MANAGEMENT gurus, CEOs and Square Mile workers all slammed a nanny state call by the nation’s top food regulator to ban cake from the office.
Professor Susan Jebb said bringing in a tasty treat to share with colleagues didn’t create a “supportive environment” for people to cut down on food –and extraordinarily compared it to passive smoking in an interview with The Times.
Leadership expert Ann Francke, the chief exec of the Chartered Management
THE BANK of England could begin to cut interest rates as soon as early next year if inflation continues to tumble in 2023, top City analysts have predicted.
The rate of price increases is forecast to more than halve, which
Institute, said “sharing office snacks is a great way to come together as a team”.
“Subjecting team snacks to some sort of food regulator certainly won’t solve any of the core challenges facing UK businesses,” she continued.
One high-flying City legal boss told City A.M. that comparing the supply of a Victoria sponge to lighting up a Marlboro Gold was “utter tosh”.
Euan Blair, City A.M.’s entrepreneur of the year in 2022 and boss of apprenticeship firm Multiverse, said “there are hundreds and thousands of
ways to show your appreciation to a hardworking team, but we shouldn’t batter companies that indulge in the odd sweet treat.”
City workers in Leadenhall Market were in agreement yesterday.
Steph, who works in insurance, said it was “absolute nonsense”.
And Luciana, who works in the shipping industry, described the comments as “political correctness gone mad”.
“It’s one of the few joys in life –like having a few pints at lunchtime,” she told City A.M. yesterday.
would bring inflation to below five per cent by the end of 2023, according to forecasts from the Bank and budget watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Any such drop would release the upward pressure on rates.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed
that inflation in December fell for the second month in a row to 10.5 per cent in December from 10.7 per cent.
Analysts said core inflation is on track to slide quickly in 2023, opening the door for governor Andrew Bailey and the rest of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)
to drop borrowing costs.
“With imported goods prices set to fall back, labour market slack likely to build, energy inflation having peaked and profit margins under pressure, we think core CPI inflation will be within touching distance of two per cent by the end of this year,” Samuel Tombs, chief
said.
“If so, the MPC’s fears about ingrained high inflation should fade as 2023 progresses, bringing rate cuts into play in early 2024,” he added.
SADIQ Khan is unlikely to be flavour of the month in too many London households this morning. Yesterday he announced a combination of topup charges to Council Tax and an across-the-board increase in transport costs across London. The London Conservatives are, unsurprisingly, up in arms. But much of the blame lies not at City Hall’s door, but in Whitehall. A potted history: Transport for London, pre-pandemic, was heading for financial
sustainability. This was important, as it was almost uniquely amongst global cities reliant on farebox revenues as opposed to central or local funding to keep moving. Once Covid-19 struck and the government introduced draconian lockdowns –which we
can now assume were too harsh and lasted too long, particularly the second iteration –those fares collapsed, but TfL had to keep much of the service running. This created a financial black hole of a not insignificant size. Sadiq Khan had little option but to go cap in hand to central government –where he was told to come back with a series of efficiency savings on the transport network. The Department for Transport gave London not one but four
emergency bailouts before it gave the capital a longer-term funding plan, but one that required fares to increase at the same rate as national train fares (a government decision) as well as £500m-worth of additional revenues or savings. The Mayor could and should have been more constructive with Whitehall, and bitten his tongue on the many occasions Boris drew him into a media spat. But how’s this for a counterfactual. What if the government had given TfL a lump
sum, no strings attached, sufficient to fill the funding vacuum caused by lockdown –recognising that a global city and the (only) engine of the UK economy needs a working transport system. It could even, frankly, have been a decades-long loan. Instead, the government and City Hall bickered for years –and the ‘long-term’ settlement finally reached only lasts for three years. Londoners will feel the pain of a failure of government.
The slowdown was mainly driven by international energy prices collapsing after they surged to record highs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a trend that is expected to continue throughout this year.
Gas prices are now lower than they were before the Russian president Vladimir Putin launched the assault on his neighbour.
Despite the fall, inflation is still running at more than five times
the Bank’s two per cent target.
Core inflation – a more accurate measure of underlying price pressures – held steady at 6.3 per cent, raising concern over an inflationary feedback loop setting in.
In theory, raising interest rates sucks demand out of an economy by making it more attractive for consumers to save and more expensive for businesses to borrow.
James Smith, developed markets economist at Dutch bank
ING, agreed with Tombs, forecasting the MPC will begin reducing borrowing costs “in the first quarter of next year”, but added cuts “could feasibly be a bit later than that” due to the risk of the UK suffering sticky inflation stemming from both a squeezed jobs market and exposure to high energy prices.
The Bank will announce its next rate decision on 2 February and investors are split over whether to back a 25 basis point or 50 basis point hike.
The latter would send borrowing costs to four per cent, a post-financial crisis high and mark the tenth successive increase.
LAST year’s inflation surge was bad. Very bad. According to the Office for National Statistics’s modelled consumer price index (CPI) going back to the 1950s, on a calendar year basis, 2022 was the worst inflation surge the UK has experienced since 1981.
There are signs that inflation will steadily decline in the coming year, mainly due to international energy prices retreating fast, but could also stick around over the long term.
Yes, headline CPI is down for the second month in a row (the first time since the early stages of the pandemic), but core inflation –what the Bank of England worries about –remaining unchanged at over six per cent isn’t good.
Higher fixed costs, like wages,
Netflix is hiring a flight attendant to look after senior management on one of its corporate planes, barely a year after axing hundreds of staff. The Californian tech company has offered to pay a salary up to $385,000 (£321,000).
ALDI INCREASES
Aldi is increasing pay for UK warehouse workers for the third time in a year. The latest increase for warehouse workers comes after Aldi upped pay for store staff last month to at least £11 an hour – also the third increase in a year.
CHINA TO LAUNCH STATEOWNED RIDE-HAILING APP China is launching a state-owned ridehailing platform initially targeting Communist party members and employees of government-owned enterprises, in a challenge to the country’s reigning market leader Didi.
might be prompting companies to raise prices.
Given inflation is still eroding record private sector pay growth, incentives for workers to stop demanding pay rises aren’t going away, so there’s a chance that dreaded wage/price spiral dynamic springs up. But, latest inflation expectations numbers from YouGov and Citi aren’t up markedly. A return to the 1970s this is not.
There’s equal arguments for a 25 or 50 basis point rise at the Bank’s next meeting on 2 February. Over to you Andrew Bailey.
JACK BARNETT
SOME OF the world’s top central bankers yesterday emphasized the need for introducing basic regulations for cryptocurrencies, but they remained equally wary that new rules could lend legitimacy to an industry that has been very unstable over the past year.
The central bank chiefs agreed on the need for a basic level of crypto regulation, covering antimoney laundering and ‘know your customer’ checks on crypto assets, but were sceptical about going further.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam, chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said that regulation might legitimise something “inherently speculative and, in fact, slightly crazy”.
He said it was better to warn potential investors that investing in cryptocurrencies “is a risk you take at your own expense”.
This sentiment was shared by François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Central Bank of France, who said the basics of regulation – including anti-money laundering and investor protections – “should be applied to all cryptos”.
The discussion echoed similar debates taking place in Britain, where City minister Andrew Griffith said he was concerned about the potential for regulation to
A senior Singaporean regulator described crypto as “slightly crazy”
create a “halo effect” around crypto assets.
“That is a big concern, and it is one reason why we are taking our time and trying to get the balance right,” he told the Treasury Committee last week.
Concerns around the stability of crypto have intensified since the dramatic collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
Founder Bankman-Fried is to face trial in the USA for several counts of fraud.
COLM KELLEHER, chair of banking giant UBS, has warned of the need for regulators to spend more time policing so-called shadow banks, or non banks.
He made the stark warning during a panel discussion on the risks facing the financial system at the World Economic Forum in
Davos yesterday. He said regulators had “taken their eye off the ball” when it came to shadow banks, Shadow banking is a term used to refer to entities such as lenders operating outside of the remit of the traditional banking sector They have increasingly become an area of concern among regulators with risk migrating from the more stringently regulated traditional
financial sector. Although bullish about the position of traditional banks, the panel was less positive about the regulatory position of shadow banks.
Indeed, the panel agreed that as a result of the regulatory reforms that had taken place since the global financial crisis, traditional banks were in a far more stable condition than in 2008.
THE GUARDIAN reported that documents in a US court accuse Staley of observing the sexual abuse of women trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. The woman is suing JP Morgan. Staley and JP Morgan declined to comment when approached by City A.M. Staley has previously denied any involvement.
CREDIT Suisse is considering offering its senior executives upfront bonuses as it seeks to incentivise its top performing staff to stay at the bank.
An internal memo seen by City A.M. said that managing directors and directors “in most locations” will be awarded the cash component of their variable compensation upfront.
The memo said upfront payment allows the bank “to recognise the
contribution of its senior leaders and to reward loyalty”.
Those in line for the early cash bonus, however, would be required to repay some or all of the bonus if they leave the bank within three years.
While the bank admitted that the “compensation pool will be lower than in previous years”, the scheme is an attempt to “reward individual and collective performance”, the memo said.
Credit Suisse declined to comment.
JES STALEY The former boss of Barclays has been accused of observing sexual abuse
GREAT British Nuclear (GBN) is in need of an overarching strategy and lacks a clear role in securing the UK’s energy independence, the state-backed initiative’s boss has warned.
Simon Bowen, the UK’s nuclear industry advisor, yesterday raised concerns over the lack of clear direction for GBN at a committee session with a body of MPs in Westminster.
Speaking to the Science and
Technology Committee, he said: “The piece that is missing for me at the moment is the overarching strategy.
This is where [former] Prime Minister Johnson started, which is ‘We need energy security in the UK full stop.’
“If we accept we need energy security: what is the quantum of nuclear that you need to secure that?
If I reflect on where we are now, that is the piece that needs to be reinjected into the conversation.”
He argued it was essential for the government to establish a plan with
THE NORTH Sea’s biggest oil and gas producer is planning a raft of job cuts in response to the windfall tax, as the backlash to the new levy intensifies.
Harbour Energy has told staff about its redundancy plans, with jobs set to be cut from its headquarters in Aberdeen.
City A.M. understands that the extent of the firing spree, first reported by Reuters, is yet to be determined and will be subject to consultations.
Harbour recently pulled out of the latest licensing round for future North Sea exploration and development amid concerns over the domestic investment climate.
This follows Chancellor Jeremy Hunt hiking the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) 10 percentage points last November, raising the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas operators from 25 to 35 per cent. The levy comes on top of the 40 per cent special corporation tax domestic fossil fuel producers already pay – taking the overall tax take to 75 per cent.
City A.M. understands that Harbour is also looking to restructure after several ownership changes in recent years to
make the business operations more coherent. When approached for comment on the planned job cuts, Harbour explained that the latest developments did not mean it was abandoning any current projects but it was reassessing future plans.
“Following changes to the EPL, we have had to reassess our future activity levels in the UK,” a spokesperson for Harbour told City A.M.
