media from a young age increases the risk of them later developing mental health problems.

Meta said that children aged under 13 were not allowed to use Instagram or Facebook. However, Béjar suggested that Meta knowingly allowed them to use its products. The company had the technology to require age verification from users suspected to be under age — potentially in the millions — but instead had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach because it was profitable in the long term, Béjar said.

Meta has faced a torrent of lawsuits over the alleged danger its products pose to children. After losing a trial in New Mexico in March, it was ordered to pay $942 million. The state accused Meta of knowingly harming young people’s mental health. That month in Los Angeles, Meta and Google were found liable in a civil suit brought by a girl who alleged extensive use of their products caused her depression. The companies had to pay $6 million in damages.

In opening statements on Tuesday, Paul Schmidt, for the defence, said the company took the wellbeing of young people seriously. “From our perspective, much of this lawsuit is about the government attorneys and their witnesses saying, ‘In trying to improve, we’d do it a little differently. In talking about how to improve, we disagree with how you talk about it.’ It’s meaningful, and the evidence will be meaningful, these efforts Meta has taken to improve,” he said.

The trial is scheduled to last for six weeks. Zuckerberg is expected to testify.

Schoolgirl ‘fed stream of suicide videos’

A schoolgirl found dead at home weeks after her 13th birthday had

been fed a stream of “disturbing” social media videos that normalised suicide, her family say (Amelia Stout writes).

Blake Gallier, from Northfleet, Kent, had not appeared to have problems with mental health when she died on October 30 last year, according to her mother, Gemma Best.

“Blake was really

happy,” Best, 47, said. “She was an extrovert, she was funny, she was hilarious, she was the life and soul of the party. Blake was a confident, happy extrovert who was just phenomenal.”

It was only after examining Blake’s phone that relatives discovered the material she had been viewing and reposting online. Best said: “From

Blake Gallier, 13, who died last year, was a ‘confident, happy extrovert’ with no apparent mental health problems, her family said

what I have gathered, Blake reported a lot of worrying stuff, and I was not aware of that. I never realised what the content was. All her friends had phones, the age for social media was 13. I stupidly never researched it.”

Blake’s sister, Tayla Gallier, 19, said: “When we got her phone back, we saw how many disturbing videos she was seeing. It only takes one bad night, and you like something you relate to, and then that is all the algorithm shows you.

“They are seeing videos normalising ending your life. I do not think young people can fully comprehend what ending their own life means.”

Best and Gallier, who both work for Marks & Spencer, back the Raise the Age campaign to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s.

The family have established Blake’s Pink Promise, which is being registered with the Charity Commission. It has funded counselling for 79 pupils in four schools in Gravesend, near their home, and two adults. Gallier said: “Even if we help one child not feel the way Blake must have, that makes doing this every day worth it. We want to help people in the way we wish she was helped.”

The government announced in June that platforms including TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram would be banned for under-16s. Ministers hope that the legislation will pass by the end of the year.

An inquest into Blake’s death is due to be held this year.

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‘Like a scene from Apocalypse Now’

A photographer saw crews tackling wildfires in mid Wales stretched to their limits, writes Will Humphries

“Everywhere I went with the crews they were on their knees, all of them, absolutely exhausted.”

Jason Ashwood spent 36 hours embedded with the embattled firefighters on the front lines of the wildfires sweeping across mid Wales.

The freelance photographer from southeast London worked with Mid and West Wales fire and rescue service over several months to secure access to the fire zones once the flames began spreading across dry mountainsides, forests and farmland.

“They were just doing their absolute maximum to try and keep a lid on what felt quite uncontrollable,” Ashwood, 57, said. “You see these fires and smouldering, popping up all over the place.

“For people to go into those environments [to] fight that and to see how tired they are and grubby they are, is quite humbling.”

Ashwood joined the rural retained firefighting crews as they left their usual jobs to spend days tackling blazes on the hills around Llangynidr, Rhayader and Rhandirmwyn.

“At Rhayader, the morning after it looked like something from Apocalypse Now,” he said. “I walked up to the crest of a hill and everything was black, it was like something out of a war film.

“It took my breath away. I have never seen a landscape like it. All black, all burnt and nothing alive.

“Fire is obviously incredibly scary and dangerous, and these wildfires could move so quickly. There is a sense of enormity about it and the scariness of nature. It’s not often in the modern world you feel like you cannot control what is around you. With the scale of these wildfires, how quickly they can move, it’s so hard to control.”

Ashwood, who stayed close to the incident commanders, saw exhausted and dirty crews returning from the face of the fires, and followed teams as they spent entire nights dampening down forest edges to stop the fires reigniting in the tree roots.

“You don’t hear any moaning about it,” he said of the crews, who worked wearing personal protective equipment and respirators in the punishing heat and terrain. “They just get stuck into it. They are so tired and it’s such physical work and it’s hot. I got back in my car and it said 41C on the dashboard, and they are in helmets and masks. They had my greatest respect, I have to say.”

Ashwood was assisted with access by Carl Williams, 49, station manager at Brecon, who is also the fire service’s arson and wildfire manager for Powys

Fire crews on the burning hillside near Llandovery and, below, a brief rest while tackling another wildfire near Rhayader

and Ceredigion. “I met Carl at Brecon fire station on Thursday at 9.30am, and he was doing his day job after having finished fighting a wildfire at 4am,” Ashwood said. “Within five minutes of speaking to him, the alarms went off and they were off on another shout.”

Williams said this year’s wildfires had been unprecedented. “This is different,” he said. “The sheer volume of the fires

going on. We can cope normally but when you are stretched to your limits, it’s different.

“But I think this is going to be more of the norm. We are looking at another hot spell in September and I don’t think the rain will penetrate the ground, it will run off, so we could see another spike in the season.”

His station, Brecon, has the only all-

terrain vehicle (ATV) in the fire service, which covers nearly two thirds of the landmass of Wales. It can quickly get crews and water into difficult terrain which would otherwise expend precious energy if reached on foot, but had blown its gearbox by Monday after being used almost non-stop for days.

“It’s probably been in our station for only three hours in the last week,” Williams said.

“It needed a new gearbox. That is how wild it is at the moment. It has been out for two or three days at a time, with the crews rotating on it.”

He said the service would have to look at purchasing more ATVs as wildfires become a bigger problem in the coming years. “We need to look at our response if this is going to be the norm,” he said. “We need to be more prepared as a country and as a fire service.”

Williams was working 10 and 12-hour shifts before relief crews came to allow him to go home and sleep before the next shift on the hillsides.

Above Rhayader, his ATV team was tasked with dampening down the smouldering roots on the forest edge to stop the fire spreading to the woodlands and houses beyond.

“You are seeing smouldering ground and spraying some high-pressure water on the roots to expose them, which will create some flame because it oxygenates it, and then you change to a lower pressure to get more water volume on it,” he said.

“Forestry is deep rooted which means the fire is almost underground. It’s round the clock work until it stops. At night-time it does die down but in the day the sun comes up and dries it out very quickly again.”

Williams said fighting a wildfire in thick bracken and forests, which water cannot contain, requires crews to “look for windows of opportunity rather than being gung-ho”.

He said: “You are not going to commit people into a forest because of the sheer volume of fire loading in the forest if it was to take hold.

“If the fire starts at the bottom of the bank and the sun has been heating it all day and there is wind at the bottom of the hill, that fire will travel up that hill faster than anyone can run.”

He added: “The number one priority is always firefighter safety,” he said. “You could walk into position and the wind changes and you are in the smoke.

“You have to wait for it to come to the areas where we can put it out. When it comes back into grass we can make a difference.”

After three days of fighting the fire at Rhayader, with the help of farmers and agricultural contractors providing water browsers and digging fire breaks, no property or life was lost. “That is really successful”, Williams said.

Public support for the fire crews had been “overwhelming”, he added.

“At the Llangynidr fire, residents were driving up and dropping food off. The Rapid Response Team charity, who come and cook burgers and chips and make coffee at emergency incidents, have been absolutely amazing.

“We have been turning up to the station and there have been bags on the doorstep with food and drinks. When it comes to it, communities have been looking after each other.”

Our green and pleasant land gone, Laura Freeman, page 22

Water reuse scheme sits idle as officials refuse to turn on taps

Ben Cooke Environment Correspondent

The largest water reuse scheme in Britain, capable of saving thousands of litres a day, has been idle for five years — including through the driest July on record — because regulators refuse to let it be switched on.

Installed in a Cambridge housing development five years ago, the system could cut residents’ water use by a fifth, easing strain on reservoirs at a time when almost three quarters of England is in drought, yet the Drinking Water

Inspectorate has deemed it illegal. The state-of-the-art system in Eddington is designed to channel rainwater into a lagoon, then pipe it into apartments for toilet flushing and other non-drinking purposes.

The inspectorate has judged that the system contravenes the Water Industry Act 1991, which makes it an offence to supply homes with water unfit for human consumption, even if it is not meant as drinking water.

The system could reduce water usage by about 25 litres per person a day,

taking personal use down to about 80 litres per day. Cambridge Water invested in the scheme because the city is one of the most water-scarce parts of the country. Housing estates in the area have faced delays of up to three years due to a lack of supply.

This year’s exceptionally dry summer has heightened concerns over the reliability of Britain’s water supply. According to the Environment Agency, England could face a shortage of 5 billion litres of water a day by 2055, equivalent to a third of present usage,

because of population growth and climate change. The government is working to meet this shortfall by building nine new reservoirs.

However, Lutz Johnen, chair of the UK Water Reuse Association, said rainwater harvesting systems could secure Britain’s supply far faster than new reservoirs. “We don’t have to wait 15 year to get things moving,” he told The Times.

The water inspectorate agrees with the Environment Agency that greater water reuse is needed to prevent shortages, but said that the 1991 act would

need to be changed before it could let firms go ahead with such systems.

A spokesperson for the regulator said: “Poorly regulated reuse systems have caused serious illness in other countries, demonstrating the risks of these systems if not considered carefully.”

The inspectorate has oversight only over systems installed by water firms, not over the small-scale rainwater harvesting systems installed in thousands of homes across the country.

Water crisis calls for radical solutions, Juliet Samuel, page 21

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TMS

diary@thetimes.co.uk | @timesdiary

The less said, the better

The Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant has shown a taste for making provocative statements though, fortunately, he is so far confining these to the realms of English grammar. "I am officially giving up on the difference between less and fewer," he said, later clarifying that this meant he was giving up on correcting people. This provoked worries that Andy Burnham's government is surrendering on the key linguistic points of the age. Will they concede on the misuse of iconic? Is the pronunciation of the letter aitch all but lost? Bryant, above, reassured us that there is a line: "I'm sticking with my opposition to the reckless and inaccurate use of 'literally' and 'incredibly'," he said. Good. Those are things we want to see fewer of.

Like its mother country, our American embassy is experiencing a drought, but it will soon be well-watered. A new on-site pub is about to open, a few months after their much-loved bar The Shed closed. Staff await the results of a vote on an official new name, with options being The Lion and Eagle, The Griffin, The

Old Post Office and The Two Georges (Washington and the Third). It's informally being called Turner's Tavern after the current ambassador. Lucky that this didn't happen a year ago, otherwise they might have been lumbered with The Mandy Shandy.

FAINT PRAISE

The SNP have an interesting scale of insults. Their former MP Joanna Cherry has told Iain Dale that her ex-leader and eternal bête noire Nicola Sturgeon was hard to deal with in private, as she was given to "effing and blinding" and "could not bear to be challenged". Dale suggested this was a description of a bully, but Cherry thought this was too strong and suggested what she thought to be a softer noun: "I've called her a Stalinist."

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's attack dog who bites the hand that feeds him, made an eye-catching comment on

Tuesday night. "Have you noticed the people with 'Right Honourable' in their titles are among the most dishonourable people in the country?" he said. I bet he didn't run that one past Robert Jenrick or Suella Braverman.

STAIRWAY TO MAMMON

Rumours can be useful in rock music, even if you're not Fleetwood Mac. The drummer Carmine Appice, who was the percussionist for Rod Stewart, tells Classic Rock magazine that he learnt about the value of gossip when he was rumoured to be joining Led Zeppelin. Stewart asked him if it was true and Appice replied: "That's what the rumours are — I haven't heard nothing." Stewart smiled: "There are rumours I'm going to retire. Keep the rumours going — we'll sell more tickets".

The news that acai (ah-sigh-ee), charcuterie (char-kos-ter-ree) and quinoa (keen-wa) are in the nation's top ten most mispronounced words reminded me of the Jeremy Hardy joke about a lecher who is walking through the posh Morningside area of Edinburgh and spots an attractive woman behind a bakers' counter. He goes in and says "I fancy a quickie," to which the lady replies "How dare you! Round here we call it a quiche."

JACK BLACKBURN

Living to 100? The secret's in your cells

Rhys Blakely Science Editor

A rare type of immune cell may be a key weapon that helps a select band of "supercentenarians" stay remarkably healthy well beyond 100.

Scientists have spent decades, and billions of dollars, trying to discover why some people age so much more successfully than others, and whether the biology that protects them could be harnessed to help the rest of us.

The quest has taken researchers in several directions. Some are studying methods of "rejuvenating" cells to restore youthful resilience. Others are working with senolytics, drugs that are designed to clear away so-called senescent cells that stop dividing but refuse to die. Normally, these "zombie cells" accumulate with age, soaring toxins and contributing to harmful inflammation, frailty and disease.

The new study, published in the journal Cell Reports, asked a different question: how does the immune system alter over time in people who stay remarkably fit while leading exceptionally long lives? Researchers at the University of Osaka in Japan found signs that the body's natural defences were reorganising themselves as people entered their eleventh decade.

The work focused on T cells, a key aspect of the immune system. Some types of T cell directly kill infected or cancerous cells by recognising specific molecular targets on their surface. Others co-

ordinate the broader immune response by helping the body remember threats it has encountered before.

In the super-agers, one normally rare type, known as CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes, or CD4 CTLs, became much more abundant. The research team believes they may help the very old deal with viruses and clear the body of senescent cells. Most intriguingly, there were also hints that in the supercentenarians these cells may have been involved in fighting cancer at an early stage, before it had become clinically detectable.

The team analysed blood samples from 28 people. Eight were aged between 70 and 99, ten were aged 100 to 109 and ten were supercentenarians aged 110 or over. CD4 CTLs made up a median of 4 per cent of T cells in the youngest group. That rose to 9.6 per cent among centenarians and 17.6 per cent in those aged over 110.

"CD4 CTLs are an atypical and relatively rare T cell population," said Kosuke Hashimoto, an associate professor at the University of Osaka and the study's lead author. "So, their marked increase in supercentenarians may provide important clues as to how the immune system is maintained in extreme old age."

The researchers now aim to discover exactly what it is that the super-agers' cells recognise and attack. The hope is this can lead to the development of drugs that work in a similar way to tackle hidden tumours or lingering infections.

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16

News

All back to Bev's place for deft take on a classic

Theatre Clive Davis

Abigail's Party

120min

Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1

★★★★☆

The living room looks like it's been the scene of a controlled detonation of the world's biggest tin of orange paint. We get a blast of Donna Summer, and Beverly's cascading locks are pure Farrah Fawcett. Yes, the Seventies are alive and well at Nadia Fall's revival of Mike Leigh's classic about the cocktail party that goes wrong. The play has had so many airings over the years that it risks being taken for granted. And it's always been dogged by accusations that the suburban satire is just another exercise in very British snobbery. But like The Diary of a Nobody, of which Leigh is a huge fan — as I discovered years ago when I interviewed him about the centenary of the Victorian

Tamzin Outhwaite is on fine form as a manipulative Bev, hosting her guests Tony and Angela (Omar Malik and Lauren Patel)

classic — Abigail's Party is a study in how we construct facades.

Fall's production is so deftly crafted that the best of the dialogue sounds freshly minted. Tamzin Outhwaite's bored, vampish wife steps out of the shadow of Alison Steadman, who gave us an unforgettable Bev half a century ago. When we first see Outhwaite she is dancing away on her own, working on her Travolta moves. Here is a manipulative woman intent on turning her lounge into her own private catwalk. Her guests and her poor husband, Laurence (Kevin Bishop strikes just the right aggrieved tone), become her props, she moves them around with expressions of fake bonhomie, topping up their glasses.

If I have a slight reservation about this revival it's in the decision to turn Tony and Angela into an Asian couple. Omar Malik and Lauren Patel are on fine form but the racial undercurrent seems to provide Laurence with another reason to cast dirty looks at the big guy with the disco collar.

The set designer Peter McKintosh festoons the stage with period leic-a-hrac, we could be looking at a Martin Parr photograph. Pandora Colin captures the gaucheness of Sue, the painfully prim neighbour taking refuge from her daughter's rave-up. Laurence may meet a sad end but Sue suffers in her own repressed way.

It's a curious coincidence that another period living-room comedy of manners, How the Other Half Loves, has just opened at the nearby Old Vic. Alan Ayckbourn's play is definitely worth catching, but Bev's lounge has the best nibbles in town. To Sep Fl, atgickets.com

Mushroom killer's fight over jury 'error'

Tash Mosheim

The Australian woman who murdered three relatives with a death cap mushroom-laced beef wellington has claimed that a 'catastrophic' blunder involving the jury caused a miscarriage of justice at her trial.

Lawyers for Erin Patterson, 51, are seeking to overturn her convictions after jurors were housed in the same hotel as members of the prosecution, a key police witness and journalists while deliberating in one of Australia's most closely watched murder trials.

Patterson was sentenced to life imprisonment last September after being

convicted of murdering her estranged husband's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. She was also convicted of attempting to murder Wilkinson's husband, Ian, a Baptist pastor who survived after weeks in an induced coma.

The four had eaten beef wellingtons containing death cap mushrooms at Patterson's home in Leongatha, Victoria, in 2023. Patterson maintains that the poisoning was an accident.

At the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne yesterday, Richard Edney, one of Patterson's barristers, said there had been a 'fundamental failure' in how the jury was sequestered during

deliberations. An accommodation shortage in Morwell, where the trial was held, meant the 12 jurors stayed at the same hotel as people connected with the case.

The jurors were kept on a separate floor, ate in a separate room and were supervised by jury keepers, but Edney argued that merely seeing others involved in the case could have exerted a 'subconscious influence'.

He conceded there was no evidence that jurors had improperly communicated with prosecutors or witnesses.

Brendan Kissane KC, Victoria's director of public prosecutions, said the jury's placement in the hotel had been

an accident and that the safeguards had worked.

Patterson's lawyers raised six other grounds of appeal, including allegations that evidence had been wrongly admitted or excluded and that she had faced an 'unfair and oppressive' five-day cross-examination.

Veronika Drago, another defence barrister, challenged evidence linking Patterson's mobile phone to areas where death cap mushrooms had been reported on the citizen science website iNaturalist. Prosecutors had argued at trial that the evidence suggested Patterson had travelled to locations where she could have obtained the deadly

fungi. Her lawyers said the phone data could place her only in a broad area.

Drago described the evidence as 'speculation upon speculation', arguing that requiring Patterson to respond to it contributed to a 'substantial miscarriage of justice'.

Patterson watched the hearing by video link from the maximum-security jail where she is serving her sentence.

The hearing continues today, when prosecutors will pursue their own appeal against Patterson's sentence. They argue that the 33-year minimum term, which allows her to seek parole in 2056, is inadequate and that she should spend the rest of her life in prison.

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News

TE Lawrence led Arab forces in their revolt against the Ottoman empire during the First World War, as immortalised in the 1962 film starring Peter O'Toole, left. In a 1932 letter to a British diplomat he complained that countries in Europe and beyond had denied him entry

Disgusted of Arabia: letter reveals anger at travel 'ban'

TE Lawrence wrote of his frustration at being denied visas over fears that he might be a spy, Jack Blackburn writes

In the 1910s, he crossed the Nafud desert, trekked across Sinai, traversed Arabia and walked into Damascus — but by the 1930s, TE Lawrence was struggling to get much further than Dover. Now, a newly unearthed letter has shone a light on Lawrence of Arabia's frustration at a perceived travel ban after press coverage suggested that he was working as a British spy.

Lawrence, who had shot to inter-

national fame as a leader of the Arab Revolt during the First World War, said that he had been denied visas to 'France, Germany, Russia, Persia, Turkey, India and Egypt' and bemoaned his inability to travel for 'archaeological interests'.

'It is fair warning to anyone like myself not to exceed the normal achievement, if he values his integrity,' the war hero wrote.

Lawrence composed the letter on October 22, 1932, while posted with the RAF at Mount Batten station in Plymouth. In the preceding years, press reports had suggested that Lawrence had been using his international travel and archaeological work as a cover for work as a British spy. This had apparently led to his difficulties in being able to go abroad.

He was writing to Montague Shearman Jr, a senior member of the diplomatic service, who it appears had attempted to intervene on Lawrence's behalf. However, this had been done to no avail and Lawrence's gratitude was mixed with some level of belittlement.

'It is good of you to have taken that trouble. Who would be an ambassador, now a days?' Lawrence wrote.

'It is rather pathetic to remember

that they were once decisive and influential men.'

Lawrence said he had never 'denied or confirmed any report, true or false, published about me' but recognised that 'nothing can be done'.

'I do not know about Italy and the States; they might not be afraid,' he said. 'But the places — Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley — where my archaeological interests lay,

Mar 21, A/c Shaw R. A. P. Mount Batten Plymouth 22.8.26.

Dear Shawman,

It is quite a year to have taken that trouble. We need to see Aschamander, now a days? It is rather pathetic to remember that they were once decisive and influential men.

I don't tell the World's Agency doesn't sound, though very heavily with uninitiated forces. We have 7 yrs. now, denied or confirmed any report. This is false, published about me. It seems rather a lot to begin.

Now, don't let me explain. I quite see that nothing can be done: but it remains rather dead from my friends, paid by mine that my character should be needed. There, Germany, Russia, Russia, Turkey, India and Egypt, before me, are there. I do not know

now all ban me, and foreign travel (had I the money for it) would be impossible.'

The letter is yet another sign of the uneasiness with which Lawrence wore his fame after his exploits in the First World War, where he galvanised Arab tribes to defeat the Ottoman Empire in Palestine, became the stuff of legend. The message is signed TE Shaw, the name that Lawrence took in an attempt to distance himself from his fame.

'This remarkable letter reveals the price TE Lawrence paid for becoming Lawrence of Arabia.' Christopher Brink, head of sale at Freeman's Auctions in Philadelphia, said. 'Less than 15 years after his exploits in the Middle East made him an international legend, his fame — and the suspicions surrounding it — had effectively made him a man without borders, denied visas by countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.'

The letter also has a poignant edge, given that it was written fewer than three years before Lawrence's death in a motorcycle accident. While he would remain one of the most famous British figures of the 20th century, it shows just how miserable his fame had made him.

Initially, Lawrence had embraced the attention, working with the American writer and photographer Lowell Thomas who had captured some of Lawrence's exploits in Arabia. The pair collaborated on Thomas's touring lecture show, which made Lawrence a celebrity. Lawrence also wrote his autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and his immortalisation was compounded by the David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia in 1962.

The letter is up for auction in America on Thursday, with bidding already open online. The valuation is up to $2,500 (£1,800).

Branding dates back to the Bronze Age

Kaya Burgess Science Correspondent

'Come to our desert oasis to browse items from the biggest brand of the Bronze Age! Buy pots, cups, jewellery and carvings bearing the famous logo! Do not accept cheap imitations.'

The idea of brands selling sought-after merchandise bearing recognisable logos — and spawning imitators and knock-offs — may seem an invention of modern capitalist societies but it dates back at least 3,200 years, archaeologists have found.

Potters based at the Qurayyah oasis in north-western Arabia during the Bronze Age created pots and vessels with distinctive patterns, images and materials that

became renowned as a form of branding or logo that identified their merchandise. Other craftspeople in the same oasis then used the designs on jewellery, masonry and figurines.

Archaeologists have uncovered examples of imitation vessels made hundreds of kilometres away that attempt to copy the patterns used at Qurayyah, showing how recognisable and popular the originals must have been.

'The vessels were so distinctive, appealing and sought-after that for all purposes they must be considered a brand,' researchers in Austria said. 'The potters at Qurayyah

Arabian potters marked their work like modern merchandise

used a 'bichrome' painting style, using two contrasting colours often including red and black pigments on their items. Their designs included stylised images of iboxes and ostriches and geometric patterns, according to the study published in the journal PLOS One.

Their wares were found as far afield as the Levant in modern day Jordan and Israel, showing that they were a 'widespread, choice export wars', researchers found.

They identified smelting sites imitating the brand in what is now Jordan, showing that knock-off copies were being created.

Even in the Bronze Age 'wider networks of technological know-how were shared' said the lead author of the study, Marta Luciani, from the department of prehistoric and historical archaeology at the University of Vienna.

Charles I's treasure ship 'located after 400 years'

Marc Horne Jack Blackburn History Correspondent

The centuries-old mystery over the resting place of Charles I's sunken treasure ship is finally set to be solved.

While embarking on a royal tour of Scotland in July 1613, the monarch crossed the Forth of Forth on one ferry boat, while his riches were transported on another. The latter, a wooden craft named the Blessing of Burntisland, sank during a violent storm, leading to the loss of dozens of lives and a vast haul of jewellery, clothing, plates and coins.

Due to the depth of the wreck, the shifting silts of the Forth and the lack of visibility, searching for the vessel has proven fruitless. However, after 30

years of research, volunteers from Burntisland Heritage, a community group believe they have found the remains just one mile from the Fife town.

It said in a report: 'The royal cargo was reported to have been worth £100,000 at the time, a sum equivalent to several hundreds of millions today.'

The items on board are thought to include a gold and silver dinner service commissioned by Henry VIII.

Burntisland Heritage said the wreck had been traced using 'subsea ground-penetrating radar and advanced scanning techniques'. Ian Archibald, the leader of the search team, expressed caution, but remains optimistic. 'We have retrieved a timber sample ... the next stage would be carbon dating.'

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News

Toxic river bloom blights swim spot

Swimmers have been told to avoid London's first official river bathing spot after it was hit by a toxic algal bloom (Adam Vaughan writes).

The Ham and Kingston site on the Thames was established as a bathing area in May as part of a wider effort to test the safety of inland

waters. Swimmers have been flocking to the non-tidal spot, described by locals as “almost countrified” during the summer heatwaves.

However, the Environment Agency has issued a notice warning people against swimming there. “Bathing is not advised due to pollution from harmful algae,” the regulator said.

Bathers have complained of rashes after algae was seen in the Thames near Kingston

said she had first noticed signs of algae last week. She swam in the river before the notice was issued.

“Instantly on Sunday night I came out in a really bad rash, itchy

Kingston spot. She believed the pollution may have been triggered by the record-breaking hot summer, which has lowered river flows and raised water temperatures.

Blue-green algae are cyanobacteria. They can produce toxic chemicals that are harmful for human health and animals.

Cyanobacteria grow in late summer and thrive in water temperatures exceeding 20C. In the 1960s there was a median of nine days during July and August warm enough for their growth. By the 2010s, that had tripled to 31 days.

The Times's Clean it Up campaign is calling for the creation of more bathing waters, which proponents say can act as a spur for water-quality improvements.

Agency staff have been taking water samples for harmful bacteria at the site since May to establish the water quality. Officials were understood to be on site on Tuesday.

Marlene Lawrence, who founded the local swimming group Teddington Bluetits,

spots, and that's not like me. I can only attribute it to the algae in the river," she said.

Lawrence said her fellow swimmers had never experienced a blue-green algae bloom at the Ham and

TikTokers cause a stink about perfume ‘harms’

Poppy Koronka Health Correspondent

Spraying perfume on your neck does not cause health problems, experts have said after a social media trend associating the use of fragrances with thyroid issues and cancer.

Leading health experts have spoken out after a host of wellness influencers posted about the dangers of perfume, with some even comparing the fragrances to cigarettes.

“We’ve all seen the warnings on a pack of cigarettes. But what about the warnings on your favourite designer perfume?” one influencer wrote. “Spoiler: there aren’t any.”

Another said that spraying perfumes on the neck was “worth thinking about” because it is so close to the thyroid gland and could disrupt hormones or be linked to thyroid disease.

“Don’t poison yourself,” other videos implored viewers, showing how a dandelion wilts after being sprayed with fragrance.

“Current evidence does not show that applying perfume over the thyroid selectively delivers fragrance chemicals to the gland or exposes it to a higher dose than spraying elsewhere,” Ahmed Elbediwy and Nadine Wehida, academics from Kingston University, wrote on The Conversation website.

“Research on skin absorption and the anatomy of the neck do not support the idea of a direct, selective route to the thyroid.”

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the lower front of the neck that releases hormones helping control how the body uses energy. It lies beneath the skin, under several layers of connective tissue and muscle.

“Much of the concern centres on phthalates, a family of chemicals with different uses and health effects,” the researchers explained. “Diethyl phthalate, or DEP, has been used as a

solvent and fixative in fragrances. Other phthalates have mainly been used to make plastics flexible. Evidence about one member of the family cannot simply be applied to all the others.”

Long-term exposure to diethyl phthalate — a chemical used widely in scented products — has been linked to disruption of some endocrine systems.

Elbediwy, a senior lecturer in cancer biology and clinical biochemistry, and Wehida, a senior lecturer in genetics and molecular biology, both argued that cosmetics in Britain undergo safety assessments before being sold to the public, and that perfume use may not necessarily lead to a build-up of DEP around the thyroid.

“Assessors consider ingredients, concentrations, intended use and likely exposure. Fragrance mixtures may be listed as ‘parfum’, while specified allergens must be named above prescribed concentrations under Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s rules,” they added.

A 2024 paper examined 17 studies involving 5,616 children and adolescents. While some studies found a link between phthalate exposure and thyroid problems, they did not investigate links between perfume application to the neck and subsequent thyroid disease. It found that the more likely risks from perfume were skin rashes or allergies, which can affect between 0.7 and 2.6 per cent of the population.

“For most people, current evidence provides no thyroid-related reason to avoid the neck specifically. Cancer Research UK reports no evidence that using perfume causes cancer,” Elbediwy and Wehida said.

“Further research could clarify the effects of repeated exposure to fragrance mixtures. Current evidence does not show that spraying the neck gives fragrance chemicals special access to the thyroid.”

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With lawyers on its tail, Meta looks vulnerable Hugo Rifkind Page 23

Comment

Our water crisis calls for radical solutions

While left and right bicker over state or private ownership, no one's paying to build desperately needed infrastructure

Juliet Samuel

@CITYSAMUEL

It's like walking over a great bale of straw, picking your way across the tan expanse of grass in a home counties garden. Clusters of laurel leaves are shrivelled but the brambles have gone into super-production, and a venerable old wisteria is still flowering and putting out velvety new tendrils that slink along walls, through window frames.

The plants that can are already adapting to repeated summer drought. Their growth points to a carefully tended root network tapping water sources deep underground. Whereas we, the supposedly civilised species, are not yet even focusing on the water network itself — the pipes, the reservoirs or the way we use water. We are still at the stage of arguing over who should own it all, who will pay and who to blame.

The purgatory of Thames Water illustrates the point. Europe's biggest water company has languished for two years in an open-ended "restructuring" as officials and creditors argue over who should take on the backlog of maintenance problems, urgent investment needs and potential licence infringements that could carry large regulatory liabilities. The regulator, Ofwat, with characteristically saintly forbearance, is pretending not to notice that it's bust. You can wipe out the creditors, after all, but forcing it into special administration will still land an unpleasant weight of liabilities on the taxpayer. The government, as far

as I know, has no more invented a magic fix for leaky pipes than markets.

Andy Burnham spoke a great deal about nationalising things during the by-election that brought him to power. He claimed there was "an overwhelming case for public ownership of Thames Water" and the Burnham-backed campaign group Mainstream has proposed "public control" of all "essential services". Since then, however, the closest the prime minister has come to explaining his utilities policy is to put out a deeply weird video of him wearing black latex gloves and silently grimacing while some young guy helps him to connect up an extremely simple electrical circuit to turn on and off two small, plastic fans. This was apparently a metaphor, which didn't explain why he wanted to be known for messing about with his fans.

Still, his coronation did prompt

We're still arguing over who owns it, who will pay and who to blame

Thames's creditors to offer the government a board seat and a golden share in a restructured company, in addition to the partial debt write-off they had already offered. But Burnham has chosen to make his "not-quite-nationalisation" agenda the responsibility of "No 10 North", which means that before he can develop policies, the requisite staff have to be moved or hired in Manchester. While that's going on, his team have no doubt been whacked by officials with the unpleasant facts of the case.

Thames needs a lot of cash to fix its problems. The creditor

consortium is offering to write off nearly £10 billion of debt, put in £3.4 billion in equity and lend another £6.5 billion or so to fund investment for the next four years, after which they hope to list it for more than they put in. They claim they can do all of this without raising bills or befouling more rivers. But there's also the looming threat of fines that could be levied for years of possible permit breaches, major investigations by the Environment Agency, a bunch of criminal investigations and the threat of jail for negligent executives, which is all a bit inconvenient for the purposes of reaching a deal.

Of course, the government can just nationalise it. But then taxpayers will not only face years of legal cases and end up paying the fines owed to themselves; they'll also still have to find billions to fix leaks, stop sewage dumping and build drought-proof infrastructure. And Thames is just one of a dozen troubled water companies. These are cash calls on a scale John Healey could really do without in his first budget.

Given all that, you might think the government should just take the deal creditors are offering for Thames. With a golden share and the promise of a new regulator, Burnham will still be able to say he's sticking it to Thatcher. But — and forgive me for thinking momentarily about anything other than the politics of it all — who's to say this will actually fix anything?

Water companies have failed to invest enough despite massive population growth. That's why a mostly temperate, rainy island has become quickly stressed by a run of terribly hot summers, which may be the new normal. Better monitoring of sewage dumping, forced on them by government, has revealed

Andy Burnham seems to have gone quiet on his nationalisation plans

companies are regularly using rivers as extra waste pipes. But there's plenty of blame to go around. Ofwat has repeatedly forced through cuts to investment plans in order to keep bills down, while allowing companies to pay out generous dividends.

These failures have led to a rather stupid, student-politics debate about ownership of the means of production. The Marxists rage against profiteering; the Thatcherites point out that water privatisation was itself a response to decades of under-investment by cash-strapped governments. The Marxists adore the history of municipal water companies; the Thatcherites laud the private ones. Neither side is really addressing the question of how to get the necessary infrastructure built, especially in the Nimby heartlands of Thames Valley, or

how to reduce the cost of it all. It may be that the situation is so bad that it calls for a truly radical approach. The Oxford economist Dieter Helm argues that we need a complete change in the way we use water. He suggests we stop using drinking water for everything from hosing down the dogs to watering the roses and that we keep tariffs low only on the volume of potable water that is necessary to cover

Water companies have failed to invest despite population growth

actual drinking and cooking.

Beyond that, he says, the cost should rise sharply in order to incentivise the use of waste water from sinks, dishwashers and so forth, which can be decontaminated enough on site to supply parched lawns and flush the loos. The pipes and tanks you'd need to install for this system, he argues, are far cheaper and less extensive than the vast projects needed to ramp up the supply of drinking water for everyone and everything.

I'm willing to bet that Professor Helm has never had to try to stop a toddler from drinking the bathwater. Yet though my gut rebels at the thought that Britain is now a country too dysfunctional and poor to let fresh water flow out of every tap, my head says that the jirof is probably right. We can play this game of shuffling assets to and fro from public to private and back again until all the taps are spluttering. Or we can face up to the abominable cost of fixing anything in Britain and the scarcity of willing cash from any source. There is, in truth, no shortage of water, only a shortage of clear thinking.

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Comment

Amnesty v JK Rowling points to wider malaise

Row over 'anti-rights' briefing on women's support service exposes the ideological capture of NGOs

Danielle Haas

Amnesty International's recent apology for an 'anti-rights' briefing that drew legal threats from JK Rowling appears to close an embarrassing chapter for the global human rights organisation.

Last month Amnesty's map of Britain's 'anti-rights ecosystem' identified 117 groups, including Rowling's Beirut's Place, citing its gender-critical stance and female-only services. Faced with Rowling offering to fund legal challenges by others on its 'blacklist' and denouncing it as 'the tyrant that persecutes those who don't espouse what it decrees acceptable beliefs', Amnesty's initial 'report' melted into a full mea culpa.

On July 31 — Rowling and Harry Potter's shared birthday — the organisation said the briefing 'should never have been published' after bypassing review, and announced internal and external reviews.

Amnesty no doubt hopes its procedural explanation will end scrutiny. It should invite more. How does a document naming over 100 organisations skip supposedly rigorous oversight? And if the process failed here, why assume it has not elsewhere?

As a former senior editor at Human Rights Watch (HRW) for 14 years, I saw the machinery of review: documents like this do not simply slip out. A less fantastical

explanation is that the briefing was a legally exposed expression of a settled institutional view. In May, Amnesty's briefing Like a Snowball similarly characterised many of the same groups. It, too, was withdrawn, as was a parliamentary briefing labelling 51 gender-critical organisations 'anti-trans'.

Amnesty's response to Rowling followed an NGO playbook honed over decades: call the controversy a procedural lapse, promise investigation, wait for the news cycle to pass. But perhaps not this time.

The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into Amnesty's handling of the affair, and public figures are challenging its

The accountability they demand of others is rarely self-applied

direction. 'I renounce the mob who have taken over Amnesty,' the comedian John Cleese, a former Amnesty fundraiser, wrote. Iseult White, granddaughter of Amnesty co-founder Sean MacBride, stated she 'would not donate a single penny'.

Insiders are speaking out, too. I am one of them. After leaving HRW in 2023, I co-founded Geneva-based EiGHT with sector colleagues to press for accountability from a powerful industry where quality controls are mainly self-imposed standards and voluntary commitments.

In July, EiGHT published Insiders Speak, a report drawing on internal documents and the experiences of more than 70 current and former staff at nine leading NGOs: Amnesty,

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières-MSF), Greenpeace, HRW, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mercy Corps, Plan International, Save the Children and Unicef. It identified the same problems exposed by Rowling's clash with Amnesty: ideological capture, compromised work, broken processes, weak governance and institutional deflection.

Among our findings were conclusions being reached before research was complete. Amnesty's 2024 report accusing Israel of genocide was internally labelled the 'genocide report' as research was supposedly under way. We also found work bent to ideological demands, delayed for political reasons and crises leveraged for fundraising. Amnesty's genocide report took a year; its October 7 report more than two; internal documents show staff were concerned earlier publication might generate sympathy for Israel.

We also documented rhetoric and culture at odds with NGOs' professed values. Posts on MSF's internal 'Sook' portal included 'stop playing the Jewish card'. a Greenpeace forum carried video of militants entering Israel captioned 'Enter you will be victorious', an Amnesty staffer posted of Yahya Sinwar 'Legend'. Dr Javid Abdelmounin, MSF's incoming president, reported material calling Israel a country of 'child killers'. Rasha Abdel Latif, an incoming Amnesty USA board member, reported praise for an attack on Tel Aviv civilians, when staff objected, a manager declined to act, citing her 'pain'.

Staff repeatedly described unaddressed antisemitism, Holocaust trivialisation, self-censorship and

retaliation for speaking up, alongside dehumanisation of Jews, Israelis and October 7 victims. At a 300-person HRW 'Israel-Palestine' meeting after the attacks, Hamas's victims and hostages went unmentioned. At Mercy Corps, a post adding 'Israel' to a support message for Gaza and Syria was removed as a code of conduct violation. MSF staff in Lebanon demanded managers 'instantly stop' the narrative 'adopted by the West framing Israelis as victims'.

Then there is the tolerance for troubling affiliations. Former boycott activist Omar Shukir led HRW's Israel-Palestine work for a decade. Shawan Jabarin, convicted by Israel for membership and recruitment for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, served on an HRW advisory committee, then-executive director Kenneth Roth first denied the history, then dismissed it as 'ancient history' if true.

One might expect the nine NGOs named in EiGHT's report to show concern about its evidence. None has. Few insiders will be surprised: the accountability they demand of others is rarely self-applied.

Rowling may have cracked open the bolted doors of human rights and humanitarian organisations. But whether change follows is up to donors, journalists, courts, policymakers and a public that has taken them on trust to demand answers to questions unasked for too long. Who are you, really? How do you work? And can you prove that what you say is true?

Danielle Haas is the executive director of EiGHT. A longer version of this article was published by Quillotte.com

'Grey belt' is a clear threat to villages and countryside Paula Moss

Labour promised to build on 'grey belt' land. That's a phrase conjuring derelict garages and scrubby wasteland, not real countryside. Guildford borough council has just shown what the phrase means on the ground. Its new green belt assessment finds 80 per cent of the borough's green belt is either grey belt or 'provisionally' so. Since 64 per cent of Guildford is green belt, that is roughly two thirds of the entire borough — fields, woods and historic village settings, all potentially in play.

The trick lies in the definition. Land counts as grey belt if it fails to make a 'strong' contribution to just three purposes: checking urban sprawl, stopping towns merging and preserving historic towns. Left off that list is the purpose that matters most in rural Surrey — safeguarding the countryside from encroachment, arguably the whole point of the green belt since 1955. Guildford's assessors found 342 of its 575 assessment areas do protect the countryside from encroachment; it made no difference, because that purpose isn't one of the chosen three. Strip out heritage and flood protections, and 551 of the 575 would fail outright — proof that it is those separate safeguards doing the protecting, not the grey belt test.

Villages fare worst of all. Sprawl-prevention, merger-prevention and historic-setting protection apply only to towns — never villages. The fields around Shore, Ripley, the Horsleys and Effingham may be all that stops those places dissolving into one continuous suburb, yet under this test that function is irrelevant. The more a county depends on villages set apart by open land, the more exposed it is.

The politics wrote themselves this week. The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, has moved to protect every pub in England from conversion, requiring a year spent trying to sell one before it can be knocked down. But the document that shields the Red Lion doesn't extend the same courtesy to the fields around it. A developer must prove there is no saving the pub, a village must prove why its countryside shouldn't be built on.

Nor is this only about single sites: Guildford has deferred judging whether repeated development would cumulatively wreck the green belt, yet grey belt findings apply to planning applications now. Enough estates in enough villages, and rural Surrey becomes a chain of them. Surrey needs housing on brownfield land and in well-connected towns, not a definition of 'grey' that is elastic enough to swallow its villages.

Guildford has handed ministers hard evidence of what their policy delivers. If they proceed regardless, this stops being an oversight. It becomes a political choice.

Paula Moss is vice-chair of Effingham parish council

Laura Freeman Notebook

Green and pleasant, or gravel and yuccas?

We returned from holiday to a scene of devastation. Going into the garden, I felt like Scarlett O'Hara picking her way across the massed casualties after the Battle of Atlanta. Tragic hydrangeas, fuchsias like deep-fried shrimp, roses gone to pot pourri. That night and every night since, after giving my daughters their bath, I have trapped back and forth with a watering can giving the plants theirs.

In the twilight, falling noticeably earlier now, I've considered the future. Drought resistance. Climate resilience. These must be our watchwords. Trouble is, like so many, I'm in love with the loven, blousy (thirsty) look of the romantic English cottage garden, blessed by downpour and drizzle.

The designer Ben Penfreath has noted, without enthusiasm, the trend for 'abandoned car park in

Portugal' planting. A sea of gravel and euphorbia.

Eavesdropping in a country house café, I heard two ladies in straw hats discuss their options. 'I cannot be doing,' said one of them, 'with nothing but lavender and yuccas.' Can I learn to love a yuccas?

A blip in time ...

I'm Suffolk, buckets and spades in the boot, we took a detour to Holy Trinity Blythburgh. Blipping my card on the reader to make a donation, I reflected, not for the first time, that it isn't that the modern world is worse (how convenient it is to blip) but that the modern world is thin. In the chancel was an old Peter's Pence box, so called because it collected the penny per household sent to the Pope in Rome. (Or siphoned off en route.) This one had been around since 1473 and later became an alms box. Sturdy, if rusty, hinges. A binding band to put off thieves. You could practically hear the echo of the coins once dropped.

I thought of the church mice, poor as the proverbial, in Disney's Rebel Most and the boo-hiss moment when the Sheriff of Nottingham raids the poor-box. You

couldn't wring the same pathos out of a modern blipper. Tewo checkout: blip. Tube barriers: blip. Holy Trinity: blip. No echo down the ages.

... can save your church

After an earlier church-crawling holiday my husband subscribed to the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust. Their summer newsletter arrived this week. The chairman, Peter Aneyl-Harris, notes the absurdity of recent reforms. The Listed Places of

Worship Grant Scheme, introduced in 2001, allowed churches and other places of worship to reclaim VAT on repairs and maintenance. This had worked well for 25 years. Earlier this year the scheme was withdrawn by the government and replaced by the Places of Worship Renewal Fund, directed at capital projects, not repairs and maintenance. The new fund will only consider a grant for projects in excess of £10,000 while the previous scheme allowed for VAT to be reclaimed on repairs as low as £1,000, seemingly penalising precautionary repairs. More bizarre is this: consider a listed church in poor condition. The parochial church council

faces the sad prospect, if it cannot raise huge sums for restoration, of complete demolition. The repairs would attract VAT, the demolition would be zero-rated. Your churches need you. Keep blipping.

Another country

I've been revealing it. Carr's A Month in the Country. A long, hot summer seems to call for it. Our here, Tom Birkin, is charged with restoring the 'Doom' — a Last Judgment painting — on a Yorkshire church wall. 'What I'm really getting at,' he observes. 'is that it's not all that easy to find your way back to the Middle Ages. They weren't us in fancy dress, mouths full of fines and thous, quoths, prithees and zounds. They had no more than a few entertaining distractions to take their minds off death and birth, sleep and work and their prayers to the almighty father and his stricken son when things got too awful.'

'They weren't us' is a useful rubric when it comes to the past, its people and their failings. When younger generations find even their parents' views incomprehensible — 'OK, boomer' — how much stranger and more unknowable must be the views of our great-great-greats many times over. OK, doomer.

Janice Turner is away

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Comment

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With lawyers on its tail, Meta looks vulnerable

Puny European regulation has failed to bring Big Tech to heel but a monster US court case could be a different story

Hugo Rifkind

@HUGORIFKIND

You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing. "Winston Churchill supposedly said, 'after they've tried everything else.' Did he really? Search me. We live now in the social media age. Truth, schmuth. Print it in white letters on a black and white photograph, push it out on Instagram, and what the heck, he might as well have done.

On the subject of social media itself, though, his words (or not, move on) may be about to become true. For, after years of fierce American resistance to the idea of social media regulation, and after repeated broadsides from both Silicon Valley and the White House against any other authority — the UK, the EU, whatever — which might have the temerity to attempt such a thing for themselves, it is the land of big tech and free speech itself which may, finally, be about to bring the beast to heel. As is the American way, though, they'll be doing it through lawyers.

This week, in a courthouse in California, a landmark case began, with four states — soon to be joined by 25 others — accusing Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, of harming children. The case, one of a wave of such things, has been likened to those against tobacco firms in the 1990s. Certainly, there are similarities. Chief among them is the claim that the tech firm caused harm entirely knowingly, with a product that was addictive by design.

An alternative view sees Mark Zuckerberg, the company's founder, as a sort of sorcerer's apprentice, unleashing dark magic that ran outwith his control. Sometimes, to be fair, this does seem to be what has happened. This week, for example, Wired reported on Meta's inability to stop running adverts for an AI porn app, which specifically markets itself on allowing people to create nude sexy deepfakes of female politicians. Over-generous as I may be, I doubt Zuck himself ever okayed that one, in a meeting room in his hoodie.

Generally, though? Come off it. In Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network (not a perfect history of the founding of Facebook, but not far off) you may remember a punchable Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker, Facebook's first president. In 2017, already well over a decade after this all began, the real Parker gave an interview to Axios in which he came

clean. The driving thought process of the site, he said, had been "how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?"

He went on to describe "dopamine hits" and "a social-validation feedback loop" which was "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology". And he and Zuckerberg, he continued, "understood this consciously. And we did it anyway." While adding, even then, "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

This is similar to the claims made now by California's deputy attorney-

Ex-president admitted Facebook exploited human vulnerability

general Megan O'Neill, who alleged in court that Meta's strategy was to: "Hook the users. Hold them for as long as they can." Thus far, Meta's best defence to this seems to be a rather weak protestation that, while Facebook and Instagram might have made some people sad, Meta couldn't have wanted this to happen, because it wouldn't want to drive people away.

Perhaps this was once true. As anyone who has used these platforms any time recently could tell you, though, it is nonsense. Since

Parker's day, the bleak genius of the algorithm has been to achieve unhappiness and obsession at the same time. You don't scroll forever in a Soma haze, getting what you want. You do it restlessly, because you never quite do. Which, it turns out, is far more compulsive.

