Thursday 20 July 2023

LONDON’S BUSINESS NEWSPAPER

THE

BANK RELIEF AS INFLATION COMES IN LOW

TRADERS BET AGAINST BUMPER HIKE AT NEXT MEETING

JACK BARNETT

INFLATION has slimmed to its lowest level in over a year and is falling faster than expected, figures yesterday showed, raising the chances of the Bank of England slowing the breakneck pace of interest rate hikes.

The rate of price growth fell to 7.9 per cent in June, down from 8.7 per cent in May, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Markets expected it to fall to 8.2 per cent, while the Bank of England thought inflation would drop to 7.9 per cent.

June’s figure was the lowest since March 2022 and reversed a long trend of price growth topping the Bank’s and City’s projections.

Governor Andrew Bailey (pictured) will have breathed a sigh of relief at the numbers after

TO BROAD ACCLAIM SEAMER BECOMES

FIFTH TO TAKE 600 TEST WICKETS P24

criticism of the Bank’s handling of price hikes.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “Inflation is falling and stands at its lowest level since last March; but we aren’t complacent.”

Economists have questioned whether he and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will hit their promise of halving inflation to around five per cent by the end of the year. June’s quick inflation drop makes meeting that goal easier.

Analysts cheered the data as a signal that prices in the UK may have finally turned

Although down, yesterday’s inflation numbers — still the highest in the G7 — will be too hot for the Bank of England’s nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to tolerate, especially with wage growth remaining high.

Traders before the release thought the MPC would repeat last month’s larger 50 basis point interest rate rise at their next meeting on 3 August and send rates to a peak of 6.25 per cent.

Now a 25 basis point increase and a peak of 5.75 per cent seems to have been baked in by City traders.

Scorching core and services inflation of 6.9 per cent and 7.2 per cent respectively indicate price pressures are being controlled by domestic factors, leaving the door open to a bigger rate increase next month.

“While the data are encouraging at face value and mean that another 50 basis point hike at the August meeting is not a done deal, we think they still tilt the balance in favour of another [bigger] move,” analysts at BNP Paribas said. The numbers gave the FTSE 100 a welcome boost yesterday, finishing up 1.8 per cent. The more domestically focused FTSE 250 shot upward, too, by almost four per cent.

Both indices are now up on the year to date.

LET BATTLE COMMENCE Tories tap Susan Hall to fight Sadiq Khan

LONDON Tories yesterday selected a battle-hardened City Hall veteran as their candidate for next year’s mayoral election.

Susan Hall, a well-known figure in London politics, will take on Sadiq Khan in the ballot, with the incumbent Mayor looking for a third term.

Hall immediately criticised Khan’s leadership of London, saying he “goes on trips while young people get stabbed on our streets” and that “he’s more interested in selling his book than he is helping Londoners with the cost of living”.

Labour sources hit back, labelling Hall a ‘hard-right’ politician.

Goldman profit slips as bank counts cost of global dealmaking slowdown

CHRIS DORRELL

GOLDMAN SACHS’s profit tanked in the second quarter as the investment banking giant continued to struggle with the downturn in M&A activity while booking rising costs.

Profit in the second quarter fell to $1.1bn (£0.85bn), 62 per cent lower

than last year while revenue fell eight per cent.

The drop was primarily driven by a decline in Goldman’s core business areas. Investment banking fees fell 20 per cent compared to last year, with a particularly steep fall in advisory revenue. Goldman also reported a 26 per cent fall in revenue

from fixed income, an area of weakness for many banks this quarter.

The fall in advisory revenue reflected “a significant decline in industry-wide completed M&A transactions,” the bank said. Chair and chief executive David Solomon (pictured) said

the results were “solid” in a time of “cyclically low activity

Goldman’s operating expenses were 12 per cent higher than last year due to writedowns.

The results come off the back of a

difficult start to the year for Goldman. In the first quarter, profit dropped by $2bn year-on-year due to the steep decline in dealmaking Dealmaking has stayed subdued in 2023 after 2022 was hit by inflation and geopolitical volatility. Overall global M&A value is down 44 per cent in the first five months of 2023.

JESSICA FRANK-KEYES

£ A VICIOUS BATTLE BEGINS: P7

VERDICT WE RUN THE RULE OVER BARBIE AND OPPENHEIMER P18

STANDING UP FOR THE CITY

Farage’s row with Coutts matters more than you might think

THE ONGOING row between Coutts and Nigel Farage has, predictably, turned into a he-said, they-said brouhaha that does nobody any favours. But that does not mean that it isn’t worth tuning into, for the right to a bank account –and a bank’s decision on whether to give you one –does, indeed, matter. As Lord Macpherson put it yesterday in an interview with LBC, it is “worrying” that the bank appeared to brief reporters

THE

CITY VIEW

last week on the state of Farage’s finances. “Getting a good service out of your bank is difficult enough at the best of times, but if they're just going to make, on the face of it, fairly arbitrary decisions about your beliefs or politics, I think that is quite a

dangerous development,” he said, and it’s difficult to disagree. One imagines that Coutts would have been better to have kept a dignified silence. Hitting back, even with a leak to the BBC, turned a molehill into a mountain and will now no doubt lead to a national debate, the like of which we haven’t seen since the Belfast bakery lost a discrimination case for refusing to bake a pro-gay marriage cake, or the recriminations after BA

asked a staff member to stop wearing her cross. It is unlikely to be edifying. There is a more interesting question, though, that this row throws up. Regardless of the reason that Coutts (allegedly) gave Farage the shove, it’s clear plenty of work and effort went into deciding what to do. So we decided to draw up a list, and banks can let us know whether or not they’d take their money or not. Sanctioned Russian oligarchs are probably now off the table,

CLIMATE CHAOS Eleven protestors were arrested yesterday after climate activists caused disruption at the Grangemouth petrochemical plant in Scotland

Rates will still climb, but economists spy the summit

JACK BARNETT AND STAFF

BETTER THAN expected inflation numbers are likely to mean a bumper interest rate hike at the Monetary Policy Committee’s next meeting is unlikely, reckon analysts, but few economists expect the Bank of England to change course entirely.

A note from Pantheon Economics suggested the numbers would prove a “watershed moment”, with the Bank finally getting some luck on the numbers after months of overly optimistic forecasting.

However the mood music was that the Bank would be more likely to slow

the ongoing rate hike cycle than it was to trim back the summit.

Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, told City A.M. yesterday that “while the Bank of England will welcome the fall in inflation, it is unlikely to substantially change its hawkish policy stance as inflation continues to run significantly above target.”

Consensus on the top of the rate cycle is lacking, but last month analysts at Schroders raised eyebrows with a prediction that the interest rate in the UK could peak at 6.5 per cent, a significant uptick on other forecasts.

We now expect headline inflation to dip back to 6.6 per cent in July, owing to the near-20 per cent fall in household energy prices. Core inflation should slip back to roughly the same level too.

Is this enough to convince the Bank of England to opt for a 25bp rate hike in August? We think it probably will –but it’s going to be a close call. The Bank will also be looking at the recent wage data, which was stronger than expected.

but what about Putin-supporting Russians who haven’t quite made it onto the West’s naughty list?

What about the connections of regimes that still chop heads off?

Or people who think the January 6 riots were an expression of democracy, rather than a violent insurrection?

It gets quite difficult, you see, to decide where to draw the line. Perhaps the lesson is to think twice before you make what are quite big calls.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

NATWEST INCREASES MORTGAGE RATES

Natwest is to increase its mortgage rates despite hopes of falls after better than expected inflation data. The bank, which is the parent of under-fire private lender Coutts, said it will raise a selection of fixed-rate deals.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES CHINESE FAST FASHION RIVALS FIGHT IN COURT

Chinese online retailer Temu has accused rival Shein of “unlawful exclusionary tactics” as the two ecommerce groups take their fight for the US market to the court in Massachusetts.

THE GUARDIAN CROWN ESTATE CHIEF’S PAY TRIPLES IN THREE YEARS

King Charles’s property manager for the Crown Estate, an ancient portfolio of land and property, has tripled the pay of its chief executive in three years despite a mandate to return income to the Treasury “for the benefit of the nation”.

THE VERDICT

PAULA BEJARANO CARBO, ASSOCIATE ECONOMIST AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH:

Measures of underlying inflation also eased slightly in June: for example, core CPI and services inflation both fell from 31-year highs of 7.1 per cent and 7.4 per cent, to 6.9 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively. Though these are all welcome falls, it remains concerning that these measures of underlying inflationary pressures continue to plateau around seven per cent, well above the Bank’s target of two per cent.

PAUL DALES, CHIEF UK ECONOMIST AT CAPITAL ECONOMICS:

The UK will probably still have higher rates of inflation than elsewhere for a while yet, but at least it is now following the global trend. With wage growth and services CPI inflation both currently stronger than the Bank had expected back in May, we think there is enough evidence of “more persistent pressures” to prompt the Bank to raise interest rates a little bit further than we previously thought [to 5.5 per cent]

WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING

JAMES SMITH, DEVELOPED MARKETS ECONOMIST AT ING

Macquarie eyes full ownership of Grid’s gas unit

A CONSORTIUM led by Australia’s Macquarie Asset Management has upped its stake in the National Grid’s gas transmission business and plans to take full ownership “in due course”.  Macquarie, along with British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, snapped up an additional 20 per cent in the gas business.

The investment takes the consortium’s total ownership in the National Grid’s gas transmission business to 80 per cent, after its 60 per cent acquisition completed in January.

“This additional investment underlines our commitment to National Gas and the critical role it plays in the UK’s energy system,” Martin Bradley, European head of infrastructure for Macquarie Asset Management, said.

“We are pleased to continue our strong relationship with National Grid,

and aspire to acquire the remaining interest in due course,” he added.

Trade union GMB said that Macquarie’s “stranglehold” on the business “should send alarm bells ringing”.

“Macquarie left Thames Water with massive debts that brought it to the edge of collapse,” Gary Carter, GMB national officer, said.

The UK government launched a review under the National Security and Investment Act of the consortium’s 60 per cent purchase of the gas business in August last year.

A spokesperson for the National Grid confirmed that the deal was cleared by the government in January, and said that the further 20 per cent would also be subject to clearance.

“As we don’t expect the composition of the consortium to change... we do not foresee any material risks to the completion of the transaction,” the spokesperson said.

Asda co-owner called in front of MPs in further fuel price probe

ASDA’s co-owner Mohsin Issa has said it is “unfair” for Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) bosses to say they would have charged the grocer more if they could for failures to reveal info around its fuel price probe. In June Asda was fined £60,000 by the CMA for failing to co-operate

Clifford Chance revenues pass £2bn barrier

BEN LUCAS

LAW FIRM Clifford Chance yesterday reported annual revenues of over £2.06bn, surpassing the £2bn mark for the first time.

Annual profit, however, came in slightly lower at £781m, down from £783m the previous year. Profit per equity partner was £2m.

Charles Adams, global managing partner at Clifford Chance, said the firm delivered another “strong” set of results “amid continued significant geopolitical and economic headwinds”.

“We experienced significant growth in our global litigation and disputes resolution practice as well as our regulatory investigations business,” he added.

properly with their fuel price probe.

Yesterday’s Business and Trade Committee session followed an investigation that found competition at the pumps had “weakened” due to firms driving up profit margins. Issa was called in to clarify discrepancies between statements made in June by Asda’s CCO and the findings in a recent study by the CMA.

The results come after rival firm Allen & Overy also smashed the £2bn annual revenue barrier last week, ahead of its mega merger with Shearman & Sterling.

Asked whether Clifford Chance was considering such a merger, Adams said the firm wasn’t.

“I can safely say that right now, no, we are not pursuing a deal,” Adams told the Financial Times.

BEN LUCAS

Mohsin Issa was called in front of parliament's Business and Trade Committee

LAURA MCGUIRE

Insurance chiefs back the Solvency II investment forum to deliver £100bn

CHRIS DORRELL

THE HEADS of the UK’s major insurance firms have written in support of a new Investment Delivery Forum to help drive £100bn of investment following the reforms to Solvency II. Established by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) earlier in July, the forum is designed to tackle the investment gap preventing investment from the insurance and long-term savings sector into infrastructure projects.

Signed by the bosses of Phoenix Group, Royal London, Just Group, Scottish Widows and the UK head of Aviva, the letter highlighted the insurance industry’s commitment to invest the £100bn released through Solvency II reforms in projects that “deliver jobs, drive growth and protect our environment”.

It was also signed by the chief executive of Rothesay and the head of retail and savings at M&G.

The letter said the forum will

FCA slams claims that BNPL firms will quit the UK

THE CHIEF of the City watchdog has said he does not “buy the argument” that buy-now pay-later (BNPL) firms will quit the UK, after it emerged ministers may shelve planned rules over fears firms would leave.

The government had been pushing ahead with plans to bring BNPL products offered by firms like Klarna and Clearpay within the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) amid fears shoppers are landing themselves in mountains of debt.