“We will continue to support investment on the many attractive opportunities within our existing portfolio, but we are scaling back investment in other areas such as new exploration licensing. As such, we have initiated a review of our UK organisation to align with lower future activity levels.”
The North Sea recently enjoyed a fresh boost from the figures in the latest licensing round, with the number of bids clocking in at comparable numbers to the previous auction process in 2019 – despite fears firms would back out from exploration after the windfall tax was toughened.
However, Harbour is not the only firm smarting from the levy, with Total Energies recently confirming it will have to fork out £810m ($1bn) in the fourth quarter from UK windfall taxes.
GBN for which technologies it invests in and over what timeframe.
Bowen, who previously oversaw, Babcock’s nuclear business, was tasked with overseeing the UK’s nuclear ramp-up last May by Johnson.
Downing Street is targeting a ramp up in generation from 7GW to 24GW over the next three decades as part of its energy security strategy.
However, there are concerns over significant delays, with projects such as Hinkley Point C running two years late and 45 per cent over budget.
CHRISTMAS proved a tale of two countries for electronics retailer Currys as the business said a betterthan-expected performance in the UK and Ireland managed to offset its struggles in Scandinavia.
The company told shareholders yesterday that trade in the British Isles had improved during the 10 weeks to 7 January – its so-called “peak” period – when compared with the rest of the financial year to date.
Shares surged 11 per cent off the back of the update.
Sales of appliances and mobile phone equipment were strong, although that was offset by weaker sales of computing products.
Thanks to a stronger performance in store than online, and as Currys cut costs to improve margins, the business achieved better-thanforecast profits in the UK and Ireland, it said.
Like-for-like sales dipped five per cent against last Christmas, but improved compared with the eight per cent drop during the year to date. The company’s international business saw a seven per cent dip.
The company said that, barring any unexpected deterioration in the economy, it expects pre-tax profit to reach between £100m and £125m in the financial year.
“Our transformation is visibly succeeding,” chief executive Alex Baldock commented.
CHILEAN miner Antofagasta yesterday said it was optimistic going into 2023 after navigating higher input costs and an ongoing drought in Chile.
The group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, showed signs of recovery towards the end of 2022, with Antofagasta producing 646,200
tonnes of copper at a cash cost of $1.61 per pound. This was in line with the lower end of earlier guidance, despite a 10 per cent drop on last year’s copper haul of 721,000 tonnes.
There were signs of recovery in the fourth quarter, however, as group copper production climbed 195,700 tonnes, 7.6 per cent higher than the previous three month trading period.
For 2023, Antofagasta anticipates production of 670,000 to 710,000 tonnes of copper – up from 2022 but still down from 2021’s output.
Copper is currently enjoying a sharp resurgence, trading at $4.33 per pound, according to Marketwatch.
The metal is essential to renewable technologies such as wind turbines and EV batteries.
CAZOO has halved its sales ambitions for the year and is now looking to sell between 40,000 and 50,000 cars, rather than the predicted 80,000 to 100,000.
The online car retailer yesterday told analysts and investors it was shrinking its ambitions to a “more modest” top line, as it sought to return to profitability without the need for further funding from investors over the next 18 to 24 months.
Cazoo said that reducing the volumes of cars sold would allow it to focus on higher value vehicles and improve its growth per
unit from the current £600 to £1,500 by the end of 2023.
Cazoo boss Alex Chesterman –who founded the New York-listed company in 2018 – also announced he would be stepping down as chief executive from 1 April. Chesterman will remain on board as full-time executive chairman and hand the CEO reins to Cazoo’s chief operating officer Paul Whitehead.
The company said the splitting of operations would allow Chesterman to focus on the retailer’s “strategic direction”.
The change in management comes after a difficult year for the firm, which has seen
its shares collapse 93 per cent. Shares continued to tumble yesterday.
Cazoo was forced to revise its business plan after reporting a £243m half-year loss in August. As a result it offloaded its European operations – cutting 750 jobs –and focused solely on the UK.
The company warned yesterday it would be making “further headcount reductions” to rein in costs.
“Whilst 2022 was a challenging year in many respects, our continued strong growth, notable improvement in unit economics during each quarter and market-leading consumer feedback gives
us strong confidence in the long-term opportunity for Cazoo,” Chesterman said.
“We also remain on track and on budget with our withdrawal plan from the EU, having disposed of our Italian and Spanish businesses and largely wound down our French and German operations in the fourth quarter 2022,” he added.
There was some good news for the firm, with the retailer reporting a 100 per cent increase in sales in the three months to 31 December.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the used-car retailer sold around 17,750 vehicles for a total of around £315m.
CHARLIE CONCHIE
WH SMITH yesterday said revenues had surged in the first few months of its financial year as its airport and train station-based shops reaped the rewards of a rebound in travel.
In a trading update for the 20 weeks to 14 January, the stationery stalwart said revenues were up 40 per cent after bumper growth in its travel division across the UK and North America.
Bosses said UK revenues in its travel business jumped 70 per cent compared to the prior year and were up 18 per cent on pre-pandemic levels in 2019, after a strong performance in airports, hospitals and train stations.
However, the group’s high street division slumped two per cent on last year amid a wider decline in high street footfall and a tightening in consumer spending. Revenues were down 14 per cent on prepandemic numbers in 2019.
Carl Cowling, group chief executive, said it had been a “strong start” to the year for the firm and it was now targeting growth in new products.
LONDON continues to have the highest house prices in the country, with the average UK house price increasing by more than 10 per cent in the year to November, according to new data released yesterday.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that house prices went up across the nation by 10.3 per cent in the year to November, but this was down from 12.4 per cent in October.
AN EASING of the pay war between law firms has already begun to benefit Gateley’s balance sheet, the listed law firm’s chief executive told City A.M. yesterday.
Gateley boss Rod Waldie said the “whole sector is benefiting” from the calming of the legal sector pay war that has seen lawyers’ salaries surge over the past two years.
The law firm chief said the slowdown in wage inflation has seen Gateley’s salary to revenue ratio return to what he said were “normal” levels.
Gateley’s spending on salaries as a proportion of its overall revenues dropped down to rates of 61.7 per cent in the six months ending 31 October 2022 – from highs of 64.1 per cent in the first half of 2022 – as wage growth began to slow, the law firm’s financial results show.
Waldie said: “We have to match market expectations,” as he claimed the “frothy market” seen over the past two years had increased Gateley’s costs.
Gateley is one of just six UK listed law firms, having launched its initial public offering (IPO) on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM)
in 2015.
The Gateley boss noted that the UK’s legal sector has not seen layoffs of the scale seen in the US, including those at top US firms such as Cooley and Goodwin Procter.
Waldie was adamant that Gateley has “no intention whatsoever of doing anything to our headcount” as he argued the “interchangeability” of its staff’s skillset means the firm is able to shift lawyers around to ensure it is “adequately” resourced.
The cooling of the battle for talent comes as Gateley’s fee earner headcount hit highs of more than 1,000 for the first time in its history, as the AIMlisted company continued its M&A expansion spree.
Waldie said Gateley will continue with its expansion plans in its bid to further diversify its business and grow its geographical reach, as he noted the company has £23m ready to deploy on making mergers and acquisitions.
The legal chief noted that all of Gateley’s M&A activity so far has been selffunded, using cash and shares.
Waldie, however, noted that being listed on the AIM gave it another “tool” to raise money for any potential large-scale acquisitions.
JUBY BABUMORE THAN 500 of Twitter’s advertisers have paused spending on the micro blogging site since Elon Musk’s takeover last year, The Information reported yesterday, citing a person familiar with its ad business.
The social media company’s daily revenue on 17 January was 40 per
cent lower than the same day a year ago, the report added.
The drop in the company's revenue was first reported by technology newsletter Platformer on Tuesday.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment on both the media reports.
Since Musk took over Twitter last October, corporate advertisers have fled in response to the billionaire
laying off thousands of employees and rushing a paid verification feature that resulted in scammers impersonating companies on Twitter.
The social media platform recently reversed its 2019 ban on political ads and said that it would relax advertising policy for “cause-based ads” in the United States and align its ad policy with TV and other media outlets.
The average property price in England came in at just under £300,000 in November, about £28,000 more than at the same time the previous year.
Prices in England went up almost 11 per cent with the North West experiencing the highest annual percentage increase in the year, at 13.5 per cent, the ONS said.
London had the slowest rate of change at 6.3 per cent, down from 6.7 per cent in October, but average house prices remain the most
expensive, reaching an eye-watering £542,000.
There was good news for residents of the capital, however, with London being the lowest region in England when it came to House Price Inflation.
Nathan Emerson, Propertymark chief executive, said: “Estate agents in London are reporting buyers agreeing sales at under the asking price, however, agents in the North West are seeing properties sell for asking price very quickly after being marketed, sometimes in a matter of days.”
THE UK’s data watchdog has vowed to shift away from simply hitting companies with big fines for breaching data privacy rules and instead will look to adopt a more preventative approach.
John Edwards, head of the Information Commissioners’ Office, yesterday said that he will
focus on preventing data breaches from happening in the first place by making the UK’s privacy laws clearer.
The New Zealander, who started his five-year stint as the UK’s information commissioner in January 2022, vowed to stop the “money-go-round” by turning away from simply fining companies. Edwards said he will not seek to match EU regulators in racking up a “stack of fines”.
“It’s less spectacular but more effective to prevent those harms at the start than it is to go around and beat people up afterwards and fine them into insolvency.”
Speaking at law firm CMS’ London headquarters, Edwards set out plans to provide clear guidance on the UK’s data laws, as he warned that uncertainty has an “enormous cost on the economy”.
LONDON-LISTED asset managers Liontrust and Rathbones showed signs of a rebound yesterday as assets under management ticked upwards and the volume of investors pulling their cash from funds began to slow.
London’s big money managers have suffered a torrid 12 months as markets descended into turmoil in the wake of war in Ukraine and soaring inflation.
A string of London’s investment giants reported slumps in the value of their holdings in the third quarter last year as investors fled the market.
However, Rathbones said yesterday it had notched a jump in the amount of cash injected into its funds in the final three months of the year, as total net inflows hit £145m, up from £67m in the previous quarter.
Liontrust meanwhile said outflows had slowed significantly on the previous quarter despite a “year of negative investor sentiment”.
The London investor reported net outflows of £0.6bn, a marked slowdown after £1.6bn was pulled in the prior quarter.
Holdings of both firms ticked upwards, with Rathbones reporting a rise in total funds under management and administration (FUMA) to £60.2bn, compared with £57.9bn at the end of September.
Liontrust said the value of its assets rose three per cent to £32.6bn despite the sustained outflows.
John Ions, chief executive of Liontrust, said investors’ outlook had continued to be weighed down in the final quarter by the “the ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns”.
“Liontrust was not immune to the continued volatility in stock markets, leading to net outflows of £632m in the last three months of the year,” he added.
Assets under management as of 16 January were at £33.8bn.
Liontrust said it has now planned a month-long roadshow around the UK next month in a bid to court financial advisers and tempt in cash from new channels, Ions announced yesterday.
