Prince William’s noble cause Lifelong republican Alastair Campbell praises the young royals’ mental health campaign Page 14 Thursday 1 June 2017 FREE standard.co.uk WEST END FINAL EXTRA MAY: I’LL FIGHT TO EARN YOUR TRUST Joe Murphy Political Editor THERESA MAY called on the public to “trust” her today as a new poll revealed support for Jeremy Corbyn surging in London. The Prime Minister used a key speech in the North-East to inject a touch of humility into her plea for five more years at No 10. “If you put your trust in me, back me, I will strive to be a leader worthy of our great country,” she said. “People Continued on Pages 2 & 3 PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS COLLS, COURTESY OF THE EDIT, NET-A-PORTER [ PM’S IMPASSIONED PLEA TO VOTERS AS POLL PUTS CORBYN AHEAD IN LONDON ‘RUTHLESS’ PALTROW ON HER MISTAKES, DIVORCE AND WHY SHE’S MOCKED FULL STORY PAGE 11 THOUSANDS OF FREE TICKETS TO SEE THE WORLD PARA ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS IN CAPITAL » PAGES 26&27 2 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD ) News | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard Tories could lose seats Continued from Page 1 COMMENT » LONDONER’S DIARY » 14-15 16-17 LETTERS » GAMES & PUZZLES » 35 52 can have faith in me because I have faith in them.” Repeatedly asking for “faith” or “trust”, Mrs May said she would “fight to earn every vote” after a month of campaigning in which the polls have narrowed, dousing Tory hopes of a major landslide next week. A new poll of Londoners reveals today that more think Mr Corbyn would make a better Prime Minister. Labour has opened up a 17-point lead in the capital. The Tories, who hoped to gain seats in London, could now lose them. The current standing of the parties reflects how the capital voted in 1997 when Tony Blair won his landslide first victory, according to the YouGov poll of 1,000 Londoners produced for Queen Mary University of London. Labour is on 50 per cent, up from 41 per cent a month ago. The Tories are on 33 per cent, down from 36 in a month. In March the parties were three percentage points apart, at 37 to 34. Asked who would make the best Prime Minister, 37 per cent picked Mr Corbyn and 34 per cent Mrs May. A survey taken just after the manifesto launches last month had Mrs May ahead by 38 to 32. The findings are further evidence that the Tory campaign lost its way after the row over the so-called dementia tax. In Mrs May’s fightback speech, she put the issue of Brexit talks, which she called the “great national mission”, at the heart of the election. In London, VOTING INTENTION March 24-28 Con 34% Lab 37% Lib Dem 14% UKIP 9% Green 5% April 27 to May 2 36% 41% 14% 6% 3% May 26-31 33% 50% 11% 3% 2% TRUST TO FIGHT TERRORISM How much, if at all, would you trust the following leaders to make the right decisions about keeping Britain safe from terrorism? THERESA MAY JEREMY CORBYN Trust Would not trust Trust Would not trust 42% 46% 41% 47% Which of the following do you think would make the best Prime Minister? May May Remain Leave Gender Age 19-23 26-31 voters voters Men Women 18-24 25-39 50-64 65+ Theresa May 38% 34% 25% 56% 39% 30% 23% 29% 40% 56% Jeremy Corbyn 32% 37% 50% 19% 38% 36% 49% 42% 30% 19% YouGov / Queen Mary University of London. Sample size: 1,000 London adults. Fieldwork: May 26-31, 2017 YOUNG VOTER TURNOUT WILL BE DECISIVE LABOUR’S surge reflects YouGov’s belief that young people will vote in greater numbers at this election. Every pollster takes care to reflect Britain’s precise mix of age groups, social classes and so on. For general elections, however, a difficult judgment must be made about which respondents will actually vote. Mr Corbyn was giving a rival vision for Brexit, saying Labour would protect the economy, jobs and living standards in negotiations with Brussels. Professor Philip Cowley, director of Queen Mary University’s Mile End Institute, said of the poll findings: “This YouGov, like all pollsters, asks people how sure they are to vote. But some pollsters give more weight to previous election turnouts, which found many younger people who promised to vote did not. “It comes down to whether that enthusiastic corps of young people vote or not,” said YouGov’s Anthony Wells. wasn’t part of the Conservative script for the election. They didn’t expect to be looking at potential losses in London.” Boris Johnson was today deployed to rally Tory supporters. “We are fighting for every vote, because the future of our country is at stake,” he said. The EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 3 ) | News in capital as Labour opens 17-point lead HENDON Matthew Offord (Con) Challenger: Mike Katz (Lab) Majority: 3,724 TWICKENHAM Tania Mathias (Con) TORIES UNDER THREAT LABOUR SEATS THAT NOW LOOK SAFE Ilford North Wes Streeting Hampstead & Kilburn Tulip Siddiq Enfield North Joan Ryan Brentford & Isleworth Ruth Cadbury Ealing Central & Acton Rupa Huq KINGSTON AND SURBITON James Berry (Con) Challenger: Sir Ed Davey (LD) Majority: 2,834 CROYDON CENTRAL Gavin Barwell (Con) Challenger: Sir Vince Cable (LD) Challenger: Sarah Jones (Lab) Majority: 2,017 Majority: 165 Foreign Secretary said Home Secretary Amber Rudd, whose father died on Monday, had given a “heroic” performance in last night’s TV debate on BBC1. He accused the corporation of bias, saying it had been “the most Left-wing studio audience the BBC has ever brought together”. The BBC said ComRes, the pollsters, had picked the audience. Surprisingly, given the fierce Conservative advertising campaign on social media to highlight Mr Corbyn’s record of opposing anti-terrorist laws and his links with Sinn Fein and Hamas, he and Mrs May are virtually neck-andneck when Londoners were asked who they trust to keep the country safe from extremists. Mrs May is trusted by 42 per cent and distrusted by 46. The Labour leader, who has argued that fewer foreign wars would reduce the terrorism threat, is trusted by 41 and distrusted by 47. The fine detail of the survey reveals that Mr Corbyn is strikingly unpopular with older voters, with over-65s dividing three-to-one for Mrs May and the Conservatives. But he has a clear lead TABLES HAVE TURNED IF POLL SWING IS CORRECT AT THE start of May, five Labour marginals looked at risk. Now four Tories appear to be. Gavin Barwell, the minister for London nursing the capital’s smallest majority (165) in Croydon Central, is most threatened. In Kingston & Surbiton, James Berry (2,834) is in a knife-edge battle with Lib-Dem rival Sir Ed Davey. Other fights too close to call are in Hendon, where Matthew Offord has a majority of 3,724 over Labour, and Twickenham, where Tania Mathias beat Sir Vince Cable by 2,017 votes in 2015. But in Carshalton & Wallington, Lib Dem Tom Brake is under threat from the Tories. Breathing easier are Labour’s Wes Streeting (Ilford North), Rupa Huq (Ealing Central & Acton), Ruth Cadbury (Brentford & Isleworth), Joan Ryan (Enfield North) and Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead & Kilburn). But these are estimates, based on YouGov polling and private intelligence, all crunched with UK-Elect software. Joe Murphy among younger and Remain voters. O The Tories have had massive donations from the rich, the Election Commission said today. Donor John E Gore gave £1 million and JCB £500,000. More election reports Pages 6-9 4 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD ) News | Kate Proctor Political Reporter BORIS JOHNSON today said Britain will continue to pressure Donald Trump into cutting CO2 emissions ahead of the US president’s expected decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. Mr Trump was reportedly preparing to announce tonight that he will be pulling America out of its commitment to the landmark 2015 Paris Accord — a deal spearheaded by Barack Obama. His decision has caused alarm around the world, with China’s prime minister Li Keqiang issuing a statement stressing the fight against climate change is an “international responsibility”. Mr Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, told BBC News: “We want to see America to continue to show leadership on climate change and in reducing CO2 emissions and we continue to lobby with the Americans to encourage them to do that.” His concern comes as Home Secretary Amber Rudd said she was disappointed by Mr Trump’s stance and would try to influence the country’s approach to emissions. Mr Trump promised to abandon the deal during his election campaign and to boost fossil fuels. Trump and Clinton feud Page 24 Southern Rail commuters face fresh chaos next week after union bans overtime Dick Murray HUNDREDS of thousands of Southern Rail passengers on commuter lines serving London face major daily disruption from Monday after union leaders ordered a return of industrial action. It means hundreds of trains cancelled, delayed and more overcrowded than usual for the foreseeable future — including election day next Thursday. Southern, however, was today desperate for a deal and trying to arrange a last-ditch meeting with Aslef to get the union to call off a planned overtime ban by up to 1,000 drivers from Sunday. The company dramatically cancelled an 11am announcement, set to detail a new emergency timetable, in a move understood to allow a crisis meeting with Aslef to go ahead later today. It left Southern’s 300,000 passengers in the dark about what sort of train service they will have next week. Senior company staff worked through the night trying to arrange the emergency timetable and are trying to estimate how many drivers may ignore the overtime ban and turn up for work. Southern relies on driver overtime to JEREMY SELWYN Boris urges Trump to ‘show leadership’ on climate change Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard Misery: an overtime ban is set to cause further pain for Southern Rail commuters run the full timetable and is desperately rearranging schedules to operate as many trains as possible — but up to 25 per cent of its 2,240 daily services face cancellation and delays. A senior source connected with the dispute said of today’s meeting: “The intention is at least to get Aslef to suspend the overtime ban.” Most drivers work a four-day week with a fifth day — a rest day — as overtime. An Aslef strike ballot resulted in an 87.3 per cent turnout with 77 per cent backing strikes and 95.6 per cent in favour of action short of a strike, which includes the overtime ban. Drivers staged a previous two-monthlong overtime ban that was suspended in January to allow fresh peace talks — which failed again — to take place. Passengers expressed shock and dismay at the fresh disruption. On the so-called “train of shame”, the 7.29 Brighton to Victoria, which was late every day for a year, there was anger. City worker Sam Lewis, 29, said: “It is just unbelievable this dispute is still going on and continues to cause misery. I know people forced to move and even split up because of the pressure caused by this total chaos. Neither side has any compassion for passengers. They are all a disgrace.” Health professional Maurice Britton, 49, said: “The last few weeks have seen services improve. I am in disbelief this whole year of misery is about to start again. No one seems to care and that is the reality. It is just chaos.” GTR, Southern’s parent company, said it was “finalising plans” for which services will run. The RMT union is also considering a further 24-hour strike. For latest on the strike talks: standard.co.uk/southern NEWS IN BRIEF Manchester benefit gig sells out in 20 minutes TICKETS for Sunday’s benefit concert in aid of the victims of the Manchester bombing have sold out in less than 20 minutes. Demand for the £40 One Love Manchester tickets crashed the Ticketmaster website. Stars joining US singer Ariana Grande at Old Trafford include Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Coldplay. Ex-Coronation Street star Barraclough dies at 81 FORMER star of Coronation Street Roy Barraclough, right, has died, aged 81, after a short illness. He was best known for playing Alec Gilroy in the ITV soap and for his double-act Cissie and Ada with Les Dawson. Brexit pushes up wine cost to all-time high THE “Brexit effect” has pushed the average cost of a bottle of wine to a record £5.56. Sterling’s slump against key currencies since the vote to quit the EU has pushed up the cost of imports. The price, in the 12 weeks to March 25, is 16p up on that period last year, says the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 5 | News Google play: tech giant’s new HQ … with rooftop running trail, pool and sports hall for workers Joanna Bourke Jonathan Prynn and Rashid Razaq WORKERS at Google’s vast new London HQ will enjoy an unprecedented range of play facilities including a swimming pool, 200-metre rooftop running trail and covered sports hall for basketball, plans reveal. The Silicon Valley giant lodged an updated vision for its £1 billion King’s Cross campus with Camden council yesterday after scrapping a previous set of proposals. Around 4,500 “Googlers” will work at the 870,000 sq ft building — the first the firm has designed for itself outside America — when it is completed. The venue of seven to 11 storeys will have facilities that would not be out of place in a five-star hotel to “ensure the health and wellbeing of staff and foster the innovation and creativity that defines the organisation” according to the plans. These include a 300-metre-long landsc aped roof terrace with areas described as “the fields”, and the “gardens”. It includes a “trim trail” for runners and walkers with tranquil “pause areas” surrounded by meadow and woodland plants. There is also a rooftop cafe. A 25-metre swimming pool forms part of a “wellness and fitness centre” which also includes a gym, exercise studio and a 32-metre-long indoor “multi-use games area” for sports such as basketball, football and badminton. The building, designed by Garden Bridge architect Thomas Heatherwick and the Danish Bjarke Ingels Group, will also have shops and an events centre. When combined with the current building at 6 Pancras Square and an additional third property, the Google campus will have the potential to house 7,000 employees. Joe Borrett, director of real estate and construction, said: “We are excited to be able to bring our London Googlers together in one campus, with a new purpose-built building that we’ve developed from the ground up. Our offices and Five-star: the King’s Cross HQ with 300-metrelong roof terrace, pool and sports hall, Below, designer Thomas Heatherwick facilities play a key part in shaping the Google culture, which is one of the reasons we are known for being among the best places to work in the industry.” Mr Heatherwick said: “As my home and the home of my studio for more than 15 years, I have a close relationship with King’s Cross. “The area is a fascinating collision of diverse building types and spaces and I can’t help but love this mix of massive railway stations, roads, canals and other infrastructure all layered up into the most connected point in London.” The proposals come six months after Google confirmed it was committed to the London headquarters — a move seen as a vote of confidence in Britain after it leaves the Europpean Union. Details of the building emerged as the firm’s London operation is spearheading the fight against fake news across Europe with trainers teaching journalists how to use its tools to verify photos and videos are real. 6 News | ELECTION 2017 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard JUNE 8 Labour inheritance tax raid ‘would Jonathan Prynn Consumer Business Editor Modest: properties such as this terrace in Twickenham (£775,000) and detached home in Hendon (£750,000) would be affected by Labour’s inheritance tax plans AN EXTRA 50,000 London pensioners face “punishing” inheritance tax raids on the value of their homes under Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto plans, according to a new analysis. Labour has pledged to scrap Tory reforms that would have lifted many pensioner couples out of inheritance tax by allowing them to pass on up to £1 million, including family homes, by 2021. This would leave the tax-free allowance for couples at £650,000. Research from Savills estate agency says the proposed move will drag more than 48,000 London homes owned by over65s back into the inheritance tax trap. One tax adviser called the policy a “kick in the teeth” for ordinary Londoners who have paid for their homes and hope to pass them on tax-free. Decades of price rises means that many are modest suburban properties that were never intended to be liable for a tax originally targeted at landed estates. Many are in marginal seats where the “grey vote” could make the difference between Labour or Tory wins. The borough of Barnet has 4,297 homes worth between £650,000 and £1 million owned by over-65s, more than any other part of the capital. These would be exempt from inheritance tax under the Conservative policy, which is currently being phased in, but would face 40 per cent bills on their value above the £650,000 threshold under Labour’s plan. Other boroughs with large numbers of properties that would be heavily hit include Richmond, Bromley, Wandsworth and Ealing — where Rupa Huq holds the Ealing Central and Acton seat for Labour with a majority of just 274 Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, said: “A cut in the inheritance tax threshold would be most keenly felt in the affluent suburbs of London, where older homeowners are very protective of the substantial wealth which is tied up in housing. “It also has the potential to eat into the inheritance of younger generations, who have become increasingly reliant on that money to get on or trade up the housing ladder. In turn, this may cause more older households to consider selling their existing home to downsize in their retirement.” Minister for London Gavin Barwell said: “Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have made clear in their manifesto that they are planning a family homes tax which will hit ordinary Londoners hard. People who have worked hard and saved all their lives will be punished if Jeremy Corbyn gets the keys to Downing Street after the election.” Alex Davies, chief executive of financial advisers Wealth Club, said: “This is bad news. Inheritance tax is a huge worry for homeowners — in our recent survey of high-net-worth investors nearly a third placed policy changes and the election as one of their top concerns, with 45 per cent fearing a rise in inheritance tax. Existing legislation ELECTION DIARY standard.co.uk/politics CHRIS GRAYLING V ANDY MCDONALD GROUND: COMMUTER TRAIN KICK-OFF: 8AM Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald delighted commuters making their way into London today with his pledge to cut the cost of season tickets by £1,000 over five years. But those passengers who checked the fineprint on the back of the Labour pledge would have spotted a flaw on the claim. Labour had used an inflation formula which was ditched four years ago. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was quick to brand it as another example of Labour’s sums not adding up. Commuters would still save hundreds of pounds. Score: Grayling 3, McDonald 2 WHISPERS O Does Sir Simon Hughes’s ghastly yellow taxi need a new sat-nav? Some wayward canvassers have been delivering Hughes posters over the border from his former Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency in Harriet Harman’s patch. O Disgruntled fans paid a whopping £20 per ticket for a hustings today organised by Richmond Chamber of Commerce only to learn that Tory Zac Goldsmith won’t be there because of a diary clash. Team Goldsmith insist they are not to blame — and say the ticket price is “nuts”. QUOTE OF THE DAY ‘I didn’t sit through the whole thing’ Nick Clegg on whether he watched Tim Farron’s performance in the BBC leaders’ debate EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 ELECTION 2017 7 JUNE 8 | News hit 50,000 more London pensioners’ Meet and greet: Jeremy Corbyn waves to supporters after taking part in the TV election debate Corbyn’s pledge to slash £1,000 off season ticket prices falls short by £460 Nicholas Cecil Deputy Political Editor is complex and far from perfect but removing it is a kick in the teeth for people who have saved over their lifetimes. Even without scrapping it, overall IHT tax take is expected to rise.” A Labour Party spokesman said: “Reversing the Conservatives’ 2015 inherit- ance tax give-away, which only benefits four per cent of estates, will help fund our plans to transform Britain, including an additional £8 billion for social care, which is in crisis after £4.6 billion of cuts by the Conservatives.” Across London, 343,284 homes are valued between £650,000 and £1 million. Of these, 176,275 were bought by owner occupiers, with 48,158 over 65. In 2013/14, the most recent year with data, 19,300 UK estates were liable for inheritance tax — 3,800 were in London and a further 4,500 in the South East. Lib Dems draft in Clegg to front campaign finale Kate Proctor Political Reporter NICK CLEGG was today drafted in to front campaigning for Liberal Democrats for the second time in two days. The former deputy prime minister visited Kingston Hospital with Tim Farron to warn of the “damaging exodus” of skilled NHS workers from the EU because of Brexit. His intervention comes just 24 hours after he led the party’s critique of the Conservative plan to axe universal free BlogWatch Rashid Razaq James Forsyth writes on blogs. spectator.co.uk: “The BBC’s seven-way election debate proved that you can’t have a proper debate with seven people in it. It was a shouty, bity [sic] affair in which no one really stood out. This meant that Theresa May pretty school meals for infants during a speech in target seat Vauxhall. With the Lib Dems averaging 8.5 per cent in the latest polls, Mr Clegg’s more frequent appearances beside Mr Farron may be intended to boost the party in the last eight days of campaigning. Mr Clegg warned London could lose 8,666 NHS doctors and nurses from the EU if predictions EU staff will seek to leave the UK after Brexit bear out. Alongside Richmond Park candidate Sarah Olney and former Energy Secre- tary and Kingston & Surbiton candidate Sir Ed Davey, Mr Clegg met doctors and nurses at Kingston who are part of a support group for EU nationals concerned at the impact of Brexit. Mr Clegg said: “London depends on doctors, nurses and other support staff from the EU. We must guarantee their rights to stay here immediately to prevent a damaging exodus.” Businesswoman and pro-Remain campaigner Gina Miller today joined the Lib-Dem campaign in Vauxhall. much got away with her decision not to turn up. Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t as good on this programme as he had been on the Sky / Channel 4 election programme on Monday night. It was also a problem for him that Caroline Lucas was delivering essentially the same argument as him, but in a more compelling way.” Julia Rampen writes on newstatesman.com: “Scots have voted tactically on constitutional lines, but the independence argument is based at least in part on keeping out the Tories. A Labour MP is more attractive than risking a Tory. The litmus test will be East Renfrewshire, where pro-union voters can choose between the Tory candidate and the former chief of Better Together, Blair McDougall, the Labour candidate. If he wins, it seems the anti-Tory vote is back in town.” JEREMY CORBYN was today accused of a £460 “con” on hundreds of thousands of commuters, with his election promise to slash the cost of season tickets. Labour pledged that rail passengers would be £1,000 “better off ” if Mr Corbyn wins the keys to Number 10 next week. However, the fine detail of Labour’s fares polic y shows that it had “assumed” that the Conservatives, if they win the election, would revert to a previously abandoned formula for setting regulated ticket prices. Currently, regulated fares — which include season and commuter tickets — go up in line with the level of Retail Price Index inflation. But Labour’s calculations were based on a formula of RPI plus one per cent — which was used until 2013 when it was ditched amid growing anger from rail passengers at fast-rising fares for often overcrowded services. The Labour analysis suggested that the cost of an average season ticket of £2,855 in 2018 would rise to £3,448 by 2022 — a difference of £1,014 over the five years and a saving of £349 in the final year. However, the Conservatives insisted that they would stick to the existing formula. If that is used, the same season ticket would rise from £2,855 to £3,286 — a difference of £551 during the next parliament. So Labour’s promise appeared to be over-inflated by £463, if the same formula was kept until 2022. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: “These dodgy sums are an attempt by Corbyn to con commuters. Our policy hasn’t changed and we remain committed to the five-year freeze on regulated fares we put in place in 2015. Once again, Jeremy Corbyn simply hasn’t done his sums.” However, Labour defended its decision to use the higher figure to calculate future fare rises. A party spokesman said: “The Tories haven’t been honest with the public — the only numbers in their manifesto are the page numbers. Under our plans, commuters would still save money.” However, at least one independent expert challenged Labour over the basis on which it had made the promise, which would have raised the hopes of hundreds of thousands of commuters that they could see such a large cut in the cost of their travel. Julian Jessop, chief economist at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said; “Labour’s calculations assume that the Tories revert to the previous formula of RPI+1. It is up to Labour to explain why they think the Tories would do this. “It is certainly not in the Conservative manifesto and I am not aware of any other policy statement that suggests this is Tory policy.” Labour has also pledged to renationalise the railways, but has refused to say how this would be funded. The row over fare cuts is likely to raise further questions over whether a Labour government would be a good steward of the economy if Mr Corbyn gains power. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has suggested there is a £9 billion black hole in his economic plans. However, Theresa May has been hampered in her attacks on Labour’s economic policies by her refusal to publish figures for her manifesto, including at what level she would set a cap on social care spending for individuals and how many pensioners would lose the winter fuel allowance. @nicholascecil Political Punter Simon English THE Tories are still going to win, political punters predict, but the odds are narrowing. City spread-betting house IG now projects a majority of 71, well down but still a way off the hung parliament YouGov claimed earlier. After last night’s debate, IG says Labour will land 204 seats, up from 184 before. By far the greater amount of money is going on the Conservatives, it adds, but there are more individual bets on Labour with punters having a small nibble on a shock Corbyn win. Ladbrokes reckons we might not be as election-crazy as we think. It notes of the politicians’ TV clash: “Britain’s Got Talent was on at the same time and we took more bets on that during the debate than we did on the election.” The bookmaker adds that more cash has been going on a hung parliament outcome and the odds of a no overall 5/1 The odds Ladbrokes is offering on the chances of there being no overall majority majority have shortened from 8/1 at the start of the week to 5/1 today. There has also been speculation that even if the Tories emerge with enough seats to form a government, Theresa May would be so damaged by a below-par result she might be replaced as PM anyway. Ladbrokes took a £2,000 bet that Boris Johnson will be PM on July 1 in one of its shops in Chelsea yesterday. That was at 100/1, now it is 50/1. Over at Betfair Labour have shortened into 10/1 from 13/1 overnight — but the Tories have gone out to 1/11 from 1/14. 8 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD News | ELECTION 2017 Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard JUNE 8 Ross Lydall MARY MACLEOD is in determined mood. “Is there anything I can do to help? Sit down with a glass of wine and talk it through?” she appeals to another “Remainer” in the Brentford and Isleworth constituency. With anti-Brexit feelings still running high, Tory candidate Ms Macleod is using her charm to win over some vot- Battleground Focus Brentford & Isleworth ers in the tree-lined avenues of affluent Chiswick. “I feel really disappointed I’m going to lose my European citizen- ship,” Alexi Wedderburn tells her, furious at being lumped in with the “Remoaners” for daring to question the Government’s Brexit strategy. “We want a close relationship with Europe. The way she [Mrs May] is going about it, that is not going to happen. I don’t want ‘strong and stable’, I want good leadership.” Heathrow expansion was previously among voters’ top concerns in this seat, London’s third most marginal, but this is now far outstripped by Brexit. Energetic Ms Macleod, born in London, educated in Scotland and a Chiswick resident for years, is a Remainer and proud member of “Team Theresa”. She lost the seat in 2015 to Labour’s Ruth Cadbury, also a Remainer and no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, by 465 votes. The rematch is confused by the decision of Ukip (3,203 votes) and the Greens (2,120) not to stand. About 57 per cent of the constituency voted Remain in last year’s referendum. Ms Macleod says the choice is between Mrs May and Mr Corbyn, and voters need to decide who will best stand up for the UK’s interests. In Chiswick, at the eastern end of the constituency, stained glass doors are as likely to be opened by children’s nannies as the homeowners. Ms Macleod urges them to pass her leaflet to their employers as it is “neck and neck”. Prior to becoming an MP, she was a consultant and was seconded to work for the Queen, advising on the future of the monarchy. The period famously included a visit by the monarch to the home of Glasgow resident Susan McCarron for a cup of tea. Ms Macleod’s opposition to a third Heathrow runway is counter to her party leader. She wants a “better not bigger” airport and suggests a tunnel from Brentford to central London under Chiswick and Hammersmith. One man tells her that he and his wife, both previous Tory voters, have made up their minds, and probably not in a good way. Asked for his motivation, he says: “Brexit.” Another is undecided. and recalls Ms Macleod previously helped her daughter. Her biggest concern is how her daughter and grandson can find a home of their own. Over in Brentford Ms Cadbury is being challenged by Labour voter Eamonn Sylvester over her lack of faith in Mr Corbyn. She backed last year’s vote of no confidence in him and was one of 47 Labour MPs to rebel on triggering Article 50. She admits: “I have no confi- JEREMY SELWYN Team Theresa high-flier in charm offensive to win back key marginal Charming the Remainers: Tory Mary Macleod campaigning in Chiswick and, inset, Labour’s Ruth Cadbury in Brentford dence in his leadership. How do we get that leadership to deliver the policies which means we win elections?” Previously a councillor for 25 years, she is widely recognised and appears well liked. In red L K Bennett coat from a charity shop, she pushes wheelie bins blocking the pavement back into gardens as she canvasses. Mr Corbyn is CLAIM: MOST RESEARCH AND EXPERTS SAY GRAMMARS DON’T IMPROVE SOCIAL MOBILITY Key quote ‘The Conservatives want to take us back 50 years, to an outdated system of grammar schools and secondary moderns, ignoring all the research and expert advice that show it will damage the life chances of so many children’ Liberal Democrat manifesto, May 26 Analysis The number of grammar schools in England and Wales peaked in 1964, at almost 1,300. Today there are 163. The advantage for pupils who attend modern grammar schools is outweighed by the disadvantage for those who don’t, research shows. Experts such as Sir Michael Wilshaw, then chief inspector of schools, have also weighed in. He said: “The notion that the poor stand to benefit from the return of grammar schools strikes me as quite palpable tosh and nonsense — and is very clearly refuted by the London experience.” The Conservatives argue that “people get lost in the argument about whether the FactWatch grammar schools of the Fifties and Sixties improved social mobility or not” (they didn’t) and promise that “there will be no return to secondary moderns”. Grammars would only be one type of school among many in a diverse system, with changes made to the system to ensure more disadvantaged children attend them. Verdict Most research and experts seem to agree that grammar schools do not improve social mobility overall, because the advantages for pupils who attend them are outweighed by the disadvantages for those who don’t. O Full Fact is the UK’s independent factchecking organisation. For sources and more factchecks go to fullfact.org 10 EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 11 | News Gwyneth: I’ve milked every opportunity Rashid Razaq Culture Correspondent GWYNETH PALTROW has spoken about the pain of her divorce and how she has “ruthlessly” pursued success. The actress opened up about how she coped with criticism from the media and about her split from Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Paltrow, 44, told Net-a-Porter’s digital magazine The Edit: “I’ve had an extraordinary life, where things have happened in a huge way — huge success, huge joy, huge pain, huge loss. “The reason I feel happy today is because I’ve milked the f*** out of every opportunity. I haven’t made one mistake that I haven’t used as a stepping stone to get somewhere else. I’m ruthless when it comes to using the hard things.” She defended her wellness and luxury lifestyle brand Goop, which has Actress opens up about divorce, Goop and using mistakes as ‘stepping stones’ been criticised for promoting £260 “sex dust” smoothies and pyjamas costing £225. She said: “People were fine with me as an actress, but with Goop it was like, ‘Stay in your lane’. Women, in general, get a lot of pushback, especially if you’re successful and attractive. “I’m not saying I’m attractive. I mean when you’re considered attractive.” The mother of two stood by the term “consciously uncoupling” — the phrase that she and Martin used when announcing their separation in 2014. She said: “People are coming around. I know it’s a dorky term, but it’s very worthwhile. I’m always the person who gets shit at first, but then later people say, ‘Hey, maybe that’s a good idea,’ WATCH THE VIDEO ONLINE standard.co.uk/ tigerwoods Slurring Tiger caught on camera POLICE footage shows Tiger Woods struggling to walk after officers woke him at the wheel of his running car. The 14-time major golf champion was arrested for driving under the influence in Florida and blamed his state on an “unexpected reaction” to a mix of prescription medicine. Jupiter police department released a dashcam video of the former world number one failing to pass a sobriety test a short drive from his home. He is seen struggling to stay upright as he fails to walk in a straight line after getting out of his Mercedes in the early hours of Monday. The 41-year-old was unable to say where he was, and could barely keep his eyes open. Officers described him as having “slow, mumbled and slurred” speech. The force corroborated Woods’ claim that he did not have alcohol in his system. The golfer, who is recovering from back surgery, apologised and said he took “full responsibility” after spending nearly four hours in jail. He will appear in court in Palm Beach county on July 5. John Dunne I don’t mind. I wanted to turn my divorce into a positive. “What if I didn’t blame the other person for anything and held myself 100 per cent accountable? What if I checked my own shit at the door and put my children first? And reminded myself about the things about my ex-husband that I love and fostered the friendship? What I put myself through to get there O To see The EDIT’s full interview go to www.net-a-porter. com/magazine/ 404/18 or download the free EDIT app at the App Store and Google Play was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.” She said she takes her children Apple, 13, and Moses, 11, everywhere so that she can use them as a “shield” against the paparazzi and also revealed that she even occasionally eased up on her fitness and healthy eating regime. Paltrow said: “I can’t be on a cleanse all the time… I did one for seven weeks last year and it was awful. My first meal of the day is normally lunch. I keep it light on carbs so my energy levels don’t peak and valley through the day. “At home, I loosen the reins: a glass of wine, maybe a baguette dripping in cheese, some fries… on vacation, I eat what I want — and there’s no exercising either.” 