The_Week_UK_-_17_November_2019

The end of the KING TUT’S The joy of self- anti-Corbyn GOLDEN partnering resistance? TREASURES TALKING POINTS POLITICS P 4 ART P32 P21 THE WEEK 16 NOVEMBER 2019 | ISSUE 1253 | £3.80 THE BEST OF THE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Hey, big spenders Naresh Jariwala* The giveaway election Page 2 ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS theweek.co.uk

Naresh Jariwala*

2 NEWS The main stories… What happened What the editorials said Farage retreats Farage has finally put his faith in Johnson to deliver Brexit, said The Sun. With his announcement this week, he effectively Boris Johnson’s election campaign received conceded that the PM’s deal would deliver a a boost this week when Nigel Farage proper exit from the EU, and that votes for announced that his Brexit Party would not his own party risked killing off that contest any of the 317 seats won by the prospect. The PM will be relieved that the Tories at the last election. He had previously Brexit Party doesn’t intend to spend the next threatened to field candidates in almost all few weeks ripping into his deal, said The of Britain’s 650 constituencies, a stance Daily Telegraph. And the move may help some of his former allies warned could the Tories hold on to “a handful of seats” fatally split the Leave vote. Farage said he that they might otherwise have lost. But if had changed his mind in response to the Farage sticks to his commitment to run PM apparently ruling out the post-Brexit candidates in the Labour-held marginals transition period being extended beyond the that the Tories dearly need to win in order end of 2020. Johnson welcomed Farage’s Can Johnson scale the “red wall”? to secure a majority, he may yet bring about move, calling it “a recognition that there’s only one way to get a hung parliament and put Corbyn into No. 10. Brexit done, and that’s to vote for the Conservatives”. Whether Farage’s retreat amounts to a pact with the Tories Rival parties, on the other hand, claimed that Farage’s retreat or just a loose arrangement (he described it as a “unilateral” meant that the Tories were now effectively in partnership with alliance), it signals to liberal Conservatives that they are a him. Jeremy Corbyn said that President Trump – who recently “vanishing species” in their party, said The Guardian. “Any called for such an alliance in a live radio interview with Farage form of Brexit that is acceptable to Farage will be deeply – had got his wish; Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, said: “The damaging to the UK.” By lending it his backing, Farage has Conservative Party are the Brexit Party now.” Separately,Naresh Jariwala*revealed Johnson’s deal for what it is: “a nationalist project Labour and the Lib Dems strongly criticised Johnson’s that sacrifices economic, constitutional and social stability response to the floods in northern England (see page 21). © COVE IMAGE: LABORATORIOROSSO, VITERBO, ITALYon the altar of cut-throat competition and deregulation”. What happened What the editorials said The big spenders “It is a moment to celebrate,” said The Observer. Almost a decade of austerity has brought misery to millions of families. Labour and the Conservatives last week both But now both main parties have at last agreed to made lavish pledges over public spending in a take the opportunity of “ultra-low” interest rates bid to win over voters in December’s election. to rebuild public services and repair the country’s Shadow chancellor John McDonnell promised “fraying fabric”. Still, the voters don’t seem very public investment “on a scale never seen impressed, said The Sunday Times. A poll this before in this country” if Labour were elected. week found that more than half thought He pledged an extra £55bn a year for schools, Labour’s plans were unaffordable, and a third hospitals, housing and other infrastructure, thought the same of the Tories. To many, more than doubling the current investment “splashing the cash” at a time of great economic budget, to be raised largely through higher uncertainty just looks reckless. borrowing. McDonnell also promised to spend £6bn per year more than the Tories on the Buying votes with the promise of higher NHS, funded by higher taxes. borrowing is always a “dangerous game”, said The Independent. And never more so than now. The Tories claimed that Labour’s spending McDonnell: “splurge” This week the credit rating agency Moody’s plans would cost £1.2trn over the next five lowered the UK’s credit outlook to “negative” years, and would wreck the economy. But Chancellor Sajid over Brexit. The national debt is at “historically high levels”, Javid stated that he too was ready to raise borrowing and and who knows what damage may be caused by leaving the invest a further £22bn on an “infrastructure revolution”. EU, global trade wars and climate change? That said, caution Lord Macpherson, a former Treasury boss, described the is a hard sell with the public these days. “The political plans of both parties as fiscally “incontinent”. pendulum has swung far from austerity, or even prudence.” It wasn’t all bad A cat-sized creature A British artist and amateur known as a “mouse- paraglider woke up last week to A former banker from Dorset deer” that had been find she had become a celebrity has become the first person to feared extinct in the in Malaysia. After a national run a marathon in every country wild has been caught English comprehension exam in the world – including North on camera, in southern featured a paraglider named Korea – completing 196 runs Vietnam, for the first Melissa, teenagers went online, in 675 days. Nick Butter was time in 30 years. The found Laura Melissa Williams inspired to run for Prostate silver-backed chevrotain – and started the hashtag “The Cancer UK after a friend, who is the world’s smallest Real Melissa”. At first, the crossed the final finish line in ungulate (hoofed thousands of messages and Athens alongside him this week, mammal). A team memes were funny, but then was diagnosed with the disease. from Global Wildlife they started to get nasty – until Averaging just over two Conservation interviewed locals who had reported sightings to a Malaysian influencer got wind countries a week, he was shot identify the best places to set up camera traps, and captured 2,000 of it, and urged his followers to at in Nigeria, and attacked by photos of the animal in a lowland forest. Although it is also preyed behave. Since then, Williams wild dogs in Tunisia. He has upon by leopards and pythons, scientists say it is hunters’ snares has received thousands of so far raised £74,000. that have pushed the deer to the brink of extinction. messages of apology. THE WEEK 16 November 2019 COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM

…and how they were covered NEWS 3 What the commentators said What next? The Tories are well ahead in the polls, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman, but they’re Johnson has committed to rightly nervous about this election. The party looks set to lose most, if not all, of its 13 seats several head-to-head debates in Scotland – most likely to the SNP – and at least half a dozen of its Remain-leaning English with Corbyn before 12 ones to the “reviving” Lib Dems. The Government hopes that it can nevertheless secure a December, the first of which majority in the election by winning dozens of Leave-leaning seats from Labour. However, is due to take place on several factors could scupper that plan. One is a revival in Corbyn’s dire approval ratings – Tuesday on ITV. But he and the Labour leader’s “energised” performance on the campaign trail will be causing some won’t participate in a seven- unease in Tory HQ. Another is the threat of tactical voting among Remainers. way debate on the BBC at the end of the month; he’ll send a It’s far from clear whether the Tories will be able to scale the so-called red wall – the key Cabinet member in his place. battleground seats in the Midlands and the North that hold the key to this election, said Tom Harris on CapX. On paper, their solid lead in the polls should enable them to steal lots of these The majority view at CCHQ seats, 32 of which are marginals. The loyalty of local Labour voters has been strained by the is that head-to-head debates ongoing Brexit row and unhappiness with Corbyn’s leadership. But old ideological allegiances will play to Johnson’s die hard. While such voters may be willing to lend their backing to the Brexit Party, many of strengths, says Katy Balls in them may feel that voting for the Tories is a step too far. the I newspaper. He has a clear lead over Corbyn on the The “old tribalism” does seem to have broken down a bit in the Midlands, said Rod Liddle question of who would make in The Sunday Times. “The blue-collar Brummies do not have quite the disdain for voting the best PM. But by allowing Conservative that pertains further north.” And it has certainly broken down in London, where Corbyn to present himself as the affluent middle class now “votes Labour – or maybe Green or Lib Dem; anybody except the the only viable alternative to Tories”. Indeed, Brexit seems to have turned our politics on its head, said Clare Foges in The Johnson, the format may also Times. We’ve got former Labour MPs urging people to vote Tory (see page 4), and former Tory help Labour pick up support Cabinet ministers like Ken Clarke hinting that they’ll vote for another party. “No doubt we’ll at the expense of the Lib have colliery bands playing at Johnson’s rallies soon.” This dwindling of blind tribal allegiance Dems, making the Tories’ makes for a very unpredictable election, but in the long term it will rejuvenate our politics. path to a majority steeper. Naresh Jariwala* What the commentators said What next? “What a difference two years makes,” said Andrew Grice in The Independent. At the 2017 Further controversy looks general election, Theresa May insisted there was no “magic money tree”. Now the Tories have certain when Labour joined Labour in shaking the tree “so hard its roots are quaking”. The deficit is still there: the publishes its election gap between revenue and spending was £41.5bn in the year to March. But both parties are manifesto, due next week. acting as if it has been “magically waved away”. It’s Labour that should really scare us, said But there’s speculation that Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Its planned investment “splurge” would destroy the “hard- the final document could earned stability of the last decade”. And its other policies would be massively expensive: drop some of the party’s renationalising the railways, utilities and Royal Mail alone would cost £196bn. Labour aims more costly proposals, such to raise income tax for those on more than £50,000, and corporation tax. That will still leave as the renationalisation a vast shortfall, which it claims would be met by selling new ten-year bonds. But of the big six bonds issued by badly run governments are seen by international markets as energy suppliers. “almost worthless”. In short, Labour seems “intent on financial suicide”. To avoid charges Treat Tory criticisms with scepticism, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. of favouring the That £1.2trn figure assumes that all policy proposals accepted at the Labour rich, the Tories conference – even those effectively rejected by the leadership, like abolishing are reportedly private schools – will “spring into life” as soon as it gains power. The only figures poised to drop we can trust are the investment pledges: Labour will spend £55bn per year against plans to raise the Tories’ £22bn. “It’s far from clear why the former is a big scary number that “Parts of the UK have the threshold at will wreck the economy”, while the latter is a “big, reassuring number” that will had a year’s worth of which people fix our infrastructure. Either way, the economic future is “scary”, said Ed Conway spending pledges in start paying the in The Sunday Times. For a decade, both parties aimed to cut borrowing and the last 48 hours” highest rate of repair public finances. Now both are committed to an era of “profligacy”. © MATT/THE DAILY TELEGRAPH income tax. THE WEEK That we are such a divided nation today must in part be due to the Editor-in-chief: Caroline Law deep but unacknowledged human need to fashion a simple narrative Editor: Theo Tait of good and evil out of political complexity. The more complex the Deputy editor: Harry Nicolle Executive editor: Laurence Earle issue (think Brexit), the more urgent the need. We may cast the EU as a doughty opponent of populist City editor: Jane Lewis Editorial assistant: Asya Likhtman politics; or we may depict it as the malign subverter of national sovereignty. But we’re not emotionally Contributing editors: Daniel Cohen, Thomas Hodgkinson, disposed to entertain the idea it could be both. Or neither. Which may go towards explaining why Simon Wilson, Rob McLuhan, Anthony Gardner, William one of last week’s most remarkable stories – a New York Times exposé of the way the EU fortifies Underhill, Catherine Heaney, Digby Warde-Aldam, Tom populist leaders through its farm subsidies (see page 15) – has gone by with so little remark. Yarwood, William Skidelsky Editorial staff: Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, Sorcha Bradley, Aaron Drapkin Picture The Common Agricultural Policy is one of the world’s largest subsidy systems: the s58bnpa paid editor: Xandie Nutting Art director: Nathalie Fowler Sub- to Europe’s farmers constitutes 40% of EU spending. And in central Europe, it is populist leaders like editor: Mary O’Sullivan Production editor: Alanna O’Connell Hungary’s Viktor Orbán who decide where a big chunk of it goes. As the subsidy is paid on a per-acre Editorial chairman and co-founder: Jeremy O’Grady basis, farmers with the most land get most of the money: so by auctioning state land in large blocs to Production Manager: Maaya Mistry Production Executive: political allies, Orbán is able to use CAP as a vast patronage system. Yet far from seeking to impose Sophie Griffin Newstrade Director: David Barker supranational rules on this form of legalised graft, Brussels wants to give national leaders yet more Direct Marketing Director: Abi Spooner Inserts: Jack Reader discretion on how the money’s spent. After all, as the NYT notes, it’s programmes like CAP that “hold Classified: Henry Haselock, Rebecca Seetanah, the precarious union together”. This is a tale, in sum, that fails to nourish our narratives of EU vice or Nicholas Fisher Account Directors: Lauren Shrigley, Jonathan Claxton, Jocelyn Sital-Singh Senior Account virtue. It offers neither spiritual uplift nor the joy of hatred. So we let it pass. Jeremy O’Grady Managers: Joe Teal, Hattie White Account Executive: Clement Aro Advertising Manager: Carly Activille Group Advertising Director: Caroline Fenner Founder: Jolyon Connell Chief Executive, The Week: Kerin O’Connor Chief Executive: James Tye Dennis Publishing founder: Felix Dennis THE WEEK Ltd, a subsidiary of Dennis, 31-32 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Tel: 020-3890 3890 Editorial: The Week Ltd, 2nd Floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX. Tel: 020-3890 3787 email: [email protected] Subscriptions: 0330-333 9494; [email protected] © Dennis Publishing Limited 2019. All rights reserved. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK The Week is a registered trademark. Neither the whole of this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers

4 NEWS Politics Controversy of the week HS2 “should go ahead” Labour loses its deputy The HS2 rail project should go full steam ahead, even Farewell, then, to “the leader of the opposition to the leader of though it is likely to run over the opposition”, said John Rentoul in The Independent. Since its revised £88bn budget, a 2015, Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson has been “key to review has concluded. the internal resistance to Jeremy Corbyn”. The Corbynites Douglas Oakervee’s report have the party leadership, the membership and the national is not due to be published executive; many MPs have made their peace with the new until after the election, but order. But “they never had Tom Watson”. The deputy leader according to a leaked draft, did what he could to fight anti-Semitism in the party, to it warns that without HS2, campaign for Remain and to marshal the forces of social demand on existing lines will democracy. “Capitalism, comrades, is not the enemy,” he told so exceed capacity that the Labour conference in 2016. But last week, Watson stepped “large ticket prices” will be down. His departure was diplomatically managed: he said his needed to discourage peak- reasons for leaving were “personal, not political”, and that he time travel. He also found wanted to work as a public health campaigner – he has written that HS2 would bring more a book about how he lost seven stone in two years. It was pretty benefits to northern cities clear, though, that he’d simply had enough. And who can blame Watson: a “moderate”? than to London. However, his report has been disowned him? He has done his duty – ensuring that “there will be a Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn”. by the review’s deputy chair, Lord Berkeley. Among other It’s “a testament to the screwy political times we live in” that people call Watson a “moderate”, said things, he has complained Tom Slater on Spiked. He is a sinister machine politician who voted for the Iraq war and plotted about its “unquestioning endlessly on behalf of Gordon Brown. As a campaigner, he was even worse. He pushed for state acceptance of information” regulation of the press, alongside the likes of Max Mosley. He did more than anyone to spread the provided by HS2 Ltd. absurd conspiracy theory about a VIP paedophile ring confected by Carl Beech, and called Leon Brittan “as close to evil as any human being could be” shortly after his death. If Watson is the face SNP will back Labour of “sensible” Labour, give me Corbyn any day. Besides, I doubt that he really left politics because he wants to become a fitness instructor, as he claimed, said Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail. More Scotland’s First Minister likely, as a prominent Remainer, he was “spooked” by the prospect of a tough fight in his West Nicola Sturgeon has Bromwich East seat, which voted 68% Leave – particularly since Harvey Proctor, the ex-Tory MP announced that she would who lost his “home, job and repute” thanks to Beech’s claims, was threatening to stand against him. be willing to form an alliance Naresh Jariwala* with the Labour Party, in Corbyn-sceptic Labour MPs face a real dilemma, said Philip Collins in The Times. Stay and fight, order to keep the Tories out or leave the party? Admit that they don’t think Corbyn should be PM, or swallow their doubts? of power in the event of a Watson was a “stay-and-fighter”, who helped prevent a larger exodus when eight MPs left to join hung parliament. In return the Independent Group in February. So some are furious that he has now sloped off, offering Corbyn for SNP support, however, his best wishes. Contrast that with another departing Labour veteran, Ian Austin, said Fraser Nelson she said a minority Labour in The Daily Telegraph. Austin last week advised his constituents that Labour was “poisoned by government would have to racism, extremism and intolerance” and that they should vote Tory. “A fair number of MPs will now meet her demands – which be looking at Tom Watson and Ian Austin and wondering which one behaved more honourably.” include backing a second independence referendum. She also warned that Boris Johnson had “no right” to block such a vote. Spirit of the age Good week for: Poll watch This year, families hoping to Vegans, with news that Mars is launching a plant-based version 56% of UK adults, and 47% visit Father Christmas in his of its bestselling Galaxy bar. However, the 100g bar – which of Tory voters, say they grotto at Harrods will first comes in three flavours – will cost £3, twice the price of a regular think that the UK should have to have spent at least milk-chocolate Galaxy. reduce its net carbon £2,000 at the department Laurent Simons, a nine-year-old from Belgium, who was emissions to zero by 2030, store. Of the 4,400 ten- recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s youngest as proposed by the Labour minute appointments university graduate. Simons finished his secondary education aged and Green parties. Current available with Santa (to be eight, and then earned his degree in electrical engineering from government policy is to played by three actors at a Eindhoven University of Technology in one year. His professor decarbonise by 2050. time in different parts of the says he is the smartest student he has ever taught. YouGov/The Guardian grotto), all but 160 will only Jilly Cooper, after her 1980s bonkbuster Riders was named one be open to those who of the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. “I can’t believe it, it’s Only 29% of Britons think qualify for a “Green Tier 2” hysterical,” said the novelist, 82, of her appearance on the list, that the forthcoming general Harrods reward card. compiled by a panel of literary experts for the BBC. election will break the Brexit The cassette revival, which is gaining such momentum that deadlock. 56% believe a new “Climate strike” has been sales of tapes are expected to hit 100,000 this year. That’s double parliament is unlikely to named Collins Dictionary’s the number shifted last year, but still a tiny fraction of the 83 make more progress. word of the year for 2019. million sold in 1989. BMG/The Independent The term, which was used about 100 times more Bad week for: Support for the Labour Party frequently this year than in in the northwest of England 2018, is defined as a climate Greggs, which was mocked for offering its customers a “diet has fallen 25 points since protest in which people skip doughnut”, to help combat obesity. The slimming treat is just the last election to 30%, with work or school. Collins also a ring doughnut: without the jam and the dough in the middle, the Tories on 33%. Labour is published a “Brexicon”: a it has about 100 fewer calories than a round one. also down 20 points in the list of words brought into BP, after National Galleries Scotland became the latest arts Yorkshire and Humber use by Brexit, including institution to cut its ties with the fossil fuel giant, citing its regions, leaving it five “flextension”, “cakeism” responsibility to “do all we can to address the climate emergency”. points behind the Tories. and “Brexiety”. YouGov/The Independent THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Europe at a glance NEWS 5 Paris Naresh Jariwala* Milan, Italy St Petersburg, Russia Nato “brain death” warning: President Hate messages: Historian arrested: A flamboyant Russian Macron has issued a frank warning that An 89-year-old historian well known for his interest in the EU is “on the edge of a precipice” that Italian Holocaust Napoleon, and for dressing up as the could see it disappear if its leaders don’t survivor who French emperor, was charged with murder “wake up” and confront the various called for an last week, after being pulled out of the challenges facing it. These, he said in an investigation into River Moika with a rucksack containing interview with The Economist, include the hate crimes has his girlfriend’s severed arms. Anastasia spread of populism – and Washington’s had so many Yeshchenko’s decapitated body was found new-found indifference to its European death threats, she in his flat nearby. A senior lecturer at allies. He said Nato was experiencing has been given St Petersburg University, Oleg Sokolov is “brain death”, referencing Donald police protection. a renowned expert on Napoleon and was Trump’s abrupt and “uncoordinated” Liliana Segre awarded France’s Légion d’honneur in decision to withdraw US troops from was one of 776 Italian children sent to 2003. His 24-year-old victim had been northern Syria last month, which led to Auschwitz, of whom only 25 survived. one of his students, and had co-authored another uncoordinated intervention by In her 60s, she began to talk about her a number of his works. Sokolov told police a second Nato member, Turkey. Asked experience and was appointed to the he killed her during an argument. He was whether he still had faith in the Italian senate. But, faced with daily reportedly drunk and trying to dispose of effectiveness of Nato’s Article 5, the anti-Semitic abuse, she proposed the her body when he fell into the river. principle that if one member is attacked, creation of a parliamentary committee to Istanbul, all will come to its defence, he replied: look into hate speech, racism and anti- Turkey “I don’t know.” Macron’s blunt warning Semitism. Her proposal was passed last White Helmets came as the UK prepares to host a two-day week, though far-right parties, founder dead: summit of Nato leaders early next month. including Matteo Salvini’s The former Rome League, refused to back it. British army Climate change lessons: Italy is to Athens officer who become the first country in the world China’s “dragon’s head”: The Chinese co-founded the to make the study of climate change president, Xi Jinping, made a three-day White Helmets compulsory in its schools. Under a new visit to Greece this week, where he agreed – the Western- law that will take effect from September a s600m deal with Athens to expand the backed rescue 2020, all state schools will be obliged to presence of China’s state shipping service that has saved thousands of dedicate around an hour a week to company, Cosco, in Greece’s biggest port, civilians caught up in Syria’s civil war – teaching children about sustainability and at Piraeus. As part of Beijing’s long-term was found dead on Monday, outside his climate change, with lessons based on the strategy of building geopolitical alliances home in Istanbul. Turkish officials believe UN’s 17 sustainable development goals. and influence via investment in James Le Mesurier, 48, fell from a balcony Additionally, traditional subjects such as infrastructure, China acquired the two of his apartment; however, the full maths and geography will be taught from main container terminals at Piraeus in circumstances of his death are not yet the perspective of sustainability. “The 2008, and in 2016 it bought a 51% stake clear. Le Mesurier, who was awarded an entire ministry is being changed to make in the port as a whole. The new deal takes OBE in 2016, had been the target of a sustainability and climate the centre of the China’s total investments in Greece to campaign of disinformation orchestrated education model,” said education minister s2.5bn. At a dinner in honour of President by Moscow’s pro-Assad activists, accusing Lorenzo Fioramonti, of the Five Star Xi, Greece’s President Pavlopoulos said the White Helmets of supporting terrorists. Movement. Fioramonti, 42, is a former the deal “fundamentally upgrades” the professor of economics who has often strategic partnership between the two argued that GDP should not be used as countries, while Xi hailed what he called the prime measure of a country’s economic “the dragon’s head for China in Greece”. success, and who recently supported the However, it caused consternation in introduction of a new tax on plastic. Washington and Brussels. Madrid Left-wing deal: Spain’s caretaker prime minister has struck a tentative deal with the radical left-wing party Unidas Podemas that could give the country its first coalition government of recent times. Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the centre-left Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), put the deal together just 48 hours after the country’s second inconclusive election of the year. It had, once again, left his party as the biggest in the 350-seat parliament, with 120 seats – but without a majority. Even with the support of Podemas, which has 35 seats, it will fall short of that, and the deal must still be approved by parliament. Sánchez had ruled out forming a grand coalition with the conservative People’s Party, which came second, with 88 seats, while third place was taken by the far-right Vox party, which took 15% of the vote, and more than doubled its seats to 52. Podemas came fourth. Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

6 NEWS The world at a glance Washington DC New York Taming Trump: Nikki Haley, the Bloomberg “to run”: The billionaire former New York mayor former US ambassador to the UN, has Michael Bloomberg, 77, is poised to make a late entry into the claimed that two former senior Trump race for the Democratic presidential nomination, reportedly administration officials – former because he is concerned that none of the current candidates could secretary of state Rex Tillerson and beat Donald Trump. Although Bloomberg has not yet publicly ex-White House chief of staff John confirmed that he is running, he is certainly preparing for the Kelly – tried to persuade her to join in possibility: he put his name on the ballot for the primary in their attempts to subvert parts of the Alabama last week, and this week, he flew to Arkansas, president’s agenda, for the sake of the another southern state where nominations close early, to file the country. “Kelly and Tillerson confided paperwork there. His prospective candidacy was attacked by the in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being existing front runners: Elizabeth Warren said democracy is not insubordinate”, she writes in a new memoir, “they were trying to about people “buying elections”, while Bernie Sanders condemned save the country”. She goes on to condemn their “arrogant” the “arrogance of billionaires”. The first poll including Bloomberg assumption that “it was their decisions, not the president’s, that put support for him among primary voters at just 4%. were in the best interests of America”, and says that if they disagreed with Trump, they should have quit. Tillerson has denied the claim. Last week, the Republicans lost two closely watched elections – for the Virginia state legislature and for the governorship in Kentucky – raising doubts among party members about their prospects in next year’s congressional and presidential elections. Mountain View, California Google’s healthcare move: Google has secretly acquired health data on millions of Americans as part of a partnership with Ascension, the US’s second-largest healthcare provider. The scheme, designed to lead to better AI tools for doctors, began last year, but Google only publicised details of the so-called Project Nightingale this week, after its existence was reported by The Wall Street Journal. The company has insisted the information, which includes names, addresses, recent diagnoses and lab results, will be closely guarded, and not combined with its consumer data. However, privacy campaigners have pointed out that patients weren’t even notified about the scheme, and Ascension staff have reportedly expressed concern about how the data is being shared. Naresh Jariwala* La Paz, Bolivia Morales forced out: Evo Morales resigned as Bolivia’s president this week, after coming under intense pressure from the police and the army to stand down in the wake of last month’s fiercely disputed election. He has since flown into exile in Mexico, claiming to be the victim of a right-wing coup. An opposition senator, Jeanine Áñez, declared herself interim president on Tuesday. Morales’s outright win in the elections on 20 October had led to weeks of protests, some of them violent, as a result of apparent irregularities in the count. On Sunday, election monitors from the Organization of American States published their report, conclu- ding that there had indeed been significant “manipulations to the computer system”, and advising that the poll be re-run. Morales’s resignation, after nearly 14 years in office, has led to renewed demonstrations, both by his supporters and his opponents. Santiago Brasília “Abuses” investigated: Prosecutors in Chile are investigating more Lula freed: Brazil’s former than 800 instances of alleged human rights abuses – including president, Luiz Inácio Lula da torture, rape and beatings – committed by security forces during Silva, has been released from jail as a the recent unrest. This week, President Piñera acknowledged that result of a court ruling affecting thousands of prisoners. The there had been “abuses”, and said that every case would be country’s supreme court decreed last week that defendants could investigated. He also promised that his government would only be jailed once all their appeals had been exhausted. The start the process of re-writing the country’s market-friendly, following day, a judge ruled that Lula should be released; he had dictatorship-era constitution. The protests, which began last served 580 days of an eight-year sentence for corruption – charges month, were triggered by a near 4% rise in metro fares, then he insists were politically motivated. Lula, 74, a popular left-wing morphed into demonstrations against inequality. Since then, at president from 2003 to 2010, was leading the polls in last year’s least 20 protesters have been killed in the unrest, some 2,000 have election when his conviction cleared the way for the far-right Jair been injured, and at least 7,000 have been arrested. Around 800 Bolsonaro to win power. The judge who found Lula guilty was police have also been injured. subsequently made President Bolsonaro’s justice secretary. THE WEEK 16 November 2019

The world at a glance NEWS 7 Baghdad Hong Kong Unrest continues: The UN and the US have Violence escalates: The crisis in Hong Kong took urged the Iraqi government to stop using a turn for the worse this week, with a marked violence against protesters and agree to escalation in the level of violence deployed by hold early elections, to defuse the unrest both police and anti-government protesters. that has rocked the country since early On Monday, 128 people were injured in clashes October. At least 319 people have been across the territory. In one incident, a police killed and nearly 15,000 injured since the officer shot an unarmed demonstrator in the current wave of protests began last month, stomach at close range with a live round, leaving according to the authorities. Many of the him in a critical condition. In another, a group dead were killed by Iraqi security forces of protesters threw flammable liquid at a pro-Beijing supporter and set him alight, and Iran-backed paramilitaries who have causing him life-threatening injuries. Paralysing strikes and demonstrations continued used live ammunition to break up protests on Tuesday and Wednesday, as protesters, many of them students, built barricades in Baghdad and across the Shia-dominated and roadblocks, set fires, vandalised trains and threw petrol bombs and bricks at south of Iraq. At the weekend, the security police, who fired rounds of tear gas and water cannon to dispel the crowds. forces retook key bridges in Baghdad that Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam denounced the protesters as “the people’s had been held by protesters. The UN enemies”, and said that the idea that violent demonstrations would influence the representative in Iraq said she was government’s policies was “wishful thinking”. A police spokesman warned that Hong receiving daily reports of “killings, Kong’s “rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse”. kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, beatings and intimidation”. Naresh Jariwala* Tokyo #GlassesAreForbidden: Boungou, Ayodhya, India Thousands of Japanese Burkina Faso Temple ruling: women have taken to Workers India’s supreme social media to share massacred: court has ruled their experiences of being Around 40 people that the bitterly discouraged from wearing were killed in disputed holy site spectacles at work since eastern Burkina Faso at Ayodhya in the practice was exposed last week when a convoy of buses carrying Uttar Pradesh in two recent reports. It workers from the Canadian gold-miner belongs to turns out that a range of Semafo was attacked by suspected Hindus, and has firms tell their female jihadists. No group has claimed given permission employees not to wear responsibility for the atrocity, but it is for a Hindu glasses, including a presumed to be the work of a local group temple to be built domestic airline that cites that has links to Islamic State. It was the there. The ruling is a major victory for PM “safety” issues, retailers deadliest single terrorist atrocity in Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist who claim bespectacled Burkina Faso since extremists began party, the BJP. In 1992, ten of thousands shop assistants give a targeting the country in 2015, exploiting of Hindus destroyed a 16th century “cold impression”, and deep grievances in the impoverished north. mosque on the site, sparking riots in In total, 700 people have been killed by which 2,000 people died. Hindus believe restaurateurs who Islamist militants and some 500,000 have the mosque occupied the site of an earlier think glasses sit been forced to flee their homes, most of temple marking the birthplace of the uneasily them this year. More than 2,000 schools Hindu deity Lord Ram (pictured). with have been forced to close. traditional Japanese dress. Sydney, Australia Devastating wildfires: More than 150 wildfires were burning across eastern Australia this week, in New South Wales and across the border in Queensland. As of Tuesday, the fires had destroyed almost 200 houses, and killed at least three people, along with hundreds of animals. With temperatures far above seasonal norms, in the high 30s, and powerful winds forecast, the authorities warned that more “catastrophic” fires could be imminent across the Sydney region, though the situation seemed to be easing slightly on Wednesday. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

8 NEWS People From Hollywood to jail Naresh Jariwala*had set up a foundation toCelia Paul had barely arrived at The Slade, a bishop’s daughter As a wild Hollywood teenager, care for the victims of the fresh out of boarding school, when she began an affair with her Cameron Douglas was often at insurgency – including the 55-year-old tutor, Lucian Freud. “I had approached him in the life odds with his father, Michael, children of Boko Haram room wanting to show him my drawings, because we both had says Laura Pullman in The fighters – knew, too, that he drawn and painted our mothers. I had felt that affinity. But really, Sunday Times. He discovered had to try to see the militants that wasn’t why he was drawn to me,” she told Tim Adams in The drink and drugs at 13, and by as people, not killers. “I had Observer. Freud later admitted that he’d only gone to the school to 17 was taking crystal meth; he to give them reasons to stop pick up girls. He tried to persuade Paul to give up painting so that later became addicted to liquid doing what they were doing. I she could devote herself to him, and reduced her to tears by cocaine. “I had a pretty good said, ‘Please try to identify with insisting that she pose for him in the nude. “There was always this DJ career, and an acting career the girls, with their families.’” element of control.” Paul, 60, believes that part of the attraction for that was all but handed to me. He left with 21 girls. A year Freud was her spirituality – which he longed to disrupt. “He had no But in the span of six months later, he negotiated the release truck with God… He found it disturbing even if I looked dreamily my life was in tatters.” He took of a further 82. He has won out of a window. He wanted me firmly in this world.” Their ten-year to robbing motels and liquor humanitarian awards for his affair resulted in a son, Frank, and they remained friends until stores, and in 2009 began a achievements – but “I am not Freud’s death. Now, though, she is determined that she shouldn’t seven-year jail term. At first a superhero. It is my education only be known as Freud’s muse. “I want there to be no question he got a kick from it. “It’s that tells me to do this,” he that I am a painter in my own right,” she says. “I feel that my something you hear glamorised says. “People are stubborn and painting belongs to a whole tradition of British art. I can see in music. You get there and it can take a long time to settle connections between my work and Stanley Spencer, and Gwen you’re enamoured by some of conflicts. But peace is always John and Frank Auerbach. And that is the main way I am connected these characters, the big mob there if you want to talk.” to Lucian – as part of that spirit of British painting.” bosses.” But when he Humphrys looks back overheard a rape, and started John Humphrys has conducted Viewpoint: Farewell © ANTONIO OLMOS/OBSERVER/EYEVINE getting involved in fights, he countless political interviews realised he needed to get his in his time, but the most Modern rugby Field Marshal Lord life back on track – which surprising one was with an Bramall, former chief of he has done, with the help old woman in South Africa, “Before watching the recent World the Armed Forces, died of his stepmother, Catherine says Miranda Sawyer in The Cup final, I last saw a whole rugby 12 November, aged 95. Zeta-Jones. “She’s always Guardian. It was 1994, and match on television in the early Frank Dobson, veteran included me and been my millions of people were about 1970s. My memory may be false, but Labour politician and champion,” he says, to vote in the country’s first I recall a game of movement. Except former minister, died “encouraging my father to democratic elections. He went for a very few moments of astonishing 11 November, aged 79. believe in me again.” Douglas, out early in the morning, and speed, notably the South African try, Lord Mawhinney, Tory 40, still feels guilty about the the queues were already huge. the final seemed a contest about how peer and chair of the pain he has caused his family, “Oh, it was deeply moving.” best to exploit quite obscure rules in Football League, died but is trying to make up for it. Looking for a voter to one’s favour. It was the sporting 9 November, aged 79. He has breakfast every week interview, he settled on a very equivalent of arcane disputes by Nik Powell, co-founder with his grandfather Kirk, now old lady who was “standing brilliant lawyers about how their of Virgin Records, died 102. As for his father, “I’ve next to a young woman, who clients can legally get round taxes. 7 November, aged 69. always wanted to be friends was very pregnant. I wanted a It was all about what constitutes Rita Thomson, nurse with him – and I think we’re bit of righteous anger, a bit of: a penalty. If you did not share the who took care of pretty good friends now.” ‘These bastards, apartheid’, all intense emotion invested in the Benjamin Britten, died Negotiating with militants that kind of thing. And 8:10 result, you would conclude that 11 October, aged 85. Zannah Bukar Mustapha had came and I said to the lady: it was quite poor sport.” no experience as a hostage ‘You’re going to be voting Charles Moore in The Spectator negotiator when he walked soon, what does it mean to alone into a Boko Haram camp you?’ And she quietly said: in Nigeria and asked for the ‘Mmm, for me, not very release of 276 kidnapped schoolgirls, says Leo much.’ And I thought: ‘Oh, Cendrowicz in the I shit.’ And then she newspaper. The lawyer hesitated for a moment and schoolteacher was and she leaned across scared, and he thought and patted the swollen he might die. “They stomach of the young waved their guns and woman, and she said: knives at me, but I ‘But for the young man knew I had to in this lady’s keep talking – stomach, it and if they will mean kept talking everything. back to me, Because he then we will be could do granted the something.” gift of Mustapha dignity that (right), who has been had been denied to chosen for me all my the task life.’ And because he it was… amazing.” Desert Island Discs returns on 15 November

