Latest news with #BridesheadRevisited
Mint
28-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Comparing apples and oranges. And also small caged mammals
Cod-liver oil (1947-51), mercifully, passed away swiftly. Liver (1947-98) lasted a little longer. Avocados didn't arrive until 1993—but have thrived since then. To read the contents list of the basket of goods, updated this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is an intriguing experience. For economists it offers a sober measure of consumer-price inflation. For everyone else it is a births-and-deaths column for British consumerism, announcing the arrival of some objects and acting, for others, as their epitaph. Thus this week the list noted the arrival of 'men's sliders" and the demise of newspaper advertisements. It has previously recorded the demise of linoleum (in 1980), of corsets (1970) and of oil lamps (1947). Its very name is a relic: that word 'basket" sounding like something that might have hung from the arm of a British housewife as she went to the shops in her mackintosh (1947-52) to buy Brussels sprouts (1947-2006). Sometimes, it is an enigma: in the 2000s a 'small caged mammal" appeared, unexpectedly, in the ONS's calculations. The basket itself, in its modern form, was born in 1947. The political mood was tense. British families, who had paid a high price—in some cases the ultimate one—for the war were angry at the high prices they had to pay for everything else in the peace. The era of macroeconomic theory had begun (Britain's first official national accounts were published in 1941). Now Britain's beancounters needed microeconomic data, on things like the price of beans (canned beans: 1947-), to apply those theories. And that meant shoe-leather reporting (shoe repairs: 1947-2003). It still does: every month the ONS's 280 price collectors set out to shops in around 140 places across Britain to collect 180,000 prices of hundreds of goods and services (they also look online). Those prices are then gathered into categories (thus 'small caged mammal" goes to make up a larger category on 'pets"). Then changes in price are calculated, to enable the government to know about inflation, and at least something about the price of eggs (1947-). As well as about many other, more unappetising things. The 1947 list, at the height of rationing, shows a nation surviving on Brussels sprouts, margarine and the ominously oblique 'compound cooking fat". This, Evelyn Waugh later wrote, was 'a bleak period of present privation" and, he added, even more bleakly, 'of soya beans". Rationed food was 'unbelievably dreary", says Max Hastings, a historian. It did not fill stomachs but did, oddly, fill books. In the 'hungry novels" of wartime and post-war Britain, British novelists with poor diets and rich imaginations allowed their characters to gorge on the foods which they could not. In 'Brideshead Revisited" Sebastian Flyte eats strawberries and sips Château Peyraguey beneath a spreading summer elm. It 'isn't a wine you've ever tasted," he says. Given that 'Brideshead" was published in 1945, and 'table wine" didn't appear until 1980, this was probably true. The ONS records offer a picture not merely of national consumerism but of national character; few novelists draw in such detail. The writer Julian Barnes once said that to build a character you must 'start with the shoes". And the basket does give you Britons' footwear—from men's leather Oxfords (1947) to plimsolls (1947-87) to the casually late arrival of the trainer (1987). But it also gives detail on Britons' underwear (which in 1962 included a 'girdle"); its nightwear ('winceyette" in 1947) and on where Britons spend their time (climbing walls have replaced bingo halls). The basket is at once detailed—and doomed. Britain's economists are not quite comparing apples and oranges: both apples (1947-) and oranges (1947-) have been in since the beginning, so each can be compared with themselves. But it is all but impossible to equate the value of a 'rubber-roller table mangle" (1947-52) with a tumble drier (1993-); or of a telegram (1956-80) with a mobile phone (2005-). Using price indices over long periods is, says Diane Coyle, a professor of economics at Cambridge, 'a bit of a mug's game". The introduction of wholly new products in medicine is particularly problematic for prices. Gouty King George IV 'lived like a king", says William Nordhaus, an economist, but 'was a miserable man because his feet were killing him". Today, a pill could cure him; yet such changes are 'simply…not captured" by indices. It is not only the lists' items that have changed but their length. Early lists are not just nasty (that cod-liver oil) and occasionally brutish (1952 offers 'home-killed mutton and lamb"). They are also short: the 1947 basket has only 200 items. The current one has 750. This is typical: one study found that in the early 1970s Americans could choose between five types of running shoe. By the late 1990s they had 285. 'The real privilege of our lives today is that we have choice," says Sir Max. Choice in everything, from whether or not to fight in a war, to whether to spend your money on avocados, or climbing walls or even, should you wish, on small caged mammals. For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.
