Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1018 i The Week

What happened With just three weeks to go before polling day, the two main parties finally unveiled their election manifestos this week. Both stole the other’s clothes in an attempt to secure a breakthrough in the deadlocked polls. Launching the Tories’ manifesto, David Cameron sought to re-brand the Conservatives as “the party of working people”, and to project a sunnier vision – a response to complaints that the Tory campaign had become too negative. The Tories pledged, among other things, to extend the “right-to-buy” scheme from council houses to housing associations, increase NHS spending by £8bn and remove family homes worth up to £1m from inheritance tax. In a similar exercise in political cross-dressing, Ed Miliband portrayed Labour as the party of economic responsibility. He promised that Labour’s policies –…

Controversy of the week It is exactly 150 years since the commander of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee, rode up to the Appomattox Court House in Virginia to surrender, said Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. “A war that had claimed 750,000 lives – by far the bloodiest in American history – was over.” But the mood was far from triumphant. General Ulysses S. Grant, leader of the Union Army, raised his hat respectfully to his adversary, foregoing the traditional demand that the defeated side hand over their swords. One of the most traumatic aspects of the American Civil War was that – for whites, at least – it felt like “a war between brothers”. And as soon as it was over, “there was a hunger among many to…

Born to climb Tom Ballard is a born mountaineer. His mother, Alison Hargreaves, scaled the north face of the Eiger while pregnant with him, and later became the first woman to climb Everest unaided. She died in 1995 while climbing K2. Ballard, who was six at the time, has few memories of her – but she lives on in his love of the mountains. Last month, 20 years after his mother’s death, Ballard became the first person to solo-climb all six north faces of the Alps in the winter season. (Hargreaves was the first to do it in the summer season, in 1993.) “When I was young, growing up at school, I always said I would climb these mountains for her,” he told Joe Shute in The Daily Telegraph. “But…

The actress Patsy Kensit has praised the Duchess of Cambridge as a pioneering feminist, because she sometimes wears the same outfit more than once. “I know it’s a shallow thing to say, but I think it’s done so much for women. I’m not going to be forced to look different every time I go out,” Kensit told Stylist magazine. “She’s like our generation’s suffragette.” Tony Blair has revealed his plans for global domination. The former prime minister intends to set up a “leaders’ club” of ex-statesmen to advise governments all over the world. “I’ve done British,” he told Newsweek. “I suppose where I think I can make most difference is on a global level.” The Canadian rapper Drake has denied suggestions that he was disgusted when Madonna kissed him onstage.…

Over the Easter weekend, the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit in London’s jewellery quarter was hit by “one of the greatest heists ever carried out in Britain”, said Joe Shute in The Daily Telegraph. “The robbers had an eye for the spectacular.” They got into the building around 9pm on Thursday 2 April, then, evading alarms, abseiled down a lift shaft, cut through a reinforced metal door, and spent up to 24 hours drilling through a concrete vault wall 6ft thick. Once inside the vault, previously deemed the safest place in Hatton Garden and used by traders to store stock, the men ripped open some 70 safety deposit boxes and made off with jewels worth between £30m and £200m. Using wheelie bins, they carted them out to a white Ford Transit…

Golf: Jordan Spieth’s record-breaking Masters “A new star was born in Georgia,” said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph. At the Augusta National on Sunday, Jordan Spieth completed an “extraordinary demolition” to win the Masters on 18 under par. That score equalled the lowest ever, achieved by Tiger Woods 18 years ago. And Spieth broke several records too: on Sunday, he became the first player in Masters history to reach 19 under par. The 21-year-old shot 28 birdies over the tournament (more than one every three holes), beating Phil Mickelson’s record of 25. “If it was in the history books, Spieth chased it down.” He made it all look so easy, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. The Texan resembled “a kid playing a golf computer game with the cheat…

Theatre Cyrano de Bergerac Playwright: Edmond Rostand Director: Lorne Campbell Royal & Derngate Northampton until 25 April, then Northern Stage Newcastle and on Running time: 3hrs 20mins ★★ “Ah, Cyrano!” Fighter, scholar, poet, maverick – Cyrano is the “last of the courtly-love serenaders, patron of all unrequited lovers who nobly plead their rival’s cause”, said Libby Purves on TheatreCat.com. Ever since the premiere of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play (set in “an imagined musketeer-y” 17th century) the heartsick soldier has been an “archetype of reckless generosity”. Loving the beautiful Roxane, but cursed with an immense red nose, Cyrano agrees to write divine love-letters for the “comely but dumb” cadet, Christian. It’s a stonking part: stars from Derek Jacobi to Kevin Kline have been “delighted to slap on the rubber conk and…