However, Sky News reported last week that the government was now considering delaying the clampdown, in part because of concerns firms may withdraw from the UK in favour of more light-touch jurisdictions.

The reports triggered fears among campaign groups that shoppers may be left exposed to the products indefinitely –without safeguards in place.

Speaking with MPs, chief of the FCA Nikhil Rathi rub-

bished the argument, however, and said regulation had won the backing of the fintech sector.

“You will have firms saying to you ‘this will undermine the competitiveness of the UK market, it will undermine the fintech industry’ –actually a large number of fintechs including Innovate Finance, the industry body, have supported regulation,” Rathi said.

“We will make sure that there is proportionate regulation that supports innovation, but also encourages responsible lending.”

Rathi said he “did not buy the argument” that firms will withdraw in the event of a clampdown and had heard “no suggestion” of delays in his meetings with ministers.

“We’re ready to go,” he

Plans to bring the sector under regulation were first tabled by the Treasury in 2021 and were formalised last year, with regulation intended for late 2023.

The Treasury declined to comment this week when asked by City A.M. whether it would delay rules.

“bring together the investor community with industry leaders to deliver these vital projects.”

“By matching funding to need, this initiative will benefit Britain for future generations,” the letter said.

“We want to help tackle the housing crisis, support regeneration across the UK and fund the changes needed to meet net zero targets, whilst ultimately making the best investment decisions to support savers through a long and happy retirement,” the letter continued.

Car insurance costs hit an alltime high in UK

GUY TAYLOR

THE COST of car insurance has risen to an “all-time high” with motorists shelling out a record 40 per cent more for insurance premiums than last year, new data has revealed.

On average, UK drivers are now paying £776 to insure their cars, up from £222 one year ago, according to Confused.com and Willis Tower Watson’s (WTW) car insurance price index.

Younger drivers between 17 and 20 took the biggest hit, with prices rising 60 per cent and taking the average cost of a motor policy to £2,414.

Aussie cheesecake firm looks for sweet deal with listed Cake Box

THE AIM-listed confectioner Cake Box has received a takeover approach from Aussie outfit The Cheesecake Shop, according to reports last night.

Sky News’s Mark Kleinman said the 160p-a-share bid had not tickled the board of Cake Box’s sweet tooth and was unlikely to gain support.

The price would be a premium on the firm’s flotation price of 108p.

Cake Box, which trades out of more than 200 UK stores, told markets last month it had seen group revenues

grow nearly six per cent in the 12 months to March of this year, with customers still valuing a sweet treat despite the cost of living crisis.

The firm opened 20 new franchise stores over the same period and expanded its operations in Enfield, home to its baking site.

The offer marks only the latest bid by a foreign buyer for a London-listed firm, with a combination of undervalued assets and a weak pound giving firms on the public markets here a more attractive look for potential raiders.

Tim Rourke, UK head of pricing, product, claims and underwriting at WTW, said the high levels of claims inflation is being driven by “the sharp rise in used car prices, amplified by rising vehicle theft, spare part delays, longer repair times and higher wages”.

The cost of repairs and other inflation-related pressures have pummelled the insurance sector over the last year, denting the margins of some of the biggest UK companies.

In a report last month, consultancy EY said the insurance market had experienced its worst performing year in a decade –2022.

“With inflation expected to remain high for the foreseeable future, EY expects losses to continue in 2023, and forecasts an NCR of 108.5 per cent this year,” the firm said.

Interest rate on credit cards hits highest level this millennium

CHRIS DORRELL

THE AVERAGE rate of interest on UK credit cards hit their highest level in nearly 30 years last month, but experts suggested there would not be a surge in delinquencies.

According to Bank of England data, the average rate of interest on a credit card surpassed 23 per cent in June for the first time since December 1995.

Andrew Fisher, chief growth officer at Freedom Finance, said “consumer credit rates are now once again on an upward trajectory with credit cards

reaching their highest levels in nearly 30 years”.

Despite the rising costs, there is little evidence customers are cutting back. Data released by UK Finance showed that outstanding balances on credit card accounts had grown by 9.5 per cent over the past year.

Laura Suter, head of personal finance at AJ Bell, said that in the cost of living crisis it was inevitable people would “put more on plastic”.

Across the UK, consumers held more than £61bn in credit card debt at the end of April, up from £57bn

last year and £1.2bn more than at the beginning of this year.

“With more people turning to credit cards and [with] the cost to just keep up the minimum monthly payments increasing, it’s inevitable that more people will end up defaulting on their debt,” Suter continued. However, while there is likely to be an uptick in

delinquencies, lenders are unlikely to be threatened by any increase.

Markus Papenroth, head of EMEA consumer ABS at Fitch Ratings, argued there is “no neat correlation” between interest rates and chargeoffs. He pointed out that the number of accounts incurring interest has fallen over the past few

months as consumers choose to pay off monthly debt in full.

Richard Barnes, UK financial institutions analyst at S&P, suggested credit cards are less tied to changes in interest rates than mortgages, meaning the impact of rate hikes on credit card repayments is “proportionately smaller”.

This came through in the Bank of England’s stress test, where the scenario led to a five per cent jump in impairments in unsecured lending compared to 15 per cent increase for mortgages.

CHARLIE CONCHIE

Cake Box floated in London with an IPO in 2018

JAMES SILVER

Andy Briggs is chief executive of Phoenix Group, which supports the forum

Rathi took the reins of the FCA in 2020

Broadcom’s $69bn VMware deal looks set for UK clearance

PAUL SANDLE

BRITAIN’s competition regulator provisionally cleared US tech company Broadcom’s $69bn purchase of VMware yesterday, saying the deal would not weaken competition in the supply of critical computer server products. The Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) provisional approval of the takeover — Broadcom’s biggest ever — follows a go-ahead from European Union regulators last week after Broadcom offered interoperability remedies to some rivals to address concerns.

“An independent CMA panel has provisionally found the deal would not substantially reduce competition in the supply of server hardware components in the UK,” the CMA said.

The proposed deal has highlighted chipmaker Broadcom’s aim to diversify into enterprise software, but comes as regulators worldwide ramp up scrutiny of deals by Big Tech.

The British regulator, which had raised concerns in March that the deal could make servers more expensive, said it would now consult on its provisional approval before issuing a final report by 12 September.

Broadcom welcomed the unconditional approval, saying it expects to close the deal in the current fiscal year.

The CMA said it explored concerns that the deal could harm the ability of Broadcom’s rivals to compete if the merged company were to make their products work less well with VMware’s server virtualisation software.

Wagamama owner TRG dines out on savings

THE RESTAURANT Group has seen revenues rise despite the cost of living crisis, with plans to reduce overheads with a raft of closures continuing apace. Like-for-like sales in its most popular chain Wagamama grew 21 per cent in the two weeks to 16 July 2023, despite trading being temporarily impacted by the hot weather in late May and June. Its Brunning & Price Pubs offering,

MINER WORRIES Rio Tinto warns of global slowdown risks amid production issues due to challenging economic headwinds

which has 80 sites across the UK, also performed well, with like-for-like sales up seven per cent in the first two weeks of the third quarter also. The numbers were confirmed in a market update.

Total year-to-date sales in Wagamama were up five per cent and its pub chain reached nine per cent.Earlier this year

TRG announced plans to offload 35 underperforming sites by the end of the financial year, taking its portfolio from 166 restaurants down to 75-85 due to a

“tough macro-environment” which has deterred customers from eating out. However, it will transform four of the sites into Wagamama restaurants.

It came as the group previously posted an £86.8m loss for the year and was also embroiled in a spat with one of its shareholders, Oasis, regarding the viability of the business.

The company says eight freehold sales are expected to generate approximately £8m to £10m of cash proceeds.

RIO TINTO has flagged concerns about a global economic slowdown as it logged a raft of production issues across its operations but said its iron ore production should be at the upper end of its expectations for the year. Prices of iron ore, from which Rio Tinto derives 70 per cent of its profits, eased over the second quarter.

IN BRIEF

ENERGY SUPPLIERS MAY HAVE TO REPAY CUSTOMERS

IN OFGEM PRICE CAP REVIEW

Ofgem could order suppliers to pass money back to customers this winter, as part of its latest review of wholesale energy costs in relation to the price cap. The energy watchdog has written to all retail suppliers in an open letter, confirming it will now consider whether allowances for suppliers have fairly reflected the costs of buying gas between October 2022 to September 2023. Gas prices have eased over the year, but wholesale costs still remain well above conventional trading levels, with the price cap still double pre-crisis norms. Ofgem is evaluating the benefit or cost for suppliers as prices fell in 2023.

ANDRIA VIDLER TO LEAD

ALLWYN UK IN ADVANCE OF NATIONAL LOTTERY

Lottery operator Allwyn UK has announced the appointment of Andria Vidler as its new boss, as it prepares to take over operation of the National Lottery. Vidler will spearhead Allwyn’s operation of the National Lottery starting in February 2024, as it focuses on maximising funds generated for its giving-back initiative ‘Good Causes’ during its 10-year licensing period. She will replace Robert Chvatal, who has served as interim chief executive since January. Chvatal will return to focusing full-time on his role as group chief exec of Allwyn. Vidler has held high-profile positions at the BBC and EMI Records.

WOODSIDE MISSES REVENUE ESTIMATE BUT STICKS TO GUIDANCE

Australian oil and gas producer Woodside Energy said second-quarter sales tumbled due to weaker commodity prices and maintenance work, missing analyst forecasts, although its shares rose as it stuck to longer-term production guidance. Oil and gas prices have retreated from the levels hit in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with a slower-thanexpected economic recovery in key consumer China weighing on fuel demand. Oil producers are however expected to grow profits due to supply constraints until Opec+ raises production in 2024.

PETER MORGAN RUPERT GOOLD

LAURA MCGUIRE

UK firms boost sales promotions to record levels but pessimism lingers

JESS JONES

UK FIRMS have ramped up sales promotions to an all-time high, leading to a growth in overall marketing budgets, according to the second-quarter IPA Bellwether Report. The report, which tracks marketing trends, has revealed that sales promotions budgets have reached their highest level in the 23-year history of the survey, as more businesses increased their marketing budget than decreased it this quarter.

IPA's analysis suggested the uptick was due to firms supporting consumers in the cost of living crisis.

Commenting on the report, Paul Bainsfair, IPA director general, warned against over-reliance on price promotions because they "lower consumer price references and do not build brand loyalty”.

Nearly 30 per cent of respondents reported feeling pessimistic about their industry's financial prospects in the coming year, compared to 16 per cent who said they were hopeful.

Severn Trent to invest £1bn amid water scrutiny

NICHOLAS EARL

SEVERN TRENT expects to invest up to £1bn this year improving its infrastructure amid increasing scrutiny on water companies in the crisis-hit sector.

The FTSE 100 firm has posted a bullish trading update ahead of its full-year results in November, confirming it will strengthen its supply chains, source more water and boost engineering capabilities is well underway ahead of Ofwat’s next pricing window for households.

It expects to receive a rebate from the regulator of at least £50m for meeting customer service targets, while its debt gearing is among the leaders in the industry at the recommended maximum level of 60 per cent.

The supplier also confirmed it was on track to meet 100 per cent of its environmental performance commitments for this year, which includes sewage spills and water quality, with the aim of delivering the world’s first carbon-neutral waste water treatment works in 2024.

This follows Severn Trent being the only supplier to receive the highest four-star rating from the Environmental Agency for its performance this year.

Reservoir levels across the company’s portfolio have risen to 77 per cent, more than 10 percentage points higher than at this point last year — making it well-positioned for the summer months when demand rises.

The latest update comes amid sustained lobbying from suppliers for higher water bills to help fund investment plans to tackle storm overflows, upgrade pipelines and deal with rising demand over the long-term from global warming and rising population demand. The industry is also grappling with historic levels of debt, with the Big Nine suppliers struggling under a £54bn debt mountain.

Severn Trent has racked up debts of around £6.5bn, according to the latest figures, while Garfield’s pay has been under scrutiny amid criticism of fat cat bosses.

She is the highest earning water boss in the sector, taking home a hefty £3.2m pay packet last year.

Although the Bellwether Report predicted that the volatile economic outlook could threaten ad spend in the rest of 2023 and 2024, S&P Global, the authors of the report, upgraded their forecast for the UK economy. The news and data division of credit ratings giant S&P Global expect GDP to grow 0.3 per cent in 2023 and 0.4 per cent in 2024, paving the way for ad spend to improve in 2025 and beyond.

Laura Denman, an economist at S&P, said Bellwether’s data “highlights the resilience of UK businesses”.

Hargreaves Lansdown shares soar

CHRIS DORRELL

HARGREAVES LANSDOWN has recorded a six per cent increase in net new business over the past three months as clients sought to lock in deals at the end of the tax year.

In the three months to June, the share trading giant saw £1.7bn of net new business, despite the market more broadly seeing outflows. Shares in Hargreaves Lansdown were trading over seven per cent higher on Wednesday afternoon.

