2026年8月2日 · 第 10,533 期 · thetimes.com
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向 Decca Aitkenhead 剖析内心
最宜居的海岸地区
杂志
……对于马德里在移民问题上被认为过于自由的政策感到愤怒。周五，意大利保守派总理乔治亚·梅洛尼重新对从西班牙经由空中或海上抵达意大利的人员实施边境管制，暂停执行允许免护照旅行的申根协议，有效期一个月。
……能够进入。其大门已被锁上，据了解该中心已满员。
……并非申根区的一部分。他表示：“欧盟无法承受这种自私、极化且违法的反应。”
……当局称仅剩约 2,000 人。已知至少 67 人死亡。
……通过物理边境抵达西班牙，这包括那些游到塞乌塔的人。桑切斯周五表示，“贩traficking”团伙散布了这一消息并误读了该裁决。
Katie Gatens 塞乌塔, Peter Conradi 和 Matthew Campbell
“我已经三天没吃东西了，但我别无选择，只能留在这里，”来自也门的 Quasi Alwahaini 说道，他一个月前抵达摩洛哥。他表示，在社交媒体上看到他人跨越边界进入西班牙领土的视频后，他从马拉喀什前往边境。
在由意大利领导的 22 个国家写信要求就“移民紧急情况举行紧急会议”后，欧盟将于周二举行会谈。
昨晚，数百名寻求庇护者在塞乌塔的街头露宿，没有食物和水。此前一周，多达 60,000 人从邻国摩洛哥游过边境，进入西班牙在北非的飞地。
通常控制边境出入的摩洛哥当局正面临质疑，询问如此多的人是如何能够跨境的。
西班牙保守派报纸《世界报》的一篇报道称，安全部门认为摩洛哥当局对首批尝试跨境的人员视而不见，旨在传达其控制移民的能力，但随后情况“失去了控制”。
西班牙总理佩德罗·桑切斯在给欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱然的信中表示，他对一些批评西班牙的欧洲政府深感担忧，认为这些批评是“由偏见、假新闻、无知或政治利益驱动的”，并补充说塞乌塔……
报道，第 4-5 页
虽然一些移民表示守卫试图阻止他们，但其他人声称当局当时过于不堪重负，以至于他们被直接放行，甚至受到了鼓励。摩洛哥政府未回应置评请求。
通常每天只有少数人尝试跨境，但在三周前，西班牙最高法院裁定，对于未通过物理边境抵达西班牙的人员（包括那些游到塞乌塔的人），不得对其进行简易遣返，随后人数开始增加。
数百名移民，包括一些自称来自苏丹、也门、利比亚和厄立特里亚的人，昨天下午仍留在塞乌塔，在临时移民留宿中心外面等待，但无法进入。
大多数抵达者是在社交媒体报道的鼓励下尝试跨境的，到周五晚上，他们已被说服返回摩洛哥，西班牙当局……
这是欧盟历史上最大规模的非法跨境事件，引发了西班牙社会党领导的政府与其大多数邻国之间激烈的口水战。
数百名移民，包括……
社论，第 20 页
ANDREW MILLIGAN / PA
Martyn Ziegler
在欧足联和英格兰足协谴责詹尼·因凡蒂诺试图出售世界杯的计划崩溃为一次“寒碜的、黑箱操作的、不透明的交易”后，其反对者将加大力度强迫这位国际足联主席辞职。
因凡蒂诺，56，可能通过“国际足联前进企业”（Fifa Forward Enterprise）计划赚取了数千万英镑，该计划旨在将赛事的部分股权出售给私人投资者。消息人士称，这位国际足联老板正试图死守权力，但他的支持正在迅速流失。
改革党党首曾坚称在苏纳克宣布 2024 意外选举之前，他并未参与政治
在周五该计划崩溃后，英格兰足协 (FA) 和欧洲足球管理机构欧足联 (Uefa) 表示，他们已对因凡蒂诺失去信心。欧足联在反对该计划中起到了主导作用，包括英格兰足协在内的 55 个成员在周四同意抵制所有国际足联比赛。
成为领导人。当被问及如果他没有意图回归领导岗位，为何会签署此类协议时，他们表示这为了保留选择余地。他们说，法拉奇当时认为他将把精力集中在为该年美国总统大选中的唐纳德·特朗普助选。
关于英国改革党是否遵守选举法的问题。该党目前已成为伦敦警察厅的一项调查中心，调查重点在于其捐款来源是否被掩盖。
Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo and Venetia Menzies
昨天的声明称：“我们不能继续这样进行，在快速的时间表内实施秘密计划，由不透明的人员策划且对足球运动的益处可疑。我们必须确定责任人并追究其责任。这是整个足球运动的胜利。重建对国际足联信任的任务才刚刚开始。”
《星期日泰晤士报》调查团队可以透露，在 2024 年 6 月第一次还款之日，改革党将 £200,000 汇入了一个属于泰斯的个人账户，而非汇给贷款给他的公司。
奈杰尔·法拉奇在大选前数月达成了一项秘密协议，计划回归担任英国改革党领导人。
法拉奇多次声称，他不需要申报来自加密货币亿万富翁克里斯托弗·哈博恩 (Christopher Harborne) 的 £5 million 赠款或来自科特雷尔 (Cottrell) 的实物利益，因为他当时是一名媒体人物。国会议员必须申报在当选前 12 个月内收到的任何与其“政治活动”相关的利益。
法拉奇在 2024 年 3 月和 4 月与当时的领导人理查德·泰斯商定了该协议。曾秘密资助法拉奇的已定罪诈骗犯乔治·科特雷尔监督了这些讨论。
官员们识别出了这笔付款，但选举委员会未被告知，且申报文件中错误地写道款项已支付给公司——这可能构成刑事犯罪。
管理北美、中美洲协会及加勒比地区的中北美及加勒比足联 (Concacaf) 呼吁对因凡蒂诺的任期进行“全面清算”。消息人士称，原计划是让因凡蒂诺在卸任主席后担任首席执行官或专员，其基本年薪（不含奖金）为 $30 million。国际足联坚称该想法从未被讨论过。
根据协议条款，改革党同意在法拉奇成为领导人后，偿还或核销其从泰斯公司借入的超过 £1 million 的未偿贷款。
2024 年 5 月 22, 2024 里希·苏纳克宣布将于 7 月 4. 举行闪电大选。到那时，几乎没有人知道，法拉奇已经在秘密筹划一条通往领导岗位以及随之进入下议院的潜在路径——这已经持续了数月。
他上个月在“反觉醒”的 Triggernometry 播客中说道：“在我生命中的那个阶段，从 2021 年到 2024 年 6 月 3 日，我是一名广播员，一个出现在名人电视节目中的人，一个推广某些金融市场产品的人，但我是一个影响力人物，我并不在政坛。”
该协议在 5 月中旬首次由法拉奇和科特雷尔提交给党财务主管。该协议的存在削弱了改革党领导人的说法，即他直到 2024 年 6 月之前没有意图回归政坛。法拉奇曾利用这一点来为自己未能申报在当选议员前一年收到的捐款进行辩护，该事件已引发了两项议会调查。
在那年的 3 月和 4 月，他与泰斯就该党的未来达成了一项协议。5 月中旬，法拉奇在白金汉宫附近一栋联排别墅的 4 层办公空间内，与两名心腹——科特雷尔和 A’Zami 讨论了协议细节。
因凡蒂诺现在可能面临一次国际足联紧急理事会会议，届时他将被要求辞职。如果他拒绝，一名获得所有对手支持的单一候选人可能会在明年的选举中被推举出来挑战他。库什纳的赌注，第 7 页；马修·塞耶德，第 21 页；体育，第 1-4 页。
当时的政党财务主管梅赫塔什·A’Zami 表示：“在宣布选举之前，我就被告知了该协议。它在奈杰尔回来后开始执行。”
科特雷尔在 A’Zami 还是青少年时就与他相识。A’Zami 自 2019 年起担任该党财务主管，但其大部分时间在迪拜度过。
“核心内容是还款计划。我被要求执行该计划，并根据我的职责采取行动予以履行。”
昨晚，改革党消息人士承认该协议的存在，但坚称该协议是为法拉奇（如果而非何时）而起草的。
8 岁的路易王子在与家人一同观看格拉斯哥英联邦运动会倒数第二天的比赛时，戴着一顶庆祝威尔士骑行的帽子。王室访客观看了网球和骑行比赛，并与观众村的志愿者和运动员见面。盛大运动会，第 2 页；体育。
这些披露还引发了更多
接第 4 页→
.
通过公开记录，基纳汉家族关键成员及该犯罪集团的许可情况可见。记录显示，69 岁的克里斯蒂·基纳汉和 36 岁的迪克森的许可已过期。尤其是迪克森，继续在迪拜过着奢华的生活。他打板式网球的照片甚至出现在海湾地区的社交媒体广告活动中。
全球。其客户包括墨西哥和哥伦比亚贩毒集团、黎巴嫩武装组织真主党，以及伊朗和俄罗斯情报部门。
欧洲情报部门认为，克里斯蒂·基纳汉对其居住状态“深感不安”。一名情报来源称：“他是一个备受折磨的人，担心自己会被逮捕并被驱逐出境。”
不到两周前，迪拜当局将其卡片作废。他的新许可证于 7 月 20 日续期，有效期为两年。之前的许可证已于 2024 年 12 月过期。新卡将其职业列为某公司的“销售员”，接第 7 页→
准备控制这个强大的跨国犯罪组织的（人物），其签证也已过期。
约翰·穆尼，调查编辑，爱尔兰
基纳汉犯罪集团的逃亡首领在失去在阿拉伯联合酋长国合法居住权后面临被捕风险，他在那里寻求庇护已有十年之久。
这些集团头目在约十年前逃离欧洲并搬到酋长国后，一直公开过着奢侈的生活。但在我们 3 月的联合调查揭露了基纳汉家族与伊朗政权的联系后，该集团面临打击。
越来越多的证据表明，基纳汉组织现在可能与中国政府的部分元素建立了联系。该组织于 20 世纪 90 年代初在都柏林地下世界兴起，已积累了 15 亿美元 billion 的财富，并受到了美国的制裁，美国已为抓获其头目提供 $5 million 的奖金。
基纳汉家族在酋长国控制着地球上最强大的跨国犯罪组织之一。该组织负责走私绝大多数进入欧洲街道的可卡因。它还走私武器，并为全球犯罪团伙提供洗钱服务。
经《星期日泰晤士报》与开源组织 Bellingcat 的调查发现，克里斯蒂·基纳汉在迪拜居住的签证已于 4 月过期。该集团最信任的副手之一、且准备接管这一强大跨国犯罪组织的伊恩·迪克森的阿联酋居住签证也已过期。
记录还显示，克里斯蒂·基纳汉 (犯罪家族) 的小儿子 Christopher Jr，45 岁，负责控制该犯罪集团的财务投资，已被授予新的居留权。
克里斯蒂·基纳汉的大儿子 Daniel 于 4 月在迪拜被捕，目前面临被引渡至都柏林，就领导组织犯罪团伙一事接受审判。
我们获得了居留许-
2 S1 《星期日泰晤士报》 2026 年 8 月 2 日
ROB CASEY / SNS; LESLEY MARTIN / PA
人工智能部长 Kanishka Narayan 承认这些担忧，但希望英国专注于机遇并塑造未来
以及他们孩子的工作。我不会坐在这里告诉你它会非常出色，而且我们所有人都会顺利度过。这是一次前所未有速度的技术飞跃。”
英国在技术上实现自给自足是不可能的，但我们可以减少依赖。Narayan 走遍世界，试图确保我们拥有可靠的人工智能芯片供应，以支持从中风患者康复到追踪俄罗斯影子舰队的一切应用。他还协助监管一项 5 亿英镑 (£500 million) 的主权人工智能基金，用于投资英国初创公司。“你必须确保，即使你使用的是他人的技术，也是按照你的条件来使用。”
Josh Glancy
克里斯 霍伊爵士（底排中间）在以他命名的速车馆与一群 illustrious 的成员汇合，参加格拉斯哥英联邦运动会的场地自行车赛。顶排：自行车运动员劳拉·肯尼 勋爵、威尔士亲王妃和亲王以及他们的孩子夏洛特公主和乔治王子。底排右侧：爱丁堡公爵夫人和公爵。国王则选择了参加凯斯内斯的梅高地运动会。
如果你相信人工智能真的是一次新工业革命的曙光，或者其重要性哪怕只有支持者所声称的一半，那么 Kanishka Narayan 可能是内阁会议上最重要的部长。
他的希望是有办法避免大规模的社会动荡。他提到了工业革命，指出当时出现了工会，以确保部分收益归工人所有，而不仅仅是所有者。由于监管和组织惯性，这次转型的速度可能会比我们预期的要慢。
Narayan 今年 36 岁，在 2024 年才当选为格拉摩根谷的国会议员，但现在他成了新任人工智能部长。技术产业界的人将他视为政府中的最后希望，一种抵御卢德主义反动力量的堡垒。人们尤其担心安迪·伯纳姆似乎对技术的“白热化”不感兴趣——他担任首相后的首批行动之一就是撤销科学、工业和技术部。
他还认为英国需要大幅提升数据中心的自有能力，因为数据中心为人工智能提供处理能力。由于对能源和水资源的需求很高，这些设施一直存在争议，但英国计划到 2030 年将其容量增加两倍。他指出了更宏观的局面。“英国公众非常明确地希望拥有强大的国防，”他说。“他们不希望外国亿万富翁拥有影响我们生活的关键事物。如果我们忠于这些英国价值观，那么如果不构建主权级的数据中心能力，就不可能实现这一目标。”
他讲述了一个在纽卡斯尔一个理发师的故事，她拥有卓越的客户服务技巧并对技术感兴趣。一家当地软件公司利用自身的人工智能将她识别为潜在雇员。她现在是一名人工智能采购学徒，薪水高得多。“如果我们能把职位匹配和招聘流程做好，我们不仅能剔除人工智能产生的冗余废料，坦白说，还能剔除招聘过程中的冗余废料。”
纳拉扬坚持认为，这个政府并不拘泥于过去。“我去找了首相，他说他认为这是一个非常关键的问题，并希望我能致力于此，”他说。在唐宁街 10 号之外，他面临着一场争取人心与认知的战斗。KPMG 最近的一项调查发现，78% 的英国人担心 AI 会带来负面结果。
这种可能性感源自他自身的人生故事。纳拉扬出生在印度最贫困的地区之一的比哈尔邦。在他八岁时，他的父母做出了一个“疯狂且带有牺牲色彩”的决定，将他和他哥哥带到了卡迪夫。在他的综合中学里，一位老师建议他申请一些顶尖学校的奖学金。伊顿公学给了他全额资助。之后，他顺利就读于牛津大学和斯坦福大学，随后进入银行界和公务员系统。对他而言，英国是一个充满可能性和自由的土地。
有人认为纳拉扬过于鼓吹科技产业，但他对此予以否认。“人们感到担心是正确的，”他说。“这对于……我们孩子未来的工作来说是最重要的问题。”
纳拉扬认为外界同样存在乐观情绪。“如果你真正深入接触我们国家的不同地区，你会发现这里有着根深蒂固的技术接纳历史，”他说。“现在的任务是，我们如何突破英国政治精英中那些持怀疑态度的中间阶层？”
当地时间晚上 8 点左右（英国时间 6 点），Kit Heren [此处文本不完整]。
在穿过城市后，该活动被取消。
乌克兰国家应急局表示，包括儿童在内的至少 28 人受伤。
据国家媒体报道，多达 21 人受到不同程度的伤害。袭击动机尚未披露，警方仍在继续调查。
俄罗斯当局表示，昨日一名女性在莫斯科一家餐厅发动炸弹袭击，造成三人死亡。
俄罗斯俄新社发布的视频显示，武装执法人员出现在现场，该区域已被封锁，禁止公众进入。
“你从一个一个人均生活标准相当于 1600 年代英格兰的地方出发，”他说。“然后你到了 2026 年的伦敦。你会觉得你可以在 36 年的生命中加速完成 400 年的进步。英国提供了一块画布，让你在上面绘制人生中可以取得怎样的进步。”
为什么政治家们如此怀疑？“在过去的 15 年里，我们基本上错过了技术革命。导致我们比美国等国家贫穷得多的一个巨大原因是，我们在技术投资方面的比例要低得多。我们在自己的国家没有看到这种繁荣的果实。”
初步报告称，莫斯科的爆炸发生在餐厅厨房，但 Balzi Ross 随后发表声明称，内部未受影响，“问题出在外面”。
在俄罗斯首都中心附近的库德林斯卡亚广场 Balzi Rossi 餐厅袭击中丧生的人员包括该女性、一名阻止其进入餐厅的保安以及一名顾客。
Telegram 社交媒体平台上的报道称，该餐厅当时正在举办私人活动。
2023 年，圣彼得堡一家咖啡馆发生的爆炸事件导致亲战博主弗拉德伦·塔塔尔斯基死亡。一名叫达里亚·特雷波娃的俄罗斯女性声称她是根据一名乌克兰联系人的指示行动的，被判处 27 年监禁。
无论 AI 革命将我们带向何方，纳拉扬都拥有某种我们都需要的东西：一种认为我们的未来仍然可以比过去更好的信念。
纳拉扬认为，答案是增强英国的技术能力，分得 AI 红利的一杯羹，并赋予我们塑造未来的能力。这并非 [此处文本不完整]。
此次事件发生当天，俄罗斯对基辅及周边地区的空袭造成 9 人死亡。
广场周围的道路被暂时关闭。数十名骑行者此前一直聚集在附近准备进行夜骑。
Kanishka Narayan 表示，英国必须建设更多自己的数据中心
爆炸发生了
民主党人呼吁加强对 HMO（多住户房屋）的规划监管，“以便社区不会因为过度开发而被掏空”，绿党也表达了同样的观点。
没有中心数据库。然而，《周日泰晤士报》汇编了迄今为止英国最完整的 HMO 分布情况，确定了英格兰 144 个地方当局管辖区域内 100,000 处 HMO 的位置及其房东，涉及 50 万居民。
移民制度的不公正，以及那种低价采购的方式，意味着像这样的地区最终会变成“HMO 英国”。他们认为自己可以就这样运作，而不听取这里人们的呼声——这里正直的人们总是会做正确的事，做有同情心的事，但当像这样的地方被对待得不公正时，情况就不同了。”
Katie Tarrant 怀特霍尔通讯员 Tom Calver, Melissa York
全国各地的议会正在强制将家庭住宅转换为 HMO 的房东先咨询邻居。
大曼彻斯特地区新任工党市长 Bev Craig 在其胜选竞选中承诺将打击 HMO 的扩散。
《周日泰晤士报》的分析发现，英格兰近三分之一的地方当局——127 个议会——实施了第 4 条指令（Article 4 directions），该指令强制房东和开发商在将房屋改为多住户占用（HMO）时必须申请规划许可。
房东和开发商利用北部和中地带较便宜的房产，导致这些地区数量激增，而伦敦和南部地区的 HMO 数量则有所下降。在过去十年中，利物浦的 HMO 数量增长最快，从 2015 年的 4,850 处增加到去年的 16,494 处。
《周日泰晤士报》对内政部最新数据的分析显示，大约有 11,700 处 HMO 房产用于安置寻求庇护者，假设每处房产入住 4 人。
目前，第 4 条指令仅适用于尽可能小的地理区域（如一条街道），而不能用于实施全区范围的全面限制。
尽管移民在整个政治光谱上是一个具有分歧的问题，但反对 HMO 激增似乎已成为共识。《周日泰晤士报》确定了 127 个议会（其中 57 个由工党领导）正在使用第 4 条指令试图阻止 HMO 的出现。
目前，房东和开发商在无需规划许可的情况下，可以将一处房产转换为最多 6 名租客入住的 HMO——在这种房屋中，三名或更多互不相关的租客共同居住，共用浴室和厨房。
据了解，Burnham 正在考虑扩大这些条件，允许第 4 条指令适用于更广泛的地理区域以及更广泛的考量因素。任何变更将不追溯既往，这意味着现有的 HMO 不受影响。
西一个中地带的桑德韦尔（Sandwell）都会区经历了最高比例的增长之一。2015, 年，议会估计有 835 处 HMO，但这一数字在 2025. 年上升至 4,200 处。在桑德韦尔的斯梅思威克（Smethwick）的一条路上，至少有 19 处此类房屋，可容纳 140 多个入住者，导致一名当地议员表示：“我们不会把层叠笼养鸡放在这样的地方。”寻求庇护安置供应商 Serco 在桑德韦尔地区运营 174 处 HMO。
然而，如果议会对该地区共有住房与家庭住房的平衡感到担忧，可以使用第 4 条指令的权力来阻止这些住宅的建立。
由于担心“未经审查的移民”，英国改革党已承诺利用这些权力来停止 HMO 的转换。自由党
当《星期日泰晤士报》向内政部提交关于第 4 条（Article 4）使用情况的调查结果时，内政部表示政府正考虑扩大地方议会的权力，以有效封杀 HMO（群租房）。一名政府发言人表示：“我们正在探索更强有力的措施，让地方领导者能够更好地控制 HMO，帮助他们应对住房压力并保护社区特色。与此同时，我们正通过将寻求庇护者从酒店迁出至更基础的住所（包括探索使用 3 个额外的前军事站点），以减少非法移民的诱因。”
尽管英国估计 2.5 million 名 HMO 居民大多是大学生或低收入工人，但分析表明，大约 2 per cent 的房屋居住的是等待庇护申请决定的人员。
由改革党领导的议会在本周投票决定，剥夺规划官员批准 HMO 的权力，将决定权交给议员。议员们已就此类住房对停车位及更广泛邻里环境产生的影响发出警告。
国家有法律义务为寻求庇护者提供住所，但在 2024 年，政府誓言停止使用酒店（这些酒店在近年来一直是暴力抗议的焦点），以降低纳税人的成本。结果，开发商在未进行任何咨询的情况下，买下廉价住宅物业并将其改造成面向移民的 HMO。
新闻，第 14 页
桑德韦尔（Sandwell）是几个发布第 4 条指令的改革党议会之一，其他还包括达勒姆（Durham）、哈特尔普尔（Hartlepool）和巴恩斯利（Barnsley）。
保守党议员、老贝克斯利与西德库普（Old Bexley & Sidcup）选区代表路易·弗伦奇（Louie French）一直主张在其伦敦东南部选区增加第 4 条的使用，他抨击那些“西部荒野”式的房东，指责他们利用规划体制牟利。去年，贝克斯利仅批准了 13 处 HMO，而邻近的格林威治则批准了 472 处。
全国共有 50 万处 HMO，在英格兰北部分布更为密集。基于每处典型入住人数为 4 到 5 人的计算，估计至少有 2.5 million 人——接近英国人口的 3 per cent ——居住在 HMO 中。
安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在听到“人们对移民制度不公的担忧”后，承诺要打击“HMO 英国”。他在 6 月当选梅克菲尔德（Makerfield）议员后的胜选演说中批评了现有制度，称：“我在很多门槛前听到人们对（争议性问题的）‘错误’立场担忧。”
我们不会把层叠笼养的鸡放在这样的地方
由于政府并不……
《星期日泰晤士报》 2, 2026 3
TRISTRAM KENTON; JOSEPH OKPAKO / GETTY IMAGES
报告中提到的其他问题包括在聘请表演者和员工时“脱欧后签证制度的复杂性”，以及在争议性公共问题上“采取错误立场”，这可能导致公共和私人来源的收入损失，并降低艺术家和员工的投入度。
这份上月发布且涉及 2024-25 财年的报告出炉之际，拥有该歌剧院的皇家芭蕾舞团和歌剧院（RBO）上月宣布， 1 职 20 位（one in 20）将被削减。目前尚未确认哪些部门将面临裁员。在 2024-25 财年，RBO 支付了 £406,949 的遣散费。
国王在 5 月的皇家歌剧院揭幕了装饰有其 CRIII 标志的深红色天鹅绒窗帘，但一份报告指出，在幕后，这座维多利亚时代建筑的状况远没有那么奢华。
去年 8 月，原计划于 2026 年与以色列国家歌剧院共同制作的《托斯卡》因加沙战争而取消，此前有 182 名员工签署公开信要求终止此次合作。
这家位于历史悠久的考文特花园（Covent Garden）的场馆，是皇家歌剧院、皇家芭蕾舞团和皇家歌剧院管弦乐团的所在地。该机构报告称，其舞台基础设施和“建筑结构”存在“关键”投资需求。根据一份针对该组织财务健康状况的审查，如果不进行投资，剧院将面临设备故障和演出取消的风险。
报告称：“除访客体验（讨论仍在进行中）外，磋商现已结束。因此，我们正推进各项变革，将资源集中在能产生最大影响的地方，旨在加强艺术卓越性、扩大受众群体并对我们的场地进行投资。”
除非皇家歌剧院在未来十年每年进行 £20 million 的维修，否则像《胡桃夹子》这样的演出可能会被取消。
2023 年，活动团体“英国剧院及荧幕东亚与东南亚人”（British East and SouthEast Asians in Theatre and On Screen）批评了皇家芭蕾舞团（RBO）制作的普契尼歌剧《图兰朵》（背景设定在中国）。他们指责 RBO 在选角上存在“洗白”行为，因为主演由一名白人意大利歌手饰演，且在九个主角中仅有两名东亚或东南亚裔表演者。
2024-25 年的英国经济，且公司希望继续吸引广泛的受众。在该期间，其总收入为 £182.1 million，总支出为 £174.7 million。尽管公司处于盈利状态，但报告指出其有巨额贷款需要偿还。
第一座位于考文特花园地区的皇家歌剧院建于 1728 和 1732 年之间，但于 1808. 年被大火摧毁。第二座建筑同样被大火摧毁。目前的版本由爱德华·米德尔顿·巴里（Edward Middleton Barry）设计，建于 1858 年，并在 20 世纪 90 年代进行了重大升级。
报告称，建筑本身是一个“重大挑战”，由于其“基础设施陈旧”，在接下来的十年中每年将耗资至少 £20 million 进行修复。仅为了“维持建筑开放和运行”，未来三年就需要约 £60 million。
“……最佳作品，并让当前和未来的观众能够享受。”
皇家芭蕾舞团首席执行官亚历克斯·比尔德爵士（Sir Alex Beard）在报告中表示：“我们需要对这座被列为 I 级保护建筑的国家资产进行大量投资，以确保它保持世界一流、技术先进且环境可持续的剧院状态，让艺术家和创意人员能够在这里创作出他们的”
皇家芭蕾舞团约 30 per cent 的收入来自票房，并由英格兰艺术委员会（Arts Council England）等机构的捐款和拨款资助。据估计，皇家芭蕾舞团为 2024-25 年的英国经济贡献了 £240 million。
该机构面临的其他风险据称包括每年 £1.6 million 的新冠疫情时期贷款还款、因脱欧签证规则导致艺术家流失，以及因“采取了某种做法”而造成的名誉损失。
“虽然我们目前处于良好状态，但我们在一个充满挑战的环境中运作，我们现在必须提高效率，以保持长期的财务可持续性。”
David Binns
亚当·拉姆齐-皮蒂（Adam Ramsay-Peaty）表示，在原谅并与疏远的家人和解之前，他希望感觉到他们作为“个体已经有所改进”。
环球影业 (UNIVERSAL PICTURES)
马特·达蒙的特技替身身高 4 英尺 6 英寸，但这并没有阻止她挺进主角行列并登上电影海报。
这位奥运游泳运动员去年与现年 26 岁的霍莉·拉姆齐（Holly Ramsay）结婚，她是电视厨师戈登的女儿。据报道，在一次关于单身女性派对（hen party）的争执后，他禁止其母亲参加婚礼。他的父母最终都没有出席 12 月在巴斯修道院（Bath Abbey）举行的婚礼。
Dalton 曾参与过《猩球崛起》和由佩德罗·帕斯卡主演的热门剧集《最后生还者》等作品，但《奥德赛》是她第一次担任男性的特技替身。她说，女性给男性做替身很少见，而男性给女性做替身则频繁得多。当她得知自己得到了这份工作时，她感到“非常激动”。她说：“像‘巨石’[道恩·强森]和约翰·塞纳这样的人，凭借肌肉就建立起了整个职业生涯。我就一直在想，仅仅因为我是一个身材娇小的女性，为什么我就不能这样做？”
Roisin Kelly
Devyn Dalton 的卧推重量能达到她体重的 1.5 倍。右图为 Dalton 在电影海报中的样子。右下角为马特·达蒙以及担任其替身的 Dalton。
通常当我们想到动作电影时，脑海中会出现阿诺德·施瓦辛格和汤姆·克鲁兹那种肌肉发达的身材。但上周，成为议论焦点的却是身高 4 英尺 6 英寸、35 岁的加拿大女演员 Devyn Dalton 的肱二头肌。
这位 31 岁的游泳运动员从小在天主教环境下长大，于 2023 年开始前往福音派教会，此后一直在谈论信仰对他的影响。他现在将自己描述为“非常虔诚”。
在克里斯托弗·诺兰改编的《奥德赛》中由 Dalton 担任特技替身的马特·达蒙在一次播客采访中表示，她拥有他见过的“最强壮的手臂”。达蒙说：“我的替身是一名女性，一名特技演员，她拥有我见过的最强壮的手臂。所以电影中那些你看到巨人们向我逼近的镜头……必须给予应有的认可。”
“对我而言，作为一名基督徒，必须有宽恕，”他告诉《卫报》。“这并不意味着你必须忘记，但宽恕需要时间。我并不是说情况不会好转，但必须基于一种感觉，即他们在某种意义上作为人已经有所进步，并开启了沟通。”
为了随时准备好迎接下一份工作，Dalton 每天都锻炼。“我进行综合训练，包括力量训练以及许多有助于敏捷性、活动能力和爆发性动作的不同训练……有点像运动员的训练方式。”她补充道：“我只有 85 磅，但我能卧推大约 1.5 倍的体重。让人们惊讶的不是这个数字，而是看到一个我这个体型的人能做到这一点。”她热爱跑步、泰拳和拳击，在恢复日则练习瑜伽和普拉提。她说，她之所以如此坚持，是因为运动不仅是身体上的，也是“心理治疗”。这也意味着她随时可以接手特技工作。当她接到《奥德赛》的电话时，她在两周内加强了训练强度。“我真的很想给马特·[达蒙]留下深刻印象。我想让每个人都觉得，哇，她真的很适合这个角色，”Dalton 说道。
Dalton 在这部电影的关键场景中担任达蒙的特技替身，该片上月上映后的前 10 天在英国和爱尔兰的票房达到了 £35.3 百万。在电影海报描绘的奥德修斯面对食人巨人们——莱斯特里戈涅斯人的战斗场景中，展出的肱二头肌是 Dalton 的，而非达蒙的。
Dalton 9 岁起就进入娱乐业，对此她感到很欣喜。她目前在新西兰惠灵顿拍摄一部新的动作电影，她在那里表示：“我已经从事这项工作很长时间了。所以马特能公开表扬我，并让人们关注强壮的女性……我一直是在做我原本就在做的事，但能获得一些认可真的太好了。”
这场家族内讧在 11 月公开，此前亚当·拉姆齐-皮蒂的姨妈路易丝·威廉姆斯在 Instagram 上批评他的新娘，因为对方没有邀请他的母亲卡罗琳参加在奇平诺顿索霍农场举办的单身女派对。随后，他的兄弟詹姆斯在涉嫌于单身男派对期间向该运动员发送恐吓信息后被警方逮捕。
为此，她进行了一个“增肌阶段”（即在举重以增加肌肉尺寸和力量的同时，摄入比身体消耗更多的卡路里），随后进行“减脂”，在继续举重并增加有氧运动的同时，保持少量的卡路里缺口。这种组合经常被健美运动员使用。“我专注于上半身，并确保我大量锻炼手臂，”道尔顿说。
60 岁的卡罗琳告诉《每日邮报》，她担心拉姆赛一家将她的儿子从她身边抢走了。“他被戈登控制了，”她说，“他们的家庭非常封闭。”
在拍摄该场景时，导演克里斯托弗·诺兰决定不依赖 CGI 来呈现 7 英尺高的巨人们。相反，由道尔顿代替戴蒙站在他们面前，以在镜头中夸大比例差异。“业内对 AI 之类的事情有很多恐惧，所以能够真实地这样做并实际演出，真是太棒了，”道尔顿说。
上周，随着英联邦运动会在格拉斯哥开幕（拉姆赛-皮蒂正在那里参赛），他的母亲在 Instagram 上发帖，表达了对和解的希望：“我们继续在远方支持亚当。他是我们深爱的儿子。”
她在苏格兰高地花了三周时间拍摄场景，为了在高强度拍摄时间内维持体型，她会在酒店房间里做自重练习：“我旅行时总是随身携带阻力带，如果能去健身房，我会做全身哑铃训练。”
她的职业生涯始于舞蹈，随后转向表演和特技工作。她一直拥有运动员般的体格，但她说：“我并不总是信任自己的体型，并不总是拥有这种自信。”“即使是特技工作也有巨大的压力。我觉得我应该更瘦一点，或者应该有更多肌肉，或者不应该有肌肉，我试图让自己更纤细……我试图对抗自己的天然体质。在舞蹈和电影中，你总是在审视自己。”
……我们的爱，我们的时间，我们的牺牲都是自愿付出的，并不期待金钱回报。”
她说，她娇小的身材意味着“很多人试图将我定型或标签化，或者告诉我我不能做某些事情。我一直知道那不是真的，我相信自己，我知道我的作品会证明一切。”
格拉斯哥运动会，体育
打破登山记录 7 年的前廓尔喀士兵在雪崩中丧生
一段非凡的人生走到了终点。43 岁的普尔贾在一次雪崩席卷宽峰时不幸去世，那是他在打破记录的征途中征服的山峰之一。
一位不愿透露姓名的资深登山者表示，普尔贾当时正带领一支由同行向导和外国客户组成的商业探险队，而这些人全部在雪崩中丧生；普尔贾愿意承担风险，而这次风险最终让他付出了代价。
普尔贾的 14 座高峰记录此后被超越。2023 年，挪威登山者克里斯汀·哈里拉在 92 天内登顶了这些山峰，因为物流、直升机接送和探险规划的改进持续改变着喜马拉雅登山。
1953 年的希拉里，从而获得了全球知名度。
山中的一个出口。2014 年，他首次登顶珠峰，成为第一位在役的廓尔喀士兵实现这一目标的人。
发布了两名女性的指控，称普尔贾在尼泊尔和一次 K2 探险中对她们实施了性侵犯或提出了不受欢迎的性要求。普尔贾否认这些指控，将其描述为“虚假且诽谤性的”。最终并未起诉。
马修·坎贝尔，国外特稿编辑
“我感到震惊和崩溃，”她在听到消息后说道。
很少有人能预料到这样的轨迹。普尔贾 1983 年出生在尼泊尔偏远的米亚格迪区。像之前几代尼泊尔男子一样，他加入了廓尔喀旅团，于 2003 年参军进入英国军队。在廓尔喀部队证明过自己后，他通过了精英特种舟艇队的严苛选拔。同事们回忆道，他是一名拥有卓越耐力、坚定意志，且坚信障碍就是用来被克服的运动员。
2019年，尼尔马尔·“尼姆斯”·普贾（Nirmal “Nims” Purja）宣布了一项在许多登山者看来是不可能完成的任务。他将在七个月内攀登世界上最高的14座山峰——即所有海拔8,000米以上的山峰。普贾曾是一名廓尔喀兵和英国特种部队士兵，他在189天内完成了这一壮举，将之前的纪录打破了7年多，并成为了登山界最著名的名字之一。
普贾的声誉不仅建立在速度之上，还建立在他乐于助人的精神上。2016年，他在珠峰的“死亡地带”营救一名被困的印度登山者并将其背到安全地带后，登上了新闻头条；在许多人会优先考虑自身生存的情况下，他选择了救援。
几十年来，喜马拉雅山的登山活动一直由西方登山者主导，而使得许多探险成为可能的尼泊尔向导则仅被记录在脚注中。普贾扭转了这一局面。他充满魅力，有着不懈的野心，并为自己的血统感到无比自豪，他成为了自与埃德蒙德爵士共同首次成功登顶珠峰的滕辛·诺盖以来，第一位[获得关注的]尼泊尔登山者。
“这太令人悲伤了，”英国登山者肯顿·库尔（Kenton Cool）说道，他于今年成为历史上首位20次登顶珠峰的非尼泊尔籍登山者。“我们看到人们对8,000米以上（8,000m-plus）高峰的兴趣如此激增，部分原因就在于尼姆斯，他的魅力以及‘一切皆有可能’的态度。他拥有这种罕见的能点亮整个房间、激励人们的能力。”
“他撕毁了规则手册，”这位登山者说，“他真的认为自己是金刚不坏之身。我听人们说周四的攀登很冒险，而且根据我对之前情况和积雪量的了解，他最终耗尽了运气。”
普贾是这次雪崩遇难的十个人之一。其中还包括他的长期登山伙伴和向导普·巴哈杜尔·古隆（Pur Bahadur Gurung，被称为Yukta）以及尼玛·谢尔巴（Nima Sherpa）。库尔表示：“不要忘记其他九个人。我的心与所有家庭同在。”
他2019年的壮举成为了Netflix纪录片的主题，普贾也因此变得家喻户晓。但名声带来了审视。《纽约时报》
周四，就在另一座巨山之上，他的
2022年的尼尔马尔·普贾。他在没有氧气的情况下创造了纪录
这些品质很快得到了
4
MARIO MORON / ZUMA PRESS / ALAMY; JON NAZCA, PEDRO NUNES / REUTERS; JOSE ANTONIO DE LAMADRID FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES; REDUAN / EPA
在试图进入塞乌塔的人群中包括儿童。一些人必须从水中被拉起，而数百人则在西班牙领土内的一个移民中心外等待。
这次从摩洛哥向西班牙领土前行的前所未有的跨境行动已酝酿数周。在马德里法院的一项裁定后，数千名年轻人被社交媒体帖子所诱导，该裁定暗示他们不能被遣返，因为阿尔及利亚支持一个独立的西撒哈拉国家，而摩洛哥声称对该地区拥有完全主权。
尽管这一政策不适用于今年1月之后抵达的任何移民。“一个负责任的政府绝不会让局面发展到这一步，”反对党领导人说道，“问题是：西班牙是如何走到这一步的？”
马德里卡洛斯三世大学政治学教授帕布罗·西蒙（Pablo Simón）表示，塞乌塔的危机“与本届政府的移民政策没有关系”，摩洛哥将边境控制作为外交筹码。他说：“当（摩洛哥）不同意西班牙的某项具体政策时，他们就会放宽边境控制，以确保制造内部问题。这不是一场移民危机。这是一场来自摩洛哥的混合战争攻击，通过制造这场危机来破坏政府的内部地位。这就是佩德罗·桑切斯目前身处的陷阱。”
警员们在殴打我们，但人数太多
桑切斯实施了欧洲最自由的移民政策之一。他在今年给《纽约时报》的一篇文章中写道，尽管欧盟内许多其他国家正转向对移民采取更强硬的做法，但他的合法化政策是在出生率下降时期提振经济的一种方式。
KATIE many of us GATENS
摩洛哥。这种情况不应该发生，而且不能再次发生。西班牙必须与摩洛哥保持基于相互尊重、合作和睦邻友好的关系。”
上周的塞乌塔。这是欧盟历史上最大规模的一次单次非法越境事件。
上周，欧盟国家发表了严厉的批评措辞。意大利采取了最极端的措施，暂停了与西班牙的申根协议，并在接下来的一个月内实施更严格的边境检查。欧盟将于周二举行国家部长紧急视频会议，讨论此次事件。
在北非的最北端，塞乌塔自 1580. 年以来一直是西班牙领土。塞乌塔和另一个西班牙领土梅利利亚是欧盟与非洲唯一的陆地边界。摩洛哥从未正式承认其西班牙主权，因此这里已成为非法移民的爆发点，也是更广泛的地缘政治紧张局势可能演变为冲突的地方。2021, 年，当西班牙允许为争取西撒哈拉脱离摩洛哥独立的一政党领导人布拉希姆·加利（Brahim Ghali）提供住院治疗时，摩洛哥通过放宽警力管控作为回应，导致 8,000 人在两天内跨境进入。
二十多年来，马德里一直依赖与拉巴特的紧密安全合作来监管边境。作为回报，摩洛哥获得了数亿欧元的欧盟边境管理资金，两国在警务、情报和移民遣返方面建立了广泛的伙伴关系。
西班牙内政部长费尔南多·格兰德-马拉斯卡（Fernando Grande-Marlaska）昨天在塞乌塔的一次会议上为摩洛哥辩护。当被问及这次突破是如何发生时，他表示：“这些事件需要由西班牙和摩洛哥共同评估。”然而，他表示两国之间的合作使得西班牙能够在 24 小时内“扭转局面”，并补充道：“摩洛哥对塞乌塔或西班牙其他地区不构成威胁。它是一个可靠的合作伙伴。”
在塞乌塔
周五在塞乌塔，桑切斯将此次激增归咎于人口贩卖团伙，称他们散布了关于西班牙最高法院一项裁决的虚假信息。6月 29 日，一项具有里程碑意义的裁决定义了塞乌塔和梅利利亚的边境权力。2024 年，一名移民在绕过塞乌塔防波堤游泳后被遣返回摩洛哥。法院裁定，虽然这种遣返对于围栏和陆地边境是合法的，但并不适用于海路到达者。
在塞乌塔移民中心外酷热难耐的环境中，夸西·阿尔瓦海尼（Quasi Alwahaini）用一条红十字会的红色毯子遮阳，陷入了进退两难的境地。他说，他已经三天没吃东西了，“但我别无选择，只能留下”。
尽管两国相互依存，但西班牙国内一直存在一种观点，认为移民被摩洛哥当作一个外交压力点，可根据政治气候而收紧或放宽。
23, 岁的阿尔瓦海尼在穿越北非从也门出发后，游泳抵达了西班牙领土。他一个月前到达摩洛哥，梦想能进入欧洲。他在马拉喀什时，在社交媒体上看到了人们涌向边境的病毒式传播视频。他乘公共汽车前往丹吉尔，一天之内便抵达。周四，他进入海中。“摩洛哥警察在打我们，试图阻止我们，但我们人数太多了，”他说。“我在海里待了十个小时。我们以为我们要死了。”在他身边，一名男子向我展示他的双手，被岩石割破并磨伤。
到周五晚上，大多数游泳者都正返回摩洛哥。数千人正由西班牙军队引导前往边境。“这里没有食物，我们已经三天没睡觉了，没什么可做的，所以我们要回去了，”17岁的西莫·贾马尔（Simo Jamal）说道。坦克停在守护塞乌塔镇入口的皇家墙（Royal Walls）沿线。黄昏降临，扩音器警告人们在午夜前返回。
从摩洛哥抵达塞乌塔的移民可以在警察局或移民中心（Ceti）申请庇护。在申请处理及等待正式面试期间，他们将获得法律保护。在等待期间，移民住在 Ceti，那里提供基础的食物和照顾。
近几周，从摩洛哥进入塞乌塔的移民人数曾是几十人、随后是几百人的涓涓细流，但到周四已演变成洪水般的大规模涌入。目前尚不清楚摩洛哥未能阻止数万名抵达者的程度是故意的，还是其边境部队单纯地被击垮了。一些打算移民的人在周五表示，摩洛哥边境警卫积极鼓励他们过境，而另一些人则称他们遇到了阻力，但警员们已无法应对。
“我们与摩洛哥当局的谈话中揭露出，走私黑手党对一项最高法院裁决采取了自私的解读，而该解读像野火一样迅速传播，”桑切斯（Sánchez）说。
西班牙飞地塞乌塔
本祖（Benzú）
西班牙保守派报纸《世界报》昨天报道称，据安全部门消息，摩洛哥当局意识到关于该裁决的消息正在社交媒体上传播，但允许了早期的过境，并计划利用这次机会提醒西班牙他们对边境的控制力——直到情况“失控”。
贝柳内什（Belyounech）
如果 Ceti 中心已满，可以开设扩展中心或紧急避难所。据了解，Ceti 昨天已满员且大门紧锁，但到目前为止还没有开设任何紧急避难所来处理最新的一波涌入。红十字会已收到评论请求。
塞乌塔市基本上进入了封锁状态：尽管许多抵达者在乞求食物和水，但餐厅、酒吧和商店依然关闭。在少数几家维持营业的咖啡馆里爆发了冲突，因为店主拒绝为移民服务。现场还出现了暴力行为：一些抵达者在前往边境的途中向军车投掷石块。周五晚上在市中心，塞乌塔居民桑德拉·加贝（Sandra Gabay）说，这是她两天来第一次出门。“现在开始恢复正常了，但我们之前不知道他们什么时候才会离开，”她说道。
昨天下午，在塞乌塔临时移民留宿中心（Ceti）外，数百名自称来自苏丹、也门、利比亚和厄立特里亚等国的人在没有食物和水的情况下露宿街头。他们看着在警察和安保人员把守的铁栏杆后，住在中心里的 700 人在相对奢侈的环境中洗澡并从饮水机中饮水。
移民通过绕过塔拉哈尔（Tarajal）防波堤游泳来绕过边境围栏
昨天在塞乌塔的非洲广场（Plaza de Africa）举行的一次新闻发布会上，直升机在头顶盘旋，西班牙反对党人民党党首阿尔贝托·努涅斯·费霍（Alberto Núñez Feijóo）表示：“我们在塞乌塔所经历的是一个三重失败的故事。移民政策的失败，安全政策的失败，以及外交政策的失败。”
摩洛哥
摩洛哥政府仍未就此事发表公开评论，也没有回应《周日泰晤士报》的评论请求。
昨天下午，费霍将此次涌入的责任完全归咎于总理佩德罗·桑切斯的政府，并指出其今年允许无证移民“合法化”的移民政策。许多批评人士也发表了类似评论，甚至
富尼德克（Fnideq）
桑切斯于 7 月 20, 访问了阿尔及利亚，一些人认为这可能使西班牙与摩洛哥的关系变得紧张。
他补充道：“必须阐明在合作中哪里出了问题。”
Alwahaini 是抵达西班牙领土的 60,000 人之一。
1 英里
法拉奇在 2024 年大选前很久就达成了回归协议
将收到定期的六位数分期付款，或将之前的贷款转换为捐赠，从而将其 £1,083,000 的债务降至零。作为财务主管，A’Zami 将负责处理这些交易。
→接第 1 页 埃塞克斯郡的克莱克顿。泰斯被
在同一天从英国改革党收到了六位数的款项。
在全国竞选的高峰期，资金已经在途，用以充实其金库。当天，该党收到了 £250,000，两天后又收到了同等金额。
并且已经脱离了接触。Cottrell 要求他回到英国——并恢复其日常职责——理由是法拉奇即将回归。
被降职为副手。
至此，协议生效。一周后，在 2024 年 6 月 10, 2024, 改革党向泰斯支付了 £200,000。
据党内消息人士透露，官员们直到几个月后，即 2024 年秋季才意识到犯了一个严重的错误。当改革党向泰斯支付第一笔 £200,000 还款时，其会计师并未将资金汇回实际出借资金的 Tisun Investments 公司，而是汇到了这位副党魁的个人银行账户中。
如果一个政党赠送六位数资金似乎不寻常，
法拉奇解释说，A’Zami 将负责偿还以及核销泰斯自 2020. 年起通过其公司向该党提供的 100 多万英镑贷款。这位房地产开发商的资金对于维持改革党在莱斯特郡 Ashby-de-la-Zouch 总部的运转至关重要。
在书面上，这 £500,000 是由泰斯的另一家公司 Britain Means Business 捐赠的。事实上，在付款之前，泰斯收到了来自乔治之母 Fiona Cottrell 的资金。据《卫报》报道，她本人在几天前通过加密货币交易所从儿子那里收到了一笔等额资金。
这些细节被隐瞒了几乎所有党内官员。当时的副党魁 Ben Habib 表示，他完全不知道“党内高层正在达成财务协议”，并暗示他的信任被“滥用”了。
当苏纳克在 7 月 4, 宣布提前大选时，法拉奇承认自己被“搞措了”。他说他将不会参选，而是将时间花在“尽我一份力”地为泰斯争取支持。
根据选举法，向选举委员会提供错误信息是一种违法行为。改革党否认违反任何法律，称无论如何，当时的财务主管对此负责。
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法拉奇出示了一份文件，列明了他将如何偿还泰斯的资金。此前，根据财务文件，这些贷款为无息贷款，在“要求时”且“仅在政党资金状况允许”的情况下偿还。
这些款项是在改革党的银行账户被冻结以及可疑活动报告被发送至国家犯罪调查局的前几天支付的，目前已成为大都会警察局调查的一部分。这似乎也解释了为什么泰斯既给予又接收了六位数资金。
贷款将被设定为“仅在政党资金允许”时偿还
然而，在接下来的几天里，法拉奇收到了来自右翼各界的恳请，希望他重新考虑，并在 6 月 3 宣布他已回归领导岗位，并将竞选国会议员。
党内消息人士声称，官员们建议立即纠正错误并告知监管机构，认为监管机构不会对一个无心之失采取惩罚措施。然而，
现在情况发生了变化：法拉奇列出了一份“还款计划”。在接下来的 2024. 年里，泰斯的公司将收到定期的六位数分期付款，或将之前的贷款转换为捐赠。
移民在西班牙安全人员的陪同下被遣返回边境。部分人在抵达塞乌塔后接受了医疗救治，在该地的海域中已安装了拦截围栏。
据称：“邻居们说，他们正试图闯入房屋寻找食物。”
周五晚上，在俯瞰海滩的木栈道上，一名在红十字会担任志愿者的救生员（要求匿名）一边抽烟，一边看着数十名男子仍在水中抵达。他说：“今天我从水里拉出了五具男尸。”人们游了长达六英里，抵达时已精疲力竭，或者“几乎不会游泳”。到目前为止，已报告至少 67 例死亡。
在西班牙获得合法身份的方案尤其具有争议。超过一百万人申请了该计划，该计划于 6 月底结束——这一人数是桑切斯政府预测人数的两倍多。
桑切斯，（各方）都渴望看到他采取强硬路线。在德国尤其如此，右翼激进政党“德国选择党”（AfD）已成为最受欢迎的政党，部分原因是发生了一系列伊斯兰主义恐怖袭击，最近一次是上周末在柏林举行的一场同性恋自豪活动上。
一直采取强硬移民路线的丹麦首相呼吁欧盟“评估所有选项”，包括暂停申根协议的可能性。芬兰内政部长马里·兰塔宁（Mari Rantanen）对此表示赞同。德国总理弗里德里希·默茨（Friedrich Merz）告诉西班牙，其“必须重新掌控”该领土。
首相，对桑切斯处理此次事件的方式最为批评。周五，意大利宣布将对从西班牙经由航空或海路抵达的人员实施边境检查，实际上暂停了两国之间的申根旅游协议。
来自“国家未来党”（National Future）的成员，这是一个由民粹主义将领罗伯托·凡纳奇（Roberto Vannacci）于今年发起成立的极右翼政党。
“梅洛尼的问题从根本上说不是塞乌塔，而是凡纳奇，”意大利反对党议员大卫·法罗内（Davide Faraone）表示。“几个月来，她在治理时一直担心在右翼阵营中被超越，因此每一次危机都成了证明她依然更强硬、更苛刻、更有手段的机会。”
欧洲编辑
海滩上到处散落着鞋子和瘪掉的橡胶游泳圈。他说：“问题出在岩石区。每个人都开始踩在别人身上，而且穿着牛仔裤、夹克和连帽衫在游泳。”他说他在水里看到了婴儿。“我还救过一名看不见的人。他是盲人。他们在社交媒体上看到视频，觉得这里更好。”
欧盟成员国有权制定自己的移民政策，但申根协议使问题复杂化。该协议以 1985 年最初由五个国家在卢森堡的一个小镇签署的名称命名。
西班牙的欧盟邻国对 60,000 名移民涌入塞乌塔的剧烈反应，凸显了关于移民和申根协议长期存在的紧张关系，该协议允许 29 个欧洲国家之间免护照旅行。
桑切斯予以反击，谴责批评西班牙的欧洲国家。他说：“这种由偏见、假新闻、无知或政治利益驱动的态度，不仅违背了欧洲法律、人道主义法以及团结我们的原则，而且违背了欧洲的长期利益和基本的常识。”
在欧洲，对于最初由梅洛尼倡导的计划的支持度也在增加，即在阿尔巴尼亚或其他非欧盟国家处理移民，或创建离岸“遣返中心”。由于法院的抵制，该想法目前尚未付诸实施。意大利针对塞乌塔采取的管制措施已在罗马的菲乌米奇诺机场开始执行，预计将持续一个月。意大利内政部坚称，这些措施将仅影响非欧盟国家公民，但尚未明确在不检查每个人证件的情况下如何进行区分。
波兰总理唐纳德·图斯克（其国家处于申根区完全相反的另一端）强调了他为加强本国与非欧盟成员国白俄罗斯的边境所采取的措施。他说：“我们投入了数十亿欧元，并部署了数千名士兵、警察和边境警卫。如果申根协议要生存下去，西班牙必须效仿我们的做法。”
与此同时，桑切斯声称，西班牙拥有欧盟最不具渗透性的外部边境之一。根据边境和海岸警卫局（Frontex）的数据，过去五年中，西班牙的非法入境人数仅为意大利记录人数的一半。
申根计划从 20 世纪 90 年代末开始逐步取消签署成员国之间的边境检查站和护照管制，该计划依赖于维持坚固的外部边境。正如十年前叙利亚及中东其他地区移民潮抵达时所证明的那样，一旦进入申根区，就很难阻止人们在各国之间流动。
接受《周日泰晤士报》采访的几个人表示，他们在 TikTok 和 Instagram 上看到了关于进入塞乌塔的视频。
欧洲领导人似乎担心，这些戏剧性场景的照片和视频会唤起人们对 2015 年移民危机的记忆，那次危机颠覆了欧洲大陆的政治局势，在多个国家推高了对右翼民粹主义政党的支持。
穆斯塔法·纳斯里（Moustapha Nasri）就是那些梦想更好生活的人之一。在塔拉哈尔（Tarajal）海滩的泛光灯照射下，距离边境铁丝网仅几码之遥，纳斯里得意地站在沙滩上，身上的耐克 T 恤还在滴水，他高喊着“西班牙万岁！”谈到这次跨境，纳斯里说“很容易。现在我要去西班牙了。”他咧嘴一笑。他确认自己在社交媒体上看到了其他摩洛哥人跨境的视频，并从他在马拉喀什的家中出发。他在当地一家女装工厂工作，每天工作 15 小时，薪水约为 €10 欧元。“在摩洛哥我们没有什么机会，全是没钱的工作。现在我在西班牙，我的生活会变好，”他说。
在应对塞乌塔危机时，没有哪个国家像意大利那样走得如此极端，尽管与西班牙共有 426 英里陆地边界的法国表示正在加强管控。但马克龙总统对他这个南方邻国表达了“团结”。
他补充说，塞乌塔甚至不属于申根区。“在当前的国际环境下，欧盟无法承受如此自私、分裂且违法的反应。”
少数支持桑切斯的领导人之一是欧洲理事会主席、葡萄牙前社会党总理安东尼奥·科斯塔（António Costa），他赞扬了西班牙的“坚定反应”。
考虑到这一历史教训，许多欧盟国家在批评西班牙方面达成一致，使得该国社会党总理佩德罗·桑切斯在左翼阵营中日益孤立。
讽刺的是，这场争端爆发之时，与公众认知相反，进入欧洲的非法跨境人数实际上正在下降。根据欧盟边境机构 Frontex 上个月发布的一份报告，今年上半年共有 49,000 次此类入境，与 2025 年同期相比下降了 37 per cent，数值为 37，且远低于 2015, 的水平。
然而，该协议确实允许各国在“作为最后手段”的情况下暂时重新引入边境管制，例如当公共政策或内部安全受到威胁时。目前，包括法国、德国和意大利在内的八个国家已重新引入边境管制，且通常已多次续期。不过，执行情况参差不齐，在实践中，大多数从这些国家跨越到其他申根边境的人无需出示证件。
在欧洲其他地方，几乎没有人同情西班牙。梅特·弗雷德里克森（Mette Frederiksen），
“这是一项非同寻常的措施，旨在保护国家安全并防止对我国产生可能的后果，”梅洛尼在 X 平台的一篇帖子中写道。
塞乌塔以及另一个位于北非的西班牙城市梅利利亚的地理位置，使它们在面对非法移民时显得格外脆弱。但桑切斯无论在国内还是国外的批评者，都急于利用这次危机来攻击他在移民问题上采取的接纳立场，而他将这一立场描述为在出生率下降的情况下促进经济增长的一种方式。
由意大利和丹麦领头的22个申根协议成员国已致信布鲁塞尔，要求就“移民紧急状态举行紧急会议”。他们表示，此举旨在“防止不受控制的违规跨境，打击移民走私网络，消除任何可能鼓励新非法入境的因素，并确保一个统一且有效的欧洲应对方案”。
昨天上午，一个浮动海堤正在安装中，海滩上的塑料垃圾正在被清理。保安们坐在超市入口处。紧握着潜水蹼的年轻男子在加油站乞讨。“最强的人会留下，其余的都会回去，”一名女性在一家便利店外耸肩说道，那里有几个小男孩在乞讨食物。彼得·康拉迪（Peter Conradi）提供了额外报道。
梅洛尼的批评者质疑意大利面临安全威胁的真实性，因为意大利并不与西班牙接壤，认为她的此举实际上是出于国内政治考虑。她希望在一年多后举行的选举中赢得另一个任期，但为此必须击退挑战。
大规模移民及其对社会的广泛影响仍然是一个极具分歧的问题。大多数欧洲领导人对此看法一致，但有一个显著的例外：
一项于4月启动的方案，允许已进入的无证移民……
乔治亚·梅洛尼，意大利……
卡米拉·隆（Camilla Long），第 23 页
处理付款和发票。
关于哈本（Harborne）赠款的问题。他说，这“完全不关任何人的事”。
记录，并称其正在“修订我们的数据库”以提供“正确”的信息。
选举委员会并未被告知泰斯本人（而非他的公司）已获得偿还。英国改革党和Tisun Investments提交的账目也暗示了同样的情况。
2024 年 6 月，在克拉克顿海边（Clacton-on-Sea）的竞选活动开始时，奈杰尔·法拉奇站在乔治·科特雷尔（George Cottrell）身边，被饮料泼中。
向Tisun的偿还工作按计划继续。在1月至4月期间，该党向其偿还了共计 £270,000。在此期间，费奥娜·科特雷尔（Fiona Cottrell）再次向该党捐款，这次是以她自己的名义，金额高达 £250,000。
一名英国改革党发言人表示：“这似乎是基于非法获取的文件或不满的前员工蓄意破坏而产生的进一步误导性信息。”
在《星期日时报》披露他与科特雷尔关系的深度后 48 小时，法拉奇辞去了克拉克顿国会议员职务，他将于 8 月 13 日在埃塞克斯选区竞选连任。如果他在补选中获胜，他将面临两项调查：一项是关于哈本 £5 百万赠款的现有调查，另一项是关于科特雷尔未披露利益的新调查。如果法拉奇因未申报赠款而被制裁，他可能会被移出下议院并面临第二次补选。他一贯将对其财务利益的审查斥为“无关紧要”且是体制内设局。
英国改革党消息人士称，泰斯随后将 £200,000 从其个人账户转至公司账户，从而实际上结清了贷款。目前尚不清楚他具体何时操作。
他表示，“所有相关的偿还款项均已向选举委员会申报”，且法拉奇重返一线政治或参加选举的决定“仅在6月初才发生变化”。
泰斯似乎只拿回了不到一半的资金——£470,000，并将余额——约 £613,000——作为追溯性捐款核销。英国改革党欠他的余额降至零。目前不清楚为什么泰斯的公司没有收到全部资金；消息人士暗示，原计划是全额偿还。
A’Zami 表示：“我被告知款项已支付，并信任我的工作人员。我将此记录在提交给选举委员会的个人记录中。当我得知资金被支付给了公司以外的来源时，我试图补救此事并通知委员会，但被阻止了。我不被允许将其修正。”
他补充道：“A’Zami 先生作为当时该党的财务主管，对该党的财务负有最终责任并拥有完全监督权。他控制财务团队，执行支付，并编制和提交报告。”
提供错误信息是一种违法行为
选举委员会承认款项记录有误。该委员会表示，改革党并未“明确”将还款登记在之前的贷款项下，且一次“报告错误”导致至少一份公开记录“不正确”。
泰斯和考特雷尔未回应置评请求。
到 2025 年 2 月，A’Zami 已离开该党，回到迪拜从事商业活动。此前他与该党在一系列问题上产生分歧。
当被问及来自考特雷尔的资金时，他使用了一个之前用来驳回批评的短语。
Josh Glancy，第 9 页
6 《星期日泰晤士报》 2026 年 8 月 2 日
客户们非常理解我们在平衡工作与家庭生活。如果每年夏天都是这样的高温天气，我认为每个人都会调整工作时间，早点开始，早点离开。”
今年夏天周五下午 3 点到 5 点之间的使用情况与冬季月份相比。
一项维珍（Virgin）的民意调查发现，30% 的英国人已经有了正式的周五早下班制度，而另外 30% 的人在未经允许的情况下提前下线。64% 的人表示，如果能期待周五早点结束工作，他们会觉得“在一周早些时候的生产力更高”。
热浪迫使其他企业缩短营业时间。今年 6 月，当温度超过 35 摄氏度时，一些建筑、酒店业和运输工作根本无法开展。
普华永道（PwC）英国首席人事官菲莉帕·奥康纳（Phillippa O’Connor）证实了这一点，她表示周五下午休息让员工有“更多充电机会。客户承诺永远第一，但每个人都应该有机会在（夏季）期间获益。”
在伦敦和埃塞克斯拥有五家分店的 Robins Pie & Mash 连锁店关门营业，以让员工“从炎热的厨房中解脱”。联合工会（Unite）和工会大会（TUC）发起了一场“击败酷暑”活动，指出英国与欧洲大部分地区不同，没有法定的最高工作温度。该组织希望员工能够“在 30 摄氏度时停止工作，而从事艰苦工作的人员在 27 摄氏度时即可停止”。
这也是为什么位于柴郡阿尔特林查姆的营销机构 Add People 的首席执行官理查德·波斯基特（Richard Poskitt）在 6 月至 9 月期间，让其 240 名员工在周五提前一小时下班。
公共关系顾问塔拉·布里兹（Tara Breeze）亲眼见证了欧洲大陆的工作节奏如何放慢：她利用雇主（餐饮公关机构 Samphire Communications）提供的灵活夏季工作选项，在 8 月的三个星期里在西班牙远程工作。
“我们并不是试图模仿欧洲大陆的工作方式，但绝对有值得学习的地方，”他说。“最好的工作来自那些拥有足够精力和心理空间把工作做好的人。从招聘角度来看，像夏季工时这样的政策有助于我们脱颖而出。”
“英国终于意识到了西班牙多年来一直做得非常出色的事情，”她说。“在这里的夏天，许多企业切换到‘密集工作制’（jornada intensiva），人们在早些时候连续工作，通常在下午 2 点或 3 点左右结束，而周五下午通常被‘放弃’，因为每个人都前往海滩或乡村。我早起，早完工，并在较为安静的夜晚撰写新闻稿、制定战略和计划。”
总部位于伦敦的技术咨询公司 Clarity Global 的 100 名员工在夏季月份的周五下午 2 点停止工作。其人力资源负责人 Kate Jelonek 声称，这项福利提升了公司竞争力，而非造成资金损失。“客户通常很高兴看到我们如何对待员工的福祉，而人们则希望在能通过延长周末让他们找回夏天的地方工作。”
插画由 NINA KRAUSE 创作，既然你问起，它是周五下午画的
然而，对于一些雇主来说，英国向欧洲大陆 8 月工作模式的靠拢是有代价的。经营 Soho 公关公司 Emerge（拥有 30 名员工）的 Emily Austen 表示，她对“夏季工作时间”持有“矛盾的心情”。从 6 月到 9 月，她的团队在周五下午 3 点打烊。
对于大型雇主而言，夏季工作时间可能是招聘与福祉工具的结合体；但对于许多小型企业来说，缩短夏季工作时间是让育儿账目能够平衡的唯一方法。根据儿童慈善机构 Coram 的数据，今年为期六周的完整夏季假期俱乐部的平均费用上涨了 5%，每名儿童为 £1,145。在伦敦，过去 12 个月内价格上涨了高达 16%。
“我们需要在客户在岗时在岗，并且必须与他们就如何适应这种情况进行协作，”她说道。她的客户分布在“法国——他们几乎整个 8 月都收拾行李休息——西班牙和葡萄牙，这两国在夏季月份工作节奏放缓，并避开午后极端的酷暑。”
越来越多的英国雇主正在缩减 6 月至 9 月的每周工作时间。Lucy Tobin 问道，员工们可能热爱这个想法，但这是否会对生产力产生寒蝉效应？
在漫长的学校假期中兼顾企业运营可能是不可能的。位于林肯郡北部 Messingham 的一家意大利餐厅 Abbondante 已将每周五个工作日缩减，8 月期间仅在三天内下午 4 点至晚上 9 点营业。
7 月到 9 月初的周五。从 7 月 20 日起，会计巨头 PwC 的 23,000 名英国员工都可以在周五午餐时间合上笔记本电脑——前提是将缺失的半天工作时间压缩到工作周的其他日子里。
跟随他们的方向。缩短工作时间、8 月实行四天工作制以及在酷暑天享受漫长慵懒的午餐已经牢牢地到来。
周四下午 4 点，在尝试给一名管理顾问、一名文学编辑和一名媒体律师发邮件并收到第六封“不在办公室”的自动回复后，我退到一家咖啡馆，寻求空调、一杯冰拿铁，以及一个能让我对着笔记本电脑坐几个小时的地方。
但这里存在财务成本。停滞的周五在夏季为每名员工累积了 39 小时的工作时间损失，“对于一个拥有 30 人的团队来说就是 1,170 小时——对于像我们这样按可计费时间计费的机构来说，这是一笔巨大的成本，”Austen 说道。
“我们是一家家庭经营的餐厅，除了照顾顾客，还要照顾三个 4 到 11 岁的孩子，”与妻子 Cabriera 共同拥有该餐厅的 Dante Botta 解释道。
我们还没有走到像某些行业那样关闭一个月，或者采取法式 “le pont”（桥接日）——即允许员工在公共假期和周末之间的日子休假。但越来越多的雇主决定，在 7 月和 8 月最能提高生产力的事情，实际上就是减少工作。
我们终于在模仿西班牙了
缩短工作时间有助于父母
招聘网站 Flexa 报告称，过去六个月中，搜索带有“夏季工作时间福利”职位的次数增加了四倍。总的来说，提前下班并不会影响工资。
但当这个计划也被咖啡馆门上用透明胶带贴着的“7 月提前打烊”告示给挡回来时——很明显，我关于报道英国悄然接纳夏季工作时间的想法将比预想的更困难。
“缺点在于，即使你将其定义为一项福利，它也会变成一种预期——而且一旦你实施了此类政策，就很难再将其收回。”
“在过去的三年里，孩子们在餐厅里度过暑假，或者和朋友、保姆在一起，但这非常困难。我是第三代意大利人，在老家，每个人在八月份都会放慢节奏。
甚至那些没有正式缩短夏季工作时间的雇主，也可能会发现员工们无论如何都会享受这项福利。维珍媒体（Virgin Media）对互联网使用数据的分析发现，宽带使用量下降了 4.1%
“但现实地来看，在热浪袭击下的伦敦市中心，周五的那三个小时里，你能从团队中获得全部的生产力吗？答案大概是否定的。”
上市时尚巨头 Asos 在 6 月、7 月和 8 月的周五下午 3 点关门。广告公司 Dentsu UK&I 允许其 3,500 名员工在 2 点下班。
曾经，面色凝重的英国人嘲笑巴黎人夏天关店，嘲笑意大利人直到九月才从海岸线消失，而现在看来，我们正
“起初，这在英国是不被接受的，但今年夏天情况改变了。我们的
沃克（Walker），26, 岁，以及她的幼女。
伊齐·莱昂斯（Izzy Lyons）和特里·怀特（Terri White）
据披露，该逮捕令是在辛普森（Simpson）因违反禁令而未能出庭后签发的，该禁令是为了保护家庭虐待受害者而设立的。在该禁令实施前，有报告称辛普森骚扰并威胁了另一名女性，据信是其前任伴侣。社会服务部门和警方都不知道辛普森已经开始与沃克约会。
在女孩死亡前的几个月里，辛普森对这名幼儿实施了肢体和性虐待，死亡原因是由于一次“无法生存”的脑损伤。2025 年 9 月 13, 2025, 早晨，女孩在被剧烈摇晃时头部撞击在硬表面上，次日在医院死亡。目前尚未确定致命伤是由谁造成的。沃克否认是她所为，称由于前一晚大量饮酒，她那天早晨在睡觉。辛普森拒绝提供其版本的事件经过。
在 2021 年 1 月 6, 2021, 暴力暴徒冲击国会大厦之后，由于伊万卡（Ivanka）在推特上发布了一条呼吁和平且将暴徒称为“美国爱国者”的帖子，这两兄弟陷入了关于家族“内战”的报道围攻。据报道多年来一直难以被库什纳（Kushner）家族接纳的克洛斯（Kloss）发布称，“接受合法民主选举的结果是爱国的。拒绝这样做并煽动暴力是反美国的。”当一名推特用户建议她与公婆分享这条信息时，她回答道：“我试过了。”
不和的传闻似乎很短暂。尽管存在政治分歧，但了解库什纳家族的人表示，在经历了兄弟相残——他们的叔叔将父亲告上法庭，使家族名誉受损——之后，他们现在形影不离。今年夏天
伊莎贝尔·威尔士（Isabelle Welsh）曾是一个“快乐且茁壮成长”的孩子，直到辛普森进入她的生活
就像她的孙女“正在遭受虐待”一样。
警方在的一份声明中表示：“本着公开透明的原则，我们在调查早期就将未执行逮捕令的相关情况告知了伊莎贝尔的家人。”
“在他因谋杀被逮捕后，我们立即对此进行了审查。
“此次审查，以及我们持续改进嫌疑人管理流程的决心，导致了近期的一系列变化，例如：在整个警队范围内持续提高对未执行逮捕令的可见度、建立一个追踪所有未执行逮捕令的全面数据系统，以及实施严格的监督，包括由一名警司领导的治理小组。
“那些风险最高的未执行逮捕令由高级管理层每日审查。”
严重受伤或致命受伤。审查发现，尽管伊莎贝尔随后被谋杀，但委员会决定不对之前两次与伊莎贝尔的接触采取进一步行动，在事后看来是“恰当的”。自2019年以来，保护协作伙伴关系已开展了30次快速审查。在15起案例中，儿童被杀害。在18起案例中，儿童年龄在三岁以下。
辛普森和沃克审理期间听到，在辛普森进入她的生活之前，伊莎贝尔是一个“快乐且茁壮成长”的孩子。沃克对伴侣的行为感到怀疑，包括他想独自给女儿洗澡，她甚至在性犯罪者登记簿中查找了他的名字，但没有找到。尽管有这些顾虑，她还是和他在一起。
沃克的母亲克莱尔也提出了担忧，告诉女儿这看起来
在她死前四周的另外两次机会中也与伊莎贝尔及其母亲接触。但这两次互动均未采取进一步行动。起诉方称，有一次，一名健康访问员在伊莎贝尔死前四天检查了她的情况，但“不幸地”没有前往家庭住址，而是选择通过电话进行。
“无论如何，在没有实际探访伊莎贝尔或检查其福利的情况下，该健康访问员结束了通话并记录称她没有顾虑，”检方代表理查德·赖特 KC 告诉法庭。
在伊莎贝尔被谋杀后，由哈特尔普尔和斯托克顿-蒂斯委员会运行的联合保护伙伴关系开展了一次快速审查。这是当局在已知儿童变得
在此前遭受家庭虐待后使用了相关服务。
11天后，伊莎贝尔被送回医院，这一次是致命伤。护士在回忆起看到她“从头到脚布满淤青”时崩溃落泪。尸检发现21处骨折，包括颅骨和脊柱，97处软组织损伤以及脑出血。由委员会运行的当地保护中心
警方在逮捕令签发后的18个月里未能拘留一名“惯犯”家庭虐待者，导致他随后杀害了其伴侣两岁大的女儿。
哈里森·辛普森上周被判处终身监禁，并被告知他必须在监狱中服刑至少28年，以偿其去年9月对伊莎贝尔·威尔士进行的“施虐”谋杀。她的母亲亚历山德拉·沃克也被判定谋杀罪成，被判处终身监禁，最低刑期为21年。两人在Facebook上结识，在伊莎贝尔被杀前三个月开始约会。
死前，沃克曾带女儿去医院治疗腿伤，当时孩子“难以承重”，她告诉医护人员孩子两周前在婴儿床里受伤了。结果显示腿部骨折。
“警方进行了多次询问和逮捕尝试，试图定位并逮捕他，但均未成功，”克利夫兰警方表示。“我们承认，辛普森持有未执行逮捕令的时间远远不够理想。”
北蒂斯大学医院的一名护士提出了保护顾虑，但被医生驳回，医生接受了沃克对事件的描述。
克利夫兰警方承认，他们未能执行蒂赛德地方法院于2024年3月签发的针对辛普森的逮捕令，导致22岁的辛普森在自由状态下会见了
去年几乎有60,000
针对在英格兰和威尔士缺席出庭的被告，已发布逮捕令，数量自以来增加了近 50 百分比
该幼儿被交还给其母亲照顾，其母亲此前为社会服务部门的已知对象
在她的十二天前
THESTEWARTOFNY / GETTY IMAGES
时任新泽西州美国检察官对查尔斯提出了联邦指控，包括逃税、在竞选捐款问题上作虚假陈述，以及雇佣一名妓女与他的妹夫同床，并秘密拍摄视频发送给他的妹妹。此举意在通过压力迫使这对夫妇不配合调查，但并未奏效。
路易丝·卡拉汉（Louise Callaghan），美国高级记者，纽约
在纽约金融界的某些圈子中，只有一位库什纳（Kushner）举足轻重。他不是家主、前囚犯兼仅会一种语言的驻法大使查尔斯。也不是长子、总统女儿伊万卡的丈夫、和平使者兼特朗普前顾问贾里德。而是约书亚，库什纳四兄妹中的最小一个，无论以何种标准衡量，他都是这个权势家族中经济上最成功的成员。
他们的父亲入狱了
他是贾里德之阳的阴
查尔斯承认 16 项逃税罪名成立，其中一项是对联邦证人进行报复，另一项是对联邦选举委员会撒谎。据报道，另一项共谋指控已被撤销。他被判处两年监禁。
他是全球最大风险投资基金之一的创始人，该公司声称管理资产达 600 亿美元 billion，福布斯估计其个人净资产约为 52 亿美元 billion。
这场丑闻玷污了库什纳家族的声誉。当查尔斯在阿拉巴马州的监狱中服刑时，当时 24, 岁的贾里德接管了家族企业，誓言要挽回家族名声。为此，他承担了风险：他出售了家族在新泽西州的资产，并在 2007 年以 18 亿美元 billion 的价格买下了曼哈顿的一座办公大楼——第五大道 666 号。他还买下了《纽约观察报》（New York Observer）。
上周，在被曝出他正领导一个投资者团体竞标国际足联世界杯的股份后，他成为了国际关注的焦点。据报道，他旗下的 Thrive Capital 公司的投资者们对该提议引发的全球抵制感到震惊，并撤出了交易。
上个月，约书亚·库什纳与妻子卡莉·克洛斯（Karlie Kloss）在纽约。左下，国际足联的詹尼·因凡蒂诺与贾里德·库什纳
“我认为查尔斯·库什纳的遭遇被他的儿子们、四个孩子以及他的妻子认为是非常、非常不公平的，”沃德（Ward）说道。“我认为他们简直是用一生在尝试不仅是为了弥补，而且是在某种程度上‘拨乱反正’。在某种程度上，他们成功了。他们改写了历史。”
现在，这位 41 岁的男子（他与超模卡莉·克洛斯结婚）正获得他应得的那份国际关注。自他的父亲在 2005, 年因逃税、非法竞选捐款和干扰证人而被监禁，以及他的兄弟不惜冒一切风险挽救家族名声以来，他的家庭一直吸引着这类关注。
约书亚没有进入家族企业。相反，他经营科技初创公司，但没有一家获得惊人的成功。直到他通过自己的公司 Thrive Capital（贾里德在其书中称他帮助创建并构建了该公司）转向投资后，他才开始获利。他利用在美国东西两岸的人脉，成功投资了 Spotify、Instagram、OpenAI、Stripe 和 SpaceX 等公司，尽管早期的一些赌注失败了。
将家族企业变成了一个价值 10 亿美元 billion 的开发巨头。但他想要的不仅仅是金钱：他希望家族成为犹太版的肯尼迪。他们是利文斯顿当地正统犹太社区的坚定支持者，并慷慨地资助慈善事业。
Kloss 告诉彭博社：“我没有忘记我是谁，但这也是我丈夫的家人。我是一名民主党人。我认为与政治立场不一致的人保持关系是可能的。而且我认为这个国家一直是一个对话之所。”
在风险投资行业中，库什纳家最小的兄弟为人所知
查尔斯的四个孩子（两个儿子和两个女儿）生活富裕，但被要求勤奋工作。这些兄弟姐妹过去常在周末和晚上陪父亲在公司工作，并深度参与业务。兄弟之间关系亲密。根据贾里德的书《打破历史：白宫回忆录》(Breaking History: A White House Memoir)，他们放学后几乎每天都会一起打篮球和曲棍球。
记者兼《库什纳公司》(Kushner Inc) 作者维基·沃德表示，约书亚是“贾里德之阳的阴”。她说：“不要被外表骗了。库什纳家族之所以能达到今天的地位，是因为他们极其团结……这是一个曾经因金钱之争而付出沉重代价的家庭。他们不会再次让政治分歧将他们分开。”
一位家庭朋友告诉沃德：“如果乔什和贾里德不姓库什纳，如果他们就像，你知道，像我一样……乔什会找到成功的办法。而贾里德？我不这么认为。”
Thrive Capital 表示：“贾里德在 Thrive 中没有财务利益，在这次潜在的 [国际足联 (Fifa)] 交易中也不会拥有任何股份。”
1949 年，该家族在通过隧道逃离波兰小镇的纳粹隔离区后来到新泽西州，他们信奉的座右铭是“像移民一样思考，像移民一样行动”。在新泽西州，他们开始建造公寓且从未停步。在接下来的几十年里，查尔斯将
2004 年，就在约书亚准备追随哥哥进入哈佛大学时，危机降临了。多年前，查尔斯在被发现利用家族合伙企业进行竞选捐款后，被其兄弟起诉。克里斯·克里斯蒂，
社论，第 20 页；马修·赛义德，第 21 页
现在在当地协助虐待受害者，他表示：“那些（阿联酋人）关心的只有金钱和名声。如果他们想除掉你，他们就会这么做。如果有人在那样的高压环境下在那里公开生活很长时间，对我来说，这表明其中涉及腐败。如果他们使用伪造护照进入迪拜，那是严重的联邦犯罪。”海格否认了针对他的欺诈指控。
在伊朗每晚向迪拜和中东发射无人机袭击期间，这给阿联酋官员带来了尴尬，促使当局打击他们的活动。美国海军在印度洋截获了一艘油轮及其价值 $200 的原油货物。
迪拜政府表示，基于就业的居留签证有效期为两年。雇主必须首先通过阿联酋人力资源与本土化部申请工作许可证。随后，员工必须通过身体健康检查。
根据记录，该号码与其居留档案相关联。
克里斯托弗·基纳汉二世在 2013 年 9 月获得了短期阿联酋签证。丹尼尔·基纳汉在 2013 年至 2013 年期间获得了七个短期阿联酋签证。
目前尚不清楚这两个人在没有有效居留签证的情况下如何依然在逃。
不愿采取适当行动？基纳汉 (犯罪家族) 并非无名之辈；他们处于有组织犯罪的最顶端。阿联酋竟然不知道他们的居住状态，简直令人难以置信，”他说道。“这引发了人们的疑问，即阿联酋政府内部或执法部门的个人是否从中获得了某种财务利益，从而阻碍了对他们的逮捕和驱逐。”阿联酋执行严格的签证和移民政策。访问者在进入这个海湾国家时要接受生物识别扫描。违反该国规则的外籍人士可能会被逮捕、拘留并移交给阿联酋公共检察机关。此外，阿联酋还对签证到期后每留在该国一天的人员处以罚款。
他最早于 2007 年开始访问阿联酋，并在搬迁之前频繁前往。然而，他似乎还使用了一本以 Christopher O’Brien（他的已知化名之一）名义颁发的爱尔兰护照进行了约十次访问。该名字是在一家于 2014, 2月成立的已注销香港公司的企业文件中被发现的，这表明基纳汉除了使用真实证件外，可能还使用了假护照往返于阿联酋。
阿联酋一再坚称，其已经执行了一系列针对该犯罪集团的美国深远制裁，并冻结了其 €200 million 的资产。
对官方记录的分析显示，该犯罪集团的核心成员早在 2013, 9 月就开始访问阿联酋，比都柏林一起针对 Daniel Kinahan 的谋杀企图早三年；那起事件引发了一场导致 18 人丧生的血战，并促使他们永久迁移到这个海湾国家。他们显示
有迹象表明，阿联酋对这些罪犯的容忍可能即将结束。上周，一家阿联酋法院下令将 Daniel Kinahan 引渡，以便在都柏林的一个非陪审团法院接受指控指挥有组织犯罪团伙的审判。爱尔兰军队预计将在 9 月将被告飞往爱尔兰，届时他将被接走并由防弹车护送至法院。
阿联酋此前曾引渡 Sean McGovern，他是基纳汉的一名同伙，被都柏林的特别刑事法院判处 24 年监禁。
该犯罪集团的所有成员似乎都使用爱尔兰护照获得了阿联酋的居留权，但 Christy Kinahan 除外，其英国护照
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一家名为 Island Star Tourism 的公司。
Island Star Tourism 的总经理表示，Christopher Kinahan Jr 是作为“基于佣金的员工，而非办公室员工”工作的。他确认自己认出 Kinahan Jr 的名字，但表示从未见过他。当被问及公司名称如何出现在签证上时，他回答道“我不知道”。他说，如果阿联酋对 Kinahan Jr 有任何问题，他们将“不会给予许可”。
Bernard Clancy，48 岁，该犯罪集团的另一名强权人物，获得了一份为期两年的居留许可，并于 1 月进行了续签。Clancy 在其居留卡上的申报职业是 Al Matn Goods Wholesalers LLC 公司的“销售员”。
David Haigh 是一名英国律师，他因欺诈指控在迪拜被监禁，并且
另一份属于 Christopher O’Brien 的阿联酋短期签证于 8 月到期
Daniel Kinahan 曾是一名拳击推广人，被认为复兴了 Tyson Fury 的职业生涯。在《星期日时报》和 Bellingcat 报道称其一名同伙是将原油从伊朗运往中国、绕过全球制裁并为伊朗政权提供资金的关键人物后，他被逮捕。这些披露引起了巨大的
他是一个备受煎熬的人——恐惧被捕
国家犯罪局前副局长罗伊·麦科姆 (Roy McComb) 表示，暗示阿拉伯联合酋合国不知道迪拜卡特尔成员的签证状态是极其荒谬的。
对迪拜政府门户网站的审查显示，克里斯蒂·基纳汉 (Christy Kinahan) 目前因逾期停留 81 天而欠款相当于 1,000 美元以上。迪克森 (Dixon) 的居留权于 2024 年到期，因逾期停留 852 天而欠款 11,000 美元以上。它是
Al Matn Goods Wholesalers 和 OSA Management Consultancies 未回应问询。
在土耳其安卡拉的一家公司办公室。这些图片曾在网上发布，但随后被删除。
克里斯蒂·基纳汉 (Christy Kinahan) 十年前迁至阿拉伯联合酋合国，但其居留签证已过期
“克里斯蒂·基纳汉 (Christy Kinahan) 怎么可能非法逗留在阿联酋，而当地当局却……”
已联系阿联酋外交部寻求评论。
8
赋予市长自由支配其所得税收入份额，是首相实现“每个邮编区都实现增长”的大计。但大卫·柯林斯（David Collins）和爱丽丝·赖特（Alice Wright）在问：这是否会比鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）的共同繁荣计划更成功？
伯纳姆风格
对于英格兰的权力下放市长而言。伯纳姆在担任大曼彻斯特市长九年期间一直是他们的一员，他是否会坚守自己在游说五任不同首相争取更多权力时所提出的论点？抑或是担任首相的现实，会导致过去关于权力下放的原则被淡化？
上周在谢菲尔德的一家托儿所完成了例行公事的抱婴儿活动后，走进一个大厅时，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）被问到，担任首相这份工作最让他感到惊讶的是什么。“我想，在真正体验之前，你不会明白这份工作是怎样的，它是……如此紧张。但从好的方面来说也是如此。我决定拥抱它的每一个部分……很容易被它改变，但我不会让那样发生。”
安迪·伯纳姆与周五当选大曼彻斯特市长的贝芙·克雷格（Bev Craig）
在一次权力下放的重大变革中，伯纳姆表示，英格兰的 14 位区域市长将首次保留一部分所得税收入。他还将允许他们保留在当地征收的商业税的部分资金，并赋予市长对住房、交通和技能培训等服务的更大控制权。这将提供更多的自由，但起初不会有额外资金，且可能给这些区域机构带来财务风险。
“我真心认为没有人想要凭空获得一切，”利物浦城市地区市长史蒂夫·罗瑟姆（Steve Rotheram）上周表示，“只是理性地，想要我们在过去一两年里一直要求的东西。”
这是最大的问题之一。
市长将获得税收的具体比例尚未决定。这些细节将在财政大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）于秋季提交首份预算案时公布——而争论已经开始酝酿。
但与大多数政府公告一样，细节决定成败。
10 号街（No 10）的消息人士承认，权力下放机构不会在现有预算之外获得额外资金：相反，这将取代覆盖交通、住房和成人技能等领域的拨款结算系统。
赋予市长更大的自由，意味着他们可以随意支配资金，以期驱动更快速的经济增长。未来所得税收入增加带来的任何收益也将被保留。
市长还将能够根据预计收入进行借贷，这意味着他们可以为其管辖范围内的重大长期项目提供资金。
伯纳姆信奉德国的区域均衡模型，即较富裕的地区支付更多资金以补贴较贫困的地区。
每个区域将被分配的收入比例尚未决定，但剑桥郡和彼得伯勒市市长保罗·布里斯托（Paul Bristow）坚决反对补贴英格兰的其他地区。
“安迪·伯纳姆是一个‘北方的首相’。我们是对经济有净贡献的地区，但如果不小心，我们会被抛在后面，”他说。
“如果通盘来看，与其他地区相比，我们的资金匮乏。我们没有从城市地区可持续交通结算中获得任何资金……而规模小三分之一的蒂斯谷（Tees Valley）在四年内获得了 10 亿英镑。”
贝芙·克雷格在赢得大曼彻斯特市长选举接替伯纳姆后，赞扬了前任的权力下放议程，称其可以“改变我们的生活”。
市长们在如何实现增长方面的优先级因地而异。克雷格希望在曼彻斯特皮卡迪利建立一个新的地铁站；南约克郡市长奥利·科帕德希望在 2028 年前重新开放唐卡斯特谢菲尔德机场，希望以此支持 5,000 个就业岗位并“提升 50 亿英镑 billion 的经济规模”；罗瑟姆希望现代化利物浦市中心的火车站，并加快连接利物浦与曼彻斯特的新铁路线；而布里斯托则希望将资金投入到道路升级中。
北方动力伙伴关系（Northern Powerhouse Partnership）首席执行官亨利·穆里森表示，税收权力下放将允许市长通过地方借款和私人融资协议来实现交通项目。他说：“项目将包括曼彻斯特皮卡迪利地铁站和西约克郡有轨电车。”
但首相的核心承诺——“让每个邮政编码区都实现良好增长”——将如何实现？
在谢菲尔德接受《周日泰晤士报》采访时，当被问及他作为市长所写的一项指导原则，即英国迫切需要一部能够将人人享有平等生活标准原则予以法律保障的成文宪法时——
不要加税：自民党党魁告诉首相，支付亲属护理费可缓解护理危机
政府支持的贸易融资。确保信心出口的保险。来自地区出口金融经理的量身定制支持。如果您希望在海外开展业务，英国出口金融局（UK Export Finance）可以帮助您获得所需支持。
多年照顾家人的艾德·戴维表示，私营部门不应被排除在社会护理改革之外
……号召对英格兰的成年人社会护理进行彻底改革——他发起了关于如何解决该国面临的最大危机之一的跨党派讨论。随着他的政府在 1997 年之后第 23 次尝试改革社会护理（之前的尝试因跨党派分歧和缺乏政治意愿而失败），伯纳姆将需要获得所有可能的支持，包括来自议会第三大政党党魁的支持。
请访问 ukexportfi nance.gov.uk 开始办理
凯蒂·塔兰特 白厅记者
上周，艾德·戴维爵士正与家人在法国西南部昂古莱姆的一座农舍里“尝试度假”，这时安迪·伯纳姆打来了电话。
戴维长期致力于改善社会护理，他曾照顾过已故的母亲和祖母，以及他的……
就在周三，在首相于北伦敦的一家护理院发表演讲之后不久
乔什·格兰西 丑闻正让法拉奇的光芒减弱，即使是在改革党阵地
改革党陷入了困境。如果您不相信民意调查（目前该党在工党之后），或者您不太看重最近的曼彻斯特市长选举结果（其得票率自 5 月以来下降了 10 个百分点），那么请尝试前往费勒翰和沃特卢维尔（Fareham & Waterlooville）走一趟。
这个位于朴次茅斯北部的地区应该是典型的改革党地盘。这里地处半沿海，白人为主，对移民问题的担忧程度很高。在该选区中，左翼选票不多，其国会议员苏埃拉·布雷弗曼于 1 月份从保守党转投改革党。因此，这里完全是右翼的战场……而结果已不再是预料之中的定局。
随着基尔·斯塔默的离去，奈杰尔·法拉奇成了英国最不受欢迎的政党领袖
我上周在费勒翰和沃特卢维尔遇到的许多人都对投票给改革党持开放态度，但很少有人对此感到热情。“我认为改革党表现得不算太糟，”在朴次茅斯工作的招聘顾问马修说，“但伯纳姆和巴德诺赫现在更受欢迎。改革党在很大程度上依赖于新政党的‘爆发效应’，但他们现在已经存在一段时间了，不能再依赖这一点。”
……呼吁所有人都享有平等的生活标准——伯纳姆对此表示支持。
“我认为权力下放将进一步增强制定成文宪法的理由，”伯纳姆说。
……在像费勒翰这样的地方彻底击败保守党。
“英格兰确实在经历这种转变，而苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰也可以在地方赋权和地方权力下放方面走类似的道路。”伯纳姆表示，由这些国家的首席部长制定自己的计划。
英国改革党如何才能找回其影响力？从根本上说，该党的吸引力在于那些已经放弃并觉得是时候赌一把的人。如果伯纳姆的首相任期陷入挣扎，或者移民和通胀问题再次成为关注焦点，那么该党可能会重新占据主导地位。
在接受亿万富翁 £5m 捐赠的同时，很难扮演一个喝着啤酒的普通人
奈杰尔·法拉奇长期以来通过将自己塑造为一个局外人、被遗忘者的捍卫者以及体制的克星而获益。他始终是该党的核心资产。
但最近对其资金来源的调查，包括《星期日泰晤士报》和《卫报》关于加密货币大亨克里斯托弗·哈博恩及其助手“奢华”乔治·科特雷尔提供未申报礼品的报道，在一定程度上削弱了他的光环。
“对很多人来说，那种不满和对改变的渴望依然存在，”在沃特卢维尔的一位退休教师兼议员格温·罗宾逊说道，她从保守党转投到了英国改革党。“人们喜欢称我们为种族主义者。但我不是种族主义者，我是个绝望主义者。我对这个国家的现状感到绝望。”
“我们需要一套明确的原则来规定这个国家应该如何运行，以及在全国所有地区关于基本需求和连通性的最低基础标准，”他说。“人们在为一些在国家其他地区本就是基本且理所当然的事情而争论，这是错误的。缺乏宪法使处于这种情况的地区失去了权力。”
“他并没有给党带来什么好处，”来自沃特卢维尔的产品经理克莱尔说。“作为一名政治家，你必须清白得无可挑剔，必须申报一切。我之所以倾向于英国改革党，是因为看到了其他政党有多糟糕。唯一让我反感的就是奈杰尔·法拉奇。”
在英国改革党内部，依然存在谨慎的乐观。该党不再认为自己可能在获得 40 per cent 选票的情况下在下议院获得绝对多数，但相信它可以继续保持右翼最大政党的地位，并将得票率回升至 30 per cent。在下个月的党代会上，法拉奇的团队将通过宣布新的影子内阁部长而扩大，从而传达出一种更新的势头。他们还预计，当约翰·希利不得不交付一份艰难的十月预算案时，伯纳姆首相的光环将会消失。
右翼民粹主义的起义在英国也同样如此。成千上万的摩洛哥移民涌向塞乌塔的景象，以及英吉利海峡中小型船只抵达人数的增加，有助于强化法拉奇的观点。
伦敦国王学院的政治学家弗农·博格达诺尔爵士表示，英国是世界上仅有的三个没有成文宪法的民主国家之一，另外两个是新西兰和以色列。相反，英国的不成文宪法存在于议会的各项裁决、法律以及传统之中。
在接受加密货币亿万富翁 500 万英镑 million 捐赠的同时，很难扮演一个热爱啤酒的普通人，因此法拉奇的个人支持率在近几个月也受到了打击。随着基尔·斯塔默爵士的离开，他现在成为了英国政坛最不受欢迎的政党领导人。在一些民调中，他的净支持率低至 minus 32；去年夏天，他几乎处于盈亏平衡点。
但他的选票正面临被挤压的风险。鲁珀特·洛的“恢复党”开始从那些极度关注移民问题的选民中分走支持——在大曼彻斯特市长选举中，该党获得了近 9 per cent 的选票。
成文宪法将概述一系列基本权利，这些权利将由法官解释并成为法律，正如在德国或美国那样。
在克莱克顿（Clacton）的补选结束后，法拉奇可能会再次受到议会标准专员的调查。他最终可能会被议会特别委员会暂停资格，并不得不再次参加另一场补选。
与此同时，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在北部的受欢迎程度使梅克菲尔德（Makerfield）等“红墙”席位重新回到了工党的争夺范围。如果巴德诺克（Badenoch）能将自己的个人影响力转化为保守党的复兴（这仍然远不确定），那么英国在下一次选举中可能会回归到更传统的两党对决。
“我认为这是一个强有力的理由，”博格达诺尔（Bogdanor）表示。“但你需要的不仅是立法和单次议会法案，你还需要跨党派的协议、公众的共识以及一次全民公投，而且可能还需要在苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰获得多数支持，而不仅仅是英格兰。人们抱怨‘邮政编码彩票’（地区差异），但在某种意义上，这就是权力下放的结果。”
并没有出现大规模离开改革党的现象。远非如此。法拉奇在克莱克顿依然吸引着崇拜的人群，他是在自己选择的补选中参选，且没有任何大党与之竞争。但在像沃特卢维尔（Waterlooville）这样曾经的保守党核心地带的边际城镇，人们感觉到一种引力正在重新发挥作用。
但法拉奇阵营内部认为，这可能会对他有利，使他在支持者发起“再次告知他们”活动并集结周围时，看起来像是受到了迫害。他们认为许多选民并不关心资金争议。
在法勒姆（Fareham）这个比沃特卢维尔更富裕的市场城镇，保守党似乎在维持阵地。改革党在5月的议会选举中仅获得了一个席位，而布雷弗曼（Braverman）决定跳槽的决定引发了相当复杂的反应。“这些天你很少在法勒姆看到她，”保守党区议会领导人西蒙·马丁（Simon Martin）说。“她大部分时间都在沃特卢维尔。”
“我认为，如果养老金在不同地区有所不同，或者在社会护理方面，如果你在某些地区必须支付社会护理费用而其他地区不需要，我们不会喜欢这样。人们会说这不公平。”
许多抛弃保守党的人现在正对凯米·巴德诺克（Kemi Badenoch）产生好感。“法拉奇依然是一个不容小觑的力量，”来自沃特卢维尔的退休驾驶教练温迪（Wendy）说。“但我对凯米·巴德诺克越来越印象深刻：她的性格强度让我想起了一点玛格丽特·撒切尔。我一直投保守党票，而且我会
“在走访选民时，人们对这个问题完全不感兴趣，”一名改革党消息人士说。“那些可能会投票给奈杰尔的人根本不在乎。”
在波动的政治格局中，改革党很容易恢复势头。但该党需要时间来走出这些诚信争议，审查数百名选举候选人并制定其政策平台，正如巴德诺克需要时间来清除保守党品牌的毒素，绿党需要时间来更换或振兴他们自己那个陷入困境的领导人一样。
插图：RUSSEL HERNEMAN
智库 More in Common 的英国主管卢克·特里尔（Luke Tryl）认为，法勒姆的情况说明了改革党面临着在两难之间失去机会的风险。
再次为他们投票。但目前看来，改革党只是这群糟糕选项中最好的一个。”
“如果你无法赢得南方的富裕保守党选民，那么这对改革党来说就是一个问题。这显示了我们所谓的 [罗伯特] 詹里克主义（Jenrickism）潜在的局限性，而这种主义完全关乎
改革党在全国范围内的民调支持率仍约为 24 %，并将
继续成为一支强大的力量。欧洲的每个主要国家都在经历
由于对一笔 500 万英镑 (£5 million) 的捐款以及来自一名诈骗者的资金进行审查，他声称自己的政党正受到一个不明确的“权势集团”的追捕。
难怪安迪·伯纳姆阵营中的一些人仍然被提前举行选举的想法所吸引。
在去年 9 月扎克·波兰斯基（Zack Polanski）当选领导人后不久，他们被绿党取代之前，这些人曾支持保守党。
自由民主党 2024 年的竞选宣言建议，通过对银行和社交媒体公司的利润征税，为每年 50 亿英镑的社会护理支出增长提供资金。目前成人社会护理的成本约为 280 亿英镑。
社会护理成本设定 35,000 英镑的终身上限，限制任何个人必须支付的护理费用。预计每年成本约为 17 亿英镑。
在做出判断之前，等待布莱克斯托克（Blackstock）的凯西男爵夫人（Baroness Casey）关于社会护理审查的结果。该审查由基尔·斯塔默爵士（Sir Keir Starmer）委任，并由伯纳姆（Burnham）推进。他认为，一旦议会确定了改革路径，变革可在一年内实现。
戴维（Davey）不符合领取护理者津贴（carer’s allowance）的条件。这是一项每周 86.45 英镑的付款，由英国约一百万人领取，这些人每周至少花费 35 小时照顾残疾或患病人士，且在扣除所得税和国民保险等费用后，每周收入不超过 204 英镑。
所有死后继承的遗产，无论价值多少，均需缴税，以支付成本超过 180 亿英镑的变革。
残疾儿子约翰（John）毫不犹豫地拿起电话加入会议。“我认为这是一次良好且具有建设性的会议。他显然致力于，或者说他声称相信跨党派合作，我对此表示欢迎。”
戴维说：“我们不需要对普通人增税来使之运作。如果你用不同的方式去做，你会获得更好的护理并节省资金。” 他关于如何采取不同方式的主要想法之一是投资于无薪护理人员，或称“家庭护理人员”，据估计英格兰有 470 万名此类人员。戴维说：“有数百万人在照顾亲人，我认为（伯纳姆）承认这对任何改革都至关重要。”
选举分析学家可能会指出，在一些沿海和后工业城镇，改革党议员取代了自由民主党人——例如绍森德海滨（Southend-on-Sea）和索尔福德（Salford）的都市选区。
戴维认为，将目标对准那些不倾向于投向改革党的保守党人是一条成功之路。“由于保守党为了追求改革党的选票而向右转，我认为终身保守党选民，尤其是许多‘一个国家’保守党人，正转向我们。”
保守党党魁凯米·巴德诺克（Kemi Badenoch）表示，如果伯纳姆通过增税来支付社会护理计划，她将拒绝合作；与之不同，戴维表示他有“优先事项”，而非红线。
在上次选举中，戴维称自由民主党为“社会护理之党”。现在伯纳姆表示他将把政治资本投入到改革中，戴维是否认为自己的品牌受到了威胁，或者认为有更多理由组建联盟？“首先，本届议会还不到一半时间，”他回避了这个问题。但在与工党合作方面，他说：“民粹主义者和极端分子之所以能获得民众支持，原因之一是人们认为政治无法交付成果。我们经历了十年的彻底失败。对我来说，修复社会护理是我们证明政治可以交付成果的机会。”
伯纳姆在演说中承诺将建立国家护理服务，并提高护理人员的工资和培训水平。《泰晤士报》报道称，他可能还会将大型私营供应商排除在新服务之外。
凯西的审查是自 1997 年以来第 23 次社会护理审查。其中最重要的一次是 2011 年发布的迪尔诺特（Dilnot）报告（当时戴维在大卫·卡梅伦领导下担任初级部长），该报告建议
戴维表示，这将是他改革清单的首位。“这是一个噩梦般的福利。它并不慷慨，”他说。但更重要的是，由于符合条件的最高收入太低，“这其中内置了巨大的就业阻碍”。
— 作为反建制投票趋势增强的证据。在 2024. 年，改革党比自民党多获得了 500,000 票以上。但戴维反驳道：“我们一直都是反建制的。我们想要改变选举制度，我们想要改变上议院，我们想要权力下放，我们想要……一部成文宪法。”
“即使这不是我，或者自民党心目中完美的解决方案，我们也会尝试配合，”他说。
他认为，自民党可以通过呼吁回归单一市场、通过欧洲贸易协定增长经济以及与欧洲建立更好的国防伙伴关系，来赢回这些选民。
戴维对此并不认同。他认为，当某人病重到无法由家人照顾时，他们应该根据自己的收入水平拥有不同的选择。“我对服务提供者没有异议，无论他们是公共部门、非营利组织还是私立机构。我认为多样性有充分的理由。”
VICKI COUCHMAN 为《周日泰晤士报》撰稿
他将提高津贴，这将直接增加在不断攀升的福利账单中该项福利的 37 亿英镑 billion 成本。但他认为，这意味着更多的护理人员可以工作，从而减轻整体税收负担。
他一生的大部分时间都参与护理工作。九岁时，他的母亲 Nina 患了癌症，他在祖父母抚养下照顾她。他照顾过他的外祖母，后者于十年前在他所在的选区金斯顿的一家护理院去世。他现在照顾他的儿子 John，18 岁 —— John 患有一种尚未确诊的神经系统疾病，影响了他的大脑发育、动作和交流 —— 以及他的妻子 Emily，她患有多发性硬化症。
在下一次大选时，戴维将瞄准 50 个以上的席位，特别是那些由保守党赢得的席位 —— 在这些席位中，自民党的得票数落后第一名不足 10,000 票。
这些难道不是伯纳姆一直支持并建议 —— 在他成为首相之前或之后 —— 将要实施的政策吗？“也许他[也将]证明自己是反建制的，”戴维耸了耸肩。“可以肯定的是，目前工党在护理等问题上正向中间路线靠拢。让我们看看这种情况是否会持续。”
伯纳姆也为通过提高税收来支付改革留了余地，他表示：“如果每个遵循国民医疗服务体系（NHS）原则的人都能贡献一点，就意味着每个人都能保住他们奋斗所得的大部分成果。”在担任戈登·布朗领导下的卫生大臣期间，伯纳姆曾提议征收 10% 的税。
埃德·戴维与他的儿子 John（患有神经系统疾病）以及妻子 Emily（患有多发性硬化症）
他说，赋予家庭护理人员更多的财务自主权，也将意味着残疾人和老年人能够更长时间地留在自己家中由亲人照顾，从而减轻 NHS 和国家资助的护理院的负担。
他排除掉组建联合政府的唯一政党是英国改革党，他表示该党代表的“价值观与自民党的价值观完全相反”。
自去年 1 月以来，YouGov 对选民意向的民调显示，自民党的支持率一直稳定在 14% 左右，使其成为继英国改革党、工党之后的第四大热门政党。
英国改革党党魁奈杰尔·法拉奇，他正处于
戴维正在等待
*图表代表 2014-25. 年的年度数据。重要提示：此信息应与 22, 2026, 日发布的菲利普·莫里斯国际公司（Philip Morris International Inc.）收益报告以及随附的关键术语定义词汇表、解释性说明、精选财务信息和非 GAAP 财务指标调节表结合阅读，两者均可在我们的投资者关系页面上获取。“PMI”、“我们”及“我们的”均指整个菲利普·莫里斯国际公司家族。
2026 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
在菲利普·莫里斯国际（PMI），我们的使命很明确：通过为成年吸烟者提供更好的无烟替代品来取代香烟，从而减少吸烟。吸烟者能做出的最佳选择是完全戒掉烟草和尼古丁。对于那些不能戒烟的成年人来说，次佳选择是将香烟——最有害的尼古丁消费形式——更换为替代品。
109
在我们的无烟产品可供应的市场中，为法定年龄的成年人提供更好的替代方案。*
我们的目标是实现一个无烟的未来，并且正在取得显著进展。
12 V2 《星期日泰晤士报》 2, 2026 年 8 月
ALAMY
Hugo Daniel
其作品被改编成 Netflix 热门剧集《布里杰顿》（Bridgerton）的作者批评了围绕浪漫小说而产生的势利心态，并表示“阅读也可以是为了乐趣”。
朱莉娅·奎恩（Julia Quinn），56, 这位美国人撰写了启发这部大胆电视剧的摄政时期浪漫小说，她表示：“我们的社会存在一种观念，认为阅读必须是艰苦的，或者至少在某种程度上必须具有提升作用。”
艾伦·帕克（Alan Parker）与 1991 年电影的演员们在一起。上方是布罗娜·加拉格尔（Bronagh Gallagher）和格伦·汉萨德（Glen Hansard）在 2011 年，那是那场“非凡”重聚演唱会的年份。
“你看电影是为了乐趣。阅读也可以是为了乐趣，”奎恩告诉《金融时报》。
奎恩在哈佛大学学习艺术史期间迷上了浪漫小说，但发现当地书店拒绝进货这类书籍。“你会觉得必须把它藏起来，”奎恩说。“浪漫小说主要由女性为女性而写，讲述的是情感。社会贬低女性特质……我们被告知，伟大的文学是伟大的白人男性追求之作。”
上周去世的格伦·汉萨德在 1991 年的电影中迅速成名。罗莎蒙德·厄温（Rosamund Urwin）回顾了他的合作演员们的现状。
肯尼迪（Kennedy），61, 饰演娜塔莉·墨菲（Natalie Murphy），随后出演了《唐顿庄园》（Downton Abbey）、《都铎王朝》（The Tudors）和《黑色孤儿》（Orphan Black），并与她的音乐家丈夫基兰·肯尼迪（Kieran Kennedy）发行了专辑。安吉琳·鲍尔（Angeline Ball），57, 饰演伊梅尔达·奎克（Imelda Quirke），出演了《马丁医生》（Doc Martin）和《无耻之徒》（Shameless）。
被认为是最伟大的爱尔兰电影之一。2020 年去世的帕克在组建《承诺》（The Commitments）的十人组之前，面试了 3,000 多名希望者——其中大部分是音乐家而非演员——并起用汉萨德担任主吉他手奥斯潘·福斯特（Outspan Foster）。
补充道“作为一个 16 岁的人，他拥有非凡的自信”。随后，斯特朗（Strong），52, 专注于音乐，与滚动石（Rolling Stones）和王子（Prince）等明星一起巡演，但最初觉得这部电影像是一块压在颈上的“信天翁”（沉重的负担），让他很难证明自己作为一名词曲作者的才华。然而，他参加了 2011 年的重聚演出，并表示：“我认为人们值得听我演唱这些歌曲。”
就在不久前英格兰参加六国赛（Six Nations）之时，观众们处于微醺且亢奋的状态。
奎恩在 1994 年出版了她的前两部小说《灿烂》（Splendid）和《午夜舞曲》（Dancing at Midnight）。她的第一本《布里杰顿》系列书籍《公爵和我》（The Duke and I）于 2000 年出版。制片人肖达·罗姆斯（Shonda Rimes）在度假期间读过其中一本书后，将剧集构思出售给了 Netflix。该剧在 2020 年圣诞节首播后，在三个月内获得了 113 million 次观看，进入了平台的十大榜单。
“这简直太非凡了——我人生中最美好的一夜，”加拉格尔（Gallagher），54, 补充道，她最近的作品包括 Netflix 热剧《来自贝尔法斯特的如何到达天堂》（How to Get to Heaven from Belfast）。“那天晚上我们在舞台上感受到的爱是深沉的。”
费利姆·戈姆利（Félim Gormley），57, 饰演萨克斯风手迪安·费（Dean Fay），随后为詹姆斯·布朗（James Brown）和罗德·斯图尔特（Rod Stewart）演奏萨克斯风。2016 年去世的约翰尼·墨菲（Johnny Murphy）饰演风流的小号手乔伊·“嘴唇”·法根（Joey “the Lips” Fagan），此后在舞台和电影中演出，包括 1999 年的《安琪拉的灰烬》（Angela’s Ashes）。
拍摄结束后，Hansard 逐渐成为了都柏林的音乐英雄之一，并凭借 2007 年电影《Once》中的歌曲 《Falling Slowly》 赢得了 2008 年奥斯卡最佳原创歌曲奖。《The Commitments》 同样给了一个真实的乐队带来巨大的机遇。全球销量超过 40 million 张专辑的 Corrs 兄妹四人全部出演，其中 Andrea 饰演乐队经理 Jimmy Rabbitte 那位爱骂人的姐姐 Sharon，而 Jim、Caroline 和 Sharon 则担任背景角色。
她在《The Commitments》中的共同主演 David Finnegan，59, 补充道：“就像走进罗马的角斗场一样，伴随着人群的喧闹。你很少能遇到这样的日子，而 Glen 是将这一切凝聚在一起的人。”
饰演由保镖转职为鼓手的 Mickah Wallace 的 Finnegan 拥有一支名为 Dave Finnegan’s Commitments 的乐队；而饰演贝斯手 Derek Scully 的 Ken McCluskey 和饰演鼓手 Billy Mooney 的 Dick Massey 则在名为 Stars From The Commitments 的翻唱乐队中演出。
当《The Commitments》的明星们在 2011 年 3 月为了纪念这部邪典电影上映 20 周年而进行短途巡演并重聚时，是 Glen Hansard 说服了许多前演员同事参加演出。
住在华盛顿州西雅图且丈夫 Paul Pottinger 是一名医生的 Quinn 表示：“对我来说，性爱场景必须服务于某种目的……如果你把这个场景删掉，书的内容依然成立，那么对我而言，这至少不是浪漫，而是色情。”
然而，并非所有明星都获得了预期的成功。饰演乐队经理 Jimmy 的 Robert Arkins，56, 从事音乐创作，但此后仅偶尔参演，包括 2018 年的《The Comeback》。
Hansard 在周三凌晨的一场摩托车车祸中去世。他 56 岁，他的妻子、芬兰诗人 Maire Saaritsa 以及他们三岁的儿子 Christy 在世。
“我想‘我真的要这么做吗？’而 Glen 说‘你必须做！’”演员 Bronagh Gallagher 回忆道，她不仅是 Hansard 的共同主演，也是他的亲密好友。“Glen 是这个团体的头目，是这艘船的船长。”
乐队中只有一名成员没有在演艺界发展：饰演钢琴手 Steven Clifford 的 Michael Aherne 在拍摄结束后回到了土木工程师的工作岗位。他在都柏林的国家运输管理局工作。
与此同时，《The Commitments》的三位女性伴唱歌手都在演艺事业上取得了成功。饰演 Bernie McLoughlin 的 Gallagher 在被选中时年仅 18 岁，很快在 1994 年的惊悚片《低俗小说》中获得了一个角色。Maria Doyle
Gallagher 和 Finnegan 在被选入《The Commitments》之前就认识 Hansard。这部电影是艾伦·帕克爵士 1991 年改编自 Roddy Doyle 关于一个工人阶级灵魂乐组合的小说。
Andrew Strong 在被选为 lead singer Deco Cuffe 时年仅 16 岁。帕克在一次 2016 年的采访中回忆道，Strong 在试镜中“精准捕捉”到了这个角色。
在最后一场演出中，他们在都柏林 O2 竞技场（现为 3Arena）面对 14,000 名粉丝演出。那是圣帕特里克节后的周末，爱尔兰大胜
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 13
GIUSEPPE CACACE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
新奇之都
联合国儿童基金会表示，在一名英国艺术家的画布作品经历神秘拍卖后，他们尚未收到一分钱承诺的款项。
我们的艺术历史叙事是由新奇感驱动的（Rachel Campbell-Johnston 撰文）。几十年来像接力棒一样传递的一系列“主义”便可证明这一点。那么，Sacha Jafri 的《人类之旅》引起瞬间关注也就不足为奇了。想想伦勃朗及其 170 平方英尺的《夜巡》，画中人物几乎与真人等大。Jafri 的画布至少大一百倍。但除了规模之外，它还有什么值得推荐的吗？
Emily Prescott 艺术与娱乐记者
当英国艺术家 Sacha Jafri 在 2021 年于迪拜拍卖全球最大的画布绘画时，该作品以 $62 million (£45 million) 成交，是其目标金额的两倍。
Jafri 当时声称，这笔钱将用于资助儿童慈善机构。这位伊顿公学和牛津大学的毕业生告诉阿拉伯新闻网站 Philanthropy Age：“我们筹集到的资金以及我们能用这笔钱做的事情简直不可思议——这让我非常开心。”
其抽象的广阔空间中蕴含着一种不可否认的能量，明亮的色彩从艺术家的潜意识中倾泻而出。Jafri 在没有草图、初步规划——或者就此而言，缺乏绘画技巧的情况下，在画布表面大步走动，用出奇之小的画笔进行弹拨、泼洒和挥抹，让颜料在厚厚的结壳层中堆积。尽管最终结果可能在视觉上极其开阔，但 Jafri 并没有在美国行动绘画先驱 Jackson Pollock 开创的突破性溅墨实验基础上增加任何东西——除了过多俗艳的色彩和过多的心形。
这幅面积 17,000 平方英尺的画布作品《人类之旅》（The Journey of Humanity）由 André Abdoune 买下，他是一位自称的法国加密货币亿万富翁。
然而五年多以后，证据似乎表明，这次交易可能从未按承诺进行。据披露，尽管 Abdoune 声称他将在迪拜建立一座博物馆来存放这幅画，但该作品仍由 Jafri 持有。
Jafri 上周表示，该作品“安全地存放在合适的仓库中并得到了充分的维护”，并补充说一名法院指定的独立专家已核实了其状况。
2022 年，在资金未能到账后，Abdoune 与 Jafri 发生了纠纷。
（包括）比尔·盖茨、理查德·布兰森爵士、麦当娜和乔治·克鲁尼，在疫情期间花费七个月时间创作了这幅画。该作品原计划被分成 70 个装裱批次并在全球销售，但居住在迪拜的 Abdoune 对整幅画进行了竞拍。
未回应评论请求。在被问及法律程序时，Jafri 表示他没有“组织、运行或管理拍卖会”，并拒绝提供他声称负责的组织机构名称。
上个月由《The Fence》杂志首次报道的提交给迪拜初级法院的文件详细记录了 Abdoune 购买了
Jafri 在 2021 年告诉《艺术报》（The Art Newspaper），Abdoune “已经支付了一笔可观的定金，其余款项将在六周内分三期支付”。该项目的初衷是通过 Dubai Cares（一个由迪拜统治者穆罕默德·本·拉希德·阿勒马克图姆创立的总部位于阿联酋的组织）将收益分配给包括联合国儿童基金会（Unicef）、联合国教科文组织（Unesco）和全球礼品基金会（Global Gift Foundation）在内的几家儿童慈善机构。
艺术的功能之一是反映其 era.。Jafri 的尝试在某种程度上可能实现了这一点。这件作品在疫情期间完成，它是许多各种——有时甚至是疯狂的——在隔离期间寻求创意消遣的业余爱好者的倾诉纪念碑。
以 $62 million 的价格购买这幅画，并将该金额分期支付给 Dubai Cares。
Jafri 否认有任何不当行为或责任。他说：“我在其中的角色是艺术家。我创作了《人类之旅》，出于良好意愿且为了它旨在支持的事业将其交给慈善拍卖。我没有组织或运行拍卖，我没有选择或审查竞标者，我也在处理资金方面没有任何角色。”
法院记录显示，款项应在 12, 2021. 之前结清。随后 Jafri 将负责交付绘画，但这一过程
在拍卖后的几年里，Jafri 的知名度持续上升。他的绘画作品《午夜武士之舞》（Dance of the Midnight Samurai）在 2019. 以约 £52,000 的价格售出。女演员 Florence Pugh 的父亲 Clinton Pugh 正在出售三幅 Jafri 的早期作品，预计将获利数百万英镑。
并未发生。
法官裁定 Abdoune 必须向慈善机构支付该笔资金。
但作为任何更深层信念、观点或信仰的视觉表达，它仍然显得肤浅。无论在哲学上还是财务上，都几乎没有什么值得投入的。当一名尼日利亚青少年在 2024 年创作了一幅更大的画作时，这张巨大的画布便沦为了一个微不足道的脚注。
但被驳回，理由是不成立
联合国儿童基金会（Unicef）向《周日泰晤士报》确认，其并未收到任何资金。联合国教科文组织（Unesco）承认，Dubai Cares 在 2022 年向其教育部门捐赠了 $1.9 百万美元，但指出：“我们无法确定这笔捐款是否直接由该慈善拍卖会促成。”
Abdoune 未回应置评请求。2023 年在《财富印度》（Fortune India）上发表的一篇赞助专题文章称，由于他在加密货币方面的造诣，他被昵称为“赚钱者”，并且正在启动“全球最大的区块链项目”，拥有 15 亿美元 十亿美元的投资财富。
关于 Jafri 抢走或走私该画作的指控。
正在销售 Pugh 的 Jafri 系列画作的 Chiascuro 画廊创始人 Sara Ezen 表示：“鉴于他的作品 [The Journey of Humanity] 在一次慈善拍卖会上以 $62 百万美元成交，且他私人交易中最昂贵的一件作品售价为 $1.4 百万美元，这幅画很可能会达到一个很高的价格点。”
法官还驳回了关于 Jafri 不当利用慈善机构和拍卖会名义的指控。
上方为 Sacha Jafri 与其画作，上方为 2019 年的演员 Eva Longoria
Dubai Cares 确认法律诉讼仍在进行，并拒绝进一步评论。Global Gift 基金会则
Dubai Cares 对其提起民事诉讼
Jafri，49 岁，据称其收藏家
今年夏天，在泰晤士书店（Times Bookshop）享受 2 本平装本 £15 的优惠。涵盖获奖小说、广受好评的非虚构作品，以及由《泰晤士报》和《周日泰晤士报》文学编辑评选的优秀书籍。
在线订单满 £25 免英国境内邮费。Times+ 折扣不适用于此促销活动。促销价格仅在限定时间内适用于部分在线书籍（截至 2026 年 8 月 17 日午夜）。所有通过电话下的订单将收取最低 £2.99 的配送费。
在加沙失去儿子的将军成为内塔尼亚胡最强劲的竞争对手
KOBI WOLF 为《周日泰晤士报》报道
Eisenkot 穿着他标志性的黑色 T 恤，在宽阔的体型外披着一件夹克，阐述了他所谓的“迄今为止最重要的任务”。
“这些选举关乎以色列的身份，”他宣布，“它是否将继续作为一个犹太的、民主的、自由的、强大的且平等主义的国家。”他指出该国正在“多达六个战线作战”，并表示“除了营救人质的努力外，战争的所有目标都未能完全实现。以色列今天正处于一个历史十字路口，这既是因为它面临的外部威胁，也是因为内部的挑战。”
在 Sderot
这位前军队首脑通过警告民主失序以及呼吁对 10 月 7 日事件进行调查来争取支持。
当他誓言立即成立调查委员会，调查 10 月 7 日袭击是如何发生的（内塔尼亚胡此前一直拒绝这样做）时，他赢得了热烈的掌声。“如果不对此进行调查，10 月 7 日的事件将成为笼罩在以色列社会上好几代人的阴云，”他说。
在一个闷热的周一下午，在以色列南部一座杂草丛生的小山丘上，一群游客正在排队支付 5 舍客勒租用双筒望远镜，观察不到半英里外加沙地带的废墟。有些人正在自拍。
随后，79 岁的退休首席电力技术员 Mordechai Beshanan 告诉我，他一直投票给内塔尼亚胡（俗称 Bibi），但这一次他将投票给 Eisenkot。“我认为 Bibi 迷失了方向。今天，即使我是他的兄弟，我也不会投票给他。”
“我很失望！”62 岁的 Tsipi Senay 说道。她与另外三名女性从 Rishon LeZion 向南行驶了 40 英里来到 Sderot 观景台。“我看到有些建筑还立着，这并不好。我希望那里全部变成瓦砾。”
一些年轻选民似乎不太确定。一些民调显示，以色列青年正进一步向右翼转移。“我来这里是因为我想听听所有的选项，”在基布兹工作的 24 岁女孩 Daphna 说道，“但对我来说最重要的问题是生活成本，我想听更多关于这方面的内容。”
众所周知，Kobi Hill 必定是世界上最令人毛骨悚然的旅游景点之一。即使不使用双筒望远镜，破坏情况也清晰可见，以色列一次空袭引发的浓烟正滚滚而上。根据联合国的数据，他们所看到的是 61 million 吨的瓦砾：一片土地被彻底摧毁，在过去三年中，这里有超过 71,000 人被杀，80% 的房屋和建筑被损坏或摧毁。目前，剩余的两百万加沙人中，许多人正住在鼠辈横行的帐篷里。
以色列政坛深度分裂，至少有十个政党在参与竞选。上周为以色列 13 频道发布的最新民调显示，Eisenkot 的 Yashar 党与 Likud 党在 23 个席位上不相上下。
特拉维夫大学哲学教授 Assaf Sharon 表示，内塔尼亚胡的政党民调依然如此强劲，这非常令人惊讶。他说：“真正的问题应该是，这场选举怎么可能如此接近。”
但这同时也是 2023 年 10 月 7 日袭击的发射台。当时哈马斯战士冲破了本应坚不可摧的围墙，导致近 1,200 名以色列人被杀（其中 53 人在 Sderot）且 251 人被劫持为人质。这是以色列最严重的国家安全崩溃。
国防军直接占领了 60% 的领土。
ager，Ronen Manelis，一名曾在 2003 年与他共事的前军事情报员，当时 Eisenkot 是约旦河西岸的指挥官，后来 Manelis 成为了他的助手。
优先考虑人质的回归。他成立了自己的中道政治党派 Yashar（希伯来语意为“诚实”），并在他描述为“为了国家灵魂”的竞选中出人意料地在民调中领先。
Gadi Eisenkot 上个月的竞选活动；下方是他与儿子 Gal 的合影，后者于 2023 年 12 月在加沙被杀。
目前还没有协议第二阶段的迹象：即哈马斯的缴械和加沙的重建。然而，周四晚上，特朗普在社交媒体上宣布，他的和平委员会已达成一项协议，由哈马斯缴械、以色列撤军，以便开始重建。但即便没有那个 5 谢克尔的双筒望远镜，问题的规模也显而易见。联合国估计，重建该地带可能需要数十年时间。
“内塔尼亚胡不仅监督了以色列国家历史上最严重的安全漏洞，而且他的整个国家安全战略都失败了，随后在加沙、黎巴嫩出现了毫无掩饰的糟糕局面，并在伊朗方面失败——将国家拖至有史以来最低的国际地位。”
“他与 Bibi 完全相反。他不关注妆容或衣服，他的英语是军队风格，他不是天生的演讲者，但他是一个真正的以色列成功故事。他也是人们为这场战争付出代价的象征，”他补充道。
在特朗普宣布关于加沙的消息后，Eisenkot 表示：“以色列公民再次从外国媒体得知一项决定性的协议，内塔尼亚胡的承诺与现实之间巨大的差距被揭露了。”
“我们不想与任何人战斗，”Senay 说，“但他们让我们别无选择。他们不是人类。”
她的同伴们用力地点头，23 岁的 Shlomit 也是如此。她在 Modiin Illit 的一家鞋店工作，并与一名朋友一起来的。“他们是坏人，非常坏，如果你不小心，他们也会找上你，”她警告道。
现在还处于早期阶段——选举定于10月27日举行——而内塔尼亚胡被誉为“伟大的生存者”并非没有原因。
在艾森科特位于特拉维夫一家时髦共享办公空间的竞选总部办公室墙上，贴着他家人的照片，其中包括他的小儿子 Gal，后者于2023.年12月在加沙被杀，年仅25岁。Gal当时与另一名士兵一同前往回收两名死于人质事件的人员尸体，两人被一枚简易爆炸装置（IED）炸死。艾森科特的两个侄子在当地战斗时也死去了。
“在付出了沉重代价、经历了人员伤亡之后，他在政治软弱中投降，且未能实现战争目标。以色列国绝不能接受一个哈马斯幸存并等待机会实施下一次大屠杀的现实。”
“这是整整一代人中摆脱‘比比’的最佳机会，”自由派报纸《哈阿雷措报》的专栏作家埃丝特·索罗门说道。“[艾森科特]看起来是一个非常稳健的候选人，具有许多真实的特质。但比比很冷酷——如果他的母亲还活着，为了留住权力，他会把她给卖了。”
截至昨晚，上周在华盛顿与特朗普会面的以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡尚未就该协议发表公开评论，不过他的极右翼国家安全部长伊塔玛尔·本-格维尔谴责该协议“不可接受”。
一群美国年轻学生抵达了——其中一名来自新泽西州的学生称这里的景色“很酷”——此外还有一个匈牙利家庭，他们的亲属在大屠杀中丧生。一辆载着正统派游客的大型旅游巴士停了下来，乘客们身着黑色外套，留着长卷发。
在许多方面，这位语气粗鲁的前将军正是内塔尼亚胡的反面。艾森科特，66岁，是摩洛哥移民的谦卑之子，在埃拉特长大，随后在以色列国防军（IDF）服役41年，衣着和言谈都十分朴素。这与内塔尼亚胡形成了鲜明对比：后者在耶路撒冷富裕的街区长大，就读于哈佛大学和麻省理工学院，能言善辩且口才流畅，是一个极致的推销员，在进入政坛前从事家具销售，现年77岁，已执政18年。
随着以色列自10月7日袭击以来首次选举的竞选活动现在拉开帷幕，同意以色列撤出加沙将是选举上的自杀行为。
据其亲近人士透露，正是因为 Gal 的 shiva（犹太教哀悼仪式），艾森科特决定参选。在启动竞选活动时，他表示：“在我为以色列奋斗的48年里，我失去了朋友，失去了家人。我不愿意让我们也失去这个国家。”
在斯德罗特“法拉费尔之王”外卖店外的一张桌子上，激烈的辩论正在进行。当地两名退休人员，69岁的丹尼·贝尔岑和63岁的维克多·科恩正在结束他们的用餐。
他们指向烟雾和枪声。在去年10月由特朗普总统大张旗鼓监督签署的一项和平协议下，战斗本应停止。然而，以色列继续对加沙实施袭击，导致另外1,100名巴勒斯坦人死亡，阻碍了承诺的重建工作，并移动了大致将土地平分的协议停火线。所谓的“黄线”现在已经移动到如此程度，以至于以色列
正是在加沙问题上，以色列任职时间最长的总理面临着迄今为止最强有力的挑战，而挑战者正是他曾经的最高将领。以色列国防军前总参谋长加迪·艾森科特两年前退出内塔尼亚胡的战时内阁，以抗议在加沙的战略，因为该战略集中于摧毁哈马斯而非
“我不喜欢内塔尼亚胡。我爱他，”科恩说。“他是这个国家最聪明的人。”但贝尔岑说他一生都在投票给利库德集团，现在将投票给艾森科特。“一切都变了，”他说。“这么多场战争……够了。”
艾森科特的集会吸引了大批人群，包括十天前在特拉维夫南部21英里的纳安基布兹举行的一次集会，当时有500多名人们聚集在白色塑料椅子上。
“加迪不是个民粹主义者。他的 TikTok 非常无聊，”他的竞选助手笑称
根据法庭记录。在 2019 年夏天，Baugh 派遣其员工骚扰 Steiner 夫妇。他带着 Veronica Zea 前往内蒂克 (Natick) 跟踪这对夫妇。
新的规定或针对消费者的变更。1999 年，他们的网站诞生，很快就拥有了一批忠实读者。
他们表示，此次公开和解是对那些承受着强大机构压力（尤其是美国总统威胁记者的时期）的记者的一次胜利。他们表示已准备好出庭受审。“我觉得如果我们的余生知道自己没有尽全力去追求透明，没有让这种行为公开透明，我们将无法原谅自己，” 67 岁的 David 说道，“所以那从来就不是一个选项。”
内部安全团队将指令字面化，发动了一场骚扰活动并跟踪 Steiner 夫妇。
Steiner 家中举办派对的照片被发布在网上。他们的邻居收到了寄给 David 的、印有“勉强合法”的十几岁女孩的色情杂志。
路易丝·卡拉汉 (Louise Callaghan)，纽约
2019 年的一个夏日，David 和 Ina Steiner 正在他们位于马萨诸塞州内蒂克家中的花园里举行庭院拍卖，这时邻居告诉了他们一件非常奇怪的事。
七名 eBay 员工对与攻击 Steiner 夫妇相关的刑事指控认罪。
该网站每月约有 650,000 名独立访问者，他们试图了解 eBay 内部发生了什么。2019 年，该公司陷入困境，面临增长停滞、战略分歧以及要求其分拆并出售资产的激进投资者的压力。
一个猪胎被送到他们门前，随后是一个装满活蟑螂和蛆虫的盒子。几天后，又寄来了一本关于如何面对配偶去世的生存指南，以及一个葬礼花圈。“最可怕的是，我们不知道是谁干的，而且没有办法查出来，” Ina 说道。
David 看到的是 Zea 的租赁车。2020 年，Baugh 和其他六名 eBay 员工被逮捕并起诉。Wenig、Wymer 和另一位前高管 Wendy Jones 否认曾鼓励他们实施犯罪行为。
但这对夫妇希望 eBay 的高管付出代价。而且他们希望获得的赔偿金足够数额巨大且公开，从而让公司在攻击他们不喜欢的记者之前三思。
在 Steiner 夫妇不注意时，有人开车驶来，在他们的围栏上喷涂涂鸦后离开。内蒂克是波士顿郊外一个美丽的纽英格兰小镇，并不是那种人们会到处乱涂乱画的地方。而 Steiner 夫妇是两名中年记者，经营着一份规模虽小但受人尊敬的行业刊物，旨在支持在线销售者，他们不是那种会有敌人来破坏财产的人。“这真的很诡异，” 64 岁的 Ina 说道。
上周，eBay 及其三名前高管同意支付 5600 万美元 (£42 million) 以达成和解。
2019 年，Wenig 离开 eBay 时获得了一份价值近 6000 万美元 (£44.5 million) 的遣散方案。他告诉《周日泰晤士报》，他对 Steiner 夫妇所遭受的对待感到“难过”，并补充说，这件事是“在我不知情的情况下蓄意秘密进行的”。他还补充道，“保护新闻自由和言论自由是我长期支持和捍卫的事业”。
高管们将 Steiner 夫妇视为威胁。根据法庭文件，那个夏天，在 Ina 写了一篇博客文章指出 eBay 花了大钱在校园里建造酒吧后，Wenig 给通讯主管 Steve Wymer 发了一条信息，要求他“搞定她 (take her down)”。她还报道了 Wenig 的薪酬情况。
他们报警了，警方派来了警员。万一是邻居呢？或者是他们认识的人？都不是。经过数月的骚扰，David 成功拍到了一辆尾随他的汽车照片。警方追踪车牌后发现，车主并非不满的读者，而是一名 eBay 员工。
伊娜补充道：“作为受害者，我们希望尽一切努力，确保这种事情永远不会发生在任何人身上。”
施泰纳夫妇将获得 $46.15 百万美元，该公司将向慈善机构支付 $6 百万美元。温尼格及其两名前同事将向施泰纳夫妇支付 $2.55 百万美元。此外，温尼格将以伊娜·施泰纳的名义，向一家致力于保护言论自由权的慈善机构支付 $1 百万美元。
经营一个在线交易网站的伊娜和戴维·施泰纳在法庭和解中从 eBay 获得了 £42 百万英镑。
他们的律师之一克里斯·墨菲表示，这对夫妇希望“保护宪法第一修正案，保护言论自由”。
《胆小鬼俱乐部：司法部为何未能起诉高管》的作者表示，美国当局已经失去了“起诉白领犯罪的意愿和能力”。艾辛格说，当局经常通过“金钱结果”达成和解。“因此，这变成了经营成本，公司明白当他们违反规则时，最终只需要写一张支票即可。他们几乎从未面临失去自由的危险。所以这根本不起作用。”
这对夫妇在大学相识，当时伊娜学习商业，戴维学习传播学。在 20 世纪 90 年代中期互联网泡沫的高峰期，施泰纳夫妇听说了一个名为 eBay 的网站，人们可以在那里在线出售不需要的商品。
七年后，经过无休止的调查，施泰纳夫妇终于知道了发生了什么：从首席执行官到传播主管的 eBay 高管们对伊娜的报道感到如此愤怒，以至于他们指示下属要“搞垮她”，并采取“不惜一切手段”来阻止她的写作。这些高管声称，他们并没有鼓励员工实施犯罪行为。
很快，事态升级了。在庭院拍卖两个月后，伊娜开始在 Twitter（现为 X）上收到来自一个匿名账户的威胁性、充满脏话的消息，该账户自称是一名不满的 eBay 卖家，攻击她在夫妇俩的网站 EcommerceBytes 上发布的帖子。该网站当时正在报道 eBay 内部的困难，而首席执行官德文·温尼格正面临压力。随后，大量的电话和垃圾邮件接踵而至，其中还包含色情广告。
根据法庭文件，怀默说：“我们要把这个女人彻底击垮。”
eBay 在其网站上向这对夫妇道歉，并补充说，“2019 年施泰纳夫妇遭受前 eBay 员工对待的情况是错误的、令人谴责的，绝不应该发生”。
对于施泰纳夫妇来说，上周的和解是他们多年寻求正义与问责之旅的终点。
怀默将温尼格的请求发送给了 eBay 的安全主管吉姆·鲍。他负责一个主要由年轻女性组成的安保团队，她们在办公室里被称作“吉姆的天使”。
他们的家中收到了一盒蛆虫。
“是的，我们获得了一笔数额巨大的资金，对此我们非常感激，”伊娜补充道，“但我不会推荐将此作为一种增加收入的方式。这是我们生命中最可怕的经历。”
随着更多的人加入该网站，施泰纳夫妇意识到，一个解释如何在线销售商品（如拍摄正确的照片、使用最佳包装）并进行讲解的新闻渠道是有市场的。
根据记录，怀默告诉他，伊娜是一个“有偏见的网络喷子，需要被烧毁”，并且“我想看到灰烬……不惜一切手段”。
在美国，不寻常之处在于施泰纳夫妇设法公开了和解条款。记者兼……杰西·艾辛格。
然而，成员们……
施泰纳夫妇的支持者
凯蒂·鲍尔 华盛顿内部人士
沿着密歇根湖向南行驶一个半小时，关于革命下一步行动的讨论仍在继续。约 900 人聚集在芝加哥参加 2026 年美国民主社会党峰会，共同制定计划。
“他们拥有强大的地面动员能力，”他补充道，即便他们同时也“完全激进。他们是马克思主义圣战者，并试图掩盖这一点”。这种地面动员最早的例子是马姆达尼（Mamdani），他击败了安德鲁·库莫（Andrew Cuomo），尽管马姆达尼的团队仅筹集了 $5，而库莫则筹集了 $65。
“在他竞选时，”她告诉我，“我认为民主社会主义是为了给工人阶级提供服务，通过切实有助于改善生活的解决方案来实现。他们的梦想是全民医疗保健、为公立学校提供全额资金、全民学校就餐。这些民主社会主义政策对人们来说非常有意义。”
即便你输了——以及如何向人们展示这一点”。她建议最初的重点将是生活成本，该团体认为，这延伸到停止向以色列提供援助和军事物资。“例如，在废除参议院之前，消除贫困是第一位的，”她补充道。
罗默（Romer）认为现在是美国民主社会主义者协会（DSA）的时机。该组织拥有超过 120,000 名成员，不属于民主党，有时甚至会上竞独立候选人。然而，美国两党制的顽固性质意味着，许多人得出结论，他们能做的最好的事情是改变民主党，而不是与其竞争。
该组织的共同主席梅根·罗默（Megan Romer）在上周的一次福克斯新闻（Fox News）采访中列举了 DSA 的承诺，引起了关注，导致美国众议院议长迈克·约翰逊（Mike Johnson）宣布：“共产主义不再是一个遥远的威胁。它已经来到了我们的海岸。”
下一个目标可能是影响谁将成为 2028 年的民主党候选人。“我们当然希望如此，”罗默说，“我们正致力于搭建这个框架……我们通过了一项决议，希望致力于组建一个左翼劳工联盟，并至少在初选中运行一名候选人。但我认为这种能量已经存在……我们已经向 [我们的 250 个分会] 发送了一份讨论问题清单，并要求他们在下次全体会议上将其作为讨论的一部分，探讨‘我们到底想要什么？一名社会主义总统意味着什么？’”
班农（Bannon）预测，那些要求驱逐社会主义者的建制派民主党人可能太迟了。“他们将淹没民主党。你可以预见到这将发生，”他说。民主党选民基础中对以色列的怀疑情绪，以及认为经济无法为其服务的选民，将有助于实现这一点。“我们的资本主义制度中资本家极少——人们不拥有任何金融或真实资产。因此，他们对这些人的吸引力是非常具有挑衅性的：我们基本上将给你提供免费的东西。如果你勉强维持生计，或者处于工人阶级的底层，这听起来并不糟糕，尤其是在大城市里。”
随着该运动在民主党内影响力增加，关于什么才算作民主社会主义的问题正成为争议增加的来源。去年，美国民主社会主义者协会（DSA）成员佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）当选为纽约市市长。随后在纽约、华盛顿特区和科罗拉多州出现了更多与 DSA 相关的获胜案例。洪（Hong）是一名付费会员。周二，阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德（Abdul El-Sayed）成为密歇根州参议院席位民主党初选的获胜热门。他声称自己不是社会主义者，但与 DSA 有联系，并与左翼国会议员亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez，简称 AOC）共同竞选。他的对手是一位前奥巴马助手，后者收到了超过 $46 的超级政治行动委员会（super-PAC）捐款。
社会主义民主党人正在获胜，但他们正在撼动的政党正是他们自己的政党。
“我们一直非常刻意地为此搭建脚手架，建立组织，在各地培养一批优秀的候选人和组织者。他们能够审视北卡罗来纳州达勒姆或加利福尼亚州萨克拉门托的情况，然后说：‘好吧，我们在哪些选区可以安排人选？’ Romer 表示，“对于那个席位我们能做些什么？我们如何将所有这些力量聚集起来，并将其构建成能够真正带来重大变革的东西？”
当我与 Romer 交谈时，她显得淡定自若。“我们收到很多企业民主党人的指责，他们非常愤怒，说：‘好吧，你们把期中选举给搞砸了。’我对此的回答是，大多数企业民主党人通常宁愿让共和党人就职，也不愿让民主社会主义者就职。随便他们怎么说，尽管来吧。企业民主党人毫无建树。他们已经花了很多年时间，却拿不出任何能给民众提供的东西。”
美国民主社会主义者协会 (DSA) 的成员资格。下方为弗朗西斯卡·洪，威斯康星州可能的民主党州长候选人。
班农预测：“（2028年民主党）候选人要么来自该党派的这一翼，比如 AOC 或类似的人；要么他们将成为造王者，必须在政策基础上签字认可，到那时你会看到一些相当迷人的政策，是社会主义的而非民粹主义的。”
但即便 DSA 继续保持获胜势头，也不要指望监狱很快就会消失。期中选举后，DSA 可能会拥有一个小规模的国会议员团体，可以组成一个新的“小分队” (SQUAD) —— 就像 AOC 在她当选后组建的非正式党团一样。
现在是威斯康星州的午餐时间，弗朗西斯卡·洪正在向一群选民解释，她不是一名共产主义者。“如果人们在讨论‘取消警察经费’或民主社会主义，或者说我是个共产主义者，我不是。我永远不会是，而且我从来不是，”她说道，引起了轻微的笑声。
紫色（摇摆）州。今天，她将与民主党国会议员、唐纳德·特朗普的眼中钉——伊尔汗·奥玛尔共同举行竞选集会，后者将担任主讲嘉宾。
在城市中——波士顿、纽约、布法罗、芝加哥、明尼阿波利斯、洛杉矶——该组织取得了最深入的进展。
她的造反式参选让她在起初相对无名的情况下目前处于领先地位，这符合极左翼挑战民主党建制派部分力量的模式。民主党人已经在抱怨，如果这些候选人被选中，可能会危及该党必须赢得的关键期中选举赛局——而这还仅仅是在讨论 2028 年总统大选之前。
就在几个小时前，这位 37 岁的民主社会主义者出现在福克斯新闻频道。当被追问时 —— 她表示她坚持过去要求废除移民和海关执法局 (ICE)、解放巴勒斯坦、大麻合法化以及引入公共杂货店的呼吁，但她并不 —— 尽管有相反的说法 —— 想要废除参议院，理由是这在“目前并不实际”。
回到威斯康星州，在密尔沃基的一个城市再生农场“爱丽丝花园” (Alice’s Garden)，关于社会主义的讨论显然没有引起恐惧。“十年前，没人谈论资本主义。现在我觉得每两场谈话中就有一场在谈论它。我们一直被谎言欺骗，” 49 岁的农场工作人员科特尼·马舍莱克 (Courtney Marschalek) 说道。
至于那些认为避免这种命运的答案仅仅是将所有民主社会主义者踢出去的国会民主党人？DSA 坚持认为他们没有离开的计划。
上个月，美国最大的社会主义组织 DSA 发布了一份新的政策文件，其范围远超经济领域。该文件建议废除参议院、更换最高法院、关闭监狱、取消五角大楼经费并废除 ICE。
在一次选举中，一群四名进步主义者通过威胁保留选票，成功影响了民主党的政策。
“这将是一个由 8 到 10 人或类似规模组成的块体……”
“在这个问题上，你们有点自食其果，因为你们不能把我们踢出党外，因为注册成为民主党人是州政府的程序，你并不是在向政党注册，”罗默说。“重要的是选民，对吧？民主党最终取决于其基础，而在这个基础中，许多地方的选民正压倒性地选择由美国民主社会党（DSA）背书的候选人……
虽然这些政策招来了嘲笑，但其他人则表示，嘲笑者应自担风险。毕竟，看看“让美国再次伟大”（Maga）如何接管共和党。在谈到 DSA 及其合作的工作家庭党时，特朗普的前白宫战略师史蒂夫·班农表示：“他们是一股强大的政治力量。他们采用了特朗普和 Maga 的选民投票率和选民参与模式。”
又多了十几个友好人士。所以这不会是
洪是一位单亲母亲兼厨师，她急于强调，尽管有那些头条新闻，她仍然是一个“关心他们（选民）的普通人”。她的三个优先事项比社会主义革命更贴近日常生活：公立学校、路面坑洞以及绿湾包装工队（唯一一支由公众所有权的 NFL 球队）。“他们管拜登叫社会主义者”
罗默在谈到可能单凭一人就能赢得选票的情况时说。
“（洪）属于像 AOC 和 Mam德尼这样的新一代政治家群体。他们是新一代的政治家，通过走出去聆听来了解其他人的需求，”69 岁的梅格·克罗斯比说。
除非发生政治意外，否则本月洪将在关键的威斯康星州州长竞选赛中被命名为民主党提名人。他们将“不得不弄清楚
什么样的胜利是可以实现的，什么值得为之奋斗，
“右翼共和党人花了大约 30 年时间才完成了我们现在所做的事情。”
关于“秘密法庭”以及继承人之间继位之争的指控，迫使奢侈品巨头老板伯纳德·阿尔诺做出回应
GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
优雅且精致的外表，同样的蓝色眼睛，同样的经过多年牙科矫正而完美排列的微笑”——他们声称，这是阿尔诺为了展示团结而进行的一点“摆拍”。
对于一位获得了“终结者”和“披着羊绒的狼”绰号的商人来说，这完全是一种语调的转变。
彼得·康拉迪，欧洲编辑，巴黎
作为全球 75 个最著名的时尚、饮品和香水品牌的总部，法国 LVMH 奢侈品集团希望其产品出现在所有最好的地方。上个月，当泰勒·斯威夫特在麦迪逊广场花园与特拉维斯·凯尔斯结婚时，新娘穿着一件定制的克里斯汀·迪奥高级定制礼服。两周后，国际足联世界杯奖杯被装在一个定制的路易威登皮箱中被带到新泽西的赛场上。
在 LVMH 将他的公开信发布在 X 平台上并引发病毒式传播后，阿尔诺在该社交媒体平台上首次公开露面，表示他对收到的回应信息感到“深受感动”，并想向人们表示感谢。
阿尔诺在公开信中轻蔑地驳斥了关于他子女之间存在竞争的猜测。他说：“在阿尔诺家族中，显然人们不讨论，而是策划；人们不商议，而是竞争。太像小说了。”
福布斯估计阿尔诺的个人财富超过 1400 亿美元 billion (1038 亿英镑 billion)，使其成为世界第九大富豪。由于奢侈品市场的低迷，导致 LVMH 的股价下跌，其财富估计较 2023 年 4 月 2110 亿美元 billion 的峰值下降了三分之一；LVMH 超过一半的股份由家族控制的控股公司持有。该集团上周发布的最新企业业绩好坏参半。
对于该报关于他与法国领导人亲近的说法，以及用他的话来说，与“五位美国总统……三位英国首相、两位德国总理和一位日本天皇”亲近的指控，他也予以严厉批评。
相比之下，现年 77 岁的首席执行官伯纳德·阿尔诺——他创建了这家公司，并曾短暂成为世界首富——则试图远离聚光灯。
据知，他与唐纳德·特朗普关系密切；两人经常共进晚餐，且在去年的美国总统就职典礼上，阿尔诺及其妻子和两个孩子被安排在靠近前排的位置。阿尔诺一家与特朗普的女婿贾里德·库什纳的家人关系也很近，后者的父亲查尔斯于去年出任美国驻法大使。
然而，阿尔诺庞大帝国的面纱现已被揭开，该帝国年营业额约 €80 亿（£68.4 亿），在全球拥有 200,000 多名员工。
关于他在巴黎公司总部那个秘密“宫廷”的内幕已被披露，且有说法称他的五个孩子之间存在接班压力。
这个企业集团成立于 1987 年，由时尚品牌路易威登与香槟和干邑生产商酩悦轩尼诗合并而成，目前仍像一家家族企业一样，在香榭丽舍大街附近的一栋优雅大楼顶层运作。《世界报》称，员工们简单地将阿尔诺称为“先生”或“BA”。《世界报》的记者写道，在公司大楼内，“在‘先生’所在的楼层，你只能遇到身着正装、戴着白手套的管家，以及体格魁梧的保安——他们大多是前警察，职责就是保护这位‘君主’”。
阿尔诺上周末发表的公开信在 0.1% 的顶层阶级中引起了一些值得关注的反应。74, 岁的同为大亨且是右翼媒体巨头文森特·博洛雷赞扬阿尔诺是一个“极具深度且心胸宽广的人”，在“法国因糟糕的管理而陷入严重困境，正在沉沦”之际，他的观点将是“极其宝贵的”。55, 岁的埃隆·马斯克取代阿尔诺成为世界首富，他将这封信转发给了自己的追随者。
首先是在六月出版的一本未经授权的传记《贝尔纳·阿尔诺：他的残酷世界》，作者是学术历史学家奥德丽·米莱。她以法医般的细节审视了阿尔诺的崛起，其起点是他接管了其挚爱的祖父在北部纺织城镇鲁贝创立的建筑公司。
几周后，一段 90 分钟的阿尔诺播客采访面世，观看人数达数百万人。随后在上个月，左翼报纸《世界报》发表了一篇分为六部分、共 12 页的调查报告。
他出发上班，以及下午 2 点他午餐后返回，因为他会在车里听。该报声称，他 66, 岁的妻子、出生于加拿大的钢琴演奏家海伦·梅西耶-阿尔诺的专辑“被反复播放”。
这与巴黎以北 160 英里的鲁贝截然不同，阿尔诺在鲁贝一个传统的天主教家庭中长大。在最近的采访中，他回忆起外祖父艾蒂安·萨维内尔如何带他参观建筑工地，并密切关注他的教育。当萨维内尔于 1959, 年去世时，十岁的阿尔诺将自己的学校成绩单偷偷放进了他的棺材里。
贝尔纳·阿尔诺及其儿子安托万与他们的妻子海伦·梅西耶和纳塔莉亚·沃迪亚诺娃 2017. 年在卢浮宫。右侧为马克龙总统。
米莱认为，这可能是法国亿万富翁在四月总统大选前发起政治攻势的开端。她说：“近年来，我们谈论了很多关于美国寡头的话题，但关于法国寡头的讨论还不够多。”
最令人惊讶的事情发生在上周末，阿尔诺本人写了一篇幽默的三页反驳信，对《世界报》的指控进行了抨击，该文已被浏览超过八百万人次。他写道：“我知道，通过回应，我可能正以该系列报道所期待的方式为其聚焦——由我签署的最终一章。那么就这样吧。”
在采访中，阿尔诺表示他仍然会视察店铺，指导经理如何改进橱窗展示。他说：“第二周我再去的时候，他们会说‘先生，确实如此，自从做了那些改变后，情况好多了’。这让我很高兴。”
作者认为，阿尔诺的首要动力，高于一切，是公司利益。这位 LVMH 的老板确实对税收持有强烈见解——去年《星期日泰晤士报》在询问阿尔诺对他一名法国经济学家提出的对超级富豪征收 2% 附加税建议的反应后便发现了这一点。他痛批该政策是“一场对我们经济具有致命打击的攻势”。
阿尔诺于 1984 年通过收购 Boussac SaintFrères 进入奢侈品市场。这是一家陷入困境的纺织和零售集团，在大量缺乏吸引力的资产中，它拥有 Christian Dior。他是以 1 法郎的象征性价格从法国政府手中将其买下的。
阿尔诺嘲讽《世界报》将他描绘成“法国最后一个皇室家庭”之首的说法，他否认了关于家族内斗的传闻，并开玩笑地回应了有关访问其总部的人员被要求摘掉竞争对手爱马仕（Hermès）领带的说法，同时还拿该报声称其员工没有一个人超重的说法开涮，誓言要“向公司食堂反映此事”。他对报道显然感到不快，因为他及其家人在为期六个月的调查过程中一直与《世界报》的记者配合。
就像他的祖父曾传授他技巧一样，阿尔诺也带着自己的孩子们参观店铺，预见到他们有一天会加入家族企业。
在收购后的几十年里，阿尔诺成为了全球最大奢侈品公司之首，但据报道，他依然保持着同样严格的亲力亲为管理方式。《世界报》称，这种管理不仅延伸到他所拥有的报纸和杂志的内容中——包括《巴黎人报》（Le Parisien）和《巴黎综艺》（Paris Match）——甚至延伸到了他在 1999 年将其纳入版图的经典广播电台（Radio Classique）的节目编排上。据说经典广播电台的员工会特别关注上午 9 点左右播放的音乐，因为此时他
阿尔诺的广播电台会在他可能乘车出行时，播放其钢琴家妻子的专辑。
米莱（Millet）表示，阿尔诺被其他工业王朝中引发动荡的接班之争所震撼，其中包括拥有菲亚特（Fiat）、法拉利（Ferrari）和阿尔法·罗密欧（Alfa Romeo）的意大利阿涅利（Agnelli）家族。因此，他重新构建了所有权结构，以确保无论谁接任最高职位，公司都能留在家族手中。
他最终的接班问题依然是《世界报》所称的对公司的“毒药”。法国媒体频繁报道 Mercier-Arnault（亚历山大 34 岁、弗雷德里克 31 岁和让 27 岁的母亲）一方，与他与第一任妻子安妮·德瓦夫兰（Anne Dewavrin，76 岁）所生的两个年长子女德尔芬 51 岁和安托万 49 岁另一方之间的紧张关系。
“一切的设计都是为了确保公司在几代人之间的延续，”她说道。“伯纳德·阿尔诺的目标是永生。”
记者在文中写道，他们与阿尔诺的子女们进行了一次会面，“他们全部是 LVMH 的高级主管，且持有相同的见解——”
“至于我，请放心：我会继续做《世界报》的填字游戏，那些游戏非常出色，”他总结道。
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在讨论中，他质疑除非全球最大的排放国也采取行动，否则其影响将有限。“大规模排放并不发生在这里。它们发生在中国、印度、印度尼西亚和拉丁美洲。人们问的问题是：如果我做出所有这些努力，会有任何改变吗？”
英国还必须应对预计将支撑其低碳未来的技术对资源日益增长的需求。在致力于成为全球人工智能中心并加速经济电气化的同时，对能源和水的需求都在迅速增加。
在离雷德肖（Redshaw）农场不远的地方，位于温彻斯特郊外的 IBM Hursley 校区就有这样一个未来的缩影。这座 27,000 平方英尺的数据中心（英国还计划建设数百个类似的中心）需要大量用水来为支撑人工智能热潮的计算机冷却。批评者担心，此类设施的快速扩张将使本已紧张的供水进一步承压，同时增加老旧基础设施的压力。
英国大部分地区都遭受了科学家长期警告的极端高温之苦，但关于如何应对气候变化和净零排放的争论再次升级，且远未结束，马修·坎贝尔 (Matthew Campbell) 写道。
左图，上个月爱丁堡亚瑟王座 (Arthur’s Seat) 发生火灾。
这些相互冲突的压力，正是曼彻斯特大学能源与气候治理教授丽贝卡·威利斯 (Rebecca Willis) 花了十多年研究的困境。她得出的结论是，政治家们难以应对那些成本即时可见，但收益可能在数十年后才能感受到问题。她说：“政治家们一贯低估了公众对气候行动的支持。他们假设选民对净零排放的敌意比实际情况更高。”
反对投资于适应措施——而在多大程度上我们能同时承担这两者的费用？
今年夏天，克莱夫·雷肖 (Clive Redshaw) 在汉普郡的农场里没有什么值得庆祝的了。他的春大麦——在丰年本应用于酿造威士忌和啤酒——在高温中枯萎，没能卖给酿酒厂，而是被降级为动物饲料。
为了给病房降温，学校在极端高温期间关闭了教室，超市的冷冻柜也发生了故障。英国健康安全局估计，仅在5月和6月的热浪中就有 2,877 人死亡，这使得 2026 年有望成为英国自官方监测开始以来，与高温相关的死亡人数最多的夏季。
上周，保守党领导人凯米·巴德诺克 (Kemi Badenoch) 将在 2050 年实现碳中和的“净零”计划称为“让国家破产的政治幻想”，同时认为“气候变化是真实的，我们可以看到它在世界各地的影响”。
她补充说，据估计，系统成本和补贴在电力再生成本中占 40%。中国排放了三分之一的温室气体，大约每两周就新建一座燃煤电站，而英国工人却被告知，为了拯救地球，他们自己的产业必须关闭。这与特蕾莎·梅 (Theresa May) 时代的保守党形成了鲜明对比，后者在其任期即将结束的最后几周内，将 2050 年实现净零碳排放的承诺写入法律。
小麦产量下降了四分之一。草类直接停止生长，导致他的奶牛群缺乏牧草。在6月底的一次酷热时段中，牛奶产量下降了近三分之一，仅一周就损失了约 £6,000。根据雷肖的计算，天气导致今年的收入损失接近 £80,000。
因此，今年夏天，气候变化可能不再让许多英国人觉得是一个抽象的科学警告，而成为了日常现实。科学家们对此并不惊讶。对于雷丁大学气候科学教授埃德·霍金斯 (Ed Hawkins) 来说，英国人正在经历一个他预见到的未来：“几十年来，我们一直在讨论极端天气变得更加严重、热浪变得更加剧烈，山火也是如此。”
经济因素并非一直主导这场争论。在 20 世纪 90 年代的大部分时间里，焦点集中在科学上。各国政府开始谈判气候条约，构建起一套复杂的国际外交架构，从 1992 年的里约地球峰会、1997 年的《京都议定书》，到每年的 COP 会议以及 2015 年的《巴黎协定》。
完全否认的态度逐渐退到政治边缘。取而代之的是另一种争论：不是气候是否在变化，而是提出的补救措施是否可负担、有效或在政治上可持续。
“这是我们经历过的最糟糕的情况。天气简直把我们钉在十字架上（摧毁了我们），”这位 55 岁的农民说。“肯定有什么事情在发生。毫无疑问。我们无法否认这一点。”
这些观点已凝聚在以削减碳排放以降低全球温度的焦点上。尽管正如 Helm 所指出的，并非所有排放者都平等。根据 The Carbon Brief 的数据，英国的温室气体排放量去年下降了 2.4%，达到 150 年来的最低水平，这意味着我们对全球排放的责任约为 1%。
其他保守派评论人士则建议，我们不应为了应对一项生存挑战而让自己破产，而应将气候变化视为对“地中海生活方式”的一次永久升级，即便地中海本身正引发破纪录的高温、火灾和疏散。
英国一直以来都有热浪和野火。Hawkins 表示，不同之处在于，现在这些现象发生在一个基准气候温度高得多的背景下，使得极端事件更加频繁、强度更高且破坏性更强。曾经被认为是非常罕见的状况正变得日益普遍，而长期的高温使植被变得如tinder般干燥。
Redshaw 并不是唯一一个面对突然感到陌生之英国的人。在英格兰南部，田野在比平时早数周的时间就变黄了，被烤成了脆而泛黄的广袤地带，脚下踩上去嘎吱作响，化为尘土。索尔兹伯里平原（Salisbury Plain）看起来就像撒哈拉沙漠。
这一事业在去年得到了亿万富翁比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates）的推动，他在作为气候辩论中最著名的发声者之一数十年后改变了立场。
“今天，几乎没有人否认科学，”牛津大学经济政策教授、《气候现实主义》（Climate Realism，下月出版）一书的作者 Dieter Helm 说道。但他认为，英国的应对措施是误导性的，并指出了绿色转型中未兑现的承诺。“英国公众被告知，如果你建造大量的风力涡轮机并安装太阳能电池板，结果将是获得更便宜、更安全且本土生产的能源。这都不是真的。太阳能电池板的价格下降了，但电价并没有下降。”
在去年 Cop 峰会前夕的一篇文章中，他主张世界在评判气候政策时，应像衡量其对温室气体的影响一样，衡量其对人类福祉的影响，投资于更好的医疗、农业和发展，使贫困国家在变暖的世界中更具韧性。盖茨写道，“末日景象”导致许多气候共同体过于关注短期排放目标。
政府已宣布进入干旱状态。在萨福克郡（Suffolk），消防员花费数日与一场吞噬超过 300 英亩荒原的大火搏斗；此前，在英国最大的核电站赛兹韦尔（Sizewell）附近，干涸且被烈日灼伤的植被促使火焰在英格兰最受珍视的景观之一中迅速蔓延。在更北边，凯恩戈姆山脉（Cairngorms）也陷入火海。在海峡对面的法国，估计有 115,000 公顷土地被野火烧毁。
美国国家航空航天局（Nasa）的分析显示，虽然地球气候一直在变化，但目前的变暖速度在过去 10,000 年中从未出现过。分析称，97% 的气候科学家已得出结论，认为人类导致的气候变化应当为此负责。
如果科学结论已经明确，那么争论就转移到了政治领域。在通货膨胀飙升和生活成本危机严峻的背景下，政府应如何应对气候变化，是当今英国政治中最激烈的论题之一。在……的情况下，我们应该在多少程度上专注于缓解措施，即减少排放。
其他专家也认为，韧性至关重要，因为气候变化日益成为不稳定的催化剂。
连续的热浪暴露了为较冷气候而建设的基础设施的脆弱性。医院一直艰难地……
他的批评延伸到了全球规模。即便英国在削减自身的排……
“它加剧了现有的压力，而不是创造了全新的压力，”前英国外交官、《元素：气候变化的地理新格局及生存之道》(Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It) 的作者亚瑟·斯内尔 (Arthur Snell) 表示。他认为，英国无法在一个变暖的世界中使自己处于隔绝状态。
Feeling
干旱演变成粮食危机，而粮食危机又演变成政治危机。极端天气让政府承压，加剧大规模迁徙并使国际关系复杂化，这意味着能源安全和地缘政治不稳定性等问题将日益跨越国界。同样的原则也适用于近在咫尺的地方。一座农场的歉收似乎无关紧要，但如果在全国范围内重复发生，则意味着对进口的依赖度增加，食品价格上涨。气候变化正在提高日常生活成本。
the
然而，对于像克莱夫·雷肖 (Clive Redshaw) 这样的农民来说，赌注似乎更高：他是否还能依靠土地维持生计？在近十年经历了三次受天气影响的歉收后，他对自己能种植什么来应对更炎热、更干燥的夏天更感兴趣，而不是意识形态上的争论。“如今我们播种所有这些作物，却不知道最后能收获什么，”他说，“我们承担了所有风险来养活这个国家，而最后买单的却是我们自己。”
插图：JAMES COWEN
社论，第 20 页
组织根本没有选择。同时担任皇家天文学家的多尔蒂 (Dougherty) 表示：“作为一名天文学家和物理学家，我希望我们能够资助所有项目，但我们根本负担不起。为了让科学与技术设施委员会 (STFC) 在未来保持财务可持续性，我们需要做出一些艰难的决定。我们所从事的任何科学研究都不是不重要的，这就是为什么挑选项目如此困难。”
多尔蒂说道。她指出了价值 17 亿英镑 billion 的平方公里阵列天文望远镜 (SKAO)，这是一个位于南非和澳大利亚的望远镜阵列，将由乔德雷尔班克的一个办公室运行。
望远镜并不被维持为一个独立的望远镜运行。
在其运行期间，它曾追踪将史普尼克 (Sputnik) 送入轨道的火箭；如今，它追踪绕地球运行的太空垃圾，并在监测敌对卫星方面发挥着日益重要的作用。全球约 3,000 名科学家使用该设施，每年有 100,000 人访问该地。
保罗·豪沃斯 (Paul Howarth) 清晰地记得他第一次访问乔德雷尔班克天文台的那一天。“那是 1981, 年，我当时 11 岁，我是那些陪父亲在那里的年轻孩子之一。”他回忆起盯着 250 英尺宽的洛弗尔 (Lovell) 望远镜（目前仍是世界第三大射电望远镜），并意识到自己的人生目标。
“钢结构可能追溯到 1957, 年，但所有的接收器、电子设备、信号处理、控制系统以及其他所有设备都是最新的，”他说，“建造另一座望远镜将耗资 £100 million。中国目前正在建造 100 米级别的望远镜。为什么不最大限度地利用我们现有的基础设施，使其成为一件世界级的仪器呢？这一直是我们所做的。”
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但苏格兰皇家天文学家凯瑟琳·海曼斯 (Catherine Heymans) 教授对这些削减感到震惊。“乔德雷尔班克是英国唯一获得国际认可的运行天文台，”她说，“它是英国科学中一个非常显眼的中心。”海曼斯表示，更令人担忧的是更大范围的撤出。英国还决定终止参与在智利的极大望远镜 (Extremely Large Telescope) 项目，她将其描述为“天文学的下一个重大突破”，以及在夏威夷的詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦望远镜 (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope) 项目，这切断了该国与事件视界望远镜 (Event Horizon Telescope) 的联系，后者负责拍摄首张黑洞图像。e-Merlin 项目负责人西蒙·加灵顿 (Simon Garrington) 教授否认设备已经过时，并表示它能完成 SKAO 无法完成的任务。
她的论点得到了支持者的认可。多尔蒂在担任皇家天文学家之前的前任马丁·里斯表示，目前没有充分的理由去维持 e-Merlin 阵列，因为该阵列“确实已被其他设施超越”，尽管他强调，如果洛弗尔望远镜被关闭，在科学上将是“极其令人沮丧的”。
但这一切现在都变得不确定了。科学与技术设施委员会（STFC）——这个负责分配英国天文学和物理学设施资金的机构——上周宣布，在 2028 年，它将停止为 e-Merlin 望远镜阵列提供每年 £2.8 百万的资金。该阵列是由七个无线电天线组成的网络，从剑桥延伸至柴郡，跨度 135 英里，其中就包括洛弗尔望远镜。
现年 55 岁的豪沃斯教授是物理研究所的所长。“有无数像我一样的年轻人，在乔德雷尔班克受到启发而决定去学习物理学，”他说道。
去年的支出审查使得 STFC 的预算在 2030. 年之前维持在每年约 £8.35 亿的水平。但该机构估计，劳动力价格上涨和其他财务压力意味着它需要削减 15% 的成本。“优先排序工作”建议关闭英国的望远镜，因为它们很快将被海外更新的设备超越。
豪沃斯补充道：“我们之所以能让 SKAO 从乔德雷尔班克运行，是因为我们的国际地位，而我们之所以拥有这种国际地位，是因为我们过去的投入。我们正在切断自己的未来。”加灵顿则表示：“游客不想看到一座记录过去成就的纪念碑。他们想看到一台运行中的望远镜……并知道它正在进行具有世界级意义的重大科学研究。”
自 1957 年以来，洛弗尔望远镜一直仰望着天空，穿透时空，见证行星的诞生和恒星的死亡。它最初是为天文学而建，通过采集无线电波以深入探索宇宙，并在冷战期间跟踪俄罗斯的航天器。在其运行的第一年里……
广播员布莱恩·考克斯教授称这些削减是“毁灭性的”且“欠考虑的”。其他人将其描述为“科学破坏行为”。但 STFC 执行主席米歇尔·多尔蒂教授坚持认为……
洛弗尔望远镜已仰望天空 70 年，现在正受到资金削减的威胁。天文学家告诉本·斯宾塞，关闭它将切断英国的未来。
“射电天文学现在正开始向下一代能力迁移，”
受害者告诉罗辛·凯利，他们被模特星探丹尼尔·西亚德虐待并贩卖到美国。他们称，他最近的死亡剥夺了他们获得正义的机会。
上个月的一个周三，埃巴·卡尔松刚在希思罗机场降落，手机上就出现了一连串的消息和未接电话。卡尔松曾是一名模特，她从家乡斯德哥尔摩出发，准备乘坐转机前往美国。
爱泼斯坦。其中有一张那天在公园里接触卡尔松的男人的照片，以及他的名字：丹尼尔·西亚德。
阿玛尔，安排她与爱泼斯坦在纽约的公寓会面。
受害者的诉求得以实现。在 2020, 年 12 月，MC2 的一名经纪人兼模特星探让-吕克·布鲁内尔被指控强奸未成年人和性骚扰。检察官还在调查布鲁内尔的性贩卖行为。他否认有不当行为，并在巴黎的一家监狱被审前拘留，但在 2022, 年 2 月审判开始前，他自杀身亡。司法部文件显示，西亚德直接作为 MC2 的模特星探并领取佣金。
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在接受《星期日泰晤士报》采访时，43 岁的 Juliette 表示：“纽约是模特界的中心之一，我一直想去那里。从 16 岁起我就在一家名气不大的小机构做模特。我觉得美国对我来说是一个很好的机会。”爱泼斯坦的助手给 Juliette 寄了一张机票，她抵达后，Siad 给她打电话并告知一个地址：纽约东 66 街 301 号——那是爱泼斯坦的公寓。爱泼斯坦拿走了她的护照，第二天，在 Juliette 以为是在他麦迪逊大道办公室进行的专业面试中，他要求她脱掉衣服，称需要查看她的身体才能将她推荐给经纪公司。他摸了她的身体，并说她需要三个月时间来“恢复身形”。Juliette 要求拿回护照，给母亲打了电话并逃离了那里。
文件显示，Siad 正在欧洲搜寻年轻女性，将她们交给这位恋童癖金融家。然而，尽管爱泼斯坦文件中有了他从事人口贩卖的进一步证据，Siad 却从未被警方审讯。这两个男人之间的关系进一步证明了爱泼斯坦网络的延伸之广：Siad 在从东欧、西班牙到南非和古巴的各地搜寻女性。
她居住的地方。这些信息讲述的都是同一个故事：Daniel Siad，一名 69 岁的法瑞双籍模特球探，原籍阿尔及利亚，被发现死在位于巴黎西北郊区科隆布的公寓里。
上图为 20 岁时的 Ebba Karlsson，此时她被 Daniel Siad 接触；下图为 Jean-Luc Brunel，他在被指控强奸和性骚扰后自杀；右下为 Juliette G，她表示自己被 Siad 贩卖。
Karlsson 还声称，在 Siad 将她们介绍认识后，另一名法国模特经纪人、前 Elite Model Management 负责人 Gérald Marie 在巴黎的一次会面中对她实施了性侵。Marie 的律师表示，他“绝对正式地反驳这些事实”，并“断然”否认所有指控。Karlsson 与至少 14 名其他女性一起，于 2020 年对他提起刑事诉讼，指控其性侵和强迫招嫖。2023 年，该案因诉讼时效到期而被撤销。上个月，六名女性对他提出了新的民事起诉，指控他涉嫌追溯至 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代的强奸和人口贩卖。Marie 的法律代表表示，他“坚决否认”这些指控，“正如他一直以来所做的那样”。
“这简直是扇了一记耳光，”Karlsson 说，“他当时就在法国等着。他就在那里，随时可以被捕。我觉得自己很傻，竟然相信他会被逮捕。我觉得我们被背叛了。”
“我很愤怒，我们所有人都很愤怒，”56 岁的 Karlsson 在消息传出次日接受《星期日泰晤士报》采访时说道。她是 20 多名声称被 Siad 强奸或被贩卖给恋童癖金融家杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的女性之一。Karlsson 和其他人向警方举报了 Siad，但在他去世时，他仍是个自由之身。“几个月来，我们被告知他将被逮捕，但他们甚至从未将他带走审讯，”Karlsson 说道，她认为法国警方辜负了她以及爱泼斯坦虐待网络中其他被遗忘的受害者。“我们再也无法向他询问我们需要知道的问题了。人们需要感到愤怒。”
Karlsson 在 2 月份举报了 Siad，当时她在巴黎对他提起强奸和人口贩卖的指控；在接下来的几个月里，又有四名女性提出了强奸指控。Karlsson 认为，警方在这些遭受恐怖虐待的女性寻求正义的机会面前失败了。在回应《星期日泰晤士报》时，法国检察官办公室重申，作为 2 月 18 日开始的一项针对爱泼斯坦在法国人口贩卖网络的更广泛调查的一部分，Siad 曾被监听。
西亚德出生于 1957 年的阿尔及利亚，在他所属的国家脱离法国独立前五年。1980 年，23 岁的他移民到瑞典，并在那里获得了公民身份，开始为 What’s Up Management 公司担任球探。该公司主要在欧洲运营，与巴黎、斯德哥尔摩和巴塞罗那有联系。
见过他的女性表示，他很少分享关于个人生活的信息。卡尔森将他描述为最初看起来“非常有魅力，非常有礼貌。我们当时并不使用‘诱导’（grooming）这个词，因为这个词在那时还不存在”，她说，“但他希望让你感觉良好。然后他会突然转变。他会变得非常有攻击性。我记得他那可怕的一面。”
西亚德可能已经死了，但那些与他打过交道的人心中仍燃着愤怒。本周，代表卡尔森及其他人的律师科隆巴·格罗西和威廉·布尔登将向国家提起民事诉讼。他们表示，目标是证明“当局在处理丹尼尔·西亚德问题上的不作为构成了严重失职。他从未被审问或逮捕，这意味着我们被剥夺了某些他可能知晓的信息。目标不是为了获得金钱，我们想要证明确实发生了不当行为。”
他说他会杀了我也；说他认识巴黎警察局局长
卡尔森现在是住在北卡罗来纳州的一名生活教练，她是在 36 年前的 1990 年在斯德哥尔摩市中心的一个公园——国王花园（Kungstradgarden）遇到西亚德的。当时 20 岁的她是一名有抱负的模特，西亚德在接近她时，自称是一名叫丹尼尔·戈德堡的模特球探。他告诉她，她“非常适合我们在摩纳哥进行的一次拍摄”，并给她买了一张前往法国里维埃拉的单程票。但工作从未落实，她最终来到了戛纳郊外的一栋别墅的泳池房里。卡尔森说，在那里的一个脏床垫上，西亚德强奸了她。“那是一座水泥建筑，里面空无一物，而且非常脏，”她说。“他把我带到这个地方并非偶然或巧合，那里就像是有人会定期在那里睡觉一样。我一直觉得这件事远比这次意外严重得多。”
西亚德的名字出现在 2,000 多份爱泼斯坦文件中。在 2009 年（爱泼斯坦因招嫖和为未成年人招嫖而被定罪一年后）至 2019 年的十年间，西亚德向爱泼斯坦发送关于他挖掘的“模特”的信息和照片，并提出将她们介绍给爱泼斯坦。“在这些业务中，我觉得自己像个渔夫，有时能快快地捕到鱼，有时没鱼”，西亚德在 2014 年 7 月的一封电子邮件中这样写道。有时，西亚德还会发送照片。
在爱泼斯坦文件最近一次公开后，西亚德面临的压力增加。在 6 月接受 CNN 采访时，他为自己与爱泼斯坦的关系辩护，并否认知道前合伙人的罪行。西亚德将自己描述为“一个不关注新闻、不关注互联网的人……我不是什么大人物，我只是个来自山区的人”。
格罗西补充说，在 4 月到西亚德去世之间，她就调查问题向检察官发送了 15 封电子邮件。但她一次也没有收到回复。检察官办公室坚持认为，没有足够的证据来证明立即逮捕西亚德是合理的。他们说，那个
“她很不错，但她的胸部很糟糕，必须得重新做”，爱泼斯坦在回复其中一张照片时写道。“没什么意思，抱歉”，他在评价另一名 19 岁女性时写道。
他究竟是如何结识爱泼斯坦的尚不清楚。西亚德多次声称他“对他了解不多”。然而，在两人的电子邮件往来中，西亚德的角色很明确：他定期为爱泼斯坦带来不同国籍的女孩。一名曾为爱泼斯坦担任按摩师的女性表示，西亚德“会在爱泼斯坦在巴黎期间与他见面，而且丹尼尔总是会带着一两个女性一起，并将她们介绍给爱泼斯坦”。
财务记录和电子邮件显示，爱泼斯坦定期将资金直接汇入一个西亚德名下的迪拜银行账户，并支付他前往斯洛伐克、波兰、捷克共和国和匈牙利等地的球探行程费用。
对法国爱泼斯坦网络的更广泛调查将继续进行。
随后，他将她带到巴黎，在那里她设法逃脱了。“他威胁要杀了我，他说他认识巴黎的警察局长。我太害怕了，很长时间不敢说话。”
对于卡尔森和其他接触过西亚德的女性来说，他对她们生活的打击以及她们的愤怒依然存在。“有五个受害者说被他强奸了，但他们竟然连质询都没有对他进行，”卡尔森说，“检察官竟然说
一名年轻女性朱丽叶 G，在《周日泰晤士报》看到的警方证词中，她 21 岁时在法国担任模特，2004 年在香榭丽舍大街被西亚德接触。在 2019 年接受调查人员采访期间，她告诉警方，西亚德告诉她他的名字叫丹尼尔·艾特
多年来，卡尔森一直想寻求正义并向警方举报西亚德，但她无法做到：她只知道他使用 Goldberg 这个假名。直到今年 1 月，美国司法部公布了三百万份与已故性犯罪者杰弗里
没有证据？这里没有对受害者的理解，没有对她们经历的体谅，也没有帮助。我们只能
西亚德并非唯一一位在受害者获得正义前就已去世的爱泼斯坦关联人士
继续努力。”
“当我的 ADHD 诊断被撤销时，我感到一种解脱”
领取个人独立支付金 (Pip) 的最大人群是患有“精神和神经发育”疾病的人，包括（但不限于）焦虑症、ADHD 和自闭症。
在他位于林肯郡的诊所中提供一种截然不同的服务：“去诊断” (de-diagnosis)。那些被诊断为 ADHD 等障碍，但认为该诊断不再适用或无助于身心健康的患者，可以来到蒂米米这里进行重新评估。NHS 将 ADHD 定义为无法集中注意力、多动以及冲动行为，例如插话或感到不安。虽然表现出这些特征的人可能符合诊断标准，但这些症状可能是短暂的，或与外部环境相关。
“不是一个合法的医学诊断，因为它（糟糕且模糊地）描述了行为，但无法解释行为”。这个标签“仅仅描述了我们所有人程度不等都会表现出的行为”。
他认为。蒂米米补充道：“年轻人正以各种方式挣扎，而主因当然是经济状况和机会的匮乏。但用这些精神科诊断给人们贴标签，并不能帮助他们走出自己陷入的特定陷阱，”蒂米米说。相反，他认为，这样反而“更有可能让你
在伦敦担任 NHS 儿童精神科医生开启职业生涯 30 多年后，蒂米米医生
成为一名长期患者。它们具有一种致残效应。”
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“去诊断”的概念三年前出现在瑞典，当时由隆德大学和哥德堡大学领导的一项研究追踪了 100 名寻求推翻童年自闭症或 ADHD 诊断的成年人。在初步重新评估中，90% 的人不再符合其病情的标准。最近的一篇随访论文显示，在部分年轻参与者中，许多人描述了这一诊断如何变得“具有限制性——限制了职业选择，影响了医疗接触，并塑造了身份认同”。对于某些人来说，摆脱标签被证明是非常有益的，以至于今年在瑞典南端斯堪尼亚省的各个精神科诊所都提供了“去诊断”服务。蒂米米，作为该书的作者
萨米·蒂米米开始注意到他的年轻患者中出现了一个显著的变化。越来越多的儿童及其父母告诉他，他们认为自己患有神经发育障碍，如焦虑症、自闭症或注意缺陷多动障碍 (ADHD)。
他说，认为一个孩子在学校难以集中注意力的原因是 ADHD，“就像是说我的头部疼痛的原因是头痛一样”，他
上周，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）暗示，他准备提高申领残疾福利金的难度，以削减严重臃肿的福利账单，目前有四百万人领取个人独立支付金（Pip）。在最高支付档位的青少年中，超过三分之二的人因心理健康问题领取 Pip，他们每周领取的金额比领取最低工资且兼职工作的 16 和 17 岁青少年多出 £100。
马库斯·塞丁（Marcus Siding）表示，当他在 12 岁被诊断出患有 ADHD 时，“我的未来在眼前消失了”。
“有更多的人期待能获得药物治疗。这在以前是几乎没听说过的，”蒂米米（Timimi）说道。“我们从未经历过像这一代这样被病理化如此严重的情况，这对他们来说并不好事。”在心理健康方面，我们正处于一个前所未有的诊断时代。英格兰每五个成年人中就有一个被归类为心理健康障碍，而每七个人中就有一个被认为是神经多样性（neurodiverse）。
一名精神科医生告诉夏洛特·利顿（Charlotte Lytton），心理健康状况的评估方式正对许多年轻人产生削弱能力的影响。取消诊断（De-diagnosis）可以帮助他们摆脱将自己视为长期患者的思维陷阱。
如果蒂米米发现一名患者不再符合标准，或者症状可以用其他因素解释，或者他认为诊断根本没有帮助，他可以作为一名顾问精神科医生写一封信说明情况。随后这会被记录在他们的医疗档案中。
这些数据反映了蒂米米等专业人士所见证的诊断率飙升。蒂米米属于一小批但规模不断增长的专家群体，他们正在思考我们是否应该以不同的方式看待诊断。
包括《寻找正常：一种理解痛苦与神经多样性的新方法》（Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Distress and Neurodiversity）在内的书籍指出。
蒂米米认为，对于像 ADHD 这样的病况诊断来说，这一点尤为重要，他说。
这体现在关于申领残疾金人数日益增加的争论中。
在最近退休之前，蒂米米开始。
诊断蔓延（diagnosis creep）可能会使人们将这种观念内化，即。
马克·帕斯莫尔（MARK PASSMORE）为《星期日泰晤士报》撰稿
那位像 Styles 和 Swift 一样填满温布利球场的无名乡村音乐之星
由于海水变暖，西南地区正充斥着被驱离繁殖地的章鱼。厨师们告诉夏洛特·艾弗斯（Charlotte Ivers），如果我们能正确烹饪，就能克服对这些生物的厌恶感。
“如果你把它放进微波炉里叮五分钟，我怀疑它不会流行起来。”
在布里克斯汉（Brixham）鱼市场的大型冷藏头足类动物室里，气味难以界定：一种麝香味、泥土气，一种你几乎能在喉咙深处感觉到的气味。一筐又一筐的章鱼堆积在一起。巴里·杨（Barry Young）从未见过像近期到货的这种新渔获如此之多。“就在一夜之间：大量涌入。”
福勒（Fowler）没有尝试过英国章鱼，根据他在希腊食用章鱼的经验，他持怀疑态度：“似乎取决于谁来烹饪，它要么尝起来像汽车轮胎，要么非常美味。”
卢克·康布斯（Luke Combs）在北伦敦为超过 250,000 名粉丝演出。斯嘉丽·罗素（Scarlett Russell）写道，忘掉上帝和枪支吧，粉丝们热爱的是他的衣服、友好的氛围和真诚的歌词。
章鱼对于家庭厨师来说确实是一个挑战：需要在流水下进行充分清洗，以确保吸盘中没有残留沙子或碎屑，然后需要嫩化处理——要么冷冻一两天，要么用肉锤敲击，或者悬挂在阳光和海风中。在希腊的渔村里，后一种方法比在英国的郊区要容易得多。
“就是这样，”他说。“就像西班牙无敌舰队进攻一样。”
杨在德文郡海岸的鱼市场工作了 33 年。他十几岁时开始搬运板筐，现在是布里克斯汉拖网代理公司（Brixham Trawler Agents）的总经理。
“但我听说票几乎不可能买到。我会去参加其他活动，比如在 O2 举办的 Country to Country，那是一个大型的三天年度盛会。我热爱乡村音乐，因为它用一种有趣的方式处理心碎。它并不伤感，也不爱抱怨。就像是在说：‘她伤了我的心，所以我买了一辆新卡车。’”
本周末任何经过伦敦西北部的人可能会注意到，地铁里到处是卡车帽、斯特森帽和牛仔靴。为什么？因为来自北卡罗来纳州亨特斯维尔的低调 36 岁乡村歌手卢克·科姆斯（Luke Combs）几乎卖完了英国最大体育场三晚的门票，这一殊荣通常仅限于像埃德·希兰（Ed Sheeran）和泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）这样的歌手。科姆斯可能是你从未听说过的最顶尖艺术家——到明天，大约 270,000 名粉丝将踏入温布利球场观看他的演出，其中大多数人支付了远超 £100 的票价。
在附近的达特茅斯，The Seahorse 餐厅的主厨本·汤克斯（Ben Tonks）同意给我做一次指导。“你可以煎烤，或者我非常喜欢做章鱼土豆沙拉，加入蛋黄酱、干葱和刺山柑，”他说道。“或者你可以把所有的触腕做成肉卷（ballotine），卷成香肠状，冷冻，然后用切片机切成章鱼薄片（carpaccio）。”然而，最简单、最传统的加利西亚食谱是 pulpo á feira：将章鱼煮熟，切掉触腕，然后淋上橄榄油和红椒粉。
直到两年前，如果有一艘船带回一只章鱼，那还是件大事。“偶尔我们会抓到一只，然后我们会惊叹：‘哇，这是什么！’”杨（Young）说。在 2024 年，有“零星”的章鱼出现，但没有人对此太在意。
在德文郡达特茅斯的 The Seahorse 餐厅，主厨本·汤克斯准备煮一只章鱼来制作加利西亚菜肴 pulpo á feira。
午餐。”尽管如此，如果章鱼决定在此定居，汤克斯认为将其纳入我们的内心和厨房是有好处的。“它们很残酷。它们会吃掉路径上的一切。它们无法被清除，所以你得想办法利用它们。”
章鱼。在 2022 年，在活动人士的压力下，《动物福利（感知）法案》将章鱼列为具有感知能力的生物。从轶事来看，许多人提到了 2020 年获得奥斯卡奖的 Netflix 纪录片《我的章鱼老师》，片中的电影制作人在一年时间里似乎与一只章鱼建立了友谊。
60 岁的莎妮娅·崔恩（Shania Twain）找到了更年轻的受众；今年夏天她在温布利球场为哈里·斯泰尔斯（Harry Styles）助阵，并在 2024 年在格拉斯顿伯里音乐节（Glastonbury）担任“传奇”时段嘉宾。来自俄克拉荷马州的格莱美奖得主、30 岁的扎克·布莱恩（Zach Bryan）去年夏天在海德公园连续两晚担任领衔演出嘉宾。
然后，突然之间，去年有 1,900 吨章鱼在布里克斯汉姆（Brixham）海岸登陆。它们经过杨的鱼市，价值 £12.3 百万。
海洋生物协会去年进行的最新研究显示，章鱼数量出现了 75 年来最大的一次激增——西南地区的登陆量是近年来的 65 倍。今年到目前为止，已有 2,500 吨章鱼被售出。
章鱼需要摄入相当于其自身体重 10% 的螃蟹、扇贝和龙虾等生物才能生存，这危及了西南地区作为顶级贝类产地的声誉。而在环境方面，“我们是否希望某种东西落在我们的海岸上，然后其中 80% 又被飞回大洋彼岸？并不是很希望，”汤克斯说。
“如果处理得好，”汤克斯一边将一只和他手臂一样长的章鱼浸入一个大锅中，一边说，“它就像一块烹饪得完美的牛排。柔软、嫩，像黄油一样，不应该有嚼劲或坚韧，不应该像在嘴里嚼橡皮筋一样。但它非常容易失手。”
伦敦政治经济学院杰里米·科勒动物感知中心主任乔纳森·比尔奇（Jonathan Birch）教授表示，有充分的证据表明，它们的智力与我们想象的一样高。“它们是出色的问题解决者，也是非常全能的猎手，”他说。“当你在实验室环境下测试它们时，你会发现它们能很轻易地拧开罐子，因为在野外，它们在猎捕双壳纲软体动物时也会做同样的事情。”
来自萨里郡、28 岁的格蕾丝·奥萨利文（Grace O’Sullivan）为了买康布斯（Combs）的门票在虚拟队列中等待了一小时。“我父母是乡村音乐迷，所以我从小听着夏妮亚·特温（Shania Twain）、Dixie Chicks和多莉·帕顿（Dolly Parton）长大，”她说。“我小时候这并不酷，我的朋友们没人知道我在说什么，但我看过[这位美国歌手——
绝大多数产品销往海外——布里克斯汉姆（Brixham）市场的捕获量中至少有 80 per cent，在德文郡的部分地区甚至高达 95 per cent。西班牙、葡萄牙和摩洛哥这些有长期食用章鱼传统的国家，由于海水变得过暖导致章鱼向英国迁移，目前正面临短缺。鱼商乔什·珀克斯（Josh Perkes）说：“在过去的四周里，有四家不同的西班牙公司飞过来询问购买章鱼的事。”他的最大客户在西班牙、意大利和韩国，他还向迈阿密和贝鲁特发送过板箱。西班牙人每年食用约 40,000 吨章鱼。“这绝对是一个很好的市场，”珀克斯说。“只是目前我们在英国找不到足够的货。”
尽管乡村音乐的主题——大卡车、炸鸡、上帝和枪——显然不符合英国人的特质，但根据乡村音乐协会（Country Music Association）的数据，它是英国增长最快的音乐类型，且已连续三年如此。
沿着海岸线行驶一小时多，位于托普沙姆（Topsham）的 Galley 餐厅是少数一家将章鱼列入菜单的场所，配以罗马酱、珍珠古斯库斯沙拉、粉红姜和干虾。这是该餐厅最受欢迎的前菜。主厨丹·卡瓦纳（Dan Kavanagh）表示：“如果烹饪得当，章鱼具有嫩滑的口感和浓郁且微甜的风味，非常适合用于烧烤、烘烤或地中海风格的料理。”
Seahorse 餐厅在全国范围内以提供多样化的当地捕获鱼类而闻名，但菜单上没有章鱼。“这不在我们的文化中，”汤克斯（Tonks）说。“当一名英国厨师说‘我擅长烹饪章鱼’时，你会想‘真的吗？’在过去的 100 年里，我们的祖母并没有买章鱼回来给
布里克斯汉姆没有人确定这种涌入是否会持续，但渔民告诉我，他们已经开始看到幼年章鱼，这表明西南地区已成为章鱼循环返回的繁殖地。
“每隔 10 到 15 年，乡村音乐会在英国再次流行，”音乐历史学家、《经典乡村》（Vintage Country）作者托尼·罗素（Tony Russell）说。“对于年轻和时尚的人来说，这很有趣。服装、食物、生动的语言，这是一整套文化组合，而且这种音乐很友好，没有威胁感。它关乎社区，是每个人都能聚集在一起并喜欢的音乐。多莉（帕顿）就是一个很好的例子：她可以给五岁孩子唱歌，也可以在格拉斯顿伯里音乐节担任压轴嘉宾。也许在 2026 年，这就是我们需要的一种逃避现实的方式。”
