Tuesday 30 May 2023

THE SEASON IN NUMBERS OUR REVIEW OF A PREMIER LEAGUE TO REMEMBER P19

HOSPITALITY HIT BY BILLS AND STRIKES

WALKOUTS TO ADD TO PRESSURE OF RISING ENERGY BILLS

LAURA MCGUIRE, GUY TAYLOR AND STAFF

RAIL STRIKES this week are set to add to the woes of the hospitality industry, already bruised by the almost-doubling cost of energy bills.

Industrial action by the RMT and ASLEF unions will see walkouts on three separate days of what would have been a busy week for bars and pubs.

Staff will walk out to varying degrees on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, with the latter causing particular chaos for fans heading to the Epsom Derby and the FA Cup Final.

In what has been a tough year for hospitality businesses, amid soaring energy costs and a cut-down in consumer spending, Michael Kill, head of the Night Time Industries Association, told City A.M. that owners are losing revenue due to customers and staff having “limited access to critical transport infrastructure”.

He said: “Our industry is once again being crippled by industrial action…

TOURIST TAX THE CITY THROWS ITS WEIGHT BEHIND VAT CAMPAIGN P15

some businesses, particularly festivals, think their survival could be down to whether strike action takes place over their particular trading days.”

The sector’s trade body UK Hospitality expects the strikes to wipe out £132m-worth of sales, bringing the overall bill for industrial action to around £3bn over the past year.

Both unions have been involved in a fierce dispute with the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) and the Department for Transport (DfT) over pay and conditions since last year.

The walkouts come at a difficult time for the industry, which is already dealing with increased energy bills. Data collected by CGA by Nielsen IQ suggests pubs, bars and restaurants have seen energy bills surge some 81 per cent over the past year.

UK Hospitality has called on the government for more support to help businesses weather the storm.

The government introduced an emergency package over the winter but since that came to an end in

April, pubs have seen little benefit from its replacement Energy Bills Discount Scheme.

One south London pub’s energy bill seen by City A.M. shows an overall increase of around £900 on bills over the winter, offset with just £30 of government support.

“The government must recognise this crisis isn’t just crippling businesses now,” a statement from the British Institute of Innkeeping, UK Hospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association and Hospitality Ulster said.

“Left unresolved it will have a lasting wider impact long into the future, impacting local employment, supply chains and removing essential community hubs from villages, towns and cities across the whole of the UK.”

A government spokeswoman said:

“We acted swiftly to provide businesses... with an unprecedented package of support. As of April, this has saved them £6.9bn on energy costs... enabling some to only pay around half of predicted wholesale energy costs.”

SUMMER SUN Brits finally enjoy some spring-like temperatures

CITY A.M. REPORTERS

WARMER temperatures finally arrived on Britain’s shores over the weekend, with Londoners sun seeking both in the capital and down on the south coast.

Retailers will be looking for a boost as the traditionally lucrative summer shopping season begins in earnest, with Brits readying for days out in the better weather. Sales figures released last week suggested that a damp spring had hit high street sales.

India moves forward with ‘graft’ investigation into BAE Systems and Rolls

CITY A.M. REPORTERS

INDIAN authorities yesterday took the next step in a long-running, historic case against BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce over alleged graft almost 20 years ago.

The authorities allege a “criminal conspiracy” related to the purchase

of training jets in 2005, with Indian prosecutors saying in a document seen by Reuters that the deal was done as a result of “huge bribes, commissions and kickbacks”.

The allegations relate to an investigation by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office in 2012 related to deals made by Rolls-Royce in

countries including China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, which was settled with a deferred prosecution agreement and a £497m fine in 2017.

“Rolls-Royce is continuing to assist the Indian authorities. The allegations being investigated by the CBI were disclosed in the Deferred

Prosecution Agreement agreed with the UK’s Serious Fraud Office in 2017. Rolls-Royce today is a fundamentally different business. We will not tolerate business misconduct of any sort and are committed to maintaining high ethical standards. India remains an important market for Rolls-Royce

and we have a valued ecosystem of skilled people and partners in the country,” a Rolls-Royce spokesperson told City A.M. A BAE spokesperson said it was “committed to maintaining high standards of ethical conduct” and said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on an ongoing probe.

STANDING UP FOR THE CITY

Tories must ditch the culture wars and remember it’s the economy, stupid

FORGET Mondeo Man or Basildon Barry, there’s a new electoral figure on the scene: the ‘shy capitalist’ millennial. That, at least, is the conclusion of the latest bit of research by Onward, the newly revved-up Tory think tank. In short, millennials –those between the ages of 25 and 40 –appear to be the first group to not become more right wing, and therefore more sympathetic to the Tory cause, as they age. Per Onward, though, that’s not necessarily a generational shift; those millennials are still more inclined towards lower taxes, and see businesses as a force for good not ill, at least compared to the younger, statue-tearing-down and never-off-Tiktok generation succeeding them. They want to

THE CITY VIEW

buy a house, they want to keep more of their own cash, and they don’t want public services to fall apart: thus, far from being rampant left-wing crazies, millennials are just shy capitalists. The lesson the Tories should take from this is not an overly complex one. The rest of the research suggests millennials think Tories are incompetent, tired and out of touch –and that they waffle on about culture war issues more than the economy. Instead of changing the narrative, of course, some members of the Conservative party are currently

RELENTLESS People in Kyiv shelter at a tube stop during a Russian missile attack

turning themselves inside out to start a civil war over the fate of their previous leader Boris Johnson. There may be some who believe that the return of Boris is the answer; there may be some who think that, just as in 2015, a host of closet Tories are going to surprise the pollsters. Both are wrong: the former is damaged goods, and the latter ignores the fact most voters believe the party long ago stopped offering a compelling message to the electorate.

Keir Starmer and the Labour party are some way away from winning the next election –but unless the Tories focus on delivering for Onward’s shy capitalists, they’ll simply hand it over to them. As Bill Clinton was once told, it’s the economy, stupid.

Designing Producing hydrogen plants oil & gas

+

bp’s wider transformation is underway. Whilst today we’re mostly in oil & gas, we’ve increased global investment into our lower carbon & other transition businesses from around 3% in 2019 to around 30% last year.

YESTERDAY represented the 15th night of serial attacks by Russian forces on the Ukrainian capital this month. It came after 40 drones and rockets targeted Kyiv on Saturday and Sunday night, and then continued into the daytime on Monday.

Biden and McCarthy to lobby Congress to pass debt ceiling deal

CITY A.M. REPORTER

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden and senior Republican Kevin McCarthy will spend this week attempting to convince Capitol Hill legislators to pass a deal to raise the US debt ceiling, which was agreed by the two men over the weekend.

One investor hailed the deal as “great news”, minimising the chance of the US government defaulting, but Congress is still to have its say amid complaints from some Democrats that the President has given up too many concessions.

“It takes a threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard earned and historic economic recovery,” Biden said of the deal.

American stock markets were closed yesterday for Memorial Day, but Wall Street futures rose and the price of short-term credit default swaps fell.

METAMORPHOSIS SVB renamed HSBC Innovation Banking

City economists will be closely watching reports this week into the state of the US job market, with concerns that the market “seems to be running hot”, in the words of AJ Bell analysts.

Some analysts had suggested the US Federal Reserve had reached the top of its raterise cycle, at 5 to 5.25 per cent, but if the job market continues to heat up it is expected the Fed will increase rates to prevent a wageprice spiral and the risk of stickier-than-anticipated inflation.

“While the White House’s debt ceiling agreement is great news, the US government still has a cash flow problem and time is of the essence to finalise the agreements,” said Bob Stark, global head of market strategy at treasury and financial management firm Kyriba, to Reuters.

“The debt ceiling agreement is only the first step in saving the government from the brink of illiquidity.”

EUROPE’s biggest lender is to rebrand Silicon Valley Bank UK as HSBC Innovation Banking, opting for a rename months after buying the business in a £1 rescue deal orchestrated by the Bank of England. Sky News’s Mark Kleinman revealed the news last night, but an official announcementis expected to be made at London Tech Week next month.

UBS: Pound to hit recent high against the dollar

CITY A.M. REPORTER

UBS WONKS believe the pound could be trading as high as 1.30 against the US dollar by the end of the year, as the currency continues to recover from last years disasterous mini-budget. The pound currently trades at 1.23 against the dollar, a far cry

from the 2:1 days of yore.

But UBS economist Dean Turner expects the pound to creep up over the next six months.

Why? Factors include the “relative attractiveness of the yield on UK assets” due to the likelihood of another rate hike in likely in June, Turner said.

He contrasted the hawkish

stance of the Bank – expected to raise interest rates as high as 5.5 per cent – with the Fed.

The US central bank appears to be coming to the end of its tightening cycle. Turner also suggested that UK politics had “returned to normal” which would likely see convulsions in the currency come to an end.

Keeping oil and gas flowing where and when it’s needed and increasing investment in the transition to lower carbon energy. That’s our strategy. Right now in Teesside, we’re designing one of the UK’s first gas-fired power plants with carbon capture and two hydrogen plants – to help Britain get closer to its ambition for 10GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. Each project is designed to reduce emissions, helping create and protect jobs in the north of England. And, crews are operating a drilling rig, destined to help one of our existing facilities keep delivering the energy needed to meet critical demand.

Grocery prices cool as officials mull price cap

LAURA MCGUIRE

FOOD INFLATION cooled slightly in May as lower energy and commodity costs finally showed signs of filtering down to consumers.

According to British Retail Consortium (BRC) data, grocery inflation fell to 15.4 per cent during the month, down from 15.7 per cent in April –but remained the second highest inflation rate in the food category on record.