For all that, nailing Meta on the basis of harming children has a faint whiff to it of nailing AI Capone for tax avoidance. As in, sure, yeah, but is that all? Certainly, social media has harmed children. The thing is, it has also harmed everything else, from global politics to domestic politics to traditional media to attention spans to your ability to get a table in that sweet but formerly little-known restaurant you've been going to since 1987.

Soaring fraud is arguably a by-product of social media, as is most modern terrorism, as are epidemics of loneliness, porn addiction and self-harm. And on, and on.

So pervasive is its impact that when the Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff did her utmost to get her head around it in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (and surveillance is something I haven't even had space to mention) she could only do so by apparently inadvertently inventing the neologism "panvasive". I smirked at this when I reviewed the book, but it has stuck with me. It is panvasive. It's

in everything. And the panvasive is hard to fight. You begin to feel that you might as well be raging at the air.

But suddenly, Meta looks vulnerable. The company says it could face fines of up to $1.4 trillion, which would wipe it out, and seems implausible. Even smaller fines, though, could force changes more pervasive (indeed, more panvasive) than any that our own Just William's catapult of an Online Safety Act was ever going to manage. The company may well be forced to end the infinite scroll, limit data targeting, end the grimly evil, addictive, algorithmic loitlessness that glues all ages to their screens.

If so, it won't be the last. Perhaps the crack cocaine of TikTok will be next, or the monetised mania of X, or the dirty OCD of a streak on Snap. With all this, obviously, being a harbinger of the next battle, the big one, against the social ravages of AI. Will it happen in time to save the kids that new technology will send a bit mad? No, of course not. Arguably it already hasn't. Still, impunity is no longer guaranteed. Mountains can be moved. Behemoths can be tamed. The Americans, as ever belatedly, can get it right.

Listen to Hugo Rifkind Mon-Thurs, 10am-1pm

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Letters to the Editor

Women in prison

Sir, The latest proposals to ease prison overcrowding, and Andy Burnham's comments on housing men in women's prisons, risk solving the crisis in men's prisons at the expense of women ("Early release exemptions fuel anger", Aug 19). As a member of the leadership board of the charity Women in Prison, I strongly support reducing the number of women in prison. However, the recent proposals are troubling. Closing women's prisons would inevitably mean women being moved further from their children and families. When Holloway closed its doors in 2016, women were dispersed away from their support networks.

The proposal to accommodate men within women's prisons is even more troubling. A high proportion of women in the criminal justice system have experienced domestic abuse, sexual violence, coercion or other forms of male violence. Housing in women's prisons risks retraumatising victims of male violence.

There is a better way to relieve the pressure on prisons: stop imprisoning so many women. That means investing in women's centres, community sentences, housing, mental-health provision and services for victims of abuse. Women leaving prison also need proper resettlement support, not hurried release into homelessness or back into abusive relationships.

The prison overcrowding crisis is real. But women make up only a tiny fraction of the prison population. Their prisons, family relationships and, above all, sense of safety should not become collateral damage in solving this crisis.

Cherie Blair KC London W2

Devastating move

Sir, While we should all aspire to win and lose games of chess with good grace (letter, Aug 19), it is perhaps worth noting that when Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest-ever exponents of the game, was asked what gave him the greatest pleasure in playing, he said it was the moment when he crushed his opponent's ego.

Dr Ben Timmis Emsworth, Hants

Corrections and clarifications

● We said the Norwegian state broadcaster, NRK, admitted it "could not confirm the story" of Russian spying in Norwegian waters (News, Aug 3). NRK has told us it was referring only to an unconfirmed claim by the Norwegian security services that they had seen an FSB agent aboard one ship, the Taurus. NRK stands by its story of Russian spying. We are happy to put this on record.

BGO Regulated | The Times takes complaints about editorial content seriously. We are committed to abiding by the Independent Press Standards Organisation ("IPSO") rules and regulations and the Editors' Code of Practice that IPSO enforces. Requests for corrections should be sent to feedback@thetimes.co.uk

Why we should never stop learning new skills

Sir, I applaud Libby Purves's enthusiasm for learning ("Remember education is a lifelong process", comment, Aug 17), but she and others overlook a really valuable element of a university education. You meet and talk to contemporaries, discover their enthusiasm and enjoy challenging their opinions. In some cases you marry them or their friends. Fourteen of my married friends who met in this way will be holidaying together in Britain next month. The other members are even more interesting and challenging than they were when they met more than 60 years ago, so I am on my toes to keep up. There are hundreds of other groups of all ages who continue to enjoy exactly these benefits. What value to put on that? Jonathan Timms Wye, Kent

Sir, Bill Jones (letter, Aug 18) is absolutely correct in extolling the virtues of the University of the Third Age (u3a) in terms of lifelong learning. The u3a has a feature that is not commonly found in other spheres of education: each member has accumulated, over their lifetime, a rich experience and often profound wisdom that they share to the benefit of others.

Nuclear safety risk

Sir, We write to express our grave concern about the government's recent transfer of the sponsorship of the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) from the Department of Work and Pensions to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESN2). The independence of the nuclear safety regulator from the government department responsible for promotion of the nuclear industry is the cornerstone of effective nuclear safety regulation that has served the people of the UK well for more than 50 years. The DESN2 sponsorship of ONR creates an unnecessary risk of regulatory influence and ultimately regulatory capture, and raises serious questions as to whether the effective separation of nuclear energy promotion and regulation, required by Article 8.2 of the IAEA Convention on Nuclear Safety, can be maintained. We should not forget that lack of this separation was a major contributor to the accident at Fukushima.

Nuclear power is too important to the UK for its safety to be put at risk in this way. This change was made under the Starmer administration, Andy

If a problem shared is a problem halved, as the saying goes, then learning shared is learning doubled. Professor Rhys Williams Chair, Witney u3a

Sir, Since reaching retirement (the sole condition for joining the University of the Third Age) I've found u3a to be an excellent network, putting members in contact with like-minded others and forming new friendships to enjoy together a range of activities from bridge and pickleball through to dancing, cycling and several discussion groups of diverse flavours. It's also a very efficient way to block-book meeting places. However, this does not equate to a "functioning adult education sector" for "lifelong learning", and I certainly can't recall any occasion when any of these hugely enjoyable activities have helped to defend me against the mentalities of populism as Bill Jones rather optimistically hopes. There is clearly a gap in the market where once there was an active adult education sector. Martin Bennett Kempsey, Worcs

Sir, Libby Purves reminds us that we should never stop learning. I took a

degree in my fifties which led to interesting opportunities. I am now in my eighties and run one u3a group and am part of two others.

After secondary education, I think everyone should have a personal skills and volunteering "bank account". This would record volunteering activities throughout life (credits) and qualify the holder for financial assistance to take educational courses (debts). We should never stop learning, and this system might enable people to change direction at any time of life — or simply add to their own personal skills.

Lesley Bright Haywards Heath, W Sussex

Sir, Libby Purves quotes TH White, who maintained strongly that one should never stop learning. I have the same belief. I am 91 and if, when reading, I come across a word I don't know I'll look it up in a dictionary. Similarly, I'll use Google or AI to enlighten me on anything written that I don't understand. This has become more common the older I get. Certainly, for me, education is very much a "lifelong process".

Peter Phillips Loudwater, Herts

diminished fleet remains in port and vulnerable to preemptive attack. As just one example, both of our aircraft carriers have been berthed side by side at Portsmouth during the summer leave period. The leadership of the Royal Navy would do well to remember what happened at Taranto and Pearl Harbor. Rear-Admiral Philip Mathias (ret'd) Southsea, Hants

Cohabiting couples

Sir, For once I find myself agreeing with Melanie Phillips (Aug 18; letters, Aug 19). The government's plan for a new legal framework for cohabiting couples follows an imaginative campaign to protect vulnerable women from their erroneous belief in the protections afforded by common law marriage. During 25 years of conducting family law research, I have spoken to hundreds of separating couples, married and unmarried. The financial disadvantage suffered by some of those women was very real, but none alluded to common law marriage. They'd never heard of it. Gwynn Davis Cardiff

Bioweapon warning

Sir, William Hague (Aug 18) is spot on in warning us about the threat posed by AI in the wrong hands. But the bioweapon threat long antedates it Operation Vegetarian was developed at Porton on Salisbury Plain during the Second World War. Cattle calves laced with anthrax would be dropped on German pastures, smart bombs because the animals would seek them out, eat them, and die. The plan was overtaken by D-Day. Anthrax occurs naturally in many countries, its spores are very tough, and recipes for growing the bacterium to use as a weapon are in the public domain.

There is one piece of good news. The microbiology labs at Porton are the only ones of the many that I have visited that have guards at the gate armed with sub-machiniguns. Professor Hugh Pennington Aberdeen

Arday affair

Sir, Sarah Ditumis article approaches the tragic case of Jason Arday with sympathy, rigour and honesty ("I feel sorry for Jason Arday. But I don't regret writing about him", Aug 18; letters, Aug 19). A brave example of excellent journalism in the current climate of noisy moral outrage.

Pauline Wilson York

Trapped nature

Sir, Tony Francis (letter, Aug 18) refers to foxes, hares, rabbits and deer being able to evade wildfires. This may be true, but we should not forget the millions of caterpillars, sawflies, bees, beetles, hoverflies, wasps, ground plants, true bugs, aphids, nesting birds, fungi, lichens and mosses that cannot escape, as many nevertheless will be in larval form and lack the ability to "scarpier". These will have been destroyed and it will take some time for their recovery. We sometimes ignore these vital species at our peril. Stuart Dunlop Raphoe, Co Donegal

Rhapsody in blue

Sir, Further to Sharon Cavendish's letter (Aug 18) about her convertible, in 2006 I purchased my dream car: an Audi A4 3-litre turbo coupe in midnight blue with cream leather upholstery. It was my pride and joy. On arriving at a friends house one summer's evening, he remarked: "Ah, I see you have come in your evening car." I still miss the thrill of driving on a cold sunny winter's day with the roof down and the heater full blast. Deborah Wills Guildford

Idle thought

Sir, Marion Elder writes about the growth in the number of drivers sitting in their vehicle with engine running (letter, Aug 18). For some time Westminster city council has had a campaign called "Don't Be Idle" to discourage drivers from sitting in the car with their engines running. As a dutiful citizen I took it upon myself to approach offending drivers, inform them of the council's campaign and invite them to switch off their engine. Until one day, when I realised that I only approached drivers whom I thought wouldn't hit me. At that point I gave up, realising that my efforts were entirely discriminatory. Richard Entwistle London SW1

A LIGHTER AND TOUGHER FLYING BOAT

FROM THE TIMES AUGUST 20, 1926

A flying-boat, the largest all-metal seagoing aircraft yet built in this country, was launched this week from the works of Short Brothers, on the Medway, at Rochester, and promises to mark a distinct advance in this type of coastal and long reconnaissance vessel.

The boat, with its white painted hull and wings, aroused much interest locally when it was brought out for its first brief flight. It is a large twin-engined flying boat, with a biplane superstructure, in which the top planes overhang the shorter lower wings. It has been built to the

order of the Air Ministry, and has obviously considerable range and speed. Its completion is a milestone in the progress of the firm of Short Brothers, as it marks the acceptance of the all-duralumin system of construction, on which Mr Oswald Short has worked since the end of the war. There has never been any question that the wooden hull was ultimately doomed for flying-boats, as water soakage of four or five hundred pounds in wooden hulls seriously diminished carrying capacity.

A duralumin hull built as a test some 18 months ago has been exposed almost continuously to sea water at the Felixstowe Experimental Seaplane Station of the Air Ministry and has been reported upon most favourably. At the present time, in the workshops of Short Brothers, there is the duralumin hull and steel and duralumin wings of the Cockle, a small all-metal flying-boat which has also had some hard wear.

A system of monocoque construction is used for the fuselage, and the strength of this particular form has lately received a convincing demonstration. The Short Satellite, a light aeroplane, which competed at the Lympne trials, made a forced landing and broke off its undercarriage in hitting a heap of rubbish. With an ordinary fuselage the whole of the nose would have been crumpled; the Satellite merely received a few dents. The same system of construction naturally has been applied to the large flying-boat. A high speed experimental tank has been of considerable service in designing clean hull shapes, and as a result of the experience gained here Short Brothers are now the chief designers and constructors of all-metal floats.

THETIMES.COM/ARCHIVE

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25

Leading articles

Daily Universal Register

UK: GCSE results; quarterly knife crime statistics from the Ministry of Justice.

Nature notes

The quartet of huge fishing rods stood poised above the River Tyne at Dunston. The tide was on the full, and some sea anglers

had come inland for whiting, flounder and codling. Watched by the cormorants perched on the nearby Staiths, one of the anglers gave a joyous shout as his line began to tug. A struggle ensued: “Salmon?” the others asked excitedly. The contest ended in a flash of silver. It was an ext. Voracious river bottom foragers with a phenomenal sense of smell, the ext had scented the pungent squid used as bait. “Hoy it back,” the sea anglers decided. Lucky ext, it was just at the start of its 4,000-mile journey to spawn in the wide Sargasso Sea. JONATHAN TULLOCH

Birthdays today

Jamie Cullum, pictured, singer, Pointless Nostalgic (2002), and radio presenter, 47; Amy Adams, actress, Enchanted (2007), 52; Ben Barnes, actor, Westworld (2016-18), 45;

Ananda Berry, chief executive, The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales (2022-Feb 2026), Bafta (2000-22), 65; Clem Cattini, drummer who has featured on more than 40 UK No I singles, 89; Baroness (Camilla) Cavendish of Little Venice, head of the Downing Street policy unit (2015-16), chief leader writer, The Times (2010-13), 58; Crista Cullen, hockey player, Olympic gold medallist (2016), 41; Lord (Nigel) Dodds of Duncairn, deputy leader of the DUP (2008-21), 68; Patrick Drahi, founder of telecom group Altice and owner of Sotheby's, 63; John Emburey, cricketer, England (1978-95), 74; Dame Anne Evans, soprano, 85; Sir Roger Gale, MP for Herne Bay & Sandwich, deputy Speaker (2022-24), 83; Sir Roy Gardner, chairman, Manchester United (2002-05), 81; Andrew Garfield, actor, the Spider-Man film series, 41; Ralf Hütter, musician and composer, Kraftwerk, Autobahn (1974), 80; Don King, boxing promoter, 95; Demi Lovato, singer-songwriter and actress, 34; Sylvester McCoy, actor, Doctor Who (1987-89), 83; Lord (Gus) Macdonald of Tradeston, former Labour minister, 86; George Mitchell, US politician, Northern Ireland and Middle East peace negotiator, 93; Mike Nelson, installation artist, 59; Robin Oakley, political editor, BBC (1992-2000), 85; Joe Pasquale, comedian, 65; Robert Plant, singer, Led Zeppelin (1968-80), Stairways to Heaven (1971), 78; Baroness (Sunei) Royall of Blaladon, principal, Somerville College, Oxford, shadow leader of the House of Lords (2010-15), 71; Nat Sciver-Brunt, cricketer, England women, 34; Mary Simon, governor-general of Canada (2021-Jun 26), 79; Sir Desmond Swayne, international development minister (2014-16), 70; Jaco van Gass, cyclist, two-time Paralympian gold medallist, 40; Maxim Vengerov, violinist, 52.

On this day

In 1940 Winston Churchill praised Battle of Britain pilots in parliament, saying: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

The last word

“If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls,” Maya Angelou, American poet, author and civil rights activist, Love's Exquisite Freedom (2011)

Burnham's Bonds

Higher inflation and market interest rates increase the pressures on living standards and public spending. The government must tackle debt by cutting the welfare bill

Less than a year ago, the mayor of Greater Manchester said Britain had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond market”. The views of a municipal politician on global finance would not normally matter but Andy Burnham aimed to be, and has since become, prime minister. He is having to learn rapidly that retaining the confidence of investors is crucial to economic success. To do that, he should move rapidly to tackle Britain's bloated public debt and cut welfare spending. There is no responsible alternative course.

The scale of the government's task in supporting living standards is underlined by accelerating inflation. The 12-month rise in consumer prices in July was 2.9 per cent, up from 2.6 per cent in June. This is almost a full percentage point above the Bank of England's inflation target. The main factor is rising energy bills. These reflect the regulator. O'Regents increased price cap, which itself is driven by higher oil prices due to the Iran war.

Investors are increasingly concerned at high levels of public borrowing across the advanced industrial economies. The US national debt is approaching $40 trillion, equivalent to more than 120 per cent of national income. Interest rates on 30-year US government bonds exceeded 5.3 per cent this week, the highest rate since just before

the financial crash of 2007-09. This has fed through into rising government bond yields too in the economic, Japan and Britain.

As an open, trading economy, Britain is acutely sensitive to developments in international markets. Mr Burnham cannot insulate British households and businesses from higher global interest rates, but he can take action to ensure the effects are not aggravated by domestic factors.

The plain fact is that Britain borrows too much and invests too little. The ratio of public debt to national income stands at almost 95 per cent. This is less than the US figure but the pound, unlike the dollar, is not an international reserve currency; there is not the same pool of global investors willing to buy sterling-denominated assets.

Labour governments have historically grappled with the need to attract investors. Harold Wilson in the 1960s inveighed against the “gnomes of Zurich”, namely, currency speculators. James Callaghan in the 1970s fought to get his cabinet to understand that a collapsing exchange rate would be disastrous for living standards. The bond markets are not some malign collective force: they are the aggregate of millions of transactions behind which are investors who seek an adequate risk-adjusted return in exchange for lending money.

Mr Burnham must adapt fast to that mere truism. He told The Times yesterday that the Treasury's focus on balancing the national accounts “sometimes clouds [the government's] growth mission”. On the contrary, while there is nothing sacrosanct about a set of fiscal rules, it is essential to grow that the government understands not only that debt is vital to help smooth fluctuations in the business cycle, but that it has limits.

Current fiscal rules are to “move towards borrowing only for investment” and “to keep debt on a sustainable path”. These are sensible criteria, but they must be accomplished while boosting defence spending to counter the aggressive designs of Russia. The obvious place to seek economies is in welfare spending. As we reported this week, claimants for universal credit who are not expected to look for work now outnumber jobseekers by almost three to one.

This is unsustainable. A society that allows an ever-rising dependency ratio, with a growing number of those not in employment supported by working-age taxpayers, is heading for social strife at exactly the time that a collective effort for national security is needed. Mr Burnham must choose his priorities, before the bond markets force the right choice upon him.

Green Machine

Zack Polanski's party is still incompetent, and now dangerously ideological too

There was a time when the chief criticism of the Green Party was that it was too idealistic and unworldly to be trusted to make the tough decisions required by serious politicians. As applied to the activists who, since May, have been influencing the work of many local councils in England, this analysis still holds. Yet, while the incompetence was to be expected, the public is discovering that these days the formerly utopian-but-well-meaning Greens are as likely to be ideological as idealistic, more cynical than naive and, having travelled a long way from their knit-your-own-yoghurt hippie roots, increasingly prone to sinister, authoritarian beliefs. As a protest party, the Greens were harmless. As a significant party of local government, in charge of budgets and town hall propaganda machines, soon perhaps to enjoy greater devolved power, they are dangerous.

In practical matters, the Greens are still ineffective, so not everything has changed. In Hackney, real London, where they won 42 of 37 seats plus the mayoralty, the new council's efforts so far have focused more on virtue-signalling than providing services for residents. Despite recent gentrification,

Hackney remains England's seventh most deprived borough out of 3D. Yet the Greens' energy thus far has been spent on ending a twinning relationship with Haifa in Israel. The Hackney Greens have also spoken of refusing to co-operate with Home Office action on illegal migrants and defying the Supreme Court over single-sex spaces in public buildings. Foreign policy posturing and selective obedience to the law these gestures should be the preserve of student union narcissists, not adults charged with getting the bins emptied.

Elsewhere in east London, Green councillors have joined striking teachers on a picket line outside a local school. Others newly elected are struggling with the intricacies of divesting civic pension funds from any organisation deemed to have links with Israel. Many are finding out that “rent controls” works better as a slogan than a housing policy. In the Green stronghold of Bristol, refuse collections have been cut, new traffic schemes belched and housing repairs delayed. Green Hastings has declared itself “neurodiversity-friendly”. Green-run municipalities seem keener to promote the party's stances on legalising drugs,

reducing immigration controls and abandoning Britain's nuclear deterrent than they are on keeping the streets clean and vulnerable people safe.

It has been clear for some time that since Labour became less hospitable to them after Jeremy Corbyn's fall, the Green Party has become a haven of choice for vehemently anti-Israel activists. In May, a number of Green candidates were revealed as having made anti-semitic comments on social media. This week The Times exposed a WhatsApp group where Green campaigners discussed “wiping Israel off the map”. Gaza's plight has been co-opted in the cause of destroying Israel.

The response of some Greens to this reporting is, outrageously, to call for draconian state regulation of the press. Their leader, Zack Polanski, encourages such intolerance: “It's time we sorted out the press,” he said last weekend. Those are not the words of a man who believes in free speech. Instead, he believes in using his social media platforms to entertain, misinform and stir up his gullible, largely youthful followers. Tragically, many of his party's elected representatives are now choosing to do likewise in the nation's council chambers.

Beach Battles

Italians prepare for a fight over government plans to open up the private shoreline

The umbrella wars are becoming vicious. As the police and coastguards descend in force to uproot the unauthorised colourful symbols of an Italian summer, stretched in lines along the shore, Italy's private beaches prepare for unremitting battle. Over half of the beaches of the country's 8,000-kilometre coastline are managed by private clubs, some in the same family for generations. Now some of those clubs are encroaching on free beaches.

Beaches, perhaps the quintessential symbol of Italy's hot, carefree summers and offering an almost ritualised indulgence to those selecting the

same spot by the waves year after year, are now the arena for a titanic test of wills. On the one side is the government, reluctantly acceding to the prodding from Brussels to meet next year's deadline to put private beach concessions out to public tender; on the other are the established families and opportunist newcomers who see the coastline as a resource to exploit. They include a venerable order of nuns, who, girding up their habits, are invoking divine protection of their right to make money from a beach to fund an infant school.

Italians have long been reconciled to the fact that only half its beaches are free. Foreign tourists,

however, are less than pleased at the cost — up to €300 — for a day at the seaside and equally stiff fines if they try to bag a spot with their towels. Germans, however. In Sardinia it is illegal to take sand from the beach, with fines up to €3,500, so people now use towels instead of mats to avoid accidentally scooping up any sand. One Sardinian beach also planned to ban umbrellas for anyone between 10 and 65, ostensibly because of fire risk, thus generating a lively trade in renting grandmothers. If bureaucracy doesn't kill sun-loungers, perhaps summers like this one will: the Alps may in future be far more tempting than 40C on the beach.

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World

Trump craves big win but will Kim ever back down?

The US has little hope of persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear status, writes Richard Lloyd Parry

For a president who loves “wins” and craves recognition as a peacemaker, it is easy to see why Donald Trump regards a deal with Kim Jong-un as such a prize. Regressive, belligerent, nuclear armed, and in the heart of northeast Asia, North Korea has throbbed like an eight-decade long migraine, a source of anxiety and insecurity in one of the world’s most dynamic and populous regions.

A succession of American presidents have flunked the job of preventing North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. None has tried harder than Trump, who met Kim three times during his first term. Put aside the question of motive, and whether it is intended as a distraction from Trump’s failures in Iran — any leader who could disarm Kim would deserve the thanks of the world.

Now Trump appears to be ready for another go. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that he wants to meet Kim at a gathering of world leaders in China in November. The news followed the president’s announcement that he had ordered the scaling down of military exercises with South Korea, regarded as threatening by Pyongyang.

It is not clear that there has, in fact, been any recent direct contact between the two leaders, despite Trump’s insistence that they will meet this year. Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s sister, who is by far his closest aide, said yesterday she knew nothing about communication between the two. “Perhaps it is the only matter related to our supreme leader’s foreign policy that I am unaware of,” she told the state news agency.

But even if a meeting should transpire, there is no reason to expect that Trump will succeed where he failed before, or that he understands what went wrong last time.

At the core of the problem is an inconvenient truth: however alarming for the rest of the world, nuclear weapons are the best guarantee of Kim’s personal survival and that of his regime. Despite a longstanding alliance with China and a partnership of convenience with President Putin, North Korea is de facto friendless.

Kim’s authoritarian neigh-

Canada tariffs put on hold

Tash Mosheim

President Trump has postponed the introduction of 50 per cent tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods for three days after claiming that the two countries had reached a trade deal.

Trump announced the delay less than two hours before the tariffs, covering almost $20 billion (115 billion) of Canadian imports, were due to take effect.

“I have paused the 50 per cent Tariffs against Canada for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the USA, subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, was more cautious, saying on X: “Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done.”

bours tolerate him and use him for their own ends, but he knows that they would sell him out in a moment if it served their broader interests.

He knows all about past governments — from Ukraine to Gaddafi’s Libya — that have given up their nuclear programmes to find that the promises of security they received were worthless. Kim’s arsenal of some 60 warheads represents an insurance policy like no other, a formidable deterrent to the kind of regime change successfully visited on Saddam Hussein, and attempted this year against the Iranian regime.

In summits in Singapore, Vietnam and on the North-South Korean border in 2018 and 2019, Trump made the case for disarmament, rooted in the seductions of neo-liberal capitalism. If Kim gave up his nuclear weapons, he argued, the North would be freed from international sanctions, but also enabled to become what he referred to as “an Economic Powerhouse”.

“Your country has tremendous economic potential, unbelievable, unlimited,” he told Kim. “I look forward to watching it happen and to helping it happen.”

In technical terms, North Korea is indeed one of the world’s most

Kim Jong-un last met Donald Trump in 2019

underperforming economies and, in drastically different circumstances, its literate and hard-working population and position between the markets of China and Japan could be harnessed to producing high growth.

Rather than being an incentive, such a prospect is repellent to Kim. A free and competitive economy would inevitably generate pressure to liberalise politics. Countries such as China and Vietnam have joined the capitalist mainstream, and maintained their authoritarian systems, but they do not have to contend with the equivalent of South Korea — a free and flourishing democracy of fellow Koreans on Kim’s doorstep.

The idea that Kim would jeopardise his grip on power in return for a Pyongyang McDonald’s or a chain of Trump condos in Wonsan is ridiculous. US insistence on a “comprehensive” deal, rather than the smaller incremental steps to nuclear disarmament favoured by the North, sunk efforts to reach an agreement in 2019.

No westerner has got closer to Kim than Trump — he spoke once of the “love letters” he had received from the Young Leader. Even today, Yo-jong emphasised her brother’s “good personal memories and feelings” about the American president, adding that “the relationship between the two leaders remains excellent”.

There is no doubt that Kim wanted and expected a deal, and was stung when Trump reneged in 2019 on what the North Koreans regarded as a promise to suspend military exercises. It is in an effort to soothe this hurt that the planned manoeuvres this month have been reduced from 11 to five days. But the signs are that it is all too late.

“Reducing the scale or duration of an exercise does not change the nature of military exercises that are provocative and aggressive,” Yo-jong said.

In 2022, North Korea declared itself a permanent and irrevocable nuclear power, willing to use its deterrent preemptively in response to an anticipated attack. “Even if the US and its allies chant and chorus about ‘denuclearisation’ for ten, 20, no, 50, or even 100 years,” Kim said last year. “[The] fact of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear possession will remain unchanged.”

Kim’s overriding political goal is not the betterment of his people or the enhancement of his international status. It is to die peacefully in his bed at an advanced age, and to pass down leadership to his heir, as his father and grandfather did before him.

Nuclear weapons are his means of achieving this — he will only ever give them up for security guarantees at least as reliable.

It is difficult, at the moment, to imagine anything that a man like Donald Trump could do to win such trust from a man like Kim Jong-un.

Why the human printer is president’s most loyal aide

Wherever President Trump goes, his most dedicated aide is never far behind (George Grylls writes). Even on a golf course in Scotland, the president found himself pursued by his assistant, who sprinted over the fairways to keep up with his buggy.

Nicknamed the “human printer” because she often carries paper copies of Trump’s Truth Social posts, Natalie Harp believed she was doing her job in Scotland, keeping the president informed of supportive articles and messages.

However, it appears Trump just wanted to play golf. Mortified that she had upset him, Harp later wrote an apology. “I... am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland,” she said, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. “I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).”

Until recently, Harp was a relatively unknown member of Trump circle. Now she has become

one of the most talked-about figures in Washington. She wields immense power in the White House, curating much of what the president sees and acting as a gatekeeper.

Trump, 80, has said privately that Harp, 35, is the only person who loves him as much as his wife and children, and that he believes she will never abandon him to make money unlike his other staff, according to the book Regime Change by the New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Entrusted with the logins to Trump’s social media profiles, Harp has learnt to mimic the president’s unique syntax and was said to have been responsible for sharing a video of the Obamas as apes that was widely condemned as racist.

Her association with Trump began after she was diagnosed with stage two bone cancer in her twenties. She credits Trump with saving her life by authorising the use of experimental treatments during his first term, although medical experts dispute whether the law changes had any effect.

She has also spoken in quasi-devotional terms about the

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27

Coastguard backs Italians in battle of beach brollies Page 29

Mask helps horror writer to keep things strange Page 30

ART OF THE SURGUE, TASSI KATIPOEGI/GETTY MAGES

Natalie Harp drafting one of Trump's idiosyncratic social media posts, top. She is said to carry a portable printer to supply him with hard copies at all hours

president. "We all know the story about the Good Samaritan. But what you don't know is, I was that forgotten person on the side of the road ... and left to die of cancer," she said at the White House in 2019. "But then, an outsider — my Good Samaritan, President Donald J Trump — he saw me there, and he didn't walk by. He stopped."

Her proximity to Trump came under scrutiny when it emerged last week that she joined him in a catering truck at Ankara airport. As part of a ruse to deceive would-be assassins from shooting down Air Force One after the Nato summit in Turkey, Trump and Harp were smuggled on to another waiting plane. The revelations led to

unsubstantiated speculation online. Jon Ossoff, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, accused Trump of being uninterested in governing and wanting instead to "travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace".

Conservative commentators accused Ossoff of sexism, and the White House attacked a CNN journalist who asked Trump about Harp, saying the reporter's children should be ashamed at having such a "callous and vindictive" parent.

Throughout the furore, Harp has remained silent. Her loyalty is legendary and the golfing trip in Scotland is not the only time the assistant, often seen carrying bags, has gone to extreme lengths to stay close to Trump.

In 2023 she travelled in the boot of a car after a "screaming match" to ensure she was in the motorcade taking Trump to court in Manhattan, according to CNN.

It is behaviour such as this, and her effusive letters, that has unnerved some of his inner circle, according to The New York Times. "You are all that matters to me," she said in one note seen by the paper. "I don't ever want to let you down," she said in another, thanking Trump for being her "Guardian and Protector in this Life." In a third she wrote: "I want to bring you joy."

Boeing's tail hit runway in brush with disaster

Germany Charles Bremner

An airliner carrying nearly 300 people came within a hair's breadth of disaster when it ran off the end of the runway and struck its tail on the ground as it took off from Munich airport.

The chaotic departure of the Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 on Saturday followed an unexplained loss of acceleration then sharp braking as it reached the end of the runway and lurched off the ground in a cloud of dust.

The Hanoi-bound plane circled for two hours before making an emergency touchdown on the same 13,000ft runway, blowing out tyres and badly damaging its main landing gear. None of the 271 passengers and 16 crew were hurt in what airline professionals described as a brush with catastrophe.

Investigators are analysing the pilots' actions and "technical aspects" to determine what caused the slowed take-off roll and the late braking as the 250-tonne plane bounced across grass, hit light posts and hurtled towards trees while the crew yanked its nose up into the air.

"During the rotation phase, the aircraft's tail struck the ground. Tyre marks were identified at the end of the runway and were attributed to the aircraft," the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU), said.

Three captains and a less experienced first officer were crewing the long-haul flight.

Discussion among pilots focused on whether crew or a system malfunction applied the brakes and on other factors that could have caused the slow take-off. The plane's two powerful engines appeared to have been delivering normal thrust, they said.

"There may have been a problem with decision-making on the flight deck and also perhaps a problem with the aircraft itself," Jacques Jaurand, a retired Air France Boeing captain, said.

It was conceivable, though hard to imagine, that a pilot applied brakes while the captain was unaware, he told The Times.

Juan Browne, an American Airlines Boeing pilot, questioned why the pilots had not rejected the take-off on the first sign of a slow-down in acceleration, before the aircraft reached its decision speed. Known as V1 — about 180mph in the heavy 787 — this marks the last moment when the pilots commit to lifting off when they reach rotation speed, V8, or they abort the take-off.

After that, the pilots were right to rotate hard to pull the aircraft into the air, Browne said on his popular video channel. "A rejected take-off this near to the end of the runway would have been a disaster."

The Vietnamese captain told the authorities that his aircraft "was about halfway down runway 26L ... when the crew noticed that its speed stopped increasing for around two seconds", Hanoi state media said.

"The aircraft then resumed accelerating and continued until reaching V1. Shortly afterward, however, the crew again observed a decrease in speed," the captain said. "The pilots determined there was no longer enough runway to safely abort the take-off and decided to continue, pushing the engine thrust levers to maximum."

The Vietnamese account said the plane took off with 300ft of runway remaining, but the video made clear that it took off from the rough ground well beyond its end.

Tyre damage warnings appeared on instruments after take-off, the Vietnamese report said. Before landing, the Boeing made two low-altitude passes so that personnel on the ground could inspect its landing gear for damage.

Nguyen Ninh, a passenger, said there was a loud noise as the aircraft's nose lifted. As the aircraft approached to land, the cabin crew instructed passengers to adopt the brace position.

The badly damaged aircraft remains at Munich airport. The tyres blew out and the undercarriage was damaged in the incident on Saturday

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World

Seats of power President Putin chairs Russia's Council for Strategic Development and National Projects. Planned structural economic changes were discussed

Ex-minister's call for elections condemned as 'opportunistic'

Ukraine Anthony Loyd Kyiv

By day, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers fight for life and land. By night, Russian ballistic missiles and drones rain down on Ukrainian towns and cities. Week by week, the war escalates.

But Mykhailo Fedorov, the popular former defence minister has said that democracy cannot be put off any longer.

In a nine-minute video posted on YouTube, Fedorov, who was sacked by President Zelensky last month, called for elections, arguing that Ukraine faced a crisis of governance. He insisted: 'We must not let Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their government. Ukrainian democracy must not depend on the goodwill of the Kremlin.'

However, Fedorov's broadside — the first call for elections by a significant Ukrainian politician since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022 — risks backfiring. Many Ukrainians, including some of his own supporters, were united in shock.

The timing was described as opportunistic. 'The constitution did not change because of [Fedorov's] dismissal,' Kira Rudik, leader of the pro-European Voice party, posted on X, adding: 'It is wrong to call for tearing the country apart to serve anyone's political ambitions.'

Supporters of Mykhailo Fedorov protest against his sacking by President Zelensky, below. The former defence minister is calling for elections, having been denied a return to government

Fedorov posted his address hours after Zelensky confirmed that he had asked parliament to appoint Yevhenii Khmara — a respected general and the former head of the security service's elite Alpha special operations unit — as defence minister, which slammed the door on Fedorov's requests to be reinstated.

Though Fedorov did not explicitly launch a campaign for the presidency, his description of a 'systemic crisis of governance' appeared to be a challenge to Zelensky. 'The old system lives by its own rules too often,' he said. 'It protects itself. It is scared of change.'

His claims of corruption may be justified. Hours after his address, anti-corruption agencies —

Nabu, the national anti-corruption bureau, and Sapo, the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor — announced that they were investigating senior officials linked to Zelensky's administration over the laundering of the equivalent of $14 million. The homes of Iryna Mudra, then deputy head of the president's office; Vadym Stolar, an MP, and of a former MP were believed to have been searched. Zelensky sacked Mudra, but gave no explanation.

Critics have questioned Fedorov's self-professed anti-corruption credentials. 'What struck me about Fedorov's statement is not the diagnosis but the diagnostician,' said Oleksii Honcharenko, a Ukrainian MP with the European Solidarity faction.

'He says our system is corrupt ... while some of us were fighting this system, others were building it and it's worth remembering which side he was on.'

'He ran Zelensky's digital campaign,

then became a minister, then first vice-prime minister.

'He didn't watch this system from the outside, but helped to build it. And now he suddenly sees the problem.'

Fedorov's political capital has increased since his sacking. A poll by the Socia Centre for Social Research predicted that Fedorov would defeat Zelensky 61.8 per cent to 36.2 per cent in a hypothetical second-round presidential run-off.

'Fedorov's ratings and popularity have been on the rise,' said Oleksandr Merezhko, an MP and chair of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign affairs committee. 'He has seen this as a chance to take advantage of that ... because he knows that with the passage of time his ratings might fall.'

However, the ploy had 'already backfired', said Merezhko. 'Everyone is against the idea of holding elections in the middle of wartime. It is exactly what Putin wants: a fierce and divisive struggle within Ukraine.'

Aside from the divisiveness of holding elections during a war, Ukrainians are aware of the obstacles. More than a million men and women are under arms, hundreds of thousands in a frontline zone. Millions are displaced. Millions are in Russian-occupied territory.

There is a cross-party consensus that elections cannot be held until six months after martial law is lifted. This is to allow displaced people, soldiers and the electoral system time to prepare.

Though Fedorov claims to be a standard-bearer of democracy in a rotten system, his critics claim his move risks Ukraine's stability and cohesion as it fights for survival.

Additional reporting by Liz Cookman

Diver held in Croatia over Baltic explosions

Elizabeth Rushton

A Ukrainian diving instructor has been arrested in Croatia over the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. Germany's federal prosecutor has announced.

The man, identified as Volodymyr Zhuravlev, was arrested in Pula by local police carrying out a European arrest warrant. He is suspected to be one of two divers who attached explosives to the pipelines in the Baltic Sea at a depth of about 80 metres.

Germany has called the plot, which resulted in the destruction of three of the four pipes forming the €16.9 billion system, 'an act of sabotage'.

The pipelines have long been a thorn in the side of Germany's relations with Ukraine and other countries — including Poland and the Baltic states — which view the project as a geopolitical coup for President Putin that makes Germany and western Europe unduly dependent on Russian energy.

The broadcaster ARD reported that Zhuravlev was the same man whom the German prosecutor had located in Poland last year. His extradition to Germany was requested, but Poland's judiciary refused to comply.

Investigators tracked him down in Croatia and have again requested his extradition to Germany.

The investigation described Zhuravlev as an instructor at the diving school Scuba Family in Kyiv and said he had previously served as a soldier in the Ukrainian army.

According to ARD, he had travelled to Croatia to act as an adviser on a Hollywood production that was recre-

ating the Nord Stream explosions to be filmed off the Croatian coast.

It was also reported that Zhuravlev and a suspected accomplice became known to police early on in the investigation after a speed camera captured a Citroen minivan with Ukrainian number plates on the German island of Rügen, from where they are believed to have set sail to fit explosives to the pipeline in September 2022.

Photos taken by tourists on the island around the time of the explosion showed the same van in the vicinity of the sailing boat Andromeda, which the perpetrators are believed to have used to get out to sea.

Investigators later found traces on the boat of the military-grade explosives RDX and HMX, which were used in the bombs that destroyed the pipeline.

Ukraine has denied ordering the attack on the pipeline.

Serhii Kuznietsov, another Ukrainian national and a former military officer, was arrested in Italy in August 2025 on suspicion of being the ring-leader of the plot and his trial is set to begin in Hamburg in a few weeks.

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World

Battle of the beach brollies drags in Italy's coastguards

Italy Tom Kington Rome

Italians fighting for free access to their beaches have found an unlikely ally this summer. The coastguard has seized thousands of beach umbrellas planted illegally in the sand.

Officials in the central Lazio region have impounded 6,241 umbrellas and chairs set up on public beaches in the past eight weeks.

"People have a right to reclaim free beaches from those who think they own them and the coastguard is here to help," said one official. "The seizure numbers are big and we are only halfway through the summer."

Mayors across Italy are starting to rebel against the country's traditional private beach clubs, which have long received licences to line up rows of umbrellas which they rent out, often at huge expense.

Egged on by Generation Z's rejection of the costly, regimented beach life their parents tolerated, the mayors are increasing space for free beaches in line with the rest of Europe.

However, the movement is under threat as club owners extend rows of umbrellas beyond their licensed areas. Offenders have been found south of Rome in coastal towns such as Gaeta, Sperlonga and Anzio this summer.

Other wrongdoers are managers of free but equipped beaches who are supposed to provide rentable umbrellas on request while also not charging people who bring their own umbrellas.

"Instead, what some are doing is erecting their rented umbrellas across the beach by 8am and turning away people bringing their own, therefore behaving just like a beach club and making more money," the official said.

The mass umbrella seizure by the coastguard, which was prompted by complaints from bathers, will continue until next month.

Officials are also targeting members of the public who illegally leave their own umbrellas and chairs on free

beaches overnight, often padlocked, so that they can take up the same prized spot the next day. Officials said that up to 30 per cent of the umbrellas and chairs seized in Lazio were left by beachgoers.

Police across Italy have tackled similar problems this summer. In the southern beach town of Capaccio, the authorities seized 156 umbrellas, 137 chairs, 45 inflatables, 14 sunbeds, 47 beach toys and four tables during raids on Monday night.

The operation, dubbed "Wild Umbrellas", filled the local police depot, where guilty beachgoers were invited to retrieve their possessions after paying a fine that can run into several hundred euros.

On the night of August 11, police in the Tuscan beach town of Castiglione della Pescaia removed 120 umbrellas and 60 chairs and sunbeds.

The coastguard is also battling against pleasure-boat owners who find a stunning cove and put out buoys to keep out other boat owners. Last year, the Italian coastguard freed up to 505,000 square metres of sand and sea in similar operations.

Tobia Zevi, a Rome city official who has fought to open up more free beaches near the capital, said providing free sand had to be matched by good behaviour and the umbrella seizures suggested habits still needed to change. "But there is no turning back now," he said. "I believe it is now clear that we are entering an era in which the sea is finally seen as public property that belongs to all."

The drive to educate Italians not to monopolise free beaches was taken up this month by Claudio Stangoni, a Sardinian beach lover who has posted viral videos of himself uprooting umbrellas that have been left overnight by tourists.

"This beach is for everyone," he said in one video as he dumped an umbrella by a bin on a Sardinian beach. "It doesn't belong to whoever plants an umbrella wherever they want."

Italians prepare for a battle over plans to free the beaches, leading article, page 25

EUROPA COTTEN

Coastguard officials in central Lazio have seized 6,241 items of beach furniture

Brimming with style Margot Robbie, 36, in Paris where she was filming for the prequel to Ocean's Eleven, about an elaborate heist at the Monaco Grand Prix

Belgian prince finally admits that son of socialite is his

Belgium Adam Sage

A former car salesman has become a Belgian prince after the King's brother officially recognised him as his son.

Clément Vandenkerckhove, 26, joined the royal family at what was described by Soir Mag, the weekly magazine, as a brief, low-key town hall ceremony in February. The ceremony was made public yesterday.

Laurent last year publicly acknowledged his illegitimate son, who was born during a seven-year relationship with Iris Vandenkerckhove, a Flemish model turned singer better known under her stage name, Wendy Van Wanten. The ceremony was required for Vandenkerckhove to be a prince.

Now he has the right to carry a royal title and also a claim to a share of the inheritance upon the death of his father, who is 62. However, he will not

Prince Laurent with his son, Clément, who has become a prince of Belgium

receive a royal allowance and remains excluded from the line of succession.

In an interview with Nieuwblad, the Belgian daily, Vandenkerckhove said he was unsure whether to adopt the royal name of van Saksen-Coburg. "I am proud of the name Vandenkerckhove. Sacrificing that surname would be a betrayal to everything my mother did for me." He spoke of the anxiety he suffered as a child as he questioned his identity. Vandenkerckhove said he was not interested in the inheritance. "What matters most to me right now is that I am a son who is allowed to get to know his father."

Vandenkerckhove was born in 2000. His parents separated and Laurent married Claire Louise Coombs, who is British born. They have three children, Princess Louise and the princes Nicolas and Aymeric of Belgium.

Inquiry into death of Palestinian girl, 5

Israel Gabrielle Weiniger

Israel's military has opened a criminal investigation into the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl during the war in Gaza.

Hind Rajab, who was travelling in a car with her family in January 2024, initially survived after the IDF opened fire on the vehicle. She then answered a telephone call, which lasted hours, during which she pleaded for help.

She was the only survivor of the attack and was surrounded by her dead family members. An ambulance sent to rescue her was shelled. Hind's body was recovered days later, along with six of her relatives and two paramedics from the ambulance.

The case prompted international condemnation of Israel after audio recordings of the calls were released.

A statement released by the Israeli

army on Wednesday said: "Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the co-ordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division."

The opening of a criminal investigation is part of the Israeli military's investigations into "exceptional operational incidents" as "part of its obligations under international and domestic law", according to a press release.

The statement included four other

The IDF initially denied killing Hind Rajab

incidents between November 2023, a month after the war started, and March last year.

The IDF initially denied firing on the vehicle containing Hind, stating that its troops were not in the area at the time. It said later it had been conducting raids on "terror targets in Gaza City".

Eventually, the military admitted that troops opened fire on the vehicle, which they said had travelled "contrary to the advanced notice that had been published in an announcement by the IDF spokesperson to residents of the area".

The attack prompted a film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, which was nominated for an Oscar this year.

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World

Female PM

must secure a win on loos

Jan Camenzind Broomby

As the first female prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi had a lot on her to-do list when she took office last year. She had to fix Japan's sluggish economy, boost birthrates, manage relations with neighbouring China — and increase the number of female lavatories.

In Japan's parliament, female politicians have spent a lot of their time queueing for the bathroom. The building had not kept track with the increase in women being elected, providing only two cubicles for almost 70 politicians.

Last month, after a petition by 58 female politicians, two new stalls were added.

In state schools across Japan there are 40 per cent more lavatories for boys than girls, a survey by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun found.

Government guidelines released in June state that where female and male users are roughly equal the number of female restrooms must be at least as large.

The sky's the limit A canopy art installation inspired by the painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, created over 900 years ago, hangs over an alley in Beijing

NO-FLY SELF-GUIDED RAIL JOURNEY

Classic Scandinavia

September 2026 to December 2027

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Mask helps horror writer

to keep things strange

Only about 30 people know Uketsu's identity which only adds to his allure, Jan Camenzind Broomby writes

From the neck down, the rising star in Japan's mystery-horror genre looked like all the other writers at the crime-writing Dagger Awards in London last month wearing a black tuxedo, bow tie and white shirt.

His head, however, was covered by a black hood and his face was obscured by a papier-mâché mask. A voice modulation device made him sound like an eight-year-old girl.

Uketsu's unusual appearance has not hampered his success — quite the opposite. His latest novel, Strange Maps, has topped bestseller lists in Japan. English versions of his books have been printed more than a million times and his novel Strange Pictures was shortlisted by the Crime Writers' Association for a Dagger Award this year.

The writer rose to prominence by posting creepy videos on his YouTube channel, which has amassed more than two million subscribers. Videos include him unboxing a set of teeth and feeding a doll in bed, but it was his most popular video, titled Mysterious Story of Real Estate, that sparked his venture into publishing.

Since it was broadcast in 2020, the video has had more than 25 million views. In it, Uketsu explores a series of building floor plans and discusses where dead bodies could be hidden. It became the basis of the author's first major novel, Strange Houses, which was published in Japan in 2021.

Uketsu's books build on a long history of Japanese mystery stories. In the 17th century, known as the Edo period in Japan, oral ghost sagas were

collected and compiled into kuidan-shu, which translated as "strange narrative books".

Uketsu's tales, written in simple prose, add a fresh twist to tradition. Rife with pictures, they are interactive and allow readers to solve the crimes themselves as the story unfolds. His shortlisted book, Strange Pictures, presents readers with several stories, each centred around an illustration. It tasks them with identifying the overarching theme that draws the tales together.

"They're quite accessible," Uketsu's English translator, Jim Rion, said. "But there is complexity in terms of underlying structure."

Maxim Jakubowski, vice-chairman of the Crime Writers' Association, said he thought the novels appealed to readers because of their unique storylines.

"He's created his own little subgenre," Jakubowski said. "Certainly not in western countries, there is nothing similar to it."

He added: "I've seen some eccentric writers over the years. But no, I

can't remember any writer ever wearing a mask. He certainly knows how to publicise himself."