Volatility over the past 12 months has dented the value of Liontrust, with shares trading down almost 30 per cent on the year from January.
THE SCHEME is set to include a multi-storey hotel that will be built on top of the station, with an office block also mooted. There will be a new station entrance, while the plans by architect Herzog & de Meuron include a publicly accessible roof garden and swimming pool. The plan is for the work to commence in 2025 and will be submitted by March.
THE UK’s accounting regulator has launched an investigation into London accounting firm Shipleys over its audit work for the UK-listed holding company of Russian fintech firm Zaim Express.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) yesterday said it has decided to open an investigation into the firm’s audit of Zaim Credit Systems’ 2021 accounts. The FRC’s investigation comes after the London Stock Exchange
suspended trading of shares in Zaim Credit Systems’ last September, following the launch of a separate investigation into the control of its wholly-owned subsidiary Zaim Express.
The UK accounting watchdog said its investigation is solely aimed at Shipleys, as it said the investigation is not into any other “persons or entities” involved.
Zaim Credit Systems and Shipleys LLP were approached by City A.M. for comment on the probe.
SHARES in Just Eat Takeaway.com rose yesterday morning after the food delivery company reported a positive outlook for the year ahead.
Shares in the firm jumped despite the fact the Amsterdam-headquartered firm reported a fall in orders towards the end of last year.
The total value of orders placed on Amsterdam-based Just Eat’s platform
globally in the fourth quarter was €7.11bn (£6.22bn), down from €7.23bn notched up in the same quarter in 2021.
In the UK and Ireland, the total value of orders dropped to €1.695bn for the fourth quarter, down from €1.74bn in 2021.
The firm said, however, that it was expecting positive adjusted ebitda of €225m in 2023.
Jitse Groen, CEO of Just Eat Takeaway.com, said: “Our focus on profitability resulted in a material
improvement in adjusted ebitda, from minus €134m in the first six months of 2022 to approximately €150m positive in the second half of the year.”
“Our improved profitability and strong capital position strengthen our business for further growth and underpin our ability to both deliver on our adjusted ebitda targets and invest in food and nonfood adjacencies,” Groen said.
The firm also said that its senior management, together with advisors,
“continues to actively explore the partial or full sale of Grubhub” – an idea it first floated early last year.
The results come off the back of a new deal negotiated with supermarket giant Sainsbury’s.
With the Just Eat app, customers will soon be able to order items from Sainsbury’s and have them arrive at their doorstep in under half an hour.
The on-demand service will be available in over 175 stores by the end of February,
and rolled out nationwide throughout the year.
This comes after a number of outlets signed up with Just East, with the Co-op partnering in December, while other agreements have been penned with Asda, Booker and Greggs.
Shares in Just Eat, which is dual-listed, closed up around four per cent on the London Stock Exchange and almost five per cent on the Euronext off the back of the news yesterday.
CITY A.M. REPORTERS
LONDONERS are set to be hit with across the board increases in their transport costs as well as an almost £40 jump in the average council tax bill, the Mayor of London revealed yesterday.
Sadiq Khan said the top-ups to local council taxes –known as ‘the precept’ –were his only option to balance the books.
A £15 top-up will go to the Met Police to hire 500 additional community support officers, a £20 charge will go towards Transport for London and a £3.55 addition will be banked by the Fire Brigade.
The tax hikes come alongside a 5.9 per cent increase in Transport for London fares.
The transport-related tax hike and the fare increase are tied to the TfL funding settlement agreed by central government and City Hall last year, which mandated a fare increase in exchange for emergency funding.
Khan said there was “no viable alternative” to “plug the gap” left by central gov-
ernment
The
the government’s refusal to provide the funding our city needs means I’ve been left with no viable alternative but to help plug the gap by raising council tax by £3.21 a month.
“This will ensure we can protect and further improve our vital frontline public services, including the police, transport and the London Fire Brigade.”
The Mayor has consistently criticised Whitehall for a lack of funding for what remains the country’s economic engine.
“This is a challenging time for our city, with a government that is not fully funding our public services, but I’m determined to step up so that we can continue building a greener, safer and fairer London for everyone,” Khan said.
Figures from City Hall last year suggested London has received £76 per person from a series of Levelling Up initiatives worth billions of pounds, which is well below the England average of £384 per person.
Khan also announced that a temporary ban on the use of the over-60 freedom pass before 9am would become permanent. Age UK said the decision came at the “worst possible time”.
THE City of London Corporation has launched a public consultation on its new draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy.
We want to hear your views to make sure we deliver the best support for people who are at risk of homelessness, already homeless or rough sleeping. We aim to ensure that they are supported in a swift, effective, compassionate, fair, and respectful way.
You can view our draft strategy and respond to the survey by visiting: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/ homelessnessconsultation
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IF THE Labour Party really was in the pockets of the unions, they should ask that any strikes going forward always fall on a Wednesday. Maybe it’s a perverse kind of home advantage, but the nurses on picket lines yesterday inspired a Keir Starmer seen only once a blood moon.
The strike laws, known by their drier name of “minimum service legislation”, sounded perfectly reasonable last week, but they address the symptom of the problem, not the cause.
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london.gov.uk/eshot
And Starmer knows this. Even on days when nurses and ambulance staff are working as normal, people suffering from chest pains are waiting 90 minutes for help. The wait time should be 18 minutes.
Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions was an exercise in the emotional narrative versus the managerial response.
Starmer used his time to chart the journey someone with a suspected heart
attack would go on after dialling 999.
“Someone who fears a heart attack is waiting more than two and a half hours, that’s not the worst-case scenario, that’s the average wait,” he told the Commons, running through how long the clock ticks before an ambulance arrives in Peterborough, Northampton and Plymouth.
In the 40 minutes it takes for the Prime Minister to answer MPs’ questions, 700 people call an ambulance, the Labour leader called from the opposite benches.
Of those, two are heart attack patients
and four are stroke victims.
Sunak, in comparison, relied on last week’s news and a sterile deflection by pointing to the health service in “Labourrun Wales”.
Faced with the story of 26-year-old Stephanie who died for lack of medical attention, answers about “practical steps” the government is taking fell flat and hardly helped Sunak’s image of disconnection from voters.
The Prime Minister’s political gamble right now is that people want a competent manager, not another Boris Johnson or Liz Truss. The risk with this strategy is that the country is in chaos, and anyone presiding over that is unlikely to win any “best boss of the year awards”.
All Starmer has to do then is keep telling the story of a Britain unravelling in a way which grabs attention –and pull on Britain’s NHS heartstrings.
THE UK and the European Union are set to lose out on potentially lucrative green energy projects to the US –if they fail to match a generous new stateside investment environment.
The so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ –signed into law by President Joe Biden last year –has committed almost $400bn towards clean energy projects, a potential windfall that is forcing entrepreneurs to reassess their investment plans. It also includes a bucketload of tax credits which should help accelerate production of solar panels and wind turbines. Clean energy storage specialist Zenobe Energy has been establishing roots in the US over recent months, signing a memorandum of understanding with JERA Americas, the US subsidiary of Japanese power company JERA, to jointly develop utility-scale battery storage projects in New York and New England.
The company mission statement is
“to make clean power accessible across the world”.
So far, it has secured funding to pursue e-buses and charging infrastructure, alongside large-scale battery facilities in the UK –which aim to provide renewable energy in response to wind farms being switched off, as an alternative to gas supplies.
Nils Aldag, chief executive of German hydrogen technology experts Sunfire, was also weighing up the possibility of pivoting projects and investment stateside if the EU failed to provide more support.
“We will have to con-
sider the US if we do not see Europe respond in time,”
By contrast to the generous investment climate now on offer in
the States, the UK has imposed a fresh levy on electricity generators, snatching 45 per cent of revenues for legacy operators that have provided clean power to meet the country’s energy needs for decades.
The EU, meanwhile, has failed to get regulatory frameworks in place to advance green energy, reck-
AIR FRANCE confirmed yesterday lunchtime that it would not be pursuing a bid for ITA Airways –the successor brand to Italian flag carrier Alitalia –with Lufthansa expected to step in instead.
The German carrier said it had offered to buy an initial minority
stake, saying Italy was its most important market outside of its home markets and the US.
ITA is in the process of being privatised, with a December decree dictating the sale of a minority stake ahead of a larger transaction.
Elsewhere on the continent, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport will end passenger number limits in
March –ahead of the busy Easter getaway period.
It cut capacity by a fifth last year amid chaotic scenes at a host of European airports as staffing failed to keep up with increased ‘rebound’ demand post-pandemic.
Airlines are pushing airports to staff up ahead of what is expected to be a record summer.
ons Aldag.
He said: “It’s... not yet sufficiently in place for this target to actually be met. The US has basically given a whack to the whole industry, and European regulators understand they have to act quickly now.”
In his view, the EU and US were not just competing for projects and
could be each other’s second market if an attractive investment environment was created across the West.
This would ensure a strong market to compete with the growing influence of China and India in the renewables sector.
The EU has initiated plans to take on Biden’s legislation, through loosening subsidy restrictions and speeding up permits across the bloc for green energy projects.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Brussels would also water down state aid rules and offer more funding support to strategic industries that were climate friendly.
She said: “To keep European industry attractive, there is a need to be competitive with offers and incentives that are currently available outside the European Union.”
In the UK, the response has so far been more muted despite its own highly aggressive generation targets for domestic renewable production over the coming decades.
However the publication of Tory
In his report, Skidmore labelled net zero as the “economic opportunity of the 21st century’ and called on the government to boost investment in green energy projects. Business select committee member Alexander Stafford told City A.M. the “global race to net zero is well and truly on”.
The first step, in his view, was to offer clean energy firms an investment allowance in line with the windfall tax for oil and gas firms, so that the Electricity Generator Levy does not “deter investment and push firms overseas”. He said: “The US hopes to lure electric car manufacturers and renewable energy firms into crossing the pond through its Inflation Reduction Act’s generous tax credits. If the UK is going to compete, ensuring these new industries and better-paid jobs come here, we need to back these clean enterprises wholeheartedly.”
Joe Biden’s green stimulus bill is forcing investors to sit up and pay attention, writes Nicholas Earl
The tax regime deters investment and is pushing firms overseas
The global race to net zero is well and truly onMP Chris Skidmore’s net zero review last weekend suggests there could be more pressure in Westminster on the government to compete with the US.
WHAT do a dark human trafficking industry in South East Asia, pigs and crypto have to do with you? More than you think. After all, the first rule of successful scams is that anyone could fall for it. And people across the world are.
Those who created it call it Shāzhūpán –“pig butchering”. The victim, like a pig, is lured in, fattened with the promise of fast cash, and then “butchered” when the scammer leaves with all their money.
Flocks of young, tech-savvy people are falling for it.