As supply issues eased and weather improved, fresh food inflation also dropped to 17.2 per cent, down from 17.8 per cent in April. This is below the three-month average rate of 17.3 per cent.

“Fierce competition between supermarkets has helped keep British food among the cheapest of the large European economies,” Helen Dickinson, BRC chief executive, said.

While the cost of some goods eased, shoppers still saw the cost of ambient food such as tinned goods rise during the month, rising to its 13.1 per cent up from

Ocado set to be dumped from FTSE 100 in London index reshuffle

CHARLIE CONCHIE

12.9 per cent.

While reports suggest food inflation may have peaked, households are still struggling with the cost of living, with rumours suggesting that Downing Street could introduce a cap on food staples.

The scheme, understood to be at drawing-board stage, would ask retailers to charge to lowest possible price for household basics such as bread and milk.

“Food inflation is much more resilient and difficult to get rid of than we anticipated,” a Treasury source told the Sunday Telegraph, who first reported the news.

It is understood that supermarkets would be allowed to choose which items they cap and would only take part in the scheme on a voluntary basis.

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the BRC, said: “This will not make a jot of difference to prices... Rather than recreating 1970s-style price controls, the government should focus on cutting red tape so that resources can be directed to keeping prices as low as possible.”

OCADO is set to be rubbed off many investors’ shopping lists this week as it faces a relegation from the FTSE 100 following a troubled period of slowing sales and a tumbling share price. Investors have soured on the grocery tech firm in recent months amid a period of widening losses,

with shares in the firm falling some 37 per cent since January.

FTSE Russell, which manages the make up of London’s indices, is set to reshuffle them today, and Ocado’s fall in value means it is now in the danger zone to be booted from the premier index.

“Shopping basket sizes have been shrinking at Ocado and the retail side of the business can’t benefit

from the surge in demand to shop in bricks and mortar stores once more,” said Hargreaves Lansdown’s Susannah Streeter.

The falling share price also reflects investors’ lost patience with the company’s robotics arm, Ocado Solutions, which was meant to prove the company’s “long-term powerhouse” but has seen lower than expected demand, Streeter added.

New group to tackle music streaming pay issues

DOMINIC MCGRATH

A NEW INDUSTRY working group is set to consider how musicians and artists are paid through streaming amid concerns over whether creators are paid fairly by sites.

The move was confirmed in a letter to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee by minister Sir John Whittingdale, who said the new working group will “explore, develop and agree industry actions in relation to creator remuneration from streaming”.

The minister said the body will be

“composed of representatives and experts from across the music sector”.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the committee, welcomed the move but said the group should not be a “talking shop”.She wants the new group to “lead to concrete change” and proper rewards for artists.

IN BROCKWORTH’s annual cheese rolling event, competitors chased a 7lb Double Gloucester cheese wheel down the almost-vertical Coopers Hill. The women’s race was won by Delaney Irving, who was knocked unconscious as she chased the cheese.

FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE Hundreds take part in the iconic Gloucestershire event

Prices fall again as landlords sell amid high rates

LAURA MCGUIRE

HOUSE PRICES are continuing to fall, according to an index, but transactions are ahead of the long-term average due to landlords selling up.

According to estate agent Zoopla, landlord properties accounted for 11 per cent of sales in the last month, as high mortgage rates and energy bills forced many property owners to place their homes on the market as they struggled to make a profit.

While a boost in supply may be welcomed by some, higher mortgage rates will make it increasingly difficult for first-time buyers to get on the ladder and also limit the number of rental properties available for tenants.

“Sellers shouldn’t get carried away by more positive data on the housing market and need to price their homes realistically if they are serious about moving homes in 2023,” Richard Don-

nell, executive director at Zoopla said.

“Home buyers remain price sensitive with one eye firmly on the outlook for the economy, the cost of living and the trajectory of mortgage rates which appear likely to edge higher in the coming weeks,” Donnell added.

It comes as the average price of a home in the UK has grown by 1.9 per cent year on year, now costing £260,000. However, that masks a 1.3 per cent fall over the past six months.

In London, however, house prices contracted 0.2 per cent on a year to year basis, with the average price of a home in the capital now at £523,000.

“This demand for London property is caused by the backlog of needs-based buyers who were looking to move following Covid-19,” Guy Gittins, chief executive of Foxtons Estate Agents said. “[This need] was so great it has yet to be satisfied, despite the increased cost to buy.”

ANNUAL PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN HOUSE PRICES

ARELondon housing prices really on a downslide?

That seems to be the conclusion to be drawn from the latest Zoopla data, with the capital the only part of the country not to see an increase over the past 12 months.

That’s not especially good news for homeowners, of course, but with rates as high as they are it’s not really relevant to punters looking to get on the ladder for the first time either, with now being surely one of the worst times to buy in the last few years.

The real issue for the capital’s housing isn’t a 0.2 per cent annual drop but the fact that real wages are still stuck at financial crisis levels, whilst house prices in London have gone up by more than £200,000 since 2010. That has made the capital less affordable for new arrivals, which in turn has resulted in the rental market taking off at speed –witness the 41 per cent rent increase in Clapham and Battersea over the past couple of years. In short, homeowners shouldn’t be too concerned just yet –until London’s demand and supply equation settles, there’s no reason to think this is anything but a blip. AS

THEINTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund

(IMF) and Bank of England have been so wide of the mark on the UK economy of late that it’s reasonable to conclude economic forecasting is pointless.

The simple message the pair have conveyed is that they underestimate the UK economy time and time again.

Their respective upgrades leave the country in a much better position. IMF economists think Britain is on course for a 0.4 per cent economic expansion this year –better than Germany which, after revisions to GDP estimates, is now in a technical recession.

Bank experts are a bit less optimistic, projecting 0.25 per cent growth this year.

Since January, the IMF has lifted its UK growth prediction by one percentage point (see graph), up from an expected 0.6 per cent contraction at the turn of the year.

The Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) record is worse. The Bank of England’s ninestrong rate setting group last November projected the longest recession in a century, taking 1.5 per cent off of GDP this year, compared to a 1.75 percentage point upward swing based on its freshest report. It’s easy to point the finger at these economic behemoths and blame them for being so wrong, and it would be fair to do so. But forecasts are designed to illustrate what the direction of travel is, not the exact destination. It’s better to be broadly right than precisely wrong. Part of the reason that the Bank has struggled to get a handle on inflation is because its forecasting methods are geared toward a past environment of economic stability.

Assumptions that underpin models have been upended by the series of global economic shocks, as admitted by Bank chief economist Huw Pill last week. “We are trying to understand why we have made those errors, interpret those errors in terms of the behaviour, and make an assessment in terms of how it will continue,” he said at a grilling by the Treasury Select Committee.

In November, when those bleak forecasts were cast, Britain really was in big, big trouble. Gas prices –and we consume a lot of the stuff –were crazily high and were not exhibiting many signs of falling. Families were staring down the barrel of losing nearly six per cent of their real income, amounting to the largest living standards shock on record. Spending was expected by the Bank and IMF to slide in response, driving the bulk of the economic downturn. Escaping such a real income shock caused by the price of imports soaring isn’t really possible, although governments can

Why do the IMF and BoE keep getting it wrong?

alleviate the pain on the poorest, which Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak partly did by freezing energy bills at £2,500. That move also partly convinced the Bank to ditch any trace of its recession call earlier this month. Those spikes in gas prices unfolded very quickly.

Their recent decline back to pre-RussiaUkraine war levels has lapsed over a similar time frame, easing pressure on household finances and sparking the recent round of forecast reversals.

In its latest report, the Bank assumes the price per therm of natural gas averages £1.37

this year. Back in November, it thought it would be £3.56, nearly triple.

Another remarkable story amid all this economic turbulence has been the strength of Britain’s jobs market, constantly taking the IMF and Bank by surprise.

That has been driven by more robust spending convincing companies to keep staff. Fears of being unable to source new recruits once existing workers have been let go has led to labour “hoarding”, James Smith, an economist at ING, told City A.M. There’s a downside to all this economic overperformance: stronger inflation.

YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED...

Kristalina Georgieva

Germany was in a recession over the winter after all. Europe’s economic powerhouse met the technical definition of two back-toback quarters of contraction after the country’s stats office revised down its first quarter GDP estimate to minus 0.3 per cent from zero per cent. That followed a 0.5 per cent drop in the final three months of last year.

£ Yet more pain is on the way for homeowners. Over the next year, about 1.6m fixed-rate mortgage holders will see their deals expire, meaning they either have to roll on to a new contract with a much, much higher interest rate or sell up. That’s according to the Resolution Foundation, who estimate around 4m Brits have been subjected to changes to their mortgage bills since the Bank’s first rate rise.

Core inflation last month jumped unexpectedly to 6.8 per cent, smashing all forecasts, signalling price pressures have “become more embedded in the wider economy, which is at least in part thanks to... slightly stronger” demand, Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, told City A.M.

The IMF now thinks inflation won’t return to the official two per cent until the middle of 2025 –six months later than previously thought. It’s looking increasingly likely the Bank will have to ratchet up interest rises again to crush inflation.

Economists think there’s a chance Bailey

and co will revert to the 50 basis point speed at the next MPC meeting on 22 June. Markets think the eventual rate peak will be 5.5 per cent. Reaching such a level would put a recession back on the table, one that is perhaps needed to kill off price rises. The Bank must be alive to the fact that the initial price burst sparked by the external energy price shock is now pushing up inflation across the economy. Domestic factors are beginning to run the show. Failing to accurately project how they will play out raises the risk of the Bank losing credibility with the public.

