The women Harry Styles Can Rich Pelley

match his look on a budget?

who juggle  G2

comedy
Tuesday
14 March 2023
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From £2.03 for subscribers

gigs with
childcare
 G2

BBC bosses Michelle Yeoh

with the Oscar
for best actress
for her role

face pressure
in Everything
Everywhere All
at Once. The
film won six
other awards,

after U-turn
including best
picture. Full
story, pages 8-9

over Lineker
Calls for chairman Sharp
to quit grow as criticism
of ‘capitulation’ mounts
Mark Sweney
Pippa Crerar
The BBC’s leadership was under
renewed pressure yesterday after the
U-turn to bring Gary Lineker back to
Match of the Day by cancelling his
suspension without requiring him
to make any significant concessions.
Three days after the presenter was
taken off air for criticising the language
used by ministers when discussing
the government’s asylum policy,
Tim Davie, the director general of
the BBC, announced an independent
review of the corporation’s social
media guidelines.
Davie, who apologised to BBC
audiences for the turmoil and
disruption as other presenters,
pundits and commentators refused
to work in “solidarity” with Lineker,
said in an interview that the former
England football captain had prom-
ised to comply with the guidelines
while the review was carried out.
In turn, Lineker praised Davie and
welcomed the review but point-
edly added: “However difficult the
last few days have been, it simply
doesn’t compare to having to flee
your home from persecution or war
to seek refuge in a land far away …
“We remain a country of predom-
inantly tolerant, welcoming and
generous people. Thank you.”
Craig Oliver, the former BBC news
executive and communications chief
under David Cameron, described
the reinstatement of Lineker as a
“capitulation” by the corporation.
“I think what’s happened here is
Gary Lineker 1 – BBC credibility 0,”
he said. “The reality is the BBC today
has announced it will have a review
of its social media guidelines. In fact,
it needs a review of how it handles
crises like these.”
The corporation was embroiled in
yet another reputational crisis yes-
terday when the BBC Question Time
presenter Fiona Bruce said she would
step back from her role as an ambas-
sador for the charity Refuge.
Bruce stood down after claims
that she had trivialised
4 
domestic violence during
PHOTOGRAPH: ANTHONY HARVEY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Drought warning as UK
set for dry spell till May
Helena Horton
Environment reporter
UK river levels at record lows after
last year’s drought are likely to be
“devastated” by another spell of dry
weather forecast to last until at least
May, campaigners have warned.
•
The government and water com-
panies have not done enough to
conserve water supplies by building
reservoirs and fixing leaks, according
to campaigners, who fear some areas
could run out of water.
The monthly outlook from the UK
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
says extended dry conditions are
likely and that rivers are already
suffering. The report states: “River
flows in February closely followed
the rainfall pattern received, with
normal to exceptionally low flows
across the UK, with the exception of
parts of the Scottish Highlands.
Record-breaking low flows were
recorded in the Trent, Warleggan
and Annacloy, with exceptionally
low flows seen across large parts of
central and south-western England.
River flows for March, April and May
are likely to remain normal to below
normal, with a high chance of excep-
tionally low flows in places.”
Groundwater is also an important
measure of drought status as it is ‘A guiding light
often abstracted for farming and
and inspiration’
other purposes. The report predicts:
“Groundwater levels are likely to be
normal to below normal across most Phyllida Barlow, sculptor
of England and Wales for the next and ‘visionary’, dies at 78
three months, and likely notably
low in parts of the chalk of southern News Page 17 
England and the Jurassic limestones.”
It also reveals that Severn Trent,
Thames and Anglian regions are
those likely to suffer most from low
river flows and groundwater levels.
The UK is still recov-
7 
ering from last year’s
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

Inside 14/03/23 News

Four sections
every day

Banking shares fall sharply after

News and Sport
Submarine diplomacy
British design to be used
for nuclear-powered
collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
vessels in Aukus deal
Page 12
Richard Partington
Kalyeena Makortoff
Journal Outside G2 Edward Helmore
Opinions and ideas Global financial markets came under
severe pressure yesterday in the wake
 The Tory party could of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
despite governments on both sides
raise billions in the budget – of the Atlantic taking extraordinary
if only it had the guts measures to maintain confidence in
Polly Toynbee the banking system.
Page 1 On a day conjuring up memories of
the 2008 financial crisis, the US pres-
ident, Joe Biden, sought to restore
G2 Centre pullout calm by insisting the US banking
system remained safe, while HSBC
Features and arts stepped in to buy the UK arm of the
failed technology lender after a deal
Our other mothers brokered by the British government
Three writers celebrate the and the Bank of England.
“Americans can have confidence
women who have loved, that the banking system is safe,”
nurtured and inspired them Biden said in a statement from the
Page 4 White House. “Your deposits are safe
system. Government bond prices
soared as investors rushed for safe-
haven assets, while economists
suggested the febrile conditions
in global markets could force the
world’s most powerful central banks
to stop raising interest rates.
Shares in regional US lenders were
thrown into a tailspin, led by a more
than 60% collapse in the value of the
California-based First Republic Bank,
and similar double-digit declines for
lenders including Western Alliance
Bancorp and PacWest Bancorp amid
frenzied speculation over contagion.
The KBW banks index, which
includes the biggest American banks,
fell by more than 10%, even as the
US benchmark S&P 500 index and
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose
by about 0.5%.
In London, shares in the UK’s big-
gest banks tumbled, with Barclays
and Standard Chartered dropping by
more than 6%. Markets across Europe
aiming to save thousands of British
tech startups and investors from
stinging losses after the biggest bank
failure since 2008.
The takeover will override the
Bank of England’s initial decision to
place SVB UK into insolvency, after a
run on the lender that was originally
sparked by fears over a multibillion-
pound shortfall on the US parent
company’s balance sheet.
SVB had invested heavily in US
government bonds, but the recent
hikes in interest rates have seen their
value fall; at the same time, the bank
faced rising demands to return cash
to depositors as the tech sector came
under pressure.
In a crisis threatening to over-
shadow the UK government’s budget
tomorrow, Rishi Sunak sought to offer
reassurance that Britain’s financial
system remains sound despite the
escalating risks. Speaking from San
Diego on a trip to hold talks with the
US president over a major defence
deal, he said that UK banks “don’t
have any concerns about systemic
risk” in the country’s financial
system.
Sunak said SVB UK’s customer
base of tech startups and fast-grow-
ing companies were important for the
British economy. He added: “They
make me look forward to the future
with confidence now, having access
to the resources by HSBC to help grow
their businesses and continue to pro-
vide jobs across the UK. So it’s been a
good outcome.”
However, analysts warned that
further steps could be required to
shore up fragile confidence in the
banking system, despite a backstop
plan launched on Sunday night by
the US Federal Reserve to give gov-
ernment backing to US depositors’
money.
Bill Ackman, a Wall Street hedge
fund investor, praised the steps taken
to restore confidence, although he
warned that more banks would still
probably fail, tweeting: “Had [US
regulators] not intervened today,
we would have had a 1930s bank run
continuing first thing Monday caus-
ing enormous economic damage and
hardship to millions.

-2.5%
… we will not stop at this, we will do sold off sharply, as the FTSE 100 tum- “More banks will likely fail despite
whatever is needed.” bled by 2.5% in the biggest one-day the intervention, but we now have a
Save up to 27% However, shares in US and Euro- fall since last summer. clear roadmap for how the govern-
with a subscription pean banks sold-off sharply amid a It comes as the UK government Drop in the value of the FTSE 100 ment will manage them.”
crisis of confidence in global mar- rushed to strike a last-minute deal yesterday as it suffered the biggest
to the Guardian kets over the health of the financial for HSBC to buy SVB’s UK operations, one-day fall since last summer Interest rates warning Page 27 
and the Observer
Visit theguardian.  A lifeboat at

com/paper-subs
Braverman Dungeness. Ali
said the home

Weather should step secretary’s

policies blocking
refugees who
Page 30 down, says were people of
colour appeared
Quick crossword
Back of G2
Nimco Ali to be ‘racist’
PHOTOGRAPH: BEN
STANSALL/AFP/GETTY

Cartoon Rajeev Syal

Journal, page 4 Home affairs editor

Cryptic crossword Suella Braverman should step down

Back of Journal
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for putting forward “cruel and heart-
less” immigration policies which
discriminate against refugees who
are people of colour, a former Home
Office adviser has said.
Nimco Ali, a former Conservative
campaigner who left her job as an
adviser on violence against women
in December, told the Guardian that
the home secretary was “the wrong
person not just for the Conservative
party but for the country”.
A child refugee from Somaliland,
Ali said the government’s failure to
extend routes that are open to Ukrain-
ians to other refugees appeared to be
“racist” and “painful”.
Her words came as the government
was braced for opposition from MPs
across the house as it attempted to
push the illegal migration bill through
parliament yesterday.
In a damning intervention, the
former prime minister Theresa May
criticised Braverman’s plan, warn-
ing that “anybody who thinks this
bill will deal with the issue of illegal
migration once and for all is wrong”.
The bill says refugees who arrive in
the UK without prior permission will
be detained for 28 days, and asylum
claims will be deemed inadmissible
whatever the individual’s circum-
stances. They will be removed either
to their own country or a “safe third
country” such as Rwanda.
Ali, who came to the UK 32 years
ago with her family, said they would
have been criminalised if they had
arrived today under the planned
legislation. “The bill that Suella
Braverman has put forward means
that anyone like me who escapes
from war and comes to the UK to
claim asylum is a criminal.”
Ali said the plans to send people
to Rwanda had posed difficult ques-
tions for her while she was a Home
Office adviser, but “at least there was
due process.
“As a former refugee of colour,
if we can provide generous help to
Ukrainians escaping war then I think
we need to look at ensuring that we
also provide routes to anyone escap-
ing conflicts,” she said. “If we can find
room for a white child but not a black
child who are coming here in similar
circumstances, it is racist. It is really
painful if we believe that people can
seek refuge if they come from Europe
but not elsewhere.
“If we can provide safe and legal
routes for Ukrainians, we should do
it for other people as well.”
Ali said Rishi Sunak would not
win the next election with Braver-
man as his home secretary. “He is
in danger of losing younger people,
floating voters and undecided mil-
lennials. Suella Braverman wants the
government to look tough but it will
instead make us look cruel and heart-
less, which I don’t think the PM is.
“I have a problem with her lan-
guage. I believe that blaming ‘lefty
lawyers’ when they are challenging
the law is dangerous. When she spoke
about her dream of seeing a plane
take off to Rwanda, it lacked com-
passion and understanding.”
A number of Conservative back-
benchers have indicated that they
will vote against the bill as it stands,
including the chair of the equali-
ties committee, Caroline Nokes,
the former justice secretary Robert
Buckland, and the former minister
Stephen Hammond.
The Tory MP Chris Skidmore had
said he would not vote for the ille-
gal migration bill when it went to
the Commons for its second reading
yesterday, tweeting he was “not pre-
pared to break international law or the
human rights conventions that the
UK has had a proud history of playing
a leading role in establishing”.
Braverman’s office was asked to
respond to Ali’s comments.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Farewell
to the 90s:
alcopops
and CDs
out of UK
‘shopping
basket’
Larry Elliott
Economics editor
Two of the iconic items of the 1990s
– alcopops and CDs – will no longer
count towards the monthly update of
Britain’s cost of living following the
latest shake-up of the shopping bas-
ket used to measure price changes.
Providing evidence it is no longer
fashionable to order a fruit drink
laced with booze in a pub and that the
age of the compact disc is over, the
Office for National Statistics said both
items had fallen foul of its annual
audit of the UK’s spending habits.
Non-chart CDs and alcopops –
along with digital compact cameras
– were the highest-profile casual-
ties of the latest rejigging of the ONS
inflation basket, which contains
everything from cucumbers and TV
licences to compost and tissues, and
is used to measure the annual infla-
tion rate.
They have made way for new
additions that reflect the environ-
mentally aware, health conscious
and property-obsessed state of mod-
ern Britain: e-bikes, frozen berries for
making smoothies, and home secu-
rity devices.
The inflation basket is updated
once a year by the ONS to account
for the changing tastes and habits of
UK consumers and to ensure the offi-
cial yardstick of the cost of living is as
accurate as possible.
How the cost of living is measured
has taken on added significance over
the past year following the rise in the
annual inflation rate to a 40-year
high of 11.1% – more than five times
the government’s 2% target – last
autumn.
Is Murdoch a fan of Succession?
Never seen it, he tells reporter
Martin Pengelly
New York
Rupert Murdoch has revealed he
has never watched Succession, the
HBO hit loosely based on his life as
the patriarch of an unruly billionaire
family.
Max Tani, a media reporter with
the news website Semafor, contacted
the media mogul asking about his TV
viewing habits. “Hey Rupert,” Tani
•
News
Although inflation has since fallen
to 10.1%, price increases have been
especially marked for food and
fuel, which has had a dispropor-
tional impact on the population,
as less well-off households spend a
higher proportion of their budgets
on these staple items than better-off
households.
The inflation basket – introduced
in 1947 – now contains almost 750
goods and services and is designed
to be representative of current spend-
ing patterns. Most items remain in the
wrote. “I’m a media reporter with
Semafor. I wanted to get in touch to
see if you plan on watching the final
season of Succession when it airs later
this month, and what you think of the
show. Thanks, let me know.”
Surprisingly, Murdoch, 92, wrote
back: “Never watched it.”
“It’s an interesting show,” Tani
replied. “While I have you: How do
you think Elon [Musk] is doing run-
ning Twitter?”
“Great!” Murdoch wrote. “Tough
▲ Alcopops were all the rage during
the 1990s, and were introduced to
the UK inflation basket in 1997
task but he will get there.” Tani said
the Tesla and SpaceX mogul’s job in
charge of Twitter, which he bought
last year and which has since been
engulfed in controversy, “definitely
seems challenging”.
Then Tani chanced his arm,
addressing a controversy engulfing
Fox as the rightwing host Tucker
Carlson broadcasts videos of the 6
January (1/6) insurrection seeking to
portray it as a largely peaceful protest.
“I’m curious: Do you agree with Tuck-
er’s recent 1/6 coverage portraying the
1/6 rioters as peaceful and orderly?”
Murdoch’s media empire is under
pressure amid a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) def-
amation lawsuit against Fox News.
Filings in the lawsuit, brought by
list from year to year, but the 26 items
added and the 16 removed for 2023
are supposed to reflect the nation’s
changing tastes.
Last year, the traditional men’s suit
– until then ever-present since 1947
– was a casualty of the working from
home trend that emerged as a result
of health precautions taken during
the pandemic. Five years ago, gym
leggings and quiche came in while
bottled lager sold in nightclubs and
pork pies were removed. In 2013,
ebooks and blueberries were in, filled
Dominion Voting Systems, included
candid admissions from Murdoch
and those who work for him, show-
ing how senior Fox News figures
did not believe Donald Trump’s lie
about electoral fraud in his 2020
defeat by Joe Biden but did not stop
▲ Rupert Murdoch, left, inspired the
character of Logan Roy (Brian Cox)
3
 CD sales have
been steadily
▲ E-bikes have
been added to
declining
PHOTOGRAPH: JASON
ALDEN/SHUTTERSTOCK
the list this year,
together with
frozen berries
rolls sold in pubs and round lettuces
were out.
Alcopops, all the rage in the 1990s,
were introduced to the basket in 1997
while CDs were seen as the future of
music when they made their debut on
the list in 1987, the year that spend-
ing on the new format overtook vinyl
sales for the first time. But the rise of
streaming and the second coming of
vinyl have meant sales of CDs have
been in steady decline in recent years,
with the ONS now saying it would
only include sales of Top 40 discs in
the basket.
Other changes made this year are
the inclusion of infants’ dresses and
green beans, a broadening of the
postage charges category to reflect
the growth in parcel courier services,
and the replacement of tampons by
sanitary towels.
The ONS said the influence of
Covid-19 on the basket had faded
from shopping habits in 2023. This
year’s changes pointed to the evolv-
ing choices of consumers and the rise
of new technology.
Mike Hardie, the ONS deputy
director of prices transformation,
said: “The impact of mobile phone
technology continues to resonate
with the removal of CDs and digital
cameras from our basket, reflect-
ing how most of us listen to music
and take pictures straight from our
phones these days.
“With many people looking to
reduce their impact on the envi-
ronment, we have also introduced
e-bikes, whose popularity has risen
significantly in recent years.”
The ONS said it was changing the
way it collected data on rail fares in
order to better understand the prices
being paid by travellers by train.
broadcasting them for fear of losing
viewers to rightwing rivals.
Nine deaths have been linked to
the riot, which Trump incited in an
attempt to stay in power.
Carlson’s private messages have
been revealed in the Dominion suit,
among them a text in which he said
he “passionately hates” Trump.
Tani used an email that was
revealed in filings related to the case
to contact Murdoch.
He asked him: “Another one for
you: Have you been getting more
inquiries over the last week since
this email address was included in
the Dominion suit?”
Murdoch did not answer those
questions.
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

4 National
BBC

BBC bosses face

pressure after
‘capitulation’
in Lineker row
 Continued from page 1
a discussion about Stanley Johnson,
Boris Johnson’s father, during last
week’s programme, following com-
ments she said she had been legally
obliged to make and had been “mis-
characterised” on social media.
Davie, who blamed “grey areas” in
the guidelines for the Lineker furore
that has led to him receiving criticism
from all sides in a debate over impar-
tiality and freedom of expression, has
said he will not consider resigning
over the perceived mishandling of
the affair.
The row has also heightened calls
for the government-appointed BBC
chair, Richard Sharp, to stand down
over a separate conflict of interest and
impartiality scandal.
Sharp, a Tory donor who was once
Rishi Sunak’s boss at Goldman Sachs,
is the subject of two investigations
after it emerged that he introduced
Boris Johnson to a friend who gave
the former prime minister a loan
guarantee of up to £800,000. Sharp,
who has remained silent during the
Lineker crisis, failed to declare the
potential conflict of interest during
interviews for the recruitment as
BBC chair.
“I think Richard Sharp’s position
is increasingly untenable,” said the
Labour leader, Keir Starmer. “I think
most people watching the complete
mess of the last few days would say
how on earth is he still in position
and Gary Lineker has been taken off
air? This is a mess of the BBC’s own
making. They need to sort it out and
sort it out fast.” Sir Ed Davey, the Lib-
eral Democrat leader, said: “Given
his ties to Boris Johnson and the
Conservative party, and the scandal
surrounding his appointment, the
public simply cannot trust Richard
Sharp to restore the BBC’s credibility.
“Rishi Sunak must sack him now
and ensure a new, properly independ-
ent chair is in post to implement the
review as soon as it is finished.”
Downing Street declined to say
whether Sunak had confidence in
the BBC chair and offered a lukewarm
defence of his former boss, whom he
later recruited as an unpaid govern-

Social media What’s next

And finally ...
Grey areas and last words
Extracts from the statements
from Tim Davie and Gary Lineker
“Everyone recognises this has
been a difficult period for staff,
contributors, presenters and,
most importantly, our audiences.
I apologise for this.
“The potential confusion
caused by grey areas of the
BBC’s social media guidance is
recognised. I want to get matters
resolved and sport content back
on air. Impartiality is important to
the BBC and the public. The BBC
has a commitment to impartiality
and a commitment to freedom
of expression. That is a difficult
balancing act to get right.”
Tim Davie
“I want to thank you all for the
incredible support, particularly
my colleagues at BBC Sport.
“I have been presenting sport
on the BBC for almost three
decades and am immeasurably
proud to work with the best and
fairest broadcaster in the world.
“A final thought: however
difficult the last few days were,
it doesn’t compare to having to
flee your home from persecution
to seek refuge in a land far away.
It’s heartwarming to have seen
the empathy towards their plight
from so many.”
Gary Lineker
ment adviser when he was chancellor,
when questioned by reporters on a
flight to the US. The prime minister’s
spokesperson said Sunak was waiting
for a review of the office for Commis-
sioner for Public Appointments into
Sharp’s conduct when he applied for
the role. “He was appointed before I
was prime minister through an inde-
pendent process,” said Sunak in an
interview with the BBC. “And that
process is also now being reviewed
independently. It’s right that we let
that review complete. And that’s,
I think, how people would expect
something like this to be dealt with.”
Davie, who in the 1990s was a
Conservative candidate and local
party official, dismissed claims
that the attempt to gag Lineker and
remove him from his presenting
duties was a response to pressure
from the government and ministers
that feel the corporation is biased
against the Conservatives. “That is
not how we work editorially in the
BBC,” he said in an interview yester-
day. “It is a convenient narrative, it is
not true. The impartiality guideline
would be equally applied in terms of
being critical of the left or the right.
The issue is getting involved in party
political matters, and we apply that
independently.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the rightwing
former cabinet minister, said the
row was further evidence that the
“licence fee has passed its sell-by
date”. Sunak said he was “pleased
the issue with Gary Lineker has been
resolved and we can all look forward
to watching Match of the Day again”.
for presenters’ guidelines?
Mark Sweney
The BBC’s announcement of an
independent review of its social
media guidelines was aimed
at defusing the crisis started
with Gary Lineker’s tweets over
government ministers’ language
about its asylum policies and bring
the presenter back into the fold, at
least in the short term. However,
the practicalities of creating a set
of rules to rein in star behaviour,
while avoiding accusations of
stifling free speech, are far from
straightforward. Here are some key
points for consideration.
Whatever emerges from the review
will be hard to enforce
While the BBC stopped short of
issuing an apology directly to
Lineker, there is no question that its
biggest name won the day.
Lineker, who had said he would
not apologise and was not overly
fussed about any sanctions the
BBC might inflict upon him,
could not help but return to his
theme of asylum seekers when
he acknowledged his return to
presenting duties.
“However difficult the last few
days have been, it simply doesn’t
compare to having to flee your
home from persecution or war to
seek refuge in a land far away. It’s
heartwarming to have seen the
empathy towards their plight from
so many of you,” Lineker wrote on
Twitter. “We remain a country of
predominantly tolerant, welcoming
and generous people.”
Tim Davie, the director general
of the BBC, said Lineker had
agreed to comply with the existing
guidelines while the review
was carried out. But a return to
politically charged tweeting,
however finely balanced, while
still supposedly toeing the line of
the BBC’s view of what constitutes
existing social media guidelines,
shows how fraught this area is.
Might adherence to the guidelines
have to be written more explicitly
into star contracts?
The BBC’s attempts to justify
cracking down on Lineker,
including saying that while he
should not be an “opinion-free
zone” he needs to keep “well
away” from politics, exposed the
ultimately unworkable nature of
the existing guidelines.
Strictly speaking, Lineker’s
official status as a freelance
employee and member of the
sport department means he is not
governed by the same social media
rules as BBC news and current
affairs staff.
Nevertheless, the corporation
shoehorned in a rule – referred to
by staff to as the “Lineker clause” –
which targets “others who are not
journalists or involved in factual
programming who nevertheless
have an additional responsibility
to the BBC because of their profile
on the BBC”. The guidelines state
that high-profile BBC presenters in
general need to “avoid taking sides
on party political issues or political
controversies” – in an attempt
to cover all employees. This has
abjectly failed.
The BBC has an opportunity
to revisit the situation, either by
formally exempting non-news
presenters in updated guidelines,
or via individual contracts –
Lineker’s £6.75m deal comes up
for renewal in 2025. The current
guidelines say: “The extent
to which a non-staff member,
contributor or presenter is required
to comply with the editorial
guidelines will be set out in the
BBC’s contractual relationship with
them.”
What does Lineker’s ‘victory’ mean
for other BBC staff and high-profile
presenters?
Davie’s acknowledgment on
Friday that current social media
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
guidelines contain “grey areas”
which have caused confusion over
the last week is something of an
understatement.
In the first two years after the
2020 implementation of the new
policies, just five BBC journalists
were formally disciplined over their
social media use, putting Lineker in
a small club of rule-breakers.
And yet Lineker’s suspension for
expressing political views proved
a lightning rod for supporters
pointing out comparisons with
other BBC stars who have not been
sanctioned for lacking impartiality.
The host of The Apprentice,
Alan Sugar, has a long record of
politically charged outbursts
across various media; Dame
Mary Berry expressed scepticism
of the government’s sugar tax;
and Michael Portillo, a former
Conservative cabinet minister, has
made a plethora of travel shows
for the corporation, while also
publishing political columns in
newspapers.
When the BBC removed Lineker
from presenting duties it was
meant to be until there was an
“agreed and clear position on his
use of social media”. In reality, the
outcome is a more woolly review
of the BBC’s overall social media
guidelines.
A recalcitrant Lineker, who
is unlikely to change his habit
of speaking out on issues, has
established a formal precedent that
when it comes to impartiality, stars
are a special social media case.
•
Commentary
Jane Martinson
It’s clearer than ever
that appointing a
chair is too important
to be left to politicians
T Fiona Bruce
he Match of the Day mutiny is over and
order has been restored. Gary Lineker
will be back on air this weekend on his
own terms, or at least terms he can live
with. Football is a team game and here it
was Gary’s all-stars v Tim Davie’s team of
rightwingers. In the end, the stars held the balance.
If there were awards for the art of turning an event
into a crisis, the BBC would win every time. How
many other organisations could turn a story about a
government’s possibly illegal immigration policy into
one about the tweets of a footballer-turned-TV pundit?
Davie, the BBC director general, cut short a
trip to the US to clear up the mess over Lineker’s
suspension after he refused to apologise for calling the
government’s “stop the boats” policy “immeasurably
cruel”. The sanctionh provoked a boycott by so many
of his colleagues that the corporation was forced to
offer a robotic, commentary-less 20-minute version
of its flagship Saturday night football show. The
suspension, not the policy, led news bulletins.
“We’ve gone full W1A,” sighed one BBC employee,
referring to the satire lampooning the corporation and
its perceived “values”, shown, of course, on the BBC.
Other staff members, furious at job losses, cutbacks
and the controversy over the appointment of its chair,
Richard Sharp, were less willing to see the funny side.
“This is a mess of Davie’s own
making,” said one journalist. “The
The spotlight on mood is to not let management
Lineker has caught get off lightly on this one
because they’re making the BBC
Sharp in its beam, a look ridiculous.”
man who can offer After reaching an agreement,
Davie sat through an excruciating
no real guidance or interview in which one of his
own reporters asked him about
support on the issue criticism that the BBC had a
“Conservative director general
and a Conservative chair bowing
to pressure from Conservative
MPs and a Conservative press”. He denied that his
own political involvement from “30 years ago” had
anything to do with it.
▲ Presenters The issue of whether anyone paid by the BBC
on a billboard should have an opinion stirs up a hornet’s nest for
outside a broadcaster trying to define impartiality in an
BBC Sport’s increasingly partisan and political age. Davie, who
headquarters introduced new guidelines on impartiality not long
in Salford after he was appointed in 2020, has now promised an
PHOTOGRAPH: independent review of its social media guidance.
CHRISTOPHER The BBC’s handling of the Lineker furore rightly
THOMOND/THE
GUARDIAN provoked cries of hypocrisy, but it also came amid
a financial onslaught by government ministers and,
far more damagingly, the appointment of a chairman
who helped fix a loan for the then prime minister. The
review into the appointment of Sharp, with neither
an obvious deadline nor a procedure, stands in stark
contrast to the treatment of Lineker.
The spotlight on Lineker has caught Sharp in
its beam, a man who can offer no real guidance or
support on the issue, as his predecessors may have
done, because his own position is so obviously
compromised. At the very least Sharp should be the
last chair of the BBC appointed by the government of
the day, a situation that has always undermined the
BBC’s integrity, no matter which party is in power.
A new public appointments committee with clear
rules and the confidence to recognise how to enforce
them is more necessary than ever.
▼ Fiona Bruce faced claims she
trivialised domestic violence during
a discussion about Stanley Johnson
PHOTOGRAPH: UNPIXS/BBC
Host ‘steps
back’ from
charity over
comments
Esther Addley
The BBC Question Time presenter
Fiona Bruce has said she will step
back from her role as an ambassador
for the charity Refuge after claims she
trivialised domestic violence during
a discussion about Stanley Johnson
during last week’s programme.
In a statement, Bruce said she
was sorry that survivors of domestic
abuse had been distressed by her
comments, which she said she had
been legally obliged to make, and that
they had been “mischaracterised” on
social media.
Bruce said: “I have been a passion-
ate advocate and campaigner for all
survivors of domestic abuse, and
have used my privileged position as a
woman in the public eye to bring this
issue to the fore, notably in my work
for over 25 years with Refuge. But fol-
lowing the events of last week, I have
faced a social media storm, much of
which mischaracterised what I said
BBC Singers
Choir closure condemned
More than 700 composers have
written to Tim Davie, the BBC
director general, to condemn the
closure of the 99-year-old BBC
choir, the BBC Singers.
“As composers, we recognise the
BBC Singers as one of the world’s
great advocates for new choral
music,” they write. “The loss of
this extraordinary group would be
devastating for the art form.”
Signatories include the most
distinguished names in British
classical composition, including
George Benjamin, Thomas Adès,
Errollyn Wallen and the master of
the King’s music, Judith Weir.
The disbanding of the choir,
which was formed in 1924, was
announced last Tuesday.
Charlotte Higgins
5
and took the form of personal abuse
directed at me.
“The only people that matter in all
this are the survivors, they are my
priority. The last thing in the world
that I would want is that this issue in
any way creates a distraction from
Refuge’s critical work on their behalf,
and therefore I think the right thing to
do is to step back from my role with
Refuge. This has been a hard deci-
sion for me as I feel so strongly about
promoting their work and advancing
awareness of this issue. I will con-
tinue to be an active supporter, albeit
from the sidelines for now.”
During a discussion about John-
son, the former prime minister Boris
Johnson’s father, in Thursday’s
programme, panellist Yasmin Alib-
hai-Brown said he “was a wife-beater
… on record”. She was interrupted by
Bruce, who said: “I’m not disputing
what you’re saying,” before adding
that while Johnson’s wife had said
he had broken her nose and she had
ended up in hospital as a result, “Stan-
ley Johnson has not commented on
that. Friends of his have said it did
happen, it was a one-off.” “Yes, but it
did happen,” Alibhai-Brown replied.
Refuge said it had accepted
Bruce’s decision, thanking her “for
her considerable contribution over
many years to Refuge and the wider
domestic abuse agenda”. However,
it said: “Refuge’s position was, and
remains, clear – domestic abuse is
never a ‘one-off ’, it is a pattern of
behaviour that can manifest in a
number of ways, including but not
limited to physical abuse. Domestic
abuse is never acceptable.
“Over the weekend we have been
listening to, and heard, survivors of
domestic abuse who have told us how
devastating this has been for them.
While we know the words were not
Fiona’s own and were words she was
legally obliged to read out, this does
not lessen their impact and we can-
not lose sight of that.”
The BBC referred queries to a state-
ment issued last week, in which it
said: “Domestic abuse is abhorrent,
and we would never wish to suggest
otherwise. When serious allegations
are made on air against people or
organisations, it is the job of BBC pre-
senters to ensure that the context of
those allegations – and any right of
reply from the person or organisation
– is given to the audience, and this is
what Fiona Bruce was doing … She
was not expressing any personal
opinion about the situation.”
In the UK, call the national domestic
abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or
visit Women’s Aid

6 National
Unions berate Barclay
as junior doctors begin
three days of strikes
Denis Campbell
Health policy editor
Junior doctors’ leaders have blamed
Steve Barclay for triggering their
three-day strike this week by ignoring
their concerns and being “dismiss-
ive” of their call for improved pay.
Hospitals in England functioned
effectively yesterday, the first day
of the stoppage, with consultants
covering work usually done by jun-
ior colleagues. Many thousands of
trainee medics refused to work, forc-
ing hospitals to cancel outpatient
appointments and operations.
The Hospital Consultants and Spe-
cialists Association (HCSA), one of
the two medical trade unions whose
members are striking until Thursday,
launched a strongly worded attack on
the health secretary’s handling of the
dispute, which has been a likelihood
since June last year.
Dr Naru Narayanan, its president,
said that successive governments
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
had been guilty of “serial neglect” of
junior doctors, despite the high drop-
out rate among them early in their
careers, which has been linked to
burnout and stress caused by work-
ing long hours on the NHS frontline.
“The health secretary has wasted
months. While this strike was brew-
ing, instead of meeting with junior
doctors’ unions to resolve the issues,
he and the government have cho-
sen to ignore them. This dismissive
stance to very real grievances has
driven the massive majorities of
junior doctors voting to strike,” said
Narayanan.
He added: “It’s clear that the only
people responsible for this week’s
strikes are ministers who over many
years have believed they could get
away with paying junior doctors
less than they are worth, despite the
worsening lack of doctors.
“Covid and the continued cap on
[pay] increases at 2%, despite huge
inflation, has finally pushed junior
doctors over the edge. The roots of
▲ Junior doctors this strike lie in years of serial neglect
rally for better … by successive governments which
pay near Downing have imposed a significant drop in
Street yesterday real-terms incomes through below-
PHOTOGRAPH: GUY BELL/ inflation increases.”
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK Doctors joined picket lines across
England yesterday and will do so
again today and tomorrow. The stop-
‘The fact that strike page ends at 7am on Thursday.
action is happening The British Medical Association
(BMA), the other union involved,
is 100% the fault also voiced its anger with Barclay.
of Steve Barclay’ Both unions are seeking 26% “full pay
restoration” for junior – or trainee –
doctors to make up for the decline in
the real-terms value of their salaries
Robert Laurenson and since 2008-09.
Vivek Trivedi BMA The BMA urged Barclay to drop the
preconditions he is insisting the BMA
and HCSA accept before detailed pay
negotiations can begin.
“These include the government
wanting to keep discussions to future
pay and limiting talks over 15 years of
pay erosion to just a one-off bonus
payment,” the union said.
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek
Trivedi, the co-chairs of the BMA’s
junior doctors committee, said: “The
fact that strike action is happening
is 100% the fault of Steve Barclay,
who shows no real commitment to
resolving this dispute. An 11th-hour
suggestion of talks is a facade.
“He is kicking the can down the
road, delaying any meaningful dis-
cussion and failing to show any
credible evidence of starting an hon-
est conversation to end the dispute.”
Yesterday, many consultants
tweeted their support for their jun-
ior colleagues’ walkout.
Commenting on the strike, Sir
David Nicholson, a former chief exec-
utive of the NHS in England, who
now chairs two health trusts in the
West Midlands, tweeted: “I cannot
believe that any competent govern-
ment would allow this to happen.”
Barclay said it was “incredibly dis-
appointing” the BMA had “declined
my offer to enter formal pay nego-
tiations on the condition strikes are
paused. I hugely value the hard work
of junior doctors and urge unions to
come to the negotiating table.”
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Fatal blast One man died and several were being treated in hospital after a suspected gas
explosion yesterday wrecked homes in Swansea. A major incident was declared after some
PHOTOGRAPH: 30 properties were damaged and about 100 people were evacuated. The explosion reportedly
DIMITRIS LEGAKIS/
ATHENA PICTURES shook houses miles from the scene and left debris strewn across the surrounding area.
Westminster poised to scupper
Scottish bottle return scheme
Kiran Stacey and Sandra Laville
The UK and Scottish governments
are heading for another showdown
as Westminster prepares to block a
Holyrood policy move for the second
time this year.
The Scotland secretary, Alister
Jack, intends to deny a request from
the Scottish government for a trade
exemption for its flagship recycling
scheme, in a move experts say could
fatally undermine the plans.
Under the scheme, which is due to
start in August, retailers in Scotland
will have to add 20p to the price of
single-use bottles and cans, which
consumers then claim back by return-
ing the containers to be recycled.
The revelation about the UK gov-
ernment’s intentions sparked anger
among campaigners yesterday, with
one saying it would be an “environ-
mental travesty” if Westminster
were to block the scheme and “drag
devolved nations down to the lowest
environmental standards”.
The deposit return scheme (DRS)
is a key part of the Scottish National
party’s environmental platform, but
•
National
most experts believe that to work
properly it needs an exemption from
UK-wide rules that prevent different
regulations applying to the same
product in England and Scotland.
Jack has criticised the DRS as badly
designed and inflationary, telling the
Commons recently it would be bad for
businesses and consumers. Talking
specifically about the likelihood of
granting an exemption, he said the
bar was “very high indeed”, adding:
“Otherwise what is the point of the
UK internal market?”
Environmental campaigners say
the scheme is vital for reducing lit-
ter as well as carbon emissions. But
business leaders say it will push up
the price of their product, not only
through the extra 20p on a bottle or
can, but also the associated produc-
tion and administration costs.
Jack has said that under the
scheme, the price of a 12-pack of
Scottish bottled water sold at Aldi
would rise from £1.59 to £3.99.
If he persuades the cabinet to
agree to refuse Holyrood’s request,
it is likely to provoke another
constitutional row just two months
after Westminster blocked the gen-
der recognition reform (Scotland)
bill. That decision triggered acrimony
between the two governments, and
arguably contributed to the decision
by Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scot-
tish first minister weeks later.
A Scottish government spokesper-
son said: “We expect a decision from
the UK government as soon as possi-
ble given this is what is needed to give
industry absolute clarity.”
Steve Hynd, from the charity City
to Sea, said: “Westminster is at risk of
dragging the devolved nations down
to the lowest environmental stand-
ards, as they sit on their hands and the
plastic crisis worsens around them.
“We have deposit return schemes
operational in over 50 places around
the world … They massively con-
tribute to reducing litter, increasing
recycling rates and help to tackle the
climate crisis.
‘The longer the wait,
the more plastic will
flood into the ocean’
Izzy Ross
Surfers Against Sewage
“If Westminster blocks the Scot-
tish scheme from going ahead it will
not just be a constitutional crisis but
an environmental travesty.”
Izzy Ross, from the charity Surf-
ers Against Sewage, said: “The [UK]
government has had years to raise
concerns but are instead meddling
at this late stage, causing chaos after
years of planning and investment.
The longer the wait for a deposit
return scheme, the more plastic will
be permitted to flood into the ocean.”
The Scottish government has
been planning the DRS for years,
with Lorna Slater, the green min-
ister, calling it a “massive national
undertaking” involving 4,000 pro-
ducers, 10,000 “takeback” machines,
and 2bn drinks containers.
A deposit scheme is planned for
the rest of the UK, but it will not start
for another two years – and England
will exempt glass bottles. In the inter-
vening years, separate barcodes will
be needed for Scottish drinks to prove
where they were bought.
Senior SNP politicians have
expressed doubts about the plans,
including all three of the party’s lead-
ership candidates. Nevertheless,
the Scottish government is pressing
ahead, and this month it asked for an
exemption from the United Kingdom
Internal Market Act 2020 .
The importance of the exemption
is disputed. Supporters of the bill
commissioned a legal opinion from
Stuart MacLennan, a law professor
at Coventry University, who said the
scheme could operate without one.
7
 Continued from page 1
Drought alarm
as UK forecast
to face dry spell
lasting months
record-breaking dry weather and
two areas of England – East Anglia
and Devon, Cornwall and the Isles
of Scilly – still remain in “drought”
status, with most now “recovering”.
Mark Lloyd, the chief executive
of the Rivers Trust, warned that this
year was likely to be “devastating”
for rivers if we get a second drought
in a row. He said: “This data makes
clear what many of us working in the
environment sector have suspected
throughout the course of the winter.
Following on from last year’s drought,
which is still ongoing in many areas,
groundwater and watercourses have
not been replenished ahead of what
could be another hot, dry summer.
“Repeated drought conditions
year-on-year would be devastating
for rivers. As well as severely reduced
flow levels, drought decreases the
amount of oxygen in the water ,which
is damaging to wildlife, and the low
water levels also concentrate the
cocktail of pollution we sadly know
is blighting rivers across the country.”
The water campaigner and for-
mer Undertones frontman Feargal
Sharkey said Londoners could face
a summer of water shortages due to
the weather and lack of government
action. He told the Guardian: “Gov-
ernment and water companies don’t
listen, they never do. One is corrupted
by the fragrance of corporate greed,
the other drunk on a compliancy
founded on indifference. It’s a toxic
cocktail that is about to blight the
lives of millions of Londoners.”
Farmers are concerned too. The
National Farmers’ Union national
water resources specialist Kelly
Hewson-Fisher said: “Last year’s
prolonged dry weather, and two areas
of the country still in drought status,
highlighted the urgent need for gov-
ernment to take our national food
production and resilience seriously.
It’s vital that agriculture is recog-
nised as an essential user of water
and the country’s ability to produce
food given due regard. This will build
resilience into the farming sector and
help provide investment opportuni-
ties for water infrastructure such as
more on-farm reservoirs.”
Anglers predict fish are likely to
struggle. Martin Salter, head of policy
at the Angling Trust, said: “Anglers
are seeing more clearly than most
the effect of the extreme weather
patterns caused by the climate
change on our rivers and wildlife.”
▲ River levels in the UK have not yet
recovered from last year’s drought
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