The mystery of Uketsu's identity only adds to his novels' popularity. About 30 people know who the writer is and his publishers have only confirmed that he is a man. He dons his mask and all-black jumpsuit for public appearances.

"I don't know his real name," said Daniel Seton, the senior commissioning editor at Pushkin Press. Uketsu's British publisher, who met the writer at the Dagger Awards. "I didn't see behind the mask, so it's still a bit of a mystery."

Uketsu credits the mask for part of his success, telling the Japan Times: "It wasn't until I started making horror videos that I realised my appearance could actually benefit the things I make."

However, the costume can also be an inconvenience. At the Dagger Awards he missed out on the dinner presented to contenders and was only able to drink via a straw fitted through his mask.

©S.EMITANIMES/GETTY IMAGES

Strange Pictures earned Uketsu a Dagger Award nomination this year

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11

Business

WORLD MARKETS (Change on the day)

COMMODITIES

CURRENCIES

Federal Reserve minutes reveal 'many' officials fear inflation

Robert Miller

Concern about inflation deepened at the Federal Reserve's meeting last month, with "several" policymakers ready to raise interest rates and "many" saying a rise would be needed if inflation does not fall back to the US central bank's 2 per cent target.

Minutes published yesterday of the Fed's meeting in late July, when rates were held steady in the 3.5 to 3.75 per cent range, show policymakers who favoured an increase "remarked that

price pressures appeared broad-based and judged that the [federal open market] committee should adopt a more restrictive policy stance to meet its commitment to achieving its price-stability and maximum employment goals on a sustained basis".

Failure to do so, committee members argued, would risk "a steeper and potentially more costly sequence of tightening moves at a later stage". A larger group of participants "assessed that policy tightening would likely be necessary if inflation did not decline".

Ahead of the publication of the Fed minutes, the US Treasury announced a doubling of its buyback sizes for 10 to 30-year Treasury bonds to at least $4 billion per operation, staunching — at least temporarily — a weeks-long upward increase in yields that had unnerved global investors.

The increase from previously planned $2 billion buybacks will apply to the 10 to 20-year bonds as well as the 20 to 30-year securities and will be effective from September 9 to November 4, the Treasury said.

The move to steady the market was announced a day after a major bond sell-off pushed the 30-year Treasury yield to its highest level since 2007 amid worries of an imminent escalation in the war with Iran and rising concerns over a deteriorating US fiscal picture as total public debt outstanding nears the $40 trillion mark.

Traders continued to price better-than-even odds that the Fed will begin raising rates at its meeting on October 27-28 and, failing that, there was a very high probability of an increase an-

announcement at its last meeting of the year in December.

The minutes also show that at his second meeting as head of the central bank, Kevin Warth asked for "input from the committee" on whether it would be better for the Fed to hold only six meetings a year rather than the current eight to allow more information to accumulate between meetings than under current practice.

No decisions were made regarding this issue, the minutes said, and the 2026 schedule would not be altered.

Cancer trial result boost for Moderna

Shares up 177% on melanoma vaccine success

Alex Ralph Chief Business Correspondent

The share price of Moderna, the US drugs company, nearly trebled yesterday after it revealed a breakthrough in developing personalised cancer treatments, adding billions of dollars to its market valuation.

Moderna, which successfully produced a vaccine during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Merck, another American pharma company, said top-line results from a late-stage trial of an experimental mRNA-based vaccine showed it had succeeded in increasing the time before cancer returned or spread in patients with melanoma.

Shares in Moderna surged $111.42, or 177 per cent, to close at $174.38 in New York following the announcement, valuing the company at $70 billion. Merck shares rallied more than 10 per cent to $149.40. This means Moderna shares were on track for their largest one-day percentage increase since the company floated in 2018.

Hedge funds that bet against Moderna are facing record-breaking losses. Short-sellers were on course for more than $5 billion in mark-to-market losses after the share price rise, according to data from the analytics firm Ortes and reported by Reuters. The short interest in Moderna shares stood at an estimated 13.5 per cent before yesterday's announcement, Ortes said.

Nonetheless, Moderna shares remain significantly below where they were during the Covid-19 crisis, when they closed at a high of $484.47 in August 2021 as the company's fortunes

were transformed by the success of its mRNA technology in tackling infectious diseases.

Stéphane Bancel, chief executive of Moderna, said the phase-three trial results "represent a pivotal moment for the field of cancer research. For many years, the idea of creating an mRNA treatment designed specifically for an individual patient's cancer was aspirational. We are now helping turn that vision into a reality".

The vaccine study looked at 1,137 "high-risk" patients following surgery. It tested the companies' individualised cancer therapy Intisneran in combination with Merck's existing blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda.

Moderna and Merck, which plan to provide detailed study results at a medical conference this year, said the trial had met its main goal of extending the period before the deadly skin cancer returns, as well as a secondary target of preventing the disease from spreading.

The vaccine is adapted for each patient based on the unique set of mutations within their tumour to activate the immune system to recognise and fight cancer. The results are the first successful late-stage trial for a personalised mRNA cancer therapy and come a decade after Merck and Moderna partnered to develop a vaccine.

The two have a wider clinical programme studying the vaccine against other cancers and stages, including lung and bladder.

Data will be submitted to regulatory authorities. Moderna is targeting a launch in the United States next year.

Laudable forecast Estée Lauder, the luxury brand for which Daisy Edgar-Jones is an ambassador, predicts that its annual profits will be above estimates following "sustained demand" for fragrances and a strong performance in China

Few land on Mayfair after tax changes

Tom Howard Property Correspondent

Some of the mansions and penthouses in London's most desirable neighbourhoods have lost more than a quarter of their value over the past 12 months, according to official data.

High-end estate agents blame the prime housing market slowdown in areas such as Mayfair, Marylebone and Little Venice on tax changes for non-doms last year, which prompted many wealthy individuals to move abroad.

New data from the Office for National Statistics, published yesterday, showed that house prices in the inner London boroughs fell by 8.3 per cent in the 12 months to June.

Some falls are stark. Prices in Westminster, which includes districts such as St John's Wood, Belgravia and Mayfair, dropped 25.4 per cent year-on-year, while they slipped by 20.4 per cent in the City of London and by 14.7 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea.

"In central London, there's been an increase in supply and there are fewer buyers, and that's why there's been this price correction," Trevor Abrahamson, who runs Glentree Estates in north London, said. "The big non-doms are, in the main, not coming here and settling down. Two years ago, in the £3 million range, you might have had 40 potential buyers within four weeks, and five bids. Today, you'll get ten potential buyers and one, maybe two, bids. The frenzied activity has reduced significantly. No one is in a rush."

Last year, Rachel Reeves abolished the previously lucrative non-dom tax status, which had allowed wealthy residents to avoid paying tax on overseas income. In addition, stamp duty increases mean overseas buyers now have to pay as much as 19 per cent when they purchase an additional property. That works out to just over 13.8 million in tax for a £10 million home.

The so-called mansion tax, increasing council tax by up to £7,500 a year for Continued on page 33

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v2 Thursday August 20 2026 | THE TIMES

Business

Need to know

1 The share price of Moderna, the US drugs company, more than doubled after it revealed a late-stage trial of an experimental mRNA-based vaccine jointly developed with Merck succeeded in increasing the time before cancer returned or spread in patients with melanoma. Page 31

2 Some of the mansions and penthouses in London's most desirable neighbourhoods have lost more than a quarter of their value over the past 12 months. New data from the Office for National Statistics, published yesterday, showed that house prices in the inner London boroughs fell by 8.3 per cent in the 12 months to June. Page 31

3 The operator of the National Lottery has announced the unexpected departure of its chief executive, despite having no permanent replacement lined up. Allwyn UK said Andria Vidler, who took over in October 2023, will step down next month.

4 The Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold for the rest of the year and cut them in 2027. City analysts said the inflation figures from the Office for National Statistics, which showed the rate at 2.9 per cent in July, up from 2.6 per cent in June, would not be cause for concern. Page 34

5 Carlsberg's big bet on non-alcoholic beverages is paying off for the Danish brewer, which says the benefits of its acquisition of Britvic are being delivered faster than expected. Sales of soft drinks jumped 9 per cent in the first half of its financial year. Alcohol-free beer volumes were up 11 per cent. Page 36

6 John Rogers, the chief financial officer of Smith & Nephew, who recently relocated to the US with the FTSE 100 medical equipment maker, is to take up the same position at a US company with a $2.8 million 'sign-on' bonus. Page 37

7 UK software company Pinewood Technologies announced it had agreed to a £544 million takeover bid from a San Francisco-based private equity firm Ridgeview Partners. Page 38

Higher memory chip costs are forcing Apple to increase the prices of its products

Louisa Clarence-Smith, page 35

For expert business analysis subscribe to the business newsletter thetimes.com/newsletters

Chinese robot maker marches to a $50bn debut

A Chinese company that makes humanoid robots saw its shares surge by more than 600 per cent on its stock market debut, providing another demonstration of the country's technological progress (Graham Ruddick writes).

Shares in Unitree rose by 629 per cent at one stage yesterday, before closing up 460 per cent on their initial IPO price. That values Unitree at about $50 billion.

The dramatic debut for Unitree follows

similar drama around the float of CXMT, China's leading memory-chip maker, which rose 466 per cent on its debut last month to become one of the country's most valuable companies.

The floats of Unitree and CXMT highlight how Chinese companies are rapidly developing and commercialising new technology.

Unitree, which competes with Tesla and Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics, has drawn attention for its robots that run, dance and perform martial arts.

Robots built by Unitree at a spring festival in Beijing. Unitree, which competes with Tesla, has based some of

Boss of National Lottery operator to step down

Martin Strydom, Jessica Newman Leisure Industries Correspondent

The operator of the National Lottery has announced the unexpected departure of its chief executive, despite having no permanent replacement lined up.

Allwyn UK said Andria Vidler, who took the top job in October 2023, would step down next month. It said that she and Justin King, the company's chairman, had agreed that 'this is the right time' for her to leave the role.

King, the veteran supermarket boss who led Sainsbury's for a decade, said that after the completion of a two-year, 'much-needed and long-overdue' technology overhaul, it was 'the right time to look to the future and build on the solid foundations that have been laid to create a strong platform for growth'.

Allwyn, part of the business empire of Karel Komarek, the Czech billionaire, took over the decade-long lottery licence at the start of February 2024, beating competition from Camelot, which had run the lottery from its inception in 1994, as well as the Italian gambling company Sisal and Richard Desmond's New Lottery Company.

Allwyn prevailed on the promise of increasing National Lottery donations to good causes and promoting greater use of technology.

Since taking over the licence, the company has had to grapple with delays to digital upgrades and new games,

What now for the lottery?

Unlike the National Lottery inherited by Andria Vidler – one plagued by legal disputes and delayed infrastructure upgrades that left fundraising forecasts in doubt – Justin Walker, and his permanent successor, will step into the role with much more stable foundations (Jessica Newman writes).

With the upgrades complete and new games being introduced, Allwyn UK will be able to focus on expansion rather than remediation.

The ten-year deal to

run the state-franchised lottery is one of the biggest public contracts in the UK – so the selection of the operator has significant implications for the public purse. It also provides a big proportion of the revenues designated for good causes, funding everything from sports facilities and arts programmes to charitable initiatives.

Since its launch 32 years ago, the lottery has donated £103 billion and created more than 8,000 millionaires. Allwyn UK has staked

its reputation on a core pledge to double the amount given away each week to £60 million by 2034. But even with new technology in the background, meeting these ambitious targets will mean that Allwyn's new boss has to lead a reimagining of the lottery's role in everyday life, particularly among younger people.

Whether through the recently launched Powerball or online 'instant win' games, the National Lottery has to broaden its demographic appeal.

which it blamed on legal challenges from Camelot as well as Camelot's technology partner, IGT, which were subsequently dropped. Allwyn acquired Camelot for an estimated £120 million in February 2023.

Allwyn finally managed to complete its £450 million technology upgrade this year. It included moving 18 million player accounts and more than three

billion historical transactions to a new software platform. Vidler was also responsible for overhauling the National Lottery app and website, updating more than 43,500 terminals in shops and introducing direct-to-funk payment technology for mid-tier prizes for the first time.

In an interview with the Financial Times in May, she described the over-

haul as feeling like changing 'the plumbing and the foundations', and said she was relieved that she could now focus on bigger changes.

Vidler, a former EMI Records executive, was also responsible for launching more than 100 online instant-win games, relaunching New Lotto and introducing a UK version of Powerball, the world's biggest jackpot game.

The new Lotto format launched in June, giving players two chances to win for every £2 ticket in its main draw for the first time. The change is expected to increase the annual number of Lotto millionaires from 140 to about 345.

'Transforming the National Lottery is a marathon, not a sprint, and with the major transition now complete and the National Lottery in a stronger position to keep delivering for the nation, this feels like the right moment for me to pass on the baton,' she said yesterday.

Phil Walker, a former gambling executive, has been named interim chief executive. He joins Allwyn after six years at the bookmaker William Hill, where his roles included managing director of the UK and Ireland. He said he was excited about joining the company 'at this important stage of its growth journey'.

His experience will help to maintain Allwyn UK's focus on growth as the management seeks a permanent chief executive, the company said, adding that Vidler would stay on in an advisory capacity until the end of October to support the boardroom change.

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v2

33

Business

its designs on US military robot dogs

One of the world's biggest producers of humanoid and quadruped robots, it is a symbol of national pride for China. Its investors include influential Chinese companies such as Tencent, Alibaba and DeepSeek. It is also profitable, even if few of its robots are used in commercial applications.

Unitree based the designs for its most successful robot dogs on innovations funded by the US military, a former US defence technology official and three top researchers involved in the project told Reuters.

The US army research was published openly to stimulate progress in the field, a common practice, and Unitree did nothing underhand in using it.

Some 10 per cent of the Unitree shares were sold in the IPO, which raised about $900 million, and its founder, Wang Xingxing, 36, continues to own about a fifth of the company. The debut has catapulted his personal wealth to more than $11 billion on paper.

Wang had a coveted front-row seat at a summit with tech

business leaders hosted by China's President Xi early last year.

Yan Kai, a venture capitalist and partner at Ivy Capital in Shanghai, told Reuters: "It is a top-tier player, and its uniqueness commands premiums. Its price is dictated by political and economic considerations, rather than valuation models."

While it is not the first Chinese humanoid robot-maker to go public, its debut is expected to set the tone for a slew of domestic rivals preparing to come to market. That includes Chery Automobile's robotics division.

The final coincides with the opening of

the World Robot Conference in Beijing, where hundreds of mostly Chinese companies will be launching products and demonstrating advancements that the government is betting will help make up for the labour shortfall caused by China's demographic crisis.

While investors in China were quick to jump on the stock, others have cautioned that many of its sales to date have been one-off deals and that few of its robots are being used in commercial settings.

Many of its products are sold to research institutions and universities.

In July, the US Federal Communications Commission banned imports of future models of foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots, including those from Unitree, citing national security concerns.

That cuts off a huge market for the company, which has demonstrated how well China has been able to scale up in new highly strategic industries despite some products being first developed in the US.

Betting firm caught out by yen rescue

Ben Martin Financial Editor

A newly listed financial betting business has lost more than a fifth of its stock market value after it was wrong-footed by the US and Japan's joint intervention to support the yen.

Shares in iForex tumbled by 40p, or 21.6 per cent, to 145p yesterday as investors took fright at a profit alert from the company, which made its debut on the London stock market six months ago.

It said it had been caught out by the historic joint action taken by Tokyo and Washington last month to prop up the weakening Japanese currency, which had "resulted in an extremely sharp appreciation" of the yen.

The currency appreciation dealt a blow to iForex because the trading platform does not hedge its exposure to the bets made by its customers, who use the company's contracts-for-difference products to play the markets.

The sudden strengthening of the yen had "moved against the group's net client exposure", iForex said, leaving the company with trading income of $720,000 in July, compared with

Share price

$3.1 million in the same month a year earlier.

The currency has since fallen back and this has created another headwind, because iForex's Japanese customers fund their accounts in yen and the "current weakness" has the negative effect of reducing the USD value of trading income from Japanese clients.

In a further blow, its July woes have been compounded by "unusually sub-due" trading activity this month that resulted in "very low trading income".

It was little more than three weeks ago that Israel-based iForex, which does not operate in the UK but has customers in Europe, said in a half-year

trading update that it expected to report adjusted profits of about $4.2 million for the six months to the end of June. It is now forecasting adjusted earnings of between $500,000 and $2.5 million for the full year and Itai Sadeh, its CEO, said management were "disappointed" with developments.

The listing in mid-February of iForex was a fillip to London's moribund flotations market, which is suffering from a years-long dearth in initial public offerings. The company priced its shares at 195p apiece in the IPO, but yesterday's profit warning sent the stock well below that level, dealing a blow to investors and the credibility of London's flotation market.

Rather than hedging customer positions externally with third parties, iForex said in its IPO prospectus that it "matches the short and long positions of its clients and internally manages the residual net exposure".

It warned that "extreme market movements or events, which the group is unable to, or fails to promptly manage, could cause a material exposure or risk to the group".

Wealthy families 'are choosing to rent'

Continued from page 31

homes worth more than 12 million, is due to come into effect from April 2025.

In response, more wealthy families are choosing to rent instead. Abrahamsohn called renting multimillion-pound homes "the greatest legitimate tax avoidance scheme".

He added: "Because renters don't pay the 10 per cent stamp duty [rate], people are choosing to rent. Many years ago, I would not get an inquiry beyond

£10,000 a week. I've now got tenants that will pay £40,000 a week. These are eye-watering high rental figures, but I'm getting them."

Abrahamsohn said luxury estate agents are hopeful that the non-doms who have left the UK over the past couple of years will return — perhaps after the next general election in 2029.

Across the UK as a whole, house prices rose 2 per cent on average in the 12 months to June, down from an

annual growth rate of 3 per cent in the previous month. Between May and June, prices rose just 0.1 per cent.

Greater London was the only region to record a drop in house prices, which were 2.5 per cent down on June 2025.

Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said recent data suggested "house price inflation has further to fall in the coming months". He expects prices to rise by an average of 1 per cent in 2026.

Tax relief rackets make no sense

BUSINESS COMMENTARY Alistair Osborne

As taxpayer giveaways go, few are as ludicrous as this: handing the clients of a private company a 40 per cent tax break for leasing ambulances to the NH$.

Think about it for a sec. Instead of the government funding the vehicles itself, making the most of its lower cost of capital, it hands a private company a gargantuan tax break. Using that, the company then acquires the fleet and makes a nice profit out of renting them back to the health service. Not only that: it then sells an investment product based on this delightful caper to a bunch of wealthy clients, boasting about the oh so secure taxpayer-backed income stream, while going on to earn millions of pounds in fees from customers who sign up to it.

Sounds a right wheeze? It does. Still, it's precisely the sort of idiocy our cash-strapped government is encouraging. The result? One of Britain's fastest-growing sectors: business relief schemes, today sitting on more than £10 billion of assets and built on enabling clients to dodge 40 per cent inheritance tax (IHT). City figures reckon the government is presently bankrolling such tax-avoidance schemes by at least £800 million a year.

One of them? Triple Point, whose "estate planning service" has 10 per cent of its £1.4 billion assets under management in what it calls "public sector finance". It says it's "financed 2,280 ambulances, 628 refuse collection vehicles and over 180 X-ray systems, including CT scanners, mammography screening machines and general X-ray systems".

Naturally, Triple Point bigs up the social good from such activities, not least in putting "idle" cash in bank accounts to work funding the public sector plus "more than 100,000 SMEs". Yet, you hardly have to be John Healey to spot that just about everything Triple Point's IHT service does could be done by the government or other private companies without doling out a 40 per cent tax break.

Triple Point is far from alone. The sector's biggest player is Octopus Group's Fern Trading, which since its 2010 inception has sucked out more than £900 million in fees off the back of a self-calculated "market cap" of £3.17 billion. Other players span the Foresight Group-managed Averon Park, Time Investments' Elm Trading and Downing's Bagnall Energy and Pufford Trading.

Many use the tax break to invest in green energy, particularly solar and onshore wind. But they already come with government incentives via contracts for difference and the older renewable obligation certificates: a duo accounting for about 16 per cent of customer bills.

Why are business relief schemes getting a 40 per cent tax break on top? As the likes of Greencoat UK Wind and NextEnergy Solar Fund show, there are listed companies happy to invest in green energy without any 40 per cent IHT break.

In fact, it gets worse, thanks to Healey's blunderbuss predecessor, Rachel Reeves. She introduced a tax change from April this year that created a two-tier system: a 40 per cent shelter for investors in business

relief schemes up to £2.5 million (or £5 million allowing for transfers between spouses), after which the rate of relief is halved, but only half that for Aim shares, now with an IHT rate of 20 per cent.

The upshot? Money pulled out of Aim, home to jobs, tax revenues and growth companies, and put in these less risky, largely passive schemes, employing far fewer people.

So, even more chance for the likes of Triple Point to com it at the expense of the NH$. Incidentally, one other investment in its IHT portfolio? Financing trucks (no doubt at a lowish rate) for the UK activities of New York-listed XPO Logistics, so helping a group, valued at $23 billion, take on its rivals here. Why is the taxpayer providing IHT breaks for that? Healey needs to put an end to this racket.

A yen for betting

Just the thing to revive London's IPO market: a profits alert from one of the few newbies we've had this year, the financial betting outfit iForex. A mere six months after February's final, and only three weeks after its half-year update, it's suddenly discovered its punters are lately better at winning than it is.

The result? Shares down 22 per cent to 145p, well below the 195p listing price, on news that it was caught on the hop by the joint US-Japan effort to prop up the yen. And, who knows, maybe investors could have spotted the risks in this relative tiddler, brought to market by Shore Capital, that raised £8.75 million at the Float and is now valued at only £33 million.

The Israeli-headquartered, Guernsey-registered, Cyprus and British Virgin Islands-licensed, UK-spotted outfit that takes bets on 820 financial instruments already looked a bit of an oddball — before prospectus "risk factors" running to 27 pages. And then, while it matches long and short bets, it prides itself on not hedging with third parties: a strategy that swaps up gains in the good times but inevitably results in periodic losses. In short, the sort of volatility that can sit awkwardly with stock market life. Sure, it's got $10 million net cash and its boss Itai Sadeh reckons the latest downer will be no more than a 80p. Still, you wouldn't necessarily bet on it.

Caught short

Painting against a company developing a cancer drug can look a bit uncharitable. So, perhaps there'll be extra satisfaction in seeing short-selling hedge funds lose $5 billion-plus after a 175 per cent jump in Moderna shares.

Accounting for 13.5 per cent of the stock, they're probably the only people upset at the results of a trial, alongside Merck, of a personalised mRNA-based vaccine. It was hailed by the Moderna boss Nejalune Bancel as "a pivotal moment for the field of cancer research". If he's right, even the hedgers would have to admit it's worth their losses.

alistair.osborne@thetimes.co.uk

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14

Business

Inflation unlikely to bring rate rise

MEYLAWN MIKZAGIDA | TRAINING NEWS AGENCY

Jack Barnett Economics Correspondent

The Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold for the rest of the year and cut them in 2027, despite inflation having exceeded its 2 per cent target for nearly two years.

City analysts said yesterday that the latest inflation numbers from the Office for National Statistics, which showed the rate climbing to 2.9 per cent on an annual basis in July from 2.6 per cent the previous month, would not be cause for concern for the central bank — despite the rise being stronger than expected.

The increase was primarily down to the Olgem household energy price cap rising by 13 per cent in July to nearly £1,900, reflecting the jump in wholesale oil and gas prices since the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East at the end of February.

Andrew Wishart, an economist at Berenberg, said: 'We expect the firm majority on the monetary policy committee to be in favour of keeping the policy rate on hold at 3.75 per cent to remain in place. Barring a major spike in energy prices, the debate should shift to whether to lower interest rates towards the end of the year.'

Thomas Pugh, an economist at RSM UK, said the latest inflation figures meant that the Bank of England had 'little reason to change course'.

He added: 'Interest rates are likely to remain on hold this year, and renewed rises in oil and natural gas prices will keep the MPC alert to another inflation surge. That points to no rate cuts until 2027.'

Expectations among City analysts differ from those of market participants, who still believe that the Bank of England will deliver at least two rate rises this year to counteract the inflationary impact of the war in the Middle East, now close to entering its seventh month.

Yesterday the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was about 0.1 per cent higher, a fourth daily gain, at around $91 a barrel.

Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: 'We remain content with our view that provided energy prices don't rise much further. CPI inflation will fall to 2 per cent by the end of next year and the Bank of England will keep rates at 3.75 per cent this year and cut them to 3 per cent next year, rather than raise them to 4.25 to 4.5 per cent as investors expect.'

The latest rise in inflation, which

An Iranian vessel nears a ship in the Strait of Hormuz: oil and gas prices have jumped since the conflict in the Middle East began, adding to UK household bills

UK inflation

took it back up to its highest level since March, means that the rate has been above the Bank of England's 2 per cent target since September 2024. Services inflation, closely watched by the Bank,

Driving inflation higher

dropped to 3.4 per cent from 3.6 per cent. Core inflation, which removes volatile food and energy prices, held steady in July at 2.6 per cent.

The near-universal consensus

among analysts about the low risk of a rate rise comes after data published this week showed unemployment holding steady at 4.9 per cent and wages in the private sector growing at the slowest pace in six years, supporting the case to keep monetary policy stable.

Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said: 'Combined with [the] labour market report, the MPC can remain on the sidelines. But don't expect any change in sentiment. Uncertainty around the outlook remains. And we expect the MPC to remain cautious for the time being.'

Long-term UK government borrowing costs have risen sharply amid a global bond sell-off that has been driven by investor jitters over persistent public borrowing, stubborn inflation, uncertainty about the longevity of the Middle East conflict and central banks offloading bonds from their balance sheets.

On Tuesday, the Treasury sold a ten-year gift with the highest yield for that length of debt since 2007, underscoring the fiscal challenges facing Andy Burnham and John Healey as they draw up tax and spending plans for their first budget, to be delivered on October 28.

Economists at the Resolution Foundation, a think tank, have suggested that the UK's fiscal headroom has fallen to only £10 billion as a result of the increase in bond yields since the start of the Middle East conflict nearly six months ago.

The European Central Bank increased its main deposit rate by a quarter of a percentage point in June to 2.25 per cent.

Investors believe there is little chance of the US Federal Reserve raising rates at its next meeting on September 16 after figures showed a stalling labour market and slowing inflation.

FCA anger at lenders' redress plans

Ben Martin Financial Editor

Motor finance lenders facing a flood of demands for compensation after the industry's multibillion-pound mis-selling scandal have been told by the City regulator to tighten up their redress plans.

The Financial Conduct Authority has been assessing the way that different firms are proposing to implement the regulator's compensation scheme and said yesterday that its review had found a series of shortcomings.

While most lenders 'had a good understanding' of the FCA's requirements, the authority warned that 'many plans were high-level without detail on delivery'.

It said: 'Some plans focused on how future plans would be developed or overseen so we were unable to assess whether firms would be able to meet their obligations.'

The findings suggest that a number

of car loan companies are unprepared for the torrent of compensation payouts to millions of motorists that they may be forced into making by the FCA.

The regulator has previously estimated that the industry-wide scheme it wants to impose on lenders will result in about £75 billion of redress being paid on £21 million financing agreements made between 2007 and 2024.

The mis-selling scandal erupted early in 2024 when the FCA revealed it was embarking on a review of car loan deals amid concerns that commissions paid by lenders to motor dealers for arranging finance had not been properly disclosed.

It said last year that it would impose a compensation scheme on lenders, but it is being held up by legal challenges from three lenders who argue that the FCA's plan is unlawful, and by a consumer group that claims motorists are being short-changed.

If the Upper Tribunal — the court that hears appeals against regulatory decisions — upholds the FCA's scheme, then compensation payouts are expected to begin next year. However, even if the legal challenges result in the scheme being abandoned, lenders will still need to resolve a mountain of car finance mis-selling claims.

Lenders with the best preparations for implementing the FCA's plan could show 'how the scheme would operate day-to-day', but others 'often set out high-level intentions but did not explain the workflows, systems, decision points or procedures that would support delivery', the regulator's review found.

The authority expects motor finance businesses to 'make any necessary changes' in the light of its feedback.

'Where plans remain high-level or key areas are still in development, firms should address those gaps.'

Consumer confidence on rise in boost for Burnham

Jack Barnett

Andy Burnham has been boosted after his first weeks as prime minister by data showing that consumer confidence improved over the summer.

An index of consumer sentiment published by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) jumped by eight points to -28 in August.

Confidence improved the most among Gen Z, who expect their personal finances to improve and their spending to increase in the coming year, the BRC said. Cooler temperatures in the autumn are also likely to encourage shoppers to return to the high street, the lobby group speculated.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said: 'The Burnham administration is enjoying a honeymoon boost

driven by less pessimism ... Consumer sentiment continued to rise, with confidence in the economy hitting its highest level since the historical lows reached at the start of the Iran conflict.'

The BRC data, released today, chimes with other closely watched surveys. The long-running GFK consumer confidence index rose at its fastest pace since November 2023 in July in what experts called a 'Burnham bounce'. The latest update of that survey is due to be published this Friday.

Economists pay close attention to sentiment as a forward-looking sign to whether consumers will increase or cut their spending. Data due out on Friday from the Office for National Statistics is expected to show that retail sales fell by 0.5 per cent in July, having risen by 1 per cent in the previous month.

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35

Business

Louisa Clarence-Smith

Will Tim Cook's Apple legacy be overshadowed by China concerns?

Tim Cook received resounding applause on Wall Street for his 15-year turn as Apple's chief executive when he announced his intention to stand down at the end of this month. The executive from small-town Alabama has defied doubters who suggested the company's potential would fade without Steve Jobs, the maverick who founded Apple in a garage in California with Steve Wozniak in 1976.

Since Cook took over leadership of the company, Apple's market capitalisation has grown from $350 billion to more than $4.5 trillion. When he steps back to be executive chairman in September, he can boast revenue growth of 303 per cent to $416 billion and profit growth of 354 per cent to $112 billion during his tenure. The company posted record iPhone sales, revenue and income from services in the holiday quarter last year. Responding to Cook's resignation announcement, analysts at JP Morgan Chase described him as a 'visionary leader'.

By those metrics, Apple, the world's most valuable consumer company, is undergoing a leadership change in rude health. However, investors have reason to be concerned that Cook is passing on the baton just as supply chain challenges and fragile US-China relations threaten to cause a crisis for his successor, Apple's hardware chief John Ternus.

Higher memory chip costs are forcing Apple to increase the prices of its products. A global squeeze on supplies driven by huge demand from the makers of advanced artificial intelligence chips, including Nvidia, has caused a spike in memory chip prices.

Apple responded in June by announcing price increases of about 20 per cent for its Mac and iPad products. It has not yet said it will increase iPhone prices. However, with no sign of memory prices deflating, Apple faces a challenge navigating how much of the increased costs it can pass on to consumers to protect its profit margins.

Separately, analysts have raised doubts about Apple's plans to release an all-glass iPhone in time for the iPhone's 20th anniversary in 2027, owing to manufacturing challenges. In a note published this month,

Tim Cook took Apple from a $350 billion company into one worth $4.5 trillion

Jefferies analyst Edison Lee said that the bank's supply chain analysis indicated that Apple's development of the model had been scrapped due to 'poor production yield', or a low proportion of defect-free units delivered during manufacturing.

Scrapping the glass model would be 'a major setback to efforts to bring in higher-priced iPhones amid soaring memory costs', according to Lee, who downgraded the stock to a sell recommendation. 'More importantly, we believe the plan was to extend the all-glass features to future iPhone Pro and Pro Max models, further raising their average selling price and margin,' he wrote. Apple declined to comment on the note. However, Bloomberg reported that Apple is still planning to offer a glass-focused overhaul of the iPhone in 2027, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Under Cook's leadership, Apple has concentrated its supply chain in China, a strategy that appears to be coming home to roost amid a backlash against globalisation and a revival of mercantilism.

Cook, hired in 1998 for his expertise in just-in-time manufacturing, has been credited with encouraging Jobs to outsource more manufacturing.

Jobs had aspirations to bolster Apple's own manufacturing capabilities, but the dotcom crisis left producers of components stuck with large inventories, which made outsourcing more appealing. Apple, like other US tech companies, was lured by Chinese suppliers who were able to benefit from Chinese state incentives, including subsidised land and relaxed labour laws.

The financial journalist Patrick McGee's book, Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company, published last year, details how Apple purchased proprietary machinery in China, installed it in supplier factories and retained ownership of equipment, giving it enormous leverage over suppliers that has helped drive its financial success. However, in doing so, the book warns that Apple also transferred enormous technical capabilities to China by sending over Apple engineers to train partners on high-precision engineering.

US politicians, worried about China's rise as a competitive technological and security threat, have since called on Apple to curb its exposure to China and manufacture more in America.

Cook demonstrated his commitment to diplomacy for Apple's sake last year when he presented President Trump with a 24-carat gold bar to celebrate Apple's commitment to invest $100 billion in American manufacturing. He has deftly navigated geopolitical tensions, managing to secure exemptions on tariffs from the Trump administration in the US-China trade war. He has also appeased China with investment commitments.

However, Ternus will need to demonstrate high levels of political savvy as he navigates tensions between the US and China, which remains Apple's principal manufacturing base.

His first test is likely to be whether he caves to American political pressure not to buy memory chips from China. Apple has been testing memory chips made by the Chinese companies CXMT and Yangtze Memory Technologies, which could be used in Apple devices sold in China.

Last month, a bipartisan group of US senators urged Apple to abandon those plans, warning that buying memory chips from CXMT and YMTC, even if only for products sold in China, could make Apple dependent on a US adversary for critical materials.

In an interview last week, Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, said there had to be 'other solutions to the memory issue, but it's not great American companies using Chinese memory'.

Apple has made meaningful strides to reduce exposure to China by shifting its supply chain towards India, which now makes about a quarter of its iPhones. However, pressure to increase manufacturing in America is likely to continue to be a bipartisan priority for both national security and economic reasons.

For years, Apple has chosen to navigate political tensions with diplomatic gestures rather than yank its supply chain out of China's crosshairs. That task now falls to Ternus. Cook will have to hope he succeeds if he wants his starry legacy to remain intact.

Louisa Clarence-Smith is US Business Editor of The Times

KPMG set to cut jobs after audit scandal

Professional Services Correspondent

KPMG employees in Australia are bracing for sweeping job cuts as the Big Four firm battles to steady itself following a high-profile scandal in its audit division earlier this year.

The group's reputation Down Under has taken a battering after it emerged that senior partners were sharing confidential client information to win lucrative work from their clients' rivals. Others were accused of breaching independence rules by accepting freebies such as tickets to Taylor Swift concerts.

A number of KPMG clients have either cut ties or are reviewing whether to keep the firm as their auditor, which has put a dent in its finances.

In response to the scandal, KPMG launched a 'major governance restructure' that it hoped would 'rebuild trust' among employees and clients. The regional chief executive, Andrew Yates, resigned in May, followed a month later by his chairman, Martin Sheppard. A handful of other senior audit partners have exited the business.

On Wednesday, KPMG began 'conversations' with 50 other partners, according to The Australian newspaper, expected to run to the end of this week. Next week, up to 450 rank-and-file staff could be axed too. KPMG was approached for comment.

All of the Big Four, which also includes Deloitte, EY and PwC, have recorded a big drop in consulting work from the Australian government after PwC was outed in 2023 trying to use confidential information about changes to Canberra's tax policy to win new business from corporate clients, including Google and Uber.

As a consequence, they have all become more reliant on their audit practices, which offer much more predictable income streams. However, KPMG's audit division is also now under pressure financially. The company declined to comment on reports in Australia suggesting that it had to be bailed out by KPMG International.

Although KPMG's problems stem from auditing, it is thought most employees on that side of the business will be spared from the job cuts, meaning consultants will be affected instead.

Audit and tax clients are generally locked into longer-term contracts and even if they wanted to switch that takes time, so KPMG still needs people in those services. Advisory work, however, is usually on a shorter time scale.

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16

Business

Carlsberg's bet on Britvic pays off on soaring soft drink sales

Jessica Newman

Carlsberg's big bet on non-alcoholic beverages is paying off for the Danish brewer, which says the benefits of its acquisition of Britvic are being delivered faster than expected.

Carlsberg bought Britvic and its brands such as Robinsons and J2O for £3.3 billion two years ago as big brewers sought to capitalise on demand from the younger generation for alternatives to alcoholic drinks. By buying Britvic, Carlsberg doubled the size of its soft drinks portfolio to comprise about 30 per cent of its total sales.

The brewer — the world's fourth-largest behind AB IqBev, Heineken and China Resources Snow Breweries — said sales volumes of soft drinks, which it has hailed as its "largest growth category", jumped 9 per cent in the first half of its financial year. Alcohol-free beer volumes were up 11 per cent, with particularly strong growth in France, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine.

"The soft drinks part of the business is doing incredibly well," Jacob Aarup-Andersen, Carlsberg's chief executive, told Bloomberg TV.

Carlsberg, which was founded in 1847 by JC Jacobsen on the outskirts of Copenhagen, first exported its beer to Britain in 1868. Its drinks portfolio now includes Kronenbourg, Mythos, Hob-goblin, Skol, Holsten and Somersby cider.

The brewer has expanded its bottling partnership with PepsiCo. They have bottling agreements in the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos and Cambodia, as well as Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 2029 and Azerbaijan from 2027.

Carlsberg, which completed its deal to buy Britvic in January last year, ex-

pects to deliver about half of the total expected £110 million synergies from the takeover this year, compared with the previous expectation of between 30 per cent and 40 per cent.

The strength of the company's soft drinks business and the quicker than expected delivery of the Britvic synergies prompted management to narrow the guidance for operating profit growth in the full year towards the upper end of its range. Bosses now expect growth of between 4 per cent and 6 per cent, compared with previous guidance of between 2 per cent and 6 per cent.

The performance of its soft drinks division was overshadowed by weaknesses in Asia, which caused growth in Carlsberg's volumes and sales in the first half of the year to fall short of analysts' expectations.

Organic volumes expanded by 1.7 per cent in the period, slightly behind the 1.9 per cent growth anticipated. By region, volumes in central and eastern Europe and India rose 6.2 per cent, edged up just 0.1 per cent in western Europe and were flat in Asia. Volumes of its premium beers were up 1 per cent.

Carlsberg blamed "severe weather conditions", including typhoons and flooding in China, its largest beer market, for weighing on demand in the second quarter. Overall volumes in China fell 3 per cent in the first half. Laos delivered mid-single-digit percentage growth and Vietnam registered 20 per cent volume growth.

Edward Mundy, an analyst at Jefferies, said that while China was the big drag on the group, "delivery at the group level is good enough".

The company reported a 2.6 per cent increase in revenues of DKr47 billion (£5.4 billion) for the period. The shares, up almost 13 per cent since this time last year, fell 2.1 per cent in Copenhagen.

Fishing for salmon on the River Tweed: Angling Direct has managed to tackle the problems presented by the drought

Angling Direct reels in UK sales growth

Charlotte Bend

Britain's summer heatwaves have left some riverbeds dry and have depleted oxygen levels in those still flowing, yet Angling Direct has managed to achieve sales growth.

The country's leading seller of rods, nets and tackle said the sustained drought had affected footfall in its shops. However, despite the slowdown it opened outlets in Crawley, Kettering and Gloucester in the six months to July, and sees an opportunity to snap up further stores as the "challenging consumer backdrop creates potential for further consolidation".

Total UK sales at Angling Direct, which operates 60 stores in England and Wales, increased by 6.9 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Steve Crowe, the company's chief executive, said: "Despite the well-documented challenges to the UK

consumer environment, alongside a UK-wide drought impacting fish and fisheries... we have delivered a resilient start to the year, making further progress against our recently updated medium-term objectives and gaining further share of the UK angling market.

"UK like-for-like sales grew 2.9 per cent, with our higher-ticket categories proving robust — even as fuel prices and a lack of rainfall impact footfall and seasonal demand."

The retailer delivered particularly strong growth via its main website, and online UK sales rose by 7.5 per cent year-on-year during the same period. Despite noting the challenges faced by consumers, in-store retail sales in the UK were up 6.4 per cent in the first half year-on-year.

The company's customer loyalty programme, MyAD, appeared to show increased customer reach. It had more than 696,000 subscribers by July 31, up from 600,000 in January.

Outside the UK, Angling Direct struggled to capture the interest of the European market as total sales on the Continent decreased by 30.4 per cent. The company continued its focus on markets in Germany and the Netherlands. The latter has been home to its international distribution centre since it was opened in March 2022.

Crowe noted the company's confidence in achieving financial results in line with market expectations for the year to the end of January 2027, namely anticipated revenues of £109 million and adjusted ebitda of £5.7 million.

Angling Direct's roots go back four decades, when founder Martyn Page became frustrated with the limited range on offer at his local tackle store. It opened its first store in 1986 and now employs around 500 people.

Shares in Angling Direct, which listed in London in 2017 and trades on the junior Aim stock market, were unchanged at 47p yesterday.

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17

Business

Blow to Smith & Nephew as finance chief quits for new role in America

Alex Ralph Chief Business Correspondent

The chief financial officer of Smith & Nephew, who recently relocated to the United States with the FTSE 100 medical equipment maker, is abruptly standing down to take up the same position at an American company with a $2.8 million “sign-on” bonus.

John Rogers’ unexpected departure next month comes less than a year after he formally moved from the UK to America, the group’s largest market, following the company’s contentious introduction of an increased pay policy for US-based executives.

Smith & Nephew said that after its first-half results this month — when it cut its full-year revenue growth forecast due to weakness in its knee implants business in the US — Rogers had informed the board, led by Rupert Soames, the veteran director and former chairman of the CBI, of his intention to leave at the end of September to take up an external position in the US.

Baxter International, a New York-listed healthcare firm, announced yesterday that Rogers had been appointed as its executive vice-president and chief financial officer, starting from October.

Rogers’ pay package at Baxter will include an annual salary of $925,000 and a bonus with a target of 100 per cent of his base pay. He will also receive a $2.8 million sign-on bonus as compensation for missing out on potential longer-term incentives at Smith & Nephew and could receive $4 million under a share performance scheme.

Rogers, a former finance boss at WPP and J Sainsbury, has stepped down from the board of Smith & Nephew with immediate effect after two and half years as finance boss. Pierre Palassian, senior vice-president of finance and group controller, has been appointed interim chief financial officer as the company searches for a permanent replacement.

Shares in Smith & Nephew fell 42p, or 3.8 per cent, to £10.68%, extending losses this year to 12.2 per cent. Short-sellers have built a large bet against it.

Smith & Nephew, one of the world’s biggest and oldest medical equipment manufacturers, is based in Watford and is developing a new research and development and manufacturing facility in Hull, where it traces its roots to a chemist shop founded in 1856. The company is led by Deepak Nath, its American chief executive.

The company is struggling to turn around the performance of its orthopaedics business, its largest, and it has

Smith & Nephew’s US presence is boosted by it being the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s sports medicine partner

Behind the story

Executive pay has been contentious in corporate Britain for years as firms try to compete with the higher rewards offered in the United States.

Smith & Nephew is among the FTSE 100 companies with large operations across the Atlantic that have increased remuneration, despite shareholder revolts, in an effort to attract US bosses.

The total pay of the chief executives of

Britain’s biggest public companies increased for a fourth successive year in 2024-25, research by the High Pay Centre found. Their median earnings rose 6.8 per cent to £4.58 million. That was 122 times the median salary of full-time UK workers of £37,430.

Nonetheless, it continues to lag the US, where stock awards tend to make up a larger component. The median total for S&P 500 bosses was $171 million in 2024 — a 9.7 per cent increase from the previous year.

When first increasing pay for its US-based executive directors closer to American levels in 2024, Smith & Nephew argued that there was a “pressing need to take proactive steps to ensure” that it could attract and retain “key talent” in America.

The subject has been particularly sensitive at Smith & Nephew after Namal Nawana abruptly quit as chief executive in October 2019 after 18 months in the role amid a pay disagreement. Smith & Nephew

argued in 2024 that with “every CEO change there has been an increase in downstream senior leadership attrition across the business.

“These senior management changes have led to loss of talent in our internal pipeline, which has had a longer-term negative impact.”

Such was Smith & Nephew’s concern, it improved the package of Deepak Nath, its American CEO, under a new remuneration policy this year 12 months ahead of schedule.

come under greater scrutiny since Cevian Capital, one of Europe’s largest activist shareholders, emerged with a large position in the company in 2024. Cevian raised its stake to 14.2 per cent this month, shortly after the half-year results, cementing its position as the largest shareholder.

Rogers, 58, had been the finance chief since April 2024 and his pay arrangements were increased last year under an executive remuneration policy designed to raise pay for Smith & Nephew’s US-based executive directors closer to American levels. The policy was introduced in 2024 despite a shareholder revolt.

Under a US employment contract, Rogers’ £750,375 ($1 million) salary was reduced to $875,000, but his target performance share plan award was increased from 137.5 per cent to 150 per cent of his salary from January and he was eligible for a separate share plan award of 125 per cent. Rogers was paid a total of $2.8 million for 2025.

The company sweetened the remuneration policy again this year for Nath, a year ahead of schedule, in the face of further shareholder protests.

Smith & Nephew argued at the time

John Rogers will be paid a $2.8m sign-on bonus at Baxter

that it had “experience of a US chief executive departure due to remuneration considerations. Deepak is our fourth chief exec since 2018, with prior leadership changes contributing to exec turnover and organisational instability.”

Nath said in a statement that Rogers had helped to improve the financial performance and developed the strategy. “He has been a valued colleague and a highly regarded member of our executive committee.”

Analysts at Jefferies said Rogers’ exit was “bad timing” and “will also raise eyebrows among investors given Smith & Nephew just cut its 2026 sales guidance, while uncertainty prevails as to the company’s ability to turn around orthopaedics execution and deliver on medium-term plans.”

One disgruntled shareholder said that “8.7 per cent short interest and a rating of 13 times earnings, plus a CFO departure does not read to me [as] a success and the turnaround is reaping rewards to shareholders”.

Oxford Nanopore boss sets $700m-plus sales target for 2030

Alex Ralph

The new chief executive of Oxford Nanopore Technologies has set a long-term ambition to build the FTSE 250 gene sequencing company into a $1 billion-plus revenue business.

Delivering his strategy, Francis Van Parys, who became CEO in March, also set out a target of more than $700 million in revenue by 2030 and an adjusted profit margin greater than 15 per cent.

Van Parys, 51, a former boss of Radiometer, a diagnostics company and part of Danaher Corporation, took over from Gordon Sanghera, who had led the company since it was spun out of Oxford University in 2005.

Oxford Nanopore develops devices to sequence DNA and RNA. These are used mainly by researchers in the life-sciences sector but the company is also expanding into industrial, clinical and biopharmaceutical markets. Its partners include the NHS.

Research is expected to remain a “significant contributor” of revenues, but Oxford Nanopore is targeting faster growth from biopharma and clinical customers. The portfolio will be simplified and the leadership team bolstered as part of the changes.

The update was delivered alongside half-year results, in which the company reiterated its plans to break even on an adjusted earnings basis next year.

The gene-sequencing firm is moving into the biopharmaceutical sector

Group revenue was £116.7 million, which was up by 12.3 per cent at constant currencies, and adjusted losses narrowed to £22.1 million, compared with £48.3 million a year earlier.

Trading has since been boosted by a new licensing agreement with an unnamed global diagnostics company, struck after the reporting period.

This will lead to a $20 million fee in the second half of the year, followed by an additional $15 million in committed product purchases to be recognised over the next two years.

Van Parys said: “Our next chapter is about harnessing the collective strength of Oxford Nanopore to deploy our differentiated technology seam-

lessly and at scale across an ever-expanding customer base.”

Investors welcomed the plans with the shares rising 17½p, or 14.3 per cent, to close at 139½p yesterday, valuing the company at £1.2 billion. However, its 2021 float price was 42½p a share.

The largest shareholder is EIT Oxford Holdings, a Californian vehicle of Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and one of the world’s richest men, which holds about 17 per cent.

Other large shareholders include Novo Holdings — the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind the weight-loss jab Wegovy — and the Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings.