CHANGES TO UK GDP

OVER LAST YEAR

City A.M.’s economics editor Jack Barnett takes a deep dive into the state of the economy in his weekly column

IMF managing director

Dr Martens looks to give share price a boot up

EYES are on Dr Martens ahead of its full year results on Thursday as investors hope the boot maker can offer signs of a turnaround following disruptions in its US warehouse and a struggling share price.

The London-based bootmaker has downgraded its profit forecast twice in three months, telling the markets in April that earnings will be around £245m, compared to previously downgraded revenues of between £250m and £260m.

It’s been a tough year for the brand as it has been battling bottleneck issues in its Los Angeles warehouse, which impacted its American wholesale channel from December. The supply chain issues saw the cult bootmaker post an underwhelming update in April,

The retailer is also currently on the hunt for a new finance chief, after its longstanding chief financial officer Jon Mortimore announced his departure last month after seven years at the brand.

“There were already concerns about the long-term growth of the brand, given the fashion world’s fickle tastes and these operational difficulties have booted in fresh problems for the company,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said.

Dr Marten shares have fallen 62 per cent compared to the IPO price when it launched onto the London market in January 2021, with some believing the brand may have been overpriced when it became public.

Britcoin and blockchain could make fighting fraud easier, reckon experts

CHRIS DORRELL

THE DIGITAL pound could be an important weapon in regulators’ fight against the rising tide of fraud, experts have argued.

With the widespread scale of scams in the UK, Quant’s chief executive

Toyota under pressure from proxy adviser

GUY TAYLOR AND STAFF

TOYOTA came under pressure over the weekend as proxy advisers urged shareholders to back calls to improve the automaker’s disclosure of climate-related lobbying, and vote against the reappointment of its chair as a director.

On Friday, US-based proxy adviser Glass Lewis recommended that Akio Toyoda, who stood down as president and CEO in January, should not be reappointed due to a shortage of independent directors at the firm. The proxy adviser claimed only three of Toyota’s 10 nominees for the board were independent, with its usual requirement one in three.

Glass Lewis stated “Akio Toyoda should be held accountable for allowing insufficient independent representation”.

Institutional Shareholder Services, urged shareholders to vote for resolutions to push Toyota to improve its disclosure of climaterelated lobbying.

The pressure from both US-based proxy advisers comes ahead of the firm’s AGM on 14 June.

Toyota did not respond to a request for comment. The firm has disputed Glass Lewis’s findings.

One in 10 women missing out on workplace pension

Gilbert Verdian said “we need a complete reset”.

Quant builds technology for blockchains, including those underlying central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Verdian suggested that fraud protections can be built into the

architecture of a CBDC, like the digital pound, enabling a far greater degree of protection than is currently possible.

“When you look at CBDCs, it’s an opportunity to be able to embed fraud protection at a whole network level and then have fraud prevention done by the network itself,” Verdian said. Regulators will be able to look at the “pattern of fraud” right across the payments network, he added.

JONES

ALAN

WOMEN are more than twice as likely as men to miss out on being automatically put into a workplace pension, according to a new report.

The TUC said its study suggests more than one in 10 women are in jobs where their employers do not have to enter them into a workplace pension, compared with fewer than

one in 20 men.

The Prospect union has calculated the income gap between men and women in retirement is now 40.5 per cent, more than twice the level of the gender pay gap.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak urged the government to invest more in childcare and social care, with caring responsibilities a key driver of the gender pensions gap.

Boeing eyes up Saudi deal to offload 150 jets

looking to boost the tourism sector.

Losing out: Fresh calls to end tourist tax

LAURA MCGUIRE

THE CITY of London’s policy chief has made fresh calls for an end to a ‘tourist tax’ on foreign shoppers, warning the capital could lose out to rival European cities.

BOEING is eyeing up a major deal to sell 150 of its 737 Max jetliners to the Saudi Arabian airline Riyadh Air, according to reports published on Sunday.

According to Bloomberg, the newly-launched startup Riyadh Air is looking to obtain 300 to 400 single-aisle jets from Boeing, but sources say the talks are still in flux.

The agreement would mark the US-plane maker’s second major deal in Saudi Arabia this year.

In March Riyadh Air and Saudi Arabian airlines ordered 78,787 Dreamliners from Boeing, the fifth biggest order in the company’s history.

It followed a week after the official unveiling of Riyadh Air by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is

According to Bloomberg’s sources, Boeing is looking to press its advantage on long-term rival Airbus, which could still claim a portion of the order from Riyadh Air.

Last month, Boeing announced plans to accelerate 737 Max production, after manufacturing issues had led to delivery de-

The company declined to comment on today’s deal.

Speculation over Boeing’s latest lucrative deal comes amid an uplift for the UK’s aircraft export market.

ADS Group figures show the UK has seen 337 global aircraft deliveries in the first four months of this year, the highest since before the pandemic.

Total exports from the aerospace sector were worth £18.6bn in 2022 and generated £27bn in turnover.

New high-end transatlantic airline Global buys first plane

THE NEW UK-US airline, Global, has officially announced the acquisition of its first plane.

The company said this morning that it had acquired an Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, according to the PA news agency. It confirms last week’s revelation’s in City A.M. that a team of investors were

Google’s VC arm backs London carbon removal start-up Cur8 in £5.3m raise

CITY A.M. REPORTER

A LONDON-BASED ‘carbon removals’ platform used to green the Jubilee and the Queen’s funeral has received £5.3m worth of new funding as it looks to scale up.

Founded by serial fintech entrepreneur

Marta Krupinska, climate scientist Dr Gabrielle Walker and Mark Stevenson, Cur8 is the market maker for carbon removals. The firm buys carbon removal credits from suppliers and builds what it calls ‘high-quality carbon removals portfolios’,

preparing the airline’s launch.

According to the announcement, Global Airlines bought one of the iconic jets from German aircraft finance company Doric Aviation.

Sources told City A.M. last week that the new carrier will attempt to push for the high end of the market, with the company eyeing “Emirati servicelevels” – similar to that found on Emirates or Etihad.

Writing in City A.M. Chris Hayward said London’s recovery is “not being maximised”, noting the Treasury’s decision to scrap the VAT exemption for foreign tourists puts London behind Paris and Milan.

It comes as Oxford Economics research suggests cutting the tourist tax could prompt an additional 1.8m extra visitors by 2025/26, generating £2.8bn of extra spending, and supporting 78,000 jobs.

Manju Malhotr, chief of Harvey Nicholls, warned earlier this month that the tax is having a significant impact on the wider British economy.

In parliament, Nicholas Trench, Earl of Clancarty told the government last week that the UK needs to clearly show it is open for businesses as other countries are “capitalising on this failure”. At the time, Treasury Lords minister baroness Joanna Penn said the Treasury “continues to monitor evidence”.

Cost to offset carbon could double for firms by 2030

which can include anything from enhanced rock weather to soil tech.

“As we embark on building the platform that will unlock that growth, I’m delighted we’ve already been able to attract some of the best talent from across the industry, and now we couldn’t be more pleased to have backers like GV and Capital T [who also funded the raise] to support us on this journey,” Krupinska said.

GUY TAYLOR

THE COST of carbon offsetting could more than double for businesses by the end of the decade, according to new research.

A PwC report found that FTSE 350 companies reported £38m in voluntary carbon offset purchases in 2022, but this could increase by over 256 per cent to £135m in a decade.

The research, analysing Bloomberg NEF pricing scenarios, shows these costs could rise to £365m by 2050. The report shows 80 per cent of the total volume of reported offsets were classed as avoidance offsets, which critics call “not fit for purpose”. In a scenario where only removal offsets could be purchased, the analysis shows costs would increase by over 1,000 per cent by 2030.

GUY TAYLOR

The James Asquith-founded operation is looking to launch its first flights in spring 2024

Cur8 cofounder and fintech veteran Marta Krupinska

HMRC ups efforts to track usage of offshore havens

BEN LUCAS

THE UK’s tax authority is tracking an increasing number of firms suspected of using tax havens, new data reveals.

HMRC is now tracking 512 UK firms that are suspected of failing to conduct enough business activities in those tax havens to legitimately claim they operate there, according to data obtained by law firm Pinsent Masons via a Freedom of Information request.

This marked an 84 per cent increase on the 277 UK firms the authority was monitoring at the same time last year, the firm said.

The increased scrutiny comes as part of the OECD’s ‘No or Only Nominal Tax Jurisdiction’ project, which looks to monitor companies’ activities in 12 known tax havens, including UK overseas territories Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.

Under the initiative, these 12 tax havens must now report the identities, business activities and ownership of multinational businesses reporting revenue in their country or territory.

As a result, HMRC now receives more

data on firms in those tax havens, which it can use to open investigations if it suspects UK tax has been unlawfully avoided or evaded.

“HMRC now shares and receives more information with its equivalents worldwide than ever before,” Jake Landman, a tax specialist and partner at the firm, said. “For UK companies using tax havens illegitimately, it’s now a matter of when, not if HMRC comes calling.”

A HMRC spokesperson said: “We have secured

Investec’s UK CEO Ruth Leas reckons career progression is boosted in the office

Investec joins list of City firms bringing staff back more often

around £526 million from offshore initiatives since 2019, underlining our commitment to address all forms of non-compliance and ensure the right amount of tax is paid, (which is used) to fund the UK’s vital public services.”

“We have a strong track record of tackling offshore non-compliance – through international activity, providing easy ways for people to disclose and correct their tax affairs, or act against those intent on breaking the law,” they added when approached by City A.M.

City of London Corporation Town and Country Planning Act 1990

The City of London Corporation hereby gives notice that it proposes to make an order under section 247 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to stop up Clothier Street in order to enable the development at 115-123 Houndsditch London EC3A 7BU.

