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  • What Rachael Blackmore’s win means for women in horse racing

    What Rachael Blackmore’s win means for women in horse racing

    Alice Wright

    Rachael Blackmore broke ground to become the first female jockey to win the Unibet Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham this week. Blackmore, riding Honeysuckle – trained by Henry de Bromhead and owned by Kenneth Alexander and Heather De Bromhead – led this extraordinarily talented pair to victory. 

    There was plenty of drama, such as when serious contender Abracadabra took a fall at the third fence but was back on his feet straight away, neither he nor young Jockey Jack Kennedy reported any injuries. The drama had no impact on Blackmore who remained calm and level-headed throughout the race, riding with great tact, leading by six and a half lengths on the home strait.  

    It was a good day for gender representation for the horses too. Honeysuckle, the seven year old 16.1 hh mare, became only the sixth mare in history to win this prestigious event.

    Retired champion jockey turned commentator Ruby Walsh said he once doubted a woman could be a champion jockey but said Blackmore “could easily be […] she’s got it all. She has delivered on the biggest stage.” Trainer Henry de Bromhead, who gave Blackmore her kickstart in racing, said the victory was “amazing” and “the stuff you dream of.” 

    Blackmore was ecstatic with the win telling a journalist straight after “it’s incredible, I’m absolutely speechless.” Blackmore has always been frustrated at the very idea of being a ‘female jockey’ as opposed to just a jockey, and on Tuesday maintained that her gender played no part. Blackmore wants to be a great jockey and be treated as such: “it doesn’t matter what you are, we’re jockeys […] it’s just a privilege to be here” she said. 

    Cheltenham Festival is usually estimated to be worth around £100 million to the local economy each year. There are also around 6,000 people employed in running the Festival, including 350 chefs, 350 managers, 500 students. There are also normally around 1,000 members of accredited press there each year and £4.5 million pounds in prize money to be won across the week’s races. Much of the benefit to the local economy was diminished by the crowdless and socially distanced festival this year. Further to this, around £500 million is estimated to be generated from bet-making, but with the thrill of a large crowd’s atmosphere, that figure may be sizably reduced this season.

    Yet, this is a great moment for British racing, and will show young women across the country that they can reach the very top of this sport. Rachael Blackmore and Honeysuckle are the story racing needs in what has been an unprecedentedly difficult year for the industry. The impact of last year’s controversial Cheltenham Festival on racing’s reputation lingers on, as do the fresh blows inflicted by Gordon Elliott. Yet today was a triumph for women, and thus a triumph for racing. 

    Photo credit: Jeff Griffith on Unsplash 

  • The A-Z of launching a new business

    The A-Z of launching a new business

    Simon Hay and Joe Mathewson

    Sometimes businesses get started for the most every day reasons. In our case it was procrastination. We were both studying for our GCSEs and were happy to do anything other than revision. 

    It was 1999 and the internet was really taking off. We were frustrated that we couldn’t access any school work online. During study leave we’d need to cycle back and forth to school to pick up printouts, revision advice and tests. Our bedrooms were in complete chaos with paper and revision notes everywhere.

    There’s no denying we were techie teenagers. We surveyed the mess, applied our teenage ingenuity, and thought it would be fun to write some software that could make the situation better. 

    And that was much more interesting than actually doing some revision. We didn’t know it then, but seeing a problem and not being able to resist ‘scratching the itch’ is pretty common amongst entrepreneurs who found businesses. 

    At the same time, our Physics teacher who was an early evangelist for technology, ran a student competition to develop ideas for using the Internet to improve learning. We both entered, and he encouraged us to collaborate.   

    School success and encouragement

    We created the very first version of our platform with the Physics department. From there, pupil power really spread the word and soon teachers from other subjects were asking if they could use our software. By the time we started A levels our school was using it across all subjects and we were being called out of lessons to set things up and troubleshoot. 

    It was incredibly exciting to have made such a difference at our school, but we soon realised schools across the world faced similar challenges with technology. Encouraged by our initial success we approached other schools and by the time we left sixth form we had a handful of founding customers. 

    Taking the plunge from hobby to full time business

    However, we still didn’t see its full potential as a business.  We went to university, travelled, Joe became a semi pro DJ, and we took up jobs in the City.  I think our families maybe thought we would settle down. But all the time we were working on the trading floor we had a second job running Firefly.

    It was challenging as we’d be taking calls from schools in the middle of the day.

    These constraints forced us to produce a really strong product that was easy to use and reliable – and it reduced the calls.

    Looking back, it is clear that despite the City being exciting and fun, we really wanted to run our own business and have greater control. We secured our thirtieth school customer and thought “right let’s do this”. It was a hugely important moment. We were leaving well paid, enjoyable jobs to launch into the unknown. But we knew we had a product the market wanted.

    Since then, Firefly has grown rapidly. We’ve raised £10m in investment to support expansion into 40 countries and now have nearly 1.5m students, teachers and parents using the platform. It’s been hard work but the sense of purpose we have and fulfilment it gives us makes it worth it. 

    Advice to others 

    • Find a buddy– We constantly challenge each other, and develop and refine our thinking. We have known each other for 20 years. It’s the combination of ‘us together’, which makes the special sauce that is Firefly. 
    • Don’t drop everything straight away– We slowly incubated Firefly whilst we went to university and got jobs. Starting a business isn’t always about dropping everything immediately. We wouldn’t have been successful without the experience we got along the way. 
    • Tightly focus your tech product–  Think really hard about the right shape of your product – what should be in and out of scope. Early clients will want you to build features that won’t have widespread application, learn to say no nicely, but firmly.  
    • Ask for help – People are ready to help young entrepreneurs. We received lots of advice and people were really generous with their time. Just remember to say thank you! 
    • Don’t stand still– Continually look ahead to help ensure your product remains relevant. We are still doing this and recently launched our Parent Portalin response to what schools now need.

    The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated how innovation, courage and dogged hard work can make a difference to individuals, communities and the world. These are the qualities needed to launch business ideas. It’s a tough economic climate, but history shows that many of the strongest and longest-lasting companies have been started during downturns.

    As technology advances, the barriers to getting started are getting lower and lower, and there are also more successful UK tech start-ups to light the way. We are keenly aware that young people have been affected significantly by the pandemic. However, we know they are also going to be key to taking us forward. We really encourage any young person with a smart tech idea to give it a go. Scratch that itch and you might well have a roaring success on your hands.

