Ranked: Tory leadership candidates’ branding efforts from best to worst
The Independent
Five Conservative Party leadership hopefuls are jostling to make into the final two in the race to be the next prime minister, having made their appeal to MPs for support.
Rishi Sunak launched his campaign with a video about his upbringing, Penny Mordaunt raised eyebrows with some bombastic flag-waving, and Liz Truss played it safe by setting out her stall as the “trust” candidate.
Mark Borkowski, one of Britain’s top PR experts, said some of the remaining contenders had launched impressively “slick” campaigns – but still had a long way to go in connecting with the country the way Boris Johnson once did.
The communications professional ranked the candidates’ branding efforts, giving The Independent his verdict on how their presentational style might fare with party members and the wider public.
1. Rishi Sunak
Borkowski said he was impressed by the video which launched Sunak’s campaign, focusing on his grandmother’s Indian roots and his family’s move to Britain in the sixties. “It was very slick, very well-made, very effective in communicating in his personal story to the public,” he said.
“Ready for Rishi is a decent slogan, the presentation is fresh, and his team will be very well-prepared to push out more on social media,” the expert said. “People like chancellors who give them money. He will be reminding people how he got them through the Covid crisis.”
He added: “Sunak is one of the best communicators since Tony Blair in terms of obfuscating difficult questions. But I just wonder how quickly will forget and forgive Boris Johnson and begin to miss him.”
2. Penny Mordaunt
Borkowski said Mordaunt has “a significant PR team behind her”, adding: “Like Rishi’s team, they’ve obviously turned to people outside of politics for help on presentation.”
He added: “The PM4PM phrase might seem a bit gauche – but it fits with how she understands the media, social media, and how to use digestible soundbites.”
Despite being mocked for her patriotic launch clip, the PR expert said it could be effective. “Ships in Portsmouth, military images, the flag – playing to the heritage stereotypes tunes people into the idea she can bring back the Thatcher era,” Borkowski said.
3. Liz Truss
Borkowski said: “Liz Truss is another one who is trying to channel Margaret Thatcher, in her case the idea of a strong, dependable leader.”
“It is a little bit safe, a little bit simple. She has had a record of never missing a photo opportunity and chance to promote herself. So I’m a bit surprised she has got a bit lost. I don’t think her campaign has gone down as well as her team would have expected.”
4. Tom Tugendhat
Borkowski praised the moderate outsider’s performance during the first week of the race. But he suggested the branding might be “a tad overly-contrived” for someone who should be playing the “authenticity and humility card”.
“It is a very American presentation,” he said. “It is slick. The phrase ‘Clean start’ certainly gets across the fact he wants us to move on from Boris Johnson. He’s fresh, and the branding reflects that. But it’s trying too hard, and in marketing terms, people tend to see through that.”
5. Kemi Badenoch
Borkowski also praised the anti-woke outsider’s efforts to drum up support on the right, but said the presentation – including the slogan Kemi for Prime Minister – “has not been particularly slick”.
He added: “You can see there’s not a big professional PR team there helping her. I think she has projected herself well. She’s clearly been appealing to MPs in the party, to get more MPs behind her, but it’s hard to see how she would project herself to the country on the basis of the campaign.”
He added that Suella Braverman, knocked out of the race on Thursday after launching her Suella 4 Leader campaign at the weekend, struggled to appeal beyond the party’s right-wing Brexiteers.
“Like Badenoch, Braverman proved to be a very authentic commentator, even if she didn’t have PR professionals behind her,” said Borkowski. “She didn’t try to be something she’s not. But she wasn’t able to appeal to the wider public.”
Ranked: Tory leadership candidates’ branding efforts from best to worst | The Independent
How Bradley Cooper and Huma Abedin are the new George and Amal Clooney
Page Six
As the handsome, blue-eyed hero of movies like “The Hangover” and “American Sniper,” Bradley Cooper could likely have his pick of starlets, models and influencers to romance.
So it’s no wonder there was intrigue in Hollywood when Page Six first revealed that he is quietly dating Huma Abedin: Hillary Clinton’s forever faithful chief of staff and the long-suffering former wife of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner.
On the face of it, they might seem like an odd couple. The outgoing LA-based actor is now in the midst of directing and filming the high-minded Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” while enigmatic New Yorker Abedin has, for 25 years, been the keeper of secrets, optics and logistics for Clinton and trafficked in the policy-wonk world of Washington, DC.
But insiders and experts say that, while it is still in the early days, the relationship boosts both of their profiles — and that Cooper, 47, and Abedin, 45, could become the next George and Amal Clooney-style power couple: a meeting of Hollywood and politics.
In September 2014, Hollywood heartthrob George married British barrister Amal in a high-profile wedding in Venice, Italy. That pairing seemed unlikely at first — George, after all, had previously been linked to a string of little-known actresses and TV presenters (Elisabetta Canalis, Krista Allen, Lisa Snowdon) as well as a professional wrestler (Stacy Keibler). If the man had a type, it was hardly “lawyer specializing in international human rights.”
“There is no question that having Amal in my life changed everything for me,” George, now 61, said in 2020. “It was the first time that everything that she did and everything about her was infinitely more important than anything about me.”
Now, of course, it all makes sense.
Their pairing led to the Amal Clooney Effect, which flipped stereotypical relationship dynamics and introduced the idea of a trophy husband for an accomplished, intellectual woman.
Amal, 44, has taught at Columbia Law School and represented such clients as Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad. She has addressed the UN on matters including genocide against the Yazidi people, sexual violence as a weapon of war and, in April, urging punishment for war crimes being committed by Russia against Ukraine.
George’s fame has brought a new level of attention to Amal’s work without making her seem frivolous, while she’s lent him a sense of gravitas that’s hard to come by in Hollywood. Especially for a man who, while trying to bolster a serious directing career with films such as “Good Night, and Good Luck,” is still mocked for the nipples on his 1997 Batman outfit.
Since marrying Amal —who shares 5-year-old twins Alexander and Ella with George — the actor has focused more on his humanitarian work. Together, they founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice in 2016, which led to calls for him to enter the political arena. (He has publicly declined, in his smooth George Clooney way.)
He charmingly knows how to play her reputation to his favor, too. In 2018, the Oscar winner took the podium at Variety’s Power of Women luncheon by introducing himself as “Hi, I’m George, and I’m Amal Clooney’s husband.”
Now, global branding and public relations expert Mark Borkowski told The Post of Abedin and Cooper: “It has all the potential of having one of the most interesting power relationships we’ve seen since Amal and Clooney.”
For one thing, it could be a chance for Abedin to finally shake her reputation as Anthony Weiner’s beleaguered ex-wife and Clinton’s lackey.
“She has all this back history: Hillary, the husband and the laptop,” Borkowski said, referring to how, just before the 2016 presidential election, an investigation of Weiner’s computer led to a reopened FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of private emails when she was secretary of state.
“Like a moth to a flame she is drawn to fame and celebrity, and dating a hot celebrity is a good way to show she is still relevant,” one political insider added. “It makes her current. Her book [2021 memoir ‘Both/And‘] got good reviews, and now she’s moving on from this terrible marriage.”
As for Cooper, “It does give Bradley a platform to be seen more seriously —and to take on more cerebral matters rather than the usual showbiz piffle.”
Nine-time Academy Award nominee Cooper has vented his frustration at not being taken seriously. Speaking on Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes’ “SmartLess” podcast in June, he said he was still treated like an impostor among the Hollywood elite, admitting he has wondered: “What the f–k is this town?
In 2018, he told the New York Times how he was infuriated when filmmakers would try to cast him in the same roles. “Because you’re like, ‘I have these big dreams, and I feel these things.’ Is that all wrong? Like, shame on anybody that’s going to tell you who you are. That angers me. It’s like, someone’s going to tell you who you are, what you’re capable of … They just truly believe that each person gets one dimension.”
An influential Hollywood source said that Cooper put his “heart and soul” into directing and starring in 2018’s “A Star Is Born” with Lady Gaga — only to have it ripped to shreds. “Bradley was devastated not to win the Oscar for that movie. He put everything he had into it.”
The Hollywood source added: “While whoever anyone is dating does not guarantee Oscars or a movie hit, it can change the perspective on someone as an artist in Hollywood.
“Huma has a vast network of very wealthy and powerful contacts and world leaders. She can make important introductions for Bradley which could be a valuable source of financing for the independent movies he wants to make.”
Borkowski, meanwhile, noted that “Having a devout Muslim partner would project him in a different light, in terms of her global impact.”
Cooper has also long been a Democratic supporter, having donated to Clinton’s campaign in 2008, been an outspoken advocate of Obamacare and appearing at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
But political insiders say his relationship with Abedin may well boost his stature in Democratic and wider political circles. Cooper, a self-confessed “fan of politics,” was asked in 2012 if he would ever run for office. “I don’t know, I actually think it is a very noble profession,” he said. When pressed for a more direct answer, he said, “Yeah,” adding the job comes with “tons of respect.” (Unless, of course, your name is Weiner.)
One top Democratic insider said, “Huma is a very smart woman who has a lot of powerful contacts across the world. This relationship will open up doors for Bradley Cooper that were previously shut.
“The idea of him running seems a long shot at the moment, but you could see him start to appear on panels or advisory committees.”
And besides, the political insider added, “Let me tell you something — nobody is more entitled to go out and have some fun than Huma Abedin.”
How Bradley Cooper and Huma Abedin are the new George and Amal Clooney (pagesix.com)
Billion dollar Boris? Nigel Farage says PM will earn MILLIONS in US because of his close friendship with Trump – and can use Carrie to woo the Bidens
Daily Mail
Boris Johnson will make so much money from US TV networks, books and big businesses when he leaves Downing Street he ‘might not even bother with the UK’, experts told MailOnline today.
His tenure in No 10 will soon be over and the outgoing Prime Minister is tipped to make £100million – especially if he stays married to Carrie.
Mrs Johnson’s passion for net zero has rubbed off on her husband and softened his image, as well as helping him ‘bond’ with Joe Biden and his First Lady Jill – a new link that will supercharge his potential earnings.
Nigel Farage told MailOnline that the outgoing PM will look to conquer America and rake in huge sums from its TV channels and speech circuit. A move to the US could even happen.
The Brexiteer said: ‘I was on Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC last night and told them: “You can expect to see a lot of Boris, very very soon”. He was born in New York and got on well with both the last US Presidents.
‘Trump liked him and with the help of Carrie he has bonded with Biden on net zero. They have seemed very pally at the G7, and not being tied just to Trump will open him up to the JP Morgans of this world. The money on offer for him in the US is so huge he might not even bother with the UK’.
PR guru and brand expert Mark Borkowski, who believes Boris could make £100million in the next five years if he stays with Carrie, said today that leaving No 10 now would help maximise his earnings.
He said: ‘Boris Johnson should leave Downing Street now’ to ‘unshackle the bonds and grab the cash’. ‘There will be TV appearances, lecture tours, especially in the US. He has an obvious link with Trump and Americans will understand how he has tried to grip on to the rump of power like Trump did’, adding: ‘Remember he has a large family to support’.
Mr Johnson says he will leave Downing Street by the Autumn – opening up endless opportunities to make ‘cash by the barrowful’ like his predecessors and he could soon rival Tony Blair as Britain’s richest living former PM.
And the odds of him appearing on a reality show such as Strictly or I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here have also been slashed to as little as 12/1 if he chooses to quit as a MP.
Mr Borkowski said: ‘Boris is going to make loads and loads of money – tens of millions of pounds or more. Imagine how many people will want to read the memoirs about Brexit, Partygate and his final days in No 10.
‘He and Carrie are not Posh and Becks but she is no fool – together they are a force to be reckoned with – and I expect him to milk every ounce out of it’, adding: ‘Remember he has a large family to support’.
Tony Blair is estimated to be worth up to £100million – with a family property portfolio worth around £35million.
If and when Mr Johnson writes his memoirs he can expect to be paid at least £4.5million in advance, based on what David Cameron earned from his in 2018, and would likely earn £100,000 per speech – the rate believed to be charged by Theresa May for some engagements.
Before marrying Carrie Symonds, the Tory leader was forced to split his £6.5million fortune including cash and assets such as their family home when his second wife Marina divorced him after 25 years.
Boris is said to have raged to aides about his now wife ‘buying gold wallpaper’, saying he couldn’t afford the No 10 flat renovations that cost ‘tens and tens of thousands’.
And when he entered No 10 he had to give up his £275,000-a-year for a weekly Daily Telegraph column and concentrate on work rather than writing history books. He will likely have the time to start this work again, probably at a much-higher rate.
David Cameron is believed to be worth around £37.8million, contributed in part to by the wealth of his wife Samantha, a successful businesswoman who is the eldest daughter of a Baronet.