“Pig-butchering” originated in Asia and is still little known in Europe. Yet it has found ripe conditions here in the UK: amid a cost-of-living crisis, investment scams are on the rise. UK Finance defines the current level of fraud in the UK as “a national security threat”. And according to research from Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Brits aged 18-34 are twice as likely as other age groups to fall victim to financial scams. Blend this all, and you get a dangerous cocktail of online insecurity. A country full of pigs to butcher.
The consequences on people’s finances and wellbeing are dire. “Karen”, a UK-based victim, shared her story with City A.M. but asked to remain anonymous as her family and friends know nothing about it. She says that after being scammed she had suicidal thoughts. She had lost a quarter of a million pounds.
It all starts with a message. It could be on a dating app, on Linkedin, or via email. For Karen, it was on Facebook. It’s from someone who thinks you were at school together, who shares your love for puppies, or who’s interested in your professional life. The scammer is polite, asks you about your day, and sends you pictures of the food they’re eating.
Most of the scammers are based in compounds in South East Asia, but as they increasingly target Westerners, they have developed manuals on how to communicate and build a relationship. They seem to think that sending pictures of food to each other is all we do online. Cyber scams experts say this feature of the scam is recognisable in almost all cases of “pig butchering”.
The conversation goes on for months, and turns into a romantic, friendly or professional one. For Karen, it was a friendship that lasted from January to April of last year. Not once in those four months did her scammer talk about money. Then, one day, he mentioned crypto. He told her about a specific crypto app; one on which, in theory, she could make quick easy gains. He suggested she should down-
load it. Karen was lured in. She took money out of her account and invested it on the app. A week later, all her money was gone. She never got any of it back.
Karen’s scammer was different from the others. After weeks, he contacted
her again to tell her the full story. He revealed he was not an affluent British adult like he claimed to be, but a twenty-seven-year-old trapped in a scam compound in Myanmar. “My scammer told me they have targets, and if they don’t complete them they slap you and leave you without food and drinks,” Karen says. Accord-
ing to the scammer, millions of dollars are made in these compounds. Many of the people there have been trafficked or attracted by the promise of a real job.
The scammer’s account is corroborated by several reports from international organisations like Global Anti-Scam Org (GASO). Founded by a pig butchering victim, GASO now focuses on supporting people like Karen, as well as investigating the scam compounds. They have already rescued 190 human trafficking victims. Grace Yuen, a communications officer at GASO, wishes financial institutions and crypto platforms were doing a bit more to help prevent this.
“If they see somebody wiring a big amount of dollars and they’ve never done a wire transfer, I feel more than one question should be asked before that wire goes through”, she says. She adds some cryptocurrency platforms like Coinbase have been doing some good work on flagging fraudulent wallet addresses, but clearly more needs to be done. Given the fraudsters are mostly located outside the UK, the National Crime Agency often doesn’t have the resources to trace them.
“Ultimately, this is all social engineering. That’s what all of these attacks are based on”, says Sherrod DeGrippo, VP of threat research and detection at Proofpoint.
The scammers are trained in putting the victim in a “new” emotional state –pressuring them, hitting them in their weak spots –to cause them to do something they wouldn’t normally do. They often target people who’ve had a recent life change or bereavement.
“In 12 months we’ve got £14.473m back. Out of that, £11.5m was from crypto investment pig butchering scams,” says Paul Hampson, managing director at CEL Solicitors, a Liverpool-based firm.
Partners at Madison Legal also said there was a rise in young men being lured into “pig butchering” scams from users pretending to be young women in bikinis or on private jets.
Of the international victims surveyed by GASO, more than 75 per cent lost more than half their net worth, and a full third were driven into debt. Like Karen, many feel too ashamed to speak to their friends or family, let alone the authorities.
Scams are fuelling a worldwide industry of crime and violence. New platforms and lies are already in the making, as scammers play a cat and mouse game with the authorities. “Trust but verify”, advises Yuen. And never be so complacent to think it won’t be you.
New lies are already in the making, as scammers play a cat and mouse game with the authorities
People around the world are losing millions through a “pig butchering” scam - but it’s got more to do with crypto than it does our porcine pals, writes Elena Siniscalco
My first job was a statement clerk at a Barclays branch in Bletchley in 1978, back when everything was in paper form. Banking was very local and traditional then and it was difficult to make progress with my kind of background. I was born in Wolverhampton and educated at a comprehensive school.
After passing the banking exams I was accepted onto the management development programme at Barclays. This took me to London and my first job in the City was in St Paul’s churchyard in 1985. The management development programme moved you about, so I first worked for the group head of marketing, but not long after that I was made a lending manager with responsibility for some big commercial clients in the West End. I seem to have something of a curse on the buildings as they have all either changed use or been demolished after I worked in them!
Right from the moment I arrived in the 80s. There was a real buzz and energy about the place, especially compared to where I’d worked before. I love the intricate medieval street patterns and the unique institutions that have developed over centuries. Ever since those early days I’ve had a real affection for the City and the people who work here and I’m really proud to be able to represent the banking and finance sector now in my role as chief executive of UK Finance.
I remember going to an important job interview and I must have been nervous as I managed to pour an entire cappuccino all over my suit just before it started. I was completely soaked, but it was too late to do anything about it, so I had to do the whole interview covered in coffee. Amazingly I still got the job.
My favourite has to be the Jamaica Wine House on St Michael’s Alley.
It’s got amazing history and always has such good atmosphere.
It was a regular watering hole for me when I started working in London.
I’ve got two. Sweetings is a City institution with amazing food and you often bump into someone you know. Or there’s a fantastic little Japanese restaurant called Kurumaya on Watling Street.
I love the fact the place evolves and is always innovating. It’s amazing to think about the history all around you, but at the same
time to see how fast things change as the City is constantly reinventing itself to deal with new challenges or opportunities.
Our offices are near Bank station and these days it’s virtually impossible to get a taxi to pick you up, so I’d relax those rules a bit. And I even say that as a keen cyclist.
Home is Bournemouth, but I also have a flat in London where I stay during the week. You can do a lot on video calls, but you can’t beat the value of face-toface meetings.
I grew up in Wolverhampton and I’m still a Wolves season ticket holder, so try to get to as many of the games (home and away) as I can. Otherwise, I’m a
FAVOURITE... BAND: PINK FLOYD –I USED TO BE THEIR BANK MANAGER, WHICH AS A FAN WAS AMAZING
ARTIST: TURNER
DAY OF THE WEEK: A SATURDAY, WITH WINE AND A WOLVES WIN TEA OR COFFEE?: I GAVE UP CAFFEINE YEARS AGO
keen cyclist and my wife and I own a tandem – there’s definitely no hiding when you’re out on that.
2023?
I am actually very optimistic. It’s clearly going to be a challenging year, but I think the economy is going to be more resilient than some commentators might think. The banking and finance industry has a key role to play here. It’s such an important part of the overall economy in its own right, but also drives growth across all other sectors. And that’s not just in London, but up and down the UK.
We’ve got a huge amount of work to do with government and regulators in 2023 – everything from changes to capital requirements to help drive growth and investment to supporting customers with the cost of living pressures.
I think the City will do better than people expect – after all we’ve just not seen the vast numbers of jobs moving from London to the EU that many doomsayers predicted. It is a resilient
place and I think it will continue to thrive.
Sir Peter Middleton. He was the permanent secretary to the Treasury before joining the board of Barclays, initially as group deputy chairman and ultimately group chairman. He had such clarity in his thinking and approach and I was very fortunate to work directly for him. He helped me when I became more senior in later years too.
Right now I’d want to escape the cold weather and head down to the south of Spain. It’s such a relaxing place and the area around Estepona is fantastic with the beach and mountains so nearby.
We dig into the memory bank of the City’s great and good: this week, UK Finance CEO David Postings tells us about Barclays in the 80s, the Jampot and being Pink Floyd’s bank manager
SHAREHOLDERS of troubled venture capital outfit Digital Currency Group (DCG) have been warned the company may be forced to sell off portfolio assets.
DCG, which owns a slew of crypto companies, including revered industry publication CoinDesk, has found itself in a public spat with twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
The brothers became famous after successfully suing Mark Zuckerberg for $65m in 2004, claiming he had “ripped off” their idea with Facebook.
The pair, who are now worth a reported $3bn, run a crypto exchange called Gemini which had partnered with Silbert’s lending platform Genesis to offer their own lending product.
However, the Winklevoss’ offering was severely compromised when Genesis suddenly halted customer withdrawals in November.
The move caused a breakdown in the partnership which eventually triggered Cameron Winklevoss into penning an open letter on social media last week calling on DCG’s board to remove Silbert as CEO.
Winklevoss spelled out plainly that Genesis owed $900 million for loaned funds, and went on to allege a total of $1.675 billion was owed to Genesis – a claim Barry Silbert was quick to deny.
The public showdown soon attracted the attention of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which, on January 12, swiftly charged both Gemini and Genesis with offering unregistered securities.
Things took another twist this week when a letter to shareholders set more
alarm bells ringing.
In the statement, Silbert spoke fondly of years of building up DCG and the company’s successes before changing the tone.
“In contrast, this past year has been the most difficult of my life –both personally and professionally,” he lamented.
“Bad actors and repeated blow-ups have wreaked havoc on our industry, with
ripple effects extending far and wide.
“Although DCG, our subsidiaries, and many of our portfolio companies are not immune to the effects of the present turmoil, it has been challenging to have my integrity and good intentions questioned after spending a decade pouring everything into this company and the space with an unrelenting focus on doing things the right way.”
He added: “While we still believe in
the HQ concept and its outstanding leadership team, the current downturn is not conducive for the near-term sustainability of that business.”
The letter then details the company believes it only owes $525m to Genesis, rather than the figure quoted by Winklevoss. But even at $400m less than the original figure, the news has done little to appease DCG’s concerned shareholders.
IT’S BEENa bright start to the year in the crypto markets, as hope continues to rise that industry drama is being left in 2022. This is possibly an unlikely scenario in crypto, but there will be at least a flicker of a smile returning to investors’ faces as we inch deeper into the year.
While 2022 saw many unwanted records, Bitcoin this week clocked 13 days of consecutive positive price action – its longest run of consecutive ‘green’ days since November 2013 and the second longest run in its history.
The leading cryptocurrency by total value has posted a price increase of more than 22 per cent since this time last week to more than $21k.
The strength shown this week means that Bitcoin’s market capitalisation has once again surpassed that of Tesla – a particularly bullish moment in the bull run of 2021, although this is perhaps equally reflective of the electric car giant’s own issues this time around.
Other cryptocurrencies have also performed strongly over the past
seven days, with the price of Ethereum also up around 20 per cent gains. All coins in the top 50 have seen positive seven-day returns, as the Fear and Greed Index that measures market sentiment hits highs not seen since last April.
Trading volumes have been pushed to highs not seen since the FTX collapse in November. It’s promising to see that growing trading volumes accompany the current strong momentum in the spot market. Over the last seven days, the average daily
trading volume has soared by 114 per cent to $10.8bn.
The primary catalyst again seems to be inflation news, with last week’s Thursday Consumer Price Index print of -0.1 per cent preceding the surge above $20k. Still, Bitcoin was showing strength before the CPI release. The big question now is, will it continue?