8 News
Oscars

 The cast
and crew of
Everything
Everywhere All
at Once with
all seven of
their awards
PHOTOGRAPH: KEVIN
SULLIVAN/ZUMA/REX/
SHUTTERSTOCK

 Florence Pugh
in a Valentino
gown. She was
on hand to
present one
of the Oscar
categories
PHOTOGRAPH: JOHN
SALANGSANG/REX

‘A beacon of possibility’:
Everything Everywhere
dominates awards night
Benjamin Lee
Everything Everywhere All at Once
dominated this year’s Oscars, win-
win the Oscar for best director. “We
want to dedicate this to the mom-
mies,” Scheinert said. He also spoke
about dressing in drag as a kid, “which
is a threat to nobody” – in reference
to legislation targeting drag perfor-
Sarah Polley won the Oscar for
adapted screenplay for the female-
led drama Women Talking. She is
only the ninth woman to win in this
category.
The award ceremony’s host,

Hollywood happy ending

ning seven awards including best
picture , in a memorable night
for Asian and Asian American
representation.
The manic fantasy about a
fractured family swept up in an
interdimensional adventure also
claimed wins for best actress, best
director, best supporting actor, best
supporting actress, best editing and
best original screenplay at the 95th
Academy Awards ceremony on Sun-
day night. It was the most nominated
film of the night.
mances in some US states.
Kwan thanked his parents, who
were immigrants to the US, and
traced his love of film back to them.
Best actor went to Brendan Fraser
for his lead role in The Whale, beat-
ing Austin Butler and Colin Farrell.
Fraser thanked the film’s director,
Darren Aronofsky, for throwing him
“a creative lifeline” after years of
minor roles.
The drama also won for best
makeup and hairstyling despite con-
troversy over the suit created to make
Jimmy Kimmel, opened the night
with a Top Gun: Maverick skit, pre-
tending to parachute in to the Dolby
theatre. He welcomed the fact that
films were being seen “the way you
intended them to be seen: in a the- ‘What if’ fantasy woos far
atre”, before making jokes about
Steven Spielberg, Babylon’s under-
whelming box office performance,
and questions of diversity. (“How
beyond its wildest dreams
does the Academy not nominate the
guy who directed Avatar? Who do reluctance to accept Evelyn’s
they think he is, a woman?) Peter Bradshaw interest in more than one
He also paid tribute to the snubbed professional vocation triggers the

Michelle Yeoh has become only the
second woman of colour to win the
best actress Oscar, following in the
footsteps of Halle Berry in 2002.
“For all the little boys and girls who
look like me watching tonight, this
is a beacon of hope and possibility,”
Yeoh said. “Ladies, don’t ever let any-
one tell you you are past your prime.”
Ke Huy Quan was named best sup-
porting actor, beating Barry Keoghan
and Judd Hirsch. He has become the
first Vietnam-born actor to win an
Oscar. This year’s awards marked the
first time multiple Asian actors won
Oscars on the same night.
Jamie Lee Curtis was named best
supporting actress for her perfor-
mance in Everything Everywhere,
beating Angela Bassett and Kerry
Condon. It was Curtis’s first ever
nomination.
“I know it looks like I am standing
up here by myself but I am hundreds
of people,” she said before emotion-
ally paying tribute to those in both
the film and her life.
Nicknamed “the Daniels”, writer-
directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel
Scheinert are the third duo ever to
Fraser look like he weighed 600lbs.
Netflix’s German war epic All
Quiet on the Western Front brought
home four awards: international fea-
ture film, original score, production
design and cinematography. It was
the first time a German film had won
the best international feature since
The Lives of Others in 2006.
▲ Costume designer Ruth Carter: the
first black woman to win two Oscars
dramas Till and The Woman King,
both made by black women, as films
that deserved to be seen.
Kimmel went on to make jokes
about last year’s heart-stopping
moment when Will Smith slapped
Chris Rock on stage. He jabbed at
the Academy’s crisis team, assembled
in case something similar happened
again. “Just do what you did last
year: nothing,” he told them, before
threatening that if anyone were to
try anything similar, they would
have to make it through Michael
B Jordan, Yeoh, Pedro Pascal and
Andrew Garfield.
An in-memoriam segment was
led by an emotional John Travolta,
whose Grease co-star Olivia New-
ton-John died in August 2022. Other
featured figures included Louise
Fletcher, Ray Liotta, Robbie Coltrane,
Angelo Badalamenti, James Caan,
Angela Lansbury and Burt Bacharach.
Despite seven nominations, Spiel-
berg’s personal drama The Fabelmans
failed to win in any of its categories.
Tár, which received six nominations,
and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, which
received eight, were also snubbed.
E
veryone everywhere
in Hollywood loved
it; the whopping
landslide win for the
absurdist multiverse
action fantasy-comedy
Everything Everywhere All at
Once surely exceeded its creators’
wildest dreams. This alt-reality
adventure, with its stroboscopic
glimpses of other worlds and
funky graphic-novel-style
aesthetic, has captured the movies’
establishment citadel.
It scooped up seven Oscars:
not just best picture, best director
and best original screenplay for
film-maker duo Daniel Kwan
and Daniel Scheinert, but best
actress for its star Michelle Yeoh
(beating the frontrunner, Cate
Blanchett) as Evelyn, a laundromat
owner confronted by her destiny
as saviour of the cosmos, best
supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan
as her husband, Waymond, and
best supporting actress for Jamie
Lee Curtis as Deirdre Beaubeirdre,
the grumpy tax inspector whose
parallel universe crisis. There was
also best editing for Paul Rogers.
This triumph will be greeted
with joy by its fanbase and with
warily polite respect by those –
including your correspondent
– who are agnostic. But then the
Oscar hivemind has always had a
mysterious habit of coagulating
around one particular film, ignoring
the rest. My colleague Catherine
Shoard has wittily described
EEAAO as the first superhero film
to win the best picture Oscar –
yes, and there’s also a touch of
young adult fantasy and Harry
Potter magic for the post-youth
demographic.
The film has gripped people
because all of us ponder what we
could have been, in different lives,
different universes, as the result of
different choices. It speaks to the
midlife experience: did I make the
wrong move in my 20s and 30s? Is
it too late for me? It speaks to the
bad-marriage experience: am I
with the wrong person? It speaks
to the immigrant experience: how
would my life be if I’d stayed in the
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •
▼ Michelle Yeoh, right, waits as her
Oscar for best actress for her role in
Everything Everywhere is engraved
PHOTOGRAPH: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
 Actors Halle ▼ Lady Gaga
Berry and and Brendan Winners
Angela Bassett Gleeson, who
on the red carpet missed an Oscar
Best animated feature Guillermo
del Toro’s Pinocchio
Best supporting actor Ke Huy
Quan, Everything Everywhere All
at Once
Best supporting actress Jamie Lee
Curtis, Everything Everywhere All
at Once
Best documentary feature
Navalny
Best live-action short
An Irish Goodbye
Best cinematography All Quiet on
the Western Front
Best makeup and hair The Whale
▼ Michelle Yeoh’s mother, Janet Best costume design Black
(centre right), celebrates her Oscars Panther: Wakanda Forever
triumph in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Best international film All Quiet on
PHOTOGRAPH: ARIF KARTONO/AFP the Western Front
Best documentary short The
Elephant Whisperers
Best animated short The Boy, the
Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Best production design All Quiet
on the Western Front
Best original score All Quiet on the
Western Front
Best original screenplay
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best editing Everything
Everywhere All at Once
Best director Daniel Kwan and
Daniel Scheinert, Everything
Everywhere All at Once
Best actor Brendan Fraser,
The Whale
Best actress Michelle Yeoh,
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best picture Everything
Everywhere All at Once
▲ Sarah Polley, who won best
adapted screenplay for Women
Talking, backstage at the Oscars
PHOTOGRAPH: REUTERS
old country? And, perhaps most
intimately, it speaks to the parent
experience: is my grown-up child,
who is so like me, but with whom
I have such a fraught relationship,
just me but in a different universe?
It is tempting to think the film
speaks to distrust of the big state,
in the form of Curtis’s meanie
tax officer. For me, the drama is
paralysed by its consequence-free
universe hopping. But it’s a big,
bold, unusual film with a great
diverse lineup.
At the risk of being ungracious,
I must record mild surprise at the
win for Brendan Fraser for his
role in The Whale, playing the
saintly depressed English teacher
suffering from extreme weight
gain: my feelings here are with the
naysayers for a stagey, pass-agg
and laborious movie but Fraser’s
gentle charm definitely won the
hearts of Academy voters who love
a comeback.
I am pleased to see Sarah Polley’s
win for best adapted screenplay
for her sober, sombre drama
Women Talking, based around
the horrifying mass rape case in a
Mennonite religious community.
So there it is: fans of Todd Field’s
psychodrama Tár will now be
feeling the way Blanchett’s
crazed conductor felt on seeing
someone else up on the podium,
and everyone involved with
The Banshees of Inisherin, The
Fabelmans and Living will have
experienced every injustice
everywhere all at once. The rest
will raise a glass to the two Daniels
for their amazing victory.
‘Cringey’
Jokes about
drinking and
fighting spark
Irish backlash
Rory Carroll
Ireland correspondent
Ireland had hoped for Oscar glory but
instead ended up the butt of jokes
about drinking, fighting and incom-
prehensible accents.
Just two awards out of 14 nomina-
tions was disappointment enough
but Hollywood added insult to injury
with national tropes that elicited eye
rolls in Ireland.
The host, Jimmy Kimmel, started
by linking the “green wave” to Will
Smith slapping Chris Rock at last
year’s ceremony. “Five Irish actors
are nominated tonight, which means
the odds of another fight on stage just
went way up,” he said.
Later on, Kimmel asked Colin Far-
rell about a supposed fan letter that
expressed admiration for his perfor-
mance in The Banshees of Inisherin
but requested clarification about
what the character said in the film.
The joke echoed an NBC Saturday
Night Live skit that had depicted Far-
rell and his co-star, Brendan Gleeson,
as unintelligible, with an SNL host
saying: “Wow! They haven’t even
started drinking yet.”
The skit had been widely slated as
offensive and unfunny, so Irish view-
ers were astonished when Kimmel
revisited its mockery of accents.
Farrell smiled and said: “I’d like him
to go on YouTube and check out the
SNL skit from last night.”
The exchange prompted laugh-
ter in the Dolby theatre but viewers
in Ireland lauded Farrell’s reply as a
pointed riposte to lazy stereotyping.
“The lad is sharp, nice to see him call-
ing out cringey SNL, makes Ireland
proud,” one commenter tweeted.
One reason the SNL skit fell so flat
was that Farrell gave up alcohol in
2006 and has spoken about the chal-
lenge of staying sober. Lisa McGee,
the Derry Girls creator, tweeted: “Yes
this fine,” with a facepalming emoji.
Other social media users pointed
out that when another Irish nominee,
Paul Mescal, was asked on the red
carpet how he planned to celebrate
Oscar night, he replied: “Drinking.”
The Banshees of Inisherin won no
awards despite nine nominations.
“Crushed by the hurtling train that is
Everything Everywhere All at Once,”
said the Irish Times. In the interna-
tional category, the Irish-language
film The Quiet Girl lost out to Germa-
ny’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
Ireland had two consolations:
Richard Baneham, from Dublin,
won his second Oscar for best visual
effects as part of the team behind for
Avatar. And the Northern Ireland
film An Irish Goodbye won best live-
action short film, which led to one of
the evening’s most moving moments:
the audience joined the film’s makers
in singing happy birthday to its star,
James Martin.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Plant-heavy
diet could
cut risk of
dementia,
study finds
Rachel Hall
A Mediterranean diet of seafood,
nuts, whole grains and vegetables
could lower the risk of dementia
by almost a quarter, according to
promising early research that could
pave the way for new preventive
treatments.
The data suggests eating lots of
plant-based foods may have a “pro-
tective effect” against dementia,
regardless of a person’s genetic risk,
and researchers said it could form
the basis for future public health
strategies if further investigation
confirms their findings.
Co-author of the study, Janice
Ranson, a research fellow at the Uni-
versity of Exeter, said: “The findings
•
National
▲ Vegetables may have a protective effect PHOTOGRAPH: REDA&CO/UNIVERSAL IMAGES
from this large population-based
study underscore the long-term
brain health benefits of consuming
a Mediterranean diet, which is rich
in fruits, vegetables, whole grains,
and healthy fats.
“The protective effect of this
diet against dementia was evident
regardless of a person’s genetic risk,
and so this is likely to be a beneficial
lifestyle choice for people looking
to make healthy dietary choices and
reduce their risk of dementia.”
The findings, published in the
journal BMC Medicine, are based
on data from more than 60,000
individuals from the UK Biobank, an
online database of medical and life-
style records from more than half a
million Britons.
The researchers scored individuals
using two measures for adherence
to the Mediterranean diet and took
into account each individual’s
genetic risk for dementia. Over the
course of nearly a decade, there were
882 cases of dementia. Those who
followed a strict Mediterranean diet
had a 23% lower risk of developing
the condition, compared with those
who ate differently.
Oliver Shannon, a lecturer in
human nutrition and ageing at
Newcastle University and lead
author on the study, said finding
ways to reduce the risk of develop-
ing dementia was a “major priority”
for public health.
Susan Mitchell, head of policy at
Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the
research was intriguing but needed
further investigation, as well as to
be extended to people from black,
Asian and minority ethnic back-
grounds, particularly as dementia is
stigmatised in some communities.
She added there are “no sure-
fire ways” to prevent dementia yet.
“There is a wealth of evidence that
eating a healthy, balanced diet can
help reduce the risk of cognitive
decline. But the evidence for specific
diets is much less clearcut.”
Prof David Curtis from UCL’s
Genetics Institute said the study
did not reflect that people who ate
a Mediterranean diet were more
likely to have a generally healthy
lifestyle, making it unclear whether
the diet itself reduced dementia
risk, “although it is plausible that it
might do so”.
He added: “The study concerns
all forms of dementia, not specif-
ically Alzheimer’s. In my opinion
if there is an effect of diet then it is
more likely to be on cardiovascular
health in general and hence to impact
dementia due to vascular disease
rather than Alzheimer’s disease.”
11
Lack of sleep ‘can
reduce immune
response to jabs’
Linda Geddes
Science correspondent
Sleeping for fewer than six hours a
night reduces the immune response
to vaccination, particularly in
younger men, data suggests.
People’s immune response to vac-
cination is known to vary owing to
factors such as their age, biological
sex and general health.
Dr Karine Spiegel at the French
National Institute of Health and
Medical Research in Lyon and her
colleagues re-analysed the results
of seven studies that involved vac-
cinating people against influenza and
hepatitis A and B. They compared the
antibody responses of individuals
who slept for seven to nine hours a
night and those who slept for fewer
than six hours a night.
The research, published in Current
Biology, found evidence that sleep-
ing for fewer than six hours reduces
the immune response to vaccination
in men – though the effect was more
variable in women, probably owing
to fluctuating sex hormone levels.

12
British design to
be used for Aukus
submarines in
‘historic’ deal
Aubrey Allegretti
San Diego
Britain’s design has been chosen
for a new fleet of nuclear subma-
rines, as the leaders of the Aukus
pact gathered in San Diego yester-
day to declare that they would stand
“shoulder to shoulder” in the face of
Chinese aggression.
The security partnership, which
military top brass believe is the
most significant for Britain since the
US helped it become one of the few
nuclear powers in 1958, was hailed
by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak,
and his US and Australian counter-
parts as “historic”.
Under the terms of a deal that
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
National
Politics
was 18 months in the making, it was
announced yesterday that British
submarines would start to be rotated
to Australia from as early as 2027 to
build its knowledge, workforce and
infrastructure in preparation for the
new fleet of vessels.
The UK’s first new class of Aukus
submarines is hoped to be seaworthy
by the end of the 2030s, with
Australia’s submarines delivered in
the early 2040s.
In the mean time, Australian mili-
tary personnel will embed in US and
UK submarine bases at greater superi-
ority levels this year to start training,
with the US hoping to sell Australia
three Virginia class submarines and
a further two if needed.
It is thought there could be up to
20 British submarines that would
replace the current Astute class, with
the new fleet built by BAE Systems
and Rolls-Royce – principally in Bar-
row-in-Furness, Cumbria.
China has sought to sow doubts
about the scheme, arguing it would
have a “grave nuclear proliferation
risk” and could violate an interna-
tional treaty. However, the Aukus
countries said they had worked
closely with the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
For more than 60 years, they argue,
the UK and US have operated more
than 500 naval nuclear reactors that
have collectively travelled more than
150m miles without incident.
Speaking at Point Loma naval base
in San Diego, California, Sunak, Pres-
ident Joe Biden and the Australian
prime minister, Anthony Albanese,
vowed the move would contribute to
“global security and stability”.
In the face of concerns about grow-
ing hostility from China – militarily
and economically – they said in a joint
statement: “For more than a century,
our three nations have stood shoulder
to shoulder, along with other allies
and partners, to help sustain peace,
stability, and prosperity around the
world, including in the Indo-Pacific.
“We believe in a world that pro-
tects freedom and respects human
rights, the rule of law, the independ-
ence of sovereign states, and the
rules-based international order.
The Abuse of Power
May to publish book
Theresa May will
release a book
about a series of
political scandals,
The Abuse of
Power, which
promises to reveal
the way institutions close ranks in
order to avoid dishonour.
The former prime minister has
never released her own memoir
but the book, due to be published
in autumn 2023, promises to reveal
the story behind famous scandals,
including the Hillsborough and
Grenfell tragedies, the Daniel
Morgan police corruption case and
parliamentary dramas.
She also promises to reveal
more from behind-the-scenes of
the Salisbury poisonings, as well as
her own campaign to change stop
and search.
The book’s synopsis says May
will discuss how “the powerful
repeatedly chose to use their
power not in the interests of the
powerless but to serve themselves
or to protect the organisation to
which they belonged”. It says she
will argue for “a radical rethink in
how we approach our politics and
public life”. Jessica Elgot
▼ Rishi Sunak with senior British
military figures in San Diego to
discuss the trilateral Aukus pact
PHOTOGRAPH: STEFAN ROUSSEAU/AP
“The steps we are announcing
today will help us to advance these
mutually beneficial objectives in the
decades to come.”
Although Britain’s closest threat
to home is Russia, military figures
believe China will only begin to feel
closer over the coming decades.
If the ice caps in the Arctic con-
tinue to melt, there are concerns
China’s naval fleet could begin to
operate on Europe’s doorstep.
With Taiwan holding elections
next year, some western countries
fear it could be the impetus for China
to seize control of the island.
Aukus is not anticipated to create a
domino effect – meaning it will prob-
ably remain a trilateral relationship
rather than bringing other countries
into the pact.
However, the government is confi-
dent it has captured the imagination
of observers and hopes they will align
with the Aukus objectives. That could
include more military joint exercises,
and go as far as prompting a rethink of
relying too heavily on Chinese invest-
ment and trade ties.
While Sunak warned this week
that China posed an “epoch-defin-
ing challenge” to the world order, he
has resisted classifying the country as
a “threat” in the updated integrated
review. While hawks in his own party
want him to take a stronger approach,
he does not believe a deterioration in
relations with Beijing is inevitable.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •

13

Defence review Labour

Johnson as prime minister in 2021.
Sketch But the extra £5bn was less than the
£8bn to £11bn that Ben Wallace, the
John Crace
attacks ‘hollow promise’ defence secretary, had sought.
Rishi Sunak, visiting San Diego,
where he was poised to announce a

Suella has been the Dan Sabbagh

and foreign policy statement, recast
after the withdrawal from Afghan-
deal to design and build new nuclear-
powered submarines with Australia
and the US, told the BBC that the lat-

victim of outrageous
istan and the start of the war in est review was a response to the fact
Ukraine, was incomplete. that “the world has become more vol-
Labour accused the government of “It does not answer growing ques- atile, the threats to our security have

slurs: some Tory MPs

failing to reverse cuts to the armed tions concerning capability gaps that increased”.
forces as the government unveiled weaken our national defences and The prime minister said the review,
a £5bn increase in defence spending undermine the UK’s Nato contribu- and the extra £5bn promised, was

called her humane

over the next two years to bolster tion,” Lammy said, arguing that the part of a “record amount of invest-
ammunition supplies and investment government’s long-term pledge to ments since the end of the cold war,”
in new nuclear submarines as part of raise defence spending from 2.1% to including a previously announced
its “integrated review refresh”. 2.5% of GDP was not credible. £16.5bn in 2020.

Y
The opposition highlighted that The Labour MP accused the gov- Increasing defence spending to
ou’d have thought the Tories would have no money had been found to reverse ernment of making “another hollow 2.5% of GDP was “an ambition over
wanted their illegal immigration bill – a reduction by 10,000 of service promise” because there was “no plan, time”, he added.
insert your own gags – to have a good personnel in the army, replace Her- no timetable” to underline the spend- James Cleverly, the foreign sec-
send-off for its second reading. But Rishi cules planes used to rescue desperate ing commitment, which would imply retary, presenting the full review to
Sunak chose to be 8,000 miles away in San people from Kabul, or increase the an extra £10bn to £13bn real-terms the Commons, said Lammy’s remarks
Diego. Far from the scene of the crime. As number of modernised British tanks increase in military budgets. represented a dramatic change of
it was, the government benches were half empty. Most to replace those sent to Ukraine. Overnight, Downing Street had position for Labour when compared
of the saner Tories had decided to give it a swerve. Not David Lammy, the shadow foreign announced the key points of the to the party’s previous leader, Jeremy
brave enough to speak out in the chamber. secretary, told MPs that he believed review, a revision of defence and for- Corbyn. The Conservative minister
The debate began with a point of order from the government’s renewed defence eign policy first announced by Boris said he was “very glad to hear Labour
Labour’s Clive Lewis. The bill came with its own health frontbench support for the nuclear
warning that there was a less that 50-50 chance of it Aukus choices deterrent and Nato”.
surviving a legal challenge. So why waste parliament’s Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative
US and British submarines compared chair of the defence select commit-
time? Surely it would be better to let the courts battle
this one out first. Suella Braverman disagreed. Labour US – Virginia class tee, also called for rearmament in
hadn’t understood. This wasn’t how it worked. What Crew 135 response to Russian aggression and
was going to happen was that the UK was going to kick Weapons 22 the rise of China. “We are sliding
asylum seekers out regardless of international law. A Vertical launch tubes 12 towards a new cold war. Threats are
cunning plan to turn us into a rogue state. Torpedo tubes 4 increasing but here we are staying on
“The British people aren’t xenophobic,” the home Total weapons 38 a peacetime budget,” he said, calling
Displacement 7,900 tonnes 115m (375ft)
secretary said. Though she was very much hoping for a rapid move to 2.5% of GDP.
she could persuade them to be. We’ve been accused There also remains frustration in
of inflammatory rhetoric, added Braverman. Er, yes military circles that more was not
British – Astute class
… guilty as charged. By now the home secretary was done to reverse decades of cuts to
Crew 98-109
looking surprised. Bewildered even. Now she became Weapons 32
the army. Of the extra £5bn, £3bn is
lachrymose. Some people had made outrageous slurs Torpedo tubes 6 pledged to help fund the joint Aukus
about her. Indeed they had. Some of her own MPs had Total weapons 38 nuclear-powered submarines, not
said she was a competent, humane home secretary. Displacement 7,800 tonnes 97m (318ft) expected until the early 2040s, and
Theresa May was the only quizzical voice on nearly £2bn to replenish stockpiles of
the Conservative benches. How did Suella square Source: US Navy munitions sent to Ukraine.
deporting everyone regardless with our duty to screen
refugees properly before sending
them to Rwanda? Suella merely
shrugged. It was full-on delusional. Labour hadn’t ‘Danger, disorder and division’
And the people aren’t as nasty as understood. What
her. The Tories are still 20 points
Report presents a bleaker vision of the world
behind in the polls. would happen was the
Earlier, the foreign secretary Britain’s refresh of its defence to the Aukus deal. There has been, mutual benefit, as we have done in
made a statement on the integrated
UK would kick asylum and foreign policy may mark however, a re-evaluation of the response to Ukraine.” Indeed, the
review refresh. Or rather, he seekers out regardless the moment where it sobers up importance of alliances to the UK. effect of Russia’s invasion has been
merely repeated everything that about its place in a world that The emphasis now is less on the to make UK ties in Europe stronger
had been briefed earlier. Only
of international law it now describes as “defined by benefits of Britain going it alone, than for decades, it says.
at much greater length. James danger, disorder and division”, and more on the necessity for The paper promises new forms
Cleverly began as he finished. and increasingly tilting to democracies to “out-cooperate” of cooperation on issues of shared
With waffle. Two years on from authoritarianism. the autocracies. interest. It does not go as far as
the last integrated review, he just wanted to clarify a Gone is the optimistic “global The passages on Europe are also Labour’s call for a security pact
few things. No one could have predicted Russia would Britain” bombast of the Boris striking. Where the Johnson review with Europe, but it amounts to a
invade Ukraine – even though it had literally done just Johnson era, set out in the original made some grudging references course correction.
that in 2014 and no one had really batted an eyelid. integrated review only two years to future bilateral relations There is also an implicit, but no
Then Cleverly moved on to the details. The defence ago. That version championed the with Germany, France and Italy, explicit, admission that the merger
budget would rise by £5bn. Though as £3bn was UK as “a beacon of democratic Sunak’s version says: “Our of the international development
already promised to the nuclear programme and sovereignty”. By contrast, the ambition is to build even stronger department and the Foreign
£1.9bn to replacing our diminishing ammunition reworked review is a vision of a relationships with our European Office is a problem, with measures
stockpile, that would leave the armed forces fighting colder, darker and more hostile allies and partners based on values, including a new governance
over the remaining £100m. Labour had no real issues world where the interests of the reciprocity and cooperation … structure to improve oversight of
with any of this – David Lammy, the shadow foreign west do not necessarily triumph. This includes the EU, with which all aid spending.
secretary, may not be so incoherent as Cleverly but he There is no shortage of we seek to work closely in areas of If the refresh is clear about the
also loves the sound of his own voice and so he took patriotism, but warnings and threat posed by the autocrats, it is
an age to say next to nothing. The deputy speaker was forebodings fill every page. less clear on how to counter them.
even desperately trying to get him to shut up. The report says: “The transition It refers to “an expanding group of
Most of the criticism came from the Tory ranks. into a multipolar, fragmented and ‘middle-ground powers’ of growing
Some were upset China had not been named as more contested world has happened importance to UK interests as well
of a military threat to the UK. The language had more quickly and definitively than as global affairs more generally,
been beefed up a little, they argued, but not enough. anticipated. We are now in a period [who] do not want to be drawn
We were just asking for trouble by not taking China of heightened risk and volatility into zero-sum competition any
seriously. Cleverly said the government was definitely likely to last beyond 2030.” more than the UK does”. The UK,
going to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP by But the scale of intensifying it concludes, needs to work with
2025. There again he was also under the impression threats has only led to a modest these countries, but accepts that
that the Tories would still be in power then. Maybe he increase in defence spending of ▲ Boris Johnson’s review two years we may not share all of the same
knows something we don’t. Actually, scrub that … £5bn over two years, mainly related ago had few of the same anxieties values. Patrick Wintour

False rape
allegations
‘drove men
to attempt
suicide’
Helen Pidd
North of England editor
Three men who were falsely accused
of rape by the same woman said they
tried to kill themselves as a result of
her lies, a court has heard.
Eleanor Williams, 22, from
Barrow-in-Furness, was convicted in
January of nine counts of perverting
the course of justice.
Her claims on Facebook of being
raped and trafficked by an Asian
grooming gang sparked a solidarity
movement with a line of merchan-
dise, Justice for Ellie. It also ignited
tensions in her Cumbrian town, Pres-
ton crown court heard yesterday.
Police recorded 151 crimes by other
people linked to the case, including
83 hate crimes, the hearing heard.
Supt Matt Pearman said it had
caused an “open hostility” not seen
in Barrow since 1988, when Vickers
shipyard workers went on strike. He
said Barrow had “yet to recover” from
the impact of Williams’ lies.
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
MUM’S
THE WORD
MOTHER’S DAY | SUNDAY 19 MARCH
Though Williams singled out Asian
men in an incendiary post on 20 May
2020, she also wrongly accused three
white men of rape, the court heard.
One of them, a trainee electrician
called Oliver Gardner, met Williams
just once, in what the prosecutor
Jonathan Sandiford KC described as
“a chance encounter” in Preston on
18 July 2019.
The jury was played CCTV footage
showing a clearly drunk Gardner ask-
ing Williams for a light. The pair then
disappeared down a side street, with
Williams emerging within a minute.
He told the jury that they had a brief
sexual encounter and nothing more.
In a victim impact statement read
to the court, Gardner described his
shock at Williams’ claims: “I was
being accused of being a rapist, a
drug dealer and a human trafficker.”
He said the stress of being falsely
accused had resulted in him being
sectioned under the Mental Health
Act. Then, 18 months ago, he tried to
▲ Eleanor Williams falsely accused
three men of rape, a court was told
kill himself and was sectioned again.
He said Williams had ruined his life.
He had one final exam to sit
before becoming an electrician but
was unable to continue his studies
because of what happened, he said.
Jordan Trengove, whom Williams
accused of raping her three times,
said he had also tried to kill himself
after spending 10 weeks on remand.
In his witness impact statement,
the now 22-year-old said people had
painted the word “rapist” on the front
of his house and smashed his win-
dows. He was taken to hospital after
trying to kill himself and has been
diagnosed with complex post-trau-
matic stress disorder.
After he had a son with his part-
ner, social services told him they had
received 60 anonymous tipoffs about
him “not being safe around children”,
Trengove said. Forced out of Barrow,
he was greeted by his new neighbour
shouting: “Rapist – we don’t want you
living here.”
Mohammed Ramzan, a Barrow
businessman accused of being the
kingpin of an international trafficking
ring, described trying to kill himself
as a result of the “mental torture” he
had suffered. He said his windows
had been smashed, his tyres slashed
and his reputation destroyed.
The court also heard of reports by
two psychiatrists who had assessed
Williams’ mental state. Martin Lock
found Williams to have an “imma-
ture personality and a considerable
amount of anger” while Lucy Bacon
diagnosed her with complex PTSD
due to “childhood trauma”.
Williams will be sentenced today.
Samaritans can be contacted on
116 123
‘I absolutely
understand’:
PM dismisses
pool criticism
Pippa Crerar
Political editor
Rishi Sunak has rejected suggestions
he is detached from the everyday con-
cerns of the public after it emerged his
new heated swimming pool uses so
much energy that the local electricity
network had to be upgraded to meet
its power demands.
While many Britons are trying
to limit their energy use in the face
of increased electricity bills, extra
equipment was installed in North
Yorkshire to provide more capacity
from the National Grid to Sunak’s
constituency home.
The prime minister, however, said
he “absolutely understands” mil-
lions of people are struggling with
the cost of living, particularly their
energy bills, and the “important
thing” was that the government was
helping them.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is
expected to extend the government’s
£2,500 energy price guarantee for a
further three months in the budget
tomorrow in an effort to limit
increases in people’s bills.
On a visit to the US, Sunak was
asked by the BBC whether his deci-
sion to personally pay for electricity
upgrade work – estimated at tens of
thousands of pounds – to heat his pri-
vate pool left the impression he was
out of touch.
Sunak replied: “The important
thing is what the government does to
help people with energy bills. What I
announced as chancellor is a windfall
tax on energy companies, because
the profits they’re making as a result
of the [Ukraine] war, I thought it was
right that we tax those. We have used
that money to help reduce people’s
energy bills”.
Pressed on whether he was able to
understand the public’s day-to-day
lives given his immense wealth, he
said: “I absolutely understand that
the number one challenge people are
facing is with the cost of living and
particularly energy bills.
“So what do I do? We tax energy
companies more, and we’ve used
that money to reduce people’s energy
bills by £1,000. That’s the actions of
this government, the actions of me
as prime minister and chancellor. I
think people can see from that that I
do take this really seriously.”
Sunak had a pool, gym and tennis
court constructed in the grounds
of the manor house he occupies at
weekends. The 12-metre pool was
completed just as many council-run
baths, including in his local area,
were forced to cut opening hours
owing to increased energy costs.
A spokesperson for the prime min-
ister declined to comment on the
works at his constituency home.
The energy price guarantee holds
down gas and electricity tariffs so the
typical household bill is no more than
£2,500 a year. That was due to rise
to £3,000 a year from April, but the
Treasury wants to keep it down until
wholesale prices have fallen further.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Paedophile
ex-pop star
Glitter is
recalled
to prison
Jamie Grierson
The paedophile former pop star Gary
Glitter has been recalled to prison
after a breach of his licence condi-
tions, the Probation Service said.
Glitter, whose real name is Paul
Gadd, was released early last month
from HMP The Verne, a low-security
category C jail in Dorset, after serving
eight years of a 16-year sentence for
sexually abusing three schoolgirls.
The 78-year-old, who had a string
of hits in the 1970s, was jailed in 2015
but freed automatically halfway
through a fixed-term determinate
sentence and was subject to licence
conditions.
Shop the
beauty secrets
she swears by
•
National
Yesterday, the Probation Service
said he had been recalled owing to a
breach of his licence conditions.
A spokesperson said: “Protecting
the public is our number one priority.
That’s why we set tough licence con-
ditions and when offenders breach
them, we don’t hesitate to return
them to custody.” His rerelease will
be a matter for the Parole Board.
The move comes a few days after
a photo emerged of the sex offender
using a smartphone and reportedly
asking how to access the “dark web”.
Glitter was at the height of his fame
when he attacked two girls, aged 12
and 13, after inviting them backstage
DOWNLOAD OUR APP TO SHOP NOW
▲ Gary Glitter in London in 2012.
He has been ordered back to jail a
month after his release on licence
PHOTOGRAPH: BEN CAWTHRA/LNP
to his dressing room and isolating
them from their mothers. His third
victim was younger than 10 years old
when he crept into her bed and tried
to rape her in 1975.
The allegations only came to light
nearly 40 years later when he became
the first person to be arrested under
Operation Yewtree, the investigation
launched by the Metropolitan police
after the Jimmy Savile scandal.
In 2002, Glitter was expelled from
‘We set tough licence
conditions and when
offenders breach
them, we don’t
hesitate to return
them to custody’
Probation Service
Spokesperson
Cambodia amid reports of alleged
sexual offences, and in March 2006
he was convicted of sexually abusing
two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam,
where he spent two and a half years
in prison.
He had three UK No 1s as a per-
former, including I’m the Leader of
the Gang. His breakthrough single,
Rock and Roll (Parts 1 And 2), reached
No 2 in the UK and No 7 on the US Bill-
board Hot 100.
By 1975 he had sold 18m records,
but towards the end of the decade he
was declared bankrupt, later making
a comeback with the hit single Dance
Me Up in 1984.
Snapper Music, an independent
music company based in London,
said it had owned the master rights
since February 1997, but that Glitter
was not entitled to any royalties or
moneys from the catalogue.
15
Police officer
charged with
terror offence
Josh Halliday
North of England correspondent
A police officer has been charged with
a terrorism offence after posting on
social media in support of the Ulster
Defence Association.
William Loyd-Hughes is alleged to
have posted images promoting the
loyalist paramilitary group last year
while employed by West Yorkshire
police and has been charged with
publishing messages in support of a
proscribed organisation.
The Independent Office for Police
Conduct said Loyd-Hughes had also
been charged with three counts of
sharing grossly offensive messages
on Twitter. The alleged offences
are believed to have taken place in
August and September 2022, while
he was serving as a detention officer.
The force said L oyd-Hughes
was suspended from duty but had
submitted his resignation and his
employment would end on 16 March.
Loyd-Hughes is due to make his
first appearance at Westminster
magistrates court on 15 March.