The Age
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘I love the company of alpha men': Hayley Atwell on working with Tom Cruise
This story is part of the May 18 edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. One might assume, as a woman in Hollywood, that Hayley Atwell is sick of being asked about Mission: Impossible co-star Tom Cruise, who she's worked with now for over five years. But when the inevitable question is asked, she seems genuinely fond of him, at least from what I can glean from our Zoom interview (her camera remains firmly off for the entirety). 'I think I've taught him over time that I'm a friend to him,' she says, a smile creeping into her voice. 'He's met my family, and I've met his, and he creates a really wholesome environment for his actors to work in … he values me as a friend and I think that comes from my respect for him as a person. He is a very mild-mannered, polite gentleman, in that old-school Hollywood way. Kind of like Paul Newman for me.' Atwell is speaking from her home city of London, and her voice is hoarse – she's just wrapped the marathon run of a West End production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Beatrice to Tom Hiddleston's Benedick – and she speaks with a slight lisp not apparent on screen. But Atwell, 43, isn't here to talk about theatre. She's here to talk about Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the second instalment of the latest reboot of the action franchise. It was in the first instalment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, released in 2023, that audiences met Atwell's character Grace, a free-spirited pickpocket eventually persuaded by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to join the Impossible Missions Force. Both Mission: Impossible and the action-spy genre at large have historically had a fraught relationship with their female characters, who are often relegated to stale stereotypes like the damsel in distress or sex symbol. As Grace, Atwell is cunning, gutsy and utterly captivating – not unlike the actor herself. With a wardrobe heavy on pantsuits and notably lacking in ballgowns, Grace is never a damsel and only occasionally distressed. 'I would consider myself an alpha woman,' she says. 'I've always been very strong. I've always had a very strong sense of who I am. I can't even work out how to get into the beginnings of why that is. It's just partly how I'm built.' This self-given moniker, 'alpha woman', is fitting for someone who's maintained both a steady professionalism and fierce outspokenness throughout her career. Atwell has been particularly vocal about the pressures young women in Hollywood face to look a certain way – including a remark about her weight on the set of Brideshead Revisited which was initially attributed to producer Harvey Weinstein but which she has since said was made by someone from the crew. Certainly, it seems this headstrong spirit is what drew Cruise (who is also a producer on the Mission: Impossible franchise) and director Christopher McQuarrie (who Atwell refers to affectionately as 'McQ') to cast her. 'I love the company of alpha men,' says Atwell, citing a number of 'alphas' she's worked with previously, including Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Simon Russell Beale. 'From the moment I met Tom and McQ, I discovered they also really love and value strong women.' Atwell praises the freedom the pair, who are known for letting actors improvise, gave her to make Grace her own. 'I find it very exciting because with Mission, if I didn't come up with any ideas on any given day, then I would appear in the scenes as just another brunette. It really was up to me to keep moving forward and keep pushing, and keep being present to Tom.' Like Cruise, notorious for his determination to perform his own stunts, however dangerous, Atwell was equally game for the physical challenges the role demanded. But it's the quiet moments, away from the high-octane car chases and scuba diving in freezing water, that really stick with her. She recounts a particularly emotional moment while shooting The Final Reckoning in Svalbard, an archipelago situated between Norway and the North Pole. 'There was this incredible sight of a polar bear walking very slowly, calmly towards our ship. It looked well fed, thankfully, but we were very aware that we were in its territory. So there was this sense of absolutely respecting its space and its privacy. We were able to experience this mighty beast in its home. It was very awe-inspiring.' Atwell grew up in London where she was raised by single mother, Allison Cain, a motivational speaker. They didn't grow up with money, but she says her childhood, surrounded by the beating heart of London's arts scene, was a happy one. Her father Grant, an American photographer, stayed in the picture, taking his daughter travelling during a gap year after high school. While she says her hunger to perform started young, she almost didn't pursue acting. Atwell received a conditional offer to study philosophy and theology at Oxford University, but purposely flunked her final exams – something she doesn't regret to this day. Acting has brought her into contact with all manner of people – from archbishops to scholars – who more than satisfy her curious spirit. 