12 EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 13 | News Make a date as West End’s Novikov serves up 30 days of dining delight Calendar events: the window display at Novikov. Its celebrity diners include Rihanna and Pixie Lott Jonathan Prynn Consumer Business Editor WEST END restaurant Novikov today helps kick-start the inaugural London Food Month with the first of 30 spectacular events in June. The restaurant’s bosses and chefs have lined up a separate masterclass, promotion or special menu for every day of the month. Each will be flagged up in an advent calendar-style daily “reveal” in the restaurant’s windows starting with today’s hearty barbecue one-off — a whole lamb cooked on a charcoal hog roaster and served with piadina flat bread. Caroline Taylor, general manager of Novikov Mayfair, said: “We couldn’t decide on only one celebration. So like an advent calendar, we will open the door to a different celebration every day to mark Novikov’s Food Adventure Calendar.” The schedule at Novikov, which has two dining rooms, one serving Italian food and one specialising in Asian cuisine, will mark well-known dates in the June diary. For example June 10, the Queen’s official birthday, is being marked with the installation of a popup gin distillery, plus a special gin martini menu and gin masterclass in the lounge bar. Two days later, on Russian Federation Day, a £150 platter of caviar, smoked fish, Russian salad and a vodka shot is O SADIQ KHAN is calling on Londoners to vote for the dish that makes their city the culinary centre of the world. All those who vote in the #MyLondonDish competition will be entered into a contest to win tickets to the Night Market. To choose #MyLondonDish go to visitlondon. com/ mylondondish. Voting is open until June 30. being served. Novikov, whose celebrity diners include Rihanna and Pixie Lott, is owned by Russian restaurateur Arkady Novikov. London Food Month starts today with 140 events across the capital in the first 24 hours. Other events include the 12day Night Market in Kensington, opening on June 7. For a limited offer of 2-for-1 tickets, enter code FOOD at londonfoodmonth.co.uk/night-market Chef Mohacho asks Londoners to pop in for a taste of Spain Lizzie Edmonds CELEBRATED Spanish chef Nieves Barragan Mohacho will give Londoners a taste of her anticipated new restaurant at a one-night pop-up. Mohacho, the former executive head chef and public face of the acclaimed Barrafina restaurants, is launching a Spanish restaurant, bar and asador — or grill — in the autumn called Sabor with business partner José Etura. The new venture, on Heddon Street, will focus on classic tastes from Spain, using traditional ingredients and methods. Etura said: “We want to take them on a journey t h ro u g h S p a i n , showing off the best food and dishes.” The pair will take over Stevie Parle’s Grill menu: Nieves Craft restaurant in Barragan Mohacho Greenwich for one night only at the London Food Month event on June 16, serving “a taste of the new restaurant menu” for £48. It is likely to include: Torreznos de Soria, pork belly and Tortilla Bacalao, salt cod tortilla. Tickets for the feast, including a welcome drink, cost £48, available at saborlondon.tocktix.com 14 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD Comment | Even this staunch republican is full of praise for the young royals Is Mr Corbyn remotely capable of governing? JEREMY Corbyn wants us to take seriously the prospect that he could win the election. We should take him at his word and ask whether he is remotely capable of the serious business of government. The question feels more urgent now that some — and we stress some — polls, including that of London voters published in this paper today, suggest Theresa May might end up with a similar majority to the one she started with or even manage to lose this election. Her refusal to take part in any TV debates was another hubristic misstep. Her stand-in Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, put in a gutsy performance last night, just days after her father passed away, and has emerged as the star of an otherwise wooden Tory campaign. But it would have been sensible for Mrs May to have agreed to one seven-way debate at the start of the campaign rather than risk looking frit on the eve of the election and gifting her opponent a platform. Of course, polls have been wrong before, as they were at the last election and the referendum, but they were wrong together and in the same direction. Today the polls vary widely, from predictions of a hung parliament to a sizeable Tory majority. The main factor driving the differences is whether the pollsters think younger people, the majority of whom appear to support Mr Corbyn, will vote in greater numbers than at previous elections. That is not a matter of computer calculation but judgment — and no one will know the answer until June 9. This paper believes everyone, young and old, should shoulder their responsibilities as citizens of a democracy and take part in this election. We also hope they think responsibly about the choice in front of them and consider these questions about the Labour leader. Crucial choice First, has Mr Corbyn or his colleagues demonstrated an ability to manage the British economy? The answer is patently no. The fact the shadow cabinet don’t know details of their policies in interviews has been embarrassing. For experts who understand those details, the verdict has been clear: the debt and deficit would soar; businesses would be damaged; taxes on enterprise would rise; trade unions would be able to hold the country to ransom as they now hold their party hostage. It would mean fewer jobs, higher prices and lower living standards. The Labour leader may promise a fairer Britain but his policies would deliver a poorer and more unequal country. Second, has Mr Corbyn shown he could lead the country abroad and keep it safe? Again, the answer is no. His disdain for Britain’s allies such as the US, his embrace of failed states such as Venezuela and Cuba, his association with the IRA and PLO, his militant pacifism, his commitment to unilateral disarmament, would pose a huge risk to our national security — and a huge departure from the place in the world that Labour governments, as well as Conservative, have secured for Britain. It is those who wish there would be no more wars who create the conditions likely to generate conflict and disorder. On the central issue of Brexit, the Labour leader has been even less clear on specifics than Mrs May. Indeed, his ambivalence over our EU membership was a contributing cause of our departure. Third, does Mr Corbyn have the temperament, work-rate and judgment to be Prime Minister? The fact that most Labour MPs don’t think so hardly inspires confidence. Nor does his reliance on the likes of Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and the soft bigotry of the hard Left. The mask sometimes slips and reveals a very ugly face. Unlike many politicians, the problem with Mr Corbyn is not that he’s inconsistent and U-turns too much — it’s that he refuses to change his long-held, disturbing views about how this country should be run. Now is the time for all voters to focus on the choice before them. Anyone who cares about the long-term future of the country should have serious reservations about putting Mr Corbyn and his fellow travellers in Downing Street. Noble cause: the Duke of Cambridge, photographed for the new issue of GQ magazine Alastair Campbell A S SOMETHING of a lifelong republican, I was surprised to be asked by the young royals’ Heads Together campaign to record one of their recent films about the importance of being open about mental health. The idea at the heart of the #oktosay campaign was to film people who had experience of mental illness talking with the person they usually opened up to when ill — in my case, my partner Fiona, who has had to live with my onoff depressions and addictions, not to mention the occasional psychotic breakdown, for almost 40 years. It got a fair amount of attention, though nothing like the 25 million hits for the transatlantic Facetime chat on mental health between Prince William and Lady Gaga! It got me thinking, though — I wonder if Prince William would do one of my monthly GQ interviews. So I asked, and the royals surprised me again, with a near immediate “yes”. It gave me an easy first question — what was a nice future King like him doing with an old Leftie republican like me? The answer was our shared passion for breaking down the stigma and the taboo surrounding mental illness. The republican in me was mildly irritated when the young royals — William, Kate and Harry preside jointly over Heads Together — entered this space, given that it seems unfair that whatever cause they support can get massive additional attention, and with it political and fundraising clout. The mental health campaigner, though, was delighted, and a lengthy taped interview, face to face on his home turf, Kensington Palace, was a great way of finding out whether he is sincere about the cause. I believe he is. Would he stand on ceremony? He didn’t. Was there any real passion behind the shy exterior? There was. And when later the photographer and his team arrived, they could not believe how relaxed he was, nor their luck that out of nowhere came his wife, the two children wanting to play with him, and the family dog Lupo. A fair part of the conversation, published in GQ today, was about the grief he experienced when his mother died, not just the searing emotional pain and his difficulty with coming to terms with it, so that only now does he really feel able to open up about it, but also his evident anger at the role of the media in her life and death, and the torture he went through in walking behind his mother’s coffin, things of which I was aware at the time, when working for Tony Blair and seconded to support NORMAN JEAN ROY Established 1827 William, Harry and Kate are making a real difference with their interest in mental health If William carries on like this, who knows, I might end up finally doing as my mother said, and become a monarchist the Palace team planning the funeral. What son doesn’t miss his mother when she’s gone? As we talked in Kensington Palace, I kept thinking of my own mother, born in the same year as The Queen, 1926, and given the same Christian name, Elizabeth, but unlike The Queen no longer with us, and unlike me a fervent monarchist. She knew that I liked his mother already, given the smitten entries in my diaries, which record the times when on any meeting with her the hard-man spin doctor would melt into adolescent adoration of one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Diana was, though — and to this day, two decades on, still is — a huge loss to Brand Britain. As we near the 20th anniversary of her death there will be a lot of focus on her, and on her legacy. Prince William talks very movingly of what she continues to mean to him and to Harry, and although he denies it was her own struggles that led them to adopt mental health as their issue, there is no doubt that the struggles they have had in dealing with loss have given them an empathy and understanding of mental health that helps to bring it alive for people. A few weeks after the Heads Together films were released, and Prince Harry had spoken about how he had needed counselling to deal with the aftermath of his mother’s death, The Sunday Times ran a story quoting anonymous sources that The Queen wished her grandsons to desist from further baring their hearts and souls. I have enough experience of Sunday newspaper stories not to be certain if there was any truth in this one. But I hope not. And if there is, I hope they ignore it, because their campaign is making a real difference, by normalising conversations about mental health. That can only be a good thing, because I know plenty of people who find mental illness hard enough but who find the stigma and taboo — particularly in the workplace — even harder. In taking this on, William, Kate and Harry are doing a real service to a campaign which feels like it is nearing a tipping point. They know as well as I do, and Prince William says as much, that the anti-stigma campaign cannot be a substitute for the services needed to help and support people when ill. But it is an incredibly important accompaniment, which if successful can prevent illness, and help prevent the ultimate in mental illness, suicide. Prince William has experience of dealing with the shattering effect of suicide, in his work as an air ambulance pilot. I also know he and Kate have made a private visit to the country’s only suicide sanctuary, of which I am a patron, and he was shocked to discover it is the only one of its kind. On that, and on much else besides, the interview is a remarkable read for anyone interested in him, his life and why he feels so passionately about mental health. And if he carries on like this, who knows, I might end up finally doing as my mother said, and become a monarchist. After all, I did put The Queen in my Winners book as one of the great enduring winners of our time. And Donald Trump manages to challenge anyone’s faith in an elected head of state every single day. O Alastair Campbell is an ambassador for Time to Change, Mind, Rethink and Alcohol Concern, and patron of the Maytree Suicide Sanctuary in Finsbury Park, to whom the fee for this article will be donated. To read more log on to: standard.co.uk/comment EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 15 | Comment Scrapping free school meals is a betrayal of all our children Henry Dimbleby O To order prints or signed copies of any Evening Standard cartoon, call 0191 603 0178 or visit adams.newsprints.co.uk O Contact Adams at: cartoonist@standard.co.uk May must recognise that teamwork is a better way to govern than autocracy Matthew d’Ancona I N A campaign of hectic volatility, Amber Rudd is fast emerging as the Conservative Party’s leader-inwaiting. Though her elderly father died on Monday, the Home Secretary not only insisted upon appearing at the BBC’s leaders’ debate last night (standing in for Theresa May) but acquitted herself impressively in the seven-way shouting match. As the other six engaged in playground politics, Rudd addressed viewers as adults, reminding them that public spending requires growth, that government is about priorities and that the test of leadership is unpalatable choices. Whatever happens on June 8, the Home Secretary is now in pole position to succeed May. It is a measure of how much has changed since the PM called the election that such a question is even worth posing. When May announced her decision to go to the country, the Tories were more than 20 points ahead and the media fretted about the difficulty of making the forthcoming campaign look like a real fight. Well, it is now. I still think May will prevail, though not, perhaps, by the crushing margin that she had hoped for. Orthodox as it is to say that he is having a great campaign, Jeremy Corbyn continues to look and sound like an affable activist rather than a prospective Prime Minister. His first answer to a question is often impressively calm and mellifluous — but he falters when pressed for detail, as he did last night when asked about the Manchester bomber’s motivation. Worse, his definition of leadership conspicuously failed to mention the ability to make priorities, the readiness to say “no” and the recognition that diplomacy does not always succeed. Government is not a taxpayer-funded rally. As for the Tories, this campaign has laid bare shortcomings that will cause serious problems if they are not corrected. The attacks on Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, May’s chiefs of staff, are ridiculously overblown and, in any case, miss the point. Both are advisers of rare ability who, in a matter of months, helped their boss restore unity to a party torn apart by the referendum and establish a new trajectory for a government dizzied by the outcome. What May needs to do on June 9 — assuming she wins — is to enlarge the circle of trust and accept, however begrudgingly, that you need more than three people to run a country. Much is made of the PM’s taste for “consultative and deliberative” government and her faith in Cabinet committees. But this inclination is meaningless unless it reflects a readiness to delegate, to decentralise power from No 10 to departments, and to allow senior Tories other than Sir Michael Fallon — sturdily reliable though he is — to make media The facts are back, thanks to Trump PROMOTING my book Post Truth in the past few weeks, I have been struck by the defensiveness of two groups. First, there are the remaining champions of postmodernist philosophy who do not like one bit the suggestion that these impenetrable Parisian texts, playfully dismissive of such bourgeois notions as “truth”, helped pave the way for the “alternative facts” of Donald Trump’s presidency. Second, and more familiar, there are those pundits who simply refuse to believe that anything new happens, ever: “Nothing to see here, move along.” Luckily, readers are proving much more engaged, wary of a world in which emotion eclipses evidence and reality is absolutely fungible. It is no less encouraging to see the factchecking industry prosper in response to fake news: the BBC’s Reality Check, First Draft News and Full Fact. The tech giants are on notice, too: clean up your act, or face regulation. Though the problem is global, there is something distinctively British about the absolute determination to prevent the rise of a British Trump. No covfefe here, thank you. appearances. This campaign has tested to destruction the proposition that May’s government should be a cult of personality. Time to try teamwork. As for policy: Cameron, always ready with a cricketing metaphor, used to speak of the need for “pitch-rolling” before a significant proposal was unveiled. The ground, he insisted, had to be prepared meticulously, glitches detected, problems anticipated. Though he did not always succeed, the principle was sound. What is now ludicrously known as the “dementia tax” is, in fact, one of the most enlightened Conservative proposals in a generation: it would draw on assets rather than income to fund domestic social care, safeguard £100,000 for the individual’s heirs, and (most important of all) ensure that payment could be made posthumously so that the elderly did not have to sell their homes. The error was one of form not content. Rushed out in the manifesto, the plan fell victim to the electoral maelstrom and was immediately tarnished by a U-turn compelled by politics rather than logic. Had the pitch been properly rolled — or rolled at all — this would not have happened. Unfashionable as it is to say so, there are still lessons for May to learn from Cameron. “POLITICIANS,” said the banker John Quinton, “are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.” I can’t think of a better example of this law in action than Theresa May’s shortsighted, economically illiterate and frankly baffling decision to remove free school meals for infants — just when they are starting to pay off. Admittedly, I have skin in the game. Universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) were introduced just two and a half years ago, as a direct result of the School Food Plan [schoolfoodplan. com] — a blueprint for improving school food which I wrote with my Leon co-founder John Vincent. UIFSM was that rarest of political specimens: a policy with genuine allparty backing. Brought in by the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition, with enthusiastic support from Labour MPs, it was deliberately long-sighted. Illnesses related to bad diet currently cost the NHS £6 billion a year. One in five children leaves primary school obese — and most will stay that way. Ultimately, prevention is less expensive (and more humane) than cure. Eating a cooked meal in the middle of the day has been shown to improve both children’s academic performance and their overall diet. It is precisely those families who Theresa May claims to care about — the “just about managing” — who benefit the most: two thirds of children from poor families do not meet the criteria for means-tested free school meals. Introducing the policy wasn’t easy. Many headteachers had to upgrade their school kitchens or install new ones. Caterers had to hire new staff and up their game. Politicians had to soothe furrowed brows and distribute the cash. Michael Gove (then Education Secretary) and the Lib-Dem education minister David Laws toiled heroically to push the policy through. As this newspaper revealed yesterday, they wrote to every headteacher in the country to reassure them that the upheaval was worth it: “Schools,” they said, “can plan confidently in the knowledge that we are making a longterm policy commitment.” I’m sure they meant every word of it. For who would be daft enough to reverse a policy like this without giving it time to bed down? Some of the benefits of UIFSM have been immediate: an amazing 85 per cent of infants now have a cooked meal at lunch, compared with 50 per cent in 2013. Headteachers tell us that having the whole school eating together has had a transformative effect on morale and behaviour. But the biggest rewards are yet to come, as our children grow up into healthier, happier adults, and the strain on the NHS begins to ease. There is light at the end of this tunnel. Alas, it seems Theresa May prefers the dark. 16 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD Politics, party and pillow talk. Edited by Joy Lo Dico Lamé laments curse of a great wall of China A THUMBS DOWN from China for night czar Amy Lamé’s new book on the history of the LGBTQ+ movement, wittily entitled From Prejudice to Pride. The book was sent to printers in China, who rejected it on the basis of its content, Lamé said yesterday at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, where she launched the book. Interviewed on stage by Graham Norton about the tome aimed at young people, Lamé, right, explained: “China said it won’t print the book. It might have been because, on page 21, there’s a picture of two Chinese lesbians having a good old snog,” she mused. “Gathering in public places for things like Pride is illegal in China. It goes to show we still have a long way to go.” Which printers it was we don’t know but the book, published by Hachette imprint Wayland, was eventually printed in Singapore. Lamé said she experiences prejudice at home too. “My girlfriend and I were [shouted at] up on the street in Trafalgar Square last year by some crazy person who didn’t like the fact that we were holding hands,” she said. While serious, the event was also a celebration, with lots of laughs. Norton asked of the history: “How much of this did you know, and how much of it were you like ‘Google Gay’?”. “As I’m sure you know, if you Google ‘Gay ’ you never know where it’s going to end up,” she said. Lamé moved to London from the US in 1992. She said: “I really came to be a lesbian.” Norton assured her: “You’ve done very well.” O IT’S the only question that matters: Oasis or Blur? NME asks Jeremy Corbyn that very opinion divider in this week’s issue. “I’m going to plump for Oasis,” Corbyn says. “But I know this will immediately divide the audience, so what I should have said was, ‘I’ll refer it to a focus group to decide,’ but I’m not keen on focus groups.” Perhaps Blur is the Tory choice — all that talk of a big house, a very big house in the country ... The darling books of May could save us TRUMP is playing hard to get with the Paris climate accord, and this week Green Party leader Caroline Lucas asked “Where is the Environment?” in the election. If Theresa May won’t listen to Lucas, will she listen to favoured author Donna Leon? May said she read Leon’s crime books on holiday. Venice-based Leon gets exercised about global warming, and criticised Quote of the day “He wasn’t at a barn dance in Londonderry downing Guinness in a balaclava” Russell Brand defends Jeremy Corbyn’s historic connections with the IRA May’s dismantling of the Department of Climate Change last year. “By God, you just shut that sucker down,” she said with surprise, in an email to us. Could Leon persuade May with literature? “I hope to heaven that the PM of any nation doesn’t need to read about global warming in a crime novel to begin to consider the possibility that it might be a reality,” she replied, curtly. EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 17 BONHUGHBON diary@standard.co.uk PICTURES: DAVE BENETT Out last night... O EXCUSE of the day: the Russian Orthodox church defends one of its priests driving a 4 x 4 worth 13 times the national salary. “Jesus himself wore expensive clothes that were given to him as presents by people who respected him.” Terrific titfers: clockwise from main, Pam Hogg, Stephen Jones, Philip Treacy and Virginia Bates; fashion journalist Hamish Bowles, Paul Simonon of The Clash; Love Magazine’s Katie Grand Covfefe is this season’s ne w black STILL wondering what “cov fefe” means? Yesterday, Don tweeted the already-noto rious typo, causing pundits ald Trump to come up with their own definitions. Actor Hugh Bonneville thin ks it mig be sartorial. “Loving my styli sh new covfefe,” he Instagram ht yesterday. “Everyone’s wea med ring them this season.” Hats off to celebrate a great milliner MILLINER Stephen Jones may be way off 100 but he nevertheless celebrated his centenary last night, throwing a gala dinner merging his 60th birthday party with his 40th anniversary in the industry. Held at Bistrotheque in Hackney, the dress code inevitably called for hats, and the mad hatters in attendance O THE Londoner flicked on the BBC today to see Mary Beard, Cambridge classicist, and Peter Stringfellow, gentleman’s club owner, taking part in Election Blind Dates. Peter, a Remainer, said immigrants “make their money and then they go away to their own businesses”. Mary replied: “Can I parody you and say ‘I’m a Remainer because I want all those nice Eastern European girls to come and take their clothes off in my club. I’d love to teach you, Peter.” “It’s too late to teach me anything, Mary.” Old dog. included designer Pam Hogg, fellow milliner Philip Treacy and queen of vintage Virginia Bates. Jones shows no sign of slowing down: he still provides the cherry on top for models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid, and made Pippa Middleton’s wedding veil. Here’s to the next 100 years. Borwick in the firing line KENSINGTON’S Tory MP, Victoria Borwick, pictured, might have wished she’d followed Theresa May’s lead and stayed away from Notting Hill last night. The holy setting of St John’s Church didn’t inhibit constituents, who booed the visibly nervous Borwick when she ducked questions on how to tackle Brexit. “We need to work together,” she said. “We’re much stronger together than we are separately”. “Answer the f**king question,” one guest shouted. Labour candidate Emma Dent Coad jabbed a finger at Borwick. “She,” Coad said scornfully, “voted against Remain three times — no wonder she can’t answer the question”. The audience stamped their feet and heckled Borwick, before “People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe.” Lib-Dem candidate Annabel Mullin continued. “Nine times she voted against climate change,” she said, referring to Borwick’s reluctance to support preventative measures. “Every breath we take is what she was voting against, I’m asking you to employ me.” One attendee scoffed: “No chance.” Mullin shrugged: “I’ll take that as a maybe.” Tough crowd. Hillary Clinton tweets Donald Trump yesterday after he calls her “crooked” and a “terrible candidate.” Get over it, Donald. London’s favourite glossy is available every Thursday and Friday Londoner’s Diary online standard.co.uk ⁄ diary Follow us on Twitter @standarddiary 18 THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 EVENING STANDARD News | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR have signed three generations of a culinary dynasty to provide fine dining to fans. Michel Roux Jr will be accompanied by father Albert and daughter Emily in the kitchens for 12 matches a season when Spurs’ £800 million New White Hart Lane ground opens next year. They will deliver a “world-class” experience to fans paying for premium packages. Roux Jr and Emily met former Spurs captain Ledley King to unveil the deal at Roux at Parliament Square, right. Rachel Dickerson LUCY YOUNG Spurs score deal with Roux family Hyde Park to host baseball’s big hitters for quick-fire game David Churchill HYDE PARK will be transformed into a baseball diamond for a quick-fire, Twenty20 cricket-style version of the game never before seen in Europe. The Major League Baseball takeover will see stars of the game take to the field to smash as many home runs as possible against the clock. Ex-pro MLB legends Carlos Peña, Cliff Floyd and Shawn Green will be among the big hitters in the Boston Red Sox v LA Dodgers “Home Run Derby”. Green, who has hit 328 home runs in his career, will pull on the LA Dodgers jersey, while Peña and Floyd, who have scored 286 and 233 home runs in their careers respectively, will play for the Boston Red Sox. The park’s transformation for the July 4 MLB Battlegrounds showdown will begin after Justin Bieber headlines the main stage for the British Summer Time Hyde Park festival two days before. Kings of Leon resume the festival again on July 6. Floyd, who played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets a n d T a m p a B ay Rays, told the Standa rd i t wo u l d b e “amazing” to be a part of a game which is helping baseball “grow” in the UK. Speaking from America he said: “They’re trying to establish something that is great, and the Your finger on the pulse Stay in touch with the latest news and breaking stories wherever you are standard. co.uk game of baseball is great, and to be a part of this is amazing. “Intensity-wise, we’ll get the adrenaline going just as if we were going to play a Major League Baseball game.” He added: “This is a great initiative to jumpstart something that has been lacking.” The baseball takeover is the latest attempt by American games chiefs to import sports from the US. In January, basketball’s biggest stars returned to the 02 Arena for the seventh regular season game in London when the Indiana Pacers took on the Denver Nuggets. London will also host four National Football League matches for the first time this year. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said he wants to make London the “undisputed sporting capital of the world” and sees more NBA and NFL games in particular as part of this vision. Charlie Hill, Managing Director of MLB Europe, said: “This represents an exciting statement of intent for Major League Baseball in Europe. “Hyde Park is the perfect location to bring a flavour of our game to London with two of the most popular teams in the sport — the Red Sox and the Dodgers — set to provide a night of big hitting on the Main Stage.” The free baseball event will run from 5pm to 10pm. The sport will be mixed with street food and US music. Home run: Cliff Floyd will play for the Boston Red Sox EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2017 19 | News I was fired from Hyundai car show job for having my period, claims model Ross Lydall Chief News Correspondent A MODEL claims she was sacked from representing car giant Hyundai at a motor show because she was having her period. Rachel Rickert, 27, has filed a complaint in the US alleging that she was “shamed” while working at the New York International Auto Show in April. She says she needed to change her uniform after being unable to take a lavatory break in time to change her tampon. She then received a text from her representative, Erika Seifred, telling her that the client — Hyundai — wanted her to take the night off because of her “period situation”, it is claimed. Two days later, Ms Seifred called to tell her that the South Korean manufacturer no longer wanted her to work at the show because it had heard about the incident. Ms Rickert told the BBC: “I was completely puzzled. I was really upset. I started crying... I book out shows, and I miss other opportunities. So I was just like, ‘What? This is not right!’” She filed a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday against Hyundai and Ms Seifred’s management firm, Experiential Talent, which had hired her. The complaint is a precursor to a federal discrimination lawsuit. The complaint alleges that Ms Seifred told her she was being dismissed “because Hyundai heard about Ms Rickert having her menstrual cycle and they didn’t want Ms Rickert representing the company any more”. Ms Rickert had spent three hours greeting guests at the Hyundai booth before being allowed to take a break. In a separate interview, Ms Rickert told the New York Post: “I’m not going to let someone tell me I can’t have my period when I work. It’s unacceptable. You’re not a robot. You have to use the bathroom especially when you’re on your period. They just act like we’re not human. I’m not going to be ashamed or shamed of having my period.” She resisted going home afterwards, as she was being paid by the hour, and went to work as normal the next day. Ms Rickert said she had appeared at 50 similar conventions. She said she had “Completely puzzled”: Rachel Rickert has filed a complaint against Hyundai William: Royal family is in a good place but needs vision to survive Robert Jobson Royal Editor PRINCE WILLIAM has revealed he believes the monarchy must “have a vision” to stay relevant and survive. The future king said he believes the institution “is in a good place” but suggested the royals must not be complacent as it is “important you look forward” and have a “plan”. The Duke of Cambridge, 34, spoke out about the future of the monarchy in a frank interview with Tony Blair’s former spin doctor and journalist Alastair Campbell for British GQ Magazine’s July issue. When Mr Campbell, who describes himself as a “Leftie republican”, asked how the monarchy had bucked the trend in a “non-deferential, anti-establishment” age, William said: “I do feel the monarchy is in a good place and my grandmother has done a remarkable job leading the country — her vision, her sense of duty, her loyalty, her steadfastness, it has been unwavering. “We now have three generations of working royals, four altogether, and that movement through the genera- Tribute: Prince William says the Queen has done a “remarkable job” of leading the country tions allows the monarchy to stay relevant and keep up with modern times. You are only as good as your last gig and it is really important you look forward, plan, have a vision.” The prince, second in line to the throne, spoke of what it was like to learn to be head of state. “You learn on the job,” he said. “There is no rulebook.” He also revealed he believes media figures took advantage of his mother as his parents’ marriage collapsed in the Nineties. The prince slammed the press for their treatment of his mother and revealed he considered giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry. William said: “There is a certain element of Fleet Street getting fed up with nice stories about us. They want the past back again, soap, drama. “I couldn’t do my job without the stability of the family. Stability at home is so important to me. I want to bring up my children in a happy, stable, secure world.” Admitting he and his family lead an “abnormal life”, he added: “Totally, but I can still try to protect them as children.” Alastair Campbell Page 14 Going Out The best of what’s on and, where to go, arts, film and music Tomorrow and every Friday ‘I’m not going to let someone tell me I can’t have my period when I work’ Rachel Rickert not received any of the $5,000 (£3,879) she had expected to earn. “I’m not going to let people treat women this way,” she said. “It’s a natural thing that we have, our periods, and it’s not like I want special treatment because of it. I just want to be respected as a human and to be able to go to the restroom. And not to be considered a bad employee because I needed to use the bathroom.” Hyundai Motor America said it had not yet been informed of the claim, but was looking into the allegations. “We take any complaint like this seriously and will respond appropriately once we have a chance to investigate the merits of the claim,” the firm said. Ms Seifred did not wish to comment. @RossLydall 20 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard News in Focus | T he speed of Jared Kushner’s descent from boy wonder to whipping boy has been consistent with everything else in Donald Trump’s Washington. Chaotic. Mystifying. And perhaps concealing something much, much darker. At the start of last week, Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and political factotum, was basking in the success of Trump’s tour of the Middle East. He had put together the jaunt through Riyadh and Jerusalem, the rhetoric and images of Trump the dealmaker and improbable peace-maker. But by the weekend, he was hunkered down at a Trump golf course in New Jersey fighting off allegations of collusion with Russia. Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @esfeatures The Kushner files Trump’s son-in-law Jared was America’s golden boy. But the halo has slipped, reports Philip Delves Broughton Not so long ago, Kushner and his wife Ivanka gleamed as the William and Kate of the Trump ascendancy. Modern, youthful, liberal restraints on Trump’s circle of intemperate plutocrats. The kale salad to his well-done steak with ketchup. Today, they look bloodied and bedraggled and are reportedly pining for their old lives in New York. Their old home, their old gym, their old friends, and their old business interests. Kushner comes from his own property dynasty. His grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, and father built a rough-andtumble empire of flats and small commercial buildings in New Jersey. Kushner grew up wealthy in a conserv- ative, Jewish community. He was admitted to Harvard shortly after his father pledged to give $2.5 million to the university, and later obtained a law degree and MBA from New York University. In 2004, his father, Charles, was jailed for a year for hiring a prostitute to seduce and blackmail his own brother-in-law. Kushner took over the family business in his mid-20s and set about establishing himself in Manhattan. He bought a gossipy local newspaper, the Observer, and shifted his investments out of New Jersey rental into more salubrious New York skyscrapers. He capped it all in 2009 by marrying Ivanka, an heir to a much more famous New York property family. To remind himself of the lows of his father’s incarceration and the highs of acquiring multi-billion dollar properties, he kept a framed copy in his office of the first page of Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” His father-in-law was impressed by his commitment to family first, his aggression in negotiations and his ability to stare down creditors during the depths of the financial crisis. Washington, though, has proved tougher than bank lenders. K ushner arrived in January, hailed as the architect of his father-in-law’s improbable victory. He had orchestrated the team of data scientists who identified pockets of potential Trump support around the country and played their Facebook news feeds to perfection. He had convinced Rupert Murdoch that Trump was a serious candidate. He had made Hillary Clinton’s campaign operation, and most Washington pundits, look 20 years out of date. He and Ivanka looked poised to rule the capital. Kushner’s reward was a pair of adjoining offices down the corridor from the President, the title “senior advisor”, and a great swathe of responsibility: peace in the Middle East, relations with China and Mexico, the opioid epidemic, veterans affairs, reorganising the federal government and reinvigorating American innovation. When business leaders wanted access to the President, it was Kushner they called first. He managed it all with a light touch. When Trump’s healthcare plan was going up in flames, he was on a skiing holiday with his family. Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, calls Kushner “air” for the way he floats in and out of meetings. Kushner’s signature achievements so far have been arranging the Middle East trip and a meeting between Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. But given the problems now swirling for him, those may be the only two achievements carved into his political tombstone. He and Ivanka risk being drummed out of Washington, snared in legal trouble, neither having shed the impression that they were in it for anything but even more money and influence than they already had. The FBI is now said to be interested in two meetings Kushner had with Russian officials in the period between Donald Trump’s election and his inauguration. The first, in early December at Trump Tower in New York, was with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s long-serving ambassador to Washington. No fault in an incoming administration getting to know the diplomatic corps. The problem, as reported by The Washington Post, was that they “discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring.” At the time, the Obama administration was still in power, and Kushner’s discussion looks at least suspicious and to some, perhaps treacherous. The second meeting was with Sergey Gorkov, head of Russia’s development bank, and a graduate of Russia’s spy school, the Academy of the Federal Security Service. Gorkov’s bank has been on a US sanctions list since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Kushner failed to mention either meeting on the security forms he had to fill out when he took a job at the White House but later offered to amend them. On Sunday night, Mr. Trump praised his son-in-law in a statement: “Jared is doing a great job for the country. I have total confidence in him. He is respected by virtually everyone and is working on programs that will save our country billions of dollars. In addition to that, and perhaps more importantly, he is a very good person.” But beyond his father-in-law, there are few willing to make a stand for Kushner. There are no Kushner loyalists screaming out his name. He would make an easy sacrifice if the Russia scandal further engulfs the President. Trump’s base won’t care if he disappears, as Kushner and his skinny ties are as alien to the white working class as they are to him. And the executives courting his favour will do the same with the next person to take his job. “Air” could easily vanish. America would scarcely know he was gone. Only Trump would notice the silence. @delvesbroughton Special relationship: President Trump with son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump 21 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 | News in Focus The power of paralanguage — how emoji changed the world Richard Godwin W E’VE all found ourselves in situations where emojis have provided a more apt response than words. You’re trying to end an awkward midnight text exchange: monkey-no-speak, peace sign, bed? The Prime Minister is giving a Facebook live interview: angry red face, angry red face, angry red face? Or perhaps you’re working in the White House and your boss Donald Trump has just d e c i d e d t o f i re F B I director James Comey and only bothered to brief press secretary Sean Spicer, one hour beforehand, and now all the phones are buzzing like crazy. As the Washington Post reported on May 10: “When asked Tuesday night for an update on the unfolding situation, one top White House aide simply texted a reporter two fireworks emojis.” Whatever, it should come as no surpri se that the White House backchannels to the press by means of cutesy glyphs. Emoji – from the Japanese for picture (e) plus character (moji) — have seeped into every area of digital life. There are 3.2 billion internet users worldwide and according to one source, 92 per cent of them regularly use emojis. The forthcoming Emoji Movie stars T J Miller as the (non-existent) “meh” emoji who must learn the timely lesson that it’s OK to have more than one reaction. The smiley cushion is a staple of tourist tat stalls from Kuala Lumpur to Blackpool. It has all happened so rapidly too. While emoticons such as :-) date back to the advent of email in 1982, and emojis have been standard on Japanese “feature phones” since the late-1990s, it wasn’t until 2011 that Apple introduced its emoji keyboard. You can now make use of 1,088 distinct emojis. The annual release of new emojis by Unicode, the California-based non-profit consortium that standardises text across the internet, is greeted as a major event. Among recent additions are a vomiting face, a breastfeeding woman, a hedgehog, broccoli (which can double as cann abis), and the English, Welsh and Scottish flags. Linguistics professor Vyvyan Evans, author of The Emoji Code, is a leading authority on digital communication. He sees emoji as an evolutionary response to rapid mobile communications, much as punctuation helped ease the transition from oral to written traditions. Evans feels it is inaccurate to call emoji a language — it has no grammar or syntax, so attempting to translate regular sentences into emoji feels a bit like playing charades. It is a paralanguage, approximating the roles that gesture, expression and tone of voice play in spoken communication. “When we’re talking to someone, 60-70 per cent of ‘social meaning’ comes from non-verbal cues,” says Evans. “We can produce over 10,000 facial expressions, for example. What emoji do is bring emails, texts and so on back into line with speech.” This was pretty much the logic of their inventor, Shigetaka Kurita, who drew up the first 272 emoji while working at the Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo in 1999. And you can see the evidence of this function on emojitracker. com, which counts emoji use on Twitter in real-time, like a sort of stock exchange for sentiment. Almost all of the most popular emoji are emotional. Tears of joy — the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2015 — has racked up 1,705,847,010 uses. Heart, heart eyes, floods of tears, kiss and slight dejection also score high. Still, if emotion is what makes emoji useful, what makes them fun is their near-infinite array of interpretations. We all know, I hope, that if your partner sends you an aubergine followed by a peach followed by a question mark, it’s fairly likely they’re not asking what you’d like for supper. Apple — the Mary Whitehouse of the Unicode panel — recently redesigned the peach emoji so that it looked less like a bum. Instagram briefly banned the aubergine from its search terms to avert dick pix. But users are more than capable of reverseengineering their own meanings for chrysanthemum, woman making OK sign, grapes, etc. The water closet emoji has recently emerged as Instagram slang for woman crush, for example. Trump himself doesn’t seem to have located emojis — small mercy — but his advisers are well-versed in their use as internet cant. The clique surrounding the far-Right isolationist Steve Bannon refers to former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Cohn with the globe emoji as way of mocking his globalist sympathies. Meanwhile the snowflake emoji has been reclaimed by liberals , and often features in Twitter profiles along with the rainbow flag (LGBT-friendly), the raised fist (Resist!), and the paperclip (the closest emoji to the safety pin worn in solidarity with minority groups.) There’s a set of unofficial Jeremy Corbyn emojis for the election. Of course, who does and doesn’t get to be represented in emoji form is in itself political. Unicode 5.0 features a hijab emoji — petitioned for by a Saudi schoolgirl — while Apple began introducing skin shades with its iOS 8.3 update. But as the range expands, so the omissions become more glaring. Where are the ginger emojis? W h ere a re the curlyhair emojis? British users know this cultural ‘When asked for an update, one top White House aide simply texted a reporter two firework emojis’ pain: for years we have had to make do with black coffee or green tea to represent tea. And this week, the Plan International UK launched a campaign to introduce a period emoji so as to help banish stigma around menstruation. Still, according to Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia, the most common requests are for branded emojis. “There’s already a coffee cup but a lot of people ask for a Starbucks emoji,” he tells me. “Football team logosare also in demand but go against Unicode selection factors.” We are tribal animals after all. And the number of companies offering customisable emoji suggest that the days of centralised emoji planning will not last for ever. All of which places great responsibility on Unicode. “It’s a nongovernmental organisation, but it is dominated by older white male engineers from Silicon Valley who ultimately answer to shareholders,” says Evans. “And they’re making decisions about how the world communicates, which is quite odd if you think about it.” There are 11 full voting members of Unicode, who each pay $18,000 a year: Silicon Valley giants Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Yahoo; German software company SAP; Chinese telecoms company Huawei; and the Government of Oman. Evans sees censorship as a developing issue. Apple recently changed its gun emoji to a water pistol, and led the revolt against the rifle emoji. But a more insidious threat lurks deep in our cortexes. The Sapin-Whorf hypothesis (hotly debated in linguistics circles) posits that the grammatical patterns of your native language alter how you think. “There’s now brain scan evidence to support this hypothesis,” says Evans. “So I’d argue that there is a potential danger with emoji. If Unicode can change and influence these systems of communication, ultimately for the interests of the shareholders of its m e m b e r c o m p a n ie s , t h e re a re potentially pernicious downstream consequences.” One potential way is by limiting our emotional range. This is the theme of the Emoji Movie, as it turns out. Humans are imitative. We take our social cues from those around us. We’re also lazy. It’s so much easier to sympathise with a smiley face than think through a response. It’s so much easier mock with a tears of joy than it is to reason. A sort of cutesy flippancy comes to stand in for our full emotional range. We become nodes in a system, our 10,000 potential facial expressions reduced to a drop-down menu of bits of code chosen by a g r o u p o f unaccountable tech billionaires. It’s hard to know how to feel about that except @richardjgodwin 22 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 23 H News and gossip from the world of entertainment by Alistair Foster @alistair_foster Understudy Jacob learned leading role in 24 hours dave benett I only met Kygo days before our hit came out, reveals Ellie ELLIE GOULDING has revealed she only met her latest collaborator Kygo face-to-face “a few days” before their new hit single was released. The pair worked remotely, sending their work by email to each other from their studios to produce surprise hit First Time. The singer, below right with the Norwegian DJ, admitted she came out of hiding to work with him on the track. It has been streamed 63 million times since being released this month. She told the Standard: “I was supposed to be completely mute this year and just writing an album but with this song… it’s had so much attention. “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘Is this your comeback?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ I was not supposed to be coming back for a while but I thought that this song was so good that I wanted to put everything I have into it.” Goulding said the speed at which the collaboration was made and released heralds the new way that music can now be produced. She added: “Nowadays you don’t even have to be in the same room to make music. Kygo and I only met a few days before we released the song. It’s a very different world to how it used to be. “There’s a lot of collaborations going on at the moment and I think that’s really positive. With everything that’s happening in the world at the moment I think the key is to be making positive stuff that makes people happy.” Goulding spoke to the Standard after she performed, right, an acoustic set at Abbey Road for the charity Hope and Homes End Of Silence gala which aims to raise awareness of the harm orphanages can do to children. She added: “Orphanages do more harm than good. They actually end up damaging young people more than helping them. They encourage children to suppress their wanting to call out and reach for love — making them used to silence and not calling out for help. I think it’s really important to spread awareness that every child should have the right to a loving home and support network.” The event also saw a performance by Ronan Keating, and an auction raised £638,427. ON THE Town’s stand-in star Jacob Maynard had just 24 hours to learn the part after cast member Fred Haig broke his foot. The young Londoner stepped up from the ensemble cast to take one of the main roles in the show at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, after Haig suffered the injury in an early performance. Maynard, 23, whose roles include the recent West End production of Guys and Dolls, said: “It was a normal day, we had been rehearsing all day until five, and then I got called in and told the news. Drew [McOnie, the director] just said, ‘Jacob you’ve got this, it is absolutely fine’ and he said it so calmly and he had such faith in me that I thought anything was possible. “Then we had that 24 hours, staying up all night with Drew and the creative team. I was on the next night and it went off without a glitch. It was a pretty special feeling.” Robert Dex Stepping up: Jacob Maynard (Chip) and Lizzie Connolly (Hildy) in On The Town the real star is the choreography first night on the town Open Air Theatre ★★★✩✩ Fiona Mountford ONLINE ch with Stay in touainment the entert andard gossip: st tend .co.uk/wes MUSICALS at this exquisite venue in Regent’s Park have, quite rightly, become key fixtures on London’s cultural calendar in the summer. The levels of ambition and accomplishment increase yearly; last season’s Jesus Christ Superstar won the Evening Standard Award for best musical. On The Town is, like its predecessors, very good, but it’s best appreciated by the head rather than the heart. I admired it throughout, but was almost constantly emotionally unengaged. The piece is, of course, best known as the 1949 film starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. The charisma of this pair lends immeasurable support to the very slight storyline, about three sailors on 24-hour shore leave in New York. The leads here, including Strictly Come Dancing finalist Danny Mac as the lovestruck Gabey, are efficient and affable, without coming close to stamping themselves on our memories. Siena Kelly appeals as poster girl Miss Turnstiles, the object of Gabey’s affection. The real star, however, is the supple and sinuous choreography from Drew McOnie, who also directs. Dance dominates; no surprise given that the source material was a ballet by Jerome Robbins. To the strains of Leonard Bernstein’s beautiful, often haunting, music, the ensemble twirls about in a flurry of colourful costumes. Yet there are no real show-stopping numbers in time-honoured musical theatre fashion; the best known, New York, New York, is oddly thrown away. The al fresco intimacy of this space works best with rounded characters and an involving narrative in which the audience can get immersed as darkness descends. It’s all credit that the Open Air Theatre has set itself such very high standards. ■ Until July 1 (0844 826 4242, openairtheatre.com) More reviews Pages 32 & 33 24 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard News | International Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard Trump and Clinton reignite feud He says ‘crooked’ again, she hits back with ‘covfefe’ Tit for tat: the president and former first lady resumed their war on social media and she attacked him in a speech in Silicon Valley David Gardner US Correspondent DONALD TRUMP and Hillary Clinton have reignited their bitter White House election feud by squaring up on social media. While the president branded his beaten opponent “crooked Hillary” — an insult he often used on the campaign trail — Mrs Clinton mocked him by using his made-up word “covfefe”. Mr Trump tweeted: “Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC.” In response, Mrs Clinton fired back with her own version of the phrase “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. The former first lady tweeted: “Peo- ple in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe.” The bizarre non-word went viral yesterday after Mr Trump accidentally wrote it in a tweet and failed to correct it, with social media awash with jokes and speculation over its possible meaning. The president was reacting to remarks made by Mrs Clinton, who told a tech conference in California’s Silicon Valley that she believed Mr Trump may have “guided” Russian efforts to sabotage her election campaign. Making clear that she thought he had “colluded” with Moscow, she also blasted the election coverage on Face- book, saying the “vast majority” of news about her was “fake”. She claimed there were “1,000 Russian agents involved in delivering those messages” although it was unclear where she obtained her figures. The row blew up as Mr Trump and his aides were locked in last-minute discussions over plans to pull the US out of the 2015 Paris climate change accord. While some insiders insisted the decision had been made to withdraw, others claimed the move had not been finalised. After weeks of uncertainty, Mr Trump said he intended to announce his decision in the White House Rose Garden at 8pm UK time today. Critics say a withdrawal would harm America’s standing in the world and make it more difficult for Mr Trump to reach agreement with allies on other key issues, such as trade and terrorism. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said he opposed “behaving as vassals of the Americans” and blasted Mr Trump for failing to understand the mechanics of a withdrawal, which he said could take three or four years. “This notion — ‘I am Trump. I am American. America first, so I’m going to get out of it’ — that is not going to happen,” he said. Meanwhile the BBC reported today that Chinese and EU leaders are to agree a joint statement on the Paris climate agreement, stressing the “highest political commitment” to implementing the deal. The statement, seen as a rebuff to the US, will be published tomorrow after a summit in Brussels. world in brief ‘Friendly fire’ kills troops in Philippines city battle TEN soldiers have been killed and eight wounded in a “friendly fire” air strike in the Philippines. The army is fighting militants allied to Islamic State in the city of Marawi. Defence secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the soldiers “were hit by our own airstrike”. More than 100 people have died so far in the street battles. Watch the video standard.co.uk/marawi Drug antidote to stop sniffer dog overdose POLICE in Massachusetts have started to carry a drug to protect their sniffer dogs from overdosing. Naloxone, used for years to treat humans, is now being taken on narcotics raids after three police dogs were rushed to an animal hospital last year when they ingested fentanyl, a powerful painkiller often mixed with street heroin. Find the right home near the right school Speaking out: LeBron James in training and the LA home targeted by racists LeBron hits at racism after graffiti attack David Gardner BASKETBALL star LeBron James said “being black in America is tough” after racist graffiti was sprayed on his Los Angeles home. The sportsman, 32, spoke out after police launched a hunt to find the person who daubed the n-word on his front gate. He said the vandalism shows “racism will always be part of the world and part of America”. Speaking at a press conference for the National Basketball Association finals in Oakland, California, James — one of the richest people in sport — said money did not hold all the answers. “No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough,” he added. “We’ve got a long way to go for us as a society and for us as African-Americans until we feel equal in America.” The Cleveland Cavaliers player was not at home when his house was targeted. He reportedly bought the property in Brentwood in 2015 for $21 million (£16.3 million). “Hate in America, especially for African-Americans, is living every day. Even though that it’s concealed most of the time,” he added. He mentioned the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, 14, who was murdered for supposedly whistling at a white woman. “I think back to Emmett Till’s mum actually,” James said. “It’s one of the first things I thought of. The reason she had an open casket was because she wanted to show the world what her son went through as far as a hate crime and being black in America.” James is the highest-paid player in the NBA, reportedly earning more than $30 million (£23.3 million) a year. Last week he became the all-time leading scorer in the play-offs, surpassing the record of Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan. Thug who dragged ex-wife behind car is jailed Allan Hall in Berlin School Checker Rightmove has more properties than any other site. And School Checker is now on every property to show you nearby schools, admission areas and even Ofsted ratings. A FATHER who tied a noose around the neck of his ex-wife and dragged her by car around a German town has been jailed for 14 years. Kader K, 28, sustained serious injuries as she was dragged over cobblestones at high speed by the VW Passat driven by Nurettin B in Hamelin. Their two-year-old son Cudi, who was sitting in the back seat, wit- Serious injuries: Kader K was left in a coma for weeks after the attack nessed his mother’s ordeal. Kader was only saved when the rope snapped outside a fast-food restaurant and passers-by rushed to her aid. She lay in a coma for weeks after the attack last November and has suffered brain damage that will require years of therapy. However, she was fit enough to appear at Hanover State Court to see her ex found guilty of attempted murder after a trial. In addition to the jail sentence, Nurettin B, 39, must pay her more than £100,000 in compensation. Full names are not reported in German court cases. 25 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 | News Demolishing Chelsea market for flats ‘would be vandalism’ Ben Morgan and Barney Davis DEMOLISHING the Chelsea farmers’ market to make way for flats would be “senseless vandalism”, say residents and shoppers. The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS trust wants to sell the site, off King’s Road, to developers to fund a new specialist respiratory wing. More than 300 Chelsea residents have objected. Planners are set to make a decision today. The market is made up of independent businesses in huts around a square, including an organic food store and a pet shop, as well as bars and restaurants. Visitors include Adele, Sir Michael Caine, Dame Maggie Smith and the stars of reality TV show Made In Chelsea. Under the plan, the market in Sydney Street would be replaced by four residential blocks up to five storeys high, as well as “high-quality” retail space. Mohamadreza Sharifi, 65, is a former manager of the market and owns four stalls, including an organic shop where Sir Michael “comes every day to buy cereal”. He said: “This is a unique little oasis and should be maintained properly and not sold off. I have been here 38 years and this would be a total waste of our lives. “We have no alternative but to leave if they get permission. It would be a huge development which would destroy King’s Road, which is already over-built.” In objection, Wangu Chafuwa wrote: “Closing this market would be yet another nail in the coffin for independent traders and local community. Stop this senseless vandalism.” Hayley Richardson said demolition would be “a travesty”, adding: “Stop making Chelsea another Lego town.” Some residents have written in support. Douglas Shaw said: “The farmers’ market is a huddle of wooden shacks not befitting the area. We can do better.” The market has also been earmarked as a possible site for a station for the Crossrail 2 rail route. If plans are approved the NHS trust wants an extension of 15 years before permission expires — compared with three years normally. The proposed sale would help plug a £2.9 million funding shortfall for the new wing and would be ring-fenced, the trust said. It said: “We have worked closely with local resident groups to develop these plans, and are extremely grateful for their involvement. A number of revisions to the proposed designs were made as a result of their feedback.” Kensington and Chelsea council said: “We do not comment on applications ahead of committee meetings.” Women to share their tall stories Lizzie Edmonds A BRUNCH where tall women can network and share the challenges — and benefits — of their height is coming to London for the first time. Bree Wijnaar, 33, set up The Tall Society website and community two years ago in which women can read about height-related topics, meet others, discuss best fashion retailers and a host of other topics. Business systems analyst Ms Wijnaar, who is 6ft4ins, was born in Holland and now lives in New York. She said: “Life can be tough when you are this tall, especially in your teenage years. I Reaching out: New Yorker Bree Wijnaar is hosting a brunch for tall women in London wanted to reach out to other women of height as I knew they would understand my journey.” The Meet Your Tall Sisters event in London on June 17 will cost £50 per person, including food, drinks, music and a giftbag. ■ For more info, go to: https://thetallsociety.com/events Risk: Adele and Sir Michael Caine, with wife Shakira, are among the market’s fans. Far left, the flats plan 26 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard News | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews and Instagram @evening.standard THE DISPOSSESSED FUND Your chance to enjoy a special night at World Para Athletics David Cohen WITH six weeks to go before the World Para Athletics Championships begins, the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund has joined forces with London 2017 to provide a special night of sport for charitable groups and readers. As the world’s best athletes prepare to head to the London Stadium for the World Para Athletics, starting on July 14, and for the IAAF World Championships in August, up to 5,000 free tickets have been set aside for Standard readers and beneficiaries of our charitable fund. In the exclusive first-come-first-served offer for the night of Thursday July 20: ■ A total of 2,500 free tickets have been made available for beneficiaries of the hundreds of charitable groups funded by the Dispossessed Fund since 2010. ■ Another 2,500 free tickets can be claimed by general Standard readers. In 2012, the Paralympic Games sold out in advance. The events scheduled on July 20 are set to feature some of the biggest British names in para athletics and include finals for the 100m, 400m, 800m, discus, shot put and long jump. The British para team will be looking to improve on their haul of 31 medals — 13 gold, nine silver, nine bronze — at HOW TO APPLY for free tickets In action: David Weir wins gold at London 2012 the last World Para Championships in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in 2015. In early August, the IAAF World Championships will begin in London. It is the first time both events are being staged in the same city in the same summer. Niels de Vos, championship director of the World Para Athletics Championships and IAAF World Championships London 2017, said: “It’s extremely important for us to be working with the Dispossessed Fund and to show our support by offering 2,500 individuals from their funded groups the opportu- ■ Readers seeking free tickets for July 20 (limit of four per email application) should apply to: paraathletics championships.com/ eveningstandard ■ Groups funded by the Dispossessed Fund will be contacted by The London Community Foundation and informed how to apply for tickets. nity to see world-class sport. This year’s championships are set to be the biggest and best in the history of global para athletics.” Jim Armstrong, founder of Laburnum Boat Club, a Hackney project providing kayaking to disadvantaged youths and funded by the Dispossessed Fund, said the offer was a boon. “We do a lot of work with children with disabilities, especially autism, building their confidence and making them independent, so this a wonderful opportunity to expose them to a world of excel- lence,” he said. “Many kids we work with are referred from special schools or local authorities and exhibit challenging behaviour, but once they get involved in kayaking, it calms and focuses them. The World Para Athletics Championships will be inspirational for them and raise their aspirations.” Sab Bham, founder of Salaam Peace, an east London charity promoting respect and tolerance through sport, said he expected to take more than 50 young people along. “We run sports programmes every Sunday for children with behavioural issues as well as some who are physically impaired, such as through Down’s syndrome, so this special offer is a great chance to show them what disabled people can achieve. “One of our patrons is Tim Prendergast, a Paralympic 800m gold medallist in the visually impaired category, and he sometimes gives our youngsters motivational talks. Now our kids will be able to experience the incredible atmosphere of the World Para Athletics Championships for themselves.” ■ The World Para Athletics Championships run July 14 to 23. Tickets start at £10 for adults and £5 for under-16s (tickets. london2017athletics.com) 27 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Daniel Hambury | News ‘I’m terrified … winning gold on home turf is what you dream about’ David Cohen Ready, set, go: British Paralympians Georgina Hermitage, at the London Stadium, and Jonnie Peacock, far left RIO Paralympic champion Georgina Hermitage is expected to be one of several star British athletes going for gold on July 20. Hermitage, 28, holds three world records in the T37 category — for the 100m, 200m and 400m — but is nervous about competing on home turf at the World Para Athletics Championships. Speaking outside the 60,000-capacity London Stadium she said: “To be honest, I am completely terrified, totally bricking it. To perform in front of your home crowd, for the stadium to be so full and loud that you can’t even hear your feet hit the ground, that is going to be serious pressure.” The mother of one from Guildford, who has cerebral palsy and consequently a weaker left arm and leg, added: “But I am nervous in a good way. This is what you dream about. As Jonnie Peacock said, you can be the fastest on paper but you’ve got to do it when it matters, and doing it in front of your home crowd is when it matters. “This time it’s not about making new world records, it’s about bringing home gold. I am coming back from an injury but I am now training six times a week and I will be giving it my best shot.” British athletes are set to complete the final qualification process next week. Ms Hermitage had shown athletic talent as a teenager but it was only after being inspired by the 2012 Paralympic Games in London that she decided to take up running seriously. “For me, 2017 is my 2012 moment,” she said. “The chance to run for glory in front of my own people at this level will never come around again.” The fact that disadvantaged Londoners helped by grants from the Dispossessed Fund will be in the crowd will drive her on, she said, adding: “I recently did a school visit to children with learning disabilities and when I was introduced, they were so excited they gave a collective gasp. “I was blown away by their response. There were pictures of Jonnie Peacock and Dave Weir on their walls and I took in my gold medals from Rio and they were trying them on. The joy in their faces was something I will never forget. I never realised how much these youngsters look up to us athletes. Para sport gives them hope and shows them that people with disabilities cannot be written off. I hope to put in a performance that will make them proud.” 28 29 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Trend spot Melt your troubles away: put this bioplastic pocket-sized card in hot water and it can be used to repair your tech instantly. £6.99, formcard.com The master builders A N APPLE event is a highly anticipated, high-octane ceremony. There are big names to match the big announcements, and choreographed big reveals will travel around the world in minutes, as the reverent acolytes reach for their iPhone 7s to share the news. The next hot ticket for Apple insiders? Getting a front-row seat at WWDC 2017, the Worldwide Developer’s Conference, where Apple will unveil software updates, and possibly shiny new gadgetry. It runs for five days next week, starting on Monday, in San Jose, California, and draws a global crowd. The capital’s tech sector will be well represented: a raft of developers is People As Apple’s hot ticket Developer’s summit kicks off, Ben Travis meets the capital’s brightest minds making waves in California poised to make the flight to the west coast, and then run with whatever CEO Tim Cook dreams up next. Meet the capital’s coders who are California-bound in search of Silicon Valley’s next big thing. The trusted advisor Gabriela Pittari, Rungway Venezuelan-born developer Gabriela Pittari now works in Camden (“London is the best city for technology”) and is heading to WWDC for the first time — she’ll celebrate her 29th birthday there. Pittari is lead iOS developer for mentoring app Rungway, which lets u s e r s a sk f o r adv i c e o n personal and professional issues, for example: “A ny t i p s London’s best Camera add-ons on how to balance the amount of communication with my manager?” She’s there to improve. “Rungway works perfectly,” she says. “But the input of the conference will make the user interface better.” She’s hoping to hear about new features within Apple’s coding language, Swift, which Rungway and most other apps use. “The hardware is cool to have but my day-to-day is with the operating system and the The weather has finally kicked into gear, so it’s the ideal time to maximise your selfie game. With so many pictures out there, just using your camera phone is entry level. Snap up these smartphone accessories to get the perfect pic. Prynt Get instant print-outs from your camera roll and use augmented reality tech to turn your photos into digital videos. £131, print.co Continued on Page 30 Designs on the future: left to right, Gabriela Pittari, Miguel Angel Quinones, Martin Hartt, Shaun Rutland and Rob Elkin JOBY Griptight Tripod Attach your phone to any metal surface with this flexible magnetic tripod to get selfies that aren’t taken up by your outstretched arm. £24.99, currys.co.uk MPow Fisheye Lens Make your photo feed stand out with a set of fish-eye lenses that clips onto your smartphone. £12.79, amazon.co.uk E-PLG Pet Selfie Stick Perfect your pet pics with this ball that attaches to the top of your screen — selfies are better with fourlegged friends. £7, amazon.co.uk Sandisk iXpand Flash Drive peak rungway hutch waowi busuu Photos take up loads of space on your handset — back them up onto a lightning port flash drive to make room for more snaps. amazon.co.uk, from £29.90 Ben Travis 30 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard London Life | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @esfeatures Pregnancy+ and Baby+, and take it in turns to attend conferences and stay home on family and business duties. An overhaul to the app, planned for September, is set to bring new computer graphics and social media elements to their software. This is Miles’s third WWDC trip but he has never met Jony Ive, his hero. “I studied industrial design too, he has one of those very impressive journeys that you look at with admiration,” he says. WWDC survival tech: iPhone, and a grand total of three sets of headphones (basic earbuds, wireless AirPods, noise-cancelling Beats by Dre), and a Macbook Pro for “proper work”. Continued from Page 29 instruments Apple gives coders.” Birthday wish: A selfie with design deity Jony Ive. “If I get to meet him, I’ll hug him. If I got a picture, it’s going on my Instagram for sure.” The master mind Miguel Angel Quinones, Peak After two failed attempts it was third time lucky for Quiñones, aged 33, in the WWDC ticket lottery. He’s heading out with brain-training app Peak, which has its HQ in Holborn. He finds London’s tech scene more lively than the “quite small” iOS community in Warsaw, where he worked for five years after growing up in Barcelona. His tip for this year’s conference is a potential augmented reality update. “Apple could build tools for developers to build first-class AR apps,” he says. “At Peak we’re reactive. We always look at what the trend is and see how we can adapt it to our app.” Apple hero: Swift creator Chris Lattner. “To introduce a new primary language overnight and prompt people to go and use it was a big feat.” The fast developer Martin Hartt, Student at King’s College London Hartt is just 20 years old but he’s already making an impact. After spending his youth playing Jak and Daxter on PS2, he became interested in game creation and started making his apps. Now a student at King’s College, he’s heading to WWDC for the second year in a row after winning Apple’s WWDC scholarship. There he’ll Connected: from left, Amber Vodegel, John Miles, Francesca Bradley, Martin Hartt’s Tim Cook selfie and the Peak brain training app be launching Waowi, an app he’s developed with his brother Rudy, a network that encourages conversation with strangers, inviting users to record a voice note and chat live. WWDC highlight: His selfie with Apple CEO Tim Cook last year: “He stood there for an hour surrounded by teenagers trying to take selfies and seems like a great guy.” The speed demon Shaun Rutland, Hutch After launching game Smash Cops five years ago the Hutch team has grown from four staff to 60. Rutland, 42, is heading to “Dub Dub Dee Cee” (as he calls it) to show off latest game Race Kings, a car-based title he describes as “the most complex game we’ve ever done”. His highlight of last year’s WWDC was seeing Craig Federighi (Apple’s senior VP of software engineering) mingling with attendees. “He was approachable,” Rutland recalls. “That sort of openness and accessibility is cool.” W W D C t a r ge t : N ew h a rdwa re announcements. “It’s exciting for us to see if we can get our software to utilise the latest hardware. Apple are very pro high-end 3D games.” The prolific speaker Rob Elkin, Busuu Elkin, aged 32, is off to San Jose with language-learning app Busuu, where he’s hoping to hear announcements about the Apple Watch and AI that will impact his Old Street-based company. But he’s not going just for WWDC — he helped co-found AltConf, a free alternative conference next door, which caters to the overspill of developers unable to get WWDC passes. “It started as a co-working space with a lunchtime talk. In 2013 it ramped up and became a fully-fledged conference,” he says. There’s a lot of chatter about the “cult of Apple”, though Elkin praises the company for becoming less, well, culty in recent years. “They’re able to engage a lot more, and they listen to feedback from medium to large companies.” Most treasured tech: “My iPhone. It never leaves my side.” The double act John Miles and Amber Vodegel, Health & Parenting Ltd This husband-and-wife duo develop apps including advice services The song star Francesca Bradley, Shazam Audio-recognition software Shazam is a true App Store icon and it has an office in Hammersmith. The iOS app has just been redesigned and Bradley, 24, hopes WWDC will bring new Swift announcements to adapt it further. “The integration of apps in iMessage was something Shazam jumped straight on last year,” she says. “You c an now Shazam straight from iMessage.” This is Bradley’s second WWDC — and she’s only a recent convert to the Steve Jobs tribe. “I actually had an Android when I started at Shazam,” she confesses. “I got an iPhone in December — it’s still joked about in the office today.” Most-used app: Snapchat. “My goddaughter loves the filters. We’ve just integrated Shazam in Snapchat too.” @BenSTravis 31 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 | London Life Pull shapes: why Twitter is joining the inner circle Technology The Away case has an inbuilt phone charger and ensures clothes arrive crease-free. It’s a bag of tricks, says Ben Travis TECHNOLOGY has come full circle. Literally. From social networks to apps, the circle is the shape of the moment. Twitter is the latest app to “go round”, currently testing a new mobile interface with rounded profile images, circular buttons for the “tweet” and “edit profile” functions and other edge-less features. But can a simple change in shape really be the answer for an app used by 319 million people and facing problems with spam, harassment and attracting a new buyer? It’s all about psychology, explains Lucinda VieiraMartins, senior UX/UI designer at Shoreditchbased app development agency Red C Mobile. “I choose to use rounded imagery where I can,” she says. “Round shapes feel more comfortable to a user than hard edged rectangles.” Ease of use is a factor. “Rounded edges are also more in keeping with the form of a hand. A finger has a kind of rounded tip T ‘If we’re going away for the weekend we won’t bother bringing a charger — we’ll just plug in our suitcase’ scratch-resistant outer casing. It has separate compartments to keep bulky items like shoes and toiletries away from your clothes, and a compression pad that packs down your outfits to fit more in without vacuum-packing them (“That can actually create more wrinkles,” Korey says). There’s also a built-in combination lock, toughened zips, and — yes — wheels that swivel 360 degrees. After a successful US launch, the Away case is touching down in the UK (“People in the UK love to travel a lot, Europe is so accessible and when you’re starting in London you really can get anywhere in the world”), and is set to be the first in a whole range of thoughtful portable accessories. “It was about understanding how people travel, what the pain points are, and how we can solve everything,” Korey explains. Best of all, it has an internal USB charger with enough capacity to revive an iPhone five times, and is fully compliant with the strict regulations about carrying batteries that have brought in by airlines in recent years. “We