Wednesday 7 December

WATER FIRMS IN SPOTLIGHT ONCEAGAIN

OFWAT SLAMS LACK OF SPENDING ON VITAL UPKEEP

NICHOLAS EARL

THE UK’s embattled water firms were yet again publicly berated by the industry regulator yesterday, this time for failing to invest as much as they had promised they would in improving their infrastructure.

Regulator Ofwat said firms had spent only around sixty per cent of what they said they would to reduce spills and leakages.

Fourteen companies underspent their budget on improving the network between 2020 and 2022, while eight missed their spending commitments for enhancing the wastewater network over the same period.

Water firms have to tell Ofwat how much they wish to charge customers in order to invest in their infrastructure.

But Ofwat said yesterday only £1.2bn of the signed-off figure of £2bn had actually been spent.

Chief offenders include Yorkshire Water and South West Water which

only coughed up 20 per cent and 39 per cent of their wastewater allowances respectively.

Chief executive David Black criticised water companies for failing to “service improvements they were funded to deliver”.

He said: “No ifs, no buts. Failure to invest or delays to investments means that vital improvements are not being made or are late.”

While there is no legal requirement to spend the maximum allocated budget, there has been sustained pressure to tackle unauthorised sewage spills into rivers and at beaches.

Ofwat has been aiming to clamp down on shoddy performance across the water sector this year, and has slapped six water companies with enforcement cases.

It also teamed up with the Environmental Agency, which earlier this year said bosses should face prison sentences if they didn’t clean up their act on sewage spills, to announce investiga-

tions into all water and wastewater companies last November.

However, it has also faced criticism from industry campaigners for failing to impose debt limits on suppliers.

Meanwhile, activist group Surfers against Sewage last month exposed continued sewage dumping in dry weather, revealing that 146 dry spills had been detected over a 12month period.

A spokesperson from Yorkshire Water argued the latest performance report covers “just two years of the current five-year period” and pledged to boost spending over the five-year term.

This outlook was shared by industry body Water UK, which argued that delivering “all of the environmental outcomes it has committed to by 2025” is what matters. It confirmed that firms know “they will be held fully to account for that” by regulators.

South West Water said Ofwat’s data does not include investment on base maintenance and operating costs.

FTSE STILL KICKING London blue chip index outperforms peers

LONDON’s FTSE 100 has breezed past its major international rivals to emerge as the only blue-chip index to squeeze out a gain so far this year.

The capital’s premier index has climbed around two per cent in pound terms in 2022 and is on track to end the year as the only collection of big stocks to avoid plunging into the red when measured in local currency.

Analysts said the FTSE 100’s gains demonstrate it has been a more effective shield from raging inflation across the developed world this year compared to other stock indexes.

Wall Street’s equivalent, the S&P 500, has shed 16.1 per cent in dollar terms, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 has tumbled around 10 per cent in euro terms.

The “FTSE 100 has acted as a good inflation hedge this year,” analysts at BNP Paribas Markets 360 told City A.M.

While soaring prices have heaped pressure on households and smaller businesses, commodity giants, which the FTSE 100 is heavily geared to, have reaped in windfalls, prompting investors to pile into the sector.

‘Death knell’ for city centre pubs if RMT action over Christmas goes ahead

EMILY HAWKINS

RAIL STRIKES pose more than just the threat of a joyless Christmas, with thousands of jobs and livelihoods on the line, hospitality bosses complained yesterday.

Rail union RMT announced three more days of walkouts on Monday

night, with workers set to strike from 6pm on Christmas Eve to 6am on December 27.

Industrial action has already been planned for December 13, 14, 16, 17 and January 3, 4, 6, 7.

Hospitality chiefs urged all parties to hash out a last-minute resolution and avoid walkouts

over the industry’s busiest trading period.

Night time businesses have haemorrhaged up to 40 per cent of expected revenues on previous strike actions while the sector stands to lose £1.5bn sales this Christmas, Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) and

UKHospitality said.

Rishi Sunak hit unions with a fresh warning to reconsider offers that are already on the table, with Downing Street yesterday branding a current eight per cent offer “generous and fair”.

The additional action would be “the death knell” for many night

time economy businesses, NTIA boss Michael Kill said, dubbing union and rail firms’ behaviour as “unacceptable”.

The economic impact of walkouts was “unimaginable”, Nightcap CEO Sarah Willingham, who owns the Cocktail Club, Barrio and The Adventure Bar chains, said.

JACK BARNETT

STANDING UP FOR THE CITY

All hail the political U-turn –we should welcome more of them

SHOULD you be driving towards the edge of the white cliffs of Dover, hands on the wheel and pedal to the metal, you can imagine that any passengers who happened to be in the car alongside you would be encouraging you, at some volume and with no small level of profanity, to turn the thing around. Indeed that would be the prudent thing to do –to plough on simply because you’d decided it really was the quickest way to

THE CITY VIEW

France would be idiotic, and end rather poorly for you and your passengers. Alas in politics, changing your mind on something –the dreaded U-turn –is invariably seen as some kind of crippling embarrassment. Yesterday, Rishi Sunak’s aides let

it be known that the government were stepping away from a plan to effectively ban onshore wind developments, a plan that first emerged as a Sunak talking point during the (first) leadership campaign this summer. The political analysis began last night, with questions over Rishi Sunak’s authority. No doubt within a few days we will see further questioning of Sunak’s ability to lead the squabbling rabble now known as the parliamentary

Conservative party. Lost in the sturm und drang of this apparent political catastrophe will be that Sunak’s made the right decision, proving that one still must campaign in poetry and govern in prose. It is one thing telling the residents of Dunny-on-the-Wold that there won’t be any turbines messing up their view of England’s green and pleasant land, but it’s quite another to stick to your guns when you’re in Downing Street and you’re

informed Britain’s most vital foreign policy objective is securing genuine energy security. Of greater concern, however, is that Britain’s current energy policy is pulling in two different directions –one, to ensure we’re upping the supply of reliable power that doesn’t involve dodgy regimes, and two, to extract every penny possible for the Treasury from North Sea oil and gas firms. Ditching the windfall tax would be another welcome U-turn.

NEWCASTLE-BASED business Fenwick agreed to sell its flagship London building to property firm Lazari Investments yesterday in a deal estimated to be worth around £430m. Lazari is run by the family of Chris Lazari, the late billionaire property developer. The store is set to remain open until early 2024. It comes as the company continues to shrink its physical presence, with other closures in Leicester and Windsor in recent years. The retailer was set up by the Fenwick family in 1882 and is still owned by 30 family members. Bosses of Fenwick are keen to invest the proceeds of the sale into improving the online offering for the wider brand. It continues to offer stores in Newcastle, Brent Cross and Kingston upon Thames.

Scarcity of tech companies has been a ‘blessing in disguise’ for London market

gas markets.

When converting the FTSE 100 into dollars, the index is lower this year, due to sterling’s slide, but so are most other major indexes, down to the greenback’s surge in 2022.

Its mid-cap counterpart, the FTSE 250, has tumbled nearly a fifth since the beginning of the year due to its heavy exposure to the UK economy, which is on track for a long recession.

A large chunk of this year’s inflation crisis has been driven by energy prices surging after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine jolted international oil and

“It’s clear that the winners have benefitted from high energy and commodity prices,” Gerry Fowler, head of European equity strategy at UBS Investment Bank, told City A.M.

Oil majors and FTSE 100-listed Shell and BP have advanced 38 per cent and 35 per cent respectively so far this year.

Critics of London’s stock market have slammed it for housing few tech firms, which have propelled US and global bourses higher since the financial crisis.

However, a paucity of tech companies “has been a blessing in disguise” this

year as the sector has crumbled due to rising interest rates, Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index, told City A.M.

Wall Street-listed Apple –the world’s most valuable company –has lost nearly 20 per cent this year. Google’s owner Alphabet has collapsed more than 30 per cent and Microsoft has lost over a quarter of its value.

The FTSE 100’s performance has also been powered by the pound’s torrid year. Lots of companies listed on the index earn their income in other currencies, meaning they book solid foreign exchange gains.

BLOOMBERG

MORGAN STANLEY WILL CUT ABOUT 2,000 JOBS AHEAD OF RECESSION

Morgan Stanley will reduce its global workforce by about 2,000 as Wall Street seeks to tame costs ahead of a potential US recession. The cuts amount to roughly two per cent of the workforce.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES

UK FINANCIAL REGULATORS WARNED TO IMPROVE TRANSPARENCY

The City minister has warned Britain’s financial services regulators to raise their game ahead of the launch of reforms designed to create a capital markets powerhouse in post-Brexit London.