    Simon Hay and Joe Mathewson are co-founders of Firefly Learning, an education technology company.

    https://fireflylearning.com/
  • Sir Rupert Jackson: from classics to the Court of Appeal – and back again

    Sir Rupert Jackson: from classics to the Court of Appeal – and back again

    The former Court of Appeal judge describes how his study of classics affected his career – and how his knowledge of the law impacted his recent work as a historian 

    It’s fair to say I always found the classics more interesting than the law. I did classics for my first two years and then switched. I did have some regrets. I enjoy law as an academic subject much less, but I was set upon pursuing a career as a barrister; but it doesn’t compare with the study of the classics. Even so, I thought that studying law might be a good idea under the circumstances. 

    But there are some aspects to a study of classics which can be of use in the law. An exposure to classical authors can be helpful, for example, when it comes to composing judgments. I structure all my judgments in the same way. I make them as clear as I possibly can, and in that I’m particularly influenced by Julius Caesar. Then, in terms of elegance of style, I am indebted to Tacitus. Greek literature is another pleasure: I have gained a lot from Thucydides, who is lucid like Tacitus, and from Herodotus when it comes to storytelling. 

    Traditionally, it’s always said that classics is a very good grounding for a legal career. It promotes orderly thought, and gives you the necessary intellectual background and so on. That’s all true. Classics is of great benefit for a legal career. But I’ve now found that a legal career is a great aid to the study of classics. Having practised as a lawyer for 50 years, I am well accustomed to studying evidence, assessing it objectively, and reaching my own conclusions. In my book, The Roman Occupation of Britain and its Legacy, I have tried to apply the disciplines which I have acquired in a legal career to analyse the evidence.  

    It seems to work like this. The study of classics reinforces your understanding and application of the law and practice as a lawyer reinforces your ability to analyse the archaeological and literary evidence in an ordered and structured way in order to reach logical conclusions. The two go together. 

    Since the time when I was an undergraduate study of classics, there has been a revolution in the study of Roman Britain is now. This is now driven by archaeological research – somewhat to the detriment of the literature. People pay a lot of attention to field studies, and much less attention to what the ancient authors have to say. In recent years, people have been so preoccupied with archaeology and field studies that they have downgraded the importance of the literature. I’ve tried to reintroduce the literature to a preeminent place in writing this book. 

    It took me eight years. I set about going through the literature first. I did that with the aid of translations where I was getting stuck with the original texts. In other words, I was operating in the traditional way – the way historians would have done it in the 1960s when I was studying classics of Cambridge. I then went through all the reports of field studies, together with the archaeological research reports and tried to combine that with the literary evidence.  

    That may sound like quite an arduous task for a mere amateur like myself. In fact, it’s an impossible task for an amateur. But by great good fortune, I had the help of Martin Millett, who is the Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge. I went to see him at the suggestion of a Fellow of Jesus college where I’m an Honorary Fellow. He had his doubts as to whether a mere lawyer could actually make anything of it.  

    But we developed an entirely informal system. I would read chunks of archaeological research and so forth. I would draft my chapters and then go up to Cambridge. Martin and I would discuss them for an hour or two – then I would take him out for lunch. He was very happy with this arrangement.  

    I think he was quite interested to have a lawyer analysing the evidence and challenging what the academics had said. For me to have his input was essential: there was no way I would know which were the reputable articles and which weren’t; nor would I have known the best sites to visit or what I should be looking at. So Martin guided my reading and research informally.  

    Some people have said my book is funny, but that might be an area of disparity between classics and the law. It can be disastrous to make jokes in court. But I do try and bring the knowledge of human nature I’ve acquired in the law to the period. Imagine Caesar’s invasion of Britain today and you’d get a public enquiry immediately – or as in Iraq, three different public enquiries with three different terms of reference.  

    It’s important to treat a classics degree as a springboard for your intellectual life, and to continue to pursue your reading and study of what you have been learning at university. The interesting thing is that human nature doesn’t change very much: in the ancient texts we are observing how human nature, which is the same as now, operated in a very different historical and technological context. The human heart remains the same, but the mindset changes.  

    Sir Rupert Jackson was a Lord Justice of Appeal until his retirement in 2018. His latest book is The Roman Occupation of Britain and its Legacy (Bloomsbury). 

  • Founder of the Blue Pencil Agency Sara Sarre: “Writing is a gift”

    Founder of the Blue Pencil Agency Sara Sarre: “Writing is a gift”

    Editor, writer and founder of the Blue Pencil Agency Sara Sarre speaks to Georgia Heneage about the bureaucracy of the publishing industry, the personal events which led to her first novel and buckets of advice to budding young writers.

    The publishing industry has changed

    An artist is a rule breaker, boundary pusher, and brave commentator on the state of society; art is a dangerous craft which should challenge the status quo. These have been the governing principles of the arts sector for centuries. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” said Pablo Picasso as he transformed traditional portraiture into strange, abstract shapes. Banksy- an artist whose work is almost self-consciously defined against the commercial art world- argues that artists should “think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.”

    The fact that the term ‘Creative Industries’ was first coined by New Labour in 1998 shows how even in its inception the industry was born out of economic interests. And the fact that the artists themselves were not beneficiaries of the employment boom which ensued- and led to more jobs in areas like marketing and sales- is even more telling. 

    Despite what Banksy says, the freedom of the artist to work against the commercial, money-oriented mainstream seems to be the luxury of a bygone era. No longer can artists bend the “rules” towards their own craft, as Picasso said. The rules now exist as binding mantras which keep artists under the bureaucratic grip of the industry, and it’s now near impossible for artists to have complete freedom over the direction their art takes.

    This prioritising of profit as the capitalist edge of the arts sector has inflected the publishing industry in the UK. Sara Sarre, whose work as an editor, writer and founder of literary consultancy Blue Pencil Agency has given her an insight into the rotten core of the publishing industry, says the problem is that it has become prescriptive and books now have to have a marketing hook over and above all else.

    “Twenty years ago the publishing industry started to change,” says Sarre. “Editors once nurtured young writers, and it was all about what a writer had to say. Now the sales team have far more power than editorial.

    “Writers are now more concious of the market; a lot of authors are getting out there not because they are brilliant writers but because they have brilliant concepts. You really have to consider your audience and understand that this is a business”.

