Latest news with #P45s
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
MasterChef used to be a hug of a show, now it is just uncomfortable viewing
If telly and food have one thing in common, it's the importance of comfort. French onion soup, shepherd's pie, sticky toffee pudding; all classic comfort foods. As a three-course meal, they might be accompanied by some nice comfort viewing, like the BBC's cookery contest MasterChef, an hour-long hug of a show that returns this week. But, in the wake of allegations made against presenter Gregg Wallace and his co-anchor John Torode, which have resulted in the corporation severing ties with both men, this usually reassuring series is tinged with a strange, bitter aftertaste. When reports about Wallace's alleged misconduct broke last November, the BBC was still filming its latest competition, the 21st series of the show to air since it was revived in 2005. Wallace immediately announced that he would step aside from presenting during the investigation, with chef and former MasterChef: The Professionals judge Anna Haugh taking his place in the final episodes. Last month, following the conclusion of the investigation, Wallace was sacked, with his co-host, Australian-born chef Torode, also axed after scrutiny on the show's workplace culture unearthed an instance of racist language. This series – already filmed (and largely edited) by the time Wallace and Torode received their P45s – looked doomed. Yet, despite one contestant, Sarah Shafi, requesting that the show be scrapped (she eventually agreed to be edited out of it instead), the BBC has gone ahead with the broadcast. It makes for uncomfortable viewing. MasterChef is not thrill-a-minute television. It is a gentle, reliable programme that viewers have on in the background while doing the washing up after dinner. Recent series have run for 24 episodes, broadcast in three-episode tranches over a couple of months, meaning that the contestants – alongside Wallace and Torode – spend much of the late summer living in our houses. With Wallace and Torode both appearing here, condemned yet oblivious, that easy, ambient watching feels marred. Wallace cuts a distinctive figure on TV. Now, his broad, toadish smile evokes not just his cheeky greengrocer persona but the long index of allegations about inappropriate behaviour. Viewers (even Wallace's defenders) will be preternaturally alert to any sense that he is straying towards that dreaded 'banter'. 'Your girlfriend is a Disney princess?!' he marvels at a young cook at one point. 'Yeah,' the contestant replies. 'It's a tough life, Gregg.' Clearly no line is crossed in an exchange like that, yet the reports that have surfaced over the past year have transformed that genial rapport into a warning sign. An amber flag, if you will. 'Oh God, that was stressful,' a young challenger, Thea, says, pulling a face after a brief interaction with Wallace at the kitchen counter. It is the light, breezy comment that contestants have always made, yet it is also something that you can imagine being spoken in a more troubling context. Some viewers would never notice that, while others' minds will be drawn to it. It is indicative of the tension facing the BBC. There was no easy way out of this mess. To abandon the series would be to privilege the BBC's reputation over the hard work of not only the contestants, but a large cast and crew who stretch far beyond the show's two hosts (though when the credits roll and 'John Torode MBE' and 'Gregg Wallace MBE' get top billing, it is a salient reminder of how deeply embedded in the establishment bad behaviour is). Airing this series was a risk, yet the most striking thing is the uncanny normality of these new episodes. The allegations were looming, and yet filming went on. The result is something that, on the surface, feels inoffensively bland. An illustration, then, of how a toxic culture can seemingly hide in the plainest of plain sight.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Starmer has turned Labour into the most hated party in Britain
Not in my lifetime has a political party been so deserving of a beating. By just six votes Labour has suffered a humiliating defeat in Runcorn. Keir Starmer didn't visit the constituency once during the campaign; now it's not hard to see why. The usual caveats apply. There have been many such by-election successes for Liberals, Social Democrats and other smaller parties in the past. By-election results can rarely be extrapolated across the country. With no record to defend, Farage's party had the advantage. But this was a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was the party's 49th-safest seat of the 411 secured in 2024. Keir Starmer's personal approval rating has plummeted; Labour has slipped behind Reform in polls. This time it could be different. The Government's agenda for 'change' and its promises for 'growth' now lie in tatters. They've talked centrist but governed Left: hiking taxes and handing those revenues to public sector workers and Mauritius. They've raised the energy bills they pledged to lower, made enemies of farmers and small businesses, prompted an increase in unemployment and triggered bond market turmoil. Perhaps worst of all, they've done nothing to bring down legal migration, whilst small boat crossings have reached record levels. Serco is now incentivising