THE TELEGRAPH

WEST MUST LOOK AT REOPENING RUSSIAN AIRSPACE, SAYS EX-BA BOSS

The West must start to prepare for reopening Russian airspace after shutting it in February to ease pressure on airlines, the former boss of British Airways Willie Walsh has said.

Signs of inflation pressure easing on supermarket shelf

EMILY HAWKINS

GROCERY price inflation has dipped for the first time in almost two years –but analysts have warned it will be some time before relief is felt in Brits’ pockets.

The rampant pace of price increases let up slightly this month, dropping 0.1 percentage points –the first dip in 21 months.

Four-week inflation now sits at 14.6 per cent, according to the freshly published data from insights firm Kantar.

However, there is a “long way

down” for grocery inflation, with shoppers having to spend an extra £60 this December to buy the same items they did last year, according to Kantar head of retail insight Fraser McKevitt.

The data also indicated that discount grocery giants Lidl and Aldi are continuing their march into the middle classes, increasing sales by 22 per cent and 24.4 per cent year on year respectively.

Kantar also said a combination of cost of living pressures and inflation would make December a record revenue-raising month.

CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

GOODBYE FENWICK Iconic five-storey New Bond Street department store closes doors after 130 years, selling up to property developers in whopping £400m mega deal

Credit Suisse hands Curve $1bn to back BNPL unit

CHARLIE CONCHIE

FINTECH payments firm Curve said it had struck a $1bn deal with Swiss lender Credit Suisse yesterday to fund a growth push for its buy-now pay-later (BNPL) product Flex.

London-based Curve, which allows users to bring multiple payment cards together on one app, said the Zurich bank would fund its first $1bn dollars of BNPL loans as it targets a major growth push across the UK, Europe and the US.

The growth plans come at an inflection point for BNPL however, as regulators prepare to tighten the screws and big tech firms and banks move into the space.

Curve bosses said it had “defied the market” with the new backing from Credit Suisse and now had “ambitious plans” to ramp up growth in its consumer lending business.

“We have launched, and very successfully tested, our unique Curve Flex product, and are delighted to be able to scale our lending capabilities with this new financing,” said Paul Harrald, Curve’s global investment and

consumer lending chief.

Curve Flex, which will compete with products offered by firms like Klarna, Monzo and Laybuy, allows shoppers to split transactions they have made through Curve on any payment card across six, nine and 12 monthly instalments.

Shoppers are turning to the products in droves this year to cope with the rising cost of living. Research from payments firm Ecommpay this week found that 25 per cent of shoppers were more likely to use BNPL payment options than in 2021, while 27 per cent were already using the products.

Regulators are poised to clamp down on the products after the Treasury outlined a framework for regulation earlier this year. Rules are expected to be drawn up for the sector next year by the Financial Conduct Authority, before it takes action in 2024.

The move to fund $1bn of loans, comes as Credit Suisse battles a downturn this year after consecutive heavy losses. The beleaguered lender warned investors the bank would be hit by $1.5bn losses in the fourth quarter of the year.

Breezy does it: Onshore wind set for revival with de-facto ban lifted

NICHOLAS EARL

ONSHORE wind is finally set for a revival following a government Uturn, with Downing Street pledging to relax restrictions on new turbines following a Tory MP backbench rebellion.

New farms will remain subject to local approval, but rules requiring turbines to be built on

designated land will be rewritten.

The Levelling Up Department unveiled a consultation yesterday which will establish the method for measuring local opinion, which will conclude by next April.

Communities that back them could potentially receive lower bills in exchange for living near new turbines, a practice already established by energy firm Octopus,

which set up a ‘Fan Club’ for cheaper energy costs.

This comes after 30 MPs threatened to vote for an amendment to a key planning bill going through Parliament.

The amendment was tabled by former housing secretary Simon Clarke, and had the support of former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

THE CITY watchdog has revealed it is tightening its financial promotion rules amid fears that firms are peddling products to consumers without proper oversight. The FCA said the new rules would allow it to clamp down on “rogue adverts” by unauthorised firms. It comes after it warned over crypto ads promoted by the likes of Kim Kardashian.

No regulatory ‘race to the bottom’ says Glen as City braces for reform

CHARLIE CONCHIE

A TOP TREASURY minister said the government was not “deregulating for deregulation’s sake” yesterday as it tries to soothe concerns it will overzealously cut rules governing the financial sector.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Global Regulatory Summit, chief secretary to the Treasury John Glen yesterday said the government was committed to the independence of the regulators and would not engage in a “race to the

bottom” on regulation,

The reassurances come after the government dropped proposed so-called “call-in powers”, which would have allowed ministers to overturn decisions by the regulators and more quickly scrap red tape in the sector.

Glen’s comments come amid reports the UK is now targeting EU-era MIFID II rules for reform, which have been a target of criticism in the City for hampering the quality of investment research available.

KEEPING UP WITH THE REGULATIONS FCA clamps down on “rogue” financial promotions

Fuel prices slow to fall after leap, watchdog finds

JACK MENDEL

THE UK’s competition watchdog said yesterday it found evidence of so-called ‘rocket and feather’ pricing by fuel retailers earlier this year, which it will investigate further.

Rocket and feather pricing is when prices shoot up but take a long time to come back down.

It said, however, this could be driven by the extreme volatility of prices and supply in 2022, in an update on its review of road fuel pricing.

“The question for the CMA is whether a lack of effective competition within the UK is making things worse. Although it is only a small proportion of the overall price, the increase in margins for many fuel retailers over the last few years is something we need to investigate further,” Sarah Cardell, Interim chief executive at the CMA, said.

The latest study followed an urgent review on whether the government’s cut in fuel duty earlier this year was being

passed onto the consumer in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The CMA’s initial review found that the fuel duty cut had been implemented.

However, supermarkets have continued to face criticism for not lowering their fuel prices, despite falling wholesale costs.

The RAC said it was “encouraging” that the CMA has found evidence of ‘rocket and feather’ pricing taking place this year. “We believe there was clear evidence of it happening this time last year and in 2018 and 2019,” it added.

The study also found that Brits have suffered the most volatile year on record for fuel prices, as the war in Ukraine sent fuel prices soaring. It found that fuel prices rose by 50p a litre from January to July – the largest leap ever recorded – and then fell by 31p (petrol) and 14p (diesel).

“It has been a terrible year for drivers, with filling up a vehicle now a moment of dread for many,” Cardell said.

US looks to double gas exports to UK under new landmark deal

STEFAN BOSCIA AND NICHOLAS EARL

THE US wants to more than double its gas exports to Britain next year, after Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden struck a landmark deal yesterday. Biden said he wants the US to send at least nine billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas to the UK in 2023, which would be enough to power millions of homes.

The new UK-US Energy Security and Affordability Partnership will see both countries “work to proactively identify and resolve any issues faced by exporters and importers” to reach the target.

It comes as the UK faces potential energy shortages over winter and with National Grid factoring in rolling blackouts next year in its worst-case scenario.

Ministers call for clearance for Truphone deal

LEAH MONTEBELLO

MINISTERS have demanded that the German businessman snapping up British telecoms firm Truphone, which was part owned by Roman Abramovich, must hire governmentcleared security personnel to work at the firm in order to seal the deal.

Business secretary Grant Shapps said the takeover of the UK firm could pose a risk to national security, and could lead to disruption of the mobile services sector.

Hakan Koc agreed to buy Truphone, which makes e-sim technology, earlier this year for £1 from Abramovich, the oligarch that previously owned Chelsea football club and was sanctioned by the government.

Koc said he was supportive of the move to hire a cleared security officer, and would “promptly implement” according to reports from The Telegraph.

Ashtead to ‘capitalise’ on supply chain woes as it hikes up revenue forecasts

MILLIE TURNER

BRITISH industrial equipment rental company Ashtead has hiked its revenue forecasts for the full year as it sails through raging inflation.

The London-listed group said yesterday it has the “flexibility to capitalise” on the economic downturn, including supply chain constraints, inflation and

labour scarcity.

Ashtead’s revenue grew nearly a third to £2.53bn in the three months to end of October, carried largely by its US operations.

The upbeat results meant bosses could lift Ashtead’s interim dividend, which has increased by 20 per cent to 15 cents per share, up from 12.5 cents per share in the same period last year.

