T t 2014 12 01

OF LONDON

monday december 1 2014 | thetimes.co.uk | no 71368

How to spy on your partner ner We test the ‘marriage’ app Pages 30-31

Over half of crime chiefs accused of misconduct

the game

The best of the weekend action Sport, pages 46-55 LIA TOBY / WENN

MPs to scrutinise police commissioner complaints Fiona Hamilton Crime Correspondent

More than half of the coalition’s elected police chiefs have already been investigated by the policing watchdog midway into their term, The Times can reveal.

New figures show that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has looked into more than 40 complaints of alleged wrongdoing by 23 police and crime commissioners.

This amounts to over half of the 41 PCCs who were elected for fouryear terms in November 2012 after the abolition of police authorities in England and Wales.

A parliamentary committee is now about to investigate the high level of complaints amid concern about scrutiny of the powerful post. At present PCCs can only be removed at the ballot box.

The office has been hit by a series of controversies, the most notable of which resulted in the resignation in September of Shaun Wright, the South Yorkshire PCC, after weeks of pressure over the Rotherham child abuse scandal.

The IPCC is assessing a complaint about his alleged knowledge of child sexual exploitation allegations while he worked at Rotherham metropolitan borough council. It is expected to announce shortly whether a formal investigation is warranted.

A spokesman for the IPCC confirmed that between the 2012 elections and October 31 it had received 44 complaints about 23 PCCs. The grievances were referred from the relevant police force or the PCC’s own office.

The watchdog conducted initial investigations, or scoping exercises, into

the majority of complaints. Twelve were dismissed because they related to a procedural matter, but six progressed to formal, independent inquiries.

The IPCC is overseeing a seventh inquiry, in which the investigative work is being undertaken by City of London police.

The remaining 25 matters were referred back to local police and crime panels, set up to scrutinise PCCs, as the IPCC’s limited powers mean it can only investigate matters that reach the criminal threshold.

Clive Grunshaw, the Lancashire PCC, is among the commissioners facing a formal investigation. The Crown Prosecution Service is considering material concerning mileage claims that he made while he was a Labour county councillor.

The IPCC is expected to announce shortly whether it will refer the case of Ron Hogg, the Durham PCC, to the CPS over allegations about benefits received while serving with Cleveland police.

Other allegations that it has considered include the leaking of confidential information and electoral fraud. The watchdog is also assessing whether a police constable was obstructed in his duties while he investigated whether Ann Barnes, Kent’s scandal-hit PCC, was driving her Mercedes without proper car insurance.

Mr Grunshaw and Mr Hogg have denied wrongdoing. Mrs Barnes has declined to comment on the case.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the parliamentary home affairs select committee, said that he would be writing to police and crime panels about the Continued on page 4, col 1 Leading article, page 20

Centre stage Benedict Cumberbatch and his fiancée, Sophie Hunter, were among a host of stars at the 60th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards last night. Gillian Anderson won best actress and Tom Hiddleston best actor. Page 13

Private-school confidence ‘hurts society’ Nicola Woolcock Education Correspondent

Some privately educated pupils have a bullish and charmless confidence and can “asphyxiate the society they move in”, the head of a leading independent school has said.

There are downsides to the overconfidence instilled by an independent education that can repel people, according to Andrew Halls, the headmaster of King’s College School in London.

However, Mr Halls said that the private sector’s adherence to “old-fashioned” practices such as the house and prefect system gave pupils confidence

and a “sense that influence matters”. He added that because teachers were less in thrall to the “dead hand of the state” they could choose methods that made their pupils more self-assured.

The confidence imparted by independent schools into its charges has been praised by the Labour shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, who said that this innate belief in one’s own abilities was often lacking in stateeducated pupils.

However, Mr Halls said that overconfidence could have a downside for society. “Some independent school children can asphyxiate the society they move in because their confidence is so

bullish and charmless,” he said. “There are downsides to overconfidence; people can feel a bit repelled by it.”

The headmaster was also critical of the “distasteful” competition between independent schools, which ended up with pupils having “ludicrously extravagant facilities” at their disposal.

He described an “arms race” in recent years, with schools competing to build the best facilities. “I understand the commercial logic of keeping up with the Joneses but you [end up] with children with ludicrously extravagant facilities.”

Damian Lewis, the actor and Old Etonian who is due to play Henry VIII Continued on page 8, col 1

IN THE NEWS Military Cross scandal Roads revolution The integrity of the military honours system is being questioned amid allegations that a second Military Cross was awarded after exaggerated accounts of gallantry. Page 3

The “biggest, boldest” road building programme in 25 years will be announced today, but forecasts suggest the new capacity will quickly be filled by more traffic. Page 7

Gene call on cancer

Co-op Bank ‘fails test’

Burgess on fast track

Women should be offered tests for gene mutations that raise their risk of breast cancer, said scientists, after research found that current screening misses up to half of cases. Page 13

The scandal-hit Co-operative Bank is expected to fail a “stress test” and could be forced to accelerate its recovery plan to satisfy regulators. Business, page 36

England will consider giving Sam Burgess his first taste of representative rugby union next month after he played for 17 minutes on his debut for Bath on Friday. Sport, page 64

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Opinion

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All the evidence says that pilotless planes are a lot better and safer

Call to use genetic tests to find more women at risk of breast cancer

Business

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Benedict Carey, page 33

Chris Smyth, page 13

Matt Ridley, page 17

New 12-sided £1 coin fails to cover all the angles

The 12 ways that we really learn as adults

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China refuses to grant visas for MPs to visit Hong Kong Francis Elliott Political Editor Leo Lewis Beijing Suzanne Sataline Hong Kong

China appeared ready to risk a full confrontation with Britain last night as it emerged that the country had banned MPs from visiting Hong Kong.

MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee had been due to visit later this month as part of its investigation into the UK’s relations with its former colony 30 years after it was handed over to China.

However, Ni Jian, China’s deputy ambassador to Britain, told its chairman, the Conservative MP Sir Richard Ottoway, that they would not be welcome. In a confrontation on Friday, the diplomat said that the MPs’ visit could be construed as offering support to prodemocracy campaigners and meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

News of the snub came as protests surged back to life after two months of stalemate and shrinkage for a civil disobedience movement that calls for fully free elections in Hong Kong.

China’s refusal is of potentially huge symbolic importance — an assertion to the world at large that the influence of

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Hong Kong’s former colonial master on the territory has been completely eradicated.

The Foreign Office limited itself to saying that Beijing’s action was “regrettable” last night in a statement that also sought to distance the government from the MPs. “The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is independent of the UK government and is responsible for determining its own programme of inquiries.

However, the Chinese government’s message to the FAC that they will be refused entry into Hong Kong is regrettable,” said a spokesman.

Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, faces having to expand on that response in the Commons today as MPs demand an emergency debate on the snub.

Critics are likely to cite the relatively mild response as further evidence that Britain is allowing financial benefits to trump other considerations in its dealings with Beijing.

China-based British diplomats said privately that the current UK-China detente, which ended a near two-year deep freeze after the Dalai Lama’s visit to London and was supposedly secured

by the 2013 visits to China by George Osborne and David Cameron, has only ever been a fragile one.

A senior banker based in Hong Kong told The Times that the snub sent a “really pretty unsettling message” about Beijing’s preparedness to ditch the usual norms of inter-governmental engagement. “I’m not saying this is a moment for panic, but nobody likes to see the government of a G8 country behaving this unpredictably.”

Experts said it betrayed Beijing’s fears over Hong Kong as protesters wearing goggles and face masks prepared for official resistance as they rallied in apparent revenge for last week’s dismantling of a large protest site in Kowloon.

Ignoring the threat of pepper spray and batons, demonstrators flooded on to Lung Wo Road, which runs directly outside the seat of Hong Kong’s government, and vowed to hold the arterial highway against any police onslaught.

Some billed action as effectively the last stand for the pro-democracy movement. “Tonight, people want to occupy all the government buildings,” said Kelvin Chan, 23. “If we lose this battle, then everything will be done.”

Tories defend minister who Voters have gave rude speech for a dare had enough of Tim MacFarlan

of LONDON

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Conservative politicians have defended a minister who used a Commons speech on poultry to say the word “cock” six times for a dare.

Penny Mordaunt, the communities minister and MP for Portsmouth North, made a spoof speech on animal welfare in which she also said the words “lay” or “laid” five times.

While accepting The Spectator’s Speech of the Year award at a ceremony last week, Ms Mordaunt, who is also a Royal Navy reservist, confessed that her remarks were made in the wake of a mess dinner where she had been ordered to perform a forfeit. The award had been given for another speech this year during which she said the words “penis” and “testicles”.

The editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, mounted a strong defence of her “harmless gag”, writing in a blog: “Without a bit of humour and levity where would Parliament be? And can we imagine how mind-numbingly dull the place would be without the likes of Penny Mordaunt? If she was a banker who did this as a bet to her fellow directors, she might deserve some criticism.

But as she did this for sailors in the Royal Navy, her ‘stunt’ ought to be seen as a form of national service.”

Others took to Twitter to back her.

Michael Fabricant, the Tory MP for Lichfield, wrote: “Penny Mordaunt has shown feistiness and good humour. For those who criticise her: Get a life! And from me to her: Good on yer!”

John Wall, a Conservative councillor in Hampshire, tweeted: “Good to have a member of Parliament and minister with a sense of humour who doesn’t take herself seriously.”

Ms Mordaunt told The Mail on Sunday: “If I have offended anyone, I’m sorry. Feel free to beat me up over it.”

In the speech, on March 26 last year, she said: “The cause of hen and cock welfare is raised with me by many constituents. One strutting coxcomb will lead to many chicks and what is to become of the male contingent with not a layer among them?”

She went on to discuss the plight of “end-of-lay birds” and ended with “let us have no more cock-ups on hen welfare”. Other references included “cock crow”, “cock welfare” and “cock a hoop”.

In her acceptance speech at the Savoy last week, Ms Mordaunt admitted: “The fine was to say a particular word, an abbreviation of cockerel, several times during a speech on the floor of the Commons.” Other MPs used the same session to debate issues such as the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and the Mid-Staffordshire hospital scandal.

TMS, page 11

Plebgate MP Francis Elliott Political Editor

Andrew Mitchell’s hopes of staging a political comeback received a further setback yesterday as a new poll showed most people believe that he did call a policeman a “pleb”.

The former chief whip, who lost a libel action against The Sun, whose parent company News UK also owns The Times, has said he won’t quit politics in the wake of last week’s judgment.

A YouGov poll for the Red Box website, however, shows that more people think he should stand down as an MP— 46 per cent — than think he should carry on — 36 per cent. The margin was much wider among respondents who were asked whether they believed Mr Mitchell had called the policeman on Downing Street gates a “pleb”.

Some 63 per cent of people thought he had used the word which Mr Mitchell described as “politically toxic”, with 15 per cent believing he did not.

On Friday Mr Cameron condemned the former cabinet secretary’s behaviour. “Let me be clear, it is never right to be abusive or rude to a police officer.”

It was reported yesterday that senior figures close to David Cameron had said it was “highly unlikely” Mr Mitchell would return to the cabinet.

Mellor questioned by police over ‘racist rant’ Sonia Elks

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David Mellor was questioned by police over an allegedly racist tirade towards a security guard, in a second embarrassing scrape for the former minister.

Mr Mellor was said to have directed an expletive-laden rant at a Polish guard for not standing immediately outside his home in St Katharine Docks, central London.

“Mr Mellor was absolutely furious,” a source told The Sun on Sunday. “His total rant went on for about ten minutes

and he was constantly swearing and using the f-word.” Reports said that Mr Mellor had also abused a Nepalese colleague who was telephoned to help to deal with the incident.

Scotland Yard said that a man was questioned under caution in May last year on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence in March. “He attended an east London police station by appointment. He was not arrested.

Following advice from the CPS no further action will be taken.”

The reports come hours after Mr

Mellor made a profuse public apology for verbally abusing a cab driver. He was caught on tape telling the driver to “f*** off” in a row over the route, and calling him a “sweaty, stupid little s**t”.

He also boasted of his career before adding: “You think that your experiences are anything compared to mine?”

During a phone-in session on his LBC radio show, he said: “I can’t think what possessed me to lose it with that cabbie the way I did.” Saying he was “really, really sorry”, he added: “It’s water for me at the next celebratory lunch.”

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Army gallantry awards under fire PETER BYRNE / PA

A few weeks after an officer was stripped of his medal a second case is being investigated, writes Tom Coghlan The integrity of Britain’s centuries-old military honours system has been questioned amid allegations that a second Military Cross has been awarded after exaggerated accounts of a soldier’s gallantry.

An investigation is under way into the actions of Lieutenant William Boreham of 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, who was awarded a Military Cross for his courage during a patrol in September 2012.

In October, Major Robert Armstrong of the Royal Artillery became the first officer ever to have his gallantry award rescinded, after he was found to have written his own exaggerated medal citation.

Senior officers expressed alarm at news of the second investigation.

“Clearly we have had one case recently and now another,” said Lord Dannatt, a former commander of the British army. “One is unfortunate, two is very unfortunate and three is a trend.

The awards system depends on the integrity of all involved.”

The MoD declined to discuss the investigation by the Royal Military Police. An army spokesperson said: “It would be wholly inappropriate for us to comment on any matters that may relate to ongoing investigations.”

The Times understands that the investigation will seek to establish whether the medal citation was exaggerated, and if so, by whom.

Military rules dictate that the recipient of a gallantry award should not know in advance and should have no hand in the writing of the citation, which should be written by a more senior officer.

This creates the possibility that Lieutenant Boreham may have had no knowledge before the award was announced of claims being made on his behalf.

Officials stressed that any doubts over whether decorations had been fairly

awarded would always be thoroughly investigated.

Serving and former soldiers have raised concerns over the potential for misuse of the system. Quotas imposed in Afghanistan and Iraq on the number of medals that can be awarded are cited as creating incentives for exaggeration or even outright fraud.

“The gallantry system has an issue because of the quotas — Afghanistan has highlighted it,” said one decorated serving officer, who cannot be named.

Another former officer, who did not wish to be named, said of the system generally: “There is no doubt in my mind that accounts have been embellished. The system cannot be corrupt if it is to have credibility.”

Lieutenant Boreham, 34, from Cheshire, was ten minutes into his first patrol in Helmand, walking behind a soldier from the King’s Royal Hussars, when the man trod on an improvised explosive device.

The lieutenant was “stunned by the blas blast”, his citation claimed, but quickly reco recovered and sent a radio report calling for a medical evacuation

Lieutenant William Boreham, left, was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry after he helped to rescue a fellow soldier wounded during a patrol in Helmand, but it has been claimed that his role was exaggerated

helicopter. He then helped another soldier to carry the man for 30 metres as bullets struck around them.

His citation concluded: “His ability to take charge of a situation which he had never experienced before, deal with a deadly insurgent attack and protect the lives of the remainder of the patrol and of the helicopter was a display of the very highest gallantry.”

However, after the medal was awarded the citation was challenged by members of the King’s Royal Hussars, who were also on the patrol as part of a handover process between the two units.

Defenders of the system say that it is rigorous but depends on the integrity of officers. Many acknowledge that Iraq and Afghanistan, where troops saw intense combat in mostly small-scale battles, created huge numbers of deserving candidates for a limited pool of awards.

However, one serving officer said: “All citations are embellished. If you write the bare facts, the very straight facts, none would pass muster. Everybody writes the facts and embellishes with colour. It is because there is a quota system. There shouldn’t be a quota system for courage.

“An officer will say: ‘I have to do the best for my man, he has to be better than this other guy.’ That is why they embellish. No one is doing it to cheat

George in decline as parents avoid royal name David Sanderson

Pity George: the royal toddler is being held responsible for a downturn in the fortunes of the once-popular name.

In June 2013 George was a favourite among mothers. Come July, and the aftermath of the maternity event of the year, his name plummeted.

With the prospect of another junior Cambridge putting royal names further into the spotlight, George has dropped further during 2014.

Sarah Redshaw, the managing editor of the website BabyCentre which compiles an annual chart of baby names, said new parents did not want the pressure of having a child with the same name as the prince.

“Kate and William have a lot of attention and parents don’t want to always be asked if they named their baby after

Prince George,” she said. “And now there’s a sibling on the way.”

Royal women have fared much better in the chart, which is compiled from 56,000 names. With the exception of Pippa, who has dropped 15 places, Elizabeth, Catherine and Zara have all moved up.

The top girl’s name this year is Sophia, which has risen two places, edging out Olivia.

For the boys, Muhammad, in its various spellings, is number one, relegating Oliver to second.

The data shows a general surge in Arabic names. While Muhammad has risen 27 places, other Arabic favourites, including Omar, Ali and Ibrahim, have all entered the top 100.

Nur is a new entry in the girl’s list, jumping to 29, while Maryam has risen 59 places to 35. Names that were popu-

George has had a big drop in popularity since the prince’s birth

lar in the 1970s had also staged a comeback. Emma is up to 19, Sarah to 51 and Maria to 81. Ms Redshaw said it was unusual for there to be such an early revival.

“It is unusual that names come back into vogue so quickly,” she said. “It may be that parents do want something that kids in their classroom were called.”

In addition, there are always the celebrity names currently in vogue.

Emilia, from Game of Thrones, enters at 57 while Daenerys and Tyrion from the same programme also featured.

Breaking Bad is being held responsible for the proliferation of Skyler and Walter.

“Celebrity names are names that you talk about with your friends,” Ms Redshaw said. “They are not in the newspapers every day so they do not have the same attention as a royal name.”

the system, they are doing it to get their soldiers recognised.”

In both the recent investigations, the complaints were made by soldiers from a different regiment.

A medal citation is written up initially by the most senior officer involved in the action and often reviewed or rewritten by a more senior officer. It then goes to the brigade commander, who will review and reject those deemed insufficiently remarkable before submitting those remaining to the MoD. The ministry’s gallantry awards review committee may then award appropriate medals from the various distinctions available.

Major-General Andrew Mackay, who commanded the British forces in Helmand in 2008, said that the system was “really rigorous” and insisted that there was some flexibility in the number of awards given.

He added: “I do think it puts a lot of pressure on how well [an award] is written up. Exaggeration tends to make it excluded [by the gallantry awards review committee], you get a sense of exaggeration. But there is an art in writing these things, of course.”

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News VAGNER VIDAL / INS

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

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Labour limit on sugar Labour would consider bringing in a limit on fat, salt and sugar in children’s food, the shadow health secretary has said. Andy Burnham said that more radical action needed to be considered as the “status quo simply isn’t working”. The MP for Leigh said: “I just cannot defend the amount of sugar that children are eating.

We’ve seen more and more sugar built in to our food over time.”

Black Friday’s dark side Let there be light A candlelit procession passes through Salisbury Cathedral during an Advent service that began in darkness and ended with 1,300 flickering flames

Police commissioners face inquiries on expense claims Fiona Hamilton Crime Correspondent

On 70 occasions between November 2012 and August last year, Stephen Bett left his 18th-century mansion in Thornham and drove to police headquarters.

Norfolk’s independent police and crime commissioner claimed mileage each time, amounting to a total of £3,024 or £43.20 per 90-minute trip.

The problem was that, under HM Revenue & Customs rules, people cannot claim mileage for trips from their home to their normal place of work.

When the claims were exposed by the BBC last November, Mr Bett said he had taken advice on what he could claim and said that his expenses were “above board”. However, he added that the headlines “could easily tarnish the reputation of policing in Norfolk” and duly pledged to pay the money back.

Mr Bett, who has a salary of £70,000, reimbursed the office in January but Norfolk’s police and crime panel, which scrutinises the work of the PCC, had received two complaints from the public and referred the issue to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Two other PCCs have been the sub-

ject of formal IPCC investigations involving benefits or expenses allegations, both of which are still unresolved.

The number of complaints could be far higher because, while the IPCC has received allegations of wrongdoing by 23 elected officials, it names PCCs only once they become the subject of an official investigation. There have so far been six investigations besides Mr Bett’s, four of which remain unresolved.

They include an inquiry into Ann Barnes, the independent PCC for Kent.

Mrs Barnes is being investigated following a car crash in September over allegations that her vehicle was not properly insured for business use.

The IPCC has since confirmed that the investigation has been widened to look into whether a constable was “obstructed in the execution of their duty” when making enquiries about her insurance cover. Mrs Barnes’s office said in a statement that it could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

An investigation into mileage claims

by Clive Grunshaw while he was a Labour county councillor and before he was elected Lancashire PCC is continuing. The Crown Prosecution Service in-

itially said it would not prosecute because there was “insufficient evidence” that claims were “submitted dishonestly”. However, it is reviewing further material after a complaint about the watchdog’s original investigation.

Mr Grunshaw has previously said that a line had been drawn under the allegations following the CPS’s initial conclusion he had no case to answer.

The IPCC is expected to announce soon whether it will refer the case of Ron Hogg, the Durham PCC, to the CPS over allegations about benefits received while serving with the Cleveland police. Mr Hogg has denied wrongdoing and said in a statement he was “confident” he had acted in “good faith”.

Two PCCs referred to the IPCC over allegations of electoral fraud were cleared and their local police and crime panels took no further action.

Olly Martins, the PCC for Bedfordshire, was also cleared after being interviewed under criminal caution. He was investigated for nine months and given a written warning by his local police and crime panel after he discussed police business about a controversial death in custody with his partner.

Crimes chiefs accused of misconduct Continued from page 1

25 complaints that the IPCC was unable to investigate, to ask what they had done about them.

Referring to the high number of complaints, Mr Vaz said: “This is a very disappointing total. What it shows is that people appear to have lost confidence with the office to such an extent that there is the equivalent of one com-

plaint per police authority.” The introduction of PCCs, who replaced police authorities, was a flagship of Conservative crime policy in the 2010 general election. The plans were implemented

by Theresa May, the home secretary.

PCCs can only be ousted at the ballot box every four years, unless they are convicted of a criminal offence.

However, in September, after the

Rotherham scandal and Mr Wright’s initial refusal to stand down, Mrs May signalled support for the introduction of recall powers for PCCs who were failing in their post.

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners is considering the proposal, as well as “beefing up” police and crime panels.

Leading article, page 20

PCCs flawed from start, says Labour Francis Elliott Political Editor

Labour said today’s revelations on the number of police and crime commissioners facing investigation vindicated its pledge to scrap the posts.

“Police and crime commissioners were Theresa May’s flagship policy but they were deeply flawed from the start,” said Yvette Cooper. “Some PCCs have been working immensely hard to make the system work but they have told us about the problems.”

Ms Cooper singled out the home secretary’s decision to sign off elections during late autumn for particular criticism and called on her to cancel the polls and use money on frontline recruitment instead.

“Theresa May’s decision to spend £75 million on elections in deepest, darkest November was risible. Since then we have seen some of the worst turnouts in British electoral history, again costing millions, and all the home secretary can do is look away. The chancellor of the exchequer has pulled the rug from beneath her flagship policy by announcing the abolition of one post already.

“Labour will create a system of stronger standards and enhanced local accountability, while abolishing PCCs and putting the savings back into frontline policing instead. People want police reforms that make a difference in their neighbourhood, not more Home Office waste”.

Mrs May has defended PCCs and insisted that turnouts would improve as people become more familiar with the role. In an interview with The Times last month, the home secretary also said she would consider allowing voters the same powers of recall for PCCs that are being introduced for disgraced MPs.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the marketing phenomenon of Black Friday as a “further step in the commercialisation” of Christmas.

Lord Carey of Clifton said some scenes in shops last week, where police had to intervene, were “disturbing”. He told The Mail on Sunday that the “import from the US has marked a new intensity in the festival of acquisition”.

‘Silent epidemic’ plea Dementia sufferers lack proper care because the illness is not recognised as terminal, according to a report. Research for Marie Curie and the Alzheimer’s Society draws attention to “the forgotten aspect” of a “silent epidemic”.

The report, published today, says: “We must ensure a stronger focus on the inevitable conclusion of what is a progressive, terminal condition.”

Big day for smalls The Y-front is celebrating its 80th birthday. Although sales have been hit by the popularity of boxer shorts, posing celebrities such as David Beckham have ensured that smalls remain big business. More than half a million pairs of Y-fronts are expected to be given as gifts in Britain this Christmas, according to Jockey, the US manufacturer of the original briefs.

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5. Wirewax impresses YO! Sushi founder 6. Top head attacks parents 7. Lee Evans: ‘I hate middle-class comedians’ 8. I forgot to be a millionaire 9. Do you want to live for ever?

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the times | Monday December 1 2014

Father rescues his teenage son from Islamists in Syria Alexi Mostrous

The father of a suspected British jihadist travelled more than 2,000 miles to rescue his son from the hands of Islamists in war-torn Syria.

Karim Mohammadi flew from his home in Cardiff to Turkey before using community contacts to secure safe passage across the border to Syria. His 19year-old son Ahmed is understood to have been in contact with Reyaad Khan, 21, and Naseer Muthana, 20, two jihadists from Cardiff who appeared in an Isis propaganda video in June.

Mr Mohammadi, who is of KurdishIraqi origin, is believed to be the first British parent to have successfully recovered a child from Syria, where more than 500 British fighters have travelled to join Isis. Other parents are now exReyaad Khan is thought to have helped lure the teenager to Syria

pected to replicate his actions. “There’s a great sense of honour and family value in what Mr Mohammadi did,” a police source told The Sunday Times.

“Parents know that the British government is helpless in helping bring back their children. The government has no representation in Syria and it refuses to negotiate with militant and terrorist groups.”

Ahmed Mohammadi was arrested when he returned to Britain in July but released on the same day without charge. A month later, his case was understood to have been picked up by the Welsh extremism and counterterrorism unit (Wectu), which examined his relationship with four other men from

Cardiff suspected of flying to Syria to fight: Mr Khan and Mr Muthana, Shahid Miah, 23, and a fourth man. Mr Miah was also released without charge when he returned from Syria in July.

It is not clear whether the Wectu investigation is continuing. Mr Mohammadi Jr was referred to the government’s deradicalisation programme, Channel, which has had a 58 per cent rise in the number of referrals in the past year. He is now studying civil engineering.

More than 300 Britons have returned to the UK from Syria and Iraq.

The majority have not been deemed to be a security threat. A Whitehall source said that aspiring and returning jihadists should not view Channel as a “getout avenue” from prosecution, however. “For some, prosecution for terrorist offences is the right course of action.

For others, it may be that support from, for example, mental health or social services might be more appropriate,” the source said.

Mr Mohammadi Sr insisted that his son had not been fighting in Syria but had travelled to Turkey on a humanitarian aid convoy.

His son’s rescue comes as Scotland Yard began an investigation into a Muslim “band of brothers” suspected of travelling to Syria to join Isis. The alleged jihadists include two siblings, aged 17 and 20, from Camden, north London, and their cousins, aged 19 and 22, from the Black Country. The men are understood to be Britons of Bangladeshi origin and to have flown together from London to Istanbul, in Turkey, before crossing the border into Syria.

Two were named over the weekend as Mejanul and Kamran Islam, brothers from Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Their sudden disappearance shocked their families as they believed they were visiting relatives in London.

Isis atrocities matched by Christians, says Tory MP Oliver Moody

The acts of violence committed by Islamic State militants have been more than equalled by Christians down the centuries, according to an international development minister.

Desmond Swayne, a former aide to David Cameron who served a sixmonth tour of duty in Iraq in a break from the Commons, also said that the war against Isis could not be won without “boots on the ground” in Iraq.

In a candid set of “personal remarks” at a parliamentary event last week, he also hit out at the BBC for using the term “Islamic State”, which he said was a “standing insult to a billion peaceloving Muslims” because it presumed that the militants were acting under the authority of Islam. He suggested using the Arabic term Daesh, apparently oblivious to the fact that the word is an acronym for a literal translation of “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”.

The minister said that Christians who argue that the jihadists’ violence stems directly from Islam were talking “absolute, manifest nonsense” and needed “a broader appreciation of the sweep of history” such as deeper knowledge of the Crusades. “I don’t think

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there’s anything Isil [an alternative name for Isis] can come up with that Christians have not matched at some stage in history,” he said, according to a transcript posted by Lapido Media, a body campaigning for religious literacy.

“We used to burn one another over relatively trivial aspects of doctrine. . . .

Mr Swayne, the Tory MP for New Forest West, said that the bloody massacres committed by Muslims and Christians were “representative of the radical depravity of man expressed in all religions”.

Passages in the Koran that appeared to advocate attacks on non-Muslims could be answered with “any number of bloodthirsty, ghastly, taken-out-ofcontext quotes from the New and Old Testaments”, he added.

Sid Cordle, the leader of the Christian People’s Alliance, said he profoundly disagreed: “This is not a war between Islam and Christianity. This is a war Islam is fighting against non-believers.”

Asked about his speech, Mr Swayne told The Times: “The thing that is missing is my assertion that the excesses of Christendom are no more representative of true Christianity than Daesh’s perverted message is representative of Islam.”

TOLGA AKMEN / LNP

News Firemen’s lift Paintings and other valuable items were recovered once nine people had been led to safety after fire broke out at a property in Wimpole Street, central London, yesterday.

More than 70 firefighters and ten fire engines tackled the blaze.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

News Autumn statement

£2bn injection will help but isn’t a cure, NHS chief tells Osborne Francis Elliott Political Editor

Health chiefs yesterday welcomed a £2.2 billion “down-payment” on the estimated £30 billion more the NHS will need by the end of the decade.

Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, which will receive £2 billion of the extra cash next year, said ministers

had listened to the case for extra cash in the near-term. However, he warned that meeting the full costs of a five-year plan to cope with the pressures of an ageing population would require “challenging new efficiencies and genuine new investment”.

The NHS in England has estimated that it needs annual increases of at least

1.5 per cent to avoid a £30 billion funding gap by 2020.

George Osborne did not commit to that yesterday but said the cash to be unveiled in Wednesday’s autumn statement underlined his commitment to fund future NHS investment.

Labour accused the chancellor of spin, however, when it emerged that

Expected announcements 6 Extra £2 billion for NHS services 6 £15 billion to improve major roads 6 Abolition of air passenger duty for children under 12 6 Freeze in petrol duty 6 Tax cuts for widows and widowers who inherit annuity pensions 6 £1 billion sell-off of land owned by the government 6 A new Charter for Budget Responsibility, including a promise to eliminate the deficit by 2017-18

about £700 million of this year’s increase would come from cash previously allocated but not yet spent by the Department for Health and other health bodies. £1.5 billion will be spent on front-line patient care, with £200 million being used to help hospitals cope with changing patterns of health service delivery. Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said the extra cash would help the NHS through what had appeared an “impossible year” but warned Mr Osborne that he couldn’t expect to fund future increases out of underspends.

“Taking money from elsewhere in the health budget may not be an option in coming years, as the vast majority already goes towards the NHS and underspends are running George Osborne was accused by Labour of spinning the figures

out,” he said. “Future increases will have to be almost entirely new money.”

Although Mr Osborne did not commit to year-on-year increases in the overall NHS beyond next year, he did outline a £1 billion four-year package to help GPs deliver advanced care such as chemotherapy and dialysis treatments in practices. It will be funded from fines levied on banks whose traders were found to have rigged foreign exchange rates.

The Conservatives hope that the extra cash will blunt Labour’s attack on its handling of the NHS. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, committed it to spending £2.5 billion a year over and above the increase to be announced on Wednesday. Proceeds from the mansion tax make up about half that package. Previewing the battle to come, Mr Osborne said that the cash was a “down payment on the NHS’s own long-term plan. It shows you can have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy.”

Mr Balls said that the government created the crisis through its re-organisation of the service and accused Mr Osborne of racking up billions in spending commitments without any explanation of how he could pay for them. “This is a typical Tory pattern, a winter crisis and then crisis money coming after,” he told The Andrew Marr Show. “The Conservatives are coming along now with unfunded commitments.

The deficit is huge. They are making unfunded commitments. The Tories are really putting the NHS in danger. We will over and above their plans put in a further £2.5 billion.

What Whatever they do, we need more money for the National Health Service — £2.5 billion more for 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs.”

Outpouring of relief on wards Analysis

O

ne more problem solved, then: With the NHS bailed out, the government can get back to boasting about the economy and promising to crack down on immigration (Chris Smyth writes).

Well, not quite. For a chancellor sweating over the sums, other public services looking jealously at the health service’s swelling budget, and for taxpayers wincing at the squeeze on their wallets, the NHS has a simple message: get used to it.

There is no doubt about the outpouring of relief George Osborne’s announcement will produce on hospital wards across the land. Until now, a cash crisis next year — with the threat of staff cuts and rationing — had been a certainty. This year, hospitals have already overspent by £630 million and making it through another year without cuts was impossible.

Now it is merely improbable.

This is just the start. The chancellor’s £2 billion — which becomes £1.5 billion on the front

line when you get to the small print — is for one year only. The Treasury has been hinting that the NHS can expect this to become a permanent increase on the £110 billion-a-year health budget.

Yet Mr Osborne has publicly endorsed the five-year vision put forward by Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, and health leaders have been quick to pounce on the implications.

Next year, it is £1.5 billion extra to the front line. In 2016-17, this promise must be repeated, plus another £1.5 billion. In 2017-18, this £3 billion extra must continue, plus another £1.5 billion. In 2018-19, this £4.5 billion must still be there, plus another £1.5 billion.

And so on. The remorseless demands of an older, sicker population will push this cash escalator ever higher.

The £8 billion bill by 2020 relies on the NHS itself making a heroic £22 billion of efficiency savings, more than it — or any other health service — has ever managed. If it falls short, expect taxpayers to be asked to stump up even more.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Autumn statement News Upgrading Britain’s roads HOW CAR JOURNEYS WILL RISE

£15bn cost

Average trips per person annually 447

84 new schemes

Glasgow

507

307

Car

Now

290

Walking

2040

86 54

Bus

24 23

22 20

Rail

Cycling

Edinburgh

Philip Aldrick, Francis Elliott

1,300 miles of new lanes

Northeast and Yorkshire

Newcastle yne upon Tyne

KEY PROJECTS INCLUDE

£290 million project to create a dual carriageway on the A1 from London to Ellingham, 25 miles from the Scottish border

M6

Northwest

A ‘smart’ motorway with variable speed limits and no hard shoulder on the M62 from Manchester to Leeds to cut congestion. Better links to Liverpool

18 schemes £2.3bn 1,500 jobs

9 schemes £800m 600 jobs

East

A1(M)

£300 million project to create dual carriageways on the A47 and to improve its connections to the A1 and A11

Leeds M62

Liverpool

Manchester Sheffield

M6

Midlands

7 schemes £1.4bn 900 jobs

Birmingham mingham

A47

M1

15 schemes £1.5bn A11 1,000 jobs

London and southeast

M40 M4

More lanes and road improvements to cut congestion on the M42 east of Birmingham, paving the way for the new High Speed 2 interchange station

M5

Salisbury Plain

7 schemes £2bn 1,300 jobs

A303

M3

18 schemes £1.4bn 900 jobs

M25

Lewes

£350 million to tackle severe congestion at Arundel, Worthing and Lewes, as well as improvements to a third of junctions on the M25

Land’s End

Southwest

Dual carriageways on the A303 and A358, including a tunnel at Stonehenge, allowing motorists to travel on a dual carriageway from London to within 15 miles of Land’s End

Money for roads . . . but no end to jams Ben Webster Environment Editor

The “biggest, boldest” road building programme for a quarter of a century will be announced today, but official forecasts suggest that the new capacity will quickly be filled by more traffic.

The £15 billion programme includes 84 schemes that will add 1,300 miles of new lanes to motorways and trunk roads by 2020, relieving bottlenecks across the country.

The new projects include £2 billion to add an extra lane in each direction to all the remaining single carriageway sections of the A303 and A358 to the southwest, including a tunnel of “at least 1.8 miles” at Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

Another £290 million will be spent dualling sections of the A1, £300 million dualling the A47 in Norfolk and

£350 million removing pinch points on the A27, tackling severe congestion at Arundel, Worthing and Lewes.

However, according to the Department for Transport’s forecasts for the next 25 years the volume of traffic will not decrease. The average person is expected to take fewer journeys by bus, train, bicycle, on foot or as a car passenger but 60 additional trips a year as a car driver by 2040.

The DfT expects the overall number of trips to remain steady at about 1,100 a year but a rise in car ownership means that we will spend more time driving ourselves to our destinations.

Annual bus trips per person are forecast to fall the most, down from an average of 86 a year at present to 64 in 2040. Journeys on foot are forecast to fall from 307 to 290, but trips as a car driver will rise from 447 to 507.

Little room for tax cuts as borrowing rises again

Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, will announce the road building programme today with an echo of Roads for Prosperity, a white paper published by Margaret Thatcher in 1989 when she launched the last big road-building programme.

Mr McLoughlin will say: “Roads are key to our nation’s prosperity. For too long they have suffered from underinvestment.

“This government has a long-term plan to secure the country’s future and this £15 billion roads programme is demonstration of that. Better roads allow us to travel freely, creating jobs and opportunities, benefiting hardworking families across the country.”

The number of drivers will increase by seven million to 43 million within 20 years because of a growing and ageing population, according to a report by the

RAC Foundation. It said the increase in drivers would cause particular problems in urban areas, where traffic is forecast to grow by a fifth by 2025 and a third by 2035.

Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “The car has been a force for good but something has to give if we are not going to run headlong into a future of intolerable congestion. It’s urban jams, with their impact on air pollution levels and general quality of life, that should worry us most.

“There are glimmers of hope. Driving amongst the young, men in particular, has dropped dramatically in recent years mainly because of the cost. The big question mark is whether these people will revert to type as their economic circumstances improve or whether they will learn to do without the car.”

George Osborne is set to admit that weak income-tax receipts mean he must borrow £9 billion more than planned as the goal of eliminating the deficit threatens to slip another year.

The government had already set out a nine-year £160 billion programme of tax rises and spending cuts, but “further spending restraint” will be necessary, The Item Club, an economic forecaster, predicts. It estimated the extra cuts would total up to £5 billion.

The additional savings will make it harder for the Conservatives to explain how they plan to find £7.2 billion for tax cuts promised at their conference.

It will also sharpen questions over the scale of spending cuts needed. Mr Osborne said yesterday predictions that his plans already implied £37 billion of cuts to unprotected public spending in the first three years of a Conservative government took no account of additional savings from the welfare bill.

The chancellor also faces the embarrassment of having to admit that the deficit has plateaued. Item expects the Office for Budget Responsibilty (OBR) to estimate the government will borrow £95.5 billion for the 2014-15 fiscal year, only £2 billion less than last year and £9 billion more than predicted at the time of the budget.

The difficulties in sorting out the deficit come in stark contrast to GDP growth. The OBR will raise its growth forecast for this year from 2.7 per cent to about 3 per cent, the Item Club said, confirming that the UK was on course to outpace all other G7 nations this year.

The pressure on public finances “means the chancellor will struggle to offer any giveaways” five months before the election. Any tax cuts will “need to be clawed back elsewhere”, Item said. “The fiscal cupboard is bare.”

Martin Beck, a senior economic adviser at the club, said: “In recent autumn statements, the chancellor has been able to trumpet a series of upward revisions to the OBR’s forecast as evidence that his economic plan is working. However, that’s where the good news is likely to end.

“The improvement in the public finances is in danger of not just stalling but going into reverse. With just five months to go, it appears virtually impossible for the government to achieve the OBR’s current forest for borrowing in 2014-15.”

Revenues from income tax and national insurance this year have risen by just 0.6 per cent compared with the OBR’s full-year forecast for 5.3 per cent.

After seven months, borrowing is £3.7 billion higher than at this point last year although the remainder of the year is expected to show improvement.

The increase in low-paid jobs combined with the higher tax-free personal allowance threshold has been blamed.

Labour yesterday released figures it says show that income-tax receipts had been £66 billion less than forecast in 2010 while welfare spending rose by £25 billion more than had been estimated. Ed Miliband will today say that low wages and the slower-than-expected pace of deficit reduction are linked.

“The government’s failure to build a recovery that works for everyday people and tackle the cost-of-living crisis isn’t just bad for every person affected, it also hampers our ability to pay down the deficit,” he is expected to say.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

News

Middle classes need help with fees, says head Nicola Woolcock

A headmaster is planning bursaries to help some of the many professional people that he says can no longer afford to send their children to his independent school.

King’s College School in Wimbledon, south London, aims to mimic Harvard in the United States, which has a sliding scale of financial help for even those families with a household income equivalent to £100,000.

Andrew Halls, the headmaster at King’s College, said that he could increase the fees by 10 per cent tomorrow and “almost no one would leave”,

but that he wanted to hold open the door to the middle classes rather than end up catering solely for the superrich.

Fees at leading independent schools have increased by more than a fifth in the past five years, according to figures published yesterday by The Sunday Times. The sharpest rises have mainly been in London and the southeast, with 13 schools raising their fees by more than 30 per cent.

Mr Halls said: “I think it would be wise for independent schools to make sure they’re prepared for financial changes in the future. We were the most expensive day school in the UK in AMANDA BENSON / BBC

Stage fright Damian Lewis told Desert Island Discs’ Kirsty Young that being on stage felt “instinctive”, despite once forgetting his lines for a whole act of a play

Privately educated can be ‘bullishly overconfident’ Continued from page 1

in a BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, said yesterday that his school had been the perfect place to learn to play a king.

He said: “I think there is no question that it helps having had the kind of schooling I’ve had to play a king. It’s not such a leap oddly — even though the thought of being a monarch of any nation is mind-boggling and not something I could imagine easily at all.

“There’s just the sort of court structure, hierarchies and the way they are set up, which is something I understand,” he told The Sunday Times.

Mr Halls contrasted the experience of his pupils with those from a state school, saying that in the independent sector you would not be bullied for answering a question in class. “The good fortune of having selective entry

is that the day-to-day world is trusting and kind,” he said.

“Children can speak up in a lesson and don’t have to endure seven pages of text bullying that night. In more difficult state schools, children learn that to succeed is to keep your head down and say not much at all.

“The background of our pupils is a very easy one to work with,” he continued. “Generally the academic selection process means our families are motivated.”

Lewis said on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs yesterday that Eton College had been a “high-octane and privileged environment”.

“It was also massively competitive and fed the idea that you had better not be the one who is caught out. You had to be quick, nimble and agile all the time.”

Letters to the Editor, page 21

Pupils wear hoodies for safety Nicola Woolcock

Boys at one of the most prestigious public schools in Britain are ditching their blazers for hoodies so they do not get mugged in the street.

Pupils at St Paul’s School in Hammersmith, west London, have been told not to wear their distinctive uniforms outside the school gates.

Criminal gangs are thought to have been targeting boys at the £22,000-ayear school and parents have been urged to buy hooded tops for their sons to wear to and from school so they blend in with local teenagers.

A source at the school, whose former pupils include the poet John Milton, the diarist Samuel Pepys and George Os-

borne, told the Mail on Sunday that the no-uniform policy had been in place for six months, and in that time, the number of muggings had fallen significantly.

The source added: “All pupils are now told never to leave the premises wearing their blazers.”

However a parent told the paper there were still a significant number of robberies, adding: “There have been at least 14 that I know of.”

She said teachers now patrolled Hammersmith Bridge because most pupils had to walk across it every day and the muggers waited at either end knowing they had no escape.

“They know these children have the best iPhones or the best laptops and iPads,” the parent added.

2002, an unhappy honour. We’re not any more — I’m proud of that — but our fees have doubled since then. Independent school fees have quadrupled over 20 years. There’s going to be a problem.”

Research published in 2012 showed that thousands of middle-income professionals had been priced out of private schools in the previous decade, includingg Andrew Halls wants to avoid catering for only the super-rich

pharmacists, architects, engineers and IT experts.

Of the gulf between fees and professional incomes, Mr Halls said: “If you’re a popular London day school, you can draw from a very well-educated, wealthy, international market. But schools can’t carry on charging ever higher fees to a very small subset of the world’s population, until London stops being the flavour of the month.”

He added: “I know we could fill the school with very wealthy families, but often we these are the ones who want to the

give bursaries. Two families have given £500,000 each . . . they don’t want their children to be in that tiny world that doesn’t reflect the entire experience of human life. I would like to imagine, when we’ve raised more money, moving towards bursaries on a sliding scale like Harvard. In the UK, anyone who applies to a school like ours who earns £100,000 wouldn’t get anything [in the way of subsidy], but if you’ve got three children . . .

“As time goes on, it would be nice if we had enough endowments to manage fees. Parents and old boys are very keen on bursaries to open the door to the ones coming after them.”

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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News

KEITH MORRIS / ALAMY

Charitable Harry persuades stars to spill their secrets Valentine Low

Sky larks Aberystwyth pier in west Wales provides an ideal vantage point to wait for a starling murmuration at nightfall

When Prince Harry asked a group of celebrities to reveal their closely guarded secrets for charity, perhaps not even he was expecting Joss Stone’s candid confession.

In a case of more than we needed to know, the singer not only said that she had a compulsion to use the lavatory at every service station, but also revealed why: “When I was 11, I drank a lot of tea when I was out with my mum, and then I went into Superdrug and I weed myself. Today I cannot stop at a service station . . . without going to the loo, even though I don’t need the loo. I still go — it’s ingrained in my brain.”

She is among a group of celebrities, including Nicole Scherzinger, who have bared their souls for World Aids Day on behalf of Prince Harry’s charity Sentebale.

The former Pussycat Dolls singer and X Factor judge made one of the more personal admissions when she spoke of her feelings of inadequacy. She said: “Sometimes I don’t feel I’m enough, and that I don’t fit in.”

Prince Harry, who will reveal his own secret today, asked them to reveal their secrets under the hashtag #feelnoshame, to raise awareness of the stigma surrounding HIV/ Aids and why sufferers are scared to speak up and seek support. He co-founded Sentebale to help children in Lesotho, southern Africa, affected by the disease.

The boxer Ricky “the hitman” Hatton recalled that when he was aged one, a neighbour’s cat scratched him, takingg “near enough half my skin off”.

Their secrets are out: (from top) Nicole Scherzinger, Will Greenwood and Joss Stone

He said: “Ever since that day I have been scared of cats. Whenever one comes across my path, I am petrified of them.”

The chef Valentine Warner revealed what he gets up to in bed — and yes, his wife must be a tolerant woman. He said: “I quite often have got a little car on the side of my bed because what I really, really like to do — late at night after book-reading, or early morning — is take my car and have a nice little adventure. I spend quite a lot of time making nice ridges and little hills. Literally I can drive it around for hours . . . You can make amazing landscapes.”

Prince Harry said: “Globally, HIV is the second-highest cause of death amongst those aged between 10 and 19, and it is the number one cause of death across Africa. One tragic issue in particular is the shame and stigma linked to HIV. This causes thousands of children to needlessly die each year because they’re keeping their illness a secret and not getting the medical attention they need.

“To show our support for the children of Lesotho, and help reduce the stigma for all those affected by HIV, we are turning this World Aids Day tur into a day in which no one should feel any shame about their secrets. ” Will Greenwood got into the spirit of the occasion with the awful admission that he would rather have played football for England than rugby union, while Luke Franks, the online pre presenter of The X Factor, admitted that he liked wearing women’s jeans.

He said: “Sometimes I wear ladies’ jeans, because they just fit better. I just like them, and they are lighter.” He added: “You cannot buy ripped men’s jeans anywhere. I’ve looked.”

Paxman’s tell-all memoir does not scare me, claims BBC chief Nadeem Badshah

A senior BBC executive yesterday sought to downplay the prospect of a potentially embarrassing memoir by Jeremy Paxman on his career with the corporation.

Paxman is set to earn nearly £1 million from a three-book deal, one of which will detail his 42 years in the BBC and could touch on claims that he had a frosty relationship with Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight.

Following his departure from the programme in June, the broadcaster said that it was “run by 13-year-olds, for whom, at that age, it is perfectly normal to want to try to change the world”.

However, Danny Cohen, the director of BBC Television, tweeted that a tellall book is “overblown”. He wrote: “Just spoke to Jeremy Paxman. Story in today’s papers very overblown. No plan to be Mayor of London either!”

Paxman, 64, has been a frequent

critic of the Beeb and earlier this year accused it of wasting large amounts of money. He said: “[The BBC] is smug. I love the BBC in many ways, but at the same time it has made me loathe aspects of it, and that’s a very odd state of affairs.”

His memoir is expected to include confrontations such as when, in 1997, he asked Michael Howard the same question 12 times and, in 2003, when he asked Tony Blair whether he prayed with George Bush.

Paxman joined the corporation as a trainee in 1972, and worked on Tonight, Panorama, the Six O Clock News, BBC Breakfast Time as well as the corporation’s general election coverage.

According to The Sunday Times, his first book will analyse how Britain has changed over 50 years and ask why we seem to have less faith in our institutions. The subject of the third book with William Collins, which is owned by News UK, has yet to be agreed.

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News CHRISTIE’S

Paedophile who ran care homes ‘supplied boys’ for abuse ring Georgie Keate

Route masters Works by Cyril Power, above, and Claude Flight will be included in an auction of prints at Christie’s in London on Wednesday

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

A convicted paedophile who ran a string of care homes has been accused of supplying children to a Westminster sex abuse ring.

John Allen, 73, will be sentenced today after he was found guilty of 33 offences against children last week.

After the jury’s guilty verdict, Dennis Parry, a former leader of Clwyd county council, said that Allen was suspected of supplying boys to establishment figures at Dolphin Square in central London.

“My information was that not only was he an abuser, he was a supplier,” Mr Parry told The Sunday Times. “There was movement between Holland and this country, and Dolphin Square was part of the set-up.”

Dolphin Square has been at the centre of the alleged Westminster paedophile ring. Earlier this month the Metropolitan police announced that they were looking into three murders after a witness named Nick said he had seen a boy strangled to death by a Conservative MP. Mr Parry, who commissioned a report look into abuse allegations at care homes in north Wales in the 1990s, said: “There was a guy — whose name hasn’t come up so far — and he was working within that Dolphin Square system.

“My information was he was the one who collected the young people and took them to Dolphin Square . . . . His links were with our part of north Wales and others. When this information was given to the police they never believed that there was any sort of connection up and down the country.”

During his trial, Allen denied 40 charges of sexual offences between 1968 and 1991 on 20 children. He was found guilty of all but seven. In 1995, he was jailed for six years for child abuse and faced another 44 charges in 2003 that were dropped by a judge because he ruled the publicity would prevent a fair trial.

One of Allen’s victims, Stephen Jong, 50, has come forward to describe abuse in which he was left bloodied and bruised by the man he thought of as a father figure when he moved to the care home aged 11 in 1975.

“The physical, verbal and mental abuse was horrific,” he said. “He was like a father figure, but he turned out to be a monster, a Jekyll and Hyde. Being a ten or eleven-year-old kid and being physically abused punched, kicked or smashed around an office, a bedroom or a hallway was the norm.”

The paedophile had no care qualifications when in 1968 he set up Bryn Alyn Community, a highly profitable group of 11 homes for children.

‘Patients drugged to keep quiet’ Nurses at a scandal-hit NHS hospital are being investigated by police for allegedly drugging elderly and difficult patients to enjoy a quiet night shift.

The son of a one patient raised the alarm over fears that patients are given powerful sedatives to make sure ward staff are not bothered during the “graveyard shift” at the hospital.

Detectives have handed a report to the Crown Prosecution Service over criminal charges against nurses at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, south Wales, for allegedly giving sedatives to patients without prescription or

Online today

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consent. The hospital is already at the centre of a large police investigation of five nurses charged with falsifying medical records and wilful neglect.

The practice of nurses drugging patients without prescription was alleged by a whistleblowing nurse and has already been admitted in the case of Lillian Williams, 82, during an inquiry.

Gareth Williams, her son, said: “A nurse told me she had witnessed patients regularly being given unnecessary sedation without prescription at night to make life easier for the night shift team.”

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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News

For sale: notorious designs that made McQueen’s name Mike Wade

Almost 20 years after Alexander McQueen stunned London Fashion Week with his “Highland Rape” designs, items from his “aggressive and disturbing” collection are to be sold.

McQueen’s notorious 1995 show drew gasps as fashion buyers witnessed a succession of women parade along a runway strewn with dead flowers, to a soundtrack of whistling winds and mournful church bells. It was, the designer said, his take on the 18th century Jacobite rebellion: “I wanted to show that the war between the Scottish and English was basically genocide.”

Yet for all its notoriety, remnants of the collection are few and far between.

After the show, most of the pieces were seized in lieu of his debts.

Among the surviving items are those coming to auction in London on Tuesday of next week (December 9). They

belong to Trixie Bellair (Nicholas Townsend), the drag artist who was a close friend of McQueen, who committed suicide in 2010. They include a lilac vinyl pencil skirt, and an ensemble of lilac suede trouser-boots and a floral print satin blouse.

Kerry Taylor, the founder of Kerry Taylor Auctions, said: “Highland Rape was Alexander McQueen’s big breakthrough moment when everyone took notice of him, but at the time he was in financial difficulty. After the show was over he gathered up the clothes in bin liners and took them back to his flat.

“At some point after that, bailiffs went to his property and repossessed his goods, including the bags of clothes, so to this day we still don’t know what happened to them, or whether the people they ended up with knew of their importance.”

Born in Lewisham, and brought up in the East End, McQueen traced his

TMS

diary@thetimes.co.uk | @timesdiary Waitrose Kitchen that his signature dish is Corn Flakes. “I have a knack with them,” he says. “Many people like milk, but if you’re adventurous you could use redcurrant juice, coconut milk, guava-flavoured sparkling water or a nice wet curry.”

Call it the Kellogg’s korma.

What MPs will do for a dare . . .

The admission by Penny Mordaunt, the Tory MP and sailors’ favourite, that she gave a speech on poultry welfare just to win a bet that she could say “cock” in the Commons attracted uproar in the usual places, but it’s nothing new. In his autobiography, John Major wrote about junior MPs daring each other to slip frivolous facts into speeches. In the course of one debate, Major had to mention that Anne Boleyn had six fingers on one hand, while Virginia Bottomley said that frogs swallow with their eyes shut and Matthew Parris said Burkina Faso was once Upper Volta. However, Tristan Garel-Jones bottled his task to claim that 18 per cent of people regularly bathed with another. A shame, given the revelations later about Major and Edwina Currie sharing a loofah.

black friday bargain The American tradition of a post-Thanksgiving punch-up has come here. Black Friday on Oxford Street is one thing, but it’s now spread to Oxford colleges. St Hugh’s, alma mater of Theresa May, announced a “Black Friday Sale” and cut the cost of a night’s B&B in college over Christmas to £48. St Hugh is the patron saint of cobblers, which is more or less how one old boy described the offer.

