Latest news with #Cambridge-educated
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Joe Thomas moans about living with his Inbetweeners star fiancé Hannah Tointon in rare interview
Joe Thomas has given a rare insight into his relationship with his fiancé Hannah Tointon, as he admitted that he's been left unimpressed by her home management skills. The Inbetweeners star, 41, got together with his sitcom co-star Hannah, 37, in 2012, after meeting on the set of the hit E4 drama. The pair moved in with each other two years later and are still going strong 15 years later. But despite getting engaged in 2017, and welcoming their first child in 2022, it seems living under the same roof can be a challenge for even the strongest of couples. Joining his former Inbetweeners co-star James Buckley, 37, and wife Clair on their podcast The Buckley's on Thursday, Joe said: 'I am going to do a little moan about Hannah, she's not here, she'll never hear this. 'But Hannah won't put things in specific places. I'll say something like, 'Where's the phone charger? ' and the only thing that Hannah will ever say is "Look for it" But I am like, "It would help me if there was a starting point".' He added: 'When you go on Google, it works because they've organised it, they don't go, "Oh it's all on there somewhere, have a root around."' The Cambridge-educated actor admitted that he doesn't always spend time searching for lost items but continued to blame the lack of a 'system.' He said: 'The implication is that I don't look for things, but the starting point, cannot be, 'It could be literally anywhere and it's your fault because you're not looking for it. 'That is a job for a specific part of the police and it's 8 or nine people and dogs and I cannot do that if I'm looking the phone charger. 'Like help me out. Sometimes she will say, "It's in here" which is just a lie, she's only saying it to get me out of the room. 'It's a way of saying, if you want to, you can start your search there, even though I f***ing know it's not there.' The Celebrity Bear hunt contestant finished his rant by saying that creating systems are essential for the smooth running of a home. He explained: 'Human beings are fallible, we forget things, that's why we have systems. 'A system is an unsexy term, but it takes responsibility away from the individual that says, "look we're going to forget things but let's have a place where it goes. Like passports for example. 'You don't just have them somewhere in the house…' Both from Essex, Hannah and Joe met after she played his character Simon Cooper's onscreen girlfriend, Tara during series 3 of the Inbetweeners. After confirming their romance, Joe admitted that he was surprised that romance blossomed between the pair after some 'icky' scenes together. He said: 'I really can't see how those scenes kindled romance because they were all her being sick into my mouth, but I am obviously really into that so it was fine.' Back in 2018 they starred in the summer comedy The Festival together. At the time Joe told Christine Lampard on ITV's Lorraine that he loved acting opposite Hannah, eight years after first working together. He said: 'I've got to the stage like she's in everything, I think it went very well.' Last year, Joe, who is still great friends with his Inbetweeners co-stars, confirmed that a re-boot could well be underway. The star said all of the main cast are on board to get back together, a decade after the last film was released. The actor suggested that another movie is more likely than a new TV series and would follow the group of lads away from school. Speaking on the Always Be Comedy podcast, Joe was asked whether conversations have taken place regarding a comeback, he said: 'Yes, it's happened in various forms. All of us feel it would be nice to do.' The comedy, which also starred Emily Atack as Charlotte, ran for three seasons between 2008 and 2010, but it was the two films in 2011 and 2014 that gave the franchise it's biggest boost with widespread popularity. The Inbetweeners 2, which followed the infantile foursome's adventures Down Under, broke the first movie's box office record by taking £2.75million on its opening day.