16
More than 1,500 officers
accused of being violent
to women in six months
Rachel Hall
More than 1,500 police officers have
been accused of violent offences
against women and girls over six
months – but less than 1% have been
sacked, according to new figures.
Overall, 1,483 unique allegations
were reported against 1,539 police
officers – or 0.7% of the workforce.
There were 1,177 cases of police-
perpetrated violence, including
sexual harassment and assault,
reported between October 2021 and
April 2022, according to data from
the National Police Chiefs’ Council
(NPCC). Of those cases, 653 (55%),
were conduct matters, which are usu-
ally raised by a colleague within the
force, with the remaining cases, 524
(45%), complaints from the public.
Almost two-thirds of the com-
plaints from the public were about
the use of force, for example hand-
cuffing or arrest, while 9% concerned
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
National
▲ Publishing an annual assessment
of police performance is a new step
harassing behaviour, 6% related to
assault and 5% abuse of position for
a sexual purpose. On the conduct
matters, 48% concerned discredita-
ble conduct outside working hours,
19% related to sexual assault, 13% to
sexual harassment and 6% to abuse of
position for a sexual purpose.
Just under half the complaints
and nearly three-quarters of the
conduct cases still had not been final-
ised when the data was collected, but
where cases had closed, 70% of con-
duct cases (136) and 91% of complaint
cases (290) were thrown out, with
just 13 officers and staff sacked for
misconduct, and nobody fired as a
result of public complaints.
Deputy chief constable Maggie
Blyth, the NPCC coordinator for
violence against women and girls,
said she wanted to see more officers
investigated, disciplined and sacked
for crimes and misconduct against
women and girls.
The figures “reinforce the urgency
and importance of our current mis-
sion to lift the stones and root abusers
and corrupt individuals out of polic-
ing”, she said. “The vast majority of
officers and staff are professional and
committed, but I know it is shocking
to hear about any potential predators
in policing and that this can further
shake fragile trust.”
She said the data is from a year ago
so does not reflect work done over the
past 18 months. She hoped that future
iterations would show “the impact of
those changes”.
Publishing an annual assessment
of police performance is a new step
taken by the NPCC and the College of
Policing to improve responses to vio-
lence against women and girls, and
to tackle rampant sexism and mis
ogyny in the force.
The document notes that the
figures in some areas, especially
domestic abuse and inappropriate
sexual behaviour, may be higher as
many incidents go unreported.
UK may copy US
and ban TikTok
on government
phones – Sunak
Dan Milmo and Pippa Crerar
Rishi Sunak has indicated the UK
could follow the US and Canada in
banning TikTok from government
devices.
Sunak said the UK was “look-
ing at what our allies are doing” in
the wake of the decision by other
countries to remove TikTok from gov-
ernment phones, amid fears over the
social video app’s links to China. The
European Commission and European
parliament have also banned TikTok
from staff devices.
Asked by ITV if the government
was considering such a ban, the prime
minister said: “We want to make sure
that we protect the integrity and
security of sensitive information.
And we will always do that and take
whatever steps are necessary to make
sure that happens.”
In a further interview with the
BBC, Sunak also referred to the
government device bans, saying:
“We take security of our devices
seriously.”
Earlier yesterday, TikTok said
it would be “disappointed” if it
were banned from UK government
devices. TikTok said moves to strip
it from government-issued phones
were based on “misplaced fears”.
The app is under pressure over
its ownership by Beijing-based
ByteDance, with politicians on both
sides of the Atlantic warning that the
Chinese state could access its data
or manipulate what people view
on the app via its recommendation
algorithm.
The Sunday Times reported that a
review of TikTok had been carried out
by the government security group, a
team within the Cabinet Office, and
that the National Cyber Security Cen-
tre had also identified security risks
related to the app.
The report said the ban would
not apply to the personal devices of
ministers and civil servants, though
advice would be issued to explain
the risks of using the highly popular
social video app.
Hours before the Sunak interviews
were broadcast, Downing Street had
suggested no imminent changes were
planned. The prime minister’s deputy
official spokesperson said: “There’s
no change … All departments have
robust processes in place to ensure
that IT devices are secure.”
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
British sculptor and ‘celebrated late
starter’ Phyllida Barlow dies aged 78
Esther Addley
Dame Phyllida Barlow, described
by the Guardian as “one of the art
world’s most celebrated late start-
ers”, has died aged 78.
The artist was best known for her
large-scale sculptures and instal-
lations, often made from modest
materials such as cardboard, plywood
or polystyrene. She represented Brit-
ain in the Venice Biennale in 2017.
Almost as remarkable as her art-
works, however, was her biography.
Barlow rose to international promi-
nence as a sculptor only after retiring
in 2009 following four decades teach-
ing art. Her career included 20 years
as a professor at the Slade School of
Fine Art, where her students included
Rachel Whiteread, Tacita Dean and
Monster Chetwynd.
‘Adventure
of objects’
Art that is
not for the
faint-hearted
Adrian Searle
B
arricades and baffles,
teetering planes
of painted board,
precarious towers and
staircases to nowhere.
Great swathes
of bright yet noticeably soiled
cloth, piles of discarded palettes,
mounds, hanging ropes, lumps
and pillars and ideas collided in
Phyllida Barlow’s often sprawling
sculptural installations.
“It is pointless to define what
sculpture is”, she wrote, in a series
of “provocations” in 2018. Barlow,
who has died aged 78, was nothing
but provocative – as an artist,
teacher, lecturer and writer.
Confrontational, disarming,
sometimes confusing, her art had
an immediate physical presence,
a sense of untameable materiality
and a palpable vitality. Standing in
her 2014 Tate Britain commission
that filled the Duveen Galleries,
I feared at times for my personal
safety amongst all the reclaimed
timber, the chicken wire and
papier-mâché, the gouts of plaster,
all that concrete, scrim and tar.
I felt I had to crawl to get to
the bottom of her work for the
•
National
Though she had been making
art throughout her teaching career,
Barlow’s first major show at a pub-
lic gallery was not until the following
year at the Serpentine. Presentations
at the New Museum in New York and
the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas
followed, and she was commissioned
17
London in ruins and then seeing it
come up, and then fall down again.”
In 1966 Barlow married fellow art-
ist Fabian Peake, the son of the writer
and illustrator Mervyn Peake, creator
of the Gormenghast books. They had
five children.
Barlow’s most recent exhibi-
tion, Hurly-Burly, in collaboration
with Whiteread and Alison Wilding,
 Barlow was ready for it and the work’s ready for opened at Gagosian Paris in January.
best known for it. It’s ready to fulfil all sorts of ambi- Whiteread said: “Phyllida has been
installations tions I want for the work. Not for a really inspirational teacher. Hun-
made from myself – I’m not particularly inter- dreds of students have been taught
modest ested in myself – but I’m interested by her who just think she’s the best.”
materials in what the work can do ... I can now Iwan Wirth, the president of Bar-
PHOTOGRAPH: be confident that things do go wrong low’s gallery Hauser and Wirth,
DAVID LEVENE/ but can also be retrieved.” described her as “a cherished friend
THE GUARDIAN
Born in Newcastle in 1944, Bar- as well as a visionary artist”. “Her
low was the daughter of Erasmus ideas, knowledge, experience and
Darwin Barlow, a psychiatrist who wry humour were always shared with
was a great-grandson of Charles Dar- the most extraordinary warmth. Her
win, and a writer, Brigit Ursula Hope generosity of spirit extended through
Black. The family moved to Rich- her art, her writings, and her many
mond, south-west London after the years of teaching and mentorship.
war, and her childhood experiences “A truly thoughtful and compan-
to create the site-specific exhibition of bomb damage would inspire much ionable human being, Phyllida was
“dock” for the Duveen Galleries of of her work. a guiding light and inspiration to so
Tate Britain in 2014. She became a “I have lots of references about many. Her loss will be felt deeply by
Royal Academician in 2011 and was damage, and reparation and regen- all who knew and collaborated with
made a dame in 2021. eration,” she said. “A kind of cycle of her in the art community and beyond.
“To put it bluntly, I think the tim- decay and regeneration. That fasci- Our thoughts are with Fabian and
ing has been, for me, perfect,” Barlow nates me, because that is what my the wonderful family they created
said in 2017 of her late acclaim. “I’m generation has witnessed, seeing together.”
 Barlow’s Tate Britain commission:
‘At times I feared for my personal
safety, never mind my clothing’
PHOTOGRAPH: PHYLLIDA BARLOW/ALEX DELFANNE
warm-hearted about it, and her.
She once described her art as an
adventure of objects.
She revelled in the incongruous
and the out-of-synch. When the
discrete elements, along with a lot
of materials, were taken from the
studio and constructed on-site, she
largely improvised their final form.
She, like her audience, became a
protagonist in the drama, and here
is where her art’s energy lies.
“Why try to compete with the
super-artists’?” she asked once.
“Why go to the macho means of
production when twiddling your
thumbs and putting things together
from your immediate environment
was all you could afford to do?”
The overfilled skip seemed to
be the crucible of her work. Her art
was awkward and intemperate. It
was only in the last two decades
that she found fame, and an
audience outside the UK, where
she had been an artist’s artist and
much loved and generous teacher
 Barlow’s Folly to generations. For many years she
in the British had little commercial success or
Pavilion at the acknowledgement. The ramshackle
2017 Venice complexity and sculptural breadth
Biennale and awkwardness of what she did
counted against her. Her work
 … and her TIP was a journey rather than a trail of
installation at individual works. One thing leads
the Carnegie to another. Even individual works
International were a succession of movements
in 2013 in and passages, gags and routines.
Pittsburgh, Going big suited Barlow. It
United States magnified her talents. Going very
big suited her best of all. For all
Hepworth sculpture prize in were arguing among themselves. their size, her works were anti-
Wakefield, with its understory Barlow could be confrontational monumental, a wonderful parody
of pillars beneath a raised, in person too, forthright, teasing, of sculpture’s history of self-
inaccessible floor. Negotiating the indiscrete, and given to abrasive regarding masculinity, a burlesque
22 sculptures in her British Pavilion assertions. Her writings reveal her of sculptural gravity. She played
at the 2017 Venice Biennale was not struggles with her own self-doubt. and fought with her recalcitrant
for the faint-hearted. It felt that her Yet however alarming her work materials, in an art of pleasure and
sculptures didn’t want us there and could be, there was something complaint. What a loss she is.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
New motorway gantry
design ‘will be more
resilient to trespassers’
Safi Bugel
National Highways unveiled a new
design for motorway gantries yes-
terday that it hopes will prove more
difficult for protesters to mount.
The redesigned structures, which
are expected to become standard in
England from 2025, will have their
maintenance steps hidden inside
their pillars and will be more diffi-
cult to access without authorisation.
The government agency said this
would make them “more resilient to
trespassers” but stressed that “secu-
rity issues did not form part of the
original specification”.
Gantries above the M25 were
scaled by Just Stop Oil activists in
November. Several stretches of the
motorway were closed and arrests
were made as campaigners pro-
tested against inaction on the climate
emergency.
A spokesperson from Just Stop
•
National
Oil told the Guardian: “Just Stop Oil
has always said the disruption will
end immediately when the govern-
ment agrees to end new oil and gas
[projects]. Until then we look for-
ward to the challenges the new gantry
designs provide.”
National Highways launched a
competition to replace the existing
gantry designs in December, a month
after the M25 protests.
The competition, run in con-
junction with the Royal Institute
of British Architects (RIBA), was
▲ The new design for gantries by
the architecture firm Useful Studio
19
part of a wider plan to “beautify”
the design of the country’s busiest
roads. Design guidance included rec-
ommendations such as “minimising
clutter”, providing “clues” about how
to drive, being sensitive to local land-
scape and improving environmental
sustainability.
National Highways said: “Although
security issues did not form part of the
original specification, the new design
will be more resilient to trespassers
due to entry being concealed within
the pillars, making it more difficult to
access without authorisation.”
The successful concept was
produced by the London-based archi-
tecture firm Useful Studio and chosen
for its “simplicity and elegance”,
according to the National Highways
executive director of operations,
Duncan Smith.
The RIBA architect adviser Jon-
athan McDowell said: “It is very
encouraging that National Highways
is actively engaging the design com-
munity in helping to improve the
design of these ubiquitous but cum-
bersome parts of the motorway
experience. We enjoyed seeing a wide
range of interesting ideas, including
those which challenged National
Highways’ current practices.”
During November’s protests ban- On song King Charles and Camilla, the
ners were draped from the gantries. Queen Consort, meet choristers after
National Highways said at the time
that they needed “a degree of acces- attending the annual Commonwealth Day
PHOTOGRAPH: JORDAN
sibility” for maintenance crews. PETTITT/GETTY service at Westminster Abbey yesterday.
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

20
Eyewitness
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •

▼ Munich, Germany 21
Surfers queue to ride the waves on
the Eisbach (‘ice brook’), an artificial
river in the city’s English Garden
PHOTOGRAPH: PETER KNEFFEL/DPA

22
Xi’s third term to
focus on Taiwan
‘reunification’
Rhoda Kwan
Taipei
Xi Jinping has stressed the need to
oppose “pro-independence” influ-
ences in Taiwan, as he closed the
National People’s Congress (NPC)
after a week in which the rubber-
stamp parliament handed China’s
president an unprecedented third
term, and key roles at the top of the
government were reshuffled.
On Friday Xi secured his place as
China’s most powerful leader in gen-
erations in a carefully choreographed
ceremony in Beijing. In his speech
yesterday, Xi closed the session by
laying out his priorities for China.
He described the need for “national
reunification” as the “essence of
national rejuvenation”, casting the
issue of relations with Taiwan as a
focus of the new political term.
“We should actively oppose the
external forces and secessionist
activities of Taiwan independence.
We should unswervingly advance
the cause of national rejuvenation
and reunification,” he said, to loud
applause.
Xi, who has previously not ruled
out the use of force against Tai-
wan, stressed the need to “promote
Analysis
President’s vision of dominating the world stage
I From the US to Africa
n Xi Jinping’s closing
speech at China’s annual
parliamentary meeting
yesterday, his message was
clear: China is back.
“After a century of
struggle, our national humiliation
has been erased … the Chinese
nation’s great revival is on an
irreversible path,” he said.
The speech came as Xi, newly
annointed president for an
unprecedented third term, tries
to position himself as a global
statesman, leading a China ready
to dominate the world stage.
After three years of isolation
under the zero-Covid policy,
Chinese officials, including Xi, are
jetting around the globe again.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia and
Iran announced a China-brokered
deal to restore diplomatic
relations seven years after they
were severed. Chinese diplomats
returned to the Middle East
circuit several weeks ago – and
Xi is expected to visit Iran soon.
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
peaceful development of cross-strait
relations”.
The Chinese Communist party
(CCP) has never governed Taiwan, a
self-ruled democracy, but regards it
as a renegade province that it must
“reunify” with the mainland, by force
if necessary. Xi has increasingly pri-
oritised China’s claim to Taiwan,
casting it as a historical imperative
amid rising tensions with the US.
Xi yesterday stressed the need
to bolster the military, making it
a “great wall of steel” to protect
China’s sovereignty and national
interests. He also called for greater
economic self-reliance and coordi-
nation of development and security.
“Security is the foundation for devel-
opment. Stability is the foundation
for prosperity.”
On Saturday, Li Qiang, a longtime
Xi ally, was promoted to premier, the
second most powerful position in the
CCP. The former Shanghai Commu-
nist party boss replaced Li Keqiang
who stepped down after two five-
year terms.
Charged with rebuilding China’s
economy after three years of Covid
restrictions, Li Qiang sought to inspire
business confidence. Entrepreneurs
and businesses would be given space
and ample opportunities to develop
On Saturday, a Chinese foreign
ministry spokesperson said:
“China pursues no selfish interest
whatsoever in the Middle East.”
The US dismissed the view that
the deal represented a blow to its
influence in the Middle East. Yet
that was how it was portrayed in
China. The deal “proves Chinese
medicine can solve problems
western medicine cannot”, said
Wang Yiwei, the director of the
institute of international affairs at
Renmin University of China.
Xi’s ambitions for Taiwan were
another theme of yesterday’s
speech. China views the self-
governing island as a renegade
province that needs to be reunited
with the mainland. Xi has not ruled
out the use of force to achieve
that aim. Yesterday, he said China
“should actively oppose the
external forces and secessionist
activities of Taiwan independence”
and advance the cause of
reunification. He also promised
to build China’s military into a
in a rules-based environment and a
“culture of respect”, he told report-
ers at his first media briefing.
The party in recent years has
cracked down on tech companies, in
an effort to assert control over China’s
largest enterprises and business elite.
Li also echoed a speech from Xi last
week which condemned US-led “sup-
pression of China”. “China and the
United States should cooperate, and
must cooperate. When China and the
US work together, there is much we
can achieve,” Li said. “Encirclement
and suppression are not advanta-
geous for anyone.”
Across the slate of other appoint-
ments, there were fewer changes
than anticipated, with most cabinet
ministers keeping their posts.
Xi has been installing allies in key
roles in the reshuffle, but broke with
convention to retain Yi Gang as gov-
ernor of the People’s Bank of China
(PBOC) and Liu Kun as finance minis-
ter. Both men have reached or passed
the official retirement age of 65.
“Opting for continuity in these
critical economic roles suggests an
emphasis on credibility and stability,”
said Mattie Bekink, the China director
at the Economist Intelligence Cor-
porate Network. “It is also perhaps a
tacit acknowledgment of some of the
challenges for Beijing at the moment,”
she said. “The real challenge for this
third Xi administration is whether it
will address structural imbalances
in China’s economy and undertake
reforms necessary to ensure China’s
long-term competitiveness.”
The government has set a 2023
economic growth target of about
5%, up from 3% last year, which was
among the weakest performances in
decades.
Additional reporting Reuters
“great wall of steel”. The Chinese
defence budget will increase by
7.2% in 2023.
Analysts are watching for
signs that China is preparing
its military to be ready for an
invasion of Taiwan. According to
How Beijing sees its
the CIA, Xi has told the army to be
ready by 2027, though some fear
the invasion could come sooner,
with the outcome of next year’s
place in the world order
Taiwanese presidential election a
potential influencing factor.
On Sunday, Li Shangfu was  A screen in
appointed China’s new defence Beijing shows
minister. Li has been on a US live coverage of
sanctions list since 2018 for Xi delivering his
engaging with individuals linked speech at the
to Russia’s defence sector. Great Hall of the
Xi’s support for Vladimir Putin People yesterday
during the war in Ukraine has
been evident, although China
claims to be neutral. Last month,
China’s top diplomat, Wang
Yi, met Putin in Moscow, and
yesterday Reuters reported Xi
could visit as soon as next week.
Amy Hawkins
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
‘It can take you back’
k’
Spanish ice-creams
evoke old memoriess
Page 25
Amy Hawkins
Senior China correspondent
As Xi Jinping starts his third term
as China’s president, here are the
geopolitical relationships he will
have to navigate as he attempts to
assert Beijing’s vision.
The US
China’s biggest threat, economic
rival and partner. In a speech last
week, Xi accused Washington
of leading a western policy
of “containment” towards
China, using a term loaded with
significance from a time when
the US tried to stop the spread of
communism.
But, unlike the cold war rivalry
between the Soviet Union and the
US, today’s clash of superpowers
involves the world’s two biggest
economies, and they are deeply
intertwined. Trade in goods
between the US and China was
worth $690.6bn (£570bn) in 2022
and attempts on both sides to
•
Fiction crime
Book thief wanted to
‘feel like an insider’
Page 26
disentangle the relationship have
been hampered by links in trade,
research, technology and culture.
Since Xi took power in 2012,
China has promoted a nationalistic,
China-first ideology that sees
the US as a threat to its security.
This view has been hardened by
territorial disputes in the South
China Sea and US support for
Taiwan. Joe Biden has promised to
respond militarily if China tries to
take Taiwan by force – a departure
from the more cautious rhetoric of
previous administrations.
Xi also aims to position himself
as a global statesman to rival Biden.
Last Friday, China announced
it had brokered a deal between
Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore
diplomatic relations, a move hailed
in Beijing as a win against US
hegemony in the Middle East.
Since the start of the war in
Ukraine, China has all but given up
on engagement with Washington.
Modest hopes of a thaw when Xi
and Biden met at the G20 summit in
Bali in November were soon dashed
▲ Delegates in traditional dress pose
for photos after the closing session of
the National People’s Congress
PHOTOGRAPH: NOEL CELIS/REUTERS
when a Chinese spy balloon was
shot down by US forces in February.
Now China has doubled down
on its rhetoric, blaming the US for
many of its woes, from a difficult
economic recovery to territorial
disputes. With US politics also
hardening against China, options
for halting the spiral seem limited.
Russia
Since the end of the cold war,
Russia has been an important
partner for China, especially after
the two countries ended a decades-
long border dispute in 2005.
Russia is a source of cheap
energy and supports China’s
expanded role in central Asia. It
has also been a source of weapons:
between 2017 and 2021, 81% of
China’s arms imports came from
Russia, according to the Stockholm
International Peace Research
▲ Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have
clashed on Ukraine and Taiwan
Institute. Most importantly, Russia
is an ally in countering the US.
Xi is expected to visit Moscow
as soon as next week, according to
Reuters. Xi and Vladimir Putin both
talk of a multipolar world, which
they say is a defence against US
attempts to dominate the global
order. They reject the notion of
domestic affairs being influenced
by international norms, instead
promoting territorial sovereignty
in everything from human rights to
internet access.
But in recent years, China’s
view of Russia has been tainted
by what many Chinese see as its
“risky and irrational” approach
to foreign policy, according to
Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow
at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace thinktank.
This was most apparent when
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
The same sentiments re-emerged
when Russia invaded Ukraine in
2022, surprising the Chinese. From
Beijing’s perspective, the many
downsides – not least galvanising
Nato – meant the war just “doesn’t
make sense”, said Gabuev.
Europe
China sees Europe as being less
riven by Sinophobia than the US,
and potentially more open to a
trade relationship that would help
China’s economy recover from the
harm wrought by its zero Covid
policy. Last year Charles Michel, the
president of the European Council,
visited Beijing. This year, France’s
Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s
Giorgia Meloni will do the same
However, the Netherlands
confirmed last week it would join
US export controls on advanced
semiconductor technology,
cutting off China’s access to some
computer chips. A Chinese foreign
ministry spokesperson called on
the Netherlands to “safeguard its
own interests, and not follow the
abuse of export control measures
by certain countries”. Such rhetoric
is typical of the Chinese strategy
of encouraging Europe to diverge
from the US.
The Chinese have tried to argue
that the US is fuelling the war in
Ukraine and that it is in Europe’s
own interests to accept Russia’s
position. But the Chinese fail to
£570bn
Value of goods traded between China
and the US in 2022, complicating the
rivalry between the two economies
23
understand that European interests
and values are at stake in Ukraine,
Gabuev says.
Taiwan
China’s position on Taiwan has
always been clear: the island is
part of China, a renegade province
that must be reunited with the
mainland. But since the end
of martial law in 1987, Taiwan
has flourished as a democratic,
independent, self-governing island
whose prosperity is in opposition
to the Chinese Communist party’s
claim that it is the key to future
prosperity for the Chinese people.
An increasing number of citizens
identify purely as Taiwanese,
but successive governments
have swung towards and away
from the mainland. The current
president is Tsai Ing-wen of the
pro-independence Democratic
Progressive party. That may change
in Taiwan’s election next year. The
main opposition KMT party, which
advocates closer ties with the
mainland, is polling at about 25% –
the same level as the DPP.
The situation worries China.
There have already been reports of
disinformation campaigns aimed
at influencing the outcome of the
election in China’s favour.
Australia
China is Australia’s biggest
trading partner, and crucial to
its economy. China, meanwhile,
needs Australia’s resources for its
economic development. But with
Canberra closely allied to the US,
ties have been strained.
Beijing has been frustrated
by Australia’s criticism of its
expansionism in the South China
Sea, crackdowns in Xinjiang and
Hong Kong, and sabre-rattling over
Taiwan. The final straw seemed to
come in 2020, when an Australian
minister was among the first to
publicly call for an investigation
into the origins of Covid-19.
China responded with a series of
apparently retaliatory acts including
trade bans on Australian wine,
coal, barley, beef and lobsters, and
restrictions on Chinese students.
Africa
When Xi launched his belt and
road initiative in 2013, one of the
first regions to receive Chinese
cash was Africa. Between 2000 and
2020, Chinese state-backed lenders
provided loans worth $160bn
(£130bn) to African countries.
Since then the money has all but
dried up. And as African countries
struggled to repay their loans,
the appeal of Chinese money has
dwindled. Chinese projects in
Africa are now more focused on
Beijing’s priorities, such as mining
lithium, a critical ingredient in
electric-vehicle batteries. Chinese
mining companies have bought up
lithium mines across the continent,
particularly in Zimbabwe.
Additional reporting
Helen Davidson

24
Hague court expected to seek first arrest
warrants for Russians linked to war crimes
Julian Borger
Washington
The prosecutor at the international
criminal court will formally open two
war crimes cases and issue arrest war-
rants for several Russians deemed
responsible for the mass abduction of
Ukrainian children and the targeting
of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure,
according to reports yesterday.
The New York Times and Reuters
reported that the prosecutor, Karim
Khan, would ask pre-trial judges to
approve arrest warrants on the basis
of evidence collected so far. If suc-
cessful, it would be the first time ICC
warrants had been issued in relation
to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
From Bucha
to Mariupol
Generals
accused of
atrocities
by Ukraine
Lorenzo Tondo
Pjotr Sauer
A
s the international
criminal court in
The Hague opens
two war crimes
cases tied to Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine,
the Guardian profiles some of the
commanders and generals accused
by Ukraine, based on interviews
with former soldiers, defence
officials and open-source data. The
Guardian has also reviewed a chart
used by Ukrainian prosecutors
to track evidence of Russian
war crimes. It maps hundreds of
Russian soldiers, by regiment, all
the way up to the commander-in-
chief, Vladimir Putin.
The ‘Butcher of Mariupol’
If one battle more than any other
has defined the brutality of Russia’s
war in Ukraine, it is undoubtedly
the three-month siege of Mariupol,
where, according to the Ukrainian
authorities 22,000 people were
killed. The city’s destruction has
drawn comparisons to the siege of
Aleppo, in Syria, also reduced to a
pile of rubble by Russian bombs.
Both Russian campaigns were
run by Col Gen Mikhail Mizintsev,
a military official placed under
sanctions in March 2022 by the UK,
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
World
It is not clear if the warrants would
be sealed, which would leave sus-
pects guessing over whether they had
been implicated. It is unlikely that the
warrants would lead to trials as the
ICC would not try the defendants in
absentia, and Russia, which is not a
member of the ICC, is highly unlikely
to hand them over to the court, based
in The Hague.
It comes just over a year after Khan
opened an investigation into possible
war crimes, crimes against humanity
and genocide in Ukraine. Over the
past 12 months, he has made three
trips to Ukraine and visited sites of
alleged war crimes.
Russia has been open about taking
Ukrainian children and teenagers to
Russia and giving them to Russian
▲ Residential buildings destroyed in
Irpin. In nearby Bucha the Russians
carried out a massacre of Ukrainians
PHOTOGRAPH: ALESSIO MAMO/THE GUARDIAN
citing his role in the bombardments
of both cities. Mizintsev was the
first head of the National Defense
Management Centre of Russia and
oversaw the construction of the
imposing command centre located
in the heart of the Kremlin.
“He is known as an extremely
good organiser,” said a former
defence ministry source who has
previously worked with Mizintsev.
He is also well-connected: the
source said that Mizintsev had close
ties with the chief of staff of the
Russian army, Valery Gerasimov.
Kharkiv cluster bombing
The north-eastern region of
Kharkiv has been one of the most
affected by the Russian armed
forces. A number of illegal weapons
have been dropped on its cities,
killing hundreds of civilians.
Tailfins of RBK-500 cluster
families, but has done so under the
guise of humanitarian rescue. One of
Putin’s aides, Maria Lvova-Belova,
the presidential commissioner for
children’s rights, has been quoted as
saying 350 children had been adopted
by Russian families and that more
than 1,000 were awaiting adoption.
In February, the Yale Humanitar-
ian Research Lab published a report
alleging at least 6,000 children from
Ukraine had been sent to Russian “re-
education” camps in the past year,
with several hundred held there for
weeks or months beyond their sched-
uled return date. The report also said
Russia had unnecessarily expedited
the adoption and fostering of Ukrain-
ian children.
“The ICC prosecutor might be
bombs and fragments of 300mm
Smerch cluster rockets, banned by
most of the world, but not Russia,
under a 2008 treaty called the
convention on cluster munitions
were found in areas where there
were no military personnel and no
military infrastructure.
The Centre for Information
Resilience, an independent, non-
profit social enterprise dedicated
to exposing human rights abuses,
has identified the commander
responsible for those bombings:
Alexander Zhuravlyov, a colonel
general who assisted Mizintsev in
the 2016 Aleppo bombing.
Zhuravlyov was commissioned
as a Soviet officer in the 1980s,
deployed to Syria three times, and
awarded one of the highest Russian
military awards: the Hero of the
Russian Federation. According
to reports, Zhuravlyov was the
only senior Russian officer who
could sign off an order to launch a
Smerch rocket attack on Kharkiv
from the Russian western military
district in Belgorod.
working towards making the case
that the abduction of children is a
case of genocide. That would be a
first and that might make this case
stand out,”said Iva Vukusic, a war
crimes expert and assistant professor
of international history at the Uni-
versity of Utrecht. “If the ICC charges
the abductions as genocide, it’s also
unclear what the outcome and judg-
ment in any future case would be.
This is really untested territory.”
Moscow denies deliberately harm-
ing civilians, but its defence ministry
has admitted targeting Ukraine’s
energy infrastructure. Human
Rights Watch has said Russia had also
carried out “indiscriminate and dis-
proportionate” bombing and shelling
of urban areas, hospitals and schools.
A series of deadly strikes
On 27 June, a Russian Tu-22M3
strategic bomber took off from the
Shaykovka Russian airbase in the
Kaluga region, carrying a Kh-22, a
long-range, anti-ship missile which
was launched over the territory of
the Kursk region.
At 3.52pm, the bomb hit the large
Amstor shopping mall in the city
of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine,
reducing it to a pile of burning
rubble, killing at least 20.
Ukrainian prosecutors say the
strike was carried out by the 52nd
Heavy Bomber Aviation regiment,
commanded by Col Oleg Timoshin.
Timoshin, 51, has also been
accused by Ukraine’s security
services of involvement in the
missile strike on an apartment
building in the eastern city of
Dnipro, which killed at least 44
people.
Little or nothing is known
about Timoshin. According to
some open sources, he attended
the Tambov Higher Military
Aviation School of Pilots and was
The ICC did not respond to a
request to comment yesterday, other
than to point towards Khan’s decision
to open an investigation on 2 March
2022. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is a
signatory to the court founding docu-
ment, the Rome Statute, but Ukraine
has twice asked the ICC to exercise its
jurisdiction over its territory. Forty-
three ICC member states also referred
the situation to the court, opening the
way to the invasion.
The US is not a member of the court
and the Biden administration is split
over whether to share intelligence
with the ICC to help investigations
and prosecutions. The White House
and state department largely favour
cooperation but the Pentagon is
opposed to setting a precedent for
the investigation of the armed forces
of a non-member state, which could
ultimately lead to the legal pursuit
of US soldiers on war crimes charges.
ICC advocates say there are
safeguards restricting the court’s
jurisdiction to cases in which a war
crimes suspect’s country of origin
is unwilling or unable to prosecute.
▲ Azatbek Omurbekov (left) earned
the nickname the Butcher of Bucha;
Col Gen Mikhail Mizintsev oversaw
the siege and destruction of Mariupol
appointed to head the regiment
after his predecessor, Col Vadim
Beloslyudtsev, died in 2019.
Timoshin’s immediate superior
in the chain of command is
Sergei Dronov, the commander-
in-chief of the Russian air force,
responsible for all wartime air
operations in Ukraine.
Bucha massacre
When the Russians withdrew from
the Kyiv region last April, they
left a gigantic crime scene in their
wake. About 458 bodies, buried
in dozens of mass graves, have
been recovered from the town of
Bucha. Hundreds more corpses
of civilians were found under the
rubble of buildings in Borodianka
and Hostomel.
Among the individuals named
on the blacklist of Russian war
criminals is Azatbek Omurbekov,
40, who led the troops that were
allegedly responsible for the
killing, rape and torture of civilians,
a series of atrocities that earned
him the nickname the “Butcher
of Bucha”.
Omurbekov, born in then Soviet
Uzbekistan, currently serves in the
position of commanding officer of
the 64th Separate Motorised Rifle
Brigade.
It is not clear where he is at the
moment. Some sources say that,
after his retreat from the Kyiv
region, Omurbekov transferred his
soldiers to Belarus.
According to others, however,
he subsequently reached Belgorod,
from where he joined the other
regiments in operations in the
Kharkiv region.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Biden approves huge
oil and gas drilling
project in Alaska
Oliver Milman
Nina Lakhani
Maanvi Singh
The Biden administration has
approved an $8bn (£6bn) drilling pro-
ject on Alaska’s north slope, which
has drawn fierce opposition from
environmentalists and some Alaska
Native communities, who say it will
speed up the climate breakdown and
undermine food security.
The ConocoPhillips Willow project
will be one of the largest of its kind
on US soil, involving drilling for oil
and gas at three sites for decades to
come on the 36,000 sq mile National
Petroleum Reserve, which is owned
by the federal government and is the
largest tract of undisturbed public
land in the US.
It will produce an estimated
576m barrels of oil over 30 years,
with a peak of 180,000 barrels of
crude a day. This extraction, which
ConocoPhillips has said may, ironi-
cally, involve refreezing the rapidly
thawing Arctic permafrost to stabi-
lise drilling equipment, would create
one of the largest “carbon bombs” on
US soil, potentially producing more
than twice as many emissions as all
renewable energy projects on public
land by 2030 would cut combined.
In its decision, the Department of
the Interior’s bureau of land man-
agement said the approval “strikes a
balance” by allowing ConocoPhillips
to use its longstanding leases in the
Arctic while also limiting drilling to
three sites rather than five, which the
company wanted.
But the approval has been met
with outrage among environmental
campaigners and Native represent-
atives who say it fatally undermines
Joe Biden’s climate agenda. The pro-
ject is expected to create about 260m
tonnes of greenhouse gases over its
lifespan, the equivalent of creating
about 70 new coal-fired power plants.
“Approving the Willow project
is an unacceptable departure from
President Biden’s promises to the
American people on climate and
environmental justice,” said Lena
Japanese man granted retrial
after 45 years on death row
Justin McCurry
Tokyo
A court in Japan has granted a retrial
to a man – thought to be the world’s
longest-serving death row inmate –
who was sentenced to hang for the
murders of a family of four almost
six decades ago.
The Tokyo high court ruled yester-
day that Iwao Hakamada, 87, should
•
World
Moffitt, the executive director of
Evergreen Action, a climate group.
“After all that this administration
has done to advance climate action
and environmental justice, it is heart-
breaking to see a decision that we
know will poison Arctic communi-
ties and lock in decades of climate
pollution we simply cannot afford.”
The approval came as the interior
department announced it was going
to ban any future oil and gas drilling
in the US Arctic Ocean, as well as pro-
tect millions of acres of Alaska land
deemed sensitive to Native commu-
nities. But the Willow decision has
still stirred anger.
Opposition has included more than
1m letters sent to the White House, a
Change.org petition with more than 3
million signatories, and a viral #Stop-
Willow campaign waged on TikTok
as well as other social media. The
approval of the project is almost cer-
tain to face legal challenges.
On Friday, the former US vice-
president Al Gore told the Guardian
projects of its kind were “recklessly
irresponsible” and that allowing it
would cause “climate chaos”.
According to the Native Move-
ment, a grassroots Alaska-based
collective, Willow developers have
done little research on the impact of
the cumulative projects across the
Arctic slope of Alaska – the birthing
grounds of the 60,000 Teshekpuk
Lake caribou herd, which are a his-
torically important food source.
Residents of Nuiqsut, the closest
Alaska Native community, have spo-
ken out about ill fish, malnourished
caribou and toxic air quality, directly
caused by existing oil and gas extrac-
tion within their homelands.
The project was given the green
light by the Trump White House,
but a federal judge reversed that
decision, ruling that an earlier
environmental review was flawed.
Alongside the interior department’s
February review, officials expressed
“substantial concerns” about even
the scaled-back plan’s impact on
wildlife and Native communities.
Additional reporting AP
▲ Iwao Hakamada is said to be the
longest-serving death row inmate
Memento moreish Scents of
the past in ice-cream scoops
Stephen Burgen
Barcelona
I
rene Iborra tells tales
with ice-cream and with
a single lick she can send
you spinning back to your
childhood. “When I opened
Mamá Heladera in 2021 I
thought: how can taste provoke
memories and how can I find what
these tastes are?” she said.
“The obvious thing was to ask,
so I created a Google doc and asked
around 100 Barcelona residents for
the tastes and smells that reminded
them of their childhood.”
At the Guardian’s request,
she evoked the aromas of maple
syrup, snow and pine needles
that accompany the early spring
Québécois ritual of “sugaring off ”,
when children are taken to the
maple woods with a small metal
tray packed with snow to collect
the season’s first crop of syrup. As
it hits the snow, it solidifies into a
sort of maple toffee. The sorbet she
produced captured it perfectly.
The first taste was pine,
then just a hint of maple syrup,
be tried again in a decision campaign-
ers said was a “step towards justice”.
Hakamada was convicted of the
murders in 1968 and spent 45 years on
death row before new evidence led to
his release in 2014. He was thought to
be the world’s longest-serving death
row inmate.
The former boxer initially denied
the allegations but later confessed,
subsequently claiming that police
had threatened and assaulted him
during 20 days of interrogation. He
later retracted his confession and
insisted he was innocent throughout
his two-year trial. His death sentence
was finalised in 1980.
Hakamada’s sister, Hideko, 90,
▼ Irene Iborra’s (right) ice-cream
parlour, Mamá Heladera, recreates
the flavours and smells of childhood
PHOTOGRAPH: MAMÁ HELADERA
finishing with the unmistakable
if unnameable taste of snow. For
a moment, Barcelona became the
wooded outskirts of Montreal.
Iborra, the fifth generation in a
family of ice-cream makers, was
backpacking in Asia when she
first became aware how closely
our idea of where we come from
is associated with the tastes and
smells of childhood. She then
became fascinated by neuro-
gastronomy while studying at the
prestigious Escuela de Hostelería
Hofmann in Barcelona, and met her
business partner, Irene Vidal.
Lavender came up often in her
survey, as it was once common to
hang bags of it in wardrobes, so
she made a lavender and acidic
▲ Lavender proved to be a scent that
evoked memories for many people
said: “I have waited 57 years for this
day, and now it has arrived. A weight
has been lifted from my shoulders.”
Japan, the only G7 country along
with the US to retain capital pun-
ishment, has drawn international
criticism of its “secret” executions.
Campaigners have used Hakamada’s
case to accuse Japanese authorities
of driving prisoners insane and sub-
jecting them to “cruel, inhuman and
degrading” treatment.
Death row inmates are notified
only on the morning of their execu-
tion, and their families are typically
informed after the execution has
taken place.
Hakamada reportedly spent much
25
cherry ice-cream. “A lot of people
mentioned croquettes, cannelloni
[a traditional Boxing Day dish in
Catalonia] and bechamel. The
bechamel ice-cream we make with
nutmeg, black pepper, salt and
vanilla,” she said.
Her coconut ice-cream is based
on memories of Chang Feng, the
first Chinese restaurant to open in
her neighbourhood of Poblenou.
For many the smell of Plasticine
is intimately associated with
childhood and Iborra has devised
an ice-cream made with coconut
and bitter almonds that recaptures
the scent – without the taste.
“There are limits,” she said.
“Someone wanted an ice-cream
that tasted of fuet [dry-cured pork
sausage] but that doesn’t work. One
of the strangest was tomato and
onion, like a sofrito. It wasn’t bad,
because onion has a sweetness, but
it wasn’t something we could sell.”
Mamá Heladera is next door to
El Tío Che, reputed to make the
city’s best horchata – a cold drink
made from tiger nuts – and run
by her family since 1912. Iborra
never intended to join the family
business but little by little it drew
her in. “There have been some
crazy ideas, learning experiences,
anxiety, failures, successes, but it’s
based on simple logic: what’s the
smell of your childhood and what
comprises this aroma?” she said.
“An ice-cream can take you
straight back to this memory.”
of his time on death row in solitary
confinement.
He was a live-in employee at a miso
manufacturer when he was arrested
in 1966 for robbing and murdering
the firm’s managing director, his wife
and their two teenage children. The
victims had been stabbed to death
and their home in Shizuoka, central
Japan, burned down. Hakamada has
been out on “temporary release”
since 2014 on humanitarian grounds.
The Shizuoka district court granted
a retrial in 2014, saying investigators
could have planted evidence after
DNA tests proved that blood found
on several items of clothing was not
Hakamada’s.
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

26 World

Man stole manuscripts

scouts or even with individuals out-
side the industry” and wondered if
he could also obtain them.
Beginning in August 2016 up to his
of books by top authors arrest in New York in January 2022,
he impersonated hundreds of people
in the publishing industry by sending

‘to feel like a publisher’ emails from fake accounts.