Best books… Harriet Walter The actress Harriet Walter picks her six favourite memoirs. She will be reading T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival on 26 April (01789-207100, www.stratfordartshouse.co.uk. What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness by Candia McWilliam, 2010 (Vintage £8.99). I lived inside Candia McWilliam’s head for months after reading this painstakingly honest memoir. Her writing is as unusual as her life story. She manages to make you see her world when she lost her sight, and to love her friends as she does. The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg, 1968 (Corgi £12.99). Bielenberg was a British woman, married to an anti-Hitler German, and living in Germany during WWII. In her day-to-day life in an enemy country she takes for granted…

What the experts recommend Lamplighter Dining Rooms High Street, Windermere (01539-443547) Woody Allen famously joked that sex was only dirty if it was done right. It’s much the same with Sunday lunch, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. It doesn’t want “mimsy slices of dainty things positioned just so. It needs heft and commitment, and should result in stained napkins”. The Sunday special at the Lamplighter Dining Rooms delivers on all fronts. This is “not a fancy place. It rolls its eyes at fancy.” But it offers roast potatoes that “crunch and gasp in all the right places”; honey-roasted parsnips that are impossible to resist; cauliflower cheese of true greatness; and meat roasted with “serious attention and care”. But most of all it offers a “nostalgic sort of happiness”: this…

The cricketing hero who became the “voice of summer” Richie Benaud 1930-2015 Richie Benaud was a legend in the cricketing world. As a player, he was one of Australia’s great all-rounders, and an inspirational captain, said The Daily Telegraph. A hard-hitting batsman and a skilled leg-break bowler, he was the first Test player in cricketing history to achieve the double of more than 2,000 runs and 200 wickets. Yet in his 70s, he wryly observed that he had lost count of the number of times his younger admirers had asked him if he had ever played cricket himself – for by then, his achievements on the pitch had been overshadowed by his subsequent career as one of cricket’s best-loved TV commentators: spare, intelligent and drily witty. A man who rarely…

When Shell boss Ben van Beurden told senior executives that the company should consider buying BG Group, the reaction was: “here we go again”, said Guy Chazan in the Financial Times. Given that a tie-up between the two companies has been mooted for some 19 years, “dusting off the dossier has become an almost ritualistic gesture”. Yet the time looked ripe for “the biggest global energy deal in more than a decade”. With BG’s share price dragged down by lower oil prices, what better chance to acquire a strategically important gas business, and a “clutch of vast oilfields” off Brazil? BG’s CEO, Helge Lund – who arrived in February – “is one lucky man”, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. His pay packet is linked to stock performance – and…

Issue of the week: adios non-doms? Is abolishing non-dom tax status a triumph of justice, or an expensive form of “gesture politics”? Unveiling plans to abolish a “peculiarly British” tax loophole last week, the Labour leader Ed Miliband described non-dom status as “an arcane 200-year rule”, said The Economist. He’s not wrong there. Introduced by William Pitt the Younger during the Napoleonic Wars – to protect colonial traders from paying taxes on their foreign income – the non-dom rule has become “a symbol of privilege for the wealthy”. To qualify as a “non-domiciled” resident, you must prove “foreign status” – but that can be inherited via the paternal line. Thus if your father or grandfather considered another country his permanent home, and you can show some “arbitrary” intention of returning…

The week’s best buys Cranswick The Daily Telegraph The UK’s largest sausagemaker is expanding its pig-breeding facilities and benefiting from strong demand for fresh pork. It has a solid balance sheet, excellent cash generation and a growing dividend. Buy. £14.13. Fox Marble The Mail on Sunday This Kosovan-based, topquality marble-producer has an experienced management team and is making real progress. Sales are forecast to soar and margins should leap as it takes processing in-house. One for the adventurous. Buy. 17.75p. Kier Group Investors Chronicle Kier’s well-diversified offering – from construction and house-building to facilities services – should protect against post-election shocks. Infrastructure spending is rising, there’s a healthy order book, and a 4.8% rising yield. Buy. £15.90. Rio Tinto The Times The miner is boosting its exposure to copper, which…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 949 An Ettinger card case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 27 April. Send it to: The Week Crossword 949, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or email the answers to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Set by Tim Moorey (www.timmoorey.info) This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) visiting card case for business cards or to use as a mini wallet, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Occasionally the two sides at Edgbaston are this (3,3,2) 6 Man perhaps engulfed by a US state is confused (6) 9 Enquire on the radio for a Punjabi? (4) 10 Motoring policy of UKIP, arguably (5,5) 11 Key for…