Naresh Jariwala*

Naresh Jariwala*

Briefing NEWS 11 The birth of the internet Fifty years ago, humans learnt how to make computers talk to each other – and it has changed the world How did the internet begin? language, or protocol. It came in the Late on 29 October 1969, the first ever form of Transmission Control Protocol digital data transmission was sent and Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, first between two computers. In a windowless published by the computer scientists room in the University of California, Los Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974. This Angeles, two programmers sent a allowed different types of computers all message over a phone line from one over the world to recognise each other, mainframe computer to another at the and route and assemble data packets, Stanford Research Institute more than forming a “network of networks”. (Cerf 300 miles away. It was supposed to say: and Kahn’s 1974 memo contains the first “LOGIN”, but it only got as far as “LO” attested use of the term “internet”, as before the system crashed. “We couldn’t shorthand for “inter-networking”.) On have asked for a more succinct, more 1 January 1983, sometimes known as prophetic message than ‘Lo’,” – as in “Lo “flag day”, the Arpanet adopted TCP/IP and behold”, says Leonard Kleinrock, as standard and the internet was born. the project supervisor. It was transmitted on a network called the Arpanet, which Why was TCP/IP revolutionary? by late that year connected two more It was open and free, and it enabled computers, one in Santa Barbara, anybody with the requisite knowledge to California and one in Utah – and which Tim Berners-Lee: invented the world wide web put a computer on the network, and any Naresh Jariwala* provided the technical foundation for the internet. computer to talk to another. IP addresses are still assigned to all networked computers today. In the past, such an innovative Why was the Arpanet built? technology would have been jealously guarded and milked for It was a child of the Cold War, funded by the US Department of financial gain. By contrast, those who wrote the protocol thought Defense. The department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency there should be no central ownership or control. “We made it as (Arpa, known today as Darpa) was set up to boost scientific open-ended as possible, and invited anyone to participate in the research after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957; it paid for the system’s implementation and evolution,” says Cerf. “We decided installation of large computers at research institutes across the US. not to patent the technology at all, to remove any barrier to its The immediate aim of the Arpanet was to share computing adoption.” Many of the internet’s fundamental features are power: computers were scarce and vastly expensive, and the new encoded in TCP/IP: the absence of central control; its open-ended, network was designed to allow different centres to use data and user-driven nature; its anonymity; its lack of built-in security. programmes on various research computers. Thus, from the point of view of the men who built it, it was a noble knowledge-sharing How is the internet different from the world wide web? exercise. Yet the goal of those who funded it was different. The We tend to use the terms interchangeably, but the internet is the cost was justified in the Department of Defence because Arpa was infrastructure (see box) on which everything else sits: email (one tasked with building a “survivable” network that wouldn’t go of its first major uses); file-sharing protocols; instant messaging; down if any specific part was destroyed in a nuclear attack. the world wide web. The world wide web is the main tool billions use to access the internet: it allows documents sitting on different Why would the Arpanet survive nuclear war? computers to be publicly visible to one another. It was created by A nuclear attack on the US would have been likely to cripple Tim Berners-Lee, then a researcher at Cern, the particle physics radio communications and the national telephone network; this laboratory in Geneva. In 1989, Berners-Lee designed HTTP and could have made a retaliatory strike impossible – and thus have HTML, a protocol and a language for formatting hypertext (text undermined the whole concept of nuclear deterrence. To prevent with hyperlinks), as well as a system for retrieving web pages: the this, the Arpanet used the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), revolutionary idea of “packet A global network of networks commonly known as a web address. switching”. Traditional phone lines need a single end-to-end circuit As it was in the early days, the internet is still a Why did it spread so quickly? between two users; packet switching, network of networks – though on a vastly bigger scale. In Britain, individual networked computers connect The internet, once the preserve of by contrast, takes chunks of data and with their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) via a academics, the military and breaks them into smaller pieces that modem and the national telecoms network. The ISPs hobbyists, was already growing fast can travel over any available circuit. have massive numbers of specialised computers called by the late 1980s, powered by the rise The idea of the Arpanet was that routers. Each router’s job is to know how to move the of personal computers: the Apple II there would be a large number of had been released in 1977; IBM sold “nodes” – 13 computer centres were packets of data along from their source to their its first PC in 1981. In August 1991, connected by late 1970 – and data destination. ISPs then connect with each other at Cern released Berners-Lee’s whole could take any available route internet exchange points (IXPs). The London Internet package, including the first web Exchange, for instance, provides “peering” services to large numbers of ISPs at 16 data centres in the capital; between them to reach its destination, it also has local exchanges in Glasgow, Manchester browser, which he had written – making this “interconnected and Cardiff. Internationally, the continents are linked again without patenting it. All the network” much more resilient. by many hundreds of fibre-optic cables on the seabed. basics were then in place for Yet far from the fibre-optic backbone, coverage is exponential growth. In the 1990s, And that became the internet? patchy. In sub-Saharan Africa, less than half of people public use exploded, and with it the Various technical leaps were required have internet access. In the developing world, it is companies that exploited it: Amazon first. Arpa was painfully aware that often provided via smartphones connected via cell launched in 1995, Google in 1997. the different research computers it Today, it is by far the largest funded were running different codes; towers. Loon, owned by Alphabet (Google), is communication network in history. they couldn’t speak to each other. So developing high-altitude balloons designed to beam In July 2019, there were more than the next revolutionary step was the the internet down to poorly-served areas. Elon Musk’s 4.33 billion active users, comprising creation of a common networking Starlink is in the process of launching 12,000 satellites 56% of the global population. that will offer coverage to the world’s whole surface. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

12 NEWS Best articles: Britain An American Europe has acquired a noxious American habit, says John Gapper:Naresh Jariwala*IT MUST BE TRUE… habit that’s bad the Sports Utility Vehicle. A third of new cars sold in Europe are for the world now SUVs. The parents of school kids in my street in east London I read it in the tabloids all seem to have a Nissan Qashqai or BMW X5 parked outside John Gapper their house. Once, when small cars filled our roads, we Europeans Gin aficionados can now Financial Times enjoyed a sense of ethical superiority over Americans, with their enjoy their favourite tipple heavy postwar gas guzzlers. Indeed, in the mid-1970s they decided infused with the flavours of Foreign money to copy us and downsize. But with the dawn of the SUV, US cars elephant dung. Les and Paula should not talk piled on the pounds again, and in two decades CO2 emissions from Ansley, a South African in academia US vehicles rose by 11%. Now the same is occurring here: thanks couple, started to make the to the SUV, average vehicle CO2 emissions in Europe rose by 2% gin after learning that two- Editorial last year. Indeed, the International Energy Agency says the world’s thirds of the fruit and flowers The Guardian 200 million SUVs (China has gone big on them too) are among the that elephants eat is not largest contributors to a rise in global emissions. With their high digested. As a result, “you Scraps of paper seats and greater sense of security, it’s easy to see the lure of SUVs. get the most amazing variety that can start a Carmakers love them too: they sell at wider margins than small of these botanicals”, says Les. world war cars. But for the planet’s sake, they are a habit we must shake. The couple, who collect the Education is one of Britain’s most successful exports. It brings in dung by hand, describe Niall Ferguson close to £20bn a year; and last year, says The Guardian, a sixth of Indlovu Gin as “wooded, The Sunday Times UK university research income came from overseas. Yet as a report almost spicy, earthy”. by Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee makes clear, this The border is a mixed blessing: the cash too often comes with strings attached. A South Korean mortuary is walls that Its report – A cautious embrace: defending democracy in an age of offering people the chance to shame us all autocracies – cites many examples of overseas donors seeking to experience their own “living shape university research curricula and limit the activities of funerals”. The Hyowon Mark Akkerman researchers. One vice-chancellor, after being contacted by Chinese Healing Centre invites openDemocracy diplomats (more than a fifth of the 450,000 overseas student are members of the public to from China), asked an academic not to make comments critical dress in shrouds, write their of Beijing. Gulf states are said to exert similar pressure. Yet last testaments and lie in universities seem in denial. They must now bring this issue into closed coffins for around ten the open by documenting and publicly rejecting all threats to minutes. More than 25,000 academic freedom, and by comparing notes with the US and other people have made use of the nations who have given it close scrutiny. We cannot allow foreign free service. According to the governments to set boundaries to what is said and learnt. centre’s head, Jeong Yong- The poppy we wear on Remembrance Sunday is just a scrap of mun, the aim is to help them paper, says Niall Ferguson, but in history, scraps of paper matter. appreciate their lives and It was the scrap of paper Britain signed in 1839 – the Treaty of reconnect with estranged London – that precipitated the First World War. That treaty had friends and relatives before guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality, and though by 1914 hardly any- it’s too late. “We don’t have one knew its terms, it was undoubtedly a factor prompting Britain for ever – that’s why I think to intervene when Germany invaded Belgium, a factor that turned this service is so important. what might have remained a Franco-German conflict into a world We can apologise and war. Britain is going to war for “un chiffon de papier”, lamented reconcile sooner, and live the German chancellor. And today, two other long-forgotten the rest of our lives happily.” scraps of paper could do likewise. Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty proclaims that an attack against any signatory in A number of people in the US Europe or North America is “an attack against them all”. And the were surprised last week by 1979 Taiwan Relations Act says the US will respond to any threat the arrival of some 170,000 against Taiwan’s autonomy. Would such scraps of paper be Valentine’s Day texts – in invoked if, say, Moscow resorted to military aggression against November. Reactions to the Latvia, or Beijing against Taiwan. With an unpredictable president slew of messages – the result in the White House, who knows? That’s why last Sunday’s act of of server that had gone down commemoration was about “red flags, as well as red flowers”. in mid-February being It’s fine to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, says reconnected – ranged from Mark Akkerman, but let us not forget that Europe has more walls amusement to distress: in in 2019 than ever before, “this time to seal Europe off from people some cases, relationships from the rest of the world”. Some are literal walls: EU states have had ended or loved ones had spent s900m building 1,000km of border fences. Others come in died. “I was really confused,” the form of border security: in 2018, the EU said it would enlist said one recipient. “The text 10,000 operational staff by 2020 for Frontex, its Border and said, ‘Yes, I’d love to go out Coast Guard Unit, which has been allocated s11.3bn in the EU’s on Valentine’s Day.’ Now I latest multiyear budget (with a reported s2bn for biometric ID know why we never dated.” databases and an EU surveillance system). It’s clear who gains from all this: construction, arms and security companies – firms like Spain’s European Security Fencing, which provides razor wire for border fences. They’ve successfully lobbied Brussels to ensure migration is framed as a security rather than a humanitarian issue. Meanwhile, the number of refugees who die trying to get past the barriers keeps on rising: since 2015, 17,000 have perished in the Mediterranean. These walls are a stain on the European conscience. THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Naresh Jariwala* OUR CLIENTS THINK AT A SPEED VERY SIMILAR TO OUR OWN. FAST. Most successful people are quick thinkers, it’s a mindset we share. They want to achieve success not only through the money they have in the bank, but by their enthusiasm for living and working on their terms. Amen to that. If you like this approach, maybe we should talk. Search: Redefining Success Call: +44 (0) 207 597 3540 Minimum eligibility criteria and terms and conditions apply. Investec Private Banking is a part of Investec Bank plc (registered no. 489604). Registered address: 30 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7QP. Investec Bank plc is authorised by Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Investec Bank plc is a member of the London Stock Excha

Naresh Jariwala*

Best articles: Europe NEWS 15 Russia’s “great firewall”: a new blow to online freedom President Putin has moved a step closer command. That was never the case in to cutting Russia off from the rest of Russia, whose roughly 3,000 service the world, said Jan Lindenau in The providers are enmeshed in global Moscow Times. A controversial bill networks. To create a true Russian known as the “sovereign internet” law firewall would require cash and know- came into force last week. Designed to how far beyond the country’s capabil- tighten state control, it mandates the ities. No one knows what would creation of a new parallel version of happen if Russia really did manage to the internet referred to as “RuNet” disconnect its internet from the world, – supposedly allowing Russia to said Vyacheslav Polovinko in Novaya disconnect itself from international Gazeta (Moscow). In practice, disrup- cyberspace in case of emergency, such tions are more likely to be partial, as an attack by foreign hackers. It also occurring mostly during mass protests. requires Russian service providers to But RuNet will be a nuisance for all: route all online traffic through govern- Protesting against the controversial law in Moscow the new filters will slow traffic; and ment servers, and to use a technology providers’ fees could soar to pay for it. called “deep packet inspection” (or DPI), which allows From a state of “relative” freedom, the internet will become a centralised filtering of internet data. The Kremlin claims the “battlefield” between regime interests and users’ needs. new law will improve security, but many fear its real purpose is to enable surveillance over ordinary Russians – particularly In the long run, it’s the Russian economy that will suffer, said regime critics, who use the internet to coordinate opposition. Mathias Brüggmann in Handelsblatt (Dusseldorf). E-commerce The state telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor already blocks is the country’s only truly innovative business, and many websites deemed subversive – including those devoted toNaresh Jariwala*Russian firms are as “state-of-the-art” as those in China and the pornography, terrorism and opposition protests – but savvy West. To grow, they need the internet to be “as free as the air users can use online tools (such as virtual private networks, or they breathe”. Instead, they’re being forced to “fuse” together VPNs) to bypass its restrictions. RuNet will make that harder, with the state to give the Kremlin greater control. By “cutting giving the regime greater power to stifle critical content. his country’s path to the future”, Putin is ensuring that the economy remains dependent on coal, oil, gas and timber. Even Russia hopes to copy China’s “great firewall”, the “autocratic worse, the new restrictions will provoke another wave of gold standard for state control of cyberspace”, said Candace emigration by young, well-educated, creative Russians – the Rondeaux on World Politics Review (New York). But China’s entrepreneurial class on which the country now depends. internet was centralised from the start, giving its regime total RuNet’s main effect will be to keep Russia mired in the past. CYPRUS For years, people have been complaining about Cyprus’s “golden passport” scheme, says Michalis Hadjistylianou. Launched in 2013, it offers citizenship to anyone investing s2m in Cypriot property, Golden giving them full EU working and living rights – and so far, 4,000 members of the global mega-rich passports for have taken advantage of this back door into Europe. Earlier this year, President Nicos Anastasiades a corrupt elite reacted angrily to claims Cyprus was abusing the practice by handing out passports to corrupt individuals. Far from being a money-laundering paradise, he thundered, Cyprus has the “most Philenews stringent” vetting criteria in the EU. How hollow that claim sounds now. After Reuters revealed the (Nicosia) identities of dubious recipients, the government has had to take back passports from 26 individuals, including Cambodians suspected of corruption and a Malaysian wanted for fraud. Few took Anastasiades’s protestations seriously, given that his family’s law firm facilitates passport sales. Now, alas, suspicions that Cyprus is a place of “corruption and intrigue” have been amply confirmed. FRANCE How is it that the French, usually so proud of their heritage, care so little about their language, asks Jean-Marie Rouart. They’re passionate about national sports teams; architectural treasures all over We must resist France are classified as historic monuments; nature reserves are created to protect the environment. the English Yet when it comes to their mother tongue, they fail to notice the “cancer” eating away at it. Alarms invasion about the invasion of “franglais” (a mix of French and English) were first sounded in the 1970s – but despite the efforts of bodies such as the Académie française, the “infestation” has only got worse. Le Figaro Along with established borrowings like “le weekend” and “le parking”, we now endure barbarisms (Paris) such as “le hardware”, “le self-made man” and “le Top 5”. For centuries, French was the diplomatic language “par excellence”; now only French Canadians are resisting the onslaught, passing laws in Quebec to demand the use of French in the public sphere. If we in France fail to act, “we’ll wake up one day with a bitter sense of what we’ve lost without having even been aware of losing it”. HUNGARY The EU is turning a blind eye to a giant “scam” in eastern Europe, says The New York Times. Hungary’s nationalist PM, Viktor Orbán, was the first to spot the opportunity: his government sold The money huge tracts of state-owned land to oligarchs and political allies, ensuring their support by enabling farmers of them to claim vast sums in EU agricultural subsidies each year. It’s “galling” that Orbán blames the Eastern Europe EU for “every imagined indignity” while “milking billions” to prop up his illiberal rule. Across the region, these subsidies have become “a lavish slush fund for political insiders”. Companies owned by The New York Times the Czech PM Andrej Babiš pocketed $42m from farm subsidies last year; in Bulgaria, just 100 “land barons” picked up 75% of the country’s agricultural subsidies in 2016; in Slovakia, an “agricultural Mafia” has pushed small farmers off their land. What really grates is that EU bureaucrats know all about these practices, but won’t act. They believe interfering with subsidies provided under the Common Agricultural Policy would be seen as infringing on national sovereignty. Unfortunately, this approach has failed to stop the corrupt and powerful enriching themselves with public money. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