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Business

Imagine there's a big Beatles payday

Imagine no possessions? The world's biggest music company would prefer Beatles fans to be more consumerist after signing a deal to hawk the Fab Four's merchandise around the world (Simon Freeman writes). Universal Music Group and Apple Corps, the firm set up in 1968 to oversee the band's creative and business interests, have inked a new, long-term deal. Under the partnership, UMG will handle global physical and digital merchandise,

licensing and ecommerce on behalf of the Beatles across modern formats and channels. The deal comes amid a fresh revival of interest in the band. The Beatles at 1 Savile Row, the first official fan experience, is due to launch in 2022. Featuring seven floors of material from Apple's archives, it includes a recreation of the studio where Let it Be was recorded and will allow fans to relive the group's final concert from the rooftop where it took place in 1969. The following year,

Fans are screaming once again for the Beatles — and Apple Corps and Universal Music are cashing in

the first of four new biopics following the lives of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, directed by Sam Mendes, will hit the cinemas. Tom Greene, chief executive of Apple

Corps, said: "The Beatles' message has never been more relevant or needed in the world today, and we look forward to delighting millions of fans with everything we have planned." The Beatles have

sold over 600 million records worldwide and despite Lennon's anti-materialism, the band have never shied away from money, with Beatles talcum power and a Ringo Starr bubble bath going on sale in the 1960s.

The Steinway piano on which Lennon wrote Imagine was bought by George Michael for £1.45 million and is on permanent loan to Strawberry Field, the Salvation Army's attraction in Liverpool.

Strong output from Ithaca fuels dividend

Greig Cameron Scottish Business Editor

One of the North Sea's biggest oil and gas producers has upped its dividend plans after strong output in the first half of the year.

Ithaca Energy said production had been equivalent to an average of 128,000 barrels of oil per day during that period, up from 124,000 in 2025.

Production averaged a record 131,000 barrels per day across the second quarter, although Ithaca left its annual guidance of between 120,000 and 130,000 per day, unchanged. North Sea firms typically perform the bulk of annual maintenance in the third quarter, when calmer weather is expected.

Ithaca expects dividends of between $500 million and $530 million for the full year, up from $470 million to $520 million previously, and declared a $255 million interim payment.

Revenue in the first half lifted 17 per cent to almost $17 billion with a profit after tax of $127 million, against a loss of $2175 million a year earlier.

Iain Lewis, the chief financial officer, suggested there was scope for further dividend adjustments. "As prices move and work through, and costs are driven and production managed, we may well be giving guidance later in the year on a different dividend," he said.

Shares in Ithaca Energy closed up 6p, or 2.4 per cent, at 257sp.

Pinewood agrees to £544m US takeover

Helen Cahill Financial Correspondent

Another company is set to disappear from the London stock market after Pinewood Technologies Group announced yesterday that it had agreed to a £544 million takeover bid from a San Francisco-based private equity firm.

The UK software company said the board of Pinewood AI had agreed to a cash offer from Ridgeview Partners of 448p a share, a 43 per cent premium to its share price before the offer emerged in July. Pinewood's shares rose 17p, or 4 per cent, to close at 444p yesterday.

Pinewood is a software platform used

by car retailers and parts manufacturers. The Birmingham-based group was previously a division inside Pendragon, the automotive retailer, before it was spun off in February 2024.

Ian Filby, chairman of Pinewood, said: "The original transaction that established Pinewood AI as an independent company was founded on the board's conviction that there was a significant latent value within the business waiting to be realised.

"The board recognises that the next stage of Pinewood AI's growth requires a step change in technology investment and capital expenditure, particularly in

data and product innovation. Having carefully evaluated the proposed transaction and its terms, the board believes it represents the best path forward ... and intends to recommend unanimously that shareholders vote in favour of the transaction."

The deal for Pinewood comes six months after a British private equity firm dropped its £575 million bid. Apax Partners withdrew its offer when it was impacted by the selling pressure sparked by new product releases from Anthropic, the American AI developer.

At the time, Pinewood's board said the business was "very confident in the

positive long-term prospects for the group" and that it would "remain at the forefront of technology innovation".

Pinewood's shareholders have been told they will be able to remain invested in the company with an interest in its unlisted entity if they do not wish to accept the cash offer for their shares.

Shares with a value of up to £250 million, or 57 per cent of the company, will be available to rollover investors, and will be issued on a pro-rata basis if the option is oversubscribed. Ridgeview has backing for its deal from shareholders holding about 48.68 per cent of Pinewood's listed share capital.

Deal activity in the UK has picked up this year, with offers for five FTSE 100-listed companies, including Segro, Schroders, Beazley and DCC Energy. Bidders have also been lining up for easyJet, Mitie, Tate & Lyle, Bodycote and Rotork on the FTSE 250 index.

Michael Nicholson, head of advisory and M&A at Peel Hunt, the UK investment bank, said the "marked increase" in deal values reflected "focused activity around a number of larger bids". Activity had become "more speculative" with a higher number of bids starting as non-binding proposals rather than as offers recommended by the board.

Experience the very best of Japan on this unforgettable journey from Tokyo to Osaka, combining vibrant cities, timeless traditions and breathtaking scenery. Stay four nights in Tokyo, including a full-day excursion to majestic Mount Fuji and Lake Kawaguchiko, before travelling in style aboard world-famous Bullet Train. Continue to Kyoto for three nights, where you'll explore iconic sights including Fushimi Inari Shrine, Nara Park and the bamboo groves of Arashiyama, before ending with two nights in lively Osaka. Premium hotels, all transfers, checked baggage and

unforgettable sightseeing are all included for a seamless Japanese adventure.

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*Prices are correct at the time of going to print. The lead price is based on travel in various dates between August 2026 to June 2027. Prices listed are based on two adults sharing a double (Paris room)/ cabin and departing from a London airport. Single transfers and regional departures are available at a supplement. Tour is operated by Travelsdeal Ltd ABTA F4297 67011,1441, a company wholly independent of News UK.

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---

19

Business

Chery accelerates car operations in Britain with new R&D centre

Ben Martin Financial Editor

The Chinese carmaker Chery Automobile is pushing further into the UK with a plan for a new research and development centre in Bedfordshire.

The site is scheduled to open in the autumn, and its initial focus will be on refining chassis and advanced driver assistance systems in its cars for UK roads.

Chery said the facility reflected its strategy of localising its operations. It comes just over two months after the company, which is also behind the Jaccão and Omoda brands, struck a deal with Nissan for the Japanese carmaker to start manufacturing the

Chinese group's vehicles at its factory in Sunderland.

Chery's cars are increasingly popular in Britain. Last month 77 per cent of new cars registered in the UK were Chery vehicles, up from 2.7 per cent in July 2025, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders. It also recently launched its Lepas brand in the UK.

Partly owned by the Chinese state, the Wuhu-based Chery has been China's biggest exporter of passenger cars for more than two decades. In July it became the first Chinese carmaker to export more than 200,000 vehicles in a month. Its new UK site will be seen as a statement of intent.

Gary Lan, a top executive at Chery, called the site 'the next step in our long-term plan for the UK' and said that local capability was increasingly important.

'We waited over 20 years for the right time to enter this market, and our ambition has always gone much further than simply bringing vehicles here,' he said.

The Chery site will be based at Utac Millbrook, a testing facility used by car-makers, the Ministry of Defence and motorsports teams that has more than 70 kilometres of test tracks.

Kirity Andrew, vice-president at Utac UK, hailed Chery's decision as 'a significant commitment to engineering

Chery's UK popularity is growing

and vehicle development in the UK. Creating a standalone engineering centre here means Chery Automobile can develop and validate vehicles against the particular demands of UK

roads and UK drivers, with direct access to our engineering expertise and testing environments throughout that process.'

She said the partnership was 'about much more than testing individual vehicles.

'We see this as the sustained momentum of a long-term engineering relationship with Chery.'

Adoption of Chinese cars in Britain is increasing. The BYD brand had a 4.2 per cent share of UK sales last month, while MG, the heritage British marque owned by Shanghai Automotive, accounted for 4.6 per cent of registrations. BYD is also launching its Denza brand in the UK.

Europe has hots for China's air-con

Richard Spencer China Correspondent

As Britain and Europe reel under the weight of repeated heatwaves, forest fires and sleepless nights, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

In China, they are enjoying the sight of trains packed with air conditioners heading west across Eurasia, as France, Germany and even Britain finally shed their suspicion of unnaturally cool homes and offices.

New figures show that air-con sales to European countries from China rose to $3.76 billion in the first half of the year, up 43 per cent from the same period in 2025.

A spokesman for Midea, one of the world's largest manufacturers of air-conditioning systems, told The Times: 'The biggest change we hear about this year from our European customers is, 'We used to think air conditioning wasn't a necessity', now, more and more people see it as one.'

The sales boom is being remarked upon across east Asia, whose dominance in air-con, as in other technologies, began in Japan with the rise of giants such as Hitachi and the less recognised but just as mighty Daikin. It then moved to South Korea, particularly LG.

But China is expert at using crises, such as climate change, as a business opportunity. Midea, based in Guangdong, southern China, began making bottle-tops during the economic dark age of the Cultural Revolution, and moved into air conditioning in the 1980s. Now it is showing once again that Chinese companies can react more quickly than established rivals.

Its success this year has been led by the PortaSplit, which has more than doubled its sales to Europe.

As a standalone model, it is especially suited to European customers playing catch-up — especially those living in older houses who had never thought air conditioning would be a necessity.

Such is its success, it is hard to know whether it is PortaSplit or the company's sponsorship of the Norwegian striker Erling Haaland at this year's World Cup that has done more to raise its profile.

Haaland's ads show the full range of Midea products, he sits in a lotus-like position in front of ovens and air-tryers as well as a wall-mounted air-con unit. But

The PortaSplit production line in Guangdong, southern China. Demand for its units is soaring in Europe, helped by ads starring Norwegian footballer Erling Haaland

the Chinese know he is 'cool', as is Norway, which is perhaps less of mass consumer market in this area.

Rather, the rise in sales in Europe this year has been led by France, the Netherlands and Belgium — wealthy countries that used to think of themselves as wholly or mainly part of 'northern Europe', but that have been suffering southern Europe-type temperatures. Their overall imports from China have doubled.

'In the past, demand for air conditioning was relatively limited among households in many European countries because periods of extreme summer heat were relatively short,' the Midea spokesman said. 'But in recent years, heatwaves have become more frequent and lasted longer,

leading to a clear shift in consumer demand for home cooling.'

In previous years — or perhaps decades — shifts in consumer preferences could take time to percolate through to economic statistics.

What is striking now about supply chains linking China and the West is how quick they have become, and how easy companies now find it to react to changing customer tastes and needs. This is another big factor in the speed with which the Chinese industrial machine is eating up international competition.

More and more consumers are buying items such as air conditioners direct from the factory, thanks to online portals such as Alibaba and Temu, which have sophisticated English-language websites and fast response times.

China's JD.com, one of the world's biggest ecommerce platforms, recorded air-con sales on Joybuy, its European site, surging 40 times higher in the week of June 19 to 25, when the heatwave really struck, according to the Beijing Daily, the capital's main state-run paper.

Meanwhile, a new focus on logistics, historically a weakness of China's industrial policy, has also revolutionised

response times. Many smaller Chinese container-loaded products are now put on the railways, a relatively new form of direct cargo transport to the West for a country that has traditionally relied on shipping.

Although routes have connected East and West for decades, rail networks in central Asia have been upgraded thanks to President Xi Jinping's pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative. It now takes a little over two weeks for a container unit to reach German or French cities from China's logistics hubs — less than half the time of the voyage from Shanghai to Rotterdam.

And that sea-shipping time does not take account of the increasing risk of geopolitical interruption, such as container ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz amid the Middle East conflict.

Cainiao, a Chinese firm operating warehouses in Europe, said the air conditioner part of its business was now increasing 18-fold.

Other Chinese products are also profiting from the weather, including ice-making machines. But it is the final surrender of Europeans to the desire for cooler air that is the greatest cultural shift.

There is also, clearly, room for further

growth. According to the latest survey from the International Energy Agency, just over 20 per cent of European homes are fitted with air con.

In southeast Asia, it is more like 30 per cent, in the United States, the figure is 90 per cent.

In China itself, until so recently thought of as a poor country, the proportion of homes fitted with air conditioning has risen from well under 60 per cent to 80 per cent in the past decade. That is partly because rapid urbanisation has driven Chinese people into high-rise flats, which come with inbuilt air-con.

But if western Europe, particularly Britain, does finally succumb to the increasingly political demand for more, better and cheaper housing, it is hard to believe that air-con will not similarly be part of the package.

Midea is certainly looking forward to more sales yet to come. 'We are seeing consumer demand for air conditioning shift from something used only occasionally to a more long-term household need,' it said.

'Given the still relatively low penetration of air conditioning across Europe, we believe the market has considerable room for further growth.'

---

40

Business

The Times unit trust information service

	Soft	Buy	+/-	Y/N %
ALLIAR2 GLOBAL INVESTORS
Inv Serv: 020 7800 1400 Hujaboo: 0800 317 573
Strategy Bond Fund	129.77		-0.14	0.00
UK Equity A t	249.34		-1.06	3.99
UK Growth t	18219.99		-76.32	2.25

ARTEMIS FUND MGRS

0800 692 2051

Authorized Inv Funds

Global Income Fund B Inc	1280.43		-3.37	—
Bank Income Fund B Inc	1223.93		-1.9	—
Global Income Fund A	1254.42		-1.07	—
High Income Fund B Inc	66.21		-0.59	—
Income Fund A Inc t	997.43		-5.42	—
Income Fund B Inc t	1005.64		-2.00	—
Monthly Bsh & B Inc t	92.21		-6.55	—
Great Easy Easy Equity A	1894.73		-6.73	—
Great Easy Global Equity A	1493.31		-4.00	—
Great Easy Bsh & B Inc t	52.99		-0.01	—
Strategy Bsh & B Inc t	116.13		-6.02	—
Strategy Bsh & B Inc t	52.46		-0.01	—
UK Select B A t	1322.25		-16.03	—
UK Smaller Can B A t	2117.34		-16.72	—
UK Special Ssh B A t	1091.23		-11.4	—

AXA FRANKINGTON UNIT MGMT

May 0800 602 1951 Priv Clients:0845 777 9511

Health t	2390	-28.00	—
UK Select Dept Inc t	2525	-33.00	1.30
UK Select Inc Inc t	3279	-3.00	0.77
UK Spot Expy B Bs t	255.7	-1.50	1.30

AXA FUND MANAGERS

Admin A Exp 0117 989 8000

UK/Other Investment Companies

Global Fund A & B t	288.1		0.52
Japan A & B t	166.9		2.51

CIG UNIT MANAGERS

0907 46 46 46

European Growth t	295.5		-0.10	1.10
Sec Limited t	1017		-0.59	1.47
UK Growth t-P	1078.6		-0.39	1.69
UK Income t-P	276.9		-0.16	2.03

CLOSE FUND MANAGEMENT

Dealing 020 7426 6232

Winchester t	5731.03		0.60

COLUMBIA THREADNEEDLE INVESTMENTS

Emps0079 601 4183 Dealing: 0570 6803

Share Class 2-Retail

Core North & Inc t	1688		-6	0.10
FTSE All Sln Trust t	592.3		-1	2.70
Global Fund A(t)	397.2		-5.1	—
Strategy Bt t	228.5		-	2.90

EIGHTHSE INV MGMT

0800 350 3010

Said Bar Expy & Bn t-P	492.4		-2.50	1.05
Said Bar Expy A Bs t	456.2		-4.60	0.53
Said Multi Income t	541		-0.35	4.01
Said Sterling Bond A Bs t	18193		-0.06	0.97
Said AM Expy & Bn t	292.6		-1.00	2.74
Said AM Expy Bps A Bs t	526.3		-1.97	1.46

FIDELITY INTERNATIONAL

Private Ctr(s:0800 414161) Broker Dlps:0800 414101

Amur Spro t	2969		—
Amur Inc t	7951		—
Amur Expy t	777.8		-0.89
European t	4486		0.77
Global Focus t	5679		—
Global High Income Bond A Bs t	52.55		0.79
Global Special Ssh t	9894		—
Japan t	967.8		0.34
Mannequiter Bst t	40.42		0.61
Mannequiter Inc t	28.25		5.04
Mannequiter AM Ind t	288.4		2.90
Special Ssh t	7473		1.00

	Soft	Buy	+/-	Y/N %
UK Opportunities Fund A Bs t	109.2		—	1.45

HALIFAX INVESTMENT FUND MGRS

0179 386 306

Authorized Inv Funds

Share Class C

Corporate Bond t	37.22		—	6.70
Intl Fund t	23.4		—	0.60
UK FTSE 100 IT t	137.7		—	—
UK FTSE AM S FT t	119.7		—	—

HSBC GLOBAL ASSET MGMT (UK)

Exp(0507 705 6123 Bp:0503 745 6126 Mon-Fri:0 0-6

HSBC Index Traders Investment Funds (IDEC)

Amer Ind A t	1423		-15	0.35
Euro Ind A t	1345		-4	2.30
Euro Ind Inc t	1360		-2	2.25
FTSE 100 Ind A t	427.3		-0.3	2.52
FTSE 100 Ind Inc t	177.5		-0.1	2.67
FTSE 250 Ind A t	487.1		-3.7	2.69
FTSE 250 Ind Inc t	220.7		-1.5	2.88
FTSE 50% A t	1180		-2	2.60
FTSE FTSE 50% Inc t	495.2		-0.9	2.62
Japan Ind A t	229.7		-7.1	1.47
Japan Ind Inc t	166.6		-5.2	2.51
Pacific Ind A t	1349		-16	2.50
Pacific Ind Inc t	945.6		-24.6	1.49

HSBC Investment Funds (IDEC) Retail Share Class

Corp Bt Ats t-P	318.9		-0.2	4.20
Income A t	1362		—	3.20
Income Inc t-P	298.5		—	3.34
Monthly Inc Ats t-P	311.4		—	3.75
Monthly Inc Inc t-P	119.9		—	4.02
UK Bt B & Bs A & B Inc t	6022.7		-0.4	3.02
UK Bt B & Bs A & B Inc t	1896.32		-0.14	3.00

HSBC Specialist Investment Pds (IDEC)

American Index Retail Inc t	1190		-12	0.77

INVESCO FUND MGRS LTD

Dllng:0800 005 6571 Inv Serv:0800 003 8677

Bdrr Serv:0800 028 2121

Invoice Funds

Corp Bond t	210.76		-0.09
High Income Dis t	437.38		3.33
Income & Growth Dis t	500.39		3.33
Income Inc t	3649.36		2.90
Money Acc t	167.94		2.64
Monthly Inc P&G Dis t	92.81		5.76
UK Expy & Bt A t	1103.47		-1.65
UK Smt Can Expy A t	1356.69		3.21

INVESTEC FUND MGRS LTD

Broker Support And Dealing: 020 7597 2900

ODC Series LSA B & V

American A A t	669.82		-0.15
Cashless Managed A A t	1469.92		-0.22
Cashless Managed A Bt	1269.25		-0.14
Direct/Bud Growth A Bt	1299.62		-0.95
Direct/Bud Growth Bt	1.22		-0.15
Direct/Bud Income A Bt	1376.86		-0.03
Direct/Bud Income A Bt	1.67		—
Energy Mkt Brand (Mkt A t	143.0		-0.23
Energy Mkt Brand (Mkt B t	36.16		-0.11
Energy Mkt Equity A Bt	1356.86		-0.42
Invests Mkt Leases A Bt	1350.0		-36.65
Global Equity A Bt	297.2		-3.79
Global Franchise A A t	435.37		-7.71
Global Franchise A Bt	1091.26		-13.3
Global Est& A A t	562.33		-25.17
Global Special Studies A Bt	1103.2		-2.02

	Soft	Buy	+/-	Y/N %
Global Special Studies A Bt	—		2.2	—
UK Special Studies A Bt	1046.89		-29.59	1.05
UK Special Studies A Bt	1017.34		-12.38	1.06

For DSA Asset Mgmt use FSC Fit Mgmt Ltd (ODC)

JAMES HENDERSON INVESTORS

Investor Serv: 0800 832 8111 Dlng:0845 946 4646

All Smls Credit A Bs t	112.3		4.50
Asian Dls Inc of Trust Ats t	98.32		5.60
Cashless Managed A Bs t	104.3		3.00
Cashless Managed A Bs t	110.3		3.00
China App Bond A Bs t	1366		0.10
Free Mkt Expy A Bs t	1295.4		—
Free Mkt Expy A Bs t	1297		0.10
Fin of Sthlthlts Inc A Bs t	21.13		5.90
Global Equity A Bst A t	6444		—
Global Equity Income A Bt	1.57		2.30
Global Tech A Bt	6444		—
Said All Sth Reps A Bt	1137.63		1.10
Mr Asset, Mkt Bts A Bs t	1181.1		2.30
Mr Mkt Expy A Bt	1354.2		1.6
Mr Mkt Inc A Bt A Bs t	1617		2.00
Mr Mkt Inc A Bt A Bs A	1251.7		2.30
Streling Bond A Bst A Bt	1295		0.20
Streling Bond A Bst A Bt	1.55		0.30
Streling Bond A Bst A Bt	954		5.70
Mr Asia A B A B A B t	2863		1.20
Mr Asia A B A B A B t	1403		1.30
UK Growth Fund A A t	2999		—

J.P. MORGAN ASSET MANAGEMENT

ODC

UK Funds (Asst) Bt Ats t	4790.000		1.5000	2.54

JUPITER UT TRUST MANAGERS LTD

020 7583 3010

BritishKab A Growth t	123.81		-0.2965	2.93
Core Special Ssh t	599.45		-0.6326	0.71
European t	2963.81		-0.4850	0.61
Financial Mgt t	1396.6		-1.3672	1.01
Global Micro Mkt GDP Mkt	1020.07		-9.4337	2.67
Marble Bst A t	342.46		-1.8552	2.26

	Soft	Buy	+/-	Y/N %
Storting Class A Investment Funds 2
Extra Income Inc t	1619.97		—	5.13
GM A Bst A B Inc t	66.75		—	4.79
GM A B Bt Ats t	99.83		—	6.17
Index United Bst Inc t	101.31		—	5.55
Index Fedr Inc t	105.86		-0.17	3.03
Short Social Corp Bt Ats t	25.94		—	4.29
UK Select A A t	1316.44		—	2.68

Sterling Class A Investment Funds 3

Corp Bt A B t	32.65		5.10
Brentland Inc t	36.26		5.90
Brentland F Ats t	140.6		2.00
Said A B t	168.90		2.04

Sterling Class A Investment Funds 4

Episode Allocation A Bt	1164.25		3.02

MARKS & SPOKESIS UNIT TRUST

0800 000 5000

Multi Income t	87.21		4.60
Multi Income A t	297.2		4.60
UK Smt Comp A t	723.9		3.10
UK Smt Comp A t	321.2		3.10
UK Select Prof t	679.4		2.90
UK Select Prof A t	1096.7		2.90
Brands Mkt A t / P	1339		0.20
Worldwide Mgt A t / P	740.4		0.20

MORGAN STABLET INVESTMENT MGMT

EmuHou: 0800 0961 962

The Morgan Stanley Funds (UK)

Class A Shares Equity

Gold Bst Int F F A t	3049.86		1.54
Gold Bst Int F F A t	1031.61		1.55
Gold Bst Int F F A t	926.69		1.49
Gold Bst Int F F A t	3036.53		1.47
Gold Bst Int F F A t	3036.44		1.47
Gold Bst Int F F A t	989.80		1.66
Gold Bst Int F F A t	3034.12		1.57
Gold Bst Int F F A t	949.45		1.69
Gold Bst Int F A t	3049.99		0.16
Gold By Ex Fund A A t	1732.2		0.31
Gold By Ex Fund A A t	1616.35		0.43

BM BROOKS

MACDONALD BM BROOKS FINANCIAL

Wealth of

alifetime

Wealth management and tailored financial advice

brooksmacdonald.com

Marble Growth A t	522.29		-1.8859	0.20
Marble Inc A t	466.84		-0.7160	5.40
Marble Westlth t	608.50		-2.2660	—
UK Business Equity A Bt	1291.57		-0.3004	1.75
UK Growth t	200.87		-0.3112	0.64
UK Income Trust t	3036.88		-0.3432	4.50

LEGAL & GENERAL (UT MANGRC) LTD

EmuHou: 0870 000 0955 Dealing: 0878 050 0956

Euro Ind A t	389.4		-1.7	1.90
Euro Ind Inc t	482.1		-1	1.90
Fixed Int A t	149.9		-0.2	4.60
Fixed Int Bst t	61.94		-0.05	4.60
Global Health t	128.2		-1.9	0.90
Gold Tech A t	232		-1.6	—
High Int A t	134.2		-0.2	5.70
Japan Int A t	118		-1.5	1.10
Pacific Int A t	42.16		-10.5	3.30
UK Public Trust A t	534.6		-0.9	2.50
UK Public Trust A t	232.5		-0.3	—
US Int A t	142		-6	5.50
Worldwide A t	466.4		-1.6	0.90

MAO SECURITIES

EmuHou: 0941 990 Dealing Line: 0888 320 3246

Authorized Inv Funds

CharITInd Inc t	2090.86		-0.10	5.14

Gold To Fund A t	299.7		-0.04	4.20
Gold To Fund A t	1015.99		3.40	—
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		2.52	—
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40
Gold To Fund A t	1178.6		—	3.40

SANTANDER UNIT TST MGRS

0800 279 900

Equity Inc Int t	229.7		—
Stimati 2B A t	2018000		—
UK Growth A t	690.0		—
UK Growth A t	312.1		—

SCOTTON MUTUAL INV MNGRES LTD

0161 104 6100

For Eastern Inc t	1672.9780	699.0780	—
Mutual For Eastern t	1567.7780	1625.6380	-31.22

	Soft	Buy	+/-	Y/N %
Mutual Mkt Ex	1429.4980	1530.7600		7.01
UK Equity Inc	562.2580	593.0000		7.01

SCOTTON WDOWS UNIT TRUST MNGRS

0940 300 2244

Overseas Growth Investment Funds

Tracker & Special Investment Funds

UK Smt A B t t	688.9		-0.40	2.50
UK Smt A Inc t	273.4		-0.10	2.50

UK & Income Investment Funds

Gas Bond A A t t	327.9		-0.10	4.20
Gas Bond A A t t	147.5		—	4.20
Energy Nat A A t	1476		-1.99	3.10
Mr Mc Dade A t t	1.65		-1.65	6.90
Mr Mc Dade A t t	79.37		-0.36	6.00
Mr Bnt A A t t	358.9		-0.50	3.70
Mr Bnt A Inc t	131.3		-0.10	3.00
Stort Int A A t t	228.5		-0.10	4.60
Stort Int A A t t	35.94		-0.05	4.60
Mr Ex Fund A A t	128.4		-0.10	2.50

ODC & Class

UK Smt B B t t	645.7		-0.40	2.60
UK Smt B Inc t	273.9		-0.10	2.60

ODC C Class

UK Eq Pre t t	132.2		—	2.60

STANDARD LIFE INVESTMENTS

0940 279 900

Investment Funds (ODC)-Retail Shares

---

41

Markets Business

William Kay Tempus Buy, sell or hold: today's best share tips

Gamble on casinos hits the jackpot

RANK GROUP

Market cap £489 million Net gaming revenue £397m

Rank Group shares were hit hard last autumn by the former chancellor Rachel Reeves's tax increases, but could they now be revived by a John Healey budget? After Tempus recommended the shares at 11½ in May last year they rose to 180½. But a combination of Reeves's gambling tax rises, higher wages and the continued cost of living squeeze sparked several broker downgrades, taking the shares down to 88½. As they have since recovered to 102½, have they formed a platform for future increases?

The company has undergone a transformation in recent decades, scrapping movie-making and cinemas for casinos and bingo while coming under the control of the Malaysia-based Guoco Group and associates, which together own 60 per cent of the shares.

Last week, Rank unveiled a 21 per cent rise in underlying operating profits for the year to the end of June of £78.6 million. This was on the back of a 6 per cent increase in like-for-like net gaming revenue to £835 million. Digital underlying like-for-like net gaming revenues rose 8 per cent to £248.5 million. Sales from Mecca Bingo venues were up 4 per cent and at Enracha, its Spanish bingo outpost, sales were 7 per cent ahead. A 15 per cent boost in underlying earnings per share to 10.5p opened the door to a 0.9p dividend improvement to 3.5p.

The results showed a striking

Betting machine

ADVICE Roy WHY The shares have shaken off Rachel Reeves, and should be able to withstand whatever John Healey knows at them

£22.9 million gap between the underlying and statutory calculations for both operating profit and net gaming revenue, compared with only £4.7 million the previous year. The small print catalogues a string of events from amortisation to closure costs, impairment charges, restructuring costs, dilapidations, Spanish fraud loss and a proposed Gambling Commission settlement.

The positive spin on this is that it shows a business clearing the decks and forging ahead to a bright future;

Gaming revenue

management promises in the current year the difference will be nearer to the previous £4.7 million figure.

This is relevant because many hopes are pinned on Rank hitting £100 million operating profit as a medium-term target. This is officially undefined, but analysts are gathering around the year to June 30, 2029. That should be achievable with the existing machine stock, by squeezing average revenue per machine from £2.2 million to £3 million.

Rank said net gaming revenue (NGR) at Grosvenor Casinos, its star revenue generator, was up 5 per cent to £397.3 million. It attributed this partly to 850 gaming machines put into 37 casinos last year. Recent UK casino modernisation regulations let operators raise the ratio of gaming machines relative to floor space, adding up to 40 machines in larger

venues. Grosvenor was a direct beneficiary, pushing up revenue per square foot. And the spread of electronic payment options and physical sports betting terminals in converted casinos has created new revenue streams. Gaming machines and electronic table gaming are the company's most 'productive' (translation: profitable) products.

This is all being given a new sense of direction by Richard Harris, a Marks & Spencer veteran of close to 12 years, confirmed last month as the permanent chief executive: 'We have a truckload of runway ahead of us.'

Group NGR was up 8 per cent in the six weeks starting July 1. Within this, digital revenues grew 10 per cent and Grosvenor gaming machine revenues 15 per cent.

A smaller casino format is being trialled, featuring only gaming machines and electronic terminals. The group has another 20 dormant casino licences in this format, and there is the potential to open them nationally if regulations permit.

The group's cross-channel strategy connects Grosvenor and Mecca Bingo customers with its digital platforms via Rank Interactive. It is also on the ground in Spain and now Portugal. Harris does not discourage suggestions of further foreign moves down the line, to South America, or Canada and Australia.

Peel Hunt notes that Harris has reviewed capital investment plans and eliminated less certain, longer-term projects. 'We find the guided cut to £40 million is a real signal of intent,' it says. Consequently, it feels shareholders can also look forward with more confidence to sustained and growing returns of capital.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Broadband 'turbocharged'

Openreach, the broadband arm of BT Group, is planning to upgrade its full fibre network to a speed of 8.5 gigabits per second (Gbps) for more than a million premises over the next 12 months.

The introduction of XGS-PON technology, which is capable of offering 10Gbps for both uploads and downloads, follows a trial starting in March at 40,000 homes in and around Guildford in Surrey. It is capable of download speeds 28 times faster than a typical household experiences today.

The business hopes to expand the 'turbocharged' broadband to a third of its full fibre network over five years. The new fibre-optic technology will also support 5G expansion and eventually 6G deployments. Details of pricing and availability are expected nearer launch. Trevor Lunney, Openreach's director of network technology, said: 'As demand for data continues to grow, our investment in XGS-PON technology will enable us to offer even higher speeds over the same network, and the additional capacity needed to support the UK's digital future.'

Openreach's full fibre network reaches more than 23.4 million premises and delivers gigabit-capable broadband services. Newer technology is needed to unlock additional network capacity as demand grows.

Google deal with supplier

Marvell Technology will help develop Google's custom chips and has offered it the right to buy a stake potentially worth $12.2 billion, the latest deal in which Big Tech is investing in the suppliers powering its AI build-out. Demand for in-house chips such as Google's tensor processing units has surged as companies seek cheaper alternatives to Nvidia's pricey microchips and technologies better suited for running trained AI models. An overhaul of Google's AI division has shifted power toward executives with ties to Google Cloud and put the spotlight on custom chips and AI infrastructure.

Target raises forecast

The US homewares chain Target raised its annual sales forecast for a second time this year after quarterly profit was boosted by a $1 billion tariff refund. Sales of $26.5 billion in the second quarter were 5.3 per cent higher than last year, and net income of $2.6 billion came in at double last year's $1.3 billion. The results suggest the turnaround plan under new chief executive Michael Fiddelke is taking hold, even as high fuel prices pressure household budgets. The stock is up 58 per cent this year, and gained another 4.2 per cent to close at $159 in New York after a strong start to the back-to-school shopping season.

Slowdown hits TJX stores

TJX Companies has reported a slowdown at its TJ Maxx and Marshalls discount clothing chains in the second quarter, overshadowing strong growth in its home goods business and adding to concerns about a fall in US consumer spending. While the retailer is still drawing in bargain-hunting shoppers, its core clothing-focused Marmaxx division is facing headwinds before the crucial back-to-school and holiday seasons. TJX, which sells merchandise priced from under $10 to designer goods costing several thousands of dollars, has boosted its marketing efforts with celebrity campaigns.

Miners beat City boys to give the FTSE a treat

MARKET REPORT

The battle for supremacy on the main index during the mid-week session was a tussle between the miners and financial markets worldwide. Strong profit reports for the spring from Estée Lauder, Target and other companies also helped to support equity markets. After three negative trading days, the S&P 500 rose 16.22 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 7,707.98 as the Nasdaq was up 41.38 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 26,331.09. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 119.85 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 53,463.05.

The rise in commodity-related stocks was supported by higher prices for gold, copper and silver, as well as a stabilising US dollar and broader energy sector strength as crude oil topped $92 a barrel amid conflict in the Middle East.

As the value of the dollar fell after the US Treasury said it will buy more American government bonds, easing pressure on financial markets, so the gold price rose, up 3 per cent at $4,552.80 by late afternoon in London, as it takes more dollars to buy an ounce of gold. Top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard was the Mexican precious metals miner Fresnillo 224p, or 78 per cent, higher at £30.85, with Endeavor Mining not far behind with a rise of 307p, or 75 per cent, to £44.05.

Among the more diversified miners, Glencore was up 285p, or 5.2 per cent, at 580p, Anglo American added 184p, or 4.8 per cent, to £40.15 and the Chile-

Wall Street report

Indices ticked higher after the Treasury Department said it will buy more US government bonds in a move that eased pressure on financial markets worldwide. Strong profit reports for the spring from Estée Lauder, Target and other companies also helped to support equity markets. After three negative trading days, the S&P 500 rose 16.22 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 7,707.98 as the Nasdaq was up 41.38 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 26,331.09. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 119.85 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 53,463.05.

The day's biggest movers

Company	Owner
Fresnillo	7.85
Endeavor Mining	7.95
Croda International	5.35
Glencore	5.25
Anglo American	4.85
Aviva	-2.45
Rational Grid	-2.65
B&E Systems	-2.95
Smith & Nephew	-3.85
IG Group	-4.85

The new $2 million Aston Martin Valen drove up shares in its manufacturer

an copper miner Antofagasta rose 147p, or 4.1 per cent, to £37.02. Oil again played a part with Brent crude, the global benchmark, up 1.6 per cent at $92.51 a barrel in turn lifting Shell 325p, or 1 per cent, to £34.21 and BP up 55p, or 1.1 per cent, to 539½p.

Going the other way were financial stocks largely over fears that softening economic data and sticky inflation could hamper growth prospects. The insurer Aviva shed 175p, or 2.4 per cent, to 719½p, while Standard Chartered dropped 47p, or 2.1 per cent, to £21.54 and Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's

biggest mortgage lender, fell 2½p, or 2.1 per cent, to 1019½p.

The more UK-focused FTSE 250 also posted a rise, 82.09 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 24,643.52. Oxford Nanopore, the gene sequencing company, set a long-term ambition for $1 billion-plus revenues, sending the shares up 175p, or 14.3 per cent, to 1199½p.

Finally, a shoot out for the often troubled Aston Martin Laguna which rose 1½p, or 5.2 per cent, to 36p on the launch of its new ultra-laxury Aston Martin Valen, a limited 150-unit, 850PS V12 coupe priced at nearly $2 million.

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42

Business

EQUITY PRICES

Dividend yields Please note dividend yields are supplied by UCC Data Services. The yield is the sum of a company's annual 12-month dividend payments divided by the last day's closing share price.

12-month high and low High/low prices for UK equities and investment trusts are based on intra-day figures.

12-monthHigh	Low	Company	Price(g)	11	ForecastPMTs. FTE

Automobiles & Part

0.01	25	Auton Martin Lay	5%	-	1%	-	-0.7

Banking & Finance

100	177	Advertisers Group	24%	-	1%	4.0	11.2
	51	By North 1994	0%				-1.1
4900	1025	Admiral	1000	-	4	1.7	21.0
4650	1040	By North	999	-	7	2.5	21.2
10765	11575	ACN Corp	25735%	-	13%	4.9	-
1100	196	Almahri	620	-	5	4.7	7.5
2950	1155	Business Group	336%	-	5%	7.5	31.6
11360	11450	Australia & AG	3940%	-	6%	5.5	39.5
5900	1090	Amber	1100%	-	12%	4.4	24.7
1110	600	Group Satsunko	1050	-	13	4.4	11.5
5540	1015	Bankers	496%	-	7%	2.3	11.1
17	4	One One Satsunko	0%				-2.2
710	613	BP North & Pierce	67%			5.4	5.1
9515	112	Bridgeport & Co	19%	-	9%	2.9	16.2
9117	1040	Fininvest	837	-	5	4.9	6.0
442	100	City of London Inc	40%	-	4	4.0	16.5
5540	1020	Cross Bros	43%	-	4%		-4.3
753	262	CMC (Huders)	70%	-	2	1.9	25.2
29575	2067	Deutsche Bank	2060	-	7%	1.1	26.1
10	1111	FCS & Non Whs	72%	-	5	4.9	-
1400	136	CPC Special Says	11%				-0.7
89	52	Fininvest	67%			1.7	5.9
90	86	Transight Partners NCT	0%			4.0	25.5
4300	2133	Interco Capital	4199	-	11%		-1.6
17	40	Newport (Katz)	16%	-	5%	3.0	31.0
230	190	Adcox & N/A	23%	-	1	4.5	7.7
2800	1257	Alliance	1776	-	13	2.2	11.4
3410	939	AMAC	1497%	-	17%	1.7	16.0
2016	1016	IG Group	1111	-	6%	2.2	9.1
304	90	Impor Asset (Hyatt)	11%	-	3%	4.7	7.3
1300	1420	ICB	2020	-	4%	4.3	11.2
1005	1170	Intl North P.Trion	34%	-	1%	4.3	13.6
499	499	Invested	664%	-	1%	5.5	5.6
175	68	Investment Co	9%
75	48	IP Group	49%	-	3%	1.5	9.6
24	42	Bank Securities	7%			45.2	2.4
2140	1120	Jaguar Food (Hyatt)	162%	-	2%	1.7	8.0
304	104	Jamaalink (Hyatt)	19%	-	2	2.0	4.7
1105	1175	Legal & General	29%	-	2%	1.4	29.0
1620	1000	Lion Finance Group	1210	-	8%	2.5	5.1
289	220	Interest Asset Hyatt	12%	-	9%	4.0	25.0
41	39	Currency Inv. Co	37%			8.3	17.0
1175	175	Liquids Banking	11%	-	2%	5.6	25.8
12	14	LMG Capital	15%	-	5%	4.4	-
8100	6600	London Stock Exchange	2%	-	1%	1.9	25.7
1475	197	MAAS	16%	-	7%	5.9	27.5
1175	1345	Non Group	169%	-	1%	4.1	21.4
195	29	Home Financial Co	2%			3.1	4.6
10	11	Manchester Capital	2%				-13.2
1000	90	Metro Bank	17%	-	1%		-21.2

12-monthHigh	Low	Company	Price(g)	11	ForecastPMTs. FTE
26215	13645	National Australia	2036%	-	13%
730	9495	Northwest Group	0%	-	11%
1070	4500	Northwest Group	0%	-	11%
1210	1810	Prudential	162%	-	1%
1110	1810	Prudential	162%	-	1%
1110	1810	Prudential	162%	-	1%
209	1595	Baltimore (Brookline)	0%		-3.0
209	1595	Baltimore	194%	-	5%
2500	1500	Baltimore Group	100%	-	2%
1105	298	Richmond Services	12%	-	5%
24500	1620	J & B	1930	-	2%
1100	96	Green London	1%		-1.2
595	401	Jamaalink BTT	44%	-	5%
1900	1900	Administration	50%	-	5%
1570	1400	St. James's Place	117%	-	7%
2110	1100	Standard Court	131%	-	6%
9400	1110	Standard Law	59%	-	1%
6340	4290	San Erie Canada	5041%	-	11%
45	25	Trentum Inc	2%		5%
5300	963	TBC Bank (Lip)	4312	-	5%
11	91	Yorak	1%		-1.5
64	400	Time Finance	57%	-	5%
0%	91	Yorak	0%		-4.7
0	91	Yorak	3%		-0.8
132	791	Amway Banking Co	37%	-	5%
2800	2000	Johnson	200%	-	1%
72300	5400	Wells Corp	6126%	-	126%
15770	1780	Westpac (Big Bay)	100%	-	14%
1%	29	Winston Investors	20%
5700	4940	Zwick Insurance	5379%	-	120%

Construction & Property

0%	100	Worcester	20%	-	3	4	7	9.1
0%	91	Buenos Properties	0%				-	1.2
0%	11	Calif. International	1%				-	0.9
93%	5640	Balboa Realty	88%	-	16%	1%	16.9
4100	2290	Barratt Redman	111%	-	1	5.4	21.2
2000	1153	Balboa	111%	-	1%	1.4	16.0
4440	2796	Balobay	311%	-	1%		-10.7
1200	1800	Big Indian City	1000%	-	6	5.3
460	210	Billingsley-Waiga	450%				2.7	39.2
237	1100	Bank (Power)	15%	-	1	5.0	0.9
1025	2701	Brookin	354%	-	5%	4.3	24.6
4141	3110	British Land	42%				2%	5.9
2900	2500	Cardiff Property	175%				2.1	20.7
2700	1400	Denver London	202%	-	2	4.1
0%	95	DC Business	0%				-2.7
10%	11	First Property	1%	-	1%	1.9	7.2	5.2
75	29	Kitchen Group	42%				5.1	20.7
42	25	Embore Group	36%				5.1	5.9
637	400	Gulfland Try-Hilp	61%	-	5	1.2	10.2
1961	296	Gerald Group	260%	-	1.3	4.6	25.3
435	221	Glucose (M)	26%	-	1	4.1	9.9
10625	7800	Southern Bro-Knls	3090%	-	12%	3.6	24.3
3100	1490	Garage	19%	-	5	4.4	6.4
177	276	Good Portland Oil	34%	-	1%	2.4	0.6
9925	1630	Northwest	51%
100	1110	Harwich Group	100%	-	0%	1.0	42.3
400	2370	North Central	25%	-	5	5.2	31.2
2360	1380	Ardsol	36%				1.2	41.6

12-monthHigh	Low	Company	Price(g)	11	ForecastPMTs. FTE
1445	321	British	89%	-	1.1
1615	112	James Baltimore	110%	-	6.0
3110	1230	Adder	204%	-	1.7
12900	2040	Maryam Group	1700%	-	6.0
736	420	Land & Business	600%	-	5%
2140	1570	London/District Prop(10)	-	-	1%
1200	45	Alliance Plus (Big 5)	6%
1940	124	Manikota	164%	-	2%
106	66	McKenzie's & Gral	7%
1	91	Mani Bank	0%
5730	1953	Revoys GmbH	431%	-	9%
1200	1000	American Exelco	137%	-	9%
20	69	Newham HST	9%
230	100	Palace Capital	10%	-	5%
320	261	Palmer Investment	29%
1992	9970	Paranowman	1161%	-	5%
24	19	Plaza Fabrics	16%
1000	1275	Peterson Health Group	0%
310	28	Red Exelco (low)	50%
1490	1500	Suburban	556%	-	1%
1440	950	South	0%
50	81	Union Proj Dev & New	0%
9870	660	Saigon	950%	-	2%
1200	1200	Northwest Capital	100%	-	5%
12	61	SK	0%
150	100	Upschke	11%	-	1%
113	565	Silica Steel Estate	99%	-	5%
100	108	Upsch Ltd	11%	-	1%
235	16	Stages General	2%
1110	795	Yacht Shipping	39%	-	1%
239	100	Trans-Centre	12%	-	1%
7220	9970	Trans-Parties	64%	-	9%
175	1120	Tristan Big Bear	157%	-	5%
740	4920	Delta Group	512%	-	2%
7400	220	Delta Group	23%	-	2%
4340	312	Washupur Group	31%	-	2%
900	730	Alliance Group	91%
1	91	PRC/Lia	0%

12-monthHigh	Low	Company	Price(g)	11	ForecastPMTs. FTE
130	675	Autonol (low)	51%		-1.1
15	81	Harwich	1%		-94.5
110	685	PTC/Loose	108%	-	5%
130	92	MLA	16%	-	-0.6
130	110	Trudose	10%		1%
130	225	The Charcoal (low)	31%	-	1%
10	5	Worcester (low)	7%		-57.0
10420	5640	Unidamer	4638%	-	14%
775	199	Alchem	56%	-	-0.2
Engineering
50%	10	Wash & Oil (low)	2%		-6.9
2100	1000	Avon Technologies	104%	-	7%	1%
1517	9925	Baltecchi	1131%	-	7%	6%
2160	1100	Gold Sunkers	16%	-	6%	1%
2100	500	Barron & N/A	120%		1%	5.4
1990	1375	Alchem Group	133%	-	1%	11%
500	500	Oafina	40%	-	5%	1%
0%	91	Cap Oil (low)	0%		-3.0
1090	2000	Carthage	39%	-	1%	4.1
27	125	Chalk/M	2%		-7.7
4500	4960	Channing Group	100%	-	1%	1.6
9	20	Ours Food (low)	39%			-20.3
1500	1800	Cohen	151%	-	2%	1.4
150	100	Walton	16%		-	-0.1
15	55	Northside	6%		-0.2
1370	4820	South & Rousep	131%	-	3%	1.1
1560	1900	Southwest	1000%	-	56%	1.5
4910	3174	Halms	144%	-	6%	6.7
1220	1390	Wit Health	294%	-	1%	20.7
25	1	Immer (low)	2%		-12.4
1166	1216	BMC	106%	-	4%	1%
4900	2400	Saigon (low)	294%	-	1%	2.9
99	94	CPM	77%			-29.4
600	4890	Montrose	400%	-	6%	1%
261	1290	Marque (low)	137%	-	5%	1%
400	290	None	10%			-10.4
2000	1120	REV/UK	163%	-	2%	1%
3310	1642	United Instruments	200%	-	4%	6.0
24120	11790	Philips (low)	2020%	-	17%	1%
0%	1	Paythor	-		-9.9
5400	2900	Innichon	306%	-	7%	1%
2100	990	Radio-Equity	2519%	-	14%	6.7
4990	2860	British	496%			1.7
100	60	Oil Group	0%			-39.9
3100	146	Center	200%			6.7
2037	20275	OP Group	2027%			1.0
15540	2980	Smiths	259%	-	1%	1.8
110	126	Gold (Low)	163%			1.5
240	119	Summa (Low)	242%			1.1
8900	9990	Barron Group	900%	-	1%	2.5
75	35	Turkish	4%		-5.9
130	246	Topper-Ta	26%	-	7%	2.2
1825	2750	American Tech	0%			-5.1
9375	200	Ameren	100%	-	6%	4.1
730	120	Amco	53%	-	6%	10.7
2000	2254	Walt	104%	-	36%	1.6
2000	100	OP Power	101%	-	1%	-40.3
Health
200	107	Advanced Medicine	20%			1.0
175	5	Marqu Therapeutics	0%			-4.2
0	0	Unidated	1%			-0.2
500	2950	Alameda	53%			2.4

1572	9892	AutonComex	1350	-	24%	2.0	24.0
35	15	Cambridge Park (Low)	1%			-7.7
2595	199	Camelot	200%	-	3%	3.4	16.5
36	28	Palace & House	2%			1.3	7.9
1161	72	Up School Health	0%			-15.4
32	221	OP (Supercity)	2%			-51.4
105	91	Adco (Reliable)	0%			-0.1
12201	1000	Genes	216%	-	2%	2.4	16.6
1202	12800	ICBM	206%	-	2%	1.7	13.6
95	81	Sarasota	0%			-0.9
4560	2750	Malware	507%	-	2%	2.0	24.2
1000	1127	Micro Pharma	1600	-	6%	1.0	12.4
200	1390	Montreal Group	10%			-4.7
195	15	Jamaalink	3%			-10.0
12	21	Jayanthan Health	18%			-20.4
15	61	REV/UK	7%			-4.5
85	81	Youth Therapeutics	0%			-9.9
775	792	Walt Group	6%			1.3	6.6
1530	96.0	Novartis	0%			1.1	1.0

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43

Business

U/month	High	Low	Company	Price (p)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

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U/month	High	Low	Company	Price (p)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

U/month	High	Low	Company	Price (p)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

U/month	High	Low	Company	Price (p)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Exchange rates	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U

Gold/precious metals	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U
Canada $	1.9990$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0000$	1.0

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45

Beardless drummer for ZZ Top Frank Beard Page 46

Obituaries

Eddie Richardson

Member of a menacing south London criminal gang who spent a total of 23 years in prison where he discovered a talent for painting

At dawn on July 30, 1966, the day England won the World Cup, police in London rounded up the Richardson gang: Charlie Richardson, “Mad” Frankie Fraser and their associates. Eddie Richardson, Charlie’s younger brother and a key member of the gang, was already on remand at Brixton prison for another case.