What happened Hillary Clinton ended months of speculation this week when she formally entered the 2016 race for the White House, aiming to become the US’s first woman president. The former first lady and secretary of state announced her bid for the Democratic Party nomination in a brief video message on her campaign website. If elected, Clinton said she would be “the champion of everyday Americans”. She later set out for Iowa, a key battleground state which will be the scene of the first nomination contest early next year. Clinton came under immediate attack from right-wing Republican Marco Rubio, who announced his own bid for the presidency. The Florida senator described the 67-year-old Clinton as “a leader from yesterday” and spoke of a “generational choice” for voters. At 43, the…

Paris Isis cyber-attack: Hackers claiming allegiance to Isis seized control of France’s international TV network TV5Monde last week, knocking out its 11 channels, website and social media accounts in the jihadi group’s most spectacular act of cyber-warfare to date. A black screen appeared across the network at 10pm on Wednesday night, and a message reading “Je suis IS” – another term for Isis – was posted on its website by a group calling itself CyberCaliphate. The hackers also posted what appeared to be the ID cards of French soldiers’ relatives on the network’s Facebook page, along with threats. “Soldiers of France, stay away from Islamic State!” read one message, warning them that their families were in danger. It took 20 hours to return the network to normal. France’s government denounced…

Will it happen? If David Cameron leads the next government, it appears certain that the British people will have their first referendum on EU membership since 1975. Back then, the roles of the main parties were reversed. The Tories, under Thatcher, were pro-Europe and out of office; Labour was in power, but split on the issue. In the event, 17 million people voted to stay in the European Community, while eight million wanted out, a huge majority of 67% to 33%. Forty years on, no one expects there’d be such a clearcut decision. As things stand, pre-7 May, the Open Europe think tank predicts Britain faces a one-in-six chance of leaving the EU in the next few years, what it calls a “nonnegligible threat of Brexit”. Does Britain want to…

Residents of the charming villages near Horse Hill in East Surrey face a “threat to their tranquillity” that could make Gatwick’s proposed new runway “pale into insignificance”, said Ben Webster in The Times. “If a small exploration company’s claims are correct, they are living above a giant oilfield comparable to those under the North Sea”. UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) declared last week that there could be 100 billion barrels of oil under the Weald basin, which stretches across Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. To put that in context, the North Sea has produced 45 billion barrels of oil since the 1970s. The firm, which has drilled a test hole at Horse Hill, estimates that there are 158 million barrels of oil per square mile, and that the Weald…

It is “one of the publishing phenomena of this century”, said Alison Flood in The Guardian. A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin’s sprawling fantasy saga, about warring families trying to win the Iron Throne of Westeros, has sold 58 million copies in 45 languages. The TV adaptation it spawned, Game of Thrones, has become the fastest-selling box set of the decade. Last week, the first episode of the new series was screened simultaneously in 170 countries. But that wasn’t enough for British viewers, said Grace Dent in The Independent. They wanted to stuff more sex, treachery, zombies and dragons “into their greedy, snaffling eyeholes”. So when the first four episodes were leaked online, it was “UK pirates who downloaded – or stole, to put it bluntly –…

Parakeet peril To The Guardian I was depressed to see the glorious blossom share the front-page photograph with one of those vile green parakeets that blight our parks and gardens. Were you to reveal the ground below the branches in the photo, we’d see it covered in torn-off blossom shoots. Further inspection of the park would probably reveal young leaves and shoots ripped from budding horse chestnut trees. In May, oaks will suffer the same destruction. When they’re not wrecking park trees, those parakeets devour garden bird food, scaring off small birds in the process. They shriek and wreck their way around south London. Can we start a campaign to cull them please? Patricia Golding, London Playing in the street To The Daily Telegraph Nigel Farage has declared that children…