16 NEWS Best articles: International Is Mexico too weak to tackle the drug cartels? Even in the context of “Mexico’s only become more brutal. The first six habitually grim crime news”, the months of 2019 were the “most violent slaughter of three young mothers and half-year in Mexico’s recent history”, six children last week near the US with at least 14,000 killings. You can border was “shocking”, said León see why AMLO is trying a softer Krauze on Slate. The victims – approach, said Nicola Morfini on Al members of a Mormon sect living Jazeera. It was, after all, the “war on in Mexico who had dual US and drugs” launched in 2006 by the then Mexican citizenship – were ambushed president, Felipe Calderón, that first by gunmen on a remote dirt road in prompted violence levels to skyrocket Sonora state. Five other children were in Mexico. The sad fact is that, at this wounded. Prosecutors have blamed the point, the Mexican state is too weak to massacre on a turf war between drug either wage war with the cartels or to cartels over smuggling routes, though make peace with them. Its only hope it’s unclear whether or not the victims is to strengthen its public institutions were deliberately targeted. The killings The family of some of the victims visit the ambush site – police, justice and prison systems – are a further reminder that Mexico is “on a fast track towards which are weak, dysfunctional and corrupt. Only then will it becoming a failed state”, said Bret Stephens in The New York be strong enough to take on the drug lords. Times. Only last month, Mexican security forces in the city of Culiacán were forced to release the drug lord Ovidio Guzmán Donald Trump offered last week to send US troops into López, son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after finding Mexico to “help in cleaning out these monsters”. AMLO themselves surrounded and outgunned by cartel forces. sensibly declined the offer. Trump could contribute more Naresh Jariwala* usefully by tackling drug use in the US, and reforming its gun So much for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s plan laws, said Elvia Díaz in USA Today. An estimated 80% of the to tackle organised crime with “hugs, not bullets”, said Patrick weapons used by criminals in Mexico come from the US. “Yes, Corcoran on InSightCrime.org. AMLO, as he is known, won Mexico needs help. But forget about sending US troops. Just office last year on a promise to de-escalate the drug war and say no to drugs and to making accessible AR-15s and AK-47s address the social causes of crime. In response, the gangs have to anyone who wants them.” INDIA The Delhi smog has become an annual ritual, says Dinesh C. Sharma. Every year about this time, a public health emergency is declared as the nation’s capital is wreathed in toxic fumes. Schools are Stop playing shut, sporting events cancelled, and doctors’ surgeries fill with patients with coughs and burning politics and eyes. The politicians, meanwhile, “bicker”. The central government in Delhi blames the states of curb the smog Punjab and Haryana for not curbing the stubble burning that causes the spike in pollution. State leaders in turn blame Delhi for not curbing vehicle emissions. This goes on for a few weeks, then Outlook everyone returns to business as usual. We can’t keep doing this. The problem is getting deadlier (New Delhi) every season: studies suggest it causes tens of thousands of deaths. It’s past time that all relevant parties stopped playing politics and solved the issue. The chief problem is that burning stubble is the NORTH KOREA cheapest option for farmers who are in a hurry to sow a new winter crop. They need to be incenti- vised to remove it in other ways so that it can be used for compost, or renewable energy. Officials Pulling the old must come up with a “blueprint for action”; then a single agency should implement it “ruthlessly”. gods off their The Kim dynasty enjoys godlike status in North Korea, says Lee Je-hun. State propaganda hails the pedestals Great Leader Kim Il Sung – the hermit kingdom’s first dictator – and his son Dear Leader Kim Jong Il as the embodiment of wisdom. So it’s big news that the Kim now in charge, Kim Jong Un, has The Hankyoreh dared to hint that his forefathers made mistakes. He recently ordered officials to raze what he called (Seoul) the “unpleasant-looking” buildings at the Mount Kumgang resort. The complex – a few miles inside North Korea and built largely by South Korea – opened in 1998 with the goal of luring tourists from AUSTRALIA the South. It has largely sat empty since 2008, when a soldier shot dead a South Korean visitor. Kim said building the resort was a “very wrong, dependent policy of the predecessors” – meaning his A quokka dial father. Kim also criticised his grandfather a few months ago, when he introduced market reforms Dundee? No to the farm sector, which was taken to mean that Kim Il Sung should not be mythologised. Taken worries, mate together, these comments are reminiscent of how Deng Xiaoping nudged China’s Communist Party to accept that Mao Zedong’s policies were flawed. Like Deng, Kim Jong Un is punching holes in the The Sydney Morning Herald doctrine of infallibility. It could be a “sign of major change” in how North Korea is governed. (Sydney) “Australia has a grand history of groan-inducing tourist campaigns,” says Charles Purcell. Ever since the 1980s advert that featured Paul Hogan, star of Crocodile Dundee, telling potential visitors he’d throw “another shrimp on the barbie” for them, we’ve been reaching for ever more clichéd images to sell our country – with invariably embarrassing results. From the 2006 “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign, to the strange new ad for South Australia featuring a tearful old man (“Don’t feel sorry for Old Mate – it’s his own damn fault he didn’t visit Adelaide sooner”), we just can’t seem to get it right. Tourism Australia’s latest effort is perhaps the worst yet. Based around a feeble pun – “Come Live Our Philausophy” – it includes hackneyed images and slogans about “mateship” and the country’s “no worries attitude”. “How much more can a koala bear?” If we must sell our country in this naff way, let’s “go the whole hog”. “I want to see Dame Edna Everage skydive onto Rottnest Island, before taking a selfie with a quokka”, and Kylie Minogue warbling I Should Be So Lucky in front of the Opera House. I want pictures of kangaroos hopping along Sydney streets next to folk wearing cork hats. “You know where to reach me, Tourism Australia.” THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Naresh Jariwala*

Naresh Jariwala*

Health & Science NEWS 19 What the scientists are saying… An end to smear tests? Naresh Jariwala* Encroaching sea levels in Kivalina, Alaska now been analysed by an international A home test for signs of cervical cancer team of scientists, who have published that could ultimately replace the smear – and even to complex activities such as their findings in several papers. The test has been developed by scientists in learning an instrument. Anyone teaching, reports, in Astronomy Now, confirm that Britain. The smear test requires cells to or trying to acquire, a skill should aim the probe, travelling at 15.4 kilometres be extracted from the cervix: it’s usually to find the “Goldilocks zone” in which a second, crossed the heliopause (the conducted by a nurse at a GPs surgery, lessons are “not so hard that we are boundary where hot, lower-density solar and many women find it unpleasant and discouraged, but not too easy that we get wind runs up against the colder, higher- embarrassing. In Britain, the take-up rate bored”, said lead author Robert Wilson, density plasma of the interstellar medium) is currently 75% – its lowest level for two of the University of Arizona. at a distance of more than 11 billion miles decades. With the new test, known as an from Earth. And this crossing took less S5 test, women provide urine samples and Data from beyond the heliosphere than a day – suggesting that the heliopause vaginal swabs themselves, which they send is thinner than was previously thought. to the lab to be analysed for cell changes Voyager 2 has become only the second Both Voyager probes are expected to that could be a sign of pre-cancerous spacecraft in history – after its companion continue sending back data for another activity. In a trial involving 600 women, shuttle, Voyager 1 – to send back data few years, until their radioactive power the test was found to be almost as accurate from interstellar space. The two crafts sources run out – at which point they will as a smear test – and the participants said launched in 1977, but Voyager 2 took fall silent. Yet they’ll keep going, spinning they found it far preferable. It is likely to a more leisurely route through the solar further and further into interstellar space. be offered first to women who do not system, flying close to both Uranus and In fact, some astronomers predict that the respond to letters inviting them to a smear Neptune. As a result, it only exited the probes will “outlast Earth”. test, and in countries that don’t have heliosphere (the bubble formed by solar a cervical cancer screening programme, wind from the Sun that by some definitions The long rise of the seas said Dr Belinda Nedjai of Queen Mary marks the outer limit of the solar system) University of London, who led the on 5 November last year – six years after Global sea levels will continue rising for development team. But eventually, Voyager 1. Data collected by the craft has centuries, regardless of whether the “self-sampling could become the international community meets its agreed standard method for all screening tests”. climate targets. That is the conclusion of an international study – published in Why 15% failure is best Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – that used computer modelling to Scientists have identified a “sweet spot” estimate future sea level rises. According to for learning new information quickly – its findings, even if countries were to meet and it involves making sure that the task is the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement target challenging enough that you fail 15% of of limiting global heating to 2°C by 2030, the time, reports The Times. Researchers and at that point eliminated all their in the US conducted machine learning climate heating emissions (which is highly experiments in which computers were implausible), sea levels would still rise presented with a series of tasks. By varying around 20cm by the year 2300. “Sea the difficulty of the challenges, they created level has a very long memory, so even different ratios of right to wrong answers – if we start cooling temperatures, the seas and found that the computers learned the will continue to rise,” Prof Peter Clark fastest when they got 15% (or one in of Oregon State University told The seven) of the answers wrong. The team Guardian. “It’s a bit like trying to turn the think the findings apply to human learning Titanic round, rather than a speedboat.” Ancient ape had human traits The end of the sickie? A new species of ape that lived 12 million years ago has been discovered by scientists in Germany British workers took just over 140 million – and intriguingly, though it was a tree-dweller, it days off for sickness last year, says The appears to have been capable of walking on two Daily Telegraph – ten million more than legs. Danuvius guggenmosi lived in what is now in 2017. The spike has been attributed to Bavaria and stood just over a metre tall. With a range of factors, including a hot elongated arms and opposable big toes, it shares summer combined with the World Cup, some features with chimps and gorillas, but it also and a bad winter owing to February’s had straight legs and an S-shaped spine – human- “Beast from the East” blizzards. It may like traits that suggest it combined tree-swinging also have been linked to a fall in with upright walking. “It was astonishing for us unemployment – making workers more to realise during the process of research how cavalier about taking time off. However, similar certain bones were to humans, as opposed looking at the big picture, last year’s rise to great apes,” said Prof Madelaine Böhme of the was only a blip: the average number of University of Tübingen. sick days per employee increased Writing in Nature, Böhme and her colleagues Danuvius guggenmosi illustrated marginally from 4.1 days in 2017 to 4.4 in 2018. The long-term trend is sharply © VELIZAR SIMEONOVSKI controversially propose that Danuvius guggenmosi was a common ancestor of both in the other direction: it has dropped Homo sapiens and great apes, providing the “missing link” between the two from 7.2 days off per worker in the mid- evolutionary lines. The theory, if correct, would push back the evolution of 1990s. Workers have either become less bipedalism by some six million years, and shift its origin from Africa – where the first prone to illness, or more stoic. Some human species are thought to have emerged – to Europe. attribute the trend to a culture of “presenteeism” – when workers struggle into the office even when sick. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

20 NEWS Talking points The fall of the Berlin Wall: a legacy of division? It was an official blunder that triggered marking the end of the Cold War and the the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 years ago triumph of Western liberalism, said The last week. In the summer of 1989, East Times. But today, the world faces a new Germans had started fleeing in droves arms race, as Moscow and the US rip up across Hungary’s newly-opened border their treaties, and Russia creates tension with Austria. In an attempt to stem the by annexing territories and interfering in exodus from the near-bankrupt foreign elections. The Iron Curtain has communist state, and quell a wave of crumbled, but new walls have sprung up pro-democracy protests, the country’s across Europe. As for Germany, Soviet-backed government had decided 9 November also marks the anniversary to introduce a new visa system, to allow of Kristallnacht, in 1938, said Borzou East Germans to visit the German Federal Daragahi in The Independent. With Republic (FRG). The idea was that people far-right and populist parties resurgent, would have to queue up to lodge their Merkel last week stressed that “the values applications – and numbers would be upon which Europe was founded are not further restricted by the fact that only a One year after the Wall fell, Germany was unified self-evident”, but must “always be lived minority had passports. But the Politburo out and defended anew”. spokesman selected to announce the policy had only skim-read his papers. At an otherwise dull press conference on the evening of 9 Thirty years on, Germany is still a deeply divided country, said November 1989, he casually informed the world’s media that the Sabine Rennefanz in The Guardian. In 1990, East Germans voted German Democratic Republic (GDR) was lifting travel restrictions for unification, but what happened was more like an annexation with the West – and when asked when this would take effect, he – of a working class, community-minded society by a prosperous, Naresh Jariwala* looked down at his notes and replied, mistakenly, “immediately”. dynamic middle class one (see page 54). In the West, life carried on much as normal, but in the East, it Within hours, thousands of people had changed dramatically, “from the price gathered at the Berlin Wall, demanding “Merkel stressed that the values upon of rent to the way health insurance was to be let through, said Jonathan Mayo which Europe was founded must be organised”. The East’s state-owned in the Daily Mail. At the various companies were rapidly privatised – with checkpoints, border guards had no idea lived out and defended anew” 80% sold to Western investors – in a how to respond. “Let us go, let us go,” controversial process overseen by the cried the people massing on the eastern side of Checkpoint Treuhand agency. More than two million jobs were lost in the Charlie. “Come! Come!” replied their counterparts in the West. former GDR – where unemployment had not existed – and At 11.30pm, with no clear advice coming from the GDR millions of people migrated to the West in search of work. By government, and the crowds growing ever larger, an officer issued 1994, only 18% of East Germans were still working in the same the order: “Let them through”. American guards watched as a place as they had been in 1991. Yet anyone who complained stream of East Germans approached the white line, then paused about the unification process was “dismissed as Jammerossi, the to take a breath before stepping over it. By 2am, thousands of whining East German”. There was a sense they should be East Germans – easily distinguished in their drab clothes – were grateful, not angry. Decades on, polling suggests East Germans wandering the city’s main shopping streets in a daze, entranced by are far happier now than they were before 1989, but on various the array of goods on display. In the next three days, an estimated economic measures, they’re still lagging behind their counterparts two million came – for tearful family reunions, and to collect their in the West – and 57% say they feel like second-class citizens. 100 Deutschmarks in “welcome money”, eat long-denied treats such as bananas, and stock up on basic toiletries. Less than a year It’s these feelings that nationalists and far-right politicians are later, the country was unified. exploiting, in Germany as elsewhere, said Serge Schmemann in The New York Times. And yes, the utopianism of 1989 has given Angela Merkel was among the East Germans to cross the border way to a sense of foreboding. But I refuse to accept that things are on that momentous night, and last week the German Chancellor just as bad as they were, only in different ways. The people who led the commemorations of its 30th anniversary in Berlin. Yet flooded through the Wall were rising up against the tyranny of the whereas previous such occasions have been joyful, the mood this Soviet empire; from Hong Kong to Venezuela, people are still year was sombre. The events of 1989 were once heralded as showing that tyranny is never “the choice of the tyrannised”. Pick of the week’s admirer” of the Queen. “She’s Bradley. In the scene where the the breadwinner,” says the boys are caned, Loach assured Gossip actress, who stars in the new them that he’d shout “Cut!” series of The Crown. “She’s before the cane came down – Flora Gill relished some Olivia Colman (pictured) has the one on our coins and but then didn’t. “You can’t aspects of her mother Amber admitted to being a “left-wing banknotes. Prince Philip has to imitate that expression, the Rudd’s life in politics. This monarchist” – and a “staunch walk behind her. She fixed cars point at which the cane strikes week, she tweeted two in the Second World War. She the hand,” Loach explained. screengrabs of Rudd looking at insisted on driving a king who Worse, he led Bradley – then her phone during a Commons came from a country where 14 – to believe that the kestrel debate, and then putting it women weren’t allowed to he’d trained with for weeks, away. “The thing I’m going to drive [King Abdullah of Saudi and had come to love, had miss most about Mum being Arabia, in 1998]. She’s no been killed to provide a an MP,” Gill commented, “is shrinking violet.” corpse for the film’s final, being able to spy on her live in Ken Loach was ruthless in heartbreaking scene. In fact, Parliament, and then watch in his efforts to get good it was a different bird that had real time as she reads and performances from his died of natural causes. “Ken ignores my messages.” young actors in the film Kes, Loach is a genius director,” according to its star, David Bradley told the Radio Times, “but he has his way and style.” THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Talking points NEWS 21 Flooding: an “almost biblical” downpour Wit & Wisdom The residents of Bentley, that, unlike his predecessor in South Yorkshire, are David Cameron, he is ready “Habit is habit, and not to experiencing a horrible sense to match his concerned words be flung out of the window of déjà vu, said Nazia Parveen about flooding with hard cash. in The Guardian. Twelve years The Tories brandish statistics by any man, but coaxed ago, many of them lost about how, since 2015, more downstairs a step at a time.” everything when their houses than 195,000 homes are better in the Doncaster suburb were protected by more than 500 new Mark Twain, quoted submerged in floodwater. Last flood schemes. “But Labour in Forbes Friday it happened again, as counters that national spending “almost biblical” downpours on on flood defences was £808m in “Diplomacy is to do and saturated ground led the River the last fiscal year, a reduction say the nastiest things in Don to break its banks. But they of nearly 10% since 2015.” were only some of the victims of the nicest way.” flooding that left “a trail of Investment in flood defences is Author Isaac Goldberg, devastation across swathes of undoubtedly needed, said Liz the Midlands and northern Rescuing a resident in Bentley Sharp on The Conversation, but quoted in The Times England”. Derbyshire and other money needs to be directed to “The further a society areas registered more rainfall in 24 hours than more than just physical structures – flood walls, drifts from the truth, they normally get in the whole of November. barriers, overflow flood channels and the like – the more it will hate As more than 100 flood warnings were issued which often end up protecting some areas at the those that speak it.” across the region, some 1,200 properties were expense of others. People in Doncaster, for George Orwell, quoted Naresh Jariwala* evacuated, and a woman was swept to her death instance, have rightly pointed out that the new on CapX as she tried to escape rising waters. On Tuesday, defences upstream in Sheffield had the effect of “Every joke calls for a Boris Johnson chaired a meeting of the channelling more water their way. It’s essential public of its own, and Government’s emergency committee to discuss that we also invest in strategies that slow the laughing at the same jokes its response. flow of water, to the benefit of everyone is evidence of far-reaching downstream. This needs to be done both in psychical conformity.” The PM had better handle this issue right, said urban areas – by providing more areas where Sigmund Freud, quoted Paul Waugh on The Huffington Post. For with water can soak away or be stored – and in the in the London Review five million people in the UK living in areas uplands, where peat bogs have traditionally prone to flooding, many in key marginal seats in played an important role in holding water back. of Books the North, there’s a lot riding on it. The crisis is With severe flooding set to become more “At first we want life to be “another reminder that holding a December common as a result of climate change, the reality election really is a risky undertaking”. Sympathy is that “the Government’s current approach romantic; later, to be visits are not enough; Johnson needs to show simply isn’t good enough”. bearable; finally, to be “Self-partnering”: the joy of going solo understandable.” Poet Louise Bogan, quoted Once upon a time we were brought damaging – and wrong. The data up on the fairy tale that true love is shows that while married men do in The New Yorker the only path to happiness. But live longer than unmarried men, “Curiosity is the one thing these days, “single-positive” people the opposite is true for women: are rejecting such old-fashioned they actually live longer (and more invincible in Nature.” notions, said Lizzie Cernik in The healthily) out of wedlock. With Explorer and writer Freya Guardian. Among them is the marriage rates for heterosexual Stark, quoted in National actress Emma Watson, who told couples now in long-term decline, British Vogue last week that as she it’s not the word “single” that Geographic Traveler contemplated going into her 30s needs changing, but our attitudes. “One need not be a without either a husband or a chamber to be haunted. One baby, a “bloody influx of sublim- Never before has the cause of need not be a house. The inal messaging” had left her singledom had such a “glamorous brain has corridors “stressed and anxious”. The good spokeswoman”, said Zoe Strimpel surpassing material place.” news, she said, is that she has since in The Sunday Telegraph. If it Poet Emily Dickinson, learnt to embrace her unattached looks like Emma Watson, “who quoted on AL.com status. Now she doesn’t even Watson: rebranding singledom wouldn’t want to self-partner”? “I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t consider herself to be single. “I call it being But that only makes it all the more remarkable afford. Then I want to move self-partnered,” she explained. that she should feel anxious about being unmarried and childless, said Emily Bootle in the in with them.” We may snigger at Watson’s rebranding of New Statesman. Watson is a Hollywood actress Actress and comedian singledom, but she’s right to kick back against with a net worth of £52m. She was educated at Phyllis Diller, quoted the widespread assumption that unmarried Oxford and Brown, has a successful modelling women are unhappy, said Caroline Criado Perez career, and is known for her work on global on Parade.com in The Sunday Times. My own formative years women’s rights. She’s also only 29. If even she coincided with the media’s obsession with has worried about being single, it speaks Statistics of the week Jennifer Aniston – another “outrageously volumes about the pressures confronting successful” actress, who was labelled a loser ordinary women. There’s little chance of the Among the over-60s, 379 (“Sad Jen”) because she couldn’t catch a man. term “self-partnered” catching on, but it shows people were treated for Such pro-marriage propaganda is overwhelming, how hard it is for young women “just to be”. cocaine-related disorders in English hospitals last year, up from 45 a decade ago. The Times More than 200 new power stations are planned across Africa. Most will burn coal. The Guardian 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