always joke that if we’re going somewhere for the weekend, we don’t even bother bringing a phone charger because we’ll just greg funnell HE AWAY suitcase is clever. It has an inbuilt charger and compression technology that helps you to squeeze in more clothes without them creasing or the bag bursting open at the security check. But the biggest challenge when designing it was literally reinventing the wheel. “They were the toughest things to develop,” says Away’s co-creator Steph Korey, who teamed up with her friend Jen Rubio to make a case that will put an end to any baggage misery. “It’s so important that they move smoothly and are robust enough to roll over anything. It took us more than 20 iterations to get to that perfect wheel. By the time we got there, that was the moment where it was like: ‘OK if we can figure this part out, we’re going to figure everything out’.” And figure it out they have. Away packs a lot of nifty tech into its The smart suitcase you can live out of plug into our suitcase. It’s way more than what you need,” says Korey. “I travel a lot but I also run a company, so being able to stay connected and in touch with people is a huge priority for me. One time I was flying down to Florida to visit my mum and my phone was dead. I was at the airport arrivals, just standing there for an hour hoping she’d drive by with no ability to actually call her. I thought: ‘I can go inside and plug my It’s in the bag: above, Away’s founders Jen Rubio, left, and Steph Korey. Left, Away’s medium suitcase and model customer Karlie Kloss phone in, but maybe that’s the moment she’ll drive by and think I’m not here’.” The functionality is all packed into a fashion-conscious design that’s attracted famous fans including Karlie Kloss, Jessica Alba, and Suki Waterhouse, who even has her own signature pink case. “For people like them who truly travel all the time it’s already annoying enough that you have a security line and delays, and having something that can just make things a little bit easier when you’re on the road that much is really important,” Korey says of Away’s celebrity appeal. “It was also designed aesthetically to look good which helps it go along with their whole look — they’ll tend to be pretty puttogether, even when they’re travelling.” Fans are requesting all manner of other travel products. Korey won’t give too much away but says: “We have a design team that are really exploring all the considerations. Over the next year you’ll see us start to come out with some of these things our customers have asked for.” For now, it’s never been easier to pack smarter. @BenSTravis ■ From £225, awaytravel.com/shop to it, so it draws the user into wanting to touch that more than a rectangle.” Twitter is by no means the first tech company to go round. “Google had a rebrand and the G they now use is so round in form that it’s basically a slightly cut-up circle,” says Vieira-Martins. WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger have all changed profile pictures to circular recently. Each had its share of controversy. “Everyone thought [Instagram’s revamp] was disgusting at first,” says Vieira-Martins. “But now people love it. You’ve just got to give it time to grow into itself.” So could circles alone give Twitter the edge (or lack of ) that it needs? “It’s a positive change,” says Vieira-Martins. “They could have done bigger things — changed the font or the branding colour —but this is a subtle change that will make a huge difference.” Katie Strick @Katie_Strick 32 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard London Life | Books Paperbacks William Leith Nutshell by Ian McEwan Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @esfeatures Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Dynamic debut: Sally Rooney (Faber, £14.99) JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR Reality is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli (Penguin, £9.99) MOSTLY, when you read books about science, they make you feel dumb. But really good ones make you feel clever. This is a really, really good book about science. It’s like a tonic for the mind. Carlo Rovelli is a physicist, so of course this book is about physics. But it’s much more than that. It’s about thinking clearly. At the start, Rovelli says: “The more we discover, the more we understand that what we don’t yet know is greater than what we know.” He gives beautifully clear explanations of the ideas of the cleverest people in history, from Democritus, via Newton, to Einstein and beyond. Van Gogh’s Ear by Bernadette Murphy (Vintage, £11.99) WE ALL know at least one thing about Vincent Van Gogh — he cut off his ear. Or part of his ear, anyway. He was Dutch, he was brilliant, he was mentally ill, he went to Paris, then he went to Arles in the South of France and cut off his ear. Soon after that he was dead. But what about the ear? What are the actual details? Bernadette Murphy, who lives in the South of France herself, tries to find out as much as she can. She is like a detective on the case of Van Gogh. And she’s excellent — she creates a vivid picture of this strange, troubled genius, and also of what it was like to be in Provence in 1888. SALLY Rooney’s debut novel feels like a long email from a particularly amusing friend. Only in Rooney’s case the email has gone viral. The 26-year-old Irish writer — a former European debating champion at Trinity College, Dublin — sparked a seven-way bidding war for her fastmoving tale of university students, Frances and Bobbi, who become entangled with an older married couple called Melissa and Nick. To date, this coming-of-age novel about love, sex and friendship identity has been sold to 13 countries. You can see why. Rooney has a distinctly modern voice — wry, fluid, nonchanantly poetic — that hooks you from the first fairly undramatic pages. Set in Dublin over the course of seven months, the story is told from the perspective of 21-year-old Frances, a bisexual communist who performs spoken word poetry (stay with me) alongside her ex-lover and now best friend Bobbi, “who belonged everywhere and had a quality about her that made me invisible by comparison”. Both have felt the raw end of their parents’ divorces and both have come to feel suspicious of traditional relationships. Face-to-face and over Facebook Messenger, they chat about free market capitalism, Ayn Rand, and whether the college feminist society should take a position on the Iraq war. When they meet Melissa, a noted photographer and essayist, the students are drawn into her world of thirtysomething creatives who eat avocado and talk at book festivals. While Bobbi develops a crush on Melissa, Frances embarks on an email flirtation with Melissa’s husband Nick, a handsome, disenchanted actor. It becomes particularly complicated when they all go on holiday to a French villa. Conversations with Friends has the quality of feeling both fresh and familiar. It’s archly political without being turgid or scabrous, the kind of novel that young women Letting women be women transitioning into adulthood in the early 21st century may one day call “seminal”. The prose is so airy and natural that you can gulp it down without worrying too much about the fact that the characters are all pretty unpleasant and that, beyond the sex and discussions about gender theory, very little happens. In common with other digital-era stylists such as Sheila Heti and Tao Lin, Rooney has hit on a mode of deliberately flippant self-exposure that is reliably entertaining. “Do I sometimes hurt and harm myself, do I abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do I take the labour of others for granted, have I sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do I have a troubled relationship with my body, yes.” There are obvious parallels with F Scott’s Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night and Simone de Beauvoir’s She Came to Stay, novels in which the marriage-wrecking coquettes are both actresses. Rooney subverts that power dynamic by making Nick an actor and Frances a writer. At Melissa’s birthday party someone asks her if she is “another actress” and Frances enjoys hearing Nick describe her as a “writer”. “I knew at this point that I was being interpreted as some kind of vaguely disruptive sexual presence for the sake of their joke. It didn’t bother me, and in fact I thought about how funny I could make it sound in an email.” This is very much a novel about a young woman looking for meaning outside of any traditional romance plot. Rooney captures the mood of contemporary women who want to shape their own narratives rather than be passive actors in someone else’s story. But as it dawns on Frances that she wants to write fiction, she has to face up to the fact that there are consequences for recycling your life for art. Though it never asks too much of its readers, Conversations with Friends casts a long shadow. Rooney is attuned to the large and small events that make up human experience, but she has a novelist’s gift for refusing to sum up situations. She leaves you wanting more. London’s gay culture is as old as the Queer City by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto, £16.99) mark sanderson A SMART façade hiding many secrets; centuries of experience accommodating youthful appetites; a hive of industry by day and a manic party by night: Acton boy Peter Ackroyd has long cast London in his own light. This gallop through the pink past shows it was ever thus. Here are the Romans disporting themselves in lupanaria (wolf dens or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Here are the Elizabethans packing out the playhouses that “were little better than pick-up joints”. Here are the Georgians mincing in molly houses where they could parody the marriage ceremony and give painful birth to a Cheshire cheese. The city, says Ackroyd, was “both a jungle and a labyrinth where gay life could flourish, each street leading to another and then another; there was no end to the possibilities or to the adventures”. But surely this was just as true for those who preferred to enter by the front door? “The city sexualised everything and everybody within its ambit. That is why the masquerades and the pleasure gardens, the tavern grounds and the bagnios, were hives of illicit activity,” he writes. “It is of course true that there are limits to what two men can do to, or with, one another,” sighs our guide to the Wilde side. It’s all here — in amusing if exhausting detail — but those interested in this kind of thing “might be forgiven for thinking that she or he has read it all before”. Too right. Ackroyd’s bibliography lists 171 titles. His regular wingmen — Thomas and Murrough — have been as assiduous as ever. Alas, there is very little of Ackroyd himself. The queer theme is as slippery as the word itself. Cracks in the concrete rex features MY GOODNESS me, I kept thinking, that’s brilliant. And that — that’s even better. A neat touch here, a glint of beauty there. This short book is a pleasure to read. It’s actually the story of Hamlet, as told by a baby in the womb. Which sounds, and is, odd. But McEwan does it amazingly well. It’s like the winning entry in a competition to tell a story from Shakespeare in a novel way. Hamlet, then, is a foetus. He can hear everything going on around him through the medium of his mother, Trudy. What he hears is that Trudy is planning, with his uncle Claude, to murder his father. Great fun, and very well-written. jonny davies (Vintage, £8.99) Think pink: London’s Pride parade evidence are filled with conjecture: “Male servants generally slept together. Male guests in a hostel or inn were expected to sleep together, generally naked.” Lucky them. When Peter Pansy does make an appearance the auto-speak comes alive. “The love for boys was often deemed to be sexually and morally superior to the love for women.” 33 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Books | London Life Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses and Citizens Can Save the Planet by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope (St Martin’s Press, $26.99) MATTHEW D’ANCONA city itself Youthful infatuation? Platonic idealism or just lust? “It could of course be a blancmange of all three.” He dutifully pays almost as much attention to Sapphism but crossdressing is really what gets him going. Strangely enough, his 1979 work on the subject is only mentioned at the back and not in the “by the same author” list at the front. He runs out of steam (and interest?) after the Sixties. Heddon Street, off Regent Street, is mentioned as the site of the Cave of the Golden Calf but not because Bowie was photographed there for the cover of Ziggy Stardust. As for the present, it is despatched in a few pages with nary a mention of Grindr or chemsex. Still, such characters as Susan Guzzle, Lord Dimple and Princess Seraphina make this a colourful toilet book. It tells a torrid tale of persecution and pleasure, of blackmail and blue murder. Like any good rent boy, London has the potential to be all things to all men. Wind of change: flooded streets in New York caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 rex features C ITIES can’t wait for national governments to act. They must find their own ways to help people protect themselves affordably.” So declares Michael Bloomberg in this important new book, co-authored with Carl Pope, on the fight against climate change. Bloomberg is best-known as a global media magnate and the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, while Pope is a distinguished environmentalist who was executive director and chairman of the 125-year old US conservationist group, the Sierra Club. What makes Climate of Hope distinctive is the fusion of their respective talents: business sense and a deep familiarity with public policy are intertwined to great effect with idealism and social responsibility. The result is a book that eschews the finger-wagging puritanism of many green texts and concentrates remorselessly upon practical solutions that will not only help to save the planet but stimulate economic growth and enhance our quality of life. It liberates discussion of climate change from the phony row between science and denial, and reframes it in a spirit of pragmatic optimism: what can be done, efficiently and urgently, and who is best placed to do it? There is plenty here for national policy-makers, especially on the need to phase out coal, reform subsidies to fossil fuel producers, disrupt utility monopolies so that sustainable energy can compete, improve liquidity to encourage climate-friendly projects (capitalintensive but cheaper in the long run), and radically increase transparency on climate-change risk. Yet the authors’ central contention is that the grinding, oftenexasperating debate between national governments is only part of the answer. “More than any national law or policy,” they write, “devolving Local solutions for a global problem power to cities is the single best step that nations can take to improve their ability to fight climate change and, with it, the health of their citizens and economies.” After Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, Bloomberg responded with more than 250 achievable measures — having already launched “PlaNYC” in 2007, a green civic initiative, to prepare for such moments. To build resilience, he argues, cities need to ensure that they have the best possible topographical data and make intelligent use of it; that insurance premiums are fair and don’t force people from their homes; that utility companies are held accountable for their conduct during, and preparation for, emergencies; and that developers are similarly incentivised to build responsibly. The book also has plenty to say on how enlightened city governance can reduce emissions in the future, not least by encouraging smart construction as well as green transport. Bloomberg has been UN special envoy for cities and climate change since 2014, and is the driving force behind the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, a coalition of 7,000 cities in 112 countries. Because mayors are engaged in such a specific and detailed way with the needs of their cities — and are daily accountable to their voters — they are perfectly placed between individual citizens who often feel powerless and national governments that move at a snail’s pace in their quest for global collaboration. Accordingly, there is much here for our own city authorities — and every newly-elected metro mayor — to learn from. It is a model text for those who argue that decentralisation works best and that most of the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century require localised solutions. But this is emphatically not a tract for policy wonks alone, or purely for those with an interest in environmentalism. Coursing through every chapter is a lively, rigorous recognition that we live in a world of hectic change, matched by an infectious optimism that the challenge can be met. In that sense, the book is an indispensable manual for our times. A war reporter treks through the Muslim heartlands of Britain Al-Britannia, My Country: A Journey through Muslim Britain by James Fergusson (Bantam, £20) Sam Kiley WE LIVE in the age of hysteria. Mention the words Muslim, Islam, Islamofascism or Islamophobia and someone goes nuts. It has become almost impossible to discuss rationally the influence that Islam has had on the United Kingdom. Severe criticism or, worse, lampooning the tenets of the Prophet or the Prophet himself, and there’s a real chance someone will want to kill you. Try to explain to a racist Islamophobe that the teachings of the Prophet are less bloodthirsty and, frankly, point to a more benevolent God than much of the Old Testament and you’ll get accused of supporting terrorism. It’s this madness, this clash of civilisations, that the extremists intend to spread using the tactic of terror. Osama bin Laden could never have dared dream of the chaos that his Twin Towers attack would unleash: war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, war in Syria; Europe reeling in fear of a flood of refugees from those wars and elsewhere. Brexit, even, may have part of its roots in 9/11. The consequences for Britain’s Muslims have been disastrous. British governments, Fergusson argues, have been crass and heavyhanded. By clumsily establishing the “Prevent” strategy, thousands of young people especially have felt singled out, spied upon and alienated from their own country. That’s not surprising if you turn teachers and NHS workers into spies for the government who are being asked, indeed required, to report children at risk of “radicalisation”. A veteran of wars in Muslim nations and a journalist of many years’ experience outside his home country, Fergusson embarks on a meandering trek through British Muslim “heartlands”, from High Wycombe to Bradford, Whitechapel to Dewsbury and Glasgow. Manchester, however, where Salman Abedi was part of a community that has produced a frightening concentration of vicious Islamic State killers, goes unexplored. A Christian, Anglo-Scottish public schoolboy, Fergusson is scrupulous about acknowledging his own preconceptions and spends a lot of time in the company of reasonable people who espouse the hard-line Salafist version of Islam and with the conservative Deobandis who dominate the clerical scene in Muslim Britain. Few, if any, tell him they support the ideals of IS. Poverty, drugs, a young man’s search for meaning, a young man’s arrogance and a thirst for power and structure emerge from Fergusson’s travels as the motivations for joining these death cults. But these are my words, not his. In giving voice to his subjects it’s hard to know or hear how Fergusson has synthesised his knowledge. The Muslim comedienne Shazia Mirza sums up the appeal of travelling to Syria for young IS brides: “They want to get laid,” she says, IS is “the One Direction of Islam”. She might have added that most recruits to IS have only a rudimentary understanding of Islam. Fergusson shies away from the more worrying conclusion, perhaps, which is to ask why even more idiotic young men, full of testosterone, don’t follow the call of jihad? To a certain type of young man who has lost his way it probably looks like fun. Like joining the Blackshirts or the Hitler Youth. 34 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard London Life | Can trees think? In the latest in his series on striking images our columnist looks at some remarkable research on plants Charles Saatchi the naked eye International Journal of Parapsychology. His work inspired the research of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, who discovered that playing certain kinds of music caused plants to grow faster. Even if you find that these theories of plant perception stretch credibility, it is not far-fetched to admit that we can see the difference between a happylooking plant and a troubled one. And if we can accept that it’s possible to influence plants and trees into being content, it becomes understandable that an infants’ school in the West Midlands took this view to a logical conclusion. It has employed a “happiness” teacher and added happiness lessons to its curriculum. Included in the timetable are the Happy Self song, a Wiggle the Niggles dance, and the Gratitude game. But according to the Journal of Happiness Studies, not everyone wants to be happy. Many deliberately dampen their positive moods, thinking that if they let themselve s be happy, something bad will happen. In a number of countries — New Zealand, for example — many people are afraid of happiness and would agree with statements such as “I prefer not to be too joyful because joy is usually followed by sadness”. People in East Asia take a similarly gloomy view, growing up to accept that Storm Thorgerson I N THE Sixties Cleve Backster, founder of the FBI’s polygraph unit, introduced the modern lie detector to trap criminals. Then, he decided to go a step further. He hooked up the machine to a plant and a tree to detect changes in their inner energy. All living organisms emit a slight electrical pulse and Backster was convinced he could detect if the leaves were content, or nervous. He then watered the plant to see if the leaves responded. Finding that the plant indeed reacted, he decided to see what would happen if he threatened it, forming in his mind the idea of lighting a match near the leaf. And that was when something happened that has forever transfixed botanists. The plant didn’t wait for him to light the match — it reacted to his thoughts. After further research with his polygraph, Backster concluded that through their psychic abilities, plants and trees would react simply to his intent. One of Backster’s most remarkable findings was that when plants sense themselves in the presence of danger, their inner currents do not get agitated — they simply become catatonic until the threat passes. He also discovered that plants were aware of each other, mourned the death of neighbouring plants, and grew stressful when near people who killed plants during scientific research. However, they fondly remembered and extended their energy out to the people who had grown and tended them. Backster termed plant sensitivity to human thoughts “primary perception” and first published his findings in the religion warns that you must “avoid much laughter, for much laughter deadens the heart”. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, theorises that while 60 per cent of happiness is determined by our genetics and environment, the remaining 40 per cent is up to us. Seligman describes three different kinds of happy lives: the pleasant life, in which you fill your days with as many pleasures as you can, somewhat hedonistically. The life of engagement, where you find deep satisfaction in Plants remembered and extended their energy out to the people who had grown and tended them your work, parenting, love and leisure. The meaningful life, which consists of knowing your strengths, and using them in the service of the common good, finding harmony in aiding others. That, of course, would include carefully tending and watering your plants. And remember, they are monitoring you. ■ Charles Saatchi’s latest book is Holy Cow!, published by Palazzo Editions Top London shows and attractions EveningStandard. Tickets Looking for tickets? From the biggest shows in the West End to small art exhibitions in Shoreditch, you won’t have to look any further. BEST OFFERS THIS WEEK Save up to £30 – tickets from £15 Save up to 58% – tickets now £25 MORE GREAT SHOWS AND ATTRACTIONS Save 50% – tickets from £15 Adult tickets from £23 Tickets from £32 Tickets from £20 Book now: standard.co.uk/tickets Terms & Conditions: Prices correct as of 30 May 2017 and may be subject to booking and delivery charges. All offers are subject to availability. Encore Tickets Limited (Company No. 04002600) acts as a bonded fulfilment agent for this site. Registered office: 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN. Registered in England. Operated by and subject to conditions of Encore Tickets Limited - a member of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, a company independent of the Evening Standard. 35 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 @esviews Have your say Twitter: @esviews Email: esviews@standard.co.uk Write: The Editor, Evening Standard, PO Box 2309, London W8 5EE Please give a daytime phone number. Letters withholding name and address will not be published. #esnewsviews #eselection2017 #escleancityviews May’s social care plan is so flawed Politicians are as clueless on Brexit as the rest of us Enforce the law on idling car engines Theresa May says the cost of social care will be capped but at what level? We should be told before the election. The Tory manifesto promised a “floor” of £100,000 on social care contributions, which seems reasonable as it means pensioners can still pass on that amountwhen they die. But if one suffers from dementia, the cost of care can rise to £38,000 a year. Few people could afford this without having to sell their home — and where would any surviving partner live? May should instead treat dementia costs in the same way as cancer. Both should both be treated for free on the NHS. Valerie Crews Terrorism is nothing new for Londoners WE HAVE been told repeatedly since the Manchester attack that we are to go about our business as usual and not let the terrorists win. Yet victory parades by Arsenal and Chelsea were cancelled on police orders due to security considerations and we have armed soldiers on the streets — something we are told will make us feel secure. We are Londoners and we have put up with terrorist incidents for the best part of 50 years. What happened in Manchester may have been new for them but, for me, it has not stopped me doing anything I usually would. George Curley Museum entry fees must be affordable I READ Simon Jenkins’s article about paying to visit museums [Comment, May 30] and I would be in favour of this but only if it was affordable. The problem is the example in the US that Simon provides — $25 (£20) would not be affordable for many. For an adult and two kids it could mean a trip costs up to £50, preventing many on low incomes from visiting museums. Therefore, visits would be limited to those who could afford it. This is why museums were made free. If they charged £5, they would make far more than they do now, but would not put off the poor. A win-win? Steve Hanscomb THE Standard’s call for politicians to tell us what impact Brexit will have on Britain’s future will not get an answer because nobody knows [“Voters need answers on Britain’s Brexit future”, Comment, May 30]. The EU referendum has led us into a disastrous situation, putting even the unity of our country at risk, as concern over the Northern IrelandRepublic border is added to the possibility of another independence vote in Scotland. A proper party leader would have admitted that Brexit will be a problem and called an election on that basis, but even now Theresa May has not dared to state this obvious fact. It is clear that many Britons have forgotten why the EU was created in the first place: as a better way of dealing with one another than the two wars we managed in the first half of the last century. Even now we hear that the EU will “punish us” when it is absolutely clear it won’t. We elect politicians to represent our best interests in all areas, and the EU does that already as many of its policies have been heavily influenced by British politicians over the past 40 years. As a country on its own outside the EU we will have limited power — this is a reality we have to come to terms with. David Reed Unless the UK restricts the number of UK citizens who are normally resident abroad from returning home, or redefines the term “non-UK resident students” and the time they are allowed to stay here after graduation, or changes our open borders relationship with Ireland, Theresa May’s proposal to cut net immigration to 100,000 will never be achieved. You can only assume that the Tory pledge is not genuine and is simply designed to win the support of former Ukip voters and as an initial Brexit negotiating position. We will all know in a few weeks’ time — that is unless the Tories come clean before June 8. Dr Michael Cross in HIS column [“Team May — what team? It’s not going to be a walkover”, Comment May 30], Bruce Anderson makes many good points but misses an important possible outcome of the election. What if enough voters return to the Liberal Democrats to deny Theresa May a landslide victory or even a majority? As we saw during the Coalition government of 2010, the Tories had to think much harder about their policies, how to justify them and how to make them palatable to more than just their core supporters. The Lib-Dems have said they will not go back into a coalition. But if they deny May a landslide win they may have more power to contain the Tories outside a coalition than in it. That would be worth considering. Jon Burden MICHAEL Davis quite unbelievably suggests that the Mayor should fine car drivers for leaving their engines idling in traffic. Car drivers have no wish whatsoever to sit in traffic jams, many of which have been man-made by taking away entire lanes to be converted to cycle routes. Might I add that they already have to pay an £11.50 congestion charge for the “privilege” of doing so. David Taylor #essportviews Corbyn is not alone in forgetting figures BY anyone’s standards Jeremy Corbyn experienced a brutal day on Tuesday at the hands of the media after a hostile interview with BBC Radio 4’s Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour in which he couldn’t recall the exact figure for his childcare policy. In the grand scheme of things, however, it wasn’t too damaging. If you want a complete failure over figures, look no further than Chancellor Philip Hammond wiping £20 billion off the cost of HS2 live on the BBC. It is absolutely fine for people to criticise Corbyn for forgetting his numbers, especially as he went on the radio specifically to speak about that proposed policy. He did later apologise. But let’s not pretend that briefly forgetting the figures for a costed and worthwhile proposal is anywhere near as bad as the Conservative Party having to rethink its proposals on school meals because they calculated the cost incorrectly. Julie Partridge MICHAEL Davis advocates fining drivers who leave their engines idling in traffic [Letters, May 30]. Local authorities should start by publicising and enforcing the law against running an engine while parked. Every time I go out in London, even if only to walk to local shops or my gym, I pass cars and vans that are parked at the kerb with their engines still running. Typically, the driver will be playing with their smartphone or eating. These people are needlessly and selfishly causing extra pollution, and — it would seem — have money to burn, so why not fine them? Simon Barnes Wenger is not the future for Arsenal Miscalculation: Jeremy failed to remember the cost of Labour’s childcare policy So, THE worst-kept secret in football is out: there will be at least two more years of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. But what will hurt the “Wenger Out” brigade most are the comments from the club’s majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, known as Silent Stan by the Gunners fans who want him out. He had the nerve to say that in Wenger Arsenal have “the best manager” to help them win the Premier League, conveniently forgetting that the title has eluded the club since 2004. Kroenke is reportedly set to hand £100 million for transfers to Wenger but, compared to what Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea might spend it is a small amount. Indeed, he will need a lot more if Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez decide to run down their contracts. I believe Arsenal’s failure to qualify for the Champions League is just the start of a tremendous fall from grace. Nick Bates 36 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Put London on canvas and win £10k To enter our Contemporary Arts Prize go to standard.co.uk/artprize That night was the most upset I’ve ever been Music Canadian pop idol Shawn Mendes has the same fanbase as Ariana Grande, so the Manchester bombing shook his world as well as hers, he tells Craig McLean F OR the biggest 18-year-old manboy in pop, it has been, it’s fair to say, an up and down week. Right now it’s ending on a high for Shawn Mendes. It’s the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend and the Canadian teenager has just performed at Radio 1’s Big Weekend event in Hull. In front of 25,000 young listeners to the “nation’s favourite” and their families, Mendes and his band played a six-song, 27-minute set of catchy guitar-based pop. By any measure it was a rousing success, the all-ages crowd singing along heartily to the youngster’s monster, co-written hits, Stitches (from his 2015 debut album, Handwritten) and Treat You Better (the lead single from last year’s second album, Illuminate). What the music lacks in edge it makes up for in choruses — numerous and catchy enough to enable Mendes to embark on an eight-month global arena tour, barely three years into his career and less than 12 months since he finished school. Winding down in his dressing-room afterwards, the clean-cut singer/ guitarist from Toronto is thrilled at the experience of making his debut UK festival appearance on a bill that also includes Stormzy, Rita Ora and Kings of Leon. And yet the determination that made him a 14-yearold social media star is never far away. “I came offstage today and thought: ‘I gotta go and learn how to win over a festival crowd’,” Mendes says with a frown as he folds his six-foot-three, gym-lad frame into a backstage couch. “They were amazing out there but I need to really be something that takes people’s breath away. I don’t want to get on stage and just be another act.” When I ask if he’s usually this hard on himself, he replies with the only curse of our entire interview. “Totally. And at times I f***ing wish I wasn’t,” he sighs. “It’s annoying. But there’s a reason I’m in this place, and that’s because I question everything I do, and I make sure it’s better next time.” The success-hungry Mendes, who shot to tween fame on micro-videosharing site Vine with six-second cover versions of Justin Bieber songs, had ample reason to question everything at the beginning of the week. The previous Monday he was driving from Amsterdam to Paris, less than a month into a trek that, this week, takes in two sold-out nights at the O2. Then he heard the news from Manchester. He and the manager who discovered him Rising star: Shawn Mendes is playing two sell-out dates at the O2 Wild and undimmed roar from legends of rock pop kiss O2 Arena, SE10 ★★★★✩ THEY’VE reportedly enjoyed crazy, crazy nights with thousands of women. Last night, it was the O2’s turn to enjoy an equally wild one with Kiss and their heavy-riffing, fire-breathing, tongue-wiggling live show. Devotees young and old donned face-paint and leathers in homage to their New York idols, who first played in the UK more than 40 years ago. The line-up may have changed since then but the ethos remains the same: ear-bleeding guitars, banshee vocals and outrageous costumes. Kiss were introduced to the stage as “the hottest band in the world”, although upon reflection that might Dave benett rick pearson have been in reference to the sheer amount of naked flames on show. It was a wonder bassist Gene Simmons didn’t set his wig alight. While much of the music is preposterous — none more so than the Spinal Tap-like guitars and single-entendres of Lick It Up — Next generation: Gene Simmons, far left, and his bandmates meet child stars from West End musical School of Rock at the O2 Arena Kiss are also in possession of some stone-cold classics. Crazy, Crazy Nights had a chorus to wake the dead, Love Gun was cock-rock in excelsis, and Rock and Roll All Nite cued arena-wide karaoke. While Paul Stanley’s voice was showing signs of road weariness, Simmons, 67, remains undimmed by age. The star of the show, he could be found variously displaying his disconcertingly long tongue, hovering above stage on a harness, breathing fire or simply singing on I Love It Loud. There was also a minute’s silence for the victims of Manchester. Against such a backdrop, whether last night’s sheer number of loud explosions constituted a lamentable lack of sensitivity or a commendable show of defiance on the part of the band is a moot point. What’s not in doubt is that, five decades into their career, Kiss are still rocking harder and louder than most. 37 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 In association with Arts coverage in the Evening Standard is presented in partnership with Hiscox Home Insurance. To find out more about their expert cover visit hiscox.co.uk/home @thestandardarts hard. It’s just terrifying. You see these kids every single day, and you’re at meet-and-greets with them, you’re hugging them, and you’re performing for them. Burnt into my brain are pictures and videos of these kids smiling and laughing in concerts. And the thought that something like that could happen to them just brought me to my knees. So it was really tough.” Was it especially tough because his fanbase is almost exactly the same as Ariana Grande’s? “Totally. It’s pretty much right there,” he agrees. But, more than that: he and Grande had been on a similar world tour route. “Either I just played the same venue she’s [now] at, or I turn up somewhere and see a sheet with her [show timings] on the wall.” In fact, Mendes played Manchester Arena, he adds quietly, “five or six days before Ariana”. It was actually threeand-half weeks beforehand but when ‘The thought that something like that could happen to these kids just brought me to my knees’ on Vine in November 2013 debated cancelling not just their next show but the whole Illuminate tour. “I’d say the night of that was the most upset I’ve ever been in my entire life. Even with all the other [terrorist attacks] that have happened, that was very upsetting to me. It hit home really you’re a teenager playing in a different city — or a different country — every day, a sense of time-slippage is understandable. And the point stands: it could have been his fans who were targeted. “That was the scary part. That’s what got me: that could have been my show. And the day of the Paris show I was just terrified all day. But we played Ariana’s song One Last Time before I got on stage and put her logo up on the screen. And when I walked into the arena the whole crowd was just screaming at the top of their lungs. I almost broke down again right before I got on stage. But I got up there and did a little speech about how we shouldn’t be afraid. And it was probably the best show on the tour so far. The emotion was so real. You could see it.” Mendes grew up in a middle-class family in Pickering, Ontario, the