Since resigning as Prime Minister in 2016, David Cameron has earned £1.6m in private work including consultancy and speaking engagements. He denied claims by the BBC that he made £7million from Greensill Capital before the finance company collapsed.
Gordon Brown, who after years of trying became PM in a short-lived reign, is said to be worth around £10million. While he was in Parliament he was earning up to £1.3million-a-year for speeches, but the former chancellor didn’t keep a penny and donated it to charities supported by him and his wife Sarah.
Mr Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, 65, has reportedly earned more than £2.1 million on the lucrative speaking circuit in the three years since leaving Downing Street.
Theresa May was paid £109,000 for a five-hour speaking engagement, it was revealed last month.
According to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, the former Prime Minister received the sum in May for a speaking engagement with the Danish Bar and Law Society in Copenhagen.
Other earnings declared on the register include an advance payment of approximately £160,370 from JP Morgan Chase in April 2020 for two speaking engagements which were cancelled.
Both were rescheduled and took place on 18 March 2021 and 16 November 2021.
She also received around £46,800 for a virtual speaking event from Cuyahoga Community College Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. It lasted four hours, according to the register.
ANDY BOMBSHELL Prince Andrew’s sex attack accuser Virginia Giuffre is working with Monica Lewinsky’s PR & ‘may do Oprah interview’
The Sun
PRINCE Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre is working with Monica Lewinsky’s PR to craft her image after her $14million settlement with the Duke.
Ms Giuffre, 38, is being represented by New York-based Dini von Mueffling, The Sun can reveal.
PR experts said she could now follow the example of the former White House intern who had an affair with Bill Clinton and has rehabilitated her image.
Giuffre could even do an interview with Oprah Winfrey like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – a potential nightmare for Andrew.
After settling her case with the Duke, Giuffre was said to have been subject to a gagging order until The Queen’s Jubilee took place in June 2022.
Giuffre has the right to make a statement at the sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell on June 28.
In a victim impact statement submitted ahead of the sentencing, Giuffre said the former socialite deserved to spend the rest of her life “trapped in a cage.”
It comes after Maxwell was convicted of recruiting and trafficking underage girls – including Giuffre – to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
She faces up to 50 years in jail and this week her lawyers blamed her abusive father for making her “vulnerable” to Epstein’s manipulation.
Giuffre looks set to become a spokeswoman for victims of sexual assault, according to the website for her charity SOAR, or Speak Out, Act, Reclaim.
It says: “Through media appearances, speaking engagements, and public education campaigns, SOAR raises awareness and ensures that the voices of survivors are featured in the fight to end sex trafficking.”
The PR team has masterminded the change in Lewinsky’s image with speeches, TV appearances, and favorable articles.
Lewinsky penned an essay for Vanity Fair magazine about her treatment in the late 1990s and said in a TED talk she was “patient zero” for online bullying.
She was also the subject of an article in Vogue magazine which was titled: “We all owe Monica Lewinsky an apology.”
Lewinsky was a producer on a TV series about her life called Impeachment: American Crime Story starring Beanie Feldstein as Lewinsky and Clive Owen as Bill Clinton.
Last week she weighed in on the Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial, saying it “stoked the flames of misogyny and the celebrity circus.”
She also blasted the conservative majority on the Supreme Court which overturned the Roe v Wade ruling on abortion.
Should Giuffre, who currently lives in Australia with her family, embark on the same route, it could mean years of discomfort for Andrew.
She could hit the speaking circuit and write a book after already penning a manuscript called the “Billionaire Boys Club” which features the disgraced royal.
CHAT SHOW DEBUT
Amber Melville-Brown, a reputation and media lawyer with Withersworldwide, said that “it is not impossible that Ms Giuffre will find herself on the chat-show sofa.”
She said Oprah’s couch has “played host to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as they sat down very publicly to spill some private royal family beans in cozy tête-à-tête with the chat show queens and their millions of viewers.
“Ironic if the next indentation in the sofa is made by Ms Giuffre, who is standing up for herself and others as the settlement statement says, has made such a lasting indentation in the reputation of Harry’s uncle Andrew.”
UK-based PR expert Mark Borkowski said: “My advice would be to make sure she has a purpose and to help people.
“I’m not sure what the world would feel about somebody who has generated so much money going into the public arena and continuing to fight her battle.
“It’s more about others who have been through a similar struggle.
“If she goes on a further money-making exercise would we have the same sympathy for her?”
US PR expert Howard Bragman, founder of LaBrea Media said: “There are a lot worse models to follow than Monica Lewinsky who has been elegant and classy in the way she has handled herself.”
The Sun has reached out to Dini von Mueffling for comment.
Why Prince Andrew may be out of public sight — for now
CBC News
It was described as a “family decision.”
But there is a sense that it may have been more like an edict or decree, with some in the Royal Family — particularly Princes Charles and William — doing whatever they could to ensure someone else — Prince Andrew — stayed well out of public view.
Andrew, who settled a civil sexual abuse lawsuit recently and had repeatedly denied the allegations at the heart of it, was at private events associated with the Order of the Garter, a high-profile annual royal occasion. But there was no sign of him in the public procession associated with the ceremony the other day.
While it’s hard to know exactly what calculations played out behind palace walls, it’s widely reported that Charles and William were behind the decision to keep Andrew out of sight on Garter Day — a move that came after an order of service for the event was printed, indicating he would be in the procession.
“It’s very clear that the direct line of the Royal Family is not interested in scandals involving junior members of the Royal Family overshadowing their own work and public role,” Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris said in an interview.
This all comes in a period of transition for the House of Windsor, with signs pointing to a slimmed-down monarchy in the future, focused particularly on those in the direct line of succession.
At the same time, there are hints that the 62-year-old Andrew, who now sits at No. 9 in the line, may want to resume some kind of public role after having lost his military affiliations and royal patronages amid the sex abuse lawsuit.
“Prince Andrew’s disappearance from public life shows that the Royal Family is taking this seriously,” said Harris.
“However, there has been some evidence that Prince Andrew is eager to retain at least some of his military commissions, for instance. So it’s clearly been a struggle to ensure that he stays completely out of the public eye.”
Andrew’s reputation sank like a stone, particularly after his disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC over his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. There’s little sense it has recovered.
“He just doesn’t get it,” British PR expert Mark Borkowski said in an interview.
“He clearly thinks that he has so much more to give and … he’s not recognizing that the public opinion has banished him.”
Charles and William see that, said Borkowski, “and what the Royal Family has clearly telegraphed through all these recent celebrations … is that it’s going to be a very different Royal Family under Charles. [And it will be an] even more slimmed-down version of the Royal Family that will be presided over by King William.”
In a sense, Andrew is “embedding an image of an old Royal Family,” said Borkowski. And in some ways, he said, people “respect more what Charles and William are trying to do to modernize the Royal Family,” even as Andrew is like an “albatross around the neck.”
Still, there is the question of just what Andrew’s future might hold for him.
“It remains to be seen if Prince Andrew will be completely ignored or if the Royal Family will simply find a way to keep him occupied out of the public eye,” said Harris, noting for example the possibility of having him manage royal estates, such as Balmoral or Sandringham.
All this comes as there are signals that two other junior members of the Royal Family, who also courted controversy, will retire from public life.
Reports suggest Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, and his wife, Princess Michael of Kent, will officially step back next month, as he turns 80 on July 4.
Prince Michael’s ties to Russia came under scrutiny after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. He gave up his role as patron of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, along with returning an Order of Friendship award he received from the Kremlin in 2009.
“Prince Michael’s connections to Russia have attracted particular controversy in recent months,” said Harris. “And we’ve seen that the main line of succession simply doesn’t want the press focused on scandals related to junior members of the Royal Family and to keep the focus on the direct line of succession.”
Prince William readily acknowledges he “may seem like one of the most unlikely advocates” for those who are homeless.
But the second in line for the throne says he’s “always believed in using my platform to help tell those stories and to bring attention and action to those who are struggling.”
“I plan to do that now I’m turning 40 even more than I have in the past,” he wrote recently in The Big Issue, a magazine in support of those who are homeless, long-term unemployed or trying to avoid going into debt.
William, whose 40th birthday was on Tuesday, went incognito in central London earlier this month, selling copies of the magazine. Writing in its most recent issue, he said he “wanted to experience the other side.”
In doing so, he was sending some of the clearest indications yet about how he sees his role and the future of the monarchy.
“We see William highlighting causes that are important to him and also emphasizing that members of the Royal Family can make a difference without necessarily being at a high-profile event with numerous photographers,” Harris said.
Borkowski said that William is “defining a real sense of who he might be and sending signals about who that person is going to be, which is a lot more open, less governed by the … old ways.”
Along with signals about William himself, there’s been a lot of focus recently on William’s role within the Royal Family.
“There’s a very strong emphasis on the Duke of Cambridge’s support for his father, the Prince of Wales,” said Harris, noting they both attended the state opening of the British Parliament and were on the parade ground for Trooping the Colour during events to mark Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee earlier this month.
More and more, says Harris, we’re seeing events with multiple generations of the Royal Family that “emphasizes continuity at a time when there has been conflict with junior members of the Royal Family.”
“There’s a very strong emphasis on the main line of succession all working together,” she said, along with a higher profile for William’s family.
The first joint portrait of William and his wife, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, was unveiled Thursday. Their children, who have made relatively few public appearances, were front and centre during several Jubilee events and appearances on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
“We’re also seeing William’s role as the father of the next generation of the Royal Family very much in the public eye,” said Harris.
With the increased prominence of his family, the political and the personal are coming closer together for William.
“That Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis were very prominent at the Platinum Jubilee … symbolizes four generations of the Royal Family, but it also led to a lot of scrutiny of the children and their demeanour at these events,” said Harris.
Was Prince Louis, 4, tired because he was up past his bedtime? Is Prince George, 8, naturally shy and would this have been a lot for him to be in the public eye?
“We see both the royal children being there as part of the continuity of the Royal Family, but we also see the public connecting with William and Catherine as parents, and debating and discussing their children in that context,” said Harris.
Why Prince Andrew may be out of public sight — for now | CBC News
Prince Charles risks alienating younger generations over accepting cash from Qatari politician
The i
Prince Charles risks “alienating” people who are already sceptical about the relevance of the Royal Family following allegations he accepted a suitcase containing a million euros in cash from a former Qatari prime minister, an expert has said.
It emerged over the weekend that Prince Charles had accepted three charity cash donations amounting to €3m from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani between 2011 and 2015.
Mark Borkowski, a leading PR consultant, said revelations about bags of money being passed between a former Qatari prime minister and the future king brought into question the Royal Family’s ability to modernise and to appeal to younger generations who prioritise “values and authenticity”.
There is no suggestion of illegality involving the donations, first reported in The Sunday Times, from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, the former prime minister of Qatar between 2007 and 2013.
Sources close to Prince Charles insist that all the correct processes were followed, with the money given to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF).
In a statement, it said: “Charitable donations received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim were passed immediately to one of the Prince’s charities who carried out the appropriate governance and have assured us that all the correct processes were followed.”
According to the newspaper report, a holdall of €1m was exchanged during a meeting at Clarence House in 2015.
Sir Ian Cheshire, chairman of PWCF, which aims to transform lives and build sustainable communities, told the Sunday Times that “there was no failure of governance”.
He said giving cash had been the donor’s choice and that auditors signed off on the donation.
i has also contacted the PWFC for comment.
Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said Charles’ handling of the cash was not a Government issue but he was confident the donations would have gone through “proper due process”.
He told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: “I’m confident having had some dealings with charities, The Prince’s Trust, The Prince’s Foundation, around the palace in the past myself, that these will have gone through proper due process.”
Despite there being no suggestion of wrongdoing, Mr Borkowski said the incident was a problem for the Royal Family, which stands “at a really delicate point in its future”.
Mr Borkowski added it was “a generation that really wants to focus on values and authenticity”.
“It’s not the boomers that you’ve got to convince about the future Royal Family, it’s another generation who do not see its relevance.”
Mr Borkowski added: “It’s a very, very significantly negative story after all the celebrations with Jubilee and what the Royal Family stands for. What does this mean?
“It will be interesting to see how the palace deals with it… because it can’t be ignored.”
The Sunday Times report comes as the Prince’s Foundation is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police over an alleged cash-for-honours scandal.
Clarence House previously said Prince Charles had “no knowledge” of the alleged cash-for-honours.
Why ‘best TV show ever’ The Wire is still a game changer after 20 years
The Express
They were two struggling, unknown British actors trying their luck in America, both auditioning for parts on the same new, low-budget TV crime series – and both struggling to convince the producers that they could convincingly play a murderous Baltimore gangster and a troubled police detective.
Fast forward 20 years and that gangster, Idris Elba, and cop, Dominic West, are two of the most bankable stars in the business and the show that cast them, The Wire, has attained the status of legend, regularly cited as the best TV show ever made.