Don’t have high expectations if invited to dinner at John Cleese’s house.The Python, right, tells

farage’s fighting forebear When Nigel Farage gives the establishment a thumping, it’s in his genes. Jeremy Clay, author of The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton, a book on bizarre Victorian news items, has found that Farage’s German great-great grandfather, Nicholas Schrod, was convicted and fined 20 shillings for beating up the English. The Daily News reported in 1870 that Schrod, a cabinet-maker from Frankfurt who settled in London, heard two “young men of gentlemanly appearance” speaking with contempt for German military might beneath his window and duffed them up. “It seems to be a family trait, having a bee in the bonnet about nationality,” Clay says, “but he proved his victims wrong: two Englishmen were no match for one German.”

Damian McBride, the former Labour pitbull, is a fan of Tristram Hunt but worries that the shadow education secretary’s posh name might hold him back. He blogs that people should henceforth call him “Hunty” rather than Tristram.

“Don’t stop until audience members on Question Time refer to him as Hunty when screaming at him about the deficit,” he says. It’s bound to happen one day.

tolstoy on the cheap James Purnell, the BBC strategy director, is seeking annual efficiency savings of £1.5 billion (surely losing Paxman covers a fair bit of that), yet the corporation is preparing two versions of Tolstoy’s War and Peace: a ten-hour radio drama for New Year’s day and a “truly epic” Andrew Davies-adapted TV series to be broadcast next year.

Maybe they could save money by having war on TV and peace on radio. patrick kidd

Scottish ancestry through his father.

“My family were Celtics from the Isle of Skye,” he claimed. “I feel natural and at home in Scotland more than England.”

McQueen played up a supposed Jacobite connection, and when he was awarded the CBE wore full Highland dress to the presentation. His ashes were scattered on Skye.

When some feminist critics condemned his 1995 collection, the designer was quick to hit Alexander McQueen, CBE, in 2003 and a model in the controversial show

back. “They should have been grateful to me,” he claims. “At least I gave them something to write about. They completely misunderstood Highland Rape.

“It wasn’t anti-women. It was actually anti the fake history of Vivienne Westwood. She makes tartan lovely and romantic and tries to pretend that’s how it was. Well, 18th-century Scotland was not about beautiful women drifting across the moors in swathes of unmanageable chiffon. My show was anti that sort of romanticism.” Adding to the rarity of the lilac ensemble, at the 11th hour, McQueen decided against exhibiting it, for being “too pretty”. It is expected to fetch £2,500.

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News JOHN ARON / SWNS

Student anger puts top Lib Dems at risk of losing seats Greg Hurst Education Editor

Double take Scamblesby primary school in Louth, Lincolnshire, has five sets of identical twins among its 62 pupils

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

These were Mr Hughes’ constituency of Bermondsey & Old Southwark, and Bristol West, held by Stephen Williams.

The loss of tactical votes from Labour supporters could see two more Lib Dem seats gained by the Conservatives, he said. These were Ed Davey’s constituency, Kingston & Surbiton, and Portsmouth South, where the Lib Dems have expelled the sitting MP Mike Hancock after a sex scandal.

The study predicted that students

Nick Clegg and two Liberal Democrat ministers could lose their seats in the general election due to a student backlash over tuition fees, according to a study.

Ed Davey, the energy secretary, and Simon Hughes, the justice minister, as well as the deputy prime minister, are among four in the party at risk, it said.

Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, could also lose in Loughborough as students switch to Labour. This is one of several Tory-held seats where more than 13 per cent of voters are students.

Her majority is 3,744.

The analysis, by an Oxford academic, said that the impact of the student vote on marginals was less significant than often claimed but could still influence the outcome in 10 or 11 seats next year, which could be important given polls are predicting a tight race.

Professor Stephen Fisher, associate professor in political sociology at the University of Oxford, assessed the influence of student voters in a report for the Higher Education Policy Institute, a think-tank.

He concluded that Nick Clegg’s seat of Sheffield Hallam may be vulnerable due to a combination of large student numbers and public sector workers, whose living standards have been squeezed.His analysis was inconclusive, as other modelling suggested Mr Clegg’s constituency was one of the few student seats that looked safe for the Lib Dems.

Labour is likely to be the big beneficiary of any collapse in the Lib Dem support among students. Professor Fisher predicted two seats were likely to switch from Lib Dem to Labour.

drifting to Labour could tip the balance in six other Tory seats: Hendon, Lancaster & Fleetwood, Lincoln, Plymouth Sutton & Devonport, Brighton Kemptown and Loughborough.

The research, relying on uniform polling swings, may well underestimate the resilience of Lib Dem MPs and the localised nature of the party’s planned election campaign. Simon Hughes has represented what might otherwise be a safe Labour seat for 31 years.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “Our new analysis suggests students’ votes are swayed by student issues.”

Wake up to Bercow on Boxing Day

England’s turn for devolution, say councils

John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, is to spend a day as guest editor of Radio 4’s Today programme. He is one of five famous names taking over the running of the current affairs show from Boxing day to New Year’s eve.

The actor and comedian Lenny Henry, the singer Tracey Thorn, of Everything But The Girl, and Lord King of Lothbury, the former Bank of England governor, will also take part.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, who stepped down as chairwoman of the child-abuse inquiry in the summer, has already been announced as the fifth guest editor.

Mr Bercow will edit the programme on Boxing day and will interview Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, and his personal hero, the tennis player Roger Federer.

Thorn’s programme will pay tribute to Kate Bush, and Lord King will return to his old school in Wolverhampton to examine the state of education.

Each guest is responsible for about half of the programme’s content. Jamie Angus, the Today editor, said: “Guest editors bring us stories, angles and interviews we wouldn’t normally find ourselves. The breadth of their experience and the diversity of their interests will provide a real treat for listeners.”

The leaders of more than 100 English councils have demanded that more powers be devolved from Westminster, saying voters would not accept greater devolution to Scotland without a transfer taking place south of the border.

They said a “new settlement for England” is needed that grants more autonomy and shares out tax and spending across the UK “on a fair basis”.

In a letter to The Observer, the 121 signatories, including 65 Labour and 40 Tory council leaders, said: “Earlier this week, the Smith Commission set out a better deal for Scotland, granting more control over funding . . . and recognising the importance of devolving power down beyond Holyrood. It’s England’s turn now. The people we represent, who look north of the border with envy at the greater control Scots are to get over their everyday lives, will expect nothing less.”

The Smith Commission, set up after Scotland’s vote against independence, recommended that the country’s parliament should be able to set its own income tax rates, with the revenue staying north of the border.

Before the referendum, the three main parties promised greater devolution for Scotland. The commitment has since prompted calls from across the political divide for devolution south of the border..

Key student constituencies 6 Liberal Democrat to Labour Bermondsey & Old Southwark; Bristol West 6 Liberal Democrat to Conservative Kingston & Surbiton; Portsmouth South 6 Conservative to Labour Hendon; Lancaster & Fleetwood; Lincoln; Plymouth Sutton & Devonport; Brighton Kemptown; Loughborough

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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News RICHARD YOUNG / REX

Eddie in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.

The winners were chosen by theatre critics rather than a formal judging panel for the first time since the awards began in 1955.

This followed the resignations last year of three judges who said that Dame Helen Mirren won best actress despite being less popular than two other nominees.

Sir Ian McKellen, who attended the ceremony at the London Palladium, objected to the new format.

“Making it into a competition is horrible,” he told Sky News. “It’s in the hands of people who don’t know much about acting.”

The James Plays, Rona Munro’s series about the Stuart dynasty, featuring Sofie Grabol and James McArdle, was best play.

Best musical went to The Scottsboro Boys, about teenagers involved in court cases that spurred the American civil rights movement.

Jeremy Herrin, who directed the Royal Shakespeare Company’s adaptations of the first volumes of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series, was best director.

Laura Jane Matthewson won the emerging talent award for Dogfight.

Critics have last word . . . and it’s Anderson

G

illian Anderson and Tom Hiddleston were the big winners at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards last night.

Anderson was named best actress for her performance as Blanche DuBois, the flawed heroine of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, which was described by The Times as “impressively sure-footed, sneakily predatory and sometimes satirically

Gillian Anderson and Tom Hiddleston, right, took the major awards; Sir Ian McKellen, below, left; David and Victoria Beckham on the red carpet

droll”. She was chosen ahead of Helen McCrory, who played the title role in Medea, Billie Piper, who portrayed a ruthless tabloid editor in Great Britain, Kristin Scott Thomas, nominated for Electra, and Tanya Moodie, the lead in Intimate Apparel.

Hiddleston’s performance as Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse earned him best actor ahead of Ben Miles in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and Mark Strong, who played

Errors in breast cancer screening lead to calls for more gene tests Chris Smyth Health Correspondent

Hundreds of thousands of women should be offered blood tests for gene mutations that greatly increase their risk of breast cancer, scientists have said, after research found that current screening misses up to half of cases.

Half of BRCA mutations among women in high-risk groups are missed by simply asking them whether they have a family history of cancer, a study found. Testing almost all Jewish women would prevent hundreds of cancers and save the NHS millions of pounds, the research concluded.

The findings also add weight to calls for the routine use of genetic testing across the population to highlight people’s chances of developing a range of cancers. The researchers said the practicalities of testing millions more people must now be examined, but that this should take account of those who would not want to know whether they

were likely to get cancer. Women with a BRCA1 or 2 gene mutation have a lifetime risk of breast cancer that can be more than two thirds and a risk of ovarian cancer of up to 45 per cent.

To reduce the risk, many opt for surgery to remove breasts, such as the actress Angelina Jolie, who last year revealed her decision to have a double mastectomy after finding out that she had the BRCA1 mutation.

Women are offered a £500 blood test if they have two or more close relatives who have died of cancer. In a study of 1,000 Ashkenazi Jewish women, scientists gave half the blood test while screening the rest using the standard family history questions.

Of the 27 women with BRCA mutations picked up, 56 per cent would not have been spotted by the standard methods, they report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In a related paper, they conclude that testing every Ashkenazi woman over 30

would prevent 715 breast cancers, 388 ovarian cancers and save the NHS £5.2 million in treatment costs.

Ian Jacobs of the University of Manchester, who led the study, said: “It looks like it would not only save lives but save money, and not many interventions do that.”

Ashkenazis, who make up 95 per cent of Britain’s quarter of a million Jews, are ten times as likely to carry a BRCA mutation as the rest of the population, of which one in 400 will have them. Professor Jacobs said the results also suggested a need to look at testing much more widely. “As we find more and more genetic changes and the cost of testing comes down then it would be more widely applicable,” he said. “We’re moving into an era where we change the Role model: Angelina Jolie had a mastectomy in 2013

model of genetic testing and make it more widely available. But we need to do that very carefully.”

The research found no greater psychological impact on women who were tested, but Professor Jacobs said: “How people who are found to have mutations respond in the long term, and the implications for relatives, are not yet known.

“We’re telling people they have a very high risk of getting breast or ovarian cancer a long time before they’re going to get it and giving them fairly radical options like surgery. Mrs Bloggs might want to know, but what about her sister?”

Athena Lamnisos, the chief executive of the women’s cancer charity The Eve Appeal, said the findings showed women were “slipping through the net” under current NHS methods.

Vaccine offers hope in slowing the advance of tumours An experimental breast cancer vaccine has been shown to slow progression of the disease in human patients.

Of 14 women with advanced breast cancer who received the vaccine, half showed no sign of tumour growth one year after treatment, according to American scientists whose findings are reported in the journal Clinical Cancer

Research. The vaccine had an effect even with immune systems weakened by the disease and chemotherapy.

The scientists now plan to follow the small pilot trial with a larger study of newly diagnosed patients who should have stronger immune systems. The lead researcher, William Gillanders, from Washington University School of

Medicine, said: “Despite the weakened immune systems in these patients, we did observe a biologic response to the vaccine . . . “That’s very encouraging.

We also saw preliminary evidence of improved outcome.”

The vaccine primes the immune system to target a protein, mammaglobin-A, which is found

almost exclusively in breast tissue.

“Being able to target mammaglobin is exciting because it is expressed broadly in up to 80 per cent of breast cancers, but not at meaningful levels in other tissues,” said Professor Gillanders. “In theory, this means we could treat a large number of breast cancer patients with potentially fewer side effects.”

HIV drug may save prostate patients’ lives A drug used to treat HIV infection can slow the spread of prostate cancer, research has shown.

Scientists hope that the compound, or others like it, may help men to live longer with the disease, which claims about 10,000 lives a year in the UK. Early studies have demonstrated that the antiretroviral drug maraviroc can dramatically curb the spread of prostate cancer in mice with the disease.

Prostate cancer most commonly travels to the bones, leading to severe pain, disability and eventual death.

Treatment with maraviroc reduced the spread, or metastasis, of prostate tumours to the bones, brain and other organs by 60 per cent in mice.

Richard Pestell, the lead scientist from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said: “Because this work shows we can dramatically reduce metastasis in pre-clinical models, and because the drug is already approved for HIV treatment, we may be able to test soon whether this drug can block metastasis in prostate cancer patients.”

The drug targets a protein molecule on the surface of cells called the CCR5 receptor, which the Aids virus HIV uses to invade white blood cells. Research by the team in 2012 showed that CCR5 was implicated in the spread of aggressive forms of breast cancer to the lungs.

Genetic data from patients revealed that CCR5 was more active in prostate cancer than in normal tissue and made an even bigger impact in metastasised tumours.

The study is published online in the journal Cancer Research.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

News

Mental health patients held in cells as NHS cannot cope Fiona Hamilton Crime Correspondent

Thousands of mental health patients are being wrongly placed in police custody because of a lack of hospital provision, it was claimed yesterday, after the treatment of a vulnerable teenager highlighted the problem.

The 16-year-old girl spent two nights in custody because there were no mental health beds in the UK. She was moved to an “appropriate” place only after a senior police officer publicised the “unacceptable” situation on Twitter and on television.

Mark Winstanley, chief executive of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, said it was “far from an isolated incident”, adding that every year thousands of people with serious mental health problems were held in police cells, including many children and teenagers, because the right services “either don’t exist in their community or are com-

pletely overstretched”. If someone was going through a mental health crisis, they should be brought to a “healthbased ‘place of safety’ ”, he said. “Being held in a police cell can be extremely distressing, and should only ever happen as an absolute last resort.”

The plight of the teenage girl, who was detained on Thursday night after causing a breach of the peace at Torbay Hospital in Devon, was highlighted by Paul Netherton, assistant chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police.

He tweeted on Saturday: “We have a 16yr old girl suffering from mental health issues held in police custody.

There are no beds available in the uk! #unacceptable.”

He added: “The 16yr old was detained on Thursday night, sectioned Friday lunchtime and still no place of safety available. This can’t be right!

“Custody on a Fri & Sat night is no place for a child suffering mental health

issues. Nurses being sourced to look after her in custody !?!”

He later added: “Just heard that a place of care has been found for our 16yr old. Good result.”

NHS England said that the girl was being moved from police custody to a “place appropriate for her care”.

Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, the mental health charity, said: “This is a terrible and shameful situation. Being in mental health crisis can be terrifying and life-threatening, and people need urgent care from mental health services.” A police cell, he added, was a “completely inappropriate place to put someone who is so unwell”, adding: “This whole episode shows how thinly spread NHS mental health services are.”

Mr Netherton told Sky News that police would not put a criminal in custody for that long, but he said the force was told there were “no beds available anywhere in the United Kingdom”.

Don’t let transplant risk deter you, expert urges An expert has urged patients waiting for organ transplants not to be afraid to accept donated organs, although more than a quarter of transplants last year were from higher-risk donors.

Most of these donors were over the aqe of 71, but others classed as high risk

include cancer patients and drug users.

Last month, a surgeon apologised after the deaths of two patients who had been given kidneys that were infested with parasitic worms.

Anthony Warrens, a surgeon and president of the British Transplantation

Society, said deaths could rise if patients started turning down organs where there was an unknown cause of death or increased risk. “If people don’t accept an organ or worry about donating the organs of a relative because of this then more will die needlessly,” he said.

Dive buddies Yoyo, an 18-month-old macaroni penguin, is fascinated by scuba diving and knows as soon as Derek Youd gets out his wet suit that playtime is not far away. When Mr Youd and his fellow divers enter the water, Yoyo is there to join in the fun.

He was hand-reared at Living Coasts Zoo & Aquarium in Torquay, which is why he is so sociable

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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News

NEIL HOPE

Police ignored us, say dead boy’s parents Fiona Hamilton Crime Correspondent

The mother of a teenage gamer who was lured away from his home and murdered by a man he met on the internet has told how police ignored fears that her son was being groomed.

Lorin LaFave revealed yesterday that Surrey police did not call her back after she reported concerns about a computer engineer who two months later stabbed her 14-year-old son Breck Bednar in the neck. The policewoman who took the 30-minute call was “detached”, according to Ms LaFave, who added: “No one bothered to call me back, which was unforgivable.”

She told the Mail on Sunday that she was concerned about Lewis Daynes’s manipulation of her son through an online gaming forum. She gave the force his full name and said that he lived in Essex, but nothing was done.

Ms LaFave, 47, said: “If they had acted on my information I have no doubt that this would not have happened.”

She and her ex-husband, Barry Bednar, 49, spoke out after Daynes, 19, pleaded guilty to the murder on Tuesday when his trial was due to begin at Chelmsford crown court. He will be sentenced next month.

They also revealed that Daynes sent photographs of Breck’s dead ad body to fellow members of the internet forum, at the same time that his family were frantically trying to find

him. Breck, from Caterham in Surrey, was found more than 30 miles away in Grays, Essex, with a fatal stab wound on February 17.

He had been introduced through a church youth club to the online club, called TeamSpeak, whose server was owned and controlled by Daynes.

Daynes told a series of lies, including that he had previously worked for the US Defence Department. When he was confronted by Breck’s mother he told her that she should allow her son more computer time. Breck’s parents banned him from communicating with Daynes because he was “anti-government, anti-church, anti-everything”.

They reported him to the police but Ms LaFave said that when they heard nothing back “we assumed Daynes didn’t pose the threat we feared”.

By the time Breck told his father he was going to visit a schoolfriend on February 17, they thought the contact with the sinister gamer had ceased, but their son travelled by taxi to Dayne’s flat, where the engineer had promised to upgrade his computer.

Breck’s family are suing Surrey and Essex police, which face investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Lorin LaFave, Breck’s mother, said that the lack of police action was “unforgivable”

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News Major profit The family of a British soldier who bought Toby jugs in 1917 depicting Allied leaders has decided to sell them. Major John Clementi bought nine, including Woodrow Wilson, Earl Kitchener, Field Marshal Haig and David Lloyd George. They could sell for £4,000

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Better paid will benefit most from tax cut proposals Francis Elliott Political Editor

Higher paid workers will benefit disproportionately from income tax cuts regardless of the make-up of the next government, according to analysis of parties’ proposals.

Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Ukip all promise that they will reduce the tax burden on the less well paid after the election. However, while their policies on income tax vary in cost and design, those in the bottom half of incomes will receive at most a quarter, and at worst a fifth, of the benefits, said the Resolution Foundation.

The introduction of the singlepayment universal credit system means most of the increases from cuts will be clawed back in a reduction to in-work benefits.

The think-tank urged parties to increase the threshold at which workers pay national insurance. Aligning this with income tax would be more effective in helping low-income working households, it said.

Gavin Kelly, the Resolution Foundation’s chief executive said it was striking that at a time of prolonged austerity all the parties were promising tax cuts. It said that Ukip’s package was the most expensive, costing about £13 billion a year, but among the least well-targeted at low-income households.

The party wants to raise the personal tax allowance to the level of the minimum wage, around £13,500, and introduce a 35p rate on incomes between £42,000 and £55,000. However, the changes would benefit the richest 10 per cent of households by £1,143 and the poorest by £35, according to the study.

The Conservative plans, which would cost £7.2 billion when fully imple-

mented, also benefit the better-off far more than the low paid. Raising the personal tax allowance to £12,500 and increasing to £50,000 the threshold for higher rate taxpayers would see the richest 10 per cent of households get £649 extra and the poorest £17.

The Lib Dem plans, which concentrate solely on raising the personal tax allowance to £12,500, are a little more evenly spread but still see those in the bottom half get a quarter of the benefits of the cut.

Even Labour would deliver most of its benefits to the better off. It has said that it would spend around £800 million on a new starting 10p rate over the personal tax allowance but most of that would go to the richer half of households.

“There are big differences between the [parties’ tax plans], the costs vary greatly and some are funded while others aren’t,” said Mr Kelly. “But they all share one thing in common; the clear majority of the gains flow to better-off households.

“Around five million of the lowest paid workers will gain nothing from any of the parties’ proposals, including 1.2 million who still pay tax in the form of national insurance.”

The think-tank calculated that because universal credit is designed to taper benefits as a household’s income rises, two thirds of the intended gains from tax reductions will bypass households eligible for benefits.

Mr Kelly added: “At the very least the next government must end the anomaly whereby universal credit recipients — including half of all families in the country with children — will automatically lose two thirds of any gains associated with a tax cut.”

Corporate avoidance is morally wrong, say voters Alexi Mostrous Special Correspondent

The vast majority of Britons regard tax avoidance by multinational companies as “morally wrong”, according to a new poll.

More than four in five respondents said it was important that large companies “paid their fair share of tax”, while three quarters urged the next government to legislate against corporate tax dodging.

The poll, which was commissioned jointly by Christian Aid and Action Aid, is published before the government’s autumn statement on Wednesday which is expected to announce more details of a “Google tax” on companies channelling profits offshore.

Concern about tax avoidance is shared by supporters of the two main political parties, the poll found, with 88 per cent of Labour and 90 per cent of Conservative voters agreeing that the practice, although legal, was “morally wrong”.

Just 20 per cent believe that political parties have done enough to tackle tax avoidance by large companies.

In September George Osborne, the chancellor, vowed that the government would clamp down on strategies employed by particular sectors.

“Some technology companies go to extraordinary lengths to pay little or no tax here,” Mr Osborne told the Conservative party conference in Birming-

ham in September . “If you abuse our tax system, you abuse the trust of the British people. And my message to those companies is clear: we will put a stop to it.”

Although no company was singled out, the clampdown became known as the “Google tax” because the internet behemoth is one of a number of companies that use legal tax minimisation techniques to channel profits into lower tax jurisdictions.

“This poll clearly shows mass public opposition to tax avoidance by large companies, both in the UK and developing countries,” said Toby Quantrill, Christian Aid’s economic adviser.

“There is much more the UK could do to reduce the problem of tax-dodging by multinationals. It should make good on commitments to create a public registry of company owners and ensure that the UK-controlled tax havens follow this lead.

“We can also ensure that UK companies are required to report separately on their economic activities in every country in which they operate, so as to reveal any artificial operations that may be used to reduce their global tax bills.”

Newly released figures show that the Revenue increased the total amount of corporation tax recovered from Britain’s biggest businesses by 25 per cent, from £3.2 billion in 2013 to £4 billion this year.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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comment pages of the year

Throwing back fish is a crime that must be stopped Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Page 18

Opinion

This isn’t your captain speaking. It’s a robot

Irrational fears about pilotless planes must eventually give way to the evidence that they are better and safer Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

T

he Civil Aviation Authority is concerned that pilots are becoming too reliant on automation and are increasingly out of practice in what to do when the autopilot cannot cope. We now know that a fatal Air France crash in the Atlantic in 2009 was caused by confused co-pilots reacting wrongly when the autopilot disengaged during turbulence. They put the nose of the plane up instead of down.

But there is another way to see that incident: the pilot was asleep at the time, having spent his time in Rio sightseeing with his girlfriend instead of sleeping. When roused as the plane stalled, he woke slowly and reacted too groggily to correct the co-pilots’ mistakes. Human frailty crashed the plane, not mistakes of automation.

Human error, or sabotage, also seems most likely (though we cannot yet be sure) to have disabled and diverted the Malaysian Airlines jet that vanished over the Indian Ocean in March. Human action certainly caused 9/11. For every occasion on which a Chesley Sullenberger brilliantly and heroically landed a plane on the Hudson River after a flock of geese went into the engines, there have been many more where people caused catastrophe. Human error is the largest cause of crashes in the sky, as it is on the ground.

That is, I suggest, why we will embrace the inevitability of pilotless

aeroplanes at some point in the not so distant future. Already, automated systems are better at landing planes than pilots, even on to aircraft carriers: they react quicker. Drones are crashing less often when allowed to land themselves rather than be guided in by ground-based pilots.

Even Hudson River heroism could possibly be automated. I confess I am probably an outlier here and that most people will be horrified by the prospect of boarding pilotless planes for a while yet. But I think they will come round.

Driverless ground transport will help to assuage our fears. I took a driverless train between terminals at Heathrow last week, and Transport for London has begun tendering for driverless Tube trains, to predictable fury from the unions. Prototype driverless cars are proving better and safer than anybody expected. It cannot be long before they seem preferable to an occasionally distracted, risk-taking, radio-playing or grandee-teasing taxi driver.

Human error is the biggest cause of crashes in the sky Google’s prototype self-driving cars have now covered more than 700,000 miles on public roads with only one accident — which happened when a human took the controls. They may be commercially available after 2017.

Testing of self-driving cars will begin on British roads next month.

Getting out of a driverless car, after a restful journey working and reading, then telling it to park and come back when you need it, would bring the luxury of the chauffeured plutocrat within reach of ordinary people. Driverless lorries on the

BRENDAN MCDERMID

motorways could be confined to night-time operation, leaving the roads clear for cars in the day.

In the air, small drones are now commonplace and not just in the military. The “Matternet” is a plan to use them to supply the needs of remote areas with few roads in poor countries, leapfrogging poor infrastructure as mobile phones leapfrogged the lack of landlines.

Once drones can refuel each other in the air, they should quickly take over (for instance) searches of the ocean when planes or boats are lost — so as to put fewer lives at risk.

The next step would be that cargo planes would fly without human beings aboard. The sticking point will be air-traffic control’s reluctance to sanction such planes landing at airports in built-up areas. At the moment, drones and piloted aircraft are kept apart in separate zones. If you live under a flight path it is comforting to know that the planes overhead are piloted by people with every incentive to land safely: with “skin in the game”. The existence of a “ground pilot” who can take control of a plane from the ground, as drone operators can do now, would be of little comfort to such people, let alone to passengers on a plane.

But pilots’ wages and training costs are one of the highest contributors to the cost of flying, after fuel, and if pilotless planes can fly safely for years without passengers, objections to them carrying passengers will gradually fade.

An ordinary aircraft is now regularly flying between Lancashire and Scotland with nobody at the controls (though there is a crew on board to take over if necessary). The offspring of a seven-company consortium called ASTRAEA, it uses radar, radio and visual sensors to detect and avoid hazards.

professor of orthopaedic surgery at Imperial College London, tells me that his engineers build into his experimental robots — which carve out, via keyholes, slots in your knee or hip bones of just the right size and shape to fit the necessary implants — what is little more than an illusion of control by the surgeon. The surgeon is allowed to move the tool about, but only within a certain boundary. Beyond that, the robot’s

Surgeons using new software have only an illusion of control

The 2009 Hudson River heroics could have been performed by a machine

Are we approaching the era when it will be more reassuring to know that there is not a human being in the cockpit than to know that there is? We might find it comforting to know that the cockpit was wholly inaccessible to terrorists and that the machine within it had not spent the night drinking.

It is true, as the CAA has spotted, that we currently have an uncertain mixture of people and machines flying planes, with a danger that the former are getting out of practice and confused. But since accident rates are low and falling, there is no evidence that this partial automation has been a problem, or that going further towards full automation would not help.

Perhaps robotic surgery holds a lesson. Justin Cobb, a distinguished

software prevents the tool straying.

So an automated aeroplane might allow the pilot to play with the joystick and the switches, but only within limits. Thus can the pilot retain what is left of his dignity and the passenger indulge what is left of his irrational fear of submitting his life to a machine. Imagine a future hijacker or suicidal pilot finding the controls of the plane refusing to obey orders. Like Hal in the film 2001, but in a good way: “No, Dave, I can’t let you crash this plane.”

So in practice, despite the cost, we will keep pilots around in the cabin even if there is not much for them to do, and surgeons in the operating theatre, farmers in the cabs of tractors, teachers in the classroom, lawyers in the courts, and columnists on newspapers.

Red Box For the best in political analysis, comment and exclusive YouGov pollingg thetimes.co.uk/redbox

Today Cloudy and wet over northern Italy and the Alps, mostly fine elsewhere with sunny spells. Max 21C (70F), min -15C (5F) Today’s temperatures forecast for noon

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Maximum 11C (52F), minimum -2C (28F).

British Isles Rather a cloudy day, with the risk of rain over Scotland and Ireland. Maximum 10C (50F), minimum -1C (30F).

Spain, Portugal Most places will have a dry day with sunny spells.

Maximum 18C (64F), minimum 3C (37F).

Outlook Much of Europe will stay fine but with rain over Italy and Greece, and snow over Scandinavia.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Opinion

How James found order in a taste for death After years of private pain and grief, the great detective story writer’s solace was in fiction Melanie Phillips

@melanielatest

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ike so many others, I felt the death of the novelist PD James as a personal loss, even though I never knew her. These days, I download many contemporary novels electronically on to Kindle, because I guess (usually correctly) that after one reading they are not worth keeping. But my shelves are stacked with James’s detective fiction.

Her novels fuse the drama of crime mystery with the depth and subtleties of literary fiction. Her many-layered plots not only sustain superb narrative tension but contain sharp, thoughtful observations of both human nature and society.

In this she was different from detective writers such as Agatha Christie, whose novels are all about solving the puzzle created by the murder and in which character and motive are therefore not well developed. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are mere vehicles of the plot.

By contrast James’s Commander Adam Dalgliesh, her poet-detective hero, has a complex interior life.

Why do so many of us love reading detective novels? Of course, we enjoy the strong narrative structure and the challenge of solving mysteries through artfully

laid clues. The deeper reason is surely that detective fiction is all about restoring order. As James herself observed, it shows that even the most difficult problems can be solved, “not by divine intervention or good luck but by human intelligence, human courage, human perseverance”.

She seemed to be speaking from experience. For the sombre tone of her novels was surely influenced by her own painful life, with a cold and tyrannical father, a mother who never recovered from a nervous breakdown and a husband who also became mentally ill after the war and was confined to a psychiatric hospital.

Fiction creates worlds in which we can lose ourselves. Detective fiction enables us to escape the burdens, problems and worse of our own lives and inhabit for a while a world in which order is restored out of

It’s no surprise the best practitioners of these moral fables are women emotional and moral chaos. It was surely no coincidence that, rather like today, the so-called golden age of the detective novel in the 1930s was an era of gathering global menace and deep foreboding.

Detective fiction is looked down on as not being proper literature. Yet there is no reason why it cannot create imaginative worlds that state eternal truths about people and their relationships, the defining characteristic of literature as a work

Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh, the poet-detective with a complex inner life

of art. Jorge Luis Borges, arguably the supreme literary practitioner of detective fiction, claimed that all great novels are detective stories. By which he seemed to mean that things are often not as they seem, and that to get at the truth you have to be alert to clues and how to decipher them.

Indeed, since literary fiction explores how we should behave, the choices we make and the consequences that flow from them, the detective novel can claim to embody literary fiction in its purest form. For such novels illuminate behaviour at its furthest extremes.

Through violence, sadism and murder, they reveal the brutality and barbarism just below the surface of respectable, even refined society.

Detective novels are thus quintessentially moral fables. So it’s no surprise that so many of the best practitioners of the genre — Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ruth Rendell, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Patricia Cornwell, PD James — have been women. That’s because women not only have more of an eye for detail, and thus are good at laying clues, but also tend to be more moral than men (sorry, chaps) — something to do with how it generally falls to women to keep the whole family show on the road.

Maybe because they tend to lead more constrained and responsible lives, women have often used the safety of fiction to kick over the traces. Think of the Brontë sisters’ novels; or think of Jane Austen (who James thought would have made an excellent detective writer) hiding her subversive and devastating demolitions of human behaviour beneath the tablecloth.

In James’s The Black Tower Dalgliesh, after his false diagnosis of leukaemia, reflects morosely that the pleasures and preoccupations of his life had been “at best only a solace, at worst a trivial squandering of time and energy”, and that he would “reconcile himself to living, since there was no alternative”.

The years of acute pain and grief endured by PD James were redeemed by the tremendous success of her books, which gave so many people so much pleasure. She died at a great age, seemingly content and beloved by all. How cheering that in her own life there really was an orderly and happy ending.

Melanie Reid Notebook

A dinosaur president does Islam a huge favour

D

istasteful as his views are, Recep Tayyip Erdogan may yet become an unintentional hero. By declaring that women are not equal to men and that Islam’s defined role for women is motherhood, the Turkish president has explicitly exposed the unacceptable face of his religion.

I wonder if he’s not done the Muslim faith a huge favour, by liberating the enlightened world to ridicule Muslim traditionalists for their antediluvian attitudes.

Institutions that formalise such inequality have no place in the 21st century. We cannot be racist, but we sure as hell can assert the primacy of gender equality.

Most critically, Mr Erdogan has surely given moderate, progressive Muslims everywhere the perfect opportunity to launch a reform movement to modernise their faith.

If not now, when?

Heavenly power trip

M

eanwhile my nephew, who lives in a Paris suburb, says the number of women wearing veils has grown markedly since the rise of Islamic State. There is, he suggests, a real sense of muscle-flexing. Male Muslims are putting their wives in veils because it makes them, the men, feel empowered; on the side of the strong. It reinforces their ego.

He asks the young Muslims he works with about the attraction of jihad. The answer is fascinating. Because it’s easy.

It relieves them of responsibilities. It’s a club. All they must do is keep their right hand clean, remember women are not equal, learn some tenets of the Koran and after that they’re safe and comfortable. Better still, as young men pumped with testosterone, their primary urges will be satisfied by going to kill on Allah’s instructions, sure in the knowledge that heaven awaits.

Why, if

you’re uneducated, unemployed, disempowered and live in the banlieue — what’s not to like?

The hills are alive

T

here is a nostalgic 1970s feel about post-referendum Scotland, with the revival of romantic socialism. The front page of the new pro-independence newspaper, The National, last week carried a wide picture of hill and glen, overwritten with the glorious Dave McSpart headline, “Taking Back the People’s Land”. Nicola Sturgeon’s land reform bill has a target of putting a million acres into community ownership by 2020.

Inside the paper, it was promised that “with democratic stewardship and non-traditional landowners, a thousand flowers could blossom” — that is, after the nasty rich toffs and foreigners

are forced to sell their estates back to the masses. Plainly the SNP have discovered the secret of how to bestow prosperity upon vast areas of wet, rocky upland where nothing grows and no one wants to live.

Bad timing, then, that the community on the island of Gigha, which completed Scotland’s most ambitious people’s buyout in 2002, is in desperate trouble. Once hailed as a model paradise of renewables and self-sufficiency, Gigha reports debts of £3 million, failed businesses and farms, no island shop and a “total lack of social cohesion”.

It is extraordinary, though, that even as the misty-eyed vision of Caledonian Cuba approaches, you cannot fault the members of the SNP for their amazing discipline. A few of my friends in the party are, privately, more neoliberal than Genghis Khan and Lord knows how they’re coping with the onset of socialism.

I’d ask them, but I’m scared they’d tell me and then have to kill me.

Better half

T

he most important voice missing from the delicious taxigate shame of David Mellor is that of his partner Penelope, Lady Cobham. How I wish, amid Mr Mellor’s sweary bombast, she had been recorded saying to him icily: “Stop this cab and let me out, you insufferable prat.” I hope she said it in private later.

Throwing back fish is a crime that must be stopped Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall

I

wouldn’t call Nigel Farage a mate (I’m a cider man myself) but he shares my concern for fish, and two years ago he made a rare appearance in the committee chamber of the European parliament to vote in favour of ending “discards”.

Fishermen would no longer be required to throw huge amounts of dead fish back into the sea, ending a massive scandal that has seen millions of tonnes of fish go to waste across Europe.

Now his party needs to swing into action again — along with all Britain’s MEPs — to stop the new common fisheries policy from being gutted. A huge majority in the European parliament got behind the discard ban while Richard Benyon, then Britain’s fisheries minister, and his allies in Europe helped to fend off repeated attacks led by France, which would rather let the broken system limp on than face up to the

Zombie politicians keep ripping the guts from this legislation

huge changes needed to save both our fish and our fishermen’s future.

The new common fisheries policy came into place at the start of this year and preparations have been under way for the first “discard ban” to begin next month. But French MEPs have been orchestrating attempts to undermine the new rules. It’s like a bad movie where the same zombie politicians keep coming back to rip the guts out of this vital legislation.

There are three vital elements of our new sustainable fishery rules that I am calling on MEPs to rescue in their vote this week. The first is to ensure that juvenile and undersized fish are no longer thrown back dead into the sea, as they have been in vast quantities for so many years.

Second, we need to see that everything that is caught gets logged and recorded. Beyond the sheer craziness of wasting good fish, no one really knows how much is being caught and killed. That makes it much harder to know how many fish are in the sea and to give fishermen fair and sustainable quotas. Third, the wreckers are proposing to tie the reforms in red tape with swathes of new rules devised, debated and voted through every year.

We mustn’t let a small cabal of dubiously motivated MEPs ruin the new common fisheries policy. All Britain’s MEPs on the fisheries committee — including Mr Farage’s Ukip colleagues David Coburn and Ray Finch — must make sure they turn up and make themselves heard at the vote this week.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a chef, food writer and campaigner

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Opinion

Buy prints or signed copies of Times cartoons from our Print Gallery at timescartoons.co.uk

Yes, there really are virtuous paedophiles Society is better served if those who are sincerely fighting sexual urges that they despise have somewhere to turn Libby Purves

@lib_thinks

S

hall we try a calm discussion about paedophiles? Not easy.

Last week, a Channel 4 documentary rife with nervous caveats pushed the door ajar and peered bravely round.

The film, The Paedophile next door, covered well-trodden ground: crime statistics, awful porn, scarred survivors. “The problem is out of control . . . paedophiles are all around us.” So far, so familiar. But it did one brave thing.

It found a distressful man called Eddie, who in full vision admitted sexual attraction to young children.

He hated his feelings, had never acted on them: “I don’t feel I’m capable of doing that kind of thing . . . don’t want to.” But the feelings were there. He considered suicide. “But it was my life, I wanted it to mean something.”

There was predictable outrage from one victims’ group, though the NSPCC bravely spoke in favour. The reason Eddie talked is that he is

seeking treatment and getting it — abroad. Despite the man’s innocence, the reporter darkly said how “uncomfortable” it was meeting him: “Most of us would never dream of talking to a paedophile.” The impression was that, like another interviewee, Dr Sarah Goode, the journalist was “baffled” that there are men who have such impulses yet are committed to controlling them.

Dr Goode says wonderingly: “We didn’t know that before! It’s a hidden population . . . the virtuous paedophile.”

It’s not baffling. It’s screamingly obvious. It’s human nature. Everyone fights temptations, whether to cheat on their partner, steal or just rant at

Channel 4 pushed the door ajar and peered bravely round

a cabby. Why would this particularly awful orientation be different?

Nobody knows why it occurs (contrary to cliché, not all abusers were abused children). But it exists, so there must be people fighting it.

Out of prudence the documentary repeatedly stressed the horrors, but the pity is that this left little time for the really useful point: that there must be plenty of Eddies out there,

struggling to be decent men in a pornified society. If they could be helped, not as criminals but before the offence, prison cell and blighted future, everyone would win.

I first wrote about this in 1997, when I was visiting a man in prison for “low level” offences (minor touching). An exemplary prisoner, he spent much time with the chaplain and said on one visit: “Don’t worry. I know what’s what. Shouldn’t have been a teacher.” I drove him home at last one Christmas Eve; he lived on for two years and died of a heart attack on Ash Wednesday. Earlier that day he told his priest how he kept the ash of repentance on his brow all day and was proud for once when people stared.

I visited him partly because I reckoned that if he still had friends, children would be safer from any future development of his urges.

Besides, I feared for him: in another local case a teacher suddenly — it is believed for the first time — kissed a pupil. Arrested and banned from going home to his children, he jumped to his death. Later, that man’s friend related that he would often say “There are bad things in me” and then sit silent, unforthcoming.

The idea of the inactive paedophile, the not-yet-offender, bothered and fascinated me. I researched how such a man might

find confidential help: very nearly impossible. In 1998 I wrote a novel, More Lives Than One, about a teacher, wholly innocent but who in crisis admits being “a fixated preferential paedophile, and not even a sensible one. Sensible ones jump off high buildings or drive into trees as soon as they understand what they are.”

I got letters. Some on HM prison notepaper, but many saying they had

Here in Britain, the paranoia has been magnified after Savile

done nothing but were afraid of themselves and terrified of speaking about it. They knew that society swallows the glib legend that they are all devious monsters, who by the time they are suspected will have been abusing for years. What the Channel 4 programme could have majored on is what Eddie discovered: that while little in the UK has changed (except for the paranoia getting magnified after Savile), in Germany there is Project Dunkelfeld. Detailed in English on www.dont-offend.org, it firmly condemns all abuse and porn, but describes group therapy for men of all types and ages.

Hear them. Sven, after a role-play exercise, “at last understood the helplessness, the shame, the fear . . . the victim cannot be complicit” .

Christian, a civil servant, avoids online sites and “when I realise that I’m entering a dangerous situation, I just get out of it. I am the responsible one. A child or an adolescent can’t be, I have to take responsibility.”

Gunther says: “I know, now, that I can lead a decent life.” Sven gave up schoolteaching and works only with adults; Alex, at 24, got the nerve to tell his family “why it was sometimes difficult for me to babysit, to go to the outdoor pool or places like that”.

They accepted him. Stefan got his marriage back. Manuel says: “I no longer hate myself for this sexual preference, I know it’s not my fault.

The biggest responsibility, though, is not to harm anybody. This task will stay with me my whole life long.”

None of us can be sure we will never yield to temptation. Even if the temptation is this dreadful one, it seems that still-innocent men can be helped, without hatred, to accept that task. But it’s harder if, as Dr Goode puts it,“the only message they’re getting is ‘You’re a monster, you’re going to rape and murder children and we’re gonna lock you up and everyone’s gonna hate you’.

That’s the only message.”

We need a better one.

20

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Leading articles Daily Universal Register UK: The winner of the £25,000 Turner Prize is announced live on Channel 4 from Tate Britain, London; the BBC Music Sound of 2015 longlist of 15 acts to look out for next year is announced; the British Fashion Awards take place at the London Coliseum.

Europe: Donald Tusk takes over as president of the European Council.

Peru: The first day of the week-long UN climate change conference in Lima.

Spent Force

Elected police commissioners have provoked many complaints but above all, they have proved inadequate in performing their responsibilities Britain is an over-centralised state. Too many decisions are taken from London. These are commonplace observations in political debate. Yet local democracy has to be built; it cannot simply be declared. The government’s attempt to make police forces more accountable to the communities they serve is a salutary example of what will happen if government fails to take its own reform programme seriously. An experiment in directly electing police chiefs has proved a fiasco.

The Times reveals today that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has investigated more than 40 complaints against 23 police and crime commissioners (PCCs). This is more than half of all the 41 commissioners who were elected in 2012, after the abolition of police authorities in England and Wales. These officials are, moreover, only two years into their four-year terms. Except in the case of conviction for a criminal offence, there is no mechanism for removing them except at the ballot box.

A parliamentary committee is set to investigate why there are so many complaints. Yet the government itself should urgently consider why a flagship policy designed to improve local accountability has foundered so badly.

The most prominent case concerns Shaun

Wright, who resigned as South Yorkshire PCC in the wake of the scandal of child sex abuse in Rotherham. The IPCC is considering a complaint about whether Mr Wright was aware of these allegations while he was working for Rotherham metropolitan borough council.

Other investigations include the following: a complaint against Clive Grunshaw, the Lancashire PCC, about mileage claims made while he served as a Labour councillor; a query whether a police officer was impeded in investigating whether Ann Barnes, the Kent PCC, was driving without proper insurance; and allegations against other PCCs of electoral malpractice and of leaking confidential information.

While these complaints have yet to be resolved, some conclusions can confidently be drawn from this dispiriting catalogue. A well-intentioned attempt to decentralise decision-making and make police forces accountable has failed. It need not have done. It must now be radically overhauled.

The post of PCC was established by legislation in 2011, with the aim of making the police in England and Wales “more accountable through oversight by a directly elected individual”. PCCs would be elected by voters and scrutinised by a Police and Crime Panel in each force area.

It was not wrong to hope that this arrangement might make policing more responsive to public concerns. Yet the government made precious little effort to convince people of its merits. Turnout in elections for the PCCs was dismal, at around 15 per cent. Those elected have been, by any objective standards, of generally poor quality. There was a real problem with the old system of police authorities, who were barely known to the public they represented. Yet that problem has merely been replicated with elected PCCs. The immediate remedial action that needs to be taken is to give the IPCC greater powers of investigation. At the moment, its inquiries are limited to matters that cross the threshold of criminal conduct. Second, Theresa May, the home secretary, should acknowledge that the policy she originally championed has a crucial weakness. There is no power of recall for a PCC who is underperforming in the role or who loses public confidence.

If there is one way to guarantee that elected police commissioners attract derision, it is to protect mediocrities in office. These investigations must be concluded rapidly; local electorates must have confidence in the character of those who represent them; and, finally, talented people must be persuaded to serve.

Putin’s Roving Eye Moldova. It has given paramilitary training, according to the Moldovan prosecutor’s office, to volunteers from pro-Russian regions of the country. Election results are to be contested; proMoscow demonstrations are planned.

First, though, the Kremlin has been doing its utmost to boost the electoral chances of the pro-Russian parties in Moldova.The head of the Moldovan Socialist party, Igor Dodon, visited Mr Putin in Moscow during the election campaign.

Russia promised that the 220,000 Moldovan illegal immigrants in Russia would be free to visit their homeland to vote, and be made legal residents when they return to work in Russia.

In another attempt to sway the vote, the Kremlin suggested it would lift an embargo on Moldovan wine, meat and fruit if Moldovans returned a friendly government. Gazprom said it was ready to lower the price of gas next year (Moldova is dependent on Russia fuel). Similar blandishments were made towards Ukraine when it seemed poised last year to draw closer to the EU. Moscow’s heft in Moldova, one of the poorest countries on the continent, is manifest: a quarter

of Moldova’s GDP comes from remittances sent

by Moldovans working abroad, most of them in Russia. Russia is the largest foreign investor.

Any uncertainty about the shape of the future coalition, any manufactured dispute in pro-Russian areas, must now be seen in the light of Mr Putin’s behaviour in Ukraine. He could choose to annex the autonomous, unrecognised area of Transnistria, which tried to break away from Moldova in the 1990s.

It was for Moldovans yesterday either to succumb to their fears or embrace the risk of a future closer to Europe. It was a choice between east and west and it demanded courage. If a pro-EU coalition can be formed, then Brussels should remind the government of its duties towards minorities and urge it to stamp down on official corruption.

It is Mr Putin, however, who will be tested in Moldova over the coming weeks. If a government hostile to Moscow emerges, he must control his anger, accept the result and recognise at last the limits to his power. Anything else would be confirmation that he is intent on rebuilding a version of the defunct Soviet Union.

Rules of Refinement

Modern society is not lacking in manners; there is a cost to boorish behaviour “I’ve been in the cabinet, I’m an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s Counsel,” disclosed David Mellor at high volume to a taxi driver, before levelling the epithet “sweaty, stupid little s**t”. It’s hard to find any redeeming eloquence in this dismal episode — or in the swearing by Andrew Mitchell, another former Conservative minister, at a police officer.

Even in calmer moments, a confident person is not always a convivial one. Andrew Halls, head teacher of King’s College School in Wimbledon, a leading independent school, fears that some privately educated people exude a “bullish,

charmless confidence that asphyxiates the society they move in”. Mr Halls’ critique is striking in its candour, as is his determination that pupils should not learn arrogance.

While supporting Mr Halls’ aims, we are sanguine about the state of modern manners. The very fact that Mr Mellor has suffered intense embarrassment, and has issued a penitential apology on his radio programme, indicates that there is a social cost to boorishness. Jeremiads about the brutish state of society are nothing new.

Every generation fears that standards of courtesy are collapsing. Yet the evidence is against them.

In the weekend’s sunshine, the most conspicuous sight in the countryside was the oak trees.

They are practically the last trees left with their leaves on. A few still have green and yellow foliage, but most of the leaves now look brown on a cloudy day. However, in the low rays of the winter sun they take on a last burst of colour — some a soft pink, some purplish, some even gold. Oaks grow not only in woods but also spaced out along farmland hedges, or standing alone, spreading their branches, in the middle of a field. On Saturday and Sunday they lit up the landscape. Another source of autumnal colour is the bramble bushes. Many of them now have hundreds of lemon-yellow leaves lying on top of them, still living but quite flat. The bushes look as if someone had dropped a gorgeous tablecloth on them.

Brambles are vigorous plants, and keep some green leaves in winter. They are also putting out new, thorny shoots that creep across the ground. Where they grow in woods, and send their shoots across a path, these are like trip wires on which it is easy to catch your foot. derwent may

Birthdays today

If Moscow interferes in Moldova it will plunge east-west relations into deeper crisis Vladimir Putin has this year spread chaos along the eastern fringe of Europe. He has snatched the Crimean peninsula, sown serious unrest in eastern Ukraine and has repeatedly tried to test Nato’s resolve to defend the Baltic states. The elections yesterday in Moldova may offer him a new chance to block what he views as the trespass of the European Union in his backyard. It is time to stop him.

The Moldovan vote and any Russian attempts to subvert the result must be watched carefully.

Any hint that Mr Putin intends to destabilise the country, which signed an association agreement with the EU last summer, must be met with a firm western response. Nato should reinforce Romania’s eastern border with Moldova. And sanctions must be tightened and imposed with speed.

After muddling through a series of Ukrainianlinked crises, barely shrugging even when Russian-trained and Russian-armed separatists shot down a civilian airliner, the west should by now have learned the central lesson of dealing with Mr Putin’s Kremlin: it cannot be indulged or given the benefit of the doubt.

Russia has made its intentions clear towards

Nature notes

The goal of politeness emerged in 18th-century society and was highly prized. As a child, George Washington was required by his tutor to copy out “110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation”. Yet many of these virtues were about deference — knowing one’s position in society — more than politeness. Mary Wollstonecraft attacked Edmund Burke’s championing of chivalry, which she said “vitiates [women], prevents their endeavouring to obtain solid personal merit”. She was right. The democratic age may not be the peak of gentility but it is not mayhem. Manners still matter.

Woody Allen, pictured, actor and director, Annie Hall (1977), 79; Candace Bushnell, author, Sex and the City (1997), 56; Billy Childish, artist and founder, The British Art Resistance (2008), 55; Gordon Crosse, composer, Sabbath Rest (2010), 77; John Densmore, drummer, the Doors, 70; William Feaver, art critic and writer, Lucian Freud (2007), 72; Kevin Fewster, director, Royal Museums Greenwich, 61; Judith Hackitt, chairwoman, Health and Safety Executive, 60; Richard Hawkes, chief executive, Scope, 50; Stephen Lowe, artistic director, Meeting Ground Theatre, and playwright, The Fox and Empty Bed Blues (2009), 67; Emily Mortimer, actress, The Newsroom, 43; Bette Midler, singer, Wind Beneath My Wings (1988), and actress, For the Boys (1991), 69; Professor Sir John O’Reilly, director general of knowledge and innovation, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 68; Stephen Poliakoff, playwright and screenwriter, Dancing on the Edge (2013), 62; Lee Trevino, golfer, winner of the US Open (1968, 1971), 75; Claire Whitaker, director, London Jazz festival, 51.

On this day In 1942 the Beveridge report on social security was published, heralding Britain’s welfare state; in 1955 an African-American, Rosa Parks, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man; in 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to visit the Vatican and meet the Pope.

The last word “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, prime minister (1766-68)

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Letters to the Editor

1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF Email: letters@thetimes.co.uk

Selective schools, results — and rich parents

Milking the profit Sir, Your excellent leader on dairy farming (“Milk and Money”, Nov 29) states that “the task of fixing this mess starts with the consumer”. As one who buys four pints of semiskimmed at my local Waitrose for £1 twice a week, may I propose that the store immediately takes a lead in saving the dairy industry by raising that price to £1.50 and sending all the difference directly to the farmers who produce the milk? I am confident that many of my fellow customers would support this initiative. samuel gray Eastbourne, E Sussex Sir, It is the supermarkets and milk processors who are ruining the dairy farmers, not the consumer. If they wish to lead with low-priced milk, it is they who should bear the cost. john taylor Coniston Cold, N Yorks

Royal assassin Sir, Queen Victoria scarcely turned a hair when on March 2, 1882, Roderick Maclean became the seventh person to try and kill her (“Mad poet who shot at Victoria”, Nov 27). “He had fourteen bullets on him,” she noted calmly. She much enjoyed reading, and replying individually, to the 206 telegrams that poured in. Two Eton schoolboys, who had set about Maclean at Windsor station with umbrellas, brought nearly 900 others with them to present an address in the castle quadrangle to which “I read a short answer” while noting how good-looking her two young champions were. She told her eldest daughter: “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.” lord lexden House of Lords

Forever young Sir, Barbara McMahon’s article on living for ever (“Age shall not wither us”, Magazine, Nov 29) may be exciting news for oldies but it fails to cover a most important point. What will the effect be on the environment if we all live for so much longer?

My father always said that the purpose of each generation was to ensure the succession of the next. No more than that. Already the Earth is beginning to show signs that our increasingly rapid depletion of its finite resources is going to cause huge problems for us, and possibly lead to our extinction. michael plumbe Hastings, E Sussex

Corrections and clarifications The Times takes complaints about editorial content seriously. We are committed to abiding by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (“IPSO”) rules and regulations and the Editors’ Code of Practice that IPSO enforces.