22 NEWS Sport Football: is this Liverpool’s season? “Sometimes, a team get into such a good place the jigsaw”, said Chris Bascombe in The Daily that it is almost as if they forget how to lose,” said Telegraph: Fabinho, their world-class Brazilian Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. “That is where midfielder. He may have joined in 2018, but it is Liverpool are.” They didn’t actually outplay this season that he has truly come into his own: he Manchester City in Sunday’s 3-1 victory. But has mastered “the art of receiving the right pass, whenever they got a chance, they took it. “When moving it purposefully and being in position to they got a sniff, they took it too.” The win sent repel any threat”. With Fabinho, Liverpool them eight points clear at the top of the table, nine “possess a team with no weakness in any sector”. ahead of City. Only one team in Premier League history – Manchester United in 1993 – has ever It’s not hard to figure out City’s weakness, said had a bigger advantage at this stage of a Premier Matt Dickinson in The Times. Ever since Pep League campaign. Titles may not be won in Guardiola became manager in 2016, there have November, “but this is Liverpool’s to lose now”. been questions about his side’s defending. And on Sunday, when he was forced by injuries to field This Liverpool side is “jam-packed with quality”, his reserve goalkeeper, “a third or fourth-choice said James Pearce on The Athletic. But there are no central defensive partnership” and an inexper- “big egos or cliques” in it – they “play for each ienced left-back, the defence looked very wobbly other”. And Jürgen Klopp drills his players with indeed. It was yet another reminder that Guardiola “intense precision”, said Rory Smith in The New Fabinho: “world class” should have signed a new central defender when York Times. The club even employs a dedicated coach for throw- Vincent Kompany left the club in the summer. But the manager ins. “Everything is planned”: however spontaneous the front three has shown “a kind of disdain” for defending, said Barney Ronay of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino may in The Guardian. It just doesn’t “fire his imagination”. That appear, they are actually running “in set patterns, in failure means City now have 25 points from their first 12 league predetermined directions”. The side is always ready to “pounceNaresh Jariwala*games – the lowest total for a Guardiola side at this stage in a on the counterattack”, using their brilliant full-backs, Trent campaign. Closing the gap with Liverpool – currently “the best Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, to open up space. And football team in the world” – and winning a third successive title over the past year, the Reds have finally found “the last piece of would surely be the greatest achievement of his career. Rugby union: the Saracens scandal When England made it to the final of the Rugby Sarries went, but what’s particularly controversial World Cup earlier this month, it was Saracens who are the joint investments that Nigel Wray, the club’s “got them there”, said Owen Slot in The Times. Six owner, has with some of his star players – for of the men who started that day – among them instance, he co-owns a property company called Maro Itoje, Billy Vunipola, Mako Vunipola and the Vunprop with the Vunipola brothers. This penalty is captain, Owen Farrell – play for the north London welcome: it’s good to see a sport “robustly applying side. But now the club, who are currently champions its rules, regardless of a club’s power and pedigree”. of both England and Europe, are facing a relegation battle. Last week, they were deducted 35 points Spare me the sermonising, said Stephen Jones in The (pending an appeal) and ordered to pay a £5.3m fine Sunday Times. Sarries haven’t overspent their way for breaching the Premiership’s salary cap over the to success: they have done so well because they have last three seasons. The salary cap was introduced 20 “the best academy system”, the best coaches. The years ago to prevent wages becoming unaffordable, punishment is far too harsh: as the Premiership said David Conn in The Guardian. It was also meant admitted, “no deliberate deception” took place. But to “keep the league competitive between the richer Billy Vunipola: in property by appealing, the club is only making matters worse, and less well off”. To that effect, the combined salaries that clubs said Brian Moore in The Daily Telegraph. That decision has pay their players must not exceed £7m a year, excluding their two infuriated rival sides, who are already outraged by the revelations. “marquee” players. It’s not clear just how far beyond that the Saracens must accept their punishment and “move on”. The Lionesses go backwards Sporting headlines The good news was 77,768 problem not helped by persistent Cricket England beat New people turned up to watch “tinkering” by manager Phil Zealand in a super over England play Germany at Neville. They may have gone to win the fifth Twenty20 Wembley, said Rebecca Myers on to beat the Czech Republic by nine runs, and won the in The Sunday Times – “the 3-2 on Tuesday, but it was still series 3-2. biggest home crowd for an a “stuttering” performance Tennis France beat Australia England women’s game in against “relative minnows”. 3-2 to win the Fed Cup for history”. The bad news is that The enormous turnout for the the first time since 2003. the Lionesses lost 2-1, making it Germany match was proof that Football Leicester beat their fifth defeat in seven “the dizzying momentum of Arsenal 2-0. Manchester matches. This team have women’s football is showing no United beat Brighton 3-1. certainly “taken a step Parris: missed a penalty sign of abating”, said Sean Ingle Cardiff manager Neil Warnock left the club by backwards” since their World Cup semi-final in in The Observer. Clearly, many of the millions of mutual consent. July, said Molly McElwee in The Daily Telegraph. people who watched the World Cup have now Rugby union Bristol beat They have developed some bad habits, which become “paid converts”. Outside international Exeter 20-17 to go top of the were in evidence last Saturday: yet again, there football, however, it’s another story, said Oliver Premiership. Worcester beat was a missed penalty by Nikita Parris, a “slow, Holt in The Mail on Sunday. Just 331 people Harlequins 19-14. Bath beat nervy start”, a goal conceded from a cross. The turned up to watch Everton play Brighton last Northampton 22-13. defence is particularly troubling: they have kept month. If women’s football is truly to take off, just one clean sheet in their last eight games, a club match attendance needs “to start rising”. THE WEEK 16 November 2019

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Naresh Jariwala*

LETTERS 25 Pick of the week’s correspondence To your good health Exchange of the week Viewer discretion To The Daily Telegraph Mocking Muslims To The Daily Telegraph I read with interest that I see that Till Death Us Do average consumption is now To The Spectator Part is to be omitted from the 9.7 litres of pure alcohol a Rod Liddle’s joke that the election might be held on a date new Britbox streaming service. year, equivalent to 1.5 glasses when Muslims cannot vote, thereby reducing support for Reemah Sakaan, who is in of wine per day, which is the Labour, has apparently led to outrage. There has been no charge of launching the new same as it was in 1980, and similar outrage over your front cover, which satirises the service, has been reported as just over the recently revised Christian nativity by portraying Boris Johnson, Jeremy saying that “the great thing limit of 14 units per week. Corbyn and Jo Swinson visiting the stable in Bethlehem. about on-demand is that you’re not forcing anyone This is also approximately It should be a principle of free speech in any free society to watch anything”. the intake associated with that all religions are equally subject to satire, criticism and improved mortality when even gentle mockery; there should be no special protection I am not trying to defend compared to non-drinkers. for one set of beliefs over another. In allowing satire about these programmes, but why Why is it now considered a two mainstream religions in the same issue, you have can we not decide ourselves problem? The issue lies with shown admirable balance. whether to watch them or not? the small numbers who Peter Richardson, Amersham, Buckinghamshire Charles Bentley, Bristol consume far in excess of safe levels, not the increasingly To The Spectator Thoughtless Rees-Mogg vilified boomer generation. I like to think I read broadly across the political spectrum; Dr John Giles, Robertsbridge, Rod Liddle clearly likes stirring things up. But it’s not funny To The Guardian East Sussex to laugh at minority ethnic groups on the basis of their Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks it religion. Quality comedic writing and sketches direct mockery would be “common sense” Let managers manage? at those who have power. But when mockery is directed at to have tried to leave Grenfell those who have less power or are marginalised, it becomes Tower rather than follow the To The Times discrimination and bullying. I am Jewish and know only too fire brigade advice to “stay In his letter, Dr Tim Howard well how some people who are not part of the community like put”. The “stay put” advice asserts that it is time to remove to mock from the outside, and how this “humour” directed at was based on the assumption the NHS from politicians’ a minority group can be interpreted as condoning racism. that maintenance and materials control and allow it to be run Victoria Hart, Sidcup, Kent were of the highest standard, by “health professionals and Naresh Jariwala* regular inspections happened managers who know what they talented squad who prepared Recent Home Office figures and regulations were followed. are doing”. Perhaps. When I so wholeheartedly in order to show the scale of the problem, was a medical student in the represent their country in a with recorded crime on the There were clearly major 1960s and “managerialism” fiercely intense competition. rise whilst the number of failings at Grenfell, which the first reared its head, I saw far prosecutions is falling, and the second phase of the inquiry too many senior doctors Their arrival time should proportion of solved recorded will identify, but there is a sniffily say that such activity have been publicised so that crimes has dropped. To strong suspicion that the drive was beneath them, and refuse we could have given them a provide just one terrifying to cut costs on cladding and/or to get involved. The inevitable heroes’ welcome. example, in 2015, 14% of drive up profits played its part. result was that they Chris Dunne, London rapes recorded by police in surrendered control to England and Wales led to a Surely it is common sense administrators – who are Justice cut to the bone criminal charge – by 2018, it for politicians to wait, until the not really managers, because was less than 2%. Large second part of the inquiry has the politicians won’t let To The Independent reductions apply to other been completed, to see if them manage. I recently resigned as a categories of offences too, such policies on austerity and cost- Dr Iain McCoubrey, Letcombe magistrate after 11 years of as violence against the person cutting contributed to this Regis, Oxfordshire voluntary public service. I have and robbery. disaster. Grenfell families become disillusioned with the deserve so much better than A heroes’ welcome? damage being done to our Unfortunately, the these thoughtless comments criminal justice system (CJS) by administration of justice has – a lot more consideration To The Guardian the policy of austerity since always been a low priority for and practical help, perhaps? So all the fine talk about 2010. I have resigned because governments of all shades. Stuart Taylor, Wantage, “inspiring the next generation” the system is in crisis and has Patently it is an insignificant Oxfordshire and “creating sporting become unfit for purpose. priority compared to the latest legacies” turns to ashes as popular initiative and the © ROBERT THOMPSON/THE OLDIE the England rugby team are We have seen dramatic demands of austerity, and one pictured pushing their baggage reductions in recent years in suspects that governments take 16 November 2019 THE WEEK through a deserted airport police numbers, in legal aid the view that it doesn’t garner terminal. This team, one of available in magistrates court many votes. But when the CJS the youngest ever to play in proceedings, in legal advisers, collapses to its current low ebb, a rugby World Cup, beat in probation services (along one hopes that it will have an Argentina, Australia and New with a disastrous partial impact on the opinions and Zealand – the latter two in privatisation), and in the prison concerns of our fellow citizens. successive weeks. service. We should all be aware It is an uncivilised society that that these cutbacks have had a fails to ensure that it has a As the retired head of seriously damaging impact on properly functioning CJS that a sports college, I know those affected by the CJS. provides fair and equal we won’t inspire the next treatment for all. generation if we perpetuate the Now that a general election Gareth Hopkins, idea that the only people of is pending, our esteemed Buckinghamshire any value are the ones who lift politicians are making all the trophy and, in England’s sorts of promises to address case, ignore the humble and the problems they have caused. ● Letters have been edited

Naresh Jariwala*

Review ofArRevTieSws: Books 27 Book of the week Hadley in The Guardian: he was the son of a Dordogne pastor. Yet, thanks The Man in the Red Coat to his looks, charm and “indefatigable work ethic”, he scaled the heights of by Julian Barnes French society, becoming “visible Jonathan Cape 280pp £18.99 everywhere”. Barnes skilfully interweaves Pozzi’s life with a “broader The Week Bookshop £16.99 portrait of his milieu”, said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph. “Julian Barnes has always been at There are prominent roles for key belle his best as an essayist, a biographical époque figures, including the dandy speculator” – even better than he is Comte de Montesquiou, the inspiration at fiction, said David Sexton in the for Baron de Charlus in In Search of London Evening Standard. His latest Lost Time, who accompanied Pozzi on book – a study of the pioneering French one of his trips to London in 1885: they gynaecologist Samuel-Jean Pozzi (1846- shopped at Liberty’s and dined with 1918) – “plays to his strengths”. Barnes Henry James. Pozzi “pops up” as a first came across Pozzi when he saw John Singer Sargent’s passionate defender of Alfred Dreyfus (another patient) and as a “extraordinary” portrait, Dr Pozzi at Home, at the National military doctor in the First World War. Packed with digressions Portrait Gallery in 2015. Struck by his delicate hands, and the on everything from duelling to the “fate of Bernhardt’s amputated “prominent groin-level tassel of his extravagant coat”, Barnes leg”, this is a “deliciously intelligent” book. read up on the “strikingly handsome” surgeon. He discovered Pozzi’s end was “magnificently fitting”, said Sue Prideaux in that Pozzi, though married, was a notorious ladies’ man (he slept The Times. In 1918, he was shot by a patient whose impotence with a great many of his patients, including the actress Sarah he had failed to cure. (Rumour had it that he had engineered the Bernhardt), a prominent socialite (he was friends with Marcel condition in order to sleep with the man’s wife.) The Man in the Proust and Victor Hugo, among others), and a “cosmopolitan” Red Coat provides “sparkling” entertainment, but it has a serious who frequently visited Britain. Such a story ticks all of this subtext. Pozzi was a medical pioneer as well as a decadent dandy. author’s “boxes” – fin-de-siècle France, sex, Anglo-French He achieved what he did, Barnes suggests, because he was open- relations – and Barnes has turned it into “one of his best books”. minded and travelled widely: he thought that no borders should be erected to “hinder the flow of knowledge and ideas”. Pozzi’s background was “irremediably bourgeois”, said Tessa Naresh Jariwala* Chastise Novel of the week by Max Hastings Grandmothers William Collins 464pp £25 by Salley Vickers The Week Bookshop £21.99 (incl. p&p) Curtis Brown 304pp £16.99 The story of the Dam Busters has been The Week Bookshop £14.99 told so often you’d think there was nothing new to say, said Giles Milton in The role of grandmothers in children’s lives The Sunday Times. This “virtuoso” book, is “too often taken for granted”, said Kate however, proves otherwise. Launched in Saunders in The Times. But in her “beautifully May 1943, Operation Chastise aimed to destroy three important dams in written” new novel, Salley Vickers sets out to the Ruhr, thereby unleashing a “deluge” of water that would “sweep away celebrate this “unique” bond. Vickers, a former munitions factories, mines and power stations”. But this presented a “huge psychoanalyst, best known for Miss Garnet’s logistical challenge”. The dams were incredibly big and sturdy, and the British Angel (2000), focuses on three women and the lacked bombs capable of destroying them. Enter an “eccentric British boffin” children in their lives: poet Nan and her named Barnes Wallis, said Gerard DeGroot in The Times. A devout Christian “adored” grandson Billy; Blanche, a lonely (and bell-ringer) who was also a “brilliant engineer”, Wallis grasped that what widow whose drinking problem means she is was needed was a device that would detonate “deep underwater”. He invented no longer allowed to see her granddaughter an “ugly brute of a bomb” that was shaped like an “oversized steel drum”, and Kitty; and childless Minna, who lives alone in was designed to bounce across the water (thus evading anti-torpedo nets) before a shepherd’s hut but has become “surrogate” spinning underwater to the “point of optimum destructive potential”. And it grandmother to a neighbour’s daughter. proved highly effective. A fleet of 19 Lancasters dropped the bombs on the night of 16 May, and successfully breached two of the dams. While this novel raises interesting questions – what it is to love a child who is both yours and The story of the Dam Busters is often presented as one of “morally not; why grandmothers are so often overlooked unambiguous triumph”, said Patrick Bishop in The Daily Telegraph. But by society – it fails to really grapple with them, Hastings stresses other, bleaker truths. An estimated 1,400 civilians were killed said Lucy Atkins in The Sunday Times. Vickers’ in the attacks; most were “Polish and Russian women slave workers”. And fictional universe is too “cosy” to “challenge or because the raids weren’t properly followed up with conventional attacks, the surprise”. I disagree, said Amber Pearson in The damage to the dams was soon repaired, meaning that the Ruhr was able to Mail on Sunday: this is “an incisive exploration recover relatively quickly. This “fine book” combines “great storytelling with of the ‘sweetly painful’ love that exists between a deep appreciation of the melancholy and waste that march in step with glory”. the generations”. To order these titles or any other book in print, visit theweek.co.uk/bookshop or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835 Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

