Category: #ukreport

Keir Starmer’s close aide Claire Ainsley is a former member of a Trotskyist party who opposed Nato intervention in Kosovo, it has emerged.

Ainsley is now “the opposition’s well-regarded director of policy”, but while serving as president of the student union at the University of York, she campaigned against Tony Blair’s Labour government as a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), The Times reports.

In 1998, Ainsley told students that she had joined the SWP – “a self-styled revolutionary party divisive even by the standards of the far-left”, according to the newspaper – “because I don’t believe that our views are represented by those in power”.

She also helped to organise marches opposing Nato’s intervention in Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population in Kosovo. At one protest, attendees were said to have chanted: “Blair and Clinton, hear us say, how many kids have you killed today?”

Ainsley compared the conflict to the Vietnam War and tried unsuccessfully to convince her student union to formally condemn the US-led intervention in Kosovo. “People see that what Nato is doing is wrong,” she told Nouse, the university’s student paper, at the time.

She would go on to write music reviews for the Morning Star, a communist newspaper, and also worked for the Transport and General Workers’ Union.

More recently, she has written a book titled The New Working Class: How to Win Hearts, Minds and Votes, published in 2018, and worked as head of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation think tank before joining Starmer’s policy operation in April.

Ainsley’s influence in Starmer’s team is considerable, with the London Economic last month describing her as “Labour’s answer to Dominic Cummings”.

Her rise is all the more notable given that little more than two years ago, she was still openly criticising Labour.

In an article published in The Times shortly after the release of her book, Ainsley wrote that the party had “steadily seen its working-class vote fall”.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour did not comprehend that “what it means to be working class today has significantly changed”, she added.

Ainsley and Labour declined to comment when asked by the paper this week about her hard-left past.

A government minister is joining researchers in a plea for more people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds to sign up for Covid vaccine trials.

Scientists hope to sign a total of 500,000 volunteers for the projects, but “of the 270,000 already recruited, only 7% are people belonging to ethnic minorities, who are at higher risk of complications if they develop Covid-19”, the BBC reports.

The volunteering push is being backed by Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, who is taking part in a vaccine trial being conducted by US biotechnology firm Novavax at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust in London.

“With less than 0.5% of people on the NHS Vaccine Registry from a black background, we have a lot more work to do,” she said.

“That is why I am urging more people from the ethnic-minority backgrounds to join me in signing up to the NHS Vaccine Registry and taking part in a trial.”

Scientists in the UK are currently testing a total of six different potential vaccines, “each of which urgently requires thousands of diverse volunteers to help speed up development”, says The Guardian.

According to analysis by the Office for National Statistics, black people in England and Wales are 1.9 times more likely to die of Covid than their white peers. Other groups who are also more vulnerable to the virus, including the over-65s, are also being encouraged to sign up for the trials.

Dr Maheshi Ramasamy from the Oxford Vaccine Group, said it is “really important that we can demonstrate to people from these communities that we have evidence that the vaccine works”.

Kate Bingham, who chairs the government’s vaccine taskforce, added that “researchers need data from different communities and different people to improve understanding of the vaccines.

“The only way to get this is through large clinical trials.”

For more information on how to take part, go to nhs.uk/researchcontact.

Do you like your design slow or fast? Traditional techniques or cutting-edge technology? Both are equally relevant today, as these two very different masters of their craft reveal.

‘I’d probably be fired from a commercial workshop. Everything I do takes hours’

Rory Stride grew up surrounded by beautiful pieces of furniture due to his parents’ family business, Stride & Son, a Chichester auction house. After an apprenticeship with local furniture maker Ted Jefferis of TedWood, he began Stride & Co in 2017 making handmade furniture from an old grain barn in Sussex. His furniture has been bought by private clients, interior designers like Christopher Howe and organisations like Soho House.

“I’ve always made things by hand – I started making speaker cabinets when I was 15. I like the pace of it – working with wood is slow and considered. Nothing can be rushed. You’re working to fine tolerances and finesses. You have to think of the right joints, using the right cut of wood.

“The responsibility of working with wood is something I take very seriously. It’s a contradiction because I really really love trees – and if something has that much beauty when it’s standing in a field, you really have to think about what you’re going to make – is it beautiful, is it functional, and will it last? You owe it to a 250-year-old oak tree to try to do your best by it.