Requests for corrections or clarifications should be sent by email to feedback@thetimes.co.uk or by post to Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

Sir, Your lead story “Parents say yes to more grammar schools” (Nov 27) illustrates the difficulty of gauging public opinion. You report that 54 per cent would support opening new grammar schools. The number would have been far lower if the pollster had asked whether people supported opening new secondary moderns, which in a selective system is where most pupils go.

The YouGov poll says that two thirds of parents want their children to go to grammar school. The latest research, from the Institute of Education, shows that in recent decades, in selective areas, 20 per cent went to grammar schools — leaving 80 per cent for secondary moderns or equivalent. So much for parental choice.

The selective system was designed for a very different postwar world where a tiny number of people went to university and the vast majority left school with no qualifications at 15. Indeed, in practice, until the mid 1950s it was illegal for those at secondary moderns to take public exams at all. As last week’s research showed, grammar schools do not help working-class children to get to university, although secondary moderns are a barrier.

The standard of secondary education now is much higher than when selective education was the norm, partly as a result of the abolition in most areas of the 11+. If you tell a child of ten that they have failed the 11+, and that an academic education is not for them, most will believe you and behave accordingly.

In most of Britain we don’t do that any more. Far more people now are expected to do GCSEs, A levels and

New driving test Sir, Proposals to change the driving test to reflect the reality of driving on British roads are long overdue (“New sat-nav test could signal end of the three-point turn”, Nov 29). What should be addressed is the status of elderly drivers. I passed my test some 50 years ago and have not had any “refresher” course since. Without such instruction I would undoubtedly fail any test. I would have no complaint if such a practice was mandatory, with drivers being compelled to retake the

on this day december 1, 1914

MRS PANKHURST ON THE WAR Mrs Pankhurst spoke at a meeting organised by the Women’s Social and Political Union, held in the Kingsway Hall last night. The women of England, Mrs Pankhurst said, showed an example of selfdiscipline to the world when, in the heat of the combat for enfranchisement, they laid down their arms and suspended operations for their country’s sake.

Women, like men, had varying

go on to university — and therefore many more do. The challenges of the future will not be met by a return to a system of the past where conditions were very different to those of today. demitri coryton Editor, Education Journal Sir, You report that 66 per cent of parents responding to a YouGov poll said that they would send their children to a grammar school. Were they aware that, under the old system, 80 per cent of their applications would be turned down?

Perhaps they should be asked whether they would welcome the return of secondary modern schools. rev a graham hellier Marden, Hereford Sir, By all means let us discuss grammar schools — but only after a national debate on the schooling of the unacademic, a far larger group.

To do otherwise is to hasten the reemergence of the default option, namely the discredited secondary modern. Why should the state concentrate unduly on the bright, who by definition are more capable of fending for themselves?

This calls for a less socially divisive, tripartite secondary school system consisting of grammars and vocational institutes, with high schools for the academically inclined sandwiched in-between. yugo kovach Winterborne Houghton, Dorset Sir, The YouGov poll mirrors other major polls commissioned by the National Grammar Schools Association in recent years, all demonstrating that a majority of driving test on reaching the age of 70. frank greaney Formby, Liverpool Sir, While on a journey through the leafy lanes of Sussex, led by the female tones of our trusty sat-nav, my husband (the driver) frequently opined that she was wrong and went in the opposite direction.

I changed the sat-nav voice to male, and lo — his orders were followed to the letter. We got to our destination five minutes early, without a divorce. vanessa gebbie Ringmer, E Sussex ideas about war; but men had decided to settle international disputes by the sword, and until that method was changed by the common consent of the nations, it was the duty of men to play their part, like men. (Cheers.)

“We women,” Mrs Pankhurst went on, “are the weaker sex.

(Laughter.) We have been told our hands are full with our domestic concerns and our maternal duties.

In times of peace we have a good deal to say on that, but in times of war we are compelled to take men at their word. Men say to us. ‘Leave the fighting to us. It does not become women to fight. We protect women. We fight for you. We shield you from the difficulties of life.’

Well, we take you gentlemen at your word. We have not been allowed to prepare ourselves for self-defence because we are women.” (Hear hear.)

Referring to recent criticisms of the government, Mrs Pankhurst said “I cannot find words strong enough to condemn the people who at this moment are haggling over

parents and voters support new grammar schools. But what of the best of all polls — the choice of real parents for real schools? The 164 grammar schools left in England, under parental pressure, have expanded their schools as far as ingenuity will allow, to admit the equivalent of 30 new grammar schools into their bulging walls. Some have up to 20 pupils who have passed the 11+, competing for each place.

The main parties have their own agendas for ignoring parental wishes, but the reality of them has been blindingly obvious for decades. roger peach Vice-president, National Grammar Schools Association

Drug innovation Sir, At a time when the UK is falling behind its peers in terms of patient access to innovative medicines, it is deeply concerning to note the Department of Health’s remark that the meningitis B vaccine producer Novartis is trying to “turn a profit” (“Dispute with drug company delays meningitis jab”, Nov 25).

Pharmaceutical companies invest £1 billion and 12 years in developing a new treatment; they need to make a return on that investment if we are to ensure the development of new medical treatments. It is short-sighted to want to deny pharmaceutical companies a return on their investment when the value such products bring, to patients and the healthcare system alike, is so significant. Would the department prefer companies to make a loss, close factories and laboratories and stop their research? Without profit, there would be no new medical innovations — drugs or vaccines alike — or even existing medicines. Profit has served patients extremely well; let it continue to do so. stephen whitehead Chief executive, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry

Sir, Clarissa Farr makes no mention of her own school’s responsibility for the kind of pressure which sees students and parents unable to cope with the “failure” of coming second (“Head attacks rich parents”, Nov 29). The briefest glance at the St Paul’s Girls’ School website reinforces the “shame” awaiting if you wreck the school’s evident desire to top the league tables. “For the fourth year running no grade less than a B in 2014”. Woe betide the poor girl who gets the school’s first C grade since 2010. No wonder the parents have a “kind of ticking frenetic anxiety”.

The solution is in Ms Farr’s own hands. Looking at her school website, I suspect she has as much difficulty coming second or even third, fourth, or fifth as her pushiest parents. dennis richards (Former headteacher, St Aidan’s CE High School, Harrogate) Harrogate, N Yorks

Plebgate

Stately solution

Black Friday

Sir, Visiting country houses is indeed good for us (Opinion, Nov 28) — but volunteering in them is even better.

At a time when we hear that many people are lonely and bored, meeting like-minded volunteers and working in an interesting and often beautiful environment is the perfect antidote.

Working together on a worthwhile project brings great rewards and new friendships. I highly recommend it. anna lane Westcott, Surrey diplomacy and what led to the war, and who is to blame for it. I will tell you who is to blame if things are not as they ought to be. It is you enfranchised men. It is the Bernard Shaws and all the rest of them.

(Cheers and laughter.) They say the science of government is suited only to the male sex. Then when you face a great national peril and your very existence as a nation is at stake, they begin to argue in newspaper columns so that our enemy may quote them on the walls of Belgium. If we have rulers who are wrongdoers, it is the fault of those who made them rulers. If we women, with our grievances against men, can hold our tongues, I think other people might do so.

(Cheers.) If there are mistakes, the proper thing to do if you love your country is to try to get things put right quietly, by influence. sign up for a weekly email with extracts from the times history of the war ww1.thetimes.co.uk

Sir, There is a bit of me that wishes Andrew Mitchell’s comments could have been shrugged off in the first place (report, Nov 28).

In my initial police training, we learnt that a police officer could not be insulted and that idle and silly remarks were unworthy of notice. geoffrey bourne-taylor (Metropolitan Police, 1957-88) Bridport, Dorset

Sir, Andrew Moore, the chief merchandising officer at Asda, is right in describing Black Friday as a shopping experience. It was, in fact, a total nightmare and I feel lucky to be alive after my experience at various Asda, Tesco and Argos stores near Oxford. I got coshed by a wet umbrella, almost suffocated in a lift, tripped over a Zimmer frame and put my hand straight through a set of delicious-looking cream-topped petits fours at one of the confectionery counters. It also took me over an hour to pay for my new Royal Worcester teapot and matching cups, one of which now seems to be cracked. By the time I got home my blood pressure had hit record levels. Next Black Friday I’ll meditate in a local church. paul thomas Stowe School, Buckingham

Man-Flowers Sir, On his regular visits to his father, my husband always takes flowers (report and leader, Nov 29). Chosen with care and received with pleasure, they are regarded by both as a perfectly normal gesture of affection. kate saunders Ipswich Sir, Last Thursday, at the end of a splendid recital in the Perth Concert Hall given by the violinist Kyung Wha Chung and the pianist Kevin Kenner, staff appeared on the stage bearing a bouquet of flowers and a package, which clearly contained a bottle. It was Mr Kenner who received the flowers — Kyung Wha Chung had already claimed the bottle! robert sanders Crieff, Perthshire

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

World

Cairo in turmoil as Mubarak goes free Egypt

Bel Trew Cairo

Egypt was braced for a week of violence last night as opposition groups called for protests against the acquittal this weekend of Hosni Mubarak, the former president, on charges of mass murder, and two men were shot dead in battles with security forces in central Cairo.

Gunfire rang out through downtown Cairo as riot police fired shotgun pellets and tear gas at thousands of youths demonstrating against the ruling that acquitted Mr Mubarak of ordering the killings of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolution that toppled him.

Two men, in their late twenties, were killed after they were shot in the chest.

More than 80 people were detained during the night, and 11 more were arrested on university campuses yesterday as thousands gathered to vent their frustration.

“Down, down with the military regime,” the crowds chanted, as a protest group vowed to hold a week of rallies.

Judge Mahmoud al-Rashid had acquitted Mr Mubarak on Saturday on a technicality, saying that he did not have the jurisdiction to continue with the case.

The judge also cleared the former leader’s two sons, Alaa and Gamal, of corruption charges and found Habib al-Adly, his interior minister, and six aides not guilty of participating in the killing of demonstrators.

The ruling means that no one has been found guilty for the deaths of more than 800 people during the uprising.

Mr Mubarak may be released from prison in

days, his lawyer Farid al-Deeb said yesterday. The 86-year-old is at the end of a three-year jail sentence for embezzling public funds earmarked for presidential palaces. “Under a recent legal amendment, there can be a release once two thirds of a sentence has been served,” Mr al-Deeb said.

The release of Mr Mubarak, who has spent most of his sentence in a military hospital, has riled the country’s revolutionaries, many of whom lost friends and family in the uprising.

They say that three years after the revolt the state of freedom and social justice in military-controlled Egypt is worse than ever.

Organisers of the April 6 Youth Movement, which played a prominent role in instigating the 2011 uprising, told The Times that they had called for a week of protests in co-ordination with other revolutionary youth groups.

They called the verdict the “death knell” of the revolution and blamed the decision on the closeness of President al-Sisi’s administration to that of Mr Mubarak.

“This is the worst thing to happen to us since the revolution. We thought at least one person would be held responsible for all the killings. But all were declared innocent,” said Amal Sharaf, a member of April 6’s decision-making body.

“It proves that the Sisi regime is nothing more than the extension of Mubarak’s, they are two faces of the same coin,” she added.

Mr al-Sisi was the chief of military intelligence under Mr Mubarak and also presided over the toppling of Mohamed Morsi as president last July before taking the presidency himself.

Riot police armed with tear gas fired on the protesters

Doctor refused help at British ebola clinic Ruth Maclean Johannesburg

Concerns were growing for the effectiveness of the UK’s response to the ebola crisis in West Africa last night after a doctor who had contracted the disease was turned away from a British treatment centre in Sierra Leone, and later died.

Dr Martin Salia was refused entry to the purpose-built clinic in Kerry Town even though beds lay empty, according to Umaru Fofana, a local journalist.

When Dr Salia realised that he was showing symptoms of ebola, family members accompanied him to the clinic, where guards “wouldn’t let him in because his was not a case referred to them by the command centre”, according to Mr Fofana. A shouting match en-

sued, which Dr Salia’s family said would have been impossible for managers inside the clinic not to hear, and yet still he was refused entry.

The 12-bed unit next to the main clinic was built for medical staff who contract ebola, and is managed by the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence.

Dr Salia lived in the US but had returned to his home country to help fight the outbreak. Later, the clinic tried to invite the doctor back, but he would not go. He was airlifted to Nebraska for treatment, but died there last month.

Sierra Leoneans have criticised the British clinic for admitting few patients since it opened on November 5. It has treated about 44 people in the three weeks it has been open, even though it has 80 beds. Save the Children, which

Hundreds of people, mostly Mr Morsi’s Islamist supporters, have died in acts of state violence since last summer’s coup, killings that the state says were necessary to fight terrorism.

If Mr Mubarak had been found guilty it could have set an uncomfortable precedent for Mr al-Sisi.

The imminent release of Mr Mubarak is in stark contrast to the long jail sentences that were handed out to protesters and journalists in Egypt during the past year as the military-backed government has cracked down on dissent.

The authorities introduced legislation banning rallies without police permission, allowing the state to lock up perceived dissidents.

More than 40,000 people have been arrested since last summer’s military takeover.

Last week 78 minors, the youngest just 13 years old, were jailed for between two and five years for protesting in support of Mr Morsi.

Three journalists with al-Jazeera — Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed remain in jail after being handed sentences of between seven and ten years on terrorist charges. Their trial sparked international outrage.

Mr Greste, an award-winning correspondent who had spent only two weeks in Egypt before his arrest and incarceration, is 49 today.

Mr Mubarak was initially tried at the beginning of 2011 and in June 2012 was sentenced to life in jail after being found guilty of conspiring to kill protesters.

However, the verdict was overturned and a retrial was ordered the following year.

More than 150 police officers and security officials have been tried in relation to the violence of the revolution but all have been acquitted because of a lack of evidence or found to have acted in self-defence. runs the main Kerry Town clinic, said that it was starting slowly as that is best practice and protects medical staff. It also said it had not managed to recruit the 600 medical it needed.

A spokesman for DfID said Dr Salia had been turned away because he did not have a referral letter, adding “Kerry Town is being scaled up by Save the Children as fast as it is safe to do so and we are working intensively with them to ensure it reaches its full capacity as quickly as possible.”

The death toll from the ebola virus has jumped sharply, with 1,200 deaths reported in two days, bringing the total number of dead to nearly 7,000.

A total of 16,169 people have caught the virus, of whom 6,928 have died, according to the World Health Organisation. Most of the “new” deaths were in Liberia, and the WHO attributed them to “a reconciliation of historical numbers” rather than new cases.

The outbreak is affecting people without ebola: starvation is a reality because of panic buying, food shortages, and price rises. There is also a shortage of farm labour.

Protesters, many of whom gathered in Tahir Square, were outraged that nobody

Russia’s Cold War missile

Russia

Ben Hoyle Moscow

Russian scientists are reviving Sovietera nuclear missile trains as part of the Kremlin’s £290 billion overhaul of its armed forces.

Disguised military trains loaded with nuclear missiles first rumbled across Russia’s railways in the 1980s. They were capable of travelling more than 1,000 km (620 miles) in a day without being detected and could launch missiles from any part of their route, making them a key part of the Soviet Union’s Cold War arsenal.

The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology is designing a new missile launching train, according to a source quoted by the Tass news agency.

“While the decision to start manufacturing [missile trains] is still pending, the probability is high that it will happen,” the source said. “In the bestcase scenario, they will be deployed by

the end of the decade, probably somewhere around 2019.” Technical studies and cost estimates are being carried out at the moment.

Lieutenant General Sergei Karakayev, the commander of the Strategic Missile Force, announced a year ago that President Putin had ordered work to begin on a new design for a missile train to counter the Prompt Global Strike system being developed by the US to deliver conventional weapons to any target within an hour.

General Karakayev said his officers were “frustrated that we do not possess such a system today”. The power of a “nuclear train” with several missiles would be comparable to a division of stationary intercontinental ballistic missiles, he said. The old missiles weighed 110 tons and needed reinforced tracks because of the force of launch. The new missiles are expected to weigh less than half that, at 47 tons, and could be fired from ordinary track.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Road-rage policeman who shot driver is charged Page 25

ANADOLU AGENCY / GETTY

Le Pen versus Sarko in race for the Elysée France

Adam Sage Paris

Marine Le Pen won 100 per cent support from her National Front party for a presidential run to take France out of the EU, as Nicolas Sarkozy had a shaky comeback as leader of the centre-right opposition.

At the National Front’s congress in Lyons yesterday, Ms Le Pen, France’s most popular political figure, was reappointed chief of the party she inherited from her father in 2011 and led to victory in this year’s European elections.

She declared war on President Hollande and Mr Sarkozy. “Messrs Sarkozy and Hollande, you have failed in everything,” she said in a speech. “You were entrusted with a treasure: France. You were entrusted with a diamond: its people. You damaged one. You abandoned the other.”

Only the National Front could now speak in the name of the people, said Ms Le Pen, 46, below, who is polling ahead of all candidates in the early phase of the presidential race in May 2017. In a tirade against established parties, she promised to end “the crazy project of the European Union and the ideology of globalisation”. She attacked gay rights and mocked the mainstream parties for “deciding all their strategy in reaction to our electoral advances”.

In spite of the apparent unanimity behind Ms Le Pen, the congress revealed rivalry between far-right and more consensual ideologies, with victory going to the hardest line, represented by Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a rising star, MP and niece of the party Marine Le Pen: France’s most popular politician

had been jailed for the killing of hundreds of opponents of Hosni Mubarak, who could be out of prison within a few days

train back on track in new arms race The Soviet Union began testing a train armed with the RT-23 solid-fuel missile in 1983 and the first missile train regiment deployed in October 1987. It looked like an unremarkable freight train, making detection and pre-emptive destruction difficult. In all, 20 missile launchers were deployed by 1988 but combat patrols ceased in the early 1990s shortly before the Soviet Union

Missiles will be lighter than the RT-23

fell apart. The last train was dismantled in 2007.

Russia is four years into a ten-year transformation of its military. Dmitry Rogozin, the hawkish deputy prime minister, said in September that the country would fully “renovate” its entire nuclear arsenal in the next few years. Russia is also scaling back its cooperation with the US on securing nuclear materials on Russian territory while Moscow has announced that it will boycott an international nuclear security summit that Mr Obama is hosting in 2016. The Russian foreign ministry said that it doubted the value of the meeting and preferred to concentrate on a summit organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The US has announced an urgent $10 billion upgrade of its nuclear weapons arsenal after two reviews found that decades of neglect had left its most significant line of defence in a state of decay. From 2020 onwards the US plans

to spend up to $1 trillion over three decades on modernising its nuclear weapons, including a dozen ballistic missile submarines, up to 100 new bombers and 400 land-based missiles.

According to Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, a Moscow thinktank with close ties to policy makers, there is concern in Moscow that Russia and the West no longer have “a very clear framework for how to control damage” as there was during the Cold War. “This mechanism has been lost because everyone thought it was not needed any more,” he said.

Relations between Russia and the West have soured in recent months over Moscow’s involvement in Ukraine, which said yesterday that a convoy of 106 vehicles had entered its eastern territory without Kiev’s permission, and accused Moscow of once again using humanitarian aid shipments to send arms to separatist rebels.

Concerns grow over fate of Victoria Cross war graves Page 27

leader. The granddaughter of the founder topped the vote for the central committee, beating Florian Philippot, 43, the party’s number two, who favours a socially oriented nationalism.

Ms Le Pen, with her anti-immigrant stance and pledges to leave the euro and the EU, has set the agenda in a bleak political landscape with Mr Hollande and his socialists wallowing in unpopularity and an opposition that this weekend placed itself again under the command of Mr Sarkozy.

Polling suggests that Ms Le Pen would be certain to reach a presidential run-off if an election were held now, and that her opponent would be Mr Sarkozy or a rival candidate from his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

She would lose, according to most polls.

Neither Mr Hollande nor any other leftwinger is given a chance of reaching the second round.

On Saturday, Mr Sarkozy, 59, won a mediocre 64 per cent of the party vote to retake control of the machine that he led until his election to the presidency in 2007. Bruno Le Maire, 45, a former minister, scored 30 per cent, demonstrating doubt over the prospects of “Super-Sarko”.

The Le Maire vote reflected a desire for renewal and rejection of Mr Sarkozy’s swing towards anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic policies that are aimed at attracting Le Pen voters.

While Ms Le Pen faces the task of transforming her protest party into a full-scale campaign machine, Mr Sarkozy must halt feuding, recover the UMP from near bankruptcy and bankr handle continuing criminal investigations.

Swiss voters reject call for cut in immigration Switzerland

David Charter Berlin

The Swiss people have voted by three to one to reject a cut in immigration after warnings that the move would ruin the economy.

The result was in contrast to a vote in February when the Swiss voted by a narrow margin to reintroduce quotas on EU migrants, causing a breakdown in relations with Brussels and leading to Swiss research groups being excluded from European funding.

Further calls to scrap tax breaks for rich foreigners and to increase gold reserves were also voted down yesterday in a series of referendums under the Swiss system of direct democracy.

The so-called Ecopop initiative called for reducing immigration to 0.2 per cent of the population, or 16,000 people, from 80,000 annually.

Voters heeded the advice of all parties, employers’ groups and unions to reject the initiative as xenophobic and a threat to a domestic economy reliant on immigrant labour.

Christian Lüscher, an MP for the Lib-

eral party and the co-chairman of the committee opposing Ecopop, called the initiative “absolutely absurd” and said that it would “impoverish our country”.

Opinion polls suggested that the Swiss would vote “no” across the board but supporters of Ecopop hoped that silent support from the masses would lead to a surprise win.

A call to scrap tax breaks for rich foreigners living but not working in Switzerland who can be levied on spending rather than income was also rejected.

The country has 5,729 millionaires with foreign passports, who pay about £660 million in taxes annually, far less than they would under normal Swiss rates. Voters agreed with those who said that wealthy foreigners contributed to Swiss tax coffers and injected huge sums into the local economy, warning that many would leave the country if they faced higher taxation.

Voters also heeded warnings from the Swiss National Bank that forcing the bank to boost its gold reserves to 20 per cent from about 8 per cent and banning it from selling gold could have disastrous results.

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World

Pope and patriarch unite to condemn Isis Turkey

Alexander Christie-Miller Istanbul

The Pope held joint liturgies over the weekend with one of the world’s most senior Eastern Orthodox Christians, in a step towards healing a 1,000-year rift.

His All Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, is described as the “first among equals” of heads of the various branches of Eastern Orthodoxy. Yesterday he joined the Pope in worship at the end of a three-day papal visit to Turkey.

In a gesture of deference aimed at healing the “Great Schism” of 1054, the Pope bowed before Bartholomew and

asked for his blessing “for me and the Church of Rome”.

The ancient feud occurred in large part due to the Bishop of Rome’s claim to primacy over the other Christian patriarchs. At the Church of George in Istanbul, the Pope told worshippers that unity between the two churches would not “signify the submission of one to the other, or assimilation”.

“The Catholic Church does not intend to impose any conditions except that of the shared profession of faith,” he said. Bartholomew said that the unity sought by the Pope was already being forced on Christians elsewhere in the Middle East through persecution. “The

Pope Francis with the Patriarch in Istanbul yesterday

modern persecutors of Christians do not ask which church their victims belong to,” he said.

The previous day, the two religious leaders attended a papal mass in the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.

In a rare visit to Turkey, the theme driven home by the Pope was the need for interfaith unity and dialogue to

combat religious fundamentalism. Visiting the city’s famous Blue Mosque, the Pope turned towards Mecca to pray with Rahmi Yaran, the Grand Mufti of Istanbul. The gesture was the same as that performed by his predecessor, Benedict XVI in 2006. Benedict’s actions caused alarm among conservative Catholics and the Vatican issued a statement clarifying that he been meditating. This time, the Vatican described Francis’s action as a “moment of silent adoration” of God. The Pope repeatedly highlighted the plight of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East and condemned Islamic State (Isis). Bartholomew and the Pope said the “terrible situation” of Christians in the Middle East “calls not only for our constant prayer but also for an appropriate response on the part of the international community.”

In Turkey, whose Christian population has dwindled from several million a century ago to around 120,000, the lot of Christian minorities is better than elsewhere in the Middle East. President Erdogan has styled himself as a friend of religious minorities. Nonetheless, his rhetoric and the growing dominance of Sunni Islamic values in society have left some Christians fearfulfor their future.

Melanie Reid, page 18

Moldova goes to the polls Chisinau Moldova

has held parliamentary elections in its most important vote since it split from the Soviet Union in 1991. The country is a battleground for influence between Russia and the West.

Since 2009 pro-EU coalitions have taken it further from Moscow than any ex-Soviet state bar the Baltic nations.

Leading article, page 20

35 dead after jail overdoses Thirty-five prisoners have died from drug overdoses in Venezuela after a prison infirmary was broken into. More than 100 others from David Viloria jail in Barquisimeto are being treated.

Colombian general freed Bogota Farc, the

Colombian rebel group, has released an army general, Rubén Alzate, and two others whose capture two weeks ago led President Santos to break off peace talks. (AP)

Family loses royal name Bangkok Thailand’s

crown prince has asked ministers to strip the family of Princess Srirasmi, his third wife, of its royal surname.

Seven of her relatives have been arrested. (AP)

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Israel poised to vote on law for ‘Jewish state’ Israel

Gregg Carlstorm Jerusalem

Israel is about to press ahead with a deciding vote on controversial legislation that will enshrine its status as the “Jewish state” in law, after a cabinet meeting yesterday.

The bill, which critics have called anti-democratic, will have its first vote on Wednesday. It affirms that Jewish law should inspire the Israeli legal system, and reserves Jews the right to automatically take Israeli citizenship.

The measure was introduced after a series of attacks by Palestinians killed 11 Israelis in the past month. The attacks have heightened anti-Arab hostility, with the mayor of Ashkelon barring Palestinian construction workers from schools.

The announcement of the vote came hours after suspected right-wing arsonists set fire to a school in Jerusalem that serves both Jewish and Palestinian students. The authorities said that it bore many similarities to the “price tag” reprisal attacks carried out by Jewish extremists in recent years.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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World

‘Road rage’ officer shot woman driver United States

David Taylor Washington

A policeman has been charged with shooting a woman in a road rage incident when he was off duty, in the latest case to cast doubt on the integrity of America’s law enforcement officers.

Kenneth Caplan, a deputy constable in Texas, allegedly shot a 20-year-old woman driver in Houston after she honked at him for cutting her up in rush-hour traffic on a busy highway.

She said the driver pulled alongside her car, rolled down his window and shot at her as a woman in his passenger seat leaned back to give him a clear view.

The bullet grazed the young woman’s scalp and left her bleeding but otherwise unharmed. After a two-week hunt, police found evidence to implicate one of their own officers and have charged

him with aggravated assault. “I’m worried that since he’s a cop, they’re going to let him off easy,” the woman told television news.

The Harris County Constable’s Office said it “neither condones nor tolerates the actions taken by Kenneth Caplan that connected him to this incident, and the necessary measures were taken to collect his credentials and remove him from our status”.

The case comes as police in the US face more calls for reform after a succession of cases have raised questions about their integrity.

The shooting of the black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri,

by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, which will not go to criminal trial, has opened police to scrutiny and led to demands that all frontline officers wear body cameras.

Amid the fallout from that shooting, fresh cases are emerging, casting doubts on the professionalism of officers.

As well as the Texas case, an investigation continues into the shooting of a 12-year-old boy in a park in Ohio. Video Kenneth Caplan, left, has been charged with aggravated assault

footage shows that Tamir Rice, who was playing with an imitation gun, was fatally wounded by a policeman within seconds of the officer responding to an emergency call.

A grand jury will decide whether the

officer should be prosecuted or whether he was justified in using force against the boy.

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, backed the idea of body cameras for officers and calls to ensure that police forces looked more like the communities they served.

In spite of the Thanksgiving holiday, demonstrations in support of police reform continued.

Marc Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans who is president of the National Urban League civil rights group, said the protests were focused on the lack of accountability when the justice system dealt with cases of police killing unarmed black men.

“The number of killings of citizens by police is at a two-decade high. There is this response across the nation, peaceful protest for the most part, that says JACK KURTZ / ZUMA PRESS / CORBIS

this must change,” he said yesterday.

“This is a time when we have got to promote positive change.”

Lawyers acting for the family of Mr Brown continue to argue that the evidence in his shooting should have been tested in a criminal trial.

Mr Wilson, who announced his resignation from Ferguson police at the weekend, said that he had used reasonable force in the shooting because he feared that his life was in danger.

Daryl Parks, one of the Brown family’s lawyers, said the question should have been put before a jury. “If you are going to use that defence, which is fine, have that defence before a jury, so that the evidence can be properly presented by both sides in the case.”.

A fund set up to pay Mr Wilson’s legal fees received $500,000 from his supporters.

Aide apologises for insulting Obama’s girls David Taylor Washington

Party animals Long-tailed macaques tuck in at the annual Monkey Buffet in Lopburi, Thailand, which began in the 1980s and draws thousands of tourists to the city

Son missing for four years discovered hidden in wall Will Pavia New York

A teenager who was reported missing from Florida by his mother four years ago has been found hidden behind a linen cupboard in his father’s house in Georgia.

Police officers said they found the 13year-old boy cowering behind a false wall. He was brought to a police station where his mother arrived hours later to be reunited with a son she had last seen when he was nine.

Sergeant Joanna Southerland said the police had been called to the house on Friday evening, following a report of a child being beaten.

The boy’s father, Gregory Jean, his stepmother, Samantha Joy Davis, and three other children all denied that there was anyone else in the house when the officers knocked at 11pm.

The boy, 13, is reunited with his mother

After the police left, the boy found a mobile phone and downloaded an app that allows users to make long-distance calls over the internet. He sent a text message to his mother in Florida and police returned at 2am.

“We were able to find him in a linen

compartment,” Sergeant Southerland told the Channel 2 News station. She said he was behind a panel that had been “camouflaged” with draped towels. “He was frozen in fear,” she said.

She said he seemed terrified that the other occupants of the house were near by. “He retreated away from us until he knew that those people weren’t around him.”

The boy’s mother is said to have reported him missing to child welfare services in 2010, after he went to visit his father and never returned. She did not contact the police. Police have said that as an immigrant, she may have been unsure of how to proceed.

Neighbours said the boy’s father, stepmother and several children had moved into the area six months ago.

One neighbour said the boy was frequently seen working in the front garden, though he did not seem to be in distress. She said he played with her son.

Mr Jean, 37, and Ms Davis have been charged with obstructing the police, false imprisonment and cruelty to children. Three juveniles have been charged with obstructing the police.

President Obama’s two daughters were back in the limelight at the weekend, shortly after being berated over their dress sense and lack of class by a congressional aide.

Malia and Sasha Obama, who are usually kept out of the public eye , were by their father’s side at a book shop in Washington DC buying a basket full of Christmas presents to support Small Business Saturdays. They also brought the family dogs to join their mother, Michelle, as they greeted the arrival of the White House Christmas tree.

Their appearance followed comments by Elizabeth Lauten, the communications director for Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee congressman, who criticised the girls for “making faces during televised, public events” and wearing short skirts as their father issued the annual Thanksgiving turkey “pardon” on Wednesday.

“Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar,”she said in a Facebook post, where she called the two young sisters “classless”.

Ms Lauten apologised later, saying: “I pledge to learn and grow . . . from this experience.”

Don’t sleep, yell: how boys buried in snow survived Will Pavia

When Elijah Martinez and Jason Rivera look back on childhood holidays, few will compare with the Thanksgiving day on which they lay buried for seven hours under several feet of snow pushed on top of them by a plough.

“I was thinking that me and my cousin were going to die,” said Jason, nine.

“Me too,” said Elijah, 11.

The boys had been playing in snow at the edge of a car park in Newburgh, 90 miles north of Manhattan.

Six inches of snow had fallen on Thanksgiving day and the boys were building a castle in a snow bank at 7pm when a plough driver piled snow on to the fort and its two occupants. “We started screaming and telling him to stop,” said Elijah. “He didn’t hear us.”

Jason lost his gloves and hat. He said a “big block of ice” fell on his chest, pinning him down.

They were in a small cavity beneath five feet of snow. Elijah had more room to move, and tried to punch up through the ice. “It was about to fall and [Jason] said it was going to land on his face so I stopped punching it,” he said.

“We motivated each other not to go to sleep, keep yelling, keep moving our bodies,” said Elijah.

Relatives became concerned at 10pm. Nine officers and a police dog searched the neighbourhood. At 2am a policeman saw a shovel sticking from snow. Ten shovels of snow later, he struck a boot. The boys were dug out, taken to hospital and then sent home.

Asked what they wanted to do, the boys had different ideas. “Eat,” Jason said. “Go to Disney World,” said Elijah.

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World

New Helmand attacks increase Afghan fears Afghanistan

Tom Coghlan Foreign Correspondent Nooruddin Bakhshi Kabul

Audacious attacks by Taliban militants in Helmand province and Kabul have raised new concerns over Afghanistan’s lasting security, days before an international conference in London to consider the future of the country.

Afghan troops took three days to defeat insurgents who had broken into Camp Bastion, which was vacated in October by the last British troops to leave Helmand. On Friday night, insurgents overran an Afghan national army base in Sangin, killing at least 14 soldiers.

A charity director from South Africa and his two teenage children also died when insurgents attacked a guest house for foreign workers in Kabul at the weekend. General Zahir Zahir, Kabul’s police chief, announced his resignation after the attacks.

Amid concern that the Afghan government will not be able to defend the country from insurgents, the US government announced last week that it was expanding the scope of the

military mission for the 9,800 US troops who will remain in Afghanistan.

The attacks came as a charity called on the Department for International Development (DfID) to reconsider a decision to end funding for a training programme in Helmand. Mercy Corps said that the Invest programme had given more than 21,000 people, including 6,500 women, six months of training in a variety of skills.

David Haines, the director of Mercy Corps in Afghanistan, said: “DfID should win credit for its funding . . . We hope that what will come from the London conference will be that international donors generally realise the need to build on what has worked tangibly in the country.”

Officials said that several dozen insurgents entered Camp Bastion at 8pm on Thursday and remained inside the base until yesterday afternoon.

Abdul Bari Barakzai, head of Helmand’s provincial council, blamed corruption among senior officers for the Taliban’s success. “Officials are working just for their own interest,” he said. “They can’t protect their own base, how can they protect the country?”

LUIS ROBAYO / AFP

Leaves Saint Laurent Models at the BioFashion Show in Cali, Colombia, wore dresses and accessories made from flowers, plants and “organic elements”

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Sailors saved as race yacht strikes reef Nine sailors competing in a round-theworld yacht race have been rescued in darkness from the middle of the Indian Ocean after their boat struck a reef.

The collision may have written off their £3.6 millon vessel, and appears to have ended their challenge in the Volvo Ocean race just seven weeks into the nine-month voyage.

The 65ft Danish yacht Vestas Wind, which was skippered by Chris Nicholson, an Australian, smashed into a reef at more than 15 knots in the early hours of yesterday morning, breaking its rudders. It soon began taking on water as waves pounded the stern on to the rocks.

The crew prepared to abandoned ship, deploying two life rafts, but were able to wade towards a dry section of the reef where they waited to be rescued.

They were picked up at dawn by a coastguard from St Brandon, a tiny archipelago 430km (270 miles) northeast of Mauritius, and taken to Île du Sud. Race organisers said that they were deciding how to get the crew off the island and how to salvage the boat.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT While jihadists mass near by, a Libyan tends the graves of British soldiers who died 70 years ago, men he calls heroes Bel Trew TOBRUK

LIBYA

M

arooned in the wasteland of the Libyan desert, and tucked away down a dirt track, the white slabs of the gravestones of the Knightsbridge Second World War cemetery glimmer in the sunlight.

This is the final resting place of more than 3,600 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died fighting German and Italian forces for control of the port of Tobruk.

At one end of the graveyard an enormous white crucifix stands on a plinth, but lately it has become a dangerous symbol to display so boldly in this region. For this is also

the road to Derna, a coastal town and hideout for jihadists and the Libyan faction of Islamic State (Isis). In the past month local militants declared allegiance to the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, set up a sharia court and beheaded several prodemocracy activists.

Many fear that as the jihadist movement swells and Libya tumbles further into civil war these Christian soldiers’ graves will be among the first target of fundamentalists.

Two years ago, in nearby Benghazi, a Commonwealth war cemetery was razed, its the headstones smashed fragments.

At Knightsbridge, Mohamed Hanish, the 60-year-old cemetery guardian, vows it won’t happen on his watch. His father was one of many Libyans who helped the British to recover bodies scattered in battlefield burial grounds after the war, and his family has watched them ever since.

“Even in the revolution [of 2011] we kept them safe,” he said.

“Even in the revolution we kept the graves safe,” says Mohamed Hanish

The cemetery was named after the Knightsbridge box, a string of supply points and infantry positions, 15 miles west of the port, and part of a line of fortifications intended to halt Rommel’s capture of Tobruk and the Axis advance across Cyrenaica towards Suez.

The fiercest fighting started in May 1942 as Rommel captured Tobruk, before his defeat at El Alamein six months later.

Mohamed points out the two Victoria Cross recipients whose bodies lie in his cemetery. George Ward Gunn, 29, an accountant from Cheshire who became a second lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery, won his VC in November 1941 as 60 German tanks attacked British positions.

Lieutenant Gunn took over the last

remaining anti-tank weapon, even though it was on fire, and shot between 40 and 50 rounds at the advancing Panzers, setting two aflame, before he was killed.

“But for his very gallant action the enemy tanks would undoubtedly have overrun the position,” read the official statement in The London Gazette.

“We are doing this for Libya — this is our history too. It is an honour to protect that,” Mohamed said. But since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, the country has been ripped apart by warring militias. In Tobruk there is an uneasy calm.

As the roads are too dangerous, the safest way in to the city is by an ancient military helicopter that the army has kitted out with guns against the jihadists, who have surface-to-air missiles. To visit the cemetery, you now go through three military checkpoints.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission says the deteriorating security situation has hindered its ability to supervise the upkeep of the graves.

“My family is the one keeping the cemetery going but we need tools, uniforms, money for the electricity bills and sweet water . . . I’ve been watering the plants for five years with salt water,” Mohamed said.

Despite the challenges, the graves are immaculate. “I’m the only person who looks at their final resting place every day,” he said.

“These men fought in a country that wasn’t even their own for humanitarian reasons and peace. I consider them heroes.”

Modi fails to rouse sleeping policeman India

Robin Pagnamenta Mumbai

India’s most senior law enforcement officer was ridiculed by his critics yesterday after he was filmed sleeping during a speech by Narendra Modi, the prime minister, in which he called for more alert policing.

Ranjit Sinha, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, had also nodded off during a speech by Rajnath Singh, the home affairs minister, at the conference on national security at Guwahati in Assam on Saturday.

As Mr Sinha’s head lolled to the side with his eyes shut, Mr Modi said: “By ‘smart’ policing, I mean S for strict but sensitive, M for modern and mobile, A for alert and accountable, R for reliable and responsive and T for techno-savvy and trained.”

The CBI declined to comment on the footage, which was screened widely in Indian and circulated on the internet.

Mr Sinha, who has been criticised for his handling of one of India’s biggest corruption scandals, is about to retire.

The country’s top court removed him from a case surrounding the allegedly corrupt award of 2G mobile phone licences amid claims that he held meetings with people linked to the scandal.

Mr Sinha was close to the opposition Congress party, which lost power in May. His career has stalled since the election of Mr Modi, whose BJP is seen as hostile towards him.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Register Obituaries

Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Richardson

Fearless soldier who rose from command of a battalion in Northern Ireland during the Troubles to become GOC in the Province A firm-jawed Lowland Scot, Bob Richardson was essentially a commander of troops. He had little time for political flummery. While the latter trait did not endear him to the more elegantly minded military hierarchy, he had a shrewd sense of humour and appreciated the discomfiture that his straight talking sometimes produced. His career progressed steadily from command of a battalion in Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1970s to his eventually taking overall charge of the military as General Officer Commanding (GOC) in the Province in 1982. His frequent presence on the streets was welcomed by units under his command and he forged a productive relationship with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

His appointment to command 1st Royal Scots in 1969 coincided with the start of the Troubles. His battalion was stationed in Osnabruck but units from the Army of the Rhine were soon called on to reinforce the Province. The arrival of the Royal Scots in Belfast in March 1970 was marked by the Rev Ian Paisley claiming that he had “sent for them” — a claim as inaccurate as its implication, as at least a third of Richardson’s “Jocks” were Catholics. The tough Edinburgh and Lothian soldiers were impartial in giving a good account of themselves.

The preponderance of Catholics among Richardson’s men was noted at Westminster and the home secretary, Reginald Maudling, decided to judge the situation for himself. After asking Richardson to speak privately at a company base on the Shankill Road, and without waiting for an answer to his first question, Maudling fell fast asleep.

On April 1, 1970, 70 Royal Scots soldiers stood between Catholic and Protestant mobs of the Ballymurphy and Highfield estates. Twenty five of Richardson’s soldiers were injured and he had to deploy his entire battalion to restore order. A second emergency tour of duty took him and 1st Royal Scots to

‘Your reputation has gone before you: I cannot allow you into the city’ Londonderry in 1971. The brigade commander welcomed him with the words: “Your reputation has gone before you: I cannot allow your men into the city.”

This was a reflection of a false perception of the Royal Scots as a Protestant battalion as much as for their wellearned reputation for fearlessness. It was not long before Richardson and his “hard men” were required to go to the aid of a rather less robust battalion surrounded by a rioting mob in the Catholic Creggan estate.

In view of his reputation for blunt speaking, there was some surprise when Richardson was selected to command 39th Infantry Brigade, responsible for the whole Belfast area, in 1974. The Sunningdale Agreement reached in December 1973 was designed to introduce a power-sharing administration in the Province and — by implication — a “kid gloves” approach which was fiercely opposed by the majority of Protestants. Richardson showed remarkable grasp and forbearance with the complex political

Germany as the staff officer responsible for personnel, ceremonial and disciplinary matters. In this capacity he had a confrontation with the majorgeneral commanding the armoured division chosen to give the demonstration to mark the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Objecting to the scale and expense of the spectacle, the general threatened to block Richardson’s promotion, but the Queen was delighted with the show and Richardson was returned to Berlin as a major-general and GOC of the British sector.

Eyebrows were raised at his selection for this sensitive political arena but he excelled. When previously in Berlin he had made a routine duty visit to Rudolf Hess in Spandau Prison. He visited him again as GOC and, noting how frail he had become, had plans brought forward for the demolition of the prison as soon as Hess died.

He was delighted by news that the Queen was to visit Berlin in 1978 and that the birthday parade was to be staged in her honour. Richardson organised a fine spectacle in Berlin, where the Queen was welcomed ecstatically by the population. He was rewarded by her personal gift of the CVO but had scarcely waved away her aircraft when he was told that Jimmy Carter, the US president, was expected in Berlin the following month.

The US Army’s garrison commander

The Queen was delighted with the show that he organised for her Jubilee

Richardson with the Queen in 1983, at an event marking the 350th anniversary of the formation of the Royal Scots, and below with Jimmy Carter at a viewpoint over the Berlin Wall in 1978. He was struck by the president’s thoughtful manner

and security situation that developed.

During Richardson’s command of 39th Brigade, 32 battalions — some 21,000 men — passed through Belfast, a state of emergency was declared, banks were blown up and members of the judiciary were murdered. Yet there was an improvement in the security situation during early 1975, and he left affairs in a better shape. His successor was instructed to reduce the military presence on the streets and begin to restore police primacy.

From 1982 to 1985 when he was GOC, Richardson’s task was to hold the security ring in hope that a political initiative or tenuous undercover contacts with the Provisional IRA would yield a breakthrough. The period saw increasing sophistication in weapons used by the terrorist organisations and attacks on off-duty and unarmed members of the Ulster Defence Regiment. It was a grim period, requiring someone of Richardson’s calibre to withstand. He was knighted in 1982.

Robert Francis Richardson was born

in 1929, the son of Robert Buchan Richardson, an Edinburgh wine and spirits merchant. The elder of two sons with three older sisters, he had what he always regarded as an ideal and happy upbringing. He was educated at George Heriot’s School, Edinburgh, and RMA Sandhurst. Strong and a keen sportsman, he played rugby for the academy and captained the Army and Combined Services’ XVs while serving in the Suez Canal zone in 1954.

The rapidly deteriorating situation in South Arabia in mid-1967 led to Richardson being pulled out from his battalion in Germany to take over as chief of staff of Aden Brigade. Crater district had been occupied by the terrorist National Liberation Front and the brigadier was on sick leave. Richardson’s calm approach did much to pull the situation together until the British evacuation in October. He was mentioned in dispatches for his service in South Arabia.

After battalion and brigade commands, he went to HQ British Army in

was responsible for hosting the president but the viewpoint over the wall dividing the free West from the Sovietcontrolled eastern sector at the Brandenburg Gate was within Richardson’s area. He conducted the president to the viewing point from where the drab buildings and shabby individuals on the eastern side could be seen, and was struck by Carter’s quiet and thoughtful manner.

Following the death of his first wife Maureen in 1986, he married Alexandra “Candy” Inglis in 1988. She survives him along with his eldest son, Charles, who followed him into the Royal Scots and is now an investment manager, and his second son, Jeremy, also an investment manager, who won one Scotland rugby cap. His youngest son, Guy, served in the Royal Scots and is now a sports and business consultant. His only daughter, Clare, is a company director. He is also survived by two stepsons from his second marriage: Lorne, a teacher, and Alastair, a marketing consultant.

After leaving the army in 1985, Richardson enjoyed ten years as administrator of the MacRobert Trust estate of of farm and woodland on Royal Deeside. A member of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield, he devoted the final two decades of his life to what he called “the three Gs”: golf, his garden and his grandchildren (he had ten).

Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Richardson, KCB, CVO, CBE, soldier, was born on March 2, 1929. He died on November 21, 2014, aged 85

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Television & Radio/Announcements Births, Marriages and Deaths

Today’s television BBC ONE

6.00am Breakfast 9.15 Fake Britain 10.00 Homes Under the Hammer 11.00 Claimed and Shamed 11.30 Channel Patrol 12.15pm Bargain Hunt 1.00 BBC News; Weather 1.30 BBC Regional News; Weather 1.45 Doctors 2.15 The Doctor Blake Mysteries 3.10 Escape to the Country 3.55 Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food 4.25 Flog It! 5.15 Pointless 6.00 BBC News 6.30 BBC Regional News 7.00 The One Show 7.30 Could I Get Ebola? 8.00 EastEnders 8.30 Miranda 9.00 Wild Weather with Richard Hammond 10.00 BBC News 10.25 BBC Regional News 10.35 Have I Got a Bit More News for You 11.20 Citizen Khan 11.50 The Graham Norton Show 12.40am-6.00 BBC News

BBC TWO

6.05am Homes Under the Hammer 7.05 Channel Patrol 7.50 Claimed and Shamed 8.20 Sign Zone 10.35 Click 11.00 BBC News 11.30 BBC World News 12.00 Daily Politics 1.00pm Live Snooker: UK Championship. The afternoon session at the Barbican Centre in York 6.00 Eggheads 6.30 Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two 7.00 Tom Kerridge’s Best Ever Dishes 7.30 Children’s Hospital: The Chaplains 8.00 University Challenge 8.30 Only Connect 9.00 Posh People: Inside Tatler 10.00 Never Mind the Buzzcocks 10.30 Newsnight 11.20 Snooker: UK Championship 12.10am Snooker: UK Championship Extra 2.10-3.10 Sign Zone: The Apprentice 4.00-6.00 BBC Learning Zone

12.00 Channel 4 News Summary 12.05pm Come Dine with Me 2.10 Countdown 3.00 Fifteen to One 4.00 Deal or No Deal 5.00 Come Dine with Me 5.30 Coach Trip 6.00 The Simpsons 6.30 Hollyoaks 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.30 Turner Prize 2014 8.00 The British Property Boom 9.00 Skint. People living in poverty in Grimsby 10.00 8 Out of 10 Cats 10.50 Toast of London 11.20 The IT Crowd 11.50 Random Acts: Elizabeth Price: K-Light 11.55 NFL: The American Football Show 12.55am FILM: Laurence Anyways (2012) Romantic drama with Melvil Poupaud and Suzanne Clement 3.45 Phil: Secret Agent Down Under 4.40 Location, Location, Location 5.35-6.20 Countdown

Sky1

6.00am The Real A&E 7.00 Greggs: More Than Meats the Pie 8.00 Futurama 9.00 NCIS: Los Angeles 11.00 Hawaii Five-0 1.00pm NCIS: Los Angeles 3.00 Obese: A Year to Save My Life USA 4.00 Sun, Sea and A&E 4.30 The Drop Special 4.45 Futurama: Welcome to the World of Tomorrow 5.00 The Simpsons 5.30 Futurama 6.30 The Simpsons 8.00 Modern Family 8.30 Trollied 9.00 An Idiot Abroad 2 10.00 Arrow 11.00 Hawaii Five-0 2.00am Brit Cops: Zero Tolerance 3.00 Road Wars 4.00 Stargate Atlantis 5.00-6.00 Road Wars

BBC World

6.20am The King of Queens 7.10 3rd Rock from the Sun 8.00 Everybody Loves Raymond 9.00 Frasier 10.00 Daily Brunch 11.00 Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals 11.30 Come Dine with Me. From London

6.00am BBC World News 6.30 World Business Report 6.45 BBC World News 7.30 World Business Report 7.45 BBC World News 8.30 World Business Report 8.45 BBC World News 9.30 HARDtalk 10.00 BBC World News 10.30 World Business Report 10.45 Sport Today 11.00 BBC World News 12.00 GMT 1.00pm Impact 2.30 World Business Report 2.45 Sport Today 3.00 Global with Matthew Amroliwala 4.30 HARDtalk 5.00 Outside Source 5.30 Focus on Africa 6.00 Outside Source 6.30 World Business Report 6.45 Sport Today 7.00 World News Today 8.30 World Business Report 8.45 Sport Today 9.00 Business Edition with Tanya Beckett 9.30 HARDtalk 10.00 BBC World News America 11.00 Newsday 11.30 Asia Business Report 11.45 Sport Today 12.00 Newsday 12.30am Asia Business Report 12.45 Sport Today 1.00 Newsday 1.30 Asia Business Report 1.45 Sport Today 2.00 BBC World News 2.30 Asia Business Report 2.45 Sport Today 3.00 BBC World News 3.30 Asia Business Report 3.45 Sport Today 4.00 BBC World News 4.30 HARDtalk 5.00 BBC World News 5.30 World Business Report 5.45-6.00 BBC World News

Radio 4

BBC World Service

ITV London

6.00am Good Morning Britain 8.30 Lorraine 9.25 The Jeremy Kyle Show 10.30 This Morning 12.30pm Loose Women 1.30 ITV News; Weather 2.00 Peter Andre’s 60 Minute Makeover 3.00 Secret Dealers 4.00 Tipping Point 5.00 The Chase 6.00 Regional News 6.30 ITV News; Weather 7.00 Emmerdale 7.30 Coronation Street 8.00 Countrywise 8.30 I’m a Celebrity. . . Get Me Out of Here!

10.00 ITV News at Ten and Weather 10.30 Regional News 10.40 The Agenda 11.20 The Jonathan Ross Show 12.20am Jackpot247 3.00 Uefa Champions League Weekly 3.25-6.00 Live Phillip’s Live 24 Hour TV Marathon for Text Santa. Text Santa fundraising broadcast

Channel 4

Today’s radio 5.30am News 5.43 Prayer for the Day 5.45 Farming Today 5.58 Tweet of the Day 6.00 Today 9.00 Start the Week 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 Book of the Week 10.00 Woman’s Hour 11.00 Lives in a Landscape 11.30 Start/Stop 12.00 News 12.01pm (LW) Shipping 12.04 Home Front 12.15 You and Yours 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Terror Through Time 2.00 The Archers (r) 2.15 Afternoon Drama 3.00 Counterpoint 3.30 The Food Programme (r) 4.00 Catacombs of the Mind 4.30 Beyond Belief 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping 6.00 News 6.30 I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue 7.00 The Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 Carol 8.00 Republican Rehab 8.30 Crossing Continents (r) 9.00 Shared Planet (r) 9.30 Start the Week 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 Book at Bedtime: In Love and War 11.00 Mastertapes 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.30am Book of the Week: Discontent and Its Civilizations (r) 12.48 Shipping 1.00 As BBC World Service 5.20-5.30 Shipping

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6.00am Football Gold 7.00 WWE: Bottom Line 8.00 Goals on Sunday 9.00 Scottish Cup Football 9.30 Premier League 100 Club 10.00 Football’s Greatest Managers 10.30 Football’s Greatest Players 11.00 Football Gold 11.30 Scottish Cup Football 12.00 Goals on Sunday 1.00pm FL72 Review 2.00 Scottish Cup Football 2.30 Football Gold 3.15 Fantasy Football: The Highlights 3.45 Soccer AM 4.45 FL72 Review 5.45 Barclays Premier League Review 6.45 Live Premier League U21s Football: Everton v Sunderland (Kick-off 7.00) 9.00 Gibraltar: No Rock Unturned 9.30 The Club That Vanished 10.30 FL72 Review 11.30 Barclays Premier League Review 12.30am Soccer AM 1.30 Premier League U21s Football 2.30 Football Gold 5.00 Football’s Greatest Teams 5.30-6.00 Football’s Greatest Players

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6.00am Sporting Rivalries 7.00 NFL: A Football Life 8.00 NFL 10.00 NFL: A Football Life 11.00 Sporting Rivalries 12.00 Sporting Greats 2.30 Sporting Rivalries 3.00 Game Changers 4.00 WWE From the Vault 5.00 WWE: Raw 7.00 Live National Badminton League: Birmingham Lions v University of Nottingham 9.30 NFL 11.30 Poker 12.30am National Badminton League 3.00 NFL 5.00-6.00 Sporting Greats

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6.00am Great Run Series 7.30 Road to Kona Ironman 8.00 Top 14 Rugby Union Highlights 8.30 Great Run Series 1.00 Game Changers 2.00 NFL 4.00 NFL: A Football Life 5.00 Sporting Rivalries 6.00 The Strickland Story 7.00 Live Mosconi Cup Pool. The opening day of nine-ball pool’s version of the Ryder Cup, as Europe begin the defence of their crown against the Americans at the Tower Circus, Blackpool 11.00 The Strickland Story 12.00 WWE From the Vault 1.00am Live WWE: Late Night — Raw 4.15 WWE From the Vault 5.00-6.00 Terrain Unleashed

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7.30am Snooker: UK Championship 9.00 Show Jumping 10.00 Fencing 11.00 Figure Skating 1.00pm Live Snooker: UK Championship.