Its reputation has steadily grown since it was first broadcast 20 years ago this month.
Just six months ago it beat off competition from the likes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones to top a BBC poll of critics to the title of “best TV show of the 21st century”.
And it’s gaining a fresh wave of attention because creator David Simon has returned to the same subject matter for his new show.
Described as almost a Wire spin-off, We Own This City has just launched on Sky Atlantic.
In The Wire’s early days, filming the first series on a shoestring, this kind of success looked wildly improbable – but for the two British stars the immediate problem was simply staying in character.
West recalled: “I didn’t realise he [Elba] was English initially, because he was talking the whole time in American. I was chatting to him, and eventually he said, ‘Look, you’ve got to stop talking in that English accent because you’re ****ing me up’. “
Elba added: “There was only one scene where we actually worked together, and as soon as he [West] walks in, he was talking in his English accent, and I started talking in my English accent, and I said, ‘mate, we’re never going to be able to pull this off’.
“It was really hard working with an English actor when you’re both playing Americans.”
Yet they went on to become key characters that made the whole show work – finding great personal success along the way.
But as well as launching these two stellar careers and steadily growing a huge international fan base among viewers and critics alike, The Wire’s wider legacy was changing how we watch TV.
Media consultant Mark Borkowski believes it practically invented the trend for binge-watching. “It arrived in the UK complete with five seasons to get stuck into,” he recalls.
“There was no marketing as such, but it had these very strong word-of-mouth recommendations. It would draw you in and you’d be hooked, staying up into the early hours of the morning watching episode after episode.
“Suddenly you weren’t dependent on the whims of schedulers. It was a real gamechanger in how people watched TV.”
It gives some indication of The Wire’s scope that its cast featured an Old Etonian like West alongside former gangsters, including a real-life murderer. Felicia Pearson, who played killer drug enforcer Snoop, served time for second-degree homicide before becoming an actor.
West’s Jimmy McNulty was as close as it came to a central character, yet even he isn’t in every episode. As characters came and went, some said the true star of the show was the city of Baltimore itself.
Named after police wiretap technology, the show broke new ground in other ways – being, for instance, the first major show to have a predominantly black cast as well as compelling gay characters like Omar Little, who made a high risk living robbing drug dealers.
Simon describes the show as a “Greek tragedy for the new millennium” and it certainly featured plenty of tragedy.
Teen drug dealers, cops bent and straight, gangsters, corrupt politicians, lying journalists, struggling teachers and dockers, all strained to live their messy lives in the grim city of Baltimore where life is hard and cheap and tough breaks come with the territory.
Success came slowly: the show initially had such low ratings – only one million viewers watched the first series – that HBO very nearly cancelled it. But gradually its vast canvas drew a vast audience.
Data from website Fandom suggests its ongoing popularity continues to be driven by word-of-mouth: fans of The Wire spend more time reading about and discussing it than many top-trending new shows – and viewers flocked to finally try or rewatch it during the pandemic lockdown.
Paul Kane, who runs Instagram page The Wire Fans for enthusiasts, explains: “The Wire isn’t the easiest show to get into. It doesn’t hold your hand. But even after a third, fourth or fifth watch, many fans still find details missed on previous viewings, making for a rich viewing experience.”
TV reviewer Hugo Rifkind says its depth and complexity is perhaps what most explains its enduring popularity. He said: “The thing about The Wire was that it really could hold its own with any other bit of storytelling of the modern age.
“I don’t just mean that it was good telly. I mean that it was up there with Nobel Prizewinning literature.
“It did this, though, without making any compromises as a TV show at all.”
Rifkind admits it required concentration to follow the plot, hence creator David Simon’s quote “**** the casual viewer”, but says it also had “as much guns and sex and melodrama as you could hope for”.
TV writer turned film producer Ali Catterall says Simon’s latest show has a big reputation to live up to because its predecessor changed TV.
“When The Wire first dropped, it was an immediate milestone for telly drama – though it took a while to catch on. That something so sprawling and complex but also, well, arresting, could find a devoted, loyal audience seems completely normal these days (particularly when you don’t have to wait a week for it any more).
“Long-running shows like Breaking Bad would grab enormous audience shares in The Wire’s wake.
“Now, of course, in the age of box-set binges and streaming, this kind of ambitious long-form TV drama is commonplace.”
Simon has a glowing reputation on the back of The Wire but has never quite repeated its success.
This rail strike is also a battle for public opinion – and No 10 is fighting dirty
The Guardian
Kate Bush’s atop the charts, inflation is soaring, we face a cost-of-living crisis and a major impending rail strike. No wonder the internet and the papers are absorbed by a casual similarity to the economic crises of the 1970s.
And that matters. When it comes to this week’s rail strikes, that comparison is a gift for a government PR machine that thrives on negativity and rarely needs a second invitation to sling (often slanderous) insults at its opposition.
It pushes at an open door. Negativity and criticism are intellectually easier to digest and decidedly more media-friendly than equivocation, so the simple, traditional Conservative anti-union messaging of ‘greedy’, ‘entitled’, ‘self-serving’ and ‘shutting the country down’ would already have a high chance of success even if fed to a national media that was less gleefully supportive and compliant than most of the current lot. With so much of the media as it is, the No 10 PR machine has everything in its favour.
Pursuing the line that the strikes are “taking us back to the heart of the 70s” is a potent weapon against the unions, and the opposition, as the woes of the 1970s took place under a Labour government. In drawing this parallel, the government connects the strikes to hard times past and reminds the public of previous failures on Labour’s watch … while distracting from their own plethora of crises and scandals. It’s their kind of win-win.
This makes an already challenging situation harder for the unions as they seek to maintain their action and battle for the public support they’ll need to sustain it. They call for solidarity in a battle against a neglectful and ideologically zealous government, and in the face of a historic cost-of-living crisis. They voice justification for the strikes as necessary to ensure fair treatment and the safe and smooth operation of the railways.
Both arguments could gain some traction in what is obviously a febrile situation. One poll on Tuesday, conducted by YouGov, suggested more people (45%) oppose the rail strikes than support them (37%).
But in another, released last night by Savanta ComRes, 58% of the 2,300 people questioned said the strikes are justified, with 34% deeming them unjustified and 66% saying the government has done too little to prevent them. This suggests there is still much to play for, as one might hope when the union’s main obstacle is a stricken, badly run government with a derided leader and an awful record.
But from a PR professional point of view, the obvious challenge for the union campaign is still its choice of communication channels and optics for these messages. Mick Lynch, the general secretary, is ubiquitous, as one would expect, and obviously determined to support his members. He is practised and combative, as we saw in his series of tart exchanges with Sky’s Kay Burley yesterday that became a hit on social media. He is very much the face of their campaign. But via these important media appearances, he sometimes evokes the cliched union leader from another age.
His supporters, and many neutrals have been lauding him. But much of the public he needs to persuade sees a scratchy figure. The government peddles its “dragging us back to the 70s” dogma, knowing it to be simplistic – probably downright untrue – but too often the union risks providing sounds and images to bolster that characterisation. If the battle is to be fought in the court of reasonable public opinion, the union has to think harder about how this looks to the undecided.
It should look to the present and the future. It will always be difficult for a rail union – or any other union – to get a fair hearing on the government’s home turf – ie most of the national print and broadcast media – but there is an opportunity on new media channels like TikTok that are strongholds for anti-government sentiment, particularly among the young. Yet so far, social media discussion of the strikes mostly seems to involve short rehashed clips of (generally pro-government or anti-union) traditional news coverage. No ‘explainers’ by cool young, progressive Gen Z influencers; just Piers Morgan and Kay Burley (again) lambasting or tussling with union reps.
It may be a rigged game; still, it’s winnable. But by failing to deviate from the old methods, and to think about the tone, union leaders are making the PR battle much harder than it needs to be.
Others currently weighing up strike and other dispute options should take note. It would be an unfortunate achievement indeed to squander a valid case through lack of strategy, and to allow Johnson and his coterie to parade as true guardians of the public good.
‘No way back for Heard in Hollywood’: Amber Heard faces career ruin AND bankruptcy as she struggles to pay Johnny Depp $8m after losing bloody six-week court battle that has left her ‘too icky for a studio’
Daily Mail
Amber Heard is facing career and financial ruin after losing a blockbuster defamation case to ex-husband Johnny Depp – which left her with an $8.35 million damages bill.
Experts have suggested that there is ‘no way back for Heard in Hollywood’ adding that the dramatic six-week court battle has left the actress, 36, ‘too icky for a studio’, raising questions about her future earnings.
The actress said throughout the trial that her profile has been badly damaged by the case, revealing how Depp suing her kept her from fulfilling a pledge to donate $7million to the American Civil Liberties Union. Entertainment industry expert Kathryn Arnold also testified that Heard lost out on possible earnings of up to $50 million.
Heard faces a slew of problems in light of her trial defeat. In terms of her career, Hollywood bosses are unlikely to consider her for roles going forward. Financially, the actress and witnesses alluded to her money troubles, while the huge outpouring of support for Depp may lead to brands and companies avoiding her.
Heard may also now struggle to honour various financial commitments, including to groups like the ACLU and the financial burden may curtail an activism career that has seen her support women’s rights organisation.
The damages bill may also force her to sell off assets, including a $570,000 rural hideaway in Yucca Valley and a Range Rover she kept in the divorce from Depp.
The main question, however, will be how Heard will cover the huge damages bill, which she has 30 years to pay. Attorney Sandra Spurgeon of Spurgeon Law Group in Lexington, Kentucky, suggested one possibility could be Depp waiving the bill or negotiating a lower amount.
She told CBS MoneyWatch: ‘He’s [Depp] in the driver’s seat right now. For an individual who doesn’t have the ability to pay the judgment and no ability to post the bond, then there is a real issue if the winning party intends to execute the judgment.’
However, if he does force her to pay the full bill, another scenario could see Heard appeal the damages. Though an appeal with a new judge might work in her favour, she will still have to present the full amount while the appeal is considered – something that could force her to file for bankruptcy.
A third option, according to CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson, is that her future earnings could be garnished – meaning a portion of her salary from future films or TV shows could go to Depp until the debt is covered.
Ms Levinson said: ‘That’s not an unusual situation where somebody says, ‘I don’t have – I can’t fulfill this,’ and so I certainly think because she has earning potential part of her wages could be garnished as a result.’
However, the court could decided that the prospect of future work is bleak for Heard, after Hollywood experts said that the actress is unlikely to be considered by studio bosses in light of the defamation fight.
Some have suggested that she may even pivot to a career in advocacy for victims of domestic abuse – though it is difficult to see how this could help fund her legal issues.
Heard previously said she had to ‘fight’ to retain her role as Mera in the sequel to the 2018 superhero film Aquaman, and that she has been cast in only one other film in the last two years. The role of Mera has netted her around $3 million.
British PR expert Mark Borkowski said: ‘There is no way back for Heard in Hollywood. If you’re sitting there making a movie or thinking about casting it, are you going to hire her?
‘Look at the huge outcry about Aquaman 2 [where a petition to have her kicked off the film hit four million signatures last night]. The trial pollutes any marketing or PR to launch a film.’
Former entertainment lawyer Matthew Belloni, who writes about the business of Hollywood for the newsletter Puck, said: ‘Both of them will work again, but I think it will be a while before a major studio will consider them `safe´ enough to bet on.
‘The personal baggage that was revealed in this trial was just too icky for a studio to want to deal with.’
Reputation management consultant Alexandra Villa of In House PR told the Mirror: ‘Amber’s career appears to be in crisis right now. What has happened will frighten the big Hollywood studios. Smaller productions too will be wary about investing money into Amber for any project.
‘In my opinion, at this moment, producers will have to consider carefully whether they will hire her as the momentum of public opinion has shifted against her.
‘People forget Hollywood studios are businesses. They hire stars on whether they will bring in profits or not. She has a mountain to climb. Much of her testimony has holes in it and she may need to address those issues.’
Heard is also facing a petition to remove her from Aquaman in light of her battle with Depp.
The petition is closing in on its 4.5 million signature target, currently standing on 4.48 million.
Meanwhile, Spotted Media chief executive Janet Comenos said film producers are keenly monitoring data to see what the public think about Depp and Heard.
Comenos said: ‘It has come up in several conversations of ours with producers; they are curious to understand if there’s a discrepancy between the actions taken by the studios and the public’s opinion.
‘I think the results show pretty clearly that Johnny Depp is extremely hireable and that it would be a risk to a production company to hire Amber Heard because of the precipitous drop in appeal that she has had since the beginning of the trial.’
Eric Rose, a crisis management and communications expert in Los Angeles, called the trial, which lasted six weeks with a one week break, a ‘classic murder-suicide,’ in terms of damage to both careers.