“One day I created a spoof email
address for someone I knew of in
the publishing industry, and I sent
“wanted to keep them closely to my an email to someone else that I
Sarah Shaffi chest and be one of the fewest to knew of asking for a pre-publication
cherish them before anyone else, manuscript,” Bernardini said in his
before they ended up in bookshops”. statement. “I wrote in the style and
A former publishing employee In his statement, he said he felt using the language that my former
who stole manuscripts by Margaret a “special and unique connection colleagues had used. When that
Atwood, Sally Rooney and Ian with the author, almost like I was request was successful, from that
McEwan has said he had a “burning the editor of that book” when read- moment on this behaviour became
ing some of the manuscripts.
desire” to feel like a publishing pro- an obsession.”
fessional and had no intention of Detailing how he began his scheme Bernardini wrote that he knew
leaking the books. to obtain manuscripts, Bernardini how “egregious, stupid and wrong
Filippo Bernardini pleaded guilty said he had seen them being shared my actions were” and that he would
to one count of wire fraud in New “between editors, agents and literary for ever be associated with his crime.
York in January over the theft of more His lawyer Jennifer Brown wrote
than 1,000 manuscripts. in a sentencing submission that
Bernardini worked as a rights Bernardini had grown up as a lonely,
coordinator in London for the pub- bullied, gay child in Italy and was
lisher Simon & Schuster, which has comforted by books.
not been implicated in any of his She argued that he had “suffered
crimes. He impersonated agents and professional and reputational ruin”,
publishers via email to obtain novels and that being “effectively banned
and other works from writers and from the publishing industry”
their representatives. was “particularly painful” for him Big day Elephants in Pattaya, Thailand, tuck
According to the Bookseller mag- Manuscripts written by because of “his desire to feel like an in after blessings by Buddhist monks at the
azine, in court papers published last Sally Rooney were among industry insider”.
week Bernardini said he never leaked works that were stolen Bernardini will be sentenced on
PHOTOGRAPH: national elephant day celebrations yesterday
XINHUA/REX/
the manuscripts he had obtained but 5 April. SHUTTERSTOCK to mark their place in Thai culture and history.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
FTSE 100 All share
-199.72 - 108.99
7548.63 4117.47
Silicon Valley Bank collapse ‘may force
central banks to halt interest rate rises’
Richard Partington
Economics correspondent
The world’s most powerful central
banks could be forced to stop raising
interest rates after the Silicon Valley
Bank crisis, economists have said,
amid growing signs of financial stress
linked to rapid increases in borrow-
ing costs over the past year.
Analysts said the US Federal
Reserve would probably leave inter-
est rates on hold at its decision next
week, as the meltdown at the Califor-
nia-based technology lender ripples
through global financial markets.
Against a backdrop of concern
over contagion spreading through
the wider global banking industry,
expectations for significant further
rate increases from the Bank of Eng-
land and the European Central Bank
also eased yesterday.
Goldman Sachs said the Fed would
probably now keep rates on hold at
the current level of 4.5% to 4.75%,
after previously expecting another
rise. “In light of the stress in the bank-
ing system, we no longer expect the
FOMC [federal open market commit-
tee] to deliver a rate hike at its next
meeting on 22 March (v our previous
expectation of a 25 basis point hike),”
analysts at the bank wrote in a note
to clients.
It said the US central bank would
probably still raise rates by 0.25 per-
centage points in May, June and July
as it seeks to counter high levels of
inflation, before a peak in rates of
Business vieww
Nils Pratley
Quick sale of
UK arm
is good news
but reaction of
US regulators
is worrying
•
Dow Indl Nikkei 225
+119.76 - 311.01
32029.40 27832.96
▲ The New York stock exchange
yesterday as stocks fell after the
collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
PHOTOGRAPH: MICHAEL M SANTIAGO/GETTY
5.25% to 5.5%. “Though we see con-
siderable uncertainty about the
path,” it added.
As recently as last week, before the
failure of SVB, a rate increase of 0.5
percentage points had been expected
T
he good news is that
it took only a long
weekend to find a fix
– a good one – for the
UK end of the doomed
Silicon Valley Bank.
The bad news is that US regulators’
solution for the parent bank raised
more questions than it answered.
Let’s start with the positive,
though. The sale of SVB’s UK
subsidiary to HSBC for £1 is
satisfactory from almost every
angle. The customers will pass
to Europe’s biggest bank and
now have immediate access to
their money. The Treasury will
be delighted that it has avoided
putting public funds at risk.
For the Bank of England, the
ending is excellent advertising.
The post-crash regulatory reforms
imposed tougher capitalisation
requirements on UK subsidiaries of
foreign banks and in this instance
they seem to have worked.
Very good, but the US picture is
alarming. SVB’s shareholders were
always going to be wiped out but,
£/€ £/$
1.1328 1.2158
+0.0005 +0.0057
in financial markets, after the Fed
chair, Jerome Powell, warned that
more increases would be required
to cool inflation.
The Bank of England had been
given an almost 100% probability by
traders in financial markets of raising
rates by 0.25 percentage points at its
next meeting on 23 March.
That has since fallen back to a
71% chance as City traders assess
in opting for a full bailout of SVB’s
depositors, the US Federal Reserve
and other regulators have sent
several connected messages – few
of them positive.
First, they have endorsed the
idea that SVB posed a systemic
threat. That judgment may be
justified on short-term grounds,
but the long-term implications are
huge. The stance indicates, as Joe
Biden suggested, that the US will
have to retighten rules on second-
and third-tier banks. If the 16th
largest US bank had the potential to
cause chaos, shouldn’t it have been
more firmly under the microscope
in the first place?
Second, the lighter-touch
regime for the likes of SVB seems
to have not been so much light
but nonexistent. SVB failed from
basic risk-management flaws. It
had an overabundance of deposits
and took a punt on long-dated
US debt that fell in value when
interest rates rose. A wide-awake
regulator, one would hope, would
have spotted the risk a mile off. The
the consequences of SVB’s failure.
Economists said financial stability
concerns in the wake of SVB’s col-
lapse would probably force banks
to act more cautiously when issu-
ing new loans – in effect doing some
of the same job as higher borrowing
costs.
However, they also warned that
SVB’s failure showed that delayed
impacts from the most aggressive
obvious question is: what else has
been missed elsewhere?
Third, the Fed has aroused the
suspicion that SVB depositors got
special treatment because they are
well-connected venture capitalists.
If all depositors in all small banks
– not just those within the insured
$250,000 (£200,000) threshold
– are also to be protected in all
circumstances, that represents a
fundamental change in regulatory
philosophy. Given the uncertainty,
the plunge yesterday in the share
If the 16th largest US
bank had the potential
to cause chaos,
shouldn’t it have been
more firmly under
the microscope?
27
rate-rising cycle in decades were
beginning to feed through.
“The Fed is starting to break
things,” said John Briggs, the global
head of economics and markets strat-
egy at NatWest. He expected the Fed
to lean towards a 25 basis point rise
rather than 50 basis points as previ-
ously expected. “If tightening to date
is starting to break things, then the
Fed may not want to pile on more.”
SVB’s collapse comes after the
bank invested heavily in US govern-
ment bonds two years ago at a time
when it had healthy deposit levels,
concentrated in the tech sector and
among venture capital investors.
With a fall in US government bond
prices as the Fed raised interest rates,
the value of its investments dropped.
It also faced rising demands to return
cash to depositors as the tech sector
came under pressure.
Yesterday it was announced that
HSBC will buy SVB’s UK operations
for £1, after emergency talks between
the UK government, the Bank of Eng-
land and potential suitors.
“They were super exposed to tech
venture capital depositors who had
been seeing cash burn as the tech
bubble burst, while previously hav-
ing loaded up their balance sheet
with positive carry trades into bonds
when deposits soared during the tech
boom and ultra low rate environment
circa 2021,” analysts at Deutsche Bank
wrote in a note to clients.
Suggesting that “something
always, always breaks when the Fed
hikes,” they said three factors had hit
the bank: tech companies’ require-
ments for cash, higher deposit rates
on offer than SVB could provide
elsewhere as interest rates rose, and
finally “fear” over the stability of
SVB after it sold about $21bn (£17bn)
of its bond portfolio at a steep loss
last week.
“Ultimately we saw an irreversi-
ble bank run.”
prices of many US regional banks
was understandable: the market
fears more bank run-ins.
The other unintended
consequence is that financial
markets now don’t know what to
think about interest rates. Only
a week ago, the Fed chairman,
Jerome Powell, was saying rates
would have to increase in coming
months to tame inflation. Now
investors wonders if the rises will
be deferred. From a policy-making
perspective, the position is sub-
optimal, to put it mildly.
Look forward a week and it is
possible that the picture could look
brighter. The Fed has other tools at
its disposal besides the emergency
funding measures for banks also
unveiled at the weekend. But we
also know that share prices of US
regional banks do not crash by
extraordinary percentages – 66%
for San Francisco’s First Republic
at the start of trading – unless fear
is real. Well played, the Bank of
England. Unfortunately, the real
action lies elsewhere.

28
How to save a bank Regulators
sleep a little easier after three
day fight to stave off contagion
Kalyeena Makortoff
Larry Elliott
F
rom the moment Silicon
Valley Bank collapsed
on Friday afternoon,
banking regulators
knew they had just
two days to shore up
confidence and prevent contagion
spilling over in the UK.
In offices, spare bedrooms and
kitchens across the UK, it was all
hands to virtual battle stations as
a small army worked through the
weekend and well into the early
hours of yesterday morning to
try to salvage the UK arm of the
tech lender – or risk turmoil when
markets opened.
Ministers, senior regulators and
banking executives were running
on fumes by the time the deadline
approached to avert a cash crunch
that could paralyse startups
across the UK. The collapse of
the California-based bank risked
starving its 3,500 UK customers
– largely tech firms – of cash, and
spooking the wider banking sector.
Bidders, including HSBC and the
fledgling lender Bank of London,
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
Business
fielded phone and video calls
almost every 20 minutes in the
middle of the night as officials
from the Bank of England and
the Treasury, as well as SVB UK’s
bosses, tried to finalise details of
how their respective takeovers
could be executed before the
London market opened.
“It was frantic,” one person
involved in overnight negotiations
said. “But it wasn’t frantic as in:
‘We can’t solve the problem.’ It was
frantic because we had until 7am to
solve this problem. It was all hands
on battle stations. Everyone was
moving so quickly.”
The scramble to rescue SVB
UK revived memories of the 2008
financial crisis, when regulators
had to race to prevent the collapse
of Lehman Brothers and a run on
Northern Rock infecting Britain’s
biggest banks, ushering Halifax
Bank of Scotland into the hands of
Lloyds and part-nationalising Royal
Bank of Scotland.
But 15 years and the
technological adoption sparked by
pandemic lockdowns have changed
the way lenders are rescued. Gone
are the days of shuttling chairmen
and executives to Downing Street
for crunch talks. Instead, most were
poised at laptops to coordinate calls
and review secure details about
the takeover target’s loan book and
balance sheet. Rishi Sunak was
holding calls with the chancellor,
Jeremy Hunt, and the Bank of
England during his 15-hour flight
to meet Joe Biden for defence pact
talks in San Diego.
“It’s remarkable. Because of the
horrible aspects of Covid, we’re all
100% available, 100% of the time.
We can get into virtual meeting
rooms, get into virtual data rooms,
and sign documents, in real time,”
the person involved in talks said.
▲ SVB customers in California. The
bank’s British arm was bought for £1
by ‘safe bet’ HSBC early yesterday
PHOTOGRAPH: NOAH BERGER/AFP/GETTY
It also meant little or no sleep –
including for more than 100 tech
bosses, lobby group members
and investors who pushed hard
for government intervention and
were waiting on tenterhooks for a
deal that would save hundreds of
startups from being paralysed due
to losing access to the cash needed
to pay staff and suppliers.
Authorities had two preferred
options. Plan A was a private
takeover that avoided using any
taxpayer cash. Plan B put SVB UK
into insolvency and mobilised
high-street banks to offer state-
guaranteed loans similar to those
offered to struggling businesses
during the Covid pandemic.
Executives at SVB UK – which
had been ordered to shut its
doors by the Bank of England
on Friday – went into action on
Saturday morning, asking bankers
from the boutique investment
bank Rothschilds to tap potential
 An SVB
branch in
Massachusetts
yesterday. Issues
over the transfer
of US technology
were just one of
the problems
that required
ironing out
PHOTOGRAPH:
STEVEN SENNE/AP
‘It was frantic, not
because we couldn’t
solve the problem,
but because we had
until 7am to solve it’
Unnamed official
Involved in the rescue
buyers including NatWest, Lloyds,
Barclays and HSBC. The more
obscure lenders Bank of London
and OakNorth also threw their
hats in the ring. Non-disclosure
agreements were signed and calls
held with authorities and SVB UK
bosses including its chief executive,
Erin Platts.
Eventually, HSBC, OakNorth,
and Bank of London – which was
leading a consortium of private
equity backers including Carlyle
and Fortress – submitted bids for
the stricken lender.
Dozens of Bank of England staff,
including its governor, Andrew
Bailey, and deputy Sam Woods,
worked into the early hours of
yesterday morning, alongside at
least 30 Treasury officials, the
chancellor, and the City minister,
Andrew Griffith, to coordinate the
sale overnight. Hiccups started to
emerge, though, including the fact
that NatWest, which processed
SVB UK’s payments, had shut off
its services on Friday night. Once
permissions to revive payments
were secured, bidders also realised
SVB UK was running on its bust US
parent bank’s technology.
It meant emergency
coordination with US regulators –
which had seized and taken control
of the American parent bank on
Friday afternoon – to ensure they
would ringfence the technology
assets for the potential UK sale.
Some executives feared they
would have to fly to Washington
to complete the deal, though
eventually a virtual meeting
completed the transfer.
Meanwhile, regulatory
exemptions would have to be
made for lenders such as HSBC,
which planned to put complex
corporate customers from SVB UK
into its ringfenced bank meant to
primarily serve retail customers.
UK ringfencing rules, which
were introduced in the wake of
the financial crisis, are meant
to protect everyday customers’
deposits from riskier operations
such as investment banking.
The government agreed to waive
those restrictions.
It was 4am yesterday before
officials secured the deal and
made their decision: HSBC, which
already had a strong balance sheet
and would not have to raise more
capital, was the safest bet, and
secured the takeover for £1.
By 5am, rivals were notified,
and preparations were made for an
announcement by 7am – an hour
before the London markets opened.
It was Hunt who took to Twitter
for official confirmation of the deal.
SVB UK was rescued, its customers
deposits saved, and authorities
avoided further fallout, without a
loss to the public purse.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Nearly all UK FTSE 100
firms hit racial diversity
targets in boardroom
Joanna Partridge
Nearly all the UK’s 100 largest listed
companies now have at least one
minority ethnic director on their
boards, according to the latest update
from the government-backed Parker
review, which was set up to improve
diversity in Britain’s boardrooms.
The voluntary survey of FTSE 100
companies showed that 96% of com-
panies in the index had at least one
director from a minority ethnic back-
ground on their board by the end of
2022. Meanwhile, almost half (49) of
these 96 businesses had more than
one minority ethnic director on their
boards.
This marked progress from a year
earlier, when only 89 firms met the
target. However, it shows that a hand-
ful of Britain’s top firms are still failing
to end all-white boardrooms.
Frasers Group, the owner of the
House of Fraser department stores,
•
Business
was among the four FTSE 100 com-
panies that did not meet the target by
the end of 2022. Frasers, once known
as Sports Direct, was previously
run by Mike Ashley, who stepped
down from the board last year but
remains the company’s controlling
shareholder.
Among the other companies
with all-white boards by the end
of 2022 were the investment firm
F&C Investment Trust and the stu-
dent accommodation manager Unite
Group.
The domestic repair and emer-
gency services business HomeServe
also had not met the target in the sur-
vey, but it was delisted at the start of
this year after it was sold to a Cana-
dian alternative investment group in
a multibillion-pound takeover.
The Parker review target is vol-
untary, but companies that fail to
participate are expected to explain
why. The review was established
in 2017, amid several measures
designed to end the lack of diversity
in the upper echelons of corporate
Britain. FTSE 100 companies were
given four years to meet the target of
one board member from a minority
ethnic background. FTSE 250 compa-
nies were given until 2024.
Sir John Parker, the then chairman
of the mining company Anglo Amer-
ican, who conducted the review,
said the low levels of director roles
held by people from minority ethnic
96
Number of FTSE 100 companies
that had at least one minority
ethnic director by the end of 2022
backgrounds were a “wake-up call
for major companies”.
The review’s latest update showed
FTSE 250 firms are making pro-
gress in bringing in directors from
minority ethnic backgrounds on to
their boards, with 67% of those that
responded meeting the target, repre-
senting 149 companies, up from 55%
a year earlier.
The current chair of the Parker
review committee, David Tyler, said
the FTSE 100 target set in 2017 “has
effectively now been reached”.
He added: “We have long argued
that companies benefit from ensuring
that succession planning and man-
agement development plans include
29
 In the City of London boards are
becoming more ethnically diverse,
but some firms still lag behind
PHOTOGRAPH: NEIL HALL/REUTERS
the development of ethnic minority
executives.”
However, only seven people from
minority ethnic backgrounds cur-
rently hold the role of chief executive
of a FTSE 100 company, one more
than a year earlier, showing there
has been slower progress in boost-
ing diversity in executive roles. A
further six sit as chair and there are
nine serving as chief financial officer.
This means that about 10% of these
top positions are held by people from
ethnic minorities.
The Parker review has launched
new targets, requiring FTSE 350 com-
panies to set a percentage target for
senior management positions occu-
pied by minority ethnic executives
by the end of 2027.
Tyler said the review committee
believes “this will benefit the compa-
nies and it will help to provide equal
opportunities for people from minor-
ity ethnic communities”.
By December 2027, 50 of the UK’s
largest private companies have also
been set the target of having at least
one minority ethnic director on their
main board, as well as being required
to set the goal for the percentage of
minority ethnic executives in their
senior management teams.
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

30

Weather
Tuesday 14 March 2023
UK and Ireland Noon today Forecast Around the UK

London
Sunny Mist Fog
Low -2 High 7 Lows and highs Precipitation Air pollution
Tomorrow
3 -1 10 55% Low
Sunny intervals Hazy
Manchester

Mostly cloudy
25 Inverness Shetland -2 7 75% Low
Overcast/dull Edinburgh
2 1000
4
32
-3 5 55% Low
Sunny showers Moderate
1008 Belfast
Edinburgh
27 Low 5 High 13
Sunny and heavy showers Glasgow -1 6 85% Low
Thursday
Birmingham
Light showers Newcastle
ca
6
-2 8 65% Low
Rain Sleet Light Belfast Moderate
Brighton
snow 7
York

Snow showers 1 9 55% Low

Dublin Liverpool
rpoo
ol 7
7
Bristol
Heavy snow Ice
35C
Nottingham
Nott m

7 Norwich
Carbon
2 9 25% Low
30
Birmingham
ming count
Thundery rain Cardiff
25 Daily atmospheric CO2
readings from Mauna Loa,
20 7 10
1 Hawaii (ppm):
Thundery showers 15
Cardiff
Ca L
Londo
London
1004 2 9 25% Low
Latest
X
10
1012 10 12 Mar 2023 419.64 Newcastle
5
Dover Weekly average
Temperature, 0
9 05 Mar 2023 421.10
ºC
-5
-4 5 65% Low
Plymouth 13 Mar 2022 418.52
-10 10
13 Mar 2013 397.49 Penzance
Moderate 22
-15 Pre-industrial base 280
Wind speed, Windy
mph -20 Safe level 350
The Channel Islands 7 10 25% Low
Source: NOAA-ESRL

Atlantic front Weather tracker Around the world

This week will feature snow events Algiers 21 Lisbon 18

on opposite coasts of the US. As in Ams’dam 8 Madrid 17
late February, another atmospheric Athens 17 Malaga 23
river, or “Pineapple Express”, Auckland 21 Melb’rne 28
brings rainfall and mountain snow B Aires 32 Mexico C 26
to California and Oregon. Rain Bangkok 33 Miami 27
and mountain snow is expected Barcelona 20 Milan 16
Cold front to become more widespread and Basra 26 Mombasa 32
intense overnight and into today Beijing 22 Moscow 4

Warm front as an area of low pressure moves Berlin 14 Mumbai 35

east, clearing through tomorrow. Bermuda 21 N Orleans 17
Several feet of snow is expected Brussels 9 Nairobi 28
Occluded front in the Sierra Nevada mountains Budapest 19 New Delhi 32
by tomorrow evening, with the C’hagen 8 New York 3

Trough highest areas receiving up to 12ft. Cairo 21 Oslo 3

Large amounts of rain, with added Cape Town 28 Paris 10
snowmelt, will bring a significant Chicago 2 Perth 27

Sun & Lighting risk of flooding across parts of the Corfu 18 Prague 12
High tides
Source: © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Times are local UK times

west, but particularly in central Dakar 27 Reykjavik -3

Moon up California. But every cloud has a Dhaka 33 Rio de J 28
silver lining, and in this case it’s Dublin 6 Rome 17
Aberdeen 0524 3.6m 1750 3.7m London Bridge 0541 6.6m 1803 6.1m Belfast 1826 to 0641 a considerable reduction in the Florence 16 Shanghai 22
Avonmouth 1111 11.3m 2333 10.8m Lossiemouth 0342 3.3m 1605 3.4m Birm’ham 1809 to 0622 state’s extreme drought conditions. Gibraltar 21 Singapore 30
Barrow 0318 8.1m 1544 7.9m Milford Haven 1011 5.9m 2236 5.6m Brighton 1803 to 0615 Further east, an area of low H Kong 23 Stockh’m 6
Belfast 0257 3.1m 1538 3.1m Newquay 0906 5.9m 2132 5.7m Bristol 1813 to 0626 pressure has tracked from the deep Harare 23 Strasb’g 11
Cobh 0930 3.6m 2154 3.5m North Shields 0730 4.3m 1954 4.3m Carlisle 1812 to 0627 south to the Carolinas. The system Helsinki 6 Sydney 23
Cromer 1033 4.2m 2252 4.3m Oban 0925 3.2m 2158 3.1m Cork 1836 to 0649 was expected to intensify as it Istanbul 11 Tel Aviv 17
Dover 0239 6.3m 1501 5.9m Penzance 0833 4.8m 2102 4.6m Dublin 1827 to 0641 moves up the east coast, developing Jo’burg 27 Tenerife 25
Sun rises 0617
Dublin 0339 3.5m 1611 3.5m Plymouth 0938 4.7m 2159 4.6m Sun sets 1802 Glasgow 1819 to 0634 into a northeaster last night and K Lumpur 33 Tokyo 12
Galway 0926 4.2m 2157 4.1m Portsmouth 0318 4.2m 1545 4.1m Moon rises 0131 Harlech 1818 to 0632 stirring up a snowstorm across K’mandu 22 Toronto -1
Greenock 0416 3.1m 1639 3.2m Southport 0218 7.9m 1431 7.8m Moon sets 0853 Inverness 1816 to 0633 several states in New England, and Kabul 20 Vancouv’r 8
Last Quarter 15 March Kingston 30 Vienna 13
Harwich 0328 3.7m 1605 3.4m Stornoway 1053 3.9m 2348 3.7m London 1802 to 0615 New York and Pennsylvania. Snow
Kolkata 35 Warsaw 14
Holyhead 0208 4.9m 1431 4.8m Weymouth 1054 0.9m 2320 0.8m M’chester 1811 to 0625 rates of up to 2 inches an hour are
L Angeles 15 Wash’ton 7
Hull 1024 6.4m 2248 6.4m Whitby 0803 4.8m 2025 4.8m Newcastle 1808 to 0623 possible, leading to accumulations
Forecasts and Lagos 31 Well’ton 18
Leith 0646 4.7m 1908 4.8m Wick 0314 2.9m 1539 2.9m
graphics provided by
Norwich 1757 to 0610 of potentially 12-18 inches in places.
Lima 27 Zurich 10
Liverpool 0251 8.2m 1511 8.1m Workington 0318 7.2m 1541 7.2m AccuWeather ©2023 Penzance 1825 to 0637 James Parrish MetDesk
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Rugby union
Unstoppable Irish Saker agrees to be
are heading for England’s Ashes
a ‘greenwash’
fast bowling coach
Robert Kitson, page 32 
Goal of free speech
Lineker’s treatment
exposes the fact that
the image of a warm,
fuzzy BBC was a lie
Jonathan Liew
•
Cricket
ch
Page 33 
▲ Gary Lineker will
be back on screen this
weekend, following
the standoff with
BBC executives over
his use of Twitter
JACK TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES
F
or almost 50 years MI5 had agents
embedded at the BBC, vetting job
candidates with the specific aim of
weeding out prospective left-leaning
employees. It was known as the
“Christmas Tree” process, after the
discreet symbol on a personnel file
that would advise executives that a
particular individual was to be blacklisted. The practice
continued well into the 80s, and until a 1985 Observer
exposé was denied at all levels.
Perhaps this jars a little with the warm and fuzzy
image of the BBC that has been bequeathed to us
over the generations. This lovable national treasure,
informed by the sacred mission of its founder Lord
Reith, a humming hive of family entertainment and
artistic monuments and the Sports Report theme tune
and David Attenborough cuddling gorillas, a place that
expresses the best of us and represents all of us. And it
strikes me that many of the strong feelings generated
by the treatment of Gary Lineker over the past week
originate in this ideal: a honeyed, romanticised BBC
that has only ever really existed in the imagination.
Take Reith himself, for example: a man who has
become synonymous with the noble benevolence
of public service broadcasting. Reith was a fascist
sympathiser. He spoke with open admiration of the rise
of Mussolini in Italy. After the Night of the Long Knives
in 1934, he wrote: “I really admire the way Hitler has
cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt,”
which – to borrow a phrase – is language not entirely
dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s.
There has been a good deal of talk in recent days
about independence and free speech, about not
necessarily agreeing with what Lineker says but
31
defending his right to say it, much of which is based
on the thinly veiled fallacy that the BBC has ever been
a truly impartial space. And what, on reflection, did
we ever expect from an organisation that owes its very
existence to the consent of those in power? What kind
of world were the 17 white men who have served as
its director general – 12 of them privately educated,
11 of them Oxbridge graduates, eight of them former
military personnel – ever going to construct?
Perhaps the same world that fired Kenny Everett
in the 70s for making a joke about the wife of a
Conservative government minister, and reprimanded
Tony Blackburn for railing with the utmost seriousness
at striking miners. Perhaps the same world in which
the security services get to decide who writes your
news bulletins. Perhaps the same world in which
Andrew Neil can anchor political coverage while being
chairman of a right-wing magazine, while the presenter
of a football highlights show can be suspended for
criticising a right-wing government policy.
T
his has always been a playground
of establishment power, and yet
if the surreal past few days teach
us anything it is that the terms of
engagement may be shifting. Perhaps
Dion Dublin really does have strong
feelings on the UK’s obligations under
the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Perhaps Alan Shearer genuinely thinks the new Illegal
Migration Bill undermines our credibility to advocate
human rights abroad. More likely, however, that they
intuited something more elemental: a kind of corporate
condescension, the unanswerable arrogance of a boss
class that has never really valued them as people.
So they kicked out. You may take our plush sofas.
You may take our slow-mo replays and Opta stats.
But you’ll never take our freedom. And they won!
An unapologetic Lineker will be back on our screens
this weekend, flanked by his comrades-in-arms. The
director general Tim Davie has been humiliated. And
for all the alarmist rhetoric, the BBC’s response to
Lineker has been in keeping with its proud 100-year
history of suppressing non-establishment viewpoints.
The only difference is these discussions are no longer
occurring in sealed files behind
For all the numbered office doors, but in public.
For the right, the BBC has always
faults of the been a safe space. Now, suddenly,
BBC, it too this space is contested. So perhaps
has been on one of the reasons they are reacting
a journey
so apoplectically to the tweets of
a football presenter is the loss of
control they represent. It would
never have occurred to Kenneth Wolstenholme or
Michael Parkinson or Bruce Forsyth to compare
the government of the day to the Nazis. That it is
now possible to do so – to be successful and popular
and anti-establishment and correct all at once – is a
prospect that scares the life out of them.
And for all the faults of the BBC, it too has been
on a journey. The organisation that Greg Dyke
described as “hideously white” has gone from 2%
non-white management in 2000 to 12% in 2020. A
woman presents Football Focus. And even in the
circular absurdity of BBC journalists interviewing BBC
executives on BBC policy, there is at least an attempt
at the transparency and self-reflection so absent
in commercial media. Where did I read about the
Christmas Tree files and Lord Reith’s Nazi sympathies?
The BBC website.
For decades the chimera of impartiality has
bound the BBC while strengthening its enemies. If
Lineker’s last stand has achieved anything, it is to
expose this as the conservative fiction it always was.
Why be impartial when you can be right? Why carry
on pretending that cruelty and empathy are equal
arguments deserving equal weight? Perhaps it took a
bunch of ex-footballers to expose the brutal truth of
politics: in a battleground of power, the only thing that
really matters is winning.

32
Tuilagi in frame
to return for
England’s ‘free
swing’ in Dublin
Gerard Meagher
Manu Tuilagi is in the frame to
return for what England have billed
as a “free swing” at the grand-slam
chasing Ireland on Saturday as Steve
Borthwick’s wounded side seek to
salvage their Six Nations campaign.
With Ollie Lawrence ruled out
with a hamstring injury, Borthwick is
forced into another midfield reshuffle
with Tuilagi – Ireland’s tormentor-in-
chief – available after suspension for
the daunting trip to Dublin.
Tuilagi is yet to feature in the Six
Nations this year but could be tasked
with adding some much-needed
power to England’s ranks. The
31-year-old centre was overlooked
by Borthwick for England’s matches
against Scotland and Italy before a red
card on duty for Sale ruled him out of
the win against Wales and the dismal
defeat by France last weekend.
Lawrence’s injury, coupled with
England’s limp response to France’s
physicality, could pave the way for
Tuilagi to return in Dublin, however,
in a match in which Marcus Smith has
suggested there is little to lose.
“There’s going to be a lot of noise
and a lot of pressure on us, and we’ve
got to become tighter as opposed to
splinter because this is a big test of
our togetherness as a squad, of our
resolve,” Smith said. “There’s no bet-
ter week than a free swing at Ireland.”
Tuilagi’s last England appearance
came in the autumn and, though he
was out of form in the latter stages
of Eddie Jones’s tenure, at his best
he has wreaked havoc against Ire-
land and has a 100% win record in
six previous outings. He has missed
the past three meetings but was in
devastating form in England’s 57-15
win in a World Cup warm-up match
in 2019 and earlier that year was
similarly destructive as Jones’s side
clinched a dominant victory in the
opening round of the Six Nations.
That day Tuilagi starred with
Owen Farrell inside him at fly-half
and Henry Slade his centre partner
and Borthwick may be tempted to
rekindle that combination following
▲ Manu Tuilagi boasts a 100% win
record in six matches against Ireland
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
Sport
Rugby union Guinness Six Nations
England’s capitulation to France.
Smith was tasked with running a
more expansive gameplan but in
terrible conditions and in the face of
French superiority he failed to inspire
any sort of attacking cohesion.
Borthwick may also be tempted to
deploy Tuilagi at outside-centre with
Farrell at No 12 and Smith or George
Ford, who was also included yester-
day in a 36-man squad, at fly-half. Joe
Marchant and Guy Porter are other
centre options but Tuilagi – who has
been training with the squad despite
his ban – could provide Borthwick
with an answer to his power problem.
By and large Borthwick has stuck
by the players who were trounced
on Saturday with Lawrence the only
member of the matchday 23 not
included this week. Borthwick has
also included the London Irish wing
Ollie Hassell-Collins, the Harlequins
tighthead prop Will Collier and the
Sale lock Jonny Hill.
Smith will be hoping he is given
another shot at fly-half and believes
England can bring about the neces-
sary improvements in such a brief
time. “You want to test yourselves
against the best – and we’re going
to the best in the world – then we’re
going to have to step up a gear,” he
said. “We’ve got to get better quickly
because the challenge doesn’t come
much greater than Ireland in Dublin.
“We’ve got to bounce back. There’s
only one way to go now, it’s to stand
up and fight as hard as we can, play as
hard as we can for the shirt. .. With the
characters we’ve got in the group we
can turn things around very quickly.”
Smith also believes England can
take heart from their performance
against Ireland last year. Ireland
won 32-15 but the scores were level
at 15-15 with 15 minutes to go despite
Charlie Ewels’s second-minute red
card. “Dublin away is going to be a
tough test, but we’ll take confidence
from what we did to them last year.
We were close, with a man down, and
we’re better than we were last year.”
Andy Farrell, meanwhile, has
warned his Ireland side that England
will be significantly improved after
their shocking performance against
France last week. “I definitely don’t
[think that performance was reflec-
tive of England’s quality],” he said.
“Those games are one-offs. France
were on a high, and the emotions
were probably dented a little from
England. But knowing the players,
knowing the coaching staff and
everyone involved, there’s no bet-
ter place to turn it round. They’re a
good side. We’ve seen that time and
time again. They’ll be a really, really
tough opponent to meet.”
Irish racing certainties
for glorious ‘greenwash’
They have never clinched a
grand slam in Dublin but it
looks like being a beautiful
day for the world’s best team
Robert Kitson
S
o, apart from St Patrick’s
Day, the Cheltenham
Festival and a potential
Ireland grand slam
in the Six Nations
championship, could this
week be any bigger from an Irish
perspective? For aficionados of
green-shirted sporting history, the
answer is yes. The Ireland team has
been playing international rugby
for 148 years and, as yet, has never
clinched a grand slam in Dublin.
The only time it has happened
previously on the island of Ireland
was back in 1948 when, with the
great Jackie Kyle in his pomp,
Ireland beat Wales 6-3 at Ravenhill
in Belfast. If that was a huge deal
at the time – “If Wales don’t score
again I’ll be canonised,” the Irish
prop Jack Daly joked after scoring
the crucial try – it will be nothing
compared to the Celtic house party
should the world’s No 1-ranked
team complete a clean sweep at
England’s expense on Saturday.
While Ireland have won more
recent grand slams in Cardiff in
2009 and Twickenham in 2018,
triumphing on home soil really is
the oval-ball holy grail. Remarkably
France and Wales have both done
so four times apiece at home this
century alone, while Scotland will
forever cherish their timeless 1984
and 1990 heydays at Murrayfield.
England have not managed it since
1995, before nine of the starting XV
last Saturday were even born.
Which begs another question:
could Saturday, to steal from U2’s
back catalogue, be Irish rugby’s
most beautiful day? Given their
litany of ill-starred past World
Cup campaigns, the ingredients
are clearly all there. It is no minor
achievement in itself to unite the
four proud provinces of Leinster,
Ulster, Munster and Connacht in
joyful communion and their local
heroes are increasingly a match for
any of their fabled predecessors.
The 22-7 victory in Edinburgh
on Sunday, in its own way, was as
impressive a display of problem
solving as international rugby has
seen in recent times. Scotland
are a more than decent side but
Ireland still kept them at arms
length despite a blizzard of injuries
which eventually led to a prop,
Cian Healy, filling in at hooker
and a flanker, Josh van der Flier,
throwing into the lineout.
The contingency planning,
mental flexibility and tactical
savvy that enabled them to
pull through regardless was
indicative of a team who, along
with France, have vaulted clear of
their other European rivals. And
when France came to the Aviva
Stadium last month they, too, were
shredded by the fitness, force and
finesse of the increasingly jolly
green giants, clearly enjoying
themselves under Andy Farrell.
To anoint them as already
Ireland’s greatest ever team is a
big call but, statistically, there is
increasingly little doubt. Even
when Brian O’Driscoll, Paul
O’Connell and co were flying in
2009 they had nothing like the
depth Ireland now possess. It
is interesting, too, to revisit the
team sheet from Twickenham in
2018. Rob Kearney, Keith Earls and
CJ  Stander were all outstanding
Irish servants but successors like
Hugo Keenan, Mack Hansen and
Caelan Doris are elevating Ireland
to even greater heights.
They have duly proved
unbeatable in their past 13 Test
matches at home, while Farrell
has presided over 19 wins in 20 Six
Nations home outings. Ireland have
lost just twice in the past couple of
years: a solitary defeat against New
Zealand at Eden Park last summer
before their famous overall series
win and a 30-24 defeat by France in
Paris last February.
All of which suggests another
exceptionally tough day for
England this weekend. Ireland
will be without the excellent
Garry Ringrose, concussed against
Scotland, and Iain Henderson, who
▲ Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll
celebrates a 14-13 win over England in
2009 with national great Jackie Kyle
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
▼ Ireland’s players
celebrate another hurdle
cleared at Murrayfield
DAN SHERIDAN/SHUTTERSTOCK
has a broken arm, but this squad
is a multiheaded Hydra. Jamison
Gibson-Park will probably be back
to supply extra zip, Peter O’Mahony
has yet to take a backward step this
year and Ryan Baird is a fast-rising
presence. And then there is Johnny
Sexton, now level alongside Ronan
O’Gara as the most prolific points
scorer in Six Nations history.
This looks like being Sexton’s
Six Nations swansong, ladling
even more emotion on top of this
passion-filled weekend.
A
s anyone who
witnessed the Ireland
v England game at
Croke Park in 2007
can testify, Dublin
is a ferociously hard
place to go on such colossal days.
That Saturday, because of the
venue’s historical resonance, the
atmosphere was as super charged
as any Six Nations game has been
before or since. By half-time Ireland
were already 23-3 up and the final
scoreline of 43-13 was arguably
even more of a sobering experience
for England than the 53-10 French
flop last Saturday.
All the visitors can do is pick
themselves up again and attempt to
reconnect with the spirit of 2003, the
year England and Ireland were both
gunning for a grand slam at the old
Lansdowne Road. Martin Johnson
and his team refused to budge
during the infamous red carpet
stand-off before the game and the
visitors were similarly immovable
once the match kicked off, winning
42-6 before going on to hoist the
World Cup later that year. Could
Ireland repeat that feat? Complete a
“greenwash” this week and they will
see no reason why not.
•
Cricket
Stokes lures back coach Saker
as England focus on Ashes glory
Simon Burnton
David Saker is to work as England’s
fast-bowling coach throughout the
red-ball summer, reprising the role
he took during the successful Ashes
campaigns of 2010-11 and 2013.
The Australian, who is with the
white-ball squad in Bangladesh, has
agreed a short-term deal after being
approached by Ben Stokes during last
year’s T20 World Cup.
“I don’t think I’ll do much Test
cricket, but I’m doing the Ashes,” he
said. “Ben said: ‘I’d like to get you
involved in the Ashes.’ Rob Key had
already floated it a little bit, but being
so busy I wasn’t sure if I really wanted
to do it. Once Stokesy pushed it, it
made it an easy decision. I said yes
straight away because of the mag-
nitude of the occasion. I’ve been
involved in Ashes with both parties
and the cricket is as exciting as it gets.
It’s the biggest Test event.”
The 56-year-old was England’s
fast-bowling coach between 2010 and
2015, during which time they won
the Ashes in Australia, successfully
defended them at home and won a
series in India for the first and only
time since 1984-85. He then fulfilled
a similar role for Australia from 2016
to 2019.
“Working with England the first
time was so much fun,” he said. “I’m
really looking forward to the oppor-
tunity to do the Ashes with this group
because they are the best team in the
world to watch at the moment.
“To win Ashes and big series you
need a good battery of fast bowlers
and that is definitely the case about
England. You can say the same about
the Australians, but playing on your
home patch is always an advantage
for a bowling group. It’s exciting if we
can have Jofra [Archer] and [Mark]
Wood available. Whether you play
them together is another thing, but
you need that pace against the Aus-
tralians. The thing those sorts of
bowlers can do, they can bowl a spell
that can crack a game open.”
Saker will continue to work with
the white-ball team who, after the
conclusion of their T20 series in
Bangladesh today , where they trail
2-0 with a game to play, do not play
Results
Cricket
FOURTH TEST (day five of five)
Ahmedabad Australia 480 (UT Khawaja 180, CD Green 114;
R Ashwin 6-91) & 172-2 dec (TM Head 90, M Labuschagne
63no). India 571 (V Kholi 186, Shubman Gill 128,
A Patel 79). Match drawn. India win the series 2-1
FIRST TEST (day five of five)
Christchurch Sri Lanka 355 (BKG Mendis 87,
FDM Karunaratne 50; TG Southee 5-64, MJ Henry 4-80) &
302 (AD Mathew 115; BM Tickner 4-100). New Zealand 373
(DJ Mitchell 102, MJ Henry 71, TWM Latham 67;
AM Fernando 4-85) & 285-8 (KS Williamson 121no,
DJ Mitchell 81). New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by two wickets.
ICC WORLD CUP LEAGUE 2
Kirtipur Papua New Guinea 95 (S Lamichhane 5-25). Nepal
100-1 (Sheikh 53no). Nepal beat PNG by nine wickets.
Emma Raducanu v Beatriz Haddad Maia
Go online now to read Tumaini Carayol’s report
theguardian.com/sport/tennis
again until September, with an ODI
World Cup starting the following
month. He is also contracted to coach
Melbourne Renegades in Australia’s
Big Bash League, which starts in
mid-December.
The England role means he will
link up again with Jimmy Anderson
and Stuart Broad, who were key play-
ers when Saker last worked with the
team. “Baz [Brendon McCullum]
will pick a team that he thinks will
win and he’ll explain what he wants
from the players and then it’s my job
to make sure they can deliver that,”
he said.
“The evolution of Jimmy and
Broady, they’re so confident in what
‘Once Stokesy
pushed it, it
made it an easy
decision for me’
David Saker
England coach
Tennis
ATP/WTA BNP PARIBAS OPEN (Indian Wells, California)
Men: Third round: D Medvedev (Rus) bt I Ivashka (Blr) 6-2
3-6 6-1; A Tabilo (Chi) bt J Thompson (Aus) 6-3 7-6 (6);
F Auger-Aliassime (Can) bt F Cerundolo (Arg) 7-5 6-4;
T Paul (US) bt H Hurkacz (Pol) 4-6 6-2 6-4
Women: Third round: P Kvitova (Cze) bt J Ostapenko (Lat)
0-6 6-0 6-4; B Krejcikova (Cze) bt W Xin (Chn) 6-2 6-7 (1)
6-2; A Sabalenka (Blr) bt L Tsurenko (Ukr) walkover;
C Garcia (Fr) bt L Fernandez (Can) 6-4 6-7 (5) 6-1;
S Cirstea (Rom) bt B Pera (US) 6-3 6-1
Golf
THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP (Sawgrass, Florida)
Leading final scores (US unless stated) 271 S Scheffler 68
69 65 69. 276 T Hatton (Eng) 72 71 68 65. 278 T Hoge 78 68
62 70; V Hovland (Nor) 69 71 70 68. 279 H Matsuyama (Jpn)
74 70 67 68. 280 C Davis (Aus) 69 70 67 74;
M Homa 72 72 67 69; S Im (Kor) 75 69 64 72;
M Lee (Aus) 68 70 66 76; D Lingmerth (Swe) 72 68 68 72;
J Rose (Eng) 69 73 67 71; J Suh 68 73 69 70.
MAGICAL KENYA OPEN (Nairobi)
Leading final scores (GB/Ire unless stated) 266 J Campillo
(Sp) 69 68 63 66. 268 M Kawamura (Jpn) 67 67 68 66.
269 S Ben Tarrío (Sp) 71 68 64 66; R Hisatune (Jpn) 70 63 71
65. 270 L Nemecz (Aut) 67 68 69 66; B Virto (Sp) 66 68 70 66
33
they can do and they just go out and
do it. That’s what you want from your
bowling group. My job is to make sure
the bowlers are doing that.
“It’s also creating an atmosphere in
the dressing room that’s enjoyable. It
sounds like it’s a small thing, but the
dressing room atmosphere is a huge
thing in international cricket.
“We’re playing a Test against Ire-
Final confirmation land and then we’ve got a week or
so before we get together [for the
Ashes]. That Irish Test sits quite well
India’s place in the World Test for us. The key is to have a group of
Championship final against fast bowlers ready to get selected,
Australia has been confirmed so it makes it tough for the selection
after New Zealand ended Sri committee to make a decision. When
Lanka’s slim hopes. you get that you usually get a pretty
Sri Lanka needed to win their strong team.”
series in New Zealand 2-0 and rely Anderson has become an unoffi-
on India not winning the fourth cial coach-cum-mentor for England’s
and final Test against Australia in red-ball seamers in the absence of a
Ahmedabad. But a knock of 121 specialist bowling coach. “I wouldn’t
not out from Kane Williamson have said back in 2009, or even before
steered New Zealand to a thrilling that, that Jimmy would be a coach,”
two-wicket win on the final ball of he said. “But you do evolve and he
the match in Christchurch. would have become more a leader in
Australia secured their place that dressing room since I left.
in the final by beating India in the “He might have the urge to do it
third Test last week. and with his knowledge it would be
India and Australia will meet in stupid not to. But he can be a really
the second WTC final at the Ova grumpy bastard, so he probably
on 7 June. The match will come
less than three months after the
wouldn’t make the dressing room
all that much fun.”
Border-Gavaskar series, which
India won 2-1. ▼ David Saker talks with
New Zealand defeated India Reece Topley as England
in the inaugural WTC decider in prepare for today’s T20
2021. Associated Press AIJAZ RAHI/AP
Cycling Fixtures
PARIS-NICE (France)
Stage 8 (Nice-Nice, 118km): 1 T Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team
Football (7.45pm unless stated)
Uefa Champions League
Emirates 2hr 51min 02sec; 2 J Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo Visma Last 16: Second leg: Porto v Inter;
+33sec; 3 D Gaudu (Fr) Groupama FDJ same time Manchester City v RB Leipzig (8pm)
Sky Bet Championship
Final overall positions: 1 T Pogacar (Slo) 24hr 1min 38sec;
2 D Gaudu (Fr) +53sec; 3 J Vingegaard (Den) +1:39 Blackpool v QPR; Middlesbrough v Stoke (8pm);
Millwall v Swansea; Rotherham v Preston;
Water polo Watford v Birmingham; Wigan v Coventry
FINA MEN’S WORLD CUP (Los Angeles) Sky Bet League One
Accrington Stanley v Portsmouth; Bristol Rovers v Wycombe;
Group A: USA 15 Hungary 9; Japan 18 France 15
Group B: Greece 17 Georgia 7; Australia 8 Spain 18 Burton v Peterborough; Morecambe v Charlton
Sky Bet League Two
Basketball Newport v AFC Wimbledon; Northampton v Mansfield;
NBA Stevenage v Crewe; Sutton v Grimsby; Walsall v Swindon
Vanarama National League
LA Lakers 108 New York Knicks 112
Barnet v Yeovil; Boreham Wood v Southend;
Baseball FC Halifax v Bromley; Maidenhead v Aldershot;
WORLD CLASSIC Notts County v Eastleigh; Solihull v Scunthorpe;
Group B: Czech Republic 3 Australia 8; China 2 South Korea 22 Wealdstone v Chesterfield; York v Altrincham
Group C: USA 5 Mexico 11; Great Britain L Colombia L cinch Scottish League Two
Group D: Nicaragua 1 Dominican Republic 6 Dumbarton v Stirling
Danske Bank Premiership
Ice hockey Glentoran v Ballymena
NHL Cricket
Calgary 5 Ottawa 1; Anaheim 4 Nashville 5aot; Third T20 International
Arizona 5 Minnesota 4aot Bangladesh v England, Mirpur (9am)
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