Al Jazeera
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Kremlin critic decried for ‘racist' rant on minorities fighting for Russia
Kyiv, Ukraine – Vladimir Kara-Murza barely survived two suspected poisonings in 2015 and 2017 that he claimed were orchestrated by the Kremlin. The bearded, balding 43-year-old may not be as outspoken as opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who nearly died of similar nerve agent poisoning in 2020. But Kara-Murza, a Cambridge-educated historian, has been instrumental in convincing Western governments to slap personal sanctions on dozens of Russian officials. In 2023, a Moscow court sentenced him to 25 years in jail for 'treason' and while behind bars, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his columns for The Washington Post. Released last year as part of a prisoner swap, Kara-Murza settled in Germany and continued his advocacy work against Russian President Vladimir Putin's government and Moscow's war in Ukraine. But last week, Kara-Murza's remarks about the ethnic identity and alleged bloodthirst of Russian servicemen rattled many on both sides of Europe's hottest armed conflict. 'As it turns out, [ethnic] Russians find it psychologically difficult to kill Ukrainians,' Kara-Murza told the French Senate on Thursday while explaining why Russia's Ministry of Defence enlists ethnic minorities. 'Because [ethnic Russians and Ukrainians] are the same, we're similar people, we have an almost similar language, same religion, hundreds and hundreds of years of common history,' said Kara-Murza. Russians and Ukrainians are ethnic Slavs whose statehood dates back to Kyivan Rus, medieval Eastern Europe's largest state torn apart by Mongols, Poles and Lithuanians. 'But to someone who belongs to another culture, it is allegedly easier' to kill Ukrainians, Kara-Murza added. His remarks made observers and Indigenous rights advocates flinch and fume. A former Russian diplomat said 'measuring the degree of one's cruelty by their ethnicity is a dead end.' The Kremlin does not specifically 'recruit minorities, they recruit people from the poorest regions, and those are, as a rule, ethnic autonomies', Boris Bondarev, who quit his Ministry of Foreign Affairs job in protest against Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera. 'Only a dull man could say that in the war's fourth year in a multiethnic society,' said Indigenous peoples activist Dmitry Berezhkov, of the Itelmen nation on Russia's Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka. Russian liberal opposition figures, mostly middle-class urbanites, 'drown as soon as they tread on the thin ice' of ethnic minority issues, he added. Ethnic Russians constitute more than two-thirds of Russia's population of 143 million. The rest are minorities – from millions of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars to smaller Indigenous groups in Siberia and the Arctic that have regional autonomy, albeit mostly nominal. Even in regions rich in hydrocarbons, rare earths or diamonds, the minorities live in rural, often inhospitable areas, co-existing and mingling with ethnic Russians. They all rely on Kremlin-funded television networks more than urban dwellers, often have no internet access and see the sign-up bonuses and salaries of servicemen fighting in Ukraine as a ticket out of the dire poverty their families live in. Recruits receive up to $50,000 when they sign up, and earn several thousand dollars a month – a fortune for anyone from those regions irrespective of their ethnic background. 'This is colossal money for them, they will never earn it in their lives, no matter whether they are Buryat or Russian,' Bondarev said. In response to a squall of criticism, Kara-Murza wrote on Facebook on Monday that the accusations were mere 'lies, manipulations and slander'. To Berezhkov, the comment further tainted Kara-Murza's image. 'In the past, [Kara-Murza's words] could be seen as a mistake – but now, they are his position,' he said. To another minority rights advocate, Kara-Murza's diatribe sounded like a 'signal for future voters' in the post-war, liberal Russia that exiled Kremlin critics hope to return to. Oyumaa Dongak, who fled Tyva, a Turkic-speaking province that borders China, thinks Kara-Murza and other exiled Russian opposition leaders are 'competing' with Putin. 'It's not him, it's us who defend [ethnic] Russians,' she told Al Jazeera. In 2024, Kara-Murza said Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after the 2022 invasion are 'unfair and counterproductive' and hurt Russians at large. He wanted the West to lift wider sanctions and instead target individual officials. A Ukrainian observer said Kara-Murza does not want ethnic Russians who can potentially vote for now-exiled opposition leaders to feel collective guilt for the atrocities committed in Ukraine. 'People don't feel guilty. If you club them in the head with moral condemnation every day, people will not admit their guilt but will hate anyone who clubs them,' Kyiv-based analyst Vyacheslav Likhachyov told Al Jazeera. 