“I’m trying to make something that will last. There’s a lot of fast fashion in the interiors world. When I come to London, I see perfectly good kitchens being ripped out and burnt after five years’ use – I don’t want to be part of that. My furniture is neither in fashion nor out of it, and it’s freestanding so it can be treasured and passed down.

“I don’t draw designs. I have an idea in my head, and you need to see and feel the piece come together in front of your eyes. It’s a process of discovery. You might miss a trick and stifle the end product if you’re too committed to a particular design.

“I’d probably be fired from most commercial workshops – everything I do takes so many hours. I live one minute from my workshop. I get in, have a cup of tea, light the woodburner, have another cup of tea… I have perhaps four pieces on the go at any one time. I’ll work the morning on one, then when I reach a natural break such as waiting for glue to dry, I’ll hop onto another.”

strideandco.co.uk

‘Designing at faster speeds will force us to become more economical with materials’

Manuel Jiménez García is the co-founder of madMdesign, a computational design practice based in London, and co-founder of robotic manufacturing startup Nagami, based in Avila, Spain. His work has been exhibited in Paris’s Centre Pompidou, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery. He’s also professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

“I’ve always been a bit against tradition, but that’s not the only reason I was attracted to robotic 3D printing. Technology can really help in making things faster and cleaner to produce, reduce waste, be better for the environment and safer – I mean, we’re still hanging people off great heights to build skyscrapers!

“We made a small robot first which could only do a chair. But it was useful for investigating how we’d make bigger pieces for architectural projects. Now we can build a house just using three pieces of 3D-printed material. There’s always been a link between furniture and architectural design – think of Gaudi or Le Corbusier.

“It’s basically a robot holding a tube of toothpaste and squeezing it, depositing the material in layers. The Voxel chair (commissioned by Paris’s Pompidou Centre) was made out of a 2.4km continuous line of plastic. It led us to start our design company Nagami and use the tech for commercial applications like The Nobu chair and the Nital vase.

“This technology has been around for a long time – most people have seen a desktop 3D printer. But working on a larger scale is what makes our technology unique. Most large 3D printed objects are a slow process – but we’ve optimised it so we can make a chair in 31/2 hours and charge €940 for it, where previously it would have taken days and cost €20,000.

“Designing and building at faster speeds will force us to be more economical with the use of materials and resources, while still being efficient. I strongly believe that these processes will not only allow us to design differently, but also to materialise schemes which we thought were out of our reach as an industry.”

nagami.design

Downing Street ignored advice from the government’s own experts to implement an immediate “circuit breaker” lockdown in September in order to curb the spread of Covid-19, newly published documents show.

Following Boris Johnson’s announcement yesterday of a new three-tier lockdown system, the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) published a series of minutes that show the prime minister overruled scientists who called warned three weeks ago that the country faced a “very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences” unless urgent action was taken.

The revelation comes amid growing criticism of No. 10’s response to the pandemic – and throws into doubt claims that ministers are simply “following the science”.

‘Bombshell after bombshell’

The Sage documents show that government scientists “pressed for national lockdown measures such as stopping all household mixing and closing all pubs”, The Telegraph reports.

Ministers were also advised to “consider for immediate introduction” the closure of restaurants, cafes and gyms, and a return to official guidance that all staff should work from home if possible. And all university and college teaching should be online “unless face-to-face teaching is absolutely essential”, Sage said.

“The more rapidly interventions are put in place, and the more stringent they are, the faster the reduction in incidence and prevalence and the greater the reduction in Covid-related deaths,” the experts advised. “Both local and national measures are needed; measures should not be applied in too specific a geographical area.”

But rather than acting on the recommendation for a nationwide “circuit-breaker” lockdown, Johnson opted instead for more localised restrictions that failed to curb the spike in coronavirus infections.

Minutes from a Zoom meeting on 21 September “show in stark terms that Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and the government’s other scientific advisers are now publicly at odds with the policy being pursued by Boris Johnson and his ministers”, says Politico London Playbook’s Alex Wickham.

Only one of the measures recommended by the experts was implemented, with the PM issuing a statement the following day urging employees to work from home. Others restrictions advocated by Sage, such as closing down parts of the hospitality sector, were implemented only in the worst-hit areas of the country.

Ministers were also warned that failure to act would see a second wave of the virus “fall disproportionately on the frailest in our society, but also those on lower incomes and BAME communities”.