Chief exec Chris Hill said much of the increase stemmed from clients seeking to find the best deals at the end of the tax year.

Assets under administration rose two per cent in the quarter to £134bn; client numbers grew 13,000.

Analysts at Peel Hunt praised the “strong flows through difficult markets” while Neil Shah, director at Edison Group, said the results were “the best that Hargreaves Lansdown can currently hope for” given the “anaemic investment environment”. However, the firm also noted a continued trend in which “specific cohorts of clients” are making cash withdrawals to cope with inflation. The volume of shares traded was also 11 per cent lower than the previous quarter as investor confidence was hit by rising interest rates and market volatility.

On Monday Deanna Oppenheimer, boss since 2018, said she would step down following a series of spats.

Audioboom hopes new ad strategy will deliver as it reports net loss

JESS JONES

PODCASTINGplatform Audioboom has posted a net loss of $1.8m (£1.4m) for the first half of the year, but said its new advertising strategy would see the firm “emerge from the economic downturn in a position of strength”.

Revenue for the first half of the year was $31.8m (£24.6m), down from

$40.9m for the same period last year.

Average global monthly downloads held steady, rising from 125.2m in the first quarter to 125.9m in the second.

The London-listed firm said, however, that revenues from Showcase, its automated advertising marketplace, increased 18 per cent from last quarter, and 35 per cent for the same period one year ago.

Audioboom recently rolled out its new brand-oriented revenue strategy, as it looks to expand its customer base beyond traditional podcast advertisers to leading global brands.

Fiona Orford-William of investment research firm Edison Group said as the advertising market remains ”sluggish”, Audioboom’s shift towards larger advertisers was “sensible”.

The podcasting platform is looking to broaden its revenue base

Bellwether's report showed firms are feeling gloomy about the future

CEO Liz Garfield said the firm would “deliver progress”

GAMECHANGER New Canary Wharf life sciences tower set to be built by 2027

THE NEW 823,000 square foot tower, given the green light yesterday, will be Europe’s largest and most “technologically advanced” life sciences facility. Canary Wharf Group and Kadans Science Partner are the brains behind the new development.

Labour out the blocks fast with attacks on Tory mayoral winner

JESSICA FRANK-KEYES

LONDON’S Labour Party wasted little time putting the boot into newly selected Tory candidate for mayor Susan Hall yesterday, branding her a “hard right” politician.

Hall, a former City Hall Tory group leader, will take on incumbent mayor Sadiq Khan, who is pursuing a record third term, in the election next year. She secured 57 per cent of the vote, beating rival candidate Moz Hossain, on 43 per cent, and pledged to stop the Ulez expansion across Greater London on day one if she is elected mayor.

The former Harrow council leader and hair salon owner said: “It is a huge honour to be the Conservative candidate for mayor of London and I am so grateful to everyone for their support.

“I would also like to pay tribute to Moz for his positive and hard fought campaign.”

Hall, who in an interview with City

A.M. earlier this week said the current mayor “doesn’t like women,” was immediately the subject of political fire.

A London Labour spokesperson said: “The Conservative candidate for mayor is a hard-right politician who couldn’t be more out of touch with our city and its values.

“She’s an outspoken supporter of Trump, Boris Johnson and a hard Brexit. She cheered Liz Truss’s minibudget, which sent mortgages and rents soaring. She doesn’t stand up for women.”

“Londoners deserve better than a candidate who represents the worst of Tory failure and incompetence.”

Susan Hall has rarely seen eye to eye with the current mayor in City Hall debates

DAY TRIPPERS Lime bike usage has been soaring in London

LIME HAS seen soaring demand for its e-bikes in London with over 12m rides since 2019 and an average monthly increase of 10 per cent, it has been revealed.

Londoners have travelled nearly 30m kilometres using Lime’s e-bikes since 2019, according to a new report from the transport consultancy Steer, commissioned by the e-bike and scooter giant.

E-scooter and bike startups such as Tier, Lime and Dott have been jostling for dominance in an increasingly competitive market, with London becoming a key battleground in recent years.

Tory MPs say Natwest should lose licence over Farage account

PATRICK DALY

TOP TORY MPs have piled pressure on Coutts and its owner Natwest after the private bank reportedly closed Nigel Farage’s account because his views do “not align with our values”.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis said the decision amounted to

Farage is the former UKIP leader

ANALYSIS

For anyone who’s not been following the process, it has been somewhat of a rollercoaster.

Murmurings started some months ago with reports CCHQ were on the hunt for a quasiceleb, someone with name recognition to stand up to Khan’s star power.

Claims Apprentice star Lady Karren Brady and TV’s Judge Rinder turned the top brass down have surfaced –with broadcaster Iain Dale having now admitted he was approached to enter the race three times. And with the UK embroiled in seemingly unending economic misery, can a politician who described Liz Truss’s mini-budget as sparking “deep joy” inside her really make headway? Whatever happens, it’s clear from Labour’s response to Hall’s selection that there will be little love lost between the two veterans of City Hall knockabouts. JFK/AS

City of London S acular Spect with emberept update

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“thinly veiled political discrimination” and he called it a “vindictive, irresponsible and undemocratic action”.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Davis accused Coutts of lying about the “commercial viability” of Farage’s account in anonymous briefings to the BBC.

He also said that the disclosure of private information “ought to jeopardise its banking licence”. PA

Boss of MI6 asks for Russians to spy for the UK

DAVID HUGHES

THE HEAD of MI6 has urged Russians angry at Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine to spy for the UK.

Sir Richard Moore told them “our door is always open” and “we will work to bring the bloodshed to an end”.

He said that while artificial intelligence is being used to help target the Kremlin’s war machine, technology will never replace human agents.

It comes as a survey by the British Foreign Policy Group found that Brits were strongly supportive of Ukraine. PA

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ACCA

IN JUNE, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) published its long-awaited inaugural standards for sustainability reporting. The launch of the standards is widely regarded as a hugely important milestone in the global fight against climate change.

By providing a global baseline for businesses to report comparable information on sustainability issues, the new standards should make sustainability reporting more consistent, connected, and meaningful. In turn, the requirement to produce more integrated reporting should further drive businesses to adopt authentic and focused sustainability-led strategies. While it’s up to individual jurisdictions when and how they implement these standards, many are taking active steps to adopt them, including the UK. And in any case, many organisations will want to adopt them because of the expectations of stakeholders, especially investors, and for reasons of integrity — because it’s the right and transparent thing to do.

Critically, the standards should enable investors, financial markets and society more generally to understand how different businesses are helping to bring about positive change. In future, those businesses that make the greatest progress on sustainability issues will be well placed to attract costeffective capital, efficiently manage their risks, meet their evolving regulatory obligations, and attract and retain loyal customers.

ACCOUNTING FOR A BETTER WORLD

The launch of the new reporting standards is testament to how serious the accountancy and finance profession is about tackling the climate emergency. For example, ACCA helped the ISSB to shape these first two standards and will continue to support its important work. Through our qualifications, research and policies, we also highlight the role of accountants in creating a fairer and more sustainable world. One of our highest-profile initiatives is our ‘Accounting for a better world’ agenda for action, which aims to equip the accountancy profession for the public good on issues such as sustainability, ethics and inclusion.

Every day, in organisations all around the world, finance professionals at every level are taking on new responsibilities and extending their remit as they play their part in building a more sustainable future.

A joint report by ACCA and accountancy firm BDO highlights that, in many organisations, the chief financial officer (CFO) is already evolving into a chief value officer (CVO) — even if they’re not officially known by that job title. While they retain their core financial responsibilities, the CFOturned-CVO is accountable for the delivery of all their organisation’s core types of value, including human, natural and social value.

While accountants will always need financial acumen, they must also develop additional mindsets and skillsets to play their part in the future. This is so they can take a sufficiently holistic view of both financial and non-financial value creation. For example, they will need to better understand data, as

NEW SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING STANDARDS ARE A GAME CHANGER FOR BUSINESSES

ability reporting standards is set to happen at pace. The first corporate reports aligned with the new standards will be for 2024 reports that are published in 2025. As a result, we are on the cusp of a transformational new era — an era that will force us to completely rethink how we consider business success.

ing finance professionals.

TRANSITION TO A MORE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Adoption of the ISSB’s new sustain-

Going forward, it will be unacceptable — and potentially not possible — for businesses to measure success in purely narrow financial terms, based on the results of the last year or the last quarter. As business leaders, we will have a responsibility to take a much broader view of what success looks like. The future of our organisations — and our society overall — depends on our ability to achieve a just transition to a more sustainable future. This will be a future where longterm economic, environmental and social factors are considered alongside short-term commercial performance.

ACCA research, Accounting for society’s values, highlights that finance professionals, in particular, have a

huge opportunity to help drive the transition and keep sustainability at the top of organisational agendas. To do so, they will need to understand how their organisation creates value for its stakeholders and monitor and measure performance against goals. They should also act as an ethical adviser to their business, helping to build public trust by providing independent and objective input into key decisions.

Climate change is arguably the greatest risk facing our world today. By default, then, it is also the greatest risk facing businesses. Addressing climate change — along with the other major social, economic and environmental challenges we face as a planet — is not just about doing the right thing, it is a business imperative. The ISSB’s sustainability reporting standards will help to create a better, fairer and more sustainable world that works for all.

Helen Brand OBE, chief executive, ACCA

You can read the research mentioned in this article at

accaglobal.com/insights

Helen Brand

Climate change is arguably the greatest risk facing our world today.

Charlie Conchie interviews the biggest movers and shakers in tech, fintech and financial services

British Business Bank chief Louis Taylor tells City

FOR A MAN running a bank that has found itself at the centre of a fraud storm over the past two years, Louis Taylor talks warmly about the concept of risk.

The state-owned British Business Bank (BBB) he now runs shot to household-name status through the pandemic and enjoyed a moment in the sun as the engine room behind the government’s Covid-19 business support schemes.

Since then, that view has soured somewhat. The bank has been accused of overseeing a “colossal cock up” and “woeful” management of its loan schemes by a former government figure.

But Taylor, who took over the reins of the bank in November from interim chief Catherine Lewis La Torre, thinks the bank needs to embrace more risk rather than shy away from it.

“We're set up to deal with entrepreneurs who are risk takers, and we're there to do the things the private sector won’t,” Taylor tells City A.M. in an interview at his Blackfriars office. “The risk appetite that implies for the organisation is really quite high.”

Entrepreneurs –the British Business Bank’s customer base –are “value maximisers”, he says, while the government –its ultimate source of funding –is a “loss minimiser”. Taylor sees his role as championing the cause of his customer base to a government that can, at times, be pulling in a slightly different direction.

“We have to be true to our mandate. We've got to push in government to be more value maximisers and help the risk takers that we're there to help.

“Otherwise, what's the point of us?”

PRIVATE SECTOR MINDSET

Taylor’s willingness to forge ahead with a risk-first mindset may in part point to his background. He cut his teeth as an M&A banker at JP Morgan before transitioning into in-house acquisition roles at industrial firms Cookson Group and BTR, and later Standard Chartered.

He says the “soul food” of charity trusteeships however pushed him more towards his public sector and less profit-centric roles. Now at the BBB he oversees a national network of equity and debt funds, first thought up by the Lib Dems under the coalition government, designed to get cash flowing into small businesses that might be otherwise shut out from financial markets.

The Bank has just launched a major new £200m investment fund in the South West which he hopes will inject a wave of capital into the region and ignite more private sector investment. That sits alongside a range of debt and equity funds across the corners of the country.

But Taylor says it was in his previous position heading up the government’s credit agency UK Export Finance that he became intimately familiar with the idea of productive risk in the public sector.

EVEN IF THE WORST HAPPENS, YOU LEARN

“In my last role at UK Export Finance, I really worried about some of the exposures we were taking because there [were] huge amounts of money to single counterparties, if it was €2bn to the Turkish government, or it was €1.9bn to the Egyptian government. I kind of worried about those exposures,” he adds.

“We manage financial risk here at the bank very closely. But there's no single exposure in this vast portfolio of smaller businesses that, individually, are quite risky,” he adds.

“None of those exposures are large enough to make a big dent in the bank at all. So I'm actually quite relaxed –and I may live to regret it –about the financial risks that the bank is running.”

Taylor says the thesis is holding up strongly despite the torrid environment for small firms over the past year. The bank, he says, is yet to see any marked uptick in defaults or a wave of insolvencies in its customer base.

COLOSSAL COCK UP?

Part of that has been closer risk control in its portfolio and more time to weigh up those dangers. When it was thrust into the heart of the government’s Covid response in 2020, it did not have that luxury.

Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021, the bank ramped up its financial support to small businesses by more than £80bn, up to nearly £89bn. So-called bounce-back loans made up the majority of the Covid-era lending, with £46.6bn of a £77bn total coming from the scheme and the rest coming from ‘business interruption’ schemes designed to help firms limp through the catastrophic shut-off in revenue. BBB figures at the start of the year found that £1.1bn in loans, however, had been flagged by lenders as potential fraud, while the total cost of Covidera loan losses through defaults to the taxpayer could total £11bn.

While the scale of defaults and fraud have drawn the ire of some, Taylor thinks the conversation has become one-sided.

“I would argue that a balanced discourse around the Covid-19 loans not only points out the fraud –because it happened –and then learns the lessons from that, but also points out the benefit of those schemes,” he says. “Up to half a million businesses and up to 3m jobs were saved by the schemes.”

The fraud was predicted by the bank and ministers had “full knowledge of that” and “wanted to go ahead”, Taylor says.

“THAT'S THEIR DECISION”

He takes a similar view of the controversial Future Fund, set up by then chancellor Rishi Sunak as a sort of government venture arm. Some 10 per cent of the firms backed by the fund have since collapsed, the Guardian reported earlier this year, but Taylor argues it’s still “not a trivial possibility” the bank will make back all the taxpayers’ money pumped into the firms.

EMBRACING RISK

Pushing for a more measured assessment of risk in a portfolio is now central to Taylor’s mindset and vision

for the bank.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has turned to Taylor and the BBB to play a central role in resetting the narrative around risk in public and private sector discourse.

In his Mansion House reforms speech last week, Hunt asked the BBB to deepdive into a new investment vehicle to facilitate the flow of pension cash into more firms.

The request came as some of the top pension funds committed five per cent of their defined contribution assets to growth firms, and Taylor hopes the shift is an important commitment in the context of reviving risk appetite in the UK.

“I do think that we are in a period where perhaps some of the negativity [in the economic outlook] has caused people to hold back their risk appetite,” he says. “Entrepreneurialism does require a risk appetite.”

Taylor is hoping that collectively, the bank’s initiatives and its new role in the pension push will begin something of a shift in the national psyche. And even now after a bruising two years for the bank, he’s more than happy with a few ambitious small businesses going under.

“Give it a go. Even if the worst happens, you learn something,” he says.

Some of the negativity in the outlook has caused people to bring back their risk appetite

A.M. why he’s in the risk business –and the rewards are obvious for UK plc

PRODUCED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH HM GOVERNMENT

NOT ONLY DOES A JOB WITH THE NHS PROVIDE MEANINGFUL WORK, BUT A WHOLE HOST OF OTHER BENEFITS TOO

Since the NHS was founded in 1948, it has been an integral part of all of our lives. But as well as a wonderful health system, it’s a fantastic place to work: and the NHS is recruiting the next generation of inspirational staff.

Working in the NHS doesn’t just give you the opportunity to do something meaningful that makes a difference to people’s lives - it offers a diverse range of jobs, with a whole host of different ways to qualify, train and develop for professional and care roles. And there are real benefits, too. New salaries across the NHS mean the job is rewarding in both senses. And the NHS’ pension scheme continues to be generous, with the NHS contributing the equivalent of an extra 20.6 per cent of your salary alongside. There may be opportunities to earn additional payments for working on-call, overtime, or unsocial hours.

A CHANCE TO DEVELOP SKILLS

Nothing beats the feeling of making a difference to someone’s life. In more than 350 exciting, varied and rewarding roles across the NHS, there’s the chance to develop real skills as part of a unique team.

There are plenty of ways into the NHS, but common ones are direct entry into healthcare support roles, which don’t require academic qualifications, and for those going through degree-level training, like nursing; allied health professionals are also a key part of the service, too.

Healthcare support workers -who don’t require degree courses - are able to develop within their roles, serving as key parts of the health service, delivering vital care to people who need it. And for those going through degree-level training like those wanting to become nurses, there

are now financial support packages available too. Since September 2020, student nurses, midwives and allied health professionals can claim for at least £5,000 per academic year and further funding of up to £3,000 per year for some students. And you won’t have to pay a penny back.

A VARIED CAREER

No job in the NHS is the same, and no two days are alike - that’s why so many NHS staff talk about the rewarding, varied nature of a role within the health service. In nursing, for instance, even newly qualified staff are able to choose what role to do - perhaps helping people overcome mental health barriers or nursing newborns, or supporting people with learning disabilities or saving lives in A&E. For those going into healthcare support roles, there are also varied opportunities - allowing you to work in hospital, GP practices,

people’s own homes or out in the community. For those with the right skills and core values there are pathways to gain professional qualifications as a healthcare professional.

Whatever role works for you within the NHS, you’ll have a supportive employer that understands its staff and supports your growth and developmentand one that values your work with stability, security and generous benefits.

There are hundreds of roles within the NHS waiting for the right person - and it could well be you. Combine a rewarding, meaningful career with a generous package.

The NHS is recruiting the next generation of inspirational staff. Combine a rewarding career with a generous package

ADRIAN ANIM COMMUNITY LEARNING DISABILITY NURSE

Former painter and decorator

Adrian Anim, 52, from Newcastle, was 40 when he found his passion for helping others and is now a community learning disability nurse

“I worked as a painter and decorator in London for 20 years, but when I fractured a vertebrae in my neck I moved back to the north east. Back home, I was doing decorating jobs in homes of people with learning disabilities. I felt so happy, so calm and so inspired by chatting to these people.

“The staff noticed how well I got on with the residents, so they asked me if I’d work there. And I said I’d love to. My first job was support worker and I was so happy and couldn’t wait for my shifts. One day I was chatting to a district nurse who saw how I’d helped a service user to communicate and she asked me if I’d ever thought about a career in nursing. considered it, but it planted a seed and I started to look into what I needed to do to become a nurse.

Initially, I didn’t think it would be an option for

PAULINE TEAGUE A HEALTHCARE ASSISTANT

me because I really struggled at school and left with no qualifications.

“But the seed was still there and I went on to do an NVQ in health and social care and applied to Northumbria University to study registered nursing for learning disabilities.

“I know it’s an old cliché, but no two days are ever the same. Sometimes the job is really challenging, but I’m well supported by working in a team. We all have our ups and downs, but we always focus on the end goal, which is improving people’s quality of life.

I’ve never felt so secure in a job – I love it and I’m passionate about what I do.”

“I was a single parent and unemployed in 1986. I’d always wanted to be a nurse, but had cold feet over the training. Back then my mum’s response had been: ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be married with children!’ Let’s say, it wasn’t that encouraging. I remember first applying as if it were yesterday. I wasn’t confident of my academic ability, but was told about this role as a nursing auxiliary. I got in touch with the local hospital in Bourton-on-the-Water, saw the sister, and that

was it. I was able to start straightaway, and the extra money as a single mum was great. When after a year I was struggling to find childcare I was also able to change my hours.

After more than 35 years I still love the work. When someone comes in the door in pain and I can help fix them, it’s an amazing feeling. Then there’s the physio side and motivating people to take those first steps across the ward in rehab. I also take a lot from working in palliative care, to hold a hand or provide a calm voice that can help put patients at

ease.

My husband might find it hard to believe, but it all comes down to caring - and it’s difficult to put into words.

As a health care assistant we undertake mandatory training every year, learning first aid, how to take blood, and life support. Often skills that you can use outside of the workplace too.

There remains a lot of flexibility - even extending to term-time only contracts for parents and guardians who have children at school. If you need to swap a shift, it’s usually possible. I officially retire next year, but it’s likely I’ll still return to do some shifts.

Adrian Anim, a community learning disablity nurse

Pauline Teague, a health care assistant

THE NOTE BOOK

A little optimism may go a long way on the markets

Bulls are not regularly seen on the streets of the Square Mile, especially recently. It has been all too easy on my recent travels to find people casting their eyes downward when asked about the City’s prospects, as if the irritatingly grey July skies are dimming optimism before the summer holidays.

What’s interesting is that often these conversations take a different turn when I ask about their own businesses. The eyes light up, the downbeat visage replaced with a slight smile. Some version of “well, actually, we’re doing alright” tends to follow, from bank bosses to the founders of AIM-listed businesses.

Are we too hard on ourselves?

Sometimes, perhaps. The media has famously been blamed on more than one occasion, by figures including the City minister, for talking British business down in some way.

But that doesn’t always hold up.

It’s not our fault, for instance, that

RED, WHITE AND BLUE

London’s markets continue to undervalue successful businesses listed here, at least compared to overseas peers. Firms on the capital’s equity markets see a price to earning ratio far lower than Wall Street, for instance. Could the problem lie as much with the infrastructure around our listed companies, perhaps? Ocado is not necessarily my idea of a perfect stock - it has been ‘jam tomorrow’ for more than a decade, and the sandwich is still a little bit bare - but do we have the ecosystem around firms like that to really get under the bonnet of them, and understand their value? Tech leaders regularly tell me that they won’t list in London not because of any fiddly regulation, but because investors don’t understand them and the analysts to translate don’t exist on this side of the Atlantic. The good news is that can be fixed. There’s value to be had in London, and rarely is that left on the shelf for long.

Written on Thursdays by City A.M. editor Andy Silvester

A proper marmaladedropper, as they say, in a column by the economist Sam Bowman the other day. GDP growth in the States has been 47 per cent faster since 2010 than the UK, and currently the average American could stop working on September 27 each year and still be richer than the average Brit. It’s time we were honest about what low growth looks like –and it doesn’t look pretty.

£ Rail strikes continue to bedevil the capital’s recovery from the pandemic, albeit giving hybrid workers an excuse not to cough up for a day return. No sector is being more badly hit than hospitality. So it was a welcome message I received from my girlfriend flagging a £15 steak frites deal at Hawksmoor, designed only to wash its face but give the restaurant enough custom to keep employees’ hours up. We may need more of such imaginative thinking.

£ Bristol’s rugby side launched their fixture list this week by asking ordinary folk around town to help identify the badges of their rivals. Highlights included Harlequins –or ‘like a circus guy with a samurai sword’ –and Leicester Tigers, otherwise known as the “Angry Jaguars.” Premiership rugby is in a sorry financial state off the pitch but the product on the field is genuinely high-quality, notably more exciting than seen at test match level. It appears, though, some branding work is in order.

CAN I QUOTE YOU ON THAT?

Bins are a

symbol of shame

A quote from an anti-plastics firm’s CEO in a press release this week, arguing three quarters of Brits would happily ditch their bins. You first, as they say.

Some of you may have come across the fantastic nonfiction writer

Patrick Radden

Keefe, author of the IRA history Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, the brilliant biography of the Sackler dynasty and their bestknown product, Oxycontin. Both are superb books but for the summer holiday perhaps another of his works is a better choice –I’ve just finished The Snakehead, a remarkable tale of an unassuming, grey-haired Chinese restaurant owner in New York by the name of Sister Ping, who despite her persona was a key part of the human smuggling industry in the 1990s. It reads like a thriller, but in highlighting the desperation of those wanting a better life, it’s perhaps helpful context in our current battle over immigration. It is, as they say, never black and white.

Did Amazon’s 2023 Prime Day promotion pay off? Well, yes

IN JULY 2015, Amazon created Prime Day – a 24-hour nine-country promotion ostensibly launched to celebrate the company’s 20th birthday, with the aim of “offering a volume of deals greater than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members”. While the summer months were perhaps not the most intuitive time to launch a sales event, Prime Day has endured.

Eight years later, 2023’s Prime Day expanded its runtime to 48 hours, extended its reach into some 20 markets, and, as YouGov BrandIndex data reveals, is still appealing to British consumers. In the week prior to the end of 2023’s Prime Day (a period covering 512 July), Word of Mouth exposure, a measure of whether the public have talked about a brand with friends and family, rose from 28.9 to 36.2 (+7.3).

Stephan Shakespeare

Most of this conversation about Amazon Prime appears to have been positive: Buzz scores, which track whether consumers have heard anything good or bad about a brand, more than doubled from 9.0 to 20.5 over the same timeframe (+11.5). Correspondingly, overall Impression scores for the service, which measure general sentiment towards a brand, jumped from 30.5 to 38.5 (+8.0).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, discounts tend to improve Customer Satisfaction: this metric increased from 41.0 to 47.9 (+6.9), while Quality scores went from 28.5 to 35.1 (+6.6). Index scores, which track perceptions of the service’s brand health, also jumped from 28.9 to 34.2 (+5.3).

Amazon itself has reported that the 2023 edition of Prime Day has been the biggest yet. Along with Alibaba’s appropriation of Singles’ Day, it’s the kind of story that shows that large retailers don’t necessarily have to restrict themselves to the traditional sales periods if they can come up with a solid pretext and some enticing deals – even in the traditionally lean summer months.

A REAL-LIFE EPIC FROM A MASTER OF THE GENRE

Stephan Shakespeare is the co-founder and CEO of YouGov

THE SQUARE MILE AND ME

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?

At the local greyhound kennels spreading sawdust on the training runs. I was accidentally paid double rates –£1 instead of 50p per hour –which was serious money for a 14 year old in those days! When they realised, my wages were quickly halved and I left!