34 Sport
Racing Cheltenham Festival

strokes over the limit of seven that

Irish being whipped should trigger a disqualification

by the Whip Review Committee
next week. Two strokes over would
probably be enough to rule a jockey
Greg Wood’s tips

Cheltenham 1.30 Marine Nationale (nb) 2.10 El Fabiolo

into line could hurt

from Ireland out of the Irish Grand
National meeting at Fairyhouse
during Easter.
Or it could, as Julie Harrington,
2.50 Happygolucky (nap) 3.30 Constitution Hill
4.10 Marie’s Rock 4.50 Mr Freedom 5.30 Gaillard Du Mesnil
Sedgefield 1.50 Chase A Fortune 2.30 Going Mobile
3.10 Telhimlisten 3.50 Who’s In The Box 4.30 Applaus
5.10 Tom Creen 5.50 Northern Reel
Southwell 4.40 Masham Moor 5.20 Jems Bond

modern-day Cheltenham the BHA’s chief executive,

suggested to the Racing Post
last month, prove to be “an
opportunity to make the sport look
6.00 Legal Reform 6.30 Foinix 7.00 Rose King
7.30 Master Grey 8.00 Purple Ice 8.30 Whiteandblue
Newcastle 5.00 Mr Gambino 5.40 Brasca
6.15 Silver Nightfall 6.45 Postman’s Park 7.15 Na Scoitear
7.45 Gunnerside 8.15 Royal Parade

better” when the closing stages

Constitution Hill is the
hottest of favourites for
today’s big race but new rules
concern some visiting
isiting riders
Greg Wood
divisive to argue and fret about in
the run-up to the biggest meeting
of the year.
The British Horseracing
Authority, however, apparently
thinks differently. It could have
introduced its new rules on the
use of the whip from the start of
summer jumping in May or even
the start of the Flat campaign on
turf at the end of this month and
▲ Paul Nicholls has said he is ‘livid’
about the timing of the new rules
of races such as Friday’s Gold Cup
appear on news programmes. Until
there is a close finish, perhaps at
the end of the three-mile Ultima
Handicap Chase today, no one can
be sure.
The signs from the most recent
meeting of the Whip Review
Committee look promising. Eight
of the nine suspensions handed
out last week were for very minor
Their counterparts had the
benefit of a three-week bedding-in
period before the new regime
came into force and there were
still bans aplenty, plus those
two disqualifications, in the first
fortnight. It is expecting a great
deal for them all to keep strictly to
the limit from a standing start.
They are, after all, also likely to
be very much to the fore in many

A
modern-day
Cheltenham Festival
involves 28 races and
about 400 horses,
supports a significant
cottage industry
of preview nights in the months
beforehand and is the only thing
on the mind of most racing fans
once the Christmas decorations are
packed away, if not before.
With so much to consider, it is
fair to say no one has seen much
need for something new and
run this year’s Festival as the last
under the old regime.
Instead, it took a deliberate
decision to ensure the new rules
would be in place for this year’s
meeting, and the wisdom, or
otherwise, of that choice will
become apparent over the next
four days, though it feels as though
scarcely a day has passed since the
turn of the year without a trainer or
jockey criticising the move.
Paul Nicholls, the 13-times
champion trainer, said recently
he has been “livid all along”
about the timing of the new rules’
introduction, adding that the BHA
needed to “show some backbone”
and stand up for the sport, rather
than “appease people who don’t
understand the game”. Richard
Patrick, who starts an eight-day
ban on Friday, suggested “everyone
[in the weighing room] is petrified
about using the stick”.
The whip could yet become an
issue that dominates discussion
throughout the meeting, not least if
it appears a rider has gone the four
breaches of the rules, attracting
the minimum suspension of four
days. Most encouragingly of all,
there was no advance on the two
riders whose mounts have been
disqualified after they went four
strokes over the limit.
The racing between 27 February
and 5 March, is as low-key as it
gets. Whether riders will be able
to keep to rules in the white-
hot competition of the Festival
remains to be seen and riders based
in Ireland could be forgiven for
thinking the Brits are on their case.
of this week’s races, with Ireland’s
domination of the meeting in
recent years certain to continue.
The bookies are offering nothing
better than 1-12 on the Irish getting
a majority of the winners. With
annual interest rates on savings still
paying little more than 2%, a near-
guaranteed return of about 8%
could be tempting for some.
If British trainers are going
to put up any kind of a struggle,
the key figure, as so often in the
past, will be Nicky Henderson.
Today’s opening card will surely

The scene
is set for
racing’s
showpiece

Day one of
Cheltenham
begins
today, with
Constitution
Hill favourite
to win its
big race, the
Champion
Hurdle
DAVID DAVIES/PA
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
be pivotal, too. Henderson saddles
Constitution Hill, the hottest
favourite of the week and already
one of the top-rated hurdlers of
the past 50 years, in the Champion
Hurdle, and has big chances with
Jonbon, in the Arkle Trophy, and
two runners, Epatante and Marie’s
Rock, in the Mares’ Hurdle.
If, on the other hand, Willie
Mullins has a good day, then it
promises to be a longer week than
ever for the British stables. Ireland’s
perennial champion set a record of
10 wins at last year’s meeting and
is odds-on to at least equal that this
time around. It is conceivable he
will beat the British by himself.
This being the Festival, however,
there will undoubtedly be shocks
and surprises along the way.
Fortunes will be made and lost,
triumphs celebrated and sorrows
drowned. And hopefully, by this
time next week when the Whip
Review Committee is preparing to
hand down its decisions, nobody
will give it a second thought.
Go online
Join Tony Paley for live
coverage of the first day
of the Festival, highlight of
which is the Champion Hurdle
theguardian.com/sport
•
Festival set
to start on
testing going
with more
rain forecast
Greg Wood
The Cheltenham Festival is expected
to open today with the ground on the
Old Course riding soft. The showers
forecast during the first day’s card
are likely to maintain some ease in
the surface before a frosty start today.
The New Course, which stages
the action on Thursday and Friday,
is soft, good-to-soft in places, with
between 5mm and 10mm of rain
expected before the Gold Cup card
on the final afternoon.
“[The ground] has taken the rain
we’ve had recently really well,” said
Jon Pullin, Cheltenham’s clerk of
the course. “We had 4mm on the
Old Course, so we’re soft ground for
Tuesday and Wednesday at the
moment.
“It will dry back a little bit today,
but we do have some showers moving
in later on, hopefully nothing too sig-
Back for more
Happygolucky
can repay faith
on opening day
Greg Wood
Guide to today’s TV races
With Constitution Hill potentially
setting off as the shortest-priced
favourite in Champion Hurdle
history, the Ultima Handicap Chase
is likely to be the focus for many
punters on the Festival’s opening
day and Happygolucky (2.50) has
an excellent chance at around 16-1
to improve on his close second in
the same race in 2021.
Kim Bailey has geared his
programme this season around a
return to the Festival and he steps
back up to three miles-plus in first-
time cheekpieces after finishing
unplaced over an inadequate trip
last time. Anything close to his best
form seems sure to make him a
major player.
Cheltenham 1.30 A fascinating
for-him-or-against-him favourite
to start the meeting. Facile Vega,
last season’s Champion Bumper
winner, beat the third-favourite,
Il Etait Temps, with something
to spare in December, but tamely
surrendered his unbeaten record to
the same horse at the Dublin Racing
Festival last month. Pilot error –
specifically, Paul Townend going
off too hard – was put forward as a
not entirely convincing excuse so
Marine Nationale could be better at
around 9-2, having won the Grade
nificant volume-wise, but that may
well negate any improvement that
we get during the day.
“There’s the chance of showers
early tomorrow morning but the rest
of the day should be mainly dry. The
temperature drops sharply overnight,
possibly as low as minus 2C, but it will
only be a one-night frost. Against that
is the fact we’ll have raced on Tues-
day and opened it up a little bit, but
we are not too concerned.”
The star turns on the first day are
expected to include Constitution Hill,
the hot favourite for the Champion
Hurdle, and Honeysuckle, winner of
the race for the past two years, who
will make her final start in the Mares’
Hurdle with Rachael Blackmore, as
ever, holding the reins. Epatante, the
2020 Champion Hurdle winner, and
Marie’s Rock, who took the Mares’
One Royal Bond in December with
more to spare than the narrow
margin might imply.
Cheltenham 2.10 There was very
little to choose between Jonbon
and El Fabiolo, the winner and
runner-up respectively, in the
Grade One Top Novice Hurdle at
Aintree last spring and it is likely
to be a similar story over fences.
Either could start favourite if
the punters get behind them,
but El Fabiolo put up the best
performance by a two-mile novice
this season in the Irish equivalent
at Leopardstown last month and
his 10-length success was backed
up by a strong time.
Cheltenham 3.30 The moment
National Hunt has been waiting for
since last year’s Supreme Novice
Hurdle, as Constitution Hill bids
to take his place among the sport’s
all-time greats on the Champion
Hurdle roll of honour. One record
is already within reach as even the
mighty three-time winner, Sir Ken,
never started at shorter odds than
2-5 and Nicky Henderson’s gelding
is no bigger than 4-11 to beat six
Today’s big race
Unibet Champion Hurdle
1 Constitution Hill 90
111-11 (78, CD) 11-10
M Buckley N Henderson
N de Boinville
2 I Like To Move It 87
20-161 (24, CD) 11-10
A-M Shepperd N Twiston-Davies
& J Shepperd S Twiston-Davies
3 Jason The Militant 82
/73-49 (45, D) 11-10
G Nicholson P Kirby
J Williamson
4 Not So Sleepy 84
155-35 (78, D)
Lady Blyth
11-10
H Morrison
J Burke
▼ Rachael Blackmore will be hoping
for more success on Honeysuckle in
the Mares’ Hurdle today
TOM JENKINS/THE GUARDIAN
Hurdle 12 months ago, are among
her opponents.
“I wish it wasn’t raining quite so
much, but we’re looking forward to
it,” said Peter Molony, racing mana-
ger for Honeysuckle’s owner, Kenny
Alexander. “She seems very happy
to be back at Cheltenham – she loves
the place. Henry [de Bromhead, her
trainer] always has her at her peak
at Cheltenham, he’s a master at that,
and I have every confidence he’ll
have done the same this year.
“It’s a phenomenal race. Ruby
Walsh said last week he could imagine
five or six mares coming round the
bend together and so could I. It’s as
deep a race as there is all week, but
hopefully Honeysuckle will be there
coming round the home bend and
from there may the best mare win
and she comes home safely.”
▲ Happygolucky is likely to set off
at 16-1 in the Ultima Handicap Chase
rivals. State Man would be a worthy
favourite in any other year, but
Constitution Hill can cope with any
pace or even make the running if
necessary so even a highly tactical
race is unlikely to cause him any
problem.
Cheltenham 4.10 An outstanding
renewal of the Mares’ Hurdle,
with two former Champion Hurdle
winners up against Marie’s Rock,
who took this last year, and several
more live contenders. Marie’s Rock
was initially pencilled in for the
Stayers’, but soft ground means
she has been re-routed here and
her turn of foot from the last hurdle
could prove decisive.
3.30pm ITV1
Grade 1, Class 1, 2m ½f £253,215
5 State Man
1-1111 (37, C, D) 11-10
J Donnelly WP Mullins
P Townend
6 Vauban
11-123 (37, C, D) 11-10
S Ricci WP Mullins
D Mullins
7 Zanahiyr
3DF-7P5 (37, D) 11-10
Bective Stud G Elliott
D Russell
Betting 4-11 Constitution Hill; 10-3 State Man;
16-1 Vauban; 22-1 I Like to Move It; 80-1 Zanahiyr;
150-1 Jason The Militant, Not So Sleepy
35
Tennis
Ukrainian had
‘panic attack’
after talks with
WTA chief
The Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko has
said she withdrew from the BNP
Paribas Open in Indian Wells because
of a panic attack after a discussion
with the WTA chief executive, Steve
Simon. Tsurenko had been due to
face the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka
on Sunday, but handed the Australian
Open champion a walkover.
The withdrawal was attributed to
personal reasons, but Tsurenko has
revealed it came because she was
shocked by Simon’s answers in their
discussion about tennis’s response to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On the Big Tennis Ukraine website,
the 33-year-old said: “A few days
ago I had a conversation with Steve
Simon and I was absolutely shocked
by what I heard. He told me that he
himself does not support the war, but
if the players from Russia and Bela-
rus support it then this is only their
own opinion and the opinion of other
people should not upset me. At the
same time, he noted that if this had
happened to him and he had been in
my place he would have felt terrible.”
Tsurenko’s comments come
as Wimbledon organisers appear
set to lift their ban on Russian and
Belarusian players, with the Inter-
national Olympic Committee poten-
tially heading in the same direction.
Simon relayed that information to
Tsurenko, who said: “He also said fair
play and Olympic principles were not
violated, but on the contrary. When
asked if he understood what he was
saying to me during the active phase
of Russia’s military aggression in my
country he said yes and this was his
opinion.
“I was completely shocked by this
conversation and in the last match
[against Donna Vekic] it was incredi-
bly difficult to play. When it was time
to go to the court, I had a panic attack
and I simply could not go out there.”
Tsurenko added that she and her
fellow Ukrainian players who she told
about the conversation are now ques-
tioning Simon’s position.
The WTA said in a statement: “The
WTA has consistently reflected our
full support for Ukraine and condemn
the actions that have been brought
forth by the Russian government.
With this, a fundamental principle of
the WTA remains, which is ensuring
individual athletes may participate in
professional tennis events based on
merit and without any form of dis-
crimination, and not penalised due to
the decisions made by the leadership
of their country.” PA Media
88
85
82
▲ Lesia Tsurenko pulled out of her
match with Aryna Sabalenka
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

36 Sport
Football Champions League last 16, second leg

Wary Guardiola
ready to tinker show our club all around Europe,”
he says.
City are second in the Premier
League – five points behind
▲ Pep Guardiola
accepts he will
ultimately be
judged on his
in Europe’s blue-riband club
competition would be a regret.
“Not really – I don’t regret the
things I do,” he says.

in quest for Arsenal – and host Burnley in the

FA Cup sixth round on Saturday
before the international break with
the manager intent on his side
Champions
League record
at Manchester
City – ‘it’s not
“Whatever competition I enter
I try to win it. You lose way more
than you win but luckily I’ve been
able to win a lot.”

more control remaining in all three competitions.

Manchester City manager
hints at making changes
with the last-16 tie against
RB Leipzig level at 1-1
Jamie Jackson
progression, having reviewed the
opening leg.
“In the first half we were
better. In the second half they
were better,” he says. “We saw
the game [again] and we’ve tried to
figure out what we are going to do.
“We’ll try to adjust a few
things that will maybe help us
“It is really important,” says
Guardiola. “Not just that it would
be a bad break, but to be alive for
the last two and a half months of
the season, extend our stay in the
competitions, be close to Arsenal,
will be good.
“That’s why we are here: to
win trophies. I don’t know any
manager or player who doesn’t
want to win.”
Guardiola is adamant his City
era will be judged on whether the
Champions League is won. “It’s
going to change’
JASON CAIRNDUFF/
ACTION IMAGES/
REUTERS
He is not annoyed at the ongoing
theme of City in the Champions
League. “If you care about the noise
then it’s going to annoy people
a little bit,” he says. “We’ve not
won it but we’ve done really well
in the Champions League and I
know people base everything on
Manchester City
only winning.
“Obviously I want to win it, but
RB Leipzig I know as long as we don’t I’ll get
the same questions and I’m fine
because people judge you on that.
Today 8pm Agg 1-1 We just try to win these games and
be the best people and team we

C
ontrol: if Manchester
City do not achieve
this versus RB Leipzig
tonight then their
Champions League
fate will be a toss of
a coin, according to Pep Guardiola,
as he plots a route beyond the
Bundesliga’s third-placed side into
the quarter-finals.
The tie is poised at 1-1 as Marco
Rose’s side arrives at the Etihad
Stadium for a high-stakes night.
Guardiola, who has a fully fit squad,
is concerned that an open contest
would mean less chance of
to have more control and play a
bit better.
“I believe in transition games it
is always [the toss of] a coin. It can
go in your favour or [not] but it is a
knockout game and maybe we need
to break more of the game, maybe
we don’t. We will see. In the end
the game will dictate what we have
to do.”
Despite Guardiola always being
questioned about his failure to lead
City to Champions League victory
he is fond of the competition. “It’s
lovely: playing teams from another
part of Europe, not the same ones
as England. It’s special, so nice to
public opinion. It doesn’t mean I • Manchester City
Probable: 4-1-4-1
agree with that, but, absolutely, I’ll Ederson; Walker,
be judged on that. Since I arrived Akanji, Dias, Aké;
here, ahead of the first game in Rodri; Gündogan, Foden
De Bruyne, Grealish;
the Champions League, the first Haaland
time sitting before the media, Subs from
Carson, Ortega, Palmer,
people said I was here to win the Wilson-Esbrand, Gómez,
Champions League. I said: ‘What?’ Silva, Phillips, Álvarez,
“If I was manager of Real Madrid Mahrez, Dias, Lewis,
Stones, Laporte
– that is not going to happen – I Doubtful
could understand it, but here, I None
Injured
don’t know. But I accept it. As much None
as I go through it’s not going to
change that.” • one booking from suspension
Kevin De Bruyne offers a
similar, phlegmatic stance when
Venue Etihad Stadium
Referee Slavko Vincic (Svn)
asked whether not triumphing TV BT Sport 1 Radio BBC 5 Live
• RB Leipzig can be.”
Probable: 4-2-3-1
Blaswich; Henrichs,
At 31 De Bruyne is not
Orban, Gvardiol, considering when retirement may
Raum; Laimer, Kampl; arrive. “I’m a perfectionist,” he
Szoboszlai, Forsberg,
Werner; Silva says. “Whatever I do in football
Subs from or life, I will always want it to be
Nyland, Nickisch, Ba,
Klostermann, Simakan,
100%. In that regard, if the time
Halstenberg, Poulsen, would come that is something I
Haidara, Olmo would think about, but it’s not
Doubtful
None necessarily now.
Injured “At this particular time I would
Diallo, Gulacsi, Nkunku,
Schlager
like to stay at as high a level as
possible for as long as possible,
(probable teams) but that isn’t only my decision. I
1° don’t know how long I’m going to
play. As long as I’m having fun I will
play football.”
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Analysis
Andy Brassell
Leipzig are blooming with Rose
and possess a ruthless streak
which can cause City problems
T
he last time
RB Leipzig visited
Manchester City, they
attacked with gusto.
They were brave and
bold. Christopher
Nkunku bagged a hat-trick. A
repeat of that this week wouldn’t
be enough. City returned fire
with interest, scoring six.
That was in September 2021
under Jesse Marsch, with the
team struggling for identity and
control, despite the club going for
continuity in appointing from the
Red Bull stable. By the time the
teams met again in Saxony for the
return leg in December, Marsch
had been shown the door and
the club were about to appoint
Domenico Tedesco – whose last
match in charge of Schalke had
been at the Etihad Stadium in
March 2019, a chastening 7-0
defeat.
Now the connections matter
less, even if Leipzig will return
tonight with much of the
same personnel. Of the XI who
simultaneously chased and were
given a chasing that night in
Manchester, only Nordi Mukiele
and Angeliño are no longer at the
club. The former scored an own
goal that night while the latter
was sent off, to warm applause
from the fans of his former club.
Marco Rose was born in the
city in which he now works and
was also seen as a safe pair of
hands, having coached Red Bull
Salzburg to successive Austrian
Bundesliga titles in 2018 and 2019,
thus knowing the system. Yet
the contrast with Marsch’s reign
couldn’t be greater. Since Rose
took over in September, three
days before his 46th birthday,
no team in the Bundesliga has
picked up as many points as
Leipzig, a position maintained
by the 3-0 win against Borussia
Mönchengladbach on Saturday.
Their ruthlessness has really
caught the eye under Rose.
Leipzig are efficient at the back
– progress for the coach, whose
defence at Borussia Dortmund
was often calamitous, leaking 52
goals in 34 games last term – and
they require little encouragement
in the final third. Their attacking
versatility is really something.
Clearly Nkunku is the star.
Rewatch the footage of that 6-3
loss at City 18 months ago and you
will be amazed how people went
so long denying he was cut out to
be a centre-forward.
But with Nkunku ruled out
through injury, there are myriad
options. It is really a peek into
•
Marco Rose won
consecutive titles
with RB Salzburg
in 2018 and 2019
the future, with Nkunku expected
to join Chelsea in the summer, but
Timo Werner’s explosive opener
against Mönchengladbach was a
reminder that it might not be so
bad for the team to have him as
a reference point. Emil Forsberg
scored the second from the penalty
spot with Josko Gvardiol knocking
in the third with this thigh against
dispirited opposition, who had
nine defenders to cover four home
attackers. Those numbers are
irrelevant, however, if none of
the defenders actually move. It
summed up Mönchengladbach’s
current state of listlessness in a
nutshell.
There are still some issues for
Rose to bear in mind. Like many
sides that prefer to counterattack,
they don’t look as comfortable
when given the ball and
compelled to play. In the first half,
▲ Timo Werner will be key for Leipzig after Christopher Nkunku’s injury
JAN WOITAS/AP
Mönchengladbach had less of the
ball and more of the chances with
Marcus Thuram spurning a great
opening to given them the lead.
Daniel Farke’s team had another
opportunity to go in front in the
second half when Jonas Hofmann
was wiped out by David Raum,
only for Alassane Pléa to fire a
weak penalty into the arms of
Janis Blaswich. Managing surplus
possession is not a problem
Leipzig can expect to face at City,
of course.
There are issues to fix because
the first portion of the season has
conditioned what came next. The
lack of tempo, as well as early
season results, under Tedesco is
what persuaded Leipzig to part
company with him in September
and since then they have been
playing catchup. This season,
according to the sporting director
Max Eberl, is about “getting into
the Champions League”, with
nothing to be taken for granted
after that false start. As for the
current title contenders: “If they
slip, we want to be there.”
E
berl, who received
the expected level of
flak from the fans of
his former club, one
banner depicting an
Oscar, implying he
had faked the illness that forced
him to quit Mönchengladbach
last year after two decades at the
club, acknowledged that finding
a reliable niche is the important
thing in maintaining a model,
telling young talents: “If you
come to Leipzig, you can always
play in the Champions League.”
There is a further level,
though. The re-signing of
Werner recognises that quality
experienced players are also
needed to grow, rather than to
just be a high-class talent farm.
There is also a trophy to defend,
with the DfB Pokal won under
Tedesco in May last year and a
quarter-final with Dortmund next
month. Upsetting City, after the
2020 Champions League semi-
final against Paris Saint-Germain
seemed a step too far, would
speak for growth, rather than
potential to grow.
More than a million demand
Fifa justice over Qatar abuses
Sean Ingle
More than a million people have
signed a letter calling for Fifa to
finally compensate migrants who suf-
fered appalling human rights abuses
while working on the World Cup in
Qatar. The letter, which was handed
to football’s governing body by the
human rights groups Amnesty and
Avaaz, also urges it to “stop looking
the other way” as its congress meets
in Rwanda this week.
In December, Fifa’s president,
Gianni Infantino, announced his
organisation had made more than
$7bn from the 2022 World Cup cycle,
but the human rights groups are frus-
trated that details remain sketchy
over whether Fifa’s proposed “legacy
fund” will compensate workers who
suffered wage theft, illegal recruit-
ment fees and injuries in Qatar and
compensate the families of those
who died.
Fifa officials in Zurich were also
handed specially designed shirts that
echo the blue workwear and yellow
vests worn by many of the migrant
workers who suffered abuses build-
ing stadiums and infrastructure.
▲ One of the shirts handed to Fifa
officials by human rights groups
Football
In brief
Sheffield Wednesday
Hillsborough capacity
reduced after ‘crushing’
The away end capacity at Sheffield
Wednesday’s Hillsborough
Stadium has been reduced by the
city council after a review into
complaints of “overcrowding and
crushing” from Newcastle United
fans in an FA Cup tie. Social media
footage showed congestion at the
exit to the tunnel in the Leppings
Lane end before kick-off on 7
January. There were no reports
of injuries.Hillsborough was the
scene of Britain’s worst sporting
disaster in which 97 supporters
died in 1989. Sheffield city council
contacted the Newcastle United
Supporters Trust after the January
game. Hillsborough’s Upper West
Stand now has a capacity of 2,400,
down from 3,200. It has a holding
capacity of 4,194. Hillsborough’s
Lower West Stand now has a
capacity of 1,300, down from 1,500,
for a stand with a holding capacity
of 2,366. Reuters
37
“Our letter has the backing of
more than one million signatures
from more than 190 countries,”
Bieta Andemariam, Avaaz’s US legal
director, said. “The global public has
recognised the grave injustice per-
petrated against these workers and
has come together to demand that
Fifa take a fraction of the billions of
dollars made off the sweat, blood
and lives of hundreds of thousands
of these victims – and simply give
them and their families what they
are owed.”
The letter comes as a proposal from
the Norwegian Football Association,
calling for Fifa to “assess whether it
has fulfilled its responsibility to rem-
edy related to the 2022 World Cup,
including an investigation into World
Cup-related deaths and injuries”, is
due to be discussed on Thursday.
“This meeting offers another
opportunity for Fifa to make amends
and establish a firm plan and time-
table to directly and quickly recom-
pense workers and their families
who suffered shocking human rights
abuses to deliver a World Cup that
was built on their sacrifice,” said
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty Interna-
tional’s head of economic and social
justice. “While nothing can replace
the loss of a loved one, there is no
doubt Fifa has the resources to help
mend these injustices and provide
life-changing support to workers and
their families. The time has come for
Fifa to properly address its responsi-
bilities rather than merely passing the
buck to Qatar.”
Fifa said last November that its
legacy fund would focus on educa-
tion projects and support the creation
of a labour excellence hub.
Southampton
Walker-Peters racially
abused on social media
Southampton have demanded
action from social media
platforms after calling in police
over racist abuse aimed at
defender Kyle Walker-Peters.
The 25-year-old full-back was
targeted with a series of offensive
replies, including monkey emojis,
to an Instagram post following
Sunday’s Premier League 0-0
draw at Manchester United.
One racist term was used in
reference to United’s Alejandro
Garnacho, who was injured after
a challenge by Walker-Peters. A
Southampton statement yesterday
read: “We have forwarded the
messages concerned to Hampshire
Police.” PA Media
▲ Kyle Walker-Peters was abused on
Instagram after Sunday’s 0-0 draw
 •

Festival fears Power move Th Guardian

The
Tuesday 14 March 2023
Tue
Cheltenham Tuilagi in line
begins with to give England
worries over more midfield
new whip rules beef in Dublin
Page 34  Page 32 

‘The BBC is no Open letter

longer a safe requests equal
space for the right’ FA Cup money
for women
Jonathan Liew on
the legacy of the Suzanne Wrack

Lineker saga Players from the Women’s Champion-

Column Page 31  ship club Lewes have written an open
letter calling for equal FA Cup prize
News Pages 4-5  money before their quarter-final
against Manchester United.
The letter highlights the huge gap
in prize money between the men’s
and women’s competitions. Lewes
have received £45,000 for winning
three ties to get this far, whereas
the men’s teams who entered at the
third round have been paid £450,000.
Women’s clubs receive no money for
an FA Cup game being broadcast by
the BBC, which is showing the Lewes
tie on Sunday, but men’s teams will
each be paid £200,000 for their tele-
vised quarter-finals.
The letter, published yesterday,
is addressed to Karen Carney, who
is leading the government’s future
of women’s football review. It says
equal prize money would transform
the women’s game in terms of wages,
facilities, equipment, medical care,
staffing and travel costs.
“We’ve earned £45,000 for the
club but if we were men we would
 Gary Lineker takes his dog have earned £450,000,” the Lewes
Filbert for a walk in London midfielder Lauren Heria said. “We
on the day it was announced are happy the prize fund increased
he will return to work for the BBC and we’ve had more money coming in
NEIL HALL/EPA
from the Cup but it is a small increase
compared to where the men are at.”
In March last year the Football

Back to basics
mobility, the incredible capacity to be
active in the movement. The simple
things: do it again better and better.
When this is going to happen the rest
Association announced prize money
for the Women’s FA  Cup would
increase from £428,915 to just under
£3m. However, the men’s prize pot

Guardiola demands De Bruyne will come along.”