'It means that I'm immediately collaborating with them for a specific reason that fuels my own creativity rather than studying what they have to say from an academic point of view. I feel like I am a student every single day, and I'll never graduate.' After finishing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2005, Atwell started her career in theatre before making the transition to the screen with a breakout role in Woody Allen's 2007 film Cassandra's Dream (in 2018, Atwell spoke out about her poor on-set relationship with Allen, vowing never to work with him again). A series of roles in films including Brideshead Revisited and The Duchess followed, earning Atwell the title 'queen of period drama'. Her recent appearance in Mission: Impossible, alongside a recurring role as Agent Peggy Carter in the Marvel cinematic universe, might lead audiences to add action star to period-drama heroine. But a closer look at her CV reveals a genre-defying career, including an emotional role in an episode of the sci-fi series Black Mirror and a guest appearance on another UK TV series, Heartstopper, she's particularly passionate about. 'There were a couple of lines in the script where I just felt like: 'Yes, I want to say those lines. That feels like a beautiful moment and I would like to experience that with that actor in that show.'' Throughout her career, Atwell has remained fiercely protective of her personal life. She became engaged to music producer Ned Wolfgang Kelly in 2023 and gave birth to their child last year – two milestones she has little interest in discussing, except to say she remains 'stubbornly myself, and very close to my family and friends from childhood'. Despite her private nature, Atwell is fond of talking about self-love and its power in an industry known to be particularly cruel to women. In a recent appearance on the podcast Reign with Josh Smith, she commented on this perception, referring to a journalist who once wrote 'Hayley Atwell comes across like a self-help book'. I ask her how she maintains such hope and optimism. 'If someone was cruel to me, that doesn't mean I have to be cruel back. When I walk into a room, particularly a working environment, I go, 'It's my responsibility how I show up and what I partake in and what I comment on.' And if someone gossips, it's my responsibility to not gossip back. The minute I do, I'm part of the problem. Loading 'I understand that as a deep sense of individual responsibility to shape the conversation I'm having. I want it to come from a place of professionalism, kindness and belief in what art can do to bring us together, to unite us and to help us understand differences. But there are also many things that are beyond my control and I really understand what's not within my power.' If Atwell has earned the trust and ear of Cruise as both co-star and friend, then being in the orbit of one of the best-known men in Hollywood has dramatically shifted her relationship with fame. Or, rather, her distaste for it. 'It's not my business what people think of me,' she says firmly. 'There's nothing I can do about it. 'Of course, that's the power of charismatic actors – you can feel what they feel. You'll certainly feel a connection to the stories they're telling. But we're talking about that going into delusion if there is an assumption that, because we've seen this person on the big screen, we have any right to have any sort of relationship with them in real life.'
Sydney Morning Herald
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘I love the company of alpha men': Hayley Atwell on working with Tom Cruise
This story is part of the May 18 edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. One might assume, as a woman in Hollywood, that Hayley Atwell is sick of being asked about Mission: Impossible co-star Tom Cruise, who she's worked with now for over five years. But when the inevitable question is asked, she seems genuinely fond of him, at least from what I can glean from our Zoom interview (her camera remains firmly off for the entirety). 'I think I've taught him over time that I'm a friend to him,' she says, a smile creeping into her voice. 'He's met my family, and I've met his, and he creates a really wholesome environment for his actors to work in … he values me as a friend and I think that comes from my respect for him as a person. He is a very mild-mannered, polite gentleman, in that old-school Hollywood way. Kind of like Paul Newman for me.' Atwell is speaking from her home city of London, and her voice is hoarse – she's just wrapped the marathon run of a West End production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Beatrice to Tom Hiddleston's Benedick – and she speaks with a slight lisp not apparent on screen. But Atwell, 43, isn't here to talk about theatre. She's here to talk about Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the second instalment of the latest reboot of the action franchise. It was in the first instalment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, released in 2023, that audiences met Atwell's character Grace, a free-spirited pickpocket eventually persuaded by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to join the Impossible Missions Force. Both Mission: Impossible and the action-spy genre at large have historically had a fraught relationship with their female characters, who are often relegated to stale stereotypes like the damsel in distress or sex symbol. As Grace, Atwell is cunning, gutsy and utterly captivating – not unlike the actor herself. With a wardrobe heavy on pantsuits and notably lacking in ballgowns, Grace is never a damsel and only occasionally distressed. 'I would consider myself an alpha woman,' she says. 'I've always been very strong. I've always had a very strong sense of who I am. I can't even work out how to get into the beginnings of why that is. It's just partly how I'm built.' This self-given moniker, 'alpha woman', is fitting for someone who's maintained both a steady professionalism and fierce outspokenness throughout her career. Atwell has been particularly vocal about the pressures young women in Hollywood face to look a certain way – including a remark about her weight on the set of Brideshead Revisited which was initially attributed to producer Harvey Weinstein but which she has since said was made by someone from the crew. Certainly, it seems this headstrong spirit is what drew Cruise (who is also a producer on the Mission: Impossible franchise) and director Christopher McQuarrie (who Atwell refers to affectionately as 'McQ') to cast her. 