landlords to host those migrants, offering five-year guaranteed rent agreements with the taxpayer footing the bill. Few believe Yvette Cooper wants to bring down the numbers: we've just learned that benefits claims by refugee households have surged past £1 billion. Reform, by contrast, are unapologetically promising to leave the ECHR and settle zero illegal migrants here. Millionaires are doing the rational thing and leaving. Private schools are closing, businesses are dishing out P45s. People are increasingly asking themselves what the point is of studying, striving, risk-taking if their hard work won't lead to a better life. Young people, one expert recently told a House of Lords Committee, don't want to get out of bed for less than £40,000. This isn't just idleness: our welfare and tax system is so dysfunctional that it barely pays to get entry-level jobs any more. As if on autopilot, a Labour spokesman has responded to the by-election defeat by insisting the Government needs to 'move faster'. Like the snake oil salesman whose solution is to double the dose when the patient deteriorates, Starmer will stick doggedly to his high-tax, high-spend agenda. When the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced a £5 billion cut to disability benefits (which will still increase by more than £20 billion by 2030), it prompted a backlash from Labour MPs. They'd prefer Rachel Reeves brought in a wealth tax. So long as Labour continue to believe that public spending drives growth, that Net Zero is the economic opportunity of the century, that all boat people are genuine asylum seekers, that GDP cannot expand without mass migration, that private enterprise is a predatory target to be shot not a horse pulling the wagon, Britain will continue to decline. However much the Government may utter platitudes about 'fixing foundations' and whinge about '14 years of Tory chaos', voters know who's really responsible. Four more long years. 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
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Starmer has turned Labour into the most hated party in Britain
Not in my lifetime has a political party been so deserving of a beating. By just six votes Labour has suffered a humiliating defeat in Runcorn. Keir Starmer didn't visit the constituency once during the campaign; now it's not hard to see why. The usual caveats apply. There have been many such by-election successes for Liberals, Social Democrats and other smaller parties in the past. By-election results can rarely be extrapolated across the country. With no record to defend, Farage's party had the advantage. But this was a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was the party's 49th-safest seat of the 411 secured in 2024. Keir Starmer's personal approval rating has plummeted; Labour has slipped behind Reform in polls. This time it could be different. The Government's agenda for 'change' and its promises for 'growth' now lie in tatters. They've talked centrist but governed Left: hiking taxes and handing those revenues to public sector workers and Mauritius. They've raised the energy bills they pledged to lower, made enemies of farmers and small businesses, prompted an increase in unemployment and triggered bond market turmoil. Perhaps worst of all, they've done nothing to bring down legal migration, whilst small boat crossings have reached record levels. Serco is now incentivising landlords to host those migrants, offering five-year guaranteed rent agreements with the taxpayer footing the bill. Few believe Yvette Cooper wants to bring down the numbers: we've just learned that benefits claims by refugee households have surged past £1 billion. Reform, by contrast, are unapologetically promising to leave the ECHR and settle zero illegal migrants here. Millionaires are doing the rational thing and leaving. Private schools are closing, businesses are dishing out P45s. People are increasingly asking themselves what the point is of studying, striving, risk-taking if their hard work won't lead to a better life. Young people, one expert recently told a House of Lords Committee, don't want to get out of bed for less than £40,000. This isn't just idleness: our welfare and tax system is so dysfunctional that it barely pays to get entry-level jobs any more. As if on autopilot, a Labour spokesman has responded to the by-election defeat by insisting the Government needs to 'move faster'. Like the snake oil salesman whose solution is to double the dose when the patient deteriorates, Starmer will stick doggedly to his high-tax, high-spend agenda. When the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced a £5 billion cut to welfare spending (which will still increase by £20 billion in the next few years), it prompted a backlash from Labour MPs. They'd prefer Rachel Reeves brought in a wealth tax. So long as Labour continue to believe that public spending drives growth, that Net Zero is the economic opportunity of the century, that all boat people are genuine asylum seekers, that GDP cannot expand without mass migration, that private enterprise is a predatory target to be shot not a horse pulling the wagon, Britain will continue to decline. However much the Government may utter platitudes about 'fixing foundations' and whinge about '14 years of Tory chaos', voters know who's really responsible. Four more long years.
Telegraph
18-02-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Rachel Reeves's lies are an insult to high-achieving women
In this day and age, does anyone seriously believe a woman cannot attempt to run the economy as competently as a man? That the allegedly fairer sex – against all the evidence that girls are outperforming boys in Stem subjects – is also a little dimmer, too? I ask, because I'm beginning to have my doubts. You see, Labour made quite a fuss over Rachel Reeves's appointment as the country's first female chancellor. Few cared: this isn't the 1950s, we've already had three female PMs, it was a woman who quickly and quietly saved Britain from Covid, many have run large and successful companies. But as Harriet Harman said last year, 'It's sort of shameful that we think we're the party of women and equality... [and] we've never had a woman leader.' With this in mind, nothing could dissuade Keir Starmer from handing Reeves the keys to Number 11, with perhaps a move next door if he decides to hang up his boots. And her qualifications seemed impeccable. 'For a would-be chancellor,' The Guardian gushed last summer, her 'CV could hardly be more perfect.' She was a former HBOS economist, so knew her way around a spreadsheet. She was a former chess champion, always thinking several moves ahead. And she'd just authored a book on great women economists. As we now know, it was bunkum. Her roles at HBOS and the Bank of England were exaggerated. Chunks of her book were plagiarised. We've just discovered that despite claims she had written in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy (ranked seventh in the Ideas/RePEc list), she in fact jointly penned a publication for the European Journal of Political Economy (ranked 124th). Questions have also been raised over her personal financial probity. Then there's the small matter that, in just seven months, Reeves has begun digging our economy's grave. GDP per head has shrunk for two consecutive quarters. Millionaires are fleeing as fast as their luxury yachts can sail them, private schools are closing their doors, businesses are dishing out P45s – and that's before the £25 billion 'jobs tax' (Reeves's words, not mine) kicks in. By appointing someone so ill-equipped for the office, Labour hasn't blazed a trail for other women to follow: it's sent a message that, in virtue-signalling Britain, people are no longer hired on the strength of their character, ability or experience. It's implied that women cannot compete without help, delegitimising the achievements of all those who've made it to the top because they are genuinely excellent. As it happens, the Reeves experience is nothing new. The FTSE100 has a long history of diversity hires for whom the job is not primarily about satisfying customers and shareholders but trumpeting a political ideology. Alison Rose made climate change a 'central pillar' of her leadership at NatWest, oversaw the debanking of Nigel Farage, leaked inaccurate information to the BBC following that scandal, and was forced to resign. Paula Vennells, described by one Post Office employee as 'incomprehensible', presided over the Horizon scandal. Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva, once proudly declared that no senior 'non-diverse' hire is made without her specific approval. Nevertheless, we remain fixated with the notion of fair representation and the idea that DEI is beneficial to business, though there is little evidence to support such assertions. A much-quoted McKinsey report, which appeared to show that diversity made companies more profitable, has been robustly challenged. Diversity in and of itself, academics have warned, has no statistically significant relationships to profits, sales or a host of other metrics. Despite this, the Financial Conduct Authority is now considering tighter rules for how firms should treat DEI in order to 'reduce group think and unlock talent'. What this really means is more state involvement in private employment decisions in order to engineer particular social outcomes. But what woman wants a promotion based on her gender rather than attributes? I certainly don't. Perhaps there's a way Starmer might nudge Reeves along whilst avoiding the 'optics' of putting a man in her place. Let Yvette Cooper do the job, with Ed Balls dragged away from breakfast TV to be her chief adviser if need be. She is at least honest, as far as we know – a quality in pitifully short supply on the Labour benches. It has just emerged that the Business Secretary apparently claimed he was a solicitor despite never qualifying. Or – let's be really radical here – Starmer could appoint whoever he considers best suited to the job.