‘From a reputation-management perspective, there can be no winners,’ he said. ‘They´ve bloodied each other up. It becomes more difficult now for studios to hire either actor because you´re potentially alienating a large segment of your audience who may not like the fact that you have retained either Johnny or Amber for a specific project because feelings are so strong now.’
Heard comes from a conservative Christian family from Texas of modest wealth and dropped out of school to pursue her acting career.
Her net worth is also unclear, with Fox Business reporting it as $8 million, while others have reported it closer to $3 million.
Heard’s finances were called into question following her divorce from Depp after it was revealed that she made several demands to support her lifestyle.
Among them, she asked for the ‘exclusive use and possession’ of the black Range Rover she drove, with Depp continuing to make payments towards the vehicle.
She also wanted to carry on living rent free in three Los Angeles penthouses she and her friends were staying in, all owned by Depp, and asked for her estranged husband to cover $125,000 of her legal and accounting fees.
Eyebrows were also raised during the trial when it was revealed she had moved into a $570,000 rural hideaway in Yucca Valley – far away from the glitz and glam of Los Angeles.
Heard grew up in Austin, Texas with modest finances, together with sister Whitney.
Her parents David Heard and Paige Parsons were conservative Catholics – though Heard became an atheist after her best friend died in a car accident when she was 16.
At 17, she dropped out of school to pursue a modelling career in New York, before switching to acting in Los Angeles.
It’s unclear if the actress is single or in a relationship, though she has been supported throughout the trial by ‘special friend’ Eve Barlow, the daughter of a Scottish GP.
Ms Barlow has tweeted support for Heard during the trial, tweeting ‘leave Amber Heard alone’ day before the judgment was delivered.
In April 2021, Heard also surprisingly announced the birth of her daughter Oonagh Paige Heard via surrogate.
Heard faces career ruin AND bankruptcy after Johnny Depp battle | Daily Mail Online
Dior is selling a bottle of Johnny Depp’s fragrance every few seconds
Screenshot
No matter what verdict is announced regarding the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard defamation trial, it’s undeniable that the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s film career was impacted by both the allegations from and the ongoing court battle with his ex-wife. That being said, when it comes to the world of luxury fragrance, it seems Depp he still as popular as ever, if not more, since it’s been revealed that Dior apparently sold a bottle of Sauvage—the perfume the actor is the face of—every three seconds in 2021.
The claim was first shared by Twitter user John Pompliano who found the information in a January 2022 article from Marie Claire where the publication reported the mind-blowing statistic. This even makes Sauvage the best-selling perfume in both the male and female categories.
Unlike Marie Claire, Pompliano took the research one step further by calculating just how much money Depp’s infamous fragrance was making Dior, “Despite most labels dropping Johnny Depp, @Dior decided to stick with him. Why?” he wrote in the same tweet.
“They sell a bottle of his fragrance ‘Sauvage’ every 3 seconds. At $160 a bottle, that’s over $4.5 million a day in sales,” Pompliano concluded.
We’re talking big money here, which explains why Dior has been ‘standing by’ Depp the whole time—not because it ‘was the only brand that believed him’ as so many fans like to speculate on TikTok, but simply because the actor, even when ostracized, was still making it a heck lot of money.
It also suggests that being dumped by Disney and Warner Bros. didn’t lead Depp to complete bankruptcy. After losing a libel case against The Sun in 2020 after the tabloid called him a “wife beater” in a published article, he was fired from the highly anticipated movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.
At the time, there were several calls for Dior to follow suit. Despite Depp having been the face of Sauvage fragrance since its launch in 2015, and as reported by The Guardian, a spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority said, “We have received a total of 11 complaints about this ad with the complainants believing that Johnny Depp shouldn’t be in the ad due to details concerning his recent court case.”
PR agent Mark Borkowski also argued at the time that Depp should be dropped. Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “I think it would be sensible for Dior to sever links with Depp. Anything can be stopped by pressing a button if they really wanted to. A brand like Dior is not just looking at this territory. The attitude [towards Depp] in the UK will be very different to the one in eastern Europe, for example.”
“Brands hope for short-term memory loss and long-term amnesia,” the British expert continued. “These fashion companies live in their own bubble, it’s like The Devil Wears Prada. They live in a world where they are used to facing controversy.”
Now we know exactly why Dior stuck by the man…
Platinum Jubilee: BBC heals rift with Palace after high-level talks ahead of all-star party TV coverage
The i
The BBC has held high-level talks with the Royal Family to heal a fractured relationship ahead of the Platinum Jubilee.
But the broadcaster has been encouraged to ask “tough questions” about the future of the monarchy as it prepares to screen extensive coverage of the celebrations.
Top-level talks between the broadcaster and the Palace have helped smooth relations which hit a low last year after the extent of the Martin Bashir Diana Panorama scandal was exposed and the airing of a controversial documentary about William and Harry’s relationship with the media.
There was talk of the Palace boycotting the BBC over the Jubilee celebrations following the Amol Rajan series The Princes and the Press which is said to have annoyed the Queen by repeating claims about briefing wars between royal households.
However after awarding coverage of a carol concert hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to ITV, seen as a snub to its rival, relations are back on an even keel after the BBC shared plans with the Palace to make the Jubilee a central highlight of its own centenary year.
The BBC promises that its Platinum Party at the Palace on June 4, featuring stars including Queen, Sir Rod Stewart and Diana Ross, will be a spectacular “once-in-a-lifetime experience”, with Her Majesty granting special permission to site a stage in front of Buckingham Palace’s gates.
Home recordings filmed by the Queen, her parents and the Duke of Edinburgh are among a treasure trove of private family footage released by the Royal Household for a BBC documentary Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen, which airs on May 29.
Yet the BBC has been warned not to give uncritical coverage of an event, certain to feature extensively on its news output across an extended bank holiday weekend running from June 2 to 5.
Executives have learnt from the viewer response to its coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, which some found excessive.
“The BBC is under huge pressure to get this right. There has to be a certain amount of forelock-tugging. But this isn’t the 1977 Silver Jubilee. There will have to be tough questions asked about the future of the monarchy too,” Mark Borkowski, the leading PR consultant told i.
“There will be a lot of empathy for the Queen. The baby boom generation feel very protective of her and feel this is her last hurrah,” Mr Borkowski added.
“By its nature the Platinum Jubilee celebrates what has gone but also has to examine what will be the shape of the Commonwealth after the Queen. The BBC has to reflect that too.”
The Palace is confident there will be no repeat of the negative coverage directed towards the 2002 Diamond Jubilee when rain turned a Royal river flotilla into a sorry washout – “Why were the Queen and Prince Philip left to shiver in the rain for FOUR hours?,” newspapers demanded.
This time, the BBC must make an editorial judgement over how much coverage should be given to the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, set to divert attention when they arrive in the UK with their children Archie, three, and Lilibet, who turns one over the Platinum Jubilee weekend.
Palace aides are desperate to prevent the Harry and Meghan show “destabilising” the weekend, especially if they decide to go on “ad hoc” walkabouts, generating huge crowds, outside of the official events.
An irritant for the Sussexes will be the arrival of Meghan’s estranged father Thomas, who is flying to Britain to be a Jubilee guest on the late-night GB News show presented by Dan Wootton.
ITV delivered its star-studded contribution early, with a Platinum Jubilee Celebration last week, attended by The Queen, staged as part of the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
The event, which paired Tom Cruise and Alan Titchmarsh as presenters, was a “carriage crash which showed why the BBC is the natural broadcaster for these productions,” said Mr Borkowski.
The show was watched by a peak of 5.2m people, drawing a higher share of viewing than average across all age demographics, yet with the bulk of viewers (54 per cent) aged 65-plus, much higher than the norm for that Sunday slot.
The Jubilee may capture post-pandemic public mood that is looking for anything to celebrate. “People want to be outside enjoying street parties,” Mr Borkowksi suggested.
In a further move to mark the occasion, the BBC is offering local communities a special one-off TV Licence dispensation so they can use a big screen to show the events.
“The Rajan film didn’t seem to go down that well,” Mr Borkowski suggested.
“This is a chance for the BBC to sprinkle a bit of magic on the monarchy and help its own chances of keeping the licence fee. It should be win for both parties – as long as it doesn’t rain.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC will be covering the celebrations in London and the beacons and parties across the UK and around the world.”
“We will be reporting on and analysing the reaction to the Platinum Jubilee and across BBC News on TV, radio and online we will be asking the audience how they are marking and spending the weekend. BBC News will also be providing coverage of other important news stories throughout the weekend.”
How can Netflix turn viewers back on?
PRWeek
It started out as a movie-streaming pioneer, but Netflix is experiencing a sharp decline in account holders for the first time in its history. Its share price has also plunged from $373 per share at the start of April to $193 yesterday.
It is blaming everything from the war in Ukraine to people sharing passwords for its 200,000 subscriber dip in the first quarter of 2022, but more alarmingly it sheepishly predicts a loss of two million more users by July, despite gaining over four times that amount in the final quarter of last year.
Though multiple factors are at play, to what extent is this costly predicament Netflix’s own doing? And can savvy PR and comms strategies prevent a further fall?
Threats
On how the streaming giant found itself in this position, Wez Merchant, PR collaborator with fellow streamer Rakuten, founder and CEO of film PR agency Strike Media, says Netflix has been caught in an unfortunate crisis, in which it “hasn’t really put many feet wrong”.
He says economic pressures on households, driven by the rise in “inflation, energy bills and food prices” is putting non-essential spending under scrutiny – and that means relative non-essentials like streaming subscriptions are under threat.
That threat will only intensify in the coming months, says PR specialist Mark Borkowski, as the world prepares for a post-Covid summer of bathing in sunshine after years of being stuck on the sofa. Through no fault of its own, Netflix now has to work harder than ever to keep audiences keen.
One thing the brand can try to control is its public image, which has not been helped by a recent slew of negative headlines.
“They always appear to be taking something from subscribers,” says Dan Neale, managing director of Alfred, a PR agency that has worked with Warner Bros. “Be it favourite shows being cancelled, the risk that you can’t share your login with friends and family, or price increases.”
Neale points out that password sharing was never strictly permitted in the first place, though previous statements from Netflix demonstrate that it wasn’t exactly condemned either.
The streaming giant has also found itself at the forefront of culture wars in the wake of criticism towards jokes made in recent Dave Chappelle and Jimmy Carr comedy specials. Such issues have never seen the platform face as much controversy than at present.
Choice
The poor media narrative surrounding Netflix is not helped by the lessening reliance consumers have on it in an age of overwhelming choice. Though Netflix revolutionised the world of TV and film, it is no longer the only streaming alternative to TV or DVD.
Borkowski says being spoiled for choice makes for “fickle” audiences, while Jason Gallucci, global head of innovation at Media Zoo, says typical streaming subscribers simply are not platform loyal, and will have a “number of streaming sites and will follow quality shows on any or all of them.”
Merchant and Neale agree that despite having a smaller selection of content, some relative newcomers have a stronger audience appeal by targeting more specific groups, conveying much higher quality content even if this may not be entirely the case.
This is certainly true of Disney+, which boasts the entire Marvel and Star Wars catalogues, including regular additions to these franchises. Such high-calibre exclusives generate invaluable earned media.
Similarly, Prime Video’s inclusion in Amazon’s all-encompassing Prime subscription, alongside free next-day delivery, Amazon Music, and Prime Reading, emphasises its value proposition.
Amazon’s streaming platform’s movie library, which recently added the entire James Bond collection, gives it enough of an edge, but when paired with Amazon’s other offerings it gives it an “unfair advantage”, says Borkowski.
Offering the option to ‘rent’ virtually any film not within the Prime catalogue for £5 or less is yet another selling point, providing more versatility and brand new content than Netflix.
To combat this, Netflix “should concentrate on highlighting what is new (or classic) in each genre and hitting the right audience with that information,” says Merchant.
Stuff no-one wants to watch
Netflix does have some wildly successful shows, like Breaking Bad and Stranger Things. With a new season of the latter on the horizon, and the latest instalments of Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul generating buzz for their popularity (and cameos from Walter White and Jesse Pinkman), investment in these shows and storylines will help keep many existing subscribers loyal.
Though as Gallucci points out, there is a “lot of ‘stuff’ on Netflix that frankly, no one wants to watch”.
The recent decline in fan-favourite concept ‘Netflix Originals’ could be seen as perplexing given the quantity of exclusive content being produced, but it could be the case that Netflix is spreading itself too thin, while new programming is simultaneously missing its chance in the limelight. As Brands2Life’s consumer managing director Laura Sibley says: “You can’t promote every show.”
Not helping Netflix’s cause is the platform’s recent decision to disable screenshots, thereby limiting the potential for social media shares. “What was an attempt to protect IP ended up being an own goal for consumer engagement,” says Fever PR’s Jacob Gilles.
“It used to be an industry joke that online users creating memes and content out of screenshots was giving Netflix more publicity than its actual comms team – it turns out there might have been some truth in that.”