'I love the company of alpha men,' says Atwell, citing a number of 'alphas' she's worked with previously, including Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Simon Russell Beale. 'From the moment I met Tom and McQ, I discovered they also really love and value strong women.' Atwell praises the freedom the pair, who are known for letting actors improvise, gave her to make Grace her own. 'I find it very exciting because with Mission, if I didn't come up with any ideas on any given day, then I would appear in the scenes as just another brunette. It really was up to me to keep moving forward and keep pushing, and keep being present to Tom.' Like Cruise, notorious for his determination to perform his own stunts, however dangerous, Atwell was equally game for the physical challenges the role demanded. But it's the quiet moments, away from the high-octane car chases and scuba diving in freezing water, that really stick with her. She recounts a particularly emotional moment while shooting The Final Reckoning in Svalbard, an archipelago situated between Norway and the North Pole. 'There was this incredible sight of a polar bear walking very slowly, calmly towards our ship. It looked well fed, thankfully, but we were very aware that we were in its territory. So there was this sense of absolutely respecting its space and its privacy. We were able to experience this mighty beast in its home. It was very awe-inspiring.' Atwell grew up in London where she was raised by single mother, Allison Cain, a motivational speaker. They didn't grow up with money, but she says her childhood, surrounded by the beating heart of London's arts scene, was a happy one. Her father Grant, an American photographer, stayed in the picture, taking his daughter travelling during a gap year after high school. While she says her hunger to perform started young, she almost didn't pursue acting. Atwell received a conditional offer to study philosophy and theology at Oxford University, but purposely flunked her final exams – something she doesn't regret to this day. Acting has brought her into contact with all manner of people – from archbishops to scholars – who more than satisfy her curious spirit. 'It means that I'm immediately collaborating with them for a specific reason that fuels my own creativity rather than studying what they have to say from an academic point of view. I feel like I am a student every single day, and I'll never graduate.' After finishing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2005, Atwell started her career in theatre before making the transition to the screen with a breakout role in Woody Allen's 2007 film Cassandra's Dream (in 2018, Atwell spoke out about her poor on-set relationship with Allen, vowing never to work with him again). A series of roles in films including Brideshead Revisited and The Duchess followed, earning Atwell the title 'queen of period drama'. Her recent appearance in Mission: Impossible, alongside a recurring role as Agent Peggy Carter in the Marvel cinematic universe, might lead audiences to add action star to period-drama heroine. But a closer look at her CV reveals a genre-defying career, including an emotional role in an episode of the sci-fi series Black Mirror and a guest appearance on another UK TV series, Heartstopper, she's particularly passionate about. 'There were a couple of lines in the script where I just felt like: 'Yes, I want to say those lines. That feels like a beautiful moment and I would like to experience that with that actor in that show.'' Throughout her career, Atwell has remained fiercely protective of her personal life. She became engaged to music producer Ned Wolfgang Kelly in 2023 and gave birth to their child last year – two milestones she has little interest in discussing, except to say she remains 'stubbornly myself, and very close to my family and friends from childhood'. Despite her private nature, Atwell is fond of talking about self-love and its power in an industry known to be particularly cruel to women. In a recent appearance on the podcast Reign with Josh Smith, she commented on this perception, referring to a journalist who once wrote 'Hayley Atwell comes across like a self-help book'. I ask her how she maintains such hope and optimism. 'If someone was cruel to me, that doesn't mean I have to be cruel back. When I walk into a room, particularly a working environment, I go, 'It's my responsibility how I show up and what I partake in and what I comment on.' And if someone gossips, it's my responsibility to not gossip back. The minute I do, I'm part of the problem. Loading 'I understand that as a deep sense of individual responsibility to shape the conversation I'm having. I want it to come from a place of professionalism, kindness and belief in what art can do to bring us together, to unite us and to help us understand differences. But there are also many things that are beyond my control and I really understand what's not within my power.' If Atwell has earned the trust and ear of Cruise as both co-star and friend, then being in the orbit of one of the best-known men in Hollywood has dramatically shifted her relationship with fame. Or, rather, her distaste for it. 'It's not my business what people think of me,' she says firmly. 'There's nothing I can do about it. 'Of course, that's the power of charismatic actors – you can feel what they feel. You'll certainly feel a connection to the stories they're telling. But we're talking about that going into delusion if there is an assumption that, because we've seen this person on the big screen, we have any right to have any sort of relationship with them in real life.'
Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Yorkshire's stately Bridgerton home with a quirky turret stay
As I peer up at the dome of Castle Howard, the screen-famous stately home that occupies an 8,800-acre estate 15 miles northeast of York, I take in a scene from the ancient Greek myth of the fallof Phaeton, frescoed across its interior. This 70ft centrepiece is one of the many design statements that the British statesman Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, brought to North Yorkshire in the early 18th century to create an 'Italian palace in Yorkshire'. To do so he enlisted the help of the radical architect and dramatist John Vanbrugh, alongside Nicholas Hawksmoor, the designer behind Blenheim Palace and the west towers of Westminster Abbey. Some 300 years on, this country house has starred in multiple film and TV series, including the period drama Brideshead Revisited, made in the Eighties, and the Netflix series Bridgerton. At the end of April, as part of its ambitious 21st Century Renaissance project, it opened its doors to its newly refurbished tapestry drawing room. And next year the house will be available for occasional private rent, allowing holidaymakers to step into the lives of its present custodians, Nicholas and Victoria Howard, while enjoying the setting in the Howardian Hills, one of England's 46 national landscapes, which are protected for their natural beauty. Prices are on request but you can imagine it's suitably expensive. For those of us without such deep pockets there's the new Hinds House, a former gamekeeper's cottage, which is where I'm settling in for a weekend with my husband and two children. It's the newest of Castle Howard's stays, which also include a caravan and campsite with holiday homes, plus six other cottages in nearby villages. Hinds House is by far its quirkiest, forming part of a turret in the estate's original mock medieval walls, built by the 18th-century architect John Carr, who also designed Derbyshire's Buxton Crescent and West Yorkshire's Harewood House. As we drive along the poker-straight avenue to Castle Howard, it brings back memories of day trips here as a child — I grew up some 30 miles north, in the North York Moors. Down a narrow country lane, a large field's distance south of Castle Howard itself, we find the house. It sits beside a walled garden of lavender, with a private lawn containing a weeping birch tree that the children sneak beneath. • The 100 Best Places to Stay in the UK for 2025 Inside, the cottage is filled with vintage pieces from the stately home. Walls are lined with replica wallpaper from the estate's archives and portraits of earls who have lived at Castle Howard. They keep a watchful eye over the children as they dance around dressers filled with antique china. The living room exudes vintage maximalism, with ornaments and pots dotting the surfaces, and a total of — yes, we counted — 17 lampshades. Elsewhere, modern striped fabrics, pompom-fringed curtains and Pooky-style lampshades, along with French grey painted cottage doors, balance out the time-warp chintz. I retreat to the copper bathtub in the most impressive of its two bathrooms — the one whose curved stone walls form part of the turret — for a soak. The kitchen, meanwhile, has a modern country feel, with a massive Smeg fridge, a rustic farmhouse table, framed pictures of cockerels and views of hopping rabbits. Its Aga keeps us toasty and cooks our Yorkshire bacon, from Castle Howard's farm shop, within minutes. You could easily spend a weekend relaxing in this quirky property but you'd miss out if you didn't delve into Castle Howard's 600 acres of parkland, whose Pyramid folly and colonnaded mausoleum — where some 30 members of the Howard family are interred — can be seen from the cottage. It's in the parkland that we find several head-turning features including an 80ft-tall obelisk and a stone fountain featuring a huge figure of the Titan Atlas. The caw of electric-blue peacocks echoes throughout. • Read our travel guide to England here We dodge muddy puddles through the pine-scented Ray Wood, where candyfloss-coloured petals unfurl from giant rhododendrons. Their gigantic leaves delight my six-year-old daughter, who plucks them from the forest floor. She and her five-year-old brother race down the wood's steep hill while I soak up its extraordinary view of Castle Howard's baroque architecture. They coax me over a bridge that wobbles across the waterfowl-filled waters of Skelf Island, the estate's adventure playground. In summer you can join the queues for boat trips over the Great Lake: a prime opportunity for birdwatching and enjoying views of the property's north-facing façade, whose entrance appeared in Bridgerton (adults £6; children £4). I walk around the house too, which is free for one day for guests staying at Hinds House. Some of its rooms were destroyed during a fire in 1940 but the dome, with its fresco, was rebuilt in 1962. In the Eighties, filming of Brideshead Revisited funded reconstruction of the garden hall and new library. • 25 of the best unusual places to stay in the UK The new tapestry drawing room features cyan walls with a striking gold entablature, its frieze inspired by Vanbrugh's decoration in the great hall and the Roman Ara Pacis (altar of peace), a monument now housed in its own museum in Rome. A specialist conservator has stabilised the tapestries, which depict the four seasons. Other rooms — including the long gallery and grand staircase — have had a complete refurb and rehang of paintings, with Grand Tour treasures from Roman busts to mosaics added and rearranged. Aside from its extraordinary country house, the Howardian Hills have become synonymous with high-quality local food and drink. North Yorkshire's food capital of Malton, which has the tagline 'a town of makers and markets', is a ten-minute drive from Castle Howard and is celebrated for its raft of artisan producers and independent shops. The town's