THE world’s first automotive project built on Cardano was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday. Designed to address sustainability and pollution issues, the project will be making electric TukTuk vehicles, beginning with the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo which is home to almost a million petrol and diesel-fuelled TukTuks which each emit more CO2 than a family car.
Drivers and adopters of eTukTuk will be able to utilise the Cardano blockchain’s secure transaction system to pay for services without the need for either cards or cash.
ONE in five UK crypto investors are in the dark when it comes to tax requirements governing the asset class, according to research from social investing platform eToro.
In a survey of more than 1,000 UK adults holding crypto, 22 per cent said they were unaware that investors were required to pay tax after selling crypto assets if profits exceed a certain threshold.
The research comes just a week ahead of the January 31 deadline for self-assessment tax returns. According to the current rules, individuals pay capital gains tax on total gains above an annual tax-free allowance of £12,300.
GLOBAL exchange Crypto.com has become the latest big digital asset name to cut its workforce, announcing a 20 per cent loss of staff.
Company chiefs have cited “ongoing economic headwinds and unforeseeable industry events” as the financial factors threatening its future.
Announcing the slashing of staff, co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said it had been a “difficult decision to reduce our global workforce”.
Marszalek was quick to state all impacted personnel had already been notified, and the cutbacks were not related to performance.
POPULAR meme coin Shiba Inu has been the week’s surprise package after posting some strong positive returns.
In step with the wider crypto market which has seen a steady rise over the last seven days, Shiba Inu not only followed suit but continued its upward trajectory when most of the top 20 cryptocurrencies hit a line of resistance yesterday afternoon.
The Ethereum-based Dogecoin alternative was settled on $0.000009 last week, but last night found itself some 38 per cent in the green on $0.000012 with a 24-hour buying volume exceeding 300 per cent.
The beginning of January is traditionally when there is a marked increase in divorce enquiries. Many couples are left feeling fraught and fatigued by the emotional and financial pressures of Christmas. The willingness to try to keep it all together for the sake of the children wears out, as smiles slowly morph into smirks. The introduction of no-fault divorces in April last year means that divorce can now be a quicker, cheaper and possibly less painful and protracted process. In turn, this means that divorce may now seem like a viable option, especially for those who are in long-established marriages.
At worst, divorce is a shock that leaves us feeling dejected and in despair. At best, divorce is difficult.
Even when it is a mutual decision, divorce is an ending. Endings are dispiriting, regardless of the fact that it may well be the right choice, at the right time, for the right reasons. Eventually, new beginnings bring hope. In retrospect, divorce may feel liberating and empowering. We are not starting from scratch but, rather, from experience. In the process of a relationship ending, hopefully we have shed behaviours that we now know are hurtful. We become
unwilling to accept intolerable attitudes, finding a shield of self-esteem that we may have lost along the way. We may have lost a partner but gained important insights.
There is, of course, no magic recipe that guarantees a cheerful, ever-lasting relationship. Awareness is a good starting point, though.
Awareness of self and awareness of how you communicate in your relationship is key.
The words you use matter. Your tone, in turn, impacts how your words are received. Your body language precedes whatever message you are aiming to convey.
In other words, how you communicate with your loved one is fundamental to a happy and healthy relationship. This is especially true when conflict arises.
The Gottman Institute, set up by the husband-and-wife team of Dr. Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, has been researching marriage and relationships for almost 50 years. Their divorce prediction, which has over 90 per cent accuracy, is based on 4 main types of negative communication patterns. These are known as “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:” contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. Luckily, Gottman offers
antidotes to these in order to best safeguard our relationships.
The antidote to contempt is appreciation. Criticism is diluted by understanding that there is a real need wrapped under the
harshness. Therefore, we must take personal accountability of our needs. Defensiveness is often a means to deflect blame and can be dissolved by taking responsibility for our own behaviours.
Finally, we need to proactively learn to selfsoothe so that we do not withdraw in moments of tension, creating an impenetrable wall between us and our loved ones.
LONDON’s FTSE 100 finished slightly lower yesterday, dragging it further away from its record and signalling traders are looking through signs UK inflation has passed its peak and could be on a downward trend this year.
The capital’s premier index dropped 0.27 per cent lower to 7,830.71 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, jumped 0.23 per cent to 19,902.80 points.
The drop came despite middle-class favourite and online supermarket Ocado’s best efforts. It jumped to near the top of the FTSE 100, adding a shade under three per cent.
Ocado has been a bit of a tear in this year and is now by far the best performer in 2023, helping to arrest last year’s dismal performance caused by
shoppers returning to physical supermarkets after the worst of the pandemic passed.
Fashion retailers led the premier index lower, with Next, JD Sports and Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group all shedding more than one per cent.
New numbers from the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed the rate of price increases in the UK fell to 10.5 per cent in December from 10.7 per cent.
It is the second month inflation has dropped and the first time back-to-back decreases have been registered since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Markets seemingly shrugged off the news, cooling the FTSE 100’s strong start to the year which has pushed it close to its highest level ever of just over 7,900 points.
The pound strengthened 0.54 per cent against the US dollar on the prospect of another BoE rate hike.
Analysts at Peel Hunt have picked the numbers of Diploma and they reiterated their ‘buy’ recommendation due to technical products supplier’s “resilience, spread, momentum and delivery”. After reporting a 30 per cent increase in revenue, the firm is expecting its turnover to go up six per cent in the first half of this year, while margins are forecast to be between 18 and 19 per cent – in line with expectations.
“Investors have been pretty bullish since the start of the year, ready to bask in the chinks of sunlight sneaking between those economic black clouds. But the sun has a habit of vanishing, and those black clouds can herald a deluge that will dampen sentiment pretty quickly.”
Each month our mental health expert, Alejandra Sarmiento, shows us how to stay sane in a busy world
PROFESSIONAL wrestling might not be what you were expecting in a business paper. But nonetheless, here it is. Two weeks ago, the industry was rocked by the sudden return of Vince McMahon to power in World Wrestling Entertainment. The man who turned his father’s regional touring promotion into a multinational media powerhouse had been persuaded to “retire” last summer after a series of allegations of sexual impropriety. Unsurprisingly it turns out that a man who calls his yacht “Sexy Beast” and keeps a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull in his office, is not the retiring type.
The world of professional wrestling may seem cartoonish, but the reach of WWE is vast. Every week it produces nine hours of programming that airs across the world, routinely being amongst the most watched shows on American cable and network television. Its American rights deals alone see it clear more than $700m a year from NBC Universal and Fox. Not for nothing is it currently worth approximately double the value of Manchester United.
McMahon’s return as WWE’s executive chairman therefore should not be dismissed as a frivolous story, but one that has some profound lessons about
life and business. It is, for one, yet more evidence that the energy behind “MeToo” is fading, with powerful men being able to quickly recover from being “cancelled” (news to Jeremy Clarkson’s ears, no doubt). McMahon’s return comes in spite of an ongoing investigation which alleges he failed to properly declare numerous payments made to female workers within WWE in return for their silence. The payments in itself is one thing, but it also means much of the damaging information about McMahon is not yet in the public domain, a point the WWE board was keen to point out. His return also meant his daughter, Stephanie, was turfed out of the position - hardly a win
for women in wrestling.
McMahon’s comeback also illustrates an important point about American regulation of public companies. This is especially acute with a Prime Minister who favours dual-class share structures.
McMahon took over the company in 1999 to capitalise on a resurgence of popularity fuelled by superstars such as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson. He and his family became rich beyond their wildest dreams after they sold 60 per cent of WWE to outside investors. But it was corporate cakeism at its finest: any share not owned by McMahon or his family is automatically relegated to
a lower class of stock, with no voting power. Although he owns less than 40 per cent of the company, McMahon is the controlling shareholder because he owns 80 per cent of the shares that matter.
From a corporate governance perspective, this is a disaster. WWE’s board is legally responsible for protecting all shareholders investment in the company, but effectively answerable only to McMahon. In a bizarre paradox fitting for corporate America, they’re legally tasked with thinking beyond just McMahon's wants and desires, but if they dare ignore his demands, they're at risk of being fired. This once hypothetical risk materialised when the
wrestling boss removed three directors after the board initially rejected his return. Two associates and McMahon took their place. WWE is far from the only US company where decisions are distorted by structures which disenfranchise ordinary shareholders and allow founders to indulge themselves. And the stock market reaction to all of this shows us the days of casino capitalism are far from over. McMahon has ignored a vote from the board that his return was not in the interest of the company, threatened to veto any future rights deals if he’s not allowed to return, two directors have quit in protests and the company’s chairwoman and co-chief executive abruptly retired only days after they personally promised investors there would be no changes to management structure. Such erratic behaviour should have caused investors to flee in terror. Instead, McMahon’s talk of linking his return to a sale of the company has caused investors to ignore the drama and gamble on a windfall. In other words, the stock price is currently surging.
Perhaps the most telling thing is that McMahon felt the need to return at all. Here is a 77-year-old man who has achieved everything he could ever want to achieve with WWE and had successfully handed control over to his daughter. Yet he couldn’t last six months with just his celebrity friends and vast fortune to entertain him. For people like McMahon the money is nothing but the score that shows how well they are winning in life.
£ Will Cooling writes about politics and pop culture at the It Could Be Said substack
IT WAS the comedian Bob Hope who first coined the phrase, “now we’re cooking with gas” to denote an improved or more efficient level of performance. That the line was penned by an ex-gas industry ad exec who joined his writing room reminds us that the fossil fuel industry has a long and remarkably successful track record in winning over public opinion.
The famously republican-leaning comic would have enjoyed the recent spats between US legislators as a debate on the health and environmental safety of gas cookers (or stoves for our transatlantic cousins) boiled over into the newest front in the culture wars.
After the US product safety agency hinted at a future ban on gas cooking appliances, US congressman Ronnie Jackson took to Twitter to warn the government would have to pry his gas burner from his “cold dead hand”.
Cue the retort from the darling of the American Left, Alexandria OcasioCortez, who appeared to suggest the emissions from the Texan congress-
Barry Johnstonman’s cooker might be affecting his cognitive performance. Other pundits and politicians quickly settled along familiar partisan lines on the topic.
It’s rare for me to find myself on the same side as Joe Machin or Ted Cruz on any topic, but on gas hobs I’m torn. As a renter, I had an induction hob forced upon me in my last move and it’s not a change I have enjoyed. Quite aside from the need for new cookware there’s the constant risk of going one setting too high and incinerating whatever is in the pan.
Then there’s the incessant beeping which has started to haunt me in my dreams. And the damned thing has to
be scrubbed down every time you boil an egg. It lacks that primal, instinctive sizzle of food and flame.
Yet the science is clear. Gas hobs leak methane like a cow with indigestion even when switched off, and other emissions from those flickering blue flames are linked with higher incidences of asthma.
All of this may seem a little trivial coming as it did the same week that the hosts of this year’s climate summit, the United Arab Emirates, appointed the head of their state oil company as the chair of this year’s negotiations. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum warned of dire consequences for the planet as the cost of living crisis risks corporates ditching their climate commitments.