son of a Portuguese businessman father and English estate agent mother. He still has family in Bournemouth and he and his little sister were raised with mum Karen’s Sunday roasts and shepherd’s pie. “I feel very comfortable with the UK tone and humour and laid-back attitude. I’d say the connection has a lot to do with beers and drinks! In Canada everyone is about working hard and really enjoying life. It’s the same here,” he beams, relishing the fact that, on this European leg, he can do what he can’t yet do in America or Canada: drink alcohol. M endes is also smart enough to savour the irony of being someone “who has his own company employing 60 people” yet is still not treated as legally adult at home. Still, under the careful business and emotional guidance of his parents, this eminently sensible young man already has a brace of grown-up achievements under his belt: a US stadium tour with Taylor Swift, a performance of Tiny Dancer onstage in Los Angeles with Sir Elton John, 20 million Instagram followers, a UK number one with Stitches and four million worldwide album sales. He visited the UK as a two-year-old but didn’t come again until he was 15. Then he played Soho basement bar The Borderline for “400 girls. I’d never experienced European madness before,” he marvels at the recent-butalready-distant memory. “It was blood, sweat and tears.” In the three years since he’s graduated from The Garage in Highbury (600) to Shepherd’s Bush Empire (2,000) to two nights at Hammersmith Apollo (7,200). And now two sell-out O2s (40,000). “The O2 was the quickest-selling venue on the whole world tour,” Mendes grins. “Just as fast as Toronto. I swear to God, selling out two nights at the O2 is the most impressive thing I can tell anyone — more than selling 10 million records or playing with Elton or Taylor. That’s legit.” ■ Shawn Mendes plays the O2 Arena, SE10 (020 8463 2000, theo2.co.uk) tonight and tomorrow No competition from top Brand comedy Stuart Goldsmith Soho Theatre, W1 ★★★✩✩ bruce dessau STUART GOLDSMITH is best known for his podcast The Comedian’s Comedian, in which he has recently grilled Stewart Lee and Russell Brand. While the podcast is recommended listening for comedy fans, his current stand-up show, Compared To What, is entertaining without being quite as essential. Part of the problem is his subject matter, that over-trodden terrain of settling into a relationship and starting a family. His childbirth routine covers similar ground to Brand’s latest set, but Goldsmith’s soppy portrait of pivotal events from birth to breastfeeding (“magic boob thing”) cannot compete with Brand’s visceral account. Elsewhere the energetic storyteller displays an eloquent turn of phrase recalling an incident when train passengers were silently united in being irritated by a noisy commuter. Another highlight is his intimate description of nosing around an Airbnb apartment. Extremely amusing, though I wouldn’t want him as a lodger. Goldsmith says the show is about trying to be less self-involved, but it is more about taking a leap in life. Can this city kid adjust to a place where there is only one bus a day? Will rural bliss drive him nuts? If it feels a little too theatrical, Compared To What is certainly well-crafted, building to a neat finale. Probing other stand-ups seems to have helped Goldsmith hone his own skills. ■ Until Saturday (020 7478 0100, sohotheatre.com) 38 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard London Life | Arts In association with Raw, radical and ready to fox you opera Vixen, Silent Opera / ENO The Vaults, SE1 ★★★★✩ FOR SOME people, silent opera is the only way to make opera tolerable, but, despite the name, that isn’t what Silent Opera offers. There are live singers and a pre-recorded orchestra, but the music reaches the audience by way of headphones. It makes for an agreeably disorientating experience, especially in the post-industrial Vaults beneath Waterloo Station. Daisy Evans dreamt up the Silent Opera concept, and she directs Vixen, “an immersive reimagining” of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. The reimagining is pretty drastic: Evans’ translation deletes no expletives, and the action unfolds, not in some eastern European forest, but in contemporary London, where the homeless and the missing fight it out with bent coppers. The music has undergone equally radical surgery. Pre-recorded traces of Janacek’s robert workman nick kimberley Drastic: Rosie Lomas and Timothy Dickinson fight it out in the Vaults orchestration survive, filtered through the haze of Max Pappenheim and Stephen Higgins’ electronic score. The bass thump of trains passing overhead penetrates the headphones and deepens the mix, and there is also a small, live band. This Vixen isn’t Janacek’s. Some people will hate it for its brutal treatment of the original, but go with it, and it’s disturbingly believable. You can’t always say that about opera. ■ Until June 10 (0207 401 9603, thevaults.london) It’s out of this world exhibition Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction Barbican Art Gallery, EC2 ★★★★✩ ben luke DEDICATING a show to science fiction is ambitious. You could fill every corner of the Barbican with original costumes, movie excerpts, models, drawings and sci-fi-themed art, and still someone would cry, “Yeah, but what about…?” But the Barbican has made a more than decent fist of it. Essentially located in the narrow, arcing Curve gallery, the show leaks into the rest of the building and occupies its film, talks and music programmes. The Curve show is necessarily a sensory overload, cluttered and cacophonous. Even the most focused of us will likely be distracted by flickering screens above or in the corner of our eye, by a curious comic cover or a menacing cinematic prop. That’s the point. The show is good on sci-fi’s cross-pollinating nature: images and ideas echo in disparate global corners. Artists in the US and the Soviet Union seized on real images emerging from the space race missions, for instance; take the Soviet script out of Andrey Sokolov’s London’s favourite glossy is available every Thursday and Friday Frontier spirit: the exhibition draws on material from around the world illustrations and they could plausibly be Western future paradises. Amid a constant tension between minimal cool and maximal luridness, key icons of the genre are here: rather forlorn-looking stormtrooper and Darth Vader helmets, a Spock costume and illustrations and models by H R Giger and Ray Harryhausen. But many highlights are unexpected, like Soda Jerk’s video installation Astro Black, focusing on sci-fi and African American music culture. Within the organised chaos, a narrative prevails, taking us from Jules Verne’s colonialist voyages to post-apocalyptic utopias and dystopias. The myriad images, books, sculptures and films’ ultimate subject, of course, is us. It’s a sci-fi journey, but also a tribute to human imagination; our ingenious hopes and irrational fears. ■ Saturday until Sept 1 (0845 120 7511, barbican.org.uk) Stars in their eyes: an illustration by Soviet artist Andrey Sokolov. Below, the show features costumes worn by sci-fi heroes such as Star Trek’s Spock, played by the late Leonard Nimoy 39 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 CELEBRATING Advertisement feature GETTY IMAGES Food glorious food From a fantastic food truck festival to cracking cocktail-making opportunities, tuck into all things food and drink with Westfield this June T o celebrate the launch of London Food Month, Westfield and the London Evening Standard are joining forces. There will be a food truck festival at both Westfield centres, as well as masterclasses in cooking, growing and entertaining. There’ll also be special offers, fun activities and free foodie events — from masterclasses and cocktail-making events, to food and winepairing opportunities. Plus, you’ll find a handful of delicious food discounts. What’s more, at the London Evening Standard Night Market, at Perks Field near Kensington Gardens, Westfield is hosting an open-air cinema showcasing an exciting film line-up and live perform- ances. Stay tuned for some exciting announcements throughout the month — and perhaps buy some slightly looser-fitting outfits so you can enjoy a taste of all this month has to offer. And it’s not just food we’ll be celebrating: on 3-4 June, Westfield is also hosting ArtsFest. ARTSFEST & SONG ACADEMY, 3-4 June Noon-6pm, Southern Terrace, Westfield London (Shepherd’s Bush) ArtsFest at Westfield London will showcase an exciting mix of local music and dance acts. Enjoy performances from Indian dancers to hip-hop crews — all while sampling some goodies from some of your favourite restaurants, including Byron, Grate Beer, Caffè Concerto, Crepeaffaire and Tapas Revolution. Plus, be inspired and entertained by the next generation of songwriters with Song Academy. The first 100 people to attend ArtsFest on Saturday 3 June will win a gift bag*. *Terms and conditions apply Continued on Page 40 40 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Advertisement feature celebrates getty images The food trucks have arrived The craze for food trucks is showing no sign of slowing down — so from Mexican to Middle Eastern, you’ll find something for every palate on the road T o start London Food Month with a bang, Westfield London (Shepherd’s Bush) is launching a Food Truck Festival from 1-4 June. An array of the centre’s restaurants will be popping up with new concepts and there will be a mix of cooking and cocktail masterclasses with appearances from some of London’s top chefs. Since Londoners have become more adventurous in their culinary persuits, HelloFresh stand to sample some of its delicious recipes. Freixenet With more than 150 years of wine-making expertise, Freixenet is on a mission to help people celebrate more. Head to the Freixenet vintage wine van where they’ll be serving some essential fizz. Be one of the first to try its new premium prosecco and other additions to its sparkling range, as well as the iconic black bottle Cordon Negro and Cordon Rosado for rosé fans. food trucks are no longer an anomoly. As the desire to try more and more cuisines grows, frood trucks are a great way to do this — which is why Westfield London is hosting this four-day event showcasing some of London’s most delicious street food. The Food Truck Festival will later head east to Westfield Stratford City from 22-25 June to close London Food Month with a whole new food truck offering and lots of entertainment. Some of the food trucks heading to Westfield London are: on a low heat, for a long time and packing them full of flavour. Head to the food truck during the event to sample its lovingly hand-pulled trademark dishes. Comptoir Libanais Celebrate summer with Yorica! Being healthy no longer means not having the things you love. At Yorica! they believe in healthy, deliciously natural ice creams, shakes and fro-yo that are all totally “free-from” and made using alternative ingredients such as rice milk and seaweed. Comptoir Libanais literally means “Lebanese counter” and this casual, fuss-free approach is ideally suited to a food tuck. The truly modern Lebanese canteen style brings classic flavours of the Middle East to Westfield. With mezze, falafel and fresh juices, discover the best of the Middle East. Pulled The Pulled vehicle is a familiar sight to all food truck connoisseurs and for the past few years has been selling slowcooked meats around the country. The Pulled ethos is all about taking British free range meats and roasting them Elephant Juice Bar Elephant Juice Bar has been juicing London since 2008. The incredible tasting fresh juices, smoothies and superfood bowls are all made on-site using 100 per cent fresh ingredients and are bursting with goodness. Yorica! HelloFresh For the past six years, HelloFresh has been on a mission to make cooking easy, enjoyable and healthy by creating delicious recipes that source the freshest, seasonal ingredients and delivers them straight to your door for you to make at home. Pop by the Don’t miss your chance to be London’s hottest foodpreneur To celebrate the Evening Standard’s London Food Month and the 10-year anniversary of his lifechanging appearance on Dragons’ Den, Levi Roots is joining with Westfield to find the capital’s next food entrepreneur. hurry, as entries close tomorrow. Ten people will be shortlisted and invited to Westfield Stratford City this month to present their business ideas to a panel of judges from the worlds of food and media, including Levi Roots himself. If you’re 18 years or over with a great business idea in the food industry — whether ingredient inventors, restaurateurs or cuisine creators — visit uk.westfield.com/ leviroots to be shortlisted. But The winner will receive £2,000 towards developing their business, plus mentorship and guidance from Levi Roots, and an opportunity to promote their product at Westfield*. *Terms and Conditions apply. See uk.westfield.com/ terms-and-conditions/ london-s-hottest-food-entrepreneurfor more details 41 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Advertisement feature celebrates Kick-start your food adventure Are you a kitchen novice? Do you love food but draw a blank when it comes to the wine list? Then head to one of the masterclasses taking place as part of London Food Month at Westfield THE WOMEN IN CHAMPAGNE MASTERCLASS Searcys Champagne Bar 28 June, 7pm-9pm, £35 Westfield London Learn about the stories of all the champagne houses that were influenced by wo m e n , i n c l u d i n g B o l l i n g e r, Veuve Cliquot and Duval Leroy. With five cuvées, 100ml serves, cheese and charcuterie. Book at searcyswestfieldlondon. co.uk BEER AND FOOD MATCHING Grate Beer Every Friday in June, 3.30pm-7.30pm (drop-in, 15-minute sessions) shutterstock Westfield London Matching food with beer can lift a dish and showcase the complex nature of a really great brew. Join Grate Beer and learn how to bring dishes to life. Matching sessions will be: 2 June Grimbergen and cheese (Belgium) 9 June Backyard and Chocolate (Sweden) 16 June Moritz and cured meat (Spain) 23 June And Union and antipasti (Germany) 30 June Brooklyn and sushi (USA) DIM SUM MASTERCLASS Ping Pong Other London Food Month offers* Westfield London Monday-Wednesday 4pm-5pm, throughout June Westfield London Learn about the flavours and techniques used in Ping Pong’s Dim Sum menu from its experienced chefs. Find out how to roll, fill and fold the pastry like a pro alongside its talented chefs. Indulge in some tasty competition with a prize for the best-looking basket. Book at SHB@pingpong-group.com Kids eat for 25p at Byron Two glasses of prosecco for £7 at Grate Beer 20 per cent off food at Zizzi Complimentary cocktail when you spend £10 at Ping Pong. Visit uk.westfield.com for more information or pick up a London Food Month brochure in centres now. *Terms & Conditions apply The Kitchen COOK WITH LEVI Levi Roots Caribbean Smokehouse Presented by Grundig, official appliance partner of London Food Month 1 July, 9:30am, £50 (includes £25 meal voucher) Westfield Stratford City Discover Caribbean cuisine with the trailblazer himself: Levi Roots Join Levi in his kitchen to inspire those with an interest in Caribbean food. He will show how to make some of his favourite dishes from the menu and will give the opportunityto learn more about what makes the cuisine so distinctive. Booking required — visit eventbrite.co.uk shutterstock GUACAMOLE-MAKING CLASS Wahaca 2 June, 10am Westfield Stratford City Bring your little Wahacos to explore the Mexican market with our guacamolemaking workshop. The children will find out about Mexico’s produce and food culture as well as learning step-by-step how to make their very own guacamole using fresh ingredients from the Wahaca kitchen. Booking required — visit stratford@wahaca.co.uk Hosting live demonstrations during the Food Truck Festival, showcasing signature dishes from London’s b e s t re s t a u ra n t s , t r i c ks o f t h e trade from top chefs and advice on sustainable eating. A Michelin star-studded experience with Theo Randall Join Theo Randall (above right) in the kitchen where he’ll be presenting some of the best-known Italian dishes from his award-winning restaurant — Theo Randall at the InterContinental. Modern Indian fine dining with Vivek Singh — The Cinnamon Club Classically trained in India, Vivek (below right) has transformed Indian cooking by drawing inspiration from age-old recipes and ideas and evolving them to create dishes “beyond authenticity”. To read more on what’s cooking in the world of food and drink, visit standard.co.uk/theagenda 42 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard celebrates Advertisement feature Your favourite films in the fresh air From award-winning blockbusters to cinema classics, you can catch them all outdoors at the Westfield open-air cinema this month Foodie film lovers will get the chance to experience the Westfield open-air cinema for 12 nights at The London Evening Standard’s Night Market. This summer’s newest outdoor cinema is screening the ultimate line-up of movies that offer something for everyone. Choose from Walt Disney Studios and Disney-Pixar family favourites, as well as Marvel’s Super Heroes blockbusters and Star Wars adventures from LucasFilm, plus 2017 Oscar®-winners and all-time classics. Find out what’s showing when and buy tickets at londonfoodmonth.co.uk/the-night-market Cinema tickets are available to add on to your general admission Night Market ticket from £4 for adults and £2 for children, with under-fives free. Prices include complimentary popcorn and wireless headphones. ©2017 Disney ©2017 Disney/Pixar ©2017 Marvel ©2017 & TM Lucas film Ltd. 43 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 BA’s crisis highlights cost-cut dangers Anthony Hilton says big firms lack resilience Page 44 standard.co.uk / business City Editor Jim Armitage Read by more City people than the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and The Times combined FTSE 100 FTSE 250 Dow Jones Av CLOSE £1 buys $1.2850 £1 buys €1.1442 €1 buys $1.1230 up 23.66 at 7543.61 up 27.20 at 19,999.37 down 20.82 at 21,008.65 down 0.40 cent down 0.29 cent down 0.07 cent news in brief Bank of England staff may strike over pay Staff at the Bank of England were today voting on whether to strike over below-inflation pay rises. Unite, Britain’s biggest union, is consulting members at the Bank, which employs around 3600 people, after a “derisory” 1% pay rise, Reuters reported. It is the second year in a row employees have faced a pay offer lower than inflation. Manufacturers thrive despite exports drag UK manufacturing activity grew again last month despite limited gains in exports. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Index hit 56.7 in May, exceeding the 50 points that indicate expansion. In April, it reached a three-year high of 57.3. The result was powered by domestic demand, with exports improving “only in fits and starts”. Micro Focus calms the nerves over HPE buy Micro Focus today reassured investors over its £7 billion takeover of parts of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, highlighting better-than-expected lifts in profitability at HPE. Micro Focus flagged a 10% slump in revenues from HPE’s software business this month, but its second-quarter operating profit margin hit 26.4%, versus last year’s 24.8%. Quote of the day ‘Investing in tobacco is neither acceptable nor sustainable’ Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity Ash, as UK local authorities face pressure to divest shares in tobacco firms House price falls fuelling fears of negative equity Simon English FEARS of a major housing market slump were stoked today when the Nationwide said prices have fallen for the third month running. That is the first time there has been such a run of declines since 2009 and will add to concern among homeowners that their most valuable asset is set to plunge. First-time buyers who have recently bought could soon be in negative equity, owing more than the house is worth, if the trend continues. The figures are just the latest gloomy economic news to emerge on the cusp of the general elec tion. Recent data have shown inflation is rising, pay is at best stagnant, that the mortgages market is cooling and that Britons are racking up credit-card debt at an alarming rate. House prices fell 0.2% month-onmonth in May, compared with a 0.4% drop in April, Nationwide said. That was far worse than City housing experts had earlier predicted. Year-on-year, house prices were 2.1% higher, slowing sharply from growth of 2.6% in April. That leaves the average UK house price at £208,711. In outer London it is more like £525,000. Nationwide admits to concern but says it is far too soon for panic. Robert Gardner, Nationwide chief economist, said: “It is still early days, but this provides further evidence that the housing market is losing momentum. Moreover, this may be indicative of a wider slowdown in the household sector, though data continue to send mixed signals.” Other house indices have been similarly gloomy. The Halifax house price index recently posted its first quarterly fall since November 2012. Housing experts say the Brexit vote and a rise in stamp duty fees on second homes have added to the uncertainty. Economists still think house prices will rise overall this year — 2% is a typical estimate. Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics predicts house prices will return to a “slowly rising path”. “Surveys suggest supply is tightening rapidly, employment growth looks set to remain steady at about 1% year-over-year, and mortgage rates still have scope to fall a little further,” he said. “But the days of surging house prices driven by sharply rising loan-to-income ratios are gone.” Nationwide also analysed whether general elections directly affect house prices. It found that broader economic trends rather than a change of government have a far bigger effect. Simon French of Panmure Gordon said: “The slowdown [is the result of ] active government policy designed to slow price growth. The main question is whether the government will stay the path or lose its nerve. Recent displays… suggest this lady is for turning.” @SimonEngStand cutting edge british steel in profit British Steel, sold for £1 last year, scraped through a sales crunch to deliver its first profit in 10 years today. The company’s 4800 steelworkers will also be given a stake worth 5% under a new share deal. Earnings were chalked up at £47 million for the year ending March 2017 after a £79 million loss last year. “There’s still a lot to be done,” said executive chairman Roland Junck, who admitted the profits, which do not include heavy financing costs, were “not enough”. Revenue was lower at £1.2 billion, due to higher coal costs which is used in production. The Scunthorpe steelworks hit the headlines when the 2015 steel crisis (pictured) forced former owner Tata to pull back from the UK. Buyer Greybull sought to cut costs to trigger a turnaround. Junck said an “entrepreneurial spirit” was starting to flow through British Steel. Michael Bow Property prices, not widget makers, drive our economy If only we had more factories. For all the worries about consumer confidence and house prices, manufacturers are churning out widgets as though Brexit was a figment of our imagination. Most encouragingly, it’s not just down to the weak pound boosting exports. Today’s PMI figures show domestic demand is the strongest growing area. Unfortunately, manufacturing only makes up one-tenth of the economy. The rest — primarily services and consumer spending — are less healthy, if the recent GDP data are anything to go by. With wages falling rapidly behind inflation and house prices on the wane, it’s hard to see either of those two thriving in the year to come. Jim Armitage City Editor commentary Don’t Touch this bid Despite its silly name change to the meaningless Touchstone, the business formerly known as Imperial Innovations is one of which London academia is rightly proud. Formed to commercialise the inventions being made by the boffins at Imperial College, it now includes, UCL, Cambridge and Oxford labs under its remit, turning inventions into start-up businesses. So we should be concerned when a rival whose shares have tumbled from 197p to 139p since the start of the year launches a bid to “merge” into Imperial’s champion. Particularly when the bidder is offering no premium to Touchstone’s shares and gives only passing mention of how the combination would be good for Touchstone or its employees. That’s the situation Touchstone finds itself in with IP Group’s recent offer: a nil premium bid valuing it at 307p a share compared with some analysts’ estimates of its true worth at 480p. Touchstone rightly said no, and chairman David Newlands gives a scathing critique of the deal today. Trouble is he may end up losing anyway because Touchstone’s major shareholders are the same as IP’s; namely, Neil Woodford’s Woodford Investment Management, his old shop Invesco and hedge fund Lansdowne. Woodford is not having the best of years with his intellectual property investments. As well as nursing losses on IP, his and Invesco’s funds have taken a bath on crisis-struck Allied Minds. Motivation for the assault on Touchstone, perhaps? IP’s proposal talks up the prospects of a more diversified group of investments for the combined company. But Touchstone, unlike IP, is already well-diversified. This deal might improve the mix of Woodford and Invesco’s lab investments but it’s hard to see how Touchstone — and its other shareholders — benefit. @ArmitageJim 44 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Business | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardcity and Instagram @evening.standard BA’s crisis highlights dangers of cost-cutting T he stock market’s verdict on the disastrous computer crash which disrupted British Airways’ operations last weekend was that it was no big deal. No flights left Heathrow on the Saturday of one of the biggest weekends of the year and flights were still not back to normal by Monday. Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded. Arguably, it was the airline’s worst self-inflicted crisis since it was privatised 30 years ago but the shares fell just 3% on what was a poor day for airline stocks anyway, so not much worse than any other carrier. It signals the market’s view, supported by most commentators and analysts, that there will be no lasting damage. Perhaps that is a bit too complacent. According to a survey carried out by YouGov for the Quoted Companies Alliance, companies estimate that 32% of their market value is accounted for by reputation. British Airways’ reputation has already taken a knock but it could get a lot worse if it turns out the failure was due to computer hacking rather than the official line that it was a power surge. After all, the local electricity company saw no sign of a surge — and even if it did, fluctuations in power are the sort of thing competent IT departments learned to take in their stride 20 years ago. BA has a narrow window in which Anthony Hilton city comment to be candid about what happened. It is astonishing that its management seems not to understand this. The implications go well beyond the failure of one company to realise how it ought to behave in order to retain its customers’ trust. It is part of a broader canvas that shows how modern management is stripping big companies of their resilience. A setback that once would have had only a minor impact, because there was plenty of spare capacity, now tips the business over the edge and becomes a disaster. The spare capacity has been stripped out to save money, and there is no longer any duplication either of facilities or of management and expertise. Business processes and supply chains have been made as lean as possible. As a result, companies are operating without a safety net. The point of this is that it delivers larger earnings. But you don’t get a greater return without adding to risk, which in this case is that there is absolutely no margin for error. It is high time that analysts took note of this in assessing the quality of corporate earnings. British Airways was arguably not this week’s worst example. On Tuesday, it was reported that a parts shortage had forced BMW to cut production of its Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 models not just at its main plants in Munich and Leipzig but also in South Africa and China. Analysts reckon that a week without production would reduce revenues by �550 million (£480 million), which is a lot more than BA plans to pay in compensation to its stranded passengers. What is interesting, however, is the cause. BMW cars have steering controls ‘A minor glitch in a just-in-time supply chain quickly becomes a major problem’ supplied by Bosch, another German company. The problem which arose this week was that Bosch was unable to deliver the required units because it had itself been hit by a shortage of parts — in this case from one of its own suppliers in Italy. Why the Italian firm had problems is not known, but the point is that a minor glitch in a just-in-time supply chain quickly becomes a major problem. Insurers in London, who often end up paying for all this through business interruption policies, talk ruefully of a case a few years ago in which a Canadian company was let down by a South African supplier, which in turn had been let down by a Japanese firm. The buck did not stop there. The Japanese had outsourced production to Thailand to save money but Thailand had been hit by floods. London wrote the flood insurance. That is where the buck stopped. The thing that should alarm shareholders is how few executives understand this stuff or think through the implications of their constant cost-cutting, largely because they count on being gone long before anything bad happens. Non-executives are asleep at the wheel and the risk-control systems in most companies are simply not designed for these sorts of problems. No junior risk officer is going to tell the chief executive that the supply chain he has just put in place is dangerously fragile. That is why it is hard to see how this can be stopped unless investors wise up to the risks and understand they now have something more important than executive pay to worry about. Unfortunately, these investors are often part of the problem, not part of the solution, because of the pressure they put on companies. The need to Secrets of my success Tammy Einav Joint chief executive of ad agency Adam&EveDDB What do you do? If at first…: Tammy Einav initially failed to get a job at DDB after an interview but it made her more determined to succeed I co-run Adam&EveDDB, a London communications agency that looks after some of the world’s leading brands, from global giants like VW and Samsung to local gems like Marmite and John Lewis. The variety of our clients means that in any given day I can be talking about the retail environment, financial services, the beauty sector… it’s part of what makes the job so exciting. I sometimes find myself quite literally running from one meeting to another but am not complaining as it’s a good form of exercise. The culture of the agency is really important to us, so we try to keep the energy and pace we had when we were a start-up, and not let hierarchy and bureaucracy get in the way of ideas. It’s very open and agile. What do you enjoy about it? I love seeing the impact our work can have on a client’s business. I worked on the team that pitched for, and won, the John Lewis account in 2009 and our campaigns have now become a genuine Christmas event. The first big campaign, “The long wait”, was an incredible moment and it’s grown from there. After the Monty the Penguin ad in 2014, I was introduced at a party as “the penguin lady”. There’s also nothing like the satisfaction of a pitch which goes well when you know you’ve been really stressed about it for the previous 24 hours. What don’t you enjoy? Unnecessarily long meetings, I’d put them into Room 101. People will schedule meetings for six hours and then they will fill the six hours when they should be much more energetic, quick and focussed. You need to be clear on what you want to get out of them, and get the right people around the table. What was your biggest break? My big break came on joining Adam&Eve when it was just 10 people in a room, in its infancy about 10 years ago. I’d spent my early career at a number of agencies in London but Adam&Eve felt like home from the first day. In the first few months we were in an office in Covent Garden which was being torn down. One day I opened a door to find the floor floating in mid-air! It was symbolic that we were about to succeed or crumble. Thankfully we succeeded. And setback? When I first tried to get a job in advertising, I came to interview at DDB but didn’t get it. I was really gutted and it nearly ended my career before it began but I didn’t let the disappointment get to me and learnt from my amateur interview mistakes. To this day when I sit in the room that I came to interview in (although it looks different — more exposed pipes on the ceiling), I think about that day and how that failure drove me on. How do you manage your work-life balance? Thankfully I have never needed much sleep — I’m lucky. Also my commute is easy. I can walk into the office in Paddington down the canal if I want (although I don’t do that nearly as much as I should). Away from work I spend my time with my family and am an avid reader. My day always ends with a novel. I love Pilates and yoga, which I try to condense into my weekends. And I’m hooked on boxsets — I’ve just finished Narcos. Any tips? Try to be the best version of yourself rather than someone else’s ideal. And work with people you respect and laugh with. It’s the only thing that saves you at 3am. Advertising is built on those relationships. Evening Standard Business Awards: the media nominees Page 46 deliver earnings growth year in, year out while competition is intense and the global economy flat is what has pushed companies into round after round of cost-cutting. But while intuitively one appreciates that this is going on, it is hard to grasp its scale until someone in the thick of it, like British Airways or BMW, highlights the trend. W PP’s Sir Martin Sorrell, a keen student of business trends, wrote in his recent annual report that the number of listed companies in the US has halved in the past 20 years, driven by consolidation and the pursuit of savings. In 1990, there were 11,500 mergers and acquisitions worldwide; since 2008, the number has more than doubled to 30,000 with an annual value equivalent to roughly 3% of global gdp. As long as the pressure for short-term profits is maintained, and as long as companies think it is a good idea to reward executives on the basis of those short-term results, these pressures will only intensify. And yet more fragility and entirely avoidable corporate disasters will be the result. Anthony Hilton’s archive: standard. co.uk/author/anthony-hilton Staley cuts back Barclays with bumper £2.2bn Africa sell-off Simon English BARCLAYS today made a major step forward in the shake-up led by chief executive Jes Staley, selling off a much bigger stake in its Africa arm than expected. Staley wants Barclays to become a simpler, less sprawling affair, which has a strong presence on the UK high street, on Wall Street and in the City. The bank said last year it would sell most of its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa Group. This morning it offloaded a £2.2 billion stake to major investors in a share placing. That takes it down to 28%, with the bank aiming eventually for a stake of around 15%. Former boss Bob Diamond was a rumoured buyer of the assets but was not able to secure a deal. News of the sale sent Barclays shares up 3% in early trading. Staley said the deal “represents a key milestone in the execution of our strategy and the restructuring of Barclays”. ■ Lloyds Banking Group today completed its £1.9 billion acquisition of Bank of America’s UK credit cards business, MBNA. The Competition and Markets Authority cleared the way for the transaction in early May after deciding not to refer the deal to a Phase 2 investigation. This is Lloyds’ first deal since it was bailed out in 2008. @SimonEngStand evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Middle East firm steps into the race for Jimmy Choo exclusive Joanna Bourke Bahrain-headquartered private equity firm Investcorp has joined a queue of suitors eyeing a takeover of Jimmy Choo, six years after it first made a bid for the luxury shoe and bag retailer. Luxury fashion sources told the Standard that the Gulf investor — which has a number of global offices, including in the capital, New York, Singapore and Abu Dhabi — is “looking closely” at making an offer for London-listed Jimmy Choo which put itself up for sale in April. One source said luxury “is in the DNA” of Investcorp, which has already invested in silversmith Georg Jensen and Italian menswear brand Corneliani. In 2011, the company was among bidders vying to buy Jimmy Choo. Both firms declined to comment today. In 2014, Investcorp lost out to US private equity giant Blackstone to buy a stake in fashion house Versace. If Investcorp does proceed with an offer in the middle of this month when the first-round of bids will be called, it is expected to face competition. Parties believed to be circling the brand include US fashion firms Coach and Michael Kors, fund Mayhoola for Investments and a number of others. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi are advising Jimmy Choo, which became a household name thanks to Carrie Bradshaw, the shoe-crazy heroine of Nineties TV hit Sex and the City. Details of the latest contenders came as Jimmy Choo hosted its annual meeting. Two shareholder groups advised investors not to back chairman Peter Harf ’s re-election because he also chairs the brand’s majority shareholder JAB Luxury. However, all resolutions were expected to be approved. Harf made no mention of the Jimmy Choo sale, but said: “The prospects for the business are stronger than ever.” Shares were up 2.5p to 200p, valuing the business at £779 million. 45 | Business FirstGroup ups speed checks in wake of Croydon Clare Hutchison FirstGroup has offered drivers counselling and increased speed checks after last year’s Croydon Tramlink crash, its boss said today. The investigation to discover what caused the tragedy, which killed seven people, may take months, but Tim O’Toole said FirstGroup is giving staff counselling “to make sure everyone understands the importance of maintaining focus at all times”. It is also dealing with concerns over rotas and conducting speed checks more often. O’Toole reiterated the company’s Tragedy: seven tram passengers died “profound sadness” over the derailment and said FirstGroup was assisting with official probes. The transport giant’s full-year sales rose 8.3% to £5.7 billion helped by improvements in the US, where it operates school buses. Pre-tax profits rose 23% to £207 million. High-Street footfall declines and congestion hurt UK bus revenue, while rail growth was hit by an industry-wide slowdown and engineering works. It warned of “continued economic uncertainty” in Britain. Shares sank 8.7p to 141.1p. @clarehutch @es_jobourke “Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan’t be forgotten.” Based on the real life story of spy Guy Burgess starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth. A-Listers Season Carrie on: shoemaker, made famous by Sex And The City, was put up for sale in April Vote Leave man joins Shore Capital Simon English Shore Capital is hiring one of the architects of the Brexit vote as a senior political adviser. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, has joined the broker to work in its capital markets business. Simon Fine, chief executive of Shore Capital Markets, said: “During a time of transformational changes in the UK in relation to its relationship with the rest of the world as a result of Brexit, Matthew will provide a unique perspective for our capital markets business.” Elliott said: “I am delighted to be joining Shore Capital to help their clients understand the changing political situation.” @SimonEngStand Another Country TONIGHT 10PM Freeview 8 Sky 117 Virgin 159 46 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Business | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardcity and Instagram @evening.standard Meet our nominees who have cast a spell on a multitude of viewers and shoppers T HE City’s great and good are preparing fight it out at this month’s Evening Standard Business Awards. As our panel of big-hitters prepare to judge the shortlisted nominees, we profile the companies changing the rules amid a rapidly shifting media landscape. We also examine the consumer brands forging their way ahead of the pack in a tough market, where there are many demands on disposable income. media business of the year ■ BT Sport: The broadcasting arm of the telecoms group will celebrate its fourth birthday in August. In its short life, it has shaken up the market for sports-viewing in the UK, not least by bringing down the price to view Premier League football. More than 5 million people now have access to its output which includes rugby and hockey, as well as Italian and German domestic football and, for the first time, this Winter’s Ashes series. Audience figures have climbed by 12% this year. BT Sport has also taken risks — not least putting the last Champions League final on YouTube so that all footie fans, not just subscribers, could watch it free. The sleepy telecoms behemoth has certainly woken up. ■ Adam&Eve/DDB: The creative ad agency behind those heart-tugging John Lewis Christmas ads wins countless awards in its sector and is renowned for sprinkling stardust on brands. The firm is known for its entertaining hits for clients which have been as diverse as H&M, Waitrose, Tanqueray, Harvey Nichols and SSE. In the past 12 months it has been picking up more international accounts, including Samsung’s North America and Europe accounts. In 2017 so far, it has won accounts for Max Factor and for Sky Sports. But it is its creative work that really gets people talking, including working with film director Wes Anderson on H&M ads and having its Harvey Nichols characters feature in the long-awaited Trainspotting 2. ■ Facebook: Love it or loathe it, no one can deny that Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has become the biggest media company on the planet. Having seen its advertising business explode, it is now looking to lure billions of pounds of ads away from TV, where brands have always spent most of their budget. Next year, Facebook will open its new headquarters in London, creating an extra 500 jobs and taking the total number of people it employs in the capital to 1500. The social network runs its European business from the capital and its commitment to London, soon after the Brexit vote, could not have been made more clearly. Magic formula: Framestore, and founder William Sargent (inset), have done wonders for Harry Potter; Facebook is a force, as is BT Sport; Adam&Eve got Adrien Brody for H&M’s ads ■ Framestore: The Oscar-winning special effects company behind some of the most memorable Harry Potter scenes is one of London’s great entrepreneurial success stories. Framestore was started with a fivestrong team in Soho in 1986 by Dubliner William Sargent and is now one of the world’s biggest post-production houses. It has 1400 staff in offices in London, New York, Montreal, Chicago and Los Angeles. Now the 31-year-old company has set its sights on the East and a deal at the end of last year saw China’s Cultural Investment Holdings buy 75% of the business, valuing Framestore at £150 million. The emerging markets of China and India, with an estimated combined audience of almost three billion, are now firmly in Framestore’s sights. consumer business of the year ■ Matchesfashion.com: Both a tech business and a retailer, Matchesfashion.com jostles with the likes of Yoox Net-a-porter for the dollars of the world’s wealthiest fashionistas. Established in 1990 as a bricks and mortar retailer by Tom and Ruth Chapman, the company launched online in 2007 and now makes 95% of its revenues online, with 85% of sales coming from outside the UK. But matchesfashion.com’s commitment to its home is 100% and it recently announced a new flagship store in Mayfair, its sixth site in the capital, that will bring together the physical and shopping experience. Results published in March for the first time, reveal soaring sales with 61% year-on-year growth and full-year revenues of £204 million. Matchesfashion. com is really setting the trend for luxury fashion, with online sales up by 73% in 2016. market to sell exclusively British meat. The retailer, insurer and funeral provider is finding its voice again. ■ Co-op Food: Four years ago the Coop was in the midst of a crisis that looked insurmountable. However, under the guidance of the nowdeparted Richard Pennycook the mutual has come back from the brink and this year even overtook Aldi as the UK’s fifth-biggest grocer. The Manchester-based retailer is opening 100 stores as part of a £70 million expansion scheme and the relaunch of its loyalty programme, which gives members a 5% discount on Co-op own brands and donates 1% to community causes has been very popular. Co-op even revived its old iconic blue brand to show how it was reconnecting with communities and its heritage and this month became the first UK super- ■ Morrisons: Another retailer in the throes of a dramatic turnaround, Morrisons has seen like-for-like sales climb by 3.4% in the past quarter and half a million more transactions a week than at the same time last year. Chief executive Dave Potts has gone back to basics, extending fresh food, keeping prices low and pushing childrenswear which has resulted in the first rise in profits in six years. But the grocer has also taken risks, notably in its tie-up with Amazon and dipping its toe back into the convenience market. It even plans to revive the Safeway brand, using it for food it makes for other retailers. Best of British: Morrisons has turned the corner; Matchesfashion.com is booming overseas; Richard Pennycook saved the Co-op ■ Just Eat: In just a decade Just Eat has revolutionised the takeaway food industry and revived thousands of small takeaways in the process. There was scepticism when it floated in London in 2014, but the company, started in a Danish basement, is now global in reach and its share price has doubled as it takes 4.3 orders a second around the world. It faces competition from some of the world’s best-resourced firms — such as Amazon — but it is undaunted, hence its recent attempt to merge with rival takeaway platform Hungry House. A home-grown example of a tech brand that came out of nowhere to become a global household name. ■ The Evening Standard Business Awards, in association with HSBC and supported by Ballymore, will be held at Banqueting House, Whitehall, on June 29. For more information visit: standard.co.uk/businessawards #ESBusinessAwards 47 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 | Business Motor skills: the British firm makes catalytic converters for the Mini Cooper D, among others Buy holiday money now as pound looks set to soften in the heat A s the last of the spring’s bank holidays pass, accompanied by motorway mayhem and thunderstorms, attention shifts towards the promise of a summer getaway. Hand-in-hand with such thoughts goes consideration of when to purchase foreign currency. For UK holidaymakers, this year offers a lot to consider. The first thing they should be prepared for is that sterling isn’t going to go as far abroad as in previous years. The pound is down over 12% against the euro and US dollar from last year. It has lost an eighth of its value. This reflects the first impact of our decision to leave the EU, combined with the UK’s large overseas borrowing. But where might the currency go from here and what will influence it? The first influence will be next week’s general election. When Theresa May called an election, sterling rallied as markets translated a commanding Tory lead in the polls into a landslide victory. This was expected to ease the Prime Minister’s Brexit negotiating position and the pound climbed nearly 3% after the announcement. More recent polls record the Conservative lead slipping to 5% and 6% in recent days and one even suggests the Tories would not achieve a majority. Sterling has retreated by 1.3% as polls have dipped. The second is the persistence of a sanguine outlook for Brexit. The negotiations are scheduled to begin soon after the election, in the week commencing June 19. Even assuming the Conservatives still achieve a larger majority next week, May would have to be nimble to shift from an electioneering mode, that looks set to tackle the EU’s position on citizens’ rights and the financial settlement, to a more constructive negotiating tone. I’m sceptical that such an adjustment will be achieved and fear a difficult start to negotiations. Markets may well reassess the assumption that the chances of a chaotic, no-deal Brexit have reduced. Third is the outlook for relative interest rates. The downgrade of UK first-quarter GDP growth to just 0.2% threatens the Bank of England’s growth projections. We believe this will be consistent with no change in rates before 2019. By contrast, over the same period, we expect the US Federal Reserve to raise its target interest rate another five times. In the euro area, the European Central Bank looks set to bolster details to reduce its stimulus over the coming months. This relative reduction of UK interest rates is also likely to weigh on the pound. Of course, other factors should support the UK currency. The pound’s decline to date has helped reduce the UK’s dependence on foreign borrowing. The UK’s current account deficit halved to 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016 from an average 4.7% in the three years before. Sterling’s fall has contributed to a narrowing of the international trade deficit and boosted relative earnings on overseas assets. This reduces pressure on the currency for further adjustment. Around these levels sterling is doing its job in helping rebalance the UK economy. Moreover, exchange rates compare relative outlooks and other countries have their own issues to contend with. In the US, President Donald Trump’s administration has contributed its own volatility to the dollar, which has been 5% higher than pre-election levels and retreated almost all the way back. Progress on fiscal reform would boost the dollar from here, while renewed discussion of impeachment would have the reverse effect. Johnson Matthey is set to switch to electric Michael Bow Johnson Matthey pledged to survive the slow death of the diesel car today by turning its sights on electric car batteries and cleaning up air pollution. The 200-year-old British firm makes catalytic converters for one third of all the world’s motors, including the Mini Cooper D, but concerns are growing the move to electric will hurt it. Chief executive Robert MacLeod said: “As diesel starts declining we will adapt our R&D and manufacturing footprint and move this business forward.” For now, diesel and petrol catalysts are doing well due to tighter air pollution rules in Europe, with sales to car manufacturers rising 21% to £847 million last year. Currency benefits helped take total revenue up 12% to £12 billion and pre-tax profit soared 19% to £461.6 million. @signorbow M eanwhile, the euro has risen 4% since the election of French president emmanuel Macron. This momentum may have further to run, although concerns of early elections in Italy and a dovish ECB could cap the euro’s gains. The coming months appear to bring a relatively more challenging outlook for the UK and we consider the likelihood of a softer pound, particularly against the US dollar. Considering when to buy holiday currency depends on many factors, including how much the anticipation of such a trade is part of the holiday build-up. For me though, the early purchase of foreign currency will leave one less thing to worry about. Hand-stitched Leather and Suede Brogues ■ David Page is a senior economist at Axa Investment Managers All the news as it happens with the Evening Standard app Go to: standard.co.uk/apps ECONOMIC ANALYSIS ‘Markets may well reassess the assumption the chances of a chaotic, no-deal Brexit have reduced’ Download our free app David Page Find it free in your device’s app store Hot deals: grabbing your currency is part of build-up to a break Only £29.99 plus £4.95 p&p • With a contemporary design, these classic brogues bridge the gap between smart and casual and are versatile enough to be worn with jeans or a suit. • All shoes are hand crafted with traditional Oxford lacing and wing-tip detailing and the genuine leather sole is hand-stitched as well as glued, giving an extremely durable construction. • Available in sizes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and the following colour options, pictured: tan leather (S193TA), blue suede (S193BL), tan leather/blue suede (S193BT), black leather/ grey suede (S193BG). TO BUY: visit standard.co.uk/shop Terms & Conditions: *Calls cost 13p/min plus your phone company’s access charge. Allow up to 7 working days for delivery. Products are purchased from, and your contract is with BVG Group Ltd. Please note BVG Group Ltd. do not refund postage on unsuitable items or cancelled orders unless faulty. If not happy for any reason BVG Group Ltd. will accept faulty/unused goods in sealed original packaging for refund or replacement within 30 days. Visit shop.standard.co.uk/information.htm#tc for our full terms & conditions and privacy policy. 48 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Business | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardcity and Instagram @evening.standard New journey: Andy Boland has pushed the cabs firm to the premium end of the market to fight Uber Sainsbury’s flies flag for the elite @City_Spy Military drills could have a new platform Addison Lee steps up a gear as deals drive sales rise Alex Lawson A move upmarket and an expansion into America has helped cab firm Addison Lee to fight off the rise of Uber and post a bounce in sales, it said today. Just-filed accounts show that fares received in the year to last August fell 7.5% to £259.5 million with profits at £53.9 million. But the company said that revenues will be “around a third” higher this year and profits will grow, without giving specific figures. It was acquired for £300 million by US private-equity group Carlyle in 2013 . Chief executive Andy Boland said that the growth came in the wake of a £70 million investment drive in new technology, better-equipped cars and acquisitions in the US. Last year the London firm bought executive car service Tristar, which operates in 83 countries, and in January snapped up Flyte Tyme, giving Lee a presence on America’s East Coast. It now has 1000 Mercedes in London with in-car wi-fi and phone charging. On Uber’s growth in London, Boland said: “We have reshaped the business to differentiate ourselves. As in other parts of the economy, it’s price versus quality. Our customers know we’ll pick them up from the theatre on a Saturday night or do an early morning airport run and they can talk to someone helpful if they have a problem.” Boland believes the acquisitions allow Addison Lee to snare UK business travellers when abroad. It counts 80% of the FTSE 100 as customers. ■ Uber has vowed to find a new chief financial officer to write its “next chapter” with a potential flotation on the horizon. Head of finance Gautam Gupta’s departure was revealed along with bulging first-quarter losses of $708 million (£550 million). The scandal-struck taxi-hailing app has lost a string of senior executives in recent months. @MrAlexLawson Here’s a novel idea for what to do with all those defunct North Sea oil platforms: sell them to the armed forces for military training exercises. According to energy trade website Energy Voice, Repsol Sinopec Resources UK originally hatched a plan to sell the offshore wells to the Ministry of Defence, who wanted to use them for aerial training towers. That deal’s off, but with the spate of offshore shutdowns for oil firms off the coast of Aberdeen, maybe this could prove a new money-spinner. ■ Eyebrows were raised last year when AIM-listed African Potash agreed to an extortionate loan from the wife of the finance director. But that’s nothing compared with the $2 million shareholder loan given to Philippines gold miner Metals Exploration so it can repay its lenders. More than £1.1 million is being put up by the Candy brothers, the AIM-listed miner’s major shareholders. The loan is to be repaid when it secures a larger debt deal. The loan carries an eyewatering interest rate of 20% until the end of August and a 30% penalty rate after that. The Candys, who declined to comment, stand to make more than £200,000 in three months so it’s winwin for the property brothers if Metals Exploration takes several months to wrap up a larger funding deal. London shoppers are not doing well in quashing the city’s reputation as the home of the liberal metropolitan elite. According to Kantar Worldpanel, we’re filling our baskets with olives, vitamins, dental floss and men’s skincare products far more than our counterparts elsewhere, but don’t want as much beer, cider, bacon or black pudding. We’re also prone to a splurge in Sainsbury’s; its market share in London is double that of its slice nationally. Non-alcoholic cocktails and smashed avocado all round at Sainsbury’s then. Party on. ■ As the pound see-sawed around yesterday in response to political turmoil, the City struggled to define its status. “Pound on cliff edge” roared one headline, with another dubbing trading “choppy”. ETX Capital went out on a limb: “pound whippy on polls”. Whippy? Sounds like a rapidly dripping ice cream… Email us at: cityspy@standard.co.uk Cocorose aiming to be well-heeled Step up: founder Janan Leo wants to raise £200,000 through crowdfunding Janan Leo, the founder of foldable shoes maker Cocorose London, is on the lookout for funding. The maker of the stylish handbagready flats, sold in Harvey Nicks and sported by the likes of Pippa Middleton and Dame Helen Mirren, tells Spy she’s looking to raise £200,000 through crowdfunding to help develop the e-commerce side of the business as wholesale markets become tougher. Leo, whose business turns over around £1 million a year, has helped stuff the Bafta awards goodybags since she set it up 10 years ago. Spy reckons Leo, who once accompanied former Prime Minister David Cameron as an export champion, will quick-step her way to the cash. 49 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 London stars as Hostelworld ups bookings Joanna Bourke Tourists checking into budget London accommodation have helped Hostelworld improve trading momentum, the online booking platform said today. The company, advertised by actor Charlie Sheen (below), said the 120 London hostels on its platform were 100% occupied on April 29, the early May bank holiday Saturday. Holidaymakers from Australia, the US, Germany and France visited London in the greatest numbers. Chief executive Feargal Mooney said: “There is very strong demand for hostels, and London remains our biggest destination in the world.” Chairman Richard Segal told its annual meeting that total group bookings in the year to date are ahead of the same period last year across all regions, and Hostelworld expects to meet full-year forecasts. However, he noted “more moderate gains” in Europe. Overall bookings dipped 1% in 2016, owing to “softer demand in European destinations as a result of geopolitical events”. | Business Inmarsat goes into orbit on hopes of SoftBank takeover Jamie Nimmo Soft touch: Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank, meets President Trump market round-up Chatter that deal-hungry SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son might set his sights on Inmarsat sent shares in the satellite communications firm rocketing today. The Japanese tech investor’s attempt to merge SoftBank’s OneWeb business with Intelsat fell through today, with Intelsat’s creditors reportedly not backing the $14 billion (£11 billion) deal. The eccentric Son doesn’t sit still for long and the collapse of the bid for Intelsat — which broadcast Neil Armstrong’s moon walk — soon had rumours flowing that Inmarsat would be his next target. Reports suggested that SoftBank, which last year bought ARM for £24 billion, has already been in talks with other satellite firms about merging with OneWeb. Shares in Inmarsat, which dropped out of the FTSE 100 last year after tough conditions in its maritime division, surged 44p, or 5.5%, to 844p in anticipation of a possible takeover. The London-based firm was among the top risers on the mid-cap index, vying for the top spot with Auto Trader. The second-hand car dealer raced 23.3p, or 5.6%, higher to 439.4p as Barclays upgraded to Overweight ahead of next week’s annual results. The bank’s analysts said investors had steered clear of the shares, wary that the used-car market might grind to a halt. “There are risks in the outlook for used-car pricing, but we do not expect wide forecourt closures,” they said. The markets were calmer today after yo-yoing yesterday when the FTSE 100 briefly hit new highs. The index rose 23.66 points to 7543.61 as traders continue to discount Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of winning the election. BT shares fell 3.4p to 306.15p after Morgan Stanley slashed its rating to Equalweight from Overweight. The investment bank suggested the telecoms giant will have to splash the cash on fibre, with new regulations coming into play next year. That increased spending might mean it does not have enough free cashflow to cover its dividend, Morgan Stanley added. Broker downgrades left shares in private healthcare group Mediclinic 28p weaker at 780.5p. Events firm Ascential, formerly Emap, dipped 2.6p to 352.3p after selling its remaining 11 UK-based magazines and trade publications for £23.5 million. @jamienimmo63 More information: standard.co.uk/business @es_jobourke TRADER TALK ■ Citywire AA-rated small-cap star Harry Nimmo has sold down his holding in high street fashion chain Ted Baker as it slides from a rally which significantly failed to break through a prior high. Nimmo reduced his investment in the business from 2.6 million shares, or above 5%, worth £65 million at a share price of £24.94, to below a disclosable level. The business was until recently a top 10 position in his £1.3 billion Standard Life UK Smaller Companies fund, and was also a significant position in his £338 million Smaller Companies trust. Nimmo has done well out of the changing face of UK fashion in the past decade, being an early supporter of online retailer Asos and break-out international clothing label Superdry. Ted Baker has had a rockier path in recent years, however, hitting an alltime high of £35 in 2015 before sliding. A rally late last year petered out at £30 and it has continued to drop. Dave Campbell: citywire.co.uk Chairman hits out on Touchstone bid The chairman of London universities incubator Touchstone today claimed the nil-premium £500 million approach from IP Group was a takeover, not a merger as its rival suggested. David Newlands said IP’s chairman told him “the term ‘merger’ had been used, but that this was in fact a ‘takeover’.” Share Prices | † Dealings suspended *r Ex-dividend Ex-rights Issue a Ex-all c Ex-capitalisation issue FTSE 100 UP 23.66 AT 7543.61 3i Group................... 918.....+23.....92812....46812 Admiral Group..... 2047*.....+10.....2288....1680 Ang Americn..........1021... -1012. ...1529...... 572 Antofagasta...........80412.....+312. ...90512....39412 Ashtead Group.......1567.......+1.....1764....87534 Assoc Brit Fds........2995........-1.....3183....1910 AstraZeneca...........5322.....+88.....5505....3680 Aviva......................... 527.......+2.....57012...... 290 Babcock Intl...........93712.....+412. ...1112...... 780 BAE SYSTEMS....... 67114*.....+534. ...67634....46434 Barclays..................20834......-114. ...26714...... 121 Barratt Dev.............. 609......-312. ...62412...... 326 BHP Billiton............1169........-4.. 151812....78612 BP......................... 46912*.....+234. ...52114....34914 BrAmTobacco.........5562.....+32.....5602....4072 British Land............64134.....+734. ...77314...... 500 BT Group.................. 307......-212. ...44414....29712 Bunzl.................... 2428*........-4.....2588 194912 Burberry................1807........-8.....1879....1039 Carnival................ 4985*.....+15.....5005....3075 Centrica.................. 203*........-14. ...24812....11934 Coca-Cola HBC........2294.....+41.....2299....1323 Compass............... 1688*.....+18.....1692 124214 ConvaTec Group.....32934.....+934. ...33012...... 213 CRH.........................2834.....+42.....3342....1700 Croda Intl............. 4004*.....+41.....4017 275414 DCC....................... 7475*.. +100.....8030....5780 Diageo..................236212...+3512. 237212....1737 Direct Line Ins........34914....... +34. ...40034...... 323 Easyjet....................1403..... -11.....1544...... 851 Experian.................1620.......+2.....1708....1224 Fresnillo.................1585.......+9.. 205714....99512 GKN........................35012....... +12. ...37914....24912 GlaxoSmKline....... 1712*.....+812. 174512....1363 Glencore............... 28312*......-112. .....347....12412 Hammerson...........59012.......+5.......606...... 400 Hargrve Lans.........1417.....+19.....1454....1056 Hikma Pharms.......1706.....+18.....2703....1573 HSBC....................... 676*....... +12. ...71514....39214 Imperial Brands366012*...+3112. ...4154....3324 Informa................ 67612*.....+512. ...70412...... 480 InterCont Htls.........4419.....+46.. 443734 261514 Intl Cons Airlines....61212.....+812. .....619....28134 Intertek Gp........... 4326*.....+27.....4337 303712 Intu Props..............27334.....+134. .....320....25434 ITV..........................19434........-1.....22134...... 141 J Matthey................3091..... -21.....3568....2774 Kingfisher............. 32612*.....+112. ...39012....26912 Land Sec.................1081.....+11.....1209...... 810 Legal Gen............. 25112*........-14. .....262....16012 Lloyds Bkg Grp......... 7012..................7312........ 47 Main movers rises Price (p) Chg (p) %Chg Dukemount Cptl............... 0.40.......+0.02.......... +6.7 Brew Dolphin................350.10.... +11.50.......... +3.4 ConvaTec Group............329.80.......+9.80.......... +3.1 PaddyPwrBetfair........8285.00.. +215.00.......... +2.7 3i Group........................918.00.... +23.00.......... +2.6 falls ftse 100 index Lond Stk Ex Gp..... 3443*.....+18.....3493....2259 Marks&Sp...............37534......-634. ...39734...... 255 Mediclinic Intl.......... 781... -2712. ...1125....66612 Merlin Ent............ 53212*.....+312. ...53512....31634 Micro Focus Intl.....2444.....+50.....2675....1408 Mondi.....................2033.......+9.....2053....1240 Morrison (Wm)..... 24712*.....+112. .....250....16812 Natl Grid............... 1057*... -3212. 125214....96934 Next........................4398.....+38.....5705....3550 Old Mutual.............18812....... +12. ...22934....16814 PaddyPwrBetfair...8285.. +2151002812....6525 Pearson.................... 711.....+412. ...98912...... 552 Persimmon.............2443..... -12.....2481....1170 Provident Fincl..... 3066*.....+15.. 340214....2125 Prudential............173212......-312. 180112....1096 Randgold Res.........7395.....+30.....9820....5410 Reckitt Benck.........7997.....+59.....8083....6496 RELX.......................1682.....+19.....1685...... 631 Rentokil Intial........26814.....+212. .....269...... 164 Rio Tinto...............311012.......+8.. 371812....1853 Rolls-Royce........... 87914*...+1134. .....895...... 588 Royal Bank.............25734......-214. .....271....14812 Royal D Shell A..... 2112*.....+12.. 229512....1645 Royal D Shell B...215512*.....+12.. 240334....1646 Royal Mail..............44312.......+2.......549....39712 RSA Insurance........62612.......+1.....63514....42512 Sage........................ 724*.....+312. ...80712...... 573 Sainsbury............... 280*........-1.....28312....21112 Schroders...............3166.......+9.....3284....1960 Scottish Mort IT.....40012.....+312. .....403...... 245 Severn Trent...........2510.....+10.....2575....2047 Shire.....................444212..... -29.....5377 270714 Sky............................ 994.......+3.....1050...... 560 Smith & Neph.........1365.....+11.....1369....1065 Smiths Gp...............1605.......+2.....1685....1028 Smurfit Kappa Grp2197.....+16.....2260....1504 SSE.........................1513.......+8.....1644....1369 StanChart................. 736.....+414. ...82112....47114 Standard Life.........38334.......+1.......415....24814 St James Place.......1176.......+3.....1195...... 521 Taylor Wimpey.......19234... -1012. ...20512....10912 Tesco........................ 182......-134. ...21912...... 143 TUI AG....................1202.......+4.....1231...... 813 Unilever................ 4373*...+4112. 437712 305012 United Utilities.......1032.......+3.....1078....85312 Vodafone Grp.........23314.....+134. .....240....18612 Whitbread..........429412*.....+312. ...4380....3283 Wolseley.................5130.....+20.....5285....3489 Worldpay Grp....... 31334*.......+3.......322....24712 WPP........................1750.......+6.....1928....1204 Price (p) Chg (p) %Chg Taylor Wimpey..............192.70..... -10.40...........-5.1 Spinnaker Opps................ 4.56....... -0.19...........-4.0 Ten Entmt Gp................170.00....... -6.50...........-3.7 Mediclinic Intl...............781.00..... -27.50...........-3.4 Natl Grid.....................1057.00..... -32.50...........-3.0 HOUR BY HOUR Prev Cls 7519.95 08:30 7550.02 09:00 7539.12 10:00 7546.30 11:00 – 12:00 – 13:00 – 14:00 – 14:30 – 15:00 – 16:00 – Close – t s s s – – – – – – – – 6.56 30.07 19.17 26.35 – – – – – – – – tourist rates Australia Canada Denmark Eurozone Hong Kong Japan New Zealand South Africa Sweden Switzerland UAE United States Dollars Dollars Kroner Euro Dollars Yen Dollars Rand Kronor Francs Dirham Dollars 1.6441 1.6521 8.0888 1.0911 9.5010 135.7800 1.6913 15.8600 10.6500 1.1860 4.4279 1.2270 london bullion markeT *net of vat Gold per oz Sterling £981.43 Close $1267.12 Prev Close $1263.19 economy Bank of England base rate (May) 0.25 % Consumer prices index (Apr) +2.7% Brent crude ($) 50.26 Halifax mortgage rate 3.74 % Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed in the tables 2016/17 High Low AEROSPACE & DEFENCE Chemring.................. 18114......... +34........208.......9014 AUTOMOBILES & PARTS GKN........................... 35012......... +12...... 37914.....24912 CONS & BUILD MATERIALS Bellway................... 2819*..........-7......3001.....1622 Countryside Props.... 33512.......+212...... 33734.....17012 CRH...........................2834.......+42......3342.....1700 Marshall................... 41134..........-12...... 42234.....19912 McCarthy&S.............18512*........-112...... 24134.....12914 Taylor Wimpey.......... 19234..... -1012...... 20512.....10912 ELECTRONIC & ELEC EQUIP Laird......................... 13812..........-34........273......... 95 ENGINEERING & MACHINERY Bodycote.................77812*.........+1...... 84512.......500 IMI............................1261.........+7......1317.....89112 FOOD PRODUCERS Cranswick............... 298034.....+1534......3092...195014 Tate & Lyle.................. 739.........+1........850.....60312 GENERAL RETAILERS Supergroup..............1551.................179334.....1100 HEALTH ConvaTec Group........ 32934.......+934...... 33012.......213 INSURANCE Admiral Group........ 2047*.......+10......2288.....1680 Beazley..................... 47112..........-12...... 47514.....32714 Hiscox..................... 1229*.........+1......1237.......903 JardnLlydThm...........1185.........+5......1188.......825 INVESTMENT COMPANIES British Empire Trust... 681.....................690.......436 Custodian REIT........11334*................... 11414......... 99 UKCPT........................8734*..................... 9112......... 65 IT & INTERNET Aveva........................1929..........-7......2149.....1481 LEISURE & HOTELS Greene K..................... 748........-612........910.....64612 Marstons.................13414*........-114...... 15534.....12634 MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT Centaur Media...............50..........-12........ 5714.......3234 OIL & GAS Cairn Energy............. 20312.........+1...... 25012.......171 Hunting..................... 50712.........+2........650.....30612 Premier Oil....................58..................... 9912......... 48 Soco Intl....................132*................... 16814.......115 Vedanta Resources..... 609........-212....111212.......366 PHARMS & BIOTECH Hikma Pharms..........1706.......+18......2703.....1573 REAL ESTATE Big Yellow Gp............ 78812................... 88712.....62912 Capital & Cnties.......31414*.....................363.....25714 CLS............................ 19514........-434........209.....11212 Derwent Lond......... 2757*..........-9....350734.....2230 Grainger................... 26914..........-1........271.......193 Helical......................... 334........-114...... 41814.......228 McKay Secs............... 22814........-434........240.......140 Raven Russia.................48..........-14.......... 55.......3112 2016/17 High Low Raven Russia Pref...13934*..........-34...... 14814.......115 Raven Russia Wts..........27..................... 2934......... 13 Raven R Cnv Pref...... 11612.....................117.......115 Savills......................... 879.......+14...... 96012.....54214 Tritax Big Box........... 14812.........+1........149.....10434 Urban&Civic................ 267..........-12........275.......183 Workspace Grp......... 87512........-612........890.......569 RESTS PUBS & BREWERIES Fuller S.T.A.............. 108834.......+334......1125.....92512 SPECIALITY & OTHER FIN Aberdeen Asset.......28912*......... +12...... 35412.....21212 2016/17 High Low Brew Dolphin.............350*.....+1112...... 35212.......150 Mattioli Woods......... 81912................... 85814.......644 Paragon...................... 457.........+1...... 49034.......225 SUPPORT SERVICES Acal........................... 27914.......+134........280.....20314 Atkins (WS)...............2081...................2148.....1191 Dignity.................... 2524*..........-6......2940.....2240 Experian ..................1620.........+2......1708.....1224 Hays............................ 169.........+2...... 17614......... 91 Homeserve............... 74412.......+912........803.....44114 Ricardo..................... 89034.......+834......1040.......645 Robert Walters........43312*................... 46534.......242 2016/17 High Low Waterman................. 13812..........-1...... 14112.......5212 Wolseley...................5130.......+20......5285.....3489 TELECOM SERVICES KCOM.............................94..........-14........121......... 87 TRANSPORT Braemar Ship............. 302......... +14...... 45112.......218 Clarkson................. 2674*..........-6......3033.....1629 Go-Ahead Grp...........1798....... -33......2572.....1686 UTILITIES OTHER Drax Group............... 34634......... +12...... 39314.......273 AIM Ashstead Group........1567.........+1......1764.....87534 Caretech................... 39612........-112........410.......228 Christie Grp...................86.....................102......... 71 Cohort......................... 419..........-6........468.......276 Dart Group................ 62012........-412........657.....35412 Elecosoft......................4912..................... 5034......... 19 M&C Saatchi............... 361........-134...... 38334.....27514 Park Group..................8234........-114.......... 88.......5914 Picton Prop Inc............85*....................... 86......... 57 Sopheon..................... 395.....................514......... 90 Telford Homes.......... 42614.......+434...... 43934.......254 Tristel....................... 20912.....................215......... 87 Union Jack Oil................014........................014........... 0 Walker Greenbk........ 21312.....................224.....15514 RECENT ISSUES ADES Intl Holding.....1224..... -1112......1280.....1224 Alfa Financial Sof....... 418.....................418.......395 Alpha FX Gp................ 440.....................449.......220 Downing Strat........... 10612..........-1...... 10912.......100 Dukemount Cptl............012........................034......... 014 Eddie Stobart Lgcs..... 157........-112........165.......155 Eve Sleep.......................99.....................107......... 98 Global Ports Hldgs...... 730........-114........760.......725 Grand Fortune HG.......1012....................... 11......... 11 Integumen.......................3........................512........... 3 Jupiter Emg&Frtr...... 10212......... +12...... 10212......... 99 K3 Capital Gp............ 12012.....................130......... 95 Medica Group............. 223......... +12........242.......135 Ocelot Partners........ 75514........-534........859.....75514 Path Investments..........034........................114......... 034 Pershing Square.......1212.........+4....123614...118912 SkinBioTherap.............1214..................... 1734......... 914 Spinnaker Opps.............412..........-14...........514......... 412 Ten Entmt Gp.............. 170........-612...... 17914.....16212 Velocity Compo............8934.......+114........103......... 82 50 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Television | Thursday 5.30 London Live News. 6.30 London Film Club. Movie news, featuring reviews of the latest releases and interviews with the stars. 7.00 Meet the Russians. An insight into the lives of wealthy Russians and Ukrainians living in London, looking at the affairs of the fashionistas, high-end party planners and the mega-rich. 8.00 Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne. The choirmaster takes his chorus to see Puccini’s La boheme. The teenagers find the experience inspiring, but rehearsals for their own opera are beset by problems. 9.00 NHS: £2billion a Week and Counting. The interactive show concludes with a look at whether the NHS should be spending more on cancer treatments than other illnesses. Last in the series. 10.00 Another Country (1984). A homosexual public school pupil in the Thirties turns to communism in rebellion against the oppressive nature of British society. Drama, starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth. 11.50 For Queen and Country (1988). A black soldier attempts to return to civilian life after becoming a hero in the Falklands War, but finds himself alienated from the community he grew up in and persecuted by racist police. Drama, starring Denzel Washington and Amanda Redman. 6.00 BBC News at Six; Weather (S,HD). 6.35 BBC London News; Weather (S). 6.55 Party Election Broadcast (S,HD). By the UK Independence Party. 7.00 The Andrew Neil Interviews — Tim Farron (HD). 3/6. Andrew Neil interviews the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, ahead of the General Election. 7.30 EastEnders (S,HD). Steven prepares a romantic meal for Lauren, but it does not go as planned. Max tries to reason with Jack, and Kim comes up with an idea to help Denise. Followed by BBC News; Regional News. 8.00 Kat and Alfie: Redwater (S,HD). 3/6. Kat finally meets her son, and Eileen wonders whether she and Kieran should stay in Ireland for good. Agnes organises a memorial barbecue, but is angry when the Moons turn up. 9.00 Frank Skinner on Muhammad Ali (S,HD). The comedian explores the boxer’s life, meeting his brother Rahman and his ex-wife Khalilah, and visiting the training compound where he prepared for the Rumble in the Jungle. 