The Richardsons were to south London what the Kray twins were to east London. If anything, they were more dangerous to cross than the Krays. Their crimes revolved around protection and extortion rackets, with a hefty dose of physical violence thrown in for good measure, generating lurid headlines during their “torture trial” the following year.

Victims were taken to a basement of the brothers’ nightclub, in the offices of the scrap-metal yard they owned in Camberwell, south London, and used as target practice with kitchen knives. If this failed, they were subjected to a mock trial with Eddie as “judge”, wearing stolen robes, and Charlie as “prosecutor”. The Old Bailey heard how some were literally nailed to the floor and had their fingers and toes removed with bolt cutters, and how Fraser, the gang’s “enforcer”, extracted their teeth with pliers.

Others were attached to the “black box”, an old generator with two leads and a handle that, when cranked, created an electric current. Richardson insisted it was no stronger than the electric fences used to keep animals in fields. “That’s not to say it wasn’t unpleasant, especially as Charlie liked to wire it to blokes’ bollocks,” he said. When the gang got peckish in the middle of a torture session, they calmly sent out for fish and chips.

Their long-running trial, involving 15 defendants, was marred by interruptions from the dock. Witnesses were intimidated as they gave evidence. At one point Richardson leant forward, shouting at one of them: “You won’t get out of this, son.” When the magistrate at their committal hearing reminded them that they would be having a trial by jury, one of the defendants shot back: “Yes, and see we get a good jury.”

The brothers tried to dismiss the “torture” sessions as innocent fun but the jury, who were given round-the-clock police protection, thought otherwise. Richardson was jailed for ten years. He also received five years for a fracas at the bizarrely named Mr Smith’s and the Witchdoctor nightclub in Catford in March 1966 in which a man was shot dead, though he came away with a collection of lead shotgun pellets in his backside that proved a lifelong nuisance at airport security. Yet he always insisted that he was never involved in any torture. “I wasn’t shy about giving people what they deserved, but I wouldn’t keep them prisoner for hours, even though I saw Charlie do it,” he wrote.

Released after 11 years, Richardson appeared to be going straight. In 1982 he visited Downing Street with a group

Richardson with his brother Charlie, above left; at an exhibition of his paintings, left; and with the crime writer Martina Cole, below

While much of his first prison term had been spent rebelling, his second was spent more usefully, including at weekly art classes. “I’d never tried my hand at it, but once I realised I could do it, it got much easier for me,” he told The Independent. In 2003 many of his paintings were exhibited at No 5 Cavendish Square, includ-

ing a head-and-shoulders portrait of Longford. Signed prints are available through his website.

The Richardson Gang’s rivalry with the Kray twins kept the press busy, though Eddie was disdainful of the comparison, describing them as “small-time” fantasists who played at being gangsters. “As far as we were concerned, they were small-time blokes who thought themselves a lot bigger than they were,” he wrote in his autobiography The Last Word (2005) — though it was not and he retold much of the story in No Handcuffs (2019).

The pairs of brothers only met once on the outside, for a brief drink and a handshake. In jail Richardson found them like lost sheep. “I used to get the Daily Telegraph in there and Reggie used to get

The Times. We always swapped papers but the pages in his were always stuck together and it was obvious he didn’t read it, but just wanted to show off and impress people,” he said.

Edward George Richardson was born in Camberwell in 1936, the second of four children of Charles Richardson, a boxer who fought under the name Charlie Binks. He deserted from the army in India, was jailed for robbery and eventually took off to Canada with a Scottish nurse. His mother, Eileen (née Allen), was of Irish descent and took over the family sweet and tobacco shop from her mother; his siblings were

Torture techniques included pulling out teeth using pliers

Charlie, who died in September 2012; Alan, who was drowned in an accident on Charlie’s speedboat on the Thames at age 18, and Elaine, who survives him and was not involved in her brothers’ nefarious activities.

His earliest memories were of the Blitz, playing in the rubble of bomb-damaged buildings, and amassing a fine shrapnel collection. When the bombing grew too intense the boys were evacuated to a farm near Piddle-trenitude in Dorset, under the care of “there ugly sister types” whose “animals got a better deal than we had”.

Back in London he was sent to The Avenue secondary modern school. Hampened by dyslexia and poor hearing in one ear, he was regularly caned and began falling into trouble. “Getting lead off a roof was easier than algebra and a lot more profitable,” he said. While collecting cookers he took a torch from the passenger seat of an unlocked car but was stopped by the

police. He gave them “some cheek” and “this big fat copper started slapping me about the face.”

At 15 he signed up as a trainee draughtsman with a company in Southwark with day release at college. After 12 months he was let go for being disruptive. He then became a porter at Waterloo station, observing that carrying luggage was good training for boxing, in which he had a fearsome reputation in Camberwell. His next stop was cleaning windows and stonework on tall buildings, lowered from the roof in a cradle.

Eventually he joined Charlie running Peckford Scrap Metal. Legitimate though it was, many of their dealings were off the books while other scams ran alongside it. Meanwhile, he skipped National Service by pretending to be “really stupid”. For a time he played football for the Soho Ramblers, as did Fraser. At least one match was refereed by Stanley Baker, the Welsh film actor and producer.

Richardson’s first “proper” conviction came in 1954 when he was stopped with a scaffolding plank attached to his car bumper. He had intended to ram it into a tobacconist’s shop, rush in and steal as many cigarettes as possible. Held on remand at Wormwood Scrubs, he “learnt more in that week than I had in years”. More minor convictions followed: receiving £25 of waste piping in 1959; jumping a red light in 1963. In 1956 he married Maureen Cronin with whom he had two daughters, Melanie, a pharmacologist, and Donna, a ballet dancer. The marriage was dissolved and he is survived by his partner, Joan Harris.

From scrapyards Richardson diversified into the fruit-machine business with Fraser, persuading the baronet Sir Noel Dryden, “who enjoyed drinking and cocktails”, to become a respectable frontman for Atlantic Machines. Then came pornography magazines, peep shows and adult films. Operating out of Windmill Street in Soho brought him to the attention of the Krays, “who wanted to muscle in on our porn film trade” but thought better of it.

Elsewhere, he found a way to swindle money from airport parking machines while on another occasion he “glassed” a man in a Southport club who objected to his slot machines. Mysteriously, when the case came to court none of the witnesses could remember what they had seen. Eventually, he became estranged from Charlie, who lost many of their gains, ill-gotten and otherwise, in South African mining investments.

After his final release from prison in 2001, Richardson lived quietly in south-east London. In 2015 he was nominated for the freedom of the borough of Southwark for raising funds for charity and championing disadvantaged children. “Do I regret my life? Who doesn’t regret some things?” he told the Daily Mail. “I’ve seen some bad things, but I’ve also enjoyed the best things the world has to offer.” Yet as he wrote in The Last Word: “Today, I would not like to meet the likes of me as I was then.”

Eddie Richardson, gangster and artist, was born on January 29, 1936. He died from pneumonia on August 14, 2026, aged 90

of London gang leaders, including Bobby Welch, one of the Great Train robbers, to present a petition calling for reforms to the justice system. The deterrent, he said, was being caught, not the prison sentence, as he soon demonstrated.

With his business interests, both legitimate and otherwise, neglected during his first spell inside, he needed money. A solution came by importing cocaine and cannabis from South America, Spain and Thailand, with reports of their value ranging from £40 million to £78 million. In 1990 he was jailed for 25 years by a judge at Winchester crown court despite Lord Longford, the prison reform campaigner, pleading for mercy saying that “there is much good in him”.

In total Richardson spent 23 of his 90 years in jail, including a spell in Durham prison where he learnt to play bridge by watching the Soviet spies John Vassall and Frank Boscard. Another inmate there was Ian Brady, the Moore murderer, whom he described as a “vampire”. While part of a prison mutiny in the governor’s office, he read Brady’s files. “In it he called us ‘the animals’. It still makes me have goose pimples,” he wrote.

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46

Register

Frank Beard

Beardless member of ZZ Top, rock's famously hirsute and biggest-selling band in the US before Guns N' Roses and Nirvana

On the cover of ZZ Top's final album, 2012's La Futura, there is a striking silhouette of the band's three members in side view. On either side of the picture, the guitarist Billy Gibbons and the bassist Dusty Hill resemble old-time biblical patriarchs with their black hats and long, pointed beards.

In between these imposing figures is the more quotidian profile of the trio's beardless drummer Frank Beard — and the joke around the name of the only member of rock's most famously hirsute band not to sport a Methuselah-like beard was an obvious but irresistible source of amusement. Indeed, it was a joke too good ever to wear off and was still being cited on his death. The New York Times headlined its obituary "Frank Beard, beardless drummer".

While the luxuriant beards worn by Gibbons and Hill (obituary, July 29, 2021) threatened to tickle their navels and made Fidel Castro's version seem scrawny, Beard for most of his career

The drummer's signature backbeat was key to ZZ Top's trademark sound

kept his facial hair to a neatly trimmed moustache. When he finally gave in and after more than 40 clean-shaven years grew what tour manager Pablo Camiños called "the ZZ guatne", his colleagues were so unimpressed that he soon shared it off again.

On stage Beard was also less ostentatious than his colleagues. As Gibbons and Hill took centre stage, swinging their hips in unison and spinning their guitars on mounts attached to their bells — a showy trick that made them MTV favourites — Beard sat half-hidden behind his huge drum kit, driving the group's potent mix of southern rock, blues and boogie. "His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top," Gibbons said.

His steady groove, which he called "the Texas shuffle", anchored the group's hits such as La Grange, Tush and Gimme All Your Lovin' with little or no flash. His one concession to flamboyance was the eye-catching "Senor Beard" and whiskey barred logo with which he decorated his drums.

La Grange — written about a notorious backwoods brothel that also inspired the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas — gave the group its breakthrough hit in 1974 and became ZZ Top's signature tune in a career in which the self-styled "little ol' band from Texas" went on to sell more than 50 million records.

For Beard, rock'n'roll success soon turned into excess and he spent his first significant royalty check for $72,000 getting as high as he possibly could. "I spent it on drugs — every bit of it," he admitted in the 2019 Grammy-nominated Netflix documentary ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band From Texas. "I never had enough money to be a proper addict until then and I accomplished that. 'Taking LSD was 'like looking for God and I really became a seeker of truth', he said. Heroin was 'a vacation for the mind, and I liked it a lot'."

Inevitably it took its toll. At one point he sold his drum kit to buy more drugs and his addictions cost him his first marriage. "At the back of my mind I knew that I needed to kick heroin, I needed to stop doing cocaine," he recalled. "I had done it all and I couldn't go any further so I went into a 12-step programme."

In 1982 he married Debbie Meredith, who survives him along with their twin sons Nico and Max and a daughter from his first marriage to Catherine Alexander, which ended in divorce.

A true son of Texas, he lived all of his life in the Lone Star state and made his home at the Top 40 Ranch in Richmond on the Brazos River, 20 miles southwest of Houston. Away from music he was a keen golfer and

Beard, centre, with Dusty Hill, left, and Billy Gibbons backstage in Illinois, 1984

had a passion for fast cars, competing in races including the Daytona 24-hour endurance rally.

Frank Lee Beard was born in 1949 in Frankston, Texas, the son of Rachel (née Dossett) and John Beard, and went to school in Irving, a suburb of Dallas. Inspired equally by the "British invasion" groups led by the Beatles and the blues music of John Lee Hooker and others, by the age of 15 he was playing drums in a band and met his future ZZ Top colleague Hill in 1964 when they found themselves playing at a club in Fort Worth on the same bill.

Hill invited him to join his group the Warlocks, forging a rhythm section that was to endure for 57 years until the bassist's death. During the 1960s they

played together in a succession of largely forgotten groups including the Cellar Dwellers, the Hastlers, the Outlaws, American Blues and a fake version of the British band the Zombies.

After Beard's girlfriend became pregnant, he supported his young family by becoming a dope dealer before moving in 1969 to Houston, where he encountered Gibbons, whose band, the Moving Sidewalks, had just enjoyed a regional No 1 hit with the song 99th Floor. Desperate for a gig, he lobbied Gibbons for an audition.

"I was jacked up on speed, so I made him jam for about eight hours till his tongue just fell out," Beard recalled. According to Gibbons "it didn't take 10 seconds" to realise he had found the

drummer who "had the chops I was looking for".

Beard introduced Gibbons to Hill, and ZZ Top was born, releasing their first album in 1971. Success was not instant and they made little headway until the group's third album 1973's Tres Hombres, which defined their signature sound and led to them opening for the Rolling Stones.

Beard's addictions contributed to the band's decision to take a break in the late 1970s and it was while on hiatus that Gibbons and Hill grew the long beards. When they reconvened two years later, they realised they had hit upon an image that made them instantly recognisable and decided to let them grow even longer.

The group's commercial peak came in the 1980s when they added synthesizers to the basic guitar, bass and drums template. Powered by award-winning MTV videos for the hit singles Legs and Sharp-Dressed Man, albums such as Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985) made ZZ Top the biggest-selling band in America until Guns N' Roses and Nirvana came along. In the end they outlasted both bands and proved their staying power when in 1994 they left Warner Brothers and signed with RCA in a deal worth $35 million.

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 by Keith Richards. "These cats know the blues, and they know how to dress it up," the Stones guitarist said and hailed ZZ Top as "the heartbeat of the whole country". Beard's response was typically modest. "All I have to say is that most of my life has been a pleasant surprise, and so is this," he told the assembled great and good of the rock world. "Thank you."

Frank Beard, ZZ Top drummer, was born on June 11, 1949. He died of undisclosed causes on August 17, 2026, aged 77

Enyd Williams

Cigarette-smoking powerhouse at BBC radio drama who was behind the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes adaptations

Enyd Williams's speciality was beheadings. When a radio script called for a decapitation, she brought a cabbage on to the studio. At the appointed moment she struck the hapless vegetable with an axe. At the same time an actor emitted a suitably horrible guttural gurgling sound. Those who knew, said it sounded realistic.

Williams was one of those directors who not only knew her comedy but also understood thrillers. For many years she was a powerhouse at BBC radio drama, breathing life into Michael Bakewell's magnificent dramatisations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, and directing Clive Merrison and Michael Williams with loving care in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales.

She also encouraged Peter Tinniswood's dramas. In 2001 alone she directed his plays The Duvet Lady and My Reliable and his parliamentary series Tales from the Backbench. He was a notorious procrastinator and on one occasion she had to lock him in her office until he had completed a Saturday Night Theatre.

Rarely seen without a cigarette, Williams brought out the best in her actors. Miriam Margolyes, whose one-woman West End show Dickens Women she produced for radio in 1991, recalled her "throaty gurgle [and] mischievous cough" and how she could see a kernel of a text and make it live. "She was a

Williams was a sound effects expert

manager of souls, not of studios," Margolyes told her funeral at St Paul's, Covent Garden, the actors' church.

Williams was also a stickler for detail, meticulously marking up her scripts like an actor would. She needed to be in control, and behind her conviviality lay a fierce temper. Good manners and good grammar were paramount. She adored the English language, loved London and theatre first nights and, with a few exceptions, hated the countryside.

Those listed in the pages of her vast address book found her impossible to refuse. Between 1993 and 2001 she created a compelling Miss Marple of June Whitfield. The pair also enjoyed a gripping discussion about Whitfield's

radio career in Take It From June on Radio 4 Extra in 2011, a rare occasion when Williams swapped to the other side of the microphone.

Although she adored Peter Sallis, his Hercule Poirot was less successful. "He's not a very happy person doing accents, so we decided to leave it there," she said after Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1986), later handing the role to John Moffatt. A decade later she directed Sallis, Diana Quick and Bill Nighy in Death at Broadcasting House, in which an actor is murdered during a live broadcast of a radio play.

Williams remained a master of the sound effect. For one programme on the Kama Sutra, she splashed around in a biatun in an inflatable paddling pool to create the sound of harem girls under a fountain. On another occasion she rose before dawn to record the authentic sound of horses' hooves on the cobbled streets of Edinburgh without the noise of passing motor vehicles.

Enid Wyn Williams was born in Liverpool in 1942, the daughter of Welsh parents. William Williams, a butcher, and his wife Myra (née Hughes), a nurse. Later she wrote her name as Enyd, to be pronounced "Enn-sd" rather than the "Ee-nsd" of Enid Blyton.

Her earliest claim to fame was playing the triangle alongside George Harrison, the future Beatle, at primary school. She went on to Belvedere School, Liverpool, and at 14 misrepre-

sented her age to secure professional theatre training, appearing on the BBC's Children's Floor from Manchester and acting in radio dramas from Leeds.

In 1962 she was one of five members of Oldham Repertory Theatre Club who took part in Touch of Bruns, a film promoting the American evangelist Billy Graham's British tour. Two years later she answered an urgent appeal for volunteers at the new Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, bringing people together and getting things ready for opening night.

After stints with the World Service, in Cardiff and in television, Williams found her natural home in radio drama at Broadcasting House in London, commanding attention by wearing pale cream, thigh-length Avengers-style boots. "I worked my way through every job possible in radio and television," she said. That included being a young studio manager for some of the later Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley episodes of Sherlock Holmes in the 1960s.

In 1968 she married Jonathan Clowes (obituary, December 5, 2016), the literary agent who rescued Kingsley Amis and his wife Elizabeth Jane Howard from financial doldrums. She worked with him for a time, representing the Conan Doyle estate. The marriage was dissolved and she is survived by their daughter, Victoria, and their grandson, Cassius, whom she taught to swear. Victoria recalled that her

mother insisted on taking sticky tape on holiday, eventually being vindicated when someone sighed. "I wish I had some Sellotape ..."

By the 1980s she was in a relationship with John Hartley, the actor. They spent a semester in 1984 at New Mexico State University, where she directed him in The Rivals, though contemporary press reports told of tempers flaring between them. They were married in 2000 and he died in 2002.

Williams enjoyed the camaraderie of the BBC Club, enthusiastically downing red wine, black tea and "full-fat" Coke. For breakfast she sometimes ate curry and she took a plastic box to restaurants in anticipation of leftovers. Each week she studied the new Radio Times to see if any of her shows were being repeated. If they were, she telephoned every surviving member of the cast to inform them.

Called on during the pandemic to record a tribute to a recently deceased colleague, Williams failed the Covid test and was not allowed inside the studio. Instead, an engineer rigged up a microphone for her in the car park, though she needed several takes because of the noise from passing traffic.

Enyd Williams, radio producer and director, was born on July 28, 1942. She died from heart failure on June 18, 2026, aged 83

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47

Tom Chadbon

Smooth-voiced actor whose appearances ranged from Doctor Who to an uneasy Duncan in Macbeth when he became convinced by the witches' black magic

In the 1979 Doctor Who series City of Death, Tom Chadbon's Duggan travelled 400 million years back in time with the Doctor and his companion Romana (Lalla Ward). There they encountered the alien Scaroth (Julian Glover) who was trying to alter history by stopping his spaceship from exploding. Duggan knocked him out with a right book, enabling the ship to erupt and thus provide the radioactive catalyst needed for the evolution of life on Earth. Tom Baker's Doctor was impressed, famously remarking in Douglas Adams's script 'Duggan, Duggan. I think that was possibly the most important punch in history.'

The four-part series, based around a plot to steal the Mona Lisa with cameo appearances from John Cleeve and Eleanor Bron, was filmed in Paris. It drew more than 16 million viewers, becoming the most watched storyline in the show's history. Looking back, Baker told Doctor Who magazine: 'Tom Chadbon was terribly funny.'

Chadbon returned to Doctor Who as Merdeen, leader of the guard in an underground kingdom, in The Mysterious Planet (1986), by which time Colin Baker was the sixth Doctor. He also provided voices for the audio series Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures (2007) and Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures (2016).

Chadbon had first come to widespread attention in 1977 as the soft-faced Derek Paynton, a vet brought in to add romance to Carla Lane's sitcom The Liver Birds. Yet Derek was a prim and proper young man who would not dream of hopping into bed without first being married. Neryx Hughes's Sandra even had trouble getting him to kiss, though by the end of the seven episode series they had tied the knot. Just as they did, Sandra learnt that her new husband had been offered a position studying the procreative habits of the greater age in Africa.

Blessed with a smooth voice and tremendous versatility, he created many characters. He appeared as Frank Crawley, the loyal estate manager, in ITV's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1997) with Charles Dazec, Diana Rugi and Emilia Fox; was Professor Henry Williams, director of critical care at the hospital in Casualty between 2008 and 2011; and

Chadbon starred with Emilia Fox in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca

played High Septon Maynard in the finale of the seventh series of Game of Thrones in 2017. Meanwhile, Bond lovers will have caught a glimpse of him as a stockbroker in Casino Royale (2006).

On stage Chadbon was occasionally seen in Shakespeare, including as a gripping Lecestre in The Winter's Tale at Bristol, Old Vic in 1984. However, he was cautious of the superstitions surrounding Macbeth. After playing a grouchy Duncan at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, northwest London, in 1995 he told an interviewer that he was convinced he had been dealing with black magic. 'Those witches, they're not mesing around, you know. When I was doing it, I was quite frightened sometimes.'

Thomas Richard Chadbon was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, in 1946, the elder of two sons of Thomas William Chadbon, a manager with the Westminster bank, and his wife Jose (née Cook), his brother was John. The family moved to Jersey, where he was educated at Victoria College, St Helier. Fortunately, his English teacher was nothing like the one he played in ITV's The Half Room (1973), who cared little about the school, his colleagues or the profession. 'I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school, but the English master suggested I should go to drama school and become an actor,' he told The Sun. 'I suppose he was just a very shrewd guy who recognised potential in his pupils that they didn't even know existed.'

Another family move took him to Chichester High School for Boys, from where he bowed to parental pressure and joined a local solicitor's firm, which helped to inform his dashing role as Lenny Monk in the legal drama Crown Prosecution (1995). Succumbing to boredom, he gave up law to be a stagehand at Chichester Festival Theatre, which led to the Webber Douglas drama school in London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he provided what one reviewer called 'gloriously funny company' in a production of the 1930s comedy Once in a Lifetime.

In 1966 Chadbon married Debbie Leathers, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Leathers. They had two sons, Dominic and Nicholas, who survive him. The marriage was dissolved in 1970. A couple of years later, he was filming The Alf Garrett Saga (1972) with Warren Mitchell when he met Jane Hennever, a designer and film extra. 'The studio organised a car to take me from London to Elstree every day,' he recalled. '[She] didn't have her own transport, so I started giving her a lift.' They were married in 1977 and she also survives him with their daughters, Millie and Felicity.

Chadbon made his stage debut in 1967 in Brecht's Life of Galileo at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, and was soon beginning at the Royal Court in London. One of his earliest television appearances was in a 1968 dramatisation of Mikhail Sholokhov's Russian revolution

drama The Youngest Comrade with Keith Skinner, Roy Dotrice and Yvonne Mitchell, part of the Jazz Age season on BBC1. At 25 he was amused to be the subject of a full-page feature in the teenage magazine 19 and not long afterwards appeared with Peter Cushing and Michael Gambon in Paul Annett's horror flick The Road (Kurt De) (1994) as an artist whose portrait subjects end up being torn to him.

Like most actors, there were times when work was thin. One such occasion was in the mid-1990s, when he was left twiddling his thumbs for six months before turning up as Eleanor Bron's husband in ITV's adaptation of the Ruth Reuteld crime thriller The Strawberry Tree (1995). 'I was spending my time helping out at my daughter's school,' he said, adding that he hoped she would not follow in his footsteps. 'I just don't want her to have to go through all the disappointment.'

He continued to appear on television, including in Taggart: Father Brown and The Bill, where in 2007 he was Paul Saggier, a corrupt MP who crosses swords with Superintendent John Heaton (Daniel Flynn) by fuelling tensions before an anti-racism concert. This led George Galloway, then the Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, to threaten the producers with a libel writ claiming that he was the inspiration for Chadbon's character. 'The viewers will have seen a man about the same age as George, playing an east London MP with links to Iraq and Rock Against Racism, being charged with smuggling. The conclusions are fairly obvious, you would have thought,' a Galloway source said.

One of Chadbon's more unusual ventures was to narrate Channel 5's Katie Price: In Therapy (2015), an on-the-couch programme with the former glamour model.

'Katie's life in numbers is revealing,' he declaimed in his most serious tone. 'Eight boob jobs, thousands of glamour shoots, ten celebrity boyfriends, three husbands, five kids, five kiss-and-tell autobiographies, 20 reality shows, hundreds of Twitter spats and more column inches written about her than Kate Middleton.'

Tom Chadbon, actor, was born on February 27, 1946. He died after a short illness on July 18, 2026, aged 80

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51

Sport

Comeback not beyond Kyrgios in sport that consumes stars

Lost souls driven to extreme behaviour have sometimes been able to find way back, writes Tom Kershaw

For those familiar with Nick Kyrgios's sometimes self-styled, often less amusingly warranted reputation, news that he tested positive for cocaine at a tournament in Mallorca in June would not have come as a startling revelation. The 31-year-old Australian had never previously failed a drugs test, but his proclivity for a party has been no secret since he was a junior — not least because of long nights in the Dog & Fox pub in Wimbledon Village. But the rock'n'roll image he portrayed was always a fragile illusion.

In the Netflix documentary Break Point, Kyrgios admitted that he had been drinking regularly, abusing drugs and had lost relationships with his family in 2019. He was still a top-50 player in the world at that point and had won five titles on the ATP Tour, but the night after Kyrgios's second-round defeat by Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, he "genuinely contemplated" suicide and checked himself into a psychiatric ward in London.

Kyrgios's career was already a case of enormous potential only partially fulfilled through a combination of injuries, ill

discipline and mental health issues. The peak arrived in the summer of 2022 after he emerged from the other side of that dark cloud and reached the Wimbledon final. At his best he was electrifying with a lightning-quick serve and a brand of ingenuity and impudence that riled opponents — not least Nadal. But in the four seasons since, Kyrgios has played ten singles matches at tour level and won only two of them — a period in which he also avoided a criminal conviction after pleading guilty to assaulting an ex-girlfriend, retweeted statements by Andrew Tate, and publicly condemned Jannik Sinner after the Italian twice tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug clostebol.

For those reasons and more, sympathy may be in short supply, but Kyrgios was not trying to gain an unfair advantage on a night out on the Balearic Islands. He was a man lost at sea, seeking an escape, struggling to come to terms with the end of his career. "I've always said I didn't choose tennis — tennis chose me. But letting go of something that has been my whole life is one of the hardest things I've ever had to face. At times I've felt helpless and alone. None of that excuses what I did," he said in a statement.

It is not a novel circumstance in one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports, where players live inside a travelling circus, chasing ranking points around the world with an off-season that lasts little more than four weeks — although Kyrgios's test

Kyrgios tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine. Agassi, left, once admitted using crystal meth. Capriati, right, was arrested for marijuana possession

was only the second positive for cocaine since 2022.

Some are seeking to break free from the pressure cooker. Andre Agassi tested positive for crystal methamphetamine in 1997, the year of his dramatic slump, as he fell into a deep depression stemming from his hatred of the sport he had been forced into as a child. "I can't speak to addiction, but a lot of people would say that if you're using anything as an escape, you have a problem," he said.

Jennifer Capriati, one of the greatest tennis prodigies of all, was arrested on a marijuana possession charge in 1994, aged 18, and entered into a drug counselling programme two years after winning Olympic gold.

"Let me say that the path I did take for a brief period of my life was not of reckless drug use, hurting others, but it was a path of quiet rebellion, of a little experimentation of a darker side of my confusion in a confusing world, lost in the midst of finding my identity," she said in 1999.

Other players have turned to recreational drugs — more commonly cocaine — to recreate the sport's adrenaline rush as they near retirement. There was no more famous example than Bjorn Borg after he abruptly walked away from tennis in 1981, aged 25. For a year, Borg lived a freewheeling life. Then, he was introduced to the drug. "I got the same kind of rush I got from tennis. The feeling itself was new, and

it made me feel incredibly energised. I was hooked immediately," he wrote in his autobiography.

Borg's life and relationships unravelled and in 1989 and 1993 — either side of his tennis comeback — he suffered near-fatal accidental overdoses. "When you feel bad you try to escape," Borg wrote. "I tried to escape with drugs, pills and a lot of alcohol. I was looking for something; I didn't know what, though. So using these things, you don't have to think about your problems."

Vitas Gerulaitis, the 1977 Australian Open champion, who was always renowned for his party-going lifestyle during his career, opened a nightclub in Texas after he retired and became dependent on cocaine. Former world No1s Mats Wilander and Martina

Hingis both announced their retirements after returning positive tests for cocaine at grand-slams — the former at the French Open in 1995, the latter at Wimbledon in 2007.

Perhaps the most famous case in British tennis was Dan Evans, who tested positive for cocaine in 2017. Evans's reputation was not entirely dissimilar to Kyrgios's but, to his credit, he knuckled down after returning from a one-year suspension and claimed the biggest title of his career at the Washington Open and reached a career-high ranking of No21 in 2021.

"I made a deal with myself that every day I would give everything I possibly could to make myself a tennis player and that could be my edge on the other players to make up a lot of that lost time," Evans told me after announcing his retirement prior to Wimbledon this summer.

Evans was 26 at the time of his test — five years younger than Kyrgios — but perhaps his comeback story can still serve as a reminder that Kyrgios's looming suspension, which is likely to be only about three months long, does not necessarily have to mark a sad nadir and end to his career.

'I made a huge mistake and I take full responsibility for it'

CONTINUED FROM BACK

August 4. "I wanted you to hear this from me first. I recently failed a drug test in Mallorca after testing positive for cocaine. I made a huge mistake and I take full responsibility for it," he wrote on Instagram.

"I'm sorry to my fans, my family, my sponsors and everyone close to me. Above all, I'm sorry to the kids who follow me. I know the example this sets and I'm deeply disappointed in myself.

"I'm not going to make excuses, but I do want to give some context about where I've been. The last couple of years of injuries have taken a huge toll on me, both physically and mentally. My body hasn't been able to do what my mind expects it to do, and coming

to terms with being near the end of my career has been harder than I ever imagined.

"I've always said I didn't choose tennis — tennis chose me. But letting go of something that has been my whole life is one of the hardest things I've ever had to face. At times I've felt helpless and alone. None of that excuses what I did.

"However, the good news is that this has given me a wake-up call. For the next 28 days, I'll be stepping away from social media and public life while I focus on getting myself right. I'd ask that people respect my privacy during that time, and most importantly the privacy of my family. I'm sorry. I'll do the work and come back better."

Kyrgios has a right to appeal against

his provisional suspension, but his statement would appear to render that unlikely. While suspended, Kyrgios will not be permitted to play in, coach at, or attend any professional events.

Cocaine is classified as a banned stimulant by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but if an athlete can prove the drug was ingested outside of competition — prior to the day of their draw beginning at the tournament — the starting point for a suspension is three months, which can be reduced to as little as one month if the player participates in a treatment plan.

If the player cannot provide a satisfactory explanation that the drug was taken outside of competition, the maximum suspension that can be applied is four years.

The former British No1 Dan Evans was suspended for one year in 2017 after testing positive for cocaine at the Barcelona Open.

Regardless of its length, the suspension could draw the curtain on Kyrgios's tennis career.

A seven-times winner on the ATP Tour, he first captured the world's attention in 2014 when he defeated the world No1 Rafael Nadal in the fourth round as a Wimbledon wild card.

Temper tantrums became as common a theme as titles as Kyrgios established himself as a top-20 player. A mercurial talent, he remains one of the precious few players to hold a winning head-to-head record over Novak Djokovic, while his grudge matches with Nadal rarely failed to

captivate, but Kyrgios struggled severely with mental health issues.

After losing to the Spaniard in the second round at Wimbledon in 2019 Kyrgios contemplated suicide and checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in London.

"I was drinking, abusing drugs, I hated the kind of person I was," Kyrgios, who got a tattoo on his arm to cover up scars from self-harming, revealed in the Netflix documentary Break Point.

His run to the Wimbledon final in 2022 was the highlight of his career but injuries prevented him from building on that, and he has won only one ATP Tour-level singles match since March 2025. His ranking now sits at No919, which has left him reliant on receiving wild cards into the major tournaments.

---

52

Sport Racing

Item overcomes scares to spring surprise in International

Give the whole of the time. The three-year-old Item won the 11.5 million Judahmonte International. York's richest ever race, with last year's winner Ombudsman, the world's top-rated horse at this ten-fitting distance, four and three quarter lengths away in fourth. Except for a rugged down ninth in the Derby, Item has won the other five races of a career which now sees him as a contender for best of his generation.

It was a success in doubt from way even before the start. Trouble with one of his feet meant that it was not until 5am after much work from his farmer, yet and other staff that Andrew Balding could despatch the home-bred Judahmonte colt on the 220-mile journey north to York. In the race things were not much easier.

Alimogib these things are never admitted it seems clear that Aidan

O'Brien's Ballydorsle team had decided to send the talented Hawk Mountain rather than the expected pacemakers Action up ahead, with Constitution River in attendance to try and run the sting out of Ombudsman's finishing kick. The plan did not work because Constitution River got lit up and ran his fastest as he tested Ryan Moore's arms in the first bathing but the breakdown also caused trouble for Item.

"I was never really comfortable until William Buick (on Ombudsman) came to me and got in between two horses," jockey Colin Keane said. "That got him going and then the gap closed in front of him, and he was very gutsy to get back up."

Up front Constitution River had worked hard to get past Hawk Mountain but then found himself in a protracted losing duel with the five-year-old Almagam, who relished the non-softened ground as much as Ombudsman's connections complained about it. A hundred yards out it looked for all the world as if Almagam's jockey Korean Shoemark would land his biggest-ever prize but the clock showed that for all the efforts, which earned him an eight-day suspension for being one over the official whip rule,

Almagam was even more out of energy than the winner.

For while Item took 12.45 seconds and a slower 12.79 for the final two bathing, Almagam's leading 12.29 ended with a lead-in-hoofed 13.14. They were all weary but Item took so and his connections are rightly going to take

a triumphant breath before deciding where to send their chestnut son of Frankel next.

As to Ombudsman, trainer John Gordon was quick to blame the ground for not allowing him to be the mighty here we have seen this year at Mevdan and Ascot but the fact that his

2min 79sec winning time last year was faster than yesterday's winner's time of 2min 8.44sec suggest it was more than that. From stall one and with a frantic pace up front Buick understandably elected to stay on the inside but turning into the straight had to work very hard to ensure his passage as Keane on Item gave him little room. Quite soon we will have to race heart muscles. I guess one on Ombudsman would show that he used up an excess amount of juice in the early part of the straight.

None of that should take away from Ombudsman overall excellence nor lessen the excitement in having not just Item as an English-trained contender for the best three-year-old in Europe but also Maltese Cross, who had an hour earlier had comprehensively outgunned the O'Brien pair Pierre Bonnaud and Christian Day in the Great Voltipper Stakes.

Racing may have many clouds but with yesterday's winners the future looks bright. Item has every option, Maltese Cross is hot favourite for the St. Leger but his enthusiastic film producer owner George Waid is clearly keen on the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. "I do love to go to Paris," he said. Don't we all?

York

Rob Wright

1.00 (Jovetang) 2.35 (Gardley Of Love (3rdp)) 3.00 (Jard Master) 5.20 (Mistress Walsh (n)) Going good, good to soft in places. Draws no advantage. Racing TV 1.50 Sky Hart Lowther Stakes (Filles) ITV (Group 2: 2-0; 6: 6:14; 7: 9; 6: 1:19 nonvert)

1	(1)	301 MLD MERRY 3/4-5 (New York) 9-2	Boulevard	57
2	(11)	41 ANGELS PASSING 77 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Staff	57
3	(13)	32/41 4th NIGHTSTAR (9-1) (7-1) (New York) 9-2	W 1 List	132
4	(9)	33/31 BERT MESSENGER 17-1 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 L. Moore	58
5	(12)	33/31 2ND WHEELING (2-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
6	(12)	33/31 SPITTLY LIKER 4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
7	(17)	40/31 BEDDY YARDS 71 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 De Sassa	58
8	(9)	38 THE BLAIR 77 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	P 1 McDonald	71
9	(14)	30 JALANITY 41 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	W 1 Rank	94
10	(15)	31/31 ARISTON 41 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	B Longhorne	94
11	(18)	31/31 LEVENE 41 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
12	(21)	32/41 GYM & GRASS 37 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	7 List	91
13	(7)	31 MOLD MISS 31 (8-1) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
14	(16)	31 MOORWALK 35 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Woody's	100
15	(12)	31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
16	(1)	31/31 SOY CHICK 4 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Woody's	94
17	(5)	30/31 SWINDERING 30% (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Westwood	94
18	(6)	31 STAR OF STATE 31 (8-1) (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
19	(18)	30/31 MOLD BUDDING 22-1 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Epsie	58
20	(19)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
21	(20)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
22	(21)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
23	(22)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
24	(23)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
25	(24)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
26	(25)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
27	(26)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
28	(27)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
29	(28)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
30	(29)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
31	(30)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
32	(31)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
33	(32)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
34	(33)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
35	(34)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
36	(35)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
37	(36)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
38	(37)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
39	(38)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
40	(39)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
41	(40)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
42	(41)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
43	(42)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
44	(43)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
45	(44)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
46	(45)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
47	(46)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
48	(47)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
49	(48)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
50	(49)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
51	(50)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
52	(51)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
53	(52)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
54	(53)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
55	(54)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
56	(55)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
57	(56)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
58	(57)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
59	(58)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
60	(59)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
61	(60)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
62	(61)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
63	(62)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
64	(63)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
65	(64)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
66	(65)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
67	(66)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
68	(67)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
69	(68)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
70	(69)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
71	(70)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
72	(71)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
73	(72)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
74	(73)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
75	(74)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
76	(75)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
77	(76)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
78	(77)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
79	(78)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
80	(79)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
81	(80)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
82	(81)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
83	(82)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
84	(83)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
85	(84)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
86	(85)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
87	(86)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
88	(87)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
89	(88)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
90	(89)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
91	(90)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
92	(91)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
93	(92)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
94	(93)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
95	(94)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
96	(95)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
97	(96)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
98	(97)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
99	(98)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78
100	(99)	31/31 BERT MERRY 3/4-5 (8-0) (New York) 9-2	8 Brown McMonagle	78

Roh Wright choice Satellite 10 (Low) improved when leading a subsequent winner at Newbury; there should be more to come. Dangers: Sam Golders, Takashi, Peter.

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THE TIMES | Thursday, August 20 2026

53

Rugby union Sport

Erasmus attitude to referees as sad echo of toxic Lions tour

Charlie Morgan

Senior Rugby writer

Kick-off cannot come soon enough, because anticipation is in danger of turning sour. If this were a playground scrap — and the tone has not been far off — South Africa would argue with some justification that Dave Rennie's crew started it. In this tit-for-tat sequence of public comments about off-coming, Tana Umaga laid down a rather blunt marker.

Last week the New Zealand defence coach bemoaned the number of stoppages that had interrupted his teams first two tour matches, against Stormers and Sharks. 'It's no surprise how we want to play the game. We want to speed the game up,' Umaga said. 'It's very frustrating for us when teams are visibly trying to slow it down. That's something we all have to get aligned on what kind of game we want to play, in terms of globally.'

There is a whiff of the same

sanctimony that lingered over English cricket's Barball era. 'We can hear the public telling us. We love the way you're playing,' Umaga added. 'Similar remarks followed from Rennie and the tour captain, Codie Taylor, nothing openly directed at the Springboks but implicitly imploring referees to keep things moving during the Test series.'

New Zealand would prefer longer, continuous passage of play. South Africa would be happier if the rhythm becomes a more staccato match from set piece to set piece. This is not an argument won and lost by half-in-play statistics, which are flawed. As Jacques Nienaber once noted, a ball lying stationary at the base of the ruck before being box-kicked would count as 'in play'.

Nevertheless, Rassie Erasmus rarely relinquishes an opportunity to direct the narrative — nor to rally his teams fervent supporters — and seized the nettle on Monday, fronting a press conference in Johannesburg alongside Jaco Pepper, who took up a role as South Africa's law adviser after his retirement from refereeing.

Erasmus asked Pepper to argue that the Springboks have not, in fact, been playing slowly, before making a couple of pertinent points. He

stressed that teams can also control tempo by conceding cynical penalties, leaning into an All Blacks stereotype, and then shed light on changes that mean prizes over off-coming are played out in the media.

Previously, teams were entitled to one meeting each with the referee prior to a Test match. Now, there is a single meeting involving both teams simultaneously. As Erasmus explained, this reduces scope for complaints, so sides do there talking in the press. Enter Felix Jones.

It is two years since the ex-tredand international resigned from the England set-up. Having returned to South Africa, he is a meticulous lieutenant for Erasmus and wasted little time on Tuesday. In response to the very first question of the session, regarding what the Springboks had learnt from New Zealand's warm-up fixtures, Jones unpinned the grenade. After about 30 seconds explaining that three tour games had represented 'confrontation' of Rennie's tactical tweaks, it was thrown.

'A couple of things trended across the feedback we received from the franchisee,' Jones said. 'A few things around the breakdown, they experienced tucked shoulders going in, which they weren't happy with — a reverse-arm, non-wrapping action. 'The other one was

that they were all actually quite happy with the opportunities they created, getting themselves into scoring positions maybe ten metres out — they all had multiple internal opportunities there — [but] they were frustrated they couldn't score with their mind. It's tough when there's someone pulling you or trying to lift a leg or maybe going off their feet for a couple of seconds. There were probably those two main themes that they weren't happy with.'

Jones was invited to elaborate on New Zealand's tucked shoulders. He could have used Luke Jacobson's regular clearcut against Ireland or a 12-year-old YouTube video of Rennie

delivering a seminar in robust rucking techniques as convincing source material. Later, suggesting that such rugged breakdown was in a hallmark of Rennie's coaching, Jones continued: 'We've obviously

analysed them extremely over the last number of years and it's not something I've seen regularly in them, definitely from the feedback we've got from the franchisee and from what we've seen, there is an element of that in there.

'We're all for the physical side of the game, as everyone is aware. We want it to be within the laws, so we're aware of that going into the game.'

Jones and the

Erasmus often puts officials under pressure

Springboks seem to be fishing for a 20-minute card in Saturday's first Test at Ellis Park. Matthew Carley is refereeing, but the message is directed towards the television match official (TMO), Eric Gauzins, just as much. As for the mail point, South Africa's coaches are understood to have lobbied to assert law directives, so it is no surprise to see this highlighted.

These are pivotal battlegrounds. New Zealand want equal rocks and the Springboks will be scrapping to slow them down. South Africa, meanwhile, will be eager to squeeze the All Blacks with lineout drives. The officials, some of the best on the planet, will have plenty on their plate. That they are being pressurised via press conferences during the build-up is actually tiresome. Social media toxicity is an inevitable by-product and the whole affair feels faulty. A reminiscent of the 2021 British & Irish Lions series, when Nic Berry's reputation and mental health became collateral damage of campaigning from Erasmus.

The past few days have felt like a retreat towards markiness. Rugby union needs a compelling series far more than a reminder of how difficult it is to be in decydive.

This is no pearl-catching exercise. Certain games have long escaped the rugby-values bottle. Players know they will invite the TMO's involvement if they stay down to draw attention to a head injury, for instance. Neither is there any point in denying that, with margins so fine at this level, referees are highly influential.

Still, it will be a mighty relief for the weekend to come so they and the players can get on with their jobs.

South Africa = New Zealand First Test, Saturday, 4:45pm. TV Sky Sports Action.

Newmarket

Rob Wright

• 2.00 Minkaan
• 2.35 Whoosh Waltz
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10 Glen Nevis
• 3.10

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54

Sport Football

How Brentford built an elite academy in just four years

Sheffield United faced with points deduction

Club closed academy in 2016 but now have highest status four years after reopening, writes Joe Harston

A handful of London's Parisian contingent were gathered in the lower tier of the Czech Community Stadium's away end. They may have had a trip to Budapest for the Champions League final a fortnight later but on this spring evening they were making noise for their junior team.

For them, this game was a chance to watch their team in a stadium no Paris Saint-Germain side had played in before. But for the hosts, Brentford's B Team, this was an annual celebration of the academy's progress. Between the fixture being announced in April and played in May, their academy had been awarded Category One status, just four years after it reopened — making it the first to go from Category Four to One since the ranking system was introduced in 2012.

The Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan audits academies and ranks them in categories one to four. Category Four academies usually have a smaller programme aimed at older players who have been released elsewhere. Clubs are awarded higher status for increasing the range of ages they cover, the quality of coaching and the infrastructure. Category One status is awarded to clubs who provide education for players as well as elite full-time coaches and sports scientists, and will develop players from the age of nine.

The PSG fixture was the fourth Robert Rowan Invitational, an annual friendly that marks the culmination of each season for the B Team, and raises money for local heart charities in memory of the club's former technical director who died of an undiagnosed heart condition at the age of 28 in 2018.

'It's a game that brings an opportunity for our young players that maybe, at other clubs, you don't access,' David Rainford, the club's newly appointed academy director, said before the 3-1 defeat by PSG.

Their journey to this point goes back to 2016, when Brentford shut their academy as a cost-cutting measure while trying to compete financially in the Championship against seven teams receiving parachute payments. The alternative was the 'B Team', which would operate in close proximity to the starting XI, playing fixtures against professional and academy sides.

Stephenson, left, and Ollie Shield with the Premier League development trophy

The project was run at about half the cost of the old academy and was overseen by Rowan, who worked as part of a team that spotted released players they believed could develop further. In his memory, the club named their recently built performance centre after him.

After their promotion to the top flight in 2021 the Premier League decided that every club needed to operate an academy. Brentford obliged quickly, appointing Stephen Torpey, who had previously helped to develop the likes of Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Phil Foden at Manchester City, as their academy director.

Under Torpey — who left the club in 2025 to become Manchester United's academy director — the academy quickly went from Category Four to Category Two status. The B Team head coach, Sam Saunders, a former Brentford player, has coached at the club since 2018 and makes sure that an ethos is ingrained in coaching methods. Last season he made Josh Stephenson, 20, captain of the B Team because he wanted to increase his maturity despite not seeing him as a 'natural captain'. Saunders also encourages players who lack communication skills to put on analysis sessions for the rest of the squad.

'It's about making the players feel uncomfortable at times,' he says. 'When I was a player, I was told what

to do and I just did it. I didn't know why. Now we're trying to give these players the tools to actually go and solve their problems themselves.'

His on-pitch methods are interesting too. While preparing to play a friendly in Monaco he made his side practise setting up a low block against 11 outfield players instead of ten. They won 2-1 against a side featuring Paul Pogba and Eric Dier.

To propel them towards high-ranking academy status the club needed huge infrastructure upgrades on top of an attractive youth programme. Those upgrades quickly allowed them to open the academy to under-nines upwards when they were awarded Category Two status. The final step to confirm their Category One status was the building of a dome for indoor training.

There are 70 full-time staff attached to the academy; 100 in total when adding part-time scouts and physios.

The continuation of the B Team's games model offers the club a unique selling point to attract talent in London's competitive landscape. Category One status gives the B Team the opportunity to play against fellow top academy sides in the Premier League 2 and lower-league first teams in the EFL Trophy.

Ollie Shield, 19, the B Team right back who joined as part of the new academy's first under-18s cohort from Southampton, says what sets Brentford apart is their proximity to

the B Team. 'If you go into our changing room, most of them are training with the first team. They welcome us with open arms and give us advice as much as possible,' he adds.

'We don't stop our players,' Saunders explains. 'We make sure we create pathways for players and the club also do it with staff. It gives you that vision to see where the next step is, rather than just coming in and knowing that you're always stuck.'