The substantive point in the stove wars is an important one. We’re entering into a new phase of climate action where in many cases the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. More difficult decisions will have to be made, reaching far into people’s everyday
lives. Switching from gas to electric will be just one of the innumerable lifestyle changes that are coming down the track for people in advanced economies. And of course this is nothing compared to the impacts on those already living in the frontline of the climate crisis.
Unlike what some climate culture warriors would have you believe, concern for the climate does not break down on left-right divides. People across class, race and generational barriers share profound concerns about the damage being done to our planet. But there is a risk this shared concern could be undermined if the responses are perceived to be unfair or disingenuous.
One thing is for sure, we can’t put these conversations on the back burner for much longer. And as for me and my induction hob? I guess I better get used to the beeping.
£ Barry Johnston is co-founder of Purpose Union
HUNTING FOR A BARGAIN Ah the coffee-drinking metropolitan elite, forever maligned in British politics. Thank god there’s Jeremy Hunt taking the time to explain what inflation means for the cost of a flat white. It’s a shame Mr Bean didn’t think to include the extortionate rise in the price of oat milk
[Re: Bank of England publishes list of questions asked by suitors for its CBDC wallet, Jan 4]
The Bank of England recently revealed details of over 70 questions asked by applicants keen to win the contract to create a wallet for its central bank digital currency experiment (CBDC). I believe they’re taking the right approach by involving the private sector from the start.
The private sector should absolutely contribute with concepts, ideas and designs to provide end-to-end user experiences. Commercial banks and emoney issuers have worked for many years on how to ensure mobile wallets have a great user experience, and I don’t
expect the BoE to attempt to reinvent the wheel.
As technology acceptance is about, firstly, the perceived ease of use and, secondly, perceived usefulness, this is a first step towards understanding how consumers could potentially adopt a CBDC wallet. Central banks have no experience in consumer and merchant acceptance of technology. This is bread and butter for some specialised firms in the private sector.
The BoE will use this opportunity to brainstorm potential ideas for future development, in case a UK CBDC does indeed materialise as planned. There are any number of complex matters, including data storage and KYC, which will be included in the proof of concepts by the applicants - another reason for the BoE going down this route with the private sector.
Carlos Leon, FNAIN THE festival of British politics, the online safety bill is a headline act (again). The controversy it has generated has spanned four prime ministers and countless changes in the tech world. This week, a rebel alliance of backbenchers wrung a lastminute concession from the government, meaning social media bosses will be individually liable if platforms repeatedly fall short of their child safety duties. Superficially simple, the idea is unlikely to be a panacea.
Calls for punitive measures against the poster boys of Big Tech are not new. In 2019, the online harms white paper canvassed senior management liability for breaching a duty of care to keep service users safe online. But the bill omitted criminal enforcement powers against individuals except in limited circumstances. Child safety campaigners criticised the omission, arguing the threat of jail time, not financial penalties, would bring social media companies to heel.
As part of the new businessfriendly dawn of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer and shadow Chancellor Racheel Reeves are in Davos today. It’s the last in a string of strategic moves to charm businesses and convince them Labour is serious about working with the private sector. And it’s all the more poignant given Rishi Sunak is staying behind in Westminster. The Prime Minister might have thought it good optics to convince us that he’s not one of those rich businessmen who rock up to the Swiss mountains
for the annual meeting with their pals.
But aside from rubbing shoulders with big executives, why is Starmer there?
Apparently, to talk about his party’s green prosperity planA.K.A a long-term growth strategy focused on sustainable innovation achieved through private-public partnerships. In his speech today, Starmer will likely insist that Labour is the party of growth - and that the latter is to be achieved through investment in green tech.
ELENA SINISCALCORebel MPs claimed threatening senior managers with liability under health and safety and financial service rules had improved corporate behaviour. They used this as a basis for their demands: up to two years’ imprisonment for tech execs where breaches of online safety duties - regardless of how serious - occurred with their consent, connivance or neglect. Problems with the proposal – risks to investment in the UK’s digital sector and enforceability issues - were breezily dismissed by reference to Ireland where similar laws co-exist with a flourishing “techscape”. Many rebel arguments did not bear scrutiny but the understandable imperative of child safety overcame all opposition. Facing a Commons’ defeat, Rishi Sunak capitulated, agreeing to a more targeted form of individual liability.
The Irish law sets the precedent: it imposes individual liability not for a breach of a child safety duty, which could be difficult to prove, but for consenting, conniving, or neglectfully failing to comply with a regulator’s contravention notice. Those acting in good faith to comply in a proportionate way would escape conviction.
Whereas the rebel proposal created a heavy stick with which to beat social media executives, the compromise
measure would be seldom used – company officers are unlikely to “go rogue”, willingly ignoring contravention notices. Child safety campaigners welcomed the compromise but their enthusiasm may cool when social media-related tragedies still occur and the scalps of those deemed responsible remain elusive.
Though much amended, the online safety bill remains problematic. Key child safety duties and definitions are maddeningly opaque: what must service providers do to “mitigate and manage the risk of harm to children”, and what constitutes “harmful content”?
To stop children encountering pornography, self-harm promotion, and cyberbullying online, service providers must operate “proportionate systems and processes” but will only learn from Ofcom in autumn 2024 precisely what is required.
Free speech advocates warn firms may adopt a safety-first approach to all online content rather than risk failing in their child safety duties, creating
proxy censorship regimes. Age-verification to gate-off adult content brings a host of issues, including inaccuracy, circumvention by tech savvy kids (which incidentally is most of them), and privacy risks.
Though Ireland’s online safety law was taken as an exemplary, it was only signed into force last December, so its impact on the country’s reputation as tech magnet is far from clear. And we know the UK government wants to grow the UK’s $1tn tech industry.
Even with its dangers, the digital world offers children many benefits. The moral indignation we feel when disastrous cases occur risks creating bad laws. The online safety bill’s imperfections made the rebel amendment inappropriate but MPs deserve praise for achieving a sensible compromise. The last-minute horse-trading over, the bill now moves to the House of Lords where calm reflection must prevail.
£ Julian Hayes is a partner and surveillance law specialist at BCL Solicitors
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tasy, identity and mental illness.
The Almeida’s production of Tennessee Williams’ steamy southern gothic A Streetcar Named Desire was one of the most hotly anticipated plays of 2022, with Normal People star Paul Mescal lending some zeitgeist-capturing sex appeal to this sad tale of fan-
But on the eve of opening, lead actor Lydia Wilson picked up an injury and was forced to pull out, resulting in a string of cancelled shows and the hasty casting of a new Blanche DuBois. In came Patsy Ferran, one of the most talented stage actors around and one who I wouldn't in a million years have thought to cast as the jaded southern belle.
The result is a singular version of Streetcar with an interpretation of the tragic central character that’s unlike any I’ve seen before.
Staged in the round, director Rebecca Frecknall’s retelling is stylised
and slick. The action plays out on a virtually empty stage and is accompanied by a live drummer, interpretive dance and a genuinely spectacular Louisiana rainstorm.
Ferran specialises in playing broken little birds and her Blanche is true to form. From the moment she arrives at her sister’s squalid New Orleans apartment she’s barely afloat in an ocean of anxiety. Even her flirting feels dulled, far less weaponised than in most portrayals of Blanche. It’s reactive rather than active, a spark from a fire longsince reduced to embers.
Mescal, playing Blanche’s abusive brother in Law Stanley, is the fiery yin
to this bleak yang. He’s a force of nature, a thug, a menace, the kind of man you pray you don’t end up having “banter” with at a bar. While Ferran’s Blanche feels like she’s physically retreating into herself, Stanley is a beast of a man, muscles straining from beneath his workman’s slacks and sleeveless t-shirt. His unpredictability is terrifying, with a Begbie-esque quality to Mescal’s performance. He doesn’t speak so much as roar, every inch the “ape” described by Blanche. This is a Streetcar in which the themes of mental illness and toxic masculinity are shoved to the fore from the get go, taking place in a
world where oration comes a distant second to brute force.
There are some stylistic flourishes I could have done without, not least the little segments of interpretive dance in which the ghost of Blanche’s childhood sweetheart wheels across the stage before folding into a funny little crouch like he’s cradling a watermelon.
But this doesn’t overshadow an inspired take on this most wonderful of plays, not quite a version for the ages but certainly a welcome reminder that a smart director and talented cast can make even a text as well trodden as this feel brand new.
George Takei’s most famously known from the original cast of Star Trek, but in recent years has been celebrated as an LGBTQ role model following his decision to come out in 2005 aged 68. It’s curious that Allegiance, the play Takei calls his “legacy” play, omits queer themes.
But nevertheless, it’s a hammerblow critique on human rights violations of a different kind. Allegiance is about historical cases of racism from White US forces in the Second World War towards Japanese Americans.
In the Second World War, residents of Japanese descent were taken from
their homes and held in hostile camps following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Then they were asked to fight for America in the war and punished physically if they objected.
It was a horrific injustice that has been forgotten by history. Takei was five when he was held in one such camp and this fictional musical is enriched with his family’s stories and experiences from the era.
But sentimentality is spared in exchange for a full throttle show, with rapturous singing and dancing throughout. George Takei appears limited physically on stage, and isn’t pivotal in as many scenes as you’d think, but he bookends the musical well with nostalgic flashbacks to the period, set in the present day, where he laments relationships lost.
Takei has gentle but simmering star power. He evokes anger particularly well, which is haunting given he’s the
only cast member who personally experienced this history.
Takei stands for a whole generation wronged, playing an octogenarian version of squaddy Sam Kimura, a role shared by Telly Leung who represents Sam during the 1940s.
There are a couple of tepid numbers but they are the exceptions.
Allegiance’s songs achieve a good balance of light and shade, bringing forward the plot rather than acting as interludes between the script. What Makes a Man and Stronger Than Before are rousing rallying calls to resistance and resilience.
Musician and lyricist Jay Kuo has already had success with this show on Broadway and it is no wonder producers want to fund more.
The script tries to get through too much plot rather than showing us character development with action and emotion, but there’s never a song far away.
Movies about movies tend to do well around Oscar season, and no one knows that better than Damien Chazelle. While La La Land famously didn’t win Best Picture in 2017, it did win six Oscars out of fourteen nominations, including Best Director. In Babylon, he returns to Hollywood but looks through a different lens.
Starting in 1927, the film follows the fortunes of various actors and society types at the height of the silent movie era, and their respective declines as The Talkies are introduced. The wild, hedonistic parties are headed by Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), one of the top box office draws in America, and infiltrated by newcomer Manny (Diego Calva).
Trying to get into the movie business through odd jobs, he meets and falls for Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a party girl who blags her way into stardom. Soon, all three will witness the bleak reality that the party is moving on without them.
The film was a high profile flop in America. Just on its own merits, Babylon likely scared away audiences by being altogether too much. Before we see the main title, we’re shown elephants defecating, a golden shower, and oh so much cocaine.