28 ARTS Drama Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000). Until 16 January Running time: 3hrs ★★★★★ The Royal Ballet made its name runs throughout the company’s with Tchaikovsky’s great ballet, ranks”. I watched a Saturday The Sleeping Beauty – the matinee at which Fumi Kaneko original version choreographed made a “ravishing debut” as by Marius Petipa. It was Petipa’s Aurora, her “sumptuously glorious staging, said Anna elegant phrasing”, as well as her Winter in The Stage, that evident musicality, adding up to reopened Covent Garden’s a “truly special” and enchanting “knackered opera house” in performance, brilliantly 1946: it “hearkened back to partnered by Reece Clarke. Russian imperial grandeur while From Oliver Messel’s “jaw- heralding the future of classical droppingly gorgeous” costumes, dance in this country”. Dropped to the intricacy of Petipa’s from the company’s repertoire in choreography, The Sleeping 1967, it was reinstated in 2006 Beauty is a breathtaking delight, and is now “the technical and said Lyndsey Winship in The sentimental standard” by which Matthew Ball: one of the Royal Ballet’s rising stars Guardian. It’s also a ballet that the current state of the Royal showcases the whole thrillingly Ballet is judged. And on the evidence of this glittering revival, the gifted company. Remarkably, it takes fully two hours for us to be company is in the rudest of health. Playing in repertoire until mid- treated to the best dancers of all: Marcelino Sambé as the Bluebird January, there will be several different casts. But on opening night, and Francesca Hayward as his princess. The current Royal Ballet Yasmine Naghdi brought a “shimmering poetic sensibility” toNaresh Jariwala*company boasts an embarrassment of riches: long may it continue. Princess Aurora, that most demanding of ballerina roles, and a total assurance to the Rose Adagio, with its famous balances. There’s wonderful youthful energy to this excellent revival – The week’s other opening and a great confidence in both dancing and storytelling, said The Season New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich until 16 November, Zoë Anderson in The Independent. Naghdi and Matthew Ball, then Royal & Derngate, Northampton, 19-30 November her Prince, are two of the Royal Ballet’s rising stars; and they do This winning new musical from tyro writers Jim Barne and Kit justice both to the technically difficult dancing and to the “inner Buchan – a romantic comedy set in New York at Christmas – deploys a cast of two, plus a three-strong band, to great effect, drama” of the piece. But what struck me most, said Debra Craine and won me over with its “audacity” and “charm” (Observer). in The Times, was the “impressive wealth and depth of talent that Albums of the week: three new releases Michael Sudan Archives: Jonas Kaufmann: Kiwanuka: Athena Wien Kiwanuka Stones Throw Sony Classical Polydor £11.99 £7.99 £9.98 Five years ago, the British-Ugandan singer- Sudan Archives is not the most “glamorous Each autumn, the great German tenor © BILL COOPER songwriter Michael Kiwanuka was on the of monikers, summoning up images of Jonas Kaufmann releases a solo disc for the verge of giving up music, said Elizabeth fusty academia or well-organised paper- Christmas market, said Richard Fairman in Aubrey in NME. He was crippled by self- work”, said Rachel Aroesti in The Guardian. the FT. This year, Kaufmann has recorded doubt and a feeling of being “lost”, despite Combined with the fact that the woman a selection of his favourite solos from the success of his Mercury-nominated behind it – Los Angeles-based Brittney Viennese light operas such as Die debut, Home Again. But now, with this Parks – is an ethnomusicology student Fledermaus, Die lustige Witwe and Wiener triumphant, self-titled third album – and and violinist known for using experimental Blut (plus a few duets, with the soprano a sound that recalls Curtis Mayfield, Bill strings in her sound, you might well expect Rachel Willis-Sørensen). The presentation Withers and Gil Scott-Heron – there’s a Athena to be full of “esoteric highbrow is “lavish”, with fulls texts and translations, sense of an artist discovering his true self. fare”. But fear not. Parks’ compellingly and the repertoire allows Kaufmann to show “moreish” debut contains “some of the off his “darkly romantic, burnished tenor”. If Kiwanuka’s previous albums most electrifying and viscerally gorgeous He also “makes much of the words”, with established him as a “folksy symphonic music put to record this year”. a close microphone placement that adds to soul man” and set the bar high, this one the range of expression. “knocks it skyward”, said Dave Simpson This “dazzling”, sultry collection is in The Observer. It’s a “bold, expansive, “essentially an alt-R&B album, but the No tenor singing today is as versed as heartfelt, sublime album” – surely among versatility and diversity of the arrangements Kaufmann in the “vanishing art” of light the decade’s best. The sound is “timeless set it apart from virtually anything that’s opera, said Hugh Canning in The Sunday and contemporary”, with a “dreamlike, come before”, said Jem Aswad in Variety. Times. Here he is in fine form, impressing revelatory quality” that recalls both Marvin The “intricately layered vocals, mid-tempo with his musicianship and artistry, and Gaye’s What’s Going On and Primal beats and pulsating low end” anchor the finding a “Schubertian love of nature” in the Scream’s Screamadelica. The instrumental music in R&B, but the instrumental hooks hymns to Vienna’s leafy suburbs by the likes interludes and the stylistic and tempo shifts are driven primarily by her violin and/or a of Leopoldi, Benatzky and May. And Ádám work because of Kiwanuka’s “warm, string section – yet in a way that is never Fischer and the Vienna Philharmonic are sincere vocals and fantastic songwriting”. gimmicky, but “innovative and inviting”. “deluxe accompanists”. Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother) Book your tickets now by calling 020-7492 9948 or visiting TheWeekTickets.co.uk THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Naresh Jariwala*

RUSSELL NAPIE AMES ANDERSON Naresh Jariwala* ANANGFUOELNULDNACED Friday 22nd November 2019 Etc. Venues, St. Paul’s, London, EC1A 4HD TGhreowFuthtuarned oPfroWtecetaiolnth Find out how to make the most of your money in an increasingly turbulent political environment at the investment event of the year, hosted by Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek. Book your ticket now to enjoy a packed day of insight and practical advice from some of the top names in investment and personal finance, including the opportunity to network over lunch and evening drinks. REGISTER TODAY Standard delegate passes priced at £359 Visit the event website for the full list of confirmed speakers and topics. moneyweekwealthsummit.co.uk WITH THANKS TO OUR 2019 SPONSORS The MoneyWeek Wealth Summit is CPD accredited. You can register 6 CPD hours for this event.

Naresh Jariwala*

Naresh Jariwala*

Film ARTS 31 The Good Liar Naresh Jariwala*It’s hard not to be seduced by this old-fashioned drama, with dashes of Patricia Highsmith and John le Dir: Bill Condon Carré, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. In their 1hr 49mins (15) first onscreen performance together, Ian McKellen Diverting thriller and Helen Mirren play Roy and Betty, a pair of with Helen Mirren elderly singletons who meet via an online dating site. and Ian McKellen Soon he has moved in with her, much to the dismay of her grandson (Russell Tovey). And he’s right to ★★★ be suspicious, as Roy is “a dead-eyed predatory conman”, who won’t stop at murder to achieve his The Aeronauts goal. But does Betty also have a trick or two up her sleeve? As you’d expect, the “two ennobled luvvies Dir: Tom Harper valiantly stir their schtick”, said Nigel Andrews in the FT. Yet for a supposed comedy-thriller, The 1hr 41mins (PG) Good Liar is neither funny nor thrilling, despite Mirren’s “preening cat smiles” and McKellen’s “startled bloodhound” look. Bill Condon’s film is “slight”, but still thoroughly “enjoyable”, said A charming David Hughes in Empire. Seeing “two flawless performances from these much-loved veteran actors” ballooning adventure is “like watching two magnificent vintage cars in a road race, without caring much who wins”. This “exhilarating period flight of fancy”, buoyed by ★★★ a pair of marvellous performances, contains moments of wonder, black humour and heart-stopping Meeting intensity, said Ian Freer in Empire. Eddie Redmayne Gorbachev plays James Glaisher, a shy meteorologist determined to travel into the stratosphere in a hot air balloon to Dirs: Werner Herzog and prove that the weather can be predicted. Felicity André Singer Jones is Amelia Wren, the daredevil balloonist who agrees to take him. To do so, they must overcome the 1hr 30mins (PG) scepticism of their snooty peers, their own personal Reverent portrait of the demons and the freezing perils above the clouds. The film’s script takes outrageous liberties with the truth, former Soviet leader said Helen O’Hara in The Daily Telegraph. Glaisher wasn’t a “plucky outsider” when he made his ★★★ 1862 flight, but a “garlanded academic”. And he was accompanied not by a comely woman, but by a heavily bearded man. Still, the actors successfully recapture the chemistry they enjoyed in The Theory of Everything, said Ellie Walker-Arnott in Time Out. And the aerial cinematography is dazzling, which is why this “charming ballooning adventure” is worth catching on the big screen. Forget balance and objectivity. For this intimate study of the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the iconoclastic film-maker Werner Herzog “ditches the documentary rule book”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Halfway through, he stares into his subject’s eyes and frankly tells him, “I love you”. That the architect of glasnost should be a hero to German film- makers is not in itself surprising: the breakdown of the Soviet bloc under Gorbachev did, after all, lead to the reunification of Germany. Yet in their reverence, Herzog and co-director André Singer give the man an excessively “easy ride”, said Dan Jolin in Time Out. Nor does Gorbachev, now 88, give particularly illuminating answers to the questions Herzog poses. Meeting Gorbachev is admittedly “prosaic” in structure, said David Hughes in Empire – an informal chat interspersed with archive footage narrating Gorbachev’s rise from humble beginnings to leader of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, guided by Herzog’s “mellifluous voice and gently probing” questions, this is still a “riveting and moving portrait” of “arguably the greatest living politician”. A return to the big screen: James Dean makes his comeback There’s something quite unusual about the Vietnam play younger versions of themselves. And in the War pic due for release next year, says Rebecca 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One, the late Peter Alter in New York Magazine. It’s going to star James Cushing was revived by CGI to reprise his role. But Dean. Yes, you read that right. In Finding Jack, the unlike them, Dean has been dragooned – albeit with broodingly handsome 1950s Hollywood icon, who the consent of his family – into playing a role he died in a car crash in 1955 – a month before the never had any part in. And it won’t stop with Dean. Vietnam War began – has been “posthumously This trend “opens up a whole new opportunity for cast” as a Vietnam vet who befriends a Labrador. It many of our clients who are no longer with us”, isn’t a gimmick, insists the film’s co-director, Anton says the boss of CMG Worldwide, a company that Ernst: “We searched high and low for the perfect represent the heirs of celebrities. (It also controls [actor], and after months of research, we decided the brand and images of Ingrid Bergman, Jack Dean” was perfect for the role. His performance Lemmon and Burt Reynolds, to name but three.) will be built from “full body” CGI using actual But the justification for reviving Dean, sad to footage, though another actor will voice his words. say, has little to do with artistic merit, said the “This has been coming for a long time,” said actress Akanksha Singh in The Independent. It’s all Stuart Heritage in The Guardian. Both Marvel “Posthumously cast” about making money. Those of us who work in the Studios and Martin Scorsese have recently used de-ageing special arts had long breezily assumed that we need not be worried by effects to allow older actors – Robert De Niro, for example – to the threat of robots taking over jobs. Well, we don’t anymore. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

32 ARTS Art Exhibition of the week Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh Saatchi Gallery, London SW3 (020-7811 3070, saatchigallery.com). Until 3 May The reign of Tutankhamun (c.1336- the shape of three scarab beetles 1327 BC) was a short one, said and a “delicate” little coffin Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. fashioned from glass and gold. He ascended the throne aged just However, the show has more than nine, succeeding his father, the a few faults. It is horribly “kitsch” modernising Pharaoh Akhenaten, in parts, and only a fraction of the and died at about 19. He was “no 5,398 objects discovered in the tyrant, no warlord, no politician”; tomb are on display: the famous he was a boy who liked to play with death-mask, for instance, is too board games and boomerangs. frail to travel. Given that the Nevertheless, he left what may well tickets for the show, at £31.35, be the most spectacular wonders are among “the most expensive to have survived from the ancient ever sold for a British exhibition”, world. After his death, Egypt’s finest this is rather a disappointment. craftsmen were summoned to fill his tomb, which contained everything Anyone who wants to learn the the young Pharaoh would need in details of Tutankhamun’s life won’t the afterlife. Their creations, many have much luck here, said Rachel of which have been gathered for this Campbell-Johnston in The Times. “sumptuous” exhibition, are among Explanatory texts are “minimal” “the most graceful and intimate and the exhibition has been masterpieces of all time”. The Naresh Jariwala* designed to appeal “to the lowest show brings together around 150 common denominator”. Still, it artefacts from Tutankhamun’s hardly matters, given the splendour burial chambers, from statues of the exhibits themselves. There is and wall paintings to amulets and an uncanny “intimacy” to much of petrified items of food. Everywhere what we see: a tiny throne, created you look, there is something to for the child Tutankhamun, seems marvel at, from the statue unbearably “small and fragile”; portraying the king’s ka, or soul, to elsewhere, a number of walking the charms found on his body. This sticks attest to his “club foot”. For is a “dazzling” journey into “the The statue of the king’s “ka”, which guarded his burial chamber all its failings, this is an engrossing realm of the dead monarch”. event filled to bursting with treasures. It is likely to be “your last chance to see these marvels There are some extraordinary objects here, said Cal Revely-Calder in this country”. The show is touring the world, before the in The Daily Telegraph. Smaller artefacts particularly “seize the artefacts take up permanent residence in the new Grand Egyptian eye”: among the most “entrancing” are an elaborate bracelet in Museum in Cairo. Where to buy… Baby Grand (2019), 61cm x 61cm Manet’s “effortless” doodles © IMG The Week reviews an placed uncomfortably on her hips. The margins of exhibition in a private gallery They may not be the most attention- Édouard Manet’s grabbing of pictures, but there’s a letters were often Naomi Frears haunting quality to these works that decorated with will stay with you for days. Prices range watercolour doodles at Beaux Arts London from £900 to £9,500. – of curled-up cats, 48 Maddox Street, London W1 watering cans, Bold lines, ambiguous subjects and (020-7493 1155). Until 30 November. women’s ankles. hints of surrealism combine in the These designs have paintings of Cornwall-based artist been long admired Naomi Frears (b.1963). One picture for their “effortless in this exhibition presents you with spontaneity”, says a tuxedo-clad lothario leaning over Dalya Alberge in a bar towards you, his facial features The Observer: blurred to the point of total Manet himself said obscurity, the interior behind him that artists should capture what they see “at the reminiscent of David Lynch at his first go”. However, an art historian has darkest. Another gives us a spooky discovered that Manet actually created the aerial view of two figures ensconced in sketches by tracing them from designs he had some kind of ritual, their movements prepared earlier. Dr Emily Beeny of the J. Paul tracing an arc through what looks like Getty Museum compared Manet’s illustrated a toxic mist. Elsewhere, things are letters with his sketchbook drawings, and found quieter: an elegant female figure that most of the former had been traced. “He sketched against an orange background would take semi-transparent letter paper, lay it gazes down at a crease in her shirt to down over a sketchbook page, trace that design examine an imperfection invisible to with a wash of grey watercolour and then us; another finds herself isolated in a basically colour it in with watercolour,” said grey-yellow wilderness, her arms Beeny. These “furtive efforts”, she suggests, hint at Manet’s “technical limitations... and perhaps also his reputational anxieties”. THE WEEK 16 November 2019

Naresh Jariwala*

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The List 35 Best books… Rory MacLean Television The acclaimed travel writer and author of the bestselling Stalin’s Nose Programmes chooses his five favourite travellers’ books. His latest, Pravda Ha Ha: True Travels to the End of Europe, is published by Bloomsbury at £20 Reggie in China Three-part The Way of the World by with complicity, compromise its manipulation lies at the series in which Reggie Yates Nicolas Bouvier, 1963 (Eland and artistic courage – on heart of King’s chilling explores four cities – and their £12.99). Bouvier inspired a making choices when there collection of Soviet propaganda constant technological generation of young Europeans seem to be none, on what men photographs. Lenin and Stalin advances – that define a onto the road, taking me with will do to survive. literally rubbed rivals out of rapidly evolving nation. Sun them. The Jack Kerouac of The Alexandria Quartet by group portraits, editing the 17 Nov, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Switzerland, he revelled in how Lawrence Durrell, 1957-60 facts, laying the groundwork a journey – and a traveller’s (Faber £16.99). Every history for today’s fake news. Vienna Blood A detective tale – can change our lives: that we’ve heard – or told Nomad’s Hotel by Cees “You think you are making a ourselves – involves narration Nooteboom, 2007 (Vintage struggling with a puzzling trip, but soon it is making you of one kind or another. £7.99). “To live just once is murder in 1900s Vienna enlists – or unmaking you.” Durrell’s sparkling linked a cruel prison.” Nooteboom’s the help of a young English The Master and Margarita narratives evoke four collection of glorious travel doctor, in this three-part by Mikhail Bulgakov, 1966 individuals’ contrasting stories essays is linked by an drama adapted for TV by (Vintage £7.99). The devil of wartime Alexandria. Close imaginary, ideal hotel room: Sherlock writer Steve turns up in Moscow and only the curtains, unplug the phone a sun-kissed Balinese hut with Thompson. Mon 18 Nov, the Master, a man devoted to and – if you can – read it in a a picture window overlooking BBC2 21:00 (90mins). truth, and Margarita, the single mesmerising sitting. Manhattan, cooled by a woman he loves, can resist The Commissar Vanishes breath of Galician autumn Johnson v Corbyn: The ITV him. This beguiling, long- by David King, 1997 (Tate wind. Fresh, joyful, full of Debate Julie Etchingham will banned, Stalinist-era master- £19.99). Pravda – truth – and easy adventure and wonder piece fuelled my obsession for the world. be overseeing this pre-election Naresh Jariwala* sparring match. Tue 19 Nov, Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk ITV1 20:00 (60mins). The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading Boom, Bust & Bankers Showing now Starting with the deregulation of the banks, this documentary Judy Chicago at the Baltic Centre for explains how great sums of Contemporary Art, Newcastle (baltic.art). A money have been made and retrospective of work by the influential feminist squandered in the City of American artist, known for using a variety of London. Tue 19 Nov, C4 media to explore women’s role in society, and 21:00 (60mins). their experiences. Ends 19 April. Country Music by Ken Year Three at Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate. Little Ealing Primary School pupils at Year Three Burns The veteran US org.uk). For this hugely ambitious project, the film director and artist Steve McQueen invited her West End debut as Nora in Ibsen’s documentary-maker returns every Year 3 class (children aged seven and A Doll’s House. From 10 June, The Playhouse with another in-depth series. eight) in London to sit for a class photo. Brought Theatre, London WC2 (theplayhouse In eight two-hour episodes, together, they create an extraordinary visual theatre.co.uk). he explores the history of this portrait of a future generation. Ends 3 May. American art form from the Just out in paperback 1930s to the 1990s. Fri 22 Nov, Book now BBC4 21:30 (55mins). The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife by Celebrations of the German design movement’s Zachary Leader (Vintage £20). The final volume Films centenary continue at the Barbican with of Leader’s biography of this “grumpy genius” Bauhaus 100th: A Musical Exploration. picks up the story in 1965, as Bellow courts The Hurt Locker (2008) Percussionist Daniel Brandt will be among controversy over his political views. “Meticulous those performing their musical interpretations and crisply written” (Daily Telegraph). Oscar-winning drama starring of the movement. 24 November, Barbican Jeremy Renner as a bomb Centre, London EC2 (barbican.org.uk). disposal expert in Iraq. Sun Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain is making 17 Nov, BBC2 23:00 (125mins). © TATE The Archers: what happened last week Miss Sloane (2017) Political In the build-up to Joe’s wake Eddie’s scheming continues, as he develops his hangover cure. thriller about a Washington DC Gamely, Johnny agrees to try it and, lo and behold, it appears to work. Clarrie is overcome with gun lobbyist (Jessica Chastain) gratitude for all the help being offered in the preparations for the wake. That there is standing who engages in a convoluted room only in the church pays testament to the great affection felt towards Joe. After the service, campaign to pass a gun- the myriad mourners repair to The Bull where the cider club reminisce, Jim plays a song and a control measure. Thur 21 Nov, final toast is made after a “telegram” arrives from the Queen pub in Hollerton. Russ’s protracted Film4 21:00 (160mins). divorce begins to take its toll on Lily. She eventually decides to trail Lara, only to discover her surprising youth. Lily pressures Russ to start divorce proceedings. Elsewhere, Helen’s nervous New to Netflix before her meeting with the high-profile cheesemonger Rufus Dunkley. In spite of the farm being in a state – thanks to the Beechwood residents – Dunkley’s interest doesn’t wane. Rex is out of The Crown The third series sorts due to his finances and Anisha’s wedding, whilst Oliver and Tracy agree to start anew. of Peter Morgan’s hugely successful palace-set drama covers the years 1964 to 1977. Olivia Colman takes over the role of the Queen, as she heads into her 40s. The anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings features eight of the evergreen country singer’s songs reworked as dramas. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