In each of the past four seasons, there has been a former B Team player who has made more than 30 appearances for the first team. Mads Roerle, the right back who plays for Southampton, has typically been the poster boy for the B Team model. He was a mainstay in Thomas Frank's side during the club's rise and consolidation in the Premier League. That baton has since been handed to Yehor Yarmolyuk. The 22-year-old placed 27 league games in Keith Andrews' midfield last season, despite facing competition from some of the club's most experienced players. A source close to the Ukrainian said the experience of playing against senior teams was 'very important' for his 'physical and tactical development'.

There are high hopes internally for Michel Boni, 18, who joined the club from Leicester City two years ago and has already been called up to the Benin national team. Luka Benti, also 18 and who moved from the US two years ago, is highly thought of by Andrews after he was brought into first-team training before a match against Aston Villa and was asked to imitate the style of Ollie Watkins.

'The biggest transition for a young player is moving from development football to senior football,' says Rainford, who worked for the Premier League as head of education and academy player care before starting his role at Brentford in April.

That is reflected in the way Saunders trains the older academy players. 'We train them as real first-team footballers,' he says.

'Sometimes defenders, when they're at a club and go on loan, it's a real eye-opener for them. So we make sure we try and give the boys the best opportunity when they do go out on loan, when they do leave here, they understand what's coming.'

Their recent signings show how much they value adult football experience: Sam Sene-Richardson, 19, joined from Chatham Town, then in the seventh tier of English football, and Ben Wilson, 18, from Northern Irish Premiership side Glenavon.

Clearly the effects of training for senior football are being noticed. The signs are promising, but this campaign will show whether standing out from the crowd has produced an academy that can hold its own against more experienced counterparts.

Kit Shepard

Sheffield United could be deducted 12 points after the company used to buy the club was wound up in the High Court.

COH Sports agreed to buy United for £100 million in December 2024 but was placed into liquidation yesterday by the court. It purchased the Championship club from United World, which claims it is still owed £35 million from the sale. This allegation has led to a bitter dispute and yesterday's hearing, at which COH Sports had no representation, lasted about ten seconds.

COH Sports had not been United's parent company since June, when shares were transferred to the US-based 1989 Partners. United's co-chairmen, Helmy Eltonkhy and Steven Rosen, led the COH Sports takeover in 2024 and they now control United through 1989 Partners.

The EFL acknowledged the High Court decision and will now assess how the transfer of shares affects a potential sanction. The EFL and Independent Football Regulator are already investigating the change from COH Sports to 1989 Partners.

Under EFL rules, a club can be deducted 12 points if a company associated with it, such as a parent company, is wound up. However, the EFL board will consider several factors when determining whether to impose this sanction, including the relationship between the company and club.

EFL rules differential between a club going insolvent and a 'group undertaking' like COH Sports. Had Sheffield United themselves been wound up, they would have automatically received a 12-point deduction from the EFL.

This distinction — which can guard against punishment when an associated company is wound up through no fault of the club — may spark a lengthy process to determine whether United should be docked points.

United acknowledged the High Court decision, adding that 'the day-to-day operations at Sheffield United are unaffected'.

United World, which is led by the Saudi Arabian prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, issued a statement after the High Court decision. 'No defense was filed and the debt of more than £35 million was not disputed,' it read. 'United World made every effort to resolve this matter annually and tried until the morning of the hearing to give the owners a final opportunity to find a solution and spare Sheffield United the consequences of their conduct.'

A spokesperson for the United owners referred to a statement released this week. It accused Prince Abdullah of 'trying to hurt the club and its supporters with publicity starts', cited United's points deduction under him for missed payments and said the prince had been invited to reinvest in the club.

Results

Football

Champions League play-off

First leg Celtic (2) 3 LAIK (0) 0 Nugent 26 Dulux 38, 67

Vernclift, Trophy North Group 0 Mansfield 1 Manchester City U21 4

Enterprise National South Farnborough 1 Cheshire 0

Cycling

Women Tour, Belgium Leading positions: Stage 1 (Deet, 191.3km) 1, 2 Milan (8, 1.68. Foel) 4th West, Wavc, 2, 0 Xivus (Nath, Decathlon CMA CGM) 3, 7 Metter (Ret, South) 2a/4 (Vag) 4, 1 (Pilgrim) (Bel, Ajaccio Premier Tech) 5, 5 Beccett (Ar, Propolis) 2/4, 5 all same time Overall 1, Milan 4/4/4/8, 2 Xivus all 4sec, 3 D De Bond (Bel, Jayco All) all same time, 4, 0 Hermans (Bel, Propolis) 2/4, 5 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Women's Tour of Britain

Leading positions: Stage 1 (Cockermouth to Cockermouth, 195.3km) 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Tennis

Cincinnati Open Men, Third round F Auger-Alassame (Ciel) br. (M. Cien锁) (Vag) 7-6, 9-3 F Vartice (S1) br. 1, Tran (U5) 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Fixtures

Football

Conference League play-offs: first leg (Juni + Hibernian (7-3)): Hearts + Rapid Vienna (7-4S): Motherwell + Pretway (7-3S): Escapra + Jablonec (7-4S): Tromsø + Brighton (5-3): Six-Fall League One Sheffield Wednesday + Waltham (4-3) (9-3S)

Cricket

First Test match: Headingley: Second day of five (R1): 90 overs maximum). England + Pakistan.

Rothway County Championship: First day of four (11-3: 96 overs maximum). Eastern One (Wills Best) Hampshire + Yorkshire + Leicester Leicestershire + Glamorgan. Taunton Somerset + Turin. East Surrey + Nottinghamshire. Edgbaston Manchester + Sutton. Western Two: Derby Derbyshire + Durham. Challawham Gloucestershire + Bournemore. Old Trafford Lancashire + Northamptonshire. Northwood Whittlesex + Kent.

Cycling

Women's Tour of Britain: Stage 2 (Clitheroe to Blackpool).

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55

Sport

United submit £65m bid for Baleba as Inter move for Jones

Paul Hirst Paul Joyce Northern Football Correspondent Peter Rutzler

Manchester United have made an opening offer of £65 million for the Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Carlos Baleba.

Talks between the two clubs are in progress and United are hopeful of striking a deal for the 22-year-old Cameroon international, who has been a long-term target for the club.

Brighton have told United that they are willing to sell Baleba at a certain price, which is less than the £100 million figure that they were quoted when they originally declared their interest in the player a year ago.

Michael Carrick, the United head coach, said last week that his squad needed improving before the transfer window closes on September 1.

United want to sign a left back as competition for Luke Shaw and are short in midfield after Casemiro's departure and a serious knee injury to Manuel Ugarte, whom they were hoping to sell.

Jack and Tyler Fletcher, sons of the former United player Darren Fletcher, have been with the squad in pre-season and could get some game time this year, but Carrick wants more experienced players in midfield because, at present, he only has the summer signings Audrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, plus Kobbie Mainoo, for the two midfield positions in his team.

United paid Chelsea £50 million for Santos and triggered the £15 million release clause in Tielemans's Aston Villa contract.

Baleba's natural position is at the base of midfield and he would fight with Santos for Casemiro's old position in the team if a deal went through.

United have lodged the bid, worth £60 million as an initial payment and

another £5 million in add-ons, despite the ankle ligament injury the midfielder suffered in pre-season.

It is likely that he will be out for two to three weeks, and will not play in Brighton's first game of the season against the Norwegian club Tromso in the Conference League tonight.

Brighton signed Baleba for £23 million from Lille in 2023 as a replacement for Moises Caicedo, whom they sold to Chelsea for £100 million. Included in the deal was a clause that entitles Lille to 15 per cent of Baleba's next transfer fee.

Baleba broke into the Brighton first team early in the 2024-25 season and enjoyed a stellar campaign. He struggled for form and fitness last season, starting 26 of Brighton's 43 matches, but is still regarded as one of Europe's best young defensive midfielders.

Meanwhile, Inter Milan are closing in on a £30 million deal for Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones after submitting a formal bid yesterday.

Jones, 25, is in the final year of his deal and has made it clear he sees his future away from his boyhood club, whom he joined at under-nine level.

Sources at Inter have indicated the initial fee would be €30 million (£26.7 million) plus €5 million (£4 million) in bonuses. The Italian club have pursued Jones for much of the year, having had a loan bid with an obligation to purchase him in January rejected.

Interest in Jones since the end of last season had been characterised by what Liverpool viewed as lowball offers but an agreement is set to be finalised.

Elsewhere, Liam Delap has lost the No 9 shirt at Chelsea and is among a group of players who are training separately from the rest of the first team before their opening game of the season away to Fulham on Monday.

Tosin Adarabioyo and Delap are training in a separate group from the "main" cohort of the Chelsea squad

United were interested in Baleba last summer, but Brighton wanted £100 million

working with Xabi Alonso, which also includes the striker Nicolas Jackson and has as many as 12 players on a given day. Chelsea sources suggest this is not a "bomb squad" — widely used as a term for players who have fallen out of favour — as the group trains on the same pitches, at the same time, and uses the same facilities as the rest of the team, unlike in previous years when bomb squads would be completely separate. The Chelsea sources also point to

how the group does not just include players who may depart. It includes Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck, who are improving their fitness after signing for the club, as well as Mykhailo Mudryk, who has recently returned from his anti-doping rule violation ban.

João Pedro, who was Chelsea's player of the season last year, has now been handed the No 9 shirt ahead of Delap, who was signed for £30 million from Ipswich Town a year ago.

Arsenal to sign Konsa in £50m deal

Charlotte Duncker, Peter Rutzler

Arsenal have agreed a deal to sign the Aston Villa defender Eari Konsa for £50 million.

Talks have been in progress for a while as Mikel Arleta looked to strengthen his defensive options before the new season, but there had been a gap in valuation between the two parties. Villa initially wanted £60 million for the defender but Arsenal's first offer was only half of that.

However, an agreement has been reached and it could be concluded before the weekend with Konsa due to undergo a medical today.

The Premier League champions wanted Konsa, 28, because of his ability to cover at right back as well as centre back. His departure will be a blow to Unai Emery because he was key to last season's Europa League triumph and fourth-placed finish.

Yesterday, Villa confirmed the signing of left back Matteo Ruggeri from Atletico Madrid for £17 million, and the Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki has arrived from Italian side Parma in a deal worth £25.6 million plus £4.28 million in add-ons. Suzuki, 23, is expected to be the club's first choice going forward. Emiliano Martinez's move to Juventus collapsed, meaning the Argentina international is still at the club and under contract until 2029.

Aaron Wan-Bisska is likely to be their next signing after a loan deal with an obligation to buy was agreed with West Ham United for the right back.

Meanwhile, Arsenal chief executive Richard Garlick has said the club would consider offers for both Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri, but they are not "actively" looking to offload the two academy graduates.

Lewis-Skelly, 19, was offered to both Manchester United and Chelsea earlier this month. Nwaneri, also 19, has attracted interest from Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan, with Arsenal said to want as much as £50 million for him.

"Myles had a fantastic end to last season," Garlick told the BBC. "He's started the season really well and we're very, very happy with him. Ethan has had a great pre-season as well.

"We're not actively looking at selling those homegrown players, but if the right opportunity came up and it was right for them and for the club, then we'd consider that."

Webb 'really troubled' by Balogun saga

Matt Lawton Chief Sports Correspondent

English refereeing chief Howard Webb has condemned the decision to lift the suspension of Folarin Balogun after his red card during the World Cup, saying he was "troubled" by a controversy he believes has damaged the integrity of the game.

Webb, the former World Cup final official who is now the chief refereeing officer for the English professional game, noted how the intervention of Donald Trump, in contacting Fifa president Gianni Infantino about the matter, had created "space for conspiracy theories".

Balogun was sent off in the USA's round-of-32 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina, only for his ban to then be suspended, allowing the striker to start in the last-16 encounter with Belgium.

It emerged that the US president had contacted Infantino, even though the under-five leader of Fifa insisted he was not part of what he claimed had been an independent process.

"I was really troubled by it," Webb said in a media briefing before the new Premier League season. "I don't know the ins and outs of the process. But we know for sure that a red card was shown. You can form your opinion about the validity of the red card, but I understand why it was given.

"We know that there was pressure placed by a politician on Fifa because that was admitted, and we know that the suspension was taken away for that particular tournament and suspended through a process which seemingly didn't exist before the season the tournament started.

"Far too often now, decisions are viewed as correct or corrupt by people who want to type all over social media," he added. "They try to draw inferences around decisions; around a decision that they don't agree with, and what's the motivation behind that decision, which is born out of no facts, no evidence. But when you get that type of situation, it opens up space for people

to think, 'Aha! You see?' These sorts of things happen all the time behind the scenes; when it really isn't like that in my professional experience."

His concerns were echoed by Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive.

"We should be looking back on the World Cup and the football that was played, and Spain being obviously the best team, and England's agonising semi-final defeat," he said. "But we're not, we are talking about other issues, and that's a huge shame. The Balogun issue stands alone in that isolated incident which is very difficult to comprehend when you look at it. I think it is, again, a self-inflicted moment.

"Why do Fifa not have a red-card review process like in many other leagues, including the Premier League? Where if there has been a miscarriage of justice — not that I'm saying Balogun's red card was a miscarriage of justice — it can be dealt with on that basis."

Spurs in double swoop for Marmoush and Savinho

Paul Hirst

Tottenham Hotspur have opened talks with Manchester City over the potential signing of Omar Marmoush, who could follow Savinho to the club before the transfer window closes.

Spurs' interest in Savinho, the Brazil winger, has been known for some time, but they have recently made it known that they would also be interested in taking Marmoush.

City are willing to sell both players and replacements would be sought before the transfer window closes on September 1.

The asking price for Savinho, 22, is £85 million and the club are likely to want more than the £59 million sum that they paid Eintracht Frankfurt for Marmoush when he moved to the Etihad in January 2025.

Marmoush enjoyed a reasonably

successful first six months at the club, often operating up front or alongside Erling Haaland or on the left wing, but the improvement of Jérémy Doku and the emergence of Raion Cherki blunted his impact last season.

His numbers reflected the 27-year-old Egyptian's downturn in form. Marmoush ended his first campaign, which he joined in the January, with eight goals and three assists in 22 matches. Last season he made 39 appearances, scoring nine times and setting up three more.

Savinho, who joined City from Troyes for £31 million in 2024, has been talking to Tottenham about a potential move for weeks. City rejected Spurs' bid for him last summer and he signed a new deal, but Antoine Semenyo has nailed down the right-wing position at City and the Brazilian is unlikely to play much this season if he stays.

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56

Sport Cricket

Matthew Syed

GETTY FINNERT IN GETTY IMAGE

Poor old Warner – forever the victim, never the culprit

Don't know about you, but I've come to the conclusion that David Warner is the unluckiest bloke in Australia. Perhaps the world. Such a good chap, salt of the earth, family orientated, upstanding and yet forever caught in a litany of misunderstandings, misfortunes and outright injustices. I think the record needs to be put straight.

You may have spotted the story that he was convicted this week of drink-driving: his blood-alcohol reading was more than twice the legal limit. This would merely have been unfortunate, but Warner is also the captain of the Sydney Thunder Big Bash team who have been at the forefront of the New South Wales government campaign to clamp down on drink-driving. 'On and off the field, you need a reliable Plan B,' is the slogan. 'We partner with Sydney Thunder to encourage cricket fans to plan ahead and get home safely from a night out. If you're drinking, don't drive.'

And it is this association — in addition to the crime itself — that has exposed the unfortunate fella to all sorts of unwarranted scrutiny. Such as: why didn't you hand the keys to your wife if you were half-cut and your kids were in the back of the car? Wasn't this precisely the Plan B that the campaign was supposed to be about? As a resolute defender of Warner, however, I think this is all very unfair. I mean, for a start, who's to say that the journey would have been any safer with a Sheila at the wheel?

It's the judgmentalism. I think that rankles most with Warner. His lawyer argued that he should be

spared a conviction since he had already suffered the indignity of criticism in the press. Awaia Ahmad told Waverley local court that the drink-driving incident had been covered by ESPN, Al Jazeera and even the Indian Express. Indeed, he went on to carefully explain that, contrary to popular opinion, Warner was the real victim here. 'The consequences of his offending are profound,' he said. 'Commercial opportunities [are] being affected.'

It's enough to make a stone-hearted person weep, isn't it? I mean, how is this multimillionaire to keep up repayments on the mortgage if the legal system insists on punishing him for breaking the law and the press insists on reporting it? How is he to continue coining it with online gambling companies and assorted sportswear brands if institutions like the police and courts forget that their highest duty is not to natural justice, but to protecting Warner's carefully cultivated (and some would say utterly hypocritical, but what would they know?) public image?

It was the same, of course, when Davey was caught red-handed masterminding an episode of premeditated cheating that became known as 'Sandpapergate'. He called a press conference but resolutely refused to say what had happened — indeed, eight years on, we still haven't a scooby who from the wider team and management was in on the plot. But he did explain, tearfully, the terrible toll the scandal was taking on his family, as if that was anyone's fault but his own. To paraphrase one pundit, if people close to you are upset at the flak you are copping, perhaps the responsibility lies with you for cheating rather than with those

Warner's lawyer argued that the former Australia cricketer and captain of the Sydney Thunder should be spared a conviction for drink-driving as he had already suffered widespread criticism in the media

who are reporting it. But, again, as Warner's greatest fan, I say: give the guy some latitude, folks? Have you not realised that Davey is always the victim and never the culprit? Have you not noticed that whatever happens in the life of this walking man-child, the finger should point at everyone except at the one flouting the rules, then seeking to cover it up, and who shows remorse only when caught? Veteran Warner sceptics were apparently wryly amused by testimony in open court this week that when the big fella spotted the breath-testing site, he immediately attempted to swap seats with the 'female passenger'. But I say: what right-minded bloke wouldn't try to pass the buck?

I could go on because the pattern with Warner is eternal, a man who can't see a rule without believing it applies to everyone except himself. Cricket fans will note that he has an infamous reputation as a sledge, defaming and slurring opponents without compunction. But

they will also note that when Quinton de Kock, the South African wicketkeeper, gave him a taste of his own medicine, Warner branded the barb 'vile and disgusting'. And when Jason Hughes had the temerity to have a pop during a game in Sydney a few years back, Warner stormed off the pitch. A man of principle, you see.

So let me finish by saying that if the tone of this piece feels in any way ironical, it is wholly inadvertent. Indeed, let me emphasise that I feel only sympathy for Warner, a man who warms my heart every time I see him. Those who regard him as an odious and reprehensible chancer, a master of evasion and hypocrisy, a man whose willingness to do anything to win is eclipsed only by his aggressive insistence on playing the victim card at every opportunity, have it completely wrong.

Way to go, Davey, I say. You are one of a kind.

Coach jailed for sexual assault on minor

CONTINUED FROM BACK

European Championships in Birmingham last week.

Sources had claimed to The Times that the 41-year-old former international sprinter was in jail, but UKA declined to comment on the grounds of confidentiality, with insiders insisting there was concern for his wellbeing.

He had gone to Morocco, sources said, for a wedding with three other ex-athletes.

Those same sources claimed yesterday that they were stunned to discover that Baptiste is indeed serving an eight-month prison sentence, with the BBC first to obtain confirmation from the Moroccan authorities of the facts.

After The Times and other

newspapers reported that his athletes had lost contact with their coach last week, the athletes received an email on Tuesday on his behalf saying he had resigned from his position.

As part of an alternative narrative that was also being circulated in Birmingham, he was said to be suffering with ill health.

But the BBC quoted a source at the Moroccan Ministry of Justice, who confirmed that Baptiste was in fact arrested in Marrakech in May, and had subsequently been convicted and jailed in Al-Oudaya prison.

He was originally sentenced to ten months in prison, with it later reduced to eight on appeal.

'He is being held at the local prison in Marrakech, where he is serving a custodial sentence following his

conviction by the competent judicial authorities in connection with a misdemeanour case,' the source said of Baptiste, adding that he was 'in good health'.

A spokesman for the Morocco Public Prosecution Office confirmed to the BBC the sentence and nature of the conviction, adding 'The British national is currently being held at the local prison in Marrakech, where he is serving a custodial sentence following a court judgment against him in connection with his involvement in a criminal case.'

In Morocco a minor is someone under 18.

A UK Foreign Office spokesman said 'We are supporting a British national who is detained in Morocco and are in contact with the authorities.'

Lawson set for Red Bull return after Hadjar injury

Formula 1 Molly Hudson Formula 1 Correspondent

back Hadjar will miss this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix owing to a wrist injury, with Liam Lawson set to replace him at Red Bull.

Hadjar is understood to have picked up the injury in training over the summer break, and will not be medically cleared to drive this weekend. Lawson, the Racing Bulls driver, is set to replace him.

It is a surprise temporary return to the senior team after Lawson's swift axing only two races into last season, having struggled to adapt. It would also mean a Formula 1 comeback for Yuki

Tsunoda, who will line up for Racing Bulls alongside Arvid Lindblad.

Hadjar, 21, has performed well this season against Max Verstappen in what had become something of a curse of the second Red Bull seat. Tsunoda lost his F1 seat after failing to fully impress after replacing Lawson. The Japanese is Racing Bulls' reserve and has been linked to IndyCar in the long term, with a permanent F1 return unlikely.

The regulation reset this season appears to have helped Hadjar and may provide the 24-year-old Lawson with a smoother path at Red Bull than the one he encountered early last year. Laurent Mekies, the Red Bull team principal, has previously indicated that Hadjar will keep his seat next season.

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57

First Rothesay Test: England v Pakistan Sport

No tinkering from sharp, decisive Root

Steve James

The tinkerer had gone. When Joe Root had stood in as captain in place of Ben Stokes in the second Test against New Zealand at the Kia Oval, he tried too hard. He had tried to be Stokes, constantly fiddling with the field, relentlessly trying to create something out of nothing, and then persisting with a short-ball bombardment.

Some things worked, some didn't, and in fairness he was leading a side containing three debutants and in general chaos, but the result was a 253-run thumping, and at that point the prospect of Root assuming the captaincy full-time once again was surely as remote as it had been when he said in June 2022 that the leadership of his country and he had spawned "an unhealthy relationship".

But look who bounced out here on his home ground at Headingley, winning the toss and inserting the touring side — even if the Pakistan stand-in captain, Salman Ali Agha, surprisingly said he would have batted first — and then delighting as Ollie Robinson procured a wicket with the first ball of the match and series. What a start. Root was back as captain and the home crowd were quite naturally beginning a day of voicing their approval at some traditional English seam and swing bowling, and some mainly traditional captaincy.

Poor Azan Awais was so dumbfounded by the initial speed of events, trapped in front by Robinson's nasty nip-backer from round the wicket, that he asked for a review. It was futile, now condemning the 21-year-old left-hander to hours of fearful contemplation of a second innings on a king pair. Sleep will not be easy, believe me.

It was not a good day for reviews. Saud Shakeel suffered the slowest of deaths, leg-before to Robinson, so that he then was too slow himself to review, trudging off to discover that it

A few burnt reviews did not tarnish Root's day. Saud, below, was caught in two minds about reviewing and had to walk

might not have been a bad idea given the ball was missing the stumps. And then in the evening session Ben Duckett foolishly reviewed a leg-before decision off Mohammad Abbas that just looked stone dead. And was.

Root had burnt two reviews early on in Pakistan's innings. First, he was persuaded by Robinson to review a leg-before decision against Imam-ul-Haq that had struck the left-hander outside the line of off stump and then there appeared to be a general consensus that Abdullah Shafique had inside-edged Gus Atkinson through to Jamie Smith, despite the not-out decision. But he hadn't. It had flicked his back leg and as a result we were treated to some delightful on-driving in a classy half-century from the right-hander. It was no bad thing.

But other than Shafique's partnership of 91 with Imam, England were in complete control as Root rotated his four seamers smartly, with all of them afforded opportunities at both ends, running downhill from the Kirkstall Lane End and uphill — "like running up a mountain", according to Stuart Broad — from the Football Stand End.

Fears that Root would overbowl Jofra Archer again, as he did so famously in giving him 42 overs in a single innings in Mount Maunganui in 2019, were dispelled immediately as Archer's opening spell from the Football Stand End lasted just two overs — two wayward maidens, as it happened — with Root deciding quickly that the other end might suit the fast bowler better.

It didn't — Archer was slowing a little in his approach to the crease as if overrunning down the slope on a rather underwhelming day for him — but it was a sharp, decisive decision from Root, who has easily been accused of indecision before.

Atkinson bowled better than Archer but both of them were a little too short too often and so it was left to Robinson and Josh Tongue to feast on some tentative Pakistan batting, both taking five wickets.

Most of the time Root was cajoling them from mid-off, having bequeathed his customary first-slip position to Duckett, although he did make the odd sortie into fourth slip and once to third slip when Jordan Cox was briefly off the field.

It is an interesting move. Some very good captains have done their work from first slip, as have some from mid-off, and Root's first stab from the latter certainly went very well. He set mainly conventional fields, with a cordon of slips always waiting expectantly, even if a number of edges fell short.

The cliché of Headingley is that the seamers must pitch fuller than at other venues in England and Tongue was rewarded for doing just that when Harry Brook took an excellent catch at second slip to dismiss Shafique. And, of course, when Tongue was on a hat-trick Root went ultra-positive with two short legs, two leg slips and three slips and a gully.

More cleverly he enticed Mohammad Rizwan into a curious shot at only his second ball, sweep-slogging at Robinson (with wicketkeeper Smith up) because there was no fine leg in place. The ball was edged down towards third man, but once Rizwan did go, leg-before to Tongue, the tail slogged merrily.

There will be much more testing days for Root and his attack when the ball does less in the air and off the pitch, and when the opposition batsmen are more stubborn and technically gifted, but as a beginning — or a reacquainting, given that this is Root's 66th Test in charge — this was a fine day in the field.

By close of play it was also a decent one for him with the bat, untroubled in reaching 37 not out.

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58

Sport First Rothesay Test: England v Pakistan

Robinson's excellence ensures Stokes is not missed

Mike Atherton

Chief Cricket Correspondent, Headingley

England v Pakistan

Headingley (day one of five: England won toss). England, with eight first-innings wickets in hand, trail by 59 runs

Beforehand, Joe Root sounded like a man determined to enjoy the occasion. On his first day back on familiar territory and in a familiar role, albeit one to be reacquainted with again, Root's emotions travelled from initial elation, derived from a wicket that fell to the first ball of the match, into calm contentment, with little evidence of the slightly frenzied decision-making that had characterised his return to the captaincy at the Oval.

He won a good toss, marshalled things from mid-off rather than his usual position at first slip and burnt two early reviews, but kept things pleasingly simple on a day when little else was needed and ended the day unbeaten at the crease. The smartest decision? That came before the game, when Ollie Robinson was restored to the team after missing the last two Tests, and it was to Robinson that Root turned to time and again and who led the attack with his fifth five-wicket haul in Tests.

Robinson struck with new ball and old, in equally important ways, to help dismiss Pakistan for 171. His two new-ball strikes, one to the first ball of the match and the second in his third over, came as others were finding their Test legs, after a month of short-form cricket. Two wickets in the middle of the day, during an eight-over spell in an elongated afternoon session, helped to ensure that Ben Stokes, often a dangerous older-ball bowler, was not missed.

Perhaps it was no surprise that Robinson should be the outstanding bowler, given that he was the only one in the four-man pace attack who had not been playing in the Hundred. The turnaround was a quick one for Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson, and none were quite at their best initially, being generally short of the ideal length on this ground — although Tongue improved

markedly and nipped in with his customary late-order wickets.

Expectations would be high for Robinson at this venue in any event, regardless of the context which might have hindered the others. Traditionally, he would be regarded as the perfect type of bowler for this ground and these conditions; not too quick, in other words, and someone who bowls the kind of nagging length to bring a batsman forward. A good horse for this course.

Robinson is far better than a one-trick pony, though — as his overall Test and first-class records suggest — and his skill and control have never been in question. What has been is his stamina and fitness, and this question is still to be answered in a summer when he appeared at Lord's in the opening Test, but not again until now. He was injured for the second Test of the New Zealand series at the Oval but omitted on selection grounds at Trent Bridge. He is unlikely to be omitted again for the rest of the summer, injury notwithstanding.

Standing the seam upright from a short delivery stride that maximises his height, he has the happy ability to bowl the kind of length that threatens the stumps nonetheless. Other than the dismissal of Shan Masood, which

swung in late, it was seam movement that brought him his wickets, none better than the first ball of the match that nipped back into the knee-roll of Azan Awais, to kick the match off to a tremendous roar.

Robinson was too good for a batting line-up missing Babar Azam, who caused a frisson in the morning when he appeared in his blazer and whites just before the toss, but only to take part in a photograph alongside Root and the trophy. In his absence, there was only one partnership of note between Imam-ul-Haq and Abd-

allah Shafique, worth 91 runs for the third wicket, and Shafique's lone half-century stood out for its technical excellence.

With Robinson unerringly accurate from the off, it was hard to overstate the challenge facing the 21-year-old opener Awais, who boasts a handful of Tests only and limited experience here. He became a statistical quirk — the first batsman to fall to

Robinson sees off Pakistan's top scorer Shafique for 61, while Root, right, joined in with the celebrations as his return to

Rampant Robinson

Among England players, Ollie Robinson has the fifth best bowling average in Tests since the Second World War

	Matches	Wickets	Average
FH Tyson (1954-59)	17	76	18.58
JH Wardle (1948-57)	28	102	20.39
K Higgs (1965-68)	15	71	20.76
JC Laker (1948-59)	46	193	21.58
OE Robinson (2021-present)	22	88	21.25
FS Trueman (1952-65)	67	307	21.57
PJ Loader (1954-59)	13	39	22.51
AAP Atkinson (2024-present)	19	79	23.78
JB Statham (1951-65)	70	252	24.84
AV Bedser (1946-55)	51	236	24.99

Bawled in more than 20 innings

Tremendous Tongue

England bowlers in Tests since start of 2025 summer (May 22)

	Matches	Wickets	Average
JC Tongue	11	52	28.46
BA Stokes	12	42	24.07
BA Carse	9	31	29.19
JC Archer	8	29	26.86
AAP Atkinson	8	27	26.92
Shoaib Bashir	6	22	37.77
OE Robinson	2	12	10.66
CR Woakes	5	11	52.18

the first ball of a series in England — but there was, in truth, not much he could have done about it. Root's decision to bowl was based on the past seven Tests here being won by the side bowling first and received immediate vindication.

Masood knows conditions much better than Awais, having captained Yorkshire in the past, but he, too, had no answer to an inswinger that moved late from Robinson, bowled from over the wicket this time. Imam survived a close leg-before shout, which cost England an early review, and a second was burnt just before heavy rain descended, causing a long delay and a truncated morning session.

Pakistan's top-order is replete with left-handers, four of them filling the first five places, which ought to have played to Archer's strengths, but he was on the short side too frequently. Shafique is the lone right-hander in the top five and he came into this game in form, having made an unbeaten century in his last Test in the Caribbean on his return to the team and is respected by England, having made two centuries against them previously. He plays sideways and late, a good combination here.

Tongue induced a loose drive to second slip from Imam. Robinson's long afternoon spell produced the wickets of Saud Shakeel — who ran out of time to review when, had he acted more urgently, he would have survived the low call — and then the key one of Shafique, bowled by a nip-backer. To

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59

Sport

WATT WITT/WATTORSTO

the captaincy could hardly have gone better despite the loss of Gay, inset

Robinson fell the principal plaudits, but Tongue shared the spoils equally, bringing the stumps into play to devastating effect against a lengthy tail.

It was all eyes on Mohammad Abbas, then, given his pace, accuracy and skill stand comparison with Robinson and given his outstanding record in England, where he has taken almost 100 first-class wickets at an average of 20. Ben Duckett survived a very close leg before decision early on but could not survive Abbas's opening spell, beaten on the outside edge and then inside edge in the ninth over of the reply.

Emilio Gay came into the match having completed a pair against the tourists at Beckenham, but he looked anything but nervous, stroking seven sweet boundaries in a 31-ball stay. If there is a weakness in Gay's game it is that he gets turned around in defence to balls angling across him and, after conceding three boundaries in his first four balls, Mohammad Ali found the perfect angle with his sixth.

Root arrived to the middle in the best conditions of the day, with warm evening sunshine bathing the ground, and he received a welcome to match. He was soon into his stride, gliding the ball into his favourite areas behind square and, ending the day unbeaten on 37, could have hardly asked for a better start to his second coming as captain. Root should be determined to enjoy himself inexplicably, this will be the last men's Test at this great cricket ground until 2029, by which time he will be a true elder.

CONTINUED FROM BACK

'We asked them to cut ball in half'

Lord's at the start of the summer, so it was nice to get off to such a good start and set the tone," Robinson said.

It is tradition that bowlers who take a five-wicket haul get to keep the match ball. In order for Tongue and Robinson to get their piece of memorabilia, the Headingley groundsman saved the ball in two. Robinson brought his half to the post-match media conference,

"We were walking off and Josh suggested [it] and I said, 'I think we should do that.' It's not too often you'll have a half of a cricket ball and it will be something we never forget. It is not too often that two guys get five-fors in the same innings. I asked the team manager if he reckoned the ground staff would be able to do it and within five minutes it was done."

Robinson returned to the England side this summer after being dropped following England's tour of India in February 2024. He also took a five-wicket haul in his comeback match, the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's, and finished that match with seven wickets. However, he did not play in the subsequent two matches.

"I was ready to go at Trent Bridge [for the third Test] but not selected," Robinson added. "Since then I have worked really hard on a bit more fitness and a bit more skill and it's nice when it comes off on days like today. [I have] been working with the medical team closely over five or six weeks and made some good stri-

Scoreboard

PAKISTAN First Innings	R	B	M
Azan Awais lbw b Robinson	0	1	1
Imam-ul-Haq c Brook b Tongue	42	74	140
Shan Massod lbw b Robinson	5	20	23
Abdullah Shafique b Robinson	61	104	161
Saud Shakeel lbw b Robinson	5	25	38
"Salman Agha b Tongue	21	29	40
"Mohammad Rizwan lbw b Tongue	12	19	45
Ali Usman lbw b Tongue	0	1	1
Khurram Shahzad c Atkinson b Robinson	14	12	18
Mohammad Abbas b Tongue	2	5	9
Mohammad Ali not out	0	0	1
Extras (b 4, lb 4, nb 1)	9
TOTAL (48.1 overs)	171

Fall of wickets 1-0, 2-6, 3-97, 4-117, 5-118, 6-150, 7-150, 8-195, 9-171. Bowling Robinson 18-3-51-5; Archer 9-4-26-0; Atkinson 12-1-40-0; Tongue 91-0-46-5.

ENGLAND First Innings	R	B	M
Ben Duckett lbw b Abbas	15	28	41
Emilio Gay Agha b Ali	33	31	49
Jordan Cox not out	23	38	78
"Joe Root not out	37	53	72
Extras (lb 4)	4
TOTAL (2 wkts, 25 overs)	112

H Brook, D Lawrence, †J Smith, O Robinson, G Atkinson, J Archer and J Tongue to bat. Fall of wickets 1-36, 2-48. Bowling Abbas 10-2-34-1; Shahzad 7-0-28-0; Ali 7-0-38-1; Usman 1-0-8-0.

Umpires A Poleker (SA) and C Gaffaney (NZ). Match referee R Madugalle (SL).

Robinson holds up his half of the ball after sharing ten wickets with Tongue

des. I think I am in as good a shape as I have been to be a Test cricketer.

"I learned a lot about myself when I was out of the team, getting myself and my body right. I am probably not in as good a rhythm — that sounds silly after taking wickets — as I would like having not played red-ball cricket since Lord's but the more, I play the better I tend to get."

Robinson's wife, Mia, gave birth to their first child last week before he travelled to Leeds for training. "It was a very special week last week," he said. "They are at home, but I was thinking of them the whole time. I am catching up on my sleep though."

Robinson made his debut under Root's captaincy and says, "it felt very normal." "He was very good today, not too different to Stokevy, moving the pieces around well," he added. "It is exciting to see where we can go."

Why the 78mph bowler posed most awkward questions

Simon Wilde

It was little surprise that Ollie Robinson should have been England's most accurate and penetrative bowler on the opening day of the first Test at Headingley. The only one of the pace quartet not to have been involved in the Hundred, he naturally found the fuller length that the conditions required and reaped the rewards with five wickets.

For the others, it was harder going, although Josh Tongue eventually got things spot-on and recovered up four wickets in II balls.

No one is going to go too far wrong in Test cricket if they hit a good length and target the stumps, as Robinson did, but it is nonetheless remarkable how the game is constantly open to invention and innovation. Not so long ago, Robinson was viewed as surplus to requirements because he simply did not bowl as fast as the powers-that-be deemed necessary. Not so long ago, too, the idea of a wicketkeeper standing up to fast-medium bowlers in England would have been looked at askance. Not now.

Even more remarkably, we had here a four-man English pace attack without an out-and-out swing bowler among them, in part because James Anderson, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes have retired, but also because wobble-seam and the nip-backer are all the rage in this era of DRS-assisted Bws.

While Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson were operating at around 86 to 87mph, Robinson averaged just 78.7mph over the first two sessions — his second-lowest average in his 22 Tests except for Adelaide in 2021 when he switched to off breaks for part of the time — and yet was constantly the one asking the most awkward questions.

Robinson gave Pakistan very little respite while Archer, overwhelmingly, and Atkinson, to a lesser extent, tested them much less often. After a month of playing the Hundred, Archer and Atkinson bowled too short, as did Tongue to start with.

While Robinson had not played a first-class fixture since early June, his short-form cricket since had largely been confined to 50-overs cricket, less madcap than T20 and the like.

Another measure of Robinson's probing was that he dismissed four of the top five without assistance from team-mates (three Bws, one bowled), the first time an England seamer had done this since John Lever in Delhi 50 years ago.

The challenge for all these bowlers was not simply to hit the right lengths, but also to get through heavier workloads than in recent weeks. As it happened, Pakistan were dismissed inside 50 overs, but on another day these four might have been looking at 20 overs apiece.

In an attempt to prepare them, Troy Cooley, the ECR's new national pace-bowling lead, gave all the England seamers in the squad named

for the first two Tests — and there were seven in all — preparation programmes. These involved them training with a red ball and bowling 190 balls per week in addition to their regular Hundred training sessions.

Before joining England in January, Cooley had spent the best part of four years running India's pace bowling programme. One of his tasks was to help India's fast bowlers maintain their conditioning during the Indian Premier League season so that they were fit for duty when they rejoined India's Test and ODI teams.

Cooley has an outstanding CV. He helped England regain the Ashes in 2005 with a stellar pace attack and went back to his native Australia to help them regain the urn in 2006-07. He has shown a special knack for bringing on emerging talent, and his responsibilities with the ECR span the various England men's teams as well as the Lions and Young Lions.

Cooley is not a one-man hand, of course, others such as Neil Killeen, England's elite fast bowling coach.

Headingley forecast

• Today High chance of rain until the middle of the afternoon
• Tomorrow Patchy sun and cloud, low chance of rain in the afternoon
• Saturday Sunshine and cloud expected all day. Very low chance of rain
• Sunday Minimal chance of rain, with sunshine and patches of cloud

have been working in this field for some time. But he should be a real asset during a period of rebuilding following the departure of a golden generation of pacemen.

There is now a general acceptance that England need to prepare better if they are to seriously challenge India and Australia. This will encompass proper warm-up fixtures at the start of tours but also plans to get more cricket into England players full stop.

It's a novel idea, but playing more cricket, it has finally been concluded, might actually make people better cricketers. This has always been especially important with bowling, as research has shown that fast bowlers are less prone to injury if they maintain their workloads consistently, rather than frequent periods of rest.

The days of domestic teams arguing with England over the availability of centrally contracted players, because England preferred them not to play, are, one hopes, at an end.

In this respect, last winter's Ashes tour was an experience no one wants to repeat, with England going into the opening Test with an attack containing one player who had not played a competitive fixture for eight months (Mark Wood) and two more (Archer and Stokes) who had not played a competitive red-ball game for four months. Wood, Archer, Stokes and Atkinson all succumbed to injuries before the end. If this is a new era for English cricket, let this be part of it.

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THE TIMES

Sport

United's bid for Baleba

Club target £65m signing on busy day in transfer market

Reports, page 55

Poor old David Warner

The Australian cricketer just always seems to be victim ...

Matthew Syed, page 56

LANCE LOPEZ LEFFY 2025

High fives for England

Josh Tongue and Ollie Robinson both take five-wicket hauls as England control first Test against Pakistan

Elizabeth Ammon

Ollie Robinson praised England's "great start" to their new era under Joe Root as the hosts dominated the first day of the three-match series

against Pakistan, adding that he felt in "as good a shape as ever" to meet the challenges of Test cricket.

Robinson and Josh Tongue both took five wickets as Pakistan were dismissed for just 171 before an

unbeaten third-wicket partnership of 64 between Root and Jordan Cox put England in command. By close England trailed by only 59 runs.

Robinson set the tone by taking a wicket with the first ball of the

match and admitted it had "settled the nerves" having not played a red-ball match since May in the first Test of the summer.

"I had a few nerves as I did at Continued on page 59

Tongue, left, and Robinson shared the ten Pakistan wickets that fell on the first day of the Headingley Test as England's new era under Root got off to a flying start

Kyrgios banned for cocaine use

Tom Kershaw Tennis Correspondent

Nick Kyrgios said he made a "huge mistake" after returning a positive drugs test for cocaine at an ATP 250 event in Mallorca, Spain, in June.

The 31-year-old Australian has hardly played in the past three seasons owing to injuries but entered the Mallorca Championships in the build-up to Wimbledon this summer.

Kyrgios lost against compatriot Adam Walton on June 22 and has not competed again since losing in the first round of the men's doubles alongside Alexander Bublik at SW19.

The International Tennis Integrity Association confirmed that the 2022 Wimbledon finalist returned the positive sample for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, on the same day as his match against Walton and he has been provisionally suspended since Continued on page 51.

'Missing' coach in Morocco jail

Matt Lawton

Chief Sports Correspondent

A leading English athletics coach who went off grid after a trip to Morocco more than two months ago is serving a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a minor, it has now emerged.

Leon Baptiste is a paid UK Athletics (UKA) consultant based in Loughborough, with leading British 400m star Charlie Dobson among the athletes under his guidance.

Last week The Times asked senior UKA officials about his whereabouts, having been told he had not responded to messages from either his athletes or colleagues after telling them in a text that he would not be available for a while. "We've been told not to contact his family because it's a private matter," said one senior figure at the Continued on page 56

Times Crossword 29,626

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ACROSS

1 On the counter, it's cutting through dirt? (7) 5 Pop star Simon admits, finally, Garfunkel wrote in a distinct way (7) 9 Stop being humble after abandoning second island country (11) 10 Relative Strangers employing Baranski ultimately for body (3) 11 This clue is featured in channel eventually (6) 12 Plump one is repeatedly clinging to society for positivity (8) 14 Tube driver perhaps ruined station in a rage (5,8) 17 Failing to read ahead in agreement? (2,3,4,4) 21 Hero said to adjust former state (8) 23 Make unpleasant fruit fancy on the outside (6) 25 Rabbit periodically ignored grass (3) 26 Who introduces Mike and Daisy after perfectly introducing son? (11) 27 Offend one following tense row (7) 28 Cod sandwich shop informally closing (7)

DOWN

1 Shuffle diamonds, with more out there (6) 2 Dubious unique selling point adopted by religious group (7) 3 Travel from place to place, furious about something of a fork (9) 4 Lecher caught hugging American (4) 5 Characters from Greece and America taking in someone sitting with an ape (10) 6 Lack of interest continues somehow to overlook terrible cost (5) 7 Composer almost climbed biblical mount, losing acceleration (7) 8 English newspaper of yore originally erected American national park (8) 13 Render topless boyfriend, maybe retaining speed about it (10) 15 Oscar phoned employee of publisher, missing cover's drink (9) 16 Certainly mean to carry Australian creature away from the south (3,5) 18 Measure around outside of uniform's pocket (7) 19 Earl unfortunately let slip cutting line in letter (7) 20 Cross as your old and new wife stripped together (6) 22 New partner no longer mounted paintings? (5) 24 High shot of centre stage (4)

Yesterday's solution 29,625

Check today's answers by ringing 0905 757 0141 by midnight. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company's network access charge. SP: Spoke 0333 202 3390.

Newspapers support recycling

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TIMES 2

August 20

2026

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King Charles won't slow down and won't be told. I've warmed to him Deborah Ross

As a rule I don't have much time for the royal family.* These are people, after all, who have never had to worry whether they have enough money to stretch to the end of the month, have never done their own grocery shopping, have never had to enter the GP lottery at 8am (on the deli with no guarantee of success, have never had to call a plumber to fix a leak then wait in for said plumber to not arrive. But King Charles is beginning to win me round. Ideally, and if he wishes to cement any affection, he'd take tea with Paddington or, if that's old news now, maybe Mr Benn. It would then be up to the King whether he would allow his guest to slip out back, swap out his bowler hat and return as a cowboy. It's one of those things that is very much down to the individual. (I would allow it but I can't speak for anyone else.)

I've warmed to him. Why? This week Queen Camilla, speaking for the first time about Charles's cancer diagnosis in 2024, confided that he was determined to soldier on. 'This is my way. I'm going to cope with it,' was, she said, his attitude. 'Nothing stopped him,' she said. He 'won't slow down and won't do what he's told', she has also said. Of course, he has access to the best medical treatment in the world. No anxiously waiting around for an appointment, I'd imagine. No cancelled appointments rescheduled in a year's time, I'd imagine. No endless hours in waiting rooms watching Homes Under the Hammer without sound, I'd imagine. He has it easy, some will inevitably say, and are saying, and might you wish to hang around while I bring out the world's tiniest violin?

I get that, but it's this business of soldiering on that I find touching. Is it a generational thing? You are in receipt of horrible, life-threatening news and just keep going? 'Don't make a fuss!' as my (late) father would exclaim. 'Now turn on the cricket, will you?'

I'm not saying no one should ever talk about their health, even if I would ask you to keep those regular aches and pains to yourself (thanks for the offer but

I don't need to see a slide show detailing your bad shoulder). I'm not saying people shouldn't go to the doctor or keep abreast of regular checks and tests, God forbid. I'm not saying the immediate family shouldn't be informed or, in the case of a king, even the public if it will help others to seek a diagnosis (it has).

What I am saying (I think) is that I respect those who, even in extremis, put others first and do not go down the self-pity route. I respected my (late) mother (oesophageal cancer; not pretty) who, despite the pain, never once

respect her respect for her children, who had their own lives to be getting on with. What could they do about it anyway? Why not gift them a worry-free year? I like to think that's my style, but then I was brought up by that generation who did not spend vast amounts of time fretting about their gut health or whether they were optimally hydrated. They told you to stop making a fuss, turn on the cricket and might the hairdresser do home visits? (Yes. Thank you, Stuart.)

I don't know if it is social media that now encourages everyone to create drama by putting everything out there all the time. (I think of social media as just like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors: 'FEED ME, SEYMOUR, FEED ME!'). It certainly doesn't encourage the virtue of being private. It certainly never says: look, bad things will inevitably happen because that's life, but you just have to... soldier on. I've never encountered #soldiering on the request for a follow so I might be updated with the latest soldiering-on news.

Remember Queen Elizabeth during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022? How, having witnessed the fly-past, it was said she would not be attending the thanksgiving service the next day (she must

have been desperately ill by then; it was only three months before she died) but still she came out that evening to light the first beacon at Windsor Castle? She walked precariously, with a stick, but looked utterly determined. That's soldiering on for you, even if it did undo us all. It is where, we must assume, Charles gets it from.

And it got to me, the fact that 'nothing stopped him', although I may be talking nonsense because I am quite a shallow person. Camilla also said this week that keeping shtoom about Charles's diagnosis before it was publicly revealed was hard. 'I was just longing to let it out but obviously I couldn't,' ran one headline, to which my first thought was, we all get windy, but imagine if you're entertaining heads of state? Poor woman. I do feel for her. So you may wish to take all this with a pinch of salt. Although there is some genuine amusement to be had from Meghan and her jams, that's true.

'The soldiering on. He gets that from Queen Elizabeth

complained and was inquiring about her grandchildren and what was happening in the tennis and whether her hair was looking all right, right up until the very end. It's a remarkably unselfish, generous thing to do, to just soldier on. In my mind's eye I can see Charles telling Camilla, 'Don't make a fuss!' then stomping out back to check on his roses. (You could send Mr Benn to check on the roses but he warned he may return as an astronaut.)