If the order is made the stopping up will enable the development described in the Schedule to this notice to be carried out in accordance with the planning permission granted by the City of London Corporation on 1st February 2022 under reference number 21/00622/FULEIA.

Copies of the draft order and plan may be inspected at the

Any person may object to the making of the proposed order. Objections must be made in writing and must be received by this notice. Objections may be e-mailed to transport.planning@

Objectors should note that their objection will be forwarded to communicate with them to seek to resolve their objection.

Schedule building comprising four basement levels (plus one basement associated with the development.

Savers told to switch if banks don’t up rates

VICKY SHAW

SOME savers have been earning “meagre” returns despite hikes in the Bank of England base rate, according to Which.

The consumer group said savers have been sitting on rates as low as 0.1 per cent in recent months.

Some savers may be better off with challenger banks or building societies, particularly when it comes to instant access deals, research by the consumer group suggested.

The Bank of England base rate currently sits at 4.5 per cent, having undergone a string of increases.

The Treasury Committee has recently raised concerns about rates and has been writing to providers.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s new consumer duty –that will be introduced in July –will encourage firms to give fair value to customers, and Which said it wants quick action if firms fall short.

CITY A.M. REPORTER

INVESTEC is set to join a growing list of Square Mile operations asking staff to return to the office more often this week, according to reports.

The South Africa-headquartered bank will up the number of days it expects staff in the office from three to four, according to reports in the Telegraph.

The lender’s UK boss Ruth Leas told the newspaper that “we believe that our culture and people’s career

growth are best enabled face to face.

“A key driver of our continued growth and success will be increased collaboration, in-person relationships and connectivity,” she added.

The move is expected to be confirmed internally this week.

The bank’s global profits grew over the past year despite volatile global markets and a low-growth environment. The UK branch was a key driver, with profits up by more than 30 per cent.

Jenny Ross, editor of Which Money, said: “With millions of consumers still feeling the impact of an unrelenting cost-of-living crisis, it’s become even more important to get better returns on savings accounts.”

She added: “Our advice is simple: if you’re not satisfied with the rates you’re currently receiving, now’s the time to switch.”

A UK Finance spokesperson said: “The rates an individual firm offers on its savings products are driven by a number of different factors, not just the Bank of England’s bank rate.”

“Why ‘genius’ Pep Guardiola is my manager of the season”

TREVOR STEVEN ON WHICH BOSSES HAVE IMPRESSED IN THIS SEASON’S PREMIER LEAGUE PAGE 19

HMRC is increasingly looking at how firms use offshore tax regimes

THE NOTE BOOK

Less-established sports could be the next soft power win

WITHthe close of the Premier League this weekend, the nation turns its eyes once more to a heady summer of sport ahead.

There’s Wimbledon, there’s even the British Grand Prix, but once again it’s the Lionesses who are country’s greatest sporting prospect this summer. And what better stage on which to shine than the World Cup?

For the English, just as for the Swedish, the women’s national football team are increasingly looked to for success where their male counterparts disappoint.

And with the English finding themselves, once again, having to rely on the brilliance of the women’s football team to save face –there is a compelling argument to bolster investment and support for women's and co-ed sports nationwide.

Brexit should provide the perfect tabula rasa on which to

SUN RAYS AND RACKET SPORTS

shift investment plans and rethink the UK’s sporting infrastructure. With Gareth Southgate, soon-to-be subject of a play at the National Theatre, also complaining about the lack of English talent in sports, surely this should be a wake-up call for those in power that a fresh strategy for fostering athletes at the grassroots level is needed. And –looking beyond football –perhaps future success lies in investment in less-established sports.

Sky Brown, Britain’s youngest-ever Olympic medallist, is a skateboarder and surfer. Over 1m people in the UK take part in indoor rock climbing each year. And now, padel is taking off across the country, with over 250 courts (and counting) open today. Is it time the UK started taking investment in these sports seriously - for the sake of the country’s global reputation?

Last week felt like the arrival of summer, and with it came a delightful sight: rackets and balls emerging from garages, lofts and under beds all over the UK. Here, summer is synonymous with one iconic event: Wimbledon. It’s incredible how major sporting tournaments have an enchanting ability to inspire us to embrace sports and indulge in active pursuits. Whether or not Andy Murray can triumph again this year is another question but we have faith in Brits.

Where interesting people say interesting things. Today it’s Sebastian Gordon, CarlHeimdal and

UK operator of the world’s fastest-growing sport

, the founders of Rocket

A DEAL OUT OF THIN AIR

After watching Air in the cinema last week, we reflected on the book that inspired the film:. Shoe Dog. Phil Knight’s memoir piqued our interest at the start of our Padel journey. His journey building Nike is a classic underdog story of sports and business success.

To give you a taste, it is a tale of passion superseding the status quo and where a love for hard work can get you. But before that –let's reach for the strawberries and cream.

£ In a post-pandemic world, where people have become more health conscious and eager to socialise, it is easy to see how padel has become a global phenomenon –being a socially rewarding way to keep fit. Whilst racket sports such as tennis and badminton are already well established in the UK, we knew we were making the right choice bringing our padel business over from Sweden due to the growing appetite for new options for social sports this side of the North Sea. Brits being extra busy, padel is also perfect for those who didn’t have time to play 18 holes of golf. Designed to be played in pairs, this game creates the ideal environment for players to meet new people. connections.

£ When choosing the location for our first UK padel centre, we immediately thought of the country's brownfield sites. These vacant spaces hold a wealth of untapped opportunities for those with an entrepreneurial spirit. What better way to repurpose out-ofuse buildings than by investing in local health, creating a network of grassroots opportunities across the UK? We envision these areas transformed into vibrant hubs, hosting social sports clubs –and who knows, in five years we may have another racket sport world champion.

Starmer under fire over North Sea drilling ban

CITY A.M. REPORTER

LABOUR was accused of undermining the UK’s energy security after it emerged the party was considering banning new North Sea oil and gas licences, should it win the next election.

Reports in the Sunday Times suggested that Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, were minded to block any new development in what remains the UK’s key offshore energy field. The industry trade body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) hit back at the plans, saying that around 42 per cent of the UK’s electricity comes from gas-fired power stations and that the transition towards greener energy must be a “partnership”.

OEUK warned that effectively shutting down the North Sea as an energy producing region would play into the hands of foreign governments.

“Homegrown production of oil and gas means we avoid costlier, less secure, and higher carbon footprint imports. Investment in UK production would also support the infrastructure and workforces needed to make cleaner, more affordable energy in the UK, for

Sir Keir Starmer

the UK,” the organisation’s chief executive said.

Whilst the licensing of new North Sea exploration remains contentious, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has given guarded backing to at least one new flagship project, the Rosebank Oil Field.

“We will need fossil fuels for the next few decades as we transition to a greener future. During that period, it makes absolutely no sense not to invest in the resources we have here at home,” Sunak said earlier this month.

Proponents of new projects argue greater energy independence and security would strengthen the UK’s hand in foreign policy. Energy prices across Europe spiked immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine as Western governments stopped buying Russian energy. Whilst Britain was not a direct buyer in any significant sense of Moscow’s energy reserves, it led to a price spike here

Free market think tank the IEA said the proposal to bar new development would “deter investment”.

“Keir Starmer might as well jump in an Aberdeen taxi and hand out the dole notices,” the group’s Andy Mayer added.

CITY of LONDON

undermentioned streets made several Orders on 25 May 2023

Basinghall Street (Gresham Street to Basinghall Avenue) ---- Mobile Crane

Coleman Street (Gresham Street to Basinghall Avenue) ---- Mobile Crane

Holborn (New Fetter Lane to Furnival Street) ---- Mobile Crane

Holborn Viaduct (Snow Hill to Holborn Circus) ---- Resurfacing Works

Erdogan revels in ballot win but critics slam poll

CITY A.M. REPORTER

TURKISH President Tayyip Erdogan and supporters yesterday revelled in an election victory lengthening his rule into a third decade while Turkey’s opposition, which once counted on winning, braced for “difficult days” against an increasingly autocratic government.

His rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu said it was “the most unfair election in years” but did not dispute the outcome, which gave Erdogan a mandate to pursue policies that have polarised Turkey and strengthened its position as a regional military power.

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez portrayed the results as a vote of no confidence

Spaniards to go to the polls as Sanchez’s party routed in locals

CITY A.M. REPORTER

A LOCAL elections rout over the weekend has forced the socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to declare a snap election. A host of regional governments fell from Sanchez’s party’s control into the hand of the main conservative opposition, the People’s Party, with the PM saying he must “take personal responsibility for the results”.

The election, which will be held in July, was welcomed by Sanchez’s key

opponent, People’s Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo.

“Spaniards have said ‘enough, we’ve had it up to here’,” he told a news conference after the results.

The ballot will also give opportunities to both the far-right Vox party and left wing, antiausterity outfit Podemos, to secure positions in what may well be a coalition government.

Vox said it would be willing to work with the People’s Party at both a regional and national level.

The election had been seen as Erdogan’s biggest political challenge, with the opposition confident of unseating him and reversing his policies after polls showed a cost of living crisis left him vulnerable.

But he prevailed with 52.2 per cent of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 47.8 per cent.

It reinforced Erdogan’s image of invincibility in the deeply divided NATO-member country, whose foreign, economic and security policy he has redrawn.

Pro-government newspapers, part of an overwhelmingly proErdogan media landscape that buoyed his election campaign in the nation of 85m people, cheered his victory.

Addressing supporters in a victory speech, Erdogan declared democracy the winner and called for “disputes” to be put to one side.