36 Best properties Georgian properties Argyll & Bute: Kinlochlaich House, ▲Appin. A B-listed Georgian Gothic- Naresh Jariwala* style house, dating from about 1800, set in mature gardens of more than an acre, with three independent apartments. 5 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen/dining room, 1 further recep, scullery/utility, recep hall, office, cloakroom, pantry. 2-bed Linnhe apartment, 1-bed Corrie apartment, 2-bed Creran apartment. Sweeping drive, courtyard, mature lawned gardens, garage. £495,000; Bell Ingram (01738- 621121). ▲ Somerset: Northampton Street, Bath. A Grade II Georgian town house with Wiltshire: Hatt▲ lovely gardens, located close to the city centre. The house was built in 1796 House, Old Jockey, according to the designs of the renowned architect John Pinch the elder. Master Box, Corsham. A suite, 3 further beds, kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps, study, ground-floor 1-bed Grade II Georgian flat, garden, terrace. £1.35m; Fine & Country (01225-320032). country house, dating from 1820, with THE WEEK 16 November 2019 stunning landscaped gardens. Master suite, 3 further suites, 3 further beds, 2 further baths, kitchen/ breakfast room, hall, 3 receps, study, utility, cloakroom, playroom, cellar, swimming pool, pool house with garden room, gym, sauna, changing room and shower; garage, outbuildings, formal gardens, woodland, 25 acres. £2.6m; Savills (020-7016 3822).

on the market 37 ▲ Somerset: The ▲ ▲ Suffolk: Rochford House, Clare. A Grade II Old Rectory, detached house with a walled garden with a south- Naresh Jariwala* ▲Elworthy. A restored easterly aspect. It is believed to date back to 1790, Georgian rectory on and has an elegant Georgian staircase and a wide the edge of the▲ pillastered archway in the entrance hall. 4 beds, Brendon Hills and family bath, kitchen, 2 receps, utility, WC. £435,000; Exmoor. Master Carter Jonas (01787-882881). suite, guest suite, 4 further beds, family Somerset: Charlynch House, Bridgwater. A bath, shower, attic charming Georgian property, with fine period features, storage, kitchen/ in the Quantock Hills, England’s first designated Area breakfast room, recep of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Master suite, guest hall, 4 further receps, suite, 3 further beds, 2 further baths, kitchen/breakfast library, conservatory, room, 2 receps, study, hall, cloakroom, self-contained laundry, utility, boot 2-bed annex, shed, mature gardens, summer house. room, office, pantry, £750,000; Stags (01823-256625). outbuildings, swimming pool, Perthshire: landscaped gardens, 14 Marshall Place, tennis court, around Perth. This main- 4.4 acres. £1.35m; door flat forms part Jackson-Stops of a four-storey (01823-325144). Georgian town house overlooking Devon: Castle the South Inch. House, Totnes. Designed by the A unique Grade II eminent classicist Georgian town Robert Reid, house built in the Marshall Place was Gothic style, set the starting point over three floors for an ambitious with uninterrupted “New Town” in views to Totnes Perth. 3 beds, Castle. Master bed, shower, kitchen, 3 further beds, recep hall, 1 further family bath, recep, utility, kitchen, breakfast communal gardens. room, sitting room, £275,000; Strutt & pantry, utility, Parker (01738- cloakroom with 567892). shower, study, store, enclosed rear ▲ London: Mile End Road, Stepney, E1. Built in 1717, this beautifully garden; garage designed Georgian house, with a bespoke and eclectic interior, is a short available by walk from Stepney Green station. Master bed, 2 further beds, family bath, separate negotiation. kitchen/dining room, double recep, study, 1 further recep, cloakroom, £575,000; studio, private courtyard garden, parking. £2m; Foxtons (020-7033 1414). Marchand Petit (01803-847979). 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

38 Home & Interiors L O O K O U T F O R O U R B L AC K F R I DAY O F F E R S 10% OFF Naresh Jariwala*Handmade by the finest craftsmen, beds from The Cornish Bed Co. make a statement in any bedroom. www.cornishbeds.co.uk THE WEEK 16 November 2019 To advertise here please email classifi[email protected] or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

LEISURE 39 Food & Drink What the experts recommend Marmo 31 Baldwin Street, Bristol Naresh Jariwala*The Betterment: “old-school glamour”“may find yourself in need of a sedan (0117-316 4987) chair”. About £70 per head à la carte, plus “I’m beginning to wonder whether they (where “rooms start at £515 a night”), drinks and service. breed them in tanks, these small, perfectly oozes “old-school glamour”. Atherton The Red Lion Stodmarsh Road, formed Bristolian restaurants,” says Jay and his team have turned what might Canterbury (01227-721339) Rayner in The Observer. Although far have been a “fine-dining borefest” into In a world of cheap supermarket booze, from “Identikit operations”, they something fun and interesting. Despite Netflix and Facebook, pubs are having nonetheless share certain qualities – the menu being a “cacophony of snow to “adapt to survive”, says Marina typically being “basically furnished” single pea, langoustine crudo and horseradish O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. Many rooms with short menus and “eminently velouté”, the food is surprisingly hearty: have strived to improve their food – but reasonable” prices. At Marmo (Italian for a starter of onion “flower” with chive “the trick is to hang onto intrinsic marble), there are just three choices per emulsion turns out to be a “deep-fried pubness” and acknowledge that drinkers course: “one meaty, one pescatarian and onion, splayed to resemble a sort of floral also matter. The new owners of The Red one vegetarian”. A starter of gnocco fritto octopus”; beef short rib with Montgomery Lion, in “Middle-of-Nowhere” Kent, have – pork fat-enriched pillows of bread, Cheddar is a “battering of bone marrow- embraced a spirit of “rackety eccentricity”. puffed up in a fryer – comes layered with encrusted, meaty, cheesy decadence”. During the week, it’s just a boozer, serving “folds of mortadella, the pink of a giggling Round things off with the “generously artisanal beers and spirits and home- baby’s cheek”. My main is a “tangled heap portioned” chocolate tart, and you infused liqueurs. At the weekend, there’s of hand-cut tagliolini” spun through with also food: the menu has “Kentucky-fried globe artichokes and sweet brown grey squirrel”, “wild salad with wood shrimps: simple but “very effective”. ants”, and “a page of their own Throw in a pudding, and your bill for charcuterie”. Contrariness is the house food reaches the “dizzying heights” of style: rosy slabs of venison come with £17. What luck that there are “cities like “what can only be described as savoury Bristol, playing host to restaurants like black forest gateau” (it works, “weirdly”); Marmo”. Lunch, three courses for £17. and seared beef comes with what’s The Betterment 44 Grosvenor Square, supposed to be a “pepper sauce”, which London W1 (020-7596 3200) is instead “creamy, boozy and rammed The ex-Gordon Ramsay protégé Jason with wild mushrooms and truffle shavings Atherton has become an empire-builder (when I query this, the owner “shrugs in his own right, with nearly 20 venues amiably”). As for the squirrel? “File under in London, Asia and America, says Grace once is enough.” But there’s much else to Dent in The Guardian. His latest venture, relish here. Dinner for two, without service housed in the Mayfair hotel the Biltmore charge £110. Venison and wild mushroom ragu This recipe is my version of the classic slow-cooked French beef stew, the daube – only made with venison, says Anna Hedworth, of Cook House in Newcastle. When it is done, the carrots have picked up the flavour of orange, the rich red wine gravy is infused with delicate herbs, and the venison is soft and falling apart. I serve it with creamy mashed potato or buttery polenta. Serves 2-3 50g mixed dried wild mushrooms 100ml boiling water 50g plain flour salt and pepper 500g of venison stewing meat, in bite-size pieces 1 tbsp olive oil 100g smoked bacon lardons 1 medium onion, peeled and sliced into thin rounds ½ a bottle of a red wine you like 1 carrot, peeled and sliced 1 sprig of thyme 1 bay leaf 4 juniper berries, crushed 1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced 1 large piece of orange peel • Put the wild mushrooms into a heatproof • Keep the frying pan over a high heat and bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to add about a glass of red wine to deglaze it. stand until you are ready for them. You want to scrape up all of the flavour and bits that have stuck to the pan and mix them • Place the flour on a plate and season. Toss into the wine as it bubbles away furiously. Pour this into the casserole after a few the venison in the seasoned flour. Heat the minutes. Put the casserole over a low heat olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and mix the venison, bacon, onion and wine and when hot, start adding batches of the together, then add the rest of the wine. Pour meat to brown. You may have to do this in in the mushrooms and the soaking water too. a few batches. When the meat is browned all over, put it into a large casserole dish. • Add the carrot, thyme, bay leaf, juniper • Add the bacon lardons to the same pan, berries, garlic and orange peel, then leave to simmer very gently, with the lid on, for 2 hours. Keep it over a and fry these off until golden, then add them low heat and stir occasionally. When it is ready, the meat should to the venison in the casserole dish. Fry the onion in the same be soft and falling apart. pan again, adding a little more oil if necessary, until soft and golden – about 5 minutes – then transfer to the casserole dish. © NIALL CLUTTON Taken from Cook House by Anna Hedworth, published by Head of Zeus at £25. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £21.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweek.co.uk/bookshop. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

40 Seasonal Gifts Naresh Jariwala* FAIRFAXANDFAVOR.COM THE WEEK 16 November 2019 To advertise here please email classifi[email protected] or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

Consumer LEISURE 41 The best… bikes ▲ Diamondback Heist 0.0Naresh Jariwala* ▲ ▲ Brilliant value for money, this ▲ Vitus Zenium Carbon Disc entry-level mountain bike has SOURCES: T3/CYCLIST.CO.UK/ This Vitus bike is cheap for a▲▲ a great gearset and smooth CYCLINGWEEKLY.COM carbon-framed model and has an impressive spec too. It’s breaks. It’s great for very stiff, yet weighs general trail just 9.7kg, and the exploration, but saddle-adjustment owing to its simple and handling are frame, it is not the both excellent. It ideal bike for tackling looks sleek, and difficult descents is fun to ride at (£575; gooutdoors.co.uk). speed (£800; wiggle.co.uk). Pinnacle Lithium 4 For a great Cannondale Synapse Disc hybrid bike, consider this Pinnacle Tiagra This bike’s alloy frame model. Its slick tyres work well on the is particularly comfortable, road and can handle rougher and great for endurance riding. But its wide rides or regular handlebars are commutes. It should better for off- last a long time, and road than in comes in men’s traffic. It’s and women’s available in styles (from £600; men’s or evanscycles.com). women’s models (£575; evanscycles.com). Ridley Noah Ultegra If Carrera Subway 1 This hybrid you’re looking for a serious bike at the cheaper end of the scale is racing bike that will also work an impressive and versatile option, with for your commute, this carbon wide tyres and disc brakes. model by Ridley (the Unsurprisingly, given the maker of choice for several Tour price, it’s not the most de France comfortable: if podium you’re planning finishers this very long rides, year) is a great you might be option (£1,970; advised to spend wiggle.co.uk). a bit more (£240; halfords.com). Tips of the week... how to And for those who Where to find... take care of your teeth have everything… dog-friendly hotels ● Brush your teeth for two full minutes Designed for those particularly anxious to Soho House outpost Babington House in using a fluoride toothpaste. protect their skin from the Sun’s ageing Somerset has lovely grounds with a lake ● After eating, wait an hour before brushing rays, the tiny, wearable My Skin Track that are perfect for walks (b&b doubles your teeth. Sugars in food and drink lower UV Sensor monitors your UV exposure, from £530; babingtonhouse.co.uk). the pH level in the mouth, making it acidic. Cringletie House, a castle hotel on a Brushing straight after eating can loosen and sends the results to your phone, along 28-acre country estate in the Scottish enamel already threatened by acid. Brush with personalised skincare advice. Borders, has a 400-year-old walled garden your teeth as soon as you get out of bed – £54.95; apple.com and a vet and groomers on-call (b&b and then wait 30 minutes for breakfast; or doubles from £155; cringletie.com). brush them an hour after breakfast. SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES The St George Hotel in Harrogate ● Mouthwash is not a substitute for welcomes dogs in rooms and some public brushing your teeth – it mainly freshens areas (b&b doubles from £85, plus £15 per your breath. And mouthwash straight after day for dogs; countrylivinghotels.com). brushing is counterproductive, because it The Egerton House Hotel in London has a removes the necessary fluoride. dedicated “pet concierge service”, offering ● It can be helpful to use mouthwash after treats based on a questionnaire about a midday meal, though, as it neutralises the your pet’s preferences (b&b doubles from acid produced when you eat or drink. £468; egertonhousehotel.com). ● If you’re going to eat sugary or acidic The Fish in Worcestershire, a collection of foods, it’s better for your teeth to have quirky rooms, houses and huts, has a dog them as part of a meal, as snacking on agility course and a canine afternoon tea them between meals means your teeth (b&b doubles from £150, plus £30 per stay are exposed to much more acid. for dogs; thefishhotel.co.uk). SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TIMES SOURCE: THE TIMES 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

42 Great Escapes MUCH More than LITTLLIVEEBAIGGER just a resort extIrNaAorNdinary villa A short walk from the beautiful north Cornish coast, The Point at Polzeath is a favourite destination for short breaks and family holidays with accommodation ranging from one-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom houses. Relax in our sea-view restaurant or Bear Bar or enjoy all of the activities our resort has to offer including our award-winning 18-hole golf course or fully-equipped gym, indoor pool and tennis courts. Discover more atNaresh Jariwala*www.oliverstravels.com www.thepointatpolzeath.co.uk 0800 124 4809 Call us on 01208 863000 STAY • EAT & DRINK • GOLF • LEISURE • UNWIND THE WEEK 16 November 2019 To advertise here please email classifi[email protected] or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