    It was from this recognition of the power imbalance in relationships between writers and publishers that Blue Pencil Agency was founded: “I set it up really to help writers edit their own work and get to a stage when an agent would then have a look at it”, says Sarre. The agency is focused on bringing back that element of nurture which she believes should be the bedrock of every literary relationship.

    Covid-19:  are we seeing the best of our time?

    It has become somewhat of a post-pandemic truism that great art (in particular great literature, because of its unique medium) is born from worldwide catastrophes- the war, the depression, the bubonic plague. The events of the past year will no doubt be no different.

    But, like post-war literature, it may take decades for works to emerge which reflect quite literally on the pandemic. Sarre says that though BPA have received lots of submissions inspired by the pandemic, “as a literary subject, at the moment everyone’s avoiding it. I don’t think anyone wants to hear or read it because we’re still in the middle of it: it’s hard to reflect on because we don’t really know the outcome yet”.

    Like the book market as a whole, Blue Pencil Agency’s business has soared since Covid. Sarre jokes that agents and editors have developed a regularly-discussed “submission fatigue” because of the sheer amount of material which has been created over lockdown.

    One of the more negative aspects of Covid on the literary world has been that it’s made an already saturated market almost unbearably impenetrable, especially for young writers. According to Sarre, there’s a lot of good writers not getting published just because of the sheer amount of material being generated at the moment.

    The spirit of youth: what advice does Sarre have for emerging writers?

    Despite the overloaded market, Sarre is adamant that now is a “very good time to be a young author”. The phoenix-like literary moment of Sally Rooney’s Normal People was pivotal for young writers, and Sarre says there’s since been a massive wave of fresh young voices.

    So for those budding young authors out there just starting to dip their toes in what can feel like a challenging sector to breach, what are Sarre’s nuggets of wisdom?

    • Learn to write for a readership rather than yourself. “Writers love to write for themselves because it can be a really cathartic process, and writers are specific types of people. There’s almost a masochistic element to it.” But readers are the most important thing: “Go and stand in a bookshop and ask yourself where you want to be in that bookshop. You are writing for a public, not for yourself.”
    • Empathy, tenacity and imagination. “Empathy: you have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the character. Tenacity: you’re going to be turned down again and again. Imagination: having the ability constantly invent worlds that are not similar to your own (or are).”
    • “Learn to read as a writer; we all read for pleasure, but part of being a writer is understand how particular writers work.”
    • Show not tell: Sarre says that though a lot of journalists make good writers because of their professional ability to tighten language to a wordcount, they are “the worst” in terms of telling a reader something, rather than showing them. ‘Showing’, says Sarre, is letting your characters and the events of the story do the work; if you’re ‘telling’, the writer is doing the work, and therefore the reader is not.
    • “Learn the technical side of writing, such as tone of voice and narrative distance. They are your tools.” Sarre says she found her creative writing MA unhelpful in this respect, but recommends looking at useful online tools or short courses where you can learn the basic skills.
    • Story over style: Sarre says the problem with many first-time writers is the tendency to prioritise descriptive writing over the sheer weight of a good story. “Each paragraph each scene each chapter has to move the story forward. That took me a while to understand.” Though literature in the past had more freedom to subjugate narrative for style, nowadays everything has become focused on the story. This is partly a result of a culture where immediacy is everything: “If it doesn’t hook us straight away, we’re onto the next thing”.

    ‘Writing is a gift- it has to be’

    Last week, Sarre published her novel Mothering Sunday under her pen name Sara James. It tells the story of a young mother who has to give up her child. The reception, she says, has been unexpectedly “fantastic”, and the book has taken on “a life of its own”.

    Did her own principles of writing and her perspective as an editor come into play? “Definitely. Being an editor taught me to write- you learn to avoid all those typical mistakes that every author makes.”

    Sarre’s book, though, seems to have bucked the trend she herself identified: that in tailoring one’s work towards a particular commercial readership, a writer inevitably loses a sense of the autobiographical.

    Mothering Sunday sprung (albeit subconsciously) from deeply personal experiences. “It’s a young woman’s story with an older woman’s perspective”, Sarre ruminates. “My mother abandoned my brother and sister for a short time. The ripple effects of that decision were huge; the whole family never got over it.

    “Everyone one of us, including my mother- who died quite young I think as a result of the stress- suffered.” Then, when Sarre got pregnant as a student, her sister’s response was to give it up for adoption. “Though I didn’t marry the father, I wanted to keep my child and now he’s very much a part of my life.”

    It’s a book for mothers. And though she wrote for her reader, which is clearly why the book has been such a commercial success, the process of writing was indeed “healing” for Sarre, who felt like she was “bringing out into the air” an issue which lay at the core of her wider family.

    Sarre’s next book, however, has nothing to do with her own life. “I’ve learnt to write for the reader, and I now know my audience- or I’ve been told my audience by my publisher- which is women.

    “You take what you know- what you’ve learnt, what you’ve lived- into the work. But one of the biggest steps I’ve made as a writer is understanding that it’s not for you. It’s a gift; it has to be. It’s your responsibility to take your reader on a journey away from the world they know and into another. By doing that, you let go of your own fears.”

  • Iain Dale: ‘I know what politicians don’t want to be asked’

    Iain Dale: ‘I know what politicians don’t want to be asked’

    The LBC presenter on the art of the interview and his complicated relationship with David Cameron

    If you appear in the media, everyone imagines that you must be a complete extrovert. 

    Of course, even in an interview there is a little bit of ham-acting involved, particularly if you’re in television. But most radio and TV presenters have a shy side to them. Perhaps shy people tend to be a little bit more empathetic.

    Shyness is more common than you might think. I knew somebody who was a conservative parliamentary candidate who would literally throw up before every speech. But I don’t get nervous. Having said that, I recently interviewed former FBI director James Comey, and had little time to prepare. Thankfully, my approach to interviews is normally not to do a lot of preparation because I like to think of them as conversations – and the more preparation you do, the more stilted it is. I never have a list of questions, for example. I try to listen to what the answer is. If you have a list of questions, the temptation is just to go through them one by one and ask them. Well that’s fine, but it’s not very rewarding.

    We are all human beings, and this is what sometimes people forget about people in the media – or more to the point, politicians. We all have the same human reactions as everybody else. If an interviewer starts asking really aggressive questions right from the start., it’s no surprise that the politician puts the shutters up and thinks, “Well if you’re going to be like that, then I’m not going to give you anything.” There has to be a degree of mutual respect. 