Printer Street Little New Street Street) ---- Mobile Crane

New St, Shoe Ln, St Andrew St, New Fetter Ln, Bartlett Crt & New St Sq or via Little New St, Shoe Ln, Shoe Lane (Shoe Lane Bridge to Charterhouse Street) ---- Resurfacing Works

Temple Avenue Resurfacing Works

Ian Hughes

up to 24 months, as part of the 12th edition of Sculpture in the City, to be taken down on or before 25 June 2025: Muamba Grove 0Hue1

The Parish Church of St Magnus The Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London, EC3R 6DN 23/00393/FULL & 23/00394/LBC

You may inspect c

22 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4BQ 23/00400/FULLR3 Temporary installation of two sculptures for a period of up to 24 months, as part of the 12th edition of Sculpture in the City, to be taken down on or before 3rd June 2025: megaphone by

EC4N 5AX 23/00509/FULL

Change of use from Class E at basement and

cycle store, refuse storage, plant room and other

“There’s an app on its way that’s about to change British offices for good.”

ELIZA FILBY ON THE NEXTWORKPLACE REVOLUTION PAGE 15

BEST OF THE BROKERS

US debt deal cause for relief ahead of FTSE 100 reshuffle

WELL rested after a long weekend in both the UK and US, investors should return to markets today with a sigh of relief as the US debt ceiling crisis nears resolution.

Protracted talks over raising the US’s $31.4trn (£25.4trn) debt ceiling dominated market activity last week, with fears of a US default and the subsequential global economic turmoil spooking investors.

However, news on Sunday that US President Joe Biden and House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy had finally struck a deal –albeit “in principle” –should start to ease some investor jitters this week.

The House and the Senate are set to start voting on the deal later this week.

Closer to home, London markets are set for a shake up today in the quarterly FTSE reshuffle.

Online supermarket Ocado, whose share price has fallen some 37 per cent since January, is set to drop off the FTSE 100, as widening losses and a disappointing performance from its robotics arm send investors running.

The reshuffle could prove a more positive day for a number of firms, how-

ever, with Birmingham-based IMI, formerly Imperial Metal Industries, vying for promotion into the premier index from the FTSE 250. The engineering company has seen its share price surge by more than 20 per cent year-to-date and has lifted its full year earnings guidance following a strong performance in the first quarter.

Troubled outsourcing outfit Capita is also among the companies in the promotion zone from the FTSE small cap into the FTSE 250. Its share price rose sharply in March after its turnaround strategy appeared to be bearing fruit.

Beyond the reshuffle, investors in De La Rue will be awaiting the banknote printer’s full year results tomorrow. The company will need to impress, with its share price more than halving in the last six months amid the declining use of cash.

Publishing giant Bloomsbury will also update markets tomorrow, with shareholders keen to see whether the pandemic-induced book boom has held up in the firm’s full year results.

Cult bootmaker Dr Martens and car marketplace Auto Trader will enter the spotlight on Thursday, when both post their final results.

“The clouds should be starting to clear” for fresh food provider Bakkavor, said analysts from Peel Hunt. The firm is actively managing the inflationary environment and is expected to see a resilient performance year to date. Peel Hunt put a target price of 115p and said buy.

THE

KCT cut its full year revenue guidance as it reported a drop in business on Friday. Peel Hunt lowered its profit estimates by 30 per cent but maintained its buy rating, with a target price of 130p. Analysts said it has “continued to win significant new contracts in the past 90 days”, which are expected to “ramp up” in 2024.

HEWSON, CMC MARKETS

Utility services giant Telecom Plus is “well set to continue delivering strong growth” despite the “headwind” of lower energy prices, Peel Hunt analysts said. The proposal to increase the EBIT allowance will also help industry margins. Peel Hunt gave a buy rating, with a target price of 2,600p.

ACROSS

POND “The resilience of the US economy continues to manifest itself in the jobs data, despite concerns that a slowing economy will start to see jobs growth falter. While the monthly payrolls numbers have been slowing in terms of the numbers of jobs being added on a monthly basis, economists have consistently underestimated the resilience of the labour market over the last few months, even with the recent turmoil in the banking sector.”

MICHAEL

OPINION

EDITED BY SASCHA O’SULLIVAN

Police Scotland’s admission of racism in its force should be a lesson to the Met

Eliot Wilson

THERE is widespread misconduct, bad behaviour and prejudice, a culture which discourages those who would speak out and, eventually, an admission by the leadership of “institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination”. But this is not the Metropolitan Police. This is the conclusion of the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone, who made this announcement to the Scottish Police Authority, the public oversight body, last week.

Cynical hacks, of whom there are many in Scotland, will note, quite accurately, that Sir Iain will retire from his position on 10 August this year, so this is something of a death-bed confession which many will think has been long overdue. It is also the case that Police Scotland—created in 2013 by merging the eight regional forces—has been under Sir Iain’s leadership for a little over half its life, so it is not unreasonable to look to the chief constable to assume a degree of responsibility for its culture and procedures.

The admission has immediate relevance. There is an ongoing public inquiry, established by First Minister Humza Yousaf when he was justice secretary, to examine the death in custody of Sheku Bayoh, a Sierra Leonean

trainee gas engineer who was arrested in May 2015 after assaulting a female police officer in Kirkcaldy. Bayoh died having taken MDMA and Flakka, but also had facial injuries, a broken rib and bruising to his body. Lord Bracadale, a former judge of the Court of Session, is chairing the inquiry which began taking evidence last May and is expected to continue into 2024. Livingstone’s admission of institutional racism will be examined carefully by the inquiry.

There is an obvious echo of the challenges facing the Metropolitan Police.

The Met is twice as large as Police Scotland and serves a larger population, but anyone who has followed the crisis

upon crisis in London’s policing will recognise the issues which Sir Iain Livingstone has identified: sexism, casual belittling of female officers, a culture of racism and discrimination, and a

lack of trust among ethnic minority communities.

There is obviously a huge difference in the demographic make-up of Scotland compared to London. The former is more than 95 per cent white, while the capital is less than 54 per cent white, and only 36.8 per cent white British. That does not, of course, make any kind of wrongdoing acceptable or even forgivable, but it does set the scene against which they must be considered.

The concept of “institutional racism” was popularised by Sir William Macpherson in his 1999 report on the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence. It

Scrap the tourist tax hurting our hospitality businesses or lose out to Paris and Madrid

WITH June just a couple of days away and warmer temperatures now here, there is a distinct sense that summer is coming. The better weather tempts both City workers to stay and socialise and overseas tourists to visit our historic attractions.

By attracting more people to the Square Mile, spending more money in our shops, staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants, we all feel the benefit. Greater revenue brings employment and investment, helping boost our reputation as one of the world’s great global cities.

But London’s recovery is not being maximised.

The Treasury’s decision to scrap the VAT exemption for foreign tourists is an anchor on London in the race for global visitors and we risk losing out to Paris, Madrid, and Milan.

Global Blue, an international tax refund company, has found that spending by American and Gulf visitors to

Chris Hayward

France and Italy are both comfortably above pre-2019 levels. In the UK, we’re struggling to reach parity. Collectively, the retail and hospitality sector – from VisitBritain to Harvey Nichols – have implored the government to rethink the policy.

Research from Oxford Economics suggests that cutting the tourist tax could prompt an additional 1.8 million extra visitors by 2025/26, generating £2.8 billion of extra spending, and sustaining 78,000 jobs.

With national economic growth low and inflation running high, scrapping the tourism tax is an absolute no-brainer. Now is the time to

give the tourism and leisure sector a much-needed boost after the pandemic, a vote of confidence that government and business alike are optimistic about the future.

Furthermore, in keeping with the recent warming of relations with Europe, typified by the Windsor Framework and the imminent signing of the memorandum of understanding on financial services –which will be hugely beneficial to the City – we could extend the VAT-free shopping to our European neighbours.

Such a move would make us more competitive within Europe, strengthening our appeal to a huge market of potential customers. Now is the time to show our commitment to the leisure sector that was decimated by the pandemic.We must shift the paradigm; tourism is important for London, but we are at serious risk of London no longer being important for tourism.

Whether it is our world-famous sky-

line, museums and galleries, parks and open spaces, or rich diversity of cuisine, London has something for everyone.

Here in the City, we have over 2,000 years of experience in welcoming the world to our streets. We are one of the most historic, yet innovative destinations, welcoming business and leisure visitors from across the globe.

Today, the City has an immense leisure offer that we want everyone to enjoy. We are working hard to make it not just a place for workers, but a seven-day-a-week destination. This is part of our flagship Destination City programme, designed to reach new and existing audiences and encourage footfall and spend.

Now is the time to boost our international competitiveness as a destination. Government must take the handbrake off London’s recovery and scrap the tourism tax.

£ Chris Hayward is the Policy Chair of the City of London Corporation

was felt then that the admission by a figure wholly representative of “the Establishment” was a huge step forward, and the First Minister has called Sir Iain’s admission “historic” and “monumental”. But it is only the first step. The burning question is: what next?

Baroness Casey of Blackstock’s review of the Met, published in March, showed that, in the quarter-century since the Macpherson Report, little had been achieved. London’s police was still institutionally racist and riddled with discrimination and misconduct. The police is affected by implicit racial bias, which is difficult and timeconsuming to address; tackling toxic “canteen culture” and diversifying recruitment will not be enough. What is required is to identify biases, demonstrate their effect with hard data and carry out thorough training to allow officers to understand and overcome their implicit bias.

It is easy to be despondent about the cultural challenges within policing. They are real, they are serious and they are urgent. It seems unlikely that the Met and Police Scotland are the only forces affected, though between them they represent something like a quarter of UK police officers. What we need, in fact, is wholesale retraining and acculturation as well as the robust elimination of officers unfit to serve; and this will have to apply to all of our 45 territorial and three special forces. The task is discouragingly huge. Other reforms will be needed too. But unnamed voices from the past and present tell us there is no other choice.