Guardiola pointed to Erling
Haaland as an example. “I don’t want
rose from £15.9m to £19.8m.
Lewes, the first club in the world to
pay their men’s and women’s teams

does ‘simple things’ to hit form

Jamie Jackson
Pep Guardiola has criticised Kevin
De Bruyne for not doing the “simple
things” with the Manchester City
manager stating he has repeatedly
told the midfielder to get back
to basics.
De Bruyne leads the Premier
League assists chart with 13 and he
has three in the Champions League.
But Guardiola, preparing to face
Leipzig in the Champions League
tonight, is intent the Belgian will
improve when he returns to keeping
things simple. The manager said: “It’s
been a difficult season for all of us, me
included, due to the World Cup and
things. I’m not going to discover how
good Kevin is. What I’d like – I spoke
many times to him – is to go to the
easy principles and do it well.
“He has an incredible ability to
make an assist, to score goals and see
Pep Guardiola says passes like no one else. But I always
Kevin De Bruyne have the belief that they will increase
is ‘not playing at and get better when the simple things
his top level’ are done. Like don’t lose the ball, the
him to just score goals and the rest I equally, have long campaigned for
don’t care. So he will score and if he equal FA Cup prize money but this
will be involved in the game it means latest call is being led by the players.
that you run inside of the game, the An FA spokesperson said the
ball is coming and you put the ball Women’s FA Cup had “record levels
in the net. With Kevin it’s the same. of investment” and added: “We
When the simple things are done are always looking to make further
perfectly, we are in the right moment improvements and investment
[to] move outside, inside, and when across the women’s game.”
we have to attack the channels or
whatever you feel, the actions to
create incredible passes that he – only
he – can find, it will be easier, it will
be better.”
De Bruyne has been a replacement
for three of City’s past seven Premier
League games. In October, Guardiola
also criticised him. “He is not playing
at his top level,” he said then.
▲ Lewes’s Lauren Heria highlights
Pep seeks ‘more control’ Page 36  vast prize money differences for Cup
 •
BBC cowardice caused this mess. The fix must start now John Kampfner, page 3
What if the world were a village of 100 people? Jackie McCann, page 4
The ugly trope of the disabled villain The long read, page 5
The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
Opinion
and ideas
The Tories could raise billions in
this budget – if they had the guts
Was it that Mayfair launch of
bottles of Bollinger at £350 a
pop? Was it flicking through
glossy newspaper supplements
with their pages of watches
costing thousands? No, surely
last week’s top shocker was
watching both Shell and BP
chief executives’ pay double to about £10m each,
Polly profiting from the slaughter in Ukraine.
These budget-week reflections, amid a wave
Toynbee of overdue strikes, echo a recent report by the
Financial Times’s data-cruncher John Burn-Murdoch,
that “Britain and the US are poor societies with some
very rich people.” The tyranny of averages hides the
way we live now, though any reader of this paper,
or indeed the FT, will have a weary sense of deja vu
about our grotesque and economically dysfunctional
inequality: earnings for the top 1% have accelerated
since the start of the pandemic. UK plutocrats rank
proudly fifth in the world for mega-wealth, but our
poor have 20% less than the poor of Slovenia.
That’s the context to think about when our multi-
millionaire chancellor and a prime minister richer
than the king unveil their budget tomorrow. Expect
a spot of epoxy to fix a few of their most politically
damaging social breakages. But don’t accept “there’s
no more money” when rational reforms of our unjust
tax system could harvest considerable sums to
salve the most egregious social crises.
Britain has got a lot poorer, partly due to economic
own goals such as Brexit. There is less of everything
following “the most dramatic period of spending cuts
G2
Daily
pullout
life &
arts
section
Inside
in modern history”, so taxes must rise unless voters
are ready to see public services disintegrate further.
That’s the choice – and the sharp message from
Paul Johnson, Institute for Fiscal Studies director, in
his new book, Follow the Money. He has killer facts: no
politician dare challenge IFS figures. His analysis of our
warped tax system, riddled with reliefs for rich people
and penalties for the rest, offers irrefutably fairer
options. “Government’s dirty secret is that it chooses
not to do the right thing,” he writes. That’s through fear
of voters (he has the advantage of not needing to woo
them or confront the Daily Mail). Vastly more money
could be raised by squeezing rich people and ending
their tax reliefs – but he warns that truly economy-
changing sums to invest in long-term growth and
public services mean asking everyone to pay more.
However, read this eye-opener to see the cornucopia
of low-hanging fruit a chancellor could gather.
How much more should we pay in tax? That’s up to
us, because “there is nothing in economics that says
we can’t have a bigger state”, Johnson writes. Look
how similar countries that raise far more tax to buy far
better services, while investing in growth,
succeed better than us: France, Germany,
Sweden and the Netherlands all raise 
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
2
The Tories could raise billions in
this budget – if they had the guts
Polly Toynbee
 Continued from front
and spend far more, pulling away from
 us at a faster pace as we sink down the
G7 league in growth. Incomes in France
grew in a decade by 34% and in Germany by 27%,
while typical UK income dropped by 2%, according
to the Resolution Foundation.
In no particular order, look at our erratic tax system.
Take council tax, now almost as outrageous as the
poll tax it replaced: with its cap on top rates it defies
every rule of tax justice, so zillionaire mansions pay
just three times more than the humblest bedsit –
sorry, “studio flat”. Land value tax, backed by the
FT’s Martin Wolf, would be fair, while capturing
developers’ profits to spend on public projects.
It’s lucky so few people understand pensions:
the state gifts earners in the 40% bracket a much
more generous amount for every £1 they save than
it does for those in the 20% bracket. Why not a
25% flat rate for all, asks the former Conservative
pensions minister Ros Altmann. Expect the
chancellor tomorrow to further boost top-rate
pension tax relief, to prevent high earners retiring.
Don’t expect him to make pensioners pay national
insurance, even though they are less likely to be
poor than the rest. Logically, the meaningless NI
should merge with income tax, but if the optics of
the headline rate look too frightening, at least Hunt
could charge NI on all unearned income received by
rentiers and shareholders. No harm would be done to
the economy, Johnson says, by raising the basic rate
income tax to 25%, the higher rate to 45% and the top
P
rate to 50%: that would bring in a useful £50bn.
roof that the government never
meant to level up is in its capital gains
tax, levied at a mere 28% for higher
earners, and only 10% for others, rather
than being equalised with hard-earned
PAYE rates: ending this avoidance by
private equity chizzlers would bring
in billions. Labour is committed to
this, and to closing many tax loopholes.
Here’s a counterintuitive idea: VAT exemptions
aid rich people more than they do poor people, as
they spend more. Abolishing all zero- and reduced-
rate VAT, such as on food, energy and children’s
clothes, would raise so many tens of billions,
says Johnson, that you could greatly raise all
benefit levels to cover the cost to poor people and
compensate other lower earners several times over.
Why didn’t Hunt immediately restore the much-
needed health and social care levy, abolished by
Liz Truss? Nor did he bring back the cap on bankers’
bonuses; their pay will soar, thanks to high interest
rates pouring cash into their vaults from mortgage
payers. Tax-free Isas benefit well-off people: make
sure that the £70bn that could be raised is invested
in green government bonds, says the tax expert
Richard Murphy. Rich people love the largely
mythical Laffer curve, which pretends that high
top tax rate ends up yielding less revenue, but Prof
Danny Blanchflower skewers it: Donald Trump’s
“$2tn tax cuts for the rich left $2tn of debt”.
Tax deters harmful things such as tobacco, but
on carbon, this government does the reverse: it
listens to lobbyists, meaning the decade-long petrol
tax freeze will continue, costing £6bn. New ultra-low
air passenger tax next month will cut the price of
domestic flights just when we need people back on
trains: flying is taxed less than driving.
All of these are random examples, but there are
many other ways to ensure taxes fall on the broadest
shoulders while generating more to pay public staff
decently, rescue public services, ensure livable
benefits rates, invest in green growth and more. That
is without considering more radical ideas, such as the
LSE’s wealth tax commission, which proposes a one-
off tax of 5% on wealth above £2m, yielding £80bn.
Truss may act as a warning against spooking the
markets, but these reforms would be no-brainers
if only the public knew what could be done. A wise
thought from Paul Johnson: “Government needs
to be brave, and so do we.”
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 54,917
‘Comment is free… but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
Gary Lineker
BBC contributors’ views
can’t be policed to save
ministers from scrutiny
If ministers had wanted their hardline policy on
asylum seekers to be seen as a necessary response to a
crisis, then they have failed spectacularly. Successive
Tory governments have devoted much of their time
to undermining the capacity of the country’s political
culture, media and civil society to oppose them. Firmly
in their sights has been the BBC, the most trusted – and
most widely viewed – source of news. But the row over
criticism by one of the corporation’s best known faces,
Gary Lineker, of ministers’ “illegal migration bill” has
exposed the limits of the government’s strategy.
While Auntie has been accused of bias from both
sides of the political divide, the allegations the BBC
leadership have taken most seriously have come from
politicians threatening to abolish the licence fee. When
Tim Davie became the BBC’s director general he told
staff that if they wanted to be a partisan campaigner
on social media then “you should not be working at
the BBC”. But many of the BBC’s best known faces are
not permanently employed by the corporation, and
when they are offended by events they have tweeted
their opinions. Mr Lineker is one of them. The trouble,
for Tory ministers, was that he stood up for vulnerable
refugees and against their callous policy rather than
amplifying rightwing talking points.
The pitchforks and torches were quickly raised.
But the nakedly partisan attacks on Mr Lineker
backfired. His colleagues closed ranks to support the
presenter, playing havoc with the BBC’s weekend
football schedule. This government is also nervous of
Catholicism
Ten years on, Pope Francis
is a vital progressive voice
in such challenging times
Ten years ago, when Pope Francis addressed St Peter’s
Square for the first time, he observed that the conclave
that elected him went “almost to the ends of the earth”
to find a new pontiff. It was a self-deprecating but telling
joke – one that signalled that the Argentinian cardinal
planned a very different kind of papacy from anything
that had come before. Opting to live modestly in a church
guest house on the edge of Vatican City – rather than in
the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace – Francis
has positioned himself as a kind of outsider pope, a
champion of the marginal, peripheral and excluded.
A decade on, that approach has made him one of the
most necessary moral voices of the age. On the key and
related issues of troubled times – the chronic refugee
crisis, the climate emergency and global economic
injustice – the first non-European pope of modern times
has provided a powerful defence of universal values.
On migration the pope has been a prophetic voice,
speaking more clearly and trenchantly than many
progressive governments. In a 2016 visit to the Greek
island of Lesbos, Francis told local Catholics: “Europe is
the homeland of human rights, and whoever sets foot on
European soil ought to sense this.” Amid multiple signs
of a hardening Fortress Europe mentality, with Britain in
the vanguard, that message is still more vital today.
In its critique of unrestrained economic appetites
in the west, the 2015 encyclical on the environment,
Laudato si’, drew vital connections between the fate
of the world’s poor and the fate of regions at the sharp
end of the climate emergency. Here again, Francis
being tarred as the nasty party, and cannot afford
to alienate socially liberal voters. Yesterday the
corporation apologised for its handling of the row.
Mr Lineker was reinstated, tweeting audaciously
that his recent difficulties “don’t compare to having
to flee your home from persecution or war”.
Much of what Mr Lineker said was not new, but
such unabashed liberal dissent from a popular figure
has been missing from political discourse. This is, in
part, because the Labour party had not summoned
the moral courage to say the right thing. Mr Lineker
ought to be congratulated for shaming the opposition
into action. The public is waking up to the dangerous
incompetence of the Tory government. The number
of people appointed to the BBC as a reward for their
Conservative support is becoming an issue. This
weekend’s events highlight why Richard Sharp,
the corporation chairman, should resign. Normally
the chair would come out and defend the BBC.
But Mr Sharp could not, because he is under
investigation for failing to disclose, when applying
for his job, his role in helping Boris Johnson get
access to a reputed £800,000 loan.
BBC news journalists rightly leave their opinions
at home. The corporation is not alone in having
guidelines about social media use but it can’t
realistically police the opinion of every freelance
non-news contributor. Whatever new guidelines
the BBC comes up with must be workable and fairly
enforced. The public values the BBC as a news
organisation that uses its independence to ask hard
questions of those in power. But applying impartiality
tests to all output is a fool’s errand. The corporation
buys content from about 350 independent production
companies. It runs the world’s most visited website,
eight domestic TV channels and dozens of radio
stations. It is unreasonable to expect every BBC
contributor’s views to conform to what ministers
think is acceptable just to shield government policy
from critical scrutiny by wider society.
has focused on the need for solidarity with regions
and peoples who lie beyond the world’s centres of
power and affluence.
Within the church itself, Francis has also taken
on entrenched bastions of traditional authority,
delivering memorable and regular dressing-
downs to the Roman curia on the subject of
humility. The ongoing synod on synodality – a
consultation process with the world’s Catholics
on an unprecedented scale – is intended to
further undermine the notion of the church as a
monarchical type institution.
Meanwhile, on issues ranging from same-sex
relationships to the status of divorcees and the
remarried within the church, the pope has sought
to emphasise pastoral engagement and empathy
over doctrinal rigidity, and mercy over judgment.
Most famously, when questioned by journalists on
the subject of gay relationships, Francis responded:
“Who am I to judge?”
After decades of entrenched and defensive
conservative orthodoxy under John Paul II and
Benedict XVI, this has been bold stuff, as testified
by the furious response from conservative bishops,
particularly in the United States.
Early in Pope Francis’s papacy, the American
gossip site Gawker, saluted him as “our cool new
pope”. But the 86-year-old Francis should not
be viewed as some kind of anomalous apostle
of the secular liberal enlightenment. Nor has his
record been free of mistakes and missteps. He has
admitted to serious errors in dealing with the sex
abuse crisis that has shamed the Catholic church
across the world. Many remain acutely frustrated
with the lack of progress on female empowerment
in the church. But at a time when globalisation and
its discontents are generating a new insularity in the
politics of the world’s richer nations, Pope Francis’s
calls for radical inclusion and solidarity are
providing a vital counterpoint.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •
Opinion
BBC cowardice
caused this
mess. Fixing it
must start now
John
Kampfner
I A
n 2005, I wrote a cover piece for the
New Statesman magazine detailing BBC
management’s concerns about Today
presenter John Humphrys’ pugnacious style
on Iraq and other issues, and their desire
for political interviews to be toned down.
It was shortly after the highly tendentious
Hutton inquiry that had forced out the BBC’s
chairman and the director general. This was under
a Labour government. To illustrate the story, we
chose an old-fashioned television with spindly legs
alongside the logo and the words “Broken, Beaten,
Cowed”. That was the BBC then: that is the BBC
now, in the shadow of the Gary Lineker saga.
A couple of years earlier, I had been asked to do
stand-in presenting on The World Tonight. It was
all going well. Listeners seemed content; the editor
was happy. Then the word came down from on
high that someone attached to a leftwing magazine
(I was political editor of the New Statesman then)
should not be given such exposure, as that might
compromise BBC impartiality. All the while, editorial
leadership was falling over itself to give Andrew Neil,
the chairman of the Spectator, as many interview
programmes as he could manage.
I don’t regard this as bias – although the BBC has
had a more enduring revolving door for journalists
and management with the Conservatives than it has
had with Labour. I regard it more as a craven reflex
Gary Lineker leaving his home in London yesterday PHOTOGRAPH: NEIL HALL/EPA
towards political bullying that has been going on, to a
greater or lesser extent, for decades. Labour isn’t bad
at it, but Tory governments have shown themselves
over the decades to be far more accomplished.
Two other instincts are herd mentality and risk
aversion. I will cite one more example, this time from
2000: I had been assigned to Today to do political
features, with a brief to “push the boat out”. On one
occasion, I did a “two-way”, saying that Mo Mowlam,
the Northern Ireland secretary, feared she would be
punished for receiving a rapturous ovation at Labour’s
conference, upstaging an envious prime minister.
Within minutes of it airing, amid much f-ing and
blinding from Downing Street, one manager sidled
up to me near the toilets. “I just want to be sure
that you’re confident you got it right,” he said to
me. I told him that if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have
run it. As it turns out, Mowlam was correct: she
was sidelined. I decided I wouldn’t hang around;
I concluded, with some sadness, that there were
better places to do rigorous journalism.
That is the BBC at its worst. As it defaults to being
at the first sign of trouble. This is the same organisation
that has encouraged much of its best talent to leave
because it did not stand up to the government over
the licence fee settlement, leaving a hollowed-out
newsroom. The same organisation that is emasculating
its international output at a time when Chinese and
Russian propaganda organs are expanding fast.
The most urgent requirement in this latest of
many self-inflicted meltdowns is to turn the current
truce into genuine peace with a football presenter
who has been turned into a national treasure. The
second is to sort out the mess that are impartiality
guidelines, enforced far more assiduously on
liberal than conservative employees or contractors.
Hopefully, the independent review now announced
will do that. The third is to remove inconsistencies
and hypocrisies. You should not stop one celebrity
freelance speaking out while allowing others to do so.
But the most important task is to acquire a spine,
to understand that the next time a minister harangues
you, you tell them to take a running jump.
Like dry rot, the fear principle is now so ingrained
that it will take a long time to scrape it out. Friends
in Russia, Georgia, Turkey, and all those fighting for
freedom of expression, are scratching their heads at
the notion of an institution long respected around the
world taking its best-known sports presenter off air
because he has the temerity to speak out passionately
on asylum. That is not a good look for the UK.
The BBC is one of our few global selling points. To
survive with any credibility and to retain what support
it still has, the repair work has to begin urgently.
 Top Gun: Maverick and The Banshees of Inisherin
John Kampfner
is an author
and broadcaster
Leila Latif
is a writer
and critic
3
Redemption is
the story of the
Oscars – and of
Hollywood too
Leila
Latif
t least no one got slapped.
After last year, the Oscars had a
ludicrously low bar to clear, and
it managed to do just that. It was
clear that this was a ceremony, and
an industry, that wanted to move
on from the past. And yet … the
Academy Awards just can’t quite
escape the theme of trauma or lingering historical
pains, whether in real life or on screen.
Many of the winners and the films reflected on
living with trauma and thriving in spite of it. Women
Talking, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Whale
and the big winner, Everything Everywhere All At
Once: it seemed like everywhere you looked the
Academy was garlanding films that probed past
violence and sadness. The costumier Ruth E Carter
spoke about how she was inspired by the late
Chadwick Boseman and her own mother’s passing.
Brendan Fraser could barely catch his
breath during his best actor speech, seemingly
overwhelmed by being rewarded by an industry
in which he had been sidelined for so long. This
awards season, he boycotted the Golden Globes,
saying: “My mother didn’t raise a hypocrite.” It was
a reference to an alleged groping he experienced in
2003 at the hands of Philip Berk, former president
of the organisation behind the Globes – understood
to be one reason why Fraser “retreated” from
Hollywood for so long. (Berk called Fraser’s account
“a total fabrication” in 2018, but has also apologised
to the actor without admitting any wrongdoing.)
The narrative of redemption also graced the stories
of Ke Huy Quan, who picked up best supporting actor,
and Michelle Yeoh, who has spoken so much about
the struggle for recognition. Their film, Everything
Everywhere All At Once, was positioned as a David
in a sea of Goliaths, but it ended up charming the
Academy. The unfulfilled potential of its characters
was shared by much of its team, who have suffered a
lack of acknowledgment from the powers that be.
The brilliant Sarah Polley, who has spoken of what
she went through as a child actor, gained a well-
deserved statuette for her adaptation of Women
Talking, based on a Miriam Toews novel on the
abuse of women in a Mennonite community. Then
there was All Quiet on the Western Front, a visceral
reflection on the traumas of the first world war, which
won four Oscars, including best international film.
While many came to the Oscars expecting Elvis,
to triumph, perhaps it’s not surprising that, after a
pandemic, a slap and a cultural reckoning around
those who have been left out of mainstream
narratives, the old razzle-dazzle of the likes of Baz
Luhrmann went unrecognised. However we try to
breeze past it, we’re all in recovery, and stories of
redemption and rebirth have a particular appeal.
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
4 Opinion
What if the
world were
100 people?
Jackie
McCann
T
here are 8 billion people on the
planet today, a number so vast as
to be almost unimaginable. In a
world this complex, it’s easy to
shrug off the global issues and focus
on our own lives, and what is in
front of our faces. Back in 2021 I was
thinking about a different way to
approach this. What if our global population could
be shrunk down to a size that we can all get our
heads round? I was drawn to the idea of the world
as a “global village”, and I wondered: what if the
whole world was an actual village?
A village of 100 people. I think most of us can
get to grips with that. If each of those 100 residents
represents 80 million people in the real world, we
have a model that is simple and easy to scale. That
was the beginning of what became If the World
Were 100 People, the book for which I and the
illustrator Aaron Cushley have just won the Royal
Society’s young people’s book prize.
I began with the basics. How many men and
women are there? It’s about 50:50. And how many
children? Roughly 26 – one in four of us is a child.
About 750 million people live in Europe and 4.8 billion
in Asia, which is valuable data, but the numbers make
my head swim. Yet I can grasp the idea that 10 of our
villagers are European, five are North American, while
60 are Asian. More importantly, children can too.
How many of us have brown, blond or red hair?
And what are the most common eye colours? If,
like me, you grew up in Ireland, you may think the
world is full of people with red hair and green eyes;
but it turns out we’re as rare as unicorns, globally
speaking. People in Britain may think blue eyes are
as common as brown, when in fact our brown-eyed
global villagers outnumber them nine to one. Facts
like these, universal and immediate, can help children
realise that the world is much bigger than the place
where they find themselves. And not just children.
There’s something about numbers that prompts
all sorts of questions in a child’s mind, encouraging
a spirit of inquiry. Simple questions, such as: why
do most of our villagers (75) live in the northern
hemisphere? The answer to that is because it’s where
most of the land is. Tough questions, too – most
children who read my book have a roof over their
heads and a bed to sleep in, but the terrible truth is
that 20 of our villagers do not have a safe home.
The word “safe” here needs a little unpacking.
An unsafe home is one that hasn’t been zoned or
planned and isn’t legal. It may not have electricity or
clean, running water. One in five of us live in these
shantytowns, favelas and city slums, and theirs is
the district of our village that most people don’t see.
More alarming is the fact that 89 of us have
enough food to eat, while 11 do not. Think about that
– 11 people in our village are at risk of starvation, or
are actually starving. At the same time, about a third
of the food we produce goes to waste.
For a child, the solution may seem simple: use the
overproduced food to feed the hungry 11, rather than
throw it away. As adults, we know the complexity of
the factors that create this situation, and sometimes
that complexity allows us to forget how grotesque it
is: the stark simplicity of the numbers reminds us.
If this sounds like heavy going, let me reassure
you that there are many reasons to be cheerful. Take
technology, for instance. In the 34 years since the
invention of the world wide web, 59 of our villagers
have gained internet access, and it is estimated that
the number will rise to 90 by the time this decade is
over. Or take literacy. Two hundred years ago, only
12% of adults in the world could read and write;
today, however, 86 of our adult villagers are literate.
Another tough question, and left till last: is there
enough money to go around for everyone? The
numbers are breathtaking: 10 lucky inhabitants own
82% of all the wealth in the village, whereas 23 live
on less than £3 a day. Just knowing these bare facts
should prompt questions about how this can be,
whether it is fair, and what can be done about it.
 Ultimately, this is a way to introduce children to
Jackie McCann a different way of thinking about the world. Numbers,
is a children’s data and maths underpin the writing. Adults use
writer and numbers all the time. We collect numbers, analyse,
editor, and the interpret and present them as data: the science we
author of If call statistics. My book shows children that when we
the World Were interrogate numbers and data, information and stories
100 People unfold that tell us so much about our world.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •

The long read 5

Outer disability,

inner monstrosity:

the trope that won’t die

By Jan Grue 
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
6 The long read
S
ome years ago, I decided to
read all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. It may
have been a fit of nostalgia for the Roger Moore films I
grew up watching, or perhaps I was bored with writing
short stories for a minuscule readership and wanted to
know what mass-market success read like.
It was quite an experience – and one I found myself
recalling recently, when I read that Fleming’s books
were being revised, chiefly in order to remove some,
though not all, of the casual racism. Also some of the
misogyny, though likely not all of that either.
My first question, on reading the news, was what
kind of reader exactly was the publisher, Ian Fleming
Publications Ltd, envisioning. Presumably someone
who would, were it not for the most explicit slurs,
really enjoy the ethnic stereotypes. Or someone who
would, were it not for the full-on rapes, really enjoy
the pervasive sexism. (Come to think of it, there are
probably quite a few of these readers.)
The other question that struck me was this: what
on earth are they going to do about disability?
As a wheelchair user, I could not help noticing
that the original Bond books had, shall we say, an
interesting relationship to embodied difference. It
was a feature of Fleming’s writing that would be all
but impossible to alter through the interventions
of a sensitivity reader, hired by the publisher to
make the books more palatable to contemporary
readers. Fleming’s attitude to disability was
encoded not only in words and phrases, but in
characterisation and plot – that is, in the stories’
most fundamental qualities.
It is not a novel observation that Bond villains
tend to be, to use a less sensitive register, disfigured
and deformed. Dr No with his steel pincers instead of
hands, Blofeld with his scars, Hugo Drax, the villain
from Moonraker, with his facial disfigurement and his
pathetic attempt to conceal it with a “bushy reddish
beard” (reddish hair may itself count as a deformity
in these stories). Were they not successfully self-
employed, most of Bond’s enemies would likely
qualify for disability benefits.
Even as Fleming’s storylines have in the Bond
films been progressively stripped of their racism
and misogyny, disability has remained an essential
aspect of their characterisation. This is particularly
jarring in the recent Daniel Craig movies, which are
otherwise marked by a sensitive approach to many
other issues.
In Skyfall, Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva is a striking
example of the narrative logic at work. He at first
appears handsome and polished (if effete, which
in Bond territory is always a warning sign), but
something about his face seems a little … off. He then
reveals himself as a villain by removing a set of hidden
facial prosthetics. As his visage literally collapses,
his inner monstrosity comes into view. Now Bond,
and the audience, can see who he really is. And that
is the main function of disability in these stories – an
outwardly visible sign of an inner quality.
This particular trope, wherein a character’s moral and
physiological natures mirror each other, is as universal
as it is ancient. It is reflected in the philosophy of Plato,
in commonplaces like “a healthy mind in a healthy
body”, and in the foundational texts of the cultural
canon. In Buddhist tradition, too, disability has been
construed as an impediment to understanding and
enlightenment – and even, for some, as a punishment
for actions in a past life.
As disability scholars David Mitchell and Sharon
Snyder have pointed out in their books Narrative
Prosthesis and Cultural Locations of Disability,
using disability as a means of characterisation is
an intrinsic feature in the storytelling tradition. It
provides not only a shorthand for separating good
characters and bad, but explains their motivation
and narrative function.
Sometimes, this connection between embodiment
and motivation is made fully explicit. In the opening
monologue of Richard III, Shakespeare’s version of
the king – made significantly more disabled than his
historical counterpart – takes pains to establish that he
will be the villain and not the hero of the play. This, he
argues, is a logical consequence of his embodiment:
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
What is a sensitivity reader to do with this? Does it
make a difference if the Yorkist king is referred to as
“differently abled” and not a “cripple”?
Undoubtedly – but I don’t think the change would
be for the better, and for reasons beyond the clanging
sound of euphemism. In many ways it would be worse.
The fundamental problem lies not with the words
used to describe the character, but with the attributes
ascribed to him. And if those attributes are demanded
Even as the Bond films have been
progressively stripped of their
racism and misogyny, disability
has remained an essential aspect
PREVIOUS PAGE:
EVERETT; ALAMY;
by the logic of the narrative, we are facing a challenge
CINETEXT; MGM; that can be unexpectedly subtle.
AMBLIN; ALLSTAR;
WARNER BROS;
REX; PICTURELUX; A few years ago, having written a disability memoir,
SHUTTERSTOCK; NEW I had a spell of minor celebrity in Norway, appearing
LINE; LANDMARK; on the local equivalent of Have I Got News For You
RONALD GRANT; EPA;
UNITED ARTISTS; SNAP and some other TV shows. Following this, I received
an unexpected phone call. It was from a casting
agency who wanted to have me read for a small part
in a television series called Occupied. The show
(occasionally available on Netflix) was derived from
an idea by Jo Nesbø about a Russian invasion of
Norway – an idea that seemed a little more fanciful
in 2019 than it might today.
I said yes to the audition, of course. I was curious,
flattered, and wanted to know whether I would
completely embarrass myself. But I also wanted
to know what the experience of playing a disabled
character in a mainstream television series would
be like.
My character, Ivar Salvesen, was initially
conceived as an assistant of sorts to the Norwegian
prime minister, mainly in the script for purposes of
exposition. His job was partly to feed information to
the prime minister, and thus to the viewers, on key
plot developments. But as the drafts progressed,
he – spoiler alert! – turned into a villain. He became
the head of an unscrupulous consultancy, vaguely
reminiscent of Cambridge Analytica, promising
to deliver the parliamentary election – before
proceeding to collaborate with various shadowy
characters who threw acid at the prime minister’s
political enemies.
Whether the change in Ivar’s character was
accidental or a result of the writers coming to
appreciate my villainous nature I will never know.
But for whatever reason, he joined the ranks of Dr
Strangelove and the usual wheelchair-using baddies.
Javier Bardem When I pointed this out to one of the other actors, she
as villain Raoul seemed thoroughly surprised. “Oh, I never thought of
Silva in Skyfall that. He just seemed to be written as a sort of classically
(2012) cerebral, calculating villain. That sort of type.”
ALAMY Well, yes. That sort of type. Cerebral, calculating.
Compensating, perhaps, for some essential inner
flaw. Concealing, possibly, his hatred of able-bodied
humanity. We know the type.
The series was set in modern, progressive Norway,
so no one referred to my character as a “cripple” or with
any other kind of slur. That did not change the essential
fact of characterisation. And no sensitivity reading on
the verbal, or even conceptual level, could change that.
My acting adventure taught me much about the deep,
often reactionary aspects to popular storytelling. But
it was also educational in other, unexpected ways.
Chiefly, it gave me some insight into why mainstream
stories often resort to shorthand when it comes to
representations of disability.
Like many western European productions,
Occupied was partly filmed in eastern Europe,
specifically in Lithuania. I was wary of travelling
there, as I am always wary of travelling as a wheelchair
user. The logistics are complicated at best, involving
labyrinthine booking procedures and endless
bureaucratic requests or information about one’s
wheelchair: How wide is it? How heavy? What kind
of batteries does it have? This information, which
must be supplied, is promptly forgotten by the
airline, and has to repeated to sometimes befuddled,
occasionally hostile check-in staff.
In addition, there was only only airline with a
direct flight from Oslo to Vilnius, and, like most low-
budget airlines, it was notoriously bad at disability
accommodation. I did my due diligence, spending
hours online in order to find out the exact dimensions
of the cargo doors for the plane on this particular flight,
probably being flagged as a “person of interest” by
some agency or other in the process. I also talked to
my sister and her then boyfriend, both professional
actors, who assured me that transporting an electric
wheelchair from one place to another was a very
minor challenge for a large-scale TV production.
This, at least, was mildly reassuring.
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian •
The plane trip was as troublesome as I’d predicted.
The airline had no record of my need for assistance,
and for unexplained reasons I spent an hour waiting
on the tarmac in a freezing cold Ambulift, the
cargo container on wheels that modern airports
use to transport disabled passengers along with
in-flight meals.
But it turned out that the professionals were right.
Once I was in Lithuania, transportation was smoothly
arranged by the production company. Even though
the only wheelchair-accessible van they’d been able
to hire in the capital, Vilnius, broke down the day
before I arrived, they were able to find another one
at the other end of the country. There was a simple
reason for this efficiency: once I’d been cast, a lot of
money was staked on my being on set, on time, and
so a solution was found. Unlike in real life, where
there are no consequences to, say, keeping me waiting
on the tarmac.
And so I was able to act, to my limited ability, in a
range of scenes set in the prime minister’s office, in the
hospital where my character had helped put one of his
enemies, and even in the government limousine that
took us both to the hospital.
This final scene we shot was by far the most
interesting one to me in terms of disability
representation, though it had nothing to do with
the good/evil binary. My character used an electric
wheelchair. (Of course, I’d be hard pressed to play
a character who didn’t.) This was no problem in the
office and hospital scenes; plenty of room. But it
would not fit in the back seat of a limo.
So there I was, in a regular car seat. This was almost
as exotic an experience for me as trying to say my
lines “without trying to act”, as I’d very sensibly been
instructed. I rarely move from my wheelchair when in
transit, which is usually in vans that are as boxy and as
ugly as an Ambulift. The luxury car seat felt infinitely
more soft and comfortable by comparison. Gradually,
I couldn’t help envy Ivar – his life
was easier than mine, living in a
fictional world where disability
was merely a character trait
Jan Grue as Ivar helped along by one of my fellow actors, a veteran and
Salvesen (right) very patient professional, I relaxed into the scene.
in Occupied Something kept bothering me, though, and
YELLOW BIRD/NETFLIX eventually, around take three or four, I couldn’t help
asking the director certain questions.
The scene in the car would lead into a scene outside
the hospital? Yes.
And in the scene outside the hospital, Ivar would be
in his electric wheelchair? Yes.
But right now, in the limousine, he was not in his
wheelchair? Yes.
And in the following scene, the wheelchair would in
fact, it seems, be waiting for him? Yes.
So how exactly would the wheelchair get there?
There could, of course, be a number of explanations.
There might be multiple wheelchairs. The prime
minister’s staff might have spirited the wheelchair
away, rushing to have it in place. The Secret Service did
this for Franklin D Roosevelt, providing commando-
style accessibility where none existed previously.
Alternatively, I suppose, the wheelchair could be
strapped to the roof of the limousine, out of frame.
It certainly wasn’t visible, or even alluded to.
The director, a friendly and thoroughly experienced
man, someone who’d worked with international stars
such as Christina Ricci and Jonathan Rhys Meyers,
considered my question. After a long pause, he
suggested that we may have to gloss over this one.
This was clearly the right answer. If the narrative
in Occupied was to progress at all, we couldn’t dwell
on every logistical conundrum that a wheelchair
user would face in the real world. We wouldn’t have
got past Ivar’s first scene. Or, Beckett-style, we
wouldn’t have got to his scene at all. He would have
been infinitely delayed, waiting for assistance to
get out of bed in the morning, waiting for accessible
transportation to take him the prime minister’s
office, trapped on the phone with one public office or
another. This would not make for good TV.
Still, having navigated the airline’s dark joke of a
disability service system, and having come to Vilnius
to sit in the back of the very nice car, I couldn’t help
but envy Ivar just a little bit. His life was obviously
easier than mine on a number of counts, owing to his
trick of living in a fictional universe where disability
was merely a character trait.
I have a six-year-old. When reading to him, I routinely
edit the books we enjoy together. Sometimes I edit
for clarity, sometimes for brevity, sometimes for
scariness, and sometimes for racism and misogyny.
(We haven’t got to Ian Fleming yet, I should say.)
Sometimes, though, I am at a loss. Reading Roald
Dahl, who was born to Norwegian immigrant parents
and is as popular in Norway as he is in the UK, we
had fun with many of his books. Fantastic Mr Fox
was a success, and on balance I decided to leave the
three grotesque farmers as they were. We enjoyed
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, too, though I had to
improvise in many places, particularly when it came
to the Oompa-Loompas origins as a “pygmy people

from Africa”, happy to work for Willy
Wonka without pay. (It should be noted
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
8 The long read