    Interviewing prime ministers is interesting. In 2003, I was asked to write an article about who will be the ten people at the top of politics in ten years’ time. I remember writing in that article that David Cameron hadn’t really made a mark on parliament. The week after the article was published I sat next to him at a dinner. When I raised it, he said, “Yes, I did see it. I asked my staff to leave the room and I put my feet up on the table, and I just sat there for five minutes thinking: “He’s right. What have I achieved in two years in Parliament?”’ That was a brilliant way of defusing a potentially awkward social situation. 

    Later, when I was running for parliament he drove up in his Skoda to campaign with me and we had a brilliant day together. And when he was prime minister, I did three interviews with him. I was poacher turned gamekeeper, and understood where he was coming from. This is one of the advantages of having been involved in politics, and then moving into journalism and broadcasting. As an interviewer, I have an advantage over people who haven’t been involved in politics: I know how they think, and what they don’t want to be asked. 

    Boris Johnson wrote the foreword to my latest book. He said yes immediately and then of course COVID happened. I got in touch in July 2020, and told him I’d understand if he couldn’t do it, and that there was no need to write 20 pages or anything like that! And it came on time. 

    But it was interesting to see the reaction. Some people on social media said,  “I wanted to buy this book but I’m not buying it because you’ve got Boris Johnson in it.” I thought: “If Jeremy Corbyn had won the election I would have asked him!” 

    It’s quite difficult to come to a judgement on a prime minister who’s still in office. Boris’ reputation in history will depend on how quickly the country gets back on its feet and how many people are actually out of a job. But most prime ministers are known for one thing in history. He wanted to be known as the Prime Minister who ‘got Brexit done’. He has got it done. But I suspect he’ll be known as the Covid Prime Minister.

    I used to find it very difficult to interview people that I know well. Now I just go in for the kill. Brandon Lewis and David Davis, who are my two closest friends in Parliament, say that they find me the most difficult interviewer. They think it’s because I’m overcompensating for the fact that everybody knows that. I don’t think it is. I just get more out of people by having a conversation with them. 

    Iain Dale’s latest book is The Prime Ministers, £25 from Hodder and Stoughton

    Photo credit: Steve Ullathorne

  • Axel Scheffler: ‘Arts education in schools isn’t priority anymore’

    Axel Scheffler: ‘Arts education in schools isn’t priority anymore’

    The great illustrator talks to Iris Spark about his journey to success

    Fame has its peculiar pockets. The man I’m talking to could walk down any street unmolested and you wouldn’t recognise his voice, which comes in polite and clipped, but surprisingly thick, German. But his name is one of the most ubiquitous on the planet. You’d have to look to a certain former President, and his co-author Julia Donaldson to find someone with comparable name recognition. 

    At 63, Scheffler is best-known as the illustrator of The Gruffalo and its sequel The Gruffalo’s Child. The first alone has sold 13 million copies in 59 editions worldwide, and has been made into a film. It’s a favourite book of Michelle Obama – and just about every parent.

    Did his parents encourage him in his chosen career? At first, there was friction. “They weren’t artistic,” he explains. “My father was a businessman and my mother was a housewife. So yes, my father considered me a hopeless case when it came to anything to do with numbers and business. But they were fine in the end.”

    Did they know before they died how successful he’d been? “They saw the beginning of it, yes. The Gruffalo was beginning to be successful before they went.”

    Scheffler talks to me over Zoom from his studio in the house he shares with his wife and 13 year old daughter. I can see books ranged beyond him, and everything lit by an appealing skylight. 

    He looks the epitome of established success – and is. But Scheffler had to find his own way, independently from what his family expected of him. “I always liked drawing,” he recalls. “I could see I had friends who liked my drawings and made them smile – but it took me a while to see that this was my profession. At arts college I found that illustration was what I could do; I knew that by my late twenties.”

    What distinguishes Scheffler is the memorability of his illustrations. The illustration of the Gruffalo itself is a magnificently weird creation, full of an outlandish comedy which is only hinted at in Donaldson’s poem. The books simply wouldn’t exist as they are without Scheffler’s ability to delineate absurdity. 

    And yet they’re also essentially inclusive, creating the illusion that anyone might have a go. That makes him a wonderful person to come into schools and give talks (“If someone says to draw a cow or a dolphin or whatever, I can do that, I’ve been doing this a long time!”) but there’s a quiet professionalism beneath the humour. 

    How long does it take him to do a double-page spread? “If everything goes well, I will do it in a day and a half or two days but normally I’m not happy! It might depend how much detail I have to do. If there’s a sky or not, or whether I’m using watercolours with colour pencils on top, but a double spread in two days is possible. I hope my publishers won’t read this!”

    For a moment, I’m in his world – briefly aware of the technical skill involved. Is he a great gallery-goer? “I’m sad that there were a few exhibitions I wanted to see when corona came. I wanted them extended but I don’t think there’s a direct link to me.”

    I ask if he sees positives in the NHS art in the windows now. He is immediately enthusiastic: “I think it’s lovely – especially the chalk drawings on the pavement round here in Richmond. It’s very touching, something which has been around for so long – chalk on a pavement or a wall. It’s very nice and retro.”

    There’s a generosity about Scheffler – a love of children. He continues, almost wistfully. “I don’t know whether there are numbers on whether Covid-19 has made children more creative but it would be a good thing if that was the case. Arts education in school isn’t priority in this country anymore, and it’s good if children can create.”

    Scheffler’s seems such a one-off career that it seems hard to imagine how it could ever be repeated. But does he have any advice for the younger generation? “I would say it’s not always the first choice you make which is the right thing for you. The situation has changed for young people compared to what people grew up with in the mid-80s. This concept of a job for life is under question, and in some ways it’s harder now to do what I did. But hopefully there will still be authors and will be illustrators. My advice is to be open and try.”

    Photo credit: Martin Kraft

  • Hilary Leevers: engineering can provide ‘real fulfilment’

    Hilary Leevers: engineering can provide ‘real fulfilment’

    Hilary Leevers, CEO of EngineeringUK  

    With lockdown and restrictions affecting everything from socialising to exams, there’s no denying that there is much that young people might be worrying about. The future feels uncertain too; a recent survey found that the majority of 11 to 19 year olds feel that the coronavirus pandemic will make finding a job or undertaking higher education more difficult. While it is important that young people remain realistic about the challenges facing them, I want them to feel that their dreams are worth pursuing. There are still amazing career opportunities out there, and ways to bring these aspirations to life.  