Ashtead Technology, the group’s

specialist subsea equipment rental division, yesterday announced it had bought Aberdeenshire-based rental firm Hiretech for £20m.

In a statement, chief executive Brendan Horgan said the group had invested $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in the period.

“This significant investment is enabling us to take advantage of the substantial structural growth opportunities that we see,” he added.

The US will send at least nine billion cubic metres of LNG to the UK next year

Shares in the FTSE 100 company closed up 0.64 per cent yesterday following the news

Abramovich sold Truphone for £1 earlier this year

Investor exodus slows in sign of post-Truss relief

CHARLIE CONCHIE

THE AMOUNT of cash pulled from UK funds tumbled by half in October as an exodus of investors slowed after the bond crisis sparked by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget in September, figures revealed yesterday.

Retail investor outflows hit £3.7bn in October, marking the ninth consecutive month of negative flows this year but significantly down from £7.6bn the previous month, figures from the Investment Association (IA) showed.

The chief of the IA said some tentative confidence returned after the turbulence sparked by Truss’s tax plans.

“Outflows slowed in October as markets settled following the gilt crisis in September, and investors took a waitand-see approach ahead of the Autumn Statement, which saw an overwhelmingly calm reaction from markets,” said IA chief executive Chris

Cummings.

“There are pockets of promising news, with investors once again favouring tracker funds, with inflows the second highest so far this year.

Responsible investment funds, which have seen consistent inflows throughout the year, also moved back to inflows following last month’s outflow.”

Tracker funds, those that follow the performance of indices like the FTSE 100, recorded their second highest inflows of the year at £1.4bn, after haemorrhaging £264m outflows in the previous month.

Cummings said he hoped to see some stabilising in the market next year but it would remain a “challenging” landscape for investors as the country is gripped by recession.

“Investors will need to navigate the changing investment landscape, and we may see further shifts in the pattern of fund flows,” he added.

Clifford Chance’s capital markets chief wins election to head firm

term.

PARTNERS at Clifford Chance have elected capital markets chief Adrian Cartwright as the law firm’s new topranking partner

Cartwright won a three-way election to take over leadership of the Magic Circle law firm, overthrowing incumbent Jeroen Ouwehand after just one

Cartwright said: “I look forward to working… across the firm to build on our strengths as one firm, providing the best service to our clients.”

Charles Adams, Global Managing Partner said: “I look forward to working with [Cartwright] to keep our focus on securing strong foundations for our future success.

Moneyfarm inks deal to buy up Profile Pensions

LOUIS GOSS

ONLINE investment adviser

Moneyfarm has agreed to fully acquire digital pensions planner Profile Pensions as it pushes forwards with efforts to expand its client base and services offerings.

The cash-and-shares deal for an undisclosed sum will see Moneyfarm’s shareholders finance a 100 per cent takeover of the Preston-headquartered pension adviser, as it seeks to capitalise on the UK’s £680bn pensions sector.

Pensions consolidator Profile

Pensions currently has 24,000 customers and around £870m worth of assets under management (AUM). However, the deal will bring Moneyfarm’s AUM to £3.3bn and give it more than 115,000 customers.

It comes after Moneyfarm secured £44.1m worth of investment in January from City investment firm M&G in a deal that valued the Milan-headquartered fintech company at £350m.

Founded in 2012, Moneyfarm launched its own self-invested private pension platform in 2018.

Adrian Cartwright has been elected to take over leadership of the Magic Circle firm

LOUIS GOSS

TSMC TRIPLES INVESTMENT

IN THE US TO $40BN

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip companies, has more than tripled its planned investment in the US. The chipmaking giant yesterday upped the capital injection into is Arizona-based plant to $40bn (£32.7bn). The site will make chips used in Apple’s iPhones. It is among the largest foreign investments in the US history, with President Joe Biden visiting the chipmaking site yesterday. The investment will not only help the US settle semiconductor-related supply chain issues –with chips used in most of today’s electronics –but it will also help facilitate a shift away from China for the Taiwanese chipmaker.

EUROPE CALLS FOR SAFER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The European Council yesterday called for safe artificial intelligence (AI) that respects “fundamental human rights”. AI mimics human intelligence to perform tasks, and is already being used across healthcare, engineering and financial services. However, concerns have risen over its transparency and human-programmed bias. The EU’s AI Act is still in its draft stages, but will eventually be taken to the European Parliament in hopes of being cemented into regulation. The UK is undergoing its own AI inquiry which seeks to regulate the tech as it becomes an increasingly appealing avenue for business. The UK’s inquiry is expected to be published in a White Paper before the end of the year.

DONELAN DEPARTS FROM DORRIES ON BBC STANCE

Culture secretary Michelle Donelan told a DCMS committee yesterday that the BBC licence fee is “not a long term sustainable model”, especially in a modern, streaming-dominated landscape. The government has committed to a licence fee review, although the minister confirmed that this has not been commissioned yet. Donelan said that the future could welcome a mixed model, propped up by alternative funding methods. She also departed from her predecessor Nadine Dorries by distancing the debates surrounding impartiality from the questions surrounding the BBC licence fee, which Dorries froze at the start of this year for two years.

World Cup boost for Marston’s as it swings to profit

EMILY HAWKINS

MARSTON’s has welcomed being back in the black, after trade at its pub estate recovered from the side effects of Covid-19 lockdowns this year.

And the operator of around 1,500 pubs said it had seen “encouraging” levels of Christmas bookings, with the venues anticipating the first Christmas in three years without Covid-19 restrictions.

It was also hopeful about the benefits of an atypical winter World Cup, with the first two England World Cup games resulting in like-for-like drink sales up around 50 per cent versus last year.

Sales over the last eight weeks have been elevated almost seven per cent on a like-for-like basis, the London-listed chain added.

In results for the year to the end of September , the community pub operator posted a total profit before tax of £163.4 m, versus a loss of £171.1m the year prior.

Full year sales hit 99 per cent of 2019 levels, including a period of disrupted Christmas trading amid the Omicron Covid-19 outbreak at the end of 2021.

The company is aiming to return sales back to £1bn and slash its group debt by 2026, with bosses

adding yesterday that they remained “confident” about these goals being able to drive value for shareholders.

The pub company had introduced a “simplification of menus” in order to boost visitor satisfaction, while delivering “enhanced operational and purchasing efficiencies,” the firm said yesterday.

Marston’s chief Andrew Andrea has previously told City A.M. that a cost of living crisis would not deter thirsty Brits from enjoying their local pubs post-pandemic.

“Having been locked up for two to three years, we are even more social animals,” Andrea said earlier this year.

“In times of economic challenge, people look for flight to value” he told City A.M. Pubs were well placed to take up market share from restaurants as consumers pursue cheaper nights out, the pub boss said.

It comes as pub and restaurant businesses have been grappling with a cocktail of costs this winter, with bills from labour to energy to food rising.

Consumers have also started to tighten their belts due to a cost of living crunch, leaving businesses in a situation where they are unable to fully pass on the cost of inflation to customers.

Brewdog ad banned for calling its fruit beer ‘one of your five a day’

LEAH MONTEBELLO

A BREWDOG advert has been banned after it branded beer as “one of your five a day” in a marketing email.

Industry watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the claim was misleading.

The body of the email featured the heading “FEELING FRUITY” in large font above an image of a Brewdog beer can. Brewdog said it believed that recipients would generally understand

that alcoholic beverages were not equivalent to portions of fruit or vegetables, and would be taken as a “tongue-in-cheek remark”.

The watchdog said that because many people would be aware that some craft beers contained an unusually high amount of fruit, it may lead to some confusion. A Brewdog spokesperson said: “We respect the ASA’s decision and are happy to confirm that beer is not a fruit or a vegetable. We hope that sorts it out.”

Brewdog has been told that future ads must not imply that beers counted as fruit

Shein ‘offering up a fig leaf’ over worker rights, say campaigners

SHEIN has left many environmental campaigners unimpressed after revealing it would invest £12.2m into improving standards at its suppliers’ factories.

The Chinese retailer admitted its hours for workers at two sites breached local regulations, after allegations of worker mistreatment in a recent Channel 4 documentary.

Staff at one factory were working up to

13.5 hour days with two to three days off a month, while those at another were working 12.5 hour days, with no fixed structure for days off.

In response, Shein announced earlier this week it would put £12.2m towards making “physical enhancements” to factories, with more than 30 projects to be completed by the end of the year and up to 300 projects within four years.