The scientists said that as “over 90% of the population remain susceptible, not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences in terms of direct Covid-related deaths and the ability of the health service to meet needs”.

‘Following the science’

Since the global outbreak reached the UK back in early spring, Johnson and his cabinet have repeatedly insisted that they have consulted scientists on how to tackle the health crisis effectively.

But as Politico’s Wickham says, “you can expect the prime minister’s critics to spend today asking whether the government is doing enough to prevent a disastrous death toll during the second wave [and] why it rejected the advice of its experts”.

Sage “conceded its advice would have a negative economic impact”, notes the political pundit, who suggests that “the economic argument ultimately quite simply won out over the public health concerns”.

On 22 September – a day after the Zoom meeting with Whitty and Vallance – Johnson was reported to have sided with Chancellor Rishi Sunak against lockdown hawks in his cabinet who were also calling for nationwide measures.

Despite scientists’ verdict that “single interventions by themselves” would not bring the reproduction rate of the virus below one, Downing Street continued with the strategy of imposing only localised restrictions.

The publication of the Sage documents is now raising fresh “questions over the prime minister’s decision to introduce the tightest restrictions only on Merseyside”, reports The Times, which notes that the PM is “pressing other northern cities to agree to similar restrictions”.

“This all helps to explain why Whitty not very subtly dumped on Johnson’s three-tier strategy while standing next to him at yesterday’s [daily government] press conference,” adds Politico’s Wickham.

“While he was careful to insist the government’s policy would ‘help’ slow the spread of the virus, the chief medical officer said he was ‘not confident’ the base level of restrictions in ‘very high’ alert areas would be enough to get on top of it.”

Testing times

The Sage files also offer a “damning assessment” of the NHS Test and Trace scheme, which the panel of government advisers had previously said “needed to be working effectively before the national lockdown was lifted, and when schools reopened”, says The Guardian.

The experts warned the government last month that “low levels of engagement” and testing delays meant the system was “having a marginal impact on transmission”.

“Unless the system grows at the same rate as the epidemic, and support is given to people to enable them to adhere to self-isolation, it is likely that the impact of test, trace and isolate will further decline in the future,” the scientists added.

Despite the guidance, Johnson said on 22 September that testing and tracing has “very little or nothing to do with the spread and transmission” of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

During a debate in Commons, he insisted that the spread “is caused by contact between human beings and all the things that we’re trying to minimise” – a statement that shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth dismissed as “nonsense” in a subsequent tweet.

The system has so far cost £12bn, and 2,000 contact tracing staff have been laid off in recent weeks despite rising infection rates.

Airline food has never had the greatest of reviews – but that could all be about to change.

Singapore Airlines has announced it will transform two of its Airbus A380 double-decker superjumbos into pop-up restaurants.

Taking place for two weekends only – 24-25 October and 31 October-1 November – the A380 dining experience will see passengers board the aircraft and sit down for an in-flight meal. However, there’s no need for take-off or landing as the aircraft will remain parked at Changi Airport.

Prices for the “Restaurant A380 @Changi” concept reflect the cabin class in which passengers book tickets for. An economy class ticket costs SG$53.50 (£30), premium economy is SG$96.30 (£54) and business is SG$321 (£181). Diners who really want the luxury A380 experience can book a suite for SG$642 (£362).

It’s proved very popular with tickets for the initial dates of 24-25 October selling out in 30 minutes, Bloomberg reports. Singapore Airlines extended the offer for a further two days the following weekend and has also added a dinner option on all four days.

According to the airline’s website guests can enjoy a pre-dining restaurant tour before sitting down for international cuisines and dishes designed by acclaimed Singaporean chef Shermay Lee.

Two complimentary alcoholic drinks, a free flow of other beverages and in-flight movies will also be available.

Creative concepts

With the pandemic bringing the aviation industry to a halt this year, airlines have had to be creative to keep business going.

Australian airline Qantas recently had a “flight to nowhere” which took off and landed in Sydney, CNN reports. The flight looped around the country giving passengers the chance to view sights such as Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef from the skies.

As well as its dining experience, Singapore Airlines has also offered other schemes including behind-the-scenes tours of its training facilities that include a grooming workshop and a spin in a flight simulator, says the Daily Mail.

Goh Choon Phong, the airline’s CEO, said: “With Covid-19 drastically reducing the number of flights operated by the SIA Group, we have created unique activities that would allow us to engage with our fans and customers during this time.”