    When it comes to young peoples’ aspirations, it is fantastic that so many are focused on choosing careers that make a positive difference to the world. Nine out of ten young people want a career that tackles social issues, from addressing environmental issues to keeping people safe and well. We also know that factors such as job opportunity and security are really important too, especially at this time of change.  

    For many young people, the job security and real fulfilment they seek could be found in engineering. 

    The engineering industry is incredibly diverse, with exciting career opportunities in everything from space and energy to design and food, sport and entertainment to gaming and technology.  Engineers are at the forefront of shaping the world we live in, helping to solve our biggest challenges. From dealing with cyber security and minimising the impact of natural disasters to developing sustainable energy, food, housing and products – engineers help pave the way to a better future for everyone. 

    You can make flying more environmentally friendly as an aerospace engineer or drive the use of renewable energy as an electrical or energy engineer. Biomedical engineers develop life-saving equipment and chemical engineers can stop the spread of disease. While, as a manufacturing engineer you could develop new ways of creating medical products. Mechanical engineering could see you designing prosthetic limbs and you can support international development or disaster recovery as a civil or structural engineer. 

    Recently, the coronavirus crisis has shone a spotlight on the brilliant work of scientists, technicians and engineers responding to the needs of the nation. We’ve seen exceptional examples of engineering across essential services and infrastructure – from the design and delivery of thousands of ventilators to the building of NHS Nightingale field hospitals. In fact, over three quarters of young people said they recognised the importance of engineers to developing new ventilators, keeping people connected through the crisis and turning spaces like exhibitions centres into hospitals.  

    As an engineer it’s possible you can save far more lives than as a medic. This is a powerful message but one that sometimes gets lost in the stereotypes that many people still hold about what an engineer is, and what they do. 

    The beauty of engineering is that it is just so diverse – not just in the range of problems engineers solve but in the types of people and the pathways they take into the industry. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius or chemistry wizard to become an engineer. A good understanding of maths and science (especially physics) will stand you in great stead, but so will skills in computing, D&T, construction, electronics. At its heart, engineering is all about creativity, problem-solving, teamwork and curiosity.  

    Engineers come from all different backgrounds and have achieved success through very different routes into the industry, including through apprenticeships, vocational training and university degrees. Employers and organisations like EngineeringUK have responded to our current crisis by making sure that information, advice, guidance and engineering experiences are now available online and remotely. The industry has really stepped up to support young people to explore their future and potential as engineers, including by pledging to work together to make engineering careers accessible for this generation of young people. If there are upsides of our current coronavirus world, it is that for young people, accessing engineering experiences can be done at any time, from anywhere.  

    Skills that engineers acquire – such as problem-solving, teamwork, project management and numeracy – are sought after by employers in nearly every industry, meaning that engineers are highly employable and can easily transfer their skills to different areas. Even though the pandemic is seeing shifts in the engineering workforce, employers are still reporting skills gaps, so there remains significant demand for engineering skills, with fantastic earning potential at all levels. And with the government’s commitments to investing in infrastructure, construction and decarbornisation, and innovation, now and into the future, hundreds of thousands more engineers will be needed. 

    At a time when young people are unsure about their futures, it is so important that they can explore career options, plan ahead, and be motivated to study. Now’s not the time to give up or feel frustrated. It’s the time to explore, plan and access as much support as possible to lay the path towards a fulfilling and secure career.  

    My message is that, while there are challenges ahead, there are also amazing career opportunities – not least in the world of engineering. I truly believe the future is bright for young people. Their desire to pursue careers that make a difference will bring them fulfilment and continue to help the UK engineering sector soar. 

    Additional information:

    To support schools to access Covid-secure engineering resources and experiences, EngineeringUK recently launched Neon, a digital platform that gives teachers easy access to quality assured online and offline engineering outreach activities. For the first time, Neon brings together the UK’s engineering experiences and career resources in one place, bringing STEM careers to life. With the support of the engineering community, Neon empowers teachers with the tools they need to engage young people in a career in the engineering sector, which makes up nearly 20% of the workforce.  

  • Layla Moran on International Development: ‘It beggars belief that the government isn’t listening’

    Layla Moran on International Development: ‘It beggars belief that the government isn’t listening’

    Georgia Heneage

    When Boris Johnson decided to cut the Department for International Development (DfiD) in June of last year, his reasoning was, unsurprisingly, based on safeguarding British needs over others. He said that UK overseas aid “has been treated like a giant cashpoint in the sky, that arrives without any reference to UK interests”.

    Since Rishi Sunak’s heavy cuts to Yemen aid announced on Wednesday – a near 60% slash – the government’s insular approach towards international world affairs has once again been brought to the fore and prompted heavy criticism from ex PMs such as David Cameron.

    Neither instance of UK isolation are isolated events; they seem to be part of a wider pulling-back of responsibility from tackling the world’s issues. We saw this with the government’s cuts to foreign aid in January from 0.7% to 0.5%, and we’ve seen it with Brexit. On a philosophical plain, the right-wing, Britain-first rhetoric of Brexiteers seems to be in play here: that, over and above all else, our government should prioritise domestic needs over international ones.

    Layla Moran, Lib Dem Spokesman for Foreign Affairs and International Development, sees it differently. “Fundamental to Lib Dem values is that global problems need global solutions; just because someone else is somewhere else in the world doesn’t mean we don’t have a duty of care to them, especially if they are at risk of starvation,” she says. Moran sees the cut to Yemen aid as “an embarrassment” and hopes that the “sharp contrast between what we are doing and what the Americans are doing will serve to remind people of what Boris Johnson’s agenda actually is really about.”

    Moran says that the government’s approach towards international affairs has changed considerably since the time of the conservative coalition, when “there was a real sense at the time that all the parties were pulling together in the same direction”-which explains why three previous PMs have criticised Johnson for his approach to foreign aid. In its place, says Moran, has risen an “enlightened self-interest”, which stops the progression of economic migration and encourages others to bear the brunt of climate issues.

    “The Tories have reneged on their manifesto pledge. More importantly they’ve reneged on their promise to the world’s poorest, and I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of this,” Moran says.