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST PROPER 'CITY' JOB?

After my A levels I joined NatWest working in North London before I moved to a specialist property bank in the West End. We moved to the City in 1990, near Tower Hill –the area was totally unrecognisable to how it is today.

WHEN DID YOU FEEL LIKE THE CITY WAS THE PLACE FOR YOU?

When I moved to the new Close Brothers offices near Broadgate I really felt at home. The ‘Big Bang’ in 1986 not only changed how much of the City’s business was transacted, it also ushered in a very different feel to the place –more fresh and vibrant. Excellent pubs, restaurants and shops started to spring up to make it a destination, and I started to earn enough to enjoy it!

ANY EMBARRASSING CITY FAUX PAS?

I once presented to a group of brokers and was introduced to the boss, whose office was an elevated glass box sitting above the open plan ‘bear pit’ where the young brokers sat. After the meeting, I turned and walked straight into the glass door. It’s fair to say that the brokers below had their entertainment for the day and I could still hear them howling as I walked down the street with a very bruised nose –and ego.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE CITY LUNCH?

The restaurant at Tower 42 (the ‘NatWest’ Tower) was the first highend restaurant I visited –I loved the food and the stunning views. I recall one lunch when I sat next to the British boxing legend, Henry Cooper, who called me Rodney throughout lunch. I didn’t have the heart or courage to correct him.

WHICH CITY FIGURE DO YOU MOST ADMIRE, LIVING OR DEAD?

As a property banker, I would say Tony Pidgley, the Berkeley Homes Group founder. His life story is so inspiring as he came from very humble beginnings yet created one of the most successful housebuilding companies ever seen.

WHAT'S ONE THING YOU LOVE ABOUT THE CITY...?

The sheer human energy. The people who work here, from bankers to shop assistants, seem to have an extra ounce of drive which I find contagious. Despite the current doom and gloom, seeing the younger generations coming in and making the City their own is fantastic –a real

melting pot of talent and optimism.

... AND ONE THING YOU'D CHANGE?

The price of a sandwich!

HOW OPTIMISTIC ARE YOU ABOUT 2023?

It’s harder now than ever to predict how things will play out. But, it’s always darkest before the dawn so let’s hope that better days will follow soon

… Get back to me in 2024!

WE'RE GOING FOR LUNCH. WHERE ARE WE GOING?

Brat in Shoreditch. I love how the

QUICKFIRE ROUND

FAVOURITE...

DRINK: TEA OR COFFEE?

A FLAT WHITE

FILM:

QUADROPHENIA – I’M STILL A ‘MOD’ AT HEART

ARTIST OR BAND: THE TESKEY BROTHERS – A FANTASTIC AUSTRALIAN SOUL BAND

VIEW IN LONDON: LOOKING BACK TOWARDS THE CITY FROM THE SHARD

highly talented staff cook and serve fantastic produce simply and in front of guests on an open flame. It’s very hipster and makes me feel very old! AND IF WE'RE GRABBING A DRINK AFTER WORK?

I wish the bar and courtyard at Simpsons on Cornhill were still open, as having a pint there felt like stepping back in time. For a good cocktail and great views, The Aviary on Finsbury Square is very nice and near my office.

WHERE'S HOME DURING THE WEEK?

High Barnet, the end of the Northern Line, which has been fortunate on a few occasions after a late night, back in the day!

IT'S A SATURDAY AFTERNOON. WHERE WILL YOU BE?

Playing golf with my mates at my club, Old Fold Manor near home. If I’m feeling masochistic, I might be at White Hart Lane.

YOU'VE GOT A WEEK OFF — WHERE ARE YOU GOING, AND WITH WHO ?

Ile de Re in France with my wife Debbie on a tandem.

It is such a wonderful place which combines beaches, cycling, great oysters and good wine!

We dig into the memory bank of the City’s great and good: this week, Close Brothers property finance managing director Rowland Thomas answers our questions

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LONDON REPORT BEST OF THE BROKERS

email your research to notes@cityam.com

BEHIND THE

FTSE 100 rises strongly after June inflation lower than expected

LONDONmarkets breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday after inflation finally came in lower than expected. The bluechip FTSE 100 closed 1.8 per cent higher at 7,588.20 while the midcap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the domestic economy, ended 3.8 per cent higher at 19,322.52.

Investors were buoyed by yesterday’s inflation figures, which showed that the rate of price growth fell to 7.9 per cent in June, down from 8.7 per cent in May.

June’s figure was the lowest since March 2022 when inflation was seven per cent. Last month’s figure also reverses a long trend of inflation topping analysts’ projections.

Housebuilders saw the biggest gain on the FTSE with Persimmon climbing 8.6 per cent, Barratt Developments seven

per cent and Taylor Wimpey 6.9 per cent. They had been hit hard by the prospect of soaring rates denting demand for new homes.

Yesterday’s figures suggest that the Bank of England might not need to hike rates as much as previously expected, easing pressure in the house market. Finalto’s Neil Wilson argued that the “sector was too oversold as the market was too bearish on how high the BoE would need to go”.

Elsewhere, Hargreaves Lansdown climbed 8.8 per cent after a solid trading update. In the three months to June, the Bristol-based DIY investing outfit saw £1.7bn in net new business, despite the market more broadly seeing outflows.

A handful of firms fell, the majority of which were natural resources companies such as Glencore, Rio Tinto and Antofagasta.

Peel Hunt analysts rated Springfield Properties a ‘Hold’, saying that full year profit before tax expectations are “in line” but full year revenues are expected to drop to £330m, three per cent below consensus. The group has reduced purchase activity, paused recruitment and reduced staffing levels, which analysts say should slim costs by around £3m.

Analysts at Peel Hunt have rated Watkin Jones a ‘Buy’ after the housing developer’s boss Richard Simpson stepped down on Wednesday, sending shares plummeting. Shares are down 25 per cent year to date, mostly in the last three months. Peel Hunt have dramatically cut their profit before tax forecasts for the financial year 2023 from £28m to £2m.

NUMBERS

“Falling prices at the pump, which have caused such controversy of late, were one of the biggest contributors to the larger-thanexpected fall in inflation, and whilst food prices are still going up they’re not going up quite as fast as they were.”

DANNI HEWSON HEAD OF FINANCIAL ANALYSIS, CMC MARKETS

Powerful real-time thought leadership, insights and news delivery mechanism fuelling the most up-to date reporting, adding critical context for decisions that require consciousness, education and thought leadership.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION AND BECOME A PART OF ONE OF LONDON’S MOST TRUSTED NEWS SOURCES VISIT: CITYAM.COM/IMPACT-AM/

EDITED BY SASCHA O’SULLIVAN

Sunak and Starmer have both realised just how close they are to an election

IT IS easy for those of us obsessed with Westminster to get annoyed with politicians doing politics. We can indulge our ideas and passions free from accountability, whereas they have the dreary task of having to win elections. After all, without power, it’s incredibly difficult to put your ideas into practice.

So perhaps we should resist the urge to be too annoyed at the Labour leadership announcing that if elected they wouldn’t end the two-child limit for benefits and would maintain a broader hardline against increased welfare spending. After all, maybe swing voters really would react badly to such policies, either on ideological grounds, or due to seeing them as the harbinger of higher taxes.

The only problem is that the policy is one that will continue misery and pain to some of the least fortunate in our society, punishing children for their parents’ mistakes or misfortune. Removing the two-child cap would lift a quarter of million children out of poverty entirely and improve the lives of a further 850,000. What is the point of the Labour Party if it cannot find £1.3bn a year to do this?

While political skill and cunning is indeed necessary to win elections, the victors will then actually have to gov-

ern. All the tactics and gimmicks in the world will not long distract people from a government that does not improve their lives.

And you can see this with the mess that the Tories have gotten into with higher education. On Monday, Rishi Sunak announced a “crackdown” on rip-off degrees, pledging to deny funding to courses that failed to secure graduates a highly skilled job or postgraduate study within fifteen months of leaving university. If meaningfully applied, Sunak’s ideas would not only cause course closures and risk some universities going bankrupt, but it would also create perverse incentives for all institutions to push graduates

into jobs or study that may not be best for them in the long-term.

But the policy is not just itself a mistake, it is the consequence of the Tories failed approach to higher education. They abandoned all semblance of student number controls; despite warnings it would become unsustainable without additional funding once children born in the noughties mini-baby boom started applying. They developed and published performance metrics, including on graduate outcomes, in the hope that this would drive applicants to make informed and rational choices about where they would study, only for young people to continue to place

great weight on intangibles such as the location and reputation of a university.

The fatal flaw in today’s higher education system goes back to when David Cameron was the fresh-faced, newly appointed Tory leader. Like Starmer today, Cameron wanted to move his party on from just opposing the government, instead adopting a more sophisticated approach that would reassure people that the Conservatives were serious about delivering high quality public services. So, he abandoned Michael Howard’s policy of pursuing an end to tuition fees by reducing student numbers, embracing Labour’s goal of widening access to higher education.

The big beasts of banking, supermarkets and tech are behind our productivity slump

THE MYSTERY of the dramatic slowdown in productivity growth across the West since the late 2000s remains unsolved. It is the key question in political economy. If productivity doesn’t rise, national income per head of population remains flat. As a result, government receipts from taxation remain static.

In the UK, where the limits to taxation have been more or less reached, there is no spare money around to finance the myriad demands on the state which are made by a wide range of interest groups. More money for train drivers, subsidies for people who have bought houses which they can no longer afford, extra benefits for families who have more than two children. The list is endless.

Stanford professor Mordecai Kurz argues in the fascinating new book ‘The Market Power of Technology’ that much of the problem stems from rapid advances in technology enabling companies to increase their market power. The degree of monopoly in the econ-

Paul Ormerod

omy has increased.

Innovation, which by itself improves productivity, allows large firms to consolidate their market dominance. But once they have achieved it, the incentive to innovate is reduced.

But an increase in market power doesn’t simply lead to less innovation by dominant firms. More importantly, it reduces the diffusion of innovation amongst other companies, as the giants use both market power and patents to consolidate their dominance.

Kurz takes a very long historical view. He goes back to the decades around 1900, which he calls the first “gilded age”, when firms operating on

a global scale first emerged. In the United States there was a massive wave of mergers and acquisitions, which created companies of completely unprecedented size.

The share of profit in national income was boosted and stock prices rose sharply as a result. Between the mid1890s and mid-1900s, the Dow Jones index increased more than 200 per cent.

Kurz defines the second gilded age as beginning in the 1980s. Since then stock markets have boomed in a way which is simply not justified by the performance of the economy as a whole.

Between the mid-1950s and mid1980s, for example, the Dow Jones was effectively flat adjusting for inflation, and American GDP grew by an average of 3.5 per cent a year. Since then growth has slowed to some 2.5 per cent, but share prices have risen by over 6 per cent a year in real terms.

This is attributed to a gradual rise in the degree of monopoly in the economy, which eventually reduces innovation and hence productivity.

The problem was that Cameron didn’t want to maintain the level of public investment in universities he inherited from New Labour. His governments would oversee significant cuts to public funding but felt that they could avoid trashing our universities by loading the costs onto graduates by trebling tuition fees. This not only distorted universities in ways that cut against the government's objectives elsewhere in the education system, but set the scene for the beartrap Sunak is trying to sidestep today; what do you do when inflation means it’s time for tuition fees to go above what are already higher than any comparable system in the world? Instead of raising tuition fees to something like £13,000 a year or increasing taxes so public investment could cover the shortfall, he is instead returning to Howard’s idea of reducing costs by narrowing access.

Both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer like to say that these policies are signs that they can take the tough decisions that others lack the stomach to make. But they’re actually just kicking those least fortunate in our society because they're too “frit”- as Margaret Thatcher, my fellow East Midlander would’ve said - to tell those more fortunate that they need to pay more.

They may be right to fear the public can’t handle this truth, but telling people what they want to hear is the very opposite of courage, and such cravenness over the past thirteen years has hardly created a Britain that works, has it?

£ Will Cooling writes about politics and pop culture for the It Could be Said substack

Before the First World War, the US federal government initiated and won a series of Supreme Court cases using anti-trust legislation to break up unwarranted market power. The most notable were those against the gigantic Standard Oil of New Jersey and General Electric.

Kurz argues that a similar active antitrust strategy is needed now. He proposes a breakup of vertically integrated technological conglomerates, and standardisation of digital platforms. He also suggests reforms to patent law, such as increasing novelty requirements, the return of unused patents, and reducing the duration of patents by half upon renewal or acquisition.

The key argument, that large firms now have too much market power, seems relevant to the current debate in the UK about “greedflation”. If Kurz is correct, the proposition that big companies are in a position to keep prices artificially high becomes true.