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6.30am Breakfast 9.00 Essential Classics 12.00 Composer of the Week: Lord Berners. Donald Macleod explores the British composer’s colourful life and music (r) 1.00pm News 1.02 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert. The canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska plays Chopin, from Wigmore Hall 2.00 Afternoon on 3. Lucerne Festival highlights 4.30 In Tune. With the pianist Ronald Brautigam and the choreographer Matthew Bourne 6.30 Composer of the Week: Lord Berners (r) 7.30 Live Radio 3 in Concert. Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov continue their Beethoven cycle 10.00 Music and the Jews. (2/3) Norman Lebrecht explores the impact of Jewish women on music (r) 10.45 The Essay: Decameron Nights: Ten Italian Indelicacies Remixed from Boccaccio. A deathbed confession in the first of 10 tales adapted by Robin Brooks 11.00 Jazz on 3.

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I’m with Prue Leith: we need more wolfwhistling Kevin Maher

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olf-whistles.

Can’t live with them.

Can’t do them unless you want to be vilified as an anachronistic throwback, a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal or simply someone who is wildly out of step with a contemporary culture that has become increasingly defined by prescribed modes of behaviour that are often curiously out of step with the messy complexities of life as it is lived in the hearts, minds and groins of human folk across the globe.

Wolf-whistles, in short, are not cool.

Which is probably news to celebrity cook Prue Leith, who recently bemoaned the lack of attention she gets from builders around the country now that she’s passed the menopause.

“Any woman will tell you, after the menopause nobody whistles at her,” said Leith, clearly harking back to a time when a hungover brickie could make your entire day by leaning across a scaffolding pole, putting his lips together and blowing. And I get it. I understand Leith completely.

Because, me, I like wolf-whistles.

And I know this is usually the point where a group of proactive, welleducated, and relatively affluent white middle-class women club together and start a blog or online petition called WolfWhistlingPigManMustDie

Gone in 60 seconds

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

I spy, with my Couples can now snoop on each other using clandestine smartphone apps.

Anna Maxted and Phil Robinson test the technology and discover some things they would rather not know

#HaveWeNotSufferedEnough?

But I’m not talking about “giving” wolf-whistles (I haven’t done that since the day I saw my 1050cc motorbike being wheeled out of the showroom). I mean “getting” them.

Observe. In the early 1990s I spent four months working in a T-shirt store next to a small gay beach resort in the seaside state of Delaware, USA. In the morning, while making my way to work along the boardwalk, if the mood was right and the lighting just so, I could occasionally get a loud and conspicuous wolf-whistle from somewhere within the phalanx of musclebound gay men, pumping away (with weights, of course) on the sands.

Naturally, I loved it. I worked on the assumption that gay men have great taste and are always impeccably turned out. The wolf-whistle was thus a vote of confidence and put a genuine pep in my step. If the gays are going for it, I used to think, I must be doing something right.

In fact, I became so dependent on the wolf-whistles for my summer sense of self-esteem that when they stopped, which they did (I think, on reflection, it was probably just one bloke, who was probably blind, and not even gay, who could have been calling for his dog), I really missed them. I found myself walking extra slowly past the noticeably silent gay body builders and was sorely tempted to scream, “What is it? Tell me! It’s the hair, isn’t it? I’ve gone overboard with the gel, right?”

So, yes, I love wolf-whistles. Or, at least, I loved getting them. And I know, for women, especially in contemporary culture, it’s different.

One wolf-whistle and you probably melt into the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West, howling hoarsely, “I’ve been objectified! I’ve been objectified! Look what you’ve done!

Oh, what a world! What a world!

Somebody, get my iPad! I need to blog about this!” Which is, I know, an utterly legitimate reaction. But just try telling that to Prue Leith.

You want to feel some kind of sympathy for 61-year-old Jon Hunt, the billionaire founder of Foxtons estate agency, whose £900,000 canaryyellow Lamborghini burst into flames on its way back home after a mechanical service.

Hunt, naturally, is suing the London

garage responsible for the allegedly “dodgy” service (he claims they fitted the wrong spark plugs) and, though his son was driving the car when it caught fire, no one was hurt. Which is a relief. And yet at the same time you also want to ask, seriously: “Who needs to drive around in a canary-

Hillary’s need for hummus Can everyone just give Hillary Clinton a break!

I know some people find her cold. Some find her standoffish. And some were bored stupid by her book, Hard Choices (I liked it). But the most recent wave of Hillary-bashing seems especially spurious.

Hillary, you see, goes on lecture tours of America. And when she does she makes sure that “her people” phone ahead and prepare her back-stage room.

And here, thanks to the thorough investigative efforts of The Washington Post, it has been revealed that the standoffish, diva-like, possible future and first female president of the United States demands a rider of, wait for it, “coffee, tea, room-temperature sparkling and still mineral water, diet ginger ale, hummus and sliced fruit”.

I know. Mariah Carey demands Cristal champagne and Barbra Streisand insists on a police Swat team. But Hillary wants hummus, and she’s a diva? Get over it. yellow £900,000 supercar? Where is he going that demands this kind of transport?

On what circuit does he imagine he’s racing?

In what action movie does he think he’s found himself starring?

On what planet does he live?” It’s a car. It moves you around.

Try a Volvo.

M

y husband is out — allegedly at PC World buying a colour cartridge. Half an hour after waving him off with the loving exhortation not to buy crisps, I open my laptop, sign into my surveillance app and press the command “Ambient”.

“Click to start recording,” instructs the programme. I set the microphone activation to last five minutes, and Phil’s smartphone number appears on the screen. I confirm that I wish the device to record its surroundings and by the time I’ve made myself a coffee there’s notification of a “new event”.

I download the audio file, press play.

There’s a rustling, crunching sound, as if someone in a radio play is treading on snow. Then, clear as plate glass, I hear a woman’s voice.

“That comes to £49.96. Enter your pin, please. Would you like a small bag for it?”

“Yes, please,” replies my husband.

I nearly choke on my Fortissio Lungo: £49.96! He always manages to spend this as a minimum in the most boring of shops — meaning that the fifty quid I might have, in fantasy, spent on shoes has gone on a cartridge. I lean forward, eyes narrowed, and turn up the volume.

An indignant ping, ping, ping. He’s driving the Volvo without a seatbelt.

Seconds later, more crunching on fake snow, then — do I believe my ears? “Can I have a Big Mac Meal please?”

I think you’ll agree I have the suspect, as the Sweeney might say, bang to rights.

As a proliferation of stealth apps enables a generation of suspicious characters to keep tabs on their loved ones, my husband and I are playing I Spy — courtesy of a company named FlexiSPY. This type of software is expressly marketed as a tool for employers wishing to keep staff “efficient” or for parents wanting to monitor their children for safety reasons — but this tech is a few rungs up from ye olde teddy bear nanny cam. It is precision surveillance, with a sophistication worthy of a national intelligence agency. Unfortunately, many of its users seem to be employing it for nefarious purposes.

“We do have quite a large portion of our customers who use mSpy specifically to catch a cheating spouse,” a representative of a firm similar to FlexiSPY, called mSpy, told ABC 22 News — adding, optimistically: “We do ask our users to make sure they’ve got their monitored partner’s consent.”

The truth is, my husband isn’t too

surprised when I confront him about the illicit burger and fries, because he kindly helped me to bug his phone. It swiftly became clear that I couldn’t spy on him without his knowledge, even if I wanted to, because the technology was beyond me.

As it is, FlexiSPY stresses that the use of the app is illegal without the subject’s consent and asks that we consult a lawyer before gifting us the use of its technology.

Meanwhile, mSpy’s media manager, Yuriy Voronov, informs me by email “that mSpy is designed and marketed for legal uses” and points me to the warning on its website: “If you are thinking of using mSpy for catching a cheating partner — think again! It is illegal, unethical

I can text commands to turn Phil’s phone into a camera and it is not what our software was designed for.”

Industry caution may be heightened by the fact that six weeks ago, in the first prosecution of its kind, the chief executive of a company that makes an app called StealthGenie was arrested in LA by the FBI. The charges, reported in The Washington Post, included: “conspiracy” and “sale of a surreptitious interception device”. The allegation was that StealthGenie violated the law “by offering the ability to secretly monitor phone calls and other communications”.

Essentially, these apps allow you to intrude on the inside of a person’s head. If your beloved is cheating — or indeed, planning a surprise party complete with morris dancers and potted shrimp — this software can betray their secrets, blow by blow, in under a quarter of an hour.

The extent of the data extracted by an application called Dr.Fone rendered me speechless. Phil downloads the free trial on to his laptop and plugs in my iPhone. All he requires is my password and brief possession of the phone. In ten minutes the software scans my phone and retrieves and downloads every scrap of data to his screen.

There for my husband to peruse at leisure: photos (including ones I’ve erased — a hideous selfie of me in a parka), video (including deleted footage, taken by one of my kids, meanly filming his brother in the

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little stealth app . . . my husband pendants), “Ford Escorts” and “Nookie Bear”. I read private messages he’s sent pri on Facebook about a forthcoming pub quiz.

He takes a photo on his BlackBerry, which he sends to Phil Affair; I receive an unnerving (clothed) groin shot of a (clothe carrot and two satsumas. ca He even sends himself a text: lol sexy sex want to meat @ the pub 2mrrw nite.

Then he claims he is going out tomor morrow night — to the gym, with a mate. I overhear him (we’re in the same room) (w making the arrangement: makin “Shall we get a table . . . at the gym?”

Days earlier, he’d disappeared in the car and, thrillingly, I’d tracked his GPS location to Tesco (a map on screen, accurate to within 10 metres). A remotee-controlled photo of the dreary buildin building confirms it. But the following evenin evening, when I try to discover whether “gym” is code for “pub”, I can’t make the GPS locate him. No matter. Briskly, I press “RemCam” — and minutes later receive a photo of Phil, largely

Days earlier, thrillingly, I’d tracked his GPS location to Tesco

COVER: TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MATTHEW LLOYD

bath). All the scooped-up data is neatly filed under headings: messages and call log lists, texts, contacts, voicemails, WhatsApp, attachments.

Dr.Fone lists every contact — name and number. Phil can read a text from a friend of mine, sent last December, discussing her son’s bar mitzvah.

I actually feel hot with shame. And this is the free trial! If he wants to listen to my phone calls, he has to pay.

But he would know — in forensic detail — everything. The Dr.Fone website boasts more than 6 million downloads and counting.

Phil tries out Find My iPhone, software developed, presumably, to recover lost phones, but reportedly also used to discover the location of sneaky spouses who claim to be visiting elderly aunts when in fact they’re up to no good. Maybe others find a way around this, but when Phil instructs the app Find My iPhone, I receive an email: “Dear Anna, your Apple ID was used to sign into iCloud via a web browser . . . if you believe someone may have accessed your account, you should reset your password.”

Though much good may it do me: FlexiSPY captures every password.

And yet it seems that of all the smartphones, iPhones are the most secure: my operating system was too recent to be compatible with the spy software; for the purposes of larking about, Phil reanimates an old iPhone and jailbreaks it.

Once FlexiSPY is active, I name the target device “Phil Affair” in my contacts file. In theory, I can text commands straight to Phil Affair that will turn his phone into a remote camera and send silent snaps of his surroundings back to my computer.

But I text the activation code incorrectly and Phil Affair receives a mystery text composed of figures and arrows. I resort to buying credit direct from FlexiSPY enabling me to, monkey-at-a-typewriter-style, press 1-click commands on my laptop. A cold awareness of power creeps in.

Over a few days, I check up on Phil’s digital activity and whereabouts on my FlexiSPY “dashboard”.

My husband is obliging, conducting internet searches such as “brasses” (many beautifully wrought shirehorse

Anna Maxted and Phil Robinson. Top: images of Phil captured by the stealth app in the pub and at McDonald’s

obscured by a pint glass. Aha and oho.

I suppose I could press “Ambient” for some audio, but truly, I’m snooped out. I can see why campaigners against domestic violence have decried this technology as “a stalker’s app” but it’s only as malevolent as its user.

Solicitor advocate Simon McKay, an expert in the law relating to human rights and covert policing, says: “It’s perfectly permissible to use this kind of software for ensuring your children are safe, or for any other benign purpose, where the motivation is lawful and in good faith.

“The real danger with it is that oftentimes the motivation will be more sinister. If you bought the software for the purposes of intercepting your husband’s calls, even if you thought he was having an affair, it’s likely to meet the definition [in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000] of an offence: essentially, intercepting someone’s telephone calls either without their permission or without the permission of the person in control of the communications system.”

Meanwhile, Voronov of mSpy, eager to encourage above-board behaviour, directs me to another of its products: a free app called mCouple that enables “couples [to] provide each other [with] access to their location, text messages, Facebook chats etc”. Fond as I am of my husband, the idea repels me. I don’t need to crawl inside his soul. Mad as it sounds, I think I’ll just trust him. flexispy.com

This spy app?

For a husband it’s an absolute nightmare

I

am stuck in traffic, planning a discreet trip to the pub, when the phone rings. I turn off the stereo and answer. “You just ordered a Big Mac meal,” says Anna, “and you were listening to Phil Collins.”

It’s a husband’s worst nightmare.

I don’t mean getting caught doing something I shouldn’t; more that it reveals the crumpled mundanity of my existence. I’d like my wife to imagine that I’m off doing all sorts — holding forth at a high-powered meeting, or fending off the advances of some of the many women who can’t come to terms with the fact I’m off the market. Evidence of illicit visits to clown-themed burger joints is not what my marriage needs.

Anna, who still saves all her Word files to the desktop so she can “see them”, needs just two minutes’ training to find my location, listen to a conversation and grab pictures.

It’s like there’s a rogue cell in MI5 obsessed with cats and chocolate.

The alarming thing is, had I not helped Anna through the process of installing this software on my phone, I’d never have known it was there.

At no point does a recording light come on, nor does the camera make shutter sounds when it takes a photo.

The device seems inert yet is sending data back, treacherously, to the servers, like a pay-as-you-go Judas.

Ten years ago you’d have needed to follow someone around with a surveillance truck to grab a muffled fraction of the information that can now be harvested live from the device that nestles in your breast pocket by day and sleeps by your bed at night.

So how does it work? To mount your subterfuge you’ll need a phone that has been on the market for at least a year — recent models are safe, as programs are yet to be written to crack or “jailbreak” the operating system from Apple’s control. In practice, using only my pin and Apple ID, it took me 20 minutes to run the “jailbreak” that allows me to install unauthorised programs. Next came the surveillance software. At the end of each process I was presented with an option to hide the software on the phone. It was flawless. Unless you were a phone technician I doubt you would catch it.

Obviously, I agreed that Anna could put me under surveillance and, having experienced it, I would never want to strip another human of their privacy.

I’d advise anyone who suspects that they’re under surveillance to revert their device to factory settings. And if you genuinely feel you need to bug someone, chances are your relationship is beyond saving.

Phil Robinson

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Professor Tanya Byron My two-year-old daughter suffers with night terrors

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My two-year-old daughter has been experiencing partial wakings for a couple of months now, during which she repeatedly shouts “no”, kicks and thrashes, and has crawled backwards around the room when not contained by her cot.

Q

She does not seem aware or to recognise me during these periods and there’s little we seem to be able to do, which I find distressing.

I believe this isn’t uncommon, yet I don’t know anyone else whose child experiences similar episodes.

Is there anything we can do?

Jessica

Don’t try to wake a child who is having a night terror

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What you describe is a night terror, a parasomnia or sleep disorder, which is frightening to witness and incredibly disruptive to a household. When a child is having one, they show behaviour that some parents have described to me as like the child being “possessed”: they can appear awake but do not respond to anyone around them; they are disorientated, sweating, screaming and wild-eyed, thrashing around, and experience a rapid heart rate and breathing — as if having a panic attack. Parents report difficulty in waking a child during a night terror and, in fact, the advice is not to do so but just to sit near the child quietly to ensure they don’t injure themselves.

The word “terror” really applies to the parents in terms of its impact.

Although children appear to be confused and in acute distress, they are, in fact, in no emotional or psychological danger and will have no recollection of the event the next day. It is advised not to discuss night terrors with a child as it may make them anxious about something of which they were unaware — unlike a nightmare that can be discussed and normalised.

Night terrors are linked to sleep cycles and generally occur about 90 minutes after falling asleep. Sleep can be divided into two stages: rapid eye movement sleep (REM) and non-REM sleep, which can then be further subdivided into four stages, each lasting about 45 minutes in es in adults). children (30 minutes It is during the transition from ages three non-REM sleep stages to four that night terrors often occur after first falling asleep, but also during the transition oughout in sleep cycles throughout the night. They can also ime occur during daytime naps. During the sleep-cycle transition, we experience brief periods of arousal from delta (slow-wave) sleep but will just roll over, grunt and sleep on. Those prone to night terrors, however — including those with more delta sleep activity — will re demonstrate bizarre half-awake/asleep behaviour.

Estimates of the prevalence of childhood night terrors range from

A

1 to 6 per cent; it can run in families, so there may be some genetic link, but it may also be triggered by a stressful life event, fever, some medications, recent surgical anaesthesia or sleep deprivation. They occur equally in boys and girls, generally beginning around the age of three, with peak onset at around three and a half.

In children under three and a half, the frequency of episodes is usually around once a week, reducing to one to two episodes per month in older children. Children tend to grow out of night terrors by adolescence.

Unbroken sleep in a dark or dimly lit room, though, is vital for healthy child development, so I suggest you make a plan to address your daughter’s night terrors and her nap and night wakings.

It would be useful to discuss the situation with your health visitor or GP; a paediatric assessment may be recommended to investigate sleep and breathing. To manage these events, keep a log of the times they happen and intervene by waking your daughter 15 minutes before one is likely to occur. Do this over seven consecutive nights — perhaps taking her to the toilet so she is fully awake, after which you can settle her back to sleep — and the behaviour will cease, almost as if her sleep cycle has recalibrated itself. See also: www.nhs.uk/conditions/nightterrors/pages/introduction.aspx Given that sleep deprivation is a trigger to these events, some sleep training will enable your daughter to consistent routine — achieve a consiste including regular daytime naps — so she sleeps through the night in her own bed. She struggle to settle, so seems to stru process whereby I advise a proce you sit near her cot at nap time and bedtime then farther away consecutive naps and over consecuti nights, leaving just as she falls asleep.

By learning to settle herself, she set will fall back to sleep when she wakes without requiring you to requirin be next to her.

If she comes into your room, however, return your daughter to her own bed with no chat — attention reinforces the reinf waking behaviour — wakin and then continue with the sleep-training.

Need family advice? proftanyabyron@ Email pr thetimes.co.uk thetimes.co

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The 12 ways we really learn as adults HANS MARTIN/CORBIS

In his new book Benedict Carey crunches the latest research by psychologists and neuroscientists on boosting memory.

Here are his top tips, from napping to Facebook

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Break up study into blocks Dividing it into two or three sessions instead of one is far more effective than concentrating it. If you’ve allotted two hours to mastering a German lesson, for example, you’ll remember more if you do an hour today and an hour tomorrow, or — even better — an hour the next day.

1

Learning is a sneaky process that occurs all of the time

Take your laptop to a café Yes, it’s easier to concentrate in the garden or on the plane. The goal, after all, is to be able to perform well in any conditions. Altering the time of day you study also helps, as does changing how you engage with the material, by reading or discussing, typing into a computer or writing by hand, reciting in front of a mirror or studying while listening to music.

That split forces you to re-engage with the material, dig up what you already know and re-store it — an active mental step that reliably improves memory. Cramming works fine as a last resort, as a way to ramp up fast for an exam if you’re behind and have no choice. The downside is that, after the test, you won’t remember a whole lot of what you “learnt”.

2

Free your “inner slacker” We’re not talking about guzzling wine in front of the TV, but appreciating learning as a restless, piecemeal, subconscious and somewhat sneaky process that occurs all the time — not just when you’re sitting at a desk, face pressed into a book — is the best strategy there is.

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Give yourself permission to quit An almost-done project lingers in the memory far longer than one that is completed. For larger projects, quitting is an effective way to begin the semi-conscious process of percolation. When you quit due to exhaustion, it’s an acknowledgement that the brain needs to consolidate what it has been practising — which is best done during sleep.

3

Use flashcards The best self-quizzes do two things: they force you to choose the right answer from several possibilities and they give you immediate feedback, right or wrong. Reciting a passage from memory, either in front of a colleague or the mirror, is a form of testing. So is explaining it to yourself while pacing the kitchen, or to a work colleague over lunch.

4

Go on social media A short study break — five, ten, twenty minutes to check on Facebook, respond to a few emails, check sports scores — is the most effective technique scientists know to help you solve a problem when you’re stuck.

Distracting yourself from the task at hand allows you to let go of mistaken assumptions, re-examine the clues in a new way and come back fresh. If you’re motivated to solve the problem your brain will continue to work on it during the break, subconsciously, without the (fixated, unproductive) guidance you’ve been giving it.

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Beware study “aids” These are mostly passive exercises and don’t enrich learning at all.

Making your memory work a little harder — by self-quizzing, for example, or spacing out study time — sharpens the imprint of what you know.

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Multiskill Focusing on one skill at a time — a musical scale, free throws, the

without looking, to a friend, spouse or in front of a mirror. Reciting engages the brain in a different and more powerful way than re-reading, making it an especially efficient technique for deepening memory.

And reciting — mentally, to oneself, in the lift or the train — helps the brain fill out verse even in the absence of more studying.

quadratic formula — leads quickly to noticeable, tangible improvement.

But over time, such focused practice actually limits our development of each skill. Mixing or “interleaving” multiple skills (playing arpeggios you learnt years ago or intermingling artistic styles in studying for an art history class) not only acts as a review but also sharpens your discrimination skills.

7

Embrace forgetfulness Forgetting is not only a passive process of decay but also an active one, of filtering. It works to block distracting information, to clear away useless chatter. The “losers” in memory competitions stumble not because they remember too little, but because they remember too much. Normal forgetting can be good for subsequent learning when we revisit the material; it’s what allows learning to build, like an exercised muscle. And actually, when we’re trying to remember a colleague’s surname, we need the ability to forget. To retrieve the correct name we filter out similar names (was it Robert or Richard?) and similar people we’ve met.

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Keep changing your habits Our assumptions about how we learn are rooted in the modern language of education — of classrooms, homework, practice time and the value of concentration. But these are all very recent constructs, invented in the past few thousand years. Humans have been around for at least a million and during most of that time we have been foragers, for food, for shelter — and for information. The brain is a forager too: it learnt to learn by scavenging, observing, imitating, listening. Picking up a little here, a little there. And it’s still doing just that, in defiance of any modern education schedule we’re determined to impose.

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Learn a poem every day Dame Judi Dench has revealed she still learns a new poem or word every day to keep her mind active.

And cognitive scientists agree with her. The brain is especially sharp in recalling images, and of course poetry — with its word-pictures — is a form of mental imagery. The trick is to deliberately conjure those images as you read and to spend at least half your study time reciting

Concentrating is easier in a café or garden

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Know when to go to bed Sleep has several stages, each of which consolidates and filters information in a different way.

For instance, studies show that “deep sleep”, which is concentrated in the first half of the night, is most valuable for retaining hard facts — names, dates, formulas, concepts.

If you’re preparing for a test or presentation that’s heavy on retention (foreign vocabulary, names and dates), it’s better to hit the sack at your usual time, get that full dose of deep sleep and roll out of bed early for a quick review.

The stages of sleep that help consolidate motor skills and creative thinking — whether in maths, science or writing — occur in the morning hours, before waking. If it’s a music recital or athletic event you’re preparing for, or a task that demands creative thinking, you might consider staying up a little later than usual and sleeping in.

Benedict Carey is a science reporter for The New York Times.

His new book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens is published by Macmillan at £20

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

arts

Here’s to you, Mr Robinson: the man who made Motown Singer, songwriter and mogul — Smokey Robinson was at the centre of music’s greatest hit factory. Now at 74 he’s recording with Elton John and Jessie J. Ed Potton met him

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etroit, 1966: the Motown Christmas party. A 16-year-old Stevie Wonder walks up to a 26-year-old Smokey Robinson — already, like him, a giant of soul music — and hands him a tape. Wonder had recorded a track but couldn’t think of any words. “Why not listen to it and see what you come up with?” he asked his friend. The intro reminded Robinson of the Barnum & Bailey circus. He sings the opening bars in a voice that still floats: “Bom bom bom — that’s circus. I’d heard a story about Pagliacci, the Italian clown who made everybody happy but went back to his dressing room and was very sad because he didn’t have that kind of love from a woman.” He got writing.

The result, The Tears of a Clown — with its opening line: “Now if there’s a smile on my face/It’s only there trying to fool the public” — became the signature song for Robinson and his band, the Miracles, sold millions worldwide and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In some ways the theme of the song is the theme of Robinson’s career. Not the idea of cheerfulness concealing depression — at 74, sitting in the bar of a hotel in central London, he seems a contented

Smokey Robinson (bottom left) with the Miracles in the Sixties soul, as you might be if Bob Dylan had called you “America’s greatest poet” — but the notion of playing roles, acting, putting on a front.

The roles have been many: as a singer whose flying falsetto was worshipped by George Harrison in Pure Smokey and ABC in When Smokey Sings; as a songwriter and producer for the Temptations, Marvin

Gaye, the Supremes and more; and as a talent-spotting vice-president for Motown, he created a template for the multi-tasking music mogul that has been followed, in more bombastic fashion, by P Diddy and Jay Z. Acting — making stuff up — has also been essential to Robinson’s craft.

Talking to him about songwriting reminds you of that old story about Laurence Olivier responding to Dustin Hoffman’s method-acting obsessiveness with a withering: “Try acting, dear boy.” Robinson has written some of the most joyous (the Temptations’ My Girl) and desperate (his own The Tracks of My Tears) music ever recorded. To make tunes that powerful he must have poured his life into each note, right? Wrong.

“I couldn’t possibly have experienced all that stuff,” he says.

Many think that his 1975 song The Agony and the Ecstasy was about an affair he had while married to his former wife Claudette Rogers, his fellow Miracles member. “Not really,” he says. “I had known so many people who had been in that situation.” He leans forward: “All professional singers are basically schizoid. There’s the person who does the work and there’s the person who’s not on stage.”

There’s certainly plenty of doublethink on his new album Smokey

You felt like you were in an electrical current at Motown.

Lightning struck every day Smokey Robinson and, right, with Stevie Wonder in 1983

& Friends, a collection of duets of his songs with partners including Elton John, Mary J Blige, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Jessie J, which he recorded without sharing a studio with any of them. “You need to be a great vocal actor,” he admits.

It’s not that Robinson is a phoney; he’s just a professional in the showmust-go-on sense. Does that extend to plastic surgery? With his smooth features and glossy black hair, he looks

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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arts GETTY IMAGES

A Motown singalong, with Berry Gordy at the piano, Smokey Robinson (rear) and Stevie Wonder (right); with Mary J Blige

weirdly youthful for someone in his eighth decade. He gives the same answer that another Motown legend, Lionel Richie, once gave me to the same question: “No . . . I guess it’s a genetic thing. I was fortunate to have two parents who had young genes.”

Like all old pros, Robinson can turn the charisma on — and off — like a tap. His charm is much remarked upon but for much of our interview the famous green eyes (inherited, he says, from his French great-grandmother) are focused somewhere beyond my left

shoulder. Then, suddenly, I get the full beam. What was the time that he remembers most fondly? “Right this minute, when I’m speaking to you,” he grins. “I’ve been doing this since 1958 and you’re still interested in what I’m doing. That’s a landmark.”

Poppycock! This is the man who was at the epicentre of the greatest label of them all, during its golden years. Stepping into Hitsville USA, as the modest house that was Motown’s first HQ and recording studio was nicknamed, “you felt like you were in an electrical current,” he says.

“Lightning was striking every day.”

The legend of “the Motown family” was genuine, he insists: “We socialised together, we went to each other’s homes, we had parties and picnics together.”

Many of them had known each other since childhood: Diana Ross lived four doors down from Robinson.

He was ten when his mother died of a brain haemorrhage and he was raised by his elder sister. A good student at school, he had enrolled on a chemical engineering course when he was discovered by Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown. They became close

and remain so. “He’s my best friend,” Robinson sa says.

“We speak all the time.”” He and Rogers named their son Berry and their daughter er Tamla, after Gordy’s first label (he has another son, Trey, from an extramarital relationship). Gordy sold Motown to MCA in 1998 but his life story is the

Gaye would get the song and he would Marvin-ise it framework for Motown: The Musical, the Tony-nominated extravaganza that will transfer to the West End next year, featuring more than 60 songs by Robinson, Wonder, Ross, Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye.

Gaye, for whom Robinson wrote several songs, was another close friend and, he says, the greatest singer of his peers: “We had some great talent at Motown, but Marvin was my brother-brother. He was always late to the studio, to the point when, if a session started at 7, I would tell him it started at 6. And he’d still be late. But he’d get the song and he’d Marvin-ise it — he’d do stuff

to it that I’d never even imagine.”

During the Sixties, Detroit was one of the most vibrant cities in America.

“It was booming — hustle and bustle,” Robinson says. “The auto industry was still strong and here we come, as a record company, and put Detroit on the map in another way.” Now, though, “it’s just a shell of that place. There are no jobs there and people are suffering.”

Could it ever regain its mojo? “If some manufacturers go in there and create some jobs — that’s the only way it’s gonna recover.”

Robinson had a decline of his own in the Eighties: having been clean-living up to that point, he spent two years as a drug addict. “It was a very dark period,” he says. Marijuana and cocaine aine were his poisons: “A deadly combination for me. I was dead, a fo walking corpse.” It’s been suggested that he turned to drugs following the deaths of his father and Gaye.

No Nonsense, he says: it was because they were fun. bec “Peop eople who don’t know about drugs ugs think that this deep, mysterious chara character comes up to people and says, ‘Hey, kid. Try this.’

That’s not true. Nine and a half out of ten people who do drugs start doing drugs with their friends.”

His church helped him to kick his habits: “I went in, I was an addict; I came out, I was healed.” He’s been drug-free, he says, since 1986. “If you hear I’ve OD’d, call the cops — somebody has slipped me something!”

Teetotal and big on transcendental meditation, he lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Frances.

Robinson is still a sprightly regular on the live circuit but his recording career has never matched the heights of the Sixties. Has it suffered as a result of his multi-tasking? “Not at all.

If anything it enhanced it. People say, ‘Didn’t you wish you’d kept My Girl for yourself?’ No! First because it was a No 1 record for my brothers, the Temptations. And also, I wrote it for them. If they weren’t out there I would probably never have written My Girl.”

It seems like a convincing response — but even if he did regret it, he’d doubtless cover it up like a pro.

Smokey & Friends is out now on Decca. Motown: The Musical opens next year at the Dominion Theatre, W1

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Manic Monday is no more Click-and-collect buys extra time

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Coin does not hit the slot

Masters of disguise

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Anger over costs of the new pound

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Business

Buildings that hide mobile masts

IAN FORSYTH / GETTY

Turn back the clock 20 years business commentary Patrick Hosking

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ot many people working in the bond market today were around in 1994. And it’s starting to show. That was the last time bond investors were spectacularly wrongfooted in huge numbers. Never mind tapering tantrums — the jitters of last year that led to some substantial but manageable losses — this was fixed-income Armageddon.

The consensus then was that US interest rates were staying low. A couple of shock rises by the Fed proved that badly mistaken. Delays to the single currency project in Europe added to the carnage. A few months left a generation of bond investors traumatised. That generation learnt to mistrust the consensus and to be deeply suspicious of investor herding.

Perversely, it cost them dear. They were never able to fully ride on the 20-year bull market in fixed income that followed.

Today, the consensus is again strong that inflation has been tamed, that interest rates are staying low for a long, long time and that the European Central Bank will embark soon on a bold new phase of ultra-lax monetary policy, so-called full-blown quantitative easing.

That confident expectation is reflected in prices pretty much everywhere. The long gilt yield fell to a modern-day low last week: investors are now prepared to lend to HMG for 30 years for the princely interest reward of 2.69 per cent. European bonds are even more extremely priced. Ten-year French yields broke below 1 per cent last week, while German bunds yield precisely 0.7 per cent.

There is, of course, plenty of evidence to support the bond market bulls, but any deviation from the expected flightpath will be brutally punished.

Friend or foe?

T

he hypothetical recession that Britain’s biggest banks are having to prove they can weather under the Prudential Regulation Authority’s stress tests is a humdinger. It’s perfectly possible to conceive of an extreme downturn in which house prices crash 35 per cent and unemployment doubles.

But not surely at the same time as base rate is octupled to 4 per cent?

Yet that is the scenario banks are being asked to grapple with.

In economic terms, this is disaster on stilts — Towering Inferno meets The Poseidon Adventure. No wonder there is concern that the Co-operative Bank hasn’t a hope of passing muster. This is a real test for the bank, which under Niall Booker has had some success in putting the era of crystal meth and dodgy loans behind it. It’s also a test for the PRA, which is keen to burnish its credentials as a tough but fair

regulator. It meted out its first fine the other day and will want to follow this with evidence that it will not tolerate capital weakness.

It doesn’t start from an easy position, already showing much forbearance to the Co-op in allowing it to continue operating with significantly less capital than its peers. Too much indulgence and the Co-op will start to look as though it is getting special treatment. Too little and the bank would have to tap its hedge fund backers for more capital that they are in no mood to provide.

Counting down

I

mmigration is, of course, boosting the economy, but it is also tending to make some of our most treasured economic indicators less meaningful, if not downright deceptive. Last week’s migration figures showed a net 260,000 people arrived in the UK in the year to June. That is getting on for half of 1 per cent of the population.

GDP growth is seen as a measure of economic strength and living standards, but it is neither unless the population is stable. In Britain, GDP growth per head is significantly lower than GDP growth.

We’ve rightly grown used to expressing many economic indicators in real terms — after adjusting for inflation. Not to do so gives an absurdly distorted view of the country. The same applies to demographic distortions. It is surely time ministers and statistics officials automatically expressed everything from GDP growth to health service spending in per capita terms.

Not everything would look worse.

The deficit, expressed in per capita terms, would look a little better. But don’t expect a Ukip-wary chancellor to point this out in his autumn statement on Wednesday.

Under pressure

H

SBC can barely go a day without an embarrassing setback. Last week alone it was accused by Argentina of helping 4,000 Argentines to evade tax, accused by an American jewellery group of manipulating the platinum price and was fined $12.5 million by US regulators for failing to register a cross-border brokerage service.

Now Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury select committee, suggests that it might have “put pressure on regulators by the back door” when news was leaked that two of its directors were resigning in protest over tougher rules on senior bank officials (report, page 45). Add in past sins like money laundering and PPI mis-selling and HSBC’s reputation for being a hair’s breadth less rapacious and manipulative than its peers is beginning to look shaky. patrick.hosking@thetimes.co.uk

Miner hits a rough seam

A

ccidents at one of Britain’s biggest mines have left it struggling for survival (Marcus Leroux writes).

The new managing

director of Cleveland Potash, which operates the Boulby mine in North Yorkshire, said that the mine would need to cut costs to secure its future.

The mine opened in 1973 and was developed underneath the North Sea with about 600 miles of

roadways. It has long struggled to make money.

David Zvida, the managing director, said: “From the production point of view, we will end this year far from budget.

At the same time we were failing to meet production targets we didn’t reduce

costs, so our cost per tonne increased, putting us in a bad financial situation.”

He said that the mine was suffering from a “very high number” of accidents serious enough to force staff to have time off work.

Co-op Bank set to fail latest stress test Patrick Hosking, Harry Wilson

The Co-operative Bank is set to fail a key test of its financial strength this month and is expected to be forced at least to accelerate its recovery plan to keep regulators onside.

The scandal-hit bank is thought to have acknowledged that it has insufficient buffers to withstand a very severe recession, in spite of building £1.9 billion in extra capital in the past 12 months.

At one extreme, it could be forced to tap its shareholders for more capital or seek a rescue merger, but it is more likely that it will be pushed into tweaking its five-year turnaround plan so that it generates capital more quickly.

The Prudential Regulation Authority, which supervises banks, is already treating the bank as a special case after it failed to meet its individual capital guidance rules this year.

Britain’s eight biggest lenders, including the Co-op Bank, have to convince the PRA that they are strong enough to withstand a 35 per cent crash in house prices, a 30 per cent fall in commercial

property values, a near-doubling of unemployment to 12 per cent and a rise in base rate to 4 per cent.

The PRA is due to publish the results of the “stress test” on December 16, with most banks expected to pass. However, Co-op Bank, which has 70 per cent of its loan book in residential property assets and a £6 billion portfolio of questionable assets, including self-certified mortgages, is seen as particularly vulnerable.

Ian Gordon, a banking analyst with Investec, said: “It would appear to have a high risk of failing, given its weak capital position relative to its listed peers.”

The bank itself gave clues that it would struggle to pass the stress test in August, when in its interim report it indicated its core equity tier 1 ratio would drop below the minimum 4.5 per cent acceptable floor.

However, a pick-up in demand for distressed debt means that the bank may be more easily able to dispose of parts of its loan book and so release extra capital to mollify regulators. The bank is also making progress in slashing costs and in running down its portfolio of troublesome corporate loans.

Any announcement that Co-op Bank has failed its stress test is likely to be accompanied by a statement agreed with the PRA about remedial action it will take. While regulators are likely to be sympathetic that a failure should not destabilise the bank, they may well press for quicker remedial action.

Co-op Bank faces other headwinds, including the threat of a further bill of payment protection insurance compensation, a pension fund shortfall and possible enforcement action by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The bank was engulfed in a media firestorm in the summer of 2013, when its threadbare capital was first revealed.

Serious questions were raised about the competence of the old management after the former chairman Paul Flowers — dubbed a “financial illiterate” by MPs — was filmed buying crystal meth and other class-A drugs. The mutually owned Co-op Group eventually saw its 100 per cent control of the bank reduced to 20 per cent after American hedge funds provided rescue capital.

The Co-op Bank and the PRA both declined to comment.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Business MATT ALEXANDER / PA

Express wastes no time in fighting rival

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he Heathrow Express is preparing to to defend its turf against the arrival of Crossrail from central London (Robert Lea writes).

In four years, the new east-west subterranean Crossrail trains will be delivering tens of thousands of passengers a day to Europe’s biggest airport. The

Heathrow Express, which takes 15 minutes but costs £21 a time, is preparing a fight to prevent it becoming obsolete.

It has already begun a marketing campaign, saying that the only alternatives are taxis, which typically are three times as expensive and take three times as long. It says that Crossrail is likely to be hugely crowded and will not offer a guaranteed seat, newspaper, onboard staff or in-travel lavatory.

Now the Heathrow Express has signed a deal with British Airways, as part of an expanding plan to tie

in as many carriers as possible to offer their passengers onward travel.

The first deal is a tripartite agreement in which BA flyers from the west and Wales are offered a rail ticket included in the price.

Combination fares are being launched next week for travel from 11 stations, including Penzance, Swansea and, nearer the Home Counties, Oxford.

“This kind of joined-up travel is what today’s leisure and business travellers expect,” Keith Greenfield, Heathrow Express’s Crossrail is promising a challenge but Heathrow Express says that it does not cater for business users managing director, said.

That Friday feeling is going to strike again next Monday Rebecca Clancy, Alexandra Frean

It was the latest big thing in retailing, a technological toy every bit as exciting as the tablets, phones and walking, talking robots that were among its stars, but already Cyber Monday is looking so last year. The biggest day for internet shopping is losing its appeal, analysts say.

Cyber Monday — today — had established itself as the day when people rush to buy presents online to ensure that they arrived before Christmas.

This year’s sales, though, are likely to be surpassed by next Monday as shoppers order and then pick up their goods in

64

Items sold per second on Amazon’s website on Black Friday Source: Amazon

stores, according to Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard.

“Online shopping used to be much more driven by home delivery, but now, with the growth of click and collect, people don’t need to buy Christmas presents on December 1,” she said.

Figures from Springboard showed a record-breaking three-day period that started on Black Friday. Retail parks were the winners, selling televisions and washing machines at huge discounts, with footfall up 8.6 per cent on Friday and Saturday compared with the previous year. The high street was

not as busy, with numbers falling by 2 per cent compared with last year.

Friday was the busiest day of the period, with the greatest increase in shopper numbers between 8am and 9am, with numbers up 50.4 per cent in retail parks. Online shopping also soared. Amazon said that Friday had been its “busiest day on record”, with the website receiving orders for more than 5.5 million goods, with about 64 items sold every second. Its previous record was on Cyber Monday last year when it received orders for 4.1 million items — or 47 purchases a second.

Police were called to deal with scuffles at retailers nationwide and some online groups reported that customers were having problems with websites because of demand.

Visa reported that customers spent at least £1.6 billion on Friday, up 30 per cent on last year, with £600 million spent online. It is expecting £500 million to be spent today via websites, with a peak in the evening.

This year’s figures suggest that British shoppers embraced Black Friday much more than those in the United States, where the shopping phenomenon originated. Black Friday store visits slumped in America as shoppers prepare to spread their Christmas purchases over a longer period.

“We’ve seen an increase in Thanksgiving shopping over the past few years at the expense of Black Friday. More stores are opening, and earlier, which has caused a shift in shopping patterns,” Bill Martin, the founder of ShopperTrak, said.

Balfour braced for new attack Nic Fildes

Britain’s biggest construction company is bracing itself for a £1 billion bid for its investment division that would remove another brick in its defensive wall.

John Laing Infrastructure Fund is considering making a hostile bid for the large portfolio of contracts under Balfour Beatty’s control. The fund declined to comment and has yet to approach its target.

A sale of the division, which invests in long-term privately financed projects (PFI) to build schools and hospitals, would strip Balfour its biggest asset.

It also would leave the company with only its construction business, which has been at the centre of a string

of profit warnings over the past 18 months.

The PFI portfolio played a key role in Balfour Beatty’s strategy to repel a hostile proposal from Carillion in August.

Leo Quinn, the former QinetiQ chief executive who was appointed to run Balfour Beatty in October, is likely to reject any attempt by John Laing to prise the investment arm from the company as he is setting out a restructuring strategy. A £1 billion offer would value the rest of Balfour Beatty at £270 million, based on its present market value.

JLIF is one of Europe’s largest listed infrastructure funds, with 54 projects under management, including stakes in the M40 and M6 toll roads.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Business

Need to know Your 5-minute digest The week ahead today Aberdeen Asset Management reports annual results. As well as looking for an update on the health of flows into its funds, investors will be keen to hear its take on investment markets, particularly in the emerging markets, one of the investment manager’s key areas.

Long-term investors in The Innovation Group shudder at acquisition talk. The software company was trigger-happy in the tech boom as the chief executive, Rob Terry, tried to buy his way to greatness.

That didn’t work and he took his strategy to a new venture — Quindell — leaving the team to tidy up. More than a decade later and Innovation is holding a meeting to ease its borrowing restrictions to £75 million. It has taken a long time to buy back its goodwill so the group will need to tread carefully.

Interims: Bonmarche Holdings Finals: Aberdeen Asset Management, Intelligent Energy Holdings AGM/EGM: PeerTV, Inland Homes; The Innovation Group Economics: UK; net consumer credit, M4 money supply, mortgage approvals, manufacturing.

tomorrow Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement of a plan to build a Legoland theme park in South Korea, Merlin Entertainments is tipped to report like-for-like sales growth of about 6 per cent in the first 47 weeks of the year.

The Lego movie weaved its magic on attendances at its Legolands, while the warm half-term weather contrasted favourably with last year’s wet and windy break. A further Legoland deal is under negotiation in America and Nick Varney, chief executive of the Madame Tussauds and Dungeon operator, will face questions on new brand development.

GW Pharmaceuticals has a chance to make amends with full-year results after a disappointing third quarter.

Sativex progress will be key.

Interims: Northgate, Plastics Capital, Park Group, Tricorn, WYG; Vianet Finals: Infrastrata; Urban & Civic; ITE Group; GW Pharmaceuticals; Gooch & Housego Trading Statement: Merlin Entertainments Economics: UK; construction.

wednesday George Osborne delivers the autumn statement, updating MPs on the government’s taxation and spending plans, based on the latest forecasts for the economy from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which are published alongside. Analysts at HSBC expect the chancellor to announce upward revisions

Who’s right about whose rights?

Gary Parkinson Trade Secrets

C

rank up the Thin Lizzy — the boys are back in town.

Unless you’re in the oil and gas industry, you probably won’t have heard of Alan Stein or Jonathan Taylor. But if you’re in the exploration business, you probably should have.

Back in 2004, they set up Ophir Energy. When it floated on the main market in London seven years later, it was the biggest explorer to have done so. Backed by more than its fair share of billionaires — the likes of Lakshmi Mittal, steel magnate and one of Britain’s richest men, Jan Kulczyk, Poland’s richest man, and Tokyo Sexwale, who had been locked up alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island — Ophir became 2011’s most successful float.

Before founding and floating Ophir, the pair had founded and flogged Fusion Oil & Gas. Another African explorer, this one quoted on AIM, Fusion was taken out for £40 million by Sterling Energy in September 2003.

Eighteen stones of bruising Glaswegian natural resources entrepreneur, Alan’s the geologist. Jonathan is the geophysicist. For the past couple of decades, Alan’s been throwing another steak on the barbie down in Perth, among the biggest natural resources hubs anywhere.

This year, they became two of the five founders of Havoc Partners, which bills itself as an investment company that specialises — surprise, surprise — in natural resources. And now they’re getting the band back together (sort of).

Havoc has bought Ophir’s half-share of four “production sharing contracts”, or PSCs,

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The week’s biggest movers Company BT Applause for acquisition plans Carnival Cheaper fuel easyJet Oil prices tank Friends Life Takeover target IAG Fuel price recedes J Sainsbury Broker says ‘sell’ Weir Group Opec fails to agree production cuts BG Group Pay controversy Tullow Oil Cratering crude prices Petrofac Another profit warning

off the coast of west Africa.

Premier Oil, another FTSE 250 oil explorer and one that Ophir tried to buy this year, is Havoc’s partner in the venture.

While Ophir buys Salamander Energy instead, Havoc and Premier will explore nearly 75,000 sq km of the Atlantic Ocean, down to depths as great as two and a half kilometres.

Here’s where things get spicier. The four PSCs — Daora, Haouza, Mahbes and Mijek — were awarded by the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.

That’s Western Sahara to you.

Or Morocco, perhaps.

Certainly if you’re Moroccan.

A quick history lesson.

Western Sahara was formerly “Spanish Sahara”, until 1960,

Change 8.3% 7.6% 6.4% 6.1% 5.6% -10.0% -10.7% -15.5% -15.7% -30.1%

when Spain pulled out of its colony. What the Spaniards vacated, the Moroccans promptly occupied. Been there ever since.

Enter a third FTSE 250 explorer: Cairn Energy. It owns a 20 per cent interest in licences awarded to Kosmos Energy by Morocco, granting the Texas oiler rights to drill in precisely the same patch of ocean as Havoc and Premier.

A first well for Kosmos and Cairn is due to be spudded this year, Gargaa, in an area also covered for Havoc and Premier by Haouza.

So whose rights are right?

The Havoc camp talked to the government of SADR, which talked to Cairn and Kosmos.

They were told that their drilling would be illegal and

would heap more suffering on a Saharawi people who already have endured more than their fair share of suffering at Morocco’s hands.

Havoc waves about an “advisory opinion” from the International Court of Justice in 1975, which its says concludes that Morocco has no right or claim to Western Sahara. Also, it says, the court found that the indigenous Saharawi people had the right to self-determination.

Throw in a few UN resolutions over the years stating pretty much the same thing, as well as a 2002 legal opinion from the UN saying that any exploitation of natural resources without the say-so of the people of Western Sahara would be illegal, and the Havoc boys think they’re on safe ground.

Not so, says Cairn. All its exploration operations are in line with the UN’s legal position that, it says, views Morocco as the territory’s administering power. If commercial, development would meet international standards, including those set out in the UN Charter, and would enhance the economic prospects of the Saharawi people.

Nothing much is likely to happen until it’s been determined whether there is anything down there. There might well be. Geographically speaking, the waters off Western Sahara, Morocco, call it what you will, are a stone’s throw from those off Senegal, the source of the recent thumping oil finds by Cairn.

Gargaa will take about three months to drill. Depending on what it finds, lawyers on both sides are likely to be busy. For Alan and Jonathan, their African comeback tour is only just starting.

What the papers said THE SUNDAY TIMES 6 Intellectual property: George Osborne is set to unveil tax breaks in the field after the Treasury lost a battle with counterparts in Germany over the government’s Patent Box tax relief system 6 Amazon: The internet retailer has been called a “playground bully” after suing a small children’s television producer called Kindle Entertainment because of trademark infringement. The company makes Big & Small, which appears on CBeebies 6 Mulberry: The upmarket handbag maker that employs Cara

Delevingne, below, as one of its models, will slump to a £1 million loss when it unveils first-half results this week. It made £7.2 million profit in the same period last year 6 Riviera Travel: The holiday company is expected to be acquired by Phoenix Equity Partners for an estimated £130 million. The fund, which backed Jimmy Choo, the celebrity shoemaker, is in talks with Riveria’s founders 6 Sophos: The cyber-security company is set to appoint advisers with a view to a £1 billion London float. It was scheduled to list in 2010 before it sold itself to Apax Partners

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 6 Austin Reed: The tailor and retailer is close to appointing Deloitte to work on a rescue deal. Its owner, Darius Capital, is in talks with the auditor about a company voluntary administration arrangement, but it might wait until after Christmas 6 Co-operative Group: The group’s food business is eyeing expansion into convenience stores to transform the company as it shuts locations. The retailer is the fifth-largest in Britain but is losing market share 6 Barclays: The bank will be able to talk to customers using video-calling technology in the latest attempt by banks to reduce reliance on branches.

Nationwide has already adopted a video service

MAIL ON SUNDAY 6 Oil: North Sea explorers have warned that taxpayers could be on the hook for a £20 billion bill to close uneconomic wells unless the industry is handed a tax break. The warning comes because of continuing weakness in the underlying price of crude 6 Tesco: The supermarket chain will take control of almost 300 cafés within its stores operated by Elior or Compass. The company will try to improve the Tesco Café concept under its own steam 6 BullionByPost: A Birmingham-based gold delivery company plans to raise £2.2 million from customers to fund an expansion into France and Spain

to forecasts for borrowing and an increase to the Debt Management Office gilt issuance remit for 2014-15.

They also expect the OBR to lower its estimate of the output gap.

Stephen Kelly, a former civil servant, has completed his first 100 days at Sage Group and will unveil final results for the first time. His comments on strategy will be considered crucial to boosting the share price after a decent run.

Interims: API, International Greetings Finals: Sage, Brewin Dolphin Holdings, The Innovation Group, Character Group AGM/EGM: Madagascar Oil, PureCircle, Global Market Group, Haydale Graphene Industries, Advance Frontier Markets Fund, Bioventix Economics: UK; autumn statement; services industry.

EU; GDP.

thursday Having defied the odds and spurred Betfair back above its £13 flotation price of 2010, Breon Corcoran, the betting group’s chief executive, faces the challenge of mitigating the imposition by the government of a point of consumption tax on internet bookies. First-half results should help as they are expected to show a 42 per cent jump in earnings to £70 million and a 26 per cent increase in revenues to £236 million.

Interims: DS Smith, Mulberry Betfair, Photo-Me International, Clipper Logistics, Greene King Finals: TUI Travel, Redhall Numis Corporation. Servoca AGM/EGM: Resource Holding Management, Axa Property, Altus Resource Capital Trading Statement: Dolphin Capital Investors Economics: UK; Bank of England asset purchase target and rate announcement.

EU; European Bank rate announcement.

friday Berkeley Group will publish results for the six months to October 31. The builder, which focuses on the South East, has teamed up with National Grid to build houses on land that has long been home to gasholders. The new venture will be called St William Homes and have funds available of up to £700 million to develop as many as 14,000 homes on National Grid’s 20 sites in London and the southeast over the next 10 to 15 years.

HSBC estimates that US non-farm payrolls for November will increase by 230,000 which is a slightly higher number than the average over the first nine months of 2014.

Interims: Berkeley Group AGM/EGM: Waterman, Trading Emissions, Associated British Foods, Green Reit Trading Statement: SThree Economics: UK; Bank of England’s inflation expectations survey. US; nonfarm payrolls.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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If you can’t see the masts for the trees, then that’s the idea Nic Fildes Technology & Communications Editor

Muted reception

What do the Shard, the flags over Madame Tussauds, the Ladywell Water Tower in southeast London and the dome of the Central Mosque of Brent in Willesden Green have in common? All of them disguise mobile phone masts, reducing the need to install more traditional steel towers in heavily populated areas.

Indeed, there is hardly a church spire or hotel roof in the land that has yet to be commissioned to house radio equipment, while thousands of chimneys have been co-opted to hide antennae.

The angel on top of the tower at Guildford Cathedral has a mobile phone antenna under its dress, painted in gold leaf. Fulham FC’s floodlights will be turned into mobile phone towers, under another plan.

Most dramatic of all, the Shard contains a fibre spine that is longer than the 309m-tall building itself. A bunker three floors below the street houses racks of servers that carry mobile phone traffic for the people that work, visit and live in the building. The network, which is likely to be used to beef up coverage around London Bridge station, cost millions for Vodafone to install and is an example of the sort of huge project needed to keep up with smartphone habits in big cities.