    These narrowing interests have had a huge effect on the charity sector: according to NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac report in 2020, the proportion of charity income that comes from government was at its lowest point in a decade ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.

    The pandemic added fuel to the fire: a study last June showed that nearly half of UK charities for developing countries were set to close within 12 months following the first lockdown due to lack of financial support. The catch-22 has been that whilst 72% have seen increased demand due to the pressures of Covid on developing countries, 68% received absolutely no government funding at all.

    “We rely on Save the Children and other smaller charities for a lot of the work that we do,” says Moran. “They are now in a moment of crisis: the proportion of charities potentially going under is enormously high.

    “I’m seriously concerned about that: as soon as an organisation folds you lose that institutional knowledge. We really will struggle to get those links back up and reestablish the important role they play in both civil society in the UK and also abroad”.

    “That could be one of the unintended causalities of coronavirus. If smaller charities start to go under, then I think we’re in real trouble”. One answer, says Moran, may be to alter the charity model post-Covid. “It’s now time for charities to join their voices together; I think we need a coordinated response to raise public awareness”.

    As an MP of Palestinian descent- the very first, in fact- Moran says her background and life experiences have shaped her view of the part we must all play in helping those less lucky than us.

    “It does make you appreciate the world in a different way”, says Moran. “We were taught to appreciate everything we had- as a refugee, my mother had almost nothing growing up and she had to develop enormous resilience.” Moran still has family in Palestine who are living in segregated circumstances, and says it’s “heartbreaking” to hear the stories from back home.

    Her father’s job in the diplomatic service for the EU meant that Moran grew up living in war-torn countries like Ethiopia and Jordan. “Those very early memories were so important”, says Moran. “I remember when I was about five we were living in Ethiopia in the midst of its war with Eritrea. I was exposed to huge levels of poverty- literally on my doorstep- and constant military parades outside our house for months.

    “I remember asking my father why this was happening, and he explained to me that the dictator who ruled at the time wanted to exert his own power and chose to spend money on tanks over feeding starving people. It became a huge driving force on why I care so much about these issues.

    “You can talk about geopolitical shifts and you can speak philosophically and esoterically about world politics, but in the end it all comes down to real people. I keep those individuals in the front of my mind- that’s my motivation and everything else stems from there.”

    I point out to Moran that if an unintended causality of Covid-19 has been reduced attention to world issues, then a welcome one might be that it forces us recognise the importance of thinking laterally rather than locally. But she says the way the UK government has approached the vaccine roll-out has only served to highlight our innately “insular” nature: “We haven’t appreciated that no one is safe until everyone is safe. There are parts of the UK where 50% of people are vaccinated- which is an extraordinary achievement- but there are places in the world where not even a handful of health care workers have had the jab.

    “It’s important that we help to tackle the world’s problems together. It beggars belief that the government isn’t listening.”

  • ‘A terrible limbo’: the quagmire the music industry is in

    ‘A terrible limbo’: the quagmire the music industry is in

    Georgia Heneage

    With Rishi Sunak’s announcement of the Budget comes a beacon of hope for the struggling arts and culture sector. In what he calls “a historic package”, Sunak has pledged a £400 million bonus to help keep afloat gigs, theatres and galleries and his Covid Recovery Fund, which has so far supported over 3,000 organisations, will be increased to £1.87 billion.

    “This industry is a significant driver of economic activity, employing more than 700,000 people in jobs across the UK”, says Sunak. “I am committed to ensuring the arts are equipped to captivate audiences in the months and years to come.”

    The Chancellor’s words are music to sore ears; an industry which is financially reliant on live events, the music sector has been hard hit by the pandemic. The sector generates £5.2bn a year for the economy, £2.7bn in exports and sustains 210,000 jobs.

    But eight in every ten pounds of the average musician’s income comes from live performances; recording revenues have drastically dwindled in the digital age. Musicians receive next to nothing from Spotify plays, and live gigs and festivals have provided the backbone of their income over the past decade.

    Even before the pandemic, the industry was under close inspection by the government because of the poor financial model used by streaming services like Spotify. A poll by Musicians’ Union last year found that eight out of ten musicians (82%) earn less than £200 each year from online streaming: 92% said streaming made up less than 5% of their yearly salary and half that their income from recorded music had declined over the past decade. Sunak’s financial offering pales in comparison to the huge deficit which faces thousands of struggling musicians, venues and organisations.

    With such a small fraction of money made from streaming and a greater financial emphasis on live performance, it is no wonder that musicians have suffered over the past year. There’s a glint of hope for live performers in the rapid vaccine roll-out but it will take decades for the industry to recover from the covid shock. There’s been little to no activity in the music industry since the first lockdown in March, apart from a select few big names at well-established records labels, like Laura Marling or Dua Lipa.

    As usual, the hardest hit have been the least known. This has halted the emergence of new talent – the veins of the UKs globally-renowned music scene – many of whom are scouted in-person at gigs. In an NME interview, co-founder of indie label Speedy Wunderground said that “it’s a very difficult time to be a musician” because the pandemic has meant that there will be a backlog of talent “blocking the road”, and Brexit will likely impact touring Europe.

    With most live events set to reopen in May and return to full capacity in June, and given financial fuel by Sunak, the future is looking brighter for musicians. Like other art forms, could it have impacted the industry in a positive way? Has it been a catalyst for change?

    Booking Agent Phil Simpson had 200 shows cancelled in 2020

    For Phil Simpson, a Booking Agent who pre-pandemic coordinated the entire live careers for musicians – including booking tours and festival appearances – the pandemic has been “really difficult”.

    “With booking I’m always thinking 12 months ahead, and the way I make money is that I take a commission from what the band earns at a live event. So obviously if the gig doesn’t happen and the band doesn’t get paid, then I don’t get paid,” says Simpson.

    “That’s why this year has been so hard. I had almost 200 shows booked for 2020, and when everything first kicked off we moved the shows to autumn, which was a massive process. As things got worse we had to move them again and again. In some instances we moved shows 3 or 4 times.” Simpson says they’ve been stuck in a “terrible limbo” where old shows haven’t happened, but they’ve done all the work for them, and new shows haven’t been able to happen. Most venues don’t have availability until spring next year.

    Because he was seeing such a shortfall of income, Simpson decided to step away from his company and go back to being an independent agent. “We are seeing that a lot in the industry at the moment,” he says. “All the bigger companies are having to make redundancies and branch off into smaller outlets, just to keep overhead down and be agile.”

    The pandemic, and his frustration, shifted Simpson’s career in other ways: he wrote a book on his experiences being a Booking Agent, started mentoring and teaching music. “We’ve all been doing everything we can to diversify our work lives and keep the trickle of income coming in,” he says.

    Some of his friends in the wider business of professional music have had to go back into other employment and take on part time jobs. “Some”, says Simpson, “have even given up professional music altogether. I’m lucky that most of my clients are quite well established so that they can find other means to make money like selling CDs or merchandise”.

    The effect of the pandemic on musicians has not been exclusively financial. “Musicians are particularly susceptible to mental health issues,” Simpson tells me, “because the highs are high, and the lows are very low”.

    “It was a really worrying time”: over lockdown, Newcastle musician Anna Reay started doing door-step performances

    And the catch-22 is that the quagmire which the industry is in predominantly effects younger, lesser known artists who are just starting to emerge onto the scene: Simpson says that going forward, the event organisers will be looking for artists who will guarantee them tickets. The unwillingness to take risks will result in younger artists getting less of a chance than their older, better established peers.

    As one of those lesser known artists, the pandemic brought huge challenges for Anna Reay. A singer from Newcastle, before lockdown Reay sang at big weddings and corporate events, and had just got a big contract with a cruise liner.

    “It was a really worrying time”, she says. “Being a single parent my main income is music. The first couple of weeks were just horrific. I cried every day.”

    Once she decided to move back in with her parents and share the homeschooling load, things started to turn around for Reay. “Singing is like a kind of therapy for me, so I started to come up with new ideas just to keep me sane”.

    From this sprung an ingenious idea which became hugely popular and has kept her career going since: virtual singing Anagrams. Reay began recording a song every Thursday to coincide with the clap for carers: kids, adults, artists and businesses began sending in videos and photos every week which documented their lockdown activities, which Reay then turned into videos which she shared on social media. She soon got a following, and started to get requests to sing songs for birthdays, cancelled weddings, cancelled parties and postponed events.

    At the same time, Reay did doorstep performances – her mic powered by a car generator and with Covid-safety checks in place like ‘keep your distance signs’. For her first ever performance Reay sang for a family who’d just lost a young girl to a rare disease.

    “To be honest I’ve never been so busy. I’ve even managed to get a mortgage from it,” says Reay.

    “It all just fell into place for me, I think because I panicked and my creative survival kicked in. Every business has had to diversify. So I thought, ‘If they can do it, why can’t we?’”

    As Reay says, she’s been “lucky” that she’s been able to “pivot” her business and adapt to the pandemic. Others haven’t. “I’ve seen musicians that have decided to hang their microphones up. It really saddens me how much everything has changed.”

  • Laurence Fox on wokeism, education, and running to be London mayor

    Laurence Fox on wokeism, education, and running to be London mayor

    As part of our series focusing on candidates for the London mayoral elections, Emily Prescott speaks to the former actor about his ambitions to change education and jobs in London

    Laurence Fox hates confrontation. This may not be immediately obvious if you’ve seen the footage of the actor metamorphosing into a political brand on Question Time while accusing an audience member of racism after she called him a “white privileged male”. But he tells me although he is morally opposed to wearing “face nappies” to prevent the spread of coronavirus, he occasionally acquiesces — just to avoid arguments on the tube.  Besides, as he is getting a lot of attention for setting up his political party, Reclaim, and running for London mayor, masks make for a good disguise.

    When I walk into Reclaim’s office in London Victoria, Fox is finishing off his lunchtime plate of chips and his son is sitting at a laptop in the corner. Fox apologises, explaining his son isn’t allowed into school as he is supposed to be isolating. 

    Fox, 42, shares an office with one of the few right-wing comedians, Leo Kearse, who helps Reclaim with social media and Stephanie Kowalski, his executive assistant, who he met after she messaged Reclaim’s website. They seem to get on well with Fox, Steph’s only complaint is that he overshares and so people take advantage of him. They are part of a core team of three, which sometimes becomes twelve, making up his new Reclaim party. That’s excluding the people who have already been fired. 

    The internal recruitment hiccups seem unsurprising given the divisive nature of Fox’s work. His party has been characterised as ‘UKIP for culture’. Curiously, on the weekend that former UKIP leader Nigel Farage announced he was stepping back from politics, Fox announced he was stepping up and running for London Mayor. Fox doesn’t entirely reject their similarities but stresses that, unlike Farage he’s not focused on immigration. Fox, who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, says he would encourage a policy of “assimilation.” “I’m not like out on the Channel with a boat saying ‘go home’. Not my vibe,” he adds. 

    So, what is his vibe? He says he hates the lockdown rules as they stand in opposition to his love of freedom. “They’re ruling us and I don’t want to be f**king ruled,” he tells me like a rebellious adolescent. I start to think of him as the Right’s Russell Brand. The comedian who, while learning about politics in the glare of the public eye in 2015, briefly attempted to start a revolution by suggesting people shouldn’t vote.  But unlike Brand, Fox isn’t just words, he’s extremely proactive — and his message is clearly resonating. More than 30,000 people have already signed up to Reclaim and businessman Jeremy Hosking has donated £5million to the party and is bankrolling Fox’s run for mayor. 

    I wonder then, is he more akin to Boris Johnson who served as London mayor en route to Number 10? But aside from their well-to-do backgrounds and passionate patriotism, they have very little in common. Boris plays the class clown while trying to advance his own career, whereas Fox tries to be a serious politician, to the detriment of his (former) career.  Also, unlike Johnson, Fox doesn’t seem to care for an Oxbridge following. Fox doesn’t infuse sentences with classical allusions and he is quick to tell me about his contempt for cyclists. Critically, Fox is a far more ardent libertarian when it comes to lockdown.  

    Fox is particularly concerned about the impact of lockdown on jobs and the economy and is focusing his mayoral campaign around this issue. He says: “We did polling and found out that 75% of people are worried that local small businesses are going to close.” 

    “It’s costing over £1billion a day which is crap, 50,000 lost jobs on Oxford Street, 700,000 jobs lost nationwide. I think it’s really sad but I think more importantly, people need to get out and be together and have fun again and remember what it’s like to be alive,” he sighs. 

    He also says children should have never been taken out of schools. On education more generally, Fox, who was ultimately expelled from Harrow for having sex at the sixth-form ball, hopes to raise the quality of all state schools across the country and doesn’t think much of private schools. But on this policy area, he is more attitude than detail. “I hate paying private school fees for my children. If it was my choice, I wouldn’t be doing it because I just think it’s a waste of money,” he says of his two sons, from his tumultuous relationship with actor ex-wife Billie Piper. “What’s the point in spending money so you can teach them all to be posh and hang around with other elite parents? Boring.”

     Although he doesn’t know specifically how to improve all state schools, he is happy to delegate to the experts and he says, “I’m just fairly logical. So just go, what’s the logical solution to this problem?”  

    One thing he is sure about is that calls to decolonise the curriculum are problematic. Advocates of decolonisation want to interrogate the historical cannon and include a wider range of perspectives. But Fox says, if anything, we “need to recolonise the curriculum” so there is a greater emphasis on British history. “Rather than being taught to look at history through a lens of race or gender, they should probably be taught to look at history through a lens of identity and home,” he explains.  

    He believes firmly in a culture war and the ultimate aim of Reclaim, he says, is just to shift the “Overton window” — the range of ideas that voters find acceptable. “We live in a kind of two tier system in this country ‘the morally superior’ and the ‘deplorables’,” he says he represents the latter.  I wonder how he takes the temperature of the nation and how he plans on measuring the movement of the window.
     
    He doesn’t have Facebook, which I suggest might be a better way to reach potential followers, but he says: “Twatter feed gets looked at quite frequently.” He knows it’s an “utter sewer of a place” and while he used to get offended by the comments when he first joined the platform in 2009, he insists now they don’t upset him. Ironically, it was fellow Lewis actor Rebecca Front who encouraged him to sign up, though they have since had a very public falling out on the site. 
     
    Fox blames social media for the rise of what he calls “wokeism” and he says he pities the “very serious and pious” generation who are growing up in the digital age. He also says there’s an awful lot of “virtue signalling” on the site. He references actor Ralf Little who denounced Fox on Twitter but was quiet when Fox threatened to expose some “horrendous” stories. He says he has had quite a few “showbiz people” criticise him on Twitter and then privately message an apology saying, “that’s the way the game works”. Indeed, since launching his political career, his acting agent has dropped him.  

    As a member of the “Fox Acting Dynasty” – including agent Robin, his sons Edward, James, Robert, and next generation actors Emilia, Freddie, and Jack – Laurence is not an outlier. He comes from a long line of entertaining and divisive eccentrics. In 2016 for instance, Edward told The Daily Mail: “Manhood is up against it now, because they’re not being asked to be proper men… Men are more animalistic than these metropolitan, so-called ‘civilised’, ‘good’ people.” 

    Laurence Fox tells me he was raised in a matriarchy. “I didn’t even know about the patriarchy until about three years ago. I didn’t even know there was a tyrannical patriarchy,” he shrugs.  He certainly doesn’t think it is something he has benefitted from: ”Yeah, there’s a lot privileges that females get, there’s definitely some male privileges as well. I think overall, we’re equal.” 

    When I dare to ask him the naughtiest thing he’s ever done he cites his respectful attitude towards women: “You know how some of these people get into power and then you suddenly find out that they’re a bit handsy with women. I’m so grateful now I’m working in the political arena that I’ve never been that way inclined.” He suggests the naughtiest thing is probably drugs, although he doesn’t think they are that bad, either that or punching a photographer. 

    Fox is used to being scolded by the media for his rebellious behaviour but setting up Reclaim and launching a bid for mayor has led to a constant onslaught of what he perceives to be unfair criticism. Before we met, he had an interview with The Times’s Andrew Billen. Fox bet me £100 that Billen would paint him as a suicidal divorcee just looking for a reason to live or an Oswald Mosley type.  He also says Billen pointed to the way he disciplined Blaze the Labrador and Sparky the Jack Russell to suggest he might be an angry man. Indeed, Billen writes that while speaking to Fox, images of the facist popped into his head.


    Fox doesn’t seem to be motivated by a thirst for power, rather he is driven by a sense of victimhood and it seems feelings of love rather than feelings of anger. “We live in the free-est most tolerant, progressive society on earth and everybody has renounced that,” he says. His anti-COVID-regulation views come from a place of love. “A mate of mine died in a hospital, choked on her vomit because no one put a f***ing heart rate monitor on her finger.” While he doesn’t blame the NHS for her death, he says there are more important health issues than coronavirus. 
     
    Indeed, love is inked over his body. On his hand, he has a rose “because I am sometimes quite animated with my hands as you can probably see when I’m waving my hands so it’s to say there is love behind it.” He has a tattoo commemorating his two boys. Throughout the interview he keeps telling the potentially contagious yet very well behaved son that he loves him. Fox also has a cover-up of a wedding tattoo, as well as his mum’s maiden name which was Piper, “awkward”. 

    His mum died in April and he shows me a dove of peace on his arm which symbolises her going to heaven. The words on his hands are an ode to his mum’s favourite expression: “I just want freedom and space”. I felt for his loss. “No, don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault,” he says. 

    It’s been a challenging year for Fox, he’s lost his mum and his acting career and has had so many death threats, he now has a bodyguard. ”Sometimes I wake up and think when is one of these days going to be like, chilled,” he sighs. Entrance into the political arena may be taking its toll and despite his previous protestations, he seems to have an almost masochistic taste for confrontation. 

    The “chilled” days aren’t going to happen particularly soon as the battle for London Mayor is going to be tough. But he tells me he’s not worried about the “other two”. “Sadiq Khan is Boris’s stooge isn’t he? Because he’s with Boris, he’s like, more lockdowns, longer, and I don’t know what the Conservative dude is on about except doing even more controversial Tweets than I do.” What about the Green’s Sian Berry, I ask? “Who’s Sian Berry?” he says.

    I wrap up the interview and he opens the door for me, “I guess this is toxic masculinity,” he says with a friendly wink. He is sardonic and charismatic, and from the perspective of an interviewer, his candour is refreshing. He is a lifelong entertainer and so it is easy to see him as the joke candidate. But Count Binface he is not. 

    His defenders would point to the need for plain-speaking in a society where ‘wokeism’ is on the rise but for many he has crossed a dangerous line, both in the manner of his speech, and in his attitude to public health. Now Fox is really throwing his hat into the political ring, he will rightly face more scrutiny than ever before.

    Photo credit: Martin Pope