£ Eliot Wilson is a co-founder of Pivot Point and a columnist at City A.M.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN THIS MORNING?

Police Scotland is ‘institutionally racist’, said the chief constable Sir Iain Livingstone last week

The once-sedate sofas of ITV favourite This Morning have become a warzone, with claim and counter-claim in the weekend tabloids. ITV bosses will be hoping the row doesn’t hit the share price, or ad revenues with Love Island on the way back soon.

There is an obvious echo of the challenges facing the Metropolitan Police

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VIEWS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Is working from home working?

[Re: Khan must do more to get workers back to the city centre, says new report, May 24]

The think tank Centre for Cities latest report, entitled Office Politics: London and the Rise of Home Working, has found that office workers in the capital are spending 2.3 days a week, on average, in the workplace compared with pre-pandemic levels.

It has warned that despite short-term benefits to home working, there may be longer-term costs for productivity.

But do we really need to worry? In short, no.

It all comes down to trust. An empowered and trusted team will commit to their work.

In many industries, 'water cooler

chat' can get in the way of flow and creativity.

Options for concerned companies, where appropriate, could be having a ‘work from anywhere’ policy, but occasionally commit to being together to build relationships face-to-face.

Businesses need to design processes and structures that differ from inperson to see similar levels of creativity and human interaction, without the downside.

Only 3 per cent of global employees believe their company is currently succeeding in aligning work across physical and digital channels (Qatalog & GitLab, 2021). Tech is crucial to powering a hybrid future, and businesses need to set themselves up for success, rather than sticking to archaic ideas of what constitutes productive work.

Dan Crowder Craft

A HOLY PROBLEM Boost tourism with VAT reforms and filling in our potholes

an app about to do to workplaces what social media did to British politics

Eliza Filby

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: BREATHING LIFE INTO OUR LIFE SCIENCES SECTOR?

Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak have consistently boasted of Britain’s natural talent when it comes to the life sciences.

But there have been a series of problems holding back the sector, most notably the lack of lab space as well as regulatory hurdles. In a £650m package to lure pharma giants to the UK, after AstraZeneca said it would have its new lab in Ireland, Hunt has promised to relax planning rules for labs to keep the OxfordCambridge arc competitive. It will also make it easier to integrate clinical trials with the

NHS, and offer financial incentives to GPs who sign patients up to testing programs.

Blackstone, the New York based investment firm whichhas put £800m into the UK life sciences sector, largely welcomed the package, but said it was imperative to make sure new firms also had access to the capital required to develop new therapies. Others, such as Richard Torbett, of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, have warned that the “commercial environment” is not attracting the investors needed.

JEREMY Hunt says that workers ought to be back in the office. It is certainly true that some chief executives say they are losing vital collaboration time, but staff are finding other ways to recreate the water cooler moments, which, let’s be honest, was largely gossip. No, I’m not talking about Zoom, Teams or Whatsapp, but on Fishbowl. If you haven’t heard of it yet, the chances are your staff or colleagues are already there. Fishbowl is an app dedicated to professional work chat; think reddit meets LinkedIn meets Tattle Life. It’s sold as a helpful advice forum from fellow professionals. Although their tag line is more revealing; “conversations about work just got interesting”. Of course, there is just as much gossip as advice; just as much negative chat as positive encouragement. It’s also global, sector-wide and operates in real time. In truth, it’s every internal comms manager’s nightmare. Unlike LinkedIn where you publicly upload your professional CV and share every winning pitch or “amazing event”, Fishbowl is anonymous. The premise is delightfully simple. You enter your work email address, sector and company, and are invited to join any “fishbowls” or create your own. These could be specific to your workplace, industry or even themes; “mummies in consultancy” for example. Questions range from insider takes on companies to advice on careers and job switching, from interview techniques to comparing shared parental leave policies. So far so sensible. But you will also find some serious office mudslinging, not to mention the odd scandal (an associate bragging about having an affair with an MD with full-on juicy details) as well as standard office bants; from best memes to random threads such as “if consultancy firms were Star Wars characters” (Accenture is R2-D2 and KPMG is Jar Jar Binks in case you were wondering).

In the hybrid age, Fishbowl is also where the future of work is playing out. One accountant posts that she is considering leaving her job due to poor mental health but cannot be bothered to interview for something. The advice from her bowl? Quiet quit until you are ready to find something else. While another complains about the recent clamping down on working from home: “Honestly, after 3 years of a cozy

WFH lifestyle, it's going to be miserable commuting into work everyday… Would anyone here be willing to take a pay-cut in exchange for more WFH days?” Another brags about rural living, where they travel into London occasionally but mostly “(just) earn £130k mostly sitting on my arse.”

Like the office itself, Fishbowl seems to be a mix of young guns full of bravado, anxious to get ahead, and jaded mid-careerists questioning the point of it all. Unless you are in the tech bowl that is, which, right now, is the equivalent of delicately hand-blown glass ready to shatter with panic.

The contrast with LinkedIn couldn’t be more profound. One of the reasons LinkedIn is the friendliest social media platform (albeit full of humble brags) is precisely because it isn’t anonymous. If social media brings out the worst in humans, having your professional reputation on the line has proved to be a powerful moderating force.

In reality, Fishbowl has only digitised the conversations that were happening in the office or in the pub pre-pandemic. And gossip aside, it’s also facilitating something that today’s half empty offices are now lacking; casual

advice and specific questions answered. It’s no wonder that Gen Z are using it as a critical forum for career tips. Warning for companies though; your juniors could potentially be getting advice from your competitors. The real danger however is the threat it poses to employee loyalty and trust in their employer. As companies reach out for more internal transparency over pay, conditions and progression, they could find that all these efforts are undermined by brutally honest anonymous online chit chat. It only takes one scandal to make it on to Fishbowl and there’s nothing that internal comms teams can counter. We all know what social media has done to politics over the last ten years (think of the anger, trolling and conspiracy theories) . Do we really want this digital culture entering our workplaces?

I wouldn’t be surprised if some firms try to limit the use of official work email addresses for the app. But the truth is, white-collar workers are enjoying the freedom - at least until it gets acquired by LinkedIn or the like.

£ Eliza Filby is a generations expert, she writes a monthly City A.M. column

Staff are in the office around 2.3 days a week, according to the Centre for Cities

Fix the potholes to fill local shops with tourists, the Federation of Small Businesses said in a wishlist for the tourism industry. They also want the VAT threshold upped to £100,000 to help the hospitality industry work year round.

MOTORING

THE FUTURE IS ORANGE

Should the electric MG4 be your next family car? John Redfern gets behind the wheel

British carmaker MG is on a roll at the moment. The HS SUV was Britain's best-selling car in January this year, beating bigname rivals such as the Nissan Qashqai and Volkswagen T-Roc. And the MG4 was recently named UK Car of the Year 2023 by a panel of expert automotive journalists, including City A.M.’s own Tim Pitt.

Winning this award means the electric MG4 has a lot to live up to. Thankfully, this is one of those rare occasions when the product lives up to the hype.

One reason the MG4 has caused such a stir is its price tag. The entry-level SE version, as tested here, starts at just £26,995. Put simply, a Volkswagen ID.3 or Renault Megane E-Tech Electric will cost at least £10,000 more than an equivalent MG4. Even the much smaller Vauxhall Corsa Electric starts from £33,930.

This SE version is powered by a 170hp motor, which propels the car to the benchmark 62mph in 7.7 seconds. Torque delivery is instantaneous, making for peppy real-world performance. Wet roundabouts can remind you of the MG4’s rear-wheel-drive setup, however, should you get too confident with the accelerator pedal. Yes, it will go sideways.

Despite steering that feels light regardless of the driving mode chosen, the MG4 reacts quickly and can be placed on the road with precision. It’s genuinely engaging and fun to thread through a series of bends. A firm ride is the only downside, but the impressive body control makes it worthwhile.

In SE trim, the MG EV is equipped with a 51kWh battery pack, with official figures suggesting the ability to cover 218 miles when fully charged. SE

PRICE: £26,995

POWER: 170HP

0-62MPH: 7.7SECS

TOP SPEED: 100MPH

BATTERY SIZE: 51KWH

ELECTRIC RANGE: 218 MILES

Long Range and Trophy versions come with a larger 64kWh battery, boosting potential range to 281 miles. The big battery also increases power output to 200hp, although the extra weight offsets most of this.

Even the MG4’s standard 51kWh battery offers a longer range than alternatives such as the Vauxhall Mokka-e. Rapid-charging speeds of up to 135kW are possible, meaning it can be replen-

ished from 10-80 percent battery capacity in 39 minutes. Long Range models require just 35 minutes.

The infotainment system is a gentle reminder of the MG4’s budget status, with small text and confusing menus.

A 10.25-inch touchscreen controls most functions, with a row of buttons beneath for the climate control air-con. A 7.0-inch digital driver’s display is also standard, with toggles on the steering wheel to tweak the various settings.

While the MG4’s minimalist interior looks good from a distance, the materials used don’t always stand up to closer scrutiny. The floating shelf for the gear selector, for example, is unlikely to have any premium car brands worried.

MG does offer a comprehensive list of standard equipment, however. LED headlights and LED tail lights, rear parking sensors, lane-keeping assist and

adaptive cruise control are all included. Trophy models benefit from satellite navigation, wireless smartphone charging and a surround-view parking camera. MG’s seven-year or 80,000-mile warranty is almost class-leading, too.

A 363-litre boot is only slightly less spacious than the Volkswagen ID.3. There is room to accommodate four adults onboard, with rear headroom notably better than the Renault Megane E-Tech.