Travel LEISURE 43 This week’s dream: dinosaur-hunting in the Gobi Desert It is harsh and forbidding, but the Gobi shades”, peppered with fossilised Desert in Mongolia is a fossil-hunter’s shells. Next come the “flaming cliffs” dream. Palaeontologists have discovered of Bayanzag, where a fossil of a 76 dinosaur genera in its arid wastes – Protoceratops and a Velociraptor and nowhere offers richer pickings than “locked in eternal combat” was Khermen Tsav, says Harriet Compston discovered in 1971. Beyond them you in The Daily Telegraph. This vast and cross the “snow-strewn” mountain “mesmerising” canyon was the favourite pass of Yolyn Am – home to ibex and playground of the American explorer snow leopards – and the “singing Roy Chapman Andrews (the inspiration dunes” of Khongoryn Els, which rise for Indiana Jones). In 1922, he found to 980ft and emit a sound like a deep near here the first nest of dinosaur eggs organ drone. Accommodation along ever discovered, establishing that these the way is with nomadic families in ancient creatures were oviparous. But their gers – round felt tents – and food as the canyon lies so far into the desert is all tinned or dried. (it’s a spectacular three-day, 620-mile The descent into Khermen Tsav in a journey from Mongolia’s capital, Mongolia: into the “almost unexplored” desert 4WD is “almost vertical”. Desert eagles Ulaanbaatar), and partly as a result swoop above and lizards dart among of this is still “almost unexplored”, it offers the chance for even its “lunar” rock formations. Should you spot in the canyon the greenest amateur to stumble on “prehistoric treasures”. anything you suspect to have belonged to a dinosaur, touch it Double-humped Bactrian camels graze and wild gazelles frolic with your tongue: your tongue will cling slightly to fossils owing beside the road from the city to Tsagaan Suvarga. A seabed in to the porous nature of bone and the “sticky minerals” found in ancient times, this escarpment is “a kaleidoscope of pastel it. Wild Frontiers (wildfrontierstravel.com) has guided tours. Naresh Jariwala* Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of… make from eco-tourism has enabled them to turn down overtures from oil companies and The Storehouse Kirkwall, Andalucia on horseback gold miners. The accommodation they offer Orkney is “clean and simple”, and the guiding – on Dividing the rich farmland of Andalucia forest walks and river journeys by motorised Set in the centre of Kirkwall, from the “harsh” landscape of Extremadura, canoe – is good, with a chance of spotting Orkney’s capital, this recently- the wild hills of the Sierra Morena are horse- animals including giant river otters, jaguars, opened restaurant with rooms is riding country to dream of – and few guides harpy eagles and Goliath bird-eating spiders, “a huge new asset to the islands”, know them better than George Scott, says the world’s largest tarantula species. says Stephen McClarence in The Sophy Roberts in the FT. The son of a British Wilderness Explorers (wilderness-explorers. Times. Owners Judith Glue (a couple who moved to Spain in the 1970s, he com) organises trips to Guyana. knitwear designer) and David attended a local school, and has recently Spence (an architect) have launched “riding safaris” along old cattle Converse with Japanese craftsmen revamped the 19th century trails he has identified using maps held in building it occupies in “vibrant” local archives. Guests set out from his family Contemporary design and ancient methods contemporary style. Four of the house, Trasierra (now only open for these often come together in the work of Japanese eight rooms have baths as well as and other events, but formerly a hotel craftsmen. To meet a diverse range of the showers, two have balconies, and beloved of Kate Moss and other celebrities), finest practitioners, you might make for the all have “a calm Scandi feel”, with and spend other nights at remote and city of Kanazawa, says Charlie Casely- individually themed colours and atmospheric farmhouses. With wonderful Hayford in Suitcase magazine. Two hours by “soft, tweedy fabrics”. In the food (including formal dinners served under train from Tokyo, this peaceful place was a restaurant, diners enjoy dishes the stars) and sublimely varied scenery, this major centre of power in the early modern made from Orkney-sourced is “travel as it should be” – consistently age, and has the cultural riches – including ingredients, including fish. “elegant”, but close to nature and saturated great gardens and museums – to prove it. Doubles from £130 b&b. thestore in local tradition. Three-night safaris cost Among its artisans are kimono masters, who houserestaurantwithrooms.co.uk. from s2,200. Visit georgescottrides.com. will happily explain the “painstaking and laborious” process of creating one of these A rainforest lodge in Guyana hand-illustrated garments; ceramicists working in the 300-year-old kutani tradition, Roughly the size of Great Britain but home but “with a very modern sense of form”; and to around 780,000 people, Guyana is largely lacquer artists who still toil by candlelight, in cloaked in rainforest. In a vast, largely order to pick up on “delicate blemishes” in unexplored stretch of this wilderness is their work. Prior (prior.club) offers tailor- Rewa, a riverside lodge run by members of made travel in Japan. the Makushi tribe, says Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. One of nine Amerindian groups in Guyana, the Makushi say the money they Last-minute offers from top travel companies Glamping in St Davids Five-star Turkey escape Portuguese beach break Five-star South Goa hotel Stay seven nights in the petite Situated close to the seafront, Four nights in a 1-bed Stay 7 nights at the Novotel Cysgod Y Nos pod, on the the Martı Hemithea Hotel near apartment at the Oura Senses Goa Dona Sylvia Resort, with stunning Pembrokeshire coast, Marmaris offers a 6-night stay costs from £290pp Cavelossim Beach on its from £138pp self-catering, from £876pp b&b, including b&b, including Liverpool doorstep, from £800pp all- based on two sharing. 01237- London flights. 020-8705 flights. 020-8492 6868, inclusive, including Manchester 459801, holidaycottages.co.uk. 0071, southalltravel.co.uk. olympicholidays.com. Depart flights. 020-3636 1931, tui.co. Arrive 1 February. Depart 27 December. 19 December. uk. Depart 9 December. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK

44 Obituaries Newspaper editor caught up in the Hitler Diaries scandal Frank Giles, who has died rights to Hitler’s Diaries – found, supposedly, Frank Giles aged 100, was approaching in a hayloft. After prolonged negotiations, 1919-2019 retirement after a long career Stern made the papers available to the historian in journalism when he was Hugh Trevor-Roper, who was a director of offered the editorship of The Sunday Times. He The Times and an authority on Nazi Germany. accepted the job, but the year was 1981, and Having examined them in a bank vault in The Times group had just been acquired by Zurich, he declared them to be genuine. News Rupert Murdoch. The Australian tycoon had of the discovery was due to be reported in the little respect for his urbane, slightly left-leaning newspaper on 24 April. The preceding Friday, editor. “There goes Frank Giles, ruining a great some of Giles’ team told him they were worried newspaper,” he’d say. And Giles had no taste that the authentication process had been for his boss’s union battles, nor for the insufficiently rigorous. He decided to keep faith management style that swept across the group. with Trevor-Roper, but unbeknownst to him, But his greatest misfortune was perhaps that his the historian was having second thoughts – and tenure coincided with the scandal of the Hitler the next morning, Trevor-Roper rang Charles Diaries. It was not entirely his fault that the Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times, to tell Times was duped into buying what turned out him of his doubts. Unfortunately, Douglas- to be a forgery, said The Daily Telegraph – but Home didn’t pass the message on. “Like he was made to shoulder the blame. Murdoch,” Giles reflected, “he had become so immersed in the business of wanting the diaries Frank Giles was born in 1919, the son of a to be genuine that he was unable to face the colonel in the Royal Engineers who died when Giles: fired by Rupert Murdoch possibility that they were not.” Naresh Jariwala* he was ten. His mother took in paying guests to make extra cash, and was able to scrape together the fees for Wellington College. That night, Giles decided to ring Trevor-Roper, to make sure he A tough school known for its sporting prowess, it was an odd was prepared for the questions the next morning’s splash would choice for a boy who had always been sickly, said The Guardian, provoke. Listening to the conversation, his staff were shocked to but his potential was spotted by one of his teachers and he won a hear a sudden change in his tone. “The office fell silent. ‘Well, scholarship to Oxford. Deemed unfit for military service, he spent naturally, Hugh, one has doubts... but I take it that these doubts part of the War in Bermuda, as aide-de-camp to its governor. Just aren’t strong enough to make you do a complete 180-degree after the War, be briefly worked at the Foreign Office under turn on that? Oh. Oh. I see. You are doing a 180-degree turn.’” Ernest Bevin. Once, as they stood side by side at a urinal, Bevin By then, though, the presses were already turning, said The told him: “This is it, Giles, the socialist dream – the means of Guardian. Two weeks later the German authorities denounced production in the hands of the people.” He joined The Times in the diaries (and an East German forger was arrested). The Sunday 1946, the same year he married Lady Katherine Sackville, and Times apologised to its readers; Trevor-Roper apologised to Giles; became deputy editor in 1967, under Harold Evans. but Murdoch made no apology for firing his editor, offering him a two-year post as “Editor Emeritus” instead. What on earth, In February 1983, the London correspondent of the West German Giles asked, is that? “It’s Latin, Frank,” Murdoch reportedly magazine Stern telephoned to offer the paper the serialisation replied. “E means ‘exit’ and meritus means ‘you deserve it’.” French Resistance heroine who survived Ravensbrück Yvette Lundy, who has died 1944 – it sheltered some 60-70 airmen during the Yvette Lundy aged 103, was a schoolteacher time it was active. Arrested by the Gestapo in her 1916-2019 and a member of the Possum own classroom, she was taken to Ravensbrück, Escape Line – a French the women’s camp north of Berlin, where, like Resistance network that helped rescue scores all its inmates, she was made to strip naked in of Allied airmen shot down over Occupied front of SS officers – the first step in a process Europe. In 1944, she was arrested and sent to of dehumanisation. “The body is naked and the Ravensbrück concentration camp; she was later brain is suddenly in tatters,” she said, years later. transferred to Buchenwald. For 15 years, she “You’re like a hole, a hole full of emptiness, and declined to talk about her wartime experience. if you look around it’s more emptiness.” In 2009, She was, she said, too “disoriented”. But once she told Le Parisian: “I will never forget the she had found her voice, she spent much of the screams and cries in the night from the women rest of her life touring schools in France and who no longer had their children.” Transferred Germany, testifying to the horror of the camps. to Buchenwald, she was assigned to a slave labour unit near Weimar, from which she was The youngest of seven children, she was born liberated by the Red Army in April 1945. Three into a farming family near Épernay in 1916. By Lundy: issued false papers to Jews of her siblings were arrested and deported. Two 1940, when the Nazis arrived, she was working as a teacher in survived, but Georges died in Schörzingen camp. “Still today, I a nearby village – but also had a part-time job in the town hall. think of the camp at one point each day... often at night before With access to local records, she started issuing false ration cards I fall asleep,” Lundy told AFP in 2017. and documents to Jews and Gypsies fleeing German forced labour © THE SUNDAY TIMES/NEWS LICENSING programmes, and escaped PoWs, who were being hidden by her Touring schools from 1959, she had one piece of advice for the brother Georges at his farm. The Possum Line was established by children: “Always ask: Where are we going? With whom? What two MI9 agents who were parachuted into the Ardennes, in are we doing? Each and every one of us has a responsibility, Belgium, in 1943. Their mission was to rescue Allied airmen shot regardless of how young we are.” She inspired a character in the down on bombing raids, and spirit them across the border to the French film Korkoro (2009), about a Gypsy family fleeing the area around Reims, which was suitable for airborne evacuations. Nazis, and on her 100th birthday, she was elevated to the second- Lundy provided assistance to the network until it collapsed in highest level in France’s Légion d’honneur, Grand Officier. THE WEEK 16 November 2019

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New releases this month FREE UK delivery on orders over £20 The Twelve Birds of A Short Philosophy of Birds Christmas Stephen Moss Philippe J. Dubois, Elise Rousseau Naturalist Stephen Moss digs beneath Having spent a lifetime watching the surface of popular Christmas birds, Dubois and Rousseau - a French carols in an ornithological celebration ornithologist and a philosopher - draw of the festive season. Moss weaves out the secret lessons that birds can history, culture, bird behaviour and teach us about how to live, and the folklore into a compelling narrative brilliance of the natural world. This for each species, tracing its fortunes charming book gives you twenty-two over the past two centuries. little lessons of wisdom. £12.99 £10.99 £9.99 £7.99 Trees of Life Naresh Jariwala* The Woodland Trust: Into Chbilodorekn’s The Forest Christiane Dorion Max Adams An informative and visually This big and beautiful book is a beautiful survey of the tree celebration of trees and wildlife species from all over the all around the world. Children world. Adams has a plethora of will find out how trees change fascinating stories to tell about colour through seasons, how the trees that offer not merely to plant their own trees and the shelter, timber and fuel but also importance of protecting our medicines, dyes, foods and fibres. forests through sustainability. £25 £20.99 £12.99 £10.99 Lunch with the FT Outspoken Lionel Barber Deborah Coughlin Lunch with the Financial Times From Jesus to Winston Churchill and reinvigorates the art of conversation even Donald Trump, we’re raised in the intimate environment of a long with the words of men documented boozy lunch. This is a showcase of throughout history - but where the most entertaining, incisive and are all the women? This book is fascinating interviews from the past a celebration of outstanding and five years, including Edward Snowden, outspoken women, from Virginia Sheryl Sandberg and Donald Trump. Woolf to Greta Thunberg. £25 £21.99 £14.99 £12.99 The Twelve Days of Stoficllkeirng The Journey Matters Christmas V&A Jonathan Glancey Combining hand-picked patterns Glancey explores some of the iconic from the V&A’s William Morris archive journeys of the twentieth century, with brilliant new illustrations, this looking at the history of routes taken as beautiful hardback book brings the well as the events - social and political words of the classic Twelve Days of - enveloping them. A fascinating look Christmas song to life. A gorgeous into the machines that made these Christmas gift to be treasured by all journeys possible, of those who fans of art and design. shaped them, and those who travelled. £20 £17.99 £7.99 £6.99 Visit TheWeekBookshop.co.uk/NewReleases FREE UK DoEnLoIVrdEeRrsY or call us on 020 3176 3835 to order over £20 Terms & Conditions: Prices quoted do not include delivery, and are valid until 14 December 2019. UK standard delivery is FREE on orders over £20, otherwise costs £2.99. All stock is subject to availability. Our phone lines are open: Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm, Saturday 9am-5.30pm, Sunday 10am-4pm.

CITY CITY 47 Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed Saudi Aramco: sheikh it up Naresh Jariwala* Seven days in the Square Mile Investors will shortly start bidding for a slice of the world’s biggest and most profitable oil company, said Lucy Burton in The Sunday Telegraph. According to the 658-page Annual growth in the UK economy fell prospectus published last weekend, Saudi Aramco will offer 0.5% of its shares to to its slowest pace in nine years at one ordinary investors when it floats on the Tadawul exchange in Riyadh – amounting point in the third quarter, although the to “roughly $10bn worth if it hits its ambitious $2trn valuation”. Many think that country has avoided slipping into unrealistic. The document released by the “once secretive oil behemoth”, which pumps recession. A boost to exports helped about a tenth of the world’s oil, was short on key details (such as a previously touted GDP rise by 0.3% in the three months to $75bn dividend) – prompting the head of Japan’s largest refiner, JXTG, to claim September, after contracting by 0.2% in Japanese investors were unlikely to buy “because of transparency concerns”. But it did the previous quarter. Strong consumer outline risks “that could threaten the business”, said Ben Martin in The Times – ranging spending and a robust performance from climate change to social unrest and terrorism. In September, attacks on Aramco from the services sector also lifted facilities temporarily halved output. Meanwhile, some institutional investors are holding growth. The credit rating agency their noses because of the kingdom’s dubious human rights record. “To the discomfort Moody’s changed the outlook on the of bankers” hoping to please MbS, “Aramco is proving a tough sell”, said Lex in the FT. UK’s current Aa2 rating from “stable” The Saudis may badger local billionaires and friendly wealth funds for support, “but the to “negative”, claiming that Brexit had effort to achieve numbers acceptable to the prince are assuming a desperate air”. caused “paralysis in policy-making”. Stocks in Hong Kong suffered a sharp Marks & Spencer: clothing woes drop as protests intensified; business activity in the territory fell at its sharpest After the humiliation of being ejected from the FTSE 100 in August, Marks & Spencer pace in more than two decades. New shares are now plumbing lows not seen for decades. “But some things remain familiar,” figures showed that President Trump’s said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. Once again, the main source of woe is the clothing trade war is not having the desired department, where M&S has apparently been stuck with too many slow-moving lines effect: the US trade deficit grew 5.4% “misaligned with a family customer profile” – whatever that means. The result was a year-on-year during the first three- “steep” 5.5% decline in non-food sales in the first half of the year. “It’s amazing how the quarters of the year, to $481bn. company manages to fall into the same hole so frequently.” Management is promising Royal Mail won its High Court battle to “far-reaching change – delivered at pace”. But chairman Archie Norman has ruled out a prevent a spate of postal strikes in the break-up of the clothing and food businesses as a costly and time-consuming distraction. run-up to Christmas. Boeing said it was “That seems like the right call,” said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. “Still, “possible” it could resume deliveries of investors have been listening to the same tune for years.” Without real progress, “a its 737 Max jet in December. Xerox is change of record may be the only option”. At least some loyalists are still flying the M&S considering a bid for Hewlett Packard, flag, said the London Evening Standard. The nation’s First Girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, billed as an “alliance of two fading tech “looked stylish” at the Cenotaph last weekend in a £149 M&S coat. As someone else giants”. Philip Hammond was appointed once said: every little helps. to the board of the Irish packaging company Ardagh. The Financial Conduct Trainline: float-tastic? Authority – responsible for keeping the City “clean” – apologised for the state “KKR has sold out of Trainline in double-quick time,” noted Cat Rutter Pooley in the of its new HQ and the “shameful” FT. The US private equity group has “offloaded its remaining stake” in the UK transport insanitary habits of employees. booking app, less than five months after it “IPO’d the company”. And other private equity backers have followed suit. Founded by the Virgin Group in 1997 and acquired by KKR in 2015 for £450m, Trainline floated in June valued at close to £2bn; the company’s IPO “has been one of the most successful of the limited crop of London listings this year”. Trainline’s private equity backers were always bound for a speedy exit. “That they have done so quite so quickly might give investors pause.” Walgreens Boots Alliance/KKR: biggest ever private equity deal? The private buyout industry is on a roll, and deals. The motivation for this one is that his records may soon be broken, said James fractured pharma empire, currently listed on Dean in The Times. KKR has crashed in with the Dow Jones, needs revitalising. And he a reported $70bn offer for Walgreens Boots could get up to $12bn for his 16% stake. Still, Alliance – the international drugstore “the prospect of leveraging up the company conglomerate built by the Italian pharma to its eyeballs to allow its chief benefactor a maestro Stefano Pessina. “A deal to take it final payday should give the board of private would represent the largest leveraged Walgreens Boots nightmares”. buyout of all time.” The private equity giant’s proposed deal eclipses the previous record A buyout would give the group “breathing set in 2007, when a KKR-led consortium room” to cut costs, said DealBook in The paid $45bn for the Texas energy giant TXU, New York Times, and to “adapt to a world in which later filed for bankruptcy under the which discount stores and e-commerce sites weight of its debts. Some analysts are like Amazon have eaten much of its lunch”. equally “sceptical” this time round, “given But Boots UK employees have reason for the huge amount of debt it would require”. Pessina: “anything is possible” gloom, said Sam Chambers in The Sunday Times. Boots “still bears the scars of its last When Pessina, 78, “is leading the charge, anything is possible”, stint in private ownership”, in 2007, when Pessina dumped £9bn said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. The Italian billionaire of debt on its balance sheet. It is “hard to see how another (a pharmacist’s son from Naples) has completed more than 1,500 leveraged buyout would nurse the business back to health”. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK