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Cambridge’s next Chancellor must prioritise free speech
Writing in these pages, the venerable Charles Moore argued that, rather than holding an election (as is currently the case), Cambridge needs to appoint a Chancellor who is unspeakably grand, rich, and disinterested. I would respectfully suggest a reframing.
If Cambridge is to continue to thrive as an institution that upholds the best of its traditions, innovates, and improves the wellbeing of so many, it needs an active and engaged Chancellor to meet the challenges of a new era; and that Chancellor will only deliver on what is required if they have the backing of the majority of the Cambridge electorate. (For full disclosure, I am standing in this election which takes place in a month’s time after being approached by several of my fellow heads of Cambridge Colleges and other colleagues.)
Our universities, after all, are in a delicate state. They face challenges to free speech and academic freedom from both the left and the right. The breathtaking technological changes confronting us are both promising and deeply concerning. A series of external shocks has diminished our financial resilience, leaving us in a near-constant state of crisis management that weakens not only our ability to respond to unanticipated developments but also our contribution to national and international well-being.
This is an era of innovation. Advances in AI, life sciences, robotics, green technology (and soon quantum) are reshaping what we do and how we do it. It is only a matter of time until there is greater diffusion into many sectors of the economy. Consider how quickly AI has evolved over the last two years, from answering questions to delivering assigned tasks and, increasingly, serving as a responsive companion that learns rapidly. Yet these innovations come with risks which can be deployed for a frightening range of nefarious uses. They require adaptation, standards, and safety measures. They must be paired with careful critical thinking that draws on important insights from the humanities.
Their impact on society also intersects with long-standing challenges to our collective well-being, ranging from unequal opportunities and climate change to geopolitical conflicts that have already displaced millions, destroying lives and livelihoods. The higher education sector is at the heart of delicate balances that must be struck effectively and sustainably. To thrive, Cambridge must build on the accomplishments that have long defined its distinctiveness. For me, this place – where I am happiest, as my daughters will attest to – teaches you not just what to think but, critically, how to think.
To my mind, it is not only crucial that the university continues to dedicate itself to academic excellence in research and protect its financial agility, but, critically, that it vigorously defends and promotes academic freedom – free speech – as the lifeblood of our intellectual community. Yes, this means listening to people with whom you disagree. Yet, by doing so, we have a better chance of advancing our collective understanding and mutual respect.
Our universities are in a delicate state. They face challenges to free speech and academic freedom from both the left and the right.
Cambridge introduced a new code of conduct last August that protects the speech of visiting speakers. For my part, I chair a Cambridge institution – the Union, which has been devoted to protecting free speech since 1815 – that hosts controversial speakers, encourages difficult debates, and respects the right of individuals to protest. The more one thinks about it, the more free speech is part of the broader effort to level the playing field for the most brilliant minds, regardless of their backgrounds. It is central to ensuring that Cambridge remains a global beacon of enlightenment and thoughtful debate, particularly on the most difficult and contentious issues.
Even a university as distinctive as Cambridge faces new pressures that exacerbate long-standing structural weaknesses. In my many decades here – from being an undergraduate, volunteer, and donor to becoming the chair of Cambridge Union’s Board of Trustees, co-chairing with Sir Harvey McGrath the Collegiate Cambridge Capital Campaign, and elected as head of one of its largest colleges – I’ve observed how the changing face of society can throw up challenges for educational institutions. In this period of intense international conflict and enormous policy-induced volatility, we must ensure that our students are given the space to test out theories and arguments without fear of censorship and crippling financial hardship. The essential principles of academic freedom and free speech cannot be taken for granted.
There are also challenging managerial problems: for example, establishing sustainable funding models is becoming increasingly difficult. A lack of financial agility makes it hard to respond to problems or seize new opportunities, including the increasing interest in coming to the UK on the part of academics and students who had planned to study there. Ultimately, careful management of all these issues – in a way that is both productive but ensures the discord of internal divisions is avoided – is crucial for preserving the transformative power of the university.
Some may regard the Cambridge election as a contest for prestige and ceremony. That is the last thing that this leading university needs in this new era of enormous risks and consequential opportunities. It’s about so much more. To retain its impact and beneficially impact society, our university requires an active and engaged Chancellor committed to academic excellence, financial strength and, of course, academic freedom.
The cult of the farmer’s market
Farmer’s markets are a very cheeky wheeze and we all know it. Their promise – getting back to peasants’ basics of veg yanked from the ground – carries a hefty premium compared to supermarket food, which actual peasants have to buy. Indeed, supermarket food, from veg and fruit to eggs and cheese and bread, is generally two or three times cheaper and tastes just as good.
But it seems that we are already in a world so dystopian that only the rich want – and can afford – soily spinach sold loose on a table. Certainly, the rich will queue for sorrel and strawberries, yoghurt and kimchi, raw milk, chicken and sourdough. Especially the sourdough. Carbs used to be bad, but now the queue outside places such as Lannan in Edinburgh is so long that the bakery has had to employ bouncers to control it.
At the mouth of the Queens Park farmers’ market in north-west London – one of the most Instagrammed north of the river – is Don’t Tell Dad, a sprawling café with sourdough loaves and circular candied hazelnut croissants. These generate queues along the pretty cobbled road that are so off-putting that I will only go when it’s pouring with rain and nobody’s out. The sourdough at Dusty Knuckle in Hackney has to be booked well in advance. Pastry and bread is the treat that leavens the purchase of greens; so very many greens.
My thinking about markets has been shaped by travel. I have realised I hate foreign food markets. I always went because the internet said I had to and because the cosmopolitan middle-class milieu I inhabit has a reverence for local produce that is hard to override, even with cynicism and empty pockets.
The worst of my life were the markets in Sicily and Jerusalem. Palermo left me traumatised; tourists are baited and mocked as they timorously look at this or that vendor’s mound of veg. I came away with some tiny bag of exotic olives for €10 that should have cost €1, feeling a pathetic fool. I have even seen native Italian speakers ripped off in Sicilian markets. Sellers demand that customers speak the dialect or else face bald exploitation. It seems a bad sales strategy. And yet, so slavishly do we want what these scoundrels are selling – or rather what they represent – that it doesn’t seem to do them much harm.
Compared to the incomprehensible shouts of Mediterranean hawkers, the English farmers’ market is, of course, a blessed relief. At least I speak the language and don’t have to conjure the price of a third of a kilo of sardines while a greasy man is shouting at me. There is no shouting, no bargaining and no vernacular. Many of the people at the stalls aren’t even English.
The other great insult of the market, the sheer cost, has lessened over the past few years. Since the cost of living has shot up, the gap between the prices of greenery, eggs and fruit at the farmers’ and the supermarket has narrowed. On my most recent visit to the former, I fell for a rather wilted bunch of coriander for £2 (compared to 90p in Waitrose), and £2 for a small bunch of spinach, but the strawberries – decking every table as far as the eye could see – were quite good value, at two punnets for £5. These velvety strawbs were superior by far to Waitrose’s best organic efforts at £4 (an admittedly slightly heavier punnet).
I have always found the idea of seasonal cooking imprisoning
Then there are the health considerations. As I have got older, and pore over articles and videos about microplastics and forever chemicals, the farmers’ market has a new appeal. If I buy my vegetables in brown paper bags and eat things that haven’t been sprayed too much, perhaps they will be better for me.
I have always found the idea of seasonal cooking imprisoning; surely one of the glories of late modern capitalism is that we have become free of nature’s strictures, and can eat pineapple and avocado and coconuts all year round. Why should I limit myself to courgette and asparagus in spring, tomatoes in August and apples in autumn? Why go gaga over gooseberries for two weeks in June? It’s like going to bed when the sun sets and getting up when it rises. No thank you.
Seasonal veg remains of little interest to me (is there really a difference in taste between a Spanish courgette in January and a Kentish one in May?), but seasonal fruit, I now admit, is delicious, even if it’s of the provincial English type. Once you accept the homegrown tastes of dark red stone-fruit after the exotica that our globalised palates are used to, you can begin to enjoy the fruits, if not the cost, of shopping at the farmers’ market.
Poll: majority of Brits think small boats unstoppable
Summer is here! And you know what gorgeous weather means: more small boats crossing the Channel. Get ready for the great Starmada in the coming weeks, as thousands more migrants prepare to sail the 21 miles from Calais to Dover. The current crisis has been going on since 2018, when Sajid Javid – the-then Home Secretary – felt the need to cut short his holiday after 100 migrants crossed in a 24-hour period. Those were the days…
Now Mr S has got some polling and it seems that the public are accepting these crossings as inevitable. A survey done by Merlin Strategy of 2,000 UK adults between 17 and 18 June shows that 51 per cent of Brits think that the government will never be able to stop the boats – including 7 in 10 Reform 2024 voters. Some two thirds (66 per cent) say the Starmer government does not have control over Britain’s borders while the same figure (67 per cent) believe, correctly, that the number of Channel crossings has increased this year – compared to just seven per cent who think they have dropped.
Unsurpisingly, therefore, seven in ten say the government must do whatever it takes to stop the boats. That UK-France summit cannot come soon enough…
Diane Abbott’s masterful Assisted Dying speech will come back to haunt us
If yours is a sentimental bent, you’ll have been terrifically moved by the spectacle of Jess Phillips MP giving Kim Leadbeater a big hug after the Assisted Dying Bill was passed. Ms Leadbeater has a tendency to look agonised at the best of times. When MPs paid tribute to her in the course of the debate for her compassion, she looked as if she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Now, it’ll be tears of joy – at least for her.
I should right now retract all the unkind things I have ever said about Diane Abbott
Quite how this reaction, and the hugs, can be elicited by a measure which will mean people can be given lethal drugs courtesy of the state is beyond me – because that’s actually what it entails – but you can dignify almost anything in our politics if you designate it as being motivated by compassion.
There was one contribution to the debate which will stay with me. It was made by Dr Neil Hudson, one of those Tory MPs who looks as if he’ll never rouse a rabble; he was in his previous incarnation, a vet. Almost apologetically, he declared that he had been involved in participating in euthanising various animals, large and small, in that job, and while he absolutely wasn’t comparing human beings with animals, he wanted to make the point that the substances and procedures were very similar to those used for humans. ‘The final act,’ he said, ‘doesn’t always go smoothly’. What a vista that conjures up. All very different from the talk in the chamber, which was all about dignity.
Hudson isn’t the first person to make this point. Several months ago, I talked at some length to parliament’s premier palliative care practitioner, Professor Ilora Finlay. Her verdict? Assisted suicide ‘was not a Hollywood death’. Not clean, not quick. Or as she observed, the length it takes actually for the drugs to work – from the experience of those countries which have euthanasia – varies enormously, from under half an hour to over a day.
The debate has glossed over this kind of gritty stuff. In the Lords at least, where the bill goes to next, Finlay will have the chance of pointing out how the thing works in practice. She can also say that the agonising deaths that pro-euthanasia MPs described graphically, as a sort of clincher, during the debate are not necessary with proper palliative care. It took the daughter of a male hospice nurse, Labour’s Lola McEvoy, to point out that this choice, between dying with hospice provision or without it is not universally available. Making assisted suicide a ready option will, she said, ‘deprioritise good palliative care’. Masterly understatement there.
It was, moreover, the odd philosophical basis of Leadbeater’s speech as the bill’s sponsor which was most striking. Passing over her insistence that this bill wouldn’t mean more deaths (yes, Kim, we all know that everyone must die eventually, one way or another), she waxed lyrical about the way some patients could already, all by themselves, without any supervision, opt to have their life support or ventilation turned of. Yet, she suggested, MPs were making a fuss about euthanising people who did have the benefit of a supervisory panel. Look, if we can’t tell the difference between not doing something (like not opting for artificial life support), and actually – and actively – giving someone drugs that would kill them, it’s hard to know how to argue about these things at all.
But the MPs who really undermined the cant about choice were those who talked about coercion. I should right now retract all the unkind things I have ever said about Diane Abbott, Mother of the House. She was brilliant, even though she was panicking a bit when she couldn’t read her speech on her phone (go for paper!). She was utterly convincing when she dismissed witheringly the notion that, in approved cases of assisted suicide, there would have to be no police evidence of coercion. ‘There wouldn’t be!’ she said. ‘In the family the most powerful coercion is silent.’
Abbott went on to observe that ‘if the police can’t spot coercion dealing with domestic violence, why should they spot it in assisted dying?’ Her most powerful point was to look at the assembled parliamentarians and observe that every single one of them was ‘confident in dealing with authority and institutions. But what about choice for all those who all their lives have lacked agency, particularly in a family situation?’
That needed saying. It’s one thing for Esther Rantzen to say that she’ll die in a fashion of her choosing; quite another for some poor put upon individual being made to feel that they’re selfishly taking up other people’s time and money (if we’re sinking to the level of emotional anecdote, my mother, with Parkinson’s, said just that about herself). But it’s the wretched Rantzens who dominate this debate, people who’ve never been pressurised by anyone.
There was another unexpectedly brilliant contribution on coercion, Labour’s Jess Asato, who works with victims of domestic abuse. She declared that coercion was ‘a certainty’ – it would be ‘the most vulnerable people who will experience wrongful death…as a self-perceived burden’. As she pointed out, other family members will only find out about these deaths when it’s too late. She warned that ‘there can be no room for doubt, and no room for error’. Except there will be errors, but who’ll be complaining, and how? On a Ouija board?
It’s been quite the week in parliament for life and death. The vote earlier this week – for Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to allow mothers to abort unborn babies up to birth without criminal sanction – was to do with one end of the life spectrum; the victims being the foetuses who will die. Today’s vote was about the end, rather than the beginning of life. But allowing doctors to give drugs to ill people to bring about their death is a similarly warped notion of choice. It’s been a good week though for the hooded man with the scythe.
‘Grim’ Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying triumph is a bleak day for parliament
The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Phillips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour.
Inside the House of Commons the obviously sham last-minute ‘switcher’ Jack Abbott from the bill committee, as spineless a backbench toady as you ever did see, was there being all chummy with the unparalleled toad Jake Richards. Were they bonding perhaps over their new-found enthusiasm for death? It was Brokeback Mountain meets The Zone of Interest.
Voting began on amendments. A glut of ambitious backbench MPs rejected a safeguard brought forward by a coalition of MPs as diverse as Dame Karen Bradley for the Tories, Jim Allister for the TUV and brave and doughty Labour MPs Rachael Maskell and Jonathan Davies. It was designed to stop people from killing themselves because they felt like a burden.
Then Kim Leadbeater herself spoke. ‘It’s not often that we get to debate morality issues in parliament’, she said; just three days after parliament voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth via a sneakily tacked-on amendment and a few minutes of debate. The leisure centre operative turned supreme arbiter of life and death likes to talk about how she and her bill represent ‘parliament at its best’. The irony being that anyone who truly believes this would fail any reasonable capacity test. The concerns of the key royal colleges of experts, who’d made repeated interventions in opposition to the bill, were shrugged off as ‘different views’.
Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dem MP for Bath complained that some members of the public had suggested that the current crop of MPs were too stupid to discuss an issue of this magnitude. For all their faults sometimes the General Public really do hit the nail on the head. Not only were many demonstrably too stupid to engage properly, some of them couldn’t even be bothered to stay awake.
Certain moments added to the general atmosphere of despair. Jake Richards rolled his eyes and performatively scoffed as Naz Shah explained the bill’s failure to close the anorexia loophole. Labour MP Lewis Atkinson commended the work of the hospice movement in alleviating suffering at the end of life. His praise was treacly, sweet and insincere. Almost diabetes-inducing in its efforts – another disease which will no doubt qualify for state sanctioned death in due time. While scrutinising the bill on the committee, the same Lewis Atkinson also rejected conscience amendments that would have prevented hospices and care homes from being forced to provide assisted dying.
The walking embodiment of the banality of evil, Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor said that voting in favour was a good way to ‘bookend the week’. That’s the level of import MPs gave to this issue of life and death: bump off the weak to bookend your week. Many impassioned MPs never got to speak at all; Rosie Duffield left the chamber in disgust after trying to catch the Deputy Speaker’s eye for several hours, with no success.
There was some debate about whether the Prime Minister – a long term death enthusiast – would turn up to vote. In the end, he did. It was nice of Esther Rantzen to send her own personal proxy.
Bump off the weak to bookend your week
It’s worth naming those Labour MPs who have gone above and beyond in their attempts to make their colleagues see sense. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who worked behind the scenes to try and put down amendments that would safeguard the vulnerable. Jess Asato, who made probably the best and most forensic speech of the debate. Diane Abbott who, despite obvious illness, rose to speak movingly about the risks of compulsion. And Adam Jogee, who left a dying relative’s bedside to come and vote because the bill’s ‘compassionate’ proposer refused to find him a supporter to pair with and so spend the last moments he had with a loved one. Do remember them: they have been principled exceptions to the otherwise disgraceful rule.
Given we are now a culture which embraces and promotes death, perhaps a post-script on political deaths. When the inevitable national inquiry delves into the abuse and shortcomings of this law – which it will – the Labour backbenchers and Tory grandees who made this possible, these back-slapping middle-management Molochs will have their names etched in history as the people who brought this about. They will achieve a sort of immortality; just not as the progressive liberators they vainly imagine themselves to be.
Secondly, while much has been written about the impending death of the Tory party, what seems to have gone unnoticed is the death of Labour as well. What once made claims to be the party of working people, a force in politics on the side of the needy and the vulnerable, has in just under a year become a death cult for comfortable progressives. The tragedy is that they will drag down the very people they purport to protect with them.
Commons passes the assisted dying bill
The House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted dying by a narrow majority of 23. After four and a half hours of debate, MPs this afternoon backed Kim Leadbeater’s bill by 314 votes to 291. That is a marked drop in support from the legislation’s second reading in November, when MPs endorsed it with a majority of 55. The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where peers will scrutinise it.
In the Lords, peers have mixed feelings
Today’s debate was striking for the number of considered speeches made across the House. Diane Abbott spoke for a sizeable chunk of MPs when she said she backed the principle of assisted dying, but was against the specifics of this legislation. Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as a Labour whip last night over proposed welfare cuts, warned of the impact on disabled groups. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, advocates of assisted dying dwelt more on principles than on details. Leadbeater warned of the alternative: of ‘suicide attempts, post-traumatic stress disorder, lonely trips to Switzerland, police investigations’ if her bill had been rejected.
‘The fight continues,’ said one opponent of the legislation after it cleared the Commons. In the Lords, peers have mixed feelings. Some MPs who backed assisted dying are confident that a majority of peers will support the bill. But some, like Tanni Grey-Thompson, have sworn to oppose it. Others are simply infuriated by the prospect of performing a clean-up job for MPs.
Traditionally, peers do not substantively amend Private Members’ Bills. But a piece of legislation that has been chopped and changed repeatedly between second and third reading could require significant amendment between now and its implementation in law.
How did your MP vote on the assisted dying bill?
This afternoon, the assisted dying bill has passed with a majority of 23 votes, with 314 in favour and 291 against. The last few months have seen both heartfelt debate and outbursts of anger expressed from politicians across the Chamber as Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s controversial private members bill made its passage through the Commons.
While the bill has passed today, it hasn’t been plain sailing. A number of legal and medical professionals have been vocal in expressing their concerns about the proposed legislation, while so many amendments were tabled by politicians that not all of them were able to be heard. Leadbeater has been criticised for flip-flopping on how cases would proceed – initially she wanted a high court judge sign-off, but now the bill explains an ‘expert panel’ will approve cases – while palliative care professionals hit out at the bill’s sponsor over ramping up her ‘fear’ rhetoric around death.
Despite all that, the bill has completed its passage through the Commons. Now it’ll be down to the House of Lords to decide whether to kill the bill – or let it receive royal assent and become law. In the meantime, use the table below to find out how your MP voted…
Palestine Action’s RAF vandalism was no protest
Members of an activist group called Palestine Action have broken into the Royal Air Force’s largest base, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and vandalised two Airbus Voyager refuelling aircraft. With breathless self-congratulation, the organisation said its members ‘used electric scooters to swiftly manoeuvre towards the planes’, sprayed red paint into the turbine engines and used crowbars to damage the fuselages of the aircraft. The red paint, of course, is symbolic of Palestinian bloodshed.
If you are wondering why RAF aircraft in Oxfordshire were targeted by a group concerned with events in the Middle East, allow Palestine Action to remove the scales from your eyes:
‘Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets. Britain isn’t just complicit, it’s an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East. By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened to break the chains of oppression.’
Flights leave Brize Norton daily, our heroes explain, to fly to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and ‘from Cyprus, British planes collect intelligence, refuel fighter jets and transport weapons to commit genocide in Gaza.’
What is not legitimate, nor can ever be legitimate, is breaking into a UK military facility and damaging equipment
The Royal Air Force begs to differ on at least some of these assertions. An RAF source told the media that, ‘the UK is not supporting Israeli operations and these aircraft have not been used in support of Israeli forces in any shape or form.’
There is certainly a defence and security aspect to the relationship between the UK and Israel, as set out two years ago in a ‘2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations.’ The armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, stated in a debate in the House of Commons in March that the RAF conducted unarmed surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including Israel and Gaza, ‘solely in support of hostage rescue’. Only intelligence relevant to the rescue of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza – nearly 21 months after the savage pogrom of 7 October 2023 – is shared with Israel.
The UK suspended a range of arms exports to Israel in September last year. However, we continue to contribute components for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning strike aircraft to a global spares pool and the common production line for new aircraft; as Israel is also a partner in the F-35 programme, it is entirely possible that some UK-manufactured parts may be supplied for the Israeli Air Force’s aircraft, but it is not possible for the UK to monitor or prevent that because of the way components are shared.
The claim that the RAF is supporting Israeli operations in Gaza is at best overegged. But it would be a mistake to think that Palestine Action is especially interested in the intricacies of Britain’s operations in the eastern Mediterranean or the precise role of aircraft based at RAF Akrotiri.
Doubtless every member of Palestine Action is deeply grieved by the loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza. But the group makes no pretence of its agenda. Its website refers to its activities being ‘geared towards harnessing the strength of the grassroots and directing it towards bringing down Israel.’
It has focused its attention on the Israeli technology and defence contractor Elbit Systems Ltd, the business model of which, the group claims, ‘relies on the destruction of Palestine and the genocide of it’s [sic] population’. It moves into a full lower-sixth activism fury register when it continues that Elbit ‘use Palestinians as test subjects, before selling these technologies on to fuel imperialism and colonialism elsewhere.’
For Palestine Action, Elbit is a proxy for Israel, and the group makes little effort to hide that conflation. That is their right: we live in a free and open society and it is legitimate for a campaign group to oppose a foreign state (though the logic of that can carry people to some dark places). It is also legitimate for members of that group to pursue peaceful protest.
What is not legitimate, nor can ever be legitimate, is breaking into a UK military facility and damaging equipment. It is, of course, against the law and it is to be hoped that Thames Valley Police catch, charge and prosecute those responsible for the vandalism at Brize Norton.
It goes further than that, though. However much members of Palestine Action think they know about RAF operations in the Mediterranean, they have attempted –seemingly without a great deal of success – to reduce the operational capability of the armed forces. The RAF has 14 Voyager refuelling aircraft: Palestine Action vandalised two of them. Those aircraft could be required to support UK operations anywhere in the world, at any time. Anti-Israel activists cannot damage them in relation to activities in the Mediterranean without potential consequences for the whole force.
Protest is a desperately precious right, more now than ever. Palestine Action crossed a very clear line in order deliberately to weaken the capacity of British armed forces. There is a word for that, and it is not ‘protest’. Catch them, find the heaviest book, and throw it at them.
Has the Islamophobia ‘Working Group’ already made up its mind?
Sir John Jenkins was invited by the Government-appointed ‘Working Group’ to offer his views on a proposed definition of ‘Islamophobia’. Here is his response to Dominic Grieve, the Group’s chair:
Dear Dominic Grieve,
It is kind of you to seek my views on ‘whether a definition [of Islamophobia] would be helpful‘. I have some fundamental reservations about both the process you are overseeing and its likely trajectory. I owe you the courtesy of explaining what these are. I remain unconvinced that anything I might say would make a difference to the Working Group on Anti Muslim Hatred/ Islamophobia Definition’s deliberations. But I am always open to being persuaded otherwise.
The charge of special treatment may in fact increase hostility towards Muslims, not reduce it
First, with regard to process: the creation of the Working Group was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner on 28 February and given a six-month timeframe in which to deliver a report. We are now over half-way through that period and very little information about the work of the Group has entered the public domain. I note that the Terms of Reference (TORs) specify that all discussions will be strictly confidential. On a matter of such public policy significance, this is highly unusual. As matters stand, the absence of transparency is bound to raise serious questions about accountability. This must surely damage the credibility of its conclusions.
Second, the precise nature of the Working Group is unclear to me. The TORs talk about ‘technical experts‘. But the question of ‘Islamophobia’ is both heavily contested and subjective. In every definition I have seen – including that of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, to whose 2019 report you contributed an introduction – it is treated as a matter of ‘lived experience’. You described it as such yourself in February. I do not understand how anyone can be a “technical expert” on such experiential matters. What is needed instead is surely expertise in European law and jurisprudence (which must be the operational framework for such issues), Islamic jurisprudence (which is highly complex and varied but provides a context for some of the more extravagant claims in this area), the philosophy of liberty and the history of both western and Islamic political thought – plus a healthily sceptical attitude to critical theory and an intellectually rigorous approach to both social constructivism and what Marxists used to call ‘reification’.
I should also have thought that the membership of such a group would need to be diverse, representing different viewpoints, normative commitments and experiences. After all, if the government were to adopt a definition of Islamophobia, it would affect everyone in the country, of whatever ethnicity, faith or political persuasion. The Group’s TORs go some way to recognising this – as indeed did the APPG Report. Yet every single member – apart from you – appears to be Muslim. Muslims, of course, have an entirely understandable interest in the matter: but so does everyone else.
Against that background, I am concerned that the Working Group may have begun its work with its conclusions pre-determined. The TORs make clear that its objective is ‘to develop a working definition‘ not to decide whether to have one or not. As you will know from my own publicly stated position on this issue, I believe that the case for accepting this – as a first principle – is far from proven. This is, of course, a commonly held view not just in this country but across Europe and across political divides. Yet it seems that the Working Group has, without argument, decided otherwise.
That it has done so would seem to be in keeping with what I understand to be your own public position. The 2019 APPG Report claimed a definition of Islamophobia was needed to prevent ‘negative attitudes that would not be classed as crimes by police’ and to set ‘appropriate limits to free speech‘ when talking about Muslims. Throughout the report there are frequent suggestions that this would need to be ‘legally-binding‘. Akeela Ahmed, a member of the current Working Group, is actually quoted as saying that ‘a definition with legal power is required, one that could be implemented by the government and the police.’ Even if the definition were not legally binding, it would still probably operate in much the same way. In the supportive foreword which you wrote, you ‘greatly welcome[d]’ the report and added, ‘that action is needed I have no doubt.’
Then there is the question of how you believe my own views would help shape the current debate. As you will remember, when I and my colleagues at Policy Exchange contested the conclusions of the APPG at the time, you publicly described our report as in large part ‘total, unadulterated rubbish.‘ I have not changed my views on this matter. I daresay the same is true of you.
Against that backdrop, it is hard not to wonder whether the real purpose of the Group’s approach to me is not so much because they welcome challenge but instead to help legitimise a pre-ordained conclusion, by claiming that they consulted those on all sides of the debate – before proposing a definition which they then seek to present as a compromise.
As I have said, my position is a matter of public record, but I am happy to restate it here. Hatred of and discrimination against Muslims are emphatically wrong – but are already illegal. It therefore remains unclear to me exactly what the definitional, policy or legal problem might be that a new, government sponsored definition of Islamophobia is trying to address. What then is its purpose?
The government has periodically insisted that it will be ‘non-statutory‘ and will maintain freedom of speech. The current TORs for your Working Group make the same claim. But they also explicitly talk about determining the ‘appropriate and sensitive language‘ for discussing issues in this space. And the aim of many of the activists who seek such a definition is clearly to achieve legal enforceability.
Whether a definition is legally binding or not, of course, the impact is clear. You will recall that Sir Trevor Phillips (whom I note you have also invited to speak to the Working Group) was suspended from the Labour Party in 2020 for ‘Islamophobia’. The suspension was both absurd and later lifted. But it illustrates the problem.
I do not understand how anyone can be a “technical expert” on such experiential matters
Whatever form of words is chosen, and whatever legal status it has to start with, any definition will have serious consequences. It will almost certainly turbocharge ‘cancel culture’. Indeed, I have heard it described as potentially the most retrograde step in this country since Sir Robert Walpole’s government in 1737 granted the Lord Chamberlain’s office powers to licence theatrical scripts. And it will inevitably reduce social trust and heighten social tensions. In this regard, the debate over whether a definition would be legally binding is something of a red herring. Its effect would inevitably be to shrink even further the space for open debate.
Moreover, this initiative comes at a time when the government is at pains to rebut the charge – not just in this country but from the Trump administration – that it operates a ‘two-tier’ policy in various areas. But unless it literally restates the existing legal protections covering all faiths, any official Islamophobia definition will be an undeniable act of two-tier policy, creating special status and protection for members of one faith alone.
The charge of special treatment may in fact increase hostility towards Muslims, not reduce it. It will certainly strengthen divisive extremism on all sides – not just from the populist right, but also the growing Islamist challenge to mainstream parties. That, too, is likely to harm both community cohesion and Muslims more generally.
It is unlikely to alleviate Islamist discontent – it will stoke it, creating new opportunities for grievance politics, challenge and attack in every institution and workplace. Even without the force of an official definition, claims of Islamophobia are already used to close down legitimate debate and deter investigation of alleged wrongdoing, as in Rotherham or Batley, with disastrous results all round, including for the wider Muslim community itself.
I have little confidence that the Working Group will approach these questions with an open mind. As I said at the beginning of this letter, I should be happy to be proved wrong on both points.
Yours sincerely,
Sir John Jenkins
Senior Fellow, Policy Exchange
How Not to Tackle Grooming Gangs: The National Grooming Gang Inquiry and a Definition of Islamophobia is published today
The assisted dying debate is not ‘Parliament at its best’
MPs are coming to the end of the assisted dying debate. The speeches can be roughly divided into the following camps: those who, like the Bill’s sponsor Kim Leadbeater, are very much in favour of the Bill and confident in its drafting; those who are in favour of the principle of assisted dying but who are so concerned about the drafting of the Bill that they are opposed to it; and the implacable opponents to the principle.
The speeches from the latter two camps largely focused on the argument that today’s vote is not about the principle of assisted dying but about the Bill as it stands. The proponents of the legislation, though, have largely focused on the need to back assisted dying as a principle. Leadbeater argued in her speech that if the Commons did not vote for the Bill today, then MPs would be leaving more people to die without dignity. She said:
I say to colleagues who are supportive of a change in the law but are hesitant about whether now is the time, that if we do not vote for a change in the law today, we will have many more years of heartbreaking stories from terminally ill people and their families, of pain and trauma… There will be stories of suicide attempts, post traumatic stress disorder, lonely trips to Switzerland, police investigations and everything else we have all heard of in recent months.
Leadbeater was followed by James Cleverly, who argued ‘about the practicalities of the Bill’, but did also point to the way the legislation would change ‘the relationship between medial professionals and those they serve.’ He also highlighted that while most professional bodies in the medical world are ‘neutral on the topic of assisted dying’, they were ‘opposed to the provisions within this Bill in particular’.
Cleverly, like many other opponents, argued that MPs needed to do their job properly in scrutinising this particular Bill rather than campaigning for a principle. That argument was made with even greater force by a furious Sarah Olney, one of the Lib Dems opposed to the Bill. She told the Chamber that MPs should not act like activists pushing for a cause but as legislators, which is what they had been elected to do.
One of the best speeches against came from Diane Abbott, who started by saying she was in favour of assisted dying, but then spoke powerfully against the Bill, saying:
I have heard talk today of the injustices of the current situation. What could be more unjust than someone losing their life because of poorly drafted legislation?
She spoke of coercion and of the vulnerability of someone who ‘all their life has lacked agency’ and has not, like MPs, ‘been confident in dealing with authority and institutions’.
Vicky Foxcroft gave her first speech on the backbenches since resigning last night. She said she based her opposition to the Bill on her experience as shadow minister for disabled people, where she found that most disabled people and almost all the organisations representing them were opposed to and in fear of assisted dying. She had voted for the previous attempt to introduce assisted dying in 2015, but would be voting against today.
Peter Prinsley spoke from his experience as a doctor, saying he had started his medical career opposed to assisted dying, but what he had seen in his professional practice had changed his mind about the need to give people dignity and choice over the end of their lives. Other supporters of the Bill spoke of constituents and family members who had desperately wanted that dignity.
The margin of the result will be narrow, which will create problems if the Bill does pass. The speeches today have largely been considered and well-argued, though far too many MPs have congratulated themselves with the dreadful phrase: ‘Parliament at its best’. Perhaps they have reached that conclusion because MPs have mostly been polite to one another – which stands in contrast to some of the very ill-tempered debates over the past decade, particularly around Brexit. But this is not an example of Parliament at its best on legislating, which is after all its primary role, rather than a forum for people to parade their politeness.
Will Emily Maitlis now apologise to Rupert Lowe?
The News Agents podcasters appear increasingly less focused on facts and more on taking a pop at people who hold different views to them. Ex-Reform man Rupert Lowe was a recent casualty. He was invited onto the podcast to speak to Maitlis – who wasted no time in tearing into him, going so far as to suggest the independent parliamentarian was ‘racist’ after he spoke about Pakistani grooming gangs. But after the publication of Baroness Casey’s review this week, it would appear Maitlis is due a rather large slice of humble pie…
On the episode, Maitlis asked Lowe quizzically: ‘Why do you only talk about Pakistani grooming gangs? There are ten times as many white grooming gang suspects.’ She then added: ‘You are focusing on Pakistani grooming gangs because, probably, you’re racist.’ Er, right.
Mr S wonders what exactly Maitlis made of Casey’s review this week, then. It suggests that, where ethnicity data was logged (in around a third of the cases of group-based child sexual exploitation) there was an overrepresentation of Asian and Pakistani men. And, as Mr S has written before, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population, according to figures from the Hydrant Programme, which investigates child sex abuse. Around one in 73 Muslim men over 16 have been prosecuted for ‘group-localised child sexual exploitation’ in Rotherham, research by academics from the universities of Reading and Chichester has revealed. How very interesting…
So will Maitlis now apologise to Lowe over her attack? Don’t hold your breath…
Ewing snubs SNP ahead of Holyrood election
With less than 11 months to go until the Holyrood election, things aren’t looking quite as rosy for the SNP as in previous elections. The party is 15 points down on where it was 2021, it lost the recent Hamilton by-election with Reform hot on its heels and now it has been dealt another blow. SNP veteran Fergus Ewing has confirmed that he will run as an independent at the 2026 Scottish parliament election, turning his back on a political institution he has represented in Holyrood for over a quarter of a century. It’s quite the move from a politician who grew up as SNP royalty, being the son of the party’s first female MP Winnie Ewing. His mother’s victory in the 1967 Hamilton by-election signalled a breakthrough for Scottish nationalists; Ewing’s departure from the party may indicate a rather different kind of pivot.
Ewing has represented the constituents of Inverness and Nairn since 1999 but in March this year said he would not stand for the SNP in 2026. Today he confirmed that he will still pursue a career in frontline politics, but this time he will stand against the party he grew up in. The SNP is ‘no longer the party for all of Scotland’, the 67-year-old lamented. He accused Scotland’s party of government for having ‘deserted many of the people whose causes we used to champion’ and added: ‘I believe the SNP has lost its way and that devolution itself – presently – is letting Scotland’s people down. Holyrood is more fractious and tribal than ever before.’
The MSP has been an ardent critic of the nationalists in recent years, with Nicola Sturgeon’s Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens a catalyst for his public disowning of the SNP. Vocal on issues including growth, infrastructure, women’s rights and rural issues, much of what what the Greens stood for – with their relaxed attitude to growth, being avidly in favour of highly-protected marine areas at the expense of highland and island communities and backing gender reform – was anathema to Ewing. Indeed the writing has long been on the wall. Last April, in an interview with the The Spectator, he insisted his ‘absolute red line’ for his membership of the SNP was the dualling of the A9 and A96 in the north of Scotland. This project – which the SNP began planning for almost 20 years ago – has still not been completed.
Ewing was a frequent disrupter during Humza Yousaf’s premiership – and eventually got himself suspended after he voted against the government during a no-confidence vote in then-junior minister and Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater. Not that Ewing is in any way embarrassed by the scraps he has found himself in with his own party over the years. ‘I think democracy needs an awkward squad,’ he told The Spectator. ‘I won on the DRS [Deposit Return Scheme], I won on HPMAs [Highly Protected Marine Areas], I won on heat pumps, I won on gender reforms – although people like Joanna Cherry were leading the running. And I’ve won on getting the Greens out of government.’
And the Nairn MSP has never been shy about his disapproval of the progressive direction the SNP has moved in recent years. He sums up his approach to politics: ‘Am I an Inverness man in Holyrood? Or am I an SNP apologist in Inverness?’ He backed now-deputy FM Kate Forbes for the leadership as an admirer of her own religious background and socially conservative views. In the days when pro-independence party Alba was a little more vocal, Ewing suggested that it was only Forbes who would be able to heal the wounds of the Yes movement, and bring pro-indy supporters back into the fold. Perhaps – if he’s successful next year – Forbes will ensure he’s not entirely excluded from the fold. Of course this depends firstly on whether Ewing’s bid is successful. It’s hard to run and win as an independent candidate – although famously Margo McDonald proved it could be done after the SNP. And after winning his constituents’ trust in every single Holyrood election since the creation of the Scottish parliament, Ewing might just manage it.
Trump’s two-week delay will unsettle Iran
In a statement relayed by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the White House declared that President Donald Trump would decide ‘within the next two weeks’ whether to join Israel’s air campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities. In isolation, it might seem a routine delay – an effort to keep diplomatic channels open, to stage manage an American entry into the conflict or even to row back on Trump’s previous gung-ho position. But by now we should all be attuned to Trump’s history and methods, and appreciate that this declaration could in fact carry a more intricate calculus. Beneath its surface lies a lattice of strategic ambiguity, political choreography and psychological pressure. With this single phrase, deliberately delivered by a spokesperson not by the President himself, Trump has once again defied expectations, introduced a calibrated uncertainty, and blurred the lines between bluff, intention and inevitability.
While Trump claims the United States is watching and waiting, Israeli fighter jets are dismantling Iran’s military-industrial complex with breathtaking speed
The phrase itself – ‘within the next two weeks’ – is familiar terrain. Trump has employed it repeatedly during his political career to imply imminent action without ever committing to it. As Senator Chris Murphy acidly observed, ‘He’s used it a million times before to pretend he might be doing something he’s not.’ But this very elasticity is the point. Trump’s rhetorical timeline is not a promise – it is a tool. Far from making ‘America look weak and silly’ as Murphy says, the deliberate vagueness allows Trump to keep adversaries off balance, generate psychological stress and maintain operational flexibility. It creates space in which pressure can build, without necessarily triggering immediate confrontation.
The Islamic regime in Iran, which has long relied on delay and obfuscation in their own diplomatic strategy, now find themselves on the receiving end of a similar approach. While Trump claims the United States is watching and waiting, Israeli fighter jets are dismantling Iran’s military-industrial complex with breathtaking speed. Over the past 48 hours, more than 60 aircraft struck dozens of high-value targets, including missile production centres near Tehran, the headquarters of its Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research, long associated with nuclear weapons, and facilities essential to uranium enrichment. Senior regime figures have been eliminated with precision. Drones have been intercepted in flight. The tempo of the campaign suggests that Israel has already exceeded the upper bound of its own expectations. With this level of success, achieved at such speed, the longer Trump allows Israel to continue fighting at full capacity, the less leverage Iran retains in any potential negotiations taking place with European powers. Even a few additional days of unrestrained Israeli strikes further weaken Tehran’s position, advancing American strategic aims without requiring the United States to commit forces or incur direct costs.
This sudden asymmetry presents Trump with options. He can plausibly continue to hold American forces in reserve while Israel degrades Iran’s capabilities alone. He can lend further support covertly – transferring weapons, sharing intelligence, even facilitating the use of specialised aircraft or munitions – without formally entering the war. Or, when the time is judged ripe, he can intervene with overwhelming force and finality, claiming both restraint and resolution. The ambiguity he sustains is not indecision. It is a deliberate orchestration of multiple outcomes, all held in suspension.
Critically, the delay may also serve to intensify internal pressures within Iran. Thus far, the regime has endured assassinations, infrastructure losses and military humiliation without triggering the kind of elite fragmentation or popular protest that could threaten its cohesion. Yet the potential for rupture grows daily. Iran’s history shows that while popular discontent is chronic, meaningful protest – organised, sustained, regime-threatening – is rare but not impossible. Khamenei may believe he can ride out public anger, but the longer the campaign continues, the more that calculation is tested. Trump’s two-week pause may be, in part, a space granted for these internal dynamics to mature, either toward renewed negotiation, or toward structural weakness.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, for his part, projects a posture of defiant dignity, insisting the US approached the Iranian regime to negotiate and they refused. He is expected to meet with the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Britain in Geneva later today. But Araghchi insisted that ‘under current circumstances, and while the Zionist regime’s aggression continues, we are not seeking negotiations with anyone.’ For the Islamic regime, image is paramount. Ego frequently overrides rational strategy. Yet the refusal to show weakness is not simply ideological, it is geopolitical. Tehran fears that any admission of vulnerability would reverberate across the region, weakening its proxies even further and emboldening its enemies. It must project strength, even as that illusion becomes harder to sustain.
There is a deeper irony, too. For decades, Iran has perfected the art of proxy warfare – arming militias, striking from the shadows, disclaiming responsibility. Now it is Trump who is adopting the same mask. While Israel prosecutes the war, the US disclaims formal involvement, speaks of diplomacy, and keeps its options open, even stretching the window of opportunity further, as if to show every option was exhausted before the military one. This is not accidental. It is a mirror held up to Tehran: ambiguity for ambiguity, deniability for deniability, escalation without fingerprints.
Of course, there remains the possibility that Trump has already made the decision to strike. The two-week timeline may be another layer of misdirection, a final bluff before action. By appearing to postpone military involvement, he may be preserving a sliver of surprise, enough perhaps to disorient the already weakened Iranian defences before a sudden American entry. Alternatively, though less likely, the US may enable Israel to deliver the final blows using American materiel and planes, while Washington maintains the fiction of distance, pleasing the isolationist wing of Trump’s own party.
Yet a different risk lingers. In mirroring Iran’s tactics of delay and obfuscation, Trump may find himself entangled in the very dynamic he seeks to exploit. Tehran has spent decades perfecting the art of dragging out negotiations – talks with Europe, talks without Europe, rounds in Geneva, in Oman, in Vienna – each encounter buying time, deflecting pressure, restoring control. The regime knows this terrain intimately. It uses negotiations not to yield but to endure: to rearm, to suppress dissent and to live another day in service of its apocalyptic vision of regional domination. Trump’s ambiguity may unsettle Iran, but it may also give them room to recalibrate, stall, and reassert.
For Iran, the message is simple: time may yet be short, and the man who claims to be waiting may already have moved.
Has Putin pushed the Russian economy to its limits?
The remarkable resurgence the Russian economy has experienced since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is losing momentum. Where once Putin could boast about 4.3 per cent growth rates for two years in a row – thumbing his nose at Western sanctions with all the aplomb of a man who’d discovered alchemy – the numbers now tell a somewhat different story. The party, as they say, is over – and the time to crank up sanctions against Moscow has come.
For two years running, Putin’s propagandists have crowed about Russia’s economic vitality as proof that Western sanctions were about as effective as a chocolate teapot. The economy’s steroid-fuelled growth, pumped up by hefty fiscal spending, facilitated the steepest rise in household incomes for nearly two decades. It pushed production and labour capabilities to the limit and propelled inflation into double digits, which the Central Bank tried to tame with a historically high record base rate.
One thing the Kremlin certainly won’t do is introduce austerity
Now, though, the overheating Russian economy is finally starting to cool down. In the first quarter of this year, GDP growth crawled to a relatively anaemic 1.4 per cent year on year – the weakest performance in more than two years. Compared to the previous quarter, business activity between January and March contracted by 1.2 per cent, and all indicators suggest further decline lies ahead.
Even the manufacturing sector, which had been recording double-digit growth with the enthusiasm of a Soviet five-year plan, has slumped to a mere 3 per cent growth in April – its lowest ebb since March 2023 – and to 2 per cent growth year-on-year in May. This is particularly telling, since manufacturing encompasses everything from the tanks to the boots which Putin’s war machine devours.
The buyer – the Russian state – hasn’t stopped spending. Indeed, government expenditure remains higher than pre-invasion levels, with roughly half of the additional spending in the first quarter channelled toward military purposes. Yet warning signs in the budget are beginning to flash.
May’s fiscal deficit increased by 200 billion roubles (£1.9 billion) since the start of the year, reaching 3.4 trillion roubles (£32.2 billion) – some 1.5 per cent of GDP. Amid declining global oil prices, hydrocarbon revenues – a perennial Russian crutch – have tumbled 14.4 per cent in the first five months of the year, with May alone witnessing a precipitous 35 per cent decline.
The government can finance the shortage in oil revenues through its rainy day fund, the so-called National Welfare Fund. This fund, designed to mitigate any decline in oil revenue, contains the cash equivalent to 1.3 per cent of GDP. This amount is set to increase by a further third in the coming months due to additional revenue from last year which has yet to be transferred.
This buffer may last a year, slightly longer, depending on oil prices and the Kremlin’s continued appetite for spending. However, the danger to the fiscal balance is not limited to oil prices. With economic activity slowing, the budget will receive less tax revenue from sales and corporate profits. The government’s initial budget deficit target for 2025, set at 0.5 per cent, has been revised to 1.7 per cent, still relatively low compared to that of, say, the UK. As such, to finance the deficit, the government can borrow domestically, albeit at a high interest rate.
One thing the Kremlin certainly won’t do is introduce austerity. Instead of prudent belt-tightening, something far more ominous will follow: the inexorable militarisation of the Russian economy. Even if the war in Ukraine were to end tomorrow – a prospect about as likely as Putin taking up flower arranging – Russia’s militarisation would continue apace. The army would need to replenish its depleted arsenal, and Moscow’s economic planners have also convinced themselves that weapons manufacturing represents the golden path to prosperity.
With demand for military goods remaining robust while overall output contracts, the arithmetic is brutally simple: the defence industry’s share of the economy will grow by default. Combined with Putin’s apocalyptic worldview and his circle’s conviction that Russia faces an existential threat, this suggests a rather grim future for anything resembling a normal economy. It’s a pattern hauntingly reminiscent of the 1980s, when the Soviet Union’s economic decline coincided with an inability to reduce military spending. We all know how that particular experiment ended.
This is where the effect of sanctions may become more visible. A tightening of restrictions on Russian oil and other exports would increase the cost of Russian oil sales, enabling its buyers, notably China, to negotiate a wider discount. A faster depletion of the National Welfare Fund, which is also used to smooth the volatility of the rouble, would make exchange rate swings even less predictable.
A more rigorous sanctions regime against technological imports and the banking system would increase prices, reduce productivity and dent corporate profits, thus putting more pressure on the budget and inflation. Smart moves to encourage capital outflow and brain drain would damage the labour market and investments, also pushing inflation up.
Just as in the Soviet era, it is during such times of hardship that outside economic pressure would have a more visible effect. The Russian economy is exhausting its two-year-long fever dream, built on public spending and a mortgaged future. Those with the power to engineer further sanctions against Moscow should sharpen their economic weapons and strike Putin’s economy while it’s weak.
Four wagers for the last two days of Royal Ascot
My main fancies for Royal Ascot this year have all run in the first three days and the final two days look a lot harder to me in terms of finding good wagers. Winning money from the bookmakers is hard, giving it back to them is easy. I am therefore going to approach today and tomorrow with caution and have fewer bets.
In today’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup (3.05 p.m.) over six furlongs, Shadow of Light and Jonquil have been heavily backed as both horses drop back in trip from a mile. The former was third in the Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, while the latter was second in the equivalent French race at Longchamp.
Both horses clearly have strong form but I prefer to side with a proven sprinter in the shape of BABOUCHE, who has winning Group 1 form from Ireland last year and who was impressive last time out at Naas when winning a Group 3 contest, beating the odds-on Whistlejacket very comfortably.
I hope this three-year-old filly can continue to improve for the Ger Lyons/Coline Keane trainer/jockey combination and I would be surprised if she is out of the frame today. Back her 1 point each way at 4-1 with bet365 or SkyBet, both paying a generous five places (she is 9-2 elsewhere paying one place less).
Trainer Emma Lavelle is best known for her exploits over jumps but when she turns her hand to the flat her runners are always worth a second look. Silver Ghost is an improving horse and must have a chance of landing today’s Sandringham Stakes (5 p.m.) at Royal Ascot. However, the handicapper has raised Silver Ghost 8lbs for her comfortable win at Goodwood last time out and that may prevent her from landing her hat-trick.
Twenty-five three-year-old fillies are due to line up for this one-mile contest which is worth more than £56,000 to the winner and I am going to side with Ed Bethell’s unusually named OOLONG POOBONG, who won with plenty in hand at Haydock last time out over seven furlongs. Jockey Connor Beasley keeps the ride today and the extra furlong should be within his mount’s reach. Back Oolong Poobong 1 point each way at 11-1 with Betfred, Paddy Power, Betfair and Unibet, all offering six places.
At a much bigger price in the same race, I am going to take a chance on Owen Burrows’ second string SEA POETRY, who is lightly raced and open to improvement. She would ideally want the going softer than it is today having won on her racecourse debut at Newmarket last year with cut in the ground. She has been second in both starts since.
However, at big odds, I am prepared to take the risk on her being able to handle this quick ground and so the suggestion is 1 point each way at 50-1 with bet365, paying six places. Odds of 10-1 that he will reach the first six seem more than fair, although her draw in stall 9 may not be ideal.
I have already put up Elite Status each way at 25-1 for tomorrow’s Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (3.40 p.m.) but I was hoping this race would cut up more than it has. Furthermore, trainer Karl Burke’s horse have not been in sparkling form this week but the bet is on so let’s hope for the best.
However, I now want to go into this race double-handed in this race with the six-year-old French raider TOPGEAR for the Christopher Head/Stephane Pasquier trainer/jockey combination.
This six-year-old is on a four-timer tomorrow after comfortably winning on his seasonal debut, a Grade 3 contest at Longchamp over seven furlongs. This stiff six furlongs at Ascot should be ideal for him and, although most of his best form is with cut in the going, his handler insists his horse is versatile ground-wise. Back him a point each way at 7-1 with SkyBet, offering five places rather than at 8-1, less places, with other firms.
That’s it for a week of tipping at this glorious event. As usual with betting every day at these big meetings, there have been plenty of highs and lows but fortunately more of the former than the latter, with three decent-priced winners and some other placed horses at big odds too.
I am pleased to say that my tips this week will have shown a healthy profit overall even if these five wagers for today and tomorrow, including the one from last Friday, all bomb (and hopefully that will not happen). Thanks for those who have shared their views and expertise this week in the comment section – keep those thoughts coming please. I will be back again as usual next Friday.
Yesterday: + 12.6 points.
2 points win Parole d’Oro at 10-1 for the Britannia. Unplaced. – 2 points.
1 point each way Afentiko at 25-1 for the Britannia, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places. Unplaced. – 2 points.
1 point each way Trawlerman at 8-1 for the Ascot Gold Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 3 places. 1st + 9.6 points.
1 point each way Yorkshire at 40-1 for the Buckingham Palace, paying 1/5th odds, 6 places. 6th. + 7 points.
Pending:
1 point each way Babouche at 4-1 in the Commonwealth Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places.
1 point each way Oolong Poobong at 11-1 for the Sandringham, paying 1/5th odds, 6 places.
1 point each way Sea Poetry at 50-1 for the Sandringham, paying 1/5th odds, 6 places.
1 point each way Elite Status at 25-1 for the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee, paying 1/5th odds, 3 places.
1 point each Topgear at 7-1 for the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places.
1 point each way Duke of Oxford at 33-1 for the Northumberland Plate, paying 1/4 odds, 4 places.
1 point each way Who’s Glen at 16-1 for the Northumberland Plate, paying 1/4 odds, 4 places.
2 points win Caballo de Mer at 10-1 for the Northumberland Plate.
2025 flat season running total: + 44.86 points.
2024-5 jump season: – 47.61 points.
2024 flat season: + 41.4 points on all tips.
2023-4 jump season: + 42.01 points on all tips.
2023 flat season: – 48.22 points on all tips.
2022-3 jump season: + 54.3 points on all tips.
We finally know what an ancient species of human looked like
It’s said that were you to meet a suited and well-coiffured male Neanderthal on the train, you’d easily mistake him for a fellow commuter. Face-to-face with Dragon man, however, you’d be forgiven for changing carriages. His head has been described as massive and his teeth enormous, and you could prop a book on his brow ridges. His brain was as big as a modern human’s – but a different shape. New research links him to a handful of bone fragments dubbed ‘Denisovan’, an elusive East Asian being. Dragon man has finally put a face on the last of three human species that co-existed for many thousands of years – the others being Neanderthals, and us.
Dragon man has finally put a face on the last of three human species that co-existed for many thousands of years – the others being Neanderthals, and us
The breakthrough is due to cutting-edge science and two, largely Chinese, teams, analysing DNA and proteins. But like all good fossils, Dragon man has a curious backstory. It begins in 1933, when north-east China was under Japanese occupation. An unnamed labourer, it’s said, found a skull when working on a bridge near Harbin City. Perhaps aware of the great interest shown in Peking man, whose fossil remains had only recently been found, he took the traditional Chinese route and hid his treasure down an abandoned well. There it stayed until shortly before his death, when his family learned of it. Word got out, and in 2018 Qiang Ji, professor of palaeontology at Hebei GEO University, persuaded the owners to donate the skull to his institution’s geoscience museum.
The skull’s secret hiding place might have saved it from disappearing into the black market for fossils and antiquities. Whatever really happened, it was exceptionally well preserved and obviously ancient: but almost nothing else was known about it. The immediate questions were: where was it found, and how old was it? With studies comparing its chemistry to geological layers and to other fossils of known age, scientists were able to confirm that it probably had come from the area of the Harbin bridge, where locals have long collected animal fossils thrown up by underwater sand-mining. Uranium isotope dating pointed to an age of at least 146,000 years – contemporary with Neanderthals.
At the same time, starting in 2010 with no more than a tooth and a finger bone excavated in a Siberian cave called Denisova, scientists had identified a new type of human. Further finds across East Asia have since included pieces of a rib and two jaws, and a few teeth and undistinguishable scraps. When the Harbin skull was announced, some scientists inevitably wondered if it too might be Denisovan, but there was no evidence to back the idea. One of the teams studying it suggested it could be yet another species, which they named Homo longi – after Long Jiang, or Dragon River.
The condition of the Harbin skull is so good, linking it to any known group of early humans would be a great advance. The new studies claim to have proved such a link – with Denisovans. In one study, lead author Qiaomei Fu and colleagues report that they were unable to find any surviving DNA in the skull. They had more luck with calculus (fossil dental plaque) on the skull’s one tooth, recovering mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from what they say is Dragon man himself. This most closely matches known Denisovan mtDNA.
In the other study, Fu led a different team applying proteomics – analysing ancient proteins, which offer less detail than DNA, but can survive from a greater age. Here again they found a match unique to Denisovans. All three approaches – skull shape, mtDNA and proteins – point to the existence of three human groups existing at this time. The evolutionary relationships between them remains unclear, but they are known to have mated with each other: modern Europeans have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, and people in South-East Asia, Aboriginal Australia and Pacific islands retain a little DNA from Denisovans.
The quest to understand what these three ancient species looked like and how they behaved – early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans, or what some are now saying we must call Homo longi – is quite literally a journey into our identity. Knowing where the Harbin skull fits in will inspire a rush of new research. Some will dispute the claimed Denisovan matches: they look pretty convincing to me, but it must be admitted that the sciences are entering new ground.
On that count, the apparent success of the proteomics and of extracting relevant mtDNA from calculus will spur others to apply the techniques to already known Asian fossils (including skulls), several of which have been suspected as Denisovan. It should also lead to more excavation, the only route to insights into these humans’ lives. Dragon man may look scary, but his face at the top of funding proposals could work wonders.
Has Ursula von der Leyen seen the light on China?
Coming from an American politician, the accusations would have been unsurprising. Beijing is unwilling to ‘live within the constraints of the rules-based international system’ and its trade policy is one of ‘distortion with intent’. It splashes subsidies with abandon, undercuts intellectual property protections, and as for China’s membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), that was probably a mistake too.