Netflix vs TV
An obvious selling point of Netflix over traditional broadcasters has always been its lack of advertisements, but even this is under threat, with the proposition of a cheaper ‘ad-supported’ subscription tier, despite CEO Reed Hastings announcing in 2015 that there was “no advertising coming on to Netflix. Period.”
Netflix changing its stance on this, and password sharing, alters its brand image considerably, although Borkowski believes it is necessary, saying: “They have to be tougher with their audience.”
Why? Borkowski says it’s all down to the figures.
“Success is always governed by the consistency of numbers,” he says. Having made the mistake of getting “carried away by its success story”, Netflix’s sudden halt in growth means it now finds itself unprepared and struggling to “defend the decline in numbers”.
Potentially the most difficult element of decline to defend is Netflix’s share prices plummeting 35 per cent in a single day last week, and 49 per cent during April, a drop that appears to reflect a lack of faith among investors in the business’s existing recovery strategy.
Some may say this is unsurprising given the size of the task at hand.
“If you’re sitting in America now running this, you’re looking at different territories, different media, different arguments and of course the social media upheaval in terms of how many people are using it to be a naysayer about the channel,” says Borkowski.
“Also they have a huge amount of detractors, from other channels, other streamers – it’s a very intense fight. They’re having to deal with subliminal attacks coming their way, and also well-aimed competitors trying to pull the rug from under their feet.”
Recovery
Neale rightly points out that what Netflix is facing is fundamentally “bigger than a comms challenge”. That said, onlookers suggest there are undoubtedly things that Netflix can do to turn viewers back on.
Taylor Herring, MSL and Multitude Media all declined to comment, on account of their work with Netflix.
But Sibley says that Netflix’s comms teams need to build a brand that people can “respect and align with” and “tell the other side of Netflix – more storytelling about the quality programming that they invest in globally”.
Borkowski agrees that bigger gestures could be made, not least within the creative community. “When are they going to give back? It has to be about training, how they bring skill sets into it, and what they’re doing with the fabric of the industry they work within.”
In terms of re-engaging consumers, Sibley believes Netflix needs to remind users of its convenience in everyday life, beyond our usual television-watching habits.
“Travel is going to be pretty important now the world is opening up, and Netflix is the ultimate companion on their journey ahead. On the morning commute, after the kids have gone to bed, when the children need entertainment.
“Netflix doesn’t just provide TV shows. It provides distraction from day-to-day life and entertains the family.” She acknowledges some subscribers “may quibble on the pricing, but for all the value it actually brings to everyday life” it represents value.
“It’ll all come down to the quality of their programming, and the fact that their competition is cash-strapped as well,” says Borkowski. “Particularly with commercial channels in this country seeing a huge drop in advertising.
“I wouldn’t be writing any Netflix obituaries anytime soon.”
Ditch the Land Rover shots: PR advice to Prince Edward and Sophie before Caribbean tour
The Guardian
It seems like simple advice for the Earl and Countess of Wessex’s Caribbean tour: avoid taking references from Netflix drama The Crown, ditch anything that smacks of 1950s colonialism and instead try to create a modern monarchy handbook to swerve the PR pitfalls that befell the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s recent controversial visit to the region.
But with Grenada dropped from the itinerary with no explanation the day before the tour started on Friday, and an open letter on slave trade reparations awaiting them in Antigua and Barbuda, the spotlight is already on Edward and Sophie’s platinum jubilee tour of Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Buckingham Palace will be desperate to avoid the PR missteps suffered by William and Kate, with its unfortunate images of the couple greeting children in Jamaica through wire fencing.
If there were ever plans for the Wessexes to recreate the Queen and Prince Philip waving from an open-top Land Rover, as William and Kate did in images criticised as a relic of a past colonial era, they should have been shelved immediately, said PR expert Mark Borkowski.
The Land Rover shots of the couple “looked straight out of the 1950s. Like somehow they were taking references from The Crown rather than the modern handbook of how to look contemporary and future-thinking and not being anachronistic,” he added.
“If they [the royal family] start repeating these errors, there is clearly something at the heart that is broken of what has been a very controlling royal media machine.”
But, despite royal aides’ detailed scrutiny of the Wessexes’ itinerary, the potential for backlash exists in a region where some island nations have made clear their intentions to sever links with the crown.
During their tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, the Cambridges faced protests against slavery, calls for reparations and public apologies, and the Jamaican prime minister’s uncomfortable on-camera warning that the country will ditch the monarchy.
Now, the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission has warned the Wessexes, in an open letter, against the “phoney sanctimony” of “members of the royal family and representatives of the government of Britain” coming to the region to “lament that slavery was an ‘appalling atrocity’, that it was ‘abhorrent’, that it should not have happened”.
“For us, they are the source of genocide and of continuing deep international injury, injustice and racism. We hope you will respect us by not repeating the mantra. We are not simpletons,” it reads.
An apology for slavery and reparations are still needed, said the commission chair, Dorbrene O’Marde, who has described William and Kate’s tour as a “horrible, horrible exposition of archaic colonial behaviour”.
He told local radio the letter followed concerns raised by others including over the absence of “an apology from the crown both as a family and as an institution for their role in the enslavement of African people”.
O’Marde has also claimed the last-minute cancellation of the Grenada leg of the Wessexes’ tour was because of recent revelations that the Bank of England owned 599 slaves from Grenada in the late 18th century. Buckingham Palace has not elaborated on the reasons for the postponement.
The Wessexes are “hostages to misfortune,” said Borkowski, and are straitjacketed by traditional protocol. “They are forced to do these things which still have a throwback to a time where the royal family were loved, back in the 50s”.
“But it’s 60 years on. A lot of water has passed under the bridge.”
The recent royal focus on the Caribbean may be a kind of scoping exercise for a royal family testing where it might be when Charles, then William, ascend the throne, he said.
In December, Antigua and Barbuda’s tourism minister, Charles “Max” Fernandez, and an editorial in the Antigua Observer, said it was time to follow Barbados and become a republic. In St Lucia, the former prime minister Dr Kenny Anthony has said his government should follow suit. An editorial in the Vincentian newspaper of St Vincent and the Grenadines said Barbados had shown it could be “easily accomplished”.
It is against this backdrop that the Wessexes arrive. Aides should be checking and rechecking photographers’ positions, said Borkowski, in light of the Cambridges’ fence pictures.
“They usually are very careful. The royal rota for years has been about stopping the unexpected shot from filtering into the mainstream. So it’s a surprise they were caught out.”
His advice: “[The Wessexes] should avoid cliches, think very carefully about every photo op and not go off-piste. Don’t extemporise. Keep to the plan, and make sure the plan has been thought through with great military precision.”
Meet BBC’s ‘Mr Safe’: New political editor Chris Mason’s pals joke he’s been like a 50-year-old since he was a student, he once considered being a bus driver and still subscribes to his local Yorkshire paper
Mail Online
After months of speculation about who would replace Laura Kuenssberg, Chris Mason’s promotion from a host on Radio 4 to BBC political editor seems to have taken many people by surprise – and the public outpouring of praise appears to have touched the born-and-raised Northerner.
Indeed, who could expect anything more from Mason, the straight-talking grammar school-educated ‘proud Yorkshireman’ from a working class background whose Cambridge friends humorously called him ‘basically a 50-year-old man since he was a student’?
‘Cripes, thank you for the lovely messages. The news popped out while I was in a pub in Halifax, with no signal,’ Mason told his Twitter followers just earlier today, 24 hours after the big news broke that he would be taking on the biggest brief in British political journalism.
‘My phone did the can-can in the car park when I came out & hasn’t stopped dancing since. The new job is an immense privilege & responsibility and I’ll give it everything’.
Mason was born at Airedale Hospital on April 21, 1980. Having a builder for a grandfather and schoolteachers for parents, the young Mason, who grew up in Grassington, North Yorkshire, briefly flirted with the dream of becoming a bus driver, before developing his insatiable appetite for news.
To this day, Mason makes sure that he gets every print copy of the local Craven Herald and Pioneer newspaper posted down to his south-east London home, where he now lives with his primary schoolteacher wife and their two sons.
‘It’s the perfect thing to kick back with, in the company of a cuppa, when I get home after Any Questions at the weekend’, he told Iain Dale on the LBC presenter’s All Talk podcast an interview released in July last year.
But where did Mason’s hunger for news come from? Even he can’t quite explain.
‘I don’t know where that passion for radio and news and politics and current affairs came from. There isn’t any journalistic or media heritage in the family. My parents are both primary school teachers, my grandad was a builder. I got a little white radio when I was seven and just got obsessed with it,’ Mason told Dale.
However, he has revealed that as a child, he would watch ITN’s political editor Michael Brunson – one of his big influences in journalism. Mason would later described Sir Trevor McDonald, a legend in the British media landscape, as another inspiration.
Mason attended Ermysted’s Grammar School in Skipton before enrolling at Christ’s College at Cambridge, where he studied geography.
One friend who has known Mason since university told The Guardian: ‘He’s basically been a 50-year-old man since he was a student. But a genuinely lovely person and untouched by fame… Unlike some of his colleagues, I genuinely never hear a bad word about him.’
Mason began his journalism career as a trainee at ITN the week after 9/11, before moving to BBC Radio Newcastle one year later. He also then worked for 5 Live, the Regional Political Unit, the Westminster Hour on Radio 4 and in Brussels as a Europe correspondent.
Mason took over as presenter for Radio 4’s Any Questions?, a topical discussion with a panel of people from politics and media who are posed questions by the public, in October 2019, and is regularly on the podcast Newscast.
No profile of Mason is complete without a passing nod to the moment he went viral after a BBC Breakfast broadcast in 2018 after admitting he didn’t have the foggiest’ about ongoing Brexit negotiations.
Speaking outside the Houses of Parliament as Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union clogged up the worlds of politics and media, Mason gave a candid, refreshing assessment of the state of affairs.
‘So, where are we in this Brexit process? You know what? People like me are paid to have insight and foresight and hindsight about these things, and to be able to project where we’re going to go,’ he said.
‘To be quite honest, looking at things right now, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what is going to happen in the coming weeks. Is the Prime Minister going to get a deal with the EU? Dunno. Is she going to get it through the Commons? Don’t know about that either. ‘I think you might as well get Mr Blobby back on to offer his analysis, because frankly I suspect his is now as good as mine.’
In this day and age of equality and diversity, Mason’s strong Yorkshire accent will allow BBC bosses to keep Boris Johnson’s prowling Culture Secretary satisfied as the Government insists on more regional representation within the corporation’s ranks.
Certainly, Mason thinks his Yorkshire roots have benefitted him.
In the past, he has said his experience of growing up in the Yorkshire Dales had a ‘massive influence’ on him. This year he competed on Celebrity Mastermind where his specialist subject was the Yorkshire Dales, finishing second to comedian Rufus Hound.
And in an interview with the Radio Times, Mason mused: ‘I think it [his accent] has probably been an advantage to me because I have come of age journalistically in an era where there’s a far greater awareness that the BBC in particular, and broadcasting in general, needs to sound like the audience it’s broadcasting to.
‘I think there could be a far broader range of voices than we hear on the national media. When have you ever heard on a news programme somebody with a West Country accent? I can’t think of a single person, and that’s mad. How many people with a Brummie accent? Or a Geordie accent?
‘There’s hardly any. It’s absolutely absurd. We’re broadcasting to a country with this incredibly rich diversity of voices and accents, and we hardly hear any of them broadcasting on the national airwaves.’
How funny then, that he didn’t listen to the BBC’s primary news-driven station as a teenager because he found it ‘southern and quite posh and not me, really’.
But unlike many of his contemporaries at the broadcaster who have been accused of vaulting over the line between impartiality and partisan journalism (think Kuenssberg and Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis) Mason has been careful to keep his political views private.
Reports suggest that the BBC quietly reopened the job ad for political editor specifically with Mason in mind after the 41-year-old Cambridge geography graduate was courted by rival broadcasters including Times Radio. The broadcaster has been suffering from a so-called ‘brain drain’ of talent including Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel in recent months – a characterisation it has dismissed – and will not have wanted to lose yet another top journalist to a competitor.
Mason is believed to have applied for the £260,000 post last week, had the interview on Tuesday, then got the job offer less than 24 hours later.
It is also understood that the BBC had originally wanted to hire a ‘scoop-getter’ after missing out on most of the Partygate stories about illegal lockdown-busting gatherings in Downing Street broken by the Mirror and ITV News. With this in mind, bosses whittled their preferred list of candidates down to ITV News’s Anushka Asthana and Sophy Ridge from Sky News.
However, the BBC has been under immense criticism over its failure to always abide by its commitment to impartiality. With Kuenssberg at the helm, the broadcaster’s critics claimed that its top reporter was biased and essentially ‘in the pocket’ of the Government – a suspicion that only intensified after Dominic Cummings told MPs at his explosive anti-Boris evidence session on Covid last year that Kuenssberg was the former aide’s only regular media contact.
