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Fat-cat vice chancellors are taking us for fools
đ¸ ÂŁ16m poker game | đ´ Snoozy gardeners | đŻââď¸ Louvre dance classes
In the headlines
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others. Karim Khan says there are âreasonable groundsâ to believe war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed both in the October 7 attacks and in the Gaza war. The infected blood inquiry has concluded that patients were âknowingly exposed to unacceptable risksâ, and accused doctors, the NHS and the government of trying to cover up the scandal. More than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C between 1970 and 1991 from being given contaminated blood products, resulting in around 3,000 deaths. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has died in a helicopter crash. The 63-year-old, who was widely seen as a frontrunner to succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed along with the countryâs foreign minister when their aircraft came down in heavy fog in northern Iran yesterday afternoon.
Comment
Graduation day at Cambridge. Flickr/Sir Cam
Fat-cat vice chancellors are taking us for fools
If we discovered that some corporate fat cat had made their millions not only from company profits but also by âpilfering the earnings and savings of innocent members of the publicâ, says Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph, âwe would be outragedâ. Yet this is precisely what some of our biggest and richest companies and institutions are doing every day. Take universities, which reap huge rewards from selling degrees to foreign students. Many of these students donât give a fig about education â they see a short masterâs degree at a bad UK university as an easy migration route, because graduate visas allow them to stay and work in Britain for two years after they finish their studies.
For the most part, these are not the bright sparks boosting the economy by inventing new tech and starting profitable companies. A recent report found that 27% of graduate visa holders were not working at all, and 41% earned less than ÂŁ15,000 a year. As Tory MP Neil OâBrien points out, âthis is not graduate workâ â working full time on the minimum wage gets you ÂŁ24,000. Such people are unlikely to be ânet fiscal contributorsâ over their lifetimes, so granting them âgraduate visasâ is simply a swizz that allows low-quality universities to pay lavish salaries to their vice chancellors, while handing the costs to the general public. The only other beneficiaries of this system are the gig economy firms like Uber and Deliveroo, whose business models depend on these dodgy arrangements. âWe must not let them take us for fools any longer.â
Art
To celebrate this summerâs Paris Olympics, says The New York Times, the Louvre is running early-morning dance and exercise classes among its most famous exhibits. The sessionsâ activities are inspired by the rooms where they take place: thereâs dancing in the ballroom, running races by the Great Sphynx and yoga in the airy courtyard.
On the money
George Cottrell, an âaristocratic bankerâ and former advisor to Nigel Farage, has apparently lost a staggering ÂŁ16m in a single poker game, says The Mail on Sunday. The 30-year-old, known as âposh Georgeâ, was reportedly up against âChinese billionaires, Hollywood celebrities and some of the worldâs best high-roller poker starsâ at a private game in Montenegro. Not that he let his bad luck get to him. âDespite George losing so much money,â says a well-placed source, âhe appeared to be enjoying himself and didnât step away from the table until 7am.â
Staying young
Top gardener Sarah Raven: probably sleeps like a baby. Instagram/@sarahravensgarden
Gardeners tend to sleep better than everyone else, says The Times. A team from Fudan University in Shanghai studied 62,000 Americans of all ages, and found that those with green fingers had a 42% lower chance of having multiple sleep complaints including âshort sleepâ and âdaytime sleepinessâ, compared to those who did no exercise. Those who did other types of exercise only saw a 33% lower chance.
Comment
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy in 2022. Hollie Adams/Getty
Labourâs foremost flip-flopper
Rishi Sunak claims, not entirely convincingly, that Labour cannot be trusted on defence and foreign policy, says Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. The shadow defence secretary, John Healey, is âno oneâs idea of a pinko pacifistâ. But Sunakâs âcharge of unreliabilityâ might stick on shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who has displayed âprodigious powers of reinventionâ in recent years. In 2016, he made a passionate speech in parliament declaring that, âas a Christianâ, he couldnât vote for renewing Britainâs Trident nuclear deterrent. By last year, he was more relaxed about the matter, announcing his âunshakeableâ commitment to the UKâs nukes. In 2017, before Donald Trumpâs mooted state visit to Britain, Lammy labelled the US president a âracist KKK and Nazi sympathiserâ. But this month, Lammy has been in Washington schmoozing with Trump-affiliated Republicans in case they get back into the White House. He even said Trump had been âmisunderstoodâ in Europe.
One think-tanker he palled around with in DC was Elbridge Colby, âWashingtonâs most consistent Republican critic of US involvement in the Ukraine warâ â and then a week later, in Kyiv, Lammy assured President Zelenskyâs team that Labour would be âunstintingly supportiveâ in the fight against Moscow. During the Brexit wars, Lammy compared hardline Tory Brexiteers to Nazis, but he hasnât said a peep about one of those Tory Brexiteers, Natalie Elphicke, defecting to Labour. Perhaps he recognises in her âsomeone else who can swivel apparently steadfast political convictions through 180 degrees, without breaking sweatâ. Thereâs just one problem with this type of politician: âno one really trusts themâ.
Global update
Telegram
Russiaâs renewed assaults in Ukraine are being led by a strange new weapon, says the I newspaper: the âturtle tankâ. These are regular tanks with layers of sheet metal fixed to them, sometimes âsupplemented with further accessories such as screens, chains, different shapes of shell, and other pieces of military equipmentâ. They might look like something out of Mad Max, but theyâre much more resistant to drones than regular tanks. âEveryone is laughing at their shed design,â says one Ukrainian military blogger, âbut, in fact, they work.â
Noted
British taxpayers spent almost 800 years on hold to HMRC in the 2022-23 tax year, says The Daily Telegraph. A new report by the governmentâs spending watchdog found that Britons were left waiting on the taxmanâs helpline for a total of seven million hours, more than double the 3.2 million â or 365 years â they spent on hold in 2019-20. People who did manage to get through to an adviser waited 23 minutes on average, while a third of calls werenât answered at all.
Snapshot
Snapshot answer
Itâs a set of 18th-century doodles, says The Guardian. The âastonishingâ graffiti was discovered scratched into a wooden door found by chance at the top of a medieval turret in Kent. Historians say the etchings were chiselled in the 1790s by âbored English soldiersâ stationed at Dover Castle, when Britain was at war with France in the wake of the French Revolution. The drawings include a detailed carving of a sailing ship, an elaborate stylised cross and nine separate scenes of figures being hanged â one of whom looks uncannily like Napoleon Bonaparte, complete with a bicorn hat.
Quoted
âGoverning the Italians is not difficult, it is pointless.â
Five-time Italian prime minister Giovanni Giolitti