It’s an endless endorphin rush that never slows, though it certainly tires and the silly scenes become less shocking the more (and more) of them that we see.
As the exhausting film runs to the
end of its overlong three hour run time, the moments I’ve described prove to be just a taster of the shocking litany of events as all manner of fluids and violence are thrown (often literally) at the screen.
The commitment to revealing an intriguingly ugly side to Hollywood and showbiz culture is admirable, but it undermines every serious point the film tries to make.
One elegant sequence where the principles are shown feeling uncomfortable at a fancy party is made ridiculous with the sight of Robbie projectile vomiting, Team America-style.
Aside from the unpleasantness, there are moments of real beauty in the madness. It’s clear Chazelle is infatuated with cinema and the joy it can bring. But the constant discussions of how his characters (and, in turn, himself) are served by a higher calling feels self-indulgent. One scene, where a gossip columnist (Jean Smart) talks about Conrad’s place in history, is cringingly self-congratulatory.
The cast give their all, though. As perhaps one of the last true Hollywood stars, Pitt knows his character intimately and provides some of the more meaningful moments.
Robbie, much like her character, tries valiantly to add depth to the numerous weird things asked of her (did I mention the snake? She wrestles a snake). If there is a viewpoint in such a wayward film, Calva plays it admirably. He’s in love with the romance of the movies and despairs as it eats alive those he cares about.
Judged against Chazelle’s previous work, Babylon lacks the edge of Whiplash, the heart of La La Land, and the focus of First Man.
Such a well-versed student of cinema should know better than to fall into self-indulgence.
SHOTGUN WEDDING DIR. JASON MOORE BY JAMES LUXFORDJenny From The Block plays Darcy, soon to be marrying her fiancée Tom (Josh Duhamel) at a destination island wedding. Family tension, attractive exes and cold feet are in the mix, but then the wedding party is taken hostage. The
couple must put their new marriage to the test if they are to save the day. The production has had a bumpy path to the altar, losing its original male lead Armie Hammer. However, it’s hard to imagine the Social Network actor making this film vastly different. It’s a cavalcade of wedding gags that will draw a laugh from anyone who has come to blows over table settings, punctuated
with random slapstick violence. It’s a tonal mess but is often too dumb to be outright hated. Lopez knows how to be a romantic lead and while this is a million miles from her Hustlers highpoint, her charisma on screen works pretty well when coupled with Duhamel (who is present to simply react to his more famous costar). The film’s brightest spark is Jen-
nifer Coolidge as an obnoxious relative, giving the kind of gleefully unaware asides that have made her so loved. The type of disposable entertainment that seems less offensive as a streaming offering, Shotgun Wedding runs out of ideas long before the final bullet has flown, but has enough oneliners to keep undemanding audiences happy.
Alice, Darling is a subtly gripping and deftly effective portrait of coercive control in an abusive relationship, and one of the most staggeringly realistic. It also has a bravely simplistic premise which only makes its case stronger.
It’s a cause Pitch Perfect’s Anna Kendrick is clearly passionate about: she’s producing and playing the lead role in this astonishingly good drama.
Kendrick plays Alice, a woman of about 30 who’s narrowly avoiding a breakdown due to her abusive British boyfriend Simon, who’s well realised by Charlie Carrick. She goes on a girls’ holiday to celebrate one of her old friends’ 30th birthdays, but spends most of it agonising and worrying about what he’ll think.
Kendrick is peerless in the way she embodies trauma, constantly tearing at Alice’s hair as a stress coping mechanism in a way that feels so real she could be sitting beside you. Director Mary Nighy lingers uncomfortably so we see the self-harm in real time.
Writers Alanna Francis and Mark Van de Ven have created the ultimate environment for Alice to falter, as the repercussions of the abuse mean she distances herself from those that love her the most.
Her two best friends are so caring that they do not say anything, noticing instead that Alice must realise herself the gravity of the situation.
Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn are perfectly in opposition as So-
phie and Tess respectively. Both feel like real lifelong best friends, with all their boundless love despite their differences.
Mosaku is tonally perfect as the reassuring good cop, Horn the slightly brash one that doesn’t mince her words, offering tough love.
Kendrick often has to just stand and look stressed while she almost sabo-
tages the closeness from those who love her most, and she does a staggeringly good job of it. Simon feels real too, the silent egomanic oppressor who will stop at nothing to have her by his side even though she is better off without him. Set at a beautiful lakeside holiday home, the message is that the most gruesome horrors can happen in plain sight.
If you love live performance but fancy something totally different, try the London International Mime Festival, which returns for the last time this month. The festival is running now until 5 February at various venues across London, including the Barbican, Wilton’s Music Hall, Shoreditch Town Hall, the Peacock Theatre and Jackson’s Lane. Mime and physical theatre acts have come to London from Italy, Germany and Belgium, and work goes from comic to tragic. Still Life at the Barbican questions our relationship with ourselves and other people across four short works of burlesque, and Triptych at the same venue is a threeparter using dance-theatre to examine time and memory. Over at gorgeous historical venue Wilton’s there’s a hilarious ode to Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel in Charlie & Stan, an 80minute piece about the great entertainment double act.
There’s a second chance at renewal this January as the Chinese New Year celebrations kick off. This forthcoming year is the Year of the Rabbit, which in Chinese culture signifies longevity, prosperity and peace. Sounds appealing! As for events, the main one is Sunday 22 January from 10am when a parade travels to Chinatown. It goes from Charing Cross Road along Shaftesbury Avenue and free
celebrations continue in Trafalgar Square during the day. For something more delicious there’s a dumpling making masterclass at the E1 Kitchen and Dinning, Aldgate on Saturday 21 January from 11am and theres a Cocktail Party tonight, 19 January, from 6.30pm at the OISOI Restaurant & Bar in Elephant & Castle.
After decades of closure the iconic Battersea Power Station buildings have finally reopened. It’s mainly a luxury shopping centre, but there is a lift that goes up one of the old chimneys for a new view of London from the river. A new cocktail bar is also making use of the old Control Room, and the original dials and controls are in use to gawp at while you savour a martini or two. The Light Festival takes place between 19 January and 5 March, where one-of-akind light installations will be projected on the external parts of the building. Famous light designers from all over the world will display their work and the free-to-attend festival will feature some pieces inside too. Most is outside though, and the good news is there is a host of street food traders and a couple of bars along the riverfront to keep your hands toasty during these cold dark nights. Light shows are every night and run consistently so you can come and go when you want, and they even run during the daytime from 8am, though it’s advised to go at night when the displays will look their best.
Things to do this weekend, from arts festivals to boozy light shows
I‘M NOT saying I didn’t expect it from a coach like Steve Borthwick but it’s great to see an England Six Nations squad picked on form at the moment.
There are a few choices and calls I disagree with but off the back of what I read on Monday, I think England can give the Six Nations a real good go. That said, Billy Vunipola simply should have been in that 36-man squad. Close calls were made when finalising this training group ahead of next month’s Championship, sure, but it’s a travesty that the Saracens No8 is not there.
Borthwick is clearly going for mobility – and that’s why the likes of Jonny May and Jack Nowell have been replaced with Ollie Hassell-Collins and Cadan Murley – which is fine, but the
RUGBY COMMENT Ollie Phillipsnon-selection of Vunipola baffles me. However, let’s talk about the positives. Ben Earl and Elliot Daly’s recalls are well earned – the pair have been exceptional in the Premiership and Europe this season, and their inclusion points to what could be an exciting brand of rugby coming to the national team.
I think Northampton lock David Ribbans and Gloucester prop Val Rapava-
Ruskin are unluckily not to get a lookin this time around but that’s part and parcel of being on the path to getting – or keeping – international status. It’s always a fight to be in the mix.
Given the World Rugby rules on eligibility, I can see Rapava-Ruskin getting a couple of calls from the Georgian set-up now.
Borthwick has gone with what he knows: nine Tigers – including 35-yearold Dan Cole – have made it into his inaugural squad.
Two of those are Ben Youngs and Jack van Poortvliet, which leaves Leicester without their three top scrum-halves if you include new head coach Richard Wigglesworth.
What the current rugby landscape has shown us is that this idea of needing four years in chargeb to be success-
ful doesn’t always have to be the case.
Rassie Erasmus was with South Africa for less than the usual four-year cycle ahead of a World Cup and won it, Wayne Smith led the Black Ferns to World Cup success with less than a year at the helm, and Nick Evans was part of a Harlequins team that won the Premiership just months after their head coach left.
In Eddie Jones, Warren Gatland and Steve Borthwick, three huge rugby nations – Australia, Wales and England –have hit the reset button. That only adds to the excitement of this World Cup. I do feel for the now sacked Dave Rennie –his Australia side were good but they just weren’t getting the results. You have to wonder whether he’d still be in post if the Wallabies had beaten France in the autumn.
But Jones increases Australia’s World Cup hopes exponentially – he is an 18month coach. Has he ever finished an opening two-year period with an awful record? I don’t recall that ever being the case.
As many of you will now have read, there is a chance that England and Australia may meet in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
If that match was Eddie Jones or Steve Borthwick as England coach versus Dave Rennie, I’d back the England side. But with Jones at the helm Down Under, I couldn’t predict it.
£ China Sevens head coach Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance, experts in leadership development and behavioural change. Follow Ollie on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
ENGLISH cricket is braced to be declared institutionally racist. The results of an independent inquiry are imminent. The England and Wales Cricket Board is corralling the boards of the 18 firstclass counties to prepare their statements of contrition. Quite what the hundred thousand-plus members of said counties will think is another matter, though.
All but three of the counties are member-owned, a source of both strength and weakness for the game. Pay a couple of hundred quid and you not only get to watch cricket but also have a say in the leadership of your team and, as Andrew Strauss has found out to his cost, in the overall shape of the sport. Strauss’s review of the elite men’s game ran aground on the rocks of county member resistance.
The racism question arose first in Yorkshire and swiftly suffused the sport. Nuanced analysis has been swept away in a tide of generalisations, which will make it harder to persuade the generality of cricket’s members of the validity of the institutional racism charge. Each is effectively challenged to accept that he or she is part of the problem.
Lord Patel has resigned as chair of Yorkshire after only 13 months. Parachuted in by the ECB in response to the crisis, his departure speaks to the depth of the fissures that now exist.
Tanni Grey-Thompson is being touted as a possible replacement. The Baroness recently joined the Yorkshire board and is a slick operator in sports politics, although this role though will require skills around the county’s Headingley ground rather than the corridors of power.
I’ve had cause to reflect on the county ownership structure in recent weeks, having been a candidate to be chair of Middlesex. At turns fascinating, frustrating, farcical and fun, the process has just concluded with none of us seven short-listed candidates being appointed. Back to the drawing board for Middlesex’s members and the board that serves them.
In preparing for interview I took soundings across English cricket. It was clear that questions about equality, diversity and inclusion would be front and centre. But more surprising was the lack of emphasis at interview
from their grounds. And yet the members own them. Little wonder they get frustrated whenever any England players choose not to turn out for their counties during breaks in the international calendar.