10.00 BBC News at Ten (S,HD). 10.30 BBC London News; Weather (S). 10.45 Question Time (S,HD). 32/37. Topical debate from East Barnet in north London, chaired by David Dimbleby. 11.45 This Week (S,HD). Andrew Neil introduces a round-table chat in which he, Michael Portillo and other guests look at political developments ahead of next week’s election. (R) repeat (S) subtitles (HD) high definition 6.00 Debatable (S,HD). 32/33. Phil Tufnell, Michael Buerk and Naga Munchetty use their knowledge and debating skills to help Manchester solicitor Paul win the cash prize. Hosted by comedian Patrick Kielty. 6.45 Celebrity Eggheads (S,HD). 21/22. A team from Strictly Come Dancing takes on the challenge. 7.30 Great British Menu (S,HD). 24/45. The Scotland chefs prepare desserts. 8.00 Springwatch 2017 (S,HD). 4/12. Martin Hughes-Games and Iolo Williams track down the elusive sand lizard in north Wales, and Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan present the latest from the Sherborne Estate. 9.00 Paula (S,HD). 2/3. In the wake of Philip’s death, Paula notices some things missing from her home and wonders whether James was involved, while the handyman becomes more troubled and goes on the run. 10.00 QI (R,S,HD). 4/18. With Jason Manford and Sara Pascoe. 10.30 Election Spy (S). 3/9. Political comedy. 10.35 Newsnight (S,HD). Presented by Evan Davis. 11.15 Weather (S,HD). 11.20 Cricket: ICC Champions Trophy Highlights (S,HD). England v Bangladesh. 12.35 Weather for the Week Ahead (S,HD). 12.40 BBC News (S,HD). 12.10 Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors (R,S,HD). 1.10 Sign Zone: Manchester Attack: Terror at the Arena — Panorama (R,S). 1.40 Sign Zone: Dara and Ed’s Road to Mandalay (R,S). 2.40 Sign Zone: Second Chance Summer: Tuscany (R,S). 3.40 This Is BBC Two (S,HD). 6.00 Home and Away (R,S,HD). James urges Roo to get a professional opinion about her health. 6.30 5 News Tonight (S,HD). A round-up of the evening’s headlines. 6.55 Party Election Broadcast: UK Independence Party (S,HD). By the UK Independence Party. 7.00 Secrets of Great British Castles (R,S,HD). 1/6. Historian Dan Jones heads south east of England to explore the history of Dover Castle. 8.00 The Great Fire: Death and Destruction (S,HD). 2/3. The worst day of the inferno, revealing how St Paul’s Cathedral burned so fiercely its stones exploded and Pudding Lane baker Thomas Farriner made sure no blame landed on him. 9.00 Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords (S,HD). 13/16. A troublesome tenant whose behaviour led to the police being called. 10.00 The World’s Heaviest Child: Extraordinary People (S,HD). The story of an 11-year-old from Indonesia who weighs 30 stone, following doctors’ attempts to determine the root cause of his massive weight gain. 11.05 Restless Legs Syndrome: Desperate for Help (R,S,HD). Documentary about people with a compulsion to constantly move their feet. 7.00 100 Days+ (S,HD); Weather. BBC News teams in Washington DC and London report on the events that are shaping the world. 7.30 Sounds of the Eighties (R,S). Music from the BBC archives, featuring Eurythmics, Spandau Ballet, Phil Collins, Fine Young Cannibals, Tears for Fears, Suzanne Vega and Simply Red. 8.00 Fossil Wonderlands: Nature’s Hidden Treasures (R,S,HD). Professor Richard Fortey Investigates the remains of an ancient volcanic lake, which contains wellpreserved examples of early mammals and giant insects. Last in the series. 9.00 The Great Village Green Crusade (S,HD). Documentary about Red Dwarf actor and ecoenthusiast Robert Llewellyn’s two-year campaign to persuade the residents of his Cotswolds village, Temple Guiting, to generate more of their own power through renewable sources. 10.30 Engineering Giants: Gas Rig StripDown (R,S,HD). Tom Wrigglesworth and Rob Bell follow each step of the process as a gas platform is pulled from the North Sea and taken to Newcastle to be disassembled and recycled. 11.30 Catching History’s Criminals: the Forensics Story (R,S,HD). Gabriel Weston explores the advances that have elevated murder weapons from instruments to pieces of evidence, and looks at the future forensic developments. 6.00 Blue Bloods (R,S,HD). When a retired cop is accused of shooting his mugger, Frank must deal with the aftermath, while Baez and Danny try to figure out how to bring a man to justice. 7.00 Blue Bloods (R,S,HD). Danny is in an unusual situation when multiple women take credit for the murder of their boss, while Frank disagrees with a priest about how to handle a thief. 8.00 Micro Monsters with David Attenborough (R,S,HD). Bugs that prefer cooperation to conflict, including the burrowing cockroach, the green ant, the suitably named social spider, and the queen bee overseeing her happy hive of workers. 8.30 Micro Monsters with David Attenborough (R,S,HD). The broadcaster concludes his close-up examination of the bug world with a look at insect colonies, some of which can span entire continents. 9.00 The Wizard of Lies (HD) (2017). Premiere. A feature-length account of the stockbroker and financier Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, one of the biggest cases of financial fraud in US history, that led to financial ruin for countless people and institutions. Drama, starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. 11.30 Silicon Valley (R,S,HD). Richard looks outside the tech bubble for financial support, while Jared tries to keep the peace between Dinesh and Gilfoyle. 12.00 SuperCasino. 3.10 Wentworth Prison (R,S,HD). 4.00 Now That’s Funny! (R,S,HD). 4.45 House Doctor (R,S). 5.10 Divine Designs (R,S). 5.35 Wildlife SOS (R,S). 12.30 Sound of Cinema: the Music That Made the Movies (R,S,HD). 1.30 Arena: American Epic (R,S,HD). 2.30 The Great Village Green Crusade (R,S). 12.05 Becoming Warren Buffett (R,S,HD). 2.00 Nurse Jackie (R,HD). 2.40 Nurse Jackie (R,HD). 3.20 Nurse Jackie (R,HD). 4.00 The British (R,S,HD). 2.00 Film: Adventures of a Plumber’s Mate (1978). Sex comedy, starring Christopher Neil. 3.50 PhoneShop. 4.25 PhoneShop. 5.00 London Live Review. 5.30 London Live Review. 6.00 ITV News London (S); Weather. 6.25 Party Election Broadcast (S,HD). By the UK Independence Party. 6.30 ITV Evening News (S); Weather. 7.00 Emmerdale (S,HD). Nicola fails to undo the damage she and Jimmy have done despite working through the night — but she comes up with an idea to shift the blame on to a far-from-happy workforce. 7.30 Britain’s Got Talent (S,HD). 14/18. Ant and Dec welcome another eight acts onto the stage, competing for the next two slots in the grand final and the chance to perform for royalty later this year. 9.00 Coronation Street (S,HD). Nathan punishes Bethany for her behaviour, Kevin throws a surprise 50th birthday party for Anna, and Ken’s attacker tells the police they want to make a confession. 9.30 Britain’s Got Talent Results (S,HD). 15/18. Ant and Dec announce the results, taking two more acts through to the final — and one step closer to the Royal Variety Performance. 10.00 ITV News at Ten (S); Weather. 10.45 ITV News London (S); Weather. 10.55 Car Wars UK (S,HD). The work of Northumbria’s traffic officers, as they deal with incidents including a vehicle falling from the sky and a man being thrown from a car while performing a U-turn. 11.55 Tipping Point (R,S,HD). 138/175. Ben Shephard hosts the quiz show. 6.00 The Simpsons (R,S). 7/22. Apu becomes the proud father of octuplets and is showered with free gifts from companies that want him to endorse their products. With the voice of Butch Patrick. 6.30 Hollyoaks (S,HD). Sienna does not want to leave Warren after finding out about the child arrangement order, so decides to make him love her again and tries to seduce him at The Loft. 7.00 News (S,HD). Including sport and weather. 7.55 Party Election Broadcast (S,HD). Political broadcast. 8.00 The Supervet (S,HD). A man brings in his doberman, which has a diseased spinal cord, a cocker spaniel is hit by a car and a rabbit needs surgery for a broken ankle. 9.00 Catching a Killer (S,HD). Thames Valley Police’s investigation into the disappearance of 31-year-old Natalie Hemming in 2016, following the case though to the arrest and the tragic conclusion. 10.45 One Killer Punch (R,S,HD). Documentary exploring the consequences of deadly single hits, from a row over a parking space in a supermarket car park to an unanticipated fight outside a nightclub. 11.45 First Dates (R,S,HD). A ladies’ man hopes to find romance with a PR manager. 12.50 Jackpot247. 3.00 The Jeremy Kyle Show (R,S,HD). 3.55 ITV Nightscreen (HD). 5.05 The Jeremy Kyle Show (R,S,HD). 12.45 Bizarre ER (S,HD). 1.40 Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA (R,S). 2.30 Grayson Perry: Divided Britain (R,S,HD). 3.25 Loaded (R,S,HD). 4.15 Location, Location, Location (R,S,HD). 5.10 Fifteen to One (R,S,HD). 6.00 Nothing to Declare (R,S). Fly-on-the-wall documentary following the lives of customs and immigration officers at Australia’s biggest airports. 7.00 Sun, Sea and A&E (S). The spread of swine flu puts the island of Majorca on red alert, and a stag-do reveller is hit by a car. 8.00 Criminal Minds (R,S,HD). Bodies of missing people are discovered in a remote region of the Idaho wilderness — and the BAU team’s investigation leads to fears that someone may be hunting humans for sport. Starring Paget Brewster, Thomas Gibson and Matthew Gray Gubler. 9.00 Criminal Minds (R,HD). Homeless people begin vanishing from the streets of Kansas City, prompting a baffled local detective to call the BAU in an effort to solve the mystery. Worryingly, a local meat plant is soon suspected of being behind the disappearances. Crime drama, starring Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson. 10.00 Scandal (S,HD). In the final days of his presidency, Fitz uses his power to make some unexpected changes. Political drama, starring Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn. Last in the series. 11.00 Criminal Minds (R,S,HD). The team tries to find a murderous taxi driver targeting women with a strong natural scent, while Prentiss is the victim of unwanted attention. 6.00 Futurama (R,S). The Professor chooses his own clone as heir, but the obnoxious creation has a hidden agenda. 6.30 The Simpsons (R,S,HD). Grampa gives Bart a special watch passed down by his own father. 7.00 The Simpsons (R,S,HD). Mr Burns decides to open his own university. 7.30 The Simpsons (R,HD). Bart spends time with Springfield’s grandmothers. 8.00 Beneath the Black: a Journey Through New Zealand Rugby (HD). A look at what makes New Zealand so successful at rugby union, as some of the country’s most famous players explore the nation’s culture and history. 9.00 Arrow (S,HD). Oliver recruits a group of unlikely allies for a final showdown on Lian Yu against Chase and his band of villains. Superhero adventure, starring Stephen Amell. Last in the series. 10.00 Jamestown (R,S,HD). Rumours of a gold mine sends a stir of suspicion through the settlement, and Jocelyn forces a reluctant Samuel to help her find the map, while James Read clashes with the governor. 11.00 Modern Family (R,S,HD). Phil persuades Jay to help him develop a property. 11.30 Modern Family (R,S,HD). Gloria gives Claire an unforgettable birthday experience. 12.00 Cold Case (R,HD). 1.00 Criminal Minds (R,S,HD). 2.00 Sun, Sea and A&E. 3.00 Elementary (R,S,HD). 4.00 Border Security: Canada’s Front Line (R,S,HD). 4.30 Border Security: Canada’s Front Line (R,S,HD). 5.00 Nothing to Declare (R,S). 5.30 Nothing to Declare (R,S). 12.00 Modern Family (R,S,HD). 12.30 Modern Family (R,S,HD). 1.00 Duck Quacks Don’t Echo (R,S,HD). 2.00 Hawaii Five-0 (R,S,HD). 3.00 The Last Ship (R,S,HD). 4.00 Monkey Life (R,S). 4.30 Monkey Life (R,S). 5.00 The Dog Whisperer (R,S). 5.30 The Dog Whisperer (R,S). 51 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Thursday | Television London Live Watch this Frank discussion on Ali’s legendary life Edited by Toby Earle London Live TV reporter @tobyontv Old-school setting for Firth and Everett in this drama Frank Skinner on Muhammad Ali BBC1, 9pm It’s not often that comedian Frank Skinner is short of something to say, but he admits that when he met Muhammad Ali in the Nineties, he was too nervous to do anything but ask for his autograph and a photo. So sadly we’ll never get to see him joking around with the boxer who was almost as famous for his verbal jabs as his punches. But as the first anniversary of Ali’s death approaches, the comedian is on a mission to find out more about the man behind the legend — and to learn how Ali became a champion in the ring, a hero to the civil-rights movement and such an all-round 20th-century icon that he could even reduce other celebrities to tonguetied, star-struck wrecks. It’s a quest that takes Skinner to Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where he meets the nextdoor neighbour who witnessed the teenage fighter’s dedication to his sport. He also speaks to the boxer’s brother Rahman and former wife Khalilah, who was by his side during the years when he was banned from Another Country London Live, 10pm Fists of fun: Frank Skinner tells boxer Nicola Adams that he’s a laugher not a fighter boxing due to his stance on Vietnam. But while these aspects of Ali’s life have been well-documented, the film also turns up some more surprising stories. We all knew the boxer was a natural showman, but here Skinner speaks to an actor who once played alongside him in a little-known musical on Broadway. And not all of Skinner’s research takes place in America, as he also meet the bareknuckle boxer from an Oxfordshire estate who would become one of Ali’s dearest friends. The Wizard of Lies Sky Atlantic, 9pm Catching a Killer Channel 4, 9pm The Great Village Green Crusade BBC4, 9pm Robert De Niro may still be most famous for playing gangsters but in this true-life drama he’s portraying a different type of criminal as he takes on the role of Bernie Madoff. He was the stockbroker, investment advisor and financier behind a Ponzi scheme that would lead countless people and institutions to financial ruin and see Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison. Directed by Barry Levinson, who previously worked with De Niro on Wag the Dog and Sleepers, The Wizard of Lies tracks Madoff’s deceptions and their affect on his own family — including his wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer), who would find herself thrust into the media spotlight due to her unwitting participation in the scheme. In May 2016, 31-year-old mother of three Natalie Hemming disappeared, sparking one of the biggest missing person searches ever seen at Thames Valley Police. This documentary follows the investigation to its heartbreaking conclusion, and shows how the detectives had to decide whether Natalie was alive or dead. Red Dwarf actor Robert Llewellyn is passionate about green energy – but is his enthusiasm contagious? We’re about to find out as he embarks on a two-year mission to persuade the residents of his Cotswold’s village, Temple Guiting, to generate more of their own power using renewable sources. If the neighbours need any further convincing, Llewellyn has found another, somewhat surprising source of inspiration – Las Vegas. It turns out that ‘Sin City’ is attempting to keep its famous neon lights on using only renewable electricity. But even if Llewellyn can sell the villagers on his dream of a windmill at the top of the hill and a water turbine in the stream, could the local electricity grid derail his plans? . Victim: Missing stars tHUrsDaY jUne 1 person Natalie Hemming The Duke of Wellington is reputed to have said that the battle of Waterloo was “won on the playing fields of Eton”. While geographers and military historians would maintain Belgium was the precise location, a public-school education has won many a great deal, often jobs. The public-school system that grooms (mostly) young men for future careers is the basis for this drama starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth, friends at a public school which has a passing resemblance to that Windsor institution. In the years prior to the Second World War, Guy Bennett (Everett) and Tommy Judd (Firth) strike up a friendship, the pair marginalised due to Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne London Live, 8pm Gareth has just six weeks to get 50 young people ready for an operatic performance at Glyndebourne, so he’d better get cracking. There’s no better place to start than the Royal Opera House, which is where he escorts his group, not for rehearsal but to learn what an opera is. Thankfully, his collection of tonal ranges enjoys the warbling, the same of which can’t be said for their attitude to rehearsals. Class act: Cary Elwes stars alongside Rupert Everett Bennett’s sexuality and Judd’s politics, both of which are at odds with the school’s values. Their education extends beyond classes — both learn that their career prospects are moulded and restricted in these early years, their ideals clashing with a rigid power structure enforced by their peers. Everett’s performance earned him a Bafta nomination for Most Promising Newcomer To Film. London Film Club London Live, 6.30pm The sun has been out for the allotted three days of summer, so Baywatch: The Movie has made its move to capitalise on our sadness it has migrated south for the rest of the season and left us with a stifling gloom. The Rock and Zac Efron’s guns are out in the big screen adaptation of David Hasselhoff ’s opus but will the London Film Club team prefer to rub factor 50 cream in their eyes than watch it again? London Live is on Freeview 8, Sky 117, Virgin 159 and YouView 8. You can follow us on Twitter: @londonlive and like us on Facebook: LondonLive NOTHING TO WATCH? Sign up to LondonViews.org and tell us what you want to see on our TV channel London Live stars shelley von strunCkel aries March 20 – April 18 You complain that others leave both day-to-day decisions and long range plans to you, but the fact is that you enjoy organising things efficiently and do so more swiftly than those around you. Still, in certain situations, it is essential that you leave these matters to those whose ideas they were to begin with. Call 0904 470 1141* (65p per minute) Cancer June 21 – July 21 The last thing you would welcome are changes in certain arrangements you struggled to organise, but as is becoming increasingly clear, you have no choice. The irony is, once you are actually involved in making them, you will realise that these changes are not just timely, in some situations they will actually save the day. 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Customer service: 0333 202 3392 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Games & Puzzles | Play more puzzles online at standard.co.uk/games & Leonard Barden’s chess problems at standard.co.uk/chess CODEWORD 1 12 7 8 8 7 25 23 7 11 4 8 4 4 24 6 16 11 24 11 3 11 13 W 11 16 9 8 18 4 26 5 1 23 1 13 11 4 I N 1 14 15 WIN A River Thames jazz cruise with three-course dinner 15 21 4 22 1 15 23 19 1 13 20 2 13 10 6 23 13 6 13 21 19 10 4 12 24 2 6 1 13 4 12 14 13 26 11 A B C D E FG H I J K L M N O P Q R ST U V W XYZ 1 2 3 4 5 14 15 16 17 18 2 13 I 23 21 N 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 4 6 Enjoy a fantastic evening gliding down the River Thames to the sultry sounds of a jazz quintet, while tucking into a delectable three-course meal. With a glass of wine on arrival, you’ll glide past the city’s most famous landmarks. Why not finish your night up on deck to take in the sights before docking back at the pier? This week’s theme is Italian cities. 13 26 25 23 17 6 1 4 8 13 10 24 20 18 13 6 4 24 10 8 5 23 10 4 18 8 4 W Insert letters to form the listed words, moving between adjacent cells horizontally, vertically or diagonally in any direction. Insert the remaining letters of the alphabet (except Z) in the grid so that all the listed words are spelt out in this way. One prize of A River Thames Jazz Cruise With Three-Course Dinner is available. Terms & Conditions will be sent with the voucher. One winner will be selected at random from all correct answers received from 30/5/17 to 2/6/17. TO ENTER: text ES CODEWORD followed by your answer to 85100 by 23:59 tonight (eg: ES CODEWORD COMO). Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. Or call 0901 292 5008. Calls cost £1 plus your network access charge*. Need a little help getting started? Text or call our clueline for up to four extra clues. Text ES WORDCLUE to 85100. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. Or call 0905 652 6230. Calls cost £1 plus your network access charge*. Yesterday’s codeword: Don’t miss tomorrow’s paper for another chance to enter BRESCIA CIRCLEGRAM Discover more gift experiences at Answers and clues change each day at 23:59. Usual promotion rules apply – see www. standard.co.uk/rules.* Phone & Text Services Helpline: 0800 839 174. C H R A W O M I G P Q S B F U L Y K J N E X D WIN a Bungee jump at THE 02 Arena TO ENTER: what letter is represented by the question mark? Text ES CIRCLE followed by your answer to 85100 by 23:59 tonight (eg: ES CIRCLE A). Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge*. Or call 0901 293 6270. Calls cost £1 plus your network access charge*. O V U S O S E L A ? R T S L W E E A Replace the question mark with a letter so that the letters within each circle can be arranged to form words, names or terms on a common theme. What are the three words, and the letter represented by the question mark? Yesterday’s solution: O: Toulouse, Bordeaux, Grenoble, all French cities. Need a little help getting started? Text or call our clueline for a keyword clue. Text ES CIRCLECLUE to 85100. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge*. Or call 0901 293 5270. Calls cost £1 plus your network access charge*. One prize of A Bungee Jump At The O2 Arena is available. Terms & Conditions will be sent with the voucher. One winner will be selected at random from all correct answers received from 30/5/17 to 2/6/17. Answers and clues change each day at 23:59. Usual promotion rules apply – see standard.co.uk/rules Phone & Text Services Helpline: 0800 839 174. T ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY BISQUE BYE CHOP COMPLEX DYE FUN JUNE LUGWORMS sudoku Experience a bungee jump with the backdrop of the O2 Arena. You’ll be fully briefed and kitted up before being hoisted to 160ft above the London skyline in a bungee cage. With the O2 on one side and Canary Wharf on the other, the only thing left to do is jump. V RISKY SLUG VISTA Win £50 Fill the grid with the numbers 1 to 9 so that each row, column and 3x3 block contains the numbers 1 to 9. Target: 30 min For a chance to win £50 complete the Sudoku puzzle to discover the numbers in the three shaded squares. For solutions: standard.co.uk/sudokuanswers 21 3 GOGEN For solutions: standard.co.uk/sudokuanswers 52 To ENTER: Text ES SUDOKU followed by your answer (reading left to right) and name to 85100 e.g. ES SUDOKU 123 John Smith. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge*. One prize of £50 is available each week. The winner will be chosen from all correct entries received between Monday at 00:01 and Friday at 23:59. Texts after this time will not be entered but you may still be charged. Answers change each day at 23:59. Text helpline 0800 839 174. double crossword CRYPTIC EASY DOWN 1 Embrace many misguided pals (5) 2 Seeking the best conclusion, possibly in fear (5) 3 Appear to have left nothing good (4) 4 Exist as regions (5) 5 A foreigner to allow to be heard (4) 6 Avaricious man in grey (6) 9 Place of learning, possibly of thought (6) 11 Apt to make a little butter (3) 12 Crime engendering much heatedness (5) 13 Tramp drunkenly around the Waterloo terminus bar (7) 15 We go to central Tottenham very little! (3) 16 It helps in swallowing the lot! (3) 18 A twister does so suddenly, perhaps painfully (6) 20 It’s applied to violin strings and possibly irons (5) 21 Shoot for a hunter’s prize (3) 22 He’s always short of time (3) 23 Its shutter works snappily (6) 25 Some of the ravages of time! (3) 28 Not binders, but seating arrangements (5) 30 Not for the first time, one takes the profit (5) 31 Some petrol derivative we all live to get (5) 32 On us, perhaps, it will fit (4) 33 Supports in the construction of a dais (4) ACROSS 4 Swiss city (6) 7 Snake (8) 8 Surgical knife (6) 10 Beer mug (5) 13 Peel (4) 14 Deserve (4) 15 Bottom (4) 16 Spider’s trap (3) 17 Be unsuccessful (4) 19 Require (4) 21 Help (4,1,4) 23 Pointed missile (4) 24 Immense (4) 26 Beer barrel (3) 27 Take notice of (4) 29 Discharge (4) 32 Fruit (4) 33 Rub out (5) 34 Alleges (6) 35 Profitable (8) 36 Cruel (6) DOWN 1 Stop briefly (5) 2 Adam’s ale (5) 3 Anon (4) 4 Festive occasions (5) 5 Not any (4) 6 Looked at (6) 9 Stadia (6) 11 Pitch (3) 12 Deduce (5) 13 Fuss (7) 15 Offer (3) 16 Marry (3) 18 National song (6) 20 Go in (5) 21 Insulate (3) 22 Possessed (3) 23 Trader (6) 25 Belonging to him (3) 28 Artist’s stand (5) 30 Mutilates (5) 31 Educate (5) 32 Liquid measure (4) 33 Sea eagle (4) YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CRYPTIC ACROSS: 1, Sea-son 7, Once over 8, (To-) Bias 10, BR-idle 11, PR-ince 14, Tee 16, Fat-Al 17, Ew-ER 19, Beg-un 21, Mural 22, Aunt-s(-ally) 23, Seek 26, B-as-is 28, Bed 29, An-trim 30, Made up 31, I-ran 32, E-X-tracts 33, Skewer. DOWN: 1, So-MB-re 2, Spider 3, Nose 4, F-earful 5, Eve-n-t 6, Creel 8, Bit-e 9, Ale 12, Ian 13, Ca-use 15, Bert-H 18, Wo-man 19, Bun 20, Gas 21, Mus-ic-a-L 22, Air 23, Sedate 24, E-d-’en 25, Kipper 26, Bared 27, State 28, Bar 30, Miss. More games and puzzles online at standard.co.uk/games EASY ACROSS: 1, Salami 7, Decorate 8, Tail 10, Circle 11, Dictum 14, Oil 16, Toils 17, Rota 19, Below 21, Paper 22, Beget 23, Herb 26, Remit 28, Bud 29, Uranus 30, Lament 31, Iron 32, Aperitif 33, Tartar. DOWN: 1, Soccer 2, Acacia 3, Idle 4, Monitor 5, Balti 6, Teems 8, Trot 9, Ill 12, Cow 13, Ulcer 15, Tepee 18, Older 19, Bag 20, Let 21, Petunia 22, Bin 23, Humour 24, Eden 25, Bother 26, Rural 27, Mates 28, Bar 30, Lift. BACK PAGE ACROSS: 3, Pedal 9, Crater 10, Wanted 11, Nomad 12, Ever 15, Tame 17, Damaged 20, Mad 21, Donor 23, Amen 25, Diva 26, Deter 28, Rep 30, Deleted 33, Edam 35, Ride 36, Order 38, Unsure 39, Daring 40, Beret. DOWN: 1, Acted 2, Harem 3, Pen 4, Eroded 5, Away 6, Lad 7, Steam 8, Edged 13, Vacated 14, Rated 16, Managed 18, Doped 19, God 22, Rider 24, New 27, Recede 28, Recur 29, Pansy 31, Timid 32, Deign 34, Free 36, Orb 37, Rat. *If you call or text after competition closing dates you will not be entered, but you may still be charged. By using our competition text and phone services you are agreeing to receive occasional sms messages from Evening Standard Ltd informing you of promotions and events. You will not be charged for receiving these messages and you may opt out by texting STOP to the originating number at any time. THU.01.06.2017 ACROSS 4 In court, claim legal trickery’s a foregone conclusion! (6) 7 The remaining six balls are not required (4,4) 8 Admire the sound team that gets the points (6) 10 Mention rugged peaks? (5) 13 Starting tomorrow, work in diplomacy (4) 14 The normal Romes for Catherine (4) 15 The inlet where the water was hot? (4) 16 Fuss made by the inner man at a party (3) 17 Though Stephen’s no chicken, there’s some progress (4) 19 The suburb for Parisians with flighty ideas? (4) 21 One strongly instrumental in building a tower amid water? (5,4) 23 It has its point in traffic control (4) 24 Medium colours (4) 26 Bathing club? (3) 27 Small part of a potato masher (4) 29 I have a shot at a villain (4) 32 What some of the Eskimos do with milk? (4) 33 One of those high spirits (5) 34 Say no to what you don’t want (6) 35 Team of highwaymen, by the way? (8) 36 Was set apart in inhospitable areas (6) 53 54 55 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 Motoring Tesla S shows a little power can take you a long way David Williams ROAD SAFETY WRITER of the Year 2017 headed up the M40 in search of that Snowdonian guest house, fresh air... and fine-dining in deepest Wiltshire. Even those accustomed to electric motoring find the Tesla an eye-opener, especially the latest P100D. It is superquiet, refined and as luxurious as you would expect for £131,800 — but hypercar performance? It hits 60mph in around three seconds. Delve into the massive central screen and hit the “Ludicrous” button, however, and you’re in supercar territory, hitting 60mph in a neck-bending 2.5 seconds, or 2.4 if you hit “Ludicrous Plus”. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to push on to Snowdonia, but we needed lunch so stopped at Hopwood Services on the M42, plugged in Tesla’s supercharger and, in less time that it took to eat our sandwiches, the iPhone app showed that the batteries were full again, up from around 60 per cent. The Tesla S is a fine way to travel. Power, silence and a guilt-free conscience are givens. Less expected a re t h e s w i sh , m o d e r n c a b i n , comfortable seating for four or five and vast amounts of storage in the rear boot DAVID WILLIAMS R ange anxiety is a huge factor affecting electric car sales. But how far can you really travel on battery power alone from London? If you junked your diesel or petrolengined car in a bout of environmental altruism, but still fancied a night away, or giving the kids a weekend treat, or a spot of hill-walking, how far would you get before running out of juice? Well, how about luxuriating at upmarket Lucknam Park Hotel, some 105 miles from Charing Cross? Or l e t t i n g yo u r c h i l d re n l o o s e a t Diggerland in Devon, 184 miles away? Or flopping at a remote eco guest house in Snowdonia, 234 miles away? Tesla — king of the electric motoring jungle — has just installed its 100th UK Supercharger, capable of topping up the car’s potent batteries in under a n h o u r. To celebrate, it has teamed up with a host of organisations, each of which installed its own supercharger (bit.ly/2s7bZir). The aim? To show that long-distance electric touring is now possible, with top-up points across the UK and beyond. So we put it to the test. We picked up Tesla’s S — the five-door saloon with coupé-styling — and with batteries at 100 per cent as we left the firm’s Heathrow centre, and the computer promising 291 emission-free miles, Green machine: the Tesla S made good going on a Snowdonia jaunt and, below left, to Lucknam Park Hotel, Wiltshire LEADING THE ELECTRIC CHARGE Most mainstream manufacturers now offer electric variants (see Go Ultra Low, bit.ly/2r4xSAF). Electric car sales rose sharply over the past two years, with an average of 3,000 per month over the past 12 months. By the end of 2016 more than 35,000 plug-in cars had been registered over the year — a record. and under the bonnet. Passengers love playing Spotify on the super-large screen, or gazing out of the panoramic glass roof. The ride is reasonably good (it’s a heavy car) and, for the driver, there is a unique challenge; not using the brakes. Well, not much, anyway. The braking effect is so marked when you deccelerate that initially you stop too soon — and must accelerate again to reach the traffic lights. Get the hang of it, though and you can — largely — control “stop” and “go” with the throttle alone. Plugging into the fast supercharger at Bryn Elltyd guest house (bit. ly/2rxl8E5), where they produce their own electricity, gave the Tesla its cleanest “drink” ever. After an VW says that by 2025, 25 per cent of sales will be electric, and 50 per cent by 2030. Volvo says 20 per cent by 2025, Daimler says up to 25 per cent by 2025, as battery prices are falling with their performance rises. Few however are as long-legged or as fast as Tesla’s, which have been bought by 200,000 customers worldwide. In London, most Tesla owners have a 7kwh home charger (£5-£10 for an overnight charge), while topping up at public superchargers costs around £80 for 1,000 miles, roughly half the bill compared to petrol or diesel. Planning a long trip is possible by consulting their map (bit.ly/2rGJbjy). overnight charge, the batteries sped us to Snowdonia Mountain Railway, where we chugged up on old-fashioned diesel, and walked down before visiting the bewitching, fantasy village of Portmeirion on the coast. Then, we indulged in more clean, green activity, ziplining high above Blaenau Ffestiniog at Zip World (zipworld.co.uk) at 70mph before exploring the Llechwedd Slate Caverns, deep underground. The best part of our round-trip was plunging silently from Snowdonia to upmarket Lucknam, Chippenham, along the fast, twisting, highly scenic A470 through Wales. Perfect Tesla country and, on arrival after some 200 miles, we still had 80 miles range left, so it seemed a shame to stop. Almost. Tesla is proud of its new, luxurious — and more day-to-day — electric connections. It would have been rude not to sample Lucknam’s (bit.ly/2qst2yn) exquisite restaurant (Wiltshire Downlands lamb rump with wild garlic, anybody?), its 500 acres of parkland, spa and grand rooms, while we used their supercharger. Just this once, we wished it took a little longer to get the batteries back to 100 per cent. Other “destination charging partners” include country clubs, shopping centres, car parks, the National Motorcycle Museum, golf courses, marinas and many more. Now, what was that about range anxiety? @djrwilliams Bentley’s Supersports roars into the fast lane road test Big beast: the low, broad Continental Supersports is claimed to be the world’s fastest four-seater, with a top speed of 209mph BENTLEY Continental GT Supersports Top speed: 209mph C02: 358g/km Combined mpg: 11 Price: £212,500 IN 2009 Bentley launched a full-fat version of its Continental GT coupé, the Supersports, capable of 204mph. Now the name has been revived for a slightly crazier version that is capable of 209mph. It is claimed to be the world’s fastest four-seater, and is powered by a rumbling, roaring, six-litre, 12-cylinder 700 bhp engine with eight-speed, self-shifting transmission with paddle manual control. Its vast power is harnessed with four-wheel-drive, while “torque vectoring” calculates how much power each wheel needs. The car is low, broad, stuffed with carbon fibre and identified by extra bonnet air intakes and an optional, slightly naff-looking rear spoiler. Inside, there are bigger twin turbos and a special exhaust. In town, the car is good at disguising its brutish capabilities and will trundle through heavy traffic without drama. Although firm, its ride is also surprisingly pliant. When opened up, it becomes a bellowing mastodon, boasting vast levels of acceleration that give it the momentum of a high-speed train. It reaches 0-62 in 3.4 seconds. For such a hefty vehicle, its steering is light and direct, and only the car’s broadness and some three-quarter rear blind spots remind you how big it actually is. The coupé has slightly better dynamics than the convertible, if you can find somewhere legal to exploit what this car can do. Just 710 will be built. The current Continental is heading for its 15th birthday and is a bit of a modern classic, but a properly new replacement can’t be too far off. If the current Supersports turns out to be the original’s naughty swansong, fans of the car are unlikely to complain. Martin Gurdon Jaguar XK parade heads to the coast MORE than 100 classic Jaguar XKs, pictured, roar off from the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, on Monday June 12, on the Round Britain Coastal Drive, aiming to raise £50,000 to fight prostate cancer. Murray Walker is flagging-off the stunning line-up of cars between 9am and 10am, as they embark on an 18-day, 3,500-mile tour. It follows a similar run last year in Jaguar Etypes. More at bit.ly/2qyGTym. DW 56 57 58 59 60 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 61 H | Sport Crowley’s going flat out for first Classic success Matt Majendie Let the tournament begin: England and Bangladesh walk out at The Oval as the ICC Champions Trophy gets under way Eoin: We still have long way to go to rule world Tom Collomosse Cricket Correspondent at The Kia Oval E OIN MORGAN believes England are still some way from their peak as they opened their Champions Trophy campaign against Bangladesh today. Morgan’s team started favourites for the tournament after making huge strides in one-day cricket during the past two years but the captain still sees plenty of room for improvement. All-rounder Ben Stokes was named in the England team after passing a fitness test this morning on his knee, but the home side suffered an early blow when Chris Woakes left the field after bowling only two overs. The paceman has a left side strain and was being assessed by the medical team. Woakes also missed England’s last two games, due to a thigh problem. Morgan won the toss and put Bangladesh in to bat. Stokes bowled 10 deliv- eries at full pace on the outfield and felt no reaction, meaning he was fit to bowl. He was the first to strike, too: Soumya Sarkar cutting a short delivery straight to sub fielder Jonny Bairstow on the cover boundary, with Bangladesh on 56. Soumya made 28 but should have been dismissed for 11, Moeen Ali dropping a simple chance at square-leg off Jake Ball. England struck again when Mark Wood took a brilliant catch at mid-on off Liam Plunkett to remove Imrul Kayes for 19, leaving Bangladesh 95 for two. England sprung a surprise by including seamer Ball ahead of leg-spinner Adil Rashid, who had been a key man in previous games. Ball took five for 51 on his one-day debut last year, against Bangladesh in Dhaka, and impressed against South Africa at Lord’s earlier this week. Much was expected of Stokes in this tournament but Morgan is already focusing on the 2019 World Cup, which will also be held in England. “We have a long way to go,” he said. “If we want to be contenders for the World Cup we need to get our world ranking up [England are fifth]. We need a squad playing the majority of games between now and then. But if things go well, we can be serious contenders.” Asked about team selection, Morgan said: “There is no concern about Ben [Stokes]. He has been monitored in terms of how many overs he will bowl but given the ground and opposition, we felt four seamers was appropriate.” Stokes had surgery on his left knee a year ago and felt pain during last week’s first one-dayer against South Africa. He bowled only two overs but was declared fit for the match at Southampton and managed three overs. He was then rested for the final match. Read Tom Collomosse’s analysis from today’s ODI at standard.co.uk/cricket Rhododendron ready to bloom in Oaks Aidan O’Brien can stay on course for a clean sweep of this year’s British Classics by winning the Investec Oaks at Epsom tomorrow with Rhododendron, writes Jonathan Hunn. O’Brien has already scooped the 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas this season — courtesy of Churchill and Winter — and Rhododendron can keep the ball rolling. If she or stablemates Alluringly and Pocketfullofdreams land the £500,000 feature, then all eyes will be on the trainer’s possible seven runners in Saturday’s Investec Derby. The Derby is so wide open this year that bookmakers are betting 9-2 the field. It is a different story in the Oaks because Rhododendron looks the outstanding candidate and she is trading at around evens tomorrow’s tips 2.00 Zap (nap) 2.35Remarkable 3.10 Idaho 3.45Not So Sleepy 4.30Rhododendron 5.15Seven Heavens 5.50 Juanito Chico to beat her nine rivals. The daughter of Galileo was last season’s leading two-year-old filly and many expected her to land last month’s 1,000 Guineas. However, Ryan Moore’s mount ran out of racing room about two furlongs out (right) and Winter had already flown by the time they got free. Whether Rhododendron would have won with a clear run is debatable but she definitely would have given the winner more to think about. Regardless, the form looks rock solid after Winter’s runaway victory in the Irish 1,000 Guineas last Sunday. The Oaks presents a very different test, not least because it is over half a mile further, but Rhododendron was staying on strongly at the end of the Guineas. Biggest dangers look the John Gosden-trained pair of Coronet and Enable. The former shaped well on her return behind Sobetsu in France and can turn the tables on that rival, while the latter impressed with her nimbleness when winning the Cheshire Oaks. O’Brien can also land the other Group One race on tomorrow’s card, the Investec Coronation Cup, with Idaho. There have been times in Jim Crowley’s career when the phone barely rang. Awaiting calls for potential rides is the want of every jockey and Crowley is no exception — be it his original career in the saddle over the fences or following a subsequent switch to the flat. But having won the jockeys’ title for the first time last season at the age of 38, the calls are coming thick and fast. Many of his rides have been provided by Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum after becoming his lead jockey for this campaign, an appointment that Crowley likens to Jose Mourinho joining Manchester United. “It’s like a manager going to a big club,” says Crowley. “You have to produce results. You can’t go to United and not win.” Continuing the Old Trafford analogy, Crowley’s start has been more Mourinho than Moyes, leaving January’s Dubai Carnival as the joint leading jockey. He would dearly love to add another big win to that number and a first Classic success on board Eminent, a son of the mighty Frankel, in Saturday’s Investec Derby at Epsom. But he faces what he calls “the Coolmore monopoly” — the all-conquering racing operation in Ireland. He says: “You want to win the big races but there’s only five British Classics a season and Aidan O’Brien’s won the first two and he’s got plenty in the Derby and the Oaks [tomorrow].” Eminent will be among the favourites in the Derby but Crowley is taking nothing for granted. In fact, he is grateful to be in this position at all, the high of being crowned champion followed quickly by a pile-up at Kempton which left fellow jockey Freddy Tylicki paralysed from the waist down. Crowley, who broke his nose in the fall, says: “That’s still tough — one of those things that was really horrible but you have to block it out. If you think about it, you’d just be a nervous wreck. “But you have to carry on and, once you are back in the saddle, your instinct takes over again.” The racing world — from punters to his peers — would be hard pushed to find a more popular winner than Crowley, whose path to this point was long and circuitous. Growing up in a point-topoint family, his riding began over jumps where he rode 50 to 60 winners a season but he believed he could fair better on the flat. And so it has proved. “When I started on the flat, I was a million miles away from being champion jockey so I never thought about it,” he recalls. “But season by season that improved and it steadily became possible so I never gave up on that dream.” Last season finally proved his moment in the sun, Crowley pulling away from an initially tight tussle with Silvestre De Sousa for overall victory. Looking back on the pair’s head to head, Crowley says: “He’s a great jockey and he can pull out wins other jockeys couldn’t do so it was a hard Lucky Jim: Crowley rides Eminent in Saturday’s Derby fight. But then I got 38 winners in September, followed by 46 winners in October. “At the time, it didn’t feel exhausting — just eat, sleep, race, repeat — because I never thought about anything else. “But it was on the penultimate day of the season that my body finally switched off as I’d pushed so hard.” Crowley, who aptly was born opposite Ascot racecourse where he was eventually crowned, is in contention again in the early part of the 2017 season and is targeting retaining his title at the same time as trying to pick up bigger victories. “I love riding winners whatever the race and you never get bored of that,” he says. “But ultimately it’s the big races you’re after.” The hope is in what is remarkably only his second-ever Derby ride that begins with Eminent. ■ The Investec Derby on Saturday is part of the QIPCO British Champions Series — britishchampionsseries.com 62 Sport | Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews in association with summer briefing standard sport’s team of writers examine the close-season priorities Deal or no deal? The business Arsenal The best signing they can make this summer is tying down Alexis Sanchez to a new contract. The 28-year-old has proved difficult to manage at times but in 51 games last season, he was involved in 45 goals. More than the statistics, however, Sanchez is a talismanic figure and his departure would enhance the sense Arsenal are going backwards as they face their first season in the Europa League for two decades. A close second in terms of importance is keeping Mesut Ozil but the Gunners also need two marquee signings — at least — to push for the title. Alexandre Lacazette, Kylian Mbappe and Thomas Lemar are all of interest. They are keen on Virgil van Dijk from Southampton but are behind Chelsea in the pecking order. They are also scouting goalkeepers including Sunderland’s Jordan Pickford while Sead Kolasinac is an imminent arrival on a free transfer from Schalke. Juventus’ Mario Lemina and Celtic’s Moussa Dembele are also prominent in their thinking while a move for KAS Eupen striker Henry Onyekuru has been discussed. Kieran Gibbs, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczesny face uncertain futures while David Ospina is expected to join Fenerbahce and Lucas Perez return to Spain. James Olley Chelsea It should be a very busy summer for Chelsea and the first job has to be keeping some of the key players. Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois have given little indication lately that they are tempted by Real Madrid but the speculation will continue until long-term contracts are signed. Chelsea cannot afford to lose either. Hazard is one of the most exciting attackers in Europe, while Courtois is one of the finest keepers and can fill the position for the next decade. The club will have to increase their salaries to £300,000 a week and over £150,000 a week respectively. The most significant outlay is expected to be on re-signing Romelu Lukaku. The Belgium striker is the clear first choice to improve the frontline, with interest in Alvaro Morata having cooled. He will not be cheap. Everton bought him from Chelsea for £28million in 2014 but are demanding £100m for his now. A striker will be one of up to six signings that Chelsea plan to make, including at least one wing back, a centre-half, a central midfielder and a back-up goalkeeper. Southampton defenders Van Dijk, Cedric Soares and Ryan Bertrand are all on the wish-list. Coach Antonio Conte has earmarked Monaco’s Tiemoue Bakayoko as N’Golo Kante’s midfield partner and they are favourites to buy the France international for in excess of £40m. But they will also consider more attacking players, such as Arsenal’s Sanchez, to improve competition. The future of Diego Costa — despite today’s announcement regarding Atletico Madrid’s transfer ban — is still in doubt. Goalkeeper Asmir Begovic has joined Bournemouth, who also want Nathan Ake, for £10m. John Terry’s contract has expired, while Michy Batshuayi and young talent such as Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tammy Abraham are set to be loaned out. Simon Johnson BATTLING TO HIT the BIG TIME Youngsters who could breakthrough at the start of next season Wanted men: Chelsea are keen on Tiemoue Bakayoko while (right) Kylian Mbappe, Dusan Tadic and Ross Barkley could head to the capital Crystal Palace Palace are in flux following the shock resignation of Sam Allardyce and their priority is looking for another manager. Chairman Steve Parish was stunned when Allardyce quit but the club do at least have time to properly assess the long list of potential candidates they have drawn up. Transfer plans are on hold until an ARSENAL Jeff Reine-Adelaide (left) and Ainsley Maitland-Niles (both 19) were on the fringes of the squad last season and could train on. Chris Willock, also 19, is similarly rated highly. appointment is made but Palace have probably done their biggest business on the playing side already after Wilfried Zaha ended uncertainty surrounding his future by signing a new five-year contract. Keeping Zaha could be more important than any signings the incoming manager makes. Allardyce wanted to sign Mamadou Sakho on a permanent basis but a deal now looks increasingly unlikely with CHELSEA Andreas Christensen has impressed for the past two seasons on loan at Borussia Monchengladbach but the 21-year-old Denmark international will be part of the squad next term. Liverpool asking for £30m for the defender. Sakho was a key reason Palace stayed up but Parish has said any deal will have to make financial sense. That is because Palace will have to be shrewd in the transfer market after spending close to £40m in January. A final decision on Sakho, who is recovering from a knee injury, will be made once a new manager is appointed. Giuseppe Muro CRYSTAL PALACE Midfielder Sullay Kaikai, 21, (left) will hope to impress the incoming boss in pre-season and there are high hopes for Nya Kirby, 17, Luke Dreher, 18, and Kian Flanagan, 17. 63 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 in association with for capital’s premier league clubs London will be doing clubs. Kyle Walker is expected to complete a move to Manchester City and both Danny Rose and Eric Dier are wanted by Manchester United. Tottenham insist they do not have to sell any player but with an £800m stadium project to pay for, the club may find they have to consider big offers — especially for players who want to move. As is his habit, Mauricio Pochettino is keen to move on fringe players. Moussa Sissoko, whose move from Newcastle last summer could potentially cost £30m wants to leave to save his chance of playing for France at the 2018 World Cup. Georges-Kevin Nkoudou made little impact after his move from Marseille last summer and seems set to return to France. Janssen is another who may depart while Michel Vorm may also move if Spurs turn goalkeeper Pau Lopez’s loan move from Espanyol into a permanent switch. Tom Collomosse Watford Tottenham ■ Join Betfair today and get £30 of free bets when you place your first £10 Sportsbook single. Full terms at betfair.com SPURS want to strengthen at full-back and centre-back, as well as attacking midfield. They’d also like better back-up for Harry Kane than what Vincent Janssen offers. Ross Barkley, Ryan Sessegnon, Lemar, Adam Smith and Harry Maguire are among the targets — but Tottenham’s best players are coveted by wealthier tottenham Striker Kazaiah Sterling (left) scored in Spurs’ post-season friendly in Hong Kong, while fullback Kyle Walker-Peters could also make his firstteam debut in 2017-18. It is expected to be another summer of change at Watford and one of the first things for new head coach Marco Silva to decide could be the future of captain Troy Deeney. West Brom are ready to bid more than £20m for Deeney and offer him a contract worth £100,000 per week. The 28-year-old has been an integral figure at Vicarage Road for seven years but was often on the bench and seemed disillusioned under Walter Mazzarri. Funds will be available and Silva will expect the club to strengthen a squad that under-achieved in finishing 17th. Silva will consider signing some of his former players at Hull, including watford Midfielder Dion Pereira (left) featured as a substitute twice in May, while defender Brandon Mason started the 5-0 defeat to Manchester City on the final day. oalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic, and expect g the successful Watford scouting network to find more players like Roberto Pereyra. M’Baye Niang has decided not to make his loan move from AC Milan permanent so another forward is likely to come in. Giuseppe Muro West Ham Fans should not anticipate droves of arrivals but they will be expecting a considerable upgrade on last season’s business. Slaven Bilic has already promised that quality rather than quantity will be the mantra, with pace a priority. That criteria was not top of the agenda when West Ham did some early closeseason business with the signing, on a free transfer, of Pablo Zabaleta from City but what the 32-year-old loses in the sprinting stakes, he will more than make up in character and leadership. West Ham’s major expenditure could be a £20m-plus deal to take striker Kelechi Iheanacho, again from City, but there is a way to go before this one is done. Batshuayi could be the next arrival, following his admission that he may leave Chelsea on loan to gain more game time. Southampton’s Serbian winger Dusan Tadic is another who could join which could mean Robert Snodgrass, only signed from Hull in January, could make an early exit. The goalkeeper situation also remains unclear despite West Ham activating an option on Adrian’s contract which will keep the Spaniard at the club for a further two years. Both Adrian and Darren Randolph were dropped by Bilic last season. Ken Dyer west ham Republic of Ireland Under-19 international defender Declan Rice is highly rated and made his senior debut as a substitute in the final game of the season at Burnley. | Sport What’s lying in store during pre-season? Arsenal: For years Arsene Wenger resisted glamour friendlies and extended pre-season travelling, but Arsenal will play two matches each in Australia and China, racking up a total of 21,324 miles before returning to London to host the Emirates Cup. A chance to face one of their Champions League nemeses Bayern Munich will be an early test of whether Arsenal have moved forward, while they also face Chelsea twice — in Beijing and in the Community Shield. Chelsea: There will be two fixtures in this country before three matches against highprofile opposition in the Far East, with the trip incorporating over 14,550 miles. The players know from experience how much pain lies in store — last summer’s sessions with Antonio Conte were the toughest they have known. The Italian will be even more keen to get his players in shape given the club will also be involved in the Champions League. Crystal Palace: They will travel to Hong Kong in July to play in the Premier League Asia Trophy, where they will face Liverpool and either West Brom or Leicester. The new manager will get a full pre-season to work with the players but will have to make a quick assessment of where he wants to restructure the squad. He needs to hit the ground running as Palace look to avoid another relegation scrap. tottenham: Spurs face Paris St Germain, Roma and Manchester City during a tour of the United States. Mauricio Pochettino likes to work his players to the bone during pre-season and this summer will be no different, especially as there is no major international tournament. He is convinced they will reap the rewards when the proper stuff begins. Watford: A training camp in Austria will give Marco Silva a chance to run the rule over his squad and start to implement his ideas. The Hornets face Aston Villa and have also confirmed friendlies away at AFC Wimbledon and Woking. Silva is a meticulous and methodical manager who will demand a lot from his players, but the 39year-old has good manmanagement and communication skills and Hull’s players were quickly won over. West Ham: There are no long-haul flights but instead a training camp in Austria and a minitournament in Germany, plus a possible match in Iceland. Last season’s horrendous injury list could result in changes to the pre-season fitness programme, with Gary Lewin being brought in as the head of medical services. The challenge is to start the campaign strongly, especially with their first three matches being away from home following the World Athletics Championships. 64 Sport | Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews in association with Parish wants a manager who will stay and build Palace Giuseppe Muro Football Correspondent United front: Arsenal’s majority shareholder Stan Kroenke has handed Arsene Wenger a new two-year deal after the manager won the FA Cup for a record seventh time ‘Arsenal’s statement is meaningless — Wenger was great but needed to go’ Supporters’ Trust board member Phil Wall gives his verdict on manager’s new deal Y esterday’s official announcement of a two-year deal for Arsene Wenger was hardly unexpected, even before the leaks that preceded it; a common ploy these days to dilute the effect of a statement that the authors know won’t meet with universal approval. A growing section of Arsenal fans have gathered under the ‘Wenger out’ banner recently — and I was among them, metaphorically, if not actually physically. A large majority of my fellow Arsenal Supporters’ Trust (AST) members were with me, feeling that, while Arsene has a magnificent past, his time is gone. A week is a long time in football, though, and an FA Cup win can change perceptions. It seems churlish — and to fans of other clubs reeks of an inflated sense of entitlement — to want to be rid of a manager who has just delivered a third FA Cup in four seasons. Silverware is, after all, what football is all about. There were plenty of trophy cabinet jokes aimed at Arsenal through Elliott agrees terms on move to Millwall Tom Elliott is due to have a medical at Millwall tomorrow before completing his free transfer from AFC Wimbledon, writes Giuseppe Muro. Elliott has agreed terms and will become the second summer signing at Millwall, who were promoted to the Championship via the play-offs, following the arrival of James Meredith from Bradford. The 26-year-old forward, who scored 13 goals for Wimbledon last season and was named their Player of the Year after an impressive campaign in League One, is out of contract and rejected a new deal to stay at the Dons. the drought of 2005-14, so I embrace the new reality of Arsenal as ‘Cup Kings’, and, personally, I’d be okay (maybe not happy) with Arsene being rewarded with a one-year deal. The AST’s upcoming end-of-season survey will reveal how many agree with that. But the FA Cup is six matches; the Champions League is 13; and the Premier League 38. It’s been a long time since Arsene looked capable of producing a team that could last the distance in the big two competitions — and that’s where the problem lies for me and many fans. There are fine margins in top-level football and whether your wage bill is £50million or £250m you can only put 11 men on the pitch — and they all need to be motivated. Too often, Arsenal look lacklustre and uninterested, so they lose to far-less talented (and less expensive) teams. Couple that with a repeated failure to prepare tactically for the opposition and I’m in the group that believe another manager with fresh ideas could get more out of this squad than Wenger does. It’s become clear that some on the board have reached the same conclusion, but the London-based board members are there only due to the i ndulgence of US-based majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke. It’s farcical that I, Arsenal’s smallest shareholder, I believe that another manager with fresh ideas could get more out of this squad than Wenger does have more shares than all the board, bar Kroenke, and when push comes to simulated dive I have exactly the same influence as Lord Harris, Sir Chips Keswick and even Ivan Gazidis. Statements from Arsenal following Arsene’s reappointment are full of positive but ultimately meaningless phrases Perez heads player exodus Continued from Back Page net a Champions League hat-trick against Basle in December. A return to Spain is most likely, with Deportivo keen on re-signing Perez in addition to Sevilla wanting the player. It remains to be seen whether Everton revive their interest after they missed out on the 28-year-old when he moved to Emirates Stadium. Arsenal will step up their search for a central midfielder after it emerged Santi Cazorla’s Achilles injury was much worse than first feared. Cazorla claimed yesterday Shake and pack! Perez is set to leave he had undergone eight operations to cure the problem but will be out until October at the earliest. Juventus midfielder Mario Lemina is among Arsenal’s preferred options. about desire, ambition and commitment, but Kroenke has shown his true hand often enough: he’s in it for cash, not glory. I don’t want ‘financial doping’, but as long as the money rolls in Kroenke will resist change: the top half of the Premier League will do — and on Arsenal’s budget most managers would find it hard to fail at that. Ultimately, the boardroom problem is that Kroenke is in sole charge but he isn’t a fan and has no interest in fans; he’s an investor interested in dollars. Supporters can — and will — continue to complain because they know that it wouldn’t even take massive investment to improve the situation, just a fresh, modern approach. The titles were great and the football phenomenal for eight years but, to paraphrase Arsene, we’ve had caviar and we’re back on sausages. They’re tasty sausages, but they’re still sausages. Wenger-out brigade vow to fight on standard.co.uk/arsenal Hammers fans sign up for next season ALMOST all of West Ham’s season ticket-holders have already renewed ahead of next season, despite the problems in the club’s first season at the London Stadium, writes Ken Dyer. Just over 5,000 season ticketholders are yet to renew from a total of 52,000, the club said today. “When we took the decision to move to the London Stadium, we did so with the belief and confidence that our fanbase was deserving of a bigger and better stage,” said co-chairman David Sullivan. “Our focus now is to do everything to reward that faith with success on the pitch.” CRYSTAL PALACE chairman Steve Parish says he wants to appoint a manager who will stay at Selhurst Park long enough to build the club, as Steve Coppell did. Palace have drawn up a long list of candidates to replace Sam Allardyce, and Parish is seeking someone with a long-term vision. Mauricio Pellegrino, who resigned from Alaves on Monday, is the latest name being linked with the position and Burnley boss Sean Dyche is also under consideration. Palace will take their time to properly assess their options but Parish does not want someone who considers the club a stepping stone to a bigger job. He has also said Palace are still weighing up the direction they want to go in in terms of their playing style — which will have a major bearing on who they go for. “We really want somebody who feels they can come in and help us Forward planning: Steve Parish improve the footballing side of the club over a long period of time,” Parish told American radio station SiriusXM FC. “That is what we are looking for. In the past we have had managers like Steve Coppell who have been at the club a long time and helped build the club. If we could get one of those relationships again that would be preferable. “At the moment we have a long list and are honing that down. It is about what direction we want to go in from a playing style. We have got a personnel and a way of playing. It has served us well. Do we try and change that again as we did with Alan [Pardew]? Or do we stick with what we have and try and be what we are, which is pretty effective? “That is the first question we have to ask ourselves. That will inform probably where we go on the list of managers. After that you are just looking for somebody who has got a long-term view for the club. We do not really want someone who sees it as a stepping stone.” ■ Join Betfair today and get £30 of free bets when you place your first £10 Sportsbook single. Full terms at betfair. com 65 66 Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard H Sport | Like us on Facebook facebook.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter @standardnews Let’s get physical! Warburton relishing challenge Alan Dymock in Auckland First up… s the Lions tour thunders towards its first clash, much of the talk has been about the physical demands that lie ahead for the tourists. While many have already harked back to 2005, when captain Brian O’Driscoll was brutally injured in the opening Test of that series, others have spoken out about the horrors of scheduling a tour in a top-Tier nation. All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen said this week the world champions would never agree to jetting off for a tour without more preparation time, while others have spoken of their desire to see a Lions tour whittled down to fewer matches. However, several of the Lions group spoke today about their desire to finally get stuck in to the challenge and tour skipper Sam Warburton has hit back at some outsiders’ talk of their current playing schedule. The back-rower, who will lead the side against the Provincial Barbarians on Saturday, said: “It’s blown out of proportion. If you’ve got a squad of 23, yeah it would be brutal but we’ve got nearly two squads of players so guys aren’t going to be starting Saturday, starting Wednesday and starting again the next Saturday. We’ve got a big squad of top-quality players that can deal with that fixture list. “I can see why people on the outside would think it’s really bad but it’s okay. If guys were to start six games before the Tests, yeah that would be alarm bells but that’s not going to happen. “We’ve got a big squad and everyone’s desperate to play, so it’s not as if there are guys nursing injuries. All the guys coming in from finals are fresh and ready to go.” Warburton is understandably excited Saturday 8.35am, Live on Sky Sports 1 Lions 15 Stuart Hogg 14 Anthony Watson 13 Jonathan Joseph 12 Ben Te’o 11 Tommy Seymour 10 Johnny Sexton 9 Greig Laidlaw 1 Joe Marler 2 Rory Best 3 Kyle Sinckler 4 Alun Wyn Jones 5 Iain Henderson 6 Ross Moriarty 7 Sam Warburton (c) 8 Taulupe Faletau NZ Barbarians 15 Luteru Laulala 14 Sam Vaka 13 Inga Finau 12 Dwayne Sweeney 11 Sevu Reece 10 Bryn Gatland 9 Jack Stratton 1 Aidan Ross 2 Sam A-Heather (c) 3 Oliver Jager 4 Josh Goodhue 5 Keepa Mewett 6 James Tucker 7 Lachlan Boshier 8 Mitchell Dunshea A about the first outing of the tour, having had to wait on the sidelines for two matches before turning out for the 2013 Lions in Australia. He admitted to being panicked when he saw others wearing and then attempting to retain their red jerseys before he faced the Queensland Reds. Warburton looked on this new beginning, saying: “Hopefully I’ll stay fit and get a few fixtures under my belt. I’m going to need a good few games before I start hitting my straps. “Every game is a massive audition for Firstyname Lastynamey Job title if required Firstyname Lastynamey Job title if required the Test matches, so I’m really pleased that I’m involved in this first one.” He is not the only one raring to go, with fellow starter and Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones keen to get going. The lock was asked if he wanted their first match-up to be a physical encounter. “Yes, I don’t see why not,” he said. “Everyone wants to get out of the blocks so we need a hit out and sometimes when you have an unknown quality you have to go back to basics and that’s keeping the ball and going forward. We have limited physicality ‘We’ve got a big squad of top-quality players and everyone is desperate to play a part on the tour’ Sam Warburton in training because of the numbers we’ve had in training. “It’ll come thick and fast on the physical [side] but the mental [side] is important. A lot of these games will come down to the wire so intensity and decision-making will be key.” The players say they are relishing the physical challenge. Certainly that is what spectators want to see. As does Lions head coach Warren Gatland, who needs to witness his team being tested before he must make brutal selection decisions ahead of the First Test at Eden Park on June 24. Talking directly to the question of Kiwi teams targeting players, he also believes his team will be challenged fairly. “New Zealand teams play to the edge, Navratilova hits back at ‘sick’ Court after latest LGBT outburst Martina Navratilova has described Margaret Court’s comments about the transgender community as “sick and dangerous”. After criticism of her vocal opposition to same-sex marriage and calls to change the name of the court named after her at Melbourne Park, Court responded yesterday with a controversial interview. Speaking on a Christian radio station, the 24-time Grand Slam singles champion-turned-pastor said transgenderism was the work of the devil and compared acitivists promoting equal sexual rights globally to Adolf Hitler. Condemnation: Martina Navratilova Her attitude has been universally condemned by all players willing to give their views, with Australian No1 Sam Stosur suggesting some could choose to boycott Margaret Court Arena at next year’s Australian Open. And in a letter addressed to the stadium and sent to Fairfax media in Australia, Navratilova, a prominent advocate for LGBT rights, said: “It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player and a racist and a homophobe. “Her vitriol is not just an opinion. She is actively trying to keep LGBT people from getting equal rights (note to Court: we are human beings, too). She is demonising trans kids and trans adults everywhere. “And now, linking LGBT to Nazis, communists, the devil? This is not okay. This is, in fact, sick and it is dangerous. Kids will suffer more because of this continuous bashing and stigmatising of our LGBT community. “How much blood will be on Margaret’s hands because kids will continue to get beaten for being different? This is not okay. Too many will die by suicide because of this kind of intolerance, this kind of bashing and, yes, this kind of bullying. This is not okay.” Navratilova has called for the arena to be renamed in honour of Australia’s seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Evonne Goolagong Cawley. “We celebrate free speech, but that doesn’t mean it is free of consequences — not punishment, but consequences,” continued Navratilova, one of the game’s greatest-ever players. “We should not be celebrating this kind of behaviour, this kind of philosophy. The platform people like Margaret Court use needs to be made smaller, not bigger. Which is why I think it’s time to change [the] name. I think the Evonne Goolagong Arena has a great ring to it.” 67 evening standard Thursday 1 June 2017 | Sport Fitzpatrick: Schedule is not daunting — it will just make Lions more battle-hardened Chris Jones All Blacks great Sean Fitzpatrick believes the most daunting fixture schedule to ever face the Lions will ensure they are battle-hardened for the three-Test series against the reigning world champions in New Zealand. The Lions start the 10-match tour with the easiest game — against the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians on Saturday — and, as well as the three Tests, face the country’s five powerful Super Rugby franchises, plus the Maoris. But former All Blacks skipper Fitzpatrick, who is now on the board of Harlequins, sees only positives from the tourists’ heavy workload. “Everyone is saying this is the tour from hell and a suicidal fixture schedule but I don’t agree,” he said. “If I was a Lions player I would want to play against the best and New Zealand has some of the best provincial and club players in the world. “Even if they lose a couple of games, the Lions will be battle-hardened going into the First Test. I am truly excited the Lions have such a good squad and will be playing quality opposition. “Billy Vunipola being injured is a huge loss to the Lions but they have real depth and there are guys like Taulupe Faletau and CJ Stander who will make a real impact. I like what I see with Stander and you need guys with great engines and who stick their hands up all the time. “I see Owen Farrell as a No10 because the Lions have enough depth in midfield and he can control games — and with Johnny Sexton they have two of the best. Farrell is also the best in the world when it comes to goal-kicking. “There are so many Lions in contention you would struggle to name 10 who are Blowing the cobwebs away: Sam Warburton goes through a routine (above) and Rhys Webb practises his kicking (below), as the Lions train today (left) under the eye of Warren Gatland (right) for the first time since their arrival in New Zealand they play to the limit, but I don’t think they go out there with the purpose of trying to injure people,” Gatland said. “It’s going to be tough and physical but there’s no stage [where] I think these games will go over-the-top in terms of physicality from both sides. “We want it to be tough and we want some clean, hard rugby. I’m confident all the teams we go up against will go in there with the same attitude of playing some good rugby on the field and some entertaining rugby as well.” quick crossword ACROSS 1 Believe (6) 5 Cease (4) 8 Wrath (5) 9 Poem (3) 10 Fling (4) 11 Rodent (4) 12 Located (5) 13 Disconnect (6) 16 Trial (4) 18 Discharge (4) 20 Lettuce (3) 22 Shelter (3) 23 Barrier (3) 24 Gasp (4) 25 Disembark (4) 28 Gift (6) 30 Suspect (5) 32 Harvest (4) 33 Spoken (4) 34 Freeze (3) 35 Tired (5) 36 Group (4) 37 Vote (6) DOWN 1 Obscure (6) 2 Building (8) 3 Whole (6) 4 Compelling (9) 5 Cut (7) 6 Trampled (4) 7 Excuse (4) 8 Donkey (3) 14 Christmas rose (9) 15 Edge (3) 17 Ocean (3) 19 Substance (8) 20 Beret (3) 21 Crouched (7) 26 Plant (6) 27 Thoroughfare (6) 29 Clutch (4) 30 Daybreak (4) 31 Attempt (3) 1 Today’s double crossword plus Yesterday’s solutions: p52 3 4 5 6 7 SUDOKU THU.01.06.2017 8 9 10 11 13 16 21 24 Jordie Barrett (Hurricanes) The 20-year-old brother of All Blacks No10 Beauden can play full-back or centre. Fitzpatrick verdict: “He could be a sensation during the tour and, like Ioane, could potentially play in the first Test.” definitely going to be in the Test side, which is good.” Fitzpatrick believes his own country’s strength in depth has made the Super Rugby matches between the New Zealand teams “Test standard” and that will ensure they are ready to give Lions head coach Warren Gatland’s men a difficult time in every fixture. “The recent match between the Chiefs and Crusaders was just outstanding,” he added. “I am also liking the players coming through at a time when there are injury worries to regular All Blacks — and we are seeing the emergence of guys who we haven’t previously heard about. “The All Blacks selectors have been in the job long enough to have created the strength in depth that you need for a Test series when there are going to injuries. “When they won the World Cup again in 2015, they had 31 players who could have been picked to start the final. “Last year, having lost some of the greatest All Blacks ever, like Dan Carter, Richie McCaw and Ma’a Nonu, they were an even better side.” ■ The Lions tour of New Zealand starts on Saturday, live exclusively on Sky Sports Evening Standard incorporating the Evening News, published by Evening Standard Ltd., Northcliffe House, London, W8 5TT (020 3367 7000). Printed by Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Ltd., Great Cambridge Road, Waltham Cross, Herts. EN8 8DY © Evening Standard Ltd. 2017. 55,937 Newspapers Support Recycling. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%. Copies of the paper returned to Evening Standard are recycled by RRS London Waste Papers Ltd. OFFERS 14 20 Rieko Ioane (Blues, below left) A 20-year-old centre and former Sevens star who made his Test debut last year. Fitzpatrick verdict: “Ioane has shown what a fantastic player he is and is a real threat with ball in hand to any team.” Save up to 70% ES on luxury travel 12 15 17 18 22 19 23 25 26 27 28 29 30 32 Play our interactive puzzles online: standard.co.uk/games 2 Fitzpatrick’s two to watch… 31 33 34 35 36 37 Fill the grid with the numbers 1 to 9 so that each row, column and 3x3 block contains the numbers 1 to 9. WIN A River Thames jazz cruise with three-course dinner: see page 52 Join now for free: standard.co.uk/secretescapes Terms apply see standard.co.uk/secretescapes. Promoter: Secret Escapes. 68 H Thursday 1 June 2017 evening standard Inside today! Your four-page guide to a summer of ODI cricket See Centre Pages @standardsport sanchez and ozil’s demands stokes strikes first ben fit for trophy Giuseppe Muro Football Correspondent ❚ PAIR WANT TO KNOW ARSENAL’S TARGETS AND SEEK MORE MONEY James Olley Chief Football Correspondent ALEXIS SANCHEZ and Mesut Ozil are seeking assurances over Arsenal’s summer transfer plans before deciding whether to stay at the club. Manager Arsene Wenger yesterday signed a two-year contract extension and now begins the task of transforming his squad into Premier League title contenders. Wenger has about £100million at his disposal and will be given funds from player sales to reinvest in the team. Standard Sport understands Sanchez was unhappy with Arsenal’s business in the 2015 close-season, when Petr Cech was the only new arrival. The Gunners spent almost £90m last summer but their three major arrivals — Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez — all failed to prevent Arsenal falling out of the Champions League for the first time in 20 years. It is believed that Sanchez and Ozil discussed possible targets with Wenger towards the end of the season and they will now wait to see the club’s summer strategy in action. In addition, Sanchez and Ozil are thought to have increased their wage demands in the absence of Champions League football next term. Arsenal have offered Sanchez a p a c k a ge wo r t h a m a x i mu m o f £300,000 a week, while Ozil has an offer on the table in excess of £250,000 a week. The pair originally sought parity with the Premier League’s highest earners but now believe they are in an even stronger negotiating position and have upped the ante. Sanchez is also using a £400,000-aweek offer from China as further leverage amid interest from a host of top clubs including Manchester City, Chelsea, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Paris St Germain. It promises to be a busy transfer window for Arsenal, with several players expected to depart. Perez is at the head of the queue after his agent claimed yesterday that “the idea is to be able to play for another club”. The Gunners face making a small loss on the £17m they paid Deportivo La Coruna last year after a season of limited opportunities for Perez. He started just two League games but did Continued on Page 64 It’s no-go Diego as Atletico deals ban is upheld Ben Stokes had plenty to celebrate at The Oval this morning, taking the first wicket in England’s Champions Trophy clash with Bangladesh after being passed fit to play following scans on his knee injury Morgan’s World Cup admission: Page 61 Diego Costa’s hopes of a return to Atletico Madrid suffered a blow today after the Spanish club had their transfer ban upheld. The Spain striker said after Saturday’s FA Cup Final that he is only interested in leaving Chelsea for his former club, despite interest from Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian. But a return to Atletico this summer has been ruled out after they had their appeal against a transfer ban rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, meaning they cannot register new players until January. They could still sign Costa but are unlikely to be willing to pay him when he could not play. Today’s judgment is a boost for Arsenal in their pursuit of Alexandre Lacazette as Atletico were set to rival the Gunners for the Lyon striker. The ruling could also impact on Manchester United’s hopes of signing Antoine Griezmann. Atletico would be reluctant to sell the France forward if they are unable to sign a replacement. Atletico were banned last July from registering players for two transfer windows for breaching FIFA rules over signing players under the age of 18. Although the court reduced a fine imposed on the club from £719,793 to £439,873, Atletico said in a statement: “This ruling is unfair and causes [us] irreparable damage.”
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