that Dahl himself revised this particular aspect of the
story in 1973, but in the 2015 Norwegian translation,
they still hail from a “big, dark jungle” and have only
grubs to eat.)
With George’s Marvellous Medicine, though, we
couldn’t get past page three. The baddie in this story is
George’s horrible and horribly decrepit grandmother,
on whom George takes his revenge by concocting his
medicine. There is no way to soften Dahl’s description
of the grandmother, because without it, George
would have no motivation and the story would
have no point. And so I followed Philip Pullman’s
sensible suggestion to let some of Dahl’s worst stories
“fade away”, rather than trying to edit them past
recognition. I did not need to read it, and my son
was happy not to have to hear it. There were better
stories for us to explore.
We are in fraught territory here, living – as all
generations do – through historical change. I grew
up on JRR Tolkien’s stories, and my nostalgic
love for them hasn’t dimmed, even as I’ve come
to appreciate their troublesome aspects. They
are fairly explicitly racist when it comes to skin
colour, drawing on the same trope of physiology
intertwined with morals that underpins so much
characterisation of disability. Does it matter whether
Tolkien’s Haradrim are evil because they are dark,
or dark because they are evil? Not so long as the two
qualities are inextricable.
Tolkien’s way with non-human races has also been
thoroughly explored and critiqued – particularly the
degree to which he drew on antisemitic stereotypes
in fashioning his dwarves. Here, too, there is no quick
fix. Even the word itself is a problem. It would be
absurd to rename the dwarves of The Lord of the Rings
“people with restricted growth”, since that is quite
simply not what they are.
There is, of course, a fantasy universe which
does feature at least one character with restricted
growth, created by another author with the same
middle initials. In his series of fantasy novels A
Song of Ice and Fire, on which the TV series Game of
Thrones was based, George RR Martin plays off and
subverts Tolkien’s legacy in a number of ways, but
to my mind never as interestingly as when depicting
Tyrion Lannister.
Although Tyrion is called an “imp” by other
characters, he is clearly a person with restricted
growth, not a fantasy creature. And in the novels as
well as the series, he faces what the disability scholar
Tom Shakespeare has called the “predicament”
of disability, even though he lives in a fantastical
world. Portrayed by Peter Dinklage, Tyrion becomes
a memorable character partly because of the precise
way in which this predicament is presented. Tyrion
cannot meet the medieval standard of masculinity and
martial prowess. He has to live by his wits and must
be extremely sensitive to social nuances – an all too
familiar consequence of disability.
I am not championing one double R over the other;
I am simply pointing out that sensitivity reading
has both its purposes and its limitations. Sensitivity
reading “on the fly” is an invaluable tool for parents
reading to children. It can even be a useful exercise for
authors who revisit their work at a later stage. It is less
helpful, I think, when it is used by commercial entities
to obscure the cultural history of storytelling.
It is no accident that the biggest recent debates
over sensitivity reading have been initiated by two
companies that strive to maximise the value of the
intellectual property of dead authors. Their real
sensitivity is to the market. One of them, the Roald
Dahl Story Company, was acquired by Netflix to help
it combat the biggest such company of all – the house
that Walt Disney built.
Disney has been on a decades-long acquisition
rampage, absorbing the Marvel and Star Wars
universes, among many others. Thus the
Disneyfication of culture has proceeded from the
fairly dark European fairy tales with which it began
to more recent mythologies. Many new works of
genuine quality have emerged from this process,
but it has also been one of endless repetition – and
homogenisation. Very different strands of folk
culture and popular culture are uprooted from their
specific historical contexts and subjected to the
In Game of Thrones, Tyrion does demands of global marketing campaigns. Equally
important, there is less oxygen for genuinely original
actually face the ‘predicament’ stories. It makes little difference if the label has
been changed but the product inside the box is
of disability, even though he essentially the same.
We can and should exchange new words for old
lives in a fantastical world slurs, particularly when the effects are obviously
positive. Some disabled people have reappropriated
the term “cripple”, and are using it for politically
progressive purposes. “Crip theory” is a burgeoning
field of academic inquiry. Even so, I am quite happy
Oompa- not to be called crippled in everyday life. This is not
Loompas in only because of the word’s derogatory meaning, but
Willy Wonka & because “cripple” in its conventional meaning implies
The Chocolate something essential about one’s status – something
Factory (1971), that is inextricably linked to one’s body, independent
top; Tyrion of circumstance. I prefer “disabled” partly because
Lannister that word leaves room for multiple interpretations of
in Game of what I am disabled by – including, crucially, society.
Thrones, left Most days, I am first and foremost disabled by a lack
ALLSTAR/WARNER of accessibility.
BROS; HBO Showing my age, I am less keen to enter into a
debate on the merits of “person with disabilities”
versus “disabled person”. And to my middle-aged
ears, “differently abled” is clearly a euphemism,
and a reactionary one at that, a term that does
as much good to alleviate disabling policies as
“underprivileged” does to fight poverty.
Language is powerful, but never on its own. It is
entwined with politics, culture and history. If we
replace older and ostensibly more stigmatising words
with newer and softer-sounding labels, but do nothing
to change the context in which the words appear,
we leave the job half done. Arguably, we also risk
new words and euphemisms being overtaken by old
stigmas, in which case the fundamental problem of
representation remains. Politely calling a Bond villain
 a “differently abled person” does nothing to undo the
Jan Grue link between their embodiment and their villainy.
is a Norwegian No, I don’t want to read an Ian Fleming novel
writer and in which a differently abled person overcomes his
academic, and physical challenges in order to become an inspirational
author of I Live example of world-threatening villainy. I’m much
a Life Like Yours happier reading the old books as products of their
(Pushkin, 2021) time, and then moving on to stories new. •
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Established 1906
Country diary
Caistor St Edmund,
Norfolk
I checked no one was looking, then
furtively pulled the package from
my coat pocket and quickly passed
it over. “There’s some good stuff
there,” I added, with a knowing
nod. They examined the contents
before tucking it into a rucksack.
“Yeah, nice. Any chance you could
get 10 for my mate?” And so it was
that I became a prolific dealer in
owl pellets, in school playgrounds,
at work and even by post, in
exchange for the simple joy of
sharing this pastime.
Dissecting owl pellets –
AKA owl vomit – is a beloved
activity of wildlife groups and
nature clubs. They’re so sought
after that you can even buy them
on eBay for a surprising price.
Nowadays, I just supply the goods
to a couple of old friends.
Today, I find myself scrabbling
underneath a tree to fulfil a
promise. I find seven – not bad.
Each is a dense, brown sausage
that looks like excrement, but is a
carefully made lozenge of mouse
skeleton and all the indigestible
parts of an owl’s diet. The fur of
mice is visible on the outside, like
a soft coating; maybe this eases
the regurgitation process. I don’t
know why, but I raise it to my
nose – inhaling the strange, musty
tang of otherness.
The hedgerow beside me is
thick, and tiny birds flit in and
out. Tree sparrows, blue tits and
yellowhammers – just a bright
lemon flash – move busily through
swaying catkins and bursting leaf
buds. My eye is caught by hundreds
of empty snail shells under the
hedge, a scene of devastation
stretching on into the distance.
What could have happened?
The soil is lime rich here, which
not only helps the snails build
strong shells but also makes them
slower to break down. This is not
a mass die-out, but a graveyard
created over years. Thrushes and
small mammals such as shrews are
the most likely cause, plucking the
snails from their hibernation in the
plastic tree guards.
I collect a few of the prettiest
shells, banded like humbugs.
With my pockets now bulging
with unlikely objects, I set off
to drop some of the good stuff
through my friend’s letterbox.
Kate Blincoe
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•
Letters
Lineker rightly speaks up
for those with no voice
Thank you to Jonathan Freedland
for his insightful article about
the issues concerning asylum
seekers (Remember, it could be
any one of us in those Channel
boats, 11 March). I would just
take issue with his statement
that Gary Lineker has “deployed
the wrong analogy” in saying the
language is “not dissimilar to that
used by Germany in the 1930s”.
I beg to differ. I believe the analogy
was very well chosen.
“Not dissimilar” means there
may be points of similarity; it does
not mean that words and deeds
correspond exactly. Anyone who
watches series one of the BBC’s
Rise of the Nazis will quickly see
the truth of Mr Lineker’s words.
In 2023, just as in Germany in the
1930s, we see the government
curbing our right to engage in
demonstrations, seeking to
undermine the judiciary, making
it less easy to cast a vote, and
dehumanising and othering
minority and migrant groups.
Need I say more?
The steady suppression of
dissenting voices in Germany in
the 1930s created the conditions
in which extreme rightwing
ideology could flourish. I fully
endorse Mr Lineker’s view that
the government’s language is
“not dissimilar” to Germany in
the 1930s, and I am most grateful
to him for speaking out and
sticking to his views, and for all
those who have backed him.
Elizabeth Palmer
Oldham, Greater Manchester
• Contrary to the government
narrative that Gary Lineker was
being disrespectful to the victims
of the Holocaust and their families
and descendants, he was raising
the danger that government
policy on immigrants would fuel a
similar future for them. Jonathan
Freedland argues that the language
and actions of our government are
not as bad as that of the German
government of the 1930s, but such
language softens up public opinion
for what might follow. Attacking
Heartwarming joy of a lifelong friendship
Emma Beddington’s article on the
phenomenon of lifelong friends
(Together for ever, 8 March),
struck an immediate chord. Sue
and I met queueing for room
keys on arrival at York University
in 1968. Fresh from a year in
1960s “swinging London” and
exuding cool (or so I thought),
I was completely upstaged by her
report of working in Italy (Rome
definitely trumped London). Lost
civil liberties, as the government
has done over several years, is the
top of the slippery slope to what
happened in Germany during
the 1930s. Germany has learned
the lesson of its history. The UK,
so instrumental in leading the
world against authoritarianism,
apparently hasn’t.
Martin Niemöller’s poem,
First They Came, comes to mind.
Lineker is not a migrant, but he has,
rightly and bravely, spoken out on
behalf of a minority that has no
voice. It’s now our responsibility
to speak out and support him.
Robin Thomas
Bedford
• Jonathan Freedland is right
to applaud Gary Lineker’s
intervention, while rejecting
his historical analogy. But the
controversy also distracts from
another regrettable utterance
– by the Labour party. In an era
when the political soundbite is
king, Labour’s “unworkable”
riposte to the government’s
disgraceful plan is perplexing to
say the least.
Both logically and rhetorically,
“unworkable” suggests that what
matters most is the effectiveness
rather than the legitimacy of the
policy. But its focus on efficacy
rather than ethics reveals
Labour’s chronic neurosis over
the possibility of alienating those
with anxieties about immigration.
Instead, the party ought to be
reminding the government of
its moral responsibilities, legal
obligations and international
reputation – not playing a
political percentage game.
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk
• In contrast to some other
presenters, Gary Lineker was not
revealing any party preferences
nor his voting intentions in
his tweet. He was not offering
general criticism or endorsement
of any party per se. He was
simply commenting on a single
government policy affecting a
in awe, I dutifully nursed the lit
cigarette that she promptly stuffed
into my hand (“Here, hold this!”)
as she was called into the bursar’s
office ahead of me, and so began
almost 55 years of the dearest of
friendships – longer than many
a marriage (mine included).
After two years of flat-sharing,
our careers took us to opposite
ends of the country, but along
the way we have made space for
 guardian.letters@theguardian.com
 @guardianletters
human rights issue to which he
is committed. Given the BBC
director-general’s own history of
Tory activism, isn’t it he who needs
to defend himself – and thus the
BBC – against charges of political
partisanship in this matter?
Ian McCormack
Leicester
• Currently, the word impartiality
is meant to be a term indicating
having no opinion, which has been
assigned to the BBC as a virtue.
Thus Gary Lineker has crossed
that assumed line and has been
the centre of an infantile fuss
for stating an opinion. But is not
impartiality a state of conducting
evenhanded debate, and a better
policy? Also, why do public bodies
fear offending the right so much?
I’ve yet to hear anyone worrying
about upsetting the left.
Margaret O’Connell
Wincham, Cheshire
• Does anyone think Gary Lineker
would have been suspended or
even noticed if he had tweeted in
favour of government policy? This,
together with not broadcasting an
episode of David Attenborough’s
Saving Our Wild Isles, shows where
the real political bias is. It is the BBC
that is biased – not Gary Lineker.
Geoff Wheeler
Coventry
• Germany at one time considered
sending Jews to Madagascar.
Our government wants to send
refugees to Rwanda. QED.
Mike Johnson
Rustington, West Sussex
• If you speak out against
government policy, it’s political,
but if you say nothing it’s not?
We take silence for consent.
Mark Doel
Emeritus professor,
Sheffield Hallam University
• I rather enjoyed the
replacement Match of the Day
format, with no talking at all.
I found it restful and comforting.
Steve Lupton
Prestwich, Greater Manchester
• Is Gary Lineker now the voice
of reason in this country and the
de facto leader of the opposition?
Steve Fleming
Claygate, Surrey
weekends, festivals and countless
brilliant holidays at home and
abroad – in later years with
combined, multigenerational
families (our daughters are
now firm friends).
Despite regular texts and
lengthy phone calls, we still have
enough unsaid to unpick lives
and ideas until 4am over a bottle
of wine, much as we did when
we were 18 – a joy for which I
will for ever be grateful.
Anne Haynes
Pocklingon, Yorkshire
9
Corrections and
clarifications
• A picture captioned as showing
a protester holding a “not my king”
sign during a visit to Colchester
by King Charles and the Queen
Consort omitted to mention that
this was Graham Smith, CEO of the
campaign group Republic (Royal
blues, 8 March, p10).
• A pass notes column about
coulrophobia – a fear of clowns –
was based on work by researchers
from the University of South Wales,
not the “University of Wales”
(No 4,530, 9 March, G2, p3).
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
guardian.readers@theguardian.com
The Whale ends up
dehumanising us all
I had already decided to pass
on watching The Whale before
reading Lindy West’s take on it
(This is a fantasy of fat squalor,
11 March). But I was shocked to see
the director’s implicit claim that
the film “humanises” fat people.
How do you humanise someone
who is already human?
Marco Livingstone
London
• Re your article (PM upgrades
power grid to heat his private pool,
13 March), it’s good to know that
Rishi Sunak has personally paid for
the extra equipment for the grid to
power his heated pool. He could
show solidarity and opt to have a
prepayment meter fitted too.
Chris Sumner
Waltham Abbey, Essex
• It is probably unrealistic to
expect a government of, or in hock
to, plutocrats to take measures
to restrict corporate greed
(Editorial, 13 March). In any Venn
diagram, the overlap between
“rich” and “moral” portrays the
eye of the needle through which
the camel hopes to pass.
Richard W Russell
Bowmore, Islay
• When first visiting Highgate
cemetery I was tickled pink (red?)
to see that the graves of Karl Marx
and Herbert Spencer face each
other (Letters, 7 March).
Phil Rhoden
Kidderminster, Worcestershire
• Now the wheels really have
come off everything. Our
Guardian newspapers did not
make it across the Pennines last
Friday – they were stuck in the
snow on the M62. We read the
paper online, but it means we can’t
cut out the Martin Rawson cartoon
and stick it on the kitchen wall.
Sarah and Bill Sheils
York

10
Dame Phyllida Barlow
Sculptor determined
to turn convention on
its head with her vast,
uncontainable art works
G
rowing up, the
artist Phyllida
Barlow, who
has died aged
78, was warned
by her mother
against trading
on her illustrious
ancestry. Her father’s family tree
was decked with Huxleys and
Wedgwoods, but it was another
of his forebears that her mother
had particularly in mind. Barlow
was the great-great-granddaughter
of Charles Darwin.
“In the 1960s, when I went to
Chelsea College of Art, there was
quite a socialist approach,” Barlow
mildly recalled. “Anything that
smacked of privilege was more
of a hindrance than a thing to be
bragged about. I became rather
inhibited by the association.”
It was an inhibition that was to
shape her as a sculptor.
When, in 2017, Barlow unveiled
• The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023
Obituaries
her work folly in the British
Pavilion at the Venice Biennale,
critics were transfixed by its mess.
A confection of carefully contrived
flotsam and jetsam, folly’s papier-
mache lollipops and abstract
expressionist doors tumbled
out of the pavilion and into the
gardens beyond. The work’s
unwillingness to be contained
reflected a parallel refusal to be
defined. “In the past,” Barlow
noted, “sculpture had historical
narratives. It was dominated by
the plinth, it monumentalised and
celebrated individuals.” One of
those, often enough, was Darwin.
Bound up in folly’s rejection of a
sculptural ancestry was its maker’s
renunciation of her own.
Venice marked both a high point
in Barlow’s career, and – she was 73
at the time – a late flowering of it.
Even a decade before, the idea that
she might one day be the Biennale’s
official British artist would have
been unthinkable. For more than
four decades of her career, Barlow
had had no gallery and shown
almost no work. This, too, fed into
the aesthetic of her art. While other
British sculptors of her generation
– Antony Gormley, say, or Richard
Deacon – made sculpture that was
traditional in being durable, Barlow
quietly cornered the market in an
art that was evanescent.
One early piece, made in the
70s in the basement studio of her
north London house, was Tent:
a sculpture consisting of a sheet
of canvas thrown over a wooden
frame and then heavily painted. “It
provoked absolute hostility,” Barlow
Barlow’s recalled, merrily. “It never went on
installation exhibition. I remember two former
called ‘folly’ on students from the Slade saying it
display at the would be best to throw it away.”
British Pavilion This was followed, in the 80s and
at the Venice 90s, by guerrilla sculptures, illicitly
Biennale in installed in north London school
2017. Right, the playgrounds, abandoned houses
artist with ‘dock’ and a defunct stocking factory. Still
at Tate Britain, others were shown in the homes
London, in 2014 of friends. Sometimes, at night,
DAVID LEVENE/ Barlow would throw objects she
THE GUARDIAN had made into the Thames, these
sculptural performances having, as
she said, “an audience of one”.
The inspiration behind all of
these she attributed to her paternal
grandmother. It was thus from
Nora Darwin, rather than Nora’s
grandfather, Charles, that Barlow
liked to trace her descent. “Her
understairs cupboard was filled with
beautifully folded brown paper,”
Barlow recalled. “Navy blue sugar
paper that grocers used, and neatly
assembled piles of reusable stuff
such as black rubber bands and old
matchboxes. We continued to use
Christmas decorations made during
the wartime years well into the
50s – strange, rather abject pieces of
cardboard with paint on them.”
The virtue of such frugality was
lost in the materialism of the 60s
and the greed-is-good decades
that followed. This infected the art
world as much as any other: the
expensive, high-gloss hardness of
Jeff Koons will stand as testament
to the time. It was only with the
change of millennium and rise of
environmentalism that ideas of
sculptural fragility began at last to
gain currency.
Barlow’s folly, made of cheap
and recycled materials and looking
as though it might fall apart at any
moment, was absolutely of its day.
The neoclassical pavilion in which
it stood had been built in 1909,
at the height of Britain’s imperial
power. The year before folly, to
Barlow’s despair, the UK had voted
to leave the European Union.
Standing in a once-great and now
sinking imperial city, her work, and
its name, seemed to meditate on
the repeated vanities of history.
Phyllida was the daughter of
Biddy (nee Brigit Hope Black) and
Erasmus Barlow. Her father was
an eminent psychiatrist who was
in Newcastle researching wartime
brain trauma when Phyllida, his
third and last child, was born there.
The family moved to London
and at Chelsea, aged 18, she met
Fabian Peake, son of the novelist
I love big Mervyn. In 1966 she married him,
sculpture,
that sense
moving on in the same year to
study at the Slade School of Fine
Art and, later, to teach there. When
of my own
physicality
the couple’s first child, Florence,
was born in 1973, Barlow gave up
work. Child-rearing and making
being in
competition
art were, she said, “completely
incompatible. That’s not meant
to be cruel or regretful. Both are
with
something
that has no
creative. But the minute one works
at home, there’s a collision.”
Four more children – Clover,
Tabitha and twins, Eddie and Lewis
rational – followed in the next eight years.
need to be (All would become artists of various
in the world stripes.) It was only in her 40s
that Barlow returned to teaching,
first in Bristol, then at Brighton,
Camberwell, and finally back at the
Tuesday 14 March 2023 The Guardian
Slade. She would stay at the school
until retiring as a professor there
in 2009. Then came a visit from
Hauser & Wirth, the king-making
Swiss gallerists. If Barlow’s work
had remained below the radar for
40 years, her fame as a thinker and
teacher had not. Among artists she
had taught at the Slade were Rachel
Whiteread, Tacita Dean and Martin
Creed, all, by 2010, much more
famous than she was. It was from
these ex-students that Iwan Wirth
heard Barlow’s name.
That year, he visited her in the
famously messy suburban house
in Finsbury Park, north London,
where she and Peake had raised
their family. “I couldn’t believe
this was where she lived,” Wirth
recalled. “My driver said: ‘I don’t
think that that can be it.’ And then
we are in this extraordinary house,
which Phyllida explains she doesn’t
clean, ever. It was like therapy for
the Swiss soul, the opposite of what
we were brought up with. We knew
immediately that she was vintage
Hauser & Wirth.”
Fame came quickly. In the year
of Wirth’s visit, Barlow had a joint
show with the Iranian sculptor
Nairy Baghramian, at the Serpentine
Gallery in London. The following
year, she was belatedly made a
Royal Academician, in 2015 a CBE
and in 2021 a dame. In 2014, her
installation dock, in Tate Britain’s
echoing Duveen Galleries, wowed
critics, many of whom, five years
before, had never heard of her.
Like folly, dock countered the
marbled vastness of the space in
which it stood with an insistent
anti-monumentalism of its own.
Tate Britain seemed to have been
hit by a tsunami that had left
behind it wooden pallets, bits
of piping and old painted doors
that happened to have arranged
themselves into sculptural forms.
And there were hoardings – a source
of particular fascination to Barlow,
their film-set thinness exposing the
false solidity of architecture such as
the Duveen Galleries’.
The new century, Barlow
thought, had been defined not
by monuments but by falling
monuments: the destruction of the
World Trade Center in 2001, the
toppling of the statue of Saddam
Hussein in Firdos Square in 2003.
Aesthetically, these were things
to be mourned and celebrated. “In
the collapse of a monument, there
is a tragedy, a triumph, a beauty,
and also an immense grief,” Barlow
said. As to her own work, she
mused, “I love big sculpture, that
sense of my own physicality being
in competition with something
that has no rational need to be in
the world at all. And I think that is
in itself just an expression of the
human condition, of who we are
and what we are.”
Barlow is survived by her
husband and children.
Charles Darwent
(Gillian) Phyllida Barlow, sculptor,
born 4 April 1944; died 12 March 2023
•
 obituaries@theguardian.com
 @guardianobits
Robert Blake
US actor best known for
TV’s Baretta who was
found liable by a civil
court for his wife’s death
O
ne of the most infamy, was at its height in the
insidious villains mid-1970s, when he was the star of
in modern the US cop show Baretta (1975–78),
cinema is the which earned him an Emmy
figure billed and a Golden Globe. In an era of
only as “the idiosyncratic detectives, Tony
Mystery Man” Baretta was distinguished by his
in David Lynch’s pet cockatoo and a penchant for
metaphysical thriller Lost Highway disguise. “I tried to make a human
(1997). With his eyebrow-less, being out of a cop and … make
Pierrot-white face, sunken eyes social comment,” he told the New
and mirthless laugh, he haunts the York Times in 1977. “I wanted as
troubled life of the saxophonist an artist to get a few things said to
Fred (Bill Pullman) and possesses the American people. Only a few
the ability to materialise in several million people saw my movies, 20
places simultaneously. to 30 million saw Baretta.”
In one chilling scene, he Later, he sounded eager to
encounters Fred at a party, where escape its shadow. Interviewed on
the Mystery Man reveals that he the set of Lost Highway, he said:
is, at that very moment, waiting “I don’t wanna play another cop. I
back at his house. Fred dials his don’t wanna do all that junk.”
own landline; sure enough, it is the A comeback would not have
Mystery Man who answers, even as been far-fetched. Blake, a guarded
he is standing right in front of him. but charismatic presence, had
Lost Highway seemed to promise several captivating performances
a comeback for the actor and under his belt before Baretta. He
former child star Robert Blake, played the killer Perry Smith in the
who has died aged 89 from heart film version of Truman Capote’s
disease. In fact, the Mystery Man non-fiction true-crime novel In
turned out to be his final screen Cold Blood (1967). He won that role
credit. In 2002, he was arrested after the director, Richard Brooks,
for the murder of his second wife, insisted on him over the studio’s
Bonny Lee Bakley, with whom he preferred choice, Paul Newman.
had a daughter, Rose. Bakley was He was the Native American
fatally shot outside a Los Angeles title character, who is wanted for
restaurant in 2001. the murder of his wife’s father, in
“I have varied from being the the factually based Robert Redford
giant of the universe, breathing western Tell Them Willie Boy Is
the same air as God, to being Here (1969). And he played an
underwater in a septic tank and idealistic motorcycle cop in Electra
breathing the same sewage as the Glide in Blue (1973), where he
slime balls around me,” he later said. brought a warmth to a diminutive
His fame, as opposed to his figure who struggles to measure
What I care
about is
what God
thinks
about me
Blake in a 1975 episode of the TV cop series Baretta
UNIVERSAL TV/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK
up to his peers. “Did you know that
me and Alan Ladd were exactly
the same height?” he asks a young
woman, gazing up at her chin.
The murder charge put paid to
any career revival. Blake, who had
spent 11 months in prison before
posting bail, was acquitted after a
three-month trial in 2005 during
which prosecutors alleged that
he had hired stunt-men to kill
his wife. A civil suit for wrongful
death brought by Bakley’s family
found him liable for $30m. Halved
on appeal, the judgment still
bankrupted him.
He was born Michael Gubitosi
in Nutley, New Jersey, to James
and Elizabeth (nee Cafone), and
claimed to have endured an
impoverished childhood. His
parents enlisted him and his
siblings to perform as a street act
called the Three Little Hillbillies.
He became known as Mickey at
the age of five when he joined the
cast of the Our Gang series of film
comedies about a group of children
called the Little Rascals.
Following the end of the series
in 1944, when Blake (now known
as Bobby) was 11, he landed the role
of Little Beaver, a Native American
boy, in another series – this time
the hour-long Red Ryder westerns.
He also had a walk-on part as the
ebullient Mexican boy who sells
Humphrey Bogart a winning lottery
ticket in The Treasure of the Sierra
Madre (1948). After being drafted
into the army, then struggling with
drug addiction, he found work as
a stunt man and clawed his way
back into movies. He starred with
Gregory Peck in Pork Chop Hill
(1959), set during the Korean war.
He was Simon the Zealot in the
Biblical epic The Greatest Story
Ever Told (1965) and an aspiring
Nascar driver in Corky (1972).
By the 80s, his screen career had
petered out. He played a trucker
opposite Dyan Cannon in the
comedy Coast to Coast (1980). He
also appeared as George, with Randy
Quaid as Lenny, in Of Mice and Men
(1981), and as Jimmy Hoffa in Blood
Feud (1983), both made for TV.
Promoting his 2011 self-
published memoir Tales of a Rascal:
What I Did For Love, Blake raged at
Piers Morgan, who tried to quiz him
about his wife’s murder. “Here’s
the bottom line,” he said. “What
you think of me – I don’t give a fuck
… What I care about is what God
thinks about me.” That anger had
been part of him since long before
he was accused of murder. “I like my
rage, I like bein’ pissed off at all the
shitty things that are happening,” he
told Playboy magazine in 1977.
“I hope I never lose that.”
A 22-year marriage to the actor
Sondra Kerr ended in divorce in
1983. He is survived by two children
from that marriage, Noah and
Delinah, as well as by Rose.
Ryan Gilbey
Robert Blake (Michael James
Vijencio Gubitosi), actor, born 18
September 1933; died 9 March 2023
11
Birthdays
Rushanara Ali, Labour MP, 48;
Nicolas Anelka, footballer, 44;
Pam Ayres, poet, writer and
broadcaster, 76; Jamie Bell,
actor, 37; Simone Biles, artistic
gymnast, 26; Eleanor Bron, actor,
85; Sir Michael Caine, actor, 90;
Jasper Carrott, comedian, 78;
Dame Claire Clancy, former chief
executive and clerk, national
assembly for Wales, 65; Sir
Christopher Clark, historian, 63;
Billy Crystal, actor and comedian,
75; Prof Sir Ian Diamond, National
Statistician and chief executive,
UK Statistics Authority, 69;
Margaret Greenwood, Labour
MP, 64; Quincy Jones, record
producer and composer, 90; Kate
Maberly, actor and musician, 41;
Sean Mathias, theatre director
and writer, 67; Tessa Sanderson,
athlete and broadcaster, 67;
Anas Sarwar, MSP and leader of
the Scottish Labour party, 40;
John Stephenson, cricketer and
chief executive, Essex county
cricket club 58; Francine Stock,
arts writer and broadcaster, 65;
Rita Tushingham, actor, 81; Phil
Vickery, rugby player, 47.
Letter
Wally Fawkes
Wally Fawkes (obituary, 11 March)
was already an established
cartoonist when I arrived in
London in the early 1960s.
Unusually for the time, he had
a terrific line in caricaturing the
royal family, as in a Punch cover
portraying Queen Elizabeth and
the Duke of Edinburgh as the
Cockney Pearly King and Queen.
I was a huge fan and probably
lifted some of his caricatures.
Peter Fluck and I certainly cast a
keen eye over them when making
puppets of the royals.
Most Saturday nights, in a Fleet
Street pub nicknamed Aunties,
Wally played the clarinet in
traditional jazz. My favourite was
Dippermouth Blues, and I always
pitched up if Wally was on.
I was making rather bad
drawings for the back of the
Observer, mainly because Peter
Cook was writing the captions.
In those days I was much better
at drinking beer than drawing,
but when Wally and I met up
occasionally for a meal, he was
very generous and encouraging.
Unlike many cartoonists of the
period, he was very professional
and had a great sense of fun. He
took nothing too seriously.
In a much changed world,
caricaturists and political
cartoonists still manage to hang
on by their fingernails. Thank
goodness Wally was able to
practise his art for as long as he
wanted to, enjoying the last of
the good times.
Roger Law
 • The Guardian Tuesday 14 March 2023

12 Puzzles

Yesterday’s Killer sudoku Codeword

solutions
Easy Each letter of the alphabet makes at least one appearance in the grid,
and is represented by the same number wherever it appears. The letters
Killer sudoku The normal rules of decoded should help you to identify other letters and words in the grid.
Easy Sudoku apply: fill each
row, column and 3x3
box with all the numbers
from 1 to 9. In addition,
the digits in each inner
shape (marked by dots)
must add up to the
number in the top corner
of that box. No digit can
be repeated within an
inner shape.

Medium

Medium

Codeword

Cryptic crossword Guardian cryptic crossword No 29,017 set by Matilda

Solution No. 29,016
R F M B E R L
ZERORATE DR I VEN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Across Down
P R I E W F A 1 Another country and this one are 2,5 Director, born in Kent, first
F R E C K L E S AME ND S to have better managed a good
O E W R E 9 in trouble (7)
T OMD I C K A N D H A R R Y 5 See 2 hospital (7,7)
F S O X I U S 10 11 10 Handle a bit of butter (4) 3 Capone’s behind collection of
CARVE HARDY
L L E C N I A 11 Golf in Africa may be songs (5)
G I V EONE A B AD T I ME conditionally possible (10) 4 Unlikely item from Nike etc? (7)
F A R T N
STOL EN ACCURSED 12 Let’s deal with flyaway hair (6) 6 Mountie catching a thief (6)
O O T V A A S 12 13 13 Effort of past orient travelling (8) 7 What one needs to retire near
BUSTL E APPO I NTS
T S R N E L Y 14 High-tech spree leaves an uneasy fresh water (9)
feeling (3,6) 8 Complaint about individual
16 Edward Ledger (5) having left the building (4,3)
14 15 16 17 A northerner, of course (5) 9 How the story began came out in
19 Single and in good shape after open letters (4,4,1,4)
Matilda leaves (9) 15 What are you doing, Socrates,
23 Hobby for dad? Stamp collector? half-drunk with weapon? (9)
17 18 19 20 21 (8) 18 European resort hotel covering
24 One hooked and held by mad up immorality (7)
22 dictator (6) 20 School rogue in casualty? Gosh!
26 Memorial King George originally (7)
23 24 25
built for unit (10) 21 Right in leaving out passage (7)
27 Dior fashionista’s retro style (4) 22 Rough sounding path (6)
28 Quiet provider of milkshake (7) 25 Show stuff in revolting
29 Extremely dreary and unpleasant commercial (5)
26 27
line (7)

28 29
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83.
Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your
phone company’s access charge.
Service supplied by ATS.
Call 0330 333 6946 for customer
service (charged at standard rate).
Want more? Get access to more than
4,000 puzzles at theguardian.com/
crossword. To buy puzzle books, visit
guardianbookshop.com or call
0330 333 6846.*
Do I look like Harry Styles yet?

Can Rich Pelley convince as

the world’s best-dressed man?

Tuesday 14/03/23
‘It feels like family’
Writers on
their beloved
mother figures
page 4

‘The forest was 12

trees on rollers’
How we made The
Company of Wolves
page 9
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 •

3
Pass notes
The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023

Zoe
Williams
Michelle Yeoh is right: I stuck up for
Gary Lineker
women are never before it was
‘past their prime’ fashionable

‘L
adies, never let anyone tell you you are past I’ve been in the Gary Lineker
your prime,” Michelle Yeoh (pictured) told a rapt
audience as she accepted her Oscar on Sunday.
She made history from a number of directions
defence business for ages, since
way before it was cool. In 2017,
the Daily Mail attempted a lazy
№ 4,531
with the victory – the first woman from an Asian
background to win best actress in 95 years, and
only the second Asian lead even to be nominated. The first was
hit job on his tax affairs – nothing
but innuendo and guesswork. It
might have been better to ignore
Britain’s loneliest
Merle Oberon in 1936, and there is no better barium meal into the
bowels of Hollywood racism than Oberon’s life story, but give the
place a break: only 87 years later, it’s fine not to be white.
it, as there was nothing really
to see. But it seemed important
because the rightwing press was
home
On the age point, though, Yeoh (who is 60) was thought to be using confected disapproval as a Name: 3 Bleamoor Cottages.
taking a wider swipe at the culture as a whole, specifically referring deterrent; they didn’t really care Age: About 80 years old.
to the CNN television anchor Don Lemon, who said last month that whether he paid tax or not. They Description: “Exciting renovation project in
the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was don’t even like tax. They just a stunningly beautiful location.”
“past her prime”. Challenged live on air, he clarified: “A woman is wanted to discredit his progressive Sounds like estate agent speak. Guess why.
in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.” When that didn’t credentials, to quell the leftish Because it is? Courtesy of Fisher Hopper of
wash with his co-hosts, he said that it wasn’t according to him, and things he said, mostly related to Bentham, North Yorkshire.
to Google it. refugees. If they could corrode the So we’re talking about a property for sale?
Lemon is said to have “sparked outrage”, but the phrase bugs unity of the wokerati, buttress the Yes, a former railway worker’s cottage in the
me: it suggests the response is intemperate, sudden, unforeseeable, proposition that you have to be Yorkshire Dales.
labile. That’s just how it is with woke armies. One minute we’re poor to be on the left (and you’ll Sounds lovely. But presumably “exciting
eating tofu and listening to Belle and Sebastian, the next we’re never be quite poor enough), and renovation project” means it’s falling down?
choking on anger. In fact, the response could easily have been make any other public figure think Not falling down exactly, but definitely what
foreseen. “Prime” has no fixed meaning – which is to say, everyone twice before skating anywhere you might call a project.
knows it relates to some murky, manosphere combo of fertility, near a humane point of view, all How big a project? There are signs of damp,
beauty and hip-to-waist ratio, but there will always be some the better. I chimed in like a kazoo the paint is peeling off, not sure I’d trust
dude with the brass neck to argue that what he is really talking watching an orchestra and deciding the floorboards. Oh, and there’s no mains
about is competence or self-assurance. Like all bigoted it needed a bit of extra help. electricity or water. Or sewerage.
arguments everywhere, it makes its point – that it is OK to judge This row is not about the BBC’s I see. And the beautiful location? The
a woman professionally by whether or not you rules on impartiality, which are views over the moors and up Whernside are
On minute we’re like looking at her – through the back door of
bad faith.
wildly incoherent and, even if they
made internal sense, wouldn’t
stunning. So peaceful, too.
Just how peaceful? The nearest road is
eating tofu, I remember when that argument used to
come in through the front door: when it was
apply to Lineker anyway. It’s not
about what you’re allowed to
a 20-minute hike away. There is a track,
potentially passable in a 4x4, but that would
the next we’re routine to explain, say, Elizabeth I’s late-career
challenges with the fact that she was no longer
compare to 1930s Germany, and
who polices those comparisons.
have to be negotiated with the landowner.
Go on then, how much? This is the good
choking on anger hot by 1601. Her inner circle didn’t fancy her
any more (did you know the arsenic face-cream
The question is more
fundamental: when politics
news: the price has been reduced by 50
grand, to £250,000.
had eaten through her teeth? Of course you did! marches rightwards, the concept They can’t sell it, then? The “Britain’s
That’s the main thing we all knew) and so what else is a reasonable of impartiality in the wider culture loneliest home” tag probably isn’t helping.
Essex to do but revolt? Exactly the same razor-sharp analysis becomes meaningless. That’s The agents point out that the cottage is on the
was deployed to explain the demise of Margaret Thatcher. In my what this debate is really about: route of the Three Peaks Challenge, and that
life, these two events – having to know about the Virgin Queen, are we at the point when silence is might offer commercial opportunities.
watching the fall of the Iron Lady – coincided, so 1990 was a real complicity, or do we have to wait Such as? Turning it into a bunkhouse or
eye-opener for me. I discovered just how many people who thought till the policies are worse, till the an Airbnb. It’s also close to the Ribblehead
they were serious people in the world couldn’t make any adjudication language is more poisonous, till viaduct for the odd railway enthusiast.
on a woman in the public sphere beyond whether or not they would we’ve been fully ejected from the I’m just thinking about winter. At least
hypothetically
hypotheticall bang her. international community, before it’s not on the edge of a crumbling cliff.
There is a ccompanion idea to the concept of a woman’s prime, we can say that for certain? That’s Coastal erosion is now a common reason for
which is that of o knowing you are past it – ageing gracefully. It’s what Lineker’s critics are really properties not selling – in Seaton in Devon,
basically a way
wa of enforcing obsolescence via rules on the age exercised about – not that he’s for example, and on the Suffolk coast.
at which
whic a woman should stop wearing, saying, doing or failed to be impartial, but that he’s Better to be lonely than in the sea, I guess. Or
drinking
drinki certain things, in the interests of her dignity. Over exposed impartiality as the highest haunted. A 2018 study suggested that a ghost
the ag
age of 20, she shouldn’t get falling-over drunk; over 30, value for a different era. could knock 17% – or nearly £40,000 – off UK
she shouldn’t
sh wear miniskirts or sleep around; over 40, no property prices. Perhaps you’d be interested
more spaghetti straps or, for that matter, spaghetti. That in Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, though?
persisted
pers well into the 2010s, when it was destroyed by a Sounds lovely. How much? $18m.
single
sing humorist, Molly Hodgdon, who produced a list of 20 Hmmm, bit over my budget. It does come
things
thin No Woman Should Wear Over 30, which included with 7,500 acres, an airstrip, stables and
COVER: LINDA NYLIND/THE GUARDIAN

“necklace
“n made of human ears” and “police uniform multiple properties. And it was originally
that
t you stole from a police officer”. priced at $27.5m.
I enjoyed Don Lemon’s moment so much that I Why the massive drop? Erm … it might have
didn’t want it to end, so I did Google it, but the results something to do with the previous owner.
were
w inconclusive, which is to say, there’s a fella on Go on. Jeffrey Epstein.
Quora
Quor who thinks his wife is in her prime and she’s 37, and Ew! No thanks. Quite.
nobody
n bo else is sure. If you Google it today, of course, all you
no Do say: “The property presents an interesting
nd is the magnificent Yeoh.
will fin investment opportunity.”
Don’t say: “I think they left a “k” out of the
middle of Bleamoor.”

4 The Guardian
A tribute
to our
other
mothers
With Mother’s Day approaching,
three writers celebrate other women
who have loved, nurtured, educated
and inspired them
’How this calm, poised
woman shaped me!’
Junot Díaz
We in the Caribbean know all too
well: not all mothers are blood
mothers. Lucky is the boy who gets
a mother when he needs her the
most – and I was very lucky indeed.
Picture me in 1977: eight years
old, in the US for barely two years.
The Dominican Republic lost to me,
but alive like mad in my dreams. My
English weak, my Spanish strong.
My bewilderment and sense of loss,
stronger still. I had no idea what
I was doing, what I was supposed to
be. No immigrant handbooks. No
sagacious mentors.
My mother was so overwhelmed
she withdrew from her children.
She kept us kids alive – a mighty
feat considering there were five of
us and my father barely gave her
any money – but she became a half
presence. My poor mother, who
hadn’t talked a lot on the island,
was almost completely silent in
the lands of English.
Even if she’d had the means,
which she didn’t, my mother was
in no condition to help us: not with Díaz in 1977
school, not with the language that
glitched our tongues, not with the
country that seemed determined
to hate every part of us into
•
the ground. It’s hard to exaggerate
how tough things were in those
days. But like I said: I was lucky.
That year was also the year of
Star Wars and Roots, but more
importantly it was the year that the
Hamawy family moved from Egypt
to our neighbourhood in New
Jersey. The eldest son, who had
broken English like me, showed
up to the bus stop with a book in
his hand. I, apparently, had a book
Famished for
love ... Junot
in my hand that day as well. And
that oldest son quickly became my
first true American friend, though
neither of us were truly Americans.
My aunt once said a child makes
a marriage real. Well, a friend
makes a country real. And because
I was best friends with the oldest
son, I got his mother in the bargain
– a double fortune.
Mrs H was a slender, modest,
dark-haired woman who radiated
How lucky I was
to have Mrs H.
She exposed
me to a larger,
brighter world
of possibility
Junot Díaz
calm and will, who never in my
memory yelled or hit. She was the
first woman I knew who drove,
and who adored her sons strictly
and openly.
I wonder what she saw when
she first met me. Her son’s good
friend, wild but loyal? A poor boy
with promise, famished for love?
None of the above?
Whatever she saw, Mrs H
promptly took me in hand, without
any fuss. She started taking me to
the library with her sons, helped
me get my first library card and
encouraged me to read at a time
when none of the adults in my life
encouraged me to do anything
besides shut up and behave.
Mrs H was the first person I knew
in real life who pushed education in
a clear, forceful way. The youngest
of seven children, and the only
one of her sisters to graduate
from college, she understood at a
profound level what education – or
its absence – could do to a person.
“You must go to college,” I
remember her telling me, as if it
was yesterday. “There is no choice.”
There was something behind those
words – a hint of battles fought,
of obstacles overcome, of futures
overcoming pasts.
How lucky I was to have Mrs
H; how this calm, poised woman
Tuesday 14 March 2023
shaped me. It was because of her
that I learned to love Egyptian
cuisine – she used to make a
marvellous kamounia (beef stewed
in cumin) and waraq’inab (stuffed
grape leaves), but my absolute
favourite was always her rice
covered with ground beef, peas,
carrots and almonds.
Mrs H brought me out of the
lonely bubble in which I had
been stranded by family and
circumstance, and exposed me to a
larger, brighter world of possibility.
Life being life, our time together
was not endless. Just before
I graduated from high school, the
Hamawys moved to the suburbs.
It might as well have been another
planet, but Mrs H had planted her
seeds well: her son and I made it
to college, Rutgers, graduating the
same year. He became a surgeon;
I a writer.
Before I left for college, when
the dream of becoming a writer
was stirring in me, Mrs H gave
me a present: a thesaurus. I don’t
recall what she said exactly, but it
was something along the lines that
all writers should have one. I’ve
lived in six countries and a dozen
cities, and have lost almost all my
possessions at one time or another
… but I still have that thesaurus.
I still use it.