However, according to textile workers’ rights group Labour Behind the Label,

Shein was “offering up a fig leaf” as carrying out auditing was not “worth the paper it’s written on as a defence against exploitation or factory safety”.

Audits were the equivalent of “paying someone to mark their homework – you always get back what you want to hear,” Labour Behind the Label’s advocacy lead Anna Bryher told City A.M.

E-retailers should follow in the footsteps of high street firms and “start doing grown up supply chain

Facebook: We’ll pull news content from US if Congress makes us pay up

LEAH MONTEBELLO

FACEBOOK’s parent firm Meta has threatened to pull news content from the US if Congress pushes forward with plans to make the company pay for content.

Meta’s head of policy communications Andy Stone tweeted the thread, saying that “if Congress passes an ill-considered journalism

bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether”.

The legislation, known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), gives news organisations greater power to negotiate fees for content shared on Facebook.

Meta’s main argument is that its

platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, push greater traffic to struggling news outlets.

Stone said Facebook “benefits [news sites’] bottom lines”.

The proposed regulation comes after Australia passed a similar law mandating digital companies pay for news content in 2021. Facebook temporarily removed news from its platform, but later reinstalled it.

management,” Bryher said. She called on e-tailers to publish supplier lists and have an “honest response” to scandals that involved addressing the causes of exploitation.

Analyst Wizz Selvey added that Shein’s statement felt “more reactive than proactive” and noted that brands’ ethics and reputations were increasingly important for customers.

“It’s much harder to build back brand equity once it’s been lost,” Selvey said.

MORE THAN 550 NEW SPACE JOBS TO OPEN IN UK

Telecoms company Mangata Networks is set to create up to 575 new jobs in the UK as it plots a satellite manufacturing site in Scotland. The move forms part of a nearly £84m grant, of which £54.5m has been injected by the Scottish government’s research and development body. The site will produce over 24 satellites of up to 1,500kg every three months – around the average weight of a car. The facility, based in Ayrshire, will begin construction early next year in hopes of starting manufacturing in late 2024. It will also act as another big building block for the UK’s growing space sector.

CMA EYES £94M COCHLEAR IMPLANT MERGER

A merger between two hearing implant suppliers has raised concerns within the UK’s competition watchdog, which said a deal could risk higher prices for the NHS and less choice for patients. Should Cochlear’s £94m deal for Demant-owned Otican Medical go ahead, it would mean the combined group would control between 90 and 100 per cent of the bone conduction solutions market in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority said yesterday. Bone conduction solutions are implants used when people are unable to wear conventional hearing aids. However. the probe, still in its first phase, found the deal is unlikely to weigh on the cochlear implant market, with Otican only having a small position in the market.

A new law would allow news outlets to bargain collectively against social media firms

EMILY HAWKINS

GLOBAL AIRLINES TO RETURN BACK TO BLACK NEXT YEAR

Global airlines are set to return to black next year, aviation veteran Willie Walsh said yesterday. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), carriers are set to post a collective net profit of $4.7bn (£3.8bn) next year.

“That is a great achievement considering the scale of the financial and economic damage caused by governmentimposed pandemic restrictions,” said Walsh, who has been at the IATA’s helm since April 2021. However, the former IAG executive warned the recovery remains fragile under the pressures of high costs and regulations. Figures from Cirium showed that the airline industry has racked up a net loss of almost $220bn since the beginning of the pandemic.

TOYOTA UNVEILS FIRST HYDROGEN-POWERED SUV

Toyota has unveiled the first prototype for its hydrogen-powered SUV as part of the company’s net-zero strategy. A middle-sized Corolla SUV, the prototype can accommodate up to five passengers and is powered by a 1.6 litre engine as well as by hydrogen fuel tanks. Hydrogen combustion engines use already existing internal combustion engines while working on quick refuelling times. While testing will soon begin in Japan, Toyota remains unsure whether hydrogen combustion will be used for road cars in the near future. The marque wants to reach net-zero in Europe and the UK by 2040 at the latest and to do and will focus simultaneously on the production of electric and hydrogen vehicles.

TRAVEL INFLATION EASING FOR FIRST TIME THIS YEAR

For the first time this year travel inflation has eased worldwide, spelling good news for the tourism industry amid a cost of living crunch. According to data from business travel platform Travelperk, inflation in the fourth quarter of 2022 dropped to minus eight per cent from 15 and three per cent in the second and third quarter respectively. Overall the price of flights to and from the UK fell by 12 per cent compared to the previous quarter. Indeed, nine of the 10 flight routes with the highest price drops were to or from London. “Until now, any inflationary recovery had been limited to the US, but we are now seeing Europe catching up,” said Travelperk chief revenue officer JC Taunay-Bucalo.

Sort yourselves out, minister tells aviation bosses

ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA

THE GOVERNMENT will not create aviation-specific visas to address chronic staff shortages across the industry, the government confirmed yesterday.

Aviation minister Baroness Vere told journalists yesterday it was up to everyone working in the sector to establish a “sustainable and secure UK workforce that meets our needs, [and] that is diverse and skilled”.

“Working with the sector, I think we can get through staffing challenges,” she added. PostBrexit labour rules have often been highlighted as one of the main issues affecting the UK travel and tourism sector, leading to issues such as this summer’s travel chaos.

Industry stakeholders like Ryanair and Easyjet have repeatedly called on the UK to implement post-Brexit labour laws with a bit more common sense. Ryanair’s boss Michael O’Leary said this summer that it was easier getting a visa for an extra-EU labourer than for a EU one.

An emergency visa scheme has been put in place for hauliers after numbers

fell post-Brexit and the pandemic.

Nevertheless, the government has always maintained that Brexit did not play a part in disruption at airports.

“I’m sure many saw what happened to the aviation sector in Europe and in the US, as they also struggled significantly,” Baroness Vere commented.

“What happened at Schiphol was way worse than anything we saw

Vere’s comments come as chief executive of trade body ABTA, called on ministers to consider extending the Youth Mobility Scheme to individual EU countries on a bilateral basis.

The Youth Mobility Scheme is a visa that allows young people from specific countries to live in the UK for up to two years. As of now, only a handful of countries take part in the scheme – including Australia, New Zealand and India.

“This would be a pragmatic move, in the absence of our negotiating a wider mobility chapter within the UK-EU trade deal, which is not due to be opened until 2025,” Tanzer said.

Michelle Mone takes Lords leave of absence amid PPE controversy

STEFAN BOSCIA

UNDER fire Baroness Michelle Mone has taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords in the wake of a controversy involving PPE contracts.

Mone is at the centre of a controversy involving £200m of PPE contracts that were awarded to a firm linked with the Conservative-affiliated life peer.

A spokesperson for Mone said she was taking leave to “clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly

levelled against her”.

PPE Medro was given government contracts to make surgical gowns and masks throughout the pandemic, after Mone allegedly lobbied ministers on the firm’s behalf.

There are now claims that she personally profited from the contracts, however her lawyers say Mone “had no role or function in PPE Medpro”.

She remains under investigation by the House of Lords’ standards commissioner over the allegations.

A spokesperson said Mone was taking leave “to clear her name” of allegations

Levi Roots tells

Emily Hawkins the future of Brixton is green

IN BRIXTON, the “heartbeat of the community” is its market, Dragons’ Den star and the businessman behind Reggae Reggae sauce, Levi Roots, tells City A.M.

The south London district has been Roots’ home ever since he moved to the UK as a young child from Jamaica, so it’s no surprise it is close to his heart.

However, Roots knows all too well the challenges facing both households and businesses in his local community, after volunteering to collect food bank donations for the Trussell Trust.

The cost of living crisis was “shocking” to Roots, who rose to fame after cinching funding for his sauce brand on Dragons’ Den in 2007.

“I would have never thought that would have happened in the UK in 2022,” he said of the hardship faced by families amid historic inflation.

Businesses in the area are also facing a cocktail of cost pressures and facing a fight for survival this winter.

Independent street food traders on

ELECTRIFYING THE AVENUE

Electric Avenue face hikes to fuel and food costs, all while consumers feel the pinch themselves.

The current economic pressures have “just brought it home to me how important it is to think ahead,” he said.

The 64-year-old entrepreneur has teamed up with Ford Pro for a yearlong partnership to encourage businesses to go green.

Traders on Electric Avenue will make the switch to electric vehicles ahead of

a deadline for all new cars and vans to be fully zero emission by 2025.

Test drives will be offered to traders this week, as well as a promotional campaign for the legacy E-Transit community vehicle.