£

Paul Ormerod is an author and economist at Volterra Partners LLP

Rishi Sunak vowed a “crackdown” on rip off degrees which don’t help students’ career prospects

I’M SMARTER THAN YOU Nick Clegg, a top Meta exec, has claimed Artificial Intelligence simply isn’t smart enough to take over the world. The former deputy PM told the BBC that ‘in many ways, they’re quite stupid’, only hours after saying Meta’s rival to ChatGPT, Llama 2, would be open source.

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VIEWS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Really going for nuclear

[Re: Government launches SMR competition to revive nuclear’s role in UK energy mix, July 18]

This is a significant week for nuclear in the UK. The release of funding, which had been delayed, will mean the government is finally putting money where its mouth is for small and advanced nuclear reactors. That technology is urgently required both for energy resilience and to allow the UK to meet its decarbonisation targets. But there is more to do. The announcement should be accompanied by confirmation on Great British Nuclear’s remit in being a partner at the development phase. Government should throw resources at

updating the National Policy Statement for Nuclear in advance of their 2025 target, and explicitly confirming that nuclear projects outside of existing or decommissioned nuclear sites can progress so that the private sector can deliver clean energy in tandem with GBN’s competition processes. Outside of nuclear, development of grid connections is a formidable challenge. Infrastructure developers are having to produce tens of thousands of pages for environmental assessments. Wider planning reforms which help streamline planning and environmental permissions required are needed. France develops and delivers their nuclear projects as part of a programme; we need UK planning to catch up on enabling this kind of standardisation.

Mustafa Latif-Aramesh BDB Pitmans

SEA YOU NEXT TUESDAY Southern Water blames seagulls for pollution

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: A SINKING PLAN FOR MIGRANT HOUSING ON BARGES

This week, the government had to return two cruise ships it had acquired to house asylum seekers after it found nowhere to dock them. One of them was going to be docked in Liverpoolbut the port operator refused to accept the task. The second ship was meant to moor near Edinburgh, but the plan fell through.

It’s a blow to Sunak, who is betting a lot of his political credibility on “stopping the boats” and cutting the high cost of accomodation for asylum seekers in the UK during a

housing crisis.

Meanwhile, the Bibby Stockholm barge arrived in Dorset on Tuesday. It will house 500 male asylum seekers.

Sunak has framed the plan as an alternative to hotels. But according to a report from NGOs Reclaim the Seas and One Life to Live, the Home Office will save only around £10 a day on each asylum seeker by housing them on barges - or around £1m for six months. For context, we spend roughly £6m a day on hotel accomodation.

ELENA SINISCALCO

Britain

our own Inflation Reduction Act

long

Ben Ramanauskas

believe in trade

DOES the UK need its own version of the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act? If you are US Climate Change Envoy John Kerry as well as numerous British politicians, businesses, and commentators the answer is a resounding yes.

Those in favour make a compelling argument. Since the IRA came into force the US has seen a massive increase in investment in green technologies with new factories being built and jobs created. What is more, the EU has followed Biden’s lead and so surely the UK risks being left behind if it does not also fall in line, not least of all because Britain has recently seen investment in environmentally friendly technologies begin to wane.

However, the government should be cautious about following the US and the EU. While subsidies for green technologies would be welcome and play an important role in helping the UK reach its Net Zero target, we need to be realistic. The size – not to mention the

parlous state – of the UK economy means that any subsidies will be modest when compared to those on offer from the US and the EU. As such, it would be impossible for the UK to provide anything close to the support on offer from other nations and other economic blocs.

Even if it were possible, it would still not be the right thing to do. Although the IRA has brought benefits to the US it is something which should alarm the UK rather than be seen as something to be emulated. This is because the IRA is a symptom of the United States’ diminishing commitment to free trade and the international liberal rules based system. President Biden is an improvement over Donald Trump

in practically every way apart from when it comes to international trade.

The fact that the ambition of a free trade agreement with the US has been abandoned by the Conservative government has been interpreted as a sign of the UK’s declining status or as an end to the “Special Relationship”. In reality, the Biden Administration is not interested in striking a trade deal with anyone, or in free trade generally. The implementation of the IRA is a signal to the world that the Biden Administration is every bit as committed to the “America First” approach of Donald Trump, even though it is marketed in a much more liberal way.

Although less obvious and less damaging than tariffs, huge subsidies and preferential treatment of domestic industries and certain nations still have negative economic consequences. Free trade – undergirded by the international rules based system – has led to prosperity and lifted people out of poverty on a scale unprecedented in human history. Perhaps one of the few benefits of the UK leaving the EU has been the government’s commitment

to free trade and the institutions which support it such as the WTO. To join the US and EU in a subsidy arms race would be a betrayal of this commitment.

Rather than follow the example of President Biden, the UK government should seek to challenge protectionism wherever it is found, including the US. It should seek to encourage the US to embrace free trade once more by following the UK in joining CPTPP. Moreover, it should work with the US, EU, and other liberal democracies to reinvigorate the WTO and push for more free trade and international cooperation, not less.

A UK version of America’s package of green subsidies may have some superficial appeal but history shows us that it is free trade, not mercantilism which made the UK – and the world – rich. The UK government should be bold and unapologetic in its commitment to free trade and the international rules based system.

£ Ben Ramanauskas is an economist at Oxford University and former trade advisor

No,

doesn’t need

as

as we

Biden’s package of subsidies is a symptom of a diminishing belief in free trade

Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is worth almost $370bn

Southern Water, one of the worst rated water firms, has claimed seagull droppings might be to blame for poor water quality that could close a beach in Portsmouth. They said the birds were ‘roosting under the pier’.

EDITED BY STEVE DINNEEN @steve_dinneen

‘BARBENHEIMER’ HAS ARRIVED, BUT IS BARBIE WORTH A WATCH?

MOVIES

Ican only assume the Barbie movie PR team have checked into the most beige hotel possible this week, cowering from all the pink to engage in some much-needed deep breathing. The movie’s ballistic marketing campaign has been even more omnipresent on social media than the endless stream of engagement photos from people you went to school with.

So, now that the film is actually coming out, and we can, I assume, stop being confronted by photos of a beam-

ing Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on Instagram, we get to the question: is it any good?

One year ago the idea of a Barbie movie seemed absurd, and on release week, it feels even moreso, with the queues of adults lining up to take pictures in Barbie-themed photo booths across the country reminding us that the national misery post-Covid must be even worse than we thought.

Surprisingly, the Barbie movie is sharp and satirical, led by an eminently watchable Robbie, who plays Stereotypical Barbie who lives in Barbie Land where everyone is a type of Barbie: even the President. Ryan Gosling plays Ken – again, there are loads of Kens – who’s matched with Stereotypical Barbie.

It is a matriarchal dreamscape in opposition to the Real World, but then one day Stereotypical Barbie and Ken breach Barbie Land’s utopic walls to discover that the Real World and – yep,

you guessed it, systemic sexism – exists and kinda sucks.

It is all one self-knowing, grandiose joke, fun to go along with if you’re old AF, and, I’m sure, more than enough to keep the current Barbie doll generation sated.

“Because of Barbie, all problems with feminism and equal rights have been silenced,” a voiceover says, as legions of mathematically attractive Barbies gleam from their fake world. Most of the runtime is consumed by Robbie and Gosling and their legion of gorgeous cohorts dancing around and singing in exotic locations, scenes which are only disrupted when the satire takes over again (and again).

When Robbie enters the Real World, she looks at a Miss Universe advertisement and proclaims “Oh look, it’s the US Congress”. But of the lot, Gosling leans most enjoyably into the satire. All snarling pouts and infuriating naivety behind the pretty face, his Ken

plays on the reality that there really are so many men who don’t understand their power and privilege.

Robbie and Gosling have warm chemistry against the backdrop of an interlocking landscape of impossibly pretty pink sets that play with the notion of what’s real and fake.

You feel that they must have had so much fun pulling all this together. Well, for the first few weeks, before the nausea set in.

Mattel’s profits have declined over the past few years, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this movie is a deft PR stunt designed to reposition Barbie for a new generation.

But the hype is also real and not entirely engineered. Feeling heavily inspired, if not uncomfortably in debt to, storylines from Toy Story and the Matrix, but without the emotional heft, I’m not sure this movie needed to exist, but it’s a hoot that it does.

OPPENHEIMER GOES OFF LIKE AN ATOMIC BOMB AS NOLAN RETURNS

Manhattan Project during World War II, the project that drove him to create the bomb before the Nazis, as well as the consequences of his creation.

but there are shades of what made that character so effective: Murphy’s intensity, the weight with which each line is delivered, is essential in such a dialogue heavy film.

For the first time in years, blockbuster season hasn’t been dominated by superheroes.

Instead, the summer belongs to two very different movies, one of which marks the return of Christopher Nolan. Oppenheimer finds itself going up against Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which has the same release date. The contrast has inspired an unofficial double bill fans have nicknamed “Barbenheimer,” where fans will watch both films in one day. Beneath the hype is the return of one of cinema’s most influential filmmakers, telling a story that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen.

Based on the biography American Prometheus, the film is the story of Robert J Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), known to history as “The Father of The Atomic Bomb”. The film recreates his pivotal work on The

Oppenheimer is one of his most spectacular films to date. For a movie of this scale, intelligence, and maturity to be released in the middle of summer is something we just don’t see anymore, and the director ensures that it is every bit as fulfilling as the action movies it is up against.

Weaving two timelines together, one black and white and one colour, it’s a study of both the man behind the bomb and society as a whole. The script questions whether scientists are responsible for the way their discoveries are used, and how (particularly in a time of peril) the term patriotism is as much of a warning as it is an ideal.

After pondering the nature of time, space, and physics, Nolan delves into morality more than he has done with other recent work.

He has assembled an extraordinary cast to deliver that objective, spearheaded by the masterful Murphy. His role here couldn’t be further from Peaky Blinders’ Thomas Shelby,

The surprise package is Robert Downey JR as Lewis Strauss, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission and an opponent of sorts to Oppenheimer. After fifteen years of Tony Stark, it’s easy to forget that these films are where the actor made his comeback: Zodiac, A Scanner Darkly, and Good Night and Good Luck showcased him as a standout support actor.

Here, older and with more authority, he glides into such a prominent role with ease and becomes one of the star players in the ensemble. Matt Damon also shines as Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves, while Emily Blunt becomes more significant as the film progresses playing Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty.

After all the memes and hype, Oppenheimer proves to be the real deal. A film that will be remembered and discussed long after its cinema run, Christopher Nolan’s 12th film proves the filmmaker has no intention of slowing down.

BLOODWORTH UNMISSABLE

You wouldn’t think it from all the beaming photos of Margot Robbie plastered about the place, but ‘Barbenheimer’ has actually ended up sending some pretty prescient messages about masculinity, asking questions about what it’s like to be a man today.

In case you’ve been hiding under a pink shiny rock, ‘Barbenheimer’ the term has been coined by film fanatics who will be spending five hours glued to cinema seats this weekend, as both of the summer’s biggest film releases, Barbie and Oppenheimer, are coming out on Friday.

Hundreds of millions of searches have been made on TikTok for the term, and cinemas across the country are running special themed screenings. In short, the world seems to be collectively expressing that they are craving distraction from the real world in a huge, powder-pink way. Well, as of tomorrow, they’ve got it.

Barbie has a surprisingly powerful message about feminity, but an even more surprising one about men. Oppenheimer too is a particularly potent cross examination of one particular man who paid a big price for not quite fitting in.

First up, Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Ken is one of the most thoughtprovoking parts of the Barbie movie. His Ken character escapes Barbie World to go to the Real World

‘BARBENHEIMER’

IS ACTUALLY ABOUT MASCULINITY

where, naively, he begins to believe that men rule everything.

He sees the ways men behave and thinks he fancies a bit of it. With the swish of his toned body and a snarling wide smile, Gosling’s Ken changes completely, becoming one of those men who are drunk on arrogance and

Living in a subverted matriarchal world in Barbie Land, Ken has always played second fiddle to Barbie. That is what makes his discovery about the power men have in the Real World so powerful to him: if you’ve spent your whole life as subservient to someone else, surely you

get to have your revenge and act up for a while, right? Well, no, but in Barbie, Ken does it anyway.

Critics across the world have noted how interesting it is that Gosling’s Ken is actually the film’s boldest take away.

Over to Oppenheimer, which tells the real life story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The film is a pertinent character study of the type of men that get walked over by people with more power.

Despite developing the atomic bomb which went on to land on Japan, Oppenheimer was a deep sceptic of his creation, turning away from plans to advance nuclear weaponry after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He was disowned by the US political system, even by the President, after a kangaroo court alleged that he had associated too closely with Communists. Here is the story of a man whose invention might have changed the course of

history. His invention was due to his multi-faceted talents: the way he managed his team of scientists, his inherent knowledge and his patience and perseverance, but justice isn’t served. The good guy doesn’t win.

Oppenheimer is a complicated type of man for a film to convey. Even for us to get our heads around. A lover of art but also a immensely intelligent scientist, and with Socialist leanings, he was the sort of ball of contradiction that powerful men of the time could not process, so they dispensed of.