The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023
‘She is there
for me’ ...
Lemn Sissay
and Linda
‘We often joke that our
friendship was written
in the stars’
Kerry Hudson
This morning, I put my toddler in
special socks. Given to him by my
best friend, they had previously
belonged to her daughter, and
before that her son wore them.
He has just turned 13.
As I pull these socks over my
kid’s impossibly soft heels, he
looks up to me and tells me,
authoritatively, that they are
PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF JUNOT DíAZ, LEMN SISSAY AND KERRY HUDSON
“Mama Via socks”. When he says
his own version of my best friend’s
name, Levia, something warm and
content settles within me. It feels
like family.
You might be wondering why
socks, originally bought in the
Next sale, might be kept for more
than a decade. But these are no
ordinary socks: they’re magical
black socks adorned with glitter
so that our children might walk
across a universe. They are magical,
too, because I’m estranged from
my mother (and my father – a
story for another time) and these
socks, passed from my best
friend, my other mother, are
a kind of ridiculous but fitting
family heirloom.
Indeed, we often joke that our
•
Linda has
been a true
and firm friend.
She speaks
to everyone
as an equal
Lemn Sissay
friendship was written in the stars.
We met properly on our first day
working as bar staff at the Globe
theatre in London, but discovered
that our paths had crossed much
earlier. When I told Levia where I
had been studying drama, she said
she had recently been on a bus with
students from the same university
and one had declared: “I knew
I wasn’t in character on stage
because I couldn’t stop thinking
about the snakebite and black I’d
have at the union after.” I looked at
her, stunned. “That was me!”
We were best friends from that
very moment. I was 21, newly
and painfully estranged from my
mother, and the universe had
sent me just what I needed.
I always wanted a mother like
the mums from TV adverts. The
kind where you say, in adulthood:
“My mum’s my best friend.” I didn’t
get that, but, in Levia, I was given
the best aspects of that sort of
relationship: encouragement, love,
unconditional championing and
Two decades
of trust ...
Kerry Hudson
and Levia
genuine pride. The ability to kindly
call out my bullshit and to tell me
the brutal truth with a cuddle.
We are very different in many
ways and perhaps that’s why it
works. Twenty years later, she
runs an inner-city nursery school.
She’s calm in a crisis and always
cheerful. She is fiercely sociable;
her birthday parties are always
packed to the rafters. Conversely,
I get easily stressed and I’m a well-
masked introvert with a maximum
two hours socialising on the clock
before I want to be alone. But with
her, I always feel braver and calmer.
When we were in our 30s, while
I was still careening around the
globe, dancing in Berlin and Buenos
Aires nightclubs until 5am and
sleeping with unsuitable men and
women, Levia was already married.
When she had her first child and
then her second, she insisted
that I be their godmother. She
trusted that, despite my chaotic
upbringing, I could nurture her
children – even though I doubted
my own ability.
I became seriously ill last year
while living in Prague and she was
the only person I would speak to
on the phone. I would call her,
flat on my back, with my mobile
on speaker, propped on the
pillow next to me. Two decades
of friendship, respect, trust and
absolute enduring love would have
us laugh-crying and cry-crying for
hours, the tears running down the
side of my face.
I was 14 years behind her when
I decided to have my own baby, but
when I thought about models for
motherhood, it was her unyielding
patience, kindness and joy that
I drew upon as an example for my
own parenting. She is still the best
mother I know.
I’m a firm believer that the
universe gives you what you need
– even if it’s just a pair of children’s
socks to remind you who your
chosen family is. Some people refer
to their best friends as “sisters from
another mister”, but Levia is, for
me, another kind of mother.
‘The first time we met, her
kindness shone through’
Lemn Sissay
I was 21 when I met my mother. She
was 42. I had been stolen from her
as a baby and placed with foster
parents. We met at dusk in Fajara,
a small residential district by the
Atlantic Ocean, in a tiny country
on the west coast of the giant
continent of Africa.
Turning up out of the blue put
her in a difficult position. There
was someone staying at the house.
As we walked up the pathway
towards her front door, she said:
“I’m sorry, I have a visitor – can we
talk about this after she has gone?”
When I thought
about models
for motherhood,
it was Levia’s
patience and joy
that I drew upon
Kerry Hudson
5
So I sat in the front room and made
small talk about the high rainfall
in Manchester.
My mother and I have met about
20 times since then. Whereas
she is a private person, my life
has been public record from the
day I was born. My search for her
began with a letter from these
public records, sent by my mother
to Wigan social services in 1968:
“How can I get Lemn back? I want
him to be with his own people in
his own country.”
I didn’t get the chance to have
her as a mother growing up, but
she is the only mother I would ever
want. Thirty-four years after our
clumsy, inadequate first meeting,
the relationship is clearer and
closer than ever.
In that time, I have learned that
familial figures are not limited by
blood. Linda is similar in age to my
mother. She is fun and wise and
kind. I am living in her beautiful
home in London for three months
while she visits Thailand and I wait
to move into my new house. It is
spring and two wood pigeons are
circling each other in the garden.
How did we meet? In 2013,
I needed time away after a breakup.
A mutual friend asked Linda, on
my behalf, if I could stay at her
place in the south of France. The
first time we met, her kindness
shone through and, that summer,
she allowed me to stay at her
beautifully restored home, in a
village with a population of about
600 people called La Romieu. The
solitude was exactly what I needed.
Since then, I’ve invited Linda
to significant events in my life:
she was there when I became
chancellor at the University of
Manchester; she came to the
celebration dinner after I received
my OBE. Linda has been a true and
firm friend. She also has a brilliant,
crystal-clear memory, and is easily
able to recall dates and times,
which, in lieu of family, has meant
a lot to me. She is at ease wherever
she goes and speaks to everyone
as an equal.
Linda has demonstrated to
me what is important in life:
friendship, family and finance.
True independence is, in fact, all
about relationships. Linda
demonstrates how a lightness of
being comes from hard work; more
recently, she has become a writer
and proven that it is never too late
to realise your dream.
Trust is not my best, most
exercised muscle. But I can really
talk to Linda and she is there for
me, always with my best interests
at heart.
In France, Linda wanted me to
relish the feeling of home: the idea
that home is more than bricks and
mortar. Years on, I now know that
I have the capacity to feel at home
in myself, to be kind to myself,
to be my own best parent and a
good friend to others. In that quiet
place, in La Romieu, in the summer
of 2013, surrounded by fields of
bowing sunflowers, Linda and
I began our dear friendship.
Lemn Sissay’s weekly series, Lemn
Sissay Is the One and Only, airs on
BBC Radio 4 on Fridays at 11.30am

6 The Guardian
It’s how you wear it ...
Harry Styles has been named the
best-dressed musician in the world.
Can Rich Pelley measure up
without breaking the bank?
M
odern life is
confusing –
and nowhere
more so than in
fashion. Take
Harry Styles.
He was voted the best-dressed
musician in the world last year by
GQ, pictured flouncing about in
a high-shine Gucci jumpsuit and
fluorescent pink coat at Coachella.
He was named one of Glamour
magazine’s best-dressed men on
the planet in February, pictured in
the black crushed-velvet number
he wore to this year’s Brit awards.
Styles posted a picture of himself
recently in a 2011 One Direction
tour T-shirt, prompting fans to
predict a reunion, with sales of
said T-shirt going bonkers. The
Watermelon Sugar singer is a man
who could wear a bin bag and look
a million dollars.
So, what is his secret? Is it all
down to his chiselled good looks,
or can an ordinary man measure up
without breaking the bank? Armed
with some top tips, I took to charity
shops and secondhand websites
to try to recreate some of Styles’
styles for myself.
Monday
Festival Styles
My first pit stop is a local charity
shop, which sells everything from
Paul Daniels Magic Show kits to
duck tea pots. Will I have any luck
finding my first Styles outfit – the
fluffy-jacket, shiny-trouser combo
he wore for Coachella in 2022?
Browsing the ladies’ rails, I spot a
good approximation of the strides.
There is one problem. Styles is
a strapping six-footer, but even
he would be floundering in these
monsters. I haul them together
with a sparkly belt, but there is
so much excess flare that I could
camp under them at Glastonbury.
The pink fluffy jacket from the
rail above fits much better. I check
the mirror. Styles wig? Yep. Styles
tats? Check. Cue photoshoot.
I am so busy making love to the
camera that I hardly notice the
small crowd of schoolgirls who
demand to know what I am up to.
“Oh, we thought you were
Harry Styles; can we have your
autograph?” they say, sarcastically.
Styles likeness:
Model wears: charity shop fluffy pink
jacket (£17); charity shop metallic
pink trousers (£13); charity shop
sparkly belt (£6)
•
Tuesday
Harlequin Styles
Styles is as fashionable on the red
carpet as on stage. My next outfit
is the harlequin jumpsuit he wore
to last month’s Grammys. I sew
together a ladies’ jumpsuit from
the charity shop sale rail and a baby
play mat I find in a bin. I don’t have
a red carpet, but, as I stroll around
the garden, I feel pleased with my
upcycling. Sustainable fashion is
de rigueur, after all.
“One man’s trash is another
man’s treasure,” agrees Amy
Powney, the creative director of the e
sustainable fashion brand Mother
of Pearl. “If you’re a celebrity,
you should think: ‘Can another
celebrity wear this?’ Or else it’s
about buying things you’re going
to wear over and over and, when
you’re finished, resell or recycle.”
She is right. There is no reason
Styles couldn’t borrow the meat
dress off Lady Gaga, or that dress
from Liz Hurley. He would look
absolutely fantastic.
In terms of treasure, I doubt
anyone would consider my outfit
– now with an added crotch hole
where it split – anything other than n
highly inappropriate.
Styles likeness:
Model wears: charity shop jumpsuitt
(£3); discarded baby mat ( free);
charity shop orange Crocs (£10)
Wednesday
Pirouette Styles
I recreate ballerina Styles, from
Saturday Night Live in 2019, by
telling eBay I am looking for an
embarrassing outfit to stitch up
Tuesday 14 March 2023
Making a
splash ...
Harry Styles
(left) and
Rich Pelley
my m mate on his stag do. There is Thursday
nothing worse than turning up to
noth Vogue Styles
find someone wearing the same To celebrate appearing as the first
thing as you …
thin solo male cover star in Vogue’s 127-
“I used to hate that,” says Ellis year history, Styles wore a dress.
Ranson, who styled Kate and Rio
Ran To celebrate appearing as G2’s first
Ferdinand for this year’s Brits.
Ferd cover star in Styles drag, I get into
PHOTOGRAPHS: LINDA NYLIND/THE GUARDIAN; NBC; JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC;
“Styling is all about pushing the
“Sty an eBay wedding dress bidding war.
RICH PELLEY; @HARRYSTYLES/INSTAGRAM; AMANDA SEARLE/BBC/PA WIRE
client
clie outside their comfort zone. It is windy up on my local
With
W Harry, you can push that common; now I know how Marilyn
quite far.” Monroe felt standing over that
I am certainly out of my air vent. Quite the breeze flies up
comfort
co zone as I pirouette on my nether regions. Neither mums
the side of my bath because Linda, with prams nor a bloke doing squat
the Guardian photographer, thrusts turn a head.
assures
ass me it will look artistic. In 2017, a study declared that
There
The are risks to being Styles. Styles’s good looks are down to the
For example, that time last year distances between his features. His
when
wh he got hit in the face by a eyes alone score 98.15 on a scale
Skittle
Skit and Skittles ran a full-page where 100 equals perfection. My
advert
adv in the Los Angeles Times budget stretches to charity shop
Trash or reminding
rem fans not to lob sweets buys, but not facial realignment
treasure? at him.
h I hope I don’t slip off as my surgery. Maybe Nancy Mitchell,
Rich’s homage
age tights spladge my nadgers with
tigh a 24-year-old chiropractic assistant,
to this year’s
r’s every croisé.
ever model and actor, can tell me what
Grammys Styles likeness:
Styl it is like to be super-attractive, after
Model
M od wears: eBay tutu (£17), TikTok users started saying she
Vinted tights (£4), Vinted pink
Vint looked like Styles in the early part
vest top (£4)
vest of lockdown.
 •
The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023 7

as I drop by to wonder what it is

like being a Hill instead of a Styles.
s.
Hill gets his suits and shirts from
a bespoke tailor in Soho. And his
yellow Bake Off jumper? “A present nt
from my wife.” I love Hill and could
uld
never replace him. All that looking-
ng-
to-side-camera stuff and seven
years training to be a doctor is far
too much work.
Hill likeness:
Model wears: eBay fancy dress
costume (£24)

We’re not
in Kansas
any more ...
“We’re both Aquarius. We Friday
have similar mannerisms. I don’t Halloween Styles
conform to gender stereotypes. Styles dressed as Dorothy from The
Harry wears dresses; I’ve always Wizard of Oz for a 2021 Halloween
dressed masculine. Our mums are concert in New York. This frilly
both called Anne. How similar can granny-pants garb is the most
you get?” she says. ridiculous yet, although strangely
In the flesh, Mitchell totally I feel the most at home in it.
looks the real McStyles. But the big Is there room for comedy in
question is: does she fancy Styles? fashion? “The most fun fashion
“Harry is an attractive guy, but I does have an air of comedy,”
don’t think attraction is skin-deep. says the stylish comedian Tom
I’d need to get to know him first.” Allen. “If you look back 200 or
Quite right! 300 years, there was a great sense
Styles likeness (me): of playfulness, with puffball
sleeves and crinoline. People were
Styles likeness (Mitchell): exuberant and extravagant.
“Elton John and Freddie Mercury
He wears: eBay wedding dress were very playfully dressed. Harry
(£35), Vinted dinner jacket (£6). Styles is doing that for a newer
She wears: Vinted black crushed generation. Clothing is often a
velvet jacket (£7), Vinted black protest, a way of saying: ‘I’m going
flared trousers (£12) to have a positive stamp on a world
that feels ever more frightening.’”
I certainly look frightening in
this get-up. To lighten the mood,
I drink a beer from my shoe, like
Styles did in Australia. Now my
trainer is soggy.
Styles likeness:
Model wears: Vinted check summer
dress (£4), Vinted tights (£4),
Vinted white lace shorts (£6),
eBay hair clip (£3)
Saturday
Pinstripe Styles
Every outfit Styles looks amazing
in makes me look equally terrible.
For reference, I should test a
different Harry. But Harry who?
Houdini? Too bendy. Kane? Too
beardy. Duke of Sussex? Nah. If
only I could think of another Harry.
“It’s great, because you get away
with anything,” says Harry Hill,
Sunday
Inflatable Harri
The dream is to get Styles to
comment. I send him my photos,
but he doesn’t reply, as he is busy y
on tour. Oh well.
I try some other options.
The electrical contractor Barry
Styles doesn’t get back to me.
A Midlands-based professional
singer, Barry Styles, who has sold d
more than 26,000 copies of his
album Wedding Day Songs, thinks ks
my idea for a Styles parody “is no
doubt good thinking”, but preferss
not to be interviewed.
So I talk to Harri, the 29-year-old
ld
south Indian designer behind thiss
year’s most talked-about outfit, the
inflatable suit Sam Smith wore to
the Brits. How do I make that?
“It’s made from 100% latex,
with 80 panels stuck together by
hand. There’s a lot of mathematics
to get the shape,” Harri tells me at
his show at London fashion week.
“It’s based on my pug, Kai, and how
he sees me from his perspective.”
Similar Harri suits sell for £4,000.
In my inflatable wobbly fancy
dress attempt, you don’t want
to be going anywhere in a hurry.
“It’s occasional wear for making a
statement,” continues Harri.
What would he create if Styles
got in touch? “I know exactly
what,” he says, smiling. “A bright,
colourful, deflated trouser.”
Smith likeness:
Model wears: Morphsuits inflatable
Megamorph costume (£30)
The control
sample ...
Rich meets
Harry Hill
Monday
Bedtime Styles
After a week of being Styles, I can
hardly be bothered to get dressed,
never mind channel pop’s premier
sartorialist. Except – didn’t he once
wear a pair of custom polka-dot
Gucci pyjamas to read a CBeebies
Bedtime Story? Damn it! He even
looks hot in his jammies.
That’s it. I am officially retiring
to my scruffy jeans and hoodie.
Styles likeness:
Model wears: Vinted men’s red
tartan pyjamas (£8), Homer
Simpson slippers (model’s own)
Amy Powney’s film Fashion
Reimagined is in cinemas now.
Tom Allen is on tour now. Tony!
(The Tony Blair Rock Opera)
by Harry Hill and Steve Brown
tours from April

Night and day ...

Rich’s attempt
at pyjamas

Blooming
marvellous ...
Rich and
Nancy Mitchell
 •
8 The Guardian
Arts
‘I’ve done standup with my baby stra
‘Taking nine
months off
was seen as
extreme and
unnecessary’ …
Josie Long
‘B
Some lied, some
hid it, and few ever
mined it for jokes.
Becoming a mum efore I
had kids, I swam in an ocean of time,”
used to be near-fatal says Josie Long, who has been doing
standup since she was a teenager.
to a comedian’s “I did a lot of touring and was away
career. Are things for long periods. If I wanted, I could
write all night. I slept in all the
any different now? time.” Now she has two children,
and has just about managed to carve
Rachael Healy out three days a week for work.
The comedian’s recent shows
meets the new wave have featured material about
motherhood, including a beautiful
taking on taboos account of the birth of her first
daughter. “When I started in
comedy,” she says, “I was on the
sharp end of a lot of sexist stuff.
I was told over and over that
women’s bodies are disgusting and
women’s experiences are niche. So
it was wonderfully liberating to do
a story about childbirth.”
Finding out you were pregnant
was once a mixed blessing for a
comedian. Sexism in the industry
left some feeling compelled to
hide it, get back on stage as soon
as possible, and avoid making
jokes about motherhood. Jessica
Fostekew, who has a seven-year-
old son, recalls what things were
like when she was pregnant: “It was
50:50 whether a woman in comedy
went public about her pregnancy.
I watched my elders hide theirs and
panic. Then I watched a few brave
women smash through that.”
The podcast Funny Mummies
gives comedians a space to discuss
these issues. It is hosted by Hatty
Ashdown, a comic, and Gemma
Beagley, a former standup who
now works behind the scenes. “It’s
about mums in comedy being open
and honest, not feeling like you’ve
got to lie or hide that you’ve had
kids,” says Ashdown, a mother
of two. “I wanted to find out how
comedian mums juggle it all.”
She believes gigging is not a level
playing field, as it is assumed that
female comedians are responsible
for the childcare. “Male comics are
booked over female comics,” she
says. “We need more dads saying,
‘I’ve got to sort out a babysitter.’”
When Long became pregnant
she thought: “I don’t feel secure
enough in my position in the
industry to be having a child. No
matter how established you are,
nothing is a guarantee. People
don’t treat you like they would
treat someone in a conventional
job. They’d consider you taking
nine months off as extreme and
unnecessary.”
Long found herself writing
material just days after giving
birth. Fostekew, meanwhile, felt a
“dogged determination” to carry on
working as much as ever and now
questions her “panic” decision to
resume standup after five weeks.
“I felt like the relationships with
people booking me were so fragile.
That was, in hindsight, madness.”
When Fostekew’s son turned
one, she had a mini existential
crisis. Spending her nights
travelling to play comedy clubs and
finding last-minute babysitters no
Tuesday 14 March 2023
longer felt sustainable. She decided
to develop standup shows “that
are nourishing and rewarding”,
and to write more for TV and radio.
She scaled back appearances at
club shows and created her award-
nominated hour Hench.
Long had a similar refocus:
“When I’m on stage, I don’t have
any time for bullshit. I have to enjoy
it. It’s always felt like my playtime,
but now even more so.”
Standup Athena Kugblenu
has two children. During her first
pregnancy she quickly became
“quite strategic” about her career.
“At the time I was expecting, I had a
few radio credits. You don’t have to
leave the house to write, so I made
a deliberate decision to do more
scripted stuff.” However, the cost
of childcare remains “a massive
barrier”, Kugblenu says. “A lot of
freelancers are struggling.”
Ashdown recently took a second
job to help cover costs. On her
podcast, she found it refreshing
when Holly Walsh, co-creator of the
BBC’s Motherland, was open about
hiring a nanny to facilitate her TV
work. “Don’t feel bad about getting
childcare for the night, because
everyone else is getting childcare
during the day,” Ashdown says.
“It’s about saying yes to help,”
says Fostekew. “I’ve had to get
to the point where I’m crying
because a job I want has come in
and I need one more babysitter.”
During her son’s first year, she often
took him on the road. This mostly
worked, but one experience on a
TV advert sticks with her. Her boy
was breastfeeding, so had to come
to the set. Filming overran and
she wasn’t given breastfeeding
breaks: “I ended up being there
for 16 hours. In one scene, they
were filming the back of my head,
and I was crying as my tits were
streaming milk – because I could
hear him crying. I was like, ‘What
am I doing?’”
Long also took her children to
work. “With my second baby, I did
shows with her strapped to me. On
the one hand, I love being able to do
that. On the other, it’s because we
don’t have a support network near
us.” Long and her partner, fellow
comedian Jonny Donahoe, share
Kids are
off-limits …
Athena
Kugblenu

The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023
pped on to me’
‘It was
madness’…
Jessica
Fostekew
I’ve had people
not book me
because they
think I’m just
going to do
parent stuff
parenting equally. She feels lucky to
work with “people I know and love”,
and her producers looked after her
baby in Edinburgh while she and
Donahoe performed overlapping
shows. Both Long and Fostekew
have found ways to tour, too,
travelling for shorter periods rather
than being on the road for weeks.
Parenting can be ridiculous and
hilarious, a constant source of
new jokes. But there are hazards.
“Being a woman in comedy means
there’s always an expectation
that you’ll just talk about woman-
PHOTOGRAPHS: GILES SMITH; MARTIN GODWIN;MURDO MACLEOD/THE GUARDIAN
specific things,” says Kugblenu.
“I don’t think that’s unique to
being a mother.” While many men
talk about being dads in their
standup, they are rarely accused
of being one-note. “The amount
of men who go on stage like, ‘I’ve
got a one-week-old at home!’
Double standards go hand-in-
hand with comedy.”
Some of Ashdown’s podcast
guests say it was motherhood that
actually moved them to start doing
standup. Ashdown wrote parenting
material while hosting a comedy
show for parents and babies, but
evening gigs were different: “I’ve
had people not book me because
they think I’m just going to do
parent stuff. My opinion is: a good
joke is a good joke.” She has also
grappled with the responsible
•
way to talk about her children on
stage. One son recently received a
diagnosis of autism and ADHD: “I
think I can talk about it, but I’ve got
to find a way of respecting him.”
Fostekew’s comedy draws on her
own life – she’s told her birth story
and joked about accidentally sexist
stuff that her son has said. “I have
half an eye on his privacy,” she says.
“He can’t consent to these stories.
He was fair game until he was
about four – most people should be
able to laugh at what an absolute
weapon they were up until that
point. Anything I’ve written about
him in the last year, my parenting
is the butt of the joke. That was a
conscious change.”
Kugblenu keeps her children’s
names private and rarely mentions
them on stage. She finds more
material in news and politics, but
points out: “In 10 years’ time, we’re
going to have to show our comedy
back to our kids. There are a couple
of things that have snuck through,
but I’m always seeking to decentre
them. That’s quite deliberate.
They’re just so precious. One day I
might have to mine them, but at the
moment they’re in a glass box in
case of emergency.”
Long also decided she would
never use her children’s names,
dubbing them Mrs Baby and Doctor
Baby instead. “I love including little
bits and bobs but I’m really aware
of their privacy, and wanting them
to look at it fondly if they ever see
it.” Yet her children have hugely
influenced the tone of her comedy.
“I set an intention to focus more on
joyfulness,” she says. “I’ve got to
find love for this world and really
believe it. This is so twee, but they
teach you to fall in love with the
world. They remind you to see the
world with joy and wonder.”
All four feel it’s easier than ever
to talk about motherhood without
judgment. As Ashdown launches
series three of Funny Mummies,
she hopes it will continue to be a
forum for honest conversation: “It
still happens now where you’re the
only woman on the lineup, let alone
the only one talking about having
kids. It’s really important that we
lift each other.”
Kugblenu recently started her
own parenting podcast, Why
Does My Child Hate Me?, with
activist Layla Lawson. They’ve
already discussed discipline, potty
training, and bodily autonomy.
“Being a parent is a position of
privilege. But that doesn’t mean
it’s a bed of roses. It’s important
to be honest about that.” This
openness, says Long, is a sign
of progress. “I love the fact that
we’ve broken this taboo. You feel
seen when you share experiences
together. It’s thrilling.”
Josie Long tours until 28 September.
Funny Mummies and Why Does My
Child Hate Me? are available now.
Hench is on Prime Video
How we made
The Company of Wolves
‘Our budget was tiny. The forest was 12 trees on rollers
– and for long shots we used bonsai. The crew had
worked on Star Wars and thought we were absurd’
‘Turning into
a wolf was
fantastic’ …
Micha Bergese
in the 1984 film
Neil Jordan, director
I met Angela Carter in 1982, while we were
in Dublin for the centenary of James Joyce’s
birth. She’d written a script based on her
short story The Company of Wolves, itself
an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. It
wasn’t long enough for a feature film but I
proposed a portmanteau structure, with a girl
dreaming herself as a fairytale character and
her dream grandmother telling cautionary
tales. In that way, we could incorporate
elements from other traditional tales in
Angela’s collection The Bloody Chamber.
I flew to London and met her at her house
in Clapham. Every morning we’d sit and
describe scenarios to each other, then go off
and write separately, comparing what we’d
done the next morning. Within about two
weeks the script was finished.
We built this extraordinary set on the two
main stages at Shepperton Studios in Surrey:
a forest and an 18th century-style village.
Our budget was tiny but Anton Furst was a
designer of genius. He created a forest using
about 12 trees which moved around on rollers.
For long shots we used bonsai trees. The crew
had worked on Star Wars films and thought
what we were doing was absolutely absurd.
Chris Tucker, who had done the makeup
for John Hurt in The Elephant Man, devised
the effects showing men turning into wolves.
Animatronics were coming on, but Chris
wanted to try something different to films
like An American Werewolf in London.
Changing the shape of a human face became a
conceptual puzzle. In the first transformation,
Stephen Rea’s character tears off his own skin,
then you see his musculature change. Later,
Micha Bergese’s huntsman has a wolf come
out of his mouth, a wonderful idea.
Sarah Patterson, who played Rosaleen, was
only 12 or 13 when she auditioned and hadn’t
acted before. She seemed to instinctively
PHOTOGRAPH: SHUTTERSTOCK
understand the fairytale terrain, while
Angela Lansbury made a wonderful Granny
despite only being in her 50s. She only got
upset once, when we dropped some spiders
on her in the church scene.
We used lots of real animals but most of the
wolves were actually malamutes with their fur
silvered. We did have two real ones, though.
9
Sarah didn’t have any fear around them, but
you should always remain conscious that a
wolf’s jaws can crush a baseball bat.
A few ideas didn’t quite come off. I wanted
a wolf girl to cry tears made of glass that
smashed on the ground, but we couldn’t get
that to work. And in the scene where the
devil appears in a Rolls-Royce, I wanted Andy
Warhol. He agreed to do it as long as we shot
the scene in New York, which was logistically
impossible. I’m kind of glad, though, as we
got the wonderful Terence Stamp instead.
Micha Bergese,
played the Huntsman
I’d been a professional dancer since 1970 but
The Company of Wolves was my first film role.
Neil wanted me to use my dancer’s instinct.
I did a test shoot with Sarah. I think they
wanted to check that my physicality wasn’t
going to be overwhelming, that I wasn’t
suddenly going to turn into Rudolf Nureyev.
There were a few people quite new to
the industry, which created a great energy.
Everybody was geared up to give their best.
Angela Lansbury took me for lunch and gave
me advice on creating my character’s story in
scenes where I had no dialogue. That’s what
one does in dance, so she helped bring those
two worlds together.
Later I got to knock Angela’s head off and
it seems to smash like porcelain. I remember
going to Chris Tucker’s house to have my
head cast, for when a wolf’s snout comes out
of my face. His shelves were full of the heads
of actors from other films he’d worked on.
Turning into a wolf was fantastic: I got to
go from the acting world back into my dance
world. I wore contact lenses that had to be
taken out every 15 minutes, though much
of the transformation was just done with
makeup. The long tongue was Chris’s work,
but the makeup department didn’t have to do
much to my eyebrows, which are very bushy.
My daughters have always described them as
my eyebrow, singular. That may have worked
in my favour. Whatever it takes to get a role!
Interviews by Chris Broughton. Neil Jordan’s
latest film, Marlowe, is in cinemas and on Sky
from Friday
 •

10 The Guardian

TV and radio Tuesday 14 March 2023

Skinner & Mina’s Literary

Road Trip: Pope & Swift
8pm, Sky Arts

Hypnotic …
Paula Yates

Following in the footsteps of two

renowned 18th-century poets who
became best friends, Frank Skinner is
absurdly passionate about “brilliantly
witty English Catholic” Alexander Pope
Review Paula, which (aggravated by tabloid revelations about her
biological father) would end in her own death a few
(at one point, it looks as if he might pass
out like an overexcited pug as he reads
Channel 4 years later from an accidental drug overdose.
But first – the talent. The presence. The charisma. The a Pope quote etched on to a wooden
natural flirt and the fierce wit, joyfully playing against
each other, with the constant message to all watching bench), while Denise Mina is nearly but
that a woman could be both at the same time, and that not quite as obsessed with “acerbic Irish
Talent and neither need compromise the other. She swung with ease
between the two, mesmerising the lucky interviewee
Protestant” Jonathan Swift.

charisma versus until he or she was ready to answer anything. I was too
young to appreciate her fully then, though, like most
viewers, I found her as hypnotic as her guests did. But
Hollie Richardson

prurience and now it is possible to see not just what a force she was, but
how rare. There had, as the programme notes several
Interior Design Masters
With Alan Carr
separated holidaymaker
Sadie, as Alba (Serena
times, been no one like Yates before. 8pm, BBC One Manteghi) investigates.
prejudice What is more astonishing is that there has been no
one like her since. After the implicit insistence that a
It’s nursery week in the
interiors contest, where
Meanwhile, there’s a
major lead into the
woman could be two (or even more!) things at once, the prize is a contract to do mysterious death of
the most arresting aspect of the contemporary footage up a snazzy cocktail bar. barman Jay Sutherland.
of her – as a presenter, as an interviewer or (on Wogan, To get closer to a chance And could a new romance
★★★★☆ and – more bizarrely but even more perfectly 80s-ly – of winning, contestants be on the cards for Laura
with Jackie Collins) as an interviewee is her confidence. will have to impress a (Sophie Rundle)?
Lucy Mangan Her ability and willingness to speak her mind – not
rudely, not domineeringly, but clearly as if she had a
bunch of small clients by
forming teams and taking
Ali Catterall

perfect right to do so – is conspicuous by its absence on a nursery’s baby room, Jerk

on our screens today. Yates opened the way but there toddler room and pre- 10pm, BBC Three
has been no enduring progress and if anything we now school classroom. HR This returning black
seem to be in an increasingly regressive era. comedy remains a

I
had forgotten how brilliant Paula Yates was, It is true that Paula (the documentary) verges on the The Holy Land and Us: conscious attempt to
despite her being an almost constant presence hagiographic, glossing over who had what affairs and Our Untold Stories obliterate all the
on the television screen and in the tabloids when relationships overlapped with each other, and 9pm, BBC Two sentimentality usually
throughout my youth. As the new two-part how chaotic things were at home. It offers a simplified Rob Rinder and Sarah surrounding disabled
documentary Paula points out, in her 1980s narrative and presents tabloid pressures as the single Big Agha co-host this two- people on TV. This week,
and 90s heyday she was second only to Diana, Bad affecting a complicated person living a rollercoaster part series that attempts James Norton guests as
Princess of Wales in the world of UK celebrity. “I love it of a life. “I can’t imagine me going out with anyone who to tell the story of the an actor trying to get a
when you are on the front page of the paper,” Diana once couldn’t fill a stadium,” Yates says to Townsend. Nakba (Arabic for handle on a disabled part.
told her. “It means I’ve got the day off.” That said, there can be no question that the media What’s On “catastrophe”), and the But Tim (creator Tim
At first the idea of a documentary about Yates seems pursuit that cast her as the scarlet woman (and later Scan the QR establishment of the Renkow) isn’t going to
somewhere between pointless and exploitative. She “Suicide Blonde” – the headline for the advance code below state of Israel, through make it easy for him.
was media fodder then – do we have to make her obituary accidentally sent to her by a redtop after to sign up for their respective Jewish Phil Harrison
media fodder again now? The documentary is part Hutchence’s death) and Geldof as “Saint Bob” was the What’s On and Palestinian family
of Channel 4’s 40th anniversary output, but the peg intolerable. The poisonous standards of the time are newsletter, our histories. It spotlights Alan Davies:
on which it is hung – the airing of never-before-heard most clearly seen in the reporting of her affair with free TV email other families too, As Yet Untitled
interviews she gave in the two years before she died Terence Trent d’Arby (a preternaturally calm and with the best adopting a personal 10pm, Dave
with the (now) former editor of the Sunday Express gracious interviewee in the first hour): “Bob’s Paula reviews, news approach while keeping Never has a studio
and OK! magazine, Martin Townsend – means a slightly Caught with Black Star,” screamed one headline. and exclusive strongly to impartiality audience been more
grubby pall is cast over proceedings as they begin. Such overtly racist headlines may be a thing of the writing direct guidelines. entranced by a panellist’s
What follows, however, is largely a glorious past but, as we have seen in films about more recent to your inbox Micha Frazer-Carroll anecdote than when
celebration of her overflowing talent. The first high-profile women such as Amy Winehouse, Britney every Monday Sue Perkins talks about
MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY

instalment traces her rise from rock journalist and Spears and Pamela Anderson, a purge of misogyny The Diplomat the time she was drunk
columnist to television star, as the inaugural presenter seems to be taking a lot longer. Townsend himself is 9pm, Alibi and rushed into hospital
with Jools Holland of The Tube, which started in asked about his role as a journalist and editor in that More intrigue and while dressed as a nun.
1982; then becoming Bob Geldof’s girlfriend and wife, era. “I was doing my job … reporting on a story of problem-solving in She joins Lara Ricote,
bearing three children; then infamously leaving Geldof public interest. I don’t regret anything. I just did what Barcelona: a one-night Jamali Maddix and
for the INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. The hour I did at the time for the right reasons,” he says, before stand via a dating app Josh Jones in this
ends with the looming death of Hutchence – largely adding grudgingly, “I can see it would be too much for soon turns into a living unscripted chat around
considered to be the beginning of Yates’s decline, someone and that’s not a nice feeling really.” On we go. nightmare for recently Davies’s table. HR
 •
The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023 11

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8.0 Interior Design Masters
With Alan Carr (T) The
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Emma Willis, Oti Mabuse and
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9.0 Paula (T) Part two of two.
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Michael Hutchence’s death.
8.0 Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly
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5.30 Travel Man: 48 First Sight Australia 1.30 Superstore 2.0 of the Unexpected 2.0 4.10 Fish Town Essay: Lundy, Fastnet, Sophie Raworth and Country Stories (1/3) and the Runaway Bride
Hours in Helsinki 6.0 2.45 Fred’s Last Resort Hey Tracey! 2.45 The Art of Architecture Irish Sea – Wales and Its Patrick Ness. (7/9) 5.0 11.0 The Toff and the (2/6) 1.30 Stand By for
Taskmaster 7.0 Richard 3.40 Celebrity SAS: Who Unwind With ITV 3.0 3.0 Landscape Artist Coastal Waters. How the PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Runaway Bride (2/6) West (4/7) 2.0 Golden
Osman’s House of Games Dares Wins USA 4.30 Teleshopping of the Year 2019 4.0 water is a creature of Forecast 6.0 News 6.30 11.30 Stand By for West Child (7/10) 2.15 Blowing
7.40 Room 101 8.20 The Big Bang Theory Discovering: Brad wild mood swings. (2/5) Mark Watson Talks a (4/7) 12.0 Golden Child the Bloody Doors Off
Would I Lie to You? 9.0 4.55 The Goldbergs 5.15 Sky Max Pitt 5.0 Tales of the 11.0 Night Tracks 12.30 Bit About Life (5/6) 7.0 (7/10) 12.15 Blowing the (2/5) 2.30 Ed Reardon’s
QI XL 10.0 Alan Davies: The Goldbergs 6.0am Stargate SG-1 Unexpected 5.30 Tales Through the Night The Archers 7.15 Front Bloody Doors Off (2/5) Week (5/6) 3.0 The Goon
As Yet Untitled 11.0 8.0 DC’s Legends of of the Unexpected Row 8.0 File on 4. How 12.30 Ed Reardon’s Week Show (2/26) 3.30 For
World’s Most Dangerous Film4 Tomorrow 9.0 Quantum 6.0 Alfred Hitchcock Radio 4 people suffering from (5/6) 1.0 The Goon Show Better Or for Worse (1/8)
Roads 12.0 Mock the 11.0am At Leap 10.0 Supergirl Presents 6.30 Alfred 6.0am Today 8.31 (LW) acute mental illness (2/26) 1.30 For Better 4.0 Who Goes There?
Week 12.40 QI XL 1.20 Gunpoint (1955) 11.0 NCIS: New Orleans Hitchcock Presents 7.0 Yesterday in Parliament face criminalisation. Or for Worse (1/8) 2.0 (3/6) 4.30 The Patrick
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2.0 Comedians Giving Passage (1955) 2.30 S.W.A.T 3.0 Quantum 8.0 Skinner & Mina’s Marie Johnston on health 9.0 Inside Health 9.30 2.30 The Patrick and Music Experience (4/4)
Lectures 2.30 Sliced Apache Uprising Leap 4.0 DC’s Legends Literary Road Trip: Pope psychology. (4/6) 9.30 The Life Scientific (R) Maureen Maybe Music 5.0 The Devil’s Music
3.05 Famalam 4.0 (1965) 4.20 Picnic of Tomorrow 5.0 & Swift 9.0 Jack B Yeats: One to One. Angellica 10.0 The World Tonight Experience (4/4) 3.0 The (2/3) 5.45 Three Country
Teleshopping (1955) 6.45 GI Supergirl 6.0 Stargate The Man Who Painted Menashe, Film4 Bell talks to Nadiya 10.45 (FM) Book at Devil’s Music (1/3) 3.45 Stories (2/3)
 •

TODAY’S PET CORNER ANSWER JENNY

12
Puzzles
The Guardian
Tuesday 14 March 2023

Yesterday’s Quick crossword no 16,490

solutions 1 2 3 4

Wordsearch Across Down 5

5 Travel by road without paying (9) 1 Lasting one’s whole existence (8)
8 Character from an ancient 2 Spike of frozen water (6) 6 7
Germanic alphabet (believed 3 Belief in a god (6)
to have its own magical 4 Edible green pods (4) 8 9
significance) (4) 6 Utter (3-3-3)
9 Polite behaviour towards others (8) 7 Swear word (9)
10 Persuade with flattery (6) 12 Naturally occurring sugar (8)
11 Alter (6) 14 Strange eccentricity (6)
13 Musical composition played slowly 15 Painter of Rain, Steam and 10 11 12
and gracefully (6) Speed (6)
15 Difficult (6) 17 Small duck found in northern
16 Someone excluded from the Eurasia, which nests in tree
group (8) holes (4)
13 14 15
18 Mechanical repetition of something
to be learned (4)
Solution no 16,489
19 Defining ideas and beliefs of a
S A P P particular historical period (9)
M A K E B E L I E V E 16 17 18
A I I U N V
R S V P D E MO C R A T
T I P H N
WE E K E N D MA R G E
R E G B N E
19
S P A D E P E P T A L K
I G M A I
D E R E L I C T P E C K
C R S N E A
E L E C T R I C E E L
E Y K P
Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.
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Sudoku no 5991

Sudoku no 5992 Suguru Wordsearch

Medium. Fill the grid so that each row, column and Fill the grid so that each square Can you find 15 words associated
3x3 box contains the numbers 1-9. Printable version at in an outlined block contains a with cricket in the grid? Words can
theguardian.com/sudoku digit. A block of 2 squares contains run forwards, backwards, vertically
the digits 1 and 2, a block of three or diagonally, but always in a
squares contains the digits 1, 2 straight, unbroken line.
and 3, and so on. No same digit
appears in neighbouring squares,
not even diagonally.
Word wheel
ANONYMITY

Suguru

Word wheel Pet corner

Find as many words as What is the name of Pádraic’s pet
possible using the letters donkey in the film The Banshees of
in the wheel. Each must Inisherin?
use the central letter a. Siobhán
and at least two others. b. Colm
Letters may be used only c. Jenny
once. You may not use d. Dominic
plurals, foreign words or Answer top right
proper nouns. There is at
least one nine-letter word
to be found. TARGET:
Want more? Get access to
Excellent-45. Good-38.
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