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New European
29-05-2025
- Business
- New European
Reform oppose net zero… unless it's in their own backyard
Newly-elected MP Sarah Pochin, sat alongside Farage at his press conference this week, said: 'We have calculated that if we scrap these net zero white elephant projects, that the Conservatives were just as committed to as this Labour government, that over five years we can save £225 billion.' (Economists have pointed out that the bulk of these projects are funded by private investment.) Nigel Farage's Reform are campaigning hard against plans to make Britain net zero by 2050, this week making claims – roundly mocked by economists – that the party would save £225 billion over five years by scrapping all related projects if it wins the next election. Also sat alongside Farage was Luke Campbell, newly elected mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, who has previously spoken out against net zero. The former boxer told the Yorkshire Post last month that he would 'bring back oil and gas and drilling and stuff like that, which then would create more jobs or if not just the same', adding that net zero was 'a lot more hype'. And how does he feel now he's actually in office and inheriting his authority's bid to host a £1.6 million project installing rooftop solar panels and battery storage units at local authority buildings across the area, adopting new car ports and extending a solar farm at a council-owned holiday park? 'I have consistently supported the region in green energy business and for creating jobs, and I will keep on that track,' Campbell told his first executive board meeting of the combined authority as mayor this week. 'I was brought into this by the people of the region, and I will represent them. If I can create local jobs and help local businesses that is what I will do. I have been very vocal in stating that I represent this region, and I put it first ahead of party politics. I will always put this first over anything.' Like Groucho Marx, Reform has principles, and if you don't like them… well, they have others!
Express Tribune
16-05-2025
- Express Tribune
Journalist who exposed Rotherham grooming gangs dies aged 60
Andrew Norfolk, the journalist who exposed the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal, has died at the age of 60. According to The Times, Norfolk passed away on May 8 after a period of ill health. He had retired late last year. Norfolk began his journalism career at the Yorkshire Post, covering South Yorkshire. In 2000, he joined The Times, where he launched an investigation into the grooming of young girls in the Midlands and northern England. His groundbreaking reports, starting in 2010, led to formal inquiries, numerous resignations, and the prosecution of perpetrators involved in the abuse. The investigation uncovered widespread child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, revealing that around 1,400 children had been victimized between 1997 and 2013. Norfolk's fearless work earned him the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in February 2013, recognizing the profound impact of his reporting. Sir Keir Starmer praised Norfolk's contribution, calling him 'absolutely integral' to the changes in law that allowed more grooming gang members to be convicted. Norfolk's work not only brought justice to victims but also helped raise awareness of systemic failures in protecting vulnerable children.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Date announced for second 'Meet the Media' business networker
After the resounding success of the inaugural event in March, York PR experts Linda Harrison and Jo Leatham have announced the date for the city's second 'Meet the Media' speed networking event. On Thursday June 26 from 12.45pm to 3pm at Patch, the Bonding Warehouse, up to 30 local business owners will have the opportunity to make meaningful connects and showcase their company to a selection of highly renowned regional journalists. They include Group Editor of five titles, and former Yorkshire Post business reporter Andrew Palmer; York Press Business Editor Darren Greenwood, Elly Fiorentini of BBC Radio York, and Kathryn Armstrong, Editor at Yorkshire Life magazine. The format for the event has been refined and will kick off with a brief introduction from each of the journalists who will share details about their experience. RECOMMENDED READING: Meet the Media event wows firms at York's Patch offices 'Meet the Media' call to York and North Yorkshire business Sarah Hough earns national success with Sashay Dance Company Alistair Lamont of York publishes guide with local knowledge They will also divulge inside tips about generating press coverage, outlining the types of stories they report on, the news their readers are interested in, how to make a business pitch/press release stand out, and how and when is best to contact them. The speed networking will follow. Tables will