Lost River Dir: Ryan Gosling 1hr 35mins (15) Directorial car crash from the star of Drive ★ “These days, models turn designer, footballers become managers, and actors direct. Why not?” Lost River, the directorial debut of Hollywood heart-throb Ryan Gosling, is a 95-minute demonstration of why not, said David Sexton in the London Evening Standard. The tangled plot of this “hotchpotch of ill-digested influences” involves a poverty-stricken woman (Christina Hendricks) struggling to survive in a postapocalyptic urban landscape. Meanwhile, her son Bones (Iain De Caestecker), a scrap-metal thief, falls foul of a shaven-headed psychopath, played somewhat unconvincingly by Doctor Who’s Matt Smith. A portentous yet shallow film, Lost River suffers from its dependence on “fatuous, consequence-free violence”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. A more talented director might have made…

Programmes Safe House Four-part thriller set in the Lake District. A former detective is asked by an ex-colleague to turn his remote guest house into a safe house. With Christopher Eccleston. Mon 20 April, ITV1 9pm (60mins). Ballot Monkeys Five-part comedy, much of it written a few hours before transmission, set on the campaign buses of the main parties. With Ben Miller and Hugh Dennis. Tue 21 April, C4 10pm (35mins). This World: World’s Richest Terror Army The story of how a small band of fanatical jihadis became the ruthless, well-funded force that is Islamic State. It features an interview with an imprisoned leader of the group. Wed 22 April, BBC2 9pm (60mins). Spotlight: Nigel Farage Julie Etchingham spends time with the UKIP leader in the countryside and coastal towns…

New gadgets: “Apple is clearly on to something” “What does it do?” That’s what everyone asks about the Apple Watch, said Matt Warman in The Daily Telegraph. It is Apple’s first big launch in five years but unlike the iPhone, say, its purpose isn’t clear. Well, first of all, it’s a “beautiful fashion accessory”. There are three styles on offer – including a sporty one and an 18-carat gold version – and all benefit from intelligent, “understated design”. And in fact, the Watch can “do a huge variety” of tasks, said Will Findlater in Stuff – provided you have an iPhone, that is. It makes calls via speakerphone, and there are apps for email, messaging, maps, your calendar and music. But “more interesting” are the fitness-tracking features: the Watch monitors…

General Electric: back to the future In one of the biggest shake-ups in its 123-year history, the US’s best-known conglomerate, General Electric, has launched a radical plan to ditch all but a rump of its “giant finance business”, GE Capital, said Maureen Farrell in The Wall Street Journal. The $500bn unit, which dragged the group into trouble during the financial crisis, is “a major funder of US businesses”, and in 2013 was designated a “systemically important financial institution” – i.e. “too big to fail”. Now that it is subject to increased financial regulation, GE “wants to lose the label for good”. Investors certainly liked the move: the group’s whacked-out shares jumped 10%. It must be “annoying” for CEO Jeffrey Immelt that – 14 years after taking the helm of “the…

The pound’s electoral shudders Russell Lynch London Evening Standard Bookmaker William Hill’s odds guru reckons there are no fewer than “14 potential election outcomes” in May, says Russell Lynch – “each with its own consequence for the pound”. And with less than a month till polling day, there are potential problems looming. Uncertainty over the outcome has pushed sterling volatility to levels even higher than in the build-up to Scotland’s referendum last September. “In fact, the money markets are as jittery as they’ve ever been ahead of a national poll.” That’s hardly surprising given that the Government might take “months not weeks to settle”: the bookies are offering odds of just 4/1 on two elections being held this year. With the pound already at a fiveyear low against the dollar,…

Over the coming months, The Week – in association with Alliance Trust – will offer features and briefings on everything you need to know about investing your money in a sustainable, responsible way Investment ABCs When it comes to investment, it’s never too early to teach your children about ways to save for the future. As for the best savings plan for children, there are a myriad of options to choose from. The most popular are child savings accounts, Junior ISAs (JISAs for short) or Child Trust Funds (which were scrapped in 2011). Another option that isn’t so widely recognised is a child pension. Savings for children Child savings accounts are a good starting point. Banks and building societies offer cash savings plans and typically accrue interest tax-free. But with…

North Sea cod stocks are growing rapidly – and they could even be certified as sustainable in the next five years. Long regarded as one of the worst examples of over-fishing, the fish has been subject to tough regulations since 2006. Now, according to new research by the government-funded body Seafish, stocks are recovering to a surprising degree. For the time being, however, North Sea cod remains on the Marine Conservation Society’s list of fish to avoid. A story penned by Queen Victoria when she was ten is to be published for the first time. Written as a study exercise, The Adventures of Alice Laselles tells the tale of a girl sent to boarding school against her will. Having been stored for decades in the Royal Archives, it will be…