However, the big boom in masts is set to take place in the countryside, with mobile networks planning to spend tens of millions of pounds to improve coverage. The government is determined to extend mobile phone signals to every part of the country by moving from population coverage measures to geographic ones, which could usher in an era of taller masts, and many more of them dotting the landscape.

That presents an opportunity for companies such as FLI Structures, a steelworks based in Gloucester. It specialises in structures that disguise masts as trees and has supplied 50 such masts, including one mimicking a cypress in Canary Wharf. It believes that its de-

6 Mobile networks have told the government to open up its buildings and sites to improve mobile phone coverage 6 The industry is under pressure from the government to boost reception as part of the national roaming plan hatched by Sajid Javid, the culture secretary, with the blessing of David Cameron, who regards better rural reception as a vote-winner 6 The mobile industry will argue in a submission that it could boost coverage faster if it had better access to government-owned buildings and sites. It will also emphasise that departments such as the Forestry Commission and the Housing Association have slowed its progress by not responding to requests to install new masts 6 One source said mobile networks had requested access to more than 200 government-owned buildings in London to boost coverage with new antennae, but, six months later, only two sites, at Ofcom’s offices on Southwark Bridge and one in Whitehall, had been offered

signs could fit with the push by Vodafone, EE and O2 into the country.

“It’s a really good time. The telecoms sector has been through a lull, but we now expect demand to be a lot higher.

There’s a lot of investment going on,” Nick Goodman, the head of mast and tower sales at FLI, said.

The company, which used to make railway and road gantries, has exported its designs to countries including the United States and South Africa and says that the business of disguising masts has become more sophisticated.

“You can get ones that look like toilet brushes — but they’re not ours. They

Vodafone thinks outside the box with Tesco talks Nic Fildes

A drive by telecoms companies to tap into television could play into Tesco’s hands after the retailer held talks with Vodafone over the sale of its Blinkbox division.

The loss-making video streaming and download company was put up for sale by Dave Lewis, Tesco’s new chief executive, in October as he deemed the entertainment platform to be a distraction to the core business Vodafone had expressed an ambition to get into broadband and television next year and a takeover of Blinkbox would hand it developers and content specialists, as well as the right to sell programmes such as Game of Thrones and Girls.

No deal has been agreed and the companies are still haggling over the valuation. Sources said that it was “far too early to say whether a bid will actually happen”.

Tesco has poured millions of pounds into Blinkbox as part of its strategy to boost its digital services, including the Hudl tablet computer. Vodafone is likely to pay a modest amount for the unit.

The mobile group has been flirting

with the notion that it may have to buy content to sell to its customers as rivals, including EE and TalkTalk, are making television central to their growth strategies. It has already offered smartphone users Sky Sports to support its 4G launch and has explored a deeper relationship with the satellite broadcaster to cross-sell content.

However, with deep consolidation on the horizon, Vodafone may be forced into a more radical move.

The group’s senior executives took part in two days of “war gaming” at a central London hotel last week to discuss the best strategy for the British operation, which triggered speculation that it could be preparing a blockbuster bid for Liberty Global, the American cable company, to forge a takeover of its Virgin Media business.

The consolidation plans have been triggered by BT’s talks to acquire either O2 or EE, while Canning Fok, the managing director of Hutchison Whampoa, is said to be in Britain to discuss options for its Three mobile phone brand.

Speculation has mounted that the group could make a counter-offer for O2 or EE, although a merger would test the mettle of competition regulators.

were imported in the 1990s, and designs have definitely improved to the point where even if you know where they are, they can be really hard to spot,” Mr Goodman said.

FLI designs masts to look like cypress, elm and oak trees, with each structure taking up to two weeks to manufacture. A tree mast costs £50,000, five times more than a standard steel structure, but the business expects to increase its workforce from 70 if demand grows as expected.

Business

FLI Structures designs masts, such as this one, to look like cypress trees

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Business

Pension funds fuel short-selling moves Edward Curwen, Miles Costello

Leading pension funds — the biggest holders of shares — have been feeding the appetite of hedge funds to place aggressive bets that shares will slump.

An analysis by The Times of the accounts of the 20 largest public sector schemes reveals that their collective stock-lending surged by almost 50 per cent during the year to March.

Shares are lent to investment banks and brokers in return for a commission.

They, in turn, lend them on to hedge funds that can try to make profits by “short-selling” a listed company.

Short-sellers offload their borrowed shares in the open market in the hope of buying them back more cheaply at a later date. While legal, the practice is contentious. Hedge funds and other investors were accused during the banking crisis of speeding the demise of banks, such as HBOS, by aggressively betting that their prices would fall.

More recently, companies including Quindell, the AIM- quoted technology contractor, have suffered from attacks.

Strathclyde pension fund, the largest public sector pension scheme with almost £14 billion under management, boosted its stock lending during the year to March, from £29 million the previous year to almost £500 million.

The Greater Manchester Pension Fund, with £13.3 billion under management, increased its stock on loan by almsost 60 per cent to £233 million dur-

ing the same period, while lending activity by the West Midlands scheme rose by 290 per cent to £171.4 million.

The biggest stock lender among local government pension schemes was West Yorkshire, with £708 million of shares out on loan for the year to March. However, this was a 20 per cent decline on the previous year.

During the period covered, total stock out on loan increased from £16.74 billion to £20.74 billion, according to Markit, the data provider. The analysis suggests that the top public pension schemes accounted for more than 16 per cent of that lending.

One investment manager said that the rise was a response to demand for certain holdings, rather than a push by the funds. “It’s very much a matter of market forces, so it depends on the composition of your portfolio,” he said.

One London hedge fund manager said that the pension funds provided liquidity to the market and that shortselling often indicated the true sentiment towards a company.

Pension funds do not profit from short-selling, receiving only a fee for the loan. Of the 20 largest funds that had filed their 2014 accounts, two avoid stock lending altogether.

The Essex pension fund, with £4.3 billion of assets, has ruled against it and Nottinghamshire county council, the fourteenth-largest fund, said that the practice ran contrary to its statement of investment principles.

RYAN REMIORZ / PA

Managers highlight whistleblowing fears More than a third of employees believes that their bosses would try to dismiss them for whistleblowing, according to a leading law firm. In a study by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 37 per cent of 2,500 middle and senior managers surveyed believed that senior management at their organisation would treat them less favourably or look for ways to sack them if they blew the whistle, while 40 per cent said that their organisation discouraged or actively discouraged whistleblowing.

Parental leave worries Businesses may struggle to cope with new rules over shared parental leave that come into force today. Couples are to be allowed to share the mother’s maternity leave and requests for leave by parents whose children are born on or after April 5 next year may be made from today.

The government expects 285,000 working couples to be eligible.

Youth hostel upgrade

David Lloyd jumps to it

A

new company chaired by David Lloyd is raising funds to establish a chain of indoor trampoline

parks (Dominic Walsh writes).

Altitude Parks has received planning consent for its first venue in Acton, west London. It has raised £500,000 under the enterprise investment scheme and is seeking

a further £2.5 million.

Radius Equity, a provider of tax-efficient equity investments, is to canvass investors. Mr Lloyd founded David Lloyd Leisure, selling it to Whitbread in 1995 for £200 million.

A former youth hostel in a Jacobean mansion in west London is to reopen as a luxury hostel under the auspices of the AIM-quoted Safestay group. The company, which declined to comment, is understood to have signed a 50-year lease with the local authority, the owner of the listed building, and will invest £2 million on a refurbishment.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Business

Ian King

Stop veiled attacks on regulators, banks told

Chevron is cast as the good guy in a murky legal soap opera

‘‘

Ian King is business presenter for Sky News. Ian King Live is broadcast at 6.30pm Monday to Thursday Few people have much sympathy for Big Oil, even if, as the plight of BP at the hands of unscrupulous American lawyers of the ambulance-chasing persuasion shows, it is perfectly reasonable to do so on occasions. These companies make appealing targets.

Another example may be Chevron.

In 1994, 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians calling themselves the Amazon Defence Front sued over the alleged dumping of oil-drilling waste in the Amazon rainforest between 1964 and 1992 by Texaco. The tribespeople have enlisted help, over the years, from showbiz personalities including Sting and Bianca Jagger.

In 2001, Texaco was bought by Chevron. By the time that the case had come to court, in 2011, Patton Boggs, one of Washington’s most respected law firms, had been recruited, with backing supplied, in part, by Burford Capital, a British-based specialist in “litigation funding”, a fast-growing field where an investor can support a party involved in a commercial dispute in return for a share of any awards.

Burford, chaired by Sir Peter Middleton, the former Barclays chairman, and boasting a glittering line up of shareholders including Neil Woodford, put up $15 million.

The Ecuadorian courts found for the tribespeople, despite Chevron arguing that in 1998 Ecuador’s government had agreed to spare Texaco from environmental claims after the company had spent $40 million cleaning up the area and that much of the contamination at the heart of the case had been caused by PetroEcuador, the government-controlled company that took over the fields when Texaco left Ecuador in 1992. Chevron, the world’s fourth-largest oil major, was ordered to pay more than $18 billion in compensation, although the size of the penalty was reduced later.

So far, so predictable. Another case of Big Oil behaving badly, you might say.

Yet look at what happened next.

Chevron studied the ruling closely and concluded that parts of it had been written, more or less, by the plaintiffs. It filed a case in Manhattan under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation Act, a law

GUILLERMO GRANJA / REUTERS

The clean-up in Ecuador in the 1990s was not enough to stop the legal battles

passed in 1970 to tackle organised crime, on the basis that the Amazon Defence Front’s case amounted to extortion. The US District Court found for Chevron in July 2012 after concluding that some of the evidence brought against it in the original case was “tainted by fraud”. Among those testifying to that effect was one of the judges who had heard the original case in Ecuador.

Burford, smelling a rat, had long since walked away, selling its interest

in the original case to a third party.

Another law firm, the Philadelphia-based Kohn, Swift & Graft, also walked away from any involvement, with one of its leading lawyers claiming to have been lied to by those representing the Ecuadorians — a claim that, incidentally, they deny.

After the US District Court ruling, Chevron pursued Patton Boggs, accusing it of fraud, civil conspiracy and malicious prosecution, while also

City grandee is anything but bland

I

t never ceases to amaze what the great and good of the business world do on finally departing the corporate scene.

Take Sir Christopher Bland, the former BT chairman, who appeared on my Sky News show last week to discuss the company’s possible return to mobile. At 76, he has just had his first novel published. Ashes in the Wind is an Anglo-Irish epic that takes in the Irish war of independence, the civil war that followed and, later, the Spanish civil war.

Sir Christopher himself comes from an Anglo-Irish family — his forebears moved from Yorkshire to Co Kerry in the 17th century — and that

connection brought him a little distinction of which he is rather proud: having served with the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Sir Christopher is, he says, the last FTSE 100 chairman to have done national service.

Yet there are plenty of foreign captains of industry to have done national service in their own country.

Vittorio Colao, the Vodafone chief executive, who served in Italy with the carabinieri, springs to mind.

Perhaps Sir Christopher’s distinction may one day have to be tweaked to being the last British FTSE 100 chairman to have done national service.

alleging that the law firm had defrauded Burford by persuading it to get involved. In May this year, Patton Boggs settled with Chevron, agreeing to drop its involvement with the case and making a public statement of regret for having become involved.

That, though, is not the end of the story. The Ecuadorians are appealing against the US District Court’s ruling, backed by Woodsford Litigation Funding, another London-based firm, which got involved last year.

Alongside Woodsford is someone whose name will not exactly spark fond memories in the City: Russ DeLeon, best remembered as one of the quartet of founders who extracted almost £1 billion from the September 2005 stock market flotation of PartyGaming, the online poker business, on which dozens of fund managers lost their shirts. He has been a supporter behind the scenes since at least 2007 and is reckoned to have come up with the funds to keep the original case going when Burford walked away. Now Chevron is seeking to recover some of its legal costs from him, via the courts in Gibraltar, where he lives.

Litigation funding has its merits, not least in the way it can often help David to take on Goliath. However, in the words of Michael Goldhaber, an American legal journalist who has written a book on the case, this is a situation where “the truth is on the side of the big bad oil company, not on the side of the charismatic little guy fighting for indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest”.

Mr DeLeon has a reasonable excuse for being involved. He was at Harvard Law School with Steven Donziger, the tribespeople’s lead lawyer, who has been fighting their cause for more than 20 years. Nobody will blame him for helping an old friend. Yet Woodsford has some serious City heavyweights on board.

Its investment advisory panel includes a former High Court judge and its chief executive is Charles Manduca, a former partner at the London-based law firm Lovells and the brother of Paul Manduca, the chairman of Prudential. Having become involved almost a year after the US District Court’s damning verdict, it and Mr DeLeon make unusual bedfellows.

’’

Rebecca Clancy

Banks must not use the “back door” to put pressure on regulators, the chairman of the Treasury select committee has demanded.

Andrew Tyrie said that “banks should certainly speak up when they think regulators are getting it wrong, but they should do so clearly and openly and on the basis of the facts. To do otherwise gives the impression of bankers attempting to put pressure on regulators by the back door.”

His comments come as he publishes letters between himself and HSBC. The correspondence, which is being made public today, shows that Mr Tyrie wrote to Douglas Flint, the group chairman of HSBC, after media reports last month that two directors of the bank were preparing to resign from its London board because of fears about incoming rules under which senior managers could face prison sentences.

Alongside making the letters public, Mr Tyrie expressed concern that HSBC had not published a statement at the time of the story to correct it, despite the fact that only one person had resigned and not as a direct result of the proposed rule change. He claimed that the stories had been “presented as a criticism of the regulators . . . We may never know how the story came to be in the public domain, nor why HSBC — either at the time or subsequently — failed to provide the balanced and full account now available from this correspondence.”

The letters show that Mr Tyrie wrote to Mr Flint at the end of October to ask whether Alan Thomson, a member of the audit and risk committees of HSBC Bank, and John Trueman, the deputy chairman of HSBC’s UK subsidiary board, had left as reported; if so, when the board had been told the reasons given for their departures; and whether HSBC had provided any of the information to the media.

Replying two weeks later, Mr Flint confirmed that Mr Thomson had resigned but stated that the primary reason was due to his “overall work burden”, while Mr Trueman had not resigned and “is not about to do so”. He added that both had concerns about the new regulations, which Mr Thomson, would “not be able to accept” if implemented, “even if that meant he had to step down”. Addressing Mr Tyrie’s concerns about how the story had been obtained, Mr Flint said there were no press briefings, formal or informal.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Business

The path to building better business ties may be blocked at passport control B mbay mix robin pagnamenta

I

t looked like a snub. It certainly felt like one. India unveiled new visa rules last week to make it easier for tourists and business travellers to visit the country.

Instead of queueing up at their local consulates, visitors from the United States, Germany, Australia, Japan, Russia, Brazil and 37 other countries will be able to apply online and pick up their visa on arrival at the airport.

For those affected, the new regime

is a big improvement — scrapping the delay, red tape and uncertainty of having to submit applications weeks in advance at visa processing centres.

Yet conspicuously absent from the list was Britain. Citizens of India’s former colonial ruler must carry on filling out forms, waiting patiently for passport stamps and standing in line at Indian airports before being allowed in.

Quite why one of India’s biggest

investors and the source of its second-largest contingent of foreign tourists after the US has been omitted from the list is unclear, although the UK’s tortuous visa arrangements for Indians may have something to do with it. In any case, it doesn’t say much for Britain’s much-trumpeted diplomatic offensive to forge closer ties, boost trade and build on the countries’ shared heritage.

In truth, Britain seems to be getting snubbed rather a lot these days by India’s new Hindu nationalist government. It’s not only Narendra Modi’s apparent disinterest in visiting the UK, despite an invitation by phone from David Cameron within hours of taking office and a flurry of overseas trips he has made to Japan, America, Australia and Brazil. When dozens of senior British executives and ministers including Vince Cable, Sir Charlie Mayfield, the chairman of John Lewis, and Sir Mike Rake, president of the CBI, pitched up in Delhi in September for the country’s annual British Business Group shindig, no government minister from the host nation bothered to show up at all.

It is also curious, given the eagerness of India’s new government to attract foreign investment to kickstart its economy and the huge role played by Indian companies in Britain. In the other direction, UK companies have about $85 billion at stake in India, more than any other country and about 30 per cent of all foreign direct investment in India.

Of course, there are historic reasons why India’s relations with Britain often feel strained, especially for a proud Hindu nationalist such as Mr Modi, who has talked of ending the country’s “slave mentality” — a reference to the shackles of colonialism. If Mr Modi still views Britain through the prism of India’s colonial past, then Mr Cameron has a tough job on his hands persuading him the UK should be its “partner of

Narendra Modi is a proud nationalist

choice” — the phrase he came up with last year during one of several visits to bolster ties. If the UK can’t even make it on to a list of 43 countries that India is willing to offer simpler entry requirements, he has a long way to go to fulfil that goal.

Drugs and guns

I

t sounds more like a scene out of 1920s Chicago. K Nityananda Reddy, vice-chairman and co-founder of Aurobindo Pharma — the country’s fourth-biggest drug company, which has licensing pacts with Pfizer and AstraZeneca — was just finishing his morning stroll in Banjara Hills, an upmarket neighbourhood of Hyderabad, last week when he was attacked.

As he climbed into his white Audi, a man wielding an AK47 assault rifle thrust his way into the rear passenger seat in an apparent kidnapping attempt.

Mr Reddy was saved by his brother, who intervened, prompting the assailant to fire three rounds into the air and the car, shattering the window. Mr Reddy escaped as the gunman fled the scene, past dozens of other morning walkers.

Quite what lay behind the attack remains unclear, but kidnapping remains a growing problem in India.

Control Risks now ranks it as one of the world’s worst countries, behind Mexico.

‘Conflict of interest’ claim in Canary Wharf battle Deirdre Hipwell

A new row has broken out in the battle to win control of Canary Wharf.

The Qatari-Canadian consortium that wants to take charge of the east London business district has complained about the advisory role of Rothschild, the investment bank.

Representatives of Qatar Investment Authority have told David Pritchard, the chairman of Songbird Estates, which owns nearly 70 per cent of Canary Wharf, that they believe Rothschild, the financial adviser to Songbird, has a conflict of interest, The Times understands.

Alex Midgen, a property banker at Rothschild, is the Songbird board representative for Simon Glick, the second-largest shareholder in the company. Mr Midgen is also advising the board of Songbird, which two weeks ago dismissed an offer of 295p a share from QIA and Brookfield Group, of Canada.

The Songbird directors said that the offer “significantly undervalued” the company and on Friday said that independent valuers had estimated the net asset value of the company’s assets at

381p per share, significantly more than the 295p offer. This meant that Songbird’s portfolio was worth £2.82 billion, against the Qataris’ offer of £2.2 billion.

The consortium has until Thursday to make a firm offer or walk away. It is understood that the gap in value between the board and the bidders may be too large to bridge and that the Qataris, who own nearly 28 per cent of Songbird, could be forced to abandon

90%

of contracts on Canary Wharf’s crossrail site went to local companies

Source: Songbird

their bid. It is understood that no written complaint about the role of Rothschild has been made — the complaints were made verbally.

A Songbird spokesman said: “The appointment of the company’s longterm advisers Morgan Stanley, Rothschild and JP Morgan Cazenove was unanimously supported by those directors of the company with no connection to any of the firms.”

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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It has 12 sides, but new £1 coin is failing to cover all the angles Andrew Clark Deputy Business Editor

It is designed to be a counterfeiter’s nightmare, but it seems that would-be forgers are not alone in dreading the arrival of the new £1 coin. The attempt to spike a £45 million-a-year forgery racket will wreak havoc on parking meters, drinks machines and onearmed bandits, company chiefs claim.

The 12-sided coin announced by George Osborne in September will be made from two types of metal and, like the existing £2 coin, will be of two colours. It is designed to look like the classic threepenny bit last minted in 1970, but its shape and high-tech security features, designed to foil criminals, pose a headache, too, for the makers of coin-operated machines.

Bacta, the body that represents the amusement industry, believes that it could cost £100 million to adapt 350,000 fruit machines and poker terminals — a sum that cannot be passed on to customers because of strict rules governing the ratio between stakes and winnings.

The British Retail Consortium is worried that supermarket self-service tills will need to be adapted, while the Automatic Vending Association says that it will cost £72 million to adapt every coffee, snack and fizzy drinks machine.

“It was only in 2011 that we had to make changes for the new 5p and 10p pieces,” Jonathan Hilder, chief executive of the Vending Association, said. “What we’re saying to the government is we’d like a bit of help here. We’re making these changes to ensure that a coin of the realm is protected from forgeries.”

The Treasury wants to ditch existing £1 coins because of a surge in counterfeiting. It estimates that When George Osborne revealed the new coin, the public liked it, but vending machine makers disagree

fakes make up 3.03 per cent of £1 coins in circulation, a proportion that has trebled over the past decade, accounting for a value of £45 million.

Government officials say that the 30-year lifespan of the existing design is much longer than usual for modern coins and that the “price would be high” if confidence deteriorated in pound coins.

A Royal Mint survey found 91 per cent approval for a proposed new design. To beef up security, one proposal is to embed tiny luminescent particles in the coin that will show up under a particular light — an idea that has not gone down well with manufacturers of parking meters.

“Over time, coins gather dirt,” the British Parking Association said in a submission, suggesting that “this builtup of dirt will generate problems for machines reading the coins”. It reckons that it will cost up to £350 to update every meter in the country.

Parking meter operators add that a quirk in the law could add an extra complication: if a forgery is detected using luminescent technology, machines could be obliged to keep the coin rather than simply spitting it out, causing irate drivers to vandalise machines.

To capture public imagination about the coin, the chancellor launched a competition in September for designs to adorn the “tails” side, calling for ideas that symbolise British life. The winner will receive a prize of £10,000. The contest prompted pranksters on Twitter to mock up hundreds of designs, ranging from an image of the Chuckle Brothers to pictures of Mr Blobby.

One design featured a portrait of Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland.

A Treasury spokesman said that the old coin had out-

To Gfinity and beyond, as eSports comes to AIM Nic Fildes

A company behind the new phenomenon of competitive video gaming as a spectator sport is to join the junior stock market.

Gfinity, which runs tournaments in which gamers are watched while playing at sports stadiums and entertainment venues, is to raise funds to help to build a dedicated “eSports” stadium near London.

Gfinity is the brainchild of Neville Upton, who made £6 million selling a call centre business to Serco. He spotted that many of his call centre workers spent much of their time playing video games and decided to tap into the burgeoning market for tournaments that specialised in the pastime.

Investors in the company include Lawrence Dallaglio, the former England rugby captain, with a 1 per cent stake, and Nigel Wray, the owner of Saracens rugby club, with 15 per cent.

Mr Upton, who is not a gamer, hired many of his former employees to run the business, which he believes can turn Britain into a European hub for eSports to rival South Korea and Germany. He hopes to raise £3 million

through a flotation on AIM, which would value Gfinity at £12 million.

He plans to use the funds to stage more events that attract the global superstars of eSports, some of whom earn $10 million a year, and to hold bigger tournaments. It would be the first “eSports” flotation in the world — other companies put on tournaments backed by private equity funds.

Gfinity, which offers competitive matches on eight games including Halo and Call of Duty, also intends to build an eSports stadium in the London area to host weekly tournaments. Mr Upton said that Kingston, where the company is based, could be a good location, with its proximity to Heathrow and cheap rents. He said that a minimum of 500 seats would be needed: “If you want to emulate mainstream sports, you need regular . . . schedules and a structured season.”

In the past two years, eSports has exploded. A top tournament in South Korea this year sold out the Sangam stadium — used for the 2002 football World Cup finals — in minutes and was watched by 32 million people online.

The prize money for the Dota 2 tournament was $11 million.

lived its usefulness: “After 30 years’ loyal service, the time is right to replace the £1 coin with a new, more secure coin that will reduce the costs of counterfeiting to our economy.

“It is the small and medium businesses that feel the costs the most and ultimately, the costs of bringing in the new coin could never compare to the price we’d pay in the event confidence in the £1 coin deteriorated.”

Business GEOFF WILKINSON / REX FEATURES

Mr Blobby is unlikely to be the new face of the £1 coin despite Twitter jokes

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Games Bridge Andrew Robson

Word Watching Paul Dunn Dealer: South, Vulnerability: Neither

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W

N

As I have noted before, the recently concluded World Championship was largely characterised by a series of missed opportunities.

There are three types of missed opportunity. The lowest level involves failing to play a move which would achieve the desired result, but which merely postpones the process and does not alter the outcome. At the second level we find moves which convert a definite win into a likely draw. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

The third and most catastrophic category involves missing a move which would have won. At this level of disaster the oversight causes you to lose a game that you were winning.

Every chessplayer has experienced this and it is usually accompanied by a sickening thud in the pit of your stomach as you realise the magnitude of your error. An absolutely classic case was the 18th game of the World Championship between Botvinnik and Smyslov in 1958. Here Botvinnik could have won, and won brilliantly, if he had found the correct 23rd move. As it was he instead chose a move which seriously jeopardised his situation.

Three moves later Smyslov could have won outright but returned the compliment with a hideous howler. Although he still stood well it was Botvinnik who actually went on to win.

White: Mikhail Botvinnik Black: Vassily Smyslov World Championship, Moscow (Game 18) 1958

T2 CROSSWORD Times Quick CrosswordNo 6572 1

2

3

4

5

3

8

7

11

and cash a spade – down one.

Allfrey suggested that the safest line after winning trick two’s low spade switch with the king was to play ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond, then lead a heart to the ace.

On the layout West’s king would fall and all problems would be over. But say only low hearts appear. Now ruff a third diamond, cross to the king of clubs and ruff a fourth diamond. The defence are welcome to both their king and jack of hearts, plus trick one’s ace of clubs. However, provided diamonds split 4-3, it is very hard to see them winning a fourth trick.

Very pretty, Alexander.

The Allfrey team began the weekend well.

andrew.robson@thetimes.co.uk

________ á D 4 4kD] à0pD D Dp] ß DnD 0p!] ÞD 0 D D ] ÝbD D D D] ÜD ) $N) ] ÛPDqD )B)] ÚD D $ I ] ÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈ 23 Bh3?

Botvinnik could have won brilliantly with 23 Nd4!! cxd4 24 Bd5+ (Not 24 Re7 since 24 ... Nxe7 25 Rxe7 Rf7 defends) 24 ... Kh8 (24 ...

Rxd5 25 Re8 mates) 25 Re7 and wins since ... Rf7 no longer defends.

23 ... Ne5 24 Nxe5 fxe5 25 f4 A reckless advance. With 25 Be6+ Kh8 26 f3 White could have retained a comfortable edge.

25 ... Bc6 Suddenly the black queen and bishop are scything into the white kingside.

26 Qg5?

This loses. White had to try the peculiar 26 Be6+ Kh8 27 Bh3 and see what Black comes up with.

26 ... Rde8??

Smyslov misses his chance. See today’s Winning Move.

27 Rxe5 Qxc3 28 Rxe8 Bxe8 29 Qe5 Qxe5 30 Rxe5 b6 Black is a pawn up and stands well but Smyslov misplayed the endgame and eventually lost.

Botvinnik-Smyslov, The World Chess Championship Matches (by Mikhail Botvinnik) is published by New in Chess. This is a classic which recounts three epic matches.

I can thoroughly recommend it.

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Killer No 4028

Gentle 5min

9

17

13 25

26

Across

1 4 8 9 10 11 13 15 18

Male sheep (4) Abusively criticising (8) Displaying self-regard (8) Chair, stool (4) Finely ground grain (5) Entrance (7) Inuit (6) OT prophet (6) (Business) associate (7)

Solution to Crossword 6571 NE I GHBOU C U D O U REDDE ER T H O G S A T SCE P T I C AN S E K ROT ARY B EG O O I P ADM I N RENA D B G O A SHOA L PROT L E E M MA S T ERM I N

RS U I NG N R I MA N N GED S U L T P A E I N N D D

20 Go with the flow (5) 23 Eg, seaweed (4) 24 Unfit for consumption (8) 25 Of the French-Spanish mountain range (8) 26 Hardy heroine (4) Down

2 3 4 5 6 7

10 12 14 16 17 19 21 22

Heavenly being (5) Promoters of activity (7) Name; pity (archaic) (4) British queen (8) Coherent light source (5) River forming part of US-Canada border (7) A charge for services (3) US national park (8) Falklands capital (7) Flying transportation (7) Simple building (3) Tantalise (5) Plummets (5) Blood vessel (4)

Check today’s answers by ringing 09067 577188. Calls cost 77p per minute.

21

21

6

How you rate 12 words, average; 17, good; 23, very good; 30, excellent

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14

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. The digits within the cells joined by the dotted lines add up to the printed top left hand figure.

Within each dotted line ‘shape’, a digit CANNOT be repeated.

Codeword

No 2256

Numbers are substituted for letters in the crossword grid. Below the grid is the key.

Some letters are solved. When you have completed your first word or phrase you will have the clues to more letters. Enter them in the key grid and the main grid and check the letters on the alphabet list as you complete them.

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Winning Move solution

7

3

23

Corf (a) A wagon or basket used formerly in mines, from Middle Dutch.

Trimmer (b) A beam in a floor or roof attached to shortened joists to leave an opening for a staircase or chimney.

Frog (b) The recess in the top of a brick to reduce weight and retain mortar.

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6

16

8

4

Word Watching answers

11

12

12

Saturday’s answers bisque, bouquet, boutique, briquet, brusque, qubit, querist, quest, questor, quiet, quietus, quire, quirt, quit, quite, quits, quoit, quote, risqué, roque, roquet, sobriquet, soubriquet, squib, squire, squirt, squit, toque, torque, tuque, turquoise

16

11

17

23

Polygon From these letters, make words of three or more letters, always including the central letter. Answers must be in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives and superlatives.

7

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9 Solutions tomorrow, yesterday’s solutions below

8

24

4

5

5 9 8

12 13

1

3 2 9

3 2 2 4 3

9

10

2 4 6

4 9 5 9 1

No 6572 6

Easy

5

5

Contract: 4♥ , Opening Lead: ♣Q

________ á D 4 4kD] Winning Move à0pD D Dp] ß DbD DpD] Black to play. This position is from today’s Botvinnik-Smyslov, Moscow 1958. ÞD 0 0 ! ] game, Smyslov continued with the feeble 1 ... Ý D D ) D] Rde8 when Botvinnik managed to escape ÜD ) $ )B] the worst. Can you see what he should ÛPDqD D )] have played instead? ÚD D $ I ] For up-to-the-minute information follow ÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈ my tweets on twitter.com/times_chess.

Solution right

Corf a. A miner’s basket b. Dross c. A two-handled cup Trimmer a. A member of a yacht’s crew b. A roof beam c. A copy editor Frog a. Suet pudding b. Part of a brick c. Guttural

E

2NT(1) Pass 3♦(2) Pass 3♥ Pass 4♥ (3) End (1) 20-22 “balanced”.

(2) Transfer to hearts.

(3) Points schmoints. A seven-card suit facing 20-22 balanced should give a play for ten tricks.

Chess Raymond Keene Missing the goal

Sudoku No 6991

1 ... Rd2! planning 2 ... Rg2+ wins easily. Smyslov probably overlooked that 2 Be6+ is parried by 2 ... Rf7 and White has nothing.

We reached the final (long) weekend of the 2014 Premier League, held in the West Midlands Bridge Club in Solihull. The Allfrey team (including your columnist) held a slender lead. Watch team captain Alexander Allfrey outplay his opponent in 4♥. At both tables West led the queen of clubs, East winning the ace and returning a low spade (unusually small from a doubleton to retain his queen), the best defence.

Both declarers won the king of spades, played ace of diamonds, ruffed a diamond, then led a heart to the queen and West’s king. They won the low spade return to the queen and ace and now the paths diverged.

The other declarer cashed the ace of hearts in the hope that the suit would split. When West discarded, declarer had to concede a spade and a heart – down one.

After winning the ace of spades at trick six, Allfrey ruffed a third diamond before leading a heart to the ace. This seemingly innocuous diamond ruff made all the difference.

(After the heart to his ace) he could now ruff a fourth diamond and when East had to follow, he could cross back to the king of clubs and lead the (good) fifth diamond, discarding dummy’s spade loser as East ruffed. 10 tricks and game made.

It was Allfrey himself who suggested that whilst he may have improved upon his counterpart’s line, there may be a better line still.

For if East had held a diamond fewer and a spade more, he’d be able (on the Allfrey line) to overruff dummy on the fourth diamond

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1

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Sudoku, Killer and Codeword solutions 2 8 5 6 1 9 7 3 4

3 1 7 4 5 8 9 2 6

9 4 6 3 2 7 1 8 5

5 7 2 1 8 3 6 4 9

No 6990

6 3 1 9 7 4 8 5 2

4 9 8 2 6 5 3 1 7

8 2 3 5 9 6 4 7 1

1 6 4 7 3 2 5 9 8

7 5 9 8 4 1 2 6 3

4 9 7 3 1 5 8 6 2

8 3 6 4 2 9 1 7 5

2 5 1 6 8 7 3 4 9

5 7 9 1 4 8 2 3 6

No 4027

1 6 2 9 5 3 4 8 7

3 8 4 2 7 6 5 9 1

9 4 5 7 3 1 6 2 8

7 1 3 8 6 2 9 5 4

6 2 8 5 9 4 7 1 3

A T T I E F E V E R A EQU I E L DO T I N Y EW O I U P R RU E S D I

C D U S E R T E VOC A T NG I F S T O H R I SM N A G I T

No 2255

R AWL U I OX I N I E A L N I J AUN R O R Y BO S WH E P E DO Z

S L L A N AG C T Y O OK E E L Y E N

46

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

FGM

the game 6 Results and fixtures

T

Sky Bet Championship

Barclays Premier League P W W 1 Chelsea................................13 6 Y 2 Man City..............................13 4 Z 3 Southampton...................13 5 W 4 Man United........................13 5 Y 5 West Ham...........................13 4 Y 6 Arsenal................................13 2 Y 7 Tottenham.........................13 3 Z 8 Swansea..............................13 4 Z 9 Newcastle...........................13 3 Z10 Everton................................13 2 Y 11 Liverpool.............................13 3 Z 12 Stoke.....................................13 2 Y 13 Sunderland........................13 1 Y 14 Crystal Palace...................13 2 Z 15 West Brom..........................13 1 1 W 16 Aston Villa..........................13 1 W 17 Hull........................................13 Y 18 QPR.......................................13 3 1 W 19 Burnley................................13 Z20 Leicester.............................13 1 Burnley

(0) 1

Ings 87 (pen) 19,910

Liverpool

(0) 1

Stoke

(2) 3

Hull

(0) 0 (0) 0

75,345

(2) 3

Leicester

F A W 15 3 4 11 5 4 17 4 3 14 5 1 9 6 2 11 8 3 9 9 3 11 5 1 8 7 2 12 12 2 7 6 2 6 7 2 7 7 1 8 9 1 10 11 2 4 9 2 8 10 1 12 10 0 5 10 1 10 9 1

Sunderland

AWAY D L 3 0 2 1 1 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 2 3 3 2 0 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 0 6 2 3 0 6

F A GD Pts 15 8 19 33 16 8 14 27 7 5 15 26 8 10 7 22 12 10 5 21 10 7 6 20 9 9 0 20 6 9 3 19 6 9 -2 19 11 9 2 17 9 12 -2 17 7 9 -3 15 5 12 -7 14 10 13 -4 13 3 7 -5 13 3 9 -11 13 6 10 -6 11 2 15 -11 11 4 11 -12 11 3 12 -8 10

(0) 0

Chelsea

(0) 0

(1) 1

Crystal Palace(1) 1

45,232

44,735

Smalling 16 Rooney 42 van Persie 66

QPR

(1) 1

Cole 38

Johnson 85

Man United

Aston Villa

HOME D L 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 0 4 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 3 5 1 1 3 3 3 2 3 2 3 2 2 3 3 4 1

Swansea Bony 15 20,240

Tottenham

Jedinak 25 (pen)

(2) 2

Eriksen 21 Soldado 45+1

(1) 2

Morgan (og) 37 Fer 45 Austin 73

Cambiasso 4 Schlupp 67 18,054

Southampton (0) 0

Man City

30,919

Toure 51, Lampard 80 Clichy 88

West Brom

(0) 3

Cresswell 56

(1) 1

Mirallas 14 35,901

(0) 0

Arsenal

(0) 1

Newcastle

24,228

West Ham

Everton

(0) 1

Welbeck 60

(0) 0

34,977

Sent off: M Sissoko (Newcastle) 76

P W W 1 Derby...................................19 5 Y 2 Ipswich................................19 6 Y 3 Brentford............................19 6 Z 4 Bournemouth..................19 5 Z 5 Middlesbrough................19 4 W 6 Blackburn..........................19 5 W 7 Watford...............................19 5 Y 8 Cardiff..................................19 7 Z 9 Nottingham Forest........19 4 Z10 Charlton..............................19 4 Z 11 Norwich..............................19 3 Z 12 Wolves.................................19 5 W 13 Sheffield Wed...................19 2 Y 14 Reading...............................19 5 Y 15 Leeds....................................19 5 Y 16 Fulham................................19 4 Y 17 Birmingham......................19 3 Y 18 Bolton..................................19 5 Z 19 Huddersfield.....................19 3 Z20 Millwall................................19 3 Y 21 Rotherham........................19 3 Z22 Brighton..............................19 2 W 23 Wigan...................................19 2 1 W 24 Blackpool...........................19

Sky Bet League One

HOME D L F A W 3 1 20 8 5 2 1 14 6 3 3 1 18 10 4 3 2 17 12 4 4 2 17 7 5 3 1 17 11 3 3 2 21 12 3 0 2 18 11 1 3 2 18 13 3 5 1 11 8 2 5 2 17 13 4 2 2 11 9 2 5 3 5 9 3 1 3 17 11 2 3 2 14 8 1 2 3 14 7 2 3 4 9 18 2 2 3 17 12 1 4 2 12 11 2 3 3 13 13 1 3 4 10 14 1 5 3 10 11 1 6 1 12 8 1 2 6 5 12 0

AWAY D L F 2 3 15 5 2 14 1 4 12 3 2 20 2 2 11 4 3 13 2 4 10 5 4 6 4 3 12 5 2 9 1 4 12 4 4 11 5 1 9 2 6 8 2 6 9 2 6 16 4 3 8 1 7 5 2 6 13 5 4 8 4 4 6 4 4 11 2 7 8 4 6 8

12: B Assombalonga (N Forest) 11: R Gestede (Blackburn) 11: D Murphy (Ipswich) 10: C Martin (Derby)

8: H Rodallega (Fulham) 8: I Vetokele (Charlton) 7: M Antenucci (Leeds) *Four others with seven goals

MK Dons

leading scorers

Cotterill 10 Caddis 89 (pen)

Assombalonga 84 18,595

Alli 11 Afobe 37, 45, 58 Reeves 67 (pen) Hodson 90+1

Sergio Agüero (Man City) ............................. 12

Sent off: B Assombalonga (Nottm Forest) 88

Bolton

Millwall Upson 75 Gueye 88

Brighton

(1) 4

Wolves

(0) 2

(0) 1

Fulham

(0) 0

Leeds FA Cup: Second round: Accrington v Yeovil; Bury v Luton; Cambridge v Mansfield; MK Dons v Chesterfield; Oldham v Doncaster; Oxford United v Tranmere; Preston v Shrewsbury; Sheffield United v Plymouth; Wrexham v Maidstone United (5.30).

(0) 2

Derby 26,028

Middlesbro

Blackburn

(0) 1

Bamford 83 18,152

Norwich

Johnstone’s Paint Trophy: Gillingham v Leyton Orient.

Trotta 29 9,340

Scottish Championship: Alloa v Dumbarton; Falkirk v Hibernian; Hearts v Queen of South; Raith Rovers v Livingston; Rangers v Cowdenbeath. League One: Brechin v Airdrieonians; Dunfermline v Ayr; Stenhousemuir v Forfar; Stirling v Peterhead; Stranraer v Morton.

League Two: Albion v Elgin; Arbroath v Annan Athletic; Berwick v Clyde; East Fife v Montrose; Queen’s Park v East Stirling.

Bradford

Rotherham

(1) 1

(0) 1

(0) 1

Reading

(2) 2

Blackpool

(0) 1

Davies 85

(1) 2

May 27, 71 20,609

Watford

(0) 0

Cooper 14, 45

Bowery 78 9,381

Sheff Wed

(0) 1

Gestede 90+5

Hooper 10 26,002

Barnsley

Monday Barclays Premier League: Southampton v Man United (8.0)

(1) 2

Wigan

15,668

Cardiff

(1) 1

16: E Doyle (Chesterfield) 13: J Forte (Oldham) 11: J Garner (Preston) 10: A Wilbraham (Bristol City)

HOME D L F 2 1 16 3 1 20 3 1 18 2 1 26 3 2 11 3 1 15 2 4 12 2 5 11 2 4 14 2 5 13 4 1 11 3 2 13 4 2 9 2 3 14 1 5 18 3 4 5 3 3 11 3 3 12 3 5 10 4 2 14 1 5 7 2 5 10 4 5 5 2 5 9

AWAY D L F 4 1 20 2 2 16 1 3 14 2 2 12 1 3 14 6 2 13 4 0 13 1 3 21 1 4 12 3 2 13 0 7 8 4 4 13 4 4 6 3 5 11 3 3 10 1 3 13 4 4 8 3 5 9 4 3 14 3 6 6 3 4 16 3 5 14 1 5 9 2 6 6

A W 8 5 11 5 11 6 9 3 8 5 10 2 12 5 12 5 15 4 15 4 7 3 11 2 5 2 12 2 20 3 11 5 15 1 13 1 14 3 12 0 14 3 14 2 15 3 17 1

9: B Afobe (MK Dons) 9: M Done (Rochdale) 9: C Hourihane (Barnsley) 9: F Sears (Colchester United)

(1) 1

(2) 2

Madden 30, 45+2

(1) 3

Knott 42 Clarke 79 Stead 81

Leyton Orient (0) 1 Mooney 74 12,489

(0) 0

Walsall

(0) 0

Crawley Town (0) 1

Chesterfield (0) 1

Tomlin 70 2,459

Roberts 59

Ikpeazu 30 4,530

Gillingham Egan 29, 55 4,799

Doncaster

(0) 1

Coppinger 80

(1) 2

Port Vale N’Guessan 18 Brown 90+4

Forest Green (1) 2

Dartford

Fleetwood

(0) 0

Oshodi 5 Norwood 70

Oshodi (og) 82 1,148

Preston

(1) 2

Rodman 37

Carlisle

(1) 2

(0) 2

Jakubiak 55 Cureton 74

(0) 2

Newport Co

(1) 3

Potts 52 Amoo 90+6 3,642

Klukowski 9 Yakubu 47 Jeffers 90+2

Cheltenham (0) 1

Oxford United (0) 1

Harrison 52 3,002

Barnett 61

Hartlepool

(0) 1

Harewood 84 3,053

(1) 3

Mansfield

(1) 1

York City

(0) 1

Hyde 90+4

(0) 1

Burton Albion (0) 0 5,170

(0) 2

Corr 69 (pen) Worrall 79

Northampton (0) 0 5,500

Sent off: J Archer (Northampton) 67

Stevenage

(0) 0

8,418

Reid 3 6,808

Southend

(1) 3

(0) 1 (1) 3

Fenelon 2 Rowe 68 Power 78

Morecambe

(0) 1

Amond 85

Portsmouth

(0) 1

Wallace 57 5,163

Vanarama Conference (1) 1

Parry 34 1,849

Altrincham

(0) 2

Lawrie 57 Reeves 86

Barnet Yiadom 57 Akinde 60 Weston 90+2

Grimsby

(0) 1

Mackreth 57

Kidderminster (0) 1 Johnson 50 1,019

(0) 3

Macclesfield (1) 1 Moke 41 1,610

(0) 0 (0) 1

Payne 21 Francis 43

(0) 1

Southport

A 11 9 8 9 13 10 5 12 9 10 11 15 11 15 10 13 14 15 15 15 19 20 15 20

GD 17 16 13 20 4 8 8 8 2 1 1 0 -1 -2 -2 -6 -10 -7 -5 -7 -10 -10 -16 -22

Pts 39 38 37 34 31 30 30 27 27 26 25 25 23 23 22 22 22 21 19 19 19 17 17 16

9: M Smith (Swindon) 9: A Williams (Swindon) 8: B Alli (MK Dons) *Two others with eight goals

Chester FC Hobson 50, 88 973

Torquay United(1) 2

Eastleigh

Ajala 6 Bowman 86

1,862

(1) 1

Goddard 38

(0) 0 (0) 2

(1) 3

(0) 0

Braintree Town(0) 0

P Barnet.................24 Grimsby .............. 24 Bristol R..............23 Woking................22 Macclesfld .......... 23 Forest Green.......22 Torquay...............22 FC Halifax...........22 Gateshead...........22 Kiddrmnstr ......... 23 Eastleigh.............20 Wrexham............23 Dover Athletic....23 Lincoln City.........22 Aldershot............23 Chester FC..........23 Altrincham..........23 Braintree.............24 Welling ............... 23 Southport ........... 22 Dartford..............23 Nuneaton............22 Alfreton Town....22 AFC Telford United22

Aldershot

William Hill Scottish Cup Fourth round Alloa Athletic (1) 1

Hibernian

Meggatt 15 2,138

Craig 28 Gray 37

Annan

(0) 1

Hopkirk 60 440

(2) 2

Berwick

(1) 1

Holman 14 2,464 W D L F A GD Pts 15 4 5 53 22 31 49 11 8 5 39 19 20 41 11 8 4 28 20 8 41 11 6 5 37 23 14 39 10 9 4 28 19 9 39 9 10 3 31 23 8 37 10 5 7 40 29 11 35 10 5 7 34 24 10 35 9 8 5 36 30 6 35 9 7 7 29 24 5 34 9 6 5 33 27 6 33 9 6 8 29 27 2 33 9 4 10 31 32 -1 31 8 6 8 35 36 -1 30 8 6 9 26 27 -1 30 9 3 11 30 40 -10 30 8 4 11 26 41 -15 28 8 3 13 24 26 -2 27 6 7 10 27 32 -5 25 6 5 11 24 37 -13 23 4 8 11 23 36 -13 20 5 3 14 19 42 -23 18 5 2 15 19 43 -24 17 3 5 14 27 49 -22 14

FA Trophy: Fylde 3 Hednesford 2; Banbury United 0 Ramsbottom 3; Barwell 1 FC United of Manchester 1; Basingstoke 1 Whitehawk 0; Bedford 0 West-Super-Mare 0; Bishop’s Stortford 4 Chelmsford 3; Blyth Spartans 2 Gresley 0; Boston United 2 Workington 1; Bradford PA 3 Leamington 1; Burgess Hill Town 3 Leatherhead 2; Chroley 2 Stalybridge Celtci 2; Concord Rangers 4 Boreham Wood 0; Eastbourne Borough 1 Lowestoft Town 2; Ebbsfleet 1 Hendon 0; Gainsborough Trinity 2 Brackley 1; Guiseley 0 Rushall Olympic 0; Havant & Waterlooville 2 East Thurrock United 1; Hereford 1 Sutton United 2; Kings Lynn 0 Harrogate 1; Maidenhead 2 Met Police 1; Merthyr Town 3 Didcot Town 3; North Ferribry United 6 Mickleover Sports 2; Oxford City 6 Lewes 1; Peacehaven & Telscombe 0 Gosport Borough 4; Sholing 2 Farnborough 2; Solihull Moors 2 Redditch 1; Spennymoor Town 3 Chasetown 0; St Albans City 1 Wealdstone 1; St Neots Town 1 Sudbury

Brechin City (1) 1 Hamilton 42

(1) 1

Lavery 9 439

1,622

Carrington 26 Bishop 48 Moult 71 (pen)

1; Staines Town 3 Poole Town 3; Stockport 2 Colwyn Bay 1; Tamworth 3 Hyde 4; Tonbridge Angels 0 Bromley 0; Truro City 1 Hemel Hempstead Town 2; Weymouth 3 Cray Wanderers 1; Wimborne Town 4 AFC Hornchurch 2; Worcester City 3 Barrow 0.

Sent off: D Malonga (Hibernian) 87

2,034

Armson 20 Fowler 23 Barrington 79

Woking

(0) 0

Dover Athletic(2) 2

Nuneaton Town(2) 3

Wrexham

Cowan-Hall 33 Bloomfield 76 Mawson 79

Benson 19 Whalley 59, 63

Shrewsbury

Wycombe

(1) 1

Miller 62

Appiah 12 Hughes 58

Dag & Red

Gateshead Lincoln City

Tubbs 2 4,306

Telford

Sent off: I McLeod (Crawley Town) 90+1 , D Jones (Chesterfield) 90+2

(1) 1

Alfreton

1,198

Cambridge Utd(1) 2

3,042

5,791

Maynard 61 Jackson 82

AFC Wimbledon(1) 1 (0) 0

Welling

Blissett 53 Taylor 73 (pen)

Halifax Town (0) 2

(1) 3

Huntington 5 Gallagher 90

League Two

Tranmere

8,076

Crewe

(0) 0

Walton 62 (pen) 2,464

Sent off: C Dagnall (Leyton Orient) 77

Coventry

Oldham

10,506

Akpa-Akpro 82

League One Scunthorpe

(0) 1

Bristol Rovers(0) 2

Sent off: J Gallagher (Welling) 62

Johnson 24, 80 Forte 72 (pen)

4,343

Plymouth

Le Fondre 12

(1) 1

Swindon

Luton

McCann 26

(0) 0

(0) 0

7,269

Bury

Hunt 90+5

Antenucci 43, 50

Vanarama Conference: Forest Green v Altrincham; Macclesfield v Woking; Nuneaton v Alfreton; Torquay v Barnet; Welling v Bristol Rovers. North: Fylde v Stalybridge Celtic; Boston United v Brackley Town; Chorley v Colwyn Bay; Gainsborough Trinity v Barrow; Harrogate v Bradford PA; Hyde v North Ferriby; Leamington v Hednesford; Solihull Motors v Lowestoft; Stockport v Guiseley. South: Basingstoke v Sutton United; Boreham Wood v Hayes & Yeading; Chelmsford v Hemel Hempstead Town; Concord Rangers v Farnborough; Havant & Waterlooville v Eastbourne Borough; Maidenhead v Ebbsfleet; St Albans City v Bath City; Wealdstone v Staines Town; Weston-Super-Mare v Bromley; Whitehawk v Gosport Borough.

Kick-off 2.0 unless stated Sunday Barclays Premier League: West Ham v Swansea (1.30); Aston Villa v Leicester (4.0).

FA Cup: Second round: Gateshead v Warrington Town (12.0); Aldershot v Rochdale; Barnsley v Chester; Bradford v Dartford; Bristol City v Telford; Cheltenham v Dover; Scunthorpe v Worcester City; Southport v Eastleight; Wycombe v Wimbledon; Colchester v Peterborough (4.30).

Ipswich

Rochdale

(0) 0

Sent off: R Inniss (Yeovil) 63

Sent off: A Colunga (Brighton) 90+2

Charlton

Colchester 7,646

Sent off: W Packwood (Colchester) 67

Yeovil (0) 0

Rodallega 62 Christensen 77

16,613

(3) 6

Gladwin 86

10,923

Bent 52 28,802

Fixtures

Friday Sky Bet Championship: Fulham v Watford.

Scottish Premiership: Ross County v Dundee United.

FA Cup: Second round: Hartlepool v Blyth Spartans.

Kick-off 3.0 unless stated Saturday Barclays Premier League: Newcastle v Chelsea (12.45); Hull v West Brom; Liverpool v Sunderland; QPR v Burnley; Stoke v Arsenal; Tottenham v Crystal Palace; Man City v Everton (5.30).

Sky Bet Championship: Blackburn v Sheff Wed; Blackpool v Birmingham; Cardiff v Rotherham; Derby v Brighton; Huddersfield v Brentford; Ipswich v Leeds; Millwall v Middlesbro; Nottm Forest v Charlton; Reading v Bolton; Wigan v Norwich; Wolves v Bournemouth.

League Two: Exeter v Burton.

Scottish Premiership: Motherwell v Celtic (12.45); Aberdeen v Hamilton; Dundee v Inverness CT; Partick Thistle v Kilmarnock; St Mirren v St Johnstone.

Bournemouth (2) 2

Judge 29 Dallas 74 Gray 82 P Ramallo 90+4

Nacer Chadli (Tottenham) .......................... 6 Three others with six goals

Huddersfield (0) 0 15,924

Cook 22 Pitman 25 10,016

Brentford

Charlie Austin (QPR) ....................................... 7

Kick-off 7.45 unless stated Today Vanarama Conference North: Hyde v Worcester City.

Tomorrow Barclays Premier League: Burnley v Newcastle; Leicester v Liverpool; Man United v Stoke; Swansea v QPR; Crystal Palace v Aston Villa (8.0); West Brom v West Ham (8.0).

Sky Bet League One: Barnsley v Doncaster; Sheffield United v MK Dons.

Vanarama Conference: Alfreton v Gateshead; Chester v Telford; Dover v Torquay; Eastleigh v Dartford; Halifax v Forest Green; Kidderminster v Nuneaton; Woking v Altrincham; Wrexham v Bristol Rovers. North: Stockport v Fylde; Tamworth v Lowestoft.

Scottish League Two: Annan Athletic v Albion; Elgin v Arbroath; Montrose v Berwick.

Wednesday: Barclays Premier League: Arsenal v Southampton; Chelsea v Tottenham; Everton v Hull; Sunderland v Man City.

Scottish Premiership: Celtic v Partick Thistle.