be made up of six business owners and one journalist. Business owners will be allocated one minute each to pitch their business and will then chat to the journalist and answer any questions before moving to the next table and journalist. Jo Leatham and Linda Harrison, who have created the Meet the Media events in York (Image: Pic supplied) This means attendees will get the chance to introduce themselves to all five journalists, share inspiring stories about how and why they launched their business, provide updates on the latest products and services and enjoy networking with up to 30 fellow solopreneurs. The event will close with a Q & A session where attendees will have the opportunity to pose any questions to the panel of journalists about how best to hit the headlines. Jo Leatham, who has over 30-years' experience in PR and specialises in connecting businesses with journalists, said: 'We had so much positive feedback following the first event with news, in-depth features, business developments and interviews appearing in various media outlets across the region. 'Linda and I are passionate about supporting local businesses to create headlines and share news through PR. "This event provides a great platform for anyone keen to learn more about how to get their business in the news from some of the region's finest journalists.' Linda Harrison, a PR Consultant and former regional and national newspaper journalist, added: 'Meet the Media offers a unique insight into what journalists look for in stories plus advice on how to secure valuable press coverage for businesses. 'It is a brilliant opportunity for entrepreneurs and business owners to connect directly with top regional journalists. We're excited to meet everyone on the day!' Spaces are limited to 30 attendees and are bookable on a first come first served basis. Early bird tickets are priced at £75 plus Eventbrite fee per person and will be available until 30 May. Full price tickets are £95. Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite here. 5% of ticket sales will be donated to Smart Works Leeds. For further details email Linda: linda@ or Jo: pr@
Boston Globe
12-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Bill Aitken, writer who adopted India as ‘father' of hippies, dies at 90
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In 'The Nanda Devi Affair' (1994), Mr. Aitken described the life-changing moment in October 1961 when, as a young sojourner with no fixed plans, he first gazed upon the Himalayan peak rising more than 25,640 feet and decided to remain in India. Advertisement 'There was something commanding in the Devi's beauty as she lay before my eyes, essentially royal and feminine,' he wrote. 'All the cliques about Nanda as queen surrounded by courtiers were appropriate for she towered above the rest with a regal detachment.' In his later years, Mr. Aitken was an éminence grise of the hill station Mussoorie, which has drawn European writers since the 19th century for its panorama of the Himalayas to the north. He regaled visitors with stories and parables from his wide travels across India and recounted the kismet that led him from Scotland. Advertisement 'I am one of those awkward customers who swims the wrong way,' he told author Malcolm Tillis in 'New Lives' (2004), an oral history of Westerners who settled in India. One day in 1959, when he was 25, he stood at the English Channel port of Dover in a kilt. He had just broken up with his girlfriend and had left his teaching job. For years, he had struggled with personal questions of faith and spirituality as a student of comparative religion, he recalled. He decided he needed to roam and planned to hitchhike around the world. The kilt, he thought, was a nice touch of Scottish pride and the unusual outfit might help him get a lift. He set off on what would become the Hippie Trail a decade later: the overland circuit that brought thousands of adventurers — and probably even more copies of Jack Kerouac's 'The Dharma Bums' — to India before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan closed the way. He got rides on 'an astounding assortment of transport,' Mr. Aitken told the Yorkshire Post, 'that included lifts by a Danish scooterist, an Austrian TV salesman, a Greek melon transporter, an American oil rig team in Turkey.' He ditched the kilt in Istanbul. The heavy wool was not suited for the warming weather. Weeks later, he arrived in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta), where he planned to catch a steamer across of the Bay of Bengal to Malaysia to continue what he called a 'spiritual pilgrimage.' The snag was that he was nearly out of money. Advertisement He landed a teaching job and, while browsing at the Asiatic Society Library one day, he started reading the 1934 book 'Nanda Devi' by mountaineer Eric Shipton, who traversed the summits that surround India's second-tallest peak. 