Shambles takes you back in time, with tiny antique stores housed in former stables. Here I drop into the Woodlark and pick up a beautifully carved oak cheeseboard, its label telling me 'provenance: the Castle Howard estate' ( There's also a clutch of Michelin-starred restaurants, lauded for their use of the area's rich natural larder. During our stay we visit a newcomer, Restaurant Mýse, a renovated 19th-century pub in Hovingham helmed by the North Yorkshire lad Joshua Overington, for its 17-course tasting menu (from £145; The restaurant's ethos is 'micro seasonality' and it uses foraged ingredients, such as wild mushrooms, medlars and apples, from the Castle Howard estate. The doughnut-like braised ox cheek in Yorkshire pudding batter, and the chicken drippings — into which we dunk sourdough — are heavenly. The crab custard topped with various pickled, fermented, salted and braised mushrooms ignites taste buds I didn't know I possessed. The standout dessert is the Jerusalem artichoke ice cream, its birch sap also collected from Castle Howard. On our final day the kids have one last run around Castle Howard's serene gardens, whose towering box hedges make for excellent hide and seek. Behind us the dome's 23.5-carat gold leaf cupola lantern glistens in the sun and we catch a glimpse of Hinds House, which the children now affectionately call 'our little old-fashioned house', across the field. A grand historic house like Castle Howard is forever a work in progress. I look forward to seeing what Nicholas and Victoria Howard decide to do with the other rooms of Yorkshire's Italian McGuire was a guest of Hinds House, which has one night's self-catering for six from £250 ( and the Yorkshire Arboretum Castle Howard provides maps of the various hiking trails you can take, through pretty villages such as Ganthorpe, Coneysthorpe and Slingsby, as well as through ancient woodland filled with bluebells in April and May ( This 120-acre garden is two minutes from Castle Howard and is known for its red squirrel enclosure, where you can listen to talks with 'squirrel volunteers' as you watch the new colony of kits (babies) being fed. Trail tree maps lead you on walks across the rare tree-filled park known for its critically endangered Australian wollemi pines (£12; Tastings and demos with local chefs and MasterChef semi-finalists such as Olayemi Adelekan feature at this annual event. Arrive hungry, browse stalls of local produce and enjoy live music with a drink from a red double-decker bus (May 24-26; free; With commanding views over the Vale of York — and, if you squint, York Minster — this peaceful, elevated farm in Terrington, a ten-minute drive west of Castle Howard, has tea rooms, themed gardens and swathes of the perfumed purple flower (£5 in May; £7 June-August;
Daily Mail
25-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The staggering number of Romanians on student loans, a deserted Oxford business college with 10k students - and why it could cost taxpayers BILLIONS
In the city of dreaming spires you'll find Oxford Business College, a place where 'ambition meets opportunity and education drives success'. Judging by videos on its website, this noble seat of learning is only one step removed from Brideshead Revisited. Here you'll see young students cycling along cobbled streets, walking down the steps of historic limestone buildings or rowing through the dawn mist on a tranquil River Cherwell. The reality of life at Oxford Business College is, however, somewhat different. This becomes immediately apparent when I pay a visit to the 'main campus'. According to the advertising bumf, this venue is 'situated in one of the city's many historic buildings' and will be 'buzzing with energy and activity'. Instead, I find a black entrance door, bolted shut on a tatty row of shops opposite the bus station. The venue is sandwiched between a 'pan-Asian' cafe and a derelict Chinese restaurant that was previously called Opium Den and is now covered in graffiti. Stairs lead to the first floor where, through a cracked window pane, I can see a sign bearing Oxford Business College's logo. A piece of A4 paper next to the security camera informs visitors that the 'due to ongoing refurbishments, this campus and its offices are temporarily closed'. It says that the college has instead relocated to King's Mead House, a modern commercial building near the railway station roughly half a mile away. Here, too, I look in vain for much 'energy and activity' or any sign of the 'melting pot of modern influences and cultures' advertised on the website. Actually, Oxford Business College's 'main campus' appears to be above a Royal Mail sorting office. But it, too, seems eerily quiet. Not a single person crosses the threshold until half an hour after I arrive, when the front door finally opens, and a man and woman who appear to be in their thirties step outside and each light a cigarette. When I approach, a brief conversation ensues. The man, who is wearing a tracksuit and speaks with a thick eastern European accent, confirms they are both students and that, despite the absence of people, we are in the middle of term-time. I identify myself as a reporter and his attitude hardens. He says he won't answer further questions. Instead, 'you need to speak to the Boss man'. It's all very strange. Surreal even. But as I am fast discovering, Oxford Business College – or OBC – is a very unusual place indeed. In fact, it lies at the centre of a mounting political scandal. On Tuesday, this privately owned provider of higher education courses was the subject of a damning written statement to Parliament by the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson. She stated the college's 10,000-odd students are to be banned from receiving student loans. Phillipson claimed to have 'credible concerns' about 'recruitment and attendance' at OBC, saying that an investigation by the Government's Internal Audit Agency had raised fears that it was