“The young are now leading the change for us elders to re-think,” Roots said, with his nine-year-old son eager to talk about sustainability with him. “It’s a wonderful thing to see people are concerned” with business’s carbon footprints, he added.

Many business owners are “too busy trying to feed their kids and earn as much money as they can for now,” he admits.

However, it was “crucial” for businesses to prepare for the deadline and for the government to work with the community to instal chargers as soon as possible, he said.

With fuel costs on the up, Roots said new technology was a “fantastic way” to slash pressure, with going green essential to future-proofing street food in the years to come.

“Everybody has to be resilient,” he concluded.

Iger not Mickey Mousing around as he returns to a growing Disney+

recently announced that he would be taking a “hard look” at the company’s costs – emphasising the need to chase profitability over streaming subscriptions. It’s the sort of announcement that could reasonably be expected following a set of disappointing financial results.

But Disney will want to take care not to undermine the considerable gains it has made in the streaming arena over 2022: a year when the company released a glut of new franchise content, and one that – according to YouGov BrandIndex UK – saw the platform enjoy growth across several metrics measuring public perceptions.

Among people who use the service, Satisfaction scores rose from 18.9 to 26.7 (+8.6) between 1 January and 1 December, indicating that new shows such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and She-Hulk

have earned a solid reception with Disney+’s viewership. With Recommend scores jumping 20.0 to 27.1 (+7.1), these viewers became more likely to advocate for the platform among friends and colleagues, too.

But perceptions of Disney+ also improved among the general viewing public. Well-reviewed shows such as Andor and Only Murders in the Building helped the brand to a +6.4 increase in Buzz scores (from 13.0 to 19.4). This in turn

may have translated to a lift in Impression scores – a measure that tracks overall sentiment, and which improved from 23.1 to 31.8 (+8.7) – and Quality scores, which saw an eight-point uptick (+8.0). Perhaps most importantly, given the emphasis on the company’s balance sheet, Current Customer scores went from 22.9 to 31.9 (+9.0), and Consideration scores went from 29.2 to 38.4 (+9.2).

This success has come at some expense to the parent company: investors are reportedly unhappy at the “spiralling cost” of Disney+, and Iger has been brought back to steady the ship. But Disney will want to make sure it does not cut so deep that it hits bone: in terms of its subscriber count and public opinion alike, its streaming platform has seen real growth this year.

Stephan Shakespeare is the co-founder and CEO of YouGov.

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RETURNINGDisney CEO Bob Iger

The young are leading the change for us elders to re-think the environment

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FTSE dragged down by strike sensitive stocks as Spoons slips lower

LONDON’s FTSE 100 was dragged down yesterday by companies that will likely suffer amid additional rail strikes over Christmas.

The capital’s premier index dropped 0.61 per cent to 7,521.39 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, fell 1.19 per cent to 19,100.08 points.

Leisure and hospitality companies that book a large chunk of their annual income over the festive trading period fell sharply in the City yesterday after the RMT union announced further strikes starting on Christmas Eve and running through to 27 December.

Pub giants and FTSE 250-listed JD Wetherspoon and Mitchells and Butlers shed 2.54 per cent and 1.93 per cent re-

spectively.

“UK investors haven’t found much of anything to set London markets on a different course. News of further train strikes over Christmas aren’t exactly filling the hospitality sector with festive cheer,” Danni Hewson, financial market analyst at AJ Bell, said.

Investors have also been jittery in recent weeks due to fluctuating judgements on how high central banks will hike interest rates.

Most expect the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England to slow to 50 basis point rises next week, but the eventual peak could be higher than previously expected.

Higher rates hit stocks by making bonds more attractive and knocking the value of companies’ future earnings.

The pound was flat against the US dollar yesterday. UK borrowing costs slipped lower.

CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS

THE BANK OF LONDON

The Bank of London has poached its new chief financial officer from Metro Bank.

Banking veteran Marc Jenkins, who will also join the executive management committee, spent two years as deputy and acting CFO at Metro Bank, having previously spent several years at Natwest and Mastercard.

Subject to regulatory approval, Jenkins is set to

Ashtead Technology has snapped up Aberdeenshire-based equipment specialists Hiretech for £20m on a cash and debt-free basis. In the year to October Hiretech delivered ebitda of £3.4m and management expects ‘double-digit’ earnings per share in the full year of 2023. Investment analyst Peel Hunt views the transaction positively and latest updates positively, and has set a target price of 375p per share.

Gooch & Housego's results were in line with expectations with profits before tax coming in at £8.1m. Its order book is at record levels, climbing 51 per cent to £147.7m. While Peel Hunt has downgraded its forecasts next year by 24 per cent, this reflects the company's heavy investment strategy rather than performance downturn. It has maintained its buy stance with a target price of 75p per share.

oversee all accounting, finance, and corporate treasury for the UK Bank and will also work with the senior leadership team to support its commercial agenda.

“Marc has a distinguished career as a senior financial services executive and brings a wealth of experience and leadership skills,” group chief executive and founder Anthony Watson said.

POWELL GILBERT

Intellectual property (IP) law firm Powell Gilbert has built out its London-based team with a new associate.

Jodie Goonawardena joins from Davies Collison Cave, one of the Australia’s top IP law firms, where she

focused on pharmaceutical patent litigation. Goonawardena, whose appointment marks the firm’s fifth associate hire in just over a year, also brings experience of patent litigation in the mining, engineering, consumer goods, and software sectors.

“odie’s expertise combines scientific and technical training in key areas of the life sciences, with an experienced perspective on global IP litigation,” partner Dr Penny Gilbert said.

HARBOTTLE & LEWIS

London-headquartered law firm Harbottle & Lewis has bolstered its film and TV practice with a fresh partner.

Hannah Wylie joins from her own business affairs consultancy, where she acted for Paramount+. The incoming partner has previously held top legal and business roles at Bad Wolf - recently sold to Sony Pictures Television, Amazon Studios in Europe where she oversaw shows such as Clarkson’s Farm, as well as Focus Features, a division of NBCUniversal.

“Hannah has an unparalleled range of industry experience, having worked extensively across film and television development, financing, production, commissioning and distribution, for both Hollywood Studios and UK Indies,” managing partner Charles Leveque said.

GOOCH & HOUSEGO

SIGHTS SET ON NEXT WEEK It’s been another lacklustre and negative session for European markets, with investors keeping their gaze very much fixed on next week’s central bank meetings from the Federal Reserve, as well as the European Central Bank.

MICHAEL HEWSON, CMC MARKETS

EDITED BY SASCHA O’SULLIVAN

Whether it’s otters or guns, social media cannot exist without algorithms

Susie Alegre

IF YOU follow me on Twitter, you may have come for the digital rights content and stayed for the otters. I joined Twitter reluctantly for professional reasons – to find out what is going on in the world, connect with people doing insightful work, and to share my own professional content. But the more time I have spent on the platform, the more I have found myself drawn to otters.

Did you know that sea otters sleep on their backs in the water holding hands so they don’t drift apart, even in their dreams? Or that otter mothers hold their babies safe on their bellies while they groom their fur? Otters are the ultimate timeline cleanse in a turbulent world. But as Elon Musk took over Twitter I saw a worrying dip in otter content as my furry online friends were replaced by hot takes on the disastrous future of the free bird app and news of mass tech layoffs across the board showing up the shaky foundations of social media’s business models.

Being brainwashed into joining an online fan club for cuddly predators may be a time suck, but it is hardly an online harm. The way social media works, however, has the potential for much more serious damage on both an individual and a societal level. Our timelines are not natural phenomena.

They are designed to distract us from everything else we could be doing instead. The algorithm knows that if you want to keep me from the laundry, my tax return, or even holding hands with a real person in real life, a cuddly mammal meme is more likely to do the job than any amount of political scandal, tech news or appalled outrage about anything. But that is not the case for everyone.

Toxic content promoting gun violence, self-harm, suicide, misogyny and climate denial spreads across the online world, not because anyone needs it, or wants it, but because it serves to keep people engaged and glued to their screens. The algorithm

doesn’t have a moral compass, it just knows what works for you, and it has developed this way thanks to a new form of advertising that has emerged and dominated our online environment over the past decade.

Surveillance based advertising runs on the assumption that we, as online consumers, can be understood at a granular level so that our individual attention can be harnessed and sold, in real time, for hyper-targeted adverts. Our online lives are studied so that we can be more effectively sold and packaged as captive, gullible consumers to people who want us to buy stuffwhether that is a soothing weighted blanket or a dangerous ideology.