I even know someone whose aunt had a diagnosis of heart failure and the first her children knew about it was after she died a year later. I respect that and

What's your

Middlemarch? Yawn. Flesh? No, thank you. Times writers share the novels that defeated them long before the last page

DNF. You'll find these three letters swirling around on BookTok and Instagram, with people curating lists of books they DNFed. DNF: did not finish. In March, Goodreads, the world's biggest website for readers, introduced a Did Not Finish option to sit along its Reading, Want to Read or Read categories. The website said: 'This has been one of our most requested features from readers, who have been creating custom DNF shelves for years to track books they started but didn't finish.'

It's a rather helpful trend, a counterpoint to those online lists where people boast of their Stakhazovite reading habits or to the dreary belief that being bored by a supposedly great book is morally good for you. There's no shame in abandoning a book.

But it may also be that the timing is wrong. Reading certain books can be like panda procreation: the mood and conditions have to be just right for the earth to move. I had that with Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart's Booker-winning novel. On the first attempt, in a grumpy mood, I gave up after 30 pages. Too miserable, I waded! Then a colleague nudged me to try again. What a brilliant, moving read. DNF should never be a final judgment.

Robbie Millen, literary editor

Fraser Nelson Watership Down by Richard Adams

Fatherhood is a great excuse to 'revist' books you wish you'd read in the first place. Treasure Island, The Secret Garden, Swallows and Amazons. And, of course, Watership Down. I knew Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes better than the story that inspired the 1978 song and wanted my kids to grow up a little less lowbrow.

I knew about the book: how it was written by a civil servant to entertain his daughters, how he makes rabbits alien yet plausible and relatable. How a nursery rhyme tale is transformed by writing into an epic of tyranny, courage, migration and what makes societies work.

I started reading it to Dom, my younger son, at bedtime but it never really got going. It exerted a soporific effect that got the better of me more often than it did of my ten-year-old. Midway through there's a tale of a great road-crossing adventure. All told with imaginative, minute and — by this stage — excruciating detail. I had to act.

'So Fiver, Hazel and Bigwig crept tentatively behind each other along the road,' I heard myself say. 'Then a truck came around the corner and flattened them all. The end.' Dom thought this a brilliant, if macabre plot twist. I'm afraid I still haven't admitted the truth to him.

Rory Stewart A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust I just can't get anywhere with this novel. I even struggle to understand why people think it's such a work of genius. I find it unbearably mannered, hypochondriac, awkward, infuriating. It brings out the worst side of my personality. And so I'm haunted by people telling me it's going to change my life, and the awareness that I can barely make it through the first 100 pages, again and again.

Carol Midgley Flesh by David Szalay It's never a good feeling, is it, when you find a prizewinning novel a bore? 'Is it me? Am I a philistine?' You berate yourself as you pick it up, heavy-hearted, each night feeling like it's homework.

I had those thoughts with George Saunders's 2017 Booker prizewinner, Lincoln in the Bardo, but did at least force myself, if joylessly, to finish it. With last year's Booker winner, I decided life's too short. I abandoned it on holiday just over halfway through, handing it to my husband saying: 'Can't be bothered. See if you like it.'

I quite enjoy minimal, sparse dialogue; I know it can be powerful and I can see that here it reflects the shut-down inner life of Flesh's central character. But there are limits. This felt like page after page of 'Yeah', 'Okay', 'Yeah', 'Okay'. After a while it becomes tedious. Eventually I couldn't connect and just stopped caring. Not proud, but I did feel better when my husband said he felt the same. You wouldn't force down a sandwich you weren't enjoying and, in my view, the same applies to a book.

Richard Morrison Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

I love Thomas Hardy's poems, but the novels? About 25 years ago one of my sons was given Tess of the d'Urbervilles as a GCSE set book. He couldn't get into it, so I said: 'Look, we'll read the damn thing together.'

Well, we got about as far as the death of Tess's baby and I realised I would rather eat the remaining 300 pages (perhaps lightly toasted and buttered) than read them.

We watched the film instead. Happily my son was smitten by Nastassja Kinski — who wasn't — and watched it to the end. Then we went to WH Smith and bought one of those handy 'Pass Notes' cribs to the novel's main themes. Thus equipped, he managed to take the exam so well that he got a reasonable grade without actually reading one of the set books. I felt guilty, but only slightly.

Why inflict a miserable Victorian tome likely to put teenage boys off reading for life?

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DNF guilty secret? (The books we did not finish)

Martin Samuel American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

It's not even a long book but I gave up on it at the halfway stage. About the time of the detailed torture with, I think, a drill. It wasn't that I didn't get it. I think I got it. He's shallow, we're shallow, capitalism's shallow, the times in which we live are shallow. But we can glean all that in about 100 pages.

After which, it's just a repetition of extreme and repulsive violence, much of it against women, which seemed unnecessarily gratuitous. I'm not a prude, I'm not a censor, I don't want books banned or burnt, I just found it repetitious and unwarranted, a short story not a novel.

I seem to remember closing it, walking over and just dropping the book in the bin, something I've never done. You may think I've missed out, but I've never felt the desire to revisit Patrick Bateman's world; nor did I save those pages from the dustmen.

Johanna Thomas-Corr The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

To confess that you abandoned The God of Small Things is to risk immediate social exile. Hating on Moby-Dick or Ulysses is relatable. But dismissing Arundhati Roy's Booker-winning darling about 1960s Kerala provokes a sort of visceral horror among bien-pensant fortysomethings of my generation.

It wasn't the subject and it wasn't Roy's politics — it was the prose. I got a sugar headache from all the run-

Top, clockwise from main: Eddie Redmayne and Gemma Arterton in the 2008 television adaptation of Tess of the D'Urberville; the 1978 film of Watership Down; Christian Bale in American Psycho (2000)

together words ("thunderdarkness"), anarchic Capitalisation ("Big Consequences") and nouns "greenmossing" into verbs. And this is before we've come to the "bursting jackfruits".

I only knew I wasn't entirely unhinged when I met my best friend, whose family is from Kerala, and discovered that she also can't stomach the adjectival clutter. Yet Roy's debut remains one of the most influential novels of the past 30 years, its overworked, hyper-sensory cadence seeping into bestsellers from Celeste Ng to Where the Crawdads Sing.

Tom Peck

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy "Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes." Jeremy Paxman read out those words on University Challenge once and I'd shouted out the correct answer before he'd even made it to the P of prince. I frankly wish I was less familiar with the opening sentence of War and Peace.

I must have read it 30 times. I've done the five chapters that come after it at least ten times too. The trouble is, when you've only read five chapters, each time you brace yourself to go again you might as well start from the beginning, but then you've read the first five chapters so many times that you just can't face them again, and suddenly you're locked out of the whole thing. I first started trying to read it 20 years ago, when I was living at my

mum's house and had a long commute. But what I quickly discovered is that even if you're prepared to be pretentious enough to read War and Peace on a packed commuter train from Essex, what you can't then do is sit there, breeze block in one hand, wafer in the other, very obviously only on page four. So I found it impossible to make any progress.

Also — and this is the main point: the only reason you read a book like War and Peace is to claim intellectual superiority over rivals, and given my wife's already read it in the original Russian, if I went to the trouble now, I'd just be admitting defeat.

Susie Goldsbrough One Hundred Years of Solitude

by Gabriel Garcia Márquez I spent substantially less than One Hundred Minutes on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Márquez sets a cruel trap for the reader: an absolutely killer first sentence ("Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon...") followed by a dreary, expositional pseudo-folk-tale about a man who thinks he's invented the telescope, or something.

Part of my problem was the deliberate fuzziness of the time period ("The world was so recent that many things lacked names"), which I, with my pathetically square love of realism, found troubling — give me a date! An ordinary conversation! Which reveals my lumbering ignorance about magical realism, rather than anything about one of the 20th-century's most

famous novels. I'm sure there are plenty of specifics I missed. Still: get to the firing squad already.

Robbie Millen The Devils

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

It's gloomy, it's reactionary but enough about what first attracted me to one of Dostoevsky's masterworks. Its pages contain, so say its admirers, a profound insight into the terrorist mind. And that's why on at least two occasions I've started to read this chunky beast, only to be confounded by the tedious extraneous detail and the glacial pace.

Dostoevsky is certainly in no rush to tell his story: he taunts us by giving chapter one the ominous title By way of an Introduction: A few details from the biography of the greatly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky.

There's more throat-clearing in this airless novel than in a GP's winter waiting room. Worse, Trofimovich turns out to be a bit of a silly, self-dramatising goose. Both times I've given up at the 100-page mark, but I see, reading around the book, that only towards the end of part one, more than 160 pages in, we actually meet some of the mad nihilist-revolutionaries. I don't expect the bang-wallop pace of a Lee Child thriller but still...

Alice Thomson

Middlemarch by George Eliot

If there was a dating app for books, I'd have been matched with Middlemarch every time. I love a 19th-century novel, I devoured Dickens, Trollope, Austen, Hardy, Conrad, the Brontës and Gaskell in my teens, then Eliot's Daniel Deronda, but abandoned Middlemarch in the first 100 pages.

I'm too young, I thought — Virginia Woolf called it a novel for grown-up people. I tried again in my thirties, forties and fifties. I've never made it to page 101. I don't warm to Dorothea, Mr Casaubon is a pompous pedant mansplainer, the countryside feels flat, the town dreary. Middlemarch leaves me cold.

Laura Hackett

Dubliners by James Joyce

I must have been 14 when my English teacher recommended I read James Joyce's Dubliners. What a drag I found it. All those old aunts living alone, rainy streets and repressed sexuality — I had enough of that in my actual life. I wanted elegance and excitement, not the dreary grip of family duty and religion.

I gave up after the first few stories. I was, of course, an idiot. When I picked up Dubliners again at university, by then far from home and feeling rather nostalgic for Ireland, it was transformed. The weight of Joyce's sentences, the monstrous turmoil of his characters, the vividness of his settings! "His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." To this day, I press it into the hands of anyone who fancies giving short stories a go.

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Something curious happened in the last two weeks of me filming and wrapping my BBC TV documentary on endometriosis. It got worse. A lot worse. Everything. All of my symptoms.

And some I didn't recognise. Having started making the film seven months earlier, adamant I wouldn't have surgery again, that I was just about controlling the condition with the use of natural hormones, how on earth did I end up in hospital on the night Fighting Endometriosis was broadcast on BBC2?

It was totally surreal but there I was, all wired up to drips and bed-bound, squinting at the TV screen, watching myself talk with other women in the painful know about this horrific disease.

I wasn't actually well enough to watch the whole film go out. I caught the last ten minutes. Another painful irony, raising the slightest and wryest of smiles between my husband and I. But I did see the hundreds and hundreds of messages start pouring in from women and their worried partners, parents and siblings.

Once they started, they didn't stop. For weeks the messages came. They still come most days. An army united in pain and frustration as to how such a widespread condition still had no cure or treatment pathways in various health services around the world, including our own. I tried to give voice to such agonies to Wes Streeting, then the health secretary, in the documentary. You can judge for yourself how that went.

My phone constantly buzzed with messages on email. Instagram and via my website. I read, read and read, trying to make sense of it all, yet it was too much. I couldn't reply. I still haven't to most, for which I apologise. This is a form of explanation and an attempt to respond.

Some 48 hours before the documentary aired I had undergone a near five-hour operation and somehow found myself lying in bed recovering from extensive endometriosis surgery, a hysterectomy and a gallbladder removal.

To the idea that the womb is sacred and at the heart of being a woman. I am still very much a woman and me.

I didn't want this procedure because it's major surgery. It's frightening and a hard recovery — something I am living now. I didn't want it because I wanted there to have been medicine or treatment to help my endometriosis. It felt and feels too extreme.

Is such major surgery what anyone would 'choose'? Yes, I officially and legally consented to the procedures, in so much as you can know what you are letting yourself in for. In fact I even made the case for them in the

In the weeks leading up to surgery my nausea grew worse. I could barely function

In an attempt to end years of extreme pain Emma Barnett has undergone a hysterectomy and gallbladder removal. She explains her continuing ordeal

don't buy into the idea that the womb is sacred and at the heart of being a woman. I am still very much a woman and me.

Emma Barnett and, below, with her husband, Jeremy Weil

weeks leading up to it as my extreme nausea worsened and I could barely function at home or at work. My gallbladder, which we nicknamed Charles, after M de Gaulle, had unexpectedly pushed the case for surgery and suddenly things became urgent and non-negotiable.

You see, I had vowed to never again have a laparoscopy — the surgical procedure through which they pump you full of air, diagnose and surgically remove endometriosis. I had one ten years ago when I was 30 and found it very hard to recover from (a full three months before I could even slightly run down the road or feel like me).

But hard recoveries I could do. My reason for never going near surgery again? It resulted in zero pain relief for me. If anything, my symptoms were actually worse afterwards. I was going to have to handle endometriosis through diet, pain relief, hormones and finding out anything else that could help women locked in this situation.

And yet a few things happened during the making of this landmark film, the first documentary on endometriosis to be made by and shown on mainstream TV in the UK, that I could no longer turn away from.

First, my pain got a lot worse and now I had proof because my brilliant and fastidious director had asked me to keep video diaries. I realised that since our daughter was born three years ago, to cope with the regularity of my physical discomfort I kept

rewriting history to myself. I didn't acknowledge how regularly the pain was blighting my life. I had even forgotten my suffering on my birthday this year until I watched the documentary. I had simply deleted it from my mind in an attempt at stoicism and making my life the one I wanted. And pain is a weird thing. Once it's finished you can't remember it. You want to forget.

But by being forced to make a diary and then watch it back I was confronted with the truth. My pain was daily and it was bad. Really bad. My own film held me to account and I was forced to confront a bitter truth — I couldn't keep going like this for

Weeks of being bed/sofa-bound is no joke. The fatigue is real

potentially another decade, if not longer. It wasn't fair on me, my husband, children or anyone else I loved spending time with.

Second, a dear friend to whom I am very close and lived with at university was suddenly diagnosed with endometriosis and then came surgery and a hysterectomy not long after as the response. It was a revelation to me as she had only started struggling with

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severe pain relatively recently compared with my two decades — and very bad they were — but suddenly there was surgery and it helped. Really helped. She was graciously evangelical. I couldn't help but wonder. What if?

I allowed a seed to grow. Just the smallest of seeds. What if I too could benefit? What if this time it would be different?

I should also mention at this point that I, like my friend, have adenomyosis, which one is cured of if the womb is removed. That condition, about which even less is known, only lives in the womb. I had begun to suspect that was a major culprit of most of my pain most of the time. A hysterectomy is not a cure for endometriosis, as it's a system-wide inflammatory disease, but what if it could drastically reduce my pain?

The seed would have remained just a seed for goodness knows how long (when is it ever a good time to torpedo your life and sign up for major surgery, which is a gamble?) if it hadn't been for Charles (de Gall) in this case.

And this was the third and final thing that tipped my life upside down three months ago. I was being filmed for the last scene of the documentary while having an ultrasound. Of course the kind man scanning me couldn't see my endo or adeno (in my case and many others — they never bloody can and one has to become an expert in backing oneself to know it's there and not in your head) but he did suddenly spot a mass, large enough to provoke

concern, in my gallbladder. It needed investigating.

Shocked and quietly worried about something new, I quickly googled the terrible symptoms I had been surviving for the previous two weeks, which were foreign to me: severe nausea, no appetite and an inability even to eat, and some different site-specific pain away from my usual areas. They matched issues with the gallbladder. I now knew the true meaning of the word galling.

I was poorly in a way that was different to endo and adeno poorly. It was all the time. And non-negotiable. I couldn't really eat and was on anti-sickness meds all the time. Charles needed to exit the building and with that came the decision to remove my womb and endometriosis at the same time. See if the nuclear options would help. The seed flowered.

Things then moved very fast.

I felt blind-sided and robbed, even though my care had been superb

Having just about survived presenting the Today programme on the Monday, I somehow attended a screening of our film and answered questions on stage from my pal, colleague and fellow sufferer Naga Munchetty on the Thursday, and that was it — I was in hospital by the weekend. I practically crawled in there.

Fast forward an interminable 11 weeks and my recovery is still ongoing, as is the ghastly fine-tuning of hormones with HRT. The rollercoaster is real. The fatigue is real. I am physically much stronger than I was. Weeks of being bed/sofa-bound is no joke. A wise friend informed me that my job during this time was to expressly rot on the sofa. I was terrible at it but had no choice. I couldn't even concentrate to read, which was so very strange in a sea of strangeness. The only TV I could stomach was comforting light stuff I had seen before.

This period has been and continues to be one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Early indications are that the pain is very much improved, although I am still healing from the surgery itself so that also feels uncertain and frightening to admit, even to myself. But admit it I shall. Balancing my hormones is still very much a difficult work in progress but overall I am hopeful that I am further along than I could have imagined for a long time.

There is a lot more to say but two opposing things can be true in this black and white world and here are mine for now: I think I will end up being grateful for a surgery I never wanted to have.

So here we are. And here I am. I am sorry to those of you I never replied to. But I hope you understand. It's a wild time and I am for ever grateful to my husband, family and dear friends who have stepped up in a range of incredible and varied ways.

I was back on air yesterday morning at 6am on BBC Radio 4 presenting the Today programme. The slow march back to myself continues. I'm waving to you and her.

emmabarnett.substack.com

I can't understand anything that my French in-laws say...

And my wife is starting to lose patience. By Nick Atkins

I am sitting at an outdoor dining table on a warm evening, smelling mosquito repellent and picking at my food, hoping that there will be ice cream to follow. The adults are chatting about stuff I don't understand. I'll catch a word here or there but I can't really grasp what they're talking about.

This isn't a childhood memory — it's from last week. I was in the south of France with my wife, staying at her family's home. The adults were my wife, her parents and her sister, and they were speaking French.

I am 36. I've been married for two years; we've been together for over a decade. We visit her parents, who live an hour east of Marseille, every year and we tied the knot in the nearby village of Brignoles. It's a stunning part of the world. Unfortunately, despite the frequent trips — and often being in situations where being bilingual would be incredibly helpful — I'm still not proficient enough in French to confidently hold a conversation.

Her parents barely speak any English so I'm often left sitting silently at the dinner table, oddly infantilised, trying not to look too bored, fighting an overwhelming urge to look at my phone and hoping against hope to hear words that I know mean good things are coming: chocolat, glace, fromage.

Obviously, when things need to be communicated my wife kindly translates so I can be involved to a degree in conversations. But this is not a sustainable approach: it leads to stilted, unsatisfactory exchanges and, apart from anything else, it's a pain in the arse for her.

The net result is that I don't really know my in-laws that well. They seem nice, her mum is a teacher, into fitness and healthy eating, and her dad is close to retiring from a job as a delivery driver, while his passion is motorbikes. She's the engine that keeps things running, dealing with the finances, planning holidays and home renovations, while he seems easily overwhelmed by such admin and is grateful not to have to deal with it. Oh my God, they are exactly the same as my wife and me.

Most of what I've gleaned about them comes second-hand from my wife. I can get a feel of the vibe, obviously, and having spent so much time with them I can see that they're good people: welcoming, generous and kind. I hope they think the same of me although, again, it's very hard to say. I probably come off as a bit rude and lazy for not taking the time to learn enough French to chat comfortably with them in their home.

To be honest, it is mostly laziness. Learning a language is hard and most of the time I can't be bothered. I wish I could upload a program into my brain, like something from The Matrix, and instantly become fluent. Early in the relationship I hoped that passive

Attempts to speak French at home quickly grind to a halt

Nick Atkins with his wife

learning, visiting the country and hearing people speak a lot would be enough to get French into my head. It wasn't.

So three years ago I signed up to Duolingo and am now the proud maintainer of a 1,269-day streak on the app. Unfortunately the actual language progress I have made has been glacial and for some time has been plateauing depressingly. The gamified platform is addictive, with milestones, rewards, leagues and achievements, replete with all the satisfying dings, notifications, icons and progress tracking that the developers know my dopamine-hungry millennial brain craves. It's just a shame it's not helping me get any better at French.

Some friends who use the app have had a similar experience: they've found it doesn't work very well for them as a language-learning tool, yet they cannot kick the habit. The desperate need to maintain the streak has overshadowed the original goal of improving language skills. Like them I'm not getting good at French, but I am extremely good at Duolingo. I pay 160 a year for this privilege, which

makes me a sucker, or as they say in France... I have no idea, because I can't speak French.

My lack of interest in learning my wife's mother tongue has sometimes been a bone of contention in our relationship. She gets frustrated at my half-hearted efforts and wishes I would be more proactive.

"Why not get her to teach you?" I hear you ask. "You have a fluent French speaker living in your home. Why not make the most of it?"

Honestly, it would be great if she could help me, but for some reason it just doesn't work. She speaks fluent English and deals daily with technical business language as a product manager for an app. Her level of English is so astronomically higher than my level of French that the path of least resistance has always been to speak English together. Attempts to speak French at home quickly grind to a halt, leaving me frustrated and embarrassed.

If and when we have kids, they will be raised bilingual — it's too great an opportunity to miss. However, it speaks to my deep insecurity that I am already jealous of my wife's not-yet-existent connection with our not-yet-existent progeny, which she has not yet built through being able to share a language with them that I do not possess. I can picture them talking about me behind my back (in front of my face) while I sit there, baffled, hoping there will be ice cream soon.

While the promise of conversation with my wife's family and friends has not proved enough motivation to nail French, the desperate desire not to be left out by her and my moody, unborn, half-French children may just be enough motivation to get me off my backside. C'est la vie.

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The best (and worst) Bond themes — and who should sing it next?

As the Proms prepares to celebrate the music of 007, Bob Stanley sifts the good (Bassey) from the bad (Lulu) and explores some near misses

Next week's Bond and Beyond Prom will skate around the surface of the James Bond franchise, no doubt focusing on its best-loved themes — Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice — which were largely written by York's favourite son, John Barry. There's a wealth of classics to choose from, after all, but the Bond films have also provided extraordinary deep cuts, and — although they almost certainly won't make the Prom — the odd flat note.

I'll bet my house, or at least my car, on the evening, led by Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra, opening with The James Bond Theme, the one we first heard in 1962's Dr No before anyone realised what a popular music behemoth the Bond themes would become.

Many believe, erroneously, that John Barry wrote it, but he only knocked it into shape — the main hook was written by Monty Norman. It always ground Barry's gears that he didn't receive a penny for the excellent arrangement he created, and he was rather vocal about this.

In 2001 there was a libel case between Norman and The Sunday Times. The legal judgment was that Norman was the sole writer of the melody, but nobody really doubts that it was Barry who made the theme timeless, with what he called a "totally bebop" arrangement. Besides, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman called Barry, not Norman, when they needed a score for the second Bond film, 1963's From Russia with Love.

"The thing about John," Barry's former flatmate Michael Caine once said, "was that he used to write music at night. I would get up in the morning and he'd be there banging away at the piano, having been there all night. Then he would go to bed in the afternoon. We'd have dinner together in the evenings, I would go to bed and he'd keep working."

The ultimate Bond theme is probably 1964's Goldfinger, sung with acetylene directness by Shirley

The best five Bond songs

1 Goldfinger — Shirley Bassey

The standard by which all others are judged.

2 Nobody Does It Better — Carly Simon

None saucier.

3 From Russia with Love — Matt Monro

The soundtrack to the Cold War inside three minutes.

4 On Her Majesty's Secret Service — John Barry

Moog-powered instrumental, so tough.

5 Writing's on the Wall — Sam Smith

Minimalist and fragile, a new kind of Bond theme, Bob Stanley.

Goldfinger was modern, peak Sixties, yet closer to vaudeville and Wagner than to the Beatles. Saltzman, the film's producer, hated it and barely acknowledged its success — much to

Barry's disappointment — even after the soundtrack album went to No I in the US, knocking the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night from the top spot, and the theme song was nominated for a Grammy.

When he played at the Royal Albert Hall in 1998 Barry introduced the song with "the producer hated this song, but there wasn't enough time for me to write something else". He left a perfectly timed pause, then dryly laughed: "Ha!"

Saltzman died in 1994 and his co-producer Broccoli two years later, so it wasn't until 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies that neither of the giants was able to stick his oar in. Possibly this was the reason why the commissioning of the theme seemed a little rudderless.

Much fun was had when the Bond people reached out to the great, the good and seemingly anyone with access to a cassette recorder when they went fishing for the title song. The Swedish band the Cardigans were asked to submit a demo but declined. Instead, Sheryl Crow's rather generic and underwhelming effort was chosen, although there were B-sides from a

multitude of acts that appeared over the next few months with telltale titles that seemed remarkably close to that of the film: one from a Danish act called Swan Lee, another from kd lang (her version ended up on the end credits, retitled Surrender) and yet another from my group, Saint Etienne.

The most notable was Pulp's orchestrated Tomorrow Never Lies, which would have made a deliciously dark Bond theme, although perhaps lines such as "leave them all below you, bleeding as you rise into the night" were a little too ripe for the squeamish.

It's one thing to think of a Bond-like melody and feel, but striking a balance between pastiche and contender for the canon is tricky. Many have tried and failed — some even made it onto the big screen.

It's 20 years since Daniel Craig's debut in Casino Royale. Chris Cornell, formerly the singer with Soundgarden, was an unlikely choice for that film, and he sang You Know My Name over a backing that couldn't decide if it wanted to reference Cornell's grunge background or push the strings to the fore. The results were ho hum.

Gladys Knight's Licence to Kill, on the other hand, had the nerve to start off with a quote from Goldfinger, the daddy of all Bond themes, then broke out into a powerful groove of its own, with staccato gunshot moments and Knight tearing chunks out of the melody in a way almost no one else could. A solid ten out of ten.

On the best Bond themes there are shadows everywhere. Diamonds Are Forever is pitch black save for the glint of the jewels and Bassey's silver dagger

From left: Billie Eilish, Shirley Bassey and Adele

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Newley sings it with just as much relish as Bassey — you can almost picture a white cat on his lap.

Occasionally there are hidden gems in Bond films that were right there on the cinema screen yet never really made it onto the radio or into the charts. The Pretenders had to settle for the end credits on The Living Daylights; nevertheless, they released the excellent If There Was a Man as a single, crediting it to Pretenders for 007 and featuring Chrissie Hynde in a classic Bond pose on the cover.

For The World Is Not Enough the title song, performed by Garbage, was written by the safe hands Arnold and Black but it never felt like more than a bunch of vintage Bond themes mulched in a blender.

Grace Jones and Tanya Roberts with Roger Taylor, Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran at a press call after the premiere of A View to a Kill in 1985. Top, clockwise from main: Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971); Daniel Craig in No Time to Die (2021); and Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies (1995)

of a vocal. Of course, there are exceptions. Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better, from 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, was written by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager. It was voted the third best Bond theme by Rolling Stone in 2012, the second best by Billboard in 2013 and, eventually, the best of all by USA Today in 2021. It has legs. The theme has even withstood a cover version by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who called it 'the sexiest song ever written'.

Right now Bond themes are on a roll. In 2021 No Time to Die gave Billie Eilish the chance to sing out a little, and it ended with a beautifully unresolved guitar chord, a neat nod to Norman's original theme, while sounding entirely contemporary.

History will record that Adele's Skyfall, from 2012, was the best record she made — her impressive pipes have

rarely been tested on such stellar material. Sam Smith's unexpected octave leaps, like an East Anglian Frankie Valli, made the moody, understated Writing's on the Wall — from 2015's Spectre — another strong contender for the best latter-day Bond theme. In a real move away from Bond bombast the film producers thought Smith's minimal demo recording was good enough to use with no embellishments.

There had been a similarly surprising change of dynamic in 1985, when Duran Duran's A View to a Kill became the first teen-friendly Bond theme. They were the biggest pop act in the world at the time, and brought their high Eighties orchestral stabs to the party.

Surprisingly, Barry thoroughly enjoyed working with them, but the same couldn't be said for the Norwegian ice kings A-ha when they cut The Living Daylights in 1987. Barry apparently compared recording with them to 'playing ping pong with four balls'. No matter, the resulting theme was impressive enough and, unlike Duran Duran, A-ha did the film a favour by including its title on the chorus. Both themes are radio staples four decades on.

Who resides in the Bond hall of shame? Poor Lulu ended up being given 1974's leaden The Man with the Golden Gun — Barry and the lyricist Don Black on a rare off-day. When Tina Turner was brought in for 1995's Goldeneye, eight years after The Living Daylights, it felt like an odd retreat from working with the pop stars du jour. The intro was slinky enough but the bypassing of any kind

of chorus made for a rather tuneless caterwaul.

Still, it was far better than Jack White and Alicia Keys's effort in 2008. They were an odd couple and Another Way to Die — from Quantum of Solace — sounded like a vintage Marshall amp falling down the stairs with poor Keys following close behind. It may be the weakest Bond theme of all, Bassey

On the best Bond themes there are shadows everywhere

came up, gamely, with her own alternative Quantum of Solace theme, the noirish No Good About Goodbye — produced by Barry's appointed heir, David Arnold — but it was rejected.

Which brings us to the subject of missed opportunities, and they are manifold. There was Blondie's rollicking, on-brand For Your Eyes Only, an exact midpoint of classic Blondie and classic Bond that was sadly rejected in favour of Sheena Easton's rather milky number in 1981. Lana Del Rey apparently wrote 24, from her Honeymoon album, with one eye on the theme for Spectre, the 24th Bond film. There's still time for Lana to get the call for a future theme.

Newley's original, slow and stripped-back demo for Goldfinger would have made an intriguing alternative to Bassey's brassier recording, playing up the eerie coldness of the character.

Much better, and much more in touch with the franchise's history of hiring crooners and striking the zeitgeist, was another Arnold/Black song called Only Myself to Blame. It was sung by Scott Walker in the deep blue style of his late Sixties material, and it's terrific. Maybe it was too slinky to be the title song but Walker taking second billing to Garbage? What on earth were they thinking?

Two of the best themes came from, paradoxically, two of the worst films — 1967's Casino Royale and 1983's Never Say Never Again. Dusty Springfield's immortal heart-melter The Look of Love first appeared in Casino Royale, along with Herb Alpert's parpingly jaunty main theme, both written by Burt Bacharach.

Sean Connery starred in Never Say Never Again (along with Kim Basinger, Edward Fox, Barbara Carrera, Max von Sydow and Rowan Atkinson) at the grand old age of 51; the funky score was written by the great soundtrack writer Michel 'The Windmills of Your Mind' Legrand but it would have better suited Kojak. For the theme tune Legrand asked Lani Hall to sing a beautifully seductive mellow groove. It sounded a little dated in the year of Kajagoogno, although that hardly matters when you hear it in 2026.

Like the Christmas No 1, the Bond theme holds a special place in an increasingly fragmented pop world, and I can dream of future efforts from Del Rey, Charli XCX — now she has her foot firmly through the cinema door — or even Bryan Ferry. Age is not an issue. The best Bond themes exist in no time but their own.

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8

times2

Why Earl Spencer is still haunted by the ghost of Diana

Charles Spencer has written a book about the sister who sought to protect him — and whose children he tried to shield after her death. By Helen Rumbelow

Charles Spencer has just announced that his memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister will be released in four weeks, more than 29 years after his sister's death. It will be an opportunity for him to analyse, in a way no other can, why his sister's death marked a cultural shift in the British character, when the guard didn't just change at Buckingham Palace, it came down entirely.

This is because Diana's ghost continues to influence his restless life and the restlessness in particular of her younger son, Prince Harry. Diana's character was carved in stone in childhood, one that she shared alone with Spencer, largely abandoned by their warring, then divorcing, parents.

Their childhood, spent in Norfolk, near the royal's Sandringham estate, and the ancestral seat at Althorp, Northamptonshire, is not just a matter of historical interest. It hints at why Spencer remains an ally for Harry, finally making good on his eulogy at his sister's funeral. Addressing Diana's coffin, he pledged that the boys would not be confined by cold 'duty and tradition' but could 'sing openly as you planned'.

Spencer was then in the war cry of the protective sibling. But in tape recordings that Diana made for her biographer Andrew Morton, she frames her relationship with her younger brother differently. He was for her partly a son figure, partly a twin.

This formed a compelling and strange contradiction in adult Diana: both peer and mother, helpless fellow sufferer and maternal savour. This model may have defined her parenting of William and Harry and her intense relationship to her public.

With their two older sisters mostly away at boarding school, Diana and her brother, she said in the recordings, were 'stuck together'. A close bond was made into an almost gothic union by a childhood Diana described as 'very unhappy', despite all the pools and ponies that came with aristocracy.

'We could never ask questions,' she said, and became 'detached from everyone else'.

Sometimes, Diana said in her recordings, she saw her brother as almost identical in nature. 'He will always suffer, Charles, because he's like me,' she said. 'There's something in us that attracts that department.'

Yet sometimes Diana was cast in a

Right, clockwise from main: Charles and Diana Spencer as children in 1968; Charles with Prince Harry in 2021; at Diana's funeral in 1997. Below: Diana in 1996

substitute maternal role for her brother, a role that, being only a child herself, she could never fulfil.

In the Morton recordings Diana vividly remembers lying in bed, hearing her brother sobbing and calling out for his mother. Their mother had disappeared from their home without a word when Diana was nearly seven and Charles was three.

'I used to hear my brother crying in his bed down the other end of the house, crying for my mother,' she said in transcripts Morton has released. Diana felt it was her moral duty to go to comfort him, but she was too scared of the dark. So no one went. 'I could never pluck up the courage to get out of bed. I remember that to this day.'

On the publication of A Very Private School, Spencer's sensitive, bestselling memoir in 2024 of the sexual and physical abuse he suffered at boarding school, he brought up this formative time. Diana felt guilty about not comforting her brother; Spencer learnt that women, even those who loved him, could not be relied on.

'Diana looked after me because she was nearly three years older,' Spencer told The Times. 'She said that the worst part was hearing me cry down the hall because she was terrified of the dark and couldn't come to me.'

In adulthood Earl Spencer has had what his divorce lawyers may greedily call an 'insecure attachment' to women. This year he married the Norwegian archaeologist Cat Jarman. Aged 62, he has been married three times previously and has seven children.

Diana poured her distress — 'painful' and 'difficult' experiences, such as seeing her father slap her mother, or the merry-go-round of nannies who could be physically abusive, banging her and Charles's heads together or against walls — into caring for her baby brother.

In A Very Private School Spencer recounts the headmistress of their shared first school saying Diana would not settle until she allowed her 'to go on, check on him then!' When Charles was in dread at the return to the abusive regime of his subsequent prep school, Diana was the only relative who comforted him before he left, 'enveloping' him in hugs.

She couldn't protect him though — she was just a girl, powerless to help another child. In one particularly dark section of the recordings Diana made,

she talked of how she and Charles would regularly visit the grave of their brother John. Her parents' third child, and a much longed-for son and heir, he had died within hours of birth.

This death, Spencer wrote in A Very Private School, torpedoed his parents' marriage below the waterline. Diana and her brother would stand at John's grave, she told Morton, and speculate whether either of them would be alive if John, then heir to Althorp, had lived.

As a child Diana had the sense she was a 'nuisance' to have around. In adulthood she reflected that her parents were unable to disguise their disappointment at her birth. 'The child who died before me was a son, and both parents were crazy to have a son and heir, and there comes another daughter, what a bore.'

In the context of this mournful childhood it is fascinating to note that the young Diana had a visceral, animal aversion to visiting the royal family. She and her brother were 'shunted over to Sandringham for the holidays', she said in the recordings. 'We hated it so much. The atmosphere was very strange... I used to kick and fight anyone who tried to make us go over there.'

How 'strange' the atmosphere at Sandringham had to be for young Diana, a veteran of distant parenting and hollowed-out halls, to react this

way one can only speculate. It is true that by the time she was 16 she'd met the two Charleses of her life. Charles her brother and Charles her future ex-husband shared the double burden of feeling under-mothered while traumatised by boarding schools.

How to frame these stories for the next generation? Diana had a famously intense affinity with children, in her professional life as charitable ambassador and in her delight in being a mother. As in childhood, this was double-edged, both determinedly protective while paradoxically presenting a vulnerability and playfulness; she never quite grew up. She retained the capacity to understand anyone who suffered as a child — 'been there, done that', she said to Morton. It was a powerful, unstable mix.

Her allergy to her childhood's secrets, the 'no questions' rule and husband lies about her mother's whereabouts matured into an allergy to the stiffness of the royal family and the strictures it represented. This was her commitment that Spencer said he would uphold, the confessional idea that her sons should 'sing openly'.

Was this invocation in Prince Harry's mind when he wrote his family-shattering memoir, Spare, in 2023? In this book Harry casts 'Uncle Charles' approvingly as protector of

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ALAMY GETTY IMAGES

9

times2

his and Prince William's childhood grief. He praises the unvarnished critiques in his uncle's eulogy in saying "truth hurts", a possible justification of his memoir decades later.

When the instruction came for the boys to walk behind their mother's coffin, "Uncle Charles raised hell", calling it "barbaric", Spure recounts. Ultimately, Harry said his "furious" uncle failed to prevent it; he was cast in the powerless role that Diana had had in his childhood decades before.

The Althorp estate is not just the protected burial place of Diana; the Spencer seat has become a refuge for Harry. In Spure he wrote of the first time he took Meghan to his mother's island grave. Harry rowed her across the lake after "Uncle Charles gave a little shove to the boat".

He wrote that at the end of his mother's funeral he was at Althorp to receive the coffin. He was told that a photo of him and his brother had been placed in his mother's hands. This image finally broke the formal face the 12-year-old had been obliged to maintain all day. It was a photo, Harry wrote, of "possibly the only two men who ever truly loved her".

If Spure was a sequel to Spencer's excoriating eulogy, Swan Song will form the trilogy. It will no doubt make the case that on this point, at least, Prince Harry was inaccurate.

'The people blaming rewilding for fires misunderstand what it is'

The restoration of natural habitats reduces the risk of wildfires, Ben Goldsmith tells Hilary Rose

Talking to Ben Goldsmith about rewilding is to be transported to a world of dragonflies and butterflies, plovers, ponies and peat bogs. Over the course of an hour in which he rarely draws breath, we travel from goatherds in Cantabria to the habitats of Sri Lanka versus Ireland ("Can I just detour briefly?") and what wolves in East Anglia might mean for your pet rabbit, none of it good ("Well, potentially, but there are more wolves in the Netherlands than there are in Norway.")

Whether this is a cause for rejoicing among Norwegian Benjamin Bunnes is unclear but Goldsmith has moved on with puppyish enthusiasm to fallow deer, the trouble with sheep and his role in a campaign to Make Britain Wetter Again. ("It was going to be Make Britain Wet Again but we all howled with laughter like schoolboys.")

He is in the news this week because his favourite subject — rewilding the countryside — stands accused in some quarters of causing the wildfires that have devastated homes and heathlands across the country.

The Countryside Alliance has said that failing to manage vegetation "because of political ideology or rewilding is completely irresponsible". The EU's wildfire strategy deplores rewilding. Even Monty Don thinks it's a rubbish idea. Goldsmith, however, is doubling down. Rewilding, he says, isn't the problem, it's the solution. "The people blaming rewilding for these fires are wilfully misunderstanding what rewilding is," he says. "They're wilfully conflating land abandonment with rewilding. If you abandon land without restoring the natural hydrology and have no cattle or horses, yes, you create a tinderbox, but no rewilders are suggesting that."

Goldsmith, 45, is the youngest child of James and Annabel Goldsmith, the brother of Zac and Jemima, and rich. He lives on a 300-acre estate in Somerset with his second wife and young children, and could be accused of being a wealthy dilettante or a hopeless romantic, someone who can afford to worry about plovers while the rest of us earn a living. But in the flesh, over Zoom, he is passionate and persuasive. So why is rewilding the solution, not the problem?

"The two core tenets of rewilding are to return water to the landscape and to restore grazing by native herbivores. Both of those things are fire suppressants. We've drained the bogs and the upland wetlands and the moors, we've straightened streams and

rivers, put drains under every field and ditches around them, so when it rains our landscapes are more like a washbasin."

But surely the problem is that it isn't raining. "The solution and the problem are two sides of the same coin."

As if we need reminding, it rained constantly from Christmas to Easter. Our countryside, he says, is largely designed for water to drain off quickly, rather than percolate slowly, the better to raise sheep and grow crops. The downside is that "you get flash flooding every time it rains, then drought and hosepipe bans a few weeks after. We need to restore the great sponge landscapes that hold water for us — those very sponge landscapes which are burning now".

Which is all very well, but what about the sheep? And the crops? We need to grow far more of our own food, not flood the fields. Absolutely, Goldsmith agrees, and that's exactly what we should be doing on farmland that will support crops. "I've never come across anyone who wants to rewild grade one or two farmland."

Land needed for housing, critical infrastructure or food security should be used for just that. What he's talking about is "land that can hold water better, and anyone who's got it should be incentivised by the state to do it according to what society wants and needs".

He's not suggesting the government sequesters the countryside to plant wildflower meadows or reflood the Fens — well, not all of them at any rate. His point is that rewilding isn't some happy clappy hark back to ye

Ben Goldsmith on his farm in Somerset

olden days, or just abandoning the land to its own devices, or what the Countryside Alliance calls "refusing to manage habitat to mitigate wildflower risk". The way Goldsmith tells it, it's about managing land in a different way in the hope of an outcome that doesn't include floods and fires. This is very bad news if you're a sheep. Heritage herds are lovely, he concedes, and sheep farming is socially and culturally important, "but we don't need 40 million of the blighters".

He argues that they decimate the landscape because they like drained, dry land, not a nice damp bog, and eat saplings and flowers but not a highly flammable type of grass. They are also, as Jeremy Clarkson proved, impossible to make any money from, so he argues, why pay farmers to try? Why not pay them instead for land stewardship, to farm with native cattle to graze and ponies to eat the dry vegetation, both of which are happier on wetter ground than sheep?

And if we're worried about food security, and we should be, why, he points out, are we throwing out half of our food somewhere between farm and fork and why is good-quality farmland being used to grow crops to feed animals not humans?

Argue that his solutions will cost money we can't afford and time we don't have, and he pushes back. You can reweat a hillside in a year and taxpayers are already paying huge farming subsidies. You just tweak what the subsidies are for. In England, he adds, it's already being done. (He concedes that claiming these subsidies, which he does not, is easier said than done; the bureaucracy is a nightmare.)

Somerset county council paid to install a wetland on a few acres of his land as part of an investment in natural flood management. They didn't pay him any money but they paid to do the work. Couldn't he have paid himself? "That's a very good point. They said, 'Can we have some of your land to create a wetland?' and I said yes. Would I have even thought to do it? Should I have said, 'I'm going to do it and fund it myself'? Perhaps."

Not everyone agrees with his vision of what managing land well looks like. He's unrepentant: think of nature as critical infrastructure, put farmers and landowners in charge, and make it worth their while to do something that benefits everyone. Except sheep and pets if you live in Norfolk.

He thinks that reintroducing wolves to agricultural areas such as East Anglia is "the only answer" to fallow deer "decimating" crops and it is fair to describe him as blithe about the risks. Wolves only hunt at night, he says, when we're all presumably tucked up in bed and they'll only eat Benjamin if, he says, we damage their family units by shooting them. It's a tough sell, but then Goldsmith isn't the politician who has to sell it.

"Every spare penny I've ever had is spent on conservation, either supporting other people or doing it on my own land, so I don't have any guilt. Other people spend it on model railways. I spend it on wetlands."

The core tenets of rewilding are to restore grazing by native herbivores and return water to the landscape

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10

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Your weekday brain boost

More puzzles

Pages 14-16

Every day, Monday to Thursday, a page of extra puzzles to give your brain an extended workout

Samurai medium

Fill each grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Where the puzzles overlap, the rows and columns do not go beyond their usual length.

6	4		7			5
2	5			4	6
			2		4
1		7		8	4
	4	1	9	5
	8	5		3		1
	2		6			3
	1	4			6
4			1			5

4					1	8
8		5	1	9
	7		4		6	3
		8		3	1
6		2	7			5
	7	5		6
		4			3
		1	6			2
4						6

	6		3	4	2
	4	2	6	7
	7	3	9	6

1	9			9		2
	5	6		4	8
	7	8		8	5

5				1	9
3		1	5		5	6
	4		9		7	8
	6		3	7		3
2		7	1		4
	7	9		5
6	3	5			7
	1	3	9			6
9	2					8

	2		4	8
	8	4	9	6
	6	5	7		3
		2	7
		6	3		1
	5		4		2

Sudoku difficult

			2			6	3
								9
1	2				6			7
			5	7		4
			4		1
	4	9	6	2	3			1
5	1		9
		4	1			7
		8				3

Killer deadly

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted lines, a digit cannot be repeated.

15		9		27	20		11	23
		22
23					18		16
11			31
16	31	27			20			12
				16			20
			12			17
				8

Train Tracks

Lay tracks to enable the train to travel from village A to village B. The numbers indicate how many sections of track go in each row and column. There are only straight sections and curved sections. The track cannot cross itself.

Futoshiki

Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between the squares indicate whether a number is larger (>) or smaller (<) than the number next to it.

Sakuro

Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so that the number in each circle is equal to the sum of the four surrounding spaces, and each colour total is correct

Play Mini Sudoku every day Monday-Sunday online at thetimes.com and on Live app

Codeword

Every letter in the crossword-style grid, right, is represented by a number from 1 to 26. Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters already provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main grid and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Yesterday's solutions

SAKURAI

TRAIN TRACKS

FUTOSHIKI

Mini

Sudoku

Fill in the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x2 box contains the digits 1 to 6

Solutions In Monday's Times2

SUDOKU

KILLER

CODEWORD

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11

television & radio

The £1m secret hiding in a French garden shed

Carol Midgley TV review

Fake or Fortune? What Happened Next

BBC1

The last time I reviewed Fake or Fortune? I got a bit tricky about art experts declining to use their proficiency and sitting on the fence. Give us your opinion? Make a decision! Isn't that the point of experts?

In Fake or Fortune? What Happened Next we were told from the outset that at the end of the original programme eight years ago, a committee of experts on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec had not been able to give a definitive verdict on two sketchbooks found in a French garden shed despite them containing many sketches that looked

uncanally similar to his work, not to mention a lot of persuasive evidence dug up by Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould. The committee told the owner they were not Toulouse-Lautrec's work but that of Rene Princeteau, his tutor. The presenters diplomatically said this was 'frustrating'.

It certainly must have been for Alain Brun, whose grandmother had kept the sketchbooks in that shed in St Emilion and given them to him in 1965. Mould said that if they were by the avant-garde painter, 'I can see about a million pounds' worth of drawings here.'

I almost like these 'what happened next' shows more than the standard ones because they return when the dust has settled to see if the owners carried on the fight and tell us if the experts got egg on their face. What fun! Although, as Mould said, getting them to change their minds is very difficult indeed. Still, it gave Bruce another trip to France to show off her fluent French. Spoilers ahead.

Brun's grandmother had lived in Paris in the 1920s on the very same street where Toulouse-Lautrec had stayed and where Princeteau had a studio. She worked as a cleaner, so it is perfectly plausible that she could have found the sketchbooks had they been discarded. They appear to date from 1880, before the artist had his trademark HTL stamp signature, and

Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould with some of the sketches

are filled with previously unknown sketches and watercolours of horses, dogs, ladies and soldiers.

And what do you know? Brun and his family did not let it lie. They fought to prove the committee wrong — and what a victory they achieved. The committee changed its mind and declared one of the sketchbooks, containing 99 watercolours and drawings, as 'authentic' Toulouse-Lautrec. Which meant they were admitting that initially they got it wrong. How strangely satisfying it is when experts eat their words.

They didn't fully authenticate the other sketchbook but did say that 25 of its sketches could be 'attributed' to him. It was total vindication for Brun. One of the clinching pieces of evidence was a drawing of a white horse. Mould called it 'the equivalent of a ball in the back of a net'.

Intriguingly, years ago when the experts had dismissed some of the sketches as being by Princeteau, Brun had sold some at a modest price. Now that it turns out the works could be by Toulouse-Lautrec, those lucky buyers could be sitting on something far more valuable. Bruce made an appeal for anyone who bought one to come forward, which would no doubt form the basis of a third programme. It does make one wonder how often, in general, the experts get it wrong.

This Cultural Life Radio 4, 11am

Sebastian Faulks's new novel, Farewell to Eden, is published next month, and he talks to John Wilson about his creative influences and the book's theme of faulk. Faulks, above, discusses his mother, Pamela, who infused her son's life with a love of books and music, and was an amateur playwright who would send her work to the BBC but always had it rejected (useful experience for a future novelist). He also discusses his formative experiences while living in France as a young man, including seeing impressionist works at the Jeu de Paume gallery in Paris.