'Nothing now mattered save the urgent need to follow in Shipton's footsteps,' he recalled. That led to the trip to the mountains in 1961, staying on the floor of a simple guesthouse after a supper of water and a lump of molasses. He awoke the next morning to see the clouds pull back to reveal Nanda Devi. He called it a 'spiritual striptease.' 'The peaks and particularly Nanda Devi spoke so directly and emphatically that there and then I made the decision to leave Calcutta and come and live among them,' he wrote. Mr. Aitken spent most of the 1960s working at ashrams within sight of the Himalayas. The first was run by the former Catherine Heilman, a woman from England who took the name Sarla Behn and was known as one of the 'British daughters' of Mohandas K. Gandhi during the struggle for Indian independence from Britain in 1947. Mr. Aitken then entered an ashram run by Krishna Prem, a former British military pilot during World War I who had been born Ronald Nixon. Mr. Aitken stayed seven years, becoming known locally as a skilled baker. In 1969, he was asked to help sort out some legal paperwork of Prithwi Bir Kaur, a London-educated member of the former rulers of the Sikh principality of Jind, which became part of India in 1948. Mr. Aitken became her secretary and moved into her home, known as Oakless, which was filled with stately antiques and mounted deer heads from long-ago hunting expeditions. Advertisement They were companions until her death in 2010 and often embarked on long rail journeys across India with special attention to narrow-gauge secondary lines and outposts. The trips were recounted in books including 'Travels by a Lesser Line' (1993) and 'Branch Line to Eternity' (2001), written two years after Mr. Aitken and Mark Tully, then the BBC's New Delhi bureau chief, founded the Steam Railway Society that saved several steam locomotives from the scrapyard. Mr. Aitken used train travel as both a vantage point to observe India and also as a metaphor for his spiritual explorations, wrote best-selling Indian novelist Anuradha Roy in a 2001 essay in India's Hindu newspaper. She described, with awe and reverence, how Mr. Aitken was able to wrap bigger questions of life around the chug of a slow-moving train or the chaos of a bus stuck in the mud. 'A profound air of beatitude settled on both mind and body,' Roy wrote. 'At such moments, you know exactly what eternity feels like.' Mr. Aitken liked to joke: 'I came to India to study comparative religion, but I found comparative railways much more interesting.' William McKay Aitken was born in Tullibody, a village about 30 miles from Edinburgh, on May 31, 1934. He would often recall that on that same day in India, the mountaineer Shipton was part of team that was believed to be the first to cross the peaks ringing Nanda Devi. (A separate group of Anglo-American climbers reached the summit in 1936.) As a child, he liked to climb to the top of the nearby hill. 'I hated going to church but loved sitting on top of that peak,' he told the Indian site Firstpost. 'I felt like one with the universe. And I thought, this is divinity.' Advertisement His father, a coppersmith, moved to England to find work, and the family was reunited in Birmingham after World War II. Mr. Aitken studied comparative religion at the University of Leeds and went on personal faith shopping as he worked his way toward a master's degree. 'I had Holy Communion with the Quakers, the Mormons,' he recounted. 'I went to the High Anglicans, the Low Anglicans.' Nothing seemed to fit. His planned round-the-world trek was a chance to sample other ways of worship. His last book, 'Sri Sathya Sai Baba: A Life' (2006), is a biography of the leader of a Hindu-influenced religious movement that Mr. Aitken followed. In 'Seven Sacred Rivers' (1992), Mr. Aitken looked beyond the mighty Ganges to journey along India's other waterways such as the Brahmaputra high on the Tibetan plateau and the Krishna that slices across southern India. His other books include 'Footloose in the Himalaya' (2003) and 'Divining the Deccan' (1999) about accounts of his travels through India by motorcycle. Mr. Aitken, who became an Indian citizen in 1972, commented frequently on environmental damage in India as the population swelled and use of plastics became common. In recent years, he assailed the Indian government for expanding military facilities in the regions near Tibet amid growing tensions with China. 'India's own defense forces have caused much greater and irreversible damage to the Himalayan environment than any invader could,' he wrote. (In 1988, the Nanda Devi area became a UNESCO World Heritage site.) Advertisement Mr. Aitken, who had no immediate survivors, often allowed his home to become a hub of the cultural and literary community in Mussoorie. Yet he revealed his yearning for solitude when asked once about his favorite time of year. The monsoon season, he told the Hindustan Times. 'That is one time not many people knock on the door,' he said, 'and one can sit quietly and write.'