Social media as we know it today is essentially sugar coated personalised advertising. Ironically, however, it may be the very online advertisers that drove the business model in the first place, that are now shaking its foundations.

Since Elon Musk took over, advertisers have been leaving Twitter in droves, not because of the otters, but because of the reputational and financial risks associated with placing your name in the middle of a global information super highway with no guard rails to prevent your brand from careering off a cliff as it collides with toxic hate filled bile. And Facebook has been hit hard by Apple’s decision to allow peo-

ple to opt out of online tracking for marketing from anyone but Apple itself. It turns out that when people are given the choice of whether or not to have their every move monitored for marketing purposes, they choose not.

Social media companies rely on our engagement to sell advertising space, but they tread a fine line when they personalise to keep our attention. I deleted Instagram after a tweak of the algorithm bored me senseless with dog videos – I have my own dog IRL and, no, she is not interested in becoming a dogfluencer…. And adverts for a dementia charity popping up in my feed when visiting an elderly relative were the last straw. This week Twitter served me up otters designed and delivered by GPT-3, an artificial intelligence tool, in a much more convincing way than was possible even a month earlier.

But what the AI failed to grasp was that, in getting so close to the bone of my inner life, the deep fake otters, and Twitter, may have finally lost their grip on my soul. If Twitter is the canary in the coalmine for the current model of social media, now would be a good time to think about what we want next, and in mapping the future, we cannot afford to ignore the role of advertising in the online world we live in. Surveillance based advertising has skewed our online experience, but as advertisers themselves start to question the impact of that business model, we have an opportunity to reset our relationship with Big Tech and advertising – even if that means I may miss the otters.

£ Susie Alegre is a human rights barrister and author of Freedom to Think

The fate of John Lewis vs Debenhams is a parable in how to adapt to the future

EMERGING technologies, from AI and machine learning to edge computing and the metaverse, are fundamentally revolutionising how data is captured and used by businesses in the UK.

The effective application of this data can have a transformational effect on the performance of an organisation. In the UK, we’ve had clear examples of this working to great success. McDonald’s, for instance, used visitor data to assess the effectiveness of its iconic Piccadilly Circus billboards, and redirected marketing spend towards smaller, personalised adverts instead. This increased footfall to desired locations, and ultimately, drove up sales.

But an alarming number of organisations still find embracing data hard, making it difficult to bridge the gap between innovation and execution. Complications like a lack of technical skills, rigid legacy infrastructure and non-uniformity in legislation have prevented firms from harnessing the potential transformation that data can inspire.

Feng Li

In fact, the overabundance of data has been cited as a leading factor preventing organisations from becoming more data driven. Many British C-suite leaders fear having to hold and process huge volumes of data, due to the risk of regulatory breaches and heavy fines. As a result, Deloitte predicts that the proliferation of data will be a significant challenge to business innovation in the next three years.

To overcome this challenge and drive business success, organisations need to be brave and put data first. This means building sufficient infrastructure to capture and process data, having strong security measures to re-

duce the risk of regulatory breaches, and using these insights to inform business strategy. From there, organisations can begin to reap the financial and strategic benefits presented by data. Failure to do so can have catastrophic effects on a business’s longterm viability.

The UK has had many recent reminders of this, with a plethora of iconic businesses collapsing due to a lack of innovation - from Woolworths and BHS to Debenhams only last year. Each of these organisations lacked differentiation in the market and failed to account for the switch to online shopping. By relying on outdated business models and failing to use data to contextualise how shopping habits had changed, these companies failed to innovate sufficiently.

Compare this with the fortunes of John Lewis, who has embraced data heavily as part of its famed omnichannel strategy – with bricks-and-mortar stores complementing its online offering. Pre-pandemic, the retailer an-

nounced profits of £160m, and recently moved into the ‘build-to-rent’ property market, leveraging soaring private rental demand in key UK cities to provide a new stream of income.

The majority of business executives believe organisations that are prioritising data-led decision making are stealing market share, according to new research. Fifty-eight per cent fear they will fall behind if they don’t make better use of their data.

Businesses are recognising that data is crucial to understanding the needs of their customers, bringing new products to market and ultimately to their own survival. Innovation is no longer a choice. Leaders need to focus on creating environments where data can flourish. This will require continual financial investment, no matter the economic pressures or other perceived priorities, but it will pay off in the long-term.

£ Professor Feng Li is Chair of Information Management at Bayes Business School

MOANING

AROUND Baroness

Advertisers have deserted Twitter since Elon Musk bought it

Mone is on a leave of absence from the House of Lords in the midst of a storm of controversy over PPE contracts. Her absence will mark a change from her previous track record which last saw her vote on.... April 26. How will the chamber function without her?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A plan for levelling up

The government recently ran a public consultation on how best to use almost £1bn of dormant assets residing in the UK financial system for good causes. As the leading organisations representing UK business, we believe these precious resources should be targeted to give communities a hand up, not a hand out. The best way to do this is by giving local entrepreneurs access to the finance and support they need to grow businesses whilst tackling our most challenging social problems, often in places where standard forms of investment are hard to secure.

Thriving, sustainable businesses build the strong, vibrant, and flourishing communities we want to live in.

The government should do this by investing dormant assets into the

Community Enterprise Growth Plan. This is the first coordinated approach to providing finance and support to community-based businesses, social enterprises, and local charities across the UK, building on existing social investment systems.

For a government that has restated its commitment to levelling up, the plan is a smart way to deliver real growth and create jobs in communities most affected by longterm economic decline. An investment of £500m in the Plan over ten years would unlock at least the same amount of private capital. We urge the government to allocate dormant assets to social investment to grow community enterprise for the future.

Shevaun Haviland, Director General, British Chambers of Commerce

Jonathan Geldart, Director General, Institute of Directors

Martin McTague, National Chair, Federation of Small Businesses

ELECTRIC HIGHS Carmakers warn of post-Brexit electric price jumps

If you can build a football team, you can advance the fortunes of poor nations

Paul Ormerod

IN QATAR, there has been a storm over its treatment of women, the LGBT community, and other minorities. But it has also, in another way, been the most egalitarian World Cup. What used to be called “upsets”, with notionally weaker teams beating their alleged superiors have almost become the norm.

So, Cameroon beat Brazil, Tunisia won against France and Japan triumphed over both Spain and Germany, to give a few examples.

Only eight teams have ever won the world cup since it started in 1930, three from South America and five from Europe. But even if it is not this year, it will surely not be long before the trophy is lifted by a nation outside these two traditional bastions of the game.

At the international level, football has shown a marked reduction in inequality over time. In the 1930s and 1950s, the average number of goals scored per game in the finals of the World Cup was around four. In 1962,

The cost of electric vehicles in the UK and the EU could jump by 10 per cent in 2024 after Brusssels refused to extend tariff exemptions agreed in the Brexit trade deal. Most of the batteries are sourced in Asia, meaning EVs will be subject to rules of origin from January 2024.

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: WHO HAS TIME FOR FARMERS ANYWAY? NOT GRANT SHAPPS

Farmers aren’t always happy with the treatment they receive from government, and it’s fair to say they’re often not among the glossier industries that get prioritised in policy-making. This time though, they are annoyed at someone in particular.

Grant Shapps, the business secretary, has apparently told leaders at the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) that “there wasn’t time to meet”. This comes amid a farming crisis, in which rising costs of fuel and fertilisers are stretching the farmers’ ability to

produce what’s needed by the nation.

NFU president Minette Batters has defined Shapps’ answer as “frustrating”. Batters has warned that the government risks “sleepwalking” into a food supply crisis. Expect some egg shortages 2.0, in short.

Batters is pushing the government to lift the cap on seasonal overseas workers, and to provide additional support to an industry in crisis. Perhaps Shapps should clear his calendar, as these issues are not going away any time soon.

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for the first time it fell below three. Think of 2-1 as being the typical results. Now, it is closer to just two. Results are in general very tight.

With such a low average, and with penalty shoot outs becoming more frequent in the knock-out stages, it is clear that the differences in skill between the teams in the final stages are pretty low.

Without morphing into a football pundit, the reasons seem obvious. Fundamentally, the knowledge – the technology as we can think of it – about how to develop a squad which can hold its own internationally is available to everyone. A top coach may have one or two secret tactics, but these soon come out into the public domain.

Add to this the ability to pay a rela-

tively small number of young men enough money to incentivise them to play the game, and you have the recipe for a decent international team.