All this makes for a very well-rounded family car that also happens to be electric. Beyond some cheap interior materials, the MG4 is hard to fault. It’s also a true bargain in a world where everything suddenly seems very expensive. Time to believe the hype.

John Redfern writes for motoringresearch.com

KAMM 912C IS A FRESH TWIST ON THE PORSCHE RESTOMOD RECIPE

Q. WHEN IS A 911 NOT A 911?

A. WHEN IT’S A PORSCHE 912.

Long before the Cayman and Boxster, this was a budget version of the world’s most famous sports car. It looked like a 911, but had a fourcylinder engine in place of the usual flat-six.

There’s nothing ‘budget’ about the Kamm 912c, a Hungarian restomod priced from £312,000 – or £278,000 if you provide your own Porsche. We’ve already seen countless restomod 911s from the likes of Singer and Theon Design, but a 912 offers an intriguing alternative. One of its chief advantages is light weight: Kamm quotes just 750kg with fluids. For context, that’s nearly

400kg lighter than a basic Ford Fiesta.

The 2.0-litre four is rebuilt by Swiss motorsport experts JPS, revs to 7,200rpm and produces 190hp: a heady specific output of 95hp per litre. With electronic fuel injection, a Life Racing ECU and DBW throttle bodies, the motor is said to deliver ‘constant performance levels in all environments’. Open the rear lid and it looks mouth-watering, too.

In terms of body and chassis mods, you’ll find Lexan polycarbonate windows, TracTive semi-active coilover suspension and AP racing brakes, including a hydraulic handbrake. Steellook alloy wheels are optional, or you can choose classic Fuchs or 917-style split-rims. Want more carbon fibre to

accentuate the 912’s small ‘c’? A fully carbon body shell is available, improving rigidity and further reducing weight.

Inside, the simple cabin prioritises functionality and feedback, with classic Porsche-replica seats, lightweight carpets and electric air conditioning. A carbon fibre gear lever stirs the fivespeed ‘box, which has a racing-style dog-leg first gear. The other key touchpoints are a three-spoke Momo steering wheel and AP Racing pedal box.

Each Kamm 912c is built to order in Budapest and fully bespoke. The first production car is destined for the USA, with two build slots remaining for 2023. We will be driving the 912c next month, so watch this space.

LIFE&STYLE

Ahead of his West End debut in We Will Rock You, Ben Elton talks to Adam Bloodworth

In a rundown rehearsal room opposite a housing estate in Oval, Ben Elton is spilling political truths in sharp, disarmingly blunt sentences. He’s been talking for almost fifteen minutes, nearly half the time I have with him, but I’ve barely asked him a question.

Aged 63, Elton still fizzes with energy. He talks on three or four different topics in a few minutes flat, each of which he brings up himself. A lifelong Labour supporter, he has a teenager’s passion for social change, delivered with the authoritative manner of a headmaster. In a few breaths he goes from Boris Johnson to the importance of self-promotion, to a forthcoming major TV appearance (“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. Is it a secret? No? Shit.”)

“I have always watched my language,” he says when I ask if he worries he’s too opinionated. “We never had the term ‘punch down,’ but I always knew what bullying jokes were, jokes that massaged a prejudice within the audience and got an easy laugh by saying to a large group you can have some fun at the expense of a small group. I’ve always had an instinctive loathing of that.”

It’s true – just last week, he won the Comedy Entertainment Programme award at the BAFTA TV Awards for his reprisal of the iconic Friday Night Live, the long-running television series that made him a household name in the 1980s. The show helped launch the careers of comics including Harry Enfield and Jo Brand.

Winning the award put Elton back in the nation’s living rooms. In his youth he created Blackadder and co-wrote Mr. Bean, but by his own admission, the writer, actor and director had fallen out of fashion over the past decade. The TV work dried up. What went wrong for one of Britain’s most lauded creative exports?

“I had an amazing ‘80s and ‘90s,” says Elton. “If I wanted to do a TV show, I pretty much could. I mean what fucking privilege. And then literally, I couldn't, you know. I was aware that I couldn't get a TV gig. But luckily I wrote novels and plays and musicals.

His “only regret” was not being able to land televised comedy gigs from around the turn of the century. “It's the only part of my writing which is entirely subjective,” he says. “In a novel, or a play, or whatever, I'm obviously trying to represent lots of different points of view. But in my stand up, I'm only representing my own point of view, and I'm kind of delivering my truth, talking about feeling like a fatty in a restaurant or how, as you get older, you can't get it up anymore.”

“It wasn't like I wasn't doing stuff, but I would often watch the news and say to [his wife] Sophie, ‘Fuck, I wish I was doing Saturday Night Live tonight.’”

Recently on Saturday Kitchen, days after his BAFTA win, Elton was being his usual affable self, chatting the ears off the presenters and complaining about how celeriac is a bad replacement for potatoes, when he announced his ‘Benaissance.’ “That’s what some people are calling it,” he said.

Elton's ‘Benaissance’ begins this week, with his first ever West End acting role in a reprisal of We Will Rock You.

Ben Elton on woke comedy, being jobless and the scourge of individualism

Widely panned when it opened in 2002, the homage to Queen proved the haters wrong, becoming the 11th longest-running musical in the world, with performances across America, Asia and Europe. Set in a dystopian future, the musical imagines a high-tech future where all music would be created by corporate computers and distributed to kids via handheld devices. It sends a clear message about corporate greed and the insidious nature of social media. It was way ahead of its time given this was years before the iPod, let alone the iPhone.

“The honest truth is we invented the iPhone,” says Elton. “That's something [to be] very proud of. But it also presented us with a problem, because the nightmare we imagined in We Will Rock You came true.” The latest version, written by Elton, will have new references which respond to our current technological landscape as well as a

smattering of other new material. “You'll notice a little dig at the state of Britain's railways.

I thought ‘I'm in it now, so I'll put in a little bit of politics’. Only a little bit.”

He’s spent hours rehearsing with Queen veterans Brian May and Roger Taylor, because his performance also includes a solo song, These Are the Days of our Lives, but he says he isn’t nervous. “I wouldn't say it's the easiest song to sing because that disparages what is a ballad of exquisite delicacy,” says Elton. “But in terms of range, it's less challenging

than Champions or Don't Stop Me Now.” He has more sleepless nights thinking about the hundreds of actors who audition for roles with him who inevitably get turned down.

If someone auditions he’s worked with before, and they don’t get the job, he will “write to say you’re brilliant,” and while he acknowledges reality shows produce good talent, he says we shouldn’t down value classical training. “We welcome the plucky dust-

man who's having a crack and if it turns out he's brilliant, well, great, but we mustn't use that as a sort of stick to beat those who we have worked with all our lives.”

After spending time with Elton, you start to believe he genuinely cares. It’s a rare thing to feel so strongly in timepushed press interviews. We’re wrapping up, but he finds time to illustrate how he won’t let his new leading role go to his head: “For me the cult of the director is disgraceful,” he says. “Directors do this whole thing of putting ‘A Fred Bloggs film,’ when they've directed it. I think it's wrong. Charlie Chaplin didn't do that,” he says through a mouthful of banana.: “It’s where we go wrong in our society – this adulation of the individual.”

£ We Will Rock You runs at the London Coliseum from 2 June – 27 August. Tickets: wewillrockyoulondon.co.uk

FOOTBALL COMMENT

Trevor Steven

SO MANY different storylines emerged during the Premier League season that finished on Sunday, one of the most volatile campaigns I can remember. Some big clubs badly lost their way but there were some fantastic performances which shaped my shortlist for Premier League manager of the year 2022-23.

I came up with nine contenders, and all of those on my shortlist – including Julen Lopetegui at Wolves and Brentford’s Thomas Frank – did brilliantly. Narrowing it down, I found myself left with Gary O’Neil, Mikel Arteta, Eddie Howe, Erik ten Hag, Roberto de Zerbi, Unai Emery and Pep Guardiola.

I’ll admit that I didn’t think Bournemouth’s promotion of coach O’Neil would last very long, but he has shown assuredness, football intelligence and authenticity to dial into something that his players just seemed to get – and got the best out of them.

At Arsenal, Arteta clearly overachieved by rivalling Manchester City for the title but was probably undone by asking the same players to go to the well too many times. He didn’t quite tick the box for recruiting at the right time and that took the wind out of his and Arsenal’s sails.

It’s easy to dismiss what Howe has achieved at Newcastle because of the owners’ riches, but Chelsea are proof that money guarantees nothing. In his first full season Howe has continued transforming Newcastle from a dysfunctional, disconnected club into one in which everyone is aligned.

At Manchester United, Ten Hag has shouldered the weight of the club and resurrected them by winning the Carabao Cup and finishing third. Equally impressive is the way he cleared the decks, making up his mind early about Harry Maguire and putting his foot down over Cristiano Ronaldo. That is management.

If he can beat City and win the FA Cup as well then I might have to reconsider and make the Dutchman my manager of the year.

De Zerbi’s impact at Brighton has also been amazing, taking the club into Europe for the first time and earning plaudits from Guardiola. Nobody expected him to improve on Gra-

WHY GENIUS PEP IS NO1

ham Potter’s work; instead he gave them new levels of self-belief and results followed.

Emery was brave to return to England with Aston Villa, having suffered at post-Wenger Arsenal like David Moyes did at post-Ferguson United. But he backed himself and, with pretty much the same squad that he inherited, took Villa on a run that deservedly finished with European qualification.

Management is like a golf swing: you think you’ve got it until suddenly you’ve lost it and you can’t understand why. Just ask Jurgen Klopp.