Maitlis also famously triggered a bias row after accusing Cummings of lying when he denied breaking Covid rules by driving from London to Barnard Castle during the first lockdown.
The BBC’s recent history of feisty journalists who tread the line between impartiality and partisanship may have caused bosses to opt for someone ‘safer than sorry’, sources claimed.
One senior political journalist previously told The Sunday Times: ‘They said they wanted someone who breaks stories but I think they’ve realised they actually need a wise statesman who is good at analysing events, and Chris will do brilliantly at that. This feels like a moment of self-realisation for the BBC, that they can’t be that bold.’
The BBC has also come under huge pressure from Nadine Dorries to promote ‘regional diversity’ within its ranks, amid concerns that it has become too ‘London-centric’ and detached from the often Brexit-voting regions of England and Wales.
It is thought that his tact on this matter has made him such an attractive prospect to BBC bosses who searched long and hard for Kuenssberg’s replacement. As Dale remarked: ‘To this day I have no clue what his politics are, and that’s a great thing.’
It is thought that Mason’s strong Yorkshire accent will please the Government, which is threatening to scrap the licence fee after 2027 – though one source chuckled: ‘Chris is very solid, plays things very straight and is charming. But he will need a more expensive suit and haircut.’
Reports also say that BBC chiefs are planning to market married father-of-two Mason as the ‘BBC’s Robert Peston’, the well known pundit for ITV.
Others hinted that promoting Mason was a return to pre-Kuenssberg impartiality. In a tweet, Sir Robbie Gibbs, who was the head of the BBC’s political programme output before quitting in July 2017 to become Director of Communications at 10 Downing Street under Theresa May, said: ‘Chris is the perfect ambassador for the BBC – fair, impartial, decent, with bucket-loads of character.’
PR agent Mark Borkowski told MailOnline: ‘I think it would have been hard for the BBC to justify filling the role with a stale pale posh Etonian male, no matter how good Mason is.
‘I think there was probably also a feeling in the BBC that they wouldn’t have wanted to have risked losing more good talent. There’s this “brain drain” going on, and it doesn’t look great for them if they can’t keep onto top notch journalists, like Mason.
‘I think certainly the fact that Mason is from Yorkshire will have helped him. The BBC is under immense pressure at the moment to make sure it is reflecting modern Britain, and will want to be able to announce a successor to Kuenssberg who fits in with the Government’s Levelling Up programme.’
Certainly, his contemporaries regard Mason as an ‘adept broadcaster’, with ‘sound judgment’ and ‘a flair for political analysis’.
One source said he was a ‘bloody good journalist’, while reporters who praised him on social media described how he was known to be fair but tough.
Others said that he might not bring the broadcaster exclusives, but will be able to explain difficult political matters in a simple way for the BBC’s millions of readers and viewers.
In a statement yesterday, the self-effacing Mason again emphasised how lucky he felt to have been given a front-row seat as the corporation’s political editor into Westminster life at such a febrile moment in British and global politics.
‘What a tremendous privilege to take on what, for me, is the most extraordinary job in British broadcasting and journalism. I clamber upon the shoulders of giants like Laura, Nick [Robinson] and Andrew [Marr] with a smattering of trepidation and a shedload of excitement and enthusiasm,’ he exclaimed.
‘To lead the best team of journalists in the business on the best news patch of the lot is something I’d never even dared dream of. I can’t wait to get started.’
Only time will tell whether, with Mason at the helm, we can expect a break from the impartiality rows that plagued his predecessor.
Meet BBC’s ‘Mr Safe’: New political editor Chris Mason | Daily Mail Online
Celebrity blue-bloods: everything we know about Brooklyn and Nicola’s wedding
The Guardian
It may seem impossible to those of us who have watched their evolution from tabloid fodder into a global celebrity dynasty, but this weekend the Beckhams will be marrying up.
Today marks the wedding of Brooklyn Beckham, the 23-year-old firstborn of David and Victoria, and American actor Nicola Peltz, the 27-year-old daughter of billionaire financier Nelson Peltz, chairman of the fast food chain Wendy’s.
And if you thought Posh and Becks’s 1999 wedding – the castle setting, the gold tiara and the matching purple reception outfits – was the height of extravagance, then the new American in-laws are putting on a display to show how the other 1% live.
The Peltzes’ net worth – estimated at £1.3bn – eclipses the Beckhams’ £380m, and Nelson is expected to foot the bill, rumoured to be £3m. “It feels like 17th-century Florence, with the merging of royal and blue-blooded families,” says the celebrity PR Mark Borkowski. “Except here, it’s the Instagram and celebrity blue-bloods.”
It seems that, after inevitable Covid delays and months of media speculation (“have you heard? Peltz’s dress is a Valentino, not a Victoria Beckham”), the first major post-pandemic celebrity wedding is finally here.
And, in a sign of the circles brand Beckham now moves in, it is Vogue rather than OK! magazine that has acquired the exclusive rights to the wedding. The fashion magazine’s website has been running a series of chocolate-box “at home” videos, offering teasers of what to expect – such as Brooklyn’s “sensitive-guy” tears and Nicola’s gushy entrance song. And if their Instagram feeds are anything to go by, there’ll be a surfeit of public displays of affection, too.
With so many friends in so many high places, a galaxy of stars are expected. If the gossip columns’ guest-list guessing is to be believed, it will include the Spice Girls, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, Will Smith (expect the jokes at the reception to be kept to a minimum), Gigi Hadid and Gordon Ramsay. But there could also be some faces from the Beckhams’ past: former Manchester teammate Phil Neville and Rocco Ritchie. Snoop Dogg has reportedly offered to DJ as his wedding gift.
Meanwhile, drones have been swarming around the wedding venue, the Peltzes’ Regency-style £78m Palm Beach mansion in Miami, drip-feeding the tabloids with news of the preparations (The Beckhams married in 15th-century Luttrellstown Castle, outside Dublin, once owned by the Guinness family – how quaint).
Inevitably, though, questions remain – such as, for starters, isn’t Nicola snubbing Victoria by not wearing her designs? “I don’t think so,” says Claudia Croft, deputy editor of 10 Magazine. “You’ve got to think about who Nicola is – a couture wedding dress is totally within her grasp.” Plus, she adds, “Pierpaolo [Piccioli, Valentino’s creative director] is known for grand couture volume, and this is the one day you can get away with that.”
In fact, says Croft, “It’s accepted practice for couture houses to dress the bride’s entire family, as well as the bridesmaids.” Chief bridesmaid is rumoured to be the Beckhams’ youngest child, Harper, 10, while Nicola’s maternal grandmother, “Naunni”, is maid of honour (Romeo, 19, and Cruz, 17, are reportedly Brooklyn’s best men).
Besides, think of the positioning for Victoria to be alongside Valentino; she certainly would have. “There will be a lot of VB dresses around,” adds Croft. “All her side of the family, and several of the guests, will be outfitted in it, and I’d fully expect her to wear it, playing to her strengths in something long and sleek.”
There will be plenty of opportunities for VB visibility: “These American society weddings go on for days, with rehearsal dinners and more casual events,” Croft explained. In another Vogue video, the couple revealed that it will be a Jewish wedding – Brooklyn’s great-grandfather and Nicola’s father are both Jewish. Brooklyn added that he will wear a yarmulke for the ceremony – Croft predicts this could be teamed with Valentino menswear or Dior by Kim Jones, with whom the Beckhams are friends.
Having already acquired six tattoos dedicated to his “future wifey” (as one reads), surely Brooklyn will be marking the occasion with new ink. And if they decide to wear the his-and-hers gold-dipped wisdom teeth pendants that Peltz revealed to her 2.1m Instagram followers, they may be tucked out of sight.
“I would expect Nicola to wear a tiara,” says Croft. “They’re definitely having a moment, but also, the couple is so romantic, I think she’ll want the full princess look.” Maybe VB will “go the royal route”, adds Croft, and lend her some jewellery. For sure, millions of fingers will be hovering over the refresh button on Vogue’s website during the ceremony.
Vogue’s involvement is “precedent-setting”, says Borkowski. No longer are celebrity wedding picture rights the exclusive preserve of more downmarket glossy magazines. “This will be noted by other high-net-worths and A-list celebrities, who’ll be thinking, ‘How good does that look?’”
The Beckhams’ focus, he adds, is “about keeping the brand credible” – a lesson they’ve learned the hard way, after the ribbing provoked by their matching gilt thrones. “They can exploit it for commercial gains further down the line,” Borkowski added.
What should a royal visit look like? Why William and Kate’s recent trip might spark change for future tours
CBC News
When Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, set off for the Caribbean recently, their royal visit was, among other things, billed as an opportunity to celebrate local culture and commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years as monarch.
Some also saw the first major overseas trip William and Kate have taken in more than two years as a bid to shore up ties between Britain and the Commonwealth countries on their itinerary: Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.
In the end, however, the week-long visit drew more headlines for protests, the republican sentiment fomenting particularly in Jamaica, calls for slavery reparations and uncomfortable, potentially tone-deaf moments that seemed more rooted in the past than looking toward the future.
“I think they’ve gone backwards, actually,” British PR expert Mark Borkowski said in an interview. “It felt slightly colonial, the whole exercise.”
Take, for example, the moment when William and Kate, dressed in white, rode in a military parade in an open-top Land Rover, a nod to a ride the Queen and Prince Philip took in the same vehicle more than five decades ago.
“It was not a good image,” Borkowski said, likening it to something straight out of 1955.
Other images were happier. There were moments when people who came out to greet William and Kate were thrilled to see them, including one where, as the BBC reported, “wild cheers accompanied their every step and a walkabout at one point threatened to go out of control with excited people pressing them on every side.”
The trip also gave them a chance to focus on some of their key interests — early childhood development for Kate, conservation for William, among others — and have some fun at a regatta.
“It’s clear that the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was often appreciated at a local level when they were meeting local organizations or shaking hands with people in the various communities,” Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris said in an interview.
Having moments on a royal tour that harken back to previous trips was no surprise — they’ve been a hallmark of such visits for generations. But now, they may seem out of place to some.
“When we see very visible aspects of continuity, such as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending a military review in … the same vehicle as Queen Elizabeth … and Prince Philip did beforehand, that continuity can make royal tours look rather old-fashioned,” said Harris.
And all that sets off a broader consideration for some about just what look is appropriate for a royal visit in a world where public perceptions are changing and there are deeper reckonings with the past, because of everything from Black Lives Matter to Barbados declaring itself a republic late last year.
“There’s been a debate about what a royal tour should look like in the 21st century and are these larger events still suitable in the modern context, particularly in countries where there is a lot of debate and discussion about the future of the monarchy and whether there will be a transition to a republic,” said Harris.
As William and Kate’s trip came to its conclusion, British reporters were acknowledging a changing landscape.
“At the end of the seven days, it feels like we are in a new era for royal tours,” wrote Sky News royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills. “It’s been a wake-up that the optics of the past no longer work, and there is no going back.”
ITV royal editor Chris Ship wrote that “always nodding back to outdated traditions leaves the monarchy open to the charge that the institution is out of date and backward-looking.”
“What is the point of royal tours in 2022?” he asked.
“Royal aides will need to find a way to reorientate these visits to Commonwealth countries and beyond, so that they focus overwhelmingly on the future and not the past.”
Harris sees the potential for future tours to more closely resemble what’s called a “working” royal visit, when members of the family undertake lower-profile trips tightly focused on particular regions and the work of specific groups and charities in local communities.
“It’s very clear that royal visits are very strongly appreciated at that level,” Harris said.
There is still no public word on whether there will be a royal visit to Canada this year, but Harris noted that the 2002 visit to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee came in the fall.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/william-kate-caribbean-royal-visit-monarchy-future-1.6405427
Prince William faces struggle to reinvent monarchy, say royal experts
The Guardian
Prince William faces a struggle to reinvent the monarchy as a progressive force, royal experts have warned, after he made it clear there would be a change of strategy following his controversial trip to the Caribbean.
The future king has said he intends to break with tradition in his reign and become a “unifying force”, with a slimmed-down royal household and a more “reactionary and agile” approach to communications that would depart from the “never complain, never explain” policy adopted by his predecessors, according to reports in the Daily Mail.
But royal experts said it had been several decades since “never explain, never complain” was palace policy, and the prince would have to do more to keep the monarchy relevant for younger generations.
William’s comments came after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s tour of the Caribbean, in which they encountered the strength of republican sentiment in Jamaica and the Bahamas, where the Queen remains head of state, and took part in photo opportunities that have been criticised as throwbacks to colonialism.
One source quoted in the Mail said that William had privately expressed concern about how the Land Rover moment would be received several weeks before the tour.
William issued a statement after the trip – understood to have not been discussed with the Queen and Prince Charles first – in which he said the visit “had brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future”.
One former palace public relations source said this was unsurprising as William was more flexible over his future role as king than many understood. “There’s a feeling in the institution that over time the monarchy can update itself and change, but it has to be gradual, subtle and carefully thought through,” he said.
It was a particularly thorny issue at the moment, he said, as the role of the monarchy was to act as a “unifying presence” outside party politics, focusing on important social issues everyone could agree on, which is difficult in an “increasingly disunited society”. One of these issues was likely to include how to improve the diversity of palace staff, especially in senior positions, to ensure it better reflects the national make-up.
Philip Murphy, a professor at the University of London and former director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, said William’s comments reflect how the palace is “involved in a constant learning process” that balances tradition with public opinion. “Sometimes it has to ditch the standard way of doing things and reinvent the process, and that’s what we’re seeing here.”
Murphy thought the problems in the Caribbean had likely arisen because the region was a “constitutional grey zone”. William had to juggle the expectation that, as someone in line to be head of state, he would “acknowledge the very deep sense of grievance” with an understanding that it would be “constitutionally improper” to broach matters for the UK government such as “the sensitive issues of colonialism or slavery”.
However, he suggested that William could have been “more flexible and imaginative” in Jamaica. “I think the British government in particular have got to rethink the whole nature of royal tours,” Murphy said. “They create a disconnect between some of the coverage in the rightwing tabloids in Britain and the way these issues are covered and commented on in the international media and in Commonwealth countries themselves.”
William is understood to have also raised questions about whether it would be appropriate for him to be head of the Commonwealth, since the role is not hereditary. In 2018, Commonwealth leaders formally announced that Charles would become the next head after the Queen.
Mark Borkowski, a PR agent who is a longstanding observer of the royal family, suggested William might also overhaul the honours system to strip its connection with the legacy of empire.
The focus on his vision raises questions over whether Charles’s reign would be “some interim organisation until William takes over”, he said. “That’s where real change will happen, because we’ve got generations of young Britons who don’t have any empathy with the boomer vision of the world.”
Borkowski believes William is thinking imaginatively about his future reign in a changing society, much as his grandmother did when she became Queen as a young woman and developed an image of “what post-empire Britain looked like”.
“We’ve had a long serving monarch with a throwback to the last days of empire. Her son and grandson are so far away from that,” he said.
The new Posh and Becks? Meet Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz
Sunday Times
It was, depending on your point of view, either the celebrity wedding of the century or the nadir of vacuous pop culture. When David Beckham and Victoria Adams got married in 1999, they sat on gold thrones, released a dove after exchanging their vows, cut the many-tiered cake with a sword and wore matching purple outfits for the reception. In a record-breaking £1 million deal, OK! Magazine covered the occasion and a national obsession with Golden Balls and Posh Spice’s relationship was cemented.
Now another Beckham wedding extravaganza is imminent. Brooklyn Beckham, who also wore head-to-toe purple as a baby on his parents’ big day, is marrying Nicola Peltz, an American trustafarian actress, and Vogue has secured exclusivity rights.
The main event is scheduled for Saturday, April 9 at the bride’s family’s oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Known as Montsorrel, this is the £76 million estate where Nicola’s father, a hedge fund titan named Nelson Peltz, hosted a £400,000-per-couple re-election fundraiser for Donald Trump in February 2020. Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s country club, is just up the beach but the 45th president is unlikely to be on the guest list — Nelson Peltz publicly stopped supporting him after the Capitol riot in January 2021. Montsorrel isn’t as spacious as Peltz’s property in rural New York, which is set over 130 acres with albino peacocks roaming the grounds, a helipad and a full-sized ice rink, but blue skies are more dependable in the Sunshine State. They will have to make do with a mere seven acres (and 185m of private beach).
It will be a Jewish ceremony with Brooklyn, model, photographer and latterly aspiring celebrity chef, wearing a yarmulke for the service. Sources have yet to confirm if it will be purple. The 23-year-old groom has banned square plates (too naff) and reportedly teed up his father to be master of ceremonies. His younger brothers, Romeo, 19, and Cruz, 17, will act as best men.
Crockery details aside, the marriage marks a transatlantic merging of two mega-dynasties. “This is the Hollywood version of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry,” says R Couri Hay, a New York society publicist who has crossed paths with the Peltz family. “You’ve got the son of sports and fashion royalty marrying an American billionaire’s daughter, who also happens to be a beautiful actress.”
While the family fortunes differ in scale — David and Victoria’s net worth is a mere £380 million, as calculated by The Sunday Times Rich List, while Forbes puts Nelson Peltz’s net worth at £1.3 billion — Brooklyn can relate to Nicola’s silver-spoon upbringing of private jets, security guards and non-disclosure agreements. “I think Nelson is happy Nicola didn’t marry a fortune hunter or a young playboy who counted on his parents to pay all his bills or who was some out-of-control nightclub kid,” Hay says.
Brooklyn has enjoyed a few paydays to cover at least some of his own bills; in 2016 he landed a £100,000 advertising deal with Huawei to plug a smartphone and later modelled for the clothing company Pull&Bear, with the profoundly meaningless campaign slogan “Jump barriers and be in the right place”. Last year he received £1 million to be the face of the fashion brand Superdry.
After a first encounter at the Coachella music festival in California, Nicola and Brooklyn met again at a party in October 2019 and began dating. The following summer he got down on bended knee with a £350,000 diamond ring. It’s not clear who stumped up for that one. Tactfully, Nicola, 27, wore a dress designed by Victoria Beckham for the engagement photos, although she is believed to have picked a Valentino gown for the wedding and has jetted to Rome for wardrobe fittings. Brooklyn has demonstrated his dedication by getting tattoos of — deep breath — Nicola’s name, Nicola’s granny’s name (Gina), Nicola’s eyes, Nicola’s mum’s rosary beads (she’s Catholic), a replicated love letter from Nicola (signed “your future wifey”) and so on. She has a small, cursive “Brooklyn” inked on her back.
The bride-to-be grew up in Westchester County, an affluent area outside New York City, with her thrice-married father, her mother — a former model called Claudia Heffner Peltz — and seven siblings (there are also two half-siblings from Nelson’s first marriage). Plus the peacocks.
Nicola, the youngest daughter, is close to her Jewish Brooklyn-born father, who was a self-described “ski bum” and university dropout before he turned his family’s frozen food distribution business into a $150 million public company in the 1970s. Today, the 79-year-old mogul still runs his investment fund, Trian Partners. He has worked with America’s best-known companies — Procter & Gamble, Tiffany & Co, Starbucks, Heinz — and recently bought up a chunk of Unilever, the struggling British consumer goods giant. Described by his future son-in-law as “the most loveliest man”, Peltz is as powerful as he is private. “He has always been a behind the privet hedge sort of man, who wants to keep his money private, his family private,” Hay says.
On the other side of the aisle, the Beckhams have taken a different approach — they haven’t been out of the papers for a quarter of a century; Brooklyn’s birth was front-page news. When Posh and Becks, then 25 and 24 respectively, wed at Luttrellstown Castle, near Dublin, they were already world famous as a pouting pop star in the Spice Girls and an England footballer with a golden right foot. On the eve of his own nuptials, Brooklyn’s career is less established.
“Financially, I suspect he will always be all right,” says the celebrity PR consultant Mark Borkowski, acknowledging Brooklyn’s 13 million Instagram followers and the lucrative influencer world of so-called brand ambassadors. “But fulfilment and actually having something that he owns, that he’s brilliant at, there’s no evidence he can achieve that.”
His childhood was spent variously living in Britain, Spain and Los Angeles, while his dad played for Manchester United, Real Madrid and LA Galaxy, but Brooklyn ditched his own footballing dream after Arsenal’s youth academy released him aged 16. In a 2015 interview with ABC News, David reflected on how difficult his son found following in his footsteps: “He said, ‘Every time I step on to the field, I know people are saying, ‘This is David Beckham’s son,’ and if I am not as good as you, then it is not good enough.’ ”
Carving a different path has proved a struggle too. As a budding photographer he was hired by Burberry in 2016 to shoot a campaign, drawing criticism from professionals in the industry. A year later his £16.99 photography book, What I See, was roundly panned. One image of an elephant entirely in the shade was captioned: “So hard to photograph but incredible to see”. Next to a blurry restaurant scene he wrote: “I like this picture — it’s out of focus but you can tell there’s a lot going on.”
He enrolled in a photography course at New York’s Parsons School of Design but dropped out a year later, allegedly due to homesickness. The celebrity photographer Rankin then gave him an internship but colleagues remarked that he was “lacking basic skills”.
Today Brooklyn lives in a £7.5 million mansion in Beverly Hills with Nicola and has a new goal — to become a celebrity chef. Encouraged by his (lactose intolerant) fiancée, he recently launched a show, Cookin’ with Brooklyn, which streams on Facebook and Instagram. The culinary pretensions kicked in during lockdowns but unfortunately he appears a few sandwiches short of a picnic on the cooking front. “I love cheese,” he says during a pasta-making tutorial. “It’s like butter.”
Victoria Beckham, who runs a fashion and beauty empire with a financial track record to horrify Nelson Peltz (her business has made losses upwards of £50 million and not recorded a profit since 2016), has probably not enjoyed much of Brooklyn’s food as she has eaten the same meal for 25 years. “Since I met her she only eats grilled fish, steamed vegetables — she will very rarely deviate from that,” David Beckham revealed on the River Café’s Table 4 podcast last month.
Cue derision when it was reported that one eight-minute episode of Cookin’ with Brooklyn cost $100,000 to make and involved a 62-person team. As he oversees a chef making a fish sandwich on the show, Brooklyn proffers his own technique (“I eat half the fish and then I, like, mess it all up and put it in two loaves of bread with the fish, vinegar, salt, mushy peas”). “[Brooklyn] is to cooking what Posh was to singing,” a source close to the production told the New York Post, adding that he needed an illustrated “cheat sheet” for basic terminology such as “whisk” and “parboil”.
“The question is whether the Beckham name is ultimately going to be a curse,” Borkowski says. “You’re never allowed the freedom to fail because as soon as you fail, you’re clickbait. Most people need failure, you learn more lessons from failure than you ever do from success. For Brooklyn, that’s a poisoned chalice.”
Thayer Willis, a US-based wealth therapist who helps the super-rich find fulfilment, agrees that the fear of failure can be crippling. “Sometimes young family members feel very defensive about being recognised as their parents’ child, more so than anything else,” she says. “They see the differential treatment they get because of their parents and that’s kind of demeaning.”
Escaping the long shadow of successful, famous parents to find identity, self-worth and purpose in early adulthood is a fraught business, while sympathy is understandably limited. On TikTok, skewering the lifestyles of so-called “#nepobabies” (nepotism babies) — high-profile celebrity kids such as the model Iris Law, the daughter of Jude Law and Sadie Frost, and the model and actress Lily-Rose Depp, the daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis — is a flourishing trend.
Willis argues that it’s crucial for colossally rich parents not to give their children too much too soon: “It helps these young family members take charge of their lives and realise, ‘Oh, it’s on my shoulders. If I want to have all the things I like in life, then I need to generate income.’ ”
As the heirs to Britain’s biggest celebrity brand, the trio of Beckham boys — all impeccably polite, I’ve heard — have the industry connections and social media pulling power to earn enviable incomes. (Their younger sister, Harper, is ten, at a private day school in London and not yet on social media.)
Having left Millfield School, the Somerset public school where boarding fees are £13,785 a term, Romeo recently made his playing debut for Fort Lauderdale CF, the reserve team of Inter Miami, the Florida club that his father co-owns. (Phil Neville, Beckham’s old Manchester United team-mate, is the manager and his 19-year-old son, Harvey, is also on the squad.) While Kieran Gibbs, the former Arsenal defender who now plays alongside Romeo in Florida, describes him as “a great, humble kid”, it is also assumed that the teenager wouldn’t have made it in the Premier League and made the right decision to leave Arsenal’s academy in 2015.
Realistically, Romeo is more likely to find success as a model and influencer. At the age of 12 he began to appear in high-profile Burberry campaigns. Last year he modelled for Yves Saint Laurent and recently accompanied his mum to Paris Fashion Week. He and his girlfriend Mia Regan, a model from Chippenham, are Generation Z idols and he regularly posts loved-up selfies on Instagram for his three million followers. Earlier this month the couple were revealed as the new faces of Ami, a trendy French fashion company, for its gender-neutral collaboration with Puma.
Then there is Cruz, son number three, who is attempting to break into the music industry and has worked with Poo Bear, the songwriter and mastermind behind Justin Bieber. Unsurprisingly, his image has toughened up since he released a Christmas charity single aged 11; a recent cover shoot for i-D magazine saw him topless, with jeans round his ankles, a pink buzz cut and metal grills on his teeth. “I don’t think you ever stop learning, but I’m taking my time seeing what happens,” he said, as critics griped that the edgy photoshoot was overly sexualised.