In the same way, a formula for making a poor country rich has been known for decades. At the frontiers of technology, there are of course secrets and patents. But most of the scientific knowledge needed in an advanced economy is in the public domain. The extras to add on here are more abstract than in football. But the enforceability of contracts, the protection of private property and a level of corruption which is low by world historical standards seem essential.

Countries like Singapore and South Korea have used these principles to become rich within the course of a couple of generations. In sporting terminology, they now easily hold their own with the likes of Germany and the UK.

In 1960, for example, income per head in South Korea was the same as in the Ivory Coast. Both were very poor. The latter has grown reasonably well, so that

income per head is around $2,500. In South Korea it is now $33,000.

In terms of difference between countries, world income is now less unequal than it has been for over 200 years. Branco Milanovic pointed this out in a World Bank paper in 2012, and since then the trend to more equality has continued.

Until the Industrial Revolution, the world was characterised by an income per head close to starvation levels. A few areas had lifted themselves up a bit. But there was a rough and ready equality of poverty across all countries.

Britain then started to grow strongly, followed quickly by its offshoots in America and Australia and in other countries in Western Europe. Inequality between countries soared.

But, just as in football, in recent decades more and more parts of the world have begun to apply the formula for success. Inequality across countries is falling sharply.

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The knowledge on how to build and develop a squad is available to almost anyone

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VIEWS

Tunisia beat France in the World Cup in Qatar

THE CITY A.M. CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE

THE ADVENTURER

Electric flight trip, £215, flyaboutaviation.com

Take a zero emission flight in an incredibly cool, eerily silent electric plane - the world’s only certified electric aircraft - and take in soaring views over the London skyline, taking off from a scenic Essex airfield. Electric airplane provider Pipistrel have planes at the Damyns Hall Aerodrome.

THE FASHIONISTA Clothes buying service stitchfix.co.uk, varying budgets

Stitch Fix is a clothing subscription service that gives your loved ones a personal stylist from just £10. The service, which is available for all genders, involves relaying your – or your loved ones – style preferences and measurements to a Stitch Fix stylist, setting a price range and waiting until a box loaded with sweet new threads arrives at the door.

THE FILM LOVER

James Bond luggage, £1,495, Globe-Trotter.com

James Bond luggage makers Globe-Trotter have partnered with Black Tomato to produce this gorgeous attaché case, perfect for weekend jaunts away. It’s styled with the artwork from the Dr. No opening credits and is a seriously limited run, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the film and the beginning of Black Tomato’s Bond-inspired travel trips, launching in 2023. We’ll drink to that.

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Pott'd People's air-dry clay kit, £34 on pottdpeople.com

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THE SPORTSPERSON

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THE SOCIALITE

Frieze 91 membership programme, from £990 via frieze.com

The Frieze London arts fair has announced a new membership offering invitations to events all around the world, as well as access to Frieze fairs, cultural programming, partner galleries and exclusive digital and print content. Get VIP access to some of the most prestigious arts events on the globe.

THE HEDONIST

Dima’s vodka cocktails from Ukraine, £200, dimasvodka.com

Five pounds from every sale of this gorgeous new cocktail book goes towards aid in Ukraine for those displaced by the war. The recipe book features 50 stunning cocktails to make at home.

THE TECH OBSESSIVE

Apple Watch Ultra, £849, via apple.com

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In

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Immersive challenges from £32, mysteriouspackage.com

an ever more digital world, tangible, tactile experiences are becoming more and more sought after. Backed by best-selling author Neil Gaiman, the recipient of a Mysterious Package receives a box in the post filled with hand-crafted items that both tell a story and task you with unravelling an escape room-esque mystery.

THE PUNTER

Bowman and Hayes’ strength to be Forte-fied

HAPPY Valley will be the centre of attention in Hong Kong today, when the inner-city track hosts its flagship event of the year, the LONGINES International Jockeys’ Championship, worth around £50,000 to the rider who accumulates the most points in the four-race series.

With so much money at stake, it’s not surprising that some of the best jockeys in the world, including the likes of Ryan Moore, Tom Marquand and Hollie Doyle from the UK, are lining up to do battle against their famous counterparts.

There is also an added bonus for the local trainers in the territory, with a

£20,000 prize for the stable who accumulates the most points in the four races.

It looks like ‘King of the Valley’ Caspar Fownes and legendary Australian trainer David Hayes have ear-marked these races with multiple entries and will surely be disappointed if they leave the track empty handed.

Star Australian pilot Hugh Bowman, already making a big impact in Hong Kong since starting his short-term contract late last month, looks to be the lucky recipient, picking up rides for both trainers, following his lastminute inclusion into the IJC after the withdrawal of jockey Jye McNeil due to the dreaded Covid curse last weekend.

Bowman, a former winner of the IJC, has also been lucky with the allocation of low draw numbers for his two rides for Fownes and Hayes, and could be set for a successful afternoon.

Hayes and Bowman team up with FORTE, who makes his seasonal reappearance in the first leg of the LONGINES IJC Handicap (12.10pm) over five furlongs and is capable of defying top-weight.

The key to this six-year-old sprinter is that he shows his best form when fresh. He won on his debut back in 2020, and was placed first-up at Sha Tin last season.

He is yet to finish out of the first three in six runs against similar com-

pany and is now racing off a similar mark to when he was desperately unlucky over the course and distance in January.

With an inside draw of stall three a bonus (past records show starters from inside stalls have a decided advantage in five-furlong contests) his chance is obvious, and he must go close.

Half an hour later, Bowman climbs aboard the Caspar Fownes-trained ROYAL PRIDE in the second leg of the LONGINES IJC Handicap (12.40pm) over the extended mile.

This Australian-bred galloper has always been held in high regard by the stable, and finally came good when sprinting clear of the opposition over

the course and distance last month. That form was given a boost by the runner-up Legion Of Merit running well again at Sha Tin over the weekend. Despite his penalty, he still looks in front of the handicapper and, with his inside draw alongside having a 25 percent win strike-rate over the extended mile in the last three seasons, Forte has a clear-cut chance of winning again.

POINTERS

Forte 12.10pm Happy Valley Royal Pride 12.40pm Happy Valley

Packing Famous to provide Purton with another claim to fame

IF ZAC Purton hasn’t broken enough records already this season, the reigning five-time Champion Jockey has a chance of becoming the most successful pilot in the history of the LONGINES International Jockeys’ Championship by winning his fourth title in the four-race series.

Another treble last Sunday saw the Zac-Man climb up to 54 winners for

the season from only 195 rides (a staggering 28 percent win strike rate) and 14 victories from his last 35 mounts.

You can guarantee that the Australian will relish the chance of pitting his wits and talent against the world’s best jockeys, James McDonald and Ryan Moore, and he won’t be long odds of completing a

hat-trick in the showcase IJC event.

All his four rides have leading chances in the series, including Supreme Lucky who will improve on his debut run with the aid of blinkers in the first leg of the IJC (12.10pm) over five furlongs, and course and distance specialist Xponential, who has Gold Marquis and progressive Red Lion to beat, in the final leg

of the IJC (2.10pm) over six furlongs.

His best ride in the series, however, should prove to be PACKING FAMOUS, who lines up in the third leg of the IJC (1.40pm) over the extended mile.

This consistent Danny Shum-trained gelding has been placed twice this season and notably (after having very little track work before his seasonal run) running progressive Nearly Fine

close off level weights over the track and trip back in September.

That form is the best on view, with the winner scoring twice since, including last week, and rising 23lbs in the ratings.

POINTERS

Packing Famous 1.40pm Happy Valley

Wally Pyrah previews today’s card from Happy Valley

Former IJC Champion Hugh Bowman has ridden six winners from 39 rides this season

PAINT IT RED Morocco knock Spain out of the World Cup

PORTUGAL WIN TO EARN QUARTER VS MOROCCO

£ Goncalo Ramos netted a hat-trick as Portugal beat Switzerland 6-1 to progress through to the last eight at the World Cup. Having started the match with Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench, Portugal netted through Ramos –three times –as well Pepe, Raphael Guerreiro and Rafael Leao while Switzerland could only reply once through Manuel Akanji. The result means Portugal will play Morocco next with the winner of that tie facing either France or England.

PSG INTERESTED IN SIGNING BELLINGHAM

£ The president of Paris SaintGermain, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, has said his club would be interested in signing England midfielder Jude Bellingham. The teenager has been a shining light for the Three Lions at the World Cup this year. “Everybody wants him, I’m not going to hide it,” Al-Khelaifi said. “England [are] lucky to have him, to be honest. He’s one of the best players in the tournament. He’s calm and relaxed, confident – amazing.”