Good governance is key for the ECB right now, which must make county structures a frustration. However, they are also a bulwark against dictatorship – a charge laid at the door of previous ECB leadership. With members still in control, the financial excesses of football and rugby can be avoided, but without an influx of new cash the national body will always call the tune. Throw in the explosion of T20 leagues around the globe, and the threat to the counties is severe.
I hope Middlesex members learned something from their failed search for a chair that enables them to make an excellent appointment second time round. I got fodder for this column and enjoyed it hugely on the way through, sustained by Groucho Marx’s letter of resignation to the Friars Club in New York: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
With Middlesex now back in Division One after five seasons in the lower tier, I’ll still be rooting for them in what promises to be a pivotal year both on and off the pitch.
I thought I’d be watching Netflix’s Break Point fly-on-the wall series about tennis so you wouldn’t have to. But for all its stylised imagery and saccharine sentiments, the opening episode about Nick Kyrgios – all smiles, F-bombs and smashed racquets – is worth an hour of your time. It’s downhill after that, though.
on sporting success, especially for the men’s elite squad.
Not sure what the average Middlesex member might feel about that. And this a county that has won only three trophies in 30 years while its noisy, wealthier neighbour Surrey has 11 titles in the same period.
This de-emphasising of cricketing success is not unique to Middlesex, it seems. My research did, though, reveal an imperative to produce players for the England teams, which goes to the heart of the financial dynamic. The counties are dependent on distributions from the ECB, which in turn largely generates its funds from the England men’s team. But finding crick-
eters to play for England and delivering a successful county first XI are different things; the cream of the crop may rarely turn out for their counties given international commitments.
Member fees are dwarfed by ECB handouts and the counties’ activities to generate ancillary revenues
Break Point didn’t wow throughout
The trouble is that Formula 1’s Drive to Survive has set the bar too high, and these documentary makers don’t appear to have had access to the key stories that made the 2022 tennis season. That may come in future episodes as the sport’s greatest stars get comfortable with the cameras and the degree of editorial control they can exert. The lack of a team dynamic will always be an issue though.
I’ve far higher hopes for the behind-the-scenes series on the upcoming Six Nations rugby that was revealed in City A.M. and confirmed last week. Just so long as they don’t try and sugarcoat the sport.
£ Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes at sportinc.substack.com
With members in control, excesses can be avoided but without an influx of cash the governing body calls the tune
WHEN Tottenham Hotspur travelled to Manchester City in the Premier League last season they turned the form book on its head with a thrilling 3-2 victory.
It ended a run of three consecutive top-flight defeats and kick-started their campaign, which would ultimately see Spurs pip Arsenal to Champions League qualification.
For City, it was a first defeat in 14 matches and jolted them into an unbeaten run that propelled them to a fourth Premier League title in the space of five years.
Tottenham will be underdogs when they meet again at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday night, and how they could do with causing another upset.
Sunday’s home defeat to north London rivals Arsenal not only wounded their pride but also their prospects of finishing in the top four.
It was a fifth loss from their last nine Premier League fixtures, a run which has left Spurs off the pace in the race for Champions League qualification.
Another reverse against City would leave them five points adrift of fourthplaced Manchester United, having played two games extra.
They could be sixth by the time they take the field at Fulham on Monday and seventh at full-time at Craven Cottage if they lost again.
Looming over Tottenham’s malaise is a cloud of uncertainty regarding the club’s ownership and the future of manager Antonio Conte.
Spurs have emerged as a target for Qatari cash, amid renewed speculation that the club’s owners, Enic, would be open to a sale.
Conte, meanwhile, will be out of contract in the summer and has been less than effusive in his comments about staying beyond then.
This week he suggested club directors ought to face the media and take some of the heat directed at managers.
City manager Pep Guardiola, by contrast, has committed his future to the club, but he too is looking to rediscover a winning formula.
Their title defence suffered another
MAN CITY Man Utd (A), 14 Jan, lost 2-1
Southampton (A), 11 Jan, lost 2-0
Chelsea (H), 8 Jan, won 4-0
Chelsea (A), 5 Jan, won 1-0
Everton (H), 31 Dec, drew 1-1
TOTTENHAM
Arsenal (H), 15 Jan, lost 2-0
Crystal Palace (A), 4 Jan, won 4-0
Aston Villa (H), 1 Jan, lost 2-0
Brentford (A), 26 Dec, drew 2-2
Leeds (H), 12 Nov, won 4-3
bours Manchester United on Saturday. It condemned them to back-to-back defeats for the first time since February 2020. They haven’t been beaten three times in a row since April 2018.
“It’s past,” said Guardiola. “We are not going to change anything now, so the focus is Tottenham.
“We have to improve our game, control what we can control. This is what big teams have to do.
“Our fluidity has not been as good as usual. Sometimes, to make chances you need to make a good build-up, put
the ball inside to open and spread the defensive lines and we struggled in the last two games.”
City’s stumble has coincided with a slowdown in Erling Haaland’s incredible strike rate. Having scored 20 goals in his first 12 competitive games, he has netted seven in his last 11.
It has led to Guardiola fielding questions on whether Haaland’s introduction this season has blunted some elements of the team’s usually fluid attacking play.
“We have played really good with him, so it is not about that,” he said.
“To play better, to create more chances, is to provide more balls for him or the other strikers.”
City’s attack might have more easily absorbed Harry Kane if they had persuaded Tottenham to sell their captain 18 months ago.
Instead Kane stayed put and is one goal shy of cementing club legend status by equalling Jimmy Greaves’s alltime scoring record.
Spurs were the only team to beat City home and away in the league last term, and have a good recent record at the Etihad, losing just one of their last four visits.
Whoever prevails and gives their season a boost, as this fixture was rearranged following the Queen’s passing, they meet again in less than three weeks’ time.
writes Frank Dalleres
MANCHESTERCity have retained their status as the world’s richest football club, according to the latest edition of the Deloitte Football Money League, which underlines the dominance of the Premier League.
Abu Dhabi-owned City topped the list, based on revenue in the 2021-22 season, for a second year in a row, ahead of Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain.
Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal were among six Premier League teams in Deloitte’s top 10, while English clubs comprise more than half of the top 20 for the first time in the report’s 26-year history.
City became the first team other than Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona to top the Football Money League in last year’s ranking as their revenue proved more resilient to the headwinds of the pandemic.
They held onto that spot in 2021-22 when revenue increased to €731m (£619m), more than half of which was derived from sponsorship and other commercial partnerships, and they won the Premier League for the fourth time in five seasons.
“Part of it is down to the on-pitch success City have had, which creates a virtuous cycle,” Zal Udwadia, assistant director of Deloitte’s Sport Business Group, told City A.M. “Traditional powerhouses like Madrid and Barcelona have struggled.
“Manchester City only broke into the top five in 2015-16 so they have had a remarkable ascent. Last season they had the highest commercial revenue in the Premier League, so they are on track to maintain their position as a top five Football Money League club in the future.”
City’s sharp revenue growth has come under the spotlight owing to their sponsorship by Abu Dhabi-owned entities such as Etihad Airways.
Football authorities including the Premier League have scrutinised their
stance that all deals are at fair market value. “There’s a process ongoing with that and that’s all we can say at this point,” said Udwadia.
Liverpool broke into the top three for the first time, with revenue of €702m
(£594m), as they challenged for four trophies and financially-stricken Barcelona slipped to seventh place.
West Ham, Leicester City, Leeds United, Everton and Newcastle United also made the top 20, while 16 of the
Premier League’s 20 teams ranked in the top 30.
“The Premier League is in a league of its own compared to other leagues,” added Udwadia. “If anything, the gap will increase because the Premier League is the only one to report an increase in TV rights sales in the last cycle.”
European football continues to bounce back from the pandemic, with the combined revenues of the top 20 clubs in the Football Money League increasing 13 per cent to €9.2bn (£7.8bn).
But the report’s authors said the extent of financial hangover for some clubs remained to be seen.
“It really depends how well clubs have managed cash flow, and certain clubs have had to take out loans or look for investment because of the pandemic,” said Udwadia.
UNITED STATESinvestor Sixth Street, who were behind the refinancing of both Real Madrid and Barcelona, are reportedly preparing a minority investment in Manchester United.
On Tuesday, one of Britain’s richest men Sir Jim Ratcliffe entered the race to buy the Premier League outfit.
Some suggest that a full purchase of the club could cost upwards of £5bn, with some suggesting the figure could be as high as £8bn.
New York firm Sixth Street is said to have accepted an offer to analyse the financial status of United as part of a wider group of organisations.
In 2022, Sixth Street agreed a deal to operate businesses out of Real Madrid’s stadium the Bernabeu once building work is completed.
The deal with the Real president Florentino Perez is reportedly worth €360m and covers the next 20 years.
The current owners of Manchester United the Glazer family last year signalled that they are open to considering offers for both minority and majority stakes in the club.
A full sale would see a controversial era spanning nearly two decades come to an end.
Manchester United fans have often protested against the owners of the club –who also control NFL franchise the Tampa Bay Buccaneers –and have called for their departure.
Manchester United currently sit in the top four of the Premier League table and head to table toppers Arsenal on Sunday afternoon looking to cut the points deficit to the Gunners.
It is believed that the merchant bank in charge of the sale, Raine Group, will be taking formal bids from next month.
Bids are also expected from Asia and the Middle East.
FORMER England rugby captain
Chris Robshaw has said former Red Rose coach and now Australia head honcho Eddie Jones will definitely want to get one over his former side at this year’s World Cup.
Jones took the Australia job just a month after being sacked as England manager and his Wallabies side could face England at the World Cup in France later this year.
“You always want to get one over your ex,” Robshaw said. “When he was in charge and whenever England played Australia, we always knew it was a big game because of
his history with Australia, but also the insight he had on the Australian players, the way they do things and their culture.
“Now he’s got that first hand from an England point of view.”
Jones took charge of England after the 2015 World Cup –in which Robshaw was captain –but had his contract terminated after his side managed to register just five wins in 12 matches in 2022.
Earlier this week, Jones was confirmed as Australia’s coach through until 2027.
Robshaw spoke on behalf of Sage, the official insights partner of Six Nations Rugby.
“To say I've had so little prep, to go toe-to-toe with a player like Coco is a good achievement,” she said.
“The chances of me playing this tournament were very, very low.
“I was competitive today and I’ve had five hours’ practice in the past two or three weeks since my last match.
“I don’t have any doubts about what
I can do when I'm fully fit. I know my potential.”
Elsewhere Cameron Norrie took four sets to overcome Frenchman Constant Lestienne in the second round.
The British No1 beat the 30-year-old 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-2 in Melbourne.
Defending mn’s singles champion Rafael Nadal crashed out of the first Grand Slam of the year to 59-ranked American Mackenzie McDonald in straight sets.
The Spaniard lost 6-4 6-4 7-5 on the Rod Laver Arena.
“[I] just can’t say that I am not destroyed mentally at this time, because I will be lying,” said Nadal, 36.
“Hopefully, it is nothing too bad.”