Let’s not distort the message of feminism at the heart of Barbie. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy the escapism of a marathon cinema trip. But it is interesting what is going on here: men may historically not be the most underrepresented group on screens (!) but here at least are two very different and thought-provoking iterations of the male.

VISIT A PRIVATE LONDON ISLAND

Twickenham’s Eel Pie Island is closed to visitors for the whole year except for two weekends, one of which is this one. Saunter over the bridge and roam around 26 artists’ studios, where painters, sculptors and other creatives work, inspired by the river and nature nearby. Eel Pie Island. Twickenham. TW1 3DY; 22 - 23 July

BOOK A LAST MINUTE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Secret Garden Party and Standon

Calling music festivals both still have tickets available for this weekend, and both are within easy reach of London, so what are you waiting for?

Standon Calling has Years & Years and Bloc Party, and a dog competition, as well as a rave in a converted cow shed, and Secret Garden Party has The Libertines, fancy dress and lake swimming.

Standon-calling.com; secretgardenparty.com

IT’S THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP!

The Women’s World Cup kicks off today, but England aren’t playing until 10.30am on Saturday morning. It’s a bit early for a pint, but then again, it is the World Cup, so fill your boots. The Broadleaf Sports bar and Restaurant in the Square Mile is showing the match and opening early for the occasion. St Christopher’s Inn in London Bridge, all of the Boxparks and The Hope and Anchor in Brixton are also greeting the morning with a smile. (And serving you a pint.)

10.30am kick-off, 22 July, various pubs around London

WEEKEND READY?

LAY ON THE BEACH IN WALTHAMSTOW

Walthamstow’s Big Penny Social is helping you feel far away from the capital without you having to go anywhere. They’ve launched their rather impressive, sprawling beach, where you can take your shoes off and stretch out with a frozen cocktail, or visit the beachfront chippy for a properly British meal.

Bigpennysocial.co.uk/walthamstow-on-sea; book private beach huts online

REVEALING NEW HITCHCOCK DOCUMENTARY

Hours and hours of footage are dedicated to examining the work of the late Alfred Hitchcock, but what would the director himself have to say if he were here to reflect on his legacy?

That’s the premise at the centre of Mark Cousins’ new film, continuing the historical analysis he began with the epic documentary The Story of Film.

SEE GRENFELL: IN THE WORDS OF SURVIVORS

A new play opening at the National Theatre incorporates actual testimony from survivors of the Grenfell tragedy. It is based on conversations with north Kensington locals and is sure to pack a punch.

Nationaltheatre.org.uk; Friday 21 July at 7pm; 22 July at 1.30 and 7pm

BARBENHEIMER A GO-GO

Two of the biggest films of the year are released tomorrow, Barbie and Oppenheimer. Film fans have coined the phrase ‘Barbenheimer’ and are going to watch the films back to back. Vue West End, Rich Mix, Regent Street Cinema, Peckhamplex, the Cinema at Selfridges, and Picturehouse are all running special events.

Across London, all weekend

Impressionist Alistair McGowan voices Hitch, narrating over excerpts from his movies in the role of the great director.

It’s an effective twist on the usual Cousins formula, which swaps out his hushed Northern Irish tones for something that feels more direct.

This fictional Hitchcock makes observations on the modern world, and how his art was always meant

to drag us out of our comfort zone. Little snippets, like insisting audiences are left in the dark for 30 seconds after watching Psycho, show the level to which he was committed to that aim.

As the film goes on, it’s easy to believe this is an archive recording, as McGowan’s breaths and turns of phrase feel authentic to Hitchcock’s public persona.

Recent analysis and accusations, including from iconic Hitchcock lead Tippi Hedren, revealed him to be abusive and problematic behind the scenes. Cousins doesn’t reflect that in his creation, but nor does he cover it up.

Despite the title, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock keeps the work front and centre, allowing you to look at how and why these stories were made without canonising the creator.

A must-see for movie buffs who want to look behind the thrills.

The start of the Women’s World Cup is one reason to get out this weekendAdam Bloodworth on the best of the rest

Connecting the Community

Bitcoin could yet play a role in our battle over a climate crisis

BITCOIN could help towards mitigating the climate change emergency that is currently manifesting itself as extreme heatwaves across the northern hemisphere, according to new analysis.

Both the US and China saw the mercury rising beyond 50C on Sunday, and southern Europe is bracing for the all-time records to be broken.

And while many crypto naysayers point a finger of blame towards the electricity consumption racked up by Bitcoin mining operations, the CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations believes the flagship digital asset could have a positive role to play in the climate crisis.

Analysis from deVere Group chief Nigel Green claims that, amid the global climate change emergency, Bitcoin was emerging as a surprising contender for a potential solution.

“Contrary to belief in some quarters, this revolutionary digital currency has the capacity to drive positive change and aid in the fight against climate change,” said Green.

“With its unique characteristics and transformative potential, Bitcoin is positioned to play a crucial role in transitioning to a more sustainable and eco-friendly future.”

The finance expert explained that an often-overlooked point is that Bitcoin mining could actually speed up the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

“Clearly, clean energy is the way forward, but their sources are sometimes irregular and there’s not

enough storage capacity for when these sources generate excess energy,” he said.

“Bitcoin miners, who need huge amounts of energy, could act as major buyers of last resort, providing substantial profit for investment and expansion. This would then enhance the renewables supply, which would go on to bring down prices for consumers and further drive demand.”

He also stressed the promotion of financial inclusion, claiming

Bitcoin has the potential to enhance financial inclusion for underserved populations around the world. He believes that, by providing individuals with access to digital currencies and blockchain-based financial services, Bitcoin can empower the unbanked and foster economic growth in marginalised communities.

“This increased access to financial resources enables individuals to invest in sustainable practices and contribute to climate change mitiga-

CRYPTO NEWS IN BRIEF

LONDON’S ARCHAX CELEBRATES ISO AWARD

FCA regulated digital asset exchange

Archax is toasting the award of its ISO 27001 certification. The London-based broker and custodian gained the certification this week after meeting strict security and compliance standards. This certification is backed by the International Standards Organization (ISO). “The successful attainment of ISO27001 reinforces our policies of adhering to stringent regulations and control measures across all aspects of our operational infrastructure,” said Ben Brown, Chief Compliance Officer at Archax.

COINGECKO REPORT HIGHLIGHTS DOMINANCE OF BITCOIN

MARKET analyst CoinGecko has revealed its quarterly findings show that Bitcoin’s market dominance has returned to levels last seen in the second quarter of 2021. Figures show the leading cryptocurrency reached a market share of 47.9 per cent as investors rotated out of alt coins over the last three months.

However, trading volume fell by almost 20 per cent on the previous quarter, largely due to losses from spot markets, with centralised exchanges hit harder than decentralised exchanges – 43 per cent and 28 per cent respectively.

tion,” Green explained.

“While no monetary system or investment is perfect, and the crypto ecosystem can still improve in many ways, the argument that digital currencies cannot necessarily form part of a climate change mitigation strategy does not stand-up to scrutiny.

“Indeed, as the emergency intensifies, we must use every weapon at our disposal to fight it – and Bitcoin is one of them.”

Ripples of positivity with new Kennedy candidate

IT’S been quite a week for XRP investors, with the recent reprieve in its legal troubles continuing to see it outperform the rest of the market.

XRP has shot up more than 60 per cent over the past week after the Southern District of New York ruled that it could not be classified as a security as it’s “not necessarily a security on its face”. Big words from a big district. But does this mean the end to XRP’s legal troubles?

Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse certainly thinks so, branding

the ruling “a huge win for Ripple but more importantly for the industry overall in the US”.

Though it certainly doesn’t seem to be an immediate win for other cryptocurrencies, with the majority flat or down in the last week. Only Stellar (XLM) has managed to keep pace, climbing 42 per cent over the past seven days. Bitcoin is down 2.5 per cent to just below $30k.

There was good news of a sort for Bitcoin though, with outsider presidential

candidate Robert Kennedy promising to progressively back the United States dollar with Bitcoin if he is elected president.

Speaking at a July 19 Heal-the-Divide PAC event, Kennedy claimed that Bitcoin was hard currency and using it as backing for the US dollar could help to “restore strength back to the dollar, rein in inflation and usher in a new era of American financial stability, peace and prosperity”. Whether Kennedy gets himself into a position to actually make it so is up for

debate, but he follows what seems to be a growing tradition of outsider presidential candidates to endorse crypto after Andrew Yang did so in the previous 2020 election campaign. Now it just needs an insider candidate to make Bitcoin a central plank in his economic policy and we’re away.

“Q2 was mainly marked by crypto regulation, with turmoil in the US contrasting against greater clarity in Europe and Hong Kong,” said COO Bobby Ong. “Moving into the second half of 2023, we’ll be watching out for further developments in SEC’s lawsuits and the BlackRock-led spot Bitcoin ETF applications.”

US SEES SURGE IN MEME COIN POPULARITY

A NEW study has revealed that meme coins have been dramatically gaining popularity in the US. Research conducted by CryptoBetting.com into search volume data revealed that, while Bitcoin remains at the top with 1.9m searches per month, Shiba Inu and Dogecoin had stolen second and third positions. There are currently 484,000 monthly searches for Shiba Inu, 280,000 for Doge, 238,000 for Ethereum, with Cardano in fifth at 118,000.

STELLAR PERFORMANCE

THE usually quite dormant Stellar Lumens has been providing most of the sport outside of Ripple’s XLP this past week with a stunning 45 per cent lift in price. At $0.14, XLM is currently boasting a monthly rise of almost 80 per cent with buying activity at a remarkable 98 per cent as 24-hour trading volume hit a 125 per cent upcurve last night.

However, the nine-year-old token has some way to go to reach its all-time high of $0.94 achieved in January 2018.

FOR ALL THE LATEST NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS HEAD OVER TO CRYPTOAM.IO

BACK in my investment banking days, I was responsible from across the Atlantic for a US research department.

Every time I headed for JFK after a visit to my team of analysts I felt I needed a shower, so grasping was the culture in that office. I often have the same urge after writing, yet again, about the greed and ills of the sporting industry. Last week my search for an antidote took me to the South Downs with the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation. Reader, I feel revived.

The Arundel Castle Cricket Ground is possibly the most idyllic sporting venue you might find. Significantly, in this context, it might as well be a million miles (rather than just 50 or so) from the more challenged corners of London, neighbourhoods in which young kids may rarely experience organised sport on green pitches, or even have seen the sea.

Last week I watched 30 youngsters from Haringey enjoy a residential programme of activities ranging from bushcraft and time in the sea to a motivational session with a former cricketer and basic skills coaching with bat and ball. This is the foundation’s stock in trade, using the Duke of Norfolk’s grounds and funded by a mixture of philanthropy and grants. Around 1,500 kids from London and Sussex have some contact with the foundation each year, and all delivered by only two full-time staff and one half-timer.

CEO Tim Shutt stresses it isn’t about finding young cricketers for an elite pathway. It’s as much as he can do to identify clubs in London to direct kids towards if they get the bug over a few days in Arundel. Instead he emphasises the difference between sport development and sport as development – the ability of sport to reshape individuals and communities.

Arundel Castle is the only small charity utilising the power of sport. I chair the foundation at Crystal Palace FC and much that I heard from Tim resonated with the experiences of Palace for Life in Croydon and our surrounding boroughs. Across football, rugby,

ATHLETICS

COMMUNITY CRICKET CAN CURE GAME’S ELITIST ISSUE

OU SONT LES MEDAILLES?

There’s 372 days to go until the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. I’ve written before about the very real risk that France is the first nation in recent times that fails to get a home team bounce in the medal table.

Evidence of local advantage is typically first seen at the prior Olympics, but France went backwards in Tokyo, slipping from 42 to 33 medals. And its recent World Championships results in marquee sports have been poor.

It will need to improve sharply on a single medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championships at this summer’s edition in Budapest, for example, but it’s hard to see where the improvement will come from.

The latest warning bell was rung at the World Para Athletics Championships which ended at the weekend.

I was still chairing World Para Athletics for the IPC when we awarded this 2023 edition of the event to Paris, in part to help build local engagement ahead of the Paralympic Games.

With tickets for the Paras going on sale in the autumn, the sight of near empty stands will have been worrying for the Paris organising committee.

Castle Cricket Foundation

cricket and many other sports, small charities provide transformative opportunities for young people.

My uplifting visit was timely, in the aftermath of the report into elitism in cricket. That made much of the lack of state school provision as a source of engrained social bias, an observation applicable across many sports.

It’s hardly cricket’s fault that playing fields have been sold off, or that schools don’t have resources for specialist coaching. The sport isn’t helped

either by the structure of the game, which sees participants inactive for most of every match. But cricket could help itself by encouraging more organic initiatives like those at Arundel to take root, free of the formal structures of the sport, away from rolled wickets and practice nets.