'That's why the tales about the atrocities of Chechen executioners and Buryat rapists are and will be popular,' he said. Fighters deployed by Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov were dubbed a 'TikTok army' for staged videos of them 'storming' Ukrainian strongholds. Their actual role in the war is mostly reduced to guarding occupied areas, terrifying and torturing ethnic Russian servicemen who refuse to fight. But Buryats, Buddhist natives of a scarcely populated and impoverished region near Mongolia, have become notorious in Ukraine in 2022. Human rights groups and Ukrainian officials identified personal details of some Buryat soldiers that tortured, raped and killed civilians in Bucha and other towns north of Kyiv. But as ethnic Buryats are hard to distinguish from other minority servicemen with distinctly Asian features, Ukrainians often label them all 'Buryats', a community activist said. 'All Caucasus natives are seen as Chechens, and all Asians are considered Buryats,' Aleksandra Garmazhapova, who helps Buryat men escape mobilisation and flee abroad, told Al Jazeera. However, the overwhelming majority of servicemen who committed alleged war crimes in Bucha were reportedly ethnic Russians. Garmazhapova survived because Ukrainian forces started shelling Russian positions, and his captors fled to a basement. 'Slavs, Slavs, they were all Slavs,' Viktor, a Bucha resident who was doused with fuel by Russian servicemen who placed bets on how far he would run once they set him on fire, told Al Jazeera in 2022, just days after his ordeal.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Parish councillor receives £20,000 libel bill after accusing clerk of giving him ‘the finger'
A parish councillor has been handed a £20,000 libel bill after he accused the village clerk of giving him 'the finger' during a council meeting. Councillor Andrew Peake, 60, was sued by Dr James Miller, the clerk of Fleggburgh parish council in Norfolk, after a campaign of online abuse. Mr Peake accused Dr Miller of being a 'dishonest, scheming, devious and threatening liar', the High Court was told. Mr Peake insisted claims he made on his 'Fleggburgh Eye' Facebook page about Dr Miller – a Cambridge-educated academic – were truthful, accusing him among other things of secretly giving him 'the finger' during a council meeting. He has now been ordered to pay £20,000 in libel damages to Dr Miller after Judge Richard Parkes KC found he had not proved any of his defamatory online statements were true. On the contentious 'finger', the judge said it was about 'interpretation of his hand movements', with Dr Miller's elbow on the table and his finger projecting upwards next to his face. The judge went on to say he could not find on the balance of probabilities that an 'offensive gesture' was made. Giving judgment following a High Court trial, Judge Parkes said the village strife had been 'stoked by the ill-advised use of social media'. Dr Miller, who lives in nearby Freethorpe, was clerk to the council from February 2019 to September 2021, while Mr Peake, an engineer, was a councillor until he resigned in April 2021. Fleggburgh resident Mr Peake had been elected in 2017, with a mission to end what he saw as the 'obvious secret decision making' at the council by making it more open and accountable. He also ran a Facebook page, initially named 'Andrew Peake of Fleggburgh' but later becoming 'Fleggburgh Eye', where much of the strife was made public. 'The posts complained of repeated very similar allegations over a nine-month period,' said the judge. 'They generally repeated the same allegations that Dr Miller, as clerk to Fleggburgh Parish Council, was dishonest, incompetent and threatening.' He found that the campaign of posts were to the effect that Dr Miller was a 'fraudulent, dishonest and incompetent clerk' who had taken money for work he did not in fact carry out. Dr Miller said he was accused of repeatedly lying about having written the council's social media policy and of generally being a 'threatening, scheming, dishonest, devious liar.' When sued for defamation, Mr Peake claimed the defence of 'truth' in relation to his online postings. Ruling on the case, Judge Parkes said: 'I have seen a photograph of the alleged gesture, which shows Dr Miller with his left elbow on a table and his left hand by his face, with the second finger projecting slightly forwards. 'I do not know where Mr Peake was in relation to Dr Miller. Dr Miller denies having intended any offensive gesture, which he said would have been highly unprofessional, not to mention unwise, given that Mr Peake was filming him. 'My conclusion is that no offensive gesture was made, or at least not intentionally, even if Mr Peake believed it to have been.' He said Mr Peake was 'plainly consumed with a very strong personal dislike of Dr Miller, which is evident in his posts'. The judge continued: 'To him any false statement by Dr Miller was a lie; any statement capable of being regarded as a threat made him a threatening person; any error showed rank incompetence. 'As Mr Peake told me, he is on the autistic spectrum, and he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white. 'In my judgment, that difficulty has led him to make accusations which are not justified by the evidence which he regards as proving them.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Parish councillor receives £20,000 libel bill after accusing clerk of giving him ‘the finger'