recruiting students whose 'competence in the English language' was inadequate and wasn't monitoring whether they attended class. Four universities, which have in recent years paid Oxford Business College to educate thousands of undergraduates on degree courses under lucrative franchising arrangements, have 'terminated their agreements' with the organisation, the Education Secretary continued. Behind this announcement lies a hair-raising scandal involving student loan fraud. It appears to have left the British taxpayer on the hook for millions – perhaps billions – of pounds. The whole thing revolves around students who dishonestly enrol on 'franchised' degree courses at private, for-profit institutions such as Oxford Business College, despite having little to no intention of ever doing any actual studying. Instead, the fraudsters want to use their phoney status as students to access tens of thousands of pounds in government loans… which they will never, ever pay back. The true scale of this scam is unclear. But the Sunday Times reported last month that a Government probe had uncovered 1,785 fraudulent funding applications, totalling £22million, linked to just six universities, since 2022. No fewer than 270 individuals at Oxford Business College are believed to have dishonestly claimed £4million in the last two years, it said, though the exact figures may end up being far higher. Ms Phillipson has called such fraud 'one of the biggest financial scandals in the history of our universities sector'. The government-owned Student Loans Company (SLC), gives financial support to both British citizens and foreigners with settled status in the UK who wish to go into higher education. People who enrol at university are entitled to access up to roughly £45,000 a year in support. The first £9,535 covering their annual tuition fees is paid directly to the establishment they attend. Up to £13,348 a year more is then handed out as a 'maintenance loan' which goes directly into the student's personal bank account. Further support, including childcare grants and other hardship loans, can be accessed depending on an individual's circumstances. On paper, that loan will later start being repaid, plus interest, when the student starts earning more than £25,000 a year. But if someone's declared earnings never hit that threshold, it gets written off after 40 years. And if a former student disappears overseas, the debt becomes tricky – and in some cases impossible – to collect. The system has always been open to abuse. But for someone to fraudulently enrol on a course to access loans, with no intention of actually studying, has been reasonably difficult in the past. Firstly, universities generally demand that applicants have at least some academic qualifications. Secondly, the Office for Students requires them to monitor attendance and ensure a student passes some tests and exams. But in 2011, the Government decided that so-called 'franchised' providers – many of them 'for-profit' colleges such as OBC – could begin delivering degree courses on behalf of universities, in return for payment. The big idea was to widen access to higher education to people from 'non-traditional' backgrounds, thereby aiding the Department for Education's quest for diversity. However, 'franchised' providers are not regulated by the Office for Students. As a result, many began allowing almost anyone to enrol (even if they could barely speak English) and remain on courses, even if they barely attended class. While little in the way of education was going on, cash from the SLC would roll in. Universities would get fees (currently £9,535 a year), from which the franchised provider would receive a cut, while the 'student' would receive a £13,348 'maintenance grant' in three separate tranches each year. Scandalously, many colleges seem to have been using agents to aggressively recruit 'students' who have no real desire to study by telling them they can access large amounts of free cash. 'Apply now as spaces will go quick,' reads a social media advert for one course, quoted by the Sunday Times. 'Full student finance available. Claim a free laptop when you start. Our service is 100 per cent free.' Under a post from another agent, a comment in Romanian reads: 'Yes, that's how it goes in the UK without English at university. I barely know 2 words and I'm passing because they take money and we take it and university is fine without English.' As that remark suggests, most of the fraud appears to be carried out by EU nationals, particularly Eastern Europeans, who automatically gained 'settled status' if they were resident in the UK when Brexit was completed in 2020. All of a sudden, a foreign person living in Britain earning minimum wage in – say – a local takeaway could automatically get hold of an additional £13,750 a year by enrolling in a part-time 'franchised' degree course. They might never have to actually attend. And the chances of the loan ever being paid back were adjacent to zero. Official figures suggest that the number of Romanians accessing UK student finance increased from 5,000 a decade ago to 84,000 in the last academic year. This means that a staggering 15 per cent of Romanians in the UK are currently receiving student loans. All of which brings us back to Oxford Business College, which was founded in the 1980s as a 'business school' offering tuition to young people who wished to improve their A-level grades. It began offering franchised degrees in 2019, striking a deal with Buckinghamshire New University to teach an undergraduate business degree and has since expanded with astonishing speed, growing from 28 to 265 employees in five years, and opening a total five campuses in four cities and towns, including Slough and Nottingham, which can cater to as many as 10,000 students. Disclosures to Companies House show that the franchise deals have been hugely profitable. At the end of 2020, its turnover was £5million a year. This rose to £18million the