(0) 1

Davies 67

Saido Berahino (West Brom) .......................... 7

P W W 1 Bristol City.........................19 6 W 2 Swindon..............................19 6 W 3 Preston................................19 5 W 4 MK Dons..............................17 7 W 5 Sheffield United..............18 4 Y 6 Oldham...............................19 5 Z 7 Notts County....................18 3 Y 8 Rochdale............................19 3 Z 9 Peterborough..................19 4 Y10 Bradford.............................19 3 Z 11 Fleetwood Town.............19 4 Z 12 Chesterfield......................19 4 Y 13 Walsall.................................19 3 Y 14 Port Vale.............................19 4 Z 15 Barnsley..............................18 3 1 W 16 Doncaster...........................17 W 17 Crawley Town..................19 4 W 18 Coventry.............................19 4 1 W 19 Leyton Orient...................19 W20 Gillingham.........................19 4 Y 21 Scunthorpe.......................18 2 Z22 Colchester.........................19 2 Z23 Yeovil...................................19 1 W 24 Crewe...................................19 3

Sky Bet Leagues, non-League, Scotland and Europe Nottm Forest (0) 1

Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal) ................................. 8

Pts 35 34 34 33 33 31 29 29 28 28 27 27 25 24 23 22 22 21 21 20 19 18 17 9

leading scorers 9: M Antonio (N Forest) 9: C Wilson (Bournemouth) 8: C Jerome (Norwich) 8: G Leadbitter (Middlesbro)

Birmingham (1) 2

Diego Costa (Chelsea) ................................ 11

GD 16 9 6 17 14 4 9 2 5 1 5 -7 -1 -5 -3 -4 -13 -6 -7 -5 -10 -4 -5 -18

leading scorers

Sky Bet Championship

Sent off: E Mangala (Man City) 74

A 11 13 14 8 7 15 10 11 12 11 11 20 6 19 18 27 12 16 21 13 12 14 17 19

Albion Rovers (0) 1 Dunlop 84

Bo’ness United(0) 0

Arbroath

1,769

Murray 27, 69, 75 McManus 68, 76

Dundee

(1) 2

Konrad 4 Clarkson 90

Falkirk

(1) 1

Konrad (og) 17 5,956

(0) 1

Sibbald 73

Hearts

Aberdeen

(1) 5

Cowdenbeath (0) 0 1,237

(0) 0

12,676

Celtic

(1) 4

Van Dijk 29, 61 Guidetti 52 (pen) Stokes 54

Sent off: M Gomis (Hearts) 8

Motherwell

(1) 1

Ojamaa 7 4,827

Dundee Utd

(0) 2

Souttar 66 Watson 82

Partick Thistle(1) 2

Hamilton Ac (0) 0

Stevenson 19, 54

2,467

Sent off: D Imrie (Hamilton Academical) 89

Queen of South(1) 4

Brora Rangers(0) 1

Lyle 3 Reilly 61 Russell 71 Kidd 80

Greig 65 1,434

Rangers

(1) 3

Law 19, 84 Boyd 72

Spartans

Kilmarnock

(0) 0

14,412

(0) 2

Bremner 71 Beesley 90

Morton

(1) 1

Barrowman 25 1,288

Sent off: S McCluskey (Morton) 82

St Johnstone (2) 2

Ross County (0) 1

O’Halloran 7 McFadden 12

Jervis 63 2,383

St. Mirren

(1) 1

McAusland 17 1,957

Inverness CT (0) 1 Meekings 63

Stirling Albion(0) 0

Raith Rovers (1) 2

912

McKay 44 Anderson 54

Stranraer Gibson 80 Malcolm 90+5 489

(0) 2

Dunfermline (1) 2 Geggan 14 Buchanan 61

the times | Monday December 1 2014

47

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the game 6 Results and fixtures Sky Bet League Two HOME D L 3 2 1 2 1 0 1 2 3 2 2 1 4 1 0 3 4 2 0 4 2 3 2 1 1 3 1 3 1 3 3 3 4 3 1 3 3 3 0 6 6 3 2 4 4 4 3 6

P W W 1 Wycombe...........................19 4 Y 2 Luton Town.......................19 7 Y 3 Shrewsbury.......................19 9 Z 4 Burton Albion...................19 6 W 5 Southend............................19 5 W 6 Plymouth...........................19 7 Y 7 Newport County.............19 4 Z 8 Bury......................................19 7 W 9 Exeter City.........................19 3 Y10 Cambridge United.........19 5 W 11 Morecambe......................19 4 Z 12 Portsmouth.......................19 6 Z 13 Accrington Stanley........19 6 Y 14 Stevenage..........................19 6 Z 15 Northampton...................19 5 W 16 AFC Wimbledon..............19 4 Y 17 Cheltenham......................19 3 Z 18 Mansfield Town...............19 5 W 19 Oxford United..................19 3 Y20 Dag & Red..........................19 3 Z 21 York City.............................19 0 W22 Carlisle.................................19 4 W 23 Tranmere............................19 2 1 W 24 Hartlepool..........................19

F A W 11 9 7 14 4 4 22 3 2 11 7 5 11 5 5 17 3 2 16 11 4 17 10 2 13 12 5 18 10 3 9 10 4 18 6 1 17 13 2 18 11 1 17 12 2 16 13 2 10 12 3 10 8 1 10 8 2 12 15 3 6 9 3 17 17 1 12 13 1 7 17 2

AWAY D L F 2 1 20 3 2 9 2 5 8 1 4 14 1 3 10 2 5 5 3 3 12 3 4 10 2 3 14 3 4 13 1 5 11 3 6 4 1 6 11 3 5 9 2 6 10 3 4 8 1 5 8 3 6 5 3 5 10 3 4 13 4 3 12 1 7 8 2 6 7 0 7 7

A 8 8 12 15 10 8 10 13 13 14 11 16 19 16 15 14 16 16 16 15 14 20 13 17

GD 14 11 15 3 6 11 7 4 2 7 -1 0 -4 0 0 -3 -10 -9 -4 -5 -5 -12 -7 -20

Pts 38 37 36 35 34 31 31 30 30 27 27 26 26 25 24 24 23 22 21 21 19 18 15 12

leading scorers 10: D Hylton (Oxford Utd) 9: R Reid (Plymouth) 9: M Richards (Northampton) 9: M Tubbs (AFC Wimbledon)

League Two Clyde

(0) 0

589

East Stirling

8: J Collins (Shrewsbury) 8: M Cullen (Luton) 8: P Hayes (Wycombe) 8: D Rose (Bury)

Queen’s Park

(1) 2

Rooney 4 Fraser 66

(0) 1

Greenhill 55 339 P W Arbroath..................13 10 Queen’s Park...........14 9 Albion Rovers..........13 8 East Fife..................14 4 Berwick Rangers ..... 13 4 East Stirling............14 5 Clyde........................14 4 Annan Athletic........13 3 Montrose.................13 4 Elgin City.................13 2

Rest of Europe

East Fife

8: J Wallace (Portsmouth) 7: J Cureton (Dag & Red) 7: K Ellison (Morecambe) *Three others with seven goals

T

(1) 1

Walker 45+4 D 0 1 3 5 4 1 3 5 2 4

L 3 4 2 5 5 8 7 5 7 7

F 30 24 20 19 23 17 17 15 15 11

A 11 12 9 18 20 29 24 18 29 21

GD 19 12 11 1 3 -12 -7 -3 -14 -10

Pts 30 28 27 17 16 16 15 14 14 10

Spanish League: Atletico Madrid 2 Deportivo La Coruna 0; Celta Vigo 0 Eibar 1; Espanyol 2 Levante 1; Getafe 1 Athletic Bilbao 2; Malaga 1 Real Madrid 2; Sevilla 5 Granada 1.

P W D L F A GD Pts Real Madrid.............13 11 0 2 48 12 36 33 Atletico Madrid.......13 9 2 2 25 12 13 29 Barcelona* .............. 12 9 1 2 30 6 24 28 Sevilla......................13 8 2 3 24 17 7 26 Valencia*.................12 7 3 2 24 11 13 24 Malaga.....................13 6 3 4 16 14 2 21 Celta Vigo................13 5 5 3 17 13 4 20 Villarreal*................13 5 4 4 17 14 3 19 Athletic Bilbao ........ 13 5 3 5 12 14 -2 18 *Does not include last night’s result Italian League: Cagliari 0 Fiorentina 4; Cesena 0 Genoa 3; Empoli 0 Atalanta 0; AC Milan 2 Udinese 0; Palermo 2 Parma 1; Juventus 2 Torino 1; Chievo 0 Lazio 0; Sassuolo 2 Verona 1.

P W D L F A GD Pts Juventus..................13 11 1 1 30 5 25 34 Roma*.....................12 9 1 2 21 7 14 28 Genoa.......................13 6 5 2 19 12 7 23 Napoli ...................... 12 6 4 2 23 15 8 22 Sampdoria ............... 12 5 6 1 15 9 6 21 Milan........................13 5 6 2 23 17 6 21 Lazio ........................ 13 6 2 5 21 16 5 20 Fiorentina................13 5 4 4 16 11 5 19 Udinese....................13 5 3 5 15 17 -2 18 Sassuolo..................13 4 6 3 13 16 -3 18 *Does not include last night’s result French League: Bordeaux 1 Lille 0; Caen 1 Montpellier 1; Lens 2 Metz 0; Paris Saint-Germain 1 Nice 0; Reims 2 Bastia 1; Rennes 2 Monaco 0; Toulouse 2 Lorient 3.

P W D L F A GD Pts Marseille..................15 11 1 3 32 13 19 34 Paris Saint Germain15 9 6 0 29 10 19 33 Lyon*.......................14 8 3 3 27 11 16 27 Rennes.....................15 7 4 4 18 14 4 25 Bordeaux..................14 7 3 4 21 18 3 24 Nantes.....................15 6 6 3 13 11 2 24 St Etienne*.............14 6 5 3 13 12 1 23 Reims.......................15 6 4 5 16 22 -6 22 Montpellier..............15 6 3 6 14 14 0 21 Monaco....................15 5 5 5 17 18 -1 20 *Does not include last night’s game German League: Bayer Leverkusen 5 Cologne 1; Augsburg 3 Hamburg 1; Schalke 4 Mainz 1; Hertha Berlin 0 Bayern Munich 1; Werder Bremen 4 Paderborn 0; Hoffenheim 4 Hannover 3; Wolfsburg 1 Borussia Monchengladbach 0; Eintracht Frankfurt 2 Borussia Dortmund 0.

P W D L F A GD Pts Bayern Munich ........ 13 10 3 0 32 3 29 33 Wolfsburg................13 8 2 3 25 12 13 26 Bayer Leverkusen....13 6 5 2 25 17 8 23 Augsburg.................13 7 0 6 18 13 5 21 Borussia M .............. 13 5 5 3 16 10 6 20 Schalke .................... 13 6 2 5 21 18 3 20 Hoffenheim ............. 13 5 5 3 21 21 0 20 Hannover.................13 6 1 6 13 18 -5 19 Eintracht Frankfurt.13 5 3 5 22 24 -2 18

ON THE BOX Today: 8pm: Sampdoria v Napoli, Italian league, BT Sport 1. Tomorrow: 6pm: Lorient v Marseilles, French league, BT Sport 2. 7pm: Real Madrid v Cornella, Spanish Cup, Sky Sports 5. 7.45pm: Leicester City v Liverpool, Barclays Premier League, BT Sport 1. 8pm: Monaco v Lens, French league, ESPN. Wednesday: 8.30am: Western Sydney Wanderers v Brisbane Roar, Australian league, BT Sport 1. 6pm: Metz v Bordeaux, French league, BT Sport 2. 7pm: Hospitalet v Atletico Madrid, Spanish Cup, Sky Sports 5. 7.30pm: Alloa v Rangers, Scottish Challenge Cup semi-final, BBC ALBA. 7.45pm: Arsenal v Southampton, Premier League, BT Sport 1. 8pm: Lille v Paris Saint-Germain, French league, BT Sport 2.

9pm: Huesca v Barcelona, Spanish Cup, Sky Sports 5. Thursday: 8.30am: Sydney v Perth Glory, Australian league, BT Sport 1. 7pm: Real Oviedo v Real Sociedad, Spanish Cup, Sky Sports 5. 8pm: Lyons v Reims, French league, BT Sport 1. 9pm: Rayo Vallecano v Valencia, Spanish Cup, Sky Sports 5. Friday: 8.40am: Central Coast Mariners v Melbourne Victory, Australian league, BT Sport 1. 7.45pm: Fulham v Watford, Sky Bet Championship, Sky Sports 1. 7.45pm: Ross County v Dundee United, Scottish Premiership, BT Sport 1. 7.45pm: Fiorentina v Juventus, Italian league, ESPN. 7.55pm: Hartlepool United v Blyth Spartans, FA Cup, BBC Two. Saturday: 6am: Newcastle Jets v Wellington Phoenix, Australian league, BT Sport 2. 8.30am: Adelaide United v Western Sydney Wanderers, Australian league, BT Sport 2. 12.45pm: Newcastle United v Chelsea, Premier League, BT Sport 1. 12.45pm: Motherwell v Celtic, Scottish Premiership, Sky Sports 1.

5.30pm: Manchester City v Everton, Premier League, Sky Sports 1. 5.30pm: Wrexham v Maidstone United, FA Cup, BBC Two Wales. 5.30pm: Bayern Munich v Bayer Leverkusen, German league, BT Sport 1. 7pm: Real Madrid v Celta Vigo, Spanish league, Sky Sports 5. 7.45pm: Torino v Palermo, Italian league, BT Sport 1. 9pm: Deportivo La Coruna v Malaga, Spanish league, Sky Sports 5. Sunday: 6am: Melbourne City v Brisbane Roar, Australian league, BT Sport 1. 11.30am: Napoli v Empoli, Italian league, BT Sport 2. Midday: Gateshead v Warrington Town, FA Cup, BT Sport 1. 12.30pm: Red Bull Leipzig v Ingolstadt, German second division, ESPN. 1.30pm: West Ham United v Swansea City, Premier League, Sky Sports 1. 1.30pm: Bruges v Zulte Waregem, Belgian league, Premier Sports.

2pm: Genoa v AC Milan, Italian league, BT Sport 1. 2.30pm: Hamburg v Mainz, German league, ESPN. 4pm: Aston Villa v Leicester City, Premier League, Sky Sports 1. 4pm: Barcelona v Espanyol, Spanish league, Sky Sports 5. 4.30pm: Colchester United v Peterborough United, FA Cup, BT Sport 1. 4.30pm: Eintracht Frankfurt v Werder Bremen, German league, ESPN. 6pm: Villarreal v Real Sociedad, Spanish league, Sky Sports 5.

7.45pm: Inter Milan v Udinese, Italian league, BT Sport 1. 8pm: Granada v Valencia, Spanish league, Sky Sports 5.

10pm: New England Revolution v Los Angeles Galaxy or Seattle Sounders, American league final, BT Sport 2.

Too ready to dive in and accuse Latin Americans when British are worse

Bill Edgar Perhaps Sergio Agüero was the victim of prejudice when he was booked wrongly yesterday — ridiculously so — for diving in Manchester City’s match against Southampton.

The Argentina forward was clearly tripped in the penalty area by José Fonte yet was punished. Maybe the reputation of players from that part of the world dies hard.

In fact, those Latin American footballers who are considering a move to this country should be given a warning: you may be at risk of catching the British diving disease.

A survey of yellow cards issued for simulation over the past eight years in the Barclays Premier League suggests that fans here can no longer repeat with justification the stereotype that players from South and Central America are prone to diving.

True, the fact that cautions for simulation are relatively rare means the sample is small (170 such yellow cards over the eight years), but it is sufficiently large to indicate that phrases such as “typical Argentine diver” have no firm basis in fact.

Taking into account the amount of time spent on the pitch in Premier League games by players from various countries, the analysis shows that in the past two years British Isles players have been almost exactly twice as likely to be booked for diving as their Latin American counterparts in any given match.

Despite the Agüero case yesterday, we’ll have to take these figures at face value and assume that incidents have generally been judged on their merits

rather than on reputations. In the previous six years it was the Latin American players who were more than two and a half times as likely to receive a yellow card for simulation than those from the British Isles.

There have been several high-profile offenders. Eight England internationals of the past two years have been cautioned for diving in the Premier League in that period: Daniel Sturridge, Ashley Young, Leighton Baines, Ross Barkley, Andros Townsend, Leon Osman, Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck.

TALE OF TWO CITIES Manchester City conceded two goals in five minutes against Bayern Munich last Tuesday despite playing at home with a man advantage; yesterday they scored two goals in eight minutes against Southampton despite playing away and a man down.

CAPTAIN CALAMITIES On Saturday in the Premier League the only red card was shown to a captain (Moussa Sissoko, of Newcastle United) and the only own goal was scored by a captain (Wes Morgan, of Leicester City).

DOUBLE NEGATIVES Sissoko was the third Newcastle player in their past eight away league games to be sent off after receiving two yellow cards less than five minutes apart (also Shola Ameobi against Liverpool; Mike Williamson against Aston Villa).

OFF COLOUR Two Greens, a Gray and a Red received

T

yellow cards in the top two divisions on Saturday: Robert Green (Queens Park Rangers); Paul Green (Rotherham United), Demarai Gray (Birmingham City) and Marcus Rojo — red in Spanish (Manchester United).

BEFORE/AFTER THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW In May 2013, West Bromwich Albion scored five goals in one match against Manchester United (a 5-5 draw) but only one goal in six league games either side of it. This September, Leicester City scored five goals in one match against Manchester United (a 5-3 win) but have scored only six goals in 11 league games either side of it.

PREMIER PROTECTION More than one third of Football League managers have left their job since the start of the season (25 out of 72) yet none of the 20 Premier League managers has departed.

LANE TAKES STRAIN Tottenham have played at home after 15 of their past 16 Europa League games.

NO PLACE TO HYDE Since the start of last season Hyde, of the Conference North, have recorded 26 times as many league defeats as wins — 52 to two.

AND FINALLY . . .

Glenn Whelan’s half-time exit for Stoke City against Liverpool because of injury was the earliest Premier League case of a substitute being substituted in the past 20 months . . . On three Sundays in November, Tottenham came from behind in a Premier League game to win 2-1 . . . All five winning goals in the Premier League on Saturday were scored

by English players . . . The two players sent off in the Premier League at the weekend were both born in Paris (Eliaquim Mangala, of Manchester City, and Sissoko) . . . The promoted trio (Leicester, QPR and Burnley) have filled the bottom three after each of the past four rounds of matches.

0 Bill Edgar is the author of Back of the net: 100 Golden Goals, published by Yellow Jersey

Billy’s Brainbuster

The bottom seven teams in the Bundesliga table have recorded average league attendances this season of 49,783 (Cologne), 51,225 (Hertha Berlin), 40,542 (Werder Bremen), 23,183 (Freiburg), 46,433 (Stuttgart), 53,032 (Hamburg) and 80,395 (Borussia Dortmund).

80,3955

48

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

the game 6 Barclays Premier League

United find fluidity an james ducker Northern Football Correspondent

Manchester United Smalling 16, Rooney 42, Van Persie 66

Hull City Referee A Taylor Attendance 75,345

3 0

Louis van Gaal has chopped and changed systems all season in search of the right balance, but, on the evidence so far, there has been little doubt which formation appears best suited to Manchester United’s multitude of attacking talent.

United scored 15 goals in five matches playing 4-3-1-2 between mid-September and mid-October, and, reprising that set-up on Saturday, they claimed another three, one fewer than they had managed in their previous four matches utilising a more functional, defensive-minded 4-1-4-1.

Hull City may have been desperately

poor, carelessness costing them dearly for two of the goals, but United produced arguably their most polished performance of the campaign, impressing in bursts when they passed and moved with pace and purpose. Ángel di María’s substitution after just 14 minutes with a hamstring injury that will rule him out of United’s match at home to Stoke City tomorrow could have been disruptive, but Ander Herrera came on for his first appearance since October 20 and slotted in seamlessly.

It is clear that Van Gaal expects his players to be able to switch positions easily and United are gradually getting to grips with those demands. Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young, wingers by trade, are no one’s idea of full backs, but against such disappointing opposition, they were able to spend most of the day raiding forward. Juan Mata was lively as part of a midfield three, Di María

and Wayne Rooney started in attack, much higher up the field than they have been used of late, and Robin van Persie was initially deployed in the hole before moving alongside Rooney when Herrera was introduced.

Van Persie still looked heavy-legged for periods in the game and his touch deserted him on occasion, but there were some signs of the player who captured the imagination during his debut season at Old Trafford, notably when touching the ball wide of James Chester and rifling a shot into the top corner for United’s third goal.

With Van Gaal admitting that Van Persie’s confidence was low and that he needed to raise his game after a dismal showing in the 2-1 win away to Arsenal a week earlier, when he managed only 13 touches, this was a useful afternoon for the Holland striker. He certainly looked more comfortable with more support around him.

United now have three successive wins to their name, and although the injuries show no signs of abating and Stoke will provide a much sterner test than Hull, some momentum is building.

It would be easy to think Van Gaal would be happy that the games will now start coming thicker and faster over the next month after having to contend with one match a week for the most part, but the Dutchman does not see it that way.

“No, I’m not happy because I do not agree with that but I cannot change that,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good for the football players that they play another match within two days. In the December months, it shall be like that.

“We also have families. I also have a wife and kids and grandchildren and I cannot see them this Christmas. But I want to work in the Premier League, so I have to adapt and I shall adapt.”

Van Gaal is unlikely to mind too

Curve ball: Rooney, who benefited from playing higher up the field, bends his effort into the bottom corner of the Hull net for United’s second goal MATTHEW LEWIS / GETTY

ratings

Manchester United (4-3-1-2): D De Gea 6 — A Valencia 6 (sub: D Fletcher, 74min), C Smalling 8, M Rojo 6, A Young 7 — M Fellaini 6, M Carrick 8, J Mata 7 — R van Persie 7 (sub: R Falcao, 70 6) — A di María 5 (sub: A Herrera, 14 8), W Rooney 6.

Substitutes not used: A Lindegaard, A Januzaj, P McNair, T Blackett.

Booked: Fellaini, Rojo.

Hull City (3-4-2-1): A McGregor 6 — J Chester 5, M Dawson 7, C Davies 4 — A Elmohamady 5, J Livermore 5, R Brady 4 (sub: D Meyler, 75), A Robertson 4 — M Diamé 5 (sub: S Quinn, 75), H Ben Arfa 3 (sub: S Aluko, 35 5) — N Jelavic 4.

Substitutes not used: E Jakupovic, L Rosenior, A Bruce, T Huddlestone.

Booked: Chester, Dawson.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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the game 6 Barclays Premier League Agents could be the easy Hull manager faces an uphill targets but greed and deceit are never one-sided fight to shift his team out of recent slump james ducker

asset much if United extend this winning streak, although few opponents will be as charitable as Hull. Allan McGregor, their goalkeeper, was guilty of carrying the ball over the line from Chris Smalling’s shot for the opening goal, but it was the second and third ones that will have most disappointed Steve Bruce, the Hull manager.

Curtis Davies had an easy chance to clear the ball in the 42nd minute but, momentarily losing concentration, took his eye off it, allowing Van Persie to lay the ball off to Rooney who bent a lovely low shot into the bottom corner.

Andrew Robertson was equally culpable for the third goal, cheaply losing possession to Herrera, who fed the ball to Van Persie, who did the rest.

“The manager asked for six points as a must [against Hull and Stoke] and we’re going to deliver that on Tuesday,” Smalling said. “We’ll be coming out firing again.”

After avoiding relegation and reaching the FA Cup final last season before spending about £35 million on new signings in the summer, this was supposed to be the campaign when Hull City kicked on. If anything, though, Steve Bruce’s team appear to be going backwards.

Hull’s 3-0 loss at Old Trafford on Saturday was their fourth successive defeat and they have managed only a solitary victory in their past 12 matches in the Barclays Premier League. They are in freefall, with confidence low and carelessness routinely costing them.

Only a superior goal difference to Queens Park Rangers and Burnley who, by contrast, have discovered a little momentum, is keeping them out of the bottom three.

There were commendable draws away to Arsenal and Liverpool in October, but other points have been recklessly squandered, most notably against West Ham United, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City during a bleak September, and in more recent weeks the goals have started to dry up.

“We have to find a solution, but then again I don’t think our season is going to be defined by games at Old Trafford,” Bruce said. “It’s inevitable that confidence is affected when results don’t go your way. You can’t bottle confidence. The art of being a Premier League player is stopping making the elementary mistakes. You need that determination and concentration to contribute to the team. I still believe we’re a better team than we were last year but we’ve still got a long, long way to go.”

Bruce defended his decision to drop Tom Huddlestone, whose form has nosedived after an impressive previous campaign. “I just thought he can sit it out and have a look at it, freshen him up a little bit maybe and let’s hope it works,” he said. “It’s fair to say he’s not hit the heights he hit last year but then he sets unbelievable standards. But Tom Huddlestone will come again, I have no doubt about that.”

Tony Evans, Football Editor

I

f football has sold its soul, there is bound to be an agent who took a cut at both ends of the deal. The figures, released last week, confirming that Barclays Premier League clubs spent more than £115 million in fees to players’ representatives are mind-boggling. They illustrate that the game is awash with money.

Unfortunately they tell us little else.

The release of such financial details should give an insight into the fiscal workings of the sport. They don’t.

Instead of shedding a light on the wheeling and dealing surrounding player payments and transfers, they actually make it more opaque.

Most deals are structured over a period of years. Some of the payments included in the £115 million will have been carried over across a player’s contract. It would be much more instructive to see how much clubs are paying individual agents and their companies and whether the middleman was remunerated by both the buyers and sellers.

The role of an agent has widened.

The days when a representative negotiated his clients’ wages are long gone. Those at the top of the business frequently become involved in introducing players to clubs. Some have even developed into de facto directors of football, determining transfer policy with one eye on the potential profit.

Buying and selling players can set up myriad conflicts of interest. For the annual figures to mean anything, much more detail is necessary.

Transfers can be problematic.

Clubs sometimes offer the players’ representative a bigger cut of the deal if they can work up a bidding war to ramp up the price. Most owners and chairmen would regard this as good business if it works. Whether it is in

Quirk ethic: with his club’s recent slump, Klopp may not look so attractive to Premier League suitors CLIVE ROSE / GETTY IMAGES

Klopp may have missed his moment For half a decade, Jürgen Klopp has appeared to be the manager in waiting for some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs.

His success at Borussia Dortmund is eyecatching and his quirky personality attractive.

There was a real buzz at the Emirates Stadium this week when Dortmund were in town and there seemed to be plenty of people who would have ushered Klopp straight into Arsène Wenger’s office and given him the Arsenal job there and then.

Dortmund lost 2-0 to Eintracht Frankfurt yesterday and are bottom of the Bundesliga.

Injuries have not helped, but there’s talk in Germany of Klopp struggling to motivate his players. It will be interesting to see if the 47-year-old has missed his moment. Last year may have been the right time to move on.

the best interests of the player is a difficult question to answer.

The massive uplift in the television deal that kicked in at the beginning of last season is in part responsible for the almost £19 million jump in payments from the previous year.

This is despite both the January and summer transfer windows seeing a net spend way below their counterparts in the previous 12 months. Expect agent payments to be even higher next year.

With even modestly sized Premier League clubs having the power to outspend all but a handful of continental powers, fees have leapt up this summer. Modest players come with agency fees in the £1 million range. Bigger names require payments of as much as £4 million to facilitate moves — that is over and above transfer fees and wages.

Almost every owner or chief executive will complain about agents and their role, but it is glib to place the blame for the game’s problems at their door. It seems strange that many clubs will pay the agent’s fee for their players. It is a fairly standard practice.

A few chief executives refuse, insisting that if a player needs to dip into his own pocket then he is more likely to question whether the agent is worth the outlay. Most of the time, the payments are part of the overall package of the player’s contract.

Clubs use them to their advantage and moan when they are on the wrong end of the deal. They have a symbiotic relationship that makes it hard to talk in terms of good guys and bad guys. Both sides are often profoundly cynical. Transfers work more smoothly with the right people greasing the deal and those who make a stand against agents frequently end up losing out.

In an ideal world, we would see where this £115 million went: who took the biggest slice, how much of it disappeared offshore and who paid what to whom. The FA and Premier League have the details of the transactions from player contracts.

They could tell us who gets paid large amounts despite seemingly having little involvement.

Transparency is in no one’s interests, though. Creating the illusion of openness by releasing these figures once a year is about as far as anyone would want to go. In the end, all parties are glad of the murkiness.

Agents are an easy target and it suits the game’s ruling bodies and clubs to have them as a lightning rod for criticism. Greed and deceit is never one-sided. After all, agents only help with the buying and selling: they didn’t make the decision to take the soul to market.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

the game 6 Barclays Premier League Cole stokes the home fires with first Villa goal to hint better days lie ahead

Enforced rest will do Costa good, says manager

pete oliver

george caulkin

Burnley

Ings 87 (pen)

Aston Villa

Cole 38

Referee G Scott Attendance 19,910

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Roy Keane may have decided that he cannot continue to work in the Barclays Premier League — for now at least — but Joe Cole could not be happier still to be plying his trade in the top flight. The former England midfielder scored Aston Villa’s goal in a much improved performance that suggested they have the ability to climb away from the relegation battle.

Keane’s decision to end his short stay as assistant manager to Paul Lambert on Friday had cast further doubt on Villa’s direction, and a third successive draw, which Burnley secured with a late penalty by Danny Ings, ensures they remain just above the bottom three and without a win in nine matches. But Villa did not play like a side resigned to a struggle with Cole’s first goal since December the high point of a vibrant attacking display.

“This is what it’s all about, playing in the Premier League,” said Cole, who had offers to play in Europe and the Middle East after ending a second spell at West Ham United in the summer.

“The fire still burns for me. I just want to play. I enjoy it. I prefer to at Turf Moor than playing in the Middle East somewhere in 100 degrees.”

Lambert, who had Scott Marshall, the first-team coach, alongside him in the dugout in Keane’s place, watched as Cole, making his first league start of the season after injury, guided home a shot at the near post from a clever pass by Andreas Weimann seven minutes before half-time.

The goal looked as if it might be the winner until three minutes from time when Jores Okore pulled down Lukas Jutkiewicz and Ings converted from the resulting penalty. “We had a couple of good chances late on so we have come away a little bit disappointed in the dressing room,” Tom Heaton, the Burnley goalkeeper, said. ratings

Burnley (4-4-2): T Heaton 7 — K Trippier 7, M Keane 7, J Shackell 7, S Ward 7 — M Kightly (sub: S Arfield, 65min 6), D Marney 7, D Jones 6 (sub: R Wallace, 84), G Boyd 6 — D Ings 8, A Barnes 6 (sub: L Jutkiewicz, 65 7). Substitutes not used: M Gilks, B Mee, R Wallace, M Sordell, K Long.

Booked: Marney, Kightly, Barnes.

Aston Villa (4-2-3-1): B Guzan 7 —A Hutton 7, J Okore 6, C Clark 7, A Cissokho 7 — A Westwood 7, C Sánchez 7 — A Weimann 8 (sub: K Richardson, 78), J Cole (J Grealish.

67 7), T Cleverley 8 — G Agbonlahor 7. Substitutes not used: S Given, L Bacuna, C N’Zogbia, M Lowton, C Robinson.

Booked: Hutton, Okore, Clark, Cleverley.

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Earning his stripes: Vergini, left, makes sure Cahill does not get a free run CARL RECINE / ACTION IMAGES

Mourinho has no complaints after dogged stalemate george caulkin Northern Sports Correspondent

Sunderland Chelsea Referee K Friend Attendance 45,232

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Perfection comes in different guises.

There is the perfection of a 5-0 victory — and José Mourinho deployed that word to laud Chelsea’s battering of Schalke last week — but it can be found, too, in the sweat-streaked nittygritty of a plan executed without flaw, and when Gustavo Poyet described Sunderland’s goalless draw on Saturday evening as “a perfect team effort”, the logic was unimpeachable.

It was not the perfection of relentless and expansive brilliance, but of a collective doing its utmost to defy. It was defending as an art form rather than a demonstration of football’s darker arts — not cynical or dirty, but disciplined and vigorous and, in circumstances such as this — when Lee Cattermole crunches into tackles, firm but fair, and the crowd is energised by them — pleasure can be taken from it.

Whether or not it represented a template for denying Chelsea, who until their visit to the Stadium of Light had scored in every game this season, is difficult to assess, depending as it does on avoiding a slip in concentration or

the opposition’s genius, but they should probably expect more of it. As Nemanja Matic said: “Of course, now every team is going to defend. And we know that and we are ready for that. We will find a space to score.”

They did not do so on Wearside.

“One point for a team that tried, one point for a team that was successful,” Mourinho said and although that was not meant to denigrate Sunderland — “there are some footballing Einsteins out there who don’t believe they should praise defensive teams,” he added — it was also not entirely accurate. Both teams struck the woodwork and Poyet’s side mustered 12 shots to Chelsea’s 24.

They were hardly barren.

As the game matured, there were late chances for Adam Johnson and Jozy Altidore, by which time a petulant Diego Costa had been substituted — after his fifth booking in the Barclays Premier League, he will be suspended for Wednesday’s match at home to Tottenham Hotspur — and Chelsea’s ratings

Sunderland (4-1-4-1): C Pantilimon 7 — S Vergini 7, J O’Shea 8, W Brown 7, A Réveillère 8 — L Cattermole 8 — A Johnson 6, S Larsson 7, J Rodwell 6 (sub: J Gómez, 62min 6), C Wickham 8 — S Fletcher 5 (sub; J Altidore, 62 5).

Substitutes not used: V Mannone, L Bridcutt, R Alvarez, S Coates, W Buckley. Booked: O’Shea, Vergini, Gómez.

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): T Courtois 6 — B Ivanovic 7, G Cahill 7, J Terry 7, C Azpilicueta 7 — C Fàbregas 6, N Matic 7 — Willian 7 (sub: A Schürrle, 85), Oscar 6 (sub: D Drogba, 76), E Hazard 6 — D Costa 6 (sub: L Rémy, 76). Substitutes not used: P Cech, F Luis, K Zouma, J Obi Mikel. Booked: Costa, Matic.

sense of adventure had lost its coherence. Given their dominance at the top of the table, it is not the end of the world, but they had been blunted.

“You cannot play openly against them because they are better than us,” Poyet said. “You cannot leave too much space to [Eden] Hazard or Costa because they will punish you. It is about shape, defending, caring, discipline. Not too many teams enjoy defending like that, but against top teams you need to do that. We worked on it and the players were exceptional. It wasn’t easy for Chelsea to come here and find all of our players in the last part of the pitch, but that’s what you have to do.”

Not every day can be like that, but since the trauma of their 8-0 defeat away to Southampton, Sunderland have solidified. They are unbeaten in four matches, three of which they have drawn — they are the division’s stalemate specialists with eight — and while they are playing with less of the ball than last season, they are in the stodge of mid-table ahead of testing fixtures against Manchester City, Liverpool, West Ham United and Newcastle United.

“This is the first step, being difficult to play against,” Poyet said. “We can then bring in the quality from the injured players we have. In two or three months’ time, I would like to win that game against Leicester City [they drew 0-0], and we need to take that extra risk. Chelsea was different, but I want to have the option of being a team who will win more than draw. That will take time . . . or a couple of players in January.”

Mourinho was phlegmatic. “You cannot win every game,” he said. “If you lose points because of complacency or because you don’t try or because you were not committed, then this is a big problem for my mentality. When you lose because the opponents try everything to make it difficult for you and my boys try everything to win? No complaining.”

José Mourinho expects Diego Costa to return with a “new energy” for Chelsea after his impending one-match suspension. The centre forward was shown his fifth yellow card of the season at Sunderland and will now miss his team’s match at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.

Costa has scored 11 goals in as many league appearances for Chelsea but he was substituted at the Stadium of Light, with Gustavo Poyet, the Sunderland head coach, insisting that the striker was fortunate not to be dismissed for kicking out at John O’Shea.

Mourinho believes that Costa will benefit from his enforced absence when he returns away to Newcastle United this weekend. “To have one game to rest is not good for the team but for them individually it gives them a new energy,” the Portuguese said.

Costa was cautioned after catching Wes Brown in the face as they jumped for the ball, but he could have been sent off after lifting his feet at O’Shea after a strong challenge by the defender. Sunderland were fined £20,000 last month after players surrounded Lee Mason, the referee, during the 1-1 draw with Everton and Poyet believes that O’Shea’s discipline in turning away from the incident with Costa favoured the Chelsea man. “The fine that we got is trying to lead us away from little incidents,” Poyet said.

“John is the skipper and needs to lead by example.”

Brown did not take his own tangle with Costa personally. “I don’t know what hit me; I just know I was caught by something,” he said.

“One of the lads has said it didn’t look like it was on purpose, it was more of his follow-through.”

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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the game 6 Barclays Premier League

Rodgers goes back to basics and takes small step forward

Chamakh gets off lightly for repeat offences but Swansea pay the penalty

tony barrett

scott rutherford

Liverpool Johnson 85

Stoke City Referee C Pawson Attendance 44,735

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The goalkeeper was under orders to kick long and not to play the ball out from the back; the full backs had been told not to lose touch with their centre backs and to resist the temptation to overlap; in midfield, the deep-lying playmaker had been replaced by two controllers; the emphasis of the team had been shifted from what they do with the ball to what they need to do without it. This was a Brendan Rodgers team, but not the kind we have come to expect.

For the short term at least, until pressure relents, this is how it is likely to be for Liverpool as they seek to emerge from a slump that has made them unrecognisable from the side who almost won the Barclays Premier League last season. The back-to-basics strategy worked on Saturday as they ground out a narrow, but deserved, win over Stoke City, their rudimentary approach yielding victory despite enjoying less possession in a fixture they would expect to dominate.

Going into the game with only one win in their previous eight fixtures and with Rodgers under the kind of pressure no one would have envisaged when he was named Manager of the Year six months earlier, Liverpool could not afford to drop yet more points and the sacrifice of style in favour of substance ensured that they didn’t. This was the point where regression met with pragmatism and Rodgers embraced reality by doing what it took to get a win, rather than sticking dogmatically to a philosophy. “We’ve

Johnson admits his future may lie elsewhere tony barrett Glen Johnson has insisted he won’t “go crawling” to Liverpool for a new contract, despite not having been offered another deal even though his present agreement expires at the end of this season.

Like Steven Gerrard, Johnson is free to open negotiations with overseas clubs in January, when he enters the final six months of his contract, but that has not prompted an offer from

had a lot of changes, we have a lot of different players and we are dealing with a different set of cards,” the Liverpool manager said. “You’ve got a goalkeeper [Simon Mignolet] who is struggling with the ball at his feet to play out, so you can’t expose him. Even though it was probably not how he wants to work, and hopefully in time he will get to a point where he is comfortable again playing, it was just important to win. That’s what we are paid to do.

“The flowing football will come but first we’ve got to get our confidence back into the team. Three points were vital for us. We’ve got to make slow steps to get going again. The scrutiny was on us in a big game against a tough side but we came through it very well.

We felt we are now back to being competitive again.”

Liverpool’s overall performance was not outstanding, particularly in a disjointed first half and certainly in comparison to the heights they scaled last spring, but on a day when they could not afford another setback, their collective commitment to the cause and determination not to stumble again was impressive. So, too, was the courage of their manager, whose selection policy would have been lambasted had his team fallen short once again.

There were moments when Stoke troubled them, most notably when the excellent Bojan Krkic struck an upright, Mame Biram Diouf had a shot cleared off the line and, after Glen Johnson had given Liverpool the lead with four minutes remaining, when Mignolet saved brilliantly from Bojan. But, in the main, Liverpool were the dominant force after a forgettable first half and Rodgers was vindicated in his bold decisions to restrict Steven Gerrard — who yesterday denied stories of a rift with the manager — to a late cameo Liverpool, who appear relaxed about the possibility of one of their highest earners leaving at the end of the present campaign.

Ideally, Johnson, who scored Liverpool’s winning goal against Stoke City on Saturday, would prefer to remain at Anfield, but without a contract offer to consider the full back acknowledges that he may have to move to a club where his qualities are prized. “First and foremost, I want to play for a club that wants me — it is as simple as that,” Johnson said. “At the moment, I have seen some stuff in the press that I have been offered half the money I am on. That’s not true. I haven’t been offered anything. We aren’t speaking on that at the moment.

“Time goes very quick. I have enjoyed my time here, the majority of the six years. There have been some

Swansea City Bony 15

Crystal Palace

Jedinak 25 (pen)

Referee M Atkinson Attendance 20,240

Given the nod: Johnson stoops to head Liverpool’s late winner at Anfield on Saturday, an act of bravery that earned him staples to a head wound PETER POWELL / EPA

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Liverpool (4-2-3-1): S Mignolet 7 — G Johnson 7, M Skrtel 7, K Touré 7, J Enrique 6 — Lucas Leiva 7 (sub: S Gerrard, 75min), J Allen 8 — J Henderson 7, P Coutinho 5 (sub: D Lovren, 88), R Sterling 7 — R Lambert 7. Substitutes not used: B Jones, A Moreno, A Lallana, E Can, L Markovic.

Stoke City (4-2-3-1): A Begovic 7 — G Cameron 6, R Shawcross 6, M Wilson 6, E Pieters 6 — S Sidwell 5 (sub: G Whelan, 21 5; sub: C Adam, 46 5), S N’Zonzi 6 — J Walters 6, Bojan Krkic 8, M Arnautovic 6 (sub: P Crouch, 88) — M Biram Diouf 7.

Substitutes not used: J Butland, M Muniesa, S Ireland, O Shenton.

Booked: Wilson, Cameron, Shawcross.

and deny four of his biggest summer signings: Lazar Markovic, Emre Can, Alberto Moreno and Adam Lallana.

It was Johnson who ensured that was the case with a brave diving header after Rickie Lambert’s header had rebounded off the crossbar. The right back had ventured farther forward than Rodgers’ strategy had initially allowed but his manager was not complaining.

Instead, in Johnson’s hunger to score and the bravery that led to the defender having his head stapled as others celebrated, Rodgers saw the personification of the kind of qualities he feels will be vital if crisis is to be averted rather than just delayed.

“You have got to put your body on the line,” he said. “You’re not just representing yourself here, you are representing the supporters who are used to success and challenging. The minimum requirement is the ability to compete and that, for some reason, had gone out of our game.” good times, some bad times. I have enjoyed my football but if I haven’t got a contract, I can’t stay. It plays on your mind but that is where you have to try and be professional and do your best for the team. I respect my team-mates more than anyone.

“I’m not going to go crawling to anybody. They know where I am and they know the situation. There were minor talks at the end of last season but they were minor talks, nothing that I could accept or reject, just minor talks.”

Several other Liverpool players are yet to reach agreement with the club over new contracts, although negotiations are now under way with Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho and Jonathan Flanagan. Talks have yet to begin with Martin Skrtel, who is set to enter the final 18 months of his deal.

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Marouane Chamakh might have given Neil Warnock a few more grey hairs, but he will not be asked to tone down his act by the Crystal Palace manager.

By Warnock’s own admission, the Morocco forward was fortunate to remain on the pitch as Palace continued their mini-revival with a deserved point at the Liberty Stadium.

Not only was he booked for a lunge at Neil Taylor in the first half and penalised for a handball on the edge of his own penalty area, but he was warned by Martin Atkinson, the referee, about his penchant for backchat. The official was also less than impressed when Chamakh threw the ball into the ground in protest after another first-half misdemeanour.

Warnock played it safe by substituting the player 25 minutes from time, and said: “I don’t want to tame him at all, but it’s the petulance at times, silly things like bouncing the ball.

He might have got booked for that.”

After Swansea had taken the lead courtesy of Wilfried Bony’s 15th-minute strike — his sixth goal of the season and 18th Premier League goal this year — Chamakh won the penalty that led to Mile Jedinak’s equaliser.

Swansea failed to clear their lines and as Chamakh rolled away from Jonjo Shelvey, the former Liverpool midfielder hooked his legs from beneath him. Atkinson pointed to the spot and Jedinak helped himself to a fifth goal of the season.

Swansea have now dropped 13 points from winning positions this season.

Bony, who — along with Shelvey, Wayne Routledge, Taylor and Gylfi Sigurdsson — had opportunities to kill off the game, said: “It’s so disappointing.

We had the chances but we couldn’t put them away. We now have to focus on Tuesday [against Queens Park Rangers] and make sure we put things right.” ratings

Swansea City (4-2-3-1): L Fabianski 6 — Á Rangel 6, A Williams 6, K Bartley 6, N Taylor 6 — Ki Sung Yueng 6, J Shelvey 5 — J Montero 6, G Sigurdsson 6, W Routledge 6 (sub: M Barrow, 65min 6) — W Bony 6 (sub: B Gomis, 75 6).

Substitutes not used: G Tremmel, T Carroll, L Britton, J Richards, J Amat.

Crystal Palace (4-4-1-1): J Speroni 6 — J Ward 5, B Hangeland 5, S Dann 6, M Kelly 6 — J Puncheon 6 (sub: W Zaha, 81) J Ledley 6, M Jedinak 7, Y Bolasie 6 — M Chamakh 6 (F Campbell, 65 5); D Gayle 5 (sub: J McArthur, 20 6). Substitutes not used: E Fryers, J Thomas, W Hennessey, B Bannan. Booked: Chamakh, McArthur.

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the game 6 Barclays Premier League New allegations are made public by committee but Blatter remains aloof matt dickinson Chief Sports Correspondent As fresh allegations were emerging yesterday about vote-rigging within Fifa from secret intelligence gathered

by England’s failed 2018 campaign, Sepp Blatter was on the other side of the world receiving an ovation for backing the Qatar World Cup. No weight of evidence seems able to derail the Qatar 2022 tournament that Blatter keenly supported, with the Fifa president telling an audience of Asian Football Confederation members in Manila yesterday that he had confidence in the Arab world to organise a great World Cup, while he dismissed those who continue to question the tiny Emirate. “[In] 2022, it is Qatar, and ladies and gentleman, believe me, with all that has been said around the world by whom?

Those not involved with what happens in football. The World Cup in 2022 will be played in Qatar,” Blatter said, to applause.

It is likely that he will not even deign to glance at the fresh allegations that were published by the Culture, Media and Sport select committee under Parliamentary privilege yesterday.

The committee had been handed a dossier by The Sunday Times that contained intelligence gathered by England’s 2018 bid team, using British embassies and independent companies staffed by former MI6 agents, as it sought to keep track on its rivals during the run-up to the vote in December 2010.

The allegations include claims that Qatar and Russia engaged in a voteswapping pact as part of a gas deal; that Franz Beckenbauer’s vote was touted for sale by two associates; that Marios Lefkaritis, the Fifa member from Cyprus, was wooed by Qatar with a huge land deal worth £27 million; that the Qataris invested in holiday resort companies owned by Worawi Makudi, the Thai member of Fifa’s executive committee.

There are also claims that the Russia

2018 bid distributed fine paintings in order to woo key voters. Michel D’Hooghe, the Belgian member of Fifa’s executive committee, has admitted receiving a painting but said it was of negligible value.

The unproven allegations — many of them not new — are all denied and disputed and officials from England’s bid have admitted that some were nothing more than unsubstantiated rumours. Some were so dubious that they were not passed on to Michael Garcia, Fifa’s independent investigator, or to a Parliamentary inquiry.

Yesterday the DCMS committee made fresh demands of the FA for full disclosure of any intelligence with John Whittingdale, the committee’s chairman, saying that he was concerned that some had been withheld.

He added that a lot of the information “is reports and hearsay” but “taken together with all the other evidence that has already been accumulated it does paint a picture of [Fifa as] a deeply corrupt organisation”.

The FA responded by saying that more than half a million documents had been searched to provide responses to Garcia’s investigation.

“The documents searched included intelligence gathered by the bid team,” a statement read.

“All documents within the search parameters were disclosed. In addition Andy Anson has confirmed that any intelligence that he believed could be substantiated was shared with Mr Garcia in his interview and that everything else was hearsay, gossip and rumour.”

The FA is likely to face fresh questioning over an alleged attempt to strike a vote-pact with South Korea.

Geoff Thompson, the former FA chairman, is said to have agreed a deal with Chung Mong Joon, a fellow Fifa executive committee member, who then reneged. One senior FA executive is reported to have said: “We even f***** up fiddling it . . . they didn’t vote for us.”

While Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 have effectively been given the go-ahead to continue their World Cup preparations despite the array of allegations, Garcia continues to compile evidence against individuals involving in voting.

All the president’s men: Blatter, who was applauded by Asian Football Confederation members in Manila yesterday, denies any vote-rigging PAULO WHITAKER / REUTERS

Soldado’s rare strike sinks tired Everton matt hughes Deputy Football Correspondent

Tottenham Hotspur Eriksen 21, Soldado 42

Everton Mirallas 15

Referee M Oliver Attendance 35,901

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At the end of a week in which they were forced to conduct embarrassing searches for pitch invaders and arsonists, Tottenham Hotspur found something far more elusive: a match-winning performance from Roberto Soldado. The Spain striker’s barren spell seems to have lasted longer than the club’s quest to build a new stadium, so his first Barclays Premier League goal for nine months was always going to be celebrated with gusto, particularly as it brought a much-needed win.

Tottenham fans have endured too many false dawns over the years to be seduced by one victory after seeing four defeats here already this season, but Mauricio Pochettino’s claim that it was worth “more than three points” shows that the head coach regards it as a potential turning point. A third win in eight days also brought Tottenham’s first back-to-back league victories since August, heralding hope around White Hart Lane that a stuttering campaign may finally be up and running.

Soldado needs a new beginning more than most, and will hope that his composed finish to seal victory during first-half stoppage time could provide it. The 29-year-old’s spirit and stoicism in difficult circumstances certainly Eriksen celebrates scoring Tottenham’s equaliser

seemed emblematic yesterday, as Tottenham shrugged off a typically lethargic start to come from behind for the third time in four matches.

Everton had the opposite problem, running out of steam after an enterprising opening as Thursday night’s Europa League outing in Wolfsburg appeared to take its toll.

Roberto Martínez was unhappy about an alleged foul by Harry Kane in the build-up to Soldado’s winner, and claimed his side should have had a penalty after the ball struck Federico Fazio’s hand from Romelu Lukaku’s header in the closing stages, but the visiting side created few other opportunities after taking the lead.

Soldado has been struggling to get many chances himself, which is why he has been left on the bench by Pochettino for much of the season, as when he is not scoring he offers precious little else. This was his third of the season, but his first since September 24, although even those sorry statistics do not tell the full story of his struggles.

His most recent Premier League goal was in March and this one was only his second of the year, hardly the output expected from a striker, who cost £26 million.

Tottenham’s fans have stood by him however, rather as Chelsea’s supporters always backed Fernando Torres, his compatriot, but they will hope the similarity ends there.

Soldado was given a standing ovation when he was substituted in the 80th minute, even though Kane, his strike partner, contributed more overall to a deserved victory. The 21-year-old was involved in the build-up to wa both goals and showed his intelligence by dropping deep to receive possession, suggesting he has what it takes to remain a hero here long after Soldado has returned to Spain.

Kane’s tireless running and the workrate of fellow youngsters, Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan

Delayed reaction: Soldado scores his first in the Premier League since March to help Tottenham overcome a deficit, which is becoming a habit ADAM DAVY / PRESS ASSOCIATION

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ratings

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): H Lloris 6 — V Chiriches 5 (sub: E Dier, 70min 5), F Fazio 6, J Vertonghen 6, B Davies 6 — A Lennon 6 (sub: E Lamela, 61 6), R Mason 7, N Bentaleb 6, C Eriksen 7 — R Soldado 7 (sub: Paulinho, 81), H Kane 8. Substitutes not used: M Vorm, Y Kaboul, M Dembélé, N Chadli. Booked: Chiriches, Davies, Lamela, Eriksen.

Everton (4-2-3-1): T Howard 6 — S Coleman 6, P Jagielka 6, S Distin 5, L Baines 6 — M Besic 5, G Barry 5 — R Barkley 6, S Eto’o 5 (sub: L Osman 61 5) K Mirallas 7 (sub: A McGeady, 61 6) — R Lukaku 6. Substitutes not used: J Robles, T Hibbert, C Atsu, S Pienaar, L Garbutt. Booked: Mirallas.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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the game 6 Football Pochettino feels The Tony Awards comfortable at home finally tony cascarino’s pick of the week

gary jacob

Mason, proved instrumental in enabling Tottenham to recover from another poor start, which has been a hallmark of their season.

With better finishing, Everton would have scored sooner as they created several early chances, but Kevin Mirallas shot over the bar and Lukaku aimed a weak effort straight at Hugo Lloris before the Belgium winger gave his side the lead in the 16th minute.

Leighton Baines’s free kick was only half-cleared by Mason and, after Soldado made only a half-hearted attempt to win the ball, Mirallas showed that he can finish after all, cutting inside on to his right foot and curling the ball beyond Lloris from the edge of the area.

Such early setbacks have been commonplace for Tottenham this season, but on this occasion their response was robust and rapid, as they equalised five minutes later. Kane’s deflected shot wrong-footed the Everton defence and, although Tim Howard managed to save it, he was powerless to prevent Christian Eriksen following up at the far post to score in the opposite corner of the net.

Pochettino’s animated, fist-pumping celebration to the fans behind him showed what the goal meant to him, and his players seemed similarly energised as they went on to dominate

the remainder of the half. Kane, in particular, seemed to be enjoying himself as he revelled in the space he found by dropping deep, chipping Aaron Lennon’s cross over the bar before bursting down the wing himself and crossing for Eriksen to shoot wide.

Soldado should have scored seven minutes before half-time when his touch let him down as he bore down on goal, but he made amends. Kane’s challenge on Gareth Barry was criticised by Martínez, but was not malicious and he inadvertently released Lennon, whose direct run through the middle put Soldado through on goal.

His composure in the circumstances was impressive, as he took one touch before picking his spot and shooting across Howard.

Everton failed to replicate the spirit Tottenham had shown after falling behind, and other than a few balls into the box in the last ten minutes, such as the one which struck Fazio’s hand, did not threaten a fight-back. As with Tottenham, the Europa League is clearly having a detrimental effect on their Premier League form, with a combined return of three wins from the ten matches that have followed their group games to date. Ironically, the Europa League may end up thwarting both these clubs’ Champions League ambitions for another year.

NUMBERS SHOW KANE IS WELL ABLE Harry Kane again justified his selection by Tottenham Hotspur yesterday with a fine performance against Everton. He has arguably been the pick of their forwards this season.