ETO’O APOLOGISES FOR ALTERCATION IN QATAR

£ Footballing legend Samuel Eto’o has apologised after he was filmed in an altercation at the World Cup in

Qatar. The former Barcelona and Cameroon striker was in a video that appeared to show the 41-year-old lashing out at a man. In a statement Eto’o – who is now the president of his nation’s footballing federation – said: “I would like to apologise for losing my temper and reacting in a way that does not match my personality. I apologise to the public for this unfortunate incident.” Eto’o’s statement suggests the reporter was “probably” a fan of Algeria as part of an ongoing campaign against Cameroon following a World Cup playoff between the two sides in March.

WORCESTER AND WASPS HAVE APPEALS REJECTED

£ Former Premiership rugby clubs Wasps and Worcester Warriors each had their appeals over enforced relegation rejected yesterday by the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Both teams claimed that their administration was a ‘no fault insolvency’ and cited Covid-19 as a reason. The RFU’s club financial viability group rejected both applications which means the two clubs – if resurrected from administration – will begin next season in the Championship. “This has reinforced the need for greater financial transparency,” RFU chief Bill Sweeney said.

Frank Dalleres on how 1990s hit Freed From Desire became England’s World Cup anthem

LASHED home by Harry Kane, dinked by Bukayo Saka or headed by Jude Bellingham, each England goal at this World Cup has had one thing in common. All have been celebrated to the sound of 90s dance hit Freed From Desire, the track that the Three Lions nominated to be played every time they rippled the net in Qatar.

So how did a 25-year-old song about Buddhist values written and performed by an Italian become the choice of Gareth Southgate’s team for this year’s tournament in Qatar?

There is no inherent link between football and the singer-songwriter, Milan-born Gala Rizzatto, who fell into music and the New York clubbing scene after moving there to study.

And the lyrics are not about the beautiful game but a rejection of consumerism and greed. “I wanted to save the world with the Buddhist conception of not wanting more,” Gala has previously said. It proved internationally popular, reaching No1 in France and Belgium and No2 in the UK Singles Chart in summer 1997, although it did not initially cross over into sport.

ON FIRE

That only happened when it received a new lease of life from Wigan Athletic supporters – and specifically one Sean Kennedy – almost two decades later.

Kennedy uploaded a video to YouTube of himself singing “Will Grigg’s On Fire”, a Wigan fans’ tribute to the striker that borrowed the tune from Gala’s Freed From Desire.

It went viral, was adopted by Northern Ireland supporters at that summer’s Euro 2016 and became a bona fide football anthem, tweaked by fans of countless teams for their players.

Wigan were so pleased that they gave Kennedy a free season ticket, although it transpired that he was not in fact that first to have taken the dancefloor

MUSIC TO WATCH GOALS BY

quick to point out that they had been singing “Mitro’s On Fire” about Aleksandar Mitrovic for months, and there was footage of them belting it out to prove it.

Bristol City fans were also annoyed at Wigan getting the credit when they had been singing “Freeman’s On Fire”, about Luke Freeman, years earlier.

But even they weren’t the originators of that version, which had been in circulation among the Stevenage faithful as early as 2012, two years before Freeman moved to Bristol.

And the very earliest known use of

before Will Grigg became unexpectedly famous –when fans of Dublin club Bohemians changed the opening verse “My love has got no money/He’s got his strong beliefs” to the drug-tinged “The Bohs have got no money/We’ve got a bag of Es”.

BUMP

Still, it was 2016 when Freed From Desire entered

served for the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.

It has been used by boxer Tyson Fury and Belgium’s national football team, among many, many others, and England aren’t the only side to have picked it at this World Cup, with Switzerland and Poland also nominating the track as their goal music.

demics. Specifically, the stabbing synth sound that opens the track and the spoken quality of the vocals, musicologist Chris Milton wrote last month in the i.

And Freed From Desire’s second wind has also given Gala’s career a concomitant bump. Since 2015 the track has gone double platinum, meaning it has sold 2m units, while she has rerecorded the song and played live at matches.

England fans in Qatar for Saturday’s quarter-final with France, too, will hope they have not heard the last of it.

Morocco dumped Spain out of the World Cup on penalties yesterday. Spain were humiliated by their opposition and missed all of their spot kicks as they fell 3-0 to the North African nation following a 0-0 result after extra time. Achraf Hakimi, the Spain-born Morocco rightback, scored the winner after Abdelhamid Sabiri and Hakim Ziyech netted.

Italian artist Gala’s track has since gone double platinum

SPORT

THE RISE, RISE AND FALL OF

HE HAS the best winning percentage of any coach to have been in charge of England and he took a team from one of their lowest points in recent times to an unlikely World Cup final, but Eddie Jones is down and out – and English rugby is poorer for it.

Whether it was his lambasting of his critics, his eagerness to change the narrative or his autocratic obsession with the World Cup in France next year and subsequent neglect of the rest of the calendar, Jones’s rapid rise with England, which began with a 17-match winning streak, has crumbled in a little over a month.

When he took the role, after England’s humiliating group stage exit at the 2015 World Cup, the side were in disarray.

He became the first foreign coach of the English institution and got off to an incredible start.

A Grand Slam in his first Six Nations, followed by a series whitewash

against Australia Down Under, culminated in an unbeaten 2016 following a successful autumn window.

The slow decline would appear to have started in 2018 when the Australian led England to a Six Nations campaign that saw them win just two matches – a feat England would repeat in both 2021 and 2022.

But Jones signed a contract ahead of that 2018 tournament to keep him in place beyond the World Cup in Japan.

The initial plan was to have a successor confirmed in order for a transitional phase to take place. It never happened.

A poor 2018 soon became the year of the World Cup in 2019, but in Japan England romped to the final – and on the way beat New Zealand in a semifinal many would say represented the very, very best of English Test rugby.

But in the final, Jones’s third in management, his side came a cropper to a brilliant South Africa outfit. England had played their World Cup final one game too early.

And from there, well, it was a slow snowball at the top of a semi-steep hill that rolled and rolled towards this autumn when it reached peak velocity. This year has quite simply been a shocker for Jones. England won just five Tests in 12 matches, also lost an exhibition game against the Barbarians and lost to Argentina at home for the first time since 2006 – ironically a game which contributed to the down-

MUSIC TO WATCH GOALS BY Why England chose a 90s hit as their World Cup anthem

THE RUNNERS AND RIDERS FOR THE JOB

fall of Andy Robinson in 2007.

But Jones ends his career with the best winning percentage of any England men’s coach in history and with a winning record in Australia of five matches out of six.

He has been a sensational coach for England and some would argue his dismissal is a mistake just nine months out from a World Cup.

With the showpiece tournament closing in, mass change could be the worst thing England could have done – but they’ve done it and there’s no going back now.

Jones rose with Japan, skyrocketed with England and then plummeted in charge of the same team he had shone with.

He will not be out of a job for long –the United States are reportedly looking at the Australian on an eight-year deal – but his time with England is now over.

England’s period of purgatory begins, but for how long they’re without a permanent coach remains unknown.

RICHARD COCKERILL

The interim day-to-day runner of the England set-up Richard Cockerill could impress in his role and continue in the job – in a similar vein to England football manager Gareth Southgate. Cockerill is notoriously tough.

SCOTT ROBERTSON

He may be contracted to New Zealand Rugby but Scott Robertson has been spending a lot of time in the British Isles of late – he has been a key part of the Barbarians coaching set up and has toured a number of English Premiership sides. Though it will cost England to release him from his contract Down Under, he would be a figure that could revolutionise England given their player pool.

WAYNE SMITH

Retired and then non retired and then retired again Wayne Smith would be an outside bet for the job given he’s adamant his coaching days are behind him but the Kiwi – who many see as one of the greatest coaches in the professional era – recently took the Black Ferns to World Cup glory with just months in preparation.

MARK MCCALL

The producer of so much of the talent in England at the moment –both coaching and playing –Mark McCall would be one of the best appointments for the head coach role, or at least director of rugby. His knowledge of the English system and ability to consistently achieve with current Premiership club Saracens make him a natural option to take over a big role at Twickenham.

STEVE BORTHWICK Leicester Tigers boss and former England skipper Steve Borthwick is the favourite to take the reins at Twickenham. The 43-yearold took an underperforming Leicester and turned them into domestic champions within 18 months. He has experience of how the England set up works and will be one of the best-placed coaches.