New York Gay history: The award-winning author and gay rights activist Larry Kramer has sparked controversy with the first instalment in a planned two-part history of America in which he claims that many prominent figures of the past, from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to Richard Nixon and Mark Twain, had secret gay lives. The American People: Volume 1, subtitled Search for My Heart, is an 800-page “labour of love” that the 79-year-old writer says is intended to counter the exclusion of a gay perspective from history, and which took him 40 years to complete. The New York Times has welcomed it as “a farreaching historical exposé”, but Kramer’s willingness to play fast and loose with the available evidence has raised eyebrows in academia. The book has been labelled a…

We are being poisoned by diesel cars Geoffrey Lean The Daily Telegraph It has become one of the harbingers of spring, says Geoffrey Lean. The daffodils come out, the first cuckoo is heard – and we suffer a dangerous spike in air pollution. Even healthy people were advised to take it easy last Friday due to the poor air quality in central and eastern England. This problem is being “shamefully neglected” by our political leaders. “Some 29,000 people – more than 16 times as many as die on the roads – are killed by just one form of the pollution, particulates, each year.” Air pollution has also been shown to harm the physical and cognitive development of children who grow up near busy roads. The problem stems largely from the…

A dangerous taste for meat Our taste for meat could be our undoing, reports the New Scientist. With fears about antimicrobial resistance growing, GPs have been urged to limit prescriptions of antibiotics. Yet all over the world, farmers are increasingly feeding them to livestock, encouraging the evolution of resistant bacteria. In the first study of its kind, a team has estimated that 63,000 tonnes of antibiotics were fed to chickens, pigs and cattle in 2010 – that’s about twice as much as was prescribed to fight human infection globally. And as people prosper, and the market for meat and dairy products grows, that figure is only going to get bigger. The researchers forecast that in 15 years, farmers will be getting through 106,000 tonnes of antibiotics annually. The growth is…

Ed Miliband has suffered more than his fair share of mud-slinging over the years, said Janice Turner in The Times. Critics have portrayed him as “weak, a geek, an unworldly Wallace yet to master mastication”. Last week Tory Defence Secretary Michael Fallon took the attacks to a new level when he suggested that, just as Miliband had “stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader”, so he would betray Britain by bartering away the Trident nuclear deterrent in return for support from the SNP. The right-wing press then raked over his romantic past, making much of his wife Justine’s revelation, in an interview, that she had met him at a dinner and assumed he was single – only to later discover that he was secretly dating the…

“I have never met anyone who wasn’t against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves.” Sir David Low, quoted in The Times “Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that’s hard for a puritan to understand.” Nadine Gordimer, quoted in The Guardian “The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” Novelist Rita Mae Brown, quoted in Cosmopolitan “The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.” Günter Grass, quoted in The Guardian “Just think what God could have done if he had the money.” Groucho Marx, quoted in The Sunday Times “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to…

A Deloitte survey of finance directors showed that companies are reining in their investment plans as fears over the result of the election undermine confidence. The jitters were felt on foreign exchanges where the pound fell to a five-year low against the dollar. But the FTSE 100 continued to shrug off worries to notch up successive new highs. Germany’s Dax index hit a new record, and France’s CAC 40 index rose to its highest level since 2008 on news last week that Greece had repaid a g450m loan instalment to the IMF. UK inflation, measured on the CPI index, remained at a record low of 0% in March, helped by cheaper clothing and footwear. Economists are split over whether the figure will tip into outright deflation in coming months. The…

Peter Hargreaves The billionaire businessman, who built the FTSE 100 investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown from his spare bedroom, “stunned” the City this week with news that he is quitting the board with immediate effect, says ThisIsMoney.co.uk. It triggered a 2.2% slide in shares, which analysts described as “a mark of respect”. “Softly spoken, with a genial manner”, Peter Hargreaves, 68, was “the public face” of the firm, says the FT. The son of a Lancashire baker, “he understood the consumer better than anyone else”, seeing when finance “was held back by complexity and poor service”. He now plans to continue in a part-time role. “All they’re doing is taking away my titles,” he said, “and I’ve never been a fan of titles.” Sir James & Jake Dyson When it comes…