Clair Woodward

Times Radio

Digital, web, smart speaker, app 5.00am Tom Nunan 6.00 Rosie Wright and Stig Abell with Breakfast 10.00 Hugo Rifkind 1.00pm Jo Coburn 2.00 Jane Garvey 4.00 Calum Macdonald 7.00 Darryl Morris 10.00 Henry Bonsu 1.00am Best of Times Radio

Radio 2

FM: 88-90.2 MHz 6.30am Sara Cox 9.30 Vernon Kay 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00pm DJ Spoony 4.00 Jason Manford 7.00 Prom Nights 9.00 The Country Show with Darius Rucker 10.00 Melvin Odoum 12.00 DJ Borg 3.00am Dance Sounds of the 90s (r) 4.00 Owain Wyn Evans

Radio 3

FM: 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30am Breakfast 9.30 Essential Classics 1.00pm Classical Live Highlights from the BBC Proms, including Stravinsky's ballet Periustika, and Copland's Billy the Kid. BBC Proms: Copland (Billy the Kid Suite); Bach (Prelude & Fugue in D minor, 1949/1939); Edinburgh International Festival: Cameron Biles-Liddell (The Breakers); BBC Proms: Stravinsky (Periustika — 1947 version); Edinburgh International Festival: Vivaldi (Concerto for 2 violins in G, 1947/1946); Summer Festivities of Early Music, Prague: Taverner (O Wilhelme, pastor bone); RAI Summer Festival, Turin: Bizet (Carmen Suite); BBC Proms: Vivaldi transc. Bach (Concerto in A minor, 1949/1993); and Granada International Festival of Music & Dance: Mozart (Symphony No.39 in E flat, 1947/1947).

4.00 Composer of the Week: Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Kate Molleson follows Felix Mendelssohn's travels across Europe. Today, Italy provides the backdrop for one of the happiest periods of the composer's life 5.00 In Tune 7.00 Live BBC Proms 2026 Miho Hazama and the BBC Concert Orchestra are joined by trumpeter Ambrose Akinnusire in a tribute to jazz star Miles Davis in his centenary year. Presented by Kevin Le Gendre, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Gershwin, arr. Gil Evans and Miles Davis, orch. Miho Hazama (Porgy and Bess — 'Bess, You're My Woman Now'; 'Gone, Gone, Gone', 'Summertime'; 'I Loves You, Porgy'); de Falla, arr. Gil Evans and Miles Davis, orch. Miho Hazama (El amor brujo — Song of the Will-o'-the-Wisp); Rodrigo, arr. Gil Evans and Miles Davis, orch. Miho Hazama (En Aranjuez con tu amor — after the Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez); Gil Evans (Boplicity) Interval. Weill, arr. Gil Evans, orch. Miho Hazama (My Ship); Miles Davis/Gil Evans, orch. Miho Hazama (Miles Ahead); and Eddie Barclay (Once Upon a Summertime — La Valse des lilas) 10.00 Night Tracks 11.30 Round Midnight Music by Mark Guiliana, Julieta Eugenio, and WILLOW 12.30am Through the Night (r)

Radio 4

FM: 92.4-94.6 MHz 5.00am News Summary 5.04 Sideways (6/8) (r) 5.34 Shipping Forecast 5.43 Prayer for the Day 5.45 Farming Today 6.00 Today

9.00 Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics The work of mathematician and philosopher Hypatia (4/7) 9.30 The Guitar Story (3/4) 10.00 Woman's Hour 11.00 Choice This Cultural Life With Sebastian Faulks (1/18) 11.45 Book of the Week: The Fire in the Mountain — Sicily, Etna and her People By Helena Attlee (4/5) 12.04pm Scam Secrets (4/8) 12.32 Sliced Bread (8/8) 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Human Intelligence How Eugène-François Vidocq pioneered modern policing (4/10) 2.00 The Archers (r) 2.15 Drama: The Observer's Book By Amanda Dalton 3.00 Open Country Martha Kearney learns ancient skills in Dorset (1/7) 3.27 Radio 4 Appeal (r) 3.30 The Metaphor Consultant How people understand their existence (r) 4.00 The Briefing Room (8/9) 4.30 BBC Inside Science 5.00 PM 6.00 Six O'Clock News 6.30 Icklewick FM The team fundraise (4/6) (r) 7.00 The Archers Robert is pushed to the limit 7.15 Front Row 8.00 At Your Own Peril (5/5) (r) 8.15 The Media Show (r) 9.00 Loose Ends (r) 9.45 The Cows Are Mad Farmer Mark Purdy becomes convinced pesticides are the root of the problem (7/10) (r) 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: Mr Sidhu's Post Office By Amman Brar (4/10) 11.00 Radical

11.30 Poetry Please (4/4) (r) 12.00 News and Weather 12.30am Book of the Week: The Fire in the Mountain: Sicily, Etna and her People (r) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 As BBC World Service

Radio 4 Extra

Digital only 8.00am The Train at Platform 4 8.30 Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years 8.45 Agnes Grey 9.00 Icklewick FM 9.30 The Essay: British Film Comedians 9.45 Daily Service 10.00 Great Lives 10.30 Found in Translation 11.00 The Absent Guest 12.00 Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful 12.30pm The Burkiss Way 1.00 The Train at Platform 4 1.30 Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years 1.45 Agnes Grey 2.00 Dilemma 2.30 Snap 3.00 A Pair of Blue Eyes 4.00 Great Lives 4.30 Found in Translation 5.00 The Absent Guest 6.00 Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful 6.30 The Burkiss Way 7.00 The Train at Platform 4 7.30 Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years 7.45 Agnes Grey 8.00 Dilemma 8.30 Snap 9.00 A Pair of Blue Eyes 10.00 Comedy Club: Icklewick FM 10.30 A Look Back at the Nineties 11.00 Fresh from the Fringe 11.30 Sophie Willan's Guide to Normality 11.45 What's the Story, Ashley Storrie?

Radio 5 Live

MW: 692, 909 5.00am Wake Up to Money 6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Rima Ahmed 11.00 Gordon Smart 2.00pm Adam Fleming 4.00 '5 Drive 7.00 '5 Live Sport 8.00 Formula 1 9.00 The Euro Leagues Podcast 10.00 Qasa Alom 1.00am Joel Mitchell

talkSPORT

MW: 1053, 1089 kHz 5.00am Early Sports Breakfast 6.00 Breakfast with Alan Brazil 10.00 Jim White and Simon Jordan 1.00pm Hawksbee and Baker 4.00 talkSPORT Drive 7.00 Kick Off 10.00 The Sports Bar 1.00am Extra Time with Paul Ross

Talk

Digital only 6.00am Jeremy Kyle 10.00 Julia Hartley Brewer 1.00pm Ian Collins 4.00 Kevin O'Sullivan 7.00 Peter Cardwell 10.00 Andre Walker ft. Ash 1.00am Paul Ross

6 Music

Digital only 5.00am Chris Hawkins 7.00 Nick Grimshaw 10.00 Lauren Laverne 1.00pm Craig Charles 4.00 How Stephens 7.00 New Music Fix Daily 9.00 Riley & Coe 11.00 Artist in Residence: Shygirl 12.00 New Music Fix Playlist 1.00am New Album Fix 2.00 Jukebox 3.00 90s Forever 4.00 00s Forever

Virgin Radio

Digital only 6.30am The Chris Evans Breakfast Show 10.00 Emma B 2.00pm Ben Jones 6.00 Will MacDonald 10.00 Goldierocks 2.00am Steve Denyer

Classic FM

FM: 100-102 MHz 6.30am Tim Lhoreau 9.00 The Hall of Fame Hour 10.00 Aled Jones 1.00pm Anne-Marie Minhall 4.00 Margherita Taylor 7.00 Relaxing Evening with John Brunning 9.00 Composer Carousel 10.00 Calm Classics 1.00am Bill Overton 4.00 Early Breakfast

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12

television

PICKS OF THE DAY

Ludwig BBC1, 9pm

Two years on from its debut run, the beloved crime drama returns with the revamped set-up agreed in that series' finale: John (David Mitchell) is now a police consultant, and only Carol (Dorothy Atkinson) and Russell (Dipo Ola) know that the puzzle-setter impersonated his missing twin. His first case — a matriarch's murder in a box at the

theatre — soon signals an apparent policy of more stellar casting. Rebecca Front and Doon Mackichan are the victim's daughters, and both confess to killing her. Sian Clifford's Joanne, the local MP, witnessed the crime. And Mark Bonnar plays an editor whom Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) wheedles into letting her pose as a journalist. All of that makes sense, but swapping the first series' junior detectives for another pair, with no obvious gain, is, well, a bit of a puzzle. John Dugdale

David Mitchell in Ludwig

Lion National Geographic, 8pm/9pm

Jon Favreau directed The Lion King (2019) and has joined forces with Mike Gunton of the BBC's Natural History Unit for this cinematic four-part series that tells the story of the lion cub Kio. Filmed over four years in the Masai Mara nature reserve in Kenya, it follows Kio as he contends with loss, exile, fierce rivalries and a battle for survival. Adding to the epic feel is a soundtrack from Hans Zimmer,

who scored the original 1994 animated film as well as Favreau's live-action remake. Joe Clay

Dragons' Den BBC1, 8pm

After a five-month hiatus series 21 restarts with not one but two guest Dragons in the Den: the beauty moguls Susie Ma and Jenna Meek fill seats vacated by Sara Davies (already gone) and Touker Suleyman (off soon). With Deborah Meaden that means three

BBC1

• 6.00am Breakfast
• 9.30 Countryfile Treasures (r)
• 10.30 Garden Rescue (r)
• 11.15 Homes Under the Hammer (AD)
• 12.15pm Bargain Hunt (r) (AD)
• 1.00 BBC News at One; Weather
• 1.35 BBC Regional News; Weather
• 1.45 BBC News at One; Weather
• 2.00 Money for Nothing. Sarah Moore attempts to save a 100-year-old rug
• 2.45 Escape to the Country. Jules Hudson helps a couple from Kent to find a property in Cornwall for a wellness retreat (r)
• 3.30 The Repair Shop. The team restores a zoetrope — a groundbreaking form of Victorian entertainment and a precursor to moving film — along with a pair of dilapidated designer chairs (r) (AD)
• 4.30 The Answer Run. Jason Manford hosts
• 5.15 Pointless. Quiz show hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Noh Kumar (r)
• 6.00 BBC News at Six; Weather
• 6.30 BBC Regional News; Weather

BBC2

• 6.30am Escape to the Country (r)
• 7.15 Money for Nothing (r)
• 8.00 Sign Zone: Gardeners' World. The drought takes its toll (r) (AD, SL)
• 9.00 BBC News
• 1.00pm Richard Osman's House of Games. Nina Conti, Nick Helm, Athena Kugiblenu and Toby Tarrant take part (r)
• 1.30 The Finish Line. Game show (r)
• 2.15 Do You Know Your Place? Owain Wyn Evans, Greg Rutherford and Abby Cook 'visit' Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria (r)
• 2.45 Animal Park Summer. Two-year-old porcupine Spud goes missing (r) (AD)
• 3.30 Serengeti R. Old enemies cause trouble for the Sons and baboons (r) (AD)
• 4.30 Vintage Antiques Roadshow. Michael Aspel and the team visit Burton-on-Trent (r)
• 5.10 Flog It! Paul Martin presents from the Royal Marines Museum in Hampshire (r)
• 6.00 Richard Osman's House of Games. Double bill. Edith Bowman, Rhys James, Anita Rani and Simon Rimmer take part (r)

ITV1

• 6.00am Good Morning Britain
• 10.00 This Morning Daily magazine, featuring a mix of celebrity chat, showbusiness news and lifestyle features
• 1.00pm ITV News; Weather
• 1.30 Live ITV Racing: From York. Francesca Cumani and Ed Chamberlin present coverage of the second day of the Ebor Meeting, including feature race the Yorkshire Oaks. Analysis comes from Jason Weaver, Adele Muherean and Ruby Walsh, with reporting by Matt Chapman, Oli Bell and Mick Fitzgerald, and commentary from Richard Holles
• 4.30 Tipping Point: Best Ever Finals. Compilation of some of the show's most dramatic endgames (r)
• 5.00 The Chase. Bradley Walsh presents as contestants from Glasgow, Birmingham, West Yorkshire, and the Isle of Sheppey work as a team to take on one of the Chasers (r)
• 6.00 Regional News; Weather
• 6.30 ITV News; Weather

Channel 4

• 6.30am The King of Queens (r) (AD)
• 7.45 Everybody Loves Raymond (r) (AD)
• 9.10 Fraser (r) (AD)
• 11.10 Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA. A struggling restaurant in Brooklyn (r)
• 12.05pm Channel 4 News Summary
• 12.10 Find It, Fix It, Flog It. Fixing up a pinball machine from a damp shed (r) (AD)
• 1.10 The Great House Giveaway. A house bought at auction that has been condemned, not once but twice (r)
• 2.10 Countdown. With Debbie McGee
• 3.00 A Place in the Sun. A father and daughter seek a holiday home in Estepona on the Costa del Sol (r)
• 4.00 The Great B&B Challenge. The competition heats up as the contestants are challenged to host an event (r)
• 5.00 Château DIY. An old cow shed is converted into a sophisticated business suite at Château De Sauge (r) (AD)
• 6.00 American Pickers. An ultra-rare Ford Model-A tow truck is unearthed (r) (AD)

5

• 6.00am Milkshake!
• 9.15 Jeremy Vine
• 11.30 Storm & Alexis
• 12.45pm 5 News at Lunchtime
• 12.50 Matt Allwright
• 2.20 FILM: Sins in the Family (12, TVM, 2023) A suburban wife and mother's perfect life threatens to fall apart when a school counselor becomes uncomfortably close to her daughter. Thriller starring Monique Plante and Natalie Sharp
• 4.00 Castle. A call from a stranger ignites an explosive chain of events with the first of a two-part story told from Castle's perspective as he looks for Beckett (r)
• 4.55 Love Nature. Using willow trees to prevent rivers from overflowing (r)
• 5.00 5 News with Dan Walker
• 6.00 Corsica: Jewel of the Med. Cameras focus on the French island, which boasts 600 miles of stunning coastline, lush green forests and majestic mountains (r)
• 6.55 5 News Update

7.00 The One Show Presented by Roman Kemp and Clara Amfo

7.30 EastEnders Priya takes advice from an unlikely source, it is the day of Penny's shop opening, but things do not go to plan (AD)

8.00 Dragons' Den Evan Davis presents as entrepreneurs pitch water-saving powder-to-liquid hair care, traditional confectionery, handcrafted spice blends and a mission-led travel start-up. See picks of the day (AD)

9.00 Ludwig New series. John "Ludwig" Taylor gets new job as a crime scene consultant and a double confession sees him proving who did not commit a crime at a theatre. See picks of the day (1/6) (AD)

10.00 BBC News at Ten

10.30 BBC Regional News and Weather 10.40 The Truth About My Murder New series. The police investigation into a murder at Wentwood Forest, near Newport, in 1996 (1/6)

11.20 The Truth About My Murder How pathology helped police get to the truth after the body of a young woman was found in a suitcase next to the M4 motorway (2/6)

12.00 The Truth About My Murder Charting a woman's supposed death in a car crash on a mountain road in south Wales, and how evidence quickly built towards a different story of murder by the man who claimed he loved her 12.40am Alan Carr's Picture Slam (r) 1.30-6.00 BBC News

7.00 Today at the Test England v Pakistan. Highlights of the second day of the first Test in the three-match series, held at Headingley Cricket Ground in Leeds

8.00 The Big Deal with Steph McGovern Having said goodbye to one pair, the six remaining teams of aspiring art dealers are tasked with buying and selling works to meet the brief of two high-end homeowners (2/6) (AD)

9.00 A House Through Time David Olusoga examines the life of Victorian-era residents of the house on Calton Hill, including Thomas Mains, a maker of expensive shoes. See picks of the day (2/4)

10.00 Red Dwarf A mechanical life form named the Inquisitor's quest to eliminate worthless beings brings him aboard Red Dwarf (2/6) (r) 10.30 Newsnight Analysis of the day's events with Paddy O'Connell

11.05 Emergency 24/7 A look at the emergency department at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, revealing the everyday pressures and teamwork required to keep the department running (1/6) (r) (AD)

12.05am FILM: Tár (15, 2022) When accusations surface about conductor Lydia Tár and a graduate of her academy, every aspect of the tutor's life comes under scrutiny. Drama starring Cate Blanchett and Noémie Merlant (AD) 2.35-3.35 Sign Zone: The Mother of All Cons (r) (AD, SL)

7.30 Tom Kerridge Cooks Italy Tom explores Sicily's citrus heritage. Last in the series (AD)

8.00 Emmerdale Billy is furious, while Kev warns Caleb and Ruby that he will expose them if he faces prison (AD)

8.30 Coronation Street Richie asks Tim to back up his version of events and Will reveals his exam results (AD)

9.00 The Chase Around the World The teams land in the final city. Athens, where they must defeat all the Chasers in head-to-head battles across the region. Bradley Walsh hosts (6/6) (AD)

10.00 ITV News at Ten; Weather; followed by Regional News

10.45 FILM: Skyfall (12, 2012) James Bond pursues a criminal mastermind who has orchestrated a terrorist attack on M6 headquarters and exposed the identities of undercover agents around the world. The trail leads to a rogue former operative who has a personal vendetta against the intelligence organisation's leader M. Action thriller starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem (AD)

1.20am Shop on TV 3.00 Love & Death. Candy testifies that she feared for her life, despite Don's concerns about her mental clarity, while Pat tells Candy their lives will never be the same. Last in the series (r) (AD) 4.00 Unwind with ITV 5.05-6.00 Deal or No Deal: Celebrity Special (r) (AD, SL)

7.00 Channel 4 News

8.00 Renovation Rescue In South Wales, a fed-up family who have been living in a building site for 18 months decide to complete their renovation themselves (AD)

9.00 Love You to Death Lisa's world implodes as an unthinkable truth is revealed. Matthew's illnesses are not as they seem. Matthew comes to terms with a new reality (2/3) (AD)

10.00 Love You to Death Matthew confronts his past and meets the professionals who worked on his case, as he searches for the elusive truth. Last in the series (AD)

11.05 Outback Murder Highway Investigating the disappearance of Tony Jones in hopes of determining whether he was one of the victims of serial killer Andy Albury (3/4) (AD)

12.05am Outback Murder Highway (AD) 12.55 Crime Scene Chasers (r) (AD, SL) 1.50 Kitchen Nightmares USA (r) (SL) 2.40 The Schoolgirl Terrorist? (r) (AD, SL) 3.35 Dictator: The Hitler Interviews (r) (AD, SL) 4.30 Couples Come Dine with Me 5.25 A Place in the Sun 5.50-6.30 Countdown

7.00 Around the World in First Class Josie Gibson heads to Hong Kong, stays at the Rosewood Hotel, and heads out on a luxury yacht travelling around the region's many islands. Last in the series (r)

7.55 5 News Update

8.00 The Yorkshire Vet Matt Smith helps a cow who has suffered a massive prolapse after giving birth. Cameras also focus on a 12-year-old Boston Terrier, who has a very sore mouth

9.00 Benidorm Is Murder A former jackpot winner is found murdered, clutching a bingo pad marked with six numbers. As threats mount and rumours swirl about her missing fortune, Dennis and Rosa race to decipher the clues (4/6) (AD)

10.00 Killer at the Crime Scene The murder of Karla Godoy, who vanished after going on holiday to Peru. As detectives scrambled to uncover the truth, a shocking confession led to an international manhunt (r)

11.05 Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law In London, investigators hunt for a woman thought to own more than £2,300 in unpaid fares, and try to stop her at Chadwell Heath station to question her about "short faring" (r)

12.05am Street Cops: Catching the Yobs (r) 1.00 Cruise TV with LovettBookit (r) 2.00 GPs: Behind Closed Doors (r) 2.55 Castle (r) 3.40 Friends (r) 4.30 The Highland Vet (r) (SL) 5.30 Entertainment News on 5.5.40 Paw Patrol (r) (SL) 5.45-6.00 The Adventures of Paddington (r) (SL)

---

13

television

women, and the female majority does seem to contribute to a different mood, both towards the business hopefuls and among the fatcat quintet. Almost all of tonight's pitches — for start-ups flogging haircare products, sweets, spices and Gen Z travel — attract interest, and when two or more want to invest, they soon team up instead of sniping and fighting as of yore. Indeed, so amiable (or, if you prefer, defanged) are Peter Jones and co now, there's a four-Dragon deal. JD

A House Through Time

BBC2, 9pm

We're into the Victorian era and the house on Calton Hill in Edinburgh is revealing more of its secrets. The producers must have known they had struck gold when they realised its former inhabitants include a bagpipe maker, a photographer and Catherine Johnston, a notorious brothel keeper. There is also the story of Thomas Mains, a maker of expensive shoes whose customers won't pay. JC

STREAMING CHOICE

Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter

Prime Video

"He wants to be kind," his former trainer Andre Agassi insists, "but he can't win when his heart goes there." He's talking, of course, about the polarising Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic, the record-breaking player with the iron will who seems to thrive on pain and regards the wolf as his

spirit animal. In Jason Hehir's documentary there is an attempt to show the humanity of the man. What emerges instead is a sadness, of a player who is happy only when he's winning but knows that the age of defeat or retirement will soon be upon him. Andrew Male

FILM CHOICE

Heat (15, 1995) Film4, 9pm

This outstanding crime movie,

written and directed by Michael Mann, is a career high point for pretty much everyone involved, and serves as a useful reminder of why Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are two of our greatest living actors. De Niro plays the career criminal Neil McCauley, whose addiction to the thrill of the hell is interfering with his plans to retire. Pacino is the LAPD officer whose dedication to borders on an obsession that has all but destroyed his home life. To further complicate matters, De Niro falls in love. (IP0min) Wendy Ide

BBC4

7.00pm Villages by the Sea. Norfolk's Holkham Estate (4/10) 7.30 Canal Boat Diaries (2/4) 8.00 The Bridge: Fifty Years Across the Forth. Documentary celebrating the Forth Road Bridge (AD) 9.00 FILM: The French Connection (18, 1971) Two New York cops use unorthodox methods to break a drug ring smuggling heroin into the US from France. Fact-based crime thriller starring Gene Hackman (AD) 10.40 The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing 'The French Connection'. Critic Mark Kermode examines the making of classic thriller 11.35 FILM: The Graduate (12, 1967) Comedy drama starring Dustin Hoffman (AD) 1.15am Canal Boat Diaries 1.45 The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing 'The French Connection' 2.40am-3.10 Villages by the Sea (SL)

Sky Arts

6.00am Pavarotti in the Park 8.10 Artist of the Year. Masterclass (AD) 9.00 Tales of the Unexpected (AD) 10.00 Alfred Hitchcock Presents 11.00 Discovering. Jack Nicholson 12.00 The Art of Film with Ian Nathan (AD) 1.00pm Tales of the Unexpected (AD) 2.00 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour 3.00 The Nineties 4.00 Discovering. Jane Fonda 5.00 Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (AD) 6.00 Tales of the Unexpected (AD) 7.00 Voices of the Valleys 8.00 Discovering. Mel Gibson (AD) 9.00 Spymasters: The Great Spy Writers (AD) 10.00 Billy Idol Should Be Dead 12.20am The Directors 1.20 James Dean: The Emotional Man 2.40 Denzel Washington: American Icon 4.00 The Boonits by Anita Rani: Sisters of Disruption 5.00am-6.00 The Art of Film with Ian Nathan (AD)

More4

8.55am Find It, Fix It, Flog It (AD) 10.00 Four in a Bed 12.40pm Come Dive with Me (AD) 3.20 Four in a Bed 5.50 Car SOS (AD) 7.35 Grand Designs: Harry and Bristy's inaccessible decide to build a house heavily inspired by American modernist properties, after moving from London to Cornwall with their three young children (2/7) (AD) 9.00 24 Hours in A&E. Cameras follow a 26-year-old man's treatment after he is hit by a car while crossing the road on a night out (AD) 10.00 24 Hours in A&E. Cameras follow a 10-year-old who has severed his finger at school (AD) 11.05 999: On the Front Line. Paramedics tend to a young mum having a panic attack (4/10) 12.10am 999: On the Front Line 1.15 24 Hours in A&E (AD) 3.25am-3.55 A Place in the Sun

England bowler Ollie Robinson Live Test Cricket: England v Pakistan Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Cricket, 10.15am-7pm The second day of the first Test in the three-match series, held at Headingley Cricket Ground

Live Women's Cycling World Tour TNT Sports 1, 12.15pm-2.45 Stage two of the Tour of Britain, a 110.5km route that starts in Clitheroe and ends in Blackpool

Live MLB: Tampa Bay Rays v Toronto Blue Jays TNT Sports 1, 6pm-9.00 (Start-time 6.10). Coverage of the American League East match at Tropicana Field

Live EFL: Sheffield Wednesday v Bradford City Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Football, 7.30pm-10.30 (Kick-off 8.00). The League One match at Hillsborough

Live NFL: Houston Texans v Las Vegas Raiders Sky Sports Action, Sky Sports Mix, 12.45am-4.45 (Kick-off 1.00). At NRG Stadium

Talking Pictures

7.35am FILM: The Large Rope (PG, 1953) (b/w) 9.00 FILM: The Atomic Submarine (U, 1959) (b/w) 10.30 FILM: Scandal Sheet (PG, 1952) (b/w) 12.15pm The Bespoke Overcoat 12.55 Cinelox Memories 1.00 The Adventures of Sir Lancelot 1.35 By the Dome (N) Known 2.50 FILM: First Comes Courage (PG, 1943) (b/w) 4.35 FILM: Albert RN (PG, 1953) (b/w) 6.20 Strange But True 6.55 The Brothers 8.00 Mark Saber (b/w) 8.30 The Wheatspapers and Shunters Social Club 9.20 FILM: Assault (18, 1970) 11.10 FILM: Deux Hommes dans la Ville (1973) French crime drama 1.10am FILM: 1, The Jury (18, 1953) (b/w) 2.55 FILM: Castle Sinister (PG, 1948) Horror (b/w) 4.00-5.00am Burke's Law (b/w)

Film4

11.00am The Battle at Apache Pass (PG, 1952) Western with Jeff Chandler 12.40pm Ride Lonesome (12, 1959) Western starring Randolph Scott 2.20 Siege of the Saxons (U, 1963) Medieval adventure starring Ronald Lewis 4.15 Conquiza (PG, 1963) Historical epic starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton 9.00 Heat (15, 1995) A detective becomes obsessed with capturing a highly intelligent career criminal who is planning one last robbery before his retirement. Thriller starring Al Pacino. See film choice 12.20am Chopper (18, 2000) Fact-based drama charting the life of criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read, starring Eric Bana (AD) 2.15am-4.00 Were All Going to the World's Fair (15, 2021) Horror starring Anna Cobb

BBC3

7.00pm The Catch Up 7.05 Deadly 60 7.30 Deadly 60. Steve Backshall visits New Zealand 8.00 Sont Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon. Stacey helps the Buffon family from Surrey declutter their home (1/6) (AD) 9.00 Better Date than Never. Kento heads out on a second date with someone new (4/7) (AD) 9.30 Better Date than Never. Asher goes on her first date (5/7) (AD) 10.00 He Had It Coming 10.25 He Had It Coming 10.50 He Had It Coming 11.15 He Had It Coming 11.40 He Had It Coming 12.05am He Had It Coming 1.15 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (AD) 2.40 Better Date than Never (AD, SL) 3.40am-3.55 Calamity James (r)

ITV2

6.00am Backyard Builds (SL) 6.30 Dress to Impress (AD, SL) 7.30 The Real Housewives of Potomac 8.20 The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 9.15 The Only Way Is Essex 10.15 Dawson's Creek 11.10 Charmed 12.10pm Deal or No Deal (AD) 1.10 Supermarket Sweep 2.10 The Floor (AD) 3.10 The Only Way Is Essex 4.10 The Real Housewives of Potomac 5.00 The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 6.00 Celebrity Catchphrase (AD) 7.00 The Floor (AD) 8.00 The 1% Club Kids Special (AD) 9.00 Romshell Ranganathan's Parents' Evening 10.00 Changing Ends (AD) 10.35 Family Guy (AD) 11.35 American Dad! (AD) 12.35am Bobs Banger (AD) 1.30-2.20 Deal or No Deal (AD, SL)

ITV3

6.00am George and Mildred 7.05 Classic Emmerdale (AD) 8.05 Classic Coronation Street (AD) 9.10 Agatha Christie's Poirot (AD) 11.30 Heartbeat (AD) 1.35pm Midcomer Murders (AD) 3.35 Classic Emmerdale (AD) 4.40 Classic Coronation Street (AD) 5.50 Heartbeat: Double fall (AD) 8.00 Vera. The detective investigates Newcastle's drug underworld (2/4) (AD) 10.00 Midcomer Murders. A series of mutilated corpses turn up in the middle of crop circles (AD) 11.55 Trial & Retribution. Part one of two. The body of a teenage girl is discovered (9/10) 12.55am Trial & Retribution. Part two of two. The trial takes a dramatic turn (10/10) 1.55am-2.20 George and Mildred

TV4

6.00am Magnum, PI (AD) 8.05 Robin of Sherwood 9.10 Boon 10.15 The Professionals (AD) 11.30 Robin of Sherwood 12.30pm Magnum, PI (AD) 2.35 The Casebook of Shetlock Holmes (AD) 3.45 Boon 4.50 The Professionals (AD) 5.50 Sharpe. Major Brand dupes Sharpe 8.00 Cycling Women's Tour of Britain Highlights. Action from stage two, a 110.5km route 9.00 Benidorm. The Garveys attempt to win a pub quiz (AD) 9.30 Benidorm. Mick falls victim to a con at the beach (AD) 10.00 Benidorm (AD) 10.30 Benidorm (AD) 11.00 Black Sails. Miranda tries to save the island 12.05am Hell's Kitchen 1.00 The Professionals. OS goes on trial (AD, SL) 2.00am-3.00 Minder (AD, SL)

ITV4

UKDrama

6.00am Teleshopping 7.20 The Bill 8.10 Doctors 9.25 Classic Holly City 10.40 Casualty (AD) 11.40 The Bill 12.40pm Classic EastEnders 2.00 Classic Neighbours 3.00 Whistable Pearl (AD) 4.05 Lovejoy 5.20 As Time Goes By 6.00 Last of the Summer Wine 8.00 The Marlow Murder Club. Judith, Becks and Suzie cannot find anyone with a motive to hurt the Mayor (2/6) (AD) 9.00 Father Brown (AD) 10.00 New Tricks. The team reinvestigates the 15-year-old murder of a boxer (9/10) (AD) 11.20 Luther. The detective works outside the law to track down vigilante killer Maverald (4/4) (AD) 12.40am Lovejoy 1.50 Sister Boniface Mysteries (AD) 2.50-4.00am The Chelsea Detective (SL)

Variations

BBC1 It Ireland 11.40pm The Come I Can't Forget (r) 11.30 The Truth About My Murder 12.10am The Truth About My Murder 12.50am-1.30 The Truth About My Murder

BBC1 Scotland 7.00pm-7.30 River City (r)

BBC1 Wales 12.40am Buried with Michael Sheen (r) 1.40am-6.00 BBC News

STV 1.30pm-4.29 Live STV Racing: From York. Action from the meeting

BBC Scotland 7.00pm News at Seven 7.30 Bendingview Garden 8.00 World Pipe Band Championships 9.00 Martin Compston's Scottish Fling (r)

10.00 Scot Squad (r) 10.30 Edinburgh Inlocked 11.00pm-12.00 Jim Smith Live from Perth (r)

S4C 6.00am Cyw 12.00 News; Weather 12.05pm Cais Quinnell (r) 12.30 Henry (r) 1.00 Codi Hwyl (r) 1.30 Spwrs Dan y Llor (r) 2.00 News; Weather 2.05 Pynhawn Da 3.00 News; Weather 3.05 Am Dror (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr: Caban Banana Gamble (r) 4.05 Chwedlao: Tinga Tinga (r) 4.20 Help Llaw (r) 4.35 Mojo Swoptops (r) 4.50 Amsbendod (r) 5.00 Stewish: Byd Perish Dai Pothin (r) 5.15 Larfa (r) 5.20 Dyffryn Mwin (r) 5.45 Caddo (r) 6.00 Cynefin (r) 7.00 News 7.30 News; Weather 8.00 Pongl 8.25 Oshal y Bang: Delilyn Bowen Rhys (r) 8.55 News; Weather 9.00 Sioe Sir Benfro 2026 10.00 Taclo Y Ty (r) 10.30-11.35pm Yr Afon (r)

PBS America

8.00am World of Stonehenge 9.20 The Last Days of Anne Boleyn 10.40 Pocahontas: Beyond the Myth 11.50 The Truth About Franco: Spain's Forgotten Dictatorship 1.00pm World of Stonehenge 2.20 The Last Days of Anne Boleyn 3.40 Pocahontas: Beyond the Myth 4.50 The Truth About Franco: Spain's Forgotten Dictatorship 6.00 World of Stonehenge 7.10 The Last Days of Anne Boleyn. The events surrounding the execution of Henry VIII's second wife 8.35 Pocahontas: Beyond the Myth The Native American princess 9.35 The Truth About Franco: Spain's Forgotten Dictatorship 10.40 The Last Days of Anne Boleyn. Documentary 12.00 Pocahontas: Beyond the Myth 1.05am-2.00 Weathered: Earth's Extremes. Documentary

Sky Atlantic

6.00am Fish Town (r) 8.00 Billions (r) (AD) 10.15 House of the Dragon (r) (AD) 12.40pm Homicide: Life on the Street (r) 2.30 Billions (r) (AD) 4.30 Django (r) (AD) 6.30 House of the Dragon (r) (AD) 7.45 House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra summons a trusted knight for a risky venture (r) (AD) 9.00 Possession: Claudia must embrace both her British and Jamaican heritages to defeat Chastelins spirit and face the truth about Hope Hill (5/5) (AD) 10.00 FILM: Promising Young Woman (15, 2020) A medical-school dropout traumatised by a tragic event seeks vengeance against those who crossed her path. Thriller starring Carey Mulligan (AD) 12.05am All Her Fault (r) (AD) 1.05 House of the Dragon (r) (AD) 2.15-4.20am Billions (r) (AD)

Sky Docs

7.00am Discovering: Samuel L Jackson (r) (AD) 8.00 The Directors (r) 8.55 Stax: Soulsville USA (r) (AD) 10.05 The Story of Late Night (r) 10.55 Celtics City (r) (AD) 12.00 I Am Heath Ledger (r) (AD) 1.50pm My Icon: Michael Hickling (r) (AD) 2.00 Bardot (r) 4.00 The Directors (r) 5.00 Discovering: Samuel L Jackson (r) (AD) 6.00 FILM: The Alpinist (12, 2021) Documentary about climber Marc-Andre Lazzaro (AD) 7.50 My Icon: Anthony Joshua. Sporting inspirations (r) (AD) 8.00 The United Way (r) (AD) 9.50 My Icon: Chris Hughton. Sporting inspirations (r) (AD) 10.00 Terry Venables: A Man Can Dream (r) (AD) 12.00 The Alabama Solution (r) 2.10am-5.00 Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurfing Predator (r) (AD)

UK Yesterday

6.10am Abandoned Engineering (AD) 8.00 Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics (AD) 10.00 Secret Nazi Bases 11.00 The World at War 12.00 Antiques Roadshow 2.00pm Bangers & Cash (AD) 4.00 Secret Nazi Bases 5.00 The World at War. The attack on Pearl Harbor 6.00 Antiques Roadshow 7.00 The Blue Planet (AD) 8.00 Bangers & Cash. Derek picks up three classics, including a sought-after BMW 2022, from a grand aristocratic estate (AD) 9.00 Dream Car Fanny. New series. Sheldon and Will are hoping a 1969 Ford Corsair will be a dream car for retired postal worker Chris (AD) 10.00 Bangers & Cash (AD) 12.00 Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics (AD) 1.00am Find It, Fix It, Flog It 2.00 Abandoned Engineering (AD) 3.00am-6.10 Teleshopping

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14

MindGames

Tetonor Tricky No 702

96	18	20	84
81	66	28	72
17	15	26	27
22	25	16	36

2	3	4	6	9	9	18	21

When complete, the strip below the grid can be split into eight pairs of numbers. Adding the numbers in a pair gives one of the 16 numbers in the grid. Multiplying them gives a different number in the grid. For example, a 4 and 6 in the strip could be paired to make 10 (4+6) and 24 (4+6) in the grid. Enter each sum below the corresponding number in the grid. The blanks in the strip must be deduced, bearing in mind the numbers are listed in ascending order.

The next Tetonor puzzle will appear on Tuesday

For more puzzles, including Mini Sudoku, extra Codeword, Train Tracks and Futoshiki go to page 10

Winning Move

White to play. This position is from Sivakumar-Tang, Belgrade 2026.

There are (massive oversimplification coming up...) two types of chess thinking: strategy and tactics. Strategic play concerns planning, manoeuvring, piece exchanges, pawn structures etc. Tactical play is the hand-to-hand fighting. Here, with both kings exposed, strategic play goes out the window and tactics rule: How did White finish?

Codeword No 5924

6	2	3	1	1	5	7	4	7	7	4	14
8		20		3		25	3		23		2
4	23	20	6	23	10	19	17	19	6	10	4
3		19		22		12	2		9		11
6	23	8	4	1		19	15	20	6	3	18
2				7		7			19		5
	4	10	10	19	8		23	26	3	8	19
23		13				20	13				6
21	3	1	21	13	18	19	7	23	8	6	2
21		8		18		21	7		3		19
13	24	4	8	5		20	12	13	18	7	19
17		3		7		5	4		18		21
11	19	21	20	7	19		19	11	26	5	22

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26

Every letter in this crossword-style grid is represented by a number from 1 to 26. Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters already provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main grid and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded. Yesterday's solution, right

Chadines Stuck on Codeword? To receive 4 random clues call 0901 293 6262 or text 7846 CODE to 64343. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company's network access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. For the full solution call 0905 757 0142. If you have an old newspaper and need clues from the past 7 days, call 0905 624 0024. Calls to 0905 cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company's network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5:30pm).

Lexica Easy No 9065 Hard No 9066

G	E	M	H	U	R	●	N	●	C	U	S	T
●							D
●							E
D							Y
●							L
H							E
P							N
X							Y
	P	U	R	O	W	E

Slide the letters either horizontally or vertically back into the grid to produce a completed crossword. Letters are allowed to slide over other letters.

Train Tracks No 2949

Quintagram® No 2951

Solve all five cryptic clues using each letter underneath once only

1 Female animal circling Victor's bird (4)

2 Proprietor unwrapped spirits (4)

3 Caught gansh silver-lined feature up above? (5)

4 Duck almost slipped over around flowers (9)

5 Writer's weapons initially lost value (10)

A	C	D	D	D	D	D	E
F	F	H	H	I	L	L	O
O	O	O	O	O	R	R	S
S	S	T	T	U	V	W	W

Challenge your mind with these fiendish word and number puzzles

timesbookshop.co.uk

Try Wordhunt and Picle, our new online Quick Play puzzles at thetimes.com/puzzles and on the Live app

KenKen Difficult No 6916

18×			2½	2-	2½
15+
1-	10+		2½
	16×	9+	6
1-			5½
1-		60×

All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In each thick-line "block", the target number in the top left-hand corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block, using the operation indicated by the symbol.

Futoshiki No 5464

Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between the squares indicate whether a number is larger (+) or smaller (-) than the number next to it.

Kakuro No 4423

18	12	11		28	16		11	23
6				8			13
35				7			4		24
15		16	4				15
		23	16			25
	1			14		31
5		16					9
24		29					15
21				20
				3			7
	10			3			6
	17			11			24

© PUZLSI MEDIA

Fill the grid using the numbers 1 to 9 only. The numbers in each horizontal or vertical run of white squares add up to the total in the triangle to its left or above it. The same number may occur more than once in a row or column, but not within the same run of white squares.

---

15

MindGames

times2 Crossword No 10,240

Across

1 (Of a task) requiring patience and dexterity (6) 4 Overpriced item (3-3) 9 Mass of pebbles on a shore (7) 10 Eddy (5) 11 Group of 12 (5) 13 Digressive train of thought (7) 14 Yell, scream (3)

Solution to Crossword 10,239

Need help with today's puzzle? Call 0905 757 0143 to check the answers. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company's network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm).

Bridge Andrew Robson

"It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward." Vladimir Lenin.

On that note, here's a striking grand slam from a friendly duplicate among experts at Chalet Campily. Plan the play in 7N7 on ▲9 lead to the ▲7 and ▲A (decking never seems to work in a grand slam).

One look at dummy and you rue your greed in that 7★ is a vastly superior grand slam. On a non-heart lead, you can ruff out the clubs and establish the suit (provided they split 3-2). As you see, they don't and 7★ failed at another table when declarer drew trumps and played on clubs.

Our declarer could do no better than run all his diamonds. He had 12 top tricks and had to hope a 13th would emerge. Here is the ending as the last diamond is led.

The key question is, "What do you discard from dummy?"

Say you throw a club. No good — East discards his king of hearts and all you can do is cross to dummy's winners (East discarding the king of spades on the ace of hearts) and give up the third club. To succeed, you must discard

15 Subterranean molten rock (5) 16 Part of the mouth (3) 17 Most sizeable (7) 19 Receded like the tide (5) 21 Round felt cap (5) 22 Official stoppage of trade (7) 24 Detecting device (6) 25 Record player needle (6)

Down

1 Joined through melting (5) 2 Raining lightly (7) 3 Ear (3) 5 Suggestively imply (9) 6 Shelved, suspended (2,3) 7 Pen with a soft ash (4,3) 8 Gathering of friends (3-8) 12 Second-in-command (6,3) 14 Silky-furred monkey (7) 16 Asquith or Gladstone, eg (7) 18 TV show broadcast again (5) 20 Abject rubbish (5) 23 Rounders implement (3)

(1) Solid suit, setting trumps. (2) Control bid. (3) Roman Key Card Blackwood (his diamonds as trumps). (4) Two aces (the king of diamonds would have counted), no queen of diamonds. (5) Duplicate Paris, so keen for the extra points.

Contract: 7N7, Opening Load: ▲9

one of your 12 top tricks on that last diamond, the ace of hearts (key play). East is now caught in a triple (progressive) squeeze. Say he discards the king of hearts (hoping his partner holds the queen). You now cash the promoted queen of hearts and East is squeezed on the black suits. Grand slam made.

The only way to increase your 12 winners to 13 is to temporarily reduce your winners from 12 to 11. andrew.reborn@telimes.co.uk

Brain Trainer

Polygon

From these letters, make words of four or more letters, always including the central letter. Answers must be in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LV, comparatives and superlatives. How you rate 15 words, average: 20, good; 24, very good; 29, excellent

Yesterday's answers

core, cost, cite, citrus, citrusy, city, cruise, cuire, cutie, cutis, elus, icterus, ictus, resit, rice, rictus, rise, rite, rustic, security, sice, sire, site, steric, stir, suit, suite, tier, tire, trice, yeti

Cell Blocks No 5807

Divide the grid into square or rectangular blocks, each containing one digit only. Every block must contain the number of cells indicated by the digit inside it.

Set Square No 4426

Enter each of the numbers from 1 to 9 in the grid, so that the six sums work. We've placed two numbers to get you started. Each sum should be calculated left to right or top to bottom.

Please note, BODMAS does not apply

Killer Gentle No 10,886

Killer Tough No 10,887

As with standard Sudoku, fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted lines, a digit cannot be repeated.

Clockless Stuck on Sudoku, Killer or KenKen? Call 0901 293 6263 before midnight to receive four clues for any of today's puzzles. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company's network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm).

Solutions

Quick Crypto: 3384

Sudoku 17037

Sudoku 17038

Sudoku 17039

Killer 10,884

Killer 10,885

Codeword 9923

Sudoku 17037

Cell Blocks 5806

Futschiki 5463

Codeword 9923

Cell Blocks 5806

Cell Blocks 5806

KenKen 6915

Kakuro 4422

Train Tracks 2948

Lexica 9063

Lexica 9064

Today's solutions

Concise

Quintagram 1 Judic 2 Joint 3 Moore 4 Trotify 5 Food chain

Crypto

Quintagram 1 Dove 2 Host 3 Cloud 4 Daffodih 5 Woodworth

Sakuro 4825

3 6 1 4 7 4 5 5 2

Brain

Trainer Easy 31 Mehano (440) Harder 44

Word watch

Pongbologous (c)

Pertaining to a type of

scams (Calibra)

Aonib (c) The element

mercury (Cyanbore)

Calcitrate (b) To kick (OED)

Chess — Winning Move

1 Rift+ decisively exposes the black king. After 1...gaff.

When quickly passes as for the kill: 1 Qiff+ Rift+ 1 Qiff+

Rift+ 1 Qiff+ Rift+ 1 Qiff+ Kp5 4 Qw5+ Kh6 5 Ql6 mate

Quiz

1 Sigourney Weaver 2 Westminster Abbey. They are Troth, Justice, Mercy and Peace 3 Julie Andrews 4 Atlantic and Pacific oceans 5 Austria 6 Leonardo da Vinci 7 Hotel du Lac 8 Red Sea 9 Cornwall 10 Redcar 11 St Thomas 12 Human 13 Ulugh Beg 14 Shaggy 15 Brideshead Revisited

---

THE TIMES

20.08.26

MindGames

For extra puzzles See page 10

Word watch

David Parfitt

Pompholygous

• a Grandly self-righteous
• b Of the centre of the Earth
• c Pertaining to a type of eczema

Azoth

a Angular distance from north

b A complete list of places

c The element mercury

Calcitrate

a To draw or write with chalk

b To kick

c To scheme or plot

Answers on page 15

Sudoku Mild No 17040

Fiendish No 17041

Super fiendish No 17042

2
	4			2	5		8
		8	3		4
5	9		1			8	6
		7					3
1		3			9	5
	8		5	3		6
		2			6		1
			2		1		7

					5
		3		7		8
			8				9
	9			5		7	4
		1		9	2
	5		8	7		3
2						9
	1		6		9	7	4
		6	5

					4
			2	9
8	4	7
	7				9		8
	1		6			2
9				5		7
	6					1
1		5		3	7	8
	8		4			5

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9.

The Times Daily Quiz Olav Bjartomt

1 TV personality Scarlett Moffatt was given the middle name Sigourney in honour of which US actress?

2 Four statues of the Virtues flank the Great West Door of which London abbey?

3 Which Mary Poppins star wrote the Little Bo children's book series?

4 Chocó is the only department of Colombia with coastline on which two oceans?

5 Started in 1703, the Wiener Zeitung is which country's oldest newspaper?

6 Which Italian artist's 15th-century sketch La Pretoria was the

inspiration behind a 2012 Gherardini handbag?

7 Which Booker prize-winning novel by Anita Brookner is named after a Swiss hotel?

8 A 1632-34 painting by Nicolas Poussin is titled The Crossing of ...

which sea inlet of the Indian Ocean?

9 In 1774, tin-workers discovered the Trewhiddle Hoard in which county?

10 Often referred to as a "vertical pier", the Beacon is an 80ft structure on the

seafront of which Teesside town?

11 Which calypso-inspired 1956 jazz tune by Sonny Rollins is named after a US Virgin Island?

12 Changsha is the capital of which landlocked province in southern China?

13 Which grandson of the conqueror Timur published the Ziji-Sultani star catalogue around 1437?

14 England rugby centre Will Greenwood was nicknamed after which Scooby-Doo character?

15 The 1981 ITV adaptation of which novel is pictured? Answers on page 15

Sakuro No 4825

For interactive puzzles visit thetimes.com

The Times Quick Cryptic No 3385 by Tango

Across

1 True agenda disguised for sure (10) 7 Crucial reduction in sale periodically (5) 8 Throw back tailless crustacean (7) 10 Lots irate about philosopher (9) 12 Love skipping part of speech in prayer? (3) 13 Dislike some Pakistani musicals (6) 15 Old tax company returns book (6) 16 Man, not using heroin is better (3) 17 Give up, more or less, in casual game (9) 20 Free rent again? (7) 22 Judge city on the Mosel (5) 23 Flapper and married lad messed around (3,7)

Down

1 Architect in grand car (5) 2 Use thread to repair a reversing vehicle, astonished (9) 3 Share of vote having spent billions (5) 4 Label creature that flies to the north (3) 5 Country is at one for a change (7) 6 Adam put up Georgia and Mark in island nation (10) 9 Call East German A&R representative's top drummer (5,5) 11 Charming man's church article included in register (9) 14 Desire mixture of muesli and porridge at first (7) 18 Endlessly yells for dairy product (5) 19 Tories barely left Oxford college (5) 21 I'm surprised husband visits Alcoholics Anonymous (3)

Yesterday's solution on page 15

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