following year and £40million the one after. Last year, it turned over £49.7million with profits up from £7.073million to £9.512million. The firm is co-owned by its director, Padmesh Gupta, and (somewhat oddly) a dress designer named Titiksha Shah. They shared an annual dividend of £200,000 and, when the last accounts were filed were sitting on funds of almost £20million. For several years, Oxford Business College's remarkable growth stayed under the radar. But signs of trouble under the bonnet emerged in late 2023, when the New York Times published an investigation into its recruitment practices. It told how agents – 'essentially salesmen who advertise the courses online and are paid commission for every student they find' – were operating on social media sites such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, where they posted adverts claiming it was possible to 'join a university without any qualification and get up to 18,500 pounds'. At OBC, claimed the paper, agents were even taking to the streets: 'Recruiters walked immigrant neighbourhoods, knocking on doors or stopping people in shopping malls, selling the merits of a business-school education and adding a surprising offer: Get paid to enrol.' The NYT quoted former Oxford Business College recruiter Stefan Lsepizanu saying, 'Money, money, money… everybody was saying, "Hey, push the money".' At this stage, it should be stressed that OBC denies all allegations of fraud and misconduct and insists that many of the practices described in the article are both legal and commonplace in the industry. Whether they pass the smell test is, as the Education Secretary has found, another matter. So desperate was OBC to recruit new students (each of whose £9,250 tuition fee would be split with the franchise-issuing university) that it was routinely admitting people who struggled to speak English, the NYT alleged, citing evidence from 'a dozen students and former staff members'. A former member of staff named Jake Smith, who was employed to interview applicants to courses, told the NYT that his supervisor had told him to pass an applicant whose admission essay read: 'Whomen mi wife en wi thinking to ghet him whit as hire to uk when i si his education i oz very hapy because mi mom ground hi very well.' (Fortunately, Mr Smith had already decided to fail the individual before the instruction was handed down.) What's more, the college was offering students a 'golden ticket' of £250 for every person they referred who decided to enrol. One student revealed that she'd signed up 'dozens' of people including her own husband, who didn't bother to attend class. OBC was even attempting to recruit new punters via testimonial videos on its own social media feeds, which carried grammatically incorrect headlines such as 'Why Alex feel fortunate?' and 'Elizabeth have a dream'. Responding to the New York Times, the college's director and co-owner, Padmesh Gupta, insisted it had 'robust admissions standards' and rejects 60 per cent of applicants. That was 18 months ago. Fast forward to March this year, and the Sunday Times began sniffing around the affair. It reported that the college was now accepting applications from people with English as a second language, provided they passed a proficiency test on the popular mobile app Duolingo. Again, OBC has either disputed the paper's claims about its practices or believes they are both legal and commonplace in the industry. It continues to deny fraud or misconduct. The Department for Education was nonetheless sufficiently concerned to carry out an investigation. And according to the Sunday Times, it has uncovered concerning evidence about the manner in which the college's students were applying for loans. An 'intelligence report' cited by the paper stated that a single computer IP address was used for 164 separate loan applications. It was 'traced to an OBC building'. Two more IP addresses linked to 63 student loan applications were 'based in Romania'. 'While some students were genuinely there to learn, they were aware of entire families enrolling on the same course and that students admitted they were paid to recruit their relatives,' a senior academic linked to the college said. The college responded to that report via a statement insisting: 'We take any concerns about alleged fraudulent student finance behaviour with utmost seriousness. OBC upholds the highest standards of integrity, compliance, and academic excellence.' After this week's announcement that its students will be barred from accessing student loans, it went further on the offensive, saying that it intended to take the Government to court. 'The Department for Education's lengthy investigation into Oxford Business College concluded with no findings of fraud, illegality or malfeasance,' reads a statement. 'Despite this clear outcome, the DfE has indicated that courses will be de-designated as of September 2025 a decision OBC firmly believes is unlawful and will challenge through judicial review.' A spokesman was unable to elaborate on what grounds they intend to challenge the Secretary of State's decision. Whatever the outcome, the wider crisis around student loans seems unlikely to go away. Britain's taxpayers are currently on the hook for £236billion in student debt with the balance expected to reach £500billion in the next 15 years. And while Oxford Business College's courses no longer provide access to SLC loans, those at an astonishing 340 other 'franchised' providers very much do. No fewer than 138,000 students are currently enrolled on their courses, more than 60 per cent of whom are studying business. In the coming months, tens of thousands of new ones will sign up. Quite how many of them are actually doing any work is, for now, unclear. As is the question of what proportion will ever pay back their generous taxpayer-funded loans. For the really scary thing about Oxford Business College is that it could represent the tip of a very expensive iceberg.