This could only happen if grant givers, from central government outwards, focus less on conventional participation numbers as the basis for funding. The Arundel Castle Cricket

Foundation may add only a few chalk marks to the tally of young people playing regularly, but the bang for the buck it delivers on a budget of just £400,000 is clear to anyone prepared to listen to the kids on its programmes.

Memo to Richard Thompson at the England and Wales Cricket Board: cricket stands accused of too much privilege, but if you can harness the resources that this entails you have the opportunity for a real transformation of your sport’s place in society.

And the medal table? France finished a lowly 58th of 62 medal-winning nations with a paltry four bronzes. Preparations are clearly patchy across French sport, but there are some pockets of true excellence. Closest to my personal interest, France has emerged as a potent force in wheelchair rugby, winning the past two editions of the Euros. In Tokyo, GB was the first ever European nation to win a rugby medal of any colour at the Paras when our team bagged gold. We may not be alone for long.

Women top bill on Diamond League’s return

AFTER a four-year absence, top level track and field will return to the capital this weekend when the London Stadium stages Diamond League athletics.

More than a decade after Mo Farah did the double, Usain Bolt the treble and Super Saturday took place at the London 2012 Olympics, Sunday offers a chance for the next generation to make a name for themselves.

There’s no shortage of talent on show

Track and field is heading back to east London this weekend following a four-year absence, writes Matt Hardy

either at a stadium that was designed for athletics but has since been disguised as the home of West Ham United.

For the first time in a number of years the stands won’t look awkward and the venue will return to its roots.

Interestingly, the schedule culminates with two women’s events, the 100m and 800m, suggesting

British interest and blockbuster action has shifted away from the traditional men’s 100m, which doesn’t even feature.

In the women’s 100m British duo Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita will aim to challenge the incredible Shericka Jackson of Jamaica and her American rival Sha’Carri Richardson.

There may be no Shelly-Ann FraserPryce in the mix – she’s competing tomorrow in Luzern, Switzerland –but there is an astonishing depth of talent on the starting blocks.

The Diamond League is not like the World Championships or nationals, which feature heats, semi-finals and finals; it is a series of one-off events with one race for each discipline. Much of the interest, however, will

be on the final race of the evening as British sensation Keely Hodgkinson races at the former Olympic stadium for the first time in the 800m.

Hodgkinson is seen as an heir to Jessica Ennis and Greg Rutherford as a British athlete able to consistently challenge for wins. The 21-year-old could blow the partial roof off the east London arena.

But a return to London is more than just using athletics to fill the coffers – that was proved earlier this year when the event was thrown into doubt over funding issues.

That it is happening at all is a sign of confidence in track and field, something that has not been seen for a while.

The stadium is set to be close to

capacity just a couple of years after the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and the European Championships in Munich, Germany struggled to sell tickets.

Brits proved during the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and immediate aftermath of London 2012 that there is an appetite for track and field in this country.

It is a sport often filled with exciting moments and drama, so it has been a shame to see it relegated to unfit arenas, though a redeveloped Alexander Stadium in Birmingham could easily become a long-term home for athletics once again.

So while it is back in the capital we should rejoice, because London once again is at the centre of a global sport. And as the world’s eyes are on the Big Smoke, it’s only fair the city gives them a Super Sunday of track and field to remember.

It could help itself by encouraging more initiatives like those at the Arundel

Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes at sportinc.substack.com

Hodgkinson is Britain’s new golden girl

SPORT COMMENT

Ed Warner

Lions is pinnacle of rugby. I wish I donned the famous red shirt

IENJOYED my career, let’s get that straight from the off, but I wish I had donned the famous British and Irish Lions jersey at least once. It was back then, and remains to this day, the pinnacle of rugby for a British or Irish rugby player and it is an institution that we simply must maintain.It cannot die.

So when I peered at the schedule for the 2025 tour to Australia I was excited to see that the Melbourne Cricket Ground would be hosting the second Test.

The middle of the three Tests is effectively a decider in disguise; it either secures the series for one side or levels it for the other.

And to put the selection of the MCG in perspective, it is a 100,000-seater cricket ground rarely used for rugby.

It is a vote in confidence for the institution that is the Lions and a major green light for the future of the tour. Sure, we might see the addition of fixtures against Argentina, Japan and others, but the core concept remains the same.

And I envisage Ireland head coach Andy Farrell getting the nod to head up the Lions coaching team too.

The Lions tour is not just the sport’s pinnacle for players; it has a mystique and aura for coaches as well.

Farrell went down in history as a British and Irish Lions orator last time the side went Down Under; his “Hurt Arena” speech remains synonymous with the concept of the Lions.

But I don’t think Farrell would include Ronan O’Gara in his backroom team. Would you take the man who has openly said he wants your job?

No, I didn’t think so.

A return to a nine-match schedule – potentially 10 with a stop on the way there or back – feels like the Lions returning to their roots and that can only be a good thing for the sport.

The game is dying in some areas and the Lions is a concept that can be used to grow the game.

I am just gutted I never got to wear the famous red shirt.

SEVEN HEAVEN

The new Sevens circuit looks to be targeting devel-

RUGBY WORLD CUP BAROMETER

PLAYER OF THE WEEK Puma Santiago Grondona

RUGBY COMMENT

Ollie Phillips

oping rugby countries such as Spain, Canada and the United States. But ultimately it is a shame that it has come at the cost of the heartlands like London.

It is a real blow for the capital to lose such an iconic leg of the tour; I was the last England captain to lead my country to a win at the venue, believe it or not.

I understand that the future competitions will also include fitness and wellbeing elements so it is quite the shift from a boozy day out among 60,000 people at Twickenham.

SEXTON DILEMMA

I am split on the Johnny Sexton decision. My heart tells me that the World Cup would be a poorer place without the No10 – one of the greatest Irishman to grace the game – and for him to have his swansong over in France at the showpiece event seems fitting.

But I cannot look beyond the fact that he broke an ethical code we all, in and outside of sport, should abide by. Be respectful to others and don’t be an arse unnecessarily.

I am really disappointed in the way he acted in that Champions Cup final and he’ll know deep down that it was not right, too. But the independent disciplinary panel have made their decision and we must all stick with it.

The question remains whether he will be fit enough to mount an Irish charge for the William Webb Ellis trophy.

£ Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance, experts in leadership development and behavioural change. Follow Ollie on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

2025 LIONS TOUR TO AUSTRALIA

WHO’S HOT WHO’S NOT

Argentina flanker Santiago Grondona will not be a new name to fans of English Premiership; the 24-year-old played at Exeter Chiefs for much of last season before a move to French outfit Pau. But his performance in Argentina’s 34-31 victory over Australia on Saturday saw him announce himself on the international stage. The flanker was crucial in the win and has given head coach Michael Cheika something to think about for the Rugby World Cup.

Eddie Jones is yet to win as Australia boss and now faces a double header with New Zealand. With France up soon, he could be zero from five.

Malcolm Marx was a rare bright spot in South Africa’s dismal 35-20 loss to New Zealand, the hooker making an impact off the bench.

Seen as a promising Rugby World Cup loosehead just months ago, Bevan Rodd was one of just two players dropped by England this week.

Mark Nawaqanitawase was brilliant on debut for the Wallabies. Despite their loss to the Pumas, he was a key cog in multiple tries.

SPORT

Open bosses in climbdown over Saudi Arabian sponsorship

FRANK DALLERES

OPEN Championship chiefs have admitted they would consider sponsorship from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund despite previously criticising its impact on the sport through LIV Golf.

On the eve of last year’s tournament Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, said LIV Golf was “harming the perception of the game” and depicted it as “entirely driven by money”.

Since then, however, the PIF has muscled into the establishment by striking a deal to unite LIV Golf with the PGA Tour and its European counterpart, the DP World Tour, under a single entity.

Saudi Arabia has also extended its sporting influence by bankrolling the recruitment of big-name European footballers such as Karim Benzema to its domestic league.

The Open does not have a title sponsor and the R&A, which runs the major, insists it never will, but Slumbers’ comments ahead of today’s teeing-off nonetheless represent a change in tone.

“We continue to talk to various potential sponsors. We have a number of large corporate partners that help us make this thing happen,” he said.

“I think the world has changed in the last year. It’s not just golf. You’re seeing

FOOTBALL

LADIES’ NIGHT

Women top bill as Diamond League athletics returns to London

22

it in football. You’re seeing it in F1. You’re seeing it in cricket. I’m sure tennis won’t be that far behind.

“The world of sport has changed dramatically in the last 12 months and it is not feasible for the R&A or golf to just ignore what is a societal change on a global basis.

“We will be considering, within all the parameters that we look at, all the options that we have.”

Slumbers repeated that LIV Golf’s huge prize funds remained a threat to the Open model, which sees profits reinvested in the development of the game.

Whoever lifts the Claret Jug on Sunday

Milestone for Broad in Ashes at Old Trafford

for three.

MATT HARDY

will receive £2.3m ($3m) from a prize pot of £12.7m ($16.5m), an 18 per cent uplift on last year but still short of the $20m on offer at each LIV Golf tournament.

“We have a huge responsibility to the game around the world to grow it, to govern it, and to ensure it’s thriving, and our one asset which is profitable is this week,” Slumbers added.

“I think you’re seeing the change in the entire business model of men’s professional golf and that’s a significant challenge for us when you take into account our desire to keep growing the game and investing all the proceeds we make into the game.”

Women’s World Cup sets ticket record before a ball is kicked

FRANK DALLERES

THE NINTH Women’s World Cup is set to kick-off today in Australia and New Zealand having already set a new record for tickets sales.

Organisers have sold 1.4m seats for the tournament, eclipsing the previous benchmark of 1.35m tickets bought at the 2015 edition in Canada. Co-hosts Australia have sold out of regular seats at all three of their group games, including their tournament opener this morning against Ireland at the 75,000-seater Stadium Australia.

Tickets for England games have also proven among the most

popular, with few seats remaining for their group fixtures against Haiti, China and Denmark.

New Zealand get the tournament underway against Norway today at Eden Park in Auckland, while European champions England open their campaign against Haiti on Saturday. World Cup holders the USA begin on Saturday when they face Vietnam. Ticket sales are also reported to be strong for the Americans’ matches.

This is the biggest edition of the Women’s World Cup to date, increasing from 24 to 32 teams and raising the number of games from 52 to 64.

ENGLAND bowler Stuart Broad got his 600th wicket yesterday as his side restricted Australia to 299-8 on the opening day of a crucial Test in this year’s Ashes series.

England must win at Old Trafford this week if they’re to keep hopes of reclaiming the urn alive and take the Ashes to a decider at the Oval next week.

The hosts won the toss and put Australia into bat knowing weather could come into play in the latter stages of the fourth match of the series in Manchester.

England’s first wicket of the saw Usman Khawaja dismissed by Broad

It was Broad’s 600thTest wicket on the ground where he got his 200th and 500th dismissals.

The pacer has taken the second most wickets of any seamer in Test cricket, behind only fellow Englishman James Anderson.

“It was a pretty decent day and there is something nice about getting a 600th pole from the James Anderson End,” Broad said of his milestone wicket. “It’s a very special feeling. When I went past Glenn McGrath, my hero growing up, that was really cool. I suppose it’s a thing of longevity and I am addicted to Test cricket. I like the grit and competitive nature of it. It’s great to

be on that list with some of the greats of the game.

“I remember getting my cap from Ian Botham and my mindset was never playing Test cricket was the achievement, but having an impact on it.”

David Warner was dismissed for 32 by Chris Woakes before Steve Smith fell for 41, Marnus Labuschagne for 51 and Travis Head for 48.

Woakes got his second, third and fourth wickets of the day when Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green and Alex Carey all fell.

Mitchell Starc concluded the day on an unbeaten 23 alongside Pat Cummins on one not out.

Chelsea land deal boost to Stamford Bridge revamp

FRANK DALLERES

CHELSEA have boosted their prospects of redeveloping Stamford Bridge after winning the race to buy adjacent land.

The Blues are keen to play at a bigger home and are exploring the possibility of expanding their current stadium, which holds 40,000 fans.

The club saw off 12 other bids to agree a deal for a 1.2 acre site belonging to Stoll, a provider of housing for veterans, next to their ground. It gives Chelsea extra space on which to rebuild Stamford Bridge, should they choose to remain at their current location.

They are reported to be considering

three options: a full rebuild, increasing capacity one stand at a time, and relocating to Earls Court.

Chelsea chiefs Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital made the stadium project a priority upon buying the club last year. Previous owner Roman Abramovich commissioned plans for an eye-catching rebuild but shelved them amid a diplomatic row with the UK government over his visa renewal.

Buying the Stoll site remains subject to a consultation with residents. A final decision is expected in the autumn. Chelsea could temporarily relocate to Wembley, Twickenham or Fulham’s Craven Cottage if they decide to redevelop Stamford Bridge.

GOLF

R&A boss Martin Slumbers said “the world has changed”

FOOTBALL