42.5

Kane’s duels success percentage in league this season, better than Emmanuel Adebayor (37.3%) and Roberto Soldado (30.4%)

63

Minutes per Kane goal for Tottenham this season in all competitions. Soldado has one per 149 minutes, Adebayor one per 273

65

Clubs games since Kane was last booked (games for Tottenham, Millwall, Leicester City and Norwich City)

Mauricio Pochettino felt victory was worth more than just three points in attempting to win over Tottenham Hotspur supporters who have expressed frustration at their home form.

Tottenham came from behind to beat Everton 2-1 yesterday to prevent what would have been a fifth defeat in seven home matches this season after playing in the Europa League.

Pochettino said it was a psychological boost after admitting his team played more freely in Europe and claims from Emmanuel Adebayor that the players were struggling to cope with the pressure of playing at White Hart Lane, where they have walked off to boos.

Pochettino was noticeably more animated on the touchline, raising both fists to the crowd after Christian Eriksen chipped home an equaliser, and he had several arguments with the fourth official. “I showed my emotion and I was happy because I know our players suffer a lot and our supporters too,” Pochettino said. “I understand why our supporters were angry. If you lose four at home, it is difficult for them to be happy.

“But the team have sent a different signal to our supporters. We must keep this feeling and mentality for the season. It was a good chance to give this present of three points to our fans.

Always you need the time to set your philosophy.”

Pochettino paid tribute to the energy and tempo of his players and admitted that Roberto Soldado, who has been having special coaching, was worried about not scoring in the league since March. “He felt the pressure and he’s more happy and free,” he said.

Pochettino said Adebayor was absent with a virus and Vlad Chiriches limped off with cramp before Everton came closest to equalising when Romelu Lukaku’s header struck the arm of Federico Fazio in the final minute.

Roberto Martínez said that Michael Oliver, the referee, was in a good position to have awarded a penalty.

“It was a big penalty call where Fazio makes himself really big and closes his eyes and he’s in a unusual position when it hits him,” the Everton manager said. “If it hits him in the chest, no complaints, but it hits him in the arm and it should have been a penalty.”

Martínez felt that Gareth Barry, his midfielder, was felled by Harry Kane as Tottenham broke to score a second in stoppage time in the first half and said that Everton were again not rewarded for their performance. “We deserved more and the result is really difficult to take,” he said. “It’s harsh because we performed really well but after we scored we couldn’t impose ourselves.”

Phil Jagielka, the Everton defender, said that Tottenham escaped punishment for their fouls. “I felt we could have had better protection from the referee, and that allowed them to keep coming at us,” he said.

City’s art and graft

MANCHESTER CITY It’s not rocket science why Manchester City looked so much better against Southampton: they worked harder. Of course the quality of players at their disposal is important, but if they want to catch Chelsea, that’s what they have to do.

Striking difference JOE COLE

Sometimes, the crucial thing is having something different.

Joe Cole provided just that for Aston Villa against Burnley. Paul Lambert’s team had not been able to buy a goal, but Cole offered them an alternative to their usual approach.

Points make prizes CHELSEA’S ‘INVINCIBLES’

Chelsea might have dropped points against Sunderland, but there was more evidence of why they may yet match Arsenal’s feat and go unbeaten. More and more teams will follow Gustavo Poyet’s blueprint by sitting back, stifling and settling for a point.

Rise in inflation JANUARY SALES

As managers plan for the transfer window, one thing will be paramount: Premier League experience.

That will drive prices up beyond players’ true worth. You wonder, as West Ham United have shown, whether it is always worth it.

Past mastery STEVEN GERRARD

Not many players get the chance to leave their club while memories of their peak are still fresh. Steven Gerrard does. It may be best for him and Liverpool if he does find a new challenge, rather than clinging on to a past that is not coming back.

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

the game 6 Barclays Premier League

Goals!

Goals!

Goals!

City move up a gear oliver kay Chief Football Correspondent

Southampton Manchester City

Can’t make it to the match tomorrow night? Get near-live updates from all the midweek games via our new sports app

Don’t miss a minute of action Watch the goals on your phone minutes after ball hits the net. It’s the must-have app for fans of the Premier League

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Touré 51, Lampard 80, Clichy 88

Referee M Jones Attendance 30,919

0 3

The noise that could be heard at St Mary’s Stadium yesterday afternoon was not the Southampton bubble bursting but the Manchester City bandwagon moving up a gear. This impressive, ruthless victory, rounded off by a couple of late flourishes on the counterattack, will leave Chelsea in no doubt where the greatest threat to their Barclays Premier League title challenge will come from.

For almost the first time this season, City looked like a team with the hunger to defend their title. Southampton, for their part, finally looked like a team coming to terms with the impossibility of defying gravity. Chelsea’s lead at the top of the table is back to six points, as it was at the start of the weekend, but significantly it is now City, rather than Southampton, who are leading what has previously been an unconvincing pursuit.

This had long been flagged up as the afternoon when reality would start to bite for Southampton. After Yaya Touré’s 51st-minute goal was followed by well-taken efforts from Frank Lampard and Gaël Clichy in the closing stages, Ronald Koeman would be forgiven for looking at the next run of fixtures in a mood of heightened desperation, but, even with Arsenal and Manchester United up next, the Southampton manager could console himself with the knowledge that neither of those teams are as formidable as City.

At 1-0, City, through the introductions of James Milner and Lampard in midfield, were in the process of shoring up to avoid any late onslaught when they had the rash Eliaquim Mangala sent off in the 76th minute for a second bookable offence.

With an extra man, Southampton had cause to believe again, but they were picked off so expertly that Koeman, the manager, found himself talking ruefully afterwards about the “difference” between his team and the very best.

That difference in quality, reflecting transfer budgets, wage structures and much else, is obvious. Southampton’s only three defeats this season have come against Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and now City. Now that the fixture list has taken a turn for the worse — with this match the beginning of a daunting six-week sequence that will includes meetings with Arsenal (twice), United (twice), Chelsea and Everton — Koeman must hope that his team recover the spirit, organisation and belief that deserted them after they fell behind yesterday.

To that point, Southampton had competed well enough, but they were

almost always second best to a City team who had Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Fernandinho, Touré and Samir Nasri back to something like last season’s level. Most importantly of all, they had Sergio Agüero offering a wonderful exhibition of modern centre-forward play.

For once, Agüero did not score, but he merits a little sympathy in that respect. He was the victim of one of the worst refereeing decisions of the season so far when he was felled by José Fonte’s mistimed lunge in the penalty area, only for Mike Jones, the referee, to book Agüero for diving rather than award the penalty. There was an indeed a hint of an exaggeration in Agüero’s fall, but it was a misjudgment in keeping with Jones’s erratic performance in the first half.

City threatened again when Stevan Jovetic had a shot cleared off the line

by Toby Alderweireld, after good work

by Nasri, but Southampton, a little inhibited early on, stabilised and began to find their rhythm. Chances were scarce, though. There was a flurry in the first half, when Hart was tested in succession by Graziano Pellè, Steven Davis and Dusan Tadic, and an impressive effort from Tadic that flew just wide early in the second period, but overall their front players struggled to escape the shadows of Kompany and the City defence.

After 51 minutes City’s superior quality told. Fernandinho was heavily involved in a move that saw Agüero hang to the left side and dribble back into the middle before teeing up Touré, whose low shot would probably have beaten Fraser Forster even without a slight deflection off Alderweireld.

Manuel Pellegrini often seems content to believe that City’s superior individual quality will see them through, but this was an occasion when he made significant substitutions to protect the result. The arrivals of Milner and Lampard stiffened City still farther in midfield, while the loss of

First blood: Touré’s shot, which took a slight deflection of Alderweireld, opened the scoring for City and set up the win that moves them up to second place TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER, GRAHAM HUGHES

TALKING TACTICS Clichy goal Southampton v Manchester City Gaël Clichy scored his first goal for Manchester City just 17 seconds after Southampton had taken a corner. The full back found Frank Lampard and sprinted forward to convert Sergio Agüero’s cross and complete the scoring Pass Run with ball Run

Agüero

Bertrand Clyne

Demichelis

Lampard

Clichy

Fonte

Forster Yoshida

Clichy

Mangala to a red card, after Shane Long got the wrong side of him, was followed by the arrival of Martin Demichelis as City switched to a 4-4-1 formation that later became 4-3-1 when Kompany went off as a precautionary measure in stoppage time.

Those final ten minutes were a minor masterclass from City in how to play with ten men and an unwanted lesson from Southampton in how not to use a numerical advantage. Milner won the ball from a dawdling Davis to set up Lampard for a characteristic strike from the edge of the penalty area as the former Chelsea player continues to make a case — the club’s case, not his — for delaying his move to New York City.

With Southampton falling apart, the third goal bordered on total football: Demichelis popped up on the left-hand side to release Agüero, whose left-wing cross was converted by Clichy, the left back, improbably marauding from the right side. “Easy, easy,” chanted the City supporters. The consolation for Southampton is that, as tough as this run of fixtures is, Arsenal and United should not be quite so tough.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

55

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the game 6 Barclays Premier League

with ruthless show

What we learnt this week rory smith

Press gang up on Sunderland

Positive spin of the week? Lee Cattermole for complaining about the unjust “bad press” Sunderland’s “solid” defending has received this season. They’re a scourge, these journalists, daring to criticise a team for shipping eight at Southampton.

Making his position clear

Another week, another Wengerism. “Maybe we have to be creative in the transfer market,” the Arsenal manager said. Translation: “I’m going to sign a right back and play him in central midfield.”

Van Persie goal theory hulled

We can overhaul Chelsea, says Pellegrini rory smith Manuel Pellegrini, the Manchester City manager, has warned Chelsea that the Barclays Premier League champions are not ready to relinquish their crown without a fight, insisting his players have the “spirit, personality and ambition” to catch and overhaul José Mourinho’s side. More intriguingly still, he hinted that Frank Lampard could yet play a significant part in helping his new team reel in his old one.

City’s comfortable victory at St Mary’s Stadium yesterday, combined with Chelsea’s draw away to Sunderland, led to Pellegrini’s team leapfrogging Southampton to take second place in the table, six points behind the unbeaten league leaders.

That is a small enough gap, the Chilean believes, to mean that “in one week” the entire outlook could change.

After a start to the season in which it

appeared that Chelsea would march to the title unopposed, that is quite a turnaround. City were certainly impressive enough against Ronald Koeman’s team to suggest they can make a fist of it, despite the failure of the referee, Mike Dean, to award the visiting team a penalty for a clear foul

by José Fonte on Sergio Agüero.

Pellegrini did not wish to be drawn into criticising the official, stating only his belief that Agüero “never dives, he does not try to cheat the referee”, and preferred to concentrate instead on his side’s determination to do what they could not under Roberto Mancini and retain their title.

“We have to play 25 more games,” he said. “No one knows what will happen in the future. In one week, you can change things. Chelsea are playing very well, [but while] we can complain about a lot of things in this team during this season — we are conceding too many goals and not scoring as many as we

did last year — the thing we cannot complain about is the spirit, character, personality and ambition of this squad.”

Few embody that quite so well as Lampard, scorer of City’s second here and a significantly more influential figure at the Etihad Stadium than many had assumed he would be.

The 36-year-old is due to embark on his career with New York City, his parent club, at the end of January — their inaugural Major League Soccer campaign starts in March — but Pellegrini revealed yesterday that he ratings

Southampton (4-2-3-1): F Forster 7 — N Clyne 6, J Fonte 5, T Alderweireld 6, R Bertrand 6 — M Schneiderlin 7 (sub: M Yoshida, 46min 6), V Wanyama 7 — D Tadic 6, S Davis 5 (sub: E Mayuka, 82), S Mané 5 (sub: S Long, 68 6) — G Pellè 6. Substitutes not used: K Davis, F Gardos, H Reed, M Targett. Booked: Wanyama.

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): J Hart 7 — P Zabaleta 6, V Kompany 7, E Mangala 5, G Clichy 7 — Fernandinho 8, Y Touré 6 — J Navas 6 (sub: M Demichelis, 75), S Jovetic 6 (sub: J Milner, 55 7), S Nasri 7 (sub: F Lampard, 65 7) — S Agüero 9. Substitutes not used: W Caballero, B Sagna, Fernando, J Á Pozo. Booked: Kompany, Mangala, Agüero.

Sent off: Mangala.

could stay in Manchester beyond that date if it is decided it suits all involved.

“We will decide in December,” the City manager said yesterday, smiling when it was pointed out to him that December was less than 24 hours away.

“You can ask me tomorrow. Nobody could find it strange the way he plays: he knows how to play. Maybe, at 36, he is not able to play three games in a week, or 90 minutes every game. He played 90 minutes [in midweek] and did well, so it was not good for him to start here.

“He always makes a difference because he is a top player. He is a great professional and a great person. He is very happy here and enjoys the way we play. He makes a difference in the last 25 or 30 [metres]. Would it be hard for him to walk away [with a Premier League title race and the Champions League last 16 to think about]? That is why we will make a decision for him, the club, for New York City.”

Important note: Robin van Persie scoring (an admittedly wonderful goal) against Hull City when his side are already two up and cruising is not “the perfect riposte” to suggestions that he no longer delivers under pressure in big games.

One small step for Tyneside . . .

Newcastle United are furious with a newspaper for speculating on what may or may not happen when both every zebra’s favourite team and Scottish second-tier side Rangers make it into Europe. This is a bit like getting upset because there may not be enough leg room in a space rocket.

Cover image: Marc Atkins, Offside Sports Photography

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Sport

Belts and braces Fury plays it safe to close in on a shot at world heavyweight title

Time to be upfront Why Lancaster must revert to team’s strengths and get best out of pack

Boxing, page 59

Rugby union, pages 60-64

Sherwood able to dream again of Cheltenham glory Alan Lee Racing Correspondent

Oliver Sherwood admitted yesterday he was “humbled” by the reaction to his Hennessy Gold Cup victory with Many Clouds on Saturday and so surprised by the recovery of his horse that he has now revised plans and will give him another run before bidding for the Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup. It is 20 seasons since the last of Sherwood’s six Festival winners, and his subsequent slump left him questioning his future, but he could go there with a competitive team next March. Many Clouds is a credible contender for an open Gold Cup and Sherwood has novice chase targets for both Deputy Dan, who may run at Exeter on Friday, and Puffin Billy.

“Another Cheltenham win would be very special,” he said. “The meeting has a far higher profile than when we last had a winner there. Many Clouds needs to improve again but he keeps doing that. Everybody says that if you win the Hennessy you must go for the

Wolverhampton Rob Wright

12.55 Josie’s Dream 3.00 Splash Of Verve (nap) 1.25 Ya Halla (nb) 3.30 Entihaa 1.55 You Be Lucky 4.05 Missandei 2.30 Be Royale 4.35 Extreme Supreme Going: standard Tote Jackpot meeting Draw: 5f-7f, low numbers best At The Races

12.55

Handicap

(Amateurs’: £2,028: 1m 5f 194y) (13)

55203 GREELEYS LOVE 12 L Dace 4-11-0 Mr J Doe (5) 00000 PERENNIAL 14 (C) P Kirby 5-11-0 Mr Ross Turner (7) 02242 QIBTEE 12 (H,B) L Eyre 4-10-9 Mr A J Alonso (5) 45600 MEDIEVAL BISHOP 48 T Forbes 5-10-8 Mr T Eley (7) 5-006 TORETTO 37J B Llewellyn 6-10-7 Mr J Williams (5) 46246 CABUCHON 5 (T,V) P D Evans 7-10-7 Miss K Begley (7) 40550 CANDELITA 18J M Sheppard 7-10-2 Mr S Sheppard (7) 304-0 TRAM EXPRESS 59 (T,C,D) S Lycett 10-10-2 Mr J Wailes (7) 0540 BLUE VALENTINO 9 A Hollinshead 5-10-0 Miss S Brotherton 0-300 JOSIE'S DREAM 5 J Hughes 6-10-0 Mr James Hughes (5) 5-R00 RED CURRENT 26 M Scudamore 10-9-9 Miss P Bridgwater (7) 12 (4) 34640 INDIAN SCOUT 46 (B) Anabel Murphy 6-9-9 Miss Joanna Mason (3) 13 (7) 05000 PEPPERELLO 58 (H) T Etherington 3-9-2 Miss M Edden (5)

1 (6) 2 (3) 3 (11) 4 (12) 5 (2) 6 (1) 7 (13) 8 (9) 9 (10) 10 (5) 11 (8)

Gold Cup and that’s where I will be aiming.

“He surprised me this morning. The way he looked straight after the race, I expected him to lie down for 48 hours but he’d eaten up and was bright and cheerful out in the paddock. I won’t do much with him for a while but he could have a run in January, maybe in the Argento at Cheltenham.”

Sherwood was still replying to “more than a hundred” texts and messages yesterday and reflecting on the raucously appreciative scenes that followed his victory in a race so tough that only nine of the 19 starters finished and the winning jockey, Leighton Aspell, incurred a seven-day whip ban.

“It humbles you to experience a reaction like that,” Sherwood said.

“We’re all very competitive and none of us likes getting beaten. For fellow trainers, owners and jockeys to come up and say what they did, and mean it, was special. I think those scenes brought a bit of romance back to the day.”

Newbury’s management was rightly 2.30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

(8) (7) (6) (5) (3) (2) (1) (4)

STEVE DAVIES / REX FEATURES

Many Clouds jumps the last ditch en route to winning the Hennessy Gold Cup

thrilled by the atmosphere of a meeting that indicated welcome progress for a course that has endured financial strain and public disaffection. The Friday crowd was the biggest for 25 years but Dominic Burke, the chairman, knows it is just the start. “We are on a journey but we will get there,” he said, adding that Newbury is aiming for significant prize money increases on Hennessy day.

Paul Nicholls suffered a disappointment with Rocky Creek in the Hen– nessy but by then he had achieved the unprecedented landmark of 100 grade one winners. Irving brought up the

Fillies' Handicap (£2,911: 7f 32y) (8)

4-1 Be Royale, 9-2 Bint Dandy, Penny Garcia, 5-1 Polly's Rose, 11-2 others.

Nursery Handicap

(2-Y-O: £2,102: 1m 141y) (13)

century in a decimated StanJames.com Fighting Fifth Hurdle. An emotional Nicholls confirmed that Nick Scholfield will now keep the ride on Irving, whose next run will be in the William Hill Christmas Hurdle at Kempton Park.

A year ago, Nicky Henderson won both the Hennessy and the Fighting Fifth but a blank weekend was indicative of his recent frustrations.

Henderson, however, confirmed that in the absence of Sprinter Sacre, Oscar Whisky will step back in trip for the 888sport Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park on Saturday.

Kempton Park Rob Wright

2.20 Luna Sunrise 4.20 Dana’s Present 2.50 Aqua Ardens 4.50 Blackthorn Stick 3.20 Dark War 5.20 Cool Bahamian 3.50 Greatest Hits 5.50 Half Way Going: standard Draw: 6f-1m, low numbers best Racing UK

2.20

9-2 Capsize, 11-2 More Drama, Splash Of Verve, Tocororo, 15-2 others.

1.25

3.30

5-1 Time Square, 6-1 Lacock, 7-1 Claude Greenwood, 8-1 Estibdaad, 10-1 Assoluta, Runaiocht, 12-1 Travis Bickle, Understory, 14-1 Mountain Range, 16-1 others.

1 (7) 2 (5) 3 (9) 4 (10) 5 (3) 6 (2) 7 (1) 8 (6) 9 (8) 10 (4)

Nursery Handicap

(Div I: 2-Y-O: £2,102: 7f 32y) (10) 00631 PYROCUMULUS 27 (H,P,D) A McCabe 9-7 B A Curtis 0536 CLAMPDOWN 104 J Tate 9-5 Luke Morris 06033 FIRST SUMMER 19 (P) Shaun Harris 9-4 R Winston 044 FREEZE THE SECRET 128 (P) D Griffiths 9-2 A Elliott 00032 PURPLE SURPRISE 13 A Reid 9-0 D Brock (3) 02005 LADY CHARLIE 55 J Hughes 8-13 J Fanning 60645 YA HALLA 69 P D Evans 8-11 J Egan 30600 KIDMEFOREVER 12 (P) J Moore 8-8 T Eaves 000 MISU PETE 10 (V) M Usher 8-6 Hayley Turner 0006 OVERSTONE LASS 35 J Spearing 8-6 E J Walsh (5)

3-1 Pyrocumulus, 7-2 Purple Surprise, 4-1 First Summer, 6-1 Freeze The Secret, 15-2 Lady Charlie, 8-1 Clampdown, 16-1 Misu Pete, Ya Halla, 20-1 others.

1.55 1 (6) 2 (4) 3 (9) 4 (2) 5 (10) 6 (1) 7 (7) 8 (8) 9 (5) 10 (3)

Nursery Handicap

(Div II: 2-Y-O: £2,102: 7f 32y) (10) 005 YOU BE LUCKY 18 Miss J Crowley 9-7 K Shoemark (5) 000 EAGLE EMPIRE 19 R Hannon 9-5 Josh Quinn (7) 00601 CELESTINE ABBEY 7 (CD) John Ryan 9-3 J Mitchell 33343 FAST SCAT 7 (V) P D Evans 9-2 J Egan 0054 PAFIYA 25 (H) K Stubbs 8-13 G Gibbons 000 TOTAL DEMOLITION 124 O Stevens 8-13 H Crouch (7) 000 ANNIVERSARIE 66 J Norton 8-9 C Beasley (3) 0000 WHAT USAIN 58 (V) G Oldroyd 8-6 B McHugh 000 OUT OF ACES 42 K A Ryan 8-6 S A Gray (5) 400 SHEILA BELLE 14 (B) J Moore 8-6 Luke Morris

3-1 Fast Scat, Total Demolition, 5-1 Celestine Abbey, You Be Lucky, 8-1 Eagle Empire, 10-1 Pafiya, 14-1 Out Of Aces, 20-1 Sheila Belle, 25-1 others.

Blinkered first time: Kempton Park 3.20 Dark War. 4.20 Henry Grace, Russian Ice. 4.50 Bosstime. Plumpton 2.40 Dude Alert. Wolverhampton 1.25 Misu Pete. 1.55 What Usain, Sheila Belle. 3.00 Capsize. 4.05 Blue Burmese.

4.35 Scatty Cat.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(5) (7) (4) (3) (2) (1) (6)

Handicap (£7,439: 2m 119y) (7)

21352 COUSIN KHEE 27 (BF) H Morrison 7-10-0 Hayley Turner 02042 BUCKLAND 12 (T,C) C Fellowes 6-9-13 P Mulrennan 00120 DAME LUCY 31 (H,BF) M Appleby 4-9-9 Luke Morris 62160 ENTIHAA 31 (D) G A Swinbank 6-9-8 J Fanning 0-023 HIDDEN JUSTICE 33 J J Quinn 5-9-7 P Makin 11612 MISTER BOB 14 (P,CD,BF) J Bethell 5-9-0 G Lee 01101 UNCLE BERNIE 7 (CD) A Hollinshead 4-8-13 R Tart

5-2 Uncle Bernie, 7-2 Mister Bob, 9-2 Cousin Khee, 5-1 Hidden Justice, 13-2 Buckland, 15-2 Dame Lucy, 12-1 Entihaa.

4.05 1 2 3 4 5 6

Claimer (2-Y-O: £2,264: 1m 1f 103y) (6)

(2) 300 WHISKY MARMALADE 14 D O'Meara 9-0 (4) 544 MISSANDEI 12 M Botti 8-10 (6) 0503 POLITICO 14 J Gosden 8-6 (3) 04403 AULD FYFFEE 9 John Ryan 8-0 (1) 000 BEAUCHAMP RUBY 69 P Fitzsimons 8-0 (5) 05505 BLUE BURMESE 62 (V) M Usher 8-0

Sam James D Brock (3) N Mackay Luke Morris J Haynes (3) Hayley Turner

7-4 Politico, 7-2 Missandei, 4-1 Blue Burmese, 5-1 Auld Fyffee, 8-1 others.

4.35 1 (5) 2 (9) 3 (4) 4 (1) 5 (8) 6 (3) 7 (11) 8 (10) 9 (7) 10(12) 11 (2) 12 (6) 13(13)

Handicap (£2,264: 5f 20y) (13) 50000 LEXINGTON ROSE 16 (P,D) B Smart 3-9-7 P Mulrennan 03-31 EXTREME SUPREME 27 (D) D Shaw 3-9-7 D Swift 60-00 OIL STRIKE 16 (B,D) M W Easterby 7-9-7 B McHugh 56221 GIVE US A BELLE 7 (T,V,CD) Mrs C Dunnett 5-9-7 Luke Morris 50102 BILASH 16 (CD) A Hollinshead 7-9-6 J Duern (3) 00004 MR MO JO 75 (H,B,D) L Eyre 6-9-5 C Beasley (3) 06140 TELEGRAPH 18 P D Evans 3-9-3 Doubtful 21600 GOADBY 28 J Holt 3-9-2 G Gibbons 06160 LOUIS VEE 7 (T,C,D) R Brotherton 6-9-2 T Eaves 0-000 SCATTY CAT 13 (E,B,D) D Loughnane 4-9-1 R Winston 54314 YOUR GIFTED 7 (V,CD) Mrs L Williamson 7-9-0 Alistair Rawlinson (5) 00005 SHIRLEY'S PRIDE 7 (T,P,D) M Appleby 4-8-13 Hayley Turner 06000 WALTA 13 (T,B,D) S R Bowring 3-8-13 E J Walsh (5)

4-1 Your Gifted, 5-1 Bilash, 11-2 Give Us A Belle, Shirley's Pride, 6-1 Mr Mo Jo, 13-2 Extreme Supreme, 10-1 Oil Strike, 16-1 Goadby, 18-1 others.

1 (9) 2 (3) 3 (2) 4 (1) 5 (14) 6 (6) 7 (13) 8 (11) 9 (4) 10(10) 11 (8) 12 (7) 13 (5)

2.50 1 2 3 4 5

(3) (4) (5) (1) (2)

Claimer (£2,911: 7f) (5)

11112 AQUA ARDENS 11 (T,D) G Baker 6-9-7 P Cosgrave 00061 MONSIEUR CHEVALIER 9 (P,D) J Osborne 7-9-5 A Kirby 41002 DOC HAY 11 (H,D) L Carter 7-9-4 Thomas Brown (3) 40061 TROJAN ROCKET 11 (P,C,D) M Wigham 6-9-3 G Baker 32500 SCHOTTISCHE 44 (V,D) D Haydn Jones 4-8-2 C Shepherd (7)

2-1 Trojan Rocket, 5-2 Aqua Ardens, 4-1 Monsieur Chevalier, 9-2 Doc Hay, 25-1 Schottische.

3.20 1 2 3 4 5

(4) (1) (3) (2) (5)

Nursery Handicap (2-Y-O: £3,235: 7f) (5)

02031 BITING BULLETS 17 (D) J Hughes 9-7 5141 MECADO 76 R Hannon 9-5 0535 DARK WAR 17 (B) J Given 9-1 02121 CHETAN 11 (C) J M Bradley 8-12 46005 INVINCIBLE ZEB 25 R Harris 8-9

Yesterday’s racing

Splash Of Verve (3.00 Wolverhampton) An unlucky third here last time, he has obvious claims off the same mark 4.20

Handicap

(£2,264: 1m 2f) (14)

4-1 Greeleys Love, 9-2 Qibtee, 5-1 Cabuchon, 6-1 Josie's Dream, 7-1 others.

006 PLAY NICELY 46 J Given 9-7 G Lee 600 GUMHREAR 32 (H) J Tate 9-7 H Poulton (5) 646 CAPSIZE 19 (V) Sir M Stoute 9-5 J Fanning 14054 AS A DREAM 18 Mrs N Evans 9-4 R Winston 22363 SIMONE ON TIME 12 S Kirk 9-4 Renato Souza 005 LET RIGHT BE DONE 17 E McMahon 9-4 G Gibbons 000 TOCORORO 41 E Dunlop 9-4 P Makin 0306 YORKSHIRE 40 Shaun Harris 9-3 B A Curtis 50003 SPLASH OF VERVE 16 P Kirby 8-13 J Haynes (3) 000 LIPSTICKANDPOWDER 26 (H) W Jarvis 8-11 P Mulrennan 0000 PISCES 12 D Elsworth 8-8 R Holley (7) 66041 MORE DRAMA 14 (CD) S Kirk 8-7 Luke Morris 66004 SMUGGLERS LANE 14 P D Evans 8-1 J Egan

Willie Mullins did not enjoy the weekend he might have anticipated but he still salvaged two of the grade one contests at Fairyhouse yesterday. The third, with agreeable timing, went to a stable still grieving the recent death of Dessie Hughes and now supervised by his daughter, Sandra.

The long-term future of the Hughes yard may be unresolved but there was no doubting the poignancy of Lieutenant Colonel’s victory in the Bar One Racing Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, albeit after a field missing the lame Annie Power was further depleted by the early fall of Zaidpour.

That was the second setback of the day for Mullins, who had also seen Djakadam finish a distant eighth of nine finishers in the Hennessy Gold Cup on Saturday, but paled into insignificance when Allez Colombieres, pulled up in the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle won by his stablemate Nichols Canyon, had to be put down after his injuries proved worse than thought.

Mullins later won the Drinmore Novices’ Chase with Valseur Lido.

One of Ireland’s leading Flat horses, Trading Leather, lost his life after suffering a leg fracture in the Japan Cup early yesterday.

Bet of the day

30000 MOUNTAIN RANGE 16 (CD) W Musson 6-9-5 C Catlin 06045 TIME SQUARE 12 (CD) A Carroll 7-9-5 J Crowley 55360 LACOCK 61 S Curran 3-9-4 A Kirby 12036 ESTIBDAAD 69 (T,D) P Butler 4-9-3 W Twiston-Davies 65046 UNDERSTORY 33 (CD) T McCarthy 7-9-3 G Baker 42303 TRAVIS BICKLE 18 (B) J Flint 3-8-13 L Keniry 46600 JAZRI 38 (C) J M Bradley 3-8-13 S Drowne 54303 ASSOLUTA 2 (D) S Kirk 3-8-13 Martin Dwyer 0-000 LUNA SUNRISE 11 T Jarvis 3-8-12 J Vaughan (5) 00060 LLYRICAL 31 D Haydn Jones 3-8-12 D Probert 600-0 ASTROWOLF 17 M Tompkins 3-8-11 P Cosgrave 35004 RUNAIOCHT 27 P Burgoyne 4-8-11 J Quinn 12035 CLAUDE GREENWOOD 12 (P) Mrs L Jewell 4-8-9 Shelley Birkett (5) R Havlin 14(12) 660 OTTERBRIDGE 14 (T) B Millman 3-8-6

1 (6) 2 (2) 3 (13) 4 (10) 5 (3) 6 (4) 7 (11) 8 (1) 9 (7) 10 (5) 11 (9) 12 (8) 13(12)

Lieutenant Colonel scores timely victory Alan Lee

00631 BINT DANDY 31 (CD) C Dwyer 3-9-7 C Beasley (3) 51 POLLY'S ROSE 14 (CD) I Semple 5-9-6 J Hart 06350 WELSH SUNRISE 47 (H,C,D) S C Williams 4-9-6 G Gibbons 66641 PENNY GARCIA 34 (P,D) T Easterby 4-9-2 D Fentiman 00022 BOOGANGOO 9 (C) G Harris 3-9-2 J Fanning 0-601 ELUSIVE ELLEN 18 (D) B Powell 4-9-0 D Sweeney 54012 BE ROYALE 7 (C,D,BF) M Appleby 4-8-13 Luke Morris 23043 DIAMOND BLUE 24 R Fahey 6-8-11 T Hamilton

3.00

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Martin Dwyer C Hardie (3) J Crowley L Keniry W Twiston-Davies

1 (6) 2 (9) 3 (1) 4 (5) 5 (8) 6 (3) 7 (7) 8 (4) 9 (11) 10 (2) 11(10)

Handicap (Div I: £2,264: 1m) (11)

00030 DANA'S PRESENT 33 (CD) G Baker 5-9-7 P Cosgrave 20050 BLOODSWEATANDTEARS 27 (D) W Knight 6-9-6 G Baker 00005 PARADISE SPECTRE 11 (P) Miss Z Davison 7-9-6 L Keniry 06004 LITTLE INDIAN 11 (D) J Jenkins 4-9-4 S Donohoe 00060 RUSSIAN ICE 11 (V,C) D Ivory 6-9-3 A Kirby 40610 PORT LAIRGE 16 (B) J Gallagher 4-9-3 C Catlin 50-00 CROWNING STAR 11 (T,D) S Woodman 5-9-1 J Crowley 54045 SKIDBY MILL 9 (V,D) Mrs L Mongan 4-9-1 L Jones 00440 EASTWARD HO 66 (D,BF) Mrs S Humphrey 6-8-12 Shelley Birkett (5) 00050 HENRY GRACE 5 (B) J Fox 3-8-7 C Hardie (3) 40000 LA PAIVA 5 (H) S Dixon 3-8-6 T Clark (5)

7-2 Little Indian, 9-2 Paradise Spectre, 7-1 Crowning Star, Skidby Mill, 8-1 others.

4.50 1 (2) 2 (4) 3 (8) 4 (1) 5 (7) 6 (9) 7 (3) 8 (10) 9 (5) 10 (6)

Handicap (Div II: £2,264: 1m) (10)

53005 BLACKTHORN STICK 21 J Butler 5-9-7 22220 EL MIRAGE 11 (P,C) D Ivory 4-9-7 50045 SEBS SENSEI 11 (B) M Hoad 3-9-5 34661 DIVINE RULE 9 (P,CD) Mrs L Mongan 6-9-5 56400 BOSSTIME 18 (B) J Holt 4-9-4 006-0 FERNGROVE 29J (T) J Portman 3-9-3 50060 AMBELLA 11 (V) I Williams 4-9-2 36612 DREAMING AGAIN 11 (CD) J Fox 4-8-13 00642 MOVIE MAGIC 12 (V) J Bridger 3-8-8 23306 JACKPOT 11 (D) B Powell 4-8-7

L Keniry J Crowley H Crouch (7) L Jones R Havlin M Harley S Donohoe C Hardie (3) W A Carson Martin Dwyer

7-2 Divine Rule, 4-1 Dreaming Again, 6-1 Ambella, El Mirage, 7-1 others.

5.20 1 (6) 2 (5) 3 (8) 4 (3) 5 (10) 6 (2) 7 (4) 8 (7) 9 (1) 10 (9)

Handicap (£5,175: 7f) (10)

11-04 EVENING ATTIRE 31 (CD) W Stone 3-9-7 R Tate (3) 03111 HOLIDAY MAGIC 21 (CD) C Appleby 3-9-7 A Kirby 06012 COOL BAHAMIAN 14 (B,CD) Eve Johnson Houghton 3-9-5 J Fahy 31350 LIGHT FROM MARS 72 (P,CD) R Harris 9-9-5 W Twiston-Davies 33610 BRIGLIADORO 30 (CD) P McBride 3-9-4 M Harley 00041 STONEFIELD FLYER 27 (P,CD) K Dalgleish 5-9-3 G Baker 04000 DR RED EYE 34 (P,D) S Dixon 6-9-1 D Probert 13060 PRETTY BUBBLES 9 (C,D) J Jenkins 5-9-0 P Aspell 20250 PICENO 34 (P,D) S Dixon 6-8-13 T Clark (5) 0-031 ERTIKAAN 27 (C,D) Miss J Ellis 7-8-13 J Crowley

6-4 Mecado, 5-2 Biting Bullets, 4-1 Chetan, 5-1 Dark War, 14-1 Invincible Zeb.

7-4 Holiday Magic, 5-1 Stonefield Flyer, 6-1 Cool Bahamian, Ertikaan, 8-1 others.

3.50

1 (6) 2 (12) 3 (1) 4 (7) 5 (5) 6 (2) 7 (11) 8 (4) 9 (10) 10 (3) 11 (9) 12 (8)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

(5) (2) (8) (4) (7) (6) (3) (1)

Maiden Stakes

(2-Y-O: £4,075: 1m) (8) ANGELS ABOVE J Butler 9-5 CAPTAIN KOKO M Botti 9-5 0 GOODBY INHERITENCE 40 (T) S Durack 9-5 2 GREATEST HITS 31 J Gosden 9-5 2 PATHWAY TO HONOUR 21 C Appleby 9-5 SPERRIN C Appleby 9-5 LEVELLING J Gosden 9-0 SECRET FANTASIES P Cole 9-0

P Cosgrave M Harley G Baker R Havlin A Kirby C Hardie (3) S Drowne J Crowley

9-4 Pathway To Honour, 11-4 Greatest Hits, 5-1 Sperrin, 6-1 Levelling, 8-1 Captain Koko, 14-1 Secret Fantasies, 20-1 Angels Above, 66-1 Goodby Inheritence.

5.50

Handicap (£2,911: 6f) (12)

04020 ANOTHER TRY 5 (D) T Jarvis 9-9-7 J Vaughan (5) 22000 SWEET TALKING GUY 5 (T,CD) L Pearce 4-9-7 S Pearce (3) 65200 NOVERRE TO GO 9 (P,CD) R Harris 8-9-7 W Twiston-Davies 40330 ROCKET ROB 9 (CD) W Musson 8-9-6 C Catlin 10010 HALF WAY 55 L Carter 3-9-6 Thomas Brown (3) 35040 CLASSIC PURSUIT 7 (P,CD) R Harris 3-9-5 M Harley 42313 TYCHAIOS 18 (D) S C Williams 4-9-4 Aaron Jones (7) 12000 LADY PHILL 17 (D) M Attwater 4-9-4 R Havlin 40301 COISTE BODHAR 41 (P,D) S Dixon 3-9-4 A Kirby -4444 STELLARTA 33 M Blanshard 3-9-4 D Probert 13113 PHAROH JAKE 42 (CD) J Bridger 6-9-4 W A Carson 24510 DIVINE CALL 9 (V,CD) J M Bradley 7-9-2 L Keniry

9-2 Tychaios, 6-1 Classic Pursuit, 13-2 Half Way, 7-1 Rocket Rob, 8-1 others.

Carlisle Going: soft 12.20 (2m ch) 1, Indian Voyage (Daragh Bourke, 3-1 fav); 2, Un Guet Apens (8-1); 3, Supreme Asset (13-2). 7 ran. NR: Mitchell's Way. Sh hd, 2Kl. M Barnes.

12.50 (2m 1f hdle) 1, Ebony Express (W Kennedy, 2-1); 2, Northside Prince (13-2); 3, Zaidiyn (6-4 fav). 11 ran. 8l, 1Kl. Dr R Newland.

1.20 (2m 3f 110yd hdle) 1, U Name It (Callum Bewley, 12-1); 2, Five In A Row (5-6 fav); 3, Divine Port (9-4). 7 ran. Nk, 12l. R Smith.

1.55 (2m ch) 1, Yorkist (Danny Cook, 9-4 fav); 2, Ifandbutwhynot (9-2); 3, Morning Royalty (7-2). 7 ran. NR: Clondaw Kaempfer. 9l, 3Kl. B Ellison.

2.25 (2m 3f 110yd hdle) 1, Spanish Fleet (B Hughes, 2-1 fav); 2, Pistol (40-1); 3, Uisge Beatha (13-2). 10 ran. 4Kl, 2Kl. J Wade.

3.00 (3m 2f ch) 1, Milborough (G B Watters, 7-2); 2, Fill The Power (9-4 fav); 3, Set– tledoutofcourt (11-4). 5 ran. NR: Tutchec.

3l, 35l. I Duncan.

3.30 (3m 1f hdle) 1, Madam Lilibet (Mr H Stock, 13-8 fav); 2, Bollin Julie (13-2); 3, Grey Area (10-1). 9 ran. 2Kl, 5l. Mrs S Watt.

Jackpot: £18,072.00 Placepot: £24.40.

Quadpot: £7.00.

Leicester Going: good to soft (good in places) 12.40 (2m ch) 1, Stellar Notion (P J Brennan, Evens fav); 2, Couldhavehaditall (33-1); 3, Morning Reggie (16-1). 8 ran. 13l, 2Nl. T George.

1.10 (2m hdle) 1, Swampfire (Sam Twiston-Davies, 11-4); 2, Glenconkeyne (2-1 fav); 3, Boston Blue (5-1). 7 ran. NR: Ernie.

Kl, 3Ol. F Brennan.

1.45 (2m 7f 110yd ch) 1, The Ould Lad (P J Brennan, 9-4 fav); 2, Winged Crusader (7-1); 3, Master Rajeem (12-1). 11 ran. 8l, 6l. T George.

2.15 (2m hdle) 1, Rock On Rocky (C Poste, 6-1); 2, John Louis (6-4 fav); 3, Batavir (13-8). 7 ran.

NR: Bathcounty, Mandy’s Boy. 8l, 1Ol. M Sheppard.

2.50 (2m 4f 110yd ch) 1, One For The Boss (R T Dunne, 5-2); 2, Rebel High (9-1); 3, Cool Bob (33-1). Crescent Beach (4th) 15-8 fav. 7 ran.

3Ol, 7l. D Burchell.

3.20 (2m 4f 110yd hdle) 1, Private Malone (Aidan Coleman, 2-5 fav); 2, Baku Bay (3-1); 3, Wish In A Well (25-1). 5 ran. 2Ol, 60l.

Miss E Lavelle.

Placepot: £13.40.

Quadpot: £6.30.

6 Rob Wright hit bookmakers with Wolverhampton winner Jersey Cream (40-1) on Satur– day.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

57

FGM

Lynagh targets new rebuilding job Christmas Appeal After a narrow escape, the Australian has been working in support of fellow stroke survivors, writes John Westerby

A

t the 30th anniversary reunion in Sydney of the grand-slam Wallabies recently, the touring team that created such a vivid impression in beating the four home nations in 1984, the old team-mates decided to hand out an award for the player who had best retained his youthful looks. After some debate on a cruise around the harbour, it was a dead heat between Michael Lynagh, their fly half and centre, and Matthew Burke, the wing, who had made his debut on that tour. It would have to be the backs, wouldn’t it?

To see Lynagh at work in his central London office, this is hardly surprising.

That chap sitting at the back of the office, peering at a computer screen, is unmistakably the same bloke who directed some of the finest back lines the game has seen. The blond, curly hair might mingle with the odd grey streak now, but, at 51, Lynagh looks healthy. You would certainly never guess that he had suffered a lifethreatening stroke two years ago.

Lynagh is acutely aware of his good fortune, having avoided many of the physical effects suffered by stroke survivors. His unchanged appearance, though, causes problems. In Lynagh’s case, the only serious impairment caused by the stroke has been to the peripheral vision on his left side.

“Because I look OK, it can get frustrating at times when people don’t realise,” he said. “On the Tube, people have had a go at me because I’ve knocked into them. I can’t stop them and say, ‘Look, this is the story’.”

We are talking on the morning that news has broken that Phillip Hughes, the Australia batsman, has failed to recover from the blow to the head sustained while batting at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Quite apart from sharing the sense of shock and sadness felt the world over, the injury stirs painful recollections for Lynagh.

“His injury was identical to what happened to me when I had my stroke,” Lynagh said. “The artery split, blood

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Plumpton Rob Wright

12.40 Kleitomachos 2.40 Zero Visibility 1.10 Chris Pea Green 3.10 Raid Stane 1.40 Cannon Fodder 3.40 Corner Creek 2.10 Head Spin Thunderer’s double 1.40 Southway Star (nap).

3.10 Cheat The Cheater.

Going: soft At The Races

12.40 Novices' Hurdle (£3,509: 2m) (12)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

PP-0 ACHEMENES 24 D Steele 5-10-12 Mr H G Miller (7) 532-4 CIVIL WAR 33F (BF) G L Moore 5-10-12 J E Moore 62 DUSKY LARK 28 C Tizzard 4-10-12 D Jacob 05 EPSOM FLYER 14 P Phelan 4-10-12 J Best 4-605 HANDSOME HORACE 20 P Hobbs 4-10-12 R Johnson 4P KLEITOMACHOS 11 W S Kittow 6-10-12 P Brennan 1114- LORD NAVITS 256 (T,V,D) D Bridgwater 6-10-12 J Hodson (7) -2212 SIOBHANS BEAUTY 55 J Snowden 6-10-12 B Powell

0 SONG AND DANCE MAN 20 G L Moore 4-10-12 9 Joshua Moore 10 20-00 THE CIDER MAKER 11 C Tizzard 4-10-12 Paul O'Brien (7) 2 TINGO IN THE TALE 20 D Arbuthnot 5-10-12 T Cannon 11 H Haynes 12 6-00 BONNIE MAJOR 204 G Enright 4-10-5 9-4 Civil War, 3-1 Tingo In The Tale, 5-1 Kleitomachos, 11-2 Siobhans Beauty, 7-1 Dusky Lark, 11-1 Handsome Horace, 22-1 others.

Rob Wright’s choice: Kleitomachos was pulled up after a rein snapped at Chepstow Dangers: Tingo In The Tale, Civil War

1.10

Novices' Chase (£7,798: 2m 1f) (4)

3-222 CHRIS PEA GREEN 23 (D) G L Moore 5-10-13 Joshua Moore 2 0P/25 ROMEO AMERICO 42 (H,D) J S Mullins 7-10-13 A Thornton ALBATROS DE GUYE Miss A Newton-Smith 4-10-7 3 A Wedge M Goldstein 4 36504 WHAT'S FOR TEA 5 (T,V) P Butler 9-10-6 1

RUSSELL CHEYNE / GETTY IMAGES

Sport

Robertson inspired by memory of countryman Snooker

Hector Nunns

Lynagh has changed little, below, since he was a player, above, despite his stroke

pools compressing against the brain.

With Phillip, the swelling and the blood went into the spinal column and stopped him breathing, whereas mine clotted just before it reached the spinal column.” His voice wavers with emotion. “He got hit with a ball, poor guy, but the split was the same thing.

But for the grace of God, that was me.”

Lynagh’s stroke occurred at the end of a business trip. He had spent a few days working in Singapore, then travelled to Brisbane, his home town, where he would catch up with friends for dinner. It was after a steak and two light beers that he began to choke.

“Someone told a joke, I laughed, then coughed and spluttered. All of a sudden I couldn’t see and started getting a headache,” he said. “One of my mates said, ‘Are you all right?’ and I said, ‘No’.”

Having travelled from the other side of the world, Lynagh’s life was in danger a short drive from his parents’ home. “They heard the ambulance go past their house,” he said. “They came to the hospital and my dad, who’s a clinical psychologist and has seen a few brain scans, saw an X-ray. He noticed a clot as big as a fist and thought, ‘Poor bloke, he must have gone’. It was only then that somebody

said, ‘That’s your son’.”Happily, Lynagh had a narrow escape and now works in support of the Stroke Association’s Back to Work project, which offers survivors and their employers assistance as they return to the workplace. A year after his stroke, Lynagh ran the London Marathon to raise funds for the charity. He is not running now — “the knees are shot” — so he cycles in Richmond Park, near the home he shares with Isabella, his wife, and their three sons.

He has resumed a full working life, combining commercial property with punditry for Sky. “I was self-employed at the time and most of the companies I worked with were understanding,” he said. “Sky were fantastic. I was able to do the job again, but not all stroke survivors are so lucky. I met one woman who worked as a chief financial officer and she couldn’t function in her job after her stroke, which must have been incredibly difficult.

“So they found her a role working at the office on the front desk and she loved it. She was contributing again.”

That grand slam in 1984 began with a win at Twickenham and Lynagh was back there on Saturday. While he worked for Sky, his father watched the match with his grandsons. “I’m hugely grateful that I can still work,” Lynagh says. “I know how lucky I’ve been.”

6 Donations to the Stroke Associatio Association will be matched by ICAP ICAP, the leading markets operator

1.40

2.40

Mares' Handicap Hurdle

(£7,148: 3m 1f 110y) (6)

1 00-50 CANNON FODDER 16 (CD) Sheena West 7-11-12 M Goldstein G Sheehan 2 02-P0 TEOCHEW 23 (P) W Greatrex 6-11-10 S Bowen (7) 3 51532 GRAPE TREE FLAME 32 P Bowen 6-11-4 4 P1111 SOUTHWAY STAR 6 (T) N King 9-11-4 Miss B Andrews (7) C Deutsch (5) 5 25322 COVE 9 (P) N Gifford 7-11-2 L Aspell 6 1PP-4 MISTRAL REINE 16 Mrs L Wadham 5-10-11 100-30 Southway Star, 7-2 Cannon Fodder, Teochew, 4-1 Cove, 5-1 Grape Tree Flame, 9-1 Mistral Reine.

Wright choice: Cannon Fodder was out of his depth at Cheltenham and will find this easier Danger: Cove

2.10 1 2 3 4

Handicap Chase (£2,404: 2m 4f) (4)

-5PP4 SHANTOU BREEZE 6 (V,CD) M Madgwick 7-11-12 M Goldstein 64121 ALRIGHT BENNY 28 (CD) Paul Henderson 11-11-11 Tom O'Brien -2312 HEAD SPIN 21 (T,P) J S Mullins 6-11-10 A Thornton F35-2 BOBBITS WAY 10 (P) A Jones 9-11-4 A Wedge

1-2 Chris Pea Green, 15-8 Romeo Americo, 20-1 Albatros De Guye, 50-1 What's For Tea.

11-8 Alright Benny, 5-2 Head Spin, 4-1 Shantou Breeze, 9-2 Bobbits Way.

Wright choice: Chris Pea Green boasts easily the best form and is hard to oppose Danger: Romeo Americo

Wright choice: Head Spin, fitted with a tongue-tie after a second at Southwell, can take this Danger: Alright Benny

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Handicap Hurdle (£2,274: 2m) (8)

12P-6 HOLD THE BUCKS 11 (CD) D Steele 8-11-12 F Mitchell (7) 530-0 SHALIANZI 30 (V) G L Moore 4-11-11 G Gorman (10) 00-56 MARIA'S CHOICE 110 Jim Best 5-11-8 A P McCoy /00P- ASK JOE 334 Paul Henderson 7-11-3 Mr G Treacy (7) P06-P DUDE ALERT 24 (V) Miss A Newton-Smith 4-11-0 A Wedge 064 LORD BRANTWOOD 28 T Vaughan 3-10-6 R Johnson 04001 ZERO VISIBILITY 15 A Dunn 7-10-0 Mrs A Dunn (5) 06-65 MACCABEES 14 (H) Mrs L Jewell 5-10-0 T Cheesman (7)

11-4 Zero Visibility, 9-2 Hold The Bucks, 5-1 Shalianzi, 11-2 Lord Brantwood, Maria's Choice, 7-1 Ask Joe, 8-1 Maccabees, 100-1 Dude Alert.

Wright choice: Zero Visibility is up just 2lb for a recent win at Fontwell Dangers: Maria’s Choice, Hold The Bucks

3.10

Handicap Chase

(£2,404: 3m 2f) (7)

S Bowen (7) 1 -P054 RAID STANE 22 (P) P Bowen 8-11-12 M D Grant 2 34332 BALLYVONEEN 34 (CD) N King 9-11-11 M Batchelor 3 P4035 YA HAFED 6 (P) Sheena West 6-11-5 4 P5-P4 ACCORDING TO THEM 8 (T,CD) D Steele 10-11-3 F Mitchell (7) 5 10P03 WHERE'D YA HIDE IT 15 (P) Paul Henderson 8-10-13 Mr G Treacy (7)

Neil Robertson paid his own tribute to Phillip Hughes at the Coral UK Championship — and then admitted afterwards that the bat left by the side of his chair had helped motivate him during a challenging encounter against Kyren Wilson, the English prospect.

Robertson, the first Australian to win the world title, four years ago, walked into the Barbican Centre in York carrying a cricket bat and left it close to his chair during the second-round match.

A below-par display very nearly saw Robertson, 32, go the same way as Mark Selby, the world champion and world No 1, who went out to David Morris, of Ireland, on Saturday.

But with Robertson trailing 5-4 and the colours at Wilson’s mercy, the 22year-old lost position on the final brown within three pots of victory, allowing the champion to level before winning the decider with a nerveless break of 86.

“A lot of Australian sportsmen paid tribute to Phil Hughes over the weekRobertson won the last two frames to edge past Wilson

end, and this was my chance to do it,” said Robertson, who will now play Peter Ebdon, another former UK winner.

“It was to show my respects for him and for his family — and I think it made me a little more motivated out there to stick in and try and get the win.

“Not giving in is an Australian trait, he had it and hopefully I showed it today. Every time I walked back to my chair I could see it, and it did help motivate me especially digging in at the end.

“I placed the bat deliberately where I did, next to my chair, so it was always in my eye walking back to my chair or between frames. But to be honest I would love to win the tournament and then dedicate that to his memory and his family — that would be fitting.”

Ken Doherty, a finalist in this tournament on three occasions, produced a fine comeback to beat Michael White, of Wales, 6-4 after trailing 3-0.

“It wasn’t looking so hot at 3-0 down — but I like a comeback and giving value for money!” said the 45-year-old Irishman. “I won an important fourth frame, and that settled me down a bit.

“I have had a lot of good matches here at the Barbican over the years, and this is one of the ones you really want to do well in.”

6 7

23-06 BRUNETTE'SONLY 11 (P,CD) J S Mullins 9-10-12 A Thornton 60-23 CHEAT THE CHEATER 12 (T,P) Miss C Dyson 7-10-11 J E Moore

5-2 Cheat The Cheater, 11-4 Ballyvoneen, 5-1 According To Them, 11-2 Brunette'Sonly, 8-1 Raid Stane, 10-1 Where'd Ya Hide It, 14-1 Ya Hafed.

Wright choice: Raid Stane, fourth at Ffos Las, should appreciate this stiffer test Danger: Cheat The Cheater

3.40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

National Hunt Flat Race

(£1,625: 2m 2f) (9)

UF1-1 RUDE AND CRUDE 14 (T,CD) Mrs L Hill 5-11-9 C Deutsch (5) 1-2 CORNER CREEK 21 M Scudamore 4-11-2 R Johnson 2 OH SO FRUITY 24 G L Moore 4-11-2 J E Moore QUINCY MAGOO N King 5-11-2 M D Grant 2- RED DEVIL STAR 281P (T) Miss S Smith 4-11-2 P Brennan 0- SIR HUBERT 234 R Rowe 4-11-2 A Thornton 0-01 TAMBURA 10 G Maundrell 4-11-2 Mr Z Baker (7) 4- TOOHIGHFORME 281 N Gifford 5-11-2 T Cannon WHISPERING SPEED (P) Mrs L Wadham 4-11-2 L Aspell

3-1 Corner Creek, 7-2 Rude And Crude, 9-2 Oh So Fruity, 5-1 Tambura, 15-2 Red Devil Star, 9-1 Quincy Magoo, 12-1 Toohighforme, 16-1 others.