Guardiola, though, has kept

himself and City at the top, this time winning an arm-wrestle with Arsenal to claim their fourth title in five years. He is still innovating, turning John Stones into Franz Beckenbauer and remodelling his team to accommodate Erling Haaland rather than asking the striker to change. His man-manage-

ment has been brilliant, from teasing Kyle Walker into some of his best ever performances to taking Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish to new levels.

Some may question City’s spending and its legality, but he never let the Premier League investigation derail his team and that has been vital too.

City’s demolition of Real Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League convinced me of the greatness of this team – and Guardiola’s genius.

Like United and Liverpool did before them, City are becoming an institution and they could not have done it without Pep’s brilliance.

Trevor Steven is a former England footballer who played at two World Cups and two European Championships. @TrevorSteven63.

Titles for Manchester City, which includes five of the last six

Days Arsenal topped the Premier League table –a record for a side that did not go on to claim the title

248

Premier League goals for Erling Haaland, 13 more than the winners of the last three Golden Boots

36

THE PREMIER LEAGUE: A SEASON IN STATS 7 5

16 Premier League titles for Guardiola, second only to Sir Alex Ferguson’s 13

Assists for Kevin De Bruyne, the most by anybody since he got 20 in the 2019-20 campaign. Mesut Ozil was the last player other than De Bruyne to register more than 16, getting 19 in the 2015-16 season

1,084

The number of goals scored in this year’s top flight –a new record for the Premier League

30

Number of goals scored by Harry Kane –the second time he’s reached that number and not won the Golden Boot

Varner celebrates win by getting a round in

FRANK DALLERES

HAROLD Varner III claimed a longawaited first win on US soil at the LIV Golf DC event on Sunday and knew exactly how he wanted to celebrate: with another round of golf.

The American birdied the last hole at Trump National Washington DC to finish on 11 under par and beat Branden Grace to the $4m (£3.2m) individual title by one shot.

The 32-year-old had previously won in Australia and Saudi Arabia but this was maiden triumph in front of his fellow countrymen and Varner III opted for a suitably homespun way to celebrate.

“I love playing golf. That’s my

favorite thing. I’m going to play tomorrow. It’s going to be awesome,” he said.

Varner III, who climbed to sixth in the individual standings, added that a home win after 11 years as a professional was “very special – I’ve never won in America. It’s my favourite country.”

TORQUE TAKE TEAM TITLE

Grace, who finished runner-up for the second LIV Golf event in a row, applied pressure on the final day with a 66 – the week’s only bogeyfree round – and pushed Varner III all the way.

The North Carolina resident had taken the lead with a chip-in birdie from a bunker at 11 and gone two

clear at the par-three 15th.

And when Grace birdied two of the last three holes including the last to join him on 11 under, Varner III twoputted for a clutch birdie that completed a round of 68 and clinched victory.

His only regret was missing out on the team title, which went to the Spanish-speaking Torque GC captained by Joaquin Niemann.

“It’s good, but at the end of the day I really wanted to celebrate with the RangeGoats,” Varner added.“That’s my team.”

MAJESTICKS OFF BOTTOM

Talor Gooch remains top of the individual standings at the halfway point of the LIV Golf season, ahead of Grace and this month’s US PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka.

Torque benefited from Spanish youngster David Puig’s 66, a 70 from Colombian Sebastian Munoz and a round of 71 that helped Mito Pereira finish third

Harold Varner III finished on 11 under par in DC, one better than Branden Grace

in the individual competition. Their second win of the season lifted them to third in the team standings, behind Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces and the all-South African Stinger GC, which includes Grace.

“We won already two times,” Niemann said. “I think this is good to prove to all the other teams that we are the team to beat.”

Lee Westwood’s Majesticks climbed off the bottom of the team standings and registered their best result of the 2023 LIV Golf campaign by finishing fifth. The eighth tournament of the LIV Golf season is due to take place at Valderrama from 30 June before the circuit returns to Centurion Club for its London leg on 7 July.

Like Man United and Liverpool before, Man City are becoming an institution

Ten Hag showed coaching acumen and management

It’s a crowded field of brilliant candidates this year, but Guardiola is my Premier League manager of the season

FOOTBALL

Chelsea back ‘winning coach’ Pochettino to revive the Blues

FRANK DALLERES

CHELSEAhave hailed Mauricio Pochettino as a “winning coach” after confirming the appointment of former Tottenham Hotspur and Paris SaintGermain manager.

The Argentinian, who has also managed Southampton and Espanyol, has agreed a two-year contract which will start on 1 July.

Chelsea’s co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley said: “Mauricio’s experience, standards of excellence, leadership qualities and character will serve Chelsea Football Club well as we move forward.

“He is a winning coach, who has worked at the highest levels, in multiple leagues and languages. His ethos, tactical approach and commitment to development all made him the exceptional candidate.”

Owners Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali, Jose E Feliciano, Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss added: “The sporting team conducted a diligent and thoughtful process that the board is proud of. We are delighted that Mauricio will be joining Chelsea. Mauricio is a world-class coach with an outstanding track record. We are all looking forward to having him on board.”

Pochettino, 51, will be Chelsea’s third permanent manager in a year, following the sacked Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter. Frank Lampard and Bruno

Saltor also both had short interim spells in charge as the Blues suffered their lowest points total of the Premier League era.

Pochettino led Tottenham to a Champions League final and turned them into regulars in Europe’s top competition in a five-year spell that ended in 2019.

He joined PSG, one of his former clubs as a player in January 2021 and won the French league title with them the following season but left that summer.

Pochettino faces a big job at Stamford Bridge following a season of turmoil sparked by Roman Abramovich’s forced sale of the club a

Pochettino’s highest Premier League finish was 2nd with Spurs

year ago.

A consortium led by Boehly and Clearlake Capital spent more than £500m on new players and the costly hiring of Potter and his coaching team from Brighton but saw the club suffer their worst points tally of the Premier League era – 44 – as they finished 12th in the table.

Boehly and Clearlake, meanwhile, have held talks with Strasbourg chiefs about buying the French club, according to French media.

The Chelsea owners have made no secret of their desire to establish a multiclub network similar to that of the City Football Group and Red Bull.

Owls swoop for late winner at Wembley

MATT HARDY

A 123RD-MINUTE goal by Josh Windass saw Sheffield Wednesday beat Barnsley in the League One play-off final and return to the English Championship after two seasons in the third tier.

The outstanding diving header, in what was the last touch of the game, saw Windass replicate his father’s feat of scoring a promotion-winning goal 15 years on from a bolting Dean Windass volley that saw Hull City earn a spot in the top flight.

The Owls will join Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town in England’s second tier next season.

In a nervy affair at Wembley and a goalless regulation 90 minutes there was drama shortly after half-

Norrie last Brit standing at French Open after Draper retirement

MATT HARDY

CAMERON Norrie is Britain’s last remaining hope at the French Open as the British No1 overcame Frenchman Benoit Paire in a five-set thriller.

The British No1 beat the Frenchman 7-5 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-4 in three hours 33 minutes on a hostile Court Suzanne Lenglen.

Norrie, seeded 14th in the men’s draw, was initially booed by the 10,000 onlookers as he punched the air following the win but later received applause.

With fellow Brit Jack Draper’s retirement early on in his first

round match against Tomas Martin Etcheverry – which at one point saw him serving underarm due to injury – and Dan Evans’ defeat on Sunday, Norrie is now the only Briton remaining in either the men’s or women’s French Open singles draws –no women qualified.

“It was an amazing match, all credit to Benoit, he played really well and it was nice to see him back competing really hard,” Norrie said.

“He definitely put on a good show.”

Norrie’s win earned him a second round tie against another Frenchman, Lucas Pouille, on Wednesday as he looks to win his first Grand Slam title.

time when Barnsley’s Adam Phillips was given a straight red card by referee Tim Robinson after a challenge on Lee Gregory.

The Owls thought they’d secured the winner in the 108th minute when Will Vaulks found the back of the net but VAR ruled the goal offside – much to the dismay of the celebrating Wednesday fans.

Thereon it looked as if the two sides would battle through the remaining 10 minutes of extra-time but, just as it began to feel as though penalties were inevitable, Windass connected with the ball inside the box and crashed a diving header past Barnsley keeper Harry Isted, who was only able to help it on its way having made an exceptional save minutes earlier.

RUGBY UNION

“It was probably the worst standard of the game you’ll ever watch,” Windass said.

“The standard from both teams was shocking to be honest but luckily we got the winning goal.

“I heard their manager [Michael Duff] left our game [play-off] against Peterborough because he said we were out. So, unlucky.”

The win will see Sheffield Wednesday play against Southampton, Leicester and Leeds next season after that trio were relegated from the Premier League on Sunday.

“They’re a humble group, I’m grateful to work with them,” manager Darren Moore added.

“We don’t want to stand still, we want to move forward.”

D-Day for London Irish as club faces axe from Prem

MATT HARDY

LONDON Irish could today become the third Premiership club within 12 months to be kicked out of the top flight.

Amid financial concerns surrounding the club – who share their home with Premier League outfit Brentford – the Rugby Football Union gave the Exiles until today to either prove the current owners, spearheaded by Mick Crossan, or a prospective consortium involving sports agency Redstrike and ex-NFL and NBA players could demonstrate proof of funds for next season.

Though a spokesperson for the American group would not say whether

they were confident of closing the deal, they did reiterate that parties had been working throughout the weekend to strike an agreement for the Premiership club who finished fifth in the league this season.

Losing a third club would amount to a loss of 23 per cent of the clubs who began the year, and demonstrate further the huge financial instability of rugby in England at the moment.

Saturday’s Premiership final – in which Saracens claimed their sixth title with a 35-25 win over Sale Sharks – saw an attendance of just 61,875, down more than 10,000 on last year and the smallest non-Covid-19 crowd for a final since 2007.

TENNIS