It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders’ summit
Yet this tirade came not from an acolyte of Donald Trump, but from Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission during this week’s summit of G7 countries in Kananaskis, Alberta. ‘Donald is right,’ she said during a roundtable. Could there have been something in that Rocky Mountain water? Or was this all a devilish ploy to curry favour with Trump and thereby secure a favourable trade deal with the US? After all, it will not have gone unnoticed in Brussels that the US-UK trade pact contained security and other provisions clearly aimed at excluding China from sensitive supply chains and cutting edge tech.
But it wasn’t only her words. The EU has also scrapped a key economic meeting with Beijing, which was to have been held ahead of an EU-China leaders’ summit in the Chinese capital next month, citing a lack of progress on numerous trade disputes. It recently restricted Chinese medical device manufacturers from access to the EU’s vast public procurement market, launched an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese tires and wind turbines and refused Beijing’s demands to remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
The truth is that Brussels has lost patience with China, and the famous EU fudge is (at least for now) being jettisoned for a far more robust approach to what EU officials see as China’s serial rule-breaking. Beijing’s recent restrictions on the export of critical minerals, which threatened to bring the continent’s motor industry to its knees, have been a painful reminder of the EU’s dangerous dependencies and Beijing’s willingness to weaponise its supply chains.
The EU’s trade investigations are being carried out under a new Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which unusually for the rather pedestrian EU bureaucracy is fast, focused and – so far – exceedingly effective. If a foreign-owned company bidding for a contract or involved in a takeover is suspected of unfair subsidies, the EU can demand detailed business information. Last year, the Dutch and Polish offices of Nuctech, a Chinese security equipment company, were raided by EU competition regulators, acting under the new powers. A Chinese railway equipment manufacturer pulled out of bidding for a large contract in Bulgaria, preferring not to hand over data that would almost certainly have revealed wads of subsidies.
In spite of these growing tensions, Beijing believed it could use Trump’s tariff war to prize away Brussels from Washington – a long-standing goal of Chinese policy. To this end, in late April it announced it was lifting sanctions it had imposed on members of the European Parliament in retaliation for EU sanctions on Chinese entities accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. President Xi Jinping also launched a charm offensive, calling for unity in the face of coercion and presenting himself as an upholder of free trade. This has backfired, being seen widely in Brussels as laughable hypocrisy.
Looming large over EU relations with China is Beijing’s support for Vladmir Putin, which is felt much more profoundly in European capitals than in Washington. But Brussels has also been willing to call out China on a range of security issues. These include the blacklisting of Huawei lobbyists earlier this year following allegations of bribery linked to the tech company’s activities in Brussels. Germany has accused China of being behind a cyberattack on the federal cartography agency for espionage purposes, and the Belgian intelligence agencies have investigated Alibaba for ‘possible spying and/or interference activities’ at the cargo airport in Liège.
It should not be forgotten that the term ‘de-risking’ in relation to China was first popularised by von der Leyen. She introduced it in a March 2023 speech to the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. She said it meant being clear-eyed about China’s growing economic and security ambitions. ‘It also means taking a critical look at our own resilience and dependencies,’ she said. ‘De-risking’ was soon adopted in other Western capitals, replacing the more clunky ‘decoupling’. De-risking sounded more nuanced – a more orderly form of decoupling. It was vague, slightly murky, and open to interpretation. But therein lay its strength. It could be dialled up or down according to the circumstances, a flexible tool, with which few could disagree. It seemed like plain common-sense, which is probably why it so irked Beijing. ‘It is just another word game. It will not change the “ostrich mentality” of some countries to escape from the real world,’ snarled the Global Times, a state-owned tabloid, at the time. When von der Leyen travelled to Beijing with French President Emmanuel Macron a week after her speech, Macron was given the red carpet treatment while the EC president was largely cold-shouldered in what was interpreted as a calculated snub.
During this week’s G7 meeting, von der Leyen said: ‘We strongly feel that the biggest challenges are not the trade between G7 partners. Rather, the sources of the biggest collective problem we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001’. China’s membership of the WTO is widely seen as a high point of western delusion about China. Beijing promised to improve the rule of law, to protect intellectual property rights, cut import tariffs, give greater access to its market, liberalise controls on its exchange rate, scrap trade barriers and much more. Few of these ever happened, or where one barrier was removed, another was erected. China has clung to the privileges of a ‘developing’ country. It has never provided a level playing field for foreign companies but was able to flood the world with its own cheap exports, while western companies flocked to outsource production and supply chains to Chinese factories, hollowing out manufacturing throughout the West. This led inextricably to the dependencies the West is decades later trying to unwind and has fuelled populist anger in developed economies.
It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders’ summit, tentatively set for late next month to mark 50 years of bilateral relations. Few will be in celebratory mood, and Xi will probably concentrate on individual European leaders, believing he has greater influence with them than with the European Commission president. His main miscalculation has been to believe he can leverage the distrust of Trump to China’s advantage, because while it is true that Trump is haemorrhaging trust, the grim truth for Xi is that Beijing never enjoyed much trust in the first place.
Is Iran about to choke the West’s energy supply?
Nato has learned nothing from Russia’s energy blackmail – and Iran is about to prove it. With precision warheads and hypersonic payloads tearing Israeli and Iranian skies, you might think we’re witnessing the next frontier in modern warfare. But it’s an old game, played with old rules. And once again, Tehran reaches for its well-worn lever of power: energy blackmail.
Already, markets are twitching. Crude has jumped over 10 per cent
Senior Iranian officials, including Revolutionary Guard commander Esmail Kowsari, have warned that, if Israeli attacks continue, Tehran will not only exit the non-proliferation treaty (thus tearing up its last fig-leaf of nuclear restraint), but will also close the Strait of Hormuz. That’s no idle bluster. A third of the world’s oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas flows through this 21-mile corridor.
Already, markets are twitching. Crude has jumped over 10 per cent. Should the blockade materialise, some project $150-a-barrel oil: a level unseen even during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Faced with this looming storm, Nato has chosen…silence. There’s been the usual call for de-escalation, but Secretary-General Mark Rutte leans on Washington to act. As for the upcoming Nato summit next week, the agenda appears to be more focused on Russia and defence budgets. Iran barely makes a footnote.
This is staggering. Europe’s last encounter with Moscow’s weaponisation of energy should have been a wake-up call. Cyberattacks and sabotage targeted LNG terminals, undersea pipelines, and critical infrastructure. It devastated industrial output and cost Europe hundreds of billions of pounds.
Yet Nato’s energy strategy remains anaemic, overly reactive and built around tabletop scenarios rather than hardened defences. Space and cyberspace are treated as frontline domains. Energy, bizarrely, isn’t.
That strategic blind spot has consequences. All Iran needs to do is plant doubt. The markets will recoil. Oil prices will spike. Russia, as Tehran’s close ally, will pocket the windfall, doubling down in Ukraine with fresh funds. And while Hamas and Hezbollah may now be spent forces from Tehran’s perspective, Iran still has foxes in the field, particularly in Africa, where the Polisario Front remains a useful partner.
This is why Nato cannot afford to palm off responsibility to the Americans and sleepwalk into another energy crisis. The economic and political costs are simply too high.
What’s needed is a harder-nosed energy doctrine. The long-term answer lies in renewables. The West must sprint, not stumble, toward clean energy independence. But in the short term, we must secure reliable energy flows from more reliable partners in North Africa and North America.
It also means investing heavily in dual-use energy-defence infrastructure. LNG ports like those in Świnoujście and Klaipėda on the Baltic, sit at the fault lines of the next potential hybrid assault. These sites must be shielded with cybersecurity and military bulwarks, especially as energy routes become prime targets in future conflicts.
If one ally’s energy infrastructure is sabotaged, it must trigger a collective Nato response
Nato must also draw a new red line. A legislative revolution, no less: an Energy Article 5. If one ally’s energy infrastructure is sabotaged, it must trigger a collective Nato response. This would signal clearly that energy blackmail won’t be tolerated.
Of course, this demands more than lofty declarations. Political will is one thing; paying for it is another. Nato’s push for 5 per cent of GDP on defence sounds bold until you remember it took decades just to drag most members to the 2 per cent baseline.
But for all the alarm it causes with Hormuz sabre-rattling, the Gulf region may hold the solution to the problem, becoming one of the West’s most important energy investors. After all, Gulf states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are awash with capital. They know the clock is ticking on oil. That’s why they’re pouring billions into renewables, infrastructure, and energy technology across the West.
Look at Masdar, the UAE’s clean energy powerhouse, which recently raised $1 billion (£740 million) to fund 100 GW of renewables, including major projects in Germany and the Baltic Sea. Or Qatar’s 20-year LNG deal with Germany, signed at the height of the energy panic.
Then there’s ADNOC, Abu Dhabi’s national oil company. It recently finalised a $16 billion (£12 billion) deal to acquire Covestro, a German chemicals firm battered by the gas crisis. It’s also planning to invest a staggering $440 billion (£320 billion) over the next decade in U.S. energy, spanning LNG terminals, renewables, and petrochemicals. Its current $19 billion (£14 billion) bid for Australian gas producer Santos further expands this global footprint.
These are vital acts of strategic underwriting. They help insulate Western economies from hostile actors, and they show that energy security needn’t rest solely on the state’s shoulders. Private capital, deployed wisely, can be a force multiplier.
The U.S. has already secured over $2 trillion (£1.5 trilion) in Gulf investment, so why the sluggishness elsewhere? Nato should be chasing these deals with equal urgency. There’s a clear path here: a hybrid strategy of asymmetric leverage, using capital to reinforce energy defences. If Nato can’t spend its way to resilience, it must attract the money that will.