Wright choice: Corner Creek raced too freely when well backed at Carlisle Dangers: Oh So Fruity, Rude And Crude

58

FGM

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Sport

Cry me a river . . . the dangers of salmon farming TONY GWYNNE

Brian Clarke

fishing correspondent

I

n June, 1975, after an overnight drive across Ireland, I arrived at the pristine waters of the little River Erriff, in County Mayo.

Within 90 minutes of tackling up at the foot of the famous Aasleagh Falls, I had taken both my first sea trout and first salmon, each magically caught, as it happens, on a fly of my own design and tying.

That week, for my pals and me, was memorable. Fish were everywhere.

They splashed through the shallows and swam up the falls. It was as though some inverse, silvered, ecological jackpot was spilling in from the sea.

In 1988 I went back. The little Erriff was all but dead. Scarcely a salmon was to be seen. The sea trout population had collapsed. Casting over those once teeming waters, so memory-laden, was like fishing for ghosts. It was the same up and down Ireland’s west coast. The reason? A boom in salmon farming had seen fish farms sited in the sheltered estuaries into which the tumbling rivers flowed. Thousands of tonnes of salmon, tens of thousands of fish, were jammed in netting pens on the routes that juvenile salmon and sea trout took on their migration from river to sea.

And then it happened. Salmonids — that is, salmon and trout — are prey to a specialised louse that eats their skin and the jamming together of large numbers of hosts had led to an explosion in parasite numbers. In no time the estuaries of rivers that had once been a magnet for anglers across Europe became a jelly of sea lice through which the little fish had to swim, and most did not make it.

They were either eaten alive at sea or driven back inland to die. The angling tourism on which many of those remote communities relied went into steep decline. Many of the small businesses that serviced it failed. It took decades for any kind of recovery to be seen.

The Irish experience has not proven unique. One way or another, it has been echoed in most of the 24 countries at present farming salmon in the sea, Scotland not excepted.

Turbulent waters: where once the waters of the Erriff once teemed with salmon and sea trout now few are to be seen

Why all of this now? Because in spite of it the government, through one of its agencies, is threatening to establish salmonid farms in tidal waters around England, potentially endangering some of the pitifully diminished populations of salmon and sea trout that the United Kingdom has left.

Indeed, plans for a first pilot project, targeted for West Country waters through which migrating fish have to swim, have only just been abandoned.

The project was launched last year when the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science

(CEFAS) joined with the British Trout Association, a fish-farming lobby, and with the Crown Estate to seek a commercial partner to develop a farm off southern Cornwall. The aim was to produce 1,000 tonnes a year of big rainbow trout there and then to develop further farms along the south coast and beyond.

The west country is home to some famous, still surviving salmon and sea trout populations and the announcement produced an outcry.

The Salmon and Trout Association and the Angling Trust, the sport’s representative organisation, lobbied

furiously. So did the South West Rivers Association, the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Institute of Fisheries Management. Fish Legal, angling’s formidable legal arm and a body that has already successfully fought cases for damage to wild fisheries caused by escaped trout, promised immediate action if damage resulted.

Last month, CEFAS and its collaborators pulled back. A statement said the consortium had failed to find a commercial partner able to develop the Cornwall scheme to sufficiently high standards on an

acceptable timescale. As a consequence, that project would “not be progressed at this time”. The door for other such projects, however, was left wide open — leaving the game fisheries of the south, the north east, the north west and conceivably of Wales, at possible future risk.

The fact that open-net salmonid farming could have been considered for such waters at any time has demonstrated a stunning disregard for their fragility, especially given the problems being caused by similar projects in Scotland right now.

More than 400 such farms have been sited in west coast sea lochs in recent years, producing the kind of disastrous impact on wild salmon and sea trout first reported in Ireland 30odd years ago. Freedom of information requests by anglers and others and reports on sea-lice levels

by Scottish salmon producers themselves have shown a consistent failure to control parasite numbers in the region. Whereas wild young fish might naturally have a token lice or two on them, many had been found dead or dying covered by hundreds.

A survey of 35 rivers has shown that those with fish farms offshore had between 40 per cent and 80 per cent fewer juvenile salmon in them than might have been expected.

There is evidence to suggest that salmon lice are becoming resistant to chemical treatments. What is more, the lice toll in Scotland has been exacerbated by regular escapes of fertile farm salmon. These tame fish, bred for a life in cages, have been breeding with wild fish, so weakening the genetic integrity of a wild stock already massively down on historical levels.

While rainbow trout, which are sterile, could not breed with wild trout, game fish populations south of the border have problems of their own — among them diffuse pollution, in-river barriers to natural migration, overabstraction of river water and much else. The last thing they need is the threat of lice infestation and the likelihood of predation by large escaped farmed trout on the young trout and salmon in rivers.

It is all why angling organisations, alongside many others, will fight any proposal that sites a salmon farm close enough to a game fishing river to endanger it. Potential developers, it is hoped, are taking note.

6 Brian Clarke’s angling column appears on the first Monday of each month

Results Basketball BBL : Plymouth 91 Sheffield 90; London 89 Leicester 75; Glasgow 99 Worcester 96.

Cricket Third Test match Pakistan v New Zealand

Sharjah (fourth day of five): New Zealand beat Pakistan by an innings and 80 runs Pakistan: First Innings 351 (Mohammad Hafeez 197; M D Craig 7 for 94) Second Innings Mohammad Hafeez c and b Craig 24 Shan Masood c Southee b Boult 4 Azhar Ali b Boult 6 Younus Khan lbw b Boult 0 *Misbah-ul-Haq c Watling b Craig 12 Asad Shafiq c Craig b Boult 137 †Sarfraz Ahmed c Taylor b Sodhi 37 Yasir Shah lbw b Sodhi 10 Mohammad Talha lbw b Vettori 19 Rahat Ali c McCullum b Craig 6 Zulfiqar Babar not out 0 Extras (lb 2, w 1, nb 1) 4 Total (63.3 overs) 259 Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-20, 3-24, 4-36, 5-63, 6136, 7-146, 8-180, 9-258.

Bowling: Boult 15-6-38-4; Southee 11-3-20-0; Craig 20.3-2-109-3; Vettori 5-2-8-1; Sodhi 12-0-82-2.

New Zealand: First Innings (overnight 637-8) M D Craig c and b Hafeez 65 I S Sodhi c Khan b Yasir 22 T A Boult not out 0 Extras (b 2, lb 7, w 8, nb 6) 23 Total (143.1 overs) 690

Fall of wickets: 1-51, 2-348, 3-464, 4-488, 5-528, 6-537, 7-546, 8-637, 9-682.

Bowling: Talha 22-2-136-0; Ali 29-2-99-4; Babar 23-1-135-0; Yasir 44.1-4-193-4; Hafeez 23-2110-2; Ali 2-0-8-0.

Umpires: PR Reiffel (Australia) and RJ Tucker (Australia).

Golf Australian Open Sydney: Selected leading scores after final round: (Australia unless stated): 271: J Spieth (US) 67, 72, 69, 63. 277: R Pampling 73, 67, 69, 68. 278: B Rumford 70, 69, 69, 70. 279: G Chalmers 71, 66, 71, 71. 280: A Scott 74, 66, 69, 71. 281: J Higginbottom 71, 69, 72, 69. 283 R Allenby 71, 69, 73, 70; R Fox 72, 72, 69, 70. 284: D Nisbet 74, 72, 67, 71. 286: R McIlroy (N Ire) 69, 69, 76, 72.

Ice hockey Elite League: Sheffield 3 Belfast 4; Coventry 1 Nottingham 3.

Rugby union Internationals Saturday England

26 Australia

17

England: Tries: Morgan 2. Cons: Ford 2. Pens: Ford 4. Australia: Tries: Foley, Skelton. Cons: Foley, Cooper. Pen: Foley. HT: 13-3. Att: 82,049.

Wales

12 South Africa

6

Wales: Pens: Halfpenny 4. South Africa: Pens: Lambie 2. HT: 3-3. Att: 58,235.

Aviva Premiership London Irish

9 Gloucester

21

London Irish: Pens: Geraghty 3. Gloucester: Tries: Purdy, McColl. Con: Laidlaw. Pens: Laidlaw 3. HT: 0-3. Att: 1,000.

London Welsh 14 Northampton 43 London Welsh: Tries: Vea, Reynolds. Cons: Ross, Robinson. Northampton: Tries: Clark, Myler, Manoa, Elliott, Foden, Wilson, Nutley.

Cons: Myler 4. HT: 0-19. Att: 2,348.

Newcastle 13 Sale Sharks 18 Newcastle: Try: Socino. Con: Clegg. Pens: Clegg 2. Sale: Tries: Braid, Leota. Con: Cipriani. Pens: Cipriani 2. HT: 10-8. Att: 5,572.

Saturday Exeter Chiefs 27 Saracens 19 Exeter: Pens: Steenson 9. Saracens: Try: Itoje.

Con: Goode. Pens: Hodgson 4. HT: 18-6. Att: 10,335.

Leicester 18 Wasps 16 Leicester: Pens: O Williams 6. Wasps: Try: Leiua. Con: Goode. Pens: Goode 3. HT: 9-3. Att: 21,907.

Guinness Pro12 Glasgow Warriors 19 NG Dragons 15 Glasgow: Try: Penalty. Con: Weir. Pens: Weir 4.

Newport Gwent D’gons: Pens: R Jones 5. HT: 69. Att: 5,289.

Saturday Connacht 14 Scarlets 8 Connacht: Try: Healy. Pens: Carty 3. Scarlets: Try: Robinson. Pen: S Shingler. HT: 3-8. Att: 5,631.

Leinster 18 Ospreys 12 Leinster: Pens: Madigan 3, Gopperth 3. Ospreys: Pens: Davies 4. HT: 9-9.

Zebre 18 Edinburgh 10 Zebre: Tries: Bisegni, Visentin. Con: Haimona.

Pens: Haimona 2. Edinburgh: Try: Grant. Con: Heathcote. Pen: Heathcote. HT: 3-7. Att: 2,500.

Munster Ospreys Glasgow Ulster Leinster Connacht Scarlets Edinburgh Cardiff Blues Zebre NG Dragons Treviso

P 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

W 7 7 7 6 5 6 4 3 2 2 1 0

D 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 1

L 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 5 6 7 8 8

F 217 237 221 224 226 162 194 130 197 108 128 125

A 133 138 161 119 148 139 160 213 253 227 211 267

B Pts 22 32 22 31 23 31 24 31 25 28 17 27 20 23 12 15 20 13 10 9 8 8 13 4

British & Irish Cup: Pool one: Bristol 31 Pontypridd 26; London Scottish 17 Connacht 7.

Pool two: Rotherham Titans 52 Ulster 17; Aberavon 32 Yorkshire Carnegie 43. Pool three: Munster 23 Nottingham 16; Worcester 31 Moseley 12. Pool four: Bedford 15 Doncaster 17; Cross Keys 21 Cornish Pirates 30. Pool five: Jersey 14 Plyouth Albion 23; Leinster 67 Carmarthen Quins 12.

SSE National League: First division: Blaydon 39 Macclesfield 0; Wharfedale 29 Richmond 19; Loughborough Students 30 Hartpury College 13; Blackheath 48 Tynedale 7; Coventry 32 Ealing Trailfinders 26; Fylde 35 Cinderford 11; Old Albanians 24 Esher 22; Rosslyn Park 29 Darlington Mowden Park 19.

B Pts P W D L F A Ealing 13 12 0 1 492 224 11 59 Rosslyn Park 13 12 0 1 411 242 10 58 Coventry 13 11 0 2 424 289 8 52 Fylde 13 9 1 3 400 268 12 50

Richmond 13 8 0 5 360 331 8 40 Blackheath 13 7 0 6 373 304 11 39 Esher 13 6 0 7 325 307 10 34 Blaydon 13 6 0 7 314 291 8 32 Tynedale 13 6 0 7 293 431 4 28 Hartpury 13 5 0 8 326 349 6 26 Wharfedale 13 5 0 8 260 382 6 26 Loughborough 13 4 0 9 315 319 10 26 Old Albanian 13 5 0 8 261 325 4 24 Darlington 13 4 1 8 363 319 9 22 Cinderford 13 2 0 11 221 356 7 15 Macclesfield 13 1 0 12 157 558 1 5 Second division: North: Harrogate 38 Chester 15; Hull 3 Ampthill 67; Leicester Lions 13 Broadstreet 21; Luctonians 17 Hull Ionians 36; Otley 41 Stockport 12; Caldy 40 Sedgley Park 34; Huddersfield 14 Birmingham & Solihull 22; Stourbridge 46 Preston Grasshoppers 36.

South: Bishop’s Stortford 25 Chinnor 20; Worthing 24 Dings Crusaders 28; Clifton 12 Cambridge 9; Old Elthamians 18 Launceston 20; Redruth 12 Dorking 38; Shelford 21 Henley 59; Canterbury 29 Southend 10; Taunton 49 Lydney 17.

Scottish Premiership: Heriots 29 Hawick 15; Melrose 20 Stirling County 18; Ayr 18 Glasgow Hawks 6; Boroughmuir 22 Edinburgh Acads 16; Currie 21 Gala 10.

National League Division One: Aberdeen Grammar 25 Watsonians 16; GHA 12 Dundee HSFP 38; Marr 30 Hillhead/Jordanhill 10; Stewart’s Melville FP 34 Peebles 18; Jed-Forest 22 Biggar 24; Selkirk 18 Kelso 12.

Snooker UK Championship York: Second round: (England unless stated) J Cahill bt A Higginson 6-4; G Dott (Sco) bt A

Hamilton 6-4; A McGill (Sco) bt I Figueiredo (Bra) 6-4; N Bond bt B Hawkins 6-5; R Walden bt R Williams 6-5; M Allen (N Ire) bt L Brecel (Bra) 6-0; N Robertson (Aus) bt K Wilson 6-5.

Tennis International Premier League Manila, Philippines: Manila Mavericks bt Singapore Slammers 27-19 (6-2, 6-5, 6-1, 3-6, 6-5); Indian Aces bt UAE Royals 28-20 (4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4).

P W L L20L10 Pts GW GL 0 0 12 78 51 Indian Aces...........3 3 0 1 0 10 77 74 UAE Royals............3 2 1 1 1 7 66 72 Manila Mavericks . 3 1 2 1 2 4 57 81 Singapore Slammers3 0 3 Wheelchair Masters London: Semi-final: A van Koot (Neth) bt J Whiley (GB) 6-7, 7-5, 6-2.

Fixtures Football For the full week’s fixtures, see page 18 of the game

Badminton National Badminton League: Birmingham Lions v University of Nottingham (7.0).

Pool Mosconi Cup (Tower Circus, Blackpool, 7.0).

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Fury sets his sights on Klitschko JULIAN FINNEY / GETTY IMAGES

Boxing

Ron Lewis Boxing Correspondent

Tyson Fury and Billy Joe Saunders emerged from a cold, misty night in East London, as world-title contenders.

There has never been a British world champion from a gypsy background, there could be two by next summer, but their next steps will be the biggest.

Fury is likely to have to wait until July for his shot at Wladimir Klitschko, the WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight champion. At 26, Fury is improving all the time and displayed a decent quality in all the best champions in his beating of Dereck Chisora — realising that winning is more important than whether or not the fight stinks.

For a rematch that had been nearly 12 months in the making, Fury-Chisora 2 was a terrible anticlimax, not helped because of the late hour.

There were seven title bouts on the bill at the ExCeL and the first six went the distance, hence it was 12.30am when Fury and Chisora entered the ring, coincidentally the same time that the last train left for central London. It meant plenty of empty seats for the start of the main event, a number that grew as the action got increasingly onesided.

Fury boxed to a masterful game plan, switching to southpaw in the second round, a style Chisora was unprepared for and unable to cope with. Fury stayed light on his feet, gave ground to his opponent and made him walk into punches all night. “Tyson never got out of second or third gear, he just let Dereck come in and eat the shots,” said Peter Fury, Tyson’s uncle and trainer.

It soon became monotonous and the crowd booed. Fury did not bow to the crowd’s demands for more excitement as he repeatedly flicked a right jab into Chisora’s face. After ten rounds, with Chisora’s face swollen and his legs slowing, his corner pulled him out to spare any more pain.

“I’m not interested in a few people who have had a beer and want a slugfest,” Peter Furyy said. “There is a lot at stake.

Tyson had to be patient, but this is another side to him.

There are many things I have seen in the gym that the public hasn’t.

“Tyson has a big advantage because he can prepare for other people but they can’t prepare for him. He is able to change his tacticss and box to a different game plan every time.”

Cricket

Michael Clarke, the Australia captain, described Phillip Hughes as “a brother” in a newspaper column yesterday having struggled through tears to read a tribute from the team to the late batsman 24 hours earlier.

Cricket Australia has postponed the first Test against India in Brisbane due to begin on Thursday, the day after the funeral for Hughes in the sports hall of his old school in Macksville, about 300 miles from Sydney.

Hughes, who died last Thursday after being struck by a bouncer two days earlier, played as a 17-year-old alongside Clarke for the Western Suburbs club before they became international colleagues. The article for Australia’s

McCullum hails ‘not so easy’ New Zealand win Cricket Brendon McCullum hailed New Zealand’s “not so easy” win in the third Test in Sharjah yesterday after the death of Phillip Hughes, the Australia batsman. New Zealand beat Pakistan by an innings and 80 runs to draw the three-match series 1-1 in a Test overshadowed by the Australia batsman’s death on Thursday.

“It certainly wasn’t easy,” the New Zealand captain said. “It was a very tough period. We are nowhere as affected as the guys back in Australia, but at the same time, cricket is a community . . . it is a fraternity and we felt we lost one of our own.” Pakistan were bowled out for 351 and 259 having raced to 281 for three on the first day.

Spieth shoots record Golf Jordan Spieth, below, played the best round of an already impressive career when he shot a course record 63 to win the Australian Open by six strokes yesterday, making his first trip down under a successful one.

Spieth’s 72-hole total of 13-under 271 at the windy Australian Golf Club made him the first American to win the Australian Open since Brad Faxon in 1993. Rory McIlroy, the defending champion, who shot 76 on Saturday, finished with a 72 to close 15 strokes behind Spieth.

Moimoi coup for Leigh On the back foot: Eubank takes evasive action as Saunders goes on the attack while Fury, below, shows off his three belts

The 6ft 9in Fury could be a superstar, but his inactivity this year, while Anthony Joshua, the Olympic gold medal-winner has hogged the headlines, plus his tendency to explode into foulmouthed rants on Twitter have led to people disregarding his ability.

Saunders is likely to get his chance at a wo world title first, after he withstood a late comeback from Chris Eubank Jr

for a split-decision victory that meant he retains the British, Commonwealth and European middleweight titles and wins a Lonsdale Belt outright.

He is now set to face either Andy Lee or Matt Korobov, who meet for the WBO title in Las Vegas on December 13. Frank Warren, the promoter, hopes to stage Saunders’s big night at the O2 arena, on February 28, which might be a bit ambitious, although Saunders showed he is now enough of a name to top the bill at London’s biggest arena, having given his profile a huge boost by beating the son of the former world champion.

It is likely the two will meet again,

when Eubank is more experienced and Saunders, he hopes, is a world champion. Saunders built a huge lead in the first half of the bout, which Eubank could not claw back, try as he might in an impressive finish. “I got a bit complacent with him, because for the first six rounds it was easy,” Saunders said.

Saunders’s victory was a testament to his fitness, having gone to train in Marbella for six weeks away from the distractions of home — a caravan on a travellers’ site in Hertfordshire.

“I said if I didn’t beat Eubank I was going to retire,” he said. “But I did beat him and I’m going to throw a big party for all the caravans on the site.”

Clarke pays moving tribute to ‘brother’ Hughes Bernard Lagan Sydney Richard Hobson

Sport

Sunday Telegraph was especially poignant as Hughes would have celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday.

Clarke wrote: “I don’t have a blood brother, but I am very proud to have called Phillip my brother. I am a better man for having known him. I remember the last time we batted together. We would meet in the middle of the pitch and I would be asking him whether the ball was moving in the air or off the deck.

“All he could do was talk about his cattle. What that man didn’t know about cows wasn’t worth knowing. He was a world champion at expressing the smallest facts about Black Angus in particular. He loved them so much he was trying to convince me to run a herd of them on my own farm.”

In a second tragedy, Hillel Awasker, a former Israel captain in ICC tourna-

ments, was killed at the weekend while umpiring a game in Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv. Awasker suffered a heart attack after being hit by a ball that ricocheted off the stumps at the bowler’s end.

Naor Gudkar, the Israeli Cricket Clarke played with Hughes at every level of the game

Association chief executive, promised an investigation. “I am not sure there was anything we could have done,” he said. “This is a one-in-a-million accident.” Professional umpires have considered wearing protective equip-

ment in Twenty20 cricket, where balls are regularly struck very firmly and straight.

Alastair Cook, who has spoken of his shared love of farming with Hughes, is unlikely to leave the England tour of Sri Lanka to go to the funeral of Hughes this week. The squad will travel to Hambantota today before the third game in the one-day series on Wednesday, which may be put back by 24 hours to avoid a clash.

The captain came in for renewed criticism after England lost by eight wickets in Colombo to go 2-0 down on Saturday, but Ravi Bopara said that the blame should be shared among the batsmen. “A lot of us have not scored runs over the past few games,” Bopara said. “One man does not lose you a game.”

Scoreboard, page 58

Rugby league Leigh Centurions

have pulled off a coup by signing Fuifui Moimoi, the former New Zealand forward, who represented Tonga in last year’s World Cup, in their attempt to regain promotion to the First Utility Super League.

Moimoi, 35, was a cult figure for 11 years with Parramatta Eels and represents Leigh’s biggest signing.

He will join the Kingstone Press Championship side in January on a one-year contract with the option for a second season.

Watton levels matters Hockey England were forced to

settle for a hard fought 1-1 draw against Germany after Georgie Twigg missed a penalty stroke three minutes from time in the Champions Trophy in Mendoza, Argentina. After losing 2-1 to Australia on Saturday and with Alex Danson, their captain, ruled out of the tournament with a head injury, England fought back when Ellie Watton levelled in the 40th minute after Kristina Hillmann shot Germany ahead.

Buckland’s fall costly Ice skating Penny Coomes and

Nicholas Buckland finished fifth at the International Skating Union Grand Prix of Figure Skating NHK Trophy in Osaka, Japan, yesterday. The couple were in second place after the short dance, but dropped three places after Buckland fell in the free dance.

The event clashed with the weekend’s British championships, preventing Coomes and Buckland from defending their national ice dance title.

60

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Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Sport Rugby union

Ford in driving seat as Sweet Chariot locates direct route Stuart Barnes says that England at last found the approach to maximise their strengths during the victory over the Wallabies on Saturday

Pass Youngs recycles from the ruck finding Wood who draws the defence and pops a delicious pass to Morgan to crash over the tryline

Run with ball

Wood

Morgan

C

K

C

Ford fires a miss-pass to Barritt who blasts over the gainline

U R

B

Youngs Barritt

Ford

‘For too long they have mucked around in the wrong part of the field’ no obvious awareness of their geography.

Not yesterday. Suddenly the only matter they thought about was the orientation of the field. George Ford guided them through it using that computerised map he keeps in his head.

His decision-making and kicking were

M

have frequently tried to use to stimulate their offensive game.

England’s strength is their set piece and for the set piece to win the game, they have to play in the right parts of the field close enough to the opposition line to score points. They have played out three of their four weeks as if matches are extensions of training sessions with

A

U R

Astute kicking forces an England scrum in a dangerous position from which Youngs feeds Ford

SC

F

ield position, set piece, alignment and direction: these are four component parts that comprise the “foundation” of a rugby team. Get them in place and an average team can be hard to beat; fail to lay them, and a good team will lose games they ought to win.

For three weeks this autumn England have struggled with all but the set piece. With it the quality of their performances has been severely undermined. On Saturday, they put their boys’ things away, those static forward passing pods that have been as near to the quality of New Zealand as a tribute band is to the real thing.

Instead they reverted to the less aesthetically pleasing but absolutely crucial foundation-building. Victory against Australia was built wholly upon these basics. England’s first try combined the elements and emphasised that they have it in them to be an extremely powerful team.

First the field position. For far too long this autumn, England have mucked around, trying to play too much rugby in the wrong parts of the pitch with unusable quality of ball. If a team have a back line to bamboozle opponents it is all well and dandy to try and strike from 60 metres but even then, only with quicker ball than they

Back to basics: Morgan’s first try

Youngs

always astute. Ben Youngs, who was also tactically assured throughout but a little too inaccurate with some of his distribution, fired a pass high over the head of Ford. The Bath fly half plucked it and instinctively drilled a diagonal kick into Australia’s 22 beyond Israel Folau.

Admittedly, the fumbling full back’s clumsy knock-on was a break of fortune that enabled the home team to establish base camp in Australia’s 22, but in other weeks the kick would have been a poor one, or worse still, ignored for meandering midfield manoeuvres.

The pack had their field position and with it a head of steam to blow the Wallabies away. The scrum was dominant (the second try was a direct result of England atomising the Australia scrum) and from the Australia 22 it delivered a rock-solid set piece for England to do with whatever they pleased.

Such scenarios scare defences.

Big Ben chimes: Morgan goes over for England whose game on Saturday in the

The next phase in the rehabilitation of England’s foundations was alignment. Ford stood deep when he wanted to kick and eased much flatter when passing. This is not a Ford/Farrell thing.

Farrell is not as easy on the gainline as his rival but he will play wherever his management ask. At this stage in his career, so will Ford, and the management set out a more direct plan.

Guaranteed good ball in a dangerous position, he fired a miss-pass to Brad Barritt on the gainline, not five metres behind it and floating towards touch, but flat and on a bullock of an angle, trajectory set for Australian inside shoulders.

This was as direct as England have been. The move is a variation on the one that the Saracens centre ran as a decoy for Jonny May’s first score against Samoa. This time England sent him direct, down the middle. He blasted over the gainline within reach of the rumbling English pack.

Running forward instead of sideways and on to ball, the speed of secondphase possession was rapid. Tom Wood hurtled from the scrum, angling late from the blind side of the breakdown and took a ball aiming for the fixed Australian midfield. On his outside shoulder was Ben Morgan.

The Gloucester No 8 can be one of

Gatland sees signs that Wales are now conditioned to success Cardiff City Wales

Campbell, 21

West SouthHam Africa United

C Cole 42, Noble 90+3

John Westerby

12 0 2 6 1

The next time Wales trot out at the Millennium Stadium, they will gladly take another ugly win like this. The visiting team on that occasion will be England, for the first match of the RBS Six Nations Championship in World Cup year. Then, as on Saturday, when they ended their long run without success against the southern hemisphere’s big three, the beauty of the team’s performance will be daubed across the scoreboard. In case you’re feeling impatient, that Six Nations pipe-opener is nine weeks on Friday.

Too many times in their run of 22 consecutive defeats against South Africa, Australia or New Zealand, Wales had come close, shown a few flourishes of style, but insufficient substance. This time their defence was res-

olute and they finished the game the from a World Cup pool that includes stronger, fulfilling Warren Gatland’s England and Australia. The last four promise that they would be up to speed weeks were, he said, the first of their by the end of the autumn after two World Cup team camps, with the next weeks of heavy conditioning at the coming during the Six Nations. If Wales start. It wasn’t pretty, but four penwere to qualify as runners-up from that alty goals from Leigh Halfpenny pool, their most likely opponents in the brought Wales their second quarter-final would be South Africa. ever victory over South “Our whole focus is to make sure we Africa and a first for 15 qualify from the pool of death next years. Now they know year,” Gatland said. “I think we’re the they can do it. only country to have had the South Africa’s confidence and the courage to focus disappointment was on the long-term goal. The goal is compounded by the to win the World Cup and I think injury suffered by we’re good enough to do that if Jean de Villiers, the we get the bounce of the ball and captain, who dislothings go our way.” cated his left knee cap Gatland’s own nerve cracked and damaged ligaments. in the final two minutes on SatThere are concerns that the urday, when he could not watch injury could even threaten after Scott Williams had giftthe centre’s career. ed South Africa a five-metre Throughout the last scrum. So often these late month, Gatland has stipubrainstorms have proved lated that his team are now Wales’s undoing, but Biggar tackled like gearing all their preparathis time the scrum rean extra flanker maine tions towards qualifying mained strong, the

Springboks lost control at the base, and Toby Faletau was able to gather.

When the ball was kicked into touch to end the game, Shaun Edwards, sitting in front of Gatland, raised his arms in triumph. The head coach puffed out his cheeks and exhaled with relief.

Wales had been helped by a secondhalf yellow card for Cornal Hendricks, the wing, for an aerial challenge on Halfpenny. Then again, Eben Etzebeth escaped the same punishment for a similar offence in the first half.

The resilience of the home side was typified by a tackle from Halfpenny on Etzebeth in the second half. A delightful shimmy from the 6ft 8in, 19st 10lb lock took him close to the Wales line, but the full back, ten inches shorter and six stone lighter, cut him down.

It is a little soon to be taking the optimism much further after one victory over a southern-hemisphere power.

This game was a reminder, though, that Wales have a spine to their team that Stuart Lancaster must envy.

Halfpenny was a defensive bulwark (he kicks the odd goal too), Jamie

Roberts repeatedly put his side on the front foot, Alun Wyn Jones was a bristling match for the Springboks’ physicality and Sam Warburton confirmed his status as Europe’s pre-eminent open side. Dan Biggar, meanwhile, tackled like an extra flanker and was authoritative in the closing stages.

Yes, South Africa were under strength, but Wales were without George North, Richard Hibbard and Paul James. That Six Nations game in February will be eagerly awaited.

Scorers: Wales: Penalty goals: Halfpenny 4 (4min, 48, 53, 57).

South Africa: Penalty goals: Lambie 2 (10, 51).

Scoring sequence (Wales first): 3-0, 3-3 (half-time), 6-3, 6-6, 9-6, 12-6.

Wales: L Halfpenny (rep: S Williams, 67); A Cuthbert, J Davies, J Roberts, L Williams; D Biggar, R Webb; G Jenkins (rep: A Jarvis, 75), S Baldwin, S Lee, J Ball, A W Jones, D Lydiate, S Warburton, T Faletau.

South Africa: W le Roux; C Hendricks (sin-bin, 63-75), J Serfontein, J de Villiers (rep: D de Allende, 58), L Mvovo; P Lambie (rep: H Pollard, 57), C Reinach (rep: F Hougaard, 62); T Mtawarira (rep: T Nyakane, 54), B du Plessis (rep: A Strauss, 57), C Oosthuizen (rep: J Redelinghuys, 70), E Etzebeth (rep: L de Jager, 67), V Matfield, M Coetzee, T Mohoje (rep: N Carr, 54), D Vermeulen.

Referee: J Lacey (Ireland). Attendance: 58,235.

the times | Monday December 1 2014

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Rugby union Sport

PAUL GILHAM / GETTY IMAGES

Dysfunctional diamonds may still have the final say Rick Broadbent

victory over Australia may have provided the template for success next year

the most effective direct ball-carrying forwards in the game but to maximise his effectiveness he needs to run directly on to a ball rather than halfway across the field where he will fail to get the depth on his run because he has been forced to move so far simply to reach the ruck.

Wood’s running threat held Australia as the Northampton man popped a delicious pass to Morgan who crashed through the remnants of the Wallabies defence for the try that was to set the tone for the display and the victory.

England continued to play in the right parts of the field, they utilised the set piece, scoring tries and penalties

TMO

from scrums in attacking positions, the backs did not play backwards and sideways and most of the attacking was direct, between the two 15-metre lines, coming hard and fast at Australia rather than lazy and lateral.

It was not the complete performance as Stuart Lancaster acknowledged, but it must be the template for England’s immediate future.

Looking backwards over the fourmatch stint of rugby, it is something of an indictment that it took England so long to work out something so basic given the obvious strengths and weaknesses of their team. Still, much, much better late than never.

Australia started their autumn tour reeling from the text-message scandal that led to their coach resigning, and ended it with news that their injured flanker had chained himself to a digger alongside a fifth-generation farmer. It was progress of sorts.

On the pitch Australia continue to delight and frustrate. They are the yin to England’s yang, proof of the nations’ symbiotic love-loathe relationship.

They knock England for their paucity of back play, and Graham Rowntree sniggers at their scrum. Yet, if Michael Cheika can achieve what no Aussie has managed since long before Andrew Sheridan was destroying front rows, then they might just win the World Cup. It is a big, bloated if and it remains to be seen whether there is a toxic fallout from the Kurtley Beale affair and the subsequent departure of Ewen McKenzie. The coach had scarcely been setting the world alight with 11 wins from 22 internationals, but the fug of negativity from off-field problems can cause divisions and distractions.

Beale has acknowledged as much. Perhaps he has read A Fraction of the Whole, a book in which a moral vigilante murders sportsmen for their dubious behaviour; they loved it so much down under it was heralded ed as the “Great Australian Novel”.

England also know about these things from the time Dylan Hartley, James Haskell and Chris Ashton felt “screwed over” by the RFU over false claims of bullying before the last World rld Cup. Bill Pulver, the ARU chief executive, recommended that Beale should be sacked. “There’s been a lot of mental and physical stress on the team,” Cheika said. “You’d have to be naive or dreaming not to admit that.”

Yet despite the Beale saga, despite David Pocock, the flanker, being arrested yesterday at an environmental sit-in, and despite one win from four Tests, they can be frighteningly good.

Cheika has been in the job barely a month and said he did not know twothirds of the squad before the tour. “I’ve seen the positives and negatives of the environment and what needs to be changed in the organisation,” he said.

He then added that he would rebuild the scrum with a new technique, strategy and personnel. Could he do that in ten months? “No choice,” he said.

Some might say he has no chance.

Saturday was not quite on a par with the 2005 Twickenham match when Sheridan’s utter dominance of Al Baxter resulted in an anthology of collapsed scrums, a trip to the sin-bin, a neck injury to another prop and the unedifying sight of uncontested scrums in an over-tens match. Two years later, Sheridan did it again at the World Cup. A generation has since grown up believing Australians cannot scrummage.

“Some scrums were not good enough and some were definitely open to interpretation,” the new coach said in time-honoured tribute to old excuses. “Because they have the reputation, we have to improve ours to get the rub of the green on those interpretation calls.” When he suggested they might start wheeling because “it seems to be accepted” and that “perhaps we are too honest”, he was

almost begging for the moniker “Irony Mike”.

Yet this was the same tight five that only lost by a point to the All Blacks in October, another match that the Australians feel they should have won.

“The problem is this team does not believe in itself,” Cheika said with due candour.

They believed to beat the Springboks and draw with New Zealand this year, and on Saturday played the sort of rugby that beggars northern-hemisphere belief. So they carried the ball for 559 metres to England’s 169, made twice as many line breaks, achieved 17 offloads to the home side’s three. They had the luxury of bringing Beale and Quade Cooper off the bench and had a string of super-confident runners with the ball in hand, not least Adam AshleyCooper. Had Israel Folau made his pass in the corner then England might be in crisis mode today.

Will it be enough when it matters?

Brad Barritt looked like a man with A&E in his DNA such was England’s bloody-minded, bloody-faced commitment, and even with all their superiority at moving the ball, the Australians could not score more tries than supposedly limited opposition.

Cheika claimed the hemispheres were contradictory and that Australia must learn to deal with “the scrum and bombs”. He was vaguely dismissive of “the high-kick stuff” but had a plan for that.

It was a clash of neuroses. A year ago England beat Australia by seven points and The Times headline was “Stuttering display shows substance but no great style”. This time it was nine and similar in our sister Sunday. For all the progress reports, little has changed.

The heartfelt pre-game applause for Phillip Hughes showed how Australia and England’s sporting histories remain interwoven and that mutual respect runs deeper than the pantoloathing. It is only a game — and the next one back at Twickenham promises to be a ripper.

Inside today

Australia had the luxury of Cooper on the bench

Lynagh’s rebuilding job Christmas appeal, page 57

(the monday overview)

By Alex Lowe

Try of the week

Team of the week

What we learnt this week

Bernard Foley England v Australia

L Halfpenny (Wales), L Williams (Wales), A Ashley-Cooper (Australia), J Roberts (Wales), R Horne (Australia), D Biggar (Wales), R Webb (Wales), G Jenkins (Wales), D Hartley (England), D Wilson (England), C Lawes (England), AW Jones (Wales), C Robshaw (England), S Warburton (Wales), B Morgan (England).

Former Australia captain arrested over protest David Pocock, the Australia flanker and former captain, has been arrested after chaining himself to a digger with other activists in a protest against a coal mine being opened in a national forest in New South Wales.

Pocock, who is recovering from a second knee reconstruction, was “locked on” to the vehicle for ten hours with 30 other protesters before he was taken into custody by police. He was later released on bail.

“I know some are very uncomfortable with breaking the law but I feel non-violent direct action in the face of coal mines and climate change draws on a long history of civil disobedience being used to highlight injustice,” he said.

Israel Folau began the move with a break between two England forwards. Adam Ashley-Cooper and Michael Hooper took it on as the Wallabies generated quick ball. Foley’s inside pass sent Rob Horne through a gap and he drew Mike Brown before returning the ball to his fly half, right, to score under the posts.

“It’s incredibly important that we have conversations about this. In 2014, to put a coal mine in the middle of a state forest just doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

Pocock returns to pre-season training with the ACT Brumbies today with the aim of playing at the World Cup next year.

“I would be doing this regardless of what career I had,” he said.

Vunipola and Youngs return to action after injury While England’s pack were crushing Australia at Twickenham, two players hoping to force their way back into the national team made their comebacks from injury in the Aviva Premiership.

Mako Vunipola, the prop, made his first appearance of

the season as a replacement for Saracens in their 27-19 defeat by Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park. Vunipola had surgery in May after damaging the medial ligament in his right knee in the Heineken Cup final.

Tom Youngs, the Leicester Tigers hooker, made his return from a shoulder injury in the 18-16 victory over Wasps at Welford Road. Tom Croft had also been due to make his comeback from knee surgery but he withdrew from the Leicester bench because his wife was due to give birth.

Gareth Steenson equalled the Premiership record by kicking nine penalty goals in Exeter’s victory, while Owen Williams kicked all the points for Leicester, including a decisive penalty goal two minutes from time.

Toulon accept invitation to take on the Sharks Toulon have accepted a challenge from Sharks, the South African side, to play them on February 5. John Smit, the Sharks chief executive, raised the idea of a game, prompting Mourad Boudjellal, the Toulon president, to say: “I’ve seen Jaws I, II and III and sharks don’t scare me!”

All Black player in ‘cuddling’ controversy The All Blacks have become embroiled in a mid-air cuddling scandal. According to the Sunday Star Times, Air New Zealand is investigating allegations that an off-duty employee was drunk on the flight from Los Angeles to Auckland and was “cuddling a player”.

62

FGM

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Sport Rugby union

Pack mentality the key to Lancaster’s forward planning Owen Slot says that the head coach is at last having to accept that England are more a team of roundheads than cavaliers

A

s England fans departed the Twickenham car parks on Saturday night exhaling beery fumes and sighs of relief, there was a feeling of: “That’s rugby done for now, see you in February.” And: “Thank God Israel Folau’s pass didn’t stick.”

There is no such end of term for England’s players, meanwhile, who will be already focusing this morning on the final quarter of a brutal autumn programme. Four Saturdays at HQ is a tough call on any athlete after a fortnight in European competition, but two weekends, now, back in Europe will no doubt be the breaking of some of them.

How the Irish will have enjoyed a weekend off. Expect that to show when European horns are locked again in a few days’ time.

As the calendar once again mocks Stuart Lancaster and his attempts to get the old chariot motoring, it has also demonstrated an extraordinary strength in depth. While England slowly morph into a team more of roundheads than cavaliers, the evidence of the autumn is that they have such depth in forward numbers that no injury crisis can shake their dominance.

Yes, said, Lancaster after his pack had run Australia into the ground, when the rehab rooms empty, he could field two packs that would both be “very strong”.

While six Lions forwards were injured and missed, the ability of the next rank down to step up did wonders to negate their absence.

Conversely, the stock of some players rises in their convalescence. Last June, the most valuable joint in the England armoury seemed to be Billy Twelvetrees’ sprained ankle. (And how ancient that piece of history now seems.) As this autumn has progressed, shares in Manu Tuilagi have risen in price.

Lancaster was asked after the Australia game what addition he would like to make to his team and though his answer was Tuilagi, he thought also about saying Sam Burgess. It says something about the eternal problems in midfield that stocks in Burgess have gone up again after just 17 minutes into his life as a rugby union player.

Unfortunately, even after four weeks of England duty, there is still no answer to the question over the identity of England’s best inside centre, and Burgess seems as good — or as hopeful — as any.

Getting to grips: Robshaw makes quite sure that he gets Cooper’s full attention

Tuilagi’s impending return to the outside-centre berth requires different skills of his 12. Then, when you swap Owen Farrell and George Ford — and if Ford misses many more of his place kicks, Farrell will be bounding back in — the dynamic changes once again.

Australia showed on Saturday what real class and understanding looks like in these areas of the pitch. There were some who found Saturday disappointing as a game, but I found the contest dramatically tight and enduringly engaging as the purring Wallaby backs attempted to put England to the sword.

Somewhat lost in the celebration of England’s scrum has been those two phases, half an hour apart, either side of half-time, when the Wallabies attacked relentlessly and England’s defence stood strong. England’s victory could have gone, though, had Folau made good his pass to Rob Horne, with space and a tryline before him, in the dying minutes.

In that very moment, the Wallabies blew the game and it therefore makes a nonsense of any review to be too fixated on the result. Yet however England appraise their autumn, they will surely acknowledge how much their game improved when they recognised where it was at its strongest.

I do not believe for a minute that Lancaster has kissed goodbye his commitment to launch an exciting back division on the world, but he will surely now rein in ambition a little to play where England are established and powerful.

If that has been a lesson of the past six months, then it has been slow and painful

for England, but ultimately extremely valuable.

Less clear has been what Ford kicks for goal during another influential display from the Bath man

Lancaster and his coaches have learnt about preparing their team. So much good work has been done on the culture of this England team, yet it is hard to know whether this is entirely fortifying them. Lancaster was maybe right to point out after the game that team culture and unity had been tested over consecutive hard weeks, that they had tightened the bonds and finally come through.

Why, though, did it require four weeks of pain for them to come out with teeth really bared? Lancaster’s England seems such a friendly environment; against New Zealand and South Africa, they could have done with more edge.

In the success manual that Lancaster turns to most frequently — The Score Takes Care Of Itself by Bill Walsh, the great San Francisco 49ers coach — there are long passages about preparation. If you prepare right, the performances follow. It seems concerning, then, that a number of England’s big players — Danny Care, Billy Vunipola, Owen Farrell — did not deliver the performances expected or required.

After the game, Lancaster was asked about the underperformers (though not by name) and he was quite forthright about lack of form. “That’s the players’ responsibility,” he said. Yet, being a Walsh disciple, he will also feel it himself.

Every successful team knows the merits of defeat: learn and come back stronger, one step back to go two forward. England have by no means gone two forward yet, but, from the travails of the autumn, you can see the possible gains: sharpening the game plan, tinkering with preparation.

Whether England can get selection right, though, is less convincing — and we are back, now, to the backs. Ideally England will pick a No 10-12 combination for the RBS Six Nations Championship and stick with it. Yet Lancaster would have started the autumn with those ideals and had to discard them when his 10-12 of choice clearly did not work.

This is the cyclical conversation of the England rugby team. Once the cycle of change has stopped, England may be in a position to take those two steps forward denied them this autumn.

Overpowering the opposition: England’s players celebrate Morgan’s second try

Hustle and muscle give Cardiff City England

Campbell, 21

West Australia Ham United

C Cole 42, Noble 90+3

Alex Lowe

26 0 2 17 1

When the final whistle sounded, Graham Rowntree punched the air in celebration, turned to Andy Farrell and hollered: “That’s rugby”. It was an injoke between the coaches but in Rowntree’s world of scrums and mauls he had just witnessed sporting perfection.

Ben Morgan, the No 8, scored two tries after dominant scrums as England crushed the Wallabies up front to end a tough QBE autumn series with a 26-17 victory against a team they will face in the World Cup next year.

In broader terms, of course, it was far from perfect for England as they still lack enterprise and accuracy in the midfield, concerning flaws that were illuminated by some of Australia’s slick handling and dazzling attacks.

However, it was the hustle and muscle of Rowntree’s forwards that won the day. Crucially, and for the first time in the autumn campaign, England played to that dominance as George Ford, who delivered another assured

performance, Ben Youngs and Mike Brown kicked intelligently for field position. “The pack have been outstanding all series so we had to play to them,” Ford said. “Tactically we were smarter — we kicked the ball a bit more, but that is what we needed to do.”

Ford sounded almost apologetic about the amount he kicked. He knows how England’s quest to expand their attacking game has stalled through the autumn — but there were no such apologies from Dave Attwood.

“People can say we’re the most boring team in the world if they want, but at the end of the day, winning is winning,” the Bath lock said.

“No one cares about style if you lose: no one is going to say, ‘oh, you lost by three points, but you played so excitingly’. People might talk about that

Inside today

Direct action proves pr the answer for Ford Stuart Barnes, page 60

Cheika ‘no choice’ but to start from scratch Rick Broadbent, page 61

the times | Monday December 1 2014

63

FGM

Rugby union Sport ALL PHOTOS BY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER, MARC ASPLAND

England’s autumn report card Ratings by Alex Lowe

of the match as they earned a victory, which was built on dominant scrums with the Wallabies being crushed up front

England reason for World Cup hope ENGLAND 34 30 158

AUSTRALIA Possession (%) Territory (%) Tackles

66 70

48 Missed tackles 25 7 Carries 52 154 Metres made 169 559 Defenders beaten 7 25 Clean breaks 3 6 Offloads 3 17 Turnovers conceded 9 17 Penalties conceded 7 13 Scrums won 10/11 5/5 Lineouts won 12/14 8/9

for a day, but two months later, three months later, three years, six years later, nobody cares. People only care about results.”

England knew from as early as the 14th minute that they had the Wallabies on toast. Courtney Lawes had just executed a brilliant try-saving tackle on Adam Ashley-Cooper, who knocked on five metres from the line. England drew a penalty from that scrum and then attacked off the next one with a move that almost released Jonny May down the left wing.

When Ford turned Israel Folau with a raking kick into the Australia 22 and the full back fumbled the ball, England had the ideal platform.

They marched the Wallabies back in the scrum, Brad Barritt took the crash ball, recycled it quickly and Morgan smashed his way through for the opening try.

“In the third or fourth scrum we got the ball in, we kept it in and they decided ‘right, let’s start defending now’,” Attwood said.

“That’s the green light: think ‘well, you can defend all you want, we’re going to take a penalty here’.”

England led 13-3 at the interval but their defence was cut apart by Bernard Foley and Rob Horne within four minutes of the restart in a reminder of

how incisive the Wallaby back division is. Morgan’s second try was from an England five-metre scrum after May and Billy Twelvetrees had chased Brown’s kick and tackled Quade Cooper in his own dead ball area. With the ball in hand, Cooper was leading England a merry dance.

After Will Skelton had crashed over for Australia’s second try, Cooper and Kurtley Beale combined beautifully but Folau’s pass to Horne was forward and England’s forwards took control again, a 35-metre driving lineout leading to Ford’s fourth penalty goal, which sealed the win.

Scorers: England: Tries: B Morgan 2 (28min, 56).

Conversions: G Ford 2. Penalty goals: Ford 4 (6, 12, 63, 76) Australia: Tries: B Foley (44), W Skelton (59).

Conversions: Foley, Cooper. Penalty goal: Foley (3).

Scoring sequence (England first): 0-3, 3-3, 6-3, 13-3 (half-time) 13-10, 20-10, 20-17, 23-17, 26-17.

England: M Brown; A Watson, B Barritt (rep: O Farrell, 61-67min; M Yarde, 78), B Twelvetrees (rep: O Farrell, 67), J May; G Ford, B Youngs (rep: R Wigglesworth, 69); J Marler (rep: M Mullan, 53), D Hartley (rep: R Webber, 71), D Wilson (rep: K Brookes, 60), D Attwood, C Lawes (rep: G Kruis, 53-78, Wood 78), T Wood (rep: J Haskell, 77), C Robshaw, B Morgan.

Australia: I Folau; H Speight (rep: K Beale, 63), A Ashley-Cooper, M Toomua, R Horne; B Foley (rep: Q Cooper, 45), N Phipps (rep: N White, 49); J Slipper (rep: B Robinson, 67), S Fainga’a (rep: J Hanson, 72), S Kepu (rep: B Alexander, 51), S Carter, R Simmons (rep: L Jones, 41), S McMahon (rep: W Skelton, 58), M Hooper, B McCalman.

Referee: J Garcès (France). Attendance: 82,000.

stuart lancaster Selection policy lacked coherence (Owen Farrell; No 10 changes) as development and attacking game stalled

6

matt mullan (Wasps) Technically England’s fourth-choice loosehead prop but never looked out of place when he came on.

7

mike brown (Harlequins) Improved from a poor start. Fine kicking on Saturday but must rediscover counterattack threat

6

dylan hartley (Northampton) Blotted copy-book slightly with the yellow card against South Africa but his lineout was accurate.

8

anthony watson (Bath) Won first four caps but only against Samoa was he able to show his true attacking ability

5

rob webber (Bath) Made his presence felt off the bench but needs to sharpen the accuracy of his setpiece work.

7

jonny may (Gloucester) Stunning try against New Zealand and two more against Samoa to enhance reputation

6

david wilson (Bath) An anchor for England’s dominant scrum, but England do miss Dan Cole’s ability at the breakdown.

8

kyle eastmond (Bath) Flashes of what he can do but dropped after South Africa.

Needs to work on his kicking game

5

kieran brookes (Newcastle) Delivered some boisterous displays off the bench and won penalty try against New Zealand.

7

brad barritt (Saracens) Was asked to do a job at outside centre. Committed but an enterprising midfielder he is not

6

dave attwood (Bath) Four starts in which he delivered powerful and abrasive performances to be proud of.

8

billy twelvetrees (Gloucester) Back after a bright cameo against Samoa but he was quiet against Australia when he needed more

5

courtney lawes (Northampton) His role in a superior lineout against Australia showed how much his game is developing.

8

0wen farrell (Saracens) Started twice at fly half and once at inside centre but displayed poor game management

4

george kruis (Saracens) In at the deep end off the bench against the All Blacks but he learnt quickly and took his chance.

7

george ford (Bath) Started first two internationals and delivered contrasting but equally mature displays

7

tom wood (Northampton) Penalised too often and dropped for Samoa but back to his best against Australia.

6

danny care (Harlequins) His outof-sorts kicking and passing contributed to England’s midfield malaise

4

chris robshaw (Harlequins) Shone against Australia, winning turnovers. Onfield communication can improve.

7

ben youngs (Leicester) Brought tempo to England’s game from off the bench and kicked well against Australia

6

billy vunipola (Saracens) A shadow of the player who rampaged through the Six Nations and his confidence was shot.

4

joe marler (Harlequins) Outstanding in the scrum and in the loose, where he has a tireless workrate.

8

ben morgan (Gloucester) Scored three tries in a series of powerhouse displays which see him overtake Vunipola.

8

Those who also played Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath): made a quiet debut on the wing against New Zealand and did not feature again because of injury James Haskell (Wasps) now knows for

certain he is only in the squad as back-up after getting one start Marland Yarde (Harlequins) and Richard Wigglesworth (Saracens) appeared as replacements

Sport

Monday December 1 2014 | the times

Premier League weekend action Yaya Touré helps ruthless City to put Southampton in their place Pages 46-55

thetimes.co.uk/sport

british press awards — sports team of the year

England to put Burgess on fast track Owen Slot Chief Rugby Correspondent

England will consider giving Sam Burgess his first taste of representative rugby union when they pick an England Saxons side to play the Irish Wolfhounds next month.

The hype around Burgess has certainly not died down after his 17-minute debut off the bench in Bath’s 25-6 victory against Harlequins on Friday. He made two carries in that game, yet Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach, has suggested that the Saxons game at Irish Independent Park in Cork may be a first opportunity for England coaches to work with him.

Burgess had a taste of England rugby when he was at Twickenham, with Mike Ford, his Bath coach, to see England’s 26-17 victory over Australia on Saturday. After the game, Lancaster would not rule out Burgess forcing his way into the squad for the RBS Six Nations championship. “That’s a big step, but who knows?” he said. Yet if Burgess learns and improves at pace, Lancaster suggested, then the Saxons would be a more likely starting point.

If Burgess has a chance of forcing his way in to the England squad, he has just eight club games between now and the Six Nations to make his point.

Bath now have two European Champions Cup games, away and

home against Montpellier, before four fixtures in the Aviva Premiership and then two more in Europe. Thereafter, it will be duty for the Saxons at the end of the month before the Six Nations start in the first weekend of February.

It is no secret that Burgess will start the first game against Montpellier from the bench again. He will be earmarked for a centre role this coming weekend and the next weekend he will pack down in the back row.

England would rather that he spent his entire apprenticeship learning the game at inside centre as that is where they have most need of his lauded qualities. If he does break into the squad, it will be for what Chris Robshaw, the England captain, described as “probably the most exciting Six Nations for a while”.

Lancaster would be reluctant to introduce a new superstar player straight in to his squad having not done the hard yards that other players would have done. However, he feels strongly that Burgess has the personality to fit.

After England’s victory, Robshaw said that the team had proved their qualities as a unit who could withstand pressure. “We know that if it happens again the guys aren’t going to crumble, they are going to stand up to it,” he said.

“They’re going to train smarter and find ways of winning.”

Reports and analysis, pages 60-63

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