A parish councillor has been handed a £20,000 libel bill after he accused the village clerk of giving him 'the finger' during a council meeting. Councillor Andrew Peake, 60, was sued by Dr James Miller, the clerk of Fleggburgh parish council in Norfolk, after a campaign of online abuse. Mr Peake accused Dr Miller of being a 'dishonest, scheming, devious and threatening liar', the High Court was told. Mr Peake insisted claims he made on his 'Fleggburgh Eye' Facebook page about Dr Miller – a Cambridge-educated academic – were truthful, accusing him among other things of secretly giving him 'the finger' during a council meeting. The contentious 'finger' He has now been ordered to pay £20,000 in libel damages to Dr Miller after Judge Richard Parkes KC found he had not proved any of his defamatory online statements were true. On the contentious 'finger', the judge said it was about 'interpretation of his hand movements', with Dr Miller's elbow on the table and his finger projecting upwards next to his face. The judge went on to say he could not find on the balance of probabilities that an 'offensive gesture' was made. Giving judgment following a High Court trial, Judge Parkes said the village strife had been 'stoked by the ill-advised use of social media'. Dr Miller, who lives in nearby Freethorpe, was clerk to the council from February 2019 to September 2021, while Mr Peake, an engineer, was a councillor until he resigned in April 2021. Fleggburgh resident Mr Peake had been elected in 2017, with a mission to end what he saw as the 'obvious secret decision making' at the council by making it more open and accountable. He also ran a Facebook page, initially named 'Andrew Peake of Fleggburgh' but later becoming 'Fleggburgh Eye', where much of the strife was made public. 'The posts complained of repeated very similar allegations over a nine-month period,' said the judge. 'They generally repeated the same allegations that Dr Miller, as clerk to Fleggburgh Parish Council, was dishonest, incompetent and threatening.' He found that the campaign of posts were to the effect that Dr Miller was a 'fraudulent, dishonest and incompetent clerk' who had taken money for work he did not in fact carry out. 'Threatening, scheming, dishonest, devious liar' Dr Miller said he was accused of repeatedly lying about having written the council's social media policy and of generally being a 'threatening, scheming, dishonest, devious liar.' When sued for defamation, Mr Peake claimed the defence of 'truth' in relation to his online postings. Ruling on the case, Judge Parkes said: 'I have seen a photograph of the alleged gesture, which shows Dr Miller with his left elbow on a table and his left hand by his face, with the second finger projecting slightly forwards. 'I do not know where Mr Peake was in relation to Dr Miller. Dr Miller denies having intended any offensive gesture, which he said would have been highly unprofessional, not to mention unwise, given that Mr Peake was filming him. 'My conclusion is that no offensive gesture was made, or at least not intentionally, even if Mr Peake believed it to have been.' 'Very strong personal dislike' He said Mr Peake was 'plainly consumed with a very strong personal dislike of Dr Miller, which is evident in his posts'. The judge continued: 'To him any false statement by Dr Miller was a lie; any statement capable of being regarded as a threat made him a threatening person; any error showed rank incompetence. 'As Mr Peake told me, he is on the autistic spectrum, and he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white. 'In my judgment, that difficulty has led him to make accusations which are not justified by the evidence which he regards as proving them.'
The Independent
04-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Parish council chaos as £20k libel bill issued over claim clerk ‘gave the finger' during meeting
A parish councillor who accused the village clerk of secretly giving him "the finger" during a council meeting has been handed a £20,000 libel bill after being sued at the High Court. Councillor Andrew Peake, 60, was sued by Dr James Miller, the clerk of his rural Norfolk council, after a campaign of online abuse in which he branded Dr Miller a "dishonest, scheming, devious and threatening liar." The pair were both stalwarts of the parish council in Fleggburgh, a picturesque village of only around 1,000 population, close to Great Yarmouth in the Norfolk countryside. Mr Peake insisted claims he made on his "Fleggburgh Eye" Facebook page about Dr Miller - a Cambridge -educated academic - were truthful, accusing him among other things of secretly giving him "the finger" during a council meeting. But he has now been ordered to pay £20,000 in libel damages to Dr Miller, 60, after Judge Richard Parkes KC found he had not proved any of his defamatory online statements were true. On the surreptitious "finger," the judge said it was about "interpretation of his hand movements," with Dr Miller's elbow on the table and his finger projecting upwards next to his face. The judge went on to say he could not find on the balance of probabilities that an "offensive gesture" was made. Giving judgment following a High Court trial, Judge Parkes said the village strife had been "stoked by the ill-advised use of social media." Cambridge-educated economist Dr Miller, who lives in nearby Freethorpe, was