We cannot delay until the next crisis comes knocking. Because once Iran shows the West how energy can humble empires, every rogue regime will come hunting for the spigot.
Why Muslim-majority countries have turned against Iran
Swift condemnations have poured in from the Muslim world castigating Israel for bombing Iran. The UAE condemned Israel ‘in the strongest terms’, Jordan spoke up against Israeli attacks ‘threatening regional stability’, Saudi Arabia denounced ‘blatant Israeli aggressions’, Turkey espoused ‘an end to Israel’s banditry’, while various Muslim diplomatic groups, including the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), demanded ‘international action’ against the Jewish State. But cloaked underneath this predictably farcical rhetoric of ‘Muslim unity’ are the evolving interests of many of these states, which today align seamlessly with Israel.
Saudi Arabia has described ‘evil’ Iran as the ‘head of the snake’
In Israel’s immediate neighbourhood, Lebanese officials are blocking the depleted Iranian jihadist proxy Hezbollah from taking action against Israel. Meanwhile, the Ahmed al-Sharaa-led Syria, after toppling the pro-Iran Bashar al-Assad regime, has been negotiating a peace deal to recognise Israel and allow Syrian territory to be used to block Iranian attacks. Jordan, meanwhile, is directly intercepting Iranian missiles. This is similar to its downing of drones last year, as part of a regional military coalition featuring Saudi Arabia and the UAE that provided key intelligence against Iran. Turkey, too, reportedly had prior knowledge of Israeli strikes on Iran.
Sunni Gulf states have seen Shia Iran as an imperial threat in the region since clerics took over Tehran following the Iranian revolution in 1979. They accuse Iran of backing Shia uprisings against Sunni rulers in countries like Bahrain, along with pushing militia in Iraq and Yemen to aspire to propel Shia regimes. Of course, these Sunni states, led by Saudi Arabia, have long used jihadist proxies to exploit the same Sunni–Shia fault-lines and thwart Iranian plans in order to maintain their own regional hegemony. Riyadh went a step further by formulating a military alliance of Sunni states, the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, aimed at Iran and its Shia allies. But while the Sunni–Shia sectarian divide within Islam is 14 centuries old, in recent years the antagonism has crossed the weapons-grade threshold following the advent of a very modern threat: the nuclear bomb.
When Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites and eliminated scientists along with key generals, it also inadvertently did so on behalf of leading Sunni regimes that have long been petrified by the prospect of Iran building a nuclear weapon.
Saudi Arabia, which has described ‘evil’ Iran as the ‘head of the snake’, has repeatedly condemned the US nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. It has also regularly urged other Muslim-majority countries to reject ‘Iranian terrorism’. Only a couple of weeks ago, Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman warned Iranian officials to accept US president Donald Trump’s offer of a new nuclear agreement or face the Israeli strikes that followed a little over a fortnight later. A similar message was delivered by the UAE to Iran in March.
The Gulf states normalising relations with Israel are doing so as part of their modernising bids. This entails shunning violent Islamic laws and codes, from which their erstwhile antisemitic rhetoric against the Jewish State originates. This move is critical in order to diversify their petro-economies, which require regional stability to attract global investment. While sanctions-hit Iran has even more to gain financially by embracing moderation and peace in the region, it does not have a monarchy that could simply flip the switch on decades of spreading radical Islam and jihadist militancy. Self-identifying as ‘resistance’ against the West and Israel and flying the ‘flag of Islam against infidels’ is a matter of survival for the clerics in Tehran, even as the writing is on the wall for Iran’s rulers following the fall of their proxies in Syria and Lebanon.
If the Iranian regime is to go, it should ideally be toppled by the Iranians, who have lived under its brutalities for almost half a century, with local protests and attacks against the clergy increasing in recent years. While there are fears among the Iranian populace that the war could cause destruction similar to that seen in Gaza, there are millions of Muslims across the region who have suffered at the hands of Iran and its militias, and who would celebrate the demise of Iranian clerical rule – even if it is Israel that is to deal the final blow. And the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have already laid the groundwork to pose as the saviours and custodians of these Muslims in the aftermath of Israeli strikes they are officially condemning.
Saudi Arabia has conveniently distanced itself from what is, in effect, the execution of its plans against Iran by officially normalising relations with Tehran following a China-brokered deal in 2023, after seven years of severed ties. This has allowed Riyadh to publicly pose as a mediator in Iran’s nuclear talks with the US, while it covertly delivers Israeli threats to Tehran and continues to inform Washington of its intention to acquire nuclear arms.
Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey have their own plans to lead the Muslim world once the only non-Sunni claimant for the same – Iran – is effectively sidelined. All of these states, however, need Israel to eliminate the Iranian regime so as not to completely alienate Shia populations. Public hostility towards Israel will continue to grow in these countries as they quietly celebrate the gains of the Jewish state.
The triumph of Noel Edmonds
When Deal or No Deal hit our TV screens in 2005, it soon became a national obsession. I remember hotfooting it from the train station to my house, desperate to make sure I didn’t miss it. This was the most infatuated I’d been with a TV show since I was child. Noel Edmonds, the show’s presenter, was a big reason why: his witty banter with contestants and the show’s fictional ‘banker’ had me – and Britain – captivated. Deal or No Deal was basically just people opening boxes. In most presenter’s hands it would have been a bit of a yawn. But Edmonds made it appointment viewing.
Edmonds is one of the great figures of British television
Now, thank goodness, Edmonds is back: after a seven-year hiatus, he’s returning with a new series exploring his life in New Zealand, where he runs an 800-acre estate.
ITV’s Noel Edmonds’ Kiwi Adventure, which starts tonight, is full of quirk: he refers to his third wife, whom he met when she was his make-up artist on Deal or No Deal, as his ‘earth angel’ and explains that all the clocks in their house are fixed at 11.06, the time the couple first met. Edmonds looks amazing for 76 and puts this down to a wellness routine that includes crystal healing, tranquil power, infrared saunas and oxygen chambers.
TV hosts are often a bit weird and if you measure Edmonds against more bland presenters like Dermot O’Leary and Ben Shephard, he seems very weird. But perhaps the side of us that now sniggers at Edmonds is uncomfortable with the Edmonds in ourselves. We’d love to be chasing our dreams as enthusiastically as he is. We probably wish we too could be so open about our own idiosyncrasies, so we laugh at his instead.
But there’s another side of us that can’t help but cheer him on. It’s this side he appeals to in his new show. “Maybe people who have had negative thoughts about me personally will see this and see an honesty, a sincerity, a commitment, a positivity,” he says. “Maybe a few of them will change their views”.
Let’s hope so. Around the time that his stint on Deal or No Deal came to an end in 2016, people stopped laughing with Edmonds and laughed at him instead. It’s not hard to see why: Edmonds cuts a curious figure. There’s something of the Lassie dog about his appearance, and the way he’s embraced so many unserious TV shows while often taking himself painfully seriously doesn’t sit well. Alan Partridge and David Brent both poked fun at him, perhaps an indirect tribute from their creators, who surely took some inspiration from Edmonds.
But his kooky personality shouldn’t mean that we ignore something that isn’t often said about him: he is one of the great figures of British television.
Born in Essex, Edmonds started off on radio before moving to TV in the 1980s, where he presented Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, my first favourite programme. The madcap entertainment show was broadcast live for three hours on Saturday mornings, and allowed kids to phone-in and swap unwanted belongings with other children.
He also presented Top of the Pops, Top Gear and Telly Addicts, and became the toast of television during the 1980s thanks to his impish energy, which chimed with a more optimistic nation. He was the first British broadcaster to brand himself distinctly from his shows, and he began to sometimes refer to himself in the third person.
In the 1990s, he presented Noel’s House Party, which was regularly watched by 18 million viewers and was described by a senior corporation executive as ‘the most important show on the BBC’. The stunning success of the series, and its bulbous hero Mr Blobby, showed how Edmonds could tap into our sense of silliness, but it was dropped in 1999, when viewing figures started to fall.
Edmonds, who’d been omnipresent on the airwaves for nearly three decades, suddenly disappeared. But when he came back six years later it was with something special.
In the dark, moody Bristol warehouse where Deal or No Deal was filmed, he raised the tension by increasingly injecting a spiritual edge. He encouraged talk of telepathy, of box numbers having different energies and of a mystical force being at work in the game. You don’t get that on Countdown.
Wearing tight floral shirts, with his trademark bouffant still going strong, he was as charismatic as ever. As the atmosphere became ever more esoteric, he seemed a bit like an aspiring cult leader who hoped he’d finally found his flock.
Where The Weakest Link had a bitchy host in Anne Robinson, Deal or No Deal had one who preached positive thinking to the contestants. A producer said later that the role was ‘God given’ for Edmonds. The columnist AA Gill wrote that watching Deal or No Deal was ‘like putting heroin in your remote control’. That was a ridiculous thing to say: it was far more addictive than that.
But the show’s success didn’t last, so Edmonds took his spiritual message beyond the studio. He claimed that he’d found an electromagnetic pulse machine that “tackles cancer” and suggested that the disease may be caused by a “negative attitude”, a remark he later apologised for.
Edmonds also offered to phone up people’s sick pets and give them a motivational talk, even counselling a cat live on air on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2. He told the Guardian that the UK’s population was at least ten million higher than official figures, saying that he worked this out using a formula he devised called “the three ‘F’s’ – food, faeces and farewells”.
Edmonds went from national treasure to something of a joke. He upped sticks to New Zealand in 2018, settling in Ngatimoti, a small town at the north end of New Zealand’s South Island. Many of his fans thought that was it. But now – thank goodness – Edmonds is back. I can’t wait to watch him on TV again.