对于福勒（Fowler）来说，很简单：“你感兴趣的只是完成一周的工作：捕到足够的鱼来养活家人和维持船只。无论什么目标最容易捕获且最赚钱，你就捕什么。”
然后是关于章鱼所谓的智力所涉及的伦理问题——
它并不矫情和哀怨。就像是，“她伤了我的心，于是我买了一辆新卡车”
我们能否像欧洲大陆的同行那样爱上章鱼？
我们在英国食用的鱼类比欧洲整体要少，而且当我们食用时，80 per cent 的消费量集中在“五大类”之一：三文鱼、鳕鱼、金枪鱼、黑鳕鱼和虾，其中大部分是进口的。从周五的炸鱼薯条跳跃到章鱼触须将是一个巨大的跨越，且并非所有人都能确信公众已经为此准备好了。
插图：RUSSEL HERNEMAN
在布里克斯汉姆（Brixham）的码头边，理查德·福勒（Richard Fowler）正将他的船绳固定在船坞上。“传统上，英国人家庭对新鲜鱼类并不太感兴趣，”这位 62 岁的渔民说道。“如果他们能买到装在盒子里并撒了面包屑的鱼，他们就很满意了。但如果给他们一条新鲜的，他们会觉得‘噢，有腥味’。”
“TikTok 在其中也起到了巨大的作用，人们在‘为你推荐’页面上发现了这些歌曲，”Lime Tree Music（一家乡村音乐和 Americana 公关机构）驻英国的公共关系专员珍妮·惠特威（Jenny Whiteway）表示。“我认为人们被乡村音乐的诚实和脆弱感所吸引。其核心在于讲述听众能够产生共鸣的真实故事。”
[词曲作者] 凯西·马斯格雷夫斯（Kacey Musgraves）在埃塞克斯郡（Essex）的一家微型唱片店里，那时我 14 或 15 岁。”
上周末，奥萨利文（O’Sullivan）在奇斯威克（Chiswick）的一家乡村主题酒吧“小纳什维尔”（Lil’ Nashville）举行了单身女派对。门外的街道可能是典型的西伦敦景象，到处是 Lime 共享单车和红色巴士，但内部则是充满排舞和牛仔帽的乡村酒吧（honky-tonk）世界。该酒吧举办的三场“卢克·库姆斯（Luke Combs）预热派对”全部售罄。这家店由“潜在的乡村音乐迷”海伦·伍德（Helen Wood）及其丈夫拥有，他们于去年 1 月开业。
“我确信采购商正试图教育人们，使其成为一种英国美食。但直到它被做成方便餐为止……”
让英国食客
向 90,000 人演唱
“我们去纳什维尔访问了六七年，那里的夜生活场景令人惊叹且充满活力，”她说。“我们想，‘为什么这里没有人这么做？’没有专门给乡村音乐的地方，没有固定场地。在开业的前六个月里，你根本无法预约。即便在现在，周六的排队时间有时长达两小时。”
suckerscephalopodsfor
虽然他的知名度尚未达到那些全球流播数据与他相当的艺人——如 Pink Floyd、2Pac 和 the Cure ——的水平，但我们中的许多人可能都曾跟着他翻唱的特蕾西·查普曼（Tracy Chapman）的《Fast Car》轻哼，这首歌在 Spotify 上的播放次数已超过 10 亿次。他迷人的妻子尼科尔（Nicole）曾是 Broadcast Music Inc 的招聘协调员，他们有三个儿子：Tex、Beau 和 Chet。
今年 6 月，安娜-索菲·默滕斯（Anna-Sophie Mertens）在埃塞克斯郡的切姆斯福德（Chelmsford）推出了 State Fayre，这是一个带有民谣和乡村色彩的音乐节，周末吸引了 50,000 名粉丝。“我们认为时机成熟了，因为我们看到了乡村音乐的热情和增长，”身为乡村音乐协会董事会成员的默滕斯说。“尤其是在年轻观众中。18 至 25 岁的人们正在发现它，因为我们现在消费音乐的方式截然不同，更容易发现不同的音乐。”
“与年轻人情感困难的增加相关”。蒂米米（Timimi）认为，学校中所有的心理健康意识课程都应该停止。
来自赫特福德郡（Hertfordshire）的教师维多利亚·贝克（Victoria Baker）， 33 岁，没能买到库姆斯的门票。“我太难过了，”她说。“那本该是很棒的……”
Good? 表示，“人们重新评估”自己的状况而非将其视为终身疾病，这“极其重要”。社交媒体也带来了巨大压力，名人支持的活动意味着“儿童和青少年在过于仔细地审视自己是否具有这些特征，并担心那些不必担心的事情”，奥萨利文说道。那些在 TikTok 上为了博关注而宣传经常是自我诊断的病症的人，“并不真正理解诊断所带来的复杂程度”。
她承认，在等待一年才获得药物治疗期间，她一直在思考“这是否真的必要”。“我觉得很多人都在盲从这些诊断。”她说，如果这么多人都属于神经多样性，“那还算多样吗？这还算是一个问题吗？”
标签。凯蒂·斯特恩 (Katie Stern)，43岁，一名来自伦敦的作家，去年被诊断出患有ADHD（注意缺陷多动障碍），她说她在多年挣扎后寻求医疗建议，目标是“清理我的大脑”。但她遇到了漫长的候诊名单：在英格兰，等待ADHD评估的人数高达 550,000 人，获得服务的周期可能长达五年。
你出了什么问题。他表示，他的许多年轻患者是在父母的鼓励下寻求诊断的，有些人到青少年时期已经“收集”了四五种病症。“你开始接纳自己作为病人的身份，而一旦你接纳了这个身份，就很难改变了，”他说道。
另一个促成因素是，多年来《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》（该手册是心理健康和认知状况的参考指南）中的诊断类别有所放宽。这意味着一些原本被认为仅影响儿童的病症（如ADHD），现在也适用于成年人以及那些症状较轻或不典型的人群。
卢克·孔布斯 (Luke Combs) 是首位在温布利球场举办专场演唱会的乡村歌手。
苏珊·奥苏利文 (Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan) 博士，一名顾问神经科医生，也是《诊断时代：医学标签是对我们有害还是有益》(The Age of Diagnosis: Are Medical Labels Doing Us More Harm Than) 一书的作者。
在美国，观众群体与MAGA、枪支和保守主义联系在一起。但在我们这里
马库斯·赛丁 (Marcus Siding)，一名 23 岁的瑞典地方政府志愿者，他已被撤销诊断。他说，当他在 12 岁被诊断为一名“高能量孩子”时，他“相当绝望，因为我的未来就在我眼前消失了”。他曾想成为一名警察，但法律规定该诊断使其失去了资格。
斯特恩（非真名）
这里的政治
不过，默滕斯 (Mertens) 认为。“粉丝们热爱乡村音乐，无论政治观点如何。如果它能在情感上引起共鸣，那才是最重要的。”
Pip 案例中主病症为 ADHD、自闭症、抑郁症或焦虑症的比例
24% 20 16 12
16 19 25 29 30 34 所有申请人 20 24
去年，伦敦大学学院公布了一项涉及 32,000 名 8 至 13 岁儿童的六年期试验结果，结果显示，将他们的悲伤或压力感常态化，而不是将其贴上需要紧急关注的特定病症标签，能获得更好的结果。教育部去年对中学的心理健康意识进行的审查发现，某些课程
与其推行诊断，奥苏利文说，“我们最好通过帮助人们在生活的混乱真相中应对，来给予他们支持。”“我担心日益增长的失业率和心理健康诊断数据表明，一个出于好意的系统可能并没有我们想象中那样有效。”
100%
80
当他在 2023 年寻求重新评估并被宣布不再患有 ADHD 时，他感到“宽慰”，并且现在深受鼓舞，“要确保没有其他人经历我所经历的一切”。
State Fayre 已预定了明年的日期。Lil’ Nashville 今年将在布里斯托尔开设场馆，Country 2 Country 明年将在曼彻斯特、伦敦和格拉斯哥举办。乡村音乐的热潮没有放缓的迹象。你们最好做好准备。
60
8
40
4
20
0
0
2019 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
在心理健康方面挣扎的不止是年轻人
2019 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
亦包括混合型焦虑和抑郁障碍
来源：DWP (工作与养老金部)
20 V2 《星期日泰晤士报》 2, 2026
评论
多米尼克·劳森 (Dominic Lawson)
“后付费”是资助老年人护理的一种公正方式
创建于 1822 年
塞乌塔的混乱向首相表明为何移民问题仍是优先事项
忽略那些恐吓手段，对遗产征税可能是可行的
痴呆症患者仍然是主要的受害者，他们被迫在护理上花费数十万，而癌症患者则不然。” 几代人深受癌症摧残的家庭——我的母亲在 48 岁时去世，我的一个姐妹在 32 岁时去世——无论休斯先生怎么认为，他们都不是生命彩票的赢家。但他使用“彩票”这个词很有深意，因为我们这里谈论的是钱，而不是痛苦。
无论国家出了什么问题，或者——在他们看来——他们受到了怎样的不公正对待，英国改革党 (Reform UK) 总是不变地将责任归咎于“建制派”。上周也是如此，当首相在关于社会护理改革的跨党派讨论中没有邀请由
这在一个人辛勤工作并尽可能地为孙辈布置温馨家居，以便将其传给他们时，显得如此不公平。
W
这是英国一个极其尖锐的问题。就在上周，由于偷渡者利用风平浪静的水域，有 900 多人乘坐小船穿越英吉利海峡。
塞乌塔这个飞地——位于摩洛哥北端的一块西班牙领土——让大多数欧洲人感到遥远。但上周有 60,000 人涌入其边界，这在整个欧洲大陆引起了政治波澜。除了
T
尽管指出这一点似乎很冷酷，但吉尔的孙辈们并不会在她去世后集体住在她那温馨的家里。一旦获得遗嘱认证，房子将被出售，而那些不认识且无亲缘关系的买家，将成为享受她最终装修成果的人。
安迪·伯纳姆在担任首相的起步阶段表现得很圆滑，且很好地传达了他的早期构想。但移民问题将是对其领导能力的一次严峻考验，而他尚未详细阐明将如何解决这一问题。他的前任基尔·斯塔默爵士曾承诺要“摧毁帮派”，且应当注意到，合法和非法移民人数都在下降。伯纳姆在保留沙巴娜·马哈茂德为内政大臣这一点上应当受到称赞。
由奈杰尔·法拉奇领导。考虑到英国改革党在民调中的地位（这表明它在下次大选后可能会参与组阁），其必然会抱怨这是“建制派阴谋”，而这不仅仅是其体制性迫害妄想症的又一次体现。不过，当有人指出该党甚至没有一名专门负责此类事务的议会发言人时，听到英国改革党的苏埃拉·布雷弗曼宣布：“奈杰尔·法拉奇就是我们的健康发言人”，这倒是挺有趣。
因此，詹里克在《每日邮报》上论证道——基于一个可能错误的假设，即伯纳姆将重启他 2010 年提出的方案，对所有遗产征收 10% 的“社会护理”税——认为这是“每个养老金领取者的噩梦”。他以已故的祖母多萝西为例：“对我奶奶来说，没有什么比家庭更重要。她拥有的一切都给了我们。随着她健康状况恶化，想到她的孙辈能继承一些东西——无论多么微小——都给她带来了巨大的快乐。但这项税收将剥夺她的这份慰藉。”
目前已有 2,000 人返回摩洛哥，但要准确分析这个仅有 85,000 人的城市中究竟是什么导致了这些事件，还需要一段时间。
然而，这假设了吉尔本人没有成为那些需要长期护理且不在国民医疗服务体系 (NHS) 覆盖范围内、在某种养老机构中接受护理的人。因为如果发生这种情况，她的房子可能需要被出售以支付费用，所得款项将不交给她的孙辈，而是交给任何一家提供护理的公司。
许多翻越边界围栏的人是年轻人——有些仅是青少年——社交媒体在这次同步穿越中似乎发挥了作用。关于摩洛哥当局是否参与其中的问题依然存在：警方被指控在边界上睁一只眼闭一只眼。
但这个问题不能通过简单的愿望就将其消除。马姆杜在关于无限期居留权改革方面的努力应获得支持，尽管这些改革在部分工党议员中并不受欢迎。我们今天关于多户住宅（HMOs）的调查揭示了该问题的复杂性。在政府于 2024 年开始关闭寻求庇护者酒店后，地方议会转向利用 HMOs 来安置寻求庇护者。然而，将家庭住宅转换为 HMOs（即三名或更多不相关租客共同居住的房屋）可能会改变住宅区的性质。
当詹里克出现在 ITV 的《早安英国》节目中，继续他针对（目前还不存在的）伯纳姆死亡税发起的激进活动，告诉主持人凯特·加拉韦“你留下的财产将被征收 10 per cent 的税”时，她问道：“你认为现在会发生什么？”她指的当然是那些因为在 NHS 体系之外承担长期护理费用而完全失去家产的人。
无论如何，罗伯特·詹里克挺身而出，他与布雷弗曼一样，都是前保守党部长，现任改革党的“影子财政大臣”。一旦安迪·伯纳姆发表讲话，承诺政府将解决社会护理危机，詹里克就利用其标志性的熟练社交媒体手段，发起了一场活动，将伯纳姆尚未宣布的解决方案贴上“死亡税”的标签，并配以一张骷髅向英国税务海关总署（HMRC）递交支票的图片。
尽管所谓的伯纳姆“死亡税”将使罗伯特的遗产减少 10 per cent，这确实令人悲剧，但如果他深爱的那位亲属在想到能给孙辈留下“一些东西——无论多么少”而得到慰藉，那么这样的减少很难说成了“抢夺”她的东西。
这一事件将聚光灯投向了西班牙首相佩德罗·桑切斯的政策，他在今年授予了 500,000 名无证移民合格的法律地位。西班牙反对党领导人阿尔贝托·努涅斯·费霍在昨晚称此举为“移民政策……安全政策[和]外交政策的三重失败”。
次日，詹里克在他的 X 账号上发布了一段他在另一位名叫吉尔的年长但十分精神的女士家中相遇的视频。他们看起来很熟。这段播放量已超过一百万次的帖子标题为：“安迪·伯纳姆的死亡税正让像吉尔这样的数百万民众感到恐惧。”当詹里克向她指出，用对所有遗产征收 10 per cent 的税来取代针对“富人”的遗产税时，吉尔确实感到恐惧了——某种程度上。
詹里克回答道：“并非每个人都会发生这种情况。这正是重点所在。”我想知道观众对此怎么看。
这是一个经典戏码的重演。2010 年，伯纳姆在担任卫生大臣期间，主张在去世后对所有遗产征收 10 per cent 的税，以确保社会护理由集体支付并在使用时免费。当时同样参与跨党派磋商的保守党指责该提案——且非常成功地将其定性为——一项死亡税。上周，伯纳姆表示，那次经历仍让他留有“一些伤痕”。
事实上，詹里克所属的鲍里斯·约翰逊政府，为了履行时任首相在 2019 年“一次性解决社会护理危机”的承诺，于 2021 年宣布将国民保险缴款提高 1.25 per cent 以为此提供资金。这项计划被称为“健康与社会护理征收金”，原定于 2023 年开始实施。然而，它在实施前就被莉兹·特拉斯在她那并不怎么精彩的迷你预算案中废弃了。相反，她做出了一项疯狂的承诺，由国家资助两年的所有家庭取暖账单，潜在成本高达数千亿英镑——这甚至远高于在相同期间内支付所有社会护理费用的成本。
这场危机还暴露了围绕申根协议（Schengen agreement）而潜伏的紧张局势，该协议允许 29 个欧洲国家之间无需护照即可旅行。该集团正努力维持边境安全的集体协作方式，而一些国家则在采取自行其事的措施。意大利实际上已经暂停了申根协议，对从西班牙经由航空或海路抵达的人员实施边境检查。
面对公众舆论，各地方议会现在被迫要求房东在将房屋用作多户租赁房（HMOs）时必须寻求规划许可。然而，安置寻求庇护者的义务依然存在，政府目前正在探索利用前军事基地的可能性。
“我们一生努力工作来打造一个舒适的家，现在我们仍在翻新它，为其增加价值，而现在我们被告知其中一部分要交给税务局，这……”
正如我的同事帕特里克·马奎尔（Patrick Maguire）所回忆的，伯纳姆（Burnham）曾在 2010 年表示，另一种替代方案是“一种随机的失智税，人们可以看到数万或数十万英镑因为护理成本、失去住房和储蓄而化为乌有”。
伯纳姆在就任首相时，雄辩地谈到了公共政策应通过“梅克菲尔德测试”（Makerfield test），以及结束“多户租赁房英国”（HMO Britain）。我们怀疑，梅克菲尔德的选民在看到西班牙和英吉利海峡的场景后，会得出结论：采取果断行动越快越好。
那么现在呢？如果政府想要为一项让国家成为老年虚弱者长期护理出资者的计划寻找资金（并且没有勇气通过削减其他领域的支出方案来资助），那么，比起向在职人员征收更多税收——特别是其中数百万人在职人员根本没有任何房产资产，也没有获得巨额遗产的前景——“死亡税”是一种公平得多的方式。无论如何，这个长期存在的问题需要的是改革，而不是“改革党”（Reform）。
在欧盟（EU）各地的移民压力点，检查站长期以来一直是生活的一部分。边境安全仍然是一个……
这就是我们目前的现状。这是否“不公平”在道德上并非毫无争议，尽管对于受影响的人来说确实如此。当特蕾莎·梅在 2017 年的政纲中提出，人们房屋中的权益应在死后部分资助他们在养老院的护理费用时，当时阿尔茨海默病协会负责人杰里米·休斯（Jeremy Hughes）在《泰晤士报》中愤慨地抱怨道：“在生活的这场抽奖中，那些……”
约翰逊试图解决这场危机，但他的计划被特拉斯（Truss）摒弃了。
有两段政治引用描述了定义英国能源和环境政策的短期主义。第一段来自尼克·克莱格（Nick Clegg），他在 2010 年担任自民党领导人时表示，新型核电在发电方面“不是答案”，因为其直到 2021, 2022 年才会“投入运行”。
冲向净零排放的狂热正制造其自身的问题。在 6 月份的热浪期间，电网数次接近崩溃，因为风能和太阳能的预测性远不如煤炭、天然气，以及——没错——核电站。
夏洛特·艾弗斯（Charlotte Ivers）
我们最终得到了一个我们应得的 BBC
当然，我们必须继续脱碳。可再生能源是本土化的、廉价的，且已被市场接受。但净零排放的步伐必须是适度的、稳健且可负担的。意识形态在能源政策中不应扮演任何角色，而化石燃料在未来许多年内仍将发挥作用。
第二段来自大卫·米利班德（David Miliband），他在 2024 年 9 月透露，20 年前他担任工党环境大臣时，任何关于适应气候变化的讨论都是禁忌，因为所有努力必须首先集中在阻止全球变暖上。米利班德说：“感觉谈论适应气候变化就意味着在缓解气候变化方面承认失败。”
安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）上周似乎暗示，北海将重新开放钻探。仅凭口头承诺是不够的，他必须采取紧急行动。BP 在面对惩罚性的暴利税而撤出该地区的这一事实，是国家之耻。
随着注意力时间缩短，严肃新闻被砍掉也就不足为奇了
过去几周的热浪——萨福克郡和德比郡的森林火灾、学校关闭以及软管禁令——证实，对“缓解”（脱碳的政策术语）的近视关注可以说已经失败了。现在很少有人怀疑天气与过去不同，但关于我们应该如何应对的政治共识已经破裂。
为了获取访问权限，采用了大量幕后且基本无关紧要的故事讲述。这本应该是一场 30 分钟的实时采访，不应有任何花哨的装饰，也不应有刻意营造的铺垫。”
为了将观众从手机前吸引开，而迎合其最底层的本能。例如，BBC 现在将不再设有南美记者——整个大陆被忽视了，因为毫无疑问，观众已经证明他们根本不在意。Newsnight 和劳拉·昆斯伯格（Laura Kuenssberg）周日节目的团队将合并；Newsnight 已经从制作 BBC 最优秀的调查新闻，被拖成了某种美化后的聊天节目，旨在为社交媒体上的吹牛者提供他们在节目中愚蠢地发号施令的片段。《今夜世界》（The World Tonight）将被取消，《询问》（The Inquiry）、《对话》（The Conversation）、《货币箱直播》（Money Box Live）和《法律秀》（The Law Show）也是如此。所有这些都绝对符合 BBC 的核心目标，且能够并应该由一家公共资助的广播公司制作。
BBC 给人的感觉是一个比以往更加不自信的机构。该机构目前正在推广一个口述诗歌兼歌舞表演风格的广告（英语中还有比这组词更令人厌烦的吗？），由罗梅什·朗加纳森（Romesh Ranganathan）主持（噢等等，确实有），并提出了这样一个问题：“BBC 曾经为我做过什么？”答案当然是各种美好的事物，比如《严格舞步》（Strictly）、BBC 威尔士频道（BBC Cymru），还有，我不知道，温布尔登网球赛？这感觉就像是在过度掩饰。
与此同时，需要将重心转移到适应上。当部长们专注于建设风电场和太阳能电池板，推崇热泵和电动汽车时，他们未能为科学家告知即将到来的变化做好准备。防洪堤资金不足，火车线路在炎热天气下变形，伦敦有 100 万套房屋面临过热风险。在一月和二月，我们经历了创纪录的降雨。六个月后，我们却在忍受软管禁令。空调——长期以来因高能耗而被视为一种奢侈——随着夏季变得更加炎热，可能会成为必需品。
我完全能理解，对新任首相进行一次正式的实时采访是最好的监督形式。但这能触达这么多人吗？通过将采访压缩成一系列短片，节目制片人获得了数日的新闻报道，并以易于消化、易于理解的形式为我们提供了碎片化新闻。这对伯纳姆和 BBC 都有利。他们是在响应激励机制，而所有激励机制都在告诉我们，人们的注意力时间比以往任何时候都短。如果你想引起他们的兴趣，在演播室里进行 30 分钟的你来我往根本行不通。
英国的碳排放量占全球总量的 1 per cent，而中国占 33 per cent，美国占 12 per cent。我们能够在实现净零排放方面引领世界的想法日益受到质疑。英国是第一个在 1990. 年以来实现排放减半这一里程碑的大型经济体。但根据议会今年批准的计划，我们必须走得更远、更快。我们现在在法律上被要求到 2042 年将排放量削减 87 per cent。
这是一个处于压力之下的机构，其管理层对此心知肚明。去年，有50万民众决定停止支付电视执照费。Ofcom上周公布的数据显示，Netflix在观众寻找观看内容的首选平台地位上，首次超越了BBC。势头完全在流媒体平台以及BBC那些不那么体面的竞争对手手中：TikTok、Instagram，以及各种形式的短视频。
与此前可怜的基尔·斯塔默不同，伯纳姆真正理解这一点。他是我们的第一位在短视频时代感到自在的首相。就个人而言，我认为看着我所在国家的实际首相与他的财政大臣一起给炸海虾和炸猪皮排等级，这是在降低身段——对他本人、对他所担任的职务，而且不知为何，对我个人而言也是如此，仅仅因为我看了这段视频。然而，在过去的几周里，我不断听到人们提到他们的朋友和熟人，这些人“不关注政治”，而且过去几乎不知道唐宁街10号当时是谁在办公。但他们都在社交媒体上看到了安迪，而且都相当喜欢他。
当然，BBC仍然制作许多体面且具有知识吸引力的节目（尽管不像以前那么多了）。但“低俗化”也以更微妙的方式显现。上周在听由埃德·鲍尔斯和乔治·奥斯本主持的《政治货币》（Political Currency）播客时，我注意到了一场令人愉悦的小众媒体争端。安迪·伯纳姆最近接受了劳拉·昆斯伯格的首次电视广播采访，BBC并没有立即完整播放该采访，而是花了几天时间将短片段零散地投放进新闻中。这种做法遭到了前BBC新闻负责人罗杰·莫西以及安德鲁·尼尔的批评，后者在X上写道，“BBC用完整性 / 强有力的质询交换了……”
现在没有时间进行道德姿态表演或设定随意的时间期限。公众对政治人物的所有要求，就是一份长远的愿景加上一些常识。
正是在这样的背景下，这家受人尊敬的机构上周宣布，他们将砍掉像《Blankety Blank》、《名人博学问》（Celebrity Mastermind）和《阿波罗现场》（Live at the Apollo）这样的节目，作为在未来三年内节省 £500 million 计划的一部分。我不能假装对此感到特别心碎。《阿波罗现场》在启动许多喜剧演员的职业生涯中起到了宝贵的作用，这确实没错。但坦白说，我甚至没有意识到《Blankety Blank》已经回到了我们的屏幕上。
足球余波
照片中显示，某人正向因凡蒂诺赠送一件背面印有他名字的英格兰球衣。球迷们对世界杯票价和不必要的补水休息时间感到愤怒——但足球官员们在很大程度上对此视而不见。
詹尼·因凡蒂诺的受辱发生在揭露其为了让自己和世界足球管理机构敛财的狂妄计划之后。很少有人会为一个日益傲慢、权力醉熏、飞得离太阳太近的官僚流泪。
抨击BBC是世界上最容易的事。我在这里的篇幅中也做了不少。但我不想给我们的可怜的国家广播机构施加过多责备。如果这是在“低俗化”，那是因为它在响应激励机制，就像安迪·伯纳姆在做的那样。如果我们作为一个国家，越来越多地花时间在社交媒体上刷那些垃圾内容，那么那些试图吸引我们注意力的人当然会尝试生产这些垃圾。我们得到了我们应得的BBC，就像我们得到了我们应得的政治一样。目前看来，我们显然什么都不配拥有。哈德利·弗里曼休假中。
争论哪些轻娱乐节目应该被保留是一件注定失败的事。相反，我想探讨最近宣布的BBC新闻和纪实内容的削减，我认为我们可以更客观地指出，这些选择将被证明不利于BBC教育、告知和娱乐的使命，并进而损害国家的知识和民主健康。在每个案例中，当我们看到一家广播公司 [此处文本中断]
其次，《泰晤士报》出色的报道将这一故事推向了世界的关注焦点。首相在乐于谴责国际足联计划的同时，下次被要求对英国的新闻自由施加毫无意义的限制时，应当想起这件事。
但关于这桩卑劣的事务，有两点值得说明。首先，为什么还需要因凡蒂诺再次进行一次可怕的越权之举，世界上那些自命不凡的足球精英们才最终接受他的缺陷？就在上个月，英格兰足协的主席——
BBC正面临压力，那里的高管们对此心知肚明
国际足联主席开启了一轮交易*
詹尼·因凡蒂诺 对所有错过我们美丽游戏的人，我说抱歉，你们如此沉溺于仇恨，以至于错过了有史以来最包容且最环保的世界杯
因凡蒂诺夫人 亲爱的，私人飞机我们还能用多久？
因凡蒂诺 我正在回复那些黑粉
因凡蒂诺夫人 好的，但私人飞机怎么说？
因凡蒂诺 我认为卡塔尔人并不急于要回飞机。怎么了？
因凡蒂诺夫人 我需要去米兰购物
因凡蒂诺 为了那些弱势儿童吗？
因凡蒂诺 记得我对黑貂皮过敏
唐纳德·特朗普 嘿，詹尼，我听说你在出售世界杯，这是怎么回事？
因凡蒂诺 亲爱的总统先生兼和平奖得主，我当然没有。我卖的是 FIFAFFE
特朗普 什么是 FIFAFFE？
因凡蒂诺 这是一个仅管理世界杯商业和运营方面的子公司。不必担心
马修·赛义德 从特朗普到国际足联，新闻自由是揭露不正当交易的关键
特朗普 我不担心。我只是有很多朋友会对投资感兴趣，一旦我们完成了加沙里维埃拉、顿巴斯散步道以及卡塔尔锂矿与豪华太空度假村
因凡蒂诺 我会给你发一份手册
特朗普 那么美国将举办 2038 年世界杯？特朗普 喂？特朗普 詹尼？
因凡蒂诺 抱歉，补水休息时间。那个决定在委员会手中
特朗普 我以为你想当联合国秘书长？
如果没有独立报道来对抗AI垃圾信息，世界的投机商们就能逍遥法外
因凡蒂诺 是的，我把周二下午的时间空出来了
这种新的媒体马戏团宣称主流媒体已无可救药地被污染且基本上失效，并断言诸如“你对主流媒体的厌恶还不够”以及“他们都与你作对”。是的，这一切在传播QAnon阴谋论、邀请大屠杀否认者进入其平台、向普京献媚，以及在其他方面为现代生活中许多最令人不安的趋势推波助澜的同时发生。
而且，对于特朗普来说，令人不安的是——逐渐远离。
这是一篇关于詹尼·因凡蒂诺、关于特朗普总统、关于腐败，甚至（稍后）关于凡尔赛宫、宗教改革和历史之摆的专栏。但我希望你能原谅我说一些，我
摆钟在摆动——至少在一段时间内，在那些揭露他们的人的贡献下——向另一个方向摆动。
T
特朗普 那么我们达成协议了 因凡蒂诺夫人 亲爱的，为什么会有个
上周，俄亥俄州州长候选人、曾是坚定的特朗普支持者的维韦克·拉马斯瓦米说：“我不想仅仅说‘让美国再次伟大’”。文章的标题宣布：“接近特朗普是一种污点”。我还注意到，加利福尼亚州的共和党候选人史蒂夫·希尔顿正在争取“绝不支持特朗普”的选民，并否认总统赢得了 2020 年大选。随着Maga精英们看到特朗普的权力在期中选举后逐渐流逝，我怀疑这种疏离将演变成一场溃散。我相信，这个行走的道德真空将在恶名之中度过他的最后时光。
就此而言，这套瑞士西装代表了一种永恒的模式：一个其特权感与现实脱节的人。你可以将其称为“欧莱雅时刻”：因为我值得！所有那些私人飞机的航程、与富豪的亲近、以及与财富和权力的接触——这些改变了他的心智。他认为自己已经将欺骗“常态化”了：在特朗普大厦购买办公空间，向一名煽动全球动荡的领导人提供“和平奖”，并在白宫来电后让国际足联撤销一名球员的禁赛。
我们的舞厅里怎么有一只老虎？ 弗拉基米尔·普京 你喜欢这个礼物吗？
因凡蒂诺 你怎么知道我爱老虎？
相信，两者既准确又重要。
因凡蒂诺计划与特朗普女婿的兄弟勾结将世界杯货币化，若非一个关键因素，该计划本已实现。那就是《泰晤士报》，我们的姐妹报。你可能已经注意到，近日有许多因凡蒂诺的追随者公开表示，他们没有被咨询，总统是在他们“背后”敲定的交易。
普京 我知道很多事情。
关于 2038 有消息吗？ 因凡蒂诺 正在委员会审议中。
我并不是说主流媒体完美无缺。我一直是一名自由撰稿人，收入主要来自其他渠道，因此希望我对客观性有所认知。我们有制度性和商业性的偏见。我们会犯（很多）错误。但我们也拥有基本的编辑标准，并利用订阅者辛苦赚来的钱，投资于调查新闻——如果没有这些报道，像因凡蒂诺这样的人可能会无限期地逍遥法外。请向他们致敬：揭露法拉奇加密货币故事的《周日泰晤士报》；对特朗普腐败行为进行持续报道的《华尔街日报》；以及揭露哈维·温斯坦的《纽约时报》。
穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼 关于 2038 有消息吗？
但让我再说一点。这一切之所以能发生，是因为媒体将继续艰苦地撬开那些复杂、阴暗的交易之盖（涉及威特科夫家族、库什纳家族，更不用说蒂法尼·特朗普的公公马萨德·布洛斯），这些交易在短短 15 个多月的时间里为该总统带来了估计 20 亿美元美元以上的收益。这是一项至关重要的服务，不是因为它可以终结不法行为，而是因为它能遏制其扩散。这也是为什么民主国家整体上比世界上的克莱普托克拉西（窃国政体）更少具有“榨取性”，后者的腐败之所以持久，原因很简单：他们控制了媒体。
因凡蒂诺 但沙特阿拉伯已经在主办 2034 了。
但“常态化”是有极限的。如果没有玛丽·安托瓦内特（讽刺的是，她在著名的钻石项链丑闻中是无辜的），法国大革命或许不会发生；正如古罗马的改革需要奥卢斯·加比尼乌斯的腐败（被西塞罗雄辩地揭露）。神职人员通过出售赎罪券敛财数十年，但直到勃兰登堡的阿尔布雷希特通过贷款购买大主教职，再通过出售赎罪券偿还贷款时，近代欧洲的心理才发生了转变。
这一点很有启发性，因为它表明（这一点已由多个来源向我确认），因凡蒂诺的计划在被揭露时尚未完全成熟。他仍在构建必要的内部联盟，以便将其作为既定事实呈现在世人面前，仍在向内部人员解释，他们将如何从他创建的那个旨在抽走收益的章鱼式结构中获益。
本·萨勒曼 我们有完美的气候，而且没有哪个国家像我们一样热爱篮球。 因凡蒂诺 你的意思是足球？
因凡蒂诺夫人 为什么我们的另一个舞厅里有一只豹子？ 本·萨勒曼 你喜欢这只豹子吗？
因凡蒂诺 我不应该接受价值超过 $100 的礼物。
即使在新闻界的某些部分出现错误时，通常也是由新闻界的其他部分来揭露——这种纠正机制在算法世界中几乎不存在。在那个世界里，像安德鲁·布里金（Andrew Bridgen）这样的人，在输掉关于新冠疫苗阴谋论的诽谤案后，仍能在社交媒体上全天候将这次失败转化为金钱收益，正如他上周所做的那样。
因此，周二的揭露报道无异于向该计划的心脏刺了一把匕首——这篇报道引发了全球性的愤怒浪潮，快速民意调查显示，从南美到亚洲的球迷反对该计划的比例超过 9 比 1（《泰晤士报》的一项调查显示，99% 的读者希望 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 辞职；另外 1% 的人大概是按错了按钮）。正是由于这一点，足球业内人士意识到了大势已去，并果断地反对该计划。法庭背弃了国王——但这仅仅是因为记录者的功劳。
本·萨尔曼 哈哈哈哈。这是为了弱势儿童
让我以 国际足联 结束这篇文章，因为当你读到这些文字时， 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 可能已经离职了。考虑到支持率的崩溃，我肯定看不出他能撑到本月底。我不知道你们怎么想，但我认为这是一个极好的结果。而这一切的发生原因很简单：你的订阅（以及我的）资助了揭露这个投机分子所需的新闻报道。这也是为什么，尽管我们政治观点不同，但我希望我们所有人都能在一点上达成一致。新闻界可能会有缺陷。它可能会出错。但它必须始终保持自由，这一点至关重要。
唐纳德·特朗普 ——他的白宫为 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 的 国际足联 提供了模版 ——或许也正走向同样的命运。到目前为止，他在大规模腐败中逃脱了惩罚。许多人认为这已成为常态。而我看到了不同的景象：一个即便在现在，也正触及他无法察觉的底线的人，而这些底线将使他的追随者们锒铛入狱（考虑到最高法院关于总统推定豁免权的学说， 唐纳德·特朗普 可能会避开这种命运）。
詹尼·因凡蒂诺 哈哈哈哈。这正是他们需要的
法庭背弃了国王——但这仅仅是因为记录者的功劳
哈维尔·米莱 这太令人愤慨了
阿根廷仅仅因为一些无害的
好，回到 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 身上。让我坦率地说： 国际足联 腐败已有数载。年轻的读者会记得塞普·布拉特。年长的读者会记得若昂·哈维兰日。我怀疑在可预见的未来，它仍将保持腐败。但通常需要像 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 这样的人将事情推向极致，以至于
犯规、争斗、背叛和挑起战争。这比
马拉多纳 用头顶进那个球的时候还要糟糕
我不会用冗长的丑闻清单来让你们感到厌烦，但请注意，他们的揭露是如何导致共和党同僚们微妙地——
詹尼·因凡蒂诺 我会支持你，但首先我需要一个帮手
我说这话是因为我已经厌倦了播客主、YouTuber 以及其他
米莱 你已经拿到公文包了 詹尼·因凡蒂诺 现在我需要牛排
米莱 我们有最好的牛排。我会寄几块过去
纽曼的一周 (NEWMAN’S WEEK)
詹尼·因凡蒂诺 仅靠那些还不够我的老虎和豹子。我会派飞机去
塞普·布拉特 詹尼，你为什么要出卖世界杯？
布拉特 詹尼？
詹尼·因凡蒂诺 抱歉，补水休息时间。在认真听取所有观点后，很明显该项目已造成某种性质的分歧，无论支持程度如何，这都不再符合目标的利益
因凡蒂诺夫人 亲爱的，为什么飞机去了布宜诺斯艾利斯？
*由马特·鲁德 (Matt Rudd) 构思
罗伯特·科尔维尔 (Robert Colvile)
权力下放若想有任何机会，我们必须抛弃对“邮编抽奖”的偏执
这意味着他们已经挤掉了其他所有东西。
对 D 级房产收取 £510 的费用，而伦敦市长则要求额外增加 £511。现在，与类似的议会一样，该议会被告知其拨款将基于其收取国家平均水平 £2,060 的假设。简而言之，旺兹沃思 (Wandsworth) 实际上正被中央政府命令将议会税提高 £1,000。更有意思的是，它还被豁免了将此类增税方案提交当地公投的要求。
权力下放的说法并不是说市长将获得建设房屋的支持，而是他们将获得建设“议会房屋”的支持。如果他们不想建呢？如果他们认为，只要我们不对房屋建筑征税以提供折扣住房给工党的选民群体，我们就能够建设更多房屋，并以更低的价格出售，他们会怎么想？
我想相信。我非常想相信。多年来，我一直愤慨于英国是如何变得如此集权的。我们如何需要下放更多权力，重新信任人民。而现在安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 来了，说着所有我渴望听到的话。那么为什么我
权力下放战略的核心是什么？是白厅 (Whitehall)。
我
当然，我们不能因此责怪伯纳姆。事实上，他的团队已经意识到了这些压力并承诺进行改革。但在当前体制下提供财政自由，在政治上等同于“只要是黑色，任何颜色都可以”：你可以随意支出，只要是花在护理服务上。
结果是，这个国家被分割成一系列区域性的男爵领地——这非常让人想起 1969 年的雷德克利夫-莫德 (Redcliffe-Maud) 计划。在这个过程中，像林肯、诺里奇和莱斯特这样的左翼城市正获得对其周边郊区和农村地区的更多控制权。这简直就是一次土地掠夺。政府已经确认，地方和区域警力的界限以及 NHS 服务也将被强制调整以相匹配。
仍然感到怀疑？
第三，工党对真正能让权力下放奏效的东西深感反感：竞争。
让我们先从积极方面谈起。政府的权力下放计划无疑是在朝着正确的方向迈进。地方地区确实应该保留更多其产生的所得税和商业税。城市应该拥有资助和批准交通基础设施的权力，而不是向交通部乞求。整个政府应该推定，决策在地方层面做出是最有效的。而且，议会显然应该能够通过在旁边建设住房来为新基础设施提供资金。
其次，这里有一种感觉，即当地社区将拥有更多自由，但仅限于做工党想要做的事情。看看伯纳姆第一周的大量公告。全英范围内的公交票价被封顶。酒吧、俱乐部和音乐场所的商业税被（轻微）削减，而针对“电子烟店等反社会企业”的税收减免则在被审查。换句话说，“权力下放先生”正在向全国每个议会发号施令，告诉他们如何使用交通预算以及高街应该是什么样子。如果他们不同意，或者对资金有其他优先考虑方向呢？没门。
对我银行账户而言幸运的是，议会拒绝了这种建议，转而采取节支措施。但这些改革的效果是惩罚那些胆敢收取低税的地区，而奖励那些收费高于平均水平的地区。这一变化还将看到更多资金从伦敦转移到各地区——尽管平均每个伦敦人已经缴纳了近 £5,000 的补贴；当蕾切尔·里夫斯 (Rachel Reeves) 的豪宅税在 2028 年到来，或者伯纳姆进一步提高房产税时，数额还会更多。
美国增长的秘诀在于激烈的区域竞争。看看近年来从加利福尼亚和纽约等高税收、高监管州迁出的巨大人口流动，以及德克萨斯州和佛罗里达州的巨大扩张。
但事实上，它正忙于将它们夺走。上个月我收到了一封来自旺兹沃思（Wandsworth）议会的电子邮件。信中警告称，该议会面临财务危机，如果不采取行动，我承担的议会税账单份额将增加两倍多。这是怎么回事？部分原因是上述的“恐怖四项”。部分原因是当地工党在5月失去对这个南伦敦自治区的控制权之前，进行了荒谬的过度支出。但主要原因在于安吉拉·雷纳（Angela Rayner）。
将所有这些因素结合在一起，你会看到什么？一个在言行上做了许多正确事情的政府——但同时，这个政府也在进行一场巨大的、自上而下的英国政治地理重塑。这个政府似乎依然愿意告诉当地社区他们的优先级应该是什么。它不仅深切不愿让各地区竞争，而且将利用其所有可用杠杆来强制实现结果平等。
回到英国的辉煌时代，我们也曾有过这种情况。商业税率不仅由大城市保留，而且由大城市设定。基础设施由地方控制，而非国家控制。各地可以自由地经历繁荣与衰落。
现在来看看负面因素——而且这份清单要长得多。
这种心态对于一个将“邮编彩票”（postcode lottery）视为某种禁忌之词的工党——以及遗憾地，一个这样的英国——来说是格格不入的。果不其然，当霍申（Houchen）建议他应该能够自行提高或降低税率时，伯纳姆（Burnham）立即予以否决。
除此之外，还有一个关键点。在雷纳上一次负责地方政府事务期间，她启动了一场巨大的重组，将大量议会合并为单一管理机构。
上周也是一样。蒂斯河谷（Tees Valley）的保守党市长本·霍申（Ben Houchen）在回应更多财务自由的提议时，询问是否可以使用该自由来减税。负责权力下放的露易丝·海格（Louise Haigh）的反应就好像这个想法从未出现过一样。
首先，只要议会预算仍被“恐怖四项”主导，财务下放就毫无意义：成人社会护理、临时住宿、儿童服务和学校交通。这些是议会法律上必须提供但没有获得足够资金支付的服务。
你看，早在 2024 年，雷纳就开始大规模地重新分配议会资金。其核心原则是中央政府的拨款将基于议会税的平均水平。这听起来可能没什么问题，但旺兹沃思长期以来一直以低税先锋自居。今天，它
我希望我是错的。I希望我们能获得一个关于竞争而非控制的权力下放版本。但权力下放的关键测试在于，即使人们利用它去做你不喜欢的事情，你是否依然支持它。
谁在决定它们的形状，或者新的市长联合机构的形状
第四，工党说它希望让各地保留其成功的成果。
同样，关于……的大规模内阁声明
轮到你了，安迪（Andy）。
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2025 年英国报纸的再生纸含量为 30%
NHS 被指掩盖坏消息
罗伯特·科尔维尔（Robert Colvile）认为，征收财富税的行政成本将很高，因为评估私人财富非常困难（见 7 月 26 日《狠狠打击富人，莱尼克敦促。但这就是为什么财富税行不通的原因》）。如果真是这样，也许英国应该跳出对财富征税的思路，转而利用经验。我们已经期望公民担任治安法官、学校理事和慈善信托负责人。为什么不建立一个商业法官制度，邀请那些建立并领导过成功组织的人，将其部分时间用于加强成长型企业、慈善机构和公共团体的董事会？英国拥有巨大的创业和管理人才储备，其累积的判断力是一项在很大程度上尚未开发的国家资产。
您的报道《关于可能帮助 97% 患者的 MND 药物测试》（新闻，7月 26日）强调了一个在长期难以取得进展的领域中的突破。MND（运动神经元病）极其复杂，且在每位患者身上的表现各异。能够确定一个共同分母——一种特定的蛋白质缺乏——是一个巨大的进步。然而，与许多复杂疾病一样，我们可能需要多种新药才能使 MND 变得可控甚至可以治愈。
老年人可以社交并用餐。隔壁是一家治疗轻微病症、更换敷料并提供物理治疗的日间医院，此外还有一家康复医院和一个长期护理单位。此外还附设了一家养老院。患者可以在各单位之间转移，而无需等待工作人员完成繁琐的文书工作。也许 NHS（英国国家医疗服务体系）应该组织类似的系统来缓解医院病床紧张的问题。Ken Harvey，全科医生（退休），Powys 郡，Glasbury-on-Wye
建立一家大型医院，并任命最优秀的周转专家担任主席；将患者安全设定为管理原则；任命一名安全主管以及中级退役军人来监督行政工作；解雇任何将遵守安全操作规范视为“职场霸凌”的员工；进行安全审计并纠正所有失效点。然后公布该安全记录，并告知所有其他医院的管理层，他们能否继续留任取决于是否能迅速达到相同的标准。提高安全的最佳方法是消除错误。Omar Malik，《保持安全（与快乐）的艺术》作者；Wilts 郡，Malmesbury
Shaun Lintern 揭露了 NHS England 和医院管理层为了掩盖坏消息而采取的极端手段（“NHS 被指压制调查员指出护理质量差的报告”，7月 26日）。调查经常在调查员、临床工作人员和举报者担心遭到报复的恐惧下进行，而高级管理层实际上则免于被起诉，并有权拒绝参与审查。尽管这种霸凌文化在 2003 年 11 月的国家审计署报告及随后的调查中被揭露，但这种行为在这一核心腐败的系统中变得更加根深蒂固。由于未能建立一种可以从中吸取教训的开放文化，这正日益增加患者的风险。Lee Taylor，骨科医生（退休），Chichester 您的报道公正地谴责了 NHS 的管理层，但 NHS 正处于一个绝境——资金不足且负担过重——而其管理层无法胜任这项任务。如果没有全新的、坚决且有能力的管理层，NHS 无法实现改革。这是一个庞大的组织，规模太大，无法整体处理。最好从小处着手：选择
生日
Sir Michael Bibby，Bibby Line Group 主席，63；Jacob Collier， singer-songwriter，32；Matthew Crummack，Domestic & General 首席执行官，56；Andy Fairweather Low，词曲作者，78；Julia Foster，演员，83；Lily Gladstone，演员，40；Nigel Hitchin，数学家，80；Gundula Janowitz，歌剧演唱家，89；Sir Paul Marshall，对冲基金经理及 GB News 共同所有者，67；Sammy McIlroy，足球运动员，72；Sir Anthony Seldon，作家，73；Madeline Smith，演员，77；Rose Tremain，作家，83；JD Vance，美国副总统，42；Sam Worthington，演员，50；Charli XCX，歌手（见图），34
在人工智能时代，研究人员和药物开发人员应当能够轻松获取患者数据。过去十年的募资活动产生了大量此类数据，但研究人员为了获取数据必须跨越的重重障碍正拖慢他们的工作进度。当患者捐赠数据用于研究时，数据就应该用于此目的，而不是被锁在官僚主义和法律术语的黑盒中。数据需要安全地与尽可能多的研究人员共享，这样他们才能在向目标发起攻击时拥有多次尝试的机会。Caroline Purslow，Challenge Works 健康部门负责人
上周，总医学委员会报告称，去年收到了超过 13,000 份投诉——比前一年增加了 25 %。其中约 12,100 份关注事项在无需对相关医生进行全面调查的情况下便结案。这表明，尽管医生们在照顾患者方面工作极其努力，但他们是在一个充满系统性压力且无法满足患者期望的系统中运行。整个系统是相互关联的。政府在启动关于社会护理的大规模讨论时，绝不能忽视 NHS 前线的状况。 ——Tom Reynolds，医疗防御联盟 (Medical Defence Union) 政策总监
Steven Fogel，伦敦 NW11
20 世纪 70 年代中期医疗保健经历了大规模重组，当时有人建议将社会护理与 NHS 合并。这一想法被否决了，我们社区医院 GP 病房的患者在社会服务部门组织家庭护理期间仍需等待 16-20 周。那简直是混乱。1978, 我是一个由年轻医生、护士和行政人员组成的团队成员，参加了国王基金会 (The King’s Fund) 的加拿大考察团。我们在安大略省访问的一家医院有一个日间中心，在那里
我们难道不应该鼓励富人留在这里吗？他们已经贡献了至少 25 % 的税收。没有他们及其消费能力，国家将遭受损失。 ——Diane Gordon，坎布里亚郡，科克茅斯
周年纪念
车钥匙的折磨
公元前 47 年 尤利乌斯·凯撒在泽拉战役（现今土耳其）中获胜，向罗马报告：“Veni, Vidi, Vici”（我来，我见，我征服） 1876 野比尔·希考克在一次扑克游戏中被杀，当时他手握后来被称为“死人之手”的牌 1939 阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦给罗斯福总统写信，警告纳粹开发原子弹的计划
杰里米·克拉克森运气不错，他被锁在了他试图试驾的沃尔沃车外，而不是被锁在车内（“它拥有行星般巨大的大脑，但它是我开过最愚蠢的车”，杂志，7月26日）。而我们却被锁在瑞士一个停车场的 2023 梅赛德斯车内。我们有两把钥匙，但一直收到“未发现钥匙”的错误提示，因此车门和窗户紧闭。在打了许多电话并在没水的闷热车内度过数小时后，我丈夫终于在手册中（并非在“锁定”条目下）找到了某种方法，使我们得以逃脱。警惕无钥匙启动的汽车！ ——Jean Ekins-Daukes，肯特郡，汤布里奇韦尔斯
狗狗生存法则
Beard 和 Dream Theater。在听到他们的作品后，一个全新的视野在我面前展开。只要你愿意寻找，外面有大量优秀的前卫摇滚 (prog rock)。我目前最喜欢的是一个名为 Big Big Train 的优秀英国组合，此外还有 Porcupine Tree, IQ, Arena, Wobbler, Amplifier 和 DeeExpus 等，仅举几例。我会说这可能是目前最充满活力的音乐流派，但就像在过去一样，它没有进入单曲排行榜，因此对许多人来说仍然未知。 ——StJohn Cox，萨默塞特郡，汤顿
我同意杰里米·克拉克森的观点，即现在没有新的莫扎特出现——但这可能是件好事。他们将不得不参加真人秀节目，站在像 Simon Cowell 这样的人面前，而对方会说：“好吧，沃尔夫冈。你写的曲子不错，但我不太确定那个假发怎么回事。” ——John Hindmarsh，达勒姆郡，达灵顿
Matt Rudd 的报告在很大程度上凸显了与极端形态育种相关的问题，在这种育种中，狗是为了外观而非健康而被培育的（“以可爱之名杀戮”，杂志，7月26日）。先天健康评估是一项免费工具——由全党派议会动物福利小组 (APGAW)、皇家兽医学院及整个行业的福利组织共同开发，允许犬类繁育者和买家在不到一分钟的时间内检查一只狗是否具备健康生活的生理基础。该工具已被用于超过 1,500 次评估。 ——Vanessa Barnes，动物福利律师及 APGAW 法律顾问
前卫摇滚继续——下去 女性囚犯
科林·萨顿要求释放大部分在服刑的女性是正确的（见 7月 26日 “释放女性以解决监狱危机”）。大多数人是因为非暴力犯罪而入狱，不会对公众构成危险。这将有助于遏制那些犯下严重罪行且更有可能再次犯罪的男性囚犯被提前释放的情况。萨米·格林，白克斯郡，博恩端
我大致同意杰里米·克拉克逊的分析（见 7月 26日 “我将筹集科技宅资金来复兴前卫摇滚”），但他不应被 BBC 逍遥音乐会（Proms）前卫经典曲目单中包含歌曲《Nights in White Satin》而迷惑。1967 年，穆迪布鲁斯乐队（the Moody Blues）创作了具有里程碑意义的专辑《Days of Future Passed》，该专辑将摇滚乐与完整的管弦乐编曲相结合，开创了交响摇滚之先河。这部作品是一部早期的概念专辑，该乐队对 Mellotron 键盘的使用对 20 世纪 70 年代出现的前卫摇滚乐队产生了巨大影响。穆迪布鲁斯乐队被列入逍遥音乐会的曲目单是实至名至的。邓肯·克雷格，诺丁汉郡，伍德索普 我原以为前卫摇滚作为一个流派在很多年前就已经消亡了。然而，我在学校教书的一位学生教师告诉我两支美国乐队：Spock’s
更正与澄清
关于内容不准确的投诉请发送至 complaints@sunday-times.co.uk。Ipso 也将审查针对英国报纸和杂志编辑内容的正式投诉。详情请访问我们的网站。
赛事之憾
英联邦运动会缺乏免费无线电直播，使得这次赛事变得无关紧要。对于那些为了参赛而努力工作并值得获得认可的选手来说，这真是太令人遗憾了。伊恩·奥唐奈，默西赛德郡，福姆比
我清楚地记得 1976 年的夏天。我们在奥地利阿尔卑斯山度过了一个月，划皮划艇和探索洞穴。当时我们没有像英国那样遭受干旱之苦。
我同意索菲亚·马尼-库茨（见 7月 26日 “我的养狗规则”）关于禁止狗坐在公共交通工具、酒吧和餐厅座椅上的观点。狗不会擦屁股。吉尔·戴维斯，诺福克郡，希查姆
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每天都在下雨。维克·布朗，诺森伯兰郡，西瑟斯顿
位于风景如画的怀河（Wye）附近、环境宜人的切普斯托（Chepstow）新赛马场将于本周开放，并已安排在周五和周六举行为期两天的赛事。英格兰西部和南威尔士的赛马爱好者的愿景由此得以实现。该赛马场位于皮尔斯菲尔德公园（Piercefield Park），占地 350 英亩，四周完全由 8 英尺高的围墙环绕，且距离几个工业中心很近。它距离纽波特 16 英里，距离卡迪夫 28 英里，距离布里斯托 31 英里，距离伦敦 140 英里。
公司建设了新的赛马场支线，并安排了从帕丁顿、伯明翰、隆达山谷（Rhondda Valley）及其他地点出发的特价专列服务。
机会，作为联盟与英联邦国家之间联系与友谊的象征。
一场威尔士德比（Welsh Derby）、一场威尔士奥克斯（Welsh Oaks）和一场威尔士圣莱格（Welsh St Leger），这三项赛事（将被称为威尔士“经典赛”）每项已获得超过 120 份参赛报名。该赛道具有位于大西部铁路系统（Great Western Railway system）的优势，且
当年的我们
由于工党内部在国旗问题上存在相当大的分歧，这一毫不妥协的宣言可能会引发有趣的进展。马兰博士表示，政府在规定悬挂英国国旗的场合时打算尽可能采取自由态度，但南非必须拥有一面属于自己的、不会让她想起过去的国旗。住在伊灵区芒特菲尔德路的约翰·布劳顿先生和夫人昨日庆祝了他们的金婚，同时也是布劳顿夫人的七十一岁生日。最近她剪了波波头。布劳顿先生从事抹灰工职业，在 75 岁高龄时依然在工作，且每天早晨七点起床。
内政部长马兰博士昨日在格米斯顿发表声明称，尽管存在所有反对意见（无论是目前的还是未来的），政府将在明年重新提交上届会议提出的《国旗法案》。不过，在休会期间将任命一个委员会，其成员并非政治家，而是来自各社会阶层的代表，以考虑国家国旗的新设计。马兰博士宣布，南非必须拥有一面能够体现其地位的国家国旗。随后将通过立法，规定在某些场合应悬挂英国国旗。
摘自《周日泰晤士报》 1, 1926年8月1日
它占据了一块 350 英亩的旧庄园，四周环绕着 8 英尺高的围墙。
其紧邻伯克郡和威尔特郡重要训练中心的地理位置，预示了可以期待的赛马质量。赛道宽 27 码，拥有一个两英里的环形赛道，以及一段一英里的直线赛道。草坪完全是天然的。明年将会有
两日的赛马活动庆祝切普斯托的开幕
卡米拉·隆
如果你不对移民问题采取严肃态度，那么汹涌的人潮冲击你的边境就是必然的结果
ABDEL MAJID BZIOUAT / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
金属栏杆，洗劫商店，然后半裸地在露天环境下睡觉，这仅仅是一个人权 / 健康与安全问题。
如果有人还怀疑我们的边境所面临的问题规模，那么在周四那 30 分钟的极热时刻中，这种怀疑便消失了。数千名赤裸上身的摩洛哥男子被拍到在岩石上攀爬、推倒墙壁并点火，他们正冲向位于北非的西班牙飞地塞乌塔。
她在周五发推特称，“危险的跨境行为”绝不能发生，“我已指派两名委员协助控制局势。”
我查了一下这两名委员。一个是看起来软弱的奥地利九级政治人物，拥有列支敦士登大十字勋章。另一个是前杜布罗夫尼克市长，2006年世界市长奖得主。他们是真实存在的人吗？这简直就像派出了《办公室》里的加雷特和多恩。
观看这些画面，简直令人惊愕。画面中有多少人？他们为什么这么做？他们究竟是谁？
那么塞乌塔的人们怎么想？这座城市位于丹吉尔附近海岸，由西班牙长期管辖，人口比东本恩还少。如果东本恩被 60,000 名外国狂暴之徒占领，我们会怎么做？
欧洲从未严肃对待过阻止移民的问题。从哲学上讲，这不是它的风格。人权——这是它唯一的立场。涌入希腊、西班牙、意大利、法国等国的人员的有效遣返率仅为 28 %。西班牙首相佩德罗·桑切斯最近的政策使得塞乌塔的冲击成为可能，而他在周五面对媒体时，甚至无法说出“边境”这个词。相反，他说在海中设置“物理遏制屏障”将阻止移民从摩洛哥游过三英里之遥。
有些人会认为这已经实现了。我写过很多关于奈杰尔·法拉奇的内容，
人口的流动以及小船带来的威胁。而且，老实说，我一直以来在这么做时都感到有点尴尬。你不必看过《奥德赛》也知道，人类的体面要求你至少要尝试接纳难民和移民，尤其是当你身处世界上最富有的国家之一，而他们是由于你们发起的或干预的战争而成为受害者时——当然，到最后，大多数战争都是如此。这一直是欧盟的立场。
数千人涌向北非的西班牙飞地塞乌塔
如果告诉他们根本不被欢迎会怎么样？如果面对一大群随机出现的人，不再自动地思考：我能做些什么让他们更容易进入我的领土？我能给他们什么？一件救生衣，一杯茶，一张信用卡，一辆SUV，还是在基尔本的一栋四室住宅？上个月西班牙最高法院的一项决定——不对游泳前往塞乌塔的人员进行简易遣返——很可能促成了这次激增。
一名穿着防弹背心的欧盟官员，他们甚至根本不尝试履行职责。
一种“更紧密”的关系。但在移民问题上，则毫无建树。
“在非人性条件下被任意拘留”。以色列（总是以色列）的类似计划让寻求庇护者陷入了“法律真空”。
然而，看着激增的人群，我
在想：现在是不是有点过分了？欧盟想让我们做什么？它想让我们就这么吞下这些
菲尔普因为在法国海岸线跑上跑下，质问宪兵为什么对于走私者在他们面前将数百人加载到船上而“绝对什么都不做”而遭到嘲笑。
在某个时刻，也许当他看到自己的TikTok播放量在暴跌，而人们的目光正转向摩洛哥人在西班牙土地上排成不懈队列行进的惊人画面时，他可能会意识到，无论欧盟如何试图掩盖正在发生的现实，无论它如何试图将其收拾干净（“50,000人现在已经回去了”），无论它如何假装周四发生的事情不是它的天安门广场——一个我们永远无法抹去的事件——在下次选举时，人们感兴趣的只有两个主题：金钱，以及这件事。
对法律真空的恐惧——这能成为亵渎整个大陆的理由吗？
数千名非法移民，加上今年已经乘船来到这里的数千人——仅周三就有 752 人——仅仅是因为它根本不愿去阻止他们？或者更糟的是，像它现在这样做，期望我们实际上去欢迎他们？给他们免费的房屋、出租车、手机，允许大量家属随行，理由是：人权——而此时对于已经在这里的人来说，房屋几乎不够住，税收如此之高，国民医疗服务体系（NHS）混乱、功能失调且在致人死亡？
这些政治家被疯狂和愧疚所吞噬。他们对欧洲的财富、全球地位和相对轻松的生活感到尴尬。他们认为自己的使命是通过招手让数千名不该出现在这里的人进来，从而将其摧毁。而这些人知道这一点，这就是为什么每月仍有数千人出现在意大利，令乔治亚·梅洛尼感到恐惧。佩德罗·桑切斯本人曾表示，西班牙计划使 500,000 名移民合法化。这将撕裂欧洲。
“我们的命令是让他们就那样走，”一个人耸肩道，“我们只需要告诉他们，不要那样做，太危险了。”
顺便说一句，这些人不是难民，也不是寻求庇护者。他们是碰运气尝试的经济移民。正如其中一人所说，当边境开放时，他们会尝试任何办法，因为：“摩洛哥的工资非常低。那里死掉了，摩洛哥死掉了。”
正如我所说：仅仅是健康与安全问题。移民最奇怪的地方在于，它本应该是世界上最容易管理的事情。没有什么比维护一个国家的边境更简单的了。然而，许多政治家似乎无法就此事发声。安迪·伯纳姆和外交大臣埃德·米利班德——全都噤若寒蝉。
这些人不是难民，他们是碰运气尝试的经济移民
对于他们而言，塞乌塔只是一次快意的一日游。任何试图认真处理海量涌入者的尝试，在欧洲议会中都会遭到歇斯底里的愤怒抵制。其近期制裁“遣返中心”的计划遭到了蔑视。一名委员表示，“境外中心”的人权记录糟糕。澳大利亚的计划导致了“数年的
伯纳姆（Burnham）在推诿和发表片面言论上浪费的时间越长，工党就越想假装局面在掌控之中，而这将导致更多的人通过某种方式进入，我们的海滨小镇将被进一步破坏，关于移民带入 18 名家庭成员和 / 或强奸他人的报道将更多地流出。他准备好面对这一切了吗？
我们难道就被期望就这样默默承受？对于乌尔苏拉·冯德莱然——这位身处欧盟委员会顶端的、毫无用处的、头发像机器人一样刻板的官员来说，答案是肯定的。她根本不在乎塞乌塔的踩踏事件。对他而言，最多也就是数千名兴高采烈的男子在欢快地攀爬
一些抵达者将离开西班牙向北前进，被我们免费的医疗保健、教育系统和免费住房所吸引。我们向法国支付 £662 million 以阻止他们从加来来到这里，但正如内政大臣影子大臣克里斯·菲利普（Chris Philp）在周二发现的那样，就像每个
在其他话题上，首相滔滔不绝：诗歌、茶、酒吧、教育、巴士票价、电力、他打算向谁征税，以及他对前往剑桥大学看法的细节。在欧洲问题上，他的态度再清晰不过：他希望
汤姆·卡尔弗 (Tom Calver) 真是讽刺
对于许多英国父母来说，就业带来的收益正日益降低
情况并非如此。事实上，情况恰恰相反。经过数十年的进步，这些基本项目的支出在总消费中所占的份额现在比 20 年前更高。
拥有两个孩子的已婚夫妇的税率占其收入的百分比
自 2007 年以来，父母们面临的局面是工作时间增加，但享有的奢侈品却减少。将这两个趋势结合起来，前景十分暗淡。在 2000 年代中期，一名家长工作一小时可产生 £22 的家庭支出。如今，同样的总额仅为 £15. 换句话说，家长工作一小时的价值下降了三分之一。
我们的作者和专家涵盖了每个年龄段和每个阶段，帮助您和您的家人在今年夏天生存并繁荣。
英国 经合组织(OECD) 法国 美国
德国
40%
为什么，正如许多父母会大声告诉你的那样——感觉并非如此？
平均收入
30
遗憾的是，数十年的国家统计局 (ONS) 数据揭示了一个令人不安的事实：在工作世界中，如今的父母所获得的经济条件远比他们父母那一辈差。虽然平均全职工作者的工作时间比半个世纪前要少，但父母在有偿工作上花费的时间实际上比以往任何时候都多。
20
10
专家建议
有两件事加剧了这种“工作不赚钱”的感觉。首先，对于父母来说，就业家庭与非就业家庭之间的差距已经缩小。回溯到 2008, 在职父母的支出比非在职父母高出约 80 per cent。如今，这一差距仅为 50 per cent。
0
−10
如果我的孩子不吃蔬菜，那不是我的错
如何在便利时代培养有韧性的孩子
−20
各国的平均收入百分比
50% 100 150 200 250
五十年前，大多数双亲家庭只有一个赚钱的人。一份工资通常足以支撑住房、汽车以及多个孩子的开销。1983, 平均双亲家庭每周工作 42 小时，其中大部分由父亲承担。随着时间的推移，这个数字有所增加。如今，一个家庭有两个收入来源已成为常态。有孩子的平均家庭每周工作约 52 小时。女性已经用一份薪水交换了繁重且无偿的家务活。
OECD = 所有 OECD 国家的平均值 来源：OECD
第二个沉重的打击是英国对家庭征税的方式。正如我之前所指出的，自 1990 年代初以来，平均工人的税单实际上是在下降的。而对于父母们（他们通常赚得更多一些，且日益出于无奈）来说，这份税单反而增长了。OECD 的数据表明，处于收入分布上半部分的英国父母支付的税款远高于国际平均水平。
RELATABLE VOICES（共鸣之声）
这并未显示我们是否比以前多存了一点钱，无论是以房产、养老金还是现金的形式。此外，许多“自由支配”项目——家用电器、电视、电脑——自 2000 年代以来变得便宜得多，这意味着我们花更少的钱能买到更多。但对于家庭预算中许多重大且重要的部分，如食物、住房和儿童护理，情况并非如此。
BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS（最适合孩子的书）
你可以预料到，双薪家庭替代单薪家庭的结果应该是生活水平的爆炸式增长。事实确实如此，1980 年代、1990 年代和 2000 年代初的家庭突然享受到了生活质量的大幅提升。在 1977 和 2007 之间，一个双亲家庭的每周总支出以今天的货币计算，大约从 £500 增加到 £1,000。大部分增长集中在“自由支配”支出上：非必需品，如度假、家居用品以及其他让生活变得美好的有趣事物。但生活水平的增长停止了，随后开始倒退。值得注意的是，经过通货膨胀调整后，今天的家庭支出实际上比 2007 年低 20 %。
这在一定程度上是因为我们的“累进”制度：与竞争对手国家相比，高收入者承担的税单比例过高。
NEWMAN’S VIEW（纽曼观点）
但另外两个特点带来了额外的刺痛：对于年收入在 £60,000 到 £80,000 之间的劳动者，其儿童福利被撤销，边际税率高达 49, 54 或 58 %（具体取决于子女数量）；以及残酷的“悬崖效应”——如果一名家长的收入超过 £100,000 一便士，政府资助的每周 30 小时儿童护理将被撤销。一名在伦敦生活、有两个幼童且支付 50 小时护理费的家长，年薪 £99,000 比年薪 £140,000 更有利。
如何在这个夏天引导你的孩子阅读
第二份收入带来的额外时间曾让家庭变得更富有。而现在，这种关系已不再明显。
发生了什么？正如我们所知，金融危机后实际收入陷入停滞。消费者支出在 2010 年代后期恢复了一些势头，但在疫情期间由于习惯改变和对资金短缺的担忧而大幅下降。从实际层面来看，我们的支出远低于以往。
政府对家庭支出的控制力有限，且在推动经济增长方面惨遭失败，但他们至少可以控制税收。为父母消除这些税收陷阱所需的成本很低，且能释放一个信号：工作确实是有回报的——而这个信息在近几十年里已经丢失了。
访问 Parenting hub 获取专家建议和个人故事 thetimes.com / parenting
家庭支出远非衡量生活水平的完美指标。它
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1 来自廷巴克图的人的国籍 (6) 4 南非术语 “Boer” 的原意 (6) 8 “最微小的____表明死亡并不真正存在” (沃尔特·惠特曼，《自我之歌》) (6)
3 “电影业是由好莱坞的____掌控的” (杰里米·艾恩斯) (11)
13 波茨坦无忧宫的建筑风格 (6) (图示)
15 圣迈克尔塔位于格拉斯顿伯里____的顶峰附近 (3)
5 H.R. 吉格在电影系列作品中创造的“异形” (6)
7 具有卷心菜和麝香等品种的花卉 (4)
17 类似于阿尔伯特二世（首位进入太空的灵长类动物）的动物 (6,6)
20 北美有毒的黑粉色蜥蜴 (4,8)
9 许多小型齿鲸被称为____ (9)
12 圣安德烈亚斯断层穿过的美国州 (10) 16 皮卡第地区最大的城市，一座哥特式大教堂的所在地，该教堂是
23 1970 年国民警卫队士兵向抗议越南战争的学生开枪的俄亥俄州大学 (4,5)
将数字 1 到 9 填入空格中，使得每个圆圈内的数字等于周围四个空格之和，且每种颜色的总和正确。
法国最大的大教堂 (6)
中心 (5,5) 28 1981 年被暗杀的埃及总统 (5,5) 31 科蒂纳丹佩佐位于该意大利山脉 (9)
33 《木偶戏》中如克米特这类动物的专业术语 (9)
25 例如阿尔巴斯·邓布利多和麦克拉斯基夫人 (4,8) 27 操纵肌肉和骨骼的治疗师 (10)
单元格块 (CELL BLOCKS)
37 罗夏克墨迹测试中使用的模糊对称____ (3-5)
29 大多数艾伦·艾克本首演剧目的海滨地点 (11)
30 以拉长造型著称、主要在巴黎工作的意大利艺术家 (10) (图示)
40 何塞____ 是三位 tenor 歌唱家中最年轻的一位 (8)
41 在《驱魔人》(1973) 中饰演里根母亲的女演员 (5,7)
43 多莉（首只由成年体细胞克隆的哺乳动物）是一只____ (3)
32 法国艺人____ 先生曾在约两年的时间里吃掉了一架塞斯纳 150 飞机 (9)
35 2011 年福岛核事故是由这类海洋灾难之一引起的 (8)
38 统计样本中远离中位数的数据点 (7)
将网格分成正方形或长方形块，每个块仅包含一个数字。每个块包含的单元格数量必须与其内部数字一致。
42 海洋生物，如 1993 年好莱坞电影中虚构的威利——凯科 (4)
每行、每列和每个 3x3 宫格必须包含数字 1-9。获胜者将获得《数独大合集》20周年纪念版以及另外两本数独书。
每行、每列和每个 3x3 宫格必须包含数字 1 到 9。由虚线连接的每组单元格内的数字之和必须等于该组左上角的数字。在每个虚线组内，数字不能重复。
所有 1 到 6 的数字必须出现在每一行和每一列中。在每个粗线“区块”中，左上角的 target 数字是通过该区块内所有单元格的数字，并使用符号指示的运算计算得出的。
2 3 10 10 20 25 26 67
2 3 10 10 20 25 26 67
主网格中的每个数字可以通过将网格下方条带中的一对数字相加或相乘而得出。每对数字应使用两次：一次作为加法的一部分，一次作为乘法的一部分。例如，主网格中的 10 和 24 可以分别通过 4 + 6 和 4 x 6 求解。将每个加法算式填入其答案下方的方框中。条带中的任何空格必须推导出来，请记住数字是以升序排列的。
获胜者 2134：Elizabeth Manning, Malvern, Worcestershire 听诊器（Stethoscope）：医生开始检查老年人的胸腔，并选择了这个
我们邀请您为上述词汇写一个谜面，采用我们的隐写字谜风格。下周六之后选出的最佳条目将赢得一张 £25 的 Waterstones 代金券。请将您的作品发送至 puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。
欲查看完整报告，请访问 thesundaytimes.co.uk / cluewriting
Jeremy
即便我宿醉得再严重，早晨也得强撑着起床喂它们；即便在辛苦工作一天后疲惫不堪，我也得带它们去进行晚间散步。除此之外，它们每次生病，我还得支付数千英镑的兽医账单；如果它们在半夜发生了“后臀意外”，我还得戴上橡胶手套去处理。
正如您所听说的，这个国家现在有超过一百万年轻人不工作。他们甚至不在寻找工作。他们整天坐在家里，呆傻地盯着巨大的低俗音效电视看短视频废话。
Clarkson A
让他们给那些起床去工作的人写感谢信
而且尤其令人沮丧的是，如果他们“坐立不安”（ants in their pants），或者现在所谓的 ADHD（多动症），或者其他任何有缩写字母的头部问题，国家每周会给他们最多 £194。这比他们离开屁股在当地商店找份兼职能拿到的钱多出了 £100。
要求领取救济金的人像我的狗一样心存感激，这难道很疯狂吗？
他们是顶级的救济金寄生虫，而且还不止于此。有时，我还得处理一只被其中一只狗撕咬得半死、并被它自豪地衔进厨房的蒙恰麂。然后，每天天黑后，它们就擅自出户——虽然它们不能自己喂食，但它们能操作门把手——然后对着绝对的虚无没完没了地吠叫。
一个每天起床去工作的人。而且他们被告知，除非发送一封得体且真诚的电子邮件，感谢工作者的慷慨，否则救济金将停止发放。我说的不是简单的“谢了，伙计”。我要丰盈的文字。我想知道他们把那周我给他们的 £194 用在什么地方了。我也要热情洋溢。我想感受到他们的感激之情。“您每天去工作，让我不必如此，您真是太善良了。多亏了您，我这周能买一台更大的电视机。”
为了支付这种慷慨，以及如今所有其他可申请的救济金，瑞秋·里夫斯在她的首次预算案中将税收提高到了历史最高水平。她当时说，这次高达 £40 亿的抢劫将是一次性的，我们可以放心，她不会再回来拿更多。但一年后，她又给自己拿了 £26 亿。现在工党成员们在议论社会护理。这意味着，更多高达数十亿英镑的增税已在不远处等待。
那么，在经历了这么多喧闹、糟糕的事、血汗和开支之后，我得到了什么回报？感激之情。就是这个。而且是非常深厚的感激。他们每天早晨见到我时都由衷地感到高兴，为了表达这一点，他们会跳来跳去，摇着尾巴，绕着小圈子跑。如果我给他们扔个球，或者带他们去湖边游泳，他们表现出的感激之情是显而易见的。你可以从他们的眼神中看出来。
这样一来，工党内部的共产主义者会很开心，因为福利金仍在发放。而纳税人也会感觉好一些，因为他们至少得到了感谢。
工作。而且这些钱应该通过向那些长得好看、聪明或运气好的人征税来筹集。上周他们甚至在讨论向死者征税。
杰里米·克拉克森说他的狗才是终极的福利寄生虫
自然地，这会让那些工作的人感到有些不快*。他们早起工作，在完成了十小时的班次后，会对自己薪水的四分之一被国家拿走，并交给住在切希尔郡、整天在看《豪华游轮上的名媛午餐》的邻居感到愤愤不平。
这就是我产生大构思的原因。目前，努力工作的人在供养、给衣服穿并娱乐那些完全不工作的人。而我们得到了什么回报？什么都没有。
可能还会有另一个好处。当年我被强迫给叔伯姑姨写感谢信，感谢他们在圣诞节送给我的礼物时，我曾认为强迫写信的痛苦超过了从那些（通常很糟糕的）礼物中获得的快乐。基于此，一些年轻的领救济金的人可能会在被强迫热情地感谢本周收到的现金时，决定他们其实并没有所谓的神经多样性认知障碍，而更愿意去找份工作。
这一切将我们引向了安迪·伯纳姆。他现在处于风口浪尖，显然，他决定采取一种温和的方式。他每天大约制作 15,000 个 TikTok 视频，声称他喜欢足球和喝杯啤酒，而且他来自北方，这样当税收上涨时，我们都会点头说：“你看上去是个不错的小伙子，所以我们没意见”。
那么，这个计划如何？伯纳姆通过声称将加税以支付给那些因某种神经多样性问题而丧失劳动能力的人，来安抚他的后座议员。然后，他通过坚持要求我们获得某种回报来安抚我们。那就是一封感谢信。
那么该怎么做？嗯，写信抱怨是没有意义的，因为只要工党在掌权，福利开支只会往一个方向走——Yazz 方式。斯塔默爵士试图削减一点，但由于后座议员坚信每个人都有不工作而领钱的权利，他被迫在许多次决策中出现了反转。
这很简单。每周在发放福利金时，领取者会收到一个随机选择的电子邮件地址。
关于这一点，我对他有一个建议。我和三只狗住在一起，天呐，它们需要花费大量精力照顾。
*显然不是指加里·莱因克尔
意味着这两个值的乘积（不过 1 在这里永远不作为 minor）。整个表达式的值是所有乘积与所有其他单个值的总和。一个近似英语的例子，所有“major”加下划线，1066 的表达方式是“thousand six ten six”。
代表不同的正整数，被称为“minor”或“major”。所有 minor 的值都低于所有 major。在数字的计数名称中，两个 minor 绝不会连续出现，而 major 则按严格递减的顺序出现（因此 major 不能重复）。一个 minor 后面跟着一个 major
Colin Vout 像 1, 2, 3 那么简单 telladom shoodlat quoz veedku quoz 意味着 87. rimjy veedku rimjy ump telladom 意味着 50.
请将您的答案发送至：The Sunday Times Teaser 3332, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ 或发送电子邮件至 puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。在下周六之后开奖的前两组正确答案将各获得一张 £20 的 Waterstones 代金券。仅限 18 岁及以上英国及爱尔兰共和国居民参加。
阿姆斯特丹 28C f 雅典 31 s 奥克兰 13 s 曼谷 32 f 巴塞罗那 32 s 北京 36 th 贝尔格莱德 38 s 柏林 25 f 波哥大 17 sh 波士顿 29 f 布鲁塞尔 33 f 布达佩斯 38 sh 布宜诺斯艾利斯 16 f 开罗 40 s 卡尔加里 24 f 开普敦 23 f 加拉加斯 29 th 卡萨布兰卡 33 s 芝加哥 24 sh 迪拜 40 f 都柏林 19 sh 日内瓦 35 s 直布罗陀 35 s 危地马拉 28 sh 赫尔辛基 22 f 香港 26 th 伊斯坦布尔 28 s 泽西 25 f 约翰内斯堡 18 s 拉巴斯 13 sh 拉各斯 26 r 利马 21 f 里斯本 28 f
伦敦 29C f 洛杉矶 36 s 马德里 38 f 墨西哥城 26 th 迈阿密 32 th 莫斯科 30 f 奈罗比 22 sh 新德里 38 th 新奥尔良 36 th 纽约 29 sh 奥斯陆 21 f 巴拿马 30 th 巴黎 35 f 布拉格 28 f 巴西里约热内卢 27 s 罗马 38 f 旧金山 18 f 圣地亚哥 13 sh 首尔 35 f 塞舌尔 26 sh 新加坡 30 th 斯德哥尔摩 22 f 悉尼 18 s 特拉维夫 32 s 特内里费 31 s 东京 34 th 多伦多 20 sh 特立尼达 32 th 突尼斯 40 s 威尼斯 36 s 维也纳 32 f 华沙 25 f 华盛顿 DC 30 sh
在这种传统方言中，计数相当简单。词语
4
13
中等
萨莉·布洛克 (Sally Brock)
这是我们在 Lady Milne 奖杯赛中对阵苏格兰队时的一盘有趣棋局。
英国锦标赛将于本周末在华威大学开赛，该国顶尖选手将悉数登场。然而，最受关注的选手年仅 11 岁。
西 北 东 南
1NT
19
7
轻微
西家出红心 2，东家出 K，庄家出 J 扫路。东家转攻方块，庄家一次弃牌，随后西家出 10，庄家赢回方块 Q。由于黑桃 A 是单张，且红桃和方块情况如此，庄家只需打出一张黑桃即可轻松获胜。但她并不知情，认为最好的机会是打尽梅花并希望读准结局。在打梅花时，西家和明手弃掉三张黑桃，而东家弃掉一张方块。随后庄家进行了红桃挑牌，出红桃 A，并以黑桃收局。东家不得不赢牌并出方块 K 以及另一张方块，从而让庄家赢得第九手牌。
南北方家脆弱，南家发牌
♠ Q J 9 8 5 ♥ A 10 9 4
博丹娜·西瓦南丹 (Bodhana Sivanandan) 带着在法国的历史性表现新鲜出击。她击败了现任法国冠军 Marc’Andria Maurizzi，并获得了她的第一个国际大师级标准分 (norm)。至此，她成为实现这一成就的最年轻女孩，打破了波尔加姐妹 (Judit Polgar) 的记录。
19
博丹娜的风格洗练，通常倾向于残局或简化局面。她的战术视野也非常敏锐。28 b4!黑马被困。28…Qxb4 29 Nd5! 一个带有中间走法 (zwischenzug) 变奏的牵制攻击。毫无征兆地，黑方的局面崩溃了。29…Qxb2 29...Qxe1 30 Nxf6+ Kf8 31 Nxd7+ Nxd7 32 Rxe1 使得白方多出一辆车。30 Rxb2 Bxb2 31 Nb6 Rc7 32 Qb4 现在是双重攻击。32… Bg7 33 Qxg4 Nd7 34 Nc4 Nf6 35 Qe2 Nd5 36 Nd6 Rd7 37 Ne4 Nc3 38 Nxc3 Bxc3 39 Qc4 黑方认输。白方同时威胁 40 Qxc3 和 40 Qc8+。
♦ 7 4 ♣ J 3
♠ K 6 4 3 2
♠ A
N W E S
♥ Q 7 6 2
♥ K 5 3
22
♦ Q 10
♦ K 9 6 5 3
♣ 7 2
♣ 10 9 6 4
17
♠ 10 7
♥ J 8
♦ A J 8 2
♣ A K Q 8 5
29
12
不应轻率地将她与传奇的波尔加相比，但博丹娜的进步是惊人的。作为目前英国顶尖的女棋手，她是具有世代影响力的天才。前景光明。
年轻的英国组合，迪多·科利 (Dido Coley) 和 莉莉·科尼 (Lily Kearney)，在其中一张牌桌上的叫牌过于激进：
轻微
26
7
英国与爱尔兰预报：英格兰、威尔士和苏格兰南部天气干燥温暖或炎热，伴有晴间多云。爱尔兰起初有干燥和晴朗天气，随后云层和降雨将向东扩散，西部地区最为持久。苏格兰北部晴间多云，有少量孤立阵雨。不列颠群岛大部分地区风力轻微且多变，但下午东部地区有中等东风。
1NT 2 ♣ * Dble 2 ♥ Dble 全体 Pass
图例：c 云，dr 毛毛雨，ds 沙尘暴，f 晴，fg 雾，g 大风，h 冰雹，m 薄雾，r 雨，sh 阵雨，sl 冰粒，sn 雪，s 太阳，th 雷，w 强风
白方：Bodhana Sivanandan 黑方：Marc’Andria Maurizzi Dole Open, 埃克斯-昂普罗旺斯 2026 西西里防御
西方的 2 ♣ 展现了两个大牌花色，即使在有利的漏洞情况下也显得有些鲁莽。南方的 double 是为了抢出，而北方很高兴地 pass 以寻求处罚。在顶端梅花首攻后，南方切换到黑桃。为了尽可能多地抢回 tricks，庄家打出一枚方块到 Q，然后打回一枚低方块。南方赢得此手并打出第二枚黑桃，被庄家吃掉，随后庄家吃掉一枚方块，但被北方过吃（overruffed）。
20
伦敦，英格兰东南部：干燥，晴朗且炎热。轻至中等东风。最高 30C。今晚，主要为晴空。最低 15C。 中地，英格兰东部：干燥且晴间多云。轻至中等东风。最高 29C。今晚，晴间多云。最低 14C。 海峡群岛，英格兰西南部和中南部，南威尔士：干燥且有温暖晴天。风力轻微且多变。最高 28C。今晚，晴间多云。最低 10C。 北威尔士，英格兰西北部，曼岛：起初干燥且晴间多云，但随后云量增加。风力轻微且多变。最高 24C。今晚，有少量阵雨。最低 10C。 英格兰中北部和东北部：晴间多云且保持干燥，但云量增加。风力轻微且多变。最高 25C。今晚，有少量阵雨。最低 11C。 苏格兰：北部有少量阵雨，其余地区干燥。主要为轻微风。
♠ 10 8 6
♥ A K J
♦ Q 6
34
25
♣ Q J 10 5 4
♠ Q 9 7 4 2
36
N W E S
♥ 5 3
♦ K J 9 8
41
Kantor-Nepomniachtchi, 埃克斯-昂普罗旺斯 2026。白方拥有额外子力，但其车被串击。唯一能保持获胜优势的走法是什么？
♣ K 7
35
38
32
34 38
38
对手叫 1NT — 3NT，你首攻黑桃 4。
在南北方进行了一番交叉吃（cross-ruffing）后，庄家最终以 3 down 结束。因此问题在于 Nevena Senior 能否在另一个房间完成她的局。叫牌如下：
32
34
南方用 J 赢得，打出一枚红心到假人，然后打出梅花 Q 让你用 K 赢得。现在怎么走？
31
请将你的答案（仅限第一步）发送至 Sunday Times Spot the Move 1543, The Sunday Times, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ，或发送电子邮件至 puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。下周六之后抽出的第一个正确答案将获得一张 £20 的 Waterstones 代金券。仅限 18 岁以上英国及爱尔兰共和国居民参加。
¬ 葡萄牙、西班牙、法国、希腊、土耳其、巴尔干地区、斯洛文尼亚、克罗地亚、匈牙利、乌克兰、摩尔多瓦、德国和低地国家天气干燥炎热，阳光充沛 ¬ 意大利、比利牛斯山脉、阿尔卑斯山脉、斯洛伐克、波兰南部和捷克共和国晴间多云，有少量阵雨或雷阵雨的风险 ¬ 波罗的海国家和波兰北部起初由于云层较厚有少量降雨风险，其余时间将是干燥的晴间多云天气，局部有云 ¬ 芬兰、挪威和瑞典北部晴间多云且有分散阵雨，但丹麦和瑞典南部较为干燥
下周公布答案。
上周答案
天气
通用知识巨型填字游戏 537
Across: 1 Assists, 5 Caliph, 8 Vacuum, 13 Glutamate, 14 Tonsillitis, 15 Arthur Dent, 16 Aguecheek,
代码字
数独热身
Across: 1 Mislucks, 7 Paan, 10 Uxorially, 11 Larns, 13 Snail, 14 Klatsch, 16 Rife, 17 Chinampa,
21
22
14
13
13
太阳，街灯与月亮
29
27
25
20
20
19
日出
日落 / 灯亮
灯灭
月出
月落
KENKEN
数独 1702
Across: 1 Cheeky, 5 Sit tight, 9 Free spirit, 10 Silk, 11 Hootch, 13 No longer, 14 Treasure Island, 16 Conversational, 18 Bacteria, 20 Ration, 21 Sign, 22 Eliminated, 24 Immortal, 25 Preens Down: 2 Harbour, 3 Eyestrain, 4 Yap, 5 Springer spaniel, 6 Totalisator, 7 Ibsen, 8 Halberd, 12 House arrest, 15 About-face, 16 Cranium, 17 Apogean, 19 Tango, 23 Imp
32
30
27
Aberdeen 05:08 21:20 05:10 22:04 11:18(Mon) Belfast 05:36 21:23 05:38 22:21 11:31(Mon) Birmingham 05:29 20:58 05:30 22:06 11:11(Mon) Bristol 05:36 20:57 05:37 22:09 11:13(Mon) Cardiff 05:38 20:59 05:39 22:12 11:16(Mon) Cork 05:57 21:22 05:59 22:33 11:38(Mon) Dublin 05:43 21:19 05:45 22:23 11:31(Mon) Glasgow 05:24 21:22 05:25 22:14 11:26(Mon) London 05:26 20:47 05:27 21:59 11:03(Mon) Manchester 05:26 21:03 05:28 22:07 11:14(Mon) Newcastle 05:17 21:07 05:19 22:04 11:13(Mon) Norwich 05:16 20:46 05:17 21:53 10:58(Mon) Plymouth 05:46 20:59 05:47 22:16 11:19(Mon)
2
15
19
周一 南部炎热干燥且晴朗，但北部有雨。最高 32C
周二 北部和西部多云有雨，但南部较干燥。最高 32C
周三 北部有长时间降雨，但南部有阵雨。最高 27C
简明填字游戏 2001
Across: 1 Mechanic, 5 Loaf, 9 Southend-on-Sea, 10 Sprog, 11 Ate up, 12 Ovine, 14 Clyde, 16 Sinew, 17 Niece, 19 Incriminating, 21 Side, 22 Amethyst Down: 1 Musical chairs, 2 Courtesy, 3 Ash, 4 Ignore, 6 Oust, 7 Featherweight, 8 Mongoose, 10 Splendid, 13 Ignominy, 15 Tedium, 18 Iced, 20 Apt
1…Qxf2! 获胜。例如：2 Qe1 (2 Rxf2 Rd1+) 2…Ng3+ 3 hxg3 Rh5 将死
43
杀手数独
TETONOR
9
14
8
今日答案
18
18
84 320 35 234 94 42
210 31
SAKURO 单元格
93 + 1 12 + 30 21 x 10 80 + 4
anew, arrow, barrow, bawn, bower, brainpower, braw, brawn, brew, brow, brown, brownie, enwrap, ironware, narrow, owner, pawn, power, prawn, prow, rainbow, rewrap, rowan, rowen, rower, wain, wane, ware, warn, warner, warp, warper, warren, wean, weapon, wear, webinar, weir, wine, wino, wipe, wiper, wire, wirer, worn, wrap, wren
24
23
21 + 10 4 x 80 9 + 26 9 x 26
26
25
26
夜空
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
金星璀璨，今晚日落时分位于西方极低位置，随后约 75 分钟后落下。到午夜时分，由亮星织女星、天津四和牛郎星组成的夏季大三角将高悬在子午线上。月球位于东东南方向较低位置，在土星右上方 14° 处。请留意明晚月球将直接位于土星上方，下周日早晨则位于火星上方。Alan Pickup
270 93 37 216 49 138 360 30
10
8
8
30 x 12 12 + 18 10 x 27 1 x 93
周六 阳光温暖，但有阵雨风险。最高 26C
周五 基本干燥且晴朗，但北部有少量阵雨。最高 25C
周四 南部温暖、干燥且
27 + 10 12 x 18 3 + 46 3 x 46
晴朗，但北部有阵雨。最高 26C
1 3 4 9 10 10 12 12 18 21 26 27 30 46 80 93
填字游戏获胜者 5225 D Branchflower, Storrington, West Sussex, G Graham, London SW14, S Kershaw, London NW7, S Rowlands, Pontllanfraith, Caerphilly Mephisto 3438
020826BRIDGE3.indd 1 18 / 06 / 2026 17:16:38
2026年8月2日 thetimes.com / sport
CLAUDIO THOMA / EPA / SHUTTERSTOCK
年度体育报纸
在
借来的
詹尼·因凡蒂诺可能会在一次国际足联紧急理事会会议上被要求
辞职，目前他正竭力
寻求支持
时间
6 欧足联宣布对因凡蒂诺失去信心
6 抛售计划失败后，支持率崩塌
6 美国人希望国际足联领导层进行“清算”
马丁·齐格勒 首席体育记者 他们已对因凡蒂诺失去信心。在英格兰足协表示支持的一份措辞严厉的声明中，欧足联将该方案描述为“他 [因凡蒂诺] 策划并试图强行通过的一项寒碜、黑箱且不透明的交易”。声明补充道：“目前的国际足联领导层不仅失去了欧足联的信心，也失去了足球大家庭中许多其他成员的信心。”
船，该船已不再将足球置于首位。最近这次单方面且极其严重的治理和领导失职行为，延续了一系列失误及类似行为的模式。”
消失。重建国际足联信任的任务才刚刚开始。”
据说他们正在针对单个协会，试图聚集一个支持基础。
英格兰足协的一位发言人表示：“我们全力支持欧足联的立场。现在是对国际足联领导层和治理进行全面且强有力审查的时候了，以确保这项全球运动能够透明地运行，为了所有 211 个成员国的利益，并以足球的长期管理为核心。”
在欧足联和英格兰足协谴责詹尼·因凡蒂诺试图将世界杯股份出售给私人投资者的失败尝试为一项“寒碜、黑箱且不透明的交易”后，其反对者将加大力度地迫使这位国际足联主席辞职。
另一种可能性是，国际足联 211 个成员中的 43 个成员调用紧急大会并举行不信任投票。潜在的挑战者包括中北美及加勒比足联主席维克多·蒙塔利亚尼、亚足联主席谢赫·萨尔曼以及巴黎圣日耳曼主席纳赛尔·阿尔-凯拉伊菲。可能还会出现一位在各大洲都有支持、但知名度较低的候选人。一位资深足球人士
欧足联在反对该计划中起到了引领作用，其 55 个成员（包括英格兰足协）周四同意抵制所有国际足联赛事。欧足联昨天表示：“我们不能继续这样下去，让那些由无名之辈策划、时间表紧凑且对足球运动益处存疑的秘密方案通行。” “我们必须确定责任人并追究其责任。这是整个体育项目的胜利。但这不能是故事的终点。该提案已经
据消息人士称，56, 岁的因凡蒂诺可能通过“国际足联前行企业”（FFE）计划赚得数千万英镑，目前他正拼命试图掌控权力，但他的支持正在大规模流失。
管理北美和中美洲协会及加勒比地区的中北美及加勒比足联要求对因凡蒂诺的主席任期进行“全面清算”。中北美及加勒比足联在声明中说：“如此规模的提案不会偶然进入该阶段。” “这是领导层——
因凡蒂诺可能会面临一次国际足联紧急理事会会议，会上他将被要求辞职；如果他拒绝，那么一名获得所有反对者支持的单一候选人将在明年的选举中挑战他。因凡蒂诺的盟友
在周五计划崩塌后，英格兰足协和欧洲足球管理机构欧足联表示
接 3 页
• 斯图尔特·巴恩斯 为什么我的世界十五强阵容中没有英国人 第 17 页
• 迈克·布雷尔利 我对“点击庞廷”的看法 第 12 页
• 汤姆·皮德科克 英国自行车运动员向大卫·沃尔什敞开心扉谈论未来 第 8-9 页
• 裘德会见若泽 贝林汉姆将如何与新任皇马主帅穆里尼奥磨合？ 第 6-7 页
足球
中场休息时间缩短至 15 分钟。到那时，由于动态定价导致世界杯门票价格上涨，批评的声音已然达到高潮。除了在表面上做些掩饰，詹尼·因凡蒂诺没有采取任何行动。票价继续上涨，国际足联对预期收入的估计也随之增加——这对潜在投资者来说是另一个吸引力。
在战胜波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那的比赛中被出示红牌。国际足联纪律委员会主席、来自阿拉伯联合酋长国的穆罕默德·阿尔·卡马利（Mohammad Al Kamali）独立审理了此案并撤销了禁赛——这一决定在世界杯历史上前所未有。
一名国际足联资深内部人士告诉《周日泰晤士报》，认为因凡蒂诺没有参与该决定是“荒谬的”，且纪律部门的工作人员对所发生的事情感到震惊。因凡蒂诺在公开场合坚称他没有参与巴洛根（Balogun）事件。
（他）强行将利昂内尔·梅西的迈阿密国际队送入了首届世俱杯，而没有经过任何形式的资格赛过程。
在世界杯开赛前一个月，这项出售计划又迎来了一个利好：沙特阿拉伯的公共投资基金（PIF）因为因凡蒂诺为他们争取到了 2034 年世界杯而心存感激，随即宣布了一项利润丰厚的赛事赞助协议。
马丁·齐格勒 (MARTYN ZIEGLER)
周二，《泰晤士报》和《周日泰晤士报》首席体育记者马丁·齐格勒披露了詹尼·因凡蒂诺计划出售世界杯股份的消息——这在整个全球足坛引发了激烈反应，并导致国际足联主席的计划开始崩溃。
我们现在得知，因凡蒂诺此前已与约书亚·库什纳（Joshua Kushner）进行深度秘密讨论，后者是一位亿万富翁风险资本家，是贾里德·库什纳（唐纳德·特朗普的女婿）的兄弟，也是国际足联主席的长期盟友。这些讨论的主题是库什纳购买世界杯及其他国际足联赛事的股份，并对其进行极致的商业化开发。
然而，这达到了一个目的：向他潜在的未来金主展示，可以通过采取哪些措施使世界杯更具市场竞争力。
11 月，克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多应唐纳德·特朗普之邀，与国际足联主席詹尼·因凡蒂诺一同参加了在白宫举行的一场奢华晚宴。
即使在赛事开始后，也只有极少数心腹被告知这个秘密计划，但因凡蒂诺开始透露他的想法。
因凡蒂诺原计划在世界杯决赛前夕，于纽约华尔道夫酒店为各国足协主席举行的一次早餐会上，宣布他的出售计划以及成立国际足联前行企业（Fifa Forward Enterprises, FFE），但随后决定时机不成熟。有人说，他被与欧足联在巴洛根事件上的巨大分歧所撼动。《泰晤士报》披露，挪威足协将就该案中的政治干预提出正式的伦理投诉。
这位超级球星在 Instagram 上发布了一张晚宴自拍，照片中他身后站着一群人：埃隆·马斯克出现在画面中，以及特朗普的 AI 负责人
“2031 年之后，我们可以在这里赚到一大笔钱，”他告诉一名助手，指的日期是他设想的总统任期结束之日。当被开玩笑地问及他的 $6 million（约 £4.4 million）薪水是否足够时，因凡蒂诺回答道：“不，我说的是真正的大钱。”在赛事进行到三分之二时，因凡蒂诺面临了另一个纪律难题。特朗普打电话来抗议，理由是美国球星前锋福拉林·巴洛根在对阵比利时的 16 强赛前被禁赛，因为他此前收到了一张红牌。
知情人士表示，贾里德·库什纳最初也参与其中，但后来退居幕后。
美国商务部长大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）、霍华德·卢特尼克（Howard Lutnick）以及罗纳尔多的未婚妻乔治娜·罗德里格兹（Georgina Rodriguez）。站在后面的是已经是白宫常客的因凡蒂诺，看起来非常高兴能与这些人为伴。
尽管如此，关于罗纳尔多（Ronaldo）的决定是詹尼·因凡蒂诺（Gianni Infantino）可以放入给私人投资者看的虚拟宣传册中的案例。其传递的简单信息是：世界杯的商业成功将凌驾于标准纪律处分这类琐事之上。
因凡蒂诺最近一次公开露面是在周四的摩洛哥，当时他由穆罕默德六世国王接待。
随后的一周，国际足联（Fifa）宣布，罗纳尔多在代表葡萄牙对阵爱尔兰时因暴力行为被禁赛三场，其中两场将由国际足联纪律委员会予以暂缓执行。这是一个前所未有的举动，这意味着他将能够参加世界杯的前两场比赛，而此前人们预计他将缺席。
最初，因凡蒂诺将担任该新企业的董事长，知情人士表示，其意图是在其主席任期结束后，让他成为首席执行官或专员。在计入任何奖金之前的基本年薪将是$30million。国际足联坚称该想法从未被讨论过。
两周后，因凡蒂诺回到了华盛顿特区，在向唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）颁发首届国际足联和平奖时面带谄媚之色，该奖项设立的唯一目的就是为了进一步讨好这位美国总统。
国际足联还宣布，每场世界杯比赛的上下半场中间将设立三分钟的补水休息时间——这为未来的赞助和电视广告创造了潜力。此外，还宣布为决赛举办一场超级碗（Super Bowl）风格的中场表演，完全无视了国际足联自身关于限制的规则。
对于一个经常谈论自己出身卑微的人来说，如此巨大的财富前景几乎是难以想象的。因凡蒂诺的父母是移居瑞士的意大利移民，在铁路部门从事低薪工作。这位国际足联主席此前详细描述过所遭受的敌意和排外——
国际足联从未公布其决定的书面理由。人们怀疑，56, 岁的因凡蒂诺挥动了他的魔棒，以确保其中一位明星球员能从赛会之初就参加锦标赛，就像他
他最初在纽夏泰尔的国际体育研究中心（CIES）工作，随后加入欧足联（Uefa）法律部门，在那里他培养了政治直觉，并一路晋升为秘书长。
他还很快展现出自己喜欢在著名球员、明星和世界领导人身边打交道的倾向。他的 Instagram 账号——他有一名随从负责跟拍照片——充斥着此类会面记录。
与因凡蒂诺共事过的人说，他似乎认为自己应该享有类似的星级生活方式。国际足联为其主席申请的安保要求进一步强化了这一形象：今年 4 月，加拿大警方拒绝了为其提供与美国总统同等交通特权的请求，而这种特权仅比教皇低一级。
不可避免地出现在大屏幕上。
在赛事最后几天，因凡蒂诺透露，国际足联将“肯定”考虑将许多人认为已经臃肿的 48 支球队的参赛规模扩大到 64. 支。在一些人看来，这又是世界杯“伊甸园”中用来诱惑私人投资者的另一颗禁果。
2016, 年，因凡蒂诺在正确的时间出现在正确的位置，当时欧足联主席米歇尔·普拉蒂尼（Michel Platini）深陷丑闻，欧洲正在寻找一名可行的国际足联主席候选人。然而，这次选择经常让欧洲感到后悔。
消息人士称，他确保国际足联与卡塔尔航空（Qatar Airways）的赞助协议中包含一项实物价值条款，用于提供他绝大多数出行所需的私人飞机——其费用从未出现在国际足联的账目中。
但在罗纳尔多决定案、和平奖闹剧、票价高企、补水休息时间以及巴洛贡（Balogun）丑闻之后，足球界已经忍无可忍。
他展现了自己喜欢在著名明星和世界领导人身边打交道的倾向
因凡蒂诺关于透明度和良好治理的承诺似乎被抛在脑后，因为他致力于为国际足联追求更多的金钱和权力。他的个人薪水也大幅飙升，并开始讨好那些他认为能为其扩张计划提供保障的人，尤其是沙特阿拉伯和摩洛哥。
世界杯的抛售计划已被弃之不理：现在看来，因凡蒂诺也将步入同样的轨迹，只是时间问题。他与权贵交往、乘坐私人飞机以及由警车护送穿梭于交通繁忙地段的日子将戛然而止。
因凡蒂诺在白宫与罗纳尔多、马斯克等人合影
尽管一些主办城市之间距离遥远，但凭借私人飞机，他经常能在世界杯期间一天观看两场比赛。然而在体育场内，他的声望开始下降，每当他出现时经常遭到嘘声。
他所经历的恐惧，以及他的进取心和语言天赋——他会说七种语言——如何帮助他淡化挑战重重的背景，并在弗里堡的一所大学赢得了学习法律的机会。
联系国际足联理事会成员，表达愤怒与担忧。
在国际足联主席任期结束后，因凡蒂诺将出任首席执行官或专员，在不计奖金的情况下，基本年薪为 $30 million（约 £22.2 million）。国际足联坚称该想法从未被讨论过。因凡蒂诺的声明称：“FFE项目旨在为进一步加强我们的国际足联成员协会以及全球体育运动提供基础，特别是那些最需要支持的国家。”
无论支持程度如何，这种性质的方案已不再符合最初设定的目标之利益。我们的目的始终是
$\rightarrow$接前页
说道：“因凡蒂诺曾拥有一切，而他的肆意贪婪导致他现在失去了一切。他是一个之耻，他不是跛脚鸭，而是一只死鸭子。”
据消息人士透露，曾深度参与该计划且在 2021 年欧洲超级联赛闹剧中也扮演重要角色的摩根大通银行（JP Morgan）告知国际足联，它希望退出该项目。
——而且将永远是——团结并改进。因此，该提案将不再推进。
该计划的存在于周二由《泰晤士报》揭露。计划的崩溃是因为领先投资者约书亚·库什纳（Joshua Kushner）的 Thrive Capital 基金会工作人员意识到，欧洲各国为表示抗议而抵制国际足联赛事的决定，使得该项目无法维持。“他们完全没有想到会产生这种反应——这带来了真正的震惊，”一名内部人士表示。
“在接下来的几天和几周内，我的意图是以对我们比赛的共同利益精神，将所有相关方重新聚集在一起，目标是继续在各地推广足球，特别是在那些最需要我们支持的国家。”
国际足联的高层也对因凡蒂诺确认放弃该计划的声明语气感到愤怒。其中一人表示：“这声明简直是个笑话。”
“而且，正如我们从一开始所说的，只有在大多数成员协会支持的情况下，且始终经过与成员协会、国际足联理事会、各大洲足联及更广泛利益相关者的磋商过程后，才会实施。”
因凡蒂诺的声明称，这仅仅是一次咨询活动——却忽略了成员协会被要求在 9 月 19 日这个紧迫的截止日期前接受该计划，否则资金支持将减少 75 per cent。
该声明的最后一段被他在欧足联、中北美及加勒比足联（Concacaf）和亚足联（AFC）的反对者视为最后的孤注一掷，试图通过向其支持者群体（主要在非洲和南美洲）呼吁以维持权力。
一名国际足联高级消息人士告诉《周日泰晤士报》，赞助商因担忧负面宣传浪潮而一直在联系这一世界管理机构的高管，同时该机构的员工也一直在
“在仔细听取所有观点后，很明显该项目已经造成了……的分歧”
知情人士表示，该方案的意图是……
ALAMY
球迷们一直在为这项美丽运动的灵魂而战，就像 2021 年切赫试图……
随着詹尼·因凡蒂诺放弃那个荒谬且依然阴险的出售世界杯计划的消息传来，这项美丽运动变得更加迷人了。甚至更好的一点是，考虑到该计划完全是为了私利，因凡蒂诺作为国际足联主席的地位在每一小时的流逝中都显得更加摇摇欲坠。
切尔西在面对球迷反对后，已从中退出。
该计划虽然崩溃了，但许多人预言它会再次崛起——而当《泰晤士报》揭露因凡蒂诺试图通过出售世界杯股份为自己赚取不可估量的财富时，感觉我们直接回到了官僚与支持者之间的斗争中。但这一次，是全球的足球管理人员拿出了他们的“隐喻蜡笔”，告诉国际足联主席他做得太过分了。
以平息切尔西支持者对欧洲超级联赛的愤怒
“目前的国际足联领导层不仅失去了欧足联的信心，也失去了足球大家庭中许多其他成员的信心，”欧洲足球管理机构在昨天上午的一份声明中如此写道。
因凡蒂诺。唐纳德·特朗普在干预美国前锋福拉林·巴洛根的禁赛决定，令人震惊。球队需要全员在阵才能有机会击败比利时，但他们的核心球员无法出战，于是国际足联允许他上场。此时所有会员协会都应该谴责这种管理方式。然而，只有挪威发声。因此，因凡蒂诺自然认为他可以继续随心所欲。
“我的意图，”因凡蒂诺在退让后表示，“是在接下来的几天和几周内，本着对我们这项运动共同利益的精神，将所有相关方重新聚集在一起，目标是在各地继续推动足球的发展，特别是那些最需要我们支持的国家。”
事实上，所使用的措辞相当精彩。极其严厉。如此具有毁灭性，以至于即使是自我中心到极点的因凡蒂诺也不得不承认自己已陷入绝境。
在足球的所有金钱之中，似乎仍有一股强烈的体面与爱的气息
对此种情绪的反应，可能从松了一口气的叹息到幸灾乐祸的冷笑不等。
在足球的所有金钱之中，似乎仍有一股强烈的体面与爱的气息。这一点在 2021 年球迷自发起来反对建立欧洲超级联赛的计划时显而易见。当时我在斯坦福桥球场报道切尔西与布莱顿的一场晚间比赛，却被一群举着自制横幅并高唱新口号的人群所淹没。
国际足联自己的首席运营官凯文·拉穆尔对因凡蒂诺将组织内几乎所有人排除在知情范围之外的行为感到震惊，并称该计划是“单方面的权力行使……表明缺乏信任、缺乏透明度、缺乏洞察力、缺乏良好治理。并且严重缺乏尊重。”因凡蒂诺的高级顾问卡洛斯·科德罗因该事件辞职，称因凡蒂诺的计划是“对国际足联会员协会的不公平交易，对足球的不公平交易，以及对这项运动长期未来的不公平交易”。
他一直痴迷于增长，痴迷于被全球每个角落的人喜爱，痴迷于成为足球的救世主。当他在世界杯决赛中与特朗普同台时，他似乎将自己视为与这位美国总统平起平坐的人物，一个拥有巨大权力和影响力的人。他还认为，由于在 his 领导下国际足联的收入有所增加，他在经济上应该获得更丰厚的奖励，因此策划出售国际足联的部分股权以创建一家公司，而他可以担任该公司获得高薪的专员。
他还认为，或者也许仍然认为，世界欠他一份感激之情。在《泰晤士报》揭露真相前的几天里，他在一份冗长的声明中将世界杯所有美好的一切都归功于自己，并批评那些选择关注票价过高、签证问题或令人厌恶的补水休息时间（这让足球变成了分为四个节的比赛）的人。这就像一个剧场经理在演出成功后，将莎士比亚作品的宏伟之功据为己有。足球本质上是受欢迎的，但关键在于，它是被深爱的；触及它的灵魂，人们就会起义。即便是在必要时，连它的管理层也会这么做。
审查。如果《泰晤士报》上周二没有揭露世界杯被出售的消息，因凡蒂诺原本有可能在幕后运作以获得他所需的支撑，逐一争取那些最缺资金、最担心反对主席后果的成员。
“我们要回到斯托克那些寒冷的夜晚，”一块用蜡笔写的标牌上写道。另一块则写着，“由人民创造，被富人窃取。”
那是充满激情且发自内心的，并引发了一场某种程度上的奇迹。深受喜爱的切尔西前门将彼得·切赫出现并告诉球迷，俱乐部会解决问题。随后，当支持者们仍在高唱“去他妈的超级联赛”时，手机叮咚作响，传来了消息。
这是一次令人作呕且贪婪的权力攫取。他目前能寄予的最大希望就是通过立即辞职来保留一丝自尊。否则，他将被永久地定义为足球历史上最被厌恶的人物。
有一天，鉴于反对力量之强，我们将回过头来看这场阴谋注定会失败；但在这里我们必须停下来，因为这种反对情绪之所以被激发，是因为我的同事马丁·齐格勒在因凡蒂诺准备好面对公众审查之前就揭露了它。
让我们不要忘记，$40 million 对于某些足协来说是一笔巨款，能够提升他们的基础设施。我们也不要忘记，当世界杯期间事情开始向糟糕的方向发展时，只有一个成员协会站出来发声。
加里·雅各布 他们的公司PCP资本伙伴公司，与美国私人投资公司Ashland Forest Capital Partners合作。
所有者最大的股东，并赋予他俱乐部的控制权。Kretinsky和大卫的女儿Vanessa Gold（两人均为西汉姆联联席主席）在当时的一份声明中表示，他们希望交易能尽快完成。
阿曼达·Staveley的财团已达成协议，购买西汉姆联25.1 per cent的股份，这将使这家冠军联赛俱乐部的未来所有权陷入不确定性。
Staveley的介入使大卫·苏利文再次坚定地成为了决定俱乐部未来所有权的“造王者”。他在6月辞去西汉姆联联席主席一职，此前《泰晤士报》和BBC《全景》调查揭露了其涉嫌性虐待的指控。这位77-year-old的英国商人被指控在通过成人产业积累财富期间存在剥削和掠夺行为，相关指控可追溯到20世纪80年代。苏利文否认这些指控，并称其为“事实错误且完全虚假”。
通过她的公司 PCP Capital Partners，Staveley 提供了比丹尼尔·克雷廷斯基（Daniel Kretinsky）更高的金额，以从已故的 David Gold 家族手中收购全部股权。这位捷克亿万富翁目前已持有该俱乐部 27 per cent 的股份。
然而，Staveley 的交易对 Gold 家族更具吸引力，因为他们可以一次性处置全部持股，且该交易对俱乐部的估值高于 Kretinsky 的报价。
Staveley 曾主导沙特阿拉伯公共投资基金对纽卡斯尔联队的收购。她曾考虑收购托特纳姆热刺，而现在可能尝试全面掌控西汉姆联。目前的财团由她、她的丈夫 Mehrdad Ghodoussi 以及
上个月，Gold 家族曾同意向 Kretinsky 出售 16 per cent 的股份。在遭遇挫折后，他目前正在考虑“所有选项”。拟议中的交易本将使 Royal Mail
Staveley 同样是纽卡斯尔收购案中的关键人物
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 5
ROBIN JONES / GETTY IMAGES
Peter Rutzler 悉尼 他在今年 1 月被处以四年禁赛，随后他向体育仲裁法院提起上诉。
在 20 个月的时间里，米哈伊洛·穆德里克（Mykhailo Mudryk）的职业生涯一直处于危险之中。他因违反反兴奋剂规定而被临时禁赛，该禁令在 1 月正式变为四年禁赛，这意味着自 2024 年底以来，他一直无法踏入切尔西的训练场。
对于切尔西来说，他的回归是一个意想不到的助力，确保了一名身价 8900 万英镑million 的签约球员（如果所有附加条款均达成）不会在账面上成为一项减值资产。现在的挑战是如何让他恢复到最佳竞技状态，并观察他是否能发挥出此前被寄予厚望的潜力。
他在临时环境下寻求私人教练的帮助。他最近参加了一个海外训练营，并租用了第七级别球队Uxbridge的主场Honeycroft体育场进行训练。有人发现他在打板式网球，且他今年出现在了温布尔登网球公开赛上。
他没有受伤，但已经一年半没有在竞技环境下比赛了。他重新激起了球队内部的竞争。杰米·吉滕斯（Jamie Gittens）在切尔西的季前训练初期表现得尤为犀利，而俱乐部还花费了 £117million 签下摩根·罗杰斯（Morgan Rogers），这也是左翼位置的另一位候选人。
不过，自从 2024, 11 月在欧协联客场对阵海登海姆并进球后，穆德里克在切尔西相关场合的唯一一次露面，是六个月后在弗罗茨瓦夫举行的该赛事决赛。有人拍到他在一家牛排馆与支持者交谈，身穿切尔西背心。他的出现似乎让时任切尔西主教练的恩佐·马雷斯卡（Enzo Maresca）感到惊讶：“说实话，我只是……我不知道，他在这儿，还是要来？他在这儿？我不知道。”
穆德里克在 2023, 从顿涅茨克矿工加盟切尔西，当时引起了极大关注，在这家西伦敦俱乐部击败阿森纳抢先签下他之后，此次加盟被视为一次大胜，但他一直难以摆脱其高昂身价带来的压力。他的前教练马雷斯卡曾称他是一个“较慢”的学习者，人们认为语言障碍也是原因之一。
在被禁赛之前，他是切尔西参加欧协联的第二梯队主力，在他是阵容成员的 12 场英超比赛中仅首发 1 场。
穆德里克获准进入体育场并领取奖牌，并在赛后的庆祝活动中与那些他几乎没怎么见过的队友们共度。
穆德里克将于下周在香港会见阿隆索并与队友汇合。阿隆索表示：“我们可以预见他需要耐心。他每天独自训练，我认为那一定非常、非常艰苦，因为他想踢球，想成为团队的一员，而这么长时间以来他都被禁止这样做。所以一旦这个巨大的转变发生，事情将向前推进，之后我们会看到他是恢复快还是慢，但我们需要意识到这一点。”
自那时起，更衣室的构成已经发生了很大变化，他失去了 10 号球衣，由科尔·帕尔默接替。在教练席上，切尔西已经更换了三任正式主教练。新任主教练哈比·阿隆索对这位 25 岁球员的出人意料回归表示欢迎，此前在与英格兰足协 (FA) 和世界反兴奋剂机构 (Wada) 达成协议后，禁令已被解除。
自己的。他是一名特殊的球员。
Wada 衡量运动员样本中呈阳性的美多明 (meldonium) 的方式。它将运动员被认定超过最低报告水平的阈值从 120 提高到了 150 百分比。如果根据该指南再次对穆德里克进行采样，他将不会被认定为违反反兴奋剂条例。
穆德里克有 20 个月没有踏入切尔西的训练场，但现在可以自由加入阿隆索的阵容。
“我们为他感到高兴，尤其是为他个人，因为我们可能无法理解他这段时间经历了什么，以及面对他必须应对的事情时，他此刻的感受如何。”
一项与其此前在赛场外已执行时间等长的禁令。
“我们没想到此刻能收到这个好消息，所以我们非常高兴他将与我们一起工作，”阿隆索在悉尼以 2-1 负于托特纳姆热刺的一场友谊赛后说道。
“我们希望他能感觉到自己是团队的一员，因为他一个人训练了很长时间。我们得到了所有人——俱乐部、队友和工作人员的支持，当然这需要时间。所以一旦他与我们在一起，我们将观察情况如何发展。”
穆德里克一直否认曾故意或有意服用违禁药物。据知情人士透露，被认为他在 9 月代表乌克兰执行国际比赛任务期间接触到了美多明。
曾在顿涅茨克矿工队执教穆德里克并曾预测他有能力获得金球奖的罗伯托·德泽比，对他将在切尔西证明自己的价值几乎没有怀疑。
此次变更不溯及既往，预计将于 2027. 生效。但穆德里克能够与 Wada 和英格兰足协 (FA) 达成一项解决方案，即他承认自己违反了规定，并同意接受
“我记得在顿涅茨克矿工队看他比赛时，他带来的影响以及他的出色。他在一对一情况下表现非常出色，能够在自己的
穆德里克的回归之所以成为可能，是因为
Staveley 或 Kretinsky 需要购买他 38.8 百分比的股份，才能获得俱乐部的多数控制权。
完成之后，俱乐部的所有权结构将不会有任何改变”。
为了帮助俱乐部重返英超联赛而设立的机制，包括招聘总监和其他高级管理人员。最新的进展似乎可能在短期内增加稳定性维持的难度。
在结束之后，我想向我们的球迷坦诚目前的状况和我的意图。
代表 Gold 家族的 Vanessa Gold 表示：“6 月 12 日，Daniel Kretinsky 和我达成了一项销售协议，这将使 EP Group 成为西汉姆联的最大单一股东。”
西汉姆联未来的股东结构还因两轮优先购买权而变得复杂，这些权利规定现有投资者在以与 Staveley 议定的价格购买 Gold 股份时拥有优先拒绝权。
他们补充道：“西汉姆联希望向支持者保证，足球俱乐部的日常运营绝不会受到此情况的影响。”
“在整个过程中，我的抱负一直是确保俱乐部拥有正确的领导层和所有权，使西汉姆联能够发挥潜力，回到其在英超联赛中应有的位置。”
Kretinsky 的一名发言人告诉《星期日泰晤士报》：“我们在 6 月与 Gold 家族达成的协议在关键时刻为俱乐部提供了稳定性。而现在的情况则恰恰相反。我们将始终以西汉姆联的最佳利益行事，并正在审查所有选项，包括全面行使我们的优先购买权。”
“不幸的是，自那时起，最初的交易以及我们讨论过的其他替代方案未能实现。鉴于此，我现在已达成协议，将其家族持股出售给由 Amanda Staveley 和 Mehrdad Ghodoussi 领导的 PCP Capital Partners 财团，并与 Ashland Forest Capital Partners 合作。虽然该流程尚未”
在第一轮中，股东有 30 天时间购买其有权认购的份额，该份额最高可与其当前的持股比例相同。在第二轮中，任何剩余的 Gold 家族股份可由参与第一轮的股东购买。
西汉姆联在上一赛季排名第 17 位后从顶级联赛降级。这家东伦敦俱乐部将在 8, 月 8 日（周六）主场迎战朴茨茅斯，开启其在第二级别联赛的生活，这场卡拉宝杯第一轮比赛他们已售出超过 50,000 张门票。
西汉姆联在一份声明中表示，“该流程将大约需要两个月时间，直到其”
随后他们在 8 天后客场挑战伯恩利，开启其英冠赛季。
Kretinsky 将会感到失望，因为他一直致力于构建
足球
穆里尼尼奥必须证明他并非
合作伙伴增加了教练重返皇马的悬念——但无论发生什么，这位英格兰球星的母亲都会感到高兴
在重返皇马后，他并非是
在 13 年后
TOM ALLNUTT
请想象一下，在上个月那场充满激情的、通过加时赛战胜挪威的比赛后，何塞·穆里尼奥成为了英格兰队的主教练；并想象一下，在一场疯狂的世界杯四分之一决赛后，疲惫的朱德·贝林厄姆挥手带走了穆里尼奥的赛后分析。
我
贝林厄姆在皇马经历 2 个波动起伏的赛季后，有待解答的问题
球场边缘招手示意他走过来，但他想要的照片不是为了自己，而是为了他的母亲 Denise。“我妈觊觎你多年了，”贝林厄姆告诉这位葡萄牙人。
ine Zidane，后者是从预备队提拔的。在当时，这两个选择都不是特别时尚的选择。但两者都取得了巨大的成功。
对于贝林厄姆来说，穆里尼奥应该解决关于角色和位置的一个根本性问题，鉴于穆里尼奥偏好 4-2-3-1 阵型（他已经在季前赛中实施），这可能意味着贝林厄姆将出任 No10，而 Fede Valverde 和 Aurélien Tchouaméni —— 或者是 Rodri —— 在 3 底部支撑。
托马斯·图赫尔在迈阿密不得不运用他所有的外交技巧，他解释说，球员在终场哨响后那些肾上腺素激增的时刻可能会脱离剧本，并提出问题可能是直接的，而言辞可能会被误解。最重要的是，图赫尔地舍弃了自己的自尊，以维护他在英格兰队中精心营造的团队精神。
尽管如此，笑容灿烂的贝林厄姆显然对与穆里尼尼奥共事感到兴奋，据说他对皇马选择新主帅的决定充满信心，不仅因为他是第一批与穆里尼尼奥通话的球员之一，而且因为一个从 Pérez 扩散出来的普遍信念：这支皇马球队需要的是清晰的指引而非教练指导。Pérez 的直觉此前一直是正确的。他在 Carlo Ancelotti 在埃弗顿挣扎时将其带回，以及 Zined-
5 月，但幅度比他希望的要小。
这可能会让贝林汉姆感到宽慰。在近几个赛季的 4-3-3 阵型中，他被频繁地调换位置：在安切洛蒂麾下曾担任菱形中场的最顶端，随后更多地在左侧活动，而在哈维·阿隆索和阿尔瓦罗·阿رب埃洛亚麾下则位置更深，更像一名中前卫 (box-to-box midfielder)。阿隆索一直不赞同贝林汉姆随意跑位的倾向，为了缓解皇马在进攻组织上的问题，将其位置后移，但效果有限。“我可以胜任不同的位置，并能以不错的水平完成不同的任务，我认为有时我可能因此而成为了一个‘牺牲品’，”贝林汉姆说道。
佩雷斯向选民抛出的诱饵是穆里尼奥，而许多人现在认为他已失去了往日的辉煌。在执教的前十年里，穆里尼奥横扫了 16 座顶级奖杯，包括七次联赛冠军和一座欧冠冠军。而在过去的十年里，穆里尼奥仅获得过 3 座奖杯：在曼联期间的一座联赛杯和一座欧联杯，以及在罗马期间的一座欧协联冠军。
穆里尼奥会做同样的事吗？他是否也会给贝林汉姆留有余地？我们永远无法得知，但有充足的证据可以支持那些持怀疑态度的人。
不仅是对球员，对俱乐部、主席和教练来说，赌注都很大
问问克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多就知道了，他在 2011 年公开批评穆里尼奥在皇家马德里的执教方式——“我不喜欢这样踢球，但我必须适应，”罗纳尔多说道——结果很快就在下一场比赛中被弃用。或者看看费内巴切的艾伦·圣-马克西明，在面对穆里尼奥对其身体状态的批评时，他回应道：“当谎言坐电梯时，真理在走楼梯”。穆里尼奥的回复是：“如果一名球员身体健康且努力工作，他不需要电梯。”
贝林汉姆对穆里尼奥最生动的印象自然将来自那个更具争议、荣誉更少的第二个十年。因为贝林汉姆出生的月份（2003 年 6 月）恰恰是穆里尼奥在波尔图获得首个重大奖杯的月份，这意味着他太年轻，无法在实时状态下经历穆里尼奥的巅峰岁月（切尔西 2004-07, 国际米兰 2008-10, 皇家马德里 2010-13）。
2024 年在温布利，贝林汉姆在场边寻找穆里尼奥
在那里，两个起伏不定的赛季——受到俱乐部危机和肩伤的困扰——使他迫切需要一些动力、方向和稳定性。
穆里尼奥在 2010 到 2013, 首次执教后 13 年再次出任皇家马德里主教练，这将是新赛季最引人入胜的故事之一。他与贝林汉姆在战术和情感上的关系，将成为其任期内的核心主题之一。现年 23, 岁的贝林汉姆正处于一个关键的关口；一方面，在经历了一次极其精彩的世界杯后，他已准备好主宰赛场，但另一方面，他在皇马仍有问题需要解决。
这对每个人来说赌注都很高，不仅是球员，还有俱乐部、主席和教练。皇马刚刚陷入了连续第二个赛季没有奖杯的低谷，这是自 2010, 年（即穆里尼奥首次被请来执教时）以来伯纳乌球场从未感受过的耻辱。连续第三个赛季的失败曾迫使弗洛伦蒂诺·佩雷斯在 2006 年辞去俱乐部主席一职。二十年后，在他发起选举并获胜后，他再次面临压力。
2024 年贝林汉姆赢得欧冠决赛后的一刻令人动容，展现了世代更替。贝林汉姆在温布利球场的场边找到了担任电视评论员的穆里尼奥，并走上前去。
既然豪已经离职，英格兰足协没有理由继续坚持图赫尔
ALYSON RUDD
你可能会认为，托马斯·图赫尔的蜜月期在世界杯半决赛中面对阿根廷的胆怯投降时就结束了。这位德国人拿着 £5 million 的年薪被请来，不仅是为了在周末在全国各地游走观看合格球员的比赛，更是为了在关键时刻注入强悍的斗志。加雷斯·索斯盖特缺乏杀手本能，而人们认为图赫尔能够推动英格兰队跨越终点线。
贝林汉姆昨天出现在伯明翰凤凰一百分赛 (Birmingham Phoenix Hundred) 的比赛中
博格巴的话是：“如果你让他觉得你想盖过他的风头，他会很快让你认清自己的位置。”博格巴认为，这种愤怒不仅仅关乎表现。“当媒体总是问他关于我的问题时，也许会让他觉得，‘好吧，他完蛋了吗？’ ”博格巴在今年4月告诉费迪南德，“很多人很喜欢问关于我的事。总是保罗，保罗，保罗。这可能让他很恼火。”
相反，我们在对阵阿根廷队时看到的是一种回归原型的表现，完全误解了在世界杯决赛临近时应如何把握领先优势。
上周离开纽卡斯尔联的豪（Howe），能够承受英格兰队主帅工作的压力
许多球迷的下意识反应是要求英格兰足协（FA）解雇这位前切尔西主帅，但他依然获得了足协的支持，带领国家队参加欧洲杯
贝林汉姆与穆里尼奥之间这段关系的成败，肯定取决于化学反应，以及两个强势、要求高、极度自信且——没错——极其好斗的个性，究竟会激发彼此最出色的一面还是最糟糕的一面。
英格兰教练人才匮乏并不是你应该被允许选择一名德国教练的理由。你应该自食其果，并继续前行。
当然，他带领纽卡斯尔联在2025年联赛杯决赛中击败利物浦，赢得了俱乐部70年来首座国内奖杯。那天感觉整个球迷群体在巨大的期待压力下几乎要崩溃。纽卡斯尔对足球成功的渴望，正如英格兰球迷绝望地想要结束60年的痛苦一样。
不可否认，贝林汉姆在皇家马德里不会是唯一的关注焦点，例如维尼修斯（Vinícius Jr）和基利安·姆巴佩（Kylian Mbappé）经常占据媒体议程，但他需要并享受聚光灯，这可能会与穆里尼奥的天然本能相冲突。穆里尼奥和亚历克斯·弗格森一样，似乎一直更青睐那些较为谦卑的部下。
因此，在决定离开纽卡斯尔联后，豪成为了带领英格兰队进入下届欧洲杯的显而易见之选。他出生于白金汉郡，而且作为一名教练，他经历过如此之多，已经培养出了承担该角色所需的韧性。
有理由认为这可能会奏效，因为在一次世界杯中，贝林汉姆在态度和行为方面收到了积极的评价；而且那些从早期就了解贝林汉姆的人，一直否认他“难以管理”的描述。相反，他们说他最能响应那些他认为同样追求高标准并渴望不惜一切代价获胜的人，而穆里尼奥无疑符合这两点。穆里尼奥最成功的一些项目——波尔图的德科（Deco）、切尔西的弗兰克·兰帕德（Frank Lampard）、国际米兰的卫斯利·斯内德尔（Wesley Sneijder）、皇马的梅苏特·厄齐尔（Mesut Ozil）——也都是在他在进攻中场位置上效力的人。
这是一个明白什么叫整个地区都屏息凝视他的一言一行、每一次换人的人。他也明白情绪地转变为快。上个赛季，由于纽卡斯尔联的客场状态不稳，且维持领先的能力出现波动，人们产生了许多抱怨。
例如，兰帕德将是贝林汉姆的一个显而易见的研究对象，只不过兰帕德在2004年时完全没有贝林汉姆这样的地位。“我那时是个相当谦卑的孩子，”兰帕德在2023年告诉约翰·奥比·米克尔（John Obi Mikel）的《The Obi One》播客，“我不一定相信自己能达到欧冠的高度，或者代表国家队出战。而何塞（José）走进来，就像在说：‘嗯，你应该能达到。’ ”
豪在执教伯恩茅斯期间，用七年时间赢得了三次升级，但该队在 2020 年在他的率领下也从英超联赛降级。然而，从降级中能学到的东西与从升级中一样多，这也意味着当他在 2021 年被任命为纽卡斯尔主教练时，他必须应对一种外界认知，即他并非沙特公共投资基金在进军英格兰足球时所渴望的那种高水准主教练。人们认为，豪只是一个临时方案，直到他们站稳脚跟。
诚然，埃迪·豪完全合格的最压倒性原因在于他是英国人。我在想，如果英格兰队进入决赛并以某种方式击败了西班牙队，这是否会像是一场带有星号（备注）的胜利，或者在某种程度上感觉像是在作弊？
大部分时间，豪将责任归咎于自己，但实际上他被俱乐部无法为其购买足够强大阵容的无能所阻碍。盈利和可持续发展规则意味着，尽管沙特所有者负担得起开支，但他们被禁止这样做，这反过来意味着俱乐部在面对欧冠联赛的需求时装备不足。
当然，只有小国才配得上外国教练的帮助。像英格兰这样规模的国家，拥有巨大的足球金字塔和规模宏大的国家足球中心，真的应该能够培养出一位能够带领国家队走向辉煌的教练。在世界杯期间，每当摄像机镜头切到图赫尔时，我诚实地感到一阵尴尬的恶心。每一个关于他的镜头都在提醒我们，作为一个国家，我们在培养顶尖教练方面是无能的。英格兰足协为何如此拥护这种无能的广告，实在令人费解。
从那时起很多事情发生了变化，但穆里尼奥对其中场球员最看重的特质保持不变，从这个意义上说，贝林厄姆看起来是一个很好的匹配对象。身材高大、强壮、身体素质强悍，且对阵型和空间有深刻理解，如果贝林厄姆不是一个如此强力的 10 号位，他将成为一名出色的穆里尼奥式 8 号位。
在心态和自信心方面，罗纳尔多或许是与贝林厄姆最接近的对比对象；除了偶尔的冲突点外，罗纳尔多在穆里尼奥麾下是一个现象级的存在。在 2024 年的《里奥·费迪南德呈现》播客中讨论贝林厄姆对聚光灯的热爱时，穆里尼奥的赞美之词也几乎到了极点。“有些东西将他与那些在英格兰出生、在英格兰成长的人区分开来……他是一个世界公民，”穆里尼奥说，“当这个孩子进球并向伯纳乌球场张开双臂时，那是他的维度。这展现了性格。这就是：我在这里。”
不过，他在向董事会的陈述中给人留下了深刻印象，尽管包括我在内的许多媒体人士都感到震惊，因为他似乎在没有经过太多内心反省的情况下就加入了一家从事“体育洗白”的企业。尽管如此，在早期的那些日子里，当被问及人权滥用问题时，他找到了忽略这些杂音的方法，这一定使他变得坚强了。
豪以谦逊的态度应对了这一切。一个庆祝迈克·阿什利时代结束、并假设其继任者将挥金如土并席卷英超联赛的球迷群体，不得不重新调整预期；从豪的角度来看，这绝非易事。所有这些都表明，这个男人不仅完全合格，而且能够承受执教英格兰队的压力。
这些特质与穆里尼奥回归皇马总体上追求的目标相契合，因为他目标锁定在一支更具侵略性、运动能力、经验和竞争优势的球队。夏季签入球员的年龄和形象——马克·库库雷利亚 (28)、贝尔纳多·席尔瓦 (31)、伊布拉希马·科纳特 (27) 和登泽尔·邓弗里斯 (30) ——显示了穆里尼奥想要走的方向。
对我质疑的回击总是：“那么，请继续，说出一个能够胜任该工作且目前可行的英国人。”但这从来不是重点。未能提供一大批……
抛开体育洗白不谈，豪在纽卡斯尔的表现如此出色，以至于任何关于他可能很快被更具吸引力的人取代的想法都迅速消散了。最显著的是，
然而，在远处钦佩这些特质与在更衣室中管理它们是两回事。其他人会指出穆里尼奥性格中的另一面——他对那些总是处于舆论中心、自带光环的超级巨星球员往往显得心存猜忌，甚至心怀怨恨。在施耐德尔的自传中，他讲述了穆里尼奥曾在国际米兰如何让马里奥·巴洛特利认清现实的故事：他让巴洛特利热身 45 分钟，却始终没有将其换上场。“穆里尼奥有他自己的规则，”施耐德尔写道。
另一个转变——请暂时放下所有质疑——据称发生在教练本人身上。“新穆里尼奥 (El nuevo Mourinho)”，皇马的员工们这样称呼他。这个穆里尼奥渴望将近年来的所有愤怒以及在俱乐部首次执教期间的苦涩抛在脑后。穆里尼奥一直在称赞训练场的场地工作人员和食堂服务员，而上周在一次酷热的友谊赛中，他甚至要求给记者们提供额外的水瓶。
通过签下能够缩小与欧洲竞争对手差距的顶尖球员来实现雄心，例如巴黎圣日耳曼，后者在欧冠决赛的点球大战中击败了阿森纳。
2022, 年 1 月以 £40 从里昂加盟纽卡斯尔，尽管因伤缺席两个月，他仍以 9 个进球成为俱乐部上赛季的联赛最佳射手。
加里·雅各布，保罗·乔伊斯
阿森纳希望布鲁诺·吉马良斯明天能在俱乐部接受体检，因为他们已接近达成一项 £80 的交易。
阿森纳接近同意为吉马良斯支付 £70 的首付款，外加 £10 的附加费。吉马良斯推迟了与纽卡斯尔队的会合，该球队已于周五飞往拉曼加。28, 岁的吉马良斯在代表巴西参加世界杯后获得了三周假期。这位中场球员
与此同时，埃弗顿与阿森纳就中场球员克里斯蒂安·诺高德达成原则性协议，价值约为 £7。32, 岁的诺高德从布伦特福德加盟酋长球场后度过了一个赛季，但发现出场时间有限，在英超联赛中仅出场 101 分钟。
这位纽卡斯尔联的中场球员可能是两名加盟阿森纳的巴西球员中的第一位，阿森纳目前正尝试与边锋维尼修斯-Jr 就财务方案达成一致，随后再与马德里皇马讨论转会费。米克尔·阿尔特塔曾表示希望展现出更大的
一个更年长、更睿智且更温和的穆里尼奥，在贝林厄姆之类的人占据中心舞台时，乐于保持低调？让我们在比赛开始后拭目以待。
这些策略有时也会变得丑陋。曼彻斯特联的保罗·博格巴发现自己的职业生涯在穆里尼奥麾下直线下降，因为在
回家后我才意识到。”由于没有一个良好的高海拔训练营且未能参加瑞士自行车赛，这对造成了影响。这也让他在环法赛上的表现更令人钦佩。在环法赛的山地赛段，有些日子他无法跟上波加查尔等人的节奏，但他依然骑得很好，并努力尽可能地接近他们。
抵达北安普敦郡银石的保时捷体验中心时，一名中年男子询问是否需要帮助。得知我是来见骑手汤姆·皮德考克的，他露出了那种自信且放松的微笑，像是一个
A
作为 Pinarello-Q36.5 队的队长，他在力争赛段冠军的同时将总成绩（GC）维持在前十名，使球队在首届环法赛中获得了关注。皮德考克曾在英力士度过了四年时间并赢得许多比赛，但此前被刻画为一个无法轻易融入团队角色的个体。
一个知道自己能帮上忙的人。“我是一名教练，我刚和汤姆在我们的车里出去转了一个半小时。我带你去见他。顺便说一句，他是个很棒的司机，控制力很好，你可以看出他很爱车。”
“我其实很享受球队 [Q36.5] 对我的依赖，而且 5
我在想，如果你刚刚在最炎热的日子里骑完了环法赛，很难不去享受在空调充足的保时捷车里转一圈。
“我不喜欢苦活——比起在环法赛中获得第九名，我更愿意赢得一个赛段冠军”
皮德科克骑车抵达巴黎已经过去了三天。他现在和自己的身体恢复沟通了吗？“身体上，我其实感觉还好，谢谢，”这位 27 岁的约克郡人说道。“确实感到疲惫，但比上次完赛环法时好多了。那时我处于一种极度压抑的状态，而现在，我走出那个状态，处在一个更好的位置。”
“通常在参加完三大赛后，我会精疲力竭，脑子有点懵，容易忘事。但这次没有这种感觉。”
总排名第九，两次获得赛段第三，他经历了一次不错的环法赛，尽管他将其描述为“还好”。观点虽有不同，但数据表明他在进步。他首次参加环法赛是在 2022 年，并在巴士底日赢得了阿尔普迪埃兹赛段，但那次胜利部分是因为他当时不被总成绩（GC）领先者视为威胁。那年他获得第 16 名，落后于冠军乔纳斯·温格高 61 分 15 秒。
一年后，他排名第 13，落后于温格高 47:52；而今年排名第九，落后于塔代伊·波加查 29:28。在这种情况下，他表示满意。“显然，我努力训练并不是为了在环法赛中获得第九名，那样不值得。所以从这个意义上说我感到失望，但我知道[进入环法赛前]自己的状态，我也知道稳定性对我来说至关重要，以及在训练中达到最佳状态的必要性。而这次我没能做到。”
汤姆·皮德科克谈环法挫折，仍寻求关于英力士（Ineos）冷落他的答案，以及顶尖车队如何赋予他新生命
对话在平静中开始，直到卡明斯解释车队将全力支持罗德里格斯。卡明斯询问皮德科克是否接受。皮德科克表示不知道，他不想在平坦路段为队友骑行而耗尽体力，随后要求 Netflix 的摄影机离开房间，以便他与卡明斯私下讨论。
当你试图守住一个总成绩排名时，你就不能再像杀手那样思考了。”
这种心态在英力士车队并未总能得到充分理解。在 Netflix 的环法自行车赛纪录片系列《Unchained》中，有一场 2023 年环法赛的戏份让皮德科克的形象显得不佳。他当时作为英力士三名潜在领骑者之一参加那届赛事。在赛事中期，显而易见的是，他的队友卡洛斯·罗德里格斯表现优于皮德科克，在车队副主管罗德·艾林沃思与体育总监们开会后，决定由罗德里格斯担任唯一领骑。
这是顶尖运动员必须面对但往往不愿分享的事情。3 月底，他在加泰罗尼亚之赛的一次下坡中摔车。他错过了一个弯道，翻入一个深谷，幸运地避免了严重受伤。然而，他的骨骼和韧带确实受到了损伤。随后的后遗症一直影响到了环法赛。
“我在这个故事中的角色，”他说。“这不仅仅关乎结果。我们正在创造的故事激励着我。我们不需要赢得每一场比赛，但我们会尽力去实现目标。”
“如果由我决定，我宁愿赢得一个赛段冠军，也不愿在环法赛中获得第九名。”
“其中的大多数事情，我并没有从记忆中抹去，只是模糊处理了，”他现在说。“坦白说，那部分内容我没看。我已经快忘了发生过这件事。但我认为在比赛的前半段，我的状态在不断好转，罗德一直对我告诉，‘骑你的比赛，看看你能做到什么程度。’而我认为我当时就是在这么做。”
我认为，不懈地为总成绩而战能够磨练性格。
“有时我担心结果恰恰相反，”他说，“因为你一直处于一种限制损失的状态。当你需要成为一个杀手——就像[理查德]·卡拉帕斯在最后一周那样时——你却在求稳，守着你已有的东西。但如果……”
“车队里的每一个人都必须发挥作用。这是我试图灌输的理念。我们所有人都需要努力工作，不仅是骑手，不仅是我，而是车队里的每一个人。”
体育总监 Steve Cummings 随后去告诉正在做按摩的 Pidcock。Netflix 的摄影机
“在环法赛前的海拔训练营里，我只是感到疲惫。所以基本上那三周算是白费了，”他说。“在训练营度过了轻松的几天后，我进行了一次高强度训练，包含四组发力。第一组表现不错。第二组我有些吃力。第三组非常艰难。到了第四组我就崩溃了，当时我觉得情况不对。我休息了两三天，然后再次尝试。在第二区间（zone two）骑行五分钟后，我的速度就开始下降。”
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还有一些他学会珍惜的东西。“在这支车队中，我不需要通过获胜来让人们开心。尽力而为现在也是可以接受的。以前，只有获胜或表现非常好才是可以接受的。其余的情况，好吧，我们并不在意。对我自己也是如此。以前我真的很挣扎于进入前十，每天为了前十而苦苦支撑，我当时在想，‘好吧，没错，但为什么？意义何在？’但我已经明白获胜并非那么容易。”
“一旦摄影机关闭，我想我说的是，‘但我为他骑行有什么意义？因为如果我们处于轮转中，UAE 队会在前面领骑。所以这没有意义。为什么有人需要为他人骑行？难道我就不能继续尝试看看我能做到什么吗？’是的，我想当时就是这么回事。”
与领先者的时差 赛段 终点位置
Pidcock 在效力于该车队的四年期间赢得了重要赛事。2022 年的 Alpe d’Huez 赛段、2023 年的 Strade Bianche、Amstel Gold 以及 2024 年的奥运金牌。他说，与 Michal Kwiatkowski 和 Luke Rowe 在同一支车队让他受益匪浅。“Kwiato 和 Luke 对我来说是最重要的人。Luke 教我如何担任路队长（road captain），这太棒了，”他说。
“最终，在又过了几天轻松日后，我开始感觉好了一点。但那时我必须决定是去参加瑞士自行车赛还是回家。我需要通过比赛来恢复状态，但考虑到我在高海拔训练时的表现，我知道去瑞士会很危险。如果再遭遇一次挫折，我的情况会更糟糕。我回到了安道拉的家，我很庆幸这么做了，因为我感觉好转——
我提醒他 Geraint Thomas 曾说过的一句话，即他不确定 Pidcock 是否具备在整个大环赛期间每天坚持的心理素质。“是的，肯定如此。这就是我的性格。我不喜欢枯燥的苦练。那不是我最喜欢的骑行部分，所以在大环赛中争夺总冠军（GC）对我来说是一个巨大的挑战。我已经尝试过两次。如果”
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Pidcock，“但我仍然想找出答案。”
Pidcock 之前已经见过南非出生的商人 Ivan Glasenberg，他是 Q36.5 车队的创始人。他们彼此欣赏。“我认为 Ivan 非常诚实，”他说。“在过去的两年里，我看到了这一点。他是一个言出必行的人。如果他说要做某件事，他就会去做。他承诺会尽一切努力让我发挥出最大潜力。到目前为止，他做到了。”
与之形成对比的是，赛场上有 12 名英国选手，其中 6 人成功晋级周末比赛，其余人（包括业余选手 Charlotte Naughton 和 Lauren Crump）未过切分线。
“加入这支车队是我做过的最正确的决定。我的意思是，我知道我是一名优秀的骑手，我知道自己的能力，但获胜并不容易。特别是对于我这样一个体型较小的骑手来说。我并不脆弱，但我感觉只有在一切顺利的情况下我才能获胜，因为体型较大的骑手力量更强。归根结底，我只能尽力而为。Ivan 看到了这一点并对此表示尊重。只要”
Cathy Harris
当卡特里奥娜·马修在 2009 年获得皇家利瑟姆与圣安尼斯球场的女子公开赛冠军，成为首位赢得大满贯赛事的苏格兰人时，赛场上有五名苏格兰选手。而今年，回到同一个球场，一名苏格兰选手也没有。
英格兰高尔夫协会在球员前往美国大学就读前开发人才方面显然做得很好，随后这些大学将成熟的球员交付出来。
米米·罗兹就是受益者之一，她在韦克森林大学度过了大学时光，随后获得了欧洲女子巡回赛（LET）的参赛资格，并在 2025 年的四次出赛中三次夺冠。作为本赛季 LPGA 巡回赛的新秀，她说第三轮的条件极其艰苦。
人数的稳步下降令人担忧，获得公开赛资格的人数在过去几年中不断减少：2021 年有五人，2023 年三人，2024 年两人，而去年仅有阿伯丁的格玛·德莱伯格一人。
在一次令人惊叹的体育成就中，马修在生下第二个女儿索菲仅 11 周后就夺得了她的冠军。
这位 26 岁的选手打出 74 杆（高于标准杆三杆），最终成绩为高于标准杆两杆，她承认在进攻那些隐蔽的旗杆时很困难，而两次双柏忌也对她的局面不利。
皮德考克在他们的第一次
为团队树立了标杆
通过追逐阶段赛胜利，同时保持在
苏格兰最著名的高尔夫球手在 2024 年退役前，曾率领欧洲队在索海姆杯中连续两次夺冠，随后在 2024 年的柯蒂斯杯中带领他们走向成功。
那些希望获得安娜·诺德奎斯特率领的欧洲队索海姆杯外卡名额的边缘球员之一（名单将于周一公布），罗兹表示她没有感到压力。
GC 巡回赛的前十名
这位 56 岁的球员表示，在赛场上看不到任何苏格兰人非常令人失望，并补充道：“这些事情往往是周期性的，所以希望未来能看到一些年轻的职业选手脱颖而出，也许是汉娜·达林或路易丝·邓肯。”
“我显然很想成为其中的一员，”她说，“但她选择的所有人都是值得的。”
他知道我在尽全力，没有压力或负担。”
到目前为止，皮德考克为团队做出了贡献。他在去年武埃尔塔（Vuelta）中获得总成绩第三名，展示了他在大环赛中的潜力；而今年 3 月在米兰-圣雷莫单日经典赛中以微小差距负于波加查，是他职业生涯中最出色的表现之一。他、波加查和马修·范德波尔在接近终点的倒数第二个山坡（Cipressa）突围而出。
洛蒂·沃德和查理·赫尔则没有这样的顾虑，她们分别以低于标准杆三杆和两杆的成绩，依然具有很强的竞争能力。
“我知道现在有更多女孩因为苏格兰高尔夫协会的倡议而进入这项运动，我真心希望这能让更多苏格兰女孩很快地在巡回赛中亮相。”
叶莉米·诺在本赛季已经七次未能过切线，但这位美国选手找回了状态，打出 69 杆（低于标准杆两杆），以低于标准杆七杆的成绩获得单独领先，领先五名球员三杆。
人们对 23 岁的达林寄予厚望，她在 2018 年赢得了英国 16 岁以下业余锦标赛冠军，次年赢得了苏格兰女子公开赛冠军。她在南卡罗来纳大学学习后，于去年转为职业球员，并参加了三届柯蒂斯杯。
“他非常睿智。他树立了良好的榜样并团结了团队。他有胆量做出决定，而现在人们越来越害怕这样做。人们不喜欢做决定，他们只是在问题周围打太极。如果卢克错了，他会举手说，‘我的错’。”
这是一次管理层决定，而非与表现相关。皮德考克和他的队友们感到很震惊。他的女友贝丝带着他们的两只狗，从安道拉的家中驱车 550 多英里赶来，为了在最后一场比赛中陪伴他。
波加查担心在冲刺阶段落败，试图甩掉两人，但最终仅甩掉了范德普尔。随后，他在与皮德科克的一场激烈冲刺中获胜，而皮德科克至今未能看到那次冲刺的录像。“我本该先发力的。阻碍我的是，他的爆发力不像我想象中那么强。所以当他发力时，我跟在了他的后轮上，但随后不得不稍微后退，然后再次发力。这让我付出了代价。”
在第二轮后成为一夜之间领先者的韩国选手柳海兰（Haeran Ryu）希望能够连续赢得三场大奖赛。她起步极快，在前六洞就建立了四杆的领先优势，但在后九洞由于失误频频而崩溃。
困惑不已的皮德科克给奥勒特（Allert）打了电话，但没能获得更多信息。他被取消了选拔，但首席执行官无法告诉他原因。人们认为这一决定是由 Ineos 高层做出的，也许是 Ineos Sport 的首席执行官让-克洛德·布朗（Jean-Claude Blanc），甚至是 Ineos 主席吉姆·拉特克利夫爵士（Sir Jim Ratcliffe）。至于“原因”，有人认为老板们担心皮德科克赢得伦巴第自行车赛（Il Lombardia），从而导致车队必须向他支付巨额奖金。
邓肯（Duncan），26 岁，在 2021 年卡诺斯蒂 AIG 女子公开赛上以业余选手身份抢尽风头后，日子过得相当艰难。当时她在进入第四轮时落后领先者安娜·诺德奎斯特（Anna Nordqvist）和南娜·科斯特兹·马德森（Nanna Koerstz Madsen）两杆，最终并列第十名。
当 Ineos 的这段经历结束时，其过程与其说是悲哀，不如说是疯狂。尽管他的合同还剩两年，但他想离开。车队如此渴望甩掉他，以至于准备为他支付次年的一部分工资，考虑到他的记录，这实在令人惊讶。
在波加查极力想要赢得的一场比赛中，仅以半个车轮之差输给最伟大的骑手，很难被视为失败。但皮德科克就是这么看待的。无论表现如何，输了就是输了。
次年她以职业选手身份获得了可信的第 19 名，但由于个人问题和状态不佳，导致她此后陷入困境。她失去了欧洲女子巡回赛（LET）的全职资格，目前在二级 Access Tour 参加比赛。
在巴黎赢得第二枚奥运金牌的辉煌表现之后，他在接下来的一个月里为 Ineos 参加了英国巡回赛。“我在一次摔车后患上了脑震荡。在那时我就知道自己可能会离开，而且我可以利用脑震荡说‘我的赛季结束了’。相反，我比医生建议的时间更早地回到了训练中，因为我想为意大利的赛季末比赛保持状态。随后我在埃米利亚自行车赛（Giro dell’Emilia）中排在塔德伊之后，并期待着伦巴第自行车赛。”
沃德（Woad）在最后一天落后领先者四杆，她是领先的英格兰选手。
“我们其实不知道为什么，”说道
他对波加查没有敌意。“尽管塔德伊赢得了所有比赛令人恼火，但我对他 utmost 尊重。那天他在 Cipressa 赛段前摔车后又追回来的方式令人印象深刻。”
“那次摔车并不轻微，但他依然击败了我，这对我来说反而更糟糕。”波加查是激励他还是打击他？“我认为他是这项运动的偶像。是的，他在赢球方面毫不留情，这对我们其他人来说很困难，但他在我们的运动中也是一名领导者和榜样。”
这一切与当年的光辉岁月相去甚远，那时马修（Matthew）、珍妮丝·穆迪（Janice Moodie）、麦里·麦凯（Mhairi McKay）、凯瑟琳·伊姆里（Kathryn Imrie）以及已故的戴尔·里德（Dale Reid）经常出现在锦标赛中，并且是索海姆杯（Solheim Cup）车队的骨干。
“我唯一希望的是与车队在良好的关系中结束。然后安德鲁（Andrew [McQuaid]，他的经纪人）打电话说，他们把我从伦巴第赛事的名单中剔除了。”
“他很有个性。他是一个很好的榜样。他对其他骑手以及一般人都表现出尊重。这也反映在这项运动的粉丝多么喜欢他。”
麦考伊德（McQuaid）接到了 Ineos 骑行队首席执行官约翰·奥勒特（John Allert）的电话。当被问及为什么这名骑手被移出车队时，奥勒特解释说这是一个管理-
Pidcock 上周将他的保时捷从两轮换成了四轮
10 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
板球
秋季。因此我认为，对他而言，将注意力集中在那上面以及他的测试赛击球上是最好的。
Root显然不会在这个岗位上待五年，所以 Brook 的机会终会到来，我确实认为他具备成为一名优秀测试赛队长的潜力。球员可以在领导力以及个人层面不断成长和发展。
前英格兰队长
关于任命 Stephen Fleming 为英格兰测试赛教练以及 Joe Root 为队长的决定，我思考得越多，就越觉得合理。
Joe 将从他担任队长的时光以及在 Stokes 麾下效力的四年中学到很多。通常来说，当你担任这个职位四五年后，你会比刚接手时成为一名更好的队长，因为你拥有了更多的经验，并且知道在面对各种局面时如何应对。在我卸任时确实如此。问题在于，这个职位会让你心力交瘁，需要休息。
在 Ben Stokes 和 Brendon McCullum 离职后，我最初的想法应该是让 Harry Brook 担任红球队长，Andy Flower 担任教练。
很明显，Flower 是首选，但一旦他表示不想要这份工作，Fleming 就成了最突出的国际候选人。他在教练界享有尊重且拥有实战声誉。事实上，他与继续留任白球教练的 McCullum 关系非常好，这在我看来使他成为了唯一逻辑合理的选择。
但现在 Root 有机会回归并重新尝试。我记得 2017 年 Joe 接替我时，我对他说过：“这是世界上最好的工作，在接下来的五年里，你会遇到一些无法预料，或者可能根本不知道会是什么的事情。”
Fleming 和 McCullum 关系亲密，而且他们还共同经商。私人友谊和商业友谊是不同的，但由于他们之前已经习惯了这种动态关系，他们不需要时间来建立信任，因此这应该有助于让分设教练制的模式发挥作用。
他遇到的不仅是一件事，他经历了布里斯托尔的 Stokes 事件、新冠疫情以及疫情后的影响。我希望这次他能集中精力成为板球队最好的领导者，而不要过多地担心场外问题。我认为这就是 Fleming、McCullum 和 Rob Key 需要挺身而出并为他减轻压力的地方，因为在只有短期的密集板球赛需要顾及的情况下，他们所有人应该有更多的时间。在这种分设教练的结构下，对未来巡回赛的规划和准备不应有任何借口。
Root, 35, 在四年后回归测试赛队长之职
世界上有许多尊重他的人，所以我认为这不会成为问题。
这种模式以前尝试过但没有成功——比如 Flower 和 Ashley Giles，以及后来的 McCullum 和 Matthew Mott。通常结果是一个队伍比另一个更成功，球员们最终会更喜欢为某一位教练或在某支队伍中效力。但考虑到 McCullum 和 Fleming 之间的关系，我认为有很大机会避免这个问题。
目前的测试赛球队相当缺乏经验，且近期表现挣扎，而他在比赛中长期的经验（无论是作为球员还是在 IPL 担任教练）无疑将有所帮助。
至于队长之职，我的第一倾向本想交给 Brook。他在白球板球中的队长表现给我留下了深刻印象，我认为他完全可以成长到胜任红球赛的角色。但对 Brook 来说，任务将过于繁重，因为明年夏天有灰植之战，随后的秋季还有 50-over 世界杯。
或许 Root 的履历中唯一缺失的是率领英格兰队赢得一场灰烬杯系列赛，因为他在澳大利亚输掉了两次系列赛，并在 2019 年主场打成平手。这是他在明年夏天有机会去弥补的，这对他来说一定是一个巨大的激励。他率领英格兰队赢得测试赛的次数比任何人都要多，但我相信他仍然渴望成为一名赢得灰烬杯的队长。
雇佣朋友之间存在一种平衡，因为有时需要进行艰苦的对话，以避免仅仅成为彼此的“唯唯诺诺者”，但我认为这两个人将进行必要的对话以使其奏效。
很难反对任命 Fleming，因为他在 IPL 担任教练以及在测试赛中担任队长的记录都非常好，他在测试赛中以战术家的著称。我认为像 Jonathan Trott 和 Richard Dawson 这样的人也会有他们的机会，但人们可能会怀疑其中任何一人，而对 Fleming 则很难产生怀疑，因为
我们在椭圆球场对阵新西兰的第二场测试赛中看到，当他接替 Stokes 时，比赛在第二天的前一个半小时内是如何脱离英格兰队掌控的。但我相信，每个人都认为在担任新西兰队长期间战术上非常敏锐的 Fleming，将能够真正提供帮助。
Joe 不应担心场外问题——这正是 Fleming 及其团队发挥作用的地方。
这就是英格兰队真正需要的，在进攻和防守端都拥有更好的比赛内战术，而这正是 Fleming 所能提供的。他与 Root 最终可能会成为一个非常好的组合。
他们曾是密友和商业伙伴——现在新西兰人的关系对于英格兰板球的未来至关重要。
就是他没有执教红球球队的背景，但他曾率领新西兰队参加了 80 场测试赛，并与许多顶尖球员合作过。
McCullum 认为这还不够。“我们从未决定过我们是谁，或者我们渴望成为什么，或者我们希望被如何看待：我们从未发展出一种不变的团队身份，”他写道。“尽管 Flem 是一个卓越的领导者和战术家，但这个团队没有灵魂。”
这是他获得这份工作的原因。Key 希望他能让球员们把基础工作做好，而遗憾的是，他们近期在这一点上表现不佳。对于一个天生深思熟虑、有组织且务实的人来说，这应该是轻而易举的。
Fleming（左）曾是 McCullum 在新西兰队的队长，随后在退休成为其经理后，说服他接任该角色。
在谈到自己的任命时，Fleming 提到了中长期规划，但讽刺的是，这正是他在钦奈失利的领域，原因是特许经营球队在过去三年中未能适应新的“影响球员”（impact player）规则，且无法更新老龄化的球队。
对阵巴基斯坦的三场测试赛系列赛 第一场测试赛 嘿丁利，8月 19-23日 第二场测试赛 勋爵之地，8月 27-31日 第三场测试赛 埃奇巴斯顿，9月 9-13日
对他而言，事情过于流动。Fleming 喜欢他的球队具有适应能力，许多测试赛球队多年来一直努力实现这一点。正如 Fleming 的传记作者 Richard Boock 所述：“目标是获得成功。风格由当天被认为最有效的方法决定。一支球队可能拥有勇猛和擅长击球的名声，但如果情况需要谨慎和小心，那么他们的风格应该相应地进行调整。”
在南非的三场测试赛系列赛
第一场测试赛 约翰内斯堡，12月 17-21日 第二场测试赛 塞图里安，12月 26-30日
他面临的最大挑战可能与 McCullum 面临的相同，即那种在特许经营球队中行之有效的宽松管理风格，较不适用于测试赛环境，因为测试赛不可避免地要求艰苦的努力和专注，不允许存在舒适区。
第三场测试赛 开普敦，1月 3-7日 在澳大利亚的周年纪念测试赛 墨尔本，3月 11-15日
这与英格兰在麦卡勒姆（McCullum）和本·斯托克斯（Ben Stokes）领导下对待测试赛的方式截然相反，后者通过实践彻底推翻了球队必须具备独特身份的观点——在这种情况下，即极具进攻性的“Bazball”。
那些往往能激发出白球赛球员最佳状态的因素，如自由感，在长格式比赛中可能是具有破坏性的。
五场测试赛的灰钦杯（Ashes）系列赛：第一场测试赛 特伦特桥（Trent Bridge），6月18-22日；第二场测试赛 洛德板球场（Lord’s），6月30-7月4日；第三场测试赛 埃奇巴斯顿（Edgbaston），7月8-12日；第四场测试赛 实用工具碗（Utilita Bowl），7月21-25日；第五场测试赛 椭圆球场（The Oval），7月29-8月2日
弗莱明（Fleming）在三年前的一次采访中谈到他在钦奈早期的时光：“我的教练哲学的第一部分是，不要让球员去做那些我讨厌的事情。我觉得我们在没有相关性的事情上浪费了大量时间，因此能够在这个新颖、前卫的赛事中将其付诸实践是非常棒的。在高性能的世界里，教练可能会有增加过多内容的欲望，所以我将其全部精简，仅仅让球员掌控自己的空间。”
弗莱明与其说是将新西兰队变成了赢家，不如说将其变成了难以击败的球队。甚至澳大利亚人都钦佩他的努力，谢恩·沃恩（Shane Warne）表示：“在他接手之前，我们总觉得他们仅仅满足于竞争。在弗莱明的带领下，他们培养出了一种更冷酷的特质，目标定得更高，并且如果不能获胜会真正感到恼火。”即便如此，弗莱明在对阵澳大利亚的 14 场测试赛中从未在获胜方结束比赛。
与布鲁克（Brook）合作并实现了他的意愿。弗莱明显然很满意鲁特（Root）能与他并肩作战。这一切最终如何演变，时间会给出答案。
弗莱明与麦卡勒姆之间的关系可以说目前是英格兰板球运动中最重要的关系。他们必须共同决定如何分配比赛资源，以及在接下来的一年中如何统一人员管理，因为英格兰必须在这一年尝试夺回灰钦杯并赢得 50 赛的世界杯。
弗莱明将成为英格兰历史上最年长的测试赛教练（在开始执教时），此前纪录由 20 世纪 90 年代中期接手的 62 岁雷·伊灵沃思（Ray Illingworth）保持。在 53 岁这个年纪，他远未进入暮年——他比英格兰在该职位的首选人选安迪·弗劳尔（Andy Flower）年轻五岁——但询问他在特许经营赛圈活跃 17 年之后，是否仍有精力应对一项在未来 4 年内需要他全部注意力且涵盖主客场灰钦杯系列赛的工作，这并非不合理。
他还提到，他在南非举行的首个 IPL 赛季中，一个决定性的时刻是他决定如何对待澳大利亚击球手马修·海登（Matthew Hayden），后者当时已接近其漫长且成功职业生涯的尾声。
海登告诉他，在理想的世界里，他希望这个赛季能将冲浪与少量的板球结合起来。弗莱明回忆道：“刚开始他只训练了两三次，然后我们就开始寻找浪潮。在赛事进行到约三分之二的时候，他说：‘这是我人生中最伟大的赛事。’他成为了得分最高的球员。伟大的球员需要被激发并被给予空间。”
他们显然关系密切，正如你对两个在同一国家代表队共同出战 134 次，且其中一人在随后数年担任另一人经理的人所预期那样。他们还共同开展了商业活动，最持久的是担任一家向南亚进口羊肉、海鲜和葡萄酒的公司的大使。但在某种程度上，他们的关联建立在他们都是新西兰板球这个相对较小池塘里的“大鱼”之上。
他是我曾追随过的最好的队长。我们遇到的任何情况，他之前都见过。
有人提出质疑，为什么他没有立即接管，因为他在印度超级联赛（IPL）中代表钦奈超级国王队（Chennai Super Kings）参加的最后一场比赛是在 5月 21日。他可能会在赛事结束前抵达英格兰，但从 8月 19日 到 9月 13日 举行的巴基斯坦测试赛系列赛将由临时教练马库斯·特雷斯科西克（Marcus Trescothick）处理。
这种方法是否适用于英格兰的测试赛球员，甚至弗莱明在 15 年后的今天是否还会支持这种方法，都令人怀疑。
他们的板球生涯并没有在重要方面重叠。他们共同击球 20 次，仅在一次对阵津巴布韦的测试赛中达成了一次百分 partnership。他们的 50 到 100 分的转化率很低：在测试赛 50-plus 得分达到 40 次或更多的球员中，弗莱明排名倒数第三，麦卡勒姆并列第 12（斯托克斯排名第 11）。
此前已有先例。邓肯·弗莱彻在 1999 年夏天被任命为总教练，但他更希望在加入英格兰队前往南非进行冬季巡赛之前，先在格拉摩根完成赛季，弗莱明现在的情况也是如此。事实上，尽管弗莱明仍在新西兰，但他已经开始工作，经常与鲁特、特雷斯科西克以及板球总监罗布·基等人进行电话沟通。然而，他首次在英国本土执教的测试赛要等到明年 5 月对阵孟加拉国的那场单场比赛，而那是在灰盆赛（Ashes）开始前仅三周。值得注意的是，就像麦卡勒姆 2022 年开始执教英格兰队时那样，弗莱明没有执教红球队的直接经验。他的教练生涯完全建立在特许经营板球之上，主要是在钦奈，在那里他几乎只与一位强大且经验丰富的队长 M.S. 多尼合作。
与之相对的是斯旺的评价，他评价弗莱明道：“他是我在旗下效力过的最好的队长。我们遇到的任何情况他之前都见过。他知道如何管理人，但在必要时也可以很强硬。”
在之前的五年里几乎没有取得成功。他带领新西兰队在 2015 年首次进入世界杯决赛，退役时其声誉达到了顶峰。
Simon Wilde
当布伦登·麦卡勒姆在 2012 年被询问是否接任新西兰队队长时，他不确定是否接受。他之前被考虑过，但
W
麦卡勒姆在领导风格上发展出了一种与以往相反的攻击性风格。这包括弗莱明担任队长的九年时间，其中大约一半的时间年轻的麦卡勒姆在队中。在他的自传中，麦卡勒姆指责弗莱明的球队缺乏“灵魂”。
格雷姆·斯旺在 2005 年诺丁汉郡赢得郡冠军赛时曾由弗莱明领导，他说：“他在思维方式上可能比 Baz 更加传统，但这并不是坏事。他们是好朋友。新西兰人的一个特点是对彼此保持高度的尊重，所以我认为这不会成为问题。”
弗莱明通过让新西兰队变得更坚韧而做出的贡献，正是英格兰队现在所需要的。他可能带给新职位的另一个队长特质是培养领导者。“人们担心在长期担任领导角色后如何继续发挥影响力，”他曾说，“嗯，答案就是把其他所有人也变成领导者。这样就会有更多的声音，更多的想法和更多的资源。”
被忽视。他当时正与身体状况问题作斗争，他在测试赛中担任门将的日子实际上已经结束。像往常一样，他向自己的经纪人寻求指导。他的经纪人就是斯蒂芬·弗莱明。建议非常坚定：“你为什么要这么做？不要做。你不需要这个。”
在麦卡勒姆时代之前，弗莱明制定了一项球队誓言，并用一段名为《Better Than Before》的视频来强化，该视频是对以往新西兰球队历史的浓缩回顾。这个想法起源于电影《死亡诗社》中的一个场景。麦卡勒姆将弗莱明誓言中的话描述为新西兰球员心中神圣的准则；它要求尊重过去，并提醒人们保持团队紧密团结的价值观。
怀疑论者会怀疑，英格兰的新安排是在本末倒置。弗莱明被任命为测试赛教练是因为他能与麦卡勒姆合作。乔·鲁特被赋予测试赛队长职务，是为了让哈里·布鲁克能继续领导白球赛队伍。我们知道麦卡勒姆一直渴望继续
当这份工作正式提供时，麦卡勒姆还是决定接受了。事实证明这是正确之举。在经历了一个糟糕的开端后，这份工作让他重新焕发活力。他在测试赛中的击球平均分比他在弗莱明、丹尼尔·维托里或罗斯·泰勒麾下时都要高，而在后者的带领下，球队曾
弗莱明承担了一个巨大且复杂的角色。如果他能帮助英格兰重新夺回并随后在澳大利亚卫住骨灰杯，且在此过程中不破坏白球赛的架构，这将无疑是他漫长而辉煌的职业生涯中取得的最大成就。
弗莱明比麦卡勒姆更注重细节，这是另一个
12 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
板球
在板球罪行的衡量标准中，用手指弹响排在前列
这相当于布置虚假线索，从而导致不公正的定罪
政治上，如果规则被抛弃，我们就会倾向于失去对政治家的普遍信任。
迈克·布雷尔利 (Mike Brearley)
但关于这种弹指的行为，还有一个问题是，任何人怎么可能逃脱惩罚。
前英格兰队长
作案者是如何在恰当的时间完成这种协同诡计的？为了让向裁判的申诉显得合理，弹响必须在球经过外边缘的精确瞬间发出。弹指者要么得频繁地这么做，包括在球被干净击中（或完全失之毫厘）的情况下，否则弹响时间太晚，无法与球拍边缘联系起来。了解裁判的反应将会很有意思。在我看到的视频中，接球手和守门员一起胜利地起身申诉，仿佛出现了明显的边缘击球。当球被正中并飞向掩护点边界时，他们会有多少次开始这么做？当然，时机必须极其精准。
罗德·马什，伟大的澳大利亚守门员，散发着好斗气息。他充满攻击性，不求情，坚韧无比。你知道自己将面临考验，周围围绕着一群掠食者般的滑点接球手，尤其是当那个手里拿着坚硬红球的人是马什的好友兼盟友丹尼斯·利莱时。但这种强硬伴随着一种令我钦佩的伦理坦诚。他成为了我板球之友中最热情的一位。
174 且澳大利亚以 45 跑获胜。)
如果罗德知道球触地了，他绝不会申诉接球。 “事实上，”他补充道，“兰德尔也没击中。但那是裁判的决定，你必须接受。”多年后，他告诉我，如果他知道击球手没有出局，他就不会申诉（除非，他笑着补充道，最近不正确的决定需要平衡）。但与此同时，他认为作为击球手，如果你知道球被蹭到了守门员那里，你没有义务主动离场；你应该接受运气成分，无论这对你是有利还是不利。
在近 50 年前于墨尔本举行的百年测试赛最后一天的关键时刻，马什向前俯冲，接住了格雷格·查佩尔击出的一个球，该球在德里克·兰德尔的球拍和护腿之间挤过。澳大利亚队申诉，兰德尔被判出局。马什在草地上翻滚起身恢复后，叫回了兰德尔。球没有在空中被接住。
这种表面上的不一致其逻辑是什么？我认为是这样的：板球中的申诉是由 fielding side 向裁判提出的。他们就像诉讼中的原告，而击球手则处于被告的位置。作为被告，他有权主张无罪，并等待法院的裁决。而投球手 / 接球手没有权利提出不诚实的指控。
太过于英语化了。他对此的措辞是“拼尽全力且公平竞争”。
其中一段视频来自上赛季的一场比赛，当时索尔特本队（Saltburn）还需要一个三击 wicket，而对手还差四分。那个弹指者就站在傻点（silly point）位置。观众被引导去观察他的左手，而事实上的确有可能在他弹指的一瞬间，球恰好经过外缘。但我无法对此断言。
从墨尔本板球俱乐部（澳大利亚的 MCC）到北约克郡和南达勒姆板球联赛第 2 组。一名板球运动员指控，为索尔特本二队效力的一名接球手（slip fielder）在球经过外缘向守门员飞去时，通过弹指和拇指来骗取“触边出局”（caught-behind）的判罚。指控称，这是一项涉及两名主要共谋者（守门员和接球手）之外更多人的系统性策略。网络上的视频被用来支持这一指控。据称，裁判因此被欺骗，认为声音必然来自球击中球拍边缘。
这一事件发生在英格兰队有机会在一场伟大的测试赛中完成一次极 improbable 的追分时；获胜目标被定为 463 分，兰道尔（Randall）得到了 161 分，另一端的托尼·格雷格（Tony Greig）表现也很好。比分为 324 分，失去四名击球手。（兰道尔最终被击出局，得分为
此外，由于我自己经常在第一接球位，有时甚至在傻点接球，我认为在这些位置上，任何人都会忙于集中精力抓住真正的机会，而没有心理空间（和时间）去进行如此狡诈的计谋。
罗德说他不喜欢“板球精神”这个词——太自命不凡了，
迪vain 企图欺骗裁判的行为被相机捕捉到了
其意图是为了欺骗承担维护正义责任的官员。在我看来，这比在不确定球是否被接住时声称接住球更具预谋性和犬儒主义；这不仅仅是在激烈的比赛瞬间给自己争取疑点利益的问题。
至于“板球精神”，或者“拼尽全力但公平竞争”，这一诡计如果属实，在板球罪行的任何衡量标准中都处于高位。这是一种，或者将会是一种极其严重的作弊行为。
继续类比法律法院，这名接球手所做的事情相当于布置虚假线索以导致不公正的定罪，而且这已成为该球队一种系统性和常规的行为模式。支持此观点提供了统计证据：涉事守门员的出局次数是该组最近竞争对手的两倍，且根据一名网络贡献者的说法，当涉嫌弹指者参赛时，每场比赛的接球数（13 场比赛中 39 次）远高于其缺席时的接球数（七场中五次）。在最近的一份计分单上，他被计入不少于八次接球。（辩方可能会争辩道：“大人，这只是间接证据。”）
当然，诡计是体育运动中的一个元素。你不仅需要技巧、勇气和韧性，还需要精明，甚至一定程度的狡黠。尤其是板球，这是一场在脑海中以及用身体共同进行的游戏。在一段时间内按计划进行投球是一个重要元素。我们通过虚张声势和诡计来欺骗击球手。我们玩弄他的神经。我热爱旋转球的艺术，尤其是腿旋转球（leg spin），其中投球和队长指挥的大部分目的就是让击球手产生不确定性。在精明与比赛技巧之间存在灰色地带，在比赛技巧与近乎猥亵的“心理瓦解”企图之间也存在灰色地带，而这一切与彻头彻尾的作弊之间同样存在界限。
虽然蓄意且持续的球操纵（ball-tampering）在不诚实的意图上与弹指相似，但那种做法是普通球清理和抛光的延伸。从一种到另一种是逐渐下降的。此外，在我那个时代，禁止操纵球的规则在执行时被违反的情况比遵守的情况更多。
在其计算和规划上，打响指（finger-snapping）与点球操纵（spot-fixing）有相似之处。不同之处在于，前者获得的优势是在比赛内部，而后者则是博彩骗局带来的金钱利益。打响指者获得的是球场上的不公平优势；而操纵者获得的则是赌徒利润的分成。两者的共同点在于，板球爱好者对比赛共有诚信的信任受到了质疑。正如在
那么，此类行为在板球之罪的量级中，在不公平或纯粹作弊的量级中，处于什么位置，或者将会处于什么位置？这无疑是（或将会是）一个扭曲司法公正的问题。这是故意的，而且
正如我所说，如果打响指的案例被证实，它将完全属于最后一个类别。
接球手马什（Marsh）表现得极其诚实，例如在叫回兰道尔（Randall）时
“混乱”，并指责 ECB。然而，理事会坚持认为，在去年摆脱与 KP Snacks 的中心化协议后，各球队个人赞助的集体价值将远超之前的安排，并辩称两家伦敦俱乐部拥有的协议本身就足以实现这一点。
在萨里（Surrey）的不情愿下失去了名称，现在被称为 MI 伦敦。这意味着两支伦敦球队的名称中都有“伦敦”，这必然会令潜在的支持者感到困惑。
“在全球范围内一个松散的高质量特许经营集群能创造巨大的协同效应，”他说。“板球世界正在快速发展，你必须抓住机会。多年来，格拉摩根（Glamorgan）一直受到一些大郡俱乐部的轻视，但我认为英格兰板球的顶端存在一个空缺，我们打算填补它。格拉摩根已经发生了转变，我认为人们还没有完全意识到这一点。”
或许并非巧合，观众人数下降最剧烈的部分场馆，正是那些球队颜色发生变化的场馆，例如海丁利（Headingley）和 Utilita Bowl。椭圆球场（Oval）也是如此：无敌者队（Invincibles）曾身穿绿色，而现在的 MI 伦敦则身穿蓝色。ECB 则反驳称，得益于球衣和旗帜的赠送，球迷基础正在建立。
故事的开头部分还有很长一段路要走。”
一些人认为，在新所有者领导下对球队进行品牌重塑的做法很糟糕，浪费了既有的球迷忠诚度。过去三年男子组冠军的椭圆球场无敌者队
然而，格拉摩根主席马克·里德奇-罗伯茨（Mark Rhydderch-Roberts）十分乐观。“我相信在下一轮媒体协议中，百球赛将取代其他赛事，成为继 IPL 之后的顶级短格式锦标赛，”他说。
在运行比赛方面，在某些情况下，教练团队不得不进行合并；而在其他情况下，IPL 的所有者则带来了自己的人马，例如 MI 伦敦的基隆·波拉德（Kieron Pollard）。汤姆·穆迪（Tom Moody）此前曾带领椭圆球场无敌者队实现了“三连冠”。
板球记者
由于在百球赛短促历史上的最大规模拍卖后，许多曾经让某些球队球迷熟悉的球员更换了阵营，这可能造成了进一步的困惑。在参与今年赛事且同样参加了 2025 年赛事的约 20 位英格兰顶尖球员中，约有一半更换了球队。威尔士之火（Welsh Fire）招募了三位英格兰大牌球员：担任队长的菲尔·索尔特（Phil Salt，出生于威尔士）、乔·鲁特（Joe Root）和克里斯·沃克斯（Chris Woakes）。“这是在拍卖会上的刻意努力，旨在真正伏击我们的竞争对手，而且我们做得很好，”里德奇-罗伯茨说。
ECB 的旗舰赛事百球赛在 23 天的联赛阶段过半之际，正面临多方面的紧张局势。随着八家特许经营公司引入新的所有者团体，磨合问题在所难免，但
一些主办场地承认，投资者将推动增加比赛场次。毕竟，他们支付了巨额资金，每赛季却只能举办 4 场主场比赛。但如果要扩张，额外的比赛仍必须被安置在规定的四周窗口期内。
毫无争议的是，板球的质量达到了前所未有的高度。除了更高的薪资上限吸引了优秀球员外，球队现在被允许在首发阵容中派遣 4 名海外球星，而之前是 3 名。这种质量在投球攻击线中尤为显著。例如，曼彻斯特队拥有 5 名国际球员：Gus Atkinson、Sonny Baker、Liam Dawson、Josh Tongue 以及来自阿富汗的腕式旋转球手 Noor Ahmad。
英格兰板球需要警惕，因为他们引入了新的商业模式。
除了广播权，真正具有潜在获利空间的领域其实只有两个——门票与周边商品，以及赞助。而这两者目前都令人失望。
在去年估值 £520million 的股份被出售后，有些人迫切希望能够扭转局面。
尽管观众人数低于 2025, 年的同期水平（那是该赛事在入场人数方面的最佳年份），但英格兰板球委员会 (ECB) 的消息人士对现状仍持乐观态度。他们表示，广播观众人数有所增加，社交媒体的“观看量”上升了约 75 per cent。有趣的是，他们坚称由于所有权的变更以及票务和赞助的去中心化，他们一直将约 4 到 6 per cent 的观众人数下降纳入考量。
赞助情况较为复杂。由于 ECB 希望取消博彩赞助（在抗议之后，这一举措被推迟到明年），加之整体经济环境，各球队在寻找高水平的球衣前胸赞助商方面陷入苦战。
在上次拍卖前提高薪资上限虽然是为了吸引顶尖人才而必要的，但这进一步挤压了潜在利润。
“板球的水平简直太棒了，”为特伦特火箭队 (Trent Rockets) 效力的 Ben Duckett 表示，“无论你看哪里，几乎没有弱点。”
Rhydderch-Roberts 认为，这项新赛事对某些郡级俱乐部的益处高于其他俱乐部。对于格拉摩根队 (Glamorgan) 来说，这次变革是颠覆性的。他们与 Sanjay Govil 成为平等合作伙伴，后者是一位美国科技企业家，也是大联盟板球赛 (Major League Cricket) 中华盛顿自由队的拥有者。这可以说让他们处于比汉普郡队 (Hampshire) 和约克郡队 (Yorkshire) 更有利的位置（后两者完全由新所有者拥有），也优于仅保留了曼彻斯特超级巨星队 (Manchester Super Giants) 特许经营权 30 per cent 的兰开夏队 (Lancashire)。
“主赞助商带来的收入远低于投资备忘录中的预算，”一人说道。另一人则将这种情况称为
有人认为，就观众人数而言，体育观众可能因为足球世界杯等过多竞争项目的吸引而感到疲劳，但实际上，“一百赛” (the Hundred) 拥有一个相当清晰的时间窗口。
最大的挑战在于文化——来自印度和美国的投资者（其中几位是 IPL 特许经营权的拥有者或在其他体育项目中有利益关系）与那些在赛场内外有着长期既定运作方法的郡级俱乐部联手。
票价仍保持竞争力。所有场地必须允许 5 岁以下儿童免费入场，5-16 岁儿童票价为 £5. ECB 还保留了对最低 15 per cent 成年票的控制权以稳定价格，其余部分由各球队控制。新所有者可以根据自己的意愿定价。一些所有者创建了新的黄金和铂金套餐，但 ECB 表示涨幅并未过高。
他暗示，这些俱乐部在很大程度上已经变成了“场地租赁业务”。他补充道：“是我们选择了投资者，而不是相反。我们的叙事更加积极。随着从 ECB 的过渡……”
方法上的分歧在所难免，但许多消息人士（其中大多数由于局势敏感而要求匿名）指责新所有者“对当地市场不敏感”，并补充道：“这是英格兰板球需要关注的一个领域，因为他们允许了不同的文化和不同的商业惯例进入。”他举了曼彻斯特超级巨人队（Manchester Super Giants）标志的例子，该标志采用了勒克瑙超级巨人队（Lucknow Super Giants）徽章上的大象，仅文字有所不同。
票价因场馆、星期几和地区而异，但未来七天的标准成人票价格从周一在卡迪夫的约 £20 到周三在特伦特桥（Trent Bridge）对阵伯明翰凤凰队（Birmingham Phoenix）德比战的 £75 不等。在某些情况下，贵宾票触及 £210。
票务和营销移交给新所有者，是的，确实出现了一些初期问题，但我们经历过
另一个明显的模式是，当锦标赛紧随英格兰对阵澳大利亚或印度的测试赛系列赛之后时，百球赛（Hundred）的观众人数通常更高，这可能会提高板球在业余追随者中的知名度。这可能是导致今年观众人数较 2025, 下降的原因，当时印度进行了五场测试赛的巡回赛。
时间压力在其中也起作用。英格兰和威尔士板球委员会（ECB）下一份将于 2029, 起生效的媒体权利协议，被视为新所有者获取投资财务回报的关键机会，前提是该产品状态良好，并已确立为仅次于印度超级联赛（IPL）的世界第二大联赛。
因为我们与新所有者关系良好，所以这类情况较少。他认可我们负责运营场馆。”
在这个新世界中，究竟谁掌握权力是许多人思考的问题。Rhydderch Roberts 表示，格拉摩根（Glamorgan）和 Govil 在更广泛的特许经营世界中看到了机会；当拉贾斯坦皇家队（Rajasthan Royals）特许经营权近期出售时，他们参与了竞标——并进入了最后四强——并且他们正关注澳大利亚 Big Bash 球队的潜在出售。
威尔士之火队称招募 Root “伏击”了竞争对手
“一些数据表明我们的状态非常好，”一名 ECB 发言人表示。“当然，我们吸取了教训，但考虑到变动幅度，任何人都会预料到这一点。鉴于这将给英格兰板球带来的影响，对于我们将达到的高度，人们感到非常兴奋。”
预计 ECB 最早将在今年年底开始与潜在竞标者进行洽谈，这给该锦标赛展示最佳形象留下的时间不多。一名消息人士敦促 ECB 不要急于达成任何协议，称：“这
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times S1
田径英联邦运动会
Kerr 在高水平比赛中运用计策
——以及速度夺金
这位苏格兰人表示“没有比这更好的了”，他在克服早期的不利位置后，在家乡观众面前夺得一英里赛金牌。
Kerr 以前在爱丁堡田径俱乐部（Edinburgh AC）的队友 Jake Wightman 仅获得令人失望的第六名。同样值得称赞的是威尔士的 Jake Heyward，他在过去四年大部分时间因伤缺阵后获得了第四名。
……以免损害他的光环。观众人数明显低于观看被誉为“奇迹一英里”时的 35,000 人，但比赛开始时被激起了爱国热情。班尼斯特（Bannister）曾说，如果他没有击败兰迪（Landy），他的英里记录将毫无意义。对于 Kerr 来说，这次胜利也凸显了他的记录。
“这意味着一切，”Kerr 说道。他认为这是对他上次在伯明翰英联邦运动会惨淡经历的一种补偿。“在世界室内赛之后以及在伦敦冲击记录之后，这是我本赛季的冠军赛。我在 2022. 没有发挥出我想要的水平。我认为英国观众值得拥有更好的表现，我欠他们一个交代。”
在两周前打破一英里世界纪录后，乔什·克尔（Josh Kerr）通过一次充满格调与信念的奔跑，证明了他在与对手竞争时同样能大放异彩，而这次表现将令人铭记许久。这位苏格兰之星凭借纯粹的速度从混乱的局面中脱身，为其一系列成就增添了一枚英联邦运动会金牌。他正在挑战极限，并延长他的鼎盛时期。“没有比这更好的时刻了，”他说道。
就在打破一英里世界纪录仅 14 天后，克尔在欣喜的家乡观众面前夺得英联邦运动会冠军。
这是 60 年来英联邦运动会首次设置一英里项目。即便成绩较为平庸——3分 54.12秒，但戏剧性十足。28, 岁的克尔一度让自己陷入看似糟糕的境地，但中距离赛跑不仅关乎极速，还关乎在抢位时的激烈竞争。他成功脱困，并在距离终点 250 米时冲到最前方，此时没有人能真正跟上他的节奏。赛前理论认为慢节奏比赛将有利于其他选手，但这仅仅推迟了不可避免的结果。
“在伦敦打破纪录是一次巨大的压力，将我的身体推向了极限。参加一场锦标赛则是很好的‘洗 palate’（心境刷新），是用脑子而不是用身体在比赛。这就是我热爱比赛的方式。”
迈尔斯（Myers）一直紧跟克尔，直到最后决胜阶段。当他们跑向最后一圈铃声时，切鲁约特（Cheruiyot）领先于迈尔斯和克尔。随后，这位苏格兰人把握住时机，赢得了一场令全场狂欢的胜利。通过打破希샴·埃尔·格鲁杰（Hicham El Guerrouj）保持数十年的纪录，克尔已将自己与竞争对手及历史区分开来。现在，在两年前赢得世界室内金牌的城市，在儿时创下个人铅球最佳成绩的体育场里，他再次成为了冠军。
这是一次彻底的现代胜利，但其中蕴含着怀旧情怀。回溯到 1954 年，在打破一英里世界纪录后，罗杰·班尼斯特爵士（Sir Roger Bannister）与澳大利亚的约翰·兰迪（John Landy）在温哥华的英属帝国和英联邦运动会上展开对决。那是两个在该夏天都突破了四分钟一英里大关的男人之间的一场巨头之战。快进到今天，克尔在格拉斯哥参赛，他是自班尼斯特以来第 14 位持有该纪录的人，而他面对的是一位同样渴望胜利的澳大利亚对手——
早在 16 岁时，他就跑出了 16 岁组史上最快的一英里成绩。他的时刻终将到来。
教练怀特曼（Wightman）虽然不再担任职务，但他重新出现在斯科特斯顿体育场（Scotstoun Stadium）的广播系统中。
至于克尔和怀特曼，这是一个长期的故事。2022 年，怀特曼在 1,500m 世界冠军赛中超越了来自挪威的真人秀明星转变为现象级选手的雅各布·英格布里格森（Jakob Ingebrigtsen）。那是一次充满情感的表演，因为他的父亲杰夫（Geoff）当时在俄勒冈州担任播报员。杰夫现在不再担任此职。
随后在 2023, 年，受伤的怀特曼在电视转播台上观看，而克尔则通过完美的复制接替他成为世界冠军。去年，两人双双进入 1,500m 世界锦标赛决赛，克尔在比赛中肌肉撕裂，在痛苦中蹒跚回到终点，而怀特曼则完成了他自己的比赛。
澳大利亚神童卡梅伦·迈尔斯（Cameron Myers）获得第二名，落后 1.14 秒，这听起来比实际看起来要少。四次 1,500m 钻石联赛冠军蒂莫西·切鲁约特（Timothy Cheruiyot）获得铜牌。
这位 2023 年 1,500m 世界冠军在最后阶段付出了艰苦的努力。本周早些时候，怀特曼大胆预测迈尔斯将成为史上最佳，但克尔对此或许有不同的看法。
当运动员名单公布时，他戴着遮光罩和标志性的墨镜自信地走上跑道。格拉斯哥的这场焦点战在迈尔斯和克尔位于内道的情况下开始。怀特曼和克尔随后紧跟在领先者之后。配速较慢，这正是怀特曼希望的，因为他拥有强大的后程冲刺能力。气氛十分紧张。
“当你跑得那么慢时，你的任务就是不要浪费能量，我在那里做到了。我知道机会会出现。杰克（怀特曼）在外道，他是一个非常出色的冲刺者，但在最后 200 米，我有足够的能量拉开与他的距离。”
1.
这无疑是田径项目中最亮眼的比赛，也是一场高水平的较量。迈尔斯仅 20 岁，是这项毫无温情可言的运动中最新出现的天才。三年
里克·布罗德本特 然而，
亨特·贝尔登上这些领奖台的道路较为曲折。她曾是一名天赋出众的青少年选手，但在 23 岁时选择放弃，进入一家网络安全公司工作，直到在封锁期间通过公园跑（parkruns）重新爱上这项运动。她一直在跑步，依然拥有天赋且状态良好，但直到 2024 年在格拉斯哥世界室内锦标赛中获得第四名后，她才意识到自己具备竞争实力。正如她在周五获胜后所说：“这让我知道我很优秀，但如果我真的想实现突破并成为世界最佳，我必须改变生活方式。”这就是为什么她决定辞去技术销售工作。那一年，她赢得了 1, 500m 的欧洲赛银牌和那枚奥运铜牌。2025, 她增加了一枚世界室内赛铜牌，并在东京世界锦标赛的 800m 比赛中险胜霍金森获得银牌，尽管当时她更年轻的队友
正从伤病中恢复。今年，她在世界室内锦标赛和英联邦运动会上赢得了两项国际冠军。
拥有如此近的竞争对手实属罕见，而米多斯对 24 岁的霍金森
处理此事的方式赞赏有加，当时教练们引导亨特·贝尔转向她的主项。“她可能
会对此感到不满，我们作为教练也会有问题，因为我们基本上是为她制造了一个竞争对手，”曾获得世界和欧洲奖牌的奥运 800m 跑者米多斯说道。“基莉不会希望我们为她扫清障碍。她
会对我们失去所有尊重，并会说：‘这对乔治亚不公平。’”米多斯在谈到双项参赛时表示：“如果乔治亚是在现在或一年前加入 M11 [训练组]，也许基莉不会对这个想法如此开放。但当她加入时，她甚至还不是一名国际运动员。我对她们两人印象都非常深刻。她们真心尊重彼此。”
这位现年 32 岁的英联邦运动会 800m 新冠军正考虑尝试奥运中距离双项。如果她这样做，她将成为其朋友兼训练伙伴、现任 800m 冠军基莉·霍金森的头号竞争对手。特雷弗·佩因特和珍妮·米多斯这对夫妇负责管理这两位在两年内共赢得十枚奥运、世界和欧洲奖牌的选手。
“我听基莉说，当乔治亚退役时她会非常难过，因为她失去了一个世界顶级的训练伙伴。”
在 800m 历史总成绩单上，霍金森排名第六，亨特·贝尔排名第十。在 1,500m 成绩单上，亨特·贝尔保持着英国纪录。
亨特·贝尔在周五的格拉斯哥比赛中赢得了 800m 冠军
当乔治亚·亨特·贝尔在 2024, 年巴黎奥运会赢得 1,500m 铜牌时，凯莉·霍姆斯勋爵给了她一些建议。“乔治亚，你明白这其中的对称性，对吧？”她说。“我 30 岁时获得了一枚铜牌，然后我在 34. 岁时实现了双金。那就是你在洛杉矶时的年龄。”
ISABEL INFANTES / REUTERS
鉴于 1,000m 定时赛是在英联邦运动会上首次亮相，我们注定会产生一名新冠军。然而，最终的赢家注定只有一个人，因为艾玛·菲纽肯在格拉斯哥的金色之周中凭借第三次精彩胜利继续前行（马克·帕尔默撰文）。
在上周末克罗克公园球场，被低估的梅奥队结束了其 75 年的全爱尔兰诅咒，而麦克风后的男人们在全世界各个角落变得与球员一样出名。
STEPHEN MCCARTHY / SPORTSFILE
在连续两天赢得团体赛和个人短跑冠军后，这位来自卡马森的 23 岁选手以 1 分 05. 285 秒的成绩滑入终点，领先澳大利亚的克劳迪亚·马克斯 0. 322 秒，完成了完美的帽子戏法。
呜呜呜呜呜！！！！
饥荒结束了！饥荒结束了！诅咒Damn了！按下核按钮吧！梅奥赢得了全爱尔兰冠军！它回家了！它回家了！
噢，我的天啊！太棒了！太棒了！太棒了！多么精彩的一场比赛！梅奥做到了！
如果说获胜是水到渠成，那么她的质量和稳定性绝非平庸之辈。无论距离远近或对手强弱，Finucane始终保持着卓越的水平。
噢，马丁，75年了，上帝啊，你怎么能概括这一切？噢，我的天。
在为上周日的全爱尔兰盖尔式足球决赛做准备时，斯蒂芬·格雷利斯（Stephen Grealis）的解说笔记并不需要太冗长。在为中西部广播电台（Midwest Radio）解说五年俱乐部比赛和梅奥队比赛后，他能识别每位球员的每一个细微动作和 nuance。但他确实写下了一个词：“饥荒”——这是指在都柏林克罗克公园（Croke Park）对阵凯里队（Kerry）的决赛前，梅奥队正力求结束长达75年的等待。“当地一名男子告诉我一个关于1997年决赛的故事，”他说，“最后，一位凯里队的父亲转向他的儿子说，‘饥荒结束了。’ 那是11年。这件事深深地触动了我，引起了我的共鸣。”
参赛者包括 Ellesse Andrews，Finucane（17名骑手中的第15位）不得不盯着她看，防止她在最后时刻反超。Andrews 最终获得第三名，而 Lauren Bell 在最后一圈体力不支前曾觊觎这一位置。
Finucane 保持了配速、力量和高标准，理应在克里斯·霍伊爵士自行车馆（Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome）赢得赞誉。她是第一位在单届赛事中赢得三枚金牌的威尔士女性，并有可能在今天的竞轮赛中完成全胜扫荡。
梅奥上周末的重大胜利吸引了全世界的关注。
是在周日晚上梅奥队的庆祝宴会上，格雷利斯在穿插采访的环节中，意识到发生了什么。
长姐抚养家庭。他成为了一名电工，在多尼戈尔（Donegal）的一个水电工程中工作。Carney 为多尼戈尔队效力并赢得了阿尔斯特奖牌，但梅奥流淌在他们的血液中。他为梅奥赢得了四枚康诺特奖牌，并在1989年全爱尔兰决赛中坐过替补席，之后又开始了另一段作为电视和广播分析师记录梅奥痛苦经历的生活。
“我刷了刷[手机]，看到我们的剪辑已经有几十万次浏览了，”他说，“当澳大利亚的朋友联系我，说‘你在我们的新闻里出现了’，那种感觉就像，‘噢，天呐’。能幸运地在现场捕捉到这一切，而且还传遍了全球，这简直太疯狂了。”
他有理由这么做吗？格雷利斯记得梅奥队经理安迪·莫兰（Andy Moran）曾与他一起解说一场乏味的县锦标赛四分之一决赛，那是巴利纳（Ballina）与卡斯尔巴（Castlebar）之间的比赛。与莫兰共处的的一小时让格雷利斯感到兴奋不已。
周日前，他接到了帕特里夏·布朗（Patricia Browne）的电话，她是吉米（Jimmy）的妻子，吉米在1989年决赛中担任 Carney 和梅奥队的队长。她问他能否在解说中提到吉米？他在开头就提到了，并且在整个过程中一直在谈论他。
在上周的一次广播采访中，Carney 第一次听到这段解说。“我觉得很尴尬。然后我想，‘我为什么要尴尬？你所做的一切正是对当时展开的疯狂场面的反映’，”他说。
“我从未如此享受过一段解说。他带来的能量告诉我，‘好吧，这个男人有两下子’。一旦他成为经理，你可以看出他有些与众不同。”
Finucane 赢得了她本周的第三枚金牌。
“[获胜]太美妙了。我从未意识到它会如此甜蜜且具有宣泄感，”他补充道，“那是精神上的重生。是你一生一直在寻找的东西。与其说是喜悦，不如说是解脱。我曾为了梅奥癌症支持组织而从克罗克公园速降；[上周日]你是在没有安全绳的情况下速降。你直接全速冲下来。就让它尽情释放吧，宝贝。”
比赛前的那个周五，马丁·卡尼（Martin Carney）——曾是格雷利斯的共同解说员的前足球运动员——与帕迪·伯克（Paddy Burke）、威利·乔·帕登（Willie Joe Padden）和约翰·莫根（John Maughan）一起喝咖啡，后两位是梅奥队的两名传奇战友，他们试图寻找一些心理支撑。“说‘谨慎乐观’都算说得太过了，”他说。
卡尼脸上的每一种情绪都通过他的语言传递了出来。他的叔叔杰基（Jackie）曾参加过梅奥（Mayo）在 1936 年首次夺得全爱尔兰冠军的球队，并指导过 1950 和 1951 年的球队。作为 13 个孩子中的一员，卡尼的父亲在青少年时期被从梅奥送往利默里克，以帮助他
在获得亚军（输给葡萄牙的艾萨克·纳德）后恢复状态。今年夏天，克尔（Kerr）的状态已恢复到巅峰。
这位深受大众喜爱的 32 岁运动员跳远 6.93 米获得金牌，她曾在 2014 年格拉斯哥举办的上届运动会上获得过银牌。
这为一项田径计划画上了圆满的句号，尽管整体水平参差不齐，但其中不乏令人难忘的时刻。另一个时刻出现在早些时候，来自斯托克（Stoke）的贾兹明·索耶斯（Jazmin Sawyers）赢得了她的首个国际户外跳远冠军。
索耶斯曾参加过电视歌唱比赛《好声音》，这次获奖是对她韧性的回报。她的座右铭是“一点点幻想可以走很远”。这一次，她只是感到非常高兴。
一个被击败折磨了 75 年的社区所迸发出的自豪感与情感，冲破了传统上对一项小型本土运动难以逾越的障碍。
“我当时处于一种极不稳定的状态，”格里利斯（Grealis）补充道。“这是非常有趣的一年。我在五月份接手了 [中西部] 的体育编辑工作。四月份我被诊断出患有结肠炎。经过药物治疗，我的胃状况一直很好，但天呐，在最后 20 分钟里，我的精神完全崩溃了。”
梅奥在全爱尔兰高级足球决赛中的记录
1916 输给韦克斯福德 (Wexford) 1921 输给都柏林 (Dublin) 1932 输给凯里 (Kerry) 1936 胜过拉伊斯 (Laois) 1948 输给卡文 (Cavan)
自此，梅洛的故事传遍全球——关于一名福克斯福德（Foxford）的牧师在庆祝球员们不顾礼仪闯入葬礼后，给 1951 年梅奥冠军队施加的诅咒，开启了一个任何人都能产生共鸣的普世故事。
持有者。霍金森（Hodgkinson）自从 17 岁起就没跑过 1,500 米。亨特·贝尔（Hunter Bell）在 1,500 米项目中面临的问题是，该项目一直被公认为该运动史上最伟大的运动员所主导。费斯·基普耶贡（Faith Kipyegon）在 2016, 2021 和 2024 年赢得了奥运金牌，并且是五次世界冠军。霍金森的存在以及瑞士选手奥德丽·韦罗（Audrey Werro）的崛起意味着 800 米同样是一项艰巨的任务，而且由于不知道哪个才是她的最佳项目，情况变得更加复杂。
她自己以及在 1,500 米中夺金的机会并不大。”
“全场比赛结束后的五分钟里，我唯一能说出口的话就是‘我的天呐’。我不知道自己是怎么撑住的。一位前同事发短信问：‘你怎么能这么淡定？’ 居然管这叫淡定？！”他在 27 岁生日时度过了最后时光。
周四晚上，亨特·贝尔再次强调了她的多项任务雄心，但她将在伯明翰的欧洲锦标赛上仅参加 1,500 米项目。“我一直在尝试看是否能在欧洲锦标赛上双项出击，但这给身体带来的压力太大了，”她说。“但我确实期待有一天能完成双项。”正如霍姆斯（Holmes）所预测，这可能会在 2028, 年的洛杉矶奥运会上实现。由于 1,500 米比赛在 800 米决赛次日开始，这会很艰难，但米多斯（Meadows）认为这种挑战更多是心理上的而非身体上的。“凯利（Kelly）在 2004. 年也是一样。当她第二天早上必须参赛时，她就像在说，‘我做不到’。” 当然，霍姆斯赢得了 800 米和 1,500 米两项冠军；此后再也没有运动员在奥运会中距离双项中夺冠。
这段评论进入了澳大利亚的快讯和报纸。迈克·阿瑟顿（Mike Atherton）在《泰晤士报》的板球专栏中赞扬了他们的工作。这个故事登上了《纽约时报》，并从《旁观者》和《每日电信》传播到了《卫报》。克里斯蒂安·阿曼普尔（Christiane Amanpour）在 CNN 上进行了讨论。致敬者从乔·拜登（Joe Biden）和加拿大总理马克·卡尼（Mark Carney）一直延伸到 Oasis 乐队的加拉格尔兄弟。超过 23 million 人观看并关注了发布在《星期日比赛》（The Sunday Game）X 账号上的最后几分钟片段，而散布在不同账号上的中西部评论收听人数也飙升至数百万次。
周三在贝尔穆莱特（Belmullet），向庞大的人群介绍球队。卡尼在周一参加了欢迎仪式。
“在贝尔穆莱特简直疯了，”格雷利斯（Grealis）说。“人们拥抱我，和我握手。我说，‘我没做什么，我也没上场。’ 简直像一场旋风。”
“去年，在东京（世界锦标赛）之前，感觉乔治亚甚至无法正常工作，因为她一直在纠结，‘是参加 800 米还是 1,500 米，或者两个都参加？’”米多斯（Meadows）说。“这最终完全取决于投票。特雷弗想让她两个都参加，而我和乔治亚以及她的丈夫则认为，‘不，让我们专注于一项。’ 于是我们决定了 800 米，因为，”
“有个孩子让我在一件球衣上签名。接着周围就出现了 20 个孩子。我不知道该怎么处理。幸好，乔丹·弗林 [梅奥球员] 绕过转角走过来，他们就直接冲向他了。我就这样逃脱了。我当时心想，‘刚才发生了什么？’ ”
2017 负于都柏林
2020 负于都柏林
2021 负于泰龙 (Tyrone) 2026 胜于凯里
当时，基莉 (Keely) 还不太
确实如此。全部如此。
16 August 2, 2026 星期日时报
LE PLAISIR DU MOUVEMENT; WILLIAM WEST / AFP / GETTY
女孩们在金汉山（Kingham Hill）训练营训练，在这里球员们不会执行任何一次
如果那个法国男孩或女孩被介绍到英格兰，他们最终会像恐龙一样打球
死球进攻 (set piece)
那些只会重复被告知要如何教练的内容的人周围存在着“无能”。我听说过关于学院球员因为传球（offloading）而被责备的故事，即便这次传球是成功的。
“这很可笑，因为这完全是关于原地站立并把球传给静止的人，然后告诉他们冲向拦截盾，”迪克森 (Dixon) 在谈到英格兰橄榄球联盟 (RFU) 的训练时说。“你这样做一段时间之后就会开始思考：‘我相当确定这场比赛不仅仅只有这些。’ 但如果我们不教人们，他们怎么会知道？”
对于认为某个国家在 DNA 中就拥有某种橄榄球风格的观点，迪克森表示反对。“他们是被教会如何正确地打球，”他说。“如果那个法国小男孩或小女孩被带离法国，被介绍到欣克利 (Hinckley) 或斯坦利·罗迪利安 (Stanley Rodillians) 或任何其他地方，他们最终会像英格兰的恐龙一样打球。”
图卢兹学院的一名教练萨姆·拉孔贝 (Sam Lacombe) 参与了 LPM。拉孔贝上周没有出席，但理查德·迪克森出席了。迪克森曾是英国的一名教师，现在住在图卢兹并在那里指导青少年。他回忆起第一次看到 LPM 实际操作时的情景，说道：“我不知道自己看到了什么，但我知道这就是橄榄球应该被演绎的方式。”
我在周一看到的任何东西似乎都没有过于革命性。每一个橄榄球运动员都知道，你必须向后传球才能向前移动，并且有 14 名队友为你提供帮助。然而，它可以被简化为一种心态和一种方法：持球训练，以比赛实战为导向；允许掉球，但最重要的是鼓励传球和移动；促进个人智能和勇气的发展。
牛津郡夏令营的孩子们发现了“移动的乐趣”，这一理念否定了传统的英格兰橄榄球联盟 (RFU) 方式。
这种文化定义了图卢兹 40 年来，并灌输给青少年以及像英格兰后排球员杰克·威利斯 (Jack Willis) 这样的新晋成年队员。在那里，你打的是“图卢兹式”的球，而不是“来自任何其他地方式”的球。这种态度也影响了波尔多，这支通过合并而来的新贵球队在过去两个赛季中一直是欧洲冠军。波尔多主席洛朗·马蒂 (Laurent Marti) 曾在图卢兹担任青少年球员。波尔多主教练亚尼克·布鲁 (Yannick Bru) 的大部分职业生涯都在那里度过。
Dixon 在周一早晨带领 12 岁以下组的男孩们进行了第一次训练。一个半小时的时间里，一切都围绕着将比赛简化为基本原则：向前推进；提供近距离支持；保持站立；朝着同一方向进攻，直到触边线为止。在这次训练营期间，球员们不会进行任何争球（ruck）或执行任何一套既定战术（set piece）。他们将持球进攻，并在对方回合时进行防守。
此外，还有安全性和包容性元素。教练们认为，专注于规避而非身体接触，将有助于将橄榄球宣传为一项更安全的运动。来自 Millfield 和 Marlborough College 的代表预计将现场观看 LPM 的运作，而训练营的场地（在校住宿一周者为 £475，否则为 £300）是一所独立学校，但其外展活动非常强。组织者之一 Ben Hutchings 是 Roebucks 的学院总监，
该方法论根植于课堂。Villepreux 向大学教授兼橄榄球理论家 René Deleplace 学习。向前推进并支持持球者是首要任务，始终在接触之前或接触期间寻找传球机会（不使用“offload”一词），只有在遇到障碍时才将球传向两侧。
Elgan Alderman
英国观众在观看图卢兹或波尔多贝格莱（Bordeaux Bègles）最新的神级表演时，有多少次会咒骂自己的球队不能像那样？也许文化更新就在眼前。也许盎格鲁-撒克逊人——正如法国人所称的——
一群小众的追随者（在我访问当天，他们开玩笑地使用了“传教”和“崇拜”等词）正试图在英国传播这些原则，模仿在利摩日附近的 Lubersac 设立的法国训练营。英国分会的灵感缪斯是 Lynn Evans，这位威尔士人是 Villepreux 的朋友，曾在 1981 年至 1996 年期间执教牛津大学。现年八十多岁的他参与了训练营的演示。
一些短语解释了重点应该放在哪里。“我如何帮助我的队友？……你应该时刻处于运动之中，球也应该是这样……我们是演员，而不是观众。”早期的许多传球很生硬。值得注意的是，一名住在法国、曾参加过训练营的英国男孩已经掌握了这些原则，他能像最好的法国前锋组那样，持续为持球者提供紧密的支撑线。大多数教练来到这里的潜在原因是对英国传统方法的反感，以及对那些虽然能产生动作但无法转化为比赛实战的钻研训练的关注。我听到了“无意识的
Villepreux 将其比作手风琴，进攻动作镜像了手风琴通过压缩和扩张来创造空间和时间的方式。他的口头禅包括：“在更容易进攻的地方比赛……去帮他……球必须呼吸。”
该项目旨在培养伦敦东南部那些没有就读橄榄球学校的球员。
以及凯尔特人，可以拥抱运动的快感。
LPM 的追随者们意识到他们的局限性，并知道为期五天训练营的影响力，在球员返回学校和俱乐部后可能难以持久。
但话又说回来，他们也许会记得。
Dixon 询问 12 岁以下组的孩子们是否喜欢第一次训练。传来一阵腼腆的赞同低语声。
这句话是 Le Plaisir du Mouvement (LPM) UK 的基石，该组织刚刚在 Kingham Hill 学校举办了第五届年度夏令营。超过 20 名教练（包括一名与春羚女队相关的教练）以及约 120 名 12 岁以下至 18 岁以下男女儿童在奇平诺顿齐聚，学习 Pierre Villepreux 的原则，他在 30 多年前于法国创立了 LPM。
Villepreux 曾是法国队的进攻全背，也是该项运动中最具影响力的教练之一。1985 年，他与 Jean-Claude Skrela 共同结束了图卢兹对全国冠军 38 年的等待，开启了该俱乐部的黄金时代。今年 6 月，他们连续第四个赛季赢得了 Top 14 冠军，追平了他们在 90 年代后期的纪录。
当被追问理由时，他们给出的答案是：“有趣。激烈。在打
Villepreux 的精神，没错，现在正被 Evans（左）所信奉
橄榄球。”
由 Tupaea 创造的空档。Arundell 虽然只有 23 岁，但有成为被浪费的天赋的危险。
一次脚踝受伤，但在他缺阵期间，Matthieu Jalibert 的表现非常精彩，尽管他主要在全背位（full back）上场。Fin Smith 缺乏这些 10 号位的速度和风采，因此英格兰应该给 Marcus Smith 最后一次机会，或者强迫 Fin 在获益线（gainline）上打得更加平展。
视野，但英格兰似乎不信任他的防守。
回到 7 月的球队。在对外中锋位置上，我选择了低调的基维人 Quinn
在全背位上，春羚羊队的 Damian Willemse 仅凭对阵英格兰时的出色表现，就足以飞跃进入这支假设的球队。无论在空中还是地面都表现卓越，这位 28 岁的球员正成长为终极全背位。
Tupaea。这位 27 岁的球员跑位完美，传球时机的掌控近乎极致。他是一位诗人般的球员。
我的世界 XV 阵容中没有英格兰人，只有一名在替补席上，这在面对重大 2027 赛事前是否值得担忧
Angus Bell，25 岁，近期效力于阿尔斯特队，现已回到澳大利亚，他为袋鼠队提供了前冲球。在“接球推进”（pick-and-drives）的时代，无球锋（props）必须具备在近距离得分的掠食性技巧。南非的 Thomas du Toit 在巴斯队效力期间是一名高产的得分手，他仅出场了 50 分钟左右，但这足以在对阵英格兰时破门。31 岁的 Du Toit 是春羚羊队在 3 米距离外的关键武器。
遗憾的是，Borthwick 无法及时为澳大利亚变出一个 Jordie Barrett。英格兰需要在内中锋位置上配备一名“第二个 10 号”，以便在后线进一步创造机会。Max Ojomoh 是拥有
Barnes 的世界 XV：D Willemse (SA); W Jordan (NZ), Q Tupaea (NZ), J Barrett (NZ), C Kolbe (SA); M Jalibert (Fr), C Roigard (NZ); A Bell (Aus), M Marx (SA), T du Toit (SA), J Canham (Aus), T Vaai (NZ), P-S Du Toit (SA), P de Villiers (SA), J Wiese (SA)。替补：E de Groot (NZ), M Lamothe (Fr), T Lomax (NZ), E Meafou (Fr), H Pollock (Eng), B White (Scot), T Menoncello (It), D McKenzie (NZ)。
右翼唯一可能的选择，而南非的 Cheslin Kolbe 在左翼。想象一下 Henry Arundell 如果被指导去跑那些迟到的切入线进入
同样引人入胜的是，2025 年世界最佳球员 Malcolm Marx 在对阵英格兰的比赛中全场 80 分钟在场。所谓的“炸弹小队”（Bomb Squad）就这样了。当其他国家盲目追随 Rassie Erasmus 开辟的道路时，春羚羊队正在调整其策略。
来自
在我看来，英格兰以他们开始这个月时的状态结束了这个月。作为一支球队，他们处于什么水平？不算差，也不算好，处于两者之间？Steve Borthwick 率领的球队在国家冠军赛最后一场比赛中艰难击败的阿根廷队，正努力将他们的海外球员基底重新整合，而英格兰对阵美洲狮队的记录良好，后者的 XV 阵容表现远不令人印象深刻。英格兰开局时展现出令人鼓舞的强度，但质量随后下降，最后一次进攻的戏剧性掩盖了一场平淡的比赛。谁能确定世界最强球队春羚羊队在面对英格兰时是否真的承受了压力？毫无疑问，在约翰内斯堡的 20 分钟里，英格兰的表现相当不错。然后是斐济。在埃弗顿的 Hill Dickinson 体育场，唯一的问题是这些太平洋岛民有多糟糕。答案是，非常糟糕。
Times Holidays 独家套餐
本月之队旨在分析不仅仅是单纯的竞技状态，而在于这些入选名单可能代表的意义。澳大利亚队虽然在苦苦挣扎，但无疑在寻找一种新的打法。乔什·坎纳姆（Josh Canham）是一个稳健的选择，具备贡献达阵的能力（他在对阵意大利的比赛中攻入三个），但更引人注目的是他拥有一双极其出色的双手，使他能够将球从争球区域传向开阔地带，摆脱令人窒息的拥挤局面。在 25 岁的坎纳姆之外，我选择了全黑队的图普·瓦伊（Tupou Vaai），26 岁，他是新一代第二排 / 后排球员中的另一位代表。
后排全部由南非球员占据。皮特-斯蒂芬·杜托伊（Pieter-Steph du Toit）出色地领导了球队，这使得新成员保罗·德·维利耶斯（Paul de Villiers）能够顺利地作为西亚·科利西（Siya Kolisi）的接替者出任侧翼。在三轮橄榄球赛中，没有比杜托伊更出色的球员了。在 No 8 位上，我选择了贾斯珀·维斯（Jasper Wiese），而非新西兰的阿迪·萨维亚（Ardie Savea）。这位前莱斯特城球员已从一名出色的“老虎”转型为世界级的 No 8。
不出所料，头条新闻再次被亨利·波洛克（Henry Pollock，见插图）占据。无论人们是喜爱还是厌恶他，这位 21 岁的球员在被换上场后的 35 分钟内完成了帽子戏法，将速度、比赛意识和卓越的脱颖而出能力结合在一起。
2027年3月5日
亲临普林西帕利体育场（Principality Stadium）观看威尔士对阵英格兰的比赛。这是一场吉尼斯男子六国赛（Guinness Men’s Six Nations）赛事，历史、宿敌之争以及决定胜负的压力在此交汇。
价格包含：
W. H. 奥登（WH Auden）曾写道：“年轻人如果鲁莽或喧闹是可以被原谅的，但这并不意味着鲁莽和喧闹是美德。”这完美地总结了波洛克以及我们对他青春期过度表现的反应。现在是他成熟的时候了，向着潜在的伟大迈进。
在前锋群之后，全黑队的 No 9 卡姆·罗伊加德（Cam Roigard）是世界上最顶尖的球员之一；这位 25 岁的球员必须如此出色才能压过法国人马克西姆·卢库（Maxime Lucu）。罗伊加德和卢库在技术上都是卓越的击球者和灵巧的跑者。
这一独家套餐包括官方比赛门票以及两场由传奇评论员斯图尔特·巴恩斯、《泰晤士报》的查理·摩根和一名名人嘉宾主讲的活动，为您带来超越开球瞬间的体验。凭借市中心优质的四星级酒店，您也将靠近体育场、餐厅和赛后讨论区。哨响前的深度洞察，哨响后的热烈氛围——从开始到结束的每一个细节都已为您处理妥当。
在那段令人困惑的月份里，那个帽子戏法显得格外突出，而英格兰的球迷、评论员甚至球队管理层可能都难以对其进行评估。我们认为英格兰距离成为世界杯竞争者还有很长一段路要走；他们缺乏清晰的身份认同。但波洛克在下半场的表现是不寻常的，而在平庸的三周时间里，这使他成为了我 7 月份国家锦标赛之队中英格兰队的唯一候选人。
英格兰目前的人才储备中没有能够挑战其中任何一人的球员，这就要求在博斯威克（Borthwick）未来的阵容中必须包含阿奇·麦克帕兰（Archie McParland）。尽管这位 21 岁的球员在北安普顿圣徒队（Northampton Saints）中是亚历克斯·米切尔（Alex Mitchell）之后的第二选择，但他却是英格兰在半截卫位置上的最大希望。
由斯图尔特·巴恩斯主持
在飞翼位置上，我们期待
自从退役不再担任飞翼后，斯图尔特成为了《泰晤士报》的专栏作家和比赛分析师，并且是该国最犀利的橄榄球评论员之一。
南非的萨沙·费恩伯格-姆贡戈祖卢（Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu）的回归，他因为 9 缺失了第一轮赛程
Pollock 在第一批赛事的每场比赛中都由替补出场，在我的球队中他依然处于替补位置。在少数其他英格兰竞争者中，包括布里斯托尔熊队的埃利斯·根格（Ellis Genge）。他在埃利斯公园球场（Ellis Park）凭借敏捷的快速罚球触球并得分，展现了他作为一名动态持球者的身体素质，但这位 31 岁的左翼锋在接球争夺（scrum）中难以稳住重心——他必须有更多的提升。也许当芬·巴克斯特（Fin Baxter）再次恢复健康时，我们才能看到根格的最佳状态。
竞争对手们在不加思考地追随 Erasmus 开辟的道路，但现在南非正在转变他们的策略。
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18 August 2, 2026 《星期日时报》
态度、创新与一位无名英雄——法拉利复兴的内幕故事
法拉利与梅赛德斯在车队排行榜顶端的积分差距
法拉利车手赢得冠军后的年数——基米·莱科宁在 2007 年夺冠
汉密尔顿受益于 Serra 的工作（见插图）
在经历了糟糕的 2025 年后，汉密尔顿有机会争夺冠军，而马拉内罗（Maranello）方面则希望他们能击败梅赛德斯夺得车队冠军
顶层，以及下方的 Vasseur
在发动机方面进行改进，我们将实现这一目标。最重要[的事情]将是能够保持开发速度——我们必须保持这种势头，因为还有 12 场比赛要跑。”
[到达]”，Vasseur 在本赛季的 The Race 播客中承认。
一级方程式记者
今年这一切都改变了。Vasseur 和 Serra 引领了方向。他们的创新程度之高，以至于他们的排气后翼设计（他们在排气管后面安装了一个翼片以增加下压力）现在已被 2027 年禁用。
车队负责人甚至质疑法拉利如何在预算上限内做到这一点，但马拉内罗方面对此信心十足，认为他们的策略是可持续的，因为他们在初始设计上花费较少。
2025 赛季对法拉利来说很艰辛，但或许去年的某些困境帮助他们在 2026. 迅速进入状态。法拉利承认他们去年简单地做错了——为了优化 SF-25（他们的 2025 年赛车），车尾离地太近，存在被取消资格的风险（正如汉密尔顿在中国的遭遇）。
刘易斯·汉密尔顿在 6 月 14, 巴塞罗那取得的首场法拉利胜利，在千里之外的马拉内罗引发的庆祝活动与在加泰罗尼亚一样热烈。车迷们探出车窗——当然，通常是法拉利赛车——挥舞着跃马旗帜，鸣笛，并且
他们也是第一支采用 Macarena 后翼的团队，该后翼具有一个 180 度旋转的襟翼以减少
L
自迈克尔·舒马赫以及随后的基米·莱科宁主导时期之后，斯库德里亚（Scuderia）距离上次赢得车队冠军已过去 18 年。
不过，梅赛德斯在两项锦标赛中仍处于领先地位。如果不是领先者面临的可靠性问题，法拉利的夺冠希望将非常渺茫。这些波折意味着，尽管梅赛德斯在本赛季 11 场比赛中赢得了 8 场，但法拉利在车队积分榜上仍将其保持在可追击的范围内。
拖曳——并使其稳定运行。红牛在他们的版本导致了两次马克斯·维斯塔潘（Max Verstappen）撞车后，不得不将其移除。
就目前而言
圣比亚焦（San Biagio）的钟声响起。
到五月，随着迈凯伦（McLaren）大幅领先，他们停止了该项目的开发，将重点转向本赛季及重大的规章变化。于是，法拉利的一位无名英雄登场了。
但或许更重要的是，法拉利带到赛道上的更新已经发挥作用。这听起来可能很简单，
但竞争对手们发现，很难将模拟器和风洞中的工作转化为正赛周末的性能。法拉利在赛季开始时，每圈比梅赛德斯慢约 0.8 秒。到夏季休赛期，他们已将这一差距缩小到 0.2 至 0.3 秒之间。这是一个巨大的成就，且在赛季中完成此类突破实属罕见。
1990 2000 2010 2020
Loic Serra 于 2024 年 10 月加入车队担任底盘技术总监，当时 2025 年赛车的研发已经开始，因此今年的赛车是他自始至终参与的的第一辆。
但他们真正想要沉浸其中的并非单场比赛的胜利。相反，在等待了近二十年之后，他们渴望最终能在马拉内罗（Maranello）博物馆的胜利大厅（La Sala delle Vittorie）中增加一座奖杯。
目前，冠军头衔是车队的主要目标——或者至少消息人士认为这是最现实的目标。这一点从匈牙利大奖赛最后几圈的决定中可见一斑：车队没有要求勒克莱尔（Leclerc）减速以确保车队获得更多积分，即使这意味着他将领先于汉密尔顿（Hamilton）——后者是车手冠军更有力的竞争者。据了解，如果与安东内利（Antonelli）陷入激烈的冠军争夺战，法拉利将倾向于支持他们自己的其中一名车手，但目前重点是为车队争取最大积分。
然而，在本赛季过半之际，身着法拉利红的人们认为他们仍有竞争机会。在车队冠军排名中，他们落后梅赛德斯 72 分，而汉密尔顿在车手积分榜上落后基米·安东内利（Kimi Antonelli） 50 分。
但在布达佩斯，法拉利的一些旧弱点再次显现，他们认为获得第四名和第五名丢失了积分。汉密尔顿也犯了错误，在过去三场比赛中累积了四次处罚。“每个人带着好的结果去度假都更好，但另一方面，就冠军争夺而言，我们的得分比梅赛德斯多，”瓦塞尔（Vasseur）在布达佩斯说道，法拉利在那场比赛中比竞争对手多得了一分。“我们感觉这远非我们能做到的最好状态，而在这种情况下，我们没有丢失积分。这是我度假期间会记住的积极一面。”
Serra 此前在梅赛德斯与汉密尔顿共事，法拉利的消息人士将其描述为一名“合唱团指挥”式的人物——他不追求关注度，但悄悄地激发了法拉利人员和系统的最佳状态。长期以来，法拉利对成功的极度渴望导致一些员工认为，采取稳妥策略比挺身而出更好。在一家推崇创新的运动中，这种态度与成功不相称；事实上，恰恰相反。
事实上，法拉利几乎最大化了所有环节。延长汉密尔顿与他的比赛工程师卡洛·桑蒂（Carlo Santi）的合作（原定为临时性质）直到本赛季结束，是另一个明智的决定，更换为 Carbon Industries 刹车盘同样如此。
法拉利最近一次赢得车队冠军是在 2008 年，而自基米·莱科宁（Kimi Raikkonen）在前一年夺冠以来，他们就再未赢得过车手冠军。
据说法拉利和梅赛德斯的做法截然不同。法拉利和塞尔拉选择了“中立平台”，这在出厂之初可能无法提供最快的赛车，但可以在整个赛季中以陡峭的轨迹进行开发。梅赛德斯的初始方案要强大得多——这得益于他们占主导地位的动力单元——但他们承认无法像法拉利那样以同样的速度进行开发。托托·沃尔夫，梅赛德斯车队
“赛季的第一部分，我想说，大概分两个阶段，”法拉利车队负责人弗雷德·瓦塞尔（Fred Vasseur）表示。“第一个阶段直到西班牙站，当时梅赛德斯势不可挡；西班牙站之后，当我们回归时，我们在接下来的四五场比赛中得分比梅赛德斯更多。
我们必须保持这个势头，因为还有 12 场比赛要跑。
“如果基于今天[上周日在布达佩斯，查尔斯·勒克莱尔和汉密尔顿分别获得第四和第五名]得出一个结论，我认为我们需要改进的地方在于执行力。我们知道我们拥有
“并不是说存在一种恐惧或责备的文化，或者怎么回事，但也许[当我时]有点处于被动地位。”
如果法拉利想要追上梅赛德斯并结束他们的冠军荒，就必须保持这种心态。
索尼娅·邦帕斯托（Sonia Bompastor）。我在效力阿森纳、芝加哥和英格兰队时曾与她交手。她很令人头疼，因为她抢球非常凶猛，你心知肚明，但如果你对她做了任何动作，裁判立刻就会察觉。她狡猾且聪明，这让我非常恼火。
ALAN CROWHURST / GETTY IMAGES
这位拥有 144 场国家队出场记录的英格兰国脚谈论踢泰迪熊以及在芝加哥的生活
很多，但你永远不会从我口中听到这些。
在家里踢一只泰迪熊。甚至我那痴迷于伯明翰城的家人也觉得烦，直到我在小学开始用球踢。当我的父母看到我多么享受其中时，他们决定提供帮助。
在居住于芝加哥期间，首次为红星队（Red Stars）转为职业球员。当时我为国家队效力，我们闯入了欧洲杯决赛，我处于体能、力量和竞技状态的巅峰。
我告诉艾玛·海耶斯（Emma Hayes）我要退役了。她只是说：“离开我的办公室。”两年后，我回到了这里。这一次她说我是对的。我的身体状况很好，踢得也不错，但我所做的一切都由激情驱动，我看不到自己能继续让身体承受
11, 岁时，我告诉妈妈我要为英格兰队效力。她说：“你到底有多渴望？”从那天起，我们就在车后备箱里放着标志碟和一个小足球，以便在我看到可能想踢球的人时随时可以使用。我父亲帮我寻找潜力的俱乐部，但由于我是伯明翰队的死忠，对我来说只有一支球队。
温布利球场。我关于足球的第一个记忆就是 6 岁时在那里观看伯明翰队的比赛。那是我就职于地铁的第一次经历，我和父母的照片将成为我终身珍藏的纪念品。在那里比赛对我来说意味着圆满。
季前赛。我不怀念它。
像没有人在看一样去比赛，就像你在操场上那个毫无顾虑的孩子。我希望我的职业生涯能
那样度过。
艾玛·海耶斯。她是我接触最多的人，教会了我很多关于生活和足球的道理。
区域竞技场（The Regional Arena），曼彻斯特城以前在那里比赛。我从未在那儿踢好过。不过，我也许是对从伦敦前往曼彻斯特的旅程有点过敏。
约翰·艾兹尔伍德 (John Aizlewood) Karen 发起了 Adobe 的 Kick & Create 训练营，这是一项与 Bloomsbury Football 合作的计划，旨在将足球教练培训与创意设计工作坊相结合以
Evening Saigon 在 James Doyle 的策骑下，为卡塔尔所有的 Wathnan Racing 带来了一个卓越的周，在管家杯（Stewards’ Cup）中为其赢得了第七次光辉古德伍（Glorious Goodwood）胜利。48 岁的 Jim Crowley 曾在 2019 年赢得该项赛事，并于 2016 年成为冠军骑师，他昨日宣布退役，原因是在去年 9 月于约克的一次坠马事故中遭受的盆骨和腿部伤势未能痊愈。
Steve Claridge。在我 8 岁时，我作为吉祥物与他一起在圣安得鲁球场（St Andrew’s）出场，我们拍了照并在球场上玩耍。我至今还保留着当时的影像资料。
为女孩们开启体育职业生涯。
前锋 Claridge 是 Carney 童年的英雄。
5-2-9-0; de Klerk 18-8-13-2; Pavely 5-2-9-0; Harris 10-1-21-0。
附加分 (lb 1, w 2) 3 总分 (3 wicket, 100 balls) 144 H L Graham, E L Arlott, N F Holland, R M Southby,
S A E Smale 和 G E A Potts 未击球。失分点 1-58, 2-88, 3-123。
投球 Khan 10-6-9-0; Smith 20-5-38-1; Filer 20-10-15-0; King 20-7-31-0; Gray 15-4-26-0; Capsey 15-4-24-2。
伯明翰凤凰队 (balls) D S T Perrin c Wareham b Potts 2 (5)
*E A Perry 未出局 68 (46) A Dercksen 未出局 4 (7)
*L Livingstone c Miller b Rashid 5 (8) D Brevis c Jordan b Archer 1 (5) J Coles c Ali b Jordan 2 (3) J Overton c Chaudhary b Stoinis 10 (9) D Willey c Smith b Archer 1 (2) A Tye lbw b Archer 0 (1) A Milne 未出局 0 (0) A Zampa c Smith b Stoinis 0 (1)
N de Klerk c Wolvaardt
b Corteen-Coleman 38 (28) D J S Dottin b Molineux 5 (10) C R Pavely b Bell 1 (2)
失分点 1-9, 2-53, 3-70, 4-73, 5-79, 6-107, 7-122, 8-131, 9-134。
男子组 赛 P 胜 负 平 未赛 积分 NRR 趋势火箭队 4 3 1 0 0 12 0.92 威尔士之火队 4 3 1 0 0 12 -0.22 曼彻斯特SG队 4 2 2 0 0 8 0.61 利兹太阳神队 3 2 1 0 0 8 0.03 MI伦敦队 4 2 2 0 0 8 -0.08
投球 Ravindra 20-12-22-1; Woakes 20-10-34-1; Cook 20-3-38-1; Jansen 20-8-21-2; Ferguson 20-10-20-2。
*C E Dean 未出局 8 (3)
附加分 (b 1, lb 2, w 2) 5 总分 (8 wkts, 100 balls) 114 T Johnson 未击球。
失分点 1-10, 2-10, 3-37, 4-44, 5-71, 6-94, 7-104, 8-106。
投球 Bell 20-6-29-1; Wong 20-7-21-0; Molineux 20-1-47-3; Corteen-Coleman 20-6-26-2; Glenn 20-6-28-2。
南方勇士队 (balls)
L Lee c and b Kapp 0 (4) L Wolvaardt lbw b de Klerk 13 (17) J J Rodrigues b Kapp 12 (9) *S G Molineux c Dottin b de Klerk 23 (24) J L Grewcock 未出局 0 (0)
威尔士之火队 (balls) *@P Salt lbw b Owen 46 (36) J Root 未出局 58 (40) R Ravindra lbw b Wood 7 (7) J Cox b Mahmood 20 (14) T Kohler-Cadmore 未出局 1 (1)
伦敦精神队 3 1 2 0 0 4 0.12
南方勇士队 4 1 3 0 0 4 0.02 伯明翰凤凰队 4 1 3 0 0 4 -1.21 女子组 赛 P 胜 负 平 未赛 积分 NRR
南方勇士队 5 5 0 0 0 20 0.49 趋势火箭队 4 3 1 0 0 12 2.08 曼彻斯特SG队 4 2 1 0 1 10 0.71
伦敦精神队 4 1 2 1 0 6 -0.83 伯明翰凤凰队 4 1 2 0 1 6 -3.44 利兹太阳神队 3 1 2 0 0 4 0.47 威尔士之火队 4 1 3 0 0 4 0.44 MI伦敦队 4 0 3 1 0 2 -1.38
附加分 (lb 2, w 6) 8 总分 (92 balls) 105 失分点 1-14, 2-44, 3-56, 4-64, 5-68,
附加分 (lb 1, nb 2, w 3) 6 总分 (3 wkts, 96 balls) 138 A Tribe, B Kellaway, M Jansen, C Woakes, L Ferguson 和 S Cook 未击球。
埃德加斯顿球场 (伯明翰凤凰队赢得掷硬币)：威尔士之火队 (4pts) 以 7 个 wicket 击败伯明翰凤凰队
6-103, 7-105, 8-105, 9-105。投球 Wood 15-6-27-0; Archer 20-1-19-4; Stoinis 17-7-17-3; Jordan 15-2-24-1; Rashid 20-9-17-2; Chaudhary 5-2-9-0。南方勇士队
伯明翰凤凰队 (balls) M Owen c Cox b Jansen 18 (14) W Smeed c Cook b Woakes 5 (4) @J Clarke c Cox b Ferguson 35 (23)
失分点 1-77, 2-96, 3-132。投球 Mahmood 20-9-32-1; Wood 20-6-21-1; Currie 16-2-24-0; Ahmed 10-1-17-0; Tariq 20-7-23-0; Owen 5-1-9-1; Ferreira 5-0-11-0。
@J Smith, B McKinney, M Stoinis, D Miller, T Stubbs, N Chaudhary, *C Jordan, M Ali, J Archer, A Rashid 和 L Wood
J E M Spence, F S Khan, A M King, E Gray, L C N Smith 和 L L Filer 未击球。
丢球顺序 1-2, 2-35, 3-121. 投球 Potts 15-8-18-1; Smale 20-5-23-0; Graham 19-3-34-0; Wareham 20-5-30-1; Arlott 10-3-20-0; Voll 10-4-9-1; Holland 5-2-9-0.
*D Ferreira 被 Kohler-Cadmore 接球，Ravindra 击球出局 23 (21)
The Hundred：特伦特桥 (Trent Bridge) 特伦特火箭队 v 太阳神利兹队 (女子 11.0, 男子 2.30)。基亚椭圆球场 (Kia Oval) MI 伦敦队 v 曼彻斯特超级巨人队 (女子 2.30, 男子 6.0)。Metro Bank Cup (11.0)：A 组：贝肯汉姆 (Beckenham) 肯特队 v 诺丁汉郡队。莱斯特 (Leicester) 莱斯特郡队 v 萨默塞特郡队。北安普顿 (Northampton) 北安普顿郡队 v 兰开夏郡队。鲁格比 (Rugby) 沃里克郡队 v 格洛斯特郡队。B 组：德比 (Derby) 德比郡队 v 萨塞克斯郡队。切姆斯福德 (Chelmsford) 埃塞克斯郡队 v 伍斯特郡队。Utilita Bowl 汉普郡队 v 达勒姆郡队。洛德板球场 (Lord’s) 密德尔塞克斯郡队 v 约克郡队。
埃奇巴斯顿 (Edgbaston) (伯明翰凤凰队赢得抽签)：伯明翰凤凰队 (4pts) 以 7 个三柱门之差击败威尔士之火队
洛德板球场 (Lord’s) (南方勇士队赢得抽签)：南方勇士队 (4pts) 以 5 个三柱门之差击败伦敦精神队
伦敦精神队 (球数) G M Harris 被 Bouchier 接球，Glenn 击球出局 16 (13) A E Jones 被 Wong 接球，Molineux 击球出局 3 (8) M Kelly 被 Bouchier 接球，Molineux 击球出局 0 (2) M Kapp 被 Grewcock
威尔士之火队 (球数) G A Voll 被 Capsey 接球，Smith 击球出局 78 (55)
洛德板球场 (Lord’s) (南方勇士队赢得抽签) 伦敦精神队 (球数) L Pretorius 被 Stubbs 接球，Stoinis 击球出局 11 (8) @J Bairstow 被 Jordan 接球，Archer 击球出局 56 (43) J Rew 被 Rashid 击球出局 11 (12)
*S F M Devine 未出局 35 (19)
G L Wareham 未出局 6 (4)
S Mahmood 未出局 2 (2) U Tariq 未出局 2 (2) 额外分 (腿击 2, 无效球 2, 宽球 1) 5 总分 (9 个三柱门, 100 个球) 137
S Glenn, I E C M Wong, L K Bell 和 M R CorteenColeman 未击球。
丢球顺序 1-1, 2-41, 3-62, 4-114, 5-114. 投球 Kapp 20-14-16-2; Johnson 5-2-9-0; Dottin 10-6-14-0; Dean 20-5-19-1; George
b Corteen-Coleman 34 (27) S L Kalis 腿前截击 b Glenn 3 (6)
投注：100-30 Power Fizz, 5-1 Monarch’s Gold, 13-2 Korker, 7-1 Dance In The Storm, Palmar Bay, Khafiz, 8-1 The Strikin Viking, 12-1 其他
4.08
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2.35
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4.22
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投注：4-9 Pure Grit, 7-2 Shakwaa, 6-1 Sovereigns High, 33-1 Therewearethen, 50-1 Independent Roze
3 (1) 64041 MR BOLLINGER 10 (CD) M Bell 9-1..............B Loughnane 投注：13-8 Shadow Brigade, 7-4 Brighton View, 2-1 Mr Bollinger
1 (3)213600 CANDONOMORE 20 (P,T,D) J Candlish 5-9-6.......G Wood
3.20
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3.08
JUDDMONTE EBF 限制级新马赛马赛 £15,702：7 弗隆 (9)
投注：2-1 Melting Snow, 9-4 Guest House, 11-4 Okiru, 13-2 Daretobedifferent, 20-1 Esdaile, 25-1 Bellini Spirit
4.38
BODHI SOLUTIONS - 商业装修挑战赛 “CONFINED” 障碍赛 £3,768：1 英里 2 弗隆 (5)
投注：9-4 Blue Prince, 5-2 Alpha Capture, 100-30 I Still Have Faith, 4-1 Midnight Strike, 14-1 Candonomore, 20-1 Calyxoh
场地：良好 Sky Sports Racing
BIG ALEX WALMSLEY 31 (H) Mrs I G-Leveque 4-9-6
...................................................................B Sayette
4.52
汤姆·琼斯 彻斯特赛马场现场演出障碍赛 £7,731：1 英里 2 弗隆 (10)
Rob Wright 的建议：2.10 Timber Twelve 2.45 Pure Grit 3.20 Jazl 3.52 Khafiz 4.22 Blue Prince 4.52 Cape Fear (nb)
MOON BEGINNINGS 22 (E,C) D Loughnane 4-9-8
............................................................ Laura Pearson
2.10
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投注：9-4 Lifeplan, 9-2 Rock On Thunder, 6-1 Song of The Clyde, 13-2 Fitzella, 8-1 Calico Blue, 10-1 Ardisia, 12-1 Sirius A, Jazl, 14-1 Simplify
3.52
迪士尼《高中音乐剧》Lowry 障碍赛 £12,885：7 弗隆 (10)
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
投注：11-8 The Ubermensch, 9-4 Nuptown Girl, 4-1 Big Alex Walmsley, 13-2 Cuban Girl, 20-1 Risen Again
投注：6-4 Keep Grating, 2-1 Telegraphic, 10-1 Pirates Paradise, Biscaysian, 12-1 Javelot, 16-1 其他
THE STRIKIN VIKING 26 (H) H Al Jehani (UAE) 4-10-2
..............................................................F Bughanaim
DANCE IN THE STORM 45 (H,CD) A Balding 4-9-11
...................................................................O Murphy
5.08
PRICE BAILEY LLP NORWICH “限定” 障碍赛 £3,768：5F (7)
3.38
BODHI - 超出预期的建筑业分类赛 £3,454：7F (6)
PAPA DON’T PREACH 15 (H,BF,D) K Frost 7-9-9
7 (2)0000-0 SURPRISE AGAIN 60 (T) J R Jenkins 4-8-13.........J Peate
1 (5)-00066 ASPIRE TO GLORY 17 (T,D) D Cunha 5-9-9....T Marquand
OH SO AUDACIOUS 11 (P,D) Jack Jones 7-9-9
投注：2-1 Timber Twelve, 4-1 L’Eagle Aid, 5-1 Level Look, Charmaine, 7-1 Patagonia Girl, 10-1 Westerton, 14-1 Kuredu King
投注：9-4 Saligo Bay, 5-2 Tiger, 5-1 Secret Beach, 8-1 Cape Fear, Echalar, 16-1 Moon Beginnings, Farasi Lane, 20-1 Eagle Day, Oman, 50-1 Naples
2.45
BRITISH STALLION STUDS EBF “限定” 初赛 £7,731：6F (5)
投注：15-8 Papa Don’t Preach, 2-1 Dragon God, 9-2 Mart, 11-2 Antiphon, 12-1 Nad Alshiba Snow, 25-1 Surprise Again, 50-1 Regal Guest
Rob Wright 的预测：2.35 Mr Bollinger (胆材) 3.08 Keep Grating 3.38 Valsharah 4.08 Melting Snow 4.38 The Ubermensch 5.08 Mart
投注：6-4 Valsharah, 5-2 Nicely Curved, 13-2 Aspire To Glory, 15-2 Caitlin G, 8-1 Girls Allowed, 10-1 Oh So Audacious
20 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times S1
周日时报摄影师 MARC ASPLAND
2027年
在 Adare Manor 举行的 Ryder Cup 赛的一日观赛票
价格为 €499
当然，在 Ryder Cup 周期间，企业款待、电视版权、赞助、餐饮及周边商品销售也将带来巨额收入。难道票价不能设置得不那么令人望而却步吗？
不贵。几乎没什么性价比可言。这纯粹是他非常想做的事情。成为支持者俱乐部成员使他能够以相对便宜的价格购买对抗加纳 ($200) 和刚果金 ($350) 的比赛门票。
David Walsh
首席体育记者
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
组织者表示，他们参考了其他重大体育赛事以及近期 Oasis 演唱会等活动的票价。他们核查了上个月国际足联 (Fifa) 世界杯中一场涉及韩国队的平均票价，发现其在 $850 到 $900（约 £630-£667）之间。
通过支持者俱乐部，他得以买到一张 $900 的半决赛门票，这让他松了一口气。而在阿兹特卡球场对阵墨西哥的比赛中，支持者俱乐部无法提供帮助，他为门票支付了 $1,400。此外还有酒店费用。他与两名朋友在波士顿市外 30 分钟路程的一家并不特别的酒店分房入住五晚。那是为了看加纳队的比赛。他们为该房间支付了 $2,400。
核心球迷已被价格拒之门外……想象一下如果因凡蒂诺 (Infantino) 得偿所愿会怎样
欧洲 Ryder Cup 同样承担着举办该赛事以及资助主队到达第一发球台的费用。这笔费用相当可观。此外，它还将花费 £40 到 £50 million 来提供比历史上任何高尔夫赛事都更多的看台、平台和座位。我明白，我不是在抱怨，但 €500 的门票不适合我。
于是我问，这次旅行花了多少钱。“略低于 £20,000，”他说道。值得吗？“绝对值得，因为这是人生中一次——”
相反，我预订了下个月在克莱尔郡拉欣奇举行的 Walker Cup 门票。在英国及爱尔兰队对阵美国队的仅两天的比赛中，费用是可以承受的，每天 €40 或两日票 €70。我们和纽马基特当地俱乐部的朋友们一起去，主要是为了支持泰勒·威弗 (Tyler Weaver)，他在我们俱乐部打球，深受普通会员喜爱。他参加 2025 年加利福尼亚州塞普拉斯点 Walker Cup 的球袋就自豪地摆在我们的俱乐部吧台里。顺便说一下，泰勒恰好是世界排名 No 2 的业余选手。
——绝无仅有的经历。” 应该有个“但是”吧？“我去了，我很庆幸自己去了，但绝
或者 2001 年的 Ryder Cup（由于 9 / 11 悲剧，直到 2002 年 10 月才举行），我们申请了四张欧洲巡回赛抽签产生的周日门票。这是 25 年前的事情了，我实在想不起具体
我们的抱怨并回应道：“你不能是认真的。”
完全不考虑可能存在的任何波动。球毫不犹豫地滚入了洞中。
再次尝试。我再也不会支付像 $1,400 这样高的价格去看一场足球赛了。”
F
负责在该地区运行赛事的 Ryder Cup Europe 已经知道，根据已收到的申请，在三个比赛日中，阿达尔庄园 (Adare Manor) 的容量可能被填满三次。这意味着前两天双人赛有三倍的 40,000 张门票，周日单人赛有三倍的 55,000 张。我们讨论的是大约 €67.5 million 的门票销售额。对许多人来说，这是值得的。
最美好的时刻？“阿兹特卡球场的终场哨声。”最甜蜜的回忆？“赛前赛后墨西哥球迷对我们的态度多么热情。比赛期间他们很敌对，但那是某种积极的敌对。赛后他们邀请我们喝酒。对于英格兰球迷来说，这是一次超现实的经历。”
在第 18 洞之前的几个洞，我们被甩在了后面。由于球道两旁有四五层深的人群，果岭周围有十到 15 层深的人群，无法看清，我们只好放弃，在一家食品店附近的电视机前观看高潮。任何看过现场体育比赛的人都会意识到，身临其境与在客厅观看的区别。亲眼所见的一切会留在心中。重大时刻变成了回忆。
票价具体多少我忘了，但记得在 £60 到 £80 之间。每张票允许免费携带一名青少年，官方定义为 under-16.。我们的车坐满了。
最糟糕的部分？“回程。我买了一张 £400 的机票，但这意味着要从亚特兰大飞到华盛顿，在华盛顿更换机场，飞到纽约，然后飞往希思罗机场，最后乘火车回到唐卡斯特。”
那是一个美好的日子。我们关注了保罗·麦金利（Paul McGinley）对阵吉姆·富瑞克（Jim Furyk）的比赛，同时也捕捉了其他比赛的瞬间。在大部分时间里，麦金利一直处于劣势，而那位美国选手的表现一如既往——也就是说，稳如磐石。尽管如此，麦金利依然坚持了下来，并在第 17 洞打出一个小鸟球将比分扳平。如果在 18 平分，欧洲队将赢得莱德杯（Ryder Cup）。
尽管如此，人们并不希望在体育赛事门票价格问题上过于武断。人们会做出自己的选择。我的一个朋友，来自唐卡斯特（Doncaster）的卢克·弗拉纳根（Luke Flanagan），是英格兰足球队的狂热追随者。他 28 岁，在知道自己想在今年夏天的世界杯期间追随英格兰队后，他制定了一个长期计划。首先是要在英格兰支持者旅游俱乐部（England Supporters Travel Club）积累信用，为此他尽可能多地参加英格兰队的客场比赛，包括拉脱维亚和安道拉。
组织者为当地居民预留了一小部分门票配额，并给予了价格优惠。
所以，前几天，在经历了 2002, 年的一次绝佳体验 24 年后，我上网打算参加 2027 年在利默里克郡（County Limerick）阿达尔庄园（Adare Manor）举行的莱德杯门票抽签。由于这一期间价格上涨了 115 百分比，2001 年 £70 的门票在今天应该是 £150。阿达尔庄园一天的比赛门票定价为 €499（约 £425）。练习日的门票要便宜得多，€89.
想必这意味着只有更富有的英格兰球迷才会前往观看？
“绝对如此。许多核心球迷因为价格太高而被拒之门外。”
任何现场观看体育比赛的人都会意识到，这与在客厅观看有着天壤之别。
两人的接击球都未能落在第 18 洞的果岭上。麦金利从果岭左侧的粗糙草区切球，球停在 10 英尺处。富瑞克从前벙克（bunker）打出了一记精妙的球，球恰好擦过洞口。在这种情况下，麦金利的推球极其困难。由于知道必须将球推入洞，麦金利果断地推击了一次。
这就是为什么看到詹尼·因凡蒂诺（Gianni Infantino）遭到应得报应是件好事的原因之一。在由美国举办的世界杯上，核心足球迷受到了国际足联（Fifa）的轻视，或许在下一次比赛中依然如此。如果因凡蒂诺能够按照他的想法，将世界杯的股份出售给私募股权投资者，球迷的成本只会进一步上涨。
一天的比赛门票超过 £400。对我来说太贵了。我的三个高尔夫球友也得出了相同的结论：太贵了。此时你可能会认为，这里已经埋下了球迷抗议的种子。但听着，约翰·麦肯罗（John McEnroe）听到了。
他的计划是在球队在美期间一直留在美国。最终，这总共花费了五周零两天。涉及大量的航班、酒店和比赛门票。没有什么被
© TIMES MEDIA LIMITED, 2026. 由 Times Media Ltd 出版，地址：1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF，涵盖印刷及所有其他衍生格式。印刷商：Newsprinters Holdings Ltd, Great Cambridge Rd, Waltham Cross, EN8 8DY, Kitling Rd, Prescot, L34 9HN 以及 Byramsmuir Rd, Holytown, Motherwell, ML1 4WH；KP Services, La Rue Martel, La Rue des Pres Trading Estate, St Saviour, Jersey, JE2 7QR；Webprint, 2023 Bianconi Ave, Citywest Business Campus, Dublin, Ireland. 如需出于内部信息目的复制文章或标题的许可，请联系 NLA media access，邮箱：copy@nla.co.uk，电话 01892 525273. 所有其他复制和许可查询请联系许可部门（Licensing Department），地址：1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF，电话 020 7711 7888, 电子邮件 enquiries@newslicensing.co.uk
August 2, 2026 · thetimes.com / business
91 岁的诺曼·福斯特（NORMAN FOSTER）：“我为什么要退休？” 采访见第 5 页
银行准备应对税收之争 第 4 页
如何利用房屋权益释放资金 第 9 页
在她上次的预算案中，财政部表示将“继续评估”该税项。
今年早些时候，富时 100, 指数中规模第二大的公司阿斯特鲁善能 (AstraZeneca) 决定将其主上市地迁至纽约，此举“引起了人们的关注”。
该计划已推迟至 2028.。伦敦证券交易所 (LSE) 警告称，由于投资者获取数据的速度不同，这种记录方式可能会使部分投资者处于不利地位。
这些数据可能会鼓励公司在伦敦上市。目前人们对伦敦证券交易所 (LSE) 感到担忧，因为上市数量已减至极少，而私有化公司的数量则在激增。
许多交易的数量超过了官方数据的记录。金融城监管机构揭露了证券交易所之外的“暗池交易”。其发现，“仅查看部分交易场所数据的参与者将会低估英国交易活动的总体水平”。
吉尔·特雷诺 (Jill Treanor)
根据英国航空 (BA) 的网站，周末行程的费用为 £650,。该航空公司的餐饮问题源于 7 月初更换供应商的决定。英国航空 Cityflyer 将 Newrest 换成了 Gate Gourmet，管理层将这一决定誉为今年最重要的五项决定之一。
奥利弗·吉尔 (Oliver Gill)
根据金融行为监管局 (FCA) 的分析，伦敦的股票交易价值是此前认为的三倍，这可能会为金融城提供急需的推动力。
在飞往和飞离伦敦金融城机场的新餐饮合同出现问题后，英国航空的商务舱乘客已经一个月没有在机上获得餐饮服务了。
金融城人士认为，对股票交易价值征收 0.5 per cent 的税，使伦敦在面对纽约和其他交易所时处于不利地位。
这是因为在伦敦交易的阿斯特鲁善能 (AstraZeneca) 股票不再缴纳印花税，据估计此路导致财政部损失了 £2 亿。
新任财政大臣约翰·希利 (John Healey) 在准备 10 月 28. 提交的首份预算案时，将面临要求推动股票交易的呼吁。金融城希望他削减或废除 LSE 股票交易的印花税。
FCA 发布这些数据是为了实施“综合记录带 (consolidated tape)”计划的一部分，该计划将显示所有发生股票交易的场所。
投资银行 Peel Hunt 的研究主管查尔斯·霍尔 (Charles Hall) 表示：“人们越来越意识到，这是一种非常不利的税收。”
为了掩盖没有餐饮服务的事实，管理层在乘客出发前发放 £20 的预付信用卡，以便他们在机场购买食物。
LSE 还有一份包含最多 20 家公司的名单，这些公司可能会采取类似行动，从而使财政部损失估计 20 亿英镑 billion 的印花税。
金融城消息人士希望这将减缓公司将上市地迁至纽约的趋势。近期退出包括博彩公司 Flutter 和建筑材料集团 CRH。
该分析回应了那些寻求将上市地从伦敦迁至纽约以寻求更多“流动性”的公司所提出的批评。
据悉，在合同移交时，Gate Gourmet 原定接管伦敦东区的厨房。但由于官僚主义导致延误，直到上周才获得设施使用权。
他的前任瑞秋·里夫斯 (Rachel Reeves) 宣布了为期三年的印花税假期。
研究结果表明，许多
这家旗舰航空公司在本周末确认，其子公司 Cityflyer 在 7 月期间被迫暂停商务舱餐饮服务，并向受影响的乘客道歉。
希利获得 £2bn “购房援助”助力
英国航空 (BA) 的一名发言人表示：“为我们的客户提供高质量的餐饮服务对我们至关重要。当我们意识到在过渡期间无法持续维持该标准时，我们决定暂时暂停部分机上服务。全面的餐饮服务预计将在未来几天内重新启动。”盖特高达 (Gate Gourmet) 未对此发表评论。
玛莎百货 (MARKS & SPENCER)
该航空公司表示，机上餐饮将于“未来几天内”恢复。
然而，所谓的干货餐饮产品（如薯片、零食和饮料）仍然供应。
BA Cityflyer 是金融、法律或专业服务领域商务旅客的主要短途运输支柱。该公司运营 20 架 Embraer E190 飞机，主要从首都东部的伦敦城市机场起飞，每月前往爱丁堡的航班超过 180 班。
工党正对重启首次购房者国家贷款进行“积极审查”
管理层表示：“2021 至 2026 年的‘可负担住房计划’正处于递减阶段，而新 SAHP 的交付规模尚不足以抵消这一影响。”
不过，Cityflyer 在休闲旅客中也颇受欢迎，飞行目的地包括伊比萨岛、巴塞罗那、威尼斯，远至希腊的塞萨洛尼基，那里下一往返商务舱机票
“我们认为，住房活动在 [2026 年下半年] 强劲回升可能会非常有挑战性，”美银美林 (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) 的分析师上周写道。
向部分乘客提供的预付信用卡价值 20 亿英镑
尽管如此，伯纳姆 (Burnham) 已承诺实施“战后以来规模最大的市政住房建设方案”。
Oliver Gill
约翰·希利 (John Healey) 从乔治·奥斯本 (George Osborne) 那项备受嘲讽的“购房援助” (Help to Buy) 计划中获得了近 20 亿英镑的公共财政收益。
然而，在没有私营部门参与的情况下，该计划的可行性存在重大疑问。而且，商业开发商只会在有经济意义的地方进行建设。
国库在已偿还的“购房援助”贷款的国家份额中记录了 12.4 亿英镑 billion 的利润，以及 £500 million 的利息收入。
在基尔·斯塔默爵士 (Sir Keir Starmer) 的领导下，工党专注于“供给侧限制”，例如加快规划决策。随后，数以十亿计的赠款将发放给愿意满足政府低价房标准的房屋建筑商和住房协会。
销售额和订单簿，这意味着 [汽车制造商] 并不一定在‘推动’ BEV [纯电动汽车] 的销售。”
Oliver Gill
由于英国人为了应对与伊朗战争相关的汽油价格上涨而转向绿色出行，汽车制造商降低了电动汽车的折扣。
这 17.4 亿英镑 billion 将足以资助首相将能源账单的增值税 (VAT) 临时豁免期延长一年。
那些敦促安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 不要执行斯塔默调整英国零排放车辆 (ZEV) 强制指令计划的人，可能会利用折扣下降这一现象。
赠款分配尚未公布。许多较大的房屋建筑商已选择退出市场以保护其资产负债表。
这些新数据由准政府机构 Homes England 在其年度报告中披露，此时住房部长马修·佩尼库克 (Matthew Pennycook) 正在“积极审查”工党是否重启“购房援助”计划。
随着新政府权衡是否执行基尔·斯塔默爵士放宽电动车销售目标的计划，汇丰银行 (HSBC) 的分析显示，英国的平均折扣已跌至近 15 个月的低点。
吉莉安·安德森 (Gillian Anderson), 57, 在一次拍摄活动中与玛莎百货首席执行官斯图尔特·马钦 (Stuart Machin) 见面后达成了协议。
诸如重启“购房援助”之类的“需求侧措施”被否决，理由是这将耗费纳税人数十亿英镑并推高房价。据了解，瑞秋·里夫斯 (Rachel Reeves) 一直坚决反对重启该计划。由约翰·希利接替她担任财政大臣，引发了人们对其复活的希望。
安德森表示，自 2023. 年推出以来，她和她的团队在 G Spot 的品牌塑造上面临挑战。这家由海尼根（Heineken）支持的企业生产一系列“功能性软饮料”，使用玛咖根、灵芝和姜黄等成分，旨在为饮用者提供能量或舒缓心情。
57 岁的安德森在今年早些时候，在担任 M&S 首席赞美官（chief compliments officer）的宣传活动拍照期间，与该零售商的首席执行官斯图尔特·马钦（Stuart Machin）见面后达成了这项交易。“我提出了我的方案，”安德森说。她在拍摄《性教育》（Sex Education）期间想到了这个名字，使用了她名字的首字母，并认为这个名字很合适。
马莎百货（Marks & Spencer）曾因过于保守而受到批评，上周由于在其服装系列中加入了 Ann Summers 的开档丁字裤而引起关注。现在，威廉·特维尔（William Turvill）写道，其食品馆将进货一种以女性身体部位命名的饮料。
尽管一名住房发言人在本周末坚称“目前没有计划推出新的‘购房援助’（Help to Buy）计划”，但白厅内部目前普遍认为，政府重启房屋建设的尝试力度还不够。
目前的规定要求，2026. 年新车销售中必须有 33% 为零排放车辆。这一配额明年将上升至 38%，然后继续呈上升趋势，到 2030, 年达到 80%，届时新汽油车和柴油车的销售将被禁止。
7 月期间，新电动汽车的平均折扣为 11%，为 2025 年 4 月以来的最低水平。
“购房援助”计划由奥斯本在担任财政大臣期间于 2013. 年推出。买家仅需准备 5% 的首付款，政府提供最高 20% 或在伦敦提供 40% 的股权贷款。贷款在房屋出售时偿还，国家则从房价上涨中获益。截至 2023, 年该计划关闭，共发放了 387,278 笔贷款。其中约 213,713 笔（约 55%）已偿还。
与此同时，英格兰住房公司（Homes England）警告称，由于工党旗舰级的 390 亿英镑 billion 社会与可负担住房计划（SAHP）出现延迟，可负担住房建设在 2027 年之前将有所萎缩。
汇丰银行（HSBC）表示，零排放车辆补贴，加上“由于高油价导致消费者对电动汽车产生兴趣”，解释了折扣率下降的原因。
吉莉安·安德森（Gillian Anderson）是好莱坞明星，以在《X档案》中饰演斯嘉丽探员（Agent Scully）以及在 Netflix 的《性教育》中饰演性治疗师珍·米尔本（Jean Millburn）而闻名。从本周起，她的软饮料品牌 G Spot 将在 350 家 M&S 门店上架。
她表示，一些零售商对该品牌的名称感到“紧张”，而亚马逊的 AI 工具由于认为这是一款色情商品，从而对其进行了“屏蔽”，导致部分购物者无法看到。但 M&S 对该名称没有异议。
混合动力车型随后也将被
马钦说：“我对她的系列产品非常感兴趣，所以尝试了所有产品。我认为它会很受欢迎——我所有的女性朋友都告诉我她们会购买这个系列。”
逐步淘汰，因此到 2035, 年，所有新车销售都需要是纯电动车。
这家负责部署数十亿英镑资本拨款、贷款和投资以增加社会及可负担住房供应的准政府机构（quango）表示，“预计 2026-27 年的竣工量将进一步减少”。
该银行的全球汽车分析师普什卡尔·滕多尔卡（Pushkar Tendolkar）继续说道：“[这种]下降与强劲的电动汽车……”
政府启动了对 ZEV 强制指令的审查
续第 2 页 $\rightarrow$
自 2024 年 11 月以来的诉讼程序意味着该案现已返回阿根廷联邦区法院“以作进一步考虑”。
合伙人表示，吉尔·特雷诺（Jill Treanor）的安排并不罕见，需要思考。这是一个非常重要的因素。这不是避税，而是避开税务律师。换句话说，这样更便宜。
联合荷兰银行（Banco Holandés Unido）曾是荷兰银行 ABN Amro 的一部分。该银行在 2007 年被 RBS 收购。
该国当时的总统卡洛斯·梅内姆 (Carlos Menem)。
投资公司 True Capital（由理查德·佩尼库克、特雷弗·斯特赖恩以及 True Capital 负责人马特·特鲁曼共同创立的 Swift Whistle Midco Limited 公司）收购 Argos，将有助于他们节省法律和合规咨询费用。
奥利维亚·萨古伊 (Olivia Surguy)
当英国公司被私募股权收购时，大概是为了“简化”。
该指控最初被阿根廷的一家法院驳回，因为提交时间距离所谓的事件发生时间太久，但现在该案已重新回到诉讼日程。
上周与 Sainsbury’s 达成低价收购 Argos 的协议后，这家零售零售商的潜在所有者急于强调他们的英国身份。
英格兰队在世界杯半决赛中对阵阿根廷，提醒人们两国之间动荡的历史。现在，英国与这个南美国家之间的紧张关系再次升级——但出现在一个出人意料的领域。
RBS 在次年由纳税人救助，于 2020 年更名为 NatWest，并于去年最终回归私有所有权。
并没有迹象表明存在避税行为。但鉴于佩尼库克在周五的公开表态，在泽西岛注册公司将引起人们的关注。
NatWest 表示，最初的指控中没有包含任何损害赔偿估算，但原告在 12 月提交的一份更新文件中将“损害赔偿量化”为 11 亿美元 billion。
一家总部位于英国的控股公司通常可以建立一种无需纳税的运作方式，但要在英国实现这一点“有点复杂”，因此法律费用可能会累积。他说：“在泽西岛公司中，你不需要……”
另一个好处可能是销售时的印花税，在泽西岛无需缴纳。但内德尔 (Neidle) 补充道：“在实践中，这些公司的价值几乎全部体现在股东债务而非股份中。在这种情况下，离岸设立实际上并没有印花税方面的优势。”
根据 NatWest 的说法，Tandanor 在 2012 年对现名为苏格兰皇家银行 (RBS) 阿根廷分行“代表处”以及“11 个私人个体”提起诉讼。
他们表示，Argos “是一家伟大的英国企业”，而且“我们都是英国人，并为此感到自豪”。
在一次媒体电话会议上，他说：“我们将与 Sainsbury’s 这样的一家伟大的英国公司合作……Argos 也是一家伟大的英国企业。我们都是英国人并为此感到自豪，并且我们正与该国最优秀的银行合作。”
该诉讼就 Tandanor 私有化期间涉嫌的欺诈行为寻求未量化的损害赔偿。阿根廷国防部于 2014 年加入了 Tandanor 的诉讼。
NatWest 表示：“代表处继续对该指控进行辩护，并已申请听证会。” 如果最终做出此类裁决，将给 NatWest 带来沉重打击。NatWest 上周报告的税前利润增长 20.4 per cent，达到 43 亿英镑 billion。
NatWest 银行透露，由于一项追溯到 1990 年代初的交易，它正面临布宜诺斯艾利斯一家造船厂提出的 11 亿美元 billion 索赔。
但准备以 £120 million 收购 Argos 的 Swift Partners 在以税务友好著称的皇家属地泽西岛设立了一家控股公司来收购该业务。
所有 14,000 名 Argos 员工都将在预计于 2 月完成的交易中转移至 Swift Partners。该品牌将继续提供 Nectar 积分，其实体店将继续留在 Sainsbury’s 门店内。
该银行表示，处于清算状态的代表处在私有化过程中持有 2.9 per cent 的“参与份额”。
NatWest 表示，该指控在 2018 年以“时效事由”被驳回，原告在随后的上诉中未能成功。然而，一系列司法……
在上周的年度业绩报告中，这家富时 100 指数 (FTSE 100) 银行透露，该索赔与 1991 年 Tandanor 造船厂由……私有化时的“涉嫌欺诈行为”有关。
税务专家表示，这家名为 Swift Whistle Midco Limited 的公司——由理查德·佩尼库克、特雷弗·斯特赖恩和 True Capital 负责人马特·特鲁曼创立——
Swift Partners 的一名发言人表示：“Swift 将成为英国税务居民，并缴纳所有英国税款。”
Sainsbury’s 在 2016 年收购 Argos 时支付的费用
Tandanor 未回应置评请求。
该代表处继承了来自
Tax Policy 的 Dan Neidle 的主张
2
6 增加乐观因素的是富时 100, (FTSE 100) 指数的上涨，该指数创下历史新高。由于担心人工智能 (AI) 泡沫，从美国到亚洲的科技股出现大跌，而该指数则免于此波冲击。科技股权重较高的纳斯达克 (Nasdaq) 指数一度下跌，但一周后收盘走高。不过在过去一个月里，该指数的表现逊于富时 100. 在韩国，由于担心半导体需求下降，市场出现下跌，尽管周五有所反弹。虽然新任首相无法将市场反弹归功于自己，但 Fidelity Investments 的投资总监 Tom Stevenson 指出，“最近的政治进展”并未迫使市场抛售。换句话说，到目前为止，Burnham 并没有做任何惊扰投资者的事情——这本身就值得庆祝。
6 Andy Burnham 迅速抓住葛兰素史克 (GlaxoSmithKline) 上周宣布在剑桥开设新设施的消息，称其为“对本土创新和专业知识的推动”。
富时 100 (FTSE 100) 纳斯达克 (NASDAQ)
4
Burnham 可以声称，这家富时 100 制药公司的举动是“让更多人获得新药和前沿治疗方法，从而改善生活的一步”。
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7月 1 5 10 15 20 25
来源：Factset
过去一个月富时 100 与纳斯达克对比图
8%
虽然这对赫特福德郡的史蒂夫尼奇 (Stevenage) 来说令人失望，因为 GSK 现有的研发中心将于 2029, 关闭，但这将增强牛津、剑桥和伦敦之间的“黄金三角”地带。
上周富时指数飙升至历史新高，而经济可能正在复苏。Jill Treanor 询问这种趋势是否会持续。
至关重要地，它避免了去年与阿斯特捷尼卡 (AstraZeneca) 争端的重演。当时这家制药巨头因 NHS 药物定价问题暂停了在剑桥地区的投资，直到 4 月才重启该项目。
“在我修复这家破败的公司之前，我不会领取奖金”
PETER NICHOLLS GETTY IMAGES
下方的 John Halsall 试图修复一家将紧急饮用水瓶错误发送到汤布里奇 (Tonbridge) 而非汤布里奇韦尔斯 (Tunbridge Wells) 的公用事业公司
“热度，”特许水资源与环境管理学会 (Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management) 的政策负责人 Catherine Moncrieff 说道。
“以及额外的水处理工作能力。”
该公司还计划在未来 20 年内建设两个新水库。但此类变更不会很快实现。
“峰值需求确实很难满足。你可能在一年中 95% 的时间里都能满足需求，但如果你不为那个峰值需求做规划，那就是个问题。”
就任六天后，陷入困境的东南水务公司 (South East Water) 的新任首席执行官 John Halsall 告诉 Jon Yeomans，他将如何修复泄漏以及为什么国有化不是答案。
水资源（水库和大河）并依赖于地下水（其中大部分来自地下的脆弱白垩纪含水层）。
他说，他目前的任务是将东南水务公司从其“下降周期”中拉出来。他补充说，这家公用事业公司充满了“勤奋的个体，他们很在乎，但他们的努力并没有转化为客户可见的成果”。
那么，Halsall 在短期内可以采取什么措施？他概述了解决“可见”泄漏灾难的计划——即那些数日未修复的爆裂水管。
批评者表示，水务监管机构 (Ofwat) 过于关注保持低账单，而忽略了为该行业所需的基建提供资金。现在它正在追赶进度。
“出于环境原因，这些必须受到保护。水务公司一直在努力减少从中抽水的量，”Porter 解释道。
“作为一个组织，我们承受着巨大的压力，我以前也处于这种位置。你感到压力，工作速度加快……你做了更多，但做得不够好，结果也更差。”
“我们必须加快处理可见渗漏的速度，因为这会让客户深感不安，”他说，并补充道，爆裂的水管“通常比隐蔽渗漏的漏水量少”。
在到 2030 年为止的五年里，该行业计划大幅增加支出。South East Water 正将客户账单提高 22 %，以资助一项 19 亿英镑 (19 亿英镑 billion) 的投资计划。
去年 11 月，当肯特郡 Tunbridge Wells 镇停水时，当地公用事业公司 South East Water 为其客户设立了应急瓶装水站。但它将水站设在了 Tonbridge —— 一个完全不同的城镇，距离五英里之遥。
更复杂的是，东南部是一个“缺水”地区，其降雨量低于全国其他地区 —— 甚至在今年夏天的干旱之前就是如此 —— 且人口正在增加。
约翰·霍尔索尔 (John Halsall) 是一位行业资深人士，曾就职于 South West Water 的所有者 Pennon 和 Thames Water。对于该公司的表现，他用了一个词来形容：“不可接受”。
霍尔索尔的三管齐下计划是：增强公司的“韧性”；在出现问题时加快响应速度（不再将水站设在错误的城镇）；以及重建与客户的信任。他面临的任务十分艰巨。
因此，工程师往往倾向于修复隐蔽渗漏，而不是客户能察觉到的渗漏。
“我们有大量建筑工程要完成，包括增加更多饮用水储水罐，”霍尔索尔说。“我们正在铺设多条管道，这将带来巨大的改变。”
“令人担忧的是，考虑到我们现在正面临连续的热浪且需求激增，我们还没能完全规划好所需之物。”
上任六天后，霍尔索尔坐在他位于肯特郡 Snodland 的办公室里，向《星期日泰晤士报》解释他将如何修复这家水务公司。该公司与规模大得多的 Thames 公司竞争着“英国最糟糕公用事业”的称号。
“你可以理解其中的工程逻辑，”霍尔索尔补充道。“但团队未必关注的是，我们正让客户感到沮丧，从而让他们认为我们并不关心。接着，客户在节水方面的信息反馈也就没有响应了。”
South East Water 为肯特郡、萨塞克斯郡、萨里郡、汉普郡和伯克郡的 230 万 (2.3 million) 名客户提供服务。它仅供应饮用水，不处理废水。该公司去年的营业额为 3.52 亿英镑 (£352 million)，是由 1989 年水务行业私有化后的小公司合并而成的。因此，其业务区域被分割为
这次失误 —— 虽被迅速纠正 —— 是这家经常出错的水务公司最明显的失败，但绝非唯一一次。停水源于当地处理厂的一个问题，但公司无法说明何时能修复。小镇陷入混乱；企业和学校关闭，瓶装水的配送未能触及弱势群体。
他做出了一个令人震惊的承诺。与其他水务公司老板不同 —— 后者的奖金被行业监管机构 Ofwat 扣除，随后又被授予“津贴”以弥补差额 —— 他将完全不领取奖金。
SOUTH EAST WATER 的运营范围在哪里？
他正在研究替换客户房产内渗漏管道的方法 —— 这一领域通常不属于水务公司的责任范围。“30% 的渗漏发生在客户侧，”霍尔索尔说。“我想探讨我们如何补贴或支付这些渗漏的 [维修] 费用。因为目前，客户修复一个渗漏大约需要 40 天，而我们大约一周就能完成。”
伦敦 (LONDON)
“我的合同里没有奖金，”他说。“我认为奖金极易引发情绪波动。我与董事会的谈话内容是：我不需要奖金。这毫无帮助。我的基本工资是 55 万英镑 (£550,000)，没有奖金，没有津贴 —— 所以你看到的即是实际所得。”
布拉克内尔 (Bracknell)
两个区域，东区和西区。其网络的脱节特性意味着它并不总能轻易地调配水源；其网络中有些区域仅有一个供水来源。
坎特伯雷 (Canterbury)
当供水最终恢复后，在随后的九天里，南东水务公司 (South East) 要求住户将水烧开后再使用。一个月后，一次水管爆裂引发了另一次停水。而上个月，7,000 处物业在又一个周末期间失去了用水。
汤布里奇韦尔斯 (Tunbridge Wells)
法纳姆 (Farnham)
如果提供这样的方案，其时间将会受限。但哈尔索尔 (Halsall) 表示：“我真正希望客户看到我们是认真的。我们将用不同的方式做事。而这将是其中一项举措。”
阿什福德 (Ashford)
克兰布鲁克 (Cranbrook)
“他们有很多不连通的区域，”在该行业工作的工程师乔·波特 (Jo Porter) 说道。“仅由一个来源供水的区域是非常脆弱的。” 南东水务还存在一个
值得注意的是，该基本薪资比欣顿 (Hinton) 获得的要高出 £150,000。但哈尔索尔希望展示他正在用不同的方式做事，例如与媒体沟通——而这是欣顿一直避免的行为。
海沃兹希思 (Haywards Heath)
五月，环境委员会的国会议员表示，他们对南东水务的领导层“没有信心”。其主席克里斯·特雷恩 (Chris Train) 离职，随后首席执行官大卫·欣顿 (David Hinton) 也离职了。南东水务现在有了一位新老板：
南东水务目前在其整个网络中实施软管禁令。在肯特郡和萨塞克斯郡，在过去五年中，该公司四次发布了此类禁令。但其首席执行官坚持认为，此类禁令不会成为我们夏季的常态。
根本性的供应短缺。它缺乏足够的表面
东bourne (Eastbourne)
30 英里
英国计划在 2027. 年初引入类似的关税，称为碳边境调节机制 (CBAM)。然而，企业主尚未获得该计划的详细信息，并担心其推行可能会被推迟。“新城镇、道路、医院、先进制造业基地，以及国防、能源和水务基础设施，都依赖于由我们行业提供的数百万吨混凝土、骨料、水泥、沥青和砂浆，”阿德莱克 (Adeleke) 表示。
雄心；关键在于让转型变得可行。我们的绝大多数车辆是出口的，但如果国内市场的成本难以承受，那么吸引外来投资几乎是不可能的。”
首席执行官表示，由于配额问题，汽车制造商正在推迟在英国的投资决定。“制造商已在电动汽车 (EV) 领域投资数十亿，但零排放车辆 (ZEV) 指令的进度仍然快于自然需求，而充电设施的铺设则滞后。”
与去年同期相比，下降了 9.3%，沙子和砾石下降了 8.1%，砂浆下降了 5.1%。
“投资信心以及驾驶者转向电动车的信心，”章鱼电动汽车 (Octopus Electric Vehicles) 首席执行官古杰特·格雷沃尔 (Gurjeet Grewal) 表示。
奥利弗·吉尔 (Oliver Gill)
今年在工业界抗议该政策迫使英国汽车制造商削减总产量后。
财政大臣约翰·希利 (John Healey) 已收到警告，如果国内水泥产量下降到 1950 年代以来的低点，英国的再工业化将无法实现。
阿德莱克继续说道：“鉴于这种持续下降的规模，工业能力目前正在丧失。目前对于未来的人员、场地或设备的投资缺乏信心。这种情况必须改变。”
“像奇瑞这样的全球品牌选择英国，是因为他们看到了一个方向明确的市场。现在削弱该指令，将向那些希望在这里创造就业机会并进行投资的企业发出完全错误的信号。”
在其任期的最后几周，斯塔默承诺重新调整零排放车辆（ZEV）指令，使 2030 年的目标可降至低至 50%，而非 80%。据信，Unite 工会是在说服斯塔默需要进行变革方面发挥关键作用的工会之一。但伯纳姆尚未决定是否继续执行这些计划。
今年上半年预混混凝土销量下降
企业负责人已致信希利，告知他英国建筑材料公司正经历的是“去工业化”。
然而，汇丰银行（HSBC）所确定的折扣减少现象，支持了那些敦促伯纳姆坚持当前目标的人。
他说：“改革的呼声并非局限在少数人之中；它来自在这里进行制造和进口的厂商——包括老牌品牌和挑战者品牌——以及零售企业和负责车辆维修的人员。”
国内产量的下降主要是因为生产商在价格上被进口产品击败。
矿物产品协会（Mineral Products Association）首席执行官保罗·阿德莱克（Paul Adeleke）表示：“扭转这一局面并确保供应经济基础材料的主权能力必须成为一项优先任务。”
在进入唐宁街后，首相安迪·伯纳姆谈到了“通过使用公共采购来支持英国工业，实现英国的再工业化”。
“ZEV 指令正在发挥作用——它正在为
他补充道：“电动汽车不再是未来的技术；它们正日益成为道路上性价比最高的汽车。最后
在欧盟引入关税以保护欧洲大陆生产商之后，情况变得更加岌岌可危。结果，此前发往欧元区的廉价出口产品涌入英国，损害了国内生产。
制造商 the
行业需要的东西
他向希利发出警告：“如果没有我们的成员，你们在竞选宣言中承诺建设的任何项目或基础设施规划都无法交付。”
但英国建筑材料生产商经常被忽视，尤其是因为他们雇佣的员工通常比钢铁或造车等其他部门少。
这是另一个导致消费者困惑并令投资者却步的政策摇摆，而此时
上周，汽车制造商和贸易商协会（SMMT）再次呼吁修改销售配额。该贸易机构的迈克·霍夫斯（Mike Hawes）
“这不是关于降低
本周公布的数据将显示，在今年前六个月，预混混凝土的销售额
转型正在加速。”
6 英格兰银行行长安德鲁·贝利（Andrew Bailey）和货币政策委员会决定将利率维持在 3.75 不变，这让新政府感到宽慰。但这可能只是暂时的。
6 富时 100 指数（FTSE 100）的上涨部分是由国防公司在预期政府支出增加的情况下触发的。
6 消费者在世界杯期间增加在酒吧的消费，同时挥金购买花园家具和风扇，营造了积极的氛围。
贝利暗示，如果美国在伊朗战争带来的通胀影响开始显现，那么将利率维持在 12 月以来水平的决定可能会很短暂。货币政策委员会（MPC）的目标是将通货膨胀率维持在 2，低于 6 月份的 2.6 水平。
BAE Systems 在安迪·伯纳姆访问其位于巴罗-因-弗尼斯的场地并宣布投资 84 亿英镑 billion 用于 Dreadnought 潜艇以替代 Vanguard 舰队后，股价上涨。尽管这笔资金是在基尔·斯塔默爵士政府末期承诺的，但新任首相重新将重点放在了国防上。这一利好也延伸到了富时 100 指数成分股中的发动机制造商劳尔斯-罗伊斯，该公司为美国海军的 MQ-25 Stingray 制造发动机。但在石油方面，由于 BP 宣布出售其在该地区的业务，伯纳姆在北海钻探问题上正面临与内阁产生潜在争执的局面。
巴克莱银行的数据显示，6 月份的消费支出增长速度快于 5 月份。
上周，烘焙连锁店 Greggs 提供了一个衡量消费支出的新指标。在业绩显示其发展势头强劲后，该公司周三的股价上涨了 18%。Greggs 在其烘焙产品系列中增加了沙拉、野餐食品和冰抹茶拿铁，推动上半年营收增长 7%。利润增长 20%，达到 £76 million。Panmure Liberum 的首席经济学家 Simon French 认为，英国家庭维持消费的能力是看好市场的理由。
委员会成员正在等待观察更高的能源账单是否会传导至更高的商品价格。市场预计在年底前将上涨至 4%。
不过，贝利及其团队确实给伯纳姆带来了一些好消息：将今年的增长预测从 4 月份预测的 0.9% 上调至 1.1%。
VICKI COUCHMAN 为《星期日泰晤士报》供稿
Katie Lopes 认为内衣很特别：“一旦女性找到了她们喜爱的品牌，她们就会重复购买”
该公司由一家澳大利亚基础设施基金、一家加拿大公司和国民西敏斯银行（NatWest）养老金计划所有。该公司上月宣布达成一项协议，增加 £200 million 债务以支撑其财务状况。这使其“杠杆率”——即债务与权益之比——维持在约 65%，高于 Ofwat 建议的 55% 水平。
“舒适”但依然看起来很棒。她说，那时“正是维多利亚的秘密（Victoria’s Secret）的鼎盛时期”。“你的一端是极具性感、符合男性凝视的内衣，另一端则是 M&S 的巨大奶奶裤……我们很忙，有比担心内裤勒进屁股缝或 VPL [可见内裤痕迹] 更重要的事情要做。”
“我们对目前的流动性和现金流感到满意，”Halsall 表示。“对我来说，财务问题的关键在于所有路径最终都指向运营和客户表现。”他说，只要解决运营表现，财务状况就应该会改善。
她开始拆解现有的内衣，以研究其制造方法。“我无法理解为什么会有那么多非常厚实的弹性接缝。正是这些东西勒进皮肤，让人不舒服并产生痕迹，”她说。
Jess Jones
信用评级机构可能会有不同的看法；上个月，东南水务公司（South East Water）再次被下调评级，导致其违反了许可协议。与此同时，Ofwat 关于早于 Tunbridge Wells 危机前供应失效的一份谴责性报告，列举了一系列与维护、规划、运营响应和董事会监督相关的失败。
Katie Lopes 估计，在设计出她理想的内裤之前，她研究内衣花费了 10,000 小时。“就像我在商店货架上有一个每日焦点小组。我花了六年时间成为了一个内裤狂热者。”
在研究材料后，Lopes 用平缝锁边和蕾丝边缘取代了弹性腰带，以便在不勒入皮肤的情况下固定服装。“既然你穿着如此私密的衣物，它理应由某种能随身体共同呼吸、而非对抗身体的材料制成，这很有道理。”
拥有成本较低的优势。Stripe & Stare 最初在她的家中运营，直到内衣盒子堆满了她儿子的乐高积木。随后她将业务迁入一个 300 平方英尺的仓库，而现在那里已成为一个 12,000 平方英尺的专用订单履行中心。
在 2017, 年，Lopes 创立了 Stripe & Stare，在与 Selfridges 和 Shopbop 建立批发合作伙伴关系的同时，直接面向消费者销售。同年，前同事 Nicola Piercy 加入负责财务和运营，一名一直关注 Lopes 职业生涯的天使投资人提供了 £120,000 的资金，使该业务得以启动。
维多利亚与阿尔伯特博物馆甚至将 Lopes 及其母亲制作的原型产品选中，用于一次关于内衣历史的展览，这些原型产品正是这家总部位于伦敦的内衣品牌 Stripe & Stare 的基础。
数百名 Stripe & Stare 的客户告诉我们：“我很想投资你们”
Halsall 似乎承认了之前管理层的失职；他对自己所有站点实施了“端到端”的检查。他说：“其中一些回归基础的练习已经很久没有开展了。”
在一次黑色星期五促销活动期间，由于公司当时正处于搬迁至新仓库的过程中，预计单日销售额为 £25,000。然而，在 24 小时内实际销售额达到了 £150,000。Lopes 表示，履行这些订单导致“三周内陷入绝对的混乱”。
我认为这听起来像是在疏忽。他回答道：“我的预期是有一套完整的资产管理登记册和相关的维护机制。对于某些站点，这确实存在，但并非全部。”
Lopes 决定选用 Lenzing Tencel 品牌的面料，这是一种由可持续来源的木浆制成的透气纤维。
来自零售商的订单资助了该公司第一年的全部生产；Lopes 表示，如果没有这些订单，他们将没有信心达到工厂的最低起订量。在给客户发送邮件询问是否有人想投资后，联合创始人随后通过众筹获得了另外 £250,000 以开发更多产品。“我记得查看我们的电子邮箱，成百上千的人说，‘我很想投资你们’。”
如今，该公司在网上以及包括 Marks & Spencer 和 Next 在内的零售商处销售数百款内裤，以及睡衣和家居服。2025, 年，该公司营业额为 £12，税前利润为 £463,000。
她向母亲描述了自己的设计，由母亲绘制了第一张技术草图并缝制了第一个样品。Lopes 将其发送给了一家内衣工厂的所有者。
Andy Burnham 多次表达过他希望公共部门能对水务公司拥有更大控制权的愿望。South East 不正是国有化的理想候选对象吗？
该公司在疫情期间飞速增长。名人的代言，例如来自 Kris Jenner 和 Oprah Winfrey 的支持，也起到了推动作用。后者是通过加利福尼亚州的一家精品店发现该品牌的，随后在 Instagram 上发布了自己穿着 Stripe & Stare 睡衣的照片。
意识到她拥有一个“非常令人兴奋”的机会。
她说：“但我意识到这是一个成本相当低的产品。[我想]，这是一个英国特有的现象，因为我们热爱内裤，还是它可以在全球范围内可行？”一位在美国家居电商 Shopbop 工作的买手朋友说服了 Lopes，美国年轻消费者也会接受这个品牌。
Halsall 说：“如果我们能提供客户想要的东西，就不会有人讨论国有化。无论是否国有化，水务公司的职责完全一样。而且大体来说，还是同样的人。管理团队可能会改变，但员工将是同一批人。在资金方面存在差异，但那是政治决定。”
近十年间，她在经营 Austique 的同时继续开发这款产品——直到最终，内裤成为了该店最畅销的产品线。
现年 50 岁的 Lopes 在德文郡的乡村与三个兄弟姐妹一同长大，她说这给了她充足的独立空间。“如果你跑进一片长满牛的田野，你得自己想办法解决。”
一个转折点出现在时任 Selfridges 董事长 Alannah Weston 收到了一对产品的时候。“我们接到她办公室的电话说：‘我们认为这个产品太棒了。’”
两年前，该公司推出了一款可以外穿的编织睡衣品牌。这已成为其最畅销的产品之一。“我不认为我们是一个传统的内衣品牌，”Lopes 说道，“我认为我们是一个内衣、基础款 [以及] 外衣品牌。”
随后，该公司获得了包括美容企业家 Charlotte Tilbury 的丈夫 George Ward 在内的投资者支持。Stripe & Stare 总共筹集了 £4.6 百万的股权资金。
在纽卡斯尔大学学习心理学并在电视制作领域工作后，Lopes 于 2004 年与她的姐姐 Lindy 合作，在切尔西的国王路上开设了 Austique。这家精品店将 Zimmermann 等澳大利亚时尚品牌介绍给了英国消费者。“我们原以为可能只能盈亏平衡，”Lopes 说，“但实际上，效果比我们想象的要好得多。”
这在 Lopes 需要时给了她信心，因为当时她正经历离婚。“我突然变成了……一个单身母亲，我的两个孩子都依赖我。我担心如果没发生这件事……我永远不会有这种自信。”
为了警告国有化的危险，他讲述了一个在 Thames Water 工作时的故事，当时该行业刚完成私有化。“他们刚刚停止在污水处理厂设立玫瑰维护团队。他们曾有一个团队的人员，除了在污水处理厂周围照看玫瑰之外什么都不干。而那是一个国有化团队。”
Weston 希望将这款内衣在 Selfridges 上架，作为她推动可持续发展计划的一部分。大约在同一时间，Austique 的租约到期，Lopes 关闭了店铺。
在所有这些活动中，Lopes 回到了德文郡以过更平静的生活，这也
Stripe & Stare 目前拥有 50 多名员工，仍将英国视为其最大的市场，其次是美国、爱尔兰和澳大利亚。“我开始时并没有一个宏大的全球计划。我只是知道我可以扩大公司的规模，而且市场存在空白，”Lopes 说，“我认为这是一个女性的共同问题：我们不够相信自己能够做到这些事情。我想鼓励更多女性去相信。”
我信守的座右铭……我有一个马克杯，上面写着“把事情搞定 (get shit done)”。我认为“完成”比“完美”更重要。如果我能告诉你一件事……没有人接受过成为企业家的培训，而你不知道的东西可以通过学习获得。所以，勇敢地跳出去开始吧。
而且没有赢。对他来说，这没什么大不了的。这帮助我培养了在经营企业所需的坚韧和毅力。你收到的最好的建议……保持缓慢而稳定。一次只做一件事，所有这些小事累积起来就成了大成就。
有一个特定类别吸引了她的注意；顾客们不断地回来购买完全相同的内裤。“内衣不同于任何其他时尚服装类别，”她说，“一旦女性找到了她们喜爱的品牌，她们就会重复购买。”
Halsall 传达了最后一段话：“我对我们的客户深表歉意。我们很抱歉。我们会做得更好。”
我钦佩的人……我的祖父——他是历史上唯一一个在温布尔登单打决赛中获得赛点的人
然后他离开去处理日常工作，其中包括学习如何发音各种地名——并且，大概还包括区分 Tunbridge Wells 和 Tonbridge 的课程。
然而，Lopes 很难找到那些“超级
插图：PETE BAKER
贷款机构去年免于征税，但关于意外之财税 (windfall tax) 的传闻并未消失。Jill Treanor 写道，现在飙升的利润正使银行成为一个诱人的目标。
至 43 亿英镑 billion。 “四大”行中的另一成员汇丰银行（HSBC）将于本周发布报告。
Charlie Nunn 谨慎地措辞。在上周与记者的电话会议中，他表示劳埃德银行集团（Lloyds Banking Group）的目标是“帮助英国繁荣”。
就在一年前，在左翼智库公共政策研究所（IPPR）的一份报告建议财政部对英国最大的银行征收一项新税，以每年为纳税人带来 80 亿英镑 billion 的收入后，银行股大幅下跌。
这位富时 100 指数（FTSE 100）银行巨头的首席执行官继承了前任的口号，而其前任当时需要
桑坦德银行（Santander）首席执行官 Ana Botin 表示，英国对银行征税的方式“在经济上毫无意义”
尽管里夫斯（Reeves）在 2025 年 11 月的预算案中免除了他们的额外税收，但这一话题不断地重新出现。
在金融危机期间获得 200 亿英镑 billion 救助后，向纳税人证明其支持的正当性。
上周，Nunn 试图回避关于加税可能性的问题，尽管他在巴克莱银行（Barclays）和国民西敏寺银行（NatWest）的同行直接给出了答复。
但现在这三个字具有不同的含义。它们揭示了英国最大银行目前正在开展的一场活动，旨在说服财政大臣 John Healey 不要对该行业征收新税。在 Andy Burnham 解雇 Rachel Reeves 后，Healey 上任仅一周。到目前为止，他尚未暗示加税在议程之内，但上周，具有影响力的工会大会（TUC）呼吁提高银行税以降低中低收入者的能源账单，这激起了争论。
2008 年至 2023 年间，英国企业的资金来自私人信贷来源，而非传统银行。因此，它们上周努力展示自己在经济中所扮演的角色。例如，劳埃德银行设定了一项到 2030 年向小企业提供 450 亿英镑 billion 贷款的承诺——这是其首次设定此类目标。
“46 per cent”。她引用咨询公司 PwC 汇总的数据称，“相比之下，纽约约为 28 per cent，欧盟在 30 和 40 per cent 之间”。
他表示，他“完全专注于他的优先事项，这将促进业务发展，帮助应对生活成本，并支持每个邮政编码区的人们”。
巴克莱银行首席执行官、印度裔美国人 CS Venkatakrishnan 表示：“我们非常希望利用我们的资本向经济体提供贷款，支持投资并支持增长。国家增长得越好，我们大家就越好。”
在英国运营的国际银行并不支持该制度。今年 6 月，西班牙桑坦德银行首席执行官 Ana Botin 表示，英国对银行征税的方式“在经济上毫无意义”。桑坦德银行是英国五大银行之一，近期通过从西班牙竞争对手 Sabadell 手中收购 TSB 扩大了其影响力。
一名发言人表示：“一如既往，关于税收的决定由财政大臣在财政活动中确定，而不会对传闻、猜测或提案进行常规评论。”
投资银行 Shore Capital 的分析师 Gary Greenwood 表示：“他们都在试图假装在尽最大努力支持英国经济，但与此同时，他们的利润正在增长。”
国民西敏寺银行首席执行官 Paul Thwaite 坚称：“如果你想要强劲的经-
Healey 的首次预算案日期现已定于 10 月 28 日。在那之前，银行将面临痛苦的等待——以及继续陈述其主张的时间。
济，你就需要强有力的银行。”
国民西敏寺银行（当时被称为苏格兰皇家银行）是典型的
甚至在 TUC 干扰银行财报季之前，分析师和投资者就已经担心，对于一个急于寻找增收途径且资金短缺的财政大臣来说，贷款机构将是一个容易被攻击的目标。
银行方面认为，由于金融危机后实施的制度，他们支付的税款比其他大经济体的竞争对手更多。他们需要缴纳基于资产负债表规模的征税，以及针对利润征收的公司税附加费。后者于 2016 年引入，旨在让银行“针对其给英国金融体系及更广泛经济带来的潜在风险做出公平贡献”。
在 2008 年金融危机之前的银行糟糕表现中……纳税人最终通过 450 亿英镑 billion bailout 维持了皇家银行（RBS）的运转。
上个月，美国最大银行摩根大通（JP Morgan）的负责人杰米·戴蒙（Jamie Dimon）警告称，提高银行税将产生“不利后果”。他坚称：“摩根大通没有破坏英国。”
国民西敏寺银行（NatWest）负责人思韦特（Thwaite）表示：“我想与新政府合作。我们是最大的基础设施贷款机构，拥有规模最大的中小企业（SME）银行。我们发挥作用并帮助英国每个国家和地区实现增长至关重要，这也是我想利用银行资本的方式。”
上周公布的最新数据显示，为什么他们看起来像是容易下手的猎物。巴克莱银行（Barclays）上半年的利润比去年同期增长了 17%，达到 61 亿英镑 billion；劳埃德银行集团（Lloyds Banking Group）的利润增长 23%，达到 43 亿英镑 billion；国民西敏寺银行增长了 20%，同样
最新数据显示，银行在利润方面已经有所改观，但现在需要加大贷款力度。英格兰银行的数据显示，在向……提供的 4250 亿英镑 billion net increase in lending 中，几乎所有……
由于摩根大通计划在金丝雀码头（Canary Wharf）建造一座 30 亿英镑 billion landmark tower，他的话具有共鸣。该协议于去年宣布，就在里夫斯（Reeves）的预算案中银行免于被“打劫”的次日。这意味着，如果工党将注意力转向该行业，这座塔楼可能会陷入危机。至于希利（Healey），财政部……
Venkatakrishnan 在谈到巴克莱银行时表示：“英国是一个开展业务以及以其为基地的绝佳场所。”Nunn 补充道：“感觉现在有一个很好的议程，我们非常支持。”
摩根大通在金丝雀码头新塔楼上的投入
巴克莱银行财务总监安娜·克罗斯（Anna Cross）表示，这使得英国银行的税率成为“全球最高，约为……
“简历毫无意义”：如果你想找工作，准备好发送视频吧
……也就是说，它将不再仅仅是几页 A4 纸”。
奥利维亚·瑟古伊（Olivia Surguy）提到的是由 AI 软件筛选的 AI 撰写简历——这对许多申请人来说是极其沮丧的，因为他们觉得无法引起人类的关注。甚至首相也介入了此事。上周，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）表示，雇主应该停止使用 AI 来筛选简历。
当来自伦敦西南部克拉珀姆（Clapham）的 23 岁社交媒体经理安妮·拉德本（Anie Radbourne）看到她最喜爱的品牌之一的创始人发布的 Instagram 视频称他们正在招聘时，她非常兴奋。但唯一的问题是：他们希望申请者发布一段关于自己的社交媒体视频，而不是发送简历。
上市招聘机构罗伯特·沃尔特斯（Robert Walters）的英国负责人丹尼尔·哈里斯（Daniel Harris）表示，“人们收到的简历数量如此之多”，这意味着申请者必须“寻找一种让自己脱颖而出”的方法。
公司可能会要求你录制一段关于你经验的简短片段
从初创公司到科技巨头，从市场推动者到城市 CEO，我们的每周播客将与身处其中的企业家一起剖析商业领域最大的故事。
他表示，虽然传统白领岗位仍需要简历，但主要问题是如何获得面试机会。
班尼斯特（Bannister）支持一种新方法。“许多公司正在与下一代沟通；他们是数字原住民，视频优先……[但]我们本质上仍然要求申请者拿起鹅管笔写一封信。”
他说，一些企业“表示希望更真实地了解你是谁”，这可能意味着录制视频。“（他们）可能会要求你录制一段关于你经历的简短片段，讲述你在下一个职位中寻找什么，以及简单介绍一下你自己。”
她发信息给创始人询问是否有简报；他们表示由她决定。“我回复道：‘挑战接受：拭目以待’，”拉德本 (Radbourne) 说道。
就业市场已变得异常激烈，招聘人员必须在众多高素质候选人中进行筛选。班尼斯特 (Bannister) 表示，填补职位空缺已变得更加“以人为本”。“我们一直在说：‘招聘者正变成选角导演’。”
她说：“我真的很喜欢这样……以前申请工作时，我觉得自己被困住了，无法展示我的个性创意的一面。我制作视频时并不是在说‘这是我，这是我的简历’，而是把自己表现得像已经在那里工作一样。”
哈里斯 (Harris) 表示，在初创公司和大型企业中，录制视频的候选人数有所增加。
班尼斯特认为，简历和求职信将在 2030 年前变得过时。她的公司用短视频推介取代简历，并使用算法将求职者与机会匹配。她说：“简历是一份事实清单，因此它可以作为个人资料而存在。”招聘与就业联合会 (Recruitment & Employment Confederation) 首席执行官尼尔·卡伯里 (Neil Carberry) 指出，简历上的信息可以在其他地方找到。他认为：“重要的是要记住，尤其是在专业招聘中，每个人都有 LinkedIn 个人主页或社交媒体账号来讲述自己的故事。”
虽然 Sult 的方法较为极端，但它反映了招聘领域更广泛的变化。
AI 驱动的招聘初创公司 Riser 的联合创始人苏兹·班尼斯特 (Suz Bannister) 表示：“人们开始趋向于‘无求职信、无简历’的趋势。我认为这是因为 AI 在与 AI 对话，人们对这一过程失去了信任。”
候选人应维护好自己的在线个人资料并在此讲述故事，”他说。“某种程度上，一个能起到简历作用的东西是长久存在的。它可能会……”
因此，请保持你的简历更新，但如果不再需要它，也不要感到惊讶。
这家名为 Sult 的伦敦电解质补充剂制造商以其古怪的要求吸引了关注。短短一周内，就有人们通过在房顶大喊大叫或跳入大海（“我全身心地投入到我所做的每一件事中”）来吸引创始人亨利·波波拉 (Henry Porpora) 和米莉·戈德史密斯 (Milly Goldsmith) 的注意。
“在当今时代，简历完全没有任何意义。尤其是当你可以在两秒钟内用 ChatGPT 快速生成一份时，”波波拉说。“我明白人们想在纸面上如何塑造形象，但这实际上无法揭示任何才华。”
四大会计师事务所之一的普华永道 (PwC) 也不再要求初级职业申请者提交简历。其劳动力战略负责人卡莉·派克 (Carly Pike) 表示：“优秀的候选人并不总是遵循传统路径。我们不认为人才可以仅凭一个人的过往经验、资历或他们获得的机会来评判。相反，我们的评估过程旨在帮助候选人展示他们的技能、优势和潜力。”
Virgin Media O2 在十年前就取消了大多数初级职位的简历要求。其人才负责人莎伦·奥唐奈 (Sharron O’Donnell) 表示：“在我们的学徒、毕业生、实习生体系中，我们不使用简历……这些职位多种多样，涵盖产品、网络安全、财务等领域……我们使用基于个人潜力和动力地评估工具。”
罗布·皮尼 (ROB PINNEY) 为《星期日泰晤士报》撰写
然而，至关重要的是，他们还必须承认，没有任何一个人能拥有应对人工智能、战争或他们所面临的任何挑战所需的所有技能。宾汉姆（Bingham）表示：“我们过去认为首席执行官是……全知、全视、全能的，所有权力都源于他。而现在的变化是，优秀的首席执行官知道自己不知道什么，并为自己配备懂这些的人才。”
猎头公司 Odgers 的一位人士认为，由于员工现在比以往更容易离职，首席执行官现在需要更加“以人为本”。弗里本（Freebairn）表示：“大多数前任首席执行官管理的是那些员工对所在组织具有极高忠诚度的机构。”
情况已经发生了变化。在过去，“方向是由上层设定的，每个人都需要跟从”老板。但亚历山德拉基斯（Alexandrakis）表示，如今的领导者在“团队对方向认同的深度和强度”方面面临着更多的审查。
他说，首席执行官们正面临“巨大的问题”，并且必须问自己：“我如何确保我建立的团队和系统能够解决这些问题，甚至在我离开之后依然有效？”这一理论或许有助于解释近年来首席执行官的人员流动情况。Russell Reynolds 上周发布的数据显示，在经历了一段时间的动荡后，今年首席执行官的离职率开始趋于稳定。去年，富时 100 (FTSE 100) 公司的最高层变动是自 2019. 以来最高的一次。仅举几例，帝亚吉欧（Diageo）与黛布拉·克鲁（Debra Crew）分道扬镳，BP 与默里·奥金克洛斯（Murray Auchincloss）分手，WPP 与马克·里德（Mark Read）离职。
这些观点由总部位于芝加哥的猎头公司 Russell Reynolds Associates 的首席执行官康斯坦丁·亚历山德拉基斯（Constantine Alexandrakis）提出。将于下月出版的这篇文章详述了这样一个论点：首席执行官的性质已经发生了变化。公司由自大老板驱动的时代已经过去，取而代之的是“催化剂”型首席执行官的时代——这些老板不再能仅依靠个人才华来执行其战略。
吉尔·特雷诺（Jill Treanor）
在疫情期间，出版商培生（Pearson）的员工在参加例行的周五 Zoom 电话会议时，看到了一个意想不到的景象：他们的首席执行官安迪·伯德（Andy Bird）正在展现他内心深处的“文艺青年”一面。
亚历山德拉基斯表示：“这种对更强认同感的需求已经增强到这样程度：首席执行官必须精通销售技巧……并让每个人都参与进来。这是一个微妙的转变，”需要“一定程度的谦虚、开放以及分布式的所有权。”
这位中年英国人戴着耳机，扮演着 DJ 的角色，让员工们的扬声器里充满了震耳欲聋的舞曲节奏。
他们还需要做出更多决定。“陈词滥调是……你担任首席执行官七年，”
但他们可能仍需培养自己在人工智能领域的技能，而不是将该领域的权力下放。Board Intelligence 咨询公司负责人皮帕·贝格（Pippa Begg）认为，首席执行官现在不能仅仅依赖首席技术官。“这项技术将定义我们如何开展业务，”她说。“因此，这必须成为现代首席执行官的一项核心技能。”
“……你在这七年里只需做一个定义未来七年的重大决定。而现在，你每六个月就要做一个重大决定，”弗里本说。
亚历山德拉基斯表示：“从历史上看，你会把首席执行官视为一个驱动者，几乎是一个指挥官。而我们从公司面临的挑战中发现，为了正面应对这些挑战，领导者必须更多地扮演‘催化剂’的角色。”
伯德在迪士尼（Disney）拥有令人赞赏的职业生涯后，于 2020, 年加入培生，旨在推动该业务的彻底变革。他希望摆脱该公司作为一家死板的教科书出版商的形象，将其转变为数字化冠军。他在打碟的行为是为了展示他人性化的一面。
安迪·伯德在担任培生首席执行官时曾尝试担任 DJ
他说，首席执行官的候选人是基于其“自我意识”以及他们如何能够“通过他人产生结果”来评估的。
猎头公司 Heidrick & Struggles 的合伙人 Kit Bingham 认为，当今的首席执行官（CEO）仍然需要与过去相同的技能，“但其程度要提高十倍”。
全球数据显示，在经历了一段时间高频的高层变动后，压力已经有所缓解。一种理论认为，股市一直以来……
“从历史上看，[一名 CEO] 需要具备一种人格力量、可见度和掌控力”。而现在，
其他领先的招聘人员也意识到了这些微调。
打碟（DJing）对此没有帮助。
合伙人 Mark Freebairn
这个故事被记录在一部书中
快进到世纪之交，福斯特在挺过结肠癌后，监督了助力伦敦现代复兴的项目。如今，福斯特一个合伙建筑事务所（Foster + Partners）即将开展的英国项目包括圣詹姆斯公园的伊丽莎白二世纪念碑，以及曼彻斯特联队这座 100,000 人的新体育场。
“我简直欣喜若狂，”福斯特在谈到这个回归故里的项目时说道。但这座建筑的施工将是一项艰巨的任务。
“你需要在无障碍通行、安全性、保障性、舒适度以及所有这些品质之间取得平衡，但同时要设法不损害那种近在咫尺的直观体验，让你感觉到自己是行动的一部分，”福斯特说，他本人并不是一名狂热的足球迷。“这是一个迷人的挑战。”
我不需要选择对话的切入点。福斯特习惯于与首相以及史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）、迈克尔·布隆伯格（Michael Bloomberg）和拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）等商业远见者交往，他决定由他来设定议程。他准备了一个演示文稿。这很不寻常，但我发现自己很难拒绝听取这位全球最著名的建筑师的方案演示。
福斯特引导我进入他公司那像谷仓一样大的新工作室，里面摆放着该公司一些最大项目的模型，从伦敦的千禧桥到汇丰银行（HSBC）的香港大厦。
他打开了他的写生簿，其中准备了一篇题为“设计在社会获益中的力量”的手写笔记。他解释说，福斯特一个合伙建筑事务所不仅仅是为了金钱设计漂亮的建筑——它旨在利用尖端技术，改善使用其办公室和公共空间的人们的生活。这意味着将它们设计得既具有美感，又在环境上可持续，且风格能与自然环境相融合。
福斯特一个合伙建筑事务所的最大股东是加拿大投资集团 Hennick 和福斯特家族，该公司 2025 年超过一半的营业额来自中东。中国也成为了一个可靠的客户。我问福斯特，对于与权威政权合作，他是否有任何顾虑。
他似乎对这个问题感到有些不快。“是的，确实有一些建筑类型和某些政权是我们没有为其工作的，”他说，但他指出，世界上大多数人口生活在权威统治之下。“我们属于民主的少数群体。看看中国是如何让 800 million 人——这比美国人口多三倍以上——脱离贫困和极端贫困的，”他说。“人类的 14% 生活在非正式定居点。他们无法获得电力和卫生设施。其中许多都位于权威政权下。作为一名设计师，难道你不会寻求参与改变这一切吗？”
停顿之后，福斯特用期待的目光看着我。他并不是在做反问。“我是在问你一个问题。如果改变情况以达成善举就在你的权力之内，你会说：‘我不打算这么做，因为那不是一个民主国家’吗？”
Foster + Partners 在 2022 年卡塔尔世界杯前遭到批评，该公司设计了卢塞尔体育场，而人权组织则对建筑工人的恶劣或危及生命的生存条件表示担忧。该公司明确表示，其仅对卢塞尔体育场进行了“概念设计”，并未参与建设。Foster + Partners 强调，当其参与“建设阶段”时，会对“工人福利执行严格的标准”。
Foster + Partners 的故事是英国成功的缩影——约 80% 的员工驻留在英国——但其客户群体则揭示了金钱与权力的东移。
Foster 对英国作为商业场所存在几项不满。他主要担心的是“项目经理的泛滥”、缺乏一贯的政治领导力，以及丧失了某种“对未来的愿景”，而他认为这种愿景在“维多利亚时代的英国”以及本世纪初是显而易见的。
他认为伦敦正遭受“总体规划”缺失之苦。他认为应该投入更多努力来保护伦敦周边的绿带，称其为英国“最被低估的发明”之一，且感到其“一直受到威胁”。他认为政府应专注于推广“紧凑型社区——即可步行的、有邻里关系的、能对抗孤独的社区”，而非允许“城市扩张”。
Foster 对伯明翰与曼彻斯特之间 HS2 铁路路线的取消感到绝望，他将其与中国自 2008 年以来建设的近 30,000 英里高铁线路进行对比。“这简直疯了——我的意思是，这真的让我内心深受震撼，”他在谈到 HS2 被削减时说道。“互联互通就是一切……它在打破城市内部、国家内部的障碍。它是繁荣的传播。因此，取消 HS2 是极其短视的。”
当被问及英国如何恢复往日的风采时，Foster 表示我们需要展示更多“长期主义”思维，这将为城市带来更新、更好的公共空间。“这就是敢于宏大构想，”他说。“而宏大构想并不一定是指物理上的巨大——而是在社会慷慨度、公共空间和街道方面有大格局，接受城市总是在变迁，并且你可以为了公民的利益地促成改变。但这一切都需要一定程度的勇气。”
英国并非毫无希望。Foster 为曼联体育场制定的计划可能会提升英格兰足球的地位。不过，在这里，铁路可能同样会成为问题。人们担心交通问题，并有提案将一个铁路货运终端改造为客运站。这个项目很可能再次考验 Foster 对英国的耐心，尽管他有信心能够解决问题。
此外，已故女王的纪念馆尚待完工。曾任伊丽莎白二世女王私人秘书的詹夫林勋爵 (Lord Robin Janvrin) 表示，女王非常欣赏 Foster 的作品。作为伊丽莎白女王纪念委员会主席，詹夫林告诉我，他逐渐认可了 Foster——这个在会议中不停在笔记本上勾勒草图的人，认为他是一个对事物如何运作有“强烈见解”，但同时也会倾听并回应反向论点或想法的人。
在离开他的工作室前，我觉得必须问问 Foster：他考虑过退休吗？他给了我一个疑惑的眼神。“我为什么要退休？”
疲劳，部分原因是董事会变得没那么有耐心了，投资者变得没那么有耐心了，而表现的窗口期在缩小”。
他解释说，成功的首席执行官一直需要“带领团队共同前进”，但他们实现这一目标的方式已经
上升，从而减轻了执行官的压力。
在提到近年来的高离职率时，Alexandrakis 表示，一些 CEO——特别是在美国——“觉得 AI 的下一个篇章需要由他人来书写”，而“对另一些人来说，部分原因可能是……”
采访者：WILLIAM TURVILL 摄影：JOSHUA BRATT，为《周日泰晤士报》拍摄
“能设计曼联体育场，我简直欣喜若狂”
将活动和行李处理移至地下，以创建玻璃盒风格的航站楼；拥有著名拱门的温布利新球场于 2007 年开幕；而重新设计的特拉法加广场则于 2003 年完工。
福斯特勋爵在其位于巴特西的办公室内，下方是他为曼联新球场绘制的构想图。
在可能的情况下。当我询问时，福斯特说：“没有所谓的风格，而是一种哲学。”在设计一座建筑时，他并不寻求强加某种风格：“你是在试图理解一个机构的价值观、文化和 DNA”。
福斯特回忆道，在 Foster + Partners 将国家美术馆前的区域改为步行区之前，那里是一个“非常危险的……交通环岛”。对于我对此毫无印象，他似乎感到有些失望。“我们现在对此习以为常，因为我们的记忆力太短了，”他说。
许多企业家和商业领袖希望让你相信他们塑造了我们周围的世界。而诺曼·福斯特是少数能够肯定地说自己确实实现了这一点的人之一。
福斯特合上写生簿。但由于他没有转向我，而是打开了笔记本电脑，那里准备了一份 94 页的演示文稿，包含他最大规模项目的图片、图表和统计数据。
2000 年，Foster + Partners 的年收入为 £30 million，其中 £22 million 在英国产生。到去年，福斯特在英国的收入已增长至 £40 million 以上，但仅占其总业务的不足 10 per cent，其报告的总收入为 £652 million。
福斯特最引以为傲的许多设计都集中在伦敦周边。其中包括斯坦斯特机场，福斯特在 1991 年通过将活动和行李处理移至地下，被认为重新定义了机场设计。
不过，我感觉到他并不太喜欢被称作商人。他简短地说道：“我将自己视为一名建筑师和城市规划师。”
福斯特勋爵是一位精神矍铄的 91 岁老人，他利用业余时间骑行登山，或在越野滑雪路线上艰难前行。他是 Foster + Partners 的执行主席，这家总部位于伦敦的建筑事务所去年创造了超过 £650 million 的收入。
他是温布利球场、“小黄瓜”大厦、步行化特拉法加广场和斯坦斯特机场背后的操盘手。而这仅仅是在伦敦周边。
他的设计横跨英国，从伊普斯威奇到盖茨黑德，甚至更远——加州的苹果公司园区、柏林的国会大厦，以及北京、香港和沙特阿拉伯的机场。接下来的目标是月球，福斯特的团队已经设计了预计在“几十年”内投入使用的住宅；而火星则稍微遥远一些。
在一个闷热得令人不适的日子里，我与福斯特位于伦敦西南部巴特西的总部会面。福斯特主要居住在瑞士，但大部分时间在马德里度过，他身着一套干练的米色西装，脚蹬麂皮鞋，显得十分体面。
“我喜欢炎热的天气，”他在引导我从接待大楼走向一座俯瞰泰晤士河的新开发工作室时说道。为了证明这一点，他在午后强烈的阳光下，在两座建筑之间停顿了一会儿。
出生日期：1, 1935 年 6 月 1 日，斯托克波特雷迪什 状态：与埃琳娜·奥乔亚博士结婚，育有两个孩子 慈善机构：诺曼·福斯特研究所 汽车：保时捷 996 最爱的书：目前在读 AN Wilson 的《维多利亚时代的人》 电影：《第三个人》，奥逊·威尔斯主演 音乐：约翰·刘易斯演奏的 JS 巴赫前奏曲与赋格曲（出自《平均律键盘曲集》，录制于 1984-1988 年） 饮品：咖啡 手表：多块，包括 Unimatic Modello Tre U3-FN 小玩意：铅笔 上次假期：与托斯卡纳的朋友们骑行
“当我们搬到这里时，这里是一片荒野，”他指着路边，距离河流后退一条街的地方说道。“这里没有任何可以吃喝的地方。而且这里很危险。如果一名秘书加班到很晚且必须去巴士站，保安会护送他们走到路尽头。如果有人把车停在外面，车窗会被砸碎。”
工作日 Foster 早上 6 点起床，白天时间用于旅行、会见客户以及与团队讨论项目。他通常在任何一个时间点最多同时参与 30 个项目。他大约在午夜入睡。
学校：Burnage High（现为 Burnage Academy for Boys）大学：曼彻斯特大学和耶鲁大学 第一份工作：曼彻斯特市政厅职员 薪资：未公开（Foster + Partners 去年薪酬最高的董事年薪为 £3.800 万）住所：瑞士恩加丁山谷
Lord Foster 上一次度假是与朋友在托斯卡纳骑行。他驾驶一辆保时捷 996
休息时间 骑行和越野滑雪
插图：PETE BAKER
没建过数据中心？没问题 —— 詹森·黄的 £3.5trn 巨头准备为其客户提供资金。与此同时，不安的投资者正引发市场波动
据称。它补充道，该投资的“实质部分” “来自英伟达和其他几家芯片制造商的利润”。
像 SSI 这样的一笔资金与沙发垫中发现的几个便士相当。这家总部位于加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉的巨头在第一季度实现了 580 亿美元 billion 利润 —— 是去年同期的三倍 —— 并有望在 2026 年带来超过 2000 亿美元 billion 的自由现金流。
一个冰箱大小的、装有英伟达顶级 Blackwell 图形处理器的机架，成本可高达 $4 million。这些系统是 AI 革命中不可或缺的组件。
然而，SSI 的交易暗示了对英伟达、詹森·黄及其作为全球 AI 大马戏团领导者角色的更深层担忧。自 5 月中旬以来，这家驱动 AI 繁荣的公司市值下跌了 18%，即 9600 亿美元 billion —— 相当于大约四家阿斯特鲁曾接（AstraZeneca）的市值 —— 因为投资者日益担心这位身穿皮夹克的领导者正疯狂地吹起一个即将破裂的泡沫。
因此，英伟达如何，经济就如何。这就是为什么对其热衷于“循环交易”的担忧再次浮现的原因。黄面临的问题是，他公司芯片的一些最贪婪的客户 —— 比如 OpenAI —— 根本没有钱购买。所以，黄把钱给了他们。
需求清晰、简洁且紧迫。一段在黑色背景上的文字读起来像《星球大战》的开场：“时机已到，”文中写道。“加入我们。”詹森·黄响应了号召。这家市值 $4.7 trillion (£3.5 trillion) 的半导体
对冲基金亿万富翁吉姆·查诺斯（Jim Chanos）上周在推特上提到了一次此类交易。据报道，英伟达已进入谈判，准备为 OpenAI 计划租赁一个巨型数据中心而支付的最高 2500 亿美元 billion 提供担保。
这将成为整个美国经济的问题。仅英伟达一家就约占 S&P 500 总市值的 8%。加上“七巨头”科技股中的其他六个成员 —— 苹果、亚马逊、Meta、Alphabet、特斯拉和微软（其中好几家都是英伟达的大客户） —— 它们占据了该指数市值的三分之一。
巨头的首席执行官，上周同意向 Safe Superintelligence (SSI) 注入 50 亿美元 billion 资金，这是一家加州初创公司，其存在被浓缩在那个单一的网页中。
“所以我们处于周期的这样一个点：英伟达必须为它销售给数据中心项目的芯片成本提供大约三分之二的融资担保……？！”他写道。“哈哈，好吧。”
“超级智能触手可及，”网页宣称。“构建安全的超级智能是我们这个时代最重要的技术问题。”
类泡沫行为正在出现。上周有报道称，由英伟达支持并希望在英国建设数据中心的英国初创公司 Nscale 计划进行首次公开募股，其估值可能达到 250 亿美元 billion。该公司成立于两年前。
技术和人工智能（AI）不仅影响市场，它们本身就是市场。上周，以技术股为主的纳斯达克指数因对 AI 繁荣的担忧而动荡，进入了“回调”区域，即指数比最高点下跌 10 百分比。
实际上，这家公司是一家由 Ilya Sutskever 领导的小型帕洛阿尔托（Palo Alto）公司，他是 OpenAI 的联合创始人及离职员工。在成立的两年里，该公司没有产生任何产品，没有收入，也没有任何公开研究。那么，这样一个公司会如何使用来自英伟达（Nvidia）的 50 亿美元 billion cheque？
芯片并“共同开展业务”。通常情况下，意向书并不具有法律约束力。
上周的项目：OpenAI。这令人惊讶，因为这家科技巨头处于巨额亏损状态；它在 2025 年亏损了 380 亿美元 billion，且预计至少在未来三年内无法盈利。那么，它预计如何支付该设施一旦投入运营后据报道高达 2500 亿美元 billion 的租赁费用？
一份来自《日经亚洲》（Nikkei Asia）的报告估计，Meta、Alphabet、微软（Microsoft）、甲骨文（Oracle）和亚马逊（Amazon）共同在为数据中心融资而设立的特殊目的载体中积累了 $1.65 trillion 的债务。国际结算银行（BIS），这一顶级央行研究机构，在 3 月份提出了这一问题：“ these arrangements amount to ‘shadow borrowing’ — obligations that are economically akin to debt but largely reside outside corporate balance sheets.”
旧金山对冲基金 Situational Awareness 曾看好 AI 基础设施（芯片、数据中心、硬件），但在上周其对英伟达及其他芯片股的押注失效后崩盘。竞争对手 Citadel 在一次强拍拍卖后接管了该基金的资产，而该基金在几天前还管理着超过 400 亿美元 billion 的资金。
投资巨头桥水基金（Bridgewater Associates）在 1 月份表示，AI 建设、数据中心和发电厂将占据美国今年 2.8 百分比国内生产总值增长的一半。“这些是巨额资金，与科技泡沫时期企业投资对增长的贡献相当，”它认为。
市场似乎正变得怀疑。回顾十个月前的一笔类似交易。OpenAI 宣布与甲骨文签署了一份类似的意向书，承诺支付 3000 亿美元 billion 用于由甲骨文建设和管理——并装满英伟达 AI 芯片——的数据中心。市场对此非常热情：甲骨文股价飙升 43 百分比，一度使该公司 81 岁的执行董事长拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）成为世界首富。
主要看来是与英伟达。上周展开的“战略合作伙伴关系”将允许 SSI 将其计算能力提升十倍，并将其提升到 Sutskever 所称的“下一个水平”。
在它的“金主”帮助下。据报道，为了促成交易，英伟达正在考虑一项协议，根据该协议，它实际上将成为共同签署人——就像父母为孩子购买的第一套公寓提供担保一样。
对于英伟达这样规模的公司来说，交易
黄（Huang），63, 岁，对此并不担忧。他认为这一时刻仅仅是一个十年革命的开始，随着 AI 渗透到生活的每个角落，对半导体的需求将增长十倍。
但随着时间的推移，对于一家亏损的 AI 实验室潜在数千亿美元收入的热情逐渐消退。甲骨文的股价从交易后几天的 $328 高点暴跌至现在的 $130 以下。上周，当英伟达在俄亥俄州潜在交易的消息传出时，其股价并未上涨，反而下跌了 4 百分比。
要让像 Piketon 这样的项目具有合理性，你必须认同驱动这场支出狂热的另一个观点。那就是 AI 将不仅仅是替代或增强软件编码、会计或法律工作。相反，它的总潜在市场（TAM）是所有人类劳动力。
“与其只是有 10 亿人在使用计算机，我们将拥有 100 billion 个智能体和数十亿个机器人，全部在使用计算机，”黄仁勋上周告诉彭博电视（Bloomberg Television）。“这是半导体行业的一个实现——现在构建计算机不仅仅是为了让人类使用。计算机正被构建成供计算机自身使用。”
“这不是一个巧妙的应用程序或一个单一的模型；它是基础设施，”黄仁勋今年表示。“每家公司都会使用它。每个国家都会建设它。”
当涉及到此类引人注目的公告时，希望的半衰期似乎明显缩短了。Mayfield 的管理合伙人 Navin Chaddha 是一位半导体初创企业的积极投资者，他认为目前的恐惧被夸大了。
7 月，黄仁勋宣布了另一项巨额交易：一项细节较少、价值 5000 亿美元 billion 的与存储巨头 SK hynix 的合作伙伴关系。双方签署了意向书，以建设 AI 数据中心并就内存开展合作。
“半[导体]行业基于两年的提前预订机制，至少在明年年底之前，所有库存已售罄，承诺已完成。”
在 3 月一个狂风大作的周五，日本科技巨头软银（SoftBank）背后的亿万富翁大亨孙正义，与 唐纳德·特朗普 的商务部长 Howard Lutnick 一起站在一排金铲子前拍照。
上周，Meta、微软、Alphabet 和亚马逊——英伟达的核心客户——均报告了业绩大增，这主要由对 AI 服务的需求驱动。这些业绩抵消了投资者的焦虑，并帮助纳斯达克指数收复失地，在本周结束时收于 25,273。
对于俄亥俄州皮克顿（Piketon）这个位于阿巴拉契亚边缘、没落的小镇来说，这是重要的一天。“即将在这里建设的设施比世界历史上建设过的任何设施都要大，”美国能源部长 Chris Wright 说道。
现在构建计算机不仅仅是为了让人类使用，而是为了供计算机自身使用
然而，英伟达的股价在周五收盘下跌 3.5 per cent，报 $200.75。著名的 AI 怀疑论者 Gary Marcus 上周写道，这场繁荣一直运行在“希望和循环融资”之上。他补充道：“这可能已经不再足够了。”
提及的设施是：一个拟建的巨型数据中心，将消耗 10 吉瓦的电力——是伦敦在典型的一天所需电力的两倍——且成本高达 5000 亿美元 billion。一个出人意料的金融伙伴为这个巨型项目出现。
律师对夺取客户账户利息的计划表示反抗
通常被汇总到一个大账户中以减轻行政负担。在 Lammy 的领导下，司法部（MoJ）今年早些时候就相关提案进行了磋商，拟没收英格兰和威尔士境内汇总账户产生利息的 75 per cent，以及个人客户账户产生利息的 50 per cent，以支撑衰落的司法体系。
Lammy 将限制陪审团审判。
应当向客户返还“公平的金额”，但未说明具体金额。
Daniel Woolfson
关于客户利息的质疑已经导致今年一家价值 £124 million 的街头律师事务所 Taylor Rose 的拟议出售计划落空。
在警告称此举可能会使大量律所陷入财务困境的情况下，Andy Burnham 任命的新任司法大臣被敦促放弃由 David Lammy 拟定的、计划从法律领域掠夺 £100 million 的提案。
据了解，司法部官员认为某些律所完全没有返还利息，而对客户利息的征收每年可能筹集超过 £100 million。
《星期日泰晤士报》在 6 月披露，Taylor Rose 曾与私募股权公司 Nordic Capital 就一项交易进行洽谈，但 Nordic 在财务尽职调查期间由于担心其账面上客户利息的金额而退出。Taylor Rose 未公开确认此次出售失败，该公司在 2025, 年实现的营业利润为 £10.7 million，其中包含 £6.6 million 的客户利息。Taylor Rose 的一名发言人表示：“改变长期以来关于客户账户利息的规则，可能会增加法律服务的成本和复杂性，最终导致费用提高、延迟增加以及消费者的选择减少。”
客户利息问题在法律行业内被证明具有争议，专家认为，随着经营成本上升，这些资金在支撑那些否则将陷入困境的律所。
律师协会已呼吁大法官兼司法大臣 Alex Norris 废除征收律所在客户账户中赚取的大部分利息的计划。这些方案由 Lammy 提出，他在上个月 Andy Burnham 进入 10 Downing Street 时被解雇司法大臣一职。
根据法律行业咨询公司 Taha Capital 的分析，英国前 200 强律所去年赚取的利息约为 2.95 亿英镑 million。在英格兰银行提高利率后，这笔收入激增。然而，关于其中多少应退还给客户的规则十分模糊。Solicitors Regulation Authority 指出，律所
Taha Capital 创始人 Adil Taha 表示：“客户账户利息目前维持着许多中小型地区律所的生存。我们的压力测试模型显示，如果你取消客户账户利息，数百家地区律所在 12 to 18 个月内将面临生存性的现金流危机。”
律师协会主席 Mark Evans 表示：“这种对客户资金的不正当掠夺在 David Lammy 领导下是一个糟糕的想法，在 Alex Norris 领导下依然是一个糟糕的想法。我们呼吁新任大法官废除这一考虑不周且天真的提案。”
律师协会此前认为，拟议的掠夺行为将增加律所的行政成本，可能导致它们将资源从公益客户身上转移并提高价格。
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一名政府发言人表示：“本届政府接手的是一个处于危机中的司法系统，但我们正在投入创纪录的资金并改革系统，以便为受害者提供更快捷的司法公正。”
律所在处理如房屋购买等交易期间，可以通过持有客户资金赚取数百万英镑的利息。这些交易的资金
立即预订您的广告：
据认为前 200 强律所去年赚取的利息
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Andy Burnham 上周表示，他将重新评估由
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Jon Yeomans
令人惊讶的唯一一点是 BP 没有早点撤出北海
规则。北海体制自 2010, 年以来至少经历了 11 次变更，而挪威在数十年间保持了一致，即便其最高税率同样为 78 percent。坚持一项已商定的征收标准提供了规划能力。
该公司还有其他更大规模的前景可以追求，包括在巴西海岸附近的一项重大发现。至于 British Petroleum 中的“British”：其大多数顶级股东是具有全球视野的大型外国资产管理公司。抛开情感因素，这可以被视为一项理性的商业决策，将受到投资者的认可（受此消息影响，其股价收盘上涨近 2 percent）。
《终结者》系列电影（一个失控的 AI？怎么可能）。但这个“天网”（Skynet）是一个始于 1960 年代的英国军用卫星计划。
工人时机不佳 自由职业者请注意。税务局正在就一项计划进行磋商，要求自雇人士对其收入进行更“及时”的支付。这些提案可能意味着多达 900 万人必须在全年进行每月支付，这更类似于 PAYE（薪薪扣缴税制）。关于“所得税自行申报及时支付”的磋商承认，“对于收入模式具有季节性或不规律的纳税人来说，这可能尤其具有挑战性”。这简直是轻描淡写。
北海产量正在下降，但仍有提升空间
现任运营商空中客车（Airbus）正与美国闯入者洛克希德·马丁（Lockheed Martin）激烈竞争，以赢得下一个三个卫星的合同。如果洛克希德获胜，朴茨茅斯和史蒂夫尼奇的最多 600 个工作岗位将面临风险，因为工作将转移到纽卡斯尔。一些批评者表示，将合同交给洛克希德将导致宝贵的知识产权被割让给美国人。
历史
NSTA 2025 预测 上行潜力
我们不应自欺欺人地认为税收是 BP 撤离的唯一原因。但它将其北海部门挂牌出售并不令人惊讶。更大的惊讶是它没有更早这样做。接下来的担忧将是 BP 是否觉得其伦敦上市地位同样可以舍弃。
1,600*
关注。
800
这家石油巨头在梅格·奥尼尔（Meg O’Neill）的领导下，试图为多年的管理冲突画上句号，并在一阵“新官上任”的整顿中精简其投资组合。
然而，回到北海。游说团体英国离岸能源协会（Offshore Energies UK）迅速指出，如果能鼓励公司投资，该盆地仍有生命力。它称存在“上行潜力”（见图表），并引用了 111 个可以开展的项目。它估计，国内生产“到 2050 年可满足英国约一半的油气需求，而当前政策下约为三分之一”。那是什麽政策？这就是潜伏在背景中的第二个因素：风盈税（windfall tax），使得北海的油气利润被课以 78% 的税。能源利润税由保守党实施并由工党延长。至关重要的是，其最新
0
2000 2035
安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）暗示他将重新审视能源利润税。他谈到在社会护理等领域需要一项多党、多年的协议。商业税收无疑也需要同样的方法：一致性、确定性和清晰度。否则，将不仅仅是石油巨头在驶向新海域。
理所当然地，洛克希德对此类担忧不屑一顾。洛克希德·马丁空间部门总裁罗伯特·莱特富特（Robert Lightfoot）上个月告诉我：“我的论点非常简单。我认为我们是一家英国公司。”他指出，洛克希德在这里已经 85 年了。
BP 希望你知道它并没有离开英国。它在其他部门（包括交易台和加油站业务）仍有超过 13,000 人在英国工作。
*百万桶油当量。来源：OEUK
众所周知，自由职业者花费了半辈子时间追讨款项，而有些款项根本无法追回。现在 HMRC 要求他们无论如何都要按月或按季度预缴税款。
版本取消了可能激励进一步项目的投资补贴。这一点，加上工党反对新钻井，使得该盆地成为石油勘探者的冷清之地。
但事实是，这一举动是由两个因素驱动的。北海已经衰落了数十年。BP 早在 2003, 年就出售了巨大的福蒂斯（Forties）油田，自那以后，石油巨头陆续退出该盆地，将其大部分交由较小的公司和合资企业掌控。
在《就业权利法案》使劳动力市场灵活性进一步降低的时刻，此类变动将是一场灾难。这项在夏季沉寂期悄然推出的咨询将于周二结束。现在仍有时间告诉税务局该见好就收了。jon.yeomans@sundaytimes.co.uk 里希·苏纳克 出差中
奥尼尔并非拥趸，她在 2022 年向《泰晤士报》表示（当时她还在旧职上），该征费是一个“红旗”（警示信号）。近期，她在今年早些时候告诉分析师，她的北海业务具有“增长潜力，但目前尚未盈利”。
这一困境揭示了伯纳汉“重新工业化”英国并“采购英国货”计划中的陷阱。如果事情真有那么简单就好了。目前的抉择是在一家由法国人和德国人持股的传统英国公司，与一家美国巨头之间做出选择。谁能想到火箭科学如此复杂？
空中客车公司（Airbus）要走吗？伯纳汉的影响范围显然比他想象的要大得多。很快，他可能需要对一份价值 15.8 亿英镑 billion 的 Skynet 合同授予问题发表意见。
BP 的北海业务估计价值约 26 亿美元 billion，仅占其总产量的 4%，低于此前 40% 的最高峰。
正如任何技术恐惧症患者会告诉你的一样，“Skynet”是出自……的那个叛逆 AI 的名字。
对石油公司来说，最令人抓狂的或许是频繁的变动
沃什未能平息批评者
如果首相任期都没那么长，我们能制定十年计划吗？
大卫·史密斯 经济展望
欧文·斯特尔泽 美国账户
大部分事情，并为其社会护理改革设置了一个近乎不可能完成的协作测试——即这些改革不得涉及提高税收或增加政府借款，且必须对那些“在生活中已做好准备并有所积蓄”的人公平。保守党的目的是尽可能早地击败首相。
以及削减支出以将政府债务维持在可控水平。
当一位新首相接任时，他们的想法通常不是关注接下来的十天、几周或几个月，而是关注接下来的 10 年。
那个由选角导演派给特朗普总统的人上周走到了舞台中心，却搞砸了。
化肥成本可能会继续上涨，而供应链断裂带来的相关成本也将随之增加。
W
T
这就是为什么任何十年计划，无论是来自伯纳汉还是与他的继任者共同制定，除了在国防和社会护理方面做出新承诺外，还必须采取措施将政府其他领域的支出控制在更严格的范围内。正如预算责任办公室 (OBR) 所阐述的，为此可以采取一些措施。这些措施必须执行。
然后是关税。最高法院拿走的，唐纳德·特朗普总统又恢复了。他对法典的精简引导他找到了 1974 年《贸易法》的第 301 条，他声称该条款允许他对来自 80 个国家的进口商品征收 10-12.5% 的关税，这些国家占据了美国进口额的 99.4%。他还发现 1930 年《关税法》的第 338 条（从未被废除的《斯穆特-霍利法案》的一部分）授权他可以报复歧视美国商业的国家。请留意那些让总统不快，或者愿意承诺增加对美投资的国家将每天收到巨额关税通知的消息。
凯米·巴德诺赫认为安迪·伯纳汉在大多数事情上都是错的
《华尔街日报》的高级美联储观察员尼克·蒂米劳斯写道，美联储委员会
安迪·伯纳汉也是如此，他在就任首相后的首次演讲中承诺将“为英国提出一项新计划，一项十年计划，规划一条从我们现状到我认为我们都希望英国达到的目标的路径，无论我们来自哪里，无论支持哪个政党”。
所有这一切意味着，在这些重大问题上，新政府很容易暂时将它们放入“太难处理”的抽屉里，而将精力集中在赢得下次选举上。
主席凯文·沃什关于结束高于目标通胀的誓言，似乎“在连续两次会议中依然停留在口头承诺而非实际行动上”。
Axios 备受推崇的首席经济记者 Neil Irwin 表示，沃什（Warsh）“多次拒绝将 [2 per cent] 的目标与任何具体行动联系起来……含糊其辞……难以捉摸且模糊”。媒体的蜜月期结束了，一个冷静报道的新时代开始了。
附言：我上周承诺在我在《当代社会科学》（Contemporary Social Science）杂志上发表关于 1976 年国际货币基金组织（IMF）危机的长篇文章可以查阅时告知各位，现在已经可以查阅了。在互联网上搜索“The 1976 IMF Crisis Revisited”和我的名字，即可跳转至 Taylor & Francis Online 及其文章。
这可以理解，但违背国家利益。在刚刚发布的最新一份《财政风险与可持续性报告》中，预算责任办公室（OBR）指出，初级公共支出（不包括债务利息的支出）和政府债务的上升压力并非立竿见影。然而，到 2030 年代中期至后期，这种压力将增强，债务将陷入不可持续的路径，可能在 50 年内使其达到 GDP 的 300 per cent。
布莱尔是个例外。温斯顿·丘吉尔仅在两次不同的任期内执政了八年半。
他并非政府中唯一拥有十年规划的人。路易丝·海格（Louise Haigh）目前担任第一国务大臣，是新政府的高级成员。她在五月为“社会民主主义期刊”《复兴》（Renewal）撰写的两篇深思熟虑的文章中，提出了关于新财政框架和税制改革的构想。
这意味着，在伯纳姆（Burnham）首相任期尚未正式开始之时，不应为其设定时限，而应对国家面临的重大挑战保持连续性，这意味着各政党之间应进行合作。要实施一项可行的社会护理政策（这是新首相目前的重点），以及将国防支出提高到北约 GDP 3.5 per cent 的目标，都需要数年时间。
当然，沃什是在执行一份艰难的剧本，这是一套包含为货币政策委员会 9-to-3 的决定辩护的记录，该决定将美联储的基准利率维持在 3.5-3.75 per cent 的当前水平。沃什向我们保证，这绝非惯性反应，而是在董事会进入“审慎思考期而非审慎等待期”时一次“激烈的内部争论”的结果。
当时的财政大臣丹尼斯·希利（Denis Healey）无需应对的一件事是国家养老金“三重锁”（triple lock）的成本，根据该机制，养老金随通货膨胀、平均工资或 2.5 per cent 中最高的一项而上涨。大多数智库、国际机构和经济学家认为应该取消或修改这一机制，我也持有相同观点。OBR 已经强调了其成本的剧烈上升。
她构想的财政框架第一步将是“从五年的预测窗口转向更长远的十年期限”。她说，这将消除当前制度中对公共投资的偏见，因为此类投资的回报期通常长于五年。正如她所论证的：“这将通过提高可持续投资效益的可见度，帮助重新平衡短期削减开支的激励机制，使编造财政谎言变得更加困难，并更好地奖赏供给侧和税制改革。”
尽管对于追求短期目标的政客来说很有诱惑力，但如果等到那时才解决问题，将是一个巨大的错误。OBR 的报告详细分析了社会护理、国防、福利和医疗带来的支出压力，并清晰地阐明了尽早采取行动将部分压力消灭在萌芽状态的优势，而不是留给后任政客来解决。
此外，长期目标将包括解决年轻人不在教育、就业或培训中（Neets）的问题，将经济权力适当下放到地区，以及提高职业教育标准。
然而，几天前我洞察到了为什么政治家们非常不愿采取这种路线。这不仅仅是因为他们害怕失去养老金领取者的选票，还因为年轻群体支持这样做——在最近的一项YouGov民意调查中，18 到 34 岁人群的支持率达到了 44 比 22 %。
12 名斗士中有 3 位输掉了那场正义的家庭之争：他们投票决定将利率提高四分之一个百分点。在投票几天后，据美联储衡量，6 月的通胀率据报道为 3.3 %。这比 5 月的 3.4 % 略低一点，但距离美联储 2 % 的目标还相去甚远。
而所有这些都必须在将债务置于可持续路径的同时完成。
两党都对增税不感兴趣，因此赤字上升
很难看到主要政党之间有太多合作。凯米·巴德诺克认为伯纳姆在以下方面是错误的：
推迟 20 年将使增税所需的行动量翻倍
这并不是一个主张“将问题推给后人”或放弃财政规则的论点。她强调了平衡日常支出预算的重要性，但也承认许多事情需要时间才能见效。
蕾切尔·里夫斯在尝试取消除最贫困养老金领取者以外的所有人的冬季燃料补贴时，提供了一个现实生活中的实验。该政策一直不受欢迎，而撤销该政策并不能弥补已造成的损害。同样，终止“三重锁”被许多人视为从最贫困的养老金领取者手中夺走资金，尽管他们可以通过养老金信用额度等方式获得额外帮助。
市场在替美联储做决定，提高了国债收益率。沃什承认，在他上次面对媒体时，十年期国债收益率为 4.40 %，而到他第二次亮相结束时，收益率已达到 4.635 %，这是一个不可忽视的增幅。30 年期国债收益率自 2007. 年以来首次突破 5.21 %。该委员会在不久前曾犹豫是否加息，担心加息可能会损害劳动力市场。但数据表明，这种担忧已不再必要。失业率保持在 4.2 % 这一可接受的低水平。上个月，失业救济申请人数达到 1969 年以来的最低水平，随后略有回升。人力资源公司 Robert Half 的首席执行官 M. Keith Waddell 告诉《华尔街日报》：“招聘需求继续改善……”。
公共基础支出
当唐宁街新团队开始处理社会护理等长期问题，以及可能更长期的目标——即通过权力下放显著降低地区经济不平等时，将目光投向未来三年之后，直到 2030 年代中期是有意义的。
GDP 的 50%
以此换取关税减免。目前很难判断这些关税将在多久之后以及在多大程度上影响通货膨胀，但它们肯定会对价格产生上涨压力。
中期预测
长期预测
48 46
关于“三重锁”，我对几周前的文章收到了大量回应。所有人的观点都相似，即其给公共财政带来的部分成本可以通过缴纳的所得税（包括高税率所得税）来抵消。如你所知，政府正试图寻找免除仅依赖国家养老金人员所得税的方法，但这并不容易。但那是另一个问题了。
再加上持续且上升的赤字，这给通胀率带来了上涨压力。战争并不便宜，而可能从 2027, 年起控制众议院的民主党人，传统上除非共和党同意等额增加福利支出，否则拒绝为军队投票提供更多资金。两党都对增税不感兴趣，因此赤字上升。
44 42
在现代两任执政超过十年的首相——玛格丽特·撒切尔和托尼·布莱尔——中，都没有人在就职时挥舞着十年计划，尽管布莱尔确实有一份针对国民医疗服务体系（NHS）的计划，于 2000 年，即他就职三年后发布。
40
38
2025 26 2035 36 2045 46 2055 56 2065 66
他们较长的任期意味着他们有机会带来真实且持久的变革，而这种机会被他们的继任者剥夺了。大卫·卡梅伦担任首相超过六年，由于欧盟公投，他确实实现了持久的改变，尽管那并非他的本意。
这就回到了沃什的坚持：美联储不应向市场提供可能影响市场向美联储提供信息的资讯。克里斯托弗·沃勒——一位特朗普本可能提名担任主席但最终未提名的理事，且投票支持维持现状的人——表示：“在我作为经济学家的所有岁月里，我从未见过任何一种理论认为，如果你不告诉人们你在想什么，就能让人们的生活变得更好，或者让市场运行得更高效。”
我见过的最佳估算是来自决议基金会（Resolution Foundation）智库——到目前为止，三重锁（triple lock）带来的 126 亿英镑 billion 额外总成本，在考虑税收和其他福利节省后，净成本降至 90 亿英镑 billion。到 2030 年，155 亿英镑 billion 的总成本将降至依然可观的 119 亿英镑 billion。
沃什在指出美联储面临“不确定性升高”时也陷入了窘境。一方面，由于大规模 AI 基础设施投资，我们可能会看到电力、芯片、半导体和服务器价格的上涨压力；房屋保险费率反映了山火和极端天气发生率的增加；以及房屋抵押贷款利率的上升，由于紧跟 10 年期和 30 年期国债收益率的上涨，这些利率在 2026 年至今已处于最高水平。
公共部门净债务
鲍里斯·约翰逊，就像伯纳姆这个从市长转任首相的人一样，有一系列涵盖几乎所有方面的十年计划。但在他仅三年多的任期内，加上要应对疫情，他在其中任何一项计划上都没有取得太大进展。
300% of GDP
预测
长期预测
我还发现，感谢 Lane, Clark Peacock 顾问公司提交的一项信息自由请求，在 202526 年的 13.2 million 名国家养老金领取者中，7.79 million 是基本税率纳税人，904,000 人支付较高税率，124,000 人是附加税率（45%）纳税人。我认为，在领取三重锁补贴的人中，有超过一百万是较高或附加税率纳税人，这并不能成为支持三重锁的有力论据，但事实就是如此。david.smith@sunday-times.co.uk
200
如果在 8 月不行，那么在 9 月中旬美联储下一次政策会议之后，当沃什在杰克逊霍尔面对其国际同行时，他将有一套新剧本。正如他所指出的，上周的决定“是故事的开始，而非结束”。irwin@irwinstelzer.com 欧文·斯特尔泽（Irwin Stelzer）是一位商业顾问。
威尔·伯纳姆的十年计划会好一些吗？他承认，首相这份工作已经变成了一项短期工作。在卡梅伦之后完成任期的首相中，平均任期为两年。选民们多变且期望快速见效，也许我们再也看不到持续十年的首相任期。即使在 20 世纪，撒切尔和
100
尽管如此，沃什关于存在巨大不确定性领域的看法是正确的。但是，大多数因素更有可能推高通货膨胀。即使战争明天就结束，从柴油燃料到氦气再到药品的关键产品价格
0
2000 01 2010 11 2020 21 2030 31 2040 41 2050 51 2060 61 2070 71
来源：OBR
琳达·莫雷-巴罗斯 (Linda Morey-Burrows)
幽默商业
别管居家办公（WFH）了，回归办公室的理由比以往任何时候都更充分
我最早的职场记忆之一是在 20 世纪 80 年代中期。当时我 20 岁，刚从艺术学院毕业，走进一家聚集了建筑师和设计师的设计工作室，那时我才意识到自己还有多少东西需要学习。
翻新后，这里给人一种干净、崭新且安全的感觉。我们聘请了外部顾问进行定期检测，并为此支付了实际费用，因为我们希望员工感到安心；我们甚至成为了那些办公室仍未开放的客户的基地。
人际接触不再仅仅是“有了更好”的事情；它变成了学习一项专业知识仅存的几种途径之一。
我们之前从未如此忙碌，我们无法足够快地找到合适的人才，而且大多数日子里我们都在接听关于新项目的电话。
在 MoreySmith，我们从未真正离开。我们的政策是，而且一直以来都是，每个人都全职在工作室工作。在疫情期间，即使我们想远程办公，也没有这个选项；我们在伦敦市中心有大型现场项目，而且允许建筑业继续工作的指令意味着我们在合同上有义务履行承诺。
这种方式是双向的，而且并不总是那么容易。一段时间前，经过长时间寻找，我认为我为公司找到了完美的资深建筑师。唯一的障碍是他曾在封锁期间搬到了海边，且希望每周仅在工作室工作两三天。我不愿意妥协。他是以资深级别入职的，该职位的核心在于指导团队并激励人们创造最佳作品——这不是你在家中能做到的。我这样告诉了他，结果我们未能达成一致。
好的办公室不是工厂
但当规定最终允许全面回归时，我坚持要求每个人全职回到办公室。这个决定让我们付出了代价。我失去了一名总监和我的执行助理，其他几个人因为照顾孩子而离职，其中大多数是女性，但也有 30 至 45 岁左右的男性。我们的人数从 45 人减少到了 30 人。在当时，许多人认为这不是一个正确的决定。
公司的创始人在我身上发现了一些潜质——他并不以委婉表达观点著称——并决定关照我。我陪同他参加客户会议，他教我如何进行空间评估。艺术学院教会了我创造力和技术设计，但是在工作室里，我学会了如何进行商业思考并解决问题。
——是楼梯让同事们不期而遇
LINKEDIN 投票
否
是
在约 45 人的团队中，封锁开始时只有四五个人在工作室。我记得大多数日子里我都在伦敦骑车穿梭，通常我是唯一能进去的人，因为部分团队成员住在首都以外，不允许出行。在管理现场的同时维持团队凝聚力非常困难，但我们通过每天全员 Teams 电话会议和每周一次的瑜伽课程解决了这个问题。
35%
65%
多年后，我失去的那位总监告诉我，当时他的反应过度了。自那时起，我们的人数已恢复到 40 人，并继续快速招聘。
这并不意味着我们僵化；我们提供灵活的工作时间，且周五下午 4 点下班。如果有人确实因为特定事情需要在家待一天，也是有余地的。但总体而言，每个人每天都在公司。
那是 40 多年前的事情了，现在我经营着自己的室内设计和建筑事务所。但每当我看到一名毕业生在努力寻找立足点时，我仍会想起早期的那些日子。关于在办公室工作与居家办公的争论，已演变成一场漫长且令人精疲力竭的博弈，涵盖了从四天工作制、学术休假、混合办公，到对人们对工作本身期待的根本性重新思考等方方面面。
现在，我们在与求职者的第一次谈话中就会坦诚告知我们的职场政策：全职在工作室工作，不提供居家办公。招聘公司告诉我们，我们脱节了——因为其他每一家建筑和设计事务所都至少提供两天的居家办公。但我们从未
我职业生涯致力于设计人们工作场所，而一个优秀的办公室并非工厂。它是让两位同事不期而遇的楼梯，是紧张的新员工能与总监进行 10 分钟非正式沟通的咖啡吧，是那些无需在日历中预约便能发生的对话。即便现在，我们的两个工作室仅隔五分钟路程，我仍然偶尔听到有人抱怨两地之间的步行距离。我说这很好——可以呼吸新鲜空气，并且有理由在途中偶遇另一个团队。
在我们获准正式重新开放的那一刻，我们立即行动，将员工带回我们刚刚……
2 Fitzroy Place（左图），位于伦敦市中心，由 MoreySmith 设计
本周，一名原高盛高管在因陪产假期间未快速回复电子邮件而被解雇后，赢得了一笔近 £1.5 百万的赔偿金。男性和女性是否应该获得相同时长的育儿假？
MOREYSMITH
今年夏天——以及其消磨精力的热浪——让情况变得更加困难。人们不想乘坐摇晃的火车或坐在闷热的汽车里通勤去办公室。学校放假后，儿童看护安排变得更加复杂。而且，如果你足够幸运拥有花园，留在花园附近的诱惑力会变得更大。
疫情证明了工作几乎可以在任何地方进行。AI 则在证明许多工作根本不需要由人类完成。这两点都没有削弱办公室的必要性。相反，它们使办公室的地位达到了前所未有的强度——办公室不再仅仅是容纳工作的场所，而是培养人才的地方。这些人才终有一天会静静地站在他人身边，教会他们如何观察与掌控局面。
坦白说，我个人认为 AI 导致失业的故事在某种程度上是个伪命题
在这一切之中，被遗忘的是刚刚起步的一代人——而他们才是损失最大的。
今天的毕业生们正处于一个极其艰难的时刻。疫情让数百万人结束了每周五天在办公室工作的模式，而人工智能现在正在拆除年轻人学习基础的基石：那些曾经作为他们训练场的、常规且枯燥的工作。剥离了这些，且无法在身体上靠近经验丰富的……
帕斯卡·索里奥爵士 (Sir Pascal Soriot)，阿斯利康首席执行官
琳达·莫里-伯罗斯 (Linda Morey-Burrows) 是 MoreySmith 的创始人兼首席执行董事
汉娜·普雷维特 (Hannah Prevett) 休假中
FTSE 100 11,000
波动 12个月 高 低
消费者价格指数 当前率 上月
U137.36 H: 8,642.23
DAX 25,629.24
U530.24 H: 25,900.10
FTSE EUROFIRST 2,595.24
U16.73 H: 2,625.60
SENSEX 78,094.64
U2,034.87 H: 86,159.02 U2.68% L: 71,545.81
ALL ORDS 9,137.00
S&P TSX 35,226.14
V142.96 H: 35,760.02
V0.40% L: 26,846.74
英国 5.062 U0.029 5.234 4.229 美国 4.740 U0.053 4.740 3.923 日本 2.799 V0.017 2.902 1.469 德国 3.229 U0.025 3.244 2.528
U537.78 H: 53,289.30
NASDAQ 25,373.85
U398.03 H: 27,190.21 U1.59% L: 20,560.17
S&P 500 7,489.72
U77.74 H: 7,620.90
CPI（含住房）当前率 上月
10,500
零售价格指数 当前率 上月
U 173.53 H: 25,134.76 U 0.73% L: 20,626.98
U 131.82 H: 10,989.45 U 1.23% L: 9,027.94
平均周薪 上月 去年同期
10,000
失业率 当前率 上月
Rentokil Initial 4.4
日元 YEN > 美元 USD
黄金 美元 / 金衡盎司
美元 USD > 英镑 GBP
9,500
日经 64,362.02
工业产出 同比 上月
4.2
V249.13 H: 72,831.73 V0.39% L: 39,850.52
2 40 100 12 73 65% 68% 50 19% 96 40% 78 04% 03 59% 500 74 05% 1% 13 39% 47
欧元 EUR > 英镑
€1.1696
9,000
零售销售（同比上月）
12个月高点：¥164.00 低点：¥145.50
12个月高点：$5,626.80 低点：$3,331.40
2025 2026
石油 美元 / 桶
来源：Factset
最近3个月 前3个月 最近12个月
英国贸易余额（十亿英镑）
3.6
上涨股 Mondi: 892.2p, U 22.32% Greggs: £18.80, U 18.84% Sage: 937.2p, U 13.40% Ocado: 211.8p, U 13.32% Burberry: £11.88, U 11.19%
U 921.20 H: 28,056.10 U3.69% L: 22,518.00
下跌股 Rentokil Initial: 344.8p, V 19.06% Vesuvius: 371p, V 17.92% IG Group: £14.60, V 14.37% Ceres Power: 347p, V 9.64% Oxford Instruments: £27.32, V8.69%
3.4
最近季度 前一季度 年度变化
国内生产总值
7月 27 28 29 30 31
12个月高点：$119.50 低点：$58.72
12个月高点：$126,273 低点：$57,754
来源：Factset
上月 前月 年初至今
周六上午10:30的价格。该公司报告北美需求放缓后，股价下跌。
预算赤字 (PSNB) 以十亿英镑计
U18.06 H: 4,258.86 U0.47% L: 3,547.16
-16.0 -20.0 -57.6
来源：FactSet
市值排名 价格 本周变化 52周高点 低点 (百万英镑)
市值排名 价格 本周变化 52周市值
市值排名
市值排名
价格 本周变化
52周高点 低点
市值 (百万英镑)
价格 本周变化
52周高点 低点
市值 (百万英镑)
收益率
收益率
V 本周变化 高点 低点 (百万英镑)
V
V
V
112 RS Group 701.5 +19.0 742.8 536.9 3302.0 200 Safestore Holdings 615.5 nc 849.5 578.8 1344.8 56 Sage 973.2 +115.0 1234.0 771.6 8800.7
61 Sainsbury (J) 359.4 +14.4 380.2 291.2 7959.1 199 Savills 920.0 +2.0 1126.0 791.5 1346.4
51 Schroders 588.5 nc 599.5 358.6 9479.0 42 Scottish Mortgage Inv Tst 1330.5 +14.5 1563.0 1015.8 14252.6 44 Segro 965.0 -14.0 997.4 603.0 13067.0 138 Serco 241.6 +1.0 325.8 205.0 2357.5 53 Severn Trent 3018.0 -2.0 3335.0 2381.0 9108.4 120 Shaftesbury Capital 143.8 +1.2 162.9 124.1 2818.4
171 Shawbrook Group 328.0 -26.0 519.0 277.5 1704.6 3 Shell 3383.5 +78.0 3758.5 2553.8 188151.0 179 Sirius Real Estate 99.0 +0.5 113.0 86.8 1574.9 50 Smith & Nephew 1158.5 +18.5 1441.5 1050.0 9729.7
62 Smiths 2642.0 -36.0 2746.2 2088.0 7815.2 99 Softcat 1930.0 +37.0 1998.0 1083.0 3799.9 80 Spirax 6945.0 -135.0 8050.0 5950.0 5127.2 28 SSE 2346.0 -76.0 2767.5 1597.0 28442.7 184 SSP 199.2 +8.2 212.4 137.2 1517.5 16 Standard Chartered 2188.0 +51.0 2278.0 1285.0 47940.1 52 Standard Life 923.0 +6.5 932.0 615.0 9292.1 76 St. James's Place 1053.5 -17.5 1575.5 1038.8 5451.8 134 Tate & Lyle 554.0 -2.5 580.0 319.4 2467.8 124 Taylor Wimpey 78.0 -4.8 116.9 74.1 2721.6 127 TBC Bank 4812.0 +50.0 5200.0 3615.0 2681.6
122 Templeton Emerging Markets IT 305.0 -4.0 352.0 196.2 2810.0
26 Tesco 489.5 +9.2 510.4 406.9 30670.8 188 The Schiehallion Fund 145.6 -1.4 171.1 84.8 1494.4
27 3i Group 2864.0 +106.0 4497.0 1825.0 28886.6 104 3i Infrastructure 380.0 -5.5 394.5 325.0 3504.9 132 TP ICAP 342.6 -7.4 355.0 235.5 2485.1 84 Tritax Big Box 170.1 -0.8 175.0 132.2 4617.4 5 Unilever 4743.0 +167.5 5542.1 3644.0 102177.0 48 United Utilities 1383.0 +15.0 1497.0 1072.0 10273.8
123 Unite 538.0 -17.0 764.0 442.2 2765.6 30 Vodafone 117.9 +3.2 131.1 80.6 27138.0
172 Watches of Switzerland 729.5 +20.5 801.5 316.2 1701.9 68 Weir 2636.0 +20.0 3580.0 2254.0 6843.4 92 Whitbread 2510.0 +73.0 3302.0 2098.0 4210.3 198 Worldwide Healthcare Trust 376.0 -8.5 398.0 306.5 1348.6
113 WPP 298.8 +16.2 412.4 218.5 3222.4
46 Admiral 3772.0 +184.0 3816.0 2624.0 11553.8 45 Airtel Africa 333.0 -1.2 436.2 200.6 12093.0 141 AJ Bell 587.5 -8.5 662.5 414.4 2317.7 82 Alliance Witan 1345.0 +22.0 1356.0 1178.0 4992.2 148 Allianz Technology Trust 670.0 -13.0 764.0 439.5 2207.7 18 Anglo American 3733.0 +12.0 4239.0 2042.0 43976.6 23 Antofagasta 3655.0 +24.0 4475.0 1850.5 36033.1 189 Ashmore 206.4 +0.6 276.5 145.9 1471.1 41 Associated British Foods 2087.0 +91.5 2359.0 1729.5 14685.2 2 AstraZeneca 12632.0 -38.0 15732.0 9892.0 195925.0
83 Easyjet 630.0 +12.0 683.8 332.6 4775.5 59 Endeavour Mining 3522.0 -85.0 5620.0 2238.0 8510.7 194 Energean 763.0 -65.0 1042.0 674.5 1409.4 105 Entain 541.4 -12.0 1031.0 500.4 3464.5
81 Kingfisher 308.6 +9.1 372.2 240.2 5090.1 190 Lancashire Holdings 602.5 -50.0 700.0 549.0 1470.2 79 Land Securities 705.5 +12.0 722.0 522.5 5256.3
175 Law Debenture 1242.0 +8.0 1270.0 977.4 1667.7 40 Legal & General 300.4 +0.8 310.0 217.2 16609.3 11 Lloyds Banking 114.8 +1.2 117.8 74.4 66689.6 85 LondonMetric Property 196.2 +1.1 216.2 175.2 4612.6 19 London Stock Exchange 8398.0 -376.0 10290.0 6684.0 41008.1
106 Man Group 302.2 +4.6 327.2 154.2 3461.2 60 Marks & Spencer 405.1 +24.6 412.2 301.1 8373.2
73 Melrose Industries 454.2 -16.1 685.0 409.9 5661.1 170 Mercantile Investment Tst 276.5 -1.0 282.0 234.2 1746.4
176 Mitchells & Butlers 276.0 +12.0 301.5 223.5 1656.1
125 MITIE Group 207.0 -2.4 214.0 134.8 2693.5 98 Mondi 892.2 +162.8 1129.5 660.0 3938.3 136 Monks Investment Trust 1578.0 -2.0 1664.0 1322.0 2421.6 151 Morgan Sindall 4430.0 -76.0 5730.0 3915.0 2127.9
149 Murray International Trust (Ord) 368.5 +7.0 371.0 283.5 2194.7
14 National Grid 1190.0 -47.5 1428.5 1000.0 59818.8
15 Natwest 705.8 +29.8 722.6 500.2 56180.0 38 Next 14845.0 +60.0 15310.0 11200.0 17763.1 195 Ninety One 212.2 +1.2 262.2 179.6 1405.7
165 Ocado 211.8 +24.9 397.9 140.2 1786.4 160 OSB 556.5 -5.0 647.5 479.0 1900.7 187 Oxford Instruments 2732.0 -260.0 3318.0 1682.0 1503.1 144 Pan African Res 92.1 -2.8 190.4 52.6 2245.1 181 Pantheon International 395.0 +5.0 409.0 319.5 1549.2 180 Paragon Banking 837.0 +21.5 932.5 681.5 1556.5 64 Pearson 1257.0 +31.0 1337.0 874.8 7556.3
150 Pennon 463.0 -5.2 606.0 439.4 2185.3 69 Pershing Square Holdings 3808.0 +94.0 5095.0 3636.0 6606.6 103 Persimmon 1107.0 nc 1552.0 947.4 3556.1 174 Personal Assets Trust 545.0 +11.0 555.0 507.0 1678.2 126 Plus500 3910.0 -64.0 5535.0 2874.0 2692.9 67 Polar Capital Technology Trust 626.5 -19.0 743.5 384.0 6928.6 173 Premier Foods 194.2 +7.1 211.6 165.2 1688.1 135 Primary Health Prop. 94.5 -0.2 109.6 87.4 2451.1 29 Prudential 1116.0 +20.0 1238.0 910.2 27946.5 129 Qinetiq 506.0 +16.2 551.5 398.5 2613.9 128 Quilter 193.2 -1.6 209.0 150.8 2641.9 185 Rathbones 1668.0 nc 2500.0 1580.0 1509.4 24 Reckitt Benckiser 5240.0 +290.0 6522.9 3664.0 33276.9 17 RELX 2607.0 +39.0 3976.0 1991.0 45641.2
166 Renewables Infrastructure 76.1 +0.1 86.2 63.2 1773.3 102 Renishaw 4948.0 -257.0 5490.0 2860.0 3601.6 57 Rentokil Initial 344.8 -81.2 507.0 344.6 8709.8
107 Rightmove 464.6 +27.2 827.0 391.4 3447.9 7 Rio Tinto 7174.0 +305.0 9117.0 4344.5 90037.0 115 RIT Capital Partners 2565.0 +55.0 2610.0 1906.1 3201.6 4 Rolls-Royce Holdings 1467.8 +52.2 1532.6 990.0 122318.0
31 Experian 2790.0 +46.0 4054.0 2203.0 24752.1
71 F&C Investment Trust 331.2 -2.2 1332.0 325.8 6235.7
152 Fidelity European Trust 428.5 +5.0 442.0 367.5 2110.5 186 Fidelity Special Values 463.5 +11.5 469.5 372.0 1503.4 101 Frasers Group 810.5 +45.5 828.5 598.0 3626.6 37 Fresnillo 2475.0 -71.0 4472.0 1371.0 18238.1 70 Games Workshop 19120.0 -820.0 23540.0 14070.0 6318.2
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
193 Great Portland Estates 349.0 +4.0 377.0 270.0 1417.6 137 Greencoat UK Wind 111.9 +3.9 120.9 92.2 2415.5
154 Greencore Group 260.4 +13.2 307.5 191.1 2093.3 159 Greggs 1880.0 +298.0 2046.0 1407.2 1922.4 9 GSK 1931.5 +12.0 2282.0 1288.6 78136.8 25 Haleon 363.2 -0.2 416.1 274.4 32002.7 43 Halma 3530.0 -84.0 4902.0 3191.4 13401.5 156 Hammerson 382.0 +15.4 383.0 263.4 2032.4 100 Harbour Energy 239.4 -16.8 321.0 182.0 3783.1 140 HarbourVest Global Private Equity 3335.0 -15.0 3470.0 2630.9 2319.6
155 Helios Towers 195.8 -7.2 247.6 113.2 2035.9 167 HG Capital Trust 390.0 +9.5 524.4 318.6 1766.7 131 HICL Infrastructure 136.0 +1.8 138.0 107.2 2531.0
109 Hikma Pharmaceuticals 1585.0 +3.0 2004.0 1187.0 3340.1
146 Hill & Smith 2850.0 -180.0 3145.0 1951.8 2235.5
72 Hiscox 1809.0 -31.0 1904.0 1246.0 5804.0
147 Hochschild Mining 431.4 -13.2 858.0 246.2 2219.4
89 Howden Joinery 788.5 +22.5 981.0 713.0 4316.8 1 HSBC Hldgs 1576.0 +23.2 1604.6 908.8 270813.0 78 ICG 1888.0 +22.0 2340.0 1424.9 5256.3 66 IMI 2936.0 -114.0 3076.0 2138.0 7014.5
32 Imperial Brands 2825.0 +2.0 3632.0 2626.0 21758.8 117 Inchcape 838.5 +13.0 895.0 640.5 2927.6 47 Informa 885.8 +4.8 1000.0 719.0 11140.2 39 InterContinental Hotels 11941.2 +191.6 13305.0 8458.0 17744.9 35 International Consolidated Airlines 431.9 -2.2 492.9 332.8 19020.2 130 International Public Partnership 142.0 +2.2 143.2 115.6 2542.1 161 International Workplace 197.1 -2.6 250.8 163.5 1878.6 55 Intertek 5840.0 +20.0 5850.0 3519.4 8989.6 96 Ithaca Energy 242.2 -15.4 290.8 149.8 4005.3 121 ITV 74.2 +1.2 87.4 65.8 2816.4
90 JD Sports Fashion 89.5 +0.5 106.1 64.0 4302.6 108 Johnson Matthey 1992.0 +74.0 2434.0 1730.8 3347.7 158 JPMorgan American IT 1200.0 -10.0 1238.0 1041.0 1981.1 183 JPMorgan Emerging Mkts Gwth & Inc 161.8 -0.6 181.2 118.4 1522.9
110 JPMorgan Global Growth & Income 609.0 +4.5 616.5 529.6 3323.4 142 JTC 1327.0 +1.0 1385.1 860.0 2317.5
153 Keller Group 3024.0 -274.0 3518.0 1238.0 2095.2
196 Atalaya Mining Copper 885.5 -19.5 1094.0 440.5 1361.5 95 Autotrader 523.8 +34.8 844.4 418.6 4102.1
33 Aviva 693.4 +2.4 700.8 590.6 20812.1 75 Babcock International 1121.0 nc 1527.0 902.4 5523.9 13 BAE Systems 2094.0 +123.0 2360.0 1529.0 62904.4
93 Balfour Beatty 862.5 -16.5 900.0 539.0 4125.1
197 Bankers Investment Trust 147.0 -0.8 153.4 120.6 1350.0 10 Barclays 508.8 -16.8 554.1 352.6 68708.6
94 Barratt Redrow 293.2 -1.4 410.2 235.4 4124.1 63 Beazley 1290.5 -2.5 1296.0 750.0 7762.8 143 Bellway 1988.0 +9.0 2890.0 1715.0 2245.9 114 Berkeley Group 3500.0 +68.0 4442.0 2796.0 3209.6 169 Big Yellow Group 887.5 -2.0 1208.0 800.5 1747.7
177 BlackRock World Mining Trust 883.0 -1.0 1072.9 543.1 1650.4 145 B&M European Value Retail 222.6 +9.2 269.2 140.0 2237.2 8 BP 552.5 +4.1 609.4 397.1 86758.5 119 Bridgepoint 320.6 +3.0 363.4 212.0 2826.8 6 British American Tobacco 4570.0 -2.0 5326.0 3677.0 98851.8
86 British Land Co 442.0 +3.2 446.4 318.6 4530.2
34 BT 201.2 +8.2 242.1 173.0 20064.9 54 Bunzl 2802.0 +44.0 2832.0 1981.0 9086.6 91 Burberry 1187.5 +119.5 1376.5 976.0 4287.0 157 Caledonia Investments 388.0 +7.0 395.0 312.0 1985.5 65 Centrica 155.0 -8.0 220.2 152.5 7160.1 178 Chemring 590.5 -6.0 620.0 446.5 1606.9 116 City of London Investment Trust 593.0 +11.0 599.0 486.0 3057.1 191 Clarkson 4730.0 -52.0 4992.0 3365.0 1464.1
162 CMC Markets 667.0 -56.0 753.0 203.0 1866.4 182 Coats Group 80.2 +4.4 98.1 71.0 1537.7 22 Coca-Cola Europacific Partners 8190.0 +295.0 8545.0 6280.0 36299.5 36 Coca-Cola HBC AG 5010.0 +140.0 5195.0 3270.0 18259.7
20 Compass 2356.2 +83.6 2581.1 2000.0 40067.7 88 ConvaTec 224.0 +8.0 259.2 193.0 4378.9 118 Cranswick 5350.0 -130.0 5810.0 4775.0 2905.4
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
87 Croda International 3205.0 +273.0 3338.0 2426.8 4475.3 163 Currys 167.9 +3.6 169.5 106.0 1833.6 77 DCC Energy 6330.0 +45.0 6740.0 4188.0 5407.4 139 Derwent London 2104.0 +66.0 2136.0 1469.4 2331.1
52周高点和低点为日内数据，而非收盘价。不包括交易所交易基金。nc = 无变化。
— = 不适用。来源：ICE Data Services
2026年8月2日
[!NOTE] 本章节源文包含大量外语数据与图片版面，已进行结构化对齐优化。
父亲给我了一个清真存钱罐 名利，第 14 页
在退休时利用住房财富寻求资助，长期以来被视为陷入财务危机者的最后手段。然而，时代在变。
随着英国面临退休收入危机，且遗产税威胁到越来越多的家庭，房屋净值贷款（Equity release loans）预计将变得更加普遍。
一项等于债务价值 9% 的罚金。该比例将逐渐降至 0%。
Legal & General 表示，没收抵押品永远是最后手段，公司将首先穷尽所有适当的选项。
根据消费者团体 Fairer Finance 的数据，到 2040, 年，房主将持有 4.3 万亿英镑 (£4.3 trillion) 的房产财富。房屋净值贷款允许房主根据其房屋价值借款，在他们去世或进入护理机构时偿还余额（外加复利）。
前养老金大臣、晚年财务、退休及社会护理政策专家 Altmann 男爵夫人表示，在如此年轻的年纪就承诺进行房屋净值贷款在短期内可能具有吸引力，但会严重限制你晚年生活中的选择。她说：“例如，如果你选择缩小住房规模而不是提取净值，你以后会拥有更大的灵活性。”
根据行业机构房屋净值委员会（Equity Release Council）的数据，今年前三个月有近 13,000 名房主平均贷款 44,000 英镑 (£44,000)。
“复利的问题在于，如果你在 50 多岁时借了房屋价值 30% 的款项，且拥有一套普通的家庭住宅，那么 20 年后，你在房子中拥有的份额将低于 30%，这意味着如果你在 70 多岁时想要缩小住房规模，你将没有足够的净值去买一套房子或公寓。在那个阶段，家庭住宅对你来说可能太大了，但你却被困住了。”
然而，虽然房屋净值贷款可以在退休时为你提供一条财务生命线，但挖掘房产财富并非没有风险。Money 发现：
6 房屋净值贷款利率激增，目前平均为 7.7%，这意味着 100,000 英镑 (£100,000) 的贷款在十年内将使借款人支付超过 215,000 英镑 (£215,000)。6 新协议意味着年满 50 岁的房主现在也可以申请房屋净值贷款，但如果借款人无法维持还款，可能会失去他们的住房。6 南北房产价格差异意味着，在借相同金额时，南方人可以获得更低的利率，因为这在他们的房屋价值中占比更小。
插图：NINA KRAUSE
不过，对于房屋净值贷款的借款人来说，有一个好消息。自从 1965, 年第一版房屋净值贷款进入市场，经过 20 世纪 80 年代末和 90 年代初的负资产丑闻（当时住房市场崩盘导致部分借款人的欠款超过了房屋价值），协议已变得更加灵活。但过去的糟糕做法并未被遗忘，Daley 表示：“该行业与 20 到 30 年前相比有了不可估量的提升，但仍受名誉滞后之苦。当时存在的风险——质量低劣且过于昂贵的产品、缺乏灵活性、高额费用以及负资产——基本上都已经消失了。”
为什么房屋净值贷款可能拯救你的退休生活（或摧毁你的财富）
55 岁及以上的房主可以申请房屋净值抵押贷款，在他们去世或搬入长期护理机构之前，无需支付一分钱。相反，每月利息会被计入债务，债务年复一年地快速增长，蚕食你的净值。
此类贷款不需要每月还款，因此借款人无需通过还款能力审查。但借款人必须接受专业经纪人的咨询和独立的法律建议。虽然没有规定你必须与家人讨论采取房屋净值贷款的决定，但建议这样做，因为这些贷款可能会抹杀遗产。
借款人现在可以选择一次性领取总额，或者同意将一笔资金保留在账户中，在需要时提取，且仅对已提取的部分支付利息。
可以选择偿还全部月利息、部分利息或完全不偿还——如果您需要停止支付，也可以在无需担心房屋被没收的情况下停止。贷款机构还允许每年小额偿还债务。
您的房屋必须价值至少 £70,000 才能办理贷款，且借款人通常被禁止提取超过其房产净值 50 per cent 的资金。大多数协议是可转移的，这意味着如果您搬家，无需立即偿还。
一旦您同意了某个利率，该利率将终身固定，并且设有高额的退出罚金，以防止任何人在日后利率下降时试图更换方案的人。锁定在 7.72 per cent 意味着在短短九年多时间里（在不进行任何还款的情况下），您的债务价值将翻倍。
一名拥有价值 £600,000 房屋且借款 £150,000 的人的贷款价值比（LTV）为 25 per cent，这可能使他们能够获得市场上最便宜的方案，具体取决于其年龄。如果您的房屋价值 £300,000，您的贷款价值比将跃升至 50 per cent，这意味着您的利率可能会高得多。
在某些计划中，您的收入取决于您缴纳了多少以及这些投资的表现如何。退休金公司 Standard Life 警告称，在 2060 年之前准备退休的定义缴款养老金（defined contribution pensions）储蓄者中，有超过一半的人无法积累足够的资金。
人们也不再担心陷入负资产的境地。如果您比预期寿命更长且房产净值耗尽，贷款机构索赔的金额最高不得超过您房屋价值的 100 per cent。
该行业过去一直被投诉所困扰，投诉者通常是那些对贷款及其对亲人房屋价值影响不知情的家庭成员。
Fairer Finance 的 James Daley 表示：“房产净值释放绝对不适合所有人。如果您有其他选择，就不应该使用它。最大的风险是利息会吞噬掉您房屋的大部分价值，导致您失去一生中积累的大部分财富。”
一些贷款提供每月偿还部分或全部利息的选项，以防止债务像滚雪球一样增加。专门从事房产净值释放的财务顾问 Andy Wilson 表示，任何“称职”的顾问都应该进行负担能力测试，以查看借款人是否能每月偿还利息。
金融行为监管局 (FCA) 这一金融城监管机构正试图使房屋财富的利用正常化，将其称为继国家、职场和私人养老金之后的退休财务的“第四支柱”。它还在审查房产净值释放行业，以确保为房屋所有者产生最佳结果。
如果您不想缩小住房规模但需要释放住房财富，房产净值释放并不是您的唯一选择——特别是如果您仍在工作且未来有保障的养老金收入。
Legal & General 提供的一种新型还款期限终身抵押贷款允许低至 50 岁的房屋所有者释放净值。借款人在开始时同意在设定的一段时间内支付贷款利息，该期限必须至少为五年——但也可以长得多。如果您在约定的期限内未能维持还款，您可能会失去您的房屋。
专门从事晚年借贷的 LiveMore 首席执行官 Leon Diamond 表示，其三分之二的客户是年龄较大的借款人，他们有足够的养老金收入，可以办理终身仅付息或本息同还的抵押贷款，从而完全避开房产净值释放。
如果您有其他选择，请使用它
20 to 30 年前的大部分风险已经消失
这正值明年 4 月起，当养老金账户被计入遗产总值时，将有数千个更多家庭需要支付遗产税。退休金融公司加拿大生命（Canada Life）今年表示，五分之一的客户计划通过房屋净值释放（equity release）来给亲人提供资金。
他表示：“复利是最大的考虑因素。人们在支付利息时有着最好的初衷，但计划随后会发生变化。夫妻中的一方可能会去世，这意味着他们的收入随之消失，幸存的配偶可能不再能够负担得起。”
廉价资金的时代早已过去。但对于房屋净值释放而言，利率的涨幅甚至高于抵押贷款。五年前，你可能可以获得低于 2.5 per cent 的利率。而根据对比网站 Moneyfacts 的数据，现在你面对的是 7.72 per cent 的平均利率，部分贷款机构的收费甚至高达 9 per cent。
在那之后，贷款会自动转为房屋净值释放——这是一项直到你去世或入住护理院才会结清的债务。
英国金融行为监管局（FCA）正致力于使房屋净值释放和晚年抵押贷款市场适应未来世代，预计随之而来的将是更灵活的借贷方案。戴蒙德（Diamond）表示：“市场已经成熟，具备创新条件。”
随着提供保证退休收入的定额给付计划（defined benefit pensions）被定额缴款计划（defined contribution）取代，养老金财富预计将会下降。
英格兰南部的房主在办理同等金额贷款时，可以从较低的利率中获益。例如，
该利率从一开始就是固定的，范围在 6.8 per cent 至 8.3 per cent 之间。如果你决定在最初五年内偿还贷款，你将支付
金钱板块主管 本·威尔金森（Ben Wilkinson）
向那些需要护理的人收取国家养老金，但除此之外不再收取
你必须钦佩安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）一次性彻底解决我们护理危机的真诚雄心。这需要大胆的改革。
伯纳姆在周三的演讲中承认，他那一辈的政治家应承担责任，但如果新任首相真的想解决这个问题，他必须采取一种让他的极左翼后座议员无法认可的方式。
答案在于我们的国民医疗服务体系（NHS）在 1948. 年成立时的基本原则。那就是医疗护理应对所有需要的人免费，无论其财富状况如何。
越多地需要为你自己的护理买单。这一门槛自 2010 年起一直被冻结，如果考虑到通货膨胀，现在应该设定在更接近 £40,000 的水平。那些无法筹集资金支付的人，其债务将被计入房产，以便在他们去世时偿还。还有一个令人不安的事实：那些努力工作并纳税的人被迫自生自灭，而那些依赖国家生活的人却能免费获得护理。
到目前为止，我们听闻这一切可以通过大约 1.8 per cent 的所得税增长，或者对所有遗产征收 10 per cent 的统一遗产税来筹资。然而，社会护理危机与我们面临的任何重大挑战一样，除非我们的公共部门（包括 NHS）被整治到位，否则无法得到认真解决。
治疗，那么为什么他们会因为患上痴呆症而受到惩罚？
我担心政治家们可能会追讨被认为是“非劳动所得财富”的部分。诚然，继承家庭财富是幸运的，但将钱留给想给的人应该是你的权利。
有能力选择私立护理的人可以这样做。如果有人想把钱花在高档护理院，那就让他们做。让他们卖掉房子，动用储蓄。但不要让他们陷入财务破产的境地，仅仅是为了让他们能获得与另一个人免费获得的相同的护理。
建立一个能以尊严对待老年人，且在不榨干纳税人的情况下能够获得资金支持的体系。
剥夺一个人的资产来支付医疗费用，简直是残酷之举。政府被允许用来支付养老院护理费用的唯一资产应该是你的国家养老金，毕竟，这本就是一项旨在保障你晚年生活的福利。
之前的约定是：你缴纳税款，国家在你有需要时照顾你。而背叛之处在于，你的税款没有被妥善利用，且国家被允许变得臃肿、低效且官僚主义。
为老年人找到保留财务尊严的方法才是真正的目标
但任何如此规模的挑战总是充满危险——尽管人们显然很想直接将账单交给那些坐拥终身财富的房主。
伯纳姆（Burnham）曾表示，在“理想世界”中，没有人应该用自己的房屋来支付护理费，但当他最终宣布具体打算怎么做时，我们需要比这更坚定的信念。家庭财富需要完全排除在计算之外。
在解决公共部门生产力问题之前，不应讨论加税，据担心，该问题每年给纳税人造成数百亿英镑的损失。
破产的威胁确实像一场抽奖，预计我们中每四个人就有一个需要护理。你可能独立生活到 100 岁然后突然去世，或者你可能会在一家每周花费 £1,500 的护理院里度过 20 年。
英格兰的护理服务存在两个根本性问题：提供的质量低下，以及给家庭带来的灾难性成本。而这一切的核心问题是：你的房屋是否应该被用来支付这些费用？
将成年人社会护理责任下放到地方当局也是一个悲剧性的错误，事实证明，地方当局无法提供合格的服务。
本届政府正处于十字路口。它是想证明工作确实能带来回报，还是想让这个国家陷入更深的福利泥潭？
最终，有一条红线是不应逾越的。那就是：任何人都不应为了支付护理费而失去房屋或毕生积蓄。我们并不否认富人可以免费治疗癌症。
修复社会护理服务是一回事，但如果能以一种让老年人保留财务尊严的方式来实现，那将是伯纳姆真正的成就。
首先必须改变的是那条残酷的规定，即如果你拥有价值 £23,250 或以上的财富或资产。
这是一个针对税务局（HMRC）的常见抱怨，该局因客户服务糟糕而经常受到抨击。纳税人及其会计师报告称，他们花费数小时试图从代理人那里获得帮助和答案，去年公共账目委员会警告说，客户服务已跌至历史最低点。
阿尔伯特（Albert）的儿子保罗（Paul），68 岁，一名经济学家，是他父亲遗产的主要执行人，并与他的两个姐妹和一个兄弟共同成为受益人。然而，他的兄弟在父亲去世 12 天后去世，因此其遗产份额转交给了其遗孀。
HMRC 一直在进行招聘以期提高绩效，但专家表示，纳税人——尤其是那些追溯遗产税查询的人——仍面临漫长的等待。吉尔曼（Gillman）表示：“据我了解，遗产税团队内部严重缺乏合格的专业人员。HMRC 几乎会将所有涉及物业估值的事务交给区域估值师，而后者显然也处于过度负荷状态，我们在需要估值时看到了类似的延迟。”
阿尔伯特是一名终身农民，于 1977 年搬到家族农场。他经营过家禽、羊、猪和耕地作物，他的孩子们在成长过程中也曾在农场帮忙。保罗为父亲的农场安排了两次专业估值，寻求了广泛的建议，并于 2024 年 3 月向 HMRC 提交了遗产税申报表，结果显示无需缴税。
该农场的平房、建筑、土地和一座风力涡轮机已由一家领先的土地代理机构进行了评估。一名律师的评估发现，整个农场应享有 100% 的农业财产继承税减免，理由是平房和谷仓对农场运营至关重要，且平房设有入住限制，意味着只有从事农业的人员才能居住，此外，土地已通过为期两年的租赁协议出租给一名佃农。
“在处理挚爱之人的遗产时面临如此程度的不确定性，显然增加了另一层压力。”
在父亲于 2025, 9 月去世约 19 个月后，Paul 在绝望中向英国税务海关总署 (HMRC) 申请了正式的清缴证明（即对账户或案件税务状态的书面确认）。他希望这能帮助结案，但他表示，后来一名 HMRC 代表告诉他，清缴请求的处理已被暂停，因为这被认为不是优先事项。
Albert Temperton 一辈子都在务农。下图：他与儿子 Paul 在一起，后者不得不处理他的遗产。
次月，HMRC 致函表示，如果 Paul 在 7 月 10 日之前没有收到任何消息，则该申报表将不再有任何疑问。当 7 月 10 日到来且没有收到 HMRC 的任何信件时，Paul 开始分配资产，并渴望在经历一个艰难的年份后结清遗产。但第二天，一封日期为 7 月 9 日的 HMRC 信函寄到了——声明其已对该遗产启动合规检查。
“父亲去世两年多了。HMRC 仍欠我们 £12,000 的税款”
“从那时起，我被反复建议每 15 天回电一次以获取最新进展，但从未提供过解决的时间表。一名代表告诉我，在死亡日期起两年之内，HMRC 没有义务回应我的请求。”
“随之而来的问题非常广泛且极其详细，涵盖了我父亲在农场中的日常参与情况、维护工作、牲畜、市场以及许多其他事项。例如，他们想知道他养了多少只鸡，以及在哪个市场出售。由于父亲在日记本中做了细致的记录，我都能回答这些问题，”Paul 说道。
“在父亲去世两年多后，我依然没有结果，没有时间表，也没有任何迹象表明 HMRC 的调查何时会结束。受益人无法领取遗产余额，尽管我已经尽了最大努力，但我还是觉得我让我的两个姐姐和嫂子失望了，”Paul 说道。
他在 9 月份做出了完整回应。但考虑到 HMRC 潜在的质疑，评估师建议，税务局可能会对风力涡轮机和部分谷仓是否符合农业财产减免资格产生争议。为了谨慎起见，Paul 向 HMRC 预付了约 £40,000，以避免在税额产生争议时产生利息。
当《周日泰晤士报》就 Paul 的案例与 HMRC 联系时，后者为延迟道歉，并将其归咎于人为错误。目前该案件已结案，并正在办理退还 £12,000 多缴遗产税及利息的手续。HMRC 表示：“我们已致信 Temperton 先生表示道歉，并解释我们已完成审查，结案并将向其发放退款。”
必须等待数年才能获得遗产税案件已结案的正式通知。
在此期间，执行人（负责根据死者意愿处理事务的人）通常不会向受益人分配资产，以防 HMRC 对遗产应缴税额产生争议。
“从那时起，HMRC 几乎完全保持沉默，”Paul 说道。尽管他试图获取更多信息，但没有人能告诉他延迟的原因，或者是否欠税。
律师表示，一些遗产税案件处理时间长达三年，使家庭陷入进退两难的境地。Rachel Mortimer 报道
来自 Thomson Snell & Passmore 律师事务所的 Esther Lee 表示，税务海关总署 (HMRC) 的延迟挑战并不罕见。“我们经常在 HMRC 查询窗口关闭前夕收到一封信或电子邮件，告知地区估价师已受命考虑某项财产的价值，或者遗产已被移交给合规团队。HMRC 的延误意味着在没有收到回复时，我们必须确保持续跟进。这些延误不仅意味着遗产管理周期延长，还增加了成本。”
lbert Temperton 一辈子都是个农民。他的遗产是勤劳的见证——在 2024 年 1 月去世前几天，已 97 岁高龄的他仍爬在梯子上，清理他拥有半个世纪之久的农场的水槽。
符合无限继承税减免条件，而其遗产的其他部分不多，因此流程本应很简单。
A
来自会计师事务所 Blick Rothenberg 的 Chris Gillman 表示，HMRC 花超过三年时间评估一份继承税申报表并不罕见。
但两年半后，关于 Albert 遗产的继承税案件仍在进行中，他的孩子们正在争取答案和价值数千英镑的退税——但得到的却是税务局的沉默。
“这产生了显著的个人影响。到 2024 年底，压力变得如此严重，以至于我因心脏问题被送入医院，”他说。“保守估计，我花了 100 多个小时追寻更新。但尽管发送了反复的电子邮件并拨打了电话，我几乎没有收到任何关于进展的有意义信息。”
“我们发现，任何稍微复杂一点的继承税申报表可能都需要数年时间才能处理完毕。我在 6 月收到了一大批信件，确认收到 2023 年 7 月提交的申报表，并称他们才刚刚开始审核，”Gillman 说道。
他的记录保存得十分细致，希望孩子们在处理其遗产以及与税务海关总署打交道时能少遇障碍。当 Albert 去世时，经营中的农场仍然符合
HMRC 要求在死亡后六个月内缴纳继承税，之后将开始计算利息。但即使遵守这一期限的家庭仍处于痛苦的停滞状态——而且有些
Ian Cowie 个人账户
石油还是风能？这就是为什么你不需要选边站队
其专业大宗商品交易员在过去十年和五年期间在业内赢得顶尖地位。总回报率分别为 424%、235% 和 75%。
BW LPG 是一家总部位于新加坡的航运公司，拥有 50 艘超大型气体运输船。这并非许多投资者可以直接接触到的业务类型。15 年多前，我通过 Ecofin Water and Power Opportunities 进入了另一个多元化组合。在 2019 年 9 月该基金更名为 Ecofin Global Utilities and Infrastructure 后，我以每股 £1.52 的价格补仓。这家投资信托基金提供 3% 的股息收入，在过去五年中每年增长 5.2%，周五的除息价（即不含下次收入付款）为每股 £2.68。其资产以我们最大的电力分销商 National Grid 为主，其次是美国太阳能和风能巨头 NextEra Energy，以及 Iberdrola 组合。如果你想确定温度趋势，可以从网上的“专家”那里获得。然而，正如大多数投资者所发现的，有信心并不等同于正确。
投资信托基金避之不及的是供水业务。距离上一个水库建成已过去 30 年多，基金经理们效仿政府，将水务归类为“过于复杂”的类别。唯一的例外是国际公共伙伴关系公司（International Public Partnerships），其主要资产是 Tideway（泰晤士河下水道），该项目于 2025 年 2 月完工，据称已阻止 21.7 million 吨污水流入河流。身为伦敦人，我对此心存感激——同时也看中了其 6.2% 的股息收益，且每年增长 3.1%。
离家更近的是可再生能源。Greencoat UK Wind 是一家资产超过 40 亿英镑 billion 的投资信托，但由于如此多的人讨厌风车，其股价较净资产价值（NAV）折价高达 20%。
以及西班牙和意大利的公用事业公司 Enel。这些股票的价格低于 NAV 2% 不到，是我这只“永久基金”中价值第六高的持股。
一些气候变化否认者的怀疑论在那些不那么严肃的受害者中蔓延。同样，在法国和西班牙被迫逃离家园的 325,000 人中，不太可能包含许多心满意足地声称“这只是天气热”的人。
美国石油和天然气巨头埃克森美孚（Exxonmobil）——嘘，嘘声！
相比之下，如果说有一个谦卑的原则指导这位 DIY 股东，那就是苏格拉底悖论：我唯一知道的就是我一无所知。
在等待它们能否维持现状的同时，该基金提供 8% 的股息收益，在过去五年中，该收益以 38% 的爆炸性年均速度增长。因此，我以每股 £3.48 的价格（按面值或净资产价值 NAV 定价）买入，并将它们放入了我的 Isa 账户。其 2% 的年费虽然昂贵，但对于一个由加拿大铀矿商 NexGen Energy（为核电提供燃料）领衔，随后是另一家加拿大公司 Spartan Delta（从事石油和液化石油气 LPG）以及
更复杂的担忧是补贴、除役成本以及这些资产的寿命。这种负面情绪不利于业务和市场情绪，因此我在 2023 年 8 月以 £1.45 买入的股票，在周五的交易价格为 £1.11。从乐观的一面来看，Greencoat 在我的 Isa 中提供 10% 的免税股息收益。更棒的是，这在过去五年中每年增长 7.8%。现在环境署宣布英格兰一半以上地区处于干旱状态，这令人瞩目——且令人遗憾
——是我第八大资产，也是我对肮脏化石燃料的主要直接敞口，因为两者对于维持温暖和就业都是必要的。
中东是否会爆发和平，导致油价回落至每桶 $90 以下，且液化石油气（LPG）的价格随之下降？上周重新爆发的暴力冲突可能意味着，据说处于 1983 年以来最低水平的石油和天然气储备，将与今年冬天的需求增长及价格上涨相碰撞。我最近买入了 CQS Natural Resources Growth and Income 投资信托的股票，
投资者可以通过将储蓄投入更清洁、更绿色的能源，帮助资助向更安全、更可持续的世界转型。我在十多年前就开始这样做，这些基金继续产生资本增长和收益。
在卖掉 BP 和壳牌（Shell）的股票以逃避由保守党强加并由工党维持的愚蠢北海税后，我在 2022 年 3 月以每股 $91 的价格买入埃克森股票。它们在周五的交易价为 $153，股息收益率为 2.7%，每年增长 2.8%。自 1982 年以来，埃克森每年都增加股东的分红。
许多环境辩论产生的热度大于光亮，但投资者可以提供交付实际解决方案所需的部分资金。这种需求再基本不过了。
投资者无需在化石燃料与可再生能源的激烈争论中选边站队。不同的资产对于多元化
为了救赎这个务实之徒，我的能源持仓
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如何摆脱办公室，享受工作 —— 且赚得更多
知道这不对。”在几个月内，史密斯发现该岗位的部分职责被 AI 取代，不久之后，公司便转向在极少人工干预的情况下运行完整的招聘活动。史密斯于 2022 年离开金融城，并接受了木工和锁匠的重新培训，在那里他遇到了其他同样为了让职业在未来更具竞争力而做出类似转变的人。
他说：“无论我在金融城工作多么努力，我的收入依然只有这么多，这让我很不舒服；朝九晚五的日程安排同样如此。”现在他是自雇人士，从事园艺、木工和搬家工作，一天能赚到以前一周的收入。
在过去的三年里，他通过在线市场 Airtasker 赚了 £45,000，此外他还在本地名录中通过口碑宣传自己的服务。在夏天，他每月可以轻松赚到 £4,000。
Megan Carnegie 表示，更多的金钱、灵活性和绝对的掌控权正促使人们退出这场“内卷”竞争，转而学习一门手艺。
他说：“自雇只要愿意推广自己并拓展人脉，就能赚到想要的钱，这并非神话。我投资了课程、一辆面包车和工具，但这些都已经赚回来了。”
大流行时期的成就。在一篇为《时报》撰写的文章中，他写道：“长期以来，我们构建的教育体系建立在这样一个观念之上，即通往成功的路径只有一条：大学、学位、办公桌。我认为这是这个国家犯下的最大的错误之一。”
Jiri Marek 在担任食品开发技术员时感到停滞不前，他想尝试一些截然不同的事情。在 2019 年底，他下载了 TikTok，几分钟内，偶然看到一段用木材和树脂制作微型长笛的视频。“我是一个坚毅的人，总是需要
接受挑战，”他说。“我一遍又一遍地观看，心想：我可以做到，而且能做得更好。”
伦敦国王学院人工智能与政策研究所几个月前进行的一项研究发现，38% 的人担心自己的工作会被 AI 取代。
信誉良好的装修工人网站 Checkatrade 的研究发现，近 37% 的人正在考虑职业变动，其中 54% 的人有兴趣接受手艺培训。约 75% 的人将手艺活视为一条受人尊敬且具有长期职业保障的职业道路。
到圣诞节时，他已经研究了市场，制定了商业计划，并花费 £3,000 购买木工工具。在 2020, 年的第一周，他成立了 Studio Number 10，专门生产豪华木制柜门把手和拉手。
而且需求正在飙升。大众商业车（Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles）在 4 月进行的一项调查发现，75% 的手艺人认为进入该行业的熟练工人短缺。约 87% 的砖匠认为新工人短缺，85% 的水管工和 79% 的电工也有同感。
住在什罗普郡杰克菲尔德的 Marek，48 岁，一直很擅长动手工作，他迅速将 10 号工作室 (Studio Number 10) 发展成一家可行且盈利的企业——他的工作预约已经排到了明年 2 月。这种转变让他能花更多时间陪伴妻子 Alena（44 岁，同样在公司工作）以及他 9 岁和 11 岁的孩子们。
Holly Cruttenden，48 岁，一直深知她在教育行业的工作存在薪资天花板。她曾在当地政府工作，负责帮助旅居者 (Traveller) 后裔进入学校系统，年薪约为 £30,000。她说：“我热爱那份工作，但我刚刚在离婚中失去了房子，而且还得独自照顾一个七岁的孩子。”
由大众汽车 (Volkswagen) 调查的工人中，有 45 比例的人表示他们每月至少一次拒绝接活，高于前一年的比例。
“在什罗普郡的这个地区有很多登录建筑 (listed buildings)，这需要专业知识，所以我通过这家企业继承了这些知识。”
经验丰富的技工（其中许多是中年职业转换者）能够获得更高的报酬，承接尽可能多的工作，甚至可以自行定价。
Jiri Marek 辞去了食品开发技术员的工作，创办了一家木工企业。
能够自主决定也带来了巨大的好处——此外，他预计今年能比在旧工作中赚取的 £45,000 多出最多 £15,000 的年收入。他表示：“一切由我决定，不用请求许可或与老板争论，这让我感到极大的解脱。”
“我需要一个计划。” 2014 年，她的父亲建议她加入他的地毯铺设公司。这一举动令人胆怯：她没有任何行业经验，且面临艰苦的学习曲线。但在教育行业工作十年多之后——令同事们大为惊讶地——她毅然决定加入位于埃普瑟姆 (Epsom) 的 Carpets 4 U 公司。
来自 Checkatrade 的 Emma Grant 表示：“从自己当老板开始，然后扩大职权范围，或许雇佣几名员工，这将提供巨大的收入潜力。我曾与一名兼职安装锅炉的供暖和管道工程师交谈，他的年营业额高达 50 万英镑。”
他还申请了一笔 £30,000 的创业贷款并已偿还，在 £50,000 的贷款中仍欠 £10,000。拥有财务背景的妻子于两年前加入公司，他们现在雇佣了一名学徒。尽管美国的关税使他的美国订单变得复杂，但 Marek 对未来一年充满信心。
约 53 比例的工人。
许多像 Marek 这样的人选择离开传统的白领工作，转而从事一项贸易，并发现这是一个有利可图的举动，因为市场对技工的需求很高。有些人还担心自动化会取代他们的办公室角色，因此在寻求一条更安全的职业道路。
此外，Grant 指出，生活方式和家庭方面的益处不应被低估，特别是对于那些将僵化的工作时间改为能够围绕孩子安排工作的家长来说。
“当时住房市场的繁荣对我很有帮助，而且我的目标是买自己的房子，” Cruttenden 说道。“起初，那支全男性的安装团队相当怀疑，因为我完全没有经验，尽管我通过测量课程和参与实际工作很快掌握了窍门。”
他说，这不是一个快速致富方案，但对于能够稳定提供高质量工作的人来说，这是一个巨大的胜利。“我是世界上最缺乏耐心的人，但我已经意识到回报确实会到来——也许不是明天，但很快就会。”
Holly Cruttenden 离开了教育系统的职业，成为一名地毯铺设工，现在每年至少多赚 £20,000。
这种观点日益被政治领导人们认同，他们承认传统职业建议存在缺陷。上周，首相安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 宣布了相关提案，旨在“像重视学位帽一样重视安全帽”，这将鼓励年仅 14 岁的孩子接受技术培训而非学术培训。
“那些将业务发展到极具盈利能力，同时又能按照自己想要的方式生活的人，并不是极少数的特例，”她说。
“我热爱高尔夫，原以为经营自己的公司能让我有更多时间打球，”他说。“我太天真了——事实恰恰相反。”不过，自从与妻子共同分担压力以来，他能够花更多时间陪伴孩子们，孩子们经常加入他在工作室的活动——就像他当年陪伴祖父那样。
到 2017 年，她有了足够的资金支付房产首付，并在公司中继续晋升。去年，她赢得了 Checkatrade 的伦敦贸易行业女性冠军奖，现在她与半退休的父亲共同持有该公司的一半股份。她的收入比在教育行业时至少多出 £20,000。
Marek 在现在的捷克共和国长大。他曾在祖父的铁匠铺里花费大量时间，从九岁起就开始帮他干活。疫情爆发时，他正全职在食品公司 Müller 工作。
来自埃塞克斯郡大登莫 (Great Dunmow) 的詹姆斯·史密斯 (James Smith)，35, 岁，在近十年里担任残疾母亲的护理员，难以维持一份稳定的工作。他当时依靠护理津贴生活，并在 2017 年在 B&Q 获得了一份兼职工作——这是他自 2010 年离开学校以来的第一份工作——并在疫情初期母亲去世后转为全职。
像 Marek 那样在离开领薪职位前先经营一份副业，是进行转型的最安全方式；但如果转变较为突然，明智的做法是预留一些应急资金。前建筑经理、现任高管教练克莱尔·汉比 (Claire Handby) 博士表示：“理想情况下，你应该计算出支付所有承诺和支出所需的费用，并在银行账户中存放六个月的资金，”她说。
工地和贸易展会上由男性主导的环境并不总是那么轻松。她被误认为是清洁工的次数多到数不过来，但随着时间的推移，她赢得了信任和尊重。
最初，全由男性组成的铺地毯团队对此心存怀疑，但我很快就掌握了窍门。
不久之后，他的木制门把手在伦敦设计奖上获奖，并向美国的 16 家店铺和加拿大的三家店铺供货。在合同工作的支持下，他辞去了年薪 £45,000 的工作，在住所附近租了一个工作室。
“你要坦然接受那些评论，因为你内心深处知道，你做得相当不错，”她说。
他在 B&Q 期间培养了对贸易行业的兴趣，即便后来他经历了“180 度大转变”，进入伦敦金融城的科技销售和招聘领域，这种兴趣依然存在。
她成功的关键是什么？“在我人生中的某个阶段，失败是不可能的选项。你必须在工作方式上极其自律，但只要不被束缚在某个结构之中，你的成功就没有上限。”
2022 年，他工作室综合体的一位高级木工退休，Marek 通过 £50,000 的贷款买下了这家公司及其员工。“对我来说一切都是新鲜的：家具制作、门、窗，”他说。
“具备创业精神至关重要；你需要出现并服务于市场，因此你应该花时间去了解市场，以及了解如何寻找你的客户。”
“那就像《华尔街之狼》一样，全是陌生拜访电话和酒精午餐，”他说。“我觉得那完全是在摧毁灵魂，而且我
Vicky Reynal 金钱心理治疗师
我朋友的财富让我感到不适
我最老的一批朋友之一在财务上取得了很大成功，他和妻子搬进了一栋巨大的
不喜欢我在他身边时的感觉，也许也包括我对他的感觉。但我不想失去这段友谊。Greg，已提供地址
他。坚持这个区分很重要。你将这种不适感（或者至少是它的发生时机）与他获得的成功以及搬入大房子的行为联系在了一起。你可能正在经历嫉妒。如果财务上的成功是你长期渴望的东西，那么看着你的朋友达成这一目标，可能会在为你感到由衷高兴的同时，也激发出嫉妒之情。
关于“富人”？或者这更多是关于自我评判——在他家中是否激活了你心中关于你现在应该处于什么位置的某种叙事？金钱往往会放大内心的问题，例如：我落后了吗？我属于这里吗？我正在被衡量吗？
也许是金钱现在赋予了他的某些你想要的东西，比如空间、地位、安全感或自由。答案可能会揭示关于你的欲望中一些深刻且重要的信息——也许这些东西你可以通过其他方式找到。
接触，或者出现轻微的烦躁感。
虽然在更中立的场合与他见面可能会有所帮助。
另一个经常被忽视的层面是向早期关系模式的回归。友谊可能会唤起较旧的情绪模板。这种动态是否钩连到了类似兄弟姐妹间的比较、竞争，或是过去被忽视或被超越的经历？弄清楚这种不适感是否源于发现自己处于一种潜在的熟悉过去动态中，可以帮助你将属于过去的东西与你与朋友之间关系的现实区分开来。
你还可以尝试将感受与事实分开：感到被评判并不一定意味着你正在被评判。担心关系可能会改变并不意味着它已经改变了。如果你立足于可观察的行为，这将有助于防止大脑用假设来填补空白。
如果你一直渴望财富，你可能会经历嫉妒
在汉普斯特德村 (Hampstead Village) 的房子。当然，我为他感到高兴，但有些事情改变了。我发现当我们在一起度过时光时，我不再那么自在。我无法指出具体有什么明显的问题
感觉到友谊中出现转变，无论多么微妙，都会令人不安，而你用好奇心去面对这件事是正确的做法。
你提到感到被评判。这里一个常见的心理过程是投射。当我们产生不适感时，将其定位在他人身上，认为“他们在评判我”，可能比承认一个更令人不适的事实——也许我们自己在进行评判——要更容易。这并非意识地发生，而是我们的心理在处理不适感时采用的一种常见应对策略。
通过对这些问题的某些潜在回答，你可以用更细致的视角来看待这种动态。完全有可能你的朋友并非在轻视你，而是担心邀请你进入他的房子会让他被评判，因此感到忧虑。这可以解释你担心是他对你的评判而导致的那种尴尬感。经历突然致富的人经常描述，在面对处于
——他并不炫耀，我们出去时会平摊账单，但有些时刻我觉得不自在，尤其是在他的大房子里，甚至觉得稍微被评判了。
根据 Starling Bank 在 2024, 委托的一项研究，英国每六个人中就有一个因为财务分歧而失去一段友谊，因此，即使这本身并不是一场分歧，也表明金钱动态在友谊中是不容小觑的。
这些感受经常被评判，但它们并非道德缺陷。任务是承认它们，忍受它们，并避免通过微妙的退缩、批评或冷落关系将其付诸行动。嫉妒是有用的，因为它可能会揭示你尚未完全接纳的雄心。为了更详细地探索你的感受，你可以思考，是觉得他“成功了”，还是
两个老朋友之间没有理由因为财务状况的不同而无法维持友谊。这需要体贴以及包容差异的意愿。有时，一点幽默感也会有所帮助。Vicky Reynal 是《钱在心头：财务习惯背后的心理学》（Money on Your Mind: The Psychology Behind Your Financial Habits）一书的作者。如果您有问题想咨询她，请发送邮件至 vicky.reynal@thetimes.co.uk
不同的财务状况。他们可能会通过淡化自己的成功来避免对方不适，或者在社交上过度补偿。结果，双方的互动可能会变得尴尬——他们可能会减少
我妻子说那是胡说八道，他们完全是一样的人，只不过钱更多而已。尽管如此，我发现自己在他在身边时更在意自己的表现，在意我建议做的事，以及我给人的印象。我开始
给自己一点时间来探索这在内心引起了怎样的反应以及原因；利用这些信息使自己获益，而不是任由其侵蚀友谊。与你的朋友保持联系，但对于
我们无法知道你朋友在想什么，或者他的态度是否发生了转变，亦或是转变的是你对……的认知
你内心是否有一部分持有矛盾的情绪
你的存款可以获得 8% 的收益。而这里告诉你为什么你应该选择 5%
英格兰银行周四将基准利率维持在 3.75% 不变，这是自去年 12 月最后一次下调以来的连续第五次维持不变。
但你可以通过个人储蓄账户（Isa）避免支付任何利息税。储蓄者每年可向现金 Isa 存入高达 £20,000，不过对于 65 岁以下的人，这一限额将在 4 月份下调至 £12,000。
“这样你一年内投资的资金将获得相当于 4% 的回报。”
例如，如果你连续一年每月向劳埃德银行（Lloyds）的定期储蓄账户存入 £250，你将共计存入 £3,000，你的资金总额将达到 £3,120。之后，你的账户将转为标准储蓄账户，利率最高为 1%。
但尽管基准利率顽固地保持平稳，储蓄利率却大幅飙升，一些商业银行目前提供的年回报率高达 8%
由于 Isa 具有税收优惠，其利率通常低于普通储蓄账户。根据 The Private Office 的数据，目前最便捷的现金 Isa 利率是 Shawbrook Bank 通过 Hargreaves Lansdown 提供的 4.52%。Chip 的现金 Isa 利率为 4.41%，Plum 为 4.4%。
定期储蓄账户。
掉期利率（反映了贷款机构对未来基准利率的预期，并用于为抵押贷款和储蓄方案定价）的上升，促使银行提供了两年来罕见的利率。
但如果你有一笔大额资金且不介意将其锁定一年，即使利率较低，你也能赚到 £120 以上。同样地，
这些账户的标称利率通常带有条件。上述利率均为浮动利率，Chip 的利率在 12 个月后将降至 3.75%，而 Plum 的将降至 2.54%，且必须持有这些账户一年才能获得全额利率。此外，如果你将资金从另一个 Isa 转入 Plum，其利率较低，为 3.75%。
存入 GB Bank 市场领先的一年期固定协议（利率 4.92%）的 £3,000 将赚得
周二，Investec 推出了一项利率为 5% 的三年期协议，这是自 2024 年 1 月以来首个达到 5% 的任何期限固定协议。在 2 月份伊朗战争开始前，最佳三年期利率为 4.32%。
£147.60.
你甚至可以与最佳定期储蓄账户的回报率相匹配。
来自财务咨询公司 Private Office 的 Anna Bowes 表示：“令人惊叹的是，在基准利率未变的情况下，我们竟然看到储蓄利率仍在上升。对于储蓄者来说这是一个极佳的机会，因为你再次能找到两年来未见的利率。”
根据 Private Office 的数据，在固定利率 Isa 方面，Tandem 提供的一年期（4.67%）和三年期协议（4.81%）利率最高，而 RCI Bank 的两年期协议利率最高（4.8%）。
更高效的储蓄者可以用更少的钱——你只需在年利率 4.92 的定期账户中存入 £2,440 即可赚到 £120。
不要被诱人的名义利率所迷惑——将资金放在其他地方可能会为你带来更多收益，杰克·辛普森 (Jack Simpson) 写道。
来自比较网站 Moneyfacts 的瑞秋·斯普林加尔 (Rachel Springall) 表示：“如果你有一笔可观的资金，那么查看其他账户会更合适。”
如果储蓄利息的税收不是问题，那么固定利率方案的利率更高。除了 GB Bank 为期一年的 4.92 固定利率外，两年的最高利率是 Atom bank 的 4.85，三年的最高利率是 Investec 的 5，而五年的最高利率是 Atom Bank 的 5。你应该检查最低存款额。例如，开立 Investec 账户需要 £5,000。
“但储蓄并非一概而论，如果你没有大笔资金且希望养成定期存钱的习惯，那么这些 8% 的定期储蓄账户就非常出色。”
最高利率出现在定期储蓄账户（regular savings accounts）中，这类账户的每月存款额有上限。桑坦德银行 (Santander) 在 6 月将其定期储蓄利率提高至 8% 的浮动利率；而同属一个集团的劳埃德银行 (Lloyds)、哈利法克斯银行 (Halifax) 和苏格兰银行 (Bank of Scotland) 现在也提供相同的利率，且一年内固定。浮动利率通常随基准利率同步变动，而固定利率在期限内保持不变。
最高定期储蓄利率
对于任何已经用完个人储蓄免税额的大额资金持有者，将其存入 Isa（个人储蓄账户）通常是最佳选择。基本税率纳税人在开始为收益纳税前，每年可赚取高达 £1,000 的利息；高税率纳税人可赚取高达 £500。附加税率纳税人没有免税额。
对于需要随时使用资金的人，斯普林加尔和鲍斯 (Bowes) 表示，易取款的 Cahoot Sunny Day Saver 是一个不错的选择。
定期储蓄账户的利率远比标准储蓄账户更具吸引力，但带有限制。除了存款额度限制外，银行通常仅向在该行开立有往来账户的储蓄者提供此类账户，且名义利率通常仅维持一年，随后会下降到较低的水平。
该账户允许你在一年内投资最多 £3,000，没有每月存款限制，且前 12 个月提供 5% 的利率。取款没有限制。
为了获得相同回报，你需要存入最高利率一年期固定利率账户的金额
但由于目前有这么多优惠方案，斯普林加尔认为现在是储蓄者锁定利率的绝佳时机。
桑坦德银行每月存款上限为 £200，而劳埃德银行集团旗下的银行则允许 £250。厄尔希尔顿 (Earl Shilton) 和蒙茅内郡 (Monmouthshire) 建筑协会将存款限制在 £500，但支付的利息较低，为 6%。
她说：“中东局势的持续紧张导致掉期利率显著上升，且由于担心未来的生活成本进一步恶化，现在是储蓄者为其养老金获得保证的、能够抵御通胀的回报的理想时机。”
在最高利率的定期储蓄账户中，一年内可获得 £120 回报的最高存款额
因为你必须逐步累积储蓄，所以年度回报低于直接存入大笔资金的情况。
在英国授权银行、建筑协会和信用社的存款，在机构倒闭时，每人每家授权机构的保护额度高达 £120,000。保护限额为每个银行牌照 £120,000 —— 而一些知名公司往往属于同一个集团（例如汇丰银行 HSBC 和 First Direct），并共享同一个牌照。
来源：Moneyfacts.co.uk
鲍斯说：“8% 的年利率听起来很惊人，但就实际收益而言，并没有听起来那么令人兴奋。”
“在一年时间里，只有 £250 能赚到 8% 的利息，因为它在整个期间都被投资了。次月的款项只能赚取 11 个月的利息，以此类推。总体而言，”
最佳选择
First Direct / 4.32% / 2年期固定 / 60% / £490 / PV / 0800 482 448
Nationwide BS / FlexDirect / 无 / 5%1 / – / 03457 302 010 Bank of Scotland / Vantage Classic Account / 无 / 3% / – / 0345 721 3141 Lloyds Bank / Club Lloyds / 无 / 3% / – / 0345 300 0000
周五下午 5 点的银行间利率，显示市场交易情况。它们并不代表您可能获得到的利率。
5年期固定利率 / 贷款机构 / 利率 / 方案 / 最高 LTV / 费用 / 备注 / 联系方式 First Direct / 4.38% / 5年期固定 / 60% / £490 / PV / 0800 482 448
提供方 / 账户名称 / 账户费用 / 利率2 / 0% 透支限额 / 联系方式 Starling Bank / Current Account / 无 / 15% / £0 / 0207 930 4450 First Direct / 1st Account / 无 / 39.9% / £250 / 0345 600 2424 Virgin Money / M Plus Account / 无 / 19.9% / £0 / 0800 678 3654
欧元 GBP>EUR
1 限时优惠利率。 2 等效年利率。 * 基于 30 天内 £500 透支的最低成本。某些账户需要最低资金 / 直接付款才能开户或获得所示利率。
长期固定利率 / 贷款机构 / 利率 / 方案 / 最高 LTV / 费用 / 备注 / 联系方式 Santander / 5.01% / 固定至 02.11.36 / 60% / £999 / LSV / 0800 555 100 Nationwide BS / 5.49% / 10年期固定 / 80% / £999 / PV / 0333 060 0325 Nationwide BS / 5.74% / 10年期固定 / 90% / £999 / PV / 0333 060 0325
追踪利率* / 折扣 / 贷款机构 / 利率 / 方案 / 最高 LTV / 费用 / 备注 / 联系方式 HSBC / 4.05% / 基准利率 + 0.3% (2年) / 60% / £999 / PV / 0800 494 999 Nationwide BS / 4.17% / 基准利率 + 0.42% (2年) / 80% / £999 / PV / 0333 060 0325 First Direct / 4.65% / 基准利率 + 0.9% (全期) / 90% / £490 / LV / 0800 482 448
首次购房者 / 低首付 / 贷款机构 / 利率 / 方案 / 最高 LTV / 费用 / 备注 / 联系方式 Beverley BS / 4.64% / 折扣 2.7% (2年) / 95% / £995 / 01482 881 510 West Bromich BS / 5.2% / 固定至 31.10.29 / 95% / £449 / V / 0800 298 0008 Earl Shilton BS / 5.19% / 折扣 2.25% (5年) / 95% / £125 / V / 01455 844 422
以房养贷 / 贷款机构 / 利率 / 方案 / 最高 LTV / 费用 / 备注 / 联系方式 The Mortgage Works / 4.34% / 基准利率 + 0.59% 至 30.09.28 / 75% / £1,495 / V / 0345 607 3021 Barclays / 4.52% / 基准利率 + 0.77% (2年) / 75% / £899 / P / 0333 202 7580 HSBC / 4.48% / 固定至 31.10.31 / 75% / £3,999 / PV / 0800 494 999
美国 GBP>USD
入门利率 / 提供方 / 卡片类型 / 入门消费 APR1 / 奖励 / 联系方式 TSB / Platinum Purchase / 0% (26个月) / 24.95% / 无 / 0345 835 3846 M&S Bank / Purchase Plus / 0% (25个月) / 24.9% / 无 / 0800 997 996 Lloyds Bank / 0% Purchase and Balance Transfer / 0% (25个月) / 24.94% / 无 / 0345 603 7239
1.35
63.95
提供方 / 卡片类型 / 入门消费 / 转移费2 / APR1 / 联系方式 TSB / Platinum Balance Transfer / 0% (38个月) / 3.49% / 24.95% / 0345 835 3846 HSBC / Balance Transfer / 0% (36个月) / 3.09% / 24.9% / 0345 587 3444 NatWest / Longer Balance Transfer / 0% (36个月) / 3.1% / 24.9% / 0345 788 8444
提供方 / 卡片类型 / APR1 / 返现 / 联系方式 American Express / Cashback Everyday / 29.1% / 0.5%-1%。入门 5% (5个月，最高 £125) / 0800 917 8047 Santander / Rewards / 24.9% / 0.25%。入门 3% (12个月3) / 0800 085 1759 Lloyds Bank / Ultra / 14.94% / 0.25%。入门 1% (12个月) / 0345 603 7239
1 APR = 年百分比率，取决于信用评级。 2 入门期间每笔余额转移收取的费用 3 符合条件的旅行支出可获更高返现。借款利率和产品可用性取决于个人信用评级。返现适用相关条款。
除非另有说明，否则适用提前还款费。* 大多数方案追踪英格兰银行基准利率。A = £500 现金返还；B = £250 现金返还；C = £300 现金返还；D = £350 现金返还；E = 无提前还款费；F = 仅限首次购房者；G = £150 现金返还；H = £400 现金返还；I = £1,000 现金返还；L = 再抵押贷款法律服务免费；P = 仅限购买；R = 再抵押贷款法律服务及估价免费；S = 仅限再抵押贷款；T = £250 用于支付法律费用；V = 免费估价
提供商 账户名称 最低存款 利率 联系方式
Oxbury Easy Access Summer Account £1,000 4.33% oxbury.com Cahoot Simple Saver £1 4.32% cahoot.com Thisbank Triple Acces Savings £1,000 4.28% thisbank.co.uk
提供商 账户名称 最低存款 利率 转入 Hargreaves Lansdown Shawbrook - Easy Access Cash Isa £1 4.52% 是 hl.co.uk Atom Bank Easy Access Cash Isa £1 4.25% 否 通过app
通知账户 提供商 账户名称 通知期 最低存款 利率 联系方式 GB Bank 150 Day Notice Account 150 days £1,000 4.38% gbbank.co.uk Stream Bank 90 Day Notice Account 90 days £1,000 4.35% streambank.co.uk Earl Shilton BS 180 Day Notice 180 days £5,000 4.27% esbs.co.uk
固定利率 提供商 账户名称 期限 最低存款 利率 转入 联系方式 Cynergy Bank 1 year Fixed Rate Isa 1 year £500 4.7% 是 cynergybank.co.uk Hinckley & Rugby BS 5 year Fixed Rate Cash Isa 5 years £500 4.82% 是 分行或邮寄
长期固定利率 提供商 账户名称 期限 最低存款 利率 联系方式 Atom Bank 5 Year Fixed Saver 5 years £50 5% 通过app GB Bank 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond 5 years £1,000 4.98% gbbank.co.uk Close Brothers 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond 5 years £10,000 4.97% closesavings.co.uk
提供商 账户名称 利率类型 最低存款 利率 联系方式
State Bank of India Jumbo Junior Fixed Deposit Account 固定 £1,000 4.5% 分行或邮寄 Penrith BS Junior Affinity Regular Saver 浮动 £5 4.45% 分行或邮寄 Kent Reliance Demelza Children’s Savings Account 浮动 £10 4.18% 分行或邮寄
仅列出受英国金融服务补偿计划 (FSCS) 或欧洲同等计划覆盖的方案
供应商 平均年账单 利率 联系方式 Home Energy £1,499 浮动 0800 092 7407 So Energy £1,561 浮动 0330 111 5050 Utility Warehouse £1,563 浮动 0333 777 0777
提供商 账户名称 最低存款 利率 利率类型 联系方式
表格显示了目前从最便宜的供应商处可获得的最低资费。不包括期限少于 12 个月的资费、没有全国覆盖范围的资费以及在供应前收取款项的资费。
Beverley BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.85% 浮动 分行或邮寄 Leek BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.85% 浮动 分行或邮寄 Skipton BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.8% 浮动 分行或邮寄
来源：Uswitch.com
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 13
您的资金问题 Holly Thomas
插图：ALICIA COOPER
燃油弄错的事不是我干的，但 Enterprise 扣了 £3.5k
让她病倒了。我们将不胜感激您的帮助。Debra，米德尔塞克斯郡
这已经不是我第一次在公用事业公司指示债务追讨员向并不欠款的人追债时介入了。很难想象，在公司已经确认无需支付款项的情况下，办理销户操作为什么会如此困难。
您母亲所经历的这种情况简直是一团糟。她被催缴她从未使用的燃气费用，而且是在一个她从未开设、且供应商已在书面中确认余额应为零的账户上。
自从搬入以来，她收到的账单一直混乱不堪。2月，她被要求支付 £222.03（据称还有 £455.31 的逾期余额），结果 3 月却被告知她有 £590 的余额。到 4 月，她收到了一笔 £81.05 的拆表费用——Cadent 告诉过你们这次拆表应该是免费的——随后 5 月又收到了一张 £114 的账单。
我们的消费者权益倡导者帮助一名租车客户处理不公平费用，并解决一名寡妇神秘的燃气账单问题
在 6 月的一次家庭度假期间，我在西班牙菲格拉斯的 Enterprise 租了一辆车，租期五天。第四天时，车无法启动。Enterprise 告诉我电路有一个常见故障，并给我换了一辆车。在预订结束时我将车归还，随后乘火车前往巴塞罗那进行接下来的行程。抵达后，我发现 Enterprise 从我的信用卡中扣除了 €4,000 (£3,420)。
这些问题继续困扰着客户——但此次扣款金额之高，是我记忆中前所未有的。我完全可以想象您在发现这笔巨额收费时的惊恐之情。
我与 Utility Warehouse 进行了沟通，对方承诺会予以纠正。此后该公司确认账户已关闭，已告知催收机构停止行动，并采取措施确保信用报告中没有可能对未来产生负面影响的标记。Utility Warehouse 支付了 £300 作为善意补偿，并送了一束花。
您不仅希望获得 £3,420 的退款，还希望就巴塞罗那假期最后三天被毁而获得赔偿。您没有与妻子和青春期的女儿一起欣赏名胜，而是死死地盯着手机，试图撤销这笔收费。除了对这笔不公平债务的担忧外，该笔费用还占用了一大块您假期消费所需的信用卡额度。
虽然这个结果是正确的，但这不能抵消她这几个月来承受的焦虑。Utility Warehouse 表示，这是人为错误与技术错误共同导致的情况。
我迅速与 Enterprise 进行了沟通，对方告诉我该费用是用于修理第一辆故障车。该公司称这是由于汽油箱中加入了柴油造成的。我说我没有加过油，这一点可以通过车辆交互菜单中的信息来验证。我与菲格拉斯的 Enterprise 经理进行了沟通，他同意剩余油量与我们行驶的距离（220公里）相符。他承诺向维修厂转达我的信息，核实自上次加油以来行驶的公里数。在随后的一次通话中，他告诉我数据已被清除，因为维修厂打开了油箱盖以检查箱内是否有柴油。
我代表您联系了 Enterprise。该公司对此投诉进行了调查——这一次采取了更积极的方式。在对该案件进行更为彻底的审查后，Enterprise 判定车辆故障并非您的责任，扣在您信用卡上的费用不应产生。我要求解释，该公司表示是维修店犯了错，最初将损坏责任归咎于您。
您的母亲说：“我对您的帮助感激不尽。我肩上的沉重负担终于减轻了。”
Utility Warehouse 表示：“对于给您的母亲带来的压力，我们深表歉意。我们让她失望了，我们也对我们的客户服务未能达到一贯的高标准而感到遗憾。”
被一家债务催收机构追讨 £173.89。她和我已故的父亲一生中从未被债务催收员联系过。因为一项本不存在的债务，她失去了睡眠和内心的平静。她唯一想要的就是让这件事结束：正式且最终地关闭账户，取消从未欠下的 £173.89，并为十个月来完全可以避免的压力道歉，而这已经
该部门使用了我母亲的名字，然后在她不知情且未获得许可的情况下开立了一个新账户并赋予她客户身份，因此账单接踵而至。她进行了投诉，5月6日，Utility Warehouse 的投诉团队写信给她，称这是一个“荒谬的情况”，并承诺将最终余额设为零，以反映并无欠款。那是两个多月前的事了，而我的母亲现在正被
Enterprise 已同意退还 £3,420 并支付 £1,600 的赔偿金，其中包括退还原租车费 £452 以及您在巴塞罗那的酒店费用，以承认您的行程被破坏。
“我们的一名高级管理人员已经与她交谈并亲自道歉，我们希望我们的好意姿态和鲜花能够在一定程度上弥补这一点。”
争议。如果公司仍然没有回应，且该公司是英国车辆租赁和租赁协会 (BVRLA) 的会员，则可以将争议提交给该协会。
我发送了许多请求，要求提供支持其处罚我决定的证据，但 Enterprise 已停止回应。它如何在没有任何证据的情况下从我的信用卡中扣除款项？如能得到您的帮助，我将不胜感激。马克，切斯特
如果您被追讨不欠的款项，您可以写信给债务催收机构并提出正式投诉。慈善机构 National Debtline 在网上提供了一份出色的模板信函供您使用。其中引用了相关条例并详细阐明了您的权利。
您说：“非常感谢您的帮助。如果没有您，想要被听到证明是极其困难的。这笔赔偿金意味着我和我的家人可以回到巴塞罗那，像我们最初应该那样度过一段愉快的时光。”
我的母亲是一位 78 岁的年长寡妇，她在 9 月完成了一套公寓的购买。该房产多年前已完全改为电暖；唯一的煤气设施是通往厨房炉灶的一根单管，在装修期间已被她的建筑工封死。自她搬入以来，公寓一直没有煤气供应。
Enterprise 表示：“我们对马克在西班牙租车后所经历的不便和沮丧深表遗憾。我们已与其联系道歉，并确认全额 €4,000 已经退还。为了认可他所经历的不便，我们还退还了租车费用及额外的行程相关费用。”
租车公司的不公平收费
她收到了 Utility Warehouse 寄给住户所有者的信件。她打电话要求关闭登记在她地址下的煤气账户，但包括注销团队在内的多个部门告诉她，如果不挖掘管道，关闭煤气使用是不可能的。建议是给区域煤气分销商 Cadent 打电话，后者表示这并非事实，Utility Warehouse 只需要拆除仪表即可，根据 Ofgem 的指导，这是一项免费且常规的工作。
如果您与租车公司发生争议，首先应提交正式投诉。如果问题未能解决且您使用信用卡支付，可以使用 1974 年《消费者信用法》第 75 条提出争议。如果您使用借记卡支付，可以使用退单计划（chargeback scheme），通过该计划您的银行将尝试撤销付款以追回资金。
Your Money Matters 今年为《泰晤士报》和《周日泰晤士报》读者追回的金额
联系我们
您还可以选择针对租车合同中购买的任何保险提出索赔，以追回费用。如果失败，您可以联系欧洲消费者中心网络 (European Consumer Centres Network)，该机构提供免费服务以帮助解决相关问题。
如果您有希望《周日泰晤士报》调查的金钱问题，请发送电子邮件至 yourmoneymatters@thetimes.co.uk。请附上电话号码。
该电表终于在今年 2 月被拆除。然而，在一次通话中，取消部门的某人……
询问泰晤士理财 (Ask Times Money)
通常情况下，如果此类转移发生在产生住院护理需求的前 6 个月内，当局将有权将护理账单发送给赠与接收者。
我的孩子的继承份额会被用于支付护理费吗？
在此期限之外，虽然没有此类明确权力，但一个人仍可能被评估
如果您现在或在可预见的未来没有迹象表明需要住院护理，那么如果未来出现此类争论，反驳起来会更容易。契据本身可能不会详细说明转移原因，但如果您有相关证据，对于未来将非常有帮助，例如一份由您和您的女儿签署并经见证的文档，阐明您赠与的原因。
私人护理院通常需要有人证明他们能够支付数年的护理费用后才会授予名额，因此您不应忽视自己的需求。您保留的继承份额可能足以支持您，而完全无需考虑您女儿的那一半
MAGNUS MACKAY，来自 THORNTONS 律师事务所
不要错过畅销书作者、本报专栏作家本·麦金泰尔关于其最新著作《红杉》(Redwood) 的精彩演讲。这个非凡且不为人知的故事揭示了一个人如何防止美国和苏联之间发生核对决，挫败了克里姆林宫推翻伊朗初创伊斯兰政权的秘密阴谋。随着伊朗再次陷入冲突，麦金泰尔的最新杰作是一部令人不寒而栗且极具现实意义的必读书目。
我继承了一大笔钱，并签署了一份变更契据 (deed of variation)，将其中一半转交给我的女儿，她是
通常情况下，如果赠与对象不是您的配偶、民事伙伴或慈善机构，除非您在赠与后至少生存 7 年，否则该资产的价值在继承税方面仍将作为您遗产的一部分。
（潜在不公平的）七年赠与的继承税后果。从这个角度来看，这绝对是值得的。然而，变更契据并非旨在规避有关“蓄意剥夺资本”的规则。这些规则的存在是为了拦截那些旨在减少日后可能支付的护理费而进行的房产、现金或其他资产转移。
西班牙居民，以便她在分居后购买一套公寓。现在我发现，这在支付护理费时可能会被视为“资产剥夺”。这并非我的本意，但我
变更契据允许通过将赠与视为来自死者而非签署契据的人，从而在没有上述障碍的情况下进行赠与。为了确保获得此种待遇，必须在死后两年内签署契据。
10 月 29 日，星期四 / 晚上 7.30 圣玛丽教堂，伦敦 Bryanston Square, W1H 1PQ
好消息是，转让本身并不等同于蓄意剥夺。相关的当地政府或 NHS 机构必须能够证明，转让的一个重要原因是规避护理费用。
A
没有人能被强迫保留继承物，而变更契约（deed of variation）允许继承资产在无需经过常规（且
变更契约可以是税务规划中非常有效的工具，但护理资金则是另一个问题。
“我收到了 £10 的现金。警察以为我是个毒贩”
直到最后，但我做到了。在那之后我意识到，我大概可以生存于任何环境下。你在金钱方面的弱点是什么？我喜欢吃美食。当我在法国南部时，我会去一些极赞的餐厅吃午餐，比如 GrandHôtel du Cap-Ferrat。我在餐厅一餐花费最多的是 €1,000。当时我们有十个人，账单总计 €10,000。
Shazia Mirza 在 Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat 享用了午餐。她在 2023 年参加了下方所示的《名人顶级厨师》节目。
我也在车上花了很多钱，这些年来买了很多车，但没开多久就坏了，或者被我开到报废。我曾有过标致 106, 标致 206, 两辆都毫无用处。我买过最好的车是一辆红色的 1972 年两门敞篷梅赛德斯，车况极佳，花费 £5,000，陪伴了我十年。
关于金钱你学到了什么教训？那就是你给出的越多，得到就越多。如果你捐赠给慈善机构或其他人，我觉得这永远不会真正减少你的财富，反而会增加它。我是穆斯林，所以无论赚多少钱，将部分财富捐出以帮助穷人是我们宗教的一部分。
这位喜剧演员曾躲避她的学生房东，但她在新加坡和瑞士电视台拿到了丰厚的报酬；尽管如此，她告诉 John Wright，在 Bear Grylls 的岛上生存并不值得那些钱。
我的父亲不擅长经商，我们管他叫“巴基斯坦的 Arthur Daley”。
喜剧行业的收入并不高。曾经有一段时间，全世界的演出机会非常多，处于繁荣期，但现在那些俱乐部已经不在了。我在没有钱的时候对金钱的处理很聪明。一旦你进入房地产阶梯，你就成功了。我在 25 岁时没有钱，但如果你年轻且有一份稳定的工作，即使收入不多，银行也会给你机会。
然后我在曼彻斯特大学学习生物化学。在那里，我周六在 C&A 工作，并在曼彻斯特城足球俱乐部的招待休息室担任服务员。
Shazia Mirza 是一位单口喜剧演员和作家，她参加过的电视和广播节目包括《你会对我撒谎吗？》、《我有新闻给你吗？》、《QI》和《乔纳森·罗斯秀》。她的喜剧巡演走遍全球，去年她领衔主演了仅限女性的清真巡演。
你是储蓄者还是消费型？储蓄者。我成长在贫困中，所以我们没有多少钱。但我父母总是强调要为雨天（不时之需）存钱，用于房屋、汽车或教育等重要事项。所以我从小就养成储蓄习惯：八岁时我有一个劳埃得黑马（Lloyds Black Horse）储蓄罐。后来，因为我们是穆斯林，我父亲给我买了一个清真储蓄罐——是猪的形状但没有脸。储蓄意识被植根于我们心中。
在威尔士，但他们无法适应。他们觉得，我们是亚洲人，我们不露营。那感觉就像回到了巴基斯坦。而且买新的名牌衣服是浪费钱：我经常听到这种说法。我最剧烈的储蓄是为了买我的第一套房子。
他不怎么擅长经商。我们叫他“巴基斯坦的 Arthur Daley”，而他认为这是一个赞美。他们来到英国是因为他在这里有擅长经商的兄弟。当我在《东区东区》（EastEnders）中获得儿科顾问医生的角色时，他们的梦想实现了。我的父母到处告诉人们：“我的女儿终于成为一名医生了。”
你去年赚了多少钱？我不知道，因为我还没做纳税申报。而且我不喜欢去看那个数字。
剧院，他们打电话核实了。然后，在把它带过希思罗机场时，看到标志上写着任何超过 £2,000 的物品都必须申报，我紧张得快尿裤子了，尽管我的经纪人知道这笔钱已经入账了。
三次获得“喜剧女王”称号。她和丈夫卡利德住在伦敦北部的贝尔赛兹公园。
对于退休来说，房产还是养老金更好？房产。我没有私人养老金，但我在房产方面有保障。我丈夫就是我的退休计划。这就是他们的用途。
你的第一份工作是什么？我 16 岁时在麦当劳工作，然后 17 到 20 岁在伯明翰的 Baskin-Robbins 工作。但我从未在任何工作中成为一名优秀的员工，这就是为什么我现在成了一名喜剧演员。我和同事在一起工作很有趣。我不知道顾客会怎么说。
你投资股票吗？从不。
你比你的父母富裕吗？是的。他们 20 世纪 60 年代从巴基斯坦来到这里时一贫如洗。他们希望五个孩子都能成功，所以所有的钱都投入到了我们的教育中。我母亲是一名教师，我父亲经营一家批发店、汽车销售点和仓库。
我们从不去度假，因为我的父母是移民，他们认为：“没有必要度假。我们来这里是为了工作和改善生活。”我们确实去过一次卡迪根湾度假。
你做过的最好的商业决定是什么？买房：在我开始教学时，花 £89,000 买了一套位于沃尔瑟姆斯托的复式公寓，当时我根本负担不起住在那里。在勉强凑齐首付款后，两个月后我付不起房贷，于是把它租了出去，然后搬到某个非常便宜的房间里住。两年前我以 £300,000 的价格将其卖掉。
你是否曾为了维持生计而苦苦挣扎？很多次。当我是一名学生时——我们三个人同时在读——我的父母不得不支持我们，我一直很吃力。所以我在大学期间兼职了三份工作，包括假期在 Baskin-Robbins 的工作。我毕业后在攻读 PGCE（教育研究生证书）的同时从事教学，并且通过兼职辅导来赚钱。
如果你中了彩票会怎么样？我可能会把一半捐给慈善机构。用另一半来帮助我的家人，并用其中的一部分来赚更多钱。我会要么买房出租，要么买一家公司，以实现资金利用的最大化。
你最好的投资是什么？还是房产。当我开始从事喜剧表演时，我在 2008 年以 £250,000 买了一套位于马斯威尔山的房子，我住在那里，但后来获利卖出，这使我在 2021 年能够以超过 £500,000 的价格买下我在贝尔赛兹公园的公寓。
在大学时，房租是每周 £50，我们总是交晚了，因为我们没钱。我想寻开心，所以把钱花在社交活动上。房东会敲门，我们就躲在床底下，或者从后门溜走，或者说我们病得很重。他很生气。虽然 £50 听起来不多，但当你是一个需要自己支付伙食费和交通费的学生时，这很困难。而且我们一直在申请学生贷款。利息不算太高，我在开始教授科学后最终把它们还清了。
你最糟糕的商业决定？我没有做过什么糟糕的决定，因为我从不考虑钱的问题。我总是想：我会享受其中吗？我在 2017 年参加了贝尔·格里尔斯的《名人岛》节目，他把名人们丢在一个岛上一个月，没有食物，没有手机，只穿着身上的衣服，我们必须在巴拿马的酷暑中生存。我们的报酬是数千英镑，但大家都说我们应该拿到更多，因为那太困难且太糟糕了。我参加是因为能和十个陌生人在荒岛上生存，会让你意识到自己的能力：所有的钓鱼都是我做的，让每个人都活了下来；我们搭建了庇护所，获取了食物。我们采集野果。我们杀死了一只鳄鱼和一只刺鳐，然后把它们煮了。并不是每个人都幸存了下来。
The Old Rectory 是一座位于米尔顿凯恩斯（Milton Keynes）附近的二级上市乔治亚风格住宅，拥有 7 间卧室、一间电影院房和一座健身房。室外有 1.8 英亩土地和 3,000 平方英尺的附属建筑。michaelgraham.co.uk
在伦敦西南部的金斯顿（Kingston），Warren Cottage 拥有 6 间卧室和 4,000 平方英尺以上的空间。一个巨大的现代扩建部分包括一个拥有双倍挑高天花板和玻璃屋顶的开放式厨房。knightfrank.co.uk
Valentine’s 是一栋倒置住宅（upside-down house）， 5 间卧室位于底层。花园环绕房产，距离萨夫伦沃尔登（Saffron Walden）车程 15 分钟。themodernhouse.com
拥有 5 间卧室的 Drambeel Lodge 是马匹爱好者的理想之选。它位于距离亚伯丁 15 英里、占地 4 英亩的区域内，设有 6 个马厩、围栏、马场和一个专门建造的马厩区。galbraithgroup.com
Alice House 是一栋位于风景如画的伯纳姆市场（Burnham Market）村庄绿地附近的乔治亚风格红砖房。这座二级上市的家庭住宅有 3 间卧室，保留了原始的板窗，并可俯瞰全圣教堂（All Saints Church）。sowerbys.com
国际
这座拥有 7 间卧室的别墅设有室内恒温泳池和宽阔的场地，包括一个游泳池、一座喷泉和一个车库。它位于曼斯费尔德（Mansfeld）镇，距离哈勒（Halle）市 40 公里。leadingre.com
受《奥德赛》启发？Villa Miranda 是一座全新的 7 间卧室别墅，位于伯罗奔尼撒西南部的美西尼亚（Messinia），纳瓦里诺沙丘（Navarino Dunes）的科斯塔纳瓦里诺（Costa Navarino）社区。房屋距离海滩 120 米，可欣赏到爱奥尼亚海的壮丽景色。房屋设计为单层，强调开放式生活布局，适合在希腊夏日的阳光下举办派对。室外有景观花园和一个无边泳池，此外还设有两辆汽车和一辆高尔夫球车的停车位。另有一栋独立的一间卧室客房供客人使用。costanavarino.com
在马略卡岛（Mallorca）帕尔马（Palma）的边缘，这个庄园拥有一个每月产生 €2,000 收益的牛油果种植园。房子建于 1991 年，有 4 间卧室、3 间浴室和一个室外泳池。ev-mallorca.com
薪水也一样。如果我在前一年表现良好，即使我今年的成本增加或失去了租金收入，我的实得工资是否会突然下降？巴尼，诺丁汉郡
在接下来的几年里将逐步减少，直到从 4 月起
你通过薪水进行人为的高额扣缴，接下来的方式是，如果情况发生变化，将会有一个更新预测的机制。目前关于该机制的具体细节尚不明确，但它几乎肯定会以某种形式存在。
这取决于你的成本中有多少是利息。如果你退休不再拥有 NHS 的薪水，你的更多租金收入可能会落在基本税率区间内，租金的税收负担将大大减轻。
THETWO ROBS
即使在“数字化税务”（Making Tax Digital）增强的申报要求下，租金收入在很大程度上仍与就业收入分开：税务海关总署（HMRC）已经可以通过你的税收代码收取部分租金税，但大多数负有重大税务责任的房东仍继续通过自我评估（self-assessment）单独结算。计划中的这项变更正是让你担心的地方，而且这种担心是可以理解的：即使你经历了昂贵的维修或无收入期，你预计的租金利润税可能会每月从你的薪水中扣除。
政府计划从 4 月起实施这一方案
A
这里有两件事正在发生：一件是现在正在进行但仅限于行政层面的，另一件则涉及更频繁的缴税，但直到 2029 年才会生效。
这使你处于利润微薄的境地：三处房产带来的 £10,000 利润让你几乎没有余地去吸收意外成本，而且你的所得税账单将减少甚至可能抵消掉剩余的部分。由于你持有这些房产时间较长，如果出售，你可能会面临巨额的资本利得税账单；而为了规避抵扣房贷利息而将房产转移到公司名下通常伴随着高昂的成本。即使月度扣税最终证明并非问题，这也可以作为一个有用的提示，让你考虑长期计划：你可能会决定这些房产依然有其价值，但与其仅仅因为持有时间长而继续持有，不如验证这一假设。
由于这直到 2029, 才会生效，因此这是一个需要监测但目前无需过度担忧的问题。“数字化税务”（Making Tax Digital）本身的实施就曾被推迟了无数年，因此无法保证它会按计划进行，且随着细节的公布，它可能会显得没那么令人不安。
前者是你已被告知需要遵守的：数字化税务。这是一项通过让你每年报告五次数据而非一次来“简化”税务的驱动计划。你需要使用兼容的软件每季度进行一次数字化申报，但实际上不需要支付任何款项：你仍然
关于成为房东和房地产投资的疑问解答
你是那种在过去十年变化中受到严重打击的房东，尤其是无法将房贷利息作为税前成本抵扣。由于你的 NHS 收入已经占用了大部分的基础税率区间，HMRC（英国税务海关总署）计算出的你的房产利润中，很大一部分目前按 40% 征税（2027 年 4 月起升至 42%），而你的房贷利息所享有的减税率仅为 20%（升至 22%）。这种不匹配可能会导致你的租金收入实际税率很高，甚至可能抹去你所有的现金利润。
政府是否会开始从我的工资中扣除租金税？
问：
我在 NHS 工作，年薪 £48,000，并从持有时间较长的三处房产中每年获得 £55,000 的租金，但在扣除房贷利息和其他成本后，我保留的资金不足 £10,000。HMRC 告诉我开始通过“数字化税务”进行季度申报，而且我听说我的租金税最终可能会每月从我的工资中扣除。
每年提交最终申报单，这将决定你需要支付的金额。与现在一样，这份年度申报单将决定你在下一年度需要支付的两次“预缴税款”。
Rob Dix 和 Rob Bence 主持《房地产播客》（The Property Podcast）。请将您给 Two Robs 的问题发送至 propertyhub.net / sundaytimes
由于你的租金收入超过 £50,000，你自 4 月起已被纳入范围——该门槛
在 2026 年 8 月 31 日前预订您的新 Pegasus 住宅，即可享受最高价值 £45,000** 的激励措施，以协助生活成本。
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市政税补贴*
水电费补贴*
Michael，Pegasus Homes 住户
我们致力于打造优质的晚年生活住宅，为 60 岁以上享受生活的人们带来快乐、社区感和独立性。但请不要只听我们地介绍。
这是一组时尚的公寓，位于绿意盎然的 West Byfleet 一个温馨的社区中，乘火车可快速到达伦敦繁华的精品店、餐厅和便利设施。此外，距离 M25 和 M3 高速公路仅几分钟车程。
一组优雅的一房、两房和三房住宅，将乡村魅力与都市便捷完美结合，拥有精致的设计、便捷的伦敦交通连接、中央凉亭、瑜伽工作室和宁静的围墙花园。
美丽的晚年生活公寓，位于距离 Belsize Park 和 Hampstead Heath 仅咫尺之遥之处，配备豪华设施，包括健康养生区、公共休息室以及可俯瞰城市景观的惊艳屋顶露台。
2 卧室公寓 £450,000 起
2 卧室公寓 £1,1175,000 起
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61 Hobbs Close, West Byfleet, KT14 6FF
74 Portsmouth Road Cobham, KT11 1FG
Rowland Hill Street, Hampstead London, NW3 2AQ
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此优惠仅适用于 2026 年 5 月 1 日至 8 月 31 日（优惠结束之日）期间办理的新预订。仅限从 Pegasus Homes 购买的指定房产可享受此优惠。该优惠将提供最高两年的账单补贴，最高金额将根据所购房产的价值而定。优惠将在交易完成后作为财务补贴，从结算单中扣除。Pegasus Homes 保留随时在不通知的情况下延长、修改或撤销此促销活动的权利。完整条款请访问：pegasushomes.co.uk / company / legal / terms-and-conditions / 。
这就是为什么当我们需要从日常繁琐的工作中解脱出来时，会选择前往海岸线的原因。
主图：安格尔西岛 (Anglesey)，乔迪和乔丹·罗杰斯 (Jodie and Jordan Rogers) 带着他们的儿子搬到了这里，见右侧插图。最右侧：坎布里亚郡的阿恩赛德 (Arnside, Cumbria)。右侧：萨默塞特郡的克莱夫顿 (Clevedon, Somerset)。下方：汉普郡的利明顿 (Lymington, Hampshire)。
邓巴 (Dunbar)
特鲁恩 (Troon) 贝利卡斯尔 (Ballycastle)
31 岁的乔迪·罗杰斯去年从内陆的诺丁汉郡搬到了北威尔士的安格尔西岛，而且从未后悔。
索尔特本海滨 (Saltburn-by-the-Sea)
阿恩赛德 (Arnside)
“我们以前所有的周末都在寻找那些本该就在家门口的东西——海滩、自然和更慢的生活节奏，”罗杰斯说道，她是一名作家，在 Substack 上运营着 Slower Space 社区。在决定在岛上哪里定居之前，她与丈夫乔丹以及一岁的儿子在罗斯奈格尔 (Rhosneigr) 附近租了一套房子。
帕克盖特 (Parkgate)
安格尔西岛 (Anglesey)
费利克斯斯托 (Felixstowe) 迪尔 (Deal)
阿贝拉伦 (Aberaeron)
克莱夫顿 (Clevedon)
“这里的生活方式要悠闲得多。每个人都充分利用业余时间，总是努力去海滩、散步或欣赏野生动物。能在离家这么近的地方有一个安全的区域，让人们在下班后去游泳，真是太棒了。”
利明顿 (Lymington)
圣伦纳兹海滨 (St Leonards-on-Sea) 彭赞斯 (Penzance)
渴望咸海之风？从悠闲的特鲁恩到狂野的彭赞斯，我们挑选出顶级的沿海地段，让您全年都能保持度假般的心情。作者：蒂姆·帕尔默 (Tim Palmer)
我们搜遍了整个岛国，选出了最适合居住的海滨地标。要进入这份名单，它们必须在每个季节都有独特的吸引力，并具备能够让度假感全年持续的社区氛围、交通连接和实用设施。
最佳居住地
我们的名单中也有适合大多数预算的选择，每个地点的平均房价均由 Savills 房地产中介使用土地登记局的数据提供。
现在，您唯一需要做的就是决定想住在哪里。
欢迎来到这个“美景被毁”之地（注：指高尔夫球场破坏了自然景观）。在这个温婉的小镇上，高尔夫占据了休闲生活的主导地位，这里提供六个球场，包括仅限受邀进入的皇家特鲁恩 (Royal Troon)，起伏的沙丘形成了天然的边界。在这里，退潮时沙滩延伸开来，人们可以戏水、在岩池中探索，以及进行除了 18 洞高尔夫以外的其他游戏。正是随着苏格兰最早的铁路之一的到来，这个海滨度假胜地得到了极大的提升——这里有许多维多利亚时代的房产可供选择——而它如今的吸引力依然如故：不拥挤的海滩、瑰丽的日落以及克莱德湾 (Firth of Clyde) 的美景。前往格拉斯哥的 45 分钟路程使得特鲁恩以及附近更热闹的艾尔 (Ayr) 成为通勤可行之地。平均房价 £242,700
海滨
“这是十年来在西威尔士购房的最佳时机，”Fine & Country 房地产中介总经理奈杰尔·萨尔蒙 (Nigel Salmon) 表示。
前往宽阔的卵石与砾石
海滩，在沿海小径上享受新鲜的海风散步，或者加入
面向所有人
除了在卡迪根湾 (Cardigan Bay) 观察宽吻海豚，买家现在或许能在这一热门度假胜地发现性价比之选。这里拥有风景如画的港口、像明信片一样完美的淡色乔治亚风格建筑，以及能激起任何人食欲的美食场景。“由于价格上涨缓慢且库存处于创纪录水平，这里是其中之一”
在翻新后的码头与航海群体共聚。距离亚伯里斯特威斯 (Aberystwyth) 有半小时车程。
地点 请访问 thetimes.co.uk
平均房价 £248,800
一座美丽的海滨小镇，拥有充满活力的核心、充满传统气息的独立商业街以及极佳的餐饮场景。Ballycastle 被评为 2026. 年北爱尔兰最佳居住地。如果 Ursa Minor 的牛角包没能吸引你，那么从海滩眺望拉特林岛 (Rathlin Island) 和金泰尔角 (Mull of Kintyre) 的景色一定会。小镇在 8 月的 Ould Lammas 集市期间最为热闹，届时数以万计的游客前来品尝 dulse（海藻）和 yellowman（当地蜂巢糖）并尽情狂欢。但这里全年都充满活力，拥有 House of McDonnell 和 Boyd Arms 等酒吧，涵盖各项运动的俱乐部，以及新场地 Yarn。平均房价 £250,400（来源：Propertypal）
高耸的悬崖将海浪与陆地分隔开，这里是约克郡最迷人的海滨度假胜地。（抱歉，惠特比 Whitby。）当天气（不可避免地）变得糟糕，或者当你厌倦了海滩桑拿、冲浪、
在码头欣赏风景或在沙滩上漫步时，英国最后一部水平衡悬崖电梯将把你迅速送往市中心。Saltburn 自疫情以来得到了振兴，现在是一个繁华之地，到处是令人羡慕的独立商店和咖啡馆。这里所有地方步行可达，且有可靠的学校和住宅选择，但如果你想在热门的维多利亚时期“珠宝街道”（如 Emerald, Diamond, Pearl 等）购买房屋，则需要竞争，这些街道的设计旨在让尽可能多的人拥有海景。平均房价 £250,800
SHOULTS,STEVE TAYLOR ARPS,EYE35.PIX,NICK HATTON / ALAMY
Penzance 散发出一种狂野与神秘感，与康沃尔郡的度假热点形成了冷峻的对比。这是一个充满咸味的小镇，充满戏剧色彩，且始终与自然元素近在咫尺。俯瞰蒙斯湾 (Mount’s Bay) 的景色令人惊叹，许多附近的海滩——如 Sennen Cove, Porthcurno 和 Nanjizal——都充满了魔力。在 Montol（冬至）和 Golowan（夏至）节期间，这种紧密的社区纽带尤为突出，同时还有恢复 Jubilee Pool 的斗争。这里有前往伦敦的火车（包括卧铺服务）、可承受的房价，以及不断完善的商店、餐厅和酒吧集群。平均房价 £280,000
肯特海岸最甜美的地点，这座拥有淡色涂装小屋的古老五港 (Cinque Port) 已形成了双重角色：既是伦敦艺术设计人群的周末避风港，也是注重社区的本地人的务实之所，后者让传统酒吧保持热闹并清理巨大的卵石海滩。交通连接良好——前往伦敦的火车需 90 分钟——商业街非常出色，能够满足这两类人群的需求。画廊、精选家居店和鸡尾酒吧与传统的肉铺、鱼店、蔬菜店和炸鱼薯条店并存。平均房价 £333,000
住在安格尔西岛（Anglesey），你将被 125 英里的海岸线和英国最奢华的海滨风光所环绕。在这里，每个人都有一个远离繁忙游客群的秘密地点，用来游泳、观察鼠海豚和海鸟，以及欣赏斯诺多尼亚（Snowdonia）崎岖的背景山色。Ynys Mon 虽然是一座岛屿，但其规模足够大且交通便利，不会让人感到与世隔绝。你可以选择充满艺术气息的博马里斯（Beaumaris）、拥有顶尖餐厅和岛上唯一一家 Waitrose 超市的充满活力的梅奈桥（Menai Bridge），或者像特里亚杜尔湾（Trearddur Bay）或阿伯夫罗（Aberffraw）这样淳朴的村庄。为了礼貌起见，你至少应该尝试学习威尔士语，这样你就能加入酒馆、村礼堂和海滩桑拿房里的 sgwrsio（聊天）中。平均房价 £258,900
唯一比海景更好的就是河口景观。很少有像安赛德这样壮丽的景色：穿过肯特河口（Kent estuary）林立的岸边，远眺湖区群山（Lakeland fells），这里有发光的沙滩、波光粼粼的水面和丰富的野生动物，景象瞬息万变。湍急的潮汐意味着即使在戏水时也需要谨慎，但这里有充足的海岸乐趣，从加入社交氛围浓厚的帆船俱乐部，到在码头上享用炸鱼和薯条。被低估的兰开斯特市（Lancaster）乘坐火车约 20 分钟即可到达，而在安赛德教育学院（这座功能强大的村礼堂）里有各种各样的俱乐部和课程。平均房价 £340,000
无论你认为码头的这一侧是黑斯廷斯（Hastings）最精彩的部分，还是一个独立的区域，圣莱昂纳兹都是你能找到的海滨再生最成功的典范之一。迷人的建筑、丰富的艺术、充满活力的音乐场景以及 KinoTeatr（一家酷炫的电影院兼画廊艺术中心），意味着你永远不会感到无聊。这里有越来越多符合时代精神的餐饮场所（如 Goat Ledge、Heist 街头美食市场、Twisted Bunny），或者你可以在 Sunless、Pitch 或 Twisted King 浏览古董和精美商品。由于圣莱昂纳兹（St Lens）面向南方，拥有英国最充足的阳光，这意味着其砾石海滩和优雅的维多利亚式房屋正比以往任何时候都更吸引关注。平均房价 £281,000
在东洛锡安海岸，北伯威克（North Berwick）凭借其《星期日泰晤士报》评选的 2024. 英国最佳居住地称号，将永远占据首位。但极高的关注度导致了高房价，因此请向东看，关注漂亮的古老港口城镇邓巴，那里前往爱丁堡的铁路服务速度略快。邓巴是著名的贝尔哈文酿酒厂（Belhaven Brewery）所在地，拥有苏格兰最干燥、最阳光的气候之一。镇上有一条不错的商业街，设有包括社区所有制面包店在内的实用独立商店，此外还有受欢迎的公立和私立学校，以及提升生活品质的必备项目——冲浪、风筝冲浪、海滩，以及便捷前往南高地（Southern Upland）和约翰·缪尔（John Muir）步道。平均房价 £299,500
在太阳下山时，你可以看到柴郡的人们坐在沿巡游道（the Parade）分布的长凳上吃冰淇淋或享用炸鱼薯条。
随着疫情溢价的消退，房价已趋于稳定。
狗是这里生活的重要组成部分。在沿着海岸或威勒之路（Wirral Way）散步后，你会发现它们和主人一起出现在 Elephant Lounge，这家酒吧 / 咖啡馆 / 披萨店是村庄的社交中心。至于其他所有需求，附近的内斯顿（Neston）镇拥有火车、体育设施、超市和中学。在这个 Wirral 的角落里，你可能很难建起一座沙堡或畅游其中，但这里的景色充满魔力，氛围是纯正的海滨风情。平均房价 £340,500
你很容易会将克莱夫登（Clevedon）那些种满树木的维多利亚式别墅大道误认为布里斯托（Bristol）某个高档郊区，但这里没有布里斯托的交通废气和充满垃圾的街道，取而代之的是清新、带着咸味的空气，以及绝美的日落和一座优雅的码头。如果你想游泳，最好的选择是克莱夫登海洋湖（Clevedon Marine Lake），那里由志愿者精心维护。在希尔路（Hill Road）地区有一些有趣的商店，还有一家库尔宗（Curzon）电影院；而布里斯托距离这里仅半小时车程，让你能迅速接触到一股都市创意与文化的浪潮。平均房价 £398,000
肯定会有很多人不屑一顾——我们能听到你们的声音——但根据萨维尔斯（Savills）房产中介伊普斯威奇（Ipswich）办事处负责人汤姆·奥福德（Tom Orford）的说法，这座英国最繁忙的港口城镇是一个“目的地地址”。翻新的海滨、高尔夫、帆船运动以及强大的全年社区氛围，意味着菲利克斯托不仅比其海岸线上更高端的邻居奥尔德伯里（Aldeburgh）和南沃尔德（Southwold）便宜（得多），而且更实用、更有趣。这里有火车和优质学校，以及不断增加的独立商店选择和一座获得蓝旗认证的沙滩。美中不足之处？你的海景看到的更多是集装箱船而非悠闲的小船。平均房价 £537,000
你好！利明顿是资深帆船爱好者的天堂，但这座精致的市场小镇对每个人都有吸引力。随着疫情期间的溢价消退，房价已趋于稳定。利明顿拥有海滩、全国最古老的咸水露天泳池、一段适合遛狗或慢跑的壮丽海堤，以及近在咫尺、适合野外漫游的新森林（New Forest）。镇上到处是精致的商店和餐厅——去海港（Haven）可以享受一边欣赏风景一边品尝牡蛎的乐趣——且学校非常抢手。从附近的布罗肯赫斯特（Brockenhurst）乘坐火车前往伦敦需 90 分钟。平均房价 £320,500
在 1930 年代的排屋海洋中，车站小屋（Station Lodge）脱颖而出。凭借其流线型外观、深黑色的主体和橙色平台，它看起来像一艘盘旋在伦敦西南郊区莫茨普尔公园（Motspur Park）上空的宇宙飞船。
——
从空中俯瞰，它似乎笼罩在邻里之上。而实际上，从街道走近时，它是不可见的——你只能通过两栋排屋之间狭窄的缝隙瞥见这座房子。然而，根据其所有者兼设计者、建筑师安德烈·萨尔蒂科夫（Andrei Saltykov）的说法，这里成了当地的一处奇观。
“人们会问建筑工人：‘你们在这里建什么？图书馆还是录音室？’因为显然它看起来不像房子，”萨尔蒂科夫说道。
“路过的人总会忍不住回头看，”他的妻子西万（Siwan）补充道。
这座房子外部神秘，正面几乎没有窗户，但内部就像塔底斯（Tardis）一样宽敞。这里有一个令人惊叹的三层客厅，由两层夹层俯瞰，并配有震撼的高科技天花板。钢梁、木质交叉支撑和托梁全部外露，这受到了萨尔蒂科夫在理查德·罗杰斯（Richard Rogers）事务所工作期间的影响。他的一位客户将他的客厅比作庞毕度中心（Pompidou Centre），那是巴黎一座著名的、将内部结构外露的表现主义建筑。
你可能会想，那座巨大的黑色蝙蝠洞是什么？人们对此很好奇。
安德烈·萨尔蒂科夫与妻子西万以及女儿伊内莎（Inessa，左）和吉娜（Gina）在他们的家中。上方及右上图：房屋外观，顶部可见大窗。
萨尔蒂科夫最初并非打算建造一座俯瞰火车平台的怪房子，但在 2020 年，这个家庭在温布尔登（Wimbledon）的房子已经住不下了。他们的两个女儿吉娜和伊内莎很快就要进入中学。萨尔蒂科夫当时正在为一名客户寻找土地，他的算法中出现了一个出售地块的广告，该地块带有七个出租车库。它位于莫茨普尔公园，正是他的女儿们踢足球的地方。萨尔蒂科夫产生了兴趣。“况且，建筑师总是想建一座房子，”他说。
例如，预制钢楼梯被漆成了非常抢眼的荧光红色。“我喜欢突出建筑中提供结构或流通感的元素，并用色彩制造一些视觉冲击，”52 岁的 Saltykov 说道，他此前曾参与过希思罗机场 5 号航站楼、马德里 Barajas 机场以及悉尼国际塔楼（International Towers）的建设。
四间卧室位于一楼，通过一个夹层进入；顶楼有一个宽敞的书房和家庭房，可通向一个屋顶露台，那里有着一个不寻常的景观：Motspur Park 车站的铁路站台。据称，Saltykov 经常向那些对这座建筑感到好奇的站台乘客挥手并交谈。Siwan 表示，这些交流总是非常友好的。
然而，车库原址的条件很尴尬。这是一个三角形的地块，被铁路轨道、排屋和一个能源施工队拥有通行权的变电站所包围。入口处非常狭窄，因此 Saltykov 在那里建房毫无意义。一方面，这会挡住进入邻居花园的光线。如果他在地块后部、紧挨着铁路轨道的地方建房，并将花园设在前面，他会有更多空间。但如果房产后部安装窗户，就意味着面对火车平台将毫无隐私可言。同样，房子前部的任何窗户都会俯瞰排屋的花园。
“人们下火车时会感到惊讶，因为这里是一个非常典型的郊区，”她说。“某个晚上你正在喝酒，人们会问：‘这是一栋房子吗？’ 因为如果你乘火车经过，这里全是通勤区，”
光线洒在二楼的书房里，经过夹层，然后向下倾泻到客厅中。位于地平面的房屋前部，光线通过两条玻璃砖带进入，玻璃砖经过磨砂处理以防止窥视邻居。
这得益于一套机械热回收通风系统。
厨房确实有一个面向铁路线的长形景观窗，但它被一面由原址旧车库回收的混凝土面板墙遮挡。
难怪这个地块挂牌出售了这么久。大多数开发商都会避而远之。“但他们错失了机会，”Saltykov 说。“我热爱限制。我利用这些限制。”
工业设计可能会给人冷冰冰、像诊所一样的感觉，但 Saltykov 用一个环绕式的
非传统的屋顶并非设计噱头。其形状纯粹出于功能考虑：长长的倾斜坡度避免了遮挡邻居的光线；黑色铝材掩盖了火车带来的污垢；棱角分明的肋形设计将雨水导入地面的法式排水沟，因为 Saltykov 不想要天沟。
他的解决方案是什么？平面图中常规的部分是沿着后方铁路轨道的直线房间。为了在火车平台前保持隐私，卧室仅设有侧窗，窗外就是铁轨。但缺乏窗户意味着他需要某种景观，于是他创造了一个内部景观：俯瞰前方巨大的中庭式客厅的夹层。“为了弥补景观的缺失，我创造了空间体量。”
桦木胶合板书架紧贴着客厅。Siwan 的威尔士艺术收藏品增加了温馨感
人们会问：“那个巨大的黑色蝙蝠洞是什么？”他们很好奇
进一步地，外露的梁也让空间活跃起来。“如果只是一个白色的天花板，那会非常糟糕。这样让它变得
你会认为住在铁路轨道旁边会很吵，但在我于该房产停留的 90 分钟里，我没有听到火车的声音。这归功于安装的三层玻璃窗、厚实的砌块墙以及大量的绝缘材料。新鲜空气通过
有趣且灵动。”
Saltykov 不愿透露该项目的总预算。由 Kitchen Revolutions 提供的灰色和绿色德国厨房造价为 £35,000，但当
那么光线是如何进入的？房子顶部有一个巨大的窗户。
建筑成本飙升
在新冠疫情期间，他调整了设计以确保其投资面向未来。开发商被建议不要
如何迁居安提瓜
在一条街道上建造最
英国与加勒比海英联邦国家安提瓜和巴布达之间的联系由来已久。霍拉肖·纳尔逊在 1780 年代曾驻 stationed 在那里，尽管他对这座岛屿评价不高——他直截了当地将其称为一个“地狱般的洞穴”——但他被永恒地纪念在纳尔逊船坞（Nelson’s Dockyard），这是世界上最古老的仍在使用中的乔治时代船坞，也是安提瓜南海岸一个充满氛围的联合国教科文组织世界遗产地。
昂贵的房子，因此他设计了
SEANPAVONEPHOTO / GETTY IMAGES
这座 3,000 平方英尺房子的布局，以便将来可以从中间分开并作为两栋房屋出售。他安装了第二座楼梯的地基以及独立的管道基础设施。
LUCY YOUNG 为《星期日泰晤士报》供稿；WILL PRYCE
令他惊讶的是，萨尔蒂科夫（Saltykov）说他的两个邻居都没有反对他的计划。他们似乎很高兴看到那七个车库消失。规划部门在短短四个月内就批准了该项目。
比东海岸的大西洋更受欢迎，”她说。“那里也是目前基础设施投资最集中的地方，围绕着乔利港（Jolly Harbour）的码头重建和正在建设的新尼基海滩（Nikki Beach）度假村。这条海岸线上的房产种类和价格范围也最广，房价从 $400,000 到 $10 million 不等。”
顶级住宅和酒店度假村 Jumby Bay 的一名成员五年前从伦敦搬到安提瓜，在安提瓜东北部的 Long Bay 租了一栋带泳池的四居室房屋，每月支付 $3,000。他说：“人们对获取公民身份的兴趣日益增加，而以数字游民身份前来的人群则越来越年轻，两者结合——这种需求正在推高租金。”
对于那些认为这座房子与周围排屋不协调的传统主义者，他是怎么说的？“如果你持有这种态度，你不如住在露天博物馆里，那里永远不会有任何改变。这块地曾经被冷落。按照之前的蓝图，根本无法在上面进行令人满意的建设。”
安提瓜是航海天堂，拥有国际帆船赛，是专业和业余游艇爱好者的心头好。来自第一太平戴尔斯（Savills）全球住宅团队的 Tom Vickery 表示：“航海氛围在安提瓜的吸引力中起到了关键作用，加上其 365 个海滩，使其成为一个极具吸引力的选择，尤其是对于年轻人来说。由于其熟悉感和便利的往来，安提瓜对英国买家具有强烈的吸引力。这里广泛使用英语，法律体系与英国一致。优惠的税制是另一个重要吸引力，特别是对于全球流动购房者，以及投资入籍计划。”
“20 世纪 30 年代的排屋是利用当时允许的技术建造的。在它们建成时，它们同样不协调。这里曾经是农田。当维多利亚时代的人建造排屋时，之前也没有人这么做过。”
在安提瓜，你离优质海滩永远不远，但最受欢迎且能便捷前往码头、餐厅和国际学校的地点包括南部的英格兰港（English Harbour）、西部的乔利港（Jolly Harbour）以及北部的迪金森湾（Dickenson Bay）与霍奇斯湾（Hodges Bay）之间。
他并不是为了挑衅。“这不是一座‘看我啊’的房子。它隐藏得非常好。这纯粹是为了通过并非必然常规的手段来获得更好的结果。”
安提瓜的数字游民居留计划允许 18 岁以上、远程工作且
在经营他的建筑事务所 Andrei Saltykov and Partners (ASaP) 时，一个挑战是寻找那些渴望大胆且非传统设计的客户。“如果合理，我很乐意随大流，但这种‘随大流’的生意让我抓狂，”他说。“如果人们只是在重复之前做过的事，怎么可能有所进步？这难道不是对人工智能最大的批评吗？它只是在循环传播已经创造过的内容。这就是为什么它永远无法具有原创性。如果只是为了随大流，你还不如用 ChatGPT 来设计。那样就不需要人了。”
年薪至少需达到 $50,000 才能停留最多两年。其费用为：
每位申请人 $1,500 ——
每对夫妇 $2,000 —— 且
总部位于伦敦的国际室内设计工作室 Ward & Co 的联合创始人 Sarah Ward 自 2017 年起在安提瓜拥有一套房产，并在当地多个顶级私人住宅和品牌住宅项目中担任专业工作。
长期租赁市场依然非常活跃，需求超过供应，尤其是在热门的沿海地区。Paradise Properties Connection 的所有者 Dominique D’Aloia 表示：“需求是由迁至该岛的专业人士、游艇业、外交人员、国际学校、医疗人员以及为了生活方式而搬迁至此的人群驱动的。”D’Aloia 表示，这些地区的单卧室住宅起价为每月 $1,000，双卧室住宅起价为 $2,000。
持有者无需缴纳当地所得税。
投资入籍计划于 2013 年推出，旨在为群岛吸引外部投资。支付 $10,000 的费用，并向经批准的房产投资至少 $300,000，或向国家发展基金捐赠 $230,000，安提瓜和巴布达便会向符合条件的个人授予终身公民身份。成功的申请者无需就全球收入缴税，且无需缴纳资本利得税、遗产税或财富税。政府官方渠道称该流程需要 90 天，但一些网络传闻称部分申请者的办理时间接近 10 个月。
Saltykov 对公众对这座房子的反应感到鼓舞。去年在“开放日”活动中，有两百人前来参观，今年 9 月 19 日他将再次开放。最近他在车站站台上听到两个女人在聊他的房子。这本可能令人尴尬。“但她们说：‘这难道不神奇吗？’我回答说：‘谢谢，这是我的房子。’前几天我去牙医那里，他们也说：‘哦，你就住在那个神奇的房子里。’这在当地小有名气。”
“我热爱这里的生活方式、生活节奏和人们的友好，”她说。“工作带着我前往美国和加勒比地区；安提瓜的地理位置非常好，是前往其他岛屿和迈阿密的便捷基地。”
58 岁的 Ward 表示，西区最好。“西海岸面向平静的加勒比海，通常更加宜人。”
显然，这座房子激发了公众的想象力。他甚至将其注册到了电影取景地代理机构。他是否确实在一定程度上受到了科幻作品的启发？“在我们搬家时，我发现了一张 80 年代旧太空乐高套装的海报。那是一个形状与此相似的空间站。我的女儿 Gina 坚信是那个乐高套装启发了这座房子。”
59 岁的 James MacKenzie 是安提瓜的销售总监。
顶部：从 Shirley Heights 俯瞰 English Harbour 和 Nelson’s Dockyard 的景色。上方插图：设计师 Sarah Ward（右）与她的女儿 Rosie。
Hodges Bay
Jumby Bay
Global Citizen Solutions 的公民计划负责人 Joe Rice 表示，迁往安提瓜的需求正在增长。“安提瓜和巴布达提供了最适合家庭的黄金签证计划之一，对于大家庭来说，获得公民身份的成本显著低于邻近的圣基茨和尼维斯，”他说。
Long Island
St. John’s
他坚持认为，现实情况则更为平淡。“更多的是关于那些枯燥的事情：阳光、视野、阴影、出入口、如何排水，所有这些实用因素才是驱动设计的核心。”
Dickenson Bay
Long Bay
安提瓜 (ANTIGUA)
也许吧。但对于我们其他人来说，把它叫做“飞船屋”更有趣。伦敦住宅建筑与装修展 (The London Homebuilding & Renovating Show)，9月18-20日，伦敦 Excel 展馆。读者可在 homebuildingshow.co.uk / sunday-times 领取免费门票。
乔利港 (Jolly Harbour)
纳尔逊船坞 (Nelson’s Dockyard)
3 英里
以及 36 处林地。这种增长趋势十分显著，因为第一个拥有自己酒馆的社区——伦敦东南部 Nunhead 的 Ivy House 附近居民——是在 2013 年才实现这一目标的。
一家拥有 160 年历史的酒馆在社区的帮助下获得了新生
在寻求拯救陷入困境的酒馆的人员中，包括威廉王子，他向一个试图拯救威尔特郡 Semington 的 Somerset Arms 酒馆的活动团体捐赠了 £1,000。该酒馆已关闭三年，正由 Punch Pubs 出售。在给该团体的一封信中，他写道，酒馆“不仅是款待之所，更是将人们聚集在一起、培养归属感并支持当地社区福祉的重要空间”。
——但它能生存下去吗？作者：David Byers
买下大部分份额
Plunkett UK 声称，社区项目的数量增加表明了孤独与隔离危机是如何逐渐恶化的，以及人们如何重视这些设施。该团体发言人 Andrew Dubock 将此归因于过去几十年中，如教会和青年俱乐部等传统协调角色功能的消失。
2022 年底关闭，且人们越来越担心漏水和坍塌的屋顶会导致其遭受致命的结构性损坏。
VICKI COUCHMAN 为《周日泰晤士报》拍摄
为了寻找拯救它的方法，Scott 和另一位来自孩子就读小学的家长 Gareth Coady 在 400 码外的 Sacred Heart 小学安排了一次会议。“令人惊讶的是，有 200 到 250 人来听我们讲述。我们告诉他们为什么想要拯救它，并请求支持。”令他们大为震惊的是，总共有 15 位潜在投资者挺身而出，每人同意持有至少 £10,000 的股份（有些人持股更多）。
由于参与者的热情，社区运营的设施很少失败，五年后的生存率为 98%。但即使是邻里间的努力也无法逃脱客观规律。在 6 月份最新的影响报告中，首席执行官 James Alcock 指出，2025 年有 4 家关闭，而 34 个新项目得以建立。他警告说：“我们越来越意识到企业和志愿者中存在疲劳现象。”
该财团与房地产经纪人进行了微妙的谈判，解释了他们大胆的计划。组建有限公司并筹集资金花费了数月时间。最终，在去年 8 月，几乎恰好在关闭三年后，他们庆祝从 Stonegate 酒馆集团手中买下了 Lion 酒馆，价格比 2022 年最初的要价“低得多”。
安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 政府
上周试图通过宣布将商业税率削减 20% 来应对这一令人担忧的趋势，此举将使典型的酒馆每年节省约 £1,100。
对于 Wick Road 收购财团来说，现在还处于早期阶段。
但根据 Scott 的说法，该设施由社区所有，这激励了人们去使用它，因为他们知道如果不这么做就会失去它。“我认为，我们能够做一些其他酒馆做不到的事情，”他说。“5 月份，我们举办了两场戏剧演出，剧本是由一位住在 Teddington 的剧作家编写的。两天内共有 60 人观看——这是一次在酒馆内进行的特定地点体验。‘我们在那里举办了一个艺术展，在...”
他们聘请当地承包商快速施工，同时志愿者们负责翻新花园后方的海滩小屋，将其改造为定制的卡座。
来自一位当地艺术家的瞬间，他绘制了红玫瑰队（英格兰女子国家橄榄球联盟队）的画像。
斯科特（Scott）同时担任该企业的董事总经理，他开玩笑说，大多数时候他都在想：“我到底在干什么？”该财团对重大决策拥有投票权，但日常决策由员工做出。
而且在几周前，有一位女士询问是否可以在这里举行她的编织小组活动。于是一群人来到这里编织并吃蛋糕。希望这类活动能成为常态。”
在 44 岁的彼得·斯科特（Peter Scott）与妻子和两个年幼的孩子搬到威克路（Wick Road）几个月后——这是一条位于伦敦西南部泰丁顿（Teddington）和汉普顿威克（Hampton Wick）交界处、开满淡色维多利亚风格房屋的宁静街道——这里拥有 160 年历史的酒吧“狮子”（the Lion）关闭了。
由于维护昂贵建筑的成本以及政府提高企业税带来的影响，这些建筑对业主来说变得越来越不可行，这种局面正变得令人沮丧且普遍。根据英国啤酒与酒吧协会（British Beer and Pub Association）的数据，今年前三个月，英国平均每天有两家酒吧关闭——比 2025 年同期增长了 26%。
业主马丁·托马斯（Martin Thomas）、彼得·斯科特和斯蒂芬·阿拉斯（Stephen Aras）在“狮子”酒吧前。右上：酒吧花园。右：里士满市长南希·鲍德温（Nancy Baldwin）。
当我们交谈时，功能厅里挤满了当地小学的学生、老师和家长，他们聚集在这里参加学期末的颁奖活动，里士满市长南希·鲍德温也出席了活动。
随着越来越多的餐饮服务业因业主难以维持或公司业主削减成本而关闭，居民们失去了社交场所。越来越多的人开始联合起来拯救这些场所。
鲍德温将这一举措描述为“令人振奋”，但她并未掩饰当地企业因成本上涨而面临的困境。“不仅是企业——慈善机构现在也必须支付[大幅提高的雇主国民保险]，”她说。“他们很艰难，很多人都如此。这使得他们更难提供服务。”
“我很恼火，”他说。“我们以前在周五有个很棒的习惯，先和孩子们在家里吃饭，然后溜进酒吧，孩子们吃甜点，我喝一品脱啤酒，我妻子喝一杯金汤力，然后我们就回家。那太棒了，我们都非常喜欢。”
但作为一家媒体和活动公司董事总经理的斯科特没有坐视关闭不管：“它在市场上挂牌很久没人买，所以我就在想：‘那么，我们能为此做点什么吗？’”
根据致力于帮助社区挽救当地服务的慈善机构 Plunkett UK 的数据，过去十年中，由社区团体买下的关闭企业数量增长了 67%，2025 年底有 869 家在运营，而 2015 年为 521 家。其中包括 467 家商店、215 家酒吧、30 个农场和 25 家咖啡馆。
在关闭后，“狮子”酒吧在 Rightmove 网站上挂牌一年多之久。
位于联合国教科文组织世界遗产城市内的全新住宅，有限的新房供应支撑着长期需求。
位于英国领先的大学城之一，巴斯大学（University of Bath）和巴斯温泉大学（Bath Spa University）所在地。
The Waterside Club 为住户提供专属设施，包括礼宾服务、健身房、共享办公空间和住户休息室。
租金收益率高达 6.93%*，预计未来 5 年的增长预测为 17.9%^。
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One Waterside, Midland Road, Bath BA2 3FT 01225 809 659
价格在 2026 年 7 月印刷时准确。计算机生成的图像仅供参考。*来源：Crisp Cowley Bath, 2026 年 7 月 ^来源：Savills Research, 2026 年 6 月。
The Sunday Times 2, 2026 13
安德鲁·尼尔 (Andrew Neil) 是一位政治记者兼广播员，他曾协助创立 Sky TV，曾任《星期日泰晤士报》编辑，目前主持 Times Radio 的午餐时段节目《泰晤士正午时分》(The Times at One)。他与三只狗居住在法国南部。当他的金毛寻回犬 Molly 小姐出现在他为 BBC1 制作的政治节目《本周》(This Week) 中时，
ANDREW NEIL;REUTERS;BBC
她小时候像把刷锅的刷子。Scrubber 是家族姓氏。或者简称为 Scrubs。
你小时候有宠物吗？我小时候只有一只雏鹦鹉。我想我母亲有一天忘了关窗。我们再也没见过她。小时候我挺怕狗的。我被一只狗袭击过，不算严重，但有点吓人。等我长大养了狗，那些恐惧就都消失了。现在我完全不怕它们了。即使是稍微有点危险的狗，我也能应对。
尼尔说，她很快就变得“比我和迈克尔·波蒂略 (Michael Portillo) 更受欢迎”。
跟我说说你的狗。两只是白色寻回犬。人们叫它们金毛寻回犬，但它们显然不是金色的。Molly 小姐和 Junior 先生。它们是双胞胎。这两只已经陪了我大约 12 年了。它们是纯种的。它们就像小小的法国贵族，实际上相当傲慢。
你的狗破坏过什么吗？除了破坏清静，它们没破坏过任何东西。Iris 经常干扰清静。今天早上 4. 30点左右她就这么做了。她是安全主管，每天巡视周界以确保我们安全。只要她听到有人在房子外面走动，她就会变得疯狂。实际上，以她自己的方式来说，她有点像一只看门狗。而那对双胞胎……如果有人闯进来，它们唯一会做的事就是把对方舔死。
Molly 某种程度上是个名人，不是吗？当我把 Molly 带到《本周》节目中时，她变得非常出名，那是当时我在做 BBC1 周四晚间的节目。她变得比我和迈克尔·波蒂略受欢迎得多。制作团队简直爱死 Molly 了。还没等我意识到，他们就给她买了一张床，准备了玩具和可咀嚼的骨头。对于那些容易情绪失控的人，她有某种安抚作用。我记得有一次我们邀请了历史学家大卫·斯塔基 (David Starkey)，他并不是那种在深夜电视节目中最为安静或温和的嘉宾，当时他正处于亢奋状态，用他惯有的、口才流畅且强硬的方式在激昂地论述。而坐在地板上的 Molly 跳上了他身边的沙发，把头放在他的膝盖上。这让他瞬间停了下来。他冷静了下来，变得更理智了。
“它们就像贵族”
Times Radio 的安德鲁·尼尔讲述他的三只受宠爱的小狗，包括在《本周》节目中抢尽风头的调皮 Molly 小姐
它们有美容方案吗？它们很少洗澡。但它们会洗澡、用洗发水，然后把毛弄蓬松，因为它们是三只“蓬松球”。Molly 和 Junior 非常喜欢。把 Molly 想象成这样最合适：她基本上是一个年长的超级名模。我的意思是，她是狗界的光环辛迪·克劳馥 (Cindy Crawford)。她
格雷厄姆·诺顿 (Graham Norton) 肯定希望能拥有这样的狗。我们请过罗里·布雷姆纳 (Rory Bremner) 和米克·哈克纳尔 (Mick Hucknall)。我们请过皮尔斯·摩根 (Piers Morgan)。当然，我们还请过戴安·艾伯特 (Diane Abbott) 和波蒂略。在节目结束时，我面前排起了一长队。我还以为他们都想跟我握手并祝我好运。不，不，不，不！他们都说，我可以摸摸 Molly 吗？我可以抚摸 Molly 吗？所以我知道自己的定位了。我知道谁才是节目的主角。
与那两个贵族不同。恐怕她来自布加勒斯特的街头，在那里的日子并不好过。
然后他们把它们安置在所谓的“快乐巴士”上，将你的狗从布加勒斯特送到埃塞克斯的一个地方，然后你再去那里接它。
你还看到过其他政治人物的狗吗？我听说鲍里斯·约翰逊的梗犬有点不听话。这并不让我感到意外，因为鲍里斯本人也就那样。不，我很高兴地告诉你，我没看到鲍里斯的狗。
你是从哪里领养她的？从两名英国女性那里，她们在布加勒斯特经营着一家专门将流浪狗从街头救出的慈善机构。他们有一个网站可以查看这些狗。他们会对你进行审核，确保所有必要的健康证明和疫苗接种都已办理完毕。
确实很喜欢被宠爱。艾里斯？不，没那么喜欢。你真的得抓住她并按住她才能给她洗澡和洗发。
艾里斯·贝利是否适应了更奢华的生活？噢，是的。我曾去佛罗伦萨旅行，小 Scrubber 和 Molly 也随我同行。我们在四季酒店订了一间漂亮的房间。当时我正躺在套房里那张美丽的大床上，我说，艾里斯，你简直是从贫民窟直接跳到了四季酒店。
你社交媒体上那只邋遢的梗犬是怎么回事？
那就是小艾里斯·贝利，我生命中的挚爱，绰号 Scrubber。我领养她大约在十年前。她与其他的狗完全不同。
Miss Molly 比我更受欢迎，或者说……
她见过她的粉丝吗？最后一场演出是一场面对大量观众的现场表演，我们邀请了一系列嘉宾……
你有幻想中的宠物吗？如果我有时间，我想我会领养一头获救的驴，因为我看到了有些驴被对待的方式。如果能把它们从那种生活中救出来，给它们一个可以跑来跑去、享受生活的花园，那就太好了。采访由 Katrina Burroughs 执笔。
上方：安德鲁·迈克尔·波蒂略·尼尔与他的三只狗，Mr Junior, Miss Molly 和 Iris ‘Scrubber’ Bailey。右上：鲍里斯·约翰逊与他的梗犬 Dilyn。最左：Miss Molly 在《本周》节目中。
名字背后有什么含义？关于她应该叫艾里斯还是贝利，当时有过争论。于是我说，我们就叫你艾里斯·贝利吧。艾里斯·贝利是她的“周日全名”。如果她不听话，就会被这么叫。有时叫艾里斯。除此之外，就叫 Scrubber。因为她看起来有点像一只……
安德鲁·尼尔在 Times Radio 主持午间节目《The Times at One》，播出时间为周一至周四下午 1-2 点。
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
无论是 Cardi B、蕾哈娜还是米克·贾格尔，帽子能让你更引人注目。米克会买一顶高顶礼帽（用于表演）《Sympathy for the Devil》。自 1968 年以来，他为此曲准备过不同的帽子——我为他制作的第一顶是在 19 年前。
时间与空间 STEPHEN JONES
“美国朋友们被室外厕所惊呆了”
WWD / GETTY IMAGES; INSTAGRAM / DUALIPA
你的帽子是如何定价的？我们的帽子价格反映了它们是在英国手工制作的事实，而且我支付产假工资和度假工资，我的工作室员工在伦敦以此为生。如果有人走进我的店对价格表示担忧，你可以说：“那么，你一天愿意赚多少钱？”我为一顶帽子收取的最高费用大概是 £20,000。如果是一个富有的客户，这比在希思罗机场的着陆费还便宜。
你童年关于家的第一个记忆是什么？在威勒尔的卧室窗前望着大海。我们那栋 20 世纪 30 年代的独立房屋坐落在我的高祖父曾建造过许多房屋的沙丘上。那里很好，但我那时想去利物浦，然后去伦敦：霓虹灯火，大城市。
你的第一次租房经历？当我第一次作为中央圣马丁学院的学生来到伦敦学习女装设计时，我住在 Ralph West 学生宿舍。那里面向所有伦敦艺术学院，所以社交氛围极其浓厚。隔壁一个叫 Kenny 的家伙告诉我：“我在坎伯韦尔学习平面设计。切尔西市政厅有一场演出，我是这个新乐队的鼓手。我们叫 Siouxsie and the Banshees。”
住在伦敦，就在巴特西公园附近的一栋两层维多利亚式住宅里，我和我的丈夫克雷格一起生活，我们相识于 1989.。那曾是一栋铁路经理的住宅，上面三间，下面两间——客厅和办公室在楼上，卧室在楼下——还有一个带有洗衣机的室外厕所。我把它给来自美国的几个朋友看，他们都惊呆了。
你有任何家规吗？保持整洁。我经常把东西收拾到连我自己都找不到的地方：电话、一只袜子、放在冰箱里的眼镜，还有放在衣柜里的牛奶。
你会如何描述你在房产方面的经历？相当奇怪。现在看来，其他人似乎都搬进了骑士桥的小宫殿里。我是在 25 年前才买的房子。在那之前我一直租房：在乔克农场租了一处租金极低的房子。我知道有些人之前在房产阶梯上攀升，然后失去了所有财产，或者经历了一场混乱的离婚，这影响了未来的规划。对我来说，生活在于今天，而非明天，但父母辈的生活则非常不同。
斯蒂芬·琼斯（Stephen Jones）。右上：杜阿·利帕在伦敦五月的婚礼上戴着斯蒂芬·琼斯的帽子。下方：戴安娜王妃戴着斯蒂芬·琼斯的作品。左下：琼斯的
去买帽子。他当时在恩德尔街的 PX 商店工作，知道他们要搬到新空间。他把我介绍给店主，并说：“斯蒂芬·琼斯能不能开一家小帽子店？”
你住过最糟糕的地方？在拉尔夫·韦斯特之后，我住在伍德格林的一个公寓里，直到厨房天花板塌在我的室友身上之前，那里一直还不错。
你会去倒垃圾吗？
是的。我们有三个垃圾桶——如果兰贝斯议会能在同一天把它们全部收走就太好了。
它从第一天起就成功了。那是一个难以置信的交易：我需要支付利润或营业额的一定比例，我不记得具体是哪个了。我不需要付租金。他们很高兴让我留在那里，因为这能为他们的店吸引顾客。我不需要向名人推销我的帽子，他们会主动找我。而且，敲敲木头（祈求好运），他们现在依然如此。让我引起关注的一位名人就是戴安娜，威尔士王妃。
有没有哪个名人没戴过你的帽子？已故的女王陛下。我在 2009. 年于 V&A 博物馆策划了一个名为《帽子：斯蒂芬·琼斯选集》的展览。我请求她提供的一顶帽子是头巾，因为我非常喜欢女王在巴尔莫勒城堡戴着头巾遛狗的照片。我还请求提供一顶王太后的帽子，女王选择了她 100 岁生日时戴的那顶。
你们如何分担家务？我有一位出色且忍耐力极强的管家。
在伦敦西南部的巴特西的家
你是说你丈夫？不！怎么，你们两个在聊什么？
你的隐秘快感？帽子、香槟和廉价薯片。采访人：约翰·赖特
在为富豪和名流设计华丽帽子时，你会考虑到什么？电影明星不想要过于奢侈的东西：他们的脸才是主角，而不是他们穿什么。但对于像……这样的表演者
你的业务在 1980 年是如何如此迅速地起飞的？当时我是城里最热门的年轻人。史蒂夫·斯特兰奇在一家乐队 [Visage] 中，所以唱片公司为他买单
斯蒂芬·琼斯制帽坊（Stephen Jones Millinery）在其位于伦敦科文特花园的精品店展出其 SS26 系列《弧形空气中的彩虹》
我们的年长邻居的篱笆在坍塌，我们可以自己修理吗？
你想帮助邻居而不是坚持让他们自己处理，这真是非常体贴。
由于植被影响和长期暴露在自然环境下，简单的修补可能会很快变成一种徒劳的经济支出。
如果你熟悉基础的 DIY，自己动手可能会便宜得多。标准的篱笆面板、立柱和碎石板在建筑商材料店和 DIY 商店中随处可见，材料费用通常远低于全服务安装。有第二个人帮忙会使工作轻松得多，尤其是在吊起面板和定位立柱时。
出于善意并与他们协作而非绕过他们，你将更有可能在解决一个已无法忽视的问题的同时，维持良好的关系。
可能是你的排水管堵塞了（或至少部分堵塞）。检查废水管排出的室外排水口。如果该处堵塞，异味将沿废水管上升，进入厨房水槽以及任何使用同一出口的设备（如洗碗机）。使用疏通器清除堵塞，并为了稳妥起见，向系统中注入一些肥皂热水。Chris Shuker
Q
我邻居的花园过度生长，现在正把围栏拉倒并弄坏。他们年事已高（约 80 岁），虽然技术上这是他们的责任，但我们不想让他们担心物流和财务上的负担。在过去的两年里，我们尝试通过捆绑围栏部分、刷漆或加固局部来维持。但现在围栏已完全崩塌，他们花园里的荨麻、常春藤和旋花也全部穿透了过来。我们咨询过报价准备出钱修复并建议由我们来操作，但所有报价都在 £10,000 左右，这实在太贵了，尤其是考虑到那并不是我们的围栏。Stella Bradshaw
他们自己处理问题。在采取任何行动之前，与他们进行一次友好地谈话，说明你的提议至关重要。即使你愿意承担费用并完成工作，提前讨论维修事宜也有助于避免关于责任的混淆。
在更换围栏之前，你需要处理导致大部分问题的过度生长植物。常春藤、荨麻和旋花可能会
Tom Morgan，Which? 高级家居、科技与生活方式撰稿人
HOME HELP (家居助手)
给围栏板和立柱施加压力，特别是如果这些植物在一段时间内无人管理。好消息
Q
我的厨房水槽下面有一股糟糕的味道。我请水管工来检查了我的
请提供关于如何去除棉质夏季中长裙上无油底妆污渍的建议。该裙子可以机洗。Sally Roberts 请将技巧和问题发送至 homehelp@sundaytimes.co.uk。所给建议不承担责任。
洗碗机（就在水槽旁边），他也检查了管道。什么也没发现。当我运行热水时，异味就会上升。真的非常令人作呕！请提供建议。MT
最重要的是，在整个过程中让你的邻居知情。你的帮助意愿显然
虽然 £10,000 的专业报价令人心惊，但更换围栏
扫描以听取当地居民的评价。
020 3936 2916 thebrentfordproject.com
探索最新发布的期房公寓，以及最后几套可立即入住的完工住宅，起价 £499,000。享受进入 The Wick 私人居民俱乐部的专属权限，并探索将商业街与水岸连接起来的重新设计小巷。
价格以印刷时为准。
2026年8月2日
利用汇率优势，预订前往南非最迷人城市的奢华假期 14
开普敦在召唤
此外：格陵兰海岸轮渡之旅 13 铁路 66 号公路 20 夏日瑞典 22
2 2, 2026 《星期日泰晤士报》
取决于你问谁，八月的爱丁堡是地球上最好或最糟糕的地方。当边缘艺术节（Festival Fringe）在城中拉开帷幕，这座“老烟城”的人口将翻倍至一百万，文化爱好者们在夏洛特广场的酒吧、节日剧院的门厅以及海岸边的餐厅中争抢空间。
好的一面是，这座城市充满了动能。在英国其他哪里能让你在午餐前就免费看完三场喜剧秀和一部戏剧？坏消息是，在顶级的餐厅订位简直像是一场军事行动。你运气好或许能在格伦伊格尔城镇之家（Gleneagles Townhouse）找到房间——这家著名高地酒店的城市分店，但前提是你能接受比亚瑟峰还要陡峭的账单（B&B doubles from £709 during the festival; gleneagles.com）。
前往加拉希尔市中心参观《苏格兰大挂毯》（Great Tapestry of Scotland），这是欧洲同类作品中最长的一幅，记录了 420 million 年的历史（£13; greattapestryofscotland.com）。
受高地风味启发。Dunkeld’s熟食店提供深受大众喜爱的即食餐，如用布拉塔奶酪制作的芝士通心粉，然后在周四至周六晚上转向日本料理和鸡尾酒（主菜 from £14; dunkelds.co.uk）。之后可以在邓克尔德大教堂（Dunkeld Cathedral）周围走几圈来消耗掉这些卡路里。
在接下来的一个月里，爱丁堡在“不夜城”方面击败了纽约，因此最精明的旅行者会将日间短途旅行纳入计划以逃离喧嚣，在假期的前后增加一个周末，或者在疯狂的日程中间穿插休息。你可以理解原因：苏格兰首府地理位置优越，是尽情享受这个国家最美风光的理想基地。雄伟的景色、美丽的沙滩、美食享受和中世纪的城镇景观，全部在几小时的车程之内。
邓克尔德，珀斯与金罗斯（向北 45 英里）
这座如巧克力盒般精致的小镇是那些专注于季节性饮食的时尚美食家的心头好。Lon 也许是苏格兰最时髦的杂货店，橱窗展示充满了艺术感，摆放着珐琅餐具、小批量生产的橄榄油、当地种植的花卉和彩虹色的番茄。它是马路对面 Aran 烘焙店的姐妹店，在那里你可以找到枕头大小的佛卡夏面包片，以及定期更换的香肠卷和糕点。
水渠受损，围栏被毁。经过众筹和艰苦的修复工作，这里现已在 6 月至 9 月重新向公众开放。现在是参观这个艺术追求与脆弱自然碰撞的神奇之地的最佳时机。刻在石头上的作品和其他令人惊喜的装置与远处的景观融为一体，散发着历史的气息（£15; littlesparta.org.uk）。
店内后方设有设计商店（食品 from £4; themercat.com）。
库罗斯，法夫（向西北 19 英里） 《古战场传奇》的粉丝一定会认出金盏花色的库罗斯宫（Culross Palace），这是该村庄曾作为煤炭和盐产中心时留下的中世纪遗迹。除了在热门电视剧中客串外，从其修剪整齐的分层花园中可以俯瞰整个福斯湾，提醒人们这里曾是重工业的通道。在村子里再走远一点，你会发现色调呈奶油色、玫瑰色和黄油色的纯净 17 世纪排屋。如果这里的景色勾起了你的食欲，就去该郡最酷的咖啡馆吃午餐——Mercat 咖啡馆保留了其作为肉铺时期的原始墙砖，直到店主劳拉·梅·威尔逊（Laura May Wilson）为其注入魔力；她提供蛋糕、汤和三明治，并拥有一家设计商店。
邓赛尔，南拉纳克郡（向西南 20 英里） 小斯巴达（Little Sparta）是伊恩·汉密尔顿·芬利（Ian Hamilton Finlay）非凡的雕塑花园，曾被 Eowyn 风暴摧毁，水渠受损，围栏被毁。经过众筹和艰苦的修复工作，这里现已在 6 月至 9 月重新向公众开放。现在是参观这个艺术追求与脆弱自然碰撞的神奇之地的最佳时机。刻在石头上的作品和其他令人惊喜的装置与远处的景观融为一体，散发着历史的气息（£15; littlesparta.org.uk）。
爱丁堡 最佳 一日游
加拉希尔斯 (Galashiels)，苏格兰边区 (Scottish Borders)（向南 27 英里）：离开爱丁堡并不意味着要抛弃世界级的建筑。边区乡村到处都是由彼得·沃默斯利 (Peter Womersley) 打造的粗野主义宝藏，这位英国建筑师在六十年代和七十年代将苏格兰视为他的游乐场。首先前往加拉仙地安流浪者足球俱乐部 (Gala Fairydean Rovers FC) 的内瑟代尔体育场 (Netherdale stadium)，那里的看台看起来像是用纸折叠而成，而非混凝土。然后前往西南 3 英里外的贝尔纳特·克莱因工作室 (Bernat Klein Studio) 朝圣，该工作室于 1972 年为塞尔维亚纺织设计师设计——目前因在进行修复而关闭，但其位于林间峡谷的严谨悬臂结构仍值得从路边一瞥。在回程途中，顺道访问
为什么我每年家庭度假每晚花费 £1,200
封面：THP CREATIVE / GETTY IMAGES。P2-3：IAIN MASTERTON，PORRIDGE PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY；DENNIS BARNES / GETTY IMAGES
Ikos 酒店并不便宜，但额外的支出为劳拉·克雷克 (Laura Craik) 换来了心境的平和与全包式奢华
家庭度假噩梦？我经历过几次。在马略卡岛的那次，始于一只神秘的手从楼上窗户出现，终于一次入室盗窃。在伊比萨岛的那次，承诺是私人别墅，结果却与房东共用，其中一位房东喜欢在泳池边闲聊她女儿的吸毒问题和她丈夫的绝症。在被强行带到洗衣房洗衣服（“我不能让你在无人看管的情况下使用机器——那是美诺 Miele”）之后，我决定我受够了自助式别墅。从现在起，全程入住酒店。
但有些度假也同样是灾难。在罗得岛那家所谓的四星级酒店房间被污水淹没后，我决定将生活“奢华最大化” (luxemaxx)。或者至少在其中一周这么做。我不记得 Ikos 是如何进入我的生活的，只记得我几乎不记得没有它的生活。公平地说，有这种感觉的人不止我一个。Ikos 的崇拜之风真实存在，其成员就像任何 Swiftie（泰勒·斯威夫特粉丝）一样忠诚。自 2015 年推出以来，这家希腊连锁酒店致力于重新定义全包式概念。从粉丝的忠诚度来看，它成功了。
可以随心所欲地饮用冰咖啡、Aperol spritz 喷洒酒和气泡水，这感觉很疯狂，但大多数客人都不会过度利用。
然而，我不会用这个词来描述少数客人的行为。当一些人面对琳琅满目的“免费”东西时，会发生一件有趣的事：他们没有在慷慨中放松，反而变得具有攻击性的贪婪。那张桌子上有龙虾。为什么我们没有龙虾？诸如此类。还有一些客人觉得无条件的奢华仍然不够奢华。这些年来，我听过有人抱怨海滩碎石太多，孩子的滑梯不够多，或者抹茶不是“五星级品质”。
作为一个习惯在脑海中计算支出与收入的人，我无法形容五天不用这么做时那种甜蜜的解脱感。每当我在泳池边点一杯法式奶昔 (frappé)，将一个鸡蛋滑入早餐盘中，或被端上一杯含有品牌烈酒的鸡尾酒时，我都能感到一阵感激之情。
从左上起顺时针方向：滕茨穆尔 (Tentsmuir) 的海滩；邓克尔德 (Dunkeld) 和泰河 (River Tay)；库洛斯村 (Culross village)；在 Lost Shore 冲浪
阿罗查尔，阿盖尔和比特郡（向西北 62 英里） 对于想要舒展筋骨的徒步旅行者来说，留在东部很有吸引力，且事实确实如此，位于爱丁堡市中心西南 10 英里的彭特兰山脉拥有无穷的魅力。但若想领略西高地之壮丽，请早起前往西北方向两小时车程的 Cobbler 山。这座山也被称为 Ben Arthur，其 7 英里的路线蜿蜒穿过岩峰和古老的冰斗，在 884 米（2,900 英尺）的顶峰登顶后，再经由一条寂静的山谷回到停车场。在晴天里，顶部的景色会让你觉得整个苏格兰就是你个人的王国。
拉索，米德洛锡安（向西 8 英里） 在 Lost Shore 释放你的能量，这是英国首个内陆冲浪度假村。你可以在这里轻松度过一整天而不会感到厌倦，从冲浪课程开始（£65 起），随后是水疗护理和桑拿（45 分钟护理 £45 起），然后是在备受推崇的 Civerinos 披萨店买一片海鲜披萨（£6），或者在厨房和炸鸡吧吃点东西（主菜 £12 起）。这里还有一个面向所有水平的滑板学院。一系列胶囊房和度假屋让过夜变得简单（仅限房间的双人间 £105 起；lostshore.com）。
在某些方面，Ikos 提供两种等级的奢侈体验，这让自己陷入了某种困境。在致力于 Ikos 的 Facebook 群组中，关于“豪华级”和“非豪华级”之间质量差异的争论十分激烈。豪华类别包括升级菜单、礼宾服务、精选水疗护理、海滩用餐以及专属的泳池和海滩区域，每人的费用可能多出数千英镑。在 Ikos 网站上，它被描述为“为那些追求更多的人而设”。更多什么？我意识到这可能是一个不受欢迎的观点，但在我看来，豪华选项就像是一个给那些永远不满足、且总是想看看别人是否拥有更好东西的人的信号。在某个 Facebook 群组中，有一个讨论线程在争论豪华级客人是否在“每家餐厅都拥有前排座位”，写这段话的人大概认为自己是安娜·温图尔。也许他们确实如此。
Ikos 并不便宜。在马略卡岛的 Porto Petro（见右图），其最昂贵的度假村，四卧室别墅在旺季每晚费用超过 £8,000。但也有空间较小且更便宜的选择。对于一个四口之家，我每晚为家庭房支付的最低费用通常为 £1,200。有时这比我一周的收入还多。作为一名自由撰稿人，我的收入波动很大，这就是为什么我每次只预订最低限度的五晚。即便如此，我的 Ikos 习惯也占据了我收入的一大部分。但为了在入住期间感受到没有任何糟糕的事情会发生，这一切都是值得的。基本上，我是在花额外的钱让人们对我友善——你要么能理解这一点，要么不能。也许人们全年都对你很友善。也许你不是一个背着房贷、职业不稳、有两个青少年和一个整天盯着你想要东西的狗的更年期女性。我去过其他全包式酒店，但没有一家是相同的，很大程度上是因为它们其实并不是全包的。一家酒店对特定菜肴额外收费，而另一家则吹嘘有一整家餐厅，由于某种只有它自己知道的原因，该餐厅不包含在方案内。如果你最后还得在订购 Stolichnaya 伏特加还是无品牌本地“油漆剥离剂”之间疯狂计算酒吧账单，那么去全包式度假就毫无意义。
Tentsmuir海滩，法夫郡（向东北 35 英里）在附近东洛锡安北部的隆起地带，有无数金色的沙滩供你选择：Gullane Bents非常适合水上运动；北伯威克的西海滩非常适合漫步；Yellowcraig的天然小海湾则被草地沙丘所环绕。但如果你再向北走一点，就能在三英里长的Tentsmuir海滩发现这一切，而且这里几乎没有人。一边是维护良好的森林，有许多适合遛狗的小径；而另一边，泰河口一直延伸到地平线。位于水域与森林之间的Salt and Pine可丽饼小店，可以为你提供精致的零食和优质咖啡 (saltandpine.co.uk)。
我开玩笑的：温图尔和她那一类人不会选择全包式度假。他们都忙着在私人别墅里度假。但那样有什么乐趣呢？对于那些认为真正的奢华在于远离他人的人来说，当然可以租一栋带有两个无边泳池和私人厨师的偏远房产。但对于那些认为观察他人是度假中最被低估的乐趣的人来说，没有什么比入住一家高端酒店更有吸引力的了。当然，宁静与平和很棒，但你是否曾对一个来自丹麦的家庭产生浓厚兴趣——他们看起来就像是出演一部由妮可·基德曼主演、背景设定在蒙托克的HBO高清剧集中的角色？
在Ikos，全包式就意味着真正的全包。客房服务？包含在内。儿童俱乐部？包含在内（但不适用于 3 岁以下儿童）。租车？包含一天。如果你想在早餐、午餐和晚餐时都享用三道菜的正餐，工作人员也不会眨
封面：开普敦坎普湾的十二使徒山脉
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机票，5 星全包海滩度假村及水上飞机接送
直飞航班，1 晚卑尔根酒店（含早餐），11 晚 Hurtigruten 邮轮之旅（含全食宿）及私人接送
直飞航班，4 星安提瓜全包海滩度假村及私人接送
直飞航班，3 至 4 + 星酒店，14 天租车及温哥华岛轮渡接送 • 探索维多利亚的海洋历史与滨水魅力 • 惊叹于落基山脉的青绿色湖泊与壮丽景色 • 参观奥肯纳根谷的酒庄
• 利用现场潜水点 特惠 20% 酒店折扣
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特惠 房间折扣 – 每家庭可节省超过 £1,500（五月半学期假期价格）
特惠 房间折扣 – 每对夫妇可节省超过 £350
– 每对夫妇可节省超过 £1,350
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直飞航班，12 天私人游，包含 11 晚 3 至 4 星级酒店，私人用车 / 司机及 12 餐，4 晚 4 星级以上海滩度假村含早餐及私人接送 • 在文化三角地带了解该国迷人的历史 特惠 房间折扣 – 每对夫妇可节省超过 £600
航班，游前 1 晚酒店含早餐，10 天导览小团探险游包含 7 晚酒店、1 晚传统帆船、1 晚卧铺火车、共享交通、领队、活动 / 远足及 13 餐及私人接送 • 在向南旅行时感受越南不断变换的景观
航班，3 晚 4 星级曼谷酒店，6 晚 4 星级以上普吉岛海滩度假村，4 晚 4 星级皮皮岛海滩度假村，含早餐及接送
航班，游前 1 晚 4 星级以上酒店及 7 天导览小团探险游包含 6 晚酒店、共享交通、领队、活动 / 远足及 15 餐 • 漫步于京都最著名的艺伎区祇园
特惠 房间折扣 – 每对夫妇可节省超过 £250
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Lauren 帮我们调整了日期，让我们得到了更优惠的机票价格。为我们节省了超过 £1,000！服务太棒了。
伦敦肯辛顿 (LONDON KENSINGTON) 020 7938 3939 020 7938 3444 伦敦城 (LONDON CITY) 020 7628 7628 020 7628 2345 伦敦金丝雀码头 (LONDON CANARY WHARF) 020 7147 5300 020 7147 5344 伦敦西区 (LONDON WEST END) 020 7408 9000 020 7408 9044 伦敦伊灵 (LONDON EALING) 020 8799 0400 020 8799 0447 伦敦里士满 (LONDON RICHMOND) 020 8799 0444 020 8799 0445 伦敦金斯顿 (LONDON KINGSTON) 0204 613 6000 0204 613 6044 阿伯丁 (ABERDEEN) 01224 578 600 01224 578 644 巴斯 (BATH) 01225 724 000 01225 724 044 贝尔法斯特 (BELFAST) 028 9027 1888 028 9027 1844 伯明翰 (BIRMINGHAM) 0121 236 1234 0121 236 3444 伯恩茅斯 (BOURNEMOUTH) 01202 411 600 01202 411 644 布莱顿 (BRIGHTON) 01273 715 500 01273 715 544 布里斯托 (BRISTOL) 0117 929 9000 0117 929 1036 剑桥 (CAMBRIDGE) 01223 461 600 01223 448 188
纽卡斯尔 (NEWCASTLE) 0191 261 2345 0191 261 7344 诺里奇 (NORWICH) 01603 216 216 01603 216 244 诺丁汉 (NOTTINGHAM) 0115 948 7700 0115 948 7744 牛津 (OXFORD) 01865 261 000 01865 261 044 雷丁 (READING) 0118 334 6500 0118 334 6544 谢菲尔德 (SHEFFIELD) 0114 349 9200 0114 349 9191 索利赫尔 (SOLIHULL) 0121 716 9000 0121 716 8999 南安普敦 (SOUTHAMPTON) 0238 251 4920 0238 251 4940 圣阿尔班斯 (ST ALBANS) 01727 807 700 01727 807 744 汤布里奇韦尔斯 (TUNBRIDGE WELLS) 01892 347 180 01892 347 200
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经济舱 商务舱
越南 £491# £2,456~ 斯里兰卡 £557† £1,999† 洛杉矶 £562# £2,885† 马尔代夫 £570† £2,184† 纽约 £583 £2,058‡ 东京 £585^ £2,399† 开普敦 £665~ £2,499† 悉尼 £690~ £3,399^ 温哥华 £765~ £1,871◊ 奥克兰 £899^ £3,499†
温彻斯特 (WINCHESTER) 01962 798 500 01962 798 444
温莎 01753 297 400 01753 297 444 伍斯特 01905 349 555 01905 349 600 约克 01904 942 900 01904 942 899
坎特伯雷 01227 865 700 01227 865 744 及其卡迪夫 02920 726 600 02920 726 644 卡莱尔 01228 471 100 01228 471 044 切姆斯福德 01245 961 400 01245 961 361 切尔滕纳姆 01242 437 372 01242 437 384 彻斯特 01244 888 777 01244 888 744 爱丁堡 0131 243 2800 0131 243 2844 埃克塞特 01392 458 200 01392 458 244 格拉斯哥 0141 353 2224 0141 353 2400 吉尔福德 01483 478 400 01483 478 444 欺德斯 0113 246 2200 0113 246 2244 利物浦 0151 221 9500 0151 221 9544 曼彻斯特 0161 839 6969 0161 839 3434 米尔顿凯恩斯 01908 348 400 01908 348 348
邮轮专家 020 7084 6502 企业旅行 020 7368 1499 团体旅行 020 7938 3858 旅行保险 020 7408 9005 签证与护照服务 020 7368 1504 婚礼与蜜月 020 7408 9008 间隔年与学生旅行 020 7084 6530 私人导览 020 7084 6504
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通话可能会被录音以用于准确性检查及培训
价格为每人双人间标准，含伦敦出发航班（详情请致电），视供应情况而定，且仅适用于未来 6 周内的指定出发日期，但以下日期除外：~8 - 30 Sep #1 Oct - 30 Nov ^1 Dec - 15 Dec 26 †7 Jan - 31 Mar 27 ◊1 Apr - 30 Jun 27 ‡July 27。*价格基于 2 名成人及 2 名 12 岁以下儿童出行。酒店、邮轮、旅游及航班价格为动态价格，随消费者需求和出行季节实时波动。价格不含任何适用的当地税费。所有信息在 30 Jul 26 印发时均正确无误。
PABLO BLAZQUEZ DOMINGUEZ / GETTY IMAGES; ABDUL SABOOR / REUTERS; BOUGIOTIS EVANGELOS / EPA
野火
——您需要了解的信息
Chris Haslam 探讨了相关领域
欧盟的官方火险地图现显示，超过 30 per cent 的欧洲
卡利姆诺斯岛的火势已得到控制，而消防员仍在扑灭帕罗斯岛的一场大火。
陆地面积面临野火的高风险。如果您在接下来的几周内计划前往那里，以下是您需要了解的信息。
上周土耳其爆发的六场重大火灾中有五场已得到控制，而位于博德鲁姆以东 60 英里处的奇内的一场大火仍处于失控状态。葡萄牙北部的查韦斯和维拉兰德洛正在发生严重的野火。在意大利，西西里岛和卡拉布里亚的大片地区在燃烧，撒丁岛、南部的皮门特尔和北部的帕德鲁也出现了快速蔓延的火灾。
其页面上关于法国和西班牙的声明告诉旅行者请遵循当局的指示，检查
销售欧洲骑行和徒步度假产品的 Headwater 表示：“只要对客户的假期产生任何干扰或潜在影响，我们的团队将直接联系受影响的客户，以提供适当的支持和指导。”
如果依然可用，您将无法收回这些款项。
法国
以获取更新信息
如果您的保单包含行程中断或自然灾害保障，您可以申请取消或缩短行程的赔付；即使不包含此类保障，您通常仍享有紧急医疗救治以及财物丢失或遗弃的保障。取消机票或住宿的退款应首先向航空公司、旅行社或住宿提供商申请，并请注意，通过信用卡进行的任何预订可能也有可回收的成本。一如既往，您应查阅保单文件以了解详细的保障范围。如果您是近期购买的旅游险，请留意“已知事件”条款——如果可以证明您在购买保单时已知晓山火情况，该条款可能会减少甚至使保障失效。
应急服务及求救电话。
预测警告称，极端风险将至少持续接下来的 14 天。来自 EFFIS 山火风险查看器 (forest-fire.emergency. copernicus.eu) 的数据显示，以下地区已发布红色警报：几乎整个西班牙海岸；法国西南部；意大利西部和中部、撒丁岛及西西里岛；希腊和塞浦路斯的大部分地区；以及土耳其爱琴海沿岸的大部分地区。葡萄牙气象局 IPMA 已将该国 308 个市镇中的 103 个列为最高警戒状态，风险最高地区位于该国北部和西部。
住宿提供商 Sawday’s（同时拥有 Canopy & Stars）建议直接联系物业所有者以获取最新信息。
Brittany Ferries 表示，他们正在联系计划在未来一周前往任何受山火影响地区的套装度假客户，以“讨论他们的选择”，但对于仅购买渡轮票的客户，将适用标准的修改和取消条款。
葡萄牙请访问 fogos.pt，意大利请访问 mappe. protezionecivile.gov.it，希腊请访问 civilprotection. gov.gr。在全欧洲，所有手机（包括在英国注册的手机）只要在 4G 或 5G 基站覆盖范围内开启且开启了国际漫游，都将收到紧急疏散警报。该警报（带有横幅消息的警报音，会覆盖静音或勿扰设置）将来自法国的 FR-Alert、西班牙的 ESAlert、葡萄牙的 SMS-Protecao Civil、意大利的 IT-Alert 以及希腊的 112。
Eurocamp、Siblu 和 Jet2 拒绝发表评论。
如果我想取消， 我的权利是什么？
检查您的保险是否涵盖自然灾害。
别墅专家 Oliver’s Travels 表示，公司正与受影响地区附近的物业所有者保持联系，以掌握最新进展。该公司称：“如果我们发现任何对预订的潜在影响，我们的客户服务团队将直接联系每位客人讨论后续步骤。”
由于外交部尚未建议不要前往
西班牙的卫星图像显示，西班牙境内有 100 多个火点在燃烧，但随着 Sierra Oeste 火灾得到控制，目前没有一个被评为 3 级（严重指数的最高级别），仅有四个被评为 2 级：一个在 Sierra Oeste，两个在 Leon，一个在 Zamora。本季度西班牙已报告 350 场以上的山火；历史同期平均值为 211 场。
受火灾影响的地区，旅行社和代理商会将取消请求视为“不愿出行”。这意味着您不能指望获得退款，但可能能够协商一个折中方案，例如推迟出发日期。
您可以在以下网站找到针对特定国家的信息：西班牙 incendios españa.es，法国 meteo france.com，
来自官方渠道的实用建议基本缺失。外交部仅提供了简短的
如果火势蔓延到林冠层或在峡谷中形成风洞，野火的移动速度可高达每小时 20 英里。这相当于每英里三分钟的速度，因此如果您收到撤离指令，就绝不能浪费时间。请提前规划撤离路线，确认车钥匙的位置，并准备好一个装有护照、驾驶证、宠物文件、手机、充电器、充足的水、处方药以及任何您不愿遗留之物的随身包。FFP3 级别的口罩将减轻吸入烟雾的影响，急救箱也可能会派上用场。
法国露营公司 Yelloh! Village 已将其在吉龙德省四个公园内的 3,000 名客人们撤离。该公司表示：“受影响的客户将直接收到相关信息。对于已被撤离的客人，Yelloh! Village 将退还所有无法使用的住宿房夜费。”
如果政府建议不要前往该地且您预订了包价旅游——即包含交通、住宿及租车等其他组成部分的套餐——根据《包价旅游条例》，您有权获得全额退款或重新预订后续日期的机会。
希腊 上周晚些时候，强风引发了希腊全境的野火激增。其中最严重的一起火灾迫使克里特岛雷西姆诺的阿吉亚·帕拉斯凯维地区撤离了 8,000 名游客。在科林斯湾，500 名游客被困在海滨村庄阿吉奥斯·瓦西莱奥斯，而另一场大火在伯罗奔尼撒的米基内斯爆发。安德罗斯岛和
如果您分别预订了机票、房间和其他项目，情况就不那么简单了，因为即使您的酒店关闭并有权为您退款，但如果您的航班、轮渡、火车或长途巴士仍在运行，且所有其他项目均
从上至下：直升机机组人员在处理马德里附近野火时从水池中取水；法国拉卡诺的居民在与大火搏斗；希腊伯罗奔尼撒米基内斯的火灾
与长假相比，短途旅行有许多优势。它们
T
短小精悍
价格更实惠，且不需要请这么多假。长周末也更容易在最后一刻临时安排，这非常方便，因为我们现在的临期预订似乎比以往任何时候都多。
凯西·亚当斯探讨为何前往墨西哥和百慕大等远地的四晚短途游成为最新的度假趋势，以及如何实现。
短途旅行还能加快您的度假节奏。由于只有几天时间，度假的倦怠感还没来得及产生，因此您更倾向于将其变成一个“超级周末”。这意味着可以将一天的时间填满观光活动，参观热门的新美术馆或探索不同的街区，然后预订最好的餐厅和酒吧。
少于六晚。有些人甚至走得更远：Booking.com 的航班搜索数据显示，当日往返国际航班的搜索量同比增长了 62 ％。
“假期是一项重大的财务决定，”First Choice 总经理凯文·尼尔森说。“短途游让客户能够根据天气做出反应并控制成本。对许多人来说，四天的假期是体验夏季的完美方式，而无需承诺进行更长时期的度假。”
这是一个趋势。但我们具体在怎么做？我与旅行社和代理商探讨了我们现在的度假方式。
而且，无论您是进行城市短途游、邮轮游还是冒险之旅，这似乎正成为“超级周末”的时代。在 2025 年的《假期信心指数》中，保险公司安联伙伴（Allianz Partners）报告称，73 ％的美国人计划进行此类度假；而就英国国内度假而言，Sykes Holiday Cottages 发现其 2025 年的一半预订时长少于
去年，Intrepid Travel 推出了“短途旅行”（Short Breaks）系列，旨在吸引那些希望在四到六天的假期中获得最大体验、不愿浪费时间的旅行者。而且我们讨论的不仅仅是短途航线
自春季以来，旅行社 First Choice 观察到四晚短途旅行的需求激增，其中西班牙的伊比萨岛和兰萨罗特岛，以及希腊的罗德岛和克里特岛是最热门的预订目的地，这表明人们渴望快速的阳光海滩度假之旅。
— 还有前往危地马拉徒步火山、前往墨西哥奇琴伊察以及前往布拉格享受温泉的旅程。
“在……之时，较短的行程提供了灵活性”
点燃灵魂的文化律动
让今年夏天成为你通过精彩活动探索苏格兰的季节。
扫描以查找最新优惠并规划您的夏季旅行，或搜索 visitscotland.com / summer 了解更多信息。
城市度假目的地，如慕尼黑、塞维利亚和维罗纳，其受欢迎程度正在上升，而巴塞罗那、阿姆斯特丹和罗马等城市则相对下降。
同样，目标客户为 Z 世代的旅行公司 WeRoad 提供了两到四晚的周末行程，目的地包括雅典、布达佩斯和里加。
受欢迎程度有所提高。Quint 表示，如果游轮的起点和终点都在英国，则可豁免欧盟的入境 / 出境系统（Entry / Exit System）检查，该系统自 4 月正式实施以来在一些欧洲边境导致了长队。游轮在英国已开始兴起，尤其是前往布鲁日和阿姆斯特丹等城市圣诞市场的航线。
ARCADY 31, MATEJ PALUH, DIEGO GRANDI / GETTY IMAGES
将布达佩斯与多瑙河沿岸较小众的城镇结合起来，开启一次匈牙利短途旅行。此次由导游陪同的团体行程包括布达佩斯著名景点的导览，以及乘坐大巴前往该国前皇家首都埃斯特尔戈姆，以及拥有 13 世纪堡垒和森林徒步路线的迷人小镇维舍格勒。可选的额外项目包括传统民俗之夜，以及将访问薰衣草农场与巴拉顿湖相结合的行程，最后一天晚上将在多瑙河上享受日落巡航。可从多个区域机场出发。详情：四晚 B&B 每人 £790 起，包含机票、接送、导游及游览项目 (newmarket holidays.co.uk)
度假者也在利用欧洲铁路网络在短时间内尽可能多地游览。短途旅行专家 Kirker 表示，旅行者正利用长周末将巴黎与波尔多、马德里与塞维利亚，以及佛罗伦萨与罗马等城市配对游览。该公司还指出，“二线”
Kirker 的营销负责人 Patrick Millar 总结道：“如今旅行过程本身已不再那么令人兴奋，所以为什么不在抵达目的地后充分利用时间呢？”
TravelTime World 在赫特福德郡的旅行总监 Ashley Quint 表示，人们预订的短途旅行并不总是城市度假。他报告称，人们甚至在预订短期的海滩假期，并补充道：“我们发现一些家庭将主要假期分开，可能会安排一个长周末，以避开前往马略卡岛、特内里费岛和阿尔加维等热门海滩度假胜地在半学期假期期间最昂贵的机票价格。”
在伊斯特拉乡村中，入住被葡萄园和橄榄林环绕的优雅 Relais & Châteaux 酒店——梅内盖蒂庄园（Meneghetti Estate），体验一场以美食为中心的极致奢享之行。行程包含一次五道菜的顶级美食晚餐，以及由导游带领的庄园葡萄酒和橄榄油品鉴会。此外还设有时尚的水疗中心、网球场、高尔夫练习场，并提供前往亚德里亚海沿岸附近海滩俱乐部的免费班车。山顶小镇维齐纳达和拥有罗马圆形剧场的普拉仅需短距离车程即可到达。详情：三晚 B&B 每人 £1,845 起，包含机票、租车、活动及部分额外餐饮 (regentholidays.co.uk)
主图：多瑙河畔的布达佩斯；克罗地亚梅内盖蒂庄园的泳池；多伦多市中心
小型游轮也在兴起
在凉爽的加拿大城市多伦多，利用一个快节奏的周末尽情游览当地景点、购物中心和博物馆。入住四星级切尔西酒店（Chelsea Hotel），
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想要在无需担心时差的周末进行一次潜水课吗？在北大西洋的百慕大群岛即可实现，这里距离伦敦飞行 7 小时，时差 4 小时。四星级的 Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa 拥有 21 英亩的热带花园、两块私人海滩、一个游船码头，以及一个位于 500,000 年历史洞穴中的水疗中心。设有徒步路线和红树林池塘的沃尔辛厄姆自然保护区 (Walsingham Nature Reserve) 距离此处仅需划皮划艇即可到达，海滩附近还有一艘沉没的驳船可供潜水。百慕大的首府汉密尔顿 (Hamilton) 距离此处约 8 英里。详情：三晚仅限房费每人 £1,884 起，含机票 (britishairways.com)
希腊圣托里尼岛的 Oia 村；右下为摩洛哥撒哈拉沙漠的沙丘
ALLARD1, SCSTOCK / GETTY IMAGES
您将能够步行前往 CN Tower、皇家安大略博物馆和美食聚集地圣劳伦斯市场 (St Lawrence Market)。可以漫步至港口，搭乘 15 分钟的渡轮前往多伦多群岛，享受湖滨海滩、划皮划艇和游乐园。甚至还有时间进行 90 分钟的尼亚加拉大瀑布之旅，并在回程途中绕道尼亚加拉-奥克湖 (Niagara-on-the-Lake) 的葡萄园品尝加拿大葡萄酒。详情：三晚仅限房费每人 £777 起，含机票 (virginatlantic.com)
前往摩洛哥的撒哈拉沙漠，开启一段为期四晚的清单级逃离之旅。抵达马拉喀什后，您将加入一个小团，行驶 3 个多小时抵达瓦尔扎扎特 (Ouarzazate) 过夜，随后在撒哈拉沙漠深处的偏远营地星空下度过两个夜晚。行程包括在熊熊篝火旁的晚餐、4x4 越野车远足和沙丘徒步。如壁纸般绝美的日落自然不在话下。详情：四晚半食宿（两晚酒店，两晚沙漠营地）每人 £412 起，含境内交通、活动及部分额外餐食 (gadventures.com)。飞往马拉喀什。行程由 Siobhan Grogan 策划。
通过 Celestyal 游轮的三晚旅程，完整体验跳岛之行，行程涵盖了惊人的 5 个港口和 2 个国家。在从雅典出发的往返旅程中，您将首晚在米科诺斯 (Mykonos) 停留，随后访问土耳其城镇库沙达什 (Kusadasi) 逛巴扎、走海滩，并有机会参观以弗所 (Ephesus) 古迹，接着前往帕特莫斯 (Patmos) 岛和克里特岛的伊拉克里昂 (Heraklion)。最后一站圣托里尼的时机恰到好处，可从该岛著名的火山口峭壁上欣赏日落。如果您有时间，船上还设有泳池、水疗中心和全天候娱乐活动。详情：三晚全食宿每人 £349 起，含小费 (celestyal.com)。飞往雅典。
在这次快速前往尼斯 (Nice) 的旅程中，通过欧洲之星 (Eurostar) 从伦敦经巴黎出发，您将及时抵达尼斯的一家四星级酒店，在老城享用海鲜晚餐。白天可以悠闲地逛逛小镇的鹅卵石街道、市场和咖啡馆林立的广场，登上城堡山 (Castle Hill) 俯瞰海景，并参观著名的马蒂斯博物馆 (Musée Matisse) (£10; museematisse-nice.org)。可通过当地火车进一步探索海岸线；戛纳 (Cannes) 和摩纳哥 (Monaco) 均在半小时车程内。详情：三夜 B&B 每人 £420 起，含从伦敦出发的铁路交通 (byway.travel)
前往卡尔索伊 (Kalsoy) 岛并参观 98 英尺高的 Bosdalafossur 瀑布。您甚至可以透过
位于苏格兰和冰岛之间的北大西洋偏远群岛，法罗群岛 (Faroe Islands) 距离英国飞行两小时即可到达，是一个便捷的微冒险目的地。由 Intrepid 组织的四晚小团之旅从世界上最小的首都之一托尔斯港 (Torshavn) 出发，行程包括徒步攀登 Slaettaratindur 山、乘坐渡轮
在温馨的农舍里享用传统的法罗群岛家常餐。
详情：四晚 B&B 每人 £2,156 起，含
白天可以悠闲地逛逛尼斯的鹅卵石街道
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立即购买，随后选择日期，旅行有效期至 2027 年 6 月 30 日
逃离到这座距离伦敦不到一小时车程的庄园，它在《Condé Nast Traveller》 2025 年读者选择奖中被评为欧洲第六大最佳度假村。
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莎拉·特纳 (Sarah Turner) 建议通过这六个拍摄地来追踪这部大片的制作过程
这是今年最终极的“电影set-jet”挑战。克里斯托弗·诺兰的《奥德赛》在规模上与荷马的史诗般雄心勃勃，该片在六个国家取景。露皮塔·尼永奥 (Lupita Nyong’o) 前往摩洛哥饰演特洛伊的海伦；安妮·海瑟薇 (Anne Hathaway) 乘坐直升机前往意大利一个小岛的山顶；而饰演奥德修斯的马特·达蒙 (Matt Damon) 几乎无处不在。当然，地中海地区（包括希腊部分地区）也出现在片中，但诺兰还加入了一些非常出人意料的地点，包括苏格兰和冰岛。以下是如何成为一名《奥德赛》追随者的指南。
—— 诺兰使用了芬德莱特城堡 (Findlater Castle)，这座城堡建于 13 世纪的岬角上，用于抵御挪威入侵者（免费开放；findlatercastle.com）。福雷斯 (Forres) 附近的库尔宾森林 (Culbin Forest) 则成为了奥德修斯与巨人莱斯特律贡人遭遇战的背景。
这里是女神基尔克 (Circe) 的居所，由萨曼莎·莫顿 (Samantha Morton) 饰演。
近期，西西里岛西北海岸的埃加迪群岛 (Egadi Islands) 成为了追求清凉的意大利人低调的夏季避暑胜地，而周围海域的超级游艇则服务于现代的“食莲者”。诺兰将遥远的 9 世纪圣卡特琳娜城堡 (Castello di Santa Caterina) 用作奥德修斯的妻子佩内洛普 (Penelope) 及其儿子特勒马库斯 (Telemachus) 在伊萨卡 (Ithaca) 的家。包括诺兰及其妻子、制片人艾玛·托马斯 (Emma Thomas) 在内的大多数工作人员，选择每天徒步 30 分钟到达圣卡特琳娜，演员们则穿着全套戏服完成徒步。Imax 摄像机由直升机运送至现场。
演职人员似乎也很喜欢这个取景地。诺兰住在库伦的 Seafield Arms 酒店，而戴蒙则住在酒店旁边的一栋四卧室小屋 Bow Cottage 中，并参观了米德洛锡安雪上运动中心。详情：仅限房间的双人间 £150 起 (seafieldarms cullen.co.uk)
奥德赛之旅揭秘
当奥德修斯及其船员在失踪 20 年后返回希腊时，戴蒙在桑尼赛德海滩登陆，该地位于亚伯丁西北约一小时车程的摩里湾。这里有一片被悬崖环绕的细腻白沙滩，这片崎岖的苏格兰地区还被用作厄耳俄斯城堡的背景。
古典主义者喜欢争论法维尼亚纳是否就是荷马在描述奥德修斯抵达此处享用山羊肉并为航行储备物资时所指的那个岛屿——其希腊语名称 Aegusa 意为“山羊岛”。
以及哈撒韦一同到位。“我已经准备好穿靴子出发了，”她说道，并解释说一项行政决定判定她不应徒步。“对此我感到很糟糕，但同时也觉得很棒。”
从地热面包房到在构造板块之间浮潜。详情：七晚 B&B 每人 £2,225 起，包含机票、活动及租车 (stubbornmule.com)
SVEN HANSCHE, ALBUM, IAIN MASTERTON / ALAMY
诺兰利用位于西西里岛北海岸外第勒尼亚海的埃奥利群岛，来描绘风之王埃欧鲁斯的浮岛。七个埃奥利群岛各自拥有极具个性的地貌，非常适合表现地理上的动荡，从充满硫磺气息的弗尔卡诺岛（真实的）到巨大的漩涡（为电影效果而创造）。而《奥德赛》中最具辨识度的道具——重建的维京长船“德拉肯·哈拉尔德·哈弗加格”号，去年夏天在利帕里岛附近可见。
Zu Nillu 的业主并未透露在拍摄期间有哪些演员入住其别墅，但这里本身就具有星级品质。这里有四间充满古董的卧室、一个游泳池和花园。除了绝对的私密性，这里还有露台，可以俯瞰卡拉罗萨湾的永恒美景，远处是地中海的电蓝色海水和其他埃加迪群岛。
在阿特拉斯山脉的脚下，古老的泥砖村艾特本哈杜已经习惯了电影带来的名声，它曾出现在《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》、《角斗士》以及《权力的游戏》中。该村庄同意扮演特洛伊，前提是《奥德赛》的技术人员必须谨慎确保在城镇被洗劫时仅烧毁布景。部分场景也在西撒哈拉的达赫拉拍摄，该地区是大部分由 摩洛哥 控制的争议领土。电影中的特洛伊木马在马拉喀什西部的热门度假胜地索维拉登陆。
包裹在海边山坡上的科林斯卫城，以及梅塞尼亚的梅索尼城堡（£4; methonicastle.gr）——阿伽门农回到克吕泰涅斯特拉身边的地方——均在片中出现，令人惊叹的圆形沙滩沃伊多基利亚同样在列。在海滩上方，虽然需要艰苦徒步一段距离，是另一个关键取景地——20 米高的内斯托尔洞穴，在电影中被用作独眼巨人的巢穴。
今年，行程将配备一名古希腊历史专家导游。详情：在 Romanos 酒店的三晚 B&B 每人 £1,200 起，包含机票和接送 (scottdunn.com)
详情：八人七晚自炊住宿 £7,499 起 (thethinkingtraveller.com)
剧组的核心成员住在利帕里的 Hotel Carasco，这是一个深受喜爱的 20 世纪 60 年代遗迹，拥有海水泳池、通往地中海洗浴平台的阶梯，以及简洁的卧室和在其 Le Terrazze 餐厅提供的不加掩饰的浪漫且地道的意大利美食。详情：B&B 双人间起
飞往巴勒莫并乘坐轮渡从
由于冰岛作为中学的一个热门科目，它得到了许多家庭的关注。现在，得益于诺兰在片中使用冰岛来塑造哈迪斯，父母们可以在其中加入一些古典文化的熏陶。大部分动作戏集中在黑沙滩 Reynisfjara，靠近 Hjorleifshofo 和维克 (Vik) 村。它就在黄金圈驾驶路线附近，很容易抵达，而且家庭假期还可以包括前往
特拉帕尼 (Trapani)
伯罗奔尼撒半岛崎岖的地貌依然充满了神话色彩，而且很方便的是，那里有一些极其奢华的下榻之所。在拍摄期间，演员和剧组人员住在 30 分钟车程外的 Costa Navarino，那里有四家豪华酒店，包括 Romanos——这里提供特别的奥德赛套餐
Le Jardin des Douars 位于埃索维拉 (Essaouira) 郊外的阿甘树林环绕之中，是典型的摩洛哥式奢华体验，拥有两家餐厅、游泳池和水疗中心。详情：B&B 双人间 £190 起 (mrandmrssmith.com)。飞往埃索维拉
主图：希腊的梅索尼城堡 (Methoni Castle)；马特·达蒙 (Matt Damon) 和 赞达亚 (Zendaya)
£208 (carasco.org)。飞往卡塔尼亚 (Catania) 并从米拉佐 (Milazzo) 乘渡轮前往
在荷马的故乡，诺兰选择聚焦于伯罗奔尼撒，尤其是皮洛斯 (Pylos) 周边地区。
片中；莫雷峡湾 (Moray Firth) 的 Findlater 城堡
Sandals Barbados
7 晚全包价起
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绯红金刚鹦鹉，哥斯达黎加
在六个壮丽的哥斯达黎加国家公园和保护区中，重新与未被驯服的自然世界建立联系，行程包括展示巍峨的火山、沿海泻湖和茂密的热带雨林地带。
往返圣何塞 (San José) 的机票
全程舒适的空调巴士旅行及接送服务
随后是壮观的阿雷纳尔 (Arenal) 之行，入住其国家公园郊区私人保护区内的度假村。漫步于火山口，惊叹于阿雷纳尔火山的壮丽，并在其温泉中放松身心。通过参观当地巧克力种植园并参加巧克力制作课程，探索可可豆的文化意义。在前往西部的蒙特韦尔德 (Monteverde) 迷人云雾森林保护区之前，您可以在阿雷纳尔度假村选择多种可提前预订的自选游览活动。
节奏舒缓的系列国家公园之行将向您展示哥斯达黎加的自然空间和生物多样生态系统。旅程的起止点都设在国家首都圣何塞 (San José)，这里拥有 19 世纪的建筑。前往附近的波阿斯火山国家公园 (Poás Volcano National Park)，初步领略哥斯达黎加最震撼的自然景观，并探索多卡咖啡庄园 (Doka Coffee Estate) 的历史。
在游览圣何塞之后，穿过布劳利奥·卡里略国家公园 (Braulio Carrillo National Park) 的林地，前往大西洋沿岸。入住位于沿海托尔图盖罗 (Tortuguero) 核心地带的 Pachira Lodge 沉浸式生态旅馆，您将有机会与当地社区交流，并通过访问海龟保护中心了解该国的环保努力。随后沿着托尔图盖罗国家公园的后水域进行野生动物观测巡游，然后驱车前往萨拉皮基 (Sarapiqui)。在这里，您将揭秘哥斯达黎加最独特作物之一——心叶棕 (Heart of Palm) 的耕种技术，并拥抱该地区的雨林。在著名的 Iguanas 桥 (Puente de las Iguanas) 拍照留念，为您在该国北部地区的行程画上句号。
通过该地区的吊桥漫步在被薄雾覆盖的林冠之上，从高处探索哥斯达黎加的自然奇观。随后前往卡拉拉国家公园 (Carara National Park) —— 中美洲唯一的过渡林，以寻求更多机会观察一些最难以寻觅的物种和迁徙鸟类。在哥斯达黎加太平洋海岸做最后停留，探索该国最小的国家公园——曼努埃尔安东尼奥 (Manuel Antonio)，为这段难忘的野生动物观测之旅收尾。最后，在曼努埃尔安东尼奥享受海滩度假，然后返回圣何塞搭乘返程航班。
14 晚三星或四星级混合膳食住宿：圣何塞（两晚）、托尔图盖罗（两晚）、萨拉皮基（两晚）、阿雷纳尔（三晚）、蒙特韦尔德（两晚）和曼努埃尔安东尼奥（三晚），外加飞机上的一晚。
领略波阿斯火山国家公园的自然壮美和卡拉拉国家公园的生物多样性
享受蒙特韦尔德云雾森林保护区的向导漫步
参观阿雷纳尔温泉
由友善且经验丰富的旅行经理全程陪同
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哥斯达黎加，阿雷纳尔火山
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Travel Cruise
乘渡轮 游格陵兰
从加拿大出发，横跨拉布拉多海。
在我们两侧，粗糙的浮石山点缀着冰川，冰川向下延伸并汇入水中。
从伊卢利萨特 (Ilulissat) 到努克 (Nuuk) 的 450 英里路段；格陵兰邮轮通常至少需要一周时间，费用每人 4,000 英镑起。
以及一个休息区。我们的船舱并不宽敞，两组上下铺之间仅有的少量地面空间都被我们的背包占据了。但我们有一个圆窗和带淋浴的私人浴室。
船上的伙食以托盘形式供应，对于我和瓦尔这两个素食者来说，饮食就是米饭和土豆（没有酱汁）。其他人则享有一些无法辨认的肉类这种奢侈品。在 Sarfaq Ittuk 渡轮餐厅那被刮花的小窗户里，我能看到的只有一面水墙。每隔几秒钟，它就会被
伊路利萨特 (Ilulissat)
我们是一个四人小组。我的朋友凯尔勇于尝试任何事情，从未因为潜在的不适而拒绝过一次冒险。他信任我，但他的伴侣达伦在 fondly 回忆起那年他的全包式加勒比海游轮之旅时，一直以为我们要乘坐的是一艘规模大得多的船，可能还提供现饮的桃红葡萄酒。
西西米乌特 (Sisimiut) 玛尼托索克 (Maniitsoq)
格陵兰 (GREENLAND)
——以及鱼盘和畅饮皮娜科拉达鸡尾酒的记忆——这些从达伦的眼中消失了。
我们在日落中穿过伊路利萨特冰峡湾启航。许多冰山规模庞大，比渡轮还大，而且大多数冰山像刚看过牙医的抛光牙齿一样闪闪发光。不过，有些冰山覆盖着污垢。这些是从未崩解翻滚的冰山，依然带着它们作为世界移动速度最快的冰川之一——塞尔梅克·库雅莱克 (Sermeq Kujalleq) 冰川的一部分时覆盖在上面的污垢。有些冰山在从冰川脱离后能持续多年，这使得某些污垢相当古老。
努克 (Nuuk)
虽然餐食可能没达到米其林标准，但就像游轮一样（只不过环保得多——步行乘客乘坐渡轮的典型碳排放量仅为游轮上的一小部分），Sarfaq Ittuk 船定期停靠。大多数停靠时间短到几乎感觉不到脚下有稳固的地面，但在第二天上午 9 点，我们在西西米乌特停靠了两小时。
从上至下：伊路利萨特海域的一只鲸鱼尾鳍；Sarfaq Ittuk 渡轮；卡科托克 (Qaqortoq) 山坡上的房屋
第四位探险者是我的伴侣瓦尔。他需要时间来适应航海生活，而且他并不觉得我引用《泰坦尼克号》和《大白鲨》的台词——以及关于塞德娜 (Sedna) 的故事（这位因纽特海神在被父亲扔进深海之前被砍掉了所有手指）
卡科托克 (Qaqortoq)
200英里
——像我那样有趣。他的脸色看起来相当苍白。
这座曾经的捕鲸小镇是格陵兰的第二大城市，但这意味着人口大约只有 5,500 人。上午 9 点时，这里似乎几乎空无一人，只有几十只雪橇犬守在那些看起来像是用蜡笔套装中所有颜色的波纹铁皮搭建的房屋旁。覆盖着冰层的台阶通向一座 18 世纪的教堂（已被封板），剥落的木制雪橇斜靠在建筑物上。正当我们的腿不再打颤时，我们再次出发了。
船上的安全视频在公共餐厅几乎不停地播放，尽管它更像是一次礼仪简报。如果我们撞上冰山，或者一只巨齿鲨从深海出现，我肯定就没救了。不过，我知道我们不能在洗手间抽大麻，也不能醉酒闹事。大多数格陵兰乘客显然忽略了简报视频，并且正朝着大醉一场的目标前进。餐厅是大多数人整天逗留的地方，包括我们自己，不过还有一个电影室。
而在我们的船在北极涌浪中摇晃时，窗外则是荒芜的雪峰。我们猛地前倾去接住酒杯和 playing cards，在长凳的一侧与另一侧之间踉跄移动。很容易就能认出当地人：他们坚毅、稳固，随着船身轻盈地摇摆。
我们在太阳下山很久之后仍能看到冰山，但真正的表演在许多星星出现之前就已经开始了。格陵兰人说，北极光是迷路孩子的灵魂在用海象头骨踢足球。透过手机镜头看，那些光芒是令人眩晕的翠绿色；而用肉眼看，随着船身的摇晃，它们更接近于 Val 皮肤的颜色。
由 Arctic Umiaq Line 运营的 Sarfaq Ittuk 号每周在格陵兰西海岸往返一次，将北极圈内的伊鲁利萨特镇 (Ilulissat) 与西南部的峡湾城市卡科托克 (Qaqortoq) 连接起来。在这个最长公路仅 31 英里的国家，而且航班的延误程度让英国火车显得很准时的情况下，它通常是最可靠的交通方式。我支付了 £250 加上 £50 的餐饮附加费，参加这次 38 小时的，
在海岸线更南端的港口——例如该国越野滑雪之都马尼特索克 (Maniitsoq)——船体太大无法进入峡湾，因此下船或上船的乘客必须被放入橡皮艇中。
睡觉就像试图在咆哮的烈马背上入睡。我们剧烈但有节奏地从床铺的一端滑到另一端。奇怪的是，我发现自己被哄睡了。风暴之后总有平静，
那天晚上我们吃了更多的米饭和土豆，玩了更多的牌，喝了更多的酒（一种相当像醋的智利赤霞珠，每瓶 £30）。每天只有一种神秘肉类菜肴可选，或者在行程前预订的土豆基底素食替代方案，但酸黄瓜的种类之丰盛堪比酒店自助餐。
我通过弄丢船舱钥匙，并让三个男人清空他们的口袋和行李（钥匙就在我的钱包里）而脱颖而出。然后，我们像火鸡一样把自己捆起来，看着海象头骨足球场那亮绿色的灯光再次照亮天空。至于光污染，方圆几英里内没有定居点，所以完全没有。
我们的最后一站努克 (Nuuk) 在经历了峡湾之后令人震惊。这座首都拥有 20,000 人口，以及银行、公路和公寓楼。它感觉像伦敦
而我们的平静出现在早晨，当我们抵达峡湾，风浪不再
KENWIEDEMANN, OLGA GAVRILOVA / GETTY IMAGES; ROBERT WALLWORK / ALAMY
我通常只关注目的地，但这次旅行绝对是为了旅途本身。
Anna Richards 独立旅行。Arctic Umiaq Line 提供的 Sarfaq Ittuk 号从伊鲁利萨特到努克的两晚仅限房套餐每人 £250 起 (aul.org)。经哥本哈根或雷克雅未克飞往伊鲁利萨特。
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
当我的访问次数达到 30 次时，我就放弃计算去开普敦的次数了。我第一次去是在三十年前，当时我在一家专门从事低价机票、服务于背包客和思乡南非人的 Earls Court 旅行社工作。我在希思罗机场一个阴冷、雾浓的冬夜登上英国航空的飞机，次日早晨踏入盛夏之中，桌山 (Table Mountain) 散发出一种从未减弱的魔力吸引。这座“母亲之城”绝对有一种能让我的脚步轻快的特质，而且不仅仅是因为有利的汇率。在我位于伦敦西北角的街区慢悠悠地慢跑总是一件苦差事。但在一个阳光斑驳的早晨，沿着班特里湾 (Bantry Bay) 的大西洋海岸奔跑时，我的步伐却神奇地充满了活力，同时地规划着，如果我脑后潜伏的那部畅销小说能写完，我要买哪栋奢华的豪宅。
从左下角起顺时针方向依次为：Neighbourgoods 市场；Mount Nelson 酒店的泳池；坎普湾 (Camps Bay) 和十二使徒山 (Twelve Apostles)；7 Koppies 的小屋；克斯滕博施国家植物园 (Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden)
一个 30 年的
不幸的是，犯罪在南非是一个问题，尽管它通常发生在游客永远不会去的区域。我的建议是保持警觉但不要偏执。如果你租赁车辆，千万不要在车内放置任何可见之物。
开普十字军东征
多年来，我整理了一份与朋友分享的favorite地点清单，
如果你是第一次去，且在住宿预算上比较大方，Cape Grace 酒店应该是你的首选。一旦走进大门，你将感受到一种极其平静的体验，这里拥有典范级的服务、现代的设计以及极佳的地理位置（含早餐双人间 £799 起；fairmont.com）。这里距离 V&A Waterfront 仅几步之遥，在那里你可以找到许多商店、咖啡馆、餐厅以及前往罗本岛的渡轮。我也向我的岳父母推荐过这家酒店。
Will Hide 分享他在开普敦最喜爱的餐饮和住宿地点，这座城市对他有着神奇的吸引力
另一家具有“名门之姿”的竞争者是 Mount Nelson，自 1899 年开业以来便享有盛誉（含早餐双人间 £912 起；belmond.com）。这里充满热闹的氛围，这座被人们称为“粉红女士”的酒店几乎像一个独立的村庄。这里的历史气息并不压抑或陈腐，事实上反而有一种相当清新的活力。这在一些标志性的套房、Planet 酒吧（一杯当地起泡酒仅需 £7）以及 Amura 的海鲜主题晚餐中体现得最为明显，在那里，西班牙和南非的影响在著名西班牙厨师 Ángel León 的主持下融合在一起（主菜 £10 起）。即使你不住在这里，也可以进来喝个下午茶。请提前预订 (£29)，并可以随意穿得讲究一些以应对场合。
以及 Camps Bay，后者在海滨餐饮和饮酒场所方面更具优势，但这里的价格在圣诞节和新年期间会飙升。
这使得自助餐饮成为一个简单的选择。对于那些在熟悉的全球平台之外寻找方案的人，Nox Rentals 是一家我之前成功使用过的当地公司，其房源涵盖了从两人的隐秘小窝到适合多代同堂旅行或庆祝聚会的宽敞住宅。目前，其 Green Point 的一间两居室公寓两晚起价为 £212 (noxrentals.com)。
在市外，Llandudno 有一片绝佳的海滩；如果你已经去过开普洞几次并想尝试些新花样，Kalk Bay 每次我去时都显得更有活力，而且那里有我最喜欢的早餐咖啡馆——朴实无华的 Olympia，一个火腿芥末马苏里拉烤牛角面包售价 £3.30 (olympiacafe.co.za)。
卓越住宿 Zest 精品酒店将服务、设施和地理位置完美结合，且价格合理
开普敦的海滩是其魅力之一。Clifton 有四个海湾，背后是非洲最昂贵的房地产。Clifton Third beach 在 LGBT 群体中很受欢迎，Clifton Fourth 则更甚。
在开普敦的一大乐趣就是在外就餐，尤其是与英国相比，这里的性价比极高。在市中心吃早餐或早午餐，我的首选是 Bree Street 上的 Clarke’s。直接前往
谁会喜欢这里？从背包客到挥金如土者，这里有适合所有预算的餐饮和住宿选择
与家庭一起出行。附近的 Camps Bay 是摄影师的
我最近几次访问时的首选是 Zest 精品酒店，这是一个位于 Green Point 附近、拥有 14 间客房的小场所（含早餐双人间 £197 起；thelivingjourney collection.co.za）。这里有热情好客的员工和一个带有泳池的可爱花园，这在市内的中端酒店中并不常见。它提供相当不错的早餐，房间设计现代，部分房间的浴室与空间高度集成：这带来了一种开阔感，但如果你更喜欢隐私，则并不总是理想之选。
梦想之地，背后是十二使徒山脉，以及
一条由咖啡馆、餐厅和商店组成的街道。日落时分，Bloubergstrand 是拍摄以桌山为背景的经典照片的最佳去处。
“母城”的某些特质总能让我的脚步变得轻快
内部提示：Uber 在开普敦随处可见，因此您不需要租车。车费很低，所以请大方地给小费。
Oranjezicht 是我最喜欢的社区之一，尤其是附近 Kloof Street 那些热闹的餐厅和商店。而在我最近一次访问时，沿海郊区 Sea Point 让我感到惊喜。在 Covid 之前，我认为那里看起来有点破旧，但如今该地区显然在崛起。那里没有海滩，但有 Sea Point Pavilion 极好的泳池——实际上有四个泳池，其中最长的一个为 50m (£1.70; capetown.gov.za)。城里最时髦的地方是 Clifton。
如果您倾向于选择公寓而非酒店，开普敦提供了广泛的住宿选择，而且您很少会远离 Woolworths（类似于南非的 M&S） own 或 Pick n Pay 超市。
为了品尝加入蜂蜜、波本香蕉和培根的 Nutella 填心法式吐司，价格为 £7.50 (clarkesdining.co. za)。在 Waterkant Street，Hemelhuijs 是一个同样惬意的替代选择 (hemelhuijs.co.za)。周末时，穿上人字拖和太阳镜，在 Woodstock 的 Neighbourgoods Market (theoldbiscuitmill. co.za) 和 Granger Bay 的 Oranjezicht City Farm Market (ozcf.co. za) 享用小白咖啡、现榨果汁、热量极高的诱人糕点及类似美食。夏季另一个周末建议是准备好野餐，去 Kirstenbosch 植物园参加周日晚上的音乐会，在那里您可能会看到开普敦爱乐乐团、深情地演唱的 Thandiswa Mazwai 或当地 Z 世代流行星 Will Linley (sanbi.org)。
MICHAL KRAKOWIAK, SPHRANER / GETTY IMAGES; SPHRANER / ALAMY; MOOBATTO / SHUTTERSTOCK
在开普敦，很容易只看向一个方向，就假装自己身处一个“加州遇见南法”的非洲版，但这将意味着忽视大多数居民的生活方式。我绝对建议参观一次镇区 (township)，当然，您肯定不希望您的旅行变成一种窥视。我一直使用当地公司 Coffeebeans，他们可以组织如美食之旅、政治历史步行游和爵士之夜等行程（City Futures 四人游每人 £290 起；coffeebeansroutes.com）。在葡萄酒产区有许多可爱的住宿选择，但我最新的发现是 7 Koppies，位于 Franschhoek 几英里外，简直是人间天堂。它坐落在山顶，仅有五间卧室，位于一个经营中的农场内，周围是 50 公顷的 fynbos（本土灌木林）。如果您想离开城市住上几个晚上，或者将其作为探索当地所有葡萄园的基地，这里是一个绝佳的避风港（B&B 双人间 £223 起；7koppies.co.za）。
如果想在用餐时欣赏美景，请前往 Silo Hotel 的顶楼餐厅，那里通常仅对住客开放，但如果您提前打电话，可以抢到一张桌子（主菜 £13 起；theroyalportfolio.com）。我总是会将 Old Biscuit Mill 顶层的 Pot Luck Club 晚餐列入行程（主菜 £11 起；thepotluckclub.co.za），但我最近添加到清单中的一些心头好包括 Belly of the Beast（午餐品鉴菜单 £39；bellyofthebeast.co.za）和 Fyn，我最近在那里享用了一顿极其出色的晚餐（品鉴菜单 £113 起；fynrestaurant.com）。
最后一些建议。如果您向东前往花园大道 (Garden Route)，不要走枯燥的 N2 高速公路：慢下来，走 R62 公路。这会让旅程成为假期的一部分，尤其是如果您能在 Montagu、Robertson 或 Barrydale 过夜的话。如果您有时间，可以顺便去小卡鲁 (Little Karoo) 地区古怪而美丽的 Prince Albert 看看，但请确保您的租车有足够的动力翻越陡峭的 Swartberg Pass。
距离市区一小时车程的 Babylonstoren 餐厅 Babel 是我总是光顾的地方，因为它的菜单随季节变化，如果提前规划，您还可以通过预约那里的水疗护理来度过一个下午（套餐菜单 £32, 60 分钟护理 £95 起；babylonstoren.com）。位于 Constantia Nek 的 La Colombe 是庆祝生日挥霍消费的绝佳地点（品鉴菜单 £109 起；lacolombe.restaurant）。
如果您已经去过花园路线 (Garden Route)，可以考虑从开普敦出发前往斯瓦特兰 (Swartland) 进行一次侧程旅行，那里是南非一些最令人兴奋的独立酿酒师的故乡。然后向西前往帕特诺斯特 (Paternoster) 海边，在主厨 Kobus van der Merwe 的卓越餐厅 Wolfgat 用餐——这里仅有 20 个用餐名额，应该是每个人的必做清单之首（品鉴菜单 £66 起；wolfgat.co.za）。
罗本岛 (Robben Island)
我能听到您对着果酱大喊：“不敢相信他竟然没提到 X、Y 和 Z！”但我没空间写了，所以请告诉我您最喜欢的地方。也许我们会在那里相遇，在狮子头 (Lion’s Head) 的早晨远足中，在查普曼峰 (Chapman’s Peak) 酒店享用鱿鱼圈和薯条时，或者在坎普斯湾 (Camps Bay) 啜饮日落酒，在那里我们可以举起一杯冰镇的 2024 Full on Misfit（我最近对开普敦的痴迷之作）共同干杯。
Oranjezicht 城市农场市场
Sea Point Zest 展馆
开普格雷斯酒店 (Cape Grace)
Neighbourgoods 市场
班特里湾 (Bantry Bay)
蒙特尼尔森酒店 (Mount Nelson)
开普敦 (CAPE TOWN)
桌山 (Table Mountain)
南非 (SOUTH AFRICA)
Will Hide 是英国航空 (British Airways) 的贵宾，该航空公司提供往返开普敦的航班，一周租车费用每人 £1,099 起 (ba.com)
克斯滕博什植物园 (Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens) 1 英里
14 天起
*
£4,690
每人
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开启一次非凡的逃离之旅：从斯里兰卡的古代奇迹和雾气缭绕的茶山，前往马尔代夫晶莹剔透的水域和纯净的海滩。
12 晚四星级住宿
慢下来。在精心挑选的全包度假村中，于热带海岸享受 5 天极致的放松，在沙滩上躺平，在充满生机的海水中浮潜，或尽情享受水疗护理。带着焕发的身心和关于冒险的精彩故事返回家园。
在康提 (Kandy) 感受文化，然后乘坐风景优美的火车前往凉爽的、被茶园覆盖的高地，入住努瓦拉埃利亚 (Nuwara Eliya)。
首先探索斯里兰卡的亮点，从悠闲的海滨度假胜地尼甘波 (Negombo) 出发，前往文化三角地带的核心区域。在这里，您将惊叹于古老的西吉里亚 (Sigiriya) 岩石堡垒，并在明内里亚 (Minneriya) 国家公园的荒野中进行一次冒险野生动物之旅。沉浸在
探索 600 英尺高的西吉里亚岩石堡垒顶端被联合国教科文组织列入名录的遗址，并欣赏美景
返回科伦坡，然后飞往马尔代夫，那里纯净的海滩、晶莹剔透的水域和丰富的海洋生物正等待着您慢下节奏
在明内里亚国家公园进行吉普车游猎，观看大象、懒熊等动物
参观斯里兰卡茶叶工厂和种植园
含导游陪同及景点门票
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这是理想的目的地组合！在前往马尔代夫在天堂海滩尽情放松之前，探索斯里兰卡的诸多奇迹、文化、野生动物和自然美景。
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*所列价格基于两人共用一间双床 / 大床房。单人补充费请查询。预订时间早于 11 个月以上的假期航班，在航空公司公布票价时可能会产生补价。由 Wendy Wu 运营并受其预订条件约束，ABTA W7994 ATOL 6639，该公司独立于 News UK。优惠折扣已应用，请于 2026年7月31日 前预订。
《星期日泰晤士报》 2026年8月2日 19
INDIA HOBSON; ANNA BATCHELOR
巴斯洛 (Baslow)
德文郡军械库酒店 (The Devonshire Arms)
哈索普 (Hassop)
卡文迪什酒店 (The Cavendish Hotel)
查茨沃斯庄园 (Chatsworth House)
埃登索尔 (Edensor)
贝克韦尔 (Bakewell)
1 英里
比利 (Beeley)
他叫约翰——因为贵族们为了方便，统称所有的男仆为约翰。他向我们讲述了他的主人，即第六任德文郡公爵 (1790-1858) 完成的修缮工作。我们很快便被马修迷人的个性所吸引——尤其是当他能带领我们穿过房内的一系列快捷通道，避开人群时。大多数游客（其中许多人穿着摄政时期的服装）都一心想在那个令人惊叹的彩绘走廊里拍照。
奥斯汀之外
在雕塑展厅里，电影中出现的那位蒙面女士是一位维斯塔贞女，是公爵在 1846 年以 £60 定金委托制作的。与此同时，麦克法登饰演的达西先生雕像已被移至礼品店，并附有一块警告游客的标牌：“请勿亲吻！”最令人兴奋的是，马修弄到了一把巨大的钥匙和一个对讲机，带我们进入了贝尔维德塔（Belvedere Tower），这部分区域通常不对游客开放。内部是一个美丽的舞厅和剧场，到处是彩绘窗帘和吱吱作响的木地板，可俯瞰整个庄园的壮丽景色。通常需要预订私人导览（每人 £85）或求婚套餐 (£950) 才能进入该塔，因此在行程中能进入内部参观真是难得的享受。
在与马修道别后（我们克制住没有叫他约翰），我们悠闲地探索了房屋和花园。目前正在举办的“故事之屋”展览探讨了查茨沃斯与文学的联系，展出了《傲慢与偏见》的首版书、《失乐园》以及《坎特伯雷故事集》的片段。然而，我最喜欢的部分是为游客准备的一个小阅览室，里面摆满了奥斯汀的小说、这座房子的历史记录，以及一些非常舒适的扶手椅。我们在马厩里享用了下午茶（这在摄政时代 era 绝不存在，但当三明治如此美味时，谁又在意这些琐事呢？），然后悠闲地走回巴斯洛（Baslow）。
从盆装虾到私人导览，劳拉·哈克特（Laura Hackett）表示，查茨沃斯的新套餐是终极的简·奥斯汀度假之旅。
主图：巴斯洛的卡文迪什酒店；查茨沃斯的下午茶；卡文迪什酒店的一间客房
我一直热衷于文学度假。我指的不单纯是在泳池边摊开一本书的假期（虽然那样也很棒），而是与某部特定小说相关的旅行。我曾访问那不勒斯和伊斯基亚岛，窥见埃莱娜·费兰特《我的天才女友》系列的世界。我曾为了追踪消失的阿加莎·克里斯蒂而住在哈罗盖特。是的，我也曾前往巴斯朝圣，那里是简·奥斯汀的精神故乡，到处是挤满新颖茶馆和帝政风格腰线的景象。
这家精品酒店被评为 2025. 年《星期日泰晤士报》最佳下榻地。因此，每一个细节都经过精心考虑也就不足为奇了。墙壁浸染在浓郁的暗色调中，全是绿色和紫色。这里有一个阳光充足的露台用于饮品和用餐，还有一个舒适的休息室用于调制鸡尾酒。
德文郡的历史公爵夫人为部分 28 间客房的命名提供了灵感。我丈夫和我住在斯宾塞房间，这是以乔治亚娜·斯宾塞命名的，她在阿尔索普长大（就像她的高祖外甥女戴安娜·斯宾塞一样）。
除了时髦的室内装饰、美味的食物和友好的工作人员，住在卡文迪什酒店最大的好处或许在于，你可以沿着一条沿河的安静小径步行 20 到 30 分钟到达查茨沃斯：无需开车。这意味着你可以像伊丽莎白·班内特当年那样，第一次见到这座房子时的景象：“一座高大、端庄的石造建筑，屹立在起伏的高地上，背后是高耸的林丘。”
我们在华丽的金门前与导游马修会合，他告诉我们，每年访问查茨沃思的 690,000 人中，有很大一部分是因为与奥斯汀的联系而来的。我们不确定她是否亲自参观过这座房子，但我们知道她的父母去过，很可能像《傲慢与偏见》中的伊丽莎白及其姨妈和姨父那样，向管家付费参观。更关键的是，
并在 1774. 年与德文郡公爵结婚。他们动荡的关系是
2008 年电影《公爵夫人》的核心，该片也在查茨沃思庄园拍摄（由凯拉·奈特利主演）。
不过我必须承认，巴斯的遮阳帽让我感到有点不知所措：我更愿意访问一个文学地点并在想象中沉浸其中，而不是打扮起来并开始背诵著名的段落。于是，查茨沃思的“摄政时代逃逸”（Regency Escape）方案出现了，这或许正是沉浸感与优雅之间的完美平衡。
它是沉浸感与优雅之间的完美平衡
在最后一个晚上，我们在巴斯洛村本身的德文郡之臂酒店（Devonshire Arms）用餐，在那里我们不仅享用了鹿肉派，还享受到了非常友好的服务（主菜起价 £17，thedevonshirebaslow.com）。周围地区有许多极具特色的古村落可供探索——埃登索尔、贝克韦尔、比利、哈索普——以及峰区本身，那里有绝佳的步行道和景色。但你可能会发现，就像我们一样，查茨沃思本身的场地（总计 1,000 英亩）以及它与卡文迪什酒店之间的一小段步行路程，就足以支撑一个非常精致的摄政时代极乐周末——而且无需盛装打扮。
据说奥斯汀在完成这部小说的最终修订时，曾住在附近的贝克韦尔村。
安顿好之后，我们前往画廊餐厅享用摄政时代晚餐。我对
这部分周末行程感到有些焦虑：如果给我们端上海龟汤怎么办？小牛心？酒浸鳗鱼？猪耳猪蹄烩菜？幸运的是，画廊餐厅的厨师在处理摄政时代的食物时采取了审慎的方法。我的烩菜里是芦笋和豌豆，而不是猪耳，而我的丈夫则大快朵颐地吃着热黄油吐司上的盆装虾。主菜方面，他的羊肉直接来自查茨沃思庄园，而我的奶油炖鸡配有羊肚菌，这是一种在奥斯汀时代被视为奢侈品的野生菌类。它们的口感略显奇特，但有浓郁的松露风味。这里的重点不在于复制具体的食谱（尽管我非常希望能够发现柯林斯先生最喜爱的“极佳的
位于德比郡的查茨沃思庄园是任何奥斯汀粉丝的圣地。这里不仅近 500 年来一直是德文郡公爵和公爵夫人的居所，人们广泛认为它也是《傲慢与偏见》中达西先生的庄园彭伯里（Pemberley）的灵感来源。至关重要的是，它还是乔·赖特 2005 年由凯拉·奈特利和马修·麦克法登主演的电影改编版中彭伯里的拍摄地。现在，查茨沃思与附近的巴斯洛卡文迪什酒店合作，为奥斯汀粉丝量身定制了一套全新的两晚套餐。
劳拉·哈克特是“查茨沃思逃逸”的客人们之一，该套餐两晚全包价每人 £498 起，包括定制的摄政时代之旅、入住期间的查茨沃思庄园及花园门票、下午茶以及一场摄政主题晚餐 (chatsworthescapes.co.uk)
卡文迪什酒店绝对是一座华丽的
美国旅游
MARKUS MAINKA, DANITA DELIMONT, SANDRA FOYT / ALAMY; TRIGGERPHOTO / GETTY IMAGES
在芝加哥的 Lou Mitchell's 餐厅，服务员在卡座间穿梭，将撒满糖粉的甜甜圈球送到餐桌上，并为满溢的滴滤咖啡杯续杯。
阿尔伯克基
芝加哥
美国
盖鲁普 温斯洛
堪萨斯城
特里尼达 拉顿山口
伊利诺伊州
弗拉格斯塔夫
一个霓虹灯招牌在用餐者面前闪烁着三叶草般的绿色，他们正享用着薯饼和单面煎蛋。我到达了 66 号公路非正式的起点。
加利福尼亚州
奥尔顿
新墨西哥州
亚利桑那州
“ Lou Mitchell's 的历史早于 66 号公路，”芝加哥迎接者计划（Chicago Greeter programme，提供免费步行游览服务）的志愿者导游斯泰特森·赛勒（Stetson Siler）说道，“而且它离联合车站只有一条街之隔，所以这里总是很热闹。”许多游客在 Lou Mitchell's 离开后前往美国最著名的公路，而我将乘坐美铁（Amtrak）火车，沿着一条在芝加哥和洛杉矶之间与 66 号公路平行运行的路线前行。
铁路上的 66 号公路
莫哈韦沙漠
洛杉矶
圣莫尼卡
200 英里
在返回车站之前，先前往位于悬崖顶端的 Tara Point Inn and Cottages。
用火车来体验世界上最极致的公路旅行之一似乎有些奇怪，但在 66 号公路于 1926 年设立之前，铁路就已经连接了许多后来由该公路连接的社区。
这一次我乘坐的是密苏里河跑手号（Missouri River Runner），它载我向西行驶。在转瞬之间，作为向西扩张纪念碑的、被薄雾笼罩的门户拱门（Gateway Arch）在圣路易斯的天际线上显现，随后又隐没在树林之后。我们沿着河流继续前行，傍晚时分抵达堪萨斯城。我在那里停留 24 小时，乘坐免费的 KC 有轨电车探索包括设有周末农贸市场的河滨市场（River Market）以及十字路口艺术区（Crossroads arts district）在内的街区，然后返回联合车站，乘坐西南酋长号（Southwest Chief）过夜列车。
这条公路是一个标志，是提供汉堡的餐厅、复古汽车旅馆和霓虹灯怀旧风情的代名词。而与之相邻的铁路轨道则不那么出名，尽管它们提供了同样开阔的视野和美国风情。
赛勒引导我沿着最初的 66 号公路行走，在利维特街（Leavitt Street）的 LuLu’s Hot Dogs 停下，那里的尖刻幽默是店内的特色，随后在海军码头（Navy Pier）稍作停留，那里一个闪烁的招牌宣称：“旅程由此开始”。赛勒指出，该路线正式始于东亚当斯街（East Adams Street），那里贴满贴纸的路牌已成为信徒们的朝圣点。
这项服务可以追溯到圣菲铁路（Santa Fe railway）于 1937 年推出的超级酋长号（Super Chief），因深受迪安·马丁（Dean Martin）和朱迪·嘉兰（Judy Garland）等好莱坞名流的喜爱，而被昵称为“巨星列车”。它依然承载着乘客从芝加哥前往洛杉矶，历时 43 个沉浸在美景中的小时，其轨道
66 号公路
在几小时后，我站在联合车站的天窗之下。该车站于 1925 年开放，曾是通往西部的门户，当时芝加哥的畜牧场和铁路使其获得了“宽肩之城”的绰号。如今，旅人们在布杂艺术风格的大厅中穿梭，等待前往全国各个角落的火车。
不断与 66 号公路汇合又分离。虽然公路仅穿过堪萨斯州的一小部分，但西南酋长号则载着
轨道与公路汇合又分离
——通过火车
我横跨整个州。
我在紧凑的舱室中睡了一觉，醒来时已到达科罗拉多州东部的平原，那里叉角羚在高级沙漠中跃迁，我在餐车里吃早餐。
在出发的列车中，有美铁的旗舰线路——芝加哥至洛杉矶的西南酋长号。我把它留到以后，这次乘坐林肯号（Lincoln service），它在伊利诺伊州境内与 66 号公路的轨迹更为接近。我们颠簸着驶出芝加哥，天际线逐渐变为农田，粮仓取代了玻璃塔楼。
西南酋长号还提供了探索特立尼达（Trinidad）的机会，这是一个袖珍小镇，在 19 世纪 70 年代铁路抵达而繁荣之前，它曾依赖于圣菲小径而兴盛。其维多利亚风格的建筑现在成了二手店和咖啡馆。重新登车后，随着火车攀登风景优美的拉顿山口（Raton Pass），地势陡然升高。
林肯号比西南酋长号简单，没有观景休息室或餐车，但当我们穿过这个草原之州时，座椅很舒适，窗户也很大。
66.
新墨西哥州拥有足以激发想象力的景观，在桑格雷-德-克里斯托山的山脚下，点缀着山艾草的牧场如电影画面般铺展开来。地平线的一端风雨欲来；另一端，66号公路在蓝天下的铁轨旁如丝带般延伸。时间充裕的旅行者可以下车探索阿尔伯克基，漫步在
Jacqui Agate 表示，这是庆祝该路线百年纪念并领略从芝加哥到洛杉矶沿途风景的最佳方式。
我在天黑后抵达伊利诺伊州的奥尔顿。尽管这座小镇距离最近的66号公路路段约有 30 分钟车程，但其古怪的礼品店和壮丽的密西西比河景色捕捉到了这条公路的大部分精神。我在河流上游的格拉夫顿过夜，入住
热闹的小酒馆以及
发现冥王星的天文台。这里通过洛威尔天文台的百年庆典活动和北亚利桑那博物馆的特别展览来传承其遗产。《马车路到母路》探讨了开拓西南地区的运输路线，从 1850 年代开凿的比尔马车路到铁路和 66, 号公路（成人票 £14；musnaz.org）。“他们称 66 号公路为‘美国的main street’，因为你不仅经过大城市，还经过小城镇，”博物馆的 Kristan Hutchison 说道，“如果我们离开常规路线并与人们建立联系，我们的体验会变得更加深刻。”
从最左侧起顺时针方向：亚利桑那州 66 号公路上一座修复后的服务站；新墨西哥州的西南首席号（Southwest Chief）服务；堪萨斯市的天际线；阿尔伯克基的一家餐厅；芝加哥的一块 66 号公路标志
“火车还提供一种即便开车疾驰在高速公路上也无法获得的美好体验。它让你与他人聚集在一起。这正是我们许多人所怀念的：一种更缓慢、联系更紧密的旅行方式。”
在伊利诺伊州和亚利桑那州之间，我与几位前往墨西哥的阿米什旅行者、一名为了与母亲团聚而从洛杉矶横跨美国前往芝加哥的女性，以及在美利坚铁路上穿梭数十年的乘务员们进行了一些轻松的交谈。
我跨过州界进入加利福尼亚州的尼德尔斯，那里棕榈树林立，被包裹在烈日灼烧的莫哈韦沙漠中。在这里的一天是漫步于褪色的标志和 66 号公路壁画之间，并在 Red Dog Saloon 停下来喝杯啤酒，这是一家深受当地熟客喜爱的简陋酒吧（914 W Broadway Street）。
我最后一段过夜行程将我快速带过加利福尼亚州，当火车驶入洛杉矶时，天际线从晨雾中升起。66 号公路在洛杉矶交错的高速公路网中可能显得难以寻觅，但餐厅和复古汽车旅馆依然勾起人们对它的黄金时代的回忆。你可以沿着圣莫尼卡大道的一段原始路段前行，那里的老牌 Barney’s Beanery 酒吧可追溯至 1920 年代，曾是吉姆·莫里森（Jim Morrison）到珍妮丝·乔普林（Janis Joplin）等摇滚传奇人物常去之地。甚至在更远处，像北好莱坞的 Garland 等公路酒店也通过棕榈环绕的泳池和世纪中叶的设计呼应着黄金时代（仅限房费的双人间起价 £190；thegarland.com）。
实用信息
地点：乘坐铁路完成从芝加哥到洛杉矶的 66 号公路之旅
适用人群：公路旅行者、铁路旅行者、怀旧旅行狂热者
而最后的谢幕之演在圣莫尼卡，这座位于洛杉矶西侧的海滨城市。西南首席号或许无法一直运行到太平洋，但该路线的西端终点仅需乘坐轻轨（或 Uber）即可抵达。我入住 Casa del Mar，这是一座面对海滩的意大利文艺复兴复兴风格杰作，今年恰逢其百年庆典（仅限房费的双人间起价 £530；hotelcasadelmar.com）。
……将国家传递给那些在路边经营企业并使其成为公路标志的西班牙裔家庭（不要错过在 Jerry’s 吃早餐，那里的鸡蛋和 sopaipillas 配有新墨西哥州的红或绿辣椒酱）。
在城镇之外，温斯洛（Winslow）通过庆祝那些曾被认为注定淡出的历史而获得了新生。如今，另一个路标盾牌照亮了道路，商店里挤满了相关的纪念品，一幅壁画向老鹰乐队（Eagles）的《Take It Easy》致敬，这首歌中“站在亚利桑那州温斯洛的街角”的歌词让这座城镇闻名遐迩。在 La Posada 酒店，我用一杯主题玛格丽特酒为这个百年庆典干杯。
中央大道或是在 66 餐厅买一杯奶昔。但我继续向西前进，在登车 9 小时后抵达盖卢普（Gallup）。
我今晚下榻的 El Rancho 酒店虽然简朴，但充满了霓虹灯光，其鹿头装饰和纳瓦霍风格的地毯唤起了人们对经典西部片的记忆。约翰·韦恩（John Wayne）曾是这里的常客；而今天，接待处排队的是一群身穿主题 T 恤的摩托车骑手。盖卢普清晰地表明了它的忠诚——
内部提示：Amtrak 服务容易出现延误，因此请携带充足的零食，避免行程规划过于紧凑，并预留大约两周的时间来享受旅程。
下一站是亚利桑那州的弗拉格斯塔夫（Flagstaff），这是一个充满个性的山地大学城，将 66 号公路的美国风情与布满小径的山峰相结合。
在俯瞰太平洋的同时享用塔可（Tacos），随后是由 Bikes and Hikes LA 引导的沿海步道骑行之旅（每人 £145 起；bikesandhikesla.com）。
车站旁的墙上绘制着一个巨大的 66 号公路盾牌，周围环绕着受该地区原住民纳瓦霍族（Navajo Nation）启发的大胆几何图案。
在圣莫尼卡码头（Santa Monica Pier）寻找“66 号公路终点”标志才显得顺理成章，标志在拍岸浪花、过山车和棕榈树的背景下耸立——这是最后一段令人满足的美国风情。
该路线的一半以上——约 1,372 英里——穿越原住民土地。位于历史悠久的圣菲铁路车站的盖卢普文化中心，通过阿科马（Acoma）陶器、霍皮（Hopi）卡奇娜娃娃（Kachina dolls）和纳瓦霍祭祀篮，向游客介绍该地区的原住民社区。
亚利桑那州的温斯洛就是如此，那是我乘坐“西南酋长号”（Southwest Chief）的下一站。我透过观景车的巨大窗户观察我们的抵达过程。天空染成粉色，沙漠燃烧成红色，平顶山在地平线上延伸。
站在太平洋之滨，很容易理解为什么 66 号公路一个世纪以来一直吸引着驾驶者向西行进。我虽然将四个轮子换成了钢轨，但这段旅程——及其所有的人物、古怪之处和怀旧感——并未失去其魔力。
然而，那些希望直接从原住民制作者那里购买商品的人，大多需要去其他地方。盖卢普规模庞大的贸易站，其货架上堆满了花纹地毯和银饰，这些贸易站大多追溯到曾经主导西南地区商业的英裔经营企业。
温斯洛的生存归功于铁路，在 19 世纪圣菲铁路繁荣时期而兴起。66 号公路开启了第二个黄金时代，酒店大亨弗雷德·哈维（Fred Harvey）开设了 La Posada，这是一座规模宏大的西班牙殖民复兴风格酒店，其种满植物的庭院和桃色灰泥墙俯瞰着铁轨。随着美国人开始将火车更换为汽车，公路发出了轰鸣声。
Jacqui Agate 是 America As You Like It 的宾客，该服务提供 15 晚的行程——结合了仅限房型的酒店住宿和 B&B 卧铺火车——每人 £2,159 起，包括往返芝加哥和洛杉矶的机票，以及在芝加哥和洛杉矶之间的 Amtrak 铁路旅行（americaasyoulikeit.com）。
我在盖卢普的街道上漫步，最后找到了 Rex 博物馆，那里有一个百年特展，探讨从 66 号公路对原住民的影响等所有内容。
“66 号公路见证了文化的融合，”Rex 博物馆的帕特里斯·卡彭特（Patrice Carpenter）说道。“我在这里生活了一辈子，但我从这个展览中学到了新东西。”她还解释了 20 世纪 60 年代 40 号州际公路（Interstate 40）的到来如何分流了通过这些城镇的交通，而当这条道路在 1985, 年被正式废除时，这种衰退进一步加速，因为驾驶者越来越多地选择在新的、快速的州际公路上行驶。社区被迫通过旅游业来实现自我重塑。
乘渡轮前往另一个岛屿共进晚餐，就像我们前往 10 分钟路程外的 Donso 那样。我们在由两姐妹经营的露天咖啡馆 Popsicle 度过的夜晚超出了我们的预期。这里的食物比传统菜肴更具趣味性：比如柠檬草青口贝配炸新薯，以及令人回味无穷的海藻奶油乳酪配饼干。在现场音乐之夜，这里会变得非常热闹——我们观看了一个 20 人的合唱团演唱动人的瑞典歌曲。
（主菜 £11 起；popsicle.nu）。
从左起顺时针方向：哥德堡艺术博物馆；城市天际线；Vrango 岛上的主村庄；Café Husaren 的肉桂卷。
至于如何度过其余时光，重点在于户外活动。我们酒店友好的工作人员可以提供帮助，组织从海藻采集探险到皮划艇之旅的导览游。我们尝试了后者，由温文尔雅的 Morten 带领，这成为了旅程的一大亮点（每人 £37，共三小时）。我母亲起初很紧张，但他让我们放松了下来，引导我们驶过港口的船只，沿着点缀着本土野生粉色玫瑰和亮色花朵的海岸线前行。
哥德堡 (GOTHENBURG)
Pigalle
瑞典 (SWEDEN)
Donso Kajkanten Vrango
5 英里
双重愉悦
对我而言，位于瑞典西海岸的哥德堡是完美的夏季城市。
利兹·弗雷尼耶 (Lizzie Frainier) 表示，可以将热闹的哥德堡与其惬意悠闲的群岛结合起来。
这里将充满鱼类餐厅和迷人博物馆的城市吸引力，与迷人且无车的群岛优势相结合——群岛分为北、南两部分，拥有 20 个真正的岛屿。
来自早期定居点的青铜时代埋葬石堆。
在岛上，家庭经营的 Kajkanten Vrango 将迷人港口周围的传统船屋改造成了简单的自助住宿。自然地，屋内配置了宜家 (Ikea) 的产品，房型从双人间到家庭套房不等，最大可容纳 7 人舒适入住。这个名字在瑞典语中意为“码头”，而最好的房间是那些面向水面的。
北线行程稍长，拥有不少美丽的天然海湾和野外海滩，伴随而行的是蛎鹬和燕鸥；但南线环游则提供了我们最喜欢的地方：沙滩与草地交织的 Notholmen，拥有清爽的浅水区。如果你想潜入水中，你会发现零星分布的洗澡梯可以将你送入深水区，例如在 Kohalla 或靠近港口的游泳码头。水母也很喜欢 Vrango，但很容易避开，而且据我所知，在盛夏时节它们会潜入深海。
我在 6 月下旬与母亲一同前往，长周末的前两晚住在 Vrango 岛——这是最南端且最小的有居民居住的岛屿，距离 Saltholmen 港口仅 30 分钟渡轮路程。你也可以仅在白天游览，但我不想错过这里著名的日落，在这个季节，日落直到晚上 10 点之后才开始。
酒店甚至拥有自己的漂浮小屋，你可以私租几小时（£116 起）。室内设有厨房和视野开阔的大型木柴桑拿房；室外则有热水浴缸、冷水浸浴梯和野餐桌。
岛上居住人数不足 400 人，他们住在中心地带传统的亮白色和法伦红（Falun red）护墙板房屋中，两侧各有一个粗犷而美丽的自然保护区。每个保护区都有自己的徒步路线，是领略 Vrango 醒目的岩石地形和悠闲氛围的绝佳方式。
从港口可以看到岛上的最高点：一个岩石露头，顶端是一座涂成酒红色的木屋，它在 17 世纪最初是作为港口领航员的瞭望塔而建，顶端飘扬着一面瑞典国旗。我们在日落时分攀上阶梯，收获了向四面八方延伸的壮丽景观，整个岛屿沐浴在金色的光芒中。感觉无比宁静。
从对面的 Fiskeboa 订购一个海鲜礼篮，享用熏蓝贻贝、冷水虾以及你所能品尝到最甜美的小龙虾大餐 (£27pp; fiskeboadonso-vrango.se)。瑞典人热爱蛋黄酱——许多菜肴中都堆得很高，礼篮中还附带多种不同口味的蛋黄酱，从大蒜味到辣椒味不等。
这是瑞典人一个名为 friluftsliv 的概念的完美例证，意为“户外生活”。这个词由挪威剧作家亨里克·易卜生创造，如今在整个斯堪的纳维亚地区被用来描述将户外活动融入日常生活所带来的快乐。这是一个我也非常认同的信条。
这里只有一家酒店
同样值得关注的是
我母亲和我从该岛的南部环路开始，步行大约需要 45-60 分钟，具体取决于你停下来欣赏风景或将脚趾浸入凉水的次数（提示：次数很多）。这条路线穿梭在阳光斑驳的林间，可以俯瞰平滑的花岗岩岩层、水面以及无人居住的 Kungso 岛和 Tistlarna 岛。留意树上那些以制作它们的小孩命名的鸟屋，以及
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 23
黄色的一枝黄花。从那里，我们找到了一条通往岛上一个偏远且几乎不相连的狭长地带的路径，那里覆盖着芳香的忍冬，四周环绕着透明的海水。此前，住在邻近 Styrso 岛的 Morten 曾眨眼低声地告诉我，Vrango 是他在群岛中私下最喜爱的地方。而原因不难发现。
米其林星级餐厅 Koka（品鉴菜单 £77; restaurangkoka.se），这里的鱼类菜肴（如配有水芹乳液的欧芹脆片虾生）是主打；以及葡萄酒酒吧 Natur，其草莓柠檬蛋糕甜点捕捉到了夏天的精髓（主菜 £16 起; restaurang natur.se)。我最喜欢的是价格非常实惠的 Bar Bulot，它隐藏在 Stora Saluhallen 室内市场的鱼店和蔬菜摊位旁，以夹在心形华夫饼之间精致的鞑靼牛排而闻名（主菜 £14 起; bulot.se）。
MARSTRANDS KURHOTELL, MARSTRAND
作为 16 世纪和 18 世纪该国的鲱鱼之都，马斯特兰德曾因被称为“斯堪的纳维亚最堕落的城镇”而臭名昭著。后来它演变成一个时尚的 19 世纪度假胜地，这是一个距离哥德堡西北 45 分钟车程的海滨健康疗养地，皇室成员曾在此游泳并
驾驶他们的游艇（现在依然如此）。水滨水疗酒店 Marstrands Kurhotell 将那个时代的优雅与斯堪的纳维亚时尚相结合。鸽灰色墙板上挂着精美游艇的黑白照片，高窗可俯瞰海峡。除了必不可少的桑拿，酒店还提供龙虾捕捞和徒步旅行套餐。详情：B&B 双人间 £186 起 (marstrands kurhotell.com)
ISBOLAGET, DONSO
面对群岛中最美丽岛屿之一的港口上一座废弃的制冰厂，你会怎么做？当然是把它改成酒店。Isbolaget 采用冷峻的灰色装修，在距离哥德堡西南约十英里的 Donso 村漂亮小屋旁边显得有些格格不入。幸运的是，内部 14 间紧凑的客房充满了魅力，鸭蛋绿的墙壁、木地板和点缀其中的温馨斯堪的纳维亚设计使其氛围柔和。你将在下方餐厅的露台上享用早餐，然后出发在禁止汽车行驶的岛上散步。详情：B&B 双人间 £139
(isbolaget.com) James Stewart
这里的历史建筑像在威尼斯和阿姆斯特丹一样在下沉，因为该市拥有柔软的海相粘土和
当涉及到沃尔沃世界（World of Volvo）和位于冷战时期地下飞机库的 Aeroseum 博物馆时，我很开心这次是和我母亲而不是男朋友一起旅行，因为我们两人都一致倾向于选择艺术博物馆，那里有 20 世纪 30 年代哥德堡色彩派（Gothenburg colourists）引人注目的收藏。非常愉悦（门票 £6; goteborgskonst museum.se）。
除了 friluftsliv（户外生活），瑞典还有一个非常重要的 f-word……那就是 fika（咖啡小憩）。这是一种放慢脚步，配上一杯咖啡和甜点的艺术，社交属性与零食本身同样重要。你在岛上也可以这样体验，但在城市里你会发现肉桂卷的密度更高。
回想起来，我们这次瑞典夏季逃离的行程顺序可能有点颠倒。如果你想掌握
我们步行前往所有地方，步数惊人。很幸运的是，我们住在市中心的 Hotel Pigalle，这是一个巴黎主题的精品酒店，拥有一个热闹的屋顶露台，是欣赏绝佳日落饮品的理想之选。这里还提供极其丰盛且繁忙的自助早餐——从煎饼、鸡蛋到奶酪和谷物麦片——全部在楼顶供应。没错，对于英国旅客来说，这个主题感觉很随意，但你无法指责这里的氛围或合理的价格。
我们在 48 小时内尽可能多地挤进了行程——没有
完美假期之道的关键，先在哥德堡市区尽情体验，然后乘坐轮渡慢下来——沉浸在日落、
DAVID TALJAT, NATHANIEL NOIR / ALAMY; XBRCHX / GETTY IMAGES; PETER_KVARNSTROM
Fika 是一种放慢脚步，配上一杯咖啡和甜点的艺术
期间，我们漫步在 Magasinsgatan 设计区，那里有酷炫的复古店、家具店和书店；在城市公园里沐浴阳光，包括哥德堡园艺协会（免费; tradgardsresan.se），那里有芬芳的玫瑰园和长满热带植物的棕榈屋；还参加了一次乘船之旅（50 分钟，每人 £21; stromma.com），导游讲了很多冷笑话
岛上的桑拿和游泳。
无论如何，你
都会得出相同的结论：在这里，你真的可以拥有一切。
Lizzie Frainier 是 Hotel Pigalle 的宾客，该酒店 B&B 双人间 £124 起 (hotelpigalle.se)；Kajkanten Vrango，纯房双人间 £158 起 (kajkantenvrango.se)；以及 Goteborg & Co (goteborg.com)
尽管肉桂卷很美味，但你也会想为步行距离内的许多绝佳餐厅留出胃口——从
——哥德堡以那些令人尴尬的谐音梗而闻名——但我们确实了解到许多
哥德堡的中央邮局在近 15 年前进行了改造，在主车站旁打造了一个精致的下榻之所。虽然它受益于 20 世纪 20 年代新古典主义建筑的规模，尤其是在下方的 Norda 餐厅，高拱窗带来的光线倾泻而下——这家拥有 500 间客房的邮政酒店提供了你对顶尖国际住宿的所有预期舒适度。诚然，装饰稍微有些平淡，但请关注能保证良好睡眠的舒适度和便利性。设施包括一个可俯瞰城市景观的屋顶游泳池，以及几家用于开启或结束夜晚的酒吧。详情：B&B 双人间 £170 起 (strawberryhotels.com)
与邮政酒店截然不同，位于步行购物区 Magasinsgatan 附近的香草酒店仅有 32 间客房，感觉不像酒店，而更像是住在朋友家。这是一个迷人的私密场所，分布在三层
起价
最高可省 40%** Times+ 会员可省 £100^
秋季葡萄收获季
2026 年 10 月 13 日
这个专属套餐结合了 11 晚的 Silversea 豪华巡游，穿梭于法国、西班牙和葡萄牙的葡萄酒产区，随后在里斯本入住五星级酒店并进行私人游览。
扬帆起航，在葡萄收获的高峰期访问波尔多，并在该港口停留两晚。旅程将继续穿过风格粗犷而优雅的巴斯克地区和加利西亚，最后在葡萄牙阳光普照的海岸线——波尔图和里斯本达到顶峰。随后在里斯本放松两晚，并在您的私人导览行程中探索葡萄牙的皇家遗产。在如画的卡斯凯什海滨放松之前，去发现洛可可风格的克鲁兹国家宫、辛特拉神秘的雷加莱拉庄园 (Quinta da Regaleira) 以及山顶上色彩斑斓的佩纳宫 (Pena Palace)。
英国南安普顿 – 泽西岛圣海利尔 – 法国圣马洛 – 法国波尔多（两晚） – 西班牙毕尔巴鄂 – 桑坦德 – 维戈 – 葡萄牙波尔图 – 里斯本（两晚）
适用条款和条件。所示价格为每人价格，基于两名成人共用一间房，信息截至 2026年7月21日，可能随供应情况而变化。价格不包括在酒店支付的里斯本旅游税，每人每晚约 €4。*Silversea 40% 优惠仅适用于 2026年9月8日前预订的指定航次，具体取决于预订的舱房类别，且已从广告价格中扣除。^Times+ £100 优惠适用于 2026年12月31日前通过提供专属 Times+ 代码且最低消费 £2,000 的每笔 Times Holidays 预订。完整条款和条件请访问 thetimes.com / timesplus。优惠及预订视供应情况而定，完整条款请参阅供应商网站。此含机票假期由 Times Holidays 作为 Advantage Travel Partnership (ATOL 10571) 的代理商销售并收取款项，并受 ATOL 计划的财务保护。付款后将出具 ATOL 证书。完整预订条件请访问 thetimes.com / holidays / terms-and-conditions。有关财务保护和 ATOL 证书的更多信息，请访问 caa.co.uk。
26 2026年8月2日 《星期日泰晤士报》
1066
以及所有那些
我们的专家诺曼·米勒 (Norman Miller) 为您提供关于黑斯廷斯 (Hastings)、圣莱昂纳兹 (St Leonards) 和赖伊 (Rye) 的最佳指南
乘坐小型爱德华时期的木制缆车从东山电梯 (East Hill Lift) 缓缓而上，下方是咸味浓郁的
拥有 1066 历史关联的辉煌乡村地区：中世纪的赖伊、内陆村庄巴特尔 (Battle，诺曼人与萨克逊人决定性决战的地点)，以及温彻尔西 (Winchelsea) —— 这里如此如画，如果你在屏幕上看到它，你会怀疑是 AI 的幻觉。以下是我为该地区准备的指南。
在 Rock-a-Nore 的喧嚣中，欧洲最大的海滩发射渔船队及其五颜六色的装备在下方渐行渐远。我从砂岩悬崖的高处俯瞰黑斯廷斯老镇及其都铎和乔治亚时期的建筑，随后离开缆车，沿着一段穿越黑斯廷斯乡村公园的查尔斯三世英格兰海岸小径漫步。
首先前往黑斯廷斯老镇 —— 那是一个由充满氛围的街道和被称为 "twittens" 的狭小穿行小巷组成的迷宫，非常适合探索，从黑斯廷斯火车站沿海滨步行 20 分钟即可到达。在商业街上，在独特的复古家居胜地 AG Hendy 感受乔治亚风格，并在 20 世纪古董专卖店 Goods Depot 搜寻极具共鸣的复古之物。位于圣徒街 (All Saints Street) 的 16 世纪雄鹿旅馆 (Stag Inn) 是镇上最古老、最迷人的酒吧，坐落在都铎式房屋中。
征服者威廉是否曾站在这里，凝视着海岸线，望向佩文西的罗马堡垒？他当年正是在那里登陆，并在黑斯廷斯之战中终结了萨克森时期的英格兰。随着拜邑挂毯在今年九月（平静地）跨越英吉利海峡前往伦敦大英博物馆，大批游客即将抵达，这让人们更有理由去探索这个被称为 1066 地区的区域。
距离黑斯廷斯六英里（乘火车到巴特尔需 15 分钟，然后步行 15 分钟即可到达村中心）的是辉煌的 11 世纪巴特尔修道院及其博物馆（£15；englishheritage.co.uk）。在途中，可以潜入 12 世纪圣玛丽教堂的清凉之中，欣赏其迷人的战斗挂毯，该挂毯记录了 1066 年后数十年间的当地生活，由社区成员在 2017. 年缝制而成。与此同时，巴特尔修道院是五英里环形战场步道的起点。餐饮推荐：黑斯廷斯的 Rock-a-Nore Kitchen。这家充满氛围的 Rock-a-Nore Kitchen 提供包括虾酱番茄炖金边鱼在内的菜肴；周三至周日营业（主菜 £17 起；@rockanorekitchen）。
不过，不要仅仅局限于旧城区。就在黑斯廷斯车站下方，America Ground 是一个由短小道路组成的紧凑三角形区域，其名称源于 1830s 年代一群自称是不断演进的美国一部分的自由生活当地人的聚居地。这里依然传递着一种另类气息，在 Claremont 街分叉出的 Gotham Alley 最为明显，那里是 Cabaret Mechanical Theatre 奇特自动机装置的所在地。
布赖顿经常抢尽萨塞克斯郡的风头，在伦敦生活多年后，我也深爱其南海岸悠闲的氛围二十年之久。这里也是探索这个充满独特历史小镇的郡县的完美基地。以黑斯廷斯为例，这是一个不断演进、略显粗犷但极具魅力的城镇，这里有一系列令人难忘的活动——从五月令人瞠目、根植于异教传统的“绿中杰克”（Jack in the Green）节，到该郡最精彩的服装篝火游行之一。
Selkie Seafood Bar 隐藏在 Bottle Alley 中——这是一条位于黑斯廷斯码头西侧、掩于海滨大道之下的 1930 年代镶嵌玻璃的通道。户外座位是享用牡蛎和烟熏鱼的独特之所（主菜 £10 起；oysterboyevents.com）。住宿推荐：黑斯廷斯的 The Laindons。这是一家位于黑斯廷斯旧城区中心的豪华乔治亚风格 B&B。其六间充满古董气息的房间每间都拥有
不同的颜色和装饰。我们特别喜欢可以欣赏到城镇和海景的大黄房（B&B 双人间 £190 起；laindons.com）。
£145; victorianbedand breakfast.co.uk).
（图注）由上至下：赖伊的伊普雷塔；赖伊的 George 餐厅；黑斯廷斯海滩的码头
ANDREW HASSON / ALAMY; THE GEORGE IN RYE; ALEXEY FEDOREN / GETTY IMAGES
向东 12 英里——或乘火车 20 分钟——便是赖伊，这是一个俯瞰罗瑟河的紧凑中世纪城堡城镇。一支小型渔船队在码头鱼市旁起伏，那里有一家极佳的海鲜吧，提供填馅鱼卷、鱼串、螃蟹和赖伊湾扇贝（主菜 £8.50 起；ryefish market.co.uk）。
其美景之盛令你如同攀登般气喘吁吁。我想征服者威廉也会对此印象深刻。
沿着海滨步行半小时（或从黑斯廷斯乘火车 3 分钟到达圣莱昂纳兹勇士广场站）后，可以在 Kings Road 的 Stereo Retro 享用极具个性且充满咖啡因的饮品。这是一间中世纪风格的听音酒吧，其 eclectic 播放列表搭配着如稀有的Kopi Luwak（由亚洲麝香猫啃食并排泄出咖啡豆制成）等咖啡。然后漫步至邻近的时尚地带 Norman Road，在 Kino-Teatr 画廊和复古电影院欣赏美术设计。
Rye
East Sussex
Battle
Winchelsea
DialAFlight
St Leonards-on-Sea
Hastings
2 miles
说到海滩，与其选择坎伯桑兹 (Camber Sands) 附近有沙丘背衬且潮汐强劲的海岸线，不如尝试更具沉思魅力的赖海自然保护区 (Rye Harbour Nature Reserve)。这是一个鸟类繁多的潮汐湿地，可以沿着一条令人心驰神往的内陆两英里小路，穿过羊群遍布的田野，前往西边的亨利八世废弃的坎伯城堡 (Camber Castle) (rye.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk)。
赖 (Rye) 将古老的环境巧妙地利用在独立店铺中，例如位于前乔治亚时代银行内的 Les Animaux，以及位于 16 世纪前女巫之家的书香浓郁的 Grounded 咖啡馆。此外，还有可能是英国最迷人的古董店 Alex MacArthur Interiors，在一家中世纪修道院内展示华丽的欧洲设计（请提前预约；alexmacarthur.co.uk）。沿着鹅卵石山路向下走几码，Waterworks 是一家充满古董的小型酒吧，由 18 世纪的泵站改造而成，供应优质的当地苹果酒（一品脱 £4 起；ryewaterworks.co.uk）。
在哪里用餐 The Union Rye
由两栋 16 世纪的农舍改造而成，The Union 重点推介卓越的季节性食材，包括温切尔西小羊 (Winchelsea hogget) 和赖湾扇贝 (Rye Bay scallops)（主菜 £20 起；theunionrye.co.uk）。
在哪里住宿 The George in Rye
The George 在 2019 年的一场火灾后如凤凰般重生，它是创新的圣殿，这座 16 世纪的前驿站酒店的 34 间客房均经过重新装修（仅限客房 £125 起；thegeorgeinrye.com）。
在圣莱昂纳兹花园 (St Leonards Gardens) 的乔治亚式宁静中放松身心，这里受到了伦敦摄政公园 (Regent’s Park) 和邱园 (Kew Gardens) 风格的影响，但周围出色的时代建筑比两者都更胜一筹。
在哪里用餐 各种选择
远离海滩，可以选择聚集在国王路 (Kings Road) 上的三家店铺。Sonny’s 是一家海鲜名店，将熏鱼与菠菜、韭葱和蛤蜊等食材搭配，按市场价计费 (sonnysofrockanore.co.uk)；而 Bayte 则带有意大利风味，用海鲈鱼塞维切 (sea bass ceviche) 等菜肴来搭配手工意面（主菜 £14 起；bayte.co.uk）。不过，最热门的地方可能是 Boatyard，其菜品包括盐烤甜菜根、黑莓、打发豆腐和芝麻，以及配以青柠叶和高良姜黄油的虾 (crevettes)（主菜 £16 起；boatyardstleonards.com）。
在哪里住宿 St Benedict
St Benedict 是一栋 1880 年代的别墅，其五间充满古董的客房致力于呈现所有维多利亚时代的元素（B&B 起）。
亨利·詹姆斯 (Henry James) 长期居住在赖的 Lamb House，这是一处国家信托旗下的乔治亚美景之作，坐落在一个迷人的鹅卵石聚集区，这里有 900 年历史的圣玛丽教堂 (St Mary’s Church)，以及城堡内的 13 世纪伊普尔塔 (Ypres Tower)。爬过巨大的教堂钟声，到达圣玛丽塔的顶端，向顿根内斯 (Dungeness) 和海岸线的广阔景色将令您屏息。
诺曼·米勒 (Norman Miller) 曾是 Laindons 和 The George 的客人，他撰写了《你不能错过在黑斯廷斯和赖的 111 个地方》 (111 Places in Hastings and Rye That You Shouldn’t Miss, Emons Verlag £13.99)。如需订购副本，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk 或拨打 020 3176 2935。在线订单满 £25. 免英国标准邮资。Times+ 会员可享受特别折扣。
DialAFlight
28 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
当我抵达悉尼的 25Hours 酒店时，在配备 DJ 设备的露台上，这里有休闲椅、遮阳伞，远处可以窥见悉尼海港大桥。我与诺埃尔 (Noel) 见面了，我们已经 20 多年没见了。在中间的这些年里，他在牛津街经营达林赫斯特书店 (Bookshop Darlinghurst)，那是这座城市最古老的面向同性恋群体的书店。我们花了一个晚上惊叹于逝去的岁月，一边毫无意义地对着彼此傻笑，一边大快朵颐地吃着帕德龙辣椒和魔鬼小蟹 (devilled spanner crab)（小吃 £6 起）。我们喝着 Aperol spritz，理由是我们在上次见面时，这种酒可能还没有被发明——或者至少没有被广泛推广。
JUSTIN NICHOLAS; MANFRED GOTTSCHALK / GETTY IMAGES
大约晚上 10 点，两名女性正准备离开。“我们可以帮你一把吗？你必须让我们帮忙，”她们说，尽管穿着极高的高跟鞋，且一副正处于狂欢之夜的快活模样，但仍坚持帮我把行李箱拖上入口的最后几级台阶。在离开了悉尼 20 年之后，这种回归方式感觉非常“澳大利亚”，而且极其符合达林赫斯特（Darlinghurst）的风格。或者，这也许完全是帕丁顿（Paddington）的风格——那个放荡且令人愉悦的邻近区域，几个世纪以来一直在时尚浪潮中起伏兴衰。
“悉尼的这个区域一直是以酷儿企业和独立时装店为汇聚点，”诺埃尔告诉我。“在千禧年代于 CBD 和邦迪枢纽（Bondi Junction）开业的 Westfield 购物中心确实损害了这个地区，但现在这里正在再次绅士化。”这可能包括了他的书店，该书店于 2025 年关闭，主因是房东想要涨房租，而不是因为人们不再买书。
在悉尼东侧两个最狂欢地区的交汇处——位于歌剧院、CBD 和邦迪之间——牛津街上容纳 25Hours Hotel Sydney（即奥林匹亚 / Olympia）的这座建筑，一百多年来一直提供着美好的时光。1911 年，它成为了一家电影院，在 20 世纪 20 年代帮助开创了有声电影，随后转向艺术电影。后来，这里曾是 Grand Pacific Blue Room，一个 1990 年代的 Cosmopolitan 鸡尾酒和 Bacardi Breezer 饮品的圣殿；凯莉和迈克尔·哈钦森（Kylie and Michael Hutchence）曾是常客。我很确定我以前在拜访大学旧友诺埃尔时也来过这里，但那是将近 30 年前的事了，我的记忆已经模糊。去年年底，在关闭十年后，这里以 25Hours 酒店的身份重新开业。
25Hour
在此之前，悉尼这个地区只有
少数几个住宿选择：Oxford
派对人群
House，拥有 55 间客房和一个
顶楼泳池（仅限房间 £118 起；oxford house sydney.
在经历了 90 年代的鼎盛时期后，悉尼的达林赫斯特再次热闹起来。Sarah Turner 入住了一家新酒店。
com），以及 Mrs Banks
酒店（B&B
内部有一些对建筑历史的巧妙致敬。接待区摆放着一排排录像带，包括《教父》和 BBC 系列剧《傲慢与偏见》（如果你想尝试真正的复古并观看一部，工作人员可以在你的房间里安装一台 VHS 播放机，尽管前台那位友好的英国年轻人承认还没有人要求过他们这么做）。
双人间 £117 起；mrsbanks
hotel.com.au）。但 25Hours 整体规模更大、更奢华。其 109 间客房，面积从 22 到 43 平方米不等，布置令人愉悦，配有特聘艺术品、出色的淋浴设施、舒适的床铺和免费迷你吧（仅提供软饮，但依然很贴心）。
装饰着锻铁（极具吸引力，价格昂贵），是一系列精品店，销售该市最抢手的时尚品牌，包括 Lee Mathews 和 Venroy。
并获得了极高评价（主菜 £26 起；thepalomar.com.au）。
通知，提供 £13 的店内信用额度或 £7 的现金。设计师服装的价格很高，但也有更实惠的单品，这对我误打包的 Vinted 错误物品很有帮助 (swop.net.au)。
悉尼的这个区域长期以来拥有强大的餐饮底蕴。1993 年，在利物浦街的一家小咖啡馆里，比尔·格兰杰（Bill Granger）通过在吐司上铺上牛油果，改变了全世界的早餐。
酒店里也有一家咖啡店——Jacob the Angel，它自称是英式的（在我看来，它有着光辉的澳大利亚气息），提供浓郁的澳白（flat whites）和来自墨尔本 Lune 的糕点，后者是该国最受赞誉的烘焙店（在我入住期间，他们每天上午 10 点前就售罄了）。如果想喝烈酒，可以去 Mulwray，一家提供海带浸渍酒并配备切斯特菲尔德沙发（chesterfield sofas）的鸡尾酒吧。
然而，在达里奥（Dario）仍有许多能让我开心的事情。事实证明，其中最主要的是 Swop，它于 2023. 年在这里开业。在这个全白色的仓库空间里，顾客上传想要出售的衣服照片——一名工作人员帮（处于时差状态的）我完成了流程。十分钟后，正当我试戴一副售价 £130, 的古驰（Gucci）太阳镜时，我收到了一份
这里到处都是餐厅。The Palomar 是 25Hours 酒店的主餐厅，占据了酒店一楼的大部分空间。它在主厨 Mitch Orr（曾就职于 Kiln）的领导下，将所有最新的餐饮趋势呈现在餐桌上。它是伦敦同名餐厅的姐妹店，设有木火烤箱和中东风味调料台。
我因此获得的金额正好抵得上悉尼最时髦披萨店的一块披萨钱。Appizza 于 11 月在泰勒广场（Taylor Square）转角开业，距离 Swop 仅几码之遥，是 AP Bakery 的最新项目。在像牛奶箱一样的桌椅旁扫描二维码，一份绝佳的披萨切片便送达。
其他酒店也计划开业，包括 Capella 旗下的 Lands 和华尔道夫（Waldorf Astoria），但它们的价格会更高，且位于 CBD 的环形码头（Circular Quay）附近。
大堂区域摆放着书架，以及带有真实岁月痕迹且极其舒适的中世纪家具。25Hours 是一个喜欢改造棘手旧建筑的德国品牌，它提供业内心目中的“精简奢华”（lean luxury）——强有力的设计理念，以及必须靠自身实力盈利的酒吧和餐厅，但没有如客房服务之类的繁琐服务；这是该品牌首次进军澳大利亚。
Soho House 计划于 2028. 年在距离 25Hours 步行几分钟路程的克朗街（Crown Street）与牛津街（Oxford Street）交汇处开设分店。它可能会有一个屋顶游泳池（大多数其他 Soho House 都有），而且感觉会比 25Hours 更加时髦。但我不敢相信它能提供像我所收到的那样完美的悉尼欢迎礼。
在一个温暖的夏夜，Monica 屋顶酒吧让人感觉是对这座建筑快乐旧时光最好的致敬。在
主图：新 25Hours 酒店大堂；达令赫斯特（Darlinghurst）天际线；酒店所在的历史建筑
悉尼歌剧院
悉尼 达令赫斯特 帕丁顿
走出 25Hours 向左转，你就进入了达令赫斯特。用悉尼久负盛名的绰号称呼，这里叫 “Darlo”，是这两个区中较为粗犷的一个，有一些用乳胶和皮革进行创意尝试的恋物商店。如果你向右转，就进入了帕丁顿（Paddington），格伦莫尔路（Glenmore Road）周边的氛围则以一种截然不同的方式显得极其精致——这里有一系列可爱的维多利亚式小屋
Sarah Turner 是新南威尔士州旅游局（visitnsw.com）、25Hours 酒店（仅房费双人间 £160 起；25hours-hotel.com）以及 Inspiring Travel 的访客。后者提供的悉尼 25Hours 酒店 7 晚仅房费套餐起价为每人 £2,532，包含机票和接送服务（inspiringtravel.co.uk）。
澳大利亚
25Hours 邦迪 (Bondi)
2 英里
卡塔尔航空被 Skytrax 评为全球第一航空公司，在舒适度、风格和档次方面出类拔萃。他们是旅行专家，飞往全球 160 个以上的目的地，其稳定的服务表现使旅行变得轻松舒适。
探索他们的航线，今天就打造您的梦想冒险之旅……
15 晚 £2,349* 起
7 晚 £2,499^ 起
10 晚 £1,199~ 起
14 晚 £3,649^ 起
包含卡塔尔航空机票，5 晚 4 星级悉尼酒店，悉尼导览之旅，悉尼港观光巴士，3 晚乌鲁鲁（Uluru）酒店，乌鲁鲁基地与日落之旅，6 晚 4 星级道格拉斯港（Port Douglas）酒店，外大堡礁巡航，特里뷸莱申角（Cape Tribulation）与戴恩森林（Daintree Rainforest）之旅以及选定的接送服务 • 巡游著名的悉尼港 • 了解原住民文化 • 在大堡礁迷人的海域中浮潜
乘坐卡塔尔航空航班，9 日私人团，包括 8 晚 3 至 4 星级酒店、私人司机 / 导游、精选观光行程及早餐，以及 7 晚 4 星级海滨度假村（含半食宿及私人机场接送）。
乘坐卡塔尔航空航班，5 星级海滨度假村（含半食宿及水上飞机接送）。
乘坐卡塔尔航空航班，3 晚 5 星级多哈酒店，7 晚普吉岛海滨度假村，含早餐及私人接送 • 探索卡塔尔首都多哈充满活力的集市、迷人的博物馆和沙漠景观 • 在普吉岛迷人的海滩上放松身心，探索著名的泰国文化和景观 特惠活动：普吉岛免费入住 3 晚 —— 每对夫妇可节省 150 英镑以上。
• 这座幽静的度假村坐落在未受破坏的努努环礁 (Noonu Atoll)，拥有如粉末般洁白的沙滩 • 尽享丰富的顶级餐饮选择和自有珊瑚礁 • 设有仅限成人的无边泳池和家庭泳池，是情侣和家庭出行的绝佳选择 特惠活动 —— 每对夫妇可节省 2,200 英镑以上。
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阿拉斯加
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海恩斯 (Haines)
朱诺 (Juneau)，阿拉斯加 温哥华
2 晚数 巡航 飞行
阿拉斯加
朱诺
您的独家
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西特卡 (Sitka)
克洛沃克 (Klawock) 兰格尔 (Wrangell)
凯奇坎 (Ketchikan)
假期包括
不列颠哥伦比亚省
11
艾伯塔省
内海航道 (Inside Passage)
• 11 晚 Oceania Riviera™ 邮轮巡航，包括：
– 全食宿
– 小费
• 1 晚 4 星级及以上西雅图酒店
3
温哥华 维多利亚
1
美国
西雅图
乘坐令人赞叹的 Oceania Riviera™ 邮轮，从温哥华航行至西雅图，开启一场非凡旅程，近距离领略美国最后的边疆——阿拉斯加。在壮丽的内海航道景观中，体验巍峨的冰川、广袤的森林和崎岖的山脉。
第 15 天 美国 西雅图 在西雅图离船并前往酒店。第 16-17 天 乘机返回
第 7 天 西特卡
第 1-3 天 加拿大 温哥华 飞抵温哥华并前往酒店。接下来的几天探索这座美丽城市。
Oceania Riviera™
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每人 4,649 英镑
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酒店、邮轮、旅游及机票价格为动态价格，随消费者需求和旅行季节实时波动。优惠视供应情况而定，且可能适用相关限制。价格准确至 30 July 26 印刷时。
SIPA US, KIRK FISHER / ALAMY
简·奈特 (Jane Knight) 表示，这片英国领地拥有值得享受的塔帕斯 (tapas)、海豚观赏、自然风光和金酒。
直抵伊比利亚半岛顶端并正对着 摩洛哥，直布罗陀的标志是其 1,400ft
D
石灰岩巨岩，其中布满了隧道、洞穴和顽皮的猕猴。
多年来，这个地中海门户给人的感觉更像是一座堡垒而非度假城市。但这个英国海外领地正在焕发新生。其庞大的第二次世界大战隧道已被重新设计为沉浸式景点，其他军事遗址和摩尔城堡 (Moorish Castle) 正在修复中，且今年晚些时候，Harrison 将作为直布罗陀的第一家精品酒店开业。甚至连缆车（目前关闭）也在升级。
洞穴旁的 Michael’s Cabin。无论如何，请当心出没的猴子。
这家朴实无华的小店提供性价比高的 摩洛哥 库斯库斯 (couscous) 和塔吉锅 (tagine)（主菜 from £13; elkasbah.gi）。
住宿推荐
春季和秋季是最佳时机，邮轮游客较少，天气也不太热。那时在直布罗陀步行探索将成为一种享受，从拥有红色邮筒和 M&S 商店的老城区徒步前往巨岩之巅，或者沿着海岸漫步至沙滩。
探索直布罗陀 34 英里的隧道，从 1779-83 年与法国和西班牙冲突期间使用的大围攻隧道 (Great Siege Tunnels)，到庞大的第二次世界大战隧道网络。亮点包括 Jock’s Balcony——一个位于岩壁上的大型开口和观察点，可俯瞰机场和边境，此外还有一架喷火战斗机和互动间谍挑战（包含在 £30 自然保护区门票中；ww2tunnels.com）。在 The Lord Nelson 饮酒：这家酒吧位于历史悠久的 Grand Casemates 兵营内，设计旨在模仿纳尔逊的旗舰“胜利号” (HMS Victory)，配备了帆和索具。紧邻的 Landport 隧道内有一幅约翰·列侬的壁画，他曾在直布罗陀与小野洋子结婚（品脱啤酒 from £4.50; lordnelson.gi）。
具有历史感的酒店：从温斯顿·丘吉尔到肖恩·康纳里，所有人都曾在这家 1930s 酒店入住过。它依然是直布罗陀的经典之作，但在其白色外墙之后，如今已不再显得特别奢华或迷人。不过，古典风格的卧室很舒适（最好的房间带有海景阳台），您可以在欣赏西班牙和 摩洛哥 风光的同时享用奶油茶 (cream tea)（£21）；仅限房间的双人间 from £130; rockhotelgibraltar.com）。
上方为直布罗陀巨岩；下方为 Grand Casemates 广场。
前往直布罗陀壮丽东翼的加泰罗尼亚湾 (Catalan Bay) 海滩，在这里，巨岩在成排的糖果色房屋后陡峭耸立，沙滩缓缓没入地中海。这个前渔村可以追溯到 18 世纪的热那亚定居者。在 Nunos 用餐：这家位于一楼的餐厅每天制作美味的意面，并能做出地道的披萨。不要错过提拉米苏。
当你坐下来用餐时，你已经为此付出了努力。无论你选择塔帕斯、塔吉锅还是配上一品脱啤酒的炸鱼薯条，你都将用英镑支付。
实用信息
与西班牙的一项新协议意味着巨岩现在被视为 欧盟 的一部分。如果您是英国公民，将在机场办理入境手续，且您的停留时间将计入 申根协议 区域 180 天内 90 天的限制，与在邻国西班牙相同。
抵达与交通：英国航空从希思罗机场直飞，飞行时间不足 3 小时；easyJet 从盖特威克和曼彻斯特起飞。从直布罗陀机场乘出租车前往市区仅需 10 分钟，市区紧凑，非常适合步行探索。也可以租赁电动自行车（半日 £35; ebike-gibraltar.com）。
这里有一家现场熟食店，提供冷盘肉类和意面，如果您选择自助餐饮或想要外带，这是一个方便的选择（主菜 £12.50 起；wearenunos.com）。
上岩自然保护区（Upper Rock Nature Reserve）的看点远不止于巴巴里猕猴和圣迈克尔洞（St Michael’s Cave）的音乐厅内部。走过温莎吊桥，踏上玻璃底天空步道，行走在蜿蜒于岩石上的 16 世纪查理五世墙（King Charles V Wall）。在缆车停运期间，可以通过地中海阶梯（Mediterranean Steps）徒步前往所有景点，或穿过城镇攀登。也可以选择出租车游览（所有景点均包含在每人 £30 的自然保护区一日票中；共乘出租车另加每人 £20 起；naturereserve.gi）。午餐：准备野餐。自然保护区内散布的指定野餐点是享用当地特色美食的绝佳场所，例如用鹰嘴豆粉和橄榄油制成的 calentita，或菠菜挞（来自 Tasty Bite，59 Irish Town，售价 £3）。或者在 St 购买三明治。
景观泳池：在这家位于市中心、充满现代感的酒店顶楼泳池和酒吧，您可以躺在躺椅上俯瞰上城区和岩石景观。早餐在相邻的房间供应，可欣赏到西班牙阿尔赫西拉斯（Algeciras）的景色。卧室采用蓝白调，配有超大床头板，空间宽敞但略显功能化；建议预订高层房间以获得最佳视野（B&B 双人间 £178 起；eliotthotel.com）。
在微型酿酒厂 Spirit of the Rock 体验 75 分钟的金酒品鉴。品尝六种金酒，并了解这种烈酒的丰富历史，从“海军强度”（navy strength）的含义到“金酒宫殿”（gin palaces）的起源。环节以您自选的一杯鸡尾酒结束（每人 £25；spiritoftherock.gi）。在 El Kasbah 用餐：这家餐厅位于旧城区，被认为曾是一个蓄水池，其砖墙和拱门反映了摩尔、英国和西班牙的影响。
直布罗陀湾是欧洲观察野生海豚的最佳地点之一，全年可见，且海豚群规模可达 200 只。出海航行，以岩石为背景，密切观察（£28；dolphin.gi）。在 My Wines 饮酒：这家葡萄酒酒吧兼全天候餐厅位于前查塔姆反击堡（Chatham Counterguard）防御工事内，露台可观岩石美景，提供 300 多款酒标，设有单杯饮用和品鉴套餐（单杯葡萄酒 £5；mywinesgibraltar.com）。
负责任地旅游：西班牙边境检查的取消意味着进行多站式旅行将更加便捷，马拉加（Malaga）、加的斯（Cadiz）和赫雷斯（Jerez）均在直布罗陀 90 分钟车程范围内（而摩洛哥则在 90 分钟轮渡航程之外）。
直布罗陀国家博物馆可能显得有点简陋，其藏品从填充的海鸟标本到从海中打捞出的埃及木乃伊不等。但为了参观 14 世纪的摩尔浴室以及在半岛上发现的尼安德特人头骨复制品，这里依然值得一访（£15；gibmuseum.gi）。在 Casa Pepe 用餐：这家西班牙餐厅风景优美地坐落在皇后路码头（Queensway Quay Marina），提供最新鲜的海鲜。分享装 Tapas 涵盖了从炸鳀鱼到虾饼、伊比利亚火腿和曼切格奶酪的所有美食（大盘 Tapas £14.50 起；casapepegibraltar.com）。
码头上的邮轮酒店：Sunborn 酒店由一艘邮轮建成，提供海上生活的璀璨体验，从接待处巨大的蓝色迪斯科球便可见一斑。在健身房、水疗中心、酒吧以及甲板泳池尽情欣赏海景。如果您选择现代超级游艇高级客房，还可以看到飞机在跑道上起飞。从机场步行即可轻松抵达 Sunborn（带阳台的高级客房 B&B 双人间 £216 起；sunborngibraltar.com）。
海豚冒险
第二次世界大战隧道
Sunborn 酒店
直布罗陀国家博物馆
大围攻隧道
加泰罗尼亚湾海滩
The Eliott 酒店
岩石之巅
直布罗陀
Jane Knight 是直布罗陀旅游局 (visitgibraltar.gi)、Sunborn (sunborngibraltar.com) 和 Eliott 酒店 (eliotthotel.com) 的访客。
600yd
ANTON ALEKSENKO; GETTY IMAGES; KEN MCKAY / ITV / SHUTTERSTOCK
在印度，室友和酷热是一项挑战
前新闻主播的缅甸单身之旅及澳大利亚冒险之旅
Jan Leeming，84 岁，在 1980 到 1987 年间担任 BBC1 新闻播报员。她还主持了 1982 年在哈罗盖特举行的欧洲歌唱大赛。退休后，她参加了《我是名人……快让我离开这里！》和《真实万寿酒店》等电视节目。她已离婚，有一个儿子 Jonathan。她与她的papillon犬 DiDee 住在肯特郡。
我的父亲是一名军队军官，被派驻到新加坡。我当时只被允许在 14 岁时前往看望他一次，那是他三年的服役期。我非常期待见到他，但苏伊士运河危机爆发，我的行程被取消了。因此，我的第一次出国旅行是在 1957 年夏天，与一群年轻人一起前往奥地利阿尔卑斯山的 Lermoos，在那里我进行了轻量徒步，并在晚上跳舞。那时没有廉价航班，所以我们乘坐火车和夜间卧铺车厢。如果我没记错，去那里需要几天时间。
在 20 世纪 60 年代初，我花了三年时间在澳大利亚和新西兰担任演员和电视节目主持人——我在 1963 年成为了悉尼电视上的第一位女性新闻播报员（在当时由男性主导的澳洲文化中，这相当是一次重大突破）。
我曾经历过一些令人失望的假期体验。在早期的
由探矿者留下的。那时女性不允许进入酒吧，但一名探矿者邀请我和另一名女性成员进入一个像锡棚一样的酒吧，我在手里握着一些价值极高的欧泊石。我热爱澳大利亚，如果我的未婚夫 Hayo 没有在 1966 年的一场车祸中丧生，我永远不会离开。
离开丛林后，我参观了 Currumbin 野生动物保护区。我排队准备与一只考拉拍照，但当他们把考拉传给我时，它排便了。在黄金海岸的 Palazzo Versace 酒店度过的几个夜晚几乎弥补了这一点。
年薪 £10,500，而 Patrick 作为 BBC Radio 2 的播报员，收入更低。
斋浦尔的琥珀堡是 Jan Leeming 印度之行的亮点之一
还有一次，我在乘 Castel Felice 邮轮返回英国途中，在拿波里买了一瓶美丽的陶土瓶装 Lacryma Christi（意为“基督之泪”）葡萄酒。我打算回家后把它改成灯，但由于一路小心呵护，当它在南安普敦的海关桌上滚落并摔得粉碎时，我流下了眼泪。
大约十年后，我加入了在印度斋浦尔举行的《真实万寿酒店》的阵容
我最难忘的假期之一是 2016 年通过 Just You Single Holidays 前往缅甸。我永远不会忘记在“不朽之都” Amarapura 看到的绝美日落，那里有世界上最长的柚木桥，还有在茵莱湖上用脚划船的渔民。参观 Shwedagon 佛塔及其耀眼的镀金佛塔是另一个神奇时刻。
——我的父亲出生在印度，曾在印度军队服役。应对酷热和随行的其他参与者（我不打算指名道姓！）是一项挑战，但这次旅行是值得的，因为我参观了泰姬陵以及具有惊人意大利风格装饰的琥珀堡。
我的下一次出国旅行将在秋季前往悉尼，参加 Jonathan 的婚礼。我很高兴他在 45 岁时终于安定下来。不过，我不确定之后是否还会再次前往那个南半球国家——飞行时间大约 22 小时，费用昂贵，而且我也在变老。尽管如此，我拥有终身美好的旅行回忆来支撑我。
2006年在澳大利亚参加《名人之战》（I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here）也令人难忘，即便我们不得不应对潮湿、饥饿和蚊子。我的儿子乔纳森认为我会第一个被淘汰，这样他就能在豪华酒店享受两周的时光，因此他鼓励我报名。但事实证明，我在丛林中——实际上是一片雨林——待了17天。
20世纪80年代，我和当时的丈夫帕特里克以及当时18个月大的乔纳森住在克里特岛一个肮脏的自助式公寓里。那张床
我在澳大利亚的第一份工作是作为“青年伊丽莎白团体”的一员，将莎士比亚的戏剧带到内陆地区。我参观了新南威尔士州沃尔盖特（Walgett）的黑欧泊矿区，那里的地貌就像月球表面，布满了“鼹鼠洞”。
由石底座、脏脏的床垫和枕头组成。在那度过了一个可怕的夜晚后，我们预订了附近的一家酒店，尽管
简·利明 (Jan Leeming) 是斯里兰卡动物 SOS 组织 (animalsos-sl.com) 的赞助人，该组织救援流浪狗和猫。欲了解更多关于她的信息，请访问 janleeming.com。
我们没什么钱——尽管我是全国新闻播音员，但我当时只有
“并不完全是，”我告诉他。“重要的是下面的管子。”它以城堡命名，是19世纪公共交通的一次突破性尝试，但很快就破产了。“但我们看不到那个，所以这个就行了，”我补充道。
奖项还包括在爱丁堡 SUSHISAMBA 享用一次双人晚餐。该晚餐必须在2026年9月1日与2027年2月1日之间使用，视供应情况而定，且不包括公共假期以及12月23日至1月3日期间。
我想带我的朋友去看一个管子（tube）。“什么，在这种天气？不用了，谢谢，”他说。
赢取价值高达 £2,600 的 W 爱丁堡豪华苏格兰之旅
“不是指地铁（Tube），”我告诉他。“是一个管子（tube）。”尽管两者在某些方面是有联系的。
“我唯一想看到的管子是出水的软管，”他沙哑地说道。“那些被禁了，”我说。
“那水怎么办？”朋友低吼道。
“这不是显而易见吗？”我回答，
调皮地补充道：“等我们到了那里，会有很多水的。”
指向南方。“潮汐正在退去，所以每秒有数千立方英尺的水流过我们身边。”
如何参加
回答问题并填写报名表，访问 thetimes.com / travel / where-was-i，截止日期为8月6日（周四）结束前。每人限参加一次。适用完整条款与条件，您的信息将根据我们在 newsprivacy.co.uk 上的隐私政策使用。
于是我们步行，从一个在炸弹袭击遗址上开放的公园开始，那里有一座投枪雕塑。朋友之前一直躲在这里的一棵树下。然后我们向南走。幸运的是，许多街道都有遮阴，因为建筑非常高，尤其是在我们路线的后半段。
朋友给了我一个冷漠而漫长的凝视。“你就为了这个，把我从公园的阴凉地带带出来？”他问道。
“很有趣，不是吗？”我试探着问。
“你知道那个城堡里有一道门是专门为像你这样的人设计的，”他低吼道。“你这个叛徒！” 肖恩·纽森 (Sean Newsom)
圣詹姆斯季度 (St James Quarter)，距离韦弗利车站 (Waverley station) 仅几步之遥。
奖项
获胜者及其嘉宾将入住 W 爱丁堡的一间套房，包含两晚住宿及早餐。酒店位于优雅的18世纪新城区的边缘，由雕塑般的 Ribbon Building、现代的 Quarter House 以及一座修复的乔治亚风格联排别墅组成，为圣詹姆斯季度提供五星级款待。
酒店拥有244 间客房和套房，壮观的 W Deck 可俯瞰爱丁堡城堡的顶层景观，以及十楼的 SUSHISAMBA 爱丁堡，这家餐厅兼鸡尾酒吧展示了日本、巴西和秘鲁美食。欲了解更多信息，请访问 wedinburgh.com。
上周奖项
在公园向东南方向近两英里处，我们看到一个矮小的管状砖结构——建于1926年，位于一座城堡西门西北方向67码处。
答案是 Culcheth 和 Everton FC。来自肯特的格伦·梅森 (Glen Mason) 赢得了在 Matfen Hall 价值高达 £1,410 的豪华诺森伯兰之旅。
问题
“就是这里吗？”朋友结结巴巴地问道。
38 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
旅游评论
每个人支付相同的别墅费用。
或者在假期过半时交换房间。但实际上，谁愿意费那个劲？在为期一周的旅行进入第三天时，我的房间往往看起来像被窃贼为了寻找财物而洗劫过一样。衣服散落在床上，潮湿的泳衣在各种挂钩上晾晒，各种乳液和药水瓶子摆在每一个平面上，单只鞋子像踏脚石一样点缀在地板上。在那个阶段，把这一切收拾起来并搬到另一个房间的想法并不太诱人。而且在洗衣服方面也很麻烦。
Sophia MoneyCoutts
无需多言，Mumsnet 上有关于别墅度假以及谁应该支付多少费用的讨论帖，评论数高达数百条。总的来说，我认为按人头而非按卧室来分摊此类度假费用是最公平的，因为否则的话，单身人士即使住在双人间，最终支付的费用可能是情侣的两倍。（不过，考虑到我是单身，我当然会这么说，不是吗。）
或者，如果有人住在环境较差的房间里，至少建议他们少付钱是一种善意。他们可能不会接受，但这个举动会受到感激。这同样适用于情侣和单身人士。在最近的 BBC 电视剧《八月的两周》（Two Weeks in August）中，有一对情侣因为抵达较晚，被安置在一个带有相邻浴室的所谓走廊房间里，这意味着人们在去洗手间的路上会从他们的床边走过。没错，就是这样。
为了避免在假期的第一天就出现被动攻击性的冷嘲热讽甚至全面战争，在抵达前分配卧室是个不错的主意。每年八月，我都会和一大群朋友前往德文郡南海岸的一栋同样的房子。房间在 WhatsApp 群组中提前分配好，而且每年都会更换，这样单身人士就不会总是在单人床上。很理智。
七年之后我认为，如果你是那个提议度假、预订别墅、安排航班、接送、饮食以及会计结算之类的人，那么无论你的感情状态如何，你都拥有选择卧室的首选权。你做了基础工作，所以你获得奖励。
这是一个棘手的问题：在别墅度假时，谁住哪个房间？以下是处理此问题的最佳方法。
多年前的圣诞节，我们全家去斯里兰卡度假，最近我心碎了。这次经历意味着我在兄弟姐妹中突然变成了唯一的单身人士，因此将被安置在别墅后面那个小小的单人员工卧室里。我被告知那里没有风扇，但显然不会太热。
在家庭度假次年，我带着一群好友回到了同一栋斯里兰卡别墅，因为那里是一个如此葱郁且神奇的地方。这一次，我让自己住在一个较大的双人房里。尽管如此，这其中仍带有一丝自我牺牲的精神，因为我告诉朋友们去住最好的房间——那些早晨可以看着猴子洗澡的户外淋浴房——因为我想让他们意识到这个地方有多特别。
几个月后我要去巴巴多斯。不久前，我运气极好，在一次知识问答竞赛的抽奖中中奖了，奖品是在该岛的一栋别墅里度过一周，所以我邀请了几个朋友同行。在那次旅行中，我一定会抢到最好的房间。
当然，酒店会简单得多。每个人支付自己想要的房间费用，无需争论。一个单身朋友即将和我的一群好友（包括多个孩子）一起去意大利，他决定就这样做：预订附近的一间酒店房，白天在他们的别墅里会合。他单独对酒店早餐感到非常兴奋，这一点我完全理解。
斯里兰卡加勒堡的灯塔
其他人则建议通过抽签来选择房间，或者
我很愤怒，或许也过于敏感了。我不仅悲情且单身，注定要成为一个老姑娘，现在在度假时还得住最差的那间房，而我家人里的每个人，包括我的小侄女们，都将住在带有电风扇和独立卫浴的豪华房间里——有些房间甚至配有户外淋浴，在那里你可以看着长尾叶猴在树间荡漾。在一次愤怒的爆发中，我宣布我要租下别墅隔壁的小屋；作为一种声援，我的哥哥说他愿意陪我住在那个小屋的第二间卧室里。
BLOODUA, BOYLOSO / GETTY IMAGES
这是我们这些单身且没有孩子的人所享有的一项奢侈。总的来说，我们在度假时可以随心所欲。我们可能会被分配到最差的房间，但我们也可以避开许多其他的戏剧性冲突，包括但不限于：午餐后孩子们什么时候能再次游泳；什么时候给孩子们洗漱睡觉；关于谁划伤了租赁车辆而可能引发的夫妻不和；关于建议参观当地废墟而产生的任何争吵；以及在喝了太多桃红葡萄酒后关于打呼噜的争执等等。
如果是成群结队地度假（无论是朋友还是家人），如果你是单身而大多数人不是，情况可能会变得很棘手。情侣需要双人床，通常在更大、更漂亮的房间里，而单身者往往被塞进狭小的房间、儿童房，或者，恕我直言，睡在上下铺上。
在那次去斯里兰卡的家庭旅行中，我愉快地在附近的小屋和别墅之间来回穿梭。我觉得自己闹出这么大动静并另订住宿有点像在耍大小姐脾气，但这也意味着我可以在用餐时间钻进别墅，如果我想在吊床里独自读书，远离泳池边的尖叫声，我就能再次离开。请记住，在度假时作为那个单身的人，其实有一种自由。
当然，度假很美好。不能抱怨。但当你可能已经非常在意自己的感情状态时，却因为这个原因被踢到最差的房间，这会让人感到卑微——而且如果你正处于……时，这尤其令人恼火。
为什么这个航班追踪应用一直出现在我的屏幕上
有些人会在 Instagram 或 TikTok 上进行“末日滚动”浏览。而我选择的浪费时间应用是
（有些人）会用它来关注英国皇家空军的一架波音 C-17 运输机，当时它在 2022 年将伊丽莎白二世的灵柩从爱丁堡运往北霍尔特皇家空军基地（500万名观众，创该平台历史最高纪录）；或者关注一架载着美国政治家南希·佩洛西在 2022 年前往台湾的美国空军 C-40C 飞机（2.92 million 关注者）；亦或是之前的“日出计划”测试飞行。本月，所有人都在关注泰勒·斯威夫特在蒙大拿州和洛杉矶之间飞行的私人飞机；而就在我写作时，被追踪最多的航班都聚集在法国西南部，人们在关注扑灭山火的救援行动。
比起看 YouTube Kids，他们更愿意在应用上盯着尾翼看，就像我一个朋友九岁的儿子一样
——这就是为什么几年前我们全家一起前往哈顿十字的迈特尔大道进行家庭一日游的原因，那里因为靠近希思罗机场南跑道而深受飞机观测者的喜爱。
有东西要申报
这是一款更小众的东西。我快 40 岁了，毫不避讳地说，我对 FlightRadar24 着迷。
在这样一个飞行最频繁的职业中，这或许并不奇怪。我就住在飞往希思罗机场的航线下方，我可以根据从华盛顿起飞的 BA216 航班的进场时间来设定我的早起闹钟。几个小时后在送孩子上学的路上，则是阿联酋航空的一架巨大的超级巨型客机，正从迪拜飞往北跑道。如果头顶上安静无声，我就知道自己睡得太晚了（欧洲最繁忙机场的最后一架飞机在晚上 11 点前降落）。
不过，FlightRadar24 不仅仅是给极客准备的。它是掌控日常旅行的绝佳工具，在乘坐廉价航空飞行时尤其有用。如果我乘坐的是晚间航班，我会使用 FlightRadar24 来跟踪该飞机当天的前序航段。这有助于我评估航班延误的可能性。
1000ULR，飞自
以及全球范围内无论大还是小的飞机都能实时跟踪。它始于 2006 年，当时两名瑞典航空迷通过众筹全球的数据接收器来监测全球空中交通。如今，它在七大洲及太空中拥有 50,000 个接收器，不仅跟踪飞机，还跟踪商业航班计划和飞机详情等航空数据。已有超过一亿人下载了该应用程序。
上周，一架空载的澳洲航空（Qantas）空客 A350 从法国图卢兹飞往澳大利亚墨尔本的航程在 FlightRadar24 上受到了热烈关注，近三百万人跟踪其穿越欧洲和亚洲的进度。原因何在？这是该飞机的一次试飞，这架飞机最终将在澳大利亚航空公司称之为“日出计划”（Project Sunrise）的任务中，在伦敦和悉尼之间进行 22 小时的不间断飞行。
我的一位经常飞行且同样爱好此道的朋友将其作为一种移动酒吧问答游戏，挑战自己猜测头顶上飞过的精确飞机型号。如今，我六岁的儿子……
而且还没完。当我身在飞机上时，我也会在起飞队列和跑道上跟踪飞机的位置。正如我所说，简直痴迷。
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欲了解完整条款与条件，请访问 thetimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时正确，且可能发生变化。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并受其预订条件约束，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 拥有完整的 ABTA 和 ATOL 担保。假期时长包括适用的隔夜航班，且可能发生变化。*所示价格包含基于两名乘客共享内舱房或海景房且直接向 Imagine Cruising 预订的折扣和节省金额。^在港过夜。
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欲了解完整条款与条件，请访问 theimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时正确，且可能会有变动。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并受其预订条件约束，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 拥有完整的 ABTA 和 ATOL 担保。价格为每人费用，基于两名成人共用一个游轮舱房，并包含伦敦出发的航班（地区航班需补差价）。假期时长在适用时包含过夜航班，且可能会有变动。
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欲了解完整条款与条件，请访问 theimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时正确，且可能会有变动。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并遵守其预订条件，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 拥有完整的 ABTA 和 ATOL 担保。价格为每人价格，基于两名成人共用一个邮轮客房或套房，并包含从伦敦出发的机票（地区航班需额外付费）。
*所示价格、时长和行程基于 2027 年 9 月 28 日出发。所示 Grill Suite 价格基于 2027 年 9 月 30 日出发。
超值优惠
18 晚
2027 年 1 月至 3 月，18 晚
令人难以置信的起步价
在 Emerald Princess® 上享受 Princess Plus® 服务，每人每天 £50 起，包括 MedallionNet® Max Wi-Fi、员工小费、Plus 饮品套餐、每位宾客四餐休闲餐饮、OceanNow® 送餐服务、客房服务送餐
全包邮轮 16 晚 Emerald Princess® 全包邮轮 访问: 洛杉矶、希洛、
每对夫妇最高可节省 £1,000^
檀香山、考艾岛、科纳、恩塞纳达、洛杉矶
酒店住宿 洛杉矶 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles Downtown 四星级酒店一晚住宿 升级可选 提升您的体验
所有航班 伦敦出发 – 地区航班可选 过夜航班
扫描二维码在线查看此假期，或在我们的网站上搜索代码。
内舱起*
海景房起*
阳台房起*
迷你套房起*
包含洛杉矶酒店一晚住宿
限时优惠 - 请在 2026 年 8 月 8 日前预订
每人 £1,499
每人 £1,699
每人 £2,199
每人 £3,199
*所示价格、船只和行程基于 2027 年 2 月 9 日出发。海景房价格基于 2027 年 1 月 24 日出发。迷你套房价格基于 2027 年 2 月 25 日出发。^所示价格包含基于两名乘客共用内舱、2027 年 2 月 9 日出发并直接通过 Imagine Cruising 预订的折扣和节省额。
独家促销
26 晚
2027 年 1 月 10 日，26 晚
令人难以置信的起步价
您的假期包含
每对夫妇最高可节省 £2,000* 从标志性的天际线到世界最伟大的工程奇迹之一，这次旅程将经典的海洋旅行与美洲各地令人难忘的目的地相结合。
支付每人 £325 即可在洛杉矶额外增加两晚住宿
在 Queen Victoria 号上享受 26 晚全包邮轮
访问：南安普顿、纽约+、阿鲁巴、巴拿马运河过境^、萨尔瓦多、普尔瓦塔、洛杉矶+
伦敦抵达 – 地区航班可选 过夜航班
假期代码：AME8364
内舱起
海景房起
阳台房起
Grill Suite 起
包含从洛杉矶出发的入境航班
每人 £2,199
每人 £2,699
每人 £3,199
每人 £10,499
*所示价格包含基于两名乘客共用并直接通过 Imagine Cruising 预订的折扣和节省额。
+在港过夜。^景观巡游。
WILD
享受独家铁路晚餐及丛林火文化表演
独家维多利亚瀑布铁路活动、游猎及从开普敦到南安普顿的豪华库纳德航程
2028 年 4 月 5 日，27 晚
访问：开普敦、明德洛、大加那利岛、丰沙尔、南安普顿
独家铁路活动 乘坐皇家利文斯通快车 (Royal Livingstone Express) 蒸汽火车，沿历史悠久的“开普敦至开罗”线路前往维多利亚瀑布世界遗产地进行的一次景观之旅
陪同游览 皮拉内斯堡国家公园* 维多利亚瀑布步行游览 酒店住宿 约翰内斯堡五星级酒店住宿一晚（含早餐） 皮拉内斯堡四星级酒店住宿（含早餐、午餐和晚餐） 利文斯顿和开普敦四星级酒店住宿（含早餐） 所有航班与接送 伦敦出发 – 可选区域航班 过夜航班
当火车在日落时分缓缓驶过赞比西河谷时，车上将供应三道菜晚餐
由著名历史学家 Peter Jones, MBE 提供关于赞比亚及其铁路历史的现场讲解
内舱房 起价 £5,299 / 人
海景房 起价 £6,299 / 人
由 Makishi 舞者和 Tujatane 合唱团在 Sinde Siding 提供的现场篝火表演
阳台房 起价 £7,299 / 人
当地啤酒、 house wine、软饮料、水、茶和咖啡
全包邮轮 乘坐 Queen Anne 号 17 晚全包邮轮之旅
11078
扫描二维码或在我们的网站上搜索假期代码。
预订请致电
致电我们
访问我们的网站
0808 304 6954
theimes.com / imaginecruising
营业时间：周一至周日：上午 9 点 - 晚上 8 点
周一至周日：上午 9 点 - 晚上 8 点
theimes.com / imaginecruising
欲了解完整条款与细则，请访问 theimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时准确，且可能有所变动。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并受其预订条件约束，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 拥有完整的 ABTA 和 ATOL 保函。价格为每人价格，基于两名成人共用一个邮轮舱位，并包含从伦敦出发的航班（区域航班需额外付费）。假期时长在适用时包含过夜航班，且可能有所变动。*不保证能看到野生动物。
独家优惠
17 晚
17 晚 2027 年 2 月 15 日
令人难以置信的起价
您的假期包括
每对夫妇最高可节省 £1,400^
狮子岩、佛牙寺、茶园参观等
全包邮轮 乘坐 Azamara Pursuit 号七晚全包邮轮之旅 访问：新加坡、胡志明市+、顺化、香港 铁路之旅 从康底至纳努奥亚的景观铁路之旅 陪同游览 丹布拉石窟寺、波隆纳鲁沃、国家公园吉普车游猎^、锡吉里亚
豪华酒店住宿 内贡博和丹布拉五星级酒店住宿（含早餐）
康底、科伦坡和新加坡四星级酒店住宿（含早餐）
所有航班与接送 伦敦出发 – 可选区域航班 过夜航班
扫描二维码或在我们的网站上搜索代码，在线查看此假期。
假期代码：ASA8663
俱乐部内舱房 起价
俱乐部海景房 起价
俱乐部阳台房 起价
俱乐部大陆套房 起价
赠送七日斯里兰卡之旅
景观铁路之旅
穿越斯里兰卡高地
£2,999 / 人
£3,799 / 人
£3,799 / 人
^不保证能看到野生动物。*所示价格包含两名乘客共用且直接向 Imagine Cruising 预订的折扣和节省金额。+在港过夜。
沉浸式
远征
22 晚 2027 年 3 月 16 日
您的假期包括
由船上远征团队引导的自然漫步和文化体验
陪同游览 基督像游览、从巴西和阿根廷两侧游览伊瓜苏瀑布 步行游览 全包邮轮 乘坐 Seabourn Venture 号 14 晚全包极致奢华邮轮之旅 访问：乌斯怀亚、福克兰群岛*、马德林港、蒙得维多、坎博里乌海滩、里约热内卢
酒店住宿 里约热内卢和伊瓜苏五星级酒店住宿 伊瓜苏和布宜诺斯艾利斯四星级酒店住宿 所有酒店住宿均含早餐 所有航班与接送 伦敦出发 – 可选区域航班 过夜航班
扫描二维码或在我们的网站上搜索代码，即可在线查看此假期。
沉浸式三日福克兰群岛体验
前往无法抵达极地地区的 Zodiac® 橡皮艇探险
假期代码：AME8288
赠送五晚伊瓜苏瀑布之旅
包含优质饮品、世界级餐饮及 WIFI
阳台套房 (V1) 起价 £6,999PP
阳台套房 (V2) 起价 £7,499PP
阳台套房 (V3) 起价 £8,399PP
阳台套房 (V4) 起价 £8,999PP
*在港过夜。
神圣 宁静 探索马丘比丘之奇迹
马丘比丘探险之旅（含 Azamara 全包航程及大溪地岛度假）
28 晚 2028年1月11日
圣谷酒店与别墅：在库斯科 Casa Andina Premium Cusco 享受两晚四星级酒店住宿；在大溪地 InterContinental Tahiti Resort and Spa 享受赠送的三晚四星级酒店住宿。所有酒店住宿均含早餐。
全程陪同游览：圣谷之旅，包括：马拉斯盐矿、莫雷及奥蓝太坦博遗址；前往马丘比丘的探险火车；马丘比丘游览。
所有航班与接送：伦敦出发——提供区域航班，含过夜航班。
全包邮轮：在 Azamara Onward 号上享受 16 晚全包邮轮之旅。访问：利马、复活节岛、皮特卡恩群岛、法卡拉瓦、莫雷亚岛、大溪地。赠送酒精及非酒精饮料，包括特选烈酒、葡萄酒及国际啤酒。
预付小费及赠送的 AzAmazing Evening® 活动。
CLUB 内部房 起价 £6,999PP
CLUB 海景房 起价 £7,699PP
礼宾服务，提供个人指导与预约。
CLUB 阳台房 起价 £8,999PP
CLUB 阳台增强房 起价 £10,499PP
酒店住宿：在利马 Holiday Inn Lima Miraflores 享受三晚四星级酒店住宿。
在圣谷 Casa Andina Premium 享受两晚四星级住宿。
11078
扫描二维码或在我们的网站上搜索假期代码。
预订请致电
请致电我们
访问我们的网站
0808 304 6954
thetimes.com / imaginecruising
营业时间：周一至周日：上午9点 - 晚上8点
周一至周日：上午9点 - 晚上8点
thetimes.com / imaginecruising
完整条款与细则请访问 thetimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时正确，且可能有所变动。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并受其预订条件约束，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 拥有完整的 ABTA 和 ATOL 保函。价格为每人价格，基于两名成人共用一个邮轮船舱，并包含从伦敦出发的机票（区域航班需补差价）。假期时长包含适用时的过夜航班，且可能有所变动。*在港过夜。
独家促销
十晚 2026年9月 - 2028年4月
十晚
惊人之低起价
您的假期包含
Travelmarvel Sirius 号访问*：卢克索+，埃斯纳，埃德富，阿斯旺+，阿布辛贝，康翁波+，卢克索+
全程陪同游览：吉萨高原（含金字塔和狮身人面像）、大埃及博物馆、卢克索神庙、丹德拉神庙群、埃斯纳神庙、荷鲁斯神庙、高坝、未完工的方尖碑、菲莱神庙、尼罗河帆船航行、阿布辛贝、康翁波神庙、门农巨像、帝王谷与皇后谷等。
全餐河流游轮：在船上享受七晚全餐河流游轮之旅。
每对夫妇最高可省 £3,692^
包含所有餐食的饮品、小费及 wifi。
豪华酒店住宿：在开罗 Cairo Marriot Hotel and Omar Khayyam Casino 享受三晚五星级住宿，含早餐及欢迎晚餐。
所有航班与接送：伦敦出发——提供区域航班。
豪华舱房起*
高级舱房起*
法老套房起*
在专家带领的行程中揭秘埃及
含用餐时间饮品、小费及WIFI**
£2,499每人
£2,999每人
所示价格及行程基于 2026 年 10 月 3 日出发。所示法老套房价格基于 2027 年 9 月 11 日出发。^所示价格包含折扣及优惠，基于两名乘客共享豪华舱房，于 2027 年 11 月 28 日出发，并直接通过 Imagine Cruising 预订。+在港口过夜。*用餐饮品仅在您假期的尼罗河游轮部分提供，不延伸至您在开罗的酒店住宿。
独家促销
13 晚 2026 年 9 月 - 2027 年 2 月
13 晚
您的假期包含
阳台房价格起
在暹粒 Shinta Mani Angkor 享受两晚五星级酒店住宿
全包游轮 乘坐 RV Lotus 号进行七晚全包游轮之旅，包含所有正餐饮品、小费及WIFI。陪同导览 湄公河三角洲村庄、杀戮场、古芝地道、吴哥窟等。豪华酒店住宿 在胡志明市 Le Méridien Saigon 享受两晚五星级酒店住宿
所有酒店住宿均含早餐
所有航班及接送 伦敦出发 – 可提供地区航班 隔夜航班
扫描二维码在线查看此假期，或在我们的网站上搜索代码。
假期代码：ASA8599
豪华双床阳台套房起+
标准双床阳台套房起+
在整个假期中享受导览游
享受包含饮品、小费及WIFI的惬意时光*
£2,499每人
£3,199每人
*所示价格包含折扣及优惠，基于两名乘客共享豪华双床阳台套房，并直接通过 Imagine Cruising 预订。+所示价格及行程基于 2026 年 10 月 3 日出发。
致电我们
在线访问
15 年经验
0808 304 6954
thetimes.com / imaginecruising
11078
周一至周日：上午 9 点 - 晚上 8 点
如需完整条款与条件，请访问 thetimes.com / imaginecruising。价格在印刷时准确，且可能有所变动。由 Imagine Cruising 运营并受其预订条件约束，该公司完全独立于 News UK。Imagine Cruising 已获得 ABTA 和 ATOL 的全面担保。价格为每人价格，基于两名成人共享游轮舱房或套房，并包含从伦敦出发的机票（地区航班需另付补充费用）。
August 2, 2026 · Issue no 10,533 · thetimes.com
£5 · only £2.75 to subscribers (based on a 7 day subscription)
PHIL
Home
COLLINS
bares his soul to Decca Aitkenhead
Best places to live on the coast
Magazine
bours over what is seen as Madrid’s overly liberal policy on immigration. On Friday Giorgia Meloni, the conservative Italian prime minister, reimposed border controls on people arriving in Italy from Spain by air or sea, suspending for a month the workings of the Schengen agreement that allows passport-free travel.
ble to enter. Its gates were locked and it was understood to be full.
was not part of the Schengen area. “The European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” he said.
ties saying only about 2,000 people remained. At least 67 people are known to have died.
physical border to arrive in Spain which would include those who had swum to Ceuta. Sanchez said on Friday that “trafficking” gangs had spread this and misinterpreted the ruling.
Katie Gatens Ceuta Peter Conradi and Matthew Campbell
“It’s been three days without food but I have no other choice but to stay here,” said Quasi Alwahaini, from Yemen, who arrived in Morocco a month ago. He said he had travelled to the border from Marrakesh after seeing videos on social media of others making the crossing to Spanish territory.
The EU will hold talks on Tuesday after 22 countries, led by Italy, wrote to demand an “urgent meeting on the migrant emergency”.
Hundreds of asylum seekers were sleeping on the streets of Ceuta last night without food or water after a week in which as many as 60,000 swam across the border into the Spanish north African exclave from neighbouring Morocco.
Moroccan authorities, who normally control access to the border, face questions over how so many people were able to cross.
A report in El Mundo, a conservative Spanish newspaper, said that security sources believed Moroccan authorities turned a blind eye to the first people attempting the crossing to send a message about their ability to control migration, but that it “got out of hand”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, that he had serious concerns about some European governments that had criticised Spain, “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest”, and added that Ceuta
REPORTS, PAGE 4-5
While some migrants said guards tried to stop them, others claimed the authorities were so overwhelmed they were just let and even encouraged — through. The Moroccan government did not respond to a request for comment.
Normally only a handful of people a day attempt the crossing, but numbers began to rise after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled three weeks ago against the summary return of people who had not crossed a
ing some who said they were from Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Eritrea, remained in Ceuta yesterday afternoon, waiting outside its temporary immigration stay centre, una-
Most of the arrivals, encouraged by reports on social media to make the crossing, had been persuaded to return to Morocco by Friday evening, with the Spanish authori-
This is the largest irregular crossing in the EU’s history and has provoked a ferocious war of words between Spain’s socialist-led government and most of its neigh-
Hundreds of migrants, includ-
Editorial, page 20
ANDREW MILLIGAN/PA
Martyn Ziegler
Gianni Infantino’s opponents will step up efforts to force the Fifa president to resign after Uefa and the FA condemned his collapsed attempt to sell off the World Cup as a “shabby, back-room, opaque deal”.
Infantino, 56, might have made tens of millions of pounds from the “Fifa Forward Enterprise” scheme, a plan to sell a stake in the tournament to private investors. The Fifa boss is trying to cling to power, but his support is flooding away, sources have said.
Reform chief had insisted he was not involved in politics until Sunak called surprise 2024 vote
After his plan collapsed on Friday, the FA and Uefa, European football’s governing body, said that they had lost confidence in Infantino. Uefa led the way in opposing the plan as its 55 members, including the FA, agreed on Thursday to boycott all Fifa competitions.
became leader. Asked why he would have signed such an agreement if he had no intention of returning as leader, they said it kept his options open. They said Farage had assumed he would focus his energies on campaigning for Donald Trump in that year’s US presidential election.
questions about Reform UK’s compliance with electoral law. The party is already at the centre of a Metropolitan Police investigation into whether the source its donations was disguised.
Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo and Venetia Menzies
“We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,” it said yesterday. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account. This is a victory for the whole game. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”
The Sunday Times Insight team can reveal that on the date of the first repayment, in June 2024, Reform sent £200,000 to a personal account belonging to Tice and not to his company that had lent the money.
Nigel Farage struck a secret deal to return as Reform UK leader months before the general election.
Farage has claimed repeatedly that he did not need to declare a £5 million gift from the crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne or in-kind benefits from Cottrell, as he was a media personality at the time. MPs must declare any benefit in any way connected to their “political activities” received in the 12 months before their election.
Farage negotiated the pact with Richard Tice, then the leader, in March and April 2024. George Cottrell, the convicted fraudster who had been secretly bankrolling Farage, supervised the discussions.
Officials identified the payment but the Electoral Commission was not told and filings say incorrectly that the company was paid — a potential criminal offence.
Concacaf, which governs the North and Central American associations, plus the Caribbean, called for a “comprehensive reckoning” with Infantino’s presidency. Sources said the intention was for Infantino to become the chief executive or commissioner after his presidency, with a basic salary — before any bonuses — of $30 million a year. Fifa has insisted that idea was never discussed.
Under the terms of the deal, Reform agreed to repay or write off more than £1 million in outstanding loans it had taken from Tice’s company upon Farage becoming leader.
On May 22, 2024 Rishi Sunak announced a snap election would be held on July 4. By then, unknown to almost anyone, Farage had secretly been plotting a potential path to the leadership and, in turn, the House of Commons — for some months.
He told the “anti-woke” Triggernometry podcast last month: “At that period of my life, from 2021 to the third of June 2024, I was a broadcaster, I was someone that appeared on celebrity TV programmes, I was somebody that promoted some financial market products, but I was an influencer, I wasn’t in politics.”
The deal was first presented by Farage and Cottrell to the party’s treasurer in mid-May. Its existence undermines the Reform leader’s claim that he had no intention until June 2024 of returning to politics. Farage has used this to defend his failure to declare donations made to him in the year before he was elected as an MP, which triggered two parliamentary investigations.
In March and April that year, he and Tice had entered into an agreement on the future of the party. In mid-May, Farage discussed its details with two confidants in an office space on the fourth floor of a townhouse near Buckingham Palace: Cottrell and A’Zami.
Infantino is likely to now face an emergency Fifa council meeting at which he will be asked to resign. If he refuses, a single candidate with the backing of all of his opponents is likely to be put up to challenge him in next year’s election. Kushner’s gamble, page 7 Matthew Syed, page 21 Sport, pages 1-4
Mehrtash A’Zami, the party treasurer at the time, said: “I was told about the agreement before the election was called. It commenced when Nigel came back.
A’Zami, whom Cottrell first met as a teenager, had been the party’s treasurer since 2019, but he spent much of his time in Dubai
“The essence was the schedule of repayments. I was told to implement it and acted to fulfil it in line with my responsibilities.”
Last night, Reform sources acknowledged the existence of the deal but insisted it had been drafted for if, not when, Farage
Prince Louis, 8, wears a hat celebrating Welsh cycling as he watches the penultimate day of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with his family. The royal visitors attended the netball and cycling as well as meeting volunteers and athletes at the spectator village Games Galore, page 2; Sport
The disclosures also raise more
Continued on page 4→
.
mits for key members of the Kinahan family and the cartel through publicly available records. They show that those for Christy Kinahan, 69, and Dixon, 36, have expired. Dixon, in particular, continues to lead a luxurious lifestyle in Dubai. Images of him playing padel have even appeared on social media advertising campaigns in the Gulf.
world. Its clientele includes Mexican and Colombian cartels, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and the Iranian and Russian intelligence services.
Europe’s intelligence services believe Christy Kinahan is “deeply concerned” about his residency status. “He’s a tormented man, fearful he might be arrested and deported,” said one intelligence source.
card by the authorities in Dubai less than two weeks ago. His new permit was renewed on July 20 for a two-year period. His previous one had expired in December 2024. The new card lists his employment as a “sales officer” at Continued on page 7→
poised to take control of the powerful transnational criminal organisation, has also expired.
John Mooney Investigations Editor, Ireland
The fugitive leader of the Kinahan crime cartel risks arrest after losing the legal right to live in the United Arab Emirates, where he has sought sanctuary for a decade.
Cartel bosses have openly lived extravagant lifestyles since moving to the Emirates about a decade ago after fleeing Europe, but the cartel has faced a crackdown after our joint investigation in March revealed the links between the Kinahans and the Iranian regime.
There is growing evidence to suggest the Kinahan organisation might now have established links with elements of the Chinese state. Emerging from the Dublin underworld in the early 1990s, the group has amassed a fortune of $1.5 billion and has been sanctioned by the US, which has offered a $5 million reward for the leaders.
The Kinahan family controls one of the most powerful transnational crime groups on the planet from the Emirates. It is responsible for smuggling the bulk of all cocaine reaching the streets of Europe. It also smuggles arms and offers money-laundering services to criminal gangs around the
Christy Kinahan’s residency visa to stay in Dubai expired in April, an investigation by The Sunday Times and the open-source organisation Bellingcat has discovered. The UAE residency visa of Ian Dixon, one of the cartel’s most trusted lieutenants and the man
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The records also show that Christy Kinahan’s younger son Christopher Jr, 45, who controls the cartel’s financial investments, was issued with a new residency
Christy Kinahan’s eldest son Daniel was arrested in Dubai in April and is facing extradition to stand trial in Dublin for directing an organised crime gang.
We obtained the residency per-
2 S1 The Sunday Times August 2, 2026
ROB CASEY/SNS; LESLEY MARTIN/PA
Kanishka Narayan, the AI minister, acknowledges the fears but wants Britain to focus on opportunities and shape the future
and their kids’ jobs. I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s going to be brilliant and we’re all going to get through it smoothly. This is an unprecedented pace of technological jump.”
possible for Britain to be technologically self-sufficient, but we can become less dependent. Narayan has travelled the world trying to make sure we have a reliable supply of AI chips to power everything from stroke patients’ recoveries to tracking Russia’s shadow fleet. He also helps to oversee a £500 million sovereign AI fund to invest in British start-ups. “You have to make sure that even if you’re using someone else’s technology, you’re doing it on your terms.”
Josh Glancy
Sir Chris Hoy, bottom row, centre, was joined by an illustrious crew at the velodrome named after him for the track cycling at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Top row: The cyclist Dame Laura Kenny, the Princess and Prince of Wales, and their children, Princess Charlotte and Prince George. Bottom row, right: the Duchess and Duke of Edinburgh. The King opted for the Mey Highland Games in Caithness
If you believe AI really is the dawn of a new industrial revolution, or even half as important as its advocates claim, then Kanishka Narayan is about the most important minister at the cabinet table.
His hope is that there will be ways to avoid mass dislocation. He points to the Industrial Revolution, noting that unions sprang up to ensure that some of the gains went to workers, not just owners. The pace of transition this time around may be slower than we expect because of regulation and organisational inertia.
Narayan is 36 and was only elected MP for the Vale of Glamorgan in 2024, but he is now the new artificial intelligence minister. People in the technology industry see him as their last hope in government, a kind of bulwark against the reactionary forces of Luddism. There is particular concern that Andy Burnham does not seem interested in the white heat of technology — one of his first acts as PM was to abolish the Department for Science, Industry and Technology.
He also believes Britain needs far more of its own capacity in data centres, which provide the processing power for AI. These are controversial thanks to their high energy and water demands but Britain plans to triple its capacity by 2030. He points to the bigger picture. “The British public is very clear that it wants strong defence,” he says. “It doesn’t just want foreign billionaires to own things that matter to our lives. If we’re being true to those British values, it is impossible to achieve that without building a sovereign level of data centre capacity.”
He tells the story of a hairdresser he met in Newcastle upon Tyne with superb customer skills and an interest in tech. A local software company used its own AI to identify her as a potential employee. She is now an AI procurement apprentice on a far higher salary. “If we get the jobmatching and recruitment process right, we’ll cut through not just the slop of AI but, frankly, the slop of recruitment.”
Narayan insists this government is not backward-looking. “I went to the prime minister and he said he thought this was a really critical question and he wanted me to work on it,” he says. He faces a battle for hearts and minds beyond No 10 North. A recent survey by KPMG found that 78 per cent of Britons are concerned about negative outcomes from AI.
This sense of possibility arises from his own life story. Narayan was born in Bihar, one of the poorest regions of India. When he was eight, his parents made the “crazy, sacrificial” decision to take him and his brother to Cardiff. At his comprehensive, a teacher suggested he apply for scholarships at some top schools. Eton gave him a full bursary. From there, he flew through Oxford, Stanford, banking and the civil service. Britain, for him, is a land of possibility and freedom.
Some have argued that Narayan is too much of a booster for the tech industry, but he rejects this. “People are right to be worried,” he says. “This is the most important question for ... our kids’ jobs
Narayan thinks there is optimism out there too. “If you actually go and engage in different parts of our country, you will find a deep-seated history of technological adoption,” he says. “The task is, how do we squeeze the sceptical middle of the British political elite?”
Kit Heren at about 8pm local time (6pm
through the city but the event was cancelled.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said that at least 28 others, including children, had been injured.
UK time).
As many as 21 people suffered injuries of varying severity, state media said. The motive of the attack has not been disclosed and police continue to investigate.
Three people were killed in a bombing attack by a woman in a Moscow restaurant yesterday, Russian authorities have said.
Video released by Russia’s RIA news agency showed heavily armed law enforcement officers at the scene, which had been closed off to members of the public.
“You go from a place where living standards on a per capita basis are where England was in the 1600s,” he says. “You go from that to being in London in 2026. You feel like you could accelerate 400 years of progress in 36 years of lifetime. Britain offered a canvas for painting what kind of progress you can make in life.”
Why is there such scepticism among politicians? “Over the last 15 years, we basically sat out the tech revolution. A huge driver of why we’re way poorer than, say, the United States is the fact that we had way lower rates of investment in technology. We haven’t seen the fruits of that prosperity in our country.”
Initial reports suggested the Moscow blast originated in the restaurant’s kitchen, but the Balzi Ross later issued a statement saying the interior was unaffected and that “there was a problem outside”.
The people who died in the attack in the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Kudrinskaya Square near the centre of the Russian capital were the woman, a security guard who stopped her entering the restaurant, and a customer.
Reports on the Telegram social media platform suggested the restaurant was hosting a private function.
In 2023, a blast at a café in St Petersburg killed the prowar blogger Vladlen Tatarsky. A Russian woman named Darya Trepova, who said she had acted on the orders of a Ukrainian contact, was jailed for 27 years.
Wherever the AI revolution takes us, Narayan has something we could all do with more of: a sense that our future can still be better than the past.
Narayan believes the answer is to build up Britain’s tech capabilities, grab a share of the AI bounty and give ourselves the ability to shape the future. It is not
It came on the same day as nine people died in Russian airstrikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region.
Roads around the square were briefly closed. Dozens of cyclists had been gathering nearby for an evening ride
Kanishka Narayan says Britain must build far more of its own data centres
The explosion took place
Democrats have called for more planning oversight of HMOs “so that communities aren’t hollowed out by overdevelopment”, a sentiment echoed by the Greens.
not have a centralised database. However, The Sunday Times has compiled the most complete picture of HMO spread across the UK to date, identifying the locations of 100,000 HMOs and their landlords in 144 local authority areas across England, accounting for half a million residents.
unfairness of the immigration system, that cut-price approach to procurement, that means areas like this can end up like HMO Britain. It’s not fair that they think that they can just operate like that and not hear the call of people here, the decent people here who always will do the right thing, the compassionate thing, but not when it’s unfair in terms of the way places like this are treated.”
Katie Tarrant Whitehall Correspondent Tom Calver, Melissa York
Councils across the country are forcing landlords converting family homes into HMOs to consult neighbours first.
Bev Craig, the new Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, led her winning campaign on a promise to crack down on the spread of HMOs.
Analysis by The Sunday Times has found that almost a third of local authorities — 127 councils — in England have imposed Article 4 directions, which oblige landlords and developers to seek planning permission for a house in multiple occupation (HMO).
Landlords and developers have taken advantage of cheaper property in the North and Midlands, leading to a surge in these regions as the number of HMOs has decreased in London and the south. Over the past decade, Liverpool has had the biggest increase in the number of HMOs, from 4,850 in 2015 to 16,494 last year.
Analysis of the latest Home Office figures by The Sunday Times shows that there are approximately 11,700 HMO properties housing asylum seekers, assuming that there are four in each one.
At present, Article 4 directions can be applied only to the smallest possible geographical area, such as a street, rather than being used to apply blanket, boroughwide restrictions.
Although immigration is a divisive issue across the political spectrum, there appears to be consensus against the proliferation of HMOs. The Sunday Times has identified 127 councils — 57 of which are Labour-run — using Article 4 directions to try to block HMOs.
At present, landlords and developers can convert a property into an HMO — in which three or more unrelated tenants live together, sharing bathrooms and kitchens — for up to six tenants without planning permission.
It is understood that Burnham is considering expanding these conditions to allow Article 4s to apply to a wider geographical area and for a broader range of concerns. Any changes would not apply retrospectively, meaning existing HMOs will not be affected.
The metropolitan borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands, has seen one of the biggest proportional increases. In 2015, the council estimated that there were 835 HMOs, but this rose to 4,200 in 2025. One road in Smethwick, in Sandwell, has at least 19 with room for more than 140 occupants, leading one local councillor to say: “We wouldn’t put battery hens in places like this.” The asylum accommodation provider Serco runs 174 HMOs in the Sandwell area.
However, councils can use Article 4 powers to block these dwellings if they have concerns about the balance of shared and family housing in the area.
Reform UK has pledged to use them to stop HMO conversions because of concerns about “unvetted migrants”. The Liberal
When The Sunday Times presented its findings on Article 4 use to the Home Office, it said that the government was considering expanding council powers to effectively block HMOs. A government spokesperson said: “We are exploring stronger measures to give local leaders greater control over HMOs, helping them manage housing pressures and protect the character of their communities. At the same time, we are reducing the incentives for illegal migration by moving asylum seekers out of hotels and into more basic accommodation, including exploring the use of three additional former military sites.”
Although most of England’s estimated 2.5 million HMO residents are occupied by university students or low-income workers, analysis suggests that approximately 2 per cent house immigrants awaiting decisions on asylum claims.
The Reform-led council voted this week to strip planning officers of the power to approve HMOs and put the decision in the hands of councillors, who have warned of the effects that such homes have on parking and wider neighbourhoods.
The state has a legal obligation to house asylum seekers, but in 2024 the government vowed to stop the use of hotels, which have been the focus of violent protests in recent years, to bring down the cost to taxpayers. As a result, developers have bought up cheap residential properties and converted them into HMOs for migrants, without any consultation.
NEWS, PAGE 14
Sandwell is one of several Reform councils that have issued Article 4 directions, along with Durham, Hartlepool and Barnsley.
Louie French, the Conservative MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup, who has campaigned for more use of Article 4 in his southeast London constituency, attacked “Wild West” landlords, accusing them of exploiting the planning system. Last year, only 13 HMOs were approved in Bexley, compared with 472 in neighbouring Greenwich.
There are half a million HMOs across the country, concentrated more densely in the north of England. Based on a typical occupancy of four to five tenants each, it is estimated that at least 2.5 million people — close to 3 per cent of the UK population
Andy Burnham has promised to crack down on “HMO Britain” after hearing “people’s concerns about the unfairness of the immigration system”. After he was elected MP for Makerfield in June, he criticised the present system in his victory speech, saying: “I heard on so many doorsteps people’s concerns about the
We would not put battery hens in places like this
— live in HMOs.
The true street-level scale of “HMO Britain” is unknown because the government does
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 3
TRISTRAM KENTON; JOSEPH OKPAKO/GETTY IMAGES
Other issues raised in the report include the “complexity of the postBrexit visa regime” when hiring performers and staff, as well as “taking the wrong stance” on contentious public issues, which could lead to a loss of income from both public and private sources, alongside a reduction in artist and staff commitment.
‘wrong’ position on contentious issues”.
Emily Prescott Arts and Entertainment Correspondent
The report, published last month and relating to its 2024-25 year, comes after the Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO), which owns the opera house, announced last month that one in 20 jobs would be cut. It has not confirmed which departments will face redundancies. In 2024-25 the RBO spent £406,949 on redundancy pay.
The King revealed crimson velour curtains embellished with his CRIII cipher at the Royal Opera House in May but behind the scenes the condition of the Victorian building is somewhat less opulent, a report suggests.
In August last year a planned 2026 co-production of Tosca with the Israeli National Opera was cancelled after 182 staff members signed an open letter demanding an end to the collaboration due to the war in Gaza.
The historic Covent Garden venue, home to the Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, has reported a “critical” need to invest in its stage infrastructure and the “fabric of our building”. Without doing so, the theatre is at risk of equipment failures and performance cancellations, according to a review of the organisation’s financial health.
It said: “The consultation has now concluded, with the exception of visitor experience, where discussions remain ongoing. We are therefore progressing with changes to focus our resources where they will have the greatest impact, strengthening artistic excellence, broadening our audiences and investing in our sites.
Performances such as The Nutcracker could be cancelled unless £20 million repairs are carried out each year for a decade at the Royal Opera House
In 2023 the campaign group British East and SouthEast Asians in Theatre and On Screen criticised the RBO’s production of Puccini’s Turandot, which is set in China. They accused the RBO of “whitewashing” for casting a white Italian singer in the lead role and for only having two performers of east or southeast Asian descent among the nine lead roles.
the UK economy in 2024-25 and the company is hoping to keep engaging a broad audience. In that period its total income was £182.1 million with a total expenditure of£174.7 million. Though the company is profitable, the report said that it had substantial loans to repay.
The first Royal Opera House in the Covent Garden area was built between 1728 and 1732 but destroyed by a fire in 1808. The second building was also destroyed by a fire. The current iteration, designed by Edward Middleton Barry, was built in 1858 and underwent major updates in the 1990s.
The building itself is a “major challenge” and will cost at least £20 million a year for the next decade to fix because of its “obsolete infrastructure”, the report said. About £60 million is required in the next three years just to “keep the building open and functioning”.
best work and for current and future generations of audiences to enjoy.”
Sir Alex Beard, the RBO’s chief executive, said in the report: “We need to invest substantially in our grade I listed building, a national asset, to ensure it remains a world-class, technologically up-to-date and environmentally sustainable theatre where artists and creatives can produce their
RBO makes about 30 per cent of its income from box office receipts, and is funded by donations and grants from bodies such as Arts Council England. The RBO was estimated to have contributed £240 million to
Other risks to the institution were said to include a £1.6 million-a-year Covid-era loan repayment, losing artists due to Brexit visa rules and reputational damage for “taking the
“While we’re currently in a good position, we’re operating in a challenging environment, we must be more efficient now to remain financially sustainable in the long term.”
David Binns
Adam Ramsay-Peaty has said he wants to feel that his estranged family have “improved as people” before he will forgive them and reconcile.
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Matt Damon’s stunt double is 4ft 6in but that hasn’t stopped her muscling into lead roles and on to the movie’s poster
The Olympic swimmer, who last year married Holly Ramsay, now 26, the daughter of the TV chef Gordon, was reported to have banned his mother from attending the ceremony after a row over the hen party. Both his parents ultimately did not attend the wedding in December at Bath Abbey.
Dalton has worked on franchises such as Planet of the Apes and The Last of Us, the hit drama starring Pedro Pascal, but The Odyssey was the first time she had ever stunt doubled for a man. It is rare for women to double for men she said, whereas stuntmen perform for women much more frequently. When she found out she got the job, she was “thrilled”. “People like The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] and John Cena have made a whole career off of their muscles,” she said. “I kept thinking to myself, just because I’m a small female, why can’t I?”
Roisin Kelly
Devyn Dalton can bench press one and a half times her weight. Right, Dalton in the film poster. Below right, Matt Damon and Dalton as his double
Usually when we think of action films, the muscular physiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise come to mind. But last week, it was 4ft 6in, 35-year-old Canadian actress Devyn Dalton whose biceps became a talking point.
The swimmer, 31, who had been brought up Catholic, began going to an evangelical church in 2023, and has since spoken about the impact of his faith. He now describes himself as “very religious”.
Matt Damon, whose stunt double in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey was Dalton, said in a podcast interview that she had “the greatest arms” he had ever seen. “My double was a woman, a female stunt performer who had the greatest arms I’ve ever seen,” Damon said. “So those shots in the movie where you see these giants looming over me ... gotta give it up where it’s due.”
“For me, as a Christian, there has to be forgiveness,” he told The Guardian. “It doesn’t mean you have to forget, but forgiveness takes time. I’m not saying that it won’t get better but it has to come from a place where I feel like they’ve improved as people, in a sense, and opened that communication up.”
So that she is always ready for the next job, Dalton exercises every day. “I do hybrid training which includes strength training and lots of different things to help with agility and mobility and explosive movements ... kind of like how athletes train.” She adds: “I’m only 85
Dalton, who started working in the entertainment industry when she was nine years old, was delighted. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” she said from Wellington, New Zealand, where she is working on a new action film. “So for Matt to give me a shout-out and shine a light on being a strong woman ... I’m doing the thing I always was but it’s really nice to get some recognition.”
pounds but I can bench press about one and a half times my body weight. The number isn’t what surprises people, it’s seeing someone my
size do it.” She loves running, Muay Thai and boxing and, on recovery days, yoga and Pilates. The reason she is so consistent,
The family feud became public in November after Adam Ramsay-Peaty’s aunt, Louise Williams, criticised his bride on Instagram for not inviting his mother, Caroline, to her hen party at Soho Farmhouse in Chipping Norton. His brother, James, was then arrested on suspicion of harassment after allegedly sending the athlete threatening messages during his stag party.
she said, is because exercise is “mental therapy” as well as physical. It also means that she is always ready for stunt jobs. When she got the call for The Odyssey, she amped things up for two weeks. “I really wanted to impress Matt [Damon]. I wanted everyone to be like, wow, she really fits the role,” Dalton said.
Dalton acted as Damon’s stunt double in key scenes of the film, which made £35.3 million at the box office in the UK and Ireland in the first ten days of its release last month. It is Dalton’s biceps, not Damon’s, on the film’s poster depicting a fight scene in which Odysseus faces the Laestrygonians, a tribe of monstrous, man-eating giants.
To do so, she did a “bulking phase” (where you eat more calories than your body burns while lifting weights to build muscle size and strength), followed by a “cut”, a small calorie deficit while continuing to lift weights and increase cardio. The combination is often used by bodybuilders. “I focused on my upper body and made sure I was working my arms a lot,” Dalton said.
Caroline, 60, told the Daily Mail that she feared the Ramsays had pulled her son away from her. “He’s in Gordon’s clutches,” she said. “Their family is very insular.”
When filming the scene, director Christopher Nolan decided not to rely on CGI to render the 7ft-tall giants. Instead, Dalton, standing in for Damon, stood before them to exaggerate the scale difference on camera. “There’s a lot of fear in the industry with AI and things like that, so to be able to do that for real and actually just perform is amazing,” Dalton said.
Last week, as the Commonwealth Games got under way in Glasgow, where Ramsay-Peaty is competing, his mother raised hopes of a reconciliation, posting on Instagram: “We continue to support Adam from afar. He’s our son whom we love
She spent three weeks filming the scenes in the Scottish Highlands and, in order to maintain her physique despite the intense filming hours, would do body weight exercises in her hotel room: “I always bring resistance bands when I travel and if I can get to a gym I do a fullbody dumbbell workout.”
Her career began in dance before progressing to acting and stunt work. She has always had an athletic build but “I didn’t always trust in my body type, I didn’t always have this confidence,” she said. “There’s a ton of pressure even with stunts. I thought I should be skinnier, I should have more muscle, I shouldn’t have muscle, I tried to be thinner ... I tried to fight my natural physique. In dance and film, you’re always judging yourself.”
... Our love, our time, our sacrifices were given freely with no expectation of financial reward.”
Her petite height, she said, meant “a lot of people try to put me in a box or stereotype me, or tell me I can’t do things. I always knew that wasn’t true, I believed in myself and I knew that my work would speak for itself.”
Glasgow Games, Sport
Former Gurkha who broke mountaineering record by seven years killed in avalanche
remarkable life came to an end. Purja, 43, died when an avalanche swept across Broad Peak, one of the mountains he had conquered on his record-breaking quest.
A experienced climber who declined to be named said that Purja, who was leading a commercial expedition with fellow guides and foreign clients, all of whom died in the avalanche, was willing to embrace risk and that this had finally caught up with him.
Purja’s 14 peaks record has since been eclipsed. In 2023 the Norwegian climber Kristin Harila climbed them in 92 days as improvements in logistics, helicopter access and expedition planning
continued to transform Himalayan climbing.
Hillary in 1953, to achieve global celebrity.
an outlet in the mountains. In 2014 he summited Everest for the first time, becoming the first serving Gurkha to do so.
published allegations by two women that Purja had sexually assaulted or made unwanted sexual advances towards them in Nepal and on a K2 expedition. Purja denied the allegations, describing them as “false and defamatory”. No charges were brought.
Matthew Campbell Foreign Features Editor
“I’m shocked and devastated,” she said on hearing the news.
Few would have predicted such a trajectory. Purja was born in 1983 in the remote Myagdi district of Nepal. Like generations of Nepali men before him, he joined the Brigade of Gurkhas, enlisting in the British Army in 2003. After proving himself in the Gurkhas he passed the demanding selection for the elite Special Boat Service. Colleagues recalled an athlete with exceptional endurance, relentless determination and a belief that obstacles existed to be overcome.
In 2019, Nirmal “Nims” Purja announced what many climbers considered impossible. He would scale the world’s 14 highest mountains — all those over 8,000m — in seven months. Purja, a former Gurkha and British special forces soldier, did it in 189 days, smashing the previous record by more than seven years and becoming one of the biggest names in mountaineering.
Purja’s reputation was built not only on speed but on his willingness to help others. In 2016 he made headlines after rescuing an Indian climber stranded in Everest’s “death zone”, carrying her to safety in conditions where many would have made their own survival a priority.
For decades, Himalayan mountaineering was dominated by western climbers, while the Nepali guides who made many expeditions possible were confined to the footnotes. Purja turned that on its head. Charismatic, relentlessly ambitious and fiercely proud of his heritage, he became the first Nepali climber since Tenzing Norgay, who shared the first successful ascent of Everest with Sir Edmund
“It’s desperately sad,” said the British mountaineer Kenton Cool, who this year became the first non-Nepali climber in history to reach the summit of Everest 20 times. “One of the reasons we’ve seen this massive surge in interest in 8,000m-plus peaks is partly down to Nims, his charisma and ‘anything is possible’ attitude. He had this rare ability to light up a room, to inspire people.”
“He tore up the rule book,” the climber said. “He really did think he was bulletproof. I’ve heard people saying it was a risky ascent on Thursday and, from what I know about the conditions beforehand and the amount of snow there was, he finally ran out of luck.”
Purja was one of ten people who died in the avalanche. Among them were his long-time climbing partners and guides Pur Bahadur Gurung, known as Yukta, and Nima Sherpa. Cool said: “Let’s not forget the other nine. My heart goes out to all the families.”
His 2019 feat became the subject of a Netflix documentary and Purja became a well-known figure. But fame brought scrutiny. The New York Times
On Thursday, it was on another of those giant mountains that his
Nirmal Purja in 2022. He set a record without oxygen
Those qualities soon found
4
MARIO MORON/ZUMA PRESS/ALAMY; JON NAZCA, PEDRO NUNES/REUTERS; JOSE ANTONIO DE LAMADRID FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES; REDUAN/EPA
Children were among those trying to enter Ceuta. Some had to be pulled from the water while hundreds waited outside a migrant centre in the Spanish territory
The unprecedented border crossing from Morocco to Spanish territory had been brewing for weeks. Thousands of youths were lured by social media posts after a Madrid court ruling that suggested they could not be sent back
due to Algeria’s backing of an independent Western Sahara state, an area over which Morocco claims full sovereignty.
though this policy does not apply to any migrants arriving after January this year. “A responsible government would never have allowed it to reach this moment,” the opposition leader said. “The question is: how has Spain come to this point?”
Pablo Simón, professor of political science at the Carlos III University of Madrid said the crisis in Ceuta “has no relation with the migration policy of this government”, and that Morocco had used border controls as a diplomatic bargaining chip. “When [Morocco] disagrees with a specific policy of Spain, they reduce the border control in order to be sure that they create an internal problem,” he said. “This is not a migratory crisis. This is a hybrid war attack coming from Morocco, creating this crisis in order to undermine the internal position of the government. This is the trap in which Pedro Sánchez is right now.”
Officers were hitting us but there were too
Sánchez has implemented one of the most liberal migration policies in Europe, writing in The New York Times this year that his regularisation policy was a way to boost the economy at a time of falling birth rates, despite many other countries in the bloc moving to more hardline approaches to migrants.
KATIE many of us GATENS
Morocco. This should not have happened and it cannot happen again. Spain must maintain a relationship with Morocco based on mutual respect, co-operation and good neighbourliness.”
of Ceuta last week. It was the largest single illegal border crossing in the European Union’s history.
Last week EU countries issued harsh words of criticism. Italy went furthest by suspending its Schengen arrangement with Spain and imposing more stringent border checks for the next month. The EU will hold an emergency video meeting of national ministers on Tuesday to discuss the incident.
On the tip of north Africa, Ceuta has been a Spanish territory since 1580. Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish territory, are the EU’s only land borders with Africa. Morocco has never formally accepted their Spanish sovereignty and they have become a flashpoint for illegal migration, as well as a place where broader geopolitical tensions can play out. In 2021, when Spain allowed the hospitalisation of Brahim Ghali, leader of a political party fighting for the independence from Morocco of the Western Sahara, Morocco responded by relaxing policing and 8,000 people crossed over two days.
For more than two decades, Madrid has relied on close security co-operation with Rabat to police the border. In return, Morocco has received hundreds of millions of euros in European funding for border management, and the two countries have developed extensive partnerships on policing, intelligence and migrant returns.
Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, defended Morocco at a meeting in Ceuta yesterday. Asked how the breach could have happened, he said: “The events require an evaluation by Spain and Morocco.” However, co-operation between the countries had allowed Spain “to revert the situation in 24 hours,” he said, adding: “Morocco is not a threat to Ceuta, or to the rest of Spain. It is a reliable partner.”
In Ceuta
On Friday in Ceuta, Sánchez had blamed trafficking gangs for the surge, saying they had circulated false information about a Spanish Supreme Court ruling. On June 29 there was a landmark ruling that defined the border powers in Ceuta and Melilla. In 2024 a migrant was returned to Morocco after swimming around the breakwaters at Ceuta. The court ruled that while this return was legal for fences and land borders, it did not apply for sea arrivals.
Sweltering outside the immigration centre in Ceuta, using a scarlet Red Cross blanket for shade, Quasi Alwahaini is trapped in limbo. He hasn’t eaten for three days, he said, “but I have no other choice but to stay”.
Despite their interdependence, there is a persistent belief in Spain that migration functions as a diplomatic pressure point which Morocco can tighten or loosen according to the political climate.
Alwahaini, 23, swam to the Spanish territory after a journey through north Africa from Yemen. He arrived in Morocco a month ago with dreams of making it to Europe. He was in Marrakech when he saw viral videos on social media of people surging across the border. He took a bus to Tangier and was there in a day. On Thursday he entered the water. “The Moroccan police were hitting us, trying to stop us, but there were too many of us,” he said. “I spent ten hours in the sea. We thought we were going to die.” Next to him, a man shows me his hands, cut and grazed from the rocks.
By Friday evening most of the swimmers were heading back to Morocco. Thousands were being ushered towards the border by the Spanish military. “There’s no food, we haven’t slept for three days, there’s nothing to do so we’re going back,” said 17-year-old Simo Jamal. Tanks were parked along the Royal Walls guarding the entrance to Ceuta town. As dusk fell loudspeakers warned people to return by midnight.
Migrants arriving in Ceuta from Morocco can make an asylum claim at a police station or Ceti, the immigration centre. They are granted legal protection while their claim is processed and they await a formal interview. While they wait, migrants are housed in Ceti, which provides basic food and care.
What had been a trickle of a few dozen, then a few hundred, migrant crossings from Morocco to Ceuta in recent weeks had burst into a flood by Thursday. It is not yet clear the extent to which Morocco’s failure to stop the tens of thousands who arrived was deliberate, or whether their border force was simply overwhelmed. Some would-be migrants said on Friday that Moroccan border guards had actively encouraged them to cross, while others said they faced resistance but officers were overwhelmed.
“What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling [which] spread like wildfire,” Sánchez said.
Spanish exclave of Ceuta
Benzú
The Spanish conservative newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday that, according to security sources, the Moroccan authorities were aware that news about the ruling was spreading on social media but allowed early crossings and planned to use it as an opportunity to remind Spain of their power over the border — until it “got out of hand”.
Belyounech
If Ceti’s centres are full, extension centres or emergency shelters can be opened. It is understood that Ceti was full yesterday and its gates were firmly locked, but so far no emergency shelter has opened to handle the latest surge. The Red Cross was approached for comment.
The city of Ceuta had largely gone into lockdown: restaurants, bars and shops were closed, despite many of the arrivals begging for food and water. Scuffles broke out at the few cafés that remained open as owners refused to serve migrants. There was also violence: some of the arrivals threw stones at army vehicles on their way to the border. In the city centre on Friday evening, Sandra Gabay, a Ceuta resident, said it was the first time she had been outside in two days. “It’s starting to get back to normal now, but we didn’t know when they would leave,” she
Outside Ceuta’s temporary immigration stay centre (Ceti) yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people who said they were from countries including Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Eritrea slept outdoors with no food or water. They watched as, locked behind bars guarded by police and security, the 700 people housed in the centre showered and drank from water fountains, in comparative luxury.
Migrants bypass border fence by swimming around the Tarajal breakwater
At a press conference on Ceuta’s Plaza de Africa yesterday, as helicopters stuttered overhead, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Spanish opposition People’s Party, said: “What we are suffering in Ceuta is the story of a triple failure. The failure of the migration policy, the security policy and the foreign policy.”
MOROCCO
The Moroccan government has still not commented publicly on the situation and did not respond to The Sunday Times’s requests for comment.
Yesterday afternoon Feijóo put the blame for the surge squarely on the prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s government, pointing to his immigration policy this year to allow the “regularisation” of undocumented migrants. Many critics have made similar comments, even
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Sánchez visited Algeria on July 20, which some have said may have strained relations between Spain and Morocco,
He added: “It is essential to clarify what has failed in the co-operation with
Alwahaini was one of the 60,000 people who arrived in the Spanish territory
1 mile
Farage struck deal to return long before 2024 election
would receive regular six-figure instalments or convert previous loans into donations, bringing its £1,083,000 debts back down to zero. As treasurer, A’Zami would be responsible for handling the transactions.
→Continued from page 1 Clacton in Essex. Tice was
six-figure sums from Reform UK on the same day.
figures at the height of a national campaign, money was already on its way to replenish its coffers. That day, the party received £250,000, followed by the same sum two days later.
and had become disengaged. Cottrell had asked him to return to the UK — and to his day-to-day duties — on the basis that Farage was making a comeback.
demoted to deputy.
With that, the deal kicked in. A week later, on June 10, 2024, Reform paid £200,000 to Tice.
According to party sources, officials only realised that a serious mistake had been made months later, in autumn 2024. When Reform had made its first £200,000 repayment to Tice, its accountants had not sent funds back to his company Tisun Investments, which had actually lent the money — but a personal bank account belonging to the deputy leader.
If it seemed unusual for a party to give away six
Farage explained that A’Zami would be in charge of both repaying and writing off the more than £1 million that Tice had lent the party via his company since 2020. The property developer’s money had been crucial in keeping the lights on at Reform’s headquarters in Ashby-de-laZouch, Leicestershire.
On paper, the £500,000 was donated courtesy of another of Tice’s companies, Britain Means Business. In fact, immediately before the payments, Tice had received money from Fiona Cottrell, the mother of George. According to The Guardian, she had herself received an equivalent sum from her son via a crypto-exchange days earlier.
Such details were withheld from almost all party officials. Ben Habib, then Tice’s deputy leader, said he had had no idea “financial deals were being struck at the top of the party”, suggesting that his trust had been “abused”.
When Sunak announced the snap election on July 4, Farage admitted he had been “wrong-footed”. He said he would not stand and would instead spend his time “doing my bit” to rally support for Tice.
Under electoral law, it is an offence to provide incorrect information to the Electoral Commission. Reform has denied breaking any laws, saying that, in any event, their treasurer was responsible at the time.
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Farage presented a piece of paper that set out how he would return Tice’s money. Previously, according to financial documents, the loans were interest-free, repayable “upon request” and “only if the party cash position allows”.
The payments, which were made days before Reform’s bank account was frozen and suspicious activity reports were sent to the National Crime Agency, are now part of a Metropolitan Police investigation. They also appear to explain why Tice both gave and received
Loans were to be repaid ‘only if party cash allows’
In the days that followed, however, Farage received entreaties from across the right to think again, and on June 3 he announced that he had returned as leader and would stand as MP for
Party sources claim that officials proposed rectifying the mistake and telling the watchdog immediately, believing that the watchdog would not be punitive over an innocent error. However, the
This was now to change: Farage outlined a “schedule of repayments”. Over the next year, Tice’s company
Migrants were escorted back to the border by Spanish security personnel. Some were treated by medics after their journey to Ceuta, where containment barriers have been installed in the sea
said. “Neighbours have said they’re trying to break into houses to find food.”
On the boardwalk overlooking the beach on Friday evening, a lifeguard volunteering with the Red Cross, who asked not to be named, was smoking a cigarette and watching dozens of men still arriving in the water. “Today I pulled five dead men out of the water,” he said. People have swum for up to six miles and have arrived exhausted, or “barely know how to swim”. So far at least 67 deaths have been reported.
Spain to obtain legal status has been particularly controversial. More than a million people applied for the scheme, which closed at the end of June — more than double the number that had been predicted by Sánchez’s government.
Sánchez, are keen to be seen to be taking a tough line. This is especially the case in Germany, where the hardright Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the most popular party, fuelled in part by a spate of Islamist terror attacks, most recently on a gay pride event last weekend in Berlin.
Denmark’s prime minister, who has pursued a tough line on immigration, called on the EU to “evaluate all options” including the possibility of suspending Schengen. She was echoed by Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister. Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, told Spain it “must regain control” of the territory.
prime minister, has been the most critical of Sánchez’s handling of the incident. On Friday Italy announced it was imposing border checks on people arriving by air or sea from Spain, effectively suspending the Schengen travel agreement between the two countries.
from National Future, a farright party launched this year by Roberto Vannacci, a populist general.
“Meloni’s problem fundamentally isn’t Ceuta. It’s Vannacci,” said Davide Faraone, an Italian opposition MP. “For months she’s governed in fear of being outflanked on the right, so every crisis becomes an opportunity to prove she’s still tougher, harder, more muscular.”
Europe Editor
The beach was littered with shoes and deflated rubber rings. “The problem is in the rocks,” he said. “Everyone starts stepping on other people, and swimming in jeans, jackets and hoodies.” He said he had seen babies in the water. “I’ve also rescued a man who can’t see. He’s blind. They see videos on social media and think it’s better here.”
EU members are free to set their own immigration policies, but matters are complicated by the Schengen agreement, named after the Luxembourg town in which it was signed in 1985 by initially just five countries.
The sharp response from Spain’s EU neighbours to the influx of 60,000 migrants into Ceuta has highlighted long-simmering tensions over migration and the Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free travel between 29 European nations.
Sánchez has hit back, denouncing the European countries that have criticised Spain. “Such an attitude driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest — is not only contrary to European law, humanitarian law and the principles of solidarity that unite us,” he said. “It also goes against Europe’s longterm interests and basic common sense.”
There has also been growing support in Europe for plans, first championed by Meloni, to process migrants in Albania or other non-EU countries or to create offshore “return hubs”. The idea has so far failed to get off the ground, largely due to resistance from the courts. The Italian controls in response to Ceuta, which have already started at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, are due to last for a month. The Italian interior ministry has insisted they will only affect citizens of non-EU countries, but has not made clear how it will be possible to make the distinction without checking everyone’s documents.
Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, whose country is at the opposite end of the Schengen area, highlighted measures he had taken to strengthen his own country’s frontier with Belarus, not a member of the EU. “We have invested billions of euros and engaged thousands of soldiers, police officers and border guards,” he said. “Spain must follow our example if Schengen is to survive.”
Sánchez, meanwhile, claimed that Spain had one of the EU’s least permeable external borders. The number of irregular entries over the past five years was half the number recorded by Italy, according to Frontex.
The Schengen scheme, which gradually removed border posts and passport controls between signatory members from the late 1990s, relies on maintenance of a firm external border. As was shown a decade ago at the arrival of a wave of migrants from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, it is difficult to prevent people from moving from country to country once inside Schengen.
Several people interviewed by The Sunday Times said they had seen videos on TikTok and Instagram about crossings into Ceuta.
Europe’s leaders seem worried that pictures and videos of the dramatic scenes will stir memories of the 2015 migrant crisis that upended the continent’s politics, fuelling greater support for right-wing populist parties in multiple countries.
One of those dreaming of a better life was Moustapha Nasri. Lit by the floodlights of Tarajal beach, yards from the barbed wire fences of the border, Nasri stood triumphantly on the sand, with his Nike T-shirt still dripping, and cried “Viva Espana!” Of the crossing, Nasri said “it was easy. Now I’m on my way to Spain.” He grinned. He confirmed he had seen videos on social media of other Moroc-
No other country has gone as far as Italy in its response to Ceuta, although France, which does share a 426-mile land border with Spain, said it was tightening controls. But President Macron expressed “solidarity” with his southern neighbour.
Ceuta was not even part of Schengen, he added. “In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford such a selfish, divisive and unlawful reaction.”
One of the few leaders to support Sánchez was António Costa, the president of the Europe Council and a former Socialist prime minister of Portugal, who commended Spain’s “firm response”.
Mindful of this legacy, many EU countries have united in their criticism of Spain and left Pedro Sánchez, the country’s Socialist prime minister, increasingly isolated on the left.
Ironically, the row has erupted at a time when, contrary to public perceptions, irregular crossings into Europe are falling. In the first half of this year there were 49,000 such entries, down 37 per cent compared with the same period in 2025 and way below levels seen in 2015, according to a report published last month by Frontex, the EU border agency.
The agreement does, however, allow countries to reintroduce border controls temporarily and “as a last resort”, for example when there is a threat to public policy or internal security. At present border controls have been reintroduced by eight countries, including France, Germany and Italy, often having been renewed several times. Implementation is patchy, however, and in practice most people crossing from them to other Schengen borders are not made to show documents.
Elsewhere in Europe there was little sympathy for Spain. Mette Frederiksen,
“This is an extraordinary measure, adopted to protect national security and prevent possible repercussions for our country,” Meloni said in a post on X.
The geographical location of Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish city in north Africa, make them uniquely vulnerable to illegal migration. But Sánchez’s critics, both home and abroad, are keen to use the crisis to target his welcoming stance on immigration, which he has portrayed as a way of boosting economic growth when the birth rate is falling.
Twenty-two Schengen members, led by Italy and Denmark, have written to Brussels demanding an “urgent meeting on the migrant emergency”. The aim, they said, was to “prevent uncontrolled irregular crossings, combat migrant smuggling networks, eliminate any factor that could encourage new illegal entries, and ensure a unified and effective European response”.
Yesterday morning a floating sea barrier was being installed and the beach was being cleaned of plastic. Security guards sat at the entrance to supermarkets. Young men clutching flippers begged at petrol stations. “The strongest will stay and the rest will go back,” one woman shrugged outside a corner shop, where young boys were begging for food. Additional reporting by Peter Conradi
Meloni’s critics have questioned the reality of the security threat to Italy, given it doesn’t share a border with Spain, attributing her move instead to domestic politics. She hopes to win another term in elections that are due in just over a year, but to do so must head off a challenge
Mass immigration — and its broader impact on society nevertheless remains a highly divisive issue on which most European leaders, with the notable exception of
A scheme launched in April to allow undocumented migrants who have entered
Giorgia Meloni, the Italian
Camilla Long, page 23
CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES
the handling of payments and invoices.
of the Harborne gift. It was, he said, “literally no one’s business.”
record, and that it was “amending our database” to provide “correct” information.
Electoral Commission was not informed that Tice himself — and not his company — had been repaid. Reform and Tisun Investments filed accounts suggesting the same.
Nigel Farage, standing beside George Cottrell, is hit by a drink at the start of his election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea in June 2024
The repayments to Tisun continued as planned. Between January and April, the party repaid him a total of £270,000. Within the period, Fiona Cottrell again donated to the party, this time in her own name, to the tune of £250,000.
A Reform spokesman said: “This appears to be further misinformation based either on unlawfully obtained documents or mischiefmaking by disgruntled former staff members.”
Farage, who stood down as Clacton’s MP 48 hours after The Sunday Times revealed the depth of his relationship with Cottrell, is standing to be re-elected in the Essex constituency on August 13. If he wins the by-election, he faces two investigations: an existing inquiry into the £5 million gift from Harborne, and a new one into undisclosed benefits from Cottrell. If Farage is sanctioned for failing to declare the gifts, he may be removed from the Commons and face a second by-election. He has consistently dismissed scrutiny of his financial interests as “irrelevant” and part of an establishment stitch-up.
Reform sources said that Tice later transferred the £200,000 from his personal account to his company account, effectively settling the loan. It is not clear when he did so.
He said that “all relevant repayments were declared to the Electoral Commission” and that Farage’s decision to return to frontline politics or stand in the election “changed only in early June.”
Tice appears to have received less than half of his money back — £470,000 and to have written off the rest — about £613,000 — as retrospective donations. The balance owed by Reform fell to nil. It is not clear why Tice’s company did not receive all of its money; sources suggested that the plan had been to pay in full.
A’Zami said: “I was told the payment had been made and relied on my staff. I included that in my own records to the Electoral Commission. When I learnt money had been paid to a source other than the company, I tried to remedy the matter and notify the commission, but was stopped. I was not allowed to make it right.”
He added: “Mr A’Zami, as the party’s then treasurer, had ultimate responsibility for and complete oversight of the party’s finances. He controlled the finance team, made the payment and compiled and submitted the reporting.”
It’s an offence to provide incorrect information
The Electoral Commission acknowledged that payments were misrecorded. It said Reform did not “clearly” register repayments against previous loans, that a “reporting error” led to at least one “incorrect” public
Tice and Cottrell did not respond to requests for comment.
By February 2025, A’Zami had left the party, returning to his business career in Dubai. It followed a series of disagreements over
Asked about his funding from Cottrell, he used a phrase he had previously used to dismiss criticism
Josh Glancy, page 9
6 The Sunday Times August 2, 2026
customers have been very understanding that we’re balancing work with family life. If we have this hot weather every summer, I think everyone will adjust working hours, starting earlier, and leaving earlier.”
usage on Friday afternoons between 3pm and 5pm this summer compared with the winter months.
A Virgin poll found 30 per cent of Britons already had a formal early Friday finish, while another 30 per cent log off early without permission. Sixty-four per cent said they felt “more productive earlier in the week if they can look forward to finishing earlier on Friday”.
The heatwave has forced other businesses to cut their hours. Some construction, hospitality and transport jobs simply couldn’t be carried out when temperatures exceeded 35C in June.
That’s confirmed by PwC’s UK chief people officer, Phillippa O’Connor, who said Friday afternoons off give staff “more opportunity to recharge. Client commitments always come first, but everyone should have the opportunity to benefit over the [summer] period.”
Robins Pie & Mash, a chain with five shops in London and Essex, closed to give staff “a break from hot kitchens”. Unite and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) started a “beat the heat” campaign, pointing out that the UK, unlike much of Europe, has no legal maximum working temperature. It wants staff to be able to “stop working at 30C, or 27C for those doing strenuous jobs”.
It’s also why Richard Poskitt, chief executive of the marketing agency Add People in Altrincham, Cheshire, closes the office for his 240 staff an hour earlier on Fridays from June to September.
Tara Breeze, a public relations consultant, has seen first-hand how work slows down on the Continent: she takes advantage of flexible summer working options offered by her employer, the food and drink PR agency Samphire Communications, to spend three weeks of August working from Spain.
“We weren’t trying to copy the continental way of working, but there are definitely lessons to learn from it,” he says. “The best work comes from people who have the energy and headspace to do their jobs well. From a recruitment perspective, policies like summer hours help us stand out.”
“The UK is finally catching on to something Spain has done brilliantly for years,” she says. “Here in summer, many businesses switch to jornada intensiva, where people work an earlier continuous day, typically finishing around 2pm or 3pm, and Friday afternoons are often a write-off as everyone heads to the beach or countryside. I start early, finish early, and use quieter evenings for writing press releases, strategy and planning.”
The London-based tech consultancy Clarity Global’s 100 staff stop work at 2pm on Fridays during the summer months. Kate Jelonek, its head of people, claimed the perk boosts the firm rather than costing it money. “Clients are often really pleased to see how we treat employee wellbeing, while people want to work somewhere that gives them their summer back with longer weekends.”
ILLUSTRATION BY NINA KRAUSE, DRAWN ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON, SINCE YOU ASK
For some employers, though, the UK’s contortion towards continental August working patterns comes at a cost. Emily Austen, who runs the Soho PR agency Emerge, which has 30 staff, said she has “mixed feelings about summer hours”. From June to September, her team shuts up shop at 3pm on Fridays.
For larger employers, summer hours may be a cross between a recruitment and wellbeing tool, but for many smaller businesses, shorter summer working hours are the only ways to make the parenting maths add up. According to the children’s charity Coram, the average bill for a full six-week summer holiday club is 5 per cent higher this year at £1,145 per child. In London, prices have risen as much as 16 per cent over the past 12 months.
“We need to be available when our clients are, and have to work collaboratively with them on how they are adapting,” she said. Her clients span “France — who pack up pretty much for the whole of August — Spain and Portugal, who slow down in the summer months and avoid the satanic heat mid-afternoon.”
More British employers are cutting the working week from June to September. Staff may love the idea but is it having a chilling effect on productivity, asks Lucy Tobin
Juggling a business with long school holidays can be impossible. Abbondante, an Italian restaurant in Messingham, north Lincolnshire, has cut down from five days a week, opening 4pm-9pm on three days only during August.
Fridays from July to the beginning of September. For six weeks from July 20, the accountancy giant PwC’s 23,000 UK staff can all slam their laptops shut from lunchtime on Friday — as long as they condense the missed half day into the other days of their working week.
following their direction of travel. Shorter hours, a four-day August working week and long, languid lunches during the dog days have firmly arrived.
At 4pm on Thursday, after receiving my sixth “out of office” response after attempting to email a management consultant, a literary editor and a media lawyer, I retreated to a coffee shop for some air-conditioning, an iced latte and a place to sit at my laptop for a few hours.
But there’s a financial cost. Stymied Fridays add up to 39 hours of working time per employee over the summer, “or 1,170 hours for a team of 30 — a huge cost to an agency of our size when we work on billable time,” Austen said.
“We’re a family-run restaurant, with three children aged four to 11 to look after as well as the customers,” explains Dante Botta, who owns the restaurant with his wife Cabriera.
We haven’t gone quite as far as a month-long shutdown of certain industries, or the French-style le pont — a “bridge” allowing workers to skip the days between a public holiday and a weekend. But a growing number of employers have decided the most productive thing to do in July and August is, in fact, to work less.
We’re finally copying Spain
Shorter hours help parents
The recruitment site Flexa reports that searches for work with “summer hours benefits” have quadrupled over the past six months. In general, the early finishes do not affect pay packets.
But when this plan too was blocked by the café’s sign sellotaped to the door “Closed early in July” — it was clear that my idea of reporting on Britain’s creeping embrace of summer hours was going to be trickier than anticipated.
“The cons are that it becomes an expectation even if you frame it as a perk — and it’s very difficult to claw back this sort of policy once you’ve implemented it.
“For the last three years, the kids have spent their summer holidays in the restaurant, or with friends or a babysitter, but it’s very difficult. I’m third-generation Italian, and back home everyone takes the foot off the gas in August.
Even employers that don’t formally shorten their summer hours may find staff take the perk anyway. Analysis of internet usage data by Virgin Media has found a 4.1 per cent drop in broadband
“But realistically, will you get full productivity from the team for those three hours on a Friday, in central London, in a heatwave? The answer is probably no.”
The listed fashion giant Asos closes at 3pm on Fridays in June, July and August. Dentsu UK&I, an advertising agency, allows its 3,500 staff to log off at 2pm on
Where once grim-faced Britons mocked Parisians shutting up shop for summer and Italians disappearing to the coast until September, it appears we are
“Initially, that wasn’t accepted in the UK, but this summer, that’s changed. Our
Walker, 26, and her young daughter.
Izzy Lyons and Terri White
The warrant was issued after Simpson failed to attend court for breaching a nonmolestation order, an injunction that protects victims of domestic abuse, it can be revealed. The order was put in place after reports that Simpson had harassed and threatened another woman, understood to be a former partner. Neither social services nor the police knew that Simpson had begun dating Walker.
Simpson physically and sexually abused the toddler in the months before her death, which was caused by an “unsurvivable” brain injury. Her head was hit against a hard surface when she was violently shaken on the morning of September 13, 2025, and she died the next day in hospital. It was never established who inflicted the fatal injury. Walker denied it was her, saying she had slept in that morning after heavily drinking the night before. Simpson refused to give his version of events.
cant investment in Instagram that doubled in value within three days. He is also, one person in the finance world said, seen in left-leaning New York as being “not that evil” compared to his brother. Unlike Jared, who is devoted to his father-in-law Trump, Joshua has donated to Democrats such as Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas representative, and the New York representative Ritchie Torres.
After a violent mob stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, the brothers were besieged by reports of a family “civil war” after Ivanka posted a tweet calling for peace while addressing the riot-
ers as “American patriots”. Kloss, who reportedly struggled for years to be accepted by the Kushners, posted that “accepting the results of a legitimate democratic election is patriotic. Refusing to do so and inciting violence is antiAmerican.” When a Twitter user suggested that she share the message with
her in-laws she replied: “I’ve tried.”
Rumours of a fall-out seem to have been short-lived. Despite their political differences, people who know the Kushner fam-
ily say that, having been torn apart by fratricide — their
uncle took their father to court, dragging the fam-
ily name into the mud — they are now inseparable. This summer
Isabelle Welsh was a “happy and thriving” child until Simpson came into her life
like her granddaughter was “being abused”.
In a statement, the police said: “In line with openness and transparency, we informed Isabelle’s family of the circumstances surrounding the outstanding warrant early on in the investigation.
“A review of this was immediately conducted upon his arrest for murder.
“This review, along with a determination to continually improve our processes around suspect management, has led to a number of recent changes, such as ongoing improved visibility across the force around outstanding warrants, a comprehensive data system which tracks all outstanding warrants, and stringent oversight including a governance group led by a superintendent.
“Those outstanding warrants posing the highest risk are reviewed daily by senior management.”
seriously or fatally injured. The review found that the council’s decision not to progress the two previous contacts with Isabelle was “appropriate with hindsight”, despite the fact that she went on to be murdered. Since 2019, the safeguarding partnership has conducted 30 rapid reviews. In 15 cases, the child was killed. In 18, the child was under the age of three.
Simpson and Walker’s trial heard that Isabelle was a “happy and thriving” child before Simpson was invited into her life. Walker was suspicious of her partner’s behaviour, including wanting to bathe her daughter on his own, and even looked him up on the sexual offenders register, but she did not find his name. Despite her concerns, she stayed with him.
Walker’s mother, Claire, also raised concerns, telling her daughter that it looked
was also in contact with Isabelle and her mother on two other occasions in the four weeks before her death. But both interactions resulted in no further action. On one occasion, a health visitor checked on Isabelle four days before her death but “unfortunately” did not go to the family home, the prosecutor said, choosing instead to do it over the phone.
“In any event, without actually visiting Isabelle or checking on her welfare, the health visitor concluded the call and noted that she had no concerns,” Richard Wright KC, for the prosecution, told the court.
After Isabelle’s murder, a joint safeguarding partnership run by Hartlepool and Stockton-onTees councils conducted a rapid review, an investigation carried out by the authorities if a child that had been known to them becomes
services after previously suffering from domestic abuse.
Eleven days later, Isabelle was returned to hospital, this time fatally injured. The nurse broke down in tears as she recalled seeing her “covered from top to toe in bruises”. A post-mortem examination found 21 fractured bones, including to her skull and spine, 97 soft tissue injuries and a bleed on her brain. The local safeguarding hub, which is a service run by the council,
Police failed to detain a “serial” domestic abuser for 18 months after a warrant was issued for his arrest, allowing him to go on to kill his partner’s two-year-old daughter.
Harrison Simpson was handed a life sentence last week and told he must serve
death, Walker had taken her daughter to hospital with an injured leg, which she was “struggling to bear weight on”, and told medical staff she hurt it in her cot two weeks earlier. The leg turned out to be fractured.
“Multiple inquiries and arrest attempts were carried out to try to locate and arrest him but these proved unsuccessful,” Cleveland police said. “We recognise the time Simpson had an outstanding arrest warrant is far from adequate.”
A nurse at the University Hospital of North Tees raised safeguarding concerns but she was dismissed by doctors, who accepted Walker’s version of events.
Cleveland police have admitted they failed to carry out a warrant that was issued for Simpson’s arrest by Teesside magistrates’ court in March 2024, leaving Simpson, 22, free to meet
Last year almost 60,000
arrest warrants were issued for defendants who skipped court in England and Wales, up nearly 50 per cent since
The toddler was returned to the care of her mother, who was known to social
Twelve days before her
THESTEWARTOFNY/GETTY IMAGES
then the US attorney for New Jersey, brought federal charges against Charles including tax evasion, making false statements about campaign contributions and hiring a prostitute to sleep with his brother-in-law, secretly filming it and sending it to his sister. The idea had been to pressure the couple into not co-operating with the investigation but it did not work.
Louise Callaghan Senior US correspondent, New York
In certain parts of the New York finance world, there’s only one Kushner that matters. It’s not Charles, the patriarch, former convict and monolingual ambassador to France. And it’s not Jared, the eldest sibling, husband to the president’s daughter Ivanka, peace envoy and former adviser to Trump. It’s Joshua, the youngest of the four Kushner siblings, who is, by any metric, the most financially successful of their powerful family.
Their father went to prison
He is the yin to Jared’s yang
Charles pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission. Another conspiracy charge was reportedly dropped. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
He is founder of one of the world’s biggest venture capital funds, which claims to have $60 billion of assets under management, and a personal net worth estimated by Forbes to be about $5.2 billion.
The scandal sullied the Kushners’ reputation. As Charles sat in jail in Alabama, Jared, then 24, took over the family business, pledging to bring the family name back. To do it, he took risks: he sold off the family assets in New Jersey and in 2007 bought 666 Fifth Avenue, an office tower in Manhattan, for $1.8 billion. He also bought the New York Observer.
Last week, he became the object of international scrutiny after it emerged he was leading an investor group bidding for a stake in the Fifa World Cup. It has been reported that investors at his firm, Thrive Capital, were taken aback by the global backlash to the idea and pulled out of the deal.
Joshua Kushner with his wife, Karlie Kloss, in New York last month. Below left, Gianni Infantino of Fifa with Jared Kushner
“I think that what happened to Charles Kushner was considered by his sons, his four children and his wife to be terribly, terribly unfair,” Ward said. “And I think that literally they have spent their lives sort of trying not just to make amends, but to put it right, as it were, and in a way they have. They’ve rewritten history.”
Now the 41-year-old, who is married to Karlie Kloss, the supermodel, is getting his own share of the kind of international attention that his family has attracted since his father was imprisoned for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering in 2005, and his brother risked everything to save the family name.
Joshua did not go into the family business. Instead he ran tech startups, none of them spectacularly successful. It was when he shifted into investments through his firm, Thrive Capital (which Jared, in his book, said he helped start and build) that he started winning, leveraging his connections on both coasts of the US for successful investments in companies such as Spotify, Instagram, OpenAI, Stripe and SpaceX, although some earlier bets flopped.
the family business into a $1 billion development behemoth. But he wanted more than money: he wanted the family to be the Jewish Kennedys. They were stalwarts of their local Orthodox community in Livingston and gave generously to charitable causes.
Kloss told Bloomberg: “I haven’t lost sight of who I am, but also it’s my husband’s family. I’m a Democrat. I think it’s possible to have relationships with people who you politically don’t align with. And I think this country has always been a place for dialogue.”
Within the venture capital industry, the youngest Kushner brother is known
Charles’s four children, two sons and two daughters, lived a prosperous life but hard work was expected. The siblings used to spend weekends and evenings at work with their father, and became deeply involved in the business. The brothers were close. According to Jared’s book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, they would play basketball and hockey almost every day after school.
Vicky Ward, a journalist and author of Kushner Inc, said that Joshua was “the yin to Jared’s yang”. She said: “Don’t be fooled by appearances. The Kushner family has got where it’s got because it is incredibly close … This is a family that has once paid a huge price for a family fight about money. They’re not going to let political differences divide them again.”
A family friend told Ward: “If Josh and Jared’s name weren’t Kushner and they were just, you know, like me … Josh would have found a way to be successful. Jared? I don’t think so.”
Thrive Capital said: “Jared has no financial interest in Thrive and would not have had any stake in this potential [Fifa] deal.”
When the family came to New Jersey in 1949, having escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town through a tunnel, they lived by the motto “think like an immigrant, act like an immigrant”. In New Jersey, they started building flats and didn’t stop. Over the decades, Charles turned
In 2004, when Joshua was about to follow his brother to Harvard, came the fall. Years earlier, Charles had been sued by his brother after he discovered that he had used family partnerships to make campaign contributions. Chris Christie,
Editorial, page 20 Matthew Syed, page 21
now assists victims of abuse in the region, said: “All they [the Emiratis] care about is money and reputation. If they want to get rid of you they will. If someone is living openly there for a long period of time with that level of heat, that to me shows there’s been corruption involved. If they were using false passports to enter Dubai, that’s a serious federal offence.” Haigh denied the fraud allegations made against him.
embarrassment to Emirati officials during a period when Iran was launching nightly drone strikes on Dubai and the Middle East and prompted the authorities to crack down on their activities. The US navy seized one of the oil tankers in the Indian Ocean and its $200 million cargo of crude.
The Dubai government says that employment-based residence visas are valid for two years. The employer must first apply for a work permit through the UAE’s Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation. The employee must then pass a fitness test.
number is linked to his residence file, according to the records.
Christopher Kinahan Jr was issued with short-term UAE visas in September 2013. Daniel Kinahan was issued with seven short-term UAE visas between 2013 and
unclear how both men remain at large without valid residency visas.
unwilling to take appropriate action? The Kinahans are not an unknown entity; they are at the very apex of organised crime. For the UAE not to know their residency status beggars belief,” he said. “This raises questions about whether there are any financial benefits to individuals in the UAE government, law enforcement which is holding them back from making arrests and deporting them.” The UAE enforces strict visa and immigration policies. Visitors undergo biometric scans when they enter the Gulf state. Expatriates who breach the country’s rules can be arrested, detained and referred to the UAE Public Prosecution service. The Emirates also imposes a fine for each day a person remains in the country after their visa expires.
He first began visiting the Emirates in 2007 and travelled there frequently before relocating. However, he also appears to have made about a dozen visits using an Irish passport issued under the name Christopher O’Brien, one of his known aliases. The name was discovered on corporate documents of a defunct Hong Kong firm incorporated in February 2014, suggesting Kinahan may have been using a false passport to travel to and from the UAE in addition to travelling under his authentic document.
The UAE has repeatedly maintained it has enforced a series of far-reaching US sanctions imposed on the cartel and frozen €200 million of its assets.
Analysis of the official records show that key members of the cartel began visiting the UAE as early as September 2013, three years before an attempt on Daniel Kinahan’s life in Dublin which led to a feud that claimed 18 lives and prompted them to relocate permanently to the Gulf state. They show
There are signs that the UAE’s tolerance towards the criminals may be coming to an end. An Emirati court last week ordered the extradition of Daniel Kinahan to stand trial in Dublin on charges of directing an organised crime gang before a non-jury court. The Irish military is due to fly the accused to Ireland in September, where he will be collected and transported to court in a bomb-proof van.
The UAE has previously extradited Sean McGovern, a Kinahan associate who was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
All members of the cartel appear to have gained residency in the UAE using Irish passports, with the exception of Christy Kinahan, whose British passport
→Continued from page 1
a company called Island Star Tourism.
The managing director of Island Star Tourism said Christopher Kinahan Jr was working as “commissionbased staff, not in-office staff”. He confirmed he recognised Kinahan Jr’s name but said he had never met him. Asked how the company name appeared on the visa, he said “I don’t know”. He said if the UAE had any problem with Kinahan Jr, they would “not give permission”.
Bernard Clancy, 48, another of the cartel’s strongmen, obtained a twoyear residence permit, which was renewed in January. Clancy’s stated profession is listed on his residency card as a “sales officer” for a company named Al Matn Goods Wholesalers LLC.
David Haigh, a British solicitor who was jailed on fraud charges in Dubai and
Another short-term UAE visa for Christopher O’Brien expired in August
A former boxing promoter who was credited with reviving Tyson Fury’s career, Daniel Kinahan was arrested after The Sunday Times and Bellingcat reported how one of his associates was a key figure in shipping crude oil from Iran to China, bypassing global sanctions and financing the Iranian regime. The revelations caused huge
He is a man in torment — fearful of arrest
Roy McComb, a former deputy director of the National Crime Agency, said that it was preposterous to suggest the UAE did not know the visa status of the cartel members in Dubai.
An examination of the Dubai government portal shows that Christy Kinahan now owes the equivalent of more than $1,000 for an 81day overstay. Dixon, whose residency expired in 2024, owes more than $11,000 for his 852-day overstay. It is
Al Matn Goods Wholesalers and OSA Management Consultancies did not respond to questions.
rise company office in Ankara, Turkey. The images were published online but have since been deleted.
Christy Kinahan relocated to the United Arab Emirates a decade ago but his residency visa has expired
“How is Christy Kinahan in the UAE unlawfully and the authorities there are
The UAE foreign ministry was approached for comment.
8
Giving mayors freedom to spend their share of income tax revenue is the PM’s big idea for ‘growth in every postcode’. But will it be any more successful than Boris Johnson’s plans for shared prosperity, ask David Collins and Alice Wright
Burnham style
for the devolved mayors of England. Would Burnham, who had been one of their number for nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, stay true to arguments he made while lobbying five different prime ministers for more power? Or would the realities of being prime minister mean that past principles on devolution would be watered down?
alking into a large hall after the obligatory jiggling of babies in a Sheffield nursery last week, Andy Burnham was asked what had surprised him most about the job of prime minister. “I suppose you think you under-
W
regional mayors will keep a share of income tax revenue for the first time. He will also allow them to keep some cash from business rates collected in their areas and give mayors greater control over services such as housing, transport, and skills. This will provide more freedom, but no extra money — at least initially — and could come with financial risk for those regional bodies.
“I genuinely don’t think anybody is after the world on a stick,” Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool City Region, said last week. “Just sensibly, the things we’ve been asking for, for the last one or two years.”
stand what the job will be like until you experience it, and it is ... intense. But in a good way, as well. I’ve decided to embrace every part of it … it would be easy to be changed by it, but I’m not going to let that happen.”
Andy Burnham and Bev Craig after her election as Greater Manchester mayor on Friday
proportion of taxes the mayors will get has not yet been decided. Those details will be announced when John Healey, the chancellor, delivers his first budget in the autumn — and rows are already brewing.
But like most government announcements, the devil is in the detail. The exact
In a significant shake-up for devolution, Burnham has said that England’s 14
This was one of the biggest questions
No 10 sources admit the devolved authorities will not be getting extra money on top of their current budgets: rather, this will replace the system of grant settlements that cover areas such as transport, housing and adult skills.
Greater freedom for mayors will mean they can spend the money however they wish, in the hope of driving faster economic growth. Income from any future growth in income tax receipts would then be retained.
Mayors will also be able to borrow against projected income, meaning they could fund large, long-term projects on their patch.
Burnham is a believer in the German model of equalisation between the regions, where wealthier regions pay more to subsidise poorer ones.
The proportion of income that each region will be allocated has not been decided, but Paul Bristow, the mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, is vehemently opposed to subsidising another part of England.
“Andy Burnham is a prime minister for the north. We are net contributors to the economy but we will be left behind if we’re not careful,” he said.
“If you look at it in the round we are poorly funded compared with other areas. We get no money from the city region sustainable transport settlement … Tees Valley, which is a third smaller, gets a billion pounds over four years.”
After she won the mayoral election to succeed Burnham in Greater Manchester, Bev Craig hailed her predecessor’s devolution agenda, saying it could “change our lives”.
Mayoral priorities on how to deliver growth differ from place to place. Craig wants a new underground station at Manchester Piccadilly; Oli Coppard, the mayor of South Yorkshire, wants to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport by 2028, hoping to support 5,000 jobs and “boost the economy by £5 billion”; Rotheram wants to modernise Liverpool’s city centre train stations and speed up a new train line connecting Liverpool to Manchester; while Bristow wants to spend money on road upgrades.
Henri Murison, chief executive of Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said tax devolution would allow the mayors to deliver transport projects through local borrowing and private finance deals. “Projects will include an underground Manchester Piccadilly station and the West Yorkshire tram,” he said.
But how will “good growth in every postcode” — the prime minister’s core pledge — happen?
Speaking to The Sunday Times in Sheffield, when asked about one of the guiding principles he wrote about as mayor that Britain desperately needs a written constitution that can enshrine the princi-
Don’t raise taxes: paying relatives could ease care crisis, Lib Dem leader tells PM
Government-backed trade fi nance. Insurance to export with confi dence. Tailored support from regional Export Finance Managers. If you’re looking to do business overseas, UK Export Finance can help you access the support you need.
Ed Davey, who’s spent years caring for family, says the private sector should not be cut out of social care reform
to call for a radical shake-up of adult social care in England — that he initiated cross-party talks on how to solve one of the biggest crises facing the country. As his government embarks on the 23rd attempt since 1997 to reform social care — previous efforts have failed because of cross-party disagreements and a lack of political will — Burnham will need all the support he can get, including from the leader of the third-largest party in parliament.
Get started at ukexportfi nance.gov.uk
Katie Tarrant Whitehall Correspondent
Sir Ed Davey was “trying to have a holiday” with his family in a farmhouse in Angoulême, southwestern France, last week, when Andy Burnham called.
Davey, a longstanding campaigner for better social care with experience as a carer for his late mother and grandmother and for his
It was on Wednesday shortly after the prime minister used a speech at a care home in north London
up
Josh Glancy Scandal is taking the shine off Farage, even in Reform country
eform is in a rut. If you don’t believe the polling (which now has the party behind Labour), or if you don’t put much weight on the recent Manchester mayoral result (in which its vote dropped by ten points since May), try taking a
R
trip to Fareham & Waterlooville.
This area just north of Portsmouth should be clear Reform territory. It is semi-coastal, mostly white, and has high levels of concern over immigration. There isn’t much of a left-wing vote in the constituency, whose MP, Suella Braverman, defected from the Tories to Reform in January. So it is all about the battle for the right ... which is no longer a foregone conclusion.
With Keir Starmer gone, Nigel Farage is Britain’s most unpopular party leader
Many people I met in Fareham & Waterlooville last week were open to voting Reform, but few were enthused by the prospect. “I don’t think Reform are doing that badly,” said Matthew, a recruitment consultant who works in Portsmouth. “But Burnham and Badenoch are more popular now. Reform relied a lot on the new party bounce, but they’ve been around a while now so can’t rely on that any more.”
ple of equal living standards for all — Burnham was supportive.
“I think the point it [devolution] will come to will increase the case for a written constitution,” Burnham said.
killing off the Tories in a place like Fareham.”
“England is certainly changing through this, and there is an offer for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to go on a similar journey for local empowerment and local devolution.” Burnham said it was for the first ministers of those countries to devise their own plans.
How does Reform get its mojo back? Fundamentally, the party’s appeal is to people who have given up and feel it’s time to roll the dice. If Burnham’s premiership struggles, or immigration and inflation rise in salience again, then it could find itself back in the ascendancy.
It’s hard to be a pint-swilling everyman while taking a £5m gift from a billionaire
Nigel Farage has long prospered by portraying himself as an outsider, paladin of the left-behinds, scourge of the establishment. He has always been his party’s central asset.
But recent investigations into his funding, including reporting in The Sunday Times and The Guardian about undeclared gifts from the crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne and his associate, “Posh” George Cottrell, have somewhat dulled his sheen.
“For many people, that discontent and desire for change is still there,” said Gwen Robinson, a retired teacher and councillor in Waterlooville who switched from the Tories to Reform. “People like to call us racist. But I’m not a racist, I’m a despairist. I despair at where this country is.”
“There is a case for a clear set of principles about how this country should be run and things that should be minimum basics in all parts of the country relating to essentials and connectivity,” he said. “It’s wrong that people are left arguing for things that are just fundamental and given in other parts of the country. The lack of a constitution disempowers places in that situation.”
“He doesn’t do the party any favours,” said Clare, a product manager from Waterlooville. “You have to be whiter than white as a politician, you have to declare everything. I’m swayed towards Reform by seeing the other parties and how awful they are. The only thing that puts me off is Nigel Farage.”
Inside Reform, there is still cautious optimism. It no longer see itself as being on a likely path to a Commons supermajority on 40 per cent of the vote, but believes it can remain the largest party on the right and get back up to 30 per cent. At the party’s conference next month, Farage’s team will be expanded with new shadow ministerial announcements, delivering a renewed sense of momentum. They also expect the shine to come off Burnham’s premiership when John Healey has to deliver a tough October budget.
right-populist insurgency and Britain is no different. Images of Moroccan migrants surging into Ceuta by the thousand and small boat arrivals ramping up in the Channel help to reinforce Farage’s point.
The political scientist Sir Vernon Bogdanor, who is based at King’s College London, said Britain was one of only three democracies in the world without a written constitution, along with New Zealand and Israel. Instead, Britain’s unwritten constitution exists in various rulings by parliament, the law, and in traditions.
It’s difficult to be a pint-loving everyman while taking a £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire, so Farage’s personal ratings have also taken a hit in recent months. With Sir Keir Starmer gone, he is now the most unpopular party leader in British politics. His net popularity is as low as minus 32 in some polls; last summer he was close to breaking even.
But his vote is in some danger of getting squeezed. Rupert Lowe’s Restore party is beginning to chip off support from voters who are hyper-engaged on immigration — it won almost 9 per cent of the vote in the Greater Manchester mayoral election.
A written constitution would outline a number of basic rights which would be interpreted by judges to become law, as happens in Germany or the United States.
After the by-election in Clacton is concluded, Farage could come under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner once more. He may end up being suspended by a parliamentary select committee and have to fight yet another by-election.
Meanwhile, Andy Burnham’s popularity in the north has brought red wall seats such as Makerfield back into play for Labour. If Badenoch can translate her own popularity into a revival for the Tories (still far from certain), then Britain might just end up with a more traditional two-party fight at the next election.
“I think there’s a strong case,” Bogdanor said. “But you need not just legislation and a single act of parliament, you need cross-party agreement and a consensus with the public and a referendum, and possibly also a majority in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, not just England. People complain about a postcode lottery but that in a sense is the consequence of devolution,” he said.
There is no mass exodus from Reform. Far from it. Farage is still attracting adoring crowds in Clacton, where he is running in a by-election of his own choosing, unopposed by any of the major parties. But in more marginal towns such as Waterlooville, once a Tory heartland, there is a sense of gravity reasserting itself.
But the feeling inside Farage’s camp is that this could play in his favour, making him look persecuted as supporters rally round during a “tell them again” campaign. They don’t believe many voters care about the funding rows.
In Fareham, a market town that is more affluent than Waterlooville, the Tories appear to be holding the line. Reform only picked up a single seat in May’s council elections and Braverman’s decision to defect elicited a pretty mixed response. “You rarely see her in Fareham these days,” said Simon Martin, the Tory borough council leader. “She’s mostly in Waterlooville.”
“I think we wouldn’t like it if the old age pension was different in different areas or in social care, if you had to pay for social care in some areas, but not in others. People would say that’s not fair.”
Many who deserted the Conservatives are now warming to Kemi Badenoch. “Farage is still a force to be reckoned with,” said Wendy, a retired driving instructor from Waterlooville. “But I’ve been increasingly impressed with Kemi Badenoch: her strength of character reminds me a bit of Margaret Thatcher. I always voted Conservative and I’d
“There is total disinterest in this issue on the doorstep,” said a Reform source. “The people who might vote for Nigel don’t give a toss.”
In a fluid political landscape, Reform could easily recover momentum. But the party needs some time to move past these probity rows, vet hundreds of election candidates and develop its policy platform, just as Badenoch needs time to detoxify the Tory brand and the Greens need time to either replace or resuscitate their own flailing leader.
ILLUSTRATION: RUSSEL HERNEMAN
Luke Tryl, UK director of the More in Common think tank, believes Fareham illustrates the risk of Reform slipping between two stools.
vote for them again. But at the moment, Reform are the best of a bad bunch.”
“If you’re not winning well-to-do Tories in the south, then that’s a problem for Reform. It shows the potential limits of what we might call [Robert] Jenrickism, which is all about
Reform is still polling at about 24 per cent nationally and will
remain a powerful force. Every major country in
No wonder, then, that some in Andy Burnham’s camp are still tempted by the idea of calling an early election.
Europe is undergoing a
scrutiny over a £5 million donation and funding from a fraudster, has claimed his party is being pursued by an undefined “establishment”.
Conservatives before they were displaced by the Greens shortly after Zack Polanski was elected leader in September last year.
Lib Dems’ 2024 manifesto suggested funding a £5 billion-a-year increase in social care spending by taxing the profits of banks and social media companies. The present cost of adult social care is about £28 billion.
£35,000 lifetime cap on social care costs, limiting the amount any individual would have to pay towards their care. The estimated cost was about £1.7 billion a year.
outcome of the social care review by Baroness Casey of Blackstock, commissioned by Sir Keir Starmer and brought forward by Burnham, before passing judgment. He believes that once parliament has settled on a path to reform, change can be delivered within a year.
Davey does not qualify for carer’s allowance, a weekly payment of £86.45 claimed by about a million people in the UK who spend at least 35 hours a week caring for someone with a disability or illness and who earn no more than £204 per week after deductions such as income tax and national insurance.
all estates passed on after death, regardless of value, to pay for changes that would cost more than £18 billion.
disabled son, John, didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and join the meeting. “I think it was a good, constructive meeting. He’s clearly committed to, or he says he believes in being, cross-party, and I welcome that.”
Davey says: “We don’t need tax rises on ordinary people to make this work. If you did things differently, you’d get better care and you’d save money.” One of his main ideas for how to do things differently is investing in unpaid carers, or “family carers”, of which there are estimated to be 4.7 million in England. “There are millions of people looking after loved ones and I think [Burnham] accepts that’s got to be critical to any reform,” Davey says.
Psephologists could point to coastal and post-industrial towns where Reform councillors displaced Liberal Democrats — such as Southend-on-Sea and the metropolitan wards in Salford
Davey sees a path to success in targeting Tories not inclined to lean towards Reform. “Because of the way the Conservatives are veering off to the right to chase Reform votes, I think lifelong Conservative voters, a lot of One Nation Conservatives in particular, are coming to us.”
Unlike Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, who said she would refuse to co-operate if Burnham used tax rises to pay for a social care plan, Davey says he has “priorities”, not red lines.
At the last election, Davey called the Lib Dems “the party of social care”. Now Burnham has said he will spend his political capital on reform, does Davey think his own branding is threatened, or see more reason to form a coalition? “Well, first of all, we’re less than halfway through this parliament,” he says, dodging the question. But on collaborating with Labour, he says: “One of the reasons why we’ve seen populists and extremists get any traction with people is because people think that politics can’t deliver. We’ve had a decade of total failure. For me, fixing social care is that chance for us to prove that politics can deliver.”
Burnham used his speech to commit himself to creating a national care service and improving pay and training for care workers. The Times reported that he may also cut large private-sector providers out of the new service.
Casey’s is the 23rd review of social care since 1997. The most significant — the Dilnot report, published in 2011 when Davey was a junior minister under David Cameron — proposed a
Davey says this would be top of his list to reform. “It’s a nightmare benefit. It’s not very generous,” he says. More importantly, though, because the maximum income to qualify for it is so low, “built within it is a massive disincentive to work”.
— as evidence that the anti-establishment vote is gaining traction. Reform won more than 500,000 more votes than the Lib Dems in 2024. But Davey counters: “We’ve always been anti-establishment. We want to change the electoral system, we want to change the House of Lords, we want to devolve power, we want ... a written constitution.”
“Even if it’s not my perfect, or the Liberal Democrats’ perfect, solution we’ll try and go along with it,” he says. The
He believes the Lib Dems can win over these voters with calls for a return to the single market, growing the economy through European trade agreements and building better defence partnerships with Europe.
Davey disagrees with this. When someone becomes too sick for family care, he believes, they should have options depending on their income. “I have no problem with providers, whether they’re public sector, not-for-profit or private. I think there’s a strong case for diversity.”
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
He would increase the allowance, adding directly to the £3.7 billion cost of the benefit within the spiralling welfare bill. But, he argues, this would mean more carers could work so the overall tax burden would be reduced.
He has been involved in care for most of his life. When he was nine, his mother, Nina, had cancer and he cared for her while being raised by his grandparents. He looked after his maternal grandmother, who died a decade ago in a care home in Kingston, his constituency. He now cares for his son John, 18 — who has an undiagnosed neurological condition affecting his brain development, movement and communication — along with his wife, Emily, who has multiple sclerosis.
Come the next general election, Davey will target more than 50 seats particularly those won by Conservatives — where the Lib Dems came second by fewer than 10,000 votes.
Are these not all policies that Burnham has supported, and suggested — before or since he became prime minister — that he will implement? “Maybe he’s [also] going to turn out to be anti-establishment,” Davey shrugs. “It’s true to say at the moment that Labour’s moving to the centre on things like care. Let’s see if that continues.”
Burnham also left the door open for raising tax to pay for reform, saying: “If everybody on the NHS principle contributed a little, it would mean everybody could protect the majority of what they’d worked for.” When he was health secretary under Gordon Brown, Burnham proposed a 10 per cent tax on
Ed Davey with his son John, who has a neurological condition, and wife Emily, who has multiple sclerosis
Allowing family carers more financial autonomy would also mean disabled and elderly people were able to stay longer in their homes, looked after by their loved ones, he says, reducing the burden on the NHS and state-funded care homes.
The one party he has ruled out a coalition with is Reform, which he has said represents “values which are the complete polar opposite” to those of the Lib Dems.
Polling of voter intention by YouGov since January last year has placed the Lib Dems consistently at about 14 per cent, making them the fourth most popular party after Reform UK, Labour and the
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, who is under
Davey is waiting for the
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ALAMY
Hugo Daniel
The author whose books were adapted into Netflix’s hit series Bridgerton has criticised snobbery around romance fiction and said “reading can also be for fun”.
Julia Quinn, 56, the American who wrote the Regency romance novels that inspired the raunchy television drama, said: “There’s something about our society that people think that reading has to be hard, or at the very least that it has to be improving in some way.
Alan Parker with stars of the 1991 film. Above, Bronagh Gallagher and Glen Hansard in 2011, the year of the “extraordinary” reunion concerts
“You go to the movies for fun. Reading can also be for fun,” Quinn told the Financial Times.
Quinn became fascinated with romance while studying art history at Harvard, but found that local bookshops declined to stock the genre. “You felt you had to hide it,” Quinn said. “Romance novels are primarily written by women for women and they are about emotions. Society devalues the feminine ... We have been taught that great literature is the great white male quest.”
Glen Hansard, who died last week, shot to fame in the 1991 film. Rosamund Urwin looks at what became of his co-stars
Kennedy, 61, who played Natalie Murphy, went on to star in Downton Abbey, The Tudors and Orphan Black, and has released albums with her musician husband Kieran Kennedy. Angeline Ball, 57, who played Imelda Quirke, starred inDoc Martin and Shameless.
regarded as one of the greatest Irish films. Parker, who died in 2020, saw more than 3,000 hopefuls — mostly musicians rather than actors — before assembling the ten-piece group for The Commitments, and cast Hansard as the lead guitarist, Outspan Foster.
adding “he had extraordinary confidence for a 16-year-old”. Afterwards, Strong, 52, focused on music, touring with stars including the Rolling Stones and Prince, but felt initially that the film was “an albatross” around his neck, and that it had made it hard to prove himself as a songwriter. He joined the 2011 reunion gigs, however, saying: “I think people deserve to hear me singing these songs.”
England in the Six Nations moments before, and the audience was tipsy and elated.
Quinn sold her first two novels, Splendid and Dancing at Midnight, in 1994. Her first Bridgerton book, The Duke
“It was just extraordinary — the best night of my life,” added Gallagher, 54, whose recent credits include the Netflix hit How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. “The love we got on the stage that night was profound.”
and I, was published in 2000. After reading one of the books on holiday, the producer Shonda Rimes sold the idea for a series to Netflix. After its debut, on Christmas Day, 2020, it got 113 million views in three months to enter the platform’s top ten.
Félim Gormley, 57, who played the saxophonist Dean Fay, went on to play the sax for James Brown and Rod Stewart. Johnny Murphy, who died in 2016, played the lothario trumpeter Joey “the Lips” Fagan, and afterwards acted both on stage and film, including in 1999’s Angela’s Ashes.
After filming, Hansard went on to become one of Dublin’s musical heroes and won an Oscar for best original song in 2008 for Falling Slowly, from the 2007 film Once. The Commitments also gave a big break to a real band. All four of the Corrs, the siblings who have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, make an appearance, with Andrea playing Sharon, the sweary sister of the band’s manager, Jimmy Rabbitte, and Jim, Caroline and Sharon in background roles.
Her Commitments co-star David Finnegan, 59, added: “It was like walking into a gladiator ring in Rome, with the noise of the crowd. You very rarely get days like that, and Glen was the man who brought it together.”
Finnegan, who played bouncerturned-drummer Mickah Wallace, has a band called Dave Finnegan’s Commitments, while Ken McCluskey, who played the bassist Derek Scully, and Dick Massey, who was drummer Billy Mooney, have performed in Stars From The Commitments, a covers band.
When the stars of The Commitments reunited in March 2011 for a short tour to mark the cult film’s 20th anniversary, it wasGlen Hansard who persuaded many of his former cast mates to perform.
Quinn, who lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband Paul Pottinger, a doctor, said: “For me, sex scenes have to serve a purpose ... If you can take the scene out and the book holds up just fine, then to me, at least, it’s not romance, it’s erotica.”
Yet not all its stars enjoyed the success they were tipped for. Robert Arkins, 56, who played the band manager Jimmy, composed music, but has acted only sporadically since, including in 2018’s The Comeback.
Hansard died in a motorcycle crash in the early hours of Wednesday morning. He was 56 and is survived by his wife, the Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, and their three-year-old son, Christy.
“I thought ‘am I really gonna do this?’ and Glen said ‘you gotta!’ ” recalled the actress Bronagh Gallagher, who was a close friend of Hansard’s as well as his co-star. “Glen was the group’s ringleader, the captain of the ship.”
Only one member of the band did not pursue a career in showbusiness: Michael Aherne, who played the pianist Steven Clifford, returned to his work as a civil engineer after filming ended. He works for the National Transport Authority in Dublin.
Meanwhile, The Commitments’ three female backing singers have all enjoyed acting success. Gallagher, who played Bernie McLoughlin, was 18 when she was cast, and soon won a role in the 1994 thriller Pulp Fiction. Maria Doyle
Gallagher and Finnegan had met Hansard before they were all cast in The Commitments, Sir Alan Parker’s 1991 adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s novel about a working-class soul group, which is
Andrew Strong was only 16 when he was cast as the lead singer, Deco Cuffe. Parker recalled in a 2016 interview that Strong had “nailed” the part in auditions,
For the final gig, they played Dublin’s O2 Arena, now 3Arena, to a crowd of 14,000 fans. It was the weekend after St Patrick’s Day, Ireland had thrashed
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 13
GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
POTS OF NOVELTY
Unicef says it hasn’t received a penny of the cash promised after the mysterious auction of a canvas by a British artist
Our art-historical narratives are driven by novelty (Rachel CampbellJohnston writes). A long succession of “isms” passed like a baton down the decades can bear testimony to that. Small wonder, then, that Sacha Jafri’s The Journey of Humanity attracted momentary attention. Roll over Rembrandt and his 170 sq ft Night Watch with its line-up of all but life-sized figures. Jafri’s canvas is at least a hundred times larger. But has it anything more than its scale to recommend it?
Emily Prescott Arts and Entertainment Correspondent
When the British artist Sacha Jafri auctioned the world’s largest canvas painting in Dubai in 2021 it sold for $62 million (£45 million), double its target.
The money would go to helping children’s charities, Jafri claimed at the time. “The money we’ve raised, the amount we can do with it, is incredible — and that makes me so happy,” the Eton and Oxford University graduate told the Arab news site, Philanthropy Age.
There is an undeniable energy to its abstract expanses, its bright colours pouring from the artist’s subconscious as, without sketches or preliminary planning — or for that matter, painterly skill — Jafri strode about surfaces, flicking and sloshing and swiping with surprisingly small brushes, letting pigments build up in thickly encrusted layers. But for all that the end result might be eyecatchingly expansive, Jafri adds nothing — except too much garish colour and too many heart shapes to the groundbreaking splatterfests that the American action painter Jackson Pollock pioneered.
The 17,000 sq ft canvas, The Journey of Humanity, was bought by André Abdoune, a French self-styled cryptobillionaire.
Yet more than five years later the evidence appears to suggest that the sale may never have gone ahead as promised. It can be revealed that despite Abdoune’s claims that he would build a museum in Dubai to house the painting, the work remains in Jafri’s possession.
Jafri said last week that it was “safe, in proper storage and fully maintained”, adding that a court-appointed independent expert had verified its condition.
Abdoune and Jafri in 2022 after the money failed to materialise.
include Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, Madonna and George Clooney, created the painting over the course of seven months during the pandemic. It was intended to be sectioned into 70 framed lots and sold across the world but Abdoune, who lives in Dubai, bid for the entire painting.
not respond to a request for comment. When asked about the legal proceedings Jafri said he did not “organise, run or administer the auction” and refused requests to name the organising body he claimed was responsible.
Documents submitted to the Dubai Court of First Instance, first reported by The Fence magazine last month, detailed that Abdoune had bought the
Jafri told The Art Newspaper in 2021 that Abdoune had “already made a sizeable deposit, and he is paying the rest in three instalments over a six-week period”. The original project aimed to split the proceeds among several children’s charities including Unicef, Unesco and the Global Gift Foundation, via Dubai Cares, a UAE-based organisation founded by Dubai’s ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
One function of art is to reflect its era. Jafri’s endeavours might, in some way, achieve that. Executed at the time of the pandemic, his confection stands as a monument to the many and various — and sometimes mad — outpourings of all those quarantined amateurs who sought occupation in creativity.
painting for $62 million and would pay Dubai Cares that amount in instal-
Jafri denied wrongdoing or responsibility. “My role in this was as the artist,” he said. “I created The Journey of Humanity and gave it for a charity auction in good faith and for the causes it was meant to support. I did not organise or run the auction, I did not select or vet the bidders and I had no role in handling the funds.”
ments by July 12, 2021. Jafri would then be responsible for delivering the painting, court records said, but this
In the years since the auction Jafri’s profile has continued to rise. His painting Dance of the Midnight Samurai sold for about £52,000 in 2019. Clinton Pugh, father of the actress Florence Pugh, is selling three early Jafris and expects to make millions of pounds.
had not taken place.
The judge ruled that Abdoune must pay the charity the funds,
But, as a visual expression of any more profound convictions, ideas or beliefs it remains superficial. There is little to invest in — either philosophically or financially. When, in 2024, a Nigerian teenager produced an even larger picture, this massive canvas became nothing but a minor footnote.
but dismissed without merit
Unicef confirmed to The Sunday Times that it had not received any funds. Unesco acknowledged that Dubai Cares had donated $1.9 million to its education arm in 2022 but noted: “We have no indication of whether or not this donation was made possible directly by the charity auction.”
Abdoune did not respond to requests for comment. A sponsored feature published on Fortune India in 2023 claimed he was nicknamed the “Money Maker” due to his crypto prowess, was launching “the world’s biggest blockchain project” and had an invested fortune of $1.5 billion.
the claims that Jafri had seized or smuggled the painting. The
Sara Ezen, the founder of the Chiascuro Gallery, which is selling Pugh’s Jafri paintings, said: “Given that his work [The Journey of Humanity] sold at a charity auction for $62 million and that his most lucratively privately sold piece was for $1.4 million, it could well reach a high price point.”
judge also dismissed the claim that Jafri had inappropriately exploited the charity and auction’s name.
Sacha Jafri with his painting, top, and the actress Eva Longoria in 2019, above
Dubai Cares confirmed the legal case was continuing and declined to comment further. The Global Gift Foundation did
Dubai Cares began a civil case against
Jafri, 49, whose collectors are said to
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General who lost son in Gaza emerges as Bibi’s toughest rival
KOBI WOLF FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Dressed in his typical black T-shirt and jacket over his generous girth Eisenkot laid out what he called his “most important mission to date”.
“These elections are about the identity of Israel,” he declared, “whether it will remain a Jewish, democratic, liberal, strong, and egalitarian state.” Pointing out that the country is “fighting on as many as six fronts,” he said that “none of the wars’ objectives — except the effort to return the hostages — has been fully achieved. Israel stands today at a historic crossroads, both because of the external threats it faces and because of the internal challenges.”
In Sderot
The former army chief is drawing support with a warning about a loss of democracy and a call for an October 7 inquiry
He was applauded enthusiastically as he vowed to immediately launch a commission of inquiry into how the October 7 attacks came about, which Netanyahu has refused to do. “If such an inquiry is not conducted, the events of October 7 will remain a dark cloud hanging over Israeli society for generations,” he said.
On a sweltering Monday afternoon, a gaggle of tourists on a scrubby hilltop in southern Israel are queueing to pay five shekels for binoculars to look at the ruins of the Gaza Strip, less than half a mile away. Some are taking selfies.
Afterwards Mordechai Beshanan, 79, a retired chief electricity technician, told me he had always voted for Bibi, as Netanyahu is known, but this time would vote for Eisenkot. “I think Bibi has lost his direction. Today, even if I was his brother I wouldn’t vote for him.”
“I’m disappointed!” says Tsipi Senay, 62, who has driven 40 miles south from Rishon LeZion with three other women to the Sderot viewpoint. “I can see buildings still standing and that’s not good. I was hoping it would all be rubble.”
Some younger voters seemed less sure. Some polls have shown the Israeli youth moving further right. “I came because I wanted to hear all the options,” said Daphna, 24, who works in the kibbutz. “But the most important issue for me is the cost of living and I’d like to hear more on that.”
Kobi Hill, as it is known, has to be one of the world’s most ghoulish tourist attractions. Even without binoculars the destruction is clear, as is the billowing smoke from an Israeli airstrike. What they are looking at, according to the United Nations, is 61 million tonnes of rubble: the utter destruction of a land where, over the past three years, more than 71,000 people have been killed and 80 per cent of homes and buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Many of the remaining two million Gazans are now living in tents infested with rats.
Israeli politics is deeply fractured and at least ten parties are contesting the election. The most recent poll, published last week for Israel’s Channel 13, put Eisenkot’s Yashar neck and neck with Likud on 23 seats.
Assaf Sharon, professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, said it was extraordinary that Netanyahu’s party was still polling so strongly. “The real question should be how is this election even close,” he said.
But it was also the launching pad of the attack of October 7, 2023, in which almost 1,200 Israelis were killed — including 53 in Sderot — and 251 taken hostage when Hamas fighters smashed through what was supposed to be an impenetrable wall. It was Israel’s worst national security breakdown.
Defence Forces directly occupies 60 per cent of the territory.
ager, Ronen Manelis, a former military intelligence officer who served with him from 2003, when Eisenkot was commander in the West Bank, and went on to become his aide.
prioritising the return of the hostages. He has launched his own centrist political party Yashar — Hebrew for honest — and has been unexpectedly leading the polls in a contest he describes as “for the soul of the nation”.
Gadi Eisenkot campaigning last month and, below, with his son Gal, who was killed in Gaza in December 2023
There has been no sign yet of the second phase of the agreement: the disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction of Gaza. On Thursday night, however, Trump announced on social media that his Board of Peace had reached a deal for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw so that reconstruction can begin. But the scale of the problem is clear even without the five-shekel binoculars. The UN estimates that it could take decades to rebuild the strip.
“Netanyahu didn’t just oversee the worst security breach in the history of the Israeli state but the failure of his entire national security strategy, followed by unmitigated cockups in Gaza, Lebanon and failure in Iran — and dragging the country to its lowest-ever international standing.”
“He’s the total opposite to Bibi. He’s not focused on make-up or clothes, his English is military style, he’s not a natural speaker but he’s a real Israeli success story. He’s also a symbol of the price people paid for this war,” he adds.
After Trump’s announcement about Gaza, Eisenkot said: “Once again Israeli citizens are learning about a fateful agreement from foreign media and the outrageous gap between Netanyahu’s promises and reality is exposed.
“We don’t want to fight with anyone,” says Senay, “but they give us no choice. They’re not human beings.”
Her companions nod vigorously, as does Shlomit, 23, who works in a shoe shop in Modiin Illit and has come with a friend. “They are bad, bad people and if you don’t watch out, they will come to you too,” she warns.
It is still early days — the election is due on October 27 — and Netanyahu is not known as the Great Survivor for nothing.
On the walls of Eisenkot’s office in his campaign headquarters at a hipster workspace in Tel Aviv, are photos of his family, including his youngest son, Gal, who was killed aged 25 in Gaza in December 2023. Gal had been sent with another soldier to extract the bodies of two dead hostages and the pair were blown up by an IED. Two of Eisenkot’s nephews were also killed fighting there.
“After the heavy price, the fallen and the wounded, he has capitulated in his political weakness without achieving the war’s objectives. The state of Israel must not accept a reality in which Hamas survives and waits for the opportunity to carry out the next massacre.”
“This is the best chance in a generation to get rid of Bibi,” says Esther Solomon, a columnist for the liberal newspaper Haaretz. “[Eisenkot] seems an extremely solid candidate with lots of genuine characteristics. But Bibi is ruthless — if his mum was still alive he would sell her to stay in power.”
As of last night the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who met Trump in Washington last week, had not yet commented publicly on the deal, though his far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, denounced it as “unacceptable”.
A group of young American students arrive — one of them, from New Jersey, describing the view as “cool” — as well as a Hungarian family whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust. A large tour bus pulls up of Orthodox tourists with black coats and long curled hair.
In many ways, the gruff former general is the anti-Netanyahu. The humble son of Moroccan immigrants who grew up in Eilat then spent 41 years in the IDF, Eisenkot, 66, is drab in dress and speech. It’s a stark contrast to the smooth-talking and eloquent Netanyahu, brought up in an affluent neighbourhood of Jerusalem, educated at Harvard and MIT, the ultimate salesman who sold furniture before entering politics and, at 77, has spent 18 years in power.
With campaigning now under way for Israel’s first elections since the October 7 attack, agreeing an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would be electoral suicide.
According to those close to him, it was at Gal’s shiva — the Jewish mourning ritual — that Eisenkot resolved to stand. Launching his campaign, he said: “Over the 48 years I’ve been fighting for Israel, I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost family. I’m not willing for us to lose this country too.”
The debate is loudly under way at a table outside the Falafel King takeaway in Sderot, where two retired locals, Dani Belchen, 69, and Victor Cohen, 63, are finishing their meal.
They point out the smoke and the sound of gunfire. Under a peace agreement overseen by President Trump with much fanfare last October, fighting is supposed to have stopped. Instead, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Gaza, killing another 1,100 Palestinians, blocking promised reconstruction, and shifting the agreed ceasefire line that roughly split the land in half. The so-called yellow line has now moved so much that the Israel
It is over Gaza that Israel’s longestserving prime minister is facing his most formidable challenge to date, from his own former top general. Gadi Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the IDF, quit Netanyahu’s war cabinet two years ago in protest over strategy in Gaza which focused on destroying Hamas rather than
“I don’t like Netanyahu. I love him,” says Cohen. “He’s the smartest man in the country.” But Belchen says he has voted Likud all his life and now will vote for Eisenkot. “Everything has changed,” he said. “All these wars ... It’s enough.”
Eisenkot has been drawing large crowds to his rallies, including one ten days ago in Kibbutz Naan, 21 miles south of Tel Aviv, where more than 500 people gathered on white plastic chairs.
“Gadi is a non-populist. His TikTok is very boring,” laughs his campaign man-
to court records. In the summer of 2019 Baugh dispatched his employees to harass the Steiners. He brought Veronica Zea with him to Natick to stalk the couple.
new regulations or changes to consumers. In 1999 their website was born, and they soon had a group of dedicated readers.
say their public settlement is a victory for reporters under pressure from powerful institutions, particularly at a time when the president of the United States is threatening journalists. They say they were prepared to go to trial. “I don’t think we could live with ourselves, with the rest of our lives, knowing that we didn’t do as much as we could to be transparent, to make this behaviour transparent,” David, 67, said. “So that really was never an option.”
internal security team took them literally, unleashing a harassment campaign and stalking the Steiners.
parties at the Steiners’ home were posted online. Their neighbours were sent pornographic magazines with “barely legal” teenage girls, addressed to David.
Louise Callaghan New York
On a summer’s day in 2019, David and Ina Steiner were holding a yard sale in the garden of their home in Natick, Massachusetts, when their neighbours told them something very odd.
Seven eBay employees pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to their attacks on the Steiners.
The site had about 650,000 unique monthly visitors, who were trying to understand what was happening at eBay. In 2019 the company was in trouble, amid stuttering growth, divisions over strategy and pressure from activist investors who wanted it to break up and sell off assets.
A pig foetus was delivered to their door, then a box of live cockroaches and maggots. A few days later came a book on surviving the death of a spouse, and a funeral wreath. “What made it terrifying is we didn’t know who it was, and there was no way to find out,” Ina said.
It was Zea’s rental car that David saw. In 2020, Baugh and six other eBay employees were arrested and charged. Wenig, Wymer and Wendy Jones, another former executive, deny that they encouraged them to commit criminal acts.
But the couple wanted top eBay executives to pay. And they wanted damages so significant, and so public, it might make corporations think twice about attacking journalists they didn’t like.
While the Steiners weren’t looking, someone had driven up, graffitied their fence and left. Natick, a pretty New England town outside Boston, was not the sort of place where people went around graffitiing anything. And the Steiners, two middleaged journalists who ran a small but respected trade publication supporting people who sold things online, were not the sort of people who had enemies who defaced their property. “It was really creepy,” Ina, 64, said.
Last week eBay and three of its former executives agreed to pay $56 million (£42 million) to settle the claims.
In 2019 Wenig left eBay with a severance package worth nearly $60 million (£44.5 million). He told The Sunday Times that he was “saddened” by what the Steiners had been subjected to, adding that it had been “deliberately done in secret and without my knowledge”. He added that “protection of the press and the right to free speech are causes I have long supported and defended”.
Executives saw the Steiners as a threat. That summer, after Ina wrote a blog post pointing out that eBay had spent a lot of money building a bar on its campus, Wenig sent Steve Wymer, the head of communications, a message telling him to “take her down”, according to court documents. She had also reported on Wenig’s pay.
They called the police, who sent over officers. What if it was a neighbour? Someone they knew? It was neither. After months of harassment, David managed to take a photograph of a car that had been tailing him. Police traced the licence plate not to a disgruntled reader, but to an eBay employee.
Ina added: “As victims, we wanted to try to do everything we could to ensure this never happened to anybody else.”
The Steiners will receive $46.15 million and the company will pay $6 million to charity. Wenig and two of his former colleagues will pay the Steiners $2.55 million. Wenig will also pay $1 million to a charity dedicated to protecting the right to freedom of speech, in the name of Ina Steiner.
Ina and David Steiner, who ran a website on online trading, have won £42 million from eBay in a court settlement
Chris Murphy, one of their lawyers, said the couple wanted to “protect the First Amendment, protect free speech”.
author of The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives, said that US authorities had lost “the will and ability to prosecute white collar crime”. The authorities often settle “for monetary results”, Eisinger said. “And so it becomes a cost of doing business, that companies understand that when they break the rules that eventually they’re going to have to write a cheque. They’re almost never in jeopardy of losing their freedom. So it doesn’t really work.”
The couple met at university, where Ina was studying business, and David communications. In the mid1990s, at the height of the dotcom boom, the Steiners heard of a site called eBay, where you could sell your unwanted goods online.
Seven years later, after endless investigations, the Steiners now know what happened: eBay executives, from the chief executive to the head of communications, had been so upset by Ina’s reporting that they told subordinates to “take her down”, and to do “whatever it takes” to stop her writing. The executives say they weren’t encouraging their employees to commit criminal acts.
Soon, it escalated. Two months after the yard sale, Ina started receiving threatening, expletive-laden messages on Twitter (now X) from an anonymous account claiming to be a disgruntled eBay seller, attacking her for her posts on the couple’s site, EcommerceBytes, which was reporting on difficulties at eBay, where the chief executive, Devin Wenig, was under pressure. Then came a barrage of phone calls and spam emails, adverts for sex
“We are going to crush this lady,” Wymer said, according to court documents.
On its website, eBay apologised to the couple, adding that “what the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened”.
For the Steiners, last week’s settlement is the end of a years-long journey for justice and accountability.
Wymer sent Wenig’s request to Jim Baugh, eBay’s head of security. He was in charge of a security team largely staffed by young women, who were known in the office as “Jim’s Angels”.
A box of maggots was sent to their home
“Yes, we have got a significant amount of money, for which we are so grateful,” Ina added. “But I would not recommend this as a way to generate revenue. It was the most horrendous experience of our lives.”
As more people joined the site, the Steiners realised that there was a market for a news outlet explaining how to sell things online — taking the right pictures, using the best packaging — and explaining
Wymer told him that Ina was a “biased troll who needs to be BURNED DOWN” and that “I want to see ashes ... Whatever it takes”, according
In the US, the unusual part was that the Steiners had managed to make the terms of the settlement public. Jesse Eisinger, a journalist and
Yet members of the
The Steiners’ supporters
Katy Balls Washington Insider
An hour and a half’s drive down Lake Michigan, the conversations are continuing about the next step for the revolution. About 900 people have gathered in Chicago for the 2026 Democratic Socialists of America Summit to make plans.
canvassing. They have tremendous ground games,” he adds, even if they are also “totally radical. They’re Marxist-jihadists and they try to cover that.” The earliest example of this ground game was Mamdani, who beat Andrew Cuomo, even though Mamdani’s team had raised only $5 million compared with Cuomo’s $65 million.
when he was running,” she tells me. “I think democratic socialism is about delivering for working-class people, with solutions that actually help improve lives. It’s their dream for healthcare for everyone, fully funding public schools, universal school meals. These are democratic socialist policies that make a lot of sense to people.”
even if you lose — and how to show that to people”. She suggests the initial focus will be cost of living, which, the group argues, extends to stopping aid and military shipments to Israel. “Abolishing poverty is number one before abolishing the Senate, for example,” she adds.
Romer believes now is the DSA’s time. The group, which has more than 120,000 members, is not a part of the Democratic Party and even sometimes runs independent candidates. However, the stubborn nature of the twoparty system in America means that many have come to the conclusion the best thing they can do is change the Democratic Party rather than rival it.
Megan Romer, its co-chair, commanded attention with her own Fox News interview last week listing DSA pledges, leading the US Speaker Mike Johnson to declare: “Communism is no longer a far-fetched threat. It is here on our SHORES.”
The next prize could be influencing who is the Democratic candidate in
Bannon predicts that the establishment Democrats calling for socialists to be expelled may be too late. “They’re going to overwhelm the Democratic Party. You can tell that’s coming,” he says. This will be helped by scepticism towards Israel across the Democratic base and voters who feel the economy is not working for them. “We have a capitalist system with very few capitalists in it — people don’t own any financial or real assets. So their pitch to them is quite provocative: we’re just basically going to give you free stuff. If you’re barely hanging on or at the lower end of the working-class people, that doesn’t sound bad, particularly in big cities.”
The question of what counts as democratic socialism is a source of increasing controversy as the movement gains influence in the Democratic Party. Last year Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), was elected as New York’s mayor. More DSA-linked wins have followed in New York, Washington DC, and Colorado. Hong is a feepaying member. On Tuesday Abdul El-Sayed, who says he is not a socialist but has links to the DSA and has campaigned with left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (known as AOC), is the favourite to win the Democratic primary for a Senate seat in Michigan against a former Obama staffer who has received more than $46 million in super-PAC donations.
Socialist Democrats are winning but the party they’re rattling is their own
“We’ve been laying the scaffolding very deliberately for this, building the organisation up, building up a bench of good candidates and organisers everywhere who are able to look at the conditions in Durham, North Carolina, or Sacramento, California, and say, all right, which races can we get somebody in on?” Romer says. “What can we do with that seat? And how do we kind of pull together all these forces and construct them into something that can actually make big change?”
When I speak to Romer, she is nonplussed. “We’re getting a lot of corporate Democrats who are very angry and they’re like, ‘Well, you just messed up the midterms.’ My response to that is most corporate Democrats would often rather have a Republican than a democratic socialist in office. Have at it, bring it on. The corporate Democrats have nothing. They have had years and years to come up with anything to offer people.”
Membership of Democratic Socialists of America. Below, Francesca Hong, the probable Democratic candidate for Wisconsin governor
Bannon predicts: “The [2028 Democrat] candidate will either come from their wing of the party, so an AOC or someone like that, or they’ll be the kingmaker and will have to sign off on it particularly on a policy basis, and you’ll see some pretty fascinating policies that are socialist not populist.”
But even if the DSA continues its winning streak, don’t expect the end of prisons anytime soon. After the midterms, the DSA could have a small group of congressmen and women who could form a new squad
t’s lunchtime in Wisconsin and Francesca Hong is explaining to a crowd of voters that she is not a communist. “If folks are talking about ‘defund the police’ or democratic
purple (swing) state. Today she is due to have a campaign rally with Ilhan Omar, the Democrat congresswoman and Trump irritant — as the guest speaker.
I
It’s in cities — Boston, New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles — that the group has made the deepest inroads.
Her insurgent candidacy, which has her leading after starting as a relative unknown, fits into a pattern of the far left challenging parts of the Democratic establishment. Already the Democrats are complaining that, if selected, these candidates could put at risk key midterm races the party needs to win — and that’s before you even begin to discuss the presidential election in 2028.
— like the informal caucus AOC formed after her
socialism or that I’m a commie, I am not. I never will be and I’ve never been,” she says, to light laughter.
Last month the DSA, the largest socialist organisation in America, released a new policy document that went well beyond the economy. It proposed abolishing the Senate, replacing the Supreme Court, closing prisons, defunding the Pentagon and abolishing ICE.
Back in Wisconsin, at Alice’s Garden, an urban regenerative farm in Milwaukee, the talk of socialism certainly isn’t prompting fear. “Ten years ago, no one was talking about capitalism. Now I feel like it’s in every other conversation. We’ve been fed a lie,” says Courtney Marschalek, 49, who works on a farm.
As for the Democrats in Congress who think the answer to avoiding this fate is simply to kick all the democratic socialists out? The DSA insists they have no plans to go anywhere.
election, in which a group of
four progressives managed to influence Democratic
Just a few hours earlier, the 37-year-old democratic socialist appeared on Fox News where — when pressed
policy by threatening to withhold votes.
“It’ll be a block of eight to ten or something with
— she said she stood by her past calls to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), free Palestine, legalise cannabis and bring in public grocery stores, but she did not — despite claims to the contrary — want to abolish the Senate on the grounds that it’s “not practical at this time”.
“You kind of made your own bed on this one because you can’t throw us out of the party because to register as a Democrat is a process of state. You’re not registering with the party,” Romer says.“What matters is the voters, right? The Democratic Party is ultimately its base and the base is choosing DSAendorsed candidates overwhelmingly in a lot of places ...
While the policies have led to mockery, others say laugh at your peril. After all, look at the Make America Great Again (Maga) takeover of the Republican Party. “They are a formidable political power,” Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist to Trump, says of the DSA and the Working Families Party, which it works with. “They have taken the Trump and Maga model of voter turnout and voter engagement
another dozen friendlies. So it’s not going to be
Hong, a single mother and chef, is keen to stress that despite the headlines she “is a regular person who cares about them”. Her three priorities are a little more day-to-day than socialist revolution: public schools, potholes and the Green Bay Packers (the only NFL team that is publicly owned). “They called Biden a socialist
enough to win votes singlehandedly,” Romer says of the likely
“[Hong] is part of this group of new politicians like AOC and Mamdani. They’re the new generation of politicians that go out and listen to find out what other people need,” says Meg Crosby, 69.
scenario. They will “have to figure out
what can be won, what’s worth fighting for,
Barring a political upset, this month Hong will be named the Democratic nominee in the Wisconsin governor’s race in the key
“It took the right-wing Republicans like 30 years to do what we’ve done now.”
Claims of a “secretive court” and succession rows among his heirs have forced the luxury goods boss Bernard Arnault to respond
GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
gant and polished appearance, the same blue eyes, the same perfectly aligned smiles honed by years of orthodontics” “a bit of staging” by Arnault to demonstrate their unity, they claim.
was all quite a change of tone for a businessman who has earned the nicknames “the Terminator” and the “wolf in cashmere”.
Peter Conradi Europe Editor, Paris
As the home of 75 of the world’s bestknown fashion, drinks and perfume brands, France’s LVMH luxury group likes to have its products in all the best places. When Taylor Swift married Travis Kelce last month at Madison Square Garden, the bride wore a custom Christian Dior Haute Couture gown. A fortnight later, the Fifa World Cup was carried onto the pitch in New Jersey in a bespoke Louis Vuitton trunk.
After his open letter, posted by LVMH on X, went viral, Arnault made his personal debut on the social media platform to say he was “deeply touched” by the messages he had received in response, and wanted to thank people for them.
Arnault scornfully dismissed speculation of rivalry between his children in his open letter. “Among the Arnaults, apparently, one does not discuss, one plots; one does not deliberate, one competes. Very novelistic,” he said.
Arnault has a personal fortune estimated to be more than $140 billion (£103.8 billion) by Forbes, ranking him ninth richest in the world. His wealth is estimated to have fallen a third from a $211 billion peak in April 2023 due to a downturn in the luxury goods market, which pushed down the price of shares in LVMH, just over half of which are owned by holding companies controlled by the family. The group’s latest corporate results, released last week, were mixed.
He was also scathing of the paper’s claims about his proximity to France’s leaders, as well as, in his words “five American presidents ... three British prime ministers, two German chancellors and a Japanese emperor”.
By contrast, its chief executive Bernard Arnault, 77, who built the company which briefly made him the world’s richest man, tries to stay out of the limelight.
He is known to be close to Donald Trump; the pair often dine together and Arnault, his wife and two of his children were seated close to the front at the US president’s inauguration last year. The Arnaults are also close to the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose father, Charles, last year became ambassador to France.
The lid has now been lifted, however, on Arnault’s vast empire, which turns over about €80 billion (£68.4 billion) a year and employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.
There have been revelations about his secretive “court” at the company’s headquarters in Paris and claims of succession tensions between his five children.
The conglomerate, created in 1987 by merging the fashion brand Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy, the champagne and cognac maker, is still run somewhat like a family firm from the top floor of an elegant building near the Champs-Élysées. Arnault, Le Monde claimed, is referred to by employees simply as “Monsieur” or “BA”. In the company’s building, “on ‘Monsieur’s’ floor, you encounter only butlers in formal dress and white gloves, and burly security guards, most of them former police officers, tasked with protecting the monarch,” Le Monde’s reporters wrote.
Arnault’s open letter last weekend provoked some noteworthy reactions among the 0.1 per cent. Vincent Bolloré, 74, a fellow tycoon and right-wing media magnate, praised Arnault as “a person of great depth and with a big heart”, whose opinions will be “invaluable” at a time when “France is sinking, due to disastrous management, into serious difficulties”. Elon Musk, 55, who took Arnault’s place as the world’s richest man, reposted it to his followers.
First, in June, came an unauthorised biography, Bernard Arnault, His Ruthless World, by Audrey Millet, an academic historian who looked in forensic detail at Arnault’s rise, which began when he took over the construction company founded by his beloved grandfather in the northern textile town of Roubaix.
The book was followed a few weeks later by a 90-minute podcast interview with Arnault, watched by millions of people. Then, last month, came a six-part 12-page investigation by Le Monde, a leftleaning newspaper.
leaves for work, and 2pm, when he returns from lunch, since he will be listening in his car. Albums by his wife, Hélène Mercier-Arnault, 66, a Canadianborn concert pianist, “are broadcast repeatedly”, the paper claims.
It is a far cry from Roubaix, 160 miles north of Paris, where Arnault grew up in a traditional Catholic family. In the recent interview, he recalls how Étienne Savinel, his maternal grandfather, brought him around construction sites and took a close interest in his education. When Savinel died in 1959, Arnault, aged ten, slipped his school report into his coffin.
Bernard Arnault and his son Antoine with their wives, Hélène Mercier and Natalia Vodianova, at the Louvre in 2017. Right, with President Macron
Millet believes it could be the start of a political offensive by France’s billionaires ahead of April’s presidential election. “In recent years we have talked a lot about oligarchs in the United States, but not enough about those in France,” she said.
The biggest surprise of all came last weekend when Arnault himself wrote a witty three-page takedown of Le Monde’s claims, which has been viewed more than eight million times. “I know that by responding, I may be shining the spotlight on this series in exactly the way it hoped for — a final episode signed by me,” he wrote. “So be it.”
In his interview, Arnault says he still visits stores, telling managers how to improve window displays. “I come the following week and they say ‘Monsieur, it’s true, things have been going much better since we made those changes’,” he said. “That makes me happy.”
The author believes that Arnault’s main motivation, above anything else, is what is good for his company. The LVMH boss does feel strongly about taxes — as The Sunday Times found last year after asking Arnault for his reaction to a French economist’s proposal for a 2 per cent levy on the super-rich. He slammed the policy as “an offensive that is deadly for our economy”.
Arnault entered the luxury market with a 1984 takeover of Boussac SaintFrères, a troubled textile and retail conglomerate, which, among a mass of unattractive assets, owned Christian Dior. He bought it from the French state for the symbolic price of one franc.
Mocking Le Monde’s depiction of himself as head “of the last royal family of France”, Arnault dismissed stories of family intrigue, joked about claims that visitors to his headquarters are made to take off ties made by his rival, Hermès, and made fun of the paper’s claim that none of his staff were overweight, vowing to “raise the matter with the company canteen”. His apparent displeasure at the coverage was all the stronger since he and his family had co-operated with the Le Monde reporters behind the six-month investigation.
Just as his grandfather showed him the ropes, Arnault took his own children round his stores, anticipating that they would one day join the family firm.
In the decades since that acquisition, Arnault has become the head of the world’s largest luxury goods company, but he reportedly maintains the same rigorous hands-on approach. Le Monde claimed this extends not just to the contents of the newspapers and magazines he owns — which include Le Parisien and Paris Match — but even to programming on Radio Classique, a station he added to his empire in 1999. Staff at Radio Classique are said to pay special attention to the music played about 9am, when he
Arnault’s radio station plays albums by his pianist wife when he is likely to be travelling by car
Millet says that Arnault has been shaken by succession battles that have rocked other industrial dynasties, including Italy’s Agnelli family, which has owned Fiat, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo, and, as a result, has structured the ownership to ensure the company remains in the family’s hands, whoever gets the top job.
The question of his eventual succession remains what Le Monde calls “poison” for the company. French media frequently report tensions between Mercier-Arnault, mother to Alexandre, 34, Frédéric, 31, and Jean, 27, on one side, and his two older children, Delphine, 51, and Antoine, 49, from his first marriage to Anne Dewavrin, 76, on the other.
“Everything is designed to ensure the continuity of the company over several generations,” she said. “Bernard Arnault’s goal is to be immortal.”
The reporters write of a meeting they have with Arnault’s children, “all senior executives at LVMH, with the same ele-
“As for me, rest assured: I will continue doing Le Monde’s crossword puzzles, which are excellent,” he concluded. It
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sions, he questions the impact unless the world’s largest emitters follow suit. “The big emissions are not happening here. They are happening in China, India, Indonesia and Latin America. The question people ask is: if I make all this effort, will it make any difference?”
Britain must also contend with the growing demands of the technologies expected to power its lowcarbon future. As it electrifies more of its economy while racing to become a global centre for artificial intelligence, demand for both energy and water is rising rapidly.
Not far from Redshaw’s farm, at IBM’s Hursley campus outside Winchester, sits one illustration of that future. The 27,000sq ft data centre, like hundreds more planned for Britain, requires vast quantities of water to cool computers powering the AI boom. Critics fear rapid expansion of such facilities will place further strain on stretched water supplies while increasing pressure on ageing infrastructure.
Much of Britain has suffered the extreme heat scientists have long warned about but the reignited row over what to do about climate change and net zero is far from finished, writes Matthew Campbell
Left, a fire takes hold at Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh last month
These competing pressures are precisely the dilemma that Rebecca Willis, professor of energy and climate governance at the University of Manchester, has spent more than a decade studying. She has concluded that politicians struggle to respond to problems whose costs are immediate but whose benefits may not be felt for decades. “Politicians consistently underestimate public support for climate action,” she says. “They assume voters are more hostile to net zero than they actually are.”
opposed to investing in adaptation — and to what extent can we afford to do both?
here is not much left to celebrate at Clive Redshaw’s Hampshire farm this summer. His spring barley — destined in a good year for whisky and beer — shrivelled in the heat and, instead of being sold for brewing, was downgraded to animal feed.
gled to keep wards cool, schools have closed classrooms during periods of extreme heat, and supermarket freezers have failed. The UK Health Security Agency estimates that 2,877 people died in the May and June heatwaves alone, putting 2026 on course to become Britain’s deadliest summer for heat-related deaths since official monitoring began.
Last week Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, labelled the “net zero” plan to go carbon neutral by 2050 “a political fiction bankrupting the country” while arguing that “climate change is real, we can see its effects all over the world”.
System costs and subsidies are estimated to account for 40 per cent of electricity regeneration costs, she added. China, responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions, is building a new coal-fired power station roughly every other week while British workers are told that their own industries must close to save the planet. It is a marked change from the Conservative Party of Theresa May, who enshrined a commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 into law in the outgoing weeks of her tenure.
Wheat yields are down by a quarter. The grass simply stopped growing, leaving his dairy herd short of grazing. During one searing spell at the end of June, milk production fell by almost a third, costing around £6,000 in a single week. By Redshaw’s reckoning, the weather has wiped something approaching £80,000 from this year’s income.
As a result, this may be the summer in which climate change ceased to feel like an abstract scientific warning and became, for many Britons, an everyday reality. The scientists are not surprised. For Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, Britons are living through a future he saw coming: “We’ve been talking for decades about extreme weather becoming more severe, heatwaves becoming more intense, the same for wildfires.”
It was not always the economics that dominated the argument. For much of the 1990s, the focus was on the science. Governments began negotiating climate treaties, building an elaborate architecture of international diplomacy from the Rio earth summit in 1992 and the 1997 Kyoto protocol to the annual COP meetings and the Paris agreement of 2015.
lated, outright denial gradually retreated to the political fringes. In its place emerged a different debate: not whether the climate was changing, but whether the proposed remedies were affordable, effective or politically sustainable.
“It’s the worst we’ve ever had. The weather has crucified us,” says the 55-year-old farmer. “There’s definitely something going on. Without a doubt. We can’t deny that.”
These have coalesced around a focus on cutting carbon emissions in order to reduce the global temperature. Although not all emitters are equal, as Helm points out. The UK’s greenhouse emissions, for instance, fell by 2.4 per cent last year to their lowest level in 150 years, according to The Carbon Brief, meaning we are responsible for about 1 per cent of global emissions.
Other conservative commentators have suggested that instead of bankrupting ourselves trying to tackle an existential challenge, we should accept climate change as a permanent upgrade to the “Mediterranean lifestyle”, even if the Mediterranean itself evokes recordbreaking heat, fires and evacuations.
Britain has always experienced heatwaves and wildfires. The difference, Hawkins says, is that they are now occurring against a much hotter baseline climate, making extreme events more frequent, more intense and more destructive. Conditions that were once considered exceptional are becoming increasingly common, while long periods of heat leave vegetation tinder-dry.
Redshaw is not the only one confronting a Britain that suddenly feels unfamiliar. Across southern England, fields have yellowed weeks earlier than normal, baking into brittle, straw-coloured expanses that crunch to dust underfoot. Salisbury Plain looks like the Sahara.
cause was given a boost last year by the billionaire Bill Gates who shifted position after decades as one of the most prominent voices in the climate debate.
“Today, virtually nobody denies the science,” says Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford University and author of Climate Realism, out next month. But Britain’s response is misguided, he argues, pointing to the unfulfilled promises of the green transition. “The British public was told if you build lots of wind turbines and install solar panels, the consequence will be cheaper and more secure, home-grown energy. None of that is true. The price of solar panels has gone down, but the price of electricity has not.”
In an essay on the eve of last year’s Cop summit he argued the world should judge climate policy by its impact on human welfare as much as on greenhouse gases, investing in better health, agriculture and development so poorer countries become more resilient to a warming world. The “doomsday outlook”, wrote Gates, has caused much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals”.
The government has declared a drought. In Suffolk, firefighters have spent days battling a blaze devouring more than 300 acres of heathland after desiccated, sun-scorched vegetation helped flames spread rapidly across one of England’s most cherished landscapes near Sizewell, Britain’s largest nuclear power plant. Further north, the Cairngorms are also ablaze. Across the channel in France, an estimated 115,000 hectares have been scorched by wildfires.
Nasa analysis shows while Earth’s climate has always changed, warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years. It says 97 per cent of climate scientists have concluded humancaused climate change is to blame.
If the science is clear, the debate has migrated into politics. How governments should respond to climate change against a backdrop of soaring inflation and a biting cost of living crisis is today one of the most febrile discourses in British politics. How much should we concentrate on mitigation, or reducing emissions, as
Other experts agree that resilience matters because climate change increasingly acts as a catalyst for instability.
Successive heatwaves have exposed the vulnerability of infrastructure built for a cooler climate. Hospitals have strug-
His criticism extends to the global scale. Even as Britain cuts its own emis-
“It intensifies existing pressures rather than creating entirely new ones,” says Arthur Snell, former British diplomat and author of Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It. Britain cannot insulate itself from a warming world, he argues.
Feeling
Droughts become food crises, and food crises become political crises. Extreme weather strains governments, fuels mass migration and complicates international relations, meaning problems such as energy security and geopolitical instability will increasingly spill across borders. The same principle applies closer to home. A failed harvest on one farm may seem insignificant, but repeated across the country it means greater reliance on imports and higher food prices. The changing climate is raising the cost of everyday life.
the
For farmers such as Clive Redshaw, though, the stakes seem even higher: can he still make a living from the land? After three, weather-hit harvests this decade, he is less interested in ideological arguments than in what else he could possibly plant to cope with hotter, drier summers. “Nowadays we sow all these crops not knowing what we’re going to get,” he says. “We’re taking all the risk to feed the nation. And we end up footing the bill.”
ILLUSTRATION: JAMES COWEN
Editorial, page 20
organisation simply has no choice. Dougherty, who is also the astronomer royal, says: “As an astronomer and as a physicist, I would like us to be able to fund everything, but we simply can’t afford to do that. In order for STFC to be financially sustainable going forward, we needed to make some difficult decisions. None of the science we do is unimportant and that’s why it’s so hard to pick and choose.”
Dougherty said. She pointed to the £1.7 billion Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO), an array of telescopes in South Africa and Australia that will be run from an office at Jodrell Bank.
telescope is not kept running as a standalone telescope.
operation it tracked the rocket that carried Sputnik into orbit; today it tracks space junk orbiting the earth and has a growing role in monitoring hostile satellites. Some 3,000 scientists around the world use the facility and 100,000 people a year visit the site.
aul Howarth vividly remembers the day he visited Jodrell Bank Observatory for the first time. “It was 1981, I was
“The steel work may date back as far as 1957, but all the receivers, the electronics, the signal processing, the control system, everything else is right up to date,” he says. “To build another telescope would cost £100 million. China is building 100m telescopes right now. Why not make the best possible use of the infrastructure that we have and make it a worldclass instrument? That’s what we’ve always done.”
P
But Professor Catherine Heymans, the royal astronomer of Scotland, is appalled by the cuts. “Jodrell Bank is the only internationally recognised working observatory in the UK,” she says. “It’s a very visible centrepiece of UK science.” Even more worrying, Heymans says, is a wider withdrawal. The UK is also pulling the plug on its involvement in the Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, which she describes as “the next big thing for astronomy”, and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, which severs the country’s link to the Event Horizon Telescope responsible for the first images of a black hole. Professor Simon Garrington, the director of the e-Merlin project, denies the equipment is out of date and says it can do things that the SKAO will not be able to.
11 years old, and I was one of those young lads there with their dads.” He recalls staring up at the 250ft-wide Lovell telescope, still the third largest radio telescope in the world, and knowing what he wanted to do with his life.
Her argument has its backers. Martin Rees, Dougherty’s predecessor as astronomer royal, says there is not a strong case for maintaining the e-Merlin array “which is indeed now surpassed by others” although he stresses that it will be “deeply depressing scientifically” if the Lovell
But this is now all in doubt. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the agency that distributes funding for British astronomy and physics facilities, announced last week that in 2028 it will stop the £2.8 million annual funding for the e-Merlin telescope array, a network of seven radio dishes that stretches 135 miles from Cambridge to Cheshire and includes the Lovell.
Now aged 55, Professor Howarth is president of the Institute of Physics. “There are countless numbers of young people like me who have been inspired at Jodrell Bank to go and study physics,” he says.
Last year’s spending review left the STFC budget flat at roughly £835 million a year until 2030. But the organisation estimates rising labour prices and other financial pressures will mean it needs to cut costs by 15 per cent. “Prioritisation work” recommended that the British telescopes be closed because they would soon be overtaken by newer equipment overseas.
Howarth adds: “We only got the SKAO operated from Jodrell Bank because of our international standing, and we only have that international standing because of what we have invested in the past. We’re cutting off our future.” Garrington says: “Visitors don’t want to see a monument to past achievements. They want to see a working telescope ... and know it is doing significant world-class science.”
Since 1957 the Lovell telescope has peered up at the skies, gazing through space and time to witness the birth of planets and the death of stars. It was first built for astronomy, gathering radio waves to see far deeper into the universe, and during the Cold War it tracked Russian spacecraft. In its first year of
Professor Brian Cox, the broadcaster, called the cuts “devastating” and “illconsidered”. Others described it as “scientific vandalism”. But Professor Michele Dougherty, executive chair of the STFC, insists the
The Lovell telescope, which has peered up at the skies for 70 years, is threatened by funding cuts. Astronomers tell Ben Spencer that closing it would cut off Britain’s future
“Radio astronomy is now beginning to move to the next generation of capability,”
Victims say they were abused and trafficked to the US by the modelling scout Daniel Siad. His recent death robbed them of justice, they tell Roisin Kelly
ne Wednesday last month, Ebba Karlsson had just landed at Heathrow when a barrage of messages and missed calls appeared on her phone. Karlsson, a former model, had arrived from her hometown of Stockholm to catch a connecting flight to America,
Epstein. In them was a photo of the man who had approached Karlsson in the park that day, along with his name: Daniel Siad.
Amar, arranged for her to meet Epstein at his apartment in New York.
tims could be fulfilled. In December 2020, Jean-Luc Brunel, an agent and model scout for MC2, was charged with rape of minors and sexual harassment. Prosecutors were also investigating Brunel for sex-trafficking. He denied wrongdoing and was held in pre-trial detention at a prison in Paris, but before his trial could take place, in February 2022, he died by suicide. DoJ files show that Siad worked directly as a modelling scout on commission for MC2.
O
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Juliette, 43, says, “New York was one of the capitals of modelling, and I’d always wanted to go there. I had been modelling since I was 16 for a little agency, it wasn’t famous. I thought America was a good opportunity for me.” Epstein’s assistant sent Juliette a plane ticket, and once she arrived, Siad called her and gave her an address to go to: it was 301 East 66th St, New York — Epstein’s apartment. Epstein took her passport and, the next day, in what she thought was a professional interview at his Madison Avenue office, asked her to undress, saying he needed to see her body in order to recommend her to agencies. He groped her and said she would need three months to “get back into shape”. Juliette demanded her passport back, called her mother and fled.
The files show that Siad was scouting young women in Europe to deliver to the paedophile financier. But, despite the added evidence of his trafficking in the Epstein files, Siad was never questioned by police. The relationship between the two men is further proof of just how far Epstein’s network spread: Siad scouted women everywhere from eastern Europe and Spain to South Africa and Cuba.
where she lives. The messages were all about the same story: Daniel Siad, a 69-year-old French-Swedish modelling scout originally from Algeria, had been found dead in his apartment in Colombes, a northwest suburb of Paris.
Ebba Karlsson at 20, above, her age when she was approached by Daniel Siad, below. Bottom, JeanLuc Brunel killed himself after being charged with rape and sex harassment. Below right, Juliette G, says she was trafficked by Siad
Karlsson has also claimed that another French modelling agent, Gérald Marie, the former head of Elite Model Management, sexually assaulted her during a meeting in Paris after Siad introduced them. Marie’s lawyers said he “absolutely formally contests these facts” and “categorically” denies all allegations. Karlsson filed a criminal complaint against him in 2020 for sexual assault and coercive solicitation, along with at least 14 other women. In 2023, the case was dropped due to statutory time limits. Last month, six women filed new civil complaints against him, accusing him of rape and human trafficking dating back to the 1980s and 1990s. A legal representative for Marie said he “firmly denies” the allegations, “as he consistently has done”.
“It’s a slap in the face,” Karlsson says. “He was there in France waiting. He was there and available. I feel foolish to believe he was going to be arrested. I feel like we’ve been betrayed.”
“I’m angry, we’re all angry,” says Karlsson, 56, speaking to The Sunday Times the day after the news broke. She is one of more than 20 women who claim that Siad either raped them or trafficked them to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Karlsson and others reported Siad to the police, but at the time of his death he was a free man. “For months we were told he was going to be arrested, but they never even took him in for questioning,” says Karlsson, who believes French police have failed her and the other forgotten victims of Epstein’s network of abuse. “We’re never going to be able to ask him the questions we need to. People need to be angry.”
Karlsson reported Siad in February, when she filed charges of rape and human trafficking against him in Paris, and in the following months, four more women filed complaints of rape. The police, argues Karlsson, have failed her and the other women in their chance to seek justice after suffering horrific abuse. Responding to The Sunday Times, the French prosecutor’s office reiterated its message that Siad had been wiretapped as part of a wider investigation that began on February 18 into Epstein’s trafficking network in France.
Siad was born in Algeria in 1957, five years before its independence from France. He emigrated to Sweden in 1980 when he was 23, where he obtained citizenship and began working as a scout for What’s Up Management, which operated primarily across Europe with ties to Paris, Stockholm and Barcelona.
The women who met him say he rarely shared much about his personal life. Karlsson describes him as initially seeming “very charming, very polite. We didn’t use the word grooming back then because it didn’t exist,” she says, “but he wanted you to feel good. Then he would turn. He could get very aggressive. I remember that scary side of him.”
Siad may be dead, but outrage burns among those who encountered him. This week, Colomba Grossi and William Bourdon, the lawyers representing Karlsson and others, will file a civil claim against the state. The goal, they say, is to demonstrate that “the authorities’ inaction regarding Daniel Siad constitutes gross negligence. The fact he was never questioned or arrested means we are deprived of certain information he might have known. The goal is not to obtain money. We want to show that wrongdoing occurred.”
He said he’d kill me; that he knew the Paris head of police
Now a life coach living in North Carolina, Karlsson met Siad 36 years ago in 1990 in Kungstradgarden, a park in central Stockholm. She was a 20-year-old aspiring model when Siad approached her, introducing himself as a model scout named Daniel Goldberg. He told her she would “be perfect for a shoot we’re doing in Monaco” and bought her a one-way ticket to the French Riviera. But the job never materialised, and she ended up in the poolhouse of a villa outside Cannes where, Karlsson says, on a dirty mattress, Siad raped her. “It was a cement building with nothing inside and very dirty,” she says. “It wasn’t a fluke or chance that he took me to this place, it was like somebody would come there regularly and sleep. I always felt like it was much bigger than this incident.”
Siad’s name appears in more than 2,000 of the Epstein files. Over the course of a decade, between 2009 — a year after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution — and 2019, Siad was sending Epstein information and photos regarding “models” he’d scouted, offering to introduce them to him. “In This busyness I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick, some time no fish”, Siad wrote in one email in July 2014. Sometimes, Siad would send photographs.
After the latest release of the Epstein files, pressure mounted on Siad. In an interview with CNN in June, he defended his relationship with Epstein and denied knowledge of his former associate’s crimes. Siad described himself as “not a person who is looking at the press, looking at the internet ... I’m nobody, I am somebody from the mountains.”
Grossi adds that between April and the time of Siad’s death, she sent the prosecutor 15 emails about the investigation. Not once did she receive a response. The prosecutor’s office maintains it did not have sufficient evidence to justify Siad’s immediate arrest. They say that the
“She is nice her boobs are awful. they will have to be redone”, Epstein wrote in response to one. “Not very interseting, sorry”, he wrote about another, aged 19.
Exactly how he came to meet Epstein is unknown. Siad repeatedly claimed that he “didn’t know a lot about him”. In email exchanges between the two men, however, Siad’s role was clear: he regularly brought Epstein girls of different nationalities. One woman who was a masseuse for Epstein said Siad “would meet Epstein when he was in Paris, and Daniel would always have one or two women with him that he would introduce”.
Financial records and emails show that Epstein regularly wired funds directly to a Dubai bank account under Siad’s name, and paid him expenses for his scouting trips to locations including Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
wider investigation into the French Epstein network will continue.
Later, he took her to Paris where she managed to escape. “He threatened to kill me, he said he knew the head of police in Paris. I was too scared to speak for a long time.”
For Karlsson and other women who met Siad, his impact on their lives and their anger remains.”We have five victims that say they were raped by him, and yet they didn’t even question him,” Karlsson says. “For prosecutors to say
One young woman, Juliette G, was only 21 and working in France as a model when she was approached by Siad on the Champs-Élysées in 2004, according to police depositions seen by The Sunday Times. During her interview with investigators in 2019, she told police how Siad, who told her his name was Daniel Aït
For years, Karlsson wanted to pursue justice and report Siad to the police, but she couldn’t: she knew him only by his fake name of Goldberg. Then, in January this year, the US Department of Justice released three million documents relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey
there’s no evidence? There’s no understanding of victims and what they go through, there’s no help. We just have to
Siad is not the only Epstein associate to have died before justice for his vic-
keep pushing.”
‘When my diagnosis of ADHD was removed, it was a relief’
benefits. The largest category of people claiming personal independence payments (Pip) is those with “psychiatric and nurodevelopmental” conditions, including (but not limited to) anxiety, ADHD and autism.
offering a very different service at his practice in Lincolnshire: “de-diagnosis”. Patients who had been diagnosed with a disorder such as ADHD but felt it no longer fitted, or didn’t help their wellbeing, could come to Timimi for reassessment. The NHS characterises ADHD as an inability to concentrate, hyperactivity and impulsive behaviours such as butting into conversation or feeling restless. While someone exhibiting these traits may fit diagnostic criteria, the symptoms can be transient or related to external circumstances.
“is not a legitimate medical diagnosis because it describes (badly and vaguely) behaviours but cannot explain them”. The label “just describes behaviours that occur in all of us to a greater or lesser extent.”
believes. Timimi adds: “Young people are struggling in all sorts of ways and the main culprit is of course the economy and a lack of opportunities. But labelling people with these psychiatric diagnoses is not going to help them get out of those particular traps that they find themselves falling into,” Timimi said. Rather, he argues, it becomes “much more likely that you’ll
ore than three decades after he started his career as a child psychiatrist for the NHS in London, Dr
become a long-term patient. They have a kind of disabling effect.”
M
The concept of dediagnosis emerged in Sweden three years ago as a study led by the universities of Lund and Gothenburg followed 100 adults seeking to overturn their childhood autism or ADHD diagnoses. On initial re-evaluation, 90 per cent no longer met the criteria for their condition. A recent follow-up paper showed that, among a younger subset of participants, many described how it had become “restrictive — limiting career options, influencing healthcare encounters, and shaping identity”. Shedding their labels has proven so beneficial for some that this year de-diagnosis has been made available in psychiatric clinics across Scania county, on Sweden’s southern tip. Timimi, the author of
Sami Timimi began noticing a marked shift among his young patients. More and more children, and their parents, were telling him that they believed they had neurodevelopmental disorders such as anxiety, autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Saying the reason a child is struggling to pay attention at school is because they have ADHD “is like saying the reason for the pain in my head is a headache”, he
Last week Andy Burnham signalled that he was prepared to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits to cut a severely bloated welfare bill, which covers four million people on Pip. More than two thirds of teenagers on the highest payment tier were getting Pip for their mental health and receiving £100 a week more than 16 and 17-year-olds working part-time on the minimum wage.
Marcus Siding says that when he was given a diagnosis of ADHD as a 12-year-old, “my future disappeared in front of my eyes”
“There were a lot more people who were expecting to be given medication. This was kind of unheard of,” Timimi said. “We’ve not really had a generation as pathologised as this one, and that’s just not good for them.” When it comes to mental health, we are in an unprecedented age of diagnosis. One in five adults in England has a classified mental health disorder, while one in seven are considered neurodiverse.
The way mental health conditions are assessed is having a disabling effect on many young people, a psychiatrist tells Charlotte Lytton. De-diagnosis can help them escape the trap of thinking of themselves as long-term patients
If Timimi found a patient no longer met the criteria, if the symptoms could be explained by other factors, or if they felt it was simply unhelpful, he could write a letter as a consultant psychiatrist to say as much. This was then noted on their medical record.
These figures hold a mirror to the soaring rates of diagnosis witnessed by professionals such as Timimi, who is among a small but growing cohort of experts asking whether we should think about diagnosis differently.
books including Searching for
Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Distress and Neurodiversity, said that
It is particularly important for the diagnoses for conditions such as ADHD, argues Timimi, which he says
This is reflected in growing debate about the number of people claiming disability
Before his recent retirement, Timimi started
diagnosis creep could internalise the idea that there
MARK PASSMORE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
The unknown country star who’s filling Wembley like Styles and Swift
The southwest is swimming in octopuses driven from their breeding grounds by warming seas. We can overcome our distaste for the creatures if we cook them properly, chefs tell Charlotte Ivers
you can put in a microwave and ding in five minutes, I doubt it will catch on.”
n the large, refrigerated cephalopod room in Brixham fish market, the smell is hard to place: something musky, earthy, a smell you can almost feel in the back of your throat. Piled up is crate upon crate of octopuses. Barry Young has never seen anything like the recent arrival of this new catch. “It was overnight: a massive onslaught of
I
Fowler has not tried British octopus, and from his experience eating it in Greece is sceptical: “It seems to be that depending on who cooks it, it either tastes like a car tyre or is very nice.”
Luke Combs is playing to more than 250,000 fans in north London. Forget God and guns, it’s the clothes, the friendly vibe and the honest lyrics the fans love, writes Scarlett Russell
Octopus is indeed a challenging prospect for a home cook: it needs extensive washing under running water to ensure no sand or grit is left in its suckers, then it needs tenderising — either by freezing for a day or two, by beating with a mallet, or by being hung up in the sun and sea breeze. The third of these is rather easier in a Greek fishing village than in a British suburb.
the stuff,” he says. “It’s like the Spanish Armada coming in.”
Young has been working at the fish market on the Devonian coast for 33 years. He started out lugging crates as a teenager, and is now managing director of Brixham Trawler Agents.
but I heard tickets were near impossible to get. I go to other events like Country to Country at the O2 which is a big three-day annual event. I love country music because it does heartbreak in a fun way. It’s not soppy and whiny. It’s like, ‘She broke my heart so I bought a new truck.’”
nyone travelling through northwest London this weekend may notice that the Tube is a sea of trucker
A
In nearby Dartmouth, Ben Tonks, head chef of The Seahorse, has agreed to give me a tutorial. “You can grill it, or I really like making potato and octopus salad, adding mayonnaise, shallots, capers,” he says. “Or you can get all the tentacles ballotine, roll it into a sausage, freeze it, slice it on a meat slicer for octopus carpaccio.” The easiest, most traditional Galician recipe, however, ispulpo á feira: boil the octopus, chop off its tentacles then serve them drenched in olive oil and paprika.
Until two years ago, if a boat came home with an octopus it was a big event. “Once in a while we’d get one and we were like ‘Wow, what’s this!’”, Young says. In 2024, a “sprinkling” of octopuses arrived, but nobody thought much of it.
hats, Stetsons and cowboy boots. Why? Because Luke Combs, an unassuming 36-year-old country singer from Huntersville, North Carolina, has all but sold out three nights at the UK’s biggest stadium, an accolade usually reserved for the likes of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. Combs may be the biggest artist you’ve never heard of — by tomorrow about 270,000 fans will have stomped and strutted through Wembley Stadium to see him, most of them paying well over £100.
Below, Ben Tonks, head chef at The Seahorse in Dartmouth, Devon, prepares to boil an octopus to make the Galician dish pulpo á feira
lunch.” Nevertheless, if the octopus is here to stay, Tonks can see the benefits of taking it into our hearts and our kitchens. “They are ruthless. They eat everything in their way. They are impossible to get rid of so you kind of want to use them.”
puses. In 2022 the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act included octopuses as sentient beings after pressure from campaigners. Anecdotally, many raise the Oscar-winning 2020 Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, in which the film-maker seems to form a friendship with an octopus over the course of a year.
Shania Twain, 60, has found a younger audience; this summer she supported Harry Styles at Wembley and in 2024 she played the “legends” slot at Glastonbury. Zach Bryan, 30, the Oklahoman Grammy winner, headlined two nights at Hyde Park last summer.
Then, suddenly, last year, 1,900 tonnes landed on Brixham’s shores. They passed through Young’s fish market with a value of £12.3 million.
The most recent study by the Marine Biological Association, conducted last year, showed the largest surge in octopus in 75 years — 65 times more landings in the southwest than in recent years. So far this year 2,500 tonnes of octopus have been sold.
Octopuses need to eat 10 per cent of their own bodyweight in the likes of crabs, scallop and lobster to stay alive, risking the southwest’s reputation as a prime location for shellfish. And when it comes to the environment, “do we want something to land on our shores and then 80 per cent of it be flown back over the oceans? Not really,” says Tonks.
“When done well,” Tonks says as he submerges an octopus as long as his arm into a giant pot, “it’s similar to a really perfectly cooked steak. It’s soft, it’s tender, it’s like butter, it shouldn’t be chewy or tough, it shouldn’t be like having a rubber band in your mouth. But it’s very easy to get wrong.”
Professor Jonathan Birch, director of the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the London School of Economics, says there is good evidence to suggest they are as intelligent as we think. “They are phenomenal problem solvers, very versatile hunters,” he said. “ When you test them in lab settings you find they can unscrew jars quite easily because in the wild they’d be doing the same thing with the bivalve molluscs they hunt.”
Grace O’Sullivan, 28, from Surrey, spent an hour in a virtual queue for tickets to see Combs. “My parents were country fans so I grew up listening to Shania [Twain], the Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton,” she says. “When I was younger it wasn’t cool, none of my friends knew who I was talking about but I saw [the American singer-
A large majority go abroad — at least 80 per cent of the catch in Brixham market and in some parts of Devon as high as 95 per cent. Spain, Portugal and Morocco, countries with long traditions of eating octopus, are suffering shortages as their waters become too warm and the octopuses head to the UK. “In the last four weeks I’ve had four different Spanish companies fly over to inquire about buying octopus,” says Josh Perkes, a fish merchant. His biggest clients are in Spain, Italy and South Korea, and he has also been sending crates to Miami and Beirut. The Spanish eat about 40,000 tonnes of octopus a year. “There’s definitely a good market for it,” Perkes says. “We’re just not finding it in the UK currently.”
Despite its decidedly unBritish themes of big trucks, fried chicken, God and guns, country music is the UK’s fastest-growing genre, according to the Country Music Association, and has been for three years in a row.
Just over an hour down the coast, the Galley restaurant in Topsham is one place that does have octopus on the menu, served with romesco sauce, pearl couscous salad, pink ginger and dried shrimp. It is the restaurant’s most popular starter. “When cooked properly, octopus has a tender texture and a rich, slightly sweet flavour that works well in grilled, roasted, or Mediterranean-style dishes,” says the head chef, Dan Kavanagh.
The Seahorse has a national reputation for serving an adventurous range of locally caught fish, but octopus isn’t on the menu. “It’s not in our culture,” Tonks says. “When an English chef says ‘I cook octopus well’ you think ‘but do you?’ We’ve not had the last 100 years of our grandmothers bringing in octopus for
Nobody in Brixham is sure whether the influx will continue, but fishermen tell me they have started seeing baby octopuses, indicating the southwest has become a breeding spot to which the octopuses will return cyclically.
“Every 10 to 15 years country music becomes fashionable in the UK again,” says Tony Russell, a music historian and author of Vintage Country. “For the young and trendy, it’s fun. The clothes, the food, the vivid language, it’s a whole cultural package and it’s friendly music, not threatening. It’s about community and is music that everybody can get together and like. Dolly [Parton] is a great example of that: she could sing to five-year-olds or headline Glastonbury. Perhaps in 2026 this is the escapism we need.”
For Fowler, it’s simple: “All you’re interested in is making a week’s work: catching fish enough to provide for your family and the boat. Whatever’s the easiest thing to target and makes the most money, that’s what you fish for.”
Then there’s the ethical question about the supposed intellect of octo-
It’s not soppy and whiny. It’s like, ‘She broke my heart so I bought a new truck’
Could we ever learn to love octopus as much as our continental counterparts?
We in the UK eat less fish than Europe in general, and when we do, 80 per cent of our consumption is one of the “big five”: salmon, cod, tuna, haddock and prawns, much of it imported. The jump from fish and chips on a Friday to tentacles would be a big one, and not everyone is convinced the public are ready for it.
ILLUSTRATION: RUSSEL HERNEMAN
Down on Brixham quayside Richard Fowler is fixing his ship’s ropes to the dock. “The British household isn’t very interested in fresh fish traditionally,” says the 62-year-old fisherman. “If they can buy it in a box with breadcrumbs on, they are quite happy. But if they are given a fresh one, it’s like ‘Ooh, it smells.’”
“TikTok has played a huge role in that too, with people discovering songs on their For You page,” says Jenny Whiteway, a British-based publicist for Lime Tree Music, the country and Americana PR agency. “I think people connect with the honesty and vulnerability of country music. At its core, it’s about telling real stories that listeners can relate to.”
songwriter] Kacey Musgraves in a tiny record store in Essex when I was 14 or 15.”
Last weekend O’Sullivan had her hen party at Lil’ Nashville, a country-themed bar in Chiswick. The street outside may be a typical west London scene of Lime bikes and red buses, but inside is a honky-tonk world of line dancing and cowboy hats. All three of the bar’s “Luke Combs pre-parties” have sold out. Owned by the “closeted country fan” Helen Wood and her husband, they opened the bar in January last year.
“I’m sure the buyers are trying to educate people and make it a British delicacy. But until it gets made into a ready meal
Making British diners
Singing to 90,000 people
“We’d been visiting Nashville for six or seven years and the nightlife scene there is incredible and vibrant,” she says. “We thought, ‘Why is no one doing this here?’ There was nowhere dedicated to country music, no fixed venue. In our first six months of opening you couldn’t get a reservation. Even now, on Saturdays the queues are sometimes two hours long.”
suckerscephalopodsfor
He is yet to achieve the name recognition of those whose global streaming figures he’s matching — think Pink Floyd, 2Pac and the Cure
— but many of us have probably hummed along to his cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, which has been played more than a billion times on Spotify. His glamorous wife, Nicole, used to be a recruiting coordinator at Broadcast Music Inc and they have three sons: Tex, Beau and Chet.
In June Anna-Sophie Mertens debuted State Fayre, a folk and country-tinged festival in Chelmsford, Essex, which had 50,000 fans during the weekend. “We thought it was the right time because we’ve seen the passion and growth of country music,” says Mertens, who is on the Country Music Association’s board. “Especially in younger audiences. Eighteen to 25year olds are discovering it because the way we consume music is so different now and it’s much easier to discover different music.”
“associated with increased emotional difficulties for young people”. Timimi thinks that all mental health awareness courses in schools should be stopped.
Victoria Baker, 33, a teacher from Hertfordshire, didn’t manage to get Combs tickets. “I’m gutted,” she says. “It would have been amazing
Good?, said that “it’s phenomenally important that people re-evaluate” their conditions, rather than accepting them as lifelong. Pressure is also being heaped on by social media, where celebrity-backed campaigns mean that “children and young people are examining themselves for these traits too closely and worrying about things they don’t need to worry about”, O’Sullivan said. TikTokers extolling often self-diagnosed conditions for clout “don’t really understand the amount of complexity that comes with diagnosis”.
waited a year for medication, which left her ruminating on “whether it’s needed,” she admits. “I feel like a lot of people are jumping onto these diagnoses.” If so many of us are neurodiverse, she says, “Is it even diverse? Is it even a problem?”
label. Katie Stern, 43, a writer from London, was diagnosed with ADHD last year, saying she sought a medical opinion with a goal to “tidy up my brain” after struggling for years. But she ran into long waiting lists: there are up to 550,000 people on the waiting list for an ADHD assessment in England and access to services can take up to five years.
is something wrong with you. He said many of his young patients were encouraged to seek diagnoses by their parents and some had “collected” four or five conditions by their teens. “You start taking on the identity of being a patient, and once you’ve taken on that identity, it’s very hard to shift,” he said.
Another contributing factor is that over the years diagnostic categories have been relaxed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the reference guide for mental health and cognitive conditions. It means that some conditions such as ADHD, once believed to only affect children, are now applicable to older people and those with milder or less conventional symptoms.
Luke Combs is the first country singer to headline Wembley Stadium
Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant neurologist and author of The Age of Diagnosis: Are Medical Labels Doing Us More Harm Than
In America, the audience is associated with Maga, guns and conservatism. It’s not
Marcus Siding, a 23-yearold local government volunteer in Sweden who has been de-diagnosed, said that when he received his diagnosis as a “high-energy kid” of 12, he was “pretty devastated, because my future just disappeared right in front of my eyes”. He had wanted to be a police officer but the diagnosis barred him by law.
Stern (not her real name)
about politics over here,
though, says Mertens. “Fans love country music
Proportion of Pip cases where the main condition is ADHD, autism, depression or anxiety
24% 20 16 12
16 19 25 29 30 34 All claimants 20 24
Last year University College London published the results of a six-year trial involving 32,000 children aged 8 to 13 which showed that normalising their feelings of sadness or stress, rather than labelling them as specific conditions in need of urgent attention, led to better results. A Department for Education review of mental health awareness in secondary schools found last year that some courses were
regardless of political views. If it speaks to them
Rather than pushing for diagnoses, “we would be better to support people by helping them to work within the messy truth of life,” O’Sullivan said. “I fear what the increasing unemployment figures suggest and the increasing mental health diagnosis figures suggest is that a wellmeaning system may not be working as well as we thought.”
100%
emotionally, that’s what is important.”
80
When, in 2023, he sought a re-evaluation and it was declared he no longer had ADHD, he was “relieved”, and is now galvanised “to make sure that no one else goes through what I have gone through”.
State Fayre has booked
dates for next year. Lil’ Nashville is opening a Bristol venue this year and Country 2 Country will be in Manchester, London and Glasgow next year. The country music wave shows no signs of slowing. Y’all better be ready.
60
8
40
4
20
0
0
2019 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
It’s not just young people who are struggling with the
2019 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Also includes mixed anxiety and depressive disorders
Source: DWP
20 V2 The Sunday Times August 2, 2026
COMMENT
Dominic Lawson
Pay-after-you-go is a just way to fund elderly care
ESTABLISHED 1822
Ceuta chaos shows PM why migration remains a priority
Ignore the scare tactics, a levy on the estates of the dead could work
dementia remain the principal victims, forced to spend hundreds of thousands on care unlike those who develop cancer.” Families ravaged over generations by cancer — my mother died of it at 48, and one of my sisters at 32 — are not the winners in the lottery of life, whatever Mr Hughes supposed. But his use of the word “lottery” was significant, because we are talking here about money, not suffering.
hatever ails the nation, or — in their view — is done wrong to them, Reform UK invariably blames “the Establishment”. So it was last week, when the prime minister did not extend his invitation to cross-party talks on reform of social care to the one
seems so unfair when you’ve worked hard and tried to make your home as lovely as you can for your grandchildren, to pass it on to them.”
W
acute issue in the UK. Only last week, more than 900 people crossed the Channel in small boats as people-smugglers took advantage of calm waters.
he exclave of Ceuta — a tiny parcel of Spanish territory on Morocco’s northern tip — feels distant from most of Europe. But the flood of 60,000 people who crossed its border last week has sent political waves crashing across the continent. All but
T
Heartless as it might seem to point out, Jill’s grandchildren are not going to live collectively in her lovely home after she has joined the choir invisible. It will be sold, once probate is granted, and the buyers, people unknown and unrelated, will be the ones who get to enjoy her final refurbishments.
Andy Burnham has made a slick start to life as prime minister and communicated his early ideas well. But migration will be a serious test of his leadership, and he has yet to articulate in detail how he will tackle it. His predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, promised to “smash the gangs”, and it should be noted that both legal and illegal migration are falling. Burnham should be commended for keeping Shabana Mahmood as home secretary.
led by Nigel Farage. Given Reform’s standing in the opinion polls, which suggests it might be involved in government after the next general election, its inevitable complaint that this was an “establishment conspiracy” is not simply another manifestation of its institutional persecution complex. Although it was amusing to hear Reform’s Suella Braverman, when it was pointed out to her that the party does not even have a dedicated parliamentary spokesman on such matters, declare: “Nigel Farage is our health spokesman.”
Thus, in the Daily Mail, Jenrick argued — on the possibly false assumption that Burnham will revive his 2010 solution of a 10 per cent “social care” tax on all estates — that this was “every pensioner’s worst nightmare”. As an example, he cited his late grandmother, Dorothy. “Nothing was as important as family to my Nana. What she had, she gave to us. As her health failed, the thought her grandchildren would inherit something — no matter how small — gave her great joy. But this tax would have robbed her of that consolation.”
2,000 have now returned to Morocco, but it will take some time to unpick exactly what precipitated the events in this city of only 85,000 people.
This, though, is to assume that Jill does not herself become one of those who develops a condition involving long-term care, uncovered by the NHS, in some sort of residential institution. Because if that were to happen, her home might need to be sold to pay for it, the proceeds going not to her grandchildren but to whichever firm is providing the care.
Many who swam round the border fences were young men — some only teenagers — and social media seems to have played a role in the simultaneous crossing. Questions remain about whether there was complicity from the Moroccan authorities: police are accused of turning a blind eye on the border.
But the problem cannot be wished away. Mahmood should be backed on her reforms of indefinite leave to remain, which are unpopular with a section of Labour MPs. The complexity of the issue is revealed by our investigation today on houses in multiple occupancy (HMOs). After the government started closing asylum hotels in 2024, councils turned to HMOs to house asylum seekers. But the conversions of family homes into HMOs, in which three or more unrelated tenants live together, can change the character of residential areas.
When Jenrick appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to continue his energetic campaign against the (as yet non-existent) Burnham death tax, telling the presenter, Kate Garraway, “a 10 per cent tax will come off the property you leave”, she asked: “What do you think happens now?” She was, of course, referring to those who lose their homes entirely because of the cost of long-term care outside the NHS umbrella.
Anyway, into the breach stepped Robert Jenrick, like Braverman another former Conservative minister, now Reform’s “shadow chancellor”. As soon as Andy Burnham made his speech committing the government to solving the crisis in social care, Jenrick, with characteristically adept use of the social media, launched a campaign labelling Burnham’s asyet undeclared solution as a “death tax”, complete with images of a skeleton handing over a cheque to HMRC.
Tragic as it is that the alleged Burnham “death tax” would have reduced Robert’s inheritance by 10 per cent, surely if the relative he loved so much was consoled by the thought of leaving “something — no matter how small” to her grandchildren, such a reduction would hardly have “robbed” her of that.
The incident shines a spotlight on the policies of the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who granted qualified legal status this year to 500,000 undocumented migrants. The leader of the Spanish opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, called this last night a “triple failure [of] migration policy ... security policy [and] foreign policy”.
Next day, on his X account, Jenrick posted a video of an encounter at the home of another elderly, but very sprightly, lady called Jill. They seemed to know each other well. The post which has had over a million views — is headlined: “Andy Burnham’s death tax is terrifying millions of people like Jill.” When Jenrick points out to her that, by replacing inheritance tax “for the rich” with a 10 per cent tax on all estates, Jill is duly terrified — sort of.
Jenrick replied: “That doesn’t happen to everybody. That’s the point.” I wonder what the viewers made of that.
This is a reprise of an old favourite. When Burnham, as health secretary in 2010, advocated a 10 per cent tax on all estates after death to ensure that social care was paid for collectively, free at the point of use, the Conservatives — who had also then been involved in cross-party talks — denounced the proposal, most successfully, as a death tax. Last week Burnham said he still bore “some of the scars” of that experience.
Actually, the Boris Johnson administration of which Jenrick was a member, in an attempt to honour the then PM’s pledge in 2019 to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all”, announced in 2021 a 1.25 per cent increase in National Insurance contributions to fund this. It was called the Health and Social Care Levy and was to start in 2023. However, it was abandoned before it began by Liz Truss in her not entirely brilliant mini-budget. Instead, she made a madcap pledge for the state to subsidise all home heating bills for two years at a potential cost of hundreds of billions of pounds — vastly more even than that of paying for all social care over a similar period.
The crisis has also exposed simmering tensions over the Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free travel between 29 European nations. The bloc is struggling to maintain a collective approach to border security, and some states are taking matters into their own hands. Italy has effectively suspended Schengen, imposing border checks on those arriving by air or sea from Spain.
Councils have now been forced in the face of public opinion to oblige landlords to seek planning permission for HMOs. The obligation to house asylum seekers remains, however, and the government is exploring the use of former military sites.
“We’ve worked hard all our lives to build a nice home and we’re still refurbishing it now, adding value to it, and now we’re being told that some of it is going to the taxman, which
As my colleague Patrick Maguire recalled, Burnham had said in 2010 that the alternative was “a random dementia tax, where people can see tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds wiped out by the costs of care, the loss of their homes, their savings”.
Burnham spoke eloquently when he took over as PM of passing the “Makerfield test” for public policy, and also of ending “HMO Britain”. We suspect the voters of Makerfield will look at the scenes in Spain and the Channel and conclude that firm action cannot come soon enough.
And now? If a government wants to find the money for a scheme that makes the state the funder of long-term care for the elderly infirm (and doesn’t have the stomach to finance it with spending cuts elsewhere), a “death tax” is a much fairer way of doing it than to impose yet more taxes on those in work — especially as many millions of them have no property assets at all, nor the prospect of great inheritance. Whatever the case, this perennial issue requires reform, rather than Reform.
Checkpoints have long been a fact of life at migration pressure points across the EU. Border security also remains an
That is where we still are. Whether that is “unfair” is not morally unquestionable, however much it seems so to those affected. When Theresa May, in her 2017 manifesto, proposed that the equity in people’s homes should part-fund, posthumously, the cost of their care in residential institutions for the aged, the then head of the Alzheimer’s Society, Jeremy Hughes, complained bitterly in The Times: “In the lottery of life, people with
Johnson tried to fix the crisis but his plan was ditched by Truss
There are two political quotations that describe the short-termism that defines British energy and environmental policies. The first is from Nick Clegg, who said in 2010, when he was Lib Dem leader, that new nuclear power was “not an answer” for electricity generation because it would not “come on stream until 2021, 2022”.
The rush to net zero is creating its own problems. The electricity grid came close to blackouts several times during the June heatwave because wind and solar are so much less predictable than coal, gas and yes — nuclear power stations.
Charlotte Ivers
We are ending up with the BBC we deserve
Of course, we must continue to decarbonise. Renewables are homegrown, cheap, and the market has embraced them. But the pace of net zero must be proportionate, steady and affordable. Ideology should play no role in energy policy, and fossil fuels will continue to play a role for many years to come.
The second is from David Miliband, who revealed in September 2024 that, when he was Labour environment secretary 20 years earlier, any discussion about adapting to climate change was taboo because all efforts must be focused on stopping the world warming in the first place. “It felt as though talking about adapting to climate change meant admitting defeat on mitigating climate change,” Miliband said.
Andy Burnham seemed to suggest last week that drilling would be opened up in the North Sea. Lip service is not enough he must take urgent action. The fact that BP is pulling out of the region in the face of punitive windfall taxes is a national embarrassment.
As attention spans shorten, it’s no surprise that serious news is being axed
The heatwaves of the past few weeks wildfires in Suffolk and Derbyshire, closed schools and hosepipe bans — confirm that the myopic focus on “mitigation” (policy language for decarbonisation) has arguably failed. Few now doubt that the weather is different from that of the past, but the political consensus on what we should do about it has fractured.
for access, behind-the-scenes, largely irrelevant storytelling. This should have been a live 30-minute interview with no fripperies, no cosy build-up.”
pandering to the baser instincts of its audience in a bid to drag them away from their phones. For example, the BBC will now no longer have a South America correspondent — a whole continent neglected because, no doubt, audiences have proved they simply don’t care. The teams behind Newsnight and Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday show will merge, Newsnight having already been dragged away from producing the Beeb’s best investigative journalism to becoming a glorified chat show, designed to provide social media blowhards with clips of themselves pontificating moronically. The World Tonight is going, as are The Inquiry, The Conversation, Money Box Live and The Law Show. All absolutely fitted the BBC’s central goals, and could and should be made by a publicly-funded broadcaster.
he BBC has the air of an institution even less sure of itself than usual. The corporation is currently pushing an advertisement in the spoken-wordpoem-cum-cabaret style (is there a more irritating series of words in the English language?), fronted by Romesh Ranganathan (oh wait, yes
T
In the meantime, new focus is needed on adaptation. As ministers focused on building wind farms and solar panels, championing heat pumps and electric vehicles, they failed to prepare for the changes scientists told them were coming. Flood barriers are underfunded, train lines buckle on warm days and a million homes in London are at risk of overheating. In January and February we had record-breaking rain. Six months on, we are enduring hosepipe bans. Air conditioning — for so long seen as an indulgence because of its high energy use — is likely to be needed as summers become hotter.
I can absolutely see the case that a proper, live interview with a new PM is the best form of scrutiny. But would this have reached as many people? By crunching the interview down to a series of little clips, the show’s producers received multiple days of news coverage and gave us bites of news in digestible, easy-tounderstand formats. This suits both Burnham and the BBC. They are responding to incentives, and all the incentives tell us that people’s attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been. If you want to interest them, 30 minutes of back and forth in a studio just isn’t going to cut it.
there is), posing the question:“What has the BBC ever done for me?” The answer, of course, being all sorts of lovely stuff like Strictly, BBC Cymru and oh, I don’t know, Wimbledon? It feels rather like they are protesting too much.
Britain’s carbon emissions contribute 1 per cent of the global total, compared with 33 per cent from China and 12 per cent from the US. The idea that we can lead the world in reaching net zero is increasingly under question. Britain is the first big economy to have hit the milestone of halving its emissions since 1990. But according to plans approved by parliament this year, we must go further and faster. We are now legally bound to cut emissions 87 per cent by 2042.
This is an organisation under pressure and the execs there know it. Last year, half a million people decided to stop paying their licence fee. Ofcom published numbers last week indicating, for the first time, that Netflix has edged ahead of the Beeb as the place viewers go to first when looking for something to watch. The momentum is all with the streamers, and with the BBC’s less salubrious competitors: TikTok, Instagram, short-form video in all its manifold forms.
Burnham, unlike poor Keir Starmer before him, truly understands this. He is our first prime minister to be comfortable in the age of short-form video. Personally, I find watching the actual prime minister of my actual country ranking scampi fries and pork scratchings with his chancellor demeaning — to him, to his office and, somehow, to me personally, for the sheer fact of my having watched it. And yet over the past couple of weeks I keep hearing from people about friends and acquaintances of theirs who “don’t follow politics” and who used to barely know who was in No 10 at any given time. They’ve all seen Andy on social media. They all quite like him.
Of course, the BBC still makes many decent, intellectually engaging programmes (although not as many as it used to). But dumbing down manifests in more subtle ways too. Listening to the Political Currency podcast last week, hosted by Ed Balls and George Osborne, I was alerted to a pleasingly niche media spat. Andy Burnham recently gave his first TV broadcast interview to Laura Kuenssberg and, instead of immediately playing the thing out in full, the BBC spent several days drip-feeding small clips into the news. The approach drew criticism from a former head of BBC News, Roger Mosey, and from Andrew Neil, who wrote on X that the “BBC has traded integrity/robust interrogation
There is no time for virtue signalling and arbitrary deadlines. All the public ask from politicians is a long-term vision coupled with some common sense.
It was against this backdrop that, last week, the venerable institution announced that they would be cutting shows like Blankety Blank, Celebrity Mastermind and Live at the Apollo, part of an attempt to save £500 million over the next three years. I cannot pretend to be particularly heartbroken. Live at the Apollo played a valuable role in launching many comedians’ careers, it’s true. But in all honesty, I was not even aware Blankety Blank had returned to our screens.
Football fallout
tion was pictured presenting Infantino with an England shirt complete with his name on the back. Fans were furious at the World Cup ticket prices and unnecessary hydration breaks — but football’s officials largely looked the other way.
Gianni Infantino’s humiliation follows the revelation of his hubristic plan to enrich himself and world football’s governing body. Few will shed tears for an increasingly arrogant bureaucrat who, drunk on power, flew too close to the sun.
It is the easiest thing in the world to bash the BBC. I’ve done a fair bit of it here. But I don’t want to heap too much blame on our poor national broadcaster. If it is dumbing down, it is because it is responding to incentives, just as Andy Burnham is. If we as a nation increasingly spend our time scrolling through slop on social media, then of course those who seek to hold our attention will try to produce said slop. We get the BBC we deserve, just as we get the politics we deserve. At the moment, we clearly don’t deserve much at all. Hadley Freeman is away
Arguing over which light entertainment shows should be protected is a doomed affair. I’d like to dwell instead on the recent cuts announced to the BBC’s news and factual output, where I think we can point more objectively to choices that will prove to be bad for the BBC’s mission to educate, inform and entertain, and will by extension be bad for the intellectual and democratic health of the nation. In each case, it’s hard not to cry “dumbing down” when we see a broadcaster
Second, The Times’s brilliant reporting brought this story to the world’s attention. The prime minister, happy to condemn the Fifa plan, should remember this the next time he is asked to place pointless restrictions on Britain’s free press.
But two points are worth making about this tawdry affair. First, why did it take yet another ghastly over-reach by Infantino for the world’s self-regarding football elite to finally accept his flaws? Only last month the chair of England’s Football Associa-
The BBC is under pressure and the execs there know it
The president of Fifa kicks off a round of dealmaking*
Gianni Infantino To everyone who missed our beautiful game, I say sorry that you were so consumed by hate that you missed the most inclusive and environmentally friendly World Cup ever
Mrs Infantino Darling, how long do we have the jet for?
Infantino I’m just replying to the haters
Mrs Infantino Okay, but what about the jet?
Infantino I don’t think the Qataris are in a hurry to have it back. Why?
Mrs Infantino I need to go
shopping in Milan Infantino For the disadvantaged kids?
Infantino Remember I’m allergic to sable
Donald Trump Hey Gianni, what’s this I hear about you selling the World Cup?
Infantino Dear Mr President and Mr Peace Prize Winner, of course I’m not. I am selling FIFAFFE
Trump What’s FIFAFFE?
Infantino It’s a subsidiary that will manage only the commercial and operational side of the World Cup. Don’t worry
Matthew Syed From Trump to Fifa, a free press is key to exposing sharp practice
Trump I’m not worried. I just have
many friends who would be interested in investing once we’ve finished the Gaza Riviera, the Donbas Esplanade
and the Qatar Lithium Mine &
Deluxe Space Resort Infantino I will send you a brochure
Trump And the USA will host 2038? Trump Hello? Trump Gianni?
Infantino Sorry, hydration break. That decision is with the committee
Trump I thought you wanted to be UN secretary general?
Without independent reporting to counteract AI slop, the world’s wheeler-dealers would get away with it
Infantino Yes, I’m keeping Tuesday afternoons free
the new media circus proclaiming that the mainstream media is irredeemably tainted and basically defunct, with assertions such as “you don’t hate the MSM enough” and “they are all against you”. Yes, all this while peddling QAnon conspiracies, inviting holocaust deniers onto their platforms, cosying up to Putin, and otherwise giving wings to many of the most deranging trends of modern life.
and, for Trump, ominously — edge away.
his is a column about Gianni Infantino, about President Trump, about corruption, perhaps even (a bit later) about Versailles, the Reformation and the pendulum of history. But I hope you’ll forgive me for saying something that is, I
pendulum swings — at least for a while, and with the contribution of those who expose them — the other way.
T
Trump So we have a deal Mrs Infantino Darling, why is there a
Last week, Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for governor of Ohio and once a full-throated Trumpist, said: “I don’t want to just be saying Make America great”. The headline over the piece declared: “Proximity to Trump is a stain”. I also noticed that Steve Hilton, Republican candidate in California, is appealing to “never Trump” voters and denying the president won the 2020 election. As Maga elites see Trump’s power draining away after the midterms, I suspect this distancing will become a stampede. This walking moral void will, I believe, live out his last days in infamy.
In this sense, the Swiss suit represents an eternal pattern, a man whose sense of entitlement became unmoored from reality. You might call it the L’Oréal moment: because I’m worth it! All those flights on private jets, the cosying up to plutocrats, the proximity to wealth and power — it turned his mind. He thought he had “normalised” duplicity by buying office space in Trump Tower, offering a “peace prize” to a leader who has fomented global instability, and having Fifa overturn a player’s suspension after a call from the White House.
tiger in our ballroom? Vladimir Putin Did you like the gift?
Infantino How did you know I love tigers?
believe, both accurate and important.
The Infantino plan to monetise the World Cup in cahoots with the brother of Trump’s son-in-law would have come to fruition except for a crucial factor. The Times. Our sister newspaper. You will have noticed a number of Infantino acolytes going public in recent days to say that they had not been consulted, that the president had put the deal together “behind their backs”.
Putin I know many things.
Any news on 2038? Infantino It’s with the committee
I am not saying the mainstream media is perfect. I have always been a freelancer whose income is mainly derived from elsewhere, so hope I have a nodding acquaintance with objectivity here. We have our institutional and commercial biases. We make (many) mistakes. But we also have basic editorial standards and invest, via the hard-earned money of subscribers, in the investigative journalism without which the likes of Infantino might get away with it indefinitely. Take a bow The Sunday Times, which broke the Farage crypto story; The Wall Street Journal, which has made the running on Trump’s corruption, The New York Times, exposer of Harvey Weinstein.
Mohammed bin Salman Any news on 2038?
But let me say this, too. This will only happen because the press will continue to painstakingly prise open the lid on the complex, shadowy deals (involving the Witkoffs, the Kushners, not to mention Massad Boulos, father-in-law of Tiffany Trump) that have netted the president an estimated $2 billion-plus in little more than 15 months. This is a vital service, not because it will end wrongdoing but because it will act as a check on its spread. It is why democracies on the whole remain less “extractive” than the world’s kleptocracies, whose corruption endures for a simple reason: they control the media.
Infantino But Saudi Arabia is already hosting 2034
But “normalisation” has limits. The French revolution might not have happened without Marie Antoinette (ironically, she was innocent in the famous diamond necklace scandal), just as reform in Ancient Rome required the corruption of Aulus Gabinius (so eloquently exposed by Cicero). Clerics had been enriching themselves for decades through the sale of indulgences, but only when Albrecht of Brandenburg purchased an archbishopric through a loan repaid by selling one did something shift in early modern European psychology.
This is revealing, for it shows (a point confirmed to me by multiple sources) that Infantino’s plan wasn’t quite ripe at the moment it was exposed. He was still knitting together the internal coalition necessary to present it to the world as a fait accompli, still explaining to insiders how they would benefit from the octopus-like structure he was creating to siphon off the proceeds.
Bin Salman We have the perfect climate and no other nation loves
basketball as much as we do Infantino You mean football?
Mrs Infantino And why is there a
leopard in our other ballroom? Bin Salman You like the leopard?
Infantino I’m not supposed to accept gifts worth more than $100
Even when parts of the press get things wrong, it is other parts of the press that typically expose it — a corrective that scarcely exists in the algorithmic world, where someone like Andrew Bridgen can lose a defamation case about Covid vaccine conspiracy theories and then monetise defeat all day on social media, as he did last week.
The exposé on Tuesday, then, was nothing less than a dagger to the heart of the plan — a story that unleashed a tidal wave of global anger, with flash polls showing that fans from South America to Asia were against it by more than nine to one (a survey in The Times showed 99 per cent of readers wishing Infantino to resign; the other 1 per cent presumably pressed the wrong button). This is what caused football insiders to see the writing on the wall and move decisively against the plan. The court turned against the king — but only because of the scribes.
Bin Salman Ha ha ha. It’s for the disadvantaged children
Let me finish with Fifa, because by the time you read these words Infantino could be gone. I certainly can’t see him surviving till the end of this month, given the collapse of support. Don’t know about you but I call this a hell of a result. And it happened for a simple reason: your subscriptions (and mine) funded the journalism required to expose this chancer. It is also why, despite our political differences, I hope all of us can agree about one thing. The press may be flawed. It may get things wrong. But it is imperative it always remains free.
Trump — whose White House offered the model for Infantino’s Fifa — is perhaps nearing the same fate. He has so far got away with corruption at a grand scale. Many believe it is normalised. I see a different picture: a man who is, even now, reaching limits that he cannot perceive but that will land his acolytes in jail (Trump will likely avoid this fate, given the Supreme Court doctrine of presumptive presidential immunity).
Infantino Ha ha ha. It’s just what they need
The court turned against the king — but only because of the scribes
Javier Milei It is outrageous that
Argentina is being portrayed as the villain just because of some harmless
OK, back to Infantino. Let me be frank: Fifa has been corrupt for yonks. Younger readers will remember Sepp Blatter. Older readers will remember João Havelange. I suspect that it will remain corrupt for the foreseeable future. But it often takes a man like Infantino to push things so far that the
fouling, fighting, back-turning and warmongering. This is worse than when
Maradona headed that ball in
I won’t bore you with the litany of scandals but note how their exposé is causing fellow Republicans to subtly —
Infantino I will stand with you but first I need a favour
I say this because I am sick of podcasters, YouTubers and the rest of
Milei You already got the briefcase Infantino Now I need steak
Milei We have the best steaks. I will send a couple
NEWMAN’S WEEK
Infantino I need more than that for my tiger and my leopard. I will send the jet
Sepp Blatter Gianni, why are you selling the World Cup?
Blatter Gianni?
Infantino Sorry, hydration break. Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective
Mrs Infantino Darling, why has the jet gone to Buenos Aires?
*As imagined by Matt Rudd
Robert Colvile
For devolution to have any chance, we must ditch our postcode lottery paranoia
meaning they’ve squeezed out everything else.
charges £510 for Band D properties, with the mayor of London demanding an extra £511. Now, like similar councils, it is being told that its grant will be based on the assumption that it is charging the national average of £2,060. In short, Wandsworth is effectively being ordered by central government to increase council tax by £1,000. Helpfully, it has also been exempted from the requirement to put any such increase to a local referendum.
devolution says not that mayors will be supported to build homes, but that they will be supported to build “council homes”. What if they don’t want to? What if they take the view that we’d be able to build more homes, and sell them for less, if we didn’t tax housebuilding to provide discount accommodation for Labour’s client voters?
want to believe. I want to believe so much. For years, I’ve been ranting about how centralised Britain has become. How we need to devolve more power, to trust the people again. And here comes Andy Burnham, saying all the things I’ve been longing to hear. So why do I
at the heart of the devolution strategy? Whitehall.
I
Of course, we can’t blame Burnham for that. Indeed, his team has recognised these pressures and promised reform. But offering fiscal freedom under the current regime is the political equivalent of “any colour as long as it’s black”: any spending you want, as long as it’s on care.
The result is that the country is being carved up into a series of regional baronies — very much reminiscent of the Redcliffe-Maud plan of 1969. In the process, left-wing cities such as Lincoln, Norwich and Leicester are getting much more control of the suburbs and countryside around them. It is, quite literally, a land grab. And the government has confirmed that the boundaries of local and regional police forces, as well as NHS services, will be forcibly adjusted to fit.
still feel doubt?
Third, Labour is deeply allergic to the thing that actually makes devolution work: competition.
Let’s start with the positives. The government’s plans for devolution are undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Local areas should indeed keep more of the income tax and business rates that they generate. Cities should have the power to fund and approve transport infrastructure, rather than begging the Department for Transport. There should be a presumption across government that decisions are best made at a local level. And councils should obviously be able to fund new infrastructure by building housing alongside.
Second, there’s a sense here that local communities will have more freedom but only to do what Labour wants. Look at the big announcements from Burnham’s first week. Bus fares were capped across England. Business rates were cut (slightly) for pubs, clubs and music venues, while tax reliefs were reviewed for “anti-social businesses, such as vape shops”. In other words, Mr Devolution was dictating to every council in the country how it should spend its transport budget and what its high streets should look like. And if they disagreed, or had other priorities for the money? Tough.
Fortunately for my bank account, the council is rejecting this kind suggestion and making savings instead. But the effect of these reforms is to punish areas that have had the temerity to charge low taxes, and reward those that charge above the average. The change will also see even more money being transferred from London to the regions — even though the average Londoner hands over almost £5,000 in subsidy already; still more when Rachel Reeves’s mansion tax arrives in 2028, or if Burnham hikes property taxes still further.
The secret sauce of American growth is cut-throat regional rivalry. Witness the enormous level of migration in recent years from high-tax, high-regulation states such as California and New York, and the enormous expansion of Texas and Florida.
But in fact, it is busy snatching them away. Last month I got an email from Wandsworth council. It warned that it faced a financial crisis and that without action, its share of my council tax bill would more than treble. How come? Partly due to the “frightful four” mentioned above. Partly due to the ludicrous overspending of the local Labour Party, which lost control of the south London borough in May. But mostly due to Angela Rayner.
Put all these things together and what do you get? A government that is saying, and doing, many of the right things — but also one that is engaged in a monumental, top-down reshaping of Britain’s political geography. One that seems as willing as ever to tell local communities what their priorities should be. One that is not only deeply reluctant to let regions compete, but will enforce equality of outcomes via all the levers available to it.
Back in Britain’s glory days, we had this too. Business rates weren’t just retained by the big cities, but set by them. Infrastructure was controlled locally, not nationally. Places were free to boom and bust.
Now come the negatives — and it’s a much longer list.
This mentality is alien to a Labour Party — and, sadly, a Britain — in which “postcode lottery” is a species of swear word. Sure enough, Burnham immediately slapped down Houchen’s suggestion that he should be able to raise or lower his own tax rates.
On top of all of this, there is another key point. During her last spell handling the local government brief, Rayner kicked off a monumental reorganisation, combining huge numbers of councils into unitary authorities.
It was the same last week. Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, responded to the offer of more financial freedom by asking if he could use it to cut taxes. Louise Haigh, who’s in charge of devolution, reacted as though the thought had never even occurred.
First, devolving finance will mean nothing while councils’ budgets are dominated by “the frightful four”: adult social care, temporary accommodation, children’s services and school transport. These are services that councils are legally obliged to provide but haven’t been given the money to pay for,
You see, back in 2024, Rayner began a massive reallocation of council funding. At its heart was the principle that central government grants would be based on the average level of council tax. This might sound inoffensive, but Wandsworth has long prided itself on being a low-tax pioneer. Today, it
I hope I am wrong. I hope we get a version of devolution that is about competition, not control. But the key test of devolution is whether you support it even if people use it to do things you don’t like.
Who is deciding their shape, or that of the new mayoral combined authorities
Fourth, Labour says it wants to let places keep the fruits of their success.
Similarly, the big cabinet statement on
Over to you, Andy.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor should be sent to letters@sunday-times.co.uk The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2025 was 30%
NHS accused of burying the bad news
Robert Colvile argues that a wealth tax would be costly to administer because valuing private wealth is so difficult (“Kick the rich a bit harder, Lineker urges. But here’s why a wealth tax won’t work”, Jul 26). If so, perhaps Britain should look beyond taxing wealth and instead harness experience. We already expect citizens to serve as magistrates, school governors and charity trustees. Why not create a business magistracy, inviting those who have built and led successful organisations to devote part of their time to strengthening the boards of growing businesses, charities and public bodies? Britain possesses an immense reservoir of entrepreneurial and managerial talent whose accumulated judgment is a largely untapped national asset.
Your report “Test on MND drug that could help 97% of sufferers” (news, Jul 26) highlights a breakthrough in an area that has struggled to make progress. MND is exceptionally complex and presents differently in every patient. Identifying a common denominator — a specific protein deficiency — is a huge step forward. However, as with many complex diseases it is likely that we will need multiple new drugs for MND to become manageable or even curable.
elderly people could socialise and have a meal. Next door was a day hospital treating minor ailments, changing dressings and providing physiotherapy, plus a rehabilitation hospital and a unit for longer-term care. There was also a residential home attached. Patients could move between units without long delays for staff to complete paperwork. Perhaps the NHS should organise a similar system to unblock hospital beds. Ken Harvey GP (ret’d), Glasbury-on-Wye, Powys
one big hospital and appoint the best turn-round specialist available as chairman; set patient safety as a governing principle; appoint a director of safety and mid-ranking ex-servicemen and women to oversee administration; sack any staff who consider disciplined safe practice to be bullying; conduct a safety audit and rectify all failure points. Then publish this safety record and tell management at all other hospitals that their continued employment depends on their rapidly achieving the same standards. The best way to improve safety is to eliminate errors. Omar Malik Author of The Art of Staying Safe (And Happy); Malmesbury, Wilts
Shaun Lintern exposes the lengths to which NHS England and hospital executives go to bury bad news (“NHS accused of suppressing reports from investigators pointing out cases of poor care”, Jul 26). Investigations are frequently carried out under fear of reprisals towards investigators, clinical staff and whistleblowers, while senior executives remain in effect immune from prosecution and at liberty to refuse to participate in reviews. Despite this culture of bullying being exposed in a National Audit Office report in November 2003 and subsequent inquiries, this behaviour has become more entrenched in a system that is rotten to the core. It increasingly puts patients at risk by failing to allow a culture of openness from which lessons can be learnt. Lee Taylor Orthopaedic surgeon (ret’d), Chichester Your report rightly condemns NHS management but the NHS is in an impossible position — underfunded and overstretched — and its managers are not up to the task. The NHS cannot be reformed without new, determined and capable management. It is a huge organisation, too big to address as a whole. It is better to start small: select
BIRTHDAYS
Sir Michael Bibby, chairman of Bibby Line Group, 63 Jacob Collier, singer-songwriter, 32 Matthew Crummack, chief executive of Domestic & General, 56 Andy Fairweather Low, songwriter, 78 Julia Foster, actress, 83 Lily Gladstone, actress, 40 Nigel Hitchin, mathematician, 80 Gundula Janowitz, opera singer, 89 Sir Paul Marshall, hedge fund manager and co-owner of GB News, 67 Sammy McIlroy, footballer, 72 Sir Anthony Seldon, writer, 73 Madeline Smith, actress, 77 Rose Tremain, writer, 83 JD Vance, US vice-president, 42 Sam Worthington, actor, 50 Charli XCX, singer, pictured, 34
In the age of AI, it should be easy for researchers and drug developers to access patient data. Fundraising in the past decade has generated a wealth of this data but the hoops that researchers must jump through to access it is delaying their work. When patients donate data for research, that is what it should be used for, not locked in a black box of bureaucracy and legalese. It needs to be shared securely with as many researchers as possible so that they can line up multiple shots at a goal. Caroline Purslow Head of health, Challenge Works
Last week the General Medical Council reported that last year it received more than 13,000 complaints — a 25 per cent increase on the previous year. About 12,100 of those concerns were closed without the need for a full investigation into the doctor(s) in question. This shows that while doctors are working exceptionally hard to care for patients, they are operating in a system beset by systemic pressures and unable to live up to patient expectations. The whole system is interlinked. The government must not take its eye off the ball on the NHS front line as it begins the big conversation on social care. Tom Reynolds Director of policy, Medical Defence Union
Steven Fogel London NW11
There was a massive reorganisation of healthcare in the mid-1970s at which time it was suggested that social care and the NHS should be amalgamated. This idea was rejected and patients in our GP ward in the community hospital still had to wait 16-20 weeks while social services organised home care. It was chaos. In 1978, I was a member of a team of young doctors, nurses and administrators who participated in The King’s Fund study tour to Canada. One hospital we visited in Ontario had a day centre where
Should we not be encouraging the wealthy to stay here? They already contribute at least 25 per cent of tax revenue. Without them and their spending power, the country suffers. Diane Gordon Cockermouth, Cumbria
ANNIVERSARIES
Car-key ordeal
47BC Julius Caesar triumphs in the Battle of Zela (present-day Turkey) and reports to Rome: “Veni, Vidi, Vici” 1876 Wild Bill Hickok is killed during a poker game, holding what became known as the “Dead Man’s Hand” 1939 Albert Einstein sends a letter to President Roosevelt warning of Nazi plans to develop an atomic bomb
Jeremy Clarkson was lucky to be locked out of the Volvo he tried to test-drive rather than locked inside it (“It has a brain the size of a planet but it’s the stupidest car I’ve driven”, magazine, Jul 26). We found ourselves locked in our 2023 Mercedes in a Swiss car park. We had two keys but kept getting a “no key found” error message so the doors and windows remained tightly shut. After many phone calls and hours spent in a hot car without water, my husband finally found something in the manual (not under “locking”) which enabled us to escape. Beware keyless cars! Jean Ekins-Daukes Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Dog rules for life
Beard and Dream Theater. After hearing what they had to offer, a whole new vista opened up. There is a huge amount of excellent prog rock out there if you care to find it. My favourite at present is an excellent British outfit called Big Big Train but there is also Porcupine Tree, IQ, Arena, Wobbler, Amplifier and DeeExpus, to name but a few. I would say it is possibly the most vibrant genre of music around but, as in days of yore, it is not in the singles charts so it remains unknown to many. StJohn Cox Taunton, Somerset I agree with Jeremy Clarkson that there are no new Mozarts out there — but that is probably a good thing. They would have to take part in a reality TV show and stand in front of someone like Simon Cowell who would say: “Well, Wolfgang. You write decent tunes but I’m not sure about that wig.” John Hindmarsh Darlington, Co Durham
Matt Rudd’s report did much to highlight the issues associated with extreme conformation breeding in which dogs are bred for looks rather than health (“Killing by cuteness”, magazine, Jul 26). The innate health assessment is a free tool — developed by the all-party parliamentary group for animal welfare (APGAW), Royal Veterinary College and welfare organisations across the sector which allows dog breeders and buyers to check in less than a minute whether a dog has the physical foundations for a healthy life. It has already been used in more than 1,500 assessments. Vanessa Barnes Animal welfare lawyer and legal adviser to the APGAW
Prog rocks on — and on Women prisoners
Colin Sutton is right to demand the release of the majority of women serving time (“Release women to fix prisons crisis”, Jul 26). Most are in prison for non-violent offences and would not be a danger to the public. This would help to stem the early release of male prisoners who have perpetrated serious crimes and might be more likely to reoffend. Sammy Green Bourne End, Bucks
I broadly agree with Jeremy Clarkson’s analysis (“I’m going to drum up tech bro cash for a prog rock revival”, Jul 26) but he shouldn’t be confused by the inclusion of the song Nights in White Satin in the BBC Proms selection of prog classics. In 1967 the Moody Blues made the landmark album Days of Future Passed, which blended rock with full orchestral arrangements, pioneering symphonic rock. The work was an early concept album and the band’s use of the Mellotron keyboard was a huge influence on prog rock bands that emerged in the 1970s. The Moody Blues’ inclusion in the Proms set list was well earned. Duncan Craig Woodthorpe, Notts I thought that prog rock had died out as a genre years ago. However, a student teacher at the school where I teach told me about two American bands: Spock’s
CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS
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Shame about the games
The lack of free-to-air live coverage of the Commonwealth Games has made the event irrelevant. It is a crying shame for the competitors who have worked so hard to get there and deserve recognition. Ian O’Donnell Formby, Merseyside
I remember the summer of 1976 well. We spent a month in the Austrian Alps, kayaking and caving. We didn’t suffer the drought Britain did during that time.
I agree with Sophia Money-Coutts (“My rules for dog owners”, Jul 26) about keeping dogs off seats on public transport and in pubs and restaurants. Dogs don’t wipe their bottoms. Jill Davis Heacham, Norfolk
Letters should be sent to letters@sunday-times.co.uk and should arrive by midday on Thursday. Please include a full address and phone number. We may edit letters, which must be exclusive to The Sunday Times
It rained every day. Vic Brown West Thirston, Northumberland
The new racecourse at Chepstow, pleasantly situated near the picturesque Wye, will be opened this week, a two-day fixture having been arranged for Friday and Saturday. Thus will be realised the ambitions of racing enthusiasts in the west of England and south Wales. Occupying an old estate of 350 acres, and completely surrounded by a wall 8ft high, the racecourse is situated at Piercefield Park, within easy reach of several industrial centres. It is 16 miles from Newport, 28 from Cardiff, 31 from Bristol and 140 from London.
company has built a new racecourse siding and arranged for a special service of trains from Paddington, Birmingham, the Rhondda Valley and other points at reduced fares.
occasions as a symbol of the Union’s connection and friendship with the British Commonwealth of Nations.
a Welsh Derby, a Welsh Oaks and a Welsh St Leger, and more than 120 entries have been obtained for each of the three events, which will be known as the Welsh “classics”. The course has the advantage of being situated on the Great Western Railway system, and the
The way we were
As there is considerable divergence of opinion over the flag question in the Labour Party, this uncompromising declaration will probably lead to interesting developments. Dr Malan said the government intended to be as liberal as possible when stating the occasions when the Union Jack shall be flown, but South Africa must have a flag of her own that did not remind her of the past. Mr and Mrs John Broughton, of Mountfield Road, Ealing, celebrated their golden wedding yesterday, which was also Mrs Broughton’s seventy-first birthday. Recently she had her hair bobbed. Mr Broughton, who is a plasterer by trade, still works at the age of 75, and rises at seven every morning.
Dr Malan, the minister of the interior, speaking at Germiston yesterday, declared that, despite all opposition, up to date or in the future, the government would reintroduce the Flag Bill next year as it was presented last session. A commission, however, would be appointed during the recess, consisting not of politicians but of representatives of all sections of the people, to consider new designs for a national flag. Dr Malan declared that South Africa must have a national flag which would give expression to her status. Legislation would be passed stipulating that the Union Jack should be flown on certain
From The Sunday Times August 1, 1926
It occupies an old estate of 350 acres and is surrounded by a wall 8ft high
Its nearness to important training centres in Berkshire and Wiltshire is an augury of the quality of the racing to be expected. The course is twenty-seven yards wide, and has a two-mile circular track, with a straight mile. The turf is perfectly natural. Next year there will be
Two days of racing celebrate the opening of Chepstow
Camilla Long
A tide of people rushing your border is what happens if you’re not serious about migration
ABDEL MAJID BZIOUAT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
metal railings, raiding shops and then sleeping, half-naked, out in the open, were a mere HR/health and safety issue.
f any of us were in doubt about the scale of the problem facing our borders, that ended in 30 hot minutes on Thursday. Thousands of topless Moroccan men were filmed scrambling over rocks, pushing over walls and setting things on fire as they rushed into Ceuta, the
“Dangerous crossings” must not happen, she tweeted on Friday. “I tasked two commissioners to support to control the situation.”
I looked up the commissioners. One was a wet-looking Austrian ninth-tier politician, a holder of the Grand Cross of Liechtenstein. The other was a former mayor of Dubrovnik, winner of the 2006 World Mayor Award. Were they real people? It’s like sending Gareth and Dawn from The Office.
Spanish exclave in north Africa.
To watch the footage was, simply, to be boggled. How many people were in that frame? Why were they doing this? Who even were they?
And what about the people of Ceuta, a city with a population smaller than Eastbourne on the coast near Tangier, long governed by Spain? What would we do if Eastbourne was overrun by 60,000 foreign berserkers?
Europe has never been serious about stopping migration. Philosophically, it’s not its thing. Human rights — that is its only position. Effective returns of people who flood into Greece, Spain, Italy, France and so on bump along at only 28 per cent. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, whose recent policies made the rush on Ceuta possible, could not, when he addressed the press on Friday, even bring himself to utter the word “border”. Instead a “physical containment barrier” in the sea, he said, would stop migrants swimming the three miles from Morocco.
Some would argue it already has been. I’ve written a lot about Nigel Farage,
the movement of people and the threat of small boats. And, to be honest, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed doing it. You don’t have to have watched The Odyssey to know that human decency says you must at least try to welcome refugees and migrants, especially if you’re one of the richest countries in the world and they’re victims of wars you’ve started or meddled in — which is, of course, in the end, most of the wars. This has always been Europe’s position.
Thousands of people have mobbed the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa
How about telling them they simply won’t be welcome? How about seeing a huge body of random people and not automatically thinking, what can I do to make it even easier for them to enter my territory? What can I give them? A lifejacket, a cup of tea, a credit card, an SUV and a four-bedroom house in Kilburn? It was a Spanish supreme court decision last month not to summarily return people who swam to Ceuta that most likely prompted the surge.
EU official with a flakjacket they don’t even try to do the job.
an “even closer” relationship. On immigration, though, nothing.
arbitrary detention in inhuman conditions”. Similar plans by Israel (it’s always Israel) left asylum seekers in “legal limbo”.
Yet, looking at the surging crowds, I
thought: hasn’t it gone a bit far now? Europe wants us to do what? It wants us to just suck up these
Philp was mocked for running up and down the French coast, asking the gendarmerie why they were doing “absolutely nothing” to stop people-smugglers loading up hundreds on boats in front of them.
At some point, perhaps when he sees his TikToks falling off a cliff as eyeballs dart to the astonishing pictures of Moroccans marching in relentless columns across Spanish soil, he may realise that however much the EU tries to obfuscate the reality of what is happening, however much it tries to tidy it away (“50,000 have gone back now”), however much it pretends that what happened on Thursday wasn’t its Tiananmen Square — an event we can never unsee — there are only two subjects that will interest people at the next election. Money, and this.
Fear of legal limbo — is that a reason to desecrate an entire continent?
thousands of illegals, on top of the thousands who have already come here on boats this year — 752 on Wednesday alone — because it simply can’t be bothered to stop them? Or, worse, expects us to actually welcome them in, as it does? To give them free houses, taxis, mobile phones, allow scores of dependants to also come across because: human rights — when there are barely enough houses for the people who are already here, when taxes are this high, when the NHS is messy, dysfunctional and killing people?
These politicians are consumed by madness and guilt. They are embarrassed by Europe’s wealth, its global standing and its relative ease of life. They feel it is their mission to tear this down by waving in thousands of people who shouldn’t be here. And those people know this, which is why thousands still tip up in Italy each month, to Giorgia Meloni’s horror. Sánchez himself has said that Spain plans to regularise 500,000 migrants. This will tear Europe apart.
“Our order is to let them go like that,” shrugged one. “We just have to say to them, don’t do that, it’s dangerous.”
These people aren’t refugees, by the way, or asylum seekers. They’re economic migrants, chancing it. As one of them put it, when the border’s down they’ll try anything, because: “Salaries are very low in Morocco. It’s dead, Morocco is dead.”
As I said: mere health and safety. The strange thing about migration is
that it should be the easiest thing in the world to manage. There is nothing more simple than securing the borders of one’s country. Yet many politicians seem unable to speak on this matter. Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary — all tongue-tied.
These people aren’t refugees they’re economic migrants, chancing it
For them, Ceuta’s a jaunty day trip. Any serious attempt to deal with the
The longer Burnham prevaricates and utters soundbites, the longer Labour tries to pretend the matter is in hand, the more people will come across, the more our seaside towns will be destroyed, the more stories will leak out about migrants bringing over 18 family members and/or raping people. Is he ready for it?
many millions who flood in is resisted with psychotic anger in the European parliament. Its recent plan to sanction “return hubs” was met with scorn. One commissioner said that “extraterritorial centres” had bad human rights records. Australia’s plans led to “years of
Are we just expected to take it? For Ursula von der Leyen, the useless,
Some arrivals will head out of Spain and go north, attracted by our free healthcare, education system and free houses. We pay the French £662 million to stop them coming here from Calais, but, as shadow home secretary Chris Philp found out on Tuesday, like every
On other subjects, the prime minister won’t shut up: poetry, tea, pubs, education, bus fares, electricity, who he’s going tax, the finer details of his feelings on going to Cambridge. On Europe, he couldn’t be clearer: he wants
robo-haired functionary at the top of the European Commission, the answer is yes. She couldn’t have cared less about the Ceuta stampede. At most, for her, thousands of gleeful men romping up
Tom Calver Go figure
For many British parents, employment increasingly doesn’t pay
ame-day nappy deliveries from Amazon, 24-7 parenting tips on YouTube, government childcare subsidies, paternity leave that lasts longer than an afternoon. On paper, this should be the best era in history to start a family. So
case. In fact, the opposite is true. After decades of progress, these essential items now take up a higher share of spending than they did 20 years ago.
Tax rate for married couple with two children as a percentage of their income
The story for parents since 2007 has been more hours of work but less luxury to show for it. Take these two trends and the picture is bleak. In the mid-2000s, an hour of work by a parent resulted in £22 of family spending. Today, that same total is £15. In other words, the value of a parent doing an hour of work has dropped by a third.
Our writers and experts have every age and stage covered, helping you and your family survive and thrive this summer.
UK OECD France US
Germany
40%
why, as many parents will tell you loudly — does it not feel like that?
Average earnings
30
Unfortunately, decades of ONS data leads to an uncomfortable truth: when it comes to the world of work, today’s parents get a far worse economic deal than the one available to their parents. While the average full-time worker is doing fewer hours than half a century ago, parents are actually spending more time than ever in paid work.
20
10
EXPERT ADVICE
Two things compound this feeling that work doesn’t pay. The first is that for parents, the gap between working households and out-of-work households has shrunk. Back in 2008, in-work parents spent about 80 per cent more than out-of-work parents. Today, that gap is just 50 per cent.
0
−10
It’s not my fault if my child won’t eat vegetables
How to raise resilient children in an age of convenience
−20
% of average earnings in each country
50% 100 150 200 250
Fifty years ago, most two-parent households had just one earner. One salary was often enough to fund a house, car and provisions for multiple children. In 1983, the average two-parent family did 42 hours of work a week, most of it falling on dad. Over time, this figure has increased. Two earners in one family are now the norm. The average household with kids works for about 52 hours a week. Women have swapped strenuous, unpaid household chores for a salary.
OECD = average across all OECD countries Sources: OECD
The second kick in the teeth is Britain’s approach to taxing families. As I have previously noted, the tax bill for the average worker has actually fallen since the early 1990s. For parents, who tend to earn a little more, increasingly out of necessity, that bill has instead grown. OECD data suggests that British parents in the top half of the income spectrum pay some way above the international average.
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does not show if we are saving slightly more than we were, whether in the form of property, pensions or cash. Furthermore, a lot of “discretionary” items — household appliances, TVs, computers — have become much cheaper since the 2000s, meaning we get more of them for less money. But for many of the big, important parts of the household budget such as food, housing and childcare, this has not been the
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The result of two paycheques instead of one would, you’d expect, be an explosion in living standards. Sure enough, families in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s suddenly enjoyed a big boost to their quality of living. Between 1977 and 2007, the total spent by a twoparent family roughly doubled from £500 to £1,000 a week in today’s money. Most of that gain was in “discretionary” spending: non-essential things such as holidays, household goods and the other fun stuff that make life worth living. But the growth in living standards stopped, and then went into reverse. Remarkably, adjusted for inflation, household spending today is actually 20 per cent lower than it was in 2007.
This is partly due to our “progressive” system: high earners disproportionately foot the tax bill, compared with rival nations.
NEWMAN’S VIEW
But two other features bring an extra sting: the withdrawal of child benefit for earners on £60,000 to £80,000 for a marginal tax rate of 49, 54 or 58 per cent, depending on how many kids you have; and the brutal cliff edge when 30 weekly hours of government-funded childcare are withdrawn if one parent earns a penny over £100,000. A Londonbased parent with two young children paying for 50 hours of childcare is better off earning £99,000 than £140,000.
How to get your children reading
this summer
Extra hours from a second income used to make families richer. This relationship is now no longer obvious.
What happened? As we know, real incomes stagnated after the financial crisis. Consumer spending regained some momentum by the late 2010s but then fell drastically in the pandemic, prompted by changing habits and fears of running out of cash. In real terms, we are spending far less than we were.
Governments have limited control over household spending and have failed miserably to grow the economy, but they can at least control taxation. Smoothing out these tax traps for parents would cost little, and be a signal that it does pay to work — a message that has, in recent decades, been lost.
Visit the Parenting hub for expert advice and personal stories
thetimes.com/parenting
Household spending is far from a perfect measure of living standards. It
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SAKURO
Across
1 Nationality of a person from Timbuktu (6) 4 Original meaning of the South African term “Boer” (6) 8 “The smallest ____ shows there is really no death” (Song of
Myself, Walt Whitman) (6)
15 St Michael’s Tower is near the summit of Glastonbury ____ (3)
5 HR Giger’s “xenomorphs” in a film franchise (6)
7 Flower with varieties such as cabbage and musk (4)
17 Animal such as Albert II, the first primate in space (6,6)
20 Venomous North American black and pink lizards (4,8)
9 Many small toothed whales are called ____ (9)
12 US State through which the San Andreas Fault runs (10) 16 Biggest city in Picardy, home of a gothic cathedral which is
23 Ohio university where National Guard soldiers shot students protesting against the Vietnam war in 1970 (4,5)
Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so that the number in each circle is equal to the sum of the four surrounding spaces, and each colour total is correct.
France’s largest cathedral (6)
Centre (5,5) 28 Egyptian president assassinated in 1981 (5,5) 31 Cortina d’Ampezzo is in this Italian mountain range (9)
33 Technical term for animals such as Kermit inThe Muppets(9)
25 Albus Dumbledore and Mrs McClusky, for example (4,8) 27 Therapists who manipulate muscle and bone (10)
CELL BLOCKS
37 Ambiguous symmetrical ____ are used in Rorschach tests (3-5)
29 Seaside location for most Alan Ayckbourn premieres (11)
30 Italian artist known for elongated forms, who worked mainly in Paris (10) (pictured)
40 José ____ was the youngest of the Three Tenors (8)
41 Actress who played Regan’s mother inThe Exorcist(1973) (5,7)
43 Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, was a ____ (3)
32 French entertainer Monsieur ____ once ate a Cessna 150
aeroplane, over a period of about two years (9)
35 The Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 was caused by one of these seaborne cataclysms (8)
38 Data point far from the median in a statistical sample (7)
Divide the grid into square or rectangular blocks, each containing one digit only. Every block must contain the number of cells indicated by the digit inside it.
42 Sea creature such as Keiko, the fictional Willy in a 1993 Hollywood film (4)
Each row, column and 3x3 box must contain digits 1-9. Winner receives The Bumper Book of Sudoku, 20th anniversary edition, and two other Sudoku books.
Each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 to 9. The digits within each group of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the figure in the topleft-hand corner of each group. Within each dotted-line group, a digit cannot be repeated.
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From these letters, make words of four or more letters, always including the central letter. Answers must be in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives and superlatives. How you rate
25 words, average; 34, good; 40, very good; 47, excellent.
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John Grimshaw
Down
1 Writer with style on Shergar topic (12) 10 A fish jelly containing
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
seaweed (4)
9 10
11 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22 23
24
25 26
22 What help to see trainee
trained (7)
11 Number joining United is
24 Hammer round head of
27
making this irrelevant (11) 15 What’s regularly seen in
castle nut (5)
26 Overproduce very good cheese? That got pared back (11)
summer, English duck (4)
NAME ................................................................................... ADDRESS ...................................................................................
NAME ................................................................................... ADDRESS ...................................................................................
28 Expert who rings
unknown glacial stage (4)
1 Long (8)
...................................................................................
...................................................................................
35 Reactionary told about Republican grandma welcoming English returning (12)
7 Architectural style (5)
difficult to crack up — hard going (6)
Across
Down
Post your solution to The Sunday Times Mephisto 3440, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ, or email puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk
25 Charles meeting friend in
1 A posh roll? (8,7)
a near-to-hand joint (6)
The first correct solution picked at random after next Saturday wins Collins World Atlas: Complete Edition, worth £30.The next four will receive £20 Waterstones gift vouchers. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
27 Always rounding one up, as rustlers did once over the border (5)
13 Get-out (8)
— cause to stop going (4)
30 Measure sound from European fighter aircraft (4)
21 Wading bird colony (7)
23 Predict (8)
15 Infrequently (6)
The Chambers Dictionary 13th edition is the primary reference. Readers ay email comments or queries to puzzle.feedback@sunday-times.co.uk
20 Desiccated (4)
TETONORMODERATE
15 One illuminating bit of report Network 10 screens (7)
16 350
260
45
17 Greek character in record store close to town (7)
14 Royals are toppled in revolutionary period (5,4)
19 Cloth suits one found in British haberdashers? (7)
In the grid, each number represents a letter of the alphabet — all 26 letters are used. Use the initial clues in the code table to work out the rest of the code. STUCK? To get four random extra letter clues, call 0901 293 6266 (ROI 1514 415128) or text STCLUE to 64343 (UK only). Calls cost £1 (ROI 75c) plus your telephone company’s network access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (ROI 0818 205 403) (Mon-Fri 9am5.30pm).
16 Cycles taken out of
45
260
16 350
134 42
39
60
housing development (9)
22 Heroin is rubbish (4)
19 Shoes villain gets in black (small-sized) (7)
25 Most unproductive field next to den (7)
60
39
134 42
57
69 432 23
21 Speak slowly and at length
and inspire learner (5)
69 432 23
57
500
320 48
36
36
320 48
500
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All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In each thick-line “block”, the target number in the top left-hand corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block, using the operation indicated by the symbol.
2 3 10 10 20 25 26 67
2 3 10 10 20 25 26 67
Each number in the main grid can be formed by adding or multiplying a pair of numbers in the strip below the grid. Each pair of numbers should be used twice: once as part of an addition and once as part of a multiplication. For example, a 10 and 24 in the main grid may be solved by the sums, 4 + 6 and 4 x 6, respectively. Enter each sum in the boxes below its answer. Any blanks in the strip must be deduced, bearing in mind the numbers are listed in ascending order.
Winner 2134: Elizabeth Manning, Malvern, Worcestershire Stethoscope: Doctor starts to examine OAP’s chest and opts for this
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Jeremy
Even if I have the worst hangover in the world, I have to haul myself out of bed in the morning to feed them, and even if I’m knackered after a hard day at work, I have to take them for an evening walk. On top of this, I am expected to shell out thousands of pounds in vet bills every time they are ill, and if they have a nighttime back bottom accident, I am also expected to put on a pair of rubber gloves and deal with it.
s I’m sure you’ve heard, there are now more than a million young people in this country who are not working. They’re not even looking for work. They’re just sitting at home all day, gormlessly watching shortform nonsense on their
Clarkson A
Make them write
thank-you notes to those of us who get up and go to work
massive vulgarsonic televisions.
And what makes this especially dispiriting is that if they’ve got ants in their pants, or ADHD as it’s now called, or some other head-based issue with an acronym, the state will give them up to £194 a week. Which is £100 more than they’d get if they got off their arses and did some kind of part-time work in the local shop.
Is it barking to ask benefit claimants to be as grateful as my dogs?
They are the uber benefits scroungers, and there’s more. Sometimes, I have to dispatch a partially mauled muntjac that one of them has proudly brought into the kitchen. And then, every single night, after it goes dark, they let themselves out of the house, which they can do because while they can’t feed themselves, they can operate door handles, and bark endlessly at absolutely nothing at all.
person who is getting up and going to work every day. And they are told that unless a proper and genuine email is sent, thanking the working person for their generosity, the benefits will stop. And I’m not talking about a cursory “thanks mate”. I want fulsomeness. I want to hear what they’ve done with the £194 I gave them that week. And I want effusiveness as well. I want to feel their gratitude. “It is SO kind of you to go to work every day so that I don’t have to. Thanks to you I was able to buy an even bigger television this week.”
To pay for this largesse, and all the other benefits that are available these days, Rachel Reeves put taxes up in her first budget to their highest level ever. She said at the time this massive £40 billion raid would be a one-time hit and that we could rest assured she wouldn’t be back for more. But a year later, she helped herself to another £26 billion. And now the Labourites are making noises about social care. Which means yet more multibillion-pound tax rises are on the horizon.
And what do I get in return for all this noise, shit, blood and expense? Gratitude. That’s what. And tons of it. They are genuinely pleased to see me every morning and to demonstrate that, they jump up and down, wag their tails and run round in little circles. And if I throw a ball for them or take them to the lake so they can have a swim, they are palpably grateful. You can see it in their eyes.
This way, the communists in the Labour Party would be happy because the benefits are still being paid. And the taxpayer will feel a bit better too because they’re at least being thanked.
working. And that this money should be taken in taxes from those who are pretty, or clever, or lucky. They were even talking last week about taxing people who are dead.
Jeremy Clarkson says his dogs are the ultimate benefit scroungers
Naturally, this is causing those who do work to feel a bit miffed*. They get up in the morning and, having put in a tenhour shift, feel resentful that a quarter of their pay is taken away by the state and given to their next-door neighbour, who’s spent all day watching Ladies Who Lunch Below Deck in Cheshire.
Which is what gave me my big idea. At present, people who work hard, feed, clothe and entertain those who won’t work at all. And what do we get in return? Nothing.
There might be another benefit as well. When I was forced to write thank you letters to my aunts and uncles for the presents they’d given me at Christmas, I did used to think that the misery of the enforced letter writing outweighed the joy I’d got from the (usually awful) presents. On that basis, some of the young benefits people might decide, while being forced to effusively thank someone for the cash they received that week, that they don’t have a head-based neurodivergence issue after all and that they’d rather get a job.
All of which brings us on to Andy Burnham. He’s in the hot seat now and plainly, he’s decided to adopt a reasonable approach. He’s been making approximately 15,000 TikTok videos every day, saying that he likes footy and a pint and that he’s from the north so that when the tax rises come, we all nod and say, “You seem to be a decent fellow so that’s fine by us”.
So how’s this for a plan? Burnham appeases his back benches by saying that taxes will rise to pay for those who are incapacitated by some kind of issue with neurodivergence. And then he appeases us by insisting we get something in return. Which is a thank you letter.
So what’s to be done? Well there’s no point writing letters and moaning, because so long as the Labourites are in power, the benefits bill is only going one way. The Yazz way. Sir Starmer tried to cut it back a bit but was forced into one of his many U-turns by backbenchers who firmly believe that it’s every person’s right to get money for not
It’s very simple. Every week, when the benefits are paid, the recipient is given the email address of a randomly selected
Well, on that front, I have a suggestion for him. I share my house with three dogs and my God, they’re a lot of work.
*Not Gary Lineker, obviously
means the product of those two values (although 1 is never used as a minor here). The value of the whole expression is the sum of all products and all the other individual values. So an English-ish example, with all “majors” underlined, would be “thousand six ten six” for 1066.
mean different positive whole numbers called “minor” or “major”. All minors have lower values than all majors. In the counting name for a number, two minors never occur in succession, and the majors occur in order of strictly decreasing value (so majors cannot be repeated). A minor followed by a major
Colin Vout As Easy As One, Two, Three telladom shoodlat quoz veedku quoz means 87. rimjy veedku rimjy ump telladom means 50.
Send your solution to: The Sunday Times Teaser 3332, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ or email puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The first two correct solutions opened after next Saturday each win a £20 Waterstones voucher. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
Amsterdam 28C f Athens 31 s Auckland 13 s Bangkok 32 f Barcelona 32 s Beijing 36 th Belgrade 38 s Berlin 25 f Bogota 17 sh Boston 29 f Brussels 33 f Budapest 38 sh Buenos Aires 16 f Cairo 40 s Calgary 24 f Cape Town 23 f Caracas 29 th Casablanca 33 s Chicago 24 sh Dubai 40 f Dublin 19 sh Geneva 35 s Gibraltar 35 s Guatemala 28 sh Helsinki 22 f Hong Kong 26 th Istanbul 28 s Jersey 25 f Johannesburg 18 s La Paz 13 sh Lagos 26 r Lima 21 f Lisbon 28 f
London 29C f Los Angeles 36 s Madrid 38 f Mexico City 26 th Miami 32 th Moscow 30 f Nairobi 22 sh New Delhi 38 th New Orleans 36 th New York 29 sh Oslo 21 f Panama 30 th Paris 35 f Prague 28 f Rio de Janeiro 27 s Rome 38 f San Francisco 18 f Santiago 13 sh Seoul 35 f Seychelles 26 sh Singapore 30 th Stockholm 22 f Sydney 18 s Tel Aviv 32 s Tenerife 31 s Tokyo 34 th Toronto 20 sh Trinidad 32 th Tunis 40 s Venice 36 s Vienna 32 f Warsaw 25 f Washington DC 30 sh
Counting is quite easy in this traditional dialect. Words
4
13
moderate
Sally Brock
This was an interesting board from our match against Scotland in the Lady Milne Trophy.
The British Championships begin this weekend at Warwick University, with the country’s leading names in action. Yet the most eagerly watched player will be just 11 years old.
West North East South
1NT
19
7
slight
West led the two of hearts to East’s king, declarer unblocking the jack. East switched to a diamond, ducked by declarer, to West’s ten, and the queen of diamonds was returned which declarer won. With the ace of spades singleton, and the red suits as they were declarer could have succeeded easily enough by playing a spade. But she did not know that and thought her best chance was to run her clubs and hope to read the ending. On the clubs West and dummy discarded three spades, while East threw a diamond. Now declarer took a heart finesse, cashed the ace of hearts and exited with a spade. East had to win and play the king of diamonds and another diamond to give declarer her ninth trick.
NS vulnerable, Dealer South
♠ Q J 9 8 5 ♥ A 10 9 4
Bodhana Sivanandan arrives fresh from a historic performance in France. She defeated Marc’Andria Maurizzi, the reigning French champion, before earning her first International Master norm. In doing so, she became the youngest girl ever to achieve the feat, surpassing Judit Polgar’s record.
19
Bodhana has a polished style, generally favouring endgames or simplified positions. Her tactical vision is sharp too.28 b4!The black knight is trapped.28…Qxb4 29 Nd5! A discovered attack with a zwischenzug twist. Out of nowhere, Black’s position falls apart.29…Qxb2 29...Qxe1 30 Nxf6+ Kf8 31 Nxd7+ Nxd7 32 Rxe1 leaves White a rook up. 30 Rxb2 Bxb2 31 Nb6 Rc7 32 Qb4 Now a double attack.32… Bg7 33 Qxg4 Nd7 34 Nc4 Nf6 35 Qe2 Nd5 36 Nd6 Rd7 37 Ne4 Nc3 38 Nxc3 Bxc3 39 Qc4 Black resigns White threatens both 40 Qxc3 and 40 Qc8+.
♦ 7 4 ♣ J 3
♠ K 6 4 3 2
♠ A
N W E S
♥ Q 7 6 2
♥ K 5 3
22
♦ Q 10
♦ K 9 6 5 3
♣ 7 2
♣ 10 9 6 4
17
♠ 10 7
♥ J 8
♦ A J 8 2
♣ A K Q 8 5
29
12
Comparisons with the legendary Polgar should not be made lightly, but Bodhana’s progress is extraordinary. Already Britain’s top female player, she is a generational talent. The future looks bright.
The young English pair, Dido Coley and Lily Kearney, bid rather too aggressively at one table:
slight
26
slight
7
UK and Ireland forecast Dry and warm or hot with sunny spells over England, Wales and the south of Scotland. Some dry and sunny spells at first over Ireland, otherwise cloud and rain will spread eastwards, most persistent in the west. Sunny spells and a few isolated showers in northern Scotland. Light and variable winds over most of the British Isles, but moderate easterly winds in eastern areas during the afternoon
1NT 2 ♣ * Dble 2 ♥ Dble All Pass
Key c cloud, dr drizzle, ds dust storm, f fair, fg fog, g gales, h hail, m mist, r rain, sh showers, sl sleet, sn snow, s sun, th thunder, w windy
White: Bodhana Sivanandan Black: Marc’Andria Maurizzi Dole Open, Aix-en-Provence 2026 Sicilian Defence
West’s two clubs showed both majors, and was a little fruity, even at the favourable vulnerability. South’s double was for take-out and North was happy to pass for penalties. After a top club lead, South switched to a spade. Trying to scramble as many tricks as possible, declarer played a diamond to the queen and a low diamond back. South won and played a second spade, ruffed by declarer, who then ruffed a diamond, overruffed by North.
20
London, SE England Dry, sunny and hot. Light to moderate easterly winds. Max 30C. Tonight, mainly clear skies. Min 15C Midlands, E England Dry with sunny spells. Light to moderate easterly winds. Max 29C. Tonight, clear spells. Min 14C Channel Is, SW and Cent S England, S Wales Dry with warm spells of sunshine. Light and variable winds. Max 28C. Tonight, clear spells. Min 10C N Wales, NW England, Isle of Man Dry with sunny spells at first but cloud increasing later. Light and variable winds. Max 24C. Tonight, a few showers. Min 10C Cent N and NE England Sunny spells and staying dry, but cloud increasing. Light and variable winds. Max 25C. Tonight, a few showers. Min 11C Scotland A few showers in the north, otherwise dry. Mainly light and
♠ 10 8 6
♥ A K J
♦ Q 6
34
25
♣ Q J 10 5 4
♠ Q 9 7 4 2
36
N W E S
♥ 5 3
♦ K J 9 8
41
Kantor-Nepomniachtchi, Aixen-Provence 2026. White has extra material, but his rooks are skewered. What is the only move that keeps a winning advantage?
♣ K 7
35
38
32
34 38
38
Your opponents bid 1NT — 3NT and you lead the four of spades.
After a bit of cross-ruffing by North-South, declarer ended up three down. So the question was whether Nevena Senior could make her game in the other room. The bidding was:
32
34
South wins with the jack, plays a heart to dummy and runs the queen of clubs to your king. Now what?
31
38
Send your solution (first move only), to Sunday Times Spot the Move 1543, The Sunday Times, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ, or email to puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The first correct answer drawn after next Saturday wins a £20 Waterstones voucher. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
¬ A dry and hot day with plenty of sunshine across Portugal, Spain, France, Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova, Germany and the Low Countries ¬ Sunny spells and the risk of a few showers or thunderstorms over Italy, the Pyrenees, the Alps, Slovakia, southern Poland
and the Czech Republic ¬ The risk of a few spots of rain from thicker cloud in the Baltic states and northern Poland at first, otherwise it will be a dry day with sunny spells and areas of cloud ¬ Sunny spells and scattered showers in Finland, Norway and northern Sweden, but drier over Denmark and southern Sweden
Solution next week.
LAST WEEK’S SOLUTIONS
WEATHER
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE JUMBO CROSSWORD 537
Across: 1 Assists, 5 Caliph, 8 Vacuum, 13 Glutamate, 14 Tonsillitis, 15 Arthur Dent, 16 Aguecheek,
CODEWORD
SUDOKU WARM-UP
Across: 1 Mislucks, 7 Paan, 10 Uxorially, 11 Larns, 13 Snail, 14 Klatsch, 16 Rife, 17 Chinampa,
21
22
14
13
13
SUN, STREET LIGHTS & MOON
29
27
25
20
20
19
Sun rises
Sun sets/ lights on
Lights off
Moon rises
Moon sets
KENKEN
SUDOKU 1702
Across: 1 Cheeky, 5 Sit tight, 9 Free spirit, 10 Silk, 11 Hootch, 13 No longer, 14 Treasure Island, 16 Conversational, 18 Bacteria, 20 Ration, 21 Sign, 22 Eliminated, 24 Immortal, 25 Preens Down: 2 Harbour, 3 Eyestrain, 4 Yap, 5 Springer spaniel, 6 Totalisator, 7 Ibsen, 8 Halberd, 12 House arrest, 15 About-face, 16 Cranium, 17 Apogean, 19 Tango, 23 Imp
32
30
27
Aberdeen 05:08 21:20 05:10 22:04 11:18(Mon) Belfast 05:36 21:23 05:38 22:21 11:31(Mon) Birmingham 05:29 20:58 05:30 22:06 11:11(Mon) Bristol 05:36 20:57 05:37 22:09 11:13(Mon) Cardiff 05:38 20:59 05:39 22:12 11:16(Mon) Cork 05:57 21:22 05:59 22:33 11:38(Mon) Dublin 05:43 21:19 05:45 22:23 11:31(Mon) Glasgow 05:24 21:22 05:25 22:14 11:26(Mon) London 05:26 20:47 05:27 21:59 11:03(Mon) Manchester 05:26 21:03 05:28 22:07 11:14(Mon) Newcastle 05:17 21:07 05:19 22:04 11:13(Mon) Norwich 05:16 20:46 05:17 21:53 10:58(Mon) Plymouth 05:46 20:59 05:47 22:16 11:19(Mon)
2
15
19
Monday Hot, dry and sunny in the south but rain in the north. Max 32C
Tuesday Cloud and rain in the north and west but drier in the south. Max 32C
Wednesday Long spells of rain in the north, but showers further south. Max 27C
CONCISE CROSSWORD 2001
Across: 1 Mechanic, 5 Loaf, 9 Southend-on-Sea, 10 Sprog, 11 Ate up, 12 Ovine, 14 Clyde, 16 Sinew, 17 Niece, 19 Incriminating, 21 Side, 22 Amethyst Down: 1 Musical chairs, 2 Courtesy, 3 Ash, 4 Ignore, 6 Oust, 7 Featherweight, 8 Mongoose, 10 Splendid, 13 Ignominy, 15 Tedium, 18 Iced, 20 Apt
1…Qxf2! wins. For example: 2 Qe1 (2 Rxf2 Rd1+) 2…Ng3+ 3 hxg3 Rh5 mate
43
KILLER SUDOKU
TETONOR
9
14
8
TODAY’S SOLUTIONS
18
19
18
84 320 35 234 94 42
210 31
SAKURO CELL BLOCKS
93 + 1 12 + 30 21 x 10 80 + 4
anew, arrow, barrow, bawn, bower, brainpower, braw, brawn, brew, brow, brown, brownie, enwrap, ironware, narrow, owner, pawn, power, prawn, prow, rainbow, rewrap, rowan, rowen, rower, wain, wane, ware, warn, warner, warp, warper, warren, wean, weapon, wear, webinar, weir, wine, wino, wipe, wiper, wire, wirer, worn, wrap, wren
20
24
23
20
19
18
21 + 10 4 x 80 9 + 26 9 x 26
26
25
26
NIGHT SKY
Venus, brilliant, stands very low in the W at sunset tonight and sets itself about 75 minutes later. By midnight, the summer Triangle, formed by the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair, stands high on the meridian. The Moon is low in the ESE, 14° above-right of Saturn. Catch the Moon directly above Saturn tomorrow night and above Mars next Sunday morning. Alan Pickup
270 93 37 216 49 138 360 30
10
8
8
30 x 12 12 + 18 10 x 27 1 x 93
Saturday Warm spells of sunshine but also the risk of showers. Max 26C
Friday Mainly dry and sunny but a few showers in the north. Max 25C
Thursday Warm, dry and
27 + 10 12 x 18 3 + 46 3 x 46
sunny in the south but showers in the north. Max 26C
1 3 4 9 10 10 12 12 18 21 26 27 30 46 80 93
Winners Crossword 5225 D Branchflower, Storrington, West Sussex, G Graham, London SW14, S Kershaw, London NW7, S Rowlands, Pontllanfraith, Caerphilly Mephisto 3438
020826BRIDGE3.indd 1 18/06/2026 17:16:38
August 2, 2026 thetimes.com/sport
CLAUDIO THOMA/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
SPORTS NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR
On
borrowed
Infantino is likely to be asked
to resign at an emergency Fifa
council meeting and is scrambling
to establish support
time
6 No confidence in Infantino, declares Uefa
6 Support collapsing after sell-off plan fails
6 Americans want Fifa leadership ‘reckoning’
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter they had lost confidence in Infantino. In a stinging statement, which the English FA said it supported, Uefa described the scheme as a “shabby, back-room, opaque deal he [Infantino] hatched and tried to force through”. It added: “The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”
ship that has stopped putting football first. This recent unilateral and egregious act of poor governance and leadership follows a pattern of missteps and similar behaviour.”
gone. The task of rebuilding trust in Fifa has only just begun.”
are said to be targeting individual associations to try to gather a base of support.
A spokeswoman for the FA said: “We fully support Uefa’s position. It is time for a full and robust review of Fifa’s leadership and governance to ensure that the global game is run transparently, for the benefit of all 211 member nations and with the long-term stewardship of football at its heart.”
Gianni Infantino’s opponents will step up efforts to force the Fifa president to resign after Uefa and the FA condemned his collapsed attempt to sell off a stake in the World Cup to private investors as a “shabby, back-room, opaque deal”.
Another possibility is that 43 of Fifa’s 211 members call an emergency congress and stage a vote of no confidence. Potential challengers include the Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, the Asian football president Sheikh Salman and the Paris SaintGermain president Nasser Al Khelaifi. There may also be support for a less high-profile candidate who has support from across the various continents. One senior football source
Uefa led the way in opposing the plan with its 55 members, including the FA, agreeing on Thursday to boycott all Fifa competitions. “We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,” it said yesterday. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account. This is a victory for the whole game. But it must not be the end of the story. The proposal has
Infantino, 56, could have made tens of millions of pounds from the “Fifa Forward Enterprise” scheme (FFE) and is trying desperately to cling on to power, but his support is flooding away, sources have said.
Concacaf, which governs the north and central American associations, plus the Caribbean, called for a “comprehensive reckoning” with Infantino’s presidency. “A proposal of this magnitude does not reach that stage by accident,” Concacaf said in a statement. “It is a symptom of leader-
Infantino is likely to face an emergency Fifa council meeting in which he will be asked to resign, and if he refuses then a single candidate with the backing of all of his opponents would be put up to challenge him in next year’s election. Infantino’s allies
After the collapse of his plan on Friday, the FA and Uefa, European football’s governing body, said that
CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
• Stuart Barnes Why no Englishman makes my World XV page 17
• Mike Brearley What I made of ‘Clicky Ponting’ page 12
• Tom Pidcock British cyclist opens up to David Walsh about his future pages 8-9
• Jude meets José How will Bellingham gel with new Real manager Mourinho? pages 6-7
Football
half-time intervals to 15 minutes. By that time, the crescendo of criticism over the rising cost of World Cup tickets because of dynamic pricing was growing. Apart from some windowdressing, Infantino took no action. Those prices continued to rise, and so did Fifa’s estimates of incoming revenue — another attraction for those potential investors.
card in their win over Bosnia-Herzegovina. Fifa’s disciplinary committee chairman, Mohammad Al Kamali, of the United Arab Emirates, sat alone in judgment of the case and lifted the ban — a decision that had never been seen before in a World Cup.
A senior Fifa insider told The Sunday Times it was “ludicrous to even think” that Infantino had not been involved in the decision and that the staff in the disciplinary department were appalled by what had happened. Infantino insisted publicly that he had no involvement in the Balogun affair.
had crow-barred Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami team into the first Club World Cup without any sort of qualification process.
A month before the World Cup started, there was another plus for the sell-off plan: the public investment fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, indebted to Infantino for delivering them the 2034 World Cup, announced a lucrative sponsorship deal for the tournament.
MARTYN ZIEGLER
On Tuesday Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter for The Times and The Sunday Times, broke the story about Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup — sparking a fierce reaction across the global game and setting in motion the collapse of the Fifa president’s plans
What we now know is that Infantino was already deeply involved in top-secret discussions with Joshua Kushner, the billionaire venture capitalist who is the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a longterm ally of the Fifa president. The subject of those discussions was Kushner buying a stake in the World Cup and other Fifa tournaments and commercialising the life out of them.
Yet it served a purpose: showing his potential future paymasters what could be achieved to make the World Cup more marketable.
n November, Cristiano Ronaldo attended a glittering gala dinner at the White House as a guest of Donald Trump along with the Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
I
Even once the tournament had started, only a small clique of confidants had been let in on the secret scheme, but Infantino started to let slip what was in his mind.
Infantino had originally planned to announce his sell-off scheme and the establishment of Fifa Forward Enterprises (FFE) at a breakfast at New York’s Waldorf Astoria for national association presidents on the eve of the World Cup final, but it was decided that the time was not right. Some say he was rattled by the huge rift with Uefa over the Balogun affair The Times revealed that the Norwegian federation was to make a formal ethics complaint about political interference in the case.
The superstar player posted a selfie on Instagram from the dinner with a group behind him: Elon Musk was in the picture along with Trump’s AI chief
“After 2031 we can make a serious amount of money here,” he told one associate, referring to the date he envisaged his presidential term coming to an end. When he was jokingly asked about whether his $6 million (about £4.4 million) salary was enough, Infantino replied: “No, I’m
talking a serious amount.” Two thirds of the way through the tournament, Infantino was presented with another disciplinary dilemma. Trump called to remonstrate about the USA’s star striker Folarin Balogun being banned for their round-of-16 clash against Belgium after he had received a red
Sources with knowledge of the talks said Jared Kushner had originally been involved too, but had taken a back seat.
David Sacks, the US secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Ronaldo’s fiancée, Georgina Rodriguez. At the back was Infantino, already a White House regular, looking delighted to be in such company.
Nevertheless, the Ronaldo decision was one that Infantino could put in a virtual brochure to private investors. The simple message was that the commercial success of the World Cup will override such petty affairs as standard disciplinary sanctions.
Infantino’s most recent public appearance came on Thursday in Morocco, where he was hosted by King Mohammed VI
The following week, Fifa announced that Ronaldo would have two matches of his three-game ban for violent conduct while playing for Portugal against Ireland suspended by Fifa’s disciplinary committee. It was an unprecedented move and meant that he would be available to play in the opening two matches of the World Cup, which he had been expected to miss.
Infantino was to be the chairman of the new enterprise initially, and sources with knowledge of the scheme say the intention was for him to become the chief executive or commissioner after the conclusion of his presidency. The basic salary before any bonuses was to be $30million a year. Fifa insist that idea was never discussed.
Two weeks later, Infantino was back in Washington DC, simpering as he presented Trump with the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize, created for the sole purpose of ingratiating himself further with the American president.
Fifa also announced there would be three-minute hydration breaks in every World Cup match in the middle of each half — potential for future sponsorship and TV advertising. A Super Bowl-style half-time show for the final was also announced, totally ignoring Fifa’s own rules, which limit
The prospect of such wealth must have been almost unimaginable for a man who often speaks of his humble origins. Infantino’s parents were Italian immigrants to Switzerland who worked in low-paid jobs on the railways. The Fifa president has previously detailed the hostility and xeno-
Fifa never published the written reasons for its decision. The suspicion was that Infantino, 56, had waved his magic wand to ensure one of the star attractions would be playing in the tournament from the start, just as he
He first worked for the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) in Neuchâtel before joining the legal department at Uefa, where he developed his political instincts and worked his way up to becoming general secretary.
He also soon displayed his love of being around famous players, stars and world leaders. His Instagram account — he has a member of staff who follows him around taking pictures — is on a heavy diet of such encounters.
Those who have worked with Infantino say he appeared to believe he should enjoy a similar, starry lifestyle. Fifa’s security requests for its president only add to that image: in April, Canadian police declined when asked to give him the same kind of transport privileges usually reserved for the US president and only one level down from the Pope.
inevitable appearances on the big screens.
In the final days of the tournament, Infantino let it be known that Fifa would “definitely” consider expanding what to many was already a bloated competition of 48 teams to 64. To some, that was yet another apple in the World Cup’s Garden of Eden to tempt private investors.
Infantino was in the right place at the right time in 2016, when Europe was casting around for a viable candidate for the Fifa presidency after the Uefa president, Michel Platini, was mired in scandal. It was, however, a selection that Europe has often had cause to regret.
Sources say he ensured Fifa’s sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways included a value-in-kind element for a private jet that he uses for the vast majority of his travel — the cost of which never appears in Fifa’s accounts.
But after the Ronaldo decision, the peace prize farce, sky-high ticket prices, hydration breaks and the Balogun scandal, the football world has had enough.
He displayed his love of being around famous stars and world leaders
Infantino’s promises of transparency and good governance appeared to fall by the wayside as he pursued more money and more power for Fifa. His own salary also soared and he began to curry favour with those he believed to underwrite his expansion plans, particularly Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
The World Cup sell-off was kicked into touch: now it seems it will be only a matter of time before Infantino follows that same trajectory, and his days of mixing with the rich and powerful, flying on private jets and being whisked through traffic by police motorcades will have come to an abrupt end.
Infantino poses with Ronaldo, Musk et al at the White House
That private jet enabled him to often watch two matches a day at the World Cup, despite the significant distances between some of the host cities. But in the stadiums, his popularity was beginning to suffer and he was often booed when he made his
phobia he experienced, and how his driving ambition and talent for languages — he can speak seven — helped him make light of his challenging background and earn a place to study law at university in Fribourg.
contacting Fifa council members expressing anger and concern.
Infantino to become the chief executive or commissioner after his Fifa presidency, with a basic salary before any bonuses — of $30 million (about £22.2 million) a year. Fifa insists that idea was never discussed. Infantino’s statement said: “The FFE project was intended to provide a basis for further strengthening our Fifa member associations and our sport worldwide, especially in those countries where support is most needed.
nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place. Our purpose has always been
→Continued from front
said: “Infantino had it all, and his reckless greed means he has now lost it. He’s an embarrassment and he’s not a lame duck but a dead duck.”
The bank JP Morgan, which had been heavily involved in the plan and was also involved in the European Super League fiasco in 2021, told Fifa that it wanted out of the project, according to sources.
— and will always be — to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed.
The collapse of the plan, whose existance was revealed by The Times on Tuesday, came after staff working for the lead investor Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital fund realised the decision by European countries to boycott Fifa tournaments in protest made the project untenable. “They had no idea that it was going to generate this kind of reaction — there was genuine shock,” one insider said.
“Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, particularly in those countries that mostly need our support.”
Senior Fifa figures were also infuriated by the tone of the statement issued by Infantino confirming he was abandoning the plan. One said: “It was a joke of a statement.”
“And, as we said from the outset, to do this only if a majority of the member associations were in support and always subject to a consultation process with them, the Fifa council, the confederations and wider stakeholders.
Infantino’s statement claimed it had merely been a consultation exercise — ignoring that member associations had been given a tight deadline of September 19 to accept the plan or receive 75 per cent less in funding.
The final paragraph of the statement is considered by his opponents in Uefa, Concacaf and the AFC as a last throw of the dice, attempting to appeal to his supporter base — mainly in Africa and South America — to keep him in power.
A senior Fifa source told The Sunday Times that sponsors have been contacting executives at the world governing body alarmed by the waves of negative publicity, while staff at the organisation have been
“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a
Sources with knowledge of the scheme say the intention was for
ALAMY
Fans have fought for the beautiful game’s soul, as in 2021 when Cech tried
The beautiful game just became a whole lot more gorgeous with the news that Gianni Infantino has ditched his ridiculous yet still dastardly plan to sell the World Cup. Even better perhaps, given that the scheme was entirely self-serving, Infantino’s position as Fifa president looks more untenable with each passing hour.
Chelsea had, in reaction to fan opposition, pulled out of it.
The scheme collapsed, yet many predicted it would rise again — and when The Times exposed Infantino’s desire to earn himself untold riches by selling off stakes in the World Cup, it felt like we were straight back into a fight between the bureaucrats and supporters. But this time it was the administrators of football across the world who took out their metaphorical crayons and told the Fifa president he had gone too far.
to placate Chelsea supporters’ anger over
the Super League
“The current Fifa leadership has not only lost Uefa’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family,” read a statement from European football’s governing body yesterday morning.
Infantino. The intervention of Donald Trump on the suspension of the USA striker Folarin Balogun was astonishing. The team needed to be at full strength to have a hope of beating Belgium, but their main man was not available, so Fifa allowed him to play. All member associations should have at that point denounced the manner of governance. Instead, only Norway raised its voice. So of course Infantino believed he could keep doing as he pleased.
“My intent,” Infantino said after backing down, “is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, and particularly in those countries that mostly need our support.”
Actually, the language used was quite magnificent. Excoriating. So damning that not even the selfobsessed Infantino could fail to acknowledge he was doomed.
There is, it seems, amid all the money in football, a strong seam of decency and love
Reaction to that sentiment would have ranged from exhalations of relief to smirks of joy.
There is, it seems, amid all the money in football, a strong seam of decency and love. This was evident when fans rose up spontaneously against plans for a breakaway European Super League back in 2021. I was at Stamford Bridge to cover an evening game between Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion but was instead swept up in a crowd with homemade banners and new chants.
Fifa’s own chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, was appalled by how Infantino had kept almost everyone in the organisation in the dark and called the plan a “unilateral exercise in power . . . indicative of a lack of trust, a lack of transparency, a lack of discernment, a lack of good governance. And a serious lack of respect.” Carlos Cordeiro, a senior adviser to Infantino, resigned over the affair, calling Infantino’s scheme “a bad deal for Fifa’s member associations, a bad deal for football, and a bad deal for the long-term future of the game”.
He has been obsessed by growth, of being loved in every corner of the globe, of being the messiah of soccer. When he shared the stage with Trump at the World Cup final he saw himself, it appeared, as on a par with the American president, as a man with great power and influence. He also thought he should be more generously rewarded in financial terms for the increase in Fifa revenue under his leadership and so devised the selling of a stake in it to create a company of which he could be the highly remunerated commissioner.
He also believed, or maybe still believes, that the world owes him a debt of gratitude. He used a lengthy statement in the days before The Times’s exposé taking credit for everything that had been wonderful about the World Cup and criticising those who chose to focus on the extortionate ticket prices, visa issues or the hated hydration breaks that turned football into a game of four quarters. It was like a theatre impresario, on the back of a successful run, taking credit for the majesty of Shakespeare. Football is inherently popular but, critically, it is beloved; push at its soul and the people will rise up. Even its administrators will if necessary.
scrutiny. Had The Times not revealed last Tuesday that the World Cup was for sale, Infantino could potentially have worked behind the scenes to secure the level of support he required, picking off one by one those members who were in most need of funds, most worried about the implications of standing up to their president.
“We want our cold nights in
Stoke,” read one crayoned placard. “Made by the people, stolen by the rich,” read another.
It was passionate and heartfelt and led to a sort of miracle. Petr Cech, the beloved former Chelsea goalkeeper, appeared and told the fans the club would sort things out and then, while the supporters were still singing “F*** the Super League”, word came through on pinging phones that
It was a sickening and greedy power grab. The very best he can hope for is that by resigning immediately he can claim a vestige of self-respect. Otherwise, he will be permanently defined as the most despised figure football has ever encountered.
One day we will look back on the plot as being doomed to fail, given the strength of opposition, but here we have to pause as that opposition was only sparked because my colleague Martyn Ziegler exposed it before Infantino was ready for public
Let us not forget that $40 million goes a long way for some football associations and would boost their infrastructure. Let us not also forget that when it started going badly wrong during the World Cup, only one member association called out
Gary Jacob their firm, PCP Capital Partners, in partnership with Ashland Forest Capital Partners, an American private investment firm.
owner the biggest shareholder and given him control of the club. Kretinsky and David’s daughter Vanessa Gold, who are both West Ham co-chairs, said in a statement at the time that they had hoped the deal would be completed soon.
Amanda Staveley’s consortium has agreed a deal to buy a 25.1 per cent share in West Ham United, which will throw the future ownership of the Championship club into doubt.
Staveley’s intervention has put David Sullivan firmly back as the kingmaker of the club’s future ownership. He resigned as West Ham co-chairman in June after allegations of sexual abuse were uncovered by a Times and BBC Panorama investigation. The 77-year-old British businessman was accused of exploitative and predatory behaviour when he was making his fortune in the adult industry, with the claims dating back to the 1980s. Sullivan denies the allegations and has labelled them “factually incorrect and entirely false”.
Through her firm, PCP Capital Partners, Staveley offered a higher sum than the one tabled by Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire who already owns 27 per cent of the club, to purchase the full stake from the family of the late David Gold.
However, Staveley’s deal was more attractive to Gold’s family because they can dispose of the full holding and it valued the club at a higher sum than Kretinsky’s offer.
Staveley led the takeover of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. She had considered a bid for Tottenham Hotspur but could now try to take full control of West Ham. The present consortium is led by her, her husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, and
Last month the Gold family had agreed to sell 16 per cent of their stake to Kretinsky. He is now considering “all options” after the setback. The proposed deal would have made the Royal Mail
Staveley was also a key figure in Newcastle’s takeover
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 5
ROBIN JONES/GETTY IMAGES
Peter Rutzler Sydney He was given a four-year ban in January this year, which he appealed against at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
For 20 months Mykhailo Mudryk’s career has been in jeopardy. His provisional suspension for an antidoping rule violation, which became a four-year ban in January, meant he has not been able to set foot in Chelsea’s training ground since the end of 2024.
For Chelsea, his return is an unexpected boost, ensuring that an £89million signing (if all add-ons are met) does not sit as an impaired asset on their accounts. The challenge now is how to get him back to full fitness and to see whether he can realise some of his old, lofty potential.
He has enlisted the help of private coaches, in make-do environments. He recently took part in a training camp abroad and he hired the Honeycroft Stadium, the home of seventh-tier Uxbridge, to do drills. He has been spotted playing padel and showed up at Wimbledon this year.
He has not been injured, but he has not played in a competitive environment for a year and a half. He has renewed squad competition. Jamie Gittens has looked particularly sharp in early pre-season for Chelsea, while they have spent £117million on Morgan Rogers, another candidate for the left-wing position.
The only sighting of Mudryk in a Chelsea context, though, since a goalscoring appearance away to Heidenheim in the Conference League in November 2024, was at the final of that competition six months later in Wroclaw. He was pictured speaking to supporters in a steak restaurant, wearing a Chelsea gilet. His appearance appeared to catch Enzo Maresca, then Chelsea’s head coach, by surprise: “To be honest, I just . . . I don’t know, he is here, or coming? He’s here? I don’t know.”
Mudryk joined Chelsea from Shakhtar to great fanfare in 2023, his arrival seen as a coup after the west London club pipped Arsenal to his signature, but he was struggling to shake off the weight of his price tag. Maresca, his former coach, had called him a “slower” learner and it is thought the language barrier was part of that.
Before his suspension, he was a regular in Chelsea’s second-string side competing in the Conference League, starting only one Premier League game of 12 in which he was part of the squad.
Mudryk was permitted to be in the stadium and receive a medal, and he shared in the celebrations afterwards with team-mates whom he had barely seen.
Mudryk will meet Alonso and join up with his team-mates in Hong Kong next week. “We can expect that he’ll need patience,” Alonso said. “He trained on his own every day, and I think it had to be really, really hard because he wanted to play football, he wanted to be part of a team, and he was not allowed to do that for such a long time. So once this big change has happened, now things will move on, and afterwards we will see if it’s quicker, if it’s slower, but we need to be aware of that.”
The make-up of the dressing room has changed a lot even since then, and he has lost his No10 shirt to Cole Palmer. In the dugout, Chelsea have cycled through three permanent managers. The new incumbent, Xabi Alonso, has welcomed the 25-yearold’s unexpected return, after the ban was lifted following an agreement with the FA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
own. He’s a special player.
way Wada measures meldonium for which he tested positive — in samples taken from athletes. It increased the threshold by which an athlete is found to have passed the minimum reporting level, from 120 to 150 per cent. If Mudryk’s sample were to be taken again under the guidance, he would not have been found to have made an anti-doping rule violation.
Mudryk did not step foot in Chelsea’s training ground for 20 months but is now free to join up with Alonso’s squad
“We are happy for him, especially for him, because probably we are not able to understand what he has been through in this time and how does he feel at the moment with the things that he had to cope with.
a ban equal to the time he had already served out of the game.
“We were not expecting to have this great news at this moment, so we are very happy that he will be working with us,” Alonso said, speaking after a 2-1 friendly defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in Sydney.
“We want that he feels part of a team, because he has been training on his own for a long time, and that we have the support from everyone, from the club, from the team-mates, from the staff, and for sure it will take time. So once he is with us, we will see how things develop.”
Mudryk has always denied ever knowingly or intentionally taking a banned substance. It is thought, according to sources with knowledge of the situation, that he was exposed to meldonium while on international duty with Ukraine in September
Roberto De Zerbi, who coached Mudryk at Shakhtar and once forecast that he had the ability to win the Ballon d’Or, has little doubt he will show his worth at Chelsea.
The change was not retroactive, and it is due to come into force in
“I remember watching him at Shakhtar [Donetsk], the impact he had and how good he is. He was very good in one-v-one situations and could create a lot of situations on his
“He is another son, I’m very happy, he deserves to play,” the Spurs head coach said. “He’s a cool guy, a top player.”
Mudryk’s return was made possible because of a change in the
Staveley or Kretinsky would need to buy his 38.8 per cent share to take majority control of the club.
completed, nothing will change regarding the ownership structure of the club”.
blocks in place to help the club’s bid to return to the Premier League, including a director of recruitment and other senior executives. The latest development seems likely to
make stability more difficult in the short term.
concluded, I wanted to be open with our fans about where things stand and my intentions.
Vanessa Gold, representing the Gold family, said: “On the 12th of June Daniel Kretinsky and I agreed a sale that would have made EP Group the single largest shareholder in West Ham.
West Ham’s future shareholder structure is also complicated by two rounds of pre-emption rights which dictate that existing investors have first refusal on Gold’s shares at the price agreed with Staveley.
They added: “West Ham United would like to assure supporters that the day-to-day running of the football club is in no way affected by this situation.”
“My ambition throughout this process has been to ensure the club has the right leadership and ownership to enable West Ham to achieve its potential and return to its rightful place in the Premier League.”
A spokesman for Kretinsky told The Sunday Times: “The agreement we had reached with the Gold family in June provided stability for the club at a crucial time. This does the opposite. We will always act in the best interests of West Ham United and are reviewing all of our options, including exercising our pre-emption rights in full.”
“Unfortunately, since that time the original deal and other alternatives that we have discussed could not be brought to fruition. “In light of this, I have now reached an agreement to sell my family’s shareholding to a consortium of PCP Capital Partners, led by Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, in partnership with Ashland Forest Capital Partners. While the process has not yet
In the first round shareholders have 30 days to buy their entitlement, which is up to the same proportion as their present holding. In the second round, any remaining Gold shares can be bought by shareholders who participated in the first round.
West Ham were relegated from the top flight last season after finishing 17th. The east London club will begin life in the second tier by hosting Portsmouth in the Carabao Cup first round on Saturday, August 8, a game for which they have sold more than 50,000 tickets.
West Ham said in a statement that “the process will take approximately two months and, until it is
They then start their Championship season away to Burnley eight days later.
Kretinsky will be disappointed because he had been putting building
Football
Mourinho must show he is no
Partnership adds to intrigue of coach’s Real return – but whatever happens, England star’s mum will be happy
busted flush on his return to Real
after 13 years
TOM ALLNUTT
magine for a moment that José Mourinho was the England manager after that highly charged, extra-time victory over Norway last month and imagine it was Mourinho’s post-match analysis being wafted away by a weary Jude Bellingham after a frenzied World Cup quarter-final.
I
Bellingham has questions to answer at Real after two zig-zagging seasons
pitch to beckon him over, but the photo he wanted was not for himself but Denise, his mum. “My mum’s fancied you for years,” Bellingham told the Portuguese.
ine Zidane, who was promoted from the reserves. Neither were particularly fashionable choices at the time. Both were resounding successes.
For Bellingham, Mourinho should answer a fundamental question of role and position, given Mourinho’s preference for 4-2-3-1, which he has already implemented in pre-season and is likely to mean Bellingham playing at No10, with Fede Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni — or Rodri — at the base.
Thomas Tuchel had to draw upon all his skills of diplomacy in Miami, as he offered the context that players can stray off script in those adrenalinefilled moments after the final whistle and floated the idea that questions can be direct and words misconstrued. Above all, Tuchel set his own ego aside to preserve the spirit in the England team that he had been so careful to create.
A grinning Bellingham was clearly buzzing, though, to be in Mourinho’s company and he is said to be bullish about Real’s choice of new head coach, not only because he was one of the first players Mourinho spoke to on the phone but because of the belief, more generally, fanning out from Pérez that this Real team needs clarity more than coaching. Pérez’s instincts have been right before. He brought back Carlo Ancelotti when the Italian was struggling at Everton and Zined-
May, but by a lesser margin than he hoped.
That may come as a relief for Bellingham, who has been pulled around in the 4-3-3 of recent seasons, after playing at the tip of a diamond and then more off the left under Ancelotti, and then deeper under Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa, more like a box-
The carrot Pérez dangled to voters was Mourinho, whom many now see as a busted flush. In his first ten years as a manager, Mourinho swept up 16 leading trophies, including seven league titles and a Champions League. In his past ten years, Mourinho has won only three: a League Cup and Europa League with Manchester United and Conference League with Roma.
Would Mourinho have done the same? Would he also have given Bellingham the benefit of the doubt? We will never know, but there is plenty of evidence to back up those who might have their doubts.
The stakes are high not just for the players, but the club, president and coach
Ask Cristiano Ronaldo, who publicly criticised Mourinho’s approach at Real Madrid in 2011 — “I don’t like playing like this, but I have to adapt,” Ronaldo said — and swiftly found himself dropped for the next game. Or Fenerbahce’s Allan Saint-Maximin, who responded to Mourinho’s criticism of his physical condition by saying “when a lie takes the elevator, the truth takes the stairs”. Mourinho’s reply? “If a player is fit and works hard, he doesn’t need the elevator.”
Bellingham’s most vivid picture of Mourinho will naturally be drawn from that more divisive, less decorated second decade, given Bellingham was born in the same month (June 2003) that Mourinho claimed his first major trophy with Porto, meaning he would have been too young to take in Mourinho’s peak years (Chelsea 2004-07, Inter Milan 2008-10, Real Madrid 2010-13) in real time.
Bellingham sought out Mourinho from sidelines in 2024 at Wembley
where two zig-zagging seasons, hampered by club crises and a shoulder injury, leave him in real need of some thrust, direction and stability.
Mourinho’s return as Real Madrid head coach, 13 years after his first spell there from 2010 to 2013, will be one of the most compelling stories of the new season and his relationship with Bellingham — tactically and emotionally — will be one of the central themes of his tenure. Bellingham, now 23, is at a crucial juncture; on the one hand primed for supremacy after a truly spectacular World Cup, but also with questions to answer at Real,
The stakes are high for everyone, not just the players, but the club, president and coach. Real have just slumped to a second consecutive season without a trophy, a humiliation not felt at the Bernabéu since 2010, when Mourinho was first sent in as coach. A third failed season in a row forced Florentino Pérez to resign as club president in 2006 and, two decades later, he is under pressure again, after winning an election he called in
A touching moment after Bellingham won the Champions League final in 2024 demonstrated the generational shift. Bellingham picked out Mourinho on the sidelines at Wembley, where he was working as a TV pundit, and walked across the
Now Howe is free, the FA has no excuse for sticking with Tuchel
ALYSON RUDD
The honeymoon period for Thomas Tuchel ended, you may have thought, with the timid capitulation to Argentina in the World Cup semifinal. The German was brought in on a £5 million salary not just to roam the country at the weekend watching eligible players at work, but to inject toughness at key moments. Gareth Southgate lacked the killer instinct and Tuchel, it was felt, could push England over the line.
Bellingham was at the Birmingham Phoenix Hundred games yesterday
to-box midfielder. Alonso was never in favour of Bellingham’s tendency to roam and moved him deeper to ease Real’s problems with build-up, but with limited success. “I can play in different positions and do different things to a good level and I think sometimes maybe I’m a little bit of a victim to that,” Bellingham said.
Pogba’s words: “If he feels you want to outshine him, he will quickly put you in your place.” Pogba felt irritation was not only about performances. “When always the media asked him questions about me, maybe it makes him a bit like, ‘OK, is he done?’ ” Pogba told Ferdinand in April this year. “A lot of people, they love to ask about me. Always Paul, Paul, Paul. And that probably pissed him off.”
Instead, what we saw against
Argentina was a reversion to type, a complete misunderstanding of how to manage a lead when a World Cup final beckons.
Howe, who left Newcastle last week, could handle pressure of England job
The knee-jerk reaction from many fans was for the FA to sack the former Chelsea manager, but he retained its backing to lead the country to Euro
What will make or break the partnership between Bellingham and Mourinho will surely be the chemistry and whether two dominant, demanding, super-confident and, yes, ultra-confrontational personalities will bring the best or worst out of each other.
English coaching talent is not why you should be allowed to pick a German one. You should reap what you sow and crack on.
of course, he led Newcastle to their first domestic silverware in 70 years by defeating Liverpool in the 2025 Carabao Cup final. It felt like the entire fan base would collapse under the weight of expectation that day. Newcastle had yearned for footballing success in much the same way England fans desperately want to end 60 years of hurt.
Bellingham will admittedly not be the sole focus of attention at Real where, for example, Vinícius Jr and Kylian Mbappé have often dominated the media agenda, but he needs and enjoys the limelight, which may rub up against Mourinho’s natural instincts. Mourinho, like Alex Ferguson, has always appeared to favour the more humble lieutenants.
Howe, then, is the obvious choice to lead England into the next Euros, having decided to leave Newcastle United. He was born in Buckinghamshire and also he has been through so much as a coach that he has built up the requisite resilience to handle the role.
There are reasons to think it could work, after a World Cup in which Bellingham received positive reports for attitude and behaviour, and because those who know Bellingham from his early days have always rejected the depiction of him as hard to handle. Instead, they say he responds best to those he believes share his demands of high standards and his desire to win at all costs, two boxes Mourinho undoubtedly ticks. Some of Mourinho’s most successful projects — Deco at Porto, Frank Lampard at Chelsea, Wesley Sneijder at Inter Milan, Mesut Ozil at Real — were also those who played for him in attacking midfield.
This is a man who understands what it is to have an entire region hanging on his every word, his every substitution. He also understands that the mood can turn quickly. Last season there was much grumbling as Newcastle’s away form stuttered and their ability to hold onto a lead wavered.
Lampard, for example, would be an obvious reference for Bellingham, only Lampard had nothing like Bellingham’s status in 2004. “I was a pretty humble kid,” Lampard told John Obi Mikel’s The Obi One podcast in 2023. “I didn’t necessarily believe I could go to the levels of the Champions League and all these things playing for the country. And José walked in as if to say, ‘Well, you should have.’ ”
Howe won three promotions in seven years with Bournemouth, who were also relegated from the Premier League under him in 2020. You learn as much from going down as you do going up, though, and it also meant that when he was appointed Newcastle manager in 2021, he had to handle a perception that he was not quite the high-calibre head coach the Saudi Public Investment Fund wanted for their foray into English football. Howe, it was felt, would be a temporary solution while they found their feet.
Admittedly, the overwhelming reason Eddie Howe is perfectly qualified is because he is English and I wonder, had England reached the final and somehow defeated Spain, would it have felt like a victory with an asterisk attached, would it have felt like cheating in some way?
Mostly, Howe blamed himself, but really he was stymied by the club’s inability to buy him a strong enough squad. Profitability and Sustainability Rules meant that although the Saudi owners could afford to spend, they were prevented from doing so, and this in turn meant the club was illequipped for the demands of the Champions League.
Surely only the small nations deserve the help of a foreign coach. A country the size of England, with its giant football pyramid and expansive national football centre, really ought to be able to produce a coach capable of leading the national team to glory. I honestly felt a wave of embarrassed nausea every time the camera panned to Tuchel during the World Cup. Every shot of him was a reminder that we, as a nation, are inept at bringing through top-level coaches. Quite why the FA embraces such an advert of incompetence is puzzling.
Much has changed since then, but Mourinho’s most-wanted characteristics in his midfielders have remained constant and in that sense, Bellingham looks a good match. Tall, strong, physically imposing, with an understanding of shape and space, Bellingham would make an excellent Mourinho No8, if he wasn’t such a potent No10.
In terms of mindset and self-belief, Ronaldo is perhaps the closest comparison to Bellingham and, aside from the odd flashpoint, Ronaldo was a phenomenon under Mourinho. When discussing Bellingham’s love of the limelight on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast in 2024, Mourinho could also hardly have been more effusive. “There is something that separates him from the boys that were born in England, developed in England . . . he’s a kid from the world,” Mourinho said. “When this kid scores a goal and opens his arms to the Bernabeu, it’s his dimension. It shows the character. It’s just: here I am.”
He impressed, though, with his presentations to the board, even as many in the media, including me, were aghast that he seemed to have joined a sportswashing enterprise without much soul searching. Still, in those early days when he was asked about human rights abuses, he found a way to dismiss the noise, and it must have toughened him up.
Howe navigated all this with humility. A fanbase who had celebrated the end of the Mike Ashley era and assumed his successors would splash the cash and take the Premier League by storm had to readjust expectations and that, from Howe’s perspective, cannot have been easy. It all adds up to a man who is not only properly qualified, but could handle the pressure of the England job.
And those characteristics chime with what Mourinho’s Real return will aim for more generally, as he targets a team with more aggression, athleticism, experience and competitive edge. The age and profile of the summer signings — Marc Cucurella (28), Bernardo Silva (31), Ibrahima Konaté (27) and Denzel Dumfries (30) — show the way Mourinho wants to go.
The retort to my qualms was always, “Well, go on then, name an Englishman who could do the job and is available.” Which was never the point. Failure to provide a raft of
Sportswashing aside, Howe so excelled at Newcastle that any sense he may be replaced by someone sexier soon dissipated. Most notably,
Admiring those traits from afar, though, is different to managing them in the dressing room and others will point to a side of Mourinho’s personality that has often seemed suspicious, resentful even, of those superstar, celebrity players around whom the noise always seems to be loudest. In Sneijder’s autobiography, he tells the story of how Mourinho once cut Mario Balotelli down to size at Inter, by making him warm up for 45 minutes without bringing him on as a substitute. “Mourinho has his own rules,” Sneijder wrote.
The other shift — and suspend all scepticism for a moment — is supposedly with the coach himself. “El nuevo Mourinho”, staff are calling it at Real, a Mourinho keen to leave all the rancour of recent years and bitterness from his first spell at the club behind. Mourinho has been praising the groundstaff and canteen servers at the training ground while last week he even called for journalists to be given extra water bottles during a sweltering friendly.
ambition by signing elite players who can close the gap to European rivals such as Paris Saint-Germain, who beat Arsenal on penalties in the Champions League final.
joined Newcastle from Lyon for £40 million in January 2022, was the club’s top scorer in the league last season with nine goals, despite missing two months through injury.
Gary Jacob, Paul Joyce
Arsenal are hoping that Bruno Guimarães will have a medical at the club tomorrow as they move closer to an £80 million deal.
Arsenal are close to agreeing to pay an initial £70 million plus £10 million in add-ons for Guimarães, who delayed meeting up with the Newcastle squad which flew to La Manga on Friday. Guimarães, 28, was given three weeks off after playing for Brazil at the World Cup. The midfielder, who
Meanwhile Everton have agreed a deal in principle with Arsenal for the midfielder Christian Norgaard that is worth about £7 million. Norgaard, 32, has spent one season at the Emirates after arriving from Brentford, but found his game time limited, playing only 101 minutes in the Premier League.
The Newcastle United midfielder could be the first of two Brazil players to join Arsenal, who are trying to agree a financial package with the winger Vinícius Jr before discussing a transfer fee with Real Madrid. Mikel Arteta has spoken about wanting to show greater
An older, wiser and softer Mourinho, happy to keep a low-profile while the likes of Bellingham take centre stage? Let’s see when the football starts.
Those ploys have sometimes turned ugly too. Paul Pogba at Manchester United found his career nosedived under Mourinho because, in
ter once I got home.” Not having a good altitude camp and not riding the Tour de Suisse hurt him. It also makes what he did at the Tour more admirable. At the Tour there were days in the mountains when he couldn’t stay with Pogacar and the others, but he still rode well and tried to finish as close to them as he could.
rriving at the Porsche Experience Centre in Silverstone, Northamptonshire, a middle-aged man asks if he can help. Told I’m here to meet the cyclist, Tom Pidcock, he eases into the relaxed smile of someone
A
As leader of the Pinarello-Q36.5 team, his hunting for stage wins while staying in the top ten on GC gave the team a presence in their first Tour. Pidcock had spent four years at Ineos and won many races, but had been portrayed as an individual who didn’t slip easily into a team role.
who knows he can help. “I’m an instructor, I’ve just been out with Tom for an hour and a half in one of our cars. I’ll take you to him. Nice driver by the way, good control, you can tell he loves his cars.”
“I actually enjoyed the team’s [Q36.5] dependency on me, and also
I’m thinking, if you’ve just ridden the Tour de France through the hottest days, it would be difficult to not enjoy a spin in an air-conditioned Porsche.
‘I don’t enjoy grunt — I’d rather a stage win than come ninth in Tour’
Three days have passed since Pidcock got to Paris on his bike. Is he back on speaking terms with his body? “Physically, I actually feel OK, thank you,” the 27-year-old Yorkshireman says. “I do feel tired but better than the last time I finished the Tour. Then I was in a box, whereas now, I’ve come out of it in a better place.
“Normally I’m jaded after a grand tour, in a bit of a fog, forgetting things. This time I don’t feel like that.”
Ninth overall, third on two stages, he had a good Tour, though he describes it as OK. Opinions vary but the numbers speak of progress. He first rode the Tour in 2022, winning at Alpe d’Huez on Bastille Day, but that victory was in part due to not being considered a threat by the general classification (GC) leaders. That year he finished 16th, 61min 15sec down on the winner, Jonas Vingegaard.
A year later he was 13th, 47:52 behind Vingegaard; this year ninth, and 29:28 behind Tadej Pogacar. In the circumstances, he was satisfied. “Obviously I don’t work hard to finish ninth in the Tour de France, it’s not worth it. So in that sense I’m disappointed, but I know where I was [going into the Tour] and I also know how essential consistency is for me, and the need to be at my best in training. And I didn’t have that this time.”
Tom Pidcock on Tour frustrations, still wanting answers about Ineos snub, and how leading team is giving him new life
trails him. There is a civil beginning to the conversation until the moment Cummings explains that the team are going all-in for Rodríguez. Cummings asks Pidcock if he’s good with this. Pidcock says he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t want to burn himself out on flat roads riding for his team-mate, and then asks that the Netflix cameras leave the room so he and Cummings can talk about it privately.
you’re holding on to a place on GC, you’re not thinking like a killer any more.”
That mentality wasn’t always properly understood at Ineos. During Netflix’s Tour de France documentary series Unchained there is a scene from the 2023 Tour that reflects badly on Pidcock. He had gone into that Tour as one of three potential leaders for Ineos. Through the middle part of the Tour, it became clear that his teammate Carlos Rodríguez was riding better than Pidcock and after a meeting of the team’s deputy principal Rod Ellingworth and the sporting directors it was agreed to go with Rodríguez as sole leader.
It’s the stuff elite athletes live with but often don’t share. Towards the end of March, he crashed on a descent at the Volta a Catalunya. He overshot a corner, tumbled into a deep ravine and was lucky to avoid serious injury. He did, however, suffer bone and ligament damage. The after-effects rippled all the way to the Tour.
my part in the story,” he says. “It’s not just about the results. The story that we’re creating motivates me. We don’t need to win every race there is, but we try our best to achieve things.
was up to me, I’d rather win a stage than finish ninth in the Tour.”
“Most of these things, I’ve just kind of not erased from my memory, but just blurred out,” he says now. “And, to be honest, that part, I didn’t watch. I’ve kind of forgotten that even happened. But I think the first part of the race, I was getting better and better and Rod had always said to me, ‘You ride your race, see how you do.’ And that’s what I thought I was doing.
Fighting relentlessly for GC, I suggest, is character-building.
“Sometimes I worry it’s the opposite,” he says, “because you’re just kind of limiting the damage all the time. You’re just kind of being safe, hanging on to what you have when you need to be a killer, like [Richard] Carapaz was in the last week. But if
“Everyone in the team has to play their part. That’s something I try to instil. We all need to work hard, not just the riders, not just me, but everyone in the team.”
The sport director Steve Cummings then goes to tell Pidcock, who is having a massage. The Netflix camera
“At our pre-Tour altitude camp, I was just fatigued. So basically that was a wasted three weeks, really,” he says. “After an easy few days at the camp I was doing one difficult session, four efforts. The first one I was good. Sec-
There is something else he has learnt to cherish. “On this team, I don’t need to win for people to be happy. Doing my best is now OK. Before, only winning or doing really well was acceptable. The rest was, well, we don’t care. But also with me. Before I really struggled to ride top ten, just suffering every day for top ten, I was like, ‘Well, yeah, but why? What’s the point?’ But I’ve learnt that winning is not so easy.”
“Once the cameras are turned off, I think what I said was, ‘But what’s the point in me riding for him? Because if we’re in the wheels, UAE is going to be riding at the front. So it is irrelevant. Why does anyone need to ride for anyone? Can I not just keep trying to see what I can do?’ Yeah, I think that’s how it went.”
Time gap to race leader Stage inish position
0 minutes 5 10 15 20 25
1 25 50 75
Pidcock won important races during his four years with the team. The 2022 Alpe d’Huez stage, Strade Bianche in 2023, Amstel Gold and the Olympic gold medal in 2024. He says he learnt a lot from being on the team with Michal Kwiatkowski and Luke Rowe. “Kwiato and Luke were the most important people to me. What Luke taught me about being road captain was amazing,” he says.
“Eventually, after another few easy days, I started to feel a little better. But at that point I had to decide if I should go to the Tour de Suisse or go home. I needed racing to get better, but I knew it would be dangerous to go to Suisse, given the way I’d been at altitude. Another setback and I’d be in an even worse place. I went home to Andorra, which I’m glad I did because I felt bet-
I remind him of something Geraint Thomas once said, namely that he wasn’t sure Pidcock had the mentality for doing it every day through a grand tour. “Yeah, for sure. That is my character. I don’t enjoy grunt. It’s not my favourite part of cycling, so it’s a big challenge for me to be able to ride GC in a grand tour. I’ve done it twice. If it
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Pidcock, “but I still want to find out.”
Pidcock had already met the South African-born businessman Ivan Glasenberg, who founded the Q36.5 team. They liked each other. “I thought Ivan was very honest,” he says. “Over the past two years, I’ve seen it. He’s a man who lives by his word. If he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it. He promised to do whatever it takes for me to get the most out of myself. And so far he’s lived up to that.
In contrast, there is a 12-strong English contingent in the field, six of whom have made it through to the weekend with the others, including the amateurs Charlotte Naughton and Lauren Crump, missing the cut.
“Joining the team was the best decision I’ve ever made. I mean, I know I’m a good bike rider. I know what I’m capable of, but it’s not easy to win. And especially with me being a smaller rider. I’m not fragile, but I feel like things need to go right for me to win because the bigger riders have more power. At the end of the day, I can only do what I can do. And Ivan sees that and he respects it. As long as
Cathy Harris
When Catriona Matthew became the first Scot to win a major in claiming the Women’s Open title at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2009, she was one of five Scottish players in the field. This year, back at the same course, there are none.
England Golf is clearly doing something right to develop the talent before most players head to American colleges, who then deliver the finished article.
Mimi Rhodes is one player to benefit, having spent her college years at Wake Forest before earning a LET card and winning three times in four starts in 2025. A rookie on the LPGA Tour this season, she said conditions in the third round were extremely tough.
The steady decline is alarming, with the numbers qualifying for the Open having dwindled in the past few years from five in 2021, three in 2023, two in 2024 and only Aberdeen’s Gemma Dryburgh last year.
In a remarkable sporting achievement, Matthew captured her major just 11 weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, Sophie.
The 26-year-old shot a three-over round of 74 to finish at two over par, admitting it was difficult to attack pins which were tucked away, while two double-bogeys didn’t help her cause.
Pidcock put down
a marker for his team in their first
Scotland’s most celebrated golfer captained Team Europe to back-toback victories in the Solheim Cup before retiring in 2024 and has since led them to success at the 2024 Curtis Cup.
Tour by hunting
for stage wins while staying in
One of the fringe players hoping to earn a wild card in Anna Nordqvist’s Team Europe for the Solheim Cup, which is announced on Monday, Rhodes said she didn’t feel under pressure.
the top ten on GC
The 56-year-old says it is very disappointing not to see any Scots in the field, adding: “These things tend to go in cycles so hopefully we’ll see some of the younger pros coming through in future, perhaps Hannah Darling or Louise Duncan.
“I’d obviously love to be part of it,” she said, “but all those she does choose will deserve it.”
he knows I’m doing my best, there’s no stress or pressure.”
So far, Pidcock has delivered for the team. His third place overall in last year’s Vuelta showed his potential in grand tours and his narrow defeat by Pogacar at the one-day classic MilanSan Remo in March was one of the performances of his career. He, Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel escaped on the second-to-last hill, the Cipressa, close to the finish.
There are no such concerns for Lottie Woad and Charley Hull, who remain very much in the hunt at three under and two under respectively.
“I know there are now more girls getting into the sport thanks to initiatives by Scottish Golf and I really hope this leads to more Scottish girls being out on tour soon.”
Yealimi Noh has missed seven cuts this season but the American found her form posting a two-under 69 to take the outright lead at seven under, three clear of five players.
There are high hopes for Darling, 23, who won the British Under-16 Amateur Championship in 2018 and the Scottish Girls’ Open the following year. She turned professional last year after studying at the University of South Carolina and played in three Curtis Cups.
“He was so wise. He set a good example and bonded the team. He had the balls to make a call, which people are getting more and more afraid to do. People don’t like making calls, they just kind of swim around it. If Luke got it wrong, he would put his hand up and say, ‘My bad.’ ”
ment decision, not performance-related. Pidcock and his team-mates were startled. His girlfriend, Beth, had driven more than 550 miles from their home in Andorra with their two dogs to be there for the last race.
Fearing he would lose out in a sprint, Pogacar tried to drop both but only got rid of Van der Poel. He then won in a closely fought sprint with Pidcock, who has never been able to watch a recording of that finish. “I should have gone first. What kind of hindered me was that his kick is not as strong as I thought it would be. So when he went, I got on his wheel but then had to back off a little bit and go again. That cost me.”
Haeran Ryu, the Korean overnight leader after the second round, is hoping to win three consecutive majors. She got off to a flying start opening up a four-shot lead after six holes but imploded on the back nine with an error-strewn display.
Confused, Pidcock rang Allert but learnt nothing more. He’d been deselected but the CEO couldn’t tell him why. People felt that the decision had been made by someone high up at Ineos, perhaps the CEO of Ineos Sport, Jean-Claude Blanc, or even Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos chairman. As for the “why”, some thought the bosses were fearful of Pidcock winning Il Lombardia and the team having to pay him a significant bonus.
Duncan, 26, has found the going tough after grabbing the headlines as an amateur at the 2021 AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie when she finished in a tie for tenth after starting the fourth round two shots behind the leaders, Anna Nordqvist and Nanna Koerstz Madsen.
When it came, the end at Ineos was more mad than sad. Though he still had two years on his contract, he wanted to leave. So eager were the team to offload him that they were prepared to pay part of his salary for the following year, which was remarkable given his record.
Losing by half a wheel to the greatest rider in a race that Pogacar was desperate to win could hardly be considered failure. But that’s how Pidcock sees it. Losing, no matter how he performs, is still losing.
She finished a creditable 19th the following year as a professional but a combination of personal issues and lack of form has led to her struggling since. She has lost full status on the Ladies European Tour (LET) and is now plying her trade on the second-tier Access Tour.
After the brilliant performance in winning his second Olympic gold medal in Paris, he rode the Tour of Britain for Ineos the following month. “I got a concussion there after a crash. At that point I knew I was probably leaving and could have played on the concussion and said, ‘That’s my season done.’ Instead I went back training sooner than the doctor said I should, because I wanted to be in shape for the end-of-season races in Italy. I was then second to Tadej at the Giro dell’Emilia and was looking forward to Il Lombardia.
Woad enters the final day four shots off the lead, the leading English player
“We actually don’t know why,” says
There is no ill-feeling towards Pogacar. “For all the annoyance of Tadej winning all the races, I have the utmost respect for him. That day the way he came back from his crash just before the Cipressa was impressive.
“It wasn’t a light crash and he still beat me, which makes it almost worse for me.” Does Pogacar inspire or deflate him? “I think of him as an icon of the sport. Yes, he is relentless in winning and that is difficult for the rest of us, but he’s also a leader and an example in our sport.
It is all a long way from the glory days when Matthew, Janice Moodie, Mhairi McKay, Kathryn Imrie and the late Dale Reid were regulars in the championship and stalwarts in Solheim Cup teams.
“All I wanted was to end with the team on good terms. Then Andrew [McQuaid, his agent] called to say they’d pulled me from the team for Lombardia.”
“He’s got a bit of character. He’s a good role model. He shows respect for other riders and people in general. That’s reflected in how much fans of the sport like him.”
McQuaid had been called by John Allert, chief executive of the Ineos cycling team. When asked why the rider was being pulled from the team, Allert explained that it was a manage-
Pidcock swapped two wheels for four in his Porsche last week
10 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
Cricket
ing autumn. So I can see it is best for him to concentrate on that and on his Test batting.
Root is obviously not going to be in the job for five years, so Brook’s time will come and I really do think he’s got it in him to be a good Test captain. Players can grow and develop as leaders and people.
FORMER ENGLAND CAPTAIN
The more I think about the appointment of Stephen Fleming as England Test coach and Joe Root as captain, the more it makes sense.
Joe will have learnt a lot from his time as captain and from the four years he played under Stokes. You are generally actually a better captain by the time you’ve been doing it for four or five years than when you started the job, because you’ve got so much more experience and know how to react in the situations you face. That was definitely the case with me when I finished. The problem is that you’re worn out by the job and need a break.
After the departures of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, my initial thought was that it should be Harry Brook as red-ball captain and Andy Flower as coach.
It is quite clear that Flower was the first choice, but once he had said he didn’t want the job, Fleming was the standout international candidate. He has got respect and street cred in the world of coaching. The fact that he is great mates with McCullum, who stays as the white-ball coach, made him seem to me the only logical choice.
But Root now has the chance to come back and have a fresh go at it. I remember saying to Joe when he took over from me in 2017: “This is the best job in the world and over the next five years you will have something thrown at you that you can’t plan for, or possibly know what it will be.”
Fleming and McCullum are close and they are also in business together. Close friendships and business friendships are different, but as they have been used to that dynamic before they won’t need time to build trust in the relationship, so it should help to make split coaches work.
He did not have just one, he had the Stokes incident in Bristol, Covid and the fallout of Covid. I am hoping this time he can concentrate on being the best leader of the cricket team and not be worried too much about off-field issues. I believe that is where Fleming, McCullum and Rob Key need to step up and take some of that pressure off him, as they all should have more time on their hands with only short periods of intense cricket to look after. There should be no excuse with planning and preparation for future tours with this structure of split coaches.
Root, 35, is returning to the role of Test captain after four years
ers in the world who respect him, so I don’t think that will be an issue.
When it has been tried before it has not worked — with Flower and Ashley Giles and then with McCullum and Matthew Mott. It generally ends up that one team is more successful than the other and the players end up enjoying playing for one coach, and in one team, more than the other. But given the relationship between McCullum and Fleming, I think there is a good chance of avoiding that issue.
It is a fairly inexperienced Test side that has struggled recently and his long experience in the game, both as a player and a coach at the IPL, will no doubt help.
As for the captaincy, my first inclination would have been to give it to Brook. I’ve been really impressed with how he has captained in whiteball cricket and I think he could have really developed into the red-ball role. But it would be an awful lot for Brook to do, with the Ashes next summer and the 50-over World Cup the follow-
Perhaps the only thing missing from Root’s CV is captaining England to an Ashes series victory, as he lost two series in Australia and drew at home in 2019. That is something he will have the chance to put right next summer, which must be a big incentive for him. He has captained more England Test wins than anyone else, but I’m sure he’d still love to be an Ashes-winning captain.
There is a balance in employing people who are mates because sometimes tough conversations need to happen, to avoid just being “yes men” together, but I think these two will have the necessary conversations to make it work.
It’s quite hard to disagree with the appointment of Fleming, as he has got such a good track record as a coach in the IPL and as a captain in Test cricket, where he was known as a tactician. I reckon the likes of Jonathan Trott and Richard Dawson will have their time, but people would have doubted either of them, in the way that it is hard to with Fleming because
We saw at the Oval, in the second Test against New Zealand when he was standing in for Stokes, how the game got away from England in the first hour and a half of the second day. But I believe Fleming, who everyone thinks was very astute tactically when he was New Zealand captain, will really be able to help with that.
Joe should not be worried about off-field issues — that’s where Fleming and co come in
That is what England really need, some better in-game tactics both with the bat and in the field, and that’s what Fleming can provide. He and Root could end up being a very good combination.
They were close friends and business partners — now Kiwis’ relationship holds key to future of English cricket
is that he does not have a background in coaching red-ball teams, but he has captained New Zealand in 80 Tests and worked with a lot of the best play-
JEFF BRASS/GETTY IMAGES
McCullum felt this wasn’t enough. “We never got to decide who we were, or what we aspired to be, or how we wanted to be viewed: we never developed an unchanging team identity,” he wrote. “As brilliant a leader of men and tactician as Flem was, the team didn’t have a soul.”
reason he got the job. Key wants him to get the players doing the basics well, which depressingly has eluded them of late. This ought to come easily to someone who is naturally thoughtful, organised and pragmatic.
Fleming, left, was McCullum’s captain for New Zealand then persuaded him to take on the role when he became his manager after retiring
In commenting about his appointment, Fleming referenced medium and long-term planning, but ironically this was an area that finally cost him at Chennai amid the franchise’s failure to adapt over the past three years to the new impact player rule, and inability to renew an ageing team.
Three-Test series against Pakistan First Test Headingley, Aug 19-23 Second Test Lord’s, Aug 27-31 Third Test Edgbaston, Sept 9-13
For him, things were too fluid. Fleming liked his teams to be adaptable, in a way that many Test teams have striven to be over the years. As Richard Boock, Fleming’s biographer, stated: “The goal was to be successful. Style was determined by the method deemed to be most effective on the day. A team might have a reputation for being dashers and stroke-makers, but if the situation cried out for care and caution, then their style should always be adjusted accordingly.”
Three-Test series in South Africa
First Test Johannesburg, Dec 17-21 Second Test Centurion, Dec 26-30
His biggest challenge could be the same one that faced McCullum, which was that the kind of relaxed management style that works well with franchise teams is less suited to the Test match environment, which inevitably demands hard yards and application and does not allow for comfort zones.
Third Test Cape Town, Jan 3-7 Anniversary Test in Australia Melbourne, March 11-15
This runs directly contrary to the way England approached Test cricket under McCullum and Ben Stokes, who tested to destruction the idea that their team must have a distinct identity — in this instance the ultraattacking Bazball.
The very thing that tends to bring the best out of white-ball players, a sense of freedom, can be corrosive in the long-format game.
Five-Test Ashes series First Test Trent Bridge, June 18-22 Second Test Lord’s, June 30-July 4 Third Test Edgbaston, July 8-12 Fourth Test Utilita Bowl, July 21-25 Fifth Test The Oval, July 29-Aug 2
Of his early time at Chennai, Fleming said in an interview three years ago: “The first part of my coaching philosophy was don’t make the players do what I hated. I felt we wasted a huge amount of time on things that had no relevance, so it was great to be able to put that into play in this new, funky tournament. In a high-performance world there can be a desire from coaches to add too much, so I stripped it all back to just letting the players own their own space.”
Fleming did not so much turn New Zealand into winners as into a side hard to beat. Even the Australians admired his endeavours, Shane Warne saying: “Until he took charge we always felt they were content simply to compete. Under Fleming they have developed a more ruthless streak, set their sights higher and are genuinely annoyed if they don’t win.” Even so, Fleming never finished on the winning side in 14 Tests against Australia.
working with Brook and has got his way. Fleming is apparently content to have Root alongside him. Time will tell how all this actually pans out.
The relationship between Fleming and McCullum is arguably now the most important in English cricket. Between them they must decide how to allocate playing resources and how to align their man-management before a year in which England must attempt to regain the Ashes and win the 50-over World Cup.
Fleming will be England’s oldest Test coach to start his reign since the 62-year-old Ray Illingworth took charge in the mid-1990s. At the age of 53 he is hardly in his dotage — he is five years younger than Andy Flower, who was England’s first choice for the job — but it is not unreasonable to ask if, after 17 years on the franchise circuit, he has the energy for a job that will require all his attention for the next four years and encompass home and away Ashes series.
He also said that a defining moment in his first IPL season, which took place in South Africa, was how he decided to handle the Australian batsman Matthew Hayden, who was nearing the end of a long and successful career.
Hayden told him that in an ideal world he would love to spend the season mixing surfing with a bit of cricket. Fleming recalled: “He only trained two or three times at the start and then we set about finding the waves. About two-thirds of the way through the tournament he said, ‘This is the greatest tournament of my life.’ He was the top run-scorer. The great players need to be stimulated and given space.”
They are obviously close, as you would expect of two people who played 134 times together for their country before one became manager of the other for several years. They have gone into business together, most lastingly as ambassadors for a company that imports lamb, seafood and wine into South Asia. But to an extent their association rests on being big fish in the relatively small pond of New Zealand cricket.
He’s the best captain I ever played under. There was no situation that we got in that he hadn’t seen before
Questions have been raised as to why he is not taking charge immediately, given that his last match with the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was on May 21. He may arrive in England before it is over, but the Pakistan Test series, which runs from August 19 to September 13, will be handled by the interim coach Marcus Trescothick.
Whether that kind of approach works with England’s Test players indeed whether Fleming would even espouse such an approach more than 15 years later — may be doubted.
Their cricket did not overlap in a significant way. They batted together 20 times and shared just one century partnership, in a Test against Zimbabwe. Their fifty-to-hundred conversion rates were poor: among players with 40 or more Test scores of 50-plus, Fleming stands thirdworst and McCullum joint 12th (Stokes is 11th).
There are precedents. Duncan Fletcher was appointed head coach in the summer of 1999 but preferred to complete the season with Glamorgan before joining England for a winter tour to South Africa, as will now be the case with Fleming. In effect, Fleming, though still in New Zealand, has already started work, speaking regularly on the phone with the likes of Root, Trescothick and the director of cricket Rob Key. However, his first Test in charge on English soil will not be until the one-off game against Bangladesh next May, only three weeks before the Ashes begins. Remarkably, and as was the case with McCullum when he started with England in 2022, Fleming has no firsthand experience of coaching a redball side. His coaching career is built entirely on franchise cricket, principally with Chennai, where he worked almost exclusively with one powerful and experienced captain, MS Dhoni.
Against that may be set the verdict of Swann, who said of Fleming: “He’s the best captain I ever played under. There was no situation that we got in that he hadn’t seen before. He knows how to manage people but can be tough when needs be.”
enjoyed little success in the previous five years. He took New Zealand to their first World Cup final in 2015 and retired with his reputation as high as it had ever been.
Simon Wilde
hen Brendon McCullum was sounded out about taking the New Zealand captaincy in 2012, he was unsure whether to accept. He had been considered before and
W
McCullum developed an attacking style as a leader that ran counter to what had gone before. That included Fleming’s nine years as captain, for about half of which a young McCullum was in the team. In his autobiography, McCullum accused Fleming’s team of lacking “soul”.
Graeme Swann, who played under Fleming when Nottinghamshire won the County Championship in 2005, says: “He’s probably more old school than Baz in his way of thinking but that’s not a bad thing. They’re good mates. The one thing about New Zealanders is they hold a high level of deference for each other, so I don’t think that will be an issue.”
What Fleming did for New Zealand by making them steelier is what England need now. Another aspect of his captaincy that he may bring to his new job is developing leaders. “People worry about how to keep making their mark after they’ve been in a leadership role for an extended period,” he once said. “Well, the answer is to turn everyone else into leaders. Then there are more voices, more ideas and more resources.”
overlooked. He was struggling with fitness issues and his days keeping wicket in Tests were effectively done. As he often did, he turned to his manager for guidance. His manager was Stephen Fleming. The advice was firm. “Why would you do it? Don’t do it. You don’t need it.”
Before McCullum’s time, Fleming had created a team pledge that he reinforced with a video he put together entitled Better Than Before, which was a potted history of previous New Zealand teams. The idea had its origins in a scene from the film Dead Poet’s Society. McCullum described the words in the Fleming pledge as sacred to the New Zealand players; it demanded respect for the past and served as a reminder of the values that kept the team tight.
Sceptics will suspect that carts are being put before horses with England’s new arrangements. Fleming has been appointed Test coach because he can work with McCullum. Joe Root has been given the Test captaincy so that Harry Brook can continue leading the white-ball sides. We know that McCullum was keen to carry on
When the job was duly offered, McCullum went ahead and accepted anyway. It proved the right move. After a bad start, the job revitalised him. He averaged more with the bat in Tests than he ever had under Fleming, or Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor, under whom the team had
Fleming has taken on a big and complex role. If he helps England regain the Ashes and then retain them in Australia, while not destabilising the white-ball set-up in the process, it will be easily the biggest thing he has ever achieved in a long and glittering career.
Fleming is more of a details man than McCullum, which is another
12 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
Cricket
Finger-clicking is near the top of any scale of cricketing sin
This is the equivalent of planting false clues that lead to an unfair conviction
politics, if rules are thrown out, we’re drawn to lose our trust in politicians in general.
Mike Brearley
But with the finger-snapping practice, there is also the question of how anyone could manage to get away with it.
FORMER ENGLAND CAPTAIN
How could the perpetrators have performed their concerted trick at just the right time? For the appeals to the umpire to be plausible, the click must be made at precisely the moment the ball passes the outside edge. The finger-snapper either has to do it frequently, including on occasions when the ball is hit cleanly (or missed by a mile), or the click would be too late to be linked to the edge of the bat. It would be interesting to know the umpire’s responses. In the videos I’ve seen, the slip and wicketkeeper go up together in triumphant appeal, as if there has been an obvious edge. How often have they started to do this when the ball has been middled and is speeding to the cover-point boundary? Certainly the timing would have to be exact.
Rod Marsh, the great Australian wicketkeeper, exuded belligerence. He bristled with aggression, asked no favours, was as tough as old boots. You knew you were in for an examination, with a ring of predatory slip fielders, especially when the man with the hard red ball in his hand was Marsh’s great mate and ally, Dennis Lillee. But this toughness was accompanied by an ethical straightforwardness that I admired. He became one of the warmest of my cricketing friends.
174 and Australia secured victory by 45 runs.)
Rod would never claim a catch if he knew the ball had touched the ground. “In fact,” he added, “Randall didn’t hit it either. But that was the umpire’s decision, and you had to accept that.” Years later, he told me he wouldn’t appeal if he knew the batter was not out (unless, he added with a grin, recent incorrect decisions needed balancing). But at the same time, he argued that as a batter you are under no obligation to walk if you know you’ve nicked the ball to the keeper; you should accept the rub of the green, whether to your advantage or disadvantage.
At a crucial moment on the final day of the Centenary Test, almost 50 years ago in Melbourne, Marsh dived forward to catch a ball from Greg Chappell that had squeezed between Derek Randall’s bat and pad. The Australians appealed and Randall was given out. Recovering from his roll on the grass, Marsh called Randall back. The ball hadn’t carried.
What was the rationale for this apparent inconsistency? I think it went along these lines: appeals in cricket are made by the fielding side to the umpire. They are like the prosecution in a lawsuit, while the batter is in the position of the defendant. As the defendant, he has a right to plead not guilty, and wait for the decision of the court. The bowler/fielder has no right to bring dishonest charges.
too English. His phrase for it was “play hard and play fair”.
One video is from a match last season, when Saltburn needed one wicket and the opposition four runs. The same finger-snapper is at silly point. The viewer is invited to watch his left hand, and it is indeed possible that he snaps his fingers just as the ball seems to go past the outside edge. But I couldn’t swear to it.
From Melbourne Cricket Club (Australia’s MCC), to the North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League, Division 2. A cricketer alleges that a slip fielder who plays for Saltburn Second XI has been getting caught-behind decisions by snapping his finger and thumb as the ball passes the outside edge on the way to the keeper. The charge is that this is a systematic policy involving more than the two primary conspirators (the keeper and the slip). Videos online have been used to support the accusation. Umpires, it’s said, have thus been conned into thinking the sound must come from the ball on the bat edge.
This event occurred when England had a decent chance of pulling off what would have been an improbable run chase in a great Test match; set 463 to win, Randall was on 161, with Tony Greig going well at the other end. The score was 324 for four. (Randall was eventually dismissed for
Moreover, having fielded at first slip a lot myself, and indeed sometimes at silly point, I would have thought that in these positions anyone would be too busy concentrating on catching genuine chances to have the mental space (and time) for such a cunning ploy.
Rod said he didn’t like the phrase “Spirit of Cricket” — too high-falutin’,
Devine’s apparent attempt to trick umpires was caught on camera
done with the intent of deceiving the official who carries the responsibility for upholding justice. It seems to me more premeditated and cynical than claiming a catch when you’re not sure the ball has carried; not just a case of giving oneself the benefit of the doubt in the heat of the moment.
As for the “Spirit of Cricket”, or “play hard but play fair”, this ruse, if proved, is high on any scale of cricketing sin. It is, or would be, an egregious piece of cheating.
To continue the analogy to courts of law, this slip fielder is doing the equivalent of planting false clues that lead to an unfair conviction, and this has been a systematic and regular mode of behaviour from the team. Statistical evidence has been offered in support: the keeper involved has twice as many dismissals as his nearest rival in the division and, according to one online contributor, has a far higher number of catches per match when the alleged fingersnapper has been playing (39 in 13 matches) than in those from which he has been absent (five in seven). On one recent scorecard he was credited with no fewer than eight catches. (“Circumstantial evidence, m’lud,” the defence may argue.)
Trickery is, of course, one element in sport. You need not only skill, courage and resilience, but also shrewdness, even a degree of cunning. Cricket in particular is a game played in the head, as well as with the body. It’s an important element to bowl over a period of time to a plan. We deceive the batter by bluff and by guile. We play on his nerves. I love the art of spin bowling, especially leg spin, where a large part of the aim of bowling and captaincy is to create uncertainty in the batter. There is a grey area between shrewdness and gamesmanship, another between gamesmanship and almost obscene attempts at “mental disintegration”, between all these and out-and-out cheating.
Though deliberate and persistent ball-tampering is akin to fingersnapping in the dishonesty of its intentions, that practice is an extension of ordinary ball cleaning and polishing. There is a gradual decline from one to the other. Moreover, the rule against it was, in my day, more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
In its calculation and planning, finger-snapping has similarities to spot-fixing. One difference is that the advantage gained is within the game, as opposed to the pecuniary advantage of a betting scam. What the snapper gains is unfair advantage on the field itself; the fixer’s reward is a cut of the gambler’s profits. One feature in common is that the cricket lover’s trust in the shared honesty of the game is put in question. As in
So where does, or would, such an action stand in the scale of cricketing sins, in the scale of unfairness, or plain cheating? Certainly it is (or would be) a matter of perverting the course of justice. It’s deliberate, and
As I say, if the finger-snapping case is proved, it falls squarely into the last category.
Wicketkeeper Marsh was relentlessly honest, as when calling Randall back
“mess” and blamed the ECB. However, the board insists that, following the move away from its centralised deal with KP Snacks last year, the collective value of the individual team sponsorships will far exceed the previous arrangement, arguing that the two London clubs have deals that would do that on their own.
lost their name, against the wishes of Surrey, and are now called MI London. This means both London teams have “London” in their names, which must confuse potential supporters.
“A loose collection of quality franchises across the globe creates great synergies,” he said. “The cricket world is moving quickly and you’ve got to take your chance. For years, Glamorgan has been patronised by some of the larger counties but I see a vacancy at the top of English cricket, and we intend to fill it. Glamorgan has been transformed and I don’t think people have quite got up to speed.”
It is perhaps no coincidence some of the sharpest drops in attendances have occurred at venues where the side’s team colours have changed, such as Headingley and the Utilita Bowl. This is also true at the Oval: the Invincibles wore green whereas MI London now wear blue. The ECB counters that fandom is building, thanks to shirt and flag giveaways.
early part of the story has some way to go yet.”
Some feel the rebranding of teams under new owners has been done badly, squandering established fan loyalty. The Oval Invincibles, men’s winners for the past three years, have
Mark Rhydderch-Roberts, the Glamorgan chairman, is bullish, however. “With the next media round I firmly believe the Hundred will take its place as the leading short-format tournament after the IPL,” he said.
In terms of running the playing side, coaching staff have had to be amalgamated in some cases, while in others IPL owners have brought in their own people, such as Kieron Pollard at MI London. Tom Moody had previously managed Oval Invincibles to their “three-peat”.
Cricket Correspondent
Further confusion has probably been caused by a lot of the players, once familiar to fans of certain teams, jumping camp after the biggest auction in the Hundred’s short history. Of some 20 leading England players involved in this year’s tournament who also took part in 2025, around half have changed teams. Welsh Fire recruited three big-name England players in Phil Salt (who was born in Wales) as captain, Joe Root and Chris Woakes. “That was a conscious effort in the auction, to really ambush our competitors, and we did a good job,” Rhydderch-Roberts said.
he ECB’s flagship Hundred tournament is experiencing tensions on several fronts as the 23-day league stage reaches its halfway point. With the introduction of new ownership groups among the eight franchises, teething problems were inevitable, but
There is an acknowledgement by some host venues that investors will push for more games. After all, they have paid a lot to stage only four home fixtures a season. But if there is to be an expansion, extra matches would still have to be fitted into the prescribed four-week window.
Beyond dispute is that the quality of cricket is better than ever. Apart from the higher salary cap attracting good players, teams are now permitted to field four overseas stars in their XIs, up from three. The quality is especially noticeable in the bowling attacks. The Manchester team, for example, sport five internationals in Gus Atkinson, Sonny Baker, Liam Dawson, Josh Tongue and the Afghanistan wrist spinner Noor Ahmad.
English cricket needs to watch out because they’ve let in new business practices
Apart from broadcast rights, there are really only two areas with any potential monetary upside — tickets and merchandise, and sponsorship. Both are providing disappointment.
there is an urgent desire among some to get things right after stakes valued at £520million were sold last year.
ECB sources remain optimistic over how things stand, despite attendances being down on the comparable stage in 2025, when the competition had its best year in terms of gates. They say broadcast audiences are up and social media “views” have risen by about 75 per cent. Interestingly, they maintain they always factored in a drop in attendances of about 4 to 6 per cent because of the switch to new owners and the decentralisation of ticketing and sponsorship.
The sponsorship situation is complicated. Due to the ECB’s desire to get rid of betting sponsorships, a move delayed until next year after protests, and the general economic situation, teams have struggled to find front-ofshirt sponsors at good levels.
The increase in salary cap before the last auction, though necessary to attract the best talent, has put an additional squeeze on potential profits.
“The standard of cricket has been awesome,” said Ben Duckett, who is playing for Trent Rockets. “Everywhere you look, there are not many weaknesses.”
Rhydderch-Roberts believes the new tournament has been more beneficial to some counties than others. For Glamorgan, it has been transformative. They are equal partners with Sanjay Govil, an American tech entrepreneur who owns Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket. That arguably puts them in a better position than, say, Hampshire and Yorkshire, both wholly owned by their new owners, or Lancashire, who have retained only 30 per cent of the Manchester Super Giants franchise.
“The income from lead sponsors is way below what was budgeted in the investment memorandum,” said one. Another called the situation a
Some suggest that, in terms of spectator numbers, sport watchers may be suffering fatigue from so many rival attractions such as the football World Cup, but in reality the Hundred has been afforded a pretty clear window.
The biggest challenge comes down to culture — investors from India and the United States, several of them owners of IPL franchises or with interests in other sports, joining forces with county clubs who have longestablished methods regarding how they run things on and off the field.
Ticket prices remain competitive. All venues must admit under-fives for free and those aged 5-16 for £5. The ECB also retains control of the bottom 15 per cent of adult tickets to keep an anchor on prices, but teams control the rest. New owners are free to price these as they see fit. Some have created new gold and platinum packages, but the ECB says the rises have not been excessive.
These clubs, he suggests, have become largely “venue-hire businesses”. He adds: “We chose our investor rather than the other way round. We have a more positive narrative. With the transition from ECB
There were bound to be differences of approach, but one of many sources — most of whom would only speak on condition of anonymity, such is the delicacy of the situation — accused the new owners of being “insensitive to the local market”, adding: “It’s an area English cricket needs to watch because they’ve let a different culture and different business practices through the door.” He cited the case of the Manchester Super Giants logo incorporating an elephant, as seen on the Lucknow Super Giants badge; only the wording is different.
Prices vary by venue, day of the week and region, but standard adult tickets for the next seven days range from about £20 at Cardiff on Monday to £75 at Trent Bridge on Wednesday for the derby against Birmingham Phoenix. Hospitality tickets touch £210 in some cases.
ticketing and marketing to the new ownership, yes, there have been some teething troubles, but we’ve experienced
One other discernible pattern is that Hundred attendances have been
higher when the tournament follows an England Test series against Australia or India, which may have raised cricket’s
Time pressure is at play here too. The ECB’s next media rights deal, which will take effect from 2029, is seen as a crucial opportunity for the new owners to extract some financial return on their investments, provided the product is in good shape and has established itself as the world’s second-biggest league behind the IPL.
fewer of those because we’ve got a good relationship with the new owner. He recognises that we run the venue.”
profile among casual followers. This could have con-
tributed to this year’s drop-off compared to 2025, when India toured for five Tests.
Precisely who holds the power in this new world is something exercising the minds of many. RhydderchRoberts says Glamorgan and Govil see opportunities in the wider franchise world; they bid for Rajasthan Royals when the franchise recently came up for sale — and got to the last four — and are keeping an eye on the prospective sale of Big Bash teams in Australia.
Recruitment of Root “ambushed” rivals, say Welsh Fire
“Some data suggests we’re in really good shape,” an ECB spokesperson said. “Of course there have been learnings but anyone would expect that given the level of change. Given what this will do for English cricket, there’s huge amounts of excitement as to where we will get to.”
The ECB is expected to start talking to prospective bidders as early as the end of this year, which doesn’t leave long for the tournament to put on its best face. One source urged the ECB not to rush into any deal, saying: “This
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times S1
Athletics Commonwealth Games
Kerr uses guile as well in high-class contest
Scot says ‘it doesn’t get better than this’ as he overcomes poor early position to take gold in the mile in front of home crowd
Jake Wightman, Kerr’s old Edinburgh AC team-mate, pushed back to a disappointing sixth. Credit, too, to Wales’ Jake Heyward, who finished fourth after spending most of the past four years sidelined with injuries.
ate to tarnish his mantle. The crowd was significantly down on the 35,000 who had watched what was dubbed the “Miracle Mile” but it was roused to a patriotic fervour by the start. Bannister said his mile record would have meant nothing had he not beaten Landy. For Kerr, too, this victory underlined his record.
“It means everything,” said Kerr who felt this was some form of payback for a dismal time at the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. “This was the championship of my season after world indoors and going after the record in London. I didn’t put together the performance I wanted in 2022. I think a British crowd deserved more and I owed them that.
fter breaking the mile world record two weeks ago, Josh Kerr showed he can shine while racing rivals as well as the clock with a run of class and conviction that will linger long in the memory. The Scottish star added the Commonwealth Games
The 2023 world champion over 1,500m went the extra hard yards. Earlier this week, Wightman boldly predicted that Myers would become the best of all-time, but Kerr might have something to say about that.
As the runners were announced he strutted onto the track with his blinkers and trademark shades on. Glasgow’s showpiece began with Myers and Kerr on the inside. Wightman and Kerr then tucked in behind the leaders. The pace was slow which would have been what Wightman wanted with his fast finish. It was edgy.
“When you’re running that slow, your job is not to waste energy and I did that there. I knew an opportunity would open up. Jake [Wightman] was on the outside and he’s such a great closer, but I had enough energy to put a gap on him in the last 200.
gold medal to his raft of achievements as he used his raw pace to extricate himself from a messy position. He is pushing parameters and prolonging his purple patch. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” he said.
Just 14 days after breaking the mile world record, Kerr powered his way to Commonwealth glory in front of a delighted home crowd
It was the first Commonwealth Games mile for 60 years and if the time was modest — 3min 54.12sec the drama was rich. Kerr, 28, had got himself into a seemingly terrible position but the middle distance is about pointy elbows as well as blistering times. He escaped and when he hit the front with 250 metres to go, nobody truly looked like staying with him. The pre-race theory was that a slow race would help the others. It merely delayed the inevitable.
“The record in London was a big stress, pushing my body to the extreme limit. Doing a championship race is a nice clean of the palate, using your brain instead of your body. It’s how I love to race.”
Myers simply tracked Kerr until the gloves came off. As they came to the bell, Cheruiyot led Myers and Kerr. The Scot then picked his moment and delivered a rapturously received triumph. Kerr has separated himself from the field and history by breaking Hicham El Guerrouj’s decades-old record. Now, in the city where he won world indoor gold two years ago, in the stadium where he set his personal best for the shot put as a kid, he was a champion again.
This was a thoroughly-modern triumph but it was infused with nostalgia. Back in 1954, after breaking the mile world record, Sir Roger Bannister and Australia’s John Landy faced off in Vancouver at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. It was a titanic tussle between two men who had gone under the four-minute mile barrier that summer. Fast-forward and Kerr was racing in Glasgow as the 14th man to hold the record since Bannister with an Australian rival desper-
ago he ran the fastest ever mile by a 16-year-old. His time will come.
coaches Wightman, but he was back on the tannoy in Scotstoun Stadium.
As for Kerr and Wightman, that is a long-running tale. In 2022 Wightman surged past Norway’s reality tv starturned-phenomenon Jakob Ingebrigtsen to win the 1,500m world title. That was a performance swathed in emotion as his father, Geoff, was the announcer in Oregon. Geoff no longer
Then, in 2023, the injured Wightman watched from a TV gantry, as Kerr produced a carbon copy to succeed him as world champion. Last year the pair made the 1,500m World Championship final, where Kerr tore a muscle and hobbled home in pain, while Wightman completed his own
Cameron Myers, Australia’s wunderkind, was second but was 1.14sec behind, which sounds less than it looked. Timothy Cheruiyot, a fourtimes Diamond League champion over 1,500m, took the bronze, with
It was undoubtedly the standout race of the track programme and a high-class contest. Myers is only 20 and the latest prodigy in a sport where there are no kid gloves. Three years
Rick Broadbent It is, nevertheless,
Hunter Bell had taken the long route to these podiums. She was a talented junior who quit at 23 and worked for a cyber security firm before falling back in love via lockdown parkruns. She was still running, still gifted and still fit, but it was only after finishing fourth at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in 2024 that she realised she could be a contender. As she said after her win on Friday: “It showed me I was good, but if I really wanted to break through and be the best in the world I had to make a lifestyle change.” That was why she decided to quit her job in tech sales. That year, she won European silver and that Olympic bronze over 1,500m. In 2025, she added a world indoor bronze and pipped Hodgkinson to 800m silver at the World Championships in Tokyo, albeit that her younger team-mate
was fighting back from injury. This year she has won two international titles, at the World Indoor Championships and Commonwealth Games.
unusual to have a rival so close and Meadows lauds Hodgkinson, 24,
When Georgia Hunter Bell won her Olympic 1,500m bronze medal in Paris in 2024, Dame Kelly Holmes gave her some advice. “Georgia, you do understand the symmetry of this, don’t you?” she said. “I got a bronze when I was 30 and then I did the double when I was 34. That’s the age you’re going to be in LA.”
for how she dealt with
it when her coaches steered Hunter Bell towards her event last year. “She could
“If Georgia was joining M11 [training group] now or a year ago, maybe Keely would not have been as open to the idea,” Meadows says of doubling up. “But when she joined she wasn’t even an international athlete. I’m so impressed with them both. They genuinely respect each other.
have had a problem with it and us as coaches because we basically put a rival in her way,” Meadows, an Olympic 800m runner who won world and European medals, says. “Keely would not have wanted us to clear the way for her. She
The new Commonwealth Games 800m champion, now 32, is considering attempting the Olympic middle-distance double. If she did that it would make her the arch-rival of her friend and training partner Keely Hodgkinson, the reigning 800m champion. Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows are the husband-and-wife duo tasked with managing a pair who have now won ten Olympic, world and European medals in two years.
would lose all respect for us and she’d be like, ‘That’s not fair to Georgia.’ ” Hodgkinson is sixth on
“I’ve heard Keely say she’ll be really sad when Georgia retires because she loses one of the world’s best training partners.”
the all-time 800m list and Hunter Bell is tenth. In the 1,500m list, Hunter Bell is the British record-
Hunter Bell won the 800m in Glasgow on Friday
ISABEL INFANTES /REUTERS
Given that the 1,000m time-trial was making its Commonwealth Games debut, we were always going to have a new champion. There was, however, only ever going to be one winner as Emma Finucane continued her golden Glaswegian week with a third fine triumph (Mark Palmer writes).
While underdogs Mayo ended their 75-year All-Ireland curse at Croke Park last weekend, the men behind the mic became as celebrated as the players — in all corners of the world
STEPHEN MCCARTHY/SPORTSFILE
After her team and individual sprint titles on consecutive days, the 23-year-old from Carmarthen completed a perfect hat-trick by gliding home in a time of 1min 05.285sec, 0.322sec ahead of Australia’s Claudia Marcks.
Woooooooohhhhhh!!!!
The famine is over! The famine is over! The curse be damned! Hit the nuclear button! Mayo have won the All-Ireland! It’s coming home! It’s coming home!
Oh my God almighty! Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! What a match! Mayo have done it!
If the win was a formality, there has been nothing run-of-the-mill about her quality and consistency. Regardless of distance or calibre of opposition, Finucane has produced consistent excellence.
Oh Martin, 75 years, how on God’s earth can you sum this up? Oh my God.
Preparing for last Sunday’s AllIreland Gaelic football final, Stephen Grealis’s commentary notes did not need to get too dense. After five years calling club games and Mayo matches for Midwest Radio, he recognised every twitch and nuance in every player. But he did scribble down one word: “famine” — a reference to the fact that, going into the final against Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin, Mayo were bidding to end a 75-year wait. “A story was told me by a local man about the 1997 final,” he says. “At the end a Kerry father turned to his son and said, ‘That’s the famine over.’ That was 11 years. It really stuck with me and resonated with me.”
The field included Ellesse Andrews, who Finucane — the 15th of 17 riders — had to watch try to pip her at the last. Andrews managed third place, a position Lauren Bell had designs on before fading in her final lap.
Finucane kept pace, power and standards high and deserved the acclaim at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. She is the first Welsh woman to win three golds at a single Games and could complete a clean sweep in today’s keirin.
Mayo’s momentous win last weekend captured the attention of the world
It was Sunday evening at the Mayo team banquet, stitching the evening together with interviews, that Grealis got a sense of what was happening.
eldest sister rear her family. He became an electrician and worked on a hydroelectric scheme in Donegal. Carney played for Donegal and won Ulster medals, but Mayo was in their bones. He won four Connacht medals with Mayo and sat on the bench for the 1989 All-Ireland final before another life charting Mayo’s agonies as a TV and radio analyst.
“I flicked [the phone] and saw our clip had gotten a couple of hundred thousand views,” he says. “When mates in Australia were in touch, ‘You’re on the news here,’ it’s like, ‘Oh God.’ To be lucky enough to have been there to capture it, the fact that’s gone worldwide, is even crazier.”
Would he have reason to use it? Grealis remembered the Mayo manager, Andy Moran, with him once for commentary on a dreary county championship quarter-final between Ballina and Castlebar. An hour with Moran left Grealis buzzing.
Before Sunday, he was contacted by Patricia Browne, the wife of Jimmy, who captained Carney and Mayo in the 1989 final. Could he mention Jimmy on commentary? He did at the beginning and stayed talking to him all the way through.
During a radio interview last week Carney heard the commentary back for the first time. “I was embarrassed. Then I said, ‘Why would I be? What you were doing was a reflection of the madness unfolding,’ ” he says.
“I never enjoyed a commentary as much. The energy he brought said to me, ‘OK, this man has something.’ Once he was manager, you could see there was something different.”
Finucane won her third gold of the week
“[Winning] was beautiful. I never realised it would be as sweet and cathartic,” he adds. “That spiritual regeneration. What you’ve been searching for all your life. It was more relief than joy. I abseiled Croke Park for Mayo Cancer Support; [last Sunday] you’re abseiling without a safety rope. You’re just coming down at full speed. You let it rip, baby.”
The Friday before the game, Martin Carney — the former footballer who was Grealis’s co-commentator — met for coffee with Paddy Burke, Willie Joe Padden and John Maughan, two legendary comrades with Mayo, trying to find something to cling on to. “Cautious optimism would be stretching it,” he says.
Every emotion was on Carney’s face and transmitted through his words. His uncle Jackie had played in Mayo’s first All-Ireland-winning team in 1936 and trained the sides of 1950 and 1951. As one of 13 children, Carney’s father was sent from Mayo to Limerick as a teenager to help his
recovery by finishing second to Portugal’s Isaac Nader. This summer Kerr has been in restorative form.
The popular 32-year-old leapt 6.93m to get the gold to go with the silver she won when the Games was last held in Glasgow in 2014.
It was a fitting conclusion to an athletics programme that has included some memorable moments even if the quality has been mixed. Another came earlier as Stoke’s Jazmin Sawyers won her first international outdoor title in the long jump.
For Sawyers, who appeared on TV singing competition The Voice, this was a reward for her resilience. Her mantra is “a little delusion goes a long way”. This time she was just delighted.
The impact of the outpouring of pride and emotion from a community hemmed in by defeat for 75 years smashed through barriers traditionally impenetrable to a small native sport.
“I was in a state,” Grealis adds. “It’s been a very funny year. I got into the sports editor job [for Midwest] back in May. In April I got diagnosed with colitis. My stomach has been great since with medication but my God it was upside down, the last 20 minutes.
Mayo in All-Ireland senior football inals
1916 Lost vs Wexford 1921 Lost vs Dublin 1932 Lost vs Kerry 1936 Won vs Laois 1948 Lost vs Cavan
Mayo’s story has since lapped the globe — the curse inflicted on Mayo’s winning team in 1951 by a priest in Foxford after the imaginary intrusion into a funeral by celebrating players opening the way for a universal story anyone could connect with.
holder. Hodgkinson has not run a 1,500m since she was 17. The problem for Hunter Bell in the 1,500m is that it has been dominated by arguably the sport’s greatest ever athlete. Faith Kipyegon won Olympic gold in 2016, 2021 and 2024 and is a five-times world champion. The presence of Hodgkinson and the rise of Switzerland’s Audrey Werro means the 800m is a daunting task too, and the situation is further complicated by not knowing which is her best event.
herself and her chances of gold in the 1,500 were not that great.”
“For five minutes after full-time the only words I could get out were ‘Oh my God’. I don’t know how I held myself together. A former colleague texted and said, ‘How were you so composed?’ Call that composed?!” He spent his 27th birthday last
On Thursday night, Hunter Bell reiterated her multi-tasking ambition, but will run only the 1,500m at the European Championships in Birmingham. “I was trying to see if I could double at Europeans, but it’s a lot to put on the body,” she said. “But I do look forward to doing the double one day.” It could be at the LA Olympics in 2028, as Holmes predicted. It would be tough with the 1,500m starting the day after the 800m final, but Meadows thinks that challenge is more psychological than physical. “Kelly was the same in 2004. When she had to come in the next morning she was like, ‘I can’t do it.’ ” Of course, Holmes won both the 800m and 1,500m; no athlete has won the Olympic middle-distance double since.
The commentary made bulletins and newspapers in Australia. Mike Atherton celebrated their work in his cricket column for The Times. The story made the New York Times and crossed lines from The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph to the Guardian. Christiane Amanpour talked on CNN. Tributes stretched from Joe Biden and Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, to Oasis’s Gallagher brothers. Over 23 million watched the closing minutes pinned at on The Sunday Game’s X account and the listens for the Midwest commentary, scattered across different accounts, also spiralled off into millions.
Wednesday in Belmullet introducing the team to a gigantic crowd. Carney went to the homecoming on Monday.
“In Belmullet it was crazy,” Grealis says. “People hugging, shaking my hand. I say, ‘I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t playing.’ An absolute whirlwind.
“Last year, before Tokyo [the World Championships], it felt like Georgia could not even function because she kept going, ‘800 or 1,500 or do I do both?’” Meadows says. “It literally came down to a vote. Trevor wanted her to do both and me, Georgia and her husband were like, ‘No, let’s focus on one.’ And we decided 800 because,
“One child asked me to sign a jersey. Next there were 20 children around. I don’t know how to do this. Thankfully, Jordan Flynn [Mayo player] came around the corner and they just bolted there. I made my escape. I was like, ‘Did that happen?’ ”
2017 Lost vs Dublin
2020 Lost vs Dublin
2021 Lost vs Tyrone 2026 Won vs Kerry
at that time, Keely was not quite
It did. All of it did.
16 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
LE PLAISIR DU MOUVEMENT; WILLIAM WEST/AFP/GETTY
Girls train at the
Kingham Hill camp, where players will not enact a single
If that French boy or girl was introduced to England, they’d end up playing like dinosaurs
set piece
incompetence” around those who regurgitate what they are told to coach. I hear stories about academy players being told off for offloading, even though it was successful.
“It’s laughable because it’s all about standing still and passing the ball to stationary people and then telling them to run at tackle shields,” Dixon says of RFU training. “You can only do that for so long before you’re thinking: ‘I’m pretty sure there’s a bit more to the game than this.’ But if we don’t teach people, how will they find out?”
Dixon takes umbrage at suggestions that a nation has a style of rugby in their DNA. “They’ve been taught how to play the game properly,” he says. “If that little French boy or girl was taken out of France and introduced to Hinckley or Stanley Rodillians or any other, they would end up playing like English dinosaurs.”
Sam Lacombe, a coach in Toulouse’s academy, is involved with LPM. Lacombe was not in attendance last week but Richard Dixon was. A former teacher in the UK, Dixon now lives in Toulouse and coaches youths there. He recalls the first time he saw LPM in action, saying: “I didn’t know what I was seeing, but I knew it was how rugby should be played.”
Nothing that I saw on Monday appeared overly revolutionary. Everyone in rugby knows you have to pass back to move forwards and have 14 team-mates to help you. It can, however, be pared down to a mindset and an approach: to train with a ball in hand, with game play in mind; to allow knock-ons but encourage passing and movement above all else; to promote the development of intelligence and courage in the individual.
Children at Oxfordshire summer camp discover ‘the pleasure of movement’, an idea that rejects traditional RFU ways
This culture has defined Toulouse for 40 years, instilled in juniors and new seniors like Jack Willis, the English back row. You play à la Toulousaine there, not à la wherever you came from. The attitude has rubbed off on Bordeaux, the merged arrivistes who have been European champions for the past two seasons. Laurent Marti, the Bordeaux president, was a junior at Toulouse. Yannick Bru, the Bordeaux head coach, spent most of his playing career there.
Dixon led the under-12 boys in their first session on Monday morning. For an hour and a half, it was all about reducing the game to first principles: go forward; be in close support; stay on your feet; attack in the same direction until the touchline intervenes. During this camp, players will not hit a ruck or enact a single set piece. They will attack with the ball, and defend when it’s the other team’s turn.
There are safety and inclusion elements too. The coaches believe that focusing on evasion rather than contact will help market rugby as a safer sport. Representatives from Millfield and Marlborough College were expected to see LPM in action, and the venue for the camp (£475 for those staying on site for the week, £300 otherwise) is an independent school, but there is a strong outreach presence. Ben Hutchings, one of the organisers, is the academy director of Roebucks,
The methodology is rooted in the classroom. Villepreux learnt from René Deleplace, a university professor and rugby theorist. Moving forward and supporting the ball-carrier is the priority, always looking for a pass before or during contact (the word “offload” is not used), and only when there is an obstacle do you spread the ball wide.
Elgan Alderman
ow often does a British spectator tune into Toulouse or Bordeaux Bègles’s latest divine offering and curse that their team cannot be the same? Maybe cultural renewal is on offer. Maybe the Anglo-Saxon — as the French would call them —
A niche group of acolytes — the terms “evangelise” and “cult” are used jokingly on the day I visit — are trying to spread those principles in the UK, emulating the French camps in Lubersac, near Limoges. The muse of the British chapter is Lynn Evans, the Welshman and friend of Villepreux who coached Oxford University from 1981 to 1996. Now in his eighties, he was taking part in demonstrations at the camp.
Phrases explain what the focus should be. “How am I helping my team-mates?... You should be in movement all the time, and so should the ball… We are actors, we are not spectators.” A lot of the early play is clunky. It is notable that one boy, who is English but lives in France and has attended the camps before, has the principles down, offering tight support lines consistently to the ball-carrier, just as the best French packs do. Underlying most of the coaches’ presence here is a dislike of the traditional approach in the UK, and a focus on drills that create action but don’t feed into game play. I hear “unconscious
Villepreux likens it to an accordion, the attacking movement mirroring how an accordion compresses and expands to create space and time. Among his catchphrases are: “Play where it is easier to play… Go help him… The ball must breathe.”
which seeks to develop players in southeast London who don’t
attend rugby-playing schools.
and the Celt can embrace the pleasure of movement.
Acolytes of LPM are aware of their limit and know that the
That is the phrase that underpins Le Plaisir du Mouvement (LPM) UK, which has just hosted its fifth annual summer camp at Kingham Hill School. More than 20 coaches, including one involved with Springboks Women, and about 120 children, boys and girls from under-12s to under-18s, turned out in Chipping Norton to learn the principles of Pierre Villepreux, who created LPM more than 30 years ago in France.
impact of a five-day camp may struggle to endure once players return to their schools and
clubs.
Then again, they may
remember.
Dixon asks the under-12s if they enjoyed the first session. There is a shy mur-
Villepreux was an attacking full back for France and one of the most influential coaches in the sport. In 1985, alongside Jean-Claude Skrela, he ended Toulouse’s 38-year wait for a national championship and began the club’s golden age. In June they won the Top 14 for a fourth successive season, equalling their record sequence from the late Nineties.
muring of agreement.
When pushed for reasons, they come up with: “Fun. Intense. Playing
The ethos of Villepreux, right, is now being espoused by Evans, left
rugby.”
holes created by Tupaea. Arundell, though still only 23, is in danger of becoming a wasted talent.
an ankle injury, but in his absence Matthieu Jalibert was wonderful even though he played predominantly at full back. Fin Smith lacks the pace and panache of these No 10s, so England should give Marcus Smith a final run or force Fin to play even flatter on the gainline.
vision, but England seem to not trust his defence.
Back to the team of July. At outside centre, I have chosen the understated Kiwi, Quinn
At full back, the Springboks’ Damian Willemse needed only the brilliance of his performance against England to soar into this hypothetical team. Great in the air and on the ground, the 28-year-old is growing into the ultimate full back.
Tupaea. The 27-year-old runs perfect lines and times his distribution to near perfection. He’s a poet of a player.
No Englishmen in my World XV and only one makes bench reason to worry before a big 2027
Angus Bell, 25, recently of Ulster and now back in Australia, delivered front-foot ball for the Wallabies. In an era of pick-and-drives, props must also have a predatory knack for scoring from close range. South Africa’s Thomas du Toit, a prolific scorer in his Bath days, played for only 50 or so minutes but that was enough to cross against England. Du Toit, 31, is a key weapon for the Springboks from three metres out.
Alas, Borthwick cannot conjure a Jordie Barrett in time for Australia. England require a “second No 10” at inside centre to create further along the back line. Max Ojomoh is the one with the
Will Jordan, Tupaea’s All Blacks team-mate, is
Barnes’ world XV D Willemse (SA); W Jordan (NZ), Q Tupaea (NZ), J Barrett (NZ), C Kolbe (SA); M Jalibert (Fr), C Roigard (NZ); A Bell (Aus), M Marx (SA), T du Toit (SA), J Canham (Aus), T Vaai (NZ), P-S Du Toit (SA), P de Villiers (SA), J Wiese (SA). Replacements E de Groot (NZ), M Lamothe (Fr), T Lomax (NZ), E Meafou (Fr), H Pollock (Eng), B White (Scot), T Menoncello (It), D McKenzie (NZ).
the only possible pick on the right wing, with South
Africa’s Cheslin Kolbe on the left. Imagine Henry Arundell being coached to run those late lines into
It is no less fascinating that Malcolm Marx, the 2025 world player of the year, featured for the entire 80 minutes against England. So much for the “Bomb Squad”. While other countries thoughtlessly follow the trail blazed by Rassie Erasmus, the Springboks are shifting their strategy.
from
England finished the month as they started it, to my mind at least. As a team, where are they? Not bad, not good, somewhere in between? Argentina, whom Steve Borthwick’s side battled past in their final Nations Championship game, are struggling to piece their expatriate playing base back together and England have a fine record against the Pumas, who fielded a far from impressive XV. England began with encouraging intensity but the quality fell away, with the drama of the final play eclipsing a forgettable match. Who is sure whether the Springboks, the best team in the world, were really under pressure against England? There was, without doubt, a 20-minute period of pretty decent stuff from England in Johannesburg. And then there was Fiji. The only question at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium was how bad the Pacific Islanders were. The answer is, very bad.
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This team of the month is an attempt to analyse more than bare form; it is about what the selections may signify. Australia are struggling but are undoubtedly searching for a new way to play. In Josh Canham they have a lock with the ability to contribute tries (he scored three against Italy), but more eye-catching is that he possesses an exquisite pair of hands, allowing him to shift the ball from the breakdown into open space, beyond the claustrophobic clutter. Alongside Canham, 25, I have selected the All Blacks’ Tupou Vaai, 26, another of the second/back-row generation.
The back row is all South African. Pieter-Steph du Toit led the team superbly, which allowed the newcomer Paul de Villiers to settle into the side as a replacement for Siya Kolisi at flanker. There wasn’t a better player than Du Toit in the three rounds of rugby. At No 8, I have opted for Jasper Wiese over New Zealand’s Ardie Savea. The former Leicester man has transformed from a terrific Tiger into a world-class No 8.
Unsurprisingly, the headlines were once again grabbed by Henry Pollock, inset. Love him or loathe him, the 21-year-old scored a hattrick within 35 minutes of being introduced, combining his speed, game awareness and sheer capacity to stand out.
March 5, 2027
Be there for Wales v England at the Principality Stadium, a Guinness Men’s Six Nations fixture where history, rivalry and campaign-defining pressure meet.
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WH Auden wrote: “Youth may be forgiven when it is brash or noisy, but this does not mean that brashness and noise are virtues.” It perfectly sums up Pollock and our reaction to his youthful excesses. It is time for him to grow up, towards potential greatness.
Behind the scrum, the All Blacks’ No 9 Cam Roigard is one of the world’s best; the 25-year-old has to be to shade the Frenchman Maxime Lucu. Roigard and Lucu are technically superb ball-strikers and elusive runners.
This exclusive package includes official match tickets and two hosted events with commenter legend Stuart Barnes, The Times’s Charlie Morgan and a celebrity guest speaker, for an experience that goes beyond kick-off. With a prime city-centre four-star hotel, you’ll also remain close to the stadium, restaurants and post-match debate. Insight before the whistle, atmosphere after it — and every detail handled from start to finish.
That hat-trick stood out in a confusing month, which England fans, critics and even the team’s management may have found hard to evaluate. We think England are a long way from being World Cup contenders; they have no clear identity. But that second-half performance from Pollock was out of the ordinary, and in an ordinary three weeks, it put him into contention — as England’s only candidate — for my Nations Championship team of July.
England’s present crop has nothing to challenge either of them, which demands Archie McParland’s inclusion in Borthwick’s squad moving forward. Although the 21year-old is second choice behind Alex Mitchell at Northampton Saints, he is England’s best hope at scrum half.
Hosted by Stuart Barnes
At fly half we await the return of
Since hanging up his fly-half boots, Stuart is a columnist and match analyst for The Times and one of the country’s most incisive commentators on rugby.
South Africa’s Sacha FeinbergMngomezulu, who missed the opening round of fixtures because of
Pollock performed from the bench in each of the first batch of fixtures and he stays with the replacements in my team. Among the few other English contenders was Bristol Bears’ Ellis Genge. His quick-witted tap penalty and try at Ellis Park summed up his physical attributes as a dynamic ball-carrier, but the 31-yearold loose-head prop struggles to set himself in the scrum — there has to be more. It may be that when Fin Baxter is fit again, we see the best of Genge.
Rivals thoughtlessly follow the trail blazed by Erasmus, but now South Africa are shifting their strategy
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18 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
Attitude, innovation and an unsung hero — inside story of Ferrari’s revival
The points gap between Ferrari and Mercedes at top of constructors’ rankings
Years since a Ferrari driver won the title — Kimi Raikkonen back in 2007
Hamilton has
benefited from the work of Serra, inset
Hamilton has fighting chance of title after miserable 2025 and there is hope at Maranello that they can beat Mercedes to constructors’ crown
top, and Vasseur, below
to improve on the engine side, and we will do it. The most important [thing] would be to be able to keep the pace into the development — we have to keep this momentum, because there are still 12 races to go.”
arrived],” Vasseur admitted on The Race podcast this season.
This year that has all changed. Vasseur and Serra have led the way. They have innovated to the point that their exhaust rear-wing design (they fitted a wing at the back of the tailpipe to add downforce) is now banned for 2027.
Formula 1 Correspondent principal, even questioned how Ferrari could do so within the budget cap, but Maranello are confident their strategy is sustainable, having spent less on their initial design.
The 2025 season was tough for Ferrari, but perhaps some of last year’s struggles helped them hit the ground running in 2026. Ferrari acknowledge they simply got it wrong last year — to run the SF-25 (their 2025 car) optimally, the rear was too low to the ground, risking disqualification (as happened to Hamilton in China).
ewis Hamilton’s first Ferrari victory, in Barcelona on June 14, was celebrated as vociferously a thousand kilometres away in Maranello as it was in Catalonia. Fans leant out of their car windows — often Ferraris, of course — waving the flag of the prancing horse, horns blaring, and
They were also the first team to have the Macarena rear wing which has a 180-degree rotating flap to reduce
L
It's 18 years since the Scuderia last won the constructors' title following a period of dominance with Michael Schumacher and then Kimi Raikkonen as driver
Mercedes are still ahead in both championships, though, and Ferrari’s title hopes would be slim were it not for the reliability issues the leaders have faced. Those travails mean that, despite Mercedes winning eight of the 11 races this season, Ferrari have kept them in range in the constructors’ standings.
drag — and get it working consistently. Red Bull had to remove their version after it contributed
As it stands
to two Max Verstappen crashes.
San Biagio’s bells rang out.
By May they stopped development on that project, as McLaren surged ahead, switching focus to this season and the significant regulation changes. Enter one of Ferrari’s unsung heroes.
But perhaps more importantly, the updates Ferrari
But single race victories are not what they truly wish to revel in. Rather, there is a desire to finally add to the trophy cabinet in La Sala delle Vittorie (Victory Hall) at their museum in Maranello, after a wait of nearly two decades.
That championship is the primary aim for the team at the moment — or at least the one sources suggest is the most realistic. This was clear from the decision not to tell Leclerc to slow down in the closing laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix — to ensure more points for the team — even though that meant he finished ahead of Hamilton, the better contender for the drivers’ title. It is understood Ferrari would favour one of their drivers in the event of a close title race against Antonelli, but for now the focus is on maximising points for the team.
have brought to the track have worked. That may sound simplistic,
but rival teams have found it difficult to translate work in the simulator and wind tunnel to performance come
1990 2000 2010 2020
Loic Serra joined the team in October 2024 as chassis technical director, when development of the 2025 car had already begun, so this year’s car is the first in which he has been involved since its inception.
ton’s partnership with his race engineer Carlo Santi, which was supposed to be temporary, for the rest of the season was another smart call, as was the switch to Carbon Industries brake discs.
Ferrari most recently won the constructors’ title in 2008 and they have not won a drivers’ championship since Kimi Raikkonen took the crown the year before that.
race weekend. Ferrari started the
season about eight tenths of a second a lap
off Mercedes. At the summer break, they have cut that deficit to between two
Yet at the halfway mark of this season, those in Ferrari red feel they are in with a fighting chance. In the constructors’ championship, they trail Mercedes by 72 points, while Hamilton is 50 points behind Kimi Antonelli in the drivers’ standings.
In Budapest, however, some of Ferrari’s old weaknesses resurfaced, and they felt they dropped points with those fourth and fifth-place finishes. Hamilton has made errors too, accumulating four penalties across the past three races. “It’s better for everybody to go on vacation with a good result, but on the other hand, for the championship, we scored more than Mercedes,” Vasseur said in Budapest, where Ferrari took one more point than their rivals. “We have the feeling that we did far from the best we can do, and in this situation, we are not losing points. That’s the positive I will keep for my vacation.”
Serra, who previously worked at
and three tenths. That is a huge achievement, and unusual to accomplish mid-season.
Mercedes with Hamilton, is described by sources at Ferrari as a choirmastertype figure — he does not court the spotlight but has quietly brought the best out of Ferrari’s personnel and systems. It has long been a symptom of Ferrari’s desperation for success that some staff felt it was better to play it safe rather than put their heads above the parapet. In a sport which prizes innovation, this is not an attitude commensurate with success; quite the opposite, in fact.
Indeed, Ferrari have maximised almost everything. Extending Hamil-
There are said to be fundamentally different approaches at Ferrari and Mercedes. Ferrari and Serra opted for a “neutral platform”, which may not provide the fastest car fresh out of the box, but it can be developed on a steep trajectory throughout the season. Mercedes had a much stronger initial package — helped by their dominant power unit — but admit they cannot develop at the same rate as Ferrari. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team
“The first part of the season was, I would say, probably in two stages,” Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, said. “The first one is until Spain, when Mercedes was flying; after Spain, when we came back, we scored more points than Mercedes in these four or five races.
We have to keep this momentum, because there are still 12 races to go
“Where we have to improve, if I draw a conclusion based on today [in Budapest last Sunday, where Charles Leclerc and Hamilton finished fourth and fifth respectively], I would say [is in the] execution. We know that we have
“It’s not that there was a culture of fear or blame or whatever, but maybe it was a bit on the back foot [when I
That is the mentality Ferrari must maintain if they are to chase down Mercedes and end their championship drought.
Sonia Bompastor. I played against her for Arsenal, Chicago and England. She was a pain because she’d tackle hard and you’d know it, but if you did anything to her, the referee would know. She was crafty and clever, which infuriated me.
ALAN CROWHURST/GETTY IMAGES
The 144-cap England international on kicking teddy bears and Chicago living
Plenty, but you’ll never hear them from me.
Kicking a teddy bear around the house. Even my Birmingham Cityobsessed family got annoyed until I started with a ball at primary school. When my parents saw how much I enjoyed it, they decided to help.
Turning pro for the first time for the Red Stars while living in Chicago. I was playing for my country, we reached the Euros final and I was the fittest, strongest and sharpest I’d ever been.
I told Emma Hayes I was going to retire. She just said “Get out of my office.” Two years later, I went back. This time she said I was right. I was fit, I was playing well, but everything I do is passion driven and I couldn’t see myself putting my body through
Aged 11, telling my mum I’d play for England. She said, “How bad do you want it?” and from that day we carried cones and a little football in the back of the car for whenever I saw people who might want to play. My dad found potential clubs, but being a massive Birmingham fan there was only one team for me.
Wembley. My first football memory is watching Birmingham there when I was six. I went on the Tube for the first time and the photo of me and my parents will be a keepsake for the rest of my life. To play there meant a full circle for me.
pre-season. I don’t miss it.
Play like no one’s watching, like you’re the kid in the
playground who doesn’t have inhibitions. I wish I’d played my career
like that.
Emma Hayes. She was the one I was with the most and who taught me so much about life and football.
The Regional Arena, where Manchester City used to play. I never played well there. I might have had a bit of an allergy to travelling from London to Manchester though.
John Aizlewood Karen has launched Adobe’s Kick & Create camps, an initiative with Bloomsbury Football blending football coaching with creative design workshops to
Evening Saigon, ridden by James Doyle, completed a remarkable week for the Qatari-owned Wathnan Racing, carrying their silks to a seventh Glorious Goodwood victory in the Stewards’ Cup. Jim Crowley, 48, who won the 2019 renewal and was the champion jockey in 2016, yesterday announced his retirement having failed to recover from pelvic and leg injuries sustained in a fall at York in September last year
Steve Claridge. When I was eight I walked out with him as a mascot at St Andrew’s, we had a photo and played on the pitch. I’ve still got the footage.
unlock sporting careers for girls.
Forward Claridge was Carney’s childhood hero
5-2-9-0; de Klerk 18-8-13-2; Pavely 5-2-9-0; Harris 10-1-21-0.
Extras (lb 1, w 2) 3 Total (3 wkts, 100 balls) 144 H L Graham, E L Arlott, N F Holland, R M Southby,
S A E Smale and G E A Potts did not bat. Fall of wickets 1-58, 2-88, 3-123.
Bowling Khan 10-6-9-0; Smith 20-5-38-1; Filer 20-10-15-0; King 20-7-31-0; Gray 15-4-26-0; Capsey 15-4-24-2.
Birmingham Phoenix (balls) D S T Perrin c Wareham b Potts 2 (5)
*E A Perry not out 68 (46) A Dercksen not out 4 (7)
*L Livingstone c Miller b Rashid 5 (8) D Brevis c Jordan b Archer 1 (5) J Coles c Ali b Jordan 2 (3) J Overton c Chaudhary b Stoinis 10 (9) D Willey c Smith b Archer 1 (2) A Tye lbw b Archer 0 (1) A Milne not out 0 (0) A Zampa c Smith b Stoinis 0 (1)
N de Klerk c Wolvaardt
Fall of wickets 1-9, 2-53, 3-70, 4-73, 5-79, 6-107, 7-122, 8-131, 9-134.
b Corteen-Coleman 38 (28) D J S Dottin b Molineux 5 (10) C R Pavely b Bell 1 (2)
Men P W L T NR Pts NRR Trent Rockets 4 3 1 0 0 12 0.92 Welsh Fire 4 3 1 0 0 12 -0.22 Manchester SG 4 2 2 0 0 8 0.61 Leeds Sunrisers 3 2 1 0 0 8 0.03 MI London 4 2 2 0 0 8 -0.08
Bowling Ravindra 20-12-22-1; Woakes 20-10-34-1; Cook 20-3-38-1; Jansen 20-8-21-2; Ferguson 20-10-20-2.
*C E Dean not out 8 (3)
Extras (b 1, lb 2, w 2) 5 Total (8 wkts, 100 balls) 114 T Johnson did not bat.
Fall of wickets 1-10, 2-10, 3-37, 4-44, 5-71, 6-94, 7-104, 8-106.
Bowling Bell 20-6-29-1; Wong 20-7-21-0; Molineux 20-1-47-3; Corteen-Coleman 20-6-26-2; Glenn 20-6-28-2.
Southern Brave (balls)
L Lee c and b Kapp 0 (4) L Wolvaardt lbw b de Klerk 13 (17) J J Rodrigues b Kapp 12 (9) *S G Molineux c Dottin b de Klerk 23 (24) J L Grewcock not out 0 (0)
Welsh Fire (balls) *@P Salt lbw b Owen 46 (36) J Root not out 58 (40) R Ravindra lbw b Wood 7 (7) J Cox b Mahmood 20 (14) T Kohler-Cadmore not out 1 (1)
London Spirit 3 1 2 0 0 4 0.12
Southern Brave 4 1 3 0 0 4 0.02 B’ham Phoenix 4 1 3 0 0 4 -1.21 Women P W L T NR Pts NRR
Southern Brave 5 5 0 0 0 20 0.49 Trent Rockets 4 3 1 0 0 12 2.08 Manchester SG 4 2 1 0 1 10 0.71
London Spirit 4 1 2 1 0 6 -0.83 B’ham Phoenix 4 1 2 0 1 6 -3.44 Leeds Sunrisers 3 1 2 0 0 4 0.47 Welsh Fire 4 1 3 0 0 4 0.44 MI London 4 0 3 1 0 2 -1.38
Extras (lb 2, w 6) 8 Total (92 balls) 105 Fall of wickets 1-14, 2-44, 3-56, 4-64, 5-68,
Extras (lb 1, nb 2, w 3) 6 Total (3 wkts, 96 balls) 138 A Tribe, B Kellaway, M Jansen, C Woakes, L Ferguson and S Cook did not bat.
Edgbaston (Birmingham Phoenix won toss): Welsh Fire (4pts) beat Birmingham Phoenix by seven wickets
6-103, 7-105, 8-105, 9-105. Bowling Wood 15-6-27-0; Archer 20-1-19-4; Stoinis 17-7-17-3; Jordan 15-2-24-1; Rashid 20-9-17-2; Chaudhary 5-2-9-0. Southern Brave
Birmingham Phoenix (balls) M Owen c Cox b Jansen 18 (14) W Smeed c Cook b Woakes 5 (4) @J Clarke c Cox b Ferguson 35 (23)
Fall of wickets 1-77, 2-96, 3-132. Bowling Mahmood 20-9-32-1; Wood 20-6-21-1; Currie 16-2-24-0; Ahmed 10-1-17-0; Tariq 20-7-23-0; Owen 5-1-9-1; Ferreira 5-0-11-0.
@J Smith, B McKinney, M Stoinis, D Miller, T Stubbs, N Chaudhary, *C Jordan, M Ali, J Archer, A Rashid and L Wood
J E M Spence, F S Khan, A M King, E Gray, L C N Smith and L L Filer did not bat.
Fall of wickets 1-2, 2-35, 3-121. Bowling Potts 15-8-18-1; Smale 20-5-23-0; Graham 19-3-34-0; Wareham 20-5-30-1; Arlott 10-3-20-0; Voll 10-4-9-1; Holland 5-2-9-0.
*D Ferreira c Kohler-Cadmore b Ravindra 23 (21)
The Hundred: Trent Bridge Trent Rockets v Sunrisers Leeds (women 11.0, men 2.30). Kia Oval MI London v Manchester Super Giants (women 2.30, men 6.0). Metro Bank Cup (11.0):Group A: Beckenham Kent v Nottinghamshire. Leicester Leicestershire v Somerset. Northampton Northamptonshire v Lancashire. Rugby Warwickshire v Gloucestershire. Group B: Derby Derbyshire v Sussex. Chelmsford Essex v Worcestershire. Utilita Bowl Hampshire v Durham. Lord’s Middlesex v Yorkshire.
Edgbaston (Birmingham Phoenix won toss): Birmingham Phoenix (4pts) beat Welsh Fire by seven wickets
Lord’s (Southern Brave won toss): Southern Brave (4pts) beat London Spirit by five wickets
London Spirit (balls) G M Harris c Bouchier b Glenn 16 (13) A E Jones c Wong b Molineux 3 (8) M Kelly c Bouchier b Molineux 0 (2) M Kapp c Grewcock
Welsh Fire (balls) G A Voll c Capsey b Smith 78 (55)
Lord’s (Southern Brave won toss) London Spirit (balls) L Pretorius c Stubbs b Stoinis 11 (8) @J Bairstow c Jordan b Archer 56 (43) J Rew b Rashid 11 (12)
*S F M Devine not out 35 (19)
G L Wareham not out 6 (4)
S Mahmood not out 2 (2) U Tariq not out 2 (2) Extras (lb 2, nb 2, w 1) 5 Total (9 wkts, 100 balls) 137
S Glenn, I E C M Wong, L K Bell and M R CorteenColeman did not bat.
Fall of wickets 1-1, 2-41, 3-62, 4-114, 5-114. Bowling Kapp 20-14-16-2; Johnson 5-2-9-0; Dottin 10-6-14-0; Dean 20-5-19-1; George
b Corteen-Coleman 34 (27) S L Kalis lbw b Glenn 3 (6)
Betting: 100-30 Power Fizz, 5-1 Monarch’s Gold, 13-2 Korker, 7-1 Dance In The Storm, Palmar Bay, Khafiz, 8-1 The Strikin Viking, 12-1 others
4.08
BODHI SOLUTIONS - CONSTRUCTING CHAMPIONS HANDICAP £3,768: 1M (6)
2.35
BODHI SOLUTIONS - FACILITIES MANAGEMENT FRONT RUNNER HANDICAP £4,397: 1M 3F 104YDS (3)
4.22
J20 CLASSIFIED CLAIMING STAKES £7,731: 1M (6)
Betting: 4-9 Pure Grit, 7-2 Shakwaa, 6-1 Sovereigns High, 33-1 Therewearethen, 50-1 Independent Roze
3 (1) 64041 MR BOLLINGER 10 (CD) M Bell 9-1..............B Loughnane Betting: 13-8 Shadow Brigade, 7-4 Brighton View, 2-1 Mr Bollinger
1 (3)213600 CANDONOMORE 20 (P,T,D) J Candlish 5-9-6.......G Wood
3.20
QUEENSFERRY STAKES (LISTED) £34,026: 6F (9)
3.08
JUDDMONTE EBF RESTRICTED NOVICE STAKES £15,702: 7F (9)
Betting: 2-1 Melting Snow, 9-4 Guest House, 11-4 Okiru, 13-2 Daretobedifferent, 20-1 Esdaile, 25-1 Bellini Spirit
4.38
BODHI SOLUTIONS - COMMERCIAL FIT-OUT CHALLENGE ‘CONFINED’ HANDICAP £3,768: 1M 2F (5)
Betting: 9-4 Blue Prince, 5-2 Alpha Capture, 100-30 I Still Have Faith, 4-1 Midnight Strike, 14-1 Candonomore, 20-1 Calyxoh
Going: good Sky Sports Racing
BIG ALEX WALMSLEY 31 (H) Mrs I G-Leveque 4-9-6
...................................................................B Sayette
4.52
TOM JONES LIVE AT CHESTER RACECOURSE HANDICAP £7,731: 1M 2F (10)
Rob Wright’s tips: 2.10 Timber Twelve 2.45 Pure Grit 3.20 Jazl 3.52 Khafiz 4.22 Blue Prince 4.52 Cape Fear (nb)
MOON BEGINNINGS 22 (E,C) D Loughnane 4-9-8
............................................................ Laura Pearson
2.10
RADNOR HILLS HANDICAP (GBBPLUS RACE) £7,731: 1M 4F (7)
Betting: 9-4 Lifeplan, 9-2 Rock On Thunder, 6-1 Song of The Clyde, 13-2 Fitzella, 8-1 Calico Blue, 10-1 Ardisia, 12-1 Sirius A, Jazl, 14-1 Simplify
3.52
DISNEY’S HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL AT LOWRY HANDICAP £12,885: 7F (10)
Betting: 11-8 The Ubermensch, 9-4 Nuptown Girl, 4-1 Big Alex Walmsley, 13-2 Cuban Girl, 20-1 Risen Again
Betting: 6-4 Keep Grating, 2-1 Telegraphic, 10-1 Pirates Paradise, Biscaysian, 12-1 Javelot, 16-1 others
THE STRIKIN VIKING 26 (H) H Al Jehani (UAE) 4-10-2
..............................................................F Bughanaim
DANCE IN THE STORM 45 (H,CD) A Balding 4-9-11
...................................................................O Murphy
5.08
PRICE BAILEY LLP NORWICH ‘CONFINED’ HANDICAP £3,768: 5F (7)
3.38
BODHI - EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION CLASSIFIED STAKES £3,454: 7F (6)
PAPA DON’T PREACH 15 (H,BF,D) K Frost 7-9-9
..............................................................B Loughnane
7 (2)0000-0 SURPRISE AGAIN 60 (T) J R Jenkins 4-8-13.........J Peate
1 (5)-00066 ASPIRE TO GLORY 17 (T,D) D Cunha 5-9-9....T Marquand
OH SO AUDACIOUS 11 (P,D) Jack Jones 7-9-9
...............................................................Kaiya Fraser
Betting: 2-1 Timber Twelve, 4-1 L’Eagle Aid, 5-1 Level Look, Charmaine, 7-1 Patagonia Girl, 10-1 Westerton, 14-1 Kuredu King
Betting:9-4 Saligo Bay, 5-2 Tiger, 5-1 Secret Beach, 8-1 Cape Fear, Echalar, 16-1 Moon Beginnings, Farasi Lane, 20-1 Eagle Day, Oman, 50-1 Naples
2.45
BRITISH STALLION STUDS EBF ‘CONFINED’ MAIDEN STAKES £7,731: 6F (5)
Betting: 15-8 Papa Don’t Preach, 2-1 Dragon God, 9-2 Mart, 11-2 Antiphon, 12-1 Nad Alshiba Snow, 25-1 Surprise Again, 50-1 Regal Guest
Rob Wright’s tips: 2.35 Mr Bollinger (nap) 3.08 Keep Grating 3.38 Valsharah 4.08 Melting Snow 4.38 The Ubermensch 5.08 Mart
Betting: 6-4 Valsharah, 5-2 Nicely Curved, 13-2 Aspire To Glory, 15-2 Caitlin G, 8-1 Girls Allowed, 10-1 Oh So Audacious
20 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times S1
SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
Tickets for a day’s play at the 2027
Ryder Cup at Adare Manor are
priced at €499
There will, of course, also be substantial revenue from corporate hospitality, TV rights, sponsorship, food, beverage and merchandise sales during Ryder Cup week. Couldn’t ticket prices have been less prohibitive?
inexpensive. Very little was good value. It was just something he really wanted to do. Being in the Supporters Club allowed him to buy relatively inexpensive tickets for the games against Ghana ($200) and DR Congo ($350).
David Walsh
CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
The organisers say they looked at ticket pricing for other major sporting events and for events such as the recent Oasis concerts. They checked the average ticket price for a game involving South Korea at last month’s Fifa World Cup and found it was in the $850 to $900 (about £630-£667) range.
Through the Supporters Club he was able to buy a $900 ticket for the semi-final, which was a relief. For the game against Mexico at the Azteca, the Supporters Club couldn’t help and he paid $1,400 for his ticket. Then there was the cost of hotels. With two friends he shared a room for five nights at a not-very-special hotel 30 minutes outside Boston. That was for the Ghana game. They paid $2,400 for that room.
Core fans priced out already . . . imagine if Infantino got his way
Ryder Cup Europe also bears the cost of staging the event and funding the cost of getting the home team to the first tee. It is considerable. It will also spend between £40 and £50 million on providing more stands, platforms and seats than have ever been set up for any golf event in history. I get it, I’m not complaining but €500 tickets are not for me.
So, I asked, how much did the trip
cost. “Just under £20,000,” he said. Was it worth it? “Definitely, because it was a once-
Instead, I’ve booked tickets for next month’s Walker Cup at Lahinch in County Clare. With just two days’ play at the GB & Ireland match against the Americans, the cost is affordable, €40 for each day or €70 for a two-day ticket. We go with friends from our local club in Newmarket, primarily to support Tyler Weaver, who plays at our club and is loved by rank-and-file members. His bag from the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point in California sits proudly in our clubhouse bar. By the way, Tyler also happens to be the No 2-ranked amateur in the world.
in-a-lifetime experience.” There has to be a but? “I did it, I am glad I did it but never
or the 2001 Ryder Cup, which wasn’t played until October 2002 because of the 9/11 tragedy, we applied for four Sunday tickets in the European Tour’s lottery. This was 25 years ago and I can’t for the life of me recall exactly how
our complaints and responds: “You cannot be serious.”
taking out whatever break there might have been. The ball sailed unhesitatingly into the hole.
again. I will never again pay anything like $1,400 to see a football game.”
F
Ryder Cup Europe, which runs the matches when they’re in this part of the world, already knows that based on applications already received, it could fill Adare Manor three times over for each of the three match days. That’s three times 40,000 tickets for the first two days of pairs matches and three times 55,000 for the Sunday singles. We’re talking approximately €67.5 million in ticket sales. For many it is worth it.
The best moment? “The final whistle at the Azteca.” The sweetest memory? “How brilliant the Mexico fans were with us before and after the game. During the game they were hostile but in a good way. After the game they were offering us drinks. A surreal experience for England fans.”
A couple of holes before the 18th, we’d been left behind. Unable to see through crowds four or five deep alongside the fairways, ten or 15 deep around the greens, we baled out and watched the climax on a TV near a food outlet. Anyone who has seen sport live appreciates the difference between being there and watching from your living room. What you see in the flesh stays with you. Big moments become memories.
much the tickets cost but remember they were in the £60 to £80 range. For each ticket, we were allowed to take in one junior free, officially categorised as under-16. Our car was full.
The worst part? “The trip home. I got a £400 fare but that meant flying Atlanta to Washington, change airport in Washington, fly to New York, then on to Heathrow and then the train home to Doncaster.”
It was a good day. We followed Paul McGinley in his match against Jim Furyk, while catching moments from other matches. McGinley was behind for most of it and the American was his usual self. That is to say, as solid as a rock. Still, McGinley hung in and a birdie on the 17th tied the match. A half on 18 would win the Ryder Cup for Europe.
Still there is no wish to be dogmatic about the cost of tickets to sports events. People make choices. A friend of mine, Luke Flanagan from Doncaster, is an avid follower of England’s football team. He is 28 and knowing he wanted to follow England at this summer’s World Cup, he made a long- term plan. The first thing was to build up his credit with the England Supporters Travel Club, which he achieved by going to as many England away games as he could; Latvia and Andorra included.
The organisers have set aside a small ticket allocation, at a reduced cost, for people in the local area.
So, the other day, 24 years after an excellent experience in 2002, I went online with the intention of entering the lottery for tickets to the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in County Limerick. With prices rising 115 per cent in this period, the £70 ticket in 2001 should be £150 today. Tickets for a day’s play at Adare Manor are priced at €499 (about £425). Practice-day tickets are much less expensive, €89.
Presumably the cost meant only the more affluent England fans travelled?
“Definitely. A lot of core fans were priced out.”
Anyone seeing sport live realises the difference between that and watching from the living room
They both missed the 18th green with their approaches. McGinley chipped to ten feet from the rough to the left of the green. Furyk played an exquisite shot from the front bunker that slid just past the hole. In the circumstances, McGinley’s putt was extremely difficult. Knowing he had to hole it, McGinley made a firm putt,
Therein lies one of the reasons why it was good to see Gianni Infantino get his comeuppance. Core football fans were treated with disdain by Fifa at the US World Cup and perhaps they will be at the next. Had Infantino got his way on selling a stake in the World Cup to private equity investors, the cost to fans would only have gone up.
More than £400 for a day’s play. Too much for me. Three of my golf buddies came to the same conclusion. Too much. You may think at this point we have the seed for a fans’ protest here. But listen, John McEnroe hears
His plan was to be in the US for as long as the team were there. In the end, that added up to five weeks and two days. There were lots of flights, hotels and match tickets. Nothing was
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August 2, 2026 · thetimes.com/business
NORMAN FOSTER AT 91: ‘WHY WOULD I RETIRE?’ INTERVIEW PAGE 5
BANKS BRACE FOR TAX FIGHT PAGE 4
HOW TO TAP EQUITY RELEASE MONEY PAGE 9
new listings in her last budget, when the Treasury said it would “continue to evaluate” the tax.
largest company on the FTSE 100, to switch its primary listing to New York earlier this year had “focused minds”.
been delayed until 2028. The LSE has warned that the tape could leave some investors at a disadvantage as they would be getting data at different speeds.
The data may encourage companies to list in London. There are concerns for the London Stock Exchange (LSE) as the number of listings has slowed to a trickle, while the number of companies being taken private has surged.
more trades take place than are recorded in official data. The City regulator has shone a light on “dark trading” outside stock exchanges. It found a “participant looking at data about trading on only some venues will be underestimating the total level of trading activity in the UK”.
Jill Treanor
weekend would cost £650, according to BA’s website. The airline’s catering problems stem from a decision to switch suppliers at the start of July. BA Cityflyer swapped Newrest for Gate Gourmet, in a decision that was heralded by bosses as one of their five most important of the year.
Oliver Gill
Share trading in London is three-times larger in value than previously thought, according to analysis from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that could provide a much-needed boost to the City.
British Airways business-class passengers have been left without onboard meals for a month after a new catering contract for flights to and from London City backfired.
City figures argue that the 0.5 per cent tax on the value of share trades puts London at a disadvantage to New York and other exchanges.
This is because AstraZenca shares traded in London are no longer to subject to stamp duty, a move that is estimated to have cost the Treasury £200 million.
John Healey, the new chancellor, will face calls to boost share trading as he prepares his first budget on October 28. The City wants him to cut or abolish stamp duty on LSE share trades.
The FCA released the data as part of its plans for a “consolidated tape”, which will show share trading wherever it takes place.
Charles Hall, head of research at investment bank Peel Hunt, said: “There’s a growing recognition that it’s a tax that’s really unhelpful.”
Bosses have been scrambling to keep a lid on the fact that meals have not been available by handing out £20 pre-paid credit cards to passengers to buy food at airports before departure.
The LSE has a list of up to 20 more companies that could make a similar move and deprive the Treasury of an estimated £2 billion of stamp duty.
City sources hope this will slow companies shifting listings to New York. Recent exits included the gambling company Flutter and building materials group CRH.
The analysis addresses criticism from companies seeking to move their listings from London to New York in search of more “liquidity”.
It is understood that Gate Gourmet was scheduled to take over at the east London kitchen when the contract changed hands. But owing to bureaucratic delays, it was unable to gain access to the facilities until last week.
His predecessor, Rachel
However, this will not be launched formally next year, as many had hoped. It has
He said that the decision by AstraZeneca, the second-
Reeves, announced a threeyear stamp duty holiday on
The findings suggest many
The flag carrier this weekend confirmed that its Cityflyer subsidiary had been forced to suspend businessclass catering during July, and apologised to passengers affected.
Healey gets £2bn Help to Buy boost
A spokeswoman for BA said: “Providing our customers with the highquality catering is extremely important to us. When it became clear we couldn’t consistently deliver that standard during the transition, we took the decision to temporarily suspend part of the onboard service. Full catering is set to restart in the coming days.” Gate Gourmet did not comment.
MARKS & SPENCER
Onboard meals would return “in the coming days”, the airline said.
So-called dry catering products such as crisps, snacks and drinks have remained available, however.
BA Cityflyer is a short-haul mainstay for business travellers working in finance, law or professional services. Operating 20 Embraer E190 aircraft, predominantly from London City airport in the east of the capital, it has more than 180 departures a month to Edinburgh.
Labour conducts ‘active review’ into reviving state loans for first-time buyers
“The Affordable Homes Programme 2021 to 2026 is in its tapering phase, with delivery of the new SAHP not yet sufficiently scaled to offset this,” bosses said.
Yet Cityflyer is also popular with leisure travellers, flying to Ibiza, Barcelona, Venice and as far as Thessaloniki in Greece, where a return business-class ticket next
“We believe it could be very challenging for housing activity to come back strongly [in the second half of 2026],” analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote last week.
Value of pre-paid credit cards offered to some passengers
Nevertheless, Burnham has pledged “the biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period”.
Oliver Gill
John Healey has received a boost to the public finances of nearly £2 billion from George Osborne’s widely derided Help to Buy scheme.
Yet there are major questions about its viability without the private sector. And commercial developers will only build where it makes financial sense.
The exchequer has booked a £1.24 billion profit on the state’s portion of Help to Buy loans that were paid off, alongside £500 million in interest payments.
Under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour focused on “supply side constraints” such as speeding up planning decisions. Billions of pounds of grants would then be released to housebuilders and housing associations willing to meet government criteria on cheaper homes.
sales and order books, implying that [car manufacturers] are not necessarily ‘pushing’ BEV [battery electric vehicle] sales.”
Oliver Gill
Carmakers have reduced discounts on electric vehicles as Britons go green to combat petrol-price hikes related to the Iran war.
The £1.74 billion would be enough to fund an extension to the prime minister’s temporary suspension of VAT on energy bills for a year.
The reduction in discounts may be seized upon by those urging Andy Burnham not to follow through on Starmer’s plans to adjust the UK’s zeroemission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.
Grant allocations have yet to be announced. And many larger housebuilders have opted to retrench from the market to protect their balance sheets.
The new figures, disclosed by quango Homes England in its annual report, comes as housing minister Matthew Pennycook is “actively reviewing” a Labour return of Help to Buy.
As the new government weighs whether or not to follow through on Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to water down electric car sales targets, analysis from HSBC shows that average UK discounts have fallen to a near 15-month low.
Gillian Anderson, 57, won the deal after meeting M&S chief executive Stuart Machin at a photoshoot
“Demand-side measures” such as reviving Help to Buy were dismissed as costing the taxpayer billions and driving up house prices. Rachel Reeves is understood to have been a staunch opponent of relaunching the scheme. Her replacement as chancellor by John Healey has raised hopes for a revival
Anderson said she and her team had met challenges with G Spot’s brand since its launch in 2023. The business, backed by Heineken, produces a range of “functional soft drinks”, which use ingredients such as maca root, reishi mushroom and turmeric to energise or soothe drinkers.
Anderson, 57, secured the deal after meeting the retailer’s chief executive, Stuart Machin, during a photoshoot for her promotional role as M&S’s chief compliments officer earlier this year. “And I made my pitch,” said Anderson, who came up with the name, using her first name initial, while working on Sex Education and felt it was fitting.
Marks & Spencer, once a retailer criticised for its fustiness, raised eyebrows last week by adding crotchless Ann Summers thongs to its clothing range. Now, its food hall will be stocking a drink named after part of the female anatomy, writes William Turvill.
Although a housing spokesman this weekend insisted “there are no current plans to introduce a new Help to Buy scheme”, there is now widespread acceptance within Whitehall that the government’s attempts to revive housebuilding have not gone far enough.
Current rules stipulate that 33 per cent of new car sales must be zero emission in 2026. This quota rises to 38 per cent next year and then continues on an upward trajectory to hit 80 per cent by 2030, when sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be outlawed.
New electric cars attracted an average 11 per cent discount during July, the lowest since April 2025.
Help to Buy was launched by Osborne, as chancellor, in 2013. Buyers needed to save just 5 per cent of the deposit, with government offering an equity loan of up to 20 per cent or 40 per cent in London. The loan is repaid when the home is sold and the state benefits from any increase in the price. A total of 387,278 loans were issued up until 2023, when the scheme closed. Some 213,713, about 55 per cent, have been repaid.
Meanwhile, Homes England warned that affordable homebuilding will shrink until 2027 at least because of delays to Labour’s flagship £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP).
Zero-emission vehicle subsidies, coupled with “customer interest in EVs owing to high fuel prices”, explained the decline in discounts, HSBC said.
Gillian Anderson, the Hollywood star known for her roles as Agent Scully on The XFiles and as sex therapist Jean Millburn on Netflix’s Sex Education, will see her soft drinks brand, G Spot, on the shelves of 350 M&S stores from this week.
She said some retailers were “nervous” about the brand’s name, while Amazon’s AI tools had “shadow blocked” it from being seen by some shoppers, assuming it was a sexualised item. But M&S had no issue with the name.
Hybrids would then also be
Machin said: “I was very intrigued by her range, so I tried all the products. And I think it will be popular — all my female friends told me they would buy the range.”
phased out, so that by 2035, all new car sales will need to be fully electric.
The quango, responsible for deploying billions of pounds in capital grants, loans and investments to increase the supply of social and affordable housing, said that “completions are expected to reduce further in 2026-27”.
The bank’s global autos analyst, Pushkar Tendolkar, continued: “[The] decline coincides with strong EV
The government launched a review of the ZEV mandate
Continued on page 2→
proceedings since November 2024 means it has now returned to the Argentine Federal District Court “for further consideration”.
Associates said the Jill Treanor arrangement, not unusual
need to think. This is a very important factor. It’s not tax avoidance, it’s tax lawyer avoidance. In other words, it’s cheaper.”
Banco Holandés Unido, which was part of the Dutch bank ABN Amro. This was bought by RBS in 2007.
country’s then-president Carlos Menem.
investment firm True Capital, to buy Argos — will help them save money on legal and compliance advisory fees.
Olivia Surguy
when British companies are bought by private equity, was probably for “simplification”.
The claim was initially dismissed by a court in Argentina because it had been filed too long after the alleged events, but has now returned to the docket.
Striking their cut-price deal to buy Argos from Sainsbury’s last week, the prospective owners of the retailer were keen to emphasise their Britishness.
England’s World Cup semifinal against Argentina was a reminder of the turbulent history between the two nations. Now tensions between Britain and the South American country have flared up again — but in an unlikely quarter.
RBS was bailed out by taxpayers the following year, changed its name to NatWest in 2020, and was finally returned to private ownership last year.
There is no suggestion of tax avoidance. But the Jersey incorporation will raise eyebrows given Pennycook’s public pitch on Friday.
NatWest said the original claim had not contained any estimate for damages but that in December the plaintiffs filed an update “quantifying the damages” at $1.1 billion.
A UK-based holding company can typically establish itself in a way that means it owes no tax, but to achieve that in the UK, “it’s a bit complicated” and so legal fees can rack up. He said: “In a Jersey company, you don’t
Another benefit could be stamp duty on a sale, which is not paid in Jersey. But Neidle added: “In practice, these companies tend to have almost all the value in shareholder debt rather than shares. In such a case, there isn’t actually a stamp duty benefit in going offshore.”
According to NatWest, a claim was filed by Tandanor in 2012 against what is now known as the “representative office” of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Argentine branch “and eleven private individuals”.
Argos, they said, “is a great British business” and “we’re all British and proud to be”.
On a media call, he said: “We’re going to be working with Sainsbury’s, a great British company ... Argos, which is a great British business. We’re all British and proud to be and we’re working with the best banks in the country.”
The claim sought unquantified damages for alleged fraudulent conduct during Tandanor’s privatisation. The Argentine ministry of defence joined Tandanor’s claim in 2014.
NatWest said: “The representative office continues to defend the claim and has requested a hearing.” Such an award, should it ever be made, would represent a sizeable hit to NatWest, which last week reported profit before tax up 20.4 per cent to £4.3 billion.
NatWest bank has revealed that it is facing a $1.1 billion claim from a shipyard in Buenos Aires relating to a deal that dates back to the early 1990s.
But Swift Partners, set to buy Argos for £120 million, set up a holding company in the famously tax-friendly crown dependency of Jersey to acquire the business.
All 14,000 Argos staff will be transferred to Swift Partners in a deal expected to complete in February. The brand will still offer Nectar points and its physical presence will remain in Sainsbury’s stores.
The bank said the representative office, which is in liquidation, had a 2.9 per cent “participation” in the privatisation.
NatWest said the claim was dismissed on “limitation grounds” in 2018 and the plaintiffs were unsuccessful in subsequent appeals. However, a series of judicial
In its annual results last week, the FTSE 100 bank revealed the claim relates to “alleged fraudulent conduct” when the Tandanor shipyard was privatised in 1991 by the
Tax experts said that this company, Swift Whistle Midco Limited — which was established by Richard Pennycook, Trevor Strain and Matt Truman, boss of
A Swift Partners spokesman said: “Swift will be a UK tax resident and pay all UK taxes.”
What Sainsbury’s paid for Argos in 2016
Tandanor did not respond to a request for comment.
The representative office inherited the claim from
Dan Neidle of Tax Policy
2
6 Adding to the feel-good factor was the rally in the FTSE 100, which reached record highs. The index has been insulated from the rout in tech shares, from America to Asia, caused by fears of an AI bubble. The techheavy Nasdaq fell at one point, but ended the week higher. But in the past month the index has underperformed the FTSE 100. In South Korea, the market fell on concerns about a drop in demand for semiconductors although it bounced higher on Friday. While the new prime minister could not claim credit for the market rally, Tom Stevenson, investment director at Fidelity Investments, pointed out that “recent political developments” had not forced the market to sell off. In other words, Burnham had done little, so far, to spook investors — itself a reason to cheer.
6 Andy Burnham was quick to seize on the announcement by GlaxoSmithKline that it was opening a new facility in Cambridge last week as a “boost for homegrown innovation and expertise”.
FTSE 100 NASDAQ
4
Burnham could claim the move by the FTSE 100 pharmaceutical company was a “step towards more people getting access to new medicines and cutting-edge treatments that will change lives for the better”.
0
July 1 5 10 15 20 25
Source: Factset
FTSE 100 v Nasdaq over the last month
8%
While disappointing for Stevenage in Hertfordshire, where GSK’s existing research and development site will close by 2029, it will boost the “golden triangle” between Oxford, Cambridge and London.
The FTSE roared towards record highs last week while the economy may be perking up. Will it last, asks Jill Treanor
Crucially, it avoided a re-run of last year’s row with AstraZeneca, when the drug giant paused an investment in the Cambridge area in a row over NHS drugs pricing, only to restart the project in April.
‘I won’t take a bonus while I fix this broken business’
PETER NICHOLLS GETTY IMAGES
John Halsall, below, is trying to fix a utility that sent emergency water bottles to Tonbridge instead of Tunbridge Wells
heat,” says Catherine Moncrieff, head of policy at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.
as well as additional water-treatment work capacity.”
The company also plans to build two new reservoirs over the next two decades. But such changes won’t be quick.
“Peak demand is really difficult to meet. You might be able to meet it for 95 per cent of the year, but if you’re not planning for that peak demand, that’s a problem.”
Six days into the job, the new CEO of stricken South East Water, John Halsall, tells Jon Yeomans how he’ll fix leaks and why nationalisation isn’t the answer
water (reservoirs and big rivers) and is dependent on groundwater (much of which comes from delicate chalk aquifers under the ground).
His immediate job, he says, is to pull South East Water out of its “downward cycle”. The utility, he adds, is full of “hard-working individuals who care and whose hard work is not translating into results for customers”.
What levers, then, can Halsall pull in the short term? He outlines plans to tackle the scourge of “visible” leaks — the burst water mains that go days without a fix.
Critics say Ofwat has been too focused on keeping bills low and has neglected to fund the infrastructure needed by the sector. Now it is playing catch-up.
“These need to be protected for environmental reasons. Water companies have been doing an awful lot of work to reduce the amount of abstraction from them,” explains Porter.
“We are highly stressed as an organisation and I’ve been in this position before. You’re stressed, you work faster … you do more but you do it less well and you get poorer results.”
“We’ve got to go faster and faster with visible leakage, because it’s deeply upsetting for customers,” he says, adding that burst mains “typically leak less than hidden leaks”.
Over the five years to 2030, the industry is planning a massive increase in spending. South East Water is putting up customer bills by 22 per cent to fund a £1.9 billion investment programme.
hen the water went off in the Kent town of Tunbridge Wells last November, the local utility South East Water set up emergency bottled water stations for its customers. But it put them in Tonbridge — an
To complicate matters further, the South East is a “water-stressed” region with lower rainfall than the rest of the country — even before this summer’s drought — and a rising population.
John Halsall, an industry veteran who has worked for Pennon, owner of South West Water, and Thames Water. And he has one word for the company’s performance: “unacceptable”.
W
Halsall’s three-pronged plan is to boost the company’s “resilience”; buck up its response when things go wrong (no more water stations in the wrong town); and rebuild trust with its customers. He has a mountain to climb.
As a result, engineers tend to focus on fixing the hidden leaks, rather than the ones that customers notice.
“We’ve got a lot of construction work to be done, including more drinking water storage tanks,” says Halsall. “We’ve got a number of pipelines that we’re putting in which will make a huge difference,
“There is a concern that we haven’t quite managed to plan for what’s needed, given that we’re now getting successive heatwaves and demand shoots up in the
Six days into the job, Halsall is sitting in his office in Snodland, Kent, explaining to The Sunday Times how he is going to fix a water company that competes with the much larger Thames for the title of Britain’s most lamentable utility.
“You can understand the engineering logic there,” Halsall adds. “What the team aren’t necessarily focusing on is, we’re frustrating our customers who then think we don’t care. And then customers don’t respond to our messaging in terms of water conservation.”
entirely different town, five miles away.
South East Water serves 2.3 million customers across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. It supplies drinking water only, not waste water. The company, which turned over £352 million last year, was born out of mergers of smaller companies after the privatisation
This bungle — hastily corrected — was the most visible failure by the gaffe-prone water company, but far from the only one. The outage stemmed from a problem at the local treatment works, but the company could not say when it would be fixed. The town descended into chaos; businesses and schools closed, and bottled water deliveries failed to reach vulnerable people.
He makes a startling pledge. Unlike other water bosses — who have had their bonuses docked by the industry regulator, Ofwat, only to be awarded “allowances” to make up the difference — he will not take a bonus at all.
WHERE DOES SOUTH EAST WATER OPERATE?
He is looking at ways of replacing leaky pipes inside customers’ properties — an area that is not usually the water companies’ responsibility. “Thirty per cent of leakage is on the customer side,” says Halsall. “I want to explore how we can subsidise or pay for [repairing] those leaks. Because at the moment, a customer will take about 40 days to fix a leak and we do it in about a week.”
LONDON
“There is no bonus in my contract,” he says. “I think bonuses are hugely emotive. The conversation I had with the board is: I don’t want a bonus. It’s just not helpful. My base salary is £550,000, no bonus, no allowances — so what you see is what you get.”
of the water industry in 1989. As a result, its territory is split into
Bracknell
two zones, east and west. The disjointed nature of its network means it is not always able to transfer water around easily; there are pockets of its network that have only one source of supply.
Canterbury
When supply was eventually restored, for nine days after, South East ordered households to boil their water. A month later, a burst water mains triggered another outage. And last month, 7,000 properties went without water for another weekend.
Tunbridge Wells
Farnham
Such an offer, if it is made, will be time limited. But Halsall says: “I really want customers to see that we mean business. We’re going to do things differently. And this would be one of those things.”
Ashford
Cranbrook
“They have a lot of disconnected zones,” says Jo Porter, an engineer who works in the sector. “A zone which is only supplied by one source is vulnerable.” South East also has a
That base salary is £150,000 more than Hinton received, it should be noted. But Halsall wants to show he is doing things differently, like talking to the media, for example — something that Hinton avoided.
Haywards Heath
In May, MPs on the environment committee said they had “no confidence” in South East’s leadership. Its chairman, Chris Train, walked the plank, followed by its chief executive, David Hinton. South East Water now has a new boss:
South East Water currently has a hosepipe ban across its network. In Kent and Sussex, it has issued such a ban in four of the past five years. But its chief executive insists such bans will not become a fixture of our summers.
fundamental supply shortage. It lacks sufficient surface
Eastbourne
30 miles
The UK is scheduled to introduce similar tariffs, called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), at the start of 2027. Yet bosses have not been provided with details on the scheme and fear that its rollout could be delayed. “New towns, roads, hospitals, advanced manufacturing sites, and defence, energy and water infrastructure all rely on millions of tonnes of concrete, aggregates, cement, asphalt and mortar supplied by our industry,” said Adeleke.
ambition; it is about making the transition deliverable. The majority of our vehicles are exported, but attracting inward investment is all but impossible if the costs of the domestic market are unaffordable.”
chief executive, said that carmakers were delaying investment decisions in the UK because of the quotas. “Manufacturers have invested billions in EVs, but the ZEV Mandate is still running ahead of natural demand, while charging rollout lags behind.
fell by 9.3 per cent, and that sand and gravel was down 8.1 per cent and mortar 5.1 per cent, compared to the same period last year.
confidence to invest and drivers the confidence to switch,” said Gurjeet Grewal, chief executive of Octopus Electric Vehicles.
Oliver Gill
this year after protests from industry that it was forcing UK carmakers to curb total production.
John Healey, the chancellor, has been warned that reindustrialising Britain will not be possible with domestic cement production falling to lows last seen in the 1950s.
Adeleke continued: “Given the scale of this continuing decline, industrial capacity is now being lost. There is currently no confidence to invest in people, sites or equipment for the future. This has to change.”
“Global brands like Chery are choosing the UK because they see a market with clear direction. Weakening the mandate now would send exactly the wrong signal to businesses looking to create jobs and invest here.”
In the final few weeks of his administration, Starmer pledged to rephase the ZEV mandate such that the 2030 target could fall to as low as 50 per cent, instead of 80 per cent. Unite is thought to have been among the trade unions to have played a pivotal role in convincing Starmer that change was needed. But Burnham is yet to decide whether or not to follow through with these plans.
Fall in ready-mixed concrete sales in the first half of this year
Bosses have written to Healey to tell him that British building materials firms are experiencing “deindustrialisation” instead.
Yet the reduction in discounts identified by HSBC supports those urging Burnham to stick with current targets.
“The call for reform is not narrowly made; it comes from manufacturers that build and import here — both established and challenger brands — as well as from retail businesses and those responsible for repairing vehicles,” he said.
The fall in domestic production is primarily a result of producers being undercut by imports.
“Reversing this and securing the sovereign capacity to supply the foundational materials of the economy must be a priority,” said Paul Adeleke, chief executive of the Mineral Products Association.
On entering Downing Street, prime minister Andy Burnham talked of “reindustrialising Britain, using public procurement to back British industry”.
“The ZEV mandate is working — it’s giving
He added: “EVs are no longer tomorrow’s technology; they’re increasingly the best-value cars on the road. The last
The situation has been made all the more parlous after the European Union introduced tariffs to protect producers on the Continent. As a result, cheap exports previously bound for the euro bloc have flooded the UK and damaged domestic production.
manufacturers the
thing the industry needs
He warned Healey: “Without our members, nothing promised to be built in your manifesto or in the infrastructure pipeline can be delivered.”
But British building materials producers are often overlooked, not least because they typically employ fewer staff than other sectors such as steel or carmaking.
is another policy wobble that confuses consumers and puts investors off just as the
Last week, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders renewed calls for the sales quotas to be changed. Mike Hawes, the trade body’s
“This is not about lowering
Figures to be released this week will show that in the first six months of this year, ready-mixed concrete sales
transition is accelerating.”
6 The decision by the Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and the monetary policy committee to keep interest rates steady at 3.75 per cent was a relief to the new government. It could prove a temporary one.
6 The FTSE 100’s rally was partly ignited by defence companies in anticipation of higher government spending.
6 Consumers created positive vibes after boosting spending in pubs during the World Cup while splashing out on garden furniture and fans.
Bailey signalled that the decision to keep rates at the level they have been at since December could be short lived if the inflationary impacts of America’s war in Iran start to be felt. The MPC’s goal is to keep inflation at 2 per cent, below the 2.6 per cent level it was in June.
BAE Systems jumped after Andy Burnham made a trip to its site in Barrow in Furness to announce a £8.4 billion investment for the Dreadnought submarines to replace the Vanguard fleet. While the sum was committed in the dying days of Sir Keir Starmer’s government, the new prime minister put a renewed focus on defence. The boost extended to FTSE 100 engine-maker Rolls-Royce, which makes engines for the American Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray. But when comes to oil, Burnham was facing a potential row with his Cabinet over drilling in the North Sea after BP announced that it was selling off its operations there.
Data from Barclays showed that consumer spending rose more quickly in June than May.
Last week, a new barometer of consumer spending was provided by bakery chain Greggs, which enjoyed an 18 per cent jump in its share price on Wednesday after results showed it was on a roll. Greggs added salads, picnic food and iced matcha lattes to its baked goods range, fuelling a 7 per cent rise in revenues in the first half. Profits rose 20 per cent to £76 million. Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Liberum, reckoned that the capacity for UK households to keep spending was a reason to be “bullish”.
Members of the committee are waiting to see whether higher energy bills feed through to higher prices for goods. The market is pricing in a rise to 4 per cent before the year end.
Still, Bailey and his team did have some good news for Burnham: an increase in the growth forecast for this year to 1.1 per cent from 0.9 per cent in the April forecast.
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Katie Lopes believes that underwear is special: “Once women find a brand they love, they just repeat buy”
The company, which is owned by an Australian infrastructure fund, a Canadian firm and the NatWest pension scheme, announced an agreement last month for £200 million more debt to shore up its finances. This leaves its “gearing” — the ratio of its debt to equity — at about 65 per cent, above Ofwat’s recommended 55 per cent level.
comfortable” but still looked great. At that time, “it was the heyday of Victoria’s Secret,” she said. “You had your ubersexy male-gaze underwear at one end, or you had your M&S massive granny pants at the other ... We’re busy we’ve got better shit to do than worry about wedgies and VPL [visible panty line].”
“We’re happy with where we are in terms of liquidity and cashflow,” says Halsall. “The key issue for me with the finances is that all paths lead back to operational and customer performance.” Fix the operational performance, he says, and the finances should improve.
She began taking apart existing underwear to see how it was made. “I couldn’t understand why it had all those really heavy elastic seams. That’s what digs in, makes it uncomfortable and gives you the lines,” she said.
Jess Jones
Credit agencies may take a different view; last month, South East Water received another downgrade, putting it in breach of its licence. At the same time, a damning report by Ofwat into supply failures that pre-dated the Tunbridge Wells crisis recounted a litany of failures relating to maintenance, planning, operational response and board oversight.
Katie Lopes reckons she researched underwear for 10,000 hours before designing her ideal pair of knickers. “It was like I had a daily focus group on the shop floor. I spent six years becoming a knicker fanatic.”
After researching materials, Lopes replaced elastic waistbands with flatlock stitching and lace edging to hold the garment in place without digging into the skin. “It made sense that if you’re wearing something that intimately, it should be from something that breathes with your body, [not] against it.”
had the advantage of lower costs. Stripe & Stare initially operated from her house until boxes of underwear were piling on top of her son’s Lego. She moved the business into a 300 sq ft warehouse now a purpose-built 12,000 sq ft order-fulfilment centre.
In 2017, Lopes launched Stripe & Stare, selling direct to consumers alongside wholesale partnerships with Selfridges and Shopbop. A former colleague, Nicola Piercy, joined to run finance and operations that year and an angel investor who had followed Lopes’s career provided £120,000 to get the business off the ground.
The Victoria & Albert Museum even selected the prototypes made by Lopes and her mother for an exhibition on the history of underwear, after they became the foundation for Stripe & Stare, a Londonbased underwear brand.
Hundreds of Stripe & Stare customers were telling us, ‘I’d love to invest in you’
Halsall appears to acknowledge the failings of previous management; he has implemented “front to back” inspections of all his sites. “Some of these back-to-basics exercises have not been carried out for quite a while,” he says.
During one Black Friday sale, while the company was still moving into the new warehouse, it expected to sell £25,000 in a day. Instead, it took £150,000 in 24 hours. Fulfilling those orders was “absolute chaos for three weeks”, said Lopes.
I suggest that this sounds neglectful. He replies: “What I would expect is a full asset management register and an associated maintenance regime. For some sites, that exists, but not for all.”
Lopes settled on the Lenzing Tencel brand for the fabric, a breathable fibre made from sustainably sourced wood pulp.
The orders from the retailers funded the firm’s entire production for the first year; without them, Lopes said they wouldn’t have had the confidence to meet the factories’ minimum-order quantities. The co-founders later crowdfunded another £250,000 to develop more products after emailing customers to ask if anyone wanted to invest. “I recall looking at our email inbox, with hundreds and hundreds of people saying, ‘I’d love to invest in you.’ ”
Today, the company sells hundreds of styles of knickers, as well as pyjamas and loungewear, online and through retailers including Marks & Spencer and Next. It turned over £12 million in 2025, with a pre-tax profit of £463,000.
She described her design to her mother, who drew the first technical sketch and stitched together the first sample. Lopes sent it to an underwear factory owner.
Andy Burnham has spoken repeatedly of his desire for greater public control over water companies. Is South East not a prime candidate for nationalisation?
The firm grew dramatically during the pandemic. Celebrity endorsements, such as from Kris Jenner and Oprah Winfrey, have helped, too. The latter discovered the brand through a boutique in California, before later posting a picture of herself wearing Stripe & Stare pyjamas on Instagram.
realising she had a “really exciting” opportunity.
“But I was aware it’s quite a low-cost item,” she said. “[I thought], is this a UK thing because we love knickers, or could it work globally?” A buyer friend at the American online retailer Shopbop convinced Lopes that younger US customers would embrace the brand too.
“Nobody would be talking about nationalisation if we were delivering what customers want,” says Halsall. “The job of a water company is exactly the same whether it’s nationalised or not. And broadly speaking, it’s the same people. The management team might change but the workforce will be the same. There is a difference in terms of funding, but that is a political decision.”
For almost a decade, she continued developing the product while running Austique — until, eventually, the knickers became the store’s bestselling line.
Lopes, now 50, grew up with three siblings in the Devon countryside, which she said gave her plenty of independence. “If you run into a field full of cows, you figure out what to do.”
A turning point came when Alannah Weston, then-chair of Selfridges, was given a pair. “We got a call from her office saying, ‘We think this product is amazing.’ ”
Two years ago, the business launched a woven pyjama brand that can be worn out of the house. This has become one of its bestsellers. “I don’t think of us as a traditional underwear brand,” Lopes said. “I think of us as an underwear, basics [and] outerwear brand.”
That was followed by backing from investors including George Ward, the husband of beauty entrepreneur Charlotte Tilbury. Stripe & Stare has raised £4.6 million of equity funding in total.
After studying psychology at Newcastle University and then working in TV production, Lopes teamed up with her sister, Lindy, in 2004 to open Austique on Chelsea’s King’s Road. The boutique introduced Australian fashion labels such as Zimmermann to British shoppers. “We thought we could probably break even,” Lopes said. “But actually, it did much better than we thought it would”
It gave Lopes a confidence boost that she needed as she had also been going through a divorce. “I was suddenly left as ... a single mother and my two children were reliant on me. I worry that if that hadn’t happened ... I would never have had the self-belief.”
By way of a warning on the perils of nationalisation, he recounts a story from his job at Thames Water, soon after the industry was privatised. “They had only just stopped the rose maintenance team on the sewage treatment works. They’d had a team of people who did nothing but go around the sewage treatment works to look after the roses. And that was a nationalised team.”
Weston wanted to stock the underwear at Selfridges as part of her sustainability push. Around the same time, Austique’s lease was ending and Lopes closed the store,
Amid all this activity, Lopes moved back to Devon for a calmer life, which also
Stripe & Stare, which now employs more than 50 people, still counts the UK as its largest market, followed by the US, Ireland and Australia. “I didn’t start out with a huge global grand plan. I just knew I could scale my firm and there was a gap,” said Lopes. “I think it’s a common problem for women: we don’t believe in ourselves enough that we can do these things. I want to encourage more women to believe.”
A motto I live by ... I have a mug that says “get shit done” on it. I think done is better than perfect. If I could tell you one thing ... No one is trained to be an entrepreneur and what you don’t know, you can learn. So just take the leap to start.
and not won. For him, it wasn’t a big deal. That’s helped me with the grit and the perseverance you need in a business. Best advice you’ve been given ... Stay slow and steady. Just do one thing at a time and all those small things add up.
One category in particular caught her eye; customers kept returning to buy exactly the same knickers. “Underwear is unlike any other fashion apparel category,” she said. “Once women find a brand they love, they just repeat buy.”
Halsall has a final message to impart: “I’m deeply apologetic to our customers. We are sorry. We are going to do better.”
Someone I admire ... My grandfather — he is the only man in history to have had a match point in the Wimbledon singles finals
Then he departs to get on with the day job, which includes learning how to pronounce various place names — and, presumably, lessons on telling Tunbridge Wells from Tonbridge.
Lopes, though, struggled to find styles that were “super
ILLUSTRATION: PETE BAKER
Lenders were spared a levy last year, but rumours of a windfall tax won’t die. Now soaring profits are making banks a tempting target, writes Jill Treanor
to £4.3 billion. HSBC, the other member of the “big four”, reports this week.
harlie Nunn chose his words carefully. On a call with journalists last week, he said that Lloyds Banking Group’s purpose was “helping Britain prosper”.
It is only a year ago that bank shares slumped after a report from the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank recommended that the Treasury impose a new levy targeting Britain’s biggest banks to bring in £8 billion a year for the taxpayer.
The chief executive of the FTSE 100 banking giant inherited the tagline from his predecessor, who needed to
Ana Botin, CEO of Santander, said Britain’s approach to taxing banks “makes no economic sense”
Although Reeves spared them extra taxes in her November 2025 budget, the topic keeps rearing its head.
justify the support of taxpayers after its £20 billion bailout in the financial crisis.
Last week, Nunn tried to deflect questions about the possibility of taxes, although his counterparts at Barclays and NatWest answered directly.
But those three words have different connotations now. They illustrate the campaign under way by Britain’s biggest banks to convince John Healey, the chancellor, not to impose fresh taxes on the sector. Healey is only a week into his role after Andy Burnham sacked Rachel Reeves. So far, he has not suggested that a tax rise is on the agenda, but the debate was stoked last week by the influential Trades Union Congress (TUC) calling for higher bank taxes to bring down energy bills for low and middle-income earners.
UK businesses between 2008 and 2023 came from private credit sources, not traditional banks. Hence their efforts last week to show the role they play in the economy. Lloyds, for instance, set out a commitment to lend £45 billion to small business by 2030 — its first such target.
46 per cent”. She used data compiled by consultancy PwC to say “that compares to New York, at around 28 per cent, and the EU, between 30 and 40 per cent”.
said he was “fully focused on his priorities, which will boost business, help with the cost of living and support people in every postcode”.
CS Venkatakrishnan, the Indian-born American who is chief executive of Barclays, said: “We very much want to use our capital to lend into the economy and to support investment and to support growth. The better the country grows, the better all of us are.”
The international banks that operate in Britain are not fans of the regime. In June, Ana Botin, chief executive of Spain’s Santander, said Britain’s approach to taxing banks “makes no economic sense”. Santander, one of the five biggest banks in the UK, recently boosted its presence through the acquisition of TSB from its Spanish rival Sabadell.
“As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the chancellor to set out at fiscal events, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals,” a spokesman said.
Gary Greenwood, an analyst at investment bank Shore Capital, said: “They are all trying to pretend they’re doing their best to support the UK economy, but at the same time their profits are going up.”
Paul Thwaite, chief executive of NatWest, insisted: “If you want strong econ-
The date for Healey’s first budget has now been set for October 28. Until then, the banks have a painful wait— and time to keep making their case.
omies, you need strong banks.”
NatWest, then known as Royal Bank of Scotland, was the poster
Even before the TUC hijacked the bank reporting season, analysts and investors already feared that lenders would be a soft target for a cash-strapped chancellor looking for ways to raise revenue.
The banks argue that they pay more tax than their rivals in other big economies as a result of the regime put in place after the financial crisis. They are subject to a levy on the size of their balance sheets and a surcharge on corporation tax, which is paid on profits. The latter was introduced in 2016 so that banks “make a fair contribution in respect of the potential risks they pose to the UK financial system and wider economy”.
child for the calamitous performance of banks in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Taxpayers ultimately kept RBS afloat with a
Last month, Jamie Dimon, boss of America’s biggest bank, JP Morgan, warned against the “adverse consequences” of higher bank taxes. “JP Morgan did not damage the UK,” he insisted.
NatWest boss Thwaite said: “I want to partner with the new government. We’re the biggest lender to infrastructure. We have the biggest SME [small business] bank. It’s important that we play our part and help get growth in every nation and region of the UK, and that’s how I want to use the bank’s capital.”
£45 billion bailout.
The latest figures, published last week, show why they look like easy prey. Barclays’ half-year profits were 17 per cent higher than during the same period last year at £6.1 billion; profits at Lloyds Banking Group were up 23 per cent to £4.3 billion; and NatWest was up 20 per cent, also
The latest figures show the banks have moved on in terms of profits, but that they now need to step up their lending. Bank of England data reveals that almost all the £425 billion net increase in lending to
His words carry resonance as JP Morgan is to build a £3 billion landmark tower in Canary Wharf. The deal was announced last year, the day after banks were spared a raid in Reeves’s budget. The implication is that the tower could be imperilled if Labour turns its focus onto the sector. As for Healey, the Treasury
Venkatakrishnan said of Barclays: “The UK is a great place in which to do business and from which to do business.” Nunn added: “It feels like there’s a good agenda and we’re very supportive of it.”
What JP Morgan is spending on a new tower in Canary Wharf
Anna Cross, the Barclays finance director, said this left the UK’s banks with “the highest rate of tax globally of around
‘CVs mean nothing’: get ready to send a video if you want a job
be that it’s just not consistently going to be a couple of pages of A4”.
Olivia Surguy She is referring to AIwritten CVs being sifted by AI software — soul-destroying for many applicants, who feel they can’t get the attention of a human. Even the prime minister has weighed in. Last week Andy Burnham said employers should stop using AI to filter CVs.
When Anie Radbourne, a 23year-old social media manager from Clapham, southwest London, saw an Instagram video from the founders of one of her favourite brands saying they were hiring, she was elated. There was just one twist: they wanted applicants to post a social media video about themselves instead of sending in a CV.
Daniel Harris, UK boss at the listed recruiter Robert Walters, said the “sheer volume of CVs that people are receiving” meant applicants were having to “find a way to differentiate” themselves.
Firms might ask you to record a quick snippet about your experience
From start ups to tech titans, market movers to City CEOs, our weekly podcast dissects the biggest stories in business with the entrepreneurs living through them.
While CVs are expected for traditional white-collar roles, the main question is how to get in the room for an interview, he said.
Bannister was in favour of a new approach. “A lot of companies are speaking to the next generation; they’re digitally native, they’re video first… [but] we’re essentially still asking applicants to pick up a quill and pen a letter.”
Some businesses “are saying that we want to know who you are more authentically’, which can mean recording video, he said. “[They] might ask you to record a quick snippet of your experience, what you’re searching for in your next role and to talk a little bit about yourself.”
She messaged the founders asking if there was a brief; they said they would leave it up to her. “I replied ‘challenge accepted: watch this space’,” Radbourne said.
The jobs market has become fierce and recruiters have to sift through many highly qualified candidates. Filling a role has become more “human centric”, Bannister said. “What we keep saying is: ‘hirers are becoming casting directors’.”
“I genuinely loved it… When I was applying to jobs before I just felt really trapped like I couldn’t show off my personality and my creative side,” she said. “I didn’t make the video like ‘this is me, this is my CV’, I made it like I was working there already.”
The number of candidates recording videos has risen across start-ups and bigger businesses, Harris said.
Bannister believes CVs and cover
ILLUSTRATION: GEORGIA HANLEY
letters will be obsolete by
Virgin Media O2 ditched CVs for most junior roles ten years ago. Sharron O’Donnell, its head of talent, said: “In our apprentice, graduate, intern world we don’t use a CV… Those roles can really vary, they can be across product, cybersecurity, finance… We use assessment tools which are based on an individual’s potential and motivation.”
The company in question Sult, a London-based maker of electrolyte supplements captured attention with the wacky request. Within a week it had people shouting from rooftops and jumping into the sea (“I throw myself into everything I do”) to gain the attention of the founders, Henry Porpora and Milly Goldsmith.
replaces CVs with short video
pitches and
uses an algorithm to match job hunters with opportunities. “The CV is a
fact sheet, so that can live as a profile,” she said. Neil Carberry, chief
PwC, one of the big four accounting firms, also stopped requiring earlycareer applicants to submit CVs. “Strong candidates don’t always follow conventional pathways,” said Carly Pike, its head of workforce strategy. “We don’t believe talent can be judged solely on someone’s past experience, qualifications, or the opportunities they’ve been given. Instead, our assessment process is designed to help candidates demonstrate their skills, strengths and potential.”
executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, pointed out
“In this day and age, CVs mean absolutely nothing. Especially when you can just whip it up on ChatGPT in two seconds,” Porpora said. “I understand the game of how people want themselves to look on paper but it doesn’t actually reveal any talent.”
that the information on a CV could be found
SPONSORED BY
elsewhere. “It’s important to remember that certainly in professional
recruitment, everyone has a LinkedIn profile or social media presence that tells their story.
Although Sult’s approach is extreme, it speaks to a wider change in recruitment.
“People are starting to go with the no cover letter, no CV trend,” said Suz Bannister, co-founder of Riser, an AIpowered recruitment startup. “I think it’s because people have lost trust in the process because AI is speaking with AI.”
Candidates should look after that profile online
Find The Business wherever you get your podcasts
and tell the story there,” he said. “In some way shape or form, a thing that does the job of
So keep your CV up to date, but don’t be surprised if you don’t need it.
the CV is perennial. It may
ROB PINNEY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Crucially, though, they must also acknowledge that no individual can possess all the skills needed to deal with the implications of AI, or war, or whatever challenges they are facing. “We had a view of the CEO as ... all-knowing, allseeing, all-powerful and all authority derived from him,” said Bingham. “What’s changed is that the good CEOs know what they don’t know and equip themselves with people who do.”
at search firm Odgers, reckons that chief executives need to be more “people centric” now as their staff are more likely to leave than previously. “Most former CEOs were running organisations where people were predominantly loyal to the organisation they worked for,” said Freebairn.
changed. In the past, “the direction was set and everyone needed to fall in line” with the boss. But today’s leaders, Alexandrakis said, faced much more scrutiny “on the depth and the strength of the team’s ownership of the direction”.
he said, CEOs are facing “enormous problems” and have to ask themselves, “How do I ensure I’m creating the team and the system that can tackle those and beyond my presence even being here?” This theory might help explain the churn in chief executives in recent years. Data last week from Russell Reynolds shows that the turnover of CEOs has started to stabilise this year after a period of upheaval. Last year, the changes at the top of FTSE 100 companies was the highest since 2019. To name just a few, Diageo parted company with Debra Crew, BP with Murray Auchincloss, WPP with Mark Read.
by Constantine Alexandrakis, chief executive of Chicagobased headhunting firm Russell Reynolds Associates. To be published next month, this expounds the thesis that the nature of a chief executive has changed. The days of companies being driven by egotistical bosses have given way to an era of “catalyst” CEOs — bosses who can no longer rely on their own individual brilliance to deliver their strategies.
Jill Treanor
When staff at the publisher Pearson logged on to a regular Friday Zoom call during the pandemic, they were greeted by an unexpected sight: their chief executive, Andy Bird, was channelling his inner hipster.
“That need for much stronger ownership has intensified to the point where the CEO has to be adept in salesmanship … and getting everyone on board,” Alexandrakis said. “It’s a subtle shift,” requiring “a level of humility, of openness of distributed ownership.”
The middle-aged Brit was wearing headphones and playing the part of a DJ, filling his staff’s speakers with booming dance beats.
They also need to make more decisions. “The cliché was that ... you were chief executive for seven years and
But they may still need to develop their own skills in AI, instead of delegating power in this area. Pippa Begg, boss of the Board Intelligence consultancy, reckons a CEO can’t now defer to a chief tech officer. “This technology will define how we do business,” she said. “So that’s got to be a core skill for a modern CEO.”
... you would have one huge decision to make that would define the next seven years. Now, you have one huge decision to make every six months,” said Freebairn.
“Historically you’d think of a CEO as a driver, almost a commander. And what we’re finding from the challenges companies are facing [is that] to face those head-on, leaders have to be much more [of] a catalyst,” Alexandrakis said.
Bird had joined Pearson in 2020, after a lauded career at Disney, with the aim of pushing through a radical overhaul of the business. He wanted to shake off its image as a dowdy textbook publisher and instead turn it into a digital champion. His spin on the decks was to show off his human side.
When Andy Bird was CEO of Pearson he tried being a DJ
He said candidates for CEO are assessed on the basis of their “self awareness” and how they can “bring outcomes through others”.
Kit Bingham, a partner at headhunter Heidrick & Struggles, believes that the CEOs of today still need the same skills as in the past “but to the power of ten”.
Globally, the data shows, after a period of “elevated” change at the top, pressure has eased. One theory is that stock markets have been
“Historically there was a force of personality, a visibility, a command that was needed [in a CEO]”. Now,
Other leading recruiters are also aware of tweaks.
DJing won’t help with that.
Mark Freebairn, a partner
The story is told in a book
know where to begin. He grew up in 1930s Stockport, left school at 16, started work as a £6-a-week clerk at Manchester Town Hall and completed his National Service with the RAF before discovering a love of architecture. He worked part-time as a bouncer to fund his studies at Man-
chester University, won a Yale scholarship and founded his practice in 1967.
Fast forward to the turn of the century, Foster survived bowel cancer and oversaw projects that helped to revive modern London. Today, Foster + Partners’ upcoming UK projects include the Queen Elizabeth II memorial in St James’s Park and Manchester United’s new 100,000seater stadium.
“I’m over the moon,” Foster says of this homecoming project. But the construction will be no small feat.
“You’re balancing accessibility, safety, security, comfort, all of those qualities, but seeking somehow not to compromise the visceral experience of proximity, of feeling that you’re part of the action,” says Foster, who is himself not a big football fan. “It’s a fascinating challenge.”
I don’t have to choose where to begin our conversation. Foster, a man used to keeping company with prime ministers and business visionaries such as Steve Jobs, Michael Bloomberg and Larry Ellison, decides he’ll be setting the agenda. He has a presentation. This is unconventional but I find it difficult to resist the idea of receiving a pitch from the world’s most renowned architect.
Foster guides me into his firm’s barnsized new studio, which contains models of some of the firm’s biggest projects, from the Millennium Bridge in London to HSBC’s Hong Kong tower.
He opens his sketchbook, where he’s prepared a handwritten note entitled, “The power of design for social gain”. He explains that Foster + Partners doesn’t just design pretty buildings for cash — it aims to use cutting-edge technology to enhance the lives of people that use its offices and public spaces. This means designing them to be aesthetically pleasing, environmentally sustainable and in a style that embraces natural surroundings
Foster + Partners, whose biggest shareholders are the Canadian investment group Hennick and the Foster family, made more than half of its turnover from the Middle East in 2025. China has also become a reliable customer. I ask Foster whether he has any qualms about working with authoritarian regimes.
He seems slightly put out by the question. “Yes, there are certain building types and certain regimes that we have not worked for,” he says, but he points out that most of the world’s population lives under authoritarian rule. “We are in a democratic minority. Look at how China has taken 800 million, which is more than three times the population of the United States, out of poverty, extreme poverty,” he says. “Fourteen per cent of humanity lives in informal settlements. They don’t have access to power, to sanitation. A lot of those are in authoritarian regimes. Would you not, as a designer, seek to be a party to change that?”
After a pause, Foster fixes me an expectant look. He’s not being rhetorical. “I’m asking you a question. If it was within your power to effect change for good, would you say: ‘I’m not going to because that’s not a democratic nation’?”
Foster + Partners drew criticism before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for which it designed the Lusail Stadium, after human rights groups raised concerns about poor or life-threatening conditions for construction workers. The firm made clear it had “conceptualised” the Lusail but was not involved in the construction. When Foster + Partners is involved in the “construction phase” it has “stringent standards for the welfare of workers”.
The Foster + Partners’ story is one of British success — about 80 per cent of staff are based here — but its clientele speaks to money and power shifting east.
Foster has several bugbears about the
UK as a place to do business. His main concerns seem to be a “proliferation of project managers”, a lack of consistent political leadership and the loss of a “vision for the future” that he believes was evident in “Victorian Britain” and the early part of this century.
He feels London suffers from a loss of “master planning”. He thinks more effort should be made to protect the green belt around London, one of the UK’s “most underappreciated inventions’, which he feels is “constantly under threat”. He thinks the government should focus on promoting “compact neighbourhoods, which are walkable, where you have neighbours, and combat loneliness”, rather than allowing for “urban sprawl”.
F
oster despairs at the cancellation of the HS2 rail route between Birmingham and Manchester, which he contrasts with nearly 30,000 miles of high-speed track built in China since
Asked how the UK can revive its previous pomp, Foster says we need to show more “long-termist” thinking, which would lead to newer and better public spaces in cities. “It’s thinking big,” he says. “And thinking big isn’t necessarily physically big — it’s thinking big in terms of social generosity, in terms of public spaces and streets, of accepting that a city is always in flux and you can effect change for the good of the citizens. But all of this needs a degree of courage.”
All might not be lost for the UK. Foster’s plans for Manchester United’s stadium may enhance the standing of English football. Here, though, the railways could prove a problem as well. There are concerns about traffic and proposals to transform a rail freight terminal into a passenger station. The project may well provide another test of Foster’s patience with the UK, though he’s confident things can be worked out.
There’s also the late queen’s memorial to be completed. Lord (Robin) Janvrin, a former private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II, says she was a great admirer of Foster’s work. Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee, Janvrin tells me he has come to appreciate Foster, who sketches in his notebook through meetings, as a man with “strong views” on how things should be done, but also someone who listens and responds to counter-arguments or ideas”.
Before leaving his studio, I feel I must ask Foster: has he given any thought to retirement? He fixes me a quizzical look. “Why would I?”
fatigue, and part of it is about boards becoming less patient, investors becoming less patient and the time window for performance shrinking”.
He explained that successful chief executives had always needed to “bring the team along with you”, but the way they go about it had
rising and so reducing the pressure on executives.
Referring to the high turnover of recent years, Alexandrakis said some CEOs — particularly in the US — had been “feeling that the next AI chapter needed to be written by someone else”, while “part of it for others could be
INTERVIEW WILLIAM TURVILL
JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
‘I’m over the moon to be designing Man Utd’s stadium ’
vents and baggage handling underground to create a glass-box style terminal; the new Wembley, with its famous arch, opened in 2007; and the redesigned Trafalgar Square, completed in 2003.
Lord Foster at his office in Battersea and, below, his vision for Manchester United’s new stadium
where possible. “There’s no style,” says Foster, when I ask. “There’s a philosophy.” When designing a building, he does not seek to impose a style: “You’re trying to understand the values, the culture, the DNA of an institute”.
Before Foster + Partners pedestrianised the area in front of the National Gallery, it was a “very dangerous… traffic roundabout”, Foster recalls. He seems disappointed I have no recollection of this. “We take it for granted now because we have short memories,” he says.
any entrepreneurs and business leaders would like you to believe that they have shaped the world around us. Norman Foster is one of the few who can say with certainty that he’s achieved just that.
Foster closes his sketchbook. But instead of turning to face me, he opens his laptop where he’s prepared a 94-slide presentation, containing pictures, diagrams and stats from his biggest projects.
In 2000, Foster + Partners’ annual revenue was £30 million, including £22 million generated in the UK. By last year, Foster’s UK revenues had grown to above £40 million but accounted for less than 10 per cent of his total business, which reported revenue of £652 million.
Many of Foster’s proudest designs are based around London. There’s Stansted, where Foster in 1991 was credited with redefining airport design by moving
I get the impression he doesn’t much like being called a businessman, though. “I see myself as an architect and an urbanist,” he says curtly.
Lord Foster, a sprightly 91-year-old who spends his free time cycling up hills and dragging himself along cross-country ski routes, is the executive chairman of Foster + Partners, a London-based architecture firm that generated more than £650 million last year.
He is the mind behind Wembley Stadium, the Gherkin, the pedestrianised Trafalgar Square and Stansted airport. And that’s just around London.
His designs span the UK, from Ipswich to Gateshead and beyond — Apple’s campus in California, the Reichstag in Berlin and airports in Beijing, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Next up, the moon, where Foster’s team has designed homes that he expects to be used within “a few decades”, and Mars, a bit further off .
I’m with Foster on an uncomfortably hot day at his HQ in Battersea, southwest London. Foster, who lives mainly in Switzerland but spends much of his time in Madrid, is comfortably attired in a sharp beige suit with suede shoes.
“I love the heat,” he says as he guides me from the reception building to a newly developed studio looking on to the Thames. As if to prove the point, he pauses in the early afternoon sun between the two buildings.
friends in Tuscany Charity: Norman Foster Institute
Car: Porsche 996 Favourite book: currently reading The Victorians by AN Wilson Film: The Third Man, starring Orson Welles Music: JS Bach’s preludes and fugues played by John Lewis (from the Welltempered Clavier, recorded 1984-1988) Drink: coffee Watch: several, including a Unimatic Modello Tre U3-FN Gadget: pencil Last holiday: cycling with
Born: June 1, 1935, Reddish, Stockport Status: married to Dr Elena Ochoa, with two children
“It was a wilderness when we moved here,” he says, gesturing down the road, one street back from the river. “There was nowhere you could eat or drink. And it was dangerous. If a secretary was working late [and] had to go to the bus stop, security would help them to the end of the road. And if anybody left their car outside, windows were smashed.”
WORKING DAY Foster rises at 6am and spends his days travelling, meeting clients and discussing projects with his
School: Burnage High (now Burnage Academy for Boys) University: Manchester and
teams. He is usually personally involved with up to 30 projects at
Yale First job: clerk at Manchester Town Hall Pay: undisclosed (Foster + Partners’ highest-paid director last year made £3.8 million) Home: Engadin Valley, Switzerland
any one time. He goes to bed around midnight.
Lord Foster’s last holiday was cycling with friends in Tuscany. He drives a Porsche 996
DOWNTIME Cycling and cross-country skiing
ILLUSTRATION: PETE BAKER
Never built a data centre? No problem — Jensen Huang’s £3.5trn giant is ready to fund its own customers. At the same time, jittery investors are causing market wobbles
said. A “material part” of that investment, it added, “comes from Nvidia and a couple other chipmakers’ profits”.
like the SSI one amount to a few pence found in the couch cushions. The Santa Clara, California, giant booked $58 billion in profit in the first quarter — triple the figure in the same period last year — and is on track to bring in more than $200 billion in free cashflow for 2026.
A single, refrigerator-sized rack of Nvidia’s top Blackwell graphics processing units can cost up to $4 million. These systems are the indispensable component of the AI revolution.
And yet, the SSI deal hinted at deeper worries about Nvidia, Jensen Huang and his role as the leader of the great global AI circus. Since mid-May, the company powering the AI boom has lost 18 per cent, or $960 billion, of its value— equal to about four AstraZenecas — as investors have grown increasingly concerned that its leather jacket-wearing leader is furiously pumping up a bubble that will soon pop.
So as Nvidia goes, so goes the economy. Which is why concerns about its penchant for “circular deals” have surfaced once again. The problem for Huang is that some of the most voracious customers of his company’s chips — such as OpenAI — simply don’t have the money to buy them. So Huang is giving it to them.
he demand was clear, concise and urgent. “The time is now,” read a passage of text on a black backdrop that called to mind the opening of Star Wars. “Join us,” it added. Jensen Huang answered the call. The chief executive of Nvidia, the $4.7 trillion (£3.5 trillion) semiconductor
Hedge fund billionaire Jim Chanos tweeted about one such deal last week. Nvidia has reportedly entered talks to guarantee up to $250 billion that OpenAI plans to pay to lease a giant data centre.
That would be a problem for the entire US economy. Nvidia alone comprises an estimated 8 per cent of the total value of the S&P 500. Add in the six other members of the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks — Apple, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Tesla and Microsoft, several of which are large Nvidia customers — and they make up a third of the index’s value.
giant, last week agreed to pump $5 billion into Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a Californian start-up whose existence is encapsulated in that single web page.
“So we are at the point in the cycle where Nvidia has to provide financing guarantees for roughly two thirds of the cost of the chips it is selling to the data center project …?!” he wrote. “Lol, ok.”
“Superintelligence is within reach,” it intoned. “Building safe superintelligence is the most important technical problem of our time.”
Bubble-like behaviour is cropping up. Last week it was reported that Nscale, a British start-up backed by Nvidia hoping to build UK data centres, is targeting an initial public offering that could value it at $25 billion. It was founded two years ago.
Tech, and AI, are not just influential on the market. They are the market. Last week, the tech-focused Nasdaq was roiled by concerns about the AI boom, entering “correction” territory, where an index falls 10 per cent below its last peak.
The company is, in reality, a small Palo Alto firm led by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and émigré from OpenAI. In its two years, it has produced no product, no revenue, nor any public research. And how might a company like this spend its $5 billion cheque from Nvidia?
chips and “do business together”. Letters of intent are, typically, not binding.
project last week: OpenAI. This was surprising because the tech giant is extravagantly lossmaking; it lost $38 billion in 2025 and does not expect to turn a profit for at least three more years. So how did it expect to cover the reported $250 billion bill to lease the facility once operational?
A report from Nikkei Asia estimated that Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon have together racked up $1.65 trillion in debt held in special-purpose vehicles set up to finance data centres. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the research arm of the top central banks, raised the issue in March: “These arrangements amount to ‘shadow borrowing’ — obligations that are economically akin to debt but largely reside outside corporate balance sheets.”
San Francisco hedge fund Situational Awareness, which went long on AI infrastructure — chips, data centres, hardware — blew up last week after its bets on Nvidia and other chip stocks soured. Rival Citadel grabbed its assets after a shotgun auction of a fund that, days earlier, managed more than $40 billion.
Bridgewater Associates, the investment giant, said in January that AI buildout, data centres and power plants, would account for half of the 2.8 per cent growth in US gross domestic product this year. “These are massive sums, on a par with the contribution of business investment to growth in the tech bubble,” it
The market appears to be growing sceptical. Consider a similar deal just ten months ago. OpenAI announced a comparable letter of intent with Oracle, pledging to pay $300 billion for data centres that would be built and managed by Oracle — and packed with Nvidia’s AI chips. The market loved it: Oracle stock surged 43 per cent, briefly making Larry Ellison, the company’s 81-year-old executive chairman, the world’s richest man.
Principally, it appears, with Nvidia. The “strategic partnership” unfurled last week would allow SSI to increase its compute power tenfold and take it to what Sustskever called “the next level”.
With the help of its sugar-daddy. To get the deal over the line, Nvidia is reportedly considering an agreement under which it would in effect be a co-signatory — like a parent might be for their child’s first flat.
For a company of Nvidia’s size, deals
Huang, 63, is unperturbed. He sees this moment as merely the beginning of a decade-long revolution in which demand for semiconductors will multiply tenfold as AI propagates into every corner of life.
But over time, fervor faded over the hundreds of billions in potential revenue from a lossmaking AI lab. Oracle’s stock has plunged from a high of $328 in the days after the deal to under $130 now. Last week, when news broke about Nvidia’s potential Ohio deal, its stock didn’t pop; it sank 4 per cent.
For projects such as Piketon to make sense, you must buy the other idea driving the spending frenzy. And this is that AI is not simply going to replace or augment software coding or accountancy or law. Instead, its total addressable market, or TAM, is all human labour.
“Instead of just a billion people using computers, we’re going to have 100 billion agents, and billions of robots, all using computers,” Huang told Bloomberg Television last week. “This is one of the realisations of the semiconductor industry — that now computers are built not just for people to use. Computers are being built for computers to use.”
“It is not a clever app or a single model; it is essential infrastructure,” Huang said this year. “Every company will use it. Every country will build it.”
When it comes to such eye-catching announcements, the half-life of hope appears to have shrunk markedly. Navin Chaddha, managing partner of Mayfield, an active investor in semiconductor startups, argued that the fears were, for now, overblown.
In July, Huang had another giant deal to announce: a detail-light, $500 billion partnership with memory giant SK hynix. Both sides signed letters of intent to build AI data centres, collaborate on memory
“The semi[conductor] industry works on two-year forward booking, and at least until the end of next year, the whole inventory is sold out, the commitments are already done.”
On a blustery Friday in March, Masayoshi Son, the billionaire impresario behind Japanese tech giant SoftBank, stepped up to a row of golden shovels alongside Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, for a photo op.
Last week, Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon — key Nvidia customers — all reported blow-out earnings, driven largely by demand for AI services. These offset investor jitters and helped the Nasdaq claw back lost ground to close the week even at 25,273.
It was a big day in Piketon, Ohio, a downtrodden town on the edge of Appalachia. “This facility that’s going to be built here is bigger than any facility ever built in world history,” said US energy secretary Chris Wright.
Now computers are built not just for people to use, but for computers to use
And yet, Nvidia’s stock ended the week down 3.5 per cent at $200.75. Gary Marcus, a prominent AI sceptic, wrote last week that the boom has been running on “hope and circular financing”. He added:“That may no longer be enough.”
The facility in question: a proposed gargantuan data centre that will draw ten gigawatts of electricity — double what is required to power London on a typical day — and cost $500 billion. A surprising financial partner emerged for the mega
Lawyers rebel over plans to grab interest from client accounts
is typically pooled into one large account to reduce the administrative burden. Under Lammy, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) held a consultation earlier this year on proposals to seize 75 per cent of the interest earned on money in pooled accounts, and 50 per cent of the interest earned on individual client accounts in England and Wales, to prop up the ailing justice system.
Lammy to restrict jury trials.
should return a “fair sum” to clients, but does not say how much.
Daniel Woolfson
Questions over client interest have already scuppered the attempted sale of Taylor Rose, a £124 million high street law firm, this year.
Andy Burnham’s new justice secretary has been urged to abandon proposals for a £100 million raid on the legal sector drawn up by David Lammy, amid warnings that it could plunge swathes of firms into financial difficulties.
Officials at the MoJ are understood to believe that some firms are not returning any, and that a raid on client interest could raise more than £100 million per year.
The Sunday Times revealed in June that Taylor Rose had been in talks with the private equity house Nordic Capital about a deal, but that Nordic walked away during financial due diligence due to worries about the amount of client interest on its books. Taylor Rose, which did not publicly confirm the collapse of the sale, made operating profits of £10.7 million in 2025, including £6.6 million in client interest. A spokesman for Taylor Rose said: “Changing the long-established rules around client account interest risks adding cost and complexity to legal services, ultimately leading to higher fees, delays and reduced choice for consumers.”
The issue of client interest has proved contentious in the legal industry, with experts arguing these funds are buttressing firms that would otherwise be struggling as the cost of doing business rises.
The Law Society has called on Alex Norris, the Lord Chancellor and justice secretary, to scrap plans to requisition much of the interest that law firms earn on their client accounts. The proposals were put forward by Lammy, who was sacked as justice secretary by Andy Burnham when he entered 10 Downing Street last month.
According to an analysis by Taha Capital, a legal industry consultancy, the top 200 UK law firms earned about £295 million in interest last year.This income surged after the Bank of England raised interest rates. However, the rules around how much of this should be returned to clients are vague. The Solicitors Regulation Authority states that firms
Adil Taha, founder of Taha Capital, said: “Client account interest is keeping many small and medium regional law firms alive now. Our stress test model shows that hundreds of regional firms would face existential cashflow crises in 12 to 18 months if you were to remove client account interest.”
Mark Evans, the president of the Law Society, said: “This unjustified raid on clients’ money was a terrible idea under David Lammy and remains a terrible idea under Alex Norris. We call on the new Lord Chancellor to scrap this ill-considered and naive proposal.”
The Law Society has previously argued that the proposed raid would increase administrative costs for firms, potentially causing them to divert resources away from pro bono clients and raise their prices.
Registration Numbers
A government spokesman said: “This government inherited a justice system in crisis but we’re investing record amounts and reforming the system to deliver swifter justice for victims.”
Law firms can earn millions of pounds in interest on the money they hold for clients during transactions such as house purchases. Money for these transactions
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What the top 200 law firms are thought to have earned in interest last year
thesundaytimes.co.uk/advertise
Andy Burnham said last week that he would reassess separate plans put forward by
£98,000 o.n.o. 07831 801590 2 registrations
Jon Yeomans
It’s only surprising BP didn’t sail away from the North Sea earlier
of the rules. The North Sea regime has been subject to at least 11 changes since 2010, while Norway has remained consistent over decades, even if its top rate is also 78 per cent. Sticking to an agreed levy provides the ability to plan.
The company has other, bigger prospects to pursue, including a huge discovery off the coast of Brazil. As for the “British” in British Petroleum: most of its top shareholders are massive foreign money managers with a global view. Strip away the sentiment, and this can be seen as a hard-nosed business decision that will go down well with its investors (its shares closed up nearly 2 per cent on the news).
The Terminator films (an AI going rogue? As if). But this Skynet is a British military satellite programme begun in the 1960s.
Bad timing for workers Freelancers beware. The taxman is consulting on a plan to make selfemployed people make more “timely” payments on their earnings. The proposals could mean up to nine million people having to make monthly payments throughout the year, more akin to PAYE. The Timely Payments in Income Tax Self Assessment consultation acknowledges “this can be particularly challenging for taxpayers with seasonal or irregular income patterns”. That’s a drastic understatement.
North Sea output is falling, but could be boosted
The incumbent operator, Airbus, is in a scrap with an American interloper, Lockheed Martin, to win the next contract for three satellites. Up to 600 jobs in Portsmouth and Stevenage are at risk if Lockheed wins, as the work would move to Newcastle. Some critics say giving the contract to Lockheed would result in valuable intellectual property being ceded to the Americans.
Historic
NSTA 2025 projection Upside potential
We shouldn’t kid ourselves that tax is the only reason for BP upping sticks. But it’s little surprise it’s putting its North Sea arm up for sale. The bigger surprise is that it hasn’t done it sooner. The next concern will be whether BP feels its London listing is just as dispensable.
1,600*
paying attention.
800
The oil giant, under Meg O’Neill, is trying to draw a line under years of management strife and is pruning its portfolio in a fit of new-broomism.
Back to the North Sea, however. The lobby group Offshore Energies UK is quick to point out there’s still life in the basin yet, if companies could be encouraged to invest. It says there is “upside potential” (see chart), citing 111 projects that could be pursued. It reckons that domestic production “could meet about half of the UK’s oil and gas demand to 2050, compared with roughly a third under current policies”. What policies are they? Well, that’s the second factor lurking in the background: the windfall tax that sees oil and gas profits in the North Sea taxed at 78 per cent. The Energy Profits Levy was implemented by the Tories and extended by Labour. Crucially, its latest
0
2000 2035
Andy Burnham has hinted he’ll look again at the Energy Profits Levy. He’s talked about needing a multi-party, multi-year agreement in areas such as social care. Business taxation, surely, needs the same approach: consistency, certainty and clarity. Or it won’t just be oil majors sailing for new seas.
Naturally enough, Lockheed dismisses such concerns. Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space, told me last month: “My argument would be pretty simple. I think we’re a UK company.” Lockheed, he pointed out, has been here for 85 years.
BP wants you to know that it’s not leaving the UK. It still has more than 13,000 people here in other divisions, including its trading desk and its forecourts business.
*million barrels of oil equivalent. Sources: OEUK
Freelancers notoriously spend half their lives chasing payments, which sometimes don’t come at all. Now HMRC wants them to pay on account each month or quarterly regardless.
version killed off investment allowances that might have spurred further projects. This, coupled with Labour’s opposition to new drilling, has made the basin a chilly place for oil explorers.
But the truth is this move is driven by two factors. The North Sea has been in decline for decades. BP sold its massive Forties field as far back as 2003, and since then oil majors have exited the basin, leaving much of it in the hands of smaller companies and joint ventures.
At a time when the Employment Rights Act has made the labour market even less flexible, such changes would be a disaster. The consultation — slipped out in the summer lull — ends on Tuesday. There’s still time to tell the taxman where to get off. jon.yeomans@sundaytimes.co.uk Rishi Sunak is away
O’Neill is not a fan, telling The Times in 2022, while in her old job, the levy was a “red flag”. More recently, she told analysts earlier this year her North Sea business had “growth potential but it is not profitable currently”.
The dilemma illuminates the pitfalls of Burnham’s plan to “reindustrialise” the UK and buy British. If only it were so simple. The choice here is between a legacy British company owned by the French and Germans, or a US giant. Who knew rocket science was so complicated?
Hasta la vista for Airbus? Burnham’s sphere of influence is far greater than he surely imagined. Soon he may need to weigh in on the award of a £1.58 billion contract for Skynet.
BP’s North Sea business, thought to be
worth about $2.6 billion, makes up just 4 per cent of its total production, down from a high of 40 per cent.
“Skynet”, as any tech phobe will tell you, is the name of the rogue AI from
Perhaps most maddening for oil companies is the chopping and changing
Warsh fails to calm the critics
Can we have ten-year plans if PMs don’t last that long?
David Smith Economic Outlook
Irwin StelzerAmerican Account
most things and has set a near impossible test for co-operation on his social care reforms — that they must not involve higher taxes or government borrowing, and be fair to those who have “made provisions and saved up over the course of their lives”. The Tory objective is to defeat the PM as early as is possible.
and spending cuts to keep government debt at manageable levels.
hen a new prime minister takes over, their thoughts often turn not to the next ten days, weeks or months, but to the next ten years.
he man sent to President Trump by central casting strode to centre stage and laid an egg last week.
to fertilisers are likely to continue to rise, as would costs incident to the breaking of links in the supply chains.
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T
That is why any ten-year plan, whether from Burnham or in combination with his successors, must involve — as well as new commitments on defence and social care — measures to bring other areas of government spending under tighter control. There are things that can be done to this end, as the OBR sets out. They must be done.
Then there are tariffs. What the Supreme Court taketh, President Trump hath restored. His cull of the statute books led him to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which he claims allows him to levy tariffs of 10-12.5 per cent on imports from 80 countries that account for 99.4 per cent of US imports. He also found that Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 — part of the neverrepealed Smoot-Hawley Act — empowers him to retaliate against countries discriminating against US commerce. Watch for daily announcements of swingeing tariffs on countries that displease the president, or prove willing to promise more inward investment in
Kemi Badenoch thinks Andy Burnham is wrong on most things
The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos, a highly respected Fed watcher, writes that Federal Reserve Board
So it is with Andy
Burnham, who pledged in his first speech as PM to “bring forward a new plan for Britain, a ten-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be, wherever we’re coming from, whatever party we support”.
All of which means that, on these big issues, it would be easy for the new administration to put them in the “too difficult” box for now and focus on winning the next election.
Chairman Kevin Warsh’s vow to end above-target inflation seemed “to rest for a second straight meeting on words rather than action”.
Axios’s well-regarded Neil Irwin, its chief economic correspondent , says Warsh “repeatedly declined opportunities to connect that [2 per cent] target to any concrete action … gauzy … elusive and vague”. The media honeymoon ended, and a new era of dispassionate reporting dawned.
PS I promised last week to let you know when my longer article on the 1976 IMF crisis in the journal Contemporary Social Science would be available to view, and it is now. An internet search for “The 1976 IMF Crisis Revisited” and my name should take you to Taylor & Francis Online and the piece.
That would be understandable, but against the national interest. In its latest Fiscal risks and sustainability report, just published, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) noted that the upward pressures on primary public spending — spending excluding debt interest — and government debt are not immediate. By the mid to late 2030s, though, that pressure intensifies and debt sets off on an unsustainable path, which could take it to 300 per cent of GDP in 50 years.
Blair were the exceptions. Winston Churchill managed only eight and a half years, in two separate stints.
He is not the only person in government with a ten-year horizon. In two thoughtful pieces in May for Renewal, “a journal of social democracy”, Louise Haigh, now first secretary of state and thus a very senior member of the new administration, set out ideas for both a new fiscal framework and for tax reform.
This means, without putting a clock on the Burnham premiership when it has hardly begun, that continuity on the big challenges facing the country should mean co-operation between the parties. It will take years to implement a workable social care policy, the new prime minister’s current main focus, and to lift defence spending to the Nato target of 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Warsh, of course, was following a difficult script, a set of notes containing a defence of the monetary policy committee’s 9-to-3 decision to keep the Fed’s benchmark interest rates at its current level of 3.5-3.75 per cent. That, Warsh assures us, was far from an inertial reaction, but the result of a “good family fight” as the board entered “a period of watchful thinking, not watchful waiting”.
One thing that Denis Healey, chancellor of the day, did not have to cope with was the cost of the state pension triple lock, under which it rises in line with inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. Most think tanks, international bodies and economists think it should be scrapped or modified, as do I. The OBR has highlighted its strongly rising cost.
The fiscal framework she envisaged would be one in which a first step would be “to move away from five-year forecast windows to a longer horizon of ten years”. This, she said, would remove the bias against public investment of the current system, because the payback on such investment is usually longer than five years. As she argued: “This will help rebalance incentives from short-term cuts by increasing the visibility of the benefits of sustainable investment, making it harder to invent fiscal fictions, and better rewarding supply side and tax reform.”
Leaving it until then to fix things, tempting though it would be for politicians with short-term goals, would be a big mistake. In its report, which goes into considerable detail on spending pressures arising from social care, defence, welfare and health, the OBR sets out clearly the advantages of acting early to nip some of these pressure in the bud, rather than leaving it for later politicians to fix.
Also, long-term goals will be solving the problem of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), properly devolving economic power to the regions, and raising the standards of vocational education.
A few days ago, though, I had an insight into why politicians are very reluctant to take such a course. It’s not just that they are frightened of losing the pensioner vote, it is also because younger groups support it — including, in a recent YouGov poll, 18 to 34-yearolds by 44 to 22 per cent.
Three of the 12 battlers lost that good family fight: they voted to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point. A few days after the vote, June’s inflation rate, as the Fed measures it, was reported to be running at 3.3 per cent. That’s a tick below the May rate of 3.4 per cent, but hardly a major move towards the Fed’s 2 per cent target.
And all this will have to be done while putting debt on a sustainable path.
Neither party is interested in raising taxes, so up go deficits
It is hard to see much co-operation between the main parties. Kemi Badenoch thinks Burnham is wrong on
Delaying for 20 years would double the amount of action needed in tax hikes
It was not an argument for “kicking the can down the road”, or abandoning fiscal rules. She stressed the importance of balancing the budget for day-to-day spending, but also of recognising that many things take time to pay off.
Rachel Reeves, in trying to take away winter fuel payments from all but the poorest pensioners, provided a real-life experiment on this. The policy was enduringly unpopular and reversing it did not undo the damage. Similarly, ending the triple lock is seen by many as taking money away from the poorest pensioners, even though there is additional help available for them in pension credits, among other things.
Markets, doing the Fed’s job for it, raised yields on Treasury notes. Warsh acknowledged that the yield on the tenyear notes was 4.40 per cent when he last appeared before the press, and by the end of his second appearance stood at 4.635 per cent, a non-trivial increase. Yields on the 30-year note topped 5.21 per cent for the first time since 2007. The committee in the not-too-distant past had hesitated to raise rates for fear that an increase might damage the labour market. Data suggests that fear is no longer warranted. The unemployment rate remains an acceptably low 4.2 per cent. Last month, claims for unemployment benefits hit their lowest level since 1969 before rebounding a bit. M. Keith Waddell, chief executive of staffing firm Robert Half, told The Wall Street Journal, “Hiring demand continues to improve…”.
Primary public spending
At a time when the new Downing Street team is starting to grapple with long-term issues such as social care, and arguably the even longer-term goal of significantly reducing regional economic inequality through devolution, it makes sense to think beyond the next three years and towards the mid-2030s.
50% of GDP
return for tariff relief. It is difficult to tell how soon and by how much these tariffs will affect inflation, but they certainly will create upward pressure on prices.
Medium-term forecast
Long-term projection
48 46
On the triple lock, I had a very large response to my piece a couple of weeks ago. All made similar points, which is that some of its cost to the public finances is offset by the income tax paid on it, including higher-rate income tax. As you will know, the government is trying to seek ways of exempting people who are solely dependent on the state pension from income tax, which will not be easy. But that is a different point.
Add continued and rising deficits that place upward pressure on the inflation rate. The war isn’t cheap, and Democrats, likely to control the House from 2027, traditionally refuse to vote more cash for the military unless Republicans agree to increasing entitlement spending by a like amount. Neither party is interested in raising taxes, so up go deficits.
44 42
Neither of the two modern-day prime ministers who did more than ten years, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, took office brandishing ten-year plans, though Blair did have one for the NHS, published in 2000, three years after he took office.
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38
2025 26 2035 36 2045 46 2055 56 2065 66
Their long periods in office meant they had a chance to deliver real and lasting change, in a way denied to their successors. David Cameron, PM for more than six years, did achieve a lasting change because of the EU referendum, though it was not one he intended.
Which brings us to Warsh’s insistence that the Fed not provide markets with information that might influence the information the markets are providing the Fed. Christopher Waller, a governor whom Trump might have nominated for the chairmanship but didn’t, and who voted for the status quo says, “In all my years as an economist, I’ve never seen a single theory that says you make people’s lives better, or markets work better, if you don’t tell people what you’re thinking.”
The best estimate I have come across is from the Resolution Foundation think tank — that the £12.6 billion additional gross cost of the triple lock so far comes down to a net £9 billion when tax and savings on other benefits are considered. By 2030, the gross cost of £15.5 billion comes down to a still hefty £11.9 billion.
Warsh also stumbled when he noted that the Fed faces “elevated uncertainty”. For one thing, we are likely to see upward pressure on electricity, chip, semiconductor and server prices incident to massive AI infrastructure investment; home insurance rates reflecting the greater incidence of wildfires and extreme weather; and the increase in home mortgage rates, already at their highest level so far in 2026 as they follow upward movements in yields on the 10 and 30-year notes.
Public sector net debt
Boris Johnson, like Burnham a mayor turned prime minister, had a string of ten-year plans, covering just about everything. But in his just over three years in office, and with the pandemic to deal with, he did not make much progress on any of them.
300% of GDP
Forecast
Long-term projection
I also found, thanks to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the consultants Lane, Clark Peacock, that of the 13.2 million state pensioners in 202526, 7.79 million were basic-rate taxpayers, 904,000 paid the higher rate and 124,000 were additional-rate (45 per cent) taxpayers. I don’t think it is a great argument for the triple lock that more than a million of those who get it are higher or additional-rate taxpayers, but there you are. david.smith@sunday-times.co.uk
200
Warsh will have a new script after the Fed’s next policy meeting in midSeptember, if not in August, when he addresses his international counterparts in Jackson Hole. As he pointed out, last week’s decision “is the beginning of the story, not the end of the story.” irwin@irwinstelzer.com Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser
Will Burnham’s ten-year plan fare any better? He has acknowledged that the job of prime minister has become a short one. Of those who completed their terms since Cameron, the average was two years. Voters are fickle and expect quick results, and it may be that we will never again see premierships lasting ten years. Even in the 20th century, Thatcher and
100
Still, Warsh is right that there are large areas of uncertainty. But, most are more certain than not to drive inflation higher. Even if the war were to end tomorrow, the prices of important products, from diesel fuel to helium to pharmaceuticals
0
2000 01 2010 11 2020 21 2030 31 2040 41 2050 51 2060 61 2070 71
Source: OBR
Linda Morey-Burrows
FUNNY BUSINESS
Never mind WFH, the case for the office is stronger than ever
ne of my earliest memories of work came in the mid-1980s. Fresh out of art college at the age of 20, I walked into a design studio filled with architects and designers and realised just how much I still had to learn.
refurbished. It felt clean, new and safe. We brought in an outside consultant for regular testing, at real cost, because we wanted our people to feel reassured, and we even became a base for clients whose own offices were still closed.
people stops being a nice-to-have; it becomes one of the only ways left to learn a profession at all.
been busier, we can’t find good people quickly enough, and we’re fielding calls about new sites most days.
At MoreySmith, we never really left. Our policy is, and always has been, that everyone works from the studio fulltime. During the pandemic, we didn’t have the option to go fully remote even if we’d wanted to; we had big projects on sites in central London, and the mandate allowing the construction industry to keep working meant we were contractually obliged to honour our commitments.
This approach goes both ways, and it isn’t always easy. A while ago, after a long search, I thought I’d found the perfect senior architect for us. The only obstacle was that he had moved to the coast during lockdown and wanted to be in the studio only two or three days a week. I wasn’t willing to bend. He was coming in at a senior level, and the point of that role was to mentor the team and inspire people to do their best work not something you can do from home. I told him so and we couldn’t reach an agreement.
A good office isn’t a factory
But when the rules finally allowed a full return, I insisted everyone came back to the office full-time. That decision cost us. I lost a director and my executive assistant and several others left for childcare reasons, mostly women but also men in their mid-thirties to midforties. We went from 45 people down to 30. It didn’t feel like the right decision to many at the time.
The founder of the business spotted something in me — he wasn’t known for sugar-coating his opinions — and took me under his wing. I accompanied him to client meetings and he showed me how to carry out space evaluations. Art college had taught me creativity and technical design, but it was in the studio that I learnt how to think commercially and solve problems.
— it is the staircase that makes colleagues cross paths
LINKEDIN POLL
No
Yes
Out of a team of about 45, only four or five of us were in the studio at the start of the lockdowns. I remember cycling round London most days, often the only one of us able to get in because some of the team lived outside the capital and weren’t allowed to travel. It was tough keeping everyone together while running the sites, but we managed it with full daily Teams calls and weekly yoga sessions.
35%
65%
Years later, the director I had lost told me that it had been an over-reaction on his part. We have since rebuilt to 40 and continue to recruit at pace.
None of this means we’re rigid; we offer flexible hours and finish at 4pm on Fridays. There is leeway, too, if someone genuinely needs a day at home for something specific. But on the whole, everyone is in every day.
That was more than 40 years ago and I now run my own interior design and architecture practice. But I still think about those early days every time I watch a graduate finding their feet. The debate about being in the office, versus working from home, has become one long, exhausting negotiation encompassing everything from four-day weeks to sabbaticals, to hybrid working and a fundamental rethink of what people expect from work itself.
We are now upfront about our workplace policy from the first conversation with a job candidate: fulltime in the studio, no working from home. Recruitment firms tell us we’re out of step — that every other architecture and design practice offers at least two days at home. But we’ve never
I’ve spent my career designing the places in which people work, and a good office is not a factory. It is the staircase that makes two colleagues cross paths, the coffee bar where a nervous junior gets ten unplanned minutes with a director, the conversation that happens because nobody booked it into a calendar. Even now, with two studios five minutes apart, I still get the odd grumble about the walk between them. I say it’s good — a bit of fresh air and a reason to bump into the other team.
The moment we were permitted to reopen properly, we did, bringing our staff into a studio we had just
2 Fitzroy Place, left, in central London, was designed by MoreySmith
This week, a former Goldman Sachs executive won a payout of nearly £1.5 million after being sacked for not responding quickly to an email while on paternity leave. Should men and women get the same amount of parental leave?
MOREYSMITH
This summer — and its energy-sapping heatwave — makes matters harder still. People don’t want to commute on rickety trains or in overheated cars to get to the office. Childcare arrangements become more complicated with the schools out. And the temptation to be near your garden — if you’re lucky enough to have one — becomes greater.
The pandemic proved that work can happen almost anywhere. AI is proving much of it need not be done by people at all. Neither weakens the case for the office. They make it the strongest it has ever been — not as a place to accommodate work but to grow the people who will, one day, be the ones standing quietly beside someone else, teaching them to read a room.
I personally think that the story about AI killing jobs is a bit of a fake story, honestly
Lost in all of it is the generation just starting out — and they have the most to lose.
Today’s graduates have arrived at a uniquely difficult moment. The pandemic ended the five-day week in the office for millions, but artificial intelligence is now dismantling the basics of how young people learn: the routine, unglamorous work that used to be their training ground. Strip that away and being physically beside experienced
Sir Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca
Linda Morey-Burrows is founder and principal director at MoreySmith
Hannah Prevett is away
FTSE 100 11,000
variation 12 months high low
Consumer prices index current rate prev. month
U137.36 H: 8,642.23
DAX 25,629.24
U530.24 H: 25,900.10
FTSE EUROFIRST 2,595.24
U16.73 H: 2,625.60
SENSEX 78,094.64
U2,034.87H: 86,159.02 U2.68% L: 71,545.81
ALL ORDS 9,137.00
S&P TSX 35,226.14
V142.96 H: 35,760.02
V0.40% L: 26,846.74
UK 5.062 U0.029 5.234 4.229 US 4.740 U0.053 4.740 3.923 JAPAN 2.799 V0.017 2.902 1.469 GERMANY 3.229 U0.025 3.244 2.528
U537.78 H: 53,289.30
NASDAQ 25,373.85
U398.03 H: 27,190.21 U1.59% L: 20,560.17
S&P 500 7,489.72
U77.74 H: 7,620.90
CPI including housing current rate prev. month
10,500
Retail price index current rate prev. month
U 173.53 H: 25,134.76 U 0.73% L: 20,626.98
U 131.82 H: 10,989.45 U 1.23% L: 9,027.94
Average weekly earnings on prev. month on last year
10,000
Unemployment current rate prev. month
Rentokil Initial 4.4
YEN YEN > USD
GOLD DOLLARS/TROY OZ
DOLLAR USD > GBP
9,500
NIKKEI 64,362.02
Manufacturing output on the year on last month
4.2
V249.13 H: 72,831.73 V0.39% L: 39,850.52
EURO EUR > GBP
€1.1696
9,000
Retail sales on the year on last month
12-month high: ¥164.00 low: ¥145.50
12-month high: $5,626.80 low: $3,331.40
2025 2026
OIL DOLLARS/BARREL
Source: Factset
latest 3 mths prev. 3 mths latest 12 mths
UK trade balance (£bn)
3.6
RISERS Mondi: 892.2p, U 22.32% Greggs: £18.80, U 18.84% Sage: 937.2p, U 13.40% Ocado: 211.8p, U 13.32% Burberry: £11.88, U 11.19%
U 921.20 H: 28,056.10 U3.69% L: 22,518.00
FALLERS Rentokil Initial: 344.8p, V 19.06% Vesuvius: 371p, V 17.92% IG Group: £14.60, V 14.37% Ceres Power: 347p, V 9.64% Oxford Instruments: £27.32, V8.69%
3.4
latest quarter prev. quarter annual change
Gross domestic product
Jul 27 28 29 30 31
12-month high: $119.50 low: $58.72
12-month high: $126,273 low: $57,754
Source: Factset
last month prev. month year to date
Price at 10.30am Saturday Shares fell after the company reported slower demand in North America
Budget deficit (PSNB) in £bn
U18.06 H: 4,258.86 U0.47% L: 3,547.16
-16.0 -20.0 -57.6
Source: FactSet
Market cap ranking Price Change 52-week Mkt Cap V on week high low (£m)
Market cap ranking Price Change 52-week Mkt Cap V on week high low (£m)
Market cap ranking Price Change 52-week Mkt Cap V on week high low (£m)
Market cap ranking Price Change 52-week Mkt Cap
Market cap ranking
Market cap ranking
Market cap ranking
Price Change on week
52-week high low
Mkt Cap (£m)
Price Change on week
52-week high low
Mkt Cap (£m)
Price Change on week
52-week high low
Mkt Cap (£m)
Price Change on week
52-week high low
Mkt Cap (£m)
Yield
Yield
Yield
Yield
V on week high low (£m)
V
V
V
V
112 RS Group 701.5 +19.0 742.8 536.9 3302.0 200 Safestore Holdings 615.5 nc 849.5 578.8 1344.8 56 Sage 973.2 +115.0 1234.0 771.6 8800.7
61 Sainsbury (J) 359.4 +14.4 380.2 291.2 7959.1 199 Savills 920.0 +2.0 1126.0 791.5 1346.4
51 Schroders 588.5 nc 599.5 358.6 9479.0 42 Scottish Mortgage Inv Tst 1330.5 +14.5 1563.0 1015.8 14252.6 44 Segro 965.0 -14.0 997.4 603.0 13067.0 138 Serco 241.6 +1.0 325.8 205.0 2357.5 53 Severn Trent 3018.0 -2.0 3335.0 2381.0 9108.4 120 Shaftesbury Capital 143.8 +1.2 162.9 124.1 2818.4
171 Shawbrook Group 328.0 -26.0 519.0 277.5 1704.6 3 Shell 3383.5 +78.0 3758.5 2553.8 188151.0 179 Sirius Real Estate 99.0 +0.5 113.0 86.8 1574.9 50 Smith & Nephew 1158.5 +18.5 1441.5 1050.0 9729.7
62 Smiths 2642.0 -36.0 2746.2 2088.0 7815.2 99 Softcat 1930.0 +37.0 1998.0 1083.0 3799.9 80 Spirax 6945.0 -135.0 8050.0 5950.0 5127.2 28 SSE 2346.0 -76.0 2767.5 1597.0 28442.7 184 SSP 199.2 +8.2 212.4 137.2 1517.5 16 Standard Chartered 2188.0 +51.0 2278.0 1285.0 47940.1 52 Standard Life 923.0 +6.5 932.0 615.0 9292.1 76 St. James's Place 1053.5 -17.5 1575.5 1038.8 5451.8 134 Tate & Lyle 554.0 -2.5 580.0 319.4 2467.8 124 Taylor Wimpey 78.0 -4.8 116.9 74.1 2721.6 127 TBC Bank 4812.0 +50.0 5200.0 3615.0 2681.6
122 Templeton Emerging Markets IT 305.0 -4.0 352.0 196.2 2810.0
26 Tesco 489.5 +9.2 510.4 406.9 30670.8 188 The Schiehallion Fund 145.6 -1.4 171.1 84.8 1494.4
27 3i Group 2864.0 +106.0 4497.0 1825.0 28886.6 104 3i Infrastructure 380.0 -5.5 394.5 325.0 3504.9 132 TP ICAP 342.6 -7.4 355.0 235.5 2485.1 84 Tritax Big Box 170.1 -0.8 175.0 132.2 4617.4 5 Unilever 4743.0 +167.5 5542.1 3644.0 102177.0 48 United Utilities 1383.0 +15.0 1497.0 1072.0 10273.8
123 Unite 538.0 -17.0 764.0 442.2 2765.6 30 Vodafone 117.9 +3.2 131.1 80.6 27138.0
172 Watches of Switzerland 729.5 +20.5 801.5 316.2 1701.9 68 Weir 2636.0 +20.0 3580.0 2254.0 6843.4 92 Whitbread 2510.0 +73.0 3302.0 2098.0 4210.3 198 Worldwide Healthcare Trust 376.0 -8.5 398.0 306.5 1348.6
113 WPP 298.8 +16.2 412.4 218.5 3222.4
46 Admiral 3772.0 +184.0 3816.0 2624.0 11553.8 45 Airtel Africa 333.0 -1.2 436.2 200.6 12093.0 141 AJ Bell 587.5 -8.5 662.5 414.4 2317.7 82 Alliance Witan 1345.0 +22.0 1356.0 1178.0 4992.2 148 Allianz Technology Trust 670.0 -13.0 764.0 439.5 2207.7 18 Anglo American 3733.0 +12.0 4239.0 2042.0 43976.6 23 Antofagasta 3655.0 +24.0 4475.0 1850.5 36033.1 189 Ashmore 206.4 +0.6 276.5 145.9 1471.1 41 Associated British Foods 2087.0 +91.5 2359.0 1729.5 14685.2 2 AstraZeneca 12632.0 -38.0 15732.0 9892.0 195925.0
83 Easyjet 630.0 +12.0 683.8 332.6 4775.5 59 Endeavour Mining 3522.0 -85.0 5620.0 2238.0 8510.7 194 Energean 763.0 -65.0 1042.0 674.5 1409.4 105 Entain 541.4 -12.0 1031.0 500.4 3464.5
81 Kingfisher 308.6 +9.1 372.2 240.2 5090.1 190 Lancashire Holdings 602.5 -50.0 700.0 549.0 1470.2 79 Land Securities 705.5 +12.0 722.0 522.5 5256.3
175 Law Debenture 1242.0 +8.0 1270.0 977.4 1667.7 40 Legal & General 300.4 +0.8 310.0 217.2 16609.3 11 Lloyds Banking 114.8 +1.2 117.8 74.4 66689.6 85 LondonMetric Property 196.2 +1.1 216.2 175.2 4612.6 19 London Stock Exchange 8398.0 -376.0 10290.0 6684.0 41008.1
106 Man Group 302.2 +4.6 327.2 154.2 3461.2 60 Marks & Spencer 405.1 +24.6 412.2 301.1 8373.2
73 Melrose Industries 454.2 -16.1 685.0 409.9 5661.1 170 Mercantile Investment Tst 276.5 -1.0 282.0 234.2 1746.4
176 Mitchells & Butlers 276.0 +12.0 301.5 223.5 1656.1
125 MITIE Group 207.0 -2.4 214.0 134.8 2693.5 98 Mondi 892.2 +162.8 1129.5 660.0 3938.3 136 Monks Investment Trust 1578.0 -2.0 1664.0 1322.0 2421.6 151 Morgan Sindall 4430.0 -76.0 5730.0 3915.0 2127.9
149 Murray International Trust (Ord) 368.5 +7.0 371.0 283.5 2194.7
14 National Grid 1190.0 -47.5 1428.5 1000.0 59818.8
15 Natwest 705.8 +29.8 722.6 500.2 56180.0 38 Next 14845.0 +60.0 15310.0 11200.0 17763.1 195 Ninety One 212.2 +1.2 262.2 179.6 1405.7
165 Ocado 211.8 +24.9 397.9 140.2 1786.4 160 OSB 556.5 -5.0 647.5 479.0 1900.7 187 Oxford Instruments 2732.0 -260.0 3318.0 1682.0 1503.1 144 Pan African Res 92.1 -2.8 190.4 52.6 2245.1 181 Pantheon International 395.0 +5.0 409.0 319.5 1549.2 180 Paragon Banking 837.0 +21.5 932.5 681.5 1556.5 64 Pearson 1257.0 +31.0 1337.0 874.8 7556.3
150 Pennon 463.0 -5.2 606.0 439.4 2185.3 69 Pershing Square Holdings 3808.0 +94.0 5095.0 3636.0 6606.6 103 Persimmon 1107.0 nc 1552.0 947.4 3556.1 174 Personal Assets Trust 545.0 +11.0 555.0 507.0 1678.2 126 Plus500 3910.0 -64.0 5535.0 2874.0 2692.9 67 Polar Capital Technology Trust 626.5 -19.0 743.5 384.0 6928.6 173 Premier Foods 194.2 +7.1 211.6 165.2 1688.1 135 Primary Health Prop. 94.5 -0.2 109.6 87.4 2451.1 29 Prudential 1116.0 +20.0 1238.0 910.2 27946.5 129 Qinetiq 506.0 +16.2 551.5 398.5 2613.9 128 Quilter 193.2 -1.6 209.0 150.8 2641.9 185 Rathbones 1668.0 nc 2500.0 1580.0 1509.4 24 Reckitt Benckiser 5240.0 +290.0 6522.9 3664.0 33276.9 17 RELX 2607.0 +39.0 3976.0 1991.0 45641.2
166 Renewables Infrastructure 76.1 +0.1 86.2 63.2 1773.3 102 Renishaw 4948.0 -257.0 5490.0 2860.0 3601.6 57 Rentokil Initial 344.8 -81.2 507.0 344.6 8709.8
107 Rightmove 464.6 +27.2 827.0 391.4 3447.9 7 Rio Tinto 7174.0 +305.0 9117.0 4344.5 90037.0 115 RIT Capital Partners 2565.0 +55.0 2610.0 1906.1 3201.6 4 Rolls-Royce Holdings 1467.8 +52.2 1532.6 990.0 122318.0
31 Experian 2790.0 +46.0 4054.0 2203.0 24752.1
71 F&C Investment Trust 331.2 -2.2 1332.0 325.8 6235.7
152 Fidelity European Trust 428.5 +5.0 442.0 367.5 2110.5 186 Fidelity Special Values 463.5 +11.5 469.5 372.0 1503.4 101 Frasers Group 810.5 +45.5 828.5 598.0 3626.6 37 Fresnillo 2475.0 -71.0 4472.0 1371.0 18238.1 70 Games Workshop 19120.0 -820.0 23540.0 14070.0 6318.2
192 Genus 2194.0 +58.0 3228.8 1943.0 1459.9 12 Glencore 543.0 +5.8 707.2 275.2 63737.2 164 Grafton Group 965.8 +22.2 1009.8 788.6 1810.5
193 Great Portland Estates 349.0 +4.0 377.0 270.0 1417.6 137 Greencoat UK Wind 111.9 +3.9 120.9 92.2 2415.5
154 Greencore Group 260.4 +13.2 307.5 191.1 2093.3 159 Greggs 1880.0 +298.0 2046.0 1407.2 1922.4 9 GSK 1931.5 +12.0 2282.0 1288.6 78136.8 25 Haleon 363.2 -0.2 416.1 274.4 32002.7 43 Halma 3530.0 -84.0 4902.0 3191.4 13401.5 156 Hammerson 382.0 +15.4 383.0 263.4 2032.4 100 Harbour Energy 239.4 -16.8 321.0 182.0 3783.1 140 HarbourVest Global Private Equity 3335.0 -15.0 3470.0 2630.9 2319.6
155 Helios Towers 195.8 -7.2 247.6 113.2 2035.9 167 HG Capital Trust 390.0 +9.5 524.4 318.6 1766.7 131 HICL Infrastructure 136.0 +1.8 138.0 107.2 2531.0
109 Hikma Pharmaceuticals 1585.0 +3.0 2004.0 1187.0 3340.1
146 Hill & Smith 2850.0 -180.0 3145.0 1951.8 2235.5
72 Hiscox 1809.0 -31.0 1904.0 1246.0 5804.0
147 Hochschild Mining 431.4 -13.2 858.0 246.2 2219.4
89 Howden Joinery 788.5 +22.5 981.0 713.0 4316.8 1 HSBC Hldgs 1576.0 +23.2 1604.6 908.8 270813.0 78 ICG 1888.0 +22.0 2340.0 1424.9 5256.3 66 IMI 2936.0 -114.0 3076.0 2138.0 7014.5
32 Imperial Brands 2825.0 +2.0 3632.0 2626.0 21758.8 117 Inchcape 838.5 +13.0 895.0 640.5 2927.6 47 Informa 885.8 +4.8 1000.0 719.0 11140.2 39 InterContinental Hotels 11941.2 +191.6 13305.0 8458.0 17744.9 35 International Consolidated Airlines 431.9 -2.2 492.9 332.8 19020.2 130 International Public Partnership 142.0 +2.2 143.2 115.6 2542.1 161 International Workplace 197.1 -2.6 250.8 163.5 1878.6 55 Intertek 5840.0 +20.0 5850.0 3519.4 8989.6 96 Ithaca Energy 242.2 -15.4 290.8 149.8 4005.3 121 ITV 74.2 +1.2 87.4 65.8 2816.4
90 JD Sports Fashion 89.5 +0.5 106.1 64.0 4302.6 108 Johnson Matthey 1992.0 +74.0 2434.0 1730.8 3347.7 158 JPMorgan American IT 1200.0 -10.0 1238.0 1041.0 1981.1 183 JPMorgan Emerging Mkts Gwth & Inc 161.8 -0.6 181.2 118.4 1522.9
110 JPMorgan Global Growth & Income 609.0 +4.5 616.5 529.6 3323.4 142 JTC 1327.0 +1.0 1385.1 860.0 2317.5
153 Keller Group 3024.0 -274.0 3518.0 1238.0 2095.2
196 Atalaya Mining Copper 885.5 -19.5 1094.0 440.5 1361.5 95 Autotrader 523.8 +34.8 844.4 418.6 4102.1
33 Aviva 693.4 +2.4 700.8 590.6 20812.1 75 Babcock International 1121.0 nc 1527.0 902.4 5523.9 13 BAE Systems 2094.0 +123.0 2360.0 1529.0 62904.4
93 Balfour Beatty 862.5 -16.5 900.0 539.0 4125.1
197 Bankers Investment Trust 147.0 -0.8 153.4 120.6 1350.0 10 Barclays 508.8 -16.8 554.1 352.6 68708.6
94 Barratt Redrow 293.2 -1.4 410.2 235.4 4124.1 63 Beazley 1290.5 -2.5 1296.0 750.0 7762.8 143 Bellway 1988.0 +9.0 2890.0 1715.0 2245.9 114 Berkeley Group 3500.0 +68.0 4442.0 2796.0 3209.6 169 Big Yellow Group 887.5 -2.0 1208.0 800.5 1747.7
177 BlackRock World Mining Trust 883.0 -1.0 1072.9 543.1 1650.4 145 B&M European Value Retail 222.6 +9.2 269.2 140.0 2237.2 8 BP 552.5 +4.1 609.4 397.1 86758.5 119 Bridgepoint 320.6 +3.0 363.4 212.0 2826.8 6 British American Tobacco 4570.0 -2.0 5326.0 3677.0 98851.8
86 British Land Co 442.0 +3.2 446.4 318.6 4530.2
34 BT 201.2 +8.2 242.1 173.0 20064.9 54 Bunzl 2802.0 +44.0 2832.0 1981.0 9086.6 91 Burberry 1187.5 +119.5 1376.5 976.0 4287.0 157 Caledonia Investments 388.0 +7.0 395.0 312.0 1985.5 65 Centrica 155.0 -8.0 220.2 152.5 7160.1 178 Chemring 590.5 -6.0 620.0 446.5 1606.9 116 City of London Investment Trust 593.0 +11.0 599.0 486.0 3057.1 191 Clarkson 4730.0 -52.0 4992.0 3365.0 1464.1
162 CMC Markets 667.0 -56.0 753.0 203.0 1866.4 182 Coats Group 80.2 +4.4 98.1 71.0 1537.7 22 Coca-Cola Europacific Partners 8190.0 +295.0 8545.0 6280.0 36299.5 36 Coca-Cola HBC AG 5010.0 +140.0 5195.0 3270.0 18259.7
20 Compass 2356.2 +83.6 2581.1 2000.0 40067.7 88 ConvaTec 224.0 +8.0 259.2 193.0 4378.9 118 Cranswick 5350.0 -130.0 5810.0 4775.0 2905.4
87 Croda International 3205.0 +273.0 3338.0 2426.8 4475.3 163 Currys 167.9 +3.6 169.5 106.0 1833.6 77 DCC Energy 6330.0 +45.0 6740.0 4188.0 5407.4 139 Derwent London 2104.0 +66.0 2136.0 1469.4 2331.1
52-week highs and lows are intra-day figures, not end of day. Excludes exchangetraded funds. nc = no change.
— = not applicable. Source: ICE Data Services
August 2, 2026
DAD GAVE ME A HALAL PIGGY BANK FAME AND FORTUNE, PAGE 14
aiding your housing wealth in retirement has long been seen as a last resort for those in financial peril. However, times are changing.
Equity release loans are now expected to become much more commonplace as the UK faces a retirement income crisis and inherit-
a penalty equal to 9 per cent of the value of your debt. It gradually reduces to 0 per cent.
ance tax threatens more and more families.
Legal & General said repossession is always a last resort and it would exhaust all appropriate options first.
Homeowners will be sitting on £4.3 trillion of property wealth by 2040, according to consumer group Fairer Finance. Equity release allows homeowners to borrow money against the value of their homes, with the balance (plus compound interest) due when they die or go into care.
Committing to equity release at such a young age might seem attractive in the short-term, but will severely restrict your choices later in life, said the former pensions minister Baroness Altmann, an expert on later life finance, retirement and social care policy. She said: “If you downsize instead of releasing equity, for example, you give yourself a lot more flexibility later on.
Nearly 13,000 homeowners took out an average of £44,000 in the first three months of the year, according to industry body the Equity Release Council.
“The problem with the compounding interest is that if you borrow 30 per cent of the value of your home in your fifties and you’ve got a normal family home, in 20 years’ time you will own less than 30 per cent in your house which means if you downsize in your seventies, you wouldn’t have enough equity to buy a house or a flat. The family home may be too big for you at that stage, but you’re stuck.”
However, while an equity release loan could give you a financial lifeline in retirement, tapping into property wealth is not without its risks. Money has found:
6 Equity release rates have spiked and are now 7.7 per cent on average meaning a £100,000 loan would cost a borrower more than £215,000 over ten years. 6 New deals mean equity release is now available to homeowners as young
ILLUSTRATION: NINA KRAUSE
There is good new for equity release borrowers, however. Since the first version of equity release hit the market in 1965, and through the negative equity scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a housing market crash left some borrowers owed more than the value of their home, deals have become more flexible. But the bad practices of the past have not been forgotten, Daley said: “The sector has immeasurably improved from where it was 20 to 30 years ago, yet it still suffers from a reputational lag. The risks that were there: poor quality products that were too expensive, inflexibility, high fees and negative equity are gone really.”
Why equity release might save your retirement (or wreck your wealth)
Homeowners aged 55 years and above can apply for an equity-release mortgage that they don’t have to pay a penny for until they die or move into longterm care. Instead, the monthly interest is added to the debt, which grows at a faster rate year after year, eating up your equity.
The loans do not require monthly repayments, so borrowers do not have to pass affordability checks. But borrowers must take advice from a specialist broker and independent legal advice. And while there’s no rule to say you must discuss your decision to take equity release with family, it’s recommended because the loans can wipe out inheritances.
Borrowers can now choose to take either a lump sum or agree a sum that’s kept in an account for them to draw on when needed, with interest payable only on the portion taken out.
There are options to repay all the monthly interest, some of it, or none at all — and should you need to stop the payments, you can without the threat of repossession. Lenders also allow small annual repayments of the debt.
Your home must be worth at least £70,000 to take out a loan and borrowers are typically banned from taking out more than 50 per cent of their equity. Most deals are portable, meaning there is no need to pay up if you move home.
And once you’ve agreed to a rate, it is fixed for life with high exit penalties waiting to catch anyone tempted to switch deals later should rates fall. Locking in at 7.72 per cent means that in just over nine years (without making any payments) the value of your debt would double.
someone with a home valued at £600,000 borrowing £150,000 will have a loan to value of 25 per cent which could give them access to the cheapest deals on the market, subject to their age. If your home is worth £300,000, your loan to value jumps to 50 per cent, which can mean your interest rate is much higher.
schemes, where your income depends on how much you have paid in and how those investments have performed. The retirement firm Standard Life has warned that more than half the savers with defined contribution pensions who areset to retire by 2060 are not on track to have enough.
There’s no longer the fear of winding up in negative equity either. Should you outlive forecasts and run out of equity, lenders can claim no more than 100 per cent of your home’s value.
The industry has been dogged by complaints in the past, often by family members who were unaware of the loan and its impact on the value of their loved one’s home.
James Daley from Fairer Finance said: “Equity release is absolutely not right for everyone. If you’ve got other options, you shouldn’t use it. The biggest risk is that the interest eats up a lot of your home’s value and you lose a lot of the wealth that you’ve accumulated through your lifetime.”
Some loans have the option to pay off some or all of the interest each month to stop the debt spiralling. Andy Wilson, a financial adviser specialising in equity release, said any adviser “worth their salt” should be doing an affordability test to see if the borrower can pay off the interest every month.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City watchdog, is trying to normalise the use of housing wealth, calling it the “fourth pillar” of retirement finance, after state, workplace and private pensions. It is also reviewing the equity release industry to make sure it produces the best outcomes for homeowners.
If you don’t want to downsize but need to unlock your housing wealth, equity release is not your only choice — particularly if you are still working and have guaranteed pension income on the horizon.
A new payment term lifetime mortgage from Legal & General lets homeowners as young as 50 release equity. Borrowers agree at the outset to make interest payments on the loan for a set period that must be a minimum of five years — but can be much longer. You could lose your house if you fail to keep up with the payments during the term agreed.
Leon Diamond, chief executive of LiveMore, specialists in later life borrowing, said two-thirds of its customers were older borrowers who have enough pension income to go for interest-only or capital repayment mortgages for life side-stepping equity release entirely.
If you’ve got another option, then use it
Many of the risks of 20 to 30 years ago are gone
It comes as thousands of more families are due to pay inheritance tax when pension pots are included in the value of an estate from April next year. The retirement firm Canada Life this year said one in five clients were planning to use equity release to give money to loved ones.
He said: “Compounding interest is the biggest consideration. People have the best intentions to pay the interest but plans change later on. One of a couple might die, meaning their income dies with them and the surviving partner may no longer be able to afford it.”
The days of cheap money have long gone. But for equity release, rates have climbed even higher than mortgages. Five years ago, you could have secured a rate of less than 2.5 per cent. Now you face an average rate of 7.72 per cent, according to the comparison site Moneyfacts, with some lenders charging 9 per cent.
After that, the loan automatically turns into equity release — a debt you’ll have until you die or move into care.
The FCA is focused on making the equity release and later-life mortgage market fit for future generations and more flexible borrowing options are expected to emerge as a result. “The market is ripe for innovation,” Diamond said.
Pension wealth is expected to fall as defined benefit pensions, which pay a guaranteed income in retirement, are replaced by defined contribution
Homeowners in the south of England can also benefit from lower interest rate for taking out the same value loan as someone in the north. For instance,
The interest rate, which is fixed from the outset, ranges from 6.8 per cent to 8.3 per cent. If you decide to repay your loan in the first five years you will pay
Ben Wilkinson Head of Money
Take the state pension from those who need care, but nothing more
ou have to admire Andy Burnham’s heartfelt ambition to fix our care crisis once and for all. It will take bold reform to
Burnham admitted in his speech on Wednesday that his generation of politicians was to blame, but if the new prime minister truly wants to fix this, he’ll have to go about it in a way that his hard-left backbenchers would not approve of.
The answer to this lies in the basic principles that our National Health Service was founded upon in 1948. And that is that medical care should be free to all those who need it, regardless of wealth.
more you must pay for your own care. This threshold has been frozen since 2010 and should now be set closer to £40,000 when accounting for inflation. Those who cannot free up the money to pay have the debt put against their property so it can be redeemed when they die. And then there is the troubling fact that those who worked hard and paid taxes are left to fend for themselves, while those who led a life reliant on the state get care for nothing.
So far we’ve heard this could all be funded with perhaps a 1.8 per cent income tax rise or a flat 10 per cent death tax on all estates. Yet the social care crisis, like any of the big challenges facing us, cannot be tackled earnestly until our public sector is brought to heel, and that includes the NHS.
treatment, so why should they be penalised for developing dementia?
I fear that politicians may go after what is considered “unearned wealth”. Sure, it’s good fortune to inherit family wealth, but it should be your right to leave your money to whom you want.
Those who have the money to go private have the choice to do so. If someone wants to spend their money on an upmarket care home, then let them. Let them sell their home and raid their savings. But don’t leave them exposed to financial ruin purely so they can receive the same care that another person would receive for nothing.
create a system that treats the elderly with dignity and can be funded without squeezing the life out of taxpayers.
Stripping someone’s assets to pay for healthcare is nothing short of cruel. The only thing the government should be allowed to take from you to pay for residential care is your state pension, which after all is a benefit designed to look after you in old age.
The deal was this: you paid your taxes and the state would look after you in your time of need. The betrayal has been that your taxes have not been well spent and the state has been allowed to become bloated, inefficient and bureaucratic.
Finding a way for the elderly to retain their financial dignity is the real prize
But any challenge of this size is always fraught with danger — notwithstanding the obvious temptation to hand the bill straight to those homeowners who are sitting on a lifetime’s wealth.
Burnham has said that in an “ideal world” no one should have to use their home to pay for care, but we’ll need more conviction than that when he eventually announces exactly what he intends to do. Family wealth needs to be left entirely out of the equation.
There should be no talk of tax rises until the public sector productivity problem is tackled, which is feared to cost taxpayers tens of billions of pounds every year.
The threat of ruin truly is a lottery, with one in four of us expected to need care. You could live independently until you are 100 and then drop dead, or you could spend 20 years in a £1,500-aweek care home.
There are two fundamental issues with care in England the poor quality on offer and the catastrophic cost to families. At the heart of it all sits the question: should your home be used to pay for it?
It was also tragically misguided to devolve adult social care responsibilities to local authorities, which have been proved to be incapable of providing a worthy service.
This government is at a crossroads. Does it want to show that work really does pay, or does it want the nation to slip deeper into the welfare rut?
Ultimately, there’s one line that should not be crossed. And that’s this: no one should lose their home or life savings to pay for care. We don’t deny the wealthy free cancer
Fixing the social care service is one thing, but doing so in a manner that lets the elderly retain their financial dignity will be the real prize for Burnham.
The first thing that has to change is the ruthless rule that means if you have wealth or assets worth £23,250 or
It is a familiar complaint aimed at the tax office, which regularly comes under fire for poor customer service. Taxpayers and their accountants have reported spending hours trying to get help and answers from an agent and last year the public accounts committee warned customer service was at an all-time low.
Albert’s son, Paul, 68, who is an economist, was the lead executor of his father’s estate and a beneficiary along with his two sisters and brother. However, his brother died 12 days after his father, so his share of the estate passed to his widow.
HMRC has been on a recruitment drive in a bid to boost its performance, but experts say taxpayers — especially those chasing inheritance tax queries — still face a long wait. Gillman said: “As I understand, there is a significant shortage of appropriately qualified staff within the inheritance tax team. HMRC will put almost every matter relating to a property valuation through a district valuer, which is also clearly very overstretched and we are seeing similar delays when valuations are needed.
Albert was a lifelong farmer who had moved to the family farm in 1977. He had farmed poultry, sheep, pigs and arable crops and his children had helped out on the farm growing up. Paul arranged two professional valuations of his father’s farm, took extensive advice and submitted the estate’s inheritance tax return to HMRC in March 2024 with no tax due.
The farm’s bungalow, buildings, land and a wind turbine had been assessed by a leading land agent. A solicitor’s assessment found that the entire farm should be subject to 100 per cent agricultural property relief on the grounds that the bungalow and barn were integral to the operation of the farm, the bungalow also had an occupancy restriction, meaning only those employed in agriculture could live there, and the land was let on a twoyear lease to a tenant farmer.
“Having this level of uncertainty when dealing with the estate of a loved one clearly adds another level of stress.”
Some 19 months after his father’s death, in September 2025, a desperate Paul applied to HMRC for formal clearance written confirmation of the tax status of an account or case. He had hoped this would help bring matters to a close, but says he was later told by an HMRC representative that processing clearance requests had been suspended because it was not deemed a priority.
Albert Temperton had farmed all his life. Below: with his son, Paul, who had to deal with his estate
The following month HMRC wrote to say if Paul had not heard anything by July 10 it would have no questions regarding the return. When July 10 came without any letters from HMRC, Paul began distributing assets and was keen to tie up the estate after a difficult year. But the next day a letter arrived from HMRC dated July 9 — stating that it had opened a compliance check on the estate.
‘Dad died more than two years ago. HMRC still owes us £12k in tax’
“Since then I have been advised repeatedly to call back every 15 days for updates, but no timescale for resolution has ever been provided. One representative told me that HMRC had no obligation to respond to my requests before two years had elapsed from the date of death.
“The questions that followed were extensive and highly detailed, covering my father’s day-to-day involvement in the farm, maintenance work, livestock, markets and many other matters. They wanted to know how many chickens he had, for example, and what market he sold them at. I could answer all of these, thanks to the meticulous record-keeping in Dad’s day book,” Paul said.
“More than two years after my father’s death, I still have no resolution, no timetable, and no indication of when HMRC’s investigation will conclude. The beneficiaries are unable to receive the balance of the estate, and I feel I have let down my two sisters and sister-in-law, despite having done everything possible,” Paul said.
He responded in full in September. But in light of the potential challenge from HMRC, the valuers suggested that the taxman might dispute whether the wind turbine and part of the barn would qualify for agricultural property relief. To err on the side of caution, Paul paid about £40,000 on account to HMRC to avoid any interest racking up in the event of a dispute over the amount of tax owed.
When The Sunday Times got in touch with HMRC about Paul’s case it apologised for the delay, which it blamed on human error. It has now closed the case and is in the process of refunding £12,000 in overpaid inheritance tax, plus interest. HMRC said: “We’ve written to Mr Temperton to apologise and explain that we’ve completed our review, closed the case and will be issuing him a refund.”
have to wait years to get the all-clear that an inheritance tax case has been closed.
During this time the executors — those who are responsible for tying up affairs in accordance with the deceased’s wishes typically do not distribute assets to beneficiaries in case HMRC disputes the amount of tax owed on an estate.
“Since then, there has been almost complete silence from HMRC,” Paul said. Despite his attempts to get more information, no one could tell him what was causing the delay, or if any tax was owed.
Some inheritance tax cases are taking three years, say lawyers, leaving families in limbo.Rachel Mortimer reports
Esther Lee from the law firm Thomson Snell & Passmore said late challenges by HMRC were not unusual. “We often receive a letter or email on the eve of HMRC’s inquiry window to say the district valuer has been instructed to consider the value of a property or the estate has been referred to the compliance team. The delays with HMRC mean that we must make sure to keep following up when we haven’t had a response from them. Not only do the delays mean the period of administration of an estate takes longer, but it also adds to the costs.”
lbert Temperton had been a farmer all his life. His legacy was one of hard work — a few days before his death in January 2024, aged 97, he was still up ladders and cleaning gutters at the farm he had owned for half a century.
for unlimited inheritance tax relief and the rest of his estate was modest, so the process should have been simple.
A
Chris Gillman from the accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg said it was not unusual for HMRC to take more than three years to assess an inheritance tax return.
But two and a half years later the inheritance tax case on Albert’s estate is still going on and his children are fighting for answers and a tax refund worth thousands of pounds — but have been met with silence from the taxman.
“It has had a significant personal impact. By late 2024 the stress had become so severe that I was admitted to hospital with a heart condition,” he said. “It would be a conservative estimate to say I have spent more than 100 hours chasing updates. But despite repeated emails and phone calls, I have received virtually no meaningful information about progress.”
“We are finding that anything more than a very straightforward inheritance tax return can take a number of years to be processed. I had a flurry of letters in June acknowledging receipt of returns submitted in July 2023, saying that they were only just going to begin their reviews,” Gillman said.
His record-keeping was
meticulous in the hope that his children would face few hurdles tying up his estate and dealing with HM Revenue & Customs after his death. When Albert died, working farms still qualified
HMRC requires inheritance tax to be paid within six months of a death, after which interest starts racking up. But families who stick to this deadline are still being left in a painful limbo — and some
Ian Cowie Personal Account
Oil or wind? Here’s why you don’t need to pick a side
whose professional commodities traders have won top slot in their sector over the past decade and fiveyear periods. Total returns were 424 per cent, 235 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.
BW LPG, a Singapore-based shipping line with 50 very large gas carriers. That’s not the kind of business many investors can access directly. More than 15 years ago I gained access to another diversified portfolio via Ecofin Water and Power Opportunities. I topped up at £1.52 per share in September 2019, after it was renamed Ecofin Global Utilities and Infrastructure. This investment trust yields 3 per cent dividend income that has risen 5.2 per cent a year over the past five years and was priced at £2.68 per share ex-dividend, or without the next income payment, on Friday. Its assets are led by National Grid, our biggest electricity distributor; followed by NextEra Energy, the American solar and wind power giant; plus Iberdrola
portfolio. If you want certainty about temperature trends, you can get that from “experts” online. However, as most investors discover, being confident isn’t quite the same thing as being correct.
investment trusts shun water provision. It is more than 30 years since the last reservoir was built and fund managers have followed governments in filing water under the “too difficult” category. One exception is International Public Partnerships, whose main asset is Tideway, the Thames sewer, completed in February 2025, that claims to have kept 21.7 million tonnes of sewage out of the river. This Londoner is grateful for that — and its dividend income of 6.2 per cent, rising 3.1 per cent a year.
closer to home are renewable. Greencoat UK Wind is an investment trust with over £4 billion assets but shares are priced at an eyestretching 20 per cent discount to NAV because so many people hate windmills.
and Enel, the Spanish and Italian utilities. The shares are priced less than 2 per cent below NAV and are my forever fund’s sixth-most valuable shareholding.
some climate change deniers’ scepticism among their less serious victims. Similarly, the 325,000 people forced to flee their homes in France and Spain are unlikely to include many complacently claiming “it’s just hot weather”.
The American oil and gas giant Exxonmobil — boo, hiss!
By contrast, if there is one modest principle that guides this DIY shareholder it is the Socratic paradox: all that I know is that I don’t know.
While we wait to see if they can keep it up, the fund yields 8 per cent dividend income that has risen an explosive annualised average of 38 per cent over the past five years. So I paid £3.48 per share, priced at par or net asset value (NAV), and popped them in my Isa. Its 2 per cent annual charge is expensive but not unreasonable for a portfolio led by NexGen Energy, the Canadian uranium miner, providing the fuel for nuclear power; followed by Spartan Delta, another Canadian but this time in oil and LPG; and
More complex worries are subsidies, decommissioning costs and the lifespan of these assets. Such negativity is bad for business and market sentiment, so shares I bought for £1.45 in August 2023 traded at £1.11 on Friday. On a brighter note, Greencoat yields 10 per cent dividend income tax-free in my Isa. Better still, this has risen 7.8 per cent a year over the past five years. Now the Environment Agency has declared more than half of England is in drought, it is remarkable — and regrettable
— is my eighth biggest asset and main direct exposure to filthy fossil fuels, because both will be necessary to keep us warm and in work.
Will peace break out in the Middle East, causing the oil price to return to below $90 a barrel with the cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) following it lower? Renewed violence last week could mean that reduced oil and gas reserves — said to be at their lowest levels since 1983 collide with rising demand and prices this winter. I have recently bought shares in CQS Natural Resources Growth and Income investment trust,
Investors can help fund the transition to a safer, more sustainable world by putting savings into cleaner, greener energy. I began doing so more than a decade ago and these funds continue to yield capital growth plus income.
After selling shares in BP and Shell to flee idiotic North Sea taxes imposed by the Tories and sustained by Labour, I paid $91 per Exxon share in March 2022. They traded at $153 on Friday and yield 2.7 per cent dividend income, rising 2.8 per cent a year. Exxon has raised shareholders’ pay every year since 1982.
Many environmental debates generate more heat than light, but investors can supply some of the capital required to deliver practical solutions. The need could hardly be more fundamental.
There is no need for investors to pick sides in the heated debate about fossil fuels versus renewable energy. Different assets are essential for a diversified
To redeem this pragmatic sinner, my energy holdings
For Cowie’s investments visit thetimes.com/cowieholdings
— that even utilities-based
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Tuesday, November 10, 2026
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 11
ANDREW FOX FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
How to ditch the office, enjoy your job — and earn more
knew it wasn’t right.” Within months, Smith saw parts of the role replaced by AI and before long, the firm had pivoted to running full recruitment campaigns with minimal human input. Smith left the City in 2022 and retrained in carpentry and locksmithing, where he met others making similar moves to futureproof their careers.
He said: “No matter how hard I worked in the City, I still only earned the same amount, which didn’t sit well; neither did the nine-to-five schedule.” Now he is selfemployed, doing gardening, carpentry and removals work and can earn as much in a day as he used to earn in a week.
In the past three years he has earned £45,000 via the online marketplace Airtasker, plus he advertises his services in local listings and through word of mouth. In the summer he can comfortably earn £4,000 a month.
More money, flexibility and total control are making people quit the rat race and retrain in a trade, says Megan Carnegie
“It’s not a myth that you can make as much as you want being self-employed, as long as you’re willing to market yourself and network,” he said. “I’ve invested in the courses, a van and tools, but I’ve earned it all back.”
demic achievement. In an article for The Times, he wrote: “For too long, we’ve built an education system around the idea that there’s only one route to success: university, a degree, a desk. I think that was one of the biggest mistakes this country has made.”
eeling stuck in his role as a food development technologist, Jiri Marek wanted to do something radically different. In late 2019 he downloaded TikTok and within minutes, stumbled across a video of someone crafting a tiny flute from wood and resin. “I’m a determined person and always need
Research conducted a few months ago by King’s College London’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Policy Institute found that 38 per cent of people were worried about their job being replaced by AI.
Research by the trusted tradespeople website Checkatrade found that nearly 37 per cent of people were considering a career change, with 54 per cent interested in retraining in a trade. Some 75 per cent of people viewed the trades as a respected career path with long-term job security.
to be challenged,” he said. “I watched it over and over, and thought: I can do this, but better.”
Analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed that nearly four in five roles were highly exposed to AI now, or would be in the near future, which makes workers in London more vulnerable to an AI-induced jobs cull than in any other big UK city.
By Christmas he had researched the market, drawn up a business plan, and spent £3,000 on woodworking tools. In the first week of 2020, he launched Studio Number 10, which specialises in luxury wooden cabinet handles and pulls.
And demand is soaring. A survey by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in April found that 75 per cent of tradespeople believed there was a shortage of skilled workers entering the industry. Some 87 per cent of bricklayers felt there was a shortage of new workers, 85 per cent of plumbers and 79 per cent of electricians.
Marek, 48, who lives in Jackfield, Shropshire, had always been comfortable working with his hands and he quickly developed Studio Number 10 into a viable business — he is booked up with work until next February. The shift allows him to spend more time with his wife, Alena, 44, who also works for the company and his children, aged nine and 11.
Holly Cruttenden, 48, always knew her job in education had a pay ceiling. She worked with the local authority to settle people of Traveller descent into the school system, and her salary was about £30,000 a year. “I loved the job, but I had just lost my home in my divorce and had a seven-year-old to look after on my own,” she said.
surveyed by Volkswagen said they were turning down work at least once a month, up from 45 per cent the year before.
“There are lots of listed buildings in this part of Shropshire, which require specialist knowledge, so I inherited that with the business.”
Experienced tradespeople, many of them midlife career switchers, are able to command higher rates, take on as much work as they can handle, and even set their own prices.
Jiri Marek quit his job as a food development technologist to set up a carpentry business
The freedom to make his own decisions has also been a huge upside — plus, this year he expects to make up to £15,000 year more than the £45,000 he used to earn in his old job. He said: “It’s all up to me, and not having to ask permission or argue with a boss is a huge relief.”
“I needed a plan.” In 2014 her father suggested she join his carpet-fitting business. The move felt daunting: she had no experience in the trade and a steep learning curve lay ahead. But after more than a decade in education — and much to the surprise of her colleagues — she took the plunge and joined Carpets 4 U, based in Epsom.
Emma Grant from Checkatrade said: “Starting off being your own boss, then expanding your remit, perhaps with several employees, offers huge earnings potential. I spoke to a heating and plumbing engineer who does boilers on the side, and he’s turning over half a million a year.”
He also took out a £30,000 business start-up loan, which he has paid back, and still owes £10,000 of the £50,000 loan. His wife, who has a background in finance, joined the business two years ago and they now employ an apprentice. Marek is confident about the year ahead, even as US tariffs complicate his American orders.
Some 53 per cent of the workers
Many people like Marek are choosing to move away from traditional white-collar jobs in favour of taking on a trade, and find it is a lucrative move, with tradespeople in high demand. Some also fear automation replacing their office role and are seeking a safer career path.
Plus, Grant points out, there are lifestyle and family benefits that shouldn’t be underestimated, especially for parents who swap rigid hours for work that can fit round their children.
“It helped that the housing market was booming at the time, and I had a goal of buying my own home,” Cruttenden said. “The all-male team of fitters was quite suspicious at first, because I had zero experience, although I learnt the ropes quickly through measuring courses and attending jobs.”
It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, he said, but it can be a huge win for those who can deliver consistently high-quality work. “I’m the least patient person in the world, but I’ve learnt the rewards do come — maybe not tomorrow, but soon.
Holly Cruttenden left her career in the education system to become a carpet-fitter and now earns at least £20,000 more a year
This sentiment is increasingly shared by political leaders who acknowledge the flaw in traditional career advice. Last week the prime minister Andy Burnham announced proposals to “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap” that will encourage children as young as 14 into technical training rather than aca-
“The folks who’ve grown their businesses to be incredibly lucrative, while living life the way they want, aren’t edge cases,” she said.
“I love golf and thought running my own business would give me more time to play,” he said. “I was so naive — it’s been the exact opposite.” Yet since sharing the load with his wife, he is able to spend more time with his children, who often join him in the workshop — much as he did with his grandfather.
By 2017 she had enough for a deposit on a property and continued to rise through the business. Last year she won Checkatrade’s Woman in Trade Champion award for London, and she now owns half the business with her father, who is semi-retired. She earns at least £20,000 more than she did in education.
Marek grew up in what is now the Czech Republic. He spent hours in his grandfather’s blacksmith workshop, and helped him out from the age of nine. He had been working full-time for the food company Müller when the pandemic hit.
Being a carer to his disabled mother for almost a decade, James Smith, 35, from Great Dunmow, Essex, struggled to hold down a job. He was living on a carer’s allowance and secured a parttime role at B&Q in 2017 — his first since leaving school in 2010 — and moved to full-time after her death at the start of the pandemic.
Taking on a side hustle before leaving a salaried role, as Marek did, is the safest way to make the transition, but if the shift is more abrupt it is wise to have some money set aside for emergencies. Dr Claire Handby, a former construction manager and now executive coach, said: “Ideally, you’d calculate what it takes to pay for all your commitments and outgoings, and have six months’ worth in the bank,” she said.
The male-dominated environments on site and at trade shows haven’t always been easy. She has been mistaken for the cleaner more often than she can count, but with time, she has won trust and respect.
The all-male team of carpetfitters was suspicious at first but I learnt the ropes quickly
Before long he had won a prize for his wooden door handles at the London Design Awards and was supplying 16 shops in the US and three in Canada. Bolstered by the contracted work, he left his £45,000-a-year job, and rented a workshop near his home.
“You take those comments on the chin because you know, quietly, that you’re doing pretty well,” she said.
He developed an interest in the trades at B&Q, which persisted even when he did “a complete 180” into tech sales and recruitment in the City.
What’s been the key to her success? “It was a point in my life where failure wasn’t an option. You have to be incredibly selfdisciplined about how you work, but without being stuck in a structure, there’s no limit to your success.”
In 2022 a master joiner in his workshop complex retired and Marek bought the business — and its employees — with a £50,000 loan. “It was all new to me: furniture making, doors, windows,” he said.
“Being a self-starter is essential; you will need to show up to service the market, so you should spend time understanding it and understanding how to find your customers.”
“It was like The Wolf of Wall Street, all cold-calling and liquid lunches,” he said. “I found it totally soul-destroying and I
Vicky Reynal Money psychotherapist
My friend’s wealth is making me uncomfortable
ne of my oldest mates has done very well financially, and he and his wife have moved into a large
dislike how I feel around him, and maybe how I feel about him too. But I don’t want to lose the friendship. Greg, address supplied
him. That distinction is important to hold on to. You are linking the discomfort (or at least the timing of it) to his acquired success and move into a large house. You may be experiencing envy. If financial success is something that you’ve longed for, watching your friend arrive there can evoke genuine happiness for him alongside feelings of envy.
about “the wealthy”? Or is this more about selfjudgment — does being in his home activate a narrative in you about where you think you should be by now? Money has a way of amplifying internal questions such as, am I behind? Do I belong here? Am I being measured?
maybe something that money now gives him that you want, such as space, status, security or freedom. The answer may reveal something insightful and important about your desire — and maybe something you can find in some other way.
contact, or minor irritations begin to emerge.
while it may be helpful to meet him on more neutral grounds.
Another layer that is often overlooked is regression to earlier relational patterns. Friendships can evoke older emotional templates. Is this dynamic hooking into sibling-like comparisons, competition or old experiences of being overlooked or outpaced? Figuring out if the discomfort lies in finding yourself in a potentially familiar past dynamic can help you to separate what belongs to the past from the reality of the relationship with your friend.
You can also try to separate feelings from facts: feeling judged does not necessarily mean you are being judged. Fearing that the relationship might change doesn’t mean that it has. If you stay anchored in observable behaviour it helps to prevent the mind filling in gaps with assumptions.
You may be experiencing envy if wealth is something that you’ve longed for
house in Hampstead Village. I’m pleased for him, of course, but something has changed. I’ve found myself less comfortable when we spend time together. I can’t point to anything obvious
It is unsettling to sense a shift in a friendship, however subtle, and you are doing the right thing by approaching it with curiosity.
You mention feeling judged. A common psychological process here is projection. When we have uncomfortable feelings it can feel easier to locate them in someone else as “they are judging me” rather than to acknowledge the more uncomfortable truth that maybe we are being judgmental. This doesn’t happen consciously but it’s a common coping strategy that our psyche employs in dealing with uncomfortable feelings.
With some potential answers to these questions, you can view the dynamic with more nuance. It is entirely possible that your friend, rather than looking down on you, might feel apprehensive about inviting you into his house for fear that he will be judged. That could explain the awkwardness that you worry is his judgment of you. People who experience sudden wealth often describe feeling pride and insecurity around their friends who are in
— he isn’t a show-off, and we split bills if we go out, but there are moments when I feel uncomfortable, particularly in his big house, or even slightly judged.
One out of six people in the UK had lost a friendship because of a financial fallout, according to research commissioned by Starling Bank in 2024, so even if this isn’t a fallout per se, it can show that money dynamics are not to be taken lightly in friendships.
These feelings are often judged, but they are not a moral failing. The task is to acknowledge them, tolerate them, and avoid acting them out through subtle withdrawal, criticism or cooling the relationship. Envy can be useful because it might reveal ambitions you haven’t fully owned. To explore your feelings in more detail you could wonder if it is the sense that he has “made it” or
There is no reason two old friends cannot sustain a friendship despite their different financial situations. It takes thoughtfulness and a willingness to tolerate difference. Sometimes a bit of humour helps too. Vicky Reynal is the author of Money on Your Mind: The Psychology Behind Your Financial Habits. If you have a question for her, email vicky.reynal@thetimes.co.uk
different financial circumstances. They might express this by minimising their success to avoid discomfort, or overcompensate socially. As a result, interactions can become awkward on both sides — they might reduce
My wife says that’s nonsense and that they’re exactly the same people, just with more money. Still, I notice I’m more aware of myself around him, what I suggest we do, how I come across. I am starting to
Give yourself a bit of time to explore what this is bringing up in you and why; use the information to your advantage rather than allowing it to erode the friendship. Stay connected with your friend, but for a
We cannot know what is going on in your friend’s mind, or whether his attitude has shifted or what has shifted is your perception of
Is there a part of you that holds ambivalent feelings
You can get 8% on your savings. Here’s why you should take 5%
he Bank of England held its base rate of interest at 3.75 per cent on Thursday, its fifth successive hold since it was last cut in December.
But you can avoid paying any tax on your interest with an Isa. Savers can deposit up to £20,000 a year into a cash Isa, though this will be
you get the equivalent of 4 per cent return on what you have invested over the year.”
For example, if you deposited £250 into a Lloyds regular savings account every month for a year, you would have paid in £3,000 and your pot would be worth £3,120. After this, your account would change to a standard saver, which pays up to 1 per cent.
reduced to £12,000 in April for anyone under 65.
But while it has remained stubbornly flat, savings rates have soared, with some high street banks now offering annual returns of 8 per cent
Because they come with tax benefits, interest rates on Isas are usually lower than normal savings accounts. The best easy-access cash Isa rate is 4.52 per cent with Shawbrook Bank via Hargreaves Lansdown, according to The Private Office. Chip pays 4.41 per cent on its cash Isa and Plum pays 4.4 per cent.
on regular saver accounts.
Rising swap rates, which reflect what lenders think the base rate will be in the future and are used to price mortgage and saving deals, have prompted banks to offer rates not seen for two years.
But if you had a lump sum and didn’t mind locking it up for a year you could make more than £120 with a lower rate. The same
The headline rates on these accounts often come with conditions. The rates above are all variable and Chip’s falls to 3.75 per cent after 12 months, while Plum’s falls to 2.54 per cent, and you must keep these accounts open for a year to get the full rate. Plum also pays a lower rate of 3.75 per cent if you transfer your cash from another Isa.
£3,000 paid into the market-leading oneyear fixed deal 4.92 per cent from GB Bank — would earn
On Tuesday Investec launched a threeyear deal paying 5 per cent, the first fixed deal of any length to hit 5 per cent since January 2024. Before the Iran war started in February, the best three-year rate was 4.32 per cent.
£147.60.
You could even match the return on the best regu-
Anna Bowes from the Private Office, a financial advice firm, said: “It’s extraordinary that we’re seeing savings rates still going up, while the base rate hasn’t changed. It’s an amazing opportunity for savers as you can once again find rates not seen for a couple of years.”
For fixed-rate Isas Tandem pays the best rate on one-year (4.67 per cent) and three-year deals (4.81 per cent), while RCI Bank has the best rate for a two-year deal (4.8 per cent), according to the Private Office.
lar saver with less money — you would only need £2,440 in the fixed-term account at 4.92 per cent to earn £120.
Don’t be fooled by tempting headline rates — putting your money elsewhere can earn you more, writes Jack Simpson
Rachel Springall from the comparison site Moneyfacts said: “If you have a decent lump sum, it would be preferable to look at other accounts.
If tax on your savings interest isn’t an issue then fixed-rate deals have better rates. In addition to GB Bank’s one-year fix at 4.92 per cent, the best two-year rate is 4.85 per cent from Atom bank, for three-year deals it’s 5 per cent from Investec and on five-year deals it’s 5 per cent from Atom Bank. You should check the minimum deposit. For example you need £5,000 to open the Investec account.
“But saving is not one size fits all, and these 8 per cent regular savers are great if you don’t have a lump sum and want to get into that regular habit of putting away money.”
The best rates are on regular savings accounts, where the amount you can deposit has a monthly limit. Santander increased its regular saver rate to 8 per cent variable in June, and Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, which are part of the same group, now offer the same rate, fixed for a year. Variable rates often move in line with the base rate, whereas fixed rates stay the same for the term.
TOP REGULAR SAVER RATES
For anyone with a lump sum who has used up their personal savings allowance it is often best to save into an Isa. Basicrate taxpayers can earn up to £1,000 a year in interest before having to pay tax on what they make, higher-rate payers can earn up to £500. Additional-rate payers get no allowance.
For those who need access to their money Springall and Bowes say the easy-access Cahoot Sunny Day Saver is a good option.
Regular savings accounts have far more attractive rates than standard savings accounts, but come with restrictions. As well as the limit on how much you can deposit, banks usually only offer them to savers who also have a current account with the firm, and the headline rate often only lasts for a year before falling to something less competitive.
The account allows you to invest up to £3,000 in the year, with no monthly deposit limits, and offers an interest rate of 5 per cent for the first 12 months. There are no limits on withdrawals.
The sum you need to deposit in the best-paying one-year fixed-rate account to get the same return
But with so many good deals out there at the moment, Springall believes now is a great time for savers to lock in rates.
Santander caps deposits at £200 each month, while the Lloyds Group banks allow £250. Earl Shilton and Monmouthshire building societies limit deposits to £500, but pay less interest at 6 per cent.
She said: “Ongoing tensions in the Middle East have seen notable rises to swap rates, and with the cost of living feared to worsen ahead, now is an ideal time for savers to get a guaranteed inflation-busting return on their nest egg.”
The maximum you can pay into the best-paying regular saver account, with a return of £120 over a year
Because you have to build up your savings gradually the annual returns are lower than if you could deposit a lump sum straight away.
Savings with UK-authorised banks, building societies and credit unions are protected up to the value of £120,000 per person, per authorised firm in the even that it fails. The protection is limited to £120,000 per banking licence — and some well-known firms are often part of the same group (such as HSBC and First Direct) and share the same licence.
Source: Moneyfacts.co.uk
Bowes said: “An annual rate of 8 per cent sounds amazing, but in terms of what you’re actually going to earn, it isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds.
“Over a year only £250 will earn 8 per cent because it’s invested the whole time. The next month’s payment only earns interest for 11 months, and so on. Overall,
Best buys
2-YEAR FIXED RATES Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact First Direct 4.32% Fixed for 2 years 60% £490 PV 0800 482 448
CREDIT INTEREST Provider Account name Account fee Interest rate Balance (for reward) Contact Nationwide BS FlexDirect None 5%1 – 03457 302 010 Bank of Scotland Vantage Classic Account None 3% – 0345 721 3141 Lloyds Bank Club Lloyds None 3% – 0345 300 0000
Interbank rates at 5pm on Friday, which show where the market is trading. They are not indicative of the rate you could get.
5-YEAR FIXED RATES Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact First Direct 4.38% Fixed for 5 years 60% £490 PV 0800 482 448
Provider Account name Account fee Interest rate2 0% overdraft limit Contact
EURO GBP>EUR
Starling Bank Current Account None 15% £0 0207 930 4450 First Direct 1st Account None 39.9% £250 0345 600 2424 Virgin Money M Plus Account None 19.9% £0 0800 678 3654
1 Introductory rate for a limited period. 2 Equivalent annual rate. * Based on the lowest cost of an overdraft of £500 over 30 days. Some accounts require minimum funding/direct debits to open or get rates shown
LONG-TERM FIXED RATES Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact Santander 5.01% Fixed to 02.11.36 60% £999 LSV 0800 555 100 Nationwide BS 5.49% Fixed for 10 years 80% £999 PV 0333 060 0325 Nationwide BS 5.74% Fixed for 10 years 90% £999 PV 0333 060 0325 TRACKERS* / DISCOUNTS Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact HSBC 4.05% Base rate + 0.3% for 2 years 60% £999 PV 0800 494 999 Nationwide BS 4.17% Base rate + 0.42% for 2 years 80% £999 PV 0333 060 0325 First Direct 4.65% Base rate + 0.9% for term 90% £490 LV 0800 482 448 FIRST-TIME BUYER / LOW DEPOSIT Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact Beverley BS 4.64% Disc 2.7% for 2 years 95% £995 01482 881 510 West Bromich BS 5.2% Fixed to 31.10.29 95% £449 V 0800 298 0008 Earl Shilton BS 5.19% Disc 2.25% for 5 years 95% £125 V 01455 844 422 BUY TO LET Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
USA GBP>USD
INTRODUCTORY RATES Provider Card type Introductory purchase APR1 Reward Contact TSB Platinum Purchase 0% for 26 months 24.95% No 0345 835 3846 M&S Bank Purchase Plus 0% for 25 months 24.9% No 0800 997 996 Lloyds Bank 0% Purchase and Balance Transfer 0% for 25 months 24.94% No 0345 603 7239
1.35
63.95
Provider Card type Introductory purchase Transfer fee2 APR1 Contact
TSB Platinum Balance Transfer 0% for 38 months 3.49% 24.95% 0345 835 3846 HSBC Balance Transfer 0% for 36 months 3.09% 24.9% 0345 587 3444 NatWest Longer Balance Transfer 0% for 36 months 3.1% 24.9% 0345 788 8444
Provider Card type APR1 Cashback Contact
1.92
American Express Cashback Everyday 29.1% 0.5%-1%. Intro 5% for 5 months (max £125) 0800 917 8047 Santander Rewards 24.9% 0.25%. Intro 3% for 12 months3 0800 085 1759 Lloyds Bank Ultra 14.94% 0.25%. Intro 1% for 12 months 0345 603 7239
The Mortgage Works 4.34% Base rate + 0.59% to 30.09.28 75% £1,495 V 0345 607 3021 Barclays 4.52% Base rate + 0.77% for 2 years 75% £899 P 0333 202 7580 HSBC 4.48% Fixed to 31.10.31 75% £3,999 PV 0800 494 999
1 APR = annual percentage rate, dependent on credit rating. 2 Fee charged on the amount of each balance transfer during the introductory period 3Eligible travel spend for higher cashback. Borrowing rates and availability of products are subject to individual credit ratings. Terms apply to cashback.
Early repayment charge applies unless otherwise stated. * Most deals track Bank of England base rate. A = £500 cashback; B = £250 cashback; C = £300 cashback; D = £350 cashback; E= No early repayment charge; F = First-time buyers only; G = £150 cashback; H = £400 cashback; I = £1,000 cashback; L= Free legal work for remortgages ; P = Purchases only; R = Free legal work and valuation for remortgages; S = Remortgage only; T = £250 towards legal fees; V = Free valuation
Provider Account name Min deposit Interest rate Contact
Oxbury Easy Access Summer Account £1,000 4.33% oxbury.com Cahoot Simple Saver £1 4.32% cahoot.com Thisbank Triple Acces Savings £1,000 4.28% thisbank.co.uk
Provider Account name Min deposit Interest Transfers in Contact Hargreaves Lansdown Shawbrook - Easy Access Cash Isa £1 4.52% Yes hl.co.uk Atom Bank Easy Access Cash Isa £1 4.25% No via app
NOTICE ACCOUNTS Provider Account name Notice period Min deposit Interest rate Contact GB Bank 150 Day Notice Account 150 days £1,000 4.38% gbbank.co.uk Stream Bank 90 Day Notice Account 90 days £1,000 4.35% streambank.co.uk Earl Shilton BS 180 Day Notice 180 days £5,000 4.27% esbs.co.uk
FIXED RATE Provider Account name Term Min deposit Rate Transfers in Contact Cynergy Bank 1 year Fixed Rate Isa 1 year £500 4.7% Yes cynergybank.co.uk Hinckley & Rugby BS 5 year Fixed Rate Cash Isa 5 years £500 4.82% Yes branch or post
LONG-TERM FIXED-RATES Provider Account name Term Min deposit Interest rate Contact Atom Bank 5 Year Fixed Saver 5 years £50 5% via app GB Bank 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond 5 years £1,000 4.98% gbbank.co.uk Close Brothers 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond 5 years £10,000 4.97% closesavings.co.uk
Provider Account name Rate type Min deposit Interest rate Contact
State Bank of India Jumbo Junior Fixed Deposit Account Fixed £1,000 4.5% branch or post Penrith BS Junior Affinity Regular Saver Variable £5 4.45% branch or post Kent Reliance Demelza Children’s Savings Account Variable £10 4.18% branch or post
DEALS ARE LISTED ONLY IF THEY ARE COVERED BY THE UK FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPENSATION SCHEME (FSCS) OR A EUROPEAN EQUIVALENT
Supplier Average annual bill Rate Contact Home Energy £1,499 Variable 0800 092 7407 So Energy £1,561 Variable 0330 111 5050 Utility Warehouse £1,563 Variable 0333 777 0777
Provider Account name Min deposit Interest rate Rate Contact
Table shows the cheapest tariff now available from the cheapest suppliers. Excludes tariffs of less than 12 months’ duration, tariffs that do not have national coverage and tariffs where payments are taken in advance of supply.
Beverley BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.85% Variable branch or post Leek BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.85% Variable branch or post Skipton BS Junior Cash Isa £1 3.8% Variable branch or post
Source: Uswitch.com
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 13
Your Money Matters Holly Thomas
ILLUSTRATION: ALICIA COOPER
Fuel foul-up wasn’t me, but Enterprise has charged £3.5k
making her ill. We would appreciate your help. Debra, Middlesex
This is not the first time I have had to intervene when a utility company has instructed debt collectors to chase money from someone who owes them nothing. It’s hard to fathom why it’s so difficult to action the closure of an account in an instance such as this, where the company has confirmed that nothing is due.
This situation your mother has had to endure has been a complete shambles. She has been hounded for money to pay for gas she never used, on an account she never opened, that the supplier had themselves confirmed in writing should be zero.
Since moving in, the billing she has been sent has been chaotic. In February she was asked for £222.03 (with a supposed £455.31 overdue balance), only to be told in March that she was £590 in credit. By April she received a £81.05 charge for removing the meter — the same removal Cadent told you should be free — followed by another £114 bill in May.
Our consumer champion helps a car hire customer with an unfair fee and a widow’s mystery gas bill
rented a car for five days from Enterprise at Figueres in Spain during a family holiday in June. On the fourth day the car wouldn’t start. Enterprise told me there was a common fault with the electrics and gave me a replacement. I returned it at the end of the booking and took a train to Barcelona for the next part of our trip. On arrival I noticed that Enterprise had debited €4,000 (£3,420) from my credit card.
continue to plague customers — but the level of this deduction is higher than any I can recall. I can only imagine your horror in clocking this colossal charge.
I spoke to Utility Warehouse, which promised to put things right. It has since confirmed that the account is closed, the debt collectors have been told to stand down and it has taken steps to ensure that there are no credit report markers that may mean future negative impact. Utility Warehouse paid her £300 as a gesture of goodwill as well as sending a bouquet of flowers.
Not only were you looking to receive a reimbursement for the £3,420, you were also keen to obtain compensation for the three days that were ruined in the final part of your holiday in Barcelona. Instead of enjoying the sights with your wife and teenage daughters, you were glued to your phone trying to get the charge removed. Aside from the worry of this unfair debt, the charge was taking up a large chunk of the credit card limit you needed for your holiday spending.
While this outcome is the right one, it doesn’t excuse all these months of worry for her. Utility Warehouse said that was a combination of human error and technical errors that combined to create this situation.
I quickly spoke to Enterprise, which told me the charge was to repair the first car that broke down. It said this was caused by diesel being put into a petrol tank. I said I hadn’t put any fuel in and that this could be verified from information in the car’s interactive menu. I spoke to the Enterprise manager at Figueres and he concurred that the level of fuel remaining was commensurate with the distance we had travelled (220km). He promised to convey my message to the repair garage about verifying the kilometres travelled since the previous refill. On a subsequent phone call he told me the data had been wiped as the garage had opened the filler cap to check whether there was diesel in the tank.
I contacted Enterprise on your behalf. It looked into the complaint — this time with a more proactive approach. After a far more thorough review of the case, Enterprise determined that the vehicle breakdown was not your responsibility and that the charge applied to your credit card should not have occurred. I asked for an explanation and it stated that it was the repair shop that made the error, by initially pinning the blame for the damage on you.
Your mother said: “I cannot thank you enough for your help. The weight that has been lifted from my shoulders is immense.”
Utility Warehouse said: “We’re very sorry for the stress that this has caused your mother. We let her down and we’re disappointed that our customer service hasn’t reached our usual high standards.
chased by a debt collection agency for £173.89. Neither she nor my late father have ever in their lives been contacted by a debt collector. It has cost her sleep and peace of mind over a debt that shouldn’t exist. All she wants is for this to be brought to a close: the account formally and finally shut down, the £173.89 cancelled as it was never owed, and an apology for ten months of entirely avoidable stress which has been
department took my mother’s name, then opened a new account assigning her customer status, without her knowledge or permission, so the bills kept coming. She complained and on May 6 the complaints team at Utility Warehouse wrote to her stating that it was an “absurd situation” and promising to set the final balance to zero, reflecting that no debt is owed. That was more than two months ago and my mother is now being
Enterprise has agreed to refund the £3,420 and to pay compensation of £1,600, which includes a refund of the original hire charge of £452 and the cost of your hotel in Barcelona to acknowledge your spoilt trip.
“A member of our senior management has spoken to her to apologise personally and we hope that our goodwill gesture and flowers will go some way to making up for this.”
disputes. If the firm still does not respond, the dispute can be taken to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) if the company is a member.
I’ve sent many requests for evidence to support its decision to penalise me but Enterprise has stopped responding. How can it deduct an amount from my credit card with zero evidence? I would be grateful for your help. Mark, Chester
If you are being chased for money you don’t owe, you can write to the debt collection agency and raise a formal complaint. The charity National Debtline has an excellent template letter online which you can use. It quotes regulations and spells out your rights.
You said: “I am very grateful for your help. It proved extremely difficult to be heard without you. This compensation means my family and I can go back to Barcelona and have an enjoyable time as we should have had in the first place.”
My elderly mother, a widow of 78, completed the purchase of a flat in September. The property had been fully converted to electric heating years earlier; the only gas fitting was a single pipe to the kitchen hob, capped off by her builder during a refit. The flat has had no gas supply since she moved in.
Enterprise said: “We sincerely regret the inconvenience and frustration Mark experienced following his rental in Spain. We have contacted him to apologise and confirm that the full €4,000 has been refunded. In recognition of the inconvenience he experienced, we have also refunded the cost of the rental and additional triprelated costs.”
Unfair charges from hire car companies
She was getting letters addressed to the household owner from Utility Warehouse. She called to close the gas account logged for her address but multiple departments, including the cancellations team, told her shutting off gas use was impossible without digging up pipes. The advice was to call Cadent, the regional gas distributor, which said that was not true and that Utility Warehouse simply needed to remove the meter, which was a free, routine job under Ofgem guidance.
If you have a dispute with a car hire firm, first lodge a formal complaint. If it is not resolved and you paid by credit card, it’s possible to raise a dispute using Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. If you paid by debit card you can use the chargeback scheme through which your bank will try to reverse the payment to claim back your money.
The amount Your Money Matters has won back for readers of The Times and Sunday Times this year
CONTACT US
You also have the option of making a claim on any insurance you took out with the hire car contract to recoup the charges. Failing that, you can contact the European Consumer Centres Network, which has a free service to help resolve
If you have a money problem that you would like the Sunday Times to investigate, email yourmoneymatters@thetimes.co.uk. Please include a phone number
The meter was finally removed in February this year. However, during a call someone in the cancellations
Ask Times Money
Generally, where such a transfer is carried out within six months of the requirement for residential care arising, the authority will have the power to send the care bills to the recipient of the gift.
Will my child’s inheritance go on care fees?
Outside this period, there is no such express power, but a person can still be assessed
If there is no suggestion of you requiring residential care now, or in the foreseeable future, it would be easier to counter such an argument if it was ever made. The deed itself is unlikely to go into the reasons for the transfer but it could be very useful for the future if you had evidence of this, such as a document signed by you and your daughter, and witnessed, setting out the reason why you are making the gift.
Private care homes will usually need someone to prove they can pay for their care for a number of years before a place will be granted, so you should not lose sight of your own needs. It may be that the share of the inheritance you are keeping could be used to support you without having to consider your daughter’s half
MAGNUS MACKAY FROM THORNTONS SOLICITORS
Don’t miss this fascinating talk from multimillion-selling author and Times columnist Ben Macintyre, on his latest book Redwood. This extraordinary, untold story reveals how one man prevented a nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union, thwarting a secret Kremlin plot to overthrow Iran’s fl edgling Islamist regime. As Iran fi nds itself gripped by confl ict once more, Macintyre’s latest masterpiece is a chillingly relevant must-read.
I’ve inherited a large sum and have written a deed of variation to divert half of it to my daughter, who is a
Generally, when gifts are made to anyone who is not your spouse, your civil partner or a charity, their value will continue to form part of your estate for inheritance tax purposes unless you live for at least seven years afterwards.
potentially unfair) inheritance tax consequences of a seven-year gift. From that perspective, it is absolutely worthwhile. Deeds of variation are not, however, intended as a way to circumvent the rules about deliberate deprivation of capital. Those rules exist to catch transfers of property, cash, or other assets made with the intention of reducing what someone might later need to pay towards care.
resident of Spain, so she can buy a flat following her separation. Now I find that this could be treated as “deprivation of assets” when paying for care. That is not my intention, but I
A deed of variation allows a gift to be made without this barrier, by treating it as having come from the person who died, rather than from the person signing the deed. To secure this treatment, it is essential that the deed is signed within two years of the death.
Thursday, October 29 | 7.30pm St Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, London, W1H 1PQ
The good news is that a transfer does not, on its own, amount to a deliberate deprivation. The relevant local authority or NHS agency must be able to demonstrate that a significant reason for the transfer was the avoidance of care costs.
A
No one can be forced to keep an inheritance, and a deed of variation allows inherited assets to be passed on without the usual (and
A deed of variation can be a very effective tool in tax planning, but care funding is a different question.
‘I was paid £10k in cash. The police thought I was a drug dealer’
till the end but I did. After that I realised I can probably survive anything. What’s your money weakness? I love to eat good food. When I’m in the south of France I’ve been to amazing restaurants for lunch, like the GrandHôtel du Cap-Ferrat. The most I’ve spent on a restaurant meal is €1,000. There were ten of us and the bill came to €10,000.
Shazia Mirza enjoyed lunch at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat. She appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, below, in 2023
I’ve also spent a lot on cars, buying lots over the years which haven’t lasted long. Or I’ve run them into the ground. I had a Peugeot 106, Peugeot 206, both useless. The best car I’ve bought was a red 1972 two-door convertible Mercedes in amazing condition for £5,000 that lasted me ten years.
What lesson have you learnt about money? That the more you give, the more you get. If you give to charity or other people I don’t feel that ever really decreases your wealth. It increases it. I’m Muslim so it’s part of our religion to give part of your wealth away to help the poor, whatever you earn.
The comedian hid from her student landlord but has had big paydays in Singapore and on Swiss TV, although surviving Bear Grylls’s island wasn’t worth the money, she tells John Wright
My dad wasn’t good at business, we called him the Pakistani Arthur Daley
Comedy is not that well paid. There was a time when it was booming from gigs all over the world but the clubs aren’t there any more. I was just clever with money without having any. Once you’re on the property ladder, you’re in. I had no money at 25 but banks gave you the opportunity if you were young, had a steady job, even though I wasn’t getting much.
Then I was at Manchester University studying biochemistry. While there I worked in C&A on Saturdays and at Manchester City Football Club as a waitress in their hospitality lounge.
hazia Mirza is a stand-up comedian and writer whose TV and radio appearances include Would I Lie To You?, Have I Got News for You, QI and The Jonathan Ross Show. Her comedy shows have toured the world and last year she headlined the female-only halal tour
Are you a saver or a spender? Saver. I grew up poor so we didn’t have much money. But my mother and father always had this thing about saving for a rainy day for important things like a house, car or your education. So I grew up saving: aged eight I had a Lloyds Black Horse piggy bank. Then, as we’re Muslim, my dad bought me a halal piggy bank — the shape of the pig without the face. Saving was instilled in us.
in Wales but they couldn’t cope. They thought, we’re Asian people, we don’t do camping. It was like being back in Pakistan. And buying new designer clothes was a waste of money: I’d hear a lot of that. My most dramatic saving was for my first house.
He wasn’t very good at business. We called him the Pakistani Arthur Daley and he thought it was a compliment. They came to Britain because he had brothers here who were good at business. When I got the part in EastEnders as a consultant paediatrician, their dream came true. My parents went round telling people: “My daughter is finally a doctor.”
How much did you earn last year? I don’t know because I haven’t done my tax return yet. Also I don’t like to look at it.
Theatre, which they rang to check. Then, carrying it through Heathrow airport, seeing signs saying anything over £2,000 had to be declared, I was wetting myself, although my manager knows it’s gone through the books.
Comedy Queens three times. She lives in Belsize Park, north London, with her husband, Khalid.
What is better for retirement, property or pension? Property. I don’t have a private pension but I have security in property. My husband’s my retirement plan. That’s what they’re there for.
What was your first job? I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16, then Baskin-Robbins in Birmingham from 17 to 20. But I’ve never been a good employee at any job, which is why I’m a comedian now. I was fun to work with. I don’t know what the customers would say.
Do you invest in shares? Never.
Are you better off than your parents? Yeah. They came from Pakistan with nothing in the 1960s. They wanted their five children to be successful, so everything went into our education. My mum was a teacher, my dad owned a cash and carry, car lots and warehouses.
We never went on holiday because my parents were immigrants who thought: “There’s no need for holidays. We came here to work and better ourselves.” We did go on holiday once to Cardigan Bay
What was your best business decision? Buying a property: a Walthamstow maisonette for £89,000 when I started teaching, which I couldn’t afford to live in. After scraping together the deposit, after two months I couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage so I rented it out and went to live somewhere in a room very cheaply. I sold it two years ago for £300,000.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? A lot. When I was a student — three of us at the same time — my parents had to support us and I was always struggling. So I had three jobs while at university, including Baskin-Robbins in the holidays. And when I graduated I was teaching while doing my PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education) and tutoring to get money as well.
What if you won the lottery? I’d probably give half away to charities. With the other half I’d help my family and use some of it to make more money. I’d either buy properties and rent them out or buy a business to maximise the use of that money.
What’s your best investment? Property again. When I started comedy I bought a house in Muswell Hill in 2008 for £250,000 which I lived in but since sold for a profit, which in 2021 allowed me to buy my Belsize Park flat for over £500,000.
At uni the rent was £50 a week and we were always late because we didn’t have the money. I wanted to have fun so I spent it on going out. The landlord would knock at the door and we’d hide under the beds, escape through the back door or say we were really ill. He was annoyed. Although £50 doesn’t sound like a lot, when you’re a student having to buy your food and travel, it was hard. And we were always taking out student loans. The interest wasn’t huge and I did end up paying them off when I started science teaching.
Your worst business decision? I haven’t made any terrible ones because I never think of the money. It’s always will I enjoy this? I did Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls in 2017, where he drops celebrities off on an island for a month with no food or mobile phones, just in the clothes we were wearing, and we had to survive in Panama in boiling heat. We were paid in the thousands but everyone said we should’ve got paid more because it was so difficult and awful. I did it because being able to survive on a desert island with ten people you don’t know makes you realise what you’re capable of: I did all the fishing, kept everybody alive; we built shelter, got food. We were foraging. We killed a crocodile and a stingray and cooked them. Not everybody survived
The Muswell Hill house was bought with touring earnings from the Far East and Middle East, where you could get a lot of money because comedy was new to them. I’d go three to four times a year, sometimes just for a gig if it was a lot of money. Some gigs £2,000, some £5,000. I did India many times. In Pakistan I did a sold out Gaddafi Stadium to 2,000 people. Two days later a suicide bomber blew it up. I hope it wasn’t my act.
When did you first feel wealthy? When I first bought a house at 25. I always feel I can be wealthier, that I have the potential to make more money. My best paid show was a seven-minute gig on Swiss Television in 2007 for £25,000. I did an advert in 2020 for Tena Lady for women’s incontinence, paid about £20,000 all up and it was ongoing.
Shazia Mirza is touring later this year, dates to be announced next month: shazia-mirza.com
I once did a 25-minute gig in Singapore for ten grand. The promoter decided to pay me the Singapore dollar equivalent in cash at 2am in a car park behind the Three Floors of Whores venue: wads of cash from a suitcase when the police turn up and ask if I’m a drug dealer or hooker.
PruFunded
homes built for the future & a retirement built for me
I said: “Neither. I’m a comedian.” They said: “Prove it.” This promoter said to me: “Go on, do five minutes for them.” I was about to when they said: “No. Evidence or we arrest you.”
My parents invested with ‘the Man from the Pru’. It helped them buy the house I grew up in. Now my adviser is planning my pension with PruFund, it feels full circle. PruFund invests in a number of assets, like Greencore Homes that could help more families like mine, while giving me a longterm way to invest for my future too. That’s why I’m a PruFunder.
Posters from his car proved I’d done the show at the Esplanade
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August 2, 2026
Coasts
with the most
The best places to live by the sea for schools, swimming and salty breezes 6
Plus The ‘spaceship’ house in suburbia 8 The locals saving their local 10 Andrew Neil’s doggy trio 13
Making moves
House of the week
Elstow is a five-bedroom house with a river view in the South Hams village of Newton Ferrers, ten miles from Plymouth. The open-plan kitchen/dining room has a roof lantern and bifold doors onto a terrace with steps down to a swimming pool, which is heated by an air source heat pump. The lower ground floor has an annexe, and there are 0.75 acres of terraced gardens and a pool changing room. knightfrank.co.uk
Explore. Plan. And now book with The Times.
The Times and Sunday Times is a unique and trusted source of travel inspiration. Now you can trust us to take you there too.
Call 0808 231 5090 or visit thetimes.com/holidays
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 3
COVER:NATHANIEL NOIR/ALAMY P2-3:PROPERTYPHOTOGRAPHIC,SQUARE FOOT
The best of this week’s property on sale
The Old Rectory is a grade II listed Georgian house near Milton Keynes with seven bedrooms, a cinema room and gym. Outside, there is 1.8 acres and 3,000 sq ft of outbuildings. michaelgraham.co.uk
In Kingston, southwest London, Warren Cottage has six bedrooms and more than 4,000 sq ft of space. A vast modern extension includes an open-plan kitchen with double-height ceilings and a glass roof. knightfrank.co.uk
Valentine’s is an upside-down house, with five bedrooms on the ground floor. Gardens wrap around the property, which is a 15-minute drive from Saffron Walden. themodernhouse.com
Five-bedroom Drambeel Lodge is ideal for a horse-lover. Set in four acres 15 miles from Aberdeen, it has six stables, paddocks, an arena and a purpose-built stable block. galbraithgroup.com
Alice House is a Georgian red-brick property near the village green in chichi Burnham Market. This grade II listed family home has three bedrooms, original panel shutters and views of All Saints Church. sowerbys.com
International
This sevenbedroom villa has a heated indoor pool and extensive grounds including a swimming pond, a fountain and a garage. It is in the town of Mansfeld, 40km from the city of Halle. leadingre.com
Inspired by The Odyssey? Villa Miranda is a new sevenbedroom villa in the Costa Navarino neighbourhood at Navarino Dunes in Messinia, in the southwestern Peloponnese region. The house is 120m from the beach with spectacular views of the Ionian Sea. It has been designed across a single level with an emphasis on open-plan living for parties in the Greek summer sun. Outside there are landscaped gardens and an infinity pool, plus parking for two cars and a golf cart. There is a separate onebedroom house for guests. costanavarino.com
On the edge of Palma, Mallorca, this estate has an avocado plantation generating €2,000 a month. The house was built in 1991 and has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and an outdoor pool. ev-mallorca.com
salary too. Could my takehome pay suddenly drop based on a good previous year, even if I’ve had higher costs or lost rent this year? Barney, Nottinghamshire
being reduced over the next few years until, from April
you artificially high deductions from salary the next by saying that there will be a mechanism to update the forecast if circumstances change. There’s no detail yet on what that mechanism will be, but it will almost certainly exist in some form.
depending on how much of your costs is interest. If you were to retire and no longer have the NHS salary, more of your rental income could fall within the basic-rate band and the tax burden on your rentals would be much lighter.
THETWO ROBS
Even with Making Tax Digital’s enhanced reporting requirements, rental income is still largely separate from employment income: HMRC can already collect some rental tax through your tax code, but most landlords with substantial liabilities continue to settle them separately through self-assessment. The planned change to this is what’s concerning you, and understandably so: tax on your projected rental profits could be taken from your salary monthly, even if you’ve had costly repairs or periods without income.
The government plans to put this in place from April
A
There are two things going on here: one happening now, but merely administrative, and another that would involve more frequent tax payments but isn’t due to come into effect until 2029.
This has put you in a position where your profits are thin: £10,000 from three properties gives you little margin to absorb unexpected costs and your income tax bill will reduce or could eliminate what remains. As you’ve held the properties for a long time you may have a hefty capital gains tax bill if you sell, and moving them into a company to sidestep mortgage interest deductibility usually comes with significant costs. Even if the monthly deduction of tax turns out not to be a concern, this could be a useful prompt to consider your longer term plans: you might decide that these properties still have their place, but it’s better to test that assumption than keep holding just because you’ve owned them for a long time.
As this isn’t due to come into effect until 2029, it’s something to monitor but not get overly concerned about yet. The implementation of Making Tax Digital itself was delayed by countless years, so there’s no guarantee it will happen on schedule and as details emerge it will probably start to seem less alarming.
The former is what you’ve already been told to comply with: Making Tax Digital. This is a drive to “simplify” tax by making you report your numbers five times per year rather than once. You’ll need to file digitally every quarter using a compatible piece of software, but not actually make any payments: you’ll still
Your questions on being a landlord and investing in property answered
You’re the type of landlord who has been hit particularly hard by the changes of the past decade, not least the inability to deduct your mortgage interest as a pre-tax cost. With most of your basicrate band used up by your NHS income, much of the profit HMRC calculates from your properties is currently taxed at 40 per cent (rising to 42 per cent from April 2027) while your mortgage interest attracts relief at only 20 per cent (rising to 22 per cent). That mismatch can produce a high effective tax rate on your rental income, possibly wiping out all of your cash profit,
WILL THE GOVERNMENT START TAKING RENTAL TAX FROM MY SALARY?
Q
I earn £48,000 working for the NHS and receive £55,000 a year in rent from
make your final return annually, which will
three properties I’ve owned for a long time, but after mortgage interest and other costs I keep less than £10,000. HMRC has told me to start filing quarterly through Making Tax Digital, and I’ve heard my rental tax could eventually be taken monthly from my
determine what you need to pay. As is the case now, this annual return will
determine the two “payments on account” you’ll make for the next year.
Rob Dix and Rob Bence present The Property Podcast Submit your questions for the Two Robs at propertyhub.net/ sundaytimes
As you have rental income of more than
£50,000, you’ve been
brought into scope since April — with the threshold
Reserve your new Pegasus home by 31st August 2026 and enjoy an incentive worth up to £45,000** to assist with the cost of living.
Service charge contribution*
Council tax contribution*
Utilities contribution*
Michael, Pegasus Homes resident
We believe in creating quality later living homes that bring joy, community and independence to those enjoying life over 60. But don’t take our word for it.
A stylish collection of apartments, in a welcoming community in leafy West Byfleet, only a short train ride from the bustling boutiques, restaurants and amenities of London. Plus the M25 and M3 are both within a few minutes’ drive.
An elegant collection of one, two, and three-bedroom residences blending village charm with cosmopolitan ease, featuring refined design, swift London connections, central pavilion, yoga studio, and tranquil walled garden.
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Find your joy with Pegasus Homes 0207 980 8717 | sales@pegasushomes.co.uk www.pegasushomes.co.uk/moreliving
This incentive is only valid on new reservations made between 1st May and 31st August, 2026 when this incentive ends. Only selected properties purchased from Pegasus Homes are eligible for this incentive. The incentive will contribute up to two years’ worth of bills, capped at a maximum amount based on the value of the property being purchased. The incentive would be paid upon completion as a financial contribution deducted from the completion statement. Pegasus Homes reserves the right to extend, amend or withdraw this promotion at any time and without notice. For full terms visit: pegasushomes.co.uk/company/legal/ terms-and-conditions/.
here’s a reason we head for the coast when we need a break from the daily grind.
Main picture: Anglesey, where Jodie and Jordan Rogers moved to with their son, inset right. Far right: Arnside, Cumbria. Right: Clevedon, Somerset. Below: Lymington, Hampshire
Dunbar
Jodie Rogers, 31, made the
Troon Ballycastle
move from landlocked Nottinghamshire to Anglesey in north Wales last year, and hasn’t looked back.
Saltburnby-the-Sea
Arnside
“We were spending all our weekends seeking things that could be on our doorstep — the beach, nature and a slower pace,” says Rogers, a writer who runs the Slower Space community on Substack. She is renting a house near Rhosneigr with her husband, Jordan, and one-yearold son while they decide where on the island to make their home.
Parkgate
Anglesey
Felixstowe Deal
Aberaeron
Clevedon
“There’s much more of a relaxed way of life here. Everyone makes the most of their leisure time, always making the effort to go to the beach or for a walk or to enjoy the wildlife. It’s fabulous to have somewhere so close to the house that’s safe for an after-work swim.”
Lymington
St LeonardsPenzance on-Sea
Yearning for salt air? From laid-back Troon to wild Penzance, we select the top coastal locations to keep the holiday feeling all year. By Tim Palmer
We have scoured our island nation and selected our top seaside locations that are great places to live. To make the list they have to have something to offer in every season, with the communities, connections and practicalities that will keep the holiday feeling alive all year.
Best places to live
There’s something on our list to suit most budgets, too, with an average house price for each location provided by Savills estate agency using Land Registry data.
Now all you have to do is decide where you want to live.
Welcome to the land of the “good walk spoiled”. Golf dominates the leisure scene in this gentle town, with six courses on offer including the invitation-only Royal Troon, where rolling sand dunes provide a natural boundary. Here, at low tide, the sand stretches out, allowing paddling, rock pooling and games other than the one involving 18 holes. It was the arrival of one of Scotland’s first railways that supercharged the seaside resort — there’s plenty of Victorian property to choose from — and its appeal is the same today: uncrowded beaches, wondrous sunsets and views across the Firth of Clyde. The 45-minute journey to Glasgow makes Troon — and nearby, livelier Ayr commutable. Average house price £242,700
by the sea
the best times to buy in west Wales in a decade,” says Nigel Salmon, managing director of Fine & Country estate agency.
Head to the wide pebble and shingle
shore for fresh sea-breeze walks along the coastal path, or join
For all
As well as spotting bottlenose dolphins in Cardigan Bay, buyers may now be able to spot a bargain in this popular resort with its picturesque harbour, postcard-perfect pastel Georgian architecture and a foodie scene to whet any appetite. “With prices so slow and stock at record levels, this is one of
the sailing set in the revamped marina. Aberystwyth is a halfhour drive away.
places visit thetimes.co.uk
Average house price £248,800
A beautiful beach town with a big, beating heart, an old-school independent high street and a fabulous dining scene, Ballycastle was named the best place to live in Northern Ireland 2026. If the croissants from Ursa Minor don’t get you, the views from the beach of Rathlin Island and the Mull of Kintyre will. The town comes to life during the Ould Lammas Fair in August, when tens of thousands of visitors come to eat dulse (seaweed) and yellowman (local honeycomb) and have a wild time. But there’s plenty of life all year round, with pubs such as the House of McDonnell and the Boyd Arms, a club for every sport and the new venue Yarn. Average house price £250,400 (Source: Propertypal)
Towering cliffs keep surf and turf apart in Yorkshire’s most charming seaside resort. (Sorry, Whitby.) When the weather (inevitably) turns unfriendly or you tire of beachfront saunas, catching waves,
admiring the view from the pier or strolling on the sand, Britain’s last waterbalanced cliff lift will whisk you up, up and away to the town centre. Saltburn has been revitalised since the pandemic and is now a bustling place full of enviable independent shops and cafés. Everything is walkable and there is a reliable choice of schools and homes, but you will have to compete to purchase a house in one of the popular Victorian “jewel streets” (Emerald, Diamond, Pearl etc), which were designed to give as many as possible a sea view. Average house price £250,800
SHOULTS,STEVE TAYLOR ARPS,EYE35.PIX,NICK HATTON/ALAMY
There’s a wildness and mystery about Penzance that’s a bracing contrast to Cornwall’s holiday hotspots. It’s a salty town, full of drama and always up close and personal with the elements. The views across Mount’s Bay are stunning, and many of the nearby beaches — such as Sennen Cove, Porthcurno and Nanjizal are magical. The close-knit community comes to the fore during the Montol (winter) and Golowan (summer) solstice festivals, and the fight to restore the Jubilee Pool. There are trains to London, including a sleeper service, manageable house prices, and an ever-improving collection of shops, restaurants and pubs. Average house price £280,000
The sweetest spot on the Kent coast, the ancient Cinque Port of pastel-painted cottages has settled into a dual role as weekend bolt hole for London’s arty design crowd and down-to-earth refuge for community-minded locals, who keep the traditional pubs buzzing and clean up the huge pebble beach. Transport connections are good — trains to London take 90 minutes — and the high street is a cracker, catering to both crowds. Galleries, curated homeware shops and cocktail bars sit alongside traditional butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and chippies. Average house price £333,000
Live on Anglesey and you will be surrounded by 125 miles of coast and the most sumptuous seaside scenery the UK has to offer. This is a place where everyone has a secret spot away from the busy holiday crowds to swim or watch the porpoises and seabirds and to admire the jagged backdrop of Snowdonia. Ynys Mon may be an island, but it is big and well connected enough not to feel cut off. Choose from arty Beaumaris, lively Menai Bridge with its top restaurants and the island’s only Waitrose — or a hearty village such as Trearddur Bay or Aberffraw. You’ll want to at least try to learn Welsh to be polite, and so you can join the sgwrsio (chat) in the pubs, village halls and beach saunas. Average house price £258,900
There is only one thing better than a sea view, and that’s an estuary view. Few are as magnificent as the one in Arnside, across the wooded shoreline of the Kent estuary to the Lakeland fells, with its everchanging spectacle of glowing sands, sparkling water and abundant visiting wildlife. The racing tide means that you need to be cautious even when you are paddling, but there are plenty of coastal pleasures to be had, from boating with the sociable sailing club to eating fish and chips on the pier. The underrated city of Lancaster is about 20 minutes away by train, and there are all kinds of clubs and classes at the Arnside Educational Institute, a turbocharged village hall. Average house price £340,000
Whether you regard this side of the pier as the best bit of Hastings or a place in its own right, St Leonards is as good an example of seaside regeneration as you’ll find. Fascinating architecture, lots of art, a lively music scene and the KinoTeatr, a cool cinema and gallery arts centre, mean you’ll never be bored. There’s a growing number of zeitgeisty places to eat and drink (Goat Ledge, the Heist street food market, Twisted Bunny), or you can browse for antiques and goodies at Sunless, Pitch or Twisted King. That St Lens is
also south-facing and has some of the UK’s sunniest weather means the shingle beaches and elegant Victorian houses are drawing more attention than ever before. Average house price £281,000
North Berwick will always take pride of place on the East Lothian
You might struggle to build a sandcastle or to take a dip in this corner of the Wirral, but the views are magical and the vibe is pure seaside.
coast with its Sunday Times title of Best Place to Live in the UK 2024. But high levels of interest have led to high house prices, so look east to the handsome old harbour town of Dunbar, which has slightly faster rail services to Edinburgh. Home to the famous Belhaven Brewery, Dunbar has one of Scotland’s driest, sunniest climates. The town has a decent high street with useful independent shops including a community-owned bakery, plus popular state and private schools — and the lifeenhancing essentials — surfing, kitesurfing, beaches and easy access to the hiking trails of the Southern Upland and John Muir Ways. Average house price £299,500
This is where Cheshire folk can be spotted eating ice creams or tucking into fish and chips on the benches dotted along the Parade as
House prices have settled as the pandemic premium has faded
the sun sets. Dogs are a big part of life here. You’ll find
them, after a walk along the shore or the Wirral Way, with
their owners at the Elephant
Lounge, the bar/café/pizza joint that’s the social hub of the village. For everything else, nearby town of Neston has trains, sports facilities, a supermarket and secondary schools. Average house price £340,500
You could easily mistake Clevedon’s tree-lined avenues of Victorian villas for one of Bristol’s smarter suburbs, but instead of Brizzle’s traffic fumes and litter-strewn streets, here you’ll breathe fresh, briny air and gaze on stunning sunsets and an elegant pier. Your best bet for a swim is Clevedon Marine Lake, lovingly tended by volunteers. There are some interesting shops in the Hill Road area, a Curzon cinema, and with Bristol a half-hour drive away, you’re not far from a wave of urban creativity and culture. Average house price £398,000
There will be many who scoff — we can hear you — but Britain’s busiest port town is a “destination address” according to Tom Orford, the head of Savills estate agency’s Ipswich office. The combination
of a revamped seafront, golf, sailing and a strong year-round community means that Felixstowe isn’t just (a lot) cheaper than Aldeburgh and Southwold, its posh neighbours up the coast, but it is also more
practical and more fun. There are trains and good schools, an everimproving
Ahoy! Lymington is heaven for serious sailors, but this sophisticated market town has something for everyone. House prices have settled as the pandemic premium has faded and Lymington has beaches, the country’s oldest saltwater lido, a spectacular sea wall for a dog walk or a jog, and the New Forest on the doorstep for wilder wandering. The town itself is full of smart shops and restaurants
selection of independent shops and a sandy blue-
flag beach. The snag? Your sea view is more
container ships than
— head for the Haven for oysters with a view — and the schools are popular. London is a 90-minute train journey from nearby Brockenhurst. Average house price £537,000
bobbing boats.
Average house price £320,500
n a sea of 1930s terraces, Station Lodge stands out from the crowd. With its aerodynamic shape, jet-black mass and orange platform, it resembles a spaceship
hovering above suburban Motspur Park, southwest London.
Viewed from above, it seems to loom over the neighbourhood. In fact when approached from the street, it is invisible
— you can only catch a glimpse of the house through a narrow gap between two terraces. It is nevertheless a local curiosity, according to its owner and designer, the architect Andrei Saltykov.
“People would ask the builders, ‘What are you building here, a library, a recording studio?’ Because obviously it doesn’t look like a house,” Saltykov says.
“Passersby always do a double take,” adds Siwan, his wife.
Mysterious from the outside, with hardly any windows at the front, the house is like the Tardis inside. There is a jaw-dropping three-storey living room overlooked by two levels of mezzanines and a showstopping high-tech ceiling, with steel beams, timber cross bracing and joists left exposed, an influence from Saltykov’s days working for Richard Rogers. One of his clients compared his living room to the Pompidou Centre, the famously expressive inside-out building in Paris.
you’re like, what’s that big black bat cave? People are curious.”
Andrei Saltykov with his wife, Siwan, and daughters, Inessa, left, and Gina, in their home. Above and top right: the house’s exterior, with the large window at the top
Saltykov didn’t set out to build a wacky house overlooking a train platform but in 2020 the family had outgrown their house in Wimbledon. Their two daughters, Gina and Inessa, were soon to enter secondary school. Saltykov had been looking for land for a client and an advert for a site for sale with seven rental garages popped up on his algorithm. It was in Motspur Park, where his daughters played football. Saltykov was intrigued. “Plus an architect always wants to build a house,” he says.
The prefab steel staircase, for example, is painted an eye-catching shade of fluorescent red. “I like to highlight things in the building that give you structure or circulation and create some splash with colour,” says Saltykov, 52, who previously worked on Heathrow Terminal 5, Madrid’s Barajas airport and the International Towers in Sydney.
The four bedrooms are on the first floor, off a mezzanine, and the top floor has a large study and family room that opens onto a roof terrace with an unorthodox view: the railway station platform of Motspur Park. Saltykov has been known to wave and converse with passengers on the platform who are intrigued by the building. Siwan says exchanges are always very good-natured.
The garage site was awkward, however. A triangular shape, it’s hemmed in by the railway track, the terraced houses and a substation with a right of way for energy crews. The site was narrow at the entrance so it made no sense for Saltykov to build the house there. For one thing, it would block the light passing through to the neighbours’ gardens. He would have more room if he built at the back of the site, right beside the railway track, and set the garden at the front. But placing windows at the back of the property would mean there would be no privacy from the train platform. Similarly, any windows at the front of the house would overlook the gardens of the terraced houses.
“People are surprised when they get off the train because it’s a very suburban area,” she says. “And you’re having a drink one evening and people are like, ‘Is this a house?’ Because if you’re coming on the train and it’s all commuter land,
The light spills into the second-floor study, over the mezzanine and down into the living room. At the front of the house, which is at ground level, light enters from two ribbons of glass bricks, which are frosted to prevent overlooking neighbours.
courtesy of a mechanical heat ventilation recovery system.
The kitchen does have a long picture window facing the railway line but it is shielded by a concrete panel wall recycled from the site’s old garages.
No wonder the site had been for sale for such a long time. Most developers would run a mile. “But they miss the opportunity,” Saltykov says. “I love constraints. I take advantage of them.”
The industrial design has the potential to feel cold and clinical but Saltykov has softened the aesthetic with a wraparound
The unconventional roof was not a design gimmick. Its form is purely functional: the long angled slope avoids blocking the neighbours’ light; the black aluminium hides train dirt; the angular ribbed design funnels rainwater into a French drain on the ground as Saltykov did not want gutters.
His solution? The conventional part of the floorplan is a straight line of rooms against the railway tracks at the rear. For privacy from the train platform, the bedrooms only have side windows, which look onto the train tracks. But the lack of windows meant he needed a view of something, so he made an internal one: mezzanines overlooking the vast atriumstyle living room at the front. “To compensate for the absence of view, I made volume.”
birch ply bookcase that hugs the living room. Siwan’s Welsh art collection warms things
People ask, ‘What’s that big black bat cave?’ They’re curious
even further and the
exposed beams also liven things up. “It would be pretty awful if it were just a white ceiling. This makes it
You would think that living next to a railway track would be noisy, but in my 90 minutes at the property I heard no trains. That’s thanks to the installation of triple-glazed windows, thick blockwork and reams of insulation. Fresh air comes
interesting and dynamic.”
Saltykov is reluctant to reveal the project’s overall budget. The grey and green German kitchen by Kitchen Revolutions was £35,000 but, when
So how does the light get in? There is a very large window at the top of the house.
building costs spiralled
during the Covid pandemic, he tweaked the design to futureproof his investment. Developers are advised against
HOW TO MAKE YOUR MOVE TO ANTIGUA
building the most
inks between the UK and the Caribbean Commonwealth nation of Antigua and Barbuda go back a long way. Horatio Nelson was stationed there in the 1780s and while he was less than complimentary about the island — an “infernal hole” was his blunt assessment he is immortalised at Nelson’s Dockyard, the world’s oldest working Georgian boatyard and an atmospheric Unesco world heritage site on Antigua’s south coast.
expensive house on a street so he designed
SEANPAVONEPHOTO /GETTY IMAGES
the layout of the house, which is 3,000 sq ft, so
that it could be split down
the middle and sold as two homes in the future. He put in foundations for a second staircase, as well as separate plumbing infrastructure.
LUCY YOUNG FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES;WILL PRYCE
To his surprise, Saltykov says that neither of his next-door neighbours objected to his plans. They seemed glad to see the back of the seven garages. Planners approved the project in just four short months.
than the Atlantic on the east coast,” she says. “That’s also where the biggest investment in infrastructure is currently going in, around Jolly Harbour with the marina redevelopment and the new Nikki Beach resort under way. This coast also has the biggest range of properties and prices, with homes from $400,000 up to $10 million.”
premier residential and hotel resort, Jumby Bay, moved from London to Antigua five years ago and rents a fourbedroom home with a pool in the northeast of Antigua on Long Bay, paying $3,000 a month. “There’s increasing interest in taking up citizenship while those coming as digital nomads are getting younger and together — this demand is pushing up rents,” he says.
What does he say to traditionalists who might say the house isn’t in keeping with the terraces? “If that’s your attitude, you might as well live in an open-air museum where nothing can ever change. This plot was left unloved. There was no way of building on it satisfactorily from a blueprint that had gone before.
Antigua is a sailing paradise, home to international regattas and a favourite with professional and amateur yachties. “The sailing scene plays a key role in Antigua’s appeal and combined with its 365 beaches makes it a compelling choice, especially for younger people,” says Tom Vickery from Savills’ global residential team. “Antigua appeals strongly to British buyers thanks to its familiarity and ease of navigations. English is widely spoken and the legal system aligns with the UK. The favourable tax regime is another significant draw, particularly for globally mobile purchasers, as well as the citizenship by investment programme.”
“The 1930s terraces were built using the technology allowed at the time. When they were built, they didn’t fit in either. There were fields here. When the Victorians built terraces, nobody had built them before.”
You’re never far from a good beach on Antigua, but the most sought-after locations with good access to marinas, restaurants and international schools include English Harbour in the south, Jolly Harbour in the west and between Dickenson Bay and Hodges Bay in the north.
He didn’t set out to provoke. “It’s not a look-at-me house. It’s so well hidden. It’s purely about achieving a better result through means that are not necessarily conventional.”
Antigua’s nomad digital residence programme allows those aged
over 18 who work remotely and
A challenge when running his architecture practice, Andrei Saltykov and Partners (ASaP), is finding clients that want brave and unconventional designs. “I’m happy to fit in if it makes sense but this fitting in business drives me mad,” he says. “Is there ever going to be progress if all you’re doing is what you’ve done before? Isn’t that the biggest criticism of AI? It just recirculates what’s already been created. That’s why it can never be original. Just by fitting in, you might as well design with ChatGPT. You don’t need people.”
earn at least $50,000 a year to stay for up to two years. It costs
applicant —
Sarah Ward, cofounder of London-based international interior design studio Ward & Co, has owned a home on Antigua since 2017 and worked professionally on several exclusive private homes and branded residences there.
couple — and
The long-term rental market remains very active with demand outpacing supply, especially in popular coastal locations, says Dominique D’Aloia, owner of Paradise Properties Connection: “Demand is driven by professionals relocating to the island, the yachting industry, diplomatic personnel, international schools, medics and those moving here for lifestyle.” D’Aloia says one-bedroom homes in these locations start from $1,000 a month and two-bedroom homes from $2,000.
holders pay no local income tax.
The citizenship by investment programme was introduced in 2013 to bring inward investment to the islands. For a fee of $10,000 and a minimum investment of $300,000 into an approved property or a contribution of $230,000 to the National Development Fund, Antigua and Barbuda grants citizenship for life to qualifying individuals. Successful applicants pay no tax on worldwide income, and no capital gains, inheritance or wealth tax. Official government channels say the process takes 90 days, but anecdotal online reports put the time scale for some applicants at closer to 10 months.
Saltykov is encouraged by the public response to the house. Two hundred people came for a tour last year at the Open House festival and he’s opening it again this year, on September 19. He recently stood on the station platform and overheard two women chatting about his house. It could have been mortifying. “But they said, ‘Isn’t this amazing?’ And I said, ‘Thank you, it’s my house.’ And I went to the dentist the other day and they were saying, ‘Oh, you live in that amazing house.’ It’s known in the area.”
“I love the lifestyle, the pace of life and the friendliness of the people,” she says. “Work takes me to the US and across the Caribbean; Antigua is so well situated, an easy base to reach other islands and to get to Miami.”
West is best, says Ward, 58. “The west coast faces the calm Caribbean Sea which is generally more welcoming
Clearly it has tickled the public imagination. He’s even signed it up with filming location agencies. Is he sure he wasn’t inspired by sci-fi just a bit? “When we were moving, I found a 1980s poster from my old space Lego set. It was a space station that had a similar shape to this. And my daughter Gina is convinced that the Lego set inspired the house.”
James MacKenzie, 59, sales director at Antigua’s
Top: the view from Shirley Heights, to English Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard. Inset above: the designer Sarah Ward, right, with her daughter, Rosie
Hodges Bay
Jumby Bay
Demand is growing for relocation to Antigua, says Joe Rice, head of citizenship programmes at Global Citizen Solutions. “Antigua and Barbuda offers one of the most familyfriendly golden visa programmes, significantly cheaper then nearby St Kitts and Nevis for a larger family to gain citizenship,” he says.
Long Island
St. John’s
The reality, he insists, is more prosaic. “It’s more about the boring things: sunlight, views, shadows, access, how you get rid of water, all this practical stuff is what drives the design.”
Dickenson Bay
Long Bay
ANTIGUA
Maybe so. But for the rest of us, it’s more fun to call it the spaceship house. The London Homebuilding & Renovating Show, September 18-20, Excel, London. Free tickets for readers at homebuildingshow.co.uk/sunday-times
Jolly Harbour
Nelson’s Dockyard
3 miles
and 36 woodlands. The surge is remarkable as the first community to own their pub — residents near The Ivy House in Nunhead, southeast London — only did so in 2013.
A 160-year-old pub has been given a second lease of life by its community
Among those seeking to rescue stricken pubs is Prince William, who has given £1,000 to a campaign group trying to save the Somerset Arms in Semington, Wiltshire, which has been closed for three years and is being sold by Punch Pubs. In a letter sent to the group, he wrote that pubs represent “not simply places of hospitality, but vital spaces that bring people together, foster a sense of belonging and support the well-being of local communities”.
— but can it survive? By David Byers
Buyingthe lion’s share
Plunkett UK claims the rising number of community projects shows something about how the crisis of isolation and loneliness has gradually worsened, and how people value these facilities. Andrew Dubock, a group spokesman, traces this to the disappearing roles of traditional facilitators in decades gone by, like church and youth clubs.
closure in late 2022 and fears that it would suffer terminal structural damage from a leaking, collapsing roof were growing.
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Resolving to find a way to save it, Scott and another parent from his children’s primary school, Gareth Coady, arranged a meeting at Sacred Heart primary school 400 yards away. “Amazingly, we got 200 to 250 people that came to listen to us. We talked to them about why we wanted to save it and we asked for support.” Much to their astonishment, a total of 15 potential investors came forward, each agreeing to take a shareholding of at least £10,000 (and some considerably more).
Because of the passion of those involved, community-run facilities rarely fail, with a 98 per cent survival rate after five years. But even neighbourly endeavours can’t escape the laws of gravity. In its latest impact report, in June, the chief executive, James Alcock, pointed to four closures in 2025, while 34 new initiatives were established. “We are increasingly aware of fatigue among businesses and volunteers,” he warns.
The consortium entered delicate talks with the estate agent, explaining their madcap plan. Putting together their limited company and collecting the finance took several months. Eventually, in August last year, almost exactly three years after it closed, they celebrated buying the Lion from pub group Stonegate for “considerably less” than its initial asking price in 2022.
The government of Andy Burnham
last week tried to combat this worrying trend by announcing a cut of 20 per
cent to business rates, a move that will save the typical
pub approximately £1,100 a year.
For the Wick Road takeover consortium, it is early days.
But, according to Scott, the facility being owned by the
Then the hard work began for the novice landlords. “It wasn’t abysmal, but I have to say it was bad,” Scott says. “The roof was in bad shape — it was leaking. There were ceilings down, the electrical installation was outdated and there were huge cosmetic problems inside the pub.”
community has inspired people to use it, knowing they’ll otherwise lose it. “We are able, I think, to do things that other pubs can’t do,” he says. “In May we had two nights of a theatre production which was written by a playwright who lives in Teddington. We had 60 people
over two nights each watching this thing — a site-specific experience in the pub. “We’ve got an art exhibit in there at the
Using local contractors, they worked fast while volunteers helped by refurbishing beach huts at the back of the garden, turning them into bespoke seating booths.
moment from a local artist who paints pictures of the Red Roses, England women’s national rugby union team.
Scott, who is managing director of the business where he works at the same time, jokes that he thinks, “What the hell am I doing?” most days. The consortium has voting rights on major decisions but staff make dayto-day decisions.
And a couple of
weeks ago, we had a lady who asked if she
could do her knitting circle here. A bunch of
them came in for knitting
and cakes. Hopefully that kind of thing becomes routine.”
few months after Peter Scott, 44, his wife and two young children moved to Wick Road, a tranquil street of pastel-coloured Victorian
scenario as the cost of maintaining expensive buildings, along with the impact of the government’s tax rises on businesses, makes them increasingly unviable for landlords. According to the British Beer and Pub Association, an average of two UK pubs closed every day in the first three months of this year — a 26 per cent rise on the same period in 2025.
Owners Martin Thomas, Peter Scott and Stephen Aras in front of the Lion. Top right: the pub’s garden. Right: Nancy Baldwin, the mayor of Richmond
A
As we talk, the function room is full of local primary schoolchildren, their teachers and parents, who are gathered for an end-of-term prizegiving event, which is being attended by Nancy Baldwin, the mayor of Richmond.
As a growing number of hospitality businesses are closed by struggling owners — or corporate owners cutting costs — residents are left with nowhere to socialise. Increasingly, residents are banding together to save them.
houses on the borders of Teddington and Hampton Wick in southwest London, its 160-year-old pub, the Lion, closed down.
Baldwin describes the initiative as “heartening” but doesn’t sugarcoat the struggles local businesses are facing as a result of rising costs. “It’s not just businesses — charities are having to pay [substantially higher employer National Insurance] now,” she says. “They’re struggling, a lot of people are. And it makes it more difficult to deliver their services.”
“I was annoyed,” he says. “We used to have this lovely thing on a Friday when we’d eat with the children at home and then we’d pop into the pub, they’d have dessert, I’d have a pint, my wife would have a G&T, and then we’d go home. It was brilliant, we all loved it.”
But Scott, the managing director of a media and events company, didn’t take the closure lying down: “It was sitting on the market and nobody was buying it, so I sort of got to thinking: ‘Well, is there something we can do about this?’”
According to Plunkett UK, a charity dedicated to helping communities save local services, the number of closed-down businesses bought by community groups has risen by 67 per cent in the last decade, with 869 trading at the end of 2025 compared with 521 in 2015. They include 467 shops, 215 pubs, 30 farms, 25 cafés
The closure of Britain’s pubs is becoming a depressingly common
The Lion had been languishing on Rightmove for well over a year after its
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The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 13
ndrew Neil, the political journalist and broadcaster who helped to
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launch Sky TV, former editor of The Sunday Times, and host of the lunchtime show The Times at One on Times Radio, lives in the south of France with his three dogs. When his golden retriever Miss Molly appeared on This Week, his BBC1 politics show,
ANDREW NEIL;REUTERS;BBC
bog brush when she was small. Scrubber’s the family name. Or Scrubs for short.
Did you have childhood pets? All I had as a kid was a budgie. And I think my mother left the window open one day. We never saw her again. When I was a kid I was quite scared of dogs. I got attacked by a dog, not badly, but it was a bit frightening. When I was more grown up and got dogs of my own, that all went. And now I don’t really have any fear of them at all. And even slightly dangerous ones I’m kind of able to handle.
Neil says she soon became “more popular than me or Michael Portillo”.
Tell me about your dogs. Two are white retrievers. People call them golden retrievers but they are obviously not golden. Miss Molly and Mr Junior. They’re twins. These two have been with me for about 12 years now. They are pedigree. They are little French aristocrats, quite snotty actually.
What have your dogs destroyed? They haven’t destroyed anything other than the peace. Iris often disturbs the peace. She did this morning at about 4.30am. She is chief of security and she patrols the perimeter every day to make sure we’re safe. She goes bonkers when she hears anybody walking outside the property. She is actually, in her own way, a bit of a guard dog. Whereas the twins... all they would do if anybody broke in is lick them to death.
Molly is something of a celebrity, isn’t she? Miss Molly became very famous when I took her into the This Week show, when I was doing the BBC1 programme on Thursday nights. She became considerably more popular than me or Michael Portillo. The production team just fell in love with Molly. And before I knew it, they had bought her a bed, they had got her toys to play with, bones to chew on. She had a calming effect on people who could go off the handle. I remember that when we had the historian David Starkey on, who is not the quietest or most temperate of people to have on a late-night television show, and he was off on one, really going at it in his usual articulate strident way. Molly, who was sitting on the floor, jumped up onto the sofa beside him and put her head on his lap. And it stopped him in full flow. He calmed down and became more reasonable.
‘They’re like aristocrats’
Times Radio’s Andrew Neil on his trio of pampered pooches including naughty Miss Molly, who stole the show on This Week
Do they have a beauty routine? They get washed quite rarely. They get showered and shampooed and fluffed up because they are three fluffies. Molly and Junior, they love it. The best way to think of Molly is, she’s basically an ageing supermodel. I mean, she’s the Cindy Crawford of dogs. She
Graham Norton would have loved to have. We had Rory Bremner and Mick Hucknall. We had Piers Morgan. We had Diane Abbott, of course, and Portillo. And at the end of the show this huge queue developed in front of me. And I thought they all wanted to shake my hand and wish me well. No, no, no, no! They all said, can I pet Molly? Can I stroke Molly? So I knew my place. I knew who the star of the show was.
from the two aristocrats. She came from the streets of Bucharest where she did not have a good time, I’m afraid.
And then they put them in what’s called the happy bus, which brings your dog from Bucharest to a place in Essex where you go and pick it up.
Did you see any other political dogs? I understand that Boris Johnson’s terrier was a bit of an arse. It doesn’t surprise me, because Boris himself was a bit of an arse. No, I’m delighted to say I did not see Boris’s dog.
Where did you get her? From two English women who ran this charity in Bucharest that specialised in taking dogs off the streets. They had a website where you could see them. They checked you out. They made sure they’d got all the necessary health certificates and vaccinations.
sure loves getting pampered. Iris? No, not so much. You really have to grab her and hold
Did Iris Bailey adapt to a more luxe life? Oh yes. I went on this trip to Florence and little Scrubber and Molly came with me. We had a beautiful room in the Four Seasons. I was lying on this beautiful big bed in this suite. And I said, Iris, you have literally gone from Skid Row to the Four Seasons.
What about the scruffy terrier on your socials?
her down to give her a shower and a shampoo.
That’s little Iris Bailey, the love of my life, known as Scrubber. I got her about ten years ago. She couldn’t be more different
MissMolly is more popular than me or
Did she ever meet her fans? The final show was a live show with a huge audience, and we had a line-up of guests that
Do you have fantasy pets? If I had the time, I think I would get a rescue donkey,
Above: Andrew Michael Portillo Neil with his three dogs, Mr Junior, Miss Molly and Iris ‘Scrubber’ Bailey. Top right: Boris Johnson with his terrier, Dilyn. Far left: Miss Molly on This Week
because I see the way some donkeys are treated. It would be nice to rescue one from that kind of life and just let them have a garden where they can run around and enjoy themselves. Interview by Katrina Burroughs
What is behind the name? There was an argument over what her name should be, whether it should be Iris or Bailey. And so I said we’re calling you Iris Bailey. Iris Bailey is her Sunday name. She gets called that if she’s misbehaving. Sometimes it’s Iris. Otherwise, it’s Scrubber. Because she looked a bit like a
Andrew Neil hosts the lunchtime show The Times at One on Times Radio, broadcasting Monday to Thursday from 1-2pm
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
Cardi B, Rihanna or Mick Jagger, the hat can make you more visible. Mick would buy a top hat [to perform] Sympathy for
TIME AND SPACESTEPHEN JONES
‘US friends are shocked by the outside loo’
the Devil. He’s had different hats for it since
1968 — the first I made for him was 19 years ago.
WWD/GETTY IMAGES; INSTAGRAM/DUALIPA
How do you price your hats? The price of our hats reflects the fact that they’re made in England by hand, and I pay maternity pay and holiday pay, and the people in my workroom work for a living in London. If somebody came into my shop concerned about the prices, you could say, “Well, how much a day would you work for?” The most I’ve ever charged for a hat is probably £20,000. If it’s a wealthy client, that’s cheaper than the landing fees at Heathrow.
What is your first childhood memory of home? Looking out at the sea from my bedroom window on the Wirral. Our 1930s detached house was on a sand dune that my great-great-grandfather had built many houses on. It was good but I wanted to go to Liverpool then London: bright lights, big city.
Your first experience of renting? When I first came to London as a Central Saint Martins student, studying womenswear, I lived in the Ralph West halls of residence. It was for all London art colleges, so socially it was incredible. In the next room a guy called Kenny told me, “I’m at Camberwell doing graphics. There’s a gig at Chelsea Town Hall and I’m the drummer in this new band. We’re called Siouxsie and the Banshees.”
live in London, by Battersea Park in a two-storey Victorian house with my husband, Craig, who I met in 1989. It was a railway manager’s house, three up, two down — living
I
rooms and office upstairs, bedrooms downstairs — and an outside loo with a washing machine. I showed it to friends from the US and they were flabbergasted.
Do you have any house rules? Be tidy. I’ve tidied things away I can no longer find: a telephone, a sock, spectacles in the fridge, milk in my wardrobe.
How would you describe your journey in property? Quite strange. Everybody else seems to be in a small palace in Knightsbridge by now. I only bought my house 25 years ago. Before then I’d rented: a peppercorn rent in Chalk Farm. I know people who’ve been on the property ladder then lost everything or had a messy divorce, which affects future planning. To me, life is about today, not tomorrow, but life for parents is very different.
Stephen Jones. Above right: Dua Lipa in a Stephen Jones hat for her May wedding in London. Below: Princess Diana in a Stephen Jones creation. Below left: Jones’s
to buy hats. He had a day job working in the shop PX in Endell Street and knew they were moving into a new space. He introduced me to the owners and said, “Could Stephen Jones have a little hat shop?”
The worst place you lived? After Ralph West I lived in a flat in a house in Wood Green, which was fine until the kitchen ceiling fell on my flatmate.
Do you put the bins out?
Yes. We have three bins — it’d be great if Lambeth council collected them on the same day.
It was successful from day one. It was an unbelievable deal: I had to pay a percentage of profits or turnover, I don’t know which it was. I didn’t pay rent. They were happy for me to be there because it would pull customers into their shop. I didn’t have to market my hats to wellknown people, they came to me. And, touch wood, they still do. One person that got me noticed was Diana, Princess of Wales.
Is there anyone famous who hasn’t worn one of your hats? Her Majesty, the late Queen. I curated an exhibition at the V&A called Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones in 2009. The hat I requested from her was a headscarf because I love photographs of the Queen at Balmoral wearing a scarf and walking her dogs. I requested a hat of the Queen Mother’s as well, for which the Queen chose the hat she’d worn on her 100th birthday.
How do you divide up the household chores? I have a fabulous and long-suffering housekeeper.
home in Battersea, southwest London
You mean your husband? No! Why, have you two been talking?
Your guilty pleasure? Hats, champagne and cheap crisps. Interview by John Wright
What do you keep in mind when designing spectacular hats for the rich and famous? Movie stars don’t want something extravagant: their face is the star, not what they’re wearing. But for performers like
How did your business take off so quickly in 1980? I was the hot young thing around town. Steve Strange was in a band [Visage] so the record label footed the bill for him
Stephen Jones Millinery is showing its SS26 collection, A Rainbow in Curved Air, at its boutique in Covent Garden, London
OUR ELDERLY NEIGHBOURS’ FENCE IS FALLING DOWN CAN WE FIX IT OURSELVES?
A
It is incredibly thoughtful of you to want to help your neighbours rather than insist they deal with
vegetation and prolonged exposure to the elements, patching it up can quickly become a false economy.
yourself can be significantly cheaper if you’re comfortable with basic DIY. Standard fence panels, posts and gravel boards are widely available from builder’s merchants and DIY stores, and the materials will typically cost far less than a full-service installation. Having a second pair of hands will make the job much easier, particularly when lifting panels and positioning posts.
motivated by kindness and by working with them rather than around them, you’ll be much more likely to preserve a good relationship while solving a problem that has become impossible to ignore.
It could be that your outflow drainage is blocked (or at least partially blocked). Check the outside drain that your water waste pipe empties into. If it is blocked the smell will travel up the waste pipe and into your kitchen sink and any appliances, like dishwashers, using the same outlet. Clear the blockage with a plunger and, for good measure, run some hot soapy water through the system. Chris Shuker
Q
My neighbours’ garden is so overgrown, it’s now pulling down and breaking the fence. They’re old (about 80) and even though it’s technically their responsibility, we don’t want to worry them with the logistical and financial burden. For the past two years we’ve tried tying bits of the fence, painting or reinforcing bits to keep it going. But now it’s completely crumbling and all of their nettles, ivy and bindweed are breaking through too. We’ve looked into quotes to pay for it and suggest doing the work ourselves, but all quotes are near the £10,000 mark, which is just too much, especially considering it’s not our fence. Stella Bradshaw
the problem themselves. Before taking any action, it’s important to have a friendly conversation with them about what you’re proposing. Even if you are willing to cover the cost and do the work, discussing repairs in advance can help avoid confusions about responsibilities.
Before replacing the fence, you’ll need to tackle the overgrowth that is causing
much of the problem. Ivy, nettles and bindweed can
Tom Morgan, senior home, tech and lifestyle writer at Which?
HOME HELP
put pressure on fence panels and posts, particularly if they’ve been left
Readers’ clinic
To help ensure the new fence lasts, make sure replacement posts are installed securely and that the panels are protected from direct contact with soil and vegetation. Gravel boards fitted beneath the panels can help prevent damp and reduce the risk of rot.
unmanaged for some time. The good news
Q
There is an awful smell under my kitchen sink. I have had a plumber round to look at my
Please provide advice on removing oil-free foundation stains from a cotton summer mididress. The dress can be machine-washed. Sally Roberts Send tips and questions to homehelp@sundaytimes.co.uk. Advice given without responsibility
is that these plants
can generally be cut back hard before work begins and will usually regrow afterwards, so there is little risk of permanently damaging the garden.
Given that you’ve already spent two years trying to fix the fence, it sounds as though replacement is likely to be more cost-effective than more temporary repairs. Once a fence has started to collapse under the weight of
dishwasher, which is next to the sink, and he has looked at the pipes too. Nothing can be found. When I run hot water the smell rises up. It’s really quite disgusting! Suggestions please. MT
Most importantly, keep your neighbours informed throughout the process. Your willingness to help is clearly
While a professional quote of £10,000 is understandably alarming, replacing a fence
Scan to hear from local residents.
020 3936 2916 thebrentfordproject.com
Discover the latest release of off-plan apartments, alongside the final completed homes ready to move into from £499,000. Enjoy exclusive access to The Wick private residents’ club and explore the reimagined lanes connecting the high street to the waterfront.
Prices correct as at time of print.
August 2, 2026
Take advantage of the exchange rate and book a luxury holiday to South Africa’s most striking city 14
Cape Town calling
Plus A ferry journey along the Greenland coast 13 Route 66 by rail 20 Summery Sweden 22
2 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
epending on who you ask, Edinburgh in August is the best or worst place on
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the planet. When the Festival Fringe rolls into town, Auld Reekie’s population doubles to a million as culture lovers jostle for space at the bars in Charlotte Square, the foyers of the Festival Theatre and the waterside restaurants at the Shore.
On the upside, the city buzzes with kinetic energy. Where else in the UK could you see three comedy shows and a play free before lunchtime? The bad news is that booking a spot at the best dining spots turns into a military operation. You might get lucky finding a room at the Gleneagles Townhouse, an urban offshoot of the famous Highland hotel, but only if you’re OK with a bill steeper than Arthur’s Seat (B&B doubles from £709 during the festival; gleneagles.com).
into the centre of Galashiels to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland, the longest of its kind in Europe, charting 420 million years of history (£13; greattapestryofscotland.com).
inspired by Highland flavours. The Dunkeld’s deli stocks crowd-pleasing ready meals such as mac and cheese made with burrata, then pivots to Japanese cooking and cocktails on Thursday to Saturday nights (mains from £14; dunkelds.co.uk). Walk off the calories with a few laps of Dunkeld Cathedral.
For the month ahead Edinburgh beats New York as the city that never sleeps, so it makes sense that the savviest travellers factor in day trips to escape the clamour, bolting on a weekend either side of their holiday or breaking up the madness in between. You can see why: the Scottish capital is conveniently located as a base from which to enjoy the country at its very best. There is majestic scenery, bonnie beaches, gastronomic pleasures and medieval townscapes all within a few hours’ drive.
Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross (45 miles north)
This chocolate-box town is one for chic epicureans intent
on eating seasonally. Lon is perhaps the most stylish general store in
aqueduct damaged and fences destroyed. After a crowdfunder and herculean repair effort, it is now open to the public again from June to September. There is no better time to see this magical place where artistic endeavour collides with vulnerable nature. Etched stone and other surprising interventions meld with the landscape in the distance, and it hums with history (£15; littlesparta.org.uk).
store at the rear (food from £4; themercat.com).
Culross, Fife (19 miles northwest) Outlander fans will be sure to recognise the marigoldcoloured Culross Palace, a medieval hangover from when the village was the hub of coal and salt production. As well as playing a cameo in the popular TV series, it has views all the way across the Firth of Forth from its manicured tiered gardens, a reminder that this was once a passageway for heavy
industry. Mosey a little further into the village and you’ll find pristine 17th-century terraces in shades of butter, rose and cream. If the scenery whets your appetite, go for lunch at the coolest café in the county — the Mercat features original wall tiles from its days as a butcher’s shop, before the proprietor Laura May Wilson worked her magic; she serves cakes, soups and sandwiches and has a design
Scotland, filled with enamel
Dunsyre, South Lanarkshire (20 miles southwest) Little Sparta, Ian Hamilton Finlay’s extraordinary sculpture garden, was ravaged by Storm Eowyn in
tableware, smallbatch olive oil,
locally grown flowers and rainbow-hued tomatoes in artful window displays. It’s the sister business of Aran Bakery across the road, where you’ll find pillow-sized focaccia slices, a rotating selection of sausage rolls and pastries
summer that Scotland has scrapped its peak rail fares, so going by train means you’ll take advantage of the lowest prices (consider it a gift to offset the new 5 per cent tourist tax). Here are seven of the best day trips from the city.
The best
Galashiels, Scottish Borders (27 miles south) Leaving Edinburgh doesn’t mean leaving world-class buildings behind. The Borders countryside is full of brutalist treasures courtesy of Peter Womersley, the English architect who made Scotland his playground in the Sixties and Seventies. Start at Gala Fairydean Rovers FC’s Netherdale stadium, where the grandstand looks as though it was made from folded from paper rather than concrete. Then make a pilgrimage to Bernat Klein Studio, three miles southwest, designed for the Serbian textile designer in 1972 — it is closed at present while undergoing restoration but worth a peep from the roadside for its rigorous cantilevers in a wooded glen. On your return journey, pop
day trips
from
Edinburgh
Why I spend £1,200 a night on my family holiday every year
COVER: THP CREATIVE/GETTY IMAGES. P2-3: IAIN MASTERTON, PORRIDGE PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY; DENNIS BARNES/GETTY IMAGES
Ikos hotels aren’t cheap, but the extra money buys Laura Craik peace of mind and all-inclusive luxury
amily holiday horrors? I’ve had a few. The Mallorcan one that started with a mysterious hand appearing from an upstairs window and ended with a
eyelid. It feels nuts to be able to drink as many iced coffees, Aperol spritzes and sparkling waters as you fancy but most guests don’t tend to take the mick.
F
As someone who spends life mentally totting up my expenditure versus my income, I can’t describe the sweet relief of not having to do this for five days. Every time I order a frappé by the pool, slide an egg onto my breakfast plate or am served a cocktail featuring branded spirits, I feel a surge of gratitude.
burglary. The Ibizan one that promised a private villa but was shared with the owners, one of whom loved to chat by the pool about her daughter’s drug use and her husband’s terminal illness. After being frogmarched to the utility room to do some laundry (“I can’t let you use the machine unattended — it’s a Miele”), I decided I’d had enough of self-catering villas. From now on, it would be hotels all the way.
This is not the word I’d use to describe a minority of guests’ behaviour, however. A funny thing happens to some people when they’re presented with a smorgasbord of “free” stuff: rather than relaxing into the munificence, they become almost aggressively acquisitive. That table has lobster. Why don’t we have lobster? And so on. And then there are the guests for whom unconditional luxury is still not luxurious enough. Over the years I’ve heard people complaining that the beach is too pebbly, there aren’t enough slides for their kids and the matcha isn’t “five-star quality”.
But some of those were disasters too. After the room in our alleged four-star hotel in Rhodes flooded with sewage, I decided to luxemaxx my life. Or at least a week of it. I can’t remember how Ikos came into my life, only that I can barely remember life without it. To be fair, I’m not the only one who feels like this. The cult of Ikos is real, its members as devoted as any Swiftie. Since its launch in 2015 the Greek chain has set out to redefine the all-inclusive concept. Judging by the devotion of its fans, it’s succeeding.
Clockwise from above left: the beach at Tentsmuir; Dunkeld and the River Tay; Culross village; surfing at Lost Shore
Arrochar, Argyll and Bute (62 miles northwest) For active walkers who want to stretch their legs it’s tempting to stay east, and it’s true that the Pentland Hills, ten miles southwest of central Edinburgh, have boundless charm. But to get a taste of the west Highlands’ magnificence, rise early and hit the Cobbler Mountain, two hours’ drive northwest. Also known as Ben Arthur, its seven-mile route snakes through rocky peaks and ancient corries before cresting at 884m (2,900ft) and bringing you back to the car park via a lonely glen. On a clear day the views from the top will have you feeling as though Scotland is your personal kingdom.
Ratho, Midlothian (8 miles west) Burn off some energy at Lost Shore, the first inland surf resort in the UK. You could easily spend a day here and not get bored, starting with a surf lesson (from £65), followed by a spa treatment and a sauna session (45-minute treatments from £45) then a marinara slice from the cult pizza emporium Civerinos (£6) or a bite at the kitchen and fried-chicken bar (mains from £12). There’s also a skate academy for all levels. A range of pods and lodges make sleeping over simple (roomonly doubles from £105; lostshore.com).
In some ways Ikos has made a rod for its own back by offering two levels of
Ikos isn’t cheap. A four-bedroom villa at Porto Petro in Mallorca, right, its most expensive resort, costs over £8,000 a night in peak season. But there are less spacious and cheaper options. For a family of four, I’ve usually forked out a minimum of £1,200 a night for a family room. Sometimes that’s more than I earn in a week. As a freelance journalist my income fluctuates wildly, which is why I only ever book for the minimum five-nights. Even so, my Ikos habit takes up a large chunk of my income. But it’s worth it to feel that nothing bad will happen for the duration of my stay. Basically, I’m paying extra for people to be nice to me — you’ll either understand this or you won’t. Maybe people are nice to you all year round. Maybe you’re not a menopausal woman with a mortgage, an insecure career, two teenagers and a dog that stares at you all day, wanting things. I’ve been to other all-inclusives but none of them were the same, largely because they weren’t actually all-inclusive. One hotel charged extra for specific dishes, while another boasted an entire restaurant that, for reasons best known to itself, was excluded from the deal. There is zero point in going on an all-inclusive holiday if you’re going to end up frantically calculating what the bar bill will be if you order Stolichnaya vodka instead of unbranded local paint-stripper.
luxury. On Facebook groups devoted to Ikos, debate rages about the qualitative differences between
“deluxe” and “nondeluxe”. The deluxe category, which includes upgraded menus, a concierge service,
a selection of spa treatments, beach dining
and dedicated pool and beach areas, can cost thousands more
per person. On the Ikos website it’s described as being “for those seeking even more”. More what? I realise that this will be an unpopular opinion, but it seems to me that the deluxe option functions as a dog whistle for those who are never quite satisfied and always looking to see whether someone else has something better. On one Facebook group, there is a thread debating whether deluxe guests are given “front row seats in every restaurant”, written by someone who presumably thinks they’re Anna Wintour. Perhaps they are.
Tentsmuir beach, Fife (35 miles northeast) You’re spoilt for golden sands along the northern hump of nearby East Lothian: Gullane Bents is good for watersports; West beach in North Berwick is cracking for a wander; the natural cove at Yellowcraig is fringed by grassy dunes. But venture a little further north to find all this and a distinct lack of people at three-mile Tentsmuir beach. On one side is a well-maintained forest with plenty of dog-friendly paths, while on the other the Tay estuary stretches out to the horizon. The Salt and Pine crepe shack, between water and woods, has you covered for posh snacks and good coffee (saltandpine.co.uk).
I jest: Wintour and her ilk wouldn’t do all-inclusives. They’re all too busy holidaying in private villas. But where would be the fun in that? Those for whom true luxury is the absence of other people can by all means rent a remote property with two infinity pools and a private chef. But for those for whom people-watching is a holiday’s most underrated pleasure, nothing beats the prospect of an upscale hotel. Sure, peace and tranquillity are great, but have you ever become obsessed with a family from Denmark who look like they belong in a glossy HBO drama set in Montauk starring Nicole Kidman?
At Ikos all-inclusive means all-inclusive. Room service? Included. Kids’ club? Included (though not for under-threes). Car hire? Included for a day. If you want to eat a three-course meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the staff won’t bat an
Cover: the Twelve Apostles mountain range at Camps Bay in Cape Town
Laura Craik travelled independently
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Wildfires
—what you need to know
Chris Haslam looks at the areas
he EU’s official fire-risk map now shows that more than 30 per cent of the European
Kalymnos have been contained, while firefighters are still damping down a blaze on Paros.
landmass is at high risk from wildfires. If you’re travelling there in the coming weeks, here’s what you need to know.
Five out of the six major fires that broke out in Turkey last week have been contained while a blaze in Cine, 60 miles east of Bodrum, is still out of control. Serious wildfires are burning in Chaves and Vilarandelo in the Norto region of Portugal. In Italy large areas are ablaze in Sicily and Calabria, and there are fast-moving fires in Sardinia, in Pimentel in the south and Padru in the north.
statements on its pages for France and Spain telling travellers to follow instructions from authorities, check
Headwater, which sells cycling and walking holidays across Europe, said: “Where there is any disruption or potential impact to a customer’s holiday, our team will contact those affected customers directly to provide appropriate support and guidance.”
still available you won’t get those payments back.
France
for updates from
If your policy includes trip disruption or natural-disaster cover, you can claim for cancellation or curtailment, and even if that cover is not included you should still be covered for emergency medical treatment and lost or abandoned possessions. Refunds for cancelled flights or accommodation should be sought from the airline, tour operator or accommodation provider in the first instance, and note that any bookings made through a credit card may also have recoverable costs. As ever, you should check your policy document for details of coverage and, if you’ve bought your travel cover recently, beware of known-event clauses that may reduce or even invalidate cover if it can be argued that you knew about the wildfires when the policy was purchased.
emergency services and the number to call for help.
Forecasts warn of an extreme risk persisting for at least the next 14 days. Data from the EFFIS Wildfire Risk Viewer (forest-fire.emergency. copernicus.eu) shows red alerts for: almost the entire Spanish coast; southwestern France; western and central Italy, Sardinia and Sicily; large areas of Greece and Cyprus; and most of the Aegean coast of Turkey. The Portuguese meteorological agency IPMA has put 103 of the nation’s 308 municipalities on maximum alert, with the greatest risk in the nation’s north and west.
The accommodation provider Sawday’s, which also owns Canopy & Stars, advised contacting property owners directly for the most up-todate information.
Brittany Ferries said that it was contacting package holiday customers scheduled to travel to any area impacted by the wildfires in the coming week “to discuss their options” but that standard amendment and cancellation terms would apply to ferry-only customers.
fogos.pt for Portugal, mappe. protezionecivile.gov.it for Italy and civilprotection. gov.gr for Greece. Across Europe, all mobile phones, including those registered in the UK, will receive emergency evacuation alerts if they are switched on within range of a 4G or 5G mast and have international roaming selected. The alert — an alarm tone with a banner message that overrides silent or do not disturb settings — will come from FR-Alert in France, ESAlert in Spain, SMS-Protecao Civil in Portugal, IT-Alert in Italy and 112 in Greece.
Eurocamp, Siblu and Jet2 declined to comment.
WHAT ARE
MY RIGHTS IF I WANT TO CANCEL?
Check whether natural disasters are covered by
The Villa specialist Oliver’s Travels said that it was in contact with owners of properties near the affected areas to keep up to date with the developments. “If we identify any potential impact to a booking, our customer services team will contact each guest directly to discuss next steps,” it said.
Because the Foreign Office has not advised against travel to
your insurance
Spain Satellite imagery shows more than 100 fires burning across Spain, but with the containment of the Sierra Oeste fire, none are rated level 3 — the highest rating on the severity index — and only four are rated level 2: one in Sierra Oeste, two in Leon and one in Zamora. There have been more than 350 wildfires reported in Spain this season; the historical year-to-date average is 211.
the fire-stricken regions, tour
operators and travel agents will consider cancellation requests as disinclination to travel. This means that you can’t expect a refund but might be able to negotiate a compromise, such as a delayed departure date.
You’ll find country-specific information at incendios españa.es for Spain, meteo france.com for France,
Useful advice from official sources is largely absent. The Foreign Office has short
A wildfire can move at up to 20mph if the blaze gets into the canopy or is funnelled through a canyon. That equates to a three-minute mile, so if you’re ordered to evacuate there’s no time to lose. Plan your exit route in advance, know where your car keys are and have a bag packed with passports, driving licences, pet paperwork, phones, chargers, plenty of water, prescription medicines and anything else you don’t want to leave behind. FFP3rated face masks will reduce the effects of smoke inhalation, and a first-aid kit might come in handy.
The French camping company Yelloh! Village has evacuated 3,000 guests from four parks in the Gironde. “Affected customers will receive the appropriate information directly,” it said. “For guests who have been evacuated, Yelloh! Village will refund any accommodation nights that could not be used.”
If the government advises against travel and you have booked a package — in which travel, accommodation and other components such as car hire are all included — the Package Travel Regulations entitle you to a full refund or the opportunity to rebook for a later date.
Greece Strong winds triggered a surge in wildfires across Greece late last week. The most serious has forced the evacuation of 8,000 tourists in the Agia Paraskevi area of Rethymno, on Crete. On the Gulf of Corinth, 500 tourists were cut off in the seaside village of Agios Vasileios, and another blaze broke out in Mikines on the Peloponnese. Fires on the islands of Andros and
If you have booked flights, rooms and other components separately, it’s less straightforward, because even though your hotel may be closed, entitling you to a refund, if your flight, ferry, train or coach is still operating and all other components are
From top: a helicopter crew collect water from a pool while tackling wildfires near Madrid; residents of Lacanau in France tackle a blaze; the fire at Mikines in the Peloponnese, Greece
here are many benefits to a short break compared with a longer holiday. They’re
T
Short and sweet
more affordable and don’t require as much time off work. A long weekend is also easier to pull off at the eleventh hour, which is handy as we seem to be booking at the last minute more than ever.
Cathy Adams on why four-night getaways as far afield as Mexico and Bermuda are the latest holiday trend, plus how to do it
Short breaks also increase the pace of your holiday. As they’re only a few days long, holiday complacency doesn’t have time to set in, so you’re more inclined to turn them into a mega weekend. That could mean packing the day with sightseeing, seeing a hot new art gallery or exploring different neighbourhoods, then booking the best restaurants and bars.
than six nights. Some go even further: flight search data from Booking.com shows that searches for same-day international return flights have risen 62 per cent, year on year.
holidays are a big financial decision,” says Kevin Nelson, First Choice’s managing director. “They allow customers to respond to the weather and manage costs. For many, a four-day break is the perfect taste of summer without committing to a longer holiday.”
It’s a trend. But what exactly are we doing? I spoke to tour operators and agents about how we’re holidaying now.
And this is shaping up to be the age of the mega weekend, whether you’re going on a city break, a cruise or an adventure holiday. In its 2025 Vacation Confidence Index, the insurer Allianz Partners reported that 73 per cent of Americans planned to take such a holiday, while when it comes to UK staycations Sykes Holiday Cottages found that half of its bookings in 2025 were for less
Last year Intrepid Travel launched Short Breaks, appealing to those who want to get the absolute most out of holidays of between four and six days, with no time for idling. And we’re not just talking about short-haul
Since the spring the tour operator First Choice has seen a spike in four-night breaks, with Ibiza and Lanzarote in Spain, and the Greek islands of Rhodes and Crete, the most-booked destinations, suggesting we want a quick sunny beach getaway.
— there are trips to Guatemala to hike volcanoes, to Chichen Itza in Mexico, and to Prague to enjoy its hot springs.
“Shorter trips offer flexibility at a time when
A cultural heartbeat that ignites the soul
Make this the summer you discover Scotland through its incredible events.
Scan to find the latest offers and plan your summer trip, or search visitscotland.com/summer to find out more.
city break destinations, such as Munich, Seville and Verona, are surging in popularity at the expense of cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam and Rome.
Likewise, the travel company WeRoad, which aims itself at Gen Zers, has weekend trips for between two and four nights to destinations including Athens, Budapest and Riga.
in popularity. If they start and end in the UK, cruises are exempt from the EU’s Entry/Exit System checks, which have caused long queues at some European borders since being formally introduced in April. The cruises have started to take off in the UK, Quint says, especially those for the Christmas markets in cities such as Bruges and Amsterdam.
ARCADY 31, MATEJ PALUH, DIEGO GRANDI/GETTY IMAGES
Combine Budapest
with lesser-known towns along the
Danube on a short break to Hungary. This escorted group trip includes a guided tour of Budapest’s
Patrick Millar, the head of marketing for Kirker, sums it up: “The travel part itself is so much less exciting nowadays so why not make the most of the destination while you are there?”
The short breaks people are booking aren’t always city breaks, says Ashley Quint, the travel director at TravelTime World in Hertfordshire. He reports that people are even booking short beach holidays, adding: “We’ve found that some families split their main holiday and maybe have a long weekend to avoid the worst of the half-term flight prices to some of the popular beach resorts, such as Mallorca, Tenerife and the Algarve.”
big-ticket sights, plus a coach trip to Esztergom, the
country’s former royal capital, and pretty Visegrad, with its 13th-century fortress and forested hiking trails. Optional extras on offer include a traditional folklore evening and a trip combining a visit to a lavender farm and Lake Balaton, before a final night sailing the Danube on a sunset cruise. Departures are available from several regional airports. Details Four nights’ B&B from £790pp, including flights, transfers, guiding and excursions (newmarket holidays.co.uk)
Holidaymakers are also making use of the European rail network to see as much as possible in a short space of time. The short break specialist Kirker says travellers are using a long weekend to pair cities such as Paris and Bordeaux, Madrid and Seville, and Florence and Rome. It also notes that “second tier”
Expect all-out indulgence on a food-focused stay at the Meneghetti Estate, an elegant Relais & Châteaux property surrounded by vineyards and olive groves in the Istrian countryside. A gourmet five-course dinner and guided tastings of the estate’s wines and olive oils are included, and there’s a swish spa, a tennis court, a golf driving range and a free shuttle to the estate’s nearby beach club on the Adriatic coast. The hilltop towns of Vizinada and Pula, with its Roman amphitheatre, are an easy drive away. Details Three nights’ B&B from £1,845pp, including flights, car hire, activities and some extra meals (regentholidays.co.uk)
From main: Budapest on the Danube; a pool at the Meneghetti Estate in Croatia; downtown Toronto
Mini-cruises are also rising
Cram in Toronto’s sights, shops and museums on a whistlestop weekend in the cool Canadian city. Staying at the four-star Chelsea Hotel,
Continued on page 8→
→Continued from page 7
class snorkelling on a jetlagfree weekend? It’s doable in the North Atlantic archipelago of Bermuda, a seven-hour flight from London with a four-hour time difference. The four-star Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa has 21 acres of tropical gardens, two private beaches, a dock for boat trips and a spa in a 500,000-year-old cave. The Walsingham Nature Reserve with its walking trails and mangrove ponds is within kayaking distance and there’s a sunken barge just off the beach for snorkelling on. Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda, is about eight miles away. Details Three nights’ room only from £1,884pp, including flights (britishairways.com)
The village of Oia on the Greek island of Santorini; below right, dunes in the Sahara desert in Morocco
ALLARD1, SCSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
you’ll be within walking distance of the CN Tower, the Royal Ontario Museum and the foodie St Lawrence Market. Stroll to the harbour to hop on a 15-minute ferry to the Toronto Islands for lakefront beaches, kayaking and an amusement park. There’s even time for the 90-minute trip to Niagara Falls, detouring to sample Canadian wines at the Niagara-on-the-Lake vineyards on the way back. Details Three nights’ room only from £777pp, including flights (virginatlantic.com)
Get away from it all on a fournight bucket-list trip to the Sahara desert in Morocco. After arriving in Marrakesh, you’ll join a small group to travel just over three hours to overnight in Ouarzazate before two nights sleeping under the stars at remote desert camps deep within the Sahara. Dinners round a blazing bonfire, 4x4 excursions and sand-dune hikes are all included. Screensaver sunsets are a given. Details Four nights’ half-board — two in hotels, two in desert camps — from £412pp, including internal travel, activities and some extra meals (gadventures. com). Fly to Marrakesh Trips by Siobhan Grogan
Get the full island-hopping experience in three nights on a Celestyal cruise that packs in a staggering five ports and two countries. On a round trip from Athens, you’ll spend the first evening in Mykonos before visiting the Turkish town of Kusadasi, with its bazaar, beaches and the chance to visit the ancient ruins of Ephesus, then it’s on to the island of Patmos, and Heraklion on Crete. A final stop at Santorini is perfectly timed to watch the sunset from the island’s famous caldera cliffs. If you have time, there’s also a pool, spa and round-the-clock entertainment to enjoy on board. Details Three nights’ full board from £349pp, including gratuities (celestyal.com). Fly to Athens
to Kalsoy and a visit to the 98ft-high Bosdalafossur Waterfall. You’ll even get to know the locals over
airport on this quick trip to Nice. Travelling by Eurostar from London via Paris, you’ll arrive at your four-star hotel in Nice in time for a seafood dinner in the old town. Days can be spent pottering around the town’s cobbled streets, markets and café-lined squares, climbing Castle Hill for panoramic sea views and visiting the renowned Musée Matisse art gallery (£10; museematisse-nice.org). Explore further along the coast by local train; Cannes and Monaco are both half an hour away. Details Three nights’ B&B from £420pp, including rail travel from London (byway.travel)
a traditional homecooked Faroese
A remote North Atlantic archipelago between Scotland and Iceland, the Faroe Islands are a two-hour flight from the UK for an easily reached miniadventure. A four-night small group tour with Intrepid starts in Torshavn, one of the world’s smallest capital cities, and takes in hiking on Mount Slaettaratindur, a ferry ride
meal in a cosy farmhouse.
Details Four nights’ B&B from £2,156pp, including
Days can be spent pottering around the cobbled streets of Nice
internal travel, excursions and some extra meals (intrepidtravel.com). Fly to Sorvagur
Hit the beach on the glamorous Côte d’Azur without setting foot in an
White sands, subtropical temperatures and world-
The best journeys aren’t just about where you go. They’re about how you feel when you’re there.
Holiday includes: Return ights· & -star hotels· meals·Expert Holiday Director & Specialist Local Guide·Guided tours of Athens, Samos and Istanbul·Explore Mycenae, Delphi, Ephesus & Troy· Visit the Meteora Monasteries·Enjoy a gözleme tasting
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Follow the making of the blockbuster through these six filming locations, says Sarah Turner
t’s the ultimate set-jet challenge of the year. As ambitious in scope as Homer’s epic poem, Christopher Nolan’s
home to the goddess Circe, played by Samantha Morton
More recently the Egadi Islands, on the northwest coast of Sicily, have been an under-the-radar summer escape for the cooler type of Italian, while superyachts cater to modern-day lotuseaters in the surrounding waters. Nolan used the remote 9th-century Castello di Santa Caterina as the Ithaca home of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, and their son, Telemachus. Most of the crew — including Nolan and his wife, the producer Emma Thomas opted for a daily 30-minute hike to reach Santa Caterina, with the actors completing it in full costume. The Imax cameras were helicoptered
I
— Nolan used Findlater Castle, built on a promontory in the 13th century to repel Norwegian invaders (free; findlatercastle.com). Culbin Forest, near Forres, became the backdrop for Odysseus’s encounter with the giant Laestrygonians.
blockbuster The Odyssey was filmed in six countries. Lupita Nyong’o headed to Morocco to play Helen of Troy, Anne Hathaway was flown by helicopter to a hilltop on a tiny Italian island and Matt Damon, as Odysseus, was just about everywhere. Of course the Mediterranean features, including parts of Greece, but Nolan introduced into the mix some distinctly left-field places, including Scotland and Iceland. Here’s how to be an Odyssey completist.
And the cast and crew seemed to like the location. Nolan bedded down at the Seafield Arms in Cullen, while Damon stayed at Bow Cottage, a four-bedroom cottage next to the hotel, and visited the Midlothian Snowsports Centre. Details Room-only doubles from £150 (seafieldarms cullen.co.uk)
Odyssey unpacked
When Odysseus and his crew return to Greece after a 20year absence, Damon wades ashore at Sunnyside beach, about an hour’s drive northwest of Aberdeen on the Moray Firth. A stretch of fine white sand surrounded by cliffs, this rugged part of Scotland also served as the setting for the castle of Aeaea,
Classicists like to debate whether Favignana was the island to which Homer was referring when Odysseus arrived to feast on goats and stock up for his voyage — its Greek name, Aegusa, translates as “Goat Island”.
into place, along with Hathaway. “I had my boots ready to go,” she said, explaining that an executive decision decreed she shouldn’t hike. “I felt terrible about it, but also great.”
to geothermal bakeries and snorkelling between tectonic plates. Details Seven nights’ B&B from £2,225pp, including flights, activities and car hire (stubbornmule.com)
SVEN HANSCHE, ALBUM, IAIN MASTERTON/ALAMY
Nolan used the Aeolians, in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, to depict the floating island of King Aeolus, keeper of the winds. The seven Aeolian islands each have highly individual landscapes that lend themselves to geographical turmoil, from the sulphurous island of Vulcano (real) or whirlpools (created for cinematic effect), while The Odyssey’s most recognisable prop, the recreated Viking longboat Draken Harald Harfagre, could be seen near the island of Lipari last summer.
The owners of Zu Nillu aren’t saying which of the cast stayed at their villa during filming but it has a star quality of its own. There are four antique-filled bedrooms, a swimming pool and gardens. And, alongside total privacy, it has terraces with timeless views over the bay of Cala Rossa, with the electric-blue waters of the Med and the other Egadi islands beyond.
In the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, the ancient mudbrick village of Ait Benhaddou is used to celluloid fame, having also appeared in Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator, as well as Game of Thrones. The village agreed to play Troy as long as The Odyssey’s technicians were careful to ensure that only the set was burnt down when the town was sacked. Scenes were also filmed at Dakhla in Western Sahara, a disputed territory mostly under the control of Morocco. The Trojan Horse comes ashore in the film at Essaouira, a popular resort west of Marrakesh.
Acrocorinth acropolis, wrapped around a hillside above the sea, and Methoni Castle in Messenia, where Agamemnon comes back to Clytemnestra (£4; methonicastle.gr), both feature, as does the staggering circular sandy beach of Voidokilia. Above the beach, albeit a stiff hike away, is another key location — the 20m-high Nestor’s Cave, used in the film as the lair of the Cyclops.
this year, complete with an expert guide in ancient Greek history. Details Three nights’ B&B at the Romanos from £1,200pp, including flights and transfers (scottdunn.com)
Details Seven nights’ self-catering for eight from £7,499 (thethinking
Key members of the crew stayed at Hotel Carasco on Lipari, a much-loved 1960s relic with a seawater pool and steps to bathing platforms on the Med, alongside unfussy bedrooms and unabashedly romantic, thoroughly Italian cuisine at its Le Terrazze restaurant. Details B&B doubles from
traveller. com).
Fly to Palermo and take the ferry from
Thanks to its popularity as a secondary school subject, Iceland gets plenty of attention from families. Now parents can add some classical enrichment to the mix, thanks to Nolan having used it to portray Hades. Most of the action centred on black-sand Reynisfjara beach, near Hjorleifshofo and the village of Vik. Just off the Golden Circle driving route, it’s not hard to reach but a family holiday can also include trips
Trapani
The rugged landscape of the Peloponnese is still full of myths and, handily, some highly luxurious places to stay. During filming the cast and crew stayed a 30-minute drive away, at Costa Navarino, which has four luxury hotels, including the Romanos — there are special Odyssey packages
Surrounded by groves of argan trees just outside Essaouira, Le Jardin des Douars is a very Moroccan slice of luxury, with two restaurants, swimming pools and spas. Details B&B doubles from £190 (mrandmrssmith.com). Fly to Essaouira
From main: Methoni Castle in Greece; Matt Damon and Zendaya
£208 (carasco.org). Fly to Catania and take the ferry from Milazzo
On Homer’s home turf, Nolan chose to focus on the Peloponnese, especially the area around Pylos. The
in the film; Findlater Castle on the Moray Firth
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Scarlet Macaw, Costa Rica
Reconnect with the untamed natural world across six spectacular Costa Rican National Parks and reserves Price includes showcasing towering volcanoes, coastal lagoons, and lush rainforest stretches.
Return lights to San José
Comfortable, air-conditioned coach travel and transfers throughout
Spectacular Arenal follows, with a resort stay in a private reserve on the outskirts of its national park. Marvel at the Arenal Volcano with a walk through its calderas and unwind in its thermal hot springs. Discover the cultural signi icance of the cacao bean with a visit to a local chocolate plantation and a chocolate-making lesson. An assortment of pre-bookable optional excursions is available at your Arenal-based resort ahead of a journey west to Monteverde for its enchanting Cloud Forest Reserve.
ell-paced visits to a collection of national parks showcase Costa Rica’s natural spaces and biodiverse ecosystems. Bookend your time with stops in the national capital, San José, with its 19th-
W
14 nights’ three or four-star mixedboard accommodation in San José (two nights), Tortuguero (two nights), Sarapiqui (two nights), Arenal (three nights), Monteverde (two nights) and Manuel Antonio (three nights) plus one night aboard the aircraft
century architecture. Take to nearby Poás Volcano National Park for an introduction to some of Costa Rica’s most dramatic landscapes and discover the history of Doka Co ee Estate.
A tour of San José follows ahead of a journey, through Braulio Carrillo National Park’s woodland, to the Atlantic Coast. An immersive eco-lodge stay in Pachira Lodge, set in the heart of coastal Tortuguero, o ers opportunities to engage with local communities and learn about the nation’s conservation e orts with a visit to the Sea Turtle Conservancy Centre. Follow a wildlife-spotting cruise along Tortuguero National Park’s backwaters with a drive to Sarapiqui. From here, uncover the farming techniques of one of Costa Rica’s most unique crops, the Heart of Palm, and embrace the region’s rainforest. A photo stop at the famous Puente de las Iguanas bridge completes your time in the country’s northern regions.
Explore Costa Rica’s natural wonders from above with a walk through the mist-covered canopy via the region’s hanging bridges. Then take in Carrara National Park, Central America’s only transition forest, for further chances to spot some of its most elusive species and migratory birds. Conclude an unforgettable wildlife-spotting experience with a inal pause on the Costa Rican Paci ic Coast, exploring the country’s smallest national park, Manuel Antonio. Lastly, relax with a beach stay in Manuel Antonio before heading back to San José for the return light.
Take in the natural splendours of Poás Volcano National Park and the biodiversity of Carara National Park
Enjoy guided walk into Monteverde’s Cloud Forest Reserve
Visit to Arenal Thermal Hotsprings
Fully escorted by a friendly, experienced tour manager
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Puerto Limón, Costa Rica
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*Save up to 15% applies to select tour bookings made by July 30, 2026 and cannot be applied retrospectively to bookings already confi rmed. Offer applies to select tours only and cannot be combined with any other offer. Exclusions apply. Prices shown include discount. Single supplements apply. Prices correct at time of print. These holidays are organised and operated by Newmarket Holidays Ltd, a company wholly independent of News UK. ABTOT 5509. ATOL protected 2325. ABTA V7812. Standard phone charges apply.
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See Greenland
by ferry
travelled unbroken across the Labrador Sea from Canada.
To either side of us, rough, pumice-stone mountains were punctuated with glaciers that pooled down to meet the water.
450-mile stretch from Ilulissat to Nuuk; Greenland cruises usually take at least a week and cost upwards of £4,000pp.
and a lounge area. Our cabin was far from spacious and what little floor space there was between the two sets of bunk beds was taken up by our backpacks. But we had a porthole and a private bathroom with a shower.
Ship’s rations were served
on trays, and for Val and me vegetarians — there was a diet of rice and potatoes (no sauce). Others had the luxury of some unidentifiable meat. I saw the light
Ilulissat
We were a group of four. My friend Kyle is game for anything and has not once turned down an adventure because of potential discomfort. He trusts me, but his partner, Darren, thinking fondly of his all-inclusive Caribbean cruise that year, had been under the impression we were going on a far grander vessel, probably with rosé on tap.
Sisimiut Maniitsoq
GREENLAND
— and the memory of fish platters and all-you-can-drink piña coladas — leave Darren’s eyes.
We set sail into the sunset through the Ilulissat Icefjord. Many of the icebergs were colossal, bigger than the ferry, and most shone like polished teeth fresh from a visit to the hygienist. Some, though, were covered in dirt. These were the icebergs that had never calved and rolled, still carrying the muck they’d been dusted with when they’d been part of the Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier, one of the fastest-moving glaciers in the world. Some of the icebergs last for years after breaking off from the glacier, which makes for some pretty old grime.
Nuuk
The meals may not have been Michelin standard, but just like a cruise ship (only infinitely greener — the typical carbon emissions of a foot passenger travelling by ferry are a fraction of those on a cruise ship) the Sarfaq Ittuk made regular stops. Most of these stops were barely long enough to feel stable ground beneath our feet, but at 9am on the second day we docked in Sisimiut for two hours.
From top: a whale fluke off Ilulissat; the Sarfaq Ittuk ferry; houses on a hillside in Qaqortoq
The fourth explorer was my partner, Val. It was taking time for him to acquire his sea legs and he didn’t find my quoting of Titanic and Jaws — nor tales about Sedna, the Inuit sea goddess who had all her fingers cut off before being thrown into the depths of the ocean by her father
Qaqortoq
200miles
wall of water was all I could see through the scratched windows in the canteen of the Sarfaq Ittuk ferry. Every few seconds it was replaced
A
— nearly as entertaining as I did. He looked quite green around the gills.
The former whaling town is Greenland’s second city, but that means a population of about 5,500. At 9am it seemed all but deserted, save for dozens of sled dogs guarding houses that looked as though they were made from corrugated iron in all the colours of a Crayola pack. Ice-varnished steps led to an 18th-century church, boarded up, and flaking wooden sledges lay propped against buildings. Just as our legs began to lose their wobbliness we were off again.
The onboard safety video played in the communal canteen almost constantly, though it was more of an etiquette briefing. If we hit an iceberg or a gianttoothed megalodon appeared from the depths, I’d have been lost. However, I did know that we shouldn’t smoke weed in the loos nor get drunk and disorderly. Most of the Greenlandic passengers had clearly ignored the briefing video and were well on their way to getting sloshed. The canteen was where most people hung out all day, ourselves included, though there was also a cinema room
by barren, snow-capped peaks as our boat rolled in the Arctic swell. We lunged to catch wine glasses and playing cards, lurching from one side of the bench to the other. It was easy to spot the locals: stoical, solid, swaying with the boat.
We could spot the icebergs long after the sun had set, but the real show began before many of the stars appeared. Greenlanders say that the northern lights are the souls of lost children playing football with walrus skulls. Seen through our phone cameras the lights were a dazzling emerald; with the naked eye they were closer to the colour of Val’s skin as the boat rocked.
The Sarfaq Ittuk, operated by Arctic Umiaq Line, runs up and down the west coast of Greenland once a week, linking the town of Ilulissat in the Arctic Circle with Qaqortoq in the southwestern fjords. In a country where the longest road is 31 miles long and flights make British trains look punctual, it’s often the most reliable mode of transport. I’d paid £250 plus a £50 meal supplement for the 38-hour,
At ports further down the coast — such
Going to bed was like trying to fall asleep on a bucking bronco. We slid from one end of the bunk to the other, violently but rhythmically. Oddly, I found myself lulled. There’s always calm after a storm,
That evening we ate more rice and potatoes, played more cards and drank more wine (a rather vinegary Chilean cabernet sauvignon for £30 a bottle). There was one choice of mystery meat dish a day, or a potato-based vegetarian alternative if ordered before the trip, but a hotel-buffet-worthy spread of pickles.
I distinguished myself by losing the cabin keys and making the three men empty their pockets and luggage (they were in my purse). Then, trussing ourselves up like turkeys, we watched the bright green lights of the walrus skull football stadium light up the sky once more. As for light pollution, there wasn’t a settlement for miles, so there was none.
Our final stop, Nuuk, was a shock after the fjords. The capital has a population of 20,000, as well as banks, highways and blocks of flats. It felt like London
and ours came in the morning when
we arrived in the fjords and the wind and waves no longer
KENWIEDEMANN, OLGA GAVRILOVA/GETTY IMAGES; ROBERT WALLWORK/ALAMY
I’m usually all about the destination, but this trip was definitely for the journey.
Anna Richards travelled independently. Arctic Umiaq Line has two nights’ room only on the Sarfaq Ittuk from Ilulissat to Nuuk from £250pp (aul.org). Fly to Ilulissat via Copenhagen or Reykjavik
14 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
gave up counting my trips to Cape Town when I got to my 30th visit. I first went three decades ago when I worked for an Earls Court travel agency that specialised in
Clockwise from below left: Neighbourgoods Market; a pool at the Mount Nelson hotel; Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles; cabins at 7 Koppies; Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
I
discounted flights for backpackers and homesick South Africans. I’d boarded a British Airways plane on a dank, foggy winter’s night at Heathrow and stepped off the next morning into the middle of high summer with Table Mountain casting a magical pull that’s never eased. There’s definitely something about “the Mother City” that puts a spring in my step and it’s not just the advantageous exchange rate. A foot-dragging jog around my corner of northwest London is always a chore. But my pace is magically full of zip while pounding alongside the Atlantic Ocean in Bantry Bay on a sundappled morning, plotting which lavish mansion I’ll buy if the blockbuster novel that lurks at the back of my head ever gets finished.
A 30-year
Unfortunately crime is a problem in South Africa, although it generally occurs in areas where tourists would never go. My advice is to be aware but not paranoid. If you’re renting a car, never leave anything visible inside.
Cape crusade
Over the years I’ve compiled a list of favourite spots I’ve shared with friends,
If it’s your first time and you can push the boat out on accommodation, the Cape Grace hotel should be your top choice. Once you step through the doors, it’s such a calm experience, with exemplary service, contemporary design and a great location (B&B doubles from £799; fairmont.com). And it’s just a short walk away from the V&A Waterfront, where you’ll find lots of shops, cafés, restaurants and the ferry to Robben Island. I’ve recommended it to my parents-in-law.
Will Hide shares the best places to eat, drink and stay in Cape Town, which has a magical pull for him
Another contender for grande dame status is the Mount Nelson, which has been celebrated since it opened in 1899 (B&B doubles from £912; belmond.com). There’s a bustling feel about the place and the Pink Lady, as it is known, is almost a village unto itself. The air of history isn’t overwhelming or fusty, and in fact there’s quite a fresh vibe. This is most evident in some of the signature suites, the Planet bar — a glass of local fizz is just £7 — and over a seafoodthemed dinner at Amura, where Spanish and South African influences mix under the auspices of the renowned Spanish chef Ángel León (mains from £10). Even if you’re not staying here, you can pop in for afternoon tea. Book in advance (£29) and feel free to dress up a bit for the occasion.
and Camps Bay, the latter having the edge for beachside dining and drinking spots, but prices here go ballistic over Christmas and new year.
which makes self-catering an easy option. For those looking beyond the more familiar global platforms, Nox Rentals is a local company I’ve used successfully before, with a portfolio that spans everything from boltholes for two to spacious homes for multigenerational trips or celebratory gatherings. Right now it has two nights in a two-bedroom Green Point apartment from £212 (noxrentals.com).
Out of town, Llandudno has a fantastic beach and, if you’ve done Cape Town a few times and fancy a change, Kalk Bay gets livelier each time I visit and has my favourite café for breakfast, the no-fuss Olympia, where a baked croissant with ham, mustard and mozzarella is £3.30 (olympiacafe.co.za).
Standout stay The Zest boutique hotel is a great combo of service, facilities and location, all at a decent price
Cape Town’s beaches are one of its joys. There are four coves at Clifton, backed by Africa’s priciest real estate. Clifton Third beach is popular with the LGBT community, Clifton Fourth more so
One of the great joys of Cape Town is dining out, not least because of what good value it is compared with the UK. For breakfast or brunch downtown my go-to is Clarke’s on Bree Street. Head straight
Who will love it? From backpacker to splurger, there are food and accommodation options for all budgets
with families. Camps Bay, around the corner, is a photographer’s
My go-to on recent visits has been Zest boutique hotel, a small spot near Green Point with 14 rooms (B&B doubles from £197; thelivingjourney collection.co.za). It has welcoming staff and a lovely garden with a pool, which is unusual for midrange hotels in town. It serves a decent breakfast and the rooms have a modern design, with bathrooms that, in some, are quite integrated into the space: great for a sense of openness but not always ideal if you prefer a bit more privacy.
dream, backed by the Twelve Apostles Mountains, and a
strip of cafés, restaurants and shops. Bloubergstrand is the place to head at sunset for a classic Table Mountain-in-thebackground photo.
Something about ‘the Mother City’ puts a spring in my step
Insider tip Uber is ubiquitous in Cape Town, so you don’t need a hire car. Fares are low, so please tip generously
Oranjezicht is one of my favourite neighbourhoods,
especially with the restaurants
and shops of buzzy Kloof Street nearby. And the coastal suburb of Sea Point surprised me on my most recent visit. Pre-Covid, I thought it was looking a bit shabby, but these days the area is clearly on the up. There’s no beach but there is the fantastic pool at Sea Point Pavilion — actually four pools, the longest of which is 50m (£1.70; capetown.gov.za). The swankiest spots in town are Clifton
If you tend to prefer apartments to hotels, Cape Town offers a wide range of places to stay and you’re rarely far from a Woolworths (which is like a South African M&S) or Pick n Pay supermarket,
for the Nutella-stuffed French toast with honey, bourbon banana and bacon, which is £7.50 (clarkesdining.co. za). On Waterkant Street, Hemelhuijs is an equally laid-back alternative (hemelhuijs.co.za). At the weekend don your flip-flops and sunnies to enjoy flat whites, fresh-pressed juices, decadently calorific pastries and the like at Neighbourgoods Market in Woodstock (theoldbiscuitmill. co.za) and Oranjezicht City Farm Market in Granger Bay (ozcf.co. za). Another weekend tip in summer is to pack a picnic and go to one of the Sunday evening concerts at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens where you might see the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, soulful Thandiswa Mazwai or local Gen Z pop star Will Linley (sanbi.org).
menus from £109; lacolombe.restaurant).
MICHAL KRAKOWIAK, SPHRANER/GETTY IMAGES; SPHRANER/ALAMY; MOOBATTO/SHUTTERSTOCK
It’s easy to look in only one direction in Cape Town and make believe you’re in an African version of “California meets south of France”, but that would be to ignore
how most residents live. I would absolutely recommend
visiting a township, although of course, you
don’t want your trip to be voyeuristic. I’ve always used the local company Coffeebeans, which can organise itineraries such as food tours, political history walking tours and jazz evenings (City Futures tour for four from £290pp;
coffeebeansroutes.com). In the winelands there are
lots of lovely options for accommodation but my latest discovery was 7 Koppies, a few miles out of Franschhoek and a slice of pure heaven. Perched on top of a hill, with only five bedrooms, it’s set in 50 hectares of fynbos (indigenous shrubland) within a working farm. It makes a great bolt hole if you want a few nights out of the city or a base to explore all the local vineyards (B&B doubles from £223; 7koppies.co.za).
For lunch with a view head to the rooftop restaurant at the Silo Hotel usually for guests only but you can snag a table if you call ahead (mains from £13; theroyalportfolio.com). I always include dinner at the Pot Luck Club, on the top floor of the Old Biscuit Mill (mains from £11; thepotluckclub.co.za), but some recent favourites I’ve added to my list include Belly of the Beast (lunchtime tasting menu £39; bellyofthebeast.co.za) and Fyn, where I recently had a really outstanding meal (tasting menu from £113; fynrestaurant.com).
Some final advice. If you’re heading east to the Garden Route, don’t take the boring N2 motorway: slow down and go on the R62. It turns the journey into part of the holiday, especially if you can overnight in Montagu, Robertson or Barrydale. If you have time, make a side trip to quirky, pretty Prince Albert in the Little Karoo, but make sure your hire car has the oomph to get over the steep Swartberg Pass.
Babel at Babylonstoren, an hour’s drive out of town, is a restaurant I always return to for its seasonally changing menu, and with some advance planning you can make an afternoon of it by booking a spa treatment there too (set menu from £32, 60-minute treatments from £95;babylonstoren.com). La Colombe in Constantia Nek is the spot for a birthday splurge (tasting
And if you’ve already done the Garden Route, consider a side trip out of Cape Town to Swartland instead, home to some of South Africa’s most exciting independent winemakers. Then head west to the seaside at Paternoster where a meal at chef Kobus van der Merwe’s outstanding Wolfgat, with space for just 20 diners, should be on everyone’s must-do list (tasting menus from £66; wolfgat.co.za).
Robben Island
I can hear you shouting over your marmalade, “I can’t believe he hasn’t mentioned X, Y and Z!” but I’m out of space so do let me know your favourites. Maybe I’ll see you there, on a morning hike up Lion’s Head, over calamari and chips at the Chapman’s Peak hotel or sipping a sundowner in Camps Bay, where we can say cheers over a chilled glass of 2024 Full on Misfit, my latest Cape obsession.
Oranjezicht City Farm Market
Sea Point Zest Pavilion
Cape Grace
Neighbourgoods Market
Bantry Bay
Mount Nelson
CAPE TOWN
Table Mountain
SOUTH AFRICA
Will Hide was a guest of British Airways, which has return flights to Cape Town and a week’s car hire from £1,099pp (ba.com)
Kirstenbosch 1 mile Botanical Gardens
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Embark on an extraordinary escape from Sri Lanka’s ancient wonders and misty tea-covered hills to the crystal-clear waters and pristine beaches of the Maldives.
12 nights in four-star accommodation
down the pace. Spend ive days of ultimate relaxation on its tropical shores, in a handpicked all inclusive resort, lat out on the sand, snorkelling in the life- illed waters, or indulging in spa treatments. Return home refreshed, rejuvenated and full of wonderful stories of your adventures.
culture in Kandy before taking the scenic train up into the cool, tea-plantation-blanketed highlands, staying in Nuwara Eliya.
egin by exploring the highlights of Sri
B
12 breakfasts, 11 lunches and 12 dinners
Lanka, journeying from the relaxed, seaside resort of Negombo into the
heart of the Cultural Triangle. Here you’ll marvel at the ancient Sigiriya Rock Fortress and take an adventurous safari through the wilds of Minneriya National Park. Soak up
Explore the Unesco-listed ruins atop the 600ft Sigiriya Rock Fortress and admire the views
Return to Colombo and ly to the Maldives, where pristine beaches, crystal clear waters and abundant marine life await to slow
Jeep safari in Minneriya National Park to see elephants, sloth bears and more
Tour a Sri Lankan tea factory and plantation
Touring with guides and entrance fees
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This is the ideal combination of destinations! Discover the many wonders of Sri Lanka, its culture, wildlife and scenic beauty, before hopping over to the Maldives for some all out relaxation on paradise beaches.
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*Prices listed are based on two sharing a twin/double room. Single supplement on request. Flights on holidays booked more than 11 months in advance may be subject to supplements when airline fares are published. Operated by and subject to the booking conditions of Wendy Wu, ABTA W7994 ATOL 6639, a company wholly independent of News UK. Offer discount already applied, book July 31, 2026.
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The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 19
INDIA HOBSON; ANNA BATCHELOR
Baslow
The Devonshire Arms
Hassop
The Cavendish Hotel
Chatsworth House
Edensor
Bakewell
1 mile
Beeley
him John, as lords and ladies referred to all of their footmen for ease, and tells us about the renovation work completed by his master, the 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858). We soon come to enjoy Matthew’s charming persona — even more when he is able to take us through a number of shortcuts around the house, beating the crowds. Most of the visitors, many of them in Regency dress, are intent on taking photos in the breathtaking painted hallway.
Austen without
In the sculpture gallery, the shrouded lady who features in the film is a Vestal Virgin, and was commissioned by the duke in 1846 for a £60 deposit. The sculpture of Macfadyen as Mr Darcy, meanwhile, has been moved to the gift shop, with a sign warning visitors “Please
the bonnets
do not kiss!” Most exciting of all, Matthew procures a huge key and a walkie-
talkie to let us into Belvedere Tower, a part of the house usually closed to guests. Inside is a beautiful ballroom and theatre, all painted curtains and creaking wooden
boiled potatoes” on the menu) but on fresh, seasonal produce, sourced locally, just as a 19thcentury cook would have done. The main event, however, comes the following day, with our visit to Chatsworth House itself. Beyond the chic interiors, delicious food and friendly staff, perhaps the biggest benefit of staying at the Cavendish is that you can walk 20 to 30 minutes to Chatsworth on a quiet path along a river: no need to drive. It means you can experience your first sight of the house as Elizabeth Bennet once did: “A large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills.”
From potted shrimps to private tours, Chatsworth’s new package is the ultimate Jane Austen getaway, says Laura Hackett
floorboards, with stunning views over the estate. You
usually need to book a personal tour (£85pp) or a proposal
package (£950) to access the tower, so it was a real treat to see inside it as part
boutique hotel, which was named the Sunday Times Best Place to Stay in 2025. It is no surprise, then, that every detail has been carefully considered. The walls are drenched in rich, dusky colours, all greens and mauves. There’s a sunny terrace for drinks and dining and a cosy lounge for cocktails.
am always in the market for a literary holiday. I don’t just mean a holiday where I can spread out by the pool with a book (although those are great too), but a trip
of the tour.
I
After saying goodbye to Matthew (we resist calling him John), we explore the house and gardens at our leisure. The House of Stories exhibition on now, which explores Chatsworth’s connection to literature, features a first edition of Pride and Prejudice, Paradise Lost and a fragment from The Canterbury Tales. My favourite part, however, is a little reading room for visitors, full of Austen novels and histories of the house, and some very comfortable armchairs. We have afternoon tea in the stables (a tradition that strictly did not exist in the Regency era, but when the sandwiches are this good, who are we to quibble?) and then walk back to Baslow, very much at our leisure.
From main: the Cavendish Hotel in Baslow; afternoon tea at Chatsworth; a room at the Cavendish
connected to a particular novel. I’ve visited Naples and Ischia to get a peek at the world of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series. I’ve stayed in Harrogate on the trail of a disappearing Agatha Christie. And, yes, I’ve made a pilgrimage to Bath, the spiritual home of Jane Austen, bursting at the corset seams with novelty tea shops and empire waistlines.
Historic duchesses of Devonshire have inspired the room names of some of the 28 rooms. My husband and I are in the Spencer room, after Georgiana Spencer, who grew up at Althorp (like her greatgreat-great-great-niece, Diana Spencer),
We are met at the ornate golden gates by Matthew, our tour guide, who tells us that of the 690,000 people who visit Chatsworth each year, a significant proportion come because of the Austen connection. We don’t know for sure whether she visited the house itself, but we know that her parents did, likely paying the housekeeper for a tour as Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle do in Pride and Prejudice. Even more crucially,
and married the Duke of Devonshire in
I have to confess, though, that I found the bonnets of Bath a little overwhelming: I would rather visit a literary location and immerse myself in it imaginatively than get dressed up and start reciting famous passages. Enter Chatsworth’s Regency Escape, which might just be the perfect balance between immersion and elegance.
the 2008 film The Duchess, which was also filmed at Chatsworth House (and also stars Keira Knightley).
It’s the perfect balance between immersion and elegance
On our final evening we eat in Baslow village itself, in the Devonshire Arms, where we enjoy not only the venison pie, but also very friendly service (mains from £17, thedevonshirebaslow.com). There are so many characterful old villages to explore in the surrounding areas Edensor, Bakewell, Beeley, Hassop — as well as the Peak District itself, with its glorious walks and views. But you might find, as we did, that the grounds of Chatsworth itself (all 1,000 acres of them), and that little walk between it and the Cavendish, is more than enough to sustain you for a very refined weekend of Regency bliss — without the dressing up.
it’s said that Austen stayed in the nearby village of Bakewell while completing the final revision of the novel.
Once settled in, we head to the Gallery Restaurant for a Regency dinner. I had been a little anxious about
These key facts conveyed, Matthew switches into full Regency footman mode, informing us that we are welcome to call
this element of the weekend: what if we were served turtle soup? Calf hearts? Eels in wine? Ragout of pigs’ ears and feet? Luckily, the chefs at the Gallery have taken a discerning approach to Regency-era food. My ragout has asparagus and peas rather than pigs’ ears, while my husband wolfs down his potted shrimps on hot buttered toast. For the main, his lamb came straight from the Chatsworth Estate, while my chicken fricassee is served with morels, a wild mushroom that was a luxury item in Austen’s day. They have a slightly odd texture, but a rich, truffly taste. The emphasis here is not on copying specific recipes (as much as I’d have loved to have spotted Mr Collins’s favoured “excellent
Chatsworth House in Derbyshire is a hallowed location for any Austen fan. As well as being home to the dukes and duchesses of Devonshire for almost 500 years, it is widely believed to be the inspiration for Mr Darcy’s estate, Pemberley, in Pride and Prejudice. It is also — crucially — the filming location for Pemberley in Joe Wright’s 2005 film adaptation, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. Now, working with the nearby Cavendish Hotel in Baslow, Chatsworth is offering a new two-night package, specifically designed for Austen fans.
Laura Hackett was a guest of Chatsworth Escapes, which has two night’s full board from £498pp, including a bespoke Regency tour, Chatsworth House & Garden tickets throughout your stay, afternoon tea and a Regency-themed dinner (chatsworthescapes.co.uk)
The Cavendish is an utterly gorgeous
Travel US
MARKUS MAINKA, DANITA DELIMONT, SANDRA FOYT/ALAMY; TRIGGERPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
ervers weave between booths at Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago, ferrying sugar-dusted doughnut holes to tables and topping up brimming mugs of drip coffee.
Albuquerque
Chicago
USA
Gallup Winslow
Kansas City
Trinidad Raton Pass
ILLINOIS
Flagstaff
A neon sign glows shamrock-green above diners digging into hash browns and sunny-side-up eggs. I’ve reached the unofficial starting point of Route 66.
CALIFORNIA
Alton
NEW MEXICO
ARIZONA
“Lou Mitchell’s predates Route 66,” says Stetson Siler, a volunteer guide with the Chicago Greeter programme, offering free walking tours. “It’s a block from Union station too, so it’s always busy.” Many visitors leave Lou Mitchell’s bound for America’s most famed highway, but I’ll be boarding an Amtrak train and following a route that shadows Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Route 66 by rail
Mojave desert
Los Angeles
Santa Monica
200 miles
bluff-top Tara Point Inn and Cottages before returning to the station.
A train might seem an odd way to tackle one of the world’s ultimate road trips, yet long before Route 66 was established in 1926, railways linked many of the communities it later connected.
This time I board the Missouri River Runner, which carries me west. For a fleeting moment, the mist-smudged Gateway Arch, a monument to westward expansion, emerges above the St Louis skyline before slipping behind the trees. We continue along the river and, by evening, roll into Kansas City. I spend 24 hours here, using the free KC Streetcar to explore neighbourhoods including River Market, with its weekend farmers’ market, and the Crossroads arts district before returning to Union station for an overnight ride on the Southwest Chief.
The highway is an icon, synonymous with burger-slinging diners, retro motels and neon-lit nostalgia. Less celebrated are the rail tracks beside it, offering the same wide-angled views and Americana.
Siler guides me along the original Route 66, stopping at LuLu’s Hot Dogs on Leavitt Street, where sharp humour is a house speciality, then pausing at Navy Pier, where a sparkling sign proclaims: “The Road Starts Here”. Siler points out that the route officially begins on East Adams Street, whose sticker-battered sign has become a pilgrimage point for devotees.
This service traces its roots to the Santa Fe railway’s Super Chief, launched in 1937 and nicknamed the “train of the stars” for its popularity with Hollywood elite such
Route 66
as Dean Martin and Judy Garland. It still carries passengers from Chicago to Los Angeles over 43 viewsoaked hours, its tracks
A few hours later I’m standing beneath the skylight at Union station. Opened in 1925 it served as a gateway to the west, when the stockyards and railroads of Chicago earned it the nickname “city of big shoulders”. Today travellers spill across the beaux-arts Great Hall, waiting for trains bound for all corners of the country.
repeatedly converging with and peeling away from Route 66. While the highway crosses only a sliver of Kansas, the Southwest Chief carries
The tracks converge with and peel away from the road
— by train
me clear across the state.
I sleep through the journey in my compact cabin, waking to
Among the departures is Southwest Chief, Amtrak’s flagship Chicago-Los Angeles service. I save that for later, instead boarding the Lincoln service, which follows Route 66 more closely across Illinois. We rattle out of Chicago, the skyline flattening into farmland, with grain elevators replacing glass towers.
the plains of eastern Colorado, where pronghorns vault across the high desert and I eat breakfast in the dining car.
The Southwest Chief also offers the chance to discover Trinidad, a pocketsized town that prospered on the Santa Fe Trail before booming with the railroad’s arrival in the 1870s. Its Victorian buildings now house thrift stores and cafés. Back aboard, the landscape heaves upwards as the train climbs scenic Raton Pass.
The Lincoln service is simpler than the Southwest Chief, with no observation lounge or dining car, but the seats are comfortable and the windows large as we charge through the prairie state.
New Mexico delivers landscapes to fuel the imagination, with sagebrush-scattered ranchland unfurling in cinematic sweeps beneath the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. On one horizon a rainstorm gathers; on the other Route 66 ribbons beside the tracks under a blue sky. Travellers with more time could hop off to explore Albuquerque, strolling on
This is the way to mark the centenary of the route and soak up the scenery from Chicago to Los Angeles, says Jacqui Agate
I arrive in Alton, Illinois, after dark. Although this little town is about 30 minutes’ drive from the nearest section of Route 66, it captures much of the road’s spirit with its quirky gift shops and mighty Mississippi River views. I spend the night up the river in Grafton, checking into the
lively taphouses and the
observatory where Pluto was discovered. It embraces its heritage with centenary programming at Lowell Observatory and a special exhibition at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Wagon Road to Mother Road explores the transport routes that
opened up the southwest, from the Beale Wagon Road carved out
in the 1850s to the railroad and Route 66 (adults £14; musnaz.org). “They called Route 66 the ‘main street
of America’, because you’re not just going through big cities, you’re going through small towns,” says the museum’s Kristan Hutchison. “If we get off the beaten path and connect with people, our experiences become more powerful.
Clockwise from far left: a restored service station on Route 66 in Arizona; the Southwest Chief service in New Mexico; the Kansas CIty skyline; a diner in Albuquerque; a Route 66 sign in Chicago
“The train also does something beautiful that even zipping down the highway in a car doesn’t. It brings you together with other people. That’s what many of us are nostalgic for: a kind of travel that’s slower and more connected.”
Between Illinois and Arizona I’d fallen into easy conversations with Amish travellers bound for Mexico, a woman crossing the country from Los Angeles to Chicago, to reunite with her mother, and crew members who had spent decades criss-crossing America’s rails.
I cross the state line into palm-studded Needles, California, which is folded into the sunbaked Mojave desert. The day here is spent wandering past faded signs and Route 66 murals and stopping for a beer at the Red Dog Saloon, a beloved dive bar packed with regulars (914 W Broadway Street).
My last overnight journey whisks me across California and, as the train rolls into Los Angeles, the skyline rises from a morning haze. Route 66 can feel lost in the tangle of LA freeways, but diners and retro motels still evoke its golden age. You can follow an original section along Santa Monica Boulevard, where the old-school Barney’s Beanery bar dates from the 1920s and has been frequented by rock legends from Jim Morrison to Janis Joplin. Even beyond, the road hotels such as the Garland in North Hollywood echo the golden age with palm-fringed pools and mid-century design (room-only doubles from £190; thegarland.com).
GOOD TO KNOW
Where is it? Following the Route 66 journey by rail from Chicago to Los Angeles
Who will love it? Road-trippers, rail-trippers, nostalgia-travel fiends
But the curtain call comes in Santa Monica, the beachy city just west of Los Angeles. The Southwest Chief may not run all the way to the Pacific, but the route’s western terminus is only a lightrail (or Uber) journey away. I check into Casa del Mar, an Italian Renaissancerevival masterpiece that commands the beachfront and celebrates its own centennial this year (room-only doubles from £530; hotelcasadelmar.com).
nations to the generations of Hispanic families whose roadside businesses became fixtures of the highway. (Don’t miss breakfast at Jerry’s, where eggs and sopaipillas come smothered in New Mexican red or green chilli.)
past the town, Winslow found new life by celebrating the very history that once seemed destined to fade. Today another one of those shields brightens the road, shops heave with related trinkets and a mural pays tribute to the Eagles’ Take It Easy, whose “standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona” lyric made the town famous. At La Posada I toast the centenary with a themed margarita.
Central Avenue or grabbing a milkshake
My home for the night, Hotel El Rancho, is rustic yet neon-drenched, its deer heads and Navajo-style rugs conjuring images of old westerns. John Wayne was once a frequent guest; today a convoy of motorcyclists in themed
Insider tip Amtrak services are prone to delays, so bring plenty of snacks, avoid planning too tightly and allow about two weeks to enjoy the journey
“Route 66 saw the merging of cultures,” says Patrice Carpenter from the Rex museum. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I learnt things from this exhibit.” She also explains how the arrival of Interstate 40 in the 1960s diverted traffic from its towns, a decline that was accelerated when the road was decommissioned in 1985, as motorists increasingly chose to travel on the new, speedy interstate highways. Communities were forced to reinvent themselves through tourism.
Next up is Flagstaff, Arizona, a funky mountain college town that pairs Route 66 Americana with trail-laced peaks,
Tacos overlooking the Pacific are followed by a guided cycle along the boardwalk with Bikes and Hikes LA (from £145pp; bikesandhikesla.com).
a giant Route-66 shield is painted on the wall beside the station, framed by bold geometric patterns inspired by the region’s indigenous Navajo Nation.
It feels only right to seek out the “66 End of the Trail” sign, which rises against a backdrop of crashing surf, rollercoasters and palm trees at Santa Monica Pier a last, satisfying slice of Americana.
More than half the route — some 1,372
miles — crosses indigenous lands. The Gallup Cultural Center in the historic Santa Fe railway depot introduces visitors to the area’s Native communities through Acoma pottery, Hopi Kachina dolls and Navajo ceremonial baskets.
That’s true of Winslow, Arizona, my next stop on the Southwest Chief. I watch our approach through the giant windows of the observation car. The sky blushes pink and the desert burns red as flattopped mesas stretch across the horizon.
Standing beside the Pacific, it’s easy to understand why Route 66 has lured motorists west for a century. I may have swapped four wheels for steel rails, but the journey — with all its characters, quirks and nostalgia — loses none of its magic.
Those hoping to buy directly from indigenous makers, however, will mostly need to go elsewhere. Gallup’s sprawling trading posts, their shelves stacked with patterned rugs and silver jewellery, largely trace their roots to the Anglo-run businesses that once dominated commerce across the southwest.
Winslow owes its existence to the railroad, flourishing as the Santa Fe railway boomed in the 1800s. Route 66 ushered in a second golden age, and the hospitality magnate Fred Harvey opened La Posada, a sprawling Spanish colonial revival hotel whose plant-filled courtyards and peach stucco overlook the tracks. As Americans began swapping trains for cars and the highway roared
Jacqui Agate was a guest of America As You Like It, which has 15 nights — a mix of room-only hotel stays and B&B sleeper trains — from £2,159pp, including flights to Chicago and from Los Angeles and Amtrak travel between Chicago and Los Angeles (americaasyoulikeit.com)
I wander the streets of Gallup before finding the Rex museum, where a centennial exhibition explores everything from the influence of Route 66 on Native
ferry to another island for dinner, as we did to Donso, ten minutes away. The evening we spent at the alfresco café Popsicle, run by two local sisters, exceeded our expectations. The food is more playful than traditional: think lemongrass mussels with fried new potatoes and moreish seaweed cream cheese with crackers. It becomes a real scene on live music nights we watched a choir of 20 sing moving Swedish songs
(mains from £11; popsicle.nu).
Clockwise from left: Gothenburg Museum of Art; the city skyline; the main village on the island of Vrango; cinnamon buns at Café Husaren
As for how else to fill your days, it’s all about being outdoors. The friendly staff at our hotel can help with that, organising guided tours from seaweed foraging adventures to kayak trips. We tried the latter with the softly spoken Morten and it was a highlight (£37pp for three hours). My mum was nervous, but he set us at ease, guiding us past boats in the harbour to hug the coastline dotted with native wild pink roses and bright
GOTHENBURG
Pigalle
SWEDEN
Donso Kajkanten Vrango
5 miles
Double delights
othenburg on Sweden’s west coast is, for me, the perfect summer city
Combine buzzy Gothenburg with its blissfully laid-back archipelago, says Lizzie Frainier
break. It combines the obvious appeal of a city rich with fish-focused restaurants and intriguing museums with the added benefit of 20 proper islands in its beguiling car-free archipelago, which is divided into two — northern and southern.
Bronze Age burial cairns from early settlements.
the island, the family-run Kajkanten Vrango, which has turned traditional boathouses around the charming harbour into simple self-catering stays. Naturally they are kitted out with Ikea finds and they range from doubles to family set-ups, with space to sleep seven snugly. The name in Swedish means quayside, and the best are those facing the water.
The northern route is slightly longer and has its fair share of pretty coves and wild beaches with oystercatchers and terns for company, but the southern loop provided our favourite: sandy and grassy Notholmen with its refreshing shallow waters. If you want to submerge yourself, you’ll find a smattering of bathing ladders that deposit you into deeper waters, for example at Kohalla or the Swimming Pier, near the harbour. Jellyfish are also fans of Vrango, but they aren’t hard to avoid and I’m told in high summer they sink into the depths.
I visited with my mum in late June, starting our long weekend with two nights on the smallest and southernmost inhabited island of Vrango, a 30-minute ferry ride from Saltholmen port. You can just explore for the day, but I didn’t want to miss out on its much celebrated sunsets, which at this time of year don’t kick off until after 10pm.
The hotel even has its own floating cabin, which you can hire privately for a few hours (from £116). Inside there’s a kitchen and large wood-burning sauna with views; outside a hot tub, ladder for cold dips and tables for picnicking.
The island is home to fewer than 400 residents, who live in traditional bright white and Falun red clapboard houses in its centre, with two ruggedly beautiful nature reserves on either side. Each has its own hiking route, which provide an excellent way to get to grips with the striking rocky topography and laid-back vibe of Vrango.
From the harbour you can spot the island’s highest point: a rocky outcrop topped with a burgundy-painted wooden hut that began life as a harbour pilot’s lookout in the 17th century, and is topped by a billowing Swedish flag. We climbed the stairs at sunset to be rewarded by a vista stretching out in every direction, the island bathed in a golden glow. It felt supremely peaceful.
Order a seafood hamper from Fiskeboa opposite for a feast of smoked blue mussels, cold-water prawns and the sweetest langoustines you will ever taste (£27pp; fiskeboadonso-vrango.se). Swedes love their mayo — it’s piled high in many dishes and the hamper comes with several different flavours, from garlic to chilli.
It is the perfect example of the concept of open-air living for which Swedes have a name: friluftsliv. It was coined by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and today it’s used across Scandinavia to describe the joy of injecting the outdoors into your everyday life. A mantra I can get on board with.
There is just one hotel on
It’s also worth catching the
My mum and I started with the southern loop of the island, which takes about 45-60 minutes to walk, depending how many times you stop to take in the view or dip your toes into the cool water (clue: a lot). The route slips in and out of sundappled woodland for panoramas across smooth granite rock formations on to the water and the uninhabited islands of Kungso and Tistlarna. Look for the birdhouses in the trees named after the child who made each one, as well as the
The Sunday Times August 2, 2026 23
yellow goldenrod. From there we found our way to a remote, barely connected finger of the island covered with sweetsmelling honeysuckle and surrounded by translucent waters. Earlier Morten, who lives on neighbouring Styrso, had whispered with a wink that Vrango was secretly his favourite in the archipelago. And it wasn’t hard to see why.
Michelin-starred Koka (tasting menu £77; restaurangkoka.se), where fish dishes such as shrimp crudo on a parsley cracker with cress emulsion are the stars of the show to the wine bar Natur, where the strawberry and lemon cake dessert encapsulated summer (mains from £16; restaurang natur.se). My favourite was the very affordable Bar Bulot, tucked beside fish shops and veg stalls in the covered Stora Saluhallen market, known for its delicate steak tartare served between heartshaped waffles (mains from £14; bulot.se).
MARSTRANDS KURHOTELL, MARSTRAND
As the country’s herring capital of the 16th and 18th centuries, Marstrand was infamous as “the most depraved town in Scandinavia”. It gentrified into a fashionable 19thcentury resort, a seaside wellness retreat 45 minutes’ drive northwest of Gothenburg where the royal family took sea dips and
sailed their yacht (they still do). The waterside spa stay Marstrands Kurhotell overlays that period elegance with Scandi chic. Black-and-white photos of beautiful yachts hang on dove-grey panelling and tall windows look across the sound. Alongside the obligatory sauna, the hotel offers lobster fishing and hiking packages. Details B&B doubles from £186 (marstrands kurhotell.com)
ISBOLAGET, DONSO
What do you do with a defunct ice house on the harbour of one of the loveliest islands in the archipelago? Turn it into a hotel, of course. Finished in austere grey, Isbolaget is a bit of an eyesore beside the pretty cottages of Donso village, about ten miles southwest of Gothenburg. Fortunately, the 14 compact rooms within are all charm, softened with walls of duckegg green, wooden floors and pops of homely Scandinavian design. You’ll breakfast on the terrace of the restaurant below, then sally forth for walks on the car-free island. Details B&B doubles £139
(isbolaget.com) James Stewart
historic buildings here are sinking like in Venice and Amsterdam because of the city’s soft marine clay and the
I was particularly happy to be travelling with my mum rather than my boyfriend when it came to the World of Volvo and the Aeroseum museum in a Cold War-era subterranean aircraft hangar we swerved both in favour of the Museum of Art, with its eye-catching collection by the 1930s Gothenburg colourists. Joyous (£6; goteborgskonst museum.se).
As well as friluftsliv, there’s another very important f-word in Sweden… and that’s fika. The art of slowing down with a coffee and a sweet treat that’s just as much about socialising as it is about a snack. You can do this on the islands, but you’ll find a greater concentration of cinnamon buns in the city.
On reflection we might have got the chronology of our Swedish summertime escape slightly back to front. If you want to master the art
We walked everywhere, racking up serious steps. It helped that we were staying slap-bang in the middle at Hotel Pigalle, a Paris-themed boutique spot with a lively rooftop terrace primed for tip-top sundowners. The excellent, heaving buffet breakfast spread — from pancakes and eggs to cheeses and granolas — is also laid on up here. Yes, the theme feels random to a British traveller, but you can’t fault the atmosphere or the reasonable rates.
We squeezed in as many as we could in 48 hours — no
of the perfect break, get your city kicks
regrets. The humongous one at the old-world Café Husaren in the cosy Haga district was bigger than my head and delicious (cafehusaren.se).
in Gothenburg proper first, then catch the ferry to take it slow — soaking up the sunsets,
DAVID TALJAT, NATHANIEL NOIR/ALAMY; XBRCHX/GETTY IMAGES; PETER_KVARNSTROM
Fika is the art of slowing down with a coffee and a sweet treat
In between we meandered through the design district Magasinsgatan with cool vintage, furniture and book shops; soaked up the sun in the city’s parks, including the Garden Society of Gothenburg (free; tradgardsresan.se) with its fragrant rose garden and tropical-plant-filled Palm House; and hopped on a boat trip (50 minutes for £21pp; stromma.com) with a guide going heavy on the dad jokes
saunas and swimming on the islands.
Either way, you’ll
arrive at the same conclusion: here you really can have it all.
Lizzie Frainier was a guest of Hotel Pigalle, which has B&B doubles from £124 (hotelpigalle.se), Kajkanten Vrango, which has roomonly doubles from £158 (kajkantenvrango.se), and Goteborg & Co (goteborg.com)
As good as the cinnamon buns are, you’ll want to save room for the many great restaurants within walking distance too — from the
— Gothenburg is known for its groan-worthy puns — but we did learn that many
The central post office in Gothenburg was given the makeover treatment almost 15 years ago to create a sophisticated stay beside the main station. So while it benefits from the dimensions of its Twenties neoclassical architecture,not least in its Norda restaurant, below, flooded with light from high arched windows — the 500room Post comes with all the comfort you would expect of a top-notch international stay . Sure, decor is a mite bland, but focus instead on the comfort and convenience that guarantee a good night. Facilities include a rooftop swimming pool with city views, plus a scattering of bars to start or end an evening. Details B&B doubles from £170 (strawberryhotels.com)
The opposite end of the scale from the Post, the 32-room Vanilla, off the pedestrianised Magasinsgatan shopping district, feels less a hotel than a stay with friends. It’s a charming, intimate spot over three floors of an
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26 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
1066
and all that
Our expert, Norman Miller, offers his guide to the best of Hastings, St Leonards and Rye
iding a little Edwardian wooden carriage up the East Hill Lift from the salty
glorious countryside areas with 1066 links: medieval Rye, the inland village of Battle (site of the decisive Normans v Saxons dust-up), plus Winchelsea — a place so picturesque that if you saw it on a screen, you’d suspect AI hallucination. Here’s my guide to the area.
R
bustle of Rock-a-Nore, the colourful paraphernalia of Europe’s largest beachlaunched fishing fleet recedes below. From high on the sandstone cliffs, I look down at Hastings old town with its Tudor and Georgian buildings before leaving the funicular and turning to wander along a slice of the King Charles III England Coastal Path across Hastings Country Park.
Head first to Hastings old town — a mazy knot of atmospheric streets and tiny cutthrough alleys known as twittens — which is ripe for exploring and a 20minute walk along the seafront from Hastings train station. On the High Street, channel Georgian vibes at the unique vintage homeware mecca AG Hendy and hunt resonant retro at the 20th-century antique specialist Goods Depot. The 16th-century Stag Inn is the oldest and loveliest pub in town, set in Tudor houses on All Saints Street.
Did William the Conqueror stand here to gaze along the coast towards the Roman fortress at Pevensey where he had come ashore to end Saxon England at the Battle of Hastings? With an army of visitors set to descend on the British Museum in London this September after the Bayeux Tapestry made its (peaceful) crossing of the Channel, there’s even more reason to explore the region dubbed 1066 Country.
contemplate its fascinating Battle Tapestry, chronicling local life in the decades after 1066 and stitched by community members in 2017. Battle Abbey, meanwhile, is the starting point for a fivemile circular battlefield trail. Where to eat Rock-a-Nore Kitchen, Hastings The atmospheric Rock-a-Nore Kitchen serves dishes including sea bream with shrimp sauce and tomato confit; open Wednesday to Sunday (mains from £17; @rockanorekitchen).
Don’t just stick to the old town, though. Just down from Hastings station, the America Ground is a tight triangle of short roads named after an 1830s enclave of free-living locals who declared themselves part of the evolving United States. It still channels an alternative vibe nowhere more than Gotham Alley off Claremont, home to quirky automata at Cabaret Mechanical Theatre.
Brighton often hogs the Sussex spotlight, and I’ve loved its chilled south coast vibes for two decades after years of London life. It’s also been a perfect base to explore a county full of unique historic towns. Take Hastings, an evolving, slightly rough-edged charmer with a calendar of memorable events — from May’s eye-popping paganrooted Jack in the Green festival, and one of the county’s best costumed bonfire marches.
Hidden away in Bottle Alley
— a 1930s glass-studded passage slipped beneath the promenade just west of Hastings Pier — is Selkie Seafood Bar. The outdoor seats are a unique spot to enjoy oysters and smoked fish (mains from £10; oysterboyevents.com). Where to stay The Laindons, Hastings A luxury Georgian bed and breakfast in the heart of Hastings old town. Each of its six antique-filled rooms is a
Six miles from Hastings (15 minutes by train to Battle, then a 15-minute walk to the village centre) is the glorious 11th-century Battle Abbey and museum (£15; englishheritage.co.uk). En route, dive into the cool of the 12thcentury St Mary’s Church to
St Leonards-on-Sea is Hastings’s conjoined Georgian sidekick, where Norman Road and Kings Road offer hipster style as tempting as Brighton’s North Laine. Plus there are
Rye
East Sussex
Battle
Winchelsea
DialAFlight
St Leonards-on-Sea
Hastings
2 miles
ANDREW HASSON/ALAMY; THE GEORGE IN RYE; ALEXEY FEDOREN/GETTY IMAGES
different colour and decor. We particularly loved the large Yellow Room for town and sea views (B&B doubles from £190; laindons.com).
£145; victorianbedand breakfast.co.uk).
From above: Ypres Tower in Rye; the restaurant at the George in Rye; the pier at Hastings beach
Twelve miles to the east — or 20 minutes by train — Rye is a compact medieval citadel overlooking the River Rother. A little fishing fleet bobs by a quayside fish market with an excellent seafood bar serving stuffed fish rolls, fish skewers, crab and Rye Bay scallops (mains from £8.50; ryefish market.co.uk).
leaves you as breathless as the climb. I suspect William the Conqueror would have been impressed.
After a half-hour walk along the seafront (or three-minute train ride from Hastings to St Leonards Warrior Square), grab characterful caffeine at Stereo Retro on Kings Road a mid-century styled listening bar whose eclectic playlist comes with coffees such as the rare kopi luwak using beans chomped and expelled by Asian civet cats. Then stroll to neighbouring hip strip Norman Road to check fine art and design at Kino-Teatr gallery and vintage cinema.
When it comes to the beach, swap Camber Sands’ nearby dune-backed stretch and strong tides for the more reflective appeal of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. It’s a bird-filled tidal wetland with an evocative two-mile walk inland across sheep-filled fields to Henry VIII’s abandoned Camber Castle to the west (rye.sussexwildlifetrust.
Rye finds cool use for ancient surroundings in the shape of independent shops, such as Les Animaux, inside a former Georgian bank, and the book-lined Grounded café in a 16th-century former witch’s house. Add perhaps the loveliest antiques outlet in Britain at Alex MacArthur Interiors, touting glam European design inside a medieval monastery (call ahead for an appointment; alexmacarthur.co.uk). A few yards down the cobbled hill from here, the Waterworks is an antique-filled micropub refashioning of an 18thcentury pump station serving fine local ciders (pint from £4; ryewaterworks.co.uk).
org.uk).
Where to eat The Union Rye
Kick back in the Georgian serenity of St Leonards Gardens, influenced by the style of Regent’s Park and Kew Gardens in London, but with a surround of striking period architecture better than either. Where to eat Various Away from the beach, choose from a trio of spots clustered on Kings Road. Sonny’s is a seafood star pairing smoked fish with ingredients like spinach, leeks and clams at market prices (sonnysofrock anore.co.uk), while Bayte has
Carved from two 16th-century cottages, the Union spotlights outstanding
The view towards Dungeness and the coast leaves you breathless
seasonal produce including
Winchelsea hogget
and Rye Bay scallops (mains from £20; theunionrye.co.uk). Where to stay The George in Rye Back, phoenix-like after a 2019 fire, the George is a shrine to reinvention, each of its 34 rooms in the 16th-century former coaching inn remade (room only from £125; thegeorgeinrye.com).
Henry James made Rye his long-time home at Lamb House, a National Trust Georgian beauty set in a stunning cobbled enclave starring the 900-year-old St Mary’s Church, plus the 13thcentury Ypres Tower in the castle. Clamber past the massive church bells to reach the summit of St Mary’s tower where the vast view towards Dungeness and the coast
Norman Miller was a guest of the Laindons and the George and is the author of 111 Places in Hastings and Rye That You Shouldn’t Miss (Emons Verlag £13.99). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
DialAFlight
28 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
hen I arrive at the 25Hours hotel in Sydney at
DJ-ready terrace, with loungy chairs, parasols and a peek of Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance, I meet up with Noel, who I haven’t seen for more than 20 years. He had spent the intervening years managing the Bookshop Darlinghurst, the city’s oldest bookshop for the gay community, on Oxford Street. We spend the evening marvelling at the passing years and grinning inanely at each other while snarfing padron peppers and devilled spanner crab (snacks from £6). We drink Aperol spritz, on the basis that they may not have been invented — or at least widely marketed — when we last met.
JUSTIN NICHOLAS; MANFRED GOTTSCHALK/GETTY IMAGES
about 10pm, two women are leaving. “Can we give you a hand with that? You’ve got to let us,” they say, insisting on helping me to lug my suitcase up the final few steps of the entrance, despite their skyhigh heels and a cheerful demeanour that suggests they are in the middle of a great night out. After a 20-year absence from Sydney, it feels like a very Australian and extremely Darlinghurst way for me to return. Or perhaps it’s perfectly Paddington, the louche, highly enjoyable neighbouring district that has ridden and lost the waves of fashion over centuries.
“This bit of Sydney has always been a confluence of queer businesses and independent fashion shops,” Noel tells me. “The Westfield centres that opened in the CBD and Bondi Junction in the Noughties really damaged the area, but things are gentrifying again.” This probably included his bookshop, which closed in 2025, primarily because the landlord wanted to up the rent rather than because people had stopped buying books.
At the intersection of two of the city’s most party-hard districts on the eastern side of Sydney — between the Opera House, the CBD and Bondi — the building on Oxford Street that houses the 25Hours Hotel Sydney, the Olympia, has been dispensing good times for more than a hundred years. In 1911 it became a cinema, helping to pioneer talkies in the 1920s then moving into arthouse films. Later it housed the Grand Pacific Blue Room, a 1990s temple to cosmopolitans and Bacardi Breezers; Kylie and Michael Hutchence were habitués. I’m pretty certain that I came here too when I visited my old uni friend Noel, but that was nearly 30 years ago and my memories are hazy. Late last year, after being closed for a decade, it reopened as the 25Hours hotel.
25Hour
Before now there had only
been a couple of places to stay in this part of
Sydney: Oxford
party people
House, with 55 rooms and a
rooftop pool (room only from £118; oxford house sydney.
Long after its Nineties heyday, Darlinghurst in Sydney is buzzing again. Sarah Turner checks into a new hotel
com), and Mrs Banks
Hotel (B&B
Inside, there are some nice nods to the building’s history. The reception area has shelves of videos, including The Godfather and the BBC series Pride & Prejudice (if you want to go really retro and watch one, the staff have a VHS player that they can set up in your room, though the nice young British person at the desk admits that nobody has asked them to do so yet).
doubles from £117; mrsbanks
hotel.com.au). But 25Hours is altogether bigger and splashier. Its 109 rooms, ranging from 22 to 43 sq m, are pleasing, with specially commissioned art, good showers, comfortable beds and complimentary minibars (soft drinks only, but still nice).
decorated with wrought iron (hugely desirable, highly expensive) are a series of boutiques housing the city’s most sought-after fashion brands, including Lee Mathews and Venroy.
and has received rave reviews (mains from £26; thepalomar.com.au).
notification with an offer of £13 in-store credit or £7 in cash. Prices for designer clothes are high, but there are also more affordable items, which was handy for the Vinted mistake I’d mistakenly packed (swop.net.au).
This part of Sydney has long had strong food credentials. In a tiny café on Liverpool Street in 1993, Bill Granger changed breakfasts around the world when he loaded avocado on toast.
There’s a coffee shop in the hotel too — Jacob the Angel, which bills itself as English (it feels gloriously Australian to me), with strong flat whites and pastries from Melbournebased Lune, the country’s most acclaimed bakery (they sell out before 10am each day during my stay). For stiffer drinks there’s Mulwray, a cocktail bar with kelp tinctures and chesterfield sofas.
However, there’s still plenty to keep me happy in Dario. It turns out that chief among them is Swop, which opened here in 2023. In this all-white warehouse space, customers upload photos of clothes they want to sell — a member of staff helps (jet-lagged) me through the process and ten minutes later, while I’m trying on a pair of Gucci sunglasses available for £130, I get a
The area abounds with places to eat. The Palomar, the main restaurant at the 25Hours, stretches across most of the hotel’s ground floor. It is under the leadership of the chef Mitch Orr, formerly of Kiln, and brings all the latest restaurant trends to the table. A cousin to the London restaurant of the same name, it has wood-fired ovens and Middle Eastern spicing tables,
The price I got for that happily turned out to be exactly the cost of a slice from Sydney’s trendiest pizzeria. Appizza, which opened in November on the corner of Taylor Square, just yards away from Swop, is the latest project from AP Bakery. Scan a QR code at your milk-crateinspired table and chair and a glorious slice of pizza arrives.
There are other hotels scheduled to open, including the Lands by Capella and the Waldorf Astoria, but they will be more expensive and in the CBD, near Circular Quay.
The lobby area has shelves of books and genuinely comfortable mid-century furniture with proper patina. A German brand that likes converting tricky old buildings, 25Hours offers what the industry calls “lean luxury” — strong design values and bars and restaurants that have to earn their keep, but no frills such as room service; this is its first incursion into Australia.
Soho House plans to open an outpost a few minutes’ walk from the 25Hours, at the junction of Crown Street and Oxford Street, in 2028. It may have a rooftop swimming pool (most other Soho Houses do) and feel even trendier than the 25Hours. But I can’t believe that it will offer the perfect Sydney welcome I received.
On a warm summer evening the Monica rooftop bar feels like the best nod to the building’s fun old days. On the
From main: the lobby of the new 25Hours hotel; the Darlinghurst skyline; the historic building housing the hotel
Sydney Opera House
SYDNEY Darlinghurst Paddington
Turn left out of the 25Hours and you’re in Darlinghurst. “Darlo”, to give it its timehonoured Sydney moniker, is the grittier of the two districts, with fetish shops doing inventive things with latex and leather. If you turn right you’re in Paddington, and the area around Glenmore Road feels dry-clean-only in a very different way — in a series of adorable Victorian cottages
Sarah Turner was a guest of Discover New South Wales (visitnsw.com), 25Hours Hotels (room-only doubles from £160; 25hours-hotel. com) and Inspiring Travel, which has seven nights’ room only at the 25Hours in Sydney from £2,532pp, including flights and transfers (inspiringtravel.co.uk)
AUSTRALIA
25Hours Bondi
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SIPA US, KIRK FISHER/ALAMY
The British territory has tapas, dolphin spotting, scenery and gin to enjoy, says Jane Knight
angling off the tip of the Iberian peninsula and staring straight out at Morocco, Gibraltar is defined by its 1,400ft
D
slab of limestone riddled with tunnels, caves and mischievous macaques.
For years this gateway to the Med felt more fortress than city break. But the British overseas territory is having a bit of a glowup. Its vast Second World War tunnels have been reimagined as an immersive attraction, other military sites and the Moorish Castle are being restored and, later this year, the Harrison is due to open as Gibraltar’s first boutique hotel. Even the cable car (closed at present) is getting an upgrade.
Michael’s Cabin by the cave. Either way, beware marauding monkeys.
unpretentious spot serves good-value Moroccan couscous and tagine (mains from £13; elkasbah.gi).
Where to stay
Spring and autumn are the sweet spots, with fewer cruise crowds and not-too-hot weather. That is when Gibraltar becomes a pleasure to explore on foot, hiking from the old town with its red pillar boxes and M&S to the top of the Rock, or strolling the coast to sandy beaches.
Explore some of Gibraltar’s 34 miles of tunnels, from the Great Siege Tunnels, used during the 1779-83 conflict with France and Spain, to the vast Second World War tunnels network. Highlights include Jock’s Balcony, a large opening and observation position in the rock face overlooking the airport and border, a Spitfire and interactive spy challenges (included in the £30 nature reserve ticket; ww2tunnels.com). Drink at The Lord Nelson Set in the historic Grand Casemates barracks, this pub was designed to emulate Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, complete with sails and rigging. Landport Tunnel just outside houses a mural of John Lennon, who married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar (pints from £4.50; lordnelson.gi).
Hotel with a history Everyone from Winston Churchill to Sean Connery has stayed in this 1930s hotel. It is still a Gibraltar classic but these days it is neither particularly opulent nor glamorous behind its white façade. However, the classically styled bedrooms are comfortable (the best have sea-view balconies) and you can enjoy a cream tea (£21) while viewing Spain and Morocco (room-only doubles from £130; rockhotelgibraltar.com).
Above, the Rock of Gibraltar; below, Grand Casemates Square
Hit the beach at Catalan Bay on Gibraltar’s dramatic eastern flank, where the Rock rises sheerly behind a row of candycoloured houses and the sand slopes gently into the Med. The former fishing village traces its roots to 18th-century Genoese settlers. Eat at Nunos This ground-floor restaurant makes delicious pasta daily and rustles up a mean pizza. Don’t skip the tiramisu.
By the time you sit down for a meal, you have earned it. And whether you choose tapas, tagine or fish and chips with a pint, you will be paying for it in pounds.
Need to know
A new agreement with Spain means the Rock is now treated as if it is part of the EU. If you are a British citizen you will clear immigration at the airport and your stay will count towards your Schengen area 90 days in 180 limit, as it does in neighbouring Spain.
Getting there and around British Airways flies directly from Heathrow in less than three hours; easyJet flies from Gatwick and Manchester. It is a tenminute taxi ride from Gibraltar airport into town, which is compact and easy to explore on foot. Ebikes can also be rented (£35 for a half-day; ebike-gibraltar.com).
There’s an on-site deli with charcuterie and pasta that’s an easy option if you’re self-
catering or after a takeaway, too (mains from £12.50; wearenunos.com).
There’s far more to the Upper Rock Nature Reserve than its Barbary macaques and the concert hall interior of St Michael’s Cave. Wobble over the Windsor Suspension Bridge, step out onto the glass-floored skywalk and walk on the 16th-century King Charles V Wall, which snakes across the Rock. While the cable car is out of action, tackle everything on foot via the Mediterranean Steps or climb up through town. Or take a taxi tour (all sites included in the £30pp one-day nature reserve ticket; shared taxi from £20pp extra; naturereserve.gi). Lunch Pack a picnic Designated picnic sites scattered over the nature reserve are the perfect place to tuck into local specialities such as calentita, made from chickpea flour and olive oil, or spinach tart (£3 from Tasty Bite, 59 Irish Town). Or buy a sarnie at St
Pool with a view Lie on a lounger and gaze out at the upper town and Rock from the rooftop pool and bar at this central, modern hotel. Breakfast is served in an adjacent room along with views over Algeciras in Spain. In blue and white tones with oversized headboards, the bedrooms are spacious if a tad functional; book one on the higher floors for the best views (B&B doubles from £178; eliotthotel.com).
The Bay of Gibraltar is one of Europe’s best places to see
Indulge in a 75-minute gin tasting at the micro-distillery Spirit of the Rock. Sample six gins and learn the colourful history of the spirit, from the meaning of “navy strength” to the origins of “gin palaces”. The session ends with a cocktail of your choice (£25pp; spiritoftherock.gi). Eat at El Kasbah Housed in what is thought to be a former water cistern in the old town, with brick walls and arches reflecting Moorish, British and Spanish influences, this
dolphins in the wild, with yearround sightings and pods as large
as 200. Set out to sea with the Rock in the background and keep your eyes open (£28; dolphin.gi). Drink at My Wines Within the former fortification of Chatham Counterguard, with Rock views from its terrace, this wine bar and all-day restaurant has a list of more than 300 labels, with by-the-glass and tasting flights (glass of wine £5; mywinesgibraltar.com).
Visit responsibly The removal of checks at the Spanish border means it will be easier to make a multi-break trip, with Malaga, Cadiz and Jerez all within a 90-minute drive of Gibraltar (and Morocco a 90-minute ferry ride away).
The Gibraltar National Museum might feel a tad provincial, with a collection running from stuffed seabirds to an Egyptian mummy hauled from the sea. But it is worth visiting to see the 14th-century Moorish baths and replicas of Neanderthal skulls discovered on the peninsula (£15; gibmuseum.gi). Eat at Casa Pepe Expect the freshest of seafood at this Spanish restaurant scenically situated on Queensway Quay Marina. Tapas sharing plates feature everything from fried anchovies to prawn croquettes, iberico ham and manchego (large tapas plates from £14.50; casapepegibraltar.com).
Cruise ship on the marina A hotel built in a cruise ship, Sunborn offers some of the sparkle of life at sea, starting with the giant blue disco ball in its reception. Drink in the sea views from the gym, spa and bar, as well as the deck pool. If you pick one of the modern superyacht superior cabins, you can also watch planes taking off on the runway. Sunborn is an easy walk from the airport (B&B doubles in a superior cabin with balcony from £216; sunborngibraltar.com).
Dolphin Adventure
Second World War tunnels
Sunborn
Gibraltar National Museum
Great Siege Tunnels
Catalan Bay beach
The Eliott
Top of The Rock the Rock
GIBRALTAR
Jane Knight was a guest of the Gibraltar Tourist Board (visitgibraltar.gi), Sunborn (sunborngibraltar.com) and the Eliott (eliotthotel.com)
600yd
ANTON ALEKSENKO;GETTY IMAGES; KEN MCKAY/ITV/SHUTTERSTOCK
The housemates and heat in India were a challenge
The former news presenter on a solo trip to Myanmar and adventures in Australia
Jan Leeming, 84, was a BBC1 newsreader from 1980 to 1987. She also presented the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Harrogate. Since her retirement she has appeared on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and The Real Marigold Hotel among other TV programmes. She is divorced and has a son, Jonathan. She lives in Kent with her papillon dog, DiDee
My father was an army officer and was posted to Singapore. I was only allowed one visit to see
left by prospectors. Women weren’t allowed in pubs then, but a prospector invited me and another female member of the group into a tin shack of a pub where I held some hugely valuable opals in my hand. I loved Australia and would never have left had my fiancé, Hayo, not been killed in a car crash in 1966.
After leaving the jungle I visited the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I joined a queue to have a photo taken with a koala, but as they passed him to me he did a poop. The couple of nights I got to spend at the Palazzo Versace hotel on the Gold Coast just about made up for that.
on £10,500 a year and Patrick earned even less as a BBC Radio 2 announcer.
The Amber Fort in Jaipur was one of Jan Leeming’s Indian highlights
Then there was the time I bought a beautiful terracotta bottle of Lacryma Christi — meaning “tears of Christ” — wine in Naples while travelling back to the UK on the Castel Felice ocean liner. I intended to turn it into a lamp on reaching home but, having nursed it all the way, I shed tears when it rolled off the customs table at Southampton and smashed to bits.
him on his three-year tour of duty, when I was 14. I was so looking forward to seeing him when the Suez Crisis intervened and my trip was cancelled. So my first foreign trip was in the summer of 1957, with a party of young people, to Lermoos in the Austrian Alps, where I did gentle walks and went dancing in the evenings. There were no cheap flights then, so we travelled by train and overnight couchettes. It took a couple of days to get there if I recall correctly.
A decade or so later I joined the line-up for The Real Marigold Hotel in Jaipur, India
One of my most memorable holidays was in Myanmar with Just You Single Holidays in 2016. I’ll never forget the wonderful sunset at Amarapura, the “Immortal Capital”, with the longest teak bridge in the world, or the fishermen on Lake Inle steering their boats with their feet. Seeing the Schwedagon Pagoda and its dazzling gilded stupa was another magical moment.
— my father was born in India and served in the Indian army. Coping with the heat and the other participants (I’m not going to name names!) was a challenge, but it was worth doing because I got to visit the Taj Mahal, as well as the Amber Fort with its incredible Italianate decoration.
My next foreign trip will be to Sydney in the autumn to attend Jonathan’s wedding. I’m delighted that at 45 he’s finally settling down. However, I’m not sure if I’ll be going down under again after that — the flight is about 22 hours long, it’s expensive and I’m getting older. That said, I have a lifetime of wonderful travel memories to sustain me.
In my early twenties I spent three years working as an actress and TV presenter in Australia and New Zealand — I was the first woman newsreader on TV in Sydney, in 1963 (quite a coup in the maledominated Aussie culture of the time).
I’ve had the occasional disappointing holiday experience too. In the early
Taking part in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here in Australia in 2006 was also memorable, even if we had to contend with the humidity, hunger and mozzies. My son, Jonathan, reckoned that I’d be first out and he’d get to enjoy two weeks in a luxury hotel so encouraged me to sign up. As it happened, though, I was in the jungle actually a rainforest — for 17 days.
1980s I stayed in a filthy self-catering apartment in Crete with my husband at the time, Patrick, and Jonathan, then 18 months old. The bed
My first job down under was as part of the Young Elizabethans, taking potted Shakespeare to the outback. I got to visit the black opal field at Walgett, New South Wales, where the landscape was like the surface of the moon, with its “mole holes”
consisted of a stone base with a dirty mattress and pillows. After one ghastly night there we booked into a nearby hotel, even though
Jan Leeming is patron of Animals SOS Sri Lanka, which rescues street dogs and cats (animalsos-sl.com). Read more about her at janleeming.com
we didn’t have much money — despite being a national newsreader I was only
“Not really,” I tell him. “It’s the tube below that counts.” Named after the castle, it’s the site of a 19th-century breakthrough in public transport that quickly went bust. “But we can’t see that one, so this will do,” I add.
The prize also includes dinner for two on one evening at SUSHISAMBA Edinburgh. It must be taken between September 1, 2026, and February 1, 2027, subject to availability and excluding public holidays and the period from December 23 to January 3.
I want to take my Friend to see a tube. “What, in this heat? No thanks,” he says.
WIN A LUXURY SCOTLAND BREAK WORTH UP TO £2,600AT W EDINBURGH
“Not the Tube,” I tell him. “A tube.” Though the two are in some ways connected.
“The only tube I want to see is a hosepipe with water coming out of it,” he croaks. “They’re banned,” I say,
“What about the water?” Friend growls.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I reply,
pointing south. “The tide’s going out so thousands of cubic feet of it are flowing past us every second.”
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mischievously adding: “There will be plenty of water when we get there.”
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So we walk, starting in a park opened on a bomb site and featuring a spear throwing sculpture. Friend has been sheltering here, beneath a tree. Then we head south. Fortunately, many of the streets are shaded because the buildings are so tall, especially on the second half of our route.
Friend gives me a long, cold stare. “You brought me from the shade of a park for this?” he asks.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” I venture.
“You know there’s a gate in that castle that’s designed for people like you,” he growls. “You traitor!” Sean Newsom
the St James Quarter, a short stroll from Waverley station.
THE PRIZE
The winner and guest will stay for two nights, B&B, in a suite at W Edinburgh. On the edge of the elegant, 18th-century New Town district, the hotel spans the sculptural Ribbon Building, the modern Quarter House and a restored Georgian townhouse, and brings five-star hospitality to
It has 244 rooms and suites, the spectacular W Deck, for rooftop views of Edinburgh Castle, and the tenth-floor SUSHISAMBA Edinburgh, a restaurant and cocktail bar showcasing Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine. For more see wedinburgh.com.
LAST WEEK’S PRIZE
Nearly two miles southsoutheast of the park, we reach a stumpy, tube-shaped brick structure — built in 1926, it’s 67 yards northwest of the West Gate of a castle.
The answers are Culcheth and Everton FC. Glen Mason from Kent wins a luxury Northumberland break worth up to £1,410 at Matfen Hall.
THE QUESTIONS
“Is this it?” Friend splutters.
38 August 2, 2026 The Sunday Times
Travel Comment
paying the same amount for the villa as everyone else.
alternatively swapping rooms halfway through a holiday. But really, who can be bothered with that? Three days into a week away my room tends to look like a burglar has ransacked it on the hunt for valuables. Clothes strewn across the bed, damp swimming costumes drying on various hooks, bottles of lotions and potions on every flat surface, single shoes dotted across the floor like stepping stones. The idea of packing that all up and moving into another room isn’t very tempting by that stage. It’s also a faff on the laundry front.
Sophia MoneyCoutts
Needless to say, there are Mumsnet threads that run to hundreds of comments on the topic of villa holidays and who should pay what. Generally, I reckon it’s fairest to split the cost of such holidays per head, rather than per bedroom, on the basis that otherwise the single person, even if they’re in a double room, may end up paying twice what couples pay. (Although I would say that, wouldn’t I, given I’m single.)
Alternatively, it’s a kindness if someone is in a less salubrious room to at least suggest they pay less. They may not take you up on it but the gesture will be appreciated. This applies to couples as much as singles. In the recent BBC TV series Two Weeks in August one couple, having arrived late, were put in a glorified corridor with an adjacent bathroom, meaning people traipsed past their bed on their way to the loo. Exactly.
To avoid passive-aggressive sniping or even all-out war on day one of a holiday, it’s not a bad idea to allocate bedrooms before arriving. Every August a big group of friends and I head down to the same
Seven years on I reckon that if you’re the one who has suggested the holiday, booked the villa, sorted the flights and the transfers and the food and the accounting and so on, then you get first dibs on bedroom no matter your relationship status. You’ve done the spadework; you get the prize.
It’s a thorny problem: who gets which room on a villa break? Here’s the best way to handle it
house on the south Devon coast. Rooms are divvied out good and
early on the WhatsApp group, and also changed from year to year so the singletons aren’t always in the single beds. Sensible.
e were off on a family holiday to Sri Lanka for Christmas some years ago and I was recently heartbroken. This
I returned to the same Sri Lanka villa the year after my family holiday with a gang of mates, because it’s such a lush, magical spot. This time I put myself in one of the bigger double rooms. There was still a touch of martyrdom to this, though, because I told my friends to take the very best rooms, with those outdoor showers to watch the monkeys in the morning, because I wanted them to realise how special the place was.
In a few months I’m off to Barbados. Not long ago, with magnificent good fortune, I won a raffle at a quiz and the prize was a week in a villa on the island, so I’ve invited various pals to come along. I’ll certainly be bagging the best room on that trip.
A hotel, of course, can be much simpler. Everyone
pays for the room they want, no arguments. One single friend, soon going to Italy with
meant I was suddenly the only single one among my siblings, and so would have the little single staff bedroom at the back of the villa. No fan in there, I was told, but apparently it wouldn’t be too hot.
a group of others including multiple children, has decided to do just that: book a nearby hotel room and join them at their villa during the day. He’s particularly excited about the hotel breakfast alone, which I understand entirely.
The lighthouse at Galle Fort in Sri Lanka
Others suggest choosing rooms by picking names out of a hat, or
I was furious and perhaps oversensitive. Not only was I sad and single, destined to be an old maid, I would now have the bad room on holiday while everyone else in my family, including my small nieces, would have posh ones with fans and en suite bathrooms — some even with outdoor showers from which you could watch the langur monkeys swing through the trees. In a fit of fury I announced I’d rent the cottage next door to the villa and, as an act of solidarity, my brother said he’d join me in its second bedroom.
BLOODUA, BOYLOSO/GETTY IMAGES
This is one luxury afforded to those of us who are single and child-free. We can, by and large, do what we want on holiday. We may be offered the bad room but we can also dodge many other dramas, including but not limited to: when the children can swim again after lunch; when to put the children to bed; potential marital disharmony over who’s scratched the hire car; any rows over the suggestion of visiting a local ruin; arguments about snoring after too much rosé, and so on.
Holidays in a gang, either friends or family, can be tricky if you’re single and most of the others aren’t. Couples need double beds, typically in bigger, nicer rooms, while the single person is often shoved in the tiny room, the kiddie room or, dare I say it, on a bunk bed.
On that family trip to Sri Lanka I strolled back and forth from my nearby cottage quite happily. I felt a touch princessy to have kicked up such a fuss and booked somewhere else but it also meant I could duck into the villa for mealtimes and out again if I wanted to lie in a hammock and read my book alone, away from the shrieks in the pool. There is a freedom to being the single one on holiday, remember.
Lovely to be on holiday, of course. Mustn’t grumble. But it can feel belittling to be shunted into the bad room on account of your relationship status when you’re probably quite conscious of it already — and especially galling if you’re
Why this flight tracking app is always on my screen
ome people doomscroll on Instagram or TikTok. My time-wasting app of choice is
will have used it to watch the progress of a Royal Air Force Boeing C-17 as it carried Elizabeth II’s coffin from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt in 2022 (five million viewers, the most in the platform’s history), a US air force C-40C carrying the American politician Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in 2022 (2.92 million followers), or previous Project Sunrise test flights. This month, everyone was watching Taylor Swift’s private jet between Montana and LA, while, as I write, the most-tracked flights are all clustered around southwestern France, with people watching the wildfirefighting effort.
would rather peer at the tailfins on the app than watch YouTube Kids, as would the nine-year-old son of a friend
S
— which is the reason we all trooped down to Myrtle Avenue in Hatton Cross, popular among plane spotters for its proximity to Heathrow’s south runway, for a family day out a few years ago.
SOMETHING TO DECLARE
something a bit more niche. I’m nearly 40 and not sorry to say I’m obsessed with FlightRadar24.
In this most frequentflying of jobs it’s perhaps not surprising. I live underneath the flight path into Heathrow and can time my morning alarm with the BA216 from Washington on the approach. A few hours later on the school run it’s one of Emirates’ monstrously large superjumbos, en route to the northern runway from Dubai. If it’s silent overhead I know I’ve gone to bed too late (the last plane to land in Europe’s busiest airport is just before 11pm).
FlightRadar24 is not just for the nerdy, though. It is a great tool for keeping a handle on everyday travel, which is particularly useful when flying by budget airline. If I’m on an evening flight I use FlightRadar24 to follow the previous journeys of the plane that day. This helps me assess how likely the flight is to be delayed.
1000ULR, flying from
and small around the world in real time. It started in 2006, when two Swedish aviation geeks crowd-sourced data receivers around the world to monitor global air traffic. Now it has 50,000 receivers on all seven continents and in space, tracking planes but also such aviation data as commercial flight schedules and aircraft details. More than a hundred million people have downloaded the app.
Toulouse in France to Melbourne, Australia, was hotly followed on FlightRadar24, with nearly three million tracking its progress through Europe and Asia. Why? It was a test flight for the aircraft that will eventually fly 22 hours nonstop between London and Sydney in what the Australian airline is calling Project Sunrise.
A fellow frequent-flyer friend uses it as a sort of mobile pub quiz and challenges himself to guess the exact aircraft type he spies above his head. These days my six-year-old son
And it doesn’t stop there. When I’m on the plane itself, I’ll track the aircraft position in the take-off queue and on the
Last week a flight by an empty Qantas Airbus A350-
FlightRadar24 tracks the movement of planes both big
CATHY ADAMS runway. As I said, obsessed.
The AV geeks among us
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ODYSSEY
68 NIGHTS
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SAIL ON BOARD QUEEN ANNE, CUNARD’S NEWEST QUEEN
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Luxury Cunard Half World Voyage from Sydney to Southampton
68 Nights February 24, 2028
From Sydney’s sunlit harbour to England’s shores, this grand Cunard voyage sweeps across four coni nents in unhurried style.
At er two nights in Sydney, embark Queen Anne – Cunard’s newest ship – and pass the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef. Asian cii es beckon, from Hong Kong to Singapore and the temples near Bangkok, before Maurii us and Cape Town’s Table Mountain. Finally, a romani c Atlani c crossing carries you home to Southampton in signature Cunard style.
Complimentary Hotel Stay Two-night four-star hotel stay in Sydney at the PARKROYAL Darling Harbour with breakfast Outbound Flight and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ight
Full-Board Cruise 65 night full-board cruise on board Queen Anne Visii ng: Sydney^, Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Yorkeys Knob, Bitung, Manila, Hong Kong^, Bangkok^, Ko Samui, Singapore^, Port Klang, Penang, Maurii us, Réunion, Durban, Gqeberha^, Cape Town^, Cape Verde, Gran Canaria, Madeira, Southampton
INSIDE FROM £6,499PP
OCEANVIEW FROM £7,999PP
BALCONY FROM £9,999PP
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ISLAND
HARMONY
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SAVE UP TO £2,000 PER COUPLE^
OFFER ENDS AUGUST 14, 2026
COMPLIMENTARY THREE-NIGHT BARBADOS HOTEL STAY
All-Inclusive Azamara Eastern Caribbean Voyage and Barbados Retreat
18 - 20 Nights Nov - Dec, 2026
All-Inclusive Cruise 14 night all-inclusive cruise on board Azamara Journey
Pre-paid gratuii es and AzAmazing Evenings event®
Concierge services for personal guidance and reservai ons
Visii ng: Bridgetown, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Saint Kit s, Nevis, Sint Maarten, Saint Barthélemy, San Juan, Virgin Gorda, Ani gua and Barbuda, Mari nique, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint George’s, Tobago, Barbados
Complimentary Hotel Stay Three-night four-star hotel stay in Barbados at Sugar Cane Club Hotel and Spa with breakfast All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ight
CLUB INTERIOR FROM*
CLUB OCEANVIEW FROM*
£2,999PP
CLUB VERANDA FROM*
CLUB VERANDA PLUS FROM*
Includes alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, house spirits, wine and internai onal beers
£4,199PP
£5,999PP
11078
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BYZANTINE
BEAUTY
INCLUDES A TEN-NIGHT TÜRKIYE TOUR
Mystic Mosaic: Grand Tour of Ancient Türkiye with Luxury Cunard Mediterranean Voyage
17 - 18 Nights September, 2027
Full-Board Cruise Seven-night full-board cruise on board Queen Elizabeth Visii ng: İstanbul, Dardanelles Strait (scenic cruising), Kuşadası, Rhodes, Katakolon, Messina Strait (scenic cruising), Civitavecchia Hotel Stays Four-star hotel stays in Cappadocia, Konya, Pamukkale, Kuşadası, Çanakkale and İstanbul All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available
Escorted Tours Cappadocia tour including Pigeon Valley, Uçhisar Fort, Paşabağ Valley and Avanos Valley
Hierapolis, Cot on Castle, Thermal Baths and Amphitheatre
Visits to Sultan Han Caravanserai, Mevlana Museum, Ephesus and Troy ancient city
OCEANVIEW FROM*
INSIDE FROM*
£3,199PP
Ancient city of Pergamon tour including Acropolis of Pergamon
BALCONY FROM*
GRILL SUITE FROM*
£3,999PP
İstanbul city tour including the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome Square, Hagia Sophia and Grand Bazaar
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*Prices, durai on and ii nerary shown are based on September 28, 2027 departure. Grill Suite price shown is based on September 30, 2027 departure.
EXCEPTIONAL VALUE
18 NIGHTS
18 Nights Jan - Mar, 2027
FROM AN INCREDIBLE
on board Emerald Princess® with Princess Plus® from £50pp per day including MedallionNet® Max wifi , crew appreciai on, Plus Beverage Package, four casual dining meals per guest, OceanNow® delivery, room service delivery
Full-Board Cruise 16 night full-board cruise on board Emerald Princess® Visii ng: Los Angeles, Hilo,
SAVE UP TO £1,000 PER COUPLE^
Honolulu, Kauai, Kona, Ensenada, Los Angeles
Hotel Stay One-night four-star stay in Los Angeles at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles Downtown Upgrade Available Enhance your experience
All Flights London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ight
View this holiday online by scanning the QR code or search the code on our website.
INTERIOR FROM*
OCEANVIEW FROM*
BALCONY FROM*
MINI-SUITE FROM*
INCLUDES ONE-NIGHT LOS ANGELES HOTEL STAY
LIMITED TIME OFFER - BOOK BY AUGUST 8, 2026
£1,499PP
£1,699PP
£2,199PP
£3,199PP
*Prices, ship and ii nerary shown are based on February 9, 2027 departure. Oceanview price is based on January 24,
2027 departure. Mini-Suite price is based on February 25, 2027 departure. ^Prices shown include discount and savings based on two passengers sharing an Interior cabin, depari ng February 9, 2027, booking directly with Imagine Cruising.
EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION
26 NIGHTS
26 Nights January 10, 2027
FROM AN INCREDIBLE
Your Holiday Includes
SAVE UP TO £2,000
Enjoy an addii onal twonight stay in Los Angeles for £325pp
26 night full-board cruise on board Queen Victoria
Visii ng: Southampton, New York+, Aruba, Panama Canal Transit^, El Salvador, Puerto Vallarta, Los Angeles+
London arrival – regional
fl ights available Overnight fl ight
HOLIDAY CODE: AME8364
INSIDE FROM
OCEANVIEW FROM
BALCONY FROM
GRILL SUITE FROM
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INCLUDES INBOUND FLIGHT FROM LOS ANGELES
£2,199PP
£2,699PP
£3,199PP
£10,499PP
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+Overnight in port. ^Scenic Cruising.
WILD
ENJOY AN EXCLUSIVE RAIL DINNER AND BUSHFIRE CULTURAL PERFORMANCES
Exclusive Victoria Falls Rail Event, Safari and Luxury Cunard Voyage from Cape Town to Southampton
27 Nights April 5, 2028
Visii ng: Cape Town, Mindelo, Gran Canaria, Funchal, Southampton
Exclusive Rail Event A scenic journey on board the Royal Livingstone Express steam train along the historic “Cape to Cairo” line into the Victoria Falls World Heritage Site
Escorted Tours Pilanesberg Nai onal Park* Walking tour of Victoria Falls Hotel Stays One-night fi ve-star stay in Johannesburg with breakfast Four-star hotel stay in Pilanesberg with breakfast, lunch and dinner Four-star hotel stays in Livingstone and Cape Town with breakfast All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ight
Three-course dinner served on board as the train glides through the Zambezi River Valley at sunset
Live narrai on on the history of Zambia and the railway with renowned historian Peter Jones, MBE
INSIDE FROM £5,299PP
OCEANVIEW FROM £6,299PP
Live bonfi re entertainment at Sinde Siding from the Makishi Dancers and Tujatane Choir
BALCONY FROM £7,299PP
Local beers, house wine, sot drinks, water, tea and coff ee
Full-Board Cruise 17 night full-board cruise on board Queen Anne
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EXLUSIVE PROMOTION
17 NIGHTS
17 Nights February 15, 2027
FROM AN INCREDIBLE
Your Holiday Includes
SAVE UP TO £1,400 PER COUPLE^
Rock Fortress, Temple of the Tooth, tea plantai on visit and more
All-Inclusive Cruise Seven-night all-inclusive cruise on board Azamara Pursuit Visii ng: Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City+, Huế, Hong Kong Rail Journey Scenic rail journey from Kandy to Nanuoya Escorted Tours Dambulla Cave Temple, Polonnaruwa, Nai onal Park Jeep safari^, Sigiriya
Luxury Hotel Stays Five-star hotel stays in Negombo and Dambulla with breakfast
Four-star hotel stays in Kandy, Colombo and Singapore with breakfast
All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ights
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HOLIDAY CODE: ASA8663
CLUB INTERIOR FROM
CLUB OCEANVIEW FROM
CLUB VERANDA FROM
CLUB CONTINENT SUITE FROM
COMPLIMENTARY SEVEN-NIGHT SRI LANKA TOUR
SCENIC RAIL JOURNEY
THROUGH SRI LANKA’S HIGHLANDS
£2,999PP
£3,799PP
£3,799PP
^Wildlife sighi ngs are not guaranteed. *Prices shown include discount and savings based on two passengers sharing, booking directly with Imagine Cruising. +Overnight in port.
IMMERSIVE
EXPEDITION
22 Nights March 16, 2027
Your Holiday Includes
Nature walks and cultural experiences led by an onboard Expedii on Team
Escorted Tours Tour of Christ the Redeemer, walking tour of Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian and Argeni nian sides All-Inclusive Cruise 14 night all-inclusive ultraluxury cruise on board Seabourn Venture Visii ng: Ushuaia, Falkland Islands*, Puerto Madryn, Montevideo, Balneário Camboriú, Rio de Janeiro
Hotel Stays Five-star hotel stays in Rio de Janeiro and Iguazu Four-star hotel stays in Iguazu and Buenos Aires All hotel stays include breakfast All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ights
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IMMERSIVE THREE-DAY FALKLANDS EXPERIENCE
Zodiac® boat expedii ons to inaccessible polar regions
HOLIDAY CODE: AME8288
COMPLIMENTARY FIVE-NIGHT IGUAZU FALLS TOUR
PREMIUM DRINKS, WORLD-CLASS DINING AND WIFI INCLUDED
VERANDA SUITE (V1) FROM
VERANDA SUITE (V2) FROM
VERANDA SUITE (V3) FROM
VERANDA SUITE (V4) FROM
£6,999PP
£7,499PP
£8,399PP
£8,999PP
*Overnights in port.
SACRED
SERENITY
EXPLORE THE WONDERS OF MACHU PICCHU
Machu Picchu Expedition with All-Inclusive Azamara Voyage and Tahiti Island Retreat
28 Nights January 11, 2028
Valle Sagrado Hotel and Villas Two-night four-star hotel stay in Cusco at the Casa Andina Premium Cusco Complimentary three-night fourstar hotel stay in Tahii at the InterConi nental Tahii Resort and Spa All hotel stays include breakfast Fully Escorted Tours Sacred Valley tour including: Salt Mines of Maras and Moray and Ollantaytambo Ruin Expedii on train to Machu Picchu Machu Picchu tour All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ights
All-Inclusive Cruise 16 night all-inclusive cruise on board Azamara Onward Visii ng: Lima, Easter Island, Pitcairn Islands, Fakarava, Mo’orea, Tahii Complimentary alcoholic and non-
alcoholic beverages including house spirits, wine and internai onal beers
Pre-paid gratuii es and complimentary AzAmazing Evening® event
CLUB INTERIOR FROM £6,999PP
CLUB OCEANVIEW FROM £7,699PP
Concierge services for personal guidance and reservai ons
CLUB VERANDA FROM £8,999PP
CLUB VERANDA PLUS FROM £10,499PP
Hotel Stays Three-nights four-star hotel stay in Lima at the Holiday Inn Lima Mirafl ores
Two-night four-star stay in Sacred Valley at the Casa Andina Premium
11078
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EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION
Ten Nights Sep, 2026 - Apr, 2028
TEN NIGHTS
FROM AN INCREDIBLE
Your Holiday Includes
Travelmarvel Sirius Visii ng*: Luxor+, Esna, Edfu, Aswan+, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo+, Luxor+
Fully Escorted Tours Giza Plateau including the Pyramids and Sphinx, Grand Egypi an Museum, Luxor Temple, Dendera Temple Complex, Esna Temple, Temple of Horus, High Dam, Unfi nished Obelisk, Philae Temple, Felucca Sailing on the Nile, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo Temple, Colossi of Memnon, Valley of the Kings and Queens and more Full-Board River Cruise Seven-night full-board river cruise on board
SAVE UP TO £3,692 PER COUPLE^
Includes drinks with all meals, gratuii es and wifi
Luxury Hotel Stay Three-night fi ve-star stay in Cairo at the Cairo Marriot Hotel and Omar Khayyam Casino with breakfast and welcome dinner All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available
View this holiday online by scanning the QR code or search the code on our website.
DELUXE CABIN FROM*
PREMIUM CABIN FROM*
PHARAOH SUITE FROM*
UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF EGYPT ON EXPERT-LED TOURS
DRINKS AT MEALTIMES, GRATUITIES AND WIFI INCLUDED**
£2,499PP
£2,999PP
Prices and ii nerary shown are based on October 3, 2026 departure. Pharaoh Suite price shown is based on September 11, 2027 departure. ^Prices shown include discount and savings based on two passengers sharing a Deluxe Cabin, depari ng November 28, 2027, booking directly with Imagine Cruising. +Overnight in port.*Drinks with meals are included during the Nile cruise pori on of your holiday only and do not extend to your hotel stay in Cairo.
EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION
13 Nights Sep, 2026 - Feb, 2027
13 NIGHTS
Your Holiday Includes
BALCONY PRICES FROM
Two-night fi ve-star hotel stay in Siem Reap at the Shinta Mani Angkor
Full-Board Cruise Seven-night full-board cruise on board RV Lotus Includes drinks with all meals, gratuii es and wifi Escorted Tours Mekong Delta villages, Killing Fields, Củ Chi Tunnels, Angkor Wat and more Luxury Hotel Stays Two-night fi ve-star hotel stay in Ho Chi Minh City at the Le Méridien Saigon
All hotel stays include breakfast
All Flights and Transfers London departure – regional fl ights available Overnight fl ights
View this holiday online by scanning the QR code or search the code on our website.
HOLIDAY CODE: ASA8599
DELUXE TWIN BALCONY SUITE FROM+
SADEC TWIN BALCONY SUITE FROM+
ENJOY GUIDED TOURS THROUGHOUT YOUR HOLIDAY
RELAX WITH DRINKS, GRATUITIES, AND WIFI INCLUDED*
£2,499PP
£3,199PP
*Prices shown include discount and savings based on two passengers sharing a Deluxe Twin Balcony Suite, booking directly with Imagine Cruising. +Prices and ii nerary shown are based on October 3, 2026 departure.
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Post, Across Europe, Advertising If, Affordable Homes Programme, Africa
How, After Isabelle - WARNING: source dates, money, or percentage tokens may be missing
本次翻译在信息传递上较为完整，但在专业术语准确性、残余英文以及文本一致性方面存在缺陷。部分体育数据（板球比分）在源文中极为复杂，翻译版在处理此类结构化数据时虽维持了原样，但整体排版存在混乱。
“贩traficking”团伙 出现了英文原词与中文的混杂（应译为“人口贩运”）。£2,499pp 或 £2,499PP，其中 pp (per person) 应统一翻译为“每人”。theimes.com（应为 thetimes.com），且在底部法律声明中保留了部分英文地址和公司名称，虽属常见但未完全本地化。SADEC TWIN BALCONY SUITE 误译为 标准双床阳台套房（源文为 SADEC，可能是特定舱房等级，不应随意定义为“标准”）。bunker 译为 前벙克，出现了韩文/乱码字符 벙，属于严重的字符编码错误。S1 (Supplement/Section 1) 直接保留，未注明是报纸的增刊或版块。###### xxx 和 ###### XXXX。源文中这些位置是二维码或图形元素，译文将其处理成了文本占位符，这被视为交付缺陷 (Delivery Defect)。…… 省略号，虽然源文是片段，但译文在处理不完整句子时缺乏衔接，导致阅读中断。周一至周日：上午 9 点 - 晚上 8 点 出现了重复排版。存在阻塞性问题 (Blocking Issues Found)。
主要问题集中在：
1. 字符乱码（如 前벙克）。
2. 交付缺陷（保留了 xxx 占位符）。
3. 翻译不彻底（贩traficking）。
建议针对旅游产品的舱房等级术语和体育专业术语进行二次核校，并清除所有 xxx 等清理标签。