clerk to the council from February 2019 to September 2021, with engineer Mr Peake a councillor until he resigned in April 2021. Fleggburgh resident Mr Peake had been elected in 2017, with a mission to end what he saw as the 'obvious secret decision making' at the council and to make it more open and accountable. He also ran a Facebook page, initially named 'Andrew Peake of Fleggburgh' but later becoming 'Fleggburgh Eye', where much of the strife was made public. "The posts complained of repeated very similar allegations over a nine-month period," said the judge. "They generally repeated the same allegations that Dr Miller, as clerk to Fleggburgh Parish Council, was dishonest, incompetent and threatening." He found that the campaign of posts were to the effect that Dr Miller was a "fraudulent, dishonest and incompetent clerk" who had taken money for work he did not in fact carry out. Dr Miller was accused of repeatedly lying about having written the council's social media policy and of generally being a "threatening, scheming, dishonest, devious liar," he said. When sued for defamation, Mr Peake responded, claiming the defence of "truth" in relation to his online postings, describing Dr Miller as "dishonest and deceitful." He said Dr Miller had acted in a "threatening" manner towards him during council meetings, pointing out one incident in which the clerk allegedly "gave him the finger." A map of Fleggburgh: Ruling on the case, Judge Peake said: "I have seen a photograph of the alleged gesture, which shows Dr Miller with his left elbow on a table and his left hand by his face, with the second finger projecting slightly forwards. "I do not know where Mr Peake was in relation to Dr Miller. Dr Miller denies having intended any offensive gesture, which he said would have been highly unprofessional, not to mention unwise, giving that Mr Peake was filming him. "My conclusion is that no offensive gesture was made, or at least not intentionally, even if Mr Peake believed it to have been." He said Mr Peake was "plainly consumed with a very strong personal dislike of Dr Miller, which is evident in his posts." "I had the impression also that Dr Miller's intellectual self-confidence, which some might regard as a little abrasive, may have grated a little on Mr Peake," he said. Due to his "aversion" for Dr Miller, Mr Peake had found it difficult to allow the clerk "any margin of error," he continued. "To him any false statement by Dr Miller was a lie; any statement capable of being regarded as a threat made him a threatening person; any error showed rank incompetence. "As Mr Peake told me, he is on the autistic spectrum, and he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white. "In my judgment, that difficulty has led him to make accusations which are not justified by the evidence which he regards as proving them. "In short, the plea of truth fails." Continuing, he said allegations of "incompetence" had not been proven by Mr Peake. "What Mr Peake has done is to put forward a number of individual mistakes by Dr Miller, none of great seriousness, and to ask the court to infer from his making mistakes that he was an incompetent clerk. "All of us make mistakes, whether of judgment or otherwise: humanum est errare. "Even judges do so. That does not make them incompetent. "Incompetence entails an inability to perform a job or a role to a reasonably acceptable standard. There is no evidence that comes close to establishing such a failure on Dr Miller's part." "I accept Dr Miller's evidence that he worked many more hours than he was paid to do, that he never took money for work that he had not properly carried out, and that he gave up much of his final holiday to leave the council's affairs in reasonable order." Awarding Dr Miller £20,000 in damages, he said he would take into account the "distress" which the former clerk had suffered from the posts. "He said in his witness he was shocked and alarmed by the posts and very worried about how his friends, family, council members and individuals in the community generally would perceive him," he continued. "He felt and still feels that his reputation has been badly harmed, and took his role as parish clerk very seriously. He found it truly awful that people were reading (the) posts and believing them. "He was blocked by some people on Facebook, and asked by others what was going on, which meant that he had to explain to them what had been going on. "He has tried to avoid going anywhere where he fears that Mr Peake might be. "He regards himself as a stoical person, but has been caused great stress and anxiety not only by his ordeal, but also by the stress which has been placed on his wife and children. "I accept his evidence. The allegations, particularly those of dishonesty, were extremely serious, and I do not doubt that they were widely known in the area where Dr Miller lives and works. "Equally, of course, Dr Miller's vindication is likely to become well known in that area. Much of the publication took place largely in a fairly contained part of the Norfolk countryside, where – in my experience of rural matters – news spreads quickly. "It appears to me likely that Dr Miller's vindication will become widely known in short time in the area where he lives and works, the country bush telegraph being what it is."