Meanwhile, Nelson Peltz’s ten children have pursued careers in finance, figure skating, ice hockey and acting. Nicola’s latest projects include writing and co-directing an upcoming film, Lola James, in which she stars alongside her brother Will. She has also been cast for an American TV series as Dorothy Stratten, the real-life Playboy model who was murdered by her estranged husband, who will be played by the Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens.
With limitless opportunities and limitless funds, Nicola and Brooklyn will surely have a prenuptial agreement. “In cases like this it’s interesting how involved the family, particularly the parents, get in negotiating the prenuptial agreement,” says Laura Wasser, a Hollywood divorce lawyer who has worked with Kim Kardashian, Johnny Depp and Britney Spears. “How in bed are the family going to be, so to speak, with these parties as they negotiate what should be a pretty important part of what they’re going into in terms of their marriage?”
Wasser, who charges clients $950 (£690) an hour plus a retainer, advises to have the prenup ironed out well before the wedding itself. “Then it’s done and any kind of conflicted or hurt feelings go away and you put on your beautiful dress, your tuxedo and you’ve got the bouquet, cake, music and a magical day.” In Hollywood, romance isn’t dead. It’s just reading the contracts.
In a YouTube video in which Brooklyn makes his fiancée a heart-shaped pizza and chocolate lava cake for Valentine’s Day, Nicola confesses that they are fretting about something less thorny than ring-fencing trust funds: the separate girls’ and boys’ “slumber parties” the night before the wedding. “We’ve been panicking about it, this one night apart,” says the bride-to-be. Then she tries a tiny spoonful of dessert and says: “Oh my God, that is amazing.”
Rivard: Billion-dollar tennis star
Among the many headliners in the mix at the first of the two spring events on US soil was Emma Raducanu.
Not for long, but still.
Is she worth a billion dollars like former Romanian pro and businessman Ion Tiriac said, piggybacking on a tweet by British PR guru Mark Borkowski claiming she was the billion-dollar girl after her big win in NYC, or just a one-hit wonder?Or does her path lie somewhere in between?
Considering current circumstances and her undeniable talent, let’s say she’s in between. A gifted athlete who perhaps experienced too much, too fast.
She’s not alone. There are countless young athletes just like her who were prematurely labelled as the next big thing.
In California, Emma battled through her first clash and then lost in the next round to Petra Martic of Croatia. Serving for the match at 5-4, Raducanu lost the next three games and the set and was promptly sent packing.
There haven’t been any other miracles since her unexpected US Open triumph. Her questionable decision to split from her coach, a bout of COVID-19 and an injury definitely slowed the momentum, and those things are all part of the equation.
There’s also the reality that awaits any prodigy who suddenly emerges.
After winning 10 straight matches without dropping a single set at her very first Slam, things suddenly got real. The result? A 4–7 record.
Of the seven losses, only one was against a high-ranking player: No.13 Elena Rybakina. The average ranking of Raducanu’s other opponents was no.87. Her four wins were over players around no.90.
Nothing to write home about, as the saying goes.
The euphoria is gone but the money that rained down from a myriad of sponsors charmed by her athletic and advertising potential has not.
“Still trying to figure everything out, and everything is still very new and it’s going to take a while to really settle into it,” Emma recently said.
That reminds me of something the Québec government repeated at the start of the pandemic about building the airplane while flying the first wave.
In Romanian newspaper Pro Sport, Ion Tiriac openly criticized Raducanu for firing coach Andrew Richardson, who helped her find her way to her first major: “Why did she get rid of the coach who took her there?!”
https://www.tenniscanada.com/news/rivard-billion-dollar-tennis-star/
Ukraine-Russia conflict: Putin takes revenge on West
Daily Express
The Russian President warned of rocketing costs if economic pressure intensifies on his country as UK experts claimed inflation here could hit 9.5 percent. Boris Johnson last night admitted Putin’s war will inflict further cost of living pain on Britons, adding: “It may be a bumpy period, but we’ll get through it as fast and as well as we possibly can.”
The Prime Minister pledged to ease the burden on consumers – and to ditch Russian oil and gas.
Responding to a question by Sky’s Beth Rigby over household energy bills soaring to potentially £3,000 a year, he said: “Now is the time to unleash an extraordinary programme of energy independence through massive investment in renewables, in more nuclear, a lot more nuclear, and also in sensible use of our own hydrocarbons, with our own oil and gas and without busting our carbon budget.”
Putin vowed to send world food prices soaring if Western countries tighten economic curbs.
In a Kremlin address he said: “Russia and [its ally] Belarus are some of the biggest suppliers of mineral fertilisers. If [Western countries] continue to create problems for the financing and logistics of the delivery of our goods, then prices will rise and this will affect the final product, food products.”
Russia last night banned exports of 200 types of goods including telecoms, medical items and timber plus motor, agricultural and electrical gear until the end of this year.
Further measures may stop foreign ships docking. The economy ministry said: “These measures are a logical response to those imposed on Russia”, adding that curbs on countries that have “committed unfriendly actions” were “aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy”.
Premier Mikhail Mishustin made clear the ban includes exports of goods made by foreign firms operating in Russia such as cars, railway carriages and containers.
While former president Dmitry Medvedev warned assets owned by Western companies may be nationalised if they pull out of Russia. Firms including Caterpillar, Rio Tinto, Starbucks, Sony, Unilever and Goldman Sachs have all quit.
He said: “The Russian government is already working on measures, which include bankruptcy and nationalisation. Foreign companies should understand that returning to our market will be difficult.”
Russia is the UK’s 19th largest trading partner, with deals totalling £15.9billion over a year. The Kremlin is halting exports of wheat, rye, barley and corn to post-Soviet-countries in the Eurasian Economic Union until August 31 to ensure it has enough food at home.
Putin’s revenge is likely to further squeeze UK families with inflation tipped to top 9.5 percent, Goldman Sachs bankers warned.
Dan Crossley, executive director of the Food Ethics Council charity, said: “The spiralling cost of food was already a challenge in the UK and across Europe but is now being pushed even higher. Governments need to consider what measures they can take to ensure price inflation doesn’t put good food beyond the reach of even more people.”
The Bank of England had said that inflation would peak at seven percent next month but most economists revised up their predictions following the invasion.
Inflation hit a 30-year high of 5.5 percent in January, with steep rises expected soon. This “will exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis by reducing households’ real incomes”, said Paul Dales, UK economist at Capital Economics.
Millions are being battered by soarinig energy bills and by rising fuel prices. Mr Johnson said: “We will do everything we can to help households…particularly elderly vulnerable people. So the best thing for dealing with the cost of living, I mean big picture, is to have a strong economy, good high-wage, high-skilled jobs.”
He toured a Merseyside shipyard with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday.
The Federation of Wholesale Distributors said that dearer fuel will raise the price of groceries and restaurant food as its members pass on transport costs.
Food producers face surging prices for fertiliser, animal feed and for carbon dioxide used in packaging and livestock slaughter.
Ukrainian farmers – the world’s top producers of wheat, maize, barley and cooking oils – have stopped work to fight off Russian invaders.
Britain’s National Pig Association urged shops to pay more for pork to save the industry after feed costs soared.
Wheat rose to £300 a ton from £215 in a few days. Rob Mutimer, the body’s chairman, said: “We are staring down the barrel of a total collapse of the British pig industry.
“Retailers will not be able to rely on EU pork either as it gets shorter in supply and more expensive. They need to act now.”
Mark Spencer, Leader of the Commons, said that there was “no prospect of food shortages” and Environment Secretary George Eustice said the UK is “largely self-sufficient” in wheat.
Sandra Horsfield, economist at banking group Investec, said: “The longer the war lasts and the bigger the sanctions on Russia are, the greater the hit to UK activity.”
Oil prices by more than five percent yesterday.
This followed a 17 percent drop on Wednesday after confusion over whether major producers would help to plug the gap left by a ban on oil supplies from Russia.
The United Arab Emirates had appeared to push members of the Opec producer group to raise output, only for its energy minister to quash hopes. The UAE and neighbouring Saudi Arabia are among the few nations in Opec with spare capacity that could increase output and potentially offset supply losses.
The UAE’s US ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba said: “We favour production increases.”
Shock after diesel tops £2 a litre:
MOTORISTS on the Isle of Wight are paying a staggering £2 a litre for diesel – believed to be the most expensive in the UK, writes Steph Spyro.
Drivers at Osborne Garage in East Cowes felt a pinch at the pumps yesterday when diesel reached 201.5p. This is 10p more expensive than the previous day. Further pump price rises are likely in coming days as a result of crude oil hitting $139 a barrel earlier this week – the highest it has been in 14 years.
But the price plummeted to $109 on Wednesday.
Simon Williams, RAC fuel spokesman, said: “There was a hint of better news on Wednesday. But drivers will continue to see high prices on forecourts as retailers pass on their increased wholesale costs.”
Petrol was an average of 159.6p per litre on Wednesday, up 3.2p since Monday, data firm Experian Catalist said. Diesel averaged 167.4p – up 5.1p.
Bills hurdle too high for 1 in 4 OAPs:
ONE in four pensioners will struggle with soaring energy bills when prices rise next month, campaigners warn, writes Sarah O’Grady.
A quarter of older people in England will be living in fuel stress – spending more than 10 percent of their after-tax income on heating – up from 12 percent.
Age UK says that figure is due to go up to 35 percent after the second scheduled price rise in October. Some 51 percent of the poorest 10 percent of OAP households are already in fuel stress. That is expected to soar to 91 percent in April if no intervention comes.
Age UK Director Caroline Abrahams said: “The support package offered by the Chancellor last month falls several hundred pounds a year short of the bill rises. How is an older person on a low fixed income supposed to make up the difference?”
Jan Shortt, General Secretary of the National Pensioners’ Convention said: “The Chancellor must do more to alleviate rising fuel costs for our oldest and most vulnerable. His measures to date are far from enough.”
Cadbury owner faces customer backlash as it fails to join Jamie Oliver and Yorkshire tea in quitting Putin’s Russia:
CADBURY owner Mondelez has come under fire for failing to halt all operations in Russia, writes Steph Spyro.
The US confectionery giant has “scaled back all non-essential activities” and will instead focus on “basic offerings”.
David Fraser, of public relations firm Ready10, said: “It remains to be seen which firms are pulling out of Russia in a half-hearted way. But one thing is for sure – if they are, consumers will see through it pretty quickly and in some cases, vote with their feet.”
Mondelez boss Dirk Van de Put said the firm “condemns this unjust aggression”. He said it will cut operations “while helping maintain continuity of the food supply in the challenging times ahead”.
Mr Van de Put added: “We recognise this is a highly dynamic and very concerning situation that we will continue to assess and adjust as needed.
This follows rivals Procter & Gamble and Unilever halting investment.
Packaged food giant Nestle, cigarette company Philip Morris and Sony said pledge to cut operations and stop investment. But they would continue to provide essentials.
PR guru Mark Borkowski said: “Companies like Mondelez, Kraft, and Unilever wield the power to decide how disruptive Western sanctions will be on the everyday lives of Russians, and therefore how quickly this war might end.”
Yorkshire Tea has suspended trade, while celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is pulling the plug on a franchise restaurant in Moscow.
Goldman Sachs said it plans to close its operations in Russia – the first big Wall Street bank to quit.
Comment by Matt Williams, Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit
THE invasion of Ukraine has focused minds on ending the UK’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. Now President Putin is turning fertiliser into his newest geopolitical weapon threatening the West with soaring food costs.
Around 10 percent of the UK’s fertiliser imports came from Russia in 2020, and it is one of the world’s largest exporters. Methane is an ingredient of many fertilisers, meaning that as gas prices have rocketed, so have fertiliser prices.
Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit:
This newest threat shows the risks of a food system reliant on fossil fuels and fertilisers from unstable countries.
Fertiliser prices reached eye-watering levels in 2021 and have already climbed close to £1,000 per tonne in recent days. They could go higher still if Putin acts on this threat.
It’s time to look again at our food system, and what it costs farmers, families, and the climate. Innovative British companies, like CCm Technologies in Swindon, are doing just that.
Their low-carbon fertilisers use captured carbon dioxide and wastes to cut emissions by up to 90 percent compared to conventional methods. If this could be scaled up it could make a big difference for cutting the climate impact of food production.
Meanwhile, some farmers are reducing their use of these chemicals, replacing them with low-carbon, natural soil management.
As if these challenges weren’t enough for the farmers who feed the nation, another dark cloud is hanging overhead.
Extreme weather affected wheat and orchard fruit production